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HANDBOUND

AT THE

UNIVERSITY OF
TORONTO PRESS

THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY

A MAGAZINE OF

literature, Science., &rt, ana ^Politics

VOLUME LT.

BOSTON
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY

NEW YORK: 11 EAST SEVENTEENTH STREET

Btoetaite Press,

1883

RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE :

BLECTROT YPED AND PRINTED BT

H. 0. HOCQHTON AMD COXPANT.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

After-Breakfast Talk, An Oliver Wendell Holmes 65

Ancestral Footstep, The Nathaniel Hawthorne 47, 180

Antagonism Agnes Paton 330

Apennine Valley, An Harriet W.Preston 36

Authorship in America 808

Bacon-Shakespeare Craze, The Richard Grant White 507

Biographies, Recent 540

Biography of Two Famous Songs, The Amelia Ban 7b9

Bird-Songs Bradford Torrey 522

Birds on Boston Common, With the Bradford Torrey 203

Bjornson's, Bjb'rnstjerne, Stories 127

Bridget's Story L. C. Wyman 775

Carlyle and Emerson . .• • 560

Carlyle -s Country, In John Burroughs 320

Carlyle, Jane Welsh 837

City of Earthquakes, The Horace D. Warner 397

Civil Service, Some Truths about the Henry L. Nelson 231

College Athletics Andrew M. F. Davis 677

Colonialism in the United States Henry Cabot Lodge 612

Daisy Miller, A Comedy Henry James, Jr 433, 577, 721

Early Humanist, An Harriet W. Preston 494

Emerson, Mr., in the Lecture Room A. F. 813

English and Scottish Popular Ballads, The 404

fiction, Modern Charles Dudley Warner 464

Fiction, Recent American 703

Frenchman in the United States in 1840, A 27:)

Frenchman in the United States in 1881, A 556

" Harnt " that Walks Chilhowee, The Charles Egbert Craddock 660

Hawthorne Manuscripts, The George Parsons Lathrop 363

Herrick, Robert, Selections from the Poetry of 277

Jackson, Andrew, and John Randolph 131

Johnson, Samuel 848

Landless Farmer, A • Sarah Orne Jewett 627, 759

Landor, Walter Savage G. E. Woodberry 208

Law and Lawyers in Literature 645

Lesurques, Joseph, The Story of S. E. Turner 197

Life in Old Siena . . . . " E. D. R. Bianciardi 782

Lintou's History of Wood-Engraving 260

Literature, English, Recent Works on 416

Mexico, By Horse-Cars into H.H. 350

Mississippi Valley, The Floods of the N. S. Shalcr 653

Mr. Isaacs, and other Novels 408

Mr. Washington Adams in England Richard Grant White 789

Monroe, President 690

Monserrat Charles Dudley Warner 740

Negro Race in America, The 564

New Parishioner, A Sarah Orne Jewett 475, 759

Niagara Revisited, Twelve Years after their Wedding Journey . William Dean Howells 598

Oregon, Chance Days in H. H. 115

Pauper Question, The D. O. Kellogg 638

Pillow-Smoothing Authors Oliver Wendell Holmes 457

Poetry, Recent 420

Poetry, Recent English 840

Port Royal /. H. Allen 387

Public Schools, Morality in the Olivtr Johnson 748

Puget Sound H. H. 218

Quincy's, Mr., Reminiscences 692

Rain and the Fine Weather, The Edith M. Thomas 684

Rimmer, Dr 263

Rossetti, Memorials of 649

Contents.

Salvini, Tommaso Henry James, Jr 377

Sand's, George, Letters 266

Spencer's, Herbert, Theory of Education E. R. Sill 171

Stage Buffoons Elizabeth. Robins 629

Stage Rosalinds Richard Grant White 248

Stranger, Yet at Home, A L. C. Wyman 100

Studies in the South 87

Symonds's Renaissance in Italy , 599

Table Talk p. C. Baylor .......... 882

Thackeray and George Eliot, The Morality of Maria Louise Henry 243

Two Women of Letters _ 413

Virginia from English and American Points of View .846

Wagner's Parsifal Charles Dudley Warner ....... 76

Woodberry:s History of Wood-Engraving C97

POETRY.

Call on Sir Walter Raleigh, A, Sallie M. B. Piatt 768 Loving-Cup Song, A, Oliver Wendell Holmes . . 349
Carlyle and Emerson, Montgomery Schuyler . . 774 Michael Angelo : A Drama, Henry Wadsworth

Dear Hands, Susan Marr Spalciing - .... 217 Longfellow 1 146 289

Flaneur, The, Oliver Wendell Holmes 674 One Woman 386

Heredity, Thomas Bailey AMrich 607 Parallel, A, Etlith M. Thomas 86

How the Women went from Dover, John G. Whit- Pennyroyal, The, Thomas William Parsons . . 697

tier 806 Poet, A, 'L. Frank Tooker 474

In Winter Months, F. E. Durkee ...... 259 Summer Pilgrimage, A, John Greenleaf Whittier . 63

Legend of Walbach Tower, The, George Houghton 375 Unloved, Rose Hawthorne Lathrop 628

Life, S. E. C. 610 Wild Honey, Maurice Thompson 99

Lityerses and the Reapers, Edith M. Thomas . . 196 Willow, C. E. Sutton 689

Love's Opportunity, Sophie Winthrop Weitzel . . 493 Winter-Killed, Helen E. Starbleak 652

BOOK REVIEWS.

Adams's John Randolph 133 Hawthorne's, Julian, Dust 704

Arnold's Pearls of the Faith 420 Uerrick, Robert, Selection* from the Poetry of , II-

Baldwin's Introduction to the Study of English lustrated by E. A. Abbey 277

Literature and Literary Criticism 417 James's The Pension Beaurepas; The Point of

Bart lot t 's Life of William Rimmer 263 View ; The Siege of London 706

BjSrnson's Synnove Solbakken : Arne : A Happy Johnson's Lectures, Essays, and Sermons . . . 848

Boy : The Fisher Maiden : The Bridal March, Lee's Divorce ' . . . 411

and other Stories : Captain Mansana, and other L'Estrange's Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford 416

Stories : Magnhild 127 Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle . . 837

Boyesen's Idylls of Norway and Other Poems . . 421 Linton's History of Wood-Engraving ." .... 260

Browne's Law and Lawyers in Literature . . . 645 Lounsbury's James Fenimore Cooper 540

Browning's Jocoseria 840 Mitchell's The Hill of Stones, and Other Poems . 424

Bull's, Mrs., Ole Bull 642 Moses's Luser the Watchmaker 413

Caine's Recollections of Dante Oabriel Rossetti . 649 Nichols's Monte Rosa 423

Carlyle, Jane Welsh, Letters and Memorials of . 837 Oliver's Study of Maria Edgeworth 414

Carlyle, Thomas, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Perry's Life and Letters of Francis Lieber ... 643

Correspondence of 660 Quincy's Figures of the Past 692

Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballad* . . 404 Sand's Correspondence 266

Clay's The Modern Hagar 412 Sharp's Dante Gabriel Rossetti 663

Cooke's Virginia. (American Commonwealths) . 846 Sumner's Andrew Jackson 131

Crawford's Mr. Isaacs 408 Symonds's Renaissance in Italy 699

De Bacourt's Souvenirs d'un Diplomate .... 270 Tuckerman's History of English Prose Fiction . 418
D'Haussonville's A Trevors les Etats Unis . . . 666 Welsh's Development of English Literature and

Doyle's English Colonies in America 846 Language 418

Oilman's James Monroe 690 Williams's History of the Negro Race in America

Qosse's On Viol and Flute 843 from 1619 to 1880 664

Hardy's But Yet a Woman 707 Woodberry's History of Wood-Engraving ... 697

CONTHIBUTORQ' CLUB.

Aquatint, 571 ; Autumn Drive, An, 135 ; Calderon Festival, The, 428 ; Cantcmus Domino, 282 ; Cowper, On a Pas-
sage in, 852; Curious Result of the New Penmanship Method, 135; Decline of Reading, The, 425; Fire Wor-
ship, 279 ; French of Stratford-atte-Bowe, 134 ; Geographical Names, 853 ; He Protests, 569 ; Heroine's Age,
The, 573 ; Indexes to Civilization, 133 ; Landscape in the Face, The, 856 ; Literary Pessimism, 427 ; Local
Color, 136; Notes from a Norse Musician, 714 ; Rediscovery of Books, The, 716 ; Sensitive Plant, The, 672;
Shakespeare, Fortunes of, 281; That Middle-Aged Young Person, 858; Those "Two in the Bush," 857;
Twelfth String, The, 670 ; Ungathered Flowers, 854 ; Wagner, Richard, in Paris, 709.

BOOKS OF THE MOSTH -.139, 284, 431, 674, Til, 859

THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY:
$taga?ine of Literature,, ^cience^ art, ana

VOL. LI. — JANUARY, 1883. — No. CCCIU.
MICHAEL ANGELO.

Michel, piu che mortal, Angel divino.

ARIOSTO.

Similamente operando all' artista
Ch' a 1'abito dell' arte e man che trema.

DANTE, Par. xiii., st. 11.

DEDICATION.

NOTHING that is shall perish utterly,
But perish only to revive again
In other forms, as clouds restore in rain
The exhalations of the land and sea.

Men build their houses from the masonry
Of ruined tombs; the passion and the pain
Of hearts, that long have ceased to beat, remain
To throb in hearts that are,- or are to be.

So from old chronicles, where sleep in dust

Names that on.ce filled the world with trumpet tones,
I build this verse ; and flowers of song have thrust

Their roots among the loose disjointed stones,
Which to this end I fashion as I must.
Quickened are they that touch the Prophet's bones.

PART FIRST.
I.

PROLOGUE AT ISCHIA.
The, Castle Terrace. VITTORIA COLONNA, and JULIA GONZAGA.

VITTOBIA.

Will you then leave me, Julia, and so soon,
To pace alone this terrace like a ghost ?

Michael Angela. [January,

JULIA.

To-morrow, dearest.

VITTORIA.

Do not say to-morrow.

A whole month of to-morrows were too soou.
You must not go. You are a part of me.

JULIA.

I must return to Fondi.

VITTORIA.

The old castle

Needs not your presence. No one waits for you.
Stay one day longer with me. They who go
Feel not the pain of parting ; it is they
Who stay behind that suffer. I was thinking
But yesterday how like and how unlike
Have been, and are, our destinies. Your husband,
The good Vespasian, an old man, who seemed
A father to you rather than a husband,
Died in your arms ; but mine, in all the flower
And promise of his youth, was taken from me
As by a rushing wind. The breath of battle
Breathed on him, and I saw his face no more,
Save as in dreams it haunts me. As our love
Was for these men, so is our sorrow for them.
Yours a child's sorrow, smiling through its tears ;
But mine the grief of an impassioned woman,
Who drank her life up in one draught of love.

JULIA.

Behold this locket. This is the white hair
Of my Vespasian. This the flower-of-love,
The amaranth, and beneath it the device
Non moritura. Thus my heart remains
True to his memory ; and the ancient castle,
Where we have lived together, where he died,
Is dear to me as Ischia is to you

VITTORIA.

I did not mean to chide you.

Let your heart

Find, if it can, some poor apology
For one who is too young, and feels too keenly
The joy of life, to give up all her days
To sorrow for the dead. While I am true
To the remembrance of the man I loved

1883.] Michael Angela.

And mourn for still, I do not make a show

Of all the grief I feel, nor live secluded

And, like Veronica da Gambara,

Drape my whole house in mourning, and drive forth

In coach of sable drawn by sable horses,

As if I were a corpse. Ah, one to-day

Is worth for me a thousand yesterdays.

VITTORIA.

Dear Julia ! Friendship has its jealousies

As well as love. Who waits for you at Fondi?

JULIA.

A friend of mine and yours ; a friend and friar.
You have at Naples your Fra Bernadino ;
And I at Fondi have my Fra Bastiano,
The famous artist, who has come from Rome
To paint my portrait. That is not a sin. .

VITTORIA.

Only a vanity.

He painted yours.

VITTORIA.

Do not call up to me those days departed,
When I was young, and all was bright about me,
And the vicissitudes of life were things
But to be read of in old histories,
Though as pertaining unto me or mine
Impossible. Ah, then I dreamed your dreams,
And now, grown older, I look back and see
They were illusions.

JULIA.

Yet without illusions

What would our lives become, what we ourselves ?
Dreams or illusions, call them what you will,
They lift us from the commonplace of life
To better things.

VITTORIA.

Are there no brighter dreams,
No higher aspirations, than the wish
To please and to be pleased ?

JULIA.

For you there are:
I am no saint ; I feel the world we live in

Michael Angela. [January,

Comes before that which is to be hereafter,
And must be dealt with first.

VITTORIA.

But in what way ?

JULIA.

Let the soft wind that wafts to us the odor
Of orange blossoms, let the laughing sea
And the bright sunshine bathing all the world,
Answer the question.

VITTORIA.

And for whom is meant
This portrait that you speak of?

JULIA.

For my friend
The Cardinal Ippolito.

VITTORIA.

For him?

JULIA.

Yes, for Ippolito the Magnificent

'Tis always flattering to a woman's pride

To be admired by one whom all admire.

VITTORIA.

Ah, Julia, she that makes herself a dove
Is eaten by the hawk. Be on your guard.
He is a Cardinal ; and his adoration
Should be elsewhere directed.

JULIA.

You forget

The horror of that night, when Barbarossa,
The Moorish corsair, landed on our coast
To seize me for the Sultan Soliman;
How in the dead of night, when all were sleeping,
He scaled the castle wall ; how I escaped,
And in my night-dress, mounting a swift steed,
Fled to the mountains, and took refuge there
Among the brigands. Then of all my friends
The Cardinal Ippolito was first
To come with his retainers to my rescue.
Could I refuse tho only boon he asked
At such a time, my portrait?

1883.] Michael Angelo.

VITTORIA.

I have heard

Strange stories of the splendors of his palace,
And how, apparelled like a Spanish Prince,
He rides through Rome with a long retinue
Of Ethiopians and Numidians
And Turks and Tartars, in fantastic dresses,
Making a gallant show. Is this the way
A Cardinal should live?

JULIA..

He is so young;

Hardly of age, or little more than that ;
Beautiful, generous, fond of arts and letters,
A poet, a musician, and a scholar ;
Master of many languages, and a player
On many instruments. In Rome, his palace
Is the asylum of all men distinguished
In art or science, and all Florentines

Escaping from the tyranny of, his cousin,
Duke Alessandro.

VITTORIA.

I have seen his portrait,
Painted by Titian. You have painted it
In brighter colors.

JULIA.

And my Cardinal, t

At Itri, in the courtyard of his palace,
Keeps a tame lion!

VITTORIA.

And so counterfeits
St. Mark, the Evangelist !

Is Michael Ansrelo.

JULIA.

• Ah, your tame lion

VITTORIA.

You speak a name

That always thrills me with a noble sound,
As of a trumpet ! Michael Angelo !
A lion all men fear and none can tame ;
A man that all men honor, and the model
That all should follow ; one who works and prays,
For work is prayer, and consecrates his life
To the sublime ideal of his art,

6 Michael Angela. [January,

Till art and life are one ; a man who holds

Such place in all men's thoughts, that when they speak

Of great things done, or to be done, his name

Is ever on their lips.

JULIA.

You too can paint

The portrait of your hero, and in colors
Brighter than Titian's ; I might warn you also
Against the dangers that beset your path;
But I forbear.

VITTORIA.

If I were made of marble,
Of Fior di Persico or Pavonazzo,
He might admire me : being but flesh and blood,
I am no more to him than other women ;
That is, am nothing.

JULIA.

Does he ride through Rome
Upon his little mule, as he was wont,
With his slouched hat, and boots of Cordovan,
As when I saw him last ?

VITTORIA.

Pray do not jest.

I cannot couple with his noble name
A trivial word ! Look, how the setting sun
Lights up Castel-a-mare and Sorrento,
And changes Capri to a purple cloud !
And there Vesuvius with its plume of smoke,
And the great city stretched upon the shore
As in a dream !

Parthenope the Siren !

VITTORIA.

And yon long line of lights, those sun-lit windows
Blaze like the torches carried in pfocession
To do her honor ! It is beautiful !

I have no heart to feel the beauty of it !
My feet are weary, pacing up and down
These level flags, and wearier still my thoughts
Treading the broken pavement of the Past.
It is too sad. I will go in and rest,
And make me ready for to-morrow's journey.

1883.] Michael Angela. 7

VITTORIA.

I will go with you ; for I would not lose

One hour of your dear presence. 'Tis enough

Only to be in the same room with you.

I need not speak to you, nor hear you speak ;

If I but see you, I am satisfied. [They go in.

II.

MONOLOGUE.
MICHAEL ANGELO'S Studio. He is at work on the cartoon of the Last Judgment.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Why did the Pope and his ten Cardinals
Come here to lay this heavy task upon me ?
Were not the paintings on the Sistine ceiling
Enough for them ? They saw the Hebrew leader
Waiting, and clutching his tempestuous beard,
But heeded not. The bones of Julius
Shook in their sepulchre. I heard the sound ;
They only heard the sound of their own voices.

Are there no other artists here in Rome

To do this work, that they must needs seek me?

Fra Bastian, my Fra Bastian, might have done it ;

But he is lost to art. The Papal Seals,

Like leaden weights upon a dead man's eyes,

Press down his lids ; and so the burden falls

On Michael Angelo, Chief Architect

And Painter of the Apostolic Palace.

That is the title they cajole me with,

To make me do their work and leave my own ;

But having once begun, I turn not back.

Blow, ye bright angels, on your golden trumpets

To the four corners of the earth, and wake

The dead to judgment ! Ye recording angels,

Open your books and read ! Ye dead, awake !

Rise from your graves, drowsy and drugged with death,

As men who suddenly aroused from sleep

Look round amazed, and know not where they are!

In happy hours, when the imagination

Wakes like a wind at midnight, and the, soul

Trembles in all its leaves, it is a joy

To be uplifted on its wings, and listen

To the prophetic voices in the air

That call us onward. Then the work we do

Is a delight, and the obedient hand

Never grows weary. But how different is it

Michael Angela [January,

In the disconsolate, discouraged hours,

When all the wisdom of the world appears

As trivial as the gossip of a nurse

In a sick-room, and all our work seems useless.

What is it guides my hand, what thoughts possess me,

That I have drawn her face among the angels,

Where she will be hereafter? O sweet dreams,

That through the vacant chambers of my heart

Walk in the silence, as familiar phantoms

Frequent an ancient house, what will ye with me ?

'Tis said that Emperors write their names in green

When under age, but when of age in purple.

So Love, the greatest Emperor of them all,

Writes his in green at first, but afterwards

In the imperial purple of our blood.

First love or last love, — which of these two passions

Is more omnipotent ? Which is more fair,

The star of morning or the evening star ?

The sunrise or the sunset of the heart?

The hour when we look forth to the unknown,

And the advancing day consumes the shadows,

Or that when all the landscape of our lives

Lies stretched behind us, and familiar places

Gleam in the distance, and sweet memories

Rise like a tender haze, and magnify

The objects we behold, that soon must vanish ?

What matters it to me, whose countenance

Is like Laocoon's, full of pain ; whose forehead

Is a ploughed harvest-field, where threescore years

Have sown in sorrow and have reaped in anguish ;

To me, the artisan, to whom all women

Have been as if they were not, or at most

A sudden rush of pigeons in the air,

A flutter of wings, a sound, and then a silence?

I am too old for love ; I am too old

To flatter and delude myself with visions

Of never-ending friendship with fair women,

Imaginations, fantasies, illusions,

In which the things that cannot be -take shape,

And seem to be, and for the moment arc. {Convent bells rinp

Distant and near and low and loud the bells,
Dominican, Benedictine, and Franciscan,
Jangle and wrangle in their airy towers,
Discordant as the brotherhoods themselves
In their dim cloisters. The descending sun
Seems to caress the city that he loves,
And crowns it with the aureole of a saint.
I will go forth and breathe the air a while.

1383.1 Michael Angela.

III.

SAN SILVESTRO.

A Chapel in the Church of San Silvestro on Monte Cavatto.
VITTORIA COLONNA, CLAUDio ToLOMMEi, and others

VITTORIA.

Here let us rest awhile, until the crowd
Has left the church. I have already sent
For Michael Angelo to join us here.

SIESSER CLAUDIO.

After Fra Bernardino's wise discourse
On the Pauline Epistles, certainly
Some words of Michael Angelo on Art
Were not amiss, to bring us back to earth.

MICHAEL ANGELO, at the door.
How like a Saint or Goddess she appears ;
Diana or Madonna, which I know not !
In attitude and aspect formed to be
At once the artist's worship and despair !

VITTORIA.

Welcome, Maestro. We were waiting for you.

MICHAEL ANGELO;

I met your messenger upon the way,
And hastened hither.

VITTORIA.

It is kind of you

To come to us, who linger here like gossips
Wasting the afternoon in idle talk.
These are all friends of mine and friends of yours.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

If friends of yours, then are they friends of mine.
Pardon me, gentlemen. But when I entered
I saw but the Marchesa.

VITTORIA.

Take this seat

Between me and Ser Claudio Tolommei,
Who still maintains that our Italian tongue
Should be called Tuscan. But for that offence
We will not quarrel with him.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Eccellenza —

10 Michael Angela. [January,

VITTORIA.

Ser Claudio has banished Eccellenza

And all such titles from the Tuscan tongue.

MESSER CLAUUIO.

'T is the abuse of them and not the use
I deprecate.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

The use or the abuse,
It matters not. Let them all go together,
As empty phrases and frivolities,
And common as gold-lace upon the collar
Of an obsequious lackey.

VITTORIA.

That may be,

But something of politeness would go with them ;
We should lose something of the stately manners
Of the old school.

MESSER CLAUDIO.

Undoubtedly.

VITTORIA.

But that

Is not what occupies my thoughts at present,
Nor why I sent for you, Messer Michele.
It was to counsel me. His Holiness
Has granted me permission, long desired,
To build a convent in this neighborhood,
Where the old tower is standing, from whose top
Nero looked down upon the burning city.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

It is an inspiration !

VITTORIA.

I am doubtful

How I shall build ; how large to make the convent,
And which way fronting.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Ah, to build, to build !
That is the noblest art of all the arts.
Painting and sculpture are but images,
Are merely shadows cast by outward things
On stone or canvas, having in themselves
No separate existence. Architecture,
Existing in itself, and not in seeming

1883.] Michael Angela. 11

A something it is not, surpasses them

As substance shadow. Ldng, long years ago,

Standing one morning near the Baths of Titus,

I saw the statue of Laocob'n

Rise from its grave of centuries, like a ghost

Writhing in pain ; and as it tore away

The knotted serpents from its limbs, I heard,

Or seemed to hear, the cry of agony

From its white, parted lips. And still I marvel

At the three Rhodian artists, by whose hands

This miracle was wrought. Yet he beholds

Far nobler works who looks upon the ruins

Of temples in the Forum here in Rome.

If God should give me power in my old age

To build for Him a temple half as grand

As those were in their glory, I should count

My age more excellent than youth itself,

And all that I have hitherto accomplished

As only vanity.

VITTORIA.

I understand you.

Art is the gift of God, and must be used
Unto His glory. That in art is highest
Which aims at this. When St. Hilarion blessed
The horses of Italicus, they won
The race at Gaza, for his benediction
O'erpowered all magic; and the people shouted
That Christ had conquered Mamas. So that art
Which bears the consecration and the seal
Of holiness upon it will prevail
Over all others. Those few words of yours
Inspire me with new confidence to build.
What think you ? The old walls might serve, perhaps,
Some purpose still. The tower can hold the bells.

MICHAEL ANGKLO.

If strong enough.

VITTORIA.

If not, it can be strengthened.

MICHAEL ANGEI.O.

I see no bar nor drawback to this building,

And on our homeward way, if it shall please you,

We may together view the site.

VITTORIA.

I thank you.
I did not venture to request so much.

12 Michael Angela. [January,

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Let us now go to the old walls you spake of,
Vossignoria —

VITTORIA.

What, agaiu, Maestro ?

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Pardon me, Messer Claudio, if once more
I use the ancient courtesies of speech.
I am too old to change.

IV.

CARDINAL IPPOLITO.

A richly furnished apartment in the Palace of CARDINAL IPPOLITO. Night.
JACOPO NARDI, an old man, alone.

NARDI.

I am bewildered. These Numidian slaves,

In strange attire ; these endless antechambers ;

This lighted hall, with all its golden splendors,

Pictures, and statues ! Can this be the dwelling

Of a disciple of that lowly Man

Who had not where to lay his head ? These statues

Are not of Saints; nor is this a Madonna,

This lovely face, that with such tender eyes

Looks down upon me from the painted canvas.

My heart begins to fail me. What can he

Who lives in boundless luxury at Rome

Care for the imperilled liberties of Florence,

Her people, her Republic? Ah, the rich

Feel not the pangs of banishment. All doors

Are open to them, and all hands extended.

The poor alone are outcasts ; they who risked

All they possessed for liberty, and lost ;

And wander through the world without a friend.

Sick, comfortless, distressed, unknown, uncared for.

Enter CARDINAL IPPOLITO, in Spanish cloak and slouched hat.

IPPOLITO.

I pray you pardon me that I have kept you
Waiting so long alone.

NARDI.

I wait to see
The Cardinal.

1883.] Michael Angelo. 13

IPPOLITO.

I am the Cardinal ;
And you?

NARDI.

Jacopo Nardi.

IPPOLITO.

You are welcome.

I was expecting you. Philippe Strozzi
Had told me of your coming.

NARDI.

'Twas his son
That 'brought me to your door.

Pray you, be seated.

You seem astonished at the garb I wear,
But at my time of life, and with my habits,
The petticoats of a Cardinal would be —
Troublesome ; I could neither ride nor walk,
Nor do a thousand things, if I were dressed
Like an old dowager. It were putting wine
Young as the young Astyanax into goblets
As old as Priam.

Oh, your Eminence
Knows best what you should wear.

Dear Messer Nardi,

You are no stranger to me. I have read
Your excellent translation of the books
Of Titus Livius, the historian
Of Rome, and model of all historians
That shall come after him. It does you honor ;
But greater honor still the love you bear
To Florence, our dear country, and whose annals
I hope your hand will write, in happier days
Than we now see.

NARDI.

Your Eminence will pardon
The lateness of the hour.

IPPOLITO.

The hours I count not
As a sun-dial ; but am like a clock,

14 Michael Angela. [January,

That tells the time as well by night as day.
So, no excuse. I know what brings you here.
You come to speak of Florence.

And her woes.

IPPOLITO.

The Duke, my cousin, the black Alessandro,
Whose mother was a Moorish slave, that fed
The sheep upon Lorenzo's farm, still lives
And reigns.

NARDI.

Alas, that such a scourge
Should fall on such a city !

IPPOLITO.

When he dies,

The Wild Boar in the gardens of Lorenzo,
The beast obscene, should be the monument
Of this bad man.

He walks the streets at night
With revellers, insulting honest men.
No house is sacred from his lusts. The convents
Are turned by him to brothels, and the honor
Of women and all ancient pious customs
Are quite forgotten now. The offices
Of the Priori and Goufalonieri
Have been abolished. All the magistrates
Are now his creatures. Liberty is dead.
The very memory of all honest living
Is wiped away, and even our Tuscan tongue
Corrupted to a Lombard dialect.

IPPOLITO.

And worst of all his impious hand has broken
The Martinella, — our great battle bell,
That, sounding through three centuries, has led
The Florentines to victory, — lest its voice
Should waken in their souls some memory
Of far-off times of glory.

What a change

Ten little years have made ! We all remember
Those better days, when Niccola Capponi,
The Gonfaloniere, from the windows

1888.] Michael Angela. 15

Of the Old Palace, with the blast of trumpets,
Proclaimed to the inhabitants that Christ
Was chosen King of Florence ; and already
Christ is dethroned, and slain, and in his stead
Beigns Lucifer ! Alas, alas, for Florence !

Lilies with lilies, said Savonarola ;
Florence and France ! But I say Florence only,
Or only with the Emperor's hand to help us
In sweeping out the rubbish.

NARDI.

Little hope

Of help is there from him. He has betrothed
His daughter Margaret to this shameless Duke.
What hope have we from such an Emperor?

IPPOLITO.

Baccio Valori and Philippo Strozzi,

Once the Duke's friends and intimates, are with us,

And Cardinals Salvati and Ridolfi.

We shall soon see, then, as Valori says,

Whether the Duke can best spare honest men,

Or honest men the Duke.

We have determined
To send ambassadors to Spain, and lay
Our griefs before the Emperor, though I fear
More than I hope.

IPPOLITO.

The Emperor is busy
With this new war against the Algerines,
And has no time to listen to complaints
From our ambassadors ; nor twill I trust them,
But go myself. All is in readiness
For my departure, and to-morrow morning
I shall go down to Itri, where I meet
Dante da Castiglione and some others,
Republicans and fugitives from Florence,
And then take ship at Gaeta, and go
To join the Emperor in his new crusade
Against the Turk. I shall have time enough
And opportunity to plead our cause.

NARDI, rising.

It is an inspiration, and I hail it
As of good omen. May the power that sends it

16 Michael Angela. [January,

Bless our beloved country, and restore
Its banished citizens. The soul of Florence
Is now outside its gates. What lies within
Is but a corpse, corrupted and corrupting.
Heaven help us all. I will not tarry longer,
For you have need of rest. Good-night.

Good-night !
Enter FRA SEBASTIANO ; Turkish attendants.

IPPOLITO.

Fra Bastiano, how your portly presence
Contrasts with that of the spare Florentine
Who has just left me!

FRA SEBASTIANO.

As we passed each other,
I saw that he was weeping.

IPPOLITO.

Poor old man!

FRA SEBASTIANO.

Who is he?

IPPOLITO.

Jacopo Nardi. A brave soul;
One of the Fuorusciti, and the best
And noblest of them all ; but he has made me
Sad with his sadness. As I look on you
My heart grows lighter. I behold a man
Who lives in an ideal world, apart
From all the rude collisions of our life,
In a calm atmosphere.

FRA SEBASTIANO.

Your Eminence

Is surely jesting. If you knew the life
Of artists as 1 know it, you might think
Far otherwise.

IPPOLITO.

But wherefore should I jest?
The world of art is an ideal world, —
The world I love, and that I fain would live in ;
So speak to me of artists and of art,
Of all the painters, sculptors, and musicians
That now illustrate Rome.

1883.] Michael Angela. 17

FRA SEBASTIANO.

Of the musicians,

I know but Goudimel, the brave maestro
And chapel-master of his Holiness,
Who trains the Papal choir.

In church this morning,
I listened to a mass of Goudimel,
Divinely chanted. In the Inqarnatus,
In lieu of Latin words, the tenor sang
With, infinite tenderness, in plain Italian,
A Neapolitan love-song.

FRA SEBASTIANO.

You amaze me.
Was it a wanton song?

Not a divine one.

I am not over-scrupulous, as you know,
In word or deed, yet such a song as that,
Sung by the tenor of the Papal choir,
And in a Papal mass, seemed out of place;
There's something wrong in it.

FRA SEBASTIANO.

There's something wrong
In everything. We cannot make the world
Go right. 'Tis not my business to reform
The Papal choir.

IPPOLITO.

Nor mine, thank Heaven!
. Then tell me of the artists.

FRA SEBASTIANO.

Naming one

I name them all ; for there is only one :
His name is Messer Michael Angelo.
All art and artists of the present day
Centre in him.

IPPOLITO.

You count yourself as nothing?

FRA SEBASTIANO.

Or less than nothing, since I am at best
Only a portrait-painter; one who draws
With greater or less skill, as best he may,
The features of a face.
VOL. LI. — NO. 303. 2

18 Michael Angela. [January,

And you have had

The honor, nay, the glory, of portraying
Julia Gonzaga ! Do you count as nothing
A privilege like that? See there the portrait
Rebuking you with its divine expression.
Are you not penitent? He whose skilful hand
Painted that lovely picture has not right
To vilipend the art of portrait-painting.
. But what of Michael Angelo ?

FBA SEBASTIANO.

But lately

Strolling together down the crowded Corso,
We stopped, well pleased, to see your Eminence
Pass on an Arab steed, a noble creature,
Which Michael Angelo, who is a lover
Of all things beautiful, especially
When they are Arab horses, much admired,
And could not praise enough.

IPPOLITO, to an attendant.

Hassan, to-morrow,

When I am gone, but not till I am gone, —
Be careful about that, — take Barbarossa
To Messer Michael Angelo, the sculptor,
Who lives there at Macello dei Corvi,
Near to the Capitol ; and take besides
Some ten mule-loads of provender, and say
Your master sends them to him as a present

FRA SEBASTIANO.

A princely gift. Though Michael Angelo
Refuses presents from his Holiness,
Yours he will not refuse.

IPPOLITO.

You think him like

Thymoetes, who received the wooden horse
Into the walls of Troy. That book of Virgil
Have I translated in Italian verse,
And shall, some day, when we have leisure for it,
Be pleased to read you. When I speak of Troy
I am reminded of another town
And of a. lovelier Helen, our dear Countess
Julia Gonzaga. You remember, surely,
The adventure with the corsair Barbarossa,
And all that followed?

1883.] Michael Angela. 19

FRA SEBA8TIANO.

A most strange adventure ;
A tale as marvellous and full of wonder
As any in Boccaccio or Sacchetti ;
Almost incredible!

IPPOLTTO.

Were I a painter

I should not want a better theme than that:
The lovely lady fleeing through the night
In wild disorder ; and the brigands' camp
With the red fire-light on their swarthy faces.
Could you not paint it for me ?

FRA 8EBASTIANO.

No, not I.
It is not in my line.

Then you shall paint

The portrait of the corsair, when we bring him
A prisoner chained to Naples; for I feel
Something like admiration for a man

Who dared this strange adventure.

•

FRA SEBASTIANO.

I will do it.
But catch the corsair first.

IPPOLITO.

You may begin

To-morrow with the sword. Hassan, come hither ;
Bring me the Turkish scimitar that hangs
Beneath the picture yonder. Now unsheathe it.
'T is a Damascus blade ; you see the inscription
In Arabic : La Allah ilia Allah, —
There is no God but God.

FRA SEBASTIANO.

How beautiful

In fashion and in finish! It is perfect.
The Arsenal of Venice cannot boast
A finer sword.

IPPOLITO.

You like it ? It is yours.

FRA SEBASTIANO.

You do not mean it.

20 Michael Angela. [January,

IPPOLITO.

I am not a Spaniard,

To say that it is yours and not to mean it.
I have at Itri a whole armory
Full of such weapons. When you paint the portrait
Of Barbarossa, it will be of use.
You have not been rewarded as you should be
For painting the Gonzaga. Throw this bauble
Into the scale, and make the balance equal.
Till then suspend it in your studio ;
You artists like such trifles.

FRA SEBASTIANO.

I will keep it
In memory of the -donor. Many thanks.

Fra Bastian, I am growing tired of Rome,

The old dead city, with the old dead people ;

Priests everywhere, like shadows on a wall,

And morning, noon, and night the ceaseless sound

Of convent bells. I must be gone from here ;

Though Ovid somewhere says that Rome is worthy

To be the dwelling-place of all the Gods,

I must be gone from here. To-morrow morning

I start for Itri, and go thence by sea

To join the Emperor, who is making war

Upon the Algerines ; perhaps to sink

Some Turkish galleys, and bring back in chains

The famous corsair. Thus would I avenge

The beautiful Gonzaga.

FRA SEBASTIANO.

An achievement

Worthy of Charlemagne, or of Orlando.
Berni and Ariosto both shall add
A canto to their poems, and describe you
As Furioso and Innamorato.
Now I must say good-night

IPPOLITO.

You must not go ;

First you shall sup with me. My seneschal,
Giovan Andrea dal Borgo a San Sepolcro, —
I like to give the whole sonorous name,
It sounds so like a verse of the JEneid, —
Has brought me eels fresh from the Lake of Fondi,
And Lucrine oysters cradled in their shells :
These, with red Fondi wine, the Caecuban
That Horace speaks of, under a hundred keys

1883.] Michael Angela. 21

Kept safe, until the heir of Posthumus
Shall stain the pavement with it, make a feast
Fit for Lucullus, or Fra Bastian even ;
So we will go to supper, and be merry.

FRA SEBASTIANO.

Beware ! Remember that Bolsena's eels

And Vernage wine once killed a Pope of Rome !

IPPOL1TO.

'T was a French Pope ; and then so long ago ;
Who knows ? — perhaps the story is not true.

BORGO DELLE VERGINE AT NAPLES.

Room in the Palace of JULIA . GONZAGA. Night.

JULIA GONZAGA, GIOVANNI VALDESSO.

JULIA.
Do not go yet.

VALDESSO.

The night is far advanced ;
I fear to stay too late, and weary you
With these discussions.

JULIA.

I have much to say.

I speak to you, Valdesso, with that frankness
Which is the greatest privilege of friendship, —
Speak as I hardly would to my confessor,
Such is my confidence in you.

VALDESSO.

Dear Countess,

If loyalty to friendship be a claim
Upon your confidence, then I may claim it.

JULIA.

Then sit again, and listen unto things
That nearer are to me than life itself.

VALDESSO.

In all things I am happy to obey you,

And happiest then when you command me most.

22 Michael Angela. [January,

JULIA.

Laying aside all useless rhetoric,

That is superfluous between us two,

I come at ouce unto the point, and say,

You know my outward life, my rank and fortune;

Countess of Fondi, Duchess of Trajetto,

A widow rich and flattered, for whose hand

In marriage princes ask, and ask it only

To be rejected. All the world can offer

Lies at my feet. If I remind you of it,

It is not in the way of idle boasting,

But only to the better understanding

Of what comes after.

VALDE88O.

God hath given you also
Beauty and intellect ; and the signal grace
To lead a spotless life amid temptations,
That others yield to.

But the inward life, —

That you know not ; 't is known but to myself,
And is to me a mystery and a pain.
A soul disquieted, and ill at ease,
A mind perplexed with doubts and apprehensions,
A heart dissatisfied with all around me,
And with myself, so that sometimes I weep,
Discouraged and disgusted with the world.

VALDESSO.

Whene'er we cross a river at a ford,
If we would pass in safety, we must keep
Our eyes fixed steadfast on the shore beyond,
For if we cast them on the flowing stream,
The head swims with it ; so if we would cross
The running flood of things here in the world,
Our souls must not look down, but fix their sight
On the firm land beyond.

JULIA.

I comprehend you.

You think I am too worldly ; that my head
Swims with the giddying whirl of life about me.
Is that your meaning ?

TALDESSO.

Yes; your meditations
Are more of this world and its vanities
Than of the world to come.

1883.] Michael Angela. 23

JULIA.

Between the two
I am confused.

VALDESSO.

Yet have I seen you listen
Enraptured when Fra Bernardino preached
Of faith and hope and charity.

I listen,

But only as to music without meaning.
It moves me for the moment, and I think
How beautiful it is to be a saint,
As dear Vittoria is ; but I am weak
And wayward, and I soon fall back again
To my old ways, so very easily.
There are too many week-days for one Sunday.

VALDESSO.

Then take the Sunday with you through the week,
And sweeten with it all the other days.

In part I do so; for to put a stop

To idle tongues, what men might say of me

If I lived all alone here in my palace,

And not from a vocation that I feel

For the monastic life, I now am living

With Sister Caterina at the convent

Of Santa Chiara, and I come here only

On certain days, for my affairs, or visits

Of ceremony, or to be with friends.

For I confess, to live among my friends

Is Paradise to me ;. my Purgatory

Is living among people I dislike.

And so I pass my life in these two worlds,

This palace and the convent.

VALDESSO.

It was then

The fear of man, and not the love of God,
That led you to this step. Why will you not
Give all your heart to God?

If God commands it,

Wherefore hath He not made me capable
Of doing for Him what I wish to do

24 Michael Angela. [January,

As easily as I could offer Him

This jewel from my hand, this gown I wear,

Or aught else that is mine ?

VALDESSO.

The hindrance lies
In that original sin, by which all fell.

Ah me, I cannot bring my troubled mind
To wish well to that Adam, our first parent,
Who by his sin lost Paradise for us,
And brought such ills upon us.

VALDES8O.

We ourselves,

When we commit a sin, lose Paradise,
As much as he did. Let us think of this,
And how we may regain it

Tench me, then,

To harmonize the discord of my life,
And stop the painful jangle of these wires.

VALDESSO.

That is a task impossible, until

You tune your heart-strings to a higher key

Than earthly melodies.

JULIA.

How shall I do it?

Point out to me the way of this perfection,
And I will follow you ; for you have made
My soul enamored with it, and I cannot
Rest satisfied until I find it out.
But lead me privately, so that the world
Hear not my steps ; I would not give occasion
For talk among the people.

VALDESSO.

Now at last

I understand you fully. Then, what need
Is there for us to beat about the bush?
I know what you desire of me.

What rudeness !
If you already know it, why not tell me ?

1883.] Michael Angela. 25

VALDESSO.

Because I rather wait for you to ask it
With your own lips.

JULIA.

Do me the kindness, then,

To speak without reserve ; and with all frankness,
If you divine the truth, will I confess it.

VALDESSO.

I am content.

JULIA.
Then speak.

VALDESSO.

You would be free

From the vexatious thoughts that come and go
Through your imagination, and would have me
Point out some royal road and lady-like
Which you may walk in, and not wound your feet ;
You would attain to the divine perfection,
And yet not turn your back upon the world ;
You would possess humility within,
But not reveal it in your outward actions ;
You would have patience, but without the rude
Occasions that require its exercise ;
You would despise the world, but in such fashion
The world should not despise you in return;
Would clothe the soul with all the Christian graces,
Yet not despoil the body of its gauds ;
Would feed the soul with spiritual food,
Yet not deprive the body of its feasts ;
Would seem angelic in the sight of God,
Yet not too saint-like in the eyes of men ;
In short, would lead a holy Christian life
In such a way that even your nearest friend
Would not detect therein one circumstance
To show a change from what it was before.
Have I divined your secret ?

JULIA.

You have drawn

The portrait of my inner self as truly
As the most skilful painter ever painted
A human face.

VALDESSO.

This warrants me in saying.
You think you can win heaven by compromise,
And not by verdict.

Michael Angela. [January,

You have often told me
That a bad compromise was better even
Than a good verdict.

VALDESSO.

Yes, in suits at law ;
Not in religion. With the human soul
There is no compromise. By faith alone
Can man be justified.

JULIA.

Hush, dear Valdesso ;
That is a heresy. Do not, I pray you,
Proclaim it from the house-top, but preserve it
As something precious, hidden in your heart,
As I, who half believe and tremble at it.

VALDESSO.
I must proclaim the truth.

Enthusiast !

Why must you ? You imperil both yourself
And friends by your imprudence. Pray, be patient.
You have occasion now to show that virtue
Which you lay stress upon. Let us return
To our lost pathway. Show me by what steps
I shall walk in it. [Convent bells are heard.

VALDESSO.

Hark ! the convent bells

Are ringing ; it is midnight ; I must leave you.
And yet I linger. Pardon me, dear Countess,
Since you to-night have made me your confessor,
If I so far may venture, I will warn you
Upon one point.

JULIA.

What is it ? Speak, I pray you,
For I have no concealments in my conduct ;
All is as open as the light of day.
What is it you would warn me of?

VALDESSO.

Your friendship
With Cardinal Ippolito.

JULIA.

What is there

1883.J Michael Angelo. 27

To cause suspicion or alarm .in that,
More than in friendships that I entertain
With you and others ? I ne'er sat with him
Alone at night, as I am sitting now
With you, Valdesso.

, VALDESSO.

, Pardon me ; the portrait
That Fra Bastiano painted was for him.
Is that quite prudent ?

That is the same question
Vittoria put to me, when I last saw her.
I make you the same answer. That was not
A pledge of love, but of pure gratitude.
Recall the adventure of that dreadful night
When Barbarossa with two thousand Moors
Landed upon the coast, and in the darkness
Attacked my castle. Then,- without delay,
The Cardinal came hurrying down from Rome
To rescue and protect me. Was it wrong
That in an hour like that I did not weigh
Too nicely this or that, but granted him 1U

A boon that pleased him, and that flattered me ?

VALDESSO.

Only beware lest, in disguise of friendship,
Another corsair, worse than Barbarossa,
Steal in and seize the castle, not by storm
But strategy. And now I take my leave.

JULIA.

Farewell; but ere you go look forth and see
How night hath hushed the clamor and the stir
Of the tumultuous streets. The cloudlesa moon
Roofs the whole city as with tiles of silver ; •
The dim, mysterious sea in silence sleeps;
And straight into the air Vesuvius lifts
His plume of. smoke. How beautiful it is !

[ Voices in the street.

GIOVAN ANDREA.

Poisoned at Itri.

ANOTHER VOICE.

Poisoned ? Who is poisoned ?

GIOVAN ANDREA.

The Cardinal Ippolito, my master

Call it malaria. It was very sudden. [Julia swoons.

28 Michael Angela. [January,

VI.

VITTORIA COLONNA.

A room in the Torre Argentina.
VITTORIA COLONNA and JULIA GONZAGA.

VITTORIA.

Come to my arms and to my heart once more;
My soul goes out to meet you and embrace you,
For we are of the sisterhood of sorrow.
I know what you have suffered.

JULIA.

Name it not.
Let me forget it.

VITTORIA.

I will say no more.
Let me look at you. What a joy it is
To see your face, to hear your voice again!
You bring with you a breath as of the morn,
A memory of the far-off happy days
When we were young. When did you come from Fondi ?

JULIA.

I have not been at Fondi since —

VITTORIA.

Ah me!
You need not speak the word ; I understand you.

JULIA.

I came from Naples by the lovely valley,
The Terra di Lavoro.

VITTORIA.

And you find me

But just returned from a long journey northward.
I have been staying with that noble woman
Renee of France, the Duchess of Ferrara.

JULIA.

Oh, tell me of the Duchess. I have heard
Flaminio speak her praises with such warmth
That I am eager to hear more of her
And of her brilliant court.

' '

1883.] Michael Angela. 29

%
VITTORIA.

You shall hear all.

But first sit down and listen patiently
While I confess myself.

JULIA.

What deadly sin
Have you committed? ,

VITTORIA.

Not a sin ; a folly.

I chid you once at Ischia, when you told me
That brave Fra Bastian was to paint your portrait.

JULIA.
Well I remember it.

VITTORIA.

Then chide me now,

For I confess to something still more strange.
Old as I am, I have at last consented
To the entreaties and the supplications
Of Michael Angelo —

JULIA.

To marry him?

VITTORIA.

I pray you, do not jest with me ! You know,
Or you should know, that never such a thought
Entered my breast. I am already married.
The Marquis of Pescara is my husband,
And death has not divorced us.

JULIA.

Pardon me.
Have I offended you ?

VITTORIA.

No, but have hurt me.
Unto my buried lord I give myself,
Unto my friend the shadow of myself,
My portrait. It is not from vanity,
But for the love I bear him.

JULIA.

I rejoice

To hear these words. Oh, this will be a portrait
Worthy of both of you! [A knock.

30 Michael Angela. January,

VITTORIA.

Hark! he is coming.

JULIA.

And shall I go or stay?

VITTORIA.

By all means, stay.

The drawing will he better for your presence;
You will enliven me.

I shall n'ot speak ;

The presence of great men doth take from me
All power of speech. I only gaze at them
In silent wonder, as if they were gods,
Or the inhabitants of some other planet.

Enter MICHAEL ANGELO.

VITTORIA.

Come in.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

I fear my visit is ill-timed;
I interrupt you.

VITTORIA.

No ; this is a friend

Of yours as well as mine, — the Lady Julia,
The Duchess of Trajetto.

MICHAEL ANGELO to JULIA.

I salute you.

'T is long since I have seen your face, my lady ;
Pardon me if I say that having seen it.
One never can forget it.

JULIA.

You are kind
To keep me in your memory.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

It IS

The privilege of age to speak with frankness.
You will not be offended when I say
That never was your beauty more divine.

When Michael Angelo condescends to flatter
Or praise me, I am proud, and not offended.

1883.J Michael Angela. 31

YITTORIA.

Now this is gallantry enough for one ;
Show me a little.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Ah, my gracious lady,

You know I have not words to speak your praise.
I think of you in silence. You conceal
Your manifold perfectipns from all eyes,
And make yourself more saint-like day by day,
And day by day men worship you the more.
But now your hour of martyrdom has come.
You know why I am "here.

VITTORIA.

Ah yes, I know it ;

And meet my fate with fortitude. You find me
Surrounded by the labors of your hands':
The Woman of Samaria at the Well,
The Mater Dolorosa, and the Christ
Upon the Cross, beneath which you have written
Those memorable words of Alighieri,
"Men have forgotten how much blood it costs."

MICHAEL ANGELO.

And now I come to add one labor more,
If you will call that labor which is pleasure,
And only pleasure.

VITTORIA.

How shall I be seated ?

MICHAEL ANGELO, opening his portfolio.
Just as you are. The light falls well upon you.

VITTORIA.

I am ashamed to steal the time from you
That should be given to the Sistine Chapel.
How does that work go on ?

MICHAEL ANGELO, drawing.

But tardily.

Old men work slowly. Brain and hand alike
Are dull and torpid. To die young is best,
And not to be remembered as old men
Tottering about in their decrepitude.

VITTORIA.

My dear Maestro ! have you, then, forgotten
The story of Sophocles in his old age ?

32 Michael Angela. [January,

MICHAEL ANGELO.

What story is it?

VITTORIA.

When his sons accused him,
Before the Areopagus, of dotage,
For all defence, he read there to his judges
The tragedy of CEdipus Coloneus, —
The work of his old age.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

'T is an illusion,

A fabulous story, that will lead old men
Into a thousand follies and conceits.

VITTORIA.

So you may show to cavillers your painting
Of the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Now you and Lady Julia shall resume
The conversation that I interrupted.

VITTORIA.

It was of no great import; nothing more
Nor less than my late visit to Ferrara,
And what I saw there in the ducal palace.
Will it not interrupt you ?

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Not the least.

VITTORIA.

Well, first, then, of Duke Ercole: a man

Cold in his manners, and reserved and silent,

And yet magnificent in all his ways ;

Not hospitable unto new ideas,

But from state policy, and certain reasons

Concerning the investiture of the duchy,

A partisan of Rome, and consequently

Intolerant of all the new opinions.
i

JULIA.

I should not like the Duke. These silent men,
Who only look and listen, are like wells
That have no water in them, deep and empty.
How could the daughter of a king of France
Wed such a duke ?

MICHAEL ANGELO.

The men that women marry,

1883.] Michael Angela.

And why they marry them, will always be
A marvel and a mystery to the world.

VITTORIA.

And then the Duchess, — how shall I describe her,

Or tell the merits of that happy nature,

Which pleases most when least it thinks of pleasing?

Not beautiful, perhaps, in form and feature,

Yet with an inward beauty, that shines through

Each look and attitude and word and gesture ;

A kindly grace of manner and behavior,

A something in her presence and her ways

That makes her beautiful beyond the reach

Of mere external beauty ; and in heart

So noble and devoted to the truth,

And so in sympathy with all who strive

After the higher life.

JULIA.

She draws me to her
As much as her Duke Ercole repels me.

VITTOKIA.

Then the devout and honorable women

That grace her court, and make it good to be there ;

Francesca Bucyronia, the true-hearted,

Lavinia della Rovere and the Orsini,

The Magdalena and the Cherubina,

And Anne de Parthenai, who sings so sweetly ;

All lovely women, full of noble thoughts

And aspirations after noble things.

JULIA. •

Boccaccio would have envied you such dames.

VITTORIA.

No ; his Fiammettas and his Philomenas
Are fitter company for Ser Giovanni;
1 fear he hardly would have comprehended
The women that I speak of.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Yet he wrote

The story of Griselda. That is something
To set down in his favor.

VITTORIA. '

With these ladies

Was a young girl, Olympia Morata,
VOL. LI. — NO. 303. 3

34 Michael Angelo. [January,

Daughter of Fulvio, the learned scholar,

Famous in all the universities :

A marvellous child, who at the spinning-wheel,

And in the daily round of household cares,

Hath learned both Greek and Latin; and is now

A favorite of the Duchess and companion

Of Princess Anue. This beautiful young Sappho

Sometimes recited to us Grecian odes

That she hud written, with a voice whose sadness

Thrilled and o'ermastered me, and made me look

Into the future time, and ask myself

What destiny will be hers.

JULIA.

A sad one, surely.

Frost kills the flowers that blossom out of season ;
And these precocious intellects portend
A life of sorrow or an early death.

VITTORIA.

About the court were many learned men ;

Chilian Sinapius from beyond the Alps,

And Celio Curione, and Manzolli,

The Duke's physician ; and a pale young man,

Charles d'Espeville of Geneva, whom the Duchess

Doth much delight to talk with and to read,

For he hath written a book of Institutes

The Duchess greatly praises, though some call it

The Koran of the heretics.

And what poets

Were there to sing you madrigals, and praise
Olympia's eyes and Cherubina's tresses ?

VITTORIA.

None; for great Ariosto is no more.

The voice that filled those halls with melody

Has long been hushed in death.

JULIA.

You should have made
A pilgrimage unto the poet's tomb,
And laid a wreath upon it, for the words
He spake of you.

YITTORIA.

And of yourself no less,
And of our master, Michael Angelo.

1883.] Michael Angela. 35

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Of me?

VITTORIA.

Have you forgotten that he calls you
Michael, less man than angel, and divine ?
You are ungrateful.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

A mere play on words.
That adjective he wanted for a rhyme,
To match with Gian Bellino and Urbino.

VITTOUIA.

Bernardo Tasso is no longer there,

Nor the gay troubadour of Gascony,

Clement Marot, surnamed by flatterers

The Prince of Poets and the Poet of Princes,

Who, being looked upon with much' disfavor

By the Duke Ercole, has fled to Venice.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

There let him stay with Pietro Aretino,

The Scourge of Princes, also called Divine.

The title is so common in our mouths,

That even the Pifferari of Abruzzi,

Who play their bag-pipes in the streets of Rome

At the Epiphany, will bear it soon,

And will deserve it better than some poets.

VITTORIA.

What bee hath stung you ?

MICHAEL ANGELO.

One that makes no honey ;

One that comes buzzing in through every window,
And stabs men with his sting. A bitter thought
Passed through my , mind, but it is gone again ;
I spake too hastily.

JULIA.

I pray you, show me
What you have done.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Not yet ; it is not finished.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

An Apennine Valley.

[January,

AN APENNINE VALLEY.

IP Rome is the head of Italy, her
heart is among the Apennines. These
branching valleys, each with its rushing
river and murmuring, pulsing streamlet,
are the arteries through which her life-
current is sent outward into her fair ex-
tremities, to return betimes in mountain
mist and rain. Just now she is taking
her midsummer siesta, and the circula-
tion is a little sluggish ; but the autum-
nal awakening comes early among the
hills, and before the end of August the
shrunken channels will have filled again,
the spirit of the land will be up, and
leafy tresses will be shaken loose to
the freshening wind, preparatory to the
great frolic of the vintage.

My own private and particular valley
here — the valley of the Lima — divides
itself, and subdivides, and ramifies hither
and yon, like a conventional vine on a
piece of Kensington embroidery. All
these vales and vallette have high wood-
ed walls, overtopped at intervals by tall-
er domes, answering to the watch-tow-
ers along an ancient rampart. As seen
from the level of the stream, the hills,
to their very summits, are clothed with
beauteous vegetation, " silvis, scence cor-
ruscis." One gets from them, at first
sight, that single impression of richly
heaped and gloriously displayed leaf-
age which pater ^Eneas is supposed to
have derived from the sheltering walls
of his safe harbor on the African coast,
which the wooded hills of New England
are equally competent to convey. But
presently you perceive, and gradually
grow familiar with the idea, that these
are no virgin solitudes, for all their rus-
tic grace, but that every foot of this fair
wilderness has long since been human-
ized. The wealthy chestnut woods about
the bases of the mountains offer clear
footing under their spreading boughs.
White paths intersect the fine old sod,

leading deviously upward to the slopes,
where the silver moons of the great
mountain thistle seem positively to dif-
fuse a tempered light amid the forest
shades. The slenderest rivulet, as it
leaps from stone to stone to join the
river, must turn a mossy old water-
wheel upon its way. Those bands of
brighter verdure that stripe the south-
ern declivities, above the chestnuts, are
vine pergole, every one. That indistinct
patch of deep crimson in the remotest
hill-cleft resolves itself, under an opera-
glass, into the red-tiled roofs of a close-
clustered hamlet. Those golden tufts
dotting the more sterile spaces, here
and there, are the thatched roofs and
haystacks of the humblest of small free-
holds. That soft cloud of olive-gray,
those black spires of the cypress, mark
the site of a villa, where one would nat-
urally look only for an eagle's nest.
The sharpest cone reveals to scrutiny
a machicolated watch-tower, or slim
brown campanile, at its apex. The line
of the long green ridge, which cuts the
sky live hundred feet overhead, is bro-
ken by the low roof and solid tower of
a superannuated church, and the open
loggie — they look like dove-cotes, at this
distance — of another huddled mountain
village. All day long, upon the great
summer festivals, St. Anne's day, St.
James's, and the Assumption, the tow-
ers of twoscore or more gray churches,
near and far, call hourly to one an-
other from among the foldings of the
hills, — airily, strangely, as the chan-
ticleers answer each other from remote
farms upon still autumn days, at home.
For not only has the rural region here-
about been all humanized in the years
gone by, but once upon a time it was
also all christianized.

We speak and think, in new coun-
tries, of the conquest of man over nature,

1883.]

An Apennine Valley.

taking it for granted that the process
must be a rude and violent one ; expect-
ing nothing else than that nature shall
be disheveled and long disfigured there-
after, as she always is in America, — as
the Sabine women were, no doubt, after
they had been wooed in a similar spirit
by the men of quadrate Rome. But
here, in these urbane solitudes, we
learn that it is quite possible for nature
to be won, and wived with humanity,
without the loss of a single outward
grace, — with only the added charm of
a certain soft amenity and sympathetic
homeliness. Do you say that this is
necessarily the work of time, — that na-
ture heals her own wounds, if only left
to her own way ? I answer, No, not al-
ways. There are hurts to the outward
loveliness of nature which cannot possi-
bly be healed save by the help of man,
who inflicted them. The ugly gash of
a railway embankment cannot be cured
without skillful treatment ; and there is
a species of " settlement," a group of
wooden saw - mills, dwellings, church,
and school, which neither time nor eter-
nity can ever harmonize with any land-
scape.

There are other facts which appear
to bear, more or less remotely, on the
same point. " Wheue'er I take my
walks abroad " in the neighborhood of
the saw-mill, should I meet the saw-
miller or any of his " hands," they will
not fail to convey to me, in the righteous
absence of all salutation, the emphatic
ascurance that they are quite as good as
I am. Possibly they may be, or even
better, but I feel for the moment that I
would very much like to show them
some reasons to the contrary. On the
other hand, when the pair shall have
passed me whom I perceive approach-
ing along the box-bordered bridle-path
which zigzags up the sweet Lucchese
mountain side, — the man, with swarthy
cheek and blue-black elf-locks, bending
a little under his enormous fagot ; the
woman, with her dark brows and her

bright smile, and her circular crate, or
cesto, of vine-leaves poised lightly upon
her shapely head, — they will have given
me " good-even " and "good passage,"
as a matter of course ; and I shall be
wondering, as the distance widens be-
tween us, wondering wistfully and with
a touch of something like compunction,
why they should instinctively have said,
" Buona sera, signora." But they are
gone, upon their swift, sure feet, and I
am alone once more, and free to specu-
late on the quaint corollary to my re-
flections afforded by the wayside flow-
ers, which are all such as we associate
with trim old-fashioned garden beds at
home, — sweet:william, bachelor's but-
ton, candy-tuft, and ladies'-delight. No,
indeed ! all men are not born equal, any
more than all countries are born equal ;
and Italy — beautiful, free-handed, ever
gracious and graceful Italy — is the lady
of all lands.

A good test of the " quality " of a
country should be the manner in which
her lowliest give hospitality. Let me
tell you of a visit which 1 paid, on a
regularly received and accepted invita-
tion, bien entendu, to one of the little
freeholds on the hillside aforesaid. Our
hostess — for we were a party of three
— was also our guide to her friendly
bower ; and a needful one, for I have
seldom seen, off the mimic stage, a more
blindly romantic little foot-way than
the one we followed. Plunging sudden-
ly into the wildest of our tributary val-
leys, that of the Camajore, it led us
a mazy dance, through thickets bitter-
sweet with clematis, and over slippery
stepping-stones ; bade us walk a tight-
rope between the bed of the brook and
a miniature flume, scale a perpendic-
ular precipice, happily short, and cross
a most " distinctly precious " liitle log
bridge, ten inches wide, and about twice
as many feet above the water, all sod-
ded by time, arid waving with feath-
ery grasses. The home of our hostess,
which had looked so insignificant from

An Apennine Valley.

[January,

the opposite side of the valley, and which,
in the color of its gray stone walls and
its tiled roof, rich with lichen, bore so
strong a " protective resemblance " to
the mountain side on which it leaned,
proved to consist of four contiguous
dwellings, forming two sides of a square,
which braced themselves, so to speak,
against one another, and turned their
backs upon the stream, while they were
entered through the triangular space
which they partially inclosed. They
had also a little threshing-floor in com-
mon, which five small gypsies were vig-
orously sweeping; while the steep grade
thence to the house door was beset by
thrice as many more infants, all more
or less Pemginesque in their style, and
by the stately and slow-moving figure
of a domestic pet, pink-skinned, black-
haired, gruff- voiced, but immaculate,
con respecto parlando, as the natives are
wont to say, — a pig.

But what a room was that into which
we were ushered! — the huge projecting
fire-place with its pyramidal flue, the
iron dogs and crane, the oaken benches
and table, the dull red line designing a
wainscot on the smoky wall, the antique
earthen and copper vessels nameless, the
dresser with its unclassifiable bits of ugly
faience. We were politely requested to
seat ourselves in the gentle draught of
air between the door and the open case-
ment, where wo could see the green
tree-tops far beneath us moving in the
summer wind, and where the bambini
and the respectable one could have a
good view of us from the threshold.
Meanwhile, our hostess briskly proceed-
ed to the preparation of the dainty which
we had been specially invited to par-
take. She tossed a fagot into the gaping
fire-place, and kindled it. She fetched
chestnut flour from a loft overhead, and
sifted and swiftly kneaded and shaped
it into flat, round cakes. Memories of
King Alfred in the neat-herd's hut as-
sailed us, as she withdrew from a sort
of iron plate -warmer by the fireside

sundry flat stones and shards, and threw
them upon the blaze. And then she
stirred, and then — ah then ! — she
blew the fire ; not with that bourgeois
instrument, a bellows, nor even with a
Japanese fan, but through a canna, or
dry, hollow, reed, some four feet long.
King Alfred yielded precedence to Pro-
metheus, whose myth vanished in smoke,
as so many others have done, and es-
caped by the chimney. They thought
that the fire was in the reed, and that
he blew it forth, as one blows an egg,
— how very natural ! Somebody will of
course dispute the merit of the discov-
ery, but at least I call the whole aesthet-
ic world to witness the noble generos-
ity with which I offer to enthusiasts in
household art everywhere a new thing
in sincere decoration. If I can but see,
some day, beside the reformed firesides
of England and my native country, a
tall reed leaning against the mantel-
piece, and adorned with a broad bow of
blue or crimson ribbon, I shall not have
lived in vain. And now the hot stones
and shards are being deftly withdrawn
from the fire and ranged upon the
hearth, and the great fresh chestnut
leaves come into play, which our host-
ess kept stripping from the overhang-
ing boughs — idly, we fancied — as we
came along. Two leaves are laid upon
each heated disk, then a chestnut cake,
or necce, then two more chestnut leaves,
then another disk. The pile, when com-
plete, is restored to the plate - warmer,
and set aside to cook comfortably in a
corner. By the time that our Caterina
had spread over her oaken table a home-
spun table-cloth, of a fine ecru shade,
and set forth her miscellaneous faience
and a flask of pale red wine, the need
were done. Light brown, piping hot,
and beautifully printed by the chestnut
leaves, they were tossed upon the table
out of the plate - warmer, received with
gratitude, and tasted in faith. They
were sweet; a little tough, but no more
so than the average " buckwheat ; " and

1883.]

An Apennine Valley.

the juices of the fresh leaves added a
slightly astringent but not unpleasant
flavor. By the help of a bit of Bologna
sausage and a sip of sour wine, they
made an excellent lunch, — such an one
as may have been discussed upon this
hill-side any day since the age of stone ;
precisely such an one, no doubt, as Han-
nibal's scouts regaled themselves withal,
when he descended out of Cisalpine
Gaul into Italy proper, by the valley of
the Serchio, two thousand years ago.

We learned, as we lingered over our
feast, that our tiny hospice had also its
thread of connection with contemporary
history. The freehold was Caterina's
own, whether by inheritance or purchase
I cannot say. Her husband was a pro-
fessed cook, and had served at times in
neighboring villas and inns. Finally, he
and their sons struck out into the world,
opened a restaurant in Marseilles, and
the whole family had removed thither.
Marseilles, Caterina gave us clearly to
understand, was an anxious place of
residence for a single - minded wife and
mother, and her own hair had rapidly
whitened there. All had gone well with
them financially, however, until that hot
midsummer day in 1881, when the doz-
ing tiger in the Masillian breast had
been aroused by the refusal of the Italian
colony to join in the public jollification
over the appropriation of Tunis. We
had a graphic and ghastly story of such
incidents of the ensuing riots as fell
under Caterina's own observation. Her
country folk were driven out of Mar-
seilles, under circumstances of great bru-
tality; and those were happy who, like
themselves, escaped with life and limb,
but with the sacrifice of all their world-
ly goods. So they had been well-nigh
ruined, and had come back to her little
house. Luigi had been burning char-
coal all the winter past, and had also
reclaimed a triangular bit of garden
ground on a ledge just below the dwell-
ing, where Caterina had already raised
that year a half dozen table-cloths from

the seed. We saw the returned native
pottering in the garden, as we descend-
ed, — a tall, comely, brown-cheeked, vig-
orous man, who handled his hoe some-
what disdainfully, we thought, as though
he felt the ennui of the situation, and
hankered after the flesh-pots of fierce
Marseilles.

Apropos of Hannibal, as one grows
more familiar with the high-ways and
by-ways, the ancient seats and curious
monuments, of this region, one comes to
feel that there is a something more
wonderful yet than the abundance of
the human associations everywhere de-
posited, and that is their dumbness.
The scores of generations that have
seen the light and lost it on these fair
slopes and in these leafy glens cannot
literally be said to have died and made
no sign ; but the signs they have left
are written in a character strangely
archaic and illegible, and tradition pre-
serves a dreamy, one might almost say
an obstinate, silence. Your afternoon
stroll across the flax - fields and under
the pergole on the shady side of the
hill takes you somewhat abruptly into
a tiny piazza, smoothly paved and re-
markably clean, though the grass is
growing thickly between the flag-stones.
Two sides of the square are occupied
by a church and campanile and an ad-
jacent dwelling, — the priest's house, no
doubt, — which is connected with the
church by a sort of rude cloister, sur-
mounted by an open loggia, gay with
flowering plants. The basilica - — for
such it proves to be — is so low, and re-
tires under the greenery of its over-
hanging hill so modestly ; the tower is
so particularly hoary, and the waving
grass and wild flowers, growing freely
in the soil which has accumulated upon
its summit, go so far toward blending it
with its leafy environment, that you
had never made a landmark of that par-
ticular campanile, and had hardly real-
ized its existence. Bright, silent, seri-
ous, venerable, and unspeakably serene,

An Apennine Valley.

the aspect of the little piazza goes
straight to your heart ; but you must be
content to feel the sentiment of it, for
not a soul is by to assist you in reading
its riddle. Your footsteps echo faintly
as you cross the sunny flags, and step
within the open doorway of the aged
temple, lifting the full curtain of blue
and white linen, which hangs inside,
swayed lightly by the summer breeze.
Silence is here, also, and cool shadow,
but not quite solitude. There are two
kneeling figures, — you will rarely find
less at the loneliest shrine in this part
of Italy, — a white-haired man at your
elbow, and yonder a spare and weary-
looking contadina, with a basket by her
side. The single lamp, burning dimly
amid the dusk around the sacramental
altar, may have been alight — must have
been, you think, from the whole aspect
of the interior — for nigh eight hundred
years. For the basilica form is per-
fect, though the proportions of the edi-
fice are small, the beams of the roof-
ing are black, and the holy-water font
inside the door, and the squat columns
which upbear the low round arches of
the aisles, are as rude in their workman-
ship as any you shall find upon the isl-
ands of the Venetian lagunes. Creep-
ing softly down the nave, you leave the
church by a side door, and find yourself
confronted by a high lichened wall,
with a cross above its closed gateway.
The rude forefathers of the red-roofed
hamlet, hard by, are all collected within,
and you long, in the rapt or somnolent
silence of the living, for some legitimate
method of obtaining from them the sat-
isfaction of your wistful curiosity.

The local guide-books come to your
assistance with two items only. In the
eleventh eentury this comatose little
hamlet of Corsena was already well
known for the healing virtues of its min-
eral springs. The whole renown of the
Baths of Lucca, save for some very
slight fragments of Roman tradition, did
in fact begin here. In the last year of

that century, otherwise memorable for
the culmination of the first crusade, the
renowned Countess Matilda, chatelaine
of all the country round, including a
portion of the Lombard plain, mistress
of Canossa and right hand of Gregory
VII., — a mighty shade, who still fulfills
the functions of tutelary genius to the
whole region, — caused a bridge to be
built across the Serchio, about three
miles hence, for the accommodation of
the poor patients who resorted in num-
bers to the waters. This is the first
item. The second is to the effect that
a century and a half later than Matil-
da's day, in 1245, the holy Roman Em-
peror Frederic II. tarried for some
days at the springs of Corsena, there-
by moving to so great jealousy the lo-
cal governors of Lucca, lest he might
be meditating some encroachment upon
their rights, that they straightway or-
dered the demolition of the Castello of
Corsena. Where, then, was that castel-
lo ? Not the faintest trace of it remains,
and Echo, proverbially unsatisfactory in
her replies, answers neither lo here nor
lo there.

The next day, it may be, in your
wanderings, you strike what seems a
very different sort of trail, a new road
absolutely, — a fine, new carriage road
upon a mountain side, — magnificently
built, like almost all the vie carrozzdbile
of Italy ; broad and hard and smooth,
defining the sweep of the frequent curves
whereby it accomplishes its ascent by a
wall of firm masonry, five or six feet
high, upon the inner or mountain side,
and a solid and extremely handsome
granite parapet upon the outer. Here,
sure enough, is the pathway of prog-
ress ; but whither can it lead ? Let us
by all means go and see. There must
be plenty of people who would thank us
to let them know.

The road leads gently upward for a
matter of a mile, indulging the pedes-
trian with admirable views by the way,
and ends in a sand-bank, where the woods

1883.]

An Apennine Valley.

are thickest! There is not a man in
sight, nor yet a tool, still less that busi-
ness-like monster, a derrick ; only a few
blocks of granite, carefully squared, and
a party of speckled lizards, holding a
picnic among them. For the time be-
ing, at least, the piece of engineering
thus elaborately begun has evidently
been abandoned. By permission of the
lizards we sit down on one of the gran-
ite blocks, and muse on the arrested
march of civilization, until a clatter of
small hoofs becomes audible overhead ;
and looking up among the chestnut
trunks, we discern a heavily laden don-
key, led by a contadino, descending the
narrow paved way which our pompous
new road had superseded to this point.
We hail the man.

" Buon giorno ! "

" Buon giorno, signora ! "

" Where does that path lead ? "

" To Benabbio, signora."

" How far is it ? "

" Half a mile."

" Is it really no more than that ? "

" Ah yes, a little more."

" Thanks, so much ! " (grazie tanto)
to the man, and to one's self, " Excel-
sior ! "

We think we know now that our
sumptuous road can never have dreamed
of being a thoroughfare, since Benab-
bio must be the last town upon its line,
this side of heaven. It is not, therefore,
a government road. Can it be merely
a matter of private enterprise, and will
the fortes colonnce return and work upon
it, between the vintage and the snow ?
The granite parapet seems to smile at
us for the supposition ; but how can an
innovator ever have come out of Be-
nabbio ? We find little enough in the

aspect of the village itself (it scarcely
deserves the name of town) to suggest

/ Oo

an answer to the question. The box
hedges bordering the steep mule-track,
and set for the purpose of defining the
pathway amid the winter snows, are, in-
deed, uncommonly tall and trim, and the

vine trellises beyond them beautifully
trained and flourishing. At a certain
point, we are startled to see descend-
ing upon us a single file of rustling yel-
low towers. Can it be that the wheat
sheaves have arisen, and are going in
procession to the threshing-floor ? But
no ; they are only big bundles of golden
straw, borne each upon the head of a
sturdy contadina, and bound for a man-
ufactory of coarse wrapping-paper, on
the river-side below. This, again, looks
like industry. Nevertheless, Benabbio,
when we attain it, appears old, old, lazy,
untidy, lying supine in the light of the
sinking sun, — a perfect picture in the
outlines of its tumble-down architecture,
beautiful for situation on its high moun-
tain spur. The valley which it com-
mands opens upon a distinct range of
mountains, more slender, symmetrical,
and alpine in their character than ours,
— the three tall summits of the Appu-
ane falling one behind another, and fad-
ing into the evening glow, like repeated
aerial reflections of one solid peak.

Here, however, one stumbles upon
fragments of mediaeval construction
everywhere, — massive walls and arches,
either standing alone or incorporated
with the buildings of the later town.
The church is surrounded by a sort of
rampart, and you climb to its principal
entrance by a flight of stone steps, two
thirds as long, perhaps, as that which
fronts the Ara Coeli at Rome. The
campanile in this instance is Gothic, and
really beautiful ; more modern, evident-
ly, than the body of the church, which
again is a Romanesque basilica, on a
larger scale and of a somewhat later
date than that of Corsena. The cap-
itals of the columns are roughly but
freely sculptured, and no two are alike ;
resembling thus the rich and infinitely
varied capitals in the renowned old
Lombard churches of the city of Lucca.
There is a triptych here, of. the school
of Giotto, of which the stiff, pure fig-
ures and the mellow tints offer strange

An Apennine Valley.

[January,

contrast, alike with the sickly contem-
porary painting above the high altar
and with a blatant monstrosity of eight-
eenth-century work at one of the side
altars, all flaunting scrolls and kicking
cherubs, carved in wood and painted
and gilded, whereon a Ricci informs us,
in large gold letters upon a black ground,
that he, and he only, is responsible for
" hoc elegantissimum opus."

It seems that yesterday there was a
festa at Benabbio, and as we look down
from the church rampart into the cen-
tral piazza of the village the attitudes
of the masculine loungers thereabout
suggest that they are all suffering more
or less from that peculiar lassitude
which is wont to accompany the reac-
tion from hilarity. There are certainly
no outward and visible tokens of nine-
teenth-century enterprise among them,
if we except a rather conspicuous sign
over one of the larger doorway arches
opening upon the piazza, which reads
Societa Agraria, Libreria Circotante,
and which, owing to our previous asso-
ciations with the word agrarian, wears,
at first sight, a rather startling subver-
sive and communistic aspect. We learn
subsequently, however, that the Societa
Agraria is only a farmers' club, support-
ing a species of agricultural school ; and
when we are also assured that the ban-
ner of the Libreria Circotante was car-
ried in the saint's procession yesterday,
we perceive clearly that no offense to
antiquity is here intended, but that the
church lion and the state lamb lie down
together upon the steep hillside of Be-
nabbio.

Our informant in this instance was a
woman (the women in general seemed
much less demoralized by the festa than
the men), and a woman of rare beauty.
There are many such in this Apennine
region ; indeed, the majority are far more
than comely, and some, like our present
interlocutor, are a joy to behold. She
was tall and very brown, straight-browed,
straight-featured, large-eyed, with a slow,

sweet smile and a marvelous dignity of
bearing. They are not all in one style,
however, and there is a slighter and
more piquant type, with brown eyes,
arched eyebrows, and richly curling
bright auburn hair, who are like Titian's
models come to life. One such I saw
on a Sunday evening, sitting with her
lover under the chestnuts, upon a stone
seat beside an ancient fountain, and the
picture was so perfect as to make me
doubt if I were awake. Our brunette
beauty is also able to tell us that the ar-
rested road is a provincial road, and will
some day connect the valley of the Lima
with that of the Nievole ; and to point
out the ruins of a castello antichissimo
on the very pinnacle of the mountain, a
mile above Benabbio. Shall she conduct
us thither ? But alas, the day is too far
spent, and we have to reject her gracious
guidance. This castle, it appears, was a
stronghold of the great Ghibelline fam-
ily of the Lupari, the head of whose
house, Luparo Lupari, was driven into
exile by the victorious Guelphsin 1306,
like Dante.

But he who would see church and
state on perfect terms with each other,
enjoying a free, careless, happy, and,
so to speak, jovial intimacy, should go
to Barga. Barga is twelve miles dis-
tant, upon a mountain-top, of course, or
rather upon an altipiano, a lofty and
fertile piece of table-land, commanding
an extensive and unspeakably lonely,
though comparatively civilized prospect :
winding river and aerial height, sum-
mer splendor of all beauteous growth,

" Vineyard and town and tower with fluttering

flag,

And consecrated chapel on the crag,
And snow-white hamlet kneeling at its base."

Only here the hamlets are not snow-
white, but far more beautiful : dim yel-
low, instead, and pale red and brown
blended, of all sorts of soft, fine colors,
blending themselves with " the nature,"
and gently subserving the sumptuous
unity of the entire effect. And Barga

1883.J

An Apennine Valley.

is equal to its rare situation. It is not
a nameless nobody of a hamlet, but an
episcopal town, with a cathedral and ar-
chives, and an intelligible connection
with the history of Italy and of the
world. Its lofty position adjacent to
the boundary line between the republics
of Florence :ind Lucca gave it military
importance in the stormy days gone by,
insomuch that it was coveted, besieged,
assaulted ; it resisted, surrendered, re-
belled, and wns again assailed, a score
or more of times. But ten centuries of
mediaeval misery and modern insignifi-
cance have had absolutely no percepti-
ble effect in subduing the buoyant ani-
mal spirits of Barga, which remains the
most frolicsome and insouciant little
community it has ever been our lot to
observe. The brilliant midsummer day
of our own visit did certainly chance to
be a festal day, but do any but the con-
stitutionally happy ever find pleasure in
public rejoicings ? The very fact that
not a soul in Barga, old or young, rich
or poor, lay or clerical, seemed in the
least depressed by the obligation to be
merry — quite the contrary, indeed —
appeared to us to speak volumes for
their habitual cheerfulness.

Leaving our carriage just inside the
gates, we began climbing the tortuous
and narrow streets, often resolving them-
selves into actual stairs, which lead to
the acropolis of Barga, — the broad
and massive rampart which sustains her
hoary duomo. Every door of church
or chapel was gay with fresh garlands
and scarlet drapery. The dark stone
dwellings had quaint loggie and fantastic
chimney-pots, and always some religious
symbol carved upon the front. As we
ueared the summit, a little white-haired,
agile old man ran past us, threw open
the cathedral door, and then fell back,
with a delicacy we had never before
observed in one of the race of ciceroni,
and began pacing the grassy plateau, as
though lost to all consciousness of our
existence in an agreeable reverie. But

when we had given one look at the ex-
ceeding strangeness of the vast, silent,
venerable, yet far from sombre interior,
we returned, and beckoned from the
doorway ; whereupon the dreamer woke
up radiant, and assumed enthusiastical-
ly the office of our guide. It was little
enough that he could really tell us be-
yond what we saw, — a Lombard basil-
ica, whose general effect slightly resem-
bles that of San Miniato in Florence,
minus the monuments and graves. The
strong pillars of the nave are construct-
ed of alternate courses of black and
white marble. The apse is occupied by
a stiff colossal figure of St. Christopher,
the patron of the church, rudely carved
in wood and painted. " Antichissima,"
said our guide ; and Byzantine, surely, by
its ugliness, we thought, yet wearing a
certain look of sturdy friendliness on its
absurd features. There is a beautiful
choir-screen, of ancient form and fashion,
low and solid, with panels of pale red
marble, surrounded by borders of exqui-
site mosaic in black and white, and sur-
mounted by a row of miniature heads in
high relief, which reveal, when scruti-
nized, a most realistic variety of com-
monplace feature and expression, and
are evidently portraits of some of the
artist's contemporaries. Our genial guide
pointed out this fact with silent glee,
and was also highly gratified to show
us, when we admired the polish of the
screen panels, that they had been infi-
nitely brighter once, but had been at one
time purposely scratched and dimmed,
because the women of the congregation
had been wont to use them as mirrors,
and to prink before them ; and he illus-
trated the action by a dainty and affect-
ed motion of disposing his own silvery
locks.

But when it came to doing the hon-
ors of the elaborate marble pulpit, our
sprightly old cicerone fairly exploded
with delight ; and we were not far from
following his example, for that pulpit is
indeed a wonder. Of the time of the

An Apennine Valley.

[January,

Pisaui, or earlier, and vying in richness
with their most renowned work, it is in
absolutely perfect preservation. The pro-
cession of scriptural characters around
it and the symbols of the four Evan-
gelists on the front are in high relief,
with the hue and polish of brown ala-
baster. Though childishly conceived,
and archaic in their outlines, they are
full of life. The pulpit rests upon four
solid porphyry pillars, of which the two
foremost are again upborne by rude fig-
ures of crouching lions, with mighty
manes conventionally curled, and eyes
painted to increase their fierceness. One
of them has a dragon — the old enemy
of all mankind, of course — well under
control, and his countenance expresses
a grim content. The other is engaged
with the typical heretic, — and a most
collected and dangerous-looking heretic
he is, in this instance, lying flat under
the paws of the beast, with an expres-
sion of the utmost sang froid, and firm-
ly seizing the lion's tongue with one
hand, while with the other he scientific-
ally plants a dagger just under his left
ear. Of the two posterior pillars, one
rests upon a plain base, and the other
upon the back of a crouching human
figure, exceedingly grotesque, and awak-
ening anew, as he introduced it, the
ready risibles of our guide.

One more treasure — by far the love-
liest of all — the old duomo of Barga
had yet to show. Built into the wall,
at the left-hand side of the sacramental
altar, is the front of a tabernacle, or ci-
borium, in vitrified porcelain, by one of
the Delia Robbias ; some say, the elder
Luca himself, while others ascribe it to
that younger member of the same gifted
race, who wrought the winsome bambini
on the spandrils of the arcade of the
foundling hospital, in the piazza of the
Santissima 'Nunziata at Florence. You
may examine scores of these renowned
mtefW without finding another which
was tall ai.nare with this of Barga for
straight-featu^nder beauty. A glow of

sinless content, a joyous inspiration, suf-
fuses every countenance and sways every
figure. The infant Jesus above the
little portal smiles ; the angel guardians
on either side stand as if lost in an ex-
quisite reverie ; the cherubs underneath
and round about are fairly radiant with
baby glee. The sight of all this happi-
ness was overpowering, and suddenly
started our tears ; whereat our sympa-
thetic servitor again effaced himself,
merely requesting us, rather apologetic-
ally, to give a look in passing, before we
left the church, at what was evidently
his own favorite, a small Delia Robbia
Madonna, — or so he said, — very sweet
and gracious indeed, but greatly inferior
to the other work. I may add that we
were afterwards told that the very finest
of all the Delia Robbias in Barga we
missed seeing, that day, on account of
the festal throng in the church of the
Capuccini.

Once in the open air again, the spirits
of our cicerone revived with a bound.
Throwing a cotton handkerchief over
his bald crown, as a protection from the
sun, but really with the air of a father
playing bo-peep with a parcel of chil-
dren, he proceeded to inform us that
half the population of the town was
wont to gather upon the high church
rampart on summer evenings : the men
to play games, while " phalanxes of
women " ( falange di donne) came with
their knitting work to inspect the games
and to gossip. A low massive building,
occupying an angle of the rampart op-
posite the duomo, was, it seemed, the
ancient municipality, now used as a
jail ; and under its quaint porch we were
shown a series of pots sunken in a stone
slab, the primitive standards of solid
measure for the community. It seemed
to us quite consistent with the universal
good -nature of Barga that the prison
windows commanded an excellent view
of the sports aforesaid. Our guide him-
self was in the service of the nuns of
Sta. Elisabetta, and occupied a little

1883.]

An Apenmne Valley.

room in a honse adjoining their convent,
just at the foot of the rampart, whence
they could summon him by means of a
bell and a wire (a grimace) at any hour
of the night. He helped at the services
in their chapel, also, and must be off
now, for the bell would presently ring.
Yet he lingered to point out the arms
of Savoy above the convent door, and to
impart the fact that the nuns of St.
Elizabeth now kept the town or public
school, — an arrangement highly satis-
factory to all parties. Only, in order
to qualify themselves to answer all mod-
ern requirements, two of the sisters had
had to go to Turin and learn gymnas-
tics, — "povere ragazze, in their straight
gowns!" — and our humorous inform-
ant lifted his hands and eyebrows with
infinite expression. At this point he
was called off rather sharply to his du-
ties in the chapel, and, promising to at-
tend the service, we stepped aside into
the shade to await the summons of the
bell. Straying through a wicket gate,
which stood enticingly open, we found
ourselves upon a dreamy, flowery, vine-
draped little terrace, opening full upon
the northern quarter of Barga's match-
less view. A cherub baby (Perugino,
again) was rolling about among the
flower-pots ; a soft-eyed, modest young
woman, who seemed to be " minding "
him, came forward at our approach,
not hurriedly, and yet evidently attract-
ed by our foreign clothes and tongue.
" Would we sit and rest in the shade ?
"Were we from England, or perhaps from
America ? Ah, from America ! Then,
could we possibly tell her something of
her husband, Fabio, who had gone there
eleven years ago, and found work in
Providenza, near Boston, and prospered
well, only he had omitted writing her
for about six years past ? " She let her
pretty eyes fall for a moment, as she
asked the question, and we ourselves
conceived a sufficiently vicious feeling
toward the faithless Fabio ; yet the de-
serted one had not spoken plaintively,

only with a certain light wistfulness,
and she looked serene and well cared
for, and by no means unhappy. The
spell of Barga's invincible content rested
even upon her. Oddly enough, it ap-
pears that the ties of association between
this happy hill-top and the United States
have been quite numerous in years gone
by. The making of plaster figurines
was once a chief industry of Barga ;
and of those dark-browed image-vendors,
who used to make so picturesque an
effect along our summer ways, almost
all came from the province of Lucca,
and not a few from Barga itself ; and
they found their way back thither, in
most cases, also, when their gaudy wares
were sold. Pausing, earlier in the day,
under the blazing oleanders of a little
beer-garden, to refresh ourselves with
some highly-diluted gelati, we had been
accosted by one of these returned wan-
derers, who had all the air of a man of
substance, being in fact the proprietor
of the garden, and who spoke very in-
telligible English. What gratified him
most of all was to learn that we had
personal knowledge of a townsman of
his, one Gairey, who had kept, years
ago, what he succinctly described as a
jiggermakershop in Boston.

Even the vesper services in the con-
vent chapel were conducted with a kind
of subdued hilarity. The povere regazze,
unseen in their gallery, chanted loudly
and with spirit. The kneeling worship-
ers contrived to supply us with fans, as
we took our places beside them. When
one of the three venerable figures officiat-
ing at the altar dropped his candle for
the second time, they all smiled frankly.
The fair Delia Robbia Madonna beamed
faintly, also, behind the altar lights.

Outside, when we issued into the air,
we found the dust, raised by the merry-
makers in the piazza, now ruddy with
sunset, and the crowd growing ever
more vivacious and vehement, yet with
no touch of rudeness. Lovers ambled
hand in hand, like children, and ogled

An Apennine Valley.

[January,

one another openly. Buxom conta-
dine, their broad shoulders adorned by
kerchiefs of bobbin lace, dyed sulphur-
yellow, elbowed their way to the seats
of the fennel-vendors, and returned nib-
bling at their green nosegays. Knots
of men, of all ages, engaged in vocifer-
ous dispute, accompanied by showers of
speaking and unstudied gestures, but
without a shade even of serious purpose
or conviction, — far less a sparkle of
wrath. There were but two solemn ob-
jects visible in all the precincts of Bar-
ga : a magnificent cedar of Lebanon,
which sighed unutterable things from a
green terrace at the head of the piazza ;
and a deserted church, more ancient
even than the Barga duomo, and having
itself almost the dimensions of a cathe-
dral, which is planted in so deep a hol-
low at the foot of the mount that the
carriage - way by which one descends
from Barga sweeps round upon a level
with the highest stage of its venerable
campanile. It must once have been the
great central church of the lower town,
of which Barga was the more secure
acropolis ; but the town itself, with its
denizens, has lain for centuries under
the sod, while the gray temple remains
lonely, forsaken, forgetful, even, of its
own exceeding fair proportions, embow-
ered in the encroaching wilderness, and
deaf to the voices of praise and pray-
er, yet indestructible, seemingly, as the
Apennines themselves. Tradition as-
cribes the building of this church to the
omnipresent Matilda, 1050-1100.

It gives one an odd sensation to roll
rapidly down out of the very infancy
of our millennium into the slightly shab-
by sophistication of the Ponte al Ser-
raglio, the midmost of the three mod-
ern villages which collectively constitute
the Bagni di Lucca. Fashion has for-
saken the Bagni. There is a princely
villa for sale and a ducal villa to let,
among the " desirable residences " here-
about ; but the place was all the mode
within the n:^ -ory of man, and still af-

fects, at its centre, the manners of the
great world. Walled gardens overflow
with oleanders and pomegranates; big
hotels, a world too wide for their shrunk
company, throw out their picturesque
ranges of gay striped awnings ; cafes es-
say to glitter after night-fall, and street-
lamps to twinkle amid the foliage of wind-
ing carriage-ways ; groups otjiacres con-
tend for the shadiest spots on the piazza,
where horses and drivers may doze away
the sunny hours with least danger of in-
terruption by an order. There is even
a stately white marble casino, from
whose wide-open windows, on two or
three evenings in each week, issue long-
drawn strains of melancholy dance mu-
sic. An adventurous youth, penetrating
upon one occasion these scenes of ghost-
ly gayety, reported the company to con-
sist of two English mammas, with four
tall daughters each, two rheumatic el-
derly gentlemen of the same brave na-
tion, and three Italian officers, imported
for the occasion from the barracks at
Lucca. There are English families, long
resident in Italy, who regularly spend
their summers at the Bagni ; not at all,
as it would seem, for the sweetness of
the air or the glory of the hills, nor
yet for the virtue of the waters, but be-
cause of the tales which their grandsires
and grandames have told them of the
height of the jinks here prevalent in the
thirties and the forties before forty-
eight, — the days of the last princes of
Lucca, and of the genial and tasteful
Grand Dukes of Tuscany, when the
prodigal Demidoffs built beside the Cam-
ajore the roomy hospital, still swarming
with charity patients ; for the rich fluc-
tuate, but the poor remain.

Predominant over all the ghosts out
of the recent past which haunt the
Baths of Lucca, elbowing and displac-
ing the softly bred and long descended,
as they always did in life, arise the rest-
less revenants of the line of Buonaparte.
Eliza Bacciochi, the parvenue Princess
of Lucca and Queen of Etruria, though

1883.]

The Ancestral Footstep.

highly disgusted, as the world knows,
with the trumpery bit of royalty award-
ed her in the fraternal distribution, yet
fixed her summer residence here, and
benefited the place by many costly im-
provements. Afterwards, and indeed
yearly until her death, was wont to come
hither from the frowning palace in the
Piazza Venezia, at Rome, the grim old'
mother of that mighty race. A street
upon the right-hand bank of the Lima
still bears her name, — the Via Letizia.
It is a poor street enough, within the
town itself, but issues in a beautifully
shaded road along the water-side, which

was Madam Lsetitia's favorite evening

promenade. The sunset stroller of to-
day may consider it his own fault if he
does not sometimes meet her there, —
tall and gaunt and all unbent by years,
with dark brows knitted over piercing
eyes, and chiseled lips curving down-
ward ; leaning lightly on her staff, with
which she would hardly, so long as he
lived, have hesitated to chastise the
great Napoleon, and musing on the rav-
ages of the monstrous brood which it
had been her singular destiny to rear
and let loose for the rectification of Eu-
rope.

Harriet W. Preston.

THE ANCESTRAL FOOTSTEP:

. i

OUTLINES OF AN ENGLISH ROMANCE.

MAY 5th, Wednesday. The father
of these two sons, an aged man at the
time, took much to heart their enmity ;
and after the catastrophe, he never held
up his head again. He was not told
that his son had perished, though such
was the belief of the family ; but im-
bibed the opinion that he had left his
home and native land to become a wan-
derer on the face of the earth, and that
some time or other he might return.
In this idea he spent the remainder of
his days ; in this idea he died. It may
be that the influence of this idea might
be traced in the way in which he spent
some of the latter years of his life, and
a portion of the wealth which had be-
come of little value in his eyes, since it
had caused dissension and bloodshed be-
tween the sons of one household. It
was a common mode of charity in those
days — a common thing for rich men to

1 Copyright, 1882, by ROSE HAWTHORNE LA-
TIIROP. For a clearer understanding of this sketch,

do — to found an almshouse or a hospi-
tal, and endow it, for the support of a
certain number of old and destitute men
or women, generally such as had some
claim of blood upon the founder, or at
least were natives of the parish, the dis-
trict, the county, where he dwelt. The
Eldredge Hospital was founded for the
benefit of twelve old men, who should
have been wanderers upon the face of
the earth ; men, they should be, of some
education, but defeated and hopeless,
cast off by the world for misfortune,
but not for crime. And this charity
had subsisted, on terms varying little
or nothing from the original ones, from
that day to this ; and, at this very time,
twelve old men were not wanting, of
various countries, of various fortunes,
but all ending finally in ruin, who had
centred here, to live on the poor pit-
tance that had been assigned to them,
three hundred years ago. What a se-
ries of chronicles it would have been if

the reader is referred to the Prefatory Note in the
Atlantic Monthly for December, 1882, page 823.

The Ancestral Footstep.

[January,

each of the beneficiaries of this charity,
since its foundation, had left a record of
the events which finally led him hither.
Middleton often, as he talked with
these old men, regretted that he himself
had no turn for authorship, so rich a
volume might he have compiled from
the experience, sometimes sunny and
triumphant, though always ending in
shadow, which he gathered here. They
were glad to talk to him, and would
have been glad and grateful for any au-
ditor, as they sat on one or another of
the stone benches, in the sunshine of
the garden ; or at evening, around the
great fire-side, or within the chimney-
corner, with their pipes and ale.

There was one old man who attracted
much of his attention, by the venerable-
ness of his aspect ; by something digni-
fied, almost haughty and commanding
in his air. Whatever might have been
the intentions and expectations of the
founder, it certainly had happened in
these latter days that there was a diffi-
culty in finding persons of education, of
good manners, of evident respectability,
to put into the places made vacant by
deaths of members ; whether that the
paths of life are surer now than they
used to be, and that men so arrange
their lives as not to be left, in any event,
quite without resources as they draw
near its close ; at any rate, there was a
little tincture of the vagabond running
through these twelve quasi gentlemen,
— through several of them, at least.
But this old man could not well be mis-
taken ; in his manners, in his tones, in
all his natural language and deportment,
there was evidence that he had been
more than respectable ; and, viewing
him, Middleton could not help wonder-
ing what statesman had suddenly van-
ished out of public life and taken refuge
here, for his head was of the statesman-
class, and his demeanor that of one who
had exercised influence over large num-

bers of men. He sometimes endeavored
to set on foot a familiar relation with

this old man, but there was even a stern-
ness in the manner in which he repelled
these advances, that gave little encour-
agement for their renewal. Nor did it
seem that his companions of the Hospi-
tal were more in his confidence than
Middleton himself. They regarded him
with a kind of awe, a shyness, and in
most cases with a certain dislike, which
denoted an imperfect understanding of
him. To say the truth, there was not
generally much love lost between any
of the members of this family ; they
had met with too much disappointment
in the world to take kindly, now, to one
another or to anything or anybody. I
rather suspect that they really had more
pleasure in burying one another, when
the time came, than in any other office
of mutual kindness and brotherly love
which it was their part to do ; not out
of hardness of heart, but merely from
soured temper, and because, when peo-
ple have met disappointment and have
settled down into final uuhappiness,
with no more gush and spring of good
spirits, there is nothing any more to
create amiability out of.

So the old people were unamiable and
cross to one another, and unamiable and
cross to old Hammond, yet always with a
certain respect ; and the result seemed to
be such as treated the old man well
enough. And thus he moved about among
them, a mystery ; the histories of the
others, in the general outline, were well
enough known, and perhaps not very
uncommon ; this old man's history was
known to none, except of course to the
trustees of the charity, and to the Mas-
ter of the Hospital, to whom it had ne-
cessarily been revealed, before the ben-
eficiary could be admitted as an inmate.
It was judged, by the deportment of the
Master, that the old man had once held
some eminent position in society ; for,
though bound to treat them all as gen-
tlemen, he was thought to show an espe-
cial and solemn courtesy to Hammond.

Yet by the attraction which two

1883.]

The Ancestral Footstep.

strong and cultivated minds inevitably
have for one another, there did spring
up an acquaintanceship, an intercourse,
between Middleton and this old man,
which was followed up in many a con-
versation which they held together on
all subjects that were supplied by the
news of the day, or the history of the
past. Middleton used to make the news-
paper the opening for much discussion ;
and it seemed to him that the talk of
his companion had much of the charac-
ter of that of a retired statesman, on
matters which, perhaps, he would look
at all the more wisely, because it was
impossible he could ever more have a
personal agency in them. Their discus-
sions sometimes turned upon the affairs
of his own country, and its relations
with the rest of the world, especially
with England ; and Middleton could not
help being struck with the accuracy of
the old man's knowledge respecting that
country, which so few Englishmen know
anything about ; his shrewd appreciation
of the American character, — shrewd
and caustic, yet not without a good de-
gree of justice ; the sagacity of his re-
marks on the past, and prophecies of
what was likely to happen, — prophecies
which, in one instance, were singularly
verified, in regard to a complexity which
was then arresting the attention of both
countries.

" You must have been in the United
States," said he, one day.

" Certainly ; my remarks imply per-
sonal knowledge," was the reply. " But
it was before the days of steam."

" And not, I should imagine, for a
brief visit," said Middleton. "I only
wish the administration of this govern-
ment had the benefit to-day of your
knowledge of my countrymen. It might
be better for both of these kindred na-
tions."

" Not a whit," said the old man.
" England will never understand Amer-
ica ; for England never does understand
a foreign country ; and whatever you

VOL. LI. NO. 303. 4

may say about kindred, America is as
much a foreign country as France itself.
These two hundred years of a different
climate and circumstances — of life on
a broad continent instead of in an isl-
and, to say nothing of the endless in-
termixture of nationalities in evei'y part
of the United States, except New Eng-
land — have created a new and decided-
ly original type of national character.
It is as well for both parties that they
should not aim at any very intimate
connection. It will never do."

" I should be sorry to think so," said
Middleton ; " they are at all events two
noble breeds of men, and ought to ap-
preciate one another. And America
has the breadth of idea to do this for
England, whether reciprocated or not."

.Thursday, May 6th. Thus Middleton
was established in a singular way among
these old men, in one of the surround-
ings most unlike anything in his own
country. So old it was that it seemed
to him the freshest and newest thing
that he had ever met with. The resi-
dence was made infinitely the more in-
teresting to him by the sense that he
was near the place — as all the indica-
tions warned him — which he sought,
whither his dreams had tended from his
childhood ; that he could wander each
day round the park within which were
the old gables of what he believed was
his hereditary home. He had never
known anything like the dreamy enjoy-
ment of these days ; so quiet, such a
contrast to the turbulent life from which
he had escaped across the sea. And
here he set himself, still with that sense
of shadowiness in what he saw and in
what he did, in making all the researches
possible to him, about the neighbor-
hood ; visiting every little church that
raised its square battlemented Norman
tower of gray stone, for several miles
round about ; making himself acquaint-
ed with each little village and hamlet
that surrounded these churches, cluster-
ing about the graves of those who had

The Ancestral Footstep.

[January,'

dwelt in the same cottages aforetime.
He visited all the towns within a dozen
miles ; and probably there were few of
the inhabitants who had so good an ac-
quaintance with the neighborhood as
this native American attained within a
few weeks after his coming thither.

In the course of these excursions he
had several times met with a young
~\ woman, — a young lady, one might term
her, but in fact he was in some doubt
what rank she might hold, in England,
— who happened to be wandering about
the country with a singular freedom.
She was always alone, always on foot ;
he would see her sketching some pic-
turesque old church, some ivied ruin,
some fine drooping elm. She was a
slight figure, much more so than Eng-
lish women generally are ; and, though
healthy of aspect, had not the ruddy
complexion, which he was irreverently
inclined to call the coarse tint, that is
believed the great charm of English
beauty. There was a freedom in her
step and whole little womanhood, an
elasticity, an irregularity, so to speak,
that made her memorable from first
sight ; and when he had encountered
her three or four times, he felt in a cer-
tain way acquainted with her. She was
very simply dressed, and quite as simple
in her deportment ; there had been one
or two occasions, when they had both
smiled at the same thing ; soon after-
wards a little conversation had taken
place between them; and thus, with-
out any introduction, and in a way that
somewhat puzzled Middleton himself,
they had become acquainted. It was
so unusual that a young English girl
should be wandering about the coun-
try entirely alone — so much less usual
that she should speak to a stranger —
that Middleton scarcely knew how to
account for it, but meanwhile accept-
ed the fact readily and willingly, for in
truth he found this mysterious person-
age a very likely and entertaining com-
panion. There was a strange quality

of boldness in her remarks, almost of
brusqueuess, that he might have expect-
ed to find in a young countrywoman of
his own, if bred up among the strong-
minded, but was astonished to find in
a young Englishwoman. Somehow or
other she made him think more of home
than any other person or thing he met
with ; and he could not but feel that she
was in strange contrast with everything
about her. She was no beauty ; very
piquant ; very pleasing ; in some points
of view and at some moments pretty;
always gocd-humored, but somewhat too
self-possessed for Middleton's taste. It
struck him that she had talked with him
as if she had some knowledge of him
and of the purposes with which he was
there ; not that this was expressed, but
only implied by the fact that, on looking
back to what had passed he found many
strange coincidences in what she had
said with what he was thinking about.

He perplexed himself much with
thinking whence this young woman had
come, where she belonged, and what
might be her history; when, the next
day, he again saw her, not this time
rambling on foot, but seated in an open
barouche with a young lady. Middleton
lifted his hat to her, and she nodded and
smiled to him ; and it appeared to Mid-
dleton that a conversation ensued about
him with the young lady, her compan-
ion. Now, what still more interested
him was the fact that, on the panel of
the barouche were the arms of the fam-
ily now in possession of the estate of
Smithells ; so that the young lady, his
new acquaintance, or the young lady,
her seeming friend, one or the other,
was the sister of the present owner of
that estate. He was inclined to think
that his acquaintance could not be the
Miss Eldredge, of whose beauty he had
heard many tales among the people of
the neighborhood. The other young
lady, a tall, reserved, fair-haired maid-
en, answered the description consider-
ably better. He concluded, therefore,

1883.]

The Ancestral Footstep.

that his acquaintance must be a visitor,
perhaps a dependent and companion ;
though the freedom of her thought, ac-
tion, and way of life seemed hardly con-
sistent with this idea. However, this
slight incident served to give him a sort
of connection with the family, and he
could but hope that some further chance
would introduce him within what he
fondly called his hereditary walls. He
had come to think of this as a dream-
land ; and it seemed even more a dream-
land now than before it rendered itself
into actual substance, an old house of
stone and timber standing within its park,
shaded about with its ancestral trees.

But thus, at all events, he was get-
ting himself a little wrought into the
net-work of human life around him, se-
cluded as his position had at first seemed
to be, in the farm-house where he had
taken up his lodgings. For, there was
the Hospital and its old inhabitants, in
whose monotonous existence he soon
came to pass for something, with his
liveliness of mind, his experience, his
good sense, his patience as a listener,
his comparative youth even — his pow-
er of adapting himself to these stiff
and crusty characters, a power learned
among other things in his political life,
where he had acquired something of the
faculty (good or bad as might be) of
making himself all things to all men.
But though he amused himself with
them all, there was in truth but one man
among them in whom he really felt
much interest ; and that one, we need
hardly say, was Hammond. It was not
often that he found the old gentleman
in a conversible mood ; always cour-
teous, indeed, but generally cool and re-
served ; often engaged in his one room,
to which Middleton had never yet been
admitted, though he had more than once
sent in his name, when Hammond was
not apparent upon the bench which, by
common consent of the Hospital, was
appropriated to him.

One day, however, notwithstanding

that the old gentleman was confined to
his room by indisposition, he ventured to
inquire at the door, and, considerably to
his surprise, was admitted. He found
Hammond in his easy-chair, at a table,
with writing-materials before him : and
as Middleton entered, the old gentleman
looked at him with a stern, fixed regard,
which, however, did not seem to imply
any particular displeasure towards this
visitor, but rather a severe way of re-
garding mankind in general. Middle-
ton looked curiously around the small
apartment, .to see what modification the
character of the man had had upon the
customary furniture of the Hospital,
and how much of individuality he had
given to that general type. There was
a shelf of books, and a row of them
on the mantel-piece ; works of political
economy, they appeared to be, statistics
and things of that sort ; very dry read-
ing, with which, however, Middleton's
experience as a politician had made him
acquainted. Besides these there were
a few works on local antiquities, a coun-
ty-history borrowed from the Master's
library, in which Hammond appeared to
have been lately reading.

" They are delightful reading," ob-
served Middleton, " these old county-
histories, with their great folio volumes
and their minute account of the affairs
of families and the genealogies, and de-
scents of estates, bestowing as much
blessed space on a few hundred acres as
other historians give to a principality.
I fear that in my own country we shall
never have anything of this kind. Our
space is so vast that we shall never come
to know and love it, inch by inch, as the
English antiquarians do the 'tracts of
country with which they deal ; and be-
sides, our land is always likely to lack
the interest that belongs to .English es-
tates ; for where land changes its own-
ership every few years, it does not be-
come imbued with the personalities of
the people who live on it. It is but so
much grass ; so much dirt, where a sue-

The Ancestral Footstep.

[January,

cession of people have dwelt too little
to make it really their own. But I have
found a pleasure that I had no concep-
tion of before, in reading some of the
English local histories."

" It is not a usual course of reading
for a transitory visitor," said Hammond.
" What could induce you to undertake
it?"

" Simply the wish, so common and
natural with Americans," said Middle-
ton — " the wish to find out something
about my kindred — the local origin of
my own family."

"You do not show your wisdom in
this," said his visitor. " America had bet-
ter recognize the fact that it has noth-
ing to do with England, and look upon
itself as other nations and people do, as
existing on its own hook. I never heard
of any people looking back to the coun-
try of their remote origin in the way
the Anglo-Americans do. For instance,
England is made up of many alien races,
German, Danish, Norman and what not :
it has received large accessions of pop-
ulation at a later date than the settle-
ment of the United States. Yet these
families melt into the great homoge-
neous mass of Englishmen, and look back
no more to any other country. There
are in this vicinity many descendants of
the French Huguenots; but they care
no more for France than for Titnbuc-
too, reckoning themselves only English-
men, as if they were descendants of the
aboriginal Britons. Let it be so with
you."

" So it might be," replied Middleton,
" only that our relations with England
remain far more numerous than our dis-
connections, through the bonds of his-
tory, o«f literature, of all that makes up
the memories, and much that makes up
the present interests of a people. And
therefore I must still continue to pore
over these old folios, and hunt around
these precincts, spending thus the little
idle time I am likely to have in a busy
life. Possibly finding little to my pur-

pose ; but that is quite a secondary con-
sideration."

" If you choose to tell me precisely
what your aims are," said Hammond,
"it is possible I might give you some
little assistance."

May 7th, Friday. Middleton was in '
fact more than half ashamed of the
dreams which he had cherished before
coming to England, and which since, at
times, had been very potent with him,
assuming as strong a tinge of reality
as those [scenes ?] into which he had
strayed. He could not prevail with
himself to disclose fully to this severe
and, as he thought, cynical old man
how strong within him was the senti-
ment that impelled him to connect him-
self with the old life of England, to join
on the broken thread of ancestry and
descent, and feel every link well estab-
lished. But it seemed to him that he
ought not to lose this fair opportunity
of gaining some light on the abstruse
field of his researches ; and he therefore
explained to Hammond that he had rea-
son, from old family traditions, to be-
lieve that he brought with him a frag-
ment of a history that, if followed out,
might lead to curious results. He told
him, in a tone half serious, what he had
heard respecting the quarrel of the two
brothers, and the Bloody Footstep, the
impress of which was said to remain, as
a lasting memorial of the tragic termi-
nation of that enmity. At this point,
Hammond interrupted him. He had in-
deed, at various points of the narrative,
nodded and smiled mysteriously, as if
looking into his mind and seeing some-
thing there analogous to what he was
listening to. He now spoke.

" This is curious," said he. " Did
you know that there is a manor-house
in this neighborhood, the family of
which prides itself on having such a
blood-stained threshold as you have now
described ? "

" No, indeed ! " exclaimed Middleton,
greatly interested. " Where ? "

1883.]

The Ancestral Footstep.

" It is the old manor-house of Smith-
ell's," replied Hammond, " one of those
old wood and timber [plaster ?] man-
sions, which are among the most ancient
specimens of domestic architecture in
England. The house has now passed
into the female line, and by marriage
has been for two or three generations
in possession of another family. But
the blood of the old inheritors is still in
the family. The house itself, or por-
tions of it, are thought to date back
quite as far as the Conquest."

" Smithell's ? " said Middleton. « Why,
I have seen that old house from a dis-
tance, and have felt no little interest in
its antique aspect. And it has a Bloody
Footstep ! Would it be possible for a
stranger to get an opportunity to in-
spect it ? "

" Unquestionably," said Hammond ;
" nothing easier. It is but a moderate
distance from here, and if you can mod-
erate your young footsteps, and your
American quick walk, to an old man's
pace, I would go there with you some
day. In this languor and ennui of my
life, I spend some time in local antiqua-
rianism, and perhaps I might assist you
in tracing out how far these traditions
of yours may have any connection with
reality. It would be curious, would it
not, if you had come, after two hundred
years, to piece out a story which may
have been as much a mystery in Eng-
land as there in America ? "

An engagement was made for a walk
to Smithell's the ensuing day ; and
meanwhile Middleton entered more fully
into what he had received from family
traditions and what he had thought out
for himself on the matter in question.

" Are you aware," asked Hammond,
" that there was formerly a title in this
family, now in abeyance, and which the
heirs have at various times claimed, and
are at this moment claiming ? Do you
know, too, — but you can scarcely know
it, — that it has been surmised by some
that there is an insecurity in the title to

the estate, and has always been ; so
that the possessors have lived in some
apprehension, from time immemorial,
that another heir would appear and
take from them the fair inheritance ?
It is a singular coincidence."

" Very strange," exclaimed Middle-
ton. " No ; I was not aware of it ; and
to say the truth, I should not altogether
like to come forward in the light of a
claimant. But this is a dream, sure- <
ly!"

" I assure you, sir," continued the old
man, " that you come here in a very
critical moment ; and singularly enough
there is a perplexity, a difficulty, that
has endured for as long a time as when
your ancestors emigrated, that is still
rampant within the bowels, as I may
say, of the family. Of course, it is too
like a romance that you should be able
to establish any such claim as would
have a valid influence on this matter;
but still, being here on the spot, it may
be worth while, if merely as a matter of
amusement, to make some researches
into this matter."

" Surely I will," said Middleton, with
a smile, which concealed more earnest-
ness than he liked to show ; " as to the
title, a Republican cannot be supposed
to think twice about such a bagatelle.
The estate ! — that might be a more
serious consideration."

They continued to talk on the sub-
ject ; and Middleton learned that the
present possessor of the estates was a
gentleman nowise distinguished from
hundreds of other English gentlemen;
a country squire modified in accordance
with the type of to-day, a frank, free,
friendly sort of a person enough, who
had traveled on the Continent, who em-
ployed himself much in field-sports, who
was unmarried, and had a sister who
was reckoned among the beauties of the
county.

While the conversation was thus go-
ing on, to Middleton's astonishment
there came a knock at the door of the

The Ancestral Footstep.

[January,

room, and, without waiting for a re-
sponse, it was opened, and there ap-
peared at it the same young woman
whom he had already met. She came
in with perfect freedom and familiarity,
and was received quietly by the old
gentleman ; who, however, by his man-
ner towards Middleton, indicated that
he was now to take his leave. He did
so, after settling the hour at which the
excursion of the next day was to take
place. This arranged, he departed, with
much to think of, and a light glimmer-
ing through the confused labyrinth of
thoughts which had been unilluminated
hitherto.

To say the truth, he questioned within
himself whether it were not better to
get as quickly as he could out of the
vicinity ; and, at any rate, not to put
anything of earnest in what had hither-
to been nothing more than a romance
to him. There was something very
dark and sinister in the events of family
history, which now assumed a reality
that they had never before worn ; so
much tragedy, so much hatred, had been
thrown into that deep pit, and buried
under the accumulated debris, the fallen
leaves, the rust and dust of more than
two centuries, that it seemed not worth
while to dig it up; for perhaps the
deadly influences, which it had taken
so much time to hide, might still be
lurking there, and become potent if he
now uncovered them. There was some-
thing that startled him, in the strange,
wild light, which gleamed from the old
man's eyes, as he threw out the sugges-
tions which had opened this prospect to
him. What right had he — an Ameri-
can, Republican, disconnected with this
country so long, alien from its habits of
thought and life, reverencing none of the
things which Englishmen reverenced —
what right had he to come with these
musty claims from the dim past, to dis-
turb them in the life that belonged to
them? There was a higher and a deep-
er law than any connected with ances-

tral claims which he could assert ; and
he had an idea that the law bade him
keep to the country which his ancestor
had chosen and to its institutions, and
not meddle nor make with England.
The roots of his family tree could not
reach under the ocean ; he was at most
but a seedling from the parent tree.
While thus meditating he found that his
footsteps had brought him unawares
within sight of the old manor-house of
Smithell's ; and that he was wandering
in a path which, if he followed it fur-
ther, would bring him to an entrance in
one of the wings of the mansion. With
a sort of shame upon him, he went for-
ward, and, leaning against a tree, looked
at what he considered the home of his
ancestors.

May 9th, Sunday. At the time ap-
pointed, the two companions set out on
their little expedition, the old man in
his Hospital uniform, the long black
mantle, with the bear and ragged staff
engraved in silver on the breast, and
Middleton in the plain costume which
he had adopted in these wanderings
about the country. On their way,
Hammond was not very communicative,
occasionally dropping some shrewd re-
mark with a good deal of acidity in it ;
now and then, too, favoring his compan-
ion with some reminiscence of local an-
tiquity ; but ofteuest silent. Thus they
went on, and entered the park of Pem-
berton Manor by a by-path, over a stile
and one of those footways, which are
always so well worth threading out in
England, leading the pedestrian into
picturesque and characteristic scenes,
when the highroad would show him
nothing except what was commonplace
and uninteresting. Now the gables of
the old manor-house appeared before
them, rising amidst the hereditary woods,
which doubtless dated from a time be-
yond the days which Middleton fondly
recalled, when his ancestors had walked
beneath their shade. On each side
of them were thickets and copses of

1883.]

The Ancestral Footstep.

fern, amidst which they saw the hares
peeping out to gaze upon them, occa-
sionally running across the path, and
comporting themselves like creatures
that felt themselves under some sort of
protection from the outrages of man,
though they knew too much of his de-
structive character to trust him too far.
Pheasants, too, rose close beside them,
and winged but a little way before they
alighted ; they likewise knew, or seemed
to know, that their hour was not yet
come. On all sides in these woods,
these wastes, these beasts and birds,
there was a character that was neither
wild nor tame. Man had laid his grasp
on them all, and done enough to re-
deem them from barbarism, but had
stopped short of domesticating them;
although Nature, in the wildest thing
there, acknowledged the powerful and
pervading influence of cultivation.

Arriving at a side door of the man-
sion, Hammond rang the bell, and a ser-
vant soon appeared. He seemed to
know the old man, and immediately ac-
ceded to his request to be permitted to
show his companion the house ; although
it was not precisely a show-house, nor
was this the hour when strangers were
usually admitted. They entered; and
the servant did not give himself the
trouble to act as a cicerone to the two
visitants, but carelessly said to the old
gentleman that he knew the rooms, and
that he would leave him to discourse to
his friend about them. Accordingly,
they went into the old haft, a dark oak-
en-paneled room, of no great height,
with many doors opening into it. There
was a fire burning on the hearth ; in-
deed, it was the custom of the house to
keep it up from morning to night ; and
in the damp, chill climate of England,
there is seldom a day in some part of
which a fire is not pleasant to feel.
Hammond here pointed out a stuffed
fox, to which some story of a famous
chase was attached ; a pair of antlers of
enormous size ; and some old family

pictures, so blackened with time and
neglect that Middleton could not well
distinguish their features, though curi-
ous to do so, as hoping to see there the
lineaments of some with whom he might
claim kindred. It was a venerable
apartment, and gave a good foretaste of
what they might hope to find in the rest
of the mansion.

But when they had inspected it pret-
ty thoroughly, and were ready to pro-
ceed, an elderly gentleman entered the
hall, and, seeing Hammond, addressed
him in a kindly, familiar way ; not in-
deed as an equal friend, but with a pleas-
ant and not irksome conversation. " I
am glad to see you here again," said
he. " What ? I have an hour of lei-
sure ; for to say the truth, the day hangs
rather heavy till the shooting season be-
gins. Come ; as you have a friend with
you, I will be your cicerone myself
about the house, and show you what-
ever mouldy objects of interest it con-
tains."

He then graciously noticed the old
man's companion, but without asking or
seeming to expect an introduction ; for,
after a careless glance at him, he had
evidently set him down as a person with-
out social claims, a young man in the
rank of life fitted to associate with an
inmate of Pemberton's Hospital. And
it must be noticed that his treatment of
Middleton was not on that account the
less kind, though far from being so
elaborately courteous as if he had met
him as an equal. " You have had some-
thing of a walk," said he, " and it is a
rather hot day. The beer of Pember-
tori Manor has been reckoned good
these hundred years ; will you taste
it?"

Hammond accepted the offer, and the
beer was brought in a foaming tankard ;
but Middleton declined it, for in truth
there was a singular emotion in his
breast, as if the old enmity, the ancient
injuries, were not yet atoned for, and as
if he must not accept the hospitality of

The Ancestral Footstep.

[January,

one who represented his hereditary foe.
He felt, too, as if there were something
unworthy, a certain want of fairness,
in entering clandestinely the house, and
talking with its occupant under a veil,
as it were ; and had he seen clearly
how to do it, he would perhaps at that
moment have fairly told Mr. Eldredge
that he brought with him the character
of kinsman, and must be received on
that grade or none. But it was not
easy to do this ; and after all, there was
no clear reason why he should do it ;
so he let the matter pass, merely declin-
ing to take the refreshment, and keeping
himself quiet and retired.

Squire Eldredge seemed to be a good,
ordinary sort of gentleman, reasonably
well educated, and with few ideas be-
yond his estate and neighborhood,
thoush he had once held a seat in Par-

liament for part of a term. Middleton
could not but contrast him, with an in-
ward smile, with the shrewd, alert poli-
ticians, their faculties all sharpened to
the utmost, whom he had known and
consorted with in the American Con-
gress. Hammond had slightly informed
him that his companion was an Amer-
ican ; and Mr. Eldredge immediately
gave proof of the extent of his knowl-
edge of that country, by inquiring
whether he came from the State of New
England, and whether Mr. Webster
was still President of the United States ;
questions to which Middleton returned
answers that led to no further conversa-
tion. These little preliminaries over,
they continued their ramble through
the house, going through tortuous pas-
sages, up and down little flights of steps,
and entering chambers that had all the
charm of discoveries of hidden regions ;
loitering about, in short, in a labyrinth
calculated to put the head into a delight-
ful confusion. Some of these rooms
contained their time-honored furniture,
all in the best possible repair, heavy,
dark, polished ; beds that had been mar-
riage beds and dying beds over and over

again ; chairs with carved backs ; and
all manner of old world curiosities ;
family pictures, and samplers, and em-
broidery ; fragments of tapestry ; an in-
laid floor ; everything having a story to
it, though, to say the truth, the posses-
sor of these curiosities made but a bun-
gling piece of work in telling the le-
gends connected with them. In one or
two instances Hammond corrected him.

By and by they came to what had
once been the principal bed-room of the
house ; though its gloom, and some cir-
cumstances of family misfortune that
had happened long ago, had caused it to
fall into disrepute, in latter times ; and
it was now called the Haunted Chamber,
or the Ghost's Chamber. The furniture
of this room, however, was particularly
rich in its antique magnificence ; and
one of the principal objects was a great
black cabinet of ebony and ivory, such
as may often be seen in old English
houses, and perhaps often in the palaces
of Italy, in which country they perhaps
originated. This present cabinet was
known to have been in the house as
long ago as the reign of Queen Elizabeth,
and how much longer neither tradition
nor record told. Hammond particular-
ly directed Middleton's attention to it.

" There is nothing in this house,"
said he, " better worth your attention
than that cabinet. Consider its plan ;
it represents a stately mansion, with
pillars, an entrance, with a lofty flight
of steps, windows, and everything per-
fect. Examine it well."

There was such an emphasis in the
old man's way of speaking that Middle-
ton turned suddenly round from all that
he had been looking at, and fixed his
whole attention on the cabinet ; and
strangely enough, it seemed to be the
representative, in small, of something
that he had seen in a dream. To say
the truth, if some cunning workman had
been employed to copy his idea of the
old family mansion, on a scale of half
an inch to a yard, and in ebony and

1883.]

The Ancestral Footstep.

ivory instead of stone, he could not have
produced a closer imitation. Every-
thing was there.

" This is miraculous ! " exclaimed he.
" I do not understand it."

" Your friend seems to be curious in
these matters," said Mr. Eldredge gra-
ciously. " Perhaps he is of some trade'
that makes this sort of manufacture par-
ticularly interesting to him. You are
quite at liberty, my friend, to open the
cabinet and inspect it as minutely as
you wish. It is an article that has a
good deal to do with an obscure portion
of our family history. Look, here is
the key, and the mode of opening the
outer door of the palace, as we may call
it." So saying, he threw open the outer
door, and disclosed within the mimic
likeness of a stately entrance hall, with
a floor chequered of ebony and ivory.
There were other doors that seemed to
open into apartments in the interior of
the palace ; but when Mr. Eldredge
threw them likewise wide, they proved
to be drawers and secret receptacles,
where papers, jewels, money, anything
that it was desirable to store away se-
cretly, might be kept.

"You said, sir," said Middleton,
thoughtfully, " that your family history
contained matter of interest in reference
to this cabinet. Might I inquire what
those legends are ? "

" Why, yes," said Mr. Eldredge, mus-
ing a little. " I see no reason why I
should have any idle concealment about
the matter, especially to a foreigner and
a man whom I am never likely to see
again. You must know then, my friend,
that there was once a time when this
cabinet was known to contain the fate
of the estate and its possessors ; and if
it had held all that it was supposed to
hold, I should not now be the lord of
Pemberton Manor, nor the claimant of
an ancient title. But my father, and
his father before him, and his father be-
sides, have held the estate and prospered
on it ; and I think we may fairly con-

clude now that the cabinet contains
nothing except what we see."

And he rapidly again threw open one
after another all the numerous drawers
and receptacles of the cabinet.

" It is an interesting object," said
Middleton, after looking very closely
and with great attention at it, being
pressed thereto, indeed, by the owner's
good natured satisfaction in possessing
this rare article of vertu. "• It is ad-
mirable work," repeated he, drawing
back. " That mosaic floor, especially,
is done with an art and skill that I
never saw equaled."

There was something strange and al-
tered in Middleton's tones, that attracted
the notice of Mr. Eldredge. Looking
at him, he saw that he had grown pale,
and liad a rather bewildered air.

" Is your friend ill ? " said he. " He
has not our English rugged ness of look.
He would have done better to take a
sip of the cool tankard, and a slice of
the cold beef. He finds no such food
and drink as that in his own country, I
warrant."

" His color has come back," respond-
ed Hammond, briefly. " He does not
need any refreshment, I think, except,
perhaps, the open air."

In fact, Middleton, recovering him-
self, apologized to Mr. Hammond [El-
dredge ?] ; and as they had now seen
nearly the whole of the house, the two
visitants took their leave, with many
kindly offers on Mr. Eldredge's part to
permit the young man to view the cabi-
net whenever he wished. As they went
out of the house (it was by another door
than that which gave them entrance),
Hammond laid his hand on Middleton's
shoulder and pointed to a stone on the
threshold, on which he was about to set
his foot. " Take care ! " said he. " It
is the Bloody Footstep."

Middleton looked down and saw
something, indeed, very like the shape
of a footprint, with a hue very like that
of blood. It was a twilight sort of a

The Ancestral Footstep.

[January,

place, beneath a porch, which was much
overshadowed by trees and shrubbery.
It might have been blood ; but he rather
thought, in his wicked skepticism, that it
was a natural, reddish stain in the stone.
He measured his own foot, however, in
the Bloody Footstep, and went on.

May 10th, Monday. This is the
present aspect of the story : Middleton
is the descendant of a family long set-
tled in the United States ; his ancestor
having emigrated to New England with
the Pilgrims ; or, perhaps, at a still
earlier date, to Virginia with Raleigh's
colonists. There had been a family dis-
sension, — a bitter hostility between two
brothers in England ; on account, proba-
bly, of a love affair, the two both being
attached to the same lady. By the in-
fluence of the family on both sides, the
young lady had formed an engagement
with the elder brother, although her af-
fections had settled on the younger.
The marriage was about to take place
when the younger brother and the bride
both disappeared, and were never heard
of with any certainty afterwards ; but it
was believed at the time that he had
been killed, and in proof of it a bloody
footstep remained on the threshold of
the ancestral mansion. There were
rumors, afterwards, traditionally con-
tinued to the present day, that the
younger brother and the bride were
seen, and together, in England ; and
that some voyager across the sea had
found them living together, husband and
wife, on the other side of the Atlantic.
But the elder brother became a moody
and reserved man, never married, and
left the inheritance to the children of a
third brother, who then became the rep-
resentative of the family in England ;
and the better authenticated story was
that the second brother had really been
slain, and that the young lady (for all
the parties may have been Catholic)
had gone to the Continent and taken the
veil there. Such was the family history
as known or surmised in England, and

in the neighborhood of the manor-house,
where the Bloody Footstep still re-
mained on the threshold ; and the pos-
terity of the third brother still held the
estate, and perhaps were claimants of
an ancient baronage, long in abeyance.

Now, on the other side of the Atlan-
tic, the second brother and the young
lady had really been married, and be-
came the parents of a posterity, still
extant, of which the Middleton of the ^
romance is the surviving male. Per-
haps he had changed his name, being so
much tortured with the evil and wrong
that had sprung up in his family, so re-v.
morseful, so outraged, that he wished
to disconnect himself with all the past,
and begin life quite anew in a new
world. But both he and his wife,
though happy in one another, had been
remorsefully and sadly so ; and, with
such feelings, they had never again
communicated with their respective fam-
ilies, nor had given their children the
means of doing so. There must, I think,
have been something nearly approach-
ing to guilt on the second brother's
part, and the bride should have broken
a solemnly plighted troth to the elder
brother, breaking away from him when
almost his wife. The elder brother had
been known to have been wounded at
the time of the second brother's disap-
pearance ; and it had been the surmise
that he had received this hurt in the
personal conflict in which the latter was
slain. But in truth the second brother
had stabbed him in the emergency of
being discovered in the act of escaping
with the bride ; and this was what
weighed upon his conscience throughout
life, in America. The American family
had prolonged itself through various
fortunes, and all the ups and downs in-
cident to our institutions, until the pres-
ent day. They had some old family
documents, which had been rather care-
lessly kept; but the present representa-
tive, being an educated man, had looked
over them, and found one which inter-

1883.]

The Ancestral Footstep.

ested him strongly. It was — what was
it ? — perhaps a copy of a letter written
by his ancestor on his death-bed, telling
his real name, and relating the above
incidents. These incidents had come
down in a vague, wild way, traditionally,
in the American family, forming a won-
drous and incredible legend, which Mid- '
dleton had often laughed at, yet been
greatly interested in ; and the discovery
of this document seemed to give a cer-
tain aspect of veracity and reality to the
tradition. Perhaps, however, the doc-
ument only related to the change of
name, and made reference to certain
evidences by which, if any descendant
of the family should deem it expedient,
he might prove his hereditary identity.
The legend must be accounted for by
having been gathered from the talk of
the first ancestor and his wife. There
must be in existence, in the early rec-
ords of the colony, an authenticated
statement of this change of name, and
satisfactory proofs that the American
family, long known as Middleton, were
really a branch of the English family
of Eldredge, or whatever. And in the
legend, though not in the written doc-
ument, there must be an account of a cer-
tain magnificent, almost palatial resi-
dence, which Middleton shall presume to
be the ancestral home ; and in this pal-
ace there shall be said to be a certain
secret chamber, or receptacle, where
is reposited a document that shall com-
plete the evidence of the genealogical
descent.

Middleton is still a young man, but
already a distinguished one in his own
country ; he has entered early into poli-
tics, been sent to Congress, but having
met with some disappointments in his am-
bitious hopes, and being disgusted with
the fierceness of political contests in our
country, he has come abroad for recre-
ation and rest. His imagination has
dwelt much, in his boyhood, on the le-
gendary story of his family ; and the dis-
covery of the document has revived

these dreams. He determines to search
out the family mansion ; and thus he
arrives, bringing half of a story, being
the only part known in America, to
join it on to the other half, which is the
only part known in England. In an
introduction I must do the best I can
to state his side of the matter to the
reader, he having communicated it to
me in a friendly way, at the Consulate ;
as many people have communicated
quite as wild pretensions to English gen-
ealogies.

He comes to the midland counties of
England, where he conceives his claims
to lie, and seeks for his ancestral home ;
but there are difficulties in the way of
finding it, the estates having passed into
the female line, though still remaining
in the blood. By and by, however, he
comes to an old town where there is one
of the charitable institutions bearing the
name of his family, by whose benefi-
cence it had indeed been founded, in
Queen Elizabeth's time. He of course
becomes interested in this Hospital ; he
finds it still going on, precisely as it did
in the old days ; and all the character
and life of the establishment must be
picturesquely described. Here he gets
acquainted with an old man, an inmate
of the Hospital, who (if the uncontrol-
lable fatality of the story will permit)
must have an active influence on the
ensuing events. I suppose him to have
been an American, but to have fled his
country and taken refuge in England ;
he shall have been a man of the Nicho-
las Biddle stamp, a mighty speculator,
the ruin of whose schemes had crushed
hundreds of people, and Middleton's
father among the rest. Here he had
quitted the activity of his mind, as well
as he could, becoming a local antiquary,
etc., and he has made himself acquainted
with the family history of the Eldredges,
knowing more about it than the mem-
bers of the family themselves do. He
had known, in America (from Middle-
ton's father, who was his friend), the

The Ancestral Footstep.

[January,

legends preserved in this branch of the
family, and perhaps had been struck by
the way in which they fit into the Eng-
lish legends ; at any rate, this strikes
him when Middleton tells him his story
and shows him the document respecting
the change of name. After various con-
versations together (in which, however,
the old man keeps the secret of his own
identity, and indeed acts as mysteriously
as possible) they go together to visit
the ancestral mansion. Perhaps it
should not be in their first visit that the
cabinet, representing the stately man-
sion, shall be seen. But the Bloody
Footstep way ; which shall interest Mid-
dleton much, both because Hammond
has told him the English tradition re-
specting it, and because too the legends
of the American family made some ob-
scure allusions to his ancestor having
left blood — a bloody footstep — on the
ancestral threshold. This is the point to
which the story has now been sketched
out. Middleton finds a commonplace
old English country gentleman in posses-
sion of the estate, where his forefathers
have lived in peace for many genera-
tions ; but there must bs circumstances
contrived which shall cause Middleton's
conduct to be attended by no end of
turmoil and trouble. The old Hospitaller,
I suppose, must be the malicious agent
in this ; and his malice must be motived
in some satisfactory way. The more se-
rious question, what shall be the nature
of this tragic trouble, and how can it be
brought about ?

May llth, Tuesday. How much bet-
ter would it have been if this secret,
which seemed so golden, had remained
in the obscurity in which two hundred
years had buried it ! That deep, old,
grass-grown grave being opened, out
from it streamed into the sunshine the
old fatalities, the old crimes, the old
misfortunes, the sorrows, that seemed
to have departed from the family for-
ever. ^But it was too late now to close
it rr1^^ must follow out the thread

that led him on, — the thread of fate, if
you choose to call it so ; but rather the
impulse of an evil will, a stubborn self-
interest, a desire for certain objects of
ambition, which were preferred to what
yet were recoguized as real goods. Thus
reasoned, thus raved, Eldredge, as he
considered the things that he had done,
and still intended to do ; nor did these
perceptions make the slightest difference
in his plans, nor in the activity with '
which he set about their performance.
For this purpose, he sent for his lawyer,
and consulted him on the feasibility of
the design which he had already com-
municated to him respecting Middleton.
But the man of law shook his head, and,
though deferentially, declined to have
any active concern with a matter that
threatened to lead him beyond the
bounds which he allowed himself, into
a seductive but perilous region.

" My dear sir," said he, with some
earnestness, " you had much better con-
tent yourself with such assistance as I
can professionally and consistently give
you. Believe [me], I am willing to do
a lawyer's utmost, and to do more would
be as unsafe for the client as for the
legal adviser."

Thus left without an agent and an in-
strument, this unfortunate man had to
meditate on what means he would use
to gain his ends through his own unas-
sisted efforts. In the struggle with him-
self through which he had passed, he
had exhausted pretty much all the feel-
ings that he had to bestow on this mat-
ter ; and now he was ready to take hold
of almost any temptation that might
present itself, so long as it showed a
good prospect of success and a plausible
chance of impunity. While he was thus
musing, he heard a female voice chant-
ing some song, like a bird's among the
pleasant foliage of the trees, and soon
he saw at the end of a wood-walk Alice,
with her basket on her arm, passing on
toward the village. She looked towards
him as she passed, but made no pause

1883.]

The Ancestral Footstep.

nor yet hastened her steps, not seeming
to think it worth her while to be in-
fluenced by him. He hurried forward
and overtook her.

So there was this poor old gentleman,
his comfort utterly overthrown, decking
his white hair and wrinkled brow with
the semblance of a coronet, and only
hoping that the reality might crown and
!)Iess him before he was laid in the an-
cestral tomb. It was a real calamity ;
though by no means the greatest that
had been fished up out of the pit of
domestic discord that had been opened
anew by the advent of the American ;
and by the use which had been made
of it by the cantankerous old man of
the Hospital. Middletou, as he looked
at these evil consequences, sometimes
regretted that he had not listened to
those forebodings which had warned him
back on the eve of his enterprise ; yet
such was the strange entanglement and
interest which had wound about him,
that often he rejoiced that for once he
was engaged in something that absorbed
him fully, and the zeal for the develop-
ment of which made him careless for
the result in respect to its good or evil,
but only desirous that it show itself.
As for Alice, she seemed to skim light-
ly through all these matters, whether as
a spirit of good or ill he could not satis-
factorily judge. He could not think her
wicked ; yet her actions seemed unac-
countable on the plea that she was other-
wise. It was another characteristic
thread in the wild web of madness that
had spun itself about all the prominent
characters of our story. And when
Middleton thought of these things, he
-felt as if it might be his duty (suppos-
ing he had the power) to shovel the
earth again into the pit that he had been
the means of opening ; but also felt that,
whether duty or not, he would never
perform it.

For, you see, on the American's ar-
rival he had found the estate in the
hands of one of the descendants ; but

some disclosures consequent on his ar-
rival had thrown it into the hands of an-
other ; or at all events, had seemed to
make it apparent that justice required
that it should be so disposed of. No
sooner was the discovery made than the
possessor put on a coronet ; the new
heir had commenced legal proceedings ;
the sons of the respective branches had
come to blows and blood ; and the devil
knows what other devilish consequences
had ensued. Besides this, there was
much falling in love at cross-purposes,
and a general animosity of everybody
against everybody else, in proportion to
the closeness of the natural ties and
their obligation' to love one another.

The moral, if any moral were to be
gathered from these petty and wretched
circumstances, was, " Let the past alone :
do not seek to renew it ; press on to
higher and better things, — at all events,
to other things ; and be assured that the
right way can never be that which leads
you back to the identical shapes that you
long ago left behind. Onward, onward,
onward ! "

" What have you to do here ? " said
Alice. " Your lot is in another land.
You have seen the birthplace of your
forefathers, and have gratified your nat-
ural yearning for it; now return, and
cast in your lot with your own people,
let it be what it will. I fully believe
that it is such a lot as the world has
never yet seen, and that the faults, the
weaknesses, the errors, of your country-
men will vanish away like morning
mists before the rising sun. You can
do nothing better than to go back."

" This is strange advice, Alice," said
Middleton, gazing at her and smiling.
" Go back, with such a fair prospect be-
fore me ; that were strange indeed ! It
is enough to keep me here, that here
only I shall see you, — enough to make
me rejoice to have come, that I have
found you here."

" Do not speak in this foolish way,"
cried Alice, panting. " I am giving you

The Ancestral Footstep.

[January,

the best advice, and speaking in the
wisest way I am capable of, — speaking
on good grounds too, — and you turn
me aside with a silly compliment. I
tell you that this is no comedy in which
we are performers, but a deep, sad trag-
edy ; and that it depends most upon
you whether or no it shall be pressed
to a catastrophe. Think well of it."

"I have thought, Alice," responded
the young man, " and I must let things
take their course ; if, indeed, it depends
at all upon me, which I see no present
reason to suppose. Yet I wish you
would explain to me what you mean."

To take up the story from the point
where we left it : by the aid of the
American's revelations, some light is
thrown upon points of family history,
which induce the English possessor of
the estate to suppose that the time has
come for asserting his claim to a title
which has long been in abeyance. He
therefore sets about it, and engages in
great expenses, besides contracting the
enmity of many persons, with whose in-
terests he interferes. A further compli-
cation is brought about by the secret in-
terference of the old Hospitaller, and
Alice goes singing and dancing through
the whole, in a way that makes her seem
like a beautiful devil, though finally it
will be recognized that she is an angel of
light. Middleton, half bewildered, can
scarcely tell how much of this is due to
his own agency ; how much is independ-
ent of him and would have happened had
he stayed on his own side of the water.
By and by a further and unexpected de-
velopment presents the singular fact that
he himself is the heir to whatever claims
there are, whether of property or rank,
— all centring in him as the represen-
tative of the eldest brother. On this
discovery there ensues a tragedy in the
death of the present possessor of the
estate, who has staked everything upon
the issue ; and Middleton, standing amid
the ruin and desolation of which he has
been the innocent cause, resigns all the

claims which he might now assert, and
retires, arm in arm with Alice, who has
encouraged him to take this course, and
to act up to his character. The estate
takes a passage into the female line, and
the old name becomes extinct, nor does
Middleton seek to continue it by resum-
ing it in place of the one long ago as-
sumed by his ancestor. Thus he and
his wife become the Adam and Eve of
a new epoch, and the fitting missiona-
ries of a new social faith, of which
there must be continual hints through
the book.

A knot of characters may be intro-
duced as gathering around Middleton,
comprising expatriated Americans^ all
sorts ; the wandering printer who came
to me so often at the Consulate, who
said he was a native of Philadelphia, and
could not go home in the thirty years
that he had been trying to do so, for
lack of the money to pay his passage. '
The large banker ; the consul of Leeds ;
the woman asserting her claims to half
Liverpool ; the gifted literary lady, mad-
dened by Shakespeare, &c., &c. The
Yankee who had been driven insane by
the Queen's notice, slight as it was, of
the photographs of his two children
which he had sent her. I have not
yet struck the true key-note of this Ro-
mance, and until I do, and unless I do, 1
shall write nothing but tediousness and
nonsense. I do not wish it to be a pic-
ture of life, but a Romance, grim, gro-
tesque, quaint, of which the Hospital
might be the fitting scene. It might
have so much of the hues of life that
the reader should sometimes think it
was intended for a picture, yet the at-
mosphere should be such as to excuse all
wildness. In the Introduction, I might
disclaim all intention to draw a real pic-
ture, but say that the continual meetings
I had, with Americans bent on such
errands had suggested this wild story.
The descriptions of scenery, &c., and of
the Hospital, might be correct, but there
should be a tinge of the grotesque given

1883.] A Summer Pilgrimage. 63

to all the characters and events. The would readily arrange itself around that
tragic and the gentler pathetic need not nucleus. The begging-girl would be
be excluded by the tone and treatment, another American character ; the actress
If I could but write one central scene too ; the caravan people. It must be a
in this vein, all the rest of the Romance humorous work, or nothing.

Nathaniel Hawthorne.

A SUMMER PILGRIMAGE.

To kneel before some saintly shrine,
To breathe the health of airs divine,
Or bathe where sacred rivers flow,
The cowled and turbaned pilgrims go.
I too, a palmer, take, as they
With staff and scallop-shell, my way
To feel, from burdening cares and ills,
The strong uplifting of the hills.

The years are many since, at first,
For dreamed-of wonders all athirst,
I saw on Wionepesaukee fall
The shadow of the mountain wall.
Ah ! where are they who sailed with me
The beautiful island-studded sea ?
And am I he whose keen surprise
Flashed out from such unclouded eyes ?

Still, when the sun of summer burns,
My longing for the hills returns ;
And northward, leaving at my back
The warm vale of the Merrimac,
I go to meet the winds of morn,
Blown down the hill-gaps, mountain-born,
Breathe scent of pines, and satisfy
The hunger of a lowland eye.

Again I see the day decline
Along a ridged horizon line ;
Touching the hill-tops, as a nun
Her beaded rosary, sinks the sun.
One lake lies golden, which shall soon
Be silver in the rising moon ;
And one, the crimson of the skies
And mountain purple multiplies.

With the untroubled quiet blends
The distance-softened voice of friends ;

64: A Summer Pilgrimage. [January,

The girl's light laugh no discord brings
To the low song the pine-tree sings ;
And, not unwelcome, comes the hail
Of boyhood from his nearing sail.
The human presence breaks no spell,
And sunset still is miracle!

Calm as the hour, methiuks I feel

A sense of worship o'er me steal ;

Not that of satyr-charming Pan,

No cult of Nature shaming man,

Not Beauty's self, but that which lives

And shines through all the veils it weaves, —

Soul of the mountain, lake, and wood,

Their witness to the Eternal Good!

And if, by fond illusion, here

The earth to heaven seems drawing near,

And yon outlying range invites

To other and serener heights,

Scarce hid behind its topmost swell,

The shining Mounts Delectable !

A dream may hint of truth no less

Than the sharp light of wakefulness.

As through her veil of incense smoke

Of, old the spell-rapt priestess spoke,

More than her heathen oracle,

May not this trance of sunset tell

That Nature's forms of loveliness

Their heavenly archetypes confess,

Fashioned like Israel's ark alone

From patterns in the Mount made known ?

A holier beauty overbroods
These fair and faint similitudes;
Yet not unblest is he who sees
The dreams of God's realities,
And knows beyond this masquerade
Of shape and color, light and shade,
And dawn and set, and wax acd wane,
Eternal verities remain.

0 gems of sapphire, granite set !

0 hills that charmed horizons fret !

1 know how fair your morns can break,
In rosy light on isle and lake ;

How over wooded slopes can run
The noon-day play of cloud and sun,
And evening .droop her oriflamme
Of gold and red in still Asquam.

1883.]

An After-Breakfast Talk. 65

The summer moons may round again,
And careless feet these hills profane ;
These sunsets waste on vacant eyes
The lavish splendor of the skies ;
Fashion and folly, misplaced here,
Sigh for their natural atmosphere,
And traveled pride the outlook scorn
Of lesser heights than Matterhorn :

But let me dream that hill and sky
Of unseen beauty prophesy ;
And in these tinted lakes behold
The trailing of the raiment fold
Of that which, still eluding gaze,
Allures to upward-tending ways,
Whose footprints make, wherever found,
Our common earth a holy ground.

John Greenleaf Whittier.

AN AFTER-BREAKFAST TALK.

THE early readers of The Atlantic
Monthly will permit me, as an acquaint-
ance of long standing, to speak freely
with them from its pages, and, as it were,
face to face. They have met me often :
sometimes in my avowed personality ;
sometimes under a transparent mask,
which might be a shield, but could not
be a disguise.

Twenty-five years ago I introduced
myself to them, in the first number of
this magazine, as The Autocrat of the
Breakfast-Table. Twenty-five years be-
fore that time, under the same title, in
the pages of the New England Maga-
zine, I had asked the public to sit down
with me at my morning refection. I
should blush to think of the entertain-
ment to which I invited the readers of
that earlier periodical, had I not learned
charity to myself in noting the errors
of taste and judgment of other young
writers, often subjecting them to pitiless
criticism as the reward of their first
efforts. The second board was spread
more satisfactorily to the entertainer,

VOL. n. — NO. 303. 5

and, I have a right to believe, to the
guests. This, then, is the silver anni-
versary year of my wedding with the
Muse of the Monthlies, and the golden
anniversary year of my betrothal, if I
may look upon those earlier papers as a
pledge of future alliance.

During the larger part of this long
period my time has been in great meas-
ure occupied with other duties. I never
forgot the advice of Coleridge, that a
literary man should have a regular call-
ing. I may say, in passing, that I have
often given this advice to others, and
too often wished I could supplement it
with the words and confine himself to
it. For authorship, and especially poet-
ical authorship, is one of the common-
est signs of mental weakness, for which
the best tonic is found in steady occu-
pation, — professional, mechanical, or
other, — some daily task, fairly compen-
sated, useful, habitual, and therefore
largely automatic, and thus economical
of the slender intellectual endowments
and limited vital resources which are so

An After-Breakfast Talk.

[January,

very frequently observed in association
with typomania.

The time has come in which I have
felt it best to resign to younger hands
the duties of the Professorship I have
held for more than the years of one
generation. I hope, while not forget-
ting the natural laws, which hint to me
and my coevals, as they whispered to
Emerson,

" It is time to be old,
To take in sail,"

— I hope, I say (for who can promise,
at such a stage of life ?), to find increased
leisure for these pages, to which more
than any others I am accustomed. There
must be some spare hours, and may be
some residual energy, at my disposal,
now that the lecture-room, which has
known me so long, is to know me no
more.

Let me venture to say something of
the experiences I have had as a writer
since I began a new literary career with
the first number of this magazine.

I cannot deny that the kindness with
which my contributions to this periodical
have been received has proved a great
source of gratification to me, — more
than I could have expected or was pre-
pared for. When I sat down to write the
first paper I sent to The Atlantic Month-
ly, I felt somewhat as a maiden of more
than mature efflorescence may be sup-
posed to feel as she paces down the
broad aisle, in her bridal veil and with
her wreath of orange-blossoms. I had
written little of late years. I was at that
time older than Goldsmith was when he
died; and Goldsmith, as Dr. Johnson
said, was a plant that flowered late. A
new generation had grown up since I
had written the verses by which, if re-
membered at all, I was best known. I
honestly feared that I might prove the
superfluous veteran who has no business
behind the footlights. I can as honestly
say that it turned out otherwise ; I was
most kindly welcomed.

And now I am looking back on that

far-off time as the period, I will not say
of youth, — for I was close upon the
five-barred gate of the cinquantaine,
though I had not yet taken the leap, —
but of marrowy and vigorous manhood.
Those were the days of unaided vision,
of acute hearing, of alert movements,
of feelings almost boyish in their vi-
vacity. It is a long cry from the end
of the second quarter of a century in
a man's life to the end of the third
quarter. His companions have fallen
all around him, and he finds himself in
a newly peopled world. His mental
furnishing looks old-fashioned and fad-
ed to the generation which is crowd-
ing about him, with its new patterns
and its fresh colors. Shall he throw open
his apartments to visitors, or is it not
wiser to live on his memories in a de-
corous privacy, and not risk himself be-
fore the keen young eyes and relent-
less judgment of the new-comers, who
have grown up in strength and self-reli-
ance while he has been losing force and
confidence ?

If that feeling came over me a quar-
ter of a century ago, it is not strange
that it comes back upon me now. Hav-
ing laid down the burden which for
more than thirty-five years I have car-
ried cheerfully, I might naturally seek
the quiet of my chimney corner, and
purr away the twilight of my life un-
heard beyond the circle about my own
fire-place. But when I see what my living
contemporaries are doing, I am shamed
out of absolute inertness and silence.
The men of my birth-year are so pain-
fully industrious at this very time that
one of the same date hardly dares to be
idle. I look across the Atlantic, and see
Mr. Gladstone, only four months young-
er than myself, standing erect with Pat-
rick's grievances on one shoulder and
Pharaoh's pyramids on the other, —
an Atlas whose intervals of repose are
paroxysms of learned labor ; I listen to
Tennyson, another birth of the same
year, filling the air with melody long

1883.]

An After- Breakfast Talk.

after the singing months of life's sum-
mer are over ; I come nearer home,
and here is my very dear friend and col-
lege classmate, so certain to be in every
good movement with voice, or pen, or
both, that where two or three are gath-
ered together for useful ends, if James
Freeman Clarke is not there, it is be-
cause he is busy with a book or a dis<-
course meant for a larger audience ; I
glance at the placards on the blank wall
I am passing, and there I see the colos-
sal head of Barnum, the untiring, inex-
haustible, insuperable, ever triumphant
and jubilant Barnum, who came to his
atmospheric life less than a year after I
began breathing the fatal mixture, and
still wages Titanic battle with his own
past superlatives. How can one dare
to sit down inactive, with such examples
before him ? One must do something,
were it nothing more profitable than the
work of that dear old Penelope, of al-
most ninety years, whom I so well re-
member, hemming over and over again
the same piece of linen, her attendant's
scissors removing each day's work at
evening ; herself, meantime, being kindly
nursed in the illusion that she was still
the useful Martha of the household.

Some of my earlier friends, possibly
some of my newer and younger ones,
may like to get a lesson or two from
the record of a writer who has been for-
tunate enough to secure a considerably
extended circle of readers. The school-
ing he has had will recall to many
brother and sister authors what they
themselves have been through, and will
show those who are beginning a life of
authorship what may come to them by
and by.

An author may interest his public
by his work, or by his personality, or by
both. A great mathematician or meta-
physician may be lost sight of in his own
intellectual wealth, as a great capitalist
becomes at last the mere appendage of
his far more important millions. There
is, on the other hand, a class of writers

whose individuality is the one thing we
care about. The world could get along
without their help, but it wants their
company. We are not so very curious
about the details of the life of Gauss,
but we do want to know a good deal
about Richter. Sir William Rowan
Hamilton invented, or developed, the
doctrine of quaternions ; but we do not
care very particularly about his domestic
annals, the migrations from the blue bed
to the brown, and the rest. But poor,
dear Charles Lamb, — we can hardly
withhold the pitying epithet, since the
rough Scotchman brought up against
him, as one of his own kale-pots might
have shivered a. quaint and precious am-
phora, — poor, dear Charles, — he did
not invent any grand formula, he certain-
ly had not the lever of Archimedes, but
he 'had a personality which was quite
apart from that of all average human-
ity, and he is adopted as one of the
pleasantest inmates of memory. It is
enough to say of many men that they
are interesting. And we are content to
say of many others that they are useful,
virtuous, praiseworthy, illustrious, even,
by what they have achieved, but un'm-
teresting, and we do not greatly care to
hear anything about them apart from
their work.

Nobody is interesting to all the world.
An author who is spoken of as univer-
sally admired will find, if he is foolish
enough to inquire, that there are not
wanting intelligent persons who are in-
different to him, nor yet those who have
a special and emphatic dislike to him. If
there were another Homer, there would
be another Homeromastix. An author
should know that the very characteris-
tics which make him the object of ad-
miration to many, and endear him to
some among them, will render him an
object of dislike to a certain number of
individuals of equal, it may be of supe-
rior, intelligence. Doubtless God never
made a better berry than the strawberry,
yet it is a poison to a considerable num-

An After-Breakfast Talk.

[January,

her of persons. There are those who
dislike the fragrance of the water - lily,
and those in whom the smell of a rose
produces a series of those convulsions
known as sneezes. He (or she) who
ventures into authorship must expect to
encounter occasional instances of just
such antipathy, of which he and all that
he does are the subjects. Let him take
it patiently. What is thus out of accord
with the temperament or the mood of
his critic may not be blamable ; nay, it
may be excellent. But Zoilus does not
like it or the writer, — the reason why
he cannot tell, perhaps, but he does not
like either ; and he is in his rights, and
the author must sit still and let the critic
play off his idiosyncrasies against his
own.

There is a converse to all this, which
it is much pleasanter to contemplate and
to experience. Let us suppose an au-
thor to have some distinguishing per-
sonal quality, which shows itself in what
he writes, and by which he is known
from all other writers. There will be in-
dividuals — they may be few, they may
be many — who will so instantly recog-
nize, so eagerly accept, so warmly adopt,
even so devoutly idolize, the writer in
question that self-love itself, dulled as
its palate is by the hot spices of praise,
draws back overcome by the burning
stimulants of adoration. I was told,
not long since, by one of our most just-
ly admired authoresses, that a corre-
spondent wrote to her that she had read
one of her stories fourteen times in suc-
cession.

There is a meaning, and a deep one,
in these elective affinities. Most things

which we call odd are even in the econ-
omy of nature. Each personality is
more or less completely the complement
of some other : of some one, perhaps,
exactly ; of others nearly enough to
have a special significance for them.
A reader is frequently ignorant of what
he wants until he happens to fall in
with the w«iter who has the complemen-

tary element of which he is in need.
Then he finds the nourishment he
wanted in the intellectual or spiritual
food before him, or has his failing ap-
petite revived by the stimulus of a mind
more highly vitalized than his own.
The sailor who has fed on salted provis-
ions until he is half crystallized wreaks
his hunger upon a fresh potato as if it
were a fruit of the tree of life. The
dumb cattle who feel their blood getting
watery make for the salt-licks, and sea-
son their diluted fluids. So with many
readers : they find new life in the essay
or poem which the reviewer, treating
de haul en bas, as is his wont, has con-
demned from his lofty eminence, in re-
ality only because it was not of the kind
that his own need, if he felt any gap in
his omniscience, called for. An epicure
might as well find fault with the sail-
or's potato because it was not properly
cooked, — in fact, not cooked at all ; or
order the herds to be driven from the
salt-lick, because it was not a succulent
pasture.

It should never be forgotten by the
critic that every grade of mental devel-
opment demands a literature of its own ;
a little above its level, that it may be
lifted to a higher grade, but not too
much above it, so that it requires too
long a stride, — a stairway, not a steep
wall to climb. The true critic is not
the sharp captator verborum ; not the
brisk epigrammatist, showing off his own
cleverness, always trying to outflank the
author against whom he has arrayed his
wits and his learning. He is a man
who knows the real wants of the read-
ing world, and can prize at their just
value the writings which meet those
wants. I remember, many years ago,
happening to speak, before a certain
clergyman, of the great convenience
I had found in having Mrs. Cowden
Clarke's Concordance to the plays of
Shakespeare always at hand. He spoke
scornfully, naso adunco, of the poor
creature who could require an index to

1883.]

An After- Breakfast Talk.

such familiar productions. No doubt he
remembered every line and every word
of the distinguished author, — at least it
was fair to presume so, — but there are
some who might not feel quite certain
about every passage, and would not be
ashamed to consult the volume he could
dispense with. The organs of criticism
swarm with just such prigs and pretend-
ers, and the young author must be pre-
pared to run the gauntlet through a
double row of them. Happy for him if
he can keep his temper, and profit by
their rough handling; satisfy them he
never can.

In spite of the positive verdicts of the
soundest criticism, we must not forget
that each individual has always his right
of peremptory challenge, his right to
like or dislike, for the simple reason that
he is what he is, and none other. The
writer who attains a certain measure of
popularity, so as to reach a consider-
able variety of readers, must be ready
for a trial more dangerous than that
running the gauntlet just spoken of.
He will be startled to find himself the
object of an embarrassing devotion, and
almost appropriation, by some of his par-
ish of readers. He will blush, at his
lonely desk, as he reads the extrava-
gances of expression which pour over
him like the oil which ran down upon
the beard of Aaron, and even down to
the skirts of his garments, — an ex-
treme unction which seems hardly de-
sirable. We ought to have his photo-
graph as he reads one of those frequent
missives, oftenest traced, we may giess,
in the delicate slanting hand whica be-
trays the slender fingers of the sympa-
thetic sisterhood. A slight sense of the
ridiculous at being made so much of
qualifies the placid tolerance with which
the rhymester or the essayist sees him-
self preferred to the great masters in
prose and verse, and reads his name
glowing in a halo of epithets which
might belong to Bacon or Milton. ~\Ye
need not grudge him such pleasure as

he may derive from the illusion of a
momentary revery, in which he dreams
of himself as clad in royal robes and
exalted among the immortals. The
nexb post will very probably bring him
some slip from a newspaper or critical
journal, which will strip him of his re-
galia, as Thackeray, in one of his illus-
trations, has disrobed and denuded the
Grand Monarque. He saw himself but
a moment ago a colossal figure, in a dra-
pery of rhetorical purple, ample enough
for an emperor, as Bernini would clothe
him. The image- breaker has passed
by, belittling him by comparison, jostling
him off his pedestal, levelling his most
prominent feature, or even breaking a
whole ink-bottle against him, as the in-
dignant moralist did on the figure in the
vestibule of the opera-house, — the short-
est'and most effective satire that ever
came from 'that fountain of approval
and condemnation. Such are some of
the varied experiences of authorship.

To be known as a writer is to become
public property. Every book a writer
publishes — say, rather, every line he
traces — is an open sesame as good as
a latch-key for some one ; it may bo
some score, or hundreds, or thousands.
The already recognized author, with
whom his affinities may be more or less
strong, takes his hand as a brother, —
after the public has accepted him, —
sometimes before. The unsuccessful
authors, whose efforts find their natural
habitat in the waste-baskets of the mag-
azines and newspapers, seeing that he
is afloat, struggle to the surface through
the dark waves of oblivion, and grasp
at him, in the vain hope that he can
keep their heads, as well as his own,
above water. The hitherto undiscov-
ered twentieth cousin starts up in the
huckleberry bushes, and claims him as
a relative. That citizen of the world, the
borrower whose remittances hav-e failed
to reach him, is at hand to share the
good fortune of his literary friend, whose
works, as he says, have been his travel-

An After-Breakfast Talk.

[January,

ling companions from China to Peru.
The poet with his manuscript, the read-
er with his larynx, invade his premises,
and he must read and listen, perhaps to
his own verses, until

He back recoils, he knows not why,
E'en at the lines himself has made.

Rejoice, O man of many editions !
You have sold your books, — yes, and
you have sold your time, your privacy,
your right hand, if that is the one you
hold your pen in, and a slice of your
immortal soul with it ! For if you do
not sooner or later explode in all the
maledictions of Ernulphus and Atha-
nasius, you are gifted with a patience
that Job Ihe all-enduring might have
envied.

There is one more trial which touches
the finest sensibilities of an author.
The reader who has adopted him as his
favorite, or his object of admiration, has
formed an ideal of his person, his ex-
pression, his voice, his manner. How
rarely does an author correspond to this
ideal picture ! How often is the visitor
who has made a pilgrimage to the shrine
of his demigod disappointed, disen-
chanted, and sent off regretting that he
has exchanged his false image for the
real presence ! Let every pilgrim on
his way to his idol's temple read Miss
Edgeworth's " Angelina, or L'Amie In-
connue."

Now as to all these troubles of author-
ship, there are two ways of dealing with
them. An author has a perfect right
to say, " I am not on exhibition, like
the fat boy or the double-headed lady.
If I were, I should charge the usual
price for admission to the show. It is
not my profession to write letters to
strangers, who consult me on all manner
of questions involving their private in-
terests. If it were, I should keep an
office and one or more secretaries to
help me attend to the wants of appli-
cants, and I should expect the fees of a
lawyer or a physician. I will not be ' in-

terviewed ' by persons of whom I know
nothing. I will not answer letters from
all parts of the country and far-off lands,
from those who have no personal claim
upon me. These people have no right
to invade my premises, and appropriate
my hours of labor, and I will have my
rights, even if I am an author."

This is one way of looking at the
question, and I am by no means sure
that, hard and almost churlish as it seems,
it is not, on the whole, the wisest for all
concerned. Sooner or later the burden
of correspondence becomes so heavy as
to be insupportable, unless some short
and easy method can be found of deal-
ing with epistolary aggressions ; such,
for instance, as a printed formula, or a
number of such formulae, which the au-
thor can sign by the dozen, and which
will in the large majority of cases answer
every purpose. This is the plan Willis
adopted and announced, long ago. He
had the name of being very kind to his
correspondents, but he found their ex-
actions were wearing him out, — an ex-
perience which others have had since his
time. One of our most recent foreign
visitors, a very distinguished person, told
me that he made use of a lithographed
form of answer to his correspondents.

It must not be forgotten, on the other
hand, that all human beings have a cer-
tain claim on each other. The writer
who has attained success owes some-
thing to those who are struggling to at-
tain it. It is perfectly true that the
greatest number of young persons who
write to noted authors are entirely des-
titute of any exceptional talent which
gives them a claim to be encouraged to
devote themselves to literary pursuits.
Still, they are fellow-creatures, and if
Nature has denied them the gifts which
th'ey fondly believe themselves to pos-
sess, they are entitled, not to our scorn
and ridicule, but to our tender consider-
ation. We never laugh at the idiot,
but we are too ready to make sport of
the weakling. On the whole, it is bet-

1883.]

An After-Breakfast Talk.

ter to handle a feeble literary aspirant
gently, and let him print his little book,
— for that is the natural crisis of his
complaint. Let him, did I say ? The
powers of the universe could not pre-
vent him from doing it. He asks your
advice, and all the time he has his proof
sheets in his desk or his pocket. « And
it must never be forgotten that in the
midst of the weeds of vanity and folly,
at any time, in some unexpected way,
in the place where you never thought
of looking for it, may spring up the
shoot which will flower by and by as
genius. Fortunately, as a general- rule,
mediocrity betrays itself in the first line
or the first sentence of its manifesto.
The aspiring author expects his success-
ful elder brother to read a dozen of his
poems, or the whole of his story ; he
does not remember, if he knows, that
ex linea Bavium is as true as ex pede
Herculem.

Between the author's just right to
his time and the claims which a kind
heart makes it impossible not to listen
to, many writers who have gained the
ear of the public, and who pass for ami-
able and well-disposed persons, in this
country, as doubtless in others, have
found themselves not a little perplexed.
The late meeting of those interested in
the subject, of which many of our read-
ers may not have heard, seems to have
adjusted these conflicting interests in
a manner which, it may be hoped, will
prove satisfactory to all concerned. It
only remains to carry out the provis-
ions which, after long deliberation, were
unanimously agreed upon as express-
ing the sense of the meeting. Some
extracts from the minutes of the proceed-
ings have been put in my hands by the
secretary, and are here reproduced, be-
ing now printed for the first time. It
is hoped that they will be generally read
by the two classes of persons to whom
their provisions more especially apply,
namely, authors and their visitors and
correspondents.

Abstract of the Record of Proceedings of
The Association of Authors for Self-
Protection, at a Meeting held at Wash-
ington, September 31, 1882.

PREAMBLE.

Whereas there is prevalent in the
community an opinion that he or she
who has written and published a book
belongs thenceforward to everybody but
himself or herself, and may be called
upon by any person for any gratuitous
service for which he or she is wanted ;
and Whereas we believe that some
rights do still remain to authors (mean-
ing by that term writers of both sexes),
notwithstanding the fact of such writ-
ing and publication ; and Whereas we
have found it impossible to make a
stand in our individual capacity against
the various forms of tyranny which
have grown out of the opinion above
mentioned, we do hereby unite and con-
stitute ourselves a joint body for the
purpose and by the title above named.

OF THE PROPERTY OF AUTHORS.

This does not consist, for the most
pa"rt, of what is called real, or of what is
called personal, estate, but lies chiefly in
that immaterial and intangible posses-
sion known in its general expression as
time, or in special portions, as days,
hours, minutes, and seconds. If the au-
thor is fortunate enough to own the
piece of mechanism commonly called a
clock, his timepiece will be found to
mark and measure sixty seconds to the
minute, sixty minutes to the hour, and
twenty-four hours to the day, and no
more, like the timepieces of other own-
ers ; which fact is contrary to the appar-
ent belief of many of his visitors and
correspondents. ,

OF THE PERSONS OF AUTHORS.

It is not to be considered that author-
ship entirely changes the author to a
being of a different nature. He or she

An After-Breakfast Talk.

[January,

is entitled to the common kind of con-
sideration which belongs to humanity in
general. Bodily defects and infirmities
are not fit subjects for public comment,
especially in the case of women, to
whom the spretce injuria formce is an
unforgivable offence. And so of all
the ordinary decencies of life ; the au-
thor is to be considered as having the
same rights as the general public.

OF VISITS OF STRANGERS TO AUTHORS.

Visits of Curiosity or Admiration.
These are not always distinguishable
from each other, and may be consid-
ered together. The stranger should
send up his card, if he has one ; if he
has none, he should, if admitted, at once
announce himself and his object, without
circumlocution, as thus : " My name is
M. or N. from X. or Y. I wish to see
and take the hand of a writer whom I
have long admired for his," etc., etc.
Here the Author should extend his hand,
and reply in substance as follows: "I
am pleased to see you, my dear sir, and
very glad that anything I have written
has been a source of pleasure or profit
to you." The visitor has now had what
he says he came for, and, after making
a brief polite acknowledgment, should
retire, unless, for special reasons, he is
urged to stay longer.

Visits of Interviewers. The inter-
viewer is a product of over-civilization,
who does for the living what the under-
taker does for the dead, taking such
liberties as he chooses with the subject
of his mental and conversational ma-
nipulations, whom he is to arrange for
public inspection. The interview sys-
tem has its legitimate use ; is often a
convenience to politicians, and may even
gratify the vanity and serve the inter-
ests of, an author. In its abuse it is an
infringement of the liberty of the private
citizen, to be ranked with the edicts of
the Council of Ten, the Decrees of the
Star-Chamber, the Lettres de Cachet,
and the visits of the Inquisition. The

Interviewer, if excluded, becomes au
enemy, and has the columns of a news-
paper at his service, in which to revenge
himself. If admitted, the Interviewed is
at the mercy of the Interviewer's mem-
ory, if he is the best meaning of men ;
of his inaccuracy, if he is careless ; of
his malevolence if he is ill-disposed ; of
his prejudices, if he has any ; and of his
sense of propriety, at any rate.

In consideration of the possible abuses
arising from the privilege granted to, or
rather usurped by, the irresponsible in-
dividuals who exercise the function of
domiciliary inspection, it is proposed to
place the whole business under legal
restrictions, in accordance with the plan
here sketched for consideration, and
about to be submitted to the judgment
of all our local governments.

— A licensed corps of Interviewers, to
be appointed by the municipal author-
ities. — Each Interviewer to wear in a
conspicuous position a Number and a
Badge, for which the following emblems
and inscriptions are suggested : Zephy-
rus with his lips at the ear of Boreas,
who holds a speaking-trumpet; signify-
ing 'that what is said by the Interviewed
in a whisper will be shouted to the
world by the Interviewer through that
brazen instrument. For mottoes, either
of the following : Foznum habet in cor-
nu ; Hunc tu, Romane, caveto. — No
person to be admitted to the Corps
of Interviewers without a strict pre-
liminary examination. — The candidate
to be proved free from color-blindness
and amblyopia, ocular and mental stra-
bismus, double refraction of memory,
kleptomania, mendacity of more than
average dimensions, and tendency to
alcoholic endosmosis. — His moral and
religious character to be vouched for by
three orthodox clergymen of the same
belief, and as many deacons who agree
with them and with each other. — All
reports to be submitted to the Inter-
viewed, and the proofs thereof to be

1883.]

An After-Breakfast Talk.

corrected and sanctioned by him before
being given to the public.

Until the above provisions are carried
into effect, no record of an alleged In-
terview to be considered as anything
more than the untrustworthy gossip of
an irresponsible impersonality.

OF UNKNOWN CORRESPONDENTS.'

Of Autograph- Seekers. The increase
in the number of applicants for auto-
graphs is so great that it has become
necessary to adopt positive regulations
to protect the Author from the exorbi-
tant claims of this class of virtuosos.
The following propositions were adopt-
ed without discussion : —

— No author is under any obligation
to answer any letter from an unknown
person applying for his autograph. If
he sees fit to do so, it is a gratuitous
concession on his part

— No stranger should ask for more
than one autograph.

— No stranger should request an au-
thor to copy a poem, or even a verse.
He should remember that he is one
of many thousands ; that a thousand fleas
are worse than one hornet, and that a
mob of mosquitoes will draw more blood
than a single horse-leech.

— Every correspondent applying for
an autograph should send a card or
blank paper, in a stamped envelope di-
rected to himself (or herself). If he
will not take the trouble to attend to all
this, which he can just as well do as
make the author do it, he must not ex-
pect the author to make good his defi-
ciencies. [Accepted by acclamation.]

— Sending a stamp does not consti-
tute a claim on an author for an answer.
[Received with loud applause.] The
stamp may be retained by the author,
or, what is better, devoted to the use
of some appropriate charity, as, for in-
stance, the Asylum for Idiots and Fee-
ble-Minded Persons.

— No stranger should expect an au-

thor to send him or her his photograph.
These pictures cost money, and it may
not be convenient to an impecunious
celebrity to furnish them to the appli-
cants, who are becoming singularly
numerous.

— Albums. An album of decent ex-
ternal aspect may, without impropriety,
be offered to an author, with the request
that he will write his name therein. It
is not proper, as a general rule, to ask
for anything more than the name. The
author may, of course, add a quotation
from his writings, or a sentiment, if so
disposed ; but this must be considered as
a work of supererogation, and an excep-
tional manifestation of courtesy.

— Bed-quilt Autographs. It should
be a source of gratification to an author
to contribute to the soundness of his
reader's slumbers, if he cannot keep
him awake by his writings. He should
therefore cheerfully inscribe his name
on the scrap of satin or other stuff (pro-
vided always that it be sent him in a
stamped and directed envelope}, that it
may take its place in the patch-work
mosaic for which it is intended.

Letters of Admiration. These may be
accepted as genuine, unless they contain
specimens of the writer's own composi-
tion, upon which a critical opinion is
requested, in which case they are to be
regarded in the same light as medicated
sweetmeats : namely, as meaning more
than their looks imply. Genuine letters
of admiration, being usually considered
by the recipient as proofs of good taste
and sound judgment on the part of his
unknown correspondent, may be safely
left to his decision as to whether they
shall be answered or not.

Questioning Letters. These are com-
monly fraudulent in their nature, their
true intent being to obtain an autograph
letter in reply. They should be an-
swered, if at all, by a clerk or secretary;
which will be satisfactory to the corre-

An After-Breakfast Talk.

[January,

spondent, if he only wishes for informa-
tion, and will teach him not to try to
obtain anything by false pretences, if
his intent was what it is, for the most
part, in letters of this kind.

Letters asking Advice. An author is
not of necessity a competent adviser
on all subjects. He is expected, never-
theless, to advise unknown persons as
to their health of body and mind, their
religion, their choice of a profession ;
on matrimony, on education, on courses
of reading ; and, more especially, to lay
down a short and easy method for ob-
taining brilliant and immediate success
in a literary career. These applicants,
if replied to at all, should be directed to
the several specialists who are compe-
tent to answer their questions. Literary
aspirants commonly send a specimen
of their productions in prose or verse,
oftenest the latter. They ask for criti-
cism, but they want praise, which they
very rarely deserve. If a sentence can
be extracted from any letter written
them which can help an advertisement,
the publisher of their little volume will
get hold of it. They demoralize kiud-
hearted authors by playing on their good-
nature, and leading them to express
judgments not in conformity with their
own standards. They must be taught
the lesson that authors are not the same
thing as editors and publishers, whose
business it is to examine manuscripts
intended for publication, and to whom
their applications should be addressed.

— No stranger whose letter has been
answered by an Author should consider
himself (or herself) as having opened a
correspondence with the personage ad-
dressed. Once replied to, he (or she)
should look upon himself (or herself) as
done with, unless distinctly requested or
encouraged to write again.

Invitations. An Author cannot and
must not be expected to accept most of

the invitations he is constantly receiving.
The fact of noted authorship should be
considered equivalent to a perpetual pre-
vious engagement. A formal answer
to an invitation shall discharge him from
further duty, and he shall not be taxed
to contribute in prose or verse to occa-
sions in, which he has no special inter-
est, or any other, unless so disposed.

— Private Letters of Authors. No pri-
vate letter of any Author, and no ex-
tract from such letter, shall be printed
without his permission, or without giv-
ing him the opportunity of correcting the
proof, as in the case of any other publi-
cation of what he has written. If any
letter, or extract from a letter, of an
Author is printed in violation of these
obvious rights and duties, the Author
shall not be held responsible for any
statement such letter or extract may be
alleged to contain ; and those who pub-
lish any such alleged statement as hav-
ing been made by the Author in ques-
tion shall be considered as taking part
in the original violation of confidence,
unless they defend the Author against
all unfavorable inferences drawn from
said letter or extract.

Of Books sent to Authors. An Author
is not bound to read any book sent him
by a stranger. He is not under any ob-
ligation to express his opinion of any
book so sent, whether said opinion is
to be used as a Publisher's advertise-
ment or not. An acknowledgment, with
thanks, is to be reckoned a discharge of
all obligations to the sender.

Of Remembering introduced Strangers.
Strangers who have had an introduc-
tion to an Author have no right to ex-
pect that their faces will be remembered
by him as well as they remember his.
This is especially true of persons of the
female sex who are youthful and come-
ly, and for this reason have a certain
resemblance to each other. If such

1883.]

Wagner's Parsifal.

youthful and comely individuals identify
the Author before he shows, by the us-
ual mark of courtesy, that he recognizes
them, they need riot think themselves
intentionally slighted, but may address
him freely, and he will not take offence
at being spoken to before speaking.

The above rules are to be considered
applicable only to strangers having no
special claim upon the author.

The Association may be found fault
with for passing these resolves, some of
which may sound harshly in the ears of
certain readers, who have not acted in

accordance with their precepts. But it
must be remembered that it is almost a
question of life and death with Authors.
This cannot be considered too strong

an expression, when we remember that
Pope was driven to exclaim, a century
and a half ago, —

"Fatigued, I said,
Tie up the knocker; say I 'm sick, I 'm dead.1'

In obtaining and giving to the public
this abstract of the Proceedings of the
Association, I have been impelled by
the same feelings of humanity which
led me to join the Society for the Pre-
vention of Cruelty to Animals, believ-
ing that the sufferings of Authors are
as much entitled to sympathy and relief
as those of the brute creation.

Oliver Wendell Holmes.

WAGNER'S PARSIFAL.

IT is the purpose of this paper to give
the impression made by the performance
of Parsifal at Baireuth, last summer, in
view of certain strictures upon the mo-
tive of the drama, and without any at-
tempt at musical criticism. In order to
do this, I shall have to run over the lead-
ing features of the play, already given
in the newspapers. Criticism enough,
and of an unfavorable sort, there has
been, though I heard none of it in Bai-
reuth, nor ever any from those who had
been present at the wonderful festival.
Perhaps that was because I happened
to meet only disciples of Wagner. I
fancy that the professional critics, who
did publish depreciating comments upon
the new opera, and upon Wagner's
methods in general, felt more inclined
to that course after they had escaped
from the powerful immediate impression
of the performance, from the atmosphere
of Baireuth, and begun to reflect upon
'the responsibilities of the special critics
to the world at large, and what in par-

ticular was their duty towards the whole
Wagner movement, assumption, pre-
sumption, or whatever it is called, than
they did while they were surrounded by
the influences that Wagner had skill-
fully brought to bear to effect his pur-
pose on them.

I have read two kinds of criticism.
One was written by musical adepts, who
had not heard the opera, but who con-
demned it on perusal of the score and
the libretto ; declaring the latter to be
sacrilegious, and the author to be a false
prophet among musicians and a char-
latan among managers. The other crit-
ics, who also set themselves against
Wagnerism, described the performance
in such terms that all Europe was more
and more eager to see it, but compound-
ed for their reluctant enjoyment by find-
ing unworthy methods in a success they
could not deny. Whatever the triumph
was, they said it was not a pure musical
triumph, but one due to the creation of
special conditions and favoring circum-

Wagner's Parsifal.

[January,

stances. Fancy Beethoven pushing his
music into popular notice by such clap-
trap means !

It was a great offense, in the first
place, that Wagner should build his
theatre in the inaccessible Francouian
city, — a city with scant accommodations
for visitors, and off the regular lines
of travel. It was a still greater offense
that, after all, he should be able to
attract to this remote and provincial
place pilgrims and strangers, not only
from every country in Europe, but from
America, Australia, and India ; and that
the theatre should be filled three nights
in the week for three months by per-
sons willing to incur the expense of
a long, wearisome journey, and to pay
thirty marks (seven dollars and a half)
for a seat, at the end of it. A success of
this sort could scarcely be legitimate.
It must be due to some managerial leg-
erdemain and to a misdirected enthu-
siasm.

Perhaps if we knew all the circum-
stances, the building of the theatre at
Baireuth would not appear to be a whim
of arbitrariness. Years ago, the king
of Bavaria desired to erect a theatre in
Munich, on the hill over the Iser. He
was so bitterly opposed in the location
of the building by the citizens of Mu-
nich that he abandoned the purpose, and
began the construction of a play-house
to suit himself, elsewhere. The new
theatre would have been so well adapted
to Wagner's purposes that it may be
doubted if Wagner would have set up
his standard at Baireuth, if the Munich
project had been carried out.

Yet it must be owned that the quaint
little city, which owes so much of its
romantic interest to Frederick's sister,
the Margravine, has advantages in its
very remotenesses and primitive con-
ditions. The reason why Wagner's op-
eras are enjoyed in Munich, and fail to
please in Paris, is not that they are
better presented in Munich; nor is the
comparative failure in Paris due to the

character of the operas, but rather to the
atmosphere of Paris and the character
of the audiences. Parsifal is scarcely
better adapted to the meridian and the
operatic traditions of Paris than is the
Ober-Ammergau Passion Play.

It is Wagner's well-known theory of
the opera that it should be something
other than a series of airs, sung by one
or two or several persons to the audi-
ence, with spaces or wastes of musical
declamation between ; with an orchestra
merely by way of accompaniment, and
a background of scenery that would in-
differently fit a dozen plays, and a plot
incoherent and without any special pur-
pose. Whether Wagner is successful or
not in reducing his theories to practice is
still in dispute ; but he attempts a pro-
duction which has purpose and unity,
and which excludes everything not con-
sistent with the effects he aims at. A
story is to be told, a lesson is to be
taught, an impression is to be produced
on the hearer and spectator ; and to this
impression the orchestra, the scenery,
and the singing are of almost equal im-
portance. Nothing is admitted that does
not forward the general purpose, and the
unity of the story is not broken by spe-
cial appeals to the audience. The ef-
fort is made to impress and stimulate the
imagination, and to engage the attention
in the work as a whole rather than in
certain lyrical and melodic details. Wag-
ner desires to move in his audiences sen-
timents, fervors, aspirations, in particu-
lar directions. Why is it charlatanism
in him to prepare conditions favor-
able to his purpose Why is it not
legitimate that he should bring his au-
diences into such a state of mind, before
the performance begins, that they are
predisposed to enjoy the entertainment
he offers . We know how much the ap-
preciation of a poem depends upon the
surroundings in which we read it or
hear it. If Wagner has so contrived it
that his audiences, arriving at the quiej
and primitive city where he is almost

1883.]

Wagner's Parsifal.

worshiped, regard themselves as pil-
grims at a special festival, and are ID a
receptive state of mind before they en-
ter the theatre ; if the theatre itself and
all the environments heighten this im-
pression ; and if, finally, the perform-
ance itself seems to them more like a
spiritual drama than an opera, where
is the charlatanism, even if it can -be
proved that the impression is largely
due to the accessories of the music ?
If it is said that other great composers
would not have resorted to such adven-
titious aids, I can only think that any
composer would have liked to command
the best conditions foY the production
of his compositions. It is of course pos-
sible that the crowds at Baireuth were
victims of a delusion, and of skillful
contrivance. I can answer for many of
them that they would like to be deluded
again in just that way.

When we arrived at the station in Bai-
reuth, it was at once apparent that the
town was en fete, and that its sole occu-
pation was the Wagner festival. Our
train, which had waited at the last junc-
tion to bring hundreds of passengers
from the east, was an hour late ; it was
two o'clock in the afternoon, and the
performance was to begin at four. ,The
bustle at the station, the ubiquity of
committee-men and town officials, the
crowd of vehicles, of all the fashions of
the present and the last century, the air
of expectation and the excitement were
evidence of the entire absorption of the
town in the great event. An agricul-
tural fair in a New England village, or a
Fiesta de Toros in Spain, could not more
stir a community into feverish and cheer-
ful activity. If the arriving stranger,
carpet-bag in hand, had not the free-
dom of the city, he had all the city to
wait on him, answer his inquiries, and
take interest in him as an intelligent
and profitable pilgrim. We had secured
our tickets by telegraph, and found them
ready for us at the banker's. We had
also applied to the burgomeister for

accommodations for the night, and we
found that a committee, in permanent
session at the station, had already billet-
ed our party at private houses, to which
we were promptly dispatched. Every-
thing was so perfectly systematized that
the wayfaring man, though a Wagner-
ite, need not err therein, and our quar-
ters turned out to be exceedingly com-
fortable, and given at moderate prices.
All the private houses of the place ap-
peared to be at the disposal of the com-
mittee, and offered without extortion.
If the inhabitants were not all devot-
ed to Wagner, they were devoted to his
festival, and the master pervaded the
town. The musical works of Richard
Wagner were everywhere in sight, and
in almost all the shop windows were
photographs of Wagner, engravings of
Wagner, busts of Wagner, statuettes of
Wagner. The other chief objects for
sale in the town were photographs of
the characters in Parsifal. We liked
the old town, at once for its quaintness
and single-mindedness, and we admitted
that there is only one Baireuth, and
Wagner is its prophet.

The pilgrim to the shrine of Wagner
is treated like a pilgrim. He is expect-
ed to be willing to put his devotion to a
further test, after reaching the remote
town ; for the theatre is set on a hill,
half a mile from the city, so that a car-
riage is needed for the majority of vis-
itors, especially if the weather is rainy,
as it was the day of our arrival, and as
it was all last summer, four days out of
five, in the German land. This hill
places the spiritual drama one more
remove from the bustle of the sinful
world, and helps to isolate the perform-
ance from ordinary life. The theatre
is an ungainly brick building, erected
only with reference to the interior ac-
commodations. The great bulk of the
stage rises out of it in defiance of all
architectural beauty. The auditorium
is surrounded by an open corridor, from
which there are entrances for every

Wagner s Parsifal.

[January,

three rows of seats. Each ticket indi-
cates its entrance, so that the audience
assembles and seats itself without con-
fusion, and the house can be perfectly
emptied in two minutes, without any
danger of a rush or jam. The interior
has been so often described that I need
not enter into details. There are no
proscenium boxes or side seats ; the rows
of chairs rise from the stage, spread out
like a half-open fan, and at the back of
the house are a row of private boxes ;
above them is a shallow gallery. Every
part of the stage can be perfectly seen
from every seat in the house. A low
barrier rises before the front row of
seats, separating the auditorium from
the stage by a considerable space. In
this sunken space, hidden completely
from the audience, is the orchestra.
The house is almost bare of decoration ;
only a cool gray color pervades, which
is grateful to the senses. All the splen-
dor is reserved for the stage, which is
of immense proportions.

At four o'clock the fifteen hundred
seats were filled, and a crowd of per-
sons, said to be several hundred, oc-
cupied the standing-room in the rear.
Most of the audience were standing,
and the house was in a buzz of conversa-
tion and expectation. Suddenly, at the
stroke of a stick behind the scenes, the
audience seated itself ; the doors were
closed, excluding the light ; the hall and
the people were discernible only in an
obscure twilight ; a profound silence fell
upon the house, indignantly enforced by
a hissing " hushzz " directed at a care-
less whisperer ; and at another signal
the prelude began. The stillness was
phenomenal, and so continued through
the entire performance. I had an im-
pression at the time that the audience
was in a temper to lay violent hands on
any one who should break the silence
by any sound.

We sat in the luminous darkness, and
the prelude began by the unseen orches-
tra. From the first note the music was

striking ; it portended something. It
may have been because the players were
concealed, but I seemed to hear not in-
struments, but music. And this music
had a supernatural note, an unworldly,
not to say a spiritual, suggestion. It
rose and fell, more importunate than
strident, in pleading, in warning, in en-
treaty. Whether it was good music or
utterly impossible music I cannot say,
owing to a constitutional and cultivated
ignorance of musical composition; but it
affected me now and again like the wind
in a vast forest of pines on a summer
day. It appealed to the imagination, it
excited expectation, it begat an indefina-
ble longing ; and now and then a minor
strain, full of sadness or of passion, sug-
gested a theme, like the opening of a
window into another world, — a theme
which was to be renewed again and
again in the drama, when it came to us
like a reminiscence of some former life.
When the prelude had been prolonged
until the audience were brought up to
the highest pitch of expectation, the
great curtains were drawn aside, and
the domain of the Knights of the Holy
Grail, a peaceful, sunny land of forest,
meadow, lake, and mountain, was dis-
closed.

T*he composer has made use of one
of the earlier legends of the Grail, at
the time when the cup was still in pos-
session of the knights appointed to
guard it. The cup which had been
drained at the Passover feast and had
received the holy blood at the cross
was still safe ; but the sacred spear, the
spear of the cross, which the heavenly
messenger had also committed to the
knights, had been lost. It was in pos-
session of Klingsor, a recreant knight,
who inhabited pagan land, and had by
magic transformed a waste desert into
wonderful gardens, and created an en-
chanted castle, inhabited by women of
charms infernal, who lured the knights
to wicked joys and pains eternal. One
of the victims was Amfortas, the king

1883.]

Waqner's Parsifal.

of the knights, who had yielded to the
temptations of Kuudry, the temptress
and the Magdalen of the play, a witch,
who was in the power of Klingsor, and
forced to do his bidding. When Amfor-
tas fell into the wiles of this bewildering
beauty, in one of his expeditions into
pagan laud, he was overpowered in his
weakness, lost the sacred spear, and re-
ceived a grievous wound in the side. -Of
this wound of sin he now languished.
All the medicines of the world could
not heal it ; only in one way, by a man
without sin, could he be cured. Mean-
time the spear was lost, and so long as
this all-conquering weapon remained in
the possession of the enemy, the cup it-
self was in danger. Klingsor vaunted
his purpose to seize it. Kundry, at the
opening of the drama, is a sort of imp-
ish servant and messenger of the knights,
a wild, untrained nature, touched with
remorse, but unable to repent or to free
herself from the power of Klingsor, and
full of unrest and contradictory passions.
The domain of the knights is repre-
sented by a charming scene, simulating
nature so closely that the leaves are
seen to quiver on the forest trees. To
the audience, looking at it across an
empty space and from a darkened room,
it has the delusion of a tableau ; but the
figures in it seem the real inhabitants
of some remote land of myth. Gurne-
manz, an aged knight, is attended by
two esquires. They are lamenting the
sickness and wound of Amfortas, and
the danger to the Grail from the loss of
the holy spear. To them enters the
wild witch Kundry, fantastically clad in
a savage garb, with a snake-skin girdle,
having a swarthy complexion, piercing
black eyes, and black hair flowing in
tangled disorder. She comes from the
end of the earth, riding on the devil's
mare, though, for once, not on the dev-
il's errand. Her self-appointed mission
has been to seek some balm for the
wounded king, the victim of her wiles.
She brings to Gurnernauz a balsam from

far Arabia, though well she knows that
no balsam can touch his wound. At
this moment Amfortas is borne in on
a litter, on the way to his bath in the
sacred spring, the only alleviation of his
suffering. The crystal flask containing
the balsam is given to him, and Kundry
is bidden to approach. But the wild
maid draws away, tortured by a con-
science half awakened, and struggling
with the wickedness of her unsubdued,
animal nature ; held by the enchantment
of Klingsor, and unable even to repent,
but impelled by a blind notion of merit
in good deeds to render service to the
knights ; restless, sleepless, pursued by
demons, longing in her fitful despair
only to sleep, and to sleep forever, — a
lost soul in pitiful helplessness of human
succor.

This thrilling scene, interpreted by
the wailing and sympathetic orchestra,
is at its height, when an interruption
occurs that strikes all with new hor-
ror. A swan flutters from over a lake,
strives to fly further, and sinks to the
ground, dying, pierced by an arrow.
It is the sacred swan. Who has com-
mitted this sacrilege ? The murderer
appears, a strong, rude hunter, clad in
skins, his bow in hand. He is proud
of his feat. He is accustomed, in the
wilderness, to shoot whatever flies. This
is Parsifal, the man of absolute nature,
without sin and without virtue, as igno-
rant as he is innocent. It is with diffi-
culty that he comprehends what he has
done, and he slowly understands the woe
and horror of the company. As moral
sense begins to dawn in his dark mind,
he is seized with violent trembling,
and falls half fainting. He breaks his
bow and casts it from him. Kundry, at
sight of him, is as strongly moved as he.
On the return of the train of the king
from the bath, Gurnemanz asks Parsi-
fal to accompany him to the holy feast.
If thou art pure, he says, surely it will
feed and refresh thee. What is the
Grail ? asks Parsifal. The guide cannot

Wagner s Parsifal.

[January,

say, but knowledge is not hidden to
those who are bid to serve it ; yet to it
no earthly road leads, and no one not
elected can see it. Gurnemanz lays
Parsifal's arm on his own neck, and,
supporting him with one arm, leads him
away.

The two appear to be walking slowly
through the forest to the left, pausing
here and there in weariness. In fact,
the scenery itself is moving to the right.
The country changes its character.
The forest becomes wilder and denser.
The travelers make their way painfully,
up steeps and amid rocks and fallen
trees. The way is still more rocky and
wild. Dark caverns yawn, and the
trees are more fantastically savage.
The music, ever graver, and ever recur-
ring to the minor sadness, expresses
toil, and the weariness of the way,
and the difficulty of seeking. For mo-
ments, behind some giant rock or clus-
ter of trees, the two are lost to view,
and appear again, the red cloak of the
knight glowing amid the dark green.
As the travelers move on, the scene still
changes. Touches of the artificial are
seen. The caverns and passages in the
rock have been enlarged and worked by
man's hand. Here is trace of an arch,
of cut stone, of a wall buttress. We
are passing into the depths of the moun-
tain, by a way in which nature has
plainly been assisted. There is a faint
sound of chimes ; the orchestra itself is
on the impatient point of disclosing the
secret ; there is a second in which all is
obscure, and then, in a burst of light,
stands revealed a mighty hall, vast as
a giant cathedral. The aisles stretch
away in dim perspective ; the arches are
supported on lofty columns of jasper,
of verde antique, of alabaster, of all
precious marbles ; and above is a noble
dome, blue and luminous with golden
stars. From the dome streams the
light ; from it floats down the faint and
fainter peal of the chiming bells. Be-
neath the dome stands a long horseshoe

curved table, with the ends towards the
audience, leaving the centre of the stage
free. In the middle of this open back-
ground is a high table, like an altar,
with steps leading up to it, and behind it
is a raised couch, with a canopy. Upon
the communion table are set tall silver
cups.

From the far distance in the aisle the
knights, clad in robes of scarlet, enter
in slow and stately procession, moving
with reverence and dignity, and chant-
ing as they approach the table and take
their places ; from the middle height of
the hall come the responsive voices of
younger knights ; and then down from
the very summit of the dome float boys'
voices. So angels might hail the sup-
per of our Lord, leaning over the gold
bars of heaven. Immediately, from the
other aisle, enters a procession of equal
solemnity and splendor : the bearers of
Amfortas on his litter, the servitors of
the holy supper, and the angelic boys
who carry and sustain, under its cover-
ing, the sacred cup. But for the intense
solemnity of the scene, one must note
the marvelous skill with which every
detail of it, in form and color, has been
composed. But it is only afterwards
that we vividly recall this. The bear-
ers of the cup are less earthly than
Raphael's angels, from whom they may
have been copied. And it never occurs
to you that they are stage angels. The
whole scene, so necessarily theatrical in
description, does not impress the spec-
tator so ; the art of color and grouping
is too perfect, the solemnity is too real.
Amfortas is borne to the couch behind
the altar. The holy vessel is deposited
before him. The servitors attend with
baskets of bread and tall silver flagons.
At one side, near the entrance of the
hall, stands Parsifal, clad in sheep-skin,
as rigid as a stone, a mute and awe-
struck spectator of the scene.

Amfortas, stricken with disease and
sin, shrinks from performing the ordi-
nance. At length, urged by the voices

1883.]

Wagner's Parsifal.

from heaven, by the knights, and by
the command of his aged father, he
feebly rises. The boys uncover the
golden shrine, and take out of it the cup
of the Grail, an antique crystal cup.
As Amfortas bows over it in silent
prayer, a gloom spreads through the
room ; a ray of light shoots from above
upon the cup, which begins to glow
with a purple lustre. When Amfortas'
raises it and holds it high, it burns
like a ruby, — it is the Holy Grail.
In the dusk the knights are kneeling
and worshiping it. When he sets it
down the glow fades, the boys replace
the cup in the shrine, and the natural
light returns to the hall. The goblets
are then seen to be filled with wine, and
by each is a piece of bread. At inter-
vals in the progress of the supper alter-
native voices of youths and boys from
the heights chant in response to the sol-
emn chorus of the knights, and finally
down from the dome comes the ben-
ediction, " Blessed believing." During
the repast, of which Amfortas has not
partaken, he sinks from his momentary
exaltation, the wound in his side opens
afresh, and he cries out in agony. Hear-
ing the cry, Parsifal clutches his heart,
and seems to share his agony, but oth-
erwise he stands motionless. The sup-
per over, Amfortas and the sacred shrine
are borne away. The knights rise ; and
as they pass out, and meet, two and two,
at the ends of the table, they tenderly
embrace, with the kiss of peace and rec-
onciliation, and slowly depart in the or-
der in which they came. To the last
Parsifal gazes in wonder ; and when his
guide comes to speak to him, he is so
dazed that Gurnemanz, losing all pa-
tience at his unresponsive stupidity,
pushes him out of the door, and spurns
him for a fool. The curtains sweep to-
gether, and shut us out from the world
that had come to seem to us more real
than our own.

For a moment we sat in absolute si-
lence, a stillness that had been unbroken

VOL. LI. — NO. 303. 6

during the whole performance. There
was not a note of applause, not a sound.
The impression was too profound for
expression. We felt that we had been
in the presence of a great spiritual re-
ality. I have spoken of this as the im-
pression of a scene. Of course it is un-
derstood that this would have been all
an empty theatrical spectacle but for the
music, which raised us to such heights
of imagination and vision. For a mo-
ment or two, as I say, the audience sat
in silence ; many of them were in tears.
Then the doors were opened ; the light
streamed in. We all arose, with no
bustle and hardly a word spoken, and
went out into the pleasant sunshine.
It was almost a surprise to find that
there was a light of common day. We
walked upon the esplanade, and looked
off upon the lovely view : upon the
old town ; upon the Sophienberg and
the Volsbach forests in the Franconian
Jura ; upon the peaceful meadows and
the hills, over which the breaking clouds
were preparing a golden sunset. We
did not care to talk much. The spell
was not broken. How long, I asked a
lady, do you think we were in there ?
An hour, nearly, she thought. We had
been in the theatre nearly two hours.
It was then six o'clock.

On the esplanade are two large and
well-appointed restaurants, adjuncts to
the theatre, and in a manner necessary
to it. Wagner understands how much
the emotional enjoyment and the intel-
lectual appreciation depend upon the
physical condition, and he has taken
pains to guard his audiences against
both hunger and weariness. During
the half-hour interval that elapsed be-
tween the first and the second act, the
guests were perfectly refreshed by a
leisurely stroll in the open air, by the
charming view, by the relaxation of
their intense absorption, by a cup of
coffee or a drop of amber and perhaps
Wagnerian beer, or by a substantial
supper. When the notes of a silver

Wagner's Parsifal.

[January,

trumpet summoned us back to our seats,
we were iu a mood to enjoy the play
again with all the zest of the first hour.
The second act is of the earth, earthy,
and less novel than the first to opera-
goers, accustomed to spectacles, ballets,
and the stage seductions of the senses.
It is the temptation of Parsifal, who
has begun his novitiate. The tempta-
tion is wholly of the senses and the pas-
sions. The scene is the magic castle and
the enchanting gardens of the magician
Klingsor, — a scene of entrancing but
theatrical beauty. The magician is dis-
covered seated in the dungeon keep of
his tower, surrounded by the implements
of magic. In the background is the
mouth of a black pit. Casting some-
thing into it, he summons Kundry. A
cloud of smoke arises from the pit, grow-
ing luminous and warming into rosy
color ; and suddenly from the chasm
rises a most beautiful female form, en-
veloped in a gauzy tissue, and flushed
with rosy light. It is Kundry, no long-
er in her aspect of witch, but surpass-
ingly lovely ; and yet as unhappy as
lovely, and responding to the summons
of her master with a cry and look of
agony. She is bidden to undertake the
temptation of Parsifal, who has been
seen from the ramparts approaching the
castle. She refuses. Her whole nature
abhors the office. But yield she must
to the power of the charm. Yield she
must, and exercise all her power of fasci-
nation and seduction, though she knows
that it is only by the resistance of her
blandishments that salvation can be hers.
She knows that only by meeting and
being resisted by a sinless one can her
own sin be cured, and yet she is forced
to put forth all her efforts to secure her
own ruin and his.

With a gesture of protest and despair,
she vanishes as she came. The tower
and the cavern sink away, and in place
appear, filling all the vast stage, a trop-
ical garden, and the battlements and
terraces of an Arabian castle. Parsifal

stands upon the wall, looking down upon
the scene in astonishment. From all
sides, from the garden and the palace,
rush in groups of lovely damsels, arrang-
ing themselves in haste, as if waked
from sleep, Each one in her dress rep-
resents some flower. They are await-
ing Parsifal, and as he descends they
surround him, and envelop him, and dis-
tract him with their voluptuous charms.
When their blandishments fail (although
the music pleads in all sensuous excite-
ment) to arouse in the pure youth any-
thing more than perplexity and wonder,
the maidens leave him in disgust, and
with the appearance of the ravishingly
beautiful Kundry the dangerous tempta-
tion begins.

Gorgeous as is the scene, and opulent
as are the female charms of this second
act, there is yet something of the cheap
and common about it, — tawdry splen-
dors, easily seen to be the stock gorgeous-
ness and the painted temptations of the
stage. This seemed to me an ethical mis-
take in the drama. Such a man as Par-
sifal should have been approached, to his
ruin, with subtler and less gross allure-
ments than these. At least, the guileless
nature of Parsifal would have appeared
to the audience in more danger of being
seduced from his knighthood by the ap-
peals of beauty to his pity, to his sym-
pathy, for an innocent and simple maid-
en, beset by dangers, and coming to him
for aid and comfort ; approaching him
through his higher qualities, and flatter-
ing him into forgetfulness of his mission
in the names of virtue and compassion-
ate love. The devil of modern society
appears to understand these things bet-
ter than the traditional devil whom Wag-
ner consulted for this scene. The au-
dience feels from the first that the open
solicitations of Kundry must fail, and
that Parsifal is in little danger, even
when she bends over him and impresses
upon his lips a kiss of a duration so long
that the spectator is tempted to time it
with his watch, like the passage through

1883.]

Wagner's Parsifal.

a railway tunnel. From this embrace, at
any rate, Parsifal starts up in intense
terror, clasping his hand to his side, as
if he felt the spear-wound of Amfortas.
I need not detail the struggle and the
passion that follow. Failing in this
first appeal, the maiden, too late in his
aroused suspicion, pleads for his love,
in that it alone can save her; his love,
alone can redeem and pardon her. He
resists also this more subtle temptation.
" Eternally should I be damned with
thee, if for an hour I forgot my holy
mission." In rage at her final failure,
when Parsifal spurns her as a detesta-
ble wretch, Kundry curses him, and calls
for help. The damsels rush in. Kling-
sor appears upon the battlement, with
the holy spear in his hand ; he hurls
it at Parsifal ; but the spear remains
floating above the latter's head. Parsi-
fal grasps it with tremulous joy, waves
it, and makes with it the sign of the
cross. Instantly the enchantment is
broken : down tumble towers and castle
walls ; the garden vanishes ; the leaves
and branches of the trees strew the
earth ; the damsels lie on the ground
like shriveled flowers ; and Kundry falls
insensible, and lies amid the ruins and
the waste of the original desert.

In the background rises a path up a
sunny slope to a snow mountain. Pu-
rity and nature have taken the place of
the baleful enchantment. Parsifal turns
from the top of the broken wall, over
which he disappears, to look upon the
ruin as the curtain closes.

When the act ended, the audience,
still under the spell of the music, which
had at the end risen out of its soft and
siren strains into a burst of triumph and
virile exaltation, sat, as before, silent
for a moment. Then it rose en masse,
and turned to the high box in the rear,
where, concealed behind his friends,
Wagner sat, and hailed him with a long
tempest of applause. The act had last-
ed less than an hour. It was followed
by an intermission of three quarters of

an hour, which gave the audience time
for supper, and for the refreshment of a
stroll and the soothing effects of the
charming view in the fading sunlight.

In the third and last act we return to
the high themes of the first ; the toudh-
ing minor strains of the prelude recur
again and again, soothing the spirit agi-
tated by the period of storm and stress.
The conflict is over. We have passed
through the regions of tumult and pas-
sion ; we have escaped out of the hot-
house air of temptation. Penitence is
possible, and through suffering peace is
dawning with forgiveness in the torn
and troubled heart. The orchestra de-
clares it, and the scene upon which the
curtain rises is the sweet and restful
domain of the Grail in the spring-time
of the year. On the edge of the forest,
built against a rock, is a hermitage ; a
spring is near it, and beyond stretch flow-
ery meadows. It is the dawn of day, the
sky reddening before the coming of the
sun, when Gurnemanz, now extremely
aged and feeble, emerges from the hut.
Attracted by moaning in the thicket,
he moves aside the branches, and discov-
ers Kundry, cold and stiff, lying in the
hedge of thorns, which is little better
than her grave. He drags forth the
nearly lifeless form, bears her to a mound,
chafes her hands and temples, calls her
back to life with the news that the win-
ter has fled and the spring has come.
Slowly the maiden revives, gazes at him
in wonder, and then adjusts her dress
and hair, and without a word goes like
a serving-maid to her work.

To Kundry has come a wonderful
transformation. The wildness has gone
from her mien and from her eyes ; into
her face has come the soft, indescribable
light of penitence, and a transcendent
spiritual beauty. She is no longer the
fiery witch, full of disordered passion,
contempt, and impish malevolence ; she
is no longer the houri of the enchant-
ed garden, with the charms of the si-
ren and the bewildering allurements of

Wagner's Parsifal.

[January,

Venus Aphrodite. Clad in the simple
brown garb of the penitent Magdalen,
subdued and humble, every movement
and gesture and her sad, lovely face pro-
claim inward purity and longing for for-
giveness. When Gurnemanz upbraids
her for her silence and thanklessness for
her rescue from deathly slumber, she
bows her head, as she moves towards
the hut, and in a broken voice murmurs,
" Service, service ! " — her only excla-
mation in all the act.

Kundry comes from the hut, and goes
towards the spring with her water-pot.
Looking into the wood, she sees some
one approaching, #nd calls Gurnemanz' s
attention to the comer. A knight, in
complete black armor, weary and worn,
bruised with conflict and dusty with
travel, slowly and feebly draws near,
with closed helmet and lowered spear.
It is Parsifal. Gurnemanz, who does not
recognize him, hails him with friendly
greeting. Parsifal only shakes his head.
To all inquiries he is silent, and he is
still speechless when Gurnemanz asks
him if he does not know what holy
day has dawned ; that it is the hallowed
Good-Friday morn, when he should
doff his armor, and trouble no more
the Master who has died for us.

After an interval, in which the music
of the orchestra pleads as for a lost
world, Parsifal rises, thrusts his spear
into the ground, places against it his
great shield and sword, unbraces and re-
moves his helmet, and then, kneeling,
raises his eyes in silent prayer towards
the spear's head. Gurnemanz beckons
to Kundry, who had gone within the
hut. Do you not know him ? Kundry
assents with a nod. Surely, 't is he, —
the fool whom I drove in anger from the
hall of the knights. In great emotion
Gurnemanz recognizes the holy spear.
Kundry turns away her sad and longing
face. After his devotions are ended, Par-
sifal rises, and, gazing calmly around, rec-
ognizes Gurnemanz, and knows where he
is. The murmur of this forest, falling

on his tired senses, gives him hope that
he has come to the end of his journey
of error and suffering. He has sought
the path that would lead him to the
wounded Amfortas, to whose healing
he believed himself ordained ; but hith-
erto that path has been denied him,
and he has wandered at random, driven
by a curse, through countless distresses
and battles, — wounded in every fight,
since he was not fit to use the holy spear
which he bore, undefiled, by his side.
The ancient knight assures him that he
has come to the Grail's domain, where
the knightly band awaits him, with great
need of the blessing he brings. Am-
fortas is still struggling with the tortures
of his wound ; the shrine of the Holy
Grail has long remained shrouded ; the
Holy Supper is no longer celebrated ;
the strength of the knights is withered,
for want of this holy bread ; and sum-
moned no more to holy warfare in far
countries, they wander pale, dejected,
and lacking a leader ; and Titurel,
the old commander, to whom was first
committed the cup and the spear, the
father of Amfortas, hopeless of ever
beholding again the refulgence of the
Grail, has just expired.

Parsifal hears this with intense an-
guish, and laments that he has brought
all this woe, since some heinous guilt
must still cling to him that no atone-
ment or expiation can banish, and that
he who was selected to save men must
wander undirected, and miss the path
of safety. He is about to fall, when
Gurnemanz supports him, and seats him
on a grassy knoll. Kundry, in anxious
haste, brings a basin of water ; but Gur-
nemanz waves her off, saying that only
the pilgrim's bath can wash away his
stains ; and they turn him about to the
edge of the spring. While Gurnemanz
takes off his corselet and the rest of his
heavy armor, Kundry, kneeling, removes
the greaves from his legs, and bathes his
feet in the healing spring. The armor
removed, Parsifal appears clad in a soft

1883.]

Wagner's Parsifal.

white tunic, with a cord about the waist,
and his long, light hair, in wavy masses,
flows back upon his neck. There is no
mistaking the likeness, in this meek and
noble face and figure. Shall I straight
be guided to Amfortas ? asks Parsifal,
wearily. Surely, says Gurnemanz, we
go at once to the obsequies of the be-
loved chief. The Grail will be again
uncovered, and the long-neglected office
be performed. As the knight speaks,
Parsifal observes, with wonder, Kundry
humbly washing his feet, and gazes on
her with a tender compassion. Taking
water in the hollow of his hand, Gurne-
manz sprinkles his head. Blessed be
thou, pure one. Care and sin are driven
from thee ! Kundry, from a golden flask,
pours oil upon Parsifal's feet, and dries
them with the long tresses of her black
hair, which she has unbound for the pur-
pose. Then Parsifal takes from her the
flask, and desires Gurnemaiiz to anoint
his head ; for he is that day to be ap-
pointed king. Gurnemanz, pouring the
oil, declares him their king, and the
rescuer from sin. And thus I fulfill my
duty, murmurs Parsifal, as he, unper-
ceived, scoops water from the spring, and,
stooping to the kneeling and heart-bro-
ken Kundry, sprinkles her head. " Be
thou baptized, and trust in the Redeem-
er." Kundry bows her head to the earth,
and weeps uncontrollably. As Parsifal
raises both hands, the fingers of one ex-
tended in blessing, we recognize the
figure and very attitude of our Lord in
that famous old painting, where he is
seated, blessing little children. The
Magdalen, shaken with penitence, and
yet weeping for joy, is cast at his feet.
The aged knight stands in solemn rap-
ture. The scene is inexpressibly touch-
ing. The music is full of , pathos and
solemn sympathy.

How fair the fields and meadows
seem to-day ! exclaims Parsifal, gazing
with gentle enjoyment upon the land-
scape. This is Good-Friday's spell, my
lord! exclaims Gurnemanz. The sad,

repentant tears of sinners have be-
sprinkled field and plain with holy dew,
and made them glow with beauty. As
Gurnemanz discourses of the redemp-
tion of man and nature, the transformed
Kundry slowly raises her head, and
gazes with moist eyes and beseeching
look, out of which all earthly passion
has completely gone, up to Parsifal.
Thou weepest. See ! the landscape
gloweth, he gently says, and, stooping,
softly kisses her brow. Who would
recognize in the pure, sweet, spiritual
face of this forgiven sinner the temp-
tress of the gardens ? I know not how
this whole scene may appear in the cold-
ness of description, but I believe that
there was no one who witnessed it, and
heard the strains of melting music which
interpreted it, who was not moved to the
depths of his better nature, or for a mo-
ment thought that the drama passed the
limits of propriety.

The pealing of distant bells is heard
growing louder. Gurnemanz brings a
coat of mail and the mantle of the
Knights of the Holy Grail, with which
Parsifal is invested. The landscape
changes. The wood gradually disap-
pears, as the three march on in silence ;
and when they are hidden behind the
rocky entrances of the caverns, pro-
cessions of mourning knights appear in
the arched passages. The bells peal
ever louder, and soon the great hall is
disclosed. From one side the knights
bear in the bier of Titurel, and from the
other the litter of Amfortas, preceded
by the attendants with the covered
shrine of the Grail. The effects of col-
or and grouping are marvelous ; and to
eyes familiar with the sacred paintings
of the masters, almost every figure and
dress is a reminiscence of some dear
association. The angelic loveliness of
the bearers of the shrine, however, sur-
passes any picture, as much as life tran-
scends any counterfeit of it.

At the sight of the body of Titurel
there is a cry of distress, in which Am-

fortas joins ; and the knights press upon
the latter, urging him to uncover the
shrine and do his office. With a cry of
despair he disengages himself, tears open
his mantle and discloses the wound, and
invokes the knights to bury their swords
in his breast, and kill at one stroke the
sinner and his pain. At this moment,
Parsifal, who has entered, with his at-
tendants, unperceived, starts forward,
and, stretching out his spear point,
touches the wounded side. Only the
weapon that struck can staunch thy
wounded side. Amfortas, who feels
himself instantly healed, can scarcely
support himself, for joyful rapture. As"
Parsifal raises high the spear, the shin-
ing point is red as blood, and the whole
assembly, falling upon their knees,
adore it. Parsifal assumes the king
ship, takes his place behind the altar,
and commands the cup of the Grail to
be uncovered. Taking it in his hand,
and raising it on high, the crystal
burns again like a ruby ; from the dome
a white dove descends, and hovers over
him ; Kundry — peace at last, strick-
en soul ! — falls dying; the knights are
gazing upward in rapture ; and out of
the heights come down soft and hardly
audible voices in a chant of benediction.
It was nine o'clock when we went
out into the still lingering twilight. I,
for one, did not feel that I had assisted

A Parallel. [January,

at an opera, but rather that I had wit-
nessed some sacred drama, perhaps a
modern miracle play. There were many
things in the performance that separated
it by a whole world from the opera, as
it is usually understood. The drama
had a noble theme ; there was unity of
purpose throughout, and unity in the
orchestra, the singing, and the scenery.
There were no digressions, no personal
excursions of singers, exhibiting them-
selves and their voices, to destroy the
illusion. The orchestra was a part of
the story, and not a mere accompani-
ment. The players never played, the
singers never sang, to the audience.
There was not a solo, duet, or any con-
certed piece " for effect." No perform-
er came down to the foot-lights and ap-
pealed to the audience, expecting an en-
core. No applause was given, no en-
cores were asked, no singer turned to
the spectators. There was no connec-
tion or communication between the stage
and the audience. Yet I doubt if sing-
ers in any opera ever made a more pro-
found impression, or received more real
applause. They were satisfied that they
were producing the effect intended.
And the composer must have been con-
tent when he saw the audience so take
his design as to pay his creation the
homage of rapt appreciation due to a
great work of art.

Charles Dudley Warner.

A PARALLEL.

A GRAPE seed, in the new red wine afloat,
Put endless pause to blithe Anacreon's note;
Thus, antic Death, with light and sportive hand,
The pampered life from out its flower-nook fanned.
But tragic Otway, stung by hunger's thrust,
In breaking fast, was choked upon a crust;
Still antic Death! — to make the prop of life
Serve the same end as fatal cord or knife !

Edith M. Thomas.

1883.]

/Studies in the /South,

STUDIES IN THE SOUTH.

A GEORGIA YANKEE.

WE reach the East again at Columbus,
Georgia, coining up from the Southwest,
and even at Montgomery, Alabama,
begin to feel that we are approaching
a region very unlike the one we are
leaving behind us. There are more
trains on the railroads, and they make
better time, and many things indicate
greater progress and prosperity. As
I came into the State I met a man who
introduced himself to me as a "Geor-
gia Yankee," and I heard the phrase in
various places. It is used to describe
native Georgians who are making mon-
ey in business, — " getting ahead," as
this man expressed it, with an unusual
precision of pronunciation. He was a
partner in a large jewelry firm in an
important Northern city, and had often
visited New York, Philadelphia, and
other places in the North. He was
strongly impressed by the fact that so
many Northern men have wealth and
business ability, who, from their want
of intelligence, and their rudeness and
vulgarity of speech and manners, would
be supposed to belong to the class of
" low-down " white people. He had
been the means of making a consider-
able disturbance in the office of the
Northern house, one day, during a re-
cent business visit there. He was tell-
ing some Southern story to the two or
three gentlemen at the desks, who all
laughed heartily at its conclusion. But
the head clerk or book-keeper, who was
also present, remarked, " You need n't
think you 're going to stuff us with such
stories as that, in this part of the coun-
try. That may do to tell down South,
but up this way the people know too
much to believe it ; " whereupon the
Georgia man knocked him down. The

spectators were startled by the sudden-
ness of the commotion, but it was soon
over. " The fellow apologized hand-
somely ; in fact, went all to pieces ; said
he had no intention of giving offense,
he did n't think of my taking it so
seriously, and so on ; and they all said
I must not mind such things, it was only
a joke, and much more to the same ef-
fect. It mav be a good joke in the
North to tell a man he lies, but I was
not raised that way."

A SUCCESSFUL WOMAN.

After this I had another conversation
on the same train. I asked the brake-
man something about the country ahead
of us, and when he answered that he
did not know, but would find out for
me, a lady on the next seat gave me the
information I had sought ; and when I
thanked her for her courtesy, she went
on to tell me many things about the
country and the people, the war, and
the old order of things and the new.
She was married, just before the begin-
ning of the war, to a young man who
afterward became a colonel in the Con-
federate army. He was wounded at
Kenesaw Mountain, and died a few
months after the close of the war from
the effects of this injury. His property
had been chiefly in slaves. There had
been some debts, no large ones, and she
gave up the plantation and all the prop-
erty which remained, and so paid them.
There was nothing left. She had a lit-
tle daughter, was in excellent health, and
knew " how to do a good many kinds of
work ; " having learned and practiced
them in a mere romping, " torn-boy "
spirit when she was a young girl. Tak-
ing her child with her, she went to one
of the principal cities of Georgia, and
called on the leading ladies of society
there, asking for advice as to what pur-

Studies in the South.

[January,

suit or employment a young woman in
her situation might honorably and with-
out loss of womanly dignity engage in,
as a means for her maintenance and the
education of her daughter. They advised
her to enter a millinery establishment
and learn the business, as the first step.
She did so, and had now a large store
of her own in the same city. She gave
her daughter a good education, and had
recently had the satisfaction of marry-
ing her to one of the chief merchants
of the place.

I was afterward in her store, which
she showed to me with due and reason-
able pride. There were about a dozen
young women at work in it, most of
them in a pleasant, airy apartment in
the rear of the salesroom. " I employ
none but girls who wish to learn the
business thoroughly," she said, " and
girls that intend to be ladies, and will
behave themselves as such. I can rec-
ommend these girls for business and for
good character, and when they leave
me they generally go into business for
themselves in some of the country
towns." I asked her if they were all
of Southern birth; and she said they
were, most of them being the children
of old and prominent families, which
were broken up by the war. There
were also many such girls in the dry-
goods and other stores as saleswom-
en, of late. She thought it entirely
right and commendable for a young
woman to support herself by such em-
ployment, but regretted its necessity,
which seemed to me a very reasonable
view of the matter. She told me that
when she reached the city which is now
her home, long ago, at the beginning of
her efforts to make a living for herself,
she had just ten dollars in her pocket,
all she possessed in the world. Now,
she said, her daughter and son-in-law
wished her to give up the store, and she
had enough to make her comfortable
and independent for the rest of her days ;
but she preferred to work, for the greater

pleasure of it, and for the chance which
it gave her to help so many young girls.

She thought that the freedom of her
early life had been of great benefit to
her. Her father was a wealthy planter,
and when she was not in school she was
her own mistress. She employed her
leisure in riding the wildest colts she
could find, and in hunting, " taking a
negro boy along to tote the gun." She
did not think she ever killed many birds ;
" but then, neither did the young men
who told such stories of their exploits."
Relatives and friends remonstrated, in-
sisting that such recreations were not
suitable for a young lady ; but her father
and the family physician always agreed
that she should not be interfered with,
saying, " She will be worth a dozen of
your fine young ladies, who can't get
over a fence or off a horse without as-
sistance." She would have liked to
join in fox-hunting on a good horse, but
her father said it would not be safe ; she
was too reckless. Her active out-of-
door life in her youth had given her
great vitality and power of endurance.

She had a number of friends among
the Northern people in the city, and
said they were not very different from
Southerners, "when you get acquaint-
ed with them. But they are not so
easy to get acquainted with as our peo-
ple." Northern people were rather
restless. " They don't seem so easy,
or as if they were so happy, as our folks
here." She thought it a good thing
for both whites and blacks that slavery
was abolished, and that it was " a pity
the blacks were ever brought here, in
the first place. Most of them will nat-
urally be underlings, and it is not good
to have the two races together." In
experience, ideas, and spirit this wom-
an was a good representative of many
of her sex in the South.

"NO MORE DIXIE IN MINE."

As we ran along through the pine
forests in Georgia, one morning, I was

1883.]

Studies in the South.

interested in the conversation of three
or four gentlemen just across the aisle
from where I sat. They were evidently
old friends, but one of them had not
seen the others, as it appeared, for a
year or two. They were talking over
" old times " in a merry, cordial mood,
with reminiscences of the war, mingled
with discussions of the prospects of cot-
ton-planting and of the Cotton Expo-
sition at Atlanta in the autumn, the
sales of land in various places, the in-
dustrial condition and improvement of
the negroes, etc. At a little way-sta-
tion a group of Italian musicians came
in, with harp, violin, and tambourine,
and at once began to play. The music
was rather loud, and drowned conversa-
tion. They gave us several melodies,
the young people in the car keeping
their feet in motion to the time of the
music. Yankee Doodle was played, and
then Dixie. When this piece was fin-
ished one of the gentlemen opposite
exclaimed, " Why, major ! Why don't
you throw up your hat and cheer ? I
never knew you to listen to Dixie with-
out making some fuss over it." The
major looked grave, and replied, " Well,
I 've been thinking over all this non-
sense a good deal for a year or two
back, and I conclude that I 've had
enough of it. The war 's over, an' I 'm
a-makin' money now. If anybody wants
to steam up on politics, on one side or
the other, let 'em. I don't care a damn
who 's in, nor who 's out. No more
Dixie in mine ! " The others set up a
shout of laughter, after which they each
gave something to the small musician
who came around with the tambourine.

A SOUTHERN EDITOR.

I found one man, an editor, at Me-
ridian, Mississippi, who seemed more
" solid " than any one else I saw in the
South; and I was somewhat inclined
to think that he and a few others like
him might constitute the whole of the
" solid South," of which I had heard so

much. This gentleman was troubled by
the " vulgarity " of Northerners, or of
the Northern character. He said that
if we would only send " gentlemen "
to the South he would be glad to wel-
come them ; but so many Northern
men were low and sordid, and " were
never in a gentleman's house in their
lives," and when they came to the South
they made people think they were rep-
resentative Northern men. I told him
we could not well afford to send all our
best people to the South, as we needed
them at home. I admitted that we had
not so many gentlemen, or really supe-
rior citizens, in the North as we should
like to have, and that there are traits
in the character of many Northerners
which are not wholly admirable ; but
suggested that my travels had given me
the impression that in these matters the
North and South were much alike.
"Are Southern men all, or generally,
gentlemen of the highest character ? "

Then followed a long and rambling
talk, interesting, but too diffuse to be re-
produced here. This man was not a
politician, nor was he in any way, I
thought, a bad fellow. He had good
intentions, and some excellent personal
qualities. But he was young, and he
cherished an absurd worship and regret
for some features of the old regime in
the South. He would not have slavery
back ; but he was repelled by the harsh,
practical, vulgar features of the advanc-
ing new order of things. Ho had stud-
ied " Northern character " (if, as he in-
sisted, there is such a thing, as distinct
from Southern character) only from
a distance, and he saw only the lower
or worse side of our society and civili-
zation. Much that he said about North-
ern people was true, but was not the
whole truth. He and a very few men
like him — at least I could find very
few — were doing the South ill service,
as I suppose they had done for some
years before. Every now and then he
wrote something which " fired the North-

Studies in the South.

[January,

era heart " beautifully. He uttered ab-
surdities enough in two hours to sup-
ply material for anti-Southern speeches
for a whole political campaign in the
Northern States. I could not see that
such men had any considerable influence
in the South, at the time of my visit.
Leading Southern men — democrats —
everywhere warned me against them,
and said they were fools. I found no
elderly man among them. They were
— those whom I saw — all of them im-
practicable, romantic young sentimen-
talists, and all of them were editors.

As I was leaving this gentleman, I
said, " I wish you would take hold and
help us with the new order of things.
I am rather sorry for those who feel as
you do." " Thank you," said he, " but
the sympathy of our conquerors is gall-
ing sometimes." "Oh, no," I laugh-
ingly replied, "do not feel conquered.
That seems a little absurd under the cir-
cumstances, and so long after the fight."
He was a rather engaging young fel-
low, but he somehow reminded me of a
young Confederate officer whom I once
met on a battle-field in Virginia, a few
hours after a hard fight. Our forces
had captured the enemy's stores, and I
was engaged with a detail of men open-
ing boxes and packages, and taking ac-
count of the property, when this officer,
a prisoner, who was helping the rebel
surgeons in the care of their own wound-
ed in a tent near by, came up, and said,
" You have no right to meddle with
these things, sir." " Why not, sir ? " I
asked. " Because they are the proper-
ty of the Confederate States of Amer-
ica, sir." " Then why don't the Con-
federate States of America take care of
their property ? " I inquired. The old
order of things in the South has gone
the way of the other property of the
Confederate States of America.

PIRATICAL MERCHANTS.

One of the worst features of the con-
dition of things in the South I found in

the character and methods of a large
number of men, who were selling goods
in the smaller towns and villages, and at
the " cross-roads " and landings almost
everywhere. They were mostly for-
eigners or Northern men, but in some
parts of the country a few native South-
erners were taking up the same kind of
business, as good Southern citizens now
and then confessed to me with shame.
These merchants, or " store-keepers,"
were commonly as rapacious as pirates,
wholly destitute of principle, conscience,
and honesty. I do not mean that all the
" small merchants " or dealers in coun-
try places in the South are of this char-
acter ; but the class is a very large one,
and has its representatives in every
State. These men are growing rich
faster than any other class in the South-
ern States. They sell goods to the ne-
groes and poor whites at two hundred
or three hundred per cent, profit, and
very often they simply take all that a
man has. A large part of their busi-
ness is conducted in the following way :
A dealer of this class makes an agree-
ment during the winter with a negro or
white laborer to " run " him for the sea-
son. That is, the merchant furnishes
the " small planter " with all his pro-
visions and supplies of every kind for
the spring, summer, and autumn, agricul-
tural implements, and everything need-
ed, on credit ; all these things to be paid
for out of the crop, when it is matured
and gathered.

Each merchant may thus supply, or
" run," a dozen, twenty, or fifty men.
During the summer, and all the time
the crop is growing, the dealer rides
about the country and inspects each
man's fields, or sends some competent
man to do it, so that he can estimate the
probable product. An experienced judge
can do this very accurately. When tha
cotton is ready to be picked, the mer-
chant knows almost exactly how much
has been produced by each man that he
has " run." All along through the sea-

1883.]

Studies in the South.

son he has of course entered on his
books each article furnished to the plant-
ers ; and now he goes over his books,
and sets down the price, the amount
which the customer is to be required to
pay for it ; and the prices are so ar-
ranged that the aggregate charged for
the season's supplies will exactly take
the planter's whole crop. The laborer
is thus left, at the end of the season, ab-
solutely penniless.

There are often stormy scenes on
" settling-day." Such a merchant will
submit without resistance to the bitter-
est cursing a wronged, disappointed, and
enraged negro can utter. Often there
would be violence, but that the mer-
chant is armed and his dupe is cowed.
The end or result of it all is, usually,
that the dealer makes the man a cheap,
showy present, and arranges to " run "
him again the next year. But some-
times, when a negro is concerned, the
outcome is different. The merchant
buys cotton. In many cases he has a
gin of his own, or a cotton-press. This
gives the wronged, helpless negro an
opportunity for revenge. The gin or
press is fired, some dark night ; there is
a deduction from the dealer's profits for
the year ; the negroes of the region ex-
ult among themselves ; and there is a
new " political outrage " — or there
was, when these were useful — for the
newspapers and politicians.

In Norfolk, Virginia, I saw a company
of country people bringing into the city
the products of their farms, — dressed
hogs, fowls, eggs, etc. There were per-
haps a dozen or fifteen carts and wag-
ons, several of them driven by women.
All appeared to be simple, kindly, shy
people, somewhat frightened by the
noises and " ways " of the city. One
woman had three or four fine fat hogs.
Half a dozen hucksters came about her,
asking prices and endeavoring to buy.
One was a most repulsive-looking young
man, who evidently thought to show
himself a superior person by being in-

solent and abusive to these country
people. He made an offer, in loud and
boisterous tones, of a particular sum for
the hogs ; and when the woman hesitated,
as if making some mental calculation,
and evidently a little confused by his
violence, he cursed her, telling her that
she was a fool not to agree to his offer
at once. Then he repeated the amount
he had named over and over again ; and
on her remaining silent, he insisted that
she had thereby signified her consent to
trade on his terms. This she denied, and
then he poured out a flood of most foul
and violent abuse, even threatening the
woman with arrest and imprisonment
for violating a contract, though he had
done all the talking himself. The wom-
an's neighbors were evidently afraid of
the fellow, but one of them ventured to
remonstrate against such treatment of a
woman, when the dealer ordered him to
shut his mouth if he did not want a good
kicking, and the man obeyed. I longed
to knock the rascal down, but reflected
that I was only an observer, and that,
though knocking him down might make
the affair more picturesque, it would not
add to the real value of my report.
This was one of the first things which
I encountered at the beginning of my
journey through the Southern States,
and I afterward saw a great many sim-
ilar occurrences. The poorer class of
white people throughout the South are
generally good and kind, with many
lovable qualities, but they have so little
power of self-assertion, or self-defense,
that everybody is insolent to them. They
are far more helpless and abject, usually,
than the negroes. But they are so hu-
man, so domestic ; and they are among
the few people left, in this modern world
of ours, to whom the old-fashioned vir-
tue of humility still belongs. They
have for me a pathetic interest, as rep-
resentatives of a type which is rapidly
becoming extinct in our country, and, I
suppose, in most or all of the " highly
civilized " countries of the world.

Studies in the South.

[January,

AMERICANIZING MEXICO.

I heard much interesting talk among
business men in Texas about their in-
terest and plans regarding land and in-
vestments in Mexico. They often spoke
of the old feeling of men of a certain
type in Texas, in favor of the conquest
of certain portions of Mexico. They
said that all such ideas were out of date ;
that, while some men would doubtless
like to be camp followers of an invading
army, the day of the sword had gone by,
and money had now become the ruling
force in national affairs and relations.
"The world now belongs," they said,
" not to the soldier, but to the far-seeing
business man. Our money will buy
anything we want in Mexico. There is
some good land there, and we shall buy
it. We shall develop the best portions
of the country, and by and by we shall
own and occupy it. We shall Ameri-
canize as much of Mexico as we want,
constructing and operating railroads,
working mines, establishing manufac-
tures, supplying the markets, and intro-
ducing our improved methods of agri-
culture. There is no law or treaty
against such an invasion as that, is
there ? "

" But what about the rough and dis-
orderly condition of society, and the in-
security of property in that country ? "
I asked.

" Oh, that will soon settle itself," was
the reply. " The people steal because
they are poor, and they are lazy because
there is nothing to do. Whenever there
is property there worth taking care of,
it will be secure enough ; and the peo-
ple who will not work will move on
into the poorer regions of the country."

Several gentlemen told me that they
were disposing of some of their property
in Texas, and were investing more and
more of their means in Mexico. They
said, " The national debt is practically
already paid off, and there will be no
more bonds at a high rate of interest.

Great industrial enterprises will now be
the most profitable investments, and
business knows nothing about boundary
lines."

THE SURVIVAL OF SLAVERY.

I was strongly impressed by the gen-
eral hardness and unsympathetic feeling
of Northern men living in the South
regarding the negroes. Native South-
erners of character and position do not
often appear to feel unkindly toward
black men, though of course they often
regard them contemptuously, and fail to
treat them as they ought. But North-
ern men who had gone South since the
war almost universally (those whom I
saw) spoke of the negro with great
harshness, — with a kind of cold hatred,
and what I should call cruelty. I saw
and heard so much of this, that would
have before appeared incredible, that it
gave me sometimes a kind of nightmare
fear that residence in the South might
transform the most philanthropic aboli-
tionist into a tyrant of merciless severity.
Some interesting questions are suggested
here, but I have not time to discuss
them.

Near Vicksburg I found a planter
from Minnesota, who worked many ne-
groes. I asked him about their quality
as laborers, and he replied that they were
almost worthless, " unless you whip them
well." " How do you mean that you
whip them ? " I asked. " Do you light
with them, and whip them because you
are the best man, as white men fight in
Minnesota ? " " Oh, no," said he con-
temptuously ; "go at them with a club,
or a heavy whip-stock, knock them
down, and beat them, as you would a
mule." " But I thought the day for that
was over, in this country. I should
think they would leave you. Why do
they not go away, — go to some other
man, or out of this region ? " " Oh, well,
they do go away to the woods for a day
or two, sometimes. But what can they
do ? Their families are here, and they

1883.]

Studies in the South.

don't know where to go. Besides, I
should n't let 'em go, if I did n't want
to. The dogs would soon find 'em."
" Then," I said, " I would kill you."
At this he laughed sneeringly, and re-
plied, " Mebbe you would, but you ain't
a nigger. A nigger 's just in his place
when he has a white man to drive him,
an' they always need knockin' down oc-
casionally." He went on to say that he
had found out that only the harsh slave-
holders made money in the old times.
" An' that 's the right way now ; work
'em to death, an' git more. There 's
plenty of 'em." On my expressing my
abhorrence, he said, " You would n't be
here a year till you would say the same
things. All Northern men talk just as
you do when they first come down here.
I did myself. My father was a red-hot
abolitionist ; but I tell you a nigger has
no affection, no gratitude, no heart.
Every one of 'em will steal. They un-
derstand nothing but a club."

In Mississippi I found a republican
official who hired prisoners from the au-
thorities, and employed them in various
kinds of labor. The convicts worked
under guard, and occasionally some of
them would try to escape. Most of
them were negroes. When they ran
away, the employer and his guards
chased them with dogs, using a pack of
hounds to follow by the scent. These
will not attack the fugitive, but they are
accompanied by a powerful and fero-
cious " catch-dog," that will tear a man
in pieces in a few minutes, if the flying,
hunted wretch is unable to ascend a tree
before the terrible brute is upon him.
Just before I was in that neighborhood
a runaway negro convict had played a
shrewd trick which enabled him to make
good his escape, for that time at least.
Hearing the hounds on his trail, he
struck across the country for the rail-
road. When he reached it the dogs
were in plain sight across the fields, and
were rapidly gaining on him. Half a
mile away he saw an express train ap-

proaching. He knew the dogs would
follow the scent closely, so he ran to
meet the train, which, but a moment
after he had stepped from the track, ran
over the dogs, killing them all.

I must do the people of that region
the justice to say that, although many
of them saw nothing shocking in the
practice of hunting runaway negroes
with dogs, their sympathies were all
with the fugitive on this occasion. They
were glad that he had outwitted his pur-
suers, and talked much about " the nig-
ger that was too many for Captain So-
and-So." This " captain " is a Northern
man, and I thought he felt some degree
of shame when I expressed my disgust
at what I had heard ; but he insisted
that my sentimental view of the matter
was absurd. " How else am I to catch
the niggers, then?" he said. Some
time afterward, in talking with a prom-
inent democrat of Cuero, Texas, of
this incident in Mississippi, when I re-
marked that I felt the more indignant
because the fellow was a Northern man
and a republican, my Texas acquain-
tance politely remonstrated, saying that
my feeling seemed to him mere senti-
ment, " surprising from a gentleman so
intelligent as yourself ; " and he added,
" How else was he to catch the nigger ? "
Some Northern ladies, in the region
where it happened, told me of their in-
expressible horror the first time they
saw this man, with his dogs, chasing a
negro. It was just at dawn, on a beau-
tiful Sabbath morning. They could not
at first believe what was told them
about " the hunt."

THE FORGERY OF NEWS.

It was in Mississippi, also, that I was
told by a number of Northern men of
an account sent to the Northern press
during the " Hayes campaign," which
located an atrocious "political outrage at
the place which I was then visiting.
These persons seemed reputable, and
they all affirmed that nothing of the

Studies in the South.

[January,

kind had ever occurred there. I in-
quired regarding the author of the dis-
patch, and, learning that he was still
living a few miles away, I went to see
him. He laughed when I told him my
errand, took a fresh chew of tobacco,
and, crossing his feet on the top of the
table before him, began talking of the
affair in an easy, fluent, indifferent style,
which seemed to indicate that he was
glad to have somebody to talk with, and
would as lief talk of that subject as any
other. " Then the dispatch was not
really true ? " I said. " Well," he re-
plied, " it was true as to the spirit of the
South generally at that time." " But
why did you say that such and such
things happened at a particular place, if
they did not? " " Well, now, you know,
it would not be worth while to say,
at such a time, that there was lots o'
devilish feeling in the South. But it
rather wakes people up to tell them that
something 's been done at a place that
they 've heard of." " Yet it was not
true." But he thought the use of a
fable or parable was justifiable, under
the circumstances, because it was the
only way to give point or effectiveness
to any account of the condition of the
South at that time. " All writers does
pretty much the same thing," he urged ;
" they have to." " Oh, I hope not," I
said. " Well, now, if you lived down
here a while, you 'd find out we have to
fight the devil with fire." The Northern
men who told me of this performance
were earnest republicans, and they were
specially indignant about the fabrication,
because it alarmed some of their North-
ern friends who had been preparing to
remove to that region, but were fright-
ened from their purpose by this story.

WELCOME TO IMMIGRANTS.

I was not able to find any " feeling
against the North," -or against Northern
people, in the regions which I visited ;
and, so far as that is concerned, I should
have no fear or reluctance in going to

any part of the South which I have
seen, if for any reason I wished to emi-
grate to that portion of our country.
But many people are going South with
no adequate forethought, or knowledge
of the country. There is a side of
Southern character and life with which
such persons are very likely to become
acquainted. There are many men " in
business," nearly everywhere in the
South, who are of the same type as the
author of the following fraternal utter-
ance. I had heard of him as one of the
fiercest fighters against us through the
whole war, and went to see him. When
I announced myself as a " Yankee in-
vader " he shook hands heartily, and re-
plied, " I 'm a reconstructed rebel. We
fought till the fight was all whipped out
of us. I rather like the men that whipped
us. Tell all your people to come down
here. They 're just as welcome as our
best friends, and we 'II cheat the eye-teeth
out of 'em."

In one of the principal Southern
States, I saw a young man from the
North, well educated and energetic, who
had had this experience : A planter, who
owned a large tract of unimproved land,
decided to " go into sheep." He said to
this young man, " I will furnish money,
you furnish labor ; we will go into part-
nership and raise sheep, and share the
profits." The young man agreed to
this, and worked hard for a year and a
half, clearing and fencing land, and put-
ting the new plantation in order. Then
the proprietor said that there had been a
considerable loss on the sheep, but, as
he felt a special interest in the young
man, he would not require him to make
good any part of the money loss, and he
would allow him to work for him long
enough to pay for the supplies which he
had received from the plantation store
during the time of the partnership.
When I saw the young fellow he had
been at work nearly a year, paying for
these supplies. Of course he should
have had wages from the first, and should

1883.]

Studies in the South.

have made a much more definite agree-
ment regarding unfavorable contingen-
cies ; but he " did not think of such
things," because he " was to share the
profits." The planter sold the sheep,
and had a fine new plantation for cot-
ton ; and he had had more than two
years' labor, which had cost him only
the young man's board and clothing.
Many Southern men have a feverish
desire to make money. They need it,
and Northern immigrants who bring
them opportunity are especially wel-
come.

There is, indeed, everywhere in the
South, the strongest desire for immigra-
tion from the North, and there are real
inducements for young people of invul-
nerable digestion, who are willing to
work hard and live roughly, and who
can resist the unfavorable influences
arising from the changed conditions of
life. But I saw many young men from
the North who were not strong enough
in moral equipment for life in " a region
where the poorest man can have a harem
of his own, of any desired extent, and
almost without cost."

CAMPAIGN PLEASANTRIES.

In some places in the South, when a
" political campaign " is in progress,
some of the rougher class of young men
have a fashion of " sending word " to
the opposition speakers that they " can-
not speak in this town." Usually no
attention is paid to such a menace, and
nothing serious is apt to result from dis-
regarding it, though the drinking habits
of the people sometimes make it easy
to have fights and " personal difficulties "
at political meetings. There are many
men in the South, too, who enjoy tak-
ing part in a " disturbance " at such
times, though they would not begin one
themselves, and who are always ready
to shoot at anybody who is running
away and cannot defend himself. A
wild rush after somebody who is plainly
unarmed, with miscellaneous pistol-fir-

ing and a clamorous accompaniment of
shouts, oaths, and yells, is a delightful
entertainment to many a Southern crowd.
Such " affairs " are not usually so mur-
derous in their results as a stranger
would expect them to prove ; but if a
black man happens to be shot, it makes
the occasion more interesting to the
young fellows, — " the boys that took
a hand in the racket," — nearly every
one of whom will affirm that he " shot
the damn nigger."

Every year there is less of such sav-
agery. Southern white men do not
like to be shot at, when there is no good
reason for it, any more than other peo-
ple. I would have willingly undertaken,
while there, or at any time since, to make
a decided republican speech anywhere
in the Southern States of this country ;
and if I were about to do so, and thought
there was a disposition on the part of
anybody to interfere with or disturb the
meeting, I should be as " bitter and vin-
dictive," to use a politician's phrase, as
my conscience would permit. Courage
would be far safer than timidity or mild-
ness, under such circumstances, and folly
readily leads to trouble everywhere in
times of excitement. In passing twice
through the entire South, and exploring
many of the regions which are accounted
the roughest and wildest, I did not see
or hear a single altercation. I saw no
shooting, except in the case which I
have described, of a man's firing his re-
volver so often from the platform of the
car in which I was riding. In all the
journey I did not carry a weapon of any
kind ; nor did I, at any time, feel the
slightest apprehension of danger or per-
sonal injury.

LEFT IN THE WOODS.

I met with much rough traveling, on
account of excessive rains and floods.
Once, in the Bayou Pierre country, in
'Mississippi, as I was crossing from one
railroad to another, with a good team,
and no load but the driver and myself

Studies in the South,

[January,

and a small trunk, the road was so bad
that we were obliged to walk most of
the way ; and at last we came to a place
where a land-slip from the side of a hill
had carried the whole breadth of the
roadway into the river. The driver said
that he had never left a man in the
woods ; but I told him he had done his
best, and must go back. He wished me
to return with him, but I thought one
passage over such a road enough for me.
"We put the trunk on a large log; the
young fellow sorrowfully said good-by,
and wished me luck in getting out ; and
I walked on through the woods two or
three miles, to the nearest settlement.
Three men went back with me, and we
carried the trunk through. The whole
population of the little hamlet, about a
hundred persons, came out to meet me,
and escorted me to my lodging place, as
if I were another Livingstone return-
ing from Central Africa. I rode many
hundreds of miles on freight trains, and
greatly enjoyed living with the train
hands.

The greatest swindle I encountered
in the South was the railway eating-
house business. It was said to be every-
where under the control of a great cor-
poration. Prices were extravagant, con-
sidering the quantity and quality of the
food supplied. There appeared to be
no effort, usually, to provide food that
could be eaten. It was ill cooked, the
tables and rooms were hideously dirty,
and the men in charge were the most
uncivil people I met in all my journey.
When travelers would ask the waiters
to pass some dish which was beyond
reach, the answer was frequently, " It 's
on the table ; git it, ef ye want it"

A PECULIAR NEW ENGLANDER.

One morning, near the completion of
my journey in the South, I left a sea-
port town for a ride by rail of eighty or
one hundred miles into the interior of
the State. For most of this distance
the railroad runs through a pine-woods

region, which is but sparsely settled, and
but a small portion of the land is culti-
vated. The car was full, and before we
had fairly cleared the suburbs of the
town from which we started general
attention was attracted to one man
among the passengers. I happened to
be near him, but he spoke so loudly that
everybody in the car was obliged to
hear what he had to say. He at once
began to ridicule whatever he saw along
the road, — the soil, the houses of the
people, their vehicles, clothing, and man-
ners, — and kept up a sarcastic running
comment upon such topics during most
of the journey. He informed the com-
pany that he was " from the North ; "
that he was the editor of a newspaper
in a prominent New England city,
which he mentioned ; and that he had
" never been in the South before." Pie
went on to say that he was very glad
that lie had " come South," to 3ee for
himself what a miserable, God-forsaken
country it was ; and in loud tones he
denounced the Southern people, and
everything Southern, as degraded be-
yond anything that he could ever have
imagined, if he had not seen it all for
himself. His usual climax, or conclu-
sion, repeated again and again, was, " I
wouldn't give a cuss for the whole
thing." He was insolent even to men
from whom he asked information re-
garding the country, and his manners
were so rude and his talk so violent
that most of the women near him sought
places elsewhere.

He said that he should write a series
of articles about the South for his pa-
per, and that he should tell his read-
ers " fully about the whole thing." He
appeared to think that this short excur-
sion through the pine woods gave him
thorough knowledge of the condition
and history of the entire South, and of
the character of the Southern people,
which he found much worse than he had
ever suspected. I have never seen the
complete exposition of Southern affairs

1883.]

Studies in the South.

which this gentleman assured us he
should print for the enlightenment of
the people of New England. It would
probably have told me of some things
which I had not observed in months of
Southern travel. Everybody answered
this man politely. No one contradicted
him, or tried to argue with him. After
he had talked for some time, the men
about him evidently wished to avoid
conversation with him ; but he still ad-
dressed them, now and then, as -if he
were giving orders to menials.

THE WAR NOT MARKED BY SAVAGE
PASSIONS.

I had known before I went to the
South that there are two sides to most
things about which people dispute se-
riously, or fight each other. I see no
reason why we should not now regard
everything connected with our great
civil war with the true historic temper.
Of course this was not possible while
we were fighting, nor for some time
afterward. However wrong the South
was in that contest, the mass of the
Southern people must have sincerely be-
lieved theirs a good and righteous cause,
or they could not have fought us as they
did, or have made such sacrifices to con-
tinue the struggle. The soldiers of the
Union crushed the wrong which the
South upheld, but the men who have
made themselves conspicuous within a
very few years, by " waving the bloody
shirt," were not distinguished for brav-
ery during the war. Denunciations of
the South, it has always seemed to me,
come with ill grace from the politi-
cians, whose sanguinary spirit has uni-
formly been exhibited in times of peace,
and who, when there was a chance to
fight, and to punish the South for the
wickedness of secession, were careful to
keep at a safe distance from the scene
of conflict.

A few such men continued, however,
until very recently, to exercise consid-
erable influence in some portions of the

VOL. LI. — NO. 303. 7

North, by means of the pretense that
the country was still in danger from
" rebel designs," and that the results of
the war were not yet secure. It is well
to note that the state of things in the
South has not greatly changed since
these men were filling the air with the
clamor of their warnings against the
evils that would follow the " withdrawal
of the troops " from the Southern States.
That seems far back in the past, because
we have had so much to think of since
then, but it was really only a little
while ago. Of course the South is im-
proving in most respects. Perhaps it
has improved as rapidly as we could
have expected, if we had fully under-
stood the difficulties which were, under
the circumstances, inevitable after the
war. But the evils which actually ex-
isted in the South during several years
of political agitation and excitement in
the North over accounts of rebel and
Bourbon misbehavior exist there to-day,
in proportions but slightly changed ;
and there is about as much need of
" troops " in that portion of our country
now as there was for some years before
they were finally withdrawn. The pol-
iticians who were then denouncing trai-
tors with such bitterness did not them-
selves scruple to imperil the interests of
the country by endeavoring to create
and perpetuate sectional hostilities and
prejudices, for their own personal and
partisan aggrandizement. These facts
belong to the history of the time.

Of course there was bitter, hostile
feeling on both sides, after the war.
That could not have been otherwise.
I remember that at the time of General
Wade Hampton's injury, a few years
ago, by an accident which rendered an
amputation necessary, I was a guest at
a breakfast party in one of our principal
Northern cities, where a number of cul-
tivated gentlemen and ladies were as-
sembled. While we were still around
the table the daily journal was brought
in, and by and by some one read to the

Studies in the South.

[January,

company the news of chief interest.
One of the items was a report of Gen-
eral Hampton's condition after the sur-
gical operation had been performed,
and it was announced that there was
hope of his recovery. Upon this, our
hostess expressed, with much emphasis,
her regret that the surgeons did not al-
low him to bleed to death, while he was
under their hands. There were some
clergymen present, but nobody expressed
a different sentiment, until I exclaimed
that such a deed would have been hor-
rible in the extreme ; and then no one
appeared to share my feeling, while the
lady's view found vehement advocacy.
Let us suppose the circumstances to
have been reversed, and the same con-
versation to have occurred in a Southern
city regarding some prominent Northern
republican politician, who had suffered a
similar misfortune. A thousand plat-
forms would have rung with the indig-
nant recital of the story, and it would
have had a perceptible effect in a presi-
dential campaign.

It was common, during the struggle,
and afterward, to talk of the peculiar
horrors and atrocities of civil, fratricidal
war. I have given this subject much
attention, and I believe that history has
not preserved the record of any other
great war in which there were so few
excesses or barbarities of any kind on
either side. I believe that the com-
manders and the soldiery on both sides
were restrained and controlled, in very
great measure, throughout the contest,
by the reflection that it was a war be-
tween brethren. Both parties to the con-
flict were saddened and solemnized by
thoughts of our common history, by
memories of the toils and sacrifices that
North and South had endured together
in the endeavor to lay deep and strong
the foundations of a mighty nation ; and
there was never a great war with so lit-
tle of vile, malignant passion, of mere
devilish hatred or savage cruelty, — so
little for anybody to be ashamed of at

the end of the fight. The valor of the
soldiers on both sides is a national in-
heritance of which we and our children
may well be forever proud.

TREATMENT OP PRISONERS.

I found that the South had its sto-
ries, as well as the North, regarding
severities to prisoners, and I remembered
that when I once asked an officer of our
army, who had been on duty at the
camp "near Chicago, where rebel prison-
ers were confined, regarding the treat-
ment of Southern soldiers there, he
laughed, and replied, " Well, you would
n't expect we'd pet 'em much, would
you ? " A Massachusetts officer of the
highest character said to me, just after
the close of the war, " We are going to
hang Captain Wirz, because the poor
devil has no friends who can do him
any good. The probability is that he
simply did his duty, as a soldier should."
Another New England officer, who for
some time had charge of a large portion
of the Union prisoners at Andersonville,
under Wirz's authority, has often said
in my hearing that he saw nothing bad
about the rebel officer as to his personal
qualities, and that he appeared to him
to be kind-hearted, and to feel deep sad-
ness on account of the 'terrible suffering
of the prisoners in his keeping. I asked
several men, in different parts of the
South, who occupied important positions
in various departments of the Confeder-
ate government, what the South had to
say regarding the charges of cruelty to
Union prisoners. They uniformly re-
plied that it was true that Northern men
starved in their prisons, but affirmed
that the prisoners had always the same
rations as Southern soldiers in the field.
" Our men could live on such fare, but
yours could not ; they could not eat it.
The climate, confinement, and home-
sickness caused the terrible mortality.
We could not prevent it. During the
last year and a half of the war we
could not take care of our own men.

1883.]

Wild Honey.

They came near starving, too, some-
times." A friend of mine, who was an
officer in General Sherman's command
during the famous march to the sea, and
who burned many fine houses, said that
while most of his men engaged in the
work of destruction with a grim quiet-
ness of manner, and some spoke of it as
"sickening business," tnere were some'
who liked to break up costly furniture,
and to " smash everything " before the
houses were fired ; and a young farmer
in the West told me, a few years after
the war, that he and a comrade were ac-
customed to open the piano-fortes and
dance on the keys, with their heavy
army shoes, while "some of the other

boys " beat the clocks and mirrors to
pieces with the butts of their guns.

I do not speak of these things to re-
vive the accusations or bitter feelings of
the past, but to illustrate the view that,
while war necessarily involves much
that is terrible and cruel, neither party
in our great struggle had real reason,
probably, for charging the other with
special or disgraceful barbarism, or atro-
cious and unnecessary cruelty, and that
in such matters there may have been lit-
tle difference between them. We should
be able, already, to write of the war,
and everything connected with it, with-
out heat or bitterness, and without par-
tiality or unfairness.

WILD HONEY.

WHERE hints of racy sap and gum
Out of the old dark forest come ;

Where birds their beaks like hammers wield,
And pith is pierced and bark is peeled ;

Where the green walnut's outer rind
Gives precious bitterness to the wind,

There lurks the sweet creative power,
As lurks the honey in the flower.

In winter's bud that bursts in spring,
In nut of autumn's ripening,

In acrid bulb beneath the mould,
Sleeps the elixir, strong and old,

That Rosicrucians sought in vain, —
Life that renews itself again !

in.

What bottled perfume is so good
As fragrance of split tulip wood?

100

"A Stranger^ yet at Home" [January,

What fabled drink of god or muse
Was rich as purple mulberry juice?

And what school-polished gem of thought
Is like the rune from Nature caught?

IV.

He is a poet strong and true

Who loves wild thyme and honey-dew;

And like a brown bee works and sings,
With morning freshness on his wings,

And a gold burden on his thighs, —
The pollen-dust of centuries !

Maurice Thompson.

"A STRANGER, YET AT HOME."

PRUDENCE WARNER stood twisting
her brown hair into an irreproachable
knot at the back of her head. She
looked at herself in the glass, with
gray, honest eyes beaming softly under
straight pretty brows. Her mouth was
sweet but homely, and her nose was
delicate. She was thirty-five and a spin-
ster, — a very contented one ; but it
may have been that her contentment
under the limited conditions of her life
arose from a somewhat limited nature.
She was habitually diligent in the Sun-
day-school, and devoted to the temper-
ance society. She liked to sew on her
gowns, and sometimes found pleasure in
very harmless gossip. This last idio-
syncrasy was fiercely denounced by her
mother, Mrs. Arvilla Warner.

" The idee," said that matron once,
" of pesteriu' yourself to find out what
stuff Mrs. Coggeshall 's a-goin' to cover
her furniture with, when there 's Emer-
son — blessed man ! — a-layin' on that
table, in a figerative sense, jest waitin'
to let you get acquain*-<l with him"

" But, mother," 1" ^e faintly an-
swered, gazing dep',*0 '"'jgly at the blue

and gold volume indicated, " I can't un-
derstand Emerson very well, and what
I do understand don't seem quite ortho-
dox to me."

" And what call have you to be or-
thodox ? " retorted Mrs. Warner, who,
being herself a staunch Unitarian, felt
much aggrieved because her husband
had remained a Baptist during all the
years of their married life, and Pru-
dence in early girlhood had experienced
religion, and been baptized into her
father's faith.

" It was all that Lorenzo Haynes's
doin'," thought the indignant mother,
— " foolin' round her with his soft
speeches."

She was about right. Young Haynes,
a big-eyed divinity student, had been
the hero of Prudence's one love dream ;
a dream that had vanished many years
before Prue, at thirty-five, stood brush-
ing her soft hair in the virginal solitude
of her pretty room.

One of the peculiarities of Miss War-
ner's situation in life was that the mem-
bers of her family did not really bear
to her the relation they nominally did.

1883.]

"A Stranger, yet at Home"

101

Mr. "Warner was not her father, but her
uncle, and only by marriage at that.
His first wife had been the sister of
Prudence's mother, and had taken the
baby when that mother died. She, also,
soon followed the world-accustomed pil-
grimage, and passed out of the sight of
eager eyes. Then Mr. Warner married
Arvilla Gould, who had tenderly cared ,
for the adopted child. All her life,
Prue had been well beloved, but tame-
ly, except for the brief period during
which her clerical lover had been both
true and ardent. On the whole, Prue
had nearly succeeded in teaching herself
that the moderate certainty of her home
affections was worth more than that
flickering flame had been, and there was
.no real trouble now in the eyes that
were reflected at her in the mirror.

Her own father, Stanton Dudley, had
married a second time, been widowed,
and wedded again, and after this three-
fold experience had himself died, leaving
a widow, Prue's unknown step-mother.
Somewhere among these marital changes
another daughter had been born to him,
a fair, slight girl, with cheeks that bore
the fatal New England flush. When
very young, she had married a man
somewhat older than herself. Under
his loving eyes, her wild-rose bloom
grew into a deeper hectic, then faded
and paled in death. Darius Kingman
left the country at once, and settled in
business in China. Once in a while he
acknowledged his connection with Pru-
dence by sending her gifts, which she
displayed to her village friends with
some pride.

" From my brother," she would say,
gently lingering on the words.

" Oh, he 's only a half brother-in-law,
at best ! " cried Maggie Stafford, on one
such occasion ; " and yet he 's the only
real relative you have in the world."

" I 'm sure," broke in Mrs. Warner,
sharply, " Prue's folks think just as
much of her as anybody's else's folks
do of them."

Maggie was a young married beauty,
struggling for an assured position among
the good-natured village aristocracy, who
were easily induced to open their doors
part way for her. They criticised her
a good deal, but tolerated and even rath-
er liked her, both women and men feel-
ing the charm of her unusual beauty.

On this afternoon of which we have
spoken, when Prudence had at last fin-
ished arraying herself, she went down-
stairs, and met Mr. Warner bustling
into the sitting-room.

" Where 's mother ? " asked he.

" There she comes, up the street,"
answered Janet, the pretty handmaid,
flinging open the porch door. Prue
stepped to the threshold, and saw her
mother approaching. She was an elder-
ly woman, tall and spare, with thin, high
features, which were shaded by a silk
sun-bonnet and a green veil tied over
her forehead. Spectacles, also green,
garnished her nose. She wore a black
silk gown, and with her gloveless hands
pushed forward a doll baby-carriage, in
which were laid several bundles.

" There ! " cried Mrs. Warner, as she
came up the steps, a moment later.
" Janet never told me till just new we
was out of lump sugar, and I up an'
bundled off after it ; and I thought I
might as well lay in some rice and tap-
ioca the same time. I knew, with all my
years, I could get it quicker 'n Janet,
not being so much interested in the
young man in the store. That 's where
my years are a real help to me."

Prue, stooping, shook some dust from
the black skirt.

" Marm 's all ready in the parlor,"
said she. " Come and see how nice she
•looks. But, oh, mother, don't forget
that Janet will take the teacups from
you to pass ! "

u I won't let her forget," pertly quoth
the maid. '

" Come, come," commented Mr. War-
ner ; " you talk as if mother was a
child."

102

" A Stranger, yet at Home"

[January,

Several ladies were now seen coming
to the front door, and the family went
into the parlor to receive them. They
clustered around "Harm," Mrs. War-
ner's aged mother, who sat with calmly
folded hands.

" Ninety-five to-day," said her son-
in-law, " and she don't look a bit over
eighty."

u Oh," quavered the old lady, " but
I don't feel nigh so spry as when I was
on'y ninety. I did n't think I 'd live to
see this day."

" That 's so," said her daughter.
" Mother '* just been bent on dyiu' all
this spring. Didn't want me to make
up this dress for her, for fear she would
n't wear it. But I was bound she should
have it, anyhow."

" It '11 do beautiful to be laid out in,"
said Mann, smoothing its shining folds.
" Dear, dear me, Arvilly, what a time it
is sence I was to a funeral ! "

The ladies drew out their fancy work.
Maggie Stafford sat down by the last
gift Darius Kingman had sent, a love-
ly cabinet, that Prue had transformed
into a writing-desk; not that she wrote
much, but it had pleased her fancy to
make the pretty, curious structure serve
as a sort of shrine for the unused liter-
ary implements belonging to the family.

" This is very nice, I 'm sure," said
Maggie, passing her fingers over the in-
laid surface. " It must be very con-
venient. I suppose, Mrs. Warner, you 're
such an intellectual person, you write
and compose a great deal."

" Not I," said the matron, with a toss
of her head. " I thank the Lord I can
use my measuring tape on myself as true
as on anybody else, and I know too
much to waste my time a-writing things
I would n't take the minutes to read if
somebody else had written them."

" How Maggie always does rub moth-
er the wrong way ! " mused Prue, with a
quiet smile ; and then, on some pretext,
she stepped to the door and looked out
across the road. The level sunbeams

shone into her eyes, under the flower-
laden boughs of apple-trees. A tiny
bird, all brown and yellow, swayed on
some frail support among the grasses.
The grass itself shimmered in the warm,
low light, and pink apple-buds seemed
to pale visibly into white blossoms, their
blushes dying as they grew used to the
kisses of the sun.

How lovely it all was ! Prudence
turned her eyes, and saw a man walking
up the road beside the orchard wall.
She gave an amazed little cry, started
eagerly forward, checked herself, stood
a moment irresolute, then advanced
slowly to the gate, and when the stranger
came up she put out her hand, and he
took it, before either spoke.

" You must be Prudence,'' he said at
last. " Do you know me ? "

"Yes, Darius."

They went into the house together.

" Good land ! " cried Mrs. Warner.
" You don't mean it ! Darius Kingman,
as I live ! "

" Come here, come here," said Marm,
in a high tone. " I 'm 'most blind, an'
I want to see if it 's really him."

Everybody talked, and laughed, and
exclaimed, while Kingman stood look-
ing down at the aged woman, — every-
body but Prue, who kept very silent,
watching Darius with shy, glad eyes.

Kingman spoke very deferentially to
the old lady. He might well have
smiled to see her. Around her withered
throat she wore a black ribbon, on her
head a cap made of cheap laces, both
black and white, mixed with lavender
ribbon, and round her head was tied,
with long ends, a bright green string,
which held on her spectacles. Down
each of her temples were laid six little
locks of gray hair, shaped like button-
hooks. After Darius and Prue became
intimate, she confided to him the in-
formation that those gray locks were
cut from Marm's dead husband's brow,
more than twenty years before, made
up into their present ornamental shape,

1883.]

" A Stranger, yet at Home"

103

and were now bound on to the widow's
forehead under her cap.

The husbands of Mrs. Warner's guests
arrived a few minutes after Kingman,
and then all the questions and welcom-
ing uproar began again, till it became
known to everybody that one of the
gentlemen, Mr. Coggeshall, who was a
cousin of Darius, had had some com-
munication with him, and knew of his
intended return. It did not transpire
that evening, but in the course of a few
days the whole village learned that the
traveler had come to help Mr. Cogges-
hall in the management of a new fac-
tory.

Amid the hubbub around Marm's
chair, Janet's clear voice was heard say-
ing that supper was ready ; and I regret
to be obliged to chronicle the fact that,
during the progress of that meal, Mrs.
Warner became so absorbed in telling
Maggie Stafford, what every one else at
the table knew, about the china that
came into her own family when one of
her uncles married " a real, foreign-born
French woman," that she forgot to give
the cups of tea to Janet, and started
them herself on uncertain journeys from
hand to hand around the table. The
maid pursed up her lips and unpursed
them, balanced her waiter irresolutely
for a moment, then tapped her mistress
on the shoulder, whispered fiercely,
" Give it to me, ma'am," and seized a
cup from the absent-minded matron,
which she bore triumphantly to Mr.
Kingman ; while Mrs. Coggeshall made
some remark about the Russian tea she
had drank in Europe, and Maggie Staf-
ford silently wished that she also were
a connoisseur in teas.

A few evenings later, as Prudence
was weeding her flower bed, Darius
came into the garden, and strolled up to
her. She flushed slightly, holding out
her soiled hands with an apologetic ges-
ture of exhibition.

" Never mind," said he. " I saw a
pump in the field as I came through. I

am sure you can find water enough to
make them clean."

" Oh, yes," she answered, feeling a
little confused, — " in the meadow.
That 's where they water the cows."

He laughed, threw himself on the
grass, and stared up at the apple blos-
soms.

" How unlike China ! " he said at
last.

"It must all seem strange to you,"
she ventured, rather timidly.

" Strange," he echoed, " yet so famil-
iar. It 's coming back to first principles
with a vengeance, to take up life in a
New England village, after going round
the globe in search of a destiny."

She did not half understand him, but
she smiled, and he felt encouraged to
go on.

"I feel the spell of old associations
already. I am sure I have made my
circuit. I have traveled far, but all my
paths lead me back to the starting
place."

He plucked the blades of grass under
his idle fingers, and played with them
for some moments ; then broke the si-
lence suddenly : —

" Prudence, will you go with me to
the Quaker meeting on Sunday ? — First
day, I suppose I should say."

She glanced up, surprised. "Yes,"
he continued dreamily, " the old faith
knocks within my heart, where it has
always lain hidden, and demands to
come out and rule my life again."

She was really a little frightened, as
well as much puzzled, at the turn Da-
rius' remarks had taken ; but as she
knelt there by her flowers, with raised
face and perplexed eyes, something in
her sympathetic though uncomprehend-
ing womanhood stimulated him to re-
veal his thought more fully to her.

" Do you not know," he said, " that I
was born and bred a Friend, but was
disowned when I married your sister ? "

" Oh, yes," she answered. " I had
forgotten it."

" A Stranger, yet at Home."

[January,

" I was in love," he went on, " and
what I did I would do again under the
game circumstances ; but those can never
be. And so it has come to pass that I
feel the longing of a homesick child to
be again received into membership."

"You do not look like a Quaker,"
said she.

" Perhaps not ; nor do I talk like
one," he added, with a smile. " Old-
fashioned Quakers never discuss relig-
ious matters. May be I shall feel no
need of speech when I sit among them
again."

" It seems odd," murmured the be-
wildered Prue.

" I suppose it does," he admitted.
" But truly, Prue, you can never know
how deep the dye of Quakerism is to
those whose souls are steeped in it, as
an hereditary religion. It is only a
veneer of the world I wear upon me.
My garments are un-Quakerish in cut,
but my thoughts are shaped after the
old pattern."

" And will you wear a drab coat ? "

He sprang to his feet with a hearty
laugh. " I don't know whether the in-
ward impulse will extend so far out-
ward."

He started towards the house, and
she followed. The path was more fa-
miliar to her, and yet it seemed as if
he were guiding her, under the cherry-
trees and apple blossoms, to the door of
her home.

It chanced that two or three weeks
elapsed before Prudence was able to
accompany her brother-in-law to the
Quaker meeting. Meanwhile, Darius
was very busy, thinking and doing.
His business arrangements proceeded
rapidly towards completion. He plunged
headlong into details, of which some be-
wildered and some surprised him. In
his character, practical energy was unit-
ed with dreamy speculativeness. He
possessed good abilities as a business
man, joined to the mental furnishing
for a religious enthusiast. Remarkable

in neither department of his mind, his
thinking was still of an honest, truthful
sort, and through all his life he had
kept sight of a horizon line beyond the
sordid cares or tempting passions of
every-day existence. During the years
spent in China, his longing for an ideal
life had become intensified into what
was almost a passion for a religious life.
A homesick feeling mingled with the
sentiment, and, uniting itself to the in-
eradicable impulse that a Quaker breed-
ing gives to the soul, turned his thoughts
towards the renewal of his fellowship
with the church of his forefathers.
Across the drift of this current came
the circumstance of his entrance into
a manufacturing business, involving, as
it seemed to him, some complexity in
his relations with many of his fellow-
beings.

Darius Kingman, sickening with dis-
gust at Asiatic life, whose conditions
tried his faith in the unity of the hu-
man race, had idealized his own country,
and he therefore found many things to
perplex him, when he came suddenly
into contact with American industrial
forces, and with laborers on American
soil. At first he was delighted ; then
shocked by some occurrences which left
him uncertain whether these painful
phenomena were normal or exceptional.

It was a perfect June morning on
which Darius drove with Prudence
through the sleepy heat to the old
Quaker meeting-house. The roads were
lined with blackberry and barberry
bushes. Locust-trees grew by the stone
walls on either side, and were in full
bloom, making the air heavy with their
sweetness. Wild-grape vines clasped
trees, stones, and shrubbery in an aban-
doned embrace.

Prudence sat erect by Kingman's
side, and looked about her with an un-
wonted brightness in her eyes. He drove
on in dreamy silence. The languid air,
the wild fragrance, stole into his soul,
exciting there a sort of sensuous fervor

1883.]

" A Stranger, yet at Home"

105

of religious emotion. When they reached
their destination, he lifted Prue out be-
fore the worn old meeting-house, and
idly suffered his eyes to rest upon her fig-
ure as she mounted the steps. She did
not look unfit to take her place among
Quaker women. Her bonnet was sim-
ple, and she was clad in a muslin whose
prevailing tint was gray. He fastened
his horse in the shed, whose yawning al-
coves had sheltered the teams of more
than one sober generation of meeting-
goers, and then made his way into the
little assembly. The memories of his boy-
hood came over him, as he took his seat
apart from Prue, on the " men's side "
of the room. He fixed his eyes on the
elders, sitting on the "facing seats."
Softly came the sound of summer noises
through the windows. The moments
went by like solemn heart-beats. The
faces of the congregation were settled
into stolid calm, but Darius felt as if he
were waiting for something to happen.
A woman rose, at last, and laid her bon-
net on the bench beside her. She be-
gan to speak in a low voice, which soon
soared into the well - known Quaker
chant. Her sentences were disconnect-
ed, ungrammatical, and uncertain of sig-
nificance ; but Darius could not judge
this utterance as he would have judged
it if delivered in another tone and place.
Religious feeling and truth were linked
too closely with such sounds, through
all the experience of early life.

A small, sharp-featured man arose
next. Plain as his face was, it had a
look of tenderness, and his homely eyes
were very earnest. His words, uttered
simply, and with but little intonation,
were direct. He spoke of God as if he
were sure of him. " Men are slow," he
said, " really to believe there is a God
in this world. They believe in many
other powers, but not in his. They are
slow to think he is working right here.
Yet he made men so that they need him.
Man is higher than all the other creatures
God has made, but he needs God more

than these lower ones do. If we are not
in unity with God, we cannot live right
lives, so it behooves us all to watch care-
fully what passes within us, to see that
we be in unity with him. For thus
much he has left it to us to do, that we
should not be mere puppets ; we must
try to put ourselves into communion
with him, if we want his help. If there
be any who say they cannot see God,
or understand him, amid the sore prov-
ings of trouble and sorrow and pain that
are laid upon them, verily, it is because
they have themselves closed their eyes
and darkened their minds to perceive
him not."

Thus spoke the old man, in an every-
day acceut of voice, and it seemed to
Darius that this was what he had waited
for, — the speech of a man who really
believed in God.

Some days after this Sunday, Darius,
walking home in the late afternoon, saw
Prue coming out of one of the factory
tenements, where he knew some con-
sumptive invalids lived. She carried a
little covered basket on her arm, and
wore her gray muslin.

" You have been to see poor An-
drews," he said, joining her. " He tells
me you have been there before."

" Oh, yes."

" You look like a sister of charity."

" Do I ? But I do not make a busi-
ness of doing good."

" Perhaps you are good enough with-
out making a business of it. Some of
us have to treat it as a very serious oc-
cupation indeed, in order to succeed
much in it," he said, slowly, as they
walked, treading the flickering shadows
of the willow boughs that drooped above
their heads.

" How came you to take up visiting
'the poor ? " he added.

" I did n't take it up," she said, some-
what confusedly. " I never knew any-
thing about such people, till Mr. Cogges-
hall built these houses by the river ;
and then we had a washer-woman from

106

"A Stranger, yet at Home"

[January,

one of the families, and I went there
once wheu the cellar was flooded ; and
so I kept on going, they were so near."

" These people were your neighbors,
in short," said he, looking at her gently,
" and so you treated them with neigh-
borly kindness. Well, my dear, I am
not sure that searching through all the
universe will find me a better gospel
than that of neighborliness, — if we
do not narrow our neighborhood too
closely."

He fell to wondering what would
be the efficacy of the Golden Rule as
an economic principle ; but she, still
walking by his side, scarcely heard the
happy chirping of the birds above them,
her heart was throbbing so because he
had called her his dear.

Maggie Stafford met them thus, and
glanced curiously at their faces.

" At her age ! " thought tho young
married beauty.

A few minutes later, she was sitting
on Mrs. Coggeshall's portico, saying,
" Upon my word, I do think the Eng-
lish way is better. Then a girl in Pru-
dence's position would know at once
there could be no love-making between
her and her brother-in-law, and so would
n't get her mind set in that direction."

Mrs. Coggeshall looked blandly at
her visitor. "Oh, indeed," she said.
4< Have you leanings towards the Eng-
lish church ? Well, I always did like
the service very much, and I have read
a good deal about the Anglican divis-
ion from Rome with great interest. If
you are thinking about these things, I
should be delighted to lend you sev-
eral theological works which I possess.
Mr. Coggeshall always laughs at what
he calls my « pious library.' I confess,
however, I never could quite make up
my mind to turn Episcopalian. It was
the fault of the English people. They
are responsible themselves for my re-
maining outside their communion. I
always doted on everything English till
the war came, and then they were so

nasty, as they say, I never could abide
them afterwards. Do you remember
much about the war ? "

"Yes, though I was quite young
then," said Maggie ; and bent on return-
ing to the charge, she added, " I think
it very odd Mr. Kingman did not come
back from China to go into the army."

" Brought up a Quaker, my dear,"
rejoined Mrs. Coggeshall, thoroughly
aware of Maggie's purpose, and equally
resolved to frustrate it. " You know
Quakers don't fight; and though many
of the young men in the Society did go
into the army, they were those who
were in the very heat of the martial
spirit of the North, and caught the war
fever without stopping to think of the
principles of their religion. But Darius
was way off in China, and only echoes
reached his ear ; positively, only echoes
of the strife. It was n't exactly ' dis-
tance lending enchantment to the view,'
but something analogous to it. The ex-
citement did not overcome the effect of a
lifelong training. He sympathized, and
all that, but could not take the bloody
sword in hand. Oh, I respect his devo-
tion to principle just as much as I honor
the courage of our soldiers ! I knew
several of those Quaker officers from
Philadelphia. Splendid fellows ! Come
into the house, Maggie, and let me show
you a photograph of one of them. Such
a gentleman and soldier as he was ! And
to think he is dead ! Yet I 've got to
that age that sometimes it seems to me
as if half the world were dead, and it
was n't natural for me to have any
friends alive."

So she talked the young woman's
gossip down, but she understood it very
well, and began herself to fear that
Prue might be laying up trouble for her
poor little heart.

Maggie, meanwhile, rushed into the
game, and began to invite Darius to
visit her. She had no special desire to
assume the role of married flirt. Her
ambition was to have a popular house,

1883.]

11 A Stranger, yet at Home"

107

and to move about in it with impartial
smiles. Darius took Prudence there a
few times. She sat in the corner, very
composed and very quiet. He did not
quite like the style of society they met
there, and it relieved an occasional feel-
ing of annoyance for him to see Prue
on her low seat by the window.

"Am I not glad that is over!" he
said one night, as they started for home.
" I would not go there so much if Mrs.
Stafford did n't manage it so that I
seem obliged to. I don't think it is con-

sistent with my Quaker principles to
frequent such gay assemblies."

"I can't quite make out," said Prue,
" how much in earnest you are about
your Quakerism."

" I am very much in earnest," an-
swered he. " Do you not think a sim-
ple style of living, on the part of the
rich, might have a tendency to bring
about a keener sense of the brotherhood
of men ? "

There was no reply to this remark,
because just then a turn in the road
brought them out of the dense shadow
of trees, and there, displayed before
them, was the sky all in a pallid flame
with dancing Northern Lights.

After this evening, Darius generally
succeeded in escaping or refusing Mag-
gie's invitations. That pretty lady
pouted, pretended to be grieved, and
finally gave a little revengeful thrust : —

u I suppose a poor married woman
like me must give up your friendship,
now you are so much interested in
another quarter. Oh, I know : I ought
to retire to my kitchen, and leave the
parlor for the ' young folks,' or only
come there to sit by the wall and watch
them enjoy themselves. But I don't
like to do that very well," she added, de-
murely folding her hands and dropping
her lovely eyes, " when the only reason
I am not one of the ' young folks ' my-
self is that I am married, not that I
am old. I am really not near so old
as some people I know. And truly, I

don't see why I can't like fun and my
friends just as well as if I did n't — like
somebody ever so much better, and be-
long to him, — in a general way. And
why can't you, Mr. Kingman ? Is she
jealous ? "

" I don't know what you mean," said
he stoutly.

" Oh, but she does," retorted Maggie,
looking prettier than ever, for audacity
was becoming to her. " Or is it only
a case of somebody liking you best ?
Then surely you might come to my lit-
tle parties. Oh, there 's my good man !
Tom, dear, don't you see me ? Here
I am, quarreling with Mr. Kingman.
Come over and walk home with me,
for, truly, he won't."

That evening there was a temperance
meeting in the village, and all the aris-
tocracy of the place were there, by way
of setting a good example to the lower
classes. Mrs. Coggeshall, looking across
the aisle, saw Prue's eyes resting for an
instant on Darius.

" Ah," thought the matron, " Provi-
dence evidently intends this to be a case
for me. Prudence has no flesh-and-
blood mother, and the best make-believe
one don't thrill through every nerve on
behalf of a child, as a real one does. I
have n't an idea Mrs. "Warner sees a
thing of what's going on under her re-
spectably spectacled nose. To be sure,
Prue is old enough to take care of her-
self ; only women, unless they are
married, will be women to the end of
the chapter, poor creatures ! Gracious,
how time goes ! It must be full fifteen
years since Prue followed that Loren-
zo somebody down to the river. She
thought she was doing it to please the
Lord, but I guess the Lord knew very
well it was done to please Lorenzo.
And now she 's on the road to another
trouble ! "

That night Darius Kingman sat, for
an hour, alone on his boarding-house
piazza. The moon shone solemnly
down out of a clear, dark sky. There

108

"A Stranger, yet at Home"

[January,

seemed to be no barrier between the
man's soul and heaven, — only immeas-
urable distance. All the passions of
his life passed in review before him, like
a great host marshaled under that awful
sky. Events were of little moment to
him compared with emotions. It seemed
to him of no account what special cir-
cumstance had fired the train of feeling
laid ready in his heart, or had turned
his thoughts along a pathway already
open before him. If it had not been
one incident, it would have been another.
Only one thing in all his life appeared
now to have been of itself of controlling
import, — his early love and loss. Apart
from this single monumental experience,
all his story was the story of a man's
longing after God, and all that longing
had brought him back to the faith of his
youth. Amid the fluctuations of mod-
ern thought, with its materialistic ten-
dency, this alone offered a solid assur-
ance to his mind, — the dear old Quaker
doctrine, that in the soul of every man
that cometh into the world is a light
that lighteth all his footsteps. A thou-
sand lesser impulses, also, drew him
back to his old religion. For the sake
of his love he had once defied the Quaker
discipline, which forbade marriage with
an outsider ; but did he wish to do that
again ? Prudence, sweet as she was to
him, aroused no such passionate love as
had been given to her sister. He knew
very well that old customs had so far
relaxed among the Friends in that sec-
tion of the country that he could be ad-
mitted to fellowship with them, though
it were known that he purposed marry-
ing one of the women of the world a
week later. He had no principle him-
self against such marriages, and yet,
whether from the effect of early train-
ing or hereditary prejudice, he shrank
in some undefined way from entertain-
ing at the same time the project of
joining the Society and of making such
a marriage as the Society had deliber-
ately condemned as " disorderly."

It also touched what small share of
humor this serious-minded man possessed
to find himself, in this religious crisis
of his life, tempted to commit again the
very same offense which had made him
a religious outlaw, so many years before.
But when he had reached this stage of
his meditations, he told himself that he
was not at all tempted to marry Prue.
Why, then, was he thinking about it ?
Why did her face rise before him in the
moonlight, beside the radiant image of
that dead girl, whose remembered beau-
ty even made the living Prudence seem
the ghost to him ?

The truth was, Maggie Stafford's hints
had rankled in Darius' mind, atid, more-
over, Mrs. Coggeshall had claimed his
escort on the way home that evening,
and had plainly told him that if he did
not mean to marry Pruo he would do
well not to dangle around her any more.
Mrs. Coggeshall could be very direct of
speech when she chose, and she had left
no doubt as to her meaning in his mind.

" I do not believe it," he soliloquized.
" Prue is not the girl to fall in love with
any man ; nor am I exactly a charm-
ing creature. I will not go there to
make talk, but there is surely no need
for me to think of marrying her on her
own account ! What an idea ! As for
myself. I like her. I really do not know
why 1 like her so much. Sometimes, I
wonder if she has any intellect, or only
that sweet, sympathetic smile, which al-
ways leads me on to talk. She never
says a noticeable thing, yet I always
want to tell her all I think. But I
surely do not love her, or I could not
analyze her thus."

It did not occur to the man that he
was not analyzing her very successfully
just then, — that he was simply confess-
ing there was some quality in her which
defied his analysis ; so he went bravely
on to his resolve, that he would shield
her from gossip, and visit her only when
compelled to do so. He rose at last to
leave the silent porch. Pausing at the

1883.]

" A Stranger, yet at Home"

house door, he looked up at the moon,
which now rode majestic in the mid-
heavens. Back over his soul came a
religious feeling, like the swelling of a
great tide.

" 0 God, my God," he murmured,
" in all this aching, groaning world, in
all this living, loving world, there is no
room for any passion but the desire of
thee ! "

So evening after evening passed, and
Darius did not come to Prue's sitting-
room. At first she wondered openly at
his absence, playfully making little vexed
speeches about it to her father and
mother. Then she ceased to refer to
her brother-in-law, and drooped a little
in her manner; but there was nobody
to notice that.

One afternoon she sat at the window,
and saw Darius go by, on the other side
of the road, with Maggie Stafford and
her younger sister, Tessy, - — a girl more
golden-haired, more beautifully blonde
even, than Maggie. Tessy was laughing
as they passed. The laugh sounded like
the note of a bobolink, Prue thought ;
and, thinking this, saw Darius smile
kindly in answer. How well she knew
that kind smile !

She rose at once, and went to her
room. She saw herself in her mirror,
as the door closed behind her, and seat-
ed herself mechanically in a low chair.
How oM and pale she looked !

" Old ! " she said to herself mocking-
ly. " I feel as if I were dead ! "

For a full half hour she sat there,
scarcely moving ; then she went calmly
down the stairs, took up her sewing, and
listened, without understanding, while
her mother read something from Dar-
win aloud to her.

That same evening, Darius stood once
more on Maggie's piazza, while the mu-
sic of young voices floated gayly through
the open windows ; and she herself, a
white, graceful figure, came to him, lay-
ing a hand lightly on his arm.

" It is lovely to have you back," said
she ; " and I knew you would like Tes-

ay-"

"She is charming," said the man.
" But I do not feel in my element
among these bright young girls. I fan-
cy I lived too long in China to be at
home in this sort of society. I spoke
pigeon English too many years to find
my tongue apt at compliments now. You
are very kind to want to introduce me
to your girl friends, but it is too late for
me to make myself their comrade."

After this, he did manage very near-
ly to seclude himself and, being very
much occupied by his business during
the fall months, Prue was not the only
one of his friends who missed the sight
of him.

Of course he was obliged to call oc-
casionally at Mr. Warner's, but it was
at least three weeks after that evening
at Maggie's when Prue met him first.
She came into the house from a botaniz-
ing walk, carrying in her hand a spray
of early red leaves. On her way home
she had been thinking of him. She
was always thinking of him at this time.
She never left the house without the
thought that she might see him. She
never came back without the hope that
he had entered her home in her absence.
She never • approached a window with-
out wondering if she might not catch a
glimpse of him through the revealing
glass, that seemed a loop-hole in her
prison walls. She never saw a figure
coming towards her from the distance
without the prayer that it might be his.
It was not a sharp pain she felt, but a
deadly suspense of the mind, a slow-
creeping faintness of the heart, like the
on-coming of disease or of old age.

In this mood with his name trembling
on her unconscious lips, she came into
the room on that September afternoon,
and saw him standing beside her grand-
mother, — her grandmother only by
adoption, like all her other relatives,
poor Prue !

110

" A Stranger, yet at Home"

[January,

He was saying gentle parti ug words
to the old lady, who peered up at him,
nodding her head, till the little false
curls bobbed in a manner quite unbe-
coming their melancholy origin.

" Yes, yes, Darius Kingman," said
the shrill voice ; " we old folks expect
you young ones to forget us. I ain't
ben a mite surprised you did n't come,
but it did seem ruther more lonesomer.
I set here an' think an' think, an' your
Mary's pretty face rises right up afore
me like a picter ! She come here a-vis-
itin' oncet or twicet, when she was a tiny
tot ; an' I declare for 't, though Prue
was a better gal, I did like your Mary
best. I set a sight by Prue, but my
heart kinder hankered after Mary. She
was like my little gal that died; an'
when you come it brings the thought of
them both to me, — pretty little gals,
your Mary, as has been dead only thir-
teen year, an' my Arabella, as died six-
ty year ago. Wai, wal, I allus see 'em
together now, an' pretty soon I 'm goin'
where they be. I think I can find 'em
somewheres, — I think I can."

As the old lady's voice died away
in an unearthly whisper, Darius turned,
and saw Prue, very pale, standing before
him, holding the spray of red leaves
against her gray gown. He felt a sort
of nervous shock, but he only bowed,
touched her fingers, stooped again over
Mann's withered hand, murmured a few
incoherent words, and left the house.

A few days later, the grandmother
died, and Darius came again frequent-
ly to the Warners'. He was kind and
helpful, but he kept out of Prue's way,
and when the necessity for visiting there
passed he came no more.

The Warners did not put on mourn-
ing. " It 's a sinful waste of time an'
money," said Mrs. Arvilla. " It makes
the world dismaler than it need be, an'
there 's nothin' Christian in doin' that.
The sorrow that has to be coddled to
keep it alive had better die. If any-
body thinks I ain't sorry my mother 's

dead, let 'em come an' ask me ! That 's
all."

So Prue still wore her soft grays and
browns ; but when she selected her mod-
est winter wardrobe, that year, she chose
even plainer shapes and duller tints than
ever before ; feeling that thus she did
some slight honor to the aged woman's
memory, but further impelled by a sense
that in this way it behooved one to dress
whose girlhood had passed. She did not
want to be old, but she had felt that she
was old ever since the afternoon when
she had heard that clear laugh of Tessy
Martin's ring out for girlish joy at be-
ing in Darius Kingman's company. A
man's fate, thought Prue, was different
from a woman's. He was her own sen-
ior by several years, but he was not old
in the sense that she was. He was still
a welcome associate for young and beau-
tiful maidens, while she ! — alas, what
handsome boy of eighteen would laugh
like that because Prudence Warner
smiled on him ? She had missed not
only Darius Kingman's love, but all the
blessed chances of youth. She bade
herself accept her lot quietly, nor trick
herself out in unbefitting clothes, but
to look what she was, — a middle-aged
single woman, who had been passed by.

The first time she wore her new gar-
ments to church, Maggie came up to
her after the service, laughing. " Real-
ly, Prudence, you look just like a
Quaker. Have you caught Darius King-
man's craze ? "

Prue flushed, and turned angrily
away.

" Oh, I did n't mean anything," called
out Maggie ; but the other would not
answer, and walked rapidly homeward.

Prue was tempted, after this, to crown
her bonnet with gay flowers, but she
would not show Maggie that she felt the
sting of what had been said.

Towards spring, the hands in Mr.
Coggeshall's mill struck. They paraded
and held meetings. There was much
gathering of people on the streets. All

1883.]

"A Stranger, yet at Home"

111

sorts of stories were told about every-
body concerned in the business. Mr.
Coggeshall, irritated by many false re-
ports, shut himself in his house in sullen
silence. Deputations of spinners and
weavers besieged his door in vain. He
would see none of them. Mrs. Cogge-
shall rattled on good-humoredly about
the whole affair, and rallied her husband
unceasingly at what she termed the con-
stantly increasing evidences of his pop-
ularity with the people he employed.
She treated it all as a joke, but he took
the strike as a personal offense.

It was a new experience to Kingman,
and impressed him deeply. He talked
with everybody on all sides. By turns
he grew indignant in behalf of both par-
ties. Sometimes he was heart-sick and
dismayed by the difficulties in this and
many kindred situations which he in-
restigated ; but whatever financial the-
ories he adopted or dropped, more and
more his sympathies went out to those
men, women, and children to whom " la-
bor troubles " meant something worse
than the pecuniary embarrassment which
threatened their employers.

Prudence saw him now frequently, as
business consultations were often held
with Mr. Warner at their house.

She did not understand political econ-
omy, and perhaps would not have been
much impressed by the talk that con-
stantly went on between her father and
Mr. Coggeshall about " competition " if
she had understood it ; but she noted
Darius' serious aspect, felt that he was
not quite in sympathy with the others,
and her heart yearned over him.

" He seems to mind people's troubles
as if they were his own," she thought.
, " I suppose we all ought to," she added,
with the simple comment of a conscience
unversed in the laissez-faire doctrines
of trade.

One Sunday in March, Mr. and Mrs.
Coggeshall came to Mr. Warner's, soon
after the dinner which it was the village
Sabbath custom to have in the middle

of the afternoon. The talk turned on
Kingman's character.

" Now," said Mrs. Coggeshall, " you
may say what you will, but / say there 's '
something very fine about that man.
With all his Quaker stiffness, if I want-
ed to draw an ideal picture of a gentle-
man, I 'd just make his portrait."

" A good fellow, a good fellow," com-
mented her husband sagely, " but very
erratic, very erratic ; " and he puckered
his lips, as if he did not like the taste of
that word.

" Yes," said she undauntedly, " aw-
fully so ; that 's one thing I like about
him."

" I don't see," spoke up Mrs. War-
ner, " as the thing you call so erratic in
Darius is anything but the New Testa-
ment fanaticism put in action ; an' for
my part, I don't think it 's respectful to
the Lord, the way Mr. Coggeshall and
Mr. Warner are always talkin', as if
the Almighty did n't know nothiu' about
business, when he settled his system of
morality."

" My dear, my dear," softly inter-
posed Mr. Warner, " you be a woman,
and don't understand business."

" The Lord an' I together ! " ejacu-
lated Mrs. Arvilla.

At that moment came a low tap at
the back door, and Prudence softly
glided out of the room. She soon came
back, and spoke with some nervousness :

" Father, Darius wants to know if he
may borrow the horse and buggy to
drive to Lexville. His horse is lame.
He 's got a sudden call to go, and as he
may be detained he 's asked me to go
with him, so I can bring the horse
back."

" Oh, to be sure, to be sure," bustled
Mr. Warner, rising. " I '11 go and see
to the harnessing."

" No, you need n't," said she hastily.
" I guess Darius understands a horse as
well as you do, — the times he 's har-
nessed Spin ! Sit still, do ! You know
you've got a lame back, and, besides,

112

A Stranger, yet at Home.

[January,

Mr. Coggeshall wants to talk business
with you."

" That 's so," said the manufacturer,
as Prue, despite herself, turned an ap-
pealing look to him. " Sit down, Ja-
cob. I guess Darius is equal to the oc-
casion."

But Mrs. Coggeshall noticed Prue's
excited manner, and felt a great dis-
approval of the proposed drive. She
wanted to go straight out to the barn,
and talk to Kingman again about his
sister-in-law's affections. She ached to
tell Mrs. Warner how stupidly blind
she was. But as she could do neither of
these things, she tried to content her-
self by attacking Prudence's unsuspi-
cious mother on a point of theology.

When Prue, all bonneted and cloaked,
went out to the barn, she found Darius
standing beside the mare, his face very
white and his lips compressed.

" I '11 harness her," said she, " and
I 've made it all right in the house."

" Poor little Prue," said he. " What
a diplomat you must be, and I should
never have suspected it of you ! "

She put the mare in the traces, backed
the buggy out of the barn, and even
helped Darius in. He submitted with
a protest, but when both were seated he
gathered up the reins with his left
hand.

" You 'd better let me drive," said
she.

" Not till we have passed the house,"
he answered.

They leaned forward and bowed as
they went by the sitting-room windows,
and then Darius laughed a little, as
Mrs. Coggeshall darted at him a wrath-
ful look, the purport of which he sus-
pected.

When they were on the road Prue
firmly took possession of the reins, say-
ing, " Now tell me all about it."

"I have told you all there is, — just
a row with Tom Murphy and Peter
McNamara, as I came across the fields,
looking for trailing arbutus. It was

nothing. They would n't have touched
me, but they were drunk, and took it
into their muddled heads to class me
among their oppressors. There 's no
real ill-blood among the strikers. They
Ve behaved very well, I think," he
added, with an attempt at a smile, " con-
sidering they 've had to do without the
refining influences of higher education."

" Oh, but are you hurt very much ? "

" Not seriously ; only, as I said, my
arm must be broken. I think Peter
did it with that big club. It did look
so big, coming down on me, and I put
up my arm. But I got off in decently
honorable shape, I natter myself, —
Quaker as I am. I want to get to Lex-
ville without any one hearing of it. I
would n't have Mr. Coggeshall know it
to-night for the world, because — it can
do no harm to tell you — he has agreed
to give notice to-morrow that he will
accede to some of the demands of the
strikers. It is right he should do so ;
but if he were to hear of this affair first,
he would certainly misinterpret it, and
jump to the conclusion that it was an
act of deliberate hostility, and I am
afraid he would refuse to do what he
has promised to do."

Kingman spoke slowly, and leaned
heavily agaiust the side of the buggy,
looking faint. Prudence drove steadily,
keeping her eyes fixed on the mare.
The sky was darkly overcast, except
around the horizon, where bits of blue
showed between fleecy drifts, and in
the west a glory of many colors, soft
yet bright, spread itself above the dis-
tant hills. Here and there the sun be-
hind the clouds poured its rays down,
straight and luminous, across this west-
ern belt of opaline tints, causing gold to
melt into a dream of rose-color, and
lower still dissolving all elements into
an enchanting haze, that lay upon those
wonderful hills of mysterious blue.

Prue drove directly to Dr. Salisbury's
house, when they reached Lexville.
The doctor received them in his office.

1883.]

" A Stranger, yet at Home"

113

He knew Prue slightly, and held out to
her a thin brown hand, working his
features very much, while he made a
speech of formal welcome. She briefly
explained her presence, and he cried
out delightedly, —

" And you want to make a conspira-
tor of me, and let me secrete Kingman
for twenty-four hours, till the affair has.
blown over ! I see, I see. He shall stay
here. I '11 keep him in my own house,
and doctor him privately. I like it ! It
carries me back to my youth, and re-
minds me of the fugitive slaves my fa-
ther hid in his cellar."

While he talked and ogled, the doctor
placed his patient on the sofa, and pre-
pared to examine his injuries. Then
said Prudence, still standing in the mid-
dle of the floor, —

" Now I will leave you, Darius."

Kingman feebly smiled, holding up
to her his left hand. As she took it
she saw her sister's wedding ring on his
finger.

" You have been very good," he said.
" Some day, I '11 try to thank you."

She made him no answer, but bade
the doctor good-by, and went out.

" She 's a woman, now," said the sur-
geon, as he threw a puckered glance
after her. Darius raised himself slight-
ly, stared at the doctor, but uttered no
word.

The secret was kept till Mr. Cogges-
hall was too deeply pledged to concil-
iation to permit of his drawing back.
When the story did leak out it enhanced
Kingman's popularity very considera-
bly. Murphy disappeared from town,
but McNamara made a pilgrimage to
Lexville, procured an interview with
Darius, and behaved after such a fashion
of sincere regret that the wounded man
became the young fellow's staunch
friend.

Kingman was, however, quite ill for
several days. Dr. Salisbury consequent-
ly formed a habit of going to Mr. War-
ner's to report the daily fluctuations in

VOL. n. — NO. 303. 8

the condition of his " sequestered hero,"
as he called the patient.

" He 'd be tol'ably good-looking,"
said Mrs. Warner one day, as she watched
the physician carefully tying his horse
at the gate, " if he 'd only let his face
alone, an' not try to keep his features
promenading round his countenance.
He ain't so very old, neither. They
say his hair turned white when his wife
died. I don't believe he 's a day over
fifty. I say, Prue," with a prolonged
but feminine whisper, " that 's why he 's
so fond of comin' here."

" What 's why ? " asked Prue, inco-
herently ; but her mother only snorted
out a laugh, and retreated to the kitchen,
unkindly leaving Prue . alone to receive
the doctor. The matron sat down by
the stove, and tittered over the boiling
cabbage and corned beef.

" To think," murmured she, "of any-
body's wantin' our Prue ! "

Prudence met the doctor with flam-
ing cheeks, which made her almost
handsome, so that his ardor was fired ;
and although he did not actually make
love to her, something in his manner
left her convinced, when he finally bowed
himself out, that under all the play of
his hands, and the twisting and screw-
ing of his eyes and mouth, lurked a
definite intention towards herself.

When alone, she laughed, like her
mother, and echoed her thought, saying,
" The idea of his wanting me ! Why,
it 's ten years since any one wanted me.
He 's a smart man, too, and the last one
was such a fool."

But after she had stood still a minute,
laughing in a helpless, hysterical fashion,
she suddenly fled to her room, as she
had done the afternoon she had seen|
Darius walking with Maggie and Tessy.
This time she threw herself on the floor,
and cried, and cried.

Nevertheless, the knowledge that she
had or could have a suitor proved in
many ways a balm to Prue's heart ; and
finally, rising from the floor, she took

114

" A Stranger, yet at Home"

[January,

out a spring hat, and deliberately gar-
nished it with a modest spray of flowers,
which she had laid aside, iu her self-
crucifying mood, the season before. She
had no idea of trying to be a girl again,
or of marrying any man, but she did
not feel half so much like an irredeem-
able old maid as she had for many
months.

Dr. Salisbury reported to his patient
the visits he made to the Warners, and
Darius responded that he was glad to
hear they were well.

He grew very restless in his confine-
ment, and made attempts to vary the
monotony of his life in ways that re-
tarded his recovery. The doctor fret-
ted at him.

" I told Mrs. Warner, this morning,
that you were worse than a whole circus
to manage."

" How do you know ? Did you ever
try to manage a circus ? "

" Kingman, why don't you say thee to
me ?"

" I don't want to."
The doctor laughed at Darius' slight
irritation. " I guess I '11 have you all
right soon," he said ; " but you must be
patient, and not do such abominably rash
things. Have prudence, Kingman, —
have prudence."

Darius rose to his feet, and looked at
the physician a moment, before he said
quietly, " I have been a fool, doctor,
and I will have prudence."

The buds upon the trees were just
enough swollen to blue the outline of
the branches against the sky, and the
air felt warm to Kingman's cheek, as he
made his way to the side door of Mr.
Warner's house, when he went there
for his first call after his accident. The
grass was pushing up its elf-like blades,
sheathed in green, and the voices of
children came calling through the dis-
tance with a shrill sweetness. The
world looked happy, and Darius felt so
as Prudence came through the yard to
meet him, with welcoming eyes. She

had been feeding some pet pigeons, and
a dove was perched upon her shoulder, —
a young bird, pure white and exquisite-
ly slender. It looked not like a crea-
ture, but like the soul of some being.

Darius bent over the woman's hand,
and the dove took flight, its wings whir-
ring close above his head. When he
raised his eyes he saw Dr. Salisbury
standing in a familiar attitude in the
doorway. It seemed to Darius that a
shadow had fallen across the sky.

They all went round to the front
porch, where they seated themselves,
and chatted lightly about the wonder-
ful warmth of the afternoon. The doc-
tor was fluent. Kingman grew silent.
Prudence sat quietly between the two ••
men.

" I 'm like Gertrude," she thought :
"after getting one sweetheart, they
swarm.'"

But she did not really think that
Darius had come a-wooing. She only
felt very glad to see him, and very con-
tent, also, that her womanly attractions
should be vindicated in his presence by
the doctor's attentive manner.

" I want a glass of water ! " cried King-
man, at last, springing to his feet in
helpless impatience.

Prudence rose. " No," said he, " I
am going to the well."

" You can't draw the bucket."

" I '11 help you," said the doctor.

"I can do it myself," retorted he.
They followed him, nevertheless, and
the doctor applied himself to the well-
rope, while Darius stood by, fuming.
Prue went into the house for a glass.
As she came out again, the white dove
flew down and hovered about her. The
doctor was hauling up the bucket.
Darius went forward and met Prue.
He looked her straight in the eyes, and
said in a low tone, —

" Choose between that man and me."

" Where 's your tumbler ? " cried the
doctor, as he landed the dripping bucket.
Prue filled the glass, and handed it to

1883.]

Darius. The doctor stood only a yard
away, whisking some drops of water off she.
his clothes, but his back was turned.

" Which is it ? " asked Kingman, over
the glass.

Chance Days in Oregon. 115

" Why, you, Darius, of course," said

Moreover, in due time he also joined
the Society of Friends.

L. C. Wyman.

CHANCE DAYS IN OREGON.

THE best things in life seem always
snatched on chances. The longer one
lives and looks back, the more he real-
izes this, and the harder he finds it to
" make option which of two," in the per-
petually recurring cases when " there 's
not enough for this and that," and he
must choose which he will do or take.
Chancing right in a decision, and seeing
clearly what a blunder any other de-
cision would have been, only makes the
next such decision harder, and contrib-
utes to increased vacillation of purpose
and infirmity of will ; until one comes
to have serious doubts whether there be
noj, a truer philosophy in the " toss up "
test than in any other method. " Heads
we go, tails we stay," will prove right as
many times out of ten as the most pains-
taking pros and cons, weighing, consult-
ing, and slow deciding.

It was not exactly by "heads and
tails " that we won our glimpse of Ore-
gon ; but it came so nearly to the same
thing that our recollections of the jour-
ney are still mingled with that sort of
exultant sense of delight with which the
human mind always regards a purely
fortuitous possession.

Three days and two nights on the
Pacific Ocean is a round price to pay
for a thing, even for Oregon, with the
Columbia River thrown in. There is
not so .misnamed a piece of water on
the globe as the Pacific Ocean, nor so
unexplainable a delusion as the almost
universal impression that it is smooth
sailing there. It is British Channel and

North Sea and off the Hebrides com-
bined,— as many different twists and
chops and swells as there are waves.
People who have crossed the" Atlantie
again and again without so much as a
qualm are desperately ill between San
Francisco and Portland. There is but
one comparison for the motion : it is
as if one's stomach were being treated
as double teeth are handled, when coun-
try doctors are forced to. officiate as den-
tists, and know no better way to get
a four-pronged tooth out of its socket
than to turn it round and round till it
is torn loose.

Three days and two nights ! I spent
no inconsiderable portion of the time in
speculations as to Monsieur Antoiue Cro-
zat's probable reasons for giving back
to King Louis his magnificent grant of
Pacific coast country. He kept it five
years, I believe. In that time he prob-
ably voyaged up and down its shores
thoroughly. Having been an adventur-
ous trader in the Indies, he must have
been well wonted to seas ; and being
worth forty millions of livres, he could
afford to make himself as comfortable in
the matter of a ship as was possible a
century and a half ago. His grant was
a princely domain : an empire five times
larger than France itself. What could
he have been thinking of, to hand it back
to King Louis like a worthless bauble of
which he had grown tired ? Nothing but
the terrors of sea-sickness can explain
it. If he could have foreseen the steam-
engine, and have had a vision of it fly-

116

Chance Days in Oregon.

[January,

ing on iron roads across continents and
mountains, how differently would he
have conducted ! The heirs of Mon-
sieur Antoine, if any such there be to-
day, must ch.ife when they read the
terms of our Louisiana Purchase.

Three days and two nights — from
Thursday morning till Saturday after-
noon — between San Francisco and the
i'nouth of the Columbia, and then we had
to lie at Astoria the greater part of Sun-
day night before the tide would let us
go on up the river. It was not waste
time, however. Astoria is a place curi-
ous to behold. Seen from the water, it
seems a tidy little white town nestled
on the shore, and well topped off by
wooded hills. Landing, one finds that
it must be ranked as amphibious, being
literally half on land and half on water.
From Astoria proper, the old Astoria,
which Mr. Astor founded, and Washing-
ton Irving described, up to the new
town, or upper Astoria, is a mile and
a half, two thirds bridges and piers.
Long wooden wharves, more streets
than wharves, resting on hundreds of
piles, are built out to deep water. They
fairly i'ringo the shore; and the street
nearest the water is little more than
a succession of bridges from wharf to
wharf. Frequent bays and inlets make
up, leaving unsightly muddy wastes
when the tide goes out. To see family
washing hung out on lines over these
tidal flats, and the family infants draw-
ing their go - carts in tho mud below,
was a droll sight. At least every oth-
er building on these strange wharf
streets is a salmon cannery, and acres
of the wharf surfaces were covered with
salmon nets spread out to dry. The
streets were crowded with wild-looking

men, sailor-like, and yet not sailor-like,
all wearing india-rubber boots reaching
far abovo the knee, with queer wing-
like flaps projecting all around at top.
These were the fishers of salmon, two
thousand of them, Russians, Finns, Ger-
mans, Italians, — " every kind on the

earth," an old restaurant keeper, said in
speaking of them ; " every kind on the
earth, they pour in here, for four months,
from May to September. They 're a wild
set ; clear out with the salmon, 'n' don't
mind any more 'n the fish do what they
leave behind 'em."

All day long they kill time in the
saloons. The nights they spend on the
water, flinging and trolling and draw-
ing in their nets, which often burst with
the weight of the captured salmon. It
is a strange life, and one sure to foster
a man's worst traits rather than his best
ones. The fishermen who have homes
and families, and are loyal to them, in-
dustrious and thrifty, are the exception.

The site of Mr. Astor's original fort'
is now the terraced yard of a spruce
new house on the corner of one of the
pleasantest streets in the old town.
These streets are little more than nar-
row terraces, rising one above the other
on jutting and jagged levels of the river
bank. They command superb off-looks
across and up and down the majestic
river, which is hero far more a bay than
a river. The Astoria people mustjbe
strangely indifferent to these views, for
the majority of the finest houses face
away from the water, looking straight
into the rough, wooded hillside.

Uncouth and quaint vehicles are per-
petually plying between the old and the
new towns ; they jolt along fast over
the narrow wooden roads, and the foot
passengers, who have no other place to
walk, are perpetually scrambling from
under the horses' heels. It is a unique
highway : pebbly beaches, marshes, and
salt ponds, alder-grown cliffs, hemlock
and spruce copses on its inland side; on
the water-side, bustling wharves, canner-
ies, fishermen's boarding-houses, great
spaces filled in with bare piles waiting
to be floored ; at every turn shore and
sea seem to change sides, and clumps of
brakes, fresh-hewn stumps, maple and
madrono trees, shift places with canner-
ies and wharves; tho sea swashes un-

1883.]

Chance Days in Oregon.

117

der the planks of the road at one min-
ute, and the next is an eighth of a mile
away, at the end of a close-built lane.
Even in the thickest settled business
part of the town, blocks of water alter-
nate with blocks of brick and stone.

The statistics of the salmon-canning
business almost pass belief. In 1881,
eix hundred thousand cases of canned ,
salmon were shipped from Astoria. We
ourselves saw seventy-five hundred cases
put on board one steamer. There were
forty eight-pound cans in each case ; it
took five hours' steady work, of forty
"long-shore men," to load them. These
long-shore men are another shifting and
turbulent element in the populations of
the river towns. They work day and
night, get big wages, go from place to
place, and spend money recklessly; a
sort of commercial Bohemian, difficult
to handle and often dangerous. They
sometimes elect to take fifty cents an
hour and all the beer they can drink,
rather than a dollar an hour and no
beer. At the time we saw them, they
were on beer wages. The foaming beer
casks stood at short intervals along the
wharf, — a pitcher, pail, and mug at
each cask. The scene was a lively one :
four cases loaded at a time on each
truck, run swiftly to the wharf edge,
and slid down the hold ; trucks rattling,
turning sharp corners ; men laughing,
wheeling to right and left of each other,
tossing off mugs of beer, wiping their
mouths with their hands, and flinging
the drops in the air with jests, — one
half forgave them for taking part wages
in the beer, it made it so much merrier.

On Sunday morning we waked up to
find ourselves at sea in the Columbia
River. A good part of Oregon and.
Washington Territory seemed also to
be at sea there. When a river of the
size of the Columbia gets thirty feet
above low-water mark, towns and town-
ships go to sea unexpectedly. All the
way up the Columbia to the Willamette,
and down the Willamette to Portland,

we sailed in and on a freshet, and saw
at once more and less of the country than
could be seen at any other time. At
the town of Kalama, facetiously an-
nounced as " the water terminus of the
Northern Pacific Railroad," the hotel,
the railroad station, and its warehouses
were entirely surrounded by water, and
we sailed, in seemingly deep water, di-
rectly over the wharf where landings
were usually made. At other towns on
the way we ran well up into the fields,
and landed passengers or freight on
stray sand spits, or hillocks, from which
they could get off again on the other
side by small boats. We passed scores
of deserted houses, their windows open,
the water swashing over their door-sills ;
gardens, with only tops of bushes in
sight, one with red roses swaying back
and forth, limp and helpless on the tide.
It seemed strange that men would build
houses and make farms in a place where
they are each year liable to be driven
out by such freshets. When I ex-
pressed this wonder, an Oregonian re-
plied lightly, " Oh, the river always
gives them plenty of time. They 've
all got boats, and they wait till the last
minute always, hoping the water '11 go
down." " But it must be unwholesome
to the last degree to live on such over-
flowed lands. When the water recedes,
they must get fevers." " Oh, they get
used to it. After they 've taken about
a barrel of quinine, they 're pretty well
acclimated."

Other inhabitants of the country as-
serted roundly that no fevers followed
these freshets ; that the trade - winds
swept away all malarial influences ; that
the water did no injury whatever to
the farms, — on the contrary, made the
crops better ; and that these farmers
along the river bottoms " could n't be
hired to live anywhere else in Oregon."

The higher shore lines were wooded
almost without a break ; only at long in-
tervals an oasis of clearing, high up,
an emerald spot of barley or wheat, and

118

Chance Days in Oregon.

[January,

a tiny farm-house. These were said to
be usually lumbermen's homes ; it was
warmer up there than in the bottom,
and crops thrived. In the not far-off
day when these kingdoms of forests
are overthrown, and the Columbia runs
unshaded to the sea, these hill shores
will be one vast granary.

The city of Portland is on the Wil-
jlamette River, fourteen miles south of
the junction of that river with the Co-
lumbia. Seen from its water approach,
Portland is a picturesque city, with a
near surrounding of hills, wooded with
pines and firs, that make a superb sky-
line setting to the town, and to the five
grand snow peaks, of which clear days
give a sight. These dark forests and
spear-top fringes are a more distinctive
feature in the beauty of Portland's site
than even its fine waters and islands.
It is to be hoped that the Portland peo-
ple will appreciate their value, and never
let their near hills be shorn of trees.
Not one tree more should be cut. Al-
ready there are breaks in the forest
horizons, which mar the picture greatly,
and it would take but a few days of
ruthless woodchoppers' work to rob the
city forever of its backgrounds, turning
them into unsightly barrens. The city
is on both sides of the river, and is
called East and West Portland. With
the usual perversity in such cases, the
higher ground and the sunny eastern
frontage belong to the less popular
part of the city, the w^st town having
most of the business and all of the fine
houses. Yet in times of freshet, its
lower streets are always under water ;
and the setting-up of back-water into
rdrains, cellars, and empty lots is a yearly
[source of much illness. When we ar-
rived, two of the principal hotels were
surrounded by water ; from one of them
there was no going out or coming in,
except by planks laid on trestle-work
in the piazzas, and the air in the lower
part of the town was foul with bad
smells from the stagnant water.

Portland is only thirty years old, and
its population is not over twenty-five
thousand. Yet it is said to have more
wealth per head than any other city in
the United States, except New Haven.
Wheat and lumber and salmon have
made it rich. Oregon wheat brings
such prices in England that ships can
afford to cross the ocean to get it, and
last year a hundred and thirty-four ves-
sels sailed out of Portland harbor, load-
ed solely with wheat or flour.

The city reminds one strongly of
some of the rural towns in New Eng-
land. The h'ouses are unpretentious,
wooden, either white or of light colors,
and uniformly surrounded by pleasant
grounds, in which trees, shrubs, and
flowers grow freely, without any at-
tempt at formal or decorative culture.
One of the most delightful things about
the town is its surrounding of wild and
wooded country. In an hour, driving up
on the hills to the west, one finds him-
self in wildernesses of woods : spruce,
maple, cedar, and pine ; dogwood, wild
syringa, honeysuckle, ferns and brakes
fitting in for undergrowth, and below
all white clover matting the ground.
By the roadsides are linnea, red clover,
yarrow, may-weed, and dandelion, look-
ing to New England eyes strangely
familiar and unfamiliar at once. Never
in New England woods and roadsides
do they have such a luxurious diet of
water and rich soil, and such comfort-
able warm winters. The white clover
especially has an air of spendthrifty in-
dulgence about it, which is delicious. It
riots through the woods, even in their
densest, darkest depths, making luxuri-
ant pasturage where one would least
look for it. On these wooded heights
are scores of dairy farms, which have
no clearings except of the space need-
ful for the house and outbuildings. The
cows, each with a bell at her neck, go
roaming and browsing all day in the
forests. Out of thickets scarcely pen-
etrable to the eye come everywhere

1883.]

Chance Days in Oregon.

119

alono- the road the contented notes of

these bells' slow tinkling at the cows'
leisure. The milk, cream, and butter
from these dairy farms are of the excel-
lent quality to be expected, and we won-
dered at not seeing " white clover but-
ter " advertised as well as " white clover
honey." Land in these wooded wilds
brings from forty to eighty dollars an
acre ; cleared, it is admirable farm land.
Here and there we saw orchards of
cherry and apple trees, which were load-
ed with fruit; the cherry-trees so full
that they showed red at a distance.

The alternation of these farms with
long tracts of forest, where spruces and
pines stand a hundred and fifty feet
high, and myriads of wild things have
grown in generations of tangle, gives to
the country around Portland a charm
and flavor peculiarly its own ; even into
the city itself extends something of the
same charm of contrast and antithesis ;
meandering footpaths, or narrow plank
sidewalks with grassy rims, running
within stone's throw of solid brick blocks
and business thoroughfares. One of the
most interesting places in the town is
the Bureau of Immigration of the North-
ern Pacific Railroad. In the centre of
the room stands a tall case, made of the
native Oregon woods. It journeyed to
the Paris and the Philadelphia Expo-
sitions, but nowhere can it have given
eloquent mute answer to so many ques-
tions as it does in its present place. It
now holds jars of all the grains raised
in Oregon and Washington Territory ;
also sheaves of superb stalks of the same
grains, arranged in circles, — wheat
six feet high, oats ten, red clover over
six, and timothy grass eight. To see
Swedes, Norwegians, Germans, Irish,
come in, stand wonderingly before this
case, and then begin to ask their jargon,
of questions, was an experience which
did more in an hour to make one re-
alize what the present tide of immigra-
tion to the New Northwest really is than
reading of statistics could do in a year.

These immigrants are pouring in, it is
estimated, at the rate of at least a hun-
dred and fifty a day : one hundred by
way of San Francisco and Portland ;
twenty-five by the Puget Sound ports ;
and another twenty - five overland by
wagons. No two with the same aim ;
no two alike in quality or capacity. To
listen to their inquiries, their narratives,
to give them advice and help, requires
almost preternatural patience and sa-
gacity. It might be doubted, perhaps,
whether this requisite combination could
be found in an American ; certainly no
one of any nationality could fill the office
better than it is filled by the tireless
Norwegian who occupies the post at
present. It was touching to see the
brightened faces of his countrymen, as
their broken English was answered by
him in the familiar words of their own
tongue. He could tell well which parts
of the new country would best suit the
Hardauger men, and the men from Eide.
It must have been hard for them to be-
lieve his statements, even when indorsed
by the home speech. To the ordinary
Scandinavian peasant, accustomed to
measuring cultivable ground by hand-
breadths, and making gardens in pock-
ets in rocks, tales of hundreds of un-
broken miles of wheat country, where
crops average from thirty-five to forty-
five bushels an acre, must sound incred-
ible ; and spite of their faith in their
countryman, they are no doubt surprised
when their first harvest in the Willa-
mette or Umpqua valley proves that his
statements were under, rather than over,
the truth.

The Columbia River steamers set off
from Portland at dawn, or thereabouts.
Wise travelers go on board the night be- 1
fore, and their first morning conscious-
ness is a wonder at finding themselves
afloat, — afloat on a sea ; for it hardly
seems like river voyaging when shores
are miles apart, and, in many broad vis-
tas, water is all that can be seen. These
vistas, in times of high water, when tho

120

Chance Days in Oregon.

[January,

Columbia may be said to be fairly " seas
over," are grand. They shine and flick-
er for miles, right and left, with green
feathery fringes of tree-tops, and queer
brown stippled points and ridges, which
are house gables and roof -trees, not
quite gone under. One almost forgets,
in the interest of the spectacle, what
misery it means to the owners of the
gables and roof-trees.

At Washougal Landing, on the morn-
ing when we went up the river, all that
was to be seen of the warehouse on the
wharf at which we should have made
landing was the narrow ridge line of
its roof ; and this was at least a third
of a mile out from shore. The boat
stopped, and the passengers were rowed
out in boats and canoes, steering around
among tree-tops and houses as best they
might.

The true shore line of the river we
never once saw, but it cannot be so
beautiful as was the freshet's shore of
upper banks and terraces : dark forests
at top, shifting shades of blue in every
rift between the hills, iridescent rain-
bow colors on the slopes, and gray
clouds, white edged, piled up in masses
above them, all floating apace with us,
and changing tone and tint oftener than
we changed course.

As we approached the Cascade Moun-
tains, the scenery grew grander with
every mile. The river cuts through this
range in a winding cafion, whose sides
for a space of four or five miles are
from three to four thousand feet high.
But the charm of this pass is not so
much in the height and grandeur as in
the beauty of its walls. They vary in
color and angle, and light and shadow,
each second : perpendicular rock fronts,
mossy brown ; shelves of velvety green-
ness and ledges of glistening red or
black stone thrown across ; great basal-
tic columns fluted as by a chisel ; jut-
ting tables of rock carpeted with yellow
and brown lichen ; turrets standing out
with firs growing on them ; bosky points

of cottouwood-trees ; yellow and white
blossoms and curtains of ferns, waving
out, hanging over ; and towering above
all these, peaks and summits wrapped -
in fleecy clouds. Looking ahead, we
could see sometimes only castellated
mountain lines, meeting across the river,
like walls ; as we advanced they retreat-
ed, and opened, with new vistas at each
opening. Shining threads of water spun
down in the highest places, sometimes
falling sheer to the river, sometimes
sinking out of sight in forest depths mid-
way down, like the famed fosses of the
Norway fjords. Long sky-lines of pines
and firs, which we kuew to be from one
hundred to three hundred feet tall,
looked in the aerial perspective no more
than a mossy border along the wall. A
little girl, looking up at them, gave by
one artless exclamation a true idea of
this effect. " Oh," she cried, " they look
just as if you could pick a little bunch
of them ! " At intervals along the right-
hand shore were to be seen the white-
tented encampments of the Chinese la-
borers on the road which the Northern -
Pacific Railroad Company is building to
link Saint Paul with Puget Sound. A
force of three thousand Chinamen and
two thousand whites is at work on this
river division, and the road is being
pushed forward with great rapidity.
The track looked in places as if it were
not one inch out of the water, though
it was twenty feet ; and tunnels which
were a hundred and thirty feet high
looked only like oven mouths. It has
been a hard road to build, costing in
some parts sixty-five thousand dollars a
mile. One spot was pointed out to us
where twenty tons of powder had been
put in, in seven drifts, and one hundred
and forty cubic yards of rock and soil
blown at one blast into the river. It is
an odd thing that huge blasts like this
make little noise, only a slight puff ;
whereas small blasts make the hills ring
and echo with their racket.

Between the lower cascades and the

1883.]

Chance Days in Oregon.

121

upper cascades is a portage of six miles,
past fierce waters, in which a boat could
scarcely live. Here we took cars ; they
were over-full, and we felt ourselves
much aggrieved at being obliged to make
the short journey standing on one of
the crowded platforms. It proved to be
only another instance of the good things
caught on chances. Next me stood an
old couple, the man's neck so burnt and
wrinkled it looked like fiery red alliga-
tor's skin ; his clothes, evidently his best,
donned for a journey, were of a fashion
so long gone by that they had a quaint
dignity. The woman wore a checked
calico sun-bonnet, and a green merino
gown of as quaint a fashion as her hus-
band's coat. With them was a veritable
Leather Stocking : an old farmer, whose
flannel shirt, tied loosely at the throat
with a bit of twine, fell open, and showed
a broad hairy breast of which a gladia-
tor might have been proud.

The cars jolted heavily, making it
hard to keep one's footing ; and the old
man came near being shaken off the
step. Recovering himself, he said, laugh-
ing, to his friend, —

" Anyhow, it 's easier 'n a buckin'
Cayuse horse."

" Yes," assented the other. " 'T ain't
much like '49, is it ? v

" Were you here in '49 ? " I asked
eagerly.

" '49 ! " he repeated scornfully. " I
was here in '47. I was seven months
comiu' across from Iowa to Oregon City
in an ox team ; an' we 're livin' on that
same section we took up then ; an' I
reckon there hain't nobody got a lien on
to it yet. We 've raised nino children,
an' the youngest on em 's twenty-one.
My woman 's been sick for two or three
years ; this is the first time I 've got her
out. Thought we 'd go down to Colum-
bus, an' get a little pleasure, if we can.
We used to come up to this portage in
boats, an' then pack everything on
horses an' ride across."

"We wore buckskin clo'es in those

days," interrupted Leather Stocking,
" and spurs with bells ; need n't do more
'n jingle the bells, 'n' the horse 'd start.
I 'd like to see them times back agen,
too. I vow I 'm put to 't now to know
where to go. This civilyzation," with
an indescribably sarcastic emphasis on
the third syllable, " is too much for me.
I don't want to live where I can't go
out 'n' kill a deer before breaki'ast any
mornin' I take a notion to."

" Were there many Indians here in
those days ? " I asked.

" Many Injuns ? " he retorted ; " why,
't was all Injuns. All this country long
here was jest full on 'em."

" How did you find them ? "

" Jest 's civil 's any people :ji the
world ; never had no trouble with 'em.
Nobody never did have any thet treated
'em fair. I tell ye, it 's jest with them 's
't is with cattle. Now there '11 be one
man raise cattle, an' be real mean with
'em ; an' they '11 all hook, an' kick, an'
break fences, an' run away. An' there
'11 be another, an' his cattle '11 all be
kind, an' come ter yer when you call
'em. I don't never want to know any-
thin' more about a man than the way
his stock acts. I hain't got a critter
that won't come up by its name an'
lick my hand. An' it 's jest so with
folks. Ef a man 's mean to you, yer
goiu' to be mean to him, every time..
The great thing with Injuns is, never to
tell 'em a yarn. If yer deceive 'etn
once, they won't ever trust yer again, 's
long 's yer live, an' you can't trust them
either. Oh. I know Injuns, I tell you.
I 've been among 'em here more 'n thir-
ty year, an' I never had the first trou-
ble yet. There 's been troubles, but
I wa'n't in 'em. It 's been the white
people's fault every time."

" Did you ever know Chief Joseph ? "
I asked.

" What, old Jo ! You bet I knew
him. He 's an A No. 1 Injun, he is.
He 's real honorable. Why, I got lost
once, an' I came right on his camp be-

122

Chance Days in Oregon.

[January,

fore I knowed it, an' the Injuns they
grabbed me ; 't was night, 'n' I was kind
o' creepin' aloug cautious, an' the first
thing I knew there was an Injun had
me on each side, an' they jest marched
me up to Jo's tent, to know what they
should do with me. I wa'n't a mite
afraid ; I jest looked him right square
in the eye. That's another thing with
Injuns ; you've got to look 'em in the
eye, or they won't trust ye. Well, Jo,
he took up a torch, a pine knot he had
burnin', and he held it close't up to my
face, and looked me up an' down, an'
down an' up ; an' I never flinched ; I
jest looked him up an' down 's good 's
he did me ; 'n' then he set the knot
down, 'n' told the men it was all right,
— I was ' turn turn ; ' that meant I was
good heart ; 'n' they gave me all I could
eat, 'n' a guide to show me my way, next
day, 'n' I could n't make Jo nor any of
'em take one cent. I had a kind o'
comforter o' red yarn, I wore round my
neck ; an' at last I got Jo to take that,
jest as a kind o' momento."

The old man was greatly indignant
to hear that Chief Joseph was in Indian
Territory. He had been out of the
State at the time of the Nez Perce war,
and had not heard of Joseph's fate.

" Well, that was a dirty mean trick ! "
he exclaimed, — "a dirty mean trick !
I don't care who done it."

Then he told me of another Indian
chief, he had known well, — " Ercutch "
by name. This chief was always a warm
friend of the whites ; again and again he
had warned them of danger from hos-
tile Indians. " Why, when he died,
there wa'n't a white woman in all this
country that did n't mourn 's if she 'd
lost a friend ; they felt safe 's long 's he
was round. When he knew he was dyin'
he jest bade all his friends good-by.
Said he, ' Good-by. I 'm goin' to the
Great Spirit ; ' an' then he named over
each friend he had, Injuns an' whites,
each one by name, and said good-by af-
ter each uame."

It was a strange half hour, rocking
and jolting on this crowded car plat-
form : the splendid tossing and foam-
ing river with its rocks and islands on
one hand, high cliffs and fir forests on
the other ; these three weather-beaten,
eager, aged faces by my side, with their
shrewd old voices telling such reminis-
cences, and rising shrill above the din of
the cars.

From the upper cascades to the
Dalles, by boat again ; a splendid forty
miles run, through the mountain pass,
its walls now gradually lowering, and,
on the Washington Territory side of
the river, terraces and slopes of cleared
lands and occasional settlements. Great
numbers of drift log.s passed us here,
coming down apace, from the rush of
the Dalles above. Every now and then
one would get tangled in the bushes
and roots on the shore, swing in, and
lodge tight to await the next freshet.

The " log " of one of these driftwood
voyages would be interesting ; a tree
trunk may be ten years getting down to
the sea, or it may swirl down in a
week. It is one of the businesses along
the river to catch them, and pull them
in to shore, and much money is made at
it. One lucky fisher of logs, on the
Snake River Fork, once drew ashore six
hundred cords in a single year. Some-
times a whole boom gets loose from its
moorings, and comes down stream, with-
out breaking up. This is a godsend to
anybody who can head it off and tow
it in shore ; for by the law of the river
he is entitled to one half the value of
the logs.

At the Dalles is another short port-
age of twelve miles, past a portion of
the river which, though less grand than
its plunge through the Cascade Moun-
tains, is far more unique and wonderful.
The waters here are stripped and shred
into countless zigzagging torrents, boil-
ing along through labyrinths of black
lava rocks and slabs. There is nothing
in all nature so gloomy, so weird, as vol-

1883.]

Chance Days in Oregon.

123

canic slag, and the piles, ridges, walls,
palisades of it thrown up at this point
look like the roof-trees, chimneys, turrets
of a half-engulfed Pandemonium. Dark
slaty and gray tints spread over the
whole shore, also ; it is all volcanic mat-
ter, oozed or boiled over, and hardened
into rigid shapes of death and destruc-
tion. The place is terrible to see. Fit-
ting in well with the desolateness of
the region was a group of half -naked
Indians crouching on the rocks, gaunt
and wretched, fishing for salmon ; the
hollows in the rocks about them filled
with the bright vermilion-colored salmon
spawn, spread out to dry. The twilight
was nearly over as we sped by, and the
deepening darkness added momently to
the gloom of the scene.

At Celilo, just above the Dalles, we
took boat again for Umatilla, one hun-
dred miles farther up the river.

Next morning we were still among
lava beds : on the Washington Territo-
ry side, low, rolling shores, or slanting
slopes with terraces, and tufty brown
surfaces broken by ridges and points
of the black slag ; on the Oregon side,
high brown cliffs mottled with red and
yellow lichens, and great beaches and
dunes of sand, which had blown into
windrows and curving hillock lines as
on the sea-shore. This sand is a terri-
ble enemy for a railroad to fight. In a
few hours, sometimes, rods of the track
are buried by it as deep as by snow in
the fiercest winter storms.

The first picture I saw from my state-
room windows, this morning, was an In-
dian standing on a narrow plank shelf
that was let down by ropes over a per-
pendicular rock front, some fifty feet
high. There he stood, as composed as
if he were on terra Jirma, bending over
towards the water, and flinging in his
salmon net. On the rocks above him
sat the women of his family, spread-
ing the salmon to dry. We were with-
in so short a distance of the banks that
friendly smiles could be distinctly seen ;

and one of the younger squaws, laugh-
ing back at the lookers-on on deck,
picked up a salmon, and waving it in
her right hand ran swiftly along towards
an outjutting point. She was a gay crea-
ture, with scarlet fringed leggins, a pale
green blanket, and on her head a twist-
ed handkerchief of a fine old Diirer red.
As she poised herself, and braced back-
wards to throw the salmon on deckrshe
was a superb figure against the sky ; she
did not throw straight, and the fish fell
a few inches short of reaching the boat.
As it struck the water she made a pet-
ulant little gesture of disappointment,
like a child, threw up her hands, turned,
and ran back to her work.

At Umatilla, being forced again to
" make option which of two," we reluc-
tantly turned back, leaving the beauti-
ful Walla Walla region unvisited, for
the sake of seeing Puget Sound. Tho
Walla Walla region is said to be the
finest stretch of wheat country in the
world. Lava slag, when decomposed,
makes the richest of soil, — deep and
seemingly of inexhaustible fertility. A
failure of harvests is said never to have
been known in that country ; the aver-
age yield of wheat is thirty-five to forty
bushels an acre, and oats have yielded
a hundred bushels. Apples and peaches
thrive, and are of a superior quality.
The country is well watered, and has
fine rolling plateaus from fifteen hun-
dred to three thousand feet high, giv-
ing a climate neither too cold in win-
ter nor too hot in summer, and of a
bracing quality not found nearer the
sea. Hearing all the unquestionable
tributes to the beauty and value of this
Walla Walla region, I could not but
recall some of Chief Joseph's pleas that
a small share of it should be left in their
possession who once owned, it all.

From our pilot, on the way down, I
heard an Indian story, too touching to
be forgotten, though too long to tell
here except in briefest outline. As we
were passing a little village, half under

124

Chance Days in Oregon.

[January,

water, he exclaimed, looting earnestly
at a small building to whose window-sills
the water nearly reached, —

" Well, I declare, Lucy 's been driven
out of her house this time. I was won-
dering why I did n't see her handker-
chief a -waving. She always waves to
me when I go by." Then he told me
Lucy's story.

She was a California Indian, probably
of the Tulares, and migrated to Oregon
with her family thirty years ago. She
was then a young girl, and said to be
the handsomest squaw ever seen in Ore-
gon. In those days white men in wil-
dernesses thought it small shame, if
any, to take Indian women to live with
them as wives, and Lucy was much
sought and wooed. But she seems to
have had uncommon virtue or coldness,
for she resisted all such approaches for
a long time.

Finally, a man named Pomeroy ap-
peared, and, as Lucy said afterward, as
soon as she looked at him, she knew he
was her " turn turn man," and she must
go with him. He had a small sloop,
and Lucy became its mate. They two
alone ran it for several years up and
down the river. He established a little
trading -post, and Lucy always took
charge of that when he went to buy
goods. When gold was discovered at
Ringgold Bar, Lucy went there, worked
with a rocker like a man, and washed out
hundreds of dollars' worth of gold, all
which she gave to Pomeroy. With it
he built a fine schooner and enlarged
his business, the faithful Lucy working
always at his side and bidding. At last,
after eight or ten years, he grew weary
of her and of the country, and made up
his mind to go to California. But he
had not the heart to tell Lucy he meant
to leave her. The pilot who told me
this story was at that time captain of
a schooner on the river. Pomeroy
came to him one day, and asked him to
move Lucy and her effects down to
He said he had told her

that she must go and live there with
her relatives, wbile he went to Cali-
fornia and looked about, and then he
would send for her. The poor creature,
who had no idea of treachery, came on
board cheerfully and willingly, and he
set her off at Columbus. This was in the
early spring. Week after week, month
after month, whenever his schooner
stopped there, Lucy was on the shore,
asking if he had heard from Pomeroy. 1
For a long time, he said, he could n't
bear to tell her. At last he did ; but
she would not believe him. Winter
came on. She had got a few boards
together and built herself a sort of hut,
near a house where lived an eccentric
old bachelor, who finally took compas-
sion on her, and to save her from freez-
ing let her come into his shanty to sleep.
He was a mysterious old man, a recluse,
with a morbid aversion to women, and
at the outset it was a great struggle for
him to let even an Indian woman cross
his threshold. But little by little Lucy
won her way : first she washed the
dishes ; then she would timidly help at
the cooking. Faithful, patient, unpre-
suming, at last she grew to be really the
old man's housekeeper, as well as ser-
vant. He lost his health, and became
blind. Lucy took care of him till he
died, and followed him to the grave, his
only mourner, the only human being
in the country with whom he had any
tie. He left her his little house and a
few hundred dollars, — all he had ; and
there she is still, alone, making out to
live by doing whatever work she can
find in the neighborhood. Everybody
respects her ; she is known as " Lucy "
up and down the river. " I did my I
best to hire her to come and keep house
for my wife, last year," said the pilot.
" I 'd rather have her for nurse or cook
than any white woman in Oregon. But
she would n't come. I don't know as
she 's done looking for Pomeroy to come
back yet, and she 's going to stay just
where he left her. She never misses a

1883.]

Chance Days in Oregon.

125

time, waving to me, when she knows
what boat I 'm on, and there is n't much
going on on the river she don't know."

It was dusk when the pilot finished
telling Lucy's story. We were shoot-
ing along through wild passages of wa-
ter called Hell Gate, just above the
Dalles. In the dim light the basaltic
columnar cliffs looked like grooved eb--
ony. One of the pinnacles has a strange
resemblance to the figure of an Indian.
It is called the Chief, and the semblance
is startling : a colossal figure, with a
plume-crowned head, turned as if gaz-
ing backward over the shoulder ; the
attitude stately, the drapery graceful,
and the whole expression one of pro-
found and dignified sorrow. It seemed
a strangely fitting emphasis to the story
of the faithful Indian woman.

It was near midnight when we passed
the Dalles. Our train was late, and
dashed on at its swiftest. Fitful light
came from a wisp of a new moon
and one star ; they seemed tossing in a
tumultuous sea of dark clouds. In this
glimmering darkness the lava walls and
ridges stood up, inky black ; the foam-
ing water looked like molten steel, the
whole region more ghastly and terrible
than before.

There is a village of three thousand
inhabitants at the Dalles. The houses
are set among lava hillocks and ridges.
The fields seem bubbled with lava, their
blackened surfaces stippled in with yel-
low and brown. High up above are
wheat fields in clearings, reaching to the
sky-line of the hills. Great slopes of
crumbling and disintegrating lava rock
spread superb purple and slate colors
between the greens of forests and wheat
fields. It is one of the memorable pic-
tures on the Columbia.

To go both up and down a river is
a good deal like spending a summer and
a winter in a place, so great difference
does it make when right hand and left
shift sides, and everything is seen from
a new stand-point.

The Columbia River scenery is taken
at its best going up, especially the
gradual crescendo of the Cascade Moun-
tain region, which is far tamer entered
from above. But we had a compensa-
tion in the clearer sky and lifted clouds,
which gave us the more distant snow
peaks in all their glory, and our run
down from the Dalles to Portland was
the best day of our three on the river.
Our steamer was steered by hydraulic
pressure, and it was a wonderful thing
to sit in the pilot house and see the
slight touch of a finger on the shin-
ing lever sway the great boat in a sec-
ond. A baby's hand is strong enough to
steer the largest steamboat by this instru-
ment. It could turn the boat, the cap-
tain said, in a maelstrom, where four
men together could not budge the rud-
der-Wheel.

The history of the Columbia River
navigation would make by itself an in-
teresting chapter. It dates back to
1792, when a Boston ship and Boston
captain first sailed up the river. A cu-
rious bit of history in regard to that
ship is to be found in the archives of
the old Spanish government in Califor-
nia. Whenever a royal decree was is-
sued in Madrid in regard to the Indies
or New Spain, a copy of it was sent to
every viceroy in the Spanish Dominions ;
he communicated it to his next subor-
dinate, who in turn sent it to all the
governors, and so on, till the decree
reached every corner of the king's prov-
inces. In 1789 there was sent from
Madrid, by ship to Mexico, and thence
by courier to California, and by Fages,
the California governor, to every port
in California, the following order :

" Whenever there may arrive at the
port of San Francisco a ship named the
Columbia, said to belong to General
Washington of the American States,
commanded by John Kendrick, which
sailed from Boston in 1787, bound on a
voyage of discovery to the Russian set-
tlements on the northern coast of the

126

Chance Days in Oregon.

[January,

peninsula, you will cause said vessel to
be examined with caution and delicacy,
using for this purpose a small boat which
you have in your possession."

Two months after this order was pro-
mulgated in the Santa Barbara presidio,
Captain Gray, of the ship Washington,
and Captain Kendrick, of the ship Co-
lumbia, changed ships in Wickmanish
harbor. Captain Gray took the Colum-
bia to China, and did not sail into San
Francisco harbor at all, whereby he
escaped being examined with caution
and delicacy by the small boat in pos-
session of the San Francisco garrison.
Not till the llth of May, 1792, did
he return and sail up the Columbia
River, then called the Oregon. He
renamed it for his ship, " Columbia's
River," but the possessive was soon
dropped.

When one looks at the crowded rows
of steamboats at the Portland wharves
now, it is hard, to realize that it is only
thirty-two years since the first one was
launched there. Two were built' and
launched in one year, the Columbia and
the Lot Whitcomb. The Lot Whitcomb
was launched on Christmas Day ; there
were three days' feasting and dancing,
and people gathered from all parts of
the Territory to celebrate the occasion.

It is also hard to realize, when stand-
ing on the Portland wharves, that it is
less than fifty years since there were
angry discussions in the United States
Congress as to whether or not it were
worth while to obtain Oregon as a pos-
session, and in the Eastern States man-
uals were being freely distributed, bear-
ing such titles as this : " A general cir-
cular to all persons of good character
wishing to emigrate to the Oregon Ter-
ritory." Even those statesmen who were
most earnest in favor of the securing
of Oregon did not perceive the true
nature of its value. One of Benton's
most enthusiastic predictions was that
an " emporium of Asiatic commerce "
would be situated at the mouth of the

Columbia, and that " a stream of Asi-
atic trade would pour into the valley
of the Mississippi through the channel
of Oregon." But the future of Oregon
and Washington rests not on any trans-
mission of the riches of other countries,
however important an element in their
prosperity that may ultimately become.
Their true riches are their own and in-
alienable. They are to be among the,
great feeders of the earth. Gold and-,
silver values are unsteady and capri-
cious ; intrigues can overthrow them ;
markets can be glutted, and mines fail.
But bread the nations of the earth must
have. The bread yielder controls the
situation always. Given a soil which
can grow wheat year after year with
no apparent fatigue or exhaustion, a cli-
mate where rains never fail and seed-
time and harvest are uniformly certain,
and conditions are created under which
the future success and wealth of a coun-
try may be predicted just as surely as
the movements of the planets in the
heavens.

There are three great valleys in West-
ern Oregon, the Willamette, the Umpqua,
and the Rogue River. The Willamette
is the largest, being sixty miles long by
one hundred and fifty wide. The Ump-
qua and Rogue River together contain
over a million of acres. These valleys
are natural gardens ; fertile to luxuri-
ance, and watered by all the westward
drainage of the great Cascade Range,
the Andes of North America, a continu-
ation of the Sierra Nevada. The Coast
Range Mountains lie west of these val-
leys, breaking, but not shutting out, the
influence of the sea air and fogs. This
valley region between these two ranges
contains less than a third of the area of
Washington and Oregon. The country
east of the Cascade Mountains is no less
fertile, but has a drier climate, colder
winters, and hotter summers. Its eleva-
tion is from two to four thousand feet,
— probably the very best elevations for
health. A comparison of statistics of

1883.]

Bjornstjerne JBjornsori's Stories.

127

yearly death-rates cannot be made with
absolute fairness between old and thick-
settled and new and sparsely - settled
countries. Allowance must be made
for the probably superior health and
strength of the men and women who
have had the youth and energy to go
forward as pioneers. But, making all
due allowance for these, there still re-
mains difference enough to startle one
between the death-rates in some of the
Atlantic States and in these infant em-
pires of the New Northwest. The year-
ly death-rate in Massachusetts is one
out of fifty-seven ; in Vermont one out
of ninety-seven; in Oregon one out of
one hundred and seventy-two ; and in
Washington Territory one out of two
hundred and twenty-eight.

As we glided slowly to anchorage in
Portland harbor, five dazzling snow-
white peaks were in sight on the hori-
zon : Mount Hood, of peerless shape,
strong as if it were a bulwark of the
very heavens themselves, yet graceful
and sharp-cut as Egypt's pyramids : Saint

Helen's, a little lower, yet looking higher,
with the marvelous curves of its slender
shining cone, bent on and seemingly into
the sky, like an intaglio of ice cut in the
blue ; miles away, in the farthest north
and east horizons, Mounts Tacoma and
Adams and Baker, all gleaming white,
and all seeming to uphold the skies.

These eternal, unalterable snow peaks
will be as eternal and unalterable fac-
tors in the history of the country as in
its beauty to the eye. Their value will
not come under any head of things reck-
onable by census, statistics, or computa-
tion, but it will be none the less real
for that; it will be an element in the
nature and character of every man and
woman born within sight of the radiant
splendor, and vit will be strange if it
does not ultimately develop, in the em-
pire of this New Northwest, a local pa-
triotism and passionate loyalty to soil
as strong and lasting as that which has
made generations of Swiss mountain-
eers ready to brave death for a sight of
their mountains.

H. H.

BJORNSTJERNE BJQRNSON'S STORIES.

THE Bjornson who recently visited
America, and who has written Magn-
hild and Dust, differs from the Bjorn-
son whose Arne delighted English and
American readers sixteen years ago.
That was an exquisite pastoral, in which
the restlessness of youth was given a
poetic form of rare beauty. In Magn-
hild, the latest of the series of volumes l
which now presents Bjbrnson's tales in
uniform English dress, there is a rest-
lessness of thought, which springs not
from wondering ignorance of life, as in
Arne, but from discontent at evils which

l Synnove Solbakken : Arne : A Happy Boy :
The Fisher Maiden: The Bridal March, and
9ther Stories: Captain Mansana, and other sto-
ries: Magnhild. By BJOKNSTJEUNE BJOUNSON.

have been discovered from long and
hard experience of the world.

We find a spiritual chronology in this
remarkable series. The earliest stories
were the short sketches, Thrond, A Dan-
gerous Wooing, and The Bear Hunter,
which immediately preceded the publi-
cation of Synnove Solbakken. Thrond
is a curious piece of fantastic writing,
in which a boy's mind, bred among
Northern myths, peers out into the
world ; everything is seen in a mirage,
and the commonest circumstances of life
are lifted into the supernatural. A
Translated by RASMUS B. ANDERSON. Seven
volumes. Boston : Hougkton, Miiiliu & Co.
1881, 1882.

128

Bjornstjerne Bjornson's Stories.

[January,

Dangerous Wooing, more realistic in
form, suggests the physical vigor and
adventure of youth ; while The Bear
Hunter, with its droll, half-teasing prop-
erties, turns the inventions of the brag-
gart boy into the facts of actual obser-
vation. So far, these tentative stories
were the ventures of a mind in which
fancy, imagination, and a childish cu-
riosity were mingled. Then Synnove
Solbakken appeared. This, the first of
Bjb'rnson's longer tales, and the most
famous in his own country, is the pic-
ture of stormy youth touched and re-
fined by the sunshine of pure love. An
English version of the story, takes the
title of Love and Life in Norway, and
this may serve as a matter-of-fact state-
ment of the theme, if we are to regard
the story as one seeking classification.
Mr. Anderson very properly retains
Bjornson's title, which is that of the
heroine ; but the English-speaking reader
misses the happy significance of Solbak-
ken, which may be rendered Sunny Hill.
The scenes of the story lie chiefly in
two farms, — one in the shade, where the
hero labors ; one in the sunshine of a
hill slope, from which the heroine looks
across, — and the strength of the story
is in the presentation of a noble passion
under the conditions of rude peasant
life. Upon a smaller scale, and with a
different motif, the little sketch called
The Father depends for its power upon
the masterly treatment of a broad hu-
man tbeine within the lines of the very
simplest experience.

Arne and A Happy Boy are some-
what complementary tales, and in these
a new phase of Bjornson's genius and
his spiritual growth are seen. In Arne,
as we have intimated, there is disclosed
a restlessness which fills the mind of the
hero, and makes the burden of his life to
be in the lyric which he sings : —

" What shall I see if I ever go
Over the mountains high V "

The fullness of a mother's love, expressed
in silence, yet deep as life, holds the boy

fast till a finer, stronger chain has bound
him to the valley. His restlessness is
transmuted into a longing for the com-
pletion of his human love, and an ex-
quisite touch makes two other human
lives, which have been separated, find
a reunion through the fruition of Arne
and Eli. A Happy Boy takes up this
note of sweet content with which Arne
ceases, and carries it forward in a light,
happy, serene strain. There is no un-
rest in the book; only the smiles and
frowns of a checkered life, which never
loses sight of its aim, and does not miss
its goal.

A single short story of this period,
The Eagle's Nest, gives a hint of that
daring which appeared in A Dangerous
Wooing, but by its close reminds one of
the failure which awaits adventure ; it
is antithetical to the earlier story, and
prelusive of notes to be struck later.
One other tale, of full proportions, but
limited in compass, belongs to this
group, the Railroad and the Church-
yard, in which the author discovers his
strong interest in a struggle between
two typical natures. Nevertheless, he
appears to stand quite outside of the
circle in which the conflict goes on, and
to find his pleasure in the noble recon-
ciliation which rounds the tale.

All of the stories which we have enu-
merated belong to the first period of
Bjornson's activity. They appeared be-
tween the years 185G and 1860; that is,
when the author was from twenty-four
to twenty-eight years of age, and while
he was struggling for a position as jour-
nalist and manager. Seven or eight
years later came another group, of which
the most important was The Fisher
Maiden ; and the minor ones were Blak-
ken, Fidelity, and A Problem of Life.
Now The Fisher Maiden is indicative
of transition. The problem which stirs
the soul of Petra and of Odegaard is that
which comes sooner or later to every
earnest person, — the problem of voca-
tion. The story continues to be of

1883.]

Bjornstjerne Bjornsorfs Stories.

129

peasant and of country life, but the ho-
rizon has widened. Odegaard is a man
who was destined for the priesthood,
but has found his education in other
lands, and has come back to Norway,
still searching for his vocation. Petra
does not ask herself the questions which
Odegaard is constantly struggling with,
but her woman's instinct guides her as,
unerringly as his man's reason. The
priest, with whom Petra makes her
home, has had his experience, and thinks
continentally within his mountain par-
ish. The reader feels that the book is
one of discussion, of question and an-
swer. He perceives that the author,
since his last book, has seen the world,
has been possessed by it, and comes
back to this peasant life as one who
looks at it now from the outside. The
characters are more firmly outlined than
in the previous books, yet, artistically,
The Fisher Maiden suffers in contrast,
for the motif is not from within the
story ; it must be sought for in the au-
thor's mind. He is working at prob-
lems, and is less an artist. He has
something to do with his book ; it is a
means, and not an end.

Of the minor pieces, Blakken is merely
a breezy sketch of a dun-colored horse,
which Bjornson's father owned, and gives
occasion for some lively reminiscences.
Fidelity is a striking illustration of Nor-
wegian peasant life, and is also a rem-
iniscence. In both of these slight ex-
amples, one can see Bjornson's free
hand and a masculine manner quite dif-
ferent from that earlier shown. He is,
in these, quite plainly, a man who has
returned to his parish ; not one who has
never left it. A Problem of Life ap-
pears to be a study in tragedy ; built,
very possibly, upon some incident in
real life, but having a violent character,
which separates it somewhat from the
reader's sympathy.

After an interval of three or four
years two more stories appeared, The
Bridal March and Captain Mansana ; the

VOL. LI. — NO. 303. 9

latter rather a sketch for a story than a
carefully developed novel. The Bridal
March is more deliberately wrought. It
takes a Norse family, over which a fate
seemed to hang, and shows by what pow-
er of resolute youth the spell was bro-
ken. The scenes are still Norwegian,
the characters are Norse, but the artist
who deals with the material is one who
has studied literature, and has observed
men and women elsewhere ; so that he
has, as it were, constructed a Romeo
and Juliet out of Scandinavian material.
The passion of the story is powerful ;
there is a pent-up energy felt through
all the earlier part, and when the storm
of love bursts the reader is swept along
by it. Again we are reminded how far
we have strayed from Arne. There
was naivete and the artless art. Here
is a man's work, vigorous and effective,
showing confidence in self, yet touched
also by a half-pitying tone, as of one
who compassionates the narrow lives of
his characters.

Captain Mansana was the result of
study and travel in Italy. Bjornsori as-
serts that the figure is taken directly
from life. One may well believe this ;
but he will also believe that the Italian
was a Berserker in disguise, and that
Italian passion was translated into
Northern might. Andersen came from
the North, and wrote The Improvisatore.
There was a rich flowering forth of a
root which was transplanted just in
time. Bjornson, when he went to Italy,
was too solidly formed in his own mind
to be irresistibly affected by Italian art
and nature.

When Bjornson returned from Italy
he wrote another Northern story, Magn-
hild, which was not published until
1877, three years later ; and if we may
trust very common rumor, it closes the
author's larger work in the field of fic-
tion. So far as his own professions are
to be regarded, we may not look for
further Norse tales from him. It does
not need his word to show that another

130

Bjornstjerne Bjornsorfs Stories.

[January,

Arne, or Synnove Solbakkeu, or A Hap-
py Boy is impossible. In this last im-
portant novel, one may readily see how
little there is left of the earlier Bjorn-
son, — how little, and yet how much.
That keen insight which is the eye of
truth, that revealing touch which is the
hand of a creator, are in Magnhild as
in Arne. The landscape, the cold life,
which is rather lighted than warmed,
the sturdy, repressed natures, the deep
stirrings of the soul, — all these reappear
in this latest novel, and remind one of
the mastery of the author. There is
also in each case the marvelous power
to make the reader feel the interpreta-
tion of a look, a gesture, and to carry
him across chasms of incident and con-
versation, which Bjornson has even
more finely than Turgenef. But how
entirely has the author's attitude toward
his subject changed ! With what differ-
ent emotions is he concerned ! Into the
dull peasant life he shoots a flame from
the feverish world outside, and the char-
acter whom he chooses to lift out of the
surroundings is no longer a wondering
boy, but a suffering woman. He por-
trays the landscape and figures, so far
as these are Norwegian, as if he found

O '

in these, not the hidden poetry which
charmed his early years, but a dull back-
ground from which to project life of
another sort. He takes a girl who has
been saved from physical destruction for
some indefinite destiny, and first binds
her to a Caliban of a fellow, a beast
whom no power can transform into a
beautiful young prince ; then, when she
is fast bound, introduces into her life
the opportunity for artistic expression
through associations which are perilous
to her nature. It is not altogether clear
what Mr. Bjornson was working out in
this tale. His hints and side-glances are
sometimes enigmatical, but he permits
the reader to see a pure-minded woman,
conscious in a dumb way of higher pos-
sibilities of life, disappointed, turned
back upon herself, and almost in de-

spair, yet all the while unconsciously
making herself a touch-stone to all the
natures with whom she comes in con-
tact.

The problem of the book, translated
into the baldest phrase, may be said
to be, What shall such a woman do with
her husband ? and the answer here ap-
parently is, Leave him. It will not do,
however, to dismiss Magnhild as a mere
contribution to the question of the sub-
jection of women. We may guess that
Bjornson the philosopher and philan-
thropist was perplexed in his mind on
this subject, but Bjornson the artist was
still too potent a force to be set aside.
Magnhild has the marks of great pow-
er ; it has also the signs of a most rest-
less spirit. We venture the conjecture
that the fine woman is Norway, mated,
but not married, to a royal regime in
the person of Skarlie ; and that Bjb'rn-
son's advice to this woman, longing for
the higher air, is to leave her husband,
to free herself from debasing conditions.
Be this as it may, there is not here the
repose of a strong artist, who has over-
come, but the searchings, the explora-
tions, the deep discouragements, of a
spirit stormy and passionate, moved by
noble impulses, but driven from without
by forces not yet subdued to its high
will.

We have left but one short story, the
latest from Bjornson's pen, the story of
Dust, which is one of the saddest of
tales, and indeed is no tale, but a frag-
ment of human life. It is dreary in its
portraiture of people who have lost all
the clews to life and immortality, and go
sobbing through the woods. The two
lost children of the pitiful story are no
more wandering than the father and
mother and maid ; and the friend who
visits them seems to have no power to
set them on the right road. It is the
last word of Bjornson ; no, it is the lat-
est word.

We have been so much interested in
the spiritual chronology of these re-

1883.]

Andrew Jackson and John Randolph.

131

markable books that we find it difficult
to come back to other considerations
which are suggested. There is much
that might be said concerning the rela-
tion which this Norse story-telling bears
to the old sagas, for Bjb'rnson is a legiti-
mate successor of the saga-men. Much,
too, might be said of the power with
which Norse mountains cast their shad-
ows over, and Norse fjords send their
inlets into, this literature. However we
may consider these stories, and whatever
speculations they may lead us into re-
specting the author, we cannot escape

from the most impressive fact, — that in
this group of stories we have a distinct
addition to the world's literature. That
the novels of Bjornson should have been
gathered into one uniform English dress
is a slight tribute to his genius. It is
of much more importance that every
American student of pure literature
should study these books as the expo-
nents of a high and noble genius. It is
worth while to master the Norse lan-
guage just to read Bjornson's writings ;
the reader of these translations will be
the first to admit this.

ANDREW JACKSON AND JOHN RANDOLPH.

AMONG all the political leaders of
modern times who have risen to be the
chiefs of great states there is not one so
absolutely devoid of every quality proper
to a statesman, and at the same time so
picturesque and dramatic, as Andrew
Jackson. In his own day Jackson was
a mighty political force. In history he
is a deeply interesting problem, which
involves in its solution much that bears
on the intellectual and moral character
of the society and politics of a great peo-
ple. Professor Sumner, Jackson's latest
biographer,1 has the misfortune of com-
ing after Mr. Parton, whose Life of
Jackson, whatever its defects, is on the
whole the most brilliant and entertain-
ing of American biographies. Mr. Par-
ton dealt with Jackson, the individual,
as a great personal force, which he was.
Professor Sumner has treated him as a
statesman, which he was not. The ques-
tions of state and the political ques-
tions of Jackson's administration, al-
though vitally affected in their decision
by the president's overshadowing per-

1 Andrew Jackson. By WILLIAM GRAHAM
SUMNEK. [American Statesmen Series.] Boston:
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1882.

sonality, did not originate with him,
were not raised by him, and were not
dealt with by him on any settled system
of policy. The fact was that Jackson
had no policy on any subject. He had
violent prejudices, uncurbed and stormy
passions, fierce love or hatred for men
and women ; and he took part in great
public questions in accordance with his
prejudices, and governed by his feelings
towards the individuals who were inter-
ested on one side or the other. The
result of discussing the political ques-
tions of Jackson's administration, as Pro-
fessor Sumner does, is that we obtain a
very good history of these questions,
and we see how Jackson, when they
came within his ken, swept down upon
them like a deus ex machina, and hurled
them to decision in one direction or
another ; but as to the man Jackson, and
the nature and causes of his influence,
we are no wiser than before. In a word,
Professor Sumner has given us a care-
ful, thoughtful, and learned history of
Jackson's administration, rather than a
life of Andrew Jackson himself.

Professor Sumner deserves all praise
for his research, his industry, and his

132

Andrew Jackson and John Randolph.

[January,

thorough and able discussion of the po-
litical questions of the Jackson adminis-
tration, especially those which relate to
finance and economy. He has undoubt-
edly made a valuable and 'scholarly con-
tribution to our knowledge of that peri-
od, but he has not helped us to a much
better understanding of Jackson. The
hero of New Orleans was preeminently
picturesque, but the political issues of
his administration, as a rule, were not,
except when he was engaged in them.
The result of confining his attention to
these questions of policy has made Pro-
fessor Sumner's book dry reading, and
this is enhanced by the form and style
of the biography. One chapter suffices
for the first forty-five years, and two
pages for the last eight years, of Jack-
son's life, while ten chapters are given
to the affairs of his administration. This
is not the way to treat the life of a man
who was an incarnate will and master-
ing personal force in the events of his
day and generation. The defects of
style are similar to those of form. Pro-
fessor Sumner's style is rigidly and con-
scientiously correct and exact in point
of grammar and construction, but the
sentences are too uniformly short and
abrupt, and, as a whole, it is fatiguing
and discouraging to the reader. It
gives the sensation of climbing a slip-
pery hill, where you fall back one step
for every two you take forward. Pro-
fessor Sumner, in fact, has made the
mistake of treating Jackson, who was a
very remarkable man, brimming over
with the strongest passions of human
nature, and who was the very embodi-
ment of a violent and despotic will, too
much as if he were merely a factor in a
question of political science, or in a
problem of political economy. We are
not prepared to say, looking at Jackson
solely from the point of view of his ab-
solute effect upon the political events
of his time, that this is not a legitimate
method of writing his life, or one por-
tion of it, at least. But it is certainly a

limited and rather narrow method, and
not the one, in our judgment, which is
suited to this collection. Professor
Sumner's rather elaborate title is com-
prehensive enough, but the trouble is
that he does not live up to it. This
series of biographies, if we apprehend
its purpose aright, is intended to present
studies of certain public men as individ-
uals, and of their personal influence
upon the history of the United States ;
showing the meaning and extent of that
influence, and what the subjects of the
various biographies represented to the
world they lived in, and represent now
to us. For such treatment Andrew Jack-
son is peculiarly well fitted. There is
a sort of barbarian picturesqueness and
wild dramatic effect about his character
and career, and its many varied incidents,
which appeal strongly to the imagina-
tion, and are the best material for ef-
fective description and analysis. Con-
sidered merely as a story, the biographer
could ask nothing better than the narra-
tive of Jackson's career. But all this,
striking as it is, is overshadowed by
the historical problem presented by the
popular adoration of " Old Hickory." In
all our history, no man, with the excep-
tion of Washington, has ever possessed
one tithe of the popularity and influence
of Jackson. His enormous popularity
and the hold which he had upon the
people of the United States enabled
him to enforce his will, and to practice
an amount of personal despotism such as
this country has never known before or
since. This vast power for good or evil
was exercised by a man who, through-
out his civil career, may be described,
without exaggeration, as an almost un-
mitigated curse to the politics and the
political morality of the United States.
He must have been in sympathy with
the masses of the people and with the
political and social forces of his time, or
else he simply blinded and bewitched
the nation by the force of his personality.
In any event, the gigantic popularity of

1883.]

Andrew Jackson and John Randolph.

133

Jackson is one of the most interesting
facts in our history, and a study of his
life should show the sources and causes
of his power. The elucidation of this
matter would throw a flood of light
upon our condition as a people at that
time, and, as a necessary consequence,
upon our subsequent growth and history.
Mr. Parton, with much force and acutfr-
ness, has pointed out the problem and its
conditions, and Professor Sumner fully
appreciates its existence ; but neither
has solved the riddle, or offered the ex-
planation, which, when it comes, will be
a great contribution to the history of
the United States.

It is always desirable to be able to
teach by example ; and if, as we venture
to think, Professor Sumner's book does
not quite fulfill the purpose of such a se-
ries as this, in Mr. Adams's Randolph1
we have a biography which seems to
us to meet every condition. If we ex-
cept Jackson, John Randolph of Roa-
noke is perhaps the best figure in our
history for a vivid and artistic picture.
The danger, indeed, in the case of Ran-
dolph, with his unlimited eccentricities,
his venomous eloquence, his queer pol-
itics, and still queerer beliefs and preju-
dices, is of overdoing the picturesque,
and degenerating into simple grotesque-
ness. As he said of himself, Randolph
was the man upon whom all the bastard
wit of the country was fathered, and
his memory is enshrouded in a perfect
mist of anecdotes, good, bad, and indif-
ferent. With such a subject it is very
easy to go too far, and fall into scenic
effects and mere piquant story-telling.
It is therefore quite as high praise to
say that Mr. Adams has avoided the
perils of his subject as that he has made
the most of it, and he deserves great
credit for both. The biography is in
every way admirable, and if we were
compelled to describe it in one word we

i John Randolph. By HENRY ADAMS. [Amer-
ican Statesmen Series.] Boston: Houghton, Mif-
flin & Co. 1882.

should say that it was one of the most
effective books in the whole range of our
historical literature. The men among
whom Randolph lived and the events in
which he took part are carefully subor-
dinated to the central figure. The his-
tory of the times, illuminated enough to
be readily understood, is used as a dusky
background, upon which the figure of
Randolph is projected with the pitiless
brilliancy of the whitest and most in-
tense light. It is impossible to pick out
this passage or that as a peculiarly fa-
vorable specimen of the treatment em-
ployed. Mr. Adams has followed the
philosophy of the One-Hoss Shay : —

" ' Fur,' said the Deacon, ' 't 's mighty plain
Thut the weakes1 place mus' stan1 the strain;
'N' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain,

Is only jest
T* make that place uz strong uz the rest.' "

In other words, the execution is very
even and very strong. We have a se-
ries of vivid pictures without any break
in the continuity of the story. We see
Randolph in childhood and boyhood,
growing up in the midst of the grandeur
and the absurdity of the most extreme
Virginian aristocracy, and absorbing at
every pore all that was good or bad, and
all the prejudices and passions of that
vigorous but narrow society. Then he
appears facing with consummate audac-
ity the dying eloquence of Patrick Hen-
ry. Then comes his political career, his
" old republican principles," his lead-
ership of the house, and his fall from
power. An aimless, ineffectual period,
a species of interregnum, ensues, which
may be called the guerrilla period of
Randolph's strange life ; and then, when
the war of 1812 had cleared the way
for new issues, he appears again as a liv-
ing force in American politics. It is in
this last stage of his career that Mr.
Adams has put Randolph in a wholly
new and very striking light. It was
John Randolph who first sketched, in
bold, strong outline, that scheme for the
union of state rights and slavery which

134

The Contributors' Club.

[January,

was afterwards filled out in every detail,
and was preached as the true political
gospel, by John C. Calhoun. Randolph
was the author of the first outline of
that Southern slave-holding policy which,
subsequently adopted and extended, be-
came of such vast importance and
strength that it was only crushed by the
four years of awful civil war, of which
it was itself the cause. When Randolph
was engaged in formulating this evil
doctrine, and screaming it in the ears of
every one, in season and out of season,
he was an isolated man, feared and won-
dered at, and almost as much of a polit-
ical Ishmael as he was in the years be-
fore the war with England. His jar-
ring appeals went straight home to the
nervous centre of the South ; but no one
loved him for it even there, however
much he stirred their passions and was
in accord with their bitterest fears and
prejudices. It is owing to this isolation,

probably, that the part which Randolph
played at the beginning of the slavery
struggle in shaping the Southern policy
has never until now been fully under-
stood and appreciated, even if it was
known at all. Mr. Adams has thus
given us what is practically an entire-
ly new conception of Randolph in his
last years, or in the third period of his
life, — a contribution of great impor-
tance in the study of a question on which
the history of the United States turned
for forty years, and which it took four
years of desperate fighting to finally set-
tle. Mr. Adams has done more than this,
however, in carrying out the purpose of
the series to which this biography be-
longs. He has shown us just what John
Randolph was, what he meant, what he
represented, and what his influence was ;
and above all he has made clear the ef-
fect which Randolph had upon the his-
tory of the republic.

THE CONTRIBUTORS' CLUB.

HAS any one ever noted that there is
a far greater fondness in England for
French words and phrases than there
is in America ? Whether I am the dis-
coverer or not, the fact seems to me to
be beyond question. In the new grand
hotel in London, which is supposed to
be managed on the American plan, —
more or less, — but which has a name
borrowed from Paris, the very gorgeous
dining-room is labeled " Salle a Man-
ger" lu another English hotel, I saw
a sign on what we call the " elevator,"
and the English, with greater simplicity,
term a u lift," declaring it to be an as-
censeur. The portable fire-extinguisher
familiar to all Americans as a " Bab-
cock " is in England called an extinc-
teur. On the programmes of the itin-
erant opera company managed by Mr.

Mapleson, and called, comically enough,
" Her Majesty's Opera," the wig-maker
and costumer appear as the perruquier
and the costumier. But on the stage, or
rather in writings for and of and about
the stage, there is an enormous consump-
tion of French phrases, or of phrases
fondly supposed to be French. The
dramatic critic is wont to refer to the
rentree of an old favorite when he means
his or her reappearance ; and he com-
ments on the skillful way in which M.
Sardou brings about his denoument, —
and for this there is perhaps some ex-
cuse, as there is no English word which
is the exact technical equivalent of de-
noument. But he condemns the drama-
tist for the use of double entendre, not
knowing that there is no such phrase in
French, and that its apparent progenitor,

1883.]

The Contributors' Club.

135

double entente, means only a double
meaning ; and he speaks of an artiste
attempting a new role with the view of
enlarging her repertoire, when he means
that the artist (for an actress or a singer
is an artist, and not an artiste) will add
a new part to her repertory. The mu-
sical critic is not content with artiste,
which he seemingly takes for the French
feminine of artist, but he must needs
talk of the new pianiste from the Paris
Conservatoire, when he means a pianist
from the Paris Conservatory. Pianiste
is also supposed to be a French feminine
for pianist, although this last summer,
at Saratoga, I saw an advertisement of
a strolling concert company, which de-
clared a certain performer to be " the
greatest living lady pianiste in the
world " ! But nothing surpasses the fol-
lowing advertisement, cut from one of
the theatrical trade-journals a year or
two ago. I give it here as it stood, chang-
ing only the proper names : —
ANNIE BLACK,

The popular favorite and Leading Lady of

Theatre Comique, will be at liberty after June to
engage for the season of '81-82, as Leading Lady
with first-class comb. Also

E. J. BLACK,
(Nee EDWARD BROWN,)
CHARACTER ACTOR.
Please read this carefully, and note the
delightfully inappropriate use of nee,
and the purely professional cutting short
into " comb." of the word " combina-
tion," technically applied to strolling
companies. Above all, pray remark
the fact that the gray mare is the bet-
ter horse, and that the man has given
up his own name for his wife's.

— That that new penmanship method
can be depended upon, every time, to
take the character all out of the stu-
dent's handwriting is a thing which the
printed fac-simile specimens have long
ago proved, to the satisfaction of the
very last doubter. But what I want to
know is, Does it take the character out
of the student himself, at the same time ?

I should think it must be so ; but here
we have only a sort of inferential, cir-
cumstantial evidence, not proof : to wit,
the published portraits of the successful
students are characterless, every time.
But were they so before they meddled
with that penmanship method ? That,
you see, is the vital question. For, if
these poor people were characterless be-
fore, my suspicion falls to the ground ;
but if they were not, my suspicion is
confirmed. So, what I am coming at
is this : to ask, in the interest of science,
that whenever, hereafter, the " Com-
pendium " people print their usual month-
ly batch of fac-simile signatures, labeled,
" Before practicing the system " and
" After practicing the system," they put,
along with the portrait of the successful
student, another portrait, showing what
he was like " before practicing the sys-
tem."

— I took a drive one October after-
noon, which I remember not only for
the beauty of the landscape, but for
the changes it underwent in the space of
a couple of hours. The road was an
ordinary turnpike, running along past
homely, pleasant farms, with white dwell-
ing-houses — comfortable, if not special-
ly picturesque — and old-fashioned, spa-
cious, red-painted barns and out-houses.
The air was mild, but deliciously fresh,
the sky one clear sapphire, and a brisk
breeze went rustling through the yellow
maples, and dropping the leaves lightly
on the piles of red fruit under the apple-
trees. Golden-rod and purple aster were
almost gone, but the flame of the Vir-
ginia creeper ran over the stone walls
and climbed to the tops of the dark
spruces and cedars, and even the littlo
common weeds by the way seemed
turned by the rich light into things of
beauty. There was a wonderful sense
of cheer in the look of the world that
afternoon ; her year's work was done,
and the earth was enjoying her ease,
at rest, yet full of hopeful life. By and
by I turned off from this highroad at a

136

The Contributors' Club.

[January,

right angle, left the upland country be-
hind, and dipped down through a cross-
track facing toward the river, where the
light only dimly filtered through the
close shade. For nearly a mile the road
continues to plunge down through a
piece of genuine woodland, full of the
scent of moist mosses and ferns and
other thick-growing greenery. Then it
emerges from this cool, dusk region, and
passes the old place known as the Daus-
kammer, the name in full being Teufel's
Tanz-kammer. I don't know whether
beautiful spots like this were given over
to the devil as a sort of propitiatory of-
fering, in old times, when people were
more afraid of him than they are now,
or whether he was supposed to have se-
lected them for himself ; if so, he had
very good taste. The house, invisible
through the trees, stands right above the
river, on a broad, level plateau, where
no doubt the witches danced when the
nights were fine, — or did they prefer
them dark ? If the devil was present,
did he play partner, turn and turn about,
with the witches, or did he only look on
in a superior fashion at their festive
performances ? When once fairly out of
the woods, you find yourself down on the
river-level, with nothing to intercept the
view. Some five or six miles below, the
stream expands into a broad bay, so
closed in by a bend in the river's course
and by the hills at the south as to have
the appearance of a lake. This after-
noon that I am telling of, river and hills
retreated to indefinite distances in the
pearly haze ; the familiar hills lay sleep-
ing, miles away, while below it was not
the river-bay I saw, but some vague, far-
off, unknown sea. It was one of Na-
ture's pleasant little wiles ; she has a
wonderful way of managing her ma-
terials to produce her infinitely varied
effects. Even when one has learned
not to be surprised by them, one enjoys
them all the same. I was not at the
end of them that afternoon, for after a
time, while driving on, quietly admiring

this soft and tranquil scene, a big dark
cloud rose suddenly, as it seemed, out
of the west, and where I had not been
looking ; almost in a moment the whole
picture changed : the dim sea disap-
peared, and the shadow on the water
turned it dark and cold ; the haze van-
ished from the dreamy distant hills, and
they came forward to the river-bank,
erect and bold, and closed the view up
with a frowning wall. I think I never
saw a more curious transformation scene.
The storm-cloud after all was only an
empty threat, for early in the evening
the moon came up over the hills into a
perfectly clear heaven, and flooded the
whole night world with light.

— Any one ambitious of producing a
work of fiction has only to read the
newspapers to find in their columns the
most thrilling plots, which, with due ex-
pansion, can be developed into novels
quite as good as those of Miss Braddon
or Mr. Wilkie Collins. This, at least,
is what one is given to understand by
the newspapers themselves, in which
it is no rare thing to see a quarter of a
column, or so, headed " A Ready-Made
Novel " or " Stranger than Fiction,"
which we are assured is as wonderful
as anything the ingenious authors be-
fore named have done in devising
strange complications of human affairs.

When I was young, and my first
great work of fiction was in view, — a
point at which it has persistently re-
mained, — I made an extensive collec-
tion of clippings of this sort, believing
that they would at least stimulate a lag-
gard imagination. I must confess that
I have found this method of writing fic-
tion a failure. I have tried the ex-
cerpts for novels and for plays, but have
never got a satisfactory plot out of
them. They have retained, through
all processes of literary treatment, a cer-
tain inherent journalistic stamp, which
somehow has been fatal to my story. I
have thus come to disbelieve in the
" ready-made novels " of the newspa-

1883.]

The Contributors' Club.

137

pers, and to think that a narrative of
fact, however curious it may be, is of
little help, except for the germ it may
contain, unless it is translated and re-
shaped by the imagination. Miss Brad-
don and Mr. Collins do not owe their
success to the reporter ; and no one can
think for a moment that newspaper
clippings have substantially helped the
author of The Cloister and the Hearth.
Nevertheless, it is Mr. Charles Reade's
hobby to preach the utility of the hard,
unrounded fact as a potent ingredient of
fiction ; and it is his delight to confound
the critics of any seeming improbability
in his stories with a reference to some
occurrence in " real life," of which he
has an account, carefully preserved with
clove-scented gum tragacanth in a scrap-
book.

A newspaper correspondent has re-
cently forced the door of Mr. Reade's
study, and we are shown a wonderful
collection of scrap-books, indexed and
cross-indexed, which contain clippings
from hundreds of journals, and which
have cost no end of trouble. Mr. Reade,
the correspondent tells us, looks at this
part of his library rather sadly, and has
misgivings as to whether he will ever be
repaid for the pains he has been at in
forming it. But has he not been repaid
for it already ? Has he not discomfited
many a critic by citations from these
chronicles of the hour ? Has he not
often found Fact a muscular defender
of the maid Imagination ? He certainly
has no occasion to repine, and his very
latest story is a vindication of the utility
of scrap-books. Singleheart and Dou-
bleface is a charming story, told in the
simple Anglo-Saxon way, of which Mr.
Reade is almost as great a master as
Fielding and Thackeray. It has a spe-
cial attraction for Americans, as some of
the scenes are in America. Mr. Reade
has not been in this country, we believe,
though an affectionate welcome awaits
him, should he ever come ; but he has
so many friends here, and the large cir-

culation of his books has brought him
into such intimate relations with Amer-
ican publishers, that he ought to have a
pretty good idea of how we look and
what we are. It is evident, however,
that, instead of trusting to himself for
the local color of his American scenes,
he has been to his scrap-books for it ;
and on this supposition alone can we ac-
count for the remarkable verisimilitude
with which he describes New York.
The heroine of the narrative is forsaken
by her besotted husband, who robs her
of all the money she has, and leaves her
with their child as soon as they land
from a Liverpool steamer. She stores
her trunks in the custom-house, that in-
stitution evidently being, according to
Mr. Reade's scrap-books, on one of the
North River piers ; and from it she walks
to' One Hundred and Fourth Street,
which we are led to imagine is in the
same neighborhood. On the way her
child becomes hungry, and she instantly
feeds it with pie ; for of what other nu-
triment could she think, what other
nutriment could she readily find in New
York than that indigestible article of
national diet ? The forlorn stranger in
the streets of the metropolis is overcome
by hunger, and, looking for succor, im-
mediately discovers a pie-shop, with its
stock of " apple, mince, and custard."
She also makes the acquaintance of
a custom-house officer, "a tall, gaunt
citizen of Illinois," named Solomon B.
Grace ; and the portraiture of this official
is so natural that any one who has landed
from a foreign steamer in New York
will instantly recognize it. Mr. Grace
talks like Sam Slick. " Wa'al," he
says to his lady-love, — and he also says
" wa'al " every time he opens his mouth,
— " wa'al, ye see, I don't want no fuss.
Now, there 's somebody in that house
that riles me. He 's got a good thing,
and he does n't vally it." This, it will
be noticed, is eminently characteristic of
the speech of the gentlemen who take
account of dutiable articles on the in-

138

The Contributors' Club.

[January,

coming steamers, as also is the use of
that very common American expletive,
" I swan ! " "I 'm pacific," says Mr.
Grace, when he is satisfied ; and when
his heart is touched, he uses the racy
and familiar idiom, " You '11 make me
cry enough to wash a palace car."

The heroine recovers her money from
her thriftless husband, and starts from
One Hundred and Fourth Street to the
custom-house, which, " to her surprise "
(and to ours), " is very near." There
she once more meets Solomon B., and
when she informs him that she is about
to return to England he orders "his
mate " to stow her things away in the
cabin of the steamer, which is moored
to the custom-house steps in Wall Street.

Mr. Reade has stated that he reads
one hundred books to write one, and it
is not surprising that, with the aid of
his scrap-books, he should be accurate.
But will he kindly take our word for it
when we assure him that the city hall is
not at Corlear's Hook, that the establish-
ment of Messrs. Harper and Brothers
is not at Gowanus, and that Bowling
Green is not in Central Park?

— Mr. Matthew Arnold not long
ago, and Mr. Edward A. Freeman more
recently, have been freeing their minds
about America, or rather about these
United States. They have joined them-
selves to the noble army of Englishmen
who have already said their say about
this unfortunate country, and its still
more unfortunate inhabitants. English-
men who have crossed the Atlantic, and
"stopped" in America over night, and
Englishmen who have stayed at home
snugly by their sea-coal fire, are alike
ready to set forth their condescending
opinions of American manners, Ameri-
can customs, American food, American
horses, American books, American men,
American women, and American chil-
dren. American civilization, such as it
is, has been talked about by numberless
English critics, such as they are. And
yet, in spite of this enormous expendi-

ture of ink, it seems to me that one easy
and accurate standard of comparison be-
tween the two countries has not yet re-
ceived the attention it deserves. This
standard is the relative frequency and
excellence of the index. As a test of
the highest civilization the index is un-
surpassed. The country in which the
most and best indexes are provided to
aid the special student and the general
reader is the country in which the play
of intellect is the freest and most active ;
it is the country in which there is the
highest civilization. Accept this test
for a moment, and let us apply it to
Great Britain and the United States.
The leading American magazines pub-
lish elaborate indexes to the wealth of
literary and historical matter contained
in their files, and these indexes are re-
vised and enlarged at intervals, as the
magazine grows in years, and has a
greater number of " back numbers " be-
hind it. On the other hand, no English
magazine or review has published an
index for years. The original attempt
to cover all contemporary periodical lit-
erature was made many years ago by
an American ; and the later and more
elaborate Poole's Index of to-day is
an American undertaking. It is true
that there is an Index Society in Eng-
land, and that there is none in Amer-
ica ; but the English society owes much
of its support to Americans, who form a
goodly portion of its members, and do
a very considerable proportion of its
work. Then, the Index Society, admi-
rable as it is in intention, is not so ad-
mirable in its management. Actually,
it wasted its time and its money in put-
ting forth an index to Mr. Trevelyan's
Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, —
a task which belonged to the author

and the publisher, and which it was
simply shameful in them to neglect.
This brings us to note the infrequency
of indexes in English books, even in
books which cry aloud for them. Car-
lyle's Reminiscences, for instance, with

1883.]

Books of the Month.

139

its mass of personal allusions and re-
flections, was issued in England with-
out an index. The American publish-
ers added one at once. Mrs. Kemble's
Old Woman's Gossip, with its fund of
delightful anecdote, appeared in Eng-
land as Records of a Girlhood, and with
no clew whatever to the proper names
which filled its entertaining pages ; the
American publisher supplied an index.
Not only are English indexes few in
number, but they are often inferior in
merit. So poor was the English index
of an English book, of which a New
York publisher had purchased the plates
a year or two ago, that he was com-
pelled to recall the edition he had print-
ed from these plates, and to make an
index less ludicrous.

It is from England that we have taken
the present fancy for series of books on
kindred subjects. A set of English Men
of Letters has called forth a set of
American Men of Letters. Now in the
books of none of the important English
series is there an index : in no one of the
volumes of Ancient Classics for Eng-
lish Readers (the original of all the se-
ries, if I mistake not), nor in Foreign
Classics for English Readers, nor in
Classical Writers, nor in English Men

of Letters, will you find any sign of an
index. Turn to the various American
series, and see the difference. Every
volume of Mr. Laurence Hutton's Amer-
ican Actor series has an index, contain-
, ing, often, information not in the book
itself, and made only at the cost of much
toil. Every volume of the Scribners'
Campaigns of the Civil War has an am-
ple index. Every volume but one of
American Men of Letters is superior to
its English namesake in this final test
of a more active reading public. If we
leave indexes in books to consider the
books which are indexes, I think the
advantage is still with these States.
The Dickens ' Dictionary — an index to
the characters of an English novelist —
is an American work ; so is the Wa-
verley Dictionary ; so, of course, is the
Hawthorne Index. In general, Amer-
ican books of reference are better than
English ; they are at once simpler, full-
er, and more exact. Errors enough
have been pointed out in Mr. Allibone's
Dictionary of Authors, and in the forty
mismade indexes appended to it ; but it
remains a monument to American in-
dustry, and to the American demand for
a guide through the labyrinths of lit-
erature.

BOOKS OF THE MONTH.

Literary History and Criticism. Studies in Ear-
ly English Literature, by Emelyn W. Washburn,
(Putnams), is a somewhat discursive and narrative
treatment of the theme. It represents an enthu-
siasm which is conscientiously occupied with the
details of the subject, and yet runs frequently into
generalizations which are not strained, but sensi-
ble and reasonable. — Heine's writings, The Ro-
mantic School, the Suabian Mirror, and Introduc-
tion to Don Quixote have been translated by S. L.
Fleishman, and published in a single volume.
(Holt.) The Romantic School was written origi-
nally for the illumination of the French, and thus
serves singularly well as an introduction to the
study for the use of American students. The
translation has scarcely the grace of Heine, but it
preserves his caustic wit and his keen insight. —

Mr. John Addington Symonds's Renaissance in
Italy (Holt) is now complete by the publication of
Italian Literature, in two octavo volumes. — The
Subjection of Hamlet, by William Leighton (Lip-
pincott), is further explained on the title-page as
an essay toward an explanation of the motives of
thought and action of Shakespeare's Prince of
Denmark. The essay is a very thoughtful one.
It is more than ingenious, and is worthy the at-
tention of every student of Shakespeare. It would
not be just to state Mr. Leighton's conclusions in
a sentence. — A Study, with critical and explana.-
tory notes, of Alfred Tennyson's Poem The Prin-
cess, by S. E. Dawson (Dawson Brothers, Mon-
treal), is a modest little work, which undertakes
to illuminate the poem by a running commentary,
and to furnish notes, as if it had given the text

140

Books of the Month.

[January,

entire. — Emerson at Home and Abroad, by Mon-
cure D. Conway (Osgood), is a study of Emerson's
genius, freely illustrated by personal reminis-
cences. — The death of the Hon. George P. Marsh
has led to a fresh issue of his two volumes of Lec-
tures on the English Language. (Scribners.)
The first is devoted rather to the structure of the
language, the second to its historical monuments.
The judicious character of Mr. Marsh's mind and
his wide learning keep these books valuable,
though twenty years have elapsed since the first
edition.

Poetry and the Drama. Webster, an Ode
(Scribners) is a dignilied-looking volume, con-
taining forty pages of ode and eighty of notes, all
by W. C. Wilkinson. Notes also occur occasion-
ally at the foot or top of the page. Mr. Wilkin-
son's ode and the statue in front of the Boston
State House are both modeled after Webster. —
Agamemnon, La Saisiaz, The Two Poets of Croisic,
Pauline, and the first and second series of Dra-
matic Id}'Ils are the contents of a new volume of
Browning's, Poems (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.)
which gathers thus all the acknowledged work
not hitherto collected in the American edition. —
The Wisdom of the Brahmin, a Didactic Poem,
translated from the German of Riickert by
Charles T. Brooks (Roberts Bros.), is, as Mr. Brooks
says, "mainly an original work, composed by the
author in the character of a Brahmin, spiritually
born in the East, but located in the West, — one
who has by long and deep stud}' and sympathy
caught the spirit of Oriental thought and the style
of Oriental expression, and now reproduces the
essence of the best Oriental wisdom in forms
created by the most accomplished European cul-
ture." The first six books are given as an experi-
ment. Mr. Brooks's venture seems to have been
encouraged by the success of the Light of Asia.

— Lethe, and other Poems, by David Morgan
Jones (Lippincott), is sufficiently accounted for
by the author when he calls them, in his dedi-
cation, ephemeral verses. — The Legend of St.
Telemachus and the Legend of All Souls' Day
make a little ribbon-tied book, published in Pitts-
field, Mass., by J. B. Harrison. The author is
Rev. W. W. Newton, and the poetry is fervent.

— Rare Poems of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth
Centuries (Roberts Bros.) is Mr. W. J. Linton's
gleanings after the fuller harvest which has been
garnered in the anthologies. He has furnished
the book with notes, and has removed some of the
obstructions which antique forms present. Mr.
Linton has rightly chosen the most musical and
lyrical period of English verse for his delightful
material. — Poems, by James Avis Bartley, A. B.
(The Jeffersonian Book and Job Printing Office,
Charlottesville, Va.), is an octavo pamphlet of
ninety-six pages. — Mr. J. Brander Matthews has
collected a volume of Poems of American Patriot-
ism (Scribners), and those unacquainted with the
subject will be agreeably surprised at the intrinsic
worth of the poetry. As an accompaniment to
school work, the book ought to have a positive
value, and the editor has made it more serviceable
by {furnishing it with notes, and by adopting a
chronological order for the selections. — Helen of

Troy, by A. Lang (Scribners), is the Greek lady
done in a modern English dado ; and with a nice
sense of propriety, the old Helen, who sits and
walks as if she were a model for Mr. Leighton,
has left the troublesome part of her character for
antiquity to take care of. The poem has much of
the sweetness of Mr. Morris, not quite so long
drawn out, and one may be pardoned for carrying
some of the lines and images about with him till
they are worn. We must compliment the Amer-
ican publishers on the good taste of their re-
production. — Idyls of Norway and other Poems
(Scribners) is the title which Mr. Hjalmar Iljorth
Boyesen gives to an agreeable little collection of
his poetry, some of which had already appeared
in the pages of his novels. The romancer is the
poet in both instances, and one may read Mr.
Boyesen's poems with something of the same kind
of pleasure with which he reads his prose. — The
Fire-Worshippers and Dermot McMurrough are the
titles of two dramas published in a paper volume by
the Prospector print, Del Norte, Colorado Blue
lire appears to be the light by which they were
written, and all the speeches read as if they were
delivered at the top of one's voice. — Mother Goose
for Grown Folks, by Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
(Houghton, Mifflin & Co.), is a new revised and
enlarged edition of a book published a dozen
years ago, and brought now into range with the au-
thor's other writings. Mrs. Whitney has not only
exercised her ingenuity on the old jingles ; she
has made a capital suggestion for others to do the
same. A game might well be tried by wits of see-
ing what various interpretations any one of the
ditties might receive. — Mr. Robert Bell has edited
a collection of Songs from the Dramatists (Dodd,
Mead & Co.), which is fully annotated, und is
made, besides, more accessible by a uniform use of
current spelling. — Poems of the Household, by
Margaret E- Sangster (Osgood), is a volume of
short poems, conceived in a simple, reverent spirit
and melodiously delivered. — Paphus and other
Poems, by Ella Sharpe Youngs (Kegan Paul,
Trench & Co., London), is a small volume of verse,
by a cultivated and sensitive woman.

Art and Decoration. Art and Nature in Italy,
by Eugene Benson (Roberts Bros.), will repay the
reader who wishes to hear what a painter has
to say about a few Italian topics, which he has
selected from the abundance of the material
plainly in possession of one who writes so freely
and easily. There is a generosity and honesty
about the criticism in the book which we com-
mend to the querulous dilettanti of the day. — In
the series of Appletons' Home Books two new
ones have appeared: Home Occupations, by Janet
E. Runtz-Rees, and The Home Needle, by Ella
Rodman Church. The former gives abundant
suggestions for all sorts of home-made bricabrac,
out of leather, paper, straw, wax, and card-board,
and in some cases is minute in its directions: (lie
latter confines itself to the humbler occupations
of plain sewing and useful needle-work. — The
Lady's Book of Knitting and Crochet, containing
over one hundred new and easy patterns of useful
and ornamental work, is published by N. D.
Whitney & Co., Boston, the dealers in worsteds.

1883.]

Books of the Month.

141

The author is described as " a lady expert, who
has conscientiously tested all of them." The con-
dition of her brain is not stated. — Mr. William
Tirebuck has written a little volume on Dante Ga-
briel Rossetti, his Work and Influence (Elliot
Stock, London), in which he includes also a brief
survey of recent art tendencies. There is no biog-
raphy except in the last paragraph of the book,
but there are some suggestive criticisms, as where
he compares Mr. Henry Irving to E. Burne Jones.
— Travels in South Kensington, with Notes ,on
Decorative Art and Architecture in England, by
Moncttre D. Con way (Harpers), is a collection of
three papers which appeared originally in Har-
per's Monthly, and gives a readable account of the
material out of which a more artistic England is
forming, together with some sketches of what has
already been done, chiefly by artists, in rendering
their houses beautiful. Such a book is of more
use, we think, to Americans ambitious of deco-
rated homes than books of principles and designs,
since the thing done is more instructive than the
thing that ought to be done. — The old Masters
of Belgium and Holland, by Eugene Fromentin,
has been translated by Mrs. Mary C. Itobbins
(Osgood), and furnished with heliotype illustra-
tions after Rubens, Paul Potter, and Rembrandt.
It is a pleasure to read such thoughtful criticism,
given in such delightful style. — Parisian Art and
Artists, by Henry Bacon (Osgood), is substantially
a reprint of the author's contributions to Scrib-
ner's, and is an agreeable, light introduction to
contemporary French art, with sketchy accounts
of the men and women whose names may be heard
in Paris studios.

Holiday Books. That Glorious Song of Old is
the title given to a thin, square volume containing
Dr. E. H. Sears's Christmas hymn, " It came
upon the midnight clear," with illustrations by
Alfred Fredericks. (Lee & Shepard.) The pic-
tures, which are allusive in their subjects, are not
always conducive to a reverent spirit. The artist
has employed melodramatic treatment on a di-
minutive scale, and the effect is to diminish as-
tonishment, which is the first product of the melo-
drama and its chief justification. — Curfew must
not Ring To-Night, by Rosa Hartwick Thorpe (Lee
& Shepard), is another of the square illustrated
books, the illustrations being by F. T. Merrill and
E. H. Garrett. The artists have in some cases
worked together on the same picture. The series
is of greater worth than that of the previous book,
the subjects being treated with more simplicity
and dignity. We can praise also the omission to
illustrate the central fact of the poem, — a fact
which may safely be left with the author of the
poem. — Ring Out, Wild Bells, from the same pub-
lishers, has the same general plan. ' The illustra-
tions are from designs by Miss L. B. Humphrey.
The artist seems to us to have aimed at vigor
rather than to be vigorous by nature. — Macmillan
& Co. have issued the Old Christmas and Brace-
bridge Hall of Washington Irving, with Caldecott's
illustrations, both which appeared in elegant form
last season, as sixpenny pamphlets now. The il-
lustrations suffer in printing, yet Mr. Caldecott's
style permits cheap printing better than more re-

fined work does. — The Charles Dickens Birthday
Book (T. Whittaker, New York) comes with the
recommendation that the selection is the work of
Dickens's eldest daughter; the illustrations, five
outline sketches, by his youngest. It is not hard
to find the necessary number of sentiments in
Dickens. — Chimes and Rhymes for Holiday
Times, edited by Almira L. Hayward (Osgood),
is a collection of verses upon a somewhat novel
plan, the poems being grouped under the heads of
New Year's, Washington's Birthday, Easter, Fast
Day, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Thanksgiv-
ing, and Christmas. The selections are mainly
from American authors, though Herrick is called
into service for Fast Day. — Three Great Poems,
by W. C. Bryant (Putnams), is a work combining
three separate illustrated books, Thanatopsis and
the Flood of Years, of which the designs were
furnished by Linton, and Among the Trees, illus-
trated by McEntee. The unit}' of the book is in
the poetry. McEntce's illustrations have a humor-
ous look by the side of Linton's. In one picture
there is a boy climbing a tree, and the width of
the boy is truly remarkable. — College Cuts,
chosen from the Columbia Spectator, 1880, 1881,
1882 (White & Stokes, New York), shows a good
deal of cleverness both in text and cuts, but the
college element is singularly absent. — Wayside
Flowers, original and contributed poems, ar-
ranged by Ellen E. Dickinson, illustrated by Julia
C. Emmet (White & Stokes), is an awkwardly
disposed collection of leaves, tied together by a
ribbon, the illustrations in chromo-lithography. —
Grandma's Garden, with many original poems,
suggested and arranged by Kate Sanborn, illus-
trated by Walter Satterlee (Osgood), is a little
collection of leaves tied together, witli a design in
colors on the cover. The selection looks to a kind-
ly revival of interest in old-fashioned gardens.
— Mr. T. Buchanan Read's Christine is dignified
by a number of engravings from designs by
F. Dielman, yet we must think that Mr. Dielman
has sometimes adapted himself too closely to Mr.
Read's verse. — New England Bygones, by E. H.
Rollins (Lippincott), is a new edition of a quiet
and graceful book, enriched by a number of en-
gravings of more than ordinary value, and some-
what impoverished by a preliminary biographical
sketch, by Gail Hamilton, which is unpleasantly
private in its tenor.

Philosophy and Religion. Dr. James Marti-
neau's A Study of Spinoza (Macmillan) was origi-
nally designed Sor the series of Philosophical
Classics, but, refusing to come within the neces-
sary limits of the volumes included in that series,
is published by itself. It is upon the same general
plan of a separate discussion of life and philoso-
phy, and will be welcomed by readers who regret
the infrequent publication of Dr. Martineau's
work. — Mrs. Oliphant's (?) A Little Pilgrim
(Roberts) may perhaps be included here. It is an
imaginative picture of a soul awaking upon the
other side of death. There is a sweetness about it
which will very likely be cloying to many. —
American Hero-Myths, by D. G. Brinton (H. C.
Watts & Co., Philadelphia), is a study in tlie
native religions of the Western continent. It is an

142

Books of the Month.

[January,

endeavor to present in a critically correct light
some of the fundamental conceptions which are
found in the native beliefs of the tribes of America.
We think Mr. Briuton does not sufficiently regard
the influence of the Spanish papists, and that we
have not yet got to the bottom facts upon which
to base philosophizing. — Moravian Missions is a
course of twelve lectures, by Augustus C. Thomp-
son (Scribners), upon a subject which has a ro-
mantic interest for Christians. Dr. Thompson is
almost a pioneer in this interesting field so far as a
comprehensive statement in English is concerned,
and his volume will be found to have caught some
of the glow of this faithful company.

Fiction. A new edition, at a lower price, has
been published of Miss Keary's A Doubting Heart.
(Macmillan.) There are few writers in fiction who
had obtained so strong a hold upon the affection
of their readers as Miss Keary, whose death is de-
plored.— In the Round Robin series (Osgood),
Rachel's Share of the Road is more of a sermon
than a song; but the sermon is a practical one,
which does not deal with ancient Jews, but with
modern Christians. — Towhead, the Story of a
Girl, by Sally Pratt McLean (Williams), is as cal-
low a piece of work as the author's previous Cape
Cod Folks. If the mixed colleges are going to
give us novels like this, we shall sigh for monaste-
ries and nunneries. — Aubert Dubayet, or the Two
Sister Republics, by Charles Gayarre" (Osgood),
must be placed here, in spite of the author's pro-
test that it is not romance, but history. The char-
acters and scenes are historical, the two sister
republics are France and America, but the author
has undertaken to fuse his material into a semi-
romantic tale. We fear he underrates the interest
of a perfectly clear and orderly historical narra-
tive. — Nc\v Arabian Nights, by Robert Louis
Stevenson (Holt), is a new volume of the Leisure
Hour series, and one intended to be full of enter-
taining invention. The likeness to the Arabian
Nights is merely in a little travesty of form, but
Mr. Stevenson acts upon his own canons as laid
down in his article in Longman's magazine, and
really tells stories. That the stories require the
patience of the East may also be said. — In the
Franklin Square Library (Harpers), the latest
numbers are Allerton Towers, by Annie Thomas;
Rachel's Inheritance, by Margaret Veley ; Dai-
sies and Butterflies, by Mrs. J. H. Riddell; and
Of High Degree, by Charles Gibbon. — Norodom,
King of Cambodia, a romance of the East, by
Frank McGloin (Appletons), enables the reader,
weary of the sharp definitions of Western life
and history, to surround himself by the fictitious
gloom and monstrous shapes of Indo-China.

History and Biography. — In English Men of
Letters series, (Harpers), Sterne is undertaken by
H. D. Traill, who shows himself a trustee of the
reading public by treating his subject with singular
honesty. We can hardly think of a more trying
book to read than a life of Sterne in Sterne's man-
ner ; but a book like this, which takes a cool inter-
est, and detaches that which is of permanent value
from the decaying mass of Sterne's writing, may be
read with profit and pleasure. — Detailed Minutias
of Soldier Life in the Army of Northern Virginia,

by Carlton McCarthy (Carlton McCarthy & Co.,
Richmond), is a volume of reminiscences, which
proves beyond a doubt the moral, physical, and
spiritual superiority of the Confederate soldier, —
beyond Mr. McCarthy's doubt, that is. — A Study
of Maria Edgeworth, by Grace A. Oliver (Will-
iams) has the additional words on the title-page,
With notices of her father and friends; and the
reader finds, if he is already familiar with the
work, that Mrs. Oliver has drawn the first part of
her book very largely from the memoirs of Mr.
Edgeworth, and the latter part from the privately
printed volume of Miss Edgeworth's letters, since
the book could scarcely have been compiled except
for these resources. We think a more distinct
reference to them by the author would have
been more courteous. Mrs. Oliver has, however,
gleaned from a variety of sources, and has
made her book an encyclopaedic life of her hero-
ine.— In American Statesmen (Houghton, Mif-
flin & Co.), John Randolph, by Henry Adams,
is the latest volume, and the author has appar-
ently regarded his subject with dispassionate
interest, but with picturesque power. — The Early
Days of Christianity (Cassell) is a work by that
florid writer, F. W. Farrar, intended to cover the
period embraced by the New Testament after the
death of Christ, and is thus a companion to his Life
of Christ and Life of St. Paul. It is very largely
expository of the epistles. — The Life and Letters
of Francis Lieber, edited by Thomas Sergeant
Perry (Osgood), should have a great interest for all
students of our political history. Lieber's life was
a romantic one, and his letters illustrate the power
of fascination which public affairs have for a man
whose personal experience has been a part of his-
toric movements. The liveliness of the book may
win some readers; its worth should hold more. —
John Grecnleaf Whittier, his life, genius, and writ-
ings, by W. Sloane Kennedy (S. E. Cassino, Bos-
ton), is one of those preliminary biographies which
have an uncomfortable effect upon the friends
of the subject. However carefully and accurately
the work may be done, one can scarcel}' avoid the
feeling that a monument has been erected, with a
blank space only left for the day of the death.
The living have some rights, and the right of
burial is not one which should be most strenuously
defended. — The Beginnings of History according
to the Bible and the Traditions of Oriental Peoples,
from the Creation of Man to the Deluge, is the title
of a work by Francois Lenormant, which has been
translated by an American (Scribners), and intro-
duced by Professor Francis Brown. Mr. Lenormant
possibly protests a little too much that he is a
Christian, but that is natural when the audience
for whom he writes is considered. To the ration-
alist he says, " This is a scientific book ; read it,
and find a single point where my Christian con-
victions have embarrassed me, and proved an ob-
stacle to the liberty of my research as a scholar,
or where they may have prevented me from adopt-
ing the well-ascertained results of criticism." —
The eighth of the Campaigns of the Civil War
(ScribHers) is The Mississippi, by Lieut. F. V.
Greene, who is a trained writer on military topics,
but a student, and not a participant in the scenes

1883.]

Books of the Month.

143

which he presents. It almost startles one to find
military critics of a second generation. It will be
well if those who are to come are as scholarly as
Lieut. Greene. — The Life of James Clerk Max-
well, the brilliant yet modest scientist, has been
worthily presented by Professor Lewis Campbell
and William Garnett. (Macmillan.) It contains a
selection from his correspondence and occasional
writings, and a sketch of his contributions to sci-
ence, and is illustrated by portraits and colored
plates. The nature was a noble one, and it is
a positive gift when such a person is suddenly
brought to the knowledge of a world which might
only have known his scientific work. His jeux
d' esprit are capital. — The London Society for Pro-
moting Christian Knowledge has lately entered
upon a remarkable career of publication, boldly
assuming the task of furnishing a great body of
literature, chiefly in history and science, but also
in fiction, which shall bear the impress of a gen-
erous and not narrow Christian thought. It has
enlisted the interest of sound scholars, and even its
compilations have the appearance of thoroughness.
Whatever may be said of the relation which such
a society bears to the general publishing business,
there is little doubt that the new rigor is well di-
rected, and the public is getting the benefit of the
enterprise. The New York agents are E. & J. B.
Young & Co. Among the recent books sent to us
are The Church in Roman Gaul, by Richard Travers
Smith; Judaea and her Rulers, by M. Bramston, a
work which bridges over the history of Israel from
Nebuchadnezzar to Vespasian ; and John Hus, by
A. H. Wratislaw, who makes an historical biog-
raphy detailing the commencement of resistance to
papal authority on the part of the inferior clergy.
The Diocesan Histories, to which we have before re-
ferred, are continued, and include York, by George
Ormshy, and Oxford, by Rev. Edward Marshall.
None of these books profess to be based upon origi-
nal investigation, but they are not the work of
mere hacks; men have undertaken them who could
do original work if that were their purpose. Still
another volume is a biographical one, devoted to
Heroes of Science, by Professor P. M. Duncan, in
which Ray, Linnaeus, De Candolle, Buffon, Pen-
nant, Lamarck, Cuvier, Murchison, Lyell, and
others are treated. — In the Nature series (Mac-
millan) a little volume has been issued, devoted
to memorial notices of Darwin by Huxley Gei-
kie, Dyer, and others. The varied attainments of
Mr. Darwin are well illustrated by the fact that
specialists in geology, botany, zoology, and psy-
chology take up those separate parts of his work.
Books for Young People,. Christmas Rhymes
and New Year's Chimes, by Mary D. Brine (Har-
lan), is a large oblong book in boards, with verses
and illustrations. The verses are generally ob-
jective and free from offensive sentimentality, but
we object to such a poem as Two Small Maids.
The pictures have the merit of not being too nice.
— Elfin Land (Harlan) is another oblong book,
with designs by Walter Satterlee and poems by
Josephine Pollard. The pictures are better than
the verses, which are doggerel. It is curious how *
the aesthetic nonsense, with its amiable slang, has
worked into books for children. — The Young Peo-

ple of Shakespeare's Dramas, for Youthful Readers,
by Amelia E. Barr (Appleton), is a singular com-
mentary upon the fallacy which possesses people
that children are necessarily more interested in
children than in older people. The assumption in
this book is that, by giving young people a glimpse
at the exceedingly small number of children in
Shakespeare, one may allure them to an interest
in the literature itself. The book is really a study
of Shakespeare's youthful characters, and as such
can have little value for children ; nor is it espe-
cially acute in its criticism, if it is to be read by
older people. — The Talking Leaves, an Indian
Story, by William 0. Stoddard (Harpers), is to be
enjoyed chiefly by boys and girls who have taken
the Indian under their care, and accept him with
all his grunts and imperfect speech as an impor-
tant actor, without whom modern life would not be
worth living. — Pussy Willow, and other Child
Songs, has words by Henriette Gushing, music by
S. E. Farrar, and illustrations by Gertrude Clem-
ent. (White & Stokes.) The poetry has the ap-
pearance of being made to order, and the pictures,
which affect a rude charm, are not well drawn. —
Little Folk in Green, new Fairy Stories, by Hen-
rietta Christian Wright, with illustrations in color
by Lydia Emmet (White & Stokes), is pleasantly
devoid of too much moral, but lacks something
also of story. The illustrations, in color, have a
somewhat amateurish look. — The Story of Sieg-
fried, by James Baldwin, illustrated by Howard
Pyle (Scribners), is not a simple transcript from
the Eddas, but an attempt on the part of the au-
thor to weave the material into an imaginative
whole. He seems to have entered heartily into
the spirit of the Northern mythology, and we are
glad that boys should have a chance at reading a
tale which uses all the violent passions without
any realism. — Mr. Hamilton W. Mabie's Norse
Stories, retold from the Eddas (Roberts), is more
directly drawn from the original sources; that is
to say, he has rendered the stories into story-tell-
ing English, while he has retained, as writers in
love of this literature can scarcely help doing,
something of the sternness of the early form. He
has not, however, lost himself so completely in his
theme as Mr. Baldwin. — Six Girls, by Fannie
Belle Irving (Estes & Lauriat), is written by a dis-
ciple of Miss Alcott. — In the Young Folks' He-
roes of History, by George M. Towle (Lee & Shep-
ard), the latest volume is devoted to Sir Francis
Drake, one of the most admirable of all the sub-
jects included in the series. — The American Boy's
Handy Book, by D. C. Beard (Scribners), besides
giving practical directions for doing things which
ordinarily pass from one boy's intelligence to an-
other in a traditionary way, contains also a great
many hints of uncommon sports and playthings,
and is so minute in detail and particular in its
diagrams that it may safely be recommended to
boys who are not book-lovers; it is a great ad-
vance on the old-fashioned boys' own books. —
The Wonderful City of Tokio, or Further Adven-
tures of the Jewett Family and their Friend Oto
Nambo, by Edward Greey (Lee & Shepard), is
substantial 1}' a continuation of the author's pre-
vious book, Young Americans in Japan, and is an

144

Books of the Month.

[January.

animated account of sights in Tokio as seen by
the inevitable family, which forms the substructure
of all books for children nowadays. There is a
plentiful supply of pictures, mixed Japanese and
Western. — Paul and Persis, or the Revolutionary
Struggle in the Mohawk Valley, by Mary E. Brush
(Lee & Shepard), is an historical story for boys,
and one does not need to exact the closest imita-
tion of old-time talk to find the book interesting
and worthy. Would that more of our writers for
the young set themselves Miss Brush's task, and
worked at it as faithfully ! — The Jolly Rover, by
J. T. Trowbridge (Lee & Shepard), is intended to
illustrate the evils following from a too close study
of a cheap boy's paper called The Boy's Own.
Will the book prove an awful example V Or will
it increase the circulation of The Boy's Own ?
We are inclined to think that this redoubtable
paper would have accepted the book for serial
publication, and found its account in it. — The
Prize for Girls and Boys, 1882 (Estes & Lauriat),
is one of the English magazines for the young,
which, bound in boards, does duty at the end of
the year ns a holiday book. It has objectionable
stories and weak religion. — Diddie, Dumps, and
Tot, or Plantation Child-Life, by Louise Clarke
P3'rnelle (Harpers), was written primarily for the
preservation of many of the old stories, legends,
traditions, games, hymns, and superstitions of the
Southern slaves. The extreme care with which
the vernacular is darkened to the color of the
chief speakers will prevent the book from free use
by children, which is an advantage, if it compels
older persons to read it aloud with judicious oral
editing. — Our Little Ones is the title of a monthly
magazine conducted by Wm. T. Adams, of which
the bound volume (Lee & Shepard) comes as an
annual, with very slight reminder of the monthly
parts. It is prettily illustrated and bound, and
the reading is of an ordinary, unlitcrary character,
unpretentious, and on the whole, unobjectionable.

— Chatterbox for 1882 (Estes & Lauriat) is an-
other of these books, but the type is small and
blurred, the pictures are of an inferior order, and
the literature is made to order. — Our Young Folks
in Africa, the Adventures of a Party of Young
Americans in Algeria and in South Central
Africa, by James D. McCabe (Lippincott), is an
adaptation of older books on Africa to the use of
the young by the introduction of the customary
machinery. The author does not appear to have
had any personal acquaintance with the country
traversed; certainly, the dull style of the book
could not have been invented by a real explorer.

— The Boy Travellers in the Far East, by Thomas
W. Knox (Harpers), has reached its fourth part,
which covers Egypt and the Holy Land. Mr.
Knox is a bonajide traveler, but he is not a story-
teller nor a dramatist ; he is an encyclopaedist,
and his book is of a kind which an ostrich boy
can digest. — In the Franklin Square Series, the
Harpers have included William Black's An Ad-
venture in Thule. — The bound volume of Har-
per's Young People for the year 1882 is vastly
more valuable, from an art point of view, and a
great deal more entertaining in its letterpress,

than a majority of the books prepared especially
for holiday readers. Indeed, the best book in this
kind for the passing season is scarcely to be com-
pared with these fifty-two numbers of Harper's
Young People, in their tasteful binding. — Among
the books which do not need to have been just
born, Miss Lucretia P. Hale's The Peterkin Pa-
pers (Osgood) holds a high place. The ingenuity
of the book, with its many changes rung upon a
single theme, is surprising, and the drollery, the
wit, the uncommon sense of the Peterkin family
are enough to stock ordinary families with a win-
ter supply of by -words.

Literary Guides. The second series of The Best
Reading, edited by L. E. Jones (Putnams), has
been issued, and, following the first series after a
lapse of five years, includes in its classified lists
the most important English and American publi-
cations during that time. The arrangement is a
clear one, and the book will be very useful to
readers who do not care to trouble themselves with
elaborate and detailed bibliographies. The selec-
tion seems judicious, and the ranking of the sev-
eral books cautious. — Short Sayings of Great
Men, with historical and explanatory notes, by
Samuel Arthur Bent (Osgood), is a comprehensive
dictionary of familiar quotations, literally anno-
tated, arranged under brief biographies of their
authors, and well indexed. The book is a good
addition to the library of reference which is
lightening the labors of students and editors.

Science. Zoological Sketches, by Felix L.
Oswald (Lippincott), is called by the author a con-
tribution to the out-door study of natural history,
and contains, besides his own observations, many
curious facts which he has drawn from others.
The book is anecdotical and vivacious, and the
author's radical evolutionism crops out only oc-
casionally.— The Earth as Modified by Human
Action is the revised title of the revised edition of
G. P. Marsh's important work, Man and Nature,
first issued ten years ago. (Scribners.) It is hard
to say whether the scientific or the historical stu-
dent would find most worth in the book. It cannot
be overlooked by any student in either depart-
ment. — The Solution of the Pyramid Problem, or
Pyramid Discoveries, with a new theory as to
their ancient use, by Robert Ballard (Wiley), is a
thesis, carefully worked out, and intended to dem-
onstrate that these works were in effect vast the-
odolites for use in the survey of Egypt. — Easy
Star Lessons, by Richard A. Proctor (Putnams),
is a readable book, wretchedly printed, by which
one is made acquainted in a familiar way with the
stars as they may be seen from month to month.
It is well furnished with cuts and maps. — Text-
Book of Geology, by Archibald Geikie (Mac-
millan), is intended primarily for students, and
the plan comprises a tolerably full reference to
special memoirs ; In doing this Dr. Geikie has
kept American researches especially in mind. —
The Great Diamonds of the World, their history
and romance, by Edwin W. Streeter, in the
Franklin Square Library (Harpers), may be
placed under Fiction, so far as the impression
made upon the plain reader's mind is concerned.

THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY:
of literature, Science, art, ana

VOL. LI. — FEBRUARY, 1883. — No. CO CIV.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
PART SECOND.

MONOLOGUE.
A room in MICIIAEL ANGELO'S house.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

FLED to Viterbo, the old Papal city

Where once an Emperor, humbled in his pride,

Held the Pope's stirrup, as his Holiness

Alighted from his mule ! A fugitive

From Cardinal Caraffa's hate, who hurls

His thunders at the house of the Colonna,

With endless bitterness ! — Among the nuns

In Santa Catarina's convent hidden,

Herself in soul a nun ! And now she chides me

For my too frequent letters, that disturb

Her meditations, and that hinder me

And keep me from my work; now graciously

She thanks me for the crucifix I sent her,

And says that she will keep it : with one hand

Inflicts a wound, and with the other heals it. [Reading.

" Profoundly I believed that God would grant you
A supernatural faith to paint this Christ ;
I wished for that which now I see fulfilled
So marvellously, exceeding all my wishes.
Nor more could be desired, or even so much.
And greatly I rejoice that you have made
The angel on the right so beautiful;
For the Archangel Michael will place you,
You, Michael Angelo, on that new day,
Upon the Lord's right hand! And waiting that,
How can I better serve you than to pray

146 Michael Angela. [February,

To this sweet Christ for you, and to beseech you
To hold me altogether yours in all things."

Well, I will write less often, or no more,

But wait her coming. No one born in Rome

Can live elsewhere ; but he must pine for 'Rome,

And must return to it. I, who am born

And bred a Tuscan and a Florentine,

Feel the attraction, and I linger here

As if I were a pebble in the pavement

Trodden by priestly feet. This I endure,

Because I breathe in Rome an atmosphere

Heavy with odors of the laurel leaves

That crowned great heroes of the sword and pen,

In ages past. I feel myself exalted

To walk the streets in which a Virgil walked,

Or Trajan rode in triumph ; but far more,

And most of all, because the great Colonna

Breathes the same air I breathe, and is to me

An inspiration. Now that she is gone,

Rome is no longer Rome till she return.

This feeling overmasters me. I know not

If it be love, this strong desire to be

Forever in her presence ; but I know

That I, who was the friend of solitude,

And ever was best pleased when most alone,

Now weary grow of my own company.

For the first time old age seems lonely to me.

[Opening the Divina Commedia.

I turn for consolation to the leaves

Of the great master of our Tuscan tongue,

Whose words, like colored garnet-shirls in lava,

Betray the heat in which they were engendered.

A mendicant, he ate the bitter bread

Of others, but repaid their meagre gifts

With immortality. In courts of princes

He was a by-word, and in streets of towns

Was mocked by children, like the Hebrew prophet,

Himself a prophet. I too know the cry,

Go up, thou bald head ! from a generation

That, wanting reverence, wanteth the best food

The soul can feed on. There 's not room enough

For age and youth upon this little planet.

Age must give way. There was not room enough

Even for this great poet. In his song

I hear reverberate the gates of Florence,

Closing upon him, never more to open ;

But mingled with the sound are melodies

Celestial from the gates of paradise.

He came, and he is gone. The people knew not

1883.] Michael Angela. 147

What manner of man was passing by their doors,

Until he passed no more ; but in his vision

He saw the torments and beatitudes

Of souls condemned or pardoned, and hath left •

Behind him this sublime Apocalypse.

I strive in vain to draw here on the margin

The face of Beatrice. It is not hers,

But the Colonna's. Each hath his ideal,

The image of some woman excellent,

That is his guide. No Grecian art, nor Roman,

Hath yet revealed such loveliness as hers.

II.

VITERBO.
VITTORIA COLONNA at the convent window.

VITTORIA.

Parting with friends is temporary death,

As all death is. We see no more their faces,

Nor hear their voices, save in memory ;

But messages of love give us assurance

That we are not forgotten. Who shall say

That from the world of spirits comes no greeting,

No message of remembrance ? It may be

The thoughts that visit us, we know not whence,

Sudden as inspiration, are the whispers

Of disembodied spirits, speaking to us

As friends, who wait outside a prison wall,

Through the barred windows speak to those within. [A pause.

As quiet as the lake that lies beneath me,
As quiet as the tranquil sky above me,
As quiet as a heart that beats no more,
This convent seems. Above, below, all peace!
Silence and solitude, the soul's best friends,
Are with me here, and the tumultuous world
Makes no more noise than the remotest planet.
O gentle spirit, unto the third circle
Of heaven among the blessed souls ascended,
Who, living in the faith and dying for it,
Have gone to their reward, I do not sigh
For thee as being dead, but for myself
That I am still alive. Turn those dear eyes,
Once so benignant to me, upon mine,
That open to their tears such uncontrolled

148 Michael Angelo. [February,

And such continual issue. Still awhile
Have patience ; I will come to thee at last.
A few more goings in and out these doors,
* A few more chimings of these convent bells,

A few more prayers, a few more sighs and tears,
And the long agony of this life will end,
And I shall be with thee. If I am wanting
To thy well-being, as thou art to mine,
Have patience; I will come to thee at last.
Ye minds that loiter in these cloister gardens,
Or wander far above the city walls,
Bear unto him this message, that I ever
Or speak or think of him, or weep for him.

By unseen hands uplifted in the light
Of sunset, yonder solitary cloud
Floats, with its white apparel blown abroad,
And wafted up to heaven. It fades away,
And melts into the air. Ah, would that I
Could thus be wafted unto thee, Francesco,
A cloud of white, an incorporeal spirit!

III.

MICHAEL ANGELO AND BENVENUTO CELLINI.
MICHAEL ANGELO, BENVENUTO CELLINI i« gay attire.

BENVENUTO.

A good day and good year to the divine
Maestro Michael Angelo, the sculptor!

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Welcome, my Benvenuto.

BENVENUTO.

That is what

My father said, the first time he beheld
This handsome face. But say farewell, not welcome.
I come to take my leave. I start for Florence
As fast as horse can carry me. I long
To set once more upon its level flags
These feet, made sore by your vile Roman pavements.
Come with me ; you are wanted there in Florence.
The Sacristy is not finished.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Speak not of it!

1883.] Mchael Angela. 149

How damp and cold it was ! How my bones ached
And my head reeled, when I was working there !
I am too old. I will stay here in Rome,
Where all is old and crumbling, like myself,
To hopeless ruin. All roads lead to Rome.

BENVENUTO.

And all lead out of it.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

There is a charm,

A certain something in the atmosphere,
That all men feel, and no man can describe.

BENVENUTO.

Malaria ?

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Yes, malaria of the mind,
Out of this tomb of the majestic Past ;
The fever to accomplish some great work
That will not let us sleep. I must go on
Until I die.

BENVENUTO.

Do you ne'er think of Florence?

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Yes ; whenever

I think of anything beside my work,
I think of Florence. I remember, too,
The bitter clays I passed among the quarries
Of Seravezza and Pietrasanta ;
Road-building in the marshes ; stupid people,
And cold and rain incessant, and mad gusts
Of mountain wind, like howling dervishes,
That spun and whirled the eddying snow about them
As if it were a garment; aye, vexations
And troubles of all kinds, that ended only
In loss of time and money.

BENVENUTO.

True, Maestro;

But that was not in Florence. You should leave.
Such work to others. Sweeter memories
Cluster about you, in the pleasant city
Upon the Arno.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

In my waking dreams

150 Michael Angela. [February,

I see the marvellous dome of Brunelleschi,

Ghiberti's gates of bronze, and Giotto's tower;

And Ghirlandajo's lovely Benci glides

With folded hands amid my troubled thoughts,

A splendid vision ! Time rides with the old

At a great pace. As travellers on swift steeds

See the near landscape fly and flow behind them,

While the remoter fields and dim horizons

Go with them, and seem wheeling round to meet them,

So in old age things near us slip away,

And distant things go with us. Pleasantly

Come back to me the days when, as a youth,

I walked with Ghirlandajo in the gardens

Of Medici, and saw the antique statues,

The forms august of gods and godlike men,

And the great world of art revealed itself

To my young eyes. Then all that man hath done

Seemed possible to me. Alas ! how little

Of all I dreamed of has my hand achieved !

BENVENUTO.

Nay, let the Night aud Morning, let Lorenzo
And Julian in the Sacristy at Florence,
Prophets and Sibyls in the Sistine Chapel,
And the Last Judgment answer. Is it finished ?

MICHAEL ANGELO.

The work is nearly done. But this Last Judgment

Has been the cause of more vexation to me

Than it will be of honor. Ser Biagio,

Master of ceremonies at the Papal court,

A man punctilious aud over nice,

Calls it improper ; says that those nude forms,

Showing their nakedness in such shameless fashion,

Are better suited to a common bagnio,

Or wayside wine-shop, than a Papal Chapel.

To punish him I painted him as Minos

And leave him there as master of ceremonies

In the Infernal Regions. What would you

Have done to such a man ?

BENVENUTO.

I would have killed him.
When any one insults me, if I can
I kill him, kill him.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Oh, you gentlemen,
Who dress in silks and velvets, and wear swords,

1883.] Michael Angela. 151

Are ready with your weapons, and have all
A taste for homicide.

BENVENTJTO,

I learned that lesson

Under Pope Clement at the siege of Rome,
Some twenty years ago. As I was standing
Upon the ramparts of the Campo Santo
With Alessandro Bener I beheld
A sea of fog, that covered all the plain,
And hid from us the foe ; when suddenly,
A misty figure, like an apparition,
Rose up above the fog, as if on horseback.
At this I aimed my arquebus, and fired.
The figure vanished ; and there rose a cry
Out of the darkness, long and fierce and loud,
With imprecations in all languages.
It was the Constable of France, the Bourbon,
That I had slain.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Rome should be grateful to you.

BENVENUTO.

But has not been ; you shall hear presently.

During the siege I served as bombardier,

There in St. Angelo. His Holiness,

One day, was walking with his Cardinals

On the round bastion, while I stood above

Among my falconets. All thought and feeling,

All skill in art and all desire of fame,

Were swallowed up in the delightful music

Of that artillery. I saw far off,

Within the enemy's trenches on the Prati,

A Spanish cavalier in scarlet cloak ;

And firing at him with due aim and range,

I cut the gay Hidalgo in two pieces.

The eyes are dry that wept for him in Spain.

His Holiness, delighted beyond measure

With such display of gunnery, and amazed

To see the man in scarlet cut in two,

Gave me his benediction, and absolved me

From all the homicides I had committed

In service of the Apostolic Church,

Or should commit thereafter. From that day

I have not held in very high esteem

The life of man.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

And who absolved Pope Clement?
Now let us speak of Art.

152 Michael Angela. [February,

BENVENCTO.

Of what you will.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Say, have you seen our friend Fra Bastian lately,
Since by a turn of fortune he became
Friar of the Signet?

BENVENUTO.

Faith, a pretty artist

To pass his days in stamping leaden seals
On Papal bulls!

MICHAEL ANGELO.

He has grown fat and lazy,
As if the lead clung to him like a sinker.
He paints no more, since he was sent to Fondi
By Cardinal Ippolito to paint
The fair Gonzaga. Ah, you should have seen him
As I did, riding through the city gate,
In his brown hood, attended by four horsemen,
Completely armed, to frighten the banditti.
I think he would have frightened them alone,
For he was rounder than the O of Giotto.

BENVENDTO.

He must have looked more like a sack of meal
Than a great painter.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Well, he is not great,
But still I like him greatly. Benvenuto,
Have faith in nothing but in industry.
Be at it late and early ; persevere,
And work right on through censure and applause,
Or else abandon Art.

BENVENUTO.

No man works harder
Than I do. I am not a moment idle.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

And what have you to show me ?

BENVENUTO.

This gold ring,

Made for his Holiness, — my latest work,
And I am proud of it. A single diamond,
Presented by the Emperor to the Pope.
Targhetta of Venice set and tinted it;

1883.] Michael Angela. 153

I have reset it, and retinted it
Divinely, as you see. The jewellers
Say I've surpassed Targhetta.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Let me see it.
A pretty jewel.

BENVENUTO.

That is not the expression.
Pretty is not a very pretty word
To be applied to such a precious stone,
Given by an Emperor to a Pope, and set
By Benvenuto !

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Messer Benvenuto,

I lose all patience with you; for the gifts
That God hath given you are of such a kind,
They should be put to far more noble uses
Than setting diamonds for the Pope of Rome.
You can do greater things.

BENVENUTO.

The God who made me

Knows why he made me what I am, — a goldsmith,
A mere artificer.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Oh no ; an artist,

Richly endowed by nature, but who wraps
His talent in a napkin, and consumes
His life in vanities.

BENVENUTO.

Michael Angelo

May say what Benvenuto would not bear
From any other man. He speaks the truth.
I know my life is wasted and consumed
In vanities ; but I have better hours
And higher aspirations than you think.
Once, when a prisoner at St. Angelo,
Fasting and praying in the midnight darkness,
In a celestial vision I beheld
A crucifix in the sun, of the same substance
As is the sun itself. . And since that hour
There is a splendor round about my head,
That may be seen at sunrise and at sunset
Above my shadow on the grass. And now

154 Michael Angela. [February,

I know that I am in the grace of God,
And none henceforth can harm me.

MICHAEL ANIiKI.O.

None but one, —

None but yourself, who are your greatest foe.
He that respects himself is safe from others ;
He wears a coat of mail that none can pierce.

BEKVENCTO.

I always wear one.

MICHAEL ANGKI.O.

O incorrigible !

At least, forget not the celestial vision.
Man must have something higher than himself
To think of.

BENVENUTO.

That I know full well. Now listen,
I have been sent for into France, where grow
The Lilies that illumine heaven and earth,
And carry in mine equipage the model
Of a most marvellous golden salt-cellar
For the king's table ; and here in my brain
A statue of Mars Armipotent for the fountain
Of Fontainebleau, colossal, wonderful.
I go a goldsmith, to return a sculptor.
And so farewell, great Master. Think of me
As one who, in the midst of all his follies,
Had also his ambition, and aspired
To better things.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Do not forget the vision.

[Sitting down again to the Divina Commedia.
Now in what circle of his poem sacred
"Would the great Florentine have placed this man?
Whether in Phlegethon, the river of blood,
Or in the fiery belt of Purgatory,
I know not, but most surely not with those
Who walk in leaden cloaks. Though he is one
Whose passions, like a potent alkahest,
Dissolve his better nature, he is not
That despicable thing, a hypocrite ;
He doth not cloak his vices, nor deny them.
Come back, my thoughts, from him to Paradise.

1883.] Michael Angela. 155

IV.

FRA SEBASTIANO DEL PIOMBO.
MICHAEL ANGELO ; FRA SEBASTIANO DEL PIOMBO.

MICHAEL ANGELO, not turning round.
Who is it?

FKA SEBASTIANO.

Wait, for I am out of breath
In climbing your steep stairs.

MICHAEL ANGELO. *

Ah, my Bastiano,

If you went up and down as many stairs
As I do still, and climbed as many ladders,
It would be better for you. Pray sit down.
Your idle and luxurious way of living
Will one day take your breath away entirely,
And you will never find it.

FRA SEBASTIANO.

Well, what then?

That would be better, in my apprehension,
Than falling from a scaffold.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

That was nothing.

It did not kill me ; only lamed me slightly ;
I am quite well again.

FRA SEBASTIANO.

But why, dear Master,

Why do you live so high up in your house,
When you could live below and have a garden,
As I do ?

MICHAEL ANGELO.

From this window I can look
On many gardens ; o'er the city roofs
See the Campagna and the Alban hills:
And all are mine.

FRA SEBASTIANO.

Can you sit down in them,
On summer afternoons, and play the lute,
Or sing, or sleep the time away ?

156 Michael Angelo. [February,

MICHAEL ANGELO.

I never

Sleep in the day-time ; scarcely sleep at night.
I have not time. Did you meet Benvenuto
As you came up the stair ?

FRA SEBASTIANO.

He ran against me

On the first landing, going at full speed ;
Dressed like the Spanish captain in a play,
With his long rapier and his short red cloak.
Why hurry through the world at such a pace?
Life will not be too long.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

It is his nature, —
A restless spirit, that consumes itself
With useless agitations. He o'erleaps
The goal he aims at. Patience is a plant
That grows not in all gardens. You are made
Of quite another clay.

FRA SEBASTIANO.

And thank God for it.

And now, being somewhat rested, I will tell you
Why I have climbed these formidable stairs.
I have a friend, Francesco Berni, here,
A very charming poet and companion,
Who greatly honors you and all your doings,
And you must sup with us.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Not I, indeed.

I know too well what artists' suppers are.
You must excuse me.

FRA SEBASTIANO.

I will not excuse you.

You need repose from your incessant work;
Some recreation, some bright hours of pleasure.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

To me, what you and other men call pleasure
Is only pain. Work is my recreation,
The play of faculty; a delight like that
Which a bird feels in flying, or a fish
In darting through the water, — nothing more.
I cannot go. The Sibylline leaves of life
Grow precious now, when only few remain.
I cannot go.

1883.] Michael Angela.

FRA SEBASTIANO.

Berni, perhaps, will read
A canto of the Orlando Inamorato.

157

MICHAEL ANGELO.

That is another reason for not going.
If aught is tedious and intolerable,
It is a poet reading his own verses.

FRA SEBASTIANO.

Berni thinks somewhat better of your verses
Than you of his. He says that you speak things,
And other poets words. So, pray you, come.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

If it were now the Improvisatore,

Luigi Pulci, whom I used to hear

With Benvenuto, in the streets of Florence,

I might be tempted. I was younger then,

And singing in the open air was pleasant.

FRA SEBASTIANO.

There is a Frenchman here, named Rabelais,

Once a Franciscan friar, and now a doctor,

And secretary to the embassy :

A learned man, who speaks all languages,

And wittiest of men ; who wrote a book

Of the Adventures of Gargantua,

So full of strange conceits one roars with laughter

At every page ; a jovial boon-companion

And lover of much wine. He too is coming.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Then you will not want me, who am not witty,
And have no sense of mirth, and love not wine.
I should be like a dead man at your banquet.
Why should I seek this Frenchman, Rabelais ?
And wherefore go to hear Francesco Berni,
When I have Dante Alighieri here,
The greatest of all poets ?

FRA SEBASTIANO.

And the dullest;

And only to be read in episodes.
His day is past. Petrarca is our poet.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Petrarca is for women and for lovers,
And for those soft Abati, who delight

158 Michael Angelo. [February,

To wander down long garden walks in summer,
Tinkling their little sonnets all day long,
As lap-dogs do their bells.

FRA SEBASTIANO.

I love Petrarca.

How sweetly of his absent love he sings,
When journeying in the forest of Ardennes!
I seem to hear her, hearing the boughs and breezes
And leaves and birds lamenting, and the waters
Murmuring flee along the verdant herbage."

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Enough. It is all seeming, and no being.
If you would know how a man speaks in earnest,
Read here this passage, where St. Peter thunders
In Paradise against degenerate Popes
And the corruptions of the church, till all
The heaven about him blushes like a sunset.
I beg you to take note of what he says
About the Papal seals, for that concerns
Your office and yourself.

FRA SEBASTIANO, reading.

Is this the passage ?
" Nor I be made the figure of a seal
To privileges venal and mendacious ;
Whereat I often redden and flash with fire!" —
That is not poetry.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

What is it, then?

FRA SEBASTIANO.

Vituperation ; gall that might have spirted
From Aretino's pen.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Name not that man!

A profligate, whom your Francesco Berni
Describes as having one foot in the brothel
And the other in the hospital ; who lives
By flattering or maligning, as best serves
His purpose at the time. He writes to me
With easy arrogance of my Last Judgment,
In such familiar tone that one would say
The great event already had occurred,
And he was present, and from observation
Informed me how the picture should be painted.

1883.] Michael Angela. 159

FRA SEBASTIANO.

What unassuming, unobtrusive men
These critics are ! Now, to have Aretino
Aiming his shafts at you brings back to mind
The Gascon archers in the square of Milan,
Shooting their arrows at Duke Sforza's statue,
By Leonardo, and the foolish rabble
Of envious Florentines, that at your David
Threw stones at night. But Aretino praised you.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

His praises were ironical. He knows
How to use words as weapons, and to wound
While seeming to defend. But look, Bastiano,
See how the setting sun lights up that picture !
(

FRA SEBASTIANO.

My portrait of Vittoria Colonna.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

It makes her look as she will look hereafter,
When she becomes a saint !

FRA SEBASTIANO.

A noble woman !

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Ah, these old hands can fashion fairer shapes
In marble, and can paint diviner pictures,
Since I have known her.

FRA SEBASTIANO.

And you like this picture;
And yet it is in oils, which you detest.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

When that barbarian Jan Van Eyck discovered

The use of oil in painting, he degraded

His art into a handicraft, and made it

Sign-painting, merely, for a country inn

Or wayside wine-shop. 'Tis an art for women,

Or for such leisurely and idle people

As you, Fra Bastiano. Nature paints not

In oils, but frescoes the great dome of heaven

With sunsets, and the lovely forms of clouds

And flying vapors.

FRA SEBASTIANO.

And how soon they fade!
Behold yon line of roofs and belfries painted

160 Michael Angela. [February,

Upon the golden background of the sky,
Like a Byzantine picture, or a portrait
Of Cimabue. See how hard the outline,
Sharp-cut and clear, not rounded into shadow.
Yet that is nature.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

She is always right.

The picture that approaches sculpture' nearest
Is the best picture.

FRA SEBASTIANO.

Leonardo thinks

The open air too bright. We ought to paint
As if the sun were shining through a mist.
'Tis easier done in oil than in distemper.

MICHAEL ANOELO.

Do not revive again the old dispute ;

I have an excellent memory for forgetting,

But I still feel the hurt. Wounds are not healed

By the unbending of the bow that made them.

FRA SEBASTIANO.

So say Petrarca and the ancient proverb.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

But that is past. Now I am angry with you,
Not that you paint in oils, but that, grown fat
And indolent, you do not paint at all.

FRA SEBASTIANO.

Why should I paint ? Why should I toil and sweat,
Who now am rich enough to live at ease,
And take my pleasure?

MICHAEL ANGELO.

When Pope Leo died,
He who had been so lavish of the wealth
His predecessors left him, who received
A basket of gold-pieces every morning,
Which every night was empty, left behind
Hardly enough to pay his funeral.

FRA SEBASTIANO.

I care for banquets, not for funerals,

As did his Holiness. I have forbidden

All tapers at my burial, and procession

Of priests and friars and monks ; and have provided

The cost thereof be given to the poor !

1883.] Michael Angela.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

You have done wisely, but of that I speak not.
Ghiberti left behind him wealth and children ;
But who to-day would know that he had lived,
If he had never made those gates of bronze
In the old Baptistery, — those gates of bronze,
Worthy to be the gates of Paradise.
His worth is scattered to the winds ; his children
Are long since dead ; but those celestial gates
Survive, and keep his name and memory green.

161

FRA SEBA8TIANO.

But why should I fatigue myself? I think
That all things it is possible to paint
Have been already painted ; and if not,
Why, there are painters in the world at present
Who can accomplish more in two short months
Than I could iu two years ; so it is well
That some one is contented to do nothing,
And leave the field to others.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

O blasphemer !

Not without reason do the people call you *
Sebastian del Piombo, for the lead
Of all the Papal bulls is heavy upon you,
And wraps you like a shroud.

FRA BEBASTIANO.

Misericordia !

Sharp is the vinegar of sweet wine, and sharp
The words you speak, because the heart within you
Is sweet unto the core.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

How changed you are
From the Sebastiano I once knew,
When poor, laborious, emulous to excel,
You strove in rivalry with Badassare
And Raphael Sanzio.

FRA SEBASTIANO.

Raphael is dead ;

He is but dust and ashes in his grave,
While I am living and enjoying life,
And so am victor. One live Pope is worth
A dozen dead ones.

VOL. LI. — NO. 304.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Raphael is not dead;
11

162 Michael Angela. [February,

He doth but sleep ; for how can he be dead

Who lives immortal in the hearts of men ?

He only drank the precious wine of youth,

The outbreak of the grapes, before the vintage

Was trodden to bitterness by the feet of men.

The gods have given him sleep. We never were

Nor could be foes, although our followers,

Who are distorted shadows of ourselves,

Have striven to make us so ; but each one worked

Unconsciously upon the other's thoughts,

Both giving and receiving. He perchance

Caught strength from me, and I some greater sweetness

And tenderness from his more gentle nature.

I have but words of praise and admiration

For his great genius ; and the world is fairer

That he lived in it.

FRA 8EBA8TIANO.

We at least are friends ;
So come with me.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

No, no ; I am best pleased

When I 'm not asked to banquets. I have reached
A time of life when daily walks are shortened,
And even the houses of our dearest friends,
That used to be so near, seem far away.

FRA SKHASTIANO.

Then we must sup without you. We shall laugh
At those who toil for fame, and make their lives
A tedious martyrdom, that they may live
A little longer in the mouths of men !
And so, good-night.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Good-night, my Fra Bastiano.

{Returning to his work.

How will men speak of me when I am gone,
When all this colorless, sad life is ended,
And I am dust ? They will remember only
The wrinkled forehead, the marred countenance,
The rudeness of my speech, and my rough manners,
And never dream that underneath them all
There was a woman's heart of tenderness.
They will not know the secret of my life,
Locked up in silence, or but vaguely hinted
In uncouth rhymes, that may perchance survive
Some little space in memories of men !
Each one performs his life-work, and then leaves it ;
Those that come after him will estimate
His influence on the age in which he lived.

1883.] Michael Angela. 163

MICHAEL ANGELO AND TITIAN : PALAZZO BELVEDERE.

TITIAN'S studio. A painting of Danae with a curtain before it. TITIAN, MICHAEL ANGELO,

and GIORGIO VASARI.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

So you have left at last your still lagoons,
Your City of Silence floating in the sea,
And come to us in Rome.

TITIAN.

I come to learn,

But I have come too late. I should have seen
Rome in my youth, when all my mind was open
To new impressions. Our Vasari here
Leads me about, a blind man, groping darkly
Among the marvels of the past. I touch them,
But do not see them.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

There are things in Rome

That one might walk bare-footed here from Venice
But to see once, and then to die content.

TITIAN.

I must confess that these majestic ruins
Oppress me with their gloom. I feel as one
Who in the twilight stumbles among tombs,
And cannot read the inscriptions carved upon them.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

I felt so once; but I have grown familiar
With desolation, and it has become
No more a pain to me, but a delight.

TITIAN.

I could not live here. I must have the sea,
And the sea-mist, with sunshine interwoven
Like cloth of gold ; must have beneath my windows
The laughter of the waves, and at my door
Their pattering footsteps, or I am not happy.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Then tell me of your city in the sea,
Paved with red basalt of the Paduan hills.
Tell me of art in Venice. Three great names,
Giorgione, Titian, and the Tintoretto,

164 Michael Angelo. [February,

Illustrate your Venetian school, and send
A challenge to the world. The first is dead,
But Tintoretto lives.

And paints with fire,

Sudden and splendid, as the lightning paints
The cloudy vault of heaven.

GIORGIO.

Does he still keep

Above hia door the arrogant inscription
That once was painted there, — "The color of Titian,
With the design of Michael Angelo " ?

TITIAW.

Indeed, I know not. 'Twas a foolish boast,
And does no harm to any but himself.
Perhaps he has grown wiser.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

When you two

Are gone, who is there that remains behind
To seize the pencil falling from your fingers ?

Oh there are many hands upraised already

To clutch at such a prize, which hardly wait

For death to loose your grasp, — a hundred of them;

Schiavone, Bonifazio, Campagnola,

Moretto, and Moroni ; who can count them,

Or measure their ambition ?

When we are gone,
The generation that comes after us
Will have far other thoughts than ours. Our ruins
Will serve to build their palaces or tombs.
They will possess the world that we think ours,
And fashion it far otherwise.

' •'*'''•• ' !) iui/x. ,

MICHAEL ANGELO.

I hear

Your son Orazio and your nephew Marco
Mentioned with honor.

TITIAN.

Ay, brave lads, brave lads.
But time will show. There is a youth in Venice,

1883.] Michael Angela.

One Paul Cagliari, called the Veronese,

Still a mere stripling, but of such rare promise

That we must guard our laurels, or may lose them.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

These are good tidings ; for I sometimes fear
That, when we die, with us all art will die.
'Tis but a fancy. Nature will provide
Others to take our places. I rejoice
To see the young spring forward in the race,
Eager as we were, and as full of hope
And the sublime audacity of youth.

TITIAN.

Men die and are forgotten. The great world

Goes on the same. Among the myriads

Of men that live, or have lived, or shall live,

What is a single life, or thine or mine,

That we should think all nature would stand still

If we were gone? We must make room for others.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

And now, Maestro, pray unveil your picture
Of Danae, of which I hear such praise.

TITIAN, drawing back the curtain.
What think you?

MICHAEL ANGELO.

That Acrisius did well
To lock such beauty in a brazen tower,
And hide it from all eyes.

165

TITIAN.

Was beautiful.

The model truly

MICHAEL ANGELO.

And more, that you were present,
And saw the showery Jove from high Olympus
Descend in all his splendor.

TITIAN.

From your lips
Such words are full of sweetness.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

You have caught
These golden hues from your Venetian sunsets.

166 Michael Angela.

TITIAN.

Possibly.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Or from sunshine through a shower
On the lagoons, or the broad Adriatic.
Nature reveals herself in all our arts.
The pavements and the palaces of cities
Hint at the nature of the neighboring hills.
Red lavas from the Euganean quarries
Of Padua pave your streets; your palaces
Are the white stones of Istria, and gleam
Reflected in your waters and your pictures.
And thus the works of every artist show
Something of his surroundings and his habits.
The uttermost that can be reached by color
Is here accomplished. "Warmth and light and softness
Mingle together. Never yet was flesh
Painted by hand of artist, dead or living,
With such divine perfection.

I am grateful

For so much praise from you, who are a master ;
While mostly those who praise and those who blame
Know nothing of the matter, so that mainly
Their censure sounds like praise, their praise like censure.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Wonderful ! wonderful ! The charm of color
Fascinates me the more that in myself
The gift is wanting. I am not a painter.

GIORGIO.

Messer Michele, all the arts are yours,
Not one alone; and therefore I may venture
To put a question to you.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Well, speak on.

GIORGIO.

Two nephews of the Cardinal Farnese
Have made me umpire in dispute between them
Which is the greater of the sister arts,
Painting or sculpture. Solve for me the doubt.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Sculpture and painting have a common goal,
And whosoever would attain to it,'

1883.] Michael Angela. 167

Whichever path he take, will find that goal
Equally hard to reach.

GIORGIO.

No doubt, no doubt;
But you evade the question.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

When I stand

In presence of this picture, I concede
That painting has attained its uttermost ;
But in the presence of my sculptured figures
I feel that my conception soars beyond
All limit I have reached.

GIORGIO.

You still evade me.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Giorgio Vasari, I have often said
That I account that painting, as the best '
Which most resembles sculpture. Here before us
We have the proof. Behold those rounded limbs !
How from the canvas they detach themselves,
Till they deceive the eye, and one would say,
It is a statue with a screen behind it !

TITIAN.

Signori, pardon me ; but all such questions
Seem to me idle.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Idle as the wind.

And now, Maestro, I will say once more
How admirable I esteem your work,
And leave you, without further interruption.

TITIAN.

Your friendly visit hath much honored me.

GIORGIO.
Farewell.

MICHAEL ANGELO to GIORGIO, going out.

If the Venetian painters knew
But half as much of drawing as of color,
They would indeed work miracles in art,
And the world see what it hath never seen.

168 Michael Angela. [February,

VI.

PALAZZO CESARINI.
VITTOBIA COLONNA, seated in an arm-chair ; JULIA GONZAGA, standing near her.

JULIA.

It grieves me that I find you still so weak
And suffering.

No, not suffering ; only dying.
Death is the dullness that precedes the dawn ;
We shudder for a moment, then awake
In the broad sunshine of the other life.
I am a shadow, merely, and these hands,
These cheeks, these eyes, these tresses that my husband
Once thought so beautiful, and I was proud of
Because he thought them so, are faded quite, —
All beauty gone from them.

Ah, no, not that.
Paler you are, but not less beautiful.

VITTOHIA.

Hand me the mirror. I would fain behold
What change comes o'er our features when we die.
Thank you. And now sit down beside me here.
How glad I am that you have come to-day,
Above all other days, and at the hour
When most I need you !

JULIA.

Do you ever need me?

VITTORIA.

Always, and most of all to-day and now.
Do you remember, Julia, when we walked,
One afternoon, upon the castle terrace
At Ischia, on the day before you left me ?

Jtewst*"^

JULIA.

Well I remember ; but it seems to me
Something unreal, that has never been, —
Something that I have read of in a book,
Or heard of some one else.

VITTORIA.

Ten years and more
Have passed since then ; and many things have happened

1883.] Michael Angela. 169

In those ten years, and many friends have died :
Marco Flaminio, whom we all admired
And loved as our Catullus ; dear Valdesso,
The noble champion of free thought and speech ;
And Cardinal Ippolito, your friend.

JULIA.

Oh, do not speak of him ! His sudden death
O'ercomes me now, as it o'ercame me then.
Let me forget it; for my memory
Serves me too often as an unkind friend,
And I remember things I would forget,
While I forget the things I would remember.

VITTORIA.

Forgive me ; I will speak of him no more.
The good Fra Bernardino has departed,
Has fled from Italy, and crossed the Alps,
Fearing Caraffa's wrath, because he taught
That He who made us all without our help
Could also save us without aid of ours.
Renee of France, the Duchess of Ferrara,
That Lily of the Loire, is bowed by winds
That blow from Rome ; Olympia Morata
Banished from court because of this new doctrine.
Therefore be cautious. Keep your secret thought
Locked in your breast.

I will be very prudent.
But speak no more, I pray ; it wearies you.

VITTORIA.

Yes, I am very weary. Read to me.

JULIA.
Most willingly. What shall I read ?

VITTORIA.

Petrarca's

Triumph of Death. The book lies on the table ;
Beside the casket there. Read where you find
The leaf turned down. 'T was there I left off reading.

JULIA, reads.

" Not as a flame that by some force is spent,
But one that of itself consumeth quite,
Departed hence in peace the soul content,
In fashion of a soft and lucent light

Whose nutriment by slow gradation goes,
Keeping until the end its lustre bright.

170 Michael Angela. [February,

Not pale, but whiter than the sheet of snows

That without wind on some fair hill-top lies,

Her weary body seemed to find repose.
Like a sweet slumber in her lovely eyes,

When now the spirit was no longer there,

Was what is dying called by the unwise.
E'en Death itself in her fair face seemed fair." —

Is it of Laura that he here is speaking? —
She doth not answer, yet is not asleep ;
Her eyes are full of light and fixed on something
Above her in the air. I can see naught
Except the painted angels on the ceiling.
Vittoria ! speak ! What is it ? Answer me ! —
She only smiles, and stretches out her hands.

[ The mirror falls and breaks.

VITTORIA.

Not disobedient to the heavenly vision !

Pescara ! my Pescara ! [Dies.

JULIA.

Holy Virgin!
Her body sinks together, — she is dead !

[Kneels, and hides her face in Vittoria's lap.

Enter MICHAEL ANGELO.

JULIA.

Hush! make no noise.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

How is she ?

JULIA.

Never better.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Then she is dead !

Alas ! yes, she is dead !
Even death itself in her fair face seems fair.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

How wonderful ! The light upon her face
Shines from the windows of another world.
Saints only have such faces. Holy Angels!

Bear her like sainted Catherine to her rest ! f Kisses Vittoria's hand.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

1883.]

Herbert Spencer's Theory of Education.

171

HERBERT SPENCER'S THEORY OF EDUCATION.1

MR. SPENCER'S treatise on education
consists of four essays, originally con-
tributed to English reviews, and first
collected and published in this country
in 1860. The first essay discusses the
.question, " What knowledge is of most
worth ? " The other three treat succes-
sively of intellectual, moral, and physical
education. It is with the subject of the
first essay that we have to do at present,
the question of the relative worths of
different knowledges. The succeeding
three essays only carry out in more de-
tail the theory advanced in the first,
though they include by the way many
most valuable common-sense suggestions
on the general subject of education, and
especially on that of young children.

" What knowledge is of most worth?"
Mr. Spencer's attitude in answering this
question is different from that in his
other works in that it is the attitude of
a reformer ; and this must be taken to
account for a certain lack of that calm
breadth of view which characterizes his
other writings. He is here for once the
ardent advocate, rather than the cool and
dispassionate judge. He seems to have
written with a sort of righteous indig-
nation at the evil which he finds in so-
ciety, and which he conceives to be
largely due to our systems of education.
It is to be feared that the evil is deeper
seated ; and certainly there is little rea-
son to expect that the particular change
proposed, apparently in a hasty and im-
pulsive search for remedies, by our au-
thor, would do anything but aggravate
the evil.

The great fault of modern education,
Mr. Spencer asserts, is its wrong choice

1 As there is always an advantage to a reader
in understanding at the outset the point of view
from which a paper is written, the writer begs
leave to say that he feels the greatest obliga-
tion to Mr. Spencer for intellectual help in many
directions; and that in several years of college
teaching (not believing with him that the natural

of subjects for study. His main propo-
sition is, in a nutshell, that " science "
ought to supersede the classics, the mod-
ern languages, history, art, and liter-
ature. His main argument in defense
of this proposition is, in brief, that the
activities in life which are subserved by
science are more important than those
which are subserved by the ordinary
school and college studies.

Of course Mr. Spencer had in mind,
when this treatise was written (more
than twenty years ago), the curriculum
of the English universities and the
schools preparatory thereto. So far as
these went to an extreme, in past times,
by entirely excluding the natural sci-
ences, in their adherence to the tradi-
tional course in Latin, Greek, and math-
ematics, the claims of this treatise had
a certain justice, and very likely were
productive of good. The misfortune is
that in the effort to create a reaction,
and to swing the pendulum back from
one extreme, our author has made ex-
aggerated claims for natural science, and
has indulged in exaggerated denuncia-
tions of literary studies. So that now,
when the reaction has long ago set in,
and the pendulum has swung far to the
opposite extreme, this one-sided and par-
tisan statement of the case is not only
productive of no further good, but is do-
ing, in this country especially, positive
mischief. There has hardly been a rash
and ill-considered educational notion
uttered by the thousand and one un-
educated " educators " throughout the
United States, for the last fifteen years,
that has not based itself on Mr. Spen-
cer's theory of education. It has been

sciences should altogether supplant literature in
courses of liberal study) he has aimed to bring
students to the thorough comprehension of Mr.
Spencer's works, as a part of our modern English
literature, and has considered this to be one of the
highest services he could render them.

172

Herbert Spencer's Theory of Education. [February,'

and still is the Law and the Prophets
for all the devotees of educational isms
in this country, from those who would
turn our schools and colleges into baker-
ies and blacksmith shops to those who
would abolish them altogether. This
has come about especially because iso-
lated statements from Mr. Spencer's
treatise are constantly being quoted by
the weaker brethren among educational
men in such a way as to convey a very
different impression from that which
must have been intended by the author
himself. For certainly his constant
claim, everywhere else in his writings,
is for broad thinking and complete liv-
ing ; whereas his words are constantly
quoted from this treatise so as to advo-
cate the narrowest thought and the most
meagre intellectual life. From the tone
of many of those who quote with de-
light his utterances on education, one
would suppose that of all things in
the world Mr. Spencer despised and
hated books of any sort whatsoever ;
when in fact he is devoting a most labo-
rious and useful life exclusively to the
production of them for the service of
the world. And very little service
would they do, certainly, unless the
study of them as a valuable part of our
literature — as a part of that which is
the most important outgrowth of our
planet thus far in its evolution, namely,
the accumulation of man's thought and
feeling concerning human life and af-
fairs — were considered to be worthy of
time and effort, even to the exclusion or
the postponement of some attention to
vegetable growths, the rocky strata, and
other curious points of the planet itself.
It is not, however, wholly on account
of misquotation and misunderstanding
by his readers that Mr. Spencer's trea-
tise on education is productive of harm.
The views themselves are not sound.
The main argument is based on a fun-
damental error, which ought long ago to
have been thoroughly exposed. That it
has had so long a vogue simply shows

how strong a hold the author has gained,
and deservedly gained for the most part,
upon the confidence of thinking people,
as an accurate observer and sound rea-
soner. Before considering this main
proposition, let us glance briefly at his
introduction to it

Mr. Spencer sets out with the asser-
tion that there has been hitherto no ra-
tional selection of subjects for study,
nor, indeed, any discussion whatever of
the relative worth of knowledges. The
classical and mathematical curriculum
has been adhered to, he thinks, merely
through the force of a superstitious pub-
lic opinion. How this public opinion
grew up he does not attempt to explain,
unless we are to take as an attempt at
an explanation his statement that a de-
sire for ornament precedes a desire for
dress, and are to consider his brilliant
attack on the pursuit of ornamental ac-
complishments as directed against all
courses of liberal study. But this would
surely be a very superficial view of the
origin of our colleges and universities.
They did not spring up by accident, —
that is certain ; nor were they built by
the instinct of the peacock and the
bower-bird. The strong public opinion
among the educated classes in favor of
liberal studies is by no means based
upon any such flimsy foundation as the
mere fancy for ornament. The truth is,
there is a permanent aspiration in man
for spiritual enlargement, for higher and
richer planes of intellectual being. This
aspiration has in every age reached out,
no doubt more or less blindly, after
whntever was greatest and best in pre-
ceding human attainment. Latin and
Greek have been studied, not alone, as
our author almost seems to suppose, as
words and for words' sake, but for the
vital contact they give with the living
men who thought in Latin and Greek.
From many desires and motives, no
doubt, but most of all from this perma-
nent hunger for intellectual illumination
and spiritual enlargement, have grown

1883.]

Herbert Spencer's Theory of Education.

173

up our universities and our systems of
liberal culture.

But we should be greatly mistaken if
we supposed that this had been a wholly
blind aspiration. In our exclusive at-
tention to the wonderful material ad-
vancement of this age we are too apt to
forget that there have been thinking
men in the world even before our re-
markable century. There have .even
been two or three who supposed, at
least, that they understood the need of
rational discussion of educational theo-
ries. There was, for example, an honest
Greek gentleman, one Plato by name ;
and there were certain well-meaning
persons in England, such as John Mil-
ton and John Locke, not to mention
others, whose ideas on these subjects
may be found in libraries. Almost as
well, indeed, might a Grahamite assert
that there had been no rational views
on the subject of food till his own favor-
ite theory was advanced ; and that the
strong public opinion in favor of beef
and bread over husks and water had
grown up by mere accident, and been
perpetuated through unreasoning prej-
udice.

Mr. Spencer alleges that boys are
given a classical course of study merely
in order that when grown up they may
not be disgraced by being found igno-
rant of those things which are considered
essential to the " education of a gentle-
man." It certainly has some signifi-
cance, one might reply, that this liberal
culture has become so associated in the
minds of the intelligent class with being
an educated gentleman. This associa-
tion, surely, has not come about by mere
chance. May there not have been
some relation of cause and effect in it ?
One thing is certain : if all men could,
by training, be carried to the point of
fulfilling our idea of the educated Eng-
lish gentleman, there would be some-
thing to be said in favor of the system
of education that had brought about
such a consummation.

Not but that Mr. Spencer is perfectly
right in maintaining that there is need
of more attention to the question of the
relative worth of knowledges. He is
no doubt right, also, in saying that it is
important to fix upon a test or measure
of value. And no one can hesitate to
agree with the test which he goes on to
propose : namely, the bearing of differ-
ent studies on the preparation for " com-
plete living." " To prepare us for
complete living," he says, " is the func-
tion which education has to discharge ;
and the only rational mode of judging
of any educational course is to judge in
what degree it discharges this function."
We should be mistaken, however, if we
supposed this to be a new test. It is
merely the new statement of what has
been all along the underlying thought
of all the great thinkers in the world
on this subject. It is, in fact, hardly
more than a paraphrase of what Milton
affirmed more than two hundred years
ago : " I call, therefore, a complete and
generous education that which fits a
man to perform justly, skillfully, and
magnanimously all the offices, both
private and public, of peace and war."
Nor has this been merely the thought
of a few great thinkers. It has been
the essence, whether formulated or not,
of that fundamental instinct of which
we have spoken, the aspiration for a
higher and wider life, out of which has
grown up, slowly and steadily, our pres-
ent system of liberal education. There
is this to be said for Mr. Spencer : that
no writer has ever stated so clearly and
fully and convincingly the claims of
this paramount motive, the aspiration
for complete living. It is only the
more unfortunate that, in an impulse of
vexation with certain evils of our pres-
ent arrangements, he should hastily
have flung this treatise straight in the
teeth of all his own liberal doctrines.

For this is the theory of Mr. Spen-
cer's treatise. He first lays down a
classification of the activities of life, in

174

Herbert Spencer's Theory of Education. [February,

the order of what he calls their relative
" importance." It is in his use of this
word, and his inferences from it, that
we shall find the unsound spot in his
whole theory. He arranges the activ-
ities of life in the order of their impor-
tance as follows : —

" 1. Those activities which directly
minister to self-preservation.

" 2. Those which secure the neces-
saries of life, and so indirectly minister
to self-preservation.

" 3. Those which have for their end
the rearing and discipline of offspring.

" 4. Those involved in the mainte-
nance of proper social and political rela-
tions.

" 5. Those miscellaneous activities
which make up the leisure part of life,
devoted to the gratification of the tastes
and feelings."

Having thus rated the activities of life
by their " importance," he now proceeds
to rank the different subjects of study
by their bearing on these divisions. The
first division of activities has to do with
the direct maintenance of life : for this,
he affirms, the sciences of physiology
and hygiene are the best educational
studies ; so that here, to begin with,
science is the only proper thing. The
second division relates to what we call
" getting a living : " for this the sciences
of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biol-
ogy, and sociology are the needed stud-
ies ; so that here, too, science is what is
needed. The third division deals with
the care of offspring : for this the essen-
tial education consists, he says, of phys-
iology and psychology ; so that here,
too, science is the thing. The fourth
division is concerned with the mainte-
nance of social and political relations :
here we require biology, psychology, and
sociology ; so that here, also, science
gives the requisite training. The fifth
and last division includes the gratifica-
tion of the tastes and feelings. For
this class of activities the author had
apparently expected to find that litera-

ture, the classics, and so forth were de-
sirable, and begins to make some such
concessions ; but in the very midst of
them he seems to discover with satisfac-
tion that here, also, we can find all that
we want in science. So that for all
these various activities a purely scien-
tific training is the proper and only nec-
essary preparation. Perceiving now
that he has still left exposed to the en-
emy one whole flank of the subject,
namely, that of education considered as
discipline, our author goes on to affirm,
that for this purpose also, whether in
the "region of intellectual, moral, or re-
ligious discipline, the sciences are all
that we need. Both for guidance and
for discipline, therefore, a narrowly sci-
entific training is concluded to be all
that could be desired.

Let us now examine a few of these
points in detail, and first of all that on
which the whole argument rests : the .
classification of life-activities according
to their relative importance.

In what sense can it be considered
true, as Mr. Spencer asserts, that the
activities which protect the physical life
are more important than intellectual
and social activities ? His argument, to
be sure, is at first sight a plausible one.
He affirms that the thing which is made
possible is less important, and must be
postponed to that which makes it pos-
sible. That is to say, since the intellect-
ual operations and social activities could
not go on without a body, while the
bodily life could go on without intellect-
ual or social activities, the body is more
important than the mind, or than society.
Is it not obvious that, using the term
" important " in any ordinary sense, this
is exactly the reverse of the truth ? For
what value has the body except as a
means to that higher end ? And is it not
the importance of that higher end that
gives the means whatever importance
it possesses ? To arrange the activities
of life in the order of their dependence
on one another, therefore, is to arrange

1883.]

Herbert Spencer's Theory of Education.

175

them in precisely the reverse order of
their intrinsic importance. It is upon
the meaning of the word " important "
that the whole fallacy turns ; so that our
author, after allowing himself to indulge
in sarcasms upon the useless study of
language, seems for once to be caught
by a mere juggle of words, and founds
a whole theory upon a confusion of mean:
ings.

But the only meaning of the word
" important " which can have any fitness
in a discussion of the relative impor-
tance of different subjects of study is —
" demanding attention in school and col-
lege education." And in this meaning
of the word, the relative importance of
life-activities is again just the reverse of
Mr. Spencer's estimate ; since nature
looks out for the " necessary condition,"
the body, and leaves it for art, for edu-
cation, to attend to " that which is made
possible," the mind.

It seems to be one peculiar danger
attending our absorption in these fas-
cinating sciences of our day, and in their
for the most part admirable methods,
that we are tempted to imagine, when
we have made an elaborate classifica-
tion, and thrown a theory into an ex-
act tabular form, that we have there-
by systematized a great truth. May it
not sometimes happen that we have
only systematized a great error ? And
another danger, that can perhaps hardly
be laid to the charge of our scientific
studies, so all but universal does it ap-
pear to be, is the liability to be led astray
by an apparent analogy between some-
thing in nature and something in human
affairs, so that a captivating illustration
will seem an argument. So clear-sighted
a man as our author, for example, com-
pares the relation of the florist to the
plant with the relation of the teacher to
the child. The florist, he says, knows
that the root and leaves are more im-
portant than the flower, since it is the
root and leaves that make the flower
possible : so the teacher knows that the

body is more important than the mind.
But plainly that depends on the sense
which we attach to the word " impor-
tant." In the ordinary sense of the
word, the flower is to the florist the
only thing which has any importance at
all. Except for the flower which is to
follow, he would care nothing for the
root and leaves of a plant. And if we
use the word, as before, to mean " de-
manding attention," then it becomes
evident that there is only the most su-
perficial resemblance between the two
cases, and no real analogy. For in the
case of the plant, man's art has only
to nourish the root and leaves, and wild
nature will invariably see to the pro-
duction of the perfect flower. But in
the case of the human being precisely
the opposite is true : wild nature looks
to the body, and utterly refuses, in the
savage state (that is to say, without edu-
cation) to produce a cultivated mind ; so
that man's art has to see to it, by a care-
ful course of education, that the high-
er intellectual life comes forth from this
natural body. The savage has a very
sufficient body; nay, the wild animal
is well equipped in that respect. But
this admirable body might go on existing
and propagating its kind for ages, with-
out any flower and fruit of spiritual de-
velopment, unless our systems of educa-
tion fortunately realized the supreme
importance of that, and saw to its pro-
duction.

There is the same error in Mr. Spen-
cer's estimate of his second division of
life-activities, — the activities indirectly
ministering to self-preservation, or the
getting of a livelihood. These activi-
ties he rates as higher in importance
than intellectual and social life, because
they are .a necessary condition to it.
But here, again, it is evident that their
importance in the sense of their re-
quiring attention in our school and col-
lege education should be rated in just
the reverse order. The ordinary man,
unenlightened by education, manages

176

Herbert Spencer's Theory of Education. [February,

pretty well this matter of getting a liv-
ing for his body ; which is, no doubt, a
necessary condition to any intellectual
life, but is intrinsically of considerably
less importance than that higher end,
which alone, indeed, gives it any value
whatever. It is the precise function of
education to see to it that men's lives
shall be so " lifted up and strengthened "
that they shall be worth sustaining by a
livelihood. Not what sort of a living
they get, but what sort of a life they
get, is the question of real importance.

If by " education " we were to under-
stand the whole sum total of forces and
influences that go to produce a man, it
would, no doubt, be true that we must
begin at the body to build him up. In-
deed, under that supposition, our ed-
ucation would have to begin farther
back still : we should have to make a
planet for him to live on, or beyond that
a solar system, or beyond that the nebula
out of which such a system should be
made ; for each of these would in turn
be more " important," as being the nec-
essary condition to what should follow.
But in education, fortunately, we have
no such tremendous task. Solar system
and planet have been with reasonable
success evolved, and finally the human
body and the rudiments of a mind, and
we have now to make that mind by edu-
cation a more complete and perfect one.
We are not to harm the body or hin-
der it, any more than we are to go back
and destroy the planet ; these neces-
sary conditions are not to be interfered
with ; but we are to leave to wild nature
whatever she does decently well, and do
by our art of education that which she
will not do at all, or will do very badly,
and which we shall not get too well
done, though we concentrate all our
force, during the brief period of school
and college training, on that alone. The
plain fact is that the one thing which
wild nature never yet did, and never can
be depended on to do, is to make intel-
lectual, or even decently rational, men

and women out of the common stuff of
humanity. While, as to the body, and
as to the getting of a living for it, and
even as to the care of offspring, some-
thing may be left to nature and natural
instinct ; just as the instinct of the love
of life and the instinct of the desire for
offspring hardly need to be cultivated
in our college curriculums. Yet they,,
too, are a part of the sum total of essen-
tial conditions of life, and our author
might well have gone back, therefore,
and put them first of all in his scheme
of so-called " importance."

It must be kept clearly in mind that
in any discussion regarding education
the relative importance of certain activ-
ities can only mean their relative need
of attention in our curriculums of study.
The whole question is confused by con-
founding this with their relative depend-
ence in nature. The practical problem
for the teacher, we must remember, is
this : given, the average boy, of good
enough physical basis, of ordinary ten-
dencies to lead a healthy animal life,
of average inclination to defend himself
and push his way in the world so far as
material advantages go, — given such
a boy, to bring him through a course of
intellectual and moral education that
shall make the highest order of man out
of this crude material furnished by na-
ture. What this course is we must try
our best to discover. It will certainly
not be wise to assume that the previous
experience of mankind is utterly worth-
less to us in this attempt ; nor shall we
be furthered much by any new and fan-
ciful theory, based on an entire confu-
sion as to what are the most important
things to be attended to in education.

It is taken for granted that Mr. Spen-
cer means to include in his fifth division
all those activities of the mind which
we sometimes speak of as constituting
" the intellectual life." He is common-
ly understood to mean that. If he does,
however, he uses strangely inaccurate
phraseology; for these intellectual ac-

1883.]

Herbert Spencer's Theory of Education.

177

tivities can with no propriety be called
the mere gratification of the tastes and
feelings. They belong, he says, to the
leisure part of life, and so should occupy
only the leisure part of education. If
he has in mind mere superficial accom-
plishments, wax- work and the guitar, no
doubt he is right. But if he means the
higher intellectual processes, they are .
precisely the most important of all ac-
tivities, and the preparation for them
should accordingly occupy the chief part
of education. They are the activities of
life, too, as we have said, that cannot by
any possibility come except by educa-
tion, while the others — the necessary
conditions to these — are likely to come
very well without it.

If he does not mean to include the
intellectual life in this fifth division
of activities, then he has made the
strange mistake of classifying life-activ-
ities in a discussion of education, and
leaving entirely out of his classification
those very activities for the sake of which
our systems of education were estab-
lished and have been maintained. How
was it possible to do this, after setting
out with such attractive aphorisms as to
" complete living " ? He has, in fact,
oddly enough, left no place in his scheme
for our activity in studying his works,
nor for his own activity in writing them.

Everywhere in this treatise Mr. Spen-
cer appears to assume that the chief pur-
pose of education is to furnish the mind
with a certain set of convenient facts.
He seems never to rise to the concep-
tion of education as a process of mind
development, with power to determine
not merely what the man shall know,
but what he shall be. Apparently, he
thinks of every man as being by nature
of a fixed and predetermined type, and
then as receiving from education only
a certain outfit of handy information.
The truth is, on the contrary, that the
very question of what type of man the
boy shall become is the chief question
that is constantly being determined by

VOL. LI. — NO. 304. 12

education. With regard to the .prepa-
ration for the rearing of offspring, for
example, Mr. Spencer affirms that the
essential training will be found in the
sciences of physiology and psychology.
This is all very well, but it overlooks
the point that the main question con-
cerning offspring is the question what
manner of men and women the parents
themselves are ; and what they shall be
it is precisely the effort of a liberal course
of education to determine. There are
no scientific facts whatever that can com-
pare in importance to parents, as par-
ents, with their being themselves richly
endowed arid highly developed persons,
in mind as well as in body. What they
are, more than what they know, is of
determining force on their offspring,
from the earliest moment on through
the' whole period of their relations with
them.

The same hastiness of statement is
apparent with regard to the preparation
for earning a livelihood. Mr. Spencer
seems to ignore the fact that the thing,
after all, that is of most service to a man
in making his way in the world is to be,
first of all, an intelligent man ; and this
intelligence it is precisely the purpose
of education to give him. He will be
able to get his handy information for
himself afterward, in one direction or
another, as happens to be most useful to
him. The ability to read, in the largest
and highest sense, that is to say, the
ability to get the full benefit of other
men's minds and experience from their
written words, and the ability to think,
— these are gifts bestowed by a liberal
education, that are worth any amount of
' a particular set of facts. If Aristotle
and Bacon were to enter the company,
we should hardly fail to recognize them
as rather well-educated men, although
their minds would be empty of all these
facts of modern science that are assert-
ed by Mr. Spencer to be the essential
conditions of any sound education.

Mr. Spencer does, it is true, briefly

178

Herbert Spencer's Theory of Education. [February,

indicate in his treatise, almost as if by
an after-thought, that studies are partly
for the sake of discipline. But " we
may be quite sure," he says, " that the
acquirement of those facts which are
most useful for regulating conduct in-
volves a mental exercise best fitted for
strengthening the faculties. It would
be utterly contrary to the beautiful
economy of Nature if one kind of cul-
ture were needed for the gaining of in-
formation, and another kind were need-
ed as a mental gymnastic." " The ed-
ucation of most value for guidance must
at the same time be the education of
most value for discipline."

It was best to lay down this state-
ment as an axiom ; for if it were taken
as a proposition to be proved, the proof
would be found very difficult indeed. It
is fine to talk of the " beautiful econ-
omy of Nature," but the economy of
man is not without ijs beauty, also : the
economy, namely, of time and of force
that results from exercises devised by
man for gaining strength and skill far
faster and more agreeably than by the
haphazard opportunities of ordinary life.
" Everywhere throughout creation," says
Mr. Spencer, "we find faculties devel-
oped through the performance of those
functions which it is their office to
perform ; not through the performance
of artificial exercises devised to fit them
for those functions." Everywhere, to be
sure, is the obvious reply, except in
the arrangements of that rather impor-
tant part of " creation," man ; since he
is the only animal that does not rest
contented with the savage state of wild
nature, but is so happy as to be endowed
with aspirations that lead him to edu-
cate himself and his offspring. This he
ventures to do by means of plans and
systems of training not found, it must
be confessed, anywhere in the lower
grades of creation. There would be no
athletes, for example, were it not for
skillfully devised and persistently fol-
lowed exercises. There would be no mas-

tery of music without laborious training
by means of " artificial " exercises. But
the proposition is too absurd to need
refutation by instances. Would Mr.
Spencer have the boy put off all exer-
cise in penmanship till he entered on
the " performance of those functions "
in the counting-room or the editorial
chair? One might as well object to the
interference with Nature in arranging
her phenomena, in experiments, for bet-
ter observation as to object to our in-
terference in arranging exercises for
better discipline.

For what is this " Nature " (with a
capital N) which figures so largely as a
final arbiter in the enthusiastic eulogies
of Science (with a capital S) ? Does
this Nature include man and his oper-
ations, or does it not? If it does, then
these very interferences are also a part
of Nature. And certainly the human
part of Nature has as good a claim to
be the arbiter as any other part. But
if it does not include man, and is mere-
ly a name for the forces and processes
of the world outside of the human world,
then we may safely assert our right to
come down upon this Nature, and mould
and control it according to our needs.
Or if, to take a third supposition, this
capital-lettered Nature is meant to in-
clude man only in his so-called " nat-
ural " condition, — the wild man, the
savage, the animal, — then surely the
very effort of all civilization, and of ed-
ucation as its chief instrument, is to op-
pose, and whip in, and convert, and take
command of these untamed forces of
Nature, that we may develop the crude
savage into the higher human being.

Probably nine tenths of the popular
sophistries on the subject of education
would be cleared away by clarifying
the conception of this word Nature.
We hear the " natural method " eulo-
gized, and the " natural man " is appealed
to from morbid and unnatural condi-
tions of living. But what is the natu-
ral method? It is of little value as an

1883.]

Herbert Spencer's Theory of Education.

179

arbiter, unless it means that method
which the sanest sense and the ripest
experience of man has approved. And
who is the natural man ? Plainly, not
the savage, not the undeveloped brute,
but the man as he was meant by Nature
to be : completely equipped in mind as
well as in body ; equipped, moreover,
with the highest social and political ar-
rangements, including a wise system of
education. That is in the truest sense,
the only rational sense for the purposes
of such a discussion, the natural meth-
od, the natural order of studies, the nat-
ural course of exercises, which the fore-
most Englishman — not which the lowest
Fijian — would approve and adopt.

There is space to notice but one
or two instances in which the false con-
ception of Nature leads to error in this
treatise : and first in the objection to
abstract studies. Mr. Spencer asserts
that since the natural activities of the
mind in early youth are concrete, there-
fore the whole education of this period
should be concrete. Certainly, that is
the method of wild nature, and wild na-
ture never gets beyond that point. The
uneducated man remains always, in this
respect, a child, incapable of abstract
thought. What we wish to do is to de-
velop out of this crude, unnatural Na-
ture the truly natural man, — the man as
Nature meant him to be, with the pow-
er and the habit of abstract conception
and reasoning. Though we follow the
order, we need not follow the pace, of
wild nature. The sooner the boy can
be brought to read intellectual books,
and to grasp complex subjects, easily
and quietly, without strain or precocity
or hindrance to the physical develop-
ment, the more of a man will he make.

So, again, Mr. Spencer's words are
often quoted in support of the attrac-
tive doctrine that education shall give

boys to do only that which they choose
to do. Their diet, according to this the-
ory, would be plum-cake and jam, and
their reading would likewise be what-
ever was spiciest to the mental palate
and easiest of mastication. Every parent
and teacher knows something of what
evils would follow this system, from his
observation of the effects of the dime
novel and of our juvenile literature in
general. A young person had much
better read Shakespeare and Mr. Spen-
cer. Every teacher, at least, knows als?
how this theory has run into an absurd
extreme in " oral teaching " and the
" object-lesson." A boy does not need
to be fed forever with a spoon. The
time comes when he must learn to get
his knowledge in the way that every,
educated man must always get it, — -
from the written page, and from self-con-
trolled, persistent, laborious thought.

Of course one easily overstates any
single aspect of such a vast subject as
this of education. It is not surprising
that even so profound and careful a think-
er as Mr. Spencer has done so in this
early treatise of his. Nor need it shake
our faith in his candor nor in his gener-
al breadth of view ; for it was probably
meant only as an extreme statement of
one side of the subject, intended to cor-
rect what seemed to him an extreme
practice in the opposite direction. It is
to be hoped that he will yet revise the
treatise, or withdraw it altogether and
substitute a more mature treatment of
the subject, whenever he comes to real-
ize that his reaction has already gone
much too far, and when he comes to see
that his work is not taken by his disciples
for the reactionary and one-sided state-
ment that it is, but for a deliberate and
complete view, — a character which the
author himself would probably be the
last person to claim for it.

E. R. Sill.

180

The Ancestral Footstep.

[February,

THE ANCESTRAL FOOTSTEP:

OUTLINES OF AN ENGLISH ROMANCE.

III.

MAT 12th, Wednesday. Middleton
found his abode here becoming daily
more interesting ; and he sometimes
thought that it was the sympathies with
the place and people, buried under the
supergrowth of so many ages, but now
coming forth with the life and vigor of
a fountain, that, long hidden beneath
earth and ruins, gushes out singing into
the sunshine, as soon as these are re-
moved. He wandered about the neigh-
borhood with insatiable interest ; some-
times, and often, lying on a hillside and
gazing at the gray tower of the church ;
sometimes coming into the village clus-
tered round that same church, and look-
ing at the old timber and plaster houses,
the same, except that the thatch had
probably been often renewed, that they
used to be in his ancestor's days. In
those old cottages still dwelt the fami-
lies, the s, the Prices, the Hop-

norts, the Copleys, that had dwelt there
when America was a scattered progeny
of infant colonies ; and in the church-
yard were the graves of all the genera-
tions since — including the dust of those
who had seen his ancestor's face before
his departure.

The graves, outside the church walls
indeed, bore no marks of this antiquity ;
for it seems not to have been an early
practice in England to put stones over
such graves ; and where it has been
done, the climate causes the inscriptions
soon to become obliterated and unintel-
ligible. But, within the church, there
were rich words of the personages and
times, with whom Middleton's musings
held so much converse.

1 Copyright, 1882, by ROSE HAWTHORNE LA-
THKOP. For a clearer understanding of this sketch,

But one of his greatest employments
and pastimes was to ramble through the
grounds of Smithells, making himself
as well acquainted with its wood paths,
its glens, its woods, its venerable trees,
as if he had been bred up there from in-
fancy. Some of those old oaks his an-
cestor might have been acquainted with,
while they were already sturdy and
well-grown trees ; might have climbed
them in boyhood ; might have mused
beneath them as a lover ; might have
flung himself at full length on the turf
beneath them, in the bitter anguish that
must have preceded his departure for-
ever from the home of his forefathers.
In order to secure an uninterrupted en-
joyment of his rambles here, Middle-
ton had secured the good-will of the
game - keepers and other underlings
whom he was likely to meet about the
grounds, by giving them a shilling or
a half-crown ; and he was now free to
wander where he would, with only the
advice rather than the caution, to keep
out of the way of their old master, —
for there might be trouble, if he should
meet a stranger on the grounds, in any
of his tantrums. But, in fact, Mr. El-
dredge was not much in the habit of
walking about the grounds ; and there
were hours of every day, during which
it was altogether improbable that he
would have emerged from his own apart-
ments in the manor-house. These were
the hours, therefore, when Middleton
most frequented the estate ; although,
to say the truth, he would gladly have
so timed his visits as to meet and form
an acquaintance with the lonely lord of
this beautiful property, his own kins-
man, though with so many ages of dark

the reader is referred to the Prefatory Note in the
Atlantic Monthly for December, 1882, page 823.

1883.]

The Ancestral Footstep.

181

oblivion between. For Middleton had
not that feeling of infinite distance in
the relationship, which he would have
had if his branch of the family had con-
tinued in England, and had not inter-
married with the other branch, through
such a long waste of years ; he rather
felt as if he were the original emigrant
who, long resident on a foreign shore,
had now returned, with a heart brimful
of tenderness, to revisit the scenes of his
youth, and renew his tender relations
with those who shared his own blood.

There was not, however, much in
what he heard of the character of the
present possessor of the estate — or in-
deed in the strong family characteristic
that had become hereditary — to en-
courage him to attempt any advances.
It is very probable that the religion of
Mr. Eldredge, as a Catholic, may have
excited a prejudice against him, as it
certainly had insulated the family, in a
great degree, from the sympathies of
the neighborhood. Mr. Eldredge, more-
over, had resided long on the Continent ;
long in Italy ; and had come back with
habits that little accorded with those of
the gentry of the neighborhood ; so
that, in fact, he was almost as much of
a stranger, and perhaps quite as little of
a real Englishman, as Middleton him-
self. Be that as it might, Middleton,
when he sought to learn something
about him, heard the strangest stories
of his habits of life, of his temper, and
of his employments, from the people
with whom he conversed. The old le-
gend, turning upon the monomania of
the family, was revived in full force in
/ reference to this poor gentleman ; and
many a time Middleton's interlocutors
shook their wise heads, saying with a
knowing look and under their breath
that the old gentleman was looking for
the track of the Bloody Footstep. They
fabled — or said, for it might not have
been a false story — that every descend-
ant of this house had a certain portion
of his life, during which he sought the

track of that footstep which was left on
the threshold of the mansion ; that he
sought it far and wide, over every foot of
the estate ; not only on the estate, but
throughout the neighborhood ; not only
in the neighborhood but all over Eng-
land; not only throughout England but
all about the world. It was the belief
of the neighborhood — at least of some
old men and women in it — that the
long period of Mr. Eldredge's absence
from England had been spent in the
search for some trace of those departing
footsteps that had never returned. It
is very possible — probable, indeed —
that there may have been some ground
for this remarkable legend ; not that it'
is to be credited that the family of El-
dredge, being reckoned among sane men,
would seriously have sought, years and
generations after the fact, for the first
track of those bloody footsteps which
the first rain of drippy England must
have washed away ; to say nothing of
the leaves that had fallen and the
growth and decay of so many seasons,
that covered all traces of them since.
But nothing is more probable than that
the continual recurrence to the family
genealogy, which had been necessitated
by the matter of the dormant peerage,
had caused the Eldredges, from father
to son, to keep alive an interest in that
ancestor who had disappeared, and who
had been supposed to carry some of the
most important family papers with him.
But yet it gave Middleton a strange
thrill of pleasure, that had something
fearful in it, to think that all through
these ages he had been waited for,
sought for, anxiously expected, as it
were ; it seemed as if the very ghosts
of his kindred, a long shadowy line,
held forth their dim arms to welcome
him ; a line stretching back to the
ghosts of those who had flourished in
the old, old times ; the doubletted and
berufBed knightly shades of Queen
Elizabeth's time ; a long line, stretching
from the mediaeval ages, and their duski-

182

The Ancestral Footstep.

[February,

ness, downward, downward, with only
one vacant space, that of him who had
left the Bloody Footstep. There was
an inexpressible pleasure (airy and eva-
nescent, gone in a moment if he dwelt
upon it too thoughtfully, but very sweet)
to Middleton's imagination, in this idea.
When he reflected, however, that his
revelations, if they had any effect at all,
might serve only to quench the hopes
of these long expectants, it of course
made him hesitate to declare himself.

One afternoon, when he was in the
midst of musings such as this, he saw
at a distance through the park, in the
direction of the manor-house, a person
who seemed to be walking slowly and
seeking for something upon the ground.
He was a long way off when Middletou
first perceived him ; and there were two
clumps of trees and underbrush, with in-
terspersed tracts of sunny lawn, between
them. The person, whoever he was,
kept on, and plunged into the first clump
of shrubbery, still keeping his eyes on
the ground, as if intensely searching for
something. When he emerged from the
concealment of the first clump of shrub-
bery, Middleton saw that he was a tall,
thin person, in a dark dress ; and this
was the chief observation that the dis-
tance enabled him to make, as the fig-
ure kept slowly onward, in a somewhat
wavering line, and plunged into the sec-
ond clump of shrubbery. From that,
too, he emerged ; and soon appeared to
be a thin elderly figure, of a dark man
with gray hair, bent, as it seemed to Mid-
dleton, with infirmity, for his figure still
stooped even in the intervals when he
did not appear to be tracking the ground.
But Middleton could not but be sur-
prised at the singular appearance the
figure had of setting its foot, at every
step, just where a previous footstep had
been made, as if he wanted to measure
his whole pathway in the track of some-
body who had recently gone over the
ground in advance of him. Middleton
was sitting at the foot of an oak ; and

he began to feel some awkwardness in
the consideration of what he would do
if Mr. Eldredge — for he could not
doubt that it was he — were to be led
just to this spot, in pursuit of his singu-
lar occupation. And even so it proved.

Middleton could not feel it manly to
fly and hide himself, like a guilty thing ;
and indeed the hospitality of the Eng-
lish country gentleman in many cases
gives the neighborhood and the stranger
a certain degree of freedom in the use
of the broad expanse of ground in which
they and their forefathers have loved to
sequester their residences. The figure
kept on, showing more and more dis-
tinctly the tall, meagre, not unvenerable
features of a gentleman in the decline
of life, apparently in ill-health ; with a
dark face, that might once have been
full of energy, but now seemed enfee-
bled by time, passion and perhaps sor-
row. But it was strange to see the
earnestness with which he looked on the
ground, and the accuracy with which
he at last set his foot, apparently ad-
justing it exactly to some footprint be-
fore him ; and Middleton doubted not
that, having studied and re-studied the
family records and the judicial examina-
tions which described exactly the track
that was seen the day after the mem-
orable disappearance of his ancestor,
Mr. Eldredge was now, in some freak,
or for some purpose best known to him-
self, practically following it out. And
follow it out he did, until at last, he
lifted up his eyes, muttering to himself:
" At this point the footsteps wholly dis-
appear."

Lifting his eyes, as we have said,
while thus regretfully and despairingly
muttering these words, he saw Middle-
ton against the oak, within three paces
of him.

May 13th, Thursday. Mr. Eldredge
(for it was he) first kept his eyes fixed
full on Middleton's face, with an ex-
pression as if he saw him not; but
gradually — slowly, at first — he seemed

1883.]

The Ancestral Footstep.

183

to become aware of his presence ; then,
with a sudden flush, he took in the idea
that he was encountered by a stranger
in his secret mood. A flash of anger or
shame, perhaps both, reddened over his
face ; his eyes gleamed ; and he spoke
hastily and roughly.

" Who are you ? " he said. " How
came you here ? I allow no intruders in
my park. Begone, fellow ! "

" Really, sir, I did not mean to in-
trude upon you," said Middleton bland-
ly. " I am aware that I owe you an
apology ; but the beauties of your park
must plead my excuse; and the con-
stant kindness of [the] English gentle-
man, which admits a stranger to the priv-
ilege of enjoying so much of the beau-
ty in which he himself dwells as the
stranger's taste permits him to enjoy."

"An artist, perhaps," said Mr. El-
dredge, somewhat less uncourteously.
" I am told that they love to come here
and sketch these old oaks and their vis-
tas, and the old mansion yonder. But
you are an intrusive set, you artists,
and think that a pencil and a sheet of
paper may be your passport anywhere.
You are mistaken, sir. My park is not
open to strangers."

" I am sorry, then, to have intruded
upon you," said Middleton, still in good
humor; for in truth he felt a sort of
kindness, a sentiment, ridiculous as it
may appear, of kindred towards the old
gentleman, and besides was not unwill-
ing in any way to prolong a conversa-
tion in which he found a singular inter-
est. " I am sorry, especially as I have
not even the excuse you kindly suggest
for me. I am not an artist, only an
American, who have strayed hither to
enjoy this gentle, cultivated, tamed na-
ture which I find in English parks, so
contrasting with the wild, rugged na-
ture of my native land. I beg your
pardon, and will retire."

" An American," repeated Mr. El-
dredge, looking curiously at him. " Ah,
you are wild men in that country, I sup-

pose, and cannot conceive that an Eng-
lish gentleman encloses his grounds —
or that his ancestors have done so be-
fore him — for his own pleasure and
convenience, and does not calculate on
having it infringed upon by everybody,
like your own forests, as you say. It is
a curious country, that of yours ; and in
Italy I have seen curious people from
it."

" True, sir," said Middleton, smiling.
" We send queer specimens abroad ; but
Englishmen should consider that we
spring from them, and that we present
after all only a picture of their own
characteristics, a little varied by climate
and in situation."

Mr. Eldredge' looked at him with a
certain kind of interest, and it seemed
to Middleton that he was not unwilling
to continue the conversation, if a fair
way to do so could only be offered to
him. A secluded man often grasps at
any opportunity of communicating with
his kind, when it is casually offered to
him, and for the nonce is surprisingly
familiar, running out towards his chance-
companion with the gush of a dammed-
up torrent, suddenly unlocked. As
Middleton made a motion to retire, he
put out his hand with an air of author-
ity to restrain him.

" Stay," said he. " Now that you are
here, the mischief is done, and you can-
not repair it by hastening away. You
have interrupted me in my mood of
thought, and must pay the penalty by
suggesting other thoughts. I am a
lonely man here, having spent most of
my life abroad, and am separated from
my neighbors by various circumstances.
You seem to be an intelligent man. Ii
should like to ask you a few questions^-
about your country."

He looked at Middleton as he spoke,
and seemed to be considering in what
rank of life he should place him ; his
dress being such as suited a humble
rank. He seemed not to have come to
any very certain decision on this point.

184

The Ancestral Footstep.

[February,

" I remember," said he, " you have
no distinctions of rank in your country ;
a convenient thing enough, in some re-
spects. When there are no gentlemen,
all are gentlemen. So let it be. You
speak of being Englishmen ; and it has
often occurred to me that Englishmen
have left this country and been much
missed and sought after, who might per-
haps be sought there successfully."

"It is certainly so, Mr. Eldredge,"
said Middleton, lifting his eyes to his
face as he spoke, and then turning them
aside. " Many footsteps, the track of
which is lost in England, might be found
reappearing on the other side of the At-
lantic ; ay, though it be hundreds of
years since the track was lost here."

Middleton, though he had refrained
from looking full at Mr. Eldredge as he
spoke, was conscious that he gave a
great start ; and he remained silent for
a moment or two, and when he spoke
there was the tremor in his ' voice of
a nerve that had been struck and still
vibrated.

"That is a singular idea of yours,"
he at length said ; " not singular in it-
self, but strangely coincident with some-
thing that happened to be occupying my
mind. Have you ever heard any such
instances as you speak of ? "

" Yes," replied Middleton, " I have
had pointed out to me the rightful heir
to a Scottish earldom, in the person of
an American farmer, in his shirt-sleeves.
There are many Americans who believe
themselves to hold similar claims. And
I have known one family, at least, who
had in their possession, and had had for
two centuries, a secret that might have
been worth wealth and honors if known
in England. Indeed, being kindred as
we are, it cannot but be the case."

Mr. Eldredge appeared to be much
struck by these last words, and gazed
wistfully, almost wildly, at Middleton, as
if debating with himself whether to say
more. He made a step or two aside ;
then returned abruptly, and spoke.

" Can you tell me the name of the fam-
ily in which this secret was kept ? " said
he ; " and the nature of the secret ? "

" The nature of the secret," said Mid-
dleton, smiling, " was not likely to be
extended to any one out of the family.
The name borne by the family was Mid-
dleton. There is no member of it, so
far as I am aware, at this moment re-
maining in America."

" And has the secret died with them ? "
asked Mr. Eldredge.

"They communicated it to none,"
said Middleton.

" It is a pity ! It was a villainous
wrong," said Mr. Eldredge. "And so,
it may be, some ancient line, in the old
country, is defrauded of its rights for
want of what might have been obtained
from this Yankee, whose democracy has
demoralized them to the perception of
what is due to the antiquity of descent,
and of the bounden duty that there is,
in all ranks, to keep up the honor of a
family that has had potency enough to
preserve itself in distinction for a thou-
sand years."

" Yes," said Middleton, quietly, " we
have sympathy with what is strong and
vivacious to-day ; none with what was
so yesterday."

The remark seemed not to please Mr.
Eldredge ; he frowned, and muttered
something to himself; but recovering
himself, addressed Middleton with more
courtesy than at the commencement of
their interview ; and, with this gracious-
ness, his face and manner grew very
agreeable, almost fascinating : he f was]
still haughty, however.

" Well, sir," said he, " I am not sorry
to have met you. I am a solitary man,
as I have said, and a little communica-
tion with a stranger is a refreshment,
which I enjoy seldom enough to be sen-
sible of it. Pray, are you staying here-
abouts ? "

Middleton signified to him that he
might probably spend some little time
in the village.

1883.]

The Ancestral Footstep.

185

" Then, during your stay," said Mr.
Eldredge, " make free use of the walks
in these grounds ; and though it is not
probable that you will meet me in them
again, you need apprehend no second
questioning of your right to be here.
My house has many points of curiosity
that may be of interest to a stranger
from a new country. Perhaps you
have heard of some of them."

"I have heard some wild legend
about a Bloody Footstep," answered
Middleton ; " indeed, I think I remem-
ber hearing something about it in my
own country ; and having a fanciful
sort of interest in such things, I took
advantage of the hospitable custom
which opens the doors of curious old
houses to strangers, to go to see it. It
seemed to me, I confess, only a natural
stain in the old stone that forms the
doorstep."

" There, sir," said Mr. Eldred,ge,
" let me say that you came to a very
foolish conclusion ; and so, good -by,
sir."

And without further ceremony, he
cast an angry glance at Middleton, who
perceived that the old gentleman reck-
oned the Bloody Footstep among his
ancestral honors, and would probably
have parted with his claim to the peer-
age almost as soon as have given up the
legend.

Present aspect of the story : Middle-
ton on his arrival becomes acquainted
with the old Hospitaller, and is familiar-
ized at the Hospital. He pays a visit
in his company to the manor-house, but
merely glimpses at its remarkable things,
at this visit, among others at the old
cabinet, which does not, at first view,
strike him very strongly. But, on mus-
ing about his visit afterwards, he finds
the recollection of the cabinet strangely
identifying itself with his previous im-
aginary picture of the palatial mansion ;
so that at last he begins to conceive the
mistake he has made. At this first
[visit], he does not have a personal in-

terview with the possessor of the estate ;
but, as the Hospitaller and himself go
from room to room, he finds that the
owner is preceding them, shyly flitting
like a ghost, so as to avoid them. Then
there is a chapter about the character
of the Eldredge of the day, a Catholic,
a morbid, shy man, representing all the
peculiarities of an old family, and gen-
erally thought to be insane. And then
comes the interview between him and
Middleton, where the latter excites such
an interest that he dwells upon the old
man's mind, and the latter probably
takes pains to obtain further intercourse
with him, and perhaps invites him to
dinner, and [toj spend a night in his
house. If so, this second meeting must
lead to the examination of the cabinet,
and the discovery of some family docu-
ments in it. Perhaps the cabinet may
be in Middleton's sleeping- chamber, and
he examines it by himself, before going
to bed ; and finds out a secret which
will perplex him how to deal with it.

May 14th, Friday. We have spoken
several times already of a young girl,
who was seen at this period about the
little antiquated village of Smithells ; at
girl in manners and in aspect unlike
those of the cottages amid which she
dwelt. Middleton had now so often
met her, and in solitary places, that an
acquaintance had inevitably established
itself between them. He had ascer-
tained that she had lodgings at a farm-
house near by, and that she was con-
nected in some way with the old Hos-
pitaller, whose acquaintance had proved
of such interest to him ; but more than
this he could not learn either from her
or others. But he was greatly attracted
and interested by the free spirit and
fearlessness of this young woman ; nor
could he conceive where, in staid and
formal England, she had grown up to
be such as she was, so without manner,
so without art, yet so capable of doing
and thinking for herself. She had no
reserve, apparently, yet never seemed

186

The Ancestral Footstep.

[February,

to sin against decorum ; it never ap-
peared to restrain her that anything she
might wish to do was contrary to cus-
tom ; she had nothing of what could be
called shyness in her intercourse with
him; and yet he was conscious of an
unapproachableness in Alice. Often, in
the old man's presence, she mingled in
the conversation that went on between
him and Middleton, and with an acute-
ness that betokened a sphere of thought
much beyond what could be customary
with young English maidens ; and Mid-
dleton was often reminded of the theo-
ries of those in our own country, who
believe that the amelioration of society
depends greatly on the part that women
shall hereafter take, according to their
individual capacity, in all the various
pursuits of life. These deeper thoughts,
these higher qualities, surprised him as
they showed themselves, whenever occa-
sion called them forth, under the light,
gay, and frivolous exterior which she
had at first seemed to present. Middle-
ton often amused himself with surmises
in what rank of life Alice could have
been bred, being so free of all conven-
tional rule, yet so nice and delicate in
her perception of the true proprieties
that she never shocked him.

One morning, when they had met in
one of Middleton's rambles about the
neighborhood, they began to talk of
America ; and Middleton described to
Alice the stir that was being made in
behalf of women's rights ; and he said
that whatever cause was generous and
disinterested always, in that country,
derived much of its power from the
sympathy of women, and that the advo-
cates of every such cause were in favor
of yielding the whole field of human
effort to be shared with women.

" I have been surprised," said he, " in
the little I have seen and heard of Eng-

lish women, to discover what a differ-
ence there is between them and my own
countrywomen."

"I have heard," said Alice, with a

smile, " that your countrywomen are a
far more delicate and fragile race than
Englishwomen ; pale, feeble hot-house
plants, unfit for the wear and tear of
life, without energy of character, or any
slightest degree of physical strength to
base it upon. If, now, you had these
large-framed Englishwomen, you might,
I should imagine, with better hopes, set
about changing the system of society,
so as to allow them to struggle in the
strife of politics, or any other strife,
hand to hand, or side by side with men."

" If any countryman of mine has said
this of our women," exclaimed Middle-
ton, indignantly, " he is a slanderous
villain, unworthy to have been borne by
an American mother ; if an Englishman
has said it — as I know many of them
have and do — let it pass as one of the
many prejudices only half believed, with
which they strive to console themselves
for the inevitable sense that the Amer-
ican race is destined to higher purposes
than their own. But pardon me ; I for-
got that I was speaking to an English-
woman, for indeed you do not remind
me of them. But, I assure you, the
world has not seen such women as make
up, I had almost said the mass of wom-
anhood in my own country ; slight iu
aspect, slender in frame, as you suggest,
but yet capable of bringing forth stal-
wart men ; they themselves being of
inexhaustible courage, patience, energy ;
soft and tender, deep of heart, but high
of purpose. Gentle, refined, but bold
in every good cause."

"Oh, you have said quite enough,"
replied Alice, who had seemed ready to
laugh outright, during this encomium.
" I think I see one of these paragons
now, in a Bloomer, I think you call it,
swaggering along with a Bowie knife at
her girdle, smoking a cigar, no doubt,
and tippling sherry-cobblers and mint-
juleps. It must be a pleasant life."

" I should think you, at least, might
form a more just idea of what women
become," said Middleton, considerably

1883.]

The Ancestral Footstep.

187

piqued, " in a country where the rules
of conventionalism are somewhat re-
laxed ; where woman, whatever you may
think, is far more profoundly educated
than in England, where a few ill-taught
accomplishments, a little geography, a
catechism of science make up the sum,
under the superintendence of a govern-
ess ; the mind being kept entirely inert
as to any capacity for thought. They
are cowards, except within certain rules
and forms ; they spend a life of old
proprieties, and die, and if their souls
do not die with them, it is Heaven's
mercy."

Alice did not appear in the least
moved to anger, though considerably to
mirth, by this description of the char-
acter of English females. She laughed
as she replied, " I see there is little
danger of your leaving your heart in
England." She added more seriously,
" And permit me to say, I trust, Mr.
Middleton. that you remain as much
American in other respects as in your
preference of your own race of women.
The American who comes hither and
persuades himself that he is one with
Englishmen, it seems to me, makes a
great mistake ; at least, if he is correct
in such an idea he is not worthy of his
own country, and the high development
that awaits it. There is much that is
seductive in our life, but I think it is
not upon the higher impulses of our na-
ture that such seductions act. I should
think ill of the American who, for any
causes of ambition, — any hope of wealth
or rank, — or even for the sake of any
of those old, delightful ideas of the past,
the associations of ancestry, the loveli-
ness of an age-long home, — the old
poetry and romance that haunt these
ancient villages and estates of England,
— would give up the chance of acting
upon the unmoulded future of America."

" And you, an Englishwoman, speak
thus ! " exclaimed Middleton. " You
perhaps speak truly ; and it may be
that your words go to a point where

they are especially applicable at this
moment. But where have you learned
these ideas ? And how is it that you
know how to awake these sympathies,
that have slept perhaps too long ? "

" Think only if what I have said be
truth," replied Alice. " It is no matter
who or what I am that speak it."

" Do you speak," asked Middleton,
from a sudden impulse, " with any se-
cret knowledge affecting a matter now
in my mind ? "

Alice shook her head, as she turned
away ; but Middleton could not deter-
mine whether the gesture was meant as
a negative to his question, or merely as
declining to answer it. She left him ;
and he found himself strangely disturbed
with thoughts of his own country, of the
life that he ought to be leading there,
the struggles in which he ought to be
taking part; and, with these motives
in his impressible mind, the motives
that had hitherto kept him in England
seemed unworthy to influence him.

May 15th, Saturday. It was not
long after Middleton's meeting with
Mr. Eldredge in the park of Smithells,
that he received — what it is precisely
the most common thing to receive — an
invitation to dine at the manor-house
and spend the night. The note was
written with much appearance of cordi-
ality, as well as in a respectful style ;
and Middleton could not but perceive
that Mr. Eldredge must have been mak-
ing some inquiries as to his social status,
in order to feel him justified in put-
ting him on this footing of equality.
He had no hesitation in accepting the
invitation, and on the appointed day was
received in the old house of his forefa-
thers as a guest. The owner met him,
not quite on the frank and friendly
footing expressed in his note, but still
with a perfect and polished courtesy,
which however could not hide from the
sensitive Middleton a certain coldness,
a something that seemed to him Ital-
ian rather than English ; a symbol of a

188

The Ancestral Footstep.

[February,

condition of things between them, unde-
cided, suspicious, doubtful very likely.
Middletou's own manner corresponded
to that of his host, and they made few
advances towards more intimate ac-
quaintance. Middleton was however
recompensed for his host's unapproach-
ableness by the society of his daughter,
a young lady born indeed in Italy, but
who had been educated in a Catholic
family in England ; so that here was an-
other relation — • the first female one —
to whom he had been introduced. She
was a quiet, shy, undemonstrative young
woman, with a fine bloom and other
charms which she kept as much in the
background as possible, with maiden
reserve. (There is a Catholic priest at
table.)

Mr. Eldredge talked chiefly, during
dinner, of art, with which his long resi-
dence in Italy had made him thoroughly
acquainted, and for which he seemed to
have a genuine taste and enjoyment.
It was a subject on which Middleton
knew little ; but he felt the interest in it
which appears to be not uncharacteristic
of Americans, among the earliest of
their developments of cultivation ; nor
had he failed to use such few opportu-
nities as the English public or private
galleries offered him to acquire the rudi-
ments of a taste. He was surprised at
the depth of some of Mr. Eldredge's re-
marks on the topics thus brought up,
and at the sensibility which appeared to
be disclosed by his delicate appreciation
of some of the excellences of those
great masters who wrote their epics,
their tender sonnets, or their simple
ballads, upon canvas ; and Middleton
conceived a respect for him which he
had not hitherto felt, and which possi-
bly Mr. Eldredge did not quite deserve.
Taste seems to be a department of mor-
al sense ; and yet it is so little identical
with it, and so little implies conscience,
that some of the worst men in the
world have been the most refined.

After Miss Eldredge had retired, the

host appeared to desire to make the
dinner a little more social than it had
hitherto been ; he called for a peculiar
species of wine from Southern Italy,
which he said was the most delicious
production of the grape, and had very
seldom, if ever before been imported
pure into England. A delicious per-
fume came from the cradled bottle, and
bore an ethereal, evanescent testimony
to the truth of what he said : and the
taste, though too delicate for wine
quaffed in England, was nevertheless
delicious, when minutely dwelt upon.

" It gives me pleasure to drink your
health, Mr. Middleton," said the host
" We might well meet as friends in
England, for I am hardly more an Eng-
lishman than yourself; bred up, as I
have been, in Italy, and coming back
hither at my age, unaccustomed to the
manners of the country, with few friends,
and insulated from society by a faith
which makes most people regard me as
an enemy. I seldom welcome people
here, Mr. Middleton ; but you are wel-
come."

" I thank you, Mr. Eldredge, and
may fairly say that the circumstances to
which you allude make me accept your
hospitality with a warmer feeling than
I otherwise might. Strangers, meeting
in a strange land, have a sort of tie in
their foreignness to those around them,
though there be no positive relation be-
tween themselves."

" We are friends, then ? " said Mr.
Eldredge, looking keenly at Middleton,
as if to discover exactly how much was
meant by the compact. He continued,
" You know, I suppose, Mr. Middletou,
the situation in which I find myself on'
returning to my hereditary estate, which
has devolved to me somewhat unexpect-
edly by the death of a younger man
than myself. There is an old flaw here
as perhaps you have been told, which
keeps me out of a property long kept in
the guardianship of the crown, and of a
barony, one of the oldest in England.

1883.]

The Ancestral Footstep.

189

There is an idea — a tradition — a le-
gend, founded, however, on evidence of
some weight, that there is still in exist-
ence the possibility of finding the proof
which we need, to confirm our cause."

" I am most happy to hear it, Mr. El-
dredge," said Middleton.

" But," continued his host, " I am
bound to remember and to consider
that for several generations there seems
to have been the same idea, and the
same expectation ; whereas nothing has
ever come of it. Now, among other
suppositions — perhaps wild ones — it
has occurred to me that this testimony,
the desirable proof, may exist on your
side of the Atlantic ; for it has long
enough been sought here in vain."

" As I said in our meeting in your
park, Mr. Eldredge," replied Middleton,
" such a suggestion may very possibly
be true ; yet let me point out that the
long lapse of years, and the continual
melting and dissolving of family insti-
tutions — the consequent scattering of
family documents, and the annihilation
of traditions from memory, all conspire
against its probability."

" And yet, Mr. Middleton," said his
host, " when we talked together at our
first singular interview, you made use
of an expression — of one remarkable
phrase — which dwelt upon my memory
and now recurs to it."

" And what was that, Mr. Eldredge ? "
asked Middleton.

" You spoke," replied his host, " of
the Bloody Footstep reappearing on the

threshold of the old palace of S .

Now where, let me ask you, did you
ever hear this strange name, which you
then spoke, and which I have since
spoken ? "

" From my father's lips, when a child,
in America," responded Middleton.

"It is very strange," said Mr. El-
dredge, in a hasty, dissatisfied tone. " I
do not see my way through this."

May 16th, Sunday. Middleton had
been put into a chamber in the oldest

part of the house, the furniture of which
was of antique splendor, well befitting
to have come down for ages, well befit-
ting the hospitality shown to noble and
even royal guests. It was the same
room in which, at his first visit to the
house, Middleton's attention had been
drawn to the cabinet, which he had sub-
sequently remembered as the palatial
residence in which he had harbored so
many dreams. • It still stood in the
chamber, making the principal object
in it, indeed ; and when Middleton was
left alone, he contemplated it not with-
out a certain awe, which at the same
time he felt to be ridiculous. He ad-
vanced towards it, and stood contemplat-
ing the mimic facade, wondering at the
singular fact of this piece of furniture
having been preserved in traditionary
history, when so much had been forgot-
ten, — when even the features and archi-
tectural characteristics of the mansion
in which it was merely a piece of furni-
ture had been forgotten. And, as he
gazed at it, he half thought himself an
actor in a fairy portal [tale ?] ; and
would not have been surprised — at
least, he would have taken it with the
composure of a dream — if the mimic
portal had unclosed, and a form of pig-
my majesty had appeared within, beck-
oning him to enter and find the rev-
elation of what had so long perplexed
him. The key of the cabinet was in
the lock, and knowing that it was not
now the receptacle of anything in the
shape of family papers, he threw it
open ; and there appeared the mosaic
floor, the representation of a stately,
pillared hall, with the doors on either
side, opening, as would seem, into vari-
ous apartments. And here should have
stood the visionary figures of his ances-
try, waiting to welcome the descendant
of their race, who had so long delayed
his coming. After looking and musing
a considerable time, — even till the old
clock from the turret of the house told
twelve, he turned away with a sigh, and

190

The Ancestral Footstep.

[February,

went to bed. The wind moaned through
the ancestral trees ; the old house
creaked as with ghostly footsteps ; the
curtains of his bed seemed to waver.
He was now at home ; yes, he had
found his home, and was sheltered at
last under the ancestral roof, after all
those long, long wanderings, — after the
little log-built hut of the early settle-
ment, after the straight roof of the
American house, after all the many
roofs of two hundred years, here he was
at last under the one which he had left,
on that fatal night, when the Bloody
Footstep was so mysteriously impressed
on the threshold. As he drew nearer
and nearer towards sleep, it seemed
more and more to him as if he were
the very individual — the self-same one
throughout the whole — who had done,
seen, suffered, all these long toils and
vicissitudes, and were now come back
to rest, and found his weariness so great
that there could be no rest.

Nevertheless, he did sleep ; and it
may be that his dreams went on, and
grew vivid, and perhaps became truer
in proportion to their vividness. When
he awoke he had a perception, an intui-
tion, that he had been dreaming about
the cabinet, which, in his sleeping im-
agination, had again assumed the mag-
nitude and proportions of a stately man-
sion, even as he had seen it afar from
the other side of the Atlantic. Some
dim associations remained lingering be-
hind, the dying shadows of very vivid
ones which had just filled his mind ; but
as he looked at the cabinet, there was
some idea that still seemed to come so
near his consciousness that, every mo-
ment, he felt on the point of grasping
it. During the process of dressing, he
still kept his eyes turned involuntarily
towards the cabinet, and at last he ap-
proached it, and looked within the mimio
portal, still endeavoring to recollect
what it was that he had heard or dreamed
about it, — what half obliterated re-
membrance from childhood, what frag-

mentary last night's dream it was, that
thus haunted him. It must have been
some association of one or the other na-
ture that led him to press his finger on
one particular square of the mosaic pave-
ment ; and as he did so, the thin plate
of polished marble slipt aside. It dis-
closed, indeed, no hollow receptacle, but
only another leaf of marble, in the midst
of which appeared to be a key-hole : to
this Middleton applied the little antique
key to which we have several times al-
luded, and found it fit precisely. The
instant it was turned, the whole mimic
floor of the hall rose, by the action of a
secret spring, and discovered a shallow
recess beneath. Middleton looked eager-
ly in, and saw that it contained docu-
ments, with antique seals of wax ap-
pended ; he took but one glance at them,
and closed the receptacle as it was be-
fore.

Why did he do so? He felt that
there would be a meanness and wrong
in inspecting these family papers, com-
ing to the knowledge of them, as he had,
through the opportunities offered by the
hospitality of the owner of the estate ;
nor, on the other hand, did he feel such
confidence in his host, as to make him
willing to trust these papers in his hands,
with any certainty that they would be
put to an honorable use. The case was
one demanding consideration, and he
put a strong curb upon his impatient
curiosity, conscious that, at all events,
his first impulsive feeling was that he
ought not to examine these papers with-
out the presence of his host or some
other authorized witness. Had he ex-
ercised any casuistry about the point,
however, he might have argued that
these papers, according to all appear-
ance, dated from a period to which his
own hereditary claims ascended, and to
circumstances in which his own rightful
interest was as strong as that of Mr.
Eldredge. But he had acted on his
first impulse, closed the secret recepta-
cle, and hastening his toilet descended

1883.]

The Ancestral Footstep.

191

from his room ; and, it being still too
early for breakfast, resolved to ramble
about the immediate vicinity of the
house. As he passed the little chapel,
he heard within the voice of the priest
performing mass, and felt how strange
was this sign of mediaeval religion and
foreign manners in homely England.

As the story looks now : Eldredge,
bred, and perhaps born, in Italy, and a
Catholic, with views to the church be-
fore he inherited the estate, has not the
English moral sense and simple honor ;
can scarcely be called an Englishman at
all. Dark suspicions of past crime, and
of the possibility of future crime, may
be thrown around him ; an atmosphere
of doubt shall envelop him, though, as
regards manners, he may be highly re-
fined. Middleton shall find in the house
a priest ; and at his first visit he shall
have seen a small chapel, adorned with
the richness, as to marbles, pictures, and
frescoes, of those that we see in the
churches at Rome ; and here the Catho-
lic forms of worship shall be kept up.
Eldredge shall have had an Italian
mother, and shall have the personal
characteristics of an Italian. There
shall be something sinister about him,
the more apparent when Middleton's
visit draws to a conclusion ; and the lat-
ter shall feel convinced that they part
in enmity, so far as Eldredge is con-
cerned. He shall not speak of his dis-
covery in the cabinet.

May 17th, Monday. Unquestiona-
bly, the appointment of Middleton as
minister to one of the minor Continental
courts must take place in the interval
between Eldredge's meeting him in the
park, and his inviting him to his house.
After Middleton's appointment, the two
encounter each other at the Mayor's din-
ner in St. Mary's Hall, and Eldredge,
startled at meeting the vagrant, as he
deemed him, under such a character, re-
members the hints of some secret knowl-
edge of the family history, which Mid-
dleton had thrown out. He endeavors,

both in person and by the priest, to
make out what Middleton really is, and
what he knows, and what he intends ;
but Middleton is on his guard, yet can-
not help arousing Eldredge's suspicions
that he has views upon the estate and
title. It is possible, too, that Middleton
may have come to the knowledge — may
have had some knowledge of — some
shameful or criminal fact connected with
Mr. Eldredge's life on the Continent ;
the old Hospitaller, possibly, may have
told him this, from some secret malijmi-

f*. O

ty hereafter to be accounted for. Sup-
posing Eldredge to attempt his murder,
by poison for instance, bringing back
into modern life his old hereditary Ital-
ian plots ; and into English life a sort
of crime which does not belong to it, —
which did not, at least, although at this
very period there have been fresh and
numerous instances of it. There might
be a scene in which Middleton and El-
dredge come to a fierce and bitter ex-
planation ; for in Eldredge's character
there must be the English surly bold-
ness as well as the Italian subtlety ; and
here, Middleton shall tell him what he
knows of his past character and life, and
also what he knows of his own heredi-
tary claims. Eldredge might have com-
mitted a murder in Italy ; might have
been a patriot, and betrayed his friends
to death for a bribe, bearing another
name than his own in Italy ; indeed, he
might have joined them only as an in-
former. All this he had tried to sink,
when he came to England in the char-
acter of a gentleman of ancient name
and large estate. But this infamy of
his previous character must be foreboded
from the first by the manner in which
Eldredge is introduced ; and it must
make his evil designs on Middleton ap-
pear natural and probable. It may be,
that Middleton has learned Eldredge's
previous character, through some Italian
patriot who had taken refuge in Amer-
ica, and there become intimate with him ;
and it should be a piece of secret history,

192

The Ancestral Footstep.

[February,

not known to the world in general, so
that Middleton might seem to Eldredge
the sole depository of the secret then in
England. He feels a necessity of get-
ting rid of him ; and thenceforth Mid-
dleton's path lies always among pitfalls ;
indeed, the first attempt should follow
promptly and immediately on his rup-
ture with Eldredge. The utmost pains
must be taken with this incident to give
it an air of reality ; or else it must be
quite removed out of the sphere of re-
ality by an intensified atmosphere of
romance. I think the old Hospitaller
must interfere to prevent the success of
this attempt, perhaps through the means
of Alice.

The result of Eldredge's criminal and
treacherous designs is, somehow or oth-
er, that he comes to his death ; and Mid-
dleton and Alice are left to administer
on the remains of the story ; perhaps,
the Mayor being his friend, he may be
brought into play here. The foreign
ecclesiastic shall likewise come forward,
and he shall prove to be a man of sub-
tile policy perhaps, yet a man of relig-
ion and honor; with a Jesuit's princi-
ples, but a Jesuit's devotion and self-
sacrifice. The old Hospitaller must die
in his bed, or some other how ; or per-
haps not — we shall see. He may just as
well be left in the Hospital. Eldredge's
attempt on Middletou must be in some
way peculiar to Italy, and which he
shall have learned there ; and, by the
way, at his dinner-table there shall be
a Venice glass, one of the kind that
were supposed to be shattered when
poison was put into them. When El-
dredge produces his rare wine, he shall
pour it into this, with a jesting allusion
to the legend. Perhaps the mode of El-
dredge's attempt on Middleton's life
shall be a reproduction of the attempt
made two hundred years before ; and
Middleton's knowledge of that incident
shall be the means of his salvation.
That would be a good idea ; in fact, I
think it must be done so and no other-

wise. It is not to be forgotten that
there is a taint of insanity in Eldredge's
blood, accounting for much that is wild
and absurd, at the same time that it
must be subtile, in his conduct ; one of
those perplexing mad people, whose lu-
nacy you are continually mistaking for
wickedness or vice versa. This shall be
the priest's explanation and apology for
him, after his death. I wish I could get
hold of the Newgate calendar, the older
volumes, or any other book of murders
— the Causes Celebres, for instance.
The legendary murder, or attempt at it,
will bring its own imaginative probabil-
ity with it, when repeated by Eldredge ;
and at the same time it will have a
dreamlike effect ; so that Middleton
shall hardly know whether he is awake
or not. This incident is very essential
towards bringing together the past time
and the present, and the two ends of
the story.

May 18th, Tuesday. All down through
the ages since Edward had disappeared
from home, leaving that bloody footstep
on the threshold, there had been legends
and strange stories of the murder and
the manner of it. These legends dif-
fered very much among themselves. Ac-
cording to some, his brother had await-
ed him there, and stabbed him on the
threshold. According to others, he had
been murdered in \\\s chamber, and
dragged out. A third story told, that
he was escaping with his lady love,
when they were overtaken on the thresh-
old, and the young man slain. It was
impossible at this distance of time to as-
certain which of these legends was the
true one, or whether either of them had
any portion of truth, further than that
the young man had actually disappeared
from that night, and that it never was
certainly known to the public that any
intelligence had ever afterwards been
received from him. Now, Middleton
may have communicated to Eldredge
the truth in regard to the matter ; as,
for instance, that he had stabbed him

1883.]

The Ancestral Footstep.

193

with a certain dagger that was still kept
among the curiosities of the manor-
house. Of course, that will not do. It
must be some very ingenious and artifi-
cially natural thing, an artistic affair in
its way, that should strike the fancy of
such a man as Eldredge, and appear to
him altogether fit, mutatis mutandis, to
be applied to his own requirements and
purposes. I do not at present see in
the least how this is to be wrought out.
There shall be everything to make El-
dredge look with the utmost horror and
alarm at any chance that he may be su-
perseded and ousted from his possession
of the estate ; for he shall only recent-
ly have established his claim to it, trac-
ing out his pedigree, when the family
was supposed to be extinct. And he is
come to these comfortable quarters after
a life of poverty, uncertainty, difficulty,
hanging loose on society ; and therefore
he shall be willing to risk soul and body
both, rather than return to his former
state. Perhaps his daughter shall be
introduced as a young Italian girl, to
whom Middleton shall decide to leave
the estate.

On the failure of his design, El-
dredge may commit suicide, and be
found dead in the wood ; at any rate,
some suitable end shall be contrived,
adapted to his wants. This character
must not be so represented as to shut
him out completely from the reader's
sympathies ; he shall have taste, senti-
ment, even a capacity for affection, nor,
I think, ought he to have any hatred or
bitter feeling against the man whom he
resolves to murder. In the closing
scenes, when he thinks the fate of Mid-
dleton approaching, there might even be *
a certain tenderness towards him, a de-
'sire to make the last drops of life de-
lightful ; if well done, this would pro-
duce a certain sort of horror, that I do
not remember to have seen effected in
literature. Possibly the ancient emi-
grant might be supposed to have fallen
into an ancient mine, down a precipice,

YOL. LI. — NO. 304. 13

into some pitfall; no, not so. Into a
river ; into a moat. As Middleton's
pretensions to birth are not publicly
known, there will be no reason why, at
his sudden death, suspicion should fix
on Eldredge as the murderer; and it
shall be his object so to contrive his
death as that it shall appear the result
of accident. Having failed in effecting
Middleton's death by this excellent way,
he shall perhaps think that he cannot
do better than to make his own exit in
precisely the same manner. It might
be easy, and as delightful as any death
could be ; no ugliness in it, no blood ;
for the Bloody Footstep of old times
might be the result of the failure of
the old plot, not of its success. Poi-
son seems to be the only elegant meth-
od ; but poison is vulgar, and in many
respects unfit for my purpose. It won't
do. ' Whatever it may be, it must
not come upon the reader as a sudden
and new thing, but as one that might
have been foreseen from afar, though
he shall not actually have foreseen it un-
til it is about to happen. It must be
prevented through the agency of Alice.
Alice may have been an artist in Rome,
and there have known Eldredge and his
daughter, and thus she may have become
their guest in England ; or he may be
patronizing her now — at all events she
shall be the friend of the daughter, and
shall have a just appreciation of the
father's character. It shall be partly
due to her high counsel that Middleton
foregoes his claim to the estate, and pre-
fers the life of an American, with its
lofty possibilities for himself and his
race, to the position of an Englishman
of property and title ; and she, for her
part, shall choose the condition and
prospects of woman in America, to the
emptiness of the life of a woman of
rank in England. So they shall depart,
lofty and poor, out of the home which
might be their own, if they would stoop
to make it so. Possibly the daughter
of Eldredge may be a girl not yet in

194

The Ancestral Footstep.

[February,

her teens, for whom Alice has the affec-
tion of an elder sister.

It should be a very carefully and
highly wrought scene, occurring just be-
fore Eldredge's actual attempt on Mid-
dleton's life, in which all the brilliancy
of his character — which shall before
have gleamed upon the reader — shall
come out, with pathos, with wit, with
insight, with knowledge of life. Mid-
dleton shall be inspired by this, and
shall vie with him in exhilaration of
spirits ; but the ecclesiastic shall look
on with singular attention, and some ap-
pearance of alarm ; and the suspicion of
Alice shall likewise be aroused. The
old Hospitaller may have gained his sit-
uation partly by proving himself a man
of the neighborhood, by right of de-
scent ; so that he, too, shall have a he-
reditary claim to be in the Romance.

Eldredge's own position as a foreign-
er in the midst of English home life,
insulated and dreary, shall represent to
Middleton, in some degree, what his
own would be, were he to accept the
estate. But Middleton shall not come
to the decision to resign it, without hav-
ing to repress a deep yearning for that
sense of long, long rest in an age-con-
secrated home, which he had felt so
deeply to be the happy lot of English-
men. But this ought to be rejected, as
not belonging to his country, nor to the
age, nor any longer possible.

May 19th, Wednesday. The con-
nection of the old Hospitaller with the
story is not at all clear. He is an
American by birth, but deriving his
English origin from the neighborhood
of the Hospital, where he has finally es-
tablished himself. Some one of his an-
cestors may have been somehow con-
nected with the ancient portion of the
story. He has been a friend of Mid-
dleton's father, who reposed entire con-
fidence in him, trusting him with all his
fortune, which the Hospitaller risked in
his enormous speculations, and lost it
all. His_fagD3_had been great in the

financial world. There were circum-
stances that made it dangerous for his
whereabouts to be known, and so he
had come hither and found refuge in
this institution, where Middleton finds
him, but does not know who he is. In
the vacancy of a mind formerly so ac-
tive, he has taken to the study of local
antiquities ; and from his former inti-
macy with Middleton's father, he has a
knowledge of the American part of the
story, which he connects with the Eng-
lish portion, disclosed by his researches
here ; so that he is quite aware that
Middleton has claims to the estate, which
might be urged successfully against the
present possessor. He is kindly dis-
posed towards the son of his friend,
whom he had so greatly injured ; but
he is now very old, and . Middle-
ton has been directed to this old man
by a friend in America, as one likely to
afford him all possible assistance in his
researches'; and so he seeks him out
and forms an acquaintance with him,
which the old man encourages to a cer-
tain extent, taking an evident interest
in him, but does not disclose himself ;
nor does Middleton suspect him to be
an American. The characteristic life
of the Hospital is brought out and the
individual character of this old man,
vegetating here after an active career,
melancholy and miserable ; sometimes
torpid with the slow approach of utmost
age ; sometimes feeble, peevish, waver-
ing ; sometimes shining out with a wis-
dom resulting from originally bright
faculties, ripened by experience. The
character must not be allowed to get
vague, but, with gleams of romance,
/ must yet be kept homely and natural
by little touches of his daily life.

As for Alice, I see no necessity for
her being anywise related to or con-
nected with the old Hospitaller. As
originally conceived, I think she may
be an artist — a sculptress — whom El-
dredge had known in Rome. No ; she
might be a grand-daughter of the old

1883.]

The Ancestral Footstep.

195

Hospitaller, born and bred in America,
but who had resided two or three years
in Rome in the study of her art, and
have there acquired a knowledge of the
Eldred^es and have become fond of the

little Italian girl his daughter. She has
lodgings in the village, and of course is
often at the Hospital, and often at the
Hall ; she makes busts and little statues,
and is free, wild, tender, proud, domes-
tic, strange, natural, artistic ; and has
at bottom the characteristics of the
American woman, with the principles
of the strong-minded sect ; and Middle-
ton shall be continually puzzled at meet-
ing such a phenomenon in England.
By and by, the internal influence [evi-
dence?] of her sentiments (though there
shall be nothing to confirm it in her
manner) shall lead him to charge her
with being an American.

Now, as to the arrangement of the
Romance ; — it begins as an integral
and essential part, with my introduction,
giving a pleasant and familiar summary
of my life in the Consulate at Liver-
pool ; the strange species of Americans,
with strange purposes, in England,
whom I used to meet there ; and, es-
pecially, how my countrymen used to
be put out of their senses by the idea of
inheritances of English property. Then
I shall particularly instance one gentle-
man who called on me on first coming
over ; a description of him must be giv-
en, with touches that shall puzzle the
reader to decide whether it is not an ac-
tual portrait. And then this Romance
shall be offered, half seriously, as the
account of the fortunes that he met with
in his search for his hereditary home.
Enough of his ancestral story may be
given to explain what is to follow in the
Romance ; or perhaps this may be left
to the scenes of his intercourse with the
old Hospitaller.

The Romance proper opens with
Middleton's arrival at what he has rea-
son to think is the neighborhood of his

ancestral home, and here he makes ap-
plication to the old Hospitaller. Mid-
dleton shall be described as approaching
the Hospital, which shall be pretty lit-
erally copied after Leicester's, although
the surrounding village must be on a
much smaller scale of course. Much
elaborateness may be given to this por-
tion of the book. Middleton shall have
assumed a plain dress, and shall seek to
make no acquaintances except that of
the old Hospitaller ; the acquaintance
of Alice naturally following. The old
Hospitaller and he go together to the
old Hall, where, as they pass through
the rooms, they find that the proprietor
is flitting like a ghost before them from
chamber to chamber ; they catch his re-
flection in a glass &c., &c. When these
have been wrought up sufficiently, shall
come the scene in the wood, where El-
dredge is seen yielding to the supersti-
tion that he has inherited, respecting the
old secret of the family, on the discov-
ery of which depends the enforcement
of his claim to a title. All this while,
Middleton has appeared in the character
of a man of no note ; and now, through
some political change, not necessarily
told, he receives a packet addressed to
him as an ambassador, and containing a
notice of his appointment to that dignity.
A paragraph in the Times confirms the
fact, and makes it known in the neigh-
borhood. Middleton immediately be-
comes an object of attention ; the gentry
call upon him ; the Mayor of the neigh-
boring county -town invites him to din-
ner, which shall be described with all its
antique formalities. Here he meets El-
dredge, who is surprised, remembering
the encounter in the wood ; but passes
it all off, like a man of the world, makes
his acquaintance, and invites him to the
Hall. Perhaps he may make a visit of
some time here, and become intimate,
to a certain degree, with all parties;
and here things shall ripen themselves
for Eldredge's attempt upon his life.
Nathaniel Hawthorne.

196 Lityerses and the Reapers. [February,

LITYERSES AND THE REAPERS.

"Inverses, the king of Phrygia, used to make strangers try a contest with him in reaping corn,
and to put them to death if he overcame them."

Tis the field of Lityerses: ripe and high the harvest stands;
Sickles gleam, like summer lightnings, all about the sunny lands.
'T is the field of Lityerses : he, a harvest-lord austere,
Gathers whom he will for reapers, bringing them from far and near ;
Though it be the chief of legions, or descent of princes great,
Wealthy merchant, speeding herald, none shall pass his palace gate.
Forth he comes, with churlish greeting, bids the traveler haste afield ;
Though his hand be strange and skilless, he a reaping-hook must wield,
From the morn until the shadow thrusting in the swarthy grain,
Where the keen cicada, whirring, stings with sound his dizzy brain.
Hears he not, above the clamor, what the hollow south wind saith ?
Strive no longer, yield the contest, — this swift sicklemau is Death !

Reapers, what shall be the anthem, as the swath before us falls,
While in air the vision beckons of our native towers and halls ?
Reapers, what shall be the banquet, where no harvest-home is spread ?
We shall feed on endless slumber, with this alien ground our bed !
Through the sickle falls the poppy, — glowing flower and drooping bud
Fall, and scatter down the furrow, like the spilth of crimson blood :
So shall life be shorn and scattered ere the star that crowns the eve ;
They shall shudder at the harvest who shall come to bind and sheave,
One by one our faces scanning by the gleams of western sky ;
Each, in passing, payeth tribute from a moist and piteous eye. . . .
Know ye not who reaps beside us? Feel ye not his panting breath?
Brother reapers, vain our toiling, — this swift sicklemau is Death !

Lately, came Sicilian Daphnis, leaving flock and fold behind ;
Shepherd of the sheltered valley, — he to dare the wave and wind !
Love and wrong his heart have girded with a strength unknown before ;
On the robber's track he follows, hither, to this fateful shore ;
Comes he to the robber's fastness, where the maiden lies in thrall ;
Vain the gifts he bears for ransom, vain on praying knees to fall !
Lityerses brings a sickle : Reap, O guest, with me, to-day ;
If thou conquer, take the maiden ; if thou'rt conquered, thee I slay ! . . .
Never, thou poor, cheated Daphnis, never shalt thou set her free ;
Never, with thy prize, beat homeward through the high exultant sea.
Even now the sun is sinking, now the shadow lengtheneth ;
Woe to us and thee, O Shepherd, — this swift sickleman is Death!

Edith M. Thomas

1883.] •

The Story of Joseph Lesurques.

197

THE STORY OF JOSEPH LESURQUES.

IN the cemetery of Pere La Chaise,
not far from the tomb of Abelard and
Heloise, stands a plain white marble
monument a perpetuite, bearing an in-
scription calculated to arrest the atten-
tion of the most careless observer.

It runs as follows : —

A LA MtiMOIRK DE

JOSEPH LESURQUES,

VICTIMS DE LA PLUS DEPLORABLE
DBS ERKEURS HUMAINS,

31 Octobre, 1796,

SA VEUVE ET SES ENFANTS.

JIARTYBS TOUS DEUX SUR LA TERRE

TOUS DEUX SONT R^UNIS AU CIEL.

The judicial blunder which sent Le-
surques to the scaffold grew out of his
fatal resemblance to a villain named
Dubosc. It is famous in the annals of
French jurisprudence, and is celebrat-
ed in one of the most popular, power-
ful, and exciting dramas on the French
stage.

Joseph Lesurques was born at Douai,
of respectable parents. He entered the
army at an early age, and served in the
Auvergne regiment until 1789, when
he was honorably discharged, and soon
after married and settled in Douai.

Pie acquired a small fortune during
the Revolution by lucky speculations,
and removed with his family to Paris
late in 1795, where he took up his abode
with his cousin, Andre Lesurques, pend-
ing repairs on the house that he had
hired. He was still living with this
Andre when the crime was committed
for which he suffered.

On the morning of the 9th Floreal,
an IV. (28th April, 1796), some peas-
ants found the mail-coach that ran be-
tween Paris and Lyons abandoned in
the woods, near the hamlet of Lieur-
saint, a few leagues distant from Paris.
One of the horses was missing ; the
other was still harnessed to the vehi-
cle. Near by, among a mass of papers

smeared with blood, lay the dead body
of the postilion, and a little further on
that of the courier ; both disfigured by.
dreadful wounds, that, together with the
trampled grass, gave evidence of a des-
perate struggle. The peasants imme-
diately alarmed the neighborhood, and
summoned the proper officers, who pro-
ceeded to an investigation.

A few steps from the victims they
found several articles that had evidently
belonged to the murderers, namely, a
great-coat with a narrow dark-blue bor-
der, a broken sabre with its sheath, the
sheath of a large knife, another sabre
sheath, and a plated spur with chain
attached, which had been broken, and
mended by means of a bit of large cord.
The blade of the sabre was red with
blood, and bore the legend,

" L'honnetir me conduit,
Pour le salut de ina patrie,"

a strange sentiment for a highwayman
to carry about him.

The time of the murder, as nearly as
could be ascertained, was nine o'clock of
the night before. The courier's papers
showed that on setting out he had had
in his possession ten thousand francs in
coin and several millions in assignats,
all of which were missing.

An inquest was next held, when it ap-
peared, from the testimony of several
witnesses, that four men on horseback
had been along the road, on the after-
noon of the 27th of April, as far as Lieur-
saint, but not beyond; and that these
same men, in company with a fifth horse-
man, had returned towards Paris in the
night. It also appeared that the coach
had carried but one passenger, a man
wrapped in " a great-coat with a narrow
dark border," who had taken his seat be-
side the courier at Paris. This man was
nowhere to be found. He was clearly
an accomplice, who had made good his

198

The Story of Joseph Lesurques.

[February,

escape on the missing horse, and was
the " fifth horseman " of the witnesses.
A bloody sabre was produced that had
been picked up on the road near Melun.
It fitted exactly the odd sheath found
at the scene of the murder. Finally,
the volunteer who had mounted guard in
Paris at the Barriere de Rambouillet,
between four and five o'clock, on the
'morning of the 28th of April, testified
to the entrance into the city, at about
that time, of five horsemen, riding at full
speed, upon horses reeking with sweat
and almost spent.

The police now took the matter in
hand. After securing the missing post-
horse, which was found astray in Paris,
near the Place Royale, they proceeded
to look up the other four. They soon
discovered that at about five o'clock, on
the morning of the 28th of April, a man
named Courriol had left at a certain
tavern in Paris four foaming horses,
which he and another man had taken
away again at seven o'clock ; that this
Courriol had lodged in the Rue de Petit
Reposoir before the 27th of April, but
had not slept in his lodgings on the
night of the murder, or returned to them
since ; that from the 28th of April to
the 6th of May he had lodged with his
mistress in the Rue de la Boucherie, at
the house of one Richard; and, in fine,
that on the 6th of May the two had
taken out passports for Troyes, and left
the city together in a post-chaise. The
fugitives were traced to the house of a
man named Golier, in Chateau Thierry.
The police found there also a citizen of
Douai, named Guesno, who had arrived
a few hours previously from Paris, where
he too had lodged with Richard. This
Richard, it should be remarked, had for-
merly resided in Douai. Guesno and
Golier were arrested, as well as Cour-
riol and his mistress, and all four were
taken to the capital.

As about one fifth of the stolen prop-
erty was recovered from Courriol, he
was at once committed for trial ; but
* •

Guesno and Golier easily convinced the
magistrate, Daubanton, of their inno-
cence, and were discharged from cus-
tody. Guesno was told to call the next
day and get his papers, which had been
seized in his room at Richard's.

Now Guesno was well acquainted
with Joseph Lesurques, and happening
to fall in with him the morning after
his release, while on the way to Dau-
banton's office, he very naturally regaled
his friend with the story of his late un-
pleasant experience. Lesurques no less
naturally evinced great interest in Gues-
no's recital, accompanied him to his
place of destination, and readily con-
sented to go in with him and see the end
of the matter. They accordingly passed
into the magistrate's office, and seated
themselves in the ante-room, which was
full of country people, witnesses in
Courriol's case. Two of the women
present eyed them curiously and closely,
and kept up a brisk whispered conver-
sation until summoned to Daubanton.
Guesno and Lesurques little thought
what was the tenor of that conversation,
although they perceived that it had ref-
erence to them.

The door of the magistrate's private
room had scarcely closed upon the wom-
en when it suddenly opened again, and
an officer appeared on the threshold and
called the two friends in. On their en-
trance, Daubanton bade them be seated,
and asked them a few trivial questions
in presence of the two women, who now
scrutinized them even more attentively
than before. They were then request-
ed to withdraw, but had hardly recov-
ered from their astonishment at this
strange proceeding ere they were again
summoned, and informed that they were
positively identified by the women as
two of the four horsemen who had been
seen hanging about the neighborhood of
Lieursaint on the day of the robbery of
the Lyons mail, and must consider them-
selves under arrest. They were next
ordered to produce their papers. Le-

1883.]

The Story of Joseph Lesurques.

199

surques, unluckily, had never taken the
trouble to provide himself with a carte
de surete, and, more unluckily still he
had in his pocket two cartes, one bear-
ing the name of his cousin Andre and
the other blank.

The case was set for trial at Melun,
early in July ; but just as it was about
to begin, the accused exercised their
right of removal, and it was referred to
the criminal court at Paris, presided
over by Jerome Gohier, conspicuous,
three years later, as a member of the
Directory. The accused were now six
in number ; namely, Courriol, Richard,
Guesno, Lesurques, Bernard, and Bru-
er. Richard had been arrested befoi-e
the memorable visit of Lesurques and
Guesno to Daubanton's office.

The trial began on the 2d of August.
Ten witnesses living on the Lyons road
testified against Lesurques, and swore
that they recognized in him a tall, light-
complexioned man, who had been a no-
table figure in the little cavalcade of
the 28th of April. Seven of these ten
positively and unhesitatingly recognized
Lesurques ; the other three qualified
their recognition somewhat, and said
that they believed him to be the man
whom they had seen in the party. Two,
an innkeeper and his wife, swore that
Lesurques had mended his spur at their
house with a piece of cord, which they
identified as the spur and string found
near the dead bodies of the courier and
postilion. A third declared that he had
dined at Montgeron in the same room
with the four highwaymen, and that
Lesurques was one of the four, and wore
long boots, with spurs like the one shown
in court.

The examination of Lesurques is in-
teresting as showing the theory of the
prosecution. Much abbreviated, it is in
substance as follows : —

Q. Where did you sleep on the night
of the 8th Floreal ?

12. At home ; that is to say, at my
cousin's, Andre" Lesurques's.

Q. Are you sure? It seems to be
pretty well ascertained that you did
not.

R. I am sure. I had not slept out
of the house a single night for several
months.

Q. Why did you go with Guesno to
M. Daubanton's office ?

R. Simply to accompany my friend,
M. Guesno.

Q, Did you not go in behalf of Ri-
chard and Courriol ?

JR. No, I did not go in anybody's be-
half, and I have no acquaintance with
Courriol.

Q. How do you account for the fact
that these witnesses identify you as one
of the four horsemen ?

R. Granting their testimony to be
honest, I can only account for it on the
ground that I bear a strong resemblance
to one of the four.

Q. How does it happen that you
have no carte de surete, but carry your
cousin's and a blank one ?

R. I have never provided myself
with a carte de surete", because I am a
peaceable and law-abiding citizen, with
plenty of friends, and have not had par-
ticular occasion to use one. Any man
of decent reputation can get one at any
time. My cousin's carte happened to
be lying on my mantel-piece, and when
I went out I picked it up and put it in
my pocket, for safe-keeping. The blank
carte was one of several odd scraps of
paper that I happened to have about
me, and as it bears no seal is worthless
for any criminal purpose. Of course, if
I were guilty, I should not lack plausi-
ble papers.

Q. What kind of spurs are you in
the habit of using?

R. I have not used any spurs for
more than a year. Those that I own
are old-fashioned ones, and not like the
spurs used nowadays.

Lesurques's defense outside of testi-

200

The Story of Joseph Lesurques.

[February,

mony to his good reputation, with which
he was well provided, was of course an
alibi. He brought fifteen witnesses to
prove his presence in Paris on the 8th
Floreal.

Eight of these were persons with
whom he had had dealings on the day
in question ; four, Legrand, Aldenhof,
Ledru, and Baudard, were personal
friends ; and his own wife and his cousin
Andre and wife complete the list. Le-
grand and Aldenhof were jewelers ; Le-
dru and Baudard, artists. All four were
well acquainted with each other, as well
as with Lesurques. Aldenhof and Le-
dru were both from Douai, and acquaint-
ed with Guesno. By these last seven
witnesses alone Lesurques very reason-
ably expected to prove his case to the
court beyond the shadow of a doubt.
His doings on the 8th Floreal, as gath-
ered from their evidence, were briefly
as follows : —

He passed a part of the morning at
Legrand's shop, in the Palais Royal,
where he met Aldenhof, and took him
home to dine with him. Arrived at the
house, they found Ledru. All three
dined together, and then went out to
walk. Met Guesno on the Boulevard des
Italiens at about half past six and re-
turned to the house at about half past
seven. Soon thereafter Baudard ap-
peared. Then they separated, and Le-
surques passed the evening and the night
at home.

Legrand was the first witness called
for the defense. He testified that Le-
surques had passed part of the morning
of the 8th Floreal in his shop. When
asked what made him remember this
fact so distinctly he replied that while
Lesurques was there, Aldenhof had come
in, and had bought a soup ladle and
sold him a pair of ear-rings ; and that
he was confident that this transaction
took place on the 8th Floreal. In proof
of the correctness of this statement he
appealed to his books, and unfortunate-
ly laid great stress upon the entry made

at the time. He was told to produce
the book containing the original entry,
and accordingly passed it up to Gohier.
On looking at the page indicated, the
latter started with surprise, and ex-
claimed, " This is a gross attempt to de-
feat the ends of justice ! This date has
been tampered with. Arrest the wit-
ness."

Guinier, Lesurques's counsel, and Le-
grand were thunderstruck. They seized
the book, when it was handed back to
them, and eagerly examined the date.
Unquestionably there were two figures
there, one over the other, but, as Guinier
afterwards argued, so clearly manifest
as to disprove at once all probability of
criminal intent.

Legrand, still under arrest, continued
his testimony ; but the court, proceeding
after the French fashion, inspired him
with such terror that he became very
much confused, and contradicted himself
in such a way as hopelessly to damage
Lesurques in the eyes of the court.

Gohier henceforth conducted the trial
as if he were assured of his guilt, in-
timidating the witnesses, and sparing no
pains to create an unfavorable opinion
of them and of their testimony in the
minds of the jury. His efforts were
completely successful.

Courriol, Bernard, and Lesurques
were pronounced guilty of highway rob-
bery and murder. Richard was found
guilty of receiving stolen property.
Guesno and Bruer were acquitted.

Lesurques turned pale with horror
when he heard the unexpected verdict,
and raised his hands as if in depreca-
tion. Then, conquering his emotion, he
stood up, and with the calmness and dig-
nity that characterized his bearing to
the end said, " Unquestionably the crime
of which I am accused is a terrible
one, and deserves to be punished with
death ; but if murder on the highway is
a crime, the abuse of law to strike an
innocent man is no less criminal. The
day will come when my innocence shall

1883.]

The Story of Joseph Lesurques.

201

be established ; then my blood be on
the heads of the jurors who have con-
victed me without due reflection, and on
the judge who has influenced them to
do so."

Courriol now made his first effort to
save Lesurques. He rose from his seat,
and cried out, " Lesurques and Bernard
are innocent ! Bernard only lent the
horses. Lesurques had nothing to do
with the matter." These remonstrances
of course, availed nothing. Lesurques,
Courriol, and Bernard were condemned
to death ; Richard to twenty-four years'
imprisonment. The property, real and
personal, of all four was confiscated.

Courriol had two interviews with the
authorities, in the hope of saving Le-
surques. He gave the names of his ac-
complices as Durochat, Vidal, Dubosc,
and Roussy. He said that Durochat,
under an assumed name, had taken his
place on the coach beside the courier,
and that the rest of them had met at the
Barriere de Charenton, and proceeded
on horseback to Lieursaint, dining on
the way at Montgeron ; and declared
that the spur found on the ground be-
longed to Dubosc, who resembled Le-
surques, and was confounded with him
by the witnesses. He appealed to his
mistress in oorroboration of his state-
ments as to the resemblance between
Dubosc and Lesurques.

She affirmed that there was a strong

likeness between them, which was much
heightened by a blond wig worn by Du-
bosc on the day of the murder, and con-
firmed all the other particulars given by
Courriol, so far as she was acquainted
with them.

i These developments incited Lesurques
and his friends to renewed exertions,
and they succeeded in bringing the case
to the notice of the Directory. The
Directory referred it to the Council of
Five Hundred, and the Council referred
it to a committee.

But all was in vain. The committee
reported adversely to Lesurques, and

nothing now was left for him to do but
to prepare for death. He took leave of
his wife and children the day before his
execution, and on the evening of the
same day cut off his hair with his own
hands, and inclosed it in a packet for his
wife, which he touchingly addressed,
" A la citoyenne Veuve Lesurques." At
the same time, he again bade her fare-
well in the following pathetic lines : —

" When you read this letter I shall
be no more ; the cruel knife will have
cut short my days, — days so happily con-
secrated to you. I am to be judicially
murdered. It is my fate, and there is
no escape from it. I have endured my
lot with all the constancy and courage
of which human nature is capable. May
I hope that you will imitate my exam-
ple ? Your life is not yours ; it belongs
to your children and to your husband,
if he was dear to you.

" This is all I have to ask.

" A little packet of my hair will be
handed to you. Keep it carefully, and
when my children are grown share it
with them. It is all that I have to leave
them for inheritance.

" Farewell forever. My last sigh
shall be for you and my unfortunate
children."

He wrote, also, to his friends in these
words : —

" The truth could not manifest itself,
and I am about to perish, the victim of
a mistake.

" May I hope that you will entertain
for my wife and children the same friend-
ly feelings that you have always shown
for me, and aid them under all circum-
stances ? I thank M. Guinier, my de-
fender, for the pains that he has taken
in my behalf.

" Now receive, one and all, my last
farewell."

Lastly, he addressed an open letter to
Dubosc, for insertion in the newspapers :

" You, in whose stead I am about to
die, rest content with the sacrifice of
my life. If ever you fall into the hands

202

The Story of Joseph Lesurques.

[February,

of justice, think of my three children,
covered with infamy, and of their mother,
a prey to despair, and do not prolong
the misfortunes caused by the fatal like-
ness that I bear to you." *

Lesurques, Courriol, and Bernard
were executed on the 30th of October,
1796.

As soon as Lesurques mounted the
cart that was to carry them to the place
of execution, Courriol pointed him out
to the crowd, and cried in a loud voice,
" I am guilty, but Lesurques is inno-
cent ! " and he continued so doing until
they reached the foot of the guillotine.

Lesurques, clad all in white, in token
of his innocence, never for a moment
lost his self-command. When his turn
came, he ascended the scaffold with a
firm step, and uttered a few words of
forgiveness for his judges, then he laid
his head upon the block, and so passed
into the presence of the never-erring
Judge.

Four months after these events, the
police succeeded in arresting Durochat.
He was fully recognized as the pretend-
ed traveler on the Lyons coach, and
eventually made a full confession, sus-
taining in every particular the account
given by Courriol. He declared that
Bernard not only lent the horses, but
had a share of the plunder. With ref-
erence to Lesurques he said, "I have
heard that a man named Lesurques was
condemned for complicity with us.
Truth compels me to say that I never
knew the man, neither when we planned
the job nor when we did it. I did not
know him, and I never saw him."

Vidal and Dubosc were captured be-
fore Durochat was executed, and he
identified them both ; but they escaped
from prison before they could be brought
to trial. Vidal was soon recaptured,
tried, condemned, and executed. Du-
bosc remained at large for some time,

1 " Vous, au lieu duquel je vais mourir, conten-
tez-vous du sacrifice de ma vie. Si jainais vous
fetes traduit en justice, souvenez-vous de mes trois
eufants couverts d'opprobre, de leur mere au d&es-

but at length he was retaken, and coff-
fronted with the ten witnesses who had
sworn against Lesurques. One of the
ten maintained and one retracted his
evidence given at the first trial ; the
remaining eight declared that they could
not say whether Dubosc or Lesurques
was the man whom they had seen. Du-
bosc, for his part, denied everything,
as Vidal had done before him, and
seized every advantage offered by his
resemblance to Lesurques, and the lat-
ter's conviction and execution ; but all
in vain. He was guillotined on the 25th
of December, 1800.

Roussy, the last of the five assas-
sins, was arrested in Madrid, toward the
close of the year 1803, and executed the
following June. He acknowledged the
justice of his sentence with his latest
breath, and left a paper with the priest
who shrived him, enjoining the priest
not to open it until six months had
elapsed.

When opened it was found to contain
these words : " I declare the man Le-
surques to be innocent; but my con-
fessor, to whom I give this declaration,
must not deliver it to the authorities
until six months after my death."

The play founded upon Lesurques's
story is the joint production of MM.
Moreau, Siraudin, and Delacour, and is
entitled Le Courrier de Lyon. The de-
scendants of Lesurques empowered the
authors to use his name, and Dubosc,
Courriol, Guesno, and Daubanton also
figure in the drama. It was brought
out in Paris on the 16th of March,
1850, at the Theatre de la Gaiete, and
was from the first a pronounced suc-
cess. The distinguished Lacressoniere
took the double part of Lesurques and
Dubosc, with which he henceforth be-
came thoroughly identified.

The English version of the play is
much altered from the original, and
poir, et ne prolongez pas tant d'infortunes cause"es
par la plus fuueste resemblance." — Memoiret des
Sanaon.

1883.]

With the Birds on Boston Common.

203

every way inferior to it ; but, neverthe-
less, it had a great run in London in
the season of 1854, appearing simulta-
neously at the Adelphi, the Victoria,
and the Princess'. At the Princess'
Charles Kean took the parts of Le-
surques and Dubosc. Mr. Henry Ir-

ving has recently adopted the role, with
his usual excellent fortune.

The Courier of Lyons was played in
New York a few years ago, but met
with little or no success ; not enough, at
all events, to familiarize the public with
the sad story of Joseph Lesurques.

& E. Turner.

WITH THE BIRDS ON BOSTON COMMON.

IT is often said that there are no
longer any birds on the Common ; that
the " English sparrows " have driven
them all away. I make no apology for
the sparrows, but they have not yet
obtained exclusive possession of our
grounds ; for during the last five years
I have myself seen there thousands of
our native birds, representing at least
sixty-five species. Of course the princi-
pal part of these were visitors for a few
days only, during the spring and autumn
migrations. As a rule, all such travel-
ers come and go in the night. The
bluebirds, I think, form an exception.
I have frequently watched them rise
into the air, and disappear almost imme-
diately after I became aware of their
presence. I have once or twice seen
robins do the same, and also a chance
golden-winged woodpecker or two. But
the great majority of birds will not take
their departure in the day-time, no mat-
ter how much they may be disturbed.
I have never witnessed an arrival ex-
cept once. I was in the Public Gar-
den one morning, when I heard loud
calls in the air overhead, and, looking
up, saw a flock of robins just at that
moment descending into the Garden.
They perched in the trees for a few
minutes, and then, with much scream-
ing, mounted into the air again, and
were off. That most of our small birds
travel by night is now so well estab-
lished that it does not require to be ar-

gued; but, if any one wishes to satis-
fy himself of the fact at first hand, he
may easily do so by one season's obser-
vations on the' Common, or, I suppose,
in any similar inclosure. In the spring
and fall it is nothing unusual, on going
out in the morning, to find scores, or
even hundreds, of birds, not one of which
was present on the afternoon before.
And, on the other hand, I have over and
over again noticed that birds who were
there in the afternoon were not there
on the following morning. It may be
mentioned also that on cloudy nights,
during the height of the migration, you
may sometimes hear the calls of the lit-
tle wanderers as they fly over the city.

As a general thing our visitors re-
main two or three days ; at least, I have
observed that to be true in many cases
where the numbers, or size, or rarity of
the birds made it possible to be reason-
ably sure when the arrival and depar-
ture occurred. It is one of the chief
compensations connected with observa-
tions made in a small inclosed area like
the Common that, as I have already
said, if you startle a bird he does not
fly off into trackless woods or across wide
fields, as he might do in the open coun-
try, but is sure to be found again not
many rods away ; and thus you are able
to watch the same individual for several
days, and, so to speak, become ac-
quainted with him. I remember with
interest several such acquaintanceships.

204

With the Birds on Boston Common.

[February,

One was with a yellow-bellied wood-
pecker, the first I had ever seen. He
made his appearance one morning in
October, along with a company of chick-
adees and other birds, and, when I first
saw him, was on a maple-tree near the
Ether monument. I watched him for
some time, and at noon, happening to
be in the same place again, found him
still there. And there he remained
four days. I went to see him several
times daily, and almost invariably discov-
ered him either on the maple, or on a
tulip-tree, a few yards distant. Without
doubt, the sweetness of maple sap was
known to Sphyrapicus varius long be-
fore our human ancestors discovered it,
and I conclude that this particular bird
must have been a connoisseur ; at any
rate, he seemed to know that this tree
was of a sort not to be met with every
day. He was extremely industrious, as
woodpeckers are accustomed to be, and
p;iid no attention to the children who
were playing about, or to the men who
sat under his tree, with the back of their
seat resting against the trunk. As for
the children's noise, it is likely that he
enjoyed it ; for he is a noisy fellow him-
self, and famous as a drummer. An
aged clergyman in Washington told me
that sometimes he could hardly read his
Bible on Sunday morning, because of
the racket which this woodpecker made
drumming on the tin roof overhead.

Another of my acquaintances was a
bird of quite a different sort, a female
Maryland yellow-throat. She was a
most exquisite, dainty bit of bird flesh,
and was in the Garden all by herself on
the 6th of October, long after the rest
of her species had departed for the sun-
ny South. She was perfectly contented,
and allowed me to watch her closely,
although she scolded mildly now and
then when I became too inquisitive.
How I did admire her bravery and peace
of mind, feeding so quietly, with that
long, lonesome journey before her, and
the cold weather coming on ! No won-

der, I said to myself, that the Great
Teacher pointed his lesson of trust with
the injunction, " Behold the fowls of the
air"!

A passenger even more belated than
this warbler was a chipping sparrow
that was hopping about on the edge of
the Beacon Street Mall on the 6th of
December, seven or eight weeks after all
chippers were supposed to be south of
Mason and Ddxon's line. Some acci-
dent had detained him, doubtless, but he
showed no signs of worry or haste, as I
walked around him, to make quite sure
that he was not a tree sparrow in dis-
guise. ;.'»:i,i

There is not much to attract birds to
the Common in the winter. I said to
one of the gardeners that 1 thought it a
pity some of the plants, especially the
zinnias and marigolds, were not left to
go to seed, as they would be sure to at-
tract flocks of winter birds, who are
quick to discover such feeding-places
after the deep snows come. He said it
would be of no use ; there were no birds
on the Common, and there would n't be
any so long as the English sparrows
were here to drive them away. It
would be of use, notwithstanding ; and
certainly it would be a pleasure to
many people to see flocks of goldfinches,
red-poll linnets, tree sparrows, and pos-
sibly of the beautiful snow buntings,
feeding in the Garden in midwinter.
Even as things are, the winter is pretty
sure to bring us a few butcher-birds.
They come for sparrows, and are now
regarded as public benefactors, although
formerly our wise municipal authorities
used to shoot them. They travel sin-
gly, as a rule, and sometimes the same
bird will be here for several weeks to-
gether. Then you will have no trouble
in finding here and there, in the haw-
thorn-trees, the headless bodies of spar-
rows spitted upon thorns. In appear-
ance the shrike resembles the mocking-
bird. Indeed, a policeman whom I found
staring at one would not believe but that

1883.]

With the Birds on Boston Common.

205

he was a mocking-bird. " Don't you see
he is ? And he 's been singing, too." I
did not doubt the singing, for the shrike
will often twitter by the half hour in
the very coldest weather. But further
discussion concerning the bird's identity
was soon rendered needless ; for, while
we were talking, along came a sparrow,
and alighted in a hawthorn bush, right
under the shrike's perch. The latter
was all attention instantly, and, after
waiting till the sparrow had moved a
little out of the thick of the bush, down
he pounced. He missed his aim, or
the sparrow was too quick for him, and
although he made a second swoop, and
followed that by a hot chase, he soon
came back without his prey. This little
exertion, however, seemed to have pro-
voked his appetite ; for, instead of re-
suming his perch, he went into the haw-
thorn bush, and began to feed upon the
carcass of a bird which, it seemed, he
had already laid up in store. He was
soon frightened away for a few mo-
ments by the approach of a third man,
and the policeman improved the oppor-
tunity to visit the bush and take away
his breakfast. When the fellow came
back, and found his table empty, he did
not manifest the slightest disappoint-
ment (the shrike never does ; he is a fa-
talist, I think). In order to see what he
would do, the policeman threw the body
to him. It lodged on the outside of the
bush, but instantly the shrike came for
it ; and as he did so, he spread his beau-
tifully bordered tail and screamed loud-
ly. Whether he meant to express de-
light, or anger, or contempt, I could not
judge ; but he seized the body, carried
it back to its old place, drove it again
upon the thorn, and proceeded to de-
vour it more voraciously than ever, scat-
tering the feathers about in a lively way
as he tore it to pieces. The third man,
who had never before seen such a thing,
stepped up within reach of the bush, and
eyed the performance at his leisure, the
shrike not deigning to notice him in the

least. A few mornings later the same
bird gave me another and more amus-
ing exhibition of his nonchalance. He
was singing from the top of our one
small larch-tree, and I had stopped to
look and listen, when a milkman en-
tered at the Commonwealth Avenue
gate, both hands loaded with cans, and,
without noticing the shrike, walked
straight under the tree. Just then, how-
ever, he heard the notes overhead, and,
looking up, saw the bird. As if not
knowing what to make of the creature's
assurance, he stared at him for a mo-
ment, and then, putting down his cans,
he seized the trunk with both hands, arid
gave it a good shake. But the bird only
took a fresh hold ; and when the man let
go, and stepped back to look up, there
he sat as unconcernedly as though noth-
ing -had happened. Not to be so easily
beaten, the man grasped the trunk
again, and shook it harder than before ;
and this time the shrike seemed to think
the joke had been carried far enough,
for he took wing, and flew to another
part of the Garden. The bravado of
the butcher-bird is great, but it is not
unlimited. I saw him, one day, shuffling
along a branch in a very nervous, un-
shrikely fashion, and was puzzled to ac-
count for his unusual demeanor till I
caught sight of a low-flying hawk sweep-
ing over the tree. Every creature, no
matter how brave, has some other crea-
ture to be afraid of ; otherwise, how
would the world get on ?

The advent of spring is announced
usually during the first week of March,
sometimes by the robins, sometimes by
the bluebirds. By the middle of the
month the song sparrows begin to ar-
rive, and for a month after this they
furnish delightful music daily. I have
heard them caroling with all cheerful-
ness in the midst of a driving snow-
storm. The dear little optimists ! They
never doubt that the sun is on their
side. Of necessity they go elsewhere
to spend the summer, for they build

206

With the Birds on Boston Common.

[February,

their nests on the ground, and a lawn
which is mowed every two or three days
would be quite out of the question. A
public park is not a favorable place for
the study of bird music. Most of the
visitors are busy feeding during their
brief stay, and besides they are kept in
a state of excitement by the frequent
approach of passers-by. Nevertheless,
I once heard a bobolink sing in our
Garden, and once a brown thrush, al-
though neither was sufficiently at home
to do himself justice. The " Peabody "
song of the white-throated sparrows is
to be heard occasionally during both
migrations. To my ears it is one of
the wildest of all bird notes ; it is one
of the last that you hear at night in
the White Mountain woods, as well as
one of the last to die away beneath you
as you climb the higher peaks. On the
Crawford bridle path, for instance, I
remember that the song of this bird
and that of the gray-cheeked thrush 1
were heard all along the ridge from
Mount Clinton to Mount Washington.
The finest bird concert I ever attended
in Boston was given on Monument Hill
by a great chorus of fox-colored spar-
rows, one morning in April. A high
wind had been blowing daring the night,
and the moment I entered the Common
I discovered that there had been an ex-
traordinary arrival of birds, of various
species. The parade ground was full
of snow-birds, while the hill was cov-
ered with fox-sparrows, — hundreds of
them, I thought, and many of them in
full song. It was a royal concert, but
I am sorry to say the audience was
small. It is unfortunate, in some as-
pects of the case, that birds have never
learned that a matinee ought to begin
at two o'clock in the afternoon.

These sparrows please me by their
lordly treatment of their European cous-

1 I may add that the identification of Turdus
alicice was based entirely upon the song, and so,
of course, had no final scientific value. It was
confirmed a few weeks later, however, by Mr.

ins. One in particular, who was hold-
ing his ground against three of the
Britishers, moved me almost to the point
of giving him three cheers.

Birds like the robin, the warbling
vireo, the red-eyed vireo, the chipper,
the goldfinch, and the Baltimore oriole,
who pass the summer with us, of course
sing freely. Of late years, a few crow-
blackbirds have taken to building their
nests in one corner of our domain ; and
they attract their full share of attention,
as they strut about the lawns in their
glossy clerical suits. One of the garden-
ers told me that they sometimes kill the
sparrows. I hope they do. The crow-
blackbird's attempts at song are ludi-
crous in the extreme, as every note is
cracked, and is accompanied by a ridicu-
lous caudal gesture. But he is ranked
with the oscine birds, and seems to know
it ; and, after all, it is only the common
fault of singers not to be able to detect
their own want of tunefulness.

I was once crossing the Common, in
the middle of the day, when I was sud-
denly arrested by the call of a cuckoo.
At the same instant two men passed me,
and I heard one say to the other, " Hear
that cuckoo! Do you know what it
means ? No ? Well, I know what it
means : it means that it 's going to
rain." It did rain, although not for
several days, I believe. But probably
the cuckoo has adopted the modern
method of predicting the weather some
time in advance. Once since then I
have heard this bird's note on the Com-
mon, but I have never been fortunate
enough to see him there. He is not
easily seen anywhere ; for he makes a
practice of robbing the nests of smaller
birds, and is always skulking about from
one tree to another, as though he were
afraid of being discovered, as no doubt
he is. What Wordsworth wrote of the

William Brewster, who took specimens. (See Bul-
letin of the Nuttall Club, January, 1883.) Prior
to this the species was not known to breed in New
England.

1883.]

With the Birds on Boston Common.

207

European cuckoo is equally applicable
to him : —

" No bird, but an invisible thing,
A voice, a mystery."

A pretty regular visitor twice a year
is the brown creeper. He is so small
and silent, and withal his color is so
like that of the bark to which he clings,
that I suspect he is seldom noticed even
by persons who pass within a few feet
of him. But he is not too small to be
hectored by the sparrows, and I have
sometimes been amused at the encoun-
ter. The sparrow catches sight of the
creeper, and at once bears down upon
him, when the creeper darts round the
trunk, and alights again a little further
up. The sparrow is after him ; but, as
he comes dashing round the trunk, he
always seems to expect to find the
creeper perched upon some twig, as any
other bird would be, and it is only after
a little reconnoitring that he again dis-
covers him clinging to the vertical bole.
Then he makes another onset, and the
same manoeuvre is repeated, till the
creeper becomes disgusted, and takes to
another tree.

The olive-backed thrushes and the
hermits may be looked for every spring
and autumn, and I have known forty or
fifty of the former to be here at the
same time. The hermits most often
travel singly or in pairs, but I have
more than once seen a small flock.
Both species preserve absolute silence
while here; I have watched hundreds
of them, and have never heard so much
as an alarm note. They are far from
being pugnacious, but they have a large
sense of personal dignity, and some-
times, when the sparrows pester them
beyond endurance, they assume the of-
fensive with much spirit. There are
none of our feathered guests whom I
am gladder to see; the sight of them
inevitably fills me with remembrances
of happy vacation seasons among the
hills of New Hampshire. If only they
would sing on the Common as they do

in those northern woods ! The whole
city would come out to hear them.

During every migration large num-
bers of warblers visit us. I have noted
the golden-crowned thrush, the small-
billed water-thrush, the black and white
creeper, the Maryland yellow-throat, the
blue yellow -back, the black - throated
green, the black-throated blue, the yel-
low-rump, the summer yellow-bird, the
black-poll, and the Canada flycatcher.
No doubt the list is far from complete,
as, of course, I have not used a gun.
The two kinglets give us a call occa-
sionally, and in the late summer and
early autumn the humming-birds spend
several weeks about our flower beds. I
saw one of these making his morning

o o

toilet in a very pretty fashion, leaning
forward, and brushing first one cheek
and .then the other against the wet rose
leaf on which he was perched. The
only swallows on my list are the barn
swallows and the white-breasted. The
former, as they go hawking about the
crowded streets, must often send the
thoughts of rich city merchants back to
the big barns of their grandfathers, far
off in out-of-the-way country places. Of
course we have the chimney swifts, also,
but they are not swallows.

Speaking of the swallows reminds
me of a hawk that came to Boston, one
morning, fully determined not to go
away without a taste of the famous im-
ported sparrows. It is nothing unusual
for hawks to be seen flying over the
city, but I had never before seen one
actually make the Public Garden his
hunting-ground. This bird perched for
a while on the Arlington Street fence,
within a few feet of a passing carriage ;
next he was on the ground, peering into
a bed of rhododendrons ; then for a long
time he sat still in a tree, while num-
bers of men passed back and forth un-
derneath ; between whiles he sailed
about, on the watch for his prey. On
one of these last occasions a little com-
pany of swallows came along, and one

208

Walter Savage Landor.

[February,

of them immediately went out of his
way to swoop down upon the hawk, and
deal him a dab. Then, as he rejoined
his companions, I heard him give a lit-
tle chuckle, as though he said, " There !
did you see me peck at him ? You don't
think I am afraid of such a fellow as
that, do you ? " ' To speak in Thoreau's
manner, I rejoiced in the incident as
one more illustration of the ascendency
of spirit over matter.

But this gossip must have an end,
else I would gladly speak of others of
my guests : the Wilson thrush, the cat-
bird, the mocking-bird, the two nut-
hatches, the yellow-throated vireo, the
chewink, the bay-winged bunting, the
swamp sparrow, the field sparrow, and
the savannah sparrow, the purple finch,
the red-poll linnet, the waxwing, the
least flycatcher, the kingbird and the
phcebe, the night-hawk, the kingfisher,
and the sandpipers. Especially I could
say much about my dear friends the
chickadees, who sometimes make the
whole autumn cheerful with their pres-
ence.

I cannot forbear, however, to men-
tion my one unhappy owl. When I
first discovered him, he was perched
well up in an elm, while a crowd of per-
haps forty men and boys were pelting
him with sticks and stones. The sky
was clouded, but the creature seemed to
be entirely helpless, aud sat still while

the missiles flew past him on all sides,
except that, when he was hit, which to
be sure was pretty often, he would move
to another perch. Once he was struck
so hard that he came tumbling toward
the ground, and I began to think it was
all over with him ; but when about half-
way down he recovered himself, and by
painful flappings succeeded in alight-
ing just out of the reach of the crowd.
At once there were loud calls : " Don't
kill him ! Don't kill him ! " and while
the scamps were debating what to do
next, he regained his breath, and flew
up into the tree again, as high as before.
Then the stoning began anew. Poor
bird of wisdom ! I pitied him, and wished
him well out of the hands of his tor-
mentors, though it was comical to see
him turn his head and stare, with his big,
vacant eyes, after a stone which had just
whizzed by his ear. I left the crowd
still pelting him, and must do them the
justice to say that some of them were
excellent marksmen. An old negro,
who stood near me, was bewailing the
law against shooting ; else, he said, he
would go home and get his gun. lie
described, with appropriate gestures,
how very easily he could fetch the bird
down. Perhaps he afterwards plucked
up courage and carried out his idea, for
the next morning the newspapers re-
ported that an owl was shot, the day
before, on the Common.

Bradford Torrey.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

So many of the most sensitive and
discriminating critics of this century
have, in the suffrage for fame, listed
themselves for Landor that it is no
longer permissible for men interested
in the things of the mind to neglect
him. He seemed almost to achieve im-
mortality within his life-time, so contin-

uously was the subtle appreciation of
the best yielded to him, from the far-off
years when Shelley used, at Oxford, to
declaim with enthusiasm passages from
Gebir, to the time, that seems as yester-
day, when Swinburne made his pilgrim-
age to Italy, to offer his tribute of adora-
tion to the old man at the close of his

1883.]

Walter Savage Landor.

209

solitary and troubled career; and still
each finer spirit,

" As he passes, turns,
And bids fair peace be to his sable shroud."

During his long life he saw the spring-
time, and outlived the harvest, of the
great poetic revival, and the labor of
the Victorian poets of the aftermath
was half accomplished before his death ; -
but from all these powerful contempo-
rary influences he was free. He re-
mained apart ; and this single fact, at-
testing, as it does, extraordinary self-pos-
session and assurance of purpose, suf-
fices to make his character interesting,
even were his work of inferior worth.
As yet, however, even in the minds of
cultivated men, he is hardly more than
a great figure. He is known, praised,
and remembered for particular scenes,
dramatic fragments, occasional lyrics,
quatrains. This is the natural fate of a
discursive writer. It matters not that
Landor was wide ranging ; it matters
not what spoils of thought, what images
of beauty, he brought from those far
eastern uplands which it was his boast
to haunt : he failed to give unity to his
work, to give interest to large portions
of it, to command public attention for
it as a whole. Indeed, his work as a
whole does not command the attention
even of the best. What does survive, too,
lives only in the favor of a small circle.
He forfeited popular fame at the begin-
ning, when he selected themes that pre-
suppose rare qualities in his audience,
and adopted an antique style ; but such
considerations, at least in their naked
statement, do not tell the whole story.
Other poets have missed immediate ap-
plause by dealing with subjects that as-
sumed unusual largeness of soul, range
of sympathy, and refinement of taste in
their readers: like Shelley, singing of
unheeded hopes and fears to which the
world was to be wrought ; like Words-
worth, narrating the myth of Troy.
Other poets, in style, have set forth the
object plainly, and left it to work its will
VOL. LI. — NO. 304. 14

on the heart and imagination, unaided
by the romantic spell, the awakening
glow, the silent but imperative sugges-
tion, the overmastering passion that
takes heart and imagination captive ;
and they have not lost their reward. A
remote theme, an impersonal style, are
not of themselves able to condemn a
poet to long neglect. They may make
wide appreciation of him impossible ;
they may explain the indifference of an
imperfectly educated public ; but they
do not account for the fact that Landor
is to be read, even by his admirers, in
a book of selections, while the dust is
shaken from the eight stout octavos that
contain his work only by the profes-
sional man of letters.

What first strikes the student of Lan-
dor is the lack of any development in
his genius. This is one reason why Mr.
Leslie Stephen, seizing on the charac-
teristic somewhat rudely, and leaping
too hastily to his ungracious conclu-
sion, calls him " a glorified and sublime
edition of the sixth -form school -boy."
Men whose genius is of this fixed type
are rare in English literature, and not
of the highest rank. Blake, and . Cole-
ridge as a poet, are the best known
examples. They exhibit no radical
change ; they are at the beginning
what they are at the end ; their works
do not belong to any particular period
of their lives ; they seem free from
their age, and live outside of it. Hence,
in dealing with them, historical criti-
cism — the criticism whose purpose is
to explain rather than to judge — soon
finds itself at fault. When the circum-
stances that may have determined the
original bent of their minds are set
forth, there is nothing more to be said.
With Landor, this bent seems to have
been given by his classical training.
To write Latin verses was the earliest
serious employment of his genius, and
his efforts were immediately crowned
with success. These studies, falling in
with natural inclinations and aptitudes,

210

Walter Savage Landor.

[February,

pledged him to a classical manner ; they
mada real for him the myths and history
of Greece and Rome ; they fed his de-
votion to the ancient virtues, love of
freedom, aspiration for the calm of wis-
dom, reverence for the dignity of hero-
ism, delight in beauty for its own sake ;
they supported him in what was more
distinctively his own, — his refinement in
material tastes, his burning indignation,
his defense of tyrannicide. These char-
acteristics he had in youth ; they were
neither diminished nor increased in age.
In youth, too, he displayed all his liter-
ary excellences and defects : the full-
ness and weight of line ; the march of
sentences ; the obscurity arising from
over-condensation of thought and abrupt
and elliptical constructions ; his command
of the grand and impressive as well as
the beautiful and charming in imagery ;
his fondness for heroic situation and for
the loveliness of minute objects. This
was a high endowment ; why, then, do
its literary results seem inadequate ?

The answer has already been hinted
at. With all his gifts, Landor did not
possess unifying power. He observed
objects as they passed before him at
hap-hazard, took them into his mind,
and gave them back, un transformed, in
their original disorder. lie thought dis-
connectedly, and expressed his thoughts
as they came, detached and separate.
This lack of unity did not result simply
from his choice of the classical mode of
treatment, or from a defect in logical or
constructive power, although it was con-
nected with these. The ability to fuse
experience, to combine its elements and
make them one, to give it back to the
world, transformed, and yet essentially
true, the real creative faculty, is usually
proportioned very strictly to the self-
assertive power of genius, to the energy
of the reaction of the mind on nature
and life ; it springs from a strong per-
sonality. To say that Landor's person-
ality was weak would be to stultify one's
self ; but yet the difference between

Landor the man and Landor the au-
thor is so great as to make the two al-
most antithetical ; and in his imagina-
tive work, by which he must be judged,
it is not too much to say that he denied
and forswore his personality, and oblit-
erated himself so far as was possible.
He not only eliminated self from his
style, and, after the classical manner, de-
fined by Arnold, " relied solely on the
weight and force of that which, with
entire fidelity, he uttered," but he also
eliminated self, so far as one can, from
his subject. He did not bind his work
together by the laws of his own mind ;
he did not root it in the truth, as he saw
truth ; he did not interpenetrate and per-
meate it with his own beliefs, as the
great masters have always done. His
principles were at the best vague, hard-
ly amounting to more than an unapplied
enthusiasm for liberty, heroism, and the
other great watchwords of social rather
than individual life. These illuminate
his work, but they do not give it con-
sistency. It is crystalline in structure,
beautiful, ordered, perfect in form when
taken part by part, but conglomerate as
a whole ; it is a handful of jewels, many
of which are singly of the most trans-
parent and glowing light, but unrelated
one to another, — placed in juxtaposi-
tion, but not set ; and in the crystalline
mass is imbedded grosser matter, and
mingled with the jewels are stones of
dull color and light weight. A lovely
object caught his eye, and he set it forth
in verse ; a fine thought came to him, and
he inserted it in his dialogues ; but his
days were not " bound each to each by
natural piety," or by any other of the
shaping principles of high genius. He
was a spectator of life, not an actor in
life. Nature was to him a panorama,
wonderful, awful, beautiful, and he de-
scribed its scenes down to its most mi-
nute and evanescent details. History
was his theatre, where the personages
played great parts; and he recorded
their words and gestures, always help-

1883.]

Walter Savage Landor.

211

ing them with the device of the high
buskin and something of a histrionic
air. He was content to be thus guid-
ed from without ; to have his intellect-
ual activity determined by the chance of
sensation and of reading, rather than
by a well-thought-out and enthusiastic
purpose of his own soul. And so he
became hardly more than a mirror of
beauty and an ^Eolian harp of thought ;
if the vision came, if the wind breathed,
he responded.

This self-effacement, this impersonal-
ity, as it is called, in literature, is much
praised. The younger English poets af-
fect it. It is said to be classical, and
there is an impression in people's minds
that such an abdication of the individ-
ual's prerogatives is the distinctive mark
of classicism. There is no more mis-
leading and confusing error in criti-
cism. Not impersonality, but univer-
sality, is that mark ; and this is by no
means the same thing, differently stated.
In any age, the first, although not the
sole characteristic of classical work is
that it deals with universal truth, of in-
terest to all men : and hence the poet is
required to keep to himself his idiosyn-
crasies, hobbies, all that is simply his
own ; all that is not identical with the
common human nature ; all that men iu
large bodies cannot sympathize with,
understand, and appreciate. Under these
conditions direct self -revelation is ex-
ceptional. The poet usually expresses
himself by so arranging his plot and de-
veloping his characters that they will il-
lustrate the laws of life, as he sees these
laws, without any direct statement, —
though the Greek chorus is full of di-
dactic sayings ; and he may also express
himself by such a powerful presenta-
tion of the morality intrinsic in beauti-
ful things and noble actions as " to
soothe the cares and lift the thoughts of
men," without any dogmatic insistence in
his own person. In these ways JEschy-
lus obliterated himself from his work
just as much as Shakspere, and no

more; Swift just as much as Aristoph-^
anes, and no more ; but the statement
that Shakspere or Swift obliterated
themselves from their works needs only
to be made to be laughed at. The faith
of .JEschylus, the wisdom of Sophocles,
are in all their dramas ; Anacreon is in
all his songs, Horace in all his odes.
The eternal significance of their pro-
ductions to mankind is derived from the
clearness, the power, the skill, with-
which they informed their works with
their personality. These men had a
philosophy of life, that underlay and
unified their work. They rebuilt the
world in their imagination, and gave it
the laws of their own minds. Their spir-
its were active, moulding, shaping, cre-
ating, subduing the whole of nature and
life to themselves. It is true that the
ancient classics accomplished their pur-
pose rather by thought, the moderns
rather by emotion ; but this difference
is incidental to the change in civiliza-
tion. Either instrument is sufficient
for its end ; but it may be remarked, in
passing, that he who would now choose
the ancient instead of the modern mode,
narrows, postpones, and abbreviates his
fame only less than Landor, in his youth,
by writing in Latin. Whatever be the
mode of its operation, the energy of per-
sonality is the very essence of effective
genius.

That Landor had no philosophy of
life, in the same sense as Shakspere
or ^schylus, is plain to any reader.
Those who look on art, including po-
etry, as removed from ordinary human
life, who think that its chief service to
men lies in affording delight rather than
in that quickening of the spirit of which
delight is only the sign and efflorescence,
would consider Landor's lack of this
philosophy a virtue. To our minds it
accounts largely for his failure to in-
terest even the best in the larger part
of his work, and especially for the dis-
continuity of his reflections. These re-
flections are always his own ; and this

212

Walter Savage Landor.

[February,

.fact may seem to militate against the
view that he eliminated self from his
productions so far as possible. A man's
thoughts must necessarily be his own, un-
less he plagiarizes ; but apart from this,
the presence of personality in litera-
ture as a force, ordering a great whole
and giving it laws, as has been said, is a
very different thing from its presence as
a mere mouth-piece of opinion. The
thoughts may be numerous, varied, wise,
noble ; they may have all the virtues of
truth and grace; but if they are dis-
parate and scattered, if they tend no-
whither, if they leave the reader where
they found him, if they subserve no ul-
terior purpose and accomplish no end,
there is a wide gulf between them and
the thoughts of Shakspere and JE,s-
chylus, no less their own than were Lan-
dor's his. In the former, personality is
a power ; in the latter, it is only a voice.
In Landor'a eight volumes there are
more fine thoughts, more wise apo-
thegms, than in any other discursive au-
thor's works in English literature ; but
they do not tell on the mind. They
bloom like flowers in their gardens, but
they crown no achievement. This fail-
ure of Lander's thought in effectiveness
leads Mr. Leslie Stephen to say that
the reader too often feels that he has
been only " marking time ; " and with

, this decision Professor Colvin, whose
essay is as favorable as the former's is
adverse, agrees. At the end, no cause is
advanced, no goal is won. This inco-
herence and inefficiency proceed from
the absence of any definite scheme of
life, any compacted system of thought,
any central principles, any strong, per-

• vadiug, and ordering personality.

In the same way the objectivity of
Landor's work, its naturalism as distin-
guished from imaginativeness, results
from the same cause, but with the differ-
ence that, while the faults already men-
tioned are largely due to an imperfect
equipment of the mind, his mode of art
seems to have been adopted by conscious

choice and of set purpose. The opinion
of those who look on naturalism as a
virtue in art is deserving of respect.
We have been admonished for a long
while that men should see things as they
are, and present them as they are, and
that this was the Greek way. The dic-
tum, when applied with the meaning that
men should be free from prejudice and
impartial in judgment, no one would
contest ; but when it is proclaimed with
the meaning that poets should express
ideas nakedly, and should reproduce ob-
jects by portraiture, there is excuse for
raising some question. No doubt, this
was in general the practice of the an-
cients. The Athenians were primarily
intellectual, the Romans unimaginative.
But by the operation of various causes
— the chief of which are the importance
bestowed on the individual and the im-
pulse given to emotion by the Christian
religion — mankind has been somewhat
changed; and therefore the methods of
appeal to men, the ways of touching^
their hearts and enlightening their
minds, have been modified. In litera-
ture this change is expressed by saying
that the romantic manner has, in gen-
eral, superseded the classical. The lat-
ter, Professor Colvin says, exhibits ob-
jects and ideas " as nakedly as possible,
and at the same time as distinctly, in
white light ; " the former exhibits them
" as it were through a colored and iri-
descent atmosphere." The metaphor
seems to us unfortunate. The roman-
tic manner aims at truth no less than
the classical ; it sets forth things as they
are no less completely and clearly ; it
does not falsify, as colored light does.
The difference is rather one of methods
than of aims. The classical poet usual-
ly perceives the object by his intellect,
and makes his appeal to the mind ; the
romantic poet seizes on the object with
his imagination, and makes his appeal
to the heart. Not that classical work
is without imagination, or romantic
work devoid of intellectuality ; but that

1883.]

Walter Savage Landor.

213

in one the intellect counts for more, in
the other imagination. The classical
poet, having once presented ideas and
objects, leaves them to make their way ;
the romantic poet not only presents
them, but, by awakening the feelings,
predisposes the mood of the mind, makes
their reception by the mind easier, wins
their way for them. In classical work-,
consequently, success depends mainly
on lucidity of understanding, clearness
of vision, skill in verbal expression ; in
romantic work, the poet must not only
possess these qualities, but must super-
add, as his prime characteristic, right-
ness, one might better say sanity, of
passion. The classical virtues are more
common among authors, the romantic
far more rare ; and hence error in the
romantic manner is more frequent, es-
pecially in dealing with ideas. But with
all its liability to mistake in weak hands,
romantic art, by its higher range, its
fiercer intensity, especially by its great-
er certainty, has, in the hands of a mas-
ter, a clear increase of power over clas-
sical art, and under the changed con-
ditions of civilization its resources are
not to be lightly neglected. Indeed,
one who voluntarily adopts the classical
manner as an exclusive mode seems to
choose a lyre of less compass and mel-
ody, to prefer Greek to modern music.
The younger English poets are appar-
ently doing this, more and more ; they
sing to a secluded and narrow circle,
and lose the ear of the world. Certain-
ly Landor made this choice, and by it
he must stand.

Let us take an example from the best
of Landor's work, and from that region
of classical art where it is wholly com-
petent, — the brief description of small
objects ; let us take the lily : —

" The ever-sacred cup
Of the pure lily hath between my hands
Felt safe, unsoiled, nor lost cue grain of gold."

How completely, how distinctly, the im-
age is given, — its form, its transparent
purity, its fragile aiid trembling gold !

How free from any other than a strictly
artistic charm ! And yet how different
is its method of appeal from Shelley's

" tender blue-bells, at whose birth
The sod scarce heaved ; "

from Shakspere's

" daffodils

That come before the swallow dares and take
The winds of March with beauty."

Or, to select an illustration, also of Lan-
dor's best, when the image, no less
objective, yields of itself an infinite sug-
gestion, let us take the lines on seeing
a tress of Lucretia Borgia's hair :

" Borgia, thou once wert almost too august
And high for adoration ; now thou 'rt dust.
All that remains of thee these plaits unfold,
Calm hair meandering in pellucid gold."

Again, how perfect is the image, how
effective the development of the third
line ; how the melody of the last blends
with its selected epithets to place the
object entire and whole before the mind ;
how free is the quatrain from any self-
intrusion of the poet ! But here, too, the
method of appeal is very different from
Shakspere's, as in the lines on Yor-
ick's skull : " Here hung those lips that
I have kissed I know riot how oft."
The difference in mood between these
two only emphasizes the difference in
method. Enough has been said, how-
ever, in description and exemplification
of the two kinds of art. Either is suf-
ficient for its ends, nor would any one
desire to dispense with that which has
resulted in work so admirable as has
been quoted from Landor. The dis-
tinctively romantic poets do not consign
the classical style to disuse. In the pre-
sentation of images, Keats has frequent
recourse to it, as in his picture of Au-
tumn lying

" On a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swathe and all its twined flow-
ers."

So Wordsworth, in expressing ideas, is
sometimes more bald than the least im-
aginative of the classics. But such poets

214

Walter Savage Landor.

[February,

do not employ this style alone; they
are characterized by the modern man-
ner ; they give us those " sweet views "
which in the ancient mode "can never
well be seen." Landor droops below
his great contemporaries, not by merely
adopting the classical method, but by
adopting it exclusively. Whether this
choice was entirely free, or partly deter-
mined by natural incapacity, is doubtful.
Violent and tempestuous as his nature
was, with all his boyish intensity of in-
dignation, his boyish delicacy of tender-
ness, he seems to possess temper rather
than true passion. In the verses to his
poetic love, lanthe, there are many fine
sentiments, graceful turns ; there is
courtliness of behavior; but the note of
passion is not struck. lanthe is only
another poetic mistress of the cavalier
time, and in the memory her name is
less, both for dignity and pathos, than
Rose Aylmer's. Without passion, of
course, a poet is condemned to the clas-
sical style. Passion is the element in
which the romantic writer fuses beauty
and wisdom ; it is the means by which
personality pervades literary work, with
most ease, directness, and glow. In the
great modern poets it is the substance of
their genius. But just as neither by a
philosophy of life nor in any other way
did Landor fill his subject with him-
self, so neither by passion nor elsehow
did he breathe his own spirit into his
style.

The consequence is that Landor, un-
classified in his own age, is now to be
ranked among the poets, increasing in
number, who appeal rather to the artis-
tic than to the poetic sense. He is to be
placed in that group which looks on art
as a world removed ; which prizes it
mainly for the delight it gives ; which,
caring less for truth, deals chiefly with
the beauty that charms the senses ; and
which therefore weaves poetry like tap-
estry, and uses the web of speech to bring
cut a succession of fine pictures. The
watchwords of any school, whether in

thought or art, seldom awake hostility
until their bearing on the details of prac-
tice reveals their meaning. Art is, in
a sense, a world removed from the actual
and present life, and beauty is the sole
title that admits any work within its
limits. Of this there is no question. But
that world, however far from what is
peculiar to any one age, has its eternal
foundations in universal life ; and that
beauty has its enduring power because
it is the incarnation of universal life.
What poem has a better right to admis-
sion there than the Eve of St. Agnes ?
and in what poem does the heart of life
beat more warmly ? Laodamia belongs
in that world, but it is because it voices
abiding human feelings no less than be-
cause of its serenity. Nature in itself is
savage, sterile, and void ; individual life
in itself is .trifling : each obtains its
value through its interest to humanity
as a whole, and the office of art is to set
forth that value. A lovely object, a
noble action, are each of worth to men,
but the latter is of the more worth ; and,
as was long ago pointed out, poetry is by
the limitations of language at a consid-
erable disadvantage in treating of formal
beauty. But, without developing these
remarks, of which there is hardly any
need, the only point here to be made is
that in so far as poetry concerns itself
with objects without relation to ideas, it
loses influence ; in so far as it neglects
emotion and thought for the purpose of
gaining sensuous effects, it loses worth ;
in both it declines from the higher to
the lower levels. Landor, notwithstand-
ing his success in presenting objects of
artistic beauty, — and his poetry is full of
exquisite delineations of them, — failed
to interest men ; nor could his skill in ex-
pressing thought — and he was far more
intellectual than his successors — save his
reputation. Landor mistook a few of
the marks of art for all. His work has
the serenity, the remoteness, that charac-
terizes high art, but it lacks an intimate
relation with the general life of men ; it

1883.]

Walter Savage Landor.

215

sets forth formal beauty, as painting
does, but that beauty remains a sensa-
tion, and does not pass into thought.
This absence of any vital relation be-
tween his art and life, between his ob-
jects and ideas, denotes his failure.
There are so many poets whose works
contain as perfect beauty, and in addi-
tion truth and passion ; so many who in-
stead of mirroring beauty make it the
voice of life, — instead of responding in
melodious thought to the wandering
winds of reverie strike their lyres in the
strophe and anti- strophe of continuous
song, — that the world is content to let
Laudor go by. The guests at the famous
late dinner-party to which he looked
forward will indeed be very few, and
they will be men of leisure.

Thus far, in examining the work of
Landor as a whole, and endeavoring to
explain somewhat the public indifference
to it, the answer has been found in its
objectivity and its discontinuity, both
springing from the effacement of his
personality as an active power ; or, in
other words, in the fact that, by failing
to link his images with his thoughts, and
his thoughts one with another, so as to
make them tell on the mind, and espe-
cially by eliminating the romantic ele-
ment of passion, he failed to bring his
work into sympathetic or helpful rela-
tions with the general emotional and in-
tellectual life of men. Why, then, do
the most sensitive and discriminating
critics, as was said at the beginning, list
themselves in Landor's favor ? They
are, without exception, fellow-workers
with him in the craft of literature. They
have, by their continued eulogy of him,
made it a sign of refinement to be
charmed by him, a proof of unusually
good taste to praise him. Landorites,
by their very divergence in opinion from
the crowd, seem to claim uncommon
sensibilities ; and the coterie is certainly
one of the highest order, intellectually :
Browning, Lowell, Swinburne, to namo
no more. They are all literary men.

They are loud in their plaudits of his
workmanship, but are noticeably guard-
ed in their commendation of his entire
contents; the passages for which they
express unstinted enthusiasm are few.
Landor was, beyond doubt, a master-
workman, arid skill in workmanship is
dear to the craft ; others may feel its
effects, but none appreciate it with the
keen relish of the professional author.
The fullness, power, and harmony of Lan-
dor's language are clearly evident in his
earliest work. He had the gift of liter-
ary expression from his youth, and in his
mature work it shows as careful and high
cultivation as such a gift ever received
from its possessor. None could give keen-
er point and smoother polish to a short
sentence ; none could thread the intri-
cacies of long and involved constructions
more unerringly. He had at command
all the grammatical resources of lucidity,
though he did not always care to employ
them. He knew all the devices of prose
composition to conceal and to disclose ;
to bring the commonplace to issue in
the unexpected ; to lead up, to soften,
to hesitate, to declaim ; to extort all the
supplementary and new suggestions of
an old comparison ; to frame a new and
perfect simile ; in short, he was thorough-
ly trained to his trade. Yet his prose is
not, by present canons, perfect prose. It
is not self-possessed, subdued, and grace-
ful conversation, modulated, making its
points without aggressive insistence, yet
with certainty, keeping interest alive by
a brilliant but natural turn and by the
brief and luminous flash of truth through
a perfect phrase. His prose is rather
the monologue of a seer. In reading his
works one feels somewhat as if sitting
at the feet of Coleridge. Landor has
the presence that abashes companions.
His manner of speech is more dignified,
more ceremonial, his enunciation is more
resonant, his accent more exquisite, thau
belong to the man of the world. He
silences his readers by the mere impos-
sibility of interrupting with a question

216

Walter Savage Landor.

[February,

so noble and smooth-sliding a current
of words. The style is a sort of modern
Miltonic ; it has the suggestion of the
pulpit divine in Hooker, the touch of
formal artificiality that characterizes the
first good English prose in consequence
of the habit, then common, of writing
in Latin. Landor goes far afield for his
vocables ; his page is a trifle too poly
syllabic, has too much of the surface glit-
ter of Latinity. But in the age that
produced the style of De Quiucey, Rus-
kin, and Carlyle, it would be mere folly
to find fault because Landor did not
write, we will not say after the French
fashion, but after the fashion of Swift,
who, at his highest and on his level,
is the one unrivaled master of English
prose. Landor, at his best, is not so
picturesque as De Quincey, nor so elo-
quent as Ruskin, nor so intense as Car-
lyle ; but he has more self-possession,
more serenity, more artistic charm, a
wider compass, a more equal harmony,
than any of these.

Landor pleases his fellow-craftsmen,
however, not only by this general com-
mand of language as a means of ex-
pression, but by the perfection of form
in his short pieces. Perfection of form
is the great feature of classical art ; it is
an intellectual virtue, at least in liter-
ature, and appeals to the mind. The
moderns are lacking in it. Among Lau-
dor's contemporaries Keats alone pos-
sessed it in large measure. Landor's com-
mand of form was limited, insufficient
for the construction of a drama ; impres-
sive as Count Julian is, it has not this
crowning excellence. Landor's power
in this respect is analogous to Her-
rick's ; it is perfect only within narrow
bounds ; but it lacks Herrick's spon-
taneity. His verses are not the " swal-
low flights of song ; " he was not a sing-
er. The lyric on Rose Aylmer is en-
tirely exceptional, and much of its charm
lies in the beauty of the name, its skill-
ful repetition, and, we must add, in the
memory of Lamb's fondness for it. Fa-

miliar as it is, it would be unjust not to
quote it : —

"Ah, what avails the sceptred race!

Ah, what the form divine !
What every virtue, every grace!

Rose Aylmer, all were thine.
Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes

May weep, but never see,
A night of memories and of sighs

I consecrate to thee."

Ordinarily, however, Landor deals with
a beautiful image or one fine sentiment.
His objectivity, his discontinuity, help
him here; they assure that simplicity and
singleness which are necessary for suc-
cess. The lack of any temptation in his
mind to expound and suggest is probably
one reason why he rejected the sonnet,
certainly the most beautiful poetic mould
to give shape to such detached thoughts
and feelings. He scorned the sonnet;
it was too long for him ; he must be
even more brief. He would present the
object at once, instead of gradually, as
the sonnet does ; not unveiling the per-
fect and naked image until the last word
has trembled away. His best work of
this kind is in the quatrain, which is
rather the moralist's than the poet's
form, — Martial's, not Horace's. Let
us take one : —

" I strove with none, for none was worth my strife.

Nature 1 loved, and, next to Nature, Art;
I wanned both hands before the fire of life,
It sinks, and I am ready to depart."

This is perfect ; but it is perfect speech,
not perfect song. When Laudor had
something to say at more length, when
he had a story to tell, he chose the idyl ;
and his work in this kind is no less per-
fect in form than are his quatrains. In-
deed, on the idyls his poetic fame will
mainly rest. They are very remote from
modern life, but the best of them are
very beautiful, and in the highest rank
of poetry that appeals to the artistic
sense. Those who are able still to hold
fast to the truth of Greek mythology to
the imagination will not willingly let
them die. To read them is like looking
at the youths and maidens of an ancient

1883.]

Dear Hands.

217

bass-relief, or at that Greek vase that so
charmed Keats. The cultivated will
never tire of them ; the people will nev-
er care for them. The limitations of
their interest are inherent in their sub-
ject and the mode of its presentment;
but these limitations do not lessen their
beauty, although they make very small
the number who appreciate it. \}if

Landor's influence over his critics is
due chiefly to his power as a stylist, and
to the perfection of form in his shorter
poems and his idyls ; but something is
also due to the passages which, apart
from those mentioned, they commend
so unreservedly ; such as the study of
incipient insanity in the dialogue be-
tween Tiberius and Vipsania, and the
scenes from Antony and Octavius where
the boy Caesarion is an actor. Not to
be conquered by these argues one's self
" dull of soul ; " and scattered through
the volumes are other passages of only
less mastery, especially in the Greek
dialogues, which cannot here be par-

ticularized. For this reason no author
is more served by a book of selections
than is Landor ; for it is a lighter task
to read even the whole of Wordsworth
than the complete works of Landor.
After all, too, an author should be
judged by his best. Nevertheless, when
one remembers the extraordinary gifts
of Landor, one cannot but regret the
defects of nature and judgment that
have so seriously interfered with his
influence. His work as a whole exhib-
its a sadder waste of genius than is the
case even with Coleridge. There is
no reason to suppose that the verdict of
the public on his value will be reversed.
His failure may well serve as a warn-
ing to the artistic school in poetry ; it
affords one more of the long list of
illustrations of that fundamental truth
in literature, — the truth that a man's
work is of service to mankind in pro-
portion as, by expressing himself in it,
by filling it with his own personality,
he fills it with human interest.

G. E. Woodberry.

DEAR HANDS.

ROUGHENED and worn with ceaseless toil and care,

No perfumed grace, no dainty skill, had these ;

They earned for whiter hands a jeweled ease,
And kept the scars unlovely for their share.
Patient and slow, they had the will to bear

The whole world's burdens, but no power to seize

The flying joys of life, the gifts that please,
The gold and gems that others find so fair.

Dear hands, where bridal jewel never shone,
Whereon no lover's kiss was ever pressed,
Crossed in unwonted quiet on the breast,

I see, through tears, your glory newly won,

The golden circlet of life's work well done,
Set with the shining pearl of perfect rest.

Susan Marr Spalding.

218

Puget Sound.

[February,

PUGET SOUND.

Two thousand miles of zigzag shores,
running south and running north, branch-
ing east and branching west, — no won-
der that the chartless De Fuca, sailing
between them day after day, believed
himself to be exploring a vast river.
Abler navigators than he, coming later
still, clung to the idea, and it is not yet
a hundred years since the majestic wa-
ters received their true name and place
in the ocean family tree. No possible
accuracy of naming, however, no com-
pleteness of definition, can lessen the
spell of their fantastic wandering course.
No matter if one were to commit their
maps to heart and know their charts
like a pilot, he would never lose a vague
sense of expectation, surprise, and half
bewilderment in cruising among their
labyrinths. Bays within bays, inlets on
inlets, seas linking seas, — over twelve
thousand square miles of surface, the
waters come and go, rise and fall, past
a splendid succession of islands, prom-
ontories, walls of forest, and towering
mountains. Voyaging on them, one
drifts back into their primitive past, and
finds himself unconsciously living over
the experiences of their earliest navi-
gators. The old Indian names which
still haunt the shores heighten the illu-
sion ; and even the shrill screams of the
saw-mill cannot wholly dispel it. The
wilderness is dominant still. Vast belts
of forest and stretches of shore lie yet
untracked, untrodden, as they were a
century ago, when Vancouver's young
Lieutenant Puget took the first reckon-
ings and measurements of their eminent
domain. But the days of the wilder-
ness are numbered. It is being con-
quered and taken possession of by an
army of invaders more irresistible than
warriors, — men of the axe, the plow,
the steam-engine ; conquerors, indeed,
against whor^ 'and can make fight.

The siege they lay is a siege which can-
not be broken ; for all the forces of na-
ture are on their side. The organic se-
crets of the earth are their allies, also
the hidden things of the sea ; and the
sun and the rain are loyal to the dynasty
of their harvests. There is, in this
might of peaceful conquest of new lands
by patient tillers of the soil, something
so much grander than is to be seen in
any of the processes of violence and
seizure that one could wish there were
on this globe limitless uninhabited re-
gions, to make endless lure and oppor-
tunity for pioneer men and women so
long as the human race shall endure.
Once, and not so very long ago, we
thought we had such a limitless region
on our own continent. In the United
States government's earlier treaties with
the Indians, the country " west of the
Mississippi " is again and again spoken
of as beyond the probable reach of
white settlement. In 1835, when the
Cherokees were removed from Georgia
to their present home in Indian Terri-
tory, the United States government by
treaty guaranteed to them " a perpetual
outlet west, and a free and unmolested
use of all the country west of their west-
ern boundary," — " as far west as the
sovereignty of the United States and
their rights of soil extend." And as
late as 1842, one Mr. Mitchell, a su-
perintendent of Indian affairs, said in
a report, "If we draw a line running
north and south, so as to cross the Mis-
souri about the mouth of the Vermilion
River, we shall designate the limits be-
yond which civilized men are never like-
ly to settle. At this point the Creator
seems to have said to the tides of emi-
gration that are annually rolling toward
the west, 'Thus far shalt thou go, and
no farther.' " To read such records as
these to-day is half comic, half sad.

1883.]

Puget Sound.

219

This line recommended by Mr. Mitch-
ell would run just east of Dakota,
through the eastern portion of Nebras-
ka, a little to the east of the middle of
Kansas, through the middle of Indian
Territory and Texas. Montana, Idaho,
Colorado, and New Mexico all lie west
of it ; and if the Cherokees were to at-
tempt to-day to claim that " perpetual .
outlet to the west, and the use of all the
country west of " their own, they would
be confronted by hundreds of thousands
of Texan rangers, New Mexico stock-
men, Arizona miners, and California
orange growers.

In the north, across Montana and Ida-
ho, — through and beyond the Nez Per-
ces' old country, — immigrants by the
thousand are steadily pouring into Or-
egon and Washington Territory. Two
railroads are racing, straining muscles
of men and sinews of money, to be first
ready to carry this great tide. The
grandchildren of the men who are now
cutting down primeval pines on the
shores of Puget Sound, and on the foot-
hills of Oregon's mountains, will live to
see Oregon as thickly settled as Mas-
sachusetts, and the shore line of Puget
Sound set full of beautiful hamlets and
summer homes, like the Mediterranean
Riviera.

The foreseeing, forecasting of all this
gives a tender, regretful, dreamy flavor
to every moment of one's sailing on the
Sound. As island after island recedes,
and promontory after promontory slips
back again into the obscurity of its own
sheltering forest shadows, the imagina-
tion halts and lingers behind with them,
peopling their solitudes, and creating
on shore and hill a prophetic mirage of
cities to be. Shifting fogs add their ca-
pricious illusions and everywhere height-
en the mystery and multiply the mirage.
These mists are the Puget Sound lot-
tery for voyagers, and, like all lotteries,
they deal out many bitter blanks of dis-
appointment to one prize. Scores of
travelers cruise for days in the Sound

without once seeing land, except when
their bqat touches shore. In July and
August, what with fogs and smoke from
burning forests, a clear day is a rare
thing, and navigation, though never dan-
gerous, becomes tiresome enough. " I
tell you, you get tired of feelin' your
way round here in the fog, in August,"
said one of the Sound captains to us.
" It don't make any difference to me. I
can run my boat into Victoria, when I
can't see my hand's length before me,
just as well 's when it 's clear sunshine ;
but it 's awful tedious. There 's lots of
folks come up here, an' go back, and
they hain't any more idea o' what the
Sound 's like than 's if they 'd sat still
in Portland. I always feel real sorry
for them. I just hate to see any travel-
ers comin' aboard after August. June 's
the month for the Sound. You people
could n't have done better if you 'd been
sailin' here all your lives. You 've hit
it exactly right."

We had, indeed. We had drawn a
seven days' prize of fair weather : they
were June's last seven. It is only fair
to pass on the number of our ticket ;
for it is the one likeliest to be lucky in
any year.

By boat from Portland down the Wal-
lamet River into the Columbia, down
the Columbia to Kalama, and from Ka-
lama to New Tacoma by rail, is the
ordinary dry -weather route from Port-
land to Puget Sound. Kalama, how-
ever, has a habit of ducking under, in
the high times of the Columbia River ;
and at these seasons travelers must push
on, northward, till they come to some
spot where the railroad track is above
water. On this occasion we had to sail
well up the Cowlitz River before we
reached a place where steam engines
could go dry - shod and safe. Thence
ninety miles to Tacoma, — ninety miles
of half-cleared wilderness ; sixteen em-
bryo towns on the way, many of them
bearing musical old Indian names :
Olequa, Napavine, Newaukum, Cheha-

220

Puget Sound.

[February,v

lis, Seata, Temino. Very poor by con-
trast with these sounded Centreville,
Lake View, and Hillhurst. So, also, it
must be confessed, did Skookum Chuck,
which is, however, simply another in-
stance of the deteriorating effect on the
Indian of intercourse with the whites ;
Skookum Chuck being a phrase of the
barbarous Chinook jargon invented by
the Hudson Bay Company, to save
themselves the trouble of learning the
Indians' languages. Skookum Chuck
means " plenty of water," but it sounds
like choking to death. There seems an
unwitting tribute to the cleverness of
the Indians in thus throwing on them
the burden of learning a new language,
in which to carry on traffic and inter-
course.

The town of Tacoma is at the head
of Admiralty Inlet. It is half on, half
under, bluffs so steep that ladder-like
stairways are built to scale them. It
fronts east and south. To the east its
outlook is over seas and isthmuses of
forest lands. Its south horizon is cleft
by the majestic snow dome of Mount
Rainier. In the west and northwest
lie the long Olympic ranges, also snow
topped. No town on the Sound com-
mands such sunrises and sunsets on
snowy peaks and stretches of sea.

"We reached Tacoma at five o'clock
in the afternoon. Mount Rainier then
was solid white. It loomed up like a
citadel of ice nearly three miles high in
the air. In less than an hour it had
turned from solid white to solid gold.
The process seemed preternatural. In
many years' familiar knowledge of all
the wonders which sunrise and sunset
can work on peaks in the Rocky Moun-
tain ranges, I had never seen any such
effect. It was as if the color came from
within, and not from without ; as if the
mighty bulwark were being gradually
heated from central fires. Still more
slowly than it had changed from snow
white to gleaming gold, it changed again
from the gleaming gold to a luminous

red, like that of live coals. This fiery
glow was broken, here and there, by ir-
regular spaces of a vivid dark wine col-
or, wherever rocky ledges cropped out.
The spectacle was so solemn that it was
impossible to divest one's self of a cer-
tain sense of awe. The glow grew hot-
ter and hotter, until it seemed as if fire
must burst from it. The whole moun-
tain seemed translucent and quivering
with heat. The long northern twilight
deepened, but the mountain did not
change, unless it were to burn even more
fierily in the dimmer light. At last pale
ember tints began to creep upward from
the base of the peaks, very slowly, — as
a burning coal cools when it falls into a
bed of warm ashes. These tints grew
gray, blue, and finally faded into the
true ashy tint of cold embers ; gradually
they spread over the whole surface of
the mountain. At the top, a flicker
of the red lingered long, heightening
still more the suggestion of slowly cool-
ing fires. The outcropping ledges faded
from their vivid wine color to^a pale
blue, the exact shade of shadows on
dead embers ; and this also heightened
the pallor of the ashy tint on the rest
of the mountain.

Two brigs lay at anchor in the Taco-
ma harbor. Their every mast and spar
and rope stood out as if etched on the
cold yellow sky in the north. As our
boat glided out into the silent, dusky
vistas of forest and sea, in the deepen-
ing darkness, this network of crossing
and countercrossing lines on the sky
seemed to have mysterious significance,
as if they might belong to a system of
preternatural triangulation ; wrought by
powers of the air, whose colossal beacon
we had just seen extinguished.

Next morning, at four o'clock, from
our stateroom windows (this plural
should be emphasized ; for there are
not to be found on many waters steam-
boats which contain staterooms with two
windows and double beds, such as are
to be found on Puget Sound), — next

1883.]

Puget Sound.

221

morning, from our stateroom windows,
at four o'clock, we looked out on one of
the characteristic Puget Sound pictures.
It glided past, changing each second:
terraces and peaks of mountain and
cloud ; amber against a pale green sky ;
domes and lines of dark fir forest, a
hair line of gold edging each one to the
east ; here and there a roof or a chim-
ney among the trees ; wooded islands
sailing into and out of sight in a twin-
kling, their shadows trailing purple on,
the water ; a cluster of white houses
close on the shore ; boats drawn up ;
the tide out, and a stretch of shingle
sparkling wet ; a beach wall of tall firs
a few rods back ; a boat pulling over
from another dusky shore, opposite and
near; sun's rays stealing up ahead of
the sun, flashing on the boatman's oars
and lighting up every window in the
hamlet. Our boat swung round and in,
and halted ; a man leaped ashore. The
silence was so absolute that the com-
monest act or motion seemed stealthy.
As the boat backed out of the inlet, the
sun rose from behind a fir forest, and
flashed every one of the spear tops into
a sort of sudden presenting of arms
along the whole sky-line. It was not
full sunrise yet in the inlet ; but once
out in the wider sea, we swept into
broad light. In the distance a steam-
boat and a brig were sailing side by
side. The brig took rank with nature at
once : no sign of effort about her mo-
tion ; only a little curl of white water at
her bows, like a quiet, satisfied chuckle.
For one second her masts cut across
the great dome of Mount Rainier, and
reaching half-way to its top seemed sud-
denly to shoot towards the sky. The
whole picture, — landing, departure,
dawn, sunrise, — all was over and past
in less time than its telling takes. The
swift beauty of these moments is only
an average succession of average mo-
ments of which hours are made up, when
one sails on Puget Sound.

Our next stop was at Port Gamble.

To reach it, we had sailed twenty-four
miles ; yet by a road across the prom-
ontory it was only eleven miles away
from our sunrise halting- place, so much
do the winding water roads double on
themselves. Port Gamble is, like most
of the Puget Sound towns, simply a
saw-mill village. It has a population
of four hundred people, every man of
whom is at work in, or in connection
with, the lumber-mills. The village is
only a clearing in the shore side of the
forest: rough little houses, painted
white, with here and there a flower gar-
den. On the wharf sat a handsome
Indian woman. Her face was more
Egyptian than Indian, and, with its level
eyebrows, fine nostrils, and strongly
moulded mouth and chin, would have
done no discredit to a priestess on the
Nile., She was one of the British Co-
lumbia Indians ; free to come and go
where she pleased. The captain of our
boat knew her, and said she was very
" well off ; " her husband worked in the
lumber-mills. " She 's a British sub-
ject, you see," he added. " There can't
anybody molest her, 's long's she be-
haves herself The British Columbia
Indians are a good lot, generally."

" Yes," I replied. " The English gov-
ernment has treated its Indians better
than we have ours."

" That 's so," said the captain, em-
phatically. " They don't deceive 'em,
in the first place, nor plunder 'em, in
the second place."

The air was resonant with shrill saw-
mill noises. Lurid smoke, like that from
smelting- works, poured up from the
fires. The mill itself was a deafening,
blinding, terrifying storm of machinery :
saws by dozens, upright, horizontal,
circular, whirring and whizzing on all
sides ; great logs, sixty, a hundred feet
long, being hauled up, dripping, out of
the water, three at a time, by fierce clank-
ing chains, slid into grooves, turned,
hung, drawn, and quartered, driven from
one end of the building to the other

222

Puget Sound.

[February,

like lightning, — a whole tree slaugh-
tered, made iuto planks, laths, staves,
blocks, shavings, and sawdust, in the
twinkling of an eye.

One hundred and fifty thousand feet
of lumber in a day are now turned out
in this mill. There is a record of a
year when, running day and night, it
turned out fifty-four million feet. Its
furnaces are fed solely by its own saw-
dust, automatically poured in in cease-
less streams. But even these cannot
consume half the sawdust made ; great
piles of it, outside, are perpetually burn-
ing ; night and day, the fires smoulder
and blaze, burning up the sawdust and
bits of wood, but they cannot keep pace
with the mill. Such waste of tons of
fuel makes one's heart ache, thinking
of the cities full of poor, shivering and
freezing every winter.

The most demoniacal thing in the
mill was a sort of huge iron nipper, with
a head whose shape suggested some gro-
tesque heathen idol. This came up at
regular intervals, a few seconds apart,
through an opening in the floor, opened
its jaws, seized a log, and turned it over;
then sank again out of sight, till the
next log was ready for turning. There
was a fierce and vindictive expression
in the intermittent action of this autom-
aton, which made it seem like a sentient
and malignant demon, rather than a ma-
chine.

Sitting with his face sheltered be-
hind a large pane of glass, which was
mounted like a screen, sat a man sharp-
ening saws on a big iron wheel, driven
by steam. The wheel revolved so swift-
ly that volleys of blazing sparks flew
right and left from the saw teeth. Per-
haps nothing could give a stronger im-
pression of the amount of force expend-
ed in the mill than the fact that this
saw sharpener and his lightning wheel
never rest while the mill is going.

Shutting one's eyes and listening at-
tentively to the whirring din, one per-
ceived myriads of fine upper violin notes

in it, and now and then a splendid bass
chord, as of a giant violoncello ; again,
thuds of heavy logs would crash in
among the finer metallic sounds, till the
sound seemed like the outburst of a co-
lossal discordant orchestra.

Outside the mill were huge booms of
logs floating in the water. One might
walk over acres of them. They hud all
come from distant forests on the Sound.
The mill companies are too shrewd to
cut their own timber, in the vicinity of
the mills, yet the company to which
this mill belongs is said to own a quar-
ter of a million acres of solid forest ;
but at present they buy all their logs,
most of them from men who cut them
under the Timber Act.

The wharves were lined with ships
waiting to carry the lumber away. The
ships themselves, many of them, had
been built on the Sound, at Port Town-
send and other ports. Their masts,
a hundred feet tall, without knot or
blemish, had come from the same for-
ests which had supplied the planks now
beirg stowed ignominiously away in
their holds. It was a marvelous sight
to see the loading. Each ship was
packed many tiers deep with lumber;
the hold filled in solid, and the deck
piled high. The planks were lifted by
a derrick, on the wharf, and shot down,
sliding, to the deck.

At the rate trees are being cut down,
and lumber shipped away from this re-
gion, it is a comparatively simple calcu-
lation to reckon how long it will take
to strip the country bare. England,
France, Australia, China, Japan, and
even the Sandwich Islands are using
Oregon and Washington pine and fir.
The Pacific coast of South America
uses little else. Enthusiastic statisticians
publish estimates of the vast amounts of
standing timber ; showing, for instance,
that the timber now standing in Wash-
ington Territory alcne is equal to the
consumption of the whole United States
during the last hundred years. To the

1883.]

Puget Sound.

223

unthinking American this seems a suf-
ficient ground for dismissing all anxiety
on the subject ; and he does not pause
to establish any connection in his mind
between this statement and the fact that
the mills on Puget Sound, when all at
work, have a cutting capacity of three
hundred millions of feet a year, three
of them cutting over a hundred thou-
sand feet a day each, and a fourth be-
ing put into condition to cut two hun-
dred thousand. Americans are -often
reproached, and justly, for their lack of
reverence for the past; there seems
even a greater dishonor in their lack of
sense of responsibility for the future.

Leaving Port Gamble, we sailed
straight into a cloud of silver radiances;
fog banks, sifted and shot through by
sun's rays. Ceaselessly shifting and il-
lumining, retreating and advancing, they
wrapped us in a new world, almost more
beautiful than that from which they shut
us out. Now and then, a weird shape
glided past, with warning cries : a steam-
boat, or a big log boom drawn by a tug.
These log booms are among the most
picturesque features of the Sound. They
are sometimes fifteen hundred feet long
and sixty wide, and contain a million
feet of lumber. The logs, being all
barked, are yellow and glistening ; and
as the boom sways and curves on the
water, the whole surface of it shines
like a floor of fluted gold.

At Port Ludlow, another saw -mill
town, we stopped opposite a huge water
tank, which stood on posts some fifteen
or twenty feet high, close to the shore.
It was a beautiful instance of nature's
readiness to adopt and beautify the
barest and baldest things. This rough
board tank, just as it stood, dripping
water at every crevice, would have been
an ornament to any conservatory in the
land. From every joint waved grasses
and vines ; they hung over, nodded and
blew into tangles with each breeze. The
cross-beams were covered with green
moss, and from each side there hung

out plants in blossom : yellow and pur-
ple asters, a tall spike of red fireweed in
one corner, and myriads of fine white
flowers whose name I did not know.

Before ten o'clock we had reached
Port Townsend. Entering its harbor,
we sailed through the fog wall as
through dividing folds .of curtains at a
doorway. " Never a fog in Port Town-
send Harbor," is a saying on the Sound.
The town lies on high bluffs, and a
prettier village could not be found. We
jumped ashore, took a carriage, and saw
all of the town which could be seen in
fifteen minutes' rapid driving. The
houses are wooden, chiefly white, but
are bowered in roses and honeysuckles.
The white honeysuckle is indigenous to
the region and grows with a luxuriance
incredible to those who know it only as
a cultivated exotic. It was no rare
sight here to see a cottage with one side
covered, from eaves to ground, by a
matted wall of the fragrant blossoms.
Port Townsend is a military post, and
an air of orderly precision seems to per-
vade the whole place. The off-look over
the Sound is grand : on the one hand the
Olympic Mountains, and on the other,
Mount Baker and its ranges; between
these, countless vistas of inlet and isl-
and and promontory.

As we came out of the harbor, the
fog stood, an amber wall, across our
path. It curved outward at the mid-
dle, and as we drove straight on into
it, it seemed as if it were bending be-
fore us, till it broke, and took us into
its silvery centre.

From Port Townsend it is a three
hours' run, across the Straits of De Fuca,
to Victoria on Vancouver's Island ; and
here, at one's first step, he realizes that
he is on British soil. It is strange that
two peoples speaking the same language,
holding in the main the same or similar
beliefs, can have in their daily living
so utterly dissimilar atmospheres as do
the Americans and the English. This
sharp contrast can nowhere be more

224

Puget Sound.

[February,

vividly seen than in going from Wash-
ington Territory to Vancouver's Island.
Victoria is a town which would well re-
pay a careful study. Even in the most
cursory glances at it, one sees symptoms
of reticent life, a flavor of mystery and
leisure, backgrounds of traditionary dig-
nity and hereditary squalor, such as one
might go up and down the whole Paci-
fic coast, from San Diego to Portland,
and not find. When Victoria is, as
it is sure to become, sooner or later, a
wide-known summering place, no doubt
its byways and highways, its bygone
ways and days, will prove mines of treas-
ure to the imagination of some dreaming
story-teller. The business part of the
town, if one may be pardoned such a mis-
nomer in speaking of its sleepy streets,
is rubbishy and littered. The buildings
are shabby, unadorned, with no pretense
of design or harmony. They remind
one of the inferior portions of second-
class commercial towns in England, and
the men and women in the shops, on
doorsteps, and in alley-ways look as if
they might have just come from Hull.
But once outside this part of the town,
all is changed : delightful, picturesque
lanes ; great meadow spaces full of
oaks ; knolls of mossy bowlders ; old
trees swathed in ivy ; cottages buried
in roses and honey-suckle ; comfortable
houses, with lawns and hedges, sun-dials
and quaint weather-vanes; castle -like
houses of stone, with lodges and high
walls and driveways ; and, to complete
the picture, sauntering down the lanes,
or driving at stately paces along the per-
fect roads, nonchalant men and leisurely
women, whose nonchalance and leisure
could not be outdone or outstared in
Hyde Park.

At every turn is a new view of the
sea, or a sudden glimpse of some half-
hidden inlet or bay. These bursts and
surprises of beautiful bits of water are
the greatest charm of the place. Driving
westward from the town one has the su-
perb Royal Roads harbor on the left for

miles ; then, turning to the right, through
woods that meet overhead, past fields full
of tossing fringes of brakes and thickets
of spiraea twenty feet high, he comes sud-
denly on another exquisite land-locked,
unsuspected harbor, — the Esquimault
harbor, with its own little hamlet.
Skirting around this, and bearing back
towards the town again, by a road far-
ther inland, he finds that to reach the
town he must cross inlet after inlet.
Wooded, dark, silent, amber - colored,
they are a very paradise for lovers of
rowing ; or for lovers of wooing, either,
we thought, as we came again and again
on a tiny craft, in which two sat with
idle oars. At other times, as we were
crossing some picturesque stone bridge,
a pleasure barge, with gay flags flying,
and young men and maidens singing,
would shoot out from under it, and dis-
appear around a leafy corner. From
every higher ground we could see the
majestic wall of the Olympic range
rising in the south. The day will come
when some painter will win fame for
himself by painting this range as seen
from Victoria : a solid wall of turquoise
blue, with its sky-line fretted and tur-
retted in silver snow, rising abrupt and
perpendicular out of a dark green and
purple sea. I do not know any moun-
tain range so beautiful or so grandly set.
Often its base is wrapped in white reists,
which look as if they were crystallized
in ripples and ridges, like a field of ice
floes. Rising out of these, the blue wall
and snowy summits seem lifted into the
skies ; to have no connecUon with earth
except by the ice-floe belt.

Turning one's back on the sea, and
driving northward from the town, one
finds a totally new country and expres-
sion : little farms of grazing or grain
fields, the oats and wheat struggling in
a hand-to-hand fight with the splendid,
triumphant brakes ; stretches of forest
so thick their depths are black, and the
tree-tops meet above the road. Except
for occasional glimpses of blue water

1883.]

Puget Sound.

225

on the right, it would seem as if -the
sea must be hundreds of miles away.
Farmers working in fields, or driving
in primitive carts, look as removed
from the careless, slatternly shop people
in the town as from the gentlemen folks
of the stone castles or the cathedral
close. Wood roads turn off to right and
left, disappearing at once in such ob-
scurity of shadow that they seem little
more than cave openings. We followed
one of them through miles of tunneled
forest, till it was suddenly stopped by
a gate, beyond which all that could be
seen of road seemed little more than a
trail. The lure of an unknown road
drew us irresistibly, and we pushed on,
over bowlders, through spicy, dark hol-
lows of fir forest, winding and climbing,
till we saw through the trees a low
chimney and a gleam of sea. A few
rods more, and we came out on a rocky
knoll, where, in a thicket of trees and
honeysuckles and roses, stood a tiny cot-
tage, looking out on a sea view which
a monarch might have coveted : on the
right hand, a wooded cove, running far
up into the forest ; in front, a broad ex-
panse of blue water, with the great
Olympic range rising out of it in the
south distance ; on the left, a shore-line
of wooded points and promontories, as
far as the eye could reach, growing
more and more dusky, till they melted
into the hazy blue of the Cascade range.
It was a Scotch sheep farmer, who
had speired about till he found for him-
self this delectable nook. He had four
hundred sheep on the place, and made a
living for himself, wife, and four chil-
dren by selling mutton, wool, and now
and then lambs. The sea brought to him
all the fish his family could eat, and

had at his back miles of fir forest for
fuel. It was never cold in winter, and
lever hot in summer, he said ; and the
glossy leaves of a manzanita copse on
the crest of his rocky knoll bore witness
to the truth of his words. A short dis-
tance from shore, just in front of the

VOL. LI. — NO. 304. 15

house, lay one small island, as if moored.
On it was a curious structure of weather-
beaten boards, half house, half platform.
It was an Indian burial-place. The farm-
er said the Indians came there, often
from a great distance, bringing their
dead for burial. They came in fleets of
canoes, singing and chanting. Some of
the bodies were buried in graves, but
chiefs and distinguished warriors were
wrapped in their blankets, and laid upon
shelves in the house. He had often been
tempted, he said, to go over and examine
the place ; but he thought " may be the
Indians would n't like it," and not one
of his family had ever set foot on the
island. All that they knew of the spot,
or of the ceremonies of the funerals
taking place there, was what they had
been able to see with a glass from their
own shore.

There could be nowhere in the world
a sharper transition, in a day's journey,
than that which we made in going from
Victoria to Seattle. Seattle is twenty-
seven years old by the calendar, but by
record of actual life only six, so that
it has all the bustle and stir of a new
American town. One can fancy a Vic-
toria citizen being stunned and bewil-
dered on landing at Seattle. Its six
thousand people are all aswarm ; streets
being graded, houses going up, wharves
building, steamers loading with coal, and
yet blackberry vines, stumps, and wild
brakes are to be seen in half the streets.

The town lies on and among high
terraces, rising steeply from the shores
of the Sound. It fronts west, and has
on its distant western horizon the same
grand Olympic Mountains which Vic-
toria sees to the south. Between it and
them stretch zigzag shores, wooded to
the water's edge, and broken by high
cliffs and bold promontories. It is rich
in other waters, also, having behind it,
only two miles away, Union Lake, eight
miles long and two wide, connected
by a portage of six hundred feet with
Washington Lake, which is twenty-eight

226

Puget Sound.

[February,

miles long and from two to ten wide.
These lakes are surrounded by wooded
uplands of good soil. When Seattle is
a rich commercial city, a terminus of the
Northern Pacific Railroad, these uplands
will be the place where Seattle for-
tunes will be spent in building villas.
Already land on these forest ridges com-
mands fifteen hundred dollars an acre ;
and the charter is granted for a horse-
car route, many miles out into what is
now unbroken wilderness. Seattle has
a university, with three hundred pupils,
boys and girls ; and a Catholic hospital,
to which our driver paid a warm tribute,
exclaiming, " Those Catholic sisters are
the women I want to have take care of
me when I 'm sick. They take care of
everybody all alike. If a fellow 's got
money, he must pay ; but if he has n't got
a cent, they '11 take just as good care of
him, all the same."

A large part of the present and pro-
spective wealth of Seattle is in coal
mines. The principal ones lie twenty
miles southeast of the town, in the ap-
propriately named village of Newcas-
tle, to which a narrow-gauge railroad
runs out, through a lane of wild syrin-
ga, spinca, black alder, pines and firs.
It was like a long gallery of Corots:
no tops of trees to be seen, but myri-
ads of vistas of drooping branches and
folds of foliage. Linnea vines hung in
wreaths- and white clover in drifts over
the edges and sides of the railroad cuts ;
so tropical a luxuriance of growth comes
even in these northern latitudes from
their solid half year of rain.

" It does n't really rain all the time,
does it? " I said to a discontented New-
castle woman, who had been complain-
ing of the wet winters.

"Well, if you was to see me hang-
ing out my clo'es Monday morning, an'
waitin' till Saturday for 'em to dry, an'
then takin' 'em in an' dryin' 'em by the
fire, I guess you 'd think it rained about
all the time," she replied resentfully.
" I 've lived here goin* on five years, an'

I hain't ever dried a week's wash out-of-
doors in the winter time yet, an' I 'm
sick on 't. To be sure, you can't ever
say it 's cold. That 's one comfort.".

Newcastle is a grimy huddle of huts
on the sides of a pocket of hillside and
forest : huts above huts ; stumps above
stumps ; handfuls of green grass among
patches of rocks ; bits of palings ; laby-
rinths of goat paths from hut to hut ;
strips of stairways here and there, to the
houses of the more ambitious ; wooden
chimneys of rough planks built aslant
against the houses' outside walls ; coal
heaps ; heaps of refuse ; blackened cars
drawn by mules ; miners running hither
and yon, sooty as imps, each with a lurid
flame burning in a tin tube on his cap
visor, — the scene was weird and hor-
rible. A small white chapel stood on one
of the highest ridges : it took a stairway
of twenty-two steps to reach it, but the
bottom stair was above most of the
chimneys of the village. I sat down on
this staircase and looked with dismay
over the place. Presently there came
hobbling by an old woman, leaning on a
cane ; with her, an agile, evil-faced little
boy, who was evidently kept by her side
much against his will. I did not need
to hear her speak to know that she was
English. English squalor, especially if
it have once been respectability, is even
more instantaneously recognizable than
English finery : carpet shoes ; a dingy
calico gown ; a red knit shawl ; a black
velvet bonnet, a score of years old, the
crown shirred in squares and gray with
dust ; a draggled feather atop of still
more draggled and rusty lace ; in the
front a velvet braid, of three separate
shades of brown which had once been
red ; a burnt-out old frizette of brown
hair, — all this above a pitiful aged
face, bright hazel eyes, full of nervous
irritability and wan sorrow. It was long
since I had seen such a study.

A glance was all the invitation she
needed to sit down by my side, and be-
gin to pour out her tale. She had come

1883.]

Puget £ound.

227

up to Newcastle from Ren ton, for her
" 'elth."

" And how far is Ren ton ? "

" Wull, ye '11 coam from Reuton to
this for forty cents."

I was struck by the novelty of this
method of estimating distance. The
rich reckon it by hours ; the poor, it
seems, by cents.

She was born in Staffordshire, Eng-
land, where she lived till she was forty
years old. Her first husband was a col-
lier. " Ee was a vary 'eavy man. An'
he made too much blood. For five years
'ee was a makkin too much blood ; an'
the doctors said it 'u'd be good for 'im
to go to America. Else I 'd never have
gone. 'T was for that I brought 'im.
I did not start till I was turned forty.
Oh, I 've 'ad troubles ! Ay, the oops and
downs in this life ! Ye doan know what
ye '11 live through with.

" I lost five children a-cuttin' teeth,
a-runnin', at fourteen months each ; an'
then their father was killed, too, an' that
was worse than the children.

" It was agen all my prayers that 'ee
went in the mine that day. I'd a bad
dream : an' I said to 'im, Now I 've 'ad
a dream ; an' if ye go in the mine 't 'ull
be your grave ye goin' into ; an' afore
night he was dead. There was nineteen
others killed, too. It was a coal mine ;
a slaughter mine, — that 's what it was,
by rights."

This was in Virginia ; in the coal
mines in the southern part of the State.
She soon married again, and with her
second husband was keeping a country
store, and earning money fast, when,
only three months before the war broke
out, their store burned down, without
insurance.

" We wa'n't like a many folks," she
said, " not payin' our debts because we
was burned out. We paid up every
dollar we owed, an' had enougn money
left to take us back to England for a
visit. I was n't ever afraid o' my hands.
I was as liberal to work as if it was to

airn a fortune. I was always a singin'
to my work like a nartingale."

When they returned to America they
joined a party of English emigrants to
Vancouver's Island, and her husband
went into the mines there. But misfor-
tune did not quit its hold of her. In an
accident in a mine, her husband was in-
jured by falling beams, so that he could
never again do heavy work, and all of
her children died except the youngest.

" There 's a great pleasure with hav-
ing children,'* she said, " au' there 's a
great (rouble to lose 'em ; but I 've lived
to thank the Lord that he took mine as
he did. It 's a wicked world for 'em to
coam through. . There was three men
was lynched down at Seattle last week.
It 's trew they 'd done a murder ; but I
think they s'u'd 'a' 'ad the right o' the
good law. When I heered it, it made
me sick. I was a-thinkin' they 'd got
mothers, mabbe, 'an if a woman was to
'ear that she 'd a child to be lynched
that way, it 'u'd be the finishin' of her ;
an 'art^breakin' thing, to be sure."

She rambled on and on, with such
breaks in her narrative, in time and se-
quence, that it was almost incoherent ;
every now and then she would sink into
half soliloquy, with a recurrence of
ejaculations, as if she were her own
Greek chorus. Her " Ay, ay, I 've 'ad
troubles," reminded me of Carlyle's too
late, poignant " Ay, de' me."

She is seventy-three years old. Her
husband is seventy-nine. He earns two
dollars a day in a mine.

"Ah," said I cheerfully. "That
^ives you sixty dollars a month. That
is a comfortable income."

" Na ! na ! " she said sharply, — " na
sixty dollars : there 's but six days to the
week. There 's nobody belonging to
me 'ull do Sunday work. Sunday work
's no good. No luck comes o' Sunday
work," and she gazed sternly up at the
sky as she reiterated the words. " I 'm
o' the Wesleyans," she continued, half
defiantly.

228

Puget Sound.

[February,

" That is a very good religion," I re-
plied, in a conciliatory voice.

" You bet it is ! " she exclaimed with
sudden vivacity, — " you bet it is ! If
you do as they say, you '11 be all right."

When I bade her good-by, she sighed
heavily, and said, —

" Well, good-day to ye. I wish ye
luck, where V ever ye 're goin'. I ex-
pect ye 've a deal o' pleasure in yer life,
but it 's a hard world to coam through
before yer done with it ; " and with
a petulant, unsmiling nod she turned
away.

In Carbonado, another colliery vil-
lage on the Sound, thirty miles south of
Tacoma, we found the same grimy des-
olation as in Newcastle. Blackened
stumps, half-burnt logs, bowlders, piles
of waste rubbish, met one at every turn.
But there was an expression of cheer
and life in the place ; and huge play-
bills, all over the town, announcing an
entertainment by the " Carbonado Min-
strel Club," gave evidence of an aston-
ishing knack at mirthfulness under dif-
ficulties. The programme was a droll
one; a first and second part, with or-
chestra overtures before and between,
a "conversationalist in the centre" —
whatever that may mean, — an " open-
ing chorus," a farce at the end, and
Professor John Brenner's string band,
to 'be "engaged for dancing after the
performance at reasonable rates."

" Shouting Extraordinary," by Char-
lie Poole, and a " comic song, Baby 's
got the Cramp, by Dan Davis," were
among the attractions of the second
part of the entertainment; the price rf
admission, fifty cents for adults and half
price for children.

We had run out from Tacoma to Car-
bonado on a special train. As we drew
near the station, I saw a girl, ten or
eleven years old, racing down the hill
at full speed, her sunbonnet flying off
her head. As we stepped out of our box
car, she looked at us with supreme con-
tempt.

« Well, I did get fooled ! " she ei-
claimed. " I thought you was the
mail ! "

Her curiosity as to our errand in Car-
bonado was great, and took expression
in an exuberant hospitality.

" Why did n't you come up to see
us Friday ? " she said. " We 're going
to have a review in school Friday, and
spell down. We spelled down last Fri-
day, too."

" Did you beat the whole school ? "
I asked.

" No. Si Hopkins, he spelled the
word, — spelled me down. Teacher's
going to spell the whole school down
next time on a new word, — shoddish."

" Shoddish ! " I exclaimed. " There
is not any such word in the English
language."

" There is too ! " she replied daunt-
lessly. " I 've got it written down, but
I can't learn it to save me. It 's a
kind o' dance, or something o' that
sort."

" Oh ! Schottisch," I said.

" Yes, that 's it," she nodded : " it 's
the name of a dance. Teacher 's seen
it, she says. I know I '11 get spelled
down on it, though : it 's a real mean
word to spell. There ain't any sense
in it. I '11 take you up to the school, to
see teacher," she added eagerly. " She '11
be real glad to see you. She just let
me run down to the train when we
heard the whistle. We thought 't was
the mail. That's Battle Row," she
continued, pointing to a sort of alley of
board shanties, evidently chiefly drink-
ing saloons. " There 's a fight there
every day, most. We don't go down
there, any of us, if we can help it. I 'd
be ashamed to live anywhere near there.
It's just rightly named. My mother
says she 'd like to see it burned down
any night. We did like to all burn up
here, three weeks ago. Did you hear
about it ? Well, it was just awful. We
had all the things out o' our house ; and
lots o' the neighbors did, too. The fire

1883.]

Puget Sound.

229

ain't out yet. You can see it smoking
there, in the edge of the timber."

This, then, explained a part of the
blackened desolateness of the little ham-
let. The wall of fir forests which had
seemed its protection had proved its dire
danger. A belt of charred trees, gaunt
as a forest of ebony masts, showed
where the fires had blazed along, and
come near sweeping away the village.

" It was well the wind went down
when it did," the little maid continued
sagely. " I expect if it had n't, you
would n't have found any of us here. It
was just as hot 's anything, all round ;
an' you could n't get your breath."

Looking around, one realized the ter-
rible danger of forest fires in such a
spot. The little village was walled on
three sides by a forest of firs and cedars,
from one hundred to three hundred feet
high ; and we had come through miles
of such forests, so dense that only a
few feet back from their outer edge
the shade became darkness impenetra-
ble by the eye. There is a sombre
splendor about these dark forests of
giant trees, which it would be hard to
analyze, and impossible to render by
any art. Language and color alike fall
short of expressing it.

The school was in a rough boarded
room which had been originally built
for a store. The hats, bonnets, books,
and slates were piled on the shelves, and
the thirty children sat on high benches,
their feet swinging clear of the floor.
There was not a robust or healthy-
faced child in the room, and their thin,
pale cheeks were a sad commentary on
the conditions of their lives. Later in
the day, as I walked from home to
home, and saw everywhere slow-trick-
ling streams of filthy water, blue, irides-
cent, and foul-odored, I wondered not
that the children were pale, bu.t that
they were alive. The history class was
reciting a memorized list of " epochs,"
when I went in. They had them at
their tongues' ends. I suggested to the

teacher to asK them what the word
" epoch " meant. Blank dismay spread
over their faces. One girl alone made
answer. She was an Indian, or perhaps
half-breed, fourteen years of age ; the
healthiest child and the best scholar in
the school, the teacher said. " The
time between," was her prompt defini-
tion of the word epoch, given with a
twinkle in her eye of evident amuse-
ment that the rest did not know what
it meant. The first class in reading,
then read from the Fourth Independent
Reader, in stentorian voices, Trow-
bridge's poem of The Wonderful Sack.
The effect of slight changes of a single
letter here and there was most ludicrous-
ly illustrated by one sturdy little chap's
delivery of the lines,

" His limbs were strong,
His beard was long."

With loud and enthusiastic emphasis he
read them,

"His lambs were strong,
His bread was long."

Not a member of the class changed
countenance, or gave any sign of disa-
greeing with his interpretation of the
text ; and the teacher, being engaged in
herculean efforts to keep the poor little
primary bench still, failed to hear the
lines.

As soon as school was out, most of
the children went to work carrying wa-
ter. The only water in the village is
in a huge tank behind the engine-house.
From this each family must draw its
supply. It was sad to see children not
over six or seven years old lugging a
heavy pail of water in each hand.

" I 've got all the wash-water to carry
this afternoon," said my little guide ;
" so I 've got to be excused from school.
My mother did n't wash to-day, because
she wa'n't well. Most always we get
the wash-water Sundays."

"You'll be sure to go down the in-
cline, won't you," she added ; " that '»
splendid. I 'd just like to go up an*
down in that car all the tune. It 'a

230

Puget Sound.

the nicest thing here. I expect that 's
what you all came for, wa'n't it ? There
's lots o' folks come out from Tacoma
just to go down in it. There ain't
another like it in the whole country,"
she added, with a superb complacence.
" You be sure an' go down, now."

It was indeed a fine shoot down, on
a nearly perpendicular steel-railed track,
over a thousand feet, to the bed of the
river, on the banks of which are the
openings of the mines. The coal is
drawn, and the miners go up and down
in cars, on this seemingly perilous track.
There is no other way down. The river
is a glacial stream, and dashes along,
milky white, between its steep banks.
On the narrow shore rims is a railway,
along which cars are drawn by mules,
from mine to mine, crossing the river
back and forth. In a distance of some
three or four miles, there are a dozen
galleries and shafts. The supply of coal
is supposed to be inexhaustible ; a most
convenient thing for the Central Pacific
Railroad, which owns it.

It was a weird ride at bottom of this
chasm : the upper edges lined thick with
firs and cedars ; the sides covered with
mosses and ferns and myriads of shrubs,
red columbines and white spiraeas, with
blossom plumes a foot and a half long,
— everything dripping and sparkling
with the river foam and the moisture
from innumerable springs in the rocks.
Bob, the handsome mule that drew us
over the road, deserves a line of history.
He has spent three years jogging up
and down this river bed. His skin
is like brown satiu, and his eyes are
bright ; he knows more than any other
mule in the world the miners think. He
knows all their dinner pails by sight,
and can tell which pails have pie in
them. Pie is the only one of human
foods which Bob likes. Hide their din-
ner pails as they may, the miners cannot
keep pie away from Bob, if he is left
loose. " He '11 go through a row o' din-
ner pails in a jiffy, and jest clean out

every speck o' pie there is there ; an' he
won't touch another thing, sir," said his
driver with fond pride.

The Carbonado picture I shall remem-
ber longest is of a little five-year-old
mother ; just five, the oldest of four.
She sat in a low rocking-chair, holding
her three months' old sister, looking
down into her face : cooing to her,
chucking her under the chin, laughing
with delight, and exulting at each re-
sponse the baby made.

" I can't hardly get the baby out of
her arms," said the mother. " She 's
always been that way, ever since she
was born. She takes care of all three
o' the others. I don't know what I 'd
ever ha' done without her. She don't
seem to want anything else, if she can
just get to hold the baby."

"Oh, look at her ! look at her ! " ex-
claimed the child, pointing to the baby's
face, over which a vague smile was flit-
ting. " I just did so to her" (making a
little comic grimace), " and she laughed
back ! She really did, just like we do."

After all, values in human life are
the same ; conditions make less differ-
ence than we think, and much of the
pity we spend on Newcastles and Car-
bonados is wasted. I am not sure that I
have ever seen on any child's face such
a look of rapturous delight as on this
little mother's ; and I make no doubt
that if we could have stayed to hear
Charlie Poole's Shouting Extraordina-
ry at the minstrel club's entertainment
we should have seen an audience as
heartily gay as any at the best show
Paris could offer.

Our last Puget Sound day was made'
memorable by the sight of a sunrise on
Mount Rainier. At quarter before four
o'clock the distant south horizon of Ta-
coma was shut out by walls of rose-col-
ored clouds. These presently opened,
floated off, and disclosed Mount Rainier,
its eastern slope rose red, its western
pale blue. One white cloud lingered at
the summit, blowing like a pennant, to

1883.]

Some Truths about the Civil Service.

231

the west ; the rose red changed to gold,
— gold which seemed molten, as it
streamed slowly down the mountain
side ; then it changed back to rose red
again, as the sky grew yellower and
yellower ; next, three oval barges of
gold swam out in the east, as if the sun
were coming by sea; the forest lines
were black as night ; the stretches of
water, first silvery, then gray, then
crossed with golden bars ; then the sky
turned to opaline lavender, the woods
went blue, the water blazed out red ; a
great column of light shot across from
shore to shore ; and the sun rose. On
the instant, the whole mountain turned
white again, calm and impassive, as
though it had had no share in the pag-
eantry of the last half hour.

The Indian name of Mount Rainier

was Tacoma : meaning, according to
some, " snow mountain ; " according to
others, " heart food," or " breast food."
One catches a glimpse through the clum-
sy English phrase of a subtly beautiful
idea, and a sentiment worthy of the
mountain and of the reverential Indian
nature. It is a shame to abandon the
name. Retaining it for the town is a
small atonement for stealing it from
the mountain. There seems a perverse
injustice in substituting the names of
wandering foreigners, however worthy,
and however enterprising in discovery,
for the old names born of love, and in-
spired by poetry we know not how many
centuries ago ; names sacred, moreover,
as the only mementoes which, soon, will
be left of a race that has died at our
hands.

H. H.

SOME TRUTHS ABOUT THE CIVIL SERVICE.

THE following letter throws a good
deal of light on the point of view from
which many members of Congress re-
gard the civil service : —

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
WASHINGTON, D. C., December 11, 1879.

Miss , I promised you, last spring,

that I would advise you of the fact
when I desired your place for one of
my people. In compliance with that
promise I now respectfully notify you
that I shall take steps to have you re-
moved, as a representative from my dis-
trict. Very truly, etc., .

This is the frank letter of a frank
man who was serving his first term as
a member of the House of Representa-
tives; he is now (October, 1882) a can-
didate for a third term. The letter was
written to a woman clerk in one of the
most important bureaus of the Treasury
Department. The chief of the bureau

said that she was one of the best clerks
he had. She was not removed, because
the heads of the bureau and division in
which she still serves did not permit it.
They knew her value, and, fortunately,
the congressman had not then obtained
power enough to do as he desired, with-
out regard to the wishes of the treasury
officers.

The letter shows how completely
members of Congress are possessed of
the belief that they have the appointing
power. It is not exceptional doctrine
that this frank writer advances. It is
held by almost all of his colleagues in the
legislative branch of the government,
and the executive himself submits to it,
except when he has friends to reward ;
or, rather, when he has no enemies to
punish. It is the exception when the
President insists on his right to appoint
and remove government employees as he
may desire, and without regard to mem-

232

Some Truths about the Civil Service.

[February,

bers of Congress. Generally, when he
asserts himself, the member of Congress
who is interested is thought to deserve
executive wrath. Congressmen look
upon the clerkships of the government
as belonging to them, each one having
a certain allotment to be distributed
among the influential needy of his con-
stituents. The member who wrote the
letter jumped over one step in the pro-
cess of removing a clerk which the opera
bouffe decorum prevailing in Washing-
ton makes essential. Probably he would
not now be guilty of such an indiscre-
tion as to write directly to a clerk, or-
dering the dismissal of one who is os-
tensibly another person's subordinate.
He knew the accepted theory, which
has for its support a law portioning out
the clerkships of the Treasury Depart-
ment among the several States, but he
was too new in Congress to realize that
there are appearances to be kept up.
His open avowal of his purpose to do
what he would with his own was a great
mistake. If he had begun his work
privately with the assistant secretary or
his appointment clerk, the chances are
that he would have succeeded. The
heads of the department undoubtedly
recognized that he was attempting to do
only what he had a right to do, but they
could not consent to be accomplices to
his blunt way of going to work.

The interest taken by congressmen
in securing appointments for constitu-
ents appears to be looked upon as some-
thing extraordinary. It is not extraor-
dinary, however ; it is perfectly natu-
ral employment for a good many of
the men who are made members of the
House of Representatives. The mem-
bers themselves are the creatures of the
spoils system, and their political vision
is bounded by it. They know of no
way to keep a political party in exist-
ence except by the distribution of clerk-
ships. I have known three congress-
men to devote half a day to urging the
head of a bureau to remove a democrat

from an unimportant place, and to ap-
point a republican in his stead. The
place paid the man who filled it about
fifty cents a day. This undoubtedly
seems a waste of time to the business
men of our great cities. It was not ; if
these congressmen had not been giving
their energies to this fifty -cent place,
they might have been seeking the re-
moval of some really competent person
from an important position in the govern-
ment service. After one of this class
of congressmen has done asking for places
and pensions, and attending to private
claims, and getting his district's streams
into the river and harbor bill, he has
nothing to do. The real evil of our
present civil service, in this respect, is
not that such congressmen are prevent-
ed from attending to more important
duties, but that the spoils system finds
mischievous employment for men who
ought not to be members of Congress,
or who, being members, ought to have
nothing to do. Good men, of course,
are hampered by the system, and lose
time that is important to them and to
their constituents by reason of the de-
mands made by people who are in search
of places for themselves or for friends
of " the party." Good men, however,
are, as a rule, in favor of a reform of
the civil service that shall take appoint-
ments and removals, and all the clerical
machinery of the government, out of
politics.

Although, as the letter printed at the
beginning of this article indicates, con-
gressmen regard clerical positions as
their own property, they do not consid-
er themselves the sole or the absolute
owners. The real proprietor is the
party. The leading purpose moving
members of Congress in appointing per-
sons to places is to benefit the political
organization to which they belong, and
to which they are indebted for their
election. They are simply trustees for
their respective factions. Their appoint-
ments and removals are made for the

1883.]

Some Truths about the Civil Service.

233

purpose of strengthening the party. As
they must necessarily be the ultimate
judges of what will benefit the party,
however, they generally decide in favor
of what will help themselves. They
are, in a word, permitted some latitude
in making their selections of persons,
provided that, in the main, they consid-
er the interests of the party. How far
removed this new theory is from the
old-fashioned doctrine that the govern-
ment is to be administered for the good
of the whole country, aud that a mem-
ber of the minority party is as much in-
terested in the government as one of the
majority, it is unnecessary to discuss.

As the party in power owns the
clerkships for its own advantage, it fol-
lows that congressmen are not the only
trustees of this power. Congressmen
look after the local interests of the
organization, but the larger affairs have
to be taken care of by men who stand
on the higher plane of executive office.
The President and members of the cab-
inet consider the national concerns of
the party. They act sometimes with
the advice of members of Congress, but
at other times they are obliged to take
matters into their own hands. As an il-
lustration of this may be mentioned the
fact that, not many years ago, a cabinet
officer sent to his appointment clerk a
direction to create twenty-one vacancies.
The clerk sent back the answer that it
would be extremely difficult to find so
many people in the department who
ought to be discharged. The secretary
was annoyed by this answer, and sent a
peremptory order to the clerk that the
vacancies must be made ; adding that
he had twenty-one people for whom he
must find places. The clerk, thus com-
pelled, discharged the required number
of persons arbitrarily, not considering
their merits or demerits, or the length
of their service. The secretary was
. obeyed. He was soon afterward the can-
didate for the presidential nomination of
a large number of the best people of his

party, whom he had deluded into believ-
ing him a civil service reformer, al-
though he was constantly denouncing
the civil service reform movement as a
humbug, and this to his subordinates in
the department.

The story of the management of one
of the great departments of the gov-
ernment during a recent administration
shows the evils attending the civil ser-
vice in all their grossness. Unfortunate-
ly for himself, perhaps unfortunately
for his desires, the head of the de-
partment had been placed under obliga-
tions to some of the worst politicians in
the country, who followed him persist-
ently and openly to the end of his term
of office, demanding recognition and
rewards for partisan work more degrad-
ing than had ever before been done in
the country. Under the administration
of which the secretary was a member,
each cabinet officer was at liberty to do
as he wished in the matter of the ap-
pointment and removal of his subordi-
nates. This fact does not relieve the
President from responsibility for an
open and flagrant abuse of the appoint-
ing power, but it takes from the secre-
tary every pretense of excuse for the
manner in which he conducted this part
of the business of his department. Dur-
ing his term of office, the spoils system
flourished vigorously. The business of
the department was conducted by a few
overworked clerks, the retention of
whom was made necessary by the idle-
ness and incapacity of the majority.
Men and women knew that efficiency
had little to do with the keeping of
their places, and that they might draw
pay from the government as long as
they retained their influence.

As no test of their real intellectual
capacity had been made when they were
appointed, comparatively few could ren-
der themselves worthy of promotion.
The lowest grade became choked with
people who had just enough intelligence
to perform its humble duties, while the

234

Some Truths about the Civil Service.

[February,

higher grades were crippled. When-
ever congressional elections were about
to take place, a panic seemed to seize
the clerks. They were apprehensive
lest their "influence" should be defeat-
ed, and they turned out of place. They
robbed themselves and their families
by paying political assessments from
their small salaries. Not only were as-
sessment papers circulated through the
department, but the party collector was
even permitted to sit iu the room where
the clerks received their pay, and to de-
mand the percentages due to the polit-
ical brigands who managed the campaign
and the campaign fund. There were
stories of actual distress published in
the newspapers, caused by this robbery
of the clerks and servants of the gov-
ernment ; of sick women going without
necessary medical attendance ; of house-
rent unpaid and food unbought ; and of
loss of employment by men who refused
to pay assessments, — all this in order
that money might be raised to send into
" doubtful districts." The true story of
the sufferings resulting from assessment
circulars of campaign committees would
excite the sympathy even of the men
whose seats in Congress have been ob-
tained with the proceeds of the plun-
der. But'in all the years during which
this great evil has been in existence,
the clerks and watchmen and messen-
gers and laborers have had no official
to speak for them ; and notwithstanding
all the fine promises made by party
platforms and in inaugural addresses, in
messages to Congress and even in stat-
utes, they have never yet had a protector
strong enough to defend them from po-
litical extortion.

The spoils system increased the force
employed in the department beyond its
requirements. When the complement
was full in the regular bureaus, places
were made for unprovided -for hench-
men iu one of two bureaus, the number
of employees of which is not limited
by statute, — or rather, by statute con-

structions. An illustration of the need-
less increase of force is furnished by
the action of the head of one of the
bureaus of the department at the time
he entered upon the duties of his office.
Although the work of his bureau was
then as great as it had ever been in the
history of the department, he"cut down
its clerical force twenty-five per cent. ;
and he would have cut it down still more,
had not members of Congress protested
so strongly that he was compelled to de-
sist. He was reducing too much the
amount of patronage.

The secretary seemed to make an ef-
fort in the direction of civil service re-
form after he had been in the cabinet
about a year. He appointed a commis-
sion of clerks to report to him a plan
by which employees should be promoted
from the lower to the higher grades,
the promotion in each case to be given
to the clerk standing highest in a com-
petitive examination. At least one of
the members of the commission was and
still is one of the best men in the de-
partment, and is, as it is safe to say all
the best men are, in favor of civil ser-
vice reform. The plan agreed upon was
precisely in accordance with the terms
of the secretary's order, but that gen-
tleman had grown conservative after
appointing the commission. He exam-
ined the report, and made his comment
in writing; and, although the commis-
sion simply provided a method for car-
rying out his own direction, that no one
should be promoted from a lower to a
higher grade unless he or she should
stand highest in a competitive examina-
tion, his reply was that he hardly thought
he was prepared to make so radical
a change as that suggested. He, how- 1
ever, promised to make use of the plan
whenever, " in the opinion of the sec-
retary, the public interest demanded."
Under this specious and convenient
phrase, the spoils system was permitted
to flourish, undisturbed by competitive
examination or by any intellectual test,

1883.]

Some Truths about the Civil Service.

235

except that made by members of Con-
gress themselves.

Some interesting facts of this admin-
istration ought to become part of the
history of the civil service reform move-
ment. In its second year, this secretary
dismissed four women from clerkships
in his most important bureau, and ap-
pointed four others to fill their places.
One only of the four was known to the
head of the bureau. Of the four re-
moved, he stated, in a communication
to the secretary, that one was the most
industrious woman clerk in her division,
and that another " merited promotion,
if ability, faithfulness, and efficiency
were considered." These removals and
appointments, however, but aggravated
an offense begun with the administra-
tion. Until then, it is believed, it had
been the unbroken custom for the head
of the bureau to nominate all his clerks.
This official made a vigorous protest.
In a long and very strong letter to the
secretary, he took the ground that he
should be permitted to select his own
subordinates. He called the secretary's
attention to the fact th&t he was bond-
ed in the amount of one hundred and
fifty thousand dollars, and that his bond
was given, among other things, " for the
fidelity of the persons to be by him em-
ployed." He pertinently asked, "Can
an officer, so bound, consent that oth-
ers, for any reason, should select for him
his employees, who would be bound by
gratitude to the one who selects, leaving
the bonded officer responsible alone?"
And he added, with a force that can-
not help meeting the approval of busi-
ness men, " Indeed, I do not believe
that sureties could be found to join
in an official bond with an appointee
to this office, were it known to them
that the employees, for whose fidelity
he and they are by law held responsi-
ble, were to be selected without refer-
ence to his recommendation." He urged
that it was " destructive of the disci-
pline of the office to make appointments

otherwise " than on his recommenda-
tion ; that " such changes in the force
as have been made in the last year and
ten mouths tend to unsettle the confi-
dence of employees that the stability of
their appointments depends in any de-
gree upon their efficiency and faithful-
ness in the performance of their duties ;
and . . . it certainly cannot be sound
practice that [the head of the bureau]
should be made responsible for the offi-
cial conduct of the employees, while hav-
ing no voice in their selection." He
closed by referring to the fact that the
appointments in the department were
actually made, not by the secretary, but
by an assistant Secretary ; and he sug-
gested that " the head of this office has
equal facilities with any subordinate
official for forming a judgment as to the
character of the employees required."

This paper was referred to the assist-
ant secretary, who actually made the
appointments, and who was a machine
politician of the worst class. The an-
swer prepared by him argued that the
head of the bureau had not the legal
power to make appointments, — a power
never asserted, but, on the contrary,
expressly disclaimed. The secretary's
reply was in better temper, but he
evaded the question at issue. He in-
sisted on his power to make all appoint-
ments, but said that the head of the bu-
reau might object, and that his objec-
tions ought to be heeded by the secre-
tary, if that official, in the exercise of
a " wise discretion," considered the ob-
jections " well founded." The secre-
tary's letter closed as follows : —

" There can be no objection to the
[head of the bureau] nominating per-
sons whom he may think proper to fill
vacancies, but it cannot be conceded
that such nomination is a condition pre-
cedent to appointment, or that an ob-
jection of the [head of the bureau] to a
person appointed shall be fatal, if held
by the secretary to be unreasonable."
In other words, and as further events

236

Some Truths about the Civil Service.

[February,

demonstrated, the secretary proposed to
do as he would concerning appointments
to the clerkships in the bureau.

The reply to the secretary simply
pointed out the errors into which the
assistant secretary had fallen, and re-
stated the bureau chief's position. How
far the objections which the secretary
invited availed against the appointment
of improper persons to clerkships may
be judged from the following instances :
A woman was named for a place in
the bureau, the duties of which involved
the counting of money. The chief
knew that in the secretary's office there
were papers showing that the woman
had been imprisoned in a penitentiary
for forgery ; had betrayed to a gang of
counterfeiters some detectives, to aid
whom she had been employed ; and had
been, generally, a woman of bad char-
acter. The chief called the attention
of the secretary to these important facts
and to his invitation, and objected to
her appointment. The only concession
that the secretary would consent to
make was that she should not fill the
place for which she was first selected.
He gave her another position, however,
and afterward promoted her. Just as
he was leaving office, he sent another
woman to the bureau. Her duties were
to be clerical, but she could not write
legibly, nor spell correctly, even when
she was copying from printed matter.
The envelopes directed by her are still
preserved as masterpieces of ignorance.
The chief objected to her appointment ;
but the secretary insisted, and she had
to be retained.

These facts show what can happen
under the spoils system. A long and
weary list of similar facts — similar in
character, if not so exaggerated in de-
gree — might be given. But that such
outrages as these may be perpetrated
under the forms of law ought to be
sufficient to demonstrate the necessity of
an immediate change. It may be, as
politicians seem to assert, that their race

will always remain so impure that such
offenses will continue to be committed
even against the law ; but the time to
make the trial has surely come. The
burglar plies his vocation notwithstand-
ing the law, but that is not thought a.
reason for repealing the statutes against
burglary.

Congressmen now violate the law
by assuming the functions of the ap-
pointing power which the constitution
gives to the executive, and they debauch
the civil service by refusing to estab-
lish a system which will, prevent their
infringement of this fundamental law.
How far they go in taking from the
President his undoubted rights is shown
by the letter which begins this article ;
how far its connection with party poli-
tics is injurious to the service is shown
by the examples of abuses which have
been given.

An experience of many years with
the departments in Washington must
convince an honest observer that the
evil which is farthest reaching, because
most common, can be cured by compet-
itive examination alone. This evil is
the lack of material in the lower grades
of the service for promotion to the high-
er. This is a more dangerous because
more insidious evil than the appoint-
ment of grossly incompetent persons.
If that were as common as it is popu-
larly supposed to be, it would in time
cure itself. Naturally, most appoint-
ments are made to the first-class, or low-
est, clerkships, and into these places
members of Congress thrust the follow-
ers for whom they feel compelled to
provide. It is not true that they do not
take the intelligence of the appointees
into account. The trouble is that they
are satisfied with competency for the
actual work that is required of first-
class clerks. That work does not call
for much intelligence. Any one who
can write legibly, and who can spell
well enough not to make gross errors in
copying, is able to satisfy the principal

1883.]

Some Truths about the Civil Service.

237

demands made upon first-class clerks.
A congressman thinks his duty to the
government discharged when he has
ascertained that his constituent has just
enough intelligence and training to per-
form the lowest duties that will be re-
quired of him. Congressmen are not
half so bad as some of the reformers
make them appear. No one of them '
would, as a matter of fact, take an " end
man " of a negro minstrel troupe to the
Secretary of the Treasury, and ask for
his appointment to a clerkship, on the
ground of his being the best comic sing-
er and the best story-teller in the coun-
try. Congressmen have a higher re-
spect for genius than this. The " end
man " might be recommended for a dip-
lomatic position, but never for a clerk-
ship. The man who will be urged for
the clerkship will, in all probability, be
one who has never been able to rise
above a six or seven hundred dollar
position in a country grocery store, and
to whom a twelve hundred dollar gov-
ernment place means almost undreamed-
of wealth. He is perfectly competent,
however, to do the work that is expected
of him. Of course, he will not actually
do it, because he is lazy, and, as he is
appointed through congressional- influ-
ence, he will hold his place, not by merit
and industry, but by the same means
that obtained him his clerkship. He
has nevertheless the intellectual capacity
to do the work of his desk. The great
difficulty is that he has not the capacity
to deserve promotion. This is the first
sore spot in our civil service. If con-
gressmen really secured the appointment
of men because they were banjo players
or comic singers, or simply because they
distributed tickets at the polls, the pres-
ent bad system would very soon break
down, because the service itself would
be destroyed. The evil would cure itself
by its own enormity. As it is, congres-
sional dealers in patronage can truly ask,
" Do we, as a rule, recommend men for
first-class clerkships who are not com-

petent to perform the duties required of
them ? " The answer must be that they
do not, as a rule, select persons who
cannot perform the easy duties of first-
class clerks. It might be better if they
did. Now, at least, they have a mask
for the evils of the system which they
insist upon preserving.

The injury that the spoils system
does to the service is felt in the higher
grades of clerkships. Almost any head
of a department or bureau will say that
the 'only way in which the higher cleri-
cal positions can be filled properly is by
promotion from the lower grades. In-
telligent men and women, who begin as
first-class clerks, and who do their work
industriously and conscientiously, have
an opportunity of acquiring a knowl-
edge of the manner of conducting busi-
ness in the department generally, such
as no outside person can have. When,
however, the majority of the first-class
clerks are persons without any capacity
for improvement, promotion to the high-
er grades cannot go on as rapidly as it
ought. Places must be left unfilled un-
til congressmen have some really good
men to be put in training in first-class
clerkships ; or else persons must be as-
sighed directly to the higher clerkships,
and time must be taken by the heads of
bureaus or divisions to give necessary
instruction in the duties to be performed.
In either event, the service is crippled,
because by the present method of ap-
pointment the intelligence of applicants
for clerkships is not determined. This
is not a picture of the imagination. The
Treasury Department has long been an
illustration. It is suffering now, as it
has been for years, because of the lack
of proper material in the lowest grade
of clerks, from which to secure the
needed experts.

The trouble lies in the test of intel-
ligence applied, and in the character of
tenure. Congressmen say that they
can make the best selections, for they
know the applicants. This is one of

238

Some Truths about the Civil Service.

[February,

the fictions of the spoils system. If the
truth were known, it would doubtless be
discovered that very few of the persons
recommended for appointment to clerk-
ships are personally known to the sen-
ators or members who vouch for them.
Those who ask for clerkships are not
generally the political workers, with
whom the member from the district
conies in contact. They are more likely
to be dependent relatives or thriftless
friends of the workers, and their ap-
pointment is demanded as a return for
services that have been rendered the
congressman. The inquiry made by the
latter discovers just enough to make it
certain that the applicant is not unfit
for a position just above that of watch-
man or messenger. In addition, the
meagre and unsatisfactory pass examina-
tion comes to the help of the govern-
ment. What John Stuart Mill said was
true of it in England is also true of it
here : " It is merely adequate to exclude
dunces." The worthlessuess of these
examinations has so long been recog-
nized by all who know anything of the
civil service that it is unnecessary to dis-
cuss them. Briefly, they may be said,
when they are used, to complete the
congressional test, and to determine fit-
ness for first-class clerkships, without
discovering any capacity for growth or
improvement.

It is a common remark among poli-
ticians that the test imposed by compet-
itive examination lacks one essential
element, and that is the power to dis-
cover the business talents of applicants
for clerkships. The implication that
business talents are needed is very amus-
ing to those who are familiar with gov-
ernment clerks as a class. Clerks and
men of affairs are different kinds of be-
ings. If the men who seek clerkships
in government offices were possessed of
the talents that make successful busi-
ness men, they would not be content to
earn small salaries for recording what is
done by the executive heads of their

departments. The late President Gar-
field once said that what struck him most
forcibly, in going through the Treasury
Department, was the noticeable lack of
back -head among the clerks. Mojst
of the men who find employment un-
der the government, as clerks, are per-
sons who have failed in their efforts to
make a living in business pursuits, or
who have never had the energy or the
self-confidence to make the attempt to
carry on affairs for themselves. As a
rule, they belong to the numerically
large class of beings whose work in life
is to see that the fruits of enterprise
and intelligence are preserved after they
have been plucked by stronger men.
They are the book-keepers, and copyists,
and voucher guardians of the world.
At least, that is what the government
expects most of them to be. A very
few of them deal directly with men in a
way to demand such a knowledge of hu-
man nature as will enable them to pro-
tect the interests of the government;
but most of the persons whose duty it is
to make contracts, to govern and regu-
late the conduct of minor employees, —
in short, to be executive officers, — are
not those who would be affected by the
proposed reform of the civil service.
No intelligent reformer desires to bring
officers of the government within the
rules proposed for the regulation of ap-
pointments and promotions to clerkships.
The effort that is now making is direct-
ed simply to providing a better method
for securing clerks, — persons who are
not in any sense in official life. They
are merely the assistants of those hold-
ing office. They decide nothing. They
advise nothing. They have no power.
They administer no laws. They are no
more officers of the government than
are the fingers and pen of the head of
the bureau or division whom they serve.
It is true that many of the clerks in
government employ consider themselves
in office, and speak of themselves as of-
fice-holders. It is common enough to

1883.]

Some Truths about the Civil Service.

239

hear women clerks, whose sole duty it
is to copy letters, or other manuscript,
for the printer, say that they are "in
office." The fact, however, that these
people thus indulge their vanity, or that
they misconceive their own status, can
make no difference. It cannot change
them from what they are, — the imple-
ments with which their official superiors
perform the duties required by law. The
habit of looking on them as office-hold-
ers, however, has been the cause of a
good deal of embarrassment to civil ser-
vice reform. There is a vast difference
between the honors of office and the
place of a clerk ; and the argument in
favor of the purchase, by the govern-
ment, of the clerical services of a man
or a woman because of his political be-
liefs or her congressional 'k influence "
reaches its absurd but logical conclusion
when it is used in favor of a certain
kind of pen, or a particular brand of
paper. The active politician who has
wriggled into Congress has, however,
just as much right to complain because
his friend's pens or paper are not
bought on his recommendation as he
has to fly into a passion because a cer-
tain set of fingers, also recommended by
him, are not hired to use the pens and
paper. The clerk is no more an officer
of the government than are the tools
with which he does his work.

The talk about business qualifications
of first-class clerks is simply one of the
refuges of a weak cause. Almost the
first thing a politician does, when a proj-
ect for supplanting the spoils system is
presented to him, is to look about for an
argument against it. What he is after
is only something to say in opposition.
It does not matter how absurd he may
be. If he has only a formula to repeat,
that satisfies him, and he clings to it ob-
stinately and doggedly, because he has
determined never to give in. This talk
about the business talents is one of the
formulae. It should be borne in mind
that, under the reform, proposed in Sen-

ator Pendleton's bill, — which embraces
what the reformers are agreed upon, —
no one is to receive a permanent ap-
pointment until after a probation of sev-
eral months, and appointments are to be
made to the lowest, or first-class, clerk-
ships. This makes the " business ca-
pacity " argument apply to these low-
grade clerks.

Of course the men who develop busi-
ness capacity in doing their clerical
work will have a chance for promotion
to executive places, under almost any
system. They have it even under the
wretched system that now obtains.
There is no better illustration of this
than that afforded by the experience of
the very able treasurer of the United
States, who has risen to his present of-
fice from a first-class clerkship. There
are men in every department of the
government who, like him, have risen
to high administrative office through the
sheer force of their own characters ; and
in almost every instance they have de-
veloped and given evidence of their ca-
pacity by the discharge of their duties
in lower positions in the various de-
partments to which they have been at-
tached. These men receive promotion
because the business of the departments
would be almost fatally crippled with-
out them. The rewards given for good
service and intelligent work under the
spoils system are very few. They are
just what are absolutely necessary to
enable the civil service to accomplish
anything at all. Even the few expert
men who are retained are occasionally
attacked by politicians in Congress, who
want their places for valuable hench-
men ; but the politicians who have be-
come heads of departments have learned
that without these men their own ad-
ministrations would be gross failures.
Therefore, a few good men may be
found in every department of the gov-
ernment, who, with much labor and un-
der many disadvantages, and with great
weariness of soul because of the sur-

240

Some Truths about the Civil Service.

rounding inefficiency, carry on the work
of their departments. There is no bet-
ter method of determining the capacity
of men for what are really administra-
tive offices under the government than
that by which these men have been test-
ed. They have, with very few excep-
tions, been instructed for their higher
duties by actually performing the duties
of those who are now their clerks.

Under the proposed reform, all offices
requiring administrative ability would
naturally be filled from the service. The
little that is now done in this direction
is proof enough of this. There is real-
ly no test that can determine the pos-
session of qualifications needed in the
government employ that can equal that
of service, and there is not an honest
and experienced head of a department
or bureau who will not admit this. Un-
der the spoils system, however, educa-
tion by experience is very largely pre-
vented, because, first, the lower-grade
clerks have not the intelligence to ac-
quire it ; and, second, the uncertainty of
tenure takes away the incentive to work.
The promotions that have been made
for efficiency have been those only that
have been forced on the departments.
The interference of congressmen with
appointments prevents the recognition of
capacity. A senator or a member who
has secured a clerkship for a friend, or
a friend's friend, naturally thinks him
fit for advancement, after some service
in the department on which he has been
saddled. If the head of the office pro-
tests that the clerk is unfit for promo-
tion, the congressman attributes the op-
position to personal hostility, or to some
other unworthy motive. He pretends,
then, to have suspicions that this bu-
reau chief is not the person he ought
to be, and he threatens investigation, or
a complaint to the President, or that he
will " light his bill," or that he will have
his appropriations cut down, or that he
will do something that will make his
enemy's official life a burden to him.

[February,

This keeps the unhappy " bureaucrat "
constantly fighting for the preservation
of the service from resentful attacks.
He must either employ inefficient per-
sons, or see his appropriations reduced
to such an extent that he cannot prop-
erly administer his office. The evils,
therefore, of the spoils system, so far as
they relate to the intelligence of the
clerks, are felt chiefly in the matter of
obtaining suitable persons for the higher*
grades. The fact that very few first-class
clerks can ever become worthy of pro-
motion is one that is recognized by those
whose duty it is to superintend their
work. The congressional test of ca-
pacity is so crude and unsatisfactory that
it determines nothing. What is needed
is some method that will ascertain the
real intellectual character of applicants.
When a person is appointed to a first-
class clerkship, the government is inter-
ested in knowing that he has intelli-
gence ; that he possesses the elements of
growth ; that he can receive instruction,
and so profit by his service in a lower
position that he will become fitted for
a higher. There is no test that can be
applied that will discover this so well
as a thorough intellectual examination.
Pass examinations amount to nothing,
because they do not go far enough. In
a competitive examination, the person
who comes out first demonstrates his
superiority ; and when the government
secures the services of such a man it is
assured of a clerk who has at least one
essential qualification for the work he
will be called upon to do. He has given
the best evidence in the world that he
possesses the ability and the energy to
acquire knowledge. This is one great
step in advance of anything that is of-
fered by the congressional test, which
at its very best simply finds that the
applicant has acquired the power to do
the simplest kind of clerical labor.
Competitive examination must deter-
mine not only the actual information of
the candidate, but his possession of th«

1883.]

Some Truths about the Civil Service.

241

power of development. In other words,
while experience has taught the heads
of departments and bureaus in Wash-
ington that, under the spoils system, the
lowest grade of clerkships is filled with
people who ought never to be promoted,
the introduction of the system of com-
petitive examinations, proposed by the
advocates of a reformed civil service,
must necessarily put into the govern-
ment employ persons of sufficient intel-
ligence to fill the higher grades.

The test of character, under the spoils
system, is made after an applicant re-
ceives his appointment ; and after the
bad character of a clerk has been dis-
covered, it is more than likely that the
official who wants to discharge him will
find an angry and threatening member
of Congress standing in his way, and
alluding significantly to his power over
the appropriation bills and to his influ-
ence with the President. It is unneces-
sary, however, to point out the advan-
tages of the merit over the spoils sys-
tem, in this respect. Under the one,
no clerk would receive an appointment
without being first put on probation ;
under the other, applicants are made
clerks at once. Under the one, clerks
must go to a higher place from the
grade just below, and the probability is
that the clerk best fitted for promotion
will receive it ; under the other, it has
been demonstrated that it is hard to find
persons who are worthy of advancement.

Undoubtedly, a change in the charac-
ter of the tenure of government clerk-
ships would do much to cure this evil.
There are not 'many incentives now for
a clerk in a lower grade to train him-
self for promotion. Many do educate
themselves by faithful service, but they
are superior men and women. If a
congressman, by chance, puts a really
intelligent person into a first-class clerk-
ship, the knowledge that the retention
of his place and promotion depend on
influence rather than on efficiency is a
powerful means of suppressing any am-

VOL. LI. — NO. 304. 16

bition to excel. An improvement of
tenure might accomplish something, but
the service cannot be made what it
ought to be without a change of the
method of selecting clerks for the lower
grades. The conclusion to which an
honest and thorough examination of the
facts of our civil service leads is that

- congressmen appoint to clerkships, as a
rule, people who, from lack of intelli-
gence or industry, never prepare them-
selves for promotion to places where
skilled experience is required.

This is the truth about the civil ser-
vice, so far as the character of the clerks
is concerned. It is not part of the pur-
pose of this paper to discuss the other
gross evils of the spoils system. The
country ought by this time to be thor-
oughly informed of how much time is
spent by heads of departments in attend-
ing to the demands of applicants for
offices and clerkships. It ought now to
be a recognized fact that it is impossible
for cabinet officers to be really the heads
of their departments. Some of them
never pretend to acquire a knowledge
of their duties. No department of the
government has escaped the demoraliz-
ing influences of " politics." No head
of any department gives his time and
his talents to the service of the govern-
ment. They are demanded by and given
to others, who have no right to them.

The gravest evil of the spoils system
is its influence on politics. This subject,
also, has been exhaustively discussed, and
ought now to be thoroughly understood.
It is, however, one of the weaknesses of
politicians that they think that the pow-
er to distribute the spoils strengthens
them personally. On the contrary, it
weakens them. The power breeds a
race of shifty, cunning politicians, who,
as a rule, are worthless citizens. For
every office or clerkship a congressman

i has to fill, there is a horde of applicants.
For every gratified seeker, there are
a hundred disappointed. The appoint-
ment always makes more enemies than

242

Some Truths about the Civil Service.

[February,

friends, and the man who depends wholly
on his employment of patronage for re-
tention in public life is always driven
out in the end. The machine politicians,
as a class, are helped by the spoils sys-
tem ; for the disappointed office-seekers
invariably take up arms for some one
on whom they think they can rely for
favors. They desire to put out of place
the man who disappointed them, and to
put in place some one who will treat
them better. The spoils keep them in
politics, and they are beaten every time
a decent man is sent to Congress, or is
elected to any office to which is attached
the power of appointment. Were it not
for the spoils system, good men might
be sent to Congress for many terms in
succession, and these might have time
for the doing of some legislative work.
As it is, Congress is largely made up of
a succession of machine politicians, who
are elected to distribute the spoils, and
who are turned out for making mistakes
in the distribution.

The contrast between the spoils and
the merit systems was splendidly illus-
trated in the administration of Mr.
Hayes. The Department of the Interior
furnished the contrast. In it there was
a real reform of the civil service. No
one was appointed except after winning
his place in a competitive examination ;
no clerk was removed except for cause
and after a hearing. The reform suf-
fered because it was not general, and
because it felt the influences that pre-
vailed throughout the other departments
of the government. Assessment col-
lectors threatened its clerks, although
the secretary forbade the circulation of
their papers within the department, and
there was always the fear of what the
next secretary might approve or disap-
prove. Work that ought to have been
done by a special commission had to be

done by a committee of the clerks of the
department, in addition to their regular
duties. But, notwithstanding all the
drawbacks that resulted from the gen-
eral indifference of the administration
to the movement, Mr. Schurz's experi-
ment was a decided success ; and it is
surprising that the advocates of a re-
form of the civil service have not made
more use of it, as an argument. It cer-
tainly demonstrated that the adoption of
the English system, or something like
it, is practicable in this country. It
gave the Interior Department better
clerks than it had ever had before, and,
what is more, it gave the secretary prac-
tically all his time to devote to the work
of the government. He had no appli-
cants for place to trouble him, for it
very soon came to be understood that
success in a competitive examination
was the only way open to seekers after
employment. The clerks were content-
ed, for they knew that they would not
lose their places as long as they remained
efficient and honest. For the same rea-
son, they worked faithfully. The indo-
lence that is always noticed among those
who rely on political influence for ap-
pointment to and retention in place is
never seen among those who depend on
merit. Singularly enough, there was
none of the insolence on the part of the
clerks, in their treatment of those having
business with the department, which is
so confidently predicted, by the enemies
of civil service reform, as sure to follow
the adoption of a system which shall
make tenure of place permanent. For
once was seen a department of the gov-
ernment managed on business principles,
and it was a wholesome and pleasant
sight to all who believe that the civil,
service should be managed in the inter-
est of the government, and not in the
interest of a political machine.

Henry L. Nelson.

1883.] The Morality of Thackeray and of G-eorge Eliot.

243

THE MORALITY OF THACKERAY AND OF GEORGE ELIOT.

DICKENS excepted, there have been
no English novelists of the present age
so widely known and greatly admired as
Thackeray and George Eliot, — a man
of genius and a woman of genius, each
in his and her own way preeminently a
moralist. It is interesting, and perhaps
not unprofitable, briefly to compare
these two in their character of ethical
teachers, putting aside any judgment
upon their qualities as literary artists.
There are certain writers, such as Tur-
genieff, whose work contains an unmis-
takable moral clement, but who yet do
not openly proclaim themselves as teach-
ers of morality ; who prefer to stand
apart, and leave their work to make its
own impression, unemphasized by any
commentary of the author's own. It is
not so with Thackeray and George Eliot ;
they, on the contrary, frankly acknowl-
edge the direct ethical purport of their
work, and have no hesitation in point-
ing the moral of their tale whenever it
pleases them to do so. One may read
them, of course, for the mere pleasure
of the story or the charm of its telling,
and no doubt many persons do so read
The Newcomes and Middlemarch ; but
it is certain that the authors of these
novels intended something more than
simply to amuse. Some readers find an
endless delight in the humor and sat-
ire of the books independently of any
moral lessons they convey ; others, again,
would find in the vivid pictures of hu-
man weakness and wickedness an in-
terest that would be too painful but for
the fact that the exhibition was meant
to serve a moral purpose.

To readers of this latter sort, one of
the strongest impressions left on the
mind by Thackeray and George Eliot
alike is a feeling of sadness and discour-
agement. It is true, critics have long
ceased to speak of Thackeray as a harsh

and bitter cynic. He was, indeed, a
man of kind, even tender heart. Yet
I doubt if his influence is not on the
whole the worse, on that account, on
those who accept his theories. The bit-
ter cynic, by the very extravagance of
his doctrine, brings about a reaction
against it : he never can succeed in
making any large number of men agree
with him in wholesale contempt for the
species. The majority of persons do not
feel comfortable in the seat of the scorn-
ful, in the cold and gloomy isolation in
which they must dwell apart from their
kind. Thackeray had no real desire to
make men permanently dissatisfied with
themselves or the world. He held
tli at the world was not a bad place to be
born into, provided one learned what
not to expect from it, and could find a
way to accommodate one's self to one's
place in it. In the process of learning
the lesson, one must of course lose a
number of agreeable illusions, and dis-
cover an immense deal that was unpleas-
ant in the companions one was forced to
live among ; but a man of sense ought
not to grumble at the inevitable, or be
astonished long at finding the earth no
paradise of innocence. The meanness,
selfishness, hypocrisy, and general ras-
cality going about the world in more or
less clever disguise must sooner or later
become patent to one who has eyes keen
enough to see somewhat below the sur-
face. 'T is true 't is pity ; but pity 't is,
't is true. At least, one might congrat-
ulate one's self on not being befooled
by smooth appearances ; and thus the
very keen-eyed author of Pendennis — a
Selfish Story, as he calls it — with the
best of intentions sets himself to un-
cover for us some of this masked folly
and wickedness of the world, which,
without his assistance, we might not
have found out for ourselves so readily.

244 The Morality of Thackeray and of George Eliot. [February,

Now, I do not mean to say that Thack-
eray secretly delighted in his self-im-
posed task ; I merely want to describe
the prevailing tone of his writing. We
know how leugthy and frequent are the
pages of moralizing commentary upon
the character and action of his person-
ages, which occur in most of his novels.
After we have become familiar with the
constant tone of these pages, do we not,
as a rule, prefer to skip them, in our re-
reading of the books ? It is very well,
no doubt, to be reminded that if we are
asked to become acquainted with some
very low specimens of our kind, it be-
hooves us to recollect that they are of
one kind with ourselves, in their faults
as in their virtues, and that what is to
be avoided above all things is self-right-
eous judgment. If we so understand
the purport of Thackeray's moralizing,
we must of course approve it ; but, un-
fortunately, it is quite as open to be in-
terpreted in another fashion, and may
very easily seem the preaching of a doc-
trine of content with low achievement,
since no other is possible to creatures
frail as we are. Jones is a small-mind-
ed, self-interested individual, the author
confesses ; but if we reflect that we and
our neighbors are really 110 better than
Jones, we shall be loath to condemn him
harshly. The reader feels this to be
true enough, in a sense ; and yet if we
are not to pass judgment upon Jones,
and we and Jones stand on the same
level, then surely it follows that we
are not called on to exercise any undue
severity toward ourselves.

It is not that Thackeray paints men
and women so much worse than they
are, but we find ourselves wishing that
he were content to picture his selfish
worldling or his hypocritical toady, his
Major Pendennis or his Charles Honey-
man, without feeling it needful, at the
same time, to hint to us that the odious
person is only one of a numerous com-
pany of such like individuals, whom we
have only to look about us to recognize.

How few in proportion are the truly ad-
mirable figures that fill his large can-
vases ! We can almost count them on
the fingers of one hand. And how
often it happens that the brighter shapes
seem to shine less by their own native
brilliancy than as points of contrast to
the surrounding darkness! Thackeray
is never able to put a thorough trust in
human nature, or to grant that goodness
is a militant power in the world. With
all our liking and admiration for Colonel
Newcome and Esmond, we cannot help
feeling that their goodness was neither
a very positive force as regarded others,
nor even the sufficient stay of their own
inner life.

Thackeray lauded women continually,
after a certain fashion ; they are beings
of almost angelic nature, born to be the
guardians of sinful men ; but he was in-
capable of painting one wholly noble
woman. We suspect the sincerity of his
praise ; indeed, we detect in it a tone of
half contempt, or, at best, of patronage,
which women instinctively resent. No
doubt he fancied that he understood the
heart of a good woman when he said,
" There are stories to a man's disadvan-
tage which the women who are fondest
of him are always the most eager to be-
lieve," and when he made Arthur Pen-
dennis's mother ready at once to credit
the vile accusation of an anonymous let-
ter against her much-loved son. Thack-
eray's women are unjust and ungener-
ous to those they love most fondly ; but
Helen Pendeunis and Lady Castlewood
are modeled after the author's little
theory, not after the truth of human
nature.

It is not when we first know our
Thackeray — unless it be in the pages
of Vanity Fair or Barry Lyndon that
we thus discover him — that we are
disposed to charge him with that cyni-
cism which is worst because most good-
natured. The humor of the great por-
trait painter is so genial and irresistible,
he mocks and gibes with such a merry

1883.] The Morality of Thackeray and of G-eorge Eliot.

245

face, that we do not at once begin to
feel the force of the sting in his laugh-
ing tongue. It is when we have laid
the book down, after a second reading,
that we find ourselves experiencing a
revulsion from it, the sort of sickening
sensation that comes from the sight of
some distressingly malformed creature.
Then we begin to wonder if we have
not misread our author, and to recall
the pleasanter personages of the society
he has introduced us to, and the most
cheering words of his we can remember.
But do what we will, we cannot but feel
that the dominant impression left on us
is that Thackeray had but little faith
in humankind, and but small encourage-
ment to give men on their way through
the world. He has no better philoso-
phy to offer than that we must take life
a good deal as we find it, and try for
our own part not to make it much worse,
if we cannot hope to make it much bet-
ter ; that men and women being but
mortal, we must content ourselves with
the good in them, if we cannot avoid
seeing the bad ; that if, on the whole,
no one is to be admired unreservedly,
neither is it worth while to spend too
much energy or honest indignation in
contending against fools and rogues.
This seems to be about the sum of his
teaching.

In the case of George Eliot, the cause
of the discouraging impression produced
by her work is not the same as in that
of Thackeray. To answer at once the
question whence it does arise, it may
be said briefly that it is not so much be-
cause her doctrine is false as because
it is defective. Her creed is a kind of
modern stoicism, or stoicism plus certain
modern ideas. It must be admitted that
such a creed has in it much of truth and
nobleness. There is no earnest-minded
reader but must acknowledge a debt to
George Eliot for the inspiration her
books have been to him. The words of
a sympathetic critic in reference to
Daniel Deronda hold good of her writ-

ings as a whole : " This book has done
something to prevent our highest mo-
ments from making our every-day ex-
perience seem vulgar and incoherent,
and something to prevent our every-day
experience from making our highest
moments seem spectral and unreal."
The message which George Eliot de-
,livers by the mouths of all the noblest
characters of her novels is no uncertain
one, and, whatever its variety of utter-
ance, the burden of it is always the same ;
namely, that, frail as human nature is, it
may ever aspire to the perfect good, and
be faithful to the highest truth it has
been able to find for itself. Dorothea,
in the hour of her deepest trial, " yearned
toward the perfect Right, that it might
make a throne within her and rule her
errant will ; " and after the crisis of her
anguish is passed she says to another,
" Trouble is so hard to bear, is it not ?
How can we think that any one has
trouble, — piercing trouble, — and we
could help them, and never try ? " Mag-
gie Tulliver says to her lover, "Oh, life
is difficult ! Many things are difficult
and dark to me; but I see one thing
quite clearly, — that I must not, cannot,
seek my own happiness by sacrificing
others. Love is natural, but surely pity
and faithfulness and memory are natu-
ral, too." Romola says, " We can only
have the highest happiness by having
wide thoughts and much feeling for the
rest of the world as well as ourselves ;
and this sort of happiness often brings
so much pain with it that we can only
tell it from pain by its being what we
would choose before everything else, be-
cause our souls see that it is good." Ut-
terances like these may be multiplied
indefinitely. The only life worth living,
she tells us, is the life, toward self, of
infinite aspiration, and, toward others, of
infinitely active compassion. She will
not allow, with Thackeray, that we can
strike an average of goodness, and make
ourselves content with that. If she
sees clearly the pettiness of human na-

246 The Morality of Thackeray and of George Eliot. [February,

ture, she discerns also the nobility that
is in it ; she believes in the latter equally
with the former, and in man's capacity
for self-elevation equally with his ca-
pacity for self-degradation. She under-
stands the baseness of human nature, as
witness Grandcourt and Peter Feather-
stone ; and she understands, also, all its
variety of meanness, selfishness, weak-
ness, and possibility of deterioration, as
witness the Gleggs, Tom Tulliver, Rosa-
mond Vincy, Hetty, Arthur, Godfrey,
Casaubon, Gwendolen, and Tito. But
the lights of the picture alway balance
the shades ; to console us for the exist-
ence of the contemptible, we are per-
suaded to look on the admirable, and are
made to realize the possibility of the
one as fully as that of the other. Side
by side with the least estimable of the
species we are shown an Adam and
Dinah, a Seth, a Felix Holt, a Romola,
a Maggie, a Dorothea, a Fedalma, a De-
rouda.

If we had nothing better, we might
be thankful to accept a teaching like
that of these great works. Indeed, such
is the power of a writer like George
Eliot that it is difficult, while the spell
of her genius is immediately upon us,
to resist falling into accord with her
tone, and seeming to ourselves to adopt
her point of view ; for the time being
we can see no brighter illumination of
the mystery of existence than shines
from these pages. The men and women
she creates are for us veritable human
beings, whom we come to know and
sympathize with intimately ; and such
wisdom as these are able to attain unto
appears the sole wisdom attainable by
any. But we may fully admit and free-
ly admire all that is true and noble in
the writings of a Marcus Aurelius or a
George Eliot, and yet be far from regard-
ing them as containing the whole truth.

The defect of ancient stoicism and of
modern humanitarianism is, in a word,
a lack of religion ; of an assured hold on
those fundamental principles which give

an answer to the deep questioning of
the human spirit as to the why and
whence and whither of its existence.
So far as we can judge, George Eliot
appears to have adopted the general
stand-point of agnosticism. The mere
lack of any determinate expression of
religious belief would not support this
inference ; but we feel that here George
Eliot is eager to make known to man-
kind the best that she has found for
herself, and therefore her silence touch-
ing these vital questions of the origin
and destiny of man is full of sad sig-
nificance. For her, perhaps, as well as
for Mr. Frederic Harrison, Christian-
ity meant " what is taught in average
churches to the millions of professing
Christians." If such teaching repre-
sented to her the truth of Christianity,
she may not have greatly cared to ex-
amine it ; but if she had desired to in-
quire into the matter, it is reasonably
certain that such current, conventional
Christianity would not have satisfied
her religious needs. It is not for us to
inquire into an author's personal convic-
tions, unless, as in this case, an insight
into them helps us to interpret writings
whose chief interest is in their ethical
purport; and it is not in the spirit of
Christian Philistinism that I comment
on or lament George Eliot's want of
religion. To make use of a phrase of
Mr. John Morley, the mere label that
is commonly affixed to a person is mat-
ter of little moment. There is a kind
of orthodoxy which is consistent with a
complete unintelligence of the profound
simplicities of religion that Christ him-
self believed in and lived by. We may,
however, allow ourselves the regret that
the light did not shine into places which
remained dark for George Eliot to the
end, and the wish that she might have
been able to enter into the spirit of true
Christianity, for the sake of her own
greater inward peace and joy, and for
the sake of the highest stimulus and en-
couragement her writings might have

1883.] The Morality of Thackeray and G-eorge Eliot.

afforded to others. Large and noble as
was her own spiritual nature, George
Eliot intellectually was not above her
age, but of it ; and it is in this fact that
we see the explanation of the underlying
sadness in all her books, which it is im-
possible for those who have received the
most good from them to ignore.

It is from a fancied necessity to deny
the possibility of any absolute knowl-
edge of spiritual things that this de-
pressing influence results. To recog-
nize an influence the opposite of this,
and to feel the fuller inspiration that
comes from the intellectual affirmation
of religious truth, we have only to turn to
Robert Browning. Whether or not he
is a Christian of the most orthodox pat-
tern we do not know, and need not ask ;
the important thing we do know, be-
cause we can see it for ourselves, is that
he has the substance of religious faith.
In all his poetic work there is manifested
a confidence amounting to settled cer-
tainty in the being of God and the im-
mortality of man. Browning's mind is
in some respects more akin to George
Eliot's than that of any other writer of
the day : he has an intellect like hers,
both keen and strong, the varied learn-
ing and the power of subtle analysis so
remarkable in her, the same deep knowl-
edge of human nature and the same
wide sympathies which she displays.
But when they speak of life, its mean-
ing and its end, how different is his
tone from hers ! All his knowledge of
life's sorrows, mistakes, temptations,
failures, has no power to sink him in
despondency : over all these he rises
triumphant, in the assurance of his faith
in God, and in a life beyond this narrow
present. Existence is no sad, perplex-
ing mystery ; in the light of the great
spiritual facts of God's being and man's
relation to him, all is explained, all is
bright with hope. The only real fail-
ure on man's part is to lose hope, and
to cease from aspiration. Sorrow and
temptation, what are they but

247

" Machinery just meant

To give thy soul its bent,

Try thee, and turn thee forth sufficiently im-
pressed. . . .

Then welcome each rebuff

That turns earth's smoothness rough,

Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand, but go !

Be our joys three parts pain !

Strive and hold cheap the strain ;

Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never
grudge the throe! "

George Eliot's Romola misses all the
happiness of her life ; Dorothea errs, and
fails of the good she would have done ;
Maggie Tulliver's life " trails on a bro-
ken wing " to its tragic end. It is of
such lives as these that Browning says,

" Not on the vulgar mass
Called ' work ' must sentence pass,
Things done that took the eye and had the

price ;

O'er which from level stand,
The low world laid its hand,
Found straightway to its mind, could value in a

trice ;

"But all the world's coarse thumb
And finger failed to plumb,
So passed in making up the main account;
All instincts immature,
All purposes unsure,

That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the
man's amount."

All this, he says, the man or woman is
worth to God " whose wheel the pitcher
shaped." George Eliot, too, would say
that all which her Maggie and Dorothea
could not be, and all that others ignored
in them, went to swell their amount ; but
she does not go on and bid us note that
metaphor of the potter's wheel and con-
fidently declare,

"Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure,
What entered into thee
That was, is, and shall be;
Time's wheel runs back or stops, potter and
claj- endure."

Falling short or failure is the token
of man's superiority over the brute cre-
ation, which knows of nothing but itself,
nor of any advance beyond itself. Mere
moral blamelessness Browning cares lit-
tle for, because it is not enough ; he has
ceased to concern himself with that, in
his eager desire for something higher ;
he rejoices in all those impulses and

248

Stage Rosalinds.

[February,

passions that rouse men from apathetic
rest, and urges them to spiritual effort.
In Rabbi Aben Ezra, the poem from
which I have quoted the above verses,
he looks forward to old age, and to the
life beyond, which is to carry on and
complete the earthly one.

" Enough now if the Right
And Good and Infinite
Be named here, as thou callest thy hand thine

own,

With knowledge absolute,
Subject to no dispute
From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee

feel alone."

And so, the old man says he will
" Take rest, ere I be gone
Once more on my adventure brave and new :

Fearless and unperplexed,
When I wage battle next,
What weapons to select, what armor to indue."

In his high and hopeful philosophy,
based on a firm belief in an absolute
source and principle of spiritual life
who is a personal God and Father of
spirits, Browning shows himself beyond
his age, which for that reason has here-
tofore failed to recognize his greatness,
or appreciate the worth of his teach-
ing. But the time must come when his
title to honor as a teacher of spiritual
truth will be gratefully acknowledged,
and there are signs that the day is not
far off.

Maria Louise Henry.

STAGE ROSALINDS

MOST readers of Shakespeare have a
very clear ideal of Rosalind. They may
be in doubt as to the physical and men-
tal traits of others of his women, —
Lady Macbeth, Beatrice, Portia, or
even Juliet ; but the heroine of As You
Like It lives in their eyes as well as in
their hearts and minds, a very firmly
and deeply engraven personage. This
is partly because Shakespeare himself
has done so much more to help us in
forming a conception of Rosalind than
he has done in regard to any other of his
women, except Imogen. For it is worthy
of special remark that he has given us
hardly a hint as to his own idea of the
personal appearance, or even of the
mental and moral constitution, of these
prominent figures of his dramatis per-
sonce. We are left to make all this out
for ourselves from their actions and their
words, or from the impression which
they make upon those by whom he has
surrounded them. This is the dramatic
way. As the dramatist never speaks in
his own person, he must needs describe
by the lips of others ; but those others

are beings of his own creation, and he
can make them say what he pleases, the
one about the others. It would seem,
then, that a poet could hardly fail to de-
light his own sense of beauty by put-
ting into the mouth of some of his per-
sonages descriptions of the charms of
the women around whom centres so
much of the interest of mimic life upon
the stage ; that he would, as fitly he
might, at least cause his lovers to tell
us something of the womanly beauty
and the womanly charm by which they
have been enthralled. Many dramatists
have dene this, but not Shakespeare.
He was content to show us his women
as they lived, and loved, and suffered,
and came at last to joy in their love, or
to grief, — one of them, in her ambition.
And it would seem that he did this sim-
ply because he did not particularly care
to do otherwise ; because he had not
himself any very precise conception as
to particular details of person, or even
of character, as to most of his women.
He took an old play, or an old story,
the incidents of which he thought would

1883.]

Stage Rosalinds.

249

interest a mixed audience, and this he
worked over into a new dramatic form,
making it, quite unconsciously, and al-
together without purpose, scene by scene
and line by line, immortal by his psy-
chological insight and the magic of his
style. If the action marched on well,
and the personages and the situations
were interesting, he was content ; and ,
he concentrated such effort as he made

— making very little, for he wrote his
plays with a heedless ease which is with-
out a parallel in the history of literature

— upon the scene immediately in hand,
without much thought as to what had
gone before or what was to come after.
That was determined for him mostly
by the story or the play which he had
chosen to work upon ; and the splen-
did whole which he sometimes, but not
always, made was the unpremeditated
and, I am sure, the almost unconscious
result of an inborn instinct of dramatic
effect of the highest kind, and an intui-
tive perception of what would touch
the soul and stir the blood of common
healthy human nature. These were his
only motives, his only purposes ; for all
that we know of his life and of his dra-
matic career leaves no room for doubt
that, if his public had preferred it, he
would have written thirty-seven plays
like Titus Andronicus just as readily, al-
though not just as willingly, as he wrote
As You Like It, King Lear, Hamlet, and
Othello. Therefore it was — to return
to our first point — that he did not
trouble himself to paint us portraits of
his heroines. That he should do so was
not down on his dramatic brief : his au-
diences were interested, and therefore
he was interested, chiefly, if not only,
in the story that was to be set forth in
action.

How bare his dramas are of personal
description will hardly be believed by
those who have not read them carefully,
with an eye to this particular. He shows
us, as I have remarked before, the effect
which his personages produced upon each

other ; but he says very little of the means
by which the effect was produced ; aud
this is more remarkable as to his women
than as to his men, because we naturally
expect a poet or a novelist to concern
himself more in J;he personal attractions
of women than of men. But Shake-
speare passes all this by in generali-
ties. Romeo says that Juliet's beauty
"teaches the torches to burn bright,"
that it " hangs upon the cheek of night
like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear ; "
the love -sick Duke, in Twelfth Night,
says that Olivia was so beautiful that
he " thought she purged the air of pesti-
lence : " but neither of these enamored
men says a word, or drops a hint, to tell
us whether these wondrous women were
fair or dark, or tall or short, — whether
they were formed like fairies or like
the Venus of Milo. Of Portia we know,
by a chance line, that she was golden-
haired ; but it is by no means certain
that even this touch of personal descrip-
tion was not suggested by the auri sacra
fames of the fortune-hunting adventurer
who wins her, rather than by the desire
to give a touch of color to the picture of
the heroine.

It is only when Shakespeare comes
to paint the loveliest and most perfect
of all his women, Imogen, who indeed
seems to have been both his idol and
his ideal, that he describes the beauty
of which Leonatus is the hardly deserv-
ing possessor. And yet, even here again,
it is by no means certain that his un-
wonted particularity in this respect is
not the mere consequence of the pecul-
iar nature of the domestic story that
is interwoven with the political drama
of Cymbeline, King of Britain. Imo-
gen's beauty must be described, because
it is partly the occasion of the wager
which is the spring of the love action
of the drama ; because it impresses her
unknown brothers ; and because some
particular knowledge of it is obtained
by the villain of the play, " the yellow
lachimo," and is descanted on by him

250

Stage Rosalinds.

[February,

as proof of his boasted success in his
assault upon her chastity.

Rosalind's beauty was different from
Imogen's ; more splendid and impres-
sive, if perhaps less tender and cheru-
bic. Unless I am in error, we all think
of Imogen as rather a little below than
above the standard height of woman's
stature. Rosalind was notably tall ; a
girl who at middle age would become
magnificent. She was fair, with dark
lustrous hair, and eyes perhaps blue,
gray, or black, according as the man
who thinks of her has eyes black, brown,
or blue ; but I am pretty sure that they
were of that dark olive green which has
all the potentiality of both blue and
black, and which is apt to accompany
natures which combine all the sensuous
and mental charms that are possible in
woman. She was of a robust — yet
firm and elastic rather than robust —
physical and moral nature ; her vigor
and her spring being, nevertheless, tem-
pered by a delicacy of rare fineness,
which had its source in sentiment, —
sentiment equally tender and healthy.
Such was the woman who is the central
figure of the most charming ideal comedy
in all dramatic literature.

Shakespeare's plays were written with
a single eye to their presentation on the
stage. They attained with great dis-
tinction the objective point of their pro-
duction. Their author, known to the
world now as the greatest of poets, and
the subtlest, profoundest, and truest ob-
server of man and of the world, was
known to the public of London in his
own day chiefly as the most successful
and popular of playwrights. His plays
were performed to full houses, when
those by the best of his fellow drama-
tists hardly paid the expenses of pro-
duction. We may be sure that in writ-
ing them, and in superintending the
placing them on the stage (which doubt-
less fell to his hands), he was undis-
turbed by that lofty ideal of signification
and of character which now makes their

worthy performance, for his most loving
students and admirers, in some cases
almost impossible. King Lear, Hamlet,
Antony and Cleopatra, The Tempest,
and we might almost say Romeo and
Juliet are now lifted too high into the
realms of fancy and imagination to be
within the reach of any actor whose
merely human voice rivals the dialogue
" twixt his stretched footing and the
scaffoldage." The comedies are more
within the reach of ordinary human
endeavor ; for comedy moves upon a
lower plane, deals with commoner and
humbler events of man's life experiences.
But, among the comedies, some of the
most charming involve in their proper
presentation a perplexity which is of a
purely physical nature. Conspicuous
among these are his two most beautiful
works in ideal comedy, As You Like It
and Twelfth Night. The difficulty in
question is caused by the fact that in
these comedies the heroines appear dur-
ing the greater part of the play in male
attire ; and that not only do they go
about before us dressed as men and act-
ing as men, but appear to their lovers
as men, and deceive them, almost from
Enter to Exeunt. Of these plays, As
You Like It presents the greatest diffi-
culty of this kind, and with that we shall
now chiefly concern ourselves.

It is first to be said, however, that for
this contrivance for the production of
dramatic movement and the exciting of
dramatic interest the author is not prop-
erly responsible. He found these inci-
dents and these entanglements in the
stories which he undertook to dramatize,
and which he chose because they were
already in favor with the public he
sought to please. The masquerading
of a young woman in man's attire was
a favorite device with all the story-
writers and play-writers of the sixteenth
century, in whose works Shakespeare
found the material for most of his dra-
mas. As You Like It is built out of the
material of one of these stories ; rather,

1883.]

Stage Rosalinds.

251

indeed, it is one of these stories made
playable by Shakespeare's skill as a
dramatist, and lifted by him unconscious-
ly into the realms of immortality by his
poetic uplook and his sweet and uni-
versal sympathy. Almost whether he
would or would not, he was obliged to
make his heroine go through her pro-
longed parade of sexual deception.

And now to consider this in regard to
its possibility : first, for Shakespeare's
audience ; next, as the Scotch lassie
wished her partner to consider love, " in
the aibstract." Briefly, the case is this :
Rosalind meets Orlando in the orchard
of the Duke's palace, talks with him,
sees him wrestle, talks with him again,
falls in love with him, and captivates
him by her beauty and her grace, and
by that subtle emanation of her sex's
power when moved by love which is
one of its strongest and most enchain-
ing influences ; she leaves him so under
the influence of her personality that,
moved by all these motives, and by the
sympathy of such a woman in his moody
and desperate condition, he loves her
before they meet again. Within a few
days they do meet in the Forest of Ar-
den : he in his proper person ; she in the
person of a saucy young fellow, who is
living a half-rural, half-hunter life on
the edge of the forest. There she en-
counters him on many occasions, during
what must have been a considerable pe-
riod of time, some ten days or a fort-
night ; and there, also, she meets her
father, the banished Duke, and Jaques,
a cynical old gentleman, of much and
not very clean worldly experience. By
none of these persons is her sex sus-
pected. She even wheedles Orlando
into playing, like child's play, that she
is his Rosalind ; and all the while it

1 And yet Mrs. Langtry is singularly endowed
with all the physical traits required for an ideal
Rosalind. I would not publicly blazon her beau-
ties and catalogue her charms, nor on the other
hand point with invidious finger at deficiencies
and superfluities that make us wonder what must
be the common standard of the country in which
she, as pulcherrima, bears off the golden apple. I

never enters his head that this pretty,
wayward, willful, witty lad is the beau-
tiful woman whose eyes and lips won
him to return the love that she had given
him unasked. Now this is simply im-
possible ; absolutely impossible ; phys-
ically impossible ; morally impossible ;
outrageously impossible. It is an af-
front to common sense, a defiance to
the evidence of our common senses ; im-
possible now, impossible then, impossi-
ble ever, — unless under the conditions
which Shakespeare prescribes for it,
which conditions are violated by every
Rosalind that I ever saw upon the stage,
and most of all by the last of them, who
not only erred in this respect with all
her sisters, but who, among the many
bad Rosalinds that I have seen, was in-
disputably the worst.1

'In judging of what Shakespeare did
in As You Like It, and other plays of
similar construction, we must first of all
take into consideration the conditions
under which he wrote. The most im-
portant of these in our present view is
that, in his day, there were no actresses
upon the stage : all women's parts, young
and old, were played by men. This was
added to the marvel of his creation of
enchanting womanhood, — that he was
writing those women's words for actors
who had to be shaved before they were
ready to go on with their parts. But in
plays like As You Like It the compli-
cation was yet greater. There was a
double inversion. His woman's words,
his self-revealing, almost self-creating
woman's words, were to be spoken not
only by a man pretending to be a wom-
an, but by a man pretending to be a
woman who pretended to be a man.
Shakespeare, however, was surely troub-
led by nothing of this. He struck right
shall only say that both above and below the
waist, in its upper as well as its lower limbs, her
figure is notably like that of a fine, well-grown
lad ; and that her face, even in the wonderful set-
ting of the jewel eyes, which with the line of the
nose is the finest part of it, might well be that of
an uncommonly pretty young fellow of Anglo-
Saxon or Anglo-Norman blood.

252

Stage Rosalinds.

[February,

at the heart of things, and made his
woman for us as she lived in his imag-
ination. Whether Anne Page was to
be presented by an Anne Page, or by
a lubberly postmaster's boy, or wheth-
er she was not to be presented, it was
quite the same to him. If he was to
make her at all, he must make her as he
did. To produce her thus was just as
easy for him as for an inferior workman
to turn out his clumsy creature, who
might indeed be a postmaster's boy iu
petticoats. But so far as performance
was concerned, stage illusion, or what-
ever we may call that impression which
we receive from the mimic life of the
theatre, this performance of women's
parts by young men was of the greatest
importance when we come to consider
the representation of female personages
who assume the dress and the charac-
ter of men. For in the first place, as it
will be seen, the male guise was then
not disguise. What the spectator saw
before his eyes was actually a young
man, who might or might not, upon oc-
casion, assume certain feminine airs and
graces with more or less success. And
this physical fact was of the more im-
portance, because in these plays, gen-
erally, the woman is disguised during
the greater part of the performance,
and takes on her woman's weeds again,
if at all. only in the last scene. Nor
does the reverse of the action present
any difficulty at all equal to that which
has been thus ovei-come. A handsome,
smooth-faced young man, skilled in the
actor's art, and disguised by wig and
paint, could very easily present a face
to his audience which they would not
think for a moment of doubting was that
of a woman ; and when he was playing
the woman scenes of his woman part,
all that was distinctively masculine in
his person would be entirely concealed
by his woman's dress. In his woman's
scenes, his disguise would be so easy
that to a skilled and practiced actor they
would present no difficulty that would

give him a moment's trouble. This was
even more so in Shakespeare's day than
it is now ; for then the dress of a lady,
with its high ruff, its stiff stomacher,
and its huge farthingale destroyed in
every case all semblance to the lines of
woman's figure as nature has bounteous-
ly vouchsafed it to us. No one can
study the portraits of gentlewomen of the
time of Elizabeth and James I. without
seeing that the human creatures within
that portentous raiment might just as
well, for all their semblance to woman,
be masculine as feminine. And if there
had not been almost equal absurdity and
extravagance in some parts of male cos-
tume of that day, the difficulty in this
matter of disguise would have been
rather in the acceptance of the pretend-
ing man as a woman in masquerade.
For, referring to the impossibility above
set forth that Rosalind could have been
mistaken for a young man by her lover,
we see that, even if her face were
masked or hidden, and her dress re-
vealed her woman's form as it does
upon our stage, no man who had suffi-
cient appreciation of a woman's beauty
to deserve to possess it could be deceived
in the sex of Ganymede for one moment.
And yet it would seem as if the Rosa-
linds — all of them — laid themselves
out to defy both Shakespeare and com-
mon sense in this matter to the utmost
of attainable possibility. When they
come before us as Ganymede they dress
themselves not only as no man or boy
in England, but as no human creature
within the narrow seas, was dressed in
Shakespeare's time. Instead of a doub-
let they don a kind of short tunic, gird-
led at the waist and hanging to the knee.
They wear long stockings, generally of
silk, imagining them to be hose, and ig-
norant, probably, that in Shakespeare's
time there were not a dozen pair of silk
hose in all England. Nevertheless they
go about with nothing but tight silk
stockings upon their legs, amid the un-
derwood and brambles of the Forest of

1883.]

Stage Rosalinds.

253

Arden. Madame Modjeska, with some
appreciation of this absurdity, wears
long buttoned gaiters, which are even
more anachronistic than the silk stock-
ings. Upon their heads, they all of
them, without exception, wear a sort of
hat which was unknown to the mascu-
line head in the days of Elizabeth and
James, — a low-crowned, broad-brimmed
something, more like what is known to
ladies of late years as a Gainsborough
than anything else that has been named
by milliners. If a man had appeared
in the streets of London at that day in
such a hat, he would have been hooted
at by all the 'prentices in Eastcheap.
There was not in all the Forest of Ar-
den a wolf or a bear, of the slightest pre-
tensions to fashion, that would not have
howled at the sight of such a head-gear.
Briefly, the Rosalinds of the stage are
pretty, impossible monsters, unlike any-
thing real that ever was seen, unlike
anything that could have been accept-
ed by their lovers for what they pre-
tend to be, and particularly unlike that
which Shakespeare intended that they
should be.

Let us see what Shakespeare did in-
tend his Rosalind to be when she was in
the Forest of Arden. And first, as we
have already seen, he provided carefully
for one important part of the illusion in
making his heroine " more than common
tall." He evidently conceived Rosa-
lind as a large, fine girl, with a lithe, al-
though vigorous and well-rounded fig-
ure. But when he sends her off with
Celia, to walk through lonely country
roads and outlaw-inhabited forest glades,
he takes special care to leave us in no
doubt as to the extent as well as the
nature of her concealment not only of
her sex but of her personal comeliness.
She reminds Celia that " beauty pro-
voketh thieves sooner than gold ; " and
then they go into the particulars of their
disguise in speeches, one part of which is
always cut out, amid the many curtail-
ments to which this play is subjected

for the stage. Celia says not only, " I '11
put myself in poor and mean attire,"
but also, " and with a kind of umber
smirch my face." " The like do you,"
she adds to Rosalind ; " so shall we pass
along and never stir assailants." Plain-
ly, when the young princesses set forth
on their wild adventure, they did all that
they could to conceal the feminine beau-
ty of their faces. Celia pufs herself in
the dress of a woman of the lower classes.
Rosalind assumes not merely the cos-
tume of a young man, but that of a
martial youth, almost of a swashbuckler.
She says that she will have " a swash-
ing and a martial outside," as well as
carry a boar-spear in her hand, and
have a curtle-axe upon her thigh. And,
by the way, it is amusing to see the lit-
eralness with which the stage Rosalinds
take up the text, and rig themselves
out in conformity with their construc-
tion, or it may be the conventional
stage construction of it. They carry a
little axe in their belts, among other
dangling fallals, or strapped across their
shoulders. But Rosalind's curtle-axe
was merely a court-lasse, or cutlass, or,
in plain English, a short sword, which
she should wear as any soldierly young
fellow of the day would wear his sword.
But thus, browned, and with her hair
tied up in love knots, after the fashion of
the young military dandies of that time,
with her boar-spear and her cutlass, she
would yet have revealed her sex to any
discriminating masculine eye, had it not
been for certain peculiarities of costume
in Shakespeare's day. These were the
doublet and the trunk-hose. Rosalind,
instead of wearing a tunic or short
gown, cut up to the knees, like the little
old woman who " went to market her
eggs for to sell," when she fell asleep
by the king's highway, should wear
the very garments that she talks so
much about, and in which I never saw
a Rosalind appear upon the stage. A
doublet was a short jacket, with close
sleeves, fitting tight to the body, and

254

Stage Rosalinds.

[February,

coming down only to the hip, or a very
little below it. Of course its form va-
ried somewhat with temporary fashion,
and sometimes, indeed, it stopped at the
waist. To this garment the hose (which
were not stockings, but the whole cover-
ing for the leg from shoe to doublet) was
attached by silken tags called points.
But during the greater part of Shake-
speare's life what were called trunk-
hose were worn ; and these, being stuffed
out about the hips and the upper part
of the thigh with bombast, or what was
called cotton- wool, entirely reversed the
natural outline of man's figure between
the waist and the middle of the thigh,
and made it impossible to tell, so far
as shape was concerned, whether the
wearer was of the male or female sex.
Rosalind, by the doublet and hose that
Shakespeare had in mind, and makes
her mention as an outside so very for-
eign to the woman nature that is within,
would have concealed the womanliness
of her figure even more than by her
umber she would have darkened, if not
eclipsed, the beauty of her face. This
concealment of forms which would at
once have betrayed her both to father and
lover, was perfected by a necessary part
of her costume as a young man living a
forest life : these were boots. An es-
sential part of Rosalind's dress as Gany-
mede is loose boots of soft tawny leather,
coming up not only over leg, but over
thigh, and meeting the puffed and bom-
basted trunk-hose. To complete this
costume in character, she should wear a
coarse russet cloak, and a black felt hat
with narrow brim and high and slightly
conical crown, on the band of which she
might put a short feather, and around it
might twist a light gold chain or ribbon
and medal. Thus disguised, Rosalind
might indeed have defied her lover's
eye or her father's. Thus arrayed, the
stage Rosalind might win us to believe
that she was really deluding Orlando
with the fancy that the soul of his mis-
tress had migrated into the body of a

page. This Rosalind might even meet
the penetrating eye of that old sin-
ner Jaques, experienced as he was in all
the arts and deceits of men and wom-
en, in all climes and in all countries.
With this Rosalind Phoebe indeed might
fall in love ; and a Phoebe must love a
man.

Nor are the perfection of Rosalind's
disguise and the concealment of her sex
from the eyes of her companions im-
portant only in regard to her supposed
relations with them. It is not only im-
portant, but it is essential to the develop-
ment of her character, and even to the
real significance of what she says and
does. The character of Rosalind plain-
ly took shape in Shakespeare's mind
from the situations in which he found
her. The problem which he, in the
making of an entertaining play, uncon-
sciously solved was this : given a wom-
an in such situations, what manner of
woman must she be to win the man she
loves, to charm her friends, to defy re-
spectfully her usurping uncle, and to be-
wilder, bewitch, and delight her lover,
meeting him in the disguise of a man ?
And what sort of woman must she be
to do all this with the respect, the ad-
miration, and the sympathy of every
man, and moreover of every woman, in
the world that looks on from the other
side of the foot-lights, which are the
flaming barrier about that enchanted
ground, the Forest of Arden.

The woman that he made to do all
this had, first of all, her large and boun-
teous personal beauty. But this, al-
though a great step toward winning such
wide admiration and sympathy, is but
one step. It is hardly necessary to say
that it is Rosalind's character, revealed
under the extraordinary circumstances
in which she is placed, that makes her
the most charming, the most captivating,
of all Shakespeare's women ; one only,
the peerless Imogen, excepted. Now
Rosalind's character is composed mainly
of three elements, too rarely found in

1883.]

Stage Rosalinds.

255

harmonious combination : a proneuess
to love, which must plainly be called
amorousness ; a quickness of wit and a
sense of humor which ace the most un-
common intellectual traits of her sex ;
and combined with these, tempering
them, elevating them, glorifying them,
a certain quality which can only be
called an intense womanliness, a muli-,
ebrity, which radiates from her and fills
the air around her with the influence
— like a subtle and delicate but pene-
trating perfume — of her sex. Her dis-
tinctive quality, that which marks her
off from all the rest of Shakespeare's
women, is her sense of wit and humor,
in combination with her womanliness.
Others of his women, notably Viola and
Imogen, are as loving, as tender, and as
womanly. No other is witty and humor-
ous and womanly too ; for example, no-
tably, Beatrice, who is very witty, but
not very womanly, nor indeed very lov-
ing. Now the position in which Rosalind
figures in the four acts which pass in the
Forest of Arden brings out, as it would
seem no other could bring out, her wit-
tiness and her humorousness in direct
relation to and combination with her
sensitive, tender, and passionate nature.
Rosalind, for all of her soft, sweet ap-
prehensiveness and doubt about Orlan-
do's value of that which she has given
to him before he had shown that he de-
sired it, enjoys the situation in which
she is placed. She sees the fun of it,
as Celia, for example, hardly sees it ;
and she relishes it with the keenest ap-
petite. If that situation is not empha-
sized for the spectators of her little
mysterious mask of love by what is, for
them, the absolute and perfectly prob-
able and natural deception of Orlando,
Rosalind lacks the very reason of her
being. To enjoy what she does and
what she is, to give her our fullest sym-
pathy, we must not be called upon to
make believe very hard that Orlando
does not see she is the woman that he
loves ; while at the same time we must

see that he feels that around this saucy
lad there is floating a mysterious at-
mosphere of tenderness, of enchanting
fancy, and of a most delicate sensitive-
ness. Moreover, we must see that Ros-
alind herself is at rest about her incog-
nito, and that she can say her tender,
witty, boy-masked sayings undisturbed
by the least consciousness that Orlando's
eyes can see through the doublet and hose
which are her first concern, when "she
is told plainly that he is in the Forest
of Arden. The perfection of her dis-
guise is thus essential to the higher pur-
pose of the comedy. Rosalind was fair ;
but after having seen her in her brilliant
beauty at the court of her usurping un-
cle, we must be content, as she was, to
see it browned to the hue of forest ex-
posure, and deprived of all the pretty
coquetries of pefsonal adornment which
sit so well upon her sex, and to find in
her, our very selves, the outward seem-
ing of a somewhat over-bold and sol-
dierly young fellow, who is living, half
shepherd, half hunter, in welcomed com-
panionship with a band of gentleman-
ly outlaws. Unless all this is set very
clearly and unmistakably before us, by
the physical and merely external ap-
pearance of our heroine, there is an in-
congruity fatal to the idea of the com-
edy, and directly at variance with the
clearly defined intentions of its writer.

That incongruity always exists in a
greater or less degree in the performance
of all the Rosalinds of the stage. I
can make no exception. In case of the
best Rosalinds I have ever seen, the
supposition that Orlando was deceived,
or that any other man could be deceived,
in the sex of Ganymede was absurd,
preposterous. They all dress the page
in such a way, they all play the page in
such a way, that his womanhood is sali-
ent. It looks from his eye, it is spoken
from his lips, just as plainly as it is re-
vealed by his walk and by the shape
and action of the things he walks with.
That they should dress the part with

256

Stage Rosalinds.

[February,

female coquetry is, if not laudable, at
least admissible, excusable. The high-
est sense of art is perhaps not powerful
enough to lead a womanto lay aside, be-
fore assembled hundreds, all the graces
peculiar to her sex ; but surely no artist,
who at this stage of the world's appre-
ciation of Shakespeare ventures to un-
dertake the representation of this char-
acter, ought to fail in an apprehension
of its clearly and simply defined traits,
or in the action by which those traits
are revealed.

It is the function of comedy to pre-
sent an ideal of humau life in a lightly
satirical and amusing form. A comedy
without wit, without humor, without the
occasion of laughter, — not necessarily
boisterous, nor even hearty, — fails as a
comedy, although it may not be without
interest as a drama. As You Like It
is supremely successful in this respect.
It does not provoke loud laughter ; I
believe that I never heard a " house
laugh " at any performance of it at
which I was present ; but during its last
four acts we listen to it with gently smil-
ing hearts. It is filled with the atmos-
phere of dainty fun. Rosalind herself
enjoys the fun of her strange position ;
she delights in her own humorous sallies
almost, if not quite, as much as Falstaff
revels in his. She is divided between
the pleasure which she derives from the
mystification of Orlando and her trou-
bled desire to make sure of his love.
Now this peculiar trait of her character
cannot be fully developed unless she
carries out to the utmost extreme her
assumption of manhood, while she is in
Orlando's company. To him she must
indeed seem as if she had " a doublet
and hose in her disposition." She must
not lift a corner even of her mental gar-
ments, to show him the woman's heart
that is trembling underneath. She
wheedles him into making love to her
(by a contrivance somewhat transparent
to us, it is true, but not so easily seen
through by him, and which, at any rate,

must be accepted as a necessary condi-
tion of the action of the play), but the
slightest attempt at open love-making to
him on her part is ruinous ; it destroys
at once the humor and even the charm of
the situation.1 We see at once that it
would have startled Orlando, and opened
his eyes very wide indeed. And yet she
must show us, who are in her secret, all
the time "how many fathom deep she
is in love." That outbreak of tender
anxiety, when she suddenly asks him,
" But are you so much in love as your
rhymes speak ? " reveals everything to
us, who know everything already ; but
to Orlando it is a very simple and nat-
ural question. He need not understand
the sad, sweet earnestness of the inquiry.
True, indeed, she does, with woman's
art, contrive in some mysterious way
that Orlando shall kiss the youth whom
he in sport doth call his Rosalind, which,
because of the kissing customs of those
days, she might bring about more easily
and safely then than she could now ;
but Shakespeare is wisely content to let
us know by her own sweet well-kissed
lips, that this act of her vicarious love-
making has been duly and repeatedly
performed. It takes place in secret, in
some of those interviews which he did
not venture to set before our eyes, so
instinctively cautious was he not to
break down the illusion which is the
very heart and centre of this delightful
work of dramatic art. Incongruity is
an essential element of the ridiculous ;
and the humor of the action of the play
(apart from its words) consists iu the
constantly presented inconsistency be-
tween Rosalind's external appearance
and her inward feeling. She must seem
to us (although we know to the con-
trary) to be a young man, or we lose
the humor of half that she says and
does, which she herself enjoys with a
zest quite as great as ours. This trait
of her character, mentioned before, can

1 Our last Rosalind " spooned " him like a love-
sick school girl.

1883.]

Stage Rosalinds.

257

not be too strongly insisted upon. It
is shown in her answer to her father
(which she tells to Celia), who asked
her of what parentage she was. " I told
him," she replies, "of as good as he."
Now Rosalind took great delight in thus
"chaffing" her own father. The absurd-
ity of the situation, the preposterous-
ness of the question from him to her,
and the humor of her answer made her
eyes dance with pleasure. Viola and
Imogen wore their doublets with a dif-
ference.

For these reasons the complete dis-
guise of Rosalind, her absolute sinking
of her feminine personality, is of the
utmost importance in the effective rep-
resentation of this play. Must I say,
however, that this matter of external
seeming, although of unusual moment
and significance, is but the mere ma-
terial condition and starting-point of
the action which reveals to us the soul
and mind of this captivating woman, in
whom tenderness and archness, passion
and purity, are ever striving with each
other, and whose wit and waywardness
are ever controlled in the end by in-
nate modesty ? And by modesty I do not
mean either chastity or shame ; which I
say, because the three things are by so
many people strangely and injuriously
confounded. Rosalind, we may be sure,
was chaste ; Orlando had no cause of
trouble on that score. As an ideal wom-
an, she was as far above the belittling
of common shame as the Venus of Milo
is. But, besides her chastity, she was
modest. Modesty is a graceful distrust
of one's own value and importance, and
is quite as frequently found in men as in
women. Women thoroughly unchaste
are not infrequently enchantingly mod-
est; women as chaste as she-dragons
(if she-dragons are particularly distin-
guished for this virtue) are often hide-
ously immodest. And so it is with the
inferior and conventionally limited sen-
sation — I cannot call it sentiment —
of shame. Women who are both un-

VOL. LI. — NO. 304. 17

chaste and immodest have in many
cases a shrinking bodily shame (deter-
mined mostly, if not absolutely, by the
custom of their day), which is thought-
lessly lacking in women of true purity,
and of the sweetest and most winning
modesty of soul. But to return to
Rosalind. It will be found that, not-
withstanding her readiness to put a
man's clothes upon her body and a
man's boldness over her heart, notwith-
standing her very plain speech upon
subjects which nowadays many a har-
lot would wince at, the real Rosalind, un-
derneath that saucy, swaggering, booted-
and-sworded outside, was sweetly mod-
est ; and that, notwithstanding her birth
and her beauty* and the mental supe-
riority of which she must have been
conscious, she was doubting all the
while whether she was worthy of the
love of such a man as Orlando, and
thinking with constant alarm of that
more than half confession that she had
made, unwooed, to him upon the wrest-
ling-ground. The absolute incongruity
between the real Rosalind and the seem-
ing Ganymede is the very essence of the
comedy of her situation. One example
of this, which I have never seen proper-
ly emphasized upon the stage : At the
end of the first interview with Orlando
in the forest, after she has wheedled him
into wooing her as Rosalind, she asks
him to go with her to her cot.

"Ros. Go with me to it, and I'll
show it to you ; and, by the way, you
shall tell me where in the forest you
live : Will you go ?

" Orl. With all my heart, good youth.

" Ros. Nay, you must call me Rosa-
lind : — Come, sister, will you go ? "

Now here most Rosalinds go shyly
off with Celia, and leave Orlando to
come dangling after them ; but when I
read this passage I see Ganymede jaunt-
ily slip his arm into Orlando's, and lead
him off, laughingly lecturing him about
the name ; then turn his head over his
shoulder, and say, " Come, sister ! " —

258

Stage Rosalinds.

[February,

leaving Celia astounded at the bound-
less " cheek " of her enamored cousin.1

Rosalind, poor girl, with all her
strength and elasticity, is not always
able to stand up firmly against the flood
of emotion which pours over her heart.
For example, after the mock marriage,
her doubts again begin to overwhelm
her, and she asks Orlando how long
he would have her; a question which
her situation makes touchingly pathetic.
(This cry of woman for love ! It would
be ridiculous, if it were not so sadly
earnest, amid all its pretty sweetness.)
And then the poor girl, looking forward,
— in love man thinks only of the pres-
ent, woman is always looking forward ;
for love makes her future, — utters that
sad little bit of commonplace generality
about man's wearying of the woman he
has won and has possessed, thinking,
plainly, all the while of herself and
what may come to her ; when suddenly,
recollecting her part, and that she is in
danger of showing what she really is, she
breaks sharply off, and with rapid rail-
lery and shrewish accent she pours out
upon him that mock threat, beginning,
"I will be more jealous of thee than
a Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen."
And again in this scene, when Orlando
parts from her, and promises to return
in two hours, her badinage wavers very
doubtfully between jest and earnest, be-
tween humor and sentiment; but she
catches herself before she falls, and be-
ginning, " By my troth, and in good ear-
nest, and so God mend me," and so forth,
again takes refuge in exaggerated men-
aces of her coming displeasure. All
this is charming, even when but tolera-
bly well set forth, and by such Rosa-
linds as we customarily see upon the
stage; but how much it usually falls
short of the effect which Shakespeare
imagined can be known only to those

1 I have used the words " cheek " and " chaff,"
in connection with Rosalind, because they convey
to us of this day the nature of her goings-on as no
other words would j and Shakespeare himself, who

who can see that in their minds' eye, or
who shall see it, some time, in reality.

On the other hand, our stage Rosa-
linds are not womanly enough when
they are out of sight of Orlando and of
other men ; when, indeed, from reaction
and relaxed nerves, they should be wom-
anly even unto womanishness. When
Rosalind is with Celia she is the more
woman-like of the two ; the more ca-
pricious, sensitive, tender, passionful,
apprehensive. It is Celia, then, who,
after her mild fashion, assumes the wit
and the female cynic. But our stage
Rosalinds give us a lukewarm render-
ing of both phases of the behavior of
the real Rosalind. They offer us one
epicene monster, instead of two natural
creatures. They are too woman-like
when they are with Orlando, and too
man-like when they are with Celia. And
when is it that we have seen a stage
Rosalind that showed us what the Rosa-
lind of our imagination felt at the sight
of the bloody handkerchief ? I never
saw but one. The last that I saw be-
haved much as if Oliver had shown her
a beetle, which she feared might fly upon
her, and in the end she turned and clung
to Celia's shoulder. But as Oliver tells
his story the blood of the real Rosalind
runs curdling from her brain to her
heart, and she swoons away, — falls like
one dead, to be caught by the wonder-
ing Oliver. Few words are spoken, be-
cause few are needed ; but this swoon is
no brief incident ; and Rosalind recovers
only to be led off by the aid of Oliver
and Celia. And here the girl again
makes an attempt to assert her man-
hood. She insists that she counterfeited,
and repeats and repeats her assertion.
Then here again the stage Rosalinds all
fail to present her as she is. They say
" counterfeit " with at least some trace
of a sly smile, and as if they did not

always treats slang respectfully, although he con-
temns and despises cant, would be the first to par-
don me.

1883.]

In Winter Months.

259

quite expect or wholly desire Oliver to
believe them. But Rosalind was in sad
and grievous earnest. Never word that
she uttered was more sober and serious
than her " counterfeit I assure you."
And the fun of the situation, which is
never absent in As You Like It, con-
sists in the complex of incongruity, —
the absurdity of a young swashbuckler's
fainting at the sight of a bloody hand-
kerchief, the absurdity of Rosalind's
protest that her swoon and deadly hor-
ror were counterfeit, and our knowledge
of the truth of the whole matter.

All this may be very true, our man-
ager replies ; but do you suppose that
you are going to get any actress to
brown her face and rig herself up so
that she will actually look like a young
huntsman, and play her part so that
a man might unsuspectingly take her
for another man ? O most verdant critic,
do you not know why it is that actresses
come before the public? It is for two
reasons, of which it would be hard to
say which is the more potent : to have
the public delight in them, and to get
money. It is in themselves personally
that they wish to interest their audi-
ences, not in their author or his crea-
tions ; those furnish but the means and

the occasion of accomplishing the for-
mer. Hence it is that in all modern
plays, in all (practically) that have
been written since actresses came upon
the stage, the women's parts must be at-
tractive. We cannot ask an actress un-
der fifty years of age to (in stage phrase)
" play against the house." Above all,
we cannot ask an actress of less than
those years to put herself, as a woman,
before the house in anything but an at-
tractive form. She must have an oppor-
tunity to exhibit herself and her " toi-
lettes ; " especially both, but particular-
ly the latter. And, O most priggish and
carping critic, with your musty notions
about what Shakespeare meant, and
such fusty folly, the public like it as it is.
They care more to see a pretty woman,
with a pretty figure, prancing saucily
about the stage in silk-tights, and behav-
ing like neither man nor woman, than
they would to see a booted, doubleted,
felt-hatted Rosalind, behaving now like a
real man and now like a real woman.

To which the critic replies, O most
sapient and worldly wise manager, I
know all that ; and, moreover, that it is
the reason why, instead of a Rosalind
of Shakespeare's making, we have that
hybrid thing, the stage Rosalind.

Richard Grant White.

IN WINTER MONTHS.
(RONDEAU.)

IN winter months, when skies hang low,
And earth is wrapped in shrouding snow ;
When naked branches, creaking, sway,
Stirred by chill winds on their slow way,
Our thoughts turn back to long ago.

No more for us the cold winds blow,
No more the dark days shorter grow;
Nor time nor change can make us stay
In winter months.

260

Lintoris History of Wood-Engraving.

Again our spring-time seems to glow
With all the joy that youth can know;
And bleak December flees away,
Usurped by memory's blithesome May:
How blest to cheat our worn hearts so
In winter months !

[February,

F. E. Durkee.

LINTON'S HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING.

MR. LINTON, in writing this volume,1
has done good service to his art. Had
not some one collected and set down the
meagre facts concerning the lives and
works of the first practicers of wood-
engraving in this country, they would
soon have been irrecoverably lost. The
men were obscure ; their works, for the
most part, were rude, characterized by
little skill and less beauty, — products
of trade rather than creations of art ;
but history would have been incomplete
without some record of them. Mr. Lin-
ton's book will be one of the original
sources for future authors, and it is sat-
isfactory to observe the thoroughness,
care, and fidelity that insure its trust-
worthiness. In all books on wood-en-
graving a difficulty arises from the im-
possibility of exhibiting on the page
more than a few cuts, and from the ne-
cessity of continual reference to rare
and often practically unknown prints.
Mr. Linton has not avoided the confu-
sion that results from great detail, and
he indulges in enthusiasm over posses-
sions of his own without remembering

how he makes the interest of the ordi-
nary reader flag. Indeed, he does not
address the public so much as the
craft. He has gathered from scattered
biographical notices and from tradition
probably all that will ever be known of
the early engravers, and he has chron-

1 The History of Wood-Engraving in America.
By W. J. LIMTON. Boston: Estes & Lauriat.
1882.

icled this information ; but, as he him-
self suggests, he has given rather a con-
tribution to the history of American
wood-engraving than the history itself,
which must hereafter be written by
some one with more skill in grouping
facts and placing them in perspective.
His book is to be regarded, in the main,
as the final and complete form of his
twice-told protest against some of the
methods and apparent aims of engrav-
ers now at work. To amplify, illustrate,
and enforce the fundamental principles
of the art, as he understands them, is
clearly the matter nearest to his heart ;
and to this, therefore, as the leading in-
terest of his pages, we shall confine our
attention.

Mr. Linton's views, which have once
been expressed in this magazine, are
well known. His main position is that
wood-engraving is an art of expression
by means of lines used primarily to de-
lineate form, and that its peculiar prov-
ince is to reproduce designs, not by a
fac-simile copy of the original, stroke
for stroke, but by lines drawn by the
graver ; that it is not an imitative but
an interpretative art. What he consid-
ers as mistakes in recent work are due
principally to an insufficient apprecia-
tion of the value of line, or to a slav-
ish subservience to the designs. These
errors are incident to the development
of the manual skill of the engravers,

O '

and to the increase of their mechan-
ical resources. As it became possible,

1883.]

Linton's History of Wood-Engraving.

261

by improved processes, to print fine
lines, the chief objection to their use
in wood - engraving disappeared ; and
when, on experiment, it was found that
pleasing color effects resulted from the
employment of such lines, independent-
ly of their function to define forms,
and that the look of paint, bronze, clay,
charcoal, and the like could be thus,
given, the charm of novelty led to the
application of the art for such purposes.
Within the last two years the direct
imitation of materials — the ugly gray
pallor of busts, without the solidity, dis-
tance, and play of light on which their
beauty depends, the sweep of the paint-
brush as seen on a close examination of
the canvas — has been comparatively
infrequent ; but the effort to obtain col-
or without form shows no abatement.
Meanwhile, however, the engravers, such
as King, Cole, Kruell, Closson, and John-
son, have shown, as never before, that
their mastery of form is very great ; that
they understand beautiful and orderly
line arrangement as the means to mark
outlines, to show differences of textures,
such as fur and satin, to express the mod-
eling of features and the character of
flesh. There is, therefore, no question
of the powers either of the art or of the
engraver ; the controversy is simply in
regard to aims and methods.

Of course the decisive test lies in the
work itself. Is it beautiful, and does it
sacrifice a higher to an inferior beauty ?
In answering such inquiries, it is hard
to see how Mr. Linton's conclusions can
be avoided as statements of the prin-
ciples that underlie the best products
of wood-engraving as a distinctive art.
Line-work certainly is the main busi-
ness of the engravers, and its chief use
is to mark form and texture. Whether
the lines shall be fine or bold in char-
acter is at the option of the engraver.
If, by his own choice, or at the will of
his employers, he adopts the more labo-
rious ctyle, when the. easier would serve
as well, all that can be said is that there

is a waste of industry and time. But
whether the lines, fine or bold, shall
have intention or not admits no latitu-
dinarian decision. Lines are to the en-
graver what words are to the poet. To
require of the former that he shall put
meaning into his lines is no more than
to require of the latter that he shall
put meaning into his words. Superflu-
ity and carelessness in the one are analo-
gous to verbosity and inaccuracy of epi-
thet in the other ; in both the art is bet-
ter in proportion as the thought that de-
termines the selection and arrangement
is more discriminating, and the expres-
sion is more clear and firm. The truth
of this is not questioned in poetry ; its
validity in art is only less acknowledged
because the principles of art criticism
are less generally known. The cobweb
skies, the mottled grounds that stand for
grass, the phantasmal flat shadows that
serve for trees, are bad in art simply be-
cause of the absence of form, or, in other
words, of the meaninglessness of lines.
Such work does not present in a beauti-
ful, accurate, and life-like way the ob-
jects to the eye ; it suggests them to
the mind by symbols, and no one needs
to be told that symbolism is in art an
early and inferior stage. In this gen-
eralization of the accessories, as it is
called, in the heads without hair, the
flesh blending with the garments, the
foliage undistinguished from the grass,
and in all its multifarious phases, wood-
engraving is not an art of expression ;
it is rather an art of obliteration.

But if these lines have no meaning in
form, have they not in color ? Perhaps
color effects only were sought, and are
they not obtained ? Unquestionably,
these tints, modulated with exquisite
gradations, afford pleasure to the eye at
the first glance ; but it is still to be asked
whether this momentary delight satisfies
the artistic sense, — whether it lasts
or wears away. In nature, color is an
attribute of form ; in a landscape or a
picturesque group, the color is first ap-

262

Linton's History of Wood-Engraving. [February,

prehended, real hues of blue and green
and scarlet yielding a keen sensuous joy.
But when the impression of the scene is
complete, color is usually subordinate to
form ; or, if it remain the predominant
element, its beauty is intimately related
to the beauty of the forms it clothes.
In the cuts now referred to, if one
looks through the color, the blacks and
grays, which, however marvelous in del-
icacy and contrast, are after all conven-
tional, he finds that the forms have been
left out. Those who suppose that this
faithlessness to nature is really popular
might learn something of the native
taste of our people from the literary
triumph of the realistic novel among
us. The Americans are an observant
race. Teachable as they are, and slow to
trust their own judgment in such a mat-
ter as art, which is commonly believed
to require knowledge of secrets and ex-
ceptional cultivation for its appreciation,
they are quite aware that these engrav-
ings are not true representations of na-
ture, but are ugly symbolizations of
beautiful things, and not infrequently
wholly unintelligible in regard to form.
We will bear, as a people, as much re-
alism in art as in story-telling. These
strictures are not meant to apply to the
class of cuts in which the scene is mere-
ly overlaid with a gauze-like veil, for
this indistinctness has sometimes a value
intelligently meant and clearly felt. In
such engravings the forms are there,
though obscured ; and if the flowers lose
their beautiful fringes, the trees their
folds, there is some compensation in
other gains. The mass of cuts which
have either no form or false form, which
are a maze of unnecessary or wander-
ing lines, must be condemned, however
ingenious and skillful in color, because
they are untrue to nature and vacant to
the mind. Mr. Linton calls attention
to a very significant fact by pointing
out the ease with which young and un-
trained scholars have caught the trick
of these effects, as shown by The Cen-

tury prize-engravings ; the true use of
line is not so quickly learned.

Mr. Linton indicates that the fault is
not with the engravers, but with the de-
signers. He says, " I have yet met with
no engraver impugning the broad truth
of my position, nor a single artist (set-
ting aside minor differences of opinion)
denying the general correctness of my
views." From another portion of his
work it appears that the artists require
effects of the engravers which involve
attention to color at the expense of form.
In view of this, while our respect is in-
creased for these engravers, who, like
Kruell, King, and Hoskins, have yielded
least to this demand, we can only regret
the lack of independence on the part of
the engravers as a body. Their art, it
is true, is secondary, and it has many
uses other than the creation of beauty ;
but it possesses a value unshared by
other arts, and in obeying its own gen-
ius obtains unborrowed effects, beautiful
in their own right. Indeed, no injustice
would be done if the engravers should
reverse the situation, and insist that the
artists should serve them, on the ground
that the design should be subject to the
conditions of the art in the productions
of which it is finally to be reckoned ; at
least, the engravers should be left free
to choose their own modes of copying
the originals, and in that choice should
themselves be governed by the known
laws of the beautiful and accurate re-
production of nature by art. To judge
by the excellence of the best work they
have done, — and it is the best that has
ever been done, — they would not then
blemish their cuts with hasty and care-
less drawing, with aimless lines, with
symbolized or generalized forms, with
bodiless color. They would acknowledge
by their works that definiteness, and
intelligibility are prime necessaries in
wood-engraving as in any other art of
expression, and that, as in all arts that
depend on line, perfection of form is
the essential thing to be striven for.

1883.]

Dr. Eimmer.

263

DR. RIMMER.

IT is in praise of Mr. Bartlett's hon-
esty and candor to say that we lay down
his Life of Dr. Rimmer l with the enig-
ma of that life unsolved. However
much we may be abashed at our own
inability to form a rounded judgment,
we have a secret satisfaction in the sus-
picion that the student and practiced
artist, who has collected all the available
materials for a judgment, is almost as
much in the dark as we are. At any
rate, Mr. Bartlett, while giving frequent
expression to his admiration, and aiding
the reader by many felicitous criticisms,
has not undertaken to sum up the qual-
ities of Dr. Rimmer's greatness, and to
furnish the reader with a convenient
formula by which to reckon the meas-
ure of his genius. He has done better
than this. He has collected with pa-
tience and industry the facts of Dr.
Rimmer's life ; he has illustrated the
facts with comments and criticisms from
many sources ; he has recovered much
testimony which would inevitably have
been lost except for his faithfulness ;
and he has presented the results in an
orderly and comprehensive form. Mr.
Bartlett's qualifications as a biographer
do not lie in a special literary grace,
but in the more essential attributes of
frankness and truthfulness. We follow
his lead in the book with a grateful
sense of being in the hands of a man
who is not thinking of himself, but -of
his subject, and thinking with singular
vigor and concentration of mind. If
Dr. Rimmer is still a puzzle to Mr.
Bartlett, as we think he is, we may as-
suredly find satisfaction in the thought
that Mr. Bartlett has concealed none of
the difficulties from us, and has given
us all the clues which he himself had.

There is an enigma, to begin with,

1 The Art Life of William Rimmer, Sculptor,
Painter, and Physician. By TKUMAN H. BART-

about Dr. Rimmer's origin. His father
belonged to a branch of one of the royal
families of France. Born in 1789, he
was brought up in seclusion in an Eng-
lish home, ignorant of his name and
destiny until he had reached what may
be called years of indiscretion. Then,
fired with ambition and expectation, fie
entered the English army to qualify
himself for military life ; but just when
he mis;ht look for the consummation of

his hopes, he suffered the bitter disap-
pointment of an unsuccessful claimant,
and, filled with rage and indignation, as-
sumed the name of Thomas Rimmer,
left England behind, and came to this
country.

Mr. Bartlett does not tell us, if he
knew himself, to which of the branches
of the royal family Rimmer belonged ;
but he shrewdly inserts a striking like-
ness of the man, and any one familiar
with French history may please himself
with establishing the identity. The
Rev. Mr. Williams retired some time
since into obscurity, and Thomas Rim-
mer is a much more interesting lost
prince. The few glimpses which are
given of this strange mortal have a value
in the interpretation of the artist's tem-
perament and career ; for William Rim-
mer not only inherited something of his
father's violent and capricious temper,
but he was heir to his father's hopeless
great expectations, and did not positive-
ly abandon hope of a reinstatement of
fortune until he buried it in the grave
of his son.

Mr. Bartlett gives due force to the
power of this illusion in shaping Dr.
Rimmer's mind, but the reader is likely
to recur to it as containing a subtle ex-
planation of the irregularities of nature
which constantly perplex one in study-

LETT, Sculptor. Illustrated with heliotype repro-
ductions. Boston : James R. Osgood & Co. 1882.

264

Dr. Rimmer.

[February,

ing this remarkable man. The secret
but strong aspiration, which made every
pursuit seem a temporary expedient,
lasted far into Dr. Rimmer's life ; and
when it was found by him to be vain
and delusive, there remained only the
refuge of home and the exercise of great
powers, which were under no controlling
principle or impulse. The inner man
seemed to have gone to pieces. How
great his powers were, and how distorted,
may be read in the passages given from
Dr. Rimmer's writings, in the testimony
of his pupils and contemporaries, and in
the illustrative heliotypes from his works.
The waste of his powers was extraordi-
nary. Mr. Bartlett reminds us more
than once of the sculptor's contemptu-
ous disregard of the conditions of the
material in which he worked. The
clay crumbled because he would not use
ordinary precaution to protect it. " He
drew upon any scrap of paper that came
within his reach. At times, the floor of
the room, wherever he might be, would
be strewn with drawings of every possi-
ble subject, grave, gay, grotesque, poetic,
and illustrative. . . . Wherever he could
get a pencil, paint, brushes, and canvas
was his studio. ' He painted on the
floor in the sitting-room,' says one of
the family, 'in the hall- way, on the
stairs, or in the attic.' The majority
of the drawings exhibited at the Art
Museum in 1880 were made under
these circumstances, and owe their pres-
ervation to the fact that members of his
family would bring him the leaf of an
album, or other piece of paper, in order
that they might save, now and then, a
drawing of the mass that otherwise
would go to the rag-bag." An interest-
ing collection of examples of his art was
formed by a thoughtful lady, who traced
drawings which he had left on the black-
board ; but his students bear mournful
testimony to the fact that thousands of
such drawings, many of them of most
striking excellence, were seen for a few
moments, and then remorselessly erased.

He wasted his powers, moreover, in
fruitless experiments. He worked with
a fury, but nothing which he did seemed
to be the result of long and patiently
considered thought. To do the thing
seemed uppermost, and the thing once
done was neglected and disregarded.
But the several things done were not
conscious steps in a progress ; they were
quite as frequently repetitions and re-
productions. Mr. Bartlett and many of
his friends raise the question what he
might have done had he visited Europe ;
but Mr. Bartlett wisely suspects that
there would have been no material dif-
ference in the result. For such a man
as Rimmer, the only possible change
could have been through a change of
nature in himself ; external conditions
were powerless to affect him radically.

No one word can sum up such a man,
but the nearest to a comprehensive epi-
thet may be found in the statement that
Rimmer was an inventor rather than
a designer. That is to say, color and
form were not before him as absolute
material, out of which he was to con-
struct designs which his perception and
imagination discovered ; they were rela-
tive to certain ideas which he held, and
his constructions were in the nature of
empiric experiments. On a lower plane,
he was ingenious without being conclu-
sive. " At one time he had made some
improvement in a gun-lock ; at another,
some self-registering plan to determine
the number of persons entering a street
car ; still again, his plan was the con-
struction, in a cheap and durable mate-
rial, of a peculiar form of trunk, con-
venient for use and handling, and, as he
used to say, ' such as no expressman
could break.' But all these, as well as
numberless other plans, came in the end
to nothing but vague hopes and words."
In art, he invented, as it were, the ma-
terial in which he worked, the instru-
ments which he used, the world which
he essayed to interpret. Take the pro-
digious lions which he drew. They are

1883.]

Dr. Rimmer.

265

not copies of lions, but inventions of
new lions out of the leonine conception
which he had formed after seeing the
living beasts.

Dr. Rimmer never used models. This
fact, the significance of which Mr. Bart-
lett clearly perceives, taken in connec-
tion with his wonderful anatomical
knowledge, discloses the source both of
his strength and his weakness. He
generalized superbly, but his generaliza-
tion was unsustained by a wide and close
observation of particulars. Hence he
was continually moving in a circle, and
fretting himself by his limitations. The
strong mind consumed its own creations ;
for it was not matched by a hand trained
in cunning to obey implicitly, nor by a
judgment schooled in discipline. In a
word, Dr. Rimmer may be said to have
been his own model, and his introspec-
tion to have been the revelation which
he heeded. The colossal, broken re-
mains of a romantic history furnished
him with images of life which were
scarcely formed by the stirring move-
ments about him, although the nearest
connection between his own life and
contemporaneous history lay through
the medium of war ; and in this there
was a consistency. He was not at all
moved by the ideas involved in John
Brown's crusade, but the marching of
Massachusetts militia called from him a
noble picture, To the 54th Regiment of
Massachusetts Volunteers.

It is to be observed that Dr. Rimmer
laid great stress, when teaching his pu-
pils, upon the necessity of the study of
anatomy ; hut he seemed to think that
the power of design was a gift to be
accepted, and not an art to be patiently
acquired. lu truth, anatomy was the

only science which he had mastered,
and in emphasizing that as an essential
part of an artist's study he was sim-
ply reproducing his own incomplete de-
velopment. Mr. Bartlett confines his
book to the art life of Dr. Rimmer,
but it would not be difficult, from the
material which he has furnished, to
show that his character was, in a paral-
lel way, invested with singular dispro-
portions.

The strange loneliness of this great
man, by which he was separated from
his kind, and wrought hopelessly in per-
ishable material the ideas which seemed
born in him, and tested only by his own
reflection, has its pathos and pain. It
has its beauty, also, in the passion with
which he clung to his own kith and kin,
and sought to shelter them from an in-
clement world. To this, rather than to
any absence of high principle, may fair-
ly be referred the mercenary character
of some of his transactions. Pie was a
blind giant, who squandered his strength,
and left works which fill one with de-
spair at the thought of what he did not
leave ; but he was also a man of tender,
affectionate nature, who calls out one's
love and pity. His work has entered in
numberless ways into the lives of his
pupils, and thus can never be lost, even
though the structural examples of his
art are but fragments of his genius.
There was little of the American in
him, yet his gift to America has been
very great. No history of art can
henceforth omit to count his contribu-
tion, and we are sure that future stu-
dents will be even more grateful than
we are to-day to Mr. Bartlett for rescu-
ing so much from the inevitable decay
of time.

266

George Sand's Letters.

[February,

GEORGE SAND'S LETTERS.

"WHETHER or not the number of
George Sand's works — always fresh,
always attractive, but poured out too
lavishly and rapidly — is likely to prove
a hindrance to her fame, I do not care
to consider. Posterity, alarmed at the
way in which its literary baggage grows
upon it, always seeks to leave behind it
as much as it can, as much as it dares,

— everything but masterpieces. But
the immense vibration of George Sand's
voice upon the ear of Europe will not
soon die away. Her passions and her
errors have been abundantly talked of.
She has left them behind her, and men's
memory of her will leave them behind
also. There will remain of her the
sense of benefit and stimulus from the
passage on earth of that large and frank
nature, that large and pure utterance,

— the large utterance of the early gods.
There will remain an admiring and ever-
widening report of that great soul, sim-
ple, affectionate, without vanity, without
pedantry, human, equitable, patient,
kind."

In the words here quoted, written at
the time of her death, in 1876, Matthew
Arnold admirably summed up the char-
acter and influence of George Sand.
She was indeed a great soul, of whom
there remains an admiring and ever-
widening report. But Mr. Arnold had
known only the pacific and tender
grandmother, the good lady of Nohant,
la bonne dame, appeased and almost
timid, who would have smiled sadly to
read the letters that Lelia wrote in
1848, — lyric letters, overflowing now
with enthusiasm, now with sadness ; at
one moment like cries of passionate joy,
at another like wails of grief. In 1848
the good lady of Nohant was ready to
fight in person, like the Grand Made-
moiselle: "I feel, just like a man, the
emotion of the combat, the attraction of

the gunshot. In my youth I should
have followed the devil, if he had or-
dered, Fire!" This third volume of
George Sand's Correspondence * does
indeed smell of powder. It contains
one hundred and five letters, written be-
tween the years 1848 and 1853. It
begins with the exuberant joy of the
young republic, and ends with the pro-
scriptions and chain-gangs of the Third
Napoleon, the climax of enthusiasm and
the depths of despair. In the present col-
lection, as in the preceding volumes of
George Sand's letters, the curious will
seek in vain for piquant personal details.
Indeed, almost all the letters in this
new installment relate to public affairs.
In them we follow, day by day, the chang-
ing fortunes of the republic of 1848.
We hear from George Sand herself the
narrative of her relations with the pro-
visional government, with Lamartine,
with Armand Barbes, with Louis Na-
poleon. One might almost style these
letters " Memoirs to serve for the his-
tory of the republic of 1848." March
9, 1848, George Sand writes, "Vive
la Republique ! What a dream ! What
enthusiasm, and, at the same time, what
behavior, what order, at Paris ! I have
just come back from there. I hurried
to the scene. I saw the last barricades
open under my feet. I saw the people,
grand, sublime, artless, generous, — the
French people, the most admirable peo-
ple in the universe ! I passed many
nights without sleeping, many days
without sitting down. People are
wild, drunk with happiness, to think
that they lay down to sleep in the mire,
and woke up in heaven. Let all who
are around you have courage and con-
fidence ! The republic is conquered
and assured, and we will perish in it

1 Correspondence. GEOROK SAND. Vol. III.
Paris : Calmaun I^vy. 1882.

1883.]

George Sand's Letters.

267

rather than lose it. The government is
composed for the most part of excellent
men, all a little incomplete and insuffi-
cient for a task which demands the gen-
ius of a Napoleon and the heart of
Jesus. But the union of all these men,
who have soul, talent, or will, suffices
for the situation. They desire the
good, they seek it, they try. They are
sincerely dominated by a principle su-
perior to the individual capacity of each
one : I mean the will of all, the right of
the people. The people of Paris is so
good, so indulgent, so confident in its
cause, and so strong that it itself aids
the government. The duration of such
a disposition would be the social ideal."

George Sand has her heart full and
her head on fire. She returns to Paris
to found a journal in the good cause.
She forgets her troubles and her ail-
ments ; she feels strong and active, as if
she were only twenty years of age.
She enters into relations with the pro-
visional government, writes official cir-
culars for the ministers, and compiles
the weekly official journal, the Bulletin
de la Republique. Paris is in a great
state of excitement, and queer things
are taking place. The provisional gov-
ernment, fearing lest Rothschild should
take to his heels with his money, at-
taches a guard to him. Every day lib-
erty trees are being planted. In the
streets you meet bands of fifty or sixty
workmen, stalwart, grave, their brows
crowned with foliage, and the spade or
the pick on their shoulders. " It is
magnificent ! " cries George Sand.

After a few letters a different note
is sounded. April 17th, George Sand
writes, 'k I am afraid the republic has
boon killed in its principle and in its fu-
ture, at least in its immediate future.
To-day it has been defiled by cries of
death. Liberty and equality have been
trodden under foot with fraternity all
this day." The bourgeoisie have started
the cry of " Death to the Communists ; "
the bourgeoisie try to terrorize tLe work-

ingmen. The republic is the plaything
of four conspiracies, headed by Ledru-
Rollin, Marrast, Blanqui, and Louis
Blanc. The long letter in which George
Sand explains the composition and ob-
ject of these conspiracies is a very curi-
ous and important historical document.
The results for the republic are disas-
trous, and George Sand laments the
weakness of men. The ideas of all of
them are good enough ; the characters
are inferior, and truth, she says, " has
life only in an upright soul, and in-
fluence only in a pure mouth. Men
are false, ambitious, vain, egoists, and
the best of them is not worth much ; it
is sad to see close. The two honestest
men I have yet met are Barbes and
Etienne Arago. . . . All the men of
the first rank in the government live
with this ideal : I, I, 1" Even Louis
Blaric is at this time severely judged
by George Sand. But why quote the
hot words written in a moment of trial ?
A year later, July, 1849, George Sand
judges Louis Blanc more equitably and
more calmly. Speaking of political
writing, she says, —

" I am not and shall not be a polit-
ical writer, because, in order to be read
in France at the present day, one must
attack men, dabble in scandal, in hatred,
in gossip even. If one confines one's
self to dissertation, preaching, and ex-
planation, one becomes tiresome. It is
better to hold one's peace. Emile de
Girardin has form when he likes ; he
has not the true matter. Louis Blanc
has both form and matter. People do
not concern themselves about him. He
is bound to go on writing, because he
has a party, and he cannot abandon his
party after having formed it. But, out-
side his party, he is without action. . . .
In political life Louis Blanc is a sure
man. What do I care if in private life
he has as much pride as Ledru-Rollin
has vanity, if in public life he knows
how to sacrifice his pride or his vanity
to his duty ? I count on him ; I know

268

Greorge Sand's Letters.

[February,

where he is going, and I know that no-
body can make him deviate from his
path. I have found in him asperity,
never weakness ; secret sufferings, im-
mediately conquered by a profound and
tenacious sentiment of duty."

At the end of 1849 the new repub-
lic seems in a bad way. The " social
ideal " of March, 1848, has given place
to treachery, party strife, arubition,
egoism, and the rest. In her retirement
at Nohant, she tries not to think, for
fear of becoming the enemy, or at least
the despiser, of the human race, which
she has loved so much that she has for-
gotten to love herself. Still she resists.
She refuses to lose faith ; she prays
God to preserve her in her faith. She
writes thus to Mazzini : " But you are
there in my heart, — you, Barbes, and
two or three other, less illustrious, but
holy too, and believers, and pure from
all the wretchedness and all the wicked-
ness of this age. Truth, then, is incar-
nate somewhere ; truth, therefore, is not
out of the reach of man, and one good
man proves more than a hundred thou-
sand bad ones."

Then, again, she writes to Barbes :
" You and Mazzini are always in my
thoughts as the heroic martyrs of these
sad times. There is not a shadow of
a reproach to be made against either of
you. In neither of you is there a spot.
I still believe, and I believe firmly, that
revolutions will neither be profound
nor durable until there be at the head of
them men of boundless virtue and pro-
found modesty of heart. The peoples
are sick of men of talent, eloquence, and
invention. They listen to them because
they are amusing ; the French people,
particularly, eminently artistic as they
are, become passionate about them with-
out reflection. But this passion does
not go even to devotion or self-sacrifice.
Devotion alone commands devotion, and
nowadays devotion is rarer amongst the
party chiefs than amongst the people."

In the letters of 1852, George Sand

appears as a great and reasonable wom-
an. The socialist dreams of 1848 have
been rudely shattered ; the republic
with Napoleon as Prince President is
no republic ; George Sand's friends, her
brothers, her adopted children, are in
prison or in exile ; the rigor of Napo-
leon is throwing into chains all who ac-
cept the title of socialist republicans.
Yet George Sand persists in seeing in
Louis Napoleon a socialist genius ; she
does not believe that he is acting in a
selfish end ; she believes him to have
had an ideal apparition of justice and of
truth, and while disapproving the means
he has adopted, she, as a socialist, ac-
cepts his accession to power " with the
submission we owe to the logic of Provi-
dence." Taking advantage of former
relations with Napoleon, and of the es-
teem in which she had reason to believe
he held her, George Sand addressed to
the Prince President several noble let-
ters of advice, of warning, and of sup-
plication, principally of supplication, in
behalf of the political prisoners, her fel-
low citizens, her friends. The long let-
ter to Napoleon, dated January 20, 1852,
is a magnificent piece of writing. The
grandeur of the cause gives to the prayer
a savor of what Matthew Arnold calls,
in the words of Keats, "the large ut-
terance of the early gods." Happily
for his memory, Napoleon listened to
George Sand's appeals for her friends,
and promised her soon a general amnesty.
We know how he kept his promise.
Still, George Sand at that moment could
not allow the character of Napoleon to
be calumniated before her. She had
found him accessible and human ; she
had talked with him sufficiently to have
seen in him good instincts and certain
tendencies towards an object which
would have been the object of George
Sand and her socialist friends, — tenden-
cies soon to be effectually obstructed,
if ever they existed, by the counselors
with whom the Emperor was gradually
becoming surrounded.

1883.]

George Sand's Letters.

'269

The last letter in the volume is one
to Joseph Mazzini, whom, in spite of
certain differences of opinion, discussed
at length in previous letters, George
Sand has not ceased to love and respect.
Mazzini has written her a severe letter,
reproaching her with her resignation.
This is in December, 1853. Mazzini
has also expressed surprise at finding
no allusions in her recent works to cur-
rent events. To these reproaches George
Sand replies, with dignity and filial re-
spect, that the censorship of Napoleon
would not permit allusions : —

" When liberty is limited, frank and
courageous souls prefer silence to in-
sinuation. Furthermore, were liberty
reestablished for us, it is not certain that
I should now wish to touch questions
which humanity is not yet worthy to re-
solve, and which have divided even unto
hatred the greatest and the best minds
of these times. You are astonished that
I am able to do literary work. I thank
God that he has preserved me this fac-
ulty, because an honest and pure con-
science, as mine is, still finds, outside of
all discussion, a work of moralization to
be pursued. What should I do, then, if
I were to abandon my humble task ?
Conspire ? It is not my vocation. Write
pamphlets ? I have neither the gall nor
the wit. Theorize ? We have had too
much theorizing, and we have fallen
into disputation, which is the grave of
all truth and of all power. I am, and
always have been, an artist, above every-
thing. I know that purely political men
have a great contempt for the artist, be-
cause they judge him after the types of
certain mountebanks, who dishonor art.
But you, my friend, you know well that
a veritable artist is as useful as the
priest and the warrior ; and that, when
he respects truth arad virtue, he is in a
way that God always blesses."

George Sand is, indeed, above every-
thing, an artist ; and, in the midst of all
the agitation of 1848, of all the ardor
of her socialist propaganda, and of all

the anguish and despair of the corrup-
tion and ruin of the young republic,
she was writing that immortal idyl, La
Mare au Diable, and Les Maitres Son-
neurs, a work of purely literary excel-
lence.

After all, was not the revolution of
1848 a dream to George Sand, — a dream
like the idyl of the Mare au Diable ?
Artist, enthusiast, great-soul ed genius, as
she was, was George Sand ever gifted
with practical sense ? In the last letter
to Mazzini, just quoted, she says, "As
regards material interests, I have re-
mained in a state of absolute idiocy ;
and so I have engaged a business man,
who will take charge of the whole of
the positive side of my life." The busi-
ness man in question was no other than
Pierre Leroux, a man as innocent in all
practical things as a new-born babe.

Once, and once only, this Pierre Le-
roux collaborated with George Sand in
writing one of her novels, Spiridion, —
which, by the way, is dedicated to that
vague and cloudy philosopher. Spi-
ridion was published in installments in
the Revue des Deux Mondes. The
reader may remember that this lugubri-
ous and sepulchral narrative is the story
of a monk, Pierre Hebronius, — in relig-
ion, Brother Spiridion, — who died in
the odor of sanctity, and had buried
with him a manuscript, the work of his
life, which bore, like his tombstone, the
inscription, Hie est veritas. The whole
interest of the novel lies in the search
for this manuscript by the monk Alexis,
who digs and digs, and philosophizes,
chapter after chapter, without finding
the manuscript of Spiridion. The read-
ers of the Revue became impatient, at
last. When is Alexis going to find the
manuscript of Spiridion ? asked the sub-
scribers. The fact was that George
Sand, ardent seeker after and believer
in truth as she was, had invented Spi-
ridion and his manuscript, Hie est veri-
tas ; but what truth was, George Sand,
when pushed to the wall, could not say.

270

A Frenchman in the United States in 1840. [February,

In her embarrassment, she asked Pierre
Leroux to write what Spiridion could
have written in his famous manuscript;
and Leroux, without hesitation, finished
the novel by a variation on his own doc-
trine of the triad : —

" Religion has three epochs, like the
reigns of the three persons of the Trin-
ity. Christianity was destined to have
three epochs, and the three epochs are
accomplished. As the divine Trinity
has three phases, the conception that
the human mind has had of the Trinity
in Christianity was destined to have
three successive phases. The first, cor-
responding to Saint Peter, embraces the
period of the creation and hierarchic
and militant development of the church
up to Hildebrand, the Saint Peter of

the eleventh century ; the second, cor-
responding to Saint John, embraces the
period from Abelard to Luther ; the
third, corresponding to Saint Paul, be-
gins with Luther and ends with Bossuet.
It is the reign of free examination, of
knowledge, as the second period is the
period of love and of sentiment, and as
the first is the period of sensation and of
activity. There Christianity ends, and
there begins the era of a new religion."
This new religion was of course the
religion of Pierre Leroux, whom George
Sand then styled lier "friend and broth-
er in years, her father and master in
virtue and knowledge." And yet peo-
ple continue to think that Pilate was
" jesting " when he asked, " What is
truth ? "

A FRENCHMAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 1840.

WE expected to find M. de Bacourt's
Souvenirs l a poor book, and we have not
been disappointed. It is a very poor
book indeed. It is not even amusing,
except on rare occasions ; and in this re-
spect M. de Bacourt is inferior to most
of his countrymen, who even when they
are very ignorant contrive to be enter-
taining. French ignorance, in fact, is
often more amusing than the wisdom of
other people. But the worthy De Ba-
court is distinctly dull. This much may
be said for him, however : the work of
his editress is far worse than his own.

The book, nevertheless, is interesting
in three ways : first, because it has been
published ; secondly, as typical of a very
marked quality of the French mind ; and
thirdly, because some of the incidents
which the author saw and noted have a
historical value to Americans.

l De Bacourt Souvenirs d'un Diplomate. Let-
tres Intimes sur 1'Amerique. Paris: Caiman n
L<5vy. 1882.

The publication of such a book illus-
trates a fashion, just now much in vogue
in Europe, and especially in England, of
paying a great deal of attention to this
country. Our civil war and its triumph-
ant result ; our rapid payment of the na-
tional debt ; our marvelous growth in
wealth, prosperity, and population ; in
one word, our success, have within a few
years brought home to the perceptions of
the Old World a fact which only their
own carelessness or stupidity prevented
their seeing before. They have lately
discovered that a great factor in the af-
fairs of mankind, and a nation of vast,
and in the future of overshadowing,
power, has arisen on this side of the At-
lantic. Our cousins of England, from a
variety of causes, but chiefly from their
unrivaled instinct and keen respect for
material success, were the first to make
the discovery. It is astonishing to see
how much of current English literature
in reviews and newspapers is devoted

1883.]

A Frenchman in the United States in

271

to this country, and to our sayings and
doings in every department of human
activity. Crowds of Englishmen come
here to-day where a handful came twen-
ty years ago, and almost every man of
any distinction among them goes home
and writes his impressions. In the
years before the war there was hardly
an Englishman who did not abuse us,
more or less ignorantly, whenever he-
thought about us at all, which was not
often. We were then very anxious about
foreign opinion, very greedy for it and
very sensitive to it. Now, when we get
a great deal of it, and an abundance of
praise and wonder to boot, we are, as
we ought to be, quite indifferent to the
whole business. We sometimes read
the various lucubrations from a feeling
of curiosity, accept what is just, smile
at the blunders, and forget the whole
thing very quickly. But most 01 this
foreign criticism, besides paying us the
greatest compliment possible of giving
a close study to our institutions and pros-
pects, is often in a tone of admiration,
almost invariably of respect.

Such is the general drift of foreign
opinion ; but there is a class, on the other
side of the Atlantic, who regard us with
very different feelings from those com-
monly entertained. This is the Tory
class. We mean by this those persons, in
many cases perhaps belonging to noble
families, whose interests and affections
are bound up with the past, and who hate
modern tendencies with a purblind ha-
tred. Such people have always detested,
arid until lately have despised, the Unit-
ed States. They detest us as much as
ever, but their contempt has changed to
alarm. They perceive plainly that our
success and greatness mean the success
and greatness of democracy, and they
regard democracy, rightly enough, as
their direst foe. We notice in these
quarters, therefore, that interest in the
United States takes the form of an ea-
ger effort to discredit us, and through us
democracy and republican institutions.

Contemptuous abuse, it is obvious even
to them, is no longer of any value. The
case has become too serious for that.
Take, for example, the Saturday Review.
That journal, now in its decline, was
wont, in its palmy days, to refer to us
occasionally, in order to hold up our
worthlessness to the hissing and scorn of
all well-regulated nations. Nobody ever
cared much for what the Saturday Re-
view said, except to have a little fun
with its articles ; and now no one here
cares a straw about it, one way or the
other. But as we have become indiffer-
ent, the tone of the Saturday Review
has changed. It is now very sensitive
to our criticism and much annoyed by
what we say, and rushes about in a de-
fensive way, seeking war-like material.
In this pursuit it tries to discredit us,
and, besides taking great comfort in Mr.
HenTy James's statement that we no
longer speak English, it has lately been
digging up the dried mud of Dickens's
American Notes and Martin Chuzzle-
wit, and has been throwing that about,
in default of anything better. There is
something rather pleasing in the annoy-
ance which American opinion on various
matters is giving to the worthy and aged
people (aged in mind) who conduct that
periodical. But we are apt to forget
that the same class exists in Paris, in
the Faubourg St. Germain, as well as in
London. The French Tories seem to
have a vague notion that successful de-
mocracy in America is helping to bury
still deeper the dead Bourbonism which
they love. They dimly feel that it is a
good thing to put that democracy in an
odious light. Hence the publication of
M. de Bacourt's private letters. The
preface discloses very frankly the pur-
pose of the book, which is designed to
injure us in public opinion. There can
be, in fact, no other motive, since, ex-
cept for a slight historical value to a
limited circle of American readers, the
book is completely without interest or
importance. But as an emanation of

272

A Frenchman in the, United States in ISJfl. [February,

the Tory mind, as a specimen of the
Tory anxiety in regard to the United
States, the publication of these letters
is a curious and suggestive incident.

This book is, however, still more in-
teresting as the expression and example
of a highly typical French mind. M.
de Bacourt was a gentleman of good
family. He was a literary man, the
editor of the Mirabeau and Talleyrand
papers, a scholar and man of the world.
More than all this, he had passed a
large part of his life in diplomacy.
As a diplomatist, and as the friend and
literary executor of Talleyrand, he had
an extensive acquaintance with the in-
terests, the affairs, and the character of
nations other than his own, as well as a
thorough familiarity with modern his-
tory. A man of such antecedents and
of such habits and training would seem
to have been almost ideally fitted for a
traveler, observer, and critic. Yet, as
these letters show, he was utterly una-
ble to understand a foreign nation even
in the dimmest way. He had not even
the capacity of setting down intelligent-
ly what he saw ; for such was his mental
blindness that he saw scarcely anything.
All this was due to the simple fact that
M. de Bacourt was a Frenchman ; and
he rises, iii this way, to the dignity of
one of those extreme and well-defined
types which, under the modern compar-
ative system of investigation and study,
are at once so satisfactory and so attrac-
tive.

There are no people on the earth, ex-
cept the Chinese, which have any claim
to be called civilized who are such abso-
lute slaves to local limitations as the
French. They know nothing and wish
to know nothing of other nations. There
is, of course, in every country a large
body of ignorance in regard to foreign na-
tions and foreign countries, but in France
there is an arrogant and complacent ig-
norance in this respect, to which the ex-
ceptions are so few that it may be called
universal. It includes all classes and de-

grees, from the aristocrat who follows
the white flag and the men of the highest
education down to the idlers of the Boule-
vard and the blue-shirted workmen of
the Faubourgs. To Frenchmen Paris is
at this moment not only the great cen-
tre of light and life, but they hardly rec-
ognize the existence of any other. They
are still living in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, when French was
the language of the polite world, and
when the princelings of Germany and
their courts mangled the language, and
complimented by a brutal imitation the
vices and follies of the " great people."
They have not yet awakened to the fact
that the great world outside of their
boundaries is sweeping by them, and
that civilized mankind, as has been clev-
erly said, " might now be divided into
two nations : those who speak English
and those who do not." Hardly ten years
have elapsed since France was deserv-
edly crushed, in the short space of six
months, under the iron heel of military
conquest. A principal cause of all this
disgrace and disaster was her persist-
ent, complacent, crass ignorance of her
next-door neighbors. If the French
were narrowed and degraded like the
Spaniards, if they were slow of mind
like the Germans, this intellectual mal-
formation would not be so surprising.
But they are among the quickest witted
of the sons of men. They have attained
the highest distinction compatible with
a lack of the highest imagination in lit-
erature, science, and art, and in every de-
partment of intellectual life. They are
thrifty, industrious, and frugal. Their
resources have but recently astonished
the world. Yet they are steadily, al-
though very slowly, dropping behind ;
and examination reveals that the decline
of France, which is destined to increase
more rapidly in the future than it has
in the past, is mainly due to the colossal
conceit of her people, and to their ina-
bility to know, or understand, or like
anything outside of their own bounda-

1883.]

A Frenchman in the United States in

273

ries, or to live in any country but their
own.

Every one who has read knows how
few French travelers there have been.
Everyone who has journeyed in Europe
or elsewhere knows that, while all the
rest of the world travels, Frenchmen are
rarely to be met with. This apparently
trivial phenomenon has a profound sig-
nificance. The great nations of the
earth, the few which have ruled the
world and made its history, have been
those possessing the genius of coloniza-
tion. Other nations have risen and de-
cayed, while these endured, and their in-
fluence has survived every chance and
change. There have been but three :

the Greek, the Roman, and the English.
If we look at modern time, we see the
importance of colonization at a glance.
Holland, Portugal, Spain, all rose to
great although temporary power by ac-
quisitions in the New World. Ger-
many did not rise during the same pe-
riod. She was rent internally, and had
no colonies. Venice alone in Italy rose
high in the political scale, and Venice
colonized. France saw the value of the
policy. She sent out expeditions. She
forcibly transported settlers to Canada ;
but her colonies did not flourish. There
was a great struggle for supremacy in
colonization, and in 1760 England pre-
vailed and dominated the world, while
France lost the colonies she had, and
never regained them or established new
ones. The English empire of that day
has been torn asunder ; but the English
race, because it possessed the genius for
colonization, because it saw the oppor-
tunities beyond its own borders, was ad-
venturous and enterprising, and could
adapt itself to new conditions, is still
supreme. The English people, outside
of Great Britain, possess the northern
and control the southern continent of
the Western hemisphere. Australia,
the new continent, is theirs, and South
Africa. They are the rulers of India
and of a multitude of smaller states.
VOL. LI. — NO. 304. 18

One hundred millions of people speak
to-day the English tongue. Their com-
bined wealth and power more than
equals that of all the rest of the world.
How small and contracted France ap-
pears, in comparison with this mighty
English race, whose intellectual and ma-
terial progress have gone hand in hand !
France owes it to her own narrowness.
All the adventurous, colonizing spirit
she ever had left her, together with
much else of saving grace, when she
drove out the Huguenots, the flower of
the people, and let them carry to Eng-
land and America a fresh element of
strength and power. It seems a little
thing to say that a nation is narrow, ig-
norant, and incapable of understanding
other races and other lands, and yet it
is this which deprived France of colo-
nies, and which now impedes her prog-
ress, and is drawing her down to an in-
ferior place in the scale of nations.

This is the broad historical view of
the question. In M. de Bacourt's let-
ters we can see this spirit of French
provincialism manifested in its very es-
sence. We do not mean by this his
abuse and dislike of the United States.
That he should abuse and dislike us was .
natural enough, and has nothing to do
with the mental deficiency of his race,
of which we have been speaking. The
difficulty with M. de Bacourt, as with
most of his fellow-countrymen, is not
that his opinion is favorable or unfavor-
able in regard to another race or coun-
try, but that he has no reasons for any
view, one way or the other, except that
a given thing is or is not after his own
fashion. Frenchmen can understand
nothing that is not French. They either
admire stupidly, or as stupidly condemn,
usually the latter. They regard foreign-
ers as barbarian ex vi termini, and their
faculties never seem to get beyond the
Chinese wall of complacent, self-suffi-
cient ignorance, by which they are in-
closed. M. de Bacourt indulged in
many sapient reflections, instead of set-

274

A Frenchman in the United States in 1840. [February,

ting down what he observed, and he
never went below the surface of things,
— another quite common failing of his
race. He appreciated the natural scen-
ery of America, and admired it, and
thus he was led to comprehend that this
was a land of magnificent opportunities.
He also perceived that there was a dan-
gerous diversity of opinion between the
South and the North on the question of
slavery, and he thought, rather vague-
ly, that a war might grow out of these
differences. It would have been abnor-
mal even in a Frenchman to have failed
to see this, but M. de Bacourt's admiring
niece points it put as an instance of al-
most superhuman perspicacity. With
this exception, every conclusion drawn by
M. de Bacourt — and he drew a great
many, on very slight premises — is
hopelessly and invariably wrong. For
instance, he saw placards in the railway
stations warning the public to beware
of pickpockets, and he concluded that
we were a nation of thieves. There
were a number of suicides at one time
while he was here, and he immediately
made up his mind that we were all pre-
paring to cut our throats, and that these
suicides were a proof of the failure of
our institutions and of our civilization.
He says, to take an example of a more
serious kind, that the South was demo-
cratic, and the North aristocratic. It is
obvious, one would think, to the mean-
est understanding, that the direct re-
verse was the case. A system founded
on slavery is necessarily aristocratic,
while the industrial and agricultural
communities of the North were conspic-
uously and plainly democratic, in the
very nature of things. If any one had
stated to M. de Bacourt in Paris, as an
abstract proposition, that slave-holders
formed a democratic society, he would
have set his informant down as a shal-
low fool. Yet in the United States he
exhibited precisely this shallow and un-
thinking folly himself. Any number of
similar examples could be cited, but

these suffice to show the profound ina-
bility of the genuine Frenchman to un-
derstand or reason upon anything out>
side of France.

This brings us to the third point of
interest in M. de Bacourt's book, what
he actually saw and heard in the United
States in 1840. There is no such word
as " home " in the French language, and
no such thing as " home," as we under-
stand it, in French cities. Yet there
is no one who suffers so acutely from
home-sickness as a Frenchman out of
France. The " mal du pays " afflicts
the " great people " to an unequaled ex-
tent. M. de Bacourt suffered from a
well-defined attack of nostalgia, and he
was, moreover, in wretched health ; two
circumstances which increased the nat-
ural gloom of the situation. After he
had been in America nearly a month,
the only gleam of light was in the fact
that a few people remembered Talley-
rand ; a touching example of French
open-mindedness and intelligence. The
whole case may be summed up very
briefly. M. de Bacourt was utterly
and profoundly disgusted with every
thing and everybody. This was per,
fectly natural, and in a certain degree
not unreasonable. He came from the
high civilization of Paris to a civilization
crude in the extreme. We had cast off
the habits and customs borrowed from
Europe in colonial days ; we had not
yet established and defined our own
habits and customs. Everything was
in a formative condition. It was a
state of solution, and a period of tran-
sition. Manners were free and easy.
Education had spread, but had not ad-
vanced proportionately. The art of liv-
ing was entirely undeveloped.

The condition of the large cities, even,
was rough and unattractive. Washing-
ton was inexpressibly dreary. A few
great public buildings, some straggling,
ill-built houses, and clusters of negro
shanties made up the capital city of the
Union. The highways were unpaved,

1883.]

A Frenchman in the United States in

275

dusty in summer, and so muddy during
the rest of the year as to be almost im-
passable. Cattle and swine ran loose in
the streets, making night hideous with
their noise, and women milked their
cows at the edge of the sidewalks. To
a native of Paris this was not agreeable.
The other cities were scarcely better-
Baltimore resembled Washington. New
York, given up to trade and commerce,
M. de Bacourt thought thoroughly re-
pulsive. He refers to it as a confused,
hot, dirty, unfinished place, the resort of
all the adventurers on the continent.
The appearance of Boston pleased him.
He describes it as a handsome English
city, well built and well ordered, clean,
and free from cattle and pigs. But he
found it very dull, and the cold climate
and the dislike of the French which per-
vaded society led him to give his final
preference to Philadelphia, which had
most of the material advantages of Bos-
ton without its drawbacks. At best,
however, it was a mere choice of evils.

American politics touched their low-
est point during the administration of
Mr. Polk. It is the fashion to speak of
politics and political life as of a lower
order at the present day than ever be-
fore ; but this is a complete mistake.
The decline in our politics set in with
Andrew Jackson, and they began to im-
prove after Mr. Folk's administration.
They advanced but slightly for many
years, but still progress has been steady.
It is very true that at this moment we
have no men of such ability as Webster,
Clay, and Calhoun in public life ; but
the general tone of politics to-day, at
Washington especially, is infinitely bet-
ter than when those distinguished lead-
ers were at the height of their reputation.
The brutality, the coarseness, the finan-
cial dishonesty and disaster resulting
from Jackson's overthrow of the bank,
the low tone of the politics of that pe-
riod, and the savagery engendered by
slavery have almost wholly disappeared.
When M. de Bacourt came here, in 1840,

we were very nearly at our lowest point.
He was disgusted beyond reason with
what he saw, but not wholly without
good cause. The trouble with M. de
Bacourt was not that he disliked his
surroundings and the manners of the
people whom he met, but that he at
once concluded, in the most empty-head-
ed way, that these outside appearances
and these superficial defects, many of
them inevitable, told the whole story,
and that the entire republic was a failure.
He believed that the men of English
race, who had mastered the continent,
and incidentally driven the French out
of it, could not make the most of their
opportunities, and were going helplessly
and hopelessly -to pieces. A moment's
historical reflection would have shown
him the absurdity of this reasoning ; but
he was a Frenchman, his dinners were
bad, the manners of the people were
rough, there were evil things in politics,
and henco everything was necessarily
doomed to ruin. It was not French, in
short, and therefore no good could come
of it. To a man accustomed to the ka-
leidoscopic changes of system in France,
the stability of American government
and the sound common sense of the
American people were sealed books, be-
cause there was nothing in his experi-
ence to tell him of the existence or the
value of such qualities. M. de Bacourt
summed up his ideas by saying that the
American people were second and third
rate Englishmen, and that, as M. Talley-
rand said, their society lacked solid foun-
dation, because the people had no moral
sense. There is something perfectly
grotesque in this last assertion. Talley-
rand was a great man, but he was no
more fit to judge of " moral sense " than
a Hottentot is to criticise the Dresden
Madonna. There may have been men
in public life more free from the burden
of a moral sense than Talleyrand, but
we do not recall them at this moment.
His only connection with the United
States was when he tried to force bribes

276

A Frenchman in the United States in 1840. [February,

from the American envoys. These im-
moral men left France, and their coun-
try prepared for war, and soon brought
the " great republic " to terms. That
M. Talleyrand regarded such conduct as
proof positive of a lack of sense we
have no doubt ; and in matters of bribery
and intrigue he was a good judge, but
on morality his criticisms are not equal-
ly valuable.

M. de Bacourt's judgment of our pub-
lic men was largely determined by their
attitude towards the duties on French
wines and silks. Van Buren, who was
friendly to him on this point, he kindly
refers to as an excellent " imitation of
a gentleman," and regrets his defeat.
He rather liked Clay, who was a true
type, as he puts it, of the English " gen-
tleman farmer." Calhoun he also liked,
and Poinsett and Ewing. Webster,
who was " anti-French," he depicts as
pompous, pretentious, and tiresome. He
further describes Mr. Webster's getting
drunk at dinner, and then making a
maudlin speech to him. This charming
incident his niece calls special attention
to in the preface. Generally M. de Ba-
court spoke the truth. In this case he
went beyond the truth, very obviously,
and committed the great blunder of not
telling a reasonable lie. The effect of
wine on Mr. Webster was to make him
dull and heavy, moody and sleepy, not
talkative and foolish. That he took too
much madeira at the President's dinner
is, unfortunately, quite probable ; that he
afterwards made a maudlin speech to
M. de Bacourt, like a tipsy sophomore,
strikes us as a rather clumsy invention
of a personal enemy. M. de Bacourt
is, however, unlucky in all he says about
Webster. He speaks of him as a second-
rate Englishman. A sillier description
could hardly have been devised. Web-
ster was a thorough, pure-blooded Amer-
ican, of a strongly American type, and
as unlike an Englishman in looks as it
is possible for an American to be. It
was reserved for M. de Bacourt to be

the only man of any race or creed who
was so innately petty as not to be im-
pressed by Webster's superb physical
presence and leonine look.

The bitterest hatred of the French
minister, however, was kept for John
Quincy Adams, who opposed his wishes
as to the tariff and exposed his lobbying
with the committees. De Bacourt ex-
ults over the attacks made upon the gal-
lant old man, when he presented the
Haverhill petition, with the delight of
a mean spirit. Two other congressmen,
Mr. Winthrop, of Massachusetts, and
Mr. Kennedy, of Maryland, M. de Ba-
court found more " comme il faut "
than anybody he met.

The Frenco are proverbially witty,
and all the world enjoys their wit ; but
they are absolutely devoid of any sense
of humor, or of the appreciation of any
wit but their own. M. de Bacourt was
frequently advised to marry, and good-
naturedly joked with on this subject, all
of which he considered very indelicate.
At one time it was a bit of fun to put
on a visiting-card G. T. T., " Gone to
Texas ; " and this M. de Bacourt consid-
ered a mark of national depravity, as
well as irreverent to the sacred P. P. C.
of France. But the hardest blow was
when the newspapers spoke of Dickens,
La Fayette, Fanny Ellsler, and the
Prince de Joinville " in that order," as
the unhappy De Bacourt indignantly
exclaims.

We will make one extract before
leaving the book. It is an amusing
account of an interview which M. de
Bacourt had with some members of the
cabinet. He was calling on Mr. Ewing,
the Secretary of the Treasury. " We
had only exchanged a few words, when
Mr. Crittenden, the Attorney-General,
Mr. Bell, Secretary of War, and Mr.
Badger, Secretary of the Navy, came in.
Mr. Badger was smoking a cigar, which
he did not extinguish ; Mr. Bell threw
himself upon a sofa, putting his feet
upoa one of the arms, thus showing us

1883.]

Selections from the Poetry of Robert Herrick.

277

the soles of his boots ; as to Mr. Crit-
tenden, as he was very warm, he threw
off his coat, and took from his pocket a
bit of tobacco, which he placed in his
mouth to chew. They all took a joking
tone with me, which I was obliged to as-
sumo with them, in order not to offend
men who are very influential in our
commercial affairs." The description of
President Harrison's reception of the'
diplomatic corps is too long for quota-
tion, but is equally amusing.

A word in conclusion as to the edit-
ing. M. de Bacourt evidently under-
stood English sufficiently to write it
correctly, but almost every other Eng-
lish word in the book is grotesquely mis-
spelled. The blunders were made, evi-
dently, in copying. They are so obvi-
ous that one would think the average
Parisian cabman would have known
enough to correct them ; but they are
clearly beyond the scholarship of the
Comtesse de Mirabeau. There is another
and more serious fault. We should be
the last to favor suppression in any his-
torical documents, but the personal ap-
pearance of ladies and gentlemen in the
families where M. de Bacourt was re-

ceived has neither historical nor public
interest. The only names suppressed are
those of some obscure French people in
New York. All others are given in full,
although often disguised by very strange
spelling. M. de Bacourt, as was per-
fectly proper in confidential letters to
an intimate friend, wrote frankly of all
he saw in private houses. To print all
this criticism upon ladies and gentlemen
who were entirely in private life, and
some of whom are still living, is a gross
breach of hospitality and a piece of dis-
honorable ingratitude. The sin lies at
the door of the lady who edited the let-
ters, and it argues a lack of that good
feeling which is the foundation of good
manners, extraordinary even in a French
woman.

We have said that the book is poor
and of little value, and our readers may
be inclined to apply to us the Italian
proverb, that " no one throws stones at
a tree which has no fruit." We can
only reply, in excuse, that a poor book
may be very suggestive ; and this we can
truly say of M. de Bacourt's letters, al-
though we should hardly advise any one
to take the trouble to read them.

SELECTIONS FROM THE POETRY OF ROBERT HERRICK.

THE revival of art in these days ex-
tends, happily, to the revival of certain
poets also, if we may judge by the beau-
tiful volume in which Robert Herrick
is newly brought to our ken.1 But per-
haps it ought not even to be hinted that
" revival " is possible in the case of a
writer who, in various effusions, alluded
to the prospect of his undying fame with
such calm confidence, as if it were a
mere incidental, a matter of course ; as,

1 Selections from the Poetry of Robert Her-
rick, with Drawings by EDWIN A. ABBEY. New
York : Harper & Brothers. 1882.

for instance, in those lines where he
represents himself as coming to his fa-
ther's tomb, and by way of payment for
the debt of birth he owes exclaims, —

" For my life mortall, Rise from out thy Herse,
And take a life immortall from my Verse."

But, though bards may be immortal,
they do not always, so to speak, lead an
active career of immortality ; and as
Herrick's survival has been somewhat
passive — mostly confined to The Night-
Piece to Julia and the " Gather ye
rose-buds while ye may," of anthologies
— it is pleasant to see him brought out

278

Selections from the Poetry of Robert Herrick. [February,

boldly among books of the day, in so
worthy a garb. His " vein of poetry
was very irregular," says his distin-
guished Caledonian co-member among
the British poets, Thomas Campbell ;
but the irregularity, so far as it is rep-
resented in this very excellent selection,
only adds to the charm of his literary
presence. At all events, here he is, re-
produced with a literal fidelity calculated
to drive the spelling - reformer into a
frenzy even greater than that which
now afflicts him j and, moreover, he is
accompanied by a wealth of pictorial
comment from the hand of a truly con-
genial mind, — that of Mr. Edwin A.
Abbey. Herrick was a singer of de-
lightful individuality, in an epoch of re-
markable individualities, — that epoch
to which Taine has given the name of
the Pagan Renaissance, when men had
awakened to a fresh enjoyment of life,
and found poetry wherever they turned
their eyes. A man in the prime he was
when Shakespeare died; a contempo-
rary of Milton, a competitor with Carew
and Waller. In all that conflict of
claims, he preserves his hold on us as
deserving a separate place. He glances
out of window, from his parsonage in
Devon, and straightway finds material
for a poem ; the human, natural note of
the layman he always was in spirit, and
afterwards became in fact, bursts out in
his exquisite love lyrics ; he has strange
fancies of flowers, and of maidens meta-
morphosed into them ; even the bare
meadows are addressed by him in a
flight of verses, filled with glad shapes
of life ; and, under these phases, as
well as when he is brooding upon death
and eternity, he never fails to charm.
Even the occasional awkwardness of his
verse and the threat of having nothing
to say at the end contribute to the ef-
fect by imparting a surprise and a sense
of lurking humor. To all this Mr.
Abbey's genius responds most agreeably.
Mr. Austin Dobson's preface intimates
that the present volume grew out of

studio readings, — the modern English
poet reciting from the older lyric mas-
ter, while the young American draughts-
man worked and listened ; and the book
has just that easy, spontaneous air which
might be expected from such an origin.
Nevertheless, it seems to us that, in his
dainty and very cleverly turned intro-
ductory paragraph, Mr. Dobson has a
little swerved from the line of unaffected
quaintness, traceable in Herrick, by too
great an indulgence in quotation and al-
lusion, and by a certain over-conscious-
ness of his theme ; as if — to adopt a
modish simile — Herrick were simply
bisque, and Mr. Dobson had chosen to
coat that humbler surface with a light,
brilliant glaze. Something of this same
defect may, perhaps, with all duo recog-
nition of merit, be discerned in Mr. Ab-
bey's designs. There is in them at times
a kind of forced, though sympathetic
quaintness. It should, however, be re-
membered that to edit or illustrate a lyr-
ist of another age involves a difficulty
like that of painting the lily. Taking
simply the conception and method of
Mr. Abbey's pictures in themselves,
we are still compelled to note some lim-
itations upon their excellence. The
male figures are generally inadequate ;
there is a tendency to reduce them to
manikins, as in the Corinna's Going
A-Maying. In the Beucolick, or Dis-
course of Neatherds, this tendency is
also manifest ; and in the first of the
drawings of the several belonging to this
poem, " Lalage with cow-like eyes "
really is given the physiognomy of a
petroleuse. In the famous Night-Piece,
Julia is extremely engaging ; but the
poet, sitting at her feet, has his left leg
laid out limp as a paint-tube when
squeezed half dry. Mr. Abbey's draw-
ing, indeed, is in more than one instance
very deficient : we cannot find it in ua
to commend the initial composition ac-
companying To His Muse, with its ludi-
crous little male figurfe lost in shrubbery,
and its Thalia elongated to a stature

1883.]

The Contributors' Club.

279

which even a goddess could not support ;
and there are other examples that might
be cited. Furthermore, the artist has
now and then been careless, or his im-
agination has failed him; for on no
other hypothesis can we explain his
feebleness in illustrating the distich on
Julia Weeping. But it is perhaps un-
gracious to dwell upon such points as
these, when there is so much in the se-
ries to call forth a hearty recognition of
success. It certainly exhibits remark-
able fertility : that one man should so
happily have planned and executed
compositions so varied, so picturesque,
and so generally pleasing, in the midst
of much other work, is proof of unusual
versatility and excellence. Not to men-
tion the graceful flower pieces, there are
several landscapes of great merit, among
the drawings, — though that of Dean-
Bourn, a Devon river, is perhaps un-
avoidably lost in the printing. The de-
sign Upon Julia's Clothes is not alone
technically good, but is full of spirit :
the peacock attitude of the woman, sub-
tilely echoed in her peacock-fan and
the feathers around the border, is ad-
mirably presented. The Mad Maid's
Song is honored with a design abound-
ing in strength, beauty, and a peculiar
insight. That which accompanies the
verses To Musique is, in its purity and
loveliness, like a full, clear, sober note
of melody. Then, too, there are re-
freshing glimpses of out -door scenes,
like that containing the lustrous and

buoyant figure of Mistress Susanna
Southwell. Perhaps the finest of all
these designs is the one belonging to
His Poetrie his Pillar, where the
" winged minutes " of the poem are,
with keen sense of fitness on the part of
the artist, depicted as muffled shapes
ascending a stair, instead of being en-
dowed with conventional wings. There
is an original seductiveness about this
volume, in its entirety, which arouses a
vague suspicion that it is a sort of nur-
sery rhymes for larger children ; and
precisely therein consists its especial
value. At the same time that it ap-
peals to the emotional and intellectual
nature of mature readers, it takes us
back to the unsophisticated mood of
childhood ; a characteristic which is sure
to give it wide popularity. And what-
ever criticisms one may pass upon Mr.
Abbey, here and there, everybody will
admit that there is no one who can dis-
pute with him his peculiar function as
an illustrator, which in these pages is
seen at its best.

In viewing this superb rendering of
Herrick's fancies, we are reminded of
his own epigram, wherein he asks " the
detractor " what poets he likes best, and
receives reply, " The dead : " thereupon
he says that he too will soon be dead,
and

" Then sure thou 't like, or thou wilt envie me."

One may well envy Herrick his illus-
trator.

THE CONTRIBUTORS' CLUB.

I FIND my prejudice in favor of
summer greatly diminished at the com-
ing of weather sufficiently cold to rec-
ommend the kindling of fires in grate
and stove. "With what readiness we
obey the Horatian injunction: —

" Dissolve frigus ligna super foco
Large reponens."

A long-banished, familiar friend returns
when once more the firo smiles and
beckons from behind its mica windows,
or, better yet, in full view, mounts

280

The Contributors' Club.

[February,

its invisible ladder in an open grate.
This malicious demon of the South Sea
islander's superstition, spitting flame
out of the wood, is, in our more inti-
mate experience, a very powerful gen-
ius, whom we are able to invoke to
friendly alliance by means of friction
and a little phosphorus at the point of a
pine sliver. Hail, mighty magician, pa-
tient bond slave, acute companion, live
kaleidoscope of wonderful colors and
changes ! Only those who possess the
knack of " building a fire " are genuine
fire-worshipers ; to those only the gen-
ius deigns to exhibit its cunningest sor-
ceries. When the trains of kindlings
have been laid, with all the proper
nooks and crannies planned to secure a
draught and invite ambuscade, and when
the match has been applied, and the
nimble flames rush out to reconnoitre,
the successful fire-builder may well look
upon himself as a sorcerer, not of the
black but of the bright art. How mys-
terious is this fugitive element, now here
upon the hearth, and now gone — none
knows whither ! " The unknown cause
of the sensation of heat " almost savors
of poetic mysticism ; yet it is a mere
phrase of the dictionary-maker, who is
at loss how to give us an absolute defi-
nition.

. Fire, though commonly accounted a
mute, is not without a certain degree of
vocality and semi-articulate speech. It
has its soft and rough breathings, its
undertones, and its notes of triumph,
as it drives a lambent wedge between
the bark and the body of the wood, or
makes a spiral escalade up through
some knot-hole. Often it gives out a
fine staccato click, not unlike the snap-
ping of frost on the panes in a still win-
ter night.

I am impressed with the secretive vir-
tue of the fire. It alone, among the
elements, never tells tales, never ren-
ders up aught committed to its charge.
Whether it burn ordinary wood or a
Meleager's brand, the ashes give no

hint. Let one lodge his treasure with
the earth, but in a convulsive fit she
may some time lay it bare. Nor is the
sea always a safe custodian: witness
how it sent a fish ashore with the king's
ring, cast as a votive offering to the
gods forever ! But the fire has a deep
past the reach of lead and line. It is
therefore the best preservative from
moth and rust, which make such sad
havoc among the precious things in our
reliquaries ; it is also the only known
preventive against the curious or care-
less hands of strangers in the after-time.
The best " fire-proof safe," perhaps, is
the fire itself. Besides, the more we
consign to this royal conservator, the
greater the credit and confidence it
yields us. What does Vesta write to
me ? A glowing resume of my friends'
sparkling letters, which I resolutely sac-
rificed a short time ago. The paper
on which they were traced has fallen
into ashes, but the subject matter reap-
pears in a magnificent red-line and red-
letter edition. Sometimes, as I watch
the burning of such offerings, I read a
ghostly leaf of the original manuscript,
charred or wholly consumed, yet buoyed
up by the breath of the fire for an in-
stant, while my glance runs over the
unviolated charactery.

If the hunter or explorer, encamped
in some " lion-haunted island," owes to
fire his preservation from wild beasts, the
solitary by his own hearth has the same
charmed defense against the jungle in-
habitants of his thought. If fire warm
the body, shall it not also warm the
spirit, which is by nature akin, being an
authentic spark of Promethean heat?
May I be forgiven if I let go the doc-
trine of hell fire, and adopt that of
heaven fire ! What flame burns, and
burns not to the refining of that which
was committed for ordeal ? This im-
mortal symbol of purgation let me cel-
ebrate in terms of the ancient Gueber
hymn, recently brought to light in red-
letter text : —

1883.]

The Contributors' Club.

281

Where goest thou, keen soul of heat,

So bright, so light, so fleet ;
Whose wing was never downward bent,

Aye pluming for ascent ?
Where goest thou, when, breaking loose

From all mechanic use,
From beacon-head and altar-stone

And hearth of mortal flown,
Thou spreadest through the air apace,

Dissolving in wide space ?

Continually the waters fall ;

Springs, torrents, rivers, — all,
Drawn downward to the gathering deep,

Remain within its keep.
But thou to the empyrean sea,

Bright upward stream, dost flee,
Where stars and sun are lost to sight,

Drowned in exceeding light !

Continually, in strength and pride,

The great ships cut the tide;
The waters fall, and these descend

Unto their journey's end.
But who, upborne on wing of thine,]

Shall reach thy goal divine ?
Thither, O rapt and holy Fire,

Thither, bid me aspire,
That, when my spirit's flame burns free,

It shall ascend with thee.

— There is a deal of rich suggestion
in that crisp Preface by Messrs. Hem-
inge and Condell, found in their edi-
tion of Shakespeare (1623), addressed
To The Great Variety of Readers. What
nimble gibing at the Philistines of the
day ! What sharp allocution to the gen-
eral public and tweaking of its dull ear !
In particular, what significant intimation
to the " magistrate of wit," accustomed
to " arraign playes dailie," that the crit-
ical function is here at a discount !
"Know these playes have had their
trial alreadie, and stood out all ap-
peales." Heminge and Condell could
scarcely have foreseen at how many
petty assizes the works of their old
" Friend and Fellow " were destined to
be tried. Some experience they had had
of the " frauds and stealths of injurious
impostors," and their " surreptitious
copies ; " but worse was to follow when
the exquisite literary journeymen of the
Restoration took in hand the Shake-
spearean drama, snipping and cutting
away, here and there, patching with
tawdry rags, till the original fabric could

hardly be recognized. Heminge and
Condell could not have foreseen how
the " Immortal Spring of WTycherly "
would for a time be patronized by mis-
guided pilgrims, while the way to true
Helicon lay overgrown with coarse
weeds. Whatever amazement and fine
wrath they would have felt at noting
these fluctuations in the poet's fame, it
is quite possible they would have been
more profoundly perplexed at the turn
his fortunes are taking in this age, —
the age of Shakespearean criticism, let
us call it. " Judge your sixe-pen'orth,
your shilling's worth, your five shillings'
worth at a time, or higher, so you rise
to the just rates, and welcome," jauntily
observes this brace of Elizabethan edi-
tors, urging their public to buy first, and
censure afterwards. Are there not all
these various fractional values in the
aggregate of current Shakespearean crit-
icism? It strikes us that there are too
many sixpenny investments in etymo-
logical investigation and discussion, the
results of which, though occasionally in-
teresting and suggestive, are oftener
tedious and inconclusive. The great
poet is a sort of inexhaustible Mykenae,
mined by a troop of industrious Schlie-
manns ; these being armed with philo-
logical picks and spades, and marvelous-
ly zealous in the work, — marvelously
successful, too, for the old cabinet of lit-
erature has scarcely shelf room enough
for all their " finds." There are, also,
pen'orth and shilling's worth judgments,
of a sentimental, speculative, or analytic
order ; sundry ingenious interpretations
of Shakespearean characters, and theo-
ries anent the conduct of each. The
madness (?) of Hamlet, the jealousy of
Othello, the diabolism of lago, the stuff
of Lady Macbeth's temper and resolve,
— these are all moot questions, differ-
entiating and doctrinal points in the va-
rious schools of opinion. One is expect-
ed, almost required, to hold positive
views of these subjects ; he knows not
how soon he may be called upon to re-

282

The Contributors' Club.

[February,

peat his confession of faith. There are,
to be sure, some crown and pound values
in this currency of criticism : such are
the large judgments of the ripe scholar
and the philosopher, and the intuitions
of the poet. Yet, the best thing they
do for us is to send us to read once
more, and more joyfully and heartily,
the chief of poets and philosophers.
Have we not had something too much
of criticism and diagnosis, and do we
not, with regard to Shakespeare, love
not too well, but too wisely ? It is a
positive relief, in the midst of so much
frigid scientific characterization, to hear
of " poor Berlioz " and his Shakespeare
craze.

As to the authorship of the Shake-
spearean drama, one is quite ignorant
where so much speculation will land us.
While the Baconian theory has perhaps
dropped into port to freight with new
proof, along sails a fancy-rigged craft,
carrying the theory of a multiplex au-
thorship. It has somehow been discov-
ered that an odd number of Elizabethan
geniuses laid their glorious heads to-
gether, and wrote these plays as a pas-
time. (Perhaps it was " done at the
Mermaid.") Then, with a view to hood-
winking the public, they hid their identi-
ties under a little nominis umbra, — that
of an obscure " utility man." So there
was no William Shakespeare, — at least,
none to speak of ! It turns out that
what we call Shakespeare (like what we
once called Homer) is a complex star,
at last resolved, by research and perspi-
cacity, into a group of sparklers ! The
" myriaded-minded " is now cleverly ac-
counted for. A whole junto of the
choicest sixteenth-century wit, wisdom,
pathos, and imagination went to the
creation of Lear, Hamlet, The Tempest,
and Cymbeline. The universal man no
longer remains, but in his place is a
certain composite quantity. This bold
theory steps smartly on, in company
with other leveling and disillusioning
doctrines of the day. Let those who

will entertain it, but for ourselves, — we
kiss our hands to thee, O sublime shade
of William Shakespeare !

— That music can, per se, be sacred
or profane will not be urged even by
a devotee. That verbal or circumstan-
tial associations can cast a distinctively
devotional or secular color over an air
forever is quite another matter ; and in
this hypothesis lies the sole moral sep-
aration between Coronation or Wind-
ham and The Widow Nolan's Goat or
an adagio of Beethoven's. It is strictly
a matter of vigorous sentiment. People
with retentive ears, who sedulously at-
tend church, the opera, and the con-
cert, have a right to dissent from listen-
ing on Sunday to the same melodies the
week has associated with warbling Man-
ricos and Lucrezias. (In nine cases out
of ten, the maceration and disharmo-
nization of these same melodies by the
" arranger " introduce a side-question of
artistic morality.) The evil started in
the choir-book of " set pieces," — save
the mark ! How far it has now vitiated
the hymn-book down-stairs, let us see.

Before the writer lies a book of
" hymns and tunes," a well-known col-
lection, adopted by several of the most
important Protestant denominations in
the country, and the music in which pur-
ports to be the selection of three ex-
perienced musicians. To each of them
the entire galaxy of ecclesiastical com-
posers ought to be, probably is, familiar.
First to catch the eye is the fine old
hymn, " Oh, could I speak the matchless
worth," and below it another, " O Love
Divine, how sweet thou art," united to
a mangled " arrangement " of the duet
in Mozart's opera Die Zauberflote,
wherein Pamina and the bird-catcher,
Papageno, extol " The manly heart,
with love o'erflowing," posing in serio-
comic attitudes before the foot-lights.
To the three hymns " Eternal Father,
strong to save," " Jesus, my Lord, my
God, my All," and " Thou art, 0 God,
the Life and Light," is wedded, in three

1883.]

The Contributors' (Hub.

283

several places, a tune entitled Prince,
at once discovered to be Mendelssohn's
sentimental Song without Words, Con-
solation, note for note. On a fresh
page, " By faith I viewed my Saviour
dying " appears. One is asked to sing
it to a badly-garbled version of the bar-
carolle and pas seul opening the last act
of Auber's opera Massaniello. A fur-
ther felicity treads upon its frisky heels.
To the words " Hail, my ever-blessed
Jesus, only Thee I wish to sing," has
been appended a tune called Ludwig.
Is it, then, one of Beethoven's beautiful
hymn tunes, such as " I love my God,"
or " God is my song " ? By no means !
It is the well-known first choral strain
of the finale to the Ninth Symphony,
" Freude, Freude, Gotterf unken ! "

James Montgomery's hymn, " Call
Jehovah thy salvation," is set to the in-
troductory air in the overture to Von
Flotow's opera of Martha (the same
movement afterwards turned into a
quintet in the second act), christened
Vesper. That ancient offense, the util-
izing of the languishing love duet,
" Solo, profugo, rejetto," with " Guide
me, O thou great Jehovah," is con-
doned in the pews, thanks to these com-
pilers. One looks about him for Lionel
and Plunkett, to tender them the inevi-
table encore. " Saviour, when in dust
to Thee " should have inspired any com-
poser, directed any selectors to good re'
suits. It is here linked to the first mel-
ody in Jacques Blumenthal's morceau de
salon, Les Deux Anges (once a cher-
ished drawing-room friend), under the
frank name Blumenthal.

A sharp scrutiny of the notes pre-
fixed to another hymn by Montgomery,
" The Lord is my shepherd," discovers
the popular air " Scenes that are bright-
est," from Wallace's opera Maritana.
Six pages further, lo, " Angels from the
realms of glory " is encountered, to be
sung to Von Weber's " Einsam bin ich,"
in Wolff's play of Preciosa. Von We-
ber's flowing periods, indeed, seem to

have been quite irresistible to our three
friends. They have plucked up by the
roots the opening slow melody in his
Der Freischutz overture, labeled it St.
Jude (!), and tacked it upon Schmolke's
" My Jesus, as Thou wilt " and Dr. Bo-
nar's " I did thee wrong, my God." The
melody in Agathe's sceua, later in the
same opera, is turned over to " Softly
now the light of day." I have also seen
in another book the familiar " Fading,
still fading," set to the cavatina " Glock-
lein im Thale," in Euryanthe ; and not
long ago, in yet another, " arrange-
ments " of Balfe's " Then you '11 re-
member me," and of the waltz-tempo in
his Satanella, as music to a couple of
standard hymns.

The air " Nearer, my God, to Thee "
has now become so associated with the
celebrated hymn itself that one may for-
giVe its reappearance between these cov-
ers, graceless plagiarism that it is from
" Oft in the stilly night." The applica-
tion of the secular airs Home, Sweet
Home and The Last Rose of Summer
is, at least, too lackadaisical to be tol-
erated. Nor does this book of sacred
song refuse to countenance a march in
Mendelssohn's Songs without Words
alongside the hymn " Behold, the Bride-
groom cometh," nor the " Prayer "
from Herold's opera Zampa doing irk-
some duty with " Softly fades the twi-
light ray," nor an air from the same com-
poser's Pre aux Clercs as music to
" Hark, the herald angels sing."

The writer is not disposed to go fur-
ther. This volume of canticles is not
unique. Let the reader seek it out and
examine it at leisure, and then let him
lay hold of another and a third, to find
the trail of the " adapter " and " ar-
ranger " over them all. The Salvation
Army can fling a tu quoque argument in
the teeth of their critics, upon musical
grounds. The choir-books are crowded
with operatic quartets from Donizetti
and Rossini. The organist's compen-
dium is an outrage upon propriety. In

284

Books of the Month.

[February,

the Roman Catholic churches the ear
is insulted with masses by modern Ital-
ian and other composers for the stage ;
men of genius, who, in writing for the
sacred offices of that church, ignored
every law and tradition concerning its
ecclesiastical music. In provincial Ro-
man Catholic and Protestant churches
the state of affairs is naturally far
worse than in large cities. Not a year
ago a country organist assured the writ-
er that " he had been waiting till it
should n't seem so common," to set his
choir to singing " I heard the voice of

Jesus say " to the sextet in the Messrs.
Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience. He
added smilingly that " it went perfect-
ly." One thing is sure : that, unless
the moral sentiment of all denominations
awakes, somewhat as the moral senti-
ment of the Roman Catholic church did
in the time of Palestrina and the Coun-
cil of Trent (when the situation was
very similar), psalmody and church mu-
sic in general will become precisely as
devout as those " sacred concerts " an-
nounced in the Sunday press during our
opera seasons.

BOOKS OF THE MONTH.

Fine Arts and Holiday Bookt. A History of
Wood-Engraving, by George E. Woodberry (Har-
pers), is an important work, not from its contribu-
tion to the facts of the history of engraving on
wood, for it displays no special research, but for
its untechnical yet clear and discriminating state-
ment of the relation which the development of the
art has borne to civilization. In other words, Mr.
Woodberry writes as a student, who values the art
both for the pleasure which it gives and for its
expositor}' power; and he is rather a cultivated
scholar writing for people of education than a
technical student writing for professional artists.
The illustrations are really illustrative. — History
of Ancient Art, by Dr. Franz von Reber, trans-
lated and augmented by Joseph Thacher Clarke
(Harpers), is a work of the same general character
as Mr. Woodberry's, but more comprehensive in
subject and more exact and specific in treatment.
But, like that, it is historical, and deals with art as
an exponent of civilization in its successive stages.
The work is furnished with a glossary, and with
useful illustrations. Its compactness and order
render it very serviceable as a hand-book for stu-
dents. — An illustrated Dictionary of Words used
in Art and Archaeology, by J. W. Mollett (Hough-
ton, Mifflin & Co.)> is one of those convenient
hand-books which are rendering a high state of
civilization endurable. It explains terms which
everybody knows until he is asked, and is clear
and concise. — The House that Jill Built after
Jack's had proved a Failure, by E. C. Gardner
(Fords, Howard & Hulbert), is a book on home
architecture, in which the discussions upon points
are thrown into the form of a slight story. The
book is illustrated, and one may find in it hints
and suggestions of use. Perhaps the form adopt-
ed will render the book more agreeable to the fam-
ilies which are now engaged in similar discus-

sions ; at any rate, it enables the writer to be live-
ly at small cost. — The thirtieth volume of L'Art
has been received from J. W. Bouton, and like its
predecessors displays its richness more effectively
than the weekly issues by themselves. The arti-
cles are by Champfleury, Decamps, Lalanne, Le-
nonnant, and others ; the etchings by Abot, Abra-
ham, Artigue, Bocourt, Courtry, Daumont, Gau-
tier, Greux, Lurat, Massard, and Yon, while a still
larger number of artists are represented in the
engravings on wood and the photogravures. The
Salon of 1882 is liberally illustrated. — In High-
ways and Byways (Harpers) Mr. Gibson gives a
twofold pleasure to his readers, and must himself
derive a double satisfaction from his work, as au-
thor and artist. In his combined quality he has
presented us with one of the most beautiful vol-
umes of the season.

Geography and Travel. The Merv Oasis, by
Edmond O'Donovan (Putnams), is an important
work in two volumes, by the special correspond-
ent of the London Daily News, treating of trav-
els and adventures east of the Caspian during the
years 1879-81, and including five months' resi-
dence among the Teke's of Merv. Mr. O'Don-
ovan's five mor.ths were somewhat in the nature
of a polite imprisonment, but he used his facili-
ties well, and with the training of a newspaper
correspondent has told everything he knows, ap-
parently. We must confess to some doubts wheth-
er this training makes the most satisfactory histo-
rians of travel, but it certainly makes the liveliest
narrators. The book is furnished with maps and
a portrait of the author. — The Land of " The
Arabian Nights" is a volume of travel through
Ei^ypt, Arabia, and Persia to Bagdad, by W. P.
Fogg (Scribners), with a page of introduction by
Bayard Taylor. The book is lively and confined
to the author's personal experience. — Lieutenant

1883.]

Books of the Month.

285

Danenhower's Narrative of the Jeannette (Os-
good) is a revised version of the story first told to
the New York Herald reporter. — Three Vassar
Girls Abroad, by Mrs. Elizabeth W. Chatnpney
(Estes & Lauriat), is a bright and readable narra-
tive of a vacation trip of three girls through France
and Spain. The three girls may be inventions or
copies; it does not matter so far as the reader's
pleasure is concerned. — Knocking Round the
Rockies (Harpers) does not mean that the author,
Ernest Ingersoll, has been injuring the Rocky
Mountains to any appreciable extent, but has,
since 1874, been on various expeditions over the
country. He has brought together into more or-
derly form the notes which he has printed of his
travels in several periodicals. He is a good trav-
eler, and gives the reader a full taste of the joys
of roughing it. — Pennsylvania Dutch, and other
Essays, by Phebe Earle Gibbons (Lippincott), ap-
pears in its third edition, revised and enlarged.
The first edition was published in 1872, the second
in 1874, and the present contains about twice as
much as the first. The interesting character of
the leading paper will be recalled by many read-
ers, and the writer makes further contributions
from her note-books on the miners of Scranton,
Irish and English farmers. The unfinished style
seems to carry with it a certain authentication of
the material.

Poetry and the Drama. Poems of Life and
Nature, by Mary Clemmer (Osgood), collects verses
written upon a number of subjects, and all bear-
ing the impress of a somewhat fervid nature, un-
trained in verse, and not always aware of the hair-
breadth escape which she enjoys; for her poetic
steed goes dangerously near the edge, at times. —
A Symphony in Dreamland, by Alice E. Lord
(Putnams), is a collection of poems arranged under
the headings of the movements of a symphony,
and having something of the vagueness of music.
The conceit, however, helps to give character to the
book. — A second series has been issued of Sun-
shine in the Soul (Roberts), a collection of poems
of a religious character, treating of the varied ex-
periences of life and cultivating a divine content.
The good taste of the compiler is evident. — Poems,
by MiuotJ. Savage (George H. Ellis, Boston), con-
tains the off-hand versifying of a bright and busy
man. There is slight range of poetic form and little
sign that poetry as an art has been faithfully stud-
ied. — Idler and Poet, by Rossiter Johnson (Os-
good), is a collection of poems, in very neat style,
which one may take as the fancies andjeux d' esprit
of a writer who has won his spurs in other fields.
— Songs of an Idle Hour, by William J. Coughlin
(Williams), is preceded by a too deprecatory pref-
ace : not that we should necessarily disagree with
its reckless abandonment of claims, but such a
preface is apt to produce an antipathetic mood in
the reader. The poems show variety of form, but
lack of melody. — Monte Rosa, the Epic of an
Alp, by Starr H. Nichols (Houghton, Mifflin &
Co. ), has the quality of greatness about it. That
is to say, it is not only serious in intention, but it
is built upon a strong plan ; and however much
one may differ from the author in his choice of a
hero, it must be admitted that he is consistent,

and the mountain remains throughout the hero
of the poem. The book will be a nut to crack
for many.

Literature and Literary Criticism. Dr.
Holmes' s Autocrat of the Breakfast Table has
been issued in a new edition (Houghton, Mifflin
& Co.), which, besides the charm of new and
clear typography, has an embroidery of foot-
notes, in which the autocrat becomes a delightful
reader of his own undying work. One feels that
he is reading it aloud to his multitude of friends,
stopping now and then to say something new, of
which his old work has reminded him. — Tasso,
by E. J. Hasell, is a recent number of Foreign
Classics for English Readers. (Lippincott.) Most
of the translations of poetry in the volume are by
the author. — In English Men of Letters (Har-
pers), Macaulay, by J. Cotter Morison, is treated
with that impartiality, and yet affection, which
form the characteristics of much of our contempo-
rary biographic criticism. — Herbert Spencer and
the Americans and The Americans on Herbert
Spencer (Appleton) is a pamphlet report of the
well-known " interview " and the proceedings at
the farewell dinner.

Biography and Memoirs. Ole Bull, a memoir
by Sara C. Bull (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.), will be
received with alacrity as a report of a singularly
attractive artist, and be read with respect and in-
terest ; for it really presents to the reader in close
contact a figure seen by most at the distance of
the concert platform. The book contains also
Ole Bull's Violin Notes and Dr. A. B. Cros-
by's Anatomy of the Violinist. There is a por-
trait of the great musician, and the book itself is
an animated and graphic portrait of the most ro-
mantic figure in recent musical history. — Remi-
niscences of Court and Diplomatic Life, by Georgi-
ana Baroness Bloomfield (Putnams), is a decorous
work, recounting the experiences of a lady who was
in waiting on Queen Victoria, and afterward the
wife of a gentleman in diplomatic service in Russia
and Austria. While the work has the general air
of memoirs, in which the little and big jostle each
other, it cannot be said to amnse or startle by its
revelations. It is the memoranda of a cultivated
lady, who had not much to say, and said it in two
volumes. — The personal quality in Discourses
and Poems of William Newell (George H\ Ellis,
Boston) is very attractive, and indeed gives ex-
cuse for the volume. Dr. Newell grew old in
Cambridge, where he had long been a pastor ; but
he kept a playful, j'outhful spirit, and the writings
in this book, both those of him and those by him,
alike produce the impression of a most friendly
and refined man. — Early New England People is
the attractive title of a volume which Sarah E.
Titcomb has formed from material illustrating the
family history of Ellis, Pemberton, Willard,
Prescott, Titcomb, Sewall, Longfellow, and other
New England houses. (W. B. Clarke and Carruth,
Boston.) It is genealogy in fatigue uniform.
The absence of an index renders the work more of
a tax upon the consulter than was necessary. — We
have referred before to Heroes of Science,published
by the S. P. C. K. Another volume has been
added, devoted to astronomers, by E. J. C. Mor-

286

Books of the Month.

[February,

ton, and giving in the form of biographic sketches
something like a history of the development of the
science. — Memoir of John A. Dahlgren, by his
widow, Madeleine Vinton Dahlgren (Osgood), is
a full and generous biography. It represents, it
may be, the desire of Mrs. Dahlgren to erect a
monument over her husband, and possibly the
very fullness of her narrative will partially defeat
her object; but Admiral Dahlgren was a man
whose life was well worth knowing, and cooler
heads may from this material easily shape the fig-
ure which is to stand permanently in the national
gallery. — Military Life in Italy is a volume of
sketches by Edmondo de Amicis. (Putnams.) It
is the work of a soldier, who is also a brilliant
writer, and is in effect a piece of personal memoirs
thrown into a somewhat fictitious form.

History. The Seventh Great Oriental Mon-
archy, or the geography, history, and antiquities
of the Sassanian or new Persian empire, by
George (Rawlinson Dodd, Mead, & Co.), which
is in two octavo volumes, copiously illustrated
and furnished with maps, completes the author's
ancient history of the East. It is a sequel to
the Parthians, and carries down the history of
*" Western Asia from the third century of our era to
the middle of the seventh. — English Colonies in
America, Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas,
by J. A. Doyle (Holt), is by a writer who has al-
ready shown his ability in a small volume devoted
to American history, and in this furnishes the first
of an important series of three, covering the whole
of our colonial life. The work is a careful study,
from contemporaneous sources largely, and belongs
to the new order of scientific histories. It is a work
of great value to the historical student. — A His-
tory of the French War, ending in the conquest of
Canada, with a preliminary account of the early
attempts at colonization and struggles for the
possession of the continent, by Rossiter Johnson
(Dodd, Mead & Co.), is not an original work, but
a straightforward narrative, drawn from good
sources and intended for popular reading. With-
out a distinct statement to the effect, it is probably
designed chiefly for young readers. It avoids the
faults of sensationalism, except in its illustrations.
— Celtic Britain, by J. Rhys, is one of the histor-
ical compends published by the London Society for
Promoting Christian Knowledge (E. & J. B. Young
& Co., New York), written by a professor of
Celtic, who is probably better qualified for his
work than his somewhat jocular and apologetic
preface would intimate. — History of Augusta
County, Virginia, by J. Lewis Peyton (Samuel M.
Yost & Son, Staunton, Va. ), is a substantial coun-
ty history, in which is gathered much local mate-
rial, and there must be very few persons in the
county whose names may not be found on some
page. Many curious details are preserved, and the
book will take its place as one of the storehouses
for historians. It is a pity it has no map. — Gesta
Christi, or a History of Humane Progress under
Christianity, by Charles Loring Brace (Arm-
strongs), is a suggestive treatise by a man who has
won honor as a worker in Christian schemes. He
seeks to discover the practical witness to Christian-
ity iu historic progress, and his work, while not

original in investigation, is one of those quicken-
ing works which are quite sure to result in the
growth of ideas. — Mr. William Swinton has reis-
sued his Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac
(Scribners), but claims that, while he has corrected
his work in some minor details, the substantial
truthfulness of the original publication has been
confirmed by later histories and records.

Fiction. Mr. Bishop's The House of a Mer-
chant Prince (Houghton, Mifftin & Co.) carries on
its title-page the words " A Novel of New York ; "
and it is the studious local color of the book
which gives it value as a survey of current life in
some of jts phases. The story, besides, is a story,
and not a mosaic of incidents. — Little Sister is
the first of the third of the No Name series of
novels (Roberts), and will attract by its sweetness
of tone, even if that be sometimes a little cloying.
— Janet, a Poor Heiress, by Sophie May (Lee &
Shepard), is a story of the good-natured, domestic
kind, vastly better for the girls who will read it
than much of the fiction which has more style
about it. — Nantucket Scraps, being the experi-
ences of an off-islander, in season and out of sea-
son, among a passing people, by Jane G. Austin
(Osgood), is the light and trifling book of a sum-
mer visitor, who finds amusement nearer home
than some travelers, and romanticizes in a man-
ner to make one wonder if he would find all that
she saw if he went to Nantucket. — Heart of Steel,
by Christian Reid (Appleton), is an elaborate
novel by an American lady, the scenes laid in
Europe, involving some of the customary inter-
national questions. — Doctor Grimshawe's Secret
(Osgood) is the 'Hawthorne romance which, with
its fringe of notes and experiments, promises to
be the occasion of a vast deal of writing now and
in the future. How thankfully one gets out of
Hawthorne's tomb this half-legible story, and how
thankfully he would fill up any vacant tomb with
a large part of the fiction since his day ! — The
Modern Hagar, by Charles M. Clay (Harlan), is a
two-volume novel in continuation of the author's
previous Baby Rue. — Mr. Isaacs, a tale of mod-
ern India, by F. Marion Crawford (Macmillan), is
sufficiently cosmopolitan : a Persian for the hero,
modern India for the field, an American for the
author, and an Englishman for the publisher. It
needs no such help from the four quarters of tho
globe to give it a position ; its own character will
do that. — Cc-sette, a story of peasant life in the
South of France, from the French of Einile Pou-
villon by C. W. Woolsey (Putnams), will give a
fillip to the taste of the jaded novel-reader. It is
perhaps the situation arid frank exhibition of rus-
tic life which will interest, rather than any sin-
gular story-telling power, but at any rate the
peasants are not interrupted by high life. — The
Problem of the Poor, a record of quiet work in
unquiet places, by Helen Campbell (Fords, How-
ard & Hulbert), is fictitious rather in form than in
substance. It contains sketches of actual expe-
rience in the slums of New York, made by a writ-
er of experience in story-telling; and while the
book has a charm of narrative, it has also inter-
nal evidence of faithfulness to fact. We com-
mend it as doing more than to state the problem,

1883.]

Books of the Month.

287

for it suggests solutions. — Luser the Watchmak-
er, an episode of the Polish Revolution, by Rev.
Adolf Moses, translated from the German by Mrs.
A. de V. Chaudron (Block & Co., Cincinnati), is
a Jewish tale, which covers by a veil historic fact.
Books for Young People. Building the Nation
is the title of a work by Charles Carleton Coffin
(Harpers), which deals with events in the history
of the United States from the Revolution to the
beginning of the war between the States. It has
the characteristics of Mr. Coffin's work, a ner-
vous haste as if history were a variety show, a
bright sense of something more than the material
side of life, and an unfailing confidence in the
destiny of the nation. We suspect that most boys
and girls who read the book would not fail of an
exalted notion of their own country. — Zigzag
Journeys in the Occident, by Hezekiah Butter-
worth (Estes & Lauriat), is this year's number of
the Zigzag series, and covers a summer trip from
Boston to the Pacific. The book strikes us as
rather more lively than previous ones, but with
somewhat the same galvanic life. — Of the same
general class is The Knockabout Club Alongshore,
the adventures of a party of young men on a trip
from Boston to the land of the Midnight Sun, by
C. A. Stephens. (Estes & Lauriat.) The midnight
sun ia seen off Greenland, and not off Norway,
and the experiences of the travelers are confined
to this hemisphere. Mr. Stephens makes a plea
for a different kind of education from that which
has grown out of the world's experiments, but his
book does not make one sanguine of the lasting
success of a steamship college, and the judicious
parent will be likely to put the book back on the
counter after reading the opening pages. — Rev.
Alfred J. Church has added to the obligations
which the public already owed him by his Stories
from the Greek Tragedians. (Dodd, Mead & Co.)
Such a book is an admirable introduction to a warm
interest in antiquity, and is likely to do more than
simple translation in giving those who do not read
Greek an insight into Greek thought and life. —
Plish and Plum, from the German of Wilhelm
Busch by Charles T. Brooks (Roberts), is one of
the German drolleries which never quite gets ac-
climatized, but is given as much freedom of the
country as is possible under Mr. Brooks's sympa-
thetic rendering. — Boys in the Mountains and on
the Plains, by William H. Rideing(Appleton), is an
illustrated work, in which the author's experience
as a member of one of the geographical surveys is
thrown into the form of a narrative recording the
adventures of a company of bright boys traveling
in the far West. It is a sensible book, of more unity
than many of its class. — Jewish and Christian
History (Osgood) is a work in three volumes, based
upon the Bible, but giving the narrative in a con-
secutive form and in a style intended for the
young. In a large portion the Bible language has
been used, and the compilers have in the main fol-
lowed the lead of Ewald and his English popular-
izer, Dean Stanley. The book is furnished with
notes and with a few illustrations, the latter of
which would scarcely commend themselves to
Ewald, one would say. It strikes us that the crit-
ical apparatus and indeed some of the text pre-

suppose a tolerable maturity of mind in the read-
er. — Facts and Phases of Animal Life, inter-
spersed with amusing and original anecdotes, is
the naive title of a volume prepared by Vernon
S. Norwood, described as lecturer to the Royal
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
( Appleton. ) The book is illustrated by wood-cuts,
executed apparently by some society for the pre-
vention of justice to animals. It is didactic and
somewhat formal, and overdoes the business of ex-
citing kindly emotions. — Our Boys in India (Lee
& Shepard) is another of the showy books of trav-
el for the young, which are laying the seeds this
year of an immense crop of travelers a dozen
years hence. It describes the wanderings of two
young Americans in Hindustan, with their adven-
tures on the sacred rivers and wild mountains,
and is by Harry W. French, who appears to be
better equipped as a traveler than as a story-teller.
— Young Folks' History of Mexico, by Frederick
A. Ober (Estes & Lauriat j, is a somewhat enthusi-
astic work, in which romance is freely used and
dates are given with an air of authenticity which
is amusing. One would think that a daily record
of events was kept in Mexico in the twelfth cen-
tury. The author does not indulge much in
prophecy, but he says soberly, Mexico "has now
enjoyed an almost uninterrupted peace of nearly
five years." It certainty is high time, then, to
write the history of Mexico. — The Live Oak
Boys, or the Adventures of Richard Constable
afloat and ashore (Lee & Shepard), is one of Mr.
Kellogg' s rugged, sensible books, devoid of art,
but possessed of sterling qualities of nature. —
Mildred's Bargain and other stories, by Lucy C.
Lillie (Harpers), is a sensible book for girls, the
stories being loaded with good principles, and not
too subtle or romantic. — Winning his Way, by
Charles Carleton Coffin (Estes & Lauriat), is a new
edition, in the prevailing style, of a book which
had a success in war times as a picture of boy and
soldier life. It appears now with a new set of il-
lustrations, which generalize the incidents illus-
trated in a suspicious fashion. — Old-Fashioned
Fairy Tales, by Juliana Horatia Ewing, is a col-
lection of stories by a practiced writer, who is fa-
miliar with the standard fairy stage, and puts on
new dramas in the same general style, but with
some modern spirit infused. Mrs. Ewing has per-
haps a trifle too much purpose in her fairy tales.
The book is published by the S. P. C. K. (E. &
J. B. Young & Co., New" York.)

Education and Text-Books. — A Text-Book on
the Elements of Physics, for high schools and
academies, by Alfred P. Gage (Ginn, Heath &
Co.), rests distinctly upon the experimental
method, and, while it does not require laboratory
apparatus, expects and encourages it. The author
shows the unreasonableness of the objections
against the use of physical laboratories in element-
ary work. — Anacreontics, selected and arranged
with notes, by Isaac Flagg (Ginn, Heath & Co.),
contains thirty-five delightful little pieces, which
may be studied with profit, but thoroughly en-
joyed only by those to whom the classics have
ceased to be dictionary exercises. — Beowulf, an
Anglo-Saxon Poem, and The Fight at Finnsburg,

288

Books of the Month.

[February.

translated by James M. Garnett (Ginn & Heath),
is well furnished with notes, bibliography, and
glossary. — W. J. Rolfe's Shakespeare (Harpers),
has reached Henry the Sixth, the three parts of
which are published in three separate volumes.

Biblical and Religious. The third volume of
Dr. Philip Schaff's four-volume Popular Com-
mentary of the New Testament (Scribners) is oc-
cupied with the Epistles of Paul, and, besides the
editor, the authors contributing are " English
and American scholars, of various evangelical de-
nominations." Dr. Riddle, of Hartford, is the only
American employed upon this volume. The work
is loaded down with analysis and comment, and
its popularity surely must be based upon the com-
prehensive, not the stimulating, character of the
exegesis. — Home-Life in the Bible, by Henrietta
Lee Palmer (Osgood), is an abundantly illustrated
octavo, in which the topics naturally falling under
the title are treated in a free, narrative manner. —
Under the general title of The Land and the Book,
which was used for a previous volume, descriptive
of Southern Palestine and Jerusalem, Dr. William
M. Thompson, a veteran missionary, has now pub-
lished a second section devoted to Central Pales-
tine and Phoenicia. (Harpers.) The book is a
portly one, freely illustrated, and containing
maps ; its value will be found in the personal ex-
perience and observation of a well-equipped trav-
eler and resident, and, since the indexes are copi-
ous, the itinerary form which is adopted is made
almost as convenient for reference as -if the topical
form had been chosen.

Health and Medicine. In the Health Primers
(Appleton) the ninth number is The Nervous Sys-
tem. The application of the doctrines to the care
of the body is brief, the work mainly resting its
value upon the clearness of its analysis of the sys-
tem. — Speech and its Defects, considered physio-
logically, pathologically, historically and remedi-
ally, by Samuel O. L. Potter, M. D."(P. Blakiston,
Son & Co., Philadelphia), is a prize thesis, and is
very full and minute on the subject of stammering,
although we do not see that he quotes Colonel Sel-
lers's remedy. — Transactions of the Brighton
Health Congress (John Beal & Co., Brighton, Eng-
land) is a volume containing a report of the ad-
dresses and papers given at a congress held in
Brighton in December, 1881. Dr. B. W. Richardson
presided, a domestic and scientific exhibition was
held, all sorts of hygienic subjects were discussed,
and the principal speakers furnished their photo-
graphs. The volume is a curiosity as showing how
queerly things are sometimes done in England. —
Dr. Lionel S. Beale's treatise On Slight Ailments,
their Nature and Treatment, appears in a second
pdition, enlarged and illustrated. (P. Blakiston,
Son &Co., Philadelphia.) While strictly a medical
work, it has its charms for the lay-reader who may
be suspected of having slight ailments of which he
wishes to know a little. — Dr. J. Mortimer Gran-
ville is the author of a manual (S. E. Cassino, Bos-
ton), How to Make the Best of Life, and discusses
the subject under the heads of health, feelings,
breathing, drinking, eating, over-work, change,
and life-strength, but he is neither very forcible nor
very suggestive. There are better aids to health

in the same compass. — Cerebral Hypersmia, by
Dr. C. F. Buckley (Putnams), is an examination
of some of Dr. W. A. Hammond's views by an
English specialist in lunacy. Dr. Hammond pub-
lished a book with the same title, and thus Dr.
Buckley adds to his title the words, Does it exist ?
The question is asked simply on the title-page, but
before the little book is closed it is asked derisively,
indignantly, and aggressively.

Household Economy. The Book of Forty Pud-
dings, by Susan Anna Brown (Scribners), is not, as
its external form hints, a suggestion for an aesthetic
repast, or a Barmecide feast. The proof of the pud-
ding is in the eating, and it is no objection to this
little book that its residence in the kitchen would
be brief, owing to its decorative properties. — Be
Kind to Your Old Age (E. & J. B. Young & Co.,
New York) for the London S. P. C. K., is a book
upon thrift, the principles of which are of uni-
versal application, but calculated for the meridian
of Greenwich, where there are " post-office aids."
— Domestic Economy, a new Cookery Book, con-
taining numerous (sic) valuable receipts for aid in
housekeeping, prepared and arranged by Mrs. R.
C. Hollyday (John Murphy & Co., Baltimore), is
an entertaining as well as useful work, since it
gives one the authority in the names of Maryland
and Virginia housekeepers for the various re-
ceipts. Here at last we may hope that the fa-
mous Southern cooking is made possible to the
Union.

Science. Chapters on Evolution, by Andrew
Wilson (Putnams), is a popular and intelligible
presentation, by an authority in scientific matters,
of the chief evidences of the evolution of living
beings. "In this view," the author says, "whilst
I have been content to assume the reality of that
process, I have also endeavored to marshal the
more prominent facts of zoology and botany,
which serve to prove that evolution, broadly con-
sidered, is not merely a name for an unknown
tendency in nature, but is an actual factor in the
work of moulding the life with which the universe
teems." The work, which is an English one, is
liberally illustrated. — The Falls of Niagara is the
title of an illustrated work by George W. Holley
(Armstrong), who has been a resident for many
years in the vicinity of the Falls, and has brought
into this form the result of his observations. He
assumes to demonstrate the existence of a dam
that was once the shore of an immense fresh-
water sea. Ttie historical side of his subject he
has also treated, and has added a sketch of other
famous cataracts. — Ragnarok, the Age of Fire
and Gravel (Appleton) is by Ignatius Donnelly,
who has an aptitude for seeing the romance in
science, and in this volume undertakes to explain
the drift by the action of a comet upon the earth.
He writes with zeal and animation, and attacks
his subject with something of the spirit which he
attributes to the comet. — In the series of Science
Ladders (Putnams), the fifth number is Lowest
Forms of Water Animals, by N. D'Anvers, the
previous numbers having been devoted to plant
life. It begins with protoplasm, and rises to the
corals. The book belongs also among books for
young people.

THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY:
of Literature, ^>ti ence, art

VOL. LI. — MAE OH, 1883. — No. CCOV.

MICHAEL ANGELO.
PART THIRD.

MONOLOGUE : MACELLO DE' CORVI.

A room in MICHAEL ANGELO'B house. MICHAEL ANGELO, standing before a model of

St. Peter's.

MICHAEL ANGE.LO.

BETTER than thou I cannot, Brunelleschi,

And less than thou I will not ! If the thought

Could, like a windlass, lift the ponderous stones,

And swing them to their places; if a breath

Could blow this rounded dome into the air,

As if it were a bubble, and these statues

Spring at a signal to their sacred stations,

As sentinels mount guard upon a wall,

Then were my task completed. Now, alas !

Naught am I but a Saint Sebaldus, holding

Upon his hand the model of a church,

As German artists paint him ; and what years,

What weary years, must drag themselves along,

Ere this be turned to stone ! What hindrances

Must block the way ; what idle interferences

Of Cardinals and Canons of St. Peter's,

Who nothing know of art beyond the color

Of cloaks and stockings, nor of any building

Save that of their own fortunes! And what then? ' » '

I must then the short-coming of my means

Piece out by stepping forward, as the Spartan

Was told to add a step to his short sword. [A p<nu«.

And is Fra Bastian dead? Is all that light
Gone out, that sunshine darkened ; all that music
And merriment, that used to make our lives

290 Michael Angela. [March,

Less melancholy, swallowed up in silence,

Like madrigals sung in the street at night

By passing revellers ? It is strange indeed

That he should die before me. 'Tis against

The law of nature that the young should die,

And the old live ; unless it be that some

Have long been dead who think themselves alive,

Because not buried. Well, what matters it,

Since now that greater light, that was my sun,

Is set, and all is darkness, all is darkness !

Death's lightnings strike to right and left of me,

And, like a ruined wall, the world around me

Crumbles away, and I am left alone.

I have no friends, and want none. My own thoughts

Are now my sole companions, — thoughts of her,

That like a benediction from the skies

Come to me in my solitude and soothe me.

When men are old, the incessant thought of Death

Follows them like their shadow; sits with them

At every meal ; sleeps with them when they sleep ;

And when they wake already is awake,

And standing by their bedside. Then, what folly

It is in us to make an enemy

Of this importunate follower, not a friend !

To me a friend, and not an enemy,

Has he become since all my friends are dead.

II.

VIGNA DI PAPA GIULIO.
POPE JULIUS III. seated by the Fountain of Acqua Vergine, surrounded by Cardinals.

JULIUS.

Tell me, why is it ye are discontent,
You, Cardinals Salviati and Marcello,
With Michael Angelo ? What has he done,
Or left undone, that ye are set against him?
When one Pope dies, another is soon made ;
And I can make a dozen Cardinals,
But cannot make one Michael Angelo.

CARDINAL SALVIATI.

Tour Holiness, we are not set against him ;
We but deplore his incapacity.
He is too old.

JULIUS.

You, Cardinal Salviati,

1883.] Michael Angela. 291

Are an old man. Are you incapable?

'T is the old ox that draws the straightest furrow.

CARDINAL MARCELLO.

Your Holiness remembers he was charged
With the repairs upon St. Mary's bridge ;
Made cofferdams, and heaped up load on load
Of timber and travertine; and yet for years
The bridge remained unfinished, till we gave it
To Baccio Bigio.

JULIUS.

Always Baccio Bigio !
Is there no other architect on earth ?
Was it not he that sometime had in charge
The harbor of Ancona ?

CARDINAL MARCELLO.

Ay, the same.

JULIUS.

Then let me tell you that your Baccio Bigio

Did greater damage in a single day

To that fair harbor than the sea had done

Or would do in ten years. And him you think

To put in place of Michael Angelo,

In building the Basilica of St. Peter !

The ass that thinks himself a stag discovers

His error when he comes to leap the ditch.

CARDINAL MARCELLO.

He does not build ; he but demolishes
The labors of Bramante and San Gallo.

Only to build more grandly.

CARDINAL MARCELLO.

But time passes

Year after year goes by, and yet the work
Is not completed. Michael Angelo
Is a great sculptor, but no architect.
His plans are faulty.

I have seen his model,

And have approved it. But here comes the artist.
Beware of him. He may make Persians of you,
To carry burdens on your backs forever.

292 Michael Angela. [March,

The same: MICHAEL ANGELO.

JULIUS.

Come forward, \3ear Maestro ! In these gardens
All ceremonies of our court are banished.
Sit down beside me here.

MICHAEL ANGELO, sitting down.

How graciously

Your Holiness commiserates old age
And its infirmities !

JULIUS.

Say its privileges.

Art I respect. The building of this palace
And laying out these pleasant garden walks
Are my delight, and if I have not asked
Your aid in this, it is that I forbear
To lay new burdens on you at an age
When you need rest. Here I escape from Rome
To be at peace. The tumult of the city
Scarce reaches here.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

How beautiful it is,
And quiet almost as a hermitage !

JULIUS.

We live as hermits here ; and from these heights
O'erlook all Rome, and see the yellow Tiber
Cleaving in twain the city, like a sword,
As far below there as St. Mary's bridge.
What think you of that bridge ?

MICHAEL ANGELO.

I would advise

Your Holiness not to cross it, or not often ;
It is not safe.

JULIUS.
It was repaired of late.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Some morning you will look for it in vain ;
It will be gone. The current of the river
Is undermining it.

JULIUS.

But you repaired it

1883.] Michael Angela. 293

MICHAEL ANGELO.

I strengthened all its piers, and paved its road
With travertine. He who came after me
Removed the stone, and sold it, and filled in
The space with gravel.

JULIUS.

Cardinal Salviati
And Cardinal Marcello, do you listen ?

This is your famous Nanni Baccio Bigio.

MICHAEL ANGELO, aside.

There is some mystery here. These Cardinals
Stand lowering at me with unfriendly eyes.

JULIUS.

Now let us come to what concerns us more
Than bridge or gardens. Some complaints are made
Concerning the Three Chapels in St. Peter's ;
Certain supposed defects or imperfections,
You doubtless can explain.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

This is no longer

The golden age of art. Men have become
Iconoclasts and critics. They delight not
In what an artist does, but set themselves
To censure what they do not comprehend.
You will not see them bearing a Madonna
Of Cimabue to the church in triumph,
But tearing down the statue of a Pope
To cast it into cannon. Who are they
That bring complaints against me ?

JULIUS.

Deputies

Of the commissioners ; and they complain
Of insufficient light in the Three Chapels.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Your Holiness, the insufficient light

Is somewhere else, aud not in the Three Chapels.

Who are the deputies that make complaint?

JULIUS.

The Cardinals Salviati and Marcello,
Here present.

MICHAEL ANGELO, rising.

With permission, Monsignori,
What is it ye complain of?

294 Michael Angela. [March,

CARDINAL MARCELLO.

We regret

You have departed from Bramaute's plan,
And from San Gallo's.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Since the ancient time
No greater architect has lived on earth
Than Lazzari Bramante. His design,
Without confusion, simple, clear, well-lighted,
Merits all praise, and to depart from it
Would be departing from the truth. San Gallo,
Building about with columns, took all light
Out of this plan ; left in the choir dark corners
For infinite ribaldries, and lurking places
For rogues and robbers; so that when the church
Was shut at night, not five and twenty men
Could find them out. It was San Gallo, then,
That left the church in darkness, and not I.

CARDINAL MARCELLO.

Excuse me ; but in each of the Three Chapels
Is but a single window.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Monsignore,

Perhaps you do not know that in the vaulting
Above there are to go three other windows.

CARDINAL SALVIATI.

How should we know ? You never told us of it.

MICHAEL ANOELO.

I neither am obliged, nor will I be,
To tell your Eminence or any other
What I intend or ought to do. Your office
Is to provide the means, and see that thieves
Do not lay hands upon them. The designs
Must all be left to me.

CARDINAL MARCELLO.

Sir architect,

You do forget yourself, to speak thus rudely
In presence of his Holiness, and to us
Who are his cardinals.

MICHAEL ANGELO, putting on his hat.
I do not forget

I am descended from the Counts Canossa,
Linked with the Imperial line, and with Matilda,

1883.] Michael Angela. 295

Who gave the Church Saint Peter's Patrimony.'

I, too, am proud to give unto the Church

The labor of these hands, and what of life

Kemains to me. My father Buonarotti

Was Podesta of Chiusi and Caprese.

I am not used to have men speak to me

As if I were a mason, hired to build

A garden wall, and paid on Saturdays

So much an hour.

CARDINAL SALVIATI, aside.

No wonder that Pope Clement
Never sat down in presence of this man,
Lest he should do the same ; and always bade him
Put on his hat, lest he unasked should do it !

MICHAEL ANGELO.

If any one could die of grief and shame,
I should. This labor was imposed upon me ;
I did not seek it; and if I assumed it,
'Twas not for love of fame or, love of gain,
But for the love of God. Perhaps old age
Deceived me, or self-interest, or ambition ;
I may be doing harm instead of good.
Therefore, I pray your Holiness, release me ;
Take off from me the burden of this work ;
Let me go back to Florence.

JULIUS.

Never, never,
While I am living.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Doth your Holiness

Remember what the Holy Scriptures say
Of the inevitable time, when those
Who look out of the windows shall be darkened,
And the almond-tree shall flourish?

That is in
Ecclesiastes.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

And the grasshopper
Shall be a burden, and desire shall fail,
Because man goeth unto his long home.
Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher; all
Is vanity.

296 Michael Angela. [March,

JULIUS.

Ah, were to do a thing
. / As easy as to dream of doing it,

We should not want for artists. But the men
Who carry out in act their great designs
Are few in number; ay, they may be counted
Upon the fingers of this hand. Your place
Is at St. Peter's.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

I have had my dream,
And cannot carry out my great conception,
And put it into act.

JULIUS.

Then who can do it?

You would but leave it to some Baccio Bigio
To mangle and deface.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Rather than that,

I will still bear the burden on my shoulders
A little longer. If your Holiness
Will keep the world in order, and will leave
The building of the church to me, the work
Will go on better for it. Holy Father,
If all the labors that I have endured,
And shall endure, advantage not my soul,
I am but losing time.

JULIUS, laying his hands on MICHAEL ANGELO'S shoulders.

You will be gainer
Both for your soul and body.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Not events

Exasperate me, but the purest conclusions
I draw from these events ; the sure decline
Of art, and all the meaning of that word;
All that embellishes and sweetens life,
And lifts it from the level of low cares
Into the purer atmosphere of beauty ;
The faith in the Ideal ; the inspiration
That made the canons of the church of Seville
Say, " Let us build, so that all men hereafter
Will say that we were madmen." Holy Father,
I beg permission to retire from here.

JULIUS.
Go; and my benediction be upon you.

I Michael Anqelo goes out.

1883.] Michael Angelo. 297

My Cardinals, this Michael Angelo

Must not be dealt with as a common mason.

He comes of noble blood, and for his crest

Bears two bull's horns ; and he has given us proof

That he can toss with them. From this day forth

Unto the end of time, let no man utter

The name of Baccio Bigio in my presence.

All great achievements are the natural fruits

Of a great character. As trees bear not

Their fruits of the same size and quality,

But each one in its kind with equal ease,

So are great deeds as natural to great men

As mean things are to small ones. By his work

We know the master. Let us not perplex him.

III.

BINDO ALTOVITI.

A street in Rome. BINDO ALTOVITI, standing at the door of his house.
MICHAEL ANGELO, passing.

BINDO.
Good-morning, Messer Michael Angelo !

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Good-morning, Messer Bindo Altoviti!

BINDO.

What brings you forth so early?

MICHAEL ANGELO.

The same reason

That keeps you standing sentinel at your door, —
The air of this delicious summer morning.
What news have you from Florence?

BINDO.

Nothing new ;

The same old tale of violence and wrong.
Since the disastrous day at Monte Murlo,
When in procession, through San Gallo's gate,
Bareheaded, clothed in rags, on sorry steeds,
Philippo Strozzi and the good Valori
Were led as prisoners down the streets of Florence,
Amid the shouts of an ungrateful people,
Hope is no more, and liberty no more.
Duke Cosimo, the tyrant, reigns supreme.

298 Michael Angela. [March,

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Florence is dead : her houses are but tombs ;
Silence and solitude are in her streets.

Ah yes ; and often I repeat the words
You wrote upon your statue of the Night,
There in the Sacristy of San Lorenzo :
" Grateful to me is sleep ; to be of stone
More grateful, while the wrong and shame endure ;
To see not, feel not, is a benediction ;
Therefore awake me not ; oh, speak in whispers."

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Ah, Messer Bindo, the calamities,

The fallen fortunes, and the desolation

Of Florence are to me a tragedy

Deeper than words, and darker than despair.

I, who have worshipped freedom from my cradle,

Have loved her with the passion of a lover,

And clothed her with all lovely attributes

That the imagination can conceive,

Or the heart conjure up, now see her dead,

And trodden in the dust beneath the feet

Of an adventurer ! It is a grief

Too great for me to bear in my old age.

BINDO.

I say no news from Florence : I am wrong,
For Beuvenuto writes that he is coming
To be my guest in Rome.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Those are good tidings.
He hath been many years away from us.

Pray you, come in.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

I have not time to stay,

And yet I will. I see from here your house
Is filled with works of art. That bust in bronze
Is of yourself. Tell me, who is the master
That works in such an admirable way,
And with such power and feeling?

BINDO.

Benvenuto.

1883.] t Michael Angelo. 299

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Ah? Benvenuto? 'T is a masterpiece!

It pleases me as much, and even more,

Than the antiques about it ; and yet they

Are of the best one sees. But you have placed it

By far too high. The light comes from below,

And injures the expression. Were these windows

Above and not beneath it, then indeed

It would maintain its own among these works

Of the old masters, noble as they are.

I will go in and study it more closely.

I always prophesied that Benvenuto,

With all his follies and fantastic ways,

Would show his genius in some work of art

That would amaze the world, and be a challenge

Unto all other artists of his time. [They go in.

IV.

IN THE COLISEUM.
MICHAEL ANGELO and TOMASO DE' CAVALIERI.

CAVALIERI.
What have you here alone, Messer Michele ?

MICHAEL ANGELO.

I come to learn.

CAVALIERI.

You are already master,
And teach all other men.

Nay, I know nothing;
Not even my own ignorance, as some
Philosopher hath said. I am a school-boy
Who hath not learned his lesson, and who stands
Ashamed and silent in the awful presence
Of the great master of antiquity
Who built these walls cyclopean.

CAVALIERI.

Gaudentius

His name was, I remember. His reward
Was to be thrown alive to the wild beasts
Here where we now are standing.

300 Michael Angela. [March,

x MICHAEL ANGELO.

Idle tales.

CAVALIEHI.

But you are greater than Gaudentius was,
And your work nobler.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Silence, I beseech you.

CAVALIERI.

Tradition says that fifteen thousand men
Were toiling for ten years incessantly
Upon this amphitheatre.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Behold

How wonderful it is ! The queen of flowers,
The marble rose of Rome ! Its petals torn
By wind and rain of thrice five hundred years ;
Its mossy sheath half rent away, and sold
To ornament our palaces and churches,
Or to be trodden under feet of man
Upon the Tiber's bank ; yet what remains
Still opening its fair bosom to the sun,
And to the constellations that at night
Hang poised above it like a swarm of bees.

CAVALIERI.

The rose of Rome, but not of Paradise ;

Not the white rose our Tuscan poet saw,

With saints for petals. When this rose was perfect

Its hundred thousand petals were not saints,

But' senators in their Thessalian caps,

And all the roaring populace of Rome ;

And even an Empress and the Vestal Virgins,

Who came to see the gladiators die,

Could not give sweetness to a rose like this.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

I spake not of its uses, but its. beauty.

CAVALIERI.

The sand beneath our feet is saturate
With blood of martyrs ; and these rifted stones
Are awful witnesses against a people
Whose pleasure was the pain of dying men.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Tomaso Cavalieri, on my word,

1883.] Michael Angelo. 301

You should have been a preacher, not a painter!

Think you that I approve such cruelties,

Because I marvel at the architects

Who built these walls, and curved these noble arches ?

Oh, I am put to shame, when I consider

How mean our work is, when compared with theirs !

Look at these walls about us and above us !

They have been shaken by earthquakes, have been made

A fortress, and been battered by long sieges ;

The iron clamps, that held the stones together, s

Have been wrenched from them ; but they stand erect

And firm, as if they had been hewn and hollowed

Out of the solid rock, and were a part

Of the foundations of the world itself.

CAVALIERI.

Your work, I say again, is nobler work,
In so far as its end and aim are nobler ;
And this is but a ruin, like the rest.
Its vaulted passages are made the caverns
Of robbers, and are haunted by the ghosts
Of murdered men.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

A thousand wild flowers bloom
From every chink, and the birds build their nests
Among the ruined arches, and suggest
New thoughts of beauty to the architect.
Now let us climb the broken stairs that lead
Into the corridors above, and study
The marvel and the mystery of that art
In which I am a pupil, not a master.
All things must have an end ; the world itself
Must have an end, as in a dream I saw it.
There came a great hand out of heaven, and touched
The earth, and stopped it in its course. The seas
Leaped, a vast cataract, into the abyss ;
The forests and the fields slid off, and floated
Like wooded islands in the air. The dead
Were hurled forth from their sepulchres ; the living
Were mingled with them, and themselves were dead, —
All being dead ; and the fair, shining cities
Dropped out like jewels from a broken crown.
Naught but the core of the great globe remained,
A skeleton of stone. And over it
The wrack of matter drifted like a cloud,
And then recoiled upon itself, and fell
Back on the empty world, that with the weight
Reeled, staggered, righted, and then headlong plunged
Into the darkness, as a ship, when struck

302 Michael Angela. [March,

By a great sea, throws off the waves at first
On either side, then settles arid goes down
Into the dark abyss, with her dead crew.

CAVALIERI.

But the earth does not move.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Who knows ? who knows ?

There are great truths that pitch their shining tents
Outside our walls, and though but dimly seen
In the gray dawn, they will be manifest
When the light widens into perfect day.
A certain man, Copernicus by name,
Sometime professor here in Rome, has whispered
It is the earth, and not the sun, that moves.
What I beheld was only in a dream,
Yet dreams sometimes anticipate events,
Being unsubstantial images of things
As yet unseen.

BENVENUTO AGAIN : MACELLO DE' CORVI.
MICHAEL ANGELO, BENVENUTO CELLINI.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

So, Benvenuto, you return once more
To the Eternal City. 'Tis the centre
To which all gravitates. One finds no rest
Elsewhere than here. There may be other cities
That please us for a while, but Rome alone
Completely satisfies. It becomes to all
A second native land by predilection,
And not by accident of birth alone.

BENVENUTO.

I am but just arrived, and am now lodging
With Bindo Altoviti. I have been
To kiss the feet of our most Holy Father,
And now am come in haste to kiss the hands
Of my miraculous Master.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

And to find him
Grown very old.

1883.]

Michael Angela.

303

Never grow old.

BENVENUTO.

You know that precious stones

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Half sunk beneath the horizon,
And yet not gone. Twelve years are a long while.
Tell me of France.

BENVENUTO.

It were too long a tale
To tell you all. Suffice in brief to say
The King received me well, and loved me well ;
Gave me the annual pension that before me
Our Leonardo had, nor more nor less,
And for my residence the Tour de Nesle,
Upon the river-side.

MICHAEL, ANGELO.

A princely lodging.

BENVENUTO.

What in return I did now matters not,
For there are other things, of greater moment,
I wish to speak of. First of all, the letter
You wrote me, not long since, about my bust
Of Bindo Altoviti,. here in Rome. You said,
" My Benvenuto, I for many years
Have known you as the greatest of all goldsmiths,
And now I know you as no less a sculptor."
Ah, generous Master ! How shall I e'er thank you
For such kind language ?

MICHAEL ANGELO.

By believing it.

I saw the bust at Messer Bindo's house,
And thought it worthy of the ancient masters,
And said so. That is all.

BENVENUTO.

It is too much ;

And I should stand abashed here in your presence,
Had I done nothing worthier of your praise
Than Bindo's bust.

MICHAEL ANGELO,

What have you done that 's better ?

BENVENUTO.

When I left Rome for Paris, you remember

304 Michael Angela. [March,

I promised you that if I went a goldsmith
I would return a sculptor. I have kept
The promise I then made.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Dear Benvenuto,

I recognized the latent genius in you,
But feared your vices.

BENVENUTO.

I have turned them all

To virtues. My impatient, wayward nature,
That made me quick in quarrel, now has served me
Where meekness could not, and where patience could not,
As you shall hear now. I have cast in bronze
A statue of Perseus, holding thus aloft
In his left hand the head of the Medusa,
And in his right the sword that severed it ;
His right foot planted on the lifeless corse ;
His face superb and pitiful, with eyes
Down-looking on the victim of his vengeance.

MICHAEL ANOELO.

I see it as it should be.

BENVENUTO.

As it will be

When it is placed upon the Ducal Square,
Half-way between your David and the Judith
Of Donatello.

Mlf H A F.I- ANGELO.

Rival of them both !

BENVENUTO.

But ah, what infinite trouble have I had

With Bandinello, and that stupid beast,

The major-domo of Duke Cosimo,

Francesco Ricci, and their wretched agent

Gorini, who came crawling round about me

Like a black spider, with his whining voice

That sounded like the buzz of a mosquito !

Oh, I have wept in utter desperation,

And wished a thousand times I had not left

My Tour de Nesle, nor e'er returned to Florence,

Or thought of Perseus. What malignant falsehoods

They told the Grand Duke, to impede my work,

And make me desperate !

Michael Angela. 805

MICHAEL ANGELO.

The nimble lie

Is like the second-hand upon a clock ;
We see it fly ; while the hour-hand of truth
Seems to stand still, and yet it moves unseen,
And wins at last, for the clock will not strike
Till it has reached the goal.

BENVENTITO.

My ohstinacy

Stood me in stead, and helped me to o'ercome
The hindrances that envy and ill-will
Put in my way.

MICHAEL AKGELO.

When anything is done,
People see not the patient doing of it,
Nor think how great would be the loss to man
If it had not been done. As in a building
Stone rests on stone, and wanting the foundation"
All would be wanting, so in human life
Each action rests on the foregone event,
That made it possible, but is forgotten
And buried in the earth.

BENVENUTO.

Even Bandinello,

Who never yet spako well of anything,
Speaks well of this ; and yet he told the Duke
That, though I cast small figures well enough,
I never could cast this.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

But you have done it,

And proved Ser Bandinello a false prophet.
That is the wisest way.

BENVENUTO.

And ah, that casting!

What a wild scene it was, as late at night,
A night of wind and rain, we heaped the furnace
With pine of Serristori, till the flames
Caught in the rafters over us, and threatened
To send the burning roof upon our heads ;
And from the garden side the wind and rain
Poured in upon us, and half quenched our fires
I was beside myself with desperation.
A shudder came upon me, then a fever ;
I thought that I was dying, and was forced
To leave the work-shop, and to throw myself

TOL. LI. — NO. 305. 20

306 Michael Angela.

Upon my bed, as one who has no hope.

And as I lay there, a deformed old man

Appeared before me, and with dismal voice,

Like one who doth exhort a crimina*

Led forth to death, exclaimed, " Poor Benvenuto,

Thy work is spoiled ! There is no remedy 1 "

Then, with a cry so loud it might have reached

The heaven of fire, I bounded to my feet,

And rushed back to my workmen. They all stood

Bewildered and desponding ; and I looked

Into the furnace, and beheld the mass

Half molten only, and in my despair

I fed the fire with oak, whose terrible heat

Soon made the sluggish metal shine and sparkle.

Then followed a bright flash, and an explosion,

As if a thunderbolt had fallen among us.

The covering of the furnace had been rent

Asunder, and the bronze was flowing over;

So that I straightway opened all the sluices

To fill the mould. The metal ran like lava,

Sluggish and heavy; and I sent my workmen

To ransack the whole house, and bring together

My pewter plates and pans, two hundred of them,

And cast them one by one into the furnace

To liquefy the mass, and in a moment

The mould was filled ! I fell upon my knees

And thanked the Lord; and then we ate and drank

And went to bed, all hearty and contented.

It was two hours before the break of day.

My fever was quite gone.

MICHAEL AKGKLO.

A strange adventure,

That could have happened to no man alive
But you, my Benvenuto.

BENVENUTO.

As my workmen said
To major-domo Ricci afterward,
When he inquired of them : " 'T was not a man,
But an express great devil."

MICHAEL ANGELO.

And the statue?

BENVENCTO.

Perfect in every part, save the right foot
Of Perseus, as I had foretold the Duke.
There was just bronze enough to fill the mould ;
Not a drop over, not a drop too little.

1883.]' Michael Angela. 307

I looked upon it as a miracle
Wrought by the hand of God.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

And now I see
How you have turned your vices into virtues.

BENVENUTO.

But wherefore do I prate of this ? I caine
To speak of other things. Duke Cosimo
Through me invites you to return to Florence,
And offers you great honors, even to make you
One of the Forty Eight, his Senators.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

His Senators ! That is enough. Since Florence

Was changed by Clement Seventh from a Republic

Into a Dukedom, I no longer wish

To be a Florentine. That dream is ended.

The Grand Duke Cosimo now reigns supreme;

All liberty is dead. Ah, woe is me !

I hoped to see my country rise to heights

Of happiness and freedom yet unreached

By other nations, but the climbing wave

Pauses, lets go its hold, and slides again

Back to the common level, with a hoarse

Death-rattle in its throat. I am too old

To hope for better days. I will stay here

And die in Rome. The very weeds, that grow

Among the broken fragments of her ruins,

Are sweeter to me than the garden flowers

Of other cities ; and the desolate ring

Of the Campagna round about her walls

Fairer than all the villas that encircle

The towns of Tuscany.

,v;l ; /

BENVENUTO.

But your old friends!

MICHAEL ANGELO.

All dead by violence. Baccio Valori
Has been beheaded ; Guicciardini poisoned ;
Philippo Strozzi strangled in his prison.
Is Florence then a place for honest men
To flourish in ? What is there to prevent
My sharing the same fate?

BENVENUTO.

Why, this : if all
Your friends are dead, so are your enemies.

Michael Angelo. [March,

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Is Aretino dead?

BENVENUTO.

He lives in Venice,
And not in Florence.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

'T is the same to me.

This wretched mountebank, whom flatterers
Call the Divine, as if to make the word
Unpleasant in the mouths of those who speak it
And in the ears of those who hear it, sends mo
A letter written for the public eye.
And with such subtle and infernal malice,
I wonder at his wickedness. 'T is he
Is the express great devil, and not you.
Some years ago he told me how to paint
The scenes of the Last Judgment.

BENVRNUTO.

I remember.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Well, now he writes to me that, as a Christian,
He is ashamed of the unbounded freedom
With which I represent it.

BENVENDTO.

Hypocrite I

MICHAEL AKGELO.

He says I show mankind that I am wanting
In piety and religion, in proportion
As I profess perfection in my art.
Profess perfection ? Why, 't is only men
Like Bugiardini who are satisfied
With what they do. I never am content,
But always see the labors of my hand
Fall short of my conception.

BBNVENUTO. ,

I perceive

The malice of this creature. He would taint you
With heresy, and in a time like this!
'T is infamous !

MICHAEL ANGELO.

I represent the angels

Without their heavenly glory, and the saints
Without a trace of earthly modesty.

1883.] Michael Angela. 309

BENVENUTO.

Incredible audacity !

MICHAEL ANGELO.

The heathen

Veiled their Diana with some drapery,
And when they represented Venus naked
They made her, by her modest attitude,
Appear half clothed. But I, who am a Christian,
Do so subordinate belief to art
That I have made the very violation
Of modesty in martyrs and in virgins
A spectacle at which all men would gaze
With half -aver ted eyes, even in a brothel.

BENVENUTO.

He is at home there, and he ought to know
What men avert their eyes from in such places;
From the Last Judgment chiefly, I imagine.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

But divine Providence will never leave

The boldness of my marvellous work unpunished ;

And the more marvellous it is, the more

'T is sure to prove the ruin of my fame !

And finally, if in this composition

I had pursued the instructions that he gave me

Concerning heaven and hell and paradise,

In that same letter, known to all the world,

Nature would not be forced, as she is now,

To feel ashamed that she invested me

With such great talent ; that I stand myself

A very idol in the world of art.

He taunts me also with the Mausoleum

Of Julius, still unfinished, for the reason

That men persuaded the inane old man

It was of evil augury to build

His tomb while he was living; and he speaks

Of heaps of gold this Pope bequeathed to me,

And calls it robbery ; — that is what he says.

What prompted such a letter?

BENVENUTO.

Vanity.

He is a clever writer, and he likes
To draw his pen, and flourish it in the face
Of every honest man, as swordsmen do
Their rapiers on occasion, but to show
How skilfully they do it. Had you followed
The advice he gave, or even thanked him for it,

310 Michael Angela. [March,

You would have seen another style of fence.
'T is but his wounded vanity, and the wish
To see his name in print. So give it not
A moment's thought; it soon will be forgotten.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

I will not think of it, but let it pass

For a rude speech thrown at me in the street,

As boys threw stones at Dante.

BEKVENDTO.

And what answer

Shall I take back to Grand Duke Cosimo ?
He does not ask your labor or your service ;
Only your presence in the city of Florence,
With such advice upon his work in hand
As he may ask, and you may choose to give.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

You have my answer. Nothing he can offer
Shall tempt me to leave Rome. My work is here,
And only here, the building of St. Peter's.
What other things I hitherto have done
Have fallen from me, are no longer mine ;
I have passed on beyond them, and have left them
As milestones on the way. What lies before me,
That is still mine, and while it is unfinished
No one shall draw me from it, or persuade me,
By promises of ease, or wealth, or honor,
Till I behold the finished dome uprise
Complete, as now I see it in my thought.

BENVENUTO.

And will you paint no more?

MICHAEL ANGELO.

No more.

BENVENUTO.

T is well.

Sculpture is more divine, and more like Nature,
That fashions all her works in high relief,
And that is sculpture. This vast ball, the Earth,
Was moulded out of clay, and baked in fire;
Men, women, and all animals that breathe
Are statues, and not paintings. Even the plants,
The flowers, the fruits, the grasses, were first sculptured,
And colored later. Painting is a lie,
A shadow merely.

1883.1 Michael Angela. 311

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Truly, as you say,

Sculpture is more than painting. It is greater
To raise the dead to life than to create
Phantoms that seem to live. The most majestic
Of the three sister arts is that which builds ;
The eldest of them all, to whom the others
Are but the hand-maids and the servitors,
Being but imitation, not, creation.
Henceforth I dedicate myself to her.

BENVENUTO.

And no more from the marble hew those forms
That fill us all with wonder ?

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Many statues

Will there be room for in my work. Their station
Already is assigned them in my mind.
But things move slowly. There are hindrances,
Want of material, want of means, delays
And interruptions, endless interference
Of Cardinal Commissioners, and disputes
And jealousies of artists, that annoy me.
But I will persevere until the work
Is wholly finished, or till I sink down
Surprised by death, that unexpected guest,
Who waits for no man's leisure, but steps in,
Unasked and unannounced, to put a stop
To all our occupations and designs.
And then perhaps I may go back to Florence ;
This is my answer to Duke Cosimo.

VI.

TJRBINO'S FORTUNE.
MICHAEL ANGELO'S Studio. MICHAEL ANGELO and URBINO.

MICHAEL ANGELO, pausing in his work.

Urbino, thou and I are both old men.
My strength begins to fail me.

URBINO.

Eccellenza,

That is impossible. Do I not see you
Attack the marble blocks with the same fury
As twenty years ago?

312 Michael Angela.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

'T is an old habit.

I must have learned it early from my nurse
At Setignano, the stone-mason's wife ;
For the first sounds I heard were of the chisel
Chipping away the stone.

UBBINO.

At every stroke
You strike fire with your chisel.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Ay, because
The marble is too hard.

UBBINO.

It is a block

That Topolino sent you from Carrara.
He is a judge of marble.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

I remember.

With it he sent me something of his making,—
A Mercury, with long body and short legs,
As if by any possibility

A messenger of the gods could have short legs.
It was no more like Mercury than you are,
But rather like those little plaster figures
That peddlers hawk about the villages.
As images of saints. But luckily
For Topolino, there are many people
Who see no difference between what is best
And what is only good, or not even good ;
So that poor artists stand in their esteem
On the same level with the best, or higher.

URBINO.

How Ecccllcnza laughed!

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Poor Topolino !

All men are not born artists, nor will labor
E'er make them artists.

URBINO.

No, no more

Than Emperors, or Popes, or Cardinals.
One must be chosen for it. I have been
Your color-grinder six arid twenty years,
And am not yet an artist.

1883.] Michael Angela.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Some have eyes

That see not ; but in every block of marble
I see a statue, — see it as distinctly
As if it stood before me shaped and perfect
In attitude and action. I have only
To hew away the stone walls that imprison
The lovely apparition, and reveal it
To other eyes as mine already see it.
But I grow old and weak. What wilt thou do
When I am dead, Urbino ?

URBINO.

Eccellenza,
I must then serve another master.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

313

Bitter is servitude at best. Already

So many years hast thou been serving me ;

But rather as a friend than as a servant.

We have grown old together. Dost thou think

So meanly of this Michael Angelo

As to imagine he would let thee serve,

When he is free from service? Take this purse,

Two thousand crowns in gold.

URBINO.

Two thousand crowns!

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Ay, it will make thee rich. Thou shalt not die
A beggar in a hospital.

URBINO.

Oh, Master !

MICHAEL ANGELO.

I cannot have them with me on the journey

That I am undertaking. The last garment

That men will make for me will have no pockets.

URBINO, kissing the hand of MICHAEL ANGELO.
My generous master !

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Hush!

URBINO.

My Providence!

314 Michael Angela. [March,

MICHAEL AXGELO.

Not a word more. Go now to bed, old man.
Thou hast served Michael Angelo. Remember,
Henceforward thou shalt serve no other master.

VII.

THE OAKS OF MONTE LUCA.
MICHAEL ANGELO, alone in the woods.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

How still it is among these ancient oaks !

Surges and undulations of the air

Uplift the leafy boughs, and let them fall

With scarce a sound. Such sylvan quietudes

Become old age. These huge centennial oaks,

That may have heard in infancy the trumpets

Of Barbarossa's cavalry, deride

Man's brief existence, that with all his strength

He cannot stretch beyond the hundredth year.

This little acorn, turbaued like the Turk,

Which with my foot I spurn, may be an oak

Hereafter, feeding with its bitter mast

The fierce wild boar, and tossing in its arms

The cradled nests of birds, when all the men

That now inhabit this vast universe,

They and their children, and their children's children,

Shall be but dust and mould, and nothing more.

Through openings in the trees I see below me

The valley of Clitumnus, with its farms

And snow-white oxen grazing in the shade

Of the tall poplars on the river's brink.

O Nature, gentle mother, tender nurse !

I, who have never loved thee as I ought,

But wasted all my years immured in cities,

And breathed the stifling atmosphere of streets,

Now come to thee for refuge. Here is peace.

Yonder I see the little hermitages

Dotting the mountain side with points of light,

And here St. Julian's convent, like a nest

Of curlews, clinging to some windy cliff.

Beyond the broad, illimitable plain

Down sinks the sun, red as Apollo's quoit,

That, by the envious zephyr blown aside,

Struck Hyacinthus dead, and stained the earth

With his young blood, that blossomed into flowers.

And now, instead of these fair deities,

1883.] Michael Angela. 815

Dread demons haunt the earth ; hermits inhabit
The leafy homes of sylvan Hamadryads ;
And jovial friars, rotund and rubicund,
Replace the old Silenus with his ass.

Here underneath these venerable oaks,

Wrinkled and brown and gnarled like them with age,

A brother of the monastery sits,

Lost in his meditations. What may be

The questions that perplex, the hopes that cheer him?

Good-evening, holy father.

MONK.

God be with you.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Pardon a stranger if he interrupt
Your meditations.

It was but a dream, —

The old, old dream, that never will come true ;
The dream that all my life I have been dreaming,
And yet is still a dream.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

All men have dreams.

I have had mine; but none of them came true;
They were but vanity. Sometimes I think
The happiness of man lies in pursuing,
Not in possessing ; for the things possessed
Lose half their value. Tell me of your dream.

The yearning of my heart, my sole desire,
That like the sheaf of Joseph stands upright,
While all the others bend aud bow to it ;
The passion that torments me, and that breathes
New meaning into the dead forms of prayer,
Is that with mortal eyes I may behold
The Eternal City.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Borne ?

MONK.

There is but one;

The rest are merely names. I think of it
As the Celestial City, paved with gold,
And sentinelled with angels.

316 Michael Angela. [March.

MIClfAEL ANGELO.

Would it were.

I have just fled from it. It is beleaguered
By Spanish troops, led by the Duke of Alva.

MONK.

But still for me 'tis the Celestial City,
And I would see it once before I die.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Each one must bear his cross.

MONK.

Were it a cross

That had been laid upon me, I could bear it,
Or fall with it. It is a crucifix ;
I am nailed hand and foot, and I am dying!

MICHAEL ANGELO.

What would you see in Rome?

MONK.

His Holiness.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Him that was once the Cardinal Caraffa?
You would but see a man of fourscore years,
With sunken eyes, burning like carbuncles,
Who sits at table with his friends for hours,
Cursing the Spaniards as a race of Jews
And miscreant Moors. And with what soldiery
Think you he now defends the Eternal City?

MONK.

With legions of bright angels.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

So he calls them;

And yet in fact these bright angelic legions
Are only German Lutherans.

HONK, crossing himself.

Heaven protect usl

MICHAEL ANGELO.

What further would you see?

MONK.

The Cardinals,
Going in their gilt coaches to High Mass.

1883.J Michael Angela. 317

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Men do not go to Paradise in coaches.

MONK.

The catacombs, the convents, and the churches;

The ceremonies of the Holy Week

In all their pomp, or, at the Epiphany,

The Feast of the Santissima Bambino

At Ara Coeli. But I shall not see them.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

These pompous ceremonies of the Church
Are but an empty show to him who knows
The actors in them. Stay here in your convent,
For he who goes to Rome may see too much.
What would you further ?

MONK.

I would see the painting
Of the Last Judgment in the Sistiue Chapel.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

The smoke of incense and of altar candles
Has blackened it already.

MONK.

Woe is me !

Then I would hear Allegri's Miserere,
Sung by the Papal choir.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

A dismal dirge!

I am an old, old man, and I have lived
In Rome for thirty years and more, and know
The jarring of the wheels of that great world,
Its jealousies, its discords, and its strife.
Therefore I say to you remain content
Here in your convent, here among your woods,
Where only there is peace. Go not to Rome.
There was of old a monk of Wittenberg
Who went to Rome ; you may have heard of him ;
His name was Luther ; and you know what followed.

[The convent bell rings.

MONK, rising.

It is the convent bell ; it rings for vespers.
Let us go in; we both will pray for peace.

318 Michael Angela. [Marck,

VIII.

THE DEAD CHRIST.

MICHAEL ANGELO'S studio. MICHAEL ANGELO, with a light, working upon the Dead Christ.

Midnight.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

0 Death, why is it I cannot portray

Thy form and features ? Do I stand too near thee ?
Or dost thou hold my hand, and draw me back,
As being thy disciple, not thy master?
Let him who knows not what old age is like
Have patience till it comes, and he will know.

1 once had skill to fashion Life and Death
And Sleep, which is the counterfeit of Death ;
And I remember what Giovanni Strozzi
Wrote underneath my statue of the Night

In San Lorenzo, ah, so long ago!

Grateful to me is sleep ! More grateful now

Than it was then ; for all my friends are dead ;

And she is dead, the noblest of them all.

I saw her face, when the great sculptor Death,

Whom men should call Divine, had at a blow

Stricken her into marble ; and I kissed

Her cold white hand. What was it held me back

From kissing her fair forehead, and those lips,

Those dead, dumb lips ? Grateful to me is sleep !

Enter GIORGIO VASAKI.

GIORGIO.

Good-evening, or good-morning, for I know not
Which of the two it is.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

How came you in?

GIORGIO.

Why, by the door, as all men do.

1IICHAEL ANGELO.

Ascanio
Must have forgotten to bolt it.

GIORGIO.

Probably.

Am I a spirit, or so like a spirit,
That I could slip through bolted door or window?

1883.] Michael Angela. 319

As I was passing down the street, I saw

A glimmer of light, and heard the well-known chink

Of chisel upon marble. So I entered,

To see what keeps you from your bed so late.

MICHAEL ANGELO, coming for ward with the lamp.
You have been revelling with your boon companions,
Giorgio Vasari, and you come to me
At an untimely hour. •->.

The Pope hath sent me.
His Holiness desires to see again
The drawing you once showed him of the dome
Of the Basilica.

MICHAEL ANGBLO.

We will look for it.

What is the marble group that glimmers there
Behind you?

MICHAEL ANGELO.

Nothing, and yet everything,—
As one may take it. It is my own tomb,
That I am building.

GIOEGIO.

Do not hide it from me.

By our long friendship and the love I bear you,
Refuse me not !

MICHAEL ANGELO, letting fall the lamp.

Life hath become to me
An empty theatre, — its lights extinguished,
The music silent, and the actors gone ;
And I alone sit musing on the scenes
That once have been. I am so old that Death
Oft plucks me by the cloak, to come with him ;
And some day, like this lamp, shall I fall down,
And my last spark of life will be extinguished.
Ah me ! ah me ! what darkness of despair !
So near to death, and yet so far from God!

Henry Wadsworth LongfeUow.

320

In Carlylia Country.

[March,

IN CARLYLE'S COUNTRY.

THERE was no road in Scotland or
England which I should have been so
glad to have walked over as that from
Edinburgh to Ecclefechan, — a distance
covered many times by the feet of him
whose birth and burial place I was
about to visit. Carlyle as a young man
had walked it with Edward Irving (the
Scotch say " travel " when they mean
going afoot), and he had walked it alone,
and as a lad with an elder boy, on his
way to Edinburgh college. He says in
his Reminiscences he nowhere else had
such affectionate, sad, thoughtful, and
in fact interesting and salutary journeys.
" No company to you but the rustle of
the grass under foot, the tinkling of the
brook, or the voices of innocent, prime-
val things." " I have had days as clear
as Italy (as in this Irving case) ; days
moist and dripping, overhung with the
infinite of silent gray, — and perhaps
the latter were the preferable, in certain
moods. You had the world and its waste
imbroglios of joy and woe, of light and
darkness, to yourself alone. You could
strip barefoot, if it suited better ; carry
shoes and socks over shoulder, hung on
your stick ; clean shirt and comb were
in your pocket ; omnia meet mecumporto.
You lodged with shepherds, who had
clean, solid cottages; wholesome eggs,
milk, oatmeal porridge, clean blankets
to their beds, and a great deal of human
sense and unadulterated natural polite-
ness."

But how can one walk a hundred
miles in cool blood without a companion,
especially when the trains run every
hour, and he has a surplus sovereign in
his pocket? One saves time and con-
sults his ease by riding, but he thereby
misses the real savor of the land. And
the roads of this compact little kingdom
are so inviting, like a hard, smooth sur-
face covered with sand-paper ! How easy

the foot puts them behind it ! And the
summer weather, — what a fresh under-
stratum the air has even on the warmest
days ! Every breath one draws has a
cool, invigorating core to it, as if there
might be some unmelted, or just melted,
frost not far off.

But as we did not walk, there was
satisfaction in knowing that the engine
which took our train down from Ed-
inburgh was named Thomas Carlyle.
The cognomen looked well on the toil-
ing, fiery-hearted, iron-browed monster.
I think its original owner would have
contemplated it with grim pleasure, es-
pecially since he confesses to having
spent some time, once, in trying to look
up a ship-master who had named hia
vessel for him. Here was a hero after
his own sort, a leader by the divine right
of the expansive power of steam.

The human faculties of observation
have not yet adjusted themselves to the
flying train. Steam has clapped wings
to our shoulders without the power to
soar ; we get bird's-eye views without
the bird's eyes or the bird's elevation,
distance without breadth, detail without
mass. If such speed only gave us a
proportionate extent of view, if this
leisure of the eye were only mated to an
equal leisure in the glance ! Indeed,
when one thinks of it, how near railway
traveling, as a means of seeing a country,
comes, except in the discomforts of it,
to being no traveling at all ! It is like
being tied to your chair, and being
jolted and shoved about at home. The
landscape is turned topsy-turvy. The
eye sustains unnatural relations to all
but the most distant objects. We move
in an arbitrary plane, and seldom is any-
thing seen from the proper point, or
with the proper sympathy of coordinate
position. We shall have to wait for
the air ship to give us the triumph over

1883.]

In Carlyl^s Country.

321

space in which the eye can share. Of
this flight south from Edinburgh on that
bright summer day, I keep only the
most general impression. I recall how
clean and naked the country looked,
lifted up in broad hill slopes, naked
of forests and trees and weedy, bushy
growths, and of everything that would
hide or obscure its unbroken verdancy,
— the one impression that of a universe '
of grass, as in the arctic regions it
might be one of snow ; the mountains,
pastoral solitudes ; the vales, emerald
vistas.

Not to be entirely cheated out of my
walk, I left the train at Lockerby, a
small Scotch market town, and accom-
plished the remainder of the journey to
Ecclefechan on foot, a brief six-mile
pull. It was the first day of June ; the
afternoon sun was shining brightly. It
was still the honeymoon of travel with
me, not yet two weeks in the bonnie
land ; the road was smooth and clean as
the floor of a sea beach, and firmer, and
my feet devoured the distance with right
good will. The first red clover had ju§t
bloomed, as I probably would have
found it that day had I taken a walk at
home ; but, like the people I met, it had
a ruddier cheek than at home. I ob-
served it on other occasions, and later in
the season, and noted that it had more
color than in this country, and held its
bloom longer. All grains and grasses
ripen slower there than here, the season
is so much longer and cooler. The pink
and ruddy tints are more common in the
flowers also. The bloom of the black-
berry is often of a decided pink, and cer-
tain white, umbelliferous plants, like yar-
row, have now and then a rosy tinge.
The little white daisy ("gowan," the
Scotch call it) is tipped with crimson,
foretelling the scarlet poppies, with
which the grain fields will by and by be
splashed. Prunella (self-heal), also, is
of a deeper purple than with us, and a
species of crane's-bill, like our wild ge-
ranium, is of a much deeper and stronger

VOL. LI. — NO. 305. 21

color. On the other hand, their ripened
fruits and foliage of autumn pale their
ineffectual colors beside our own.

Among the farm occupations, that
which most took my eye, on this and
on other occasions, was the furrowing of
the land for turnips and potatoes ; it is
done with such absolute precision. It
recalled Emerson's statement that the
fields in this island look as if finished
with a pencil instead of a plow, — a
pencil and a ruler in this case, the lines
were so straight and so uniform. I asked
a farmer at work by the roadside how
he managed it. " Ah," said he, " a
Scotchman's head is level." Both here
and in England, plowing is studied like
a fine art ; they -have plowing matches,
and offer prizes for the best furrow. In
planting both potatoes and turnips the
ground is treated alike, grubbed, plowed,
cross-plowed, crushed, harrowed, chain-
harrowed, and rolled. Every sod and
tuft of uprooted grass are carefully
picked up by women and boys, and
burnt or carted away ; leaving the sur-
face of the ground like a clean sheet of
paper, upon which the plowman is now
to inscribe his perfect lines. The plow
is drawn by two horses, instead of by
one, as with us ; it is a long, heavy tool,
with double mould boards, and throws
the earth each way. In opening the
first furrow the plowman is guided by
stakes ; having got this one perfect, it is
used as the model for every subsequent
one, and the land is thrown into ridges,
as uniform and faultless as if it had been
stamped at one stroke with a die, or cast
in a mould. It is so from one end of
the island to the other.

Four miles from Lockerby I came to
Mainhill, the name of a farm where the
Carlyle family lived many years, and
where Carlyle first read Goethe, " in a
dry ditch," Froude says, and translated
Wilhelm Meister. The land drops gen-
tly away to the south and east, opening
up broad views in these directions, but
it does not seem to be the bleak and

322

In Carlyle's Country.

[March,

windy place Froude describes it. The
crops looked good, and the fields smooth
and fertile. The soil is rather a stub-
born clay, nearly the same as one sees
everywhere. A sloping field adjoining
the highway was being got ready for
turnips. The ridges had been cast ;
the farmer, a courteous but serious and
reserved man, was sprinkling some com-
mercial fertilizer in the furrows from a
bag slung across his shoulders, while a
boy, with a horse and cart, was deposit-
ing stable manure in the same furrows,
which a lassie, in clogs and short ^skirts,
was evenly distributing with a fork.
Certain work in Scotch fields always
seems to be done by women and girls,
— spreading manure, pulling weeds, and
picking up sods, — while they take an
equal hand with the men in the hay and
harvest fields.

The Carlyles were living on this farm
while their son was teaching school at
Annan, and later at Kircaldy with Irv-
ing, and they supplied him with cheese,
butter, ham, oatmeal, etc., from their
scanty stores. A new farm-house has
been built since then, though the old
one is still standing ; doubtless the same
Carlyle's father refers to in a letter to his
son, in 1817, as being under way. The
parish minister was expected at Main-
hill. " Your mother was very anxious
to have the house done before he came,
or else she said she would run over the
hill and hide herself."

From Mainhill the "highway descends
slowly to the village of Ecclefechan,
the site of which is marked to the
eye, a mile or more away, by the spire
of the church rising up against a back-
ground of Scotch firs, which clothe a
hill beyond. I soon enter the main
street of the village, which in Carlyle's
youth had an open burn or creek flow-
ing through the centre of it. This has
been covered over by some enterprising
citizen, and instead of a loitering little
burn, crossed by numerous bridges, the
eye is now greeted by a broad expanse

of small cobble-stone. The cottages are
for the most part very humble, and rise
from the outer edges of the pavement,
as if the latter had been turned up and
shaped to make their walls. The church
is a handsome brown stone structure, of
recent date, and is more in keeping with
the fine fertile country about than with
the little village in its front. In the
cemetery back of it, Carlyle lies buried.
As I approached, a girl sat by the road-
side, near the gate, combing her black
locks and arranging her toilet ; waiting,
as it proved, for her mother and brother,
who lingered in the village. A couple of
boys were cutting nettles against the
hedge ; for the pigs, they said, after the
sting had been taken out of them by
boiling. Across the street from the
cemetery the cows of the villagers were
grazing.

I must have thought it would be as
easy to distinguish Carlyle's grave from
the rest as it was to distinguish the man
while living, or his fame when dead ; for
it never occurred to me to ask in what
pj\rt of the inclosure it was placed.
Hence, when I found myself inside the
gate, which opens from the Annan road
through a high stone wall, I followed
the most worn path toward a new and
imposing-looking monument on the far
side of the cemetery ; and the edge of
my fine emotion was a good deal dulled
against the marble when I found it bore
a strange name. I tried others, and still
others, but was disappointed. I found
a long row of Carlyles, but he whom 1
sought was not among them. My pil-
grim .enthusiasm felt itself needlessly
hindered and chilled. How many re-
buffs could one stand? Carlyle dead,
then, was the same as Carlyje living ;
sure to take you down a peg or two
when you came to lay your homage at
his feet.

Presently I saw " Thomas Carlyle "
on a big marble slab that stood in a
family inclosure. But he turned out
to be a nephew -of the great Thomas.

1883.]

In Carlyles Country.

323

However, I had struck the right plat
at last ; here were the Carlyles I was
looking for, within a space probably of
eight by sixteen feet, surrounded by a
high iron fence. The latest made grave
was higher and fuller than the rest, but
it had no stone or mark of any kind to
distinguish it. Since my visit, I believe,
a stone or monument of some kind has
been put up. A few daisies and the pretty
blue-eyed speedwell were growing amid
the grass upon it. The great man lies
with his head toward the south or south-
west, with his mother, sister, and father
to the right of him, and his brother John
to the left. I was glad to learn that the
high iron fence was not his own sugges-
tion. His father had put it around the
family plat in his life -time. Carlyle
would liked to have had it cut down
about half-way. The whole look of this
cemetery, except in the extraordinary
size of the head-stones, was quite Amer-
ican, it being back of the church, and
separated from it, a kind of mortuary
garden, instead of surrounding it and
running under it, as is the case with the
older churches. I noted here, as I did
elsewhere, that the custom prevails of
putting the trade or occupation of the
deceased upon his stone : So-and-So, ma-
son, or tailor, or carpenter, or farmer,
etc.

A young man and his wife were work-
ing in a nursery of young trees, a few
paces from the graves, and I conversed
with them through a thin place in the
hedge. They said they had seen Carlyle
many times, and seemed to hold him
in proper esteem and reverence. The
young man had seen him come in sum-
mer and stand, with uncovered head, be-
side the graves of his father and moth-
er. "And long and reverently did he
remain there, too," said the young gar-
dener. 'I learned this was Carlyle' s in-
variable custom : every summer did he
make a pilgrimage to this spot, and with
bared head linger beside these graves.
The last time he came, which was a

couple of years before he died, he was
so feeble that two persons sustained him
while he walked into the cemetery. This
observance recalls a passage from his
Past and Present. Speaking of the re-
ligious custom of the Emperor of China,
he says, " He and his three hundred
millions (it is their chief punctuality)
visit yearly the Tombs of their Fathers ;
each man the Tomb of his Father and
his Mother; alone there in silence with
what of ' worship ' or of other thought
there may be, pauses solemnly each man ;
the divine Skies all silent over him ;
the divine Graves, and this divinest
Grave, all silent under him ; the puls-
ings of his own soul, if he have any
soul, alone audible. Truly it may be
a kind of worship ! Truly, if a man.
cannot get some glimpse into the Eter-
nities, looking through this portal, —
through what other need he try it? "

Carlyle's reverence and affection for
his kindred were among his most beauti-
ful traits, and make up in some meas-
ure for the contempt he felt toward the
rest of mankind. The family stamp
was never more strongly set upon a
man, and no family ever had a more
original, deeply cut pattern than that
of the Carlyles. Generally, in great
men who emerge from obscure peasant
homes, the genius of the family takes
an enormous leap, or is completely met-
amorphosed ; but Carlyle keeps all the
paternal lineaments unfadcd ; he is his
father and his mother, touched to finer
issues. That wonderful speech of his
sire, which all who knew him feared,
has lost nothing in the son, but is tre-
mendously augmented, and cuts like a
Damascus sword, or crushes like a sledge-
hammer. The strongest and finest pa-
ternal traits have survived in him. In-
deed, a little congenital rill seems to have
come all the way down from the old
vikings. Carlyle is not merely Scotch ;
he is Norselandic. There is a marked
Scandinavian flavor in him ; a touch, or
more than a touch, of the rude, brawling,

324

In Carlyle's Country.

[March,

bullying, hard-hitting, wrestling viking
times. The hammer of Thor antedates
the hammer of his stone-mason sire in
him. He is Scotland, past and present,
moral and physical. John Knox and
the Covenanters survive in him : witness
his religious zeal, his depth and solem-
nity of conviction, his strugglings and
agonizings, his " conversion." Ossian
survives in him : behold that melancholy
retrospect, that gloom, that melodious
wail. And especially, as I have said, do
his immediate ancestors survive in him,
— his sturdy, toiling, fiery-tongued, clan-
nish yeoman progenitors : all are summed
up here ; this is the net result available
for literature in the nineteenth century.
Carlyle's heart was always here in
Scotland. A vague, yearning home-
sickness se*emed ever to possess him.
" The Hill I first saw the Sun rise over,"
he says in Past and Present, " when the
Sun and I and all things were yet in
their auroral hour, who can divorce me
from it? Mystic, deep as the world's
centre, are the roots I have struck into
my Native Soil ; no tree that grows is
rooted so." How that mournful retro-
spective glance haunts his pages ! His
race, generation upon generation, had
toiled and wrought here amid the lonely
moors, had wrestled with poverty and
privation, had wrung the earth for a
scanty subsistence, till they had become
identified with the soil, kindred with it.
How strong the family ties had grown
in the struggle ; how the sentiment of
home was fostered ! Then they were
men who lavished their heart and con-
science upon their work ; they builded
themselves, their days, their thoughts and
sorrows, into their houses ; they leavened
the soil with the sweat of their rugged
brows. When his father, after a lapse
of fifty years, saw Auldgarth bridge,
upon which he had worked as a lad, he
was deeply moved. When Carlyle in
his turn saw it, and remembered his
father and all he had told him, he also
was deeply moved. " It was as if half a

century of past time had fatefully for
moments turned back." Whatever the
Carlyles touched with their hands in
honest toil became sacred to them, a
page out of their own lives. A silent,
inarticulate kind of religion they put
into their work. All this bore fruit in
their distinguished descendant. It gave
him that reverted, half-mournful gaze ;
the ground was hallowed behind him ;
his dead called to him from their graves.
Nothing deepens and intensifies family
traits like poverty and toil and suffering.
It is the furnace heat that brings out
the characters, the pressure that makes
the strata perfect. One recalls Carlyle's
grandmother getting her children up late
at night, his father one of them, to break
their long fast with oaten cakes from the
meal that had but just arrived ; making
the fire from straw taken from their
beds. Surely, such things reach the
springs of being.

It seemed eminently fit that Carlyle's
dust should rest here in his native soil,
with that of his kindred, he was so thor-
oughly one of them, and that his place
should be next his mother's, between
whom and himself there existed such
strong affection. I recall a little glimpse
he gives of his mother in a letter to his
brother John, while the latter was study-
ing in Germany. His mother had visit-
ed him in Edinburgh. " I had her," he
writes, " at the pier of Leith, and showed
her where your ship vanished ; and she
looked over the blue waters eastward
with wettish eyes, and asked the dumb
waves ' when he would be back again.'
Good mother."

To see more of Ecclefechan and its
people, and to browse more at my leisure
about the country, I brought my wife
and youngster down from Lockerby ;
and we spent several days there, putting
up at the quiet and cleanly lit£le Bush
Inn. I tramped much about the neigh-
borhood, noting the birds, the wild
flowers, the people, the farm occupations,
etc. : going one afternoon to Scotsbrig,

1883.]

In Carlyle's Country.

325

where the Carlyles lived after they left
Mainhill, and where James Carlyle died ;
one day to Annan, another to Repent-
ance Hill, another over the hill toward
Kirtlebridge, tasting the land, and find-
ing it good. It is an evidence of how
permanent and unchanging things are
here that the house where Carlyle was
born, eighty-seven years ago, and which-
his father built, stands just as it did
then, and looks good for several hun-
dred years more. In going up to the
little room where he first saw the light,
one ascends the much-worn but original
stone stairs, and treads upon the orig-
inal stone floors. I suspect that even
the window panes in the little window
remain the same. The village is a very
quiet and humble one, paved with small
cobble-stone, over which one hears the
clatter of the wooden clogs, the same as
in Carlyle's early days. The pavement
comes quite up to the low, modest, stone-
floored houses, and one steps from the
street directly into most of them. When
an Englishman or a Scotchman builds a
house in the country, he turns its back
upon the highway, or places it several
rods distant, with sheds or stables be-
tween ; or else he surrounds it with a
high, massive fence, shutting out yoar
view entirely. In the village he crowds
it to the front, continues the street pave-
ment into his hall, if he can, allows no
fence or screen between it and the street,
but makes the communication between
the two as easy and open as possible.
Hence village houses and cottages are
far less private and secluded than ours,
and country houses far less public. The
only feature of Ecclefechan, besides the
church, that distinguishes it from the
humblest peasant village of an hundred
years ago is the large, fine stone struc-
ture used for the public school. It con-
fers a sort of distinction upon the place,
as if it were in some way connected with
the memory of its famous son. I think
I was informed that he had some hand
in founding it. The building in which

he first attended school is a low, hum-
ble dwelling, that now stands behind the
church, and forms part of the boundary
between the cemetery and the Annan
road.

From our window I used to watch
the laborers on their way to their work,
the children going to school, or to the
pump for water, and night and morning
the women bringing in their cows from
the pasture to be milked. In the longl
June gloaming the evening milking was
not done till about nine o'clock. On
two occasions, the first in a brisk rain,
a bedraggled, forlorn, deeply - hooded,
youngish woman, came slowly through
the street, pausing here and there, and
singing in wild, melancholy, and not
unpleasing strains. Her voice had a
strange piercing plaintiveness and wild-
ness.' Now and then a penny would drop
at her feet. The pretty Edinburgh lass,
her hair redder than Scotch gold, that
waited upon us at the inn, went out in
the rain and put a penny in her hand.
After a few pennies had been collected
the music would stop, and the singer
disappear, — to drink up her gains, I
half suspect, but do not know. I noticed
that she was never treated with rudeness
or disrespect. The boys would pause
and regard her occasionally, but made
no remark, or gesture, or grimace. One
afternoon a traveling show pitched its
tent in the broader part of the street,
and by diligent grinding of a hand-organ
summoned all the children of the place
to see the wonders. The admission was
one penny, and I went in with the rest,
and saw the little man, the big dog, the
happy family, and the gaping, dirty-
faced, but orderly crowd of boys and
girls. The Ecclefechan boys, with some
of whom I tried, not very successfully, to
scrape an acquaintance, I found a sober,
quiet, modest set, shy of strangers, and,
like all country boys, incipient natural-
ists. If you want to know where the
bird's-nests are, ask the boys. Hence,
one Sunday afternoon, meeting a couple

326

In Carlyle's Country.

[March,

of them on the Annan road, I put the
inquiry. They looked rather blank and
unresponsive at first ; but I made them
understand I was in earnest, and wished
to be shown some nests. To stimulate
their ornithology I offered a penny for
the first nest, twopence for the second,
threepence for the third, etc., — a re-
ward that, as it turned out, lightened my
burden of British copper considerably ;
for these boys appeared to know every
nest in the neighborhood, and I sus-
pect had just then been making Sunday
calls upon their feathered friends. They
turned about, with a bashful smile, but
without a word, and marched me a few
paces along the road, when they stepped
to the hedge, and showed me a hedge-
sparrow's nest with young. The moth-
er bird was near, with food in her beak.
This nest is a great favorite of the
cuckoo, and is the one to which Shake-
speare refers : —

11 The hedge-sparrovr fed the cuckoo so long
That it had its head bit off by its young."

The bird is not a sparrow at all, but is
a warbler, closely related to the night-
ingale. Then they conducted me along
a pretty by-road, and parted away the
branches, and showed me a sparrow's
nest with eggs in it. A group of wild
pansies, the first I had seen, made bright
the bank near it. Next, after conferring
a moment soberly together, they took
me to a robin's nest, — a warm, mossy
structure in the side of the bank. Then
we wheeled up another road, and they
disclosed the nest of the yellow yite, or
yellow-hammer, a bird of the sparrow
kind, also upon the ground. It seemed
to have a little platform of coarse, dry
| stalks, like a door-stone, in front of it.
In the mean time they had showed me
several nests of the hedge-sparrow, and
one of the shelfa, or chaffinch, that had
been " harried," as the boys said, or
robbed. These were gratuitous and
merely by the way. Then they pointed
out to me the nest of a torn-tit in a dis-
used pump that stood near the cemetery;

after which they proposed to conduct me
to a chaffinch's nest and a blackbird's
nest ; but I said I had already seen sev-
eral of these and my curiosity was satis-
fied. Did they know any others? Yes,
several of them ; beyond the village, on
the Middlebie road, they knew a wren's
nest with eighteen eggs in it. Well,
I would see that, arid that would be
enough ; the coppers were changing
pockets too fast. So through the vil-
lage we went, and along the Middlebie
road for nearly a mile. The boys were
as grave and silent as if they were at-
tending a funeral ; not a remark, not a
smile. We walked rapidly. The after-
noon was warm, for Scotland, and the
tips of their ears glowed through their
locks, as they wiped their brows. I be-
gan to feel as if I had had about enough
walking myself. " Boys, how much far-
ther is it ? " I said. " A wee bit far-
ther, sir ; " and presently, by their in-
creasing pace, I knew we were nearing
it. It proved to be the nest of the wil-
low wren, or willow warbler, an exqui-
site structure, with a dome or canopy
above it, the cavity lined with feathers
and crowded with eggs. But it did not
contain eighteen. The boys said they
had been told that the bird would lay as
many as eighteen eggs ; but it is the
common wren that lays this number,
even more. What struck me most was
the gravity and silent earnestness of the
boys. As we walked back they showed
me more nests that had been harried.
The elder boy's name was Thomas.
He had heard of Thomas Carlyle ; but
when I asked him what he thought of
him, he only looked awkwardly upon
the ground.

I had less trouble to get the opinion
of an old road-mender whom I fell in
with one day. I was walking toward
Repentance Hill, when he overtook me
with his " machine " (all road vehicles
in Scotland are called machines), and
insisted upon my getting up beside him.
He had a little white pony, " twenty-

1883.]

In Carlyle's Country.

327

one years old, sir," and a heavy, rattling
two-wheeler, quite as old I should say.
We discoursed about roads. Had we
good roads in America ? No ? Had we
no " metal " there, no stone ? Plen-
ty of it, I told him, — too much ; but
we had not learned the art of road-mak-
ing yet. Then he would have to come
" out " and show us ; indeed, he had
been seriously thinking about it; he
had an uncle in America, but had lost
all track of him. He had seen Car-
lyle many a time, " but the people here
took no interest in that man," he said ;
" he never done nothing for this place."
Referring to Carlyle's ancestors, he said,
" The Carls were what we Scotch call
bullies, — a set of bullies, sir. Jf you
crossed their path, they would murder
you ; " and then came out some highly-
colored tradition of the " Ecclefechan
dog fight," which Carlyle refers to in his
Reminiscences. On this occasion, the
old road-mender said, the "Carls" had
clubbed together, and bullied and mur-
dered half the people of the place ! " No,
sir, we take no interest in that man
here," and he gave the pony a sharp
punch with his stub of a whip. But he
himself took a friendly interest in the
school -girls whom we overtook along
the road, and kept picking them up till
the cart was full, and giving the "las-
sies " a lift on their way home. Be-
yond Annan bridge we parted company,
and a short walk brought me to Re-
pentance Hill, a grassy eminence that
commands a wide prospect toward the-
Solway. The tower which stands on
the top is one of those interesting relics
of which this land is full, and all mem-
ory and tradition of the use and occasion
of which are lost. It is a rude stone
structure, about thirty feet square and
forty high, pierced by a single door,
with the word " Repentance " cut in
Old English letters in the lintel over it.
The walls are loop-holed here and there,
for musketry or archery. An old dis-
used graveyard surrounds it, and the

walls of a little chapel stand in the rear
of it. The conies have their holes under
it ; some lord, whose castle lies in the
valley below, has his flagstaff upon it ;
and Time's initials are scrawled on every
stone. A piece of mortar probably three
or four hundred years old, that had fall-
en from its place, I picked up, and found
nearly as hard as the stone, and quite as
gray and lichen-covered. Returning, I
stood some time on Annan bridge, look-
ing over the parapet into the clear, swirl-
ing water, now and then seeing a trout
leap. Whenever the pedestrian comes
to one of these arched bridges, he must
pause and admire, it is so unlike what he
is acquainted with at home. It is a real
viaduct ; it conducts not merely the trav-
eler over, it conducts the road over as
well. Then an arched bridge is ideally
perfect ; there is no room for criticism,
— 'not one superfluous touch or stroke ;
every stone tells, and tells entirely. Of
a piece of architecture, we can say this
or that, but of one of these old bridges
this only : it satisfies every sense of the
mind. It has the beauty of poetry, and
the precision of mathematics. The old-
er bridges, like this over the Annan, are
slightly hipped, so that the road rises
gradually from either side to the key of
the arch ; this adds to their beauty, and
makes them look more like things of
life. The modern bridges are all level
on the top, which increases their utility.
Two laborers, gossiping on the bridge,
said I could fish by simply going and
asking leave of some functionary about
the castle.

Shakespeare says of the martlet, that it
" Builds in the weather on the outward wall,
Even in the force and road of casualty."

I noticed that a pair had built their
nest on an iron bracket under the eaves
of a building opposite our inn, which
proved to be in the "road of casualty;"
for one day the painters began scraping
the building, preparatory to giving it a
new coat of paint, and the '; procreant
cradle " was knocked down. The swal-

328

In Carlyle's Country.

[March,

lows did not desert the place, however,
but were at work again next morning
before the painters were. The Scotch,
by the way, make a free use of paint.
They even paint their tombstones. Most
of them, I observed, were brown stones
painted white. Carlyle's father once
sternly drove the painters from his door
when they had been summoned by the
younger members of his family to give
the house a coat " o' pent." " Ye can
jist pent the bog wi' yer ash-baket feet
for ye '11 pit nane o' yer glaur on ma
door." But the painters have had their
revenge at last, and their " glaur " now
covers the old man's tombstone.

One day I visited a little overgrown
cemetery about a mile below the village,
toward Kirtlebridge, and saw many of
the graves of the old stock of Carlyles,
among them some of Carlyle's uncles.
This name occurs very often in those
old cemeteries ; they were evidently a
prolific and hardy race. The name
Thomas is a favorite one among them,
insomuch that I saw the graves and
headstones of eight Thomas Carlyles in
the two graveyards. The oldest Carlyle
tomb I saw was that of one John Car-
lyle, who died in 1692. The inscription
upon his stone is as follows : —

" Heir Lyes John Carlyle of Peners-
saughs, who departed this life ye 17 of
May 1692, and of age 72, and His
Spouse Jannet Davidson, who departed
this life Febr. ye 7, 1708, and of age
73. Erected by John, his son."

The old sexton, whom I frequently
saw in the churchyard, lives in the Car-
lyle house. He knew the family well,
and had some amusing and character-
istic anecdotes to relate of Carlyle's fa-
ther, the redoubtable James, mainly il-
lustrative of his bluntness and plainness
of speech. The sexton pointed out, with
evident pride, the few noted graves the
churchyard held ; that of the elder Peel
being among them. He spoke of many
of the oldest graves as " extinct ; " no-
body owned or claimed them ; the name

had disappeared, and the ground was
used a second time. The ordinary graves
in these old burying places appear to
become " extinct " in about two hundred
years. It was very rare to find a date
older than that. He said the " Carls "
were a peculiar set; there was nobody
like them. You would know them, man
and woman, as soon as they opened
their mouths to speak ; they spoke as if
against a stone wall. (Their words hit
hard.) This is somewhat like Carlyle's
own view of his style. " My style," he
says in his note-book, when he was
thirty-eight years of age, " is like no
other man's. The first sentence bewrays
me." Indeed, Carlyle's style, which has
been so criticised, was as much a part
of himself, and as little an affectation, as
his shock of coarse yeoman hair and
bristly beard and bleared eyes were a
part of himself ; he inherited them.
What Taine calls his barbarisms was his
strong mason sire cropping out. He
was his father's son to the last drop
of his blood, a master builder working
with might and main. No more did the
former love to put a rock face upon his
wall than did the latter to put the same
rock face upon his sentences ; and he
could do it, too, as no other writer, an-
cient or modern, could.

I occasionally saw strangers at the
station, which is a mile from the village,
inquiring their way to the churchyard ;
but I was told there had been a notable
falling off of the pilgrims and visitors,
of late. During the first few months
after his burial, they nearly denuded the
grave of its turf ; but after the publica-
tion of the Reminiscences, the number
of silly geese that came there to crop the
grass was much fewer. No real lover
of Carlyle was ever disturbed by those
Reminiscences ; but to the throng that
run after a man because he is famous,
and that chip his headstone or carry
away the turf above him when he is
dead, they were happily a great bug-
aboo.

1883.]

In Carlyle^ Country.

329

A most agreeable walk I took one
day down to Annan. Irving's name still
exists there, but I believe all his near
kindred have disappeared. Across the
street from the little house where he
was born, this sign may be seen : " Ed-
ward Irving, Flesher." While in Glas-
gow, I visited Irving's grave, in the
crypt of the cathedral, a most dismal
place, and was touched to see the bronze
tablet that marked its site in the pave-
ment bright and shining, while those
about it, of Sir this or Lady that, were
dull and tarnished. Did some devoted
hand keep it scoured, or was the polish-
ing done by the many feet that paused
thoughtfully above this name ? Irving
would long since have been forgotten by
the world had it not been for his con-
nection with Carlyle, and it was prob-
ably the lustre of the latter's memory
that I saw reflected in the metal that
bore Irving's name. The two men must
have been of kindred genius in many
ways, to have been so drawn to each
other, but Irving had far less hold upon
reality ; his written word has no pro-
jectile force. It makes a vast difference
whether you burn gunpowder on a
shovel or in a gun barrel. Irving may
be said to have made a brilliant flash, and
then to have disappeared in the smoke.

Some men are like nails, easily drawn ;
others are like rivets, not drawable at
all. Carlyle is a rivet, well headed in.
He is not going to give way, and be for-
gotten soon. People who differed from
him in opinion have stigmatized him as
an actor, a mountebank, a rhetorician,
but he was committed to his purpose
and to the part he played with the force
of gravity. Behold how he toiled ! He
says, " One monster there is in the
world : the idle man." He did not
merely preach the gospel of work ; he
was it, — an indomitable worker from
first to last. How he delved ! How he
searched for. a sure foundation, like a
master builder, fighting his way through
rubbish and quicksands till he reached

the rock ! Each one of his review arti-
cles cost him a mouth or more of serious
work. Sartor Resartus cost him nine
months, the French Revolution three
years, Cromwell four years, Frederick,
thirteen years. No surer does the Auld-
garth bridge, that his father help build,
carry the traveler over the turbulent
water beneath it than these books con-
vey the reader over chasms and con-
fusions, where before there was no way,
or only an inadequate one. Carlyle
never wrote a book except to clear some
gulf or quagmire, to span and conquer
some chaos. No architect or engineer
ever had purpose more tangible and
definite. To further the reader on his
way, not to beguile or amuse him, was
always his purpose. He had that con-
tempt for all dallying and toying and
lightness and frivolousness that hard,
serious workers always have. He was
impatient of poetry and art ; they savored
too much of play and levity. His own
work was not done lightly and easily,
but with labor throes and pains, as of
planting his piers in a weltering flood
and chaos. The spirit of struggling and
wrestling which he had inherited was
always uppermost. It seems as if the
travail and yearning of his mother had
passed upon him as a birth-mark. The
universe was madly rushing about him,
seeking to engulf him. Things assumed
threatening and spectral shapes. There
was little joy or serenity for him. Every
task he proposed to himself was a strug-
gle with chaos and darkness, real or im-
aginary. He speaks of " Frederick " as
a nightmare ; the " Cromwell business "
as toiling amid mountains of dust. I
know of no other man in literature with
whom the sense of labor is so enhanced
and terrible. That vast, grim, strug-
gling, silent, inarticulate array of an-
cestral force that lay in him, when the
burden of written speech was laid upon
it, half rebelled, and would not cease
to struggle and be inarticulate. There
was a plethora of power : a channel, as

330

Antagonism.

[March,

through rocks, had to be made for it, and
there was an incipient cataclysm when-
ever a book was to be written. What
brings joy and buoyancy to other men,
-namely, a genial task, brought despair
and convulsions to him. It is not the
effort of composition, — he was a rapid
and copious writer and speaker, — but
. the pressure of purpose, the friction of
power and velocity, the sense of over-
coming the demons and mud-gods and
frozen torpidity, he so often refers to.
Hence no writing extant is so little like
writing, and gives so vividly the sense
of something done. He may praise si-
lence and glorify work. The unspeak-
able is ever present with him ; it is the
core of every sentence; the inarticulate
is round about him ; a solitude like that
of space encompasseth him. His books
are not easy reading ; they are a kind
of wrestling to most persons. Yet his
style does not labor, like that of a dull
and heavy man. It is like a road made
of rocks : when it is good, there is noth-
ing like it ; and when it is bad, there is
nothing like it !

In Past and Present, Carlyle has un-
consciously painted his own life and
character in truer colors than has any
one else : " Not a May-game is this
man's life, but a battle and a march, a
warfare with principalities and powers ;
no idle promenade through fragrant
orange groves and green flowery spaces,
waited on by the choral Muses and the
rosy Hours : it is a stern pilgrimage
through burning sandy solitudes, through
regions of thick-ribbed ice. He walks
among men ; loves men with inexpressi-
ble soft pity, as they cannot love him;
but his soul dwells in solitude, in the
uttermost parts of Creation. In green
oases by the palm-tree wells, he rests a
space ; but anon he has to journey for-
ward, escorted by the Terrors and the
Splendors, the Archdemons and Arch-
angels. All heaven, all pandemonium,
are his escort." Part of the world will
doubtless persist in thinking that pande-
monium furnished his chief counsel and
guide ; but there are enough who think
otherwise, and their numbers are bound
to increase in the future.

John Burroughs.

ANTAGONISM.

" ' Hath spied an icy fish
That longed to 'scape the rock-stream where she

lived,

And thaw herself within the lukewarm brine
O' the lazy sea her stream thrusts far amid,
A crystal spike 'twixt two warm walls of wave;
Only she ever sickened, found repulse
At the other kind of water, not her life,
(Green-dense and dim-delicious, bred o' the sun)
Flounced back from bliss she was not bora to

breathe,

And in her old bounds buried her despair,
Hating and loving warmth alike."

ARTHUR DIGBY lay stretched at ease
in a reading-chair, under the shade of
tender new vine leaves, turning the
pages of a summer novel ; dividing his
time fairly between the woes of his her-

oine, the capricious fluttering of shad-
ows in the air over his head, the com-
ing and going of his uncle on the shaded
veranda, and his own sensation of gen-
eral well-being.

Through a happy consciousness of
fortunate circumstances, as of summer
weather, beauty of prospect, bodily ease,
quiet, amusement, flowed a strong under-
current of full, energetic, rather stren-
uous life ; life of the. intellect, of the
affections, of hopes, memories, impres-
sions, opinions, and habits. All this
made a sort of music in his>ears, blended
and may be intricate, but with nothing
now strongly discordant. Suddenly he

1883.]

Antagonism.

331

felt an arrest of the tide of sensation
and thought, as if some one had touched,
with the tip of a finger, the spring which
set all these energies in motion. He
closed the book, sat erect, broke off
abruptly his connection with objective
existence, ceased auditing his own be-
ing, as it were, and took on a state of
keen expectation. In a moment the
whole disposition of his consciousness
was changed. The agreeable circum-
stances remained, but now, instead of
making part of an idly shifting pano-
rama, they took the place of scenery and
appointment, fixed and subordinate,
other interests filling the field of his
attention.

He rose, tossed aside the book, stood
two or three minutes in a state of in-
tense absorption ; then took up his hat,
spoke a few words with his uncle, went
across the lawn, along the garden walks,
through a short field path, and reached
a rustic gate opening into thick pine
forest. Here he paused, not as weigh-
ing whether he should proceed, but as
having matter to consider that needed
fuller attention. He was, in fact, ad-
justing himself to a new situation.

Those experiences which have stirred
us pleasantly or deeply, and which seem
to have floated far behind and been lost
in the rush of the present, do but with-
draw from the intrusive presence of ur-
gent interests, and bide their time to
press upon the spirit ; giving, where they
muster in force and come without call,
an odd sense of life within life, as when
lights are turned down on the stage, re-
vealing another set of larger energies
going on outside the narrow action of
the scene, — much as if we suddenly
realized that higher intelligences were
watching our rather petty proceedings
and wondering at us. Those who con-
nect the most insignificant or trivial cir-
cumstances with some spiritual import,
whose impressions reach through sense
to soul, will be occasionally overtaken
by this sort of visitation from their ac-

cumulated experiences. To the young
and happy they come, if at all, like a
" sudden glory," bewildering but sweet.
To the old and sad the experience is
sometimes half a frenzy, too terrible to
be borne. But the past has its rights,
its existence, more real than the future ; -
and though we turn away our eyes from
beholding it, it is always with us, rolled
away like a scroll in unsuspected depths
of our being.

A young man's capabilities of feeling
have usually established such relations
with the susceptibilities of other young
people as to have produced abundant
matter for summer afternoon reverie,
and to have so preempted his conscience
that he instinctively turns to his emo-
tional relations to account for and jus-
tify any unusual commotion of spirit.
This was the case with Digby. He
knew well enough where the summons
came from which had interrupted his
degage interlude. It meant the rather
importunate return of a condition which
he had put off a year ago, with some
resolution, and which had since stood in
apparently willing abeyance to interests
agreeable enough, and seemingly able to
replace it. The scene was now sudden-
ly shifted, the change following close
upon his return to a locality associated
with the former rule, as might have
been anticipated. His surprise lay in
the fact that he had not voluntarily or
consciously reverted to what had gone
before, but had been abruptly confronted
with a return of his old mental condi-
tions, as if they had in themselves power
and will to push aside what had come
between them and his attention. But
the transformation, if complete, was not
yet disturbing ; and though the mood
toward which his face was set, upon
whose threshold he stood, in fact, was
not one to be lightly esteemed, he
walked among his ancestral groves in a
temper as unagitated as their own.

Deep into the woods, by a broad,
winding avenue, which had been so long

332

Antagonism.

[March,

closed to wheels that their marks were
wholly effaced, and the thick carpet of
dried pine needles had covered the road
bed ; with sudden near gleams of shin-
ing water, before, at the right, behind,
according as the way wound ; with
noises growing fainter and remoter ;
with deep glades opening across his
path ; with wide, level stretches, where
the trees stood in ranks like guests at a
ceremony, and the light broke through
and lay in broad patches, where bees
and butterflies swarmed ; into thick,
green glooms uuwarmed by the mild air ;
up or down steep slopes where the tips
of the upper branches almost touched
the sharply-tilted ground ; with the whole
catalogue of movement, odor, color,
form, light, shade, expression, promise,
and suggestion, combining, shifting,
opening, and disappearing about him,
weaving that magic web which can only,
from default of language, be inadequate-
ly named the charm of the woods, —
through and past all this he went, alive
to the influences and significances of
his entourage, but also aware of his
progress into a set of influences as ab-
sorbing, as elevated, as elusive and in-
comprehensible, as the elements which
soothed, charmed, and mocked his phys-
ical sense; a set of emotional circum-
stances exactly parallel to the true,
healing, friendly spirit of the woods, in-
finite to please, but never yielding, never
to be seized and possessed, never to be
subordinated or engrossed ; a transla-
tion of the attributes and influences of
nature into what it pleases us to call a
higher form, namely, into human pas-
sions and powers.

The outer world and the inner kept
time. Presently he came where both
worlds seemed to invite him to stop and
give them audience, — a small chamber
in the wide extent of the estate, where
the forest was particularly silent and
clean, as if long undisturbed by human
presence. A natural boundary of con-
formation and growth gave a sense of

seclusion to the spot. The eye took in
all, and was not teased with a desire
to investigate beyond. Gentle slope
and elevation varied the surface with
that exquisiteness of natural proportion
which disguises actual extent ; satisfying
the desire for breathing room, but not
displaying large, distracting distances.

The ground was elastic with a fine,
strong grass, like green hair, growing
through the thick deposit from the pines.
Patches of vivid green alternated with
spaces of rich reddish-brown, here and
there dimly flecked with a rain of sun-
light, which the ground seemed to drink
in, and again give out in a dark, pervad-
ing brightness. The trees stood in rows,
like self-possessed, silent men under in-
spection.

Digby stood a while, conscious of the
beauty of the spot, des Waldes Heilig-
keit. It was unspeakably restful and
inviting, like a quiet inner room, to
which one is led by favor of the host.
He took possession, throwing himself
down upon the ground. Far above his
head the tree-tops swayed in a soft,
strong breeze, which also blew intermit-
tently among their trunks, and softly
fanned him ; tall, slender birches rocked
in the upper half of their height, with
that motion of unconscious ease and el-
egance which nothing can counterfeit,
as if they rocked from inward impulse
to the swell of their own thoughts.
Sounds in all keys and motions of every
gentle character made him feel as if a
presence filled the wood, strong and
sympathetic, but too large and wise to
encroach, or be encroached upon. That
sense of summer and beauty which can-
not be shut out -from vigorous nerves,
flowed round him, and a thousand exqui-
site thoughts softly burst into blossom,
in the quiet reaches of his mind, like
sleeping lilies on a lake at the first
touch of the morning sun.

What can mortal do at such a ban-
quet but feed thankfully, and fall to
peaceful rest ? To feed and sleep are

1883.]

Antagonism.

333

ever the two great processes of healthy
existence, whether of soul or of body.
Digby fell into a peace so profound that
his very spirit slept ; but it was that
transparent sleep through which any
outside influence may penetrate, pro-
vided it be elemental, and in harmony
with the influences which have produced
the state, — the sleep in which the body
does not obstruct the spirit, but lends it
its perceptions.

To such a state impressions come like
dreams. For a long time he seemed to
have floated free of physical sensations,
and to have known only from within
that the sky was blue, the breeze soft
and strong, the motion of the tree-tops
like that of grass under water, and the
varied soft sounds music in his own
brain. And for what seemed a long
time an impression had made itself felt,
hanging in the firmament of his mood
like a cloud in the blue sky, silent and
motionless. It began presently to trans-
form itself into an idea, a hope, a belief,
a knowledge, at last an actual presence.
As softly as a shadow lies upon a meadow
this presence lay on his consciousness.

His perception, which had seemed to
widen until it lay outside the whole
world of sense, now shrank to his own
physical dimension. In other wor'ds,
the body regained its control, and the
man could use his eyes. And there, at
the far end of the narrow, bridge-like
neck of land which led into the distance,
slowly gliding across the narrow spaces
where dim light showed between the
trees, melting from one altitude to an-
other between them, showing almost un-
naturally tall, like the statue of a saint
in a niche, approaching him and seem-
ing to bring the distance with her, who
but Helen Birney, somehow grown out
of the fitness of the situation. Bring-
ing the distance with her ; not the dis-
tance alone, but the past, — the past,
which had somehow grown a little un-
familiar, like a garment found in a ward-
robe after a year's forgetting.

Arthur Digby was not yet out of his
trance as to his will. Volition wakes
late in such a passive mood. He watched
idly while the lady moved toward him ;
half feeling that he saw her through his
closed lids, but in reality watching her
with wide-open eyes, that seemed to
have been lately filled with dreams.
She walked onward, as if she were en-
tering her parlor to receive him, came
quite up to him, smiled a little, serious-
ly, looking down upon him.

" Hie jacet" said she. Then, as he
made no motion, " Shall I help you to
rise ? "

He got up hastily. " I was under some
kind of a spell. How do you do ? "

" How do you do ? "

" The ship rocks badly, you see," said
he, stumbling over a little knoll.

" Have you so lately returned ? "

" Twenty-four hours ago I was in
that berth which, to me, is very like
death. The ground takes unhandsome
advantage of me. It is your ground,
too, I believe."

" No, this is yours. The line is just
over there."

" You had ever a keen sense of our
boundaries. If this is really my land,
I may curse it, may I not ? " he said,
having tumbled back over the same
knoll. " Will you sit down upon my
land ? If we both sit upon it, perhaps
it won't tip about so."

" You make me laugh."

" I wish I could make you cry. Don't
be alarmed if I make sudden and un-
seemly lurches toward you. I feel that
we ought to shake hands."

" Is it safe ? Sit down, and I will
come and shake hands with you."

" No, indeed ! On my own terra in-
firma, I must do the honors with such
staggering grace as I can muster. I will
come round this knoll. I will circum-
vent it. Once more, how do you do ? "

They shook hands, without the usual
compliments.

" I am dazzled at beholding you, —

334

Antagonism.

[March,

an effect you are accustomed to produce,
but it disconcerts me a little. I do not
know • what to say next. Let us sit
down and glare at each other a little
while. Some faint intelligence may
come to me in that way."

" You had better lean against a tree."

'* The trees seem disposed to lean
against me. However, I am recovering,
secondarily, so to speak, and I think I
can maintain an unstable equilibrium
while you sit, — if you will sit."

" Oh, yes, with pleasure." She sat
upon the ground, and leaned against a
huge pine trunk. Arthur seated himself
a little farther down, where he could
look up at her, and where .she could, if
she wished, see over his head, without
appearing to avoid him. They watched
each other in silence for a while.

" I made a mistake. I should n't
like to make you cry."

"No," she said, "I am sure you
would n't."

" You almost make me cry. I had for-
gotten that I should see you in black."

" But you knew" —

" I knew immediately that you had
lost your brother. It has been very
hard for you."

She had to wait a minute before she
could answer, "Yes, it has been very
hard for us."

" It has changed you."

" Do I seem much changed ? "

" You are less intense, more serene."

" Less as if thinking of myself, more
as if regardful of others."

" You can never have been taken up
with yourself in any common sense."

" I live more outside of myself than
I used. Perhaps 1 am less ready to
trust myself than formerly."

" Sorrow brings us nearer others, or
others nearer to us," said Digby, with
a sudden realization of the economic re-
lation of this truth to his own case, as
on the wrong side of the account.

" Yes, I care more for people than
I did a year ago."

" Then it must be well with you in a
very important sense."

She turned away, and, with an air
he did not fathom, replied. " Yes, it is
well with me in many senses."

He said to himself that she was tak-
ing it beautifully.

" Could you tell me something " —
A 'half - startled inquiry in her eyes
checked him. " Do not ! It would pain
you too much."

" It was sudden, shocking — No ! I
am afraid I cannot speak of it."

" I have no right to ask it ; but I
sympathize with you deeply."

"Thank you. I could count upon
your kindness for that."

" I wish you had felt like saying
friendship, instead of kindness."

" With your warrant, I shall certainly
say it, next time."

" Have I been away so long ? "

" I did n't mean to be unfriendly, but
I am always afraid of assuming too
much."

" That is unfriendly, whether you
mean it or not. The test of friendship
is the extent to which you count upon
your friends."

" Perhaps it is, with men. But I
think I have no sense of proportion. If
I give myself liberty, it is apt to be-
come license."

" License ! Oh, try it on me ! "

" Not for worlds and worlds ! "

"You make me feel as if time and
space had indeed come between us.
What was that old superstition, — that if
water came between friends the friend-
ship was drowned ? "

" A year is a long time, if much hap-
pens."

" I wish I had been here ! "

A very faint shade of confusion
showed itself in her countenance. She
said, a little hurriedly, " Thank you
for the wish, but you could not have
changed anything."

" Do you mean that I should have
been nothing to you ? "

1883.]

Antagonism.

335

" We saw no one, of course, — at
first ; and then my uncle came from
England immediately. We were taken
care of. People were very kind. I
am glad you escaped the sadness of it."

He felt his conscience accuse him
that he had indeed escaped the sadness
of it, and that he should have felt better
at that moment if, not having been per-
mitted to share her grief, he had at
least borne her company in heaviness
of his own exclusion from her sorrow ;
and said, as compounding with his re-
gret, " A man might like to share the
sadness of his friends."

" A man feels bound to do it, per-
haps ; but it is every way better that
people should be sp'ared sorrow when-
ever it is possible."

" Next to knowing that our friends
have no griefs is the wish to lighten what
they have." A handsome generaliza-
tion, to be sure, but Digby had an in-
stant feeling that it might ring rather
false. There was a guilty consciousness
of a kind of insincerity, though he cer-
tainly meant at least as much as he said.
He was hampered a little by certain
rather conflicting considerations, and
feared to become involved in embarrass-
ments ; feared, too, to involve his com-
panion in embarrassment. He had,
however, hoped that his remark might
stand in her mind as a proposition from
which deductions might be drawn at
convenience.

There had been no need of a reply,
but after a minute of silence she said,
as if selecting the most non-committal
phrase, " You are very good, I 'm sure."

Plainly, the handsome generalization
had not been taken home.

" Tell me about your journey."

" Quite the same old story. Or, no ;
not quite the same, because my uncle
enjoyed it so much. That gave a new
color to much of it," he added, with a
knowledge that he was not reporting, and
could not report, all the hues that had
been thrown over his year's wandering.

" How is Dr. Digby ? "

" Better. Quite well, in fact. He
is to call upon your mother this after-
noon. Does she see any one ? "

" She will see him. You must come
home with me, too."

" Thank you. I was, in fact, on my
way there."

u I heard of you, occasionally. You
know May Dudley is a great friend of
mine. She wrote to me constantly, and
spoke of meeting you."

" Indeed ! Then you know some of
the places we visited. Their route was
nearly the same as ours. She came
over in the ship with us, and has gone
to New York."

" Yes, I know. We had letters not
two hours ago."

Arthur felt a little jar in these com-
monplace phrases, which touched some-
thing he had in his mind. He won-
dered whether Helen had anything in
her mind.

" Do you know " — She hesitated
with an evident reluctance to finishing
what she had begun ; then began again :
" Do you know — of course you do not
know. My mother and I sail in four
weeks."

" You are going away ? Just as I re-
turn ! No, I have not been told it."

" We go for some time, — in the Ser-
via. You came in the Servia, did n't
you ? "

" Yes ; but there was nothing about
the ship to tell me that you would go
away in her. ' Across the water drowns
friendship.' I must go back with you,
or — The moment I put my foot on
land, you go away. No one told me*
that you — However, I saw no one
but Atwood, who came down in the
train with me, last night. And by the
way, Atwood is going in the Servia.
Confound Atwood ! That is why he
smirked so. He used to frown at me, a
year ago. So he is going ! And in a
sea-voyage there are so many influences
and opportunities ! "

336

Antagonism.

[March,

" You speak not only as one having
authority, but also as the scribes."

" The scribes have, perhaps, written
something on my behalf," he quickly
replied, aware that much might well
have been said. '• But I envy Atwood.
In fact, I hate him. He will do no end
of things for you. You '11 let him, I
suppose."

" Yes," she replied, with an inscruta-
ble smile. " I shall let him be kind to
me if he will."

" I think I will hire a man to throw
him overboard. The tables are turned,
to be sure. I used to fancy myself in
his way."

" You are looking very well indeed.
I am glad to see it."

" London tailor, may be ; and then I
am heavier, and I am a little calmer, —
at least, I was an hour ago. I don't
give bonds for good behavior, mind
you. Recollect the load-stone mountain
of Sindbad. My principles and props of
all sorts will begin to fly presently, no
doubt, as they used. But I had gained.
I have learned that distance has a dead-
ening effect, and that if some people
keep away from some other people — I
am curious to see how long it will take
you to turn me into a helpless, incoher-
ent, distracted, desperate wretch, without
wheel or compass."

" You ought to be ashamed of your
metaphor, if nothing else. You look
much better. It is partly the tailor, I
think. I am very fond of fine clothes
for men, and you always look so com-
plete. But you look happy, too, as if
you had had a good time."

" But I am not a happy man, — un-
der your eyes."

" You are an idle man. No man is
good for much without an absorbing oc-
cupation. I wish you would ' settle
down,' as they say. Depend upon it,
you will become a nervous invalid, an
emotional hypochondriac. I wish you
had to earn your bread."

" So do I. I have wished it a hun-

dred times. And I really mean to go
in for something, — something tough.
You think I 've been long making up
my mind. So I have ; but the mind
has been a-makiug, all the same. In the
three years I have spent stirring the in-
gredients of my nature, I have learned
enough to last me some time. I 'm
dead sick of myself, and I am going in
for work. Perhaps I had better marry.
They say it takes the nonsense out of a
man."

" Yes, do ! " she said fervently.

"I have thought of marrying — you
must recommend some one — that is —
I think I will marry your friend, May
Dudley, if" —

"You couldn't* do better! She's
the sweetest girl living."

" She 's the very sweetest girl liv-
ing," said Digby soberly, with an utter
change of manner. " She makes me
calm and satisfied. I am not afraid of
her. If it were not profane to say it, I
could imagine her adoring — A man
likes to be adored. He is fond of think-
ing that women were made to adore.
That shocks you."

" By no means ! I see nothing
wrong in your feeling that a woman
should adore — her — the man she —
adores."

Digby tormented himself for a mo-
ment with the possibility of being adored
by Helen Birney, and for another mo-
ment with the probability of her adoring
another man. But he had already so
drawn upon his imagination for sensa-
tions of this variety that the answering
shock was short-lived and dull. More-
over, through most of what she had
said, he had felt a little of that draught
which blows between two people, when
one of them has that in his mind, un-
known to the other, bearing upon their
mutual relation, which throws a side
(perhaps slightly sinister) light upon
what is said. He seemed to feel that the
key had changed, and continued : —

" Did you ever think the woods were

1883.]

Antagonism.

337

haunted ? I feel a sudden sense of un-
reality, and could doubt my senses with-
out effort. As I look at you, the rays of
light reflected from you stretch out into
long, visible lines, dazzling like northern
lights. I have to grasp my intellectual
conviction that there is such a person,
to keep from floating away into bewil-
derment. I can half fancy myself about
to wake into a reality, and find all this
a dream."

" You are not quite waked."

" I will give you a better and alto-
gether more scientific and interesting
explanation. The usual current of im-
pressions setting in from without to-
ward the seat of consciousness is met
on the threshold of my mind by a tidal
wave, traveling in the other direction,
which wave has its origin in the inte-
rior, — a sort of earthquake wave, aris-
ing from a vague doubt or foreboding
that begins to take possession of me.
The two currents meet and fill my nerves
with confusion and trouble."

" That is, in effect, saying that you
are not yet waked, or that you are go-
ing to be ill."

" I will give you another explanation.
This is almost demonstrable, and so
rational that you will be pleased with
me. The combination of nerves which
reports you to my brain, and that con-
sequent play of powers evolving ideas
and speculations in regard to you, is
completely worn out with over-work.
They have become unable to perform
their duty, and the impressions stop
short of the centre, as in defective vis-
ion."

"Oh," said she, half vexed, "you
make me so ridiculous that I almost lose
patience ! "

" I will tell you something to restore
the balance. There were days and
days when I forgot you as absolutely as
if there were no such being ?n the
world."

" Bravo ! "

" N*est-ce pas ? " said Digby, ironic-

VOL. LI. — NO. 305. 22

ally. Then, after a little while, " ' Lo,
where it comes again ! ' "

" What comes again ? "

"The old creeping discontent, the
sense of failure and ignominy, hard to
bear for a man of my complexion."

" No one feels a sense of defeat who
has not proposed to triumph. You are
not a chivalrous man. You would will-
ingly lay a conquest at the feet of a
woman, but it must be a conquest of
herself."

"You are too clever for me. You
ought to make allowance. It is long
since I have been in court, and I had
fallen into a lazy habit of trading with
any loose change I happened to find in
my intellectual pockets. You make a
man draw on his capital."

" Dear me ! "

" Yes ; I always seem on the brink
of a sensation when I think of you or
talk with you. I begin to stand upon
the defensive as soon as we meet."

" I have noticed it."

" In yourself ? "

" In you."

" Oh ! " said Digby, with a whole
gamut of significance. " Then you do
not find yourself disturbed ? "

" Yes, reflexively."

" I am thankful for the smallest
crumb. Since I cannot move you on
your own account (a long, tentative
pause), I am glad, at least, to stir you
on mine."

" How unfriendly ! But I do not
think I really feel worried about you.
I only wonder " —

" Come ! that is something ! Keep
wondering about me ! I '11 do the mad-
dest things, if you will only keep on
wondering."

"Why can't you feel comfortable
with me? — for you can't. I can feel
you, I can almost see you, rousing your-
self into opposition. Oh, it is quite evi-
dent, I assure you ! I doubt if you ever
acquiesce inwardly in what I say. I
have tried to see through it, but I can-

338

Antagonism.

[March,

not. Depend upon it, there is some-
thing deeply, fundamentally inimical iu
our natures. I can imagine you hating
me bitterly. If we were of a low grade,
I can imagine you hurting me."

" Don't talk like that ! God knows,
I 'd hurt myself to the last and deadliest
degree, before I could have you touched.
Thank Heaven, I could not hurt you, if
I would ! "

This touch of genuine feeling seemed
to bring them a little nearer each other.
Digby went on : —

" I never took such pains for any-
thing in my life as I take to appear
well in your eyes. Do you know, you
sort of put a man upon his mettle, some
way. He is always straining to be supe-
rior, always trying to get your approval ;
always trying, you know, and apparent-
ly never succeeding."

" I know what you mean : always
trying to triumph."

" Oh, not so bald and brutal as that,
I 'm sure ! I suppose, if a man tries to
please a woman, he may like to succeed."

" For the sake of pleasing her, or
for the sake of compelling her to be
pleased ? "

" Ah ! If you are going into things
like that, just tell me what sort of man
it is that does n't want a woman to feel
that he can give as well as take."

" "Well," she said, rather slyly, " per-
haps not the sort of man that you
are."

" Perhaps you can tell me what sort
of a woman it is that will not let a man
show how very low down he could get
in the dust, if " —

" If she would first show him that she
wanted him to do so."

" If she would let him follow his im-
pulses." He could not see why she
should laugh. " Oh, be fair ! I mean,
be honest ! You can't help being fair."

" Do you, then, feel checked in any-
thing you wished to say ? I had thought
that you felt quite unconstrained. No
>one — that is, you always said openly

such extraordinary things that I have
been driven to placing our conversations
on a wholly different footing from the
usual one. You make me laugh when

you talk of not being let to follow your
impulses. Can it be that you have over-
shot your impulses, and are trying to
urge them on to your expression of
them ? "

" You are doing me a very great in-
justice," he said, gravely. " Perhaps
you mean that you wish it were true."

" I did n't mean to hurt you ! " she
cried, with a woman's quick and dispro-
portionate tenderness at the sight of
pain.

" What do you mean by putting our
acquaintance upon a different footing ? "

" I said ' conversations.' "

" I am afraid it 's all one with us."

" I mean that other men do not think
of talking to me as you did, and that I
had to — how shall I say ? — take you
on a different plan ; enlarge the ordi-
nary scale of meanings. Both of us,
perhaps, use a large liberty of speech,"
she added, hastily.

" Do you mean that I did n't believe
what I said, or that I said what I did 'n't
mean ? "

She made no reply.

" You filled all my thoughts ! " he
cried, vehemently. " You ruled my im-
agination. You absorbed me. You kept
me discontented, expectant, unquiet. I
don't think you had the smallest notion
of your effect on me. I was piqued,
spurred, confounded — Shame upon
me ! What a ranter I have become !
Yes, I meant all I said. You were, and
you are, the most beautiful and fasci-
nating woman I ever knew, and able to
make me wretched and almost despair-
ing. What more could you wish ? "

" Oh," she replied, a little coolly, " it
is not more that I should wish." This
rather set him back in the excitement
he was unconsciously fostering. " Have
you seen the Daphne ? " she asked, in-
consequently.

1883.]

Antagonism.

339

"Daphne? What is that. Steamer,
statue, plant ? "

" I think you can't have seen it, or
you would know at once what I mean."

" I decline to commit myself. The
ground about you is always honey-
combed with pitfalls. You are waiting
to see me discomfited."

" No, indeed ! It is a bona fide ques-
tion. It is your own Daphne."

" Have I a Daphne of my very own ?
You make me tremble. Is it animal,
vegetable, or mineral ? Can I get rid of
it ? Can I plead any sort of a statute ?
Can I utterly and forever repudiate it ?
It is a fearful point to have a Daphne,
and not to know whether you should
put it in a stable, or wear it in your
button-hole."

"If you would stop looking at me,
you would see her."

" Ah ! if I could, indeed, stop looking
at you, I might see " —

" Look over my head, to the left, far
up the ravine."

" Sure enough ! In a desperate hurry,
having just escaped from your premises
in hot haste. She shall be restored,
without delay. Madam, allow me to
reassure you, and to point out that we
do things better nowadays. Under the
modern method, that conceited young
person who annoyed you would find
himself presented with a ticket to Cov-
entry, second class, and no return."

" She makes believe not to under-
stand."

"She always makes believe not to
understand. A New England Daphne,
in willow, is unpleasant. Our own me-
tempsychoses are disturbing enough,
Heaven knows ! What shall I do with
it? I hate to have a thing like that
hacked. Makes me think of Dante's
trees calling out, ' Why tearest thou
me ? Wherefore pluckest me thus ? ' "

" Bury it."

" Good ! I have times of feeling in
the burying mood ; or, rather, in need of
a burying-place."

"Begin with Daphne."

" And yet, if I once begin to bury,
who knows where it may end ? "

Looking at her with a half-wistful ex-
pression, he saw tears in her eyes. Her
own light word had pierced to a reality
of bereavement so recent that it lay just
below the surface.

" I wish I could comfort you ! " he
cried, making a movement as if to rise,
and checking himself.

" Let us talk of something else."

" Let us not talk at all, for a little.
Do you not remember how many times,
in these same woods, we have sat with-
out speaking, listening to the sound the
silence makes ? I should like to com-
pare notes again: Will you try it ? "

" If you like."

" Begin, then, and count the sounds
for ten minutes."

For a little space, that seemed a long
space, they were silent. Then Arthur
said abruptly, "Why don't you an-
swer ? "

" What do you mean ? " she cried,
starting up.

" You did n't listen. I heard a hun-
dred voices, in all accents, calling your
name. The place is full of them. They
say, < Helen ! Helen ! Helen ! ' Or can
it be that I was listening to my own
blood ? Try again ! "

" Oh, you are too bad ! Let us be
rational, or let us go and call upon my
mother."

" By all means, let us be rational first,
and call upon your mother afterwards.
But what did you hear ? "

" What did I hear ? I — did n't — I
can't tell you what I heard," she said,
blushing vividly, and drooping her head.

" Ah, you are unfair ! "

" Excuse me, I forgot ! Pray, excuse
me, and let us try over again. I will
do better, — indeed, I will. To please
me, try again."

" To please you, anything."

They were silent for a long while;
for so long that Helen, waiting in vain

340

Antagonism.

[March,

for Arthur to interrupt, as was his wont,
turned toward him, and found him watch-
ing her closely, and with a sort of wist-
ful excitement.

"I hear nothing," she said, smiling
rather wanly ; " that is, I heard pnly a
noise in my own ears."

" ' I heard the owl scream and the
crickets cry.' Do the words seem differ-
ent to you ? I feel as if something were
missing, but can't tell what."

" You can never go back to anything
and find it what you left it, you know."

" You say that as calmly as if it were
not the cruelest thing ever spoken."

" You forget that we bring our own
moods here and everywhere into life."

" I wish," he said, after a pause, " that
we knew any language which would
deal adequately with our feelings and
moods, with our spiritual relations to
each other. I always feel the clumsi-
ness of words when I talk to you. There
is always something which clamors to
be expressed, but which refuses to form
itself into speech."

" I thought we got on wonderfully as
to speech. What hindered you ? "

" Who knows ? I was afraid of you."

" That you were not. There was
nothing in the way of outrageous, egre-
gious flattery, and not much in the way
of vague, ill-founded, and almost unkind
criticism, as a wholesome tonic, may be,
which you did not find courage to say."

By which remark it will be seen that
meteorological disturbances had existed
in the intercourse of Miss Birney and
Mr. Digby.

" I never could get your attention,"
he said, justifying himself. " There was
always something I could not reach.
However joyfully we met, we always
parted with a wide and widening dis-
tance between us. My very efforts to
approach you seemed to take me farther
and farther away. At this moment,
when we are both in dead earnest, our
very seriousness drives us farther apart.
Of course, I rebelled against it, chafed

at it. I am not a philosopher. You are
a woman whose attention I, for two
years, earnestly desired to engross. I
did my possible to engross it. I threw
myself headlong into the delight of in-
tercourse with you. I had found the
very supreme gift of heaven, — a mind
and nature I could not exhaust. But I
was like a man who is shown treasures
he may have if he can but reach them,
and who misses by the length of his
hand. Something came between us, and
I could bat feel that it was yourself. So
I raged against fate, myself, and you.
It seemed incredible that there should
be between man and woman so entire
an interchange of thought, sympathy,
opinion, and so absolute a repelling
force. Ah," he added, with a half-bit-
ter sigh, " people should not try to fly.
They get beyond their humanity. The
joy of life is in the small, sweet habits
of mutual dependence ; those simple, in-
nocent, homely delights, that penetrate
the heart and make it run over with
content; the feeling of pressing close
to each other's side, the sense of contact,
the missing and being missed. From
that to abstractions, and not from ab-
stractions to that, is the true progress.
We call the beginnings common and
narrow. They are the true wisdom and
beauty. It is better, it is far better,
to build low."

"Perhaps you looked for too much.
Instead of taking the sympathy between
us for the firmament, you took it for a
starting-point, and looked for something
beyond, wide in proportion."

" I made a mistake of some sort, —
who knows what ? "

"You have been — is it possible for
you to believe in my kindness, my friend-
liness, my — my " —

" You are never going to say ' tender-
ness,' " he said, with a sad smile. " That
I could not believe in. Your charity is
what you mean, unknown to yourself."

" Believe in my unwillingness to
wound you ever so slightly," she said,

1883.]

Antagonism.

341

turning rather pale. " You have been
too subtle. You have looked at me
through your own ideals, too fastidiously
magnanimous to examine how we really
stood. You do not understand your
sense of incompleteness and failure,
when it comes to a question of my ad-
justment to your theories. It means
that your feeling is truer than your in-
telligence ; and it is your intelligence,
and not your feeling, which is disap-
pointed at this moment."

" If I had been more complete, more
determined, more " — He broke off sud-
denly, and then began : " There is one
overwhelming reason why you were not
made for me. I ought not to ask any-
thing more convincing. It is that I am
always at my worst with you, always
perturbed, — always perturbing, per-
haps," he added remorsefully.

" Yes, I suppose we have disturbed
each other a good deal."

" It is well," he said, after a pause,
" that you did not let me know that
sooner. My stumbling-block has been
that the attraction was all on one side."

" I always liked you immensely, you
know."

" Oh, don't ! Let us be, for once,
ourselves."

" That was not a platitude. I liked
you better than you knew. In fact, I
liked you so much that I wondered why
I did not like you more. You have
your theories ; I had to have mine,
to understand my position. This is it.
Both of us started with a fixed idea,
— I might say, a fixed ideal, — fully
equipped, and always before our eyes.
We measured people by them, more or
less indifferently, perhaps, until we met
each other. You came very near my
measure ; I came near enough to yours.
We then felt logically bound to take the
next step. But the whole thing being
factitious, there was no impulse toward
another step. We were puzzled be-
tween loyalty to our ide'als and a lack
of — of the right kind of attraction. I

came to see it, after a long time; but
you, with a man's persistence, and a
man's added sense of chivalry, would
not, or could not."

" Do you mean to say that you con-
sidered the character of our acquaint-
ance,— that you saw a personal qual-
ity in it ? "

" How could I help it ? "

" And that you watched your own in-
terest in it, to see — whether — it be-
came — stronger ? "

She flushed a little, but said bravely,
" I watched to see it become — what it
did not become/'

Digby rose to his feet, and stood
looking down at her, mortified, regret-
ful, bitter, fascinated, and repelled, all
at once. Fervent, passionate words
crowded to his lips. A really mighty
impulse was upon him to utter such
words as men sometimes dream of say-
ing to women. Time and place ad-
hered, the situation, and apparently the
mastery of the situation ; but though
the words hung vivid and urgent in his
mind, sending a strong thrill all over
him, he did not pronounce them. Some-
thing lacked. The altar was ready, the
sacrifice was laid upon it, but the fire
did not come down from heaven. A
cold breath from his judgment blew
upon the impulse, and he let it die. It
took him a sensible time to find his way
back to a safe generalization. " De-
pend upon it, a sense of incompleteness
is the secret of attraction. It is the in-
stinct for self-preservation, a desperate,
blind clutch for something that will in-
sure existence. That sums, it up, to my
mind."

" You had better say, to your present
mood."

" To my present mood, if you will ;
for that is to be the key-note to my fu-
ture. We tried for something more
than life gives. Whether too much or
too little, something holds us apart. If
it is distance to be explored, or differ-
ence to be brushed away, I know not.

342

Antagonism.

[March,

It only makes you more beautiful and
more unattainable, and stamps me, let
us tamely say, incomplete. Wherever
my fragments may be, wherever in the
spiritual universe my own is kept from
me — ah, well ! How idle to try to set
the wind to a tune ! You and I to-
gether are more than one, and, may be,
less than two. The lack is in me."

He watched her in silence for a while,
and began again : —

" I have been like a stupid fly, madly
butting against a pane, unable to under-
stand that I cannot follow where I see.
Do you know what has been booming
in my head for half an hour ? A quota-
tion from Browning, —

" ' God of eclipse and each discolored star,
Why do I linger here ? ' "

" You are making the worst of it. I
should like to see you take it better."

" For your sake, I put myself in joint
with the times," he said dryly.

" I can't have a man doing for me
what he will not do for himself. I
don't count you among those who need
bribes."

He smiled rather ruefully. " You
forget to take yourself into account
when you scorn bribes. You are your-
self the most stupendous bribe, though
insensible of that, as of everything."

" Don't call it insensibility ! Would
it gratify you to know that I was un-
happy or shaken ? The thing was so
plain. We should have hated each
other, and had an ugly blot upon our
memories for a great while, perhaps
forever."

"And so you advised me to travel,
and 1 traveled."

"Ah, you jest! But, in my mind,
the thing lies on so high a plane that I
could n't jest about it."

" The highest plane ; that is, the top-
most shelf, as I realized when you gen-
tly intimated that I was spending too
much time studying our spiritual non-
affinities."

" You were doing yourself injustice.

It was right that you should have a
change of thought. I wished that some
one else should interest you ; and I wish
now " —

" Wish nothing for me, except that I
may forget you speedily and utterly."

"Pray do not — I do not like to
think of you- — thinking of it so."

" And what do you suppose, what do
you suppose, is in a man's mind, when he
knows, as I have known, such a woman
as you are ? — knows by heart a thou- *
sand lovely ways, graces and virtues
without number ? Do you imagine that
his thoughts keep primly to the outside
of things ? Do you suppose he does not
imagine situations, words, looks ? Why,
even a school-girl has a more robust
sentimentality than that. She imagines
the boy holding her hand, clasping her,
kissing her. You, if you are not " —

" Never ! Never, upon my faith !
How dare you ? Never did I dream —
Oh, how can you ? "

" Then you are not capable of judg-
ing me, for I have imagined — No :
I will not distress you. Cui bono ? It
is mainly cui bono with us, now.
' Shrunk to the measure of two little
words,' and all that sort of thing. I
traveled. I realize it now. Yet my
thought keeps beating upon that trans-
parent, impenetrable something. Why ?
why ? why ? Perpetually, why ? "

Helen rose, and stood for a moment,
with an expression of pain and indecis-
ion ; then moved slowly along, as he,
with gathering disquiet, which forced
him into movement, walked up and
down before her. He followed, and
they came, slowly walking through the
spicy air, out upon the high bank, which,
like an artificial terrace, bordered a no-
ble stream. A path ran along the edge,
protected by a railing. They leaned
upon this, and looked down into the nar-
row strip of glassy water, which made a
burnished frame for the rippled stream.
Before them, the river, sweeping round
a sharp turn, broadened almost into a

1883.]

Antagonism.

343

bay, leaving high rocky walls crowned
with trees, that made a stately way like
a cathedral aisle, and spreading out be-
tween slightly lower banks, where the
current had made space for its crowded
waters, set its own edge thick with a bor-
dering of meadow grasses, lush, green,
sensuous, and was taking its more leis-
urely way to the sea, which lay, a shin-
ing line, over the low sand-bars on the
southern horizon. The spirit of summer
afternoon lay upon the scene, which was
unusually beautiful. The river was full
to its brim, the shining waters marching
and countermarching, streams from the
sea dividing the ranks of the outflowing
currents, and both volumes breaking up
into narrow files, threading their way, or
eddying into spiral motion, till the effect
was of two armies meeting, breaking
ranks, and mingling together, each man
making his way as best he might. It
was a wonderful scene of activity and
brilliancy, contrasting sharply with the
sombre, reserved spirit of the wood.
At the near edge a line of still water
made silent, almost invisible, progress
upward ; and on the other bank, where
a little inlet was set thick with herbage,
paraded gayly downward a small com-
pany of dancing wavelets, that threw
back the glitter of the sun, and smiled
farewell to whispering reeds. -

While they waited and watched, in
that incomplete, half - satisfied mood,
where on the one hand is something
to be said, and on the other so much
that must not be said, there came in
sight, as far up the river as could be
seen, a beautiful sail-boat, all new and
white, taking its first taste of motion
from the ways to the sea. Of all inan-
imate objects, nothing comes so near
sentiency and volition as a ship, in any
size. Statues and temples are only
stocks and stones ; but anything in the
form of a launch hafc its own being,
is a thing which its very maker and
builder must share with the elements,
with forces which may snatch it from

his hands and dash it to atoms, but
which has its attributes, not bestowed
by man, and not denied by wind or
wave.

Down between the river walls came
sailing this dainty craft, white as snow
but for a crimson pennant fluttering at
its peak ; taking the water proudly, like
a bride, every plank laid, every beam
shaped, every sail set, every capacity
gauged and balanced for one purpose,
every fibre from stem to stern instinct
with one meaning and one impulse, cre-
ated to one end, — to press forward.
The river bore it gladly along ; the little
breezes ran beside and over it, urging it
on with soft, encouraging pressure upon
its sails. One might imagine it gather-
ing and fusing all the thought of its
builder, all the adaptability of its owii
shape and equipment, all the consent
and stress of circumstance ; beginning to
thrill to the first pulse of conscious life,
with a passionate dream of ocean's wild
delights warming its grain, moving of its
own will and gathering its energies to
make the final leap that should launch
it into its element, into its own divine
right of union with the boundless, joyful
life of the sea.

They watched it gliding down toward
them with a half-prophetic expectancy,
due to repressed intelligences and im-
pulses. At a point where it should have
turned the sharp promontory, and tri-
umphantly swept forward with the open
water in view, it seemed all at once as
if the river ceased to flow, and the
banks, stealing its motion from the
stream, drew backward to the hills.
The boat quivered, rose on the wave,
dipped slowly to one side, sank, rose and
leaned far forward, swayed from side to
side, spread its wings wider and beat the
air, shook off, with a toss, something
that seemed to hinder its will, darted
forward a length, and again stopped;
rising on the waters, fluttering its wings,
turning from side to side, shaken with
the conflict between its onward impulse

344

Antagonism.

[March,

and something that suddenly sprang into
existence to counteract or paralyze it.
The crimson pennant streamed forward
eagerly ; the west wind's kisses changed
to churlish blows. Mysterious powers
had met its keel and buffeted it about.
The poor thing trembled and shrunk,
and grew bewildered at a force un-
dreamed of in its short, happy progress.
It tried all its new powers in vain, the
opposition was too strong.

With one thought Helen and Arthur
turned toward each other.

" The tide ! " she exclaimed. " You
forgot the tide. If you live near the
sea, body or soul, you must take account
of the tide. There is the answer to your
perpetual ' why ? ' '

" I cannot bear to think of anything
so inexorable ! " he cried, with something
so near anguish that she caught her
breath. She had to remind herself that
his pride, his man's desire to conquer,
would send forth as agonized a cry as
wounded love. He went on : —

"I cannot bear to think that the
wine of life is not for me ; that I must
dilute — But wait ! She will take the
eddies, and work along down, in spite of
the tide»"

It was hard for a man, strong and
confident in his demands upon life, ac-
customed to finding circumstances wait-
ing upon him, able to bend them to his
pleasure, by no means too nice to take
his full share of good, and to take it in,
a man's fashion, — it was hard for him
to find himself so balked in the thing he
had most desired, and that not from any
outward circumstance, but from a falling
short in his own inclination. It was as
if all his powers and perceptions were
leagued together to show him that he
could not rise to the level of what des-
tiny had put within his reach. Proud
and emulous of all forms of superiority,
he did not relish the thought that there
was in him a spot which did not ring
true ; that he was unable to yield him-
self to an influence which he could yet

not bring himself to renounce. For
Digby was not quite up to the mark of
trusting everything he was even to him-
self, — the vice that comes from over-
refinement, over-analysis of sentiment ;
not quite able to see that mistrust of
destiny is weakness, and not strength.

Still, his disappointment was by no
means light in degree, and by no means
to be scorned in kind. A common-
minded man would have made no such
failure, because too dull to comprehend
subtle matters like sympathetic influ-
ences. Moreover, his embarrassment
was extreme, for he had committed him-
self to much, without the warrant or
the summons to commit himself to all,
and was really cruelly divided between
loyalty to his own ideal, bewilderment
that his wishes did not more ardently
embrace that ideal, a certain drawing in
another direction, with a perverse re-
luctance to yield even to that new (and
pleasant) attraction.

It is not, therefore, to be wondered
at that his mood should grow a little
reckless, and that something of his per-
turbation should show itself. He had,
at first, felt the sweet spell of an in-
fluence which always swayed him on
coming into her presence ; but, as ever,
he had presently felt the glory fading, —
felt something rising in himself which
drove him into a spirit of unrest and
opposition.

" If there is a man in the world more
profoundly mortified and disgusted with
himself than I am with myself, he has
my heartfelt sympathy. I am expected,
I suppose, to take all these incidental
brushes amiably, overlooking the impu-
tations."

" There are surely no imputations.
These things do not go by merit."

" No ! Kissing goes by favor, which
makes lack of kisses the deadlier slight.
I am, as it were, flouted by Fate ; and
Fate is of the feminine gender, as you
know. I suppose I am too slight a man
to please her ladyship. Atwood, now,

1883.]

Antagonism.

345

he 's a solid fellow, — what you may call
a cumulative man ; every year a little
stronger in some way, gradually har-
nessing Destiny to his chariot ; while
I am like that particular class of vege-
table that has to be planted over every
year, and does n't take deep root. I
seem to see very delicate motions of as-
sent in your brain, which you carefully
ignore."

" You think I underrate you. Let
me say something accusing."

" Do, by all means ! "

" You try to make me out almost a
monster. You impute all sorts of un-
kindness to me, without really trying to
know what I do think of you. You
seem afraid to let me say what I think."

" It won't be what I wish. I had as
lief you called me a turnip as what you
call other men, — ' charming,' ' bright,'
' gentlemanly,' ' interesting.' I have
heard you put a whole, live, grand man
into one of those confounded, smirking,
cant epithets, and lay him on the shelf
with that label, as if he were born to
be tagged and classified, and there an
end. I 'd rather be the gnat that teases
you, and is honestly execrated and finally
exterminated. It makes me mad. Your
cool, complacent patronage makes me
mad ! You do not know what a man is.
You have n't the faintest conception of
the feeling, the power, the worth, the
everlasting significance, of the creatures
who flock around you, and whom you
half glance at, and settle with one of
your pretty conventional phrases. By
heaven, I should like you to feel the
power of one of them. I should like to
see you on your knees to some man " —

The angry blaze in his eyes was re-
flected in hers by a soft, glowing spark
of pride. Her color deepened, her head
was slightly raised, and a delicate scorn
curved her lips.

" You probably never will," she said,
in a quiet tone, that sounded as if it
might penetrate to any distance.

" No ! " he cried, bitterly. " Noth-

ing of that sort will reach you. I have
had ample opportunity of learning that."

A moment passed, while he controlled
his anger, and she put aside her natural
resentment. By and by she went on.

" You ought to hear my side. But it
has always been your habit to take part
against me, always easier for you to ac-
cuse than to excuse me. However, you
will say the same things of other women,
and it will be as unjust to them as it is
to me. You accuse me of not appreci-
ating men. What do you say of those
women who let you see how much they
appreciate men ? You think I have no
sense of the dignity and power of men,
— a perfectly gratuitous assumption on
your part. And if it were true ? What
business have I, even in my thoughts,
to weigh, and compare, and appraise
the worth of men ? It is the first article
iu your own code that a woman should
have this particular regard to only one
man out of all the world. You call it
coldness if a woman is n't touched by
every man who comes into her horizon ;
you call it familiarity or vulgarity if she
is. Men have no business to complain
of the coldness of any woman but one.
I defy you to say that I am unkind to
any one within proper limits. And I
will not let it pass, that I do not under-
stand the value of manly character and
virtue and achievement, because I do
not spend myself in pondering partic-
ular illustrations of them. What you
call insensibility in women may have a
better name ; it may be delicacy. You
are quite, quite in the wrong," she con-
cluded abruptly, and with a sudden dis-
solution of her indignant warmth into
kindly expostulation.

" I am always in the wrong where
you are concerned. It is only another
way of stating the sad incompatibility
between us."

" What you really wish is to see me
humiliated. That would console you
for anything. It is nice and liberal in
you to call it incompatibility."

346

Antagonism.

[March,

" Oh," he retorted, with a hollow
laugh, " my coarse malice is nothing
to the calm, dispassionate cruelty with
which you put yourself in the right."

" Let us shake hands," she cried, hur-
riedly. " Forgive me, do ! " And as they
clasped hands strongly, she said, with
half angry, half tender insistence, " You
must not let me see that you are hurt
by what I say. It is n't kind of you."

He could but smile at the womanish-
ness of this, yet bis eyes were moist.

" You make me quarrel. You attack
me, and then show that you are hurt.
That is the same as crying for mercy,"
she said, looking half ready to cry her-
self.

He smiled again. " Yes, you are a
woman. You can bear to hurt, but you
cannot bear to see that you hurt."

"You have hurt my feelings — you
have trampled upon my feelings a thou-
sand times, without the faintest idea
of what you were doing, and I never
flinched. I suppose you couldn't im-
agine my being wounded at your forever
unappeased desire to let me know how
ill you think of me."

" I believe there is n't another woman
in the world who would take such a
thing so coldly."

" Excuse me ! You forget how many
times you have told me the same- thing.
In my place, what should you do ?
What can a woman answer to such talk,
except to say nothing ? What is there
to do ? Shall I cry ? Shall I simper ?
Don't you see that I could n't do or say
anything ? "

" I talk plainly enough."

" What is the answer to such plain
talk ? If you could imagine me saying
the very thing you most wished to hear,
what would that be ? I believe you do
not know what you wish to hear. You
reproach me. You feel that I wrong
you in some way. You do not see that
no woman could answer you, because —
Don't be offended. I will do for you
what I could hardly do for another man.

You must not be angry with me ; we
were good friends, and — and — don't
look at me. I — it is difficult to be-
gin."

" Never mind. I am a brute to an-
noy you. I did not mean to ; in fact, I
meant not to. You are all right, and I,
probably, am all wrong. Men are ob-
tuse. Let us say no more about it."

But in that moment she had regained
her composure, and augmented it with
a resolve. " Let us go to the bottom of
it, now. There will never be another
chance. You will always feel dissatis-
fied, else. It is much better to talk a
thing out plainly. Forgive me in ad-
vance."

" No, indeed ; not I ! "

" So much the better. Yes, I agree
that you meant what you said ; but you
said too much, considering that you
could n't say more. You were, in effect,
telling me, for the better part of two
years, that you were about to — to " —

" To fall in love with you."

" In point of fact, you expected such
a consummation, and it never came. At
this moment you know and I know that
something hindered you. It hinders
you still, even if I would permit you
to say what must not be said. That
makes it unwise and improper for us
to talk as we have done. You have
found me disquieting, — I caunot ex-
plain why, — but there never was a mo-
ment when you felt that I could be
otherwise than disturbing to you. I be-
lieve in my heart that you could have
no thought of me that did not represent
me as in some way antagonistic. I
never soothed you ; you never turned to
me with any expectation or desire of re-
pose. I could have told you this long
ago, but you would not let me. It is
only now, under these circumstances,
that I feel we ought to understand one
another entirely. We do not, we never
did, care for each other to the exclusion
of ourselves."

" ' Under these circumstances ? ' "

1883.]

Antagonism.

347

" You think of marrying my friend,
May Dudley, and I — am going to marry
your friend, Mr. Atwood."

If Digby had been given time to con-
sider the emotional value of this an-
nouncement, if he had had opportunity
to exploit his dramatic susceptibilities,
he might have experienced a real shock,
or, at least, a good imitation of one.
Coming wholly unexpectedly, it ap-
pealed to the natural integrity of his in-
telligence, and sounded only with a far-
off clang, as of a matter which might
have concerned him, or which he might
even have to reckon with hereafter.
He held his breath a moment, half ex-
pecting to be overtaken by some whirl-
wind of feeling. Nothing came but a
sense of rather wearisome unreality, as
when one has pondered an anxious mat-
ter till the brain has grown tired and
sick. Perhaps he turned a little paler.

" I have intruded upon you," he said.

With one accord they took their way
to the broad avenue leading to Helen
Birney's home, closing forever the vol-
ume of their mingled thoughts and rec-
ollections. In an hour, mother and
daughter, uncle and nephew, stood at
the entrance to the forest path on the
Birney grounds, as the two men took
their leave. Mrs. Birney and Dr. Dig-
by had stepped aside, to consult upon
some neighborly interest. Looking at
the young people, the lady said, —

" All our pains and hopes are wasted.
They have missed each other. I feared
it. They got to over-refining. I begin
to see the use and safety of common-
mindedness. One may deal in ideals
and subtleties till one destroys one's
sense of actualities and values. It is
better to walk on the earth while we are
of the earth."

" "We missed each other thirty years
ago because of stubborn material facts.
Our children have missed from equally
stubborn idealities. There is a half
whimsical pathos in it. If we could go
back, Eleanor, what should you do ? "

" I should follow my heart," she said,
without affectation or timidity. " This
is my formula, now : Follow your heart,
and lift the rest of your life up to it."

" It is a pity we cannot start in life
as we end. Well, there is a joy of
which age and fortune and failure can-
not rob us."

" ' Welcome, Disappointment. Thy
hand is cold and hard, but it is the hand
of a friend,'" quoted Mrs. Birney, in
serene tones.

He held out his hand, and she put her
thin fingers into it.

" Good-by, and God bless you."

" Good-by."

Walking rather silently back through
the long winding way, now sentineled
by shadows, the disappointment of the
elder man so weighed upon him that he
could not help speaking of it.

" I thought you made for each other."

"Apparently we were not made for
each other," said Arthur as lightly as
possible. " I admit that I thought so
once, and I wished it, too. It seemed
to me that there were materials for a
first-class combustion, but — well, it was
not to be. I shall find some one to love
me better than Helen could, one of these
days. That is the thing, sir, — to have
a woman love you wholly."

"You talk like a tired man. Don't
make a mistake. The delight of being
loved is undeniable, but there is one
thing better, — the joy of loving. This
waiting to be loved seems to me the
woman's part. It is a dangerous thing
for a man to stop at that. If a woman
can't make you unhappy, depend upon
it she cannot make you happy."

" I have been through something of
it, sir," said Arthur, with the lofty su-
periority of youth.

" Hm ! "

" It is a pity a man can't be chal-
lenged for saying ' Hm ! ' even if he is
your own lawful uncle. But a man
need n't be an uncle to know two or
three things about his own feelings."

348

Antagonism.

[March,

" How old are you, my little man ? "

" Twenty-nine, please."

" When you are thirty-nine, you '11
wish you had."

" Dear old man," said Arthur, laying
his arm across the doctor's shoulder,
" do not grieve. It was n't to be. She 's
going to marry Atwood. I shall come
to you very soon for your blessing, —
on one knee, perhaps. And now, let us
not speak of it again for a month."

But as they passed the place where
he had lain in a half sleep, and watched
her walk toward him as if from another
world, he said to himself, —

" She lets him love her because he
demands nothing more. Perhaps my
uncle is right : that it is the woman's
part to be loved, and the man's to have
all the pain of loving. Will the passive
part satisfy her ? "

No one of us can say of his own ex-
perience that it is quite unique. The
history of feeling between Arthur Dig-
by and Helen Birney has, no doubt,
many parallels, which have their bear-
ing upon the discussion of the operation
of attractions between young people. It
is hard to say of an educated, finished,
prosperous person of either sex how
much is investiture and how much is
original creation. We live so much in
outward assumption, we so unconscious-
ly wear the .robes of opinion, custom,
amiability, self-surrender to a hundred
small demands, that it is possible never
to stand upon the solid ground of our
own natures. It may happen to even
highly endowed minds to become mere-
ly the motive power for keeping in op-
eration the conventionalisms of life.
So whether, in this case, the attraction
lay at the root of their natures, and was
overlaid and hindered by cultivation of
the exterior, or whether there was cen-
tral antagonism, overcome, for a time,
by community of taste and training, we
do not know.

It had been, at one time, a drawn
game, though Helen came out of it

finally with no regrets and no doubts.
She had, as she acknowledged, given
audience to the suggestion that they
might fall in love with each other, and
was a little surprised that they did not.
There was disappointment enough in
the surprise to make her speculate over
the reason, and linger a little over the
conclusion. She had held him back a
little, perhaps, but with the full knowl-
edge that a genuine passion would find
her irresponsiveness no serious obsta-
cle, and with the fixed determination
that he should have fair play. It is the
woman's part to be prudent.

She had told herself that if he be-
came unmistakably in love with her, it
might kindle her own feelings to reci-
procity, and for a time she had felt her-
self in supposititious peril ; a wholly
fantastic attitude, which had the absurd
and unphilosophical result of an effect
without a real cause, since the same
degree of timidity and reserve was added
to her manner as would have followed
from her actually finding herself espe-
cially interested in him.

But it had not entered her mind that
the manifestation of a strong passion in
him might have had a diametrically op-
posite effect, and that no amount of
amiable acquiescence constitutes a real
love. True, she had had a great, almost
absorbing, admiration for him, — an ad-
miration which,, with a less exacting
woman, might have been mistaken for
affection ; but Helen was too much ac-
customed to living in the contemplation
of superior qualities, to mistake admira-
tion for a deeper feeling.

May it, without profanity, be doubted
whether a woman of her composition
is likely to experience a love quite up
to her intellectual and spiritual level ?
Many a woman loves far, far above her
mental grasp ; but since there is an un-
doubted law of compensation at work,
may it not be that a strong, aspiring
woman is best suited in a love on a sim-
pler plane ?

1883.]

A Loving-Cup Song.

349

Why consider the point at all, since
it has none of the material for a story
or a drama ?

First, because it was a nine days' won-
der ; and therefore, secondly, because it
is a curious point, and one well worth
considering for a half hour, whether we
may not weave of our sophistications a
shroud for the happiness which might
fairly have been ours ; and again, wheth-
er there be not a safer* and broader road
to elevation of soul and life than that
which leads from a refined self-seeking.
And it is legitimate matter for appre-

hension when two people, apparently
qualified and undeniably disposed to find
in each other such complete fitness for
joyful participation in the best that life
affords, should repel each other at the
very point when their final fusion might
almost be taken for granted.

That is said to be the music of heaven
where different voices join in the same
song. Lucky the souls on earth who,
missing the high concord of unison, fall,
like the two we have spoken of, upon
such happy differences as make a pleas-
ant harmony.

Agnes Paton.

A LOVING-CUP SONG.

1829-188B.

COME, heap the fagots ! Ere we go
Again the cheerful hearth shall glow ;

We'll have another blaze, my boys !
When clouds are black and snows are white,
Then Christmas logs lend ruddy light

, They stole from, summer days, my boys,
They stole from summer days.

And let the Loving Cup go round,

The Cup with blessed memories crowned,

That flows whene'er we meet, my boys;
No draught will hold a drop of sin
If love is only well stirred in

To keep it sound and sweet, my boys,
To keep it sound and sweet.

Give me, to pin upon my breast,
The blossoms twain I love the best,

A rosebud and a pink, my boys ;
Their leaves shall nestle next my heart,
Their perfumed breath shall own its part

In every health we drink, my boys,
In every health we drink.

The breathing blossoms stir my blood,
Methinks I see the lilacs bud

And hear the bluebirds sing, my boys;

350

By Horse- Cars into Mexico. [March,

Why not? Yon lusty oak has seen
Full ten score years, yet leaflets green

Peep out with every spring, my boys,
Peep out with every spring.

Old Time his rusty scythe may whet,
The unmowed grass is glowing yet

Beneath the sheltering snow, my boys;
And if the crazy dotard ask,
Is love worn out ? Is life a task ?

We '11 gaily answer No ! my boys,
We '11 gaily answer No 1

For life's bright taper is the same
Love tipped of old with rosy flame

That heaven's own altar lent, my boys,
To glow in every cup we fill
Till lips are mute and hearts are still, \

Till life and love are spent, my boys,
Till life and love are spent.

Oliver Wendell Holmes.

BY HORSE-CAES INTO MEXICO.

HISTORY goes into proverbs as well
as into histories. The story of many
centuries was framed in the old saying,
" All roads lead to Rome ; " and the story
of this century, in America, seems in a
fair way to be similarly phrased in a
statement that all roads lead to Mexico.

Looking over a map of the railroads
in the United States to-day, one is re-
minded of nothing so much as of the
wheel-shaped cobwebs which are to be
seen glittering upon the grass in dewy
summer mornings; their main spokes
stretching out divergently to every point
of the circle, and united by innumerable
short-cut lines at various angles and
intervals. A satirical person might be
tempted to go farther, and say that the
analogy did not stop with the resem-
blance in configuration ; that the pur-
poses of some of the iron net - works
were not unlike those of the shining
gossamer systems; and that one might

see, any day, helpless flies caught in the
first, as they are in the second. What
is known as " the Gould system," as it is
marked out to-day on the maps, resem-
bles one of these ingenious cobwebs, in
the state in which they are often to be
seen before the industrious builder has
fully matured and completed his plans.
On the outer circumference hang many
semi-attach edjines, waving in the wind,
now this way, now that ; giving no sure
indication to the observer on which of
the many near objects they will finally
lay hold, or what their precise bearing
and purpose may be. All the worse
for flies, and all the better for spiders,
— this sort of floating position : by one
of these blowing, shifty threads, a fly
may even be caught on the wing, in
clear air, where a half second before he
was as safe as he believed himself to be.
His surprise is equaled only by his
helplessness. But the carrying the cob-

1883.]

By Horse-Cars into Mexico.

351

web metaphor thus far would be only
the half idle fancy of one of those un-
fortunately, constituted persons who are
born with a worse than second sight;
that sort of double sight which per-
sists in seeing both sides of a thing, —
in fact, all sides, no matter how many
the thing may possess. The only hap-
py people, one might almost say the
only successful people, in this world are
they who can see but one side of a ques-
tion. No misgivings, no perplexities,
no doubts, no pities, no compassions,
hamper their progress, or hinder their
success. Of such are the kingdoms of
the world.

By the extensions of this railroad
web-work north, south, east, and west,
distances are fast being so lessened that
it seems hardly a figure of speech to
call them annihilated. The boon that
this is can be fully realized only by
two classes of the community: those
whose needs compel them to go from
place to place over great stretches of dis-
tance, and those whose love of change
and of new scenes impels them to
wide travel. A few years ago, to have
spoken of running down from Colorado
to the Mexican boundary for a few
days' trip would have been preposter-
ous ; yet to do it to-day is only a mat-
ter of thirty-six hours. A train recent-
ly put on the Atchison, Topeka, and
Santa Fe road, and appropriately named
The Thunderbolt, leaving Colorado
Springs at six in the evening, brings
one, at half past ten the same night, one
hundred miles east of Pueblo, to a point
named La Junta, where connection is
made with a train for the Pacific shore,
and for Mexico. On the morning of
the second day we breakfast in El Paso,
on the banks of the Rio Grande.

The journey seems at once longer
and shorter than it is, its transitions of
air, coloring, atmosphere, are so great.
At La Junta, it is a plunge into track-
less wilderness. Even in the dark, the
great, splendid, unbroken horizons look

measureless, and suggest undiscovered
worlds rather than countries beyond.

Dawn is breaking at Trinidad just as
the train arrives. A long line of char-
coal pits blaze luridly at base of a
grand, fortress-shaped mountain of bare
rock. The region looks sterile ; sparse
growths of tree and shrub, and grasses
scanty ; but in October it is a painter's
autumn palette. Every shade of red, of
brown, of yellow, is to be seen in the
foliage. Even the ground is spread
thick with color; each weed has been
either suuburnt or frost-bitten, into clar-
et or terra-cotta red or brown, and the
dead grass, sweeter and more nourishing
now than any hay from eastern mead-
ows, makes a groundwork and under-
tone of solid yellow by the solid mile.
Above this, thrown up and out in fine
dark relief, are the pindn trees, stirless,
weird, fantastic, no two alike, all storm-
beaten, with contours twisted and
wrenched, like wind-wrecked timbers,
the sport of centuries of gales fiercer
than seas often know.

Ahead in the southeast, across the
track, stretches the Raton range, barrier
between Colorado and New Mexico. Its
sky-line looks like man's work : straight
cuts, castellated elevations, steps, and
terraces, all chiseled in upright and
horizontal strokes. On the north side
of one peak, six regular steps, straight
and proportioned like a noble staircase,
lead from base to summit.

The range is tunneled at a narrow
point : the west mouth of the tunnel is
in Colorado, the east mouth in New
Mexico, and the two are only two thou-
sand feet apart. Around the New
Mexico mouth has grown up a confused
medley of battlement-fronted shanties,
saloons, turn-tables, engine houses, ma-
chine shops, etc., called the city of Ra-
ton. It is the embryo which will be
born a healthy city some day, when its
time shall have been fulfilled. The city
will be noted for the beauty of its site :
a near background of majestic mouu-

352

By Horse-Oars into Mexico.

[March,

tains; to the east and the south great
reaches of plains ; and the far horizons
full of crests and peaks of myriad
ranges, whose vast intervals and spaces
are so crowded and foreshortened that
they record .themselves on the eye only
by tiers of varying colors, built up into
a wondrous mosaic against the sky.

To a dweller in the favored countries
where lofty mountain ranges and vast
plain stretches are thus brought into
view together, it becomes a marvel how
the human eye can content itself with
either form of grandeur alone. Plains
unbroken, their entire horizon line low,
melting into sky, have the monotony of
a stiffened open ocean : one feels a rest-
less impatience, as if perpetually be-
calmed. In a purely mountainous re-
gion, surrounded by high peaks, there
is a sense of imprisonment, of oppres-
sion ; the loftier and grander the peaks,
the greater is one's sense of the first
and growing consciousness of the latter.
There come times when each mountain
front seems endued with personality,
and takes on a look of cruel menace, of
hostile and irresistible power. This can
increase till one is driven, as it were,
to flee for life, lest they fall on him and
crush him. But with plains on one
hand, and mountains on the other, one
may turn either to1 a solid bulwark of
protection and shelter, or to an open
vista of unchecked freedom, according
to his mood and the need of his every
moment. To live in such vantage spots
of the earth is to have at hand nature's
utmost, both of consolation and of stimu-
lus ; and he who is not grateful for it
deserves to be banished forever to the
desert, or to mountain abysses.

The day's journey beyond Raton is a
journey through solitudes. Hour after
hour, mile after mile, silent, unbroken,
without vestige of any life, save the
strange half fossil-like life of the aged
pifions, the great levels sweep by. The
breaking in of the noise, the interrup-
tion of the haste of the passing train, on

the silence and the repose of the wilder-
ness seem dangerous insolence. Here
and there at stations, speechless, im-
passive, stand groups of gaunt Indians,
by twos and threes, with steady gleam-
less eyes, watching as if they waited to
see the primeval deities avenge them*
selves on such foolhardy intruders.

At long intervals the train halts at
mud villages, part Indian, part Mexi-
can, with a strange graft and frontage
of board shanty and wide-awake Amer-
ican. At noon it reaches Las Vegas,
an old Mexican town of importance,
now being fast transformed into a new
railroad city. The contrast between the
narrow, crooked, adobe-walled alleys,
low, flat-roofed mud houses, and ragged,
lazy people — all picturesque and good-
for-nothing together — in the old town,
with the straight streets, pert brick
blocks, bustling money getters and beget-
ters— all unpicturesque and well-to-do
together — in the new town, is a sharp
one, embodying and emphasizing the
history and condition of New Mexico
to-day, and foreshadowing its condition
and the fate of its people in the near
future.

Here, six miles from the town, in a
beautiful little canyon, are the Las Ve-
gas Hot Springs, famous for cures of
rheumatism and myriads of other ail-
ments. The sagacious railroad company
has opened in this canyon a really fine
hotel, not only well kept and well ap-
pointed in all particulars, but beautiful
to look on ; planned and built by Boston
architects, to whose taste its harmonious
proportions and colors do great credit.
Such a hotel as this, combined with the
sunny winter climate and the long sched-
ules and records of the medicinal waters
and their cures, will prove no small fac-
tor in the future development of this
part of New Mexico.

Las Vegas is 6400 feet above the
sea ; an elevation which seems to afford
in many instances a specific cure for
pulmonary disease in its earl^r stages.

1883.]

By Horse-Cars into Mexico.

353

This altitude, and the great dryness of
the air and mildness of the winters,
will probably give to the upper half of
New Mexico the preeminent place on
that great central plateau, lying along
the east base of the Rocky Mountains,
which has come to be considered as the
sanitarium in America for diseases of
the lungs.

A short distance from Las Vegas
looms up a strange, isolated peak, upon
which one cannot look without a shud-
der. Its long slopes terminate abrupt-
ly in a straight-walled, fortress-shaped
summit of stone. When the lower part
of the mountain is in shadow, this rocky
fortress stands out so sharply defined,
one fancies he sees embrasure, gate, es-
carpment, wall ; nothing seems wanting
of a fortress's equipment, and it is im-
possible to believe that mortal hand has
wrought no stroke there. The moun-
tain has a terrible name, born of a dread-
ful history. At its base is the little
Mexican town of Bernal. Nearly half
a century ago, the Navajo Indians, at-
tacking the place, defeated the Mexi-
cans and scattered their forces. A small
band of the Mexicans escaped to the
top of this mountain. It is accessible
by only a single, narrow path, which
one man could hold against an army.
There were twenty-six of the Mexicans ;
four hundred of the Navajoes. The
Navajoes could not climb the mountain ;
but they could surround it, so that not
a Mexican could come down. This they
did, and waited patiently till their pris-
oners had died of hunger. Two crosses,
to commemorate the frightful siege, were
set up on the top of the mountain, and
it was called no more Bernal Mountain,
but Starvation Peak.

Beyond Las Vegas the country grows,
if possible, wilder, lonelier ; the people,
poorer. At several of the stations,
groups of cowboys, defiant, reckless,
stood lounging on the platform, eying
the train, — now whispering together,
now talking loud, with impudent bra-

VOL. LI. — NO. 305. 23

vado. They were picturesque rascals,
with loose, yellow-brown clothes, and
drab-colored sombreros, bent into all
possible shapes, and tossed carelessly on
their heads. It was pitiable to see how
young were many of their faces. In
one group I counted four who were cer-
tainly not over twenty years old ; yet
their countenances were the worst in
the group. A strange, untamable look,
half joy, half wonder, characterized them
all. They were good types of exultant
outlaws, and I wondered, as we moved
on and left them gazing insolently, with
loud laughs, after us, whether, as the
rich grow richer and richer, and the so-
called upper classes grow farther and
farther removed from the lower, there
does not come an increasing stimulus to
and delight in all forms of outlawry.

At dawn of the second morning we
were in sight of Mexico ; the Rio Grande
trickling along on our right, the won-
derful Organ range on the left. This
range is well named, its abruptly bro-
ken, upright, narrow peaks looking like
nothing so much as like walls of colos-
sal organ pipes irregularly broken off
at top. The whole range is rich in pre-
cious metals and minerals, — one of the
richest in the country. As we neared
El Paso we had a curious illustration of
the oddities of the boundary-line sys-
tem. The ground on which our train
was running was in Texas. A few rods
off, on the other side of the river, a
white stone, on a low-hill range, marked
the spot where Mexico ended ; and be-
tween that and the river was a narrow
strip, seeming a mere hand's-breadth,
which was New Mexico. Standing on
the Texas side of the river, one could
throw a stone across three States' land.

The town of El Paso is on the Amer-
ican side of the Rio Grande, opposite
the old Mexican town of Paso del Norte.
El Paso is two years old ; Paso del
Norte, three hundred and more, — how
much more nobody knows.

A sharper antithesis could not be

354

By Horse-Cars into Mexico.

[March,

found in the world than these two towns
afford, and the thorn in the flesh that El
Paso is to Paso del Norte, only Paso
del Norte people could describe. But
they will not. They are as mute and
gentle to-day as they were centuries ago,
and submit to this second great conquest
of their country even more silently than
they did to the first. The steam-engine
is greater than Cortez. Their doom was
sealed before ; it will be accomplished
now. Walking through the streets of
Paso del Norte, seeing the primeval
simplicity and poverty of the inhabitants,
one wonders that they should not have
welcomed the coming of a railroad, the
bringing in of supplies, the opening of a
market. But they did not. All they
asked was to be let alone.

The town claims to number ten thou-
sand inhabitants ; this seems incredible.
Still, it stretches for miles along the
banks of the Rio Grande, an almost un-
broken line of mud houses, mud-walled
vineyards and orchards ; and similar lines
of mud houses and mud walls, with
muddy ditches added, run off at right
angles to the river, for a long distance.
Every doorway swarms with women
and babies ; every shaded ditch bank
swarms with children ; and the little
plaza, of a Sunday, swarms with men.
Perhaps there are ten thousand, after
all ; but that ten thousand people could
be living in a town, and the town re-
main one month what Paso del Norte
is, is a marvel, and would be an impossi-
bility to any other race in the world ;
only the Mexicans could accomplish
such inertia, or endure such discomfort.

Considered as a spectacle, as a picture,
the town is perfect ; all that heart could
ask. To be there on a Sunday is to es-
cape from America and the nineteenth
century as from place and time forgotten.

The church is a long, low adobe build-
ing, with a good bell tower, of Moorish
design. It is in all probability nearly
three hundred years old. Part of the
front has fallen, and, having been left

lying where it fell, has been converted
by the swift sand-blowing gales into a
hardened mound. The winding stair-
case in the bell tower is made of solid
rough hewn logs ; a clumsy post, also
solid and rough hewn, being driven
through them in the corner. The ceil-
ing of the church is made of logs, reeds,
and saplings. The logs are most curi-
ously and effectively carved in deep-cut
lines, intersecting each other so as to
make regular diamond-shaped intervals ;
in each of these intervals a sort of rose,
and at each intersection a projecting
peg. The effect is marvelously deco-
rative ; it is a design which might well
be copied by workmen of to-day. The
logs are supported at each end by a
graceful bracket, wrought in the same
pattern, and every beam and support of
the building is similarly carved. The
spaces between these logs are about
twice the width of the log, and are filled
in with small round saplings or reeds,
set at a slant corresponding to the
slanting carved lines on the logs, and
alternating right and left in the alternat-
ing spaces. This alternation greatly
heightens the effect of the ceiling.
There are traces of color decoration on
7the walls, but ruthless whitewash has
nearly obliterated them ; and there are
no pictures or other adornments at all
on the same plane as the wood-carving.
Early in the morning the people be-
gin to creep towards the church : the
women with black or gay shawls over
their heads, held in place at the chin, or
over the mouth, by one hand ; in the
other hand a prayer-book and rosary;
little girls, not over six or seven, toddling
along, in the same attire, as if in solemn
mimicry of their elders. There must
have come to be in Mexico such a thing
as a hereditary knack at the shawl ; else
infant hands could not so deftly grasp
and manage the folds of heavy shawls,
frequently so large that they drag on
the ground behind. The clothes of the
men are shabby, often ragged ; but no

1883.]

By Horse-Cars into Mexico.

355

matter how shabby, how ragged, be the
suit, it is topped off by a resplendent
sombrero, either of straw, fine plaited,
with a big roll of twisted straw and
silver wire around the crown, or else
of gray felt, embroidered showily in sil-
ver and gold. The brims are so broad
they shade face and neck, emphasizing
every feature into relief ; the crowns
are high and soft, taking new shapes as
often as the hat is put off and on. There
is opportunity for much study and re-
flection on the Mexican sombrero ; it is
an embodiment of tradition, and repre-
sents many things in the race history.
Probably no Mexican can feel wholly
cast down in his mind so long as he
wears one. In many of the Mexican
towns the manufacture of them is a
chief industry. When the net-work of
, projected railroads is completed, and car-
loads of everything are carried every-
where along the lines, no doubt the som-
brero will disappear. It will be a pity.
The church stands on a sandy emi-
nence, looking southward down on the
sandy little plaza. Two sandy streets
lead up to it ; more than sandy they
are, — ankle deep in sand, except here
and there a rod or two of scattered
pavement ; prehistoric, apparently, and
apparently held in reverence by the
Mexicans, who seldom walk on it, choos-
ing rather to wade in the sand. The
more elegant of the women wear long
skirts, trailing a foot or two behind
them. They would scorn to lift them.
It has never been the custom of the race
to do so, and no dowager in England
can sweep her brocade train over the
queen's floors with a finer combination
of leisurely nonchalance and dignity
than do the Mexican dames trail their
dusty cottons through the clouds of sand
in the streets of Paso del Norte. It is
as fine a thing, in its way, as the som-
brero, and as full of significance.

Long before the mass begins the floor
of the church is crowded with kneel-
ing figures ; men on the right, women

and children on the left. A few have
brought gay rugs or blankets to kneel
on ; but the most kneel humbly on the
bare floor. Upon all the faces is an ex-
pression of solemn, almost sad devotion,
which would not hare seemed inade-
quate even to Padre Gomez, who, two
hundred years ago, used to preach from
the queer little carved cask hanging
precariously high up on the wall. The
books of births, marriages, and deaths
which he kept are still lying where he
for so many years used to put them
carefully away, in a big oaken chest in
the sacristy. Their sheep-skin covers
are fringed at the edges, and worn, al-
most as by stippling tools ; but his hand-
writing is as clear as ever, and the dates
1682, 1683, 1685, are as distinct as
those written last year. One wonders
what secrets, in the matter of ink, those
old padres possessed ; certainly some of
an efficacy not known now.

When the mass ends the people rise
slowly, still with solemn faces and si-
lent. One perceives, as the stir goes on,
that in almost every group of kneelers
there has been a crouching dog, also
mute and motionless. Even now the
subdued creatures make neither sound
nor haste, but crawl along spiritlessly in
the throng. Only the least devout of
the people leave the church. At least
half of the congregation remains. In
groups of two and three, or kneeling
solitarily, they all fall now to praying
for their hearts' chief desires. The
murmur is like that of bees in a hive,
and the stranger feels a sudden sense of
intrusion on private devotions. I have
never seen in any church, not even in
Italy, such an atmosphere of earnest,
solemn worship as here. One poor,
starved-faced beggar, whose tatters bare-
ly covered him, knelt in the centre of
the floor, praying and chanting aloud.
Going to a huge cross which was set up
in front of the choir, he embraced it
rapturously, kissing the silvered nails
over and over ; dipping his fingers in the

356

By Horse-Cars into Mexico.

[March,

holy water, and making the sign of the
cross again and again on his forehead and
on his breast. There was no expression
of entreaty or petition on his counte-
nance ; only of ecstatic love, worship,
and thanksgiving. " Oh," we whis-
pered, "what can he have to be. thank-
ful for!"

, On the south side of the plaza a few
cottouwood-trees have made out to live
and grow high enough to give shade.
To this the congregation of worshipers
slowly made their way. Already await-
ing them there was a motley row of
traffickers, with an odd and poverty-
stricken show of goods for sale : little
tables spread with peppers, onions, with-
ered peaches and pears, — a handful or
two of each ; snutll wheelbarrows half
filled with cakes of dusky bread ; boiled
sweet potatoes, or boiled yellow squashes.
Behind these tables, or on the ground
by the wheelbarrows, squatted old wom-
en, who anxiously eyed every possible
customer. At intervals, new venders
arrived, met with unwelcome glances by
those on the spot. Some brought a half
dozen cakes or loaves of bread in a bas-
ket neatly covered with a white cloth ;
some brought a single watermelon, or
boiled squash, which they cut into small
pieces, and sold with as much gravity
and precision as would suffice for the
most important business transactions.
Every one had roasted corn for sale,
roasted in the husk. It seemed the favor-
ite viand ; men, women, children, all ate
it, standing, stripping off the husks and
throwing them on the ground. For a
few minutes, the spectacle was gro-
tesque ; hundreds of hands holding corn
ears at open mouths, white teeth gnaw-
ing, clicking, all around. A squad of
Mexican soldiers, with neat white linen
jackets and trousers and bright blue
caps, were the greatest devourers of the
corn. The ground under their feet was
piled with the husks they had thrown
down, and they laughingly shuffled them
away with their feet as they tossed down

fresh ones. An old beggar woman, half
naked, and with long streaming gray
hair, went about picking up the husks,
and cramming them into her skirt, held
up high, leaving her gaunt old legs bare
to the knees. Another beggar had had
the gift of half a watermelon. He leaned
back in a corner of the plaza, his head
resting on the wall ; with his left hand
holding the melon on his knee, with two
fingers of the right he lazily scooped
out mouthfuls of it, and carried them
slowly to his mouth, the juice dripping
like water all the way. At each mouth-
ful, he shut his eyes and sighed with
satisfaction. Lounging up and down in
the crowd went a swarthy-faced man,
wearing a red fez and the full-gathered
Turkish trousers, selling rosaries of pearl
and of olive-wood. He said the rosaries
came from Jerusalem, and he was a Syr-
ian. His face seemed strangely famil-
iar to me. " Where have I seen you
before ? " I exclaimed. " Were you not
at Ober-Ammergau, at the last Passion
play ? "

" Yes, lady," he replied.

It was, indeed, the very man from
whom I had bought rosaries and Jeru-
salem roses, in the Ammergau Valley,
two years ago. He smiled with a su-
perior calm, as he passed on. To his
Oriental mind there was nothing sur-
prising in the encounter ; and he would,
uo doubt, have compassionated me as
the victim of an imagination bootlessly
active, if he had known how pertina-
ciously my eyes and my wondering fan-
cy followed him, as he strolled back and
forth, swinging his crimson and pearly
beads on the fingers of his right hand,
offering them with a mute gesture, so
slight it seemed hardly to demand rec-
ognition, and regarding with an equally
nonchalant glance those who bought and
those who turned away. From Ober-
Ammergau to Paso del Norte to sell
strings of beads? It must have been
some other errand that brought him.

In a little booth on one of the plaza

1883.]

By Horse-Cars into Mexico.

357

corners stood another figure, almost as
incongruous as the swart Syrian. It
was an old man, with fair, pink cheeks,
blue eyes, and white hair ; as unmis-
takably a New Englander as could be
found in the deacon's seat in a village
meeting-house in Vermont. Hearing
our struggling efforts at conversation
with some of the Mexicans, he came to '
the rescue. His clearly articulated sylla-
bles fell upon our ears even more start-
lingly than had the Syrian's "Yes,
lady." Each word proved him to be a
man of education and of cleverness. Yet
here he was, in a street booth, selling
bread and wine to ragged Mexicans.

" Do you live here ? " we asked won-
deringly.

" I have lived here six years," he an-
swered, and a slight flush rose on his
wrinkled cheeks. We were evidently
treading on graves of mysteries and ex-
periences in thus venturing to wonder
what had brought this clear-voiced Yan-
kee, in his old age, thus low in Paso del
Norte.

Since the coming in of the railroads,
frequent communication between El
Paso and Paso del Norte has been a
necessity. Each is a port of entry, with
officials and guards, and a complete rec-
ord of the duties daily paid, resisted, or
evaded, in the two towns, would be
amusing reading. On the El Paso side,
every morning, in the fruit season, may
be seen a motley group before the cus-
tom-house doors. Not a grape, pep-
per, peach, or tomato can come on the
United States soil without a tax. The
well-to-do man who brings his grapes in
wagon-loads, and the poor vagabond
who brings a few clusters in a basket on
his head, both fare alike, and there is
no safety in any evasions. If some poor
fellow wades over, miles up or down the
river, smuggles in his fruit, and begins
to sell it in El Paso, the first thing he
knows, some malicious person or some
spy asks to see the custom-house ticket
proving that his fruit has paid duty.

Failing to show this, he loses fruit, bas-
ket, and all, and is fined beside. The
day before we were there, the custom-
house officers had thus seized a wagon-
load of fruit, and the wagon and the
boxes. The foolish owner, well able to
pay the tax, had lost hundreds of dol-
lars.

The Mexican duties are enormous,
and are levied upon almost everything ;
upon canned fruits and vegetables, three
times the value of the goods. We
heard a droll story of a gift of canned
fruits sent into Mexico, for which the
unfortunate recipient had to pay twenty-
one dollars duty, the original cost of the
fruit having been seven dollars and a
half. The Mexican who buys him a sev-
enty-five dollar buggy has to pay a duty
of another seventy-five dollars before he
can take his buggy home.

The Paso del Norte women are said
to be wonderfully clever at smuggling.
They buy calico in El Paso by the doz-
en yards, undress, wind it around their
bodies, and nobody observes that they
are any stouter when they return home
at night than when they went out in the
morning. An aptitude for smuggling,
however, would seem to be a national
trait with the Mexicans, if we may trust
the testimony of their minister to Wash-
ington. In his Treasury Report for
1879, he estimates the amount of smug-
gling done in Mexico as approximately
between three and four millions yearly.
This is mainly along the United States
frontier ; and these figures are significant
as pointing to the amount of traffic on
that frontier. It is, probably, all told,
legitimate and illegitimate, not less than
thirty-five millions a year. This is an
increase of over ten millions in the last
three years.

The capricious Rio Grande, some-
times so shallow that a child can ford it,
sometimes so wide and turbulent as to
be troublesome of ferriage, is at once a
barrier and a link between El Paso and
Paso del Norte. At the time of our

358

By Horse-Cars into Mexico.

[March,

visit it was at its lowest ebb ; in fact, it
seemed to have given up even ebbing,
and was nine tenths sand. An enter-
prising Mexican — that is, enterprising
for a Mexican — had made a tempo-
rary bridge, by tying two small boats
and a short bit of plank together. He
had also built him a tiny booth of boughs
about the size of a dog-kennel. There he
sat all day, to collect toll from foot pas-
sengers across his bridge ; a toll of two
cents and a half, a rate determined by
the existence of a little Mexican coin of
that precise value. Most of his own
people evaded the tax by slipping off
their shoes, tying them together, fling-
ing them over their shoulders, and wad-
ing across ; only Americans and rich
Mexicans, reckless of expenditure,
walked over on the boats. The contrast
between this rough pontoon crossing,
and the substantial bridges a little far-
ther down the river, just completed by
the railroad and horse-car companies,
was droll enough, — one more feature
in the antithesis of race and age, every-
where cropping out.

The only other way of going from one
town to the other is by vehicles, com-
placently mentioned in the El Paso
Hotel as " hacks," which run at short
intervals all day. The stranger who
inquires in El Paso for some means of
getting over to Paso del Norte is told
to " jest step out," and he '11 " see a
hack that '11 take him across. They come
along every few minutes, and he can't
miss 'em." This is a mistake, for it is
not until after a long period of wonder-
ing and waiting that it dawns upon him
that the antiquated, ragged, fluttering,
flapping, dirty old stage-coaches he has
seen can be the hacks referred to. He
has supposed them to be coaches just in
from Arizona, or regions still more re-
mote. Even the drivers cannot keep
from laughing, as they draw up the
cumbrous structures to the sidewalk for
you to clamber in. Wooden bottoms full
of holes, or patched with bits of plank ;

sides open, and with tatters of leather
flying ; seats of bare boards ; rugs of
sheep-skin, or matted wads of what
were cushions thirty years ago, — these
are what remain of the first stages
which used to run on the famous But-
terfield line from New Orleans to Los
Angeles, and are now hacks in El Paso.
Their expression as they creak and
wobble along, full of unwashed, gleam-
ing, fantastic Mexicans, or bewildered,
staring strangers, is comic beyond de-
scription. To compare their antiquat-
edness of look to the time-honored ark
of Noah would be to commit an anach-
ronism indeed, in which the ark would
be insulted.

To understand Paso del Norte and
its people, on» must leave the plaza and
the life which centres there, and go out
into what might be called the suburbs
of the place, if the phrase did not seem
such a caricature of demarcation between
one set of mud houses and another.
The roads are lanes of sand, with slug-
gish ditches and rows of cottonwood-
trees on either hand. It is surprising
how many picturesque and pleasing
glimpses are made by these unpromis-
ing conditions. The long, shady vistas,
walled by green and yellow leaves, with
shining reflections in the still water be-
low, are forced up into brilliancy by the
stretches of pale sand and the long lines
of brown adobe wall in every direction.
The adobe walls have great value in the
landscape : they are low, making only
a narrow base to near foregrounds of
the vineyards and orchards which they
inclose ; their tops are sometimes fin-
ished in a regular castellated pattern,
that becomes highly decorative, pricked
out on masses of green ; sometimes they
are planted with a thick fringe of prick-
ly pear, which is best of all. They have
frequent abrupt breaks of level arches,
doors, gates of cactus stalks, and sudden
surprises of open ways into oases of
verdure beyond ; often with a narrow
glitter of water in the distance, and

1883.]

By Horse-Cars into Mexico.

359

slender foot-bridges, reminding one, half
grotesquely, half tenderly, of remote
and secret water-ways, remembered from
Venice. Over these broad, low levels
of tapestried color and sheen arches the
dome of a sky which only Mexico and
Italy, in all the world, know ; blue of
a blueuess that dazzles like light, and as
free from cloud or fleck as a shield hot ,
from the burnisher's hand. It is not a
sky to love. But it is a sky marvelous
in splendor as a background or a setting.
It has gone, in all ages, with peoples of
the gayest taste in attire ; that it may
have had much to do with pitching the
key-note of their instinct of decorations
is easy to believe, seeing a Pueblo Indian
in scarlet on his housetop, or a Mexican
woman's face framed in a rainbow shawl,
and printed on a measureless disk of
blue sky behind.

For three miles and a half southward
from the plaza we drove in one of
these shaded sand lanes, through a con-
tinuous succession of farms and farm-
houses. There was scarce a break in
the adobe wall, and few interruptions
in the shade. Through open doorways
we caught glimpses of court-yards, with
gay flowers, fountains, and wells ; chil-
dren playing, women working ; fields,
with vines dusty and brown, tied up in
irregular, sheaf -like bunches around
stakes, the grapes all gathered ; pear
and peach trees as dusty and brown
as the vines, their fruit also gathered.
Only the corn crop was yet in harvest-
ing,— acres and acres of it; sheaves
standing, carts piling, sheds overflow-
ing ? even on the tops of their houses
the men were stacking the unstripped
stalks, making the roofs look like corn-
fields on stilts. In a cool vine-wreathed
piazza, deep sunk between two wings of
the house, we found a handsome Ger-
man woman, wife of a United States
army surgeon, who, weary of the shift-
ing place and fortune in his profession,
and holding sunshine first on the list of
this world's goods, has settled down on

the banks of the Rio Grande, to grow
grapes and pears. In the shade' of
this piazza it was cool as autumn. Yet
up to its very threshold we had found
torrid July heat, though it was October
by the calendar. We were grateful for
the shade and rest ; and also for the
cordial welcome, into which must have
filtered much of the warmth of the
tropical sky under which many years of
the foreign lady's life had already been
spent. As simply as if she had been a
woman of the country, she led us from
room to room in her house, and into the
inner court, where the ground was cov-
ered with drying corn, pears, peaches,
and peppers. The corn was of variegated
color, a purplish lead tint speckled with
white predominating; but some ears
were pink, and even deep red. There
had been no vintage worth naming, she
said ; never since she had lived in Mex-
ico, had she known such a drought.
There had been " no rain to do any
good " for eighteen months. The little
wine they had made was in rawhide
sacks, hanging in the verandas of the
outer court-yard, fermenting. It had
been trodden out three weeks before.
She showed us a small square leathern
vat, the bottom full of holes, in which
their Mexicans had danced with bare
feet upon the grapes, pressing out the
juice.

" Oh, when people first see that," she
exclaimed, " they say they will not
drink one drop of wine in this country.
But it is all silly. "When you are used
to it, it is nothing. A foot can be
washed just so clean as a hand ; and
what is the difference ? " All of which
is true philosophy, no doubt, but does
not seem to touch the point of one's
instinctive preference for the hand over
the foot, considering them both ingre-
dientally in the matter of drinks.

On our way back to the town, we
halted in front of a tempting doorway,
through which we could see bowers of
green and blossom, and an enchanting

360

By Horse-Cars into Mexico.

[March,

old well. In a second, came running
forward the woman of the house and
her little girl, with smiles and looks of
invitation. It was the nooning : the
man of the house was at home, and
he soon appeared, behind his wife and
daughter. We made signs of admira-
tion of their flower garden inside ; they
made signs to us to enter. We hesi-
tated. Finally, the woman, mustering
all the courage she could, said, " Come
in." She pronounced the syllabes slow-
ly, with great effort, and with a droll
detached emphasis which made the
" come " sound as if it were spelled
with a dozen m's, and yet had several
left to prefix to the " in"

To their evident delight, we entered :
and for half an hour what a carnival of
pantomime and ejaculation inside those
walls ! " Commm min " was all tho
English the woman knew, while the
man spoke not a word. We spoke no
Spanish ; all the same we were eloquent
of interest and admiration, and they
were eloquent in hospitable good will.
Through the house and the court-yards
and gardens they took us ; laughing,
pressing us to see this or that, plucking
flowers for us, all the while chatting
with each other in delighted comment
on our wonder. It was evidently the
house of a well-to-do wine-maker. In
the open verandas around one of the
inclosed courts were hanging one hun-
dred rawhides, full of fermenting wine.
The hide, dressed with the hair left
on, is sewed by leather thongs on four
stout sticks, making a square mouth.
These queer, irregular -shaped sacks,
with hairy outsides, red, gray, or brin-
dled, swinging from the veranda roofs,
were a strange sight. The aroma of
the fermenting wine filled the air, de-
licious, but almost heavy enough to in-
toxicate.

Running ahead, and opening a door
in the wall, the woman peered out ; then
turned quickly around, and signed to us
to follow. It was a picture, indeed,

which the doorway framed, opening
immediately on the bank of a wide
ditch, full of water and shaded by trees.
Lying under these trees were three
men, smoking cigarettes, and watching a
small still, which stood on the bank,
puffing away fragrant steam, as strong
wine was being made into aguardiente,
There was a world of meaning in the
complacent nod which the woman gave,
as she became satisfied that we under-
stood what the still meant.

Looking on this scene of leisurely,
not to say lazy, industry, of disorder-
ly plenty, easy-going, contented discom-
fort, we recalled some of the words of
the old Yankee wine-seller in the plaza.
" These people don't want anything they
have n't got," he observed. " They
don't want to be bothered by railroads.
They 've all got little farms ; they live
all along the river here ; raise all they
need to eat, and drink too: for every
house has its own still, and there 's no
law to hinder their making all the brandy
they want. It's a sort of bliss, their
ignorance. It seems 'most a pity to dis-
turb them. But they 've got to come
to it."

Warming under our evident interest
and pleasure, the kindly people finally
threw open the door of their darkened
parlor, the sanctum of the house and the
only ugly spot in it. It was a room not
to be equaled outside of Mexico, and I
hope not often there. It looked as if
it had a worsted small-pox. In balls on
tidies f in humps on mats ; in splashes
on chair, sofa, and table ; in fluffs, puffs,
and circles ; nodding on wire trees
in corners, — everywhere the hideous,
myriad - colored woolen eruption was
out. To crown it all, the father, open-
ing a bureau drawer, brought forth a
square of black broadcloth, with green,
scarlet, and yellow crewels embroidered
on it in bosses, like huge apples cut in
half and laid down. This had been
done by the little daughter, who stood
by, full of shy pride, as we gazed at her

1883.]

By Horse-Cars into Mexico.

361

work, speechlessly ; I hope, not looking
as aghast as we felt. Disappearing for
a moment, she returned, bringing a card,
on which she had written, in round, child-
ish letters, a Mexican name. Holding
it out to us, she said slowly, " That my
papa name ; what you name ? " handing
us the pencil. So we wrote our names
below the " papa name ; " and then, after
more handshaking and bowing and
ejaculating, we bade the hospitable, sim-
ple creatures good by.

On the threshold the man offered us
aguardiente to drink. It was white as
water and smooth as oil, but burnt the
mouth like a fiery cordial. He was sur-
prised, and a trifle hurt, by our evident
dismay at the first sip of it. " Bueno,
bueno," said the woman, laughing at our
tearful eyes. "Bueno, bueno," we
echoed, laughing also, but waving the
glass away.

As we drove back to the town, we
stopped at the new station of the Mexi-
can Central Railway. It is a substan-
tial and handsome building, though it is
of adobe, and built after the Mexican
style, on the four sides of an inclosed
court-yard, — a novel plan for a railway
station. But this fashion of building
was not a caprice ; better than any
other, it meets the exigencies of the cli-
mates in which it was devised. In any
other fashion of house tropical heats
would be unbearable.

In August, 1881, the first spike for
this road was driven on the Mexican
side of the Rio Grande. It is now com-
pleted a few miles beyond the city of
Chihuahua, a distance of two hundred
and twenty-five miles. The other end
of the road is finished from the city of
Mexico to Leon, two hundred and sixty
miles. This leaves a gap of between
seven and eight hundred miles, which, if
work continues to be pushed at its pres-
ent rate at both ends of the line, will be
filled in less than two years.

A projected and partly built road
across the country, connecting Tampico

on the Gulf of Mexico, with San Bias
on the Pacific coast, will complete this
company's system. There is also an-
other road, a narrow-guage road, the
Mexican National, leaving the United
States border at Laredo, Texas, and run-
ning its southward line nearer to the
shores of the Gulf of Mexico. This
line will have its Pacific coast terminus
at Manzanillo. Its southern division
from the city of Mexico to Morelia, the
capital of the state of Michoacan, a dis-
tance of two hundred and twenty-seven
miles, runs through the most thickly
settled valley of the republic.

Upon this road, trains are already
running some distance south of Mon-
terey. One has only to look on a map
of the country and trace out these roads,
to see what will be compassed by such
lines. San Bias was the old shipping
point for supplies sent from Mexico to
California, as far back as the days when
Spanish viceroys ruled in Mexico, and
California was a province of Spain, gov-
erned under her " Laws of the Indies."
The heroic men who founded the Jesuit
and Franciscan missions in California
all sailed thither from San Bias, and
there are in their old letters and records
many items of interest relating to the
port.

Mexican railway enterprises have
been made the subject of some ridicule
and abuse, latterly. Probably more ig-
norant writing has been done in regard
to them than in regard to any subject of
like importance now before the public.
They can afford to bide their time ; it is
those who win, that laugh last. There
will be on the line of the Mexican Cen-
tral Railway twenty-one cities, nine of
them capitals of States. The lowest
population on the list is eight thousand.
There are, without counting either the
city of Mexico itself or Leon, eleven
which have over twenty thousand ; two
of this eleven, Guanajuato and Guadala-
jara, are large cities, the first numbering
sixty- three thousand, the second seventy-

362

By Horse- Cars into Mexico.

[March,

eight. All told, there is in the States
through which this road will pass a
population of over four millions. The
Mexican National runs through and
taps a region still more densely popu-
lated, and having, in addition to all its
other riches, great tracts of forests, of in-
calculable value.

It is not half a century since the
United States received from the city of
Chihuahua alone more silver coin than
from all other sources put together.
To-day there are coined there over eight
hundred thousand dollars a year ; in
several other cities the coinage runs
from one to four millions yearly. The
statistics of coinage, of course, indicate
only partially the amount of precious
metals extracted. Statistics of all kinds
are collected with difficulty in Mexico,
the general Mexican sentiment in re-
gard to any such precision of research
being much akin to that of the Arab
Sheikh Imaum Ali Zadi, who wrote the
famous letter to Layard, in reply to his
inquiries as to the statistics of certain
towns : —

" The thing you ask of me is both
difficult and impossible. Although I
have passed all my days in this place, I
have neither counted the houses, nor
have I inquired into the number of in-
habitants ; and as to what this person
loads on his mules, and that one stows
away in the bottom of his ship, that is
no business of mine. . . . We, praise
be to God, were born here and never
desire to quit it. Is it possible, then,
that the idea of a general intercourse
between mankind should make any im-
pression on our minds ? Heaven for-
bid ! "

But it does not need statistics of to-
day to give the imagination foundations
for picturing the future of Mexico, once
her vast empire is threaded by railways,

her revolutionary blood kept quiet by
that eminent conciliator and enforcer of
peace, the steam engine, and her lazy
millions inoculated with the inevitable
contagion of new industries and gains.
One need read nothing later than the
letters of Cortez and the records of Cor-
onado to be able to forecast the events
of the next hundred years in the land of
Montezuma.

That noble but luckless monarch has
faithful worshipers still, who pray daily
for his return to his kingdom. Every
morning at sunrise they look devoutly
to the east, watching for the coming of
his chariot in the skies. There is in
their faith and their attitude a profound
symbolism, a pregnant prophecy. They
are not mistaken. Empire is on the
way back to their land, but not in the
shape for which they are watching.

Already, unwelcomed, regarded with
hostile looks, on the El Paso bank of
the Rio Grande stands a small but sig-
nificant group of the forerunners of
that empire: a row of trim, gay-col-
ored, new horse-cars ! The bridge and
track on which they are to run across
the river into Mexico is done ; every-
thing is ready ; but even the Mexican
mule, it seems, is averse to novelty and
progress, and does not take kindly to
horse-car duty. The day we left El
Paso, two of them, reluctant, were be-
ing patiently trained on the track, draw-
ing an open platform car up and down.

The next day, the cars were to begin
their regular trips. We thought of
waiting, for the sole sake of crossing
the boundary in them, but we did not ;
on reflection, there seemed to be a pro-
founder impression in the sight of the
new car, standing bright, silent, ready,
on the Rio Grande bank, than there
could have been even in seeing its first
crossing of the river.

H.H.

1883.]

The Hawthorne Manuscripts.

363

THE HAWTHORNE MANUSCRIPTS.

AMONG the peculiarities of the
world's way of looking at authors is
this : that it desires to fix upon each
writer of distinction a definite, unalter-
able character, and does not much like
to have the conception it has thus ar-
rived at disturbed. It is willing at first
to let the author impress upon it his
predominant qualities, and from these
an estimate is formed ; but when once
that process has been gone through
with, any modification of it is thought
to be troublesome. It is so easy to set-
tle things by tag and docket ; to file
an author away in some pigeon-hole of
the mind, where you can always be sure
of finding his case settled, and by mere
reference to a name can without men-
tal exertion remind yourself of what he
is or was in all particulars, — or at least
of what, according to your notion, he
ought to have been, — that the mass of
readers and reviewers prefer this mode
of classifying, even at the cost of dis-
tortion, or of limiting their own ap-
proach to truth. A new view, a slight
revising of opinion, which would aid
in building up a more veracious idea of
the man or his work, is an annoyance :
it disarranges the pigeon-hole system.
Hence it is that the novelist imperils
his popularity when he writes verse,
that the humorist is not permitted to be
tragic, and the writer whom the pub-
lic has come to consider as possessing
strength in sombre effects meets with
opposition if he tries humor. Have we
not all seen an audience at the theatre,
which, finding comic personages and
situations in the play, makes up its mind
that laughter is the business of the even-
ing ; so that when the drama suddenly
unfolds a serious element in some epi-
sode of extreme pathos — some point of
inmost sorrow, the silent wrecking of
a heart, the quivering of an emotion be-

yond endurance, going on under the or-
dinary guises of character or condition
that throw over them only the dark ab-
surdity of all suffering — this same au-
dience, instead of trembling with sym-
pathy, bursts into a guffaw ? Having
made so sure of the thing beforehand,
it sees and feels only the grotesque sur-
face, and will not be shocked by the
bracing terror of the truth within.

In a more prosaic way, this same ten-
dency to conventionalize, to agree that
an author, having once been " posed,"
must never be seen in any other atti-
tude by his admirers than the one ap-
pointed for him, leads to some protect
and much rather needless disappoint-
ment when biographies, autobiographies,
and letters begin to appear after his
death, and when his immature or frag-
mentary writings are revived from ob-
scurity, or posthumously published. The
thoughtless cry is raised that such a pro-
ceeding does the author wrong ; or the
remark is made that the rescued matter
was not worth preserving. It a book is
not worth preserving, it will soon drop
out of sight, and no one can be forced
to read it. On the other hand, it is
not easy to see why the printing of un-
finished work is an injustice to an au-
thor who has won for himself a historic
importance, so long as his completed
works are available for ascertaining
what he could accomplish at his best.
It is an old instance, but one always
pertinent to questions of this kind, that,
had Virgil's last injunction been obeyed,
to burn the manuscript of the jEneid,
we should have lost the great epic of
Latin literature. Doubtless, if a good,
enterprising modern reviewer had flour-
ished in Rome at that time, he would
roundly have condemned Varius and Plo-
tius Tucca, who violated the poet's trust,
and even the Emperor Augustus, who

364

The Hawthorne Manuscripts.

[March,

instigated them. The responsibility for
disposing of the manuscripts of a fa-
mous author does not, however, rest
upon the light-hearted reviewer ; and
that important member of society does
not greatly trouble himself to conceive
how difficult is the position of persons
on whom such responsibility actually
reposes. It might, therefore, be a good
thing if, instead of repeating the stock
phrases about indiscretion and injustice,
which have done duty ever since the
emergency first arose, he would inquire
what real instruction may be got from
publications of the sort referred to.

I have been asked to do something
in that direction, respecting the Haw-
thorne manuscripts recently made pub-
lic ; and so I return to a subject which
I -confess has for me an enduring fasci-
nation. When Fanshawe was reprinted
and placed among Hawthorne's works,
the motive was one of self-protection ;
and the act, undertaken in face of great
reluctance on the part of those most
nearly concerned, caused them much
pain. Yet the result appears to be, on
the whole, good. Fanshawe has very
little intrinsic value as a piece of lit-
erature : if it were now to come out
as the production of a new author, it
would probably fall as flat as it did on
its first appearance in 1828, and we
might well be pardoned for not discern-
ing in it any special promise. Yet
when, on being resuscitated, it has to be
regarded as the jejune performance of
a man who afterwards attained to great
eminence, the case is certainly quite dif-
ferent ; the very meagreness and dull-
ness of the story then become interest-
ing, because of the inquiry which nat-
urally arises, how the romancer whose
power was afterwards so commanding
grew up from a beginning so feeble. If
we were not in possession of this early
attempt, we naturally should have a
less vivid sense of that industry and
that capacity for expanding into fuller
strength to which we owe his enduring

achievements. Similarly, the disclosure
of the various manuscripts remaining
at his death — first, his private Note-
Books, and then the unfinished pieces
of fiction issued respectively under the
titles Septimius Felton, The Ancestral
Footstep, and Doctor Grimshawe's Se-
cret, together with detached memoranda
for the latter — gives an insight into his
mind at the other extreme of his career,
the closing period, when his activity
was drawing towards a sudden end. All
these sketches, memoranda, and frag-
ments, moreover, by revealing the meth-
od of his mind, throw a light backward
over his whole intellectual history, and
enable us better than ever before to com-
plete the study of his growth, and to ob-
serve what the process actually was by
which he had advanced from that first
timid and unnoticed production of Fan-
shawe to a summit of unshaken fame.
It is with these three manuscripts, there-
fore, and with the isolated scenes of The
Dolliver Romance, that I shall ask the
reader to occupy himself, in this article.
Their chronological order is probably
as follows : The Ancestral Footstep,
Dr. Grimshawe, Septimius Felton, and
then, of course, last of all, The Dolliver
Romance. The first was written at
Rome, in the spring of 1858. From
Florence, it will be remembered, Haw-
thorne wrote to Mr. Fields : " Speaking
of romances, I have planned two, one or
both of which I could have ready for
the press in a few mouths, if I were
either in England or America." One
of these was The Marble Faun, and the
other, undoubtedly, was the English ro-
mance, of which he had already, at the
date of the above letter, sketched this
outline. The Marble Faun soon after-
ward drew to itself all his creative ener-
gies, and kept them employed until well
into the winter of 1859-60. It is pos-
sible that, immediately after complet-
ing the Italian romance, he may have
begun the massive, though unfinished,
sketch now known as Doctor Grim-

1883.]

The Hawthorne Manuscripts.

365

shawe's Secret; but as he sailed for
home from England in June, 1860, it
seems unlikely that he should have set
to work upou that draft of the English
story until after his return to Concord ;
and we know that, disturbed by the
public excitements which were at that
time harshly preluding the civil war, he
did not at once find himself in the mood -
for composition, and still less so when
the struggle began. " I have not found
it possible," he wrote to his old friend,
Horatio Bridge, " to occupy my mind
with its usual trash and nonsense during
these anxious times ; but as the autumn
advances, I find myself sitting down at
my desk and blotting successive sheets,
as of yore." This was in October, 1861 ;
so that there had apparently been an in-
terval of many months, from his return
in June, 1860, till this October of the
following year, during which he had ac-
complished little or nothing beyond the
two Old Home chapters published in
The Atlantic at that time. Very likely
his " blotting successive sheets " refers
to the beginnings of Doctor Grims-hawe;
for both this and the Septimius Felton
must have been written between Octo-
ber, 1861, and the winter of 1863, when
he entered upon the new scheme of The
Dolliver Romance.

The question of Hawthorne's hand-
writing, although otherwise only inci-
dental, assumes a certain importance
when we are trying to determine ap-
proximately the date of these manu-
scripts, or to decide whether, by any
stretch of possibility, they could have
been intended for publication in their
present form. That Septimius was not
so intended is quite evident from the
broken and changing nature of the plot,
if not also from the occasional looseness
of the style. The same is true of the
Grimshawe, I should say, in spite of a
greater strength, composure, and finish
of style in portions of this latter produc-
tion. Indeed, the original manuscript
of the Grimshawe, which, as I recall it,

was, like Septimius, written without di-
vision into chapters, — with brief notes
and incongruous passages in the text,
which are relegated in the printed form
to an appendix, and with longer notes
(some of them on the backs of pages
containing the main narrative) inter-
spersed, — would seem to have reached a
stage not more ripe for publication than
Septimius Felton. Some few months
ago a mistaken report got currency that
the writing of Hawthorne was general-
ly very illegible ; and a member of his
family took pains to correct this error,
adding that " his handwriting, even in
its most hurried form, is decipherable
by any painstaking reader, with possi-
bly the exception of a few words. What-
ever he intended for the press, he wrote
quite clearly enough." These unam-
biguous words were construed as an as-
sertion that the Grimshawe manuscript
was very clear and easy to make out ; a
curious inference, reminding one of what
Hawthorne himself, in one of his books,
has called " the wild babble of the time,
such as was formerly spoken at the fire-
side, and now congeals in newspapers."
The heliotype reproduction of a speci-
men from the original pages, which ac-
companies the volume containing Doc-
tor Grimshawe's Secret, shows plainly
that none but a painstaking reader could
decipher such a script ; though it should
not be forgotten that the process of
photographing and printing somewhat
dims the first distinctness. The speci-
men also shows to a careful observer
that the gi'eater part of the passage
given can be made out with but little
study. My own experience was, when
I went over a large number of these
identical pages, about ten years since,
that after some practice the crabbed chi-
rography became wonderfully more lu-
minous than it at first looked to be ; al-
though the minute interlineations and
perplexing erasures caused numerous
halts. The manuscript of Septimius
Felton, which Miss Una Hawthorne

366

The Hawthorne Manuscripts.

[March,

chiefly transcribed, presented like diffi-
culties, as she hinted in her preface to
that fragment. Now all this was very
uncharacteristic of Hawthorne's earlier
manuscripts, — those of his completed
works, — which were remarkably clear
as to penmanship, and almost devoid of
corrections ; and even the pages of The
Ancestral Footstep, which, as it was
meant solely for his own inspection, he
would naturally have written with no
especial care, become tolerably distinct
so soon as the eye has accustomed itself
to a degree of vagueness in the letters,
arising from haste and informality. It
is therefore not unreasonable to con-
clude that, when Hawthorne was trac-
ing the sentences of Grimshawe and
Septimius, his hand already felt and
communicated to his pen the cramping
and baffling influence of the illness
which, at that time slowly stealing upon
him, was destined to prove fatal ; just
as we may notice the extraordinary and
painful change of Dickens's handwriting
from its first buoyant openness to the
dark mazes of those sheets which he
penned just before his death. And here
there is a point of the utmost importance
to, be remarked. It is this : when Haw-
thorne, in the last weeks of his life, set
about preparing the first chapter of The
Dolliver Romance for this magazine, he
was as careful as of old to make the
writing legible. He was no longer mas-
ter of that firm, masculine, yet graceful
hand which was impressed upon the
printers' copy of The House of the
Seven Gables ; he was probably unable
to shape the letters well, if they were
small ; but the manuscript of the Dolli-
ver, now in the Public Library at Con-
cord, shows that he laboriously made
them much larger and rounder than us-
ual, so that there could be no failure on
the score of distinctness. This, we may
infer, was because he designed the mat-
ter for publication, and it must be taken
to corroborate his daughter's averment
that " whatever he intended for the

press he wrote quite clearly enough."
On the testimony of the handwriting
alone, then, it is fair to conclude that
Grimshawe and Septimius (which were
written when he was less feeble than
while putting the Dolliver into form)
not only were far from ready for publi-
cation, — which their contents also prove,
— but had not even been brought to the
point of awaiting merely a final elabora-;
tion. For the author's punctiliousness
in sending a clean copy to the printers
would have necessitated somewhat more
than a touching up, here and there : it
would have compelled a rewriting, and
a rewriting might perhaps have resulted
in radical changes throughout.

That such would have been the event
seems hardly to admit of a doubt ; and
a comparison of Doctor Grimshawe's
Secret with Septimius and with The Dol-
liver Romance brings out points of con-
nection, by the aid of which it becomes
easy to divine how both the former
books were simply abandoned drafts of
a work which would, under a materially
altered guise, have attained to its fru-
ition as The Dolliver Romance. A va-
riety of prompt opinions have already
been brought forward as to the value of
Doctor Grimshawe's Secret as a work
of art ; and in some quarters there ap-
pears to be a disposition to rank it with
the finished romances that have already
become celebrated, — a rash judgment,
which time will not strengthen. Here,
indeed, is a veritable injustice to the
author, if his voluminous and rambling
study for a story is to be granted equal
merit with the well-proportioned struc-
tures upon which he had bestowed the
final resources of his art ! — unless we
assume his genius to have so enlarged
its scope that this incomplete experi-
ment of his last years is, by mere force
of added power, able to hold its own
against The Scarlet Letter, which was
the perfected offering of an earlier time.
Such an assumption is impossible, when
we observe that the newly published

1883.]

The Hawthorne Manuscripts.

867

volume does not contain any large moral
truth, is not permeated and vitalized by
any central or controlling idea, and fails
to depict any one passion in a compre-
hensive and masterly sweep of scenes,
characters, consequences. There is noth-
ing here that can be placed on the same
plane with that lesson favoring truth-
fulness even in sin, and condemning
revenge even for a just wrong, which
we find in The Scarlet Letter ; noth-
ing possessing the subtile attraction ex-
ercised by the study of heredity embod-
ied in The House of the Seven Gables.
The Grimshawe sketch offers no match
for the presentation of a theoretical re-
former, which constitutes a valid motive
for The Blithedale Romance ; and its at-
mosphere is of a more turbid kind than
that through which the fine idealization
and clear-cut conception of The Marble
Faun are conveyed. In a word, it lacks
intellectual cohesion ; a fact which, if it
were true of a finished work, would be
fatal, but, in the case of a study like
this one, is only wnat we should expect.
And, as a natural consequence, the sub-
stance of the book also lacks cohesion.
There is a gap in the middle, partially
filled by an intercalated chapter about
a secret chamber, in itself curious and
impressive, but not connected with any
other portion of the story except by
one passing hint, until the same secret
chamber is opened in the final pages ;
and even there no explanation is given
as to the occupant, or how he came to
be hidden in it. The situation is unin-
telligible until we consult the revisional
notes, of which some have appeared in
print at the time of writing these lines.
In \those notes, Hawthorne sets forth
the scheme of presenting a man self-
imprisoned by fear, to which he had
been influenced through the plots of an-
other man whom he had wronged, and
who thus revenges himself. " There
seems to be something in this ugly idea,"
he muses, " which may eventually an-
swer the purpose ; but not as I see it

now." Afterwards he fears that it is
too absurd ; " not only impossible, but in
a manner flat and commonplace." He
makes provision, however, for bringing
it early into the tale, and for repeatedly
alluding to it, which is not carried out
in the Grimshawe as now published ;
and had he ever finally used this rather
sensational invention in the story des-
tined to grow out of the Grimshawe, he
would most probably have softened, mod-
ified, and refined it into something hav-
ing only a general kinship with the thing
as it stands. Besides all this, the nar-
rative has no ending : it breaks off ab-
ruptly ; stops, simply because there is
no more of it. Redclyffe, the hero, is
left in an aimless position ; the result
of his adventures is not even shadowed
forth ; and Elsie, abandoned in the same
way, proves furthermore to have been
an entirely superfluous character. The
whole figment resolves itself into a com-
plication attending the succession to an
estate, a motive falling much below
those which Hawthorne usually select-
ed. The Ancestral Footstep shows us
how he meant to evolve from this com-
plication a higher interest ; that of the
American heir's renunciation of his
claim to the estate, in the belief that it
would be better to stick to his own
country. Even in such an interest, how-
ever, — unless he had been singularly
fortunate with the treatment, — there
would seem to be but little room for the
deeper movement of Hawthorne's gen-
ius ; and since, as it was, he had not
succeeded in bringing out the idea with
much force, it is easy to guess why this
whole Grimshawe sko-tch became so un-
satisfactory to him that he would not
carry it out to the conclusion he had
nearly reached. A sketch it remained,
accordingly, an experimental fragment ;
for mere bulk does not alter that fact.
If it were twice as long, and had no
more of dramatic construction or of
ending than it now possesses, it would
still be an incomplete study.

368

The Hawthorne Manuscripts.

[March,

And yet, what a study ! If The An-
cestral Footstep was the chalk outline,
this was the large blocking out of the
fresco upon the wall. The painting of
the first scene — the old grave-yard, the
Doctor's house, the two children — is
close, firm, and imbued with a strikingly
sombre depth of tone ; the figure of the
Doctor has a wild, rough superabun-
dance of vigor uncommon in Hawthorne's
creations ; the portions descriptive of
the English locality of the story are
touched in with a charming mellowness ;
and the scene at the Warden's dinner,
where Lord Braithwaite and Redclyffe
look into each other's eyes with secret
hostility over the Loving Cup, is both
characteristic and effective. There are
many strokes as peculiarly in the au-
thor's vein of fancy, already familiar to
us, as this one where, in speaking of the
old Hospital pensioners who came to in-
hale the savors of the kitchen, he says,
" The ghosts of ancient epicures seemed
on that day ... to haunt the dim pas-
sages, snuffing in with shadowy nostrils
the rich vapors, assuming visibility in
the congenial medium, almost becom-
ing earthly again in the strength of
their earthly longings for one other
feast such as they used to enjoy." But
there are also many repetitions of effect,
and a frequent recurrence to the idea
that the American, coming to England,
felt himself to be the self-same ancestor
who had gone away two centuries be-
fore, and was now returning home. In
the style, too, mingled though it is of
dignity and freedom, and full of beau-
ties, the same words or phrases are often
used in close proximity, in a way to pre-
clude the theory that the author consid-
ered this version of the story as pre-
senting anything very near to a finished
surface. Had he done so, he would
hardly have allowed himself so awk-
ward an invention as " unwipeupable "
(p. 301), or an inverted construction
like, " He muttered, the old figure, some
faint moaning sound." Other instances

might be cited, of the same kind, which
illustrate the informality of the whole
study in his eyes. Precisely in its in-
formality, of course, lies its chief value.
In parts rough, in others gleaming with
pure gold, it is like a rich piece of
quartz, seized in its pristine state from
the recesses of his mind. There is a
certain fierceness of energy, an exag-
geration of luridness here and there,
— as in the Doctor's midnight maledic-

tion that blasted an elm-tree, in the de-
moniacal spiders, and in the whole secret-
chamber episode, — that give it an
unique interest ; and the material of
the story embraces a greater variety
than appears in Septimius. Neverthe-
less, I think the latter sketch much the
finer in its suggestions, and its quality
a more penetrating one. That is one
reason for supposing that it was written
later than the Grimshawe, and had re-
ceived the benefit of a clarifying process
in the romancer's mind. Another rea-
son is that when Hawthorne resolved to
put his English impressions into the
form of reminiscent essays he abandoned
the plan of using them in a romance,
as we know from his preface to Our
Old Home. Most of these papers were
published in the autumn of 1861 and
in 1862, and it is improbable that after
he had got well under way with them
he would have devoted himself to a fic-
tional sketch containing so many obser-
vations of England as the Grimshawe
does. Its date, then, appears to be fix-
able in the winter of 1861-62, and ante-
cedent to that of the Septimius fragment.
The Bloody Footstep, as every one
is now aware, left its trail first on the
pages of the preliminary sketch recently
issued in The Atlantic ; although it was
not a wholly new object of imagination
for Hawthorne when he heard of it
at Smithell's Hall, in 1855, for in the
American Note-Books five years before,
in 1850, he had made this memoran-
dum : " The print in blood of a naked
foot to be traced through the street of a

1883.]

The Hawthorne Manuscripts.

369

town." Next, it appears in the Grim-
shawe ; its stamp is also put upon Sep-
timius ; and in the last extant scene of
The Dolliver Romance it is mentioned
once more. Evidently, Hawthorne was
determined to follow up the quest upon
which it had so long and so perplexing-
ly held him. Doctor Grimshawe him-
self was displaced, in Septlmius, and an-
other doctor, Portsoaken by name, in-
troduced, — not quite the same charac-
ter as Grimshawe, but doubtless a mod-
ification from him, and equally gifted
with a predilection for spider-webs and
the brandy-bottle. In the Dolliver,
again, we find that the old Grandsir is
also a doctor ; totally unlike these imag-
inary predecessors in the other manu-
scripts, it is true, yet bringing to our
notice another coincidence. It is signifi-
cant, too, that Grandsir Dolliver should
have under his protection a little grand-
daughter, Pansie, dwelling with him in
an old house by a graveyard — like Doc-
tor Grimshawe and Elsie, — and hav-
ing for her sole other companion a kit-
ten. Elsie also has a Persian kitten as
her playmate, in addition to the boy
Redclyffe. There is a further line of
resemblance ; slight to be sure, but illus-
trative of the way in which the same
elements were carried over, with some
change, from one tentative form of the
projected romance to another. The
American claimant to whom we are
introduced in The Ancestral Footstep
carries a1 silver key, which is to unlock
some part of the mystery surrounding
his inheritance ; and it turns out to fit
an old cabinet, which — reflecting, by
an ingenious symbolism, the endless and
bewildering search for the true heir —
the author describes as being made in
the likeness of a palace, " showing with-
in some beautiful old pictures in the
panels of the doors, and a mirror, that
opened a long succession of mimic halls,
reflection upon reflection, extending to
an interminable nowhere." A silver key
plays a part in the Grimshawe as well,
VOL. LI. — NO. 305. 24

but there it is applied to an old coffer
of carved oak, in the secret chamber.
This chest, as a note explains, was, ac-
cording to one tradition, thought to con-
tain a treasure of gold, but when opened
it displayed only " a treasure of golden
locks ; " and the notion of a deposit of
gold is continued in Septimius Felton,
where the hero has an old box of oak
and iron, with rude steel embellishments
on the outside, and mediaeval carving of
ivory figures inside. This also is un-
locked by means of a silver key, which
Septimius has taken from the breast of
the young English officer slain by him
on the day of Concord Fight.

At first glance, it is not clear how
two themes so unlike as that of re-
vived claims to an English estate and
that of the search for an elixir of life
came to be united ; how one led to the
other. But a clue is given in the last
chapter but one of the Grimshawe. Red-
clyffe, after being drugged, on awaking
in the secret chamber, and finding him-
self confronted with the spectre-like old
man incarcerated there, was bewildered,
and in trying to account for what he
saw recalled the various stories he had
heard about the house, wondering
" whether there might not have been
something of fact in the legend of the
undying old man" No such legend has
been mentioned in the body of the
sketch, but it is probable that Haw-
thorne had intended to insert it some-
where, as leading up to the revelation
of the secret chamber. Here, then, is
the point of connection. When he had
become convinced that the plot and pur-
pose of the English story, as he had
blocked it out, were inadequate and not
likely to yield the best results, he prob-
ably turned to the germ supplied by
this vision of a deathless man, and be-
gan to develop it. Now, there was a
tradition that a former occupant of Haw-
thorne's house, The Wayside, had cher-
ished the belief that he should never
die ; something more than a tradition, I

370

The Hawthorne Manuscripts.

[March,

may say, for I have since ascertained
that such a man actually did live there.
So that, as the romancer sat in the lit-
tle tower study which he had recently
built for himself at the top of the house,
looking out from the windows upon the
Lexington road in front, or the low hill
at the back, which had formed part of
the scene of the Revolutionary conflict
in 1775, nothing was more natural than
for him to transfer his whole dreamy
fabric to that ground and that period.
And thus, bringing in a new scheme
altogether, and retaining some of the
old material, Septimius Felton was pro-
duced. Septimius is depicted as going,
in the end, to England, where he enters
into possession of an estate to which he
is the lawful heir ; the main current of
the English romance, as it originally
flowed from the pen, having in this
newer channel dwindled to a very slen-
der rill. But the manner in which he
had worked out the story of a man bent
upon obtaining the elixir of perpetual
youth did not content him, either ; and
it was after this that he conceived still
another mode of approach to the goal,
and began the Dolliver. Why, then,
did he not destroy the two discarded
manuscripts ? The only plausible an-
swer to this question is that he pur-
posed drawing upon both, — or at least
referring to them, — in the composition
of the freshly undertaken work from
which death called him away. Having
carried out two different motives in sep-
arate studies, and found that both fell
short of his aim, he had, in all likeli-
hood, discovered a practicable mode of
combining them in a romance of larger
and deeper drift than he had at first
contemplated. The Dolliver Romance
would have become the vehicle of a
profound and pathetic drama, based on
the instinctive yearning of man for
an immortal existence, the attempted
gratification of which would have been
set forth in various ways : through
the selfish old sensualist, Colonel Dab-

ney, who seized the mysterious elixir,
and took such a draught of it that it
killed him; through the simple old
Grandsir, anxious to live for Pansie's
sake; and perhaps through Pansie her-
self, who, coming into the enjoyment of
an ennobling love, would desire to de-
feat death in order that she might make
sure of keeping always the perfection of
her mundane happiness, — all these di-
verse modes of striving to be made the
adumbration of a higher one, the shad-
ow-play that should define and direct
the mind to the true immortality be-
yond this world. To such a plan, the
instance of a person or a family en-
deavoring to perpetuate one particular
phase of existence, as it is the tendency
of English institutions to do, could have
been made to minister with admirable
appropriateness ; hence it would not
have been strange if Hawthorne, with
this end in view, had interwoven with
The Dolliver Romance a strand from the
Grimshawe study.

An assurance that he had, in his own
mind, struck the key-note, is afforded by
the perfection of matter and style be-
longing to the only completed scene of
the Dolliver. To Doctor Grimshawe's
Secret may doubtless be awarded a more
demonstrative vigor, but it does not fol-
low that the strength is greater for be-
ing deployed upon the surface ; rather,
the contrary is indicated. In the Dolli-
ver fragment, the strength is drawn in,
concentrated, reserved, and the conse-
quence is that its virtue is redoubled ; it
underlies the pensive charm, the trem-
ulous pathos, the tender fancy, of the
musical periods with an unfathomable
depth. Reading Grimshawe is like look-
ing at an opaque wall covered by a
striking, half-finished design in some-
what harsh colors : the bold strokes, the
sharp contrasts, and weak spots recall
the broad method of scene-painting, but
I get from it no sense of a spiritual per-
spective, leading me on beyond the ex-
ternal show. Into The Dolliver Ro-

1883.]

The Hawthorne Manuscripts.

371

mance, however, the mind penetrates, as
the eye sinks into the permeable yet end-
less blue of the sky. The sentences be-
come indefinably symbolic ; all through
them there is a vibration of some deeper
thought and meaning than any which
the literal statement seems to embody ;
arid when a burst of more purely spec-
tacular incident is needed, we see from
the picturing of Colonel Dabney and
his death scene that the author could
still throw such an element into the nar-
rative, with a jet of intensity more start-
ling than that which illuminates the first
part of Grimshawe. Thus, then, we get
a general idea of Hawthorne's method :
to make at first an outline, like The An-
cestral Footstep, — ^- light, easy, graceful,
and exploratory ; then to deepen the
lines, enlarge and intensify the whole
composition, as in the Grimshawe and
Septimius, even to the point of excess,
if he felt so inclined. " Do not stick at
any strangeness or preternatural ity," he
tells himself, in one of the notes lately
printed in The Century magazine. " It
can be softened down to any extent,
however wild the first conception." And
last, when it came to modeling the final
form, he recovered the repose of the
first sketch, but preserved at the same
time all the best of that grim force and
fantastic suggestion which had been
gained by an untrammeled play of im-
agination in the blocking out. I do not
feel sure that he always wrote so many
preliminary versions and memoranda
for a work of fiction as in this instance ;
I am inclined to doubt it, because so
much of his meditation was done out-of-
doors, while walking. But whether or
not he used pen and paper, the proced-
ure must have been in each case essen-
tially that which we have just traced.
One thing appears to be likely : that
he did not spend much time in rewriting
for the sake of securing a better verbal
expression. He once said to his sister-
in-law, Miss E. P. Peabody, in allusion
to his own literary problems, " The

difficulty is not so much how to say
things as what to say ; " intimating that
he so filled his mind with the motive
and substance of a romance before re*
sorting to the pen that, when he sat
down to write, the task consisted main-
ly in selection, arrangement, proportion-
ing, and so on. How it was that, from
the fluent but rather colorless medium
which he had used in Fanshawe, he was
able to compound the wonderful style
which the world has come to know as
being his alone, no one can presume to
say with confidence ; but, in seeing how
he labored over the theme and the inner
purport of a romance, how he considered
with utmost care every detail of plot
or character, and with what austerity
he rejected copious results of this labor
when they failed to come up to his ex-
acting standard, we obtain a hint as to
how the style was formed. Such a
process must have involved a constant
shaping of the word to the thought, just
as in the Note-Books the steady aim
seems to be to put down observations of
actual things with scrupulous exactness,
no matter how trivial or humble the sub-
ject. But instead of setting out upon a
course of reading specially calculated to
manufacture a style, like the historians
Prescott and Alison, for instance, or
modeling chiefly upon one master, as
Thackeray did upon Fielding, Haw-
thorne adopted the principle of search-
ing into the interior significance of his
imaginary people, and his real or ficti-
tious scenes ; and in working this out,
through every sort of detail, with the
unfaltering candor evidenced by his own
private comments now published, he had
perforce to use language with a choice
as sensitive and as unmerciful as that
which controlled him in the judgment
of his fanciful materials. But in the
choosing of the fittest phrase his decision
was evidently prompt, so that erasure
and substitution were rare expedients
with him. Rough though this analysis
be, it strikes out a distinction perhaps

372

The Hawthorne Manuscripts.

[March,

worth considering, because it tends to
explain why Hawthorne's style — which,
instead of being applied from without,
like a mould to compress the thought,
sprang from the thought itself, as if
it were its flower — was at once so orig-
inal and so unobtrusive, so thoroughly
infused with the spirit of art, yet inno-
cent of all affectation, and as natural as
if no other kind of utterance were possi-
ble. It resulted logically from the con-
scientious, self -scrutinizing method of
working now laid bare before us. It
was, we may say, a style not made but
inevitable. Given the peculiar mind
once fairly exercising its native insight,
it must express itself so, and only so ;
but at the date of Fanshawe it had not
learned the proper application of its
power, and that knowledge was perhaps
not fully gained until The Scarlet Let-
ter, twenty years afterward, came into
the gates of life ; although in the short
tales of the interim the author had made
great advances.

Inexhaustible patience of genius, to
wait twenty years for its first adequate
fruitage ! But the more we examine,
the more we discern that patience, mani-
fested in various ways, was a cardinal
trait in Hawthorne, and one of the great
sources of his power. I have elsewhere
pointed out that the relation of Grandsir
Dolliver and Pansie was obviously sug-
gested to him by Mr. Kirkup and his
little ward, Imogen, whom he had seen
in Florence five years previously.1 Imo-
gen is described as " a pale, large-eyed
little girl," and Pansie is also mentioned
as " a rather pale and large-eyed little
thing." Mr. Kirkup is not copied in the
gentle grandsire, but his attitude towards
the child is reproduced ; for Hawthorne
had spoken of the former, in his Note-
Books, as " thinking all the time of
ghosts, and looking into the child's eyes
to seek them," and in the Dolliver he

i A Study of Hawthorne, pages 278, 279. The
account of a visit to Mr. Kirkup is in the French
and Italian Note-Books, August 12, 1858.

represents the old man as " frolicking
amid a throng of ghosts" of departed
female relatives, whose " forgotten fea-
tures peeped through the face of the
great-grandchild." A kitten, recalling
Imogen's, frisks about in the Dolliver
household ; and as the same animal ac-
companies Elsie in Dr. Grimshawe's
house, we may conclude that there, also,
the writer was thinking of Imogen.
But whence comes the old house by the
graveyard, which stands at the begin-
niug of both these fragments ? Turning
to the American Note-Books, we find
under date of July 4, 1838, a paragraph
concerning the old burial-ground in
Charter Street, Salem : " In a corner
of the burial-ground, close under Dr.
P 's garden fence, are the most an-
cient stones remaining in the graveyard ;
moss-grown, deeply sunken. One to
' Dr. John Swinnerton, Physician,' in
1688. ... It gives strange ideas, to

think how convenient to Dr. P 's

family this burial-ground is, — the mon-
uments standing almost within arm's
reach of the side windows of the parlor."

The Dr. P here mentioned, there is

now iijO harm in saying, was Dr. Pea-
body, father of Miss Sophia Peabody,
who afterwards became Mrs. Hawthorne.
Hig house, which is still standing, holds
precisely the position relative to the
cemetery assigned to that of Dr. Grim-
shawe, " covering ground which else had
been sown thickly with buried bodies,"
and to the abode of Dr. Dolliver ; for
it is built upon a corner nicked out of
the Consecrated space, and has the
graves close at its back and along one
of its sides. It must not be supposed
that the character of Dr. Peabody had
anything to do with the attributes given
to Dr. Grimshawe and his mild suc-
cessor, Dr. Dolliver ; but the circum-
stance of a doctor being placed in that
dwelling, in each sketch, is one of those
associations with literal fact which Haw-
thorne seems so often to have preferred,
in constructing his fiction. Only the

1883.]

The Hawthorne Manuscripts.

373

other day I visited the spot. Haw-
thornes, Bowditches, Keyses, Ingersolls,
and other vanished representatives of
old Salem families have been laid away
there, under rudely chiseled headstones
of slate, that still mark the repositories
of their ashes ; and the statement in
Grimshawe, " Thus rippled and surged,
with its hundreds of little billows, the
"old graveyard about the house which
cornered upon it," still applies. A
cheerless locality enough on a winter's
day, as I saw it, although the mounded
grass and the trees scattered here and
there might impart a much pleasanter
aspect in summer ; but the deep gloom
which Hawthorne threw over it, in his
Grimshawe study, was supplied mainly*
from his own imagination, for the pur-
pose of inducing a certain mood in his
readers. The Note-Book record con-
tains a trifling error ; the date on Dr.
Swinnerton's headstone being really
1690, instead of 1688. The name " Sim-
merton," given to a physician in the
Grimshawe (page 129), is perhaps a
misprint, or a copyist's error, for Svvin-
nerton. He also occurs in the Dolli-
ver fragment as the venerable teacher
from whom the Graudsir had learned his
apothecary's craft. But, long before that,
again, he had received the honor of a
notice in the Seven Gables, first chap-
ter, where the physicians consult as to
the cause of Colonel Pyncheon's death :
" One — John Swinnerton by name —
who appears to have been a man of emi-
nence, upheld it ... to be a case of apo-
plexy." For the original hint of the old
Brazen Serpent sign which Dr. Dolliver
has in his possession, we must look to one
of Hawthorne's less known sketches, —
that which gives some account of Dr. Bul-
livant,1 an apothecary of Boston, who
.flourished about 1670, and is supposed
to have had a gilded head of ^Escula-
pius in front of his shop. But in the

1 This will be found in the twelfth volume of
the new Library edition, under the head of Tales
and Sketches.

Dolliver Hawthorne remarks that in
Dr. Swinnerton's day a head of .ZEscu-
lapius " would have vexed the souls of
the righteous as savoring of heathen-
dom," and therefore he had adopted the
Brazen Serpent, which he bequeathed
to old Dr. Dolliver. Of Bullivant, too,
it is said that he advertised " a Panacea
promising life but one day short of eter-
nity, and youth and health commensu-
rate." So, by this putting together of
things far apart, by this reticulation of
one web of fancy with another, Dr.
Bullivant's panacea and Dr. Dolliver's
cordial, Dr. S winner ton and little Flor-
entine Imogen all turn out to have a
mysterious connection, and are landed
in the house of Hawthorne's father-in-
law, which he had been keeping in
mind for over twenty-two years as an
available accessory. " Hold on to this,"
says Hawthorne, in one of The Century
memoranda, respecting a particular
thread of the new romance. But had
he not always been holding on ? He
never lost an impression worth preser-
ving, and he could wait as long as need
might be before utilizing it.

The series of longer notes just men-
tioned, and connected with the abortive
English story, contains one or two ref-
erences to real persons that go to show,
in like manner, how he used models from
life, not for portraiture, perhaps not
even for any trait of character in the
original, but as presenting one associ-
ation or another consonant with the
character he wanted to elaborate. Thus,
he writes, " An old woman ( Hannah
Lord, perhaps) must be the only other
member of the household." Hannah
Lord was a cousin of Hawthorne's
mother, remembered by her relatives in
Salem as an excellent maiden lady, who
devoted much of her time to serving
other people ; but possibly some quaint-
ness about her, in his recollection, served
Hawthorne in building up mentally the
" crusty Hannah," who in Doctor Grim-
shawe's Secret does not get beyond the

374

The Hawthorne Manuscripts.

[March,

stage of a mere name. In thinking over
the Pensioner, who is to be the true
heir, Hawthorne jots down, " Take the
character of Cowper for this man : " and
further, " He might be a Fifth- Heaven-
ly man ... in figure, Mr. Alcott."
Adopting these points of support from
real life, he could obtain a solid basis
for his personage ; but after the figure
had once been set in motion, it would
be absurd to imagine that everything he
might say or do was to be taken as
Hawthorne's interpretation of the poet
Cowper or of Mr. Alcott. An exactly
parallel mistake, nevertheless, is con-
stantly made by persons who say that
Zenobia, in The Blithedale Romance,
stood for Margaret Fuller. The converse
might be true, — that Miss Fuller stood
for Zenobia ; that is, as a temporary
model, until the author had constructed
his heroine, who would then hold her
place in his mind as a separate entity.

All these notes are extremely in-
structive. Some of them, alluding to
the proposed course of the plot, men-,
tion incidents which may be allowed to
stand " as before," or " pretty much as
now ; " making it evident that such
memoranda were written after Haw-
thorne had sketched out a considerable
part of the manuscript and was becom-
ing dissatisfied with it. But others have
the appearance of being preparatory
and feeling the way. They suggest a
poet eager to give life to his idealiza-
tions upon the stage, but compelled to
consider the machinery of the theatre,
to turn over the " properties " and see
how far they will aid him, yet all the
while cherishing a secret contempt for
these mechanical devices with which he
must work. Thus, when the subject is
"the coffin of a young lady, which, be-
ing opened, it proves to be filled with
golden locks of hair," the romancer
adds, " This nonsense must be kept
subordinate, however." Over and over
he tries to adjust details, without suc-
cess ; reviews this and that possibility ;

returns unwearied to the beginning,
in the hope of a better issue. As the
flame of the chemical blow -pipe con-
sumes the diamond and dissipates metals
in vapor, the flame-point of his imagina-
tion is concentrated upon different mate-
rials, which disappear one after another.
He permits himself the most impossible
and monstrous imaginings: as, of the
English lord, that he shall be a worship-
er of the sun, a cannibal, " A murderer
— 't wou'c do at all. A Mahometan —
psh ! " — not in seriousness, but trusting
by random hits to touch the right spring
at last, and always bringing himself up
with sharp reprimand for his vagrant
absurdities. Then, at a loss, he idly
strings together names of his acquaint-
ances, and commences afresh. Some-
times a pungent reflection escapes him,
like this : " That a strange repulsion —
as well as attraction — exists among
human beings. If we get off, it is al-
most impossible to get on again." But
he is perfectly well aware how little he
is accomplishing : " The life is not yet
breathed into this plot, after all my gal-
vanic efforts. Not a spark of passion
as yet." He lays out business-like di-
rections as to what is to be done: thus,
of the Doctor, " Make his character
very weird indeed, and develop it in
dread and mystery." Indeed, the most
striking and profitable fact about this
entirely unique record is the perfect
self-possession of the writer, the pres-
ence of the cool understanding, which
keeps up a running fire of sarcasm
against himself, at his failures.

A searching observer has said, speak-
ing of the author generically, " He
learns to bear contempt, and to despise
himself. He makes, as it were, post-
mortem examinations of himself before
he is dead." Nothing could better de-
scribe the process to which Hawthorne,
in these notes, was subjecting his own
mind. Enemies, Leonardo thought, teach
an artist more, by their criticisms, than
friends ; but what enemy could have

1883.]

The Legend of Walbach Tower.

375

been so impartial as Hawthorne was in
judging his handiwork ? His suprem-
acy in art, we discover, owed much to
the stringent critical faculty which he
exercised upon the product of his imag-
ination. It is undeniable that the finest
criticism must have in it something of
creative genius ; but apparently it is not
less true that the creative writer needs,
for the highest reach of his power;
a solid foundation of critical acumen.
And the demand for equipment of that
kind, in his case, is just so much the
greater by the obligation resting upon
him, not merely to measure the achieve-
ment of others, but to gauge his own
performance, and, on occasion, suppress
it. This is precisely the crowning vir-
tue which some authors of eminence
have been unable to grasp. But Haw-
thorne was able to, and did it. That

which he considered unworthy to see
the light has now, in the course of
events, been revealed, together with his
frank, informal commentary thereon. It
is not a great work, in the severe artis-
tic sense, but it is a great illustration
of an artist's workings ; and if the
appearance of sketches, studies, frag-
ments, and notes of this nature should
disarrange that conventional posture in
which, as I have said, readers like to
place their favorites, a compensation is
not wanting. In place of theoretical
views that, even when framed by a sym-
pathetic mind, must fall short unless
complete data have been procurable,
they will get a man of genius precisely
as he was, — one who earned, by long-
continued toil and a high fidelity to
literary honor, all that he received, and
perhaps more.

George Parsons Lathrop.

THE LEGEND OF WALBACH TOWER.

(Scene, Fort Constitution, on the Island of Newcastle, off Portsmouth, New Hampshire, — Colonel
Walbach commanding. Period, the fall of 1813.)

MORE ill at ease was never man than Walbach. that Lord's day,
When, spent with speed, a trawler cried, " A war-ship heads this way ! "

His pipe, half filled, to shatters flew ; he climbed the ridge of knolls ;
And, turning spy-glass toward the east, swept the long reach of Shoals.

An hour he watched : behind his back the Portsmouth spires waxed red ;
Its harbor like a field of war, a brazen shield o'erhead.

Another hour : the sundown gun the Sabbath stillness brake ;
When loud a second voice hallooed, " Two war-ships hither make ! "

Again the colonel scanned the east, where soon white gleams arose:
Behind Star Isle they first appeared, then flashed o'er Smuttynose.

Fleet-wing'd they left Duck Isle astern ; when, rounding full in view,
Lo ! in the face of Appledore three Britishers hove to.

"To arms, 0 townsfolk!" Walbach cried. "Behold these black hawk three!
Whether they pluck old Portsmouth town rests now with you and me.

376 The Legend of Walbach Tower. [March,

" The guns' of Kittery, and mine, may keep the channel clear,
If but one pintle-stone be raised to ward me in the rear.

" But scarce a score my muster-roll ; the earthworks lie unmanned,
(Whereof some mouthing spy, no doubt, has made them understand ;)

"And if, ere dawn, their long-boat keels once kiss the nether sands,
My every port-hole's mouth is stopped, and we be in their hands!"

Then straightway from his place upspake the parson of the town :

" Let us beseech Heaven's blessing first ! " — and all the folk knelt down.

" O God, our hands are few and faint ; our hope rests all with thee :
Lend us thy hand in this sore strait, — and thine the glory be ! "

" Amen ! Amen ! " the chorus rose ; " Amen ! " the pines replied ;
And through the churchyard's rustling grass an " Amen " softly sighed.

Astir the village was awhile, with hoof and iron clang;

Then all grew still, save where, aloft, a hundred trowels rang.

None supped, they say, that Lord's-day eve ; none slept, they say, that night ;
But all night long, with tireless arms, each toiled as best he might.

Four flax-haired boys of Amazeen the flickering torches stay,
Peopling with titan shadow-groups the canopy of gray ;

Grandsires, with frost above their brows, the steaming mortar mix ;
Dame Tarlton's apron, crisp at dawn, helps hod the yellow bricks ;

.While pilot, cooper, mackerelman, parson and squire as well,
Make haste to plant the pintle-gun, and raise its citadel.

And one who wrought still tells the tale, that as his task he plied,
An unseen fellow-form he felt that labored at his side;

And still to wondering ears relates, that as each brick was squared,
Lo ! unseen trowels clinked response, and a new course prepared.

O night of nights ! The blinking dawn beheld the marvel done,
And from the new martello boomed the echoing morning gun.

One stormy cloud its lips upblew; and as its thunder rolled,
Old England saw, above the smoke, New England's flag unfold.

Then, slowly tacking to and fro, more near the cruisers made,
To see what force unheralded had flown to Walbach's aid.

" God be our stay," the parson cried, " who hearkened Israel's wail ! "
And as he spake, — all in a line, seaward the ships set sail.

George Houghton.

1883.]

Tommaso Salvini.

377

TOMMASO SALVINI.

IT has often been said that the great
actors who flourished in the times pre-
ceding our own gave a more striking
proof of genius thau their successors are
called upon to give. They produced
their famous effects without aids to il-
lusion. They had no help from scenery
and costume ; the background was noth-
ing ; they alone were the scene. Garrick
and Mrs. Siddons, wandering over Eng-
land, and interpreting Shakespeare as
they went, represented the visions of
Hamlet and the sorrows of Constance
with the assistance of a few yards of tin-
sel and a few dozen tallow candles. The
stage was dim and bare, but the great
artists triumphed, so that the tradition
of their influence over their auditors has
been sacredly preserved. For the most
part, to-day we have changed all that.
There is to be seen in London at the
present moment a representation of one
of Shakespeare's comedies which is the
last word of picture-making on the stage.
It is a series of exquisite pictorial com-
positions, in which nothing that can de-
light the eye or touch the imagination
has been omitted — nothing, that is, save
the art of the actor. This part of the
business has not been thought indispen-
sable, and the performance is a great suc-
cess, in spite of the fact that a fastidious
spectator, here and there, feels vaguely
that he misses something. What he
misses is what Garrick and Mrs. Siddons
had it in their power to give ; what he
enjoys is a wealth of scenic resource of
which they never dreamed. It is un-
reasonable to expect to have everything,
and we must doubtless take our choice.
I mention the case of the comedy in
London, which fairly glows to the eye,
like a picture by a great colorist, be-
cause, besides being a topic of the mo-
ment, it is probably the most perfect
example the English stage has seen of

the value of costume and carpentry.
We have lately been having in Boston
an illustration equally perfect of success
achieved, in the old-fashioned manner,
by personal art as distinguished from
mechanical. The famous Italian actor,
Tommaso Salvini, giving us an oppor-
tunity to admire him in far too small a
number of performances, has played to
us under conditions very similar to those
with which the actors of the last cen-
tury had to struggle. There are differ-
ences, of course, — as in the Globe
Theatre being an exceedingly comfort-
able house for the spectator, and in the
stage being illuminated by gas rather
than by tallow. Apart from this, it is
difficult to imagine an actor surrounded
with fewer of those advantages which I
have called aids to illusion. Salvini's
triumph — a very great triumph — is
therefore, like that of Garrick and Mrs.
Siddons, a proof of extraordinary pow-
er. He had no scenery, and he had no
" support ; " in this latter respect we feel
sure that Garrick and Mrs. Siddons
were very much better off. His fellow-
actors were of a quality which it is a
charity not to specify ; unmitigated
dreariness was the stamp of the whole
episode, save in so far as that episode
was summed up in the personality of
the hero. Signor Salvini naturally
played in Italian, while his comrades
answered him in a language which was
foreign only in that it sometimes failed
to be English. It was in this manner
that Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, were
given. Signor Salvini uttered the trans-
lated text, and the rest of the company
recited the original. This extraordi-
nary' system, which has been in opera-
tion in various parts of the country for
many months past, has only to be de-
scribed to be characterized ; it has all
the barbarism of an over-civilized age.

378

Tommaso Salvini.

[March,

It is grotesque, unpardonable, abomi-
nable. It is the condemnation of a pub-
lic that tolerates it. If I were capable
of saying anything unkind about the ad-
mirable Salvini, I should say it was also
the condemnation of an actor who could
lend himself to it. But of course he
is well aware of his offense, and he is
equally well aware that, unpardonable
as it is, he induces us to pardon it. He
has discovered that, rather than not
have Salvini at all, the American pub-
lic will take him as he offers himself, or
as his impresario sees fit to offer him, —
with a mixture of tongues, with a mel-
ancholy company, with pitiful scenery.
The American public is either very su-
perficial or very deep ; in the presence
of the large houses to which Salvini
played, it was possible to be at once ex-
hilarated and depressed. It was to the
honor of the people of Boston that they
should come in such numbers to see a
great actor deliver himself in a language
which conveyed no meaning to the great
majority of them, — should come be-
cause they had the wit to perceive his
greatness through the veil of his alien
speech. It was not to their honor, on
the other hand, that they should gaze
without a murmur at the rest of the
spectacle, and condone so profusely the
aberrations of his playmates. Their
attitude involved a contradiction, and it
was difficult to get to the bottom of it.
I frankly confess I have not done so
yet ! That people who have a taste for
Salvini should not have a distaste — I
mean an effective and operative distaste
— for his accessories is a proof, as I
just now hinted, either of density or of
self-control. Were they culpably good-
natured, or were they nobly magnani-
mous ? Two things, at any rate, are cer-
tain. One is that the way in which the
theatrical enterprise is conducted leaves
much to be desired ; the other is, there
is that about Tommaso Salvini which
excites the geniality, the tenderness, I
may almost say the devotion, of the

spectator. I am free to declare that, if
he were to appear with a company of
Hottentots, I should regret that a hap-
pier arrangement might not have been
made, but I should go every night to
see him.

This is as much as to say that Salvini
is a charmer ; he has the art of inspiring
sympathy. Not the least of the draw-
backs of the manner in which he ap-
pears is the consequent reduction of
his repertory to five or six parts. To
teach Italian cues to American actors is
a work of time and difficulty ; to learn
American cues may be assumed to be,
for an Italian, no more attractive a task.
We see Salvini, therefore, in only half
his range ; we take the measure of
only a part of him, though it possibly is
the better part. The auditor who once
has felt the deep interest of his act-
ing desires ardently to know the whole
artist. He is essentially a large, rich,
abundant genius, capable of sounding
a wide variety of notes. However, we
are thankful for what is offered us, —
thankful for Macbeth, thankful for King
Lear, thankful for La Morte Civile,
thankful above all for Othello. We scan
the horizon in vain ; no other artist to-
day begins to be capable of giving us
such an exhibition of tragic power.
Othello headed the short list of his per-
formances, and there is an artistic pro-
priety in his playing Othello first. It is
a sort of compendium of his accomplish-
ments ; he puts everything into it, and
the part, as he plays it, has so full a
volume that it may almost be said that
it embraces all the others. There are
touches in Salvini's Macbeth, touches
in his Lear, very naturally, that are ab-
sent from his picture of the overwrought
Moor ; but it carries him to his maxi-
mum, and what he puts into it above all
is an inexhaustible energy. There are
twenty things to be said about it, and
half a dozen criticisms which it is im-
possible that we spectators of English
speech should not make. But the depth,

1883.]

Tommaso Salvini.

379

the nobleness, the consistency, the pas-
sion, the visible, audible beauty of it,
are beyond praise. Nature has done
great things for the actor ; with the aid
of a little red paint, the perfect Othello
is there. But I assume too much in
talking off-hand about the " perfect
Othello," who is after all a very com-
plex being, in spite of his simplicity.
It may seem to many observers that
Salvini's rendering of the part is too
simple, too much on two or three notes,
— frank tenderness, quick suspicion,
passionate rage. Infinite are the varia-
tions of human opinion ; I have heard
this performance called ugly, repulsive,
bestial. Waiving these considerations
for a moment, what an immense impres-
sion — simply as an impression — the
actor makes on the spectator who sees
him for the first time as the turbaned
and deep-voiced Moor! He gives us
his measure as a man ; he acquaints us
with that luxury of "perfect confidence
in the physical resources of the actor
which is not the most frequent satisfac-
tion of the modern play -goer. His pow-
erful, active, manly frame, his noble,
serious, vividly expressive face, his
splendid smile, his Italian eye, his su-
perb, voluminous voice, his carriage, his
tone, his ease, the assurance he in-
stantly gives that he holds the whole
part in his hands and can make of it
exactly what he chooses, — all this de-
scends upon the spectator's mind with
a richness which immediately converts
attention into faith, and expectation
into sympathy. He is a magnificent
creature, and you are already on his
side. His generous temperament is
contagious; you find yourself looking
at him, not so much as an actor, but as
a hero. As I have already said, it is a
luxury to sfo and watch a man to whom
an expenditure of force is so easy.
Salvini's perfect ease is a part of the
spell he exercises. The straining, the
creaking, the overdoing, the revelation
of the inadequacy of the machinery,

which we have been condemned to as-
sociate with so much of the interpreta-
tion of the dramatic gems of our litera-
ture, — there is no place for all this in
Salvini's complete organization and con-
summate manner. We see him to-day
perforce at the latter end of his career,
after years of experience and practice
have made him as supple as he is strong,
and yet before his strength has begun
to feel the chill of age. It is a very
fine moment for a great artistic nature.
The admirable thing in this nature of
Salvini's is that his intelligence is equal
to his material powers ; so that if the
exhibition is, as it were, personal, it is
not simply physical. He has a great
imagination ; there is a noble intention
in all he does. It is no more than nat-
ural, surely, that his imagination, his
intentions, should be of the Italian
stamp, and this is at the bottom of his
failure to satisfy some of us spectators of
English speech, — a failure that is most
marked when he plays Shakespeare.
Of course we have our own feelings
about Shakespeare, our own manner
of reading him. We read him in the
light of our Anglo-Saxon temperament,
and in doing so it is open to us to be-
lieve that we read him in the deepest
way. Salvini reads him with an Italian
imagination, and it is equally natural to
us to believe that in doing so he misses
a large part of him. It is indeed be-
yond contradiction that he does miss a
large part of him, — does so as a neces-
sary consequence of using a text which
shuts the door on half the meaning.
We adore the exorbitant original ; we
have sacred associations with all the
finest passages. The loose, vague lan-
guage of the Italian translation seems
to us a perpetual sacrifice to the con-
ventional : we find ottima creatura, for
instance, a very colorless translation of
" excellent wretch." But in the finest
English rendering of Shakespeare that
we can conceive, or are likely to enjoy,
there would be gaps and elisions enough,

380

Tommaso Sdlvini.

[March,

and Salvini's noble execution preserves
much more than it misses. Of course
it simplifies, but any acting of Shake-
speare is a simplification. To be played
at all, he must be played, as it were,
superficially.

Salviui's Othello is not more superfi-
cial than the law of self-preservation (on
the actor's part) demands ; there is, on
the contrary, a tremendous depth of feel-
ing in it, and the execution is brilliant
— with the dusky brilliancy that is in
the tone of the part — at every point.
No more complete picture of passion
can have been given to the stage in
our day, — passion beginning in noble
repose and spending itself in black in-
sanity. Certain exquisite things are ab-
sent from it, — the gradations and tran-
sitions which Shakespeare has marked
in a hundred places, the manly mel-
ancholy, the note of deep reflection,
which is sounded as well as the note
of passion. The pathos is perhaps
a little crude ; there is in all Shake-
speare's sentiment a metaphysical side,
which is hard to indicate and easy to
miss. Salvini's rendering of the part is
the portrait of an African by an Ital-
ian ; a fact which should give the judi-
cious spectator, in advance, the pitch of
the performance. There is a class of
persons to whom Italians and Africans
have almost equally little to say, and
such persons must have been sadly out
of their account in going to see Salvini.
I have done with strictures, and must
only pay a hasty tribute to his splendor
of execution. If those critics who dis-
like the Othello find it coarse (some
people, apparently, are much surprised
to discover that the representation of
this tragedy is painful), there is at least
not a weak spot in it from beginning to
end. It has from the first the quality
that thrills and excites, and this qual-
ity deepens with great strides to the
magnificent climax. The last two acts
constitute the finest piece of tragic act-
ing that I know. I do not say it is the

finest I can imagine, simply because a
great English Othello would touch us
more nearly still. But I have never seen
a great English Othello, any more, un-
fortunately, than I have ever seen a great
English Macbeth. It is impossible to
give an idea of the way in which Sal-
vini gathers force as he goes, or of the
superior use he makes of this force in
the critical scenes of the play. Some'
of his tones, movements, attitudes, are
ineffaceable ; they have passed into the
stock of common reference. I mean his
tiger-like pacing at the back of the room,
when, having brought Desdemona out
of her bed, and put the width of the
apartment between them, he strides to
and fro, with his eyes fixed on her and
filled with the light of her approaching
doom. Then the still more tiger-like
spring with which, after turning, flood-
ed and frenzied by the truth, from the
lifeless body of his victim, he traverses
the chamber to reach lago, with the
m;id impulse of destruction gathered
into a single blow. He has sighted him,
with the intentness of fate, for a terri-
ble moment, while he is still on one
knee beside Desdemona ; and the man-
ner in which the spectator sees him —
or rather feels him — rise to his aveng-
ing leap is a sensation that takes its
place among the most poignant the ac-
tor's art has ever given us. After this
frantic dash, the one thing Othello can
do, to relieve himself (the one thing,
that is, save the last of all), he falls into
a chair on the left of the stage, and
lies there for some moments, prostrate,
panting, helpless, annihilated, convulsed
with long, inarticulate moans. Nothing
could be finer than all this : the despair,
the passion, the bewildered tumult of it,
reach the high-water mark of dramatic
expression. My remarks may suggest
that Salvini's rage is too gross, too much
that of a wounded animal ; but in real-
ity it does not fall into that excess. It
is the rage of an African, but of a na-
ture that remains generous to the end ;

1883.]

Tommaso Salvini.

381

and in spite of the tiger-paces and tiger-
springs, there is through it all, to my
sense at least, the tremor of a moral
element. In the Othello, remarkable
in so many respects, of Salvini's dis-
tinguished countryman, Ernesto Rossi,
there is (as I remember it) a kind of
bestial fury, which does much to sicken
the English reader of the play. Rossi
gloats in his tenderness and bellows in
his pain. Salvini, though the simpli-
city, credulity, and impulsiveness of his
personage are constantly before him,
takes a higher line altogether ; the per-
sonage is intensely human.

The reader who has seen him in La
Morte Civile will have no difficulty in
believing this. The part of Conrad, in
that play, is an elaborate representa-
tion of a character that is human almost
to a fault. Before speaking of this ex-
traordinary creation in detail, however,
I must give proper honor to Salvini's
Macbeth, the second part in which he
appeared in Boston. This is a- very
rich and grave piece of acting ; like the
Othello it is interesting at every step.
Salvini offers us a Macbeth whom we
deeply pity, and whose delusions and
crimes we understand, and almost for-
give. Simple, demonstrative, easily
tempted ; pushed and bitten by the keen-
er nature of his wife ; dismayed, over-
whelmed, assailed by visions, yet willing
to plunge deeper into crime, and ready
after all to fight and die like a soldier,
if that will do any good, his picture
of the character preserves a kind of gal-
lantry in the midst of its darkness of
color.

This Macbeth is sombre enough, of
course, but he is wonderfully frank and
transparent ; he gives us a strange
sense of being honest through it all.
Macbeth, like Othello, but unlike Lear,
to my mind, is an eminently actable
character ; the part is packed with op-
portunities. Salvini finds the first of
these in the physical make-up of the
figure; presenting us with a fair-col-

ored, sturdy, rather heavy, and eminenfc-
ly Northern warrior, with long light hair,
a tawny beard, and an eye that looks
distractedly blue, as it stares at the
witches, at the visionary dagger, at the
spectre of Ban quo. In the matter of
dress I venture to remark that our ac-
tor is not always completely felicitous ;
something is occasionally wanting to the
artistic effect of his costume ; he is lia-
ble to wear garments that are a little
dull, a little conventional. I cannot help
regretting, too, that in four out of the
five parts he played in Boston he should
have happened to be so profusely beard-
ed. His face is so mobile, so living,
that it is a pity to lose so much of it.
These, however, are small drawbacks,
for, after all, his vigorous person is in
itself a picture. His Macbeth deserves
the great praise of being temperate and
discreet ; much of it is very quiet ; it
has a deal of variety ; it is never inco-
herent, or merely violent, as we have
known Macbeths to be; and there is not
a touch of rant in it, from the first word
to the last. It changes, from scene to
scene ; it is really, broadly rendered, the
history of a human soul. I will not
declare that with the scene of the mur-
der of Duncan, which would be in its op-
portunities the great scene of the play
if the scene at the banquet were not
as great, I was absolutely satisfied. I
thought that a certain completeness of
horror was absent, that the thing was
not as heart-shaking as it might have
been. When the late Charles Kean —
an actor to whom, on so many grounds,
it is almost a cruelty to allude if one
is speaking of Salvini — staggered out
of the castle, with the daggers in his
hands, blanched and almost dumb, al-
ready conscious, in the vision of his
fixed eyes, of the far fruits of his deed,
he brought with him a kind of hush of
terror, which has lingered in my mind
for many years as a great tragic effect.
It is true that that was many years ago,
and that if I were to have seen Charles

382

Tommaso Salvini.

[March,

Kean to-day I might possibly be ashamed
to mention him in this company. In the
scene in question, prodigious as it is, how-
ever acted, everything hangs together ;
the lightest detail has much to do with
the whole. We are usually condemned
to see it with a weak Lady Macbeth, and
we always feel — we felt the other night

— that the effect would be doubled if
the Thane of Cawdor should have a
'coadjutor of his own quality. Perhaps,
therefore, it was the short-comings of
the actress alone that made us feel we
had lost something ; perhaps it was the
fact that the knocking at the gate was
by no means what it should be. That
knocking is of great importance, — that
knocking is almost everything ; this is
what I mean by saying that everything
in the scene hangs together. Signor Sal-
vini should have read De Quincey's es-
say before he arranged those three or
four vague, muffled, impersonal thumps,
behind the back scene. Those thumps
would never have frightened Macbeth ;
there is nothing heart-shaking in those
thumps. They should have rung out
louder, have filled the whole silence of
the night, have smitten the ear like
the voice of doom ; for the more they
break into the scene, the more they add
to the tension of the nerves of the guilty
couple, to say nothing of the agitation
of the spectators. This, however, is
more than I meant to say. In the rest
of the play Salvini is admirable at a
hundred points; admirable in sincerity,
in profundity, in imaginative power ;
and in the scene of the banquet he is
magnificent. The banquet was grotesque

— so grotesque as to bring out the full
force of the analogy I have suggested
between our great Italian and his hand-
ful of lean strollers and those celebrated
players who flourished before the intro-
duction of modern improvements ; but
the actor rose to a great height. He
keeps this height to the end. The last
part of the play is the wonderful picture
that we all know, of the blind effort of

a man who once was strong to resist his
doom and contradict his stars, and Sal-
vini rides the situation like a master.
His Macbeth is less brilliant, less pro-
digious, than his Otheilo, and it is not
so peculiarly and exhaustively success-
ful as his portrait, in La Morte Civile,
of the escaped convict who finds him-
self without social, almost without hu-
man, identity. But it comes third, I
am inclined to think, in the list of his
triumphs, and it does him, at any rate,
the greatest honor.

I place Macbeth third on the list, in
spite of the fact that the principal event
in Signor Salvini's short visit to Boston
was his appearance for the first time as
King Lear. He achieved an immense
success, and his rendering of the most ar-
duous and formidable of Shakespearean
parts was as powerful, as interesting, as
might have been expected. It is a most
elaborate composition, studied with ex-
treme care, finished without injury to its
breadth and massiveness, and abounding
in impressive and characteristic features.
It is both terrible and touching ; it has
remarkable beauty. But for all that, I
do not put it before the Macbeth. I
should make haste to add that I saw the
representation of Lear but once, and that
on a single occasion one can do but scant
justice to a piece of acting so long, so
rich, and, I may add, so fatiguing to the
attention. One can do very little toward
taking possession of it ; one can only get
a general impression. My own impres-
sion, on this occasion, was more than ever
that King Lear is not a play to be acted,
and that even talent so great as Salvini's,
employed in making it real to us, gives
us much of the pain that attends misdi-
rected effort. Lear is a great and terri-
ble poem, — the most sublime, possibly,
of all dramatic poems ; but it is not, to
my conception, a play, in the sense in
which a play is a production that gains
from being presented to our senses.
Our senses can only be afflicted and
overwhelmed by the immeasurable com-

1883.]

Tommaso Salvini.

383

plexities of Lear. If this conviction is
present to us as we read the drama, how
much more vivid does it become in the
presence of an attempt to act it ! Such
an attempt leaves the vastness of the
work almost untouched. At the risk of
being accused of shameless blasphemy, I
will go so far as to say that in represen-
tation the play is tremendously heavy.
I say this with a perfect consciousness
that the principal part gives extraordi-
nary opportunities to a great actor. Al-
most all great tragic actors have at-
tempted it, and almost all have won
honor from it, — as Salvini did, the other
evening, when a theatre crowded from
floor to dome recalled him again and
again. The part, with all its grandeur, is
monotonous ; the changes are constantly
rung on the same situation ; and some-
thing very like a climax is reached early
in the play. Regan, Goneril, Edgar,
the Fool, are impossible in' the flesh.
Who has ever seen them attempted with-
out thinking it an unwarrantable vio-
lence ? When all this has been said, Sal-
vini's Lear is, like everything he does,
magnificent. We miss the text at times
almost to distraction ; for the text of
Lear is one of the most precious posses-
sions of our language, and the Italian ver-
sion is a sadly pale reflection of it. Al-
lowing for this, and for the way that the
play resists the transmutation of the foot-
lights, it has elements which will proba-
bly give it a foremost place henceforth
in the great actor's repertory. The
tenderness, the temper, the senility, the
heart-broken misery, the lambent mad-
ness, the awful desolation of the king, —
he touches all these things as a man of
genius alone can touch them. He has
great qualifications for the part, for he
has reached the age at which an actor
may lawfully approach it, and his ex-
traordinary bodily and vocal powers give
definite assurance of sustaining him. I
have no space to dwell on particular
points, but I may mention his delivery
of the curse that the infuriated king

launches on the head of Goneril, at the
end of the first act, — " Hear Nature,
hear ! dear goddess, hear ! " In this
there was really a touch of the sublime,
and the wild mixture of familiarity and
solemnity that he throws into the " As-
colta — ascolta ! " with which, in the
Italian translation, the terrible invoca-
tion begins, was an invention quite in
his grandest manner. The third and
fourth acts are full of exquisite strokes ;
the manner, for instance, in which he re-
plies to Gloster's inquiry, " Is 't not the
King ? " is a wonderfully bold piece of
business. He stares for a moment, —
his wits have wandered so far, — while
he takes in the meaning of the question ;
then, as the pang of recollection comes
over him, he rushes to a neighboring
tree, tears off a great twig, grasps it as
a sceptre, and, erecting himself for a
moment in an attitude intended to be
royal, launches his majestic answer :
" Ay, every inch a king ! " I do not
say that this touch will commend itself to
every taste. Many people will find it
too ingenious, and feel that the noble
simplicity of the words is swallowed up
in the elaboration of the act. But it pro-
duces a great effect. All this part of
the play is a wonderful representation
of madness in old age, — the madness
that is mixed with reason and memory,
and only adds a deeper depth to suffer-
ing. The final scene, the entrance with
the dead Cordelia, is played by Salvini
in a muffled key, — the tone of an old
man whose fire and fury have spent
themselves, and who has nothing left but
weakness, tears, and death. The " Howl,
howl, howl ! " has not, on his lips, the
classic resonance ; but the pathos of the
whole thing is unspeakable. Nothing
can be more touching than the way in
which, after he has ceased to doubt that
Cordelia has ceased to live, he simply
falls on his face on her body.

The unhappy hero of La Morte Civile
is, however, the character which he has
made most exclusively his own, and in

584

Tommaso Salvini.

[March,

which we watch him with the fewest
mental reservations. Here is DO sacri-
fice of greater admirations ; here is none
of the torment of seeing him play a
Shakespeare that is yet not Shake-
speare. It is Salvini pure and simple
that we have ; for of Giacometti there
is, to begin with, as little as possible.
Signer Giacometti's play has but a single
part (to speak of), and it is Salvini who
makes that part. The play is none of
the best ; it is meagre and monotonous ;
but it serves its purpose of giving the
great actor a great opportunity. It deals
with the unfortunate situation of an hon-
est man, who, in spite of his honesty,
has had the folly to kill his brother-in-
law. The circumstances were of the
most extenuating character, but he has
been condemned (with a degree of rigor
to which Italian justice resorts, we fear,
only on the stage) to penal servitude for
life. After fifteen years of imprison-
ment at Naples, he succeeds in escaping;
and, having eluded pursuit, he feels a
natural desire to see what has become
of his wife and daughter. They are get-
ting on perfectly without him : this fact,
simply stated, is the great situation in
Signor Giacometti's play. The child
has been adopted by a benevolent physi-
cian, and by the mother's consent passes
for the daughter of her benefactor. The
mother, meanwhile, for whom there is
no honor in her relationship to a mur-
derer, lives under the same roof in the
character of governess to the young girl,
who is not in the secret of these trans-
formations. When Corrado turns up,
with a legitimate wish to claim his own,
he finds that for these good people he
has quite dropped out of life ; they don't
know what to do with him ; he is civilly
dead. How can he insist upon his pa-
ternity to his innocent child, when such
paternity must bring her nothing but
anguish and disgrace ? How can he ask
his wife to leave their daughter, in the
tender care of whom she finds her one
compensation for past shame and suf-

fering, to go and live with him in hiding,
and share at once the dangers and the
infamy of his life? The situation is
without an issue ; it is the perfection of
tragedy. At last poor Corrado, after
a terrible struggle, determines to sacri-
fice himself to accomplished facts, and,
since he is dead civilly, to die personally
as well. He relieves his embarrassed
relatives of his presence ; he expires,
abruptly and publicly, as people expiro
on the stage, after hearing his daughter,
who is still not in the secret, but who
obeys the pitying adjuration of his
wife, address him for the first and last
time as her father. Such is the subject
of La Morte Civile, which is very effect-
ive in matter, though not very rich in
form. It is interesting to compare Signor
Giacometti's piece with the successful
compositions of contemporary French
dramatists, and to observe what the
French would call the extreme naivete
of the Italian writer. It is not with the
latter that we are dealing, however ; for,
after all, Signor Giacometti has provided
Salvini with an occasion which an infinite
infusion of French cleverness could not
have improved. His Corrado is a most
remarkable, most interesting, most mov-
ing creation. This is the great point,
that it is really a creation ; the concep-
tion, from the innermost germ, the con-
struction, the revelation, of an individual.
Corrado is a special nature. We live
in an age of psychology ; and it is not
going too far to say that Signor Salvini's
exhibition of this character has in it some-
thing of psychological research. Given
a simple, well-meaning, generous, hot-
bloodedx uncultivated, and above all af-
fectionate, Sicilian ; a man personally
sympathetic, but charged with the per-
ilous ingredients of his race and climate,
— given such a nature as this, how
will it have been affected by years of
suffering, by the sting of disgrace, by the
sense of injustice, by the reaction that
comes with recovered freedom, by the
bewilderment of a situation unexpected,

1883.]

Tommaso Salvini.

385

uncouceived, unendurable ? Salvini un-
dertakes to show us how, and his demon-
stration, in which every step is taken
with the security of a master, is a tri-
umph of art, of judgment, of taste. His
acting is absolutely perfect : the ripe-
ness, the sobriety, the truthfulness of it
will remain in the minds of many peo-
ple as a permanent standard. There is-
a piece of acting with which the Ameri-
can public has long been familiar which
has something of this same psycholog-
ical quality, as I have ventured to call
it ; but the material of Mr. Jefferson's
admirable Rip Van Winkle is infinitely
lighter and more limited. There is some-
thing extraordinarily affecting in the
impression we get that Corrado was
meant to be a good fellow ; that he
feels himself that he is a good fellow ;
that he eloped with his wife, it 's true,
but that, after that little adventure
was over, he would so willingly have
settled down to domestic felicity. He
was not intended for false situations, for
entanglements and agonies and insolu-
ble problems ; though he is all of one
piece, as it were, he is not aggressive,
and all that he asked was to be let alone
and to let others alone. He is dazed
and stupefied, although his southern
blood spurts up occasionally into flame ;
he doubts of his own identity, and
could easily believe that the whole story
is a bad dream, and that these horrible
things have not happened to himself.
The description of the manner of his es-
cape from prison, which he gives to his
old friend Ferdinando and to the treach-
erous ecclesiastic, Don Giacchino, a
long, uninterrupted narrative, which it
takes some minutes to deliver, is the
most perfect thing in the play. He be-
gins it with difficulty, with mistrust, with
diffidence ; but as he goes on, his excite-
ment, his confidence, a sense of doing it
all over again, take possession of him,
and he throws himself, as it were, with
a momentary sense of freedom and suc-
cess— it breaks out in a dozen touches
VOL. LI. — NO. 305. 25

of nature, of rapture, of familiarity —
into the hands of his listeners, one of
whom is only waiting to betray him.
He not only describes his flight, he lives
it over again ; for five minutes he is
off his guard, and his native good faith
is uppermost. I have used the word
which sums up the whole of this master-
ly performance. Corrado is a living
figure.

In leaving The Gladiator to the last
I have left myself no room to speak of
it. This, however, I do not particular-
ly regret, as there is little good to be
said of the play, and there is less good
to be said of Salvini's acting of the prin-
cipal part than his performance of other
characters would lead us to suppose.
He can do nothing that is not powerful
and interesting ; but, all the same, I
cann'ot help thinking his devotion to
this feeble and ridiculous piece rather a
mistake. The play is full of the incon-
gruous, the impossible; if it had no
other fault, it would be open to the ob-
jection that it is neither English nor
Italian. With a text translated into one
language for Salvini, and into another
for his assistants, the polyglot system
seems peculiarly vicious. Le Gladiateur
of Alexandre Soumet, of the French
Academy, was produced for the first
time at the Theatre Francois, in 1841 ;
but it had little success, and has, to the
best of my belief, never been revived
in France. It treats of a Roman em-
press, whose proceedings are incompre-
hensible; of a Christian young girl, a
slave, of whom the empress is jealous, ,
and whom she dedicates to a martyr's
death ; and of one of the heroes of the
arena, who, when he is on the point of
slaying the young girl, — a peculiar task
for a gladiator, — discovers, from a scar
on her arm, that she is his long-lost
daughter. All this is terribly conven-
tional and awkward, and even Salvini's
vigorous acting fails to carry it off ;
there is a terrible want of illusion. The
mounting of the play presents iiisuper-

386

One Woman.

[March,

able difficulties, and the scene in the
arena makes a fearful draught upon the
imagination without giving us anything
in return. An Italian audience will rise
to such occasions ; it has good faith, a
lively fancy, an abundant delight in a
story, and a singular absence of percep-
tion of the ridiculous. But we poor
Americans are made of sterner stuff,
and there was something very dull in
the house the night The Gladiator was
played. What I mainly brought away
was a recollection of Salvini's robust
figure, invested in a very neat maillot,
of the always magnificent tones of his
voice, and of the admirable delivery of
several speeches. It did not seem to
me the gladiator killed his daughter so
well as Salvini does some of his kill-
ing; but this young lady was a very
difficult person to kill. It is a curious
fact that Salvini's make-up in this piece
gave him a striking resemblance to the
late Edwin Forrest, who also used to
represent a gladiator. It need scarcely

be added that the resemblance was su-
perficial.

Salvini's performances in Boston were
lamentably few, and we take leave of
him with the ardent hope that he will
come back to us. "We even go- so far as
to hope that he will, in that case, as on
the occasion of his first visit to this
country, bring with him an Italian com-
pany ; though we are sadly afraid there
is little ground for either of these hopes.
We part from him, at any rate, in ad-
miration and gratitude, and we wish him
a continuance of triumphs and honors,
with plenty of rest at last. Our Amer-
ican stage is in a state of inexpressible
confusion ; our American taste is some-
times rather wanting in light. It can
do us nothing but good to have among
us so noble and complete an artist. His
example must be in some degree fruit-
ful ; his influence must be in some de-
gree happy. And, fortunately, it is not
to be said that we have not appreciated
him.

Henry James, Jr.

ONE WOMAN.

THOU listenest to us with unlistening ear;

Alike to thee our censure and our praise :
Thou hearest voices that we may not hear ;

Thou livest only in thy yesterdays 1

We see thee move, erect and pale and brave ;

Soft words are thine, sweet deeds, and gracious will;
Yet thou art dead as any in the grave —

Only thy presence lingers with us still.

With others, joy and sorrow seem to slip

Like light and shade, and laughter kills regret:

But thou — the fugitive tremor of thy lip

Lays bare thy secret — thou canst not forget!

1883.J

Port Royal,

387

PORT ROYAL.

PORT ROYAL is the old name of a lit-
tle valley about twenty miles to the west
of Paris.1 As early as 1204 it was
made over to pious uses by a crusading
baron, lord of the estate, or by his wife-,
and was long occupied by a convent
of nuns, of the order of St. Bernard.
The religious house thus founded has
linked the name of the little valley with
a remarkable movement of thought in
the Roman church, as well as with one
of the most interesting chapters of mo-
nastic life to be found in all Christian
history.2

In the year 1599, there was inducted
as novice among the nuns of Port Royal
a child eight years old, grave and pre-
cocious, second daughter of a celebrated
advocate named Arnauld, and grand-
child of an equally celebrated advocate,
Marion. In the view of both father and
grandfather, this was simply a conven-
ient way of providing for one of a fam-
ily of children, which in course of years
increased to twenty. To secure for
the child the succession to the convent
rule, they did not even scruple, a little
later, to state her age at least six years
more than it was ; and, further, to dis-
guise her name by giving, instead, that
which she had taken as a sister in the
little community. This pious fraud had
its effect, not only on the king's good-
nature, but also upon the grave dignita-
ries of the church. At the age of eleven
the child Jaqueline Arnauld, famous in
religious history as La Mere Angelique,
became abbess, invested with full au-
thority over the twelve or fifteen young
women who then constituted the relig-
ious house. Until her death in 1661, at

1 The original name is said to have been Por-
rois, and to signify, as near as may be, a bushy
pond, or swamp.

2 The admirable study of the whole subject by
Sainte-Beuve (5 vols., Hachette, Paris, 1860) is
well known as one of the most perfect of special

the age of seventy, the story of Port
Royal is almost the personal biography
of her who was, during all that time, its
heart and soul.

For the first few years we may well
suppose that it was something like play-
ing at the austerities of convent life.
Very quaint and pretty pictures have
come down, to illustrate this period. A
morning call of that gay and gallant
king, Henry IV., who, knowing that her
father was visiting there, came, curious
to see the pious, flock under their child
shepherdess ; the little maid herself, in
full ecclesiastical costume, and mounted
on high pattens to disguise her youth,
at the head of her procession to meet
her royal visitor at tho gate; the kiss
he threw over the garden-wall, next day,
as he passed by on a hunt, with his
compliments to Madame la petite Ab-
besse, — these are bright and innocent
episodes in the stormy story of the
tune.

But a great and sudden change oc-
curred, a few years later. The young
abbess, now nearly eighteen years of age,
became converted to the most serious
and rigid view of the duties of her call-
ing. Gently and kindly, but without an
instant's wavering of purpose, inflexible
to all temptation and entreaty, she re-
solved to restore the primitive austeri-
ty of the rule of the pious founder, St.
Bernard. For one thing, this rule de-
manded that the time of morning prayer
should be carried back to two o'clock
from the self-indulgent hour of four ;
and, for another, that all little personal
treasures and belongings should be given
up for that perfect religious poverty

histories. A more condensed narrative, com-
posed with excellent skill and knowledge of the
ground, by Rev. Charles Beard (Port Royal, a
Contribution to the History of Religion and Lit-
erature in France, 2 vols., Longman," London),
leaves nothing to be desired by the English reader.

388

Port Royal.

[March,

which is the ideal of monastic life. In
this, the example of the girl abbess,
cheerful and resolute in choosing the
hardest task always for herself, easily
won the day. The crisis of the reform
was when, with passionate grief, with
tears and swooning, she steadily refused
admittance to her own father and broth-
er, hardening herself against their en-
treaties, anger, and reproach, and would
see them only at the little grating that
separated the life within from the life
without.

The true history of Port Royal dates
from this crisis, Wicket Day, Septem-
ber 25, 1609. Just one hundred years
and a few days later, early in October,
1709, the malice of the Jesuit party,
which for more than half that time had
shown a strangely persistent and ma-
lignant hostility, had its way. The
grounds were laid waste. The sacred
buildings were destroyed. Even the
graves were dug open and the bodies
that had been tenderly laid in them
were cast out to be torn by dogs. All
was done which insult and wanton des-
ecration could do, to show that the he-
roic and eventful life of Port Royal
was no more.

So far, it is simply the fortunes of one
religious house, perhaps no more famous
than many others, and not greatly dif-
ferent from them in the sort of story it
has to tell. In this view, it is chiefly
notable for being, as it were, a family
history, connected at every point with
the character and fortunes of a single
household. Not less than twenty of
the family of Arnauld — Angelique her-
self, her brothers and sisters, and chil-
dren of a brother and sister — belonged
to it, whether as simple nun, as official
head, as lay brother, champion, director,
or adviser. Of these, the most eminent
in the lists of theology was " the great
Arnauld," youngest child of the twenty :
famous in controversy ; indefatigably
busy as a writer, scholar, logician, and
polemic ; staunch in persecution and in.

exile to the very close of his long life
of eighty-two years (1612-1694). But
there is hardly a day or an event in that
story, for more than ninety of the hun-
dred years, in which the most conspicu-
ous name on the record is not that of
a son or daughter of the family of Ar-
nauld.

A very characteristic feature in the
history is the single-hearted fidelity and
unwavering courage of the female mem-
bers of this religious community, which
quite surpasses, at one and another cri-
sis, that of their chosen champions and
advisers. At least, these religious her-
oines would neither understand nor ad-
mit certain terms of compromise which
theological subtilty found it easy to
frame and accept. The point at issue
was not so much one of opinion as of
conscience and honor ; and, to the
amazement of friend and enemy, a score
of these gentle and timid women went
without hesitation into prison or pov-
erty for what, in humility of spirit, they
made not the least pretension to under-
stand ; or, if they did waver, turned
back with agonies of remorse to share
the poverty or the prison of the rest.
It came at length to be a mere question
of fact whether five given proposi-
tions were contained in certain Latin
folios they had never read and could not
have understood ; but the Pope and the
Jesuits had challenged the conscience of
the little community, and to give way
on one point was to be guilty of all.

This unique fidelity on so fine drawn
a line of conscience has to do in part
with the general discipline of Port Roy-
al, and with simple loyalty to a relig-
ious house. But, in particular, it was
created by the singular confidence and
weight that were given in that disci-
pline to the counsels of the spiritual
director. The confessional had been
developed to a system inconceivably
vigilant and minute, touching every step
of daily conduct. The skill trained un-
der that system had become a science.

1883.]

Port Royal.

389

It had its recognized adepts, masters,
professors, as well known as those of
any other art or mystery. No less than
three,1 each of whom may be called a
man of genius in this vocation, are
identified with the history of Port Roy-
al. That passive heroism which is the
great glory of those humble confessors
is a quality most certain to be bred and'
strengthened in the air of the confes-
sional. It goes naturally with the ten-
der piety and the vow of implicit obe-
dience, which are the atmosphere of
monastic life. One of the saints of
the period, a man of great emotional
piety, of fertile and poetic fancy, char-
itable and tender-hearted to those who
might be gained to the faith, and of piti-
less rigor to those who would not,2 — St.
Francis cle Sales, — had set that mark
deep upon the mind of Augelique Ar-
nauld, and through her it became a
quality of the house. Nothing in the
religious life, as we see it under such a
discipline, is so foreign to our notions as
the abject submission of a strong and
superior mind to one inferior perhaps in
every other quality except the genius
and the tact of moral guidance. But
nothing is so near the heart of that won-
derful power held and exercised by the
Roman priesthood.3

A special circumstance brought this
religious community more conspicuously
to the front, in the history of the time,
than its humble locality might promise.
As the fame of its discipline spread, the
numbers grew. The narrow cells were
crowded, and the unwholesome damps
bred fever. Sickness and death the
pious recluses were content to accept

1 Saint-Cyran, Singlin, and De Saci.

2 As shown in the exile forced upon those who
were not won by his persuasions, who fled in the
night across the lake from his parish of Annecy,
in Switzerland. In 1599, "he got the Duke of
Savoy to expel the Protestant ministers from sev-
eral districts." He is said to have made 72,000
converts to the Roman faith.

8 Here is the way it looks to the Catholic eye :
" The Catholic religion does not oblige one to dis-
cover his sins indifferently to all the world. It

for their appointed discipline. But
good sense prevailed, and an estate in
the edge of Paris was bought, built on,
and occupied. The most critical events
in the story, accordingly, have their
place not in the rude valley, but in the
tumultuous capital. There are two
Port Royals, one " in Paris," one " in
the Fields ; " and the scene keeps shift-
ing from one location to the other.

Then, too, it was Paris of the Re-
gency and of the Fronde, where some
of the most critical years were passed.
This brought the religious house upon .
the scene of sharp conflicts, in church
and state, and so exposed it to dangers
which in time grew threatening. Some
of the famous women of the day, who
had been pets of society, or had been
deep in political intrigue, found shelter
and comfort among the nuns of Port
Royal, — notably the 'famous and too
charming Madame de Longueville, sister
of the great Conde ; drawn, perhaps, by
ties of old friendship, or reminiscence of
early pious longings, or that recoil of
feeling deepening to remorse when a
course of vanity and ambition has been
run through. Such guests might easily
bring upon the most devout of monas-
tic retreats a perilous suspicion of dis-
loyalty to the court.

These are the points of interest we
find in the annals of Port Royal sim-
ply as a monastic institution, or a
group of persons bound by a general
sympathy in religious views. These
alone make it a unique chapter of relig-
ious biography. But these alone are
not what make its real importance in
Christian history. The hundred years

suffers him to live concealed from all other men ;
but it makes exception of one alone, to whom he
is commanded to disclose the depth of his heart,
and to show himself as he is. It is only this one
man in the world whom we are commanded to un-
deceive, and he must keep it an inviolable secret ;
so that this knowledge exists in him as if it were
not there. Can anything be devised more chari-
table and gentle ? Yet the corruption of man is
such that he finds hardship in this command."
(Pascal's Thoughts, chapter iii. 8.J

390

Port Royal.

[March,

covered by the life of this community
are the chronological frame which in-
closes a very remarkable phase in the de-
velopment of modern Romanism. The
obstinate religious controversy on the
doctrine of grace, brought so sharply to
the front in the conflicts of the Refor-
mation ; the long and bitter warfare of
Jesuit and Jansenist ; the vivacious and
eager debate on the ground and form
taken in the intricate science of casuis-
try ; the acrimonious discussion as to
the exact meaning and import of papal
infallibility, — these, no less than the
heroic and indomitable temper exhib-
ited by a group of pious recluses in de-
fense of what was to them a point of
conscience as well as a point of faith,
are what give the story its significance
to us.

Port Royal was the centre and soul
of what is known as the Jansenist con-
troversy. Jansenism was the last great
revolt in protest agaiust official domi-
nation, within the lines of the Roman
church; and it was effectually sup-
pressed. The story of its suppression
is the most striking illustration we find
anywhere of that unyielding hardihood
in the assertion of authority which that
church has deliberately adopted for its
policy ; of that unrelenting centralism,
which does not stick at any inhumanity
or any sacrifice, to secure the servile
perfection of ecclesiastical discipline.
The best intelligence and the truest con-
science of the time were clearly on the
side of the Jansenist protest ; but such
reasons weighed not one grain against
the hard determination of Pope, Jesuit,
and king to crush in the most devout
and loyal subjects of the church the
meekest and humblest assertion of men-
tal liberty.

For the origin of this controversy we
must go back a little way, to the earlier
polemics of the Reformation. The doc-
trine of divine decrees had come to be
not only a main point in the creed of
Calvin, but a test of fidelity in the Prot-

estant faith. Its strong point, morally,
was in setting a direct and explicit com-
mand of God to the conscience over
against the arbitrary and minute direc-
tions of the church, which were sure to
run out into a quibbling casuistry. Its
weak point was that it declared, or
seemed to declare, a downright religious
fatalism. The church, on the other
hand, in demanding obedience to its
rule, must allow something for the lib-
erty of the subject to obey or disobey ;
while the doctrine of moral freedom,
known as Pelagian, or even the semi-
Pelagian compromise of it, had always
been stigmatized as heresy. Here was
a fair and open field for never-ending
controversy.

A topic so inviting to scholastic sub-
tilty and polemic ardor could not be neg-
lected by the Jesuits. They became
eager champions of free will. Their
skill in the confessional had made them
masters of the art of casuistry. The
whole drift of their method was to
make religion a matter of sentiment
and blind obedience, rather than of con-
science and interior conviction. They
must at the same time repudiate the Pe-
lagian heresy, in terms at least ; and it
was a party triumph when the Spaniard
Molina, an eminent doctor of their order,
published, in 1588, a treatise to recon-
cile the sovereignty and foreknowledge
of God with the moral liberty of man.
The key- word of his argument we shall
express accurately enough by the phrase
contingent decrees. Our acts themselves
are not, in fact, predetermined, though
the divine foreknowledge of them is in-
fallible. This fine point was seized as
a real key to the position. The name
" Molinist " is used to define a system
of thinking which holds that " the grace
of God, which giveth salvation," is not
sufficient of itself, but requires, to make
it efficient, the cooperation of the human
will. And this may be understood to
be the position of the Jesuits in the de-
bate that followed.

1883.]

Port Royal.

391

But an uneasy sense was left, in many
pious minds, that this was not the gen-
uine doctrine of the church. In partic-
ular, two young students of theology at
Louvain were drawn, about the year
1604, into deep discussion of the point
at issue. These were Saint-Cyran, af-
terwards confessor of Port Royal, and
Cornelius Jausen, a native of Holland.
They were well agreed that the point
must be met by the study of St. Augus-
tine ; and the one task of their lives,
particularly of Jansen's till his death in
1638, was little else than the exploring
and the expounding of this single author-
ity. Jausen is said to have studied all
the writings of St. Augustine through
ten times, and all those pertaining to
the Pelagian controversy thirty times.

The strict Augustinian doctrine of the
divine decrees thus became the firm con-
viction of these two friends, and through
them the profession of Port Royal. It
differs barely by a hair's-breadth — if
indeed any difference can be found —
from the Calvinistic dogma. Jansenism
is accordingly often called Calvinism,
or Protestantism, within the church of
Rome. Professing to be the most loyal
and sincere of Catholics, the Port Roy-
alists denied that charge. The distinc-
tion they made was this : 1 The fatalis-
tic doctrine, or Calvinism, asserts that
there is no such thing as moral liberty
at all. The Pelagian doctrine, or Mo-
linism, holds that man's natural freedom
suffices to take the first essential step to
his own salvation. The true Augustin-
ian doctrine is that man's freedom is (so
to speak) dormant and impotent, till it
has been evoked by divine " prevenient "
grace ; then, and not till then, it is com-
petent to act. In short, in the most lit-
eral sense, " it is God that worketh in
us, both to will and to do." 2

The controversy broke out upon the
publication, in 1640, of the heavy folios

1 See the Provincial Letters, Letter xviii.

2 One of the anecdotes of the time when Port
Royal was under the darkest cloud is that a Jesuit

in which Jansen had summed up the la-
bor 6f his life ; and these folios were
searched with jealous eyes, till five prop-
ositions were found in them, or were
said to be found in them, on which a
charge of heresy could be laid. Only
two are important enough, or clear
enough of technicality, to occupy us
here. They are these : (1) that there
are duties required of man, which he is
naturally unable to perform ; (2) that
Christ died not for all mankind, but
only for the elect.

In the course of the debate, these
" five propositions " became very fa-
mous. Whether they did or did not
exist in Jansen's folios was the point on
which, as we have seen, the faithful
women of Port Royal staked their loy-
alty, and underwent their martyrdom.
The Pope's bull condemning the volumes
asserted that the heresies were there.
As good Catholics, the Port Royalists
condemned the propositions, but, as loy-
al members of the community, declared
that they were not there. The Pope,
they said, was doubtless infallible on a
point of faith, but not on a point of fact.
To this it was replied that religious faith
was demanded for the one ; only eccle-
siastical or human faith for the other.

On such poor quibbles as these all
that long story of persecution turns. It
was, to be sure, the proverbial rancor
of theological hate that made the attack
so bitter. But what rendered it effect-
ual and deadly was that a Jesuit confes-
sor held the conscience (such as it was)
of the young king ; and that vague dread
of disloyalty, with memories of the time
when he and his mother were barred out
of Paris by the Fronde, made the point
a test not only of religious but of polit-
ical soundness in the faith.

It would be a weary and needless task
to trace the changes of fortune that be-
fell the little community during those

prelate, happening to come into church when this
text was being read, at once silenced the utter-
ance of the flagrant Jaasenist heresy.

392

Port Royal.

[March,

fifty evil years. Our concern is only
with the movement of thought in which
those fortunes were involved. A group
of very cultivated, able, and devoted men
had gathered in close relations with the
religious house. They included broth-
ers, nephews, friends, of the women who
had assumed its vows, as well as their
clerical advisers. They had founded
a famous school at .Port Royal in the
Fields, and made the estate beautiful and
productive by the labor of their hands.
We find among them, as pupils or asso-
ciates, several of the eminent men of
letters, including Racine, Boileau, and La
Fontaine, who reflected back upon the
religious community something of the
lustre of that famous and brilliant age.
Bright on the list is the illustrious
name of Blaise Pascal, certainly the
most vigorous and original genius of the
day. At twelve, he was feeling his own
way, in his play hours, in the forbidden
field of mathematics, — forbidden, be-
cause his father wished first to make
him master his Latin and Greek ; and,
when detected, he was trying to prove
to himself, what he seems to have di-
vined already, that the three angles of
a triangle make just two right angles.
At eighteen, to save his father labor in
accounts, he devised, and with infinite
pains — making with his own hands
something like fifty models — construct-
ed, a calculating machine, which was held
a miracle of ingenuity, as if he had put
mind into brass wheels and steel rods,
and actually taught machinery to think.1
At twenty- four he was in advance of all
the natural philosophers of the day, in-
cluding Descartes, then in the height of
his fame, in devising the true test of
Torricelli's theory of the weight of the

1 This notion (if it were really held) was a log-
ical result from the Cartesian dogma which then
prevailed, that animals were mere machines.
"There was hardly a solitary [at Port Royal]
who did not talk of automata. To beat a dog was
no longer a matter of any consequence. The stick
was laid on with the utmost indifference, and
those who pitied the animals, as if they had any
feeling, were laughed at. They said they were

atmosphere, in the famous experiment
of the Puy-de-D6me, a high hill in his
native Auvergne : the mercury, which
had stood at something over twenty-six
(French) inches at the foot of the hill,
showed less than twenty-four inches at
its summit. Later in life, he relieved
the distresses of an agonizing disease
by working out the true theory of the
cycloid, and challenging the mathema-
ticians of the day to a solution of its
problems.

These feats of a singularly sagacious
and penetrating intellect interest us, as
showing the high-water mark of tho sci-
ence of the day ; but still more, in this
particular connection, as a contrast or
relief to the share which Pascal had in
the religious life of Port Royal, and to
the unique place he holds as a religious
thinker.

He was by nature seriously inclined.
His health broke down early under the
strain of study and discipline, and for
more than half his life he was a nervous
dyspeptic and a paralytic. " From his
eighteenth year to the hour of his death,
he never passed a day without pain." At
one time he had partly recovered under
a change of habit, and seems even to
have enjoyed the gay life of Paris, with a
touch of extravagance. For he chanced,
one day, to be driving a carriage with six
horses, when the leaders plunged over an
unrailed bridge into the river Seine, and
only the breaking of the traces saved
him from being drowned. He appears
never to have recovered from the shock
of this accident ; and the tradition after-
ward current was that he always saw a
bottomless pit close at his left hand, and
could not sit easy in his seat unless a
chair or screen were set beside him.

only clockwork, and the cries they uttered when
they were beaten were no more than the noise of
some little spring that had been moved : all this
involved no sensation. They nailed the poor
creatures to boards by the four paws, to dissect
them while still alive, in order to watch the circu-
lation of the blood, which was a great subject of
discussion." (Quoted in Beard's Port Royal,
from Fontaine's Memoirs, iii. 74.)

1883.]

Port Royal.

393

The impression went deep and strong,
naturally enough, m the way of a pro-
found piety and contrition. A younger
eister was already one of the religious
community of Port Royal. He himself,
at twenty-four, in a time of religious re-
vival, came under the powerful influence
of the confessor Saint-Cyran. At thirty-
one, in the autumn of 1654, after expe-;
riencing all the intensity of that spirit-
ual crisis which is termed " conversion,"
he devoted his life, with absolute power
of conviction, to the tasks and disci-
plines of piety. This rare mind, pre-
maturely great and prematurely lost —
for Pascal died at the age of thirty-nine,
worn out with cruel austerities * and
long disease — is the radiant centre in
that circle of genius, of profound and
devout thought, which makes the intel-
lectual glory of Port Royal.

The story of this religious crisis would
not be quite complete without some
mention of the famous " miracle of the
holy thorn," which took place in the
spring of 1656. A fragment of the
crown of thorns had come into the pos-
session of a pious enthusiast, who was
not content till he had passed it about
through several religious houses, to re-
ceive their veneration as an inestimable
relic. A little niece of Pascal, pupil at
Port Royal, was suffering with a " lach-
rymal fistula," which seemed incurable ;
but when touched by the holy thorn,
it presently discharged, and " the child
was healed in the self-same hour." Pas-
cal had no doubt that the miracle was
real. The mocking sarcasms of the en-
emies of the house only made belief in
it more fixed and dear. It was the be-
ginning of what grew into a long series
of extravagances and scandals, which
disfigure the later history of Jansenism,

1 As if all the rest were not enough, his sister
relates that he wore an iron girdle next his skin,
armed with sharp points, which he would drive
into his flesh with his elbow, if he ever detected
himself in any thought of vanity. In short, he as
eagerly courted pain for its own sake as the East-
ern monks had done in their fanatical austerities.

2 In the earlier editions of the Thoughts, very

down to its dregs in the story of the
convulsionnaires. But now the faith
was natural, genuine, and sincere ; and
it marks the starting-point of that re-
markable volume of fragments which we
know as Pascal's Thoughts.2

A full descriptive title of Pascal's
Thoughts would be, Hints and Frag-
ments of an Essay in Defense of the
Christian Religion. Some of the hints
are expanded into chapters, or brief
essays ; and some of the fragments
consist of broken phrases, or even sin-
gle words, written almost illegibly as
loose memoranda, and faithfully pre-
served as they were left by the writer
at his death. In the earlier editions,
some of the keener points were trimmed
away, so as not to disturb the " relig-
ious peace " by thorning the Jesuit sen-
sibilities ; many of the fragments were
omitted, and the whole was made over
into an artificial order. Even this
smooth manipulation, however, did not
disguise the vivacity, the emphasis, the
shrewdness and point of these famous
paragraphs, which have kept, in the line
of theology, a repute something like that
of the contemporary Maxims of La
Rochefoucauld. With equal vigor, they
often have almost equal acridity and
sharpness. This quality comes from
what might almost be called the key-
note of the essay, — an incessant brood-
ing on the paradoxes of human nature.
Whole pages may be described as an
expansion of those vigorous lines in
Young's Night Thoughts : —

"How poor, how rich, — how abject, how au-
gust, —
How complicate, how wonderful, is Man ! "

Pascal puts this paradox in the figure
of a self-conscious and sentient reed,
— a figure which, after repeated revis-
much was altered, suppressed, transposed, or add-
ed from other sources. A convenient summary of
the literary history may be found in the variorum
edition of Louandre. (Charpentier, Paris, 1854.)
A comparison of texts is absolutely necessary, to
see how the precision and vivacity of Pascal's
style have often been smoothed into vague com-
monplace by the early editors.

394

Port Royal.

[March,

ion, he has brought at length into this
shape : —

" Man is but a reed, the frailest thing
in nature, — but a reed that thinks. To
crush him it does not need the weapons
of all the universe : a breath, a drop of
water, is enough. But though the uni-
verse should crush him, yet man would
still be nobler than his destroyer ; for
he knows that he is mortal, while the
universe knows nothing of its own do-
minion over him." (Chapter ii. 10.)

Another aspect of the paradox is
given, pungently enough, in this state-
ment of Pascal's political faith : —

" Summum jus summa injuria. The
rule [vote] of the majority is best, be-
cause it is visible, and has strength to
make itself obeyed ; still, it is the rule
of the incompetent. If it could have
been, force would have been put into
the hands of justice. But, since force
will not let itself be handled as one
would, because it is a material quality,
while justice is a mental quality, which
is directed as one wills, justice has been
committed to the hands of force ; and
so we call that just which we must obey.
Hence comes the right of the sword, —
which is, indeed, a veritable right ; for
without it violence would be on one side
and justice on the other." (Chapter
vii. 8.)

One other example of this epigram-
matic turn : —

" Who would fully know the nothing-
ness of man has only to consider the
causes and effects of love. The cause
is a trifle (je-ne-sais-quoi) ; the effects
are frightful. That trifle, so slight a
thing that you cannot trace it, stirs up
all the earth, — princes, armies, the
world itself. If Cleopatra's nose had
been a little shorter, all the face of the
earth would have changed." (Chapter
viii. 29.)

That there is something cynic and
saturnine in this contemptuous wit there
is no denying. But there is nothing in
the character of the essay, taken broad-

ly, to show Pascal as a skeptic in mat-
ters of faith, as is sometimes said, or to
hint that his austerities were a sort of
penance, to exorcise the spirit of unbe-
lief. Not only are a very large part
of the Thoughts a defense of Christian-
ity on the familiar ground of the mod-
ern apologist, — the argument from his-
tory, prophecy, and miracle, — but in
all this portion the tone has absolutely
the calm and glad assurance of a pious
believer. The very simplicity with
which the argument is put, free from all
suspicion of the flaws which a later
time has found in it, is token of a faith
which, in this direction at least, has not
yet learned to question.

I think we should state the case more
fairly thus. The mind of Pascal had
been brought to feel with singular keen-
ness the contrast between the two forms
of assurance which we call knowledge
and faith, — one reposing on outward
evidence, the other on interior convic-
tion. In geometry, he followed precise-
ly, even as a child, the line of mathe-
matical demonstration. In physics, he
demanded and desired the most accu-
rate processes of experiment to prove
the theory which he already held as a
truth of reason. It is a waymark of
the advance we have made in Christian
history that just here, in the keenest
and most reflective intellect of the time,
the contrast of those two methods,
scientific and intuitive, had come sharp-
ly and clearly into consciousness. Pas-
cal was in the very front rank of the
scientific advance of his age, — an age
of widening discovery and exact ob-
servation. But there is no reason to
think that religious belief was not just
as real and true to him as scientific.
The whole method of the life he had
adopted, the experiments in living which
he saw constantly close about him,
made that life as real, and the founda-
tion it rested on as sure, as anything
that could possibly be proved in the
way of natural science.

1883.]

Port Royal.

395

In fact, Pascal seems to have held
natural science very cheap. It was
far, in that age, from having reached
the point where it begins to furnish a
serviceable law of life. Its widening
fields of discovery served for little more
than intellectual expansion and delight.
To him the system of Copernicus and
Galileo was simply a wider void, over
against the intense reality he was con-
scious of in the world of emotion, belief,
aud hope. Nature, he said, confounds
the skeptic ; reason confounds the dog-
matist.

Nay, it was not that contrast of the
outward and inward world — so clear
to us as we look back on the mental
conditions of his day — which really
impressed his mind. It was rather the
moral contrast between methods alike
purely intellectual. This he discusses
with genuine interest under the names
of Epictetus and Montaigne. The stoic
method he admires, but condemns be-
cause it leads to pride. The skeptic or
epicurean method he hates, because it
leads to contempt. " Epictetus is very
harmful to those who are not persuaded
of the corruption of all human virtue
which is not of faith ; Montaigne is
deadly to those who have any leaning to
impiety and vice." How far science is
from giving him any light he shows in
the following words : —

" I had spent much time in the study
of abstract sciences, and was weary of
the solitude I found in it. When I be-
gan the study of man, I saw that these
-abstract sciences do not meet his case ;
that I was more astray in exploring them
than others were in ignorance of them,
— and so I pardoned their little knowl-
edge. But I thought at least to find
many associates in the study of man, and
that this is the proper study of mankind.
I was deceived. There are still fewer
who study that than geometry. It is
because we do not know how to study
this, that we search out other things.
But the truth is that that [natural sci-

ence] is not the knowledge which man
needs, and, for his own welfare, he had
best be ignorant of it." (Chap. viii. 11.)

All this implies, to be sure, a certain
skepticism as to the grounds of intel-
lectual belief, and of its sufficiency for
the real wants of human nature ; but it
does not appear that Pascal ever wa-
vered in the least as to the grounds of
religious verity. In truth, was not that
for which those humble devotees were
so loyal to live and die at least as real
a thing as that which Galileo saw afar
off through a glass darkly ?

The fame of Pascal as a writer rests
not on the Thoughts, which are broken
and incomplete ; but on the Provincial
Letters, which, for both style and argu-
ment, are reckoned among the most per-
fect of literary compositions. They
are claimed, in fact, to have created, as
it were, by one master stroke, that clear,
graceful, piquant, and brilliant prose
style which is the particular boast of the
charming language in which he wrote.

These Letters give us, so to speak,
the interior history of the conflict of
Port Royal against the Jesuits. That
is, without telling any of the incidents,
they give the line of debate on morals
and dogma which shows the course and
the spirit of that controversy. To the
charges of the Jesuits a labored reply
had been made by Arnauld, which fell
very flat and dead when he read it, by
way of trial, to his colleagues. Pascal
saw the point, and was persuaded to try
his hand. And so came, at due intervale,
this series of inimitable Letters Ad-
dressed to a Provincial, — probably the
most perfect example of grave, sustained,
and pungent irony in all literature.

Specimens would not exhibit their
quality, as in the case of the Thoughts.
The impression, like the expression of
a :2ace, must be caught, if not by study-
ing, at least by glancing at, the whole.
A large part is taken up with those
details of casuistry which have given an
evil odor to the very name of what is

396

Port Royal.

[March,

really nothing but a study of " cases in
morals," — as if it meant apologies for
what is immoral, — and have added the
word " Jesuitry " to the world's vocab-
ulary of contempt. And these are giv-
en in the blandest of dialogue between
the modest inquirer on one part, who
represents the author, and the Jesuit
father on the other, who brings out,
with a droll complacency, all the ingen-
ious apologies for usury, perjury, theft,
and murder to be found in thoso fa-
mous casuists, Molina, Sanchez, and Es-
cobar. Another large part is taken up
with those fine-drawn distinctions of
philosophic dogma which define the true
faith between the Calvinist peril on the
right hand and the Molinist on the left.
Now that the glow of controversy
has gone out of these Letters, they in
their turn have grown tame and dull.
It is as impossible to recall the helple.ss
and smarting wrath that chafed under
the keen whiplash of moral satire as it
is to revive the polemic interest of the
debate on sufficient and efficient grace,
or on the question — which Richelieu
himself had turned aside to argue —
whether attrition without contrition en-
titles the penitent to absolution. The
interior conflicts of Roman Catholic
theology two hundred years ago have
small interest for us now.

But there" is another aspect of the
case, which has a very vital meaning
to our history, take a view of it as sur-
face broad as we will. The century
which embraces the heroic and tragic
story of Port Royal is also the century
of splendor to the French monarchy ;
of chief pride and strength to the
Gallican church, which sunned itself in
the rays of that glittering orb. When
our story begins, Henry IV. was con-
certing an armed league of European
powers, which should break the strength
of Spain and compel a religious peace.
The next year he was stabbed to death
by a Jesuit assassin ; and the way was
opened that led into the horror of the

Thirty Years' "War on one side the bor-
der, and on the other to the long trag-
edy of the extermination of Protestant-
ism in France.

It was the age of the great court
preachers. Bossuet and Bourdaloue
died five years before, and Fenelon six
years after, the final desolation of Port
Royal. The Revocation of the Edict
of Nantes — which drove half a million
Protestants into exile, hunted out by
the terrors of search-warrant and drag-
onnade ; which carried misery and dread
unspeakable among a whole population,
pious, thriving, and pathetically loyal —
took place during the height of Jesuit
persecution and the exile of the great
Arnauld. To make the tragedy more
sombre, these horrors were approved, if
not incited, not only by those great
prelates, but by the exile Arnauld, who
was the victim of their hostility. To
enhance the irony of the situation, the
same alliance of court and Jesuit which
persecuted the women of Port Royal
for not consenting to the Pope's infalli-
bility in matters of fact as well as in
matters of faith had nearly made the
church of France independent of the
church of Rome. It was heresy not to
sign the formulary in which Jansen's
five propositions were condemned by
Alexander VII. ; it was disloyalty not to
uphold the king in the four articles of
the Declaration, which had been con-
demned and annulled by Alexander
VIII. Nothing, in short, is wanting to
proclaim the absolute divorce of eccle-
siasticism from humanity or from faith.

To make this evidence of that divorce
complete it needed only the tragic and
pitiful story of the latter days of Port
Royal. It is only at a distance, and very
imperfectly at that, that we can- know
how the cruelty struck into those pa-
tient hearts. To be debarred for years
from that " frequent communion " which
was both the joy and the most sacred
duty of their lives ; to have the sacra-
ments withheld through suffering months

1883.]

The City of Earthquakes.

397

of sickness, because they would not sign
with the hand what was a lie to the
heart ; to come to the hour of death,
and still submit to the cold refusal of
the words which to them were pass-
words and the comforting assurance of
eternal blessedness, — all this was real-
ity to them, in a sense we can hardly
understand. It is quaintly touching to
hear, too, how they flocked as doves to
their windows near the convent wall,
in midwinter nights, to listen to the
voice of their confessor, as he preached
to them, perched in a tree outside, — and
that by stealth and as it were in flight,
for fear of the Jesuit persecutor. Scenes
of this sort prove to us, indeed, that the
faith of that day was not dead. But
they seem to show that when we would

find it we must look for it quite outside
that circle illuminated by the burning
and shining lights of the official faith.

This judgment would not be quite
true. We know that Bossuet was an
able, and in his way an estimable, cham-
pion of the church he believed in. We
can read for ourselves the words of
Bourdaloue, that come home genuine
and straight to our own conscience. We
know that Fenelon was an angel of
charity in the diocese to which he had
been exiled from the court. But we
know, too, that the church which these
men served had lost " that most excel-
lent gift of charity ; " and even while
they served it, it was treasuring wrath
against the coming day of wrath, whicb
overtook it in the Revolution.

/. H. Allen.

THE CITY OF EARTHQUAKES.

THE observations of the International
Weather Bureau have established the
curious fact that stprms move in beaten
tracks, and that, from their starting-
point and general direction, it can be
pretty accurately predicted where they
will spend their maximum force. But
it seems yet stranger that the mysterious
underground storms called earthquakes
should follow a similar routine, and re-
peat their dreaded visits with more than
the regularity of certain epidemics. In
many parts of South America, the na-
tives need no signal bureau to foretell
(from the data of the first symptoms)
the duration, as well as the direction
and the average destructiveness, of an
earthquake ; and during a five years'
residence in Northern Veaezuela I had
various opportunities to ascertain the
accuracy of these predictions.

There are several seismic highways,
with pretty well defined boundaries. On
the whole, the western coast plain is

more liable to disturbances than the pla-
teau of the Andes. Some of the lateral
branches of the main chain enjoy a per-
fect immunity, while others are rarely
out of trouble, like the Cordillera Geral,
in Western Brazil, and the coast range
of Venezuela. But the most shaky lo-
calities are the intersection points of two
different earthquake tracks, as the val-
ley of Rio Bamba, in Ecuador, and the
coast plain of Caracas. The latter re-
gion, comprising the valley of the Rio
Arauco, the hills of San Sebastian, and
the immediate neighborhood of the cap-
ital (Caracas), is perhaps, in all South
America, the most favorable locality for
the study of seismic phenomena. The
Arauco has changed its course three or
four times in the course of this century.
It is a very Acheron, a central stream
of the Plutonic region, and so begirt
with sulphur caves, hot springs, and
mud geysers that the citizens of Caracas
have to get their drinking-water from

398

The City of Earthquakes.

[March,

the Catucho, six miles further south-
west.

Caracas has got used to earthquakes,
as Mexico to revolutions. Their fre-
quency has developed a special nomen-
clature. Terremoto, the literal transla-
tion of our comprehensive term, would
here be as insufficient as the word hurri-
cane for the description of all kinds of
atmospheric disturbances; temblor, vi-
bration, tremor, golpe, rasgo, rasgada,
terremoto, express only a part of the
wide scale between a faint vibration and
a wall-breaking shock. Of temblors the
city has at the very least a semi-weekly
supply; golpes (involving broken win-
dows and fractured brick walls) occur
about twice a year, in some years every
month. This year Caracas weathered
fourteen or fifteen of them. During the
disastrous first week of September I
had a remarkable proof how familiar
long experience has made the populace
with the attendant and prospective phe-
nomena of the various kinds of earth-
quakes, and also how impossible it is to
predict the day of their advent

As a general rule, a turbulent spring
is followed by a quiet summer ; and
when I deposited my surveying instru-
ments in the Posada de San Gabriel the
landlord congratulated me on the pros-
pect of a tiempo mas pacifico, a period
of more than usual peace. There had
been two severe shocks in the preced-
ing month, and no end of temblors, and
the probabilities were that the rest of
the year would make amends. The at-
mospheric indications were also more
favorable : the ominous mist of the
coast range had cleared away, and for a
week or so we could hope to sleep in
peace.

That was on the 5th of September.
The following day was even brighter.
A light haze veiled the horizon of the
Orinoco Valley, where the rainy season
still resisted the influence of the trade-
winds, but not a cloud approached the
coast plain. The air was both clear

and cool. But in the afternoon, about
an hour before sunset, I heard a sound
of hurried footsteps on the front stairs
of the hotel, and the guests on the ve-
randa put their heads together.

"What is it?" I inquired. "The
stage from Guarenas ? "

" No ; I wish it was," said the land-
lord. " The driver could tell us about it,
I suppose. They say there has been
another temblor on the river, all the
way from Guarenas to Pao."

" Yes, and clear across to the coast,"
added one of the new-comers. " The
Artegas in Santa Rita [the northern
suburb of Caracas] are quite sure that
they felt it in their own garden. It
jarred the glass in their garden house."

" Well," said the landlord, " if it is
not a local shake, we need not care.
The uplanders have not had their fair
share, anyhow."

The stage was late, that evening.
Between Santa Rita and the hotel, the
driver had been stopped at nearly every
street corner, and his arrival filled the
house with newsmongers. There had
been two very perceptible jars at Gua-
renas, and half an hour after he had left
the village he had heard a many-voiced
shout, very likely a signal of something
worse than a temblor. Guarenas is the
alarm station of the Arauco track. Its
valley seems to be the very centre of
the Caracas earthquake region, and an
alarm cry, or sometimes the boom of an
old howitzer, is a well-understood dan-
ger-signal for the neighboring villages.

" Yes, that settles it," said the land-
lord. " It 's a golpe de fuera [a shock
from the outer regions, a non-local dis-
turbance], and it may reach all the way
to Cumana."

The local earthquakes seem to have
their centre in the mountains of Cara^
cas, and seldom reach the coast, while
the pandemic shocks are supposed to
originate in the Andes of New Granada,
and often shake the continent from the
Isthmus to the mouth of the Orinoco.

1883.]

The City of Earthquakes.

399

" At what time to - morrow " I in-
quired, " do you think we shall have
another shake ? "

" It will be sooner than to-morrow, if
it comes at all," said the posadero ; " but
it will not ruin us, or we should have
had a share of it before this."

The night was clouded, but certainly
not sultry, and at nine o'clock the streets
were still full of promeuaders. Two
hours later I was awakened by the rat-
tling of a passing carriage, mingled with
the hum of so many voices on the ve-
randa that I was not quite sure if the
sudden vibration of a window-shutter
came from below or from the window
of my bedroom. The next moment all
was absolutely still. Was it the expect-
ant silence of a whole city listening for
a repetition of the tremor ? I do not
know if the heavier earthquake shocks
are preceded by any sensible, though
inaudible, symptoms ; but I remember
that in walking towards the window I
clutched the bedpost just a second be-
fore the house was shaken by a violent
concussion, directly followed by several
short, sharp jolts, such as the occupants
of a heavy coach might feel if the freak
of a runaway horse should jerk the ve-
hicle to the top of a narrow platform,
and then rattle it down a flight of steps
on the other side.

There was a general rush down-stairs,
and my first impulse was to gain the
open street without a moment's loss of
time ; but the mere sound of a calm hu-
man voice has a marvelously reassur-
ing effect.

" Never mind the bottles, Frank," I
heard the landlord call out to one of his
waiters. " Just move the cupboard back,
and shut the windows."

I closed my own window, and walked
down-stairs. There was nobody in the
office, but in the dining-room several
waiters were running to and fro, re-
moving the plates and glasses. The
hall was empty ; nearly all the up-stairs
boarders were foreigners, and most of

them had actually rushed out in their
stocking-feet. But on the veranda I
found several late guests, besides the

landlord and Professor S , of the

Geological Survey, who had accompa-
nied me on my return trip from Cumana.

" No hay cuidado, — no danger, no
danger," repeated the landlord. " This
house was built for that very kind of
accident, and the roof-girders are mor-
tised all around."

But that might be a routine speech ;
for in talking to somebody in the hall I
heard him add, in a whisper, " Say, run
back and tell Pablo [his youngest son]
to hurry up." " No, it is not over yet,"
he replied to a sotto-voce remark of the
professor's. The people of Caracas
seemed to share that opinion. There
was a light in nearly every window, and
the square was full of refugees, while a
number of serenos, or night-watchmen,
ran from house to house, and knocked
hurriedly at every unopened door. The
capital of Venezuela signalizes its loy-
alty by the consumption of native wines,
and the sleep of some extra patriotic
burgher might be earthquake proof.

" Yes, that was a golpe traversal"
remarked the landlord, " a transverse
shock, that did not come from our moun-
tains, but merely crossed them on its
way to the coast. If it goes in its old
track, I am afraid the people of Rio
Chico will have to build their cabins
over again, this third time since last
February."

The sky had cleared up, and a late
moon brightened the house-tops with its
peaceful light ; but now and then the
windows rattled ominously, and the
watchmen were still hammering away
from door to door, when Nature found
a way to second their efforts in a very
effectual manner. A shock like the
thump of an explosion shook the town,
and on the lower steps of the veranda
(resting on nearly level ground) I felt
a push, as if the flag-stones under my
feet had been dislodged by a sideward

400

The City of Earthquakes.

[March,

blow. All along the street pieces of
broken glass and stucco rattled down on
the pavement ; the assembly on the plaza
swelled suddenly to a vociferous crowd ;
the great bell of the Alta Gracia rang
out a booming alarm peal ; and a minute
after a six-horse carriage came tearing
down the street with the impetus of a fire-
men's team, — the patrol wagon, going
to the penitentiary to remove and guard
the prisoners. The bells paused for a mo-
ment, and " Dios, Dios, ten piedad ! "
(Have mercy, Lord !) resounded through
the streets as plainly as words spoken
in a closed room ; for I believe that the
prayer was uttered by half the inhab-
itants of the populous town. There was
no kneeling in the streets, and no cere-
monies ; the cry came from their hearts,
and, though nobody shouted, the thirty
thousand voices swelled the chorus, above
all the dim and tumult of the distracted
city. For the next ten minutes the
clatter of falling debris continued, as if
the buildings were still vibrating from
the after-effects of the first concussion ;
for the occasional underground rum-
blings felt rather like the recoil of a dis-
tant shock. But presently the multi-
tude crowded towards the up-town quar-
ters. There was a panic in one of the
river suburbs, and even through the
tramp of the general flight we could
hear the distant echo of an outcry that
meant something more than the yells of
an idle mob. The warehouse of the
associated foreign merchants had fallen,
and the custom-house building was dis-
locado, — disjointed and top-heavy, and
going to collapse. Rumor added that
the Plaza de la Torre was a mass of
ruins ; the mischief was spreading ; the
prophecy of Dr. Ortiz — a local Ven-
nor — was coming to pass.

" All possible," said the landlord ;
" but we are safe. It 's spreading north-
ward ; it has passed us, and the golpes
de f uera never turn back."

He said this in a tone of calm convic-
tion, and, indeed, soon after locked his

office door, and sent his children to bed.
Several of the city guests went home,
and after waiting another quarter of an
hour, during which the rumbling of the
subterranean forces seemed to recede,
like the muttering of a retreating storm,
I lighted a candle, and returned to my
bedroom.

The next morning the crowd around
the telegraph office almost blocked the
street. Caracas has no Associated Press,
and the telegraph companies issue official
bulletins at five or ten cents each, accord-
ing to size and import. This morning
their middle-men charged a real (about
twelve and a half cents), and twice as
much to buyers who would not wait, for
the demand exceeded the supply. The
earthquake had shaken the whole north
coast of South America, besides five of
the seven Isthmus States, with the main
axis of its progress along the track of
1826. The shock at 2.20 A. M. had
traveled three thousand miles in less
than half an hour. Guayaquil, Ventura,
Maracaibo, Caracas, Aspinwall, and San
Juan de Nicaragua had been visited by
a coast wave, that tore ships from their
moorings, and buried hundreds of shore-
dwellers under the ruins of their houses.
In Venezuela the Arauco track had de-
flected the main wave, and the coast
towns had suffered comparatively little,
with the exception of Rio Chico (the
very place my host had mentioned when
he recognized the shock as a golpe tra-
versal), where half the buildings, most-
ly adobe cabins, had been prostrated by
the first concussion. In Caracas itself
the total loss amounted to eight persons
killed, twenty -six wounded, sixty -two
buildings totally destroyed,, and sixty-
seven " disjointed " or badly cracked.
The serious damage was confined almost
wholly to the river suburb. The up-
town quarters had escaped with broken
stuccoes, and the famous Calle de San
Martin was again entirely unharmed.

In 1812, when fourteen thousand per-
sona were killed by the fall of their

1883.]

The City of Earthquakes.

401

dwellings, the San Martin district got
off with four shattered brick houses, and
in 1826 with a few broken windows.
The current explanations of this immu-
nity vary from the most fanciful con-
ceits (as the prophylactic influence of a
votive tablet at a certain /corner of the
favored street) to Professor McKinney's
theory, that the formation of the subja- -
cent rocks isolates that part of the ta-
ble land from the surrounding strata.
Several smaller streets, and even single
buildings, irrespective of their architec-
tural distinctions, pass for earthquake
proof, and experience has generally jus-
tified that confidence. The north side
of the Plaza del Presidio has never sus-
tained any serious damage, while the
west and east sides of the same square
are as liable to accidents as the worst
parts of the river suburb. The puntas
tremolosas, the shaky districts, are like-
wise well known, but, in consequence of
the lower rents, not less well inhabited ;
some of them being, indeed, in the very
centre of the business part of the town,
— like the "factory quarter" and the
river-side taverns. The old cathedral,
too, seems to have been founded on an
extremely tremulous basis, and in its
present condition is perhaps the strang-
est-looking minster in Christendom. The
earthquake of 1812 had cracked its west
wall so badly that the dome threatened to
collapse, and as a provisory measure the
building was propped up with massive,
but rather un symmetrical, buttresses.
Soon after, the top of the dome did fall,
and was imperfectly repaired, while the
buttresses not only remained, but now
support the least grotesque-looking part
of the structure ; for on the east side
and above the fa§ade large breaches in
the masonry have been patched up with
brickwork, at the expense of a pious
tiler, who, during the catastrophe of
1826, had made a vow to repair the
sacred edifice with his own hands.

The foreign residents of Caracas gen-
erally prefer the southern (up-town)

VOL. LI. — NO. 305. 26

quarters, whereas the natives take the
cheaper lodgings and the additional risk.
But the experience of the last fourteen
generations has somewhat diminished
that risk. Caracas was founded in 1567,
and has been visited by eighteen terre-
motos, or earthquakes of the first magni-
tude. Golpes, rumblings, and tremors
are never counted, but must amount to
an average of sixty appreciable shocks
per year ; involving an average yearly
damage of three hundred thousand dol-
lars, or the equivalent of a per capita
tax of four dollars. This impost has
taxed the ingenuity of the inhabitants,
and taught them some useful lessons.
Projecting basement corners (giving the
house a slightly pyramidal appearance)
have been found safer than absolutely
perpendicular walls ; mortised corner-
stones and roof-beams have saved many
lives, when the central walls have split
from top to bottom ; vaults and keystone
arches, no matter how massive, are more
perilous than common wooden lintels,
and there are not many isolated build-
ings in the city. In many streets broad
iron girders, riveted to the wall, about a
foot above the house door, run from
house to house along the front of an en-
tire square. Turret-like brick chimneys,
with iron top ornaments, would expose
the architect to the vengeance of an ex-
cited mob ; the roofs are flat, or flat ter-
raced ; the chimney flues terminate near
the eaves in a perforated lid.

Every house has its lado seguro, or
safety side, where the inhabitants place
their fragile property ; and there is a
supposed and not altogether imaginary
connection between north sides and secu-
rity. The transcontinental shocks move
from west to east, the local ones from
east to west, and sometimes from north-
east to northwest ; so that in two out of
three cases the west and east walls have
been stricken broadside, while no shock
has ever approached the town from the
north, that is, from the direction of the
sea. A native of Venezuela would laugh

402

The City of Earthquakes.

[March,

at the idea that a terremoto is an up-
heaval of the ground. The movements
of dislodged rocks, the disjointment of
house walls and their way of falling, the
motions of a tidal wave during the prog-
ress of an earthquake, all prove that the
shock is a lateral push, and that its op-
eration could be imitated on a small
scale by covering a table with loose peb-
bles, card houses, etc., and striking the
edge of the board.

For some less obvious reason, walled
cellars are supposed to be unsafe, or
" unlucky," as the Spaniards express it.
Subterranean storehouses, they hold,
ought to have board partitions, or should
not be immediately under the house.
Bedsteads, experts say, should not be
placed too near a window ; for if the
wall gives way it is apt to split along
the weakest line of the masonry. For
the same reason, it is unlucky to stand
in an open door. The safest place,
during the progress of an earthquake,
is the north side, or the centre of a
room, or else the middle of the open
street. The slightest sensible vibration
is more ominous than the audible col-
lapse of an adjoining house ; for the
safety districts are bounded by sharp-
drawn lines, and often comprise only a
portion of a square, and even of a sin-
gle building, as in the case of the Mint
and Assaying Office, whose eastern wing
has never been damaged. On the whole,
I noticed that the owner of a lucky house
is apt to overrate its stability ; for even
in the perilous districts the markets are
often crowded with buyers and sellers,
while an adjoining street resounds with
the crash of falling bricks. In some
cases, however, this apparent reckless-
ness can be ascribed to a certain consti-
tutional stoicism of the Spanish . race.
On the day before I left Caracas, I saw
one of the victims of the river suburb, a
Catalan guitar virtuoso, who had lost
his younger brother, a trobadero, or bal-
lad singer, and, with the exception of a
still younger sister, his only relative on

this side of the ocean. He was playing
in a public garden, and strummed away,
with half-closed eyes, but in perfect tune
and time, though the sobbing little girl
at his feet sometimes obliged him to
avert his face. It was no " tragedy
combination," for I was assured that the
circumstances of the accident were well
known, and that the poor fellow played
against his will, and only in preference
to paying the forfeit of a broken engage-
ment!

Intermittent dangers stimulate the
spirit of augury, and the burghers of
Caracas have a whole system of earth-
quake prognostics ; but it is a significant
circumstance that all the more plausible
portents refer to the local disturbances.
On the day before a heavy shock a hot
spring near Plan del Cura, some twenty
miles north of the capital, has often sud-
denly failed. The valley of the Rio
Arauco has a Delphic cave, where the
rumbling of the subterranean Titans can
be heard sooner than elsewhere. Low
water, not preceded by an unusual
drought, is a suspicious sign ; and if the
Cura spring fails at the same time, true
believers go to bed with their boots on,
although skeptics assert that both phe-
nomena are apt to prophesy after the
event. A mist in the afternoon is re-
garded as a harbinger of mischief, arid
in order to distinguish it from a com-
mon dust haze the natives watch the
wooded heights of San Sebastian ; for
during the dry season the paramos, the
treeless table-lands north of the city,
are in a chronic state of haziness.

Transcontinental shbcks sometimes
announce their approach by slight tre-
mors, that can be observed only in spe-
cial localities. Of the various vibration
gauges, the most popular is the cruz so-
nante, a T-shaped frame, connected with
a little bell, and attached to the centre
of the ceiling. Foreign scientists have
contrived more delicate indicators, which,
however, are apt to prove too much, by
indicating the approach of every rum-

1883.]

The City of Earthquakes.

403

bling street car, — as barometrical por-
tents may announce a thunder-shower
as well as subterranean thunder ; and
the natives generally prefer to rely on
their bell-frames, or else on the verdict
of an approved tembloron, a person en-
dowed with a gift of prescience, varying
from the presentiments of a nervous or-
ganization to a sort of seismic second-
sight.

There are native savants, who base
their auguries on systematic observa-
tions, but in the river suburb nearly
every street has an earthquake Cassan-
dra or two, who would scorn the aid of a
signal bureau, and anticipate the course
of nature by weeks and months ; and
a Pythian huckster on the Plaza de la
Torre goes so far as to predict the vicis-
situdes of special streets, and ascribes
her talent to a hereditary gift of clair-
voyance, and tradition admits that her
mother foretold the very hour of the
great ^earthquake of 1826. There are
dogs, cats, and jerboas (a sort of kan-
garoo-shaped rodent) that anticipate the
shadow of coming events by methods of
their own, and manifest their feelings
by a peculiar kind of restlessness. Sev-
eral intelligent natives of my acquaint-
ance boast the possession of an oracular
quadruped of that sort, but the trouble
is that auguries by that channel give so
very short notice.

Tender-footed cats may feel a vibra-
tion before it becomes distinct enough
to affect a bell-frame, but most animals
are as indifferent to such portents as to
their fulfillment. Nature, in fact, has
no special reason to warn them ; for to
the creatures of the wilderness an earth-
quake is, after all, a rather unimportant
event, as compared with a storm or a
frost. A moderately well-rooted forest
tree can stand an earthquake better than
any building, and to the inhabitants of
the prairies the most violent trembling

of the ground can cause nothing but a
trifling inconvenience, a momentary dif-
ficulty to preserve their equilibrium. On
the pastures of Venezuela cattle graze
peacefully the year round, except in
the mountains, where the noise of fall-
ing rocks sometimes stampedes a whole
herd. Still, there is a tradition that, a
few hours before the catastrophe of
1812, a Spanish stallion broke out of its
stable in the river suburb, and took ref-
uge in the eastern highlands.

That horse could have taught the
founders of Caracas a valuable lesson.
They began by grading the terraces
along the banks of the Rio Arauco, and
it was a bad mistake to bridge the river
at a point where countless caves and
crevices proclaim the activity of the sub-
terranean forces. A little further east,
or below the junction of the Catucho,
the city would have been comparatively
safe. Between the Plaza de la Torre
and the foot of Santa Marta Street
nearly every house has been destroyed
and rebuilt five or six times ; and, fur-
ther west, a large tract of land has been
entirely deserted, and is now a military
drill-ground. Caracas is moving east-
ward ; the upper (northeastern) suburbs
grow from year to year, while the streets
below the mint exhibit manifold signs of
neglect. The agricultural population of
the surrounding country has steadily in-
creased ; for crops are not materially
the worse for a periodical instability of
the ground, except perhaps in the or-
ange district of Valencia, and at the
mouth of the coast rivers, where tidal
waves have often submerged the littoral
plantations.

Intelligent observers therefore pre-
dict that, in spite of local and imported
earthquakes, the population of Northern
Venezuela will continue to increase, but
that the present site of Caracas will ul-
timately be abandoned.

Horace D. Warner.

404

The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. [March,

THE ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH POPULAR BALLADS.1

Ix the long-expected work of which
the first part lies before us, Professor
Child undertakes to give every existing
version of every popular English ballad,
together with its comparative history,
» including an analysis of all forms in
which the song may appear on the con-
tinent of Europe, and an account of
such traditions as may illustrate its prin-
cipal traits. The preparations under-
taken in order to carry out this project
have been commensurate with the ex-
tent of the plan : gleanings have been
made of the scanty remains of the an-
cient song still traditional in Great Brit-
ain and America ; all unpublished bal-
lad-manuscripts which it was possible to
reach have been either purchased or cop-
ied, and have found a secure lodging
in the library of Harvard University;
while a collection of folk-lore, aiming
at entire completeness, and probably
the richest in the world, has been gath-
ered by the same library ; so that if the
admirable talent and system which have
lately rendered that institution most con-
venient for working purposes are taken
into account, it is certain that no other
scholar in this department of knowledge
has had such means at his disposal.

The present work comes to fill a dis-
graceful vacancy in English literature.
There exists, indeed, no edition of Eng-
lish ballads having claims to critical ex-
cellence, except that put forth by Pro-
fessor Child in. 1857-58, under the name
of English and Scottish Ballads, con-
sisting of eight volumes. It is curious
to contrast the small stock of foreign
material then at hand with the vast
range of popular lore now available for
comparison. The editor could even at
that time refer to the great work which
has served as a model for the present

1 The English and Scottish Popular Ballads,
Edited by FUANCIS JAMES CHILD. Part I. Bos-

edition, — that of Svend Grundtvig,
Danmarks Gamle Folkeviser, which,
begun in 1853, with the support of the
Danish government, finished its second
volume in 1856, but yet remains incom-
plete. Beside the older Danish and
Spanish books, and several modern Ger-
man collections, he had before him the
Swedish of Arwidsson, of Afzelius, and
of Cavallius and Stephens ; the songs
of modern Greece were represented by
Fauriel, Servian ballads by Talvj, while
the volumes of Villemarque, not yet
discredited, professed to contain ancient
Breton lays. His sole predecessor in
the comparative treatment of folk-song,
Robert Jamieson, was acquainted only
with Scandinavian parallels. Jamieson
had very just views of the relationship
of Scottish and Scandinavian folk-lore,
and has supplied subsequent writers not
only with much of their knowledge on
the subject, but with ready-made errors ;
for, happening to allude, in his Popu-
lar Ballads and Songs (1806), to well-
known Danish collectors by the names
of Saeffrensen and Say, instead of (So-
rensen) Vedel and Syv respectively, he
is religiously followed by Mr. William
Allingham in The Ballad-Book, and
by Professor Veitch, the last British
writer on the subject, in his History and
Poetry of the Scotch Border (1878),
although Jamieson had done his best to
correct the faults in Northern Antiqui-
ties (1814). Perhaps if Professor Veitch
had taken the trouble, as part of the
preparation desirable for writing on bal-
lads, to read the latter book, he would
not have informed us that the song of
the Border land has been a pure growth
of the soil. After Jamieson, only one
British comparative student of popular
poetry need be mentioned, Dr. Prior,

ton : Houghton, Mifflin £ Co. The Riverside
Press, Cambridge.

1883.]

The English and Scottish Popular Ballads.

405

whose translation of Ancient Danish Bal-
lads, published in 1860, despite faults of
taste and an erroneous view of ballad
origins and dates, is characterized by
sound and extensive learning. During
the last twenty years, strange to say, no
English work of any consequence has
been done. The whole wide field has
been left to be occupied by the present
editor alone.

The most remarkable addition to the
literature of the subject within this
quarter of a century has been made in
France. In 1853, the celebrated Am-
pere drew up a remarkable paper of
instructions on the part of the Comite
de la Langue de 1'Histoire et des Arts,
directing the collection of the popular
songs of France. It had generally been
supposed that no French ballads sur-
vived, even that none had ever existed ;
but, as a result of this effort, several
excellent publications appeared, prov-
ing the continued life of the ballad on
French soil ; and a great manuscript
gathering of popular poetry remains in
government possession, of which a copy
has been taken for the library of Har-
vard University. Of late years, every
civilized country of Europe has joined
in the task of preserving the ancient
national poesy. The work of Arbaud
revealed the existence of old ballads
in Provence ; that of Mila y Fontanals
showed that such still abound in Cata-
lonia ; the publications of Ferraro and
many others have established that a lim-
ited number of such songs are to be
found in Italy ; Spanish literati, though
late in the field, are now pursuing the
same object, their land being rich in
every species of traditional lore ; while
nowhere have such investigations been
pursued with more ardor or success than
among Slavic peoples. As a consequence
of this activity we find that, in treating
of the single ballad of Lady Isabel and
the Elf-Knight, Professor Child is able,
in the course of a discussion of thirty
pages, to point out Dutch, Flemish,

Danish, Icelandic, Swedish, Norwegian,
German, Polish, Wendish, Bohemian,
Servian, French, Italian, Spanish, Por-
tuguese, Breton, and Magyar equiva-
lents, citing (if we count correctly)
eighty-five collections.

It must not be supposed that the at-
tempt to exhibit side by side all obtain-
able versions of a popular song is one
of those scholarly enterprises in which
the value consists more in the complete-
ness itself than in any direct result.
The ballads taken down from recitation
in Scotland, or on the Scottish border, —
commonly called Scottish, although they
are such only in so far as they have been
longest preserved and finally recorded in
that dialectic form, — have been trans-
mitted to us by the earlier editors in a
sadly mangled guise. Not all of these,
indeed, were as reckless correctors and
rewriters as Percy, who had no more
hesitation about providing an ancient
song with a beginning, middle, or end,
suitable to his own ideas of literary pro-
priety, than he had in introducing into
his work " a few modern attempts in
the same kind of writing," " to atone for
the rudeness of the more obsolete poems."
But, unfortunately, all of them were
more or less poets on their own account,
and saw no reason for omitting to im-
prove a barbarous composition with a
smooth line, now and then, or neglect-
ing to fill up any gap as fancy suggested.
Almost all of them, from Scott down,
had a secret or avowed contempt for
the " rude " compositions which they
reproduced, and considered that a great
part of the value of these was to set off
as a foil the immense progress which
had been made by their own " polished
age," as they chose to term it, and which
we, in impatience and disgust, are often
inclined to characterize with very differ-
ent epithets. It is indeed difficult to ac-
cept the taste of the time as a sufficient
excuse for these mutilations, when we
observe that nearly all these editors
made profession of an accuracy which

406

The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. [March,

their practice was far from exemplify-
ing. But an account of the changes of
popular taste, as exemplified in the treat-
ment and estimation of English folk-
song, would be a curious and melancholy
chapter of the records of intelligence,
which we have no space to set forth. It
is enough to say that the state in which
English ballads have reached us often
renders necessary, for their appreciation,
all the illustration available from every
known version, as well as the light which
an examination of parallels iu other lan-
guages may cast on their original char-
acter.

There will never be any more popular
ballads. Made to be understood through
the ear, not the eye ; characterized by
the inimitable freshness, sweetness, and
simplicity of oral tradition, they present
a pleasant contrast to the poetry of
thought, which constantly tends to be-
come more abstruse and subtle. The
most recent (if we except a few lays of
local history, composed at a compara-
tively late day in isolated districts, where
the ancient style of poetry continued in
vogue) have remained for centuries on
the lips of the people ; changing, indeed,
linguistic form from generation to gen-
eration, but in the main preserved with
marvelous persistency, as the vehicle of
the pleasures and sorrows of a nation.
We hold that this very use and diffusion
put popular ballads on an entirely dif-
ferent footing from literary productions,
which may represent only the fancy of
a single individual, who has perhaps
chiefly in view his own literary reputa-
tion. The national song must be taken
for what it is ; its many and immortal
beauties reverently owned ; its traits, un-
pleasant, or even at times repulsive, to
modern sentiment, tolerated as the prop-
erty of a different social state. Every
fragment must be gathered up ; and
when the modern relics of the ancient
treasure present, as they often do, in-
consistencies and absurdities, we must
consider these as results of the impurity

of the soil through which the once crys-
tal water has percolated. If we may be
allowed a comparison, it is as with the
violets of the wood, gathered late in the
season, which are fairest in clusters ;
even half - withered blooms may add
somewhat to the impression of color,
and assist to express the character of
the flower.

Independently of the pride which an
American may properly take in every
enterprise which shows how rapidly
scholarship in this country is progress-
ing, there is a special reason why he
may be pleased that the English folk-
song should have first received adequate
attention and study in the United States.
It seems to attest his claim of co-propri-
etorship in the treasures of the language.
In particular, many of these ballads
have been handed down and sung, from
generation to generation, in the New
England as well as in the Old. Hali-
burton, in the Attache, makes Mr. Hope-
well, an aged clergyman, educated be-
fore the Revolution " at Cambridge Col-
lege in Massachusetts," say, " Our nur-
sery tales taught our infant lips to lisp
in English, and the ballads that first ex-
ercised our memories stored the mind
with the traditions of our forefathers."
The assertion is much more literally
true than we had, until lately, supposed.
In the last generation, the usual amuse-
ment at evening gatherings in New Eng-
land country towns was singing ; and
among the " love songs " then current
were, without doubt, many ballads. A
gentleman, born in Massachusetts dur-
ing the first quarter of the century, has
assured us that his nurse, an American
woman, was in the habit of singing to
him such lays, often treating of heroes,
who, as he expressed it, left their coun-
try " for a year and a day," returning,
perhaps, in time to save their deserted
mistresses from wedding another. So

nearly has this lore perished that it must
always remain uncertain how large a
measure of the ancient ballad poetry

1883.]

The English and Scottish Popular Ballads.

407

Puritans brought with them to Amer-
ican shores ; yet it is our impression,
founded upon the remnants which exist,
and upon information similar to the
foregoing, that a very tolerable ballad-
book might have been made in New
England about the beginning of the
century. The present volume includes
two such pieces, one the ballad of Lord
Randal, or, as it seems to have been
known in Massachusetts, Tiranti, which
has remained familiar on account of the
character it assumed as a nursery song.
Only second in importance to the un-
dertaking of a complete publication of
ballad texts are the results — as re-
markable as unpretentiously stated —
of the editor's comparative research of
the twenty eight ballads contained in
the first part (about one eighth of the
designed whole), almost every one (the
five or six exceptions being fragments)
has equivalents in other tongues, either
in the form of song or tale. As an ex-
ample of the wonder and romance with
which the subject abounds, take the
ballad of Earl Brand, who has fled
with " the king's daughter of fair Eng-
land ; " the song proceeds : —

" They have ridden o'er moss and moor
And they met neither rich nor poor.

"Until they met with old Carl Hood;
He comes for ill, but never for good."

The lady advises her lover to put to
death the " old carl ; " but he replies, —

" 'O lady fair, it wad be sair,

To slay an old man that has grey hair.' "

The aged stranger accuses Earl Brand
of carrying off the maid, and will not be
put off with the assertion that she is
only his sick sister, whom he is bring-
ing from the cloister.

" 'If s'he be sick, and like to die,

Then why wears she the gold on high ?' "

The seeming beggar reports the elope-
ment at the castle, and the knight is pur-
sued, and in the end mortally wounded.
Most curious are many traits of the
English (and Scandinavian) ballad, which

may possibly (though we cannot regard
it as made out) be a mediaeval echo of
the lay of Helgi Hundingslayer, in the
Edda of Saemund. But however this
may be, Professor Child has shown that
the " old Carl Hood " of the song is
none.other than Odin himself, who thus,
disguised as a (presumably blind) beg-
gar, plays exactly the same part of a
mischievous tell-tale which we find him
assuming in the heathen poesy of a
thousand years earlier. How full of in-
struction and suggestion, how replete
with food for thought and fancy, is this
wonderful survival of the figure of the
capricious deity once worshiped in Eng-
land !

We must cite an instance of a differ-
ent character. The story of Orpheus
and Eurydice was turned into a mediae-
val romance, in which the king of fairy-
laud plays the part of Pluto, the faith-
fulness of love' is rewarded, and Euryd-
ice (or Heurodis) restored to the light
of day. The oldest form of the tale is
found in the Auchinlech manuscript,
dating from the beginning of the four-
teenth century. At the end of this copy
it is stated that harpers in Britain heard
this marvel, and made a lay thereof,
which they called, after the king, Lay
Orfeo. Wonderful to state, it is but
three years since this very ballad was
recovered in the Shetland Isles, in a
beautiful dialectic version, from which
we cannot deny ourselves the pleasure
of giving a few verses ; the refrain, as
Scandinavian and nearly unintelligible,
we omit : —

" Der lived a king inta da aste,
Der lived a lady in da wast.

" Dis king he has a hunting gaen,
He 's left his Lady Isabel alane.

" ' Oh, I wis ye 'd never gaen away,
For at your home is db'l an wae.

" ' For da king o Ferrie we his daert,
Has pierced your lady to da hert.' "

The king, having thus learned from his

408

Mr. Isaacs, and other Novels.

[March,

retainer the fate of his queen, sets out
in search of the fairy castle.

" And aifter dem da king has gaen.
But whan he cam it was a grey stane.

" Dan he took oot his pipes ta play,
Bit sair his hert wi del an wae.

" An first he played da notes o noy,
An dan he played da notes o joy."

He is invited into the hall, plays for the
fairy king, and is asked at last, —

" ' Noo tell to us what ye will hae :
What sail we gie you for your play ? '

" ' What I will hae I will you tell,
And dat 's me Lady Isabel.'

" 'Tees tak your lady, an yees gaeng hame,
And yees be king ower a' your ain.'

" He 's taen his lady, an he 's gaen hame,
And noo he 's king ower a' his ain."

Has the beautiful classic tale ever in-
spire^ any minstrelsy in its way more
pleasing than this song, taken in the
nineteenth century from the lips of an
illiterate peasant?

The mechanical execution of the vol-
ume demands the highest praise. The
typography and paper and all the exter-
nals of this sumptuous quarto challenge
comparison with the very choicest work
of foreign presses.

MR. ISAACS, AND OTHER NOVELS.

MR. ISAACS * is certainly a very un-
usual character ; we had almost said a
character new to fiction, but reminis-
cences of Bulwer make it difficult to go
so far as that. The novel of which he
is the hero has, with strange perversity,
been heralded as an " American novel ; "
but there is nothing whatever in it re-
lating to America, beyond incidental
reference and the circumstance that the
sub-hero, who is the ostensible narrator,
is an American born in Italy, and very
much Europeanized. Half the char-
acters are English, and the scene is laid
in India. If such a principle of an-
nouncement were to become common,
we might naturally expect the next ef-
fort at an exhaustive New World ro-
mance to be described as an Irish story,
should one of the dramatis persona hap-
pen to hail from the unhappy island.
Ignoring this point, however, for which
the author is not to be blamed, we may
as well say at once that the story is one
of remarkable power and originality ;

i Mr. Isaacs. A Tale of Modern India. By
F. MARION CRAWFORD. New York : Macmillan
&Co. 1882.

meritorious beyond the average good
novel of the day, not only by its graphic
method and verisimilitude, but also by
the impressiveness of its central, regnant
idea. The name of the author, who is
a son of the American sculptor Craw-
ford, is not familiar in the literary field,
but we are disposed to think that an en-
viable reputation will, before long, at-
tach to it ; and although he has not yet
given us an American novel, he makes
an appreciable addition to the brief cata-
logue of American novelists. His story
starts off with sundry paragraphs on
freedom and despotism as affecting the
growth of adventurers, which seem rath-
er to prelude a historical essay than
a concoction of imaginary occurrences ;
yet when the narration has been en-
tered upon, the book proceeds with sig-
nal energy, and can hardly fail to keep
the close attention of any one who is
susceptible to pungent, healthy writing,
and to that swift truth of picturesque
touch which belongs to trained observers.
The chief personage is an enormous-
ly rich merchant of jewels, who is not,
as would at first be supposed from his

1883.]

Mr. Isaacs, and other Novels.

409

name, a Hebrew, but a Persian ; and his
true appellation, which he has dropped
for the sake of business convenience, is
Abdul Hafiz-ben-Isak. A most extraor-
dinary creature he is, too. Although
he has never been in England, he speaks
English like an Oxford graduate ; he is
a marvel of strength and grace, having
a body which displays a " perfect har^
mony of all the parts," a " noble face
and nobler brain," and eyes the brillian-
cy of which, the author says, would but
imperfectly be reproduced by a jewel of
six precious stones which he once saw.
These orbs " blazed with the splendor
of a god-like nature, needing neither
meat nor strong drink to feed its power."
His face, of " a wondrous transparent
olive tint," in one instance " seemed
transfigured with a glory, and I could
hardly bear to look at him." His voice
is sweet, or rings like a trumpet ; he
goes into a cataleptic trance ; he has
command of an occult remedy, the in-
fluence of which cures a hurt at a cer-
tain moment, though if allowed to con-
tinue active one hour longer it would be
fatal. But, besides having the most ex-
alted thoughts and the finest intuitions,
he is a crack shot and a prime polo-
player ; so that he escapes being a prig,
— if, indeed, there can be such a thing
as an Oriental prig. Insistence upon
perfections so numerous threatens, dur-
ing the first half of the story, to make
the man unendurable ; and in overcom-
ing the fatigue that impends from this
source, Mr. Crawford exhibits genuine
force and skill, since it requires both to
enlist one's sympathies for a hero ap-
parently so little in need of them. The
situation helps the novelist here. This
paragon is a Mussulman, and has three
wives ; but he has become dissatisfied
with their pettiness, their bickerings
and want of intellectuality, and has
adopted unflattering views of women in
general. Just then it happens that he
meets a finely typical English girl, al-
most as perfect in her Western way as

he is in the Eastern, — beautiful, physic-
ally strong, gentle, and brave, — with
whom he falls in love ; and she, although
aware that he is a triple-wedded man,
cannot forbear returning the attachment.
The difficulty of this position is alleviated
by the Mahometan system, which pro-
vides for easy divorce ; so that Islamitic
marriages are regarded by the English
as hardly marriages at all, — mere unfor-
tunate errors, into which a man has been
deluded by his religion. But the au-
thor's purpose in taking so peculiar a
subject is not that he may depict any
struggle between passion and occidental
propriety, or obtain an effect without
value other than that of bizarrerie.
Through his love for Miss Westonhaugh,
Isaacs is raised to a higher conception
of the feminine nature. Hitherto he had
" accepted woman and ignored woman-
hood," as the Buddhist Ram Lai is so
well made to say, but he now rises to a
higher perception. Fate interposes to
prevent his union with Miss Weston-
haugh ; and then it is that Isaacs reaches
a still prof ounder insight into the rela-
tion of man to woman, arriving at the
knowledge of a spiritual union which
may subsist after death has divided the
lovers. Casting off the fetters of Is-
lam, he retires with Ram Lai ; whither
is not stated distinctly, but to enter
upon a life of devotion to the purely
spiritual, — to become a Yogi, perhaps,
one of the " brethren," an adept, await-
ing translation to a higher existence, —
and leaves all his wealth to one who had
befriended him. With this partial echo
of Edwin Arnold's Great Renunciation
the book closes. The author has at
command an abundant paraphernalia of
local details, that give novelty to the
scene, — chuprassies, saices, shekarries,
khitmatgars, sowars, pipe-bearers, and
narghiles. There is a spirited descrip-
tion of a polo-match, and a long account
of a tiger-hunt, which has an impor-
tant function in the story, but usurps
attention for itself, though couched too

410

Mr. Isaacs, and other Novels.

[March,

nearly in the special-correspondent style.
Everything is subordinate, however, to
the main issue, which we take to be the
presentation of a higher form of human
development in the perfected Oriental,
Isaacs, than we of the West permit
ourselves to aspire to at all ; and at
the same time to suggest the limitations
in both types of civilization, and hint
the desirability of uniting them in the
tendency to a supreme something bet-
ter than either. Mr. Crawford has a
philosophic mind, as the conversation
between Isaacs and Griggs concerning
Asiatic and European thought, in the
sixth chapter, bears witness ; and it may
be taken for granted that he has written
this book with no merely superficial aim.
In pursuance of his object, he has em-
ployed elements of mystery and the
semi-supernatural ; he introduces second-
sjght ; causes a man to disappear from
a room without going through door or
window ; and, in the expedition under-
taken by Isaacs, Griggs, and Ram Lai
for the release of Shere Ali, the Bud-
dhist displays inexplicable power over
the forces of nature. These things are
impressive at the moment, but in retro-
spect they lose their cogency, and even
cast a degree of discredit on the rest of
the story and enhance the improbability
of Isaacs' existence ; so that they must,
we think, be rated as flaws in the work.
What we may call the machinery of as-
tonishment, if it involve the unaccount-
able, will always be found to belong to
a secondary order of art : one sees this
clearly, on a calm consideration of Bul-
wer's Strange Story, the tales of Hoff-
mann and Tieck, or some of Gautier's
fantasies ; and even in Poe those stories
which avoid it are the best worth re-
membering. But notwithstanding his
use of it, and whatever stress he may
have laid on the esoteric meaning of the
novel, Mr. Crawford has succeeded in
diffusing through the whole drama a
common-sense atmosphere. People and
events stand out vividly, as if we had

known the one and experienced the
other, ourselves. Miss Westonhaugh,
though she says little, and is not rounded
into much more than a sketch, is a strik-
ing example of good portraiture, done
with a few masterly strokes ; and for a
bit of work minutely finished as a Meis-
sonier in words, yet broad and dramatic,
and denoting genius, we commend the
reader to that scene with the Maharajah
of Baithopoor, where, with his long,
crooked fingers winding around the
mouth-piece of his hookah, reveling in
the touch of its gems, he is struck by
terror, and the mouth-piece drops like
the head of a snake back among the
coils of the pipe-tube. The author's
style, in the main studiously practical,
modern and familiar without being col-
loquial, moves easily and strongly ; has
a kind of cosmopolitan readiness and
adaptability. We should call it agile,
rather than flexible. It sometimes as-
cends into eloquence, occasionally slips
into extravagance, and is capable of
large and graphic effects in small space,
among which is the fine description of
scenery in the Himalayas. His humor
is agreeable, if somewhat sophisticated
and evanescent. Whatever Mr. Craw-
ford's faults may be, it is not too much
to say that he exemplifies the best sort
of realism, — the realism, we shall ven-
ture to call it, of the future. It is not
cramped by a fear of incident ; it does
not lose itself in a microscopic study of
details ; there is no morbid anatomizing
about it, and no space is lost in discours-
ing upon the characters : these are sim-
ply placed before us with a bodily dis-
tinctness that cannot be evaded. All
particulars of the actual are treated with
zest and fullness, but combined with
them is an ideal interest just as immedi-
ate and tangible. By means of such a
realism the author is enabled to perfect
the illusion of an extremely absorbing
series of events, until at the end we dis-
cover that, while we have had an occa-
sional glimmering sense that we were

1883.]

Mr. Isaacs, and other Novels.

411

reading a novel, we have really been
engaged with a daring romance.

Artlessness, at the opposite extreme
from art, sometimes produces cognate
effects ; and Margaret Lee accordingly
succeeds in giving to her new book *
somewhat of the reality which Mr.
Crawford has imparted to his, although
she is seemingly quite ignorant of those'
manifold resources of delineation which
he applies with so much skill. The ma-
terial surroundings in which her char-
acters move are not once brought be-
fore us with definiteness ; and, what is
much more serious, we are introduced
to a numerous family, who are miscel-
laneously shuffled together under the
names of Mr. and Mrs. Morgan, Mr.
and Mrs. Lacy, Mrs. Parker, Mrs. Gus
Morgan, and so on, without anything to
fix their individuality ; so that it is only
by a gradual process that one is able to
sort them out and establish their iden-
tity. They are not described, even by
a few words ; they all talk alike ; and as
they manifest themselves only in con-
versation, the result is confusing. It is
to be inferred from the peculiar phrase
" He made a light" — the equivalent of
11 Jit une lumiere — that the authoress
has studied French novelists ; but she
has not learned the secret of the best
among them, which is to fill in the
whole background, and give the mate-
rial adjuncts and a mental picture of the
individual actors, without seeming to do
so of set purpose. Mrs. Lee does not
vex us by obvious filling-in, because no
filling-in is attempted. She has, not-
withstanding, a sincerity and an occa-
sional incisiveness that entitle her work
to favorable recognition. The author-
ess believes thoroughly in her heroine,
whose works and days and bitter trials
and unfaltering sweetness are all set
forth without the slightest admixture of
that feminine bravado common in our

1 Divorce. By MARGARET LEE, Author of Dr.
Wilmer's Love, Lizzie Adriance, etc. New York:
John V. Lovell Company.

recent women novelists : the writer's
mood with regard to her approaches,
in fact, the devout. Briefly, Constance
Morgan marries one Gilbert Travers,
and becomes his victim ; he being a self-
ish monster, who has originality enough
to admit and analyze his own selfish-
ness, and is thereby made doubly ap-
palling. He is indifferent to his chil-
dren, neglects his wife, fails in business,
is ruinously extravagant, mortgages all
her property, entangles himself with
the divorced wife of a friend, and at
last coolly proposes to Constance that
they obtain a divorce. In doing so he
confesses that he is incapable of loving
any one but himself, and adds these
trenchant words, which really strike the
key-note of the whole divorce question
to-day : " Education is freeing womeu
from bondage, as well as men. Expe-
diency is the new morality. You and I
have tried marriage for ten years, and it
is a dead failure. Now let us seek some
better method." Constance, however, is
a devout churchwoman, and the repug-
nance for divorce which she feels pri-
marily as a loving woman is intensified
by her religious faith. Now, in thus
opposing the disciple of expediency to
a sincere Christian, Mrs. Lee, who has
not a hundredth part of Mr. Howells's
literary art, has really gone much closer
— whether consciously or not — to the
heart of the situation than Mr. Howells
has done in A Modern Instance ; because
the increasing tendency to throw off mar-
riage bonds when they chafe is one of
the logical results of the general eman-
cipation which has been going on in this
century, — emancipation of thought from
tradition, of woman from subserviency to
man, and, by consequence, emancipation
of men from the irrevocable obligation
they once held to individual women,
when that was sanctioned by an unques-
tioning religious obedience. The various
bearings of this fact we are of course not
called upon here to weigh and judge :
we merely observe that the authoress of

412

Mr. Isaacs, and other Novels.

[March,

Divorce has seized upon a case typical
of all the various modifications of this
problem, however distantly related to
the general principle some of them may
appear to be. There are many traits
of insight in the book ; and it is a fine
turn that is given when Gilbert, after
practicing every other form of insult,
raises his hand to strike Constance, but
is stayed by her throwing herself upon
his breast with the irresistible appeal of
absolute love, begging him not to dis-
grace himself. The long conversations
between the various women of the piece
are naively natural in their dullness and
discursiveness, through which, however,
some point of value is always gained.
But the force of the sad story and its
conclusion is undeniably diminished by
the circumstance that Constance, in her
devotion to Gilbert, is weakly obtuse.
For example, when she accidentally
found Gilbert at the house of Mrs.
Leavitt, reclining upon a sofa and " toy-
ing with the stray ringlets on her neck,"
while that separated matron sat beside
him, reading, Constance was not jealous
and offered no reproof ; " but she wished
that he would respect himself, and not
touch Mrs. Leavitt's hair."

It is time that stout protest should be
made against the new order of Amer-
ican novels, which, within the last four
or five years, have been put forward
with much blowing of trumpets as im-
portant political studies, in addition to
being great historical and dramatic pic-
tures of life in the United States. An
accomplished scholar, a member of the
Cambridge circle of literary men, almost
a generation ago, cherished the fond
scheme of writing a novel the scene of
which was to be laid in the Mountains
of the Moon, and the purpose, to pre-
sent a convenient review of the world's
history in a few volumes, with a thrill-
ing plot thrown in gratis. The new or-
der of fictions, to which we have just
referred, threatens to carry out, so far
as this country is concerned, that alarm-

ing design ; and Mr. Clay's Modern
Hagar* is aa instance in point. It dab-
bles with the Indian question, enters
with intolerable prolixity into the parti-
san discussions preceding the civil war,
introduces a large section of the strug-
gle itself under the heading " the pan-
orama of war," and meanwhile carries
on by fits and starts, and with cavern-
ous intervals, the story of a slave-girl
wronged by a man who has bought her
on condition of freeing her? and adds to
his crime by re-selling her into slavery.
Nearly eight hundred pages are devoted
to this strange heterogeny, which is
divided up with great elaborateness into
" books " and " parts," bristling with
quoted mottoes. The term chosen by
the author for a portion applies to the
whole : it is not a work of art, nor a
" drama," nor a novel, but is simply a
panoramic view of incidents without
form or perceptible purpose. It is iu
vain that, among other foot-notes, Mr.
Clay appends one excusing his repetition
of facts in the history of party, to this ef-
fect : " Fiction is often the most truth-
ful and faithful conservator of history."
His fiction does not conserve anything
of value, or that might not, for its pur-
pose, have been put into a better form.
There is no doubt a legitimate and ex-
tensive field for the novelist in the polit-
ical life of this country as related to oth-
er phases of human action and feeling;
but it will never become incorporated
with the domain of art, until the belief
has been abandoned that a mere lumping
together of material, with no more in-
tegration or meaning than satisfies news-
paper reporters, will produce a genu-
ine novel. The Tourgee agglomerations
have encouraged this belief ; but in time
it will be seen that when a re-hash of
latter-day affairs is palmed off upon the
public, with a modicum of imaginary
events accompanying it as a " chromo "

l The Modern Har/nr. A Drama. By CHARLES
M. CLAY, Author of Baby Rue New York:
George W. Harlan & Co. 1882.

1883.]

Two Women of Letters.

413

inducement, neither the chromo nor the
article of supposed solid value is worth
having. Still, as Carlyle wrote, we may
here say, "Of no given book can you
predicate with certainty that its vacuity
is absolute ; that there are not other
vacuities which shall partially replenish
themselves therefrom."

There could hardly be a greater con-
trast to The Modern Hagar than that
presented by the unostentatious recital
of a blasted life, called Luser the Watch-
maker.1 Recital, we call it, because it
appears to be a chronicle of something
which the author knows to have actual-
ly happened. It recounts the untoward
fortunes of a Polish Jew, by trade a
watchmaker, and voluntarily an instruc-
tor in the Beth-hamidrash (an institu-
tion for teaching Jewish youth, and
also for worship) ; a high-minded, up-
right man, generous to the poor, whose
prosperity is wrecked by the tyranny of
Russia and by the Polish Revolution.
Gradually, through accident and injus-
tice, the ingratitude of others, and his
own unwillingness to receive help, he is

borne down to the ground, and perishes
tragically. Unreasonable though he L
in his independence, when his own fam-
ily must suffer for it, his character main-
tains a noble integrity throughout, and
constitutes a fit subject for the writer.
The tale, moreover, secures to itself a
peculiar interest by the careful pictures
of Jewish manners and customs which
it contains. Its tone is old-fashioned in
the extreme, even to the allusion in one
place to love as " Eros the enchanter ; "
it is badly arranged, loaded with irrele-
vant matter, and at times diffuse. But,
in spite of all, it has a kind of charm,
exercised by its perfectly simple and
unaffected tone,- — a tone recalling that
of Auerbach and Bjb'rnson, although the
author lacks the pungent condensation
of those masters, which in the Norwe-
gian novelist especially is so noticeable.
He is not ashamed to give free vent to
emotion, and does not fear to touch the
most familiar chords of human sympa-
thy, sure of a response. Current fiction
would be all the better for a more gen-
erous infusion of these qualities.

TWO WOMEN OF LETTERS.

SEX in literature is as subtle and per-
vasive as in any other manifestation of
life. Doubt may arise, in the case of
single works of art whether a man or a
woman was behind them, but a Cheva-
lier d'Eon has hard work of it in liter-
ature. It is even more noticeable that
when woman is triumphantly brought
forward as man's equal in the republic
of letters, her life and her work reveal
unmistakably the truth that her posi-
tion has been obtained through the re-
tention, and not the subjection, of her

i Luser Che Watchmaker. An Episode of the
Polish Revolution. By Rev. ADOLF MOSES.
Translated from the German for the Author, by

womanly qualities. We may claim
stoutly that art knows nothing of sex,
but nature is too much for us, and the
deeper we look into woman's work in
literature the more of the woman we
find.

A curious parallel might be drawn
between Miss Edgeworthand Miss Mit-
ford, involving many considerations of
English literary and social history.
Each led her life contemporaneously
with men of letters, who respected her
and associated with her. Each was in

Mrs. A. DB V. CHAUDKOM.
&Co.

Cincinnati: Blocb

414

Two Women of Letters.

[March,

a degree a force in literature. They
had friends in common, and their peri-
ods overlapped. Each, again, was some-
what an exponent of the finer life of her
time, for both performed that function
so attributive of woman, of catching
quickly the current wind, and showing
its direction, before duller men had ad-
justed their more scientific anemome-
ters. Even in minor details there were
points in common : each had a father
who receives the derisive criticism of
the world, but had much to do with the
determination of the daughter's literary
life. Miss Edge worth's father, indeed,
is represented as a blundering theorist,
who kept his larger-minded daughter in
humiliating subordination ; while Miss
Mitford's father was a gay spendthrift,
who encouraged his daughter's industry,
with a mingled pride in her achievement
and content at the ease it brought him.
But in each instance the objectionable
father brings out more emphatically the
womanly and affectionate nature of the
daughter, and the very circumstances
which may make a biographer indignant
serve to increase our admiration that
the woman triumphs over the author.

Mrs. Oliver's work on Maria Edge-
worth l is called a study, perhaps because
the author wishes to emphasize the fact
that she has not written a biography,
but has collected the material for an ac-
quaintance with Miss Edge worth and
her associates, and a knowledge of what
her contemporaries thought of her.
There is scarcely any attempt at a study
of Miss Edgeworth's contributions to
literature, but we have what is, on the
whole, more acceptable, — an opportu-
nity to know in a pleasant manner the
surroundings of a writer who has been
a familiar friend to her readers. Mrs.
Oliver makes copious extracts from the
memoirs of Mr. Edgeworth, and from
the reminiscences and descriptions of

l A Study of Maria Edgeworth. With Notices
of her Father and Friends. By GRACE A. OLIVER.
Boston : A. Williams & Co. 1832.

contemporary writers, and is not always
careful to save her readers the labor of
reading the same general descriptions of
Miss Edgeworth's home twice over ; but
if she has erred in the plenitude of her
material, she has selected the most
fruity portions of Mr. Edgeworth's gar-
rulous memoirs, and given them a new
and convenient setting. She has also
collected industriously from a number
of sources, and has arranged her collec-
tion in a methodical manner. Her own
writing is not very graceful, nor always
very clear, as in the passage, " Miss
Edgeworth was always pleased to make
friends ; but she had not that disagree-
able characteristic of modern literary
people, — a desire to meet new people,
aid make new conquests, and an inor-
dinate capacity for being bored by old
friends, who were not literary, or suffi-
ciently useful in helping one on in a ca-
reer." We have tried to believe that
by a change of punctuation we could re-
lieve Miss Edgeworth from the asper-
sion now cast on her in the last clause,
but we find no way to save Miss Edge-
worth except by throwing Mrs. Oliver
overboard.

What a delightful picture one forms
of Miss Edgeworth, and from what a sin-
gular background it is projected ! Her
much-married father and the ingenious
Mr. Day fill a large part of the frame,
and it is only by remembering the un-
conquerable good-nature of Miss Edge-
worth that we can refrain from pitying
her, under the experimentation of the
fussy theorists who presided over her
education. She was an artist who had
fallen among philosophers, and they
came near stripping her of her genius ;
but they did not wholly succeed, and
the best parts of her stories are not the
surplusage of her father's educational
whims, but the creation of a mind sin-
gularly susceptible to influence, and
ready to receive the impressions which
human nature made upon it. Not to
give Mr. Edgeworth too much blame,

1883.]

Two Women of Letters.

415

the whole tone of thought which pre-
vailed was of the school-master order ;
and we come to respect Miss Edge-
worth's power as a character-painter all
the more, when we discover how em-
phatically her best work was au escape
from the toils which bound her. She
had a large, cheerful spirit, and her art
was healthy and free. The priggishr
ness which appears in her work was
accidental. Under other influences, it
might have been absent.

The old-fashioned, mannered air,
which clings about the Edgeworth
school, has a faint continuation in Miss
Mitford's work, but in any compari-
son between the two women as writers
it would quickly be seen that the ear-
lier woman was far more vigorous and
genuine ; that the later had greater deli-
cacy and sweetness. It is with their
lives and circumstances, however, that
we have to do. Mr. L'Estrange had
already edited the Life of Mary Russell
Mitford, and he now furnishes a supple-
mentary volume,1 devoted chiefly to let-
ters addressed to her by various literary
friends. We cannot wholly praise this
sectional treatment of biography. The
most satisfactory form would show the
two sides of the correspondence at once.
As it is, one has a little the feeling, in
reading this book, that he is overhear-
ing one end of a telephonic conversa-
tion. So far as Miss Mitford herself is
concerned, the book gives us nothing
more than a renewed impression of her
affectionate, attractive nature, and that
her books and her life had already
shown. The testimony, indeed, to the
power which she had of drawing friends
to herself is very emphatic. Miss Mit-
ford lived in a retired country village,
and rarely showed herself in the city.
Friends more than once found their way
to her, yet her true salon was in her
correspondence, and the range which
her friendship took indicates well the

1 The Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford,
as reeorded in letters from her literary correspond-

strong side of Miss Mitford's nature.
She was not a creative artist, like Miss
Edgeworth, but she was a woman of
literary sympathy and taste. It had be-
come easier to be a woman of letters
when Miss Mitford took up the pen,
and the genial relations which existed
between her and her English and Amer-
ican friends belonged to an order of
things very different from that existing
in Miss Edgeworth's day. There is a
spirit of comradery apparent in this vol-
ume, which is absent from the other,
and one feels that the feminine element
in literature, equally positive in both
cases, here intimates delicately that finer,
freer intercourse of men and women
which modern society aims to secure.
Miss Edgeworth's career was slightly
revolutionary ; at any rate, it was con-
temporaneous with a state of society
when a Miss Edgeworth was somewhat
of a phenomenon. Miss Mitford's gen-
tle part in literature was a quiet expres-
sion of feminine forces which had al-
ready gained a right of existence.

We suspect, indeed, that it was the
woman quite as much as the writer in
Miss Mitford who called out the confi-
dences and gallantries of the gentlemen
who paid her court. There were ladies
with them, — Lady Dacre, Mrs. How-
itt, Miss Sedgwick, Mrs. Trollope, and
others, — but men of letters had the
more important place. It is curious to
observe the gradation of epistolary style
from the somewhat pompous letters of
Sir W. Elford and Mrs. Hofland to the
frank and familiar notes which she ex-
changed with her more immediate con-
temporaries. There are letters from Miss
Barrett, before she married Mr. Brown-
ing ; from De Quincey's daughter ; from
Ruskin, Talfourd, Hewitt, Kenyon, and
others less known among the English ;
and from Mr. Fields, Mr. Whittier,
Bayard Taylor, N. P. Willis, Mr.
George Ticknor, and others on this side

ents. Edited by the Rev. A. G. L'ESTRANGE.
New York: Harper Brothers. 1882.

416

Recent Works on English Literature.

[March,

of the Atlantic. The editor, by the
way, has erred in attributing to Bayard
Taylor the letter on page 320. The
circumstances mentioned in the letter do
not fit the facts in Mr. Taylor's -life,
and the style of the letter 'is quite for-
eign from his style.

One may spend an agreeable evening
over each of these books. Possibly the
study of Miss Edgeworth would send
one to re-reading some of her stories.
We are not sure that as much would be
said of the Mitford volume, for Miss
Mitford's work was not so distinctively

new and strong as Miss Edgeworth's ;
but there lingers on the mind a grate-
ful sense of the pleasure which Our
Village gave when it was published.
One might well wish to cool his tongue
with that book, after a too liberal taste
of the work of some contemporaneous
women of letters. The best side of any
phase of life always contains the proph-
ecy of enduring elements, and the stu-
dent of modern society may take cour-
age, after the glimpse which he gets of
the literary coterie of which Miss Mit-
ford was the unconscious centre.

RECENT WORKS ON ENGLISH LITERATURE.

THE study of English literature has
received a great impetus within the
present generation. The impetus has
come in part from the expansion of edu-
cational systems ; the number of those
who seek or are invited to pass beyond
the limits of elementary education has
been swelled, and it has been found im-
possible to attract or satisfy such with
humane letters in the antique form, or
even with contemporary foreign letters.
English literature is, in a vast number
of schools, made to serve as a substi-
tute for the Greek and Latin classics ;
the very . methods which rule in the
teaching of those works have passed
over into the teaching of English. The
analytical, the philological, and now the
historical and philosophical are applied,
and it has been the hasty judgment
of enthusiasts that the study of Eng-
lish is capable of banishing the study of
Greek and Latin, at least of relegating
it to the confines of a specific univer-
sity curriculum. Happily for good let-
ters, the revival of interest in ancient lit-
erature and the application of new meth-
ods in teaching are quite as significant
phenomena as this increased attention

to the study of English literature, and
we may dismiss from view any alarm lest
one shall supplant the other.

The impetus has c<5me also from the
development of the critical faculty, and
especially from the steady rise of histor-
ical methods of study. If it be some-
what difficult to detect, either in Eng-
land or America, the existence of great
creative powers in literature, it is not at
all difficult to see on all hands an access
of zeal in historical criticism ; and it
would seem to be a special function of
this generation to review what has been
done, to revive the study of past periods
of literary activity, and to increase im-
mensely the critical apparatus at the
service of the young student. We may
point, as evidence of this, to the several
series of books dealing with the men of
letters in England and America, with
philosophical writers, with surveys of
ancient and foreign classics, and to the
primers, selections, critical editions of
English classics, special dictionaries,
grammars, and hand-books. Much ad-
mirable work has been expended in
these directions, and it may be said, in
brief, that it is much more common to

1883.]

Recent Works on English Literature.

417

find acute and learned criticism than it
is to find books which have inspiration
in them. Certainly, the books which
deal in the criticism or history of other
books rarely have a spirit which fires
the reader with zeal to read the litera-
ture discussed.

The present season brings to our no-
tice several works which have for their
aim to guide the student through Eng-
lish literature, and we shall confine our-
selves to those of American origin, and
thus presumably fitted for the use of the
American student. The whole field of
the subject is so vast that scholars may
easily find enough in any corner which
they may fence off ; but the fascination
of a comprehensive survey is so great
that there are few writers who do not
attempt to put the reader into posses-
sion of the whole subject. Moreover,
there are so many modes of ingress that
every one fancies his own path has a
special charm. Here, for example, is
Professor James Baldwin, who lias laid
out his work systematically, and pub-
lishes a section 1 devoted to the consid-
eration of English poetry. " This book,"
he says in his preface, " is not a History
of English Literature. It aims rather
to serve as a guide to the acquirement
of a practical acquaintanceship (why
not acquaintanceshippiriginvoice ?) with
all that is the best and the most worthy
in our literature. The chronological
arrangement, usually adopted in books
upon this subject, has been in most part
abandoned for the more natural arrange-

ment by which works of a similar kind
are grouped and studied together, and
compared with each other. This, in
the author's judgment, is the only true
method of study. To those who may
find fault with his classification he will
only say that he has chosen that ar-
rangement which he considers the most
convenient for giving aid and informa-

1 An Introduction to the Study of English Lit-
erature and Literary Criticism. Designed for the
use of schools, seminaries, colleges, and universi-

VOL. LI. — NO. 305. 27

tion to those in search of a certain kind
of knowledge. One man may call a
particular poem a Romance, another
may call it an Epic ; but it matters not
so much what we call it, as how and in
what connection we present it to the at-
tention of the reader or student."

Mr. Baldwin is consistent with him-
self, therefore, when he sweeps the leav-
ings of his poetical study into a final
chapter headed Miscellaneous Poetry ;
but if names like epic or romance indi-
cate anything, they indicate great nat-
ural divisions of poetry, and not merely
convenient groups, under which poems
may be classed and studied. The only
justification of this author's method falls
to the ground, if the names of his divis-
ions of poetry represent his personal
judgment. The weakness of this meth-
od lies in its emphasizing the form which
poetry takes. It is true that one may
make a study of the development of
dramatic poetry in English literature,
because there has been an historic con-
nection between the early and the later
forms, and because of the implication of
the theatre; but what dependence is
there of narrative or lyric poetry at any
one time upon previous exhibitions of
the same order ? No thorough study of
poetry, at any time or in any form, is
possible without an examination of the
influences, whether native or foreign,
which have determined both spirit and'
form. Mr. Baldwin attempts very little
of this, and hence his book is scarcely
more than a collection of external facts,
about poetry, arranged upon an artifi-
cial, and not a natural, system. It gives
very few hints to the student of poetry,
and even the illustrative criticism from
many sources is so fragmentary as to
have little value. A thorough, searching
examination of one great poem would
be worth a whole volume of this miscel-
laneous information.

ties. By Professor JAMES BALDWIN. Volume L
Poetry.' Philadelphia: John E. Potter & Co.

418

Recent Works on English Literature.

[March,

Mr. Tuckerman has more reason on
his side when he undertakes a study of
the development of English fiction ; * for
he takes a form which has had a steady
growth, and of which the latest mani-
festation bears some relation to the ear-
liest. The historical method, also, is
a very desirable one to apply to such a
subject; and although Mr. Tuckerman
does not interpret very fully the tran-
sitions from one period to another, or
show the process by which one form
passed into another, he does give with
tolerable fullness the materials out of
which one may develop a consecutive
study. His characterizations of the old-
er fiction are generally just, and, if not
especially acute, are not marred by
whimsicality ; but we fear he has shirked
the hardest part of his work. At any
rate, he has stopped short at the very
point where the reader's strongest inter-
est begins. " The novels of the nine-
teenth century," he says in his preface,
" are so numerous and so generally fa-
miliar that in the chapter devoted to
this period I have sought rather to point
out the great importance which fiction
has assumed, and the variety of forms
which it has taken, than to attempt any
exhaustive criticism of individual au-
thors, — a task already sufficiently per-
formed b^ writers far more able to do it
justice." Mr. Tuckerman's modesty can-
not save him. It was his business to give
his readers a clue through the mazes
of contemporary fiction ; and he has
made but one contribution to the sub-
ject which is of any interest, and that is
when he says of the advance in refine-
ment of manners, " When we think of
our improved morality and refinement,
we must temper our pride with the re-
flection that we may be simply more
hypocritical, and not more virtuous, than
our ancestors. . . . This advance has
left plainly marked traces on the fic-

1 A History of Enrjlish Prose, Fiction from Sir
Thomas Malory to George Eliot. By BAYARD
TUCKKKMAM. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.
1882.

tion of our time, where, too, we shall
find plentiful evidence of that hypocrisy
which has become our besetting sin."
There was an excellent opportunity here,
which Mr. Tuckerman missed, of con-
trasting the real refinement, which has
its tendency to morbid casuistry, and the
specious refinement, which is a mere
thin sheet of ice, over which the reader
is swiftly borne, in momentary danger
of breaking through.

Mr. Tuckerman has by his somewhat
ineffective book indicated a solid and sub-
stantial subject, which waits for a mas-
terly treatment ; and the true historian,
when he comes, will do more than trace
the consecutive steps in English fiction.
Let us hope that he will not fall into
the snares which have beset the way of
Mr. Welsh, who, in two octavo volumes,11
has undertaken to reveal the develop-
ment of English literature and language.
The subject was large enough, the bookg
are large enough ; it is only the man
who is deficient, and his deficiency, to
speak in a paradox, lies through his su-
perabundance. If it is unreasonable to
ask that he who drives fat oxen should
himself be fat, it is surely a simple req-
uisite of a writer on English language
and literature that his own language
should be correct, and his literary style
good. There is altogether too much
of Mr. Welsh. His intellectual ener-
gy carries him too far. The very be-
ginning of his work is marked by an
impetuous, headlong rush into words,
which argues ill for a pace to be kept
up through a thousand pages. " We are
to think of England," he says on his
second page, " in those dim old days, as,
intellectually and physically, an island
in a northern sea — the joyless abode
of rain and surge, forest and bog,
wild beast and sinewy savage, which,
as it struggled from chaos into order,
from morning into prime, should be-

2 Development of Enf/lish Literature and Lan-
guage. By ALFRED H. WELSH, A. M. In two
volumes. "Chicago: S. C. Griggs & Co. 1882.

1883.]

Recent Works on English Literature.

419

come the residence of civilized energy
and Christian sentiment, of smiling love
and sweet poetic dreams." If Mr.
Welsh can drive his thought, four in
hand, like that, we can only venture to
jump on behind ; we should never think
of taking the reins. Let us follow him,
in his wild career, through another sen-
tence : "Time is a camera -obscura,
through which a man, if great while
living, becomes tenfold greater when
dead. Henceforward he exists to soci-
ety by some shining trait of beauty or
ability which he had ; and, borrowing
his proportions from the one fine feature,
we finish the portrait symmetrically.
That feature is the small real star that
gleams out of the dark vortex of the
ages, through the madness of rioting
fancy and the whirlwind chaos of im-
ages ; expanding, according to the glass
it shines through, into, wondrous thou-
sand-fold form and color." We think
it safer to get down from Mr. Welsh's
chariot, after that. He is not to be trust-
ed as a literary guide, nor as a literary
gardener either. Here is one of the
flowers of his fancy. The legendary
stories, he says, " may, and doubtless do,
contain germs of truth, left on the shift-
ing sands as wave after wave of forgot-
ten generations broke on the shores of
eternity." We never tried to propagate
germs under such trying circumstances,
but Mr. Welsh seems to think that his
came up and flourished.

If it be said that these are blemishes
in diction, and that the real consider-
ation is whether or no Mr. Welsh has
done what he essayed in tracing the
development of our language and liter-
ature, it might be enough to add that
no one with so vicious a style can be a
safe guide in the study of style, and che
worst examples of his work are to.be
found iii his characterization of the mas-
ters. This voluble showman stands be-
fore the procession of English-speaking
authors, and makes it pass slowly enough
to permit him to cover each individual

in the procession with words as with a
garment. When Spenser, for example,
comes in sight, Mr. Welsh, after his cus-
tomary division of the subject into biog-
raphy, appearance, writings, and versi-
fication, refers to his style, and says,
" Luxuriant and spacious, yet simple
and clear, seldom rivaled in the charm
of its diffusion, the orient flush of its
diction, and the music of its recur-
rent chimes. Many passages, it may be
needless to observe, are beautiful, har-
monious, combining a subtle perfection
of phrase with a happy coalescence of
meaning and melody." One would like
to have Mr. Welsh on the stand, that he
might explain exactly, and not vaguely,
what he means by this last sentence.
He flourishes his showman's stick when
Irving appears. " Our veteran chief of
Letters was the amiable and gifted Ir-
ving, in whom the creative vigor, that,
breathing and burning in the bosom of
the nation, had found issue in action,
blossomed into art. All his life a desul-
tory genius, reading much, but studying
little." For a man so prodigal of words,
Mr. Welsh is often singularly econom-
ical in his use of the simple copula.
How Irving would have shuddered at
such a pair of sentences : Of Bryant,
who never used words unless he knew
what they meant, Mr. Welsh remarks,
" There [in the quietude of nature] he
saw only the tokens of creative benefi-
cence, and from every scene could elicit
some elevating inference or cheering
sentiment." It would be easy to mul-
tiply instances of Mr. Welsh's obscure
rhetoric, but we should like to know, in
passing, just what he means when he
says of Emerson, " He has founded no
school, he has left behind him no Em-
ersonian system, but fragments of him
are scattered everywhere, — germs of
bloom that will perish never. A great
book is a ship deep freighted with im-
mortal treasures, breaking the sea of life
into fadeless beauty as it sails, carrying
to every shore seeds of truth, goodness,

420

Recent Poetry.

[March,

piety, love, to flower and fruit perenni-
ally in the soil of the heart and mind."
Mr. Welsh, with all his swash of
words, says some good things, and we
have a species of respect for a writer
who carries through the task of reading
many books, appropriating many fine sen-
timents, and allowing his enthusiasm to
run riot from Caedmon to Tennyson.
Unfortunately, the mischief begins when
Mr. Welsh is done. His book is printed,
and its dignified appearance commands
attention. We fear that young students
will plow through it, and imagine that
they are cultivating their minds. We
find ourselves, after reading the book,

under the spell of its incessant meta-
phor. From the heralding which the
work has received, unsuspecting teach-
ers and conscientious students will be
likely to take it as a substantial guide
in the study of English literature. It
is one of the worst examples we have
met of the false system which substi-
tutes books about English literature for
English literature itself. The careful
study of two or three really great works
in literature is worth something. To
read Mr. Welsh's big, philosophical,
bloated treatise is to vitiate one's taste
for fine literature, and to become an ama-
teur omniscience.

RECENT POETRY.

ACCORDING to their predilections,
readers will be pleased, or the reverse,
with Mr. Edwin Arnold, for having
given to his new book of Eastern
rhymes a title which implies that Islam
is a belief at least deserving the same
respect which we pay to Christianity.1
But the intention is not serious ; it is
only that the book may have an attrac-
tive name, and one in consonance with
the author's attempt to present the re-
ligious convictions of Mussulmans from
their own point of view. The plan
which he has adopted is to supply some
piece of verse — a rhythmic maxim, a
short hymn, or a legend (generally in-
volving some miracle) — to illustrate
the meaning of each attributive name
applied to God by the Moslems, and rep-
resented by the beads in their three-
stringed chaplets, that have thirty-three
beads on every string. We are pre-
sented, by consequence, with ninety-nine
brief compositions, some of which suf-

1 Pearls of the Faith ; or Islam's Rosary. Be-
ing the Ninety-Nine Beautiful Names of Allah
(Aarna-el-Husnah), with Comments in Verse from

fer from the necessity under which Mr.
Arnold placed himself at the start, by
" taking a contract " to produce a few
lines in every instance, whether or no
the mood should favor. What, for ex-
ample, could exceed in vapidity this
stanza, which forms the entire " com-
ment in verse " on the name Wahid
(The "One")? —

" Say: ' He is God alone,
Eternal on the Throne.
Of none begotten, and begetting none,
Who hath not like unto Him any one! ' "

As a statement of one point in Mahom-
etan belief, put into prose, this would
have its use for a student of compar-
ative theology ; but it is impossible, by
any stretch of terms, to make it poetry,
and its value as a comment is perhaps
open to question. Each piece in the
series is preceded and followed by a
couplet, emphasizing or echoing the par-
ticular phase of definition therein given
to the divine principle. These, how-
various Oriental Sources (as made by an Indian
Mussulman). By EDWIN ARNOLD, C. S. I. Bea-
ton: Roberts Brothers. 1883.

1883.]

Recent Poetry.

421

ever, are at best intrusions, and in one
instance the closing couplet quite de-
stroys the effect of a fine fancy by repe-
tition. The quatrain under the head of
Al-' Hali ends: —

" See ! at the hour of late and early prayer
The very shadows worship him, low laid."

Whereupon, the keen touch of that
similitude upon the mind is instantly'
blurred by an inferior restatement, as
follows : —

"Most High ! the lengthening shadows teach,
Morning and evening, prayer to each."

Sundry of the verses are inspired by
texts from the Koran ; others are little
fables inculcating the wisdom of char-
ity, toleration, and like virtues. These
have point and subtilty, as the anec-
dotes in Saadi's Gulistan have, and in
fact all similar Oriental tales ; but they
grow monotonous, because the scenery
is in most cases the same, and the re-
ward of virtue is brought on so promptly
and without fail by angelic intervention,
as to make them untruthful. There
are lines, stanzas, and single passages
of considerable merit scattered through
them, and in the blank-verse account
of King Sheddad's Paradise an oppor-
tunity for opulent description, and the
depiction of a sudden, petrific doom, has
been improved ; but it is impossible not
to be conscious that these iambic para-
bles are too often strictly imitative, be-
ing modeled on Leigh Hunt's Abou-
ben-Adhem, which, by constant copying
and unwearied travesty, stamps upon
everything that resembles it an impres-
sion as faint and worn as that of an old
stereotype plate. Among the isolated
felicities that one may pick out, are
measures like this : —

" The cool wet jar, asweat with diamond drops
Of sparkling life;"

or the alto rilievo in which Nimrud
stands out, where

" Eminent on his car of carven brass
Through foeman's blood nave-deep he drave his
•wheel."

In Muhammad's Journey to Heaven,

there is a strong climax sustained by a
splendid image. The Prophet, passing
up through the several heavens, reached
at last the highest, and there

"The Throne! the Throne! he saw; our Lord

alone !
Saw it and heard! but the verse falls from

heaven
Like a poised eagle, whom the lightnings blast."

But, when all is said, it must be ad-
mitted that — excepting King Sheddad's
Paradise — the volume does not contain
a single poem, in any adequate sense of
the word. Wo cannot except the much-
admired Message from the Dead, —

"He who died at Azan sends," —
which has been published before : its
proportioning is defective, its movement
mechanical, and it contains this exceed-
ingly poor rhyme, —

" 'T'is an empty sea-shell, one
Out of which the pearl is gone,"

where it is necessary to pronounce the
last word, Scottice, " gun." There are
many imperfect rhymes and other evi-
dences of haste and shallowness in the
collection. Mr. Arnold explains that it
was " composed amid Scotch mountains,
during a brief summer rest from poli-
tics." But if he thought the design
worth carrying out, why did he not de-
vote two brief vacations to it, instead of
one, and make his workmanship better ?
When an author seeks to acquire a fac-
titious repute for his work as something
thrown off in haste, from the exuber-
ance of power, it often happens that
people forget it in haste ; and readers of
The Light of Asia, who take up this
book with anticipations aroused by that
strong and persuasive poem, will be dis-
appointed.

Mr. Boyesen has wisely named his
book of poems with reference to the
most characteristic of the contents ; l
and in so far as these answer to the title,
they have a freshness and a distinctive

1 Idylls of Norway, and Other Poems. By
HJALMAK HJORTH BOYESEN. New York: Charted
Scribner's Sons. 1882.

422

Recent Poetry.

[March,

interest which give the modest volume
a separate place. Brier-Rose, Hilda's
Little Hood, and Thora are charming
pastoral lave stories, vigorous, youthful,
sweet with the vernal breath of the
northern forest, and told in melodious
verse, the shaping of which somehow
connects itself with the graceful curves
of vine-tendrils ; for the writer, in his
less formal moods, responds with impul-
sive alacrity to his theme, and appre-
hends delicate analogies which at once
find facile expression, giving the lines
naturalness and finish together. " Trim
and graceful like a clipper " is one of
his rather untamed heroines ; and in an-
other place he says, —

" And the night was bright with splendor, music,

dance, and feast, and play,
Like a golden trail that follows in the wake of

parting day."

A good specimen of this natural aptness
occurs in the ballad of Earl Sigurd's
Christmas Eve : —

"And the scalds with nimble fingers o'er the
sounding harp-strings swept;

Now the strain in laughter rippled, now with hid-
den woe it wept; "

though it is to be remarked that if
" their " had been substituted for " with,"
in the first line, we should not have had
the awkward spectacle of the bards
sweeping their entire persons over the
strings. Another delightfully fit char-
acterization is that of the voices of the
elf-maidens as being " delicious, languid,
vague, like a poppy's breath in sound."
There is no great profundity in the nu-
merous happy turns of Mr. Boyesen's
ballads ; but we need not demand pro-
fundity in the dewdrop or the budding
leaf, which, apart from the meaning
they take on as microcosmic phenomena,
in our minds, are simple and refreshing
things. It is more profitable to enjoy
the obvious excellences in Mr. Boyesen,
among which must be reckoned the can-
did and boyish humor that occasionally
peeps out. Here is an instance : —

" Now the moon, who had been hiding in a veil
of misty lace,

Wishing to embarrass no one by the shining of

her face,
Peeped again in modest wonder " —

at a pair of young lovers on the sea-
beach. In the same ballad (Thora) is
this rustic touch : —

" ' Oh, thou wouldst not love me,' sobbed she, ' if

thou knew'st how bad I am.
Once — I hung — a great live lobster — on the tail

of — Hans — our ram.' "

These idyllic narratives are not without
blemishes. To speak of maidens " With
ribbons in their sunny hair, and milk-
pails on their heads," makes an unfor-
tunate confusion of plural and singular ;
and it is a somewhat prosaic explana-
tion of the young swain's, who has chased
the object of his affections until she has
dropped in exhaustion : —
"For 1 wanted to assure her I intended no offence."

The Norwegian method of courtship,
by the way, appears to be peculiar, ac-
cording to the ballads under notice : The
young man gets a glimpse of the young
woman, and on the first convenient oc-
casion gives chase to her through the
woods or along the sands. When she is
fairly run down, she confesses that she
loves him. Little Sigrid, Earl Sigurd,
and The Elf-MaMens have the spirit of
ancient balladry in them, and in some
degree the form ; they strike with no
uncertain hand the chords of old warrior
life, of superstition, terror, and pathos.
The final stanza of the poem on Nor-
way likewise carries with it a legendary
reverberation : —

"And the fame which curbed the sea,

Spanned the sky with runes of fire,
Now but rustles tremblingly
Through the poet's lyre."

It is when we pass to the other pieces
which the author has bound up with his
Norse sheaf that we doubt his judgment
of his own successes. The first sir
poems would have been better omitted.
The last number in the collection is
Calpurnia, a mournful but elevating epi-
sode in the early history of the Chris-
tians at Rome, the narration of which is

1883.]

Recent Poetry.

423

admirably sustained, in hexameters of
much clearness and beauty. Still, we
hardly think there is warrant in it for
ranking Mr. Boyesen as anything more
than a receptive mind, possessed of a
true but not original poetic tendency,
serving art with reverent hands and
conscientiously. The claim to some-
thing higher would have to rest, if at
all, on the five sonnets upon Evolution,

— the best things in the book, except
the poems of Norway, — in which he
has gathered up and remoulded with
deep, imaginative grasp the scientific
views of the day, and given them a pure-
ly poetic and ideal scope. That is a su-
perb opening of one of them, where he
exclaims, —

"I am the child of earth and air and sea!

My lullaby by hoarse Silurian storms

Was chanted ; and through endless changing forms

Of plant and beast and bird unceasingly

The toiling ages wrought to fashion me."

When one singer has struck this note,
it seems natural enough that another
should decide to make Monte Rosa the
central figure of an epic ; * but in truth
Mr. Nichols's epic is such in name only,
since it possesses neither the form nor
the motive of an epic poem, properly so
called. Consisting of ten divisions, in
two books, it is confined to a mapping-
out and construction of the mountain as
an object of thought, and to the descrip-
tion of an ascent and descent of the
peak, together with reflections that arise
incidentally during that perilous opera-
tion. Neither has it the epic drift and
tone ; there is very little action, and
there is a great deal of reflection. Ava-
lanches, lights and shadows, the legion
beams of the morning sun, the winds
and frosts and lightning that took part
in the first rearing of the mountain, and
" the stealthy depredations of gray rain,"

— these we must accept as the charac-
ters ; and their action is necessarily some-
what vague and general. A passage con-

i Monte Rosa. The Epic of an Alp. By STARR
H. NICHOLS. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
The Riverside Press, Cambridge. 1883.

cerning the glacier may be quoted, to
show the mode of treatment : —

" But reaching suddenly the frightful brink
Of a sheer precipice, the glacier halts
As stiff with horror, all its steely spines
Erect in regiments of glancing spears
And bayonets of broken soldiery."

But matter and force are heroic only as
we attribute to them something person-
al ; and therefore their movement in
Mr. Nichols's poem is not so much ac-
tion of theirs as a fanciful description
by him. Geologic growth, the place of
man, and cosmic development of course
have a large function to fulfill, in the
working out of his design, and for a
time it seems as if the elements and the
sun, which the author calls " the Lord
of lords," are going to have it all their
own way ; but at length, on the pinna-
cle of the arete, he reaches the climax
of his thought : —
"And still a God! a God! rapt feeling cries;

His hand weaves splendors of that flimsy mist,
He builds a magic into crag and glen,
And with his living presence cunningly
Blends scene and seer to one accordant joy."

With fine penetration Mr. Nichols calls
the wild snow-fields, " Ancestral acres
lapsed but for a time," because they be-
longed peculiarly to our progenitors
many a century back, and now are re-
covered as an inheritance by our new
sense of the kinship with them that ex-
isted in those ancestors, and still re-
mains in our blood. A dangerous ac-
cident, which comes near a fatal issue,
occurs on the way down, and forms the
only noticeable barrier to the volumed
flow of meditation and description, from
cover to cover; at the end an elegiac
mood supervenes, in the contemplation
of cycles of endless creation, destruc-
tion, and change. The concluding lines
are weak. " We stand," says the poet,

" upon the outmost rim
Of matter vague, eternal, infinite,"

in trying to imagine what future phases
the earth may be going to pass through.
But how can infinity have a rim, — that

424

Recent Poetry.

[March,

is, a limit? And if matter is eternal,
it were desirable to know whether Mr.
Nichols considers God to be matter, or
matter to be an outgrowth of everlast-
ing spirit. In general, it may be said
of the poem that it lags heavily upon its
way ; that the author's expression is
often rambling and vague, and his blank
verse cold and difficult as Monte Rosa
itself. He is guilty of a surprising
number of deficient, redundant, and hob-
bling lines, as these few selectious, made
at random, unfortunately testify : —
"Of dauntless violets, when young March."

"And half-displayed, while lights and shadows
changefully."

"Flames and glows through all the curtained va-
pors."

This last is wholly trochaic ; there is
not a single iambus in it.

" Now cling by thinnest crevices, where fingers,
toes,"

is an iambic hexameter, instead of a
pentameter. It is strange, also, that, he
should have overlooked so gross a gram-
matical offense as " So goeth all things,"
on page 147 ; and we are not sure that
the Gaelic noun scread warrants him in
saying " louder screeds the gale," though
the verb is doubtless one for which there
ought to be an opening. On the other
hand, Mr. Nichols at times condenses a
great deal into a single sonorous verse ;
as where he tells how the climber may
stand on the mountain-peak

" And zone the world with solitary gaze."
The Epic of an Alp would have been
improved by depletion to one half its
present length ; but after all, we have
read it not without profit, since, in spite
of crudity and diffuseness, it leaves in,
the memory the large, dominant shape
of Monte Rosa as a symbol of the
human aspiration which has scaled the
icy height, and sought to lift others to
a corresponding eminence of thought
aud feeling.

The suspicious prejudice of scientific

l The Hill of Stones, and Other Poems. By
8> WEIR MITCHELL, M. D. Boston : Houghton,

men, and of the public towards them,
does not often allow members of their
guild to give imagination freedom in
poetic activity, however much that same
power of imagination may be exerted
in researches of the laboratory and the
theories of naturalists. Dr. Holmes,
luckily, did not permit his existence as
a poet and a wit to be suppressed by
the unemotional vacuum in which the
medical professor has to work ; aud now
Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, whose fame as
a specialist in troubles of the nerves
stands high, demonstrates once more,
by his delightful but slender volume of
poems,1 how persistently the fount of
Hippocrene will sometimes bubble up be-
neath much incumbent weight of useful
dryness, percolating at last, and gur-
gling forth as limpid and as careless as if
nothing had ever hindered its flow. It
is really a charming series of lyrics and
tales and Stimmungs- Gedichte that Dr.
Mitchell has placed before us, begin-
ning with the weird and misty legend
of The Hill of Stones at Fontainebleau,
and passing on through songs of nature,
and lyrics strong with repressed vehe-
mence, like Kearsarge and How the Cum-
berland Went Down, and quiet reveries
over pictures in foreign galleries of art.
These last we have less liking for than
the pieces in which Dr. Mitchell's quaint
fancy and quick sympathy with nature
assert themselves. The Shriving of
Guinevere, which is a strong and tender-
ly couceived poem, contains four lines
that have a Herrick-like quality : —

" When as the priestly evening threw
The blessed waters of the dew,
About her head her cloak she drew,
And hid her face from every view."

We fancy we have found another Mar-
veil, as we read, — •

" When in the first-born morning breeze
Take exercise the stately trees.
With great limbs swaying full of strength."

But we are quite sure that, in other pas-

Mifflin & Co. The Riverside Press, Cambridge.
1883.

1883.]

The Contributors' Club.

425

sages, we discover only Dr. Mitchell
himself, the possessor of a skill to throw
into refined and acceptable form sen-
timents familiar to us all, but in his
hands invested with a magic that gives
them new meaning. How flawless is
the adaptation of an old image in these
lines ! —

" The trust in honor, faith, and truth

That fails in after years ;

The perfect pearls of life's young dream

Dissolved in manhood's tears."

Every one will appreciate the pleasant
conceit by which the author makes a
pipe-bowl " the wanderer's only hearth,"
glowing with hospitable fires, and the
appropriate fancy of his allusion to
stunted firs and cedars by the beach,

" Which heard in infancy the great sea moan,
And so took on the wilted shapes of fright."

There is a much greater depth in the
question and answer which form the
theme of that curiously analytic poem
called The Marsh, yet the easy and lu-
cid utterance bring out the thought here
as plainly as it does the fancies just re-
ferred to. The writer asks, : —
" Have the leaf and the grass no conscious sense
Of what they give us, — no want or cloy ? "

and then answers himself : —

" Not so unlike us. The words that weight us

With keenest sorrow and longest pain
Fall oft from lips that rest unconscious

If that they give us be joy or pain."

The most original and attractive of all
these short poems are, we think, the
Camp- Fire Lyrics and the one on Elk
County. We cannot do better than by

quoting a few lines from the latter,
which excite a regret that the author's
other occupations have prevented him
from following out this vein of interpre-
tation of native scenes : —

" The land has no story to tell us, —
No voice save the Clarion's waters,
No song save the murm'rous confusion
Of winds gone astray in the pine-tops,
And the roar of the rain on the hemlocks.

And deft little miserly squirrels

Are hoarding the beech-nuts for winter.

Canst hear, as I hear, the gay hum of
The bright whizzing saw in the steam-mill,
Its up-and-down old-fashioned neighbor
Singing, ' Go it! ' and ' Go it! ' and ' Go it! '
As it whirrs through the heart of the pine-tree."

The dactylic arid trochaic measure here
employed Dr. Mitchell handles with
much success, producing a novel and
breezy effect, which has about it an ab-
original zest. In the same kind of verse
is cast the After Sunset camp lyric,
which we recognize as an old friend, first
met in one of the magazines a few years
since, where it was published over an
assumed name. Although there are
details of his verse that might be criti-
cised, Dr. Mitchell is on the whole a .
deft and polished artificer, displaying a
degree of skill somewhat rare in those
who take up the composition of poetry
as amateurs. One does not feel that he
is an amateur, and it is ground for satis-
faction that his poems should have been
placed within the reach of appreciative
readers.

THE CONTRIBUTORS' CLUB.

A GREAT deal has been said about
the disadvantages of newspaper reading.
Some philosophers have become per-
suaded that it will cause the reading of
books to go out of fashion by slow de-
grees, and that the modern mind grows
less and less capable of consecutive

thought, or of evolving and maintain-
ing its own opinions ; that the intellect
brings itself to bear on the various as-
pects of life and the theory and prac-
tice of every-day affairs only in a dis-
jointed and paragraphical sort of way.
We feel ourselves to be on the brink

426

The Contributors' Club.

[March,

of a literary precipice, and remember
with sorrow how apt one is to skip the
editorials of the morning paper, if they
appear too long, or too full of thought
and reasoning. We see that we have
not been reading, but merely getting the
news, and the newspaper is only our
welcome gossip.

With most persons, in this hurried
American life, reading is the thing that
is surest to be crowded out. We find
time for the work or play we like best,
and some people, in the midst of the
greatest activity, will contrive to find a
quiet space in which to follow literary
pleasures ; but many of us take up a
book only as an amusement, and when
there is nothing else to be done. Read-
ing belongs to our idleness, to our holi-
days; it makes an agreeable approach
to an afternoon nap, or, supplied from
the train-boy's collection, it beguiles the
dull hours of a railway journey. The
phrase " improving the mind " has been
degraded into something almost like
slang. Few of us make a business of
having anything to do with books, and
few of us remember that it is as wise
to make sure of taking some good lit-
erary food every day as it is to have our
regular breakfasts and dinners for the
sake of our bodies. Within the last few
years we seem to have demanded that
our books should be divided and sub-
divided, and arranged so that we can
take our mental sustenance in the least
possible time and with the slightest ef-
fort. This state of things has come in
with Liebig's Extract of Beef, and has
followed the druggist's efforts to com-
press and condense the old-fashioned
great doses of medicine into quickly dis-
appearing pellets and globules, which are
slipped down our throats without a shud-
der or regret. Our favorite authors are
being minced finer and finer every year,
as our tables are being served with cro-
quettes and pates, to the shameful neg-
lect of saddles of venison and lordly sir-
loins of beef. We take even our Bible-

reading from books that look as if they
belonged to baby-house libraries : Daily
Foods and Pearls of Sacred Thought,
one verse of the Bible for each day, as
if it were all our spiritual constitutions
would bear, in their present weak con-
dition. One would think that the Bible
Society had succeeded well enough, in
its endeavors to print the Scriptures in
portable form, to allow us to keep the
New Testament, at least, within reach,
so that we could sometimes read an en-
tire chapter.

There was formerly a book called Ora-
cles from the Poets, made for the pur-
pose of telling fortunes ; and one is often
reminded of the evenings it used to
enliven in the old days by the compar-
atively new invention of birthday books.
We are equally curious to see if these
new selections of prose and verse are
satisfactory expressions of our charac-
ters, and appropriate to the day on which
we celebrate our arrival in this sphere
of existence ; and nobody takes up one
of these small volumes without looking
to see what success it has in its person-
al allusions. It is impossible to resist a
feeling of pleasure at finding that the
great author apparently had us in mind
when he made a flattering re mark, or an
appreciative recognition of some rare
virtue. But aside from the personal in-
terest in birthday books, it is impossible
to disguise the truth that most people
read their George P^liot, their Longfel-
low and Dickens and Emerson, and even
their Swedenborg, from birthday books
and almanacs and calendars. It is vast-
ly better than not reading them at all.
These disconnected morsels may lead
stray searchers after truth to follow the
great masters and leaders more closely
and reverently ; and the hunger for this
good food may become harder to satisfy,
until the reader, after having tasted one
sentence from an essay, is forced to rush
to the nearest book-case, and embark
upon a wild revel of reading the whole
masterpiece.

1883.]

The Contributors' Club.

427

The business of publishing still goes
on, but even the people who buy many
books are forced to confess that they
usually have time for only a short scur-
ry between the covers. They are al-
ways deluding themselves into a belief
that they will presently find out all the
author has to say. But soon a new
bundle of books arrives, and the earlier
comers are put away to make room for
the strangers. We maintain large stand-
ing armies of these volumes at great
expense and very little good to our-
selves. .It is only in long convalescence,
or withdrawals from the world on ac-
count of some accidental hindrance to
our every-day affairs, that we get much
time for reading. It seems to me that
it would be a good thing to occasional-
ly go into retreat for the sake of our
minds, after the same fashion that good
Catholics retire from the distractions of
worldly existence for the sake of their
souls.

We cannot give up reading alto-
gether, but we take smaller and smaller
doses of it. By and by we may come
round again to the custom of the Egyp-
tians, and make one hieroglyphic stand
for a sentence : we shall tear off a leaf
of our calendar and see a little circle,
a fat O, and on that day contemplate
eternity. Reading from symbols has
its advantages ; but what will become
of the misguided persons who love the
lazy, loitering books of some authors
who wrote when there was still time
for reading, and it was not driven to the
wall by other things far less important ?

It is a great thing to be sure of hav-
ing one fine thought, or bit of character
study, or glimpse of scenery, put into the
midst of our eager or tiresome, hurried
or lazy day. It is all very well to be as-
sured of a text every morning ; but we
cannot afford to starve our minds, and
though the calendar and birthday books
may keep us alive, they cannot make us
flourish. Few of us think very much for
ourselves, and we are all more or less

dependent upon the thoughts and ob-
servations and opinions of other people.
Many of us pay so little heed to the
laws of intellectual improvement that,
we get our mental growth at a needless-
ly early age. We are like those animals
which hibernate : they afterward come
out of their dens very thin and meagre,
however well satisfied they may have
been with the sustenance derived from
their own paws.

— I read in one of our newspapers,
the other day, a very gloomy and tear-
ful statement of the literary situation,
and was malicious enough to find a great
deal of quiet enjoyment in the pessimistic
views of the writer. A good pessimist
is as fine a thing in his way as a good
hater, and vastly more useful. Pessi-
mism is an excellent corrective — taken
in 'moderation. The distressed person
of whom I am writing — he not inaptly
described himself as being in a state of
" spiritual orphanage " — unfolded no
new idea in saying that the present is a
fallow period in our literature. The
present is always a fallow period in lit-
erature. The assertion is one of those
fossils of criticism which are unearthed
with mechanical regularity, and are to
be predicted with as much certainty as
the eclipse of the sun or the advent of
the potato-bug. The stage was a de-
graded stage in Shakespeare's time. It
is so difficult to get the right perspective
when objects are too near. While Bry-
ant, Emerson, Longfellow, Poe, Haw-
thorne, and the other brilliant men of
that cycle were doing some of their best
work (the marvelous Twice-Told Tales
fell for nearly two decades upon unlist-
ening ears), the literary pessimist of the
period was shedding tears over the non-
existence of a national literature. Forty
years from now he will still be lament-
ing and weeping, and throwing what lit-
tle wet blanket he can over the poets
and novelists and essayists of 1923. I
imagine him holding forth somewhat in
this fashion : —

428

The Contributors' Club.

[March,

" American literature has gone up.
All our great authors are dead. You
may cast your eye (it is a quite painless
operation) over the whole 01 North and
South America, and the dislocated optic
will not encounter a single poet, story-
teller, or essayist in any way worthy
of being perched upon. Howells and
James and Warner and Harte and Ca-
ble and — and Jones have passed away,
and who is left to fill their places?
Where will you find among the writers
of to-day (February 1st, 1923) the pa-
thos and humor of A Foregone Con-
clusion, the keen analysis of The Por-
trait of a Lady, the rich vein of The
Grandissimes, the strength of The Luck
of Roaring Camp, . . . the broad crit-
ical insight of The Victorian Poets ?
What histories and biographies and
books of travel and science were given
to the world in those times ! To what
perfection the art of writing short sto-
ries was brought iu the period extend-
ing from 1860 to 1883 ! What a fine
lyrical quality also characterized that
same period ! There were no great
epics produced, — altera tempore alteri
mores, — but what a cluster of great lit-
tle lyrics ! The silvery chords struck
then are still vibrating ; but, alas ! the
hands of the musicians are dust, and the
present race of performers are merely
banjo-players. The fact is, we are fallen
upon evil days, we have lost our spec-
tacles and misplaced our ear-trumpet,
and our digestion is not what it used
to be."

— The modern guide-book certainly
deserves the gratitude of every traveler ;
but, without disrespect to Murray or
Baedeker, it must be confessed that
even their most ardent admirers experi-
ence, occasionally, a feeling of relief
when some unexpected event, " not in
Murray," occurs, to break for a time the
tyranny of their guide. The celebra-
tion at Madrid of the two hundredth
anniversary of the death of the Spanish
poet Calderon was such an event, and

came to me as a relief, after weeks of
sight-seeing in Spain. The fete was ad-
vertised to begin on Monday, but that
day and the next were devoted by the
inhabitants of Madrid to preparation :
hundreds of workmen were busy deco-
rating the streets, houses, and shops ;
strangers came flocking to the city from
all parts of the country ; booths were
erected along the Prado, and articles of
every description, from a penny whis-
tle to an India shawl, exposed for sale ;
benches were hastily put up in some of
the streets through which the proces-
sions were to pass, and seats rented, as
at Rome during the Carnival. All was
excitement and expectation. The thea*-
tres were crowded every evening, and
Calderon's plays were enthusiastically
received. A loan collection was opened,
under the auspices of nobility, if not roy-
alty, and many were the objects of in-
terest displayed to the public. I saw in
a case full of fine old Spanish fans one,
exquisitely painted, which had belonged
to a lady in waiting at the court of
Philip II. ; and as if to recall that court
more vividly to me, a worn and time-
stained missal, once used by the bigot
king, and the sword of the great and
terrible Alva were placed near it. The
fan, the missal, and the sword were good
specimens of an age renowned for its
intrigue, intolerance, and cruelty. Be-
yond the Prado, in a small wooden build-
ing, there was an exposition of modern
Spanish pictures. These were, how-
ever, but side-shows ; the great fete was
opened on Wednesday by the celebration
of high mass in one of the principal
churches, attended by the royal family
and dignitaries of state. Then followed
a military procession, with the usual dis-
play of soldiers to be seen in every large
city on great occasions. In the evening,
I went with the crowd to see the decora-
tions and illuminations. The Puerta del
Sol, the grand square, was one blaze of
light. The Spanish national colors, red
and yellow, added to the gayety of the

1883.]

The Contributors' Club.

429

scene ; flags were flying ; tapestries cov-
ered the balconies of the houses, brill-
iant with colored lights ; Chinese lan-
terns hung in festoons across the streets ;
and the name of Calderon was every-
where.

But the greatest display of all — the
historical procession — was reserved for
Friday afternoon. It was opened by
six heralds, dressed in the costume of
the time of Calderon ; yellow satin
cloaks, with the Spanish coat of arms
embroidered upon them in black, form-
ing the most conspicuous part of their
attire. It was a splendid sight, as was
also the " Yellow Guard," that came
some time later : those on foot wearing
dark olive-green coats over their yellow
breeches and vests, while the mounted
guard wore bright yellow suits bordered
with alternate checks of black and red.
There were horsemen in old armor ;
knights with their retainers ; an old
printing-press associated with the early
works of the poet ; cars, on which were
represented the different trades busy at
their work ; the Spanish colonies, with
their peculiar characteristics ; and, the
crowning glory of all, the apotheosis of
Calderon. After these came the car-
riages of state, carrying the magnates of
the different cities of Spain, with their
respective banners unfurled, and, follow-
ing them, the richly-carved black coach
of Jeanne la Folle. This latter, con-
nected with the story of the sad wander-
ings of the poor queen, who, refusing to
be separated from her dead husband, the
handsome Philip, carried his coffin with
her in this same carriage, seemed out
of place amid these festivities and not
even the white horses and gayly dressed
postilions could relieve it of its sombre
aspect. It was like the mummy at the
Egyptian feast. The joyous faces of a
party of Salamanca students, however,
who came next in order, soon dispelled
all gloomy thoughts. Looking down
from the balcony of the hotel upon the
great square, whose central fountain re-

flected the bow of promise in its crystal
water, and through whose many diverg-
ing streets a living tide was flowing, I
saw below me the customs and costumes
of 1681 vividly contrasted with those of
1881, and recognized what an advance
even Spain has made in the last two
centuries.

All the processions, after leaving the
Puerta del Sol, passed by the royal
palace, where they were greeted by the
king and queen from one of the bal-
conies. Opposite the palace is the grand
equestrian statue of Philip IV., the pa-
tron of Calderon. Here the little girls
had left their green wreaths on Thurs-
day, which almost concealed the base of
the statue. The weather during the
festival was perfect, — a blessing not
often enjoyed in a city proverbial for
its extremes of heat and cold. When
there was nothing else to do, the stran-
gers crowded around the booths and
shops, while the water-carriers in the
street were so besieged with customers
that they had little need to utter their
shrill cry of " Agua, Agua," — a cry that
may generally be heard above all others,
especially in the Puerta del Sol. Never
was a greater variety of costumes col-
lected in one city. The eye wandered
from the bright dresses of the peasant
women to the lace mantillas so grace-
fully worn by the Spanish ladies ; from
the velvet breeches and short embroid-
ered jackets of the men of Segovia to
the cloaks of the Spanish hidalgos, and
found an artistic pleasure in all. The
picture-gallery on the Prado being free
to the public on one of the festival days,
I followed the crowd; but my object
was not to gaze, as usual, at the won-
derful creations of Velasquez or Murillo,
but to look at the living pictures, which
the peasants unconsciously made as they
stood before the works of the old mas-
ters. I sat for half an hour on the little
bench, covered with red velvet, in front
of Velasquez's Topers, without observ-
ing the marvelous bacchanalian king, er

430

The Contributors' Club.

[March,

his merry, half-clothed subjects. I was
too much interested in the peasants who
stopped before it, and, watching them,
I saw the picture reflected in their faces,
and, listening, heard contagious bursts
of laughter, which may have come from
the canvas or the spectators. Certain-
ly no art critic could have interpreted
the picture better. The favorite dwarfs
of Philip IV., whose portraits, painted
by the court painters of his reign, are
scattered through the gallery, afforded
much amusement to these simple peas-
ants. They never tired of gazing at one
by Carreno, a curious female dwarf,
dressed in a robe of gaudy flowering
chintz, and many were the jokes called
forth by the apples, one in each hand,
which she seemed to be offering them.
Among the women in the crowd, I no-
ticed three dressed in the style charac-
teristic of the age of Calderon, — the
hideous hooped skirt, that I had thought
only a Velasquez could make me toler-
ate ; but, strange to say, the dress was
very becoming to one of the dark-eyed
beauties who wore it. The hoop was a
trifle less exaggerated than in the great
painter's portraits, but it was without
doubt the peasant costume of that pe-
riod. The most picturesque group, how-
ever, that I saw during the morning was
one standing before that exquisite pic-
ture of the Lord's Supper, by Juanes,
the Raphael of Spain. The men in the
prime of life, the women carrying their
babies in their arms, and hushing the lit-
tle creatures who clung timidly to their
skirts, were listening attentively to an
aged woman in their midst, as with trem-
ulous voice she repeated the sacred le-

gends of the Apostles, designating each
with her trembling finger. But:when,
after making the sign of the cross, she
pointed to the figure of the Saviour, -hold-
ing in his hand the Holy Chalice, now
in the cathedral at Valencia, made of
agate and adorned with precious stones,
a reverential awe settled upon the faces
of her audience, and the men, taking off
their hats, bowed solemnly. The rever-
ence of the peasants recalled the devout
spirit of the artist ; for Juanes, like Fra
Angelico, depended upon divine guid-
ance in his art, and no praise from royal
lips would have been as grateful to him
as this recognition of the sacredness of
his work. Notwithstanding the number
of people in the gallery, and the freedom
with which they expressed their opinions
of the pictures, there was very little
noise or confusion. The guards, with
true Spanish politeness, answered ques-
tions and pointed out objects of interest
with as much readiness as if they were
dealing with well-known connoisseurs of
art. Indeed, this politeness was one of
the prominent features of the festival.
Though there were said to be over six-
ty thousand strangers in Madrid during
the week, no serious disturbance was re-
ported, and amusement never degener-
ated into license.

What becomes of a crowd, when the
object which calls it together is accom-
plished, is always a matter of conjecture.
When, therefore, at the close of the his-
torical procession, the last act on the
programme, the curtain fell, the spec-
tators of the Calderon fete mysterious-
ly disappeared, and Madrid soon settled
into the routine of ordinary daily life.

1883.]

Books of the Month.

431

BOOKS OF THE MONTH.

Fine Arts and Illustrated Books. In Putnam's
series of Art Hand-Books, edited by Susan N. Car-
ter, are two volumes : one, Drawing in Black and
White, by the editor ; the other, Hints for Sketch-
ing in Water-Color from Nature, by Thomas Hat-
ton. The former supposes the beginner to be re-
mote from teachers and other helps, and simply
aims to prevent a false start ; the latter is in-
tended for those who already know something of
the water -color methods, and also of sketching
from nature in black and white. — A second series
of William Hunt's Talks on Art, compiled by Hel-
en M. Knowlton (Hotighton, Mifflin & Co.), strikes
us as showing Mr. Hunt even better than the first
series. The style of printing and binding, which
may be described as Orientalized American, agrees
with that of the first series. — Art and the For-
mation of Taste is the title of a volume of six lec-
tures by Lucy Crane. (Macmillan.) It is preceded
by a memoir all too short, yet attractive by its
very modesty, and it has illustrations by her
brothers, Thomas and Walter Crane. The spirit
of the book and the personal characteristics sug-
gested by it would alone preserve it, but the mat-
ter itself is worthy of the charming dress which
has been given to it. — The thirty-first volume of
L'Art (Bouton, agent) continues the high charac-
ter of the periodical which it represents. We
justl}' applaud ourselves for the refinement to
which we have carried the execution of engrav-
ings on wood, but when one opens such a work as
this he confesses at once the wealth of resources
which lie back of art in an old country. L'Art
performs a most important function in making this
wealth accessible in man}' ways to American stu-
dents. Considerable space is given to majolica
and to the salon of 1882. while contemporary
English art is illustrated in the case of Ford Ma-
dox Brown, the interesting but somewhat disap-
pointing painter of historical cartoons, and now
engaged upon (he decoration of the Manchester
Town Hall./ It is a pity that the articles contain
no examples of his work.

History. The Story of the Volunteer Fire De-
partment of the City of New York, by George
W. Sheldon (Harpers), is a substantial and well-
illustrated work by an enthusiast, who has pre-
served in his chapters an interesting phase of our
social history. The volunteer department gave
place in 1865 to a paid department, and this vol-
ume closes at that date. It is largely personal and
anecdotical. — Orderly Book of Sir John John-
son during the Oriskany Campaign, 1776-1777,
annotated by William L. Stone (Joel Munsell's
Sons, Albany), contains also an historical intro-
duction by J. Watts de Peyster, illustrating John-
son's life, and an appendix by T. B. Myers upon
the Loyalists in America. The Johnson episode
has already received much historical illustration,
and as it is one of the most romantic of our colo-
nial affairs any new light thrown upon it is desir-
able.—Mr. Bancroft has begun the reissue of his

History of the United States of America, of which
the first volume has now been published. (Apple-
ton.) The title-page bears the words "the au-
thor's last revision," and the work, when com-
pleted, will be a monument not only to the author's
industry and lifelong application, but to his re-
spect for the undertaking, and his determination
to leave the best, and not the easiest, results of
his labor. The external dress of the book is admi-
rable. — The Jesuits, a Complete History of their
Open and Secret Proceedings, from the Founda-
tion of the Order to the Present Time, by Theodor
Greisinger (Putnams),is a two-volume work, which
is boldly partisan. That is to say, the author, who
speaks of it on the title-page, as told to the Ger-
man people, makes no secret of his bitter hatred
of the Jesuits ; and though it is not necessary for
an impartial historian to part with his conscience,
it is necessary that, if he selects his enemy for his
subject, his readers should bear the fact in mind
as they read.

Biography. Traits of Representative Men, by
George W. Bungay (Fowler & Wells, New York),
is a volume of sketches of American men of the
times, furnished with atrocious woed-cut portraits
for the most part. The sketches differ from the
portraits. These have a wooden savagery of ex-
pression; those are charged with an excess of
laudation and fine writing. — Pioneers of the
Western Reserve, by Harvey Rice (Lee & Shep-
ard), is the title of a book by-a Cleveland gentle-
man, which will be found very attractive by those
who would catch at some of the marks of the
great Western migration. Mr. Rice has treated
his subject as an elderly gentleman might who
should tell the story of the early days to a group
of listeners, and the book is much more entertain-
ing than many novels. — Memoir of Annie Keary,
by her sister (Macmillan), is one of the books
forced from a family by the urgencjr of friends,
who valued the life, and were earnest that the
bushel should be removed from the candle.

Fiction. Cupid M. D., by Augustus M. Swift
(Scribners), is a light piece of fiction in the form
of correspondence and journals, a mode which re-
quires more delicacy of touch than Mr. Swift pos-
sesses. — Uncle Gabe Tucker, or Reflection, Song,
and Sentiment in the Quarters, by J. A. Macon
(Lippincott), is a mild imitation of Uncle Remus
in a more, diversified but less entertaining form.
— The Colonel's Daughter, or Winning his Spurs,
by Colonel Charles King, U. S. A. (Lippincott),
is a story of frontier life. The author, in a some-
what disdainful preface, professes to leave conver-
sation to other authors, and confine himself to in-
cident ; and incident in plenty there is, but we do
not see that the author has invented any new style
of novel. — Portia, or By Passions Rocked (Lip-
pincott), is by the author of Molly Bawn, which
is a recommendation; but then it is also by the au-
thor of Beauty's Daughters. — Barrington's Fate
is the latest in the No Name series. (Roberts.)

432

Books of the Month.

[March.

The story is one of English life, but presumably
by an American.

Sports. New Games for Parlor and Lawn, by
George B. Bartlett (Harpers), is a capital hand-
book, by an old stager, who pays his readers the
compliment of supposing them as clever as him-
self. — Foot! ight Frolics is the title of a little
hand-book devoted to entertainments for home
and school, by Mrs. Charles F. Fernald (Lee &
Shepard), and containing school operas, charades,
plays, and the like. Mrs. Fernald claims that she
has given material which is free from the objec-
tionable features of plays, vulgar expressions,
double entendres, or profane words ; but she has
managed, nevertheless, to retain forms and phrases
and situations which one does not need to be over-
fastidious to object to, as, for example, when the
familiar Irish girl calls upon the " blissid Vargin "
and the " howly saints." There still remain some
•who believe the Virgin was blessed and who honor
the saints. — Whistv or BumblepuppyV by Pern-
bridge (Roberts), is somewhat humorously de-
scribed further, on the title-page, as ten lectures
addressed to children. The drollery which runs
through the book seems to represent the author's
temper, and not to interfere with the subject of his
discourses on whist.

Public Affairs. Spoiling the Egyptians, a Tale
of Shame Told from the British Blue-Books, is the
vigorous protest of Mr. J. Seymour Keay (Put-
nams) against the policy of the English in dealing
with Egypt. The little work appeared during the
short war, but no circumstances of the war appear
to affect its logic. — The Irish Question, by David
Bennett King (Scribners), is the work of an Amer-
ican professor, who trained himself for his task
by repeated visits to Ireland, study, and free con-
verse with men of affairs and of public life. The
result is a carefully prepared work, with no pana-
cea, but with sensible conclusions drawn in an un-
partisan spirit.

Travel and Chorography. Tunis, the Land and
the People, by the Chevalier de Hesse-Wartegg
(Dodd, Mead & Co.), is not a simple traveler's
story, but a report upon its present condition by
one who has resided there long enough to be a
careful judge. The author discountenances the
project for converting the Sahara into an inland
sea. — Corea, the Hermit Nation (Scribners), is
the work of \V. E. Griffis, who has written at
length upon Japan. Mr. Griffis has used such au-
thorities as exist, and has been helped in his re-
searches by his linguistic attainments. He does
not appear to have himself seen more than the
outskirts of the country, but, short of that personal
acquaintance, his training for his task has been
exceptional.

Philosophy and Theology. Fundamental Ques-
tions is the title of a work by Edson L. Clark
(Putnams), which deals with subjects suggested
chiefly by the book of Genesis and the Hebrew
Scripture. The answers to the questions are found
in the contributions made by historical, archaeo-
logical, and scientific investigation. The endeav-
or is also in the direction of the new theology,
which centres about the Christ as the meeting
of God and man. —Love for Souls, by the Rev.

William Scribner (Scribners), is a small volume,
by an evangelical minister, of exhortation to ear-
nestness in laboring for the conversion of men.

Humor. Theophile Gautier's My Household of
Pets, translated by Susan Coolidge (Roberts), is a
delightful volume, — the persiflage' about dogs,
cats, and horses which only a man of genius can'
write. — The Lambs, a Tragedy, by Robert Grant
(Osgood), is a satirical work, which takes advan-
tage of the one topic of our contemporary life
which is pretty sure to attract both literary and
unliterary people. The treatment is clever, and
the simplicity of the theme is amusingly fitted to
the severity of the style.

Science. Guesses at Purpose in Nature, with
especial reference to plants, by W. P. James, is a
volume of the S. P. C. K. (E. & J. B. Young & Co.,
New York), in which a mild party, headed by a
vicar, voyages to the Barbadoes in May, returns
to England in September, and discourses on bot-
any and the Darwinian theory afloat and ashore.
The machinery of the little book is harmless, and
the men of straw are knocked down with great
success. — Cause of Variation is the somewhat
enigmatical title of a small work by M. M. Curtis,
who publishes it from Marshall, Minnesota. Mr.
Curtis appears to believe in some creed of labor,
as developed from the physical conditions of life,
but we do not quite understand what the labor is
to result in, except a further continuance of a life
which he does not appear to regard very highly.

Social Science and Political Economy. The
Factors of Civilization, real and assumed, consid-
ered in their relation to vice, misery, happiness,
unhappiness, and progress, is the comprehensive
title of a work of which the second volume has
reached us. (James P. Harrison & Co., Atlanta,
Ga.) This volume, however, precedes the first in
order of publication ; it is a thoughtful discussion,
by a Southerner, of the institutions of society and
the effect of their imperfections upon progress.
He is somewhat of a reactionist, but he writes so-
berly and earnestly. — The Taxation of the Ele-
vated Railroads in the City of New York, by Rog-
er Foster (Putnams), is a pamphlet which owes its
origin in part to the vigorous associated effort in
New York to bring reason and law to bear upon
the problems of municipal and civil government. —
Political Economy, by Francis A. Walker (Holt),
is the fifth in what is known as the American Sci-
ence Series, works especially adapted to use in
high schools and colleges. This manual is illus-
trated by pertinent facts in American life.

Economics. In Putnam's Handy Book series
of things worth knowing, a recent volume is head-
ed How to Succeed, and is composed of recipes
for success given by Senators Bayard and Ed-
munds, who represent public life, Dr. John Hall,
who speaks for the ministry, Mr. E. P. Roe, who
is a successful litterateur, and so forth. The mer-
chant, the farmer, the inventor, the doctor, the
artist, the civil engineer, and the musician, all
contribute their notes on success in their several
vocations, and if the real secret in each case could
be communicated something might be learned,
After all, the contributions suggest the previous
question, — What is success ?

THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY:
a ;$taga$me of Literature,, Science,, art,, anD

VOL. LI. — APRIL, 1883. — No. OOQVI.

DAISY MILLER.
A COMEDY. IN THREE ACTS.

PERSONS REPRESENTED-

FREDERICK WINTERBOURNE.
CHARLES REVERDY. '

GlACOMO GlOVANELLI.

EUGENIC.
RANDOLPH MILLER.

MRS. COSTELLO.
MADAME DE KATKOFF.
ALICE DURANT.
MRS. WALKER.
DAISY MILLER.

A WAITER.

ACT I. — An Hotel on the Lake of Geneva.
ACT II. — The Promenade of the Pincian, Rome.
ACT III. — An Hotel in Rome.

ACT I.

Garden and terrace of an hotel on the Lake of
Geneva. The portico of the hotel to the left,
with, steps leading up to it. In the background
a low parapet dividing the garden from the
lake, and divided itself by a small gate opening
upon a flight of steps which are supposed to de-
scend to a pier. Beyond this a distant view of
mountains and of the lake, with the Chateau de
Chilian. Orange-trees in green tubs, benches,
a few small tables and chairs.

SCENE I. MADAME DE KATKOFF, EUGENIO.

MADAME DE KATKOFF, coming in as
if a little startled, with a French book in
a pink cover under her arm. I believe
Le means to speak to me ! He is capa-
ble of any impertinence.

EUGENIO, following slowly, handsome-
ly dressed, with a large watch-guard, and
a courier's satchel over his shoulder. He
takes off his hat and bows obsequiously,

but with a certain mock respect. Ma-
dame does me the honor to recognize-
me, I think.

MME. DE K. Certainly I recognize
you. I never forget my servants, es-
pecially (with a little laugh) the faithful,
ones !

EUGENIO. Madame's memory is per-
haps slightly at fault in leading her to
speak of me as a servant !

MME. DE K. What were you, then ?
A friend, possibly ?

EUGENIO. May I not say that I was,
at least on a certain occasion, an advis-
er ?

MME. DE K. In the way of occasions,
I remember only the one on which I
turned you out of the house* ' , <

EUGENIO. You remember it with a
little regret, I hope.

MME. DE K. An immense deal —

434

Daisy Miller.

[April,

that I had n't dismissed you six months
sooner !

EUGENIO. I comprehend the regret
of Madame. It was in those six months
that an incident occurred — (He
pauses.

MME. DE K. An incident ?

EUGENIO. An incident which it is
natural that Madame should not have
desired to come to the knowledge of
persons occupying a position, however
humble, near Madame.

MME. DE K., aside. He is more than
impertinent — he is dangerous. (Aloud.)
You are very audacious. You took
away a great deal of money.

EUGENIO. Madame appears still to
have an abundance.

MME. DE K., looking at him a mo-
ment. Yes, I have enough.

EUGENIO, smiling. Madame is to be
congratulated ! I have never ceased to
take an interest in Madame. I have
followed her — at a distance.

MME. DE K. The greater the dis-
tance, the better !

EUGENIO, significantly. Yes, I re-
member that Madame was very fond of
her privacy. But I intrude as little as
possible. I have duties at present
which give me plenty of occupation.
Not so much, indeed, as when I was in
the employment of Monsieur de Kat-
koff : that was the busiest part of my
life. The Russians are very exacting
— the Americans are very easy !

MME. DE K. You are with Americans
now ?

EUGENIO. Madame sees that she is
willing to talk ! I am traveling with a
family from New York — a family of
three persons.

MME. DE K. You have no excuse,
then, for detaining me ; you know
where to find conversation.

EUGENIO. Their conversation is not
so agreeable as that of Madame ! ( With
a slight change of tone.) I know more
about you than you perhaps suspect.

MME. DE K. I know what you know.

EUGENIO. Oh, I don't allude to Ma-
dame's secrets. I should never be so
indiscreet! It is not a secret to-day
that Madame has a charming villa on
this lovely lake, about three miles from
Geneva.

MME. DE K. No, that is not a se-
cret.

EUGENIO. And that though she leads
a life of elegant seclusion, suited to the
mourning which she has never laid aside

— though she has lightened it a little

— since she became a widow, Madame
does not entirely shut her doors. She
receives a few privileged persons.

MME. DE K., aside. What on earth
is he coming to ? (Aloud.) Do you
aspire to be one of them?

EUGENIO. I should count upon it the
day I should have something particular
to say to Madame. But that day may
never come.

MME. DE K. Let us hope so !

EUGENIO. Let us hope so ! Mean-
while Madame is in a position to know
as well as myself that — as I said just
now — the Americans are very easy.

MME. DE K. The Americans ?

EUGENIO. Perhaps, after all, Ma-
dame does n't find them so ? Her most
privileged visitor is of that nationality !
Has he discovered — like me — that the
Russians are very exacting ?

MME. DE K., looking at him a mo-
ment, then quickly, though with an ef-
fort. The Russians, when their antag-
onists go too far, can be as dangerous
as any one else ! I forget your nation-
ality.

EUGENIO. I am not sure that Ma-
dame ever knew it. I 'in an Italian
Swiss, a native of the beautiful city of
Lugano. Is Madame acquainted with
Lugano? If she should go that way,
I recommend the Hotel Washington :
always our Americans, you see! The
Russians ? They are the most danger-
ous people I know, and we gentlemen
who take charge of families know every-
thing.

1883.]

Daisy Miller.

435

MME. DE K. You had better add
frankly that you traffic in your knowl-
edge.

EUGENIC. What could be more just ?
It costs us a good deal to get it.

MME. DE K., to herself, after a pause.
It is best to know the worst, and have
done with it. {Aloud.) How much do
you want ?

EUGENIO. How much do I want for
what? For keeping quiet about Mr.
Winterbourne, so that his family shan't
think he 's wasting his time, and come
out from America to bring him home ?
You see I know even his name ! He 's
supposed to be at Geneva for purposes
of study.

MME. DE K. How much do you want
to go away and never let me see you
again ? Be merciful. Remember that
I 'm not rich.

EUGENIO. I know exactly the for-
tune of Madame ! She is not rich, for
very good reasons — she was exceeding-
ly extravagant in her youth ! On the
other hand, she is by no means in mis-
ery. She is not rich, like the Ameri-
can lady — the amiable Mrs. Miller —
whom I have at present the honor to
serve ; but she is able to indulge her-
self with the usual luxuries.

MME. DE K. It would bo a luxury to
get rid of you !

EUGENIO. Ah, I'm not sure that
Madame can afford that ; that would
come under the head of extras ! More-
over, I 'in not in want of money. The
amiable Mrs. Miller —

MME. DE K., interrupting. The ami-
able Mrs. Miller is as great a fool as I ?

EUGENIO. I should never think of
comparing her with Madame ! Madame
has much more the appearance of one
who is born to command. It is for this
reason that I approached her with the
utmost deliberation. I recognized her
three days ago, the evening she arrived
at the hotel, and I pointed her out to
Mrs. Miller as a Russian lady of great
distinction, whose husband I had for-

merly the honor to serve in a very con-
fidential position. Mrs. Miller has a
daughter even more amiable than her-
self, and this young lady was profound-
ly impressed with the distinguished ap-
pearance of Madame.

MME. DE K. Her good opinion is
doubtless of great value ; but I suppose
it 's hardly to assure me of that —

EUGENIO. I may add that I did n't
permit myself to make any further re-
marks.

MME. DE K. And your discretion 's
an example of what you are capable of
doing? I should be happy to believe
it, and if you have not come to claim
your reward —

EUGENIO. My reward? My reward
shall be this : that we leave the account
open between us ! ( Changing his tone
entirely.) Let me speak to you very
frankly. Some eight years ago, when
you were thirty years old, you were liv-
ing at Dresden.

MME. DE K. I was living at Dres-
den, but I was not thirty years old.

EUGENIO. The age doesn't matter
— we will call it twenty, if you like :
that makes me younger, too. At that
time I was under your roof ; I was the
confidential servant, on a very excep-
tional footing, of M. de Katkoff. He
had a great deal of business — a great
deal of diplomatic business ; and as he
employed me very often to write for
him — do you remember my beautiful
hand ? — I was not so much a servant as
a secretary. At any rate, I was in a
position to observe that you had a quar-
rel with your husband.

MME. DE K. In a position ? I should
think you were ! He paid you to spy
upon me.

EUGENIO. To spy upon you ?

MME. DE K. To watch me — to fol-
low me — to calumniate me.

EUGENIO, smiling. That 's just the
way you used to talk ! You were al-
ways violent, and that gave one an ad-
vantage.

436

Daisy Miller.

[April,

MME. DE K. All this is insupport-
able. Please to spare me your reminis-
cences, and come to the point.

EUGENIC. The point is this — that I
got the advantage of you then, and that
I have never lost it ! Though you did
n't care for your husband, you cared for
some one else ; and M. de Katkoff —
with my assistance, if you will — dis-
covered the object of your preference.
Need I remind you of what followed
the day this discovery became known to
you ? Your surprise was great, because
you thought yourself safe ; but your
anger was even greater. You found me
for a moment in your path, and you
imagined — for that moment — that I
was a Russian serf. The mistake had
serious consequences. You called me
by the vilest of names — and I have
never forgotten it!

MME. DE K. I thank you for remind-
ing me of my contempt. It was ex-
tremely sweet.

EUGENIC. It made you very reckless.
I got possession of two letters, addressed
to the person I speak of, and singularly
rash compositions. They bear your sig-
nature in full.

MME. DE K. Can there be any bet-
ter proof that I have nothing to be
ashamed of ?

EUGENIC. You were not ashamed
then, because, as I have already re-
marked, you were reckless. But to-
day you are wise.

MME. DE K., proudly. Whatever I
have said — I have always signed!

EUGENIC. It's a habit I appreciate.
One of those letters I gave to M. de
Katkoff ; the other — the best — I kept
for myself.

MME. DE K. What do you mean by
the best ?

EUGENIC. I mean — the worst !

MME. DE K. It can't be very bad.

EUGENIC, smiling. Should you like
me to submit it to a few of your
friends ?

MME. DE K., aside. Horrible man !
(Aloud.) That 's the point, then : you
wish to sell it.

EUGENIC. No ; I only wish you to
know I have it.

MME. DE K. I knew that already.
What good does it do you ?

EUGENIC. You suspected it, but you
did n't know it. The good it does me
is this — that when, as sometimes hap-
pens to us poor members of a despised
and laborious class, I take stock of my
prospects and reckon up the little ad-
vantages I may happen to possess, I
like to feel that particular one among
them.

MME. DE K. I see — you regard it
as a part of your capital. But you
draw no income.

EUGENIC. Ah, the income, Madame,
is accumulating !

MME. DE K. If you are trying to
frighten me, you don't — very much !

EUGENIC. Very much — no ! But
enough is as good as a feast. There is
no telling what may happen. We cou-
riers have our ups and downs, and some
day I may be in distress. Then, and
only then, if I feel a pinch, I shall call
on Madame. For the present —

MME. DE K. For the present, you
only wish to insult me !

EUGENIC. Madame does injustice to
my manners : they are usually much ap-
preciated. For the rest of the time that
we remain under the same roof — so to
speak — I shall not again disturb your
meditations.

MME. DE K. Be so good as to leave
me.

EUGENIC. I wish Madame a very
good morning ! (He goes into the hotel.)

MME. DE K., stands a moment, think-
ing. That's what it is to have been
a fool — for a single moment! That
moment reechoes through eternity. He
has shaken my nerves, and in this
wretched garden one is always observed.
(Exit into the hotel.)

1883.]

Daisy Miller.

437

SCENE II. MRS. COSTELLO, Miss DDRANT,
CHARLES REVERDT. They come out of the
hotel as Madame de Katkoff passes into it,
looking at her attentively.

REVEKDT, who carries a camp-stool.
That 's the biggest swell in the house
— a Russian princess !

MRS. COSTELLO. A Russian prin-
cess is nothing very great. "We have,
found one at every hotel.

REVERDY. Well, this is the best of
them all. You would notice her any-
where.

MRS. C. The best bred people are
the people you notice least.

REVERDY. She 's very quiet, any
way. She speaks to no one.

MRS. C. You mean by that that no
one speaks to her.

REVERDY, aside. The old lady 's
snappish this morning : hanged if I '11
stand it ! (Aloud.) No one speaks to
her, because no one ventures to.

Miss DURANT. You ventured to,
I think, and she did n't answer you.
That 's what you mean by her being
quiet !

REVERDY. She dropped her fan, and
I picked it up and gave it to her. She
thanked me with a smile that was a
poem in itself : she did n't need to
speak !

MRS. C. You need n't mind wait-
ing on Russian princesses. Your busi-
ness is to attend to us — till my nephew
comes.

REVERDY, looking at his watch. As
I understand you, he 's already due.

MRS. C. He 's a quarter of an hour
late. We are waiting breakfast.

Miss D. I 'm afraid the delay will
bring on one of your headaches.

MRS. C. I have one already, so it
does n't matter !

REVERDY, aside. Very convenient,
those headaches ! (Aloud.) Won't you
sit down, at least ? ( Offering camp-
stool.) You know I don't come out for
three minutes without our little imple-
ment.

MRS. C. I don't care for that ; I '11
sit on a bench.

REVERDY, aside. She insists on my
bringing it, and yet she won't use it !
( The ladies seat themselves, and he places
himself between them, astride the camp-
stool. He continues, aloud.) If Mr.
Winterbourne is already due, my holi-
day has legally begun.

Miss D. You won't lose anything by
waiting. After he comes you will be
at perfect liberty.

REVERDY. Oh yes, after that you
won't look at me, I suppose ! Miss Du-
rant is counting very much on Mr. Win-
terbourne.

MRS. C. And I am counting very
much on Miss Durant. You are to be
very nice to him, you know.

Miss D. That will depend on how I
like -him.

MRS. C. That 's not what I brought
you to Europe for — to make condi-
tions. Besides, Frederick 's a perfect
gentleman.

Miss D. You seem to wish me to
promise to marry him. I must wait till
he asks me, you know.

REVERDY. He will ask you if Mrs.
Costello bids him. He is evidently in
excellent training.

MRS. C. I have n't seen him for ten
years : at that time he was a model
nephew.

REVERDY. I should n't wonder if he
were to turn out a regular " hard " one.
That would be a jolly lark !

MRS. C. That 's not his reputation.
Moreover, he has been brought up in
Geneva, the most moral city in Europe.

REVERDY. You can't tell anything
from that. Here am I, brought up in
New York — and we all know what
New York is. Yet where can you
find a more immaculate young man ? I
have n't a fault — I 'm ashamed of my-
self!

Miss D. If Mr. Winterbourne is a
little wild, I shan't like him any the
less. Some faults are very charming.

438

Daisy Miller.

[April,

REVERDY. Tell me what they are,
and I '11 try and acquire them.

MRS. C. My dear Alice, I 'm startled
by your sentiments. I have tried to
form your taste . . .

Miss D. Yes, but you have only cul-
tivated my dislikes. Those are a few
of my preferences.

REVERDY. Tell us a few more of
them — they sound awfully spicy !

Miss D. I 'm very fond of a certain
indifference. I like men who are not
always running after you with a camp-
stool, and who don't seem to care wheth-
er you like them or not.

MRS. C. If you like rude men, they
are very easily found. If I did n't know
you were a very nice girl, I should take
you for — I don't know what !

REVERDY. Miss Durant's remarks
are addressed to me, and between you
two ladies it 's hard to know what to
do. You want me to be always at your
elbow, and you make a great point of
the camp-stool. Will you have it a lit-
tle, for a change ? ( Getting up and of-
fering it. Mrs. Costello refuses with a
gesture.) I don't offer it to Miss Alice ;
we have heard what she thinks of it !

Miss D. I did n't speak of that piece
of furniture : I spoke of the person who
carries it.

REVERDY. The person who carries
the camp-stool ? Is that what I 've come
to be known by ? Look here, my dear
friends, you ought to engage a cou-
rier.

MRS. C. To cheat us out of our eyes ?
Thank you very much !

REVERDY. A courier with a gorgeous
satchel, and a feather in his hat — like
those ladies from Schenectady !

MRS. C; So that he might smoke in
our faces, as he does in theirs, and have
his coffee with us after dinner, as he
does with them ? They 've ruined a
good servant.

Miss D. They treat him as an equal ;
they make him their companion.

REVERDY. But they give him hand-

some wages — which is more than you
do me!

Miss D. I 've no doubt they give
him little tokens of affection, and locks
of their hair. But that makes them
only the more dreadful !

MRS. C. I 'm glad to see, my dear,
that your taste is coming back to you !

REVERDY. Oh, if taste consists in de-
molishing Miss Daisy Miller, she can
take the prize.

Miss D. Demolishing her ? I should
be sorry to take that trouble. I think
her very vulgar : that 's all !

MRS. C. Miss Daisy Miller ? Is that
her distinguished name ?

REVERDY, aside. Ah, we can't all
be named Costello !

MRS. C. They are the sort of Amer-
icans that one does one's duty by not
accepting.

REVERDY. Ah, you don't accept her?

MRS. C. I would if I could — but
I can't. One should let Europeans
know —

REVERDY. One should let them
know ?

MRS. C. That we are not all like
that.

REVERDY. They can see it for them-
selves : she 's charmingly pretty.

Miss D. You are extremely imperti-
nent.

REVERDY, aside. I put in one that
time. (Aloud.) I can't help it ; she 's
lovely.

MRS. C. And is the mamma lovely,
too ? Has any one ever seen the mam-
ma ?

REVERDY. She 's sick in bed — she 's
always sick.

Miss D. The courier sits with her,
and gives her her medicine.

REVERDY. I hope you call that de-
voted, then ?

MRS. C. It does n't matter, because
the head of the family is the little boy.
He orders the dinner ; he has the best
seat in the carriage.

REVERDY. He 's the most amusing

1883.]

Daisy Miller.

439

little specimen. He has the heart of a
patriot in the body of a — (Hesitates
for a word.)

Miss D. In the body of a grasshop-
per !

REVERDY. He hops a good deal, or,
rather, I should say, he flies ; for there
is a good deal of the spread-eagle about
him. srJ&

Miss D. He leaves his toys all over
the hotel ; I suppose you would say his
plumes.

REVERDY. Well, he 's a dauntless
American infant ; a child of nature and
of freedom.

MRS. C. Oh, nature and freedom !
We have heard too much of them.

REVERDY. Wait till you are stopped
at the New York custom-house ! The
youthful Miller and I have struck up a
friendship : he introduced me to his sis-
ter.

MRS. C. You don't mean to say you
spoke to her !

REVERDY. Spoke to her ? Yes, in-
deed — and she answered me.

Miss D. She was not like the Rus-
sian princess !

REVERDY. No, she 's as little as pos-
sible like the Russian princess ; but
she 's very charming in another style.
As soon as Mr. Winterbourne arrives
(and you must excuse me for saying
that he takes_ a deuce of a time about
it), I shall console myself for the loss
of your society by plunging into that of
the Millers.

MRS. C. You won't lose us, Mr. Rev-
erdy : you can console yourself with
me.

REVERDY. Oh, thank you !

MRS. C. Frederick will devote him-
self to Alice.

Miss D. We had better wait till he
comes ! I have no patience with his
delay.

MRS. C. Neither have I, my dear ;
but I may as well take the opportunity
of remarking that a young lady should
n't seem too eager . . .

Miss D. Too eager ?

MRS. C. For the arrival of a gentle-
man.

Miss D. I see what you mean — more
reserve. But simply before you . . .

REVERDY. And before me, please.
Am I nobody ?

Miss D. Nobody at all !

REVERDY. Well, I don't care, for I
descry in the distance the adorable Miss
Miller !

Miss D. I 'm glad she 's in the dis-
tance.

REVERDY. Ah, but she 's coming this
way.

Miss D., quickly. I forbid you to
speak to her.

REVERDY, aside. Ah, then I am
somebody ? (Aloud.) I can't cut the
poor girl, you know.

Miss D. You needn't see her. You
can look at me.

MRS. C. She 's always wandering
about the garden — the image of idle-
ness and frivolity.

REVERDY. She 's not as serious as
we, nor as well occupied, certainly ; but
she 's bored to death. She has got no
one to flirt with.

Miss D. She shall not flirt with you,
at any rate !

REVERDY. Do you wish me to hide
behind a tree ?

Miss D. No, you can sit down here
(indicating the bench beside her), and
take my parasol — so ! — and hold it be-
fore your face, as if you were shading
your eyes.

REVERDY, with the parasol. From
Miss Daisy Miller ? It 's true she 's
very dazzling ! (Daisy enters from the
right, strolling slowly, as if she has noth-
ing to do, and passes across the stage in
front of the others, who sit silent, watch-
ing her, Reverdy peeping for a moment
from behind his parasol. " She was
dressed in white muslin, with a hundred
frills and flounces, and knots of pale-
colored ribbon. She was bare-headed;
but she balanced in her hand a large par-

440

Daisy Miller.

[April,

asol, with a deep border of embroidery ;
and she was strikingly, admirably, pret-
ty." l She looks at the others as she
passes them, and goes out on the left —
not into the hotel. Reverdy continues.)
Now, then, may I look out ?

Miss D., taking back her parasol.
She saw you, I 'm happy to say.

REVERDY. Oh yes, I gave her a
wink !

MRS. C. That's the way she roams
about —

Miss D. Seeking whom she may de-
vour !

REVERDY. Poor little creature ! I 'm
the only tolerably good-looking young
man in the hotel.

MRS. C. Mercy on us ! I hope she
won't get hold of Frederick !

REVERDY. Not if I can help it, dear
Madam. I have never seen Frederick
— but I mistrust Frederick.

MRS. C. He 's not at all in your style.
He 's had a foreign education. He
speaks a dozen languages.

REVERDY, aside. An awful prig, —
I can see that.

MRS. C. Let us hope that, thanks to
his foreign education, he will be out of
danger. Such people as that can only
disgust him.

REVERDY. I know the style of fel-
low you mean — a very high collar and
a very stiff spine ! He speaks a dozen
languages — but he does n't speak the
language of Schenectady ! He won't
understand an American girl — he had
better leave her alone.

Miss D. I'm very much obliged to
you — for me !

Enter a waiter from the hotel.

REVERDY. Oh, you are not an Amer-
ican ; you 're an angel !

.THE WAITER, approaching with a
bow. The breakfast that Madame or-
dered is served.

MRS. C., to her companions. It 's just
twelve o'clock ; we certainly can't wait
any longer.

l From the story.

Miss D. I don't believe he 's coming
at all !

MRS. C. Ah, if I've only brought on
a headache for nothing !

REVERDY, aside. Won't he catch it
when he arrives ? ( They pass into the
hotel, the waiter leading the way.)

SCENE III. EUGENIC, then WINTERBOURNB
and the WAITER. Eugenia comes out of the
hotel, then looks about him and begins to call.
He is without his hat and satchel.

EUGENIC. Meester Randolph ! Mees-
ter Randolph ! Confound that infernal
child — it 's the fifth time this morning
that I 've chased him round the garden !
(Stands calling again.) Meester Ran-
dolph ! Meester Randolph ! He is al-
ways there when he 's not wanted and
never when he is, and when I find him
I haven't even the right to pinch his
ear ! He begins to kick like a little
mule, and he has nails in his boots —
for the mountains. Meester Randolph !
Meester Randolph ! Drat the little
wretch — I 'm a courier, not a nurse !
(Exit to the right, while Winterbourne
comes down from the hotel, followed by a
waiter, the same who has just appeared,
carrying a little tray with a service 0}
black coffee.)

WINTERBOURNE. I '11 have my coffee
here, it's so close in the hotel. (The
waiter places the tray on a small table,
which he draws up to a bench. Winter-
bourne takes out a card, on which, on his
pocket-book, he writes a few words.) And
please to take that card to the lady whose
name I have written there, and ask her
when it will be convenient for her to
see me.

THE WAITER, looking at the card.
The Russian lady who arrived three
days ago ? I will let you know, sir.

WINTERBOURNE, seated at the little
table. Wait a moment. Do you know
whether Mrs. Costello has breakfasted ?

THE WAITER. Mrs. Costello ? The
lady with the young lady, and the gen-
tleman also young ?

1883.]

Daisy Miller.

441

WINTERBOURNE. I know nothing
about her companions. A lady with
her hair very high. She is rather —
rather —

THE WAITER. Yes, sir, she is rather
high altogether ! When she gives an
order —

WINTERBOURNE, pouring out his cof-
fee. I don't ask you to describe her-—
I ask you if she has breakfasted.

THE WAITER. The party 's at table
now, sir. I conducted them myself,
five minutes ago. I think they waited
for you, sir ; they expected you to ar-
rive.

WINTERBOURNE. I arrived an hour
ago, by the train ; but I was dusty, and
I had to have a bath. (Lighting a cig-
arette.) Then while I dressed, to save
time, I had my breakfast brought to my
room. Where do they usually take
their coffee ?

THE WAITER. They take it in our
beautiful garden, sir.

WINTERBOURNE. Very good. I will
wait for them here. That 'sail. (The
waiter reenters the hotel. Winterbourne
puffs his cigarette.) There is no use in
being in a hurry. I want to be eager —
but I don't want to be too eager. That
worthy man is quite right ; when Aunt
Louisa gives an order, it 's a military
command. She has ordered me up from
Geneva, and- I've marched at the word ;
but I '11 rest a little before reporting at
headquarters. (Puff's his cigarette.) It
coincides very happily, for I don't know
that, without this pretext, I should have
ventured to come. Three days ago, the
waiter said ? A week ago, at the villa,
they told me she had gone. There is
always a mystery in that woman's move-
ments. Yes, Aunt Louisa is rather
high ; but it 's not of her I 'm afraid !
(Puff's a moment in silence.)

SCENE IV. WIXTERBOTJRNE, RANDOLPH, then
DAISY.

RANDOLPH. (He comes in from the
back, approaches Winterbourne, and stops.

" The child, who was diminutive for his
years, had an aged expression of coun-
tenance, a pale complexion, and sharp
little features. He was dressed in knick-
erbockers, with red stockings, which dis-
played his poor little spindleshanks ; he
also wore a brilliant red cravat. He
carried in his hand a long alpenstock, the
sharp point of which he thrust into every-
thing that he approached, — the Jlower-
beds, the garden-benches. . . . In front
of Winterbourne he paused, looking at
him with a pair of bright, penetrating
little eges." 1 Winterbourne, smoking,
returns his gaze.) Will you give me a
lump of sugar ?

WINTERBOURNE. Yes, you may take
one ; but I don't think sugar is good for
little boys.

RANDOLPH. (He steps forward and
carefully possesses himself of the whole
contents of the plate. From these he still
more carefully selects the largest lump,
depositing the others in his pocket. Bit-
ing, with a grimace.) Oh, blazes ! it 'B
hard !

WINTERBOURNE. Take care, young
man. You '11 hurt your teeth.

RANDOLPH. I have n't got any teeth
to hurt ; they 've all come out. I 've
only got seven teeth. Mother counted
them last night, and one came out af-
terwards. She said she 'd slap me if
any more came out. I can't help it —
it 's this old Europe. It 's the climate
that makes 'em come out. In Amer-
ica they did n't come out ; it 's these
hotels !

WINTERBOURNE. If you eat all that
sugar, your mother will certainly slap
you.

RANDOLPH. She 's got to give me
some candy, then. I can't get any can-
dy here — any American candy. Amer-
ican candy 's the best.

WINTERBOURNE. And are American
boys the best little boys ?

RANDOLPH. I don't know. I 'm an
American boy !

* From the story.

442

Daisy Miller.

[April,

WINTERBOURNE. I see you are one
of the best.

RANDOLPH. That is n't what my
mother says, you can bet your life on
that!

WINTERBOURNE. Oh, your mother 's
too modest !

RANDOLPH, astride his alpenstock,
looking at Winterbourne. She 's sick —
she 's always sick. It 's this old Eu-
rope ! Are you an American man ?

WINTERBOURNE. Oh, yes, a fellow-
citizen. (Aside.) I wonder whether I
was once like that !

RANDOLPH. American men are the
best.

WINTERBOURNE. So they often say.

RANDOLPH, looking off" to the left.
Here comes my sister. She 's an Amer-
ican girl.

WINTERBOURNE. American girls are
the best girls.

RANDOLPH. Oh, my sister ain't the
best. She 's always blowing at me !

WINTERBOURNE. I imagine that 's
your fault, not hers. (Daisy comes in
from the left, in the same manner as on
her previous entrance, and on reaching
the middle of the stage stops and looks at
Winterbourne and at Randolph, who has
converted his alpenstock into a vaulting-
pole, and is springing about violently.
Winterbourne continues, getting up.) By
Jove, how pretty !

DAISY. Well, Randolph, what are
' you doing ?

RANDOLPH. I 'm going up the Alps.
This is the way !

WINTERBOURNE. That 's the way
they come down.

RANDOLPH. He 's all right ; he 's an
American man !

WINTERBOURNE, aside. It seems to
me that I have been in a manner pre-
sented. (Approaches Daisy, throwing
away his cigarette. Aloud, with great
civility.) This little boy and I have
made acquaintance.

DAISY. She looks at him a moment se-
renely, and then, as if she had scarcely

heard him, addresses Randolph again:
I should like to know where you got
that pole !

RANDOLPH. The same way as you
get your things. I made Eugenio buy it.

WINTERBOURNE, aside. With a lit-
tle commission !

DAISY. You don't mean to say you 're
going to take that pole to Italy ?

WINTERBOURNE, same manner. Are
you thinking of going to Italy ?

DAISY, looking at him, and then look-
ing away. Yes, sir.

WINTERBOURNE. Are you going over
the Simplon ?

DAISY. I don't know — I suppose it 's
some mountain. Randolph, what moun-
tain are we going over ?

RANDOLPH. Going where ?

DAISY. To Italy. (Arranging her
ribbons.) Don't you know about Italy ?

RANDOLPH. No, and I don't want to.
I want to go to America !

WINTERBOURNE. Oh, Italy 's a beau-
tiful place.

RANDOLPH. Can you get any candy
there ?

DAISY. I hope not ! I guess you have
had candy enough, and mother thinks
so too.

RANDOLPH, still jumping about. I
have n't had any for ever so long — for
a hundred weeks !

DAISY. Why, Randolph, I don't see
how you can tell — (She pauses a mo-
ment.) Well I don't care ! (Looks
down at her dress, and continues to
smooth her ribbons.)

WINTERBOURNE, aside. Does she ac-
cept my acquaintance or not ? It 's
rather sudden, and it would n't do at
Geneva. But why else did she come
and plant herself in front of me ? She
is the prettiest of the pretty, and, I de-
clare, I '11 risk it ! ( After a moment,
aloud.) We are very fortunate in our
weather, are we not ?

DAISY. Well, yes, we 've got nice
weather.

WINTERBOURNE. And still more for-

1883.]

Daisy Miller.

443

tunate in our scenery. (Indicating the
view.)

DAISY. Well, yes, the scenery 's love-
ly. It seems very mountainous.

WINTERBOURNE. Ah, Switzerland is
mountainous, you know.

DAISY. I don't know much about it.
We have only been here a week.

WINTERBOURNE, smiling. In a week
one can see a good deal.

DAISY. Well, we have n't ; we have
only walked round a little.

WINTERBOURNE, aside. What a re-
markable type ! (Aloud.) You must
be rather tired : there are plenty of
chairs. (Draws forward two of them.)

DAISY, looking at them a moment.
You '11 be very clever if you can get
Randolph to sit.

WINTERBOURNE. I don't care a fig
about Randolph. (Daisy seats herself.
Aside.) Oh, Geneva, Geneva !

DAISY, smoothing her ribbons. Well,
he 's only nine. We 've sat round a
good deal, too.

WINTERBOURNE, seated beside her.
It 's very pleasant, these summer days.

DAISY. Well, yes, it 's very pleasant.
But it 's nicer in the evening.

WINTERBOURNE. Ah, much nicer in
the evening. It 's remarkably nice in
the evening. (Aside.) What the deuce
is she coming to ? (Aloud.) When
you get to Italy you '11 find the even-
ings there ! . . .

DAISY. I 've heard a good deal about
the evenings there.

WINTERBOURNE. In Venice, you
know — on the water — with music !

DAISY. I don't know much about it.
( With a little laugh.) I don't know
much about anything !

WINTERBOURNE, aside. Heaven for-
give her, she 's charming ! I must real-
ly ascertain ... (To Randolph, who
has continued to roam about, and who
comes back to them ivith his alpenstock,
catching him and drawing him between
his knees.) Tell me your name, my
beautiful boy !

RANDOLPH, struggling. Well, you
drop me first !

DAISY. Why, Randolph, I should
think you 'd like it !

WINTERBOURNE, aside. Jupiter, that
is a little strong !

RANDOLPH, liberating himself. Try
it yourself ! My name is Randolph C.
Miller.

WINTERBOURNE, aside. Alarming
child ! But she does n't seem to be
alarmed.

RANDOLPH, leveling his alpenstock at
Daisy, who averts it with her hand. And
I '11 tell you her name.

DAISY, leaning back serenely. You
had better wait till you are asked.

WINTERBOURNE. I should like very
much to know your name.

RANDOLPH. Her name is Daisy
Miller.

WINTERBOURNE, expressively. How
very interesting !

DAISY, looking at him, aside. Well,
he 's a queer specimen ! I guess he 's
laughing.

RANDOLPH. That is n't her real name
— that is n't her name on her cards.

DAISY. It 's a pity that you have n't
got one of my cards !

RANDOLPH. Her name is Annie P.
Miller.

WINTERBOURNE. Oh, I see. (Aside.)
That does n't tell me much.

DAISY, indicating Winterbourne. Ask
him his name.

RANDOLPH. Ask him yourself ! My
father's name is Ezra B. Miller. My
father ain't in Europe. My father 's
in a better place than Europe.

WINTERBOURNE, uncertain. Ah, you
have had the misfortune . . .

RANDOLPH. My father's in Schenec-
tady. He does a big business. He 's
rich, you can bet your head !

WINTERBOURNE, aside. Oh, in Sche-
nectady ? I thought he meant in Par-
adise !

DAISY, to Randolph. Well, you need
n't stick your pole into my eye !

444

Daisy Miller.

[April,

RANDOLPH, to Winterbourne. Did n't
I tell you she was always blowing?
(Scampers away and disappears.)

DAISY, looking after him. He does n't
like Europe ; he wants to go back. He
has n't got any boys here. There 's one
boy here, but he 's always going round
with a teacher.

WINTERBOURNE. And your brother
has n't any teacher ?

DAISY. Mother thought of getting
him one, to travel round with us. But
Randolph said he did n't want a teacher
when school did n't keep ; he said he
would n't have lessons when he was in
the cars. And we are in the cars most
of the time. There was an English lady
we met in the cars ; her name was Miss
Featherstone — perhaps you know her.
She wanted to know why I did n't give
Randolph lessons — give him instruc-
tion, she called it. I guess he could give
me more instruction than I could give
him! He's very smart — he's only
nine.

WINTERBOURNE, aside. He might be
ninety !

DAISY. Mother 's going to get a teach-
er for him as soon as we get to Italy.
Can you get good teachers in Italy?

WINTERBOURNE. Oh, it 's the land of
art — of science.

DAISY. Well, I guess he does n't
want to study art ; but she 's going to
find some school, if she can. (Pensively.)
Randolph ought to learn some more.

WINTERBOURNE. It depends upon
what it is !

DAISY, after a silence, during which
her eyes have rested upon him. I pre-
sume you are a German.

WINTERBOURNE, rising quickly. Oh
dear, no ! I should n't have ventured
to speak to you, if your brother's men-
tion of my nationality had not seemed a
guarantee . . .

DAISY, getting up. I did n't suppose
my brother knew. And you do speak
queerly, any way !

WINTERBOURNE. I'm a countryman

of your own. But I should tell you that
I have spent many years in this old Eu-
rope, as your brother says.

DAISY. Do you live here — in the
mountains ?

WINTERBOURNE, aside. Does she
think I 'm a goatherd ? (Aloud.) No,
I live just now at Geneva.

DAISY. Well, you are peculiar, any-
how !

WINTERBOURNE, aside. So are you,
if you come to that. (Aloud.) I 'm
afraid I have got rather out of the way
— (pauses for a moment.)

DAISY. Out of the way of what ?

WINTERBOURNE. Of making myself
agreeable to the young ladies.

DAISY. Have n't they got any over
here ? I must say I have n't seen any !
Of course I have n't looked out much
for them.

WINTERBOURNE. You 've looked out
more for the gentlemen !

DAISY. Well, at Schenectady I did n't
have to look out.

WINTEKBOURNE, aside. Queer place,
Schenectady.

DAISY. I had so much society. But
over here — (She hesitates.)

WINTERBOURNE. Over here?

DAISY. Well, you 're the first gentle-
man that has been at all attentive.

WINTERBOURNE. Ah, you see, they
're afraid !

DAISY, continuing. And the first I 've
cared anything about !

WINTERBOURNE, aside. And to think
that, at the beginning, / was afraid !
(Aloud.) If they knew how kind you
are they would be much less timid.

DAISY. I hate gentlemen to be timid.
That 's only for us.

WINTERBOURNE, aside. " For us " is
enchanting !

SCENE V. DAISY, WINTERBQCRNE, EUGE-
NIO, who comes in hastily from the right, wip-
ing his forehead.

EUGENIC. Mademoiselle, I have been
looking for an hour for Meester Ran-

1883.]

Daisy Miller.

445

dolph. He must be drowned in the
lake!

DAISY. I guess he 's talking to that
waiter. (Serenely.) He likes to talk to
that waiter.

EUGENIC. He should n't talk to wait-
ers, Mademoiselle.

WINTERBOURNE, aside. Only to cou-
riers — the hierarchy !

DAISY. I want to introduce you to a
friend of mine — Mr. — Mr. — (To
Winterbourne.) I declare, I don't know
your name.

WINTERBOURNE, aside. To the cou-
rier ? Excuse me !

EUGENIC, very proper. I have the
honor of knowing the name of Monsieur.

DAISY. Gracious, you know every-
thing !

EUGENIC, aside. The lover of the
Katkoff ! (Aloud.) I found Meester
Randolph, but he escaped again.

DAISY. Well, Eugenio, you 're a
splendid courier, but you can't make
much impression on Randolph.

EUGENIC. I do what I can, Made-
moiselle. The lunch is waiting, and
Madame is at the table. If you will
excuse me, I will give up the chase.
(Glancing at Winterbourne, aside) Is
he leaving the Katkoff for the child ?

DAISY. You needn't be so grand,
need he ? (To Winterbourne.) It's not
the first time you 've been introduced to
a courier !

WINTERBOURNE, stiffly. The very
first.

EUGENIO, aside. He has never kept
one. (Aloud.) If Mademoiselle will
pass into the hotel ! (Aside again.)
The child is not for every one.

DAISY. Tell mother to begin — that
I 'm talking to a gentleman.

WINTERBOURNE, protesting. I shall be
very sorry to incommode your mother.

DAISY, smiling. I like the way you
say such things. (Familiarly.) What
are you going to do all day ?

WINTERBOURNE, embarrassed. I hard-
ly know. I 've only just arrived.

DAISY. I will come out after lunch.

WINTERBOURNE, with extreme respect.
I shall be here, to take your com-
mands.

DAISY. Well, you do say them !
About two o'clock.

WINTERBOURNE. I shall not go far.

DAISY, going. And I shall learn your
name from Eugenio.

EUGENIC, aside. And something else
as well ! He is not for the child. (Fol-
lows Daisy into the hotel.)

SCENE VI. WINTERBOURKE alone, then MA-
DAME DE KATKOFF.

WINTERBOURNE. She 's simply amaz-
ing ! I have never seen them like that.
I have seen them worse — oh, yes ! —
and I have seen them better ; but I 've
never encountered that particular shade
— that familiarity, that facility, that fra-
gility ! She 's too audacious to be inno-
cent, and too candid to be — the other
thing. But her candor itself is a queer
affair. Coming up to me and proposing
acquaintance, and letting her eyes rest
on mine ! Planting herself there like a
flower to be gathered ! Introducing me
to her courier, and offering me a rendez-
vous at the end of twenty minutes ! Are
they all like that, the little American
girls ? It 's time I should go back and
see. (Seeing Madame de Katkoff.) But
I can hardly go while I have this reason
for staying !

MME. DE K. (She comes out of the
hotel ; she has still her book under her
arm.) They brought me your card, but
I thought it better I should come and
see you here.

WINTERBOURNE. I know why you
do that : you think it 's less encouraging
than to receive me in-doors.

MME. DE K., smiling. Oh, if I could
discourage you a little !

WINTERBOURNE. It 's not for want of
trying. 1 bore you so much !

MME. DE K. No, you don't bore me,
but you distress me. I give you so
little.

446

Daisy Miller.

[April,

WINTERBOURNE. That 's for me to
measure. I 'm content for the present.

MME. DE K. If you had been content,
you would n't have followed me to this
place.

WINTERBOURNE. I did n't follow
you, and, to speak perfectly frankly,
it 's not for you I came.

MME. DE K. Is it for that young lady
I just saw from my window ?

WINTERBOURNE. I never heard of
that young lady before. I came for an
aunt of mine, who is staying here.

MME. DE K., smiling again. Ah, if
your family could only take an interest
in you !

WINTERBOURNE. Don't count on
them too much. I have n't seen my
aunt yet.

MME. DE K. You have asked first for
me ? You see, then, it was for me you
came.

WINTERBOURNE. I wish I could be-
lieve it pleased you a little to think so.

MME. DE K. It does please me — a
little ; I like you very much.

WINTEKBOURNE. You always say
that, when you are about to make some
particularly disagreeable request. You
like me, but you dislike my society. On
that principle, I wish you hated me !

MME. DE K. I may come to it yet.

WINTERBOURNE. Before that, then,
won't you sit down ? {Indicating a
bench.)

MME. DE K. Thank you ; I 'm not
tired.

WINTERBOURNE. That would be too
encouraging ! I went to the villa a
week ago. You had already left it.

MME. DE K. I went first to Lausanne.
If I had remained there, you wouldn't
have found me.

WINTERBOURNE. I 'm delighted you
did n't remain. But I 'm sorry you are
altering your house.

MME. DE K. Only two rooms. That's
why'I came away : the workmen made
too much noise.

WINTERBOURNE. I hope they are

not the rooms I know — in which the
happiest hours of my life have been
passed !

MME. DE K. I see why you wished
me to sit down. You want to begin a
siege.

WINTERBOURNE. No, I was only go-
ing to say that I shall always see with
particular vividness your little blue
parlor.

MME. DE K. They are going to change
it to red. (Aside.) Perhaps that will
cure him ! (Aloud.) Apropos of your
family, have they come to Europe to
bring you home ?

WINTERBOURNE. As I tell you, I
have n't yet ascertained their intentions.

MME. DE K. I take a great interest
in them. I feel a little responsible for
you.

WINTERBOURNE. You don't care a
straw for me !

MME. DE K. Let me give you a proof.
I think it would conduce to your hap-
piness to return for a while to Amer-
ica.

WINTERBOURNE. To my happiness ?
You are confounding it with your own.

MME. DE K. It is true that the two
things are rather distinct. But you
have been in Europe for years — for
years and years.

WINTERBOURNE. Oh, I have been
here too long. I know that.

MME. DE K. You ought to go over
and make the acquaintance of your
compatriots.

WINTERBOURNE. Going over is n't
necessary. I can do it here.

MME. DE K. You ought at least to
see their institutions — their scenery.

WINTERBOURNE. Don't talk about
scenery, on the Lake of Geneva ! As
for American institutions, I can see
them in their fruits.

MME. DE K. In their fruits ?

WINTERBOURNE. Little nectarines
and plums. A very pretty bloom, but
decidedly crude. What book are you
reading ?

1883.]

Daisy Miller.

447

MME. DE K. I don't know what. The
last French novel.

WINTERBOURNE. Are you going to
remain in the garden ?

MME. DE K., looks at him a moment.
I see what you are coming to : you wish
to offer to read to me.

WINTERBOURNE. As 1 did in the lit-
tle blue parlor !

MME. DE K. You read very well ;
but we are not there now.

WINTERBOURNE. A quiet corner, un-
der the trees, will do as well.

MME. DE K. We neither of us have
the time. I recommend you to your
aunt. She '11 be sure to take you in
hand.

WINTERBOURNE. I have an idea I
shan't fall in love with my aunt.

MME. DE K. I 'm sorry for her. I
should like you as a nephew.

WINTERBOURNE. I should like you
as a serious woman !

MME. DE K. I 'm intensely serious.
Perhaps you will believe it when I tell
you that I leave this place to-day.

WINTKRBOURNE. I don't call that
serious : I call it cruel.

MME. DE K. At all events, it's de-
liberate. Vevey is too hot ; I shall go
higher up into the mountains.

WINTERBOURNE. You knew it was
hot when you came.

MME. DE K., after a pause, with sig-
nificance. Yes, but it 's hotter than I
supposed.

WINTERBOURNE. You don't like
meeting old friends.

MME. DE K., aside. No, nor old ene-
mies ! (Aloud.) I like old friends in
the autumn — the melancholy season !
I shall count on seeing you then.

WINTERBOURNE. And not before, of
course. Say at once you wish to cut
me.

MME. DE K., smiling. Very good : I
wish to cut you !

WINTERBOURNE. You give a charm
even to that! Where shall you be in
the autumn ?

MME. DE K. I shall be at the villa —
if the little blue parlor is altered ! In
the winter I shall go to Rome.

WINTERBOURNE. A happy journey,
then ! I shall go to America,

MME. DE K. That 's capital. Let me
give you a word of advice.

WINTERBOURNE. Yes, that 's the fin-
ishing touch !

MME. DE K. The little nectarines and
plums : don't mind if they are a trifle
crude ! Pick out a fair one, a sweet
one — .

WINTERBOURNE, stopping her with a
gesture. Don't, don't ! I shall see you
before you go.

MME. DE K.-, aside. Not if I can help
it ! (Aloud.) I think this must be your
family. ( Goes into the hotel.)

SCENE VII. WINTERBOURNE, MRS. Cos-

TELLO, MlSS DURANT, REVERDY, ivho Come

out of the hotel as Mme. de Katkojf enters it.

REVERDY. We are always meeting
the Russian princess ! .

Miss D. If you call that meeting her,
when she never looks at you !

MRS. C. She does n't look at you,
but she sees you. Bless my soul, if here
is n't Frederick !

WINTERBOURNE. My dear aunt, I
was only waiting till you had break-
fasted.

Miss D., aside. He was talking with
the Russian princess !

MRS. C. You might have sat down
with us : we waited an hour.

WINTERBOURNE. I breakfasted in my
room. I was obliged on my arrival to
jump into a bath.

Miss D., aside. He 's very cold — he 's
very cold !

WINTERBOURNE. They told me you
were at table, and I just sat down
here.

MRS. C. You were in no hurry to em-
brace me — after ten years ?

WINTERBOURNE. It was just because
of those ten years ; they seemed to make
you so venerable that I was pausing

448

Daisy Miller.

[April,

— as at the entrance of a shrine ! Be-
sides, I knew you had charming com-
pany.

MKS. C. You shall discover how-
charming. This is Alice Durant, who
is almost our cousin.

WINTERBOURNE, smiling. Almost? I
wish it were quite.

MKS. COSTELLO. And that is Mr.
Charles Reverdy.

REVERDY. Who is almost their cou-
rier !

WINTERBOURNE. I must relieve you
of your duties.

REVERDY, aside. Oh, thank you,
thank you ! By George, if I 'm re-
lieved I '11 look out for Miss Miller.
(Looks about him, and finally steals
away.)

MRS. C. My dear Frederick, in all
this time you 've not changed for the
worse.

WINTERBOURNE. How can you tell
that — in three minutes ?

Miss D., aside. Decidedly good-look-
ing, but fearfully distant !

MRS. C. Oh, if you are not agree-
able, we shall be particularly disappoint-
ed. We count on you immensely.

WINTERBOURNE. I shall do my best,
dear aunt.

MRS. C. Especially for our sweet
Alice.

Miss D. Oh, Cousin Louisa, how can
you?

MRS. C. I thought of you when I in-
vited her to come to Europe.

WINTERBOURNE. It was a very happy
thought. I don't mean thinking of me,
but inviting Miss Durant.

Miss D., to Winterboume. I can't say
it was of you I thought when I ac-
cepted.

WINTERBOURNE. I should never flat-
ter myself : there are too many other
objects of interest.

MRS. C. That's precisely what we
have been talking of. We are surround-
ed by objects of interest, and we de-
pend upon you to be our guide.

WINTERBOURNE. My dear aunt, I 'm
afraid I don't know much about them.

MRS. C. You '11 have a motive to-
day for learning. I have an idea that
you have always wanted a motive. In
that stupid old Geneva there can't be
many.

WINTERBOURNE. Ah, if there 's one,
it 's enough !

Miss D., aside. If there 's one ?
He 's in love with some dreadful Gen-
evese !

MRS. C. My young companion has a
great desire to ascend a mountain — to
examine a glacier.

Miss D. Cousin Louisa, you make
me out too bold !

WINTERBOURNE, aside. She 's not
bold, then, this one, like the other ?
1 think I prefer the other. (Aloud.)
You should go to Zermatt. You 're in
the midst of the glaciers there.

MRS. C. We shall be delighted to go
— under your escort. Mr. Reverdy will
look after me !

Miss D., glancing about for him.
When he has done with Miss Daisy
Miller !

WINTERBOURNE, smiling. Even among
the glaciers, I flatter myself I can take
care of both of you.

Miss D. It will be all the easier, as
I never leave your aunt.

MRS. C. She does n't rush about the
world alone, like so many American
girls. She has been brought up like
the young ladies in Geneva. Her edu-
cation was surrounded with every pre-
caution.

WINTERBOURNE, smiling. With too
many, perhaps ! The best education is
seeing the world a little.

MRS. C. That 's precisely what I wish
her to do. When we have finished Zer-
matt, we wish to come back to Interla-
ken, and from Interlaken you shall take
us to Lucerne.

WINTERBOURNE, gravely. Perhaps
you '11 draw up a little list.

Miss D., aside. Perfectly polite, but

1883.]

Daisy Miller.

449

no enthusiasm! {Aloud.) I'm afraid
Mr. Winterbourne is n't at liberty ; he
has other friends.

MRS. C. He has n't another aunt, I
imagine !

WINTERBOURNE, aside. Fortunately
not! (Aloud to Miss Durant.) It 's
very charming of you to think of that.

Miss D. Possibly we are indiscreet,
as we just saw you talking to a lady.

WINTERBOURNE. Madame de Kat-
koff? She leaves this place to-day.

MRS. C. You don't mean to follow
her, I hope ? (Aside.) It 's best to be
firm with him at the start.

WINTERBOURNE. My dear aunt, I
don't follow every woman I speak to.

Miss D., aside. Ah, that 's meant for
us ! Mr. Reverdy is never so rude.
I 'd thank him to come back.

MRS. C. On the 1st of October, you
know, you shall take us to Italy.

WINTERBOURNE. Ah ! every one is
going to Italy.

Miss D. Every one? Madame de
Katkoff, perhaps.

WINTERBOURNE. Madame de Kat-
koff, precisely ; and Mr. Randolph C.
Miller and his sister Daisy.

MRS. C. Bless my soul ! What do
you know about that ?

WINTERBOURNE. I know what they
have told me.

MRS. C. Mercy on us ! What op-
portunity ? —

WINTERBOURNE. Just now, while I
had my coffee.

Miss D. As I say, Mr. Winterbourne
has a great many friends.

WINTERBOURNE. He only asks to
add you to the number.

Miss D. Side by side with Miss Daisy
Miller ? Thank you very much.

MRS. C. Come, my dear Frederick,
that girl is not your friend.

WINTERBOURNE. Upon my word, I
don't know what she is, and I should
be very glad if you could tell me.

MRS. C. That 's very easily done :
she 's a little American flirt.

VOL. LI. — NO. 306. 29

WINTERBOURNE. Ah! she's a little
American flirt !

Miss D. She 's a vulgar little chat-
terbox !

WINTERBOURNE. Ah ! she 's a vul-
gar little chatterbox !

MRS. C. She 's in no sort of soci-
ety.

WINTERBOURNE. Ah ! she 's in no
sort of society !

Miss D. You would never know her
in America.

WINTERBOURNE. If I should never
know her in America, it seems to me
a reason for seizing the opportunity
here.

MRS. C. The opportunity appears to
have come to you very easily.

WINTERBOURNE. I confess it did,
rather. We fell into conversation while
I sat there on the bench.

MRS. C. Perhaps she sat down be-
side you ?

WINTERBOURNE. I won't deny that
she did ; she is wonderfully charming.

Miss D. Oh! if that's all that's
necessary to be charming —

MRS. C. You must give up the at-
tempt — must n't you, my dear ? My
poor Frederick, this is very dreadful !

WINTERBOURNE. So it seems ; but I
don't understand.

MRS. C. What should you say at Ge-
neva of a young woman who made such
advances ?

WINTERBOURNE. Such advances ? I
don't know that they were advances.

MRS. C. Ah ! if you wish to wait till
she invites you to her room !

WINTERBOURNE, laughing. I sha'n't
have to wait very long.

Miss D., shocked. Had n't I better
leave you ?

MRS. C. Poor child, I understand
that you shrink . . . But we must make
it clear.

Miss D. Oh yes, we must make it
clear !

WINTERBOURNE. Do make it clear ;
1 want it to be clear.

450

Daisy Miller.

[April,

MRS. C. Ask yourself, then, what
they would say at Geneva.

WINTERBOURNE. They would say she
was rather far gone. But we are not
at Geneva.

MRS. C. We are only a few miles off.
Miss Daisy Miller is very far gone in-
deed.

WINTERBOURNE. Ah ! what a pity !
But I thought, now, in New York —

MRS. C., sternly. Frederick, don't lift
your hand against your mother coun-
try!

WINTERBOURNE. Never in the world.
I only repeat what I hear — that over
there all this sort of thing — the man-
ners of young persons, the standard of
propriety — is quite different.

Miss D. I only know how I was
brought up !

WINTERBOURNE, slightly ironical. Ah,
that settles it.

MRS. C. We must take him back with
us, to see.

WINTERBOURNE. Not to see, you
mean — not to see my dear little friend !

MRS. C. In the best society — never.

WINTERBOURNE. Oh, hang the best
society, then !

MRS. C., with majesty. I 'm exceeding-
ly obliged to you.

WINTERBOURNE. Oh, you are the
best society ! And the little girl with
the naughty brother is the worst ?

MRS. C. The worst /'ve ever seen.

WINTERBOURNE, rather gravely, lay-
ing his hand on her arm. My dear aunt,
the best, then, ought to be awfully good !

Miss D., aside. He means that for an
epigram ! I '11 make him go and look
for Mr. Reverdy. (Aloud.) I wonder
what has become of Mr. Reverdy.

MRS. C., sharply. Never mind Mr.
Reverdy; I'll look after him. (To
Winter bourne.) If you should see a little
more of those vulgar people, you would
find that they don't stand the test.

WINTERBOURNE. Oh, I shall see a
little more of them — in a quarter of an
hour. (Looking at his watch.) The

young lady is coming back at two
o'clock.

MRS. C. Gracious goodness ! Have
you made an appointment ?

WINTERBOURNE. I don't know wheth-
er it 's an appointment, but she said she
would come back again.

MRS. C., to Miss Durant. My pre-
cious darling, we must go in. We can
hardly be expected to assist at such' a
scene.

WINTERBOURNE. My dear aunt, there
is plenty of time yet.

Miss D. Ah, no ; she '11 be before !
Would you kindly look for Mr. Rev-
erdy ?

WINTERBOURNE, extremely polite.
With the greatest of pleasure.

MRS. C. Later in the afternoon, if
this extraordinary interview is over, we
should like you to go with us into the
town.

WINTERBOURNE, in the same tone.
With the greatest of> pleasure. (Aside.)
They hate her ferociously, and it makes
me feel sorry for her.

MRS. C., to Miss Durant. Quickly,
my dear ! We must get out of the way.

WINTERBOURNE. Let me at least see
you into the house. (Accompanies them
into the hotel.)

SCENE VIIL CHARLES REVERDY, RANDOLPH,
then DAI ST.

REVERDY, coming in from behind with
the child on his back. The horrid little
wretch ! I 'm like Siubad the Sailor
with the Old Man of the Sea ! Don't
you think you Ve had about enough ?

RANDOLPH, snapping a little whip.
Oh, no ; I have n't had enough. I '11
tell you when I Ve had enough.

REVERDY. Oh, come ! I Ve galloped
twenty miles ; I Ve been through all my
paces. You must sit still in the saddle
a while. (Pauses in front while Ran-
dolph bounces up and down.) I 'm play-
ing horse with the brother to be agree-
able to the sister ; but he 's riding me to
death!

1883.]

Daisy Miller.

451

RANDOLPH, still brandishing his whip.
I want you to prance about and to kick.
Get up, sir ; get up !

REVERDT, aside. It 's the devil's own
game — here at the door of the hotel !
(Aloud.) I '11 prance about so that you '11
come off.

RANDOLPH, firm in his place. If you
throw me off, I '11 give you a licking !-
Get up, sir, get up !

REVERDT, aside. Damn the little
demon ! It was a happy thought of
mine.

RANDOLPH, kicking. These are my
spurs. I '11 drive in my spurs ! Get up,
sir, get up !

REVERDY. Oh misery, here goes!
(He begins to imitate the curveting of a
horse, in the hope of throwing Randolph
off, but, seeing Daisy issue from the hotel,
suddenly stops.)

DAISY, staring. Well, Randolph, what
are you doing up there ?

RANDOLPH. I'm riding on a mule!

REVERDY, with a groan. A mule ?
Not even the nobler animal ! My dear
young lady, could n't you persuade him
to dismount ?

DAISY, laughing. You look so funny
when you say that ! I 'm sure I never
persuaded Randolph.

RANDOLPH. He said if I would tell
him where you were, he would give me
a ride.

REVERDY. And then, when he was
up, he refused to tell me !

RANDOLPH. I told you mother would
n't like it. She wants Daisy and me to
be proper.

REVERDY, aside. "Me to be prop-
er ! " He 's really sublime, the little
fiend !

DAISY. Well, she does want you to
be proper. She 's waiting for you at
lunch.

RANDOLPH. I don't want any lunch :
there 's nothing fit to eat.

DAISY. Well, I guess there is, if
you '11 go and see.

REVERDY, aside. It's uncommonly

nice for me, while they argue the ques-
tion !

DAISY. There 's a man with candy in
the hall ; that 's where mother wants you
to be proper !

RANDOLPH, jumping down. A man
with candy. Oh, blazes !

REVERDY, aside. Adorable creature !
She has broken the spell.

RANDOLPH, scampering into the hotel.
I say, old mule, you can go to grass !

REVERDY. Delightful little nature,
your brother.

DAISY. Well, he used to have a pony
at home. I guess he misses that pony.
Is it true that you asked him that ?

REVERDY. To tell me where you
were ? I confess I wanted very much
to know.

DAISY. Well, Randolph couldn't tell
you. I was having lunch with mother.
I thought you were with those ladies.

REVERDY. Whom you saw me with
this morning ? Oh, no ; they 've got
another cavalier, just arrived, on pur-
pose.

DAISY, attentive. Another cavalier —
just arrived ? Do you mean that gen-
tleman that speaks so beautifully ?

REVERDY. A dozen languages ? His
English is n't bad — compared with my
French !

DAISY, thoughtful. Well, he looks like
a cavalier. Did he come on purpose for
them ?

REVERDY, aside. What does she know
about him ? Oh, yes ; they sent for him
to Geneva.

DAISY. To Geneva ? That 's the one !

REVERDY. You see, they want him
to be always with them ; he 's for their
own particular consumption.

DAISY, disappointed, but very simply.
Ah, then he won't come out at two
o'clock !

REVERDY. I'm sure I don't know.
(The bell of the hotel strikes two.) There
it is. You '11 have a chance to see. ( Win-
terbourne, on the stroke of the hour, comes
out of the hotel.)

452

Daisy Miller.

[April,

DAISY, joyfully. Here he comes !
He 's too sweet !

REVERDY, aside. Oh, I say, she had
made an appointment with him while I
was doing the mule !

SCENE IX. REVERDY, yor a moment ; DAISY,

WlNTERBOURNE.

WINTERBOURNE, to Reverdy. 1 'm
glad to find you : Miss Durant has a
particular desire to see you.

REVERDY. It 's very good of you to
be her messenger. (Aside.) That 's
what he calls relieving me !

WINTERBOURNE. You '11 find those
ladies in their own sitting-room, on the
second floor.

REVERDY. Oh, I know where it is.
(To Daisy.) I shall be back in five
minutes.

DAISY. I 'm sure you need n't hurry.

WINTERBOURNE. I have an idea they
have a good deal to say to you.

REVERDY. I hope it is n't to com-
plain of you ! ( Goes into the hotel.)

DAISY, looking at Winterbourne a
moment. I was afraid you would n't
come.

WINTERBOURNE, aside. She has a
way of looking at you ! (Aloud.) I
don't know what can have given you
such an impression.

DAISY. Well, you know, half the
time they don't — the gentlemen.

WINTERBOURNE. That's in America,
perhaps. But over here they always
come.

DAISY, simply. Well, I have n't had
much experience over here.

WINTERBOURNE. I' m glad to hear it.
It was very good of your mother to let
you leave her again.

DAISY, surprised. Oh, mother does
n't care ; she 's got Eugenio.

WINTERBOURNE, startled. Surely, not
to sit with her ?

DAISY. Well, he does n't sit with her
always, because he likes to go out.

WINTERBOURNE. Oh, he likes to go
out!

DAISY. He 's got a great many friends,
Eugenio ; he 's awfully popular. And
then, you know, poor mother is n't very
amusing.

WINTERBOURNE. Ah, she is n't very
amusing ! (Aside). Aunt Louisa was
right : it is n't the best society !

DAISY. But Eugenio stays with her
all he can: he says he didn't expect
that so much when he came.

WINTERBOURNE. I should think not !
I hope at least that it is n't a monop-
oly, and that I may have the pleas-
ure of making your mother's acquaint-
ance.

DAISY. Well, you do speak beauti-
fully ! I told Mr. Reverdy.

WINTERBOURNE. It was very good of
you to mention it. One speaks as one
can.

DAISY. Mother's awfully timid, or
else I 'd introduce you. She always
makes a fuss if I introduce a gentleman.
But I do introduce them — the ones I
like.

WINTERBOURNE. If it 's a sign of
your liking, I hope you '11 introduce me.
But you must know my name, which
you did n't a while ago.

DAISY. Oh, Eugenio has told me
your name, and I think it 's very pretty.
And he has told me something else.

WINTERBOURNE. I can't imagine
what he should tell you about me.

DAISY. About you and some one else
— -that Russian lady who is leaving the
hotel.

WINTERBOURNE, quickly. Who is
leaving the hotel ! How does he know
that?

DAISY, with a little laugh. You see it
is true : you are very fond of that Rus-
sian lady !

WINTERBOURNE, aside. She is leav-
ing the hotel — but not till six o'clock.
(Aloud.) I have n't known you very
long, but I should like to give you a
piece of advice. Don't gossip with your
courier !

DAISY. I see you 're offended — and

1883.]

Daisy Miller.

453

it proves Eugenic was right. He said
it was a secret — and you don't like me
to know it.

WINTERBOURNE. You may know
everything, my dear young lady, only
don't get your information from a ser-
vant.

DAISY. Do you call Eugenio a ser-
vant ? He '11 be amused if I tell him
that!

WINTERBOURNE. He won't be amused
— he '11 be furious ; but the particular
emotion does n't matter. It 's very good
of you to take such an interest.

DAISY. Oh, 1 don't know what I
should do if I did n't take some inter-
est ! You do care for her, then ?

WINTERBOURNE, a little annoyed. For
the Russian lady ? Oh, yes, we are old
friends. (Aside.) My aunt 's right : they
don't stand the test !

DAISY. I 'm very glad she is going,
then. But the others mean to stay ?

WINTERBOURNE. The others ? What
others ?

DAISY. The two that Mr. Reverdy
told me about, and to whom he 's so
very devoted.

WINTERBOURNE. It 's my aunt and a
friend of hers ; but you need n't mind
them.

DAISY. For all they mind me ! But
they look very stylish.

WINTERBOURNE. Oh, yes, they are
very stylish ; you can bet your life on
that, as your brother says !

DAISY, looking at him a moment. Did
you come for them, or for the Russian
lady?

WINTERBOURNE, aside, more annoyed.
Ah, too many questions ! (Aloud.) I
came for none of them ; I came for my-
self.

DAISY, serenely. Yes, that 's the im-
pression you give me : you think a great
deal of yourself ! But I should like to
know your aunt, all the same. She has
her hair done like an old picture, and
she holds herself so very well ; she
speaks to no one, and she dines in pri-

vate. That 's the way I should like to
be!

WINTERBOURNE. Ah, you would
make a bad exchange. My aunt is lia-
ble to fearful headaches.

DAISY. I think she is very elegant
— headaches and all ! I want very
much to know her.

WINTERBOURNE, aside. Goodness,
what a happy thought ! (Aloud.) She
would be enchanted; only the state of
her health . . .

DAISY. 'Oh, yes, she has an excuse ;
that 's a part of the elegance ! I should
like to have an excuse. Any one can
see your aunt would have one.

WINTERBOURNE. Oh, she has five
hundred !

DAISY. Well, we have n't any, moth-
er and I. I like a lady to be exclusive.
I 'm dying to be exclusive myself !

WINTERBOURNE. Be just as you are.
You would n't be half so charming if
you were different. (Aside.) It 's odd
how true that is, with all her faults !

DAISY. You don't think me charm-
ing : you only think me queer. I can
see that by your manner. I should like
to know your aunt, any way.

WINTERBOURNE. It's very good of
you, I 'm sure ; but I 'm afraid those
headaches will interfere.

DAISY. I suppose she does n't have a
headache every day, does she ?

WINTERBOURNE, aside. What the
deuce is a man to say ? (Aloud.) She
assures me she does.

DAISY, turns away a moment, walks
to the parapet, and stands there thought-
ful. She does n't want to know me !
(Looking at Winterbourne.) Why don't
you say so ? You need n't be afraid ;
I 'm not afraid. (Suddenly, with a little
break in her voice.) Gracious, she is ex-
clusive !

WINTERBOURNE. So much the worse
for her !

DAISY. You see, you 've got to own
to it ! Well, I don't care. I mean to
be like that — when I 'm old.

454

Daisy Miller.

[April,

WINTERBOURNE. I can't think you '11
ever be old.

DAISY. Oh, you horrid thing ! As if
I were going to perish in my flower !

WINTERBOURNE. I should be very
sorry if I thought that. But you will
never have any quarrel with Time :
he '11 touch you very gently.

DAISY, at the parapet, looking over the
lake. I hope I shall never have any
quarrel with any one. I 'm very good-
natured.

WINTERBOURNE, laughing. You cer-
tainly disarm criticism — oh, complete-
ly!

DAISY. Well, I don't care. Have
you ever been to that old castle ? (Point-
ing to Chilian, in the distance.)

WINTERBOURNE. The Castle of Chil-
lon ? Yes, in former days, more than
once. I suppose you have been there,
too.

DAISY. Oh, no, we have n't been
there. I want to go there awfully. Of
course, I mean to go there. I would
n't go away from here without having
seen that old castle !

WINTERBOURNE. It 's a very pretty
excursion, and very easy to make. You
can drive, you know, or you can take
the little steamer.

DAISY. Well, we were going last
week, but mother gave out. She suffers
terribly from dyspepsia. She said she
could n't go. Randolph won't go, either :
he does n't think much of old castles.

WINTERBOURNE, smiling. Ah, your
brother is n't interested in historical
monuments ?

DAISY. Well, he's generally disap-
pointed. He wants to stay round here.
Mother 's afraid to leave him alone, and
Eugenio can't be induced to stay with
him, so that we have n't been to many
places. But it will be too bad if we
don't go up to that castle.

WINTERBOURNE. I think it might be
arranged. Let me see. Could n't you
get some one to remain for the after-
noon with Randolph ?

DAISY, suddenly. Oh, yes ; we could
get Mr. Reverdy !

WINTERBOURNE. Mr. Reverdy?

DAISY. He 's awfully fond of Ran-
dolph ; they 're always fooling round.

WINTERBOURNE, laughing. It is n't a
bad idea. Reverdy must lay in a stock
of sugar.

DAISY. There 's one thing : with you,
mother will be afraid to go.

WINTERBOURNE. She carries her ti-
midity too far ! We must wait till she
has got used to me.

DAISY. I don't want to wait. I want
to go right off !

WINTERBOURNE. Ah, you can hardly
force her to come, you know.

DAISY. I don't want to force her : I
want to leave her !

WINTERBOURNE. To leave her be-
hind? What, then, would you do for
an escort ?

DAISY, serenely. I would take you.

WINTERBOURNE, astounded. Me?
Me alone?

DAISY, laughing. You seem about as
timid as mother ! Never mind, I '11
take care of you.

WINTERBOURNE, still bewildered. Off
to Chillon — with you alone — right
off?

DAISY, eagerly questioning. Right
off ? Could we go now ?

WINTERBOURNE, aside. She takes
.away my breath ! (Aloud.) There 's a
boat just after three.

DAISY. We '11 go straight on board !

WINTERBOURNE, aside. She has
known me for a couple of hours !
(Aloud, rather formally.) The privi-
lege for me is immense ; but I feel as
if I ought to urge you to reflect a lit-
tle.

DAISY. So as to show how stiff you
can be ? Oh, I know all about that.

WINTERBOURNE. No, just to remind
you that your mother will certainly dis-
cover . . .

DAISY, staring. Will certainly dis-
cover ?

1883.]

Daisy Miller.

455

WINTERBOURNE. Your little esca-
pade. You can't hide it.

DAISY, amazed, and a little touched. I
don't know what you mean. I have
nothing to hide.

WINTERBOURNE, aside. Ah, I give it
up ! {Seeing Eugenio, who comes out of
the hotel.) And here comes that odious
creature, to spoil it !

SCENE X. WINTERBOUENE, DAISY, EUGEKIO.

EUGENIC. Mademoiselle, your moth-
er requests that you will come to her.

DAISY. I don't believe a word of it !

EUGENIC. You should not do me the
injustice to doubt of my honor! Ma-
dame asked me to look for you ten min-
utes ago ; but I was detained by meet-
ing in the hall a lady (speaking slowly,
and looking at Winterbourne), a Russian
lady, whom I once had the honor to
serve, and who was leaving the hotel.

WINTERBOURNE, startled, aside. Ma-
dame de Katkoff — leaving already ?

EUGENIC, watching Winterbourne.
She had so many little bags that she
could hardly settle herself in the car-
riage, and I thought it my duty — I
have had so much practice — to show
her how to stow them away.

WINTERBOURNE, quickly, to Daisy.
Will you kindly excuse me a moment?

EUGENIO, obsequious, interposing. If
it's to overtake the Russian lady, Ma-
dame de Katkoff is already far away.
{Aside.) She had four horses : I fright-
ened her more than a little !

WINTERBOURNE, aside. Far away —
without another word ? She can be
hard — when she tries. Very good.
Let me see if I can be the same !

DAISY, noticing Winterbourne, aside.
Poor man, he 's stiffer than ever ! But
I 'm glad she has gone. (Aloud.) See
here, Eugenio, I 'm going to that castle.

EUGENIC, with a certain impertinence.
Mademoiselle has made arrangements ?

DAISY. Well, if Mr. Winterbourne
does n't back out.

WINTERBOURNE. Back out? Isha'n't

be happy till we are off ! (Aside.) I '11
go anywhere — with any one — now ;
and if the poor girl is injured by it, it
is n't my fault !

EUGENIO. I think Mademoiselle will
find that Madame is in no state —

DAISY. My dear Eugenio, Madame
will stay at home with you.

WINTERBOURNE, wincing, aside. If
she would only not call him her " dear " !

EUGENIO. I take the liberty of ad-
vising Mademoiselle not to go to the
castle.

WINTERBOURNE, irritated. You had
better remember that your place is not
to advise, but, to look after the little
bags !

DAISY. Oh, I hoped you would make
a fuss ! But I don't want to go now.

WINTERBOURNE, decided. I shall
make a fuss if you don't go.

DAISY, nervously, with a little laugh.
That 's all I want — a little fuss !

WINTERBOURNE, aside. She 's not so
easy as she would like to appear. She
knows it's a risk — but she likes the
risk.

EUGENIO. If Mademoiselle will come
with me, I will undertake to organize a
fuss. (A steamboat whistle is heard in
the distance.)

WINTERBOURNE, to Daisy. The
boat 's coming up. You have only till
three o'clock.

DAISY, suddenly decided. Oh, I can
be quick when I try ! (Hurries into
the hotel.)

WINTERBOURNE, looking a moment
at Eugenio. You had better not inter-
fere with that young lady !

EUGENIO, insolent. I suppose you
mean that I had better not interfere
with you ! You had better not defy me
to do so ! (Aside.) It 's a pity I sent
away the Katkoff ! (Follows Daisy into
the hotel.)

WINTERBOURNE, alone. That 's a sin-
gularly offensive beast ! And what the
mischief does he mean by his having
been in her service ? Thank heaven

456

Daisy Miller.

[April,

she has got rid of him ! (Seeing Mrs.
Costetto, Miss Durant, and Charles Rev-
erdy, who issue from the hotel, the ladies
dressed for a walk.) Oh, confusion, I
had forgotten them !

SCENE XL MRS. COSTELLO, Miss DURANT,
CHARLES REVERDT, WINTERBOURNE, then
DAISY.

MRS. C. Well, Frederick, we take
for granted that your little interview is
over, and that you are ready to accom-
pany us into the town.

WINTERBOURNE. Over, dear aunt?
Why, it's only just begun. We are
going to the Chateau de Chillon.

MRS. C. You and that little girl ?
You '11 hardly get us to believe that !

REVERDY, aside, still with the camp-
stool. Hang me, why did n't I think of
that?

WINTERBOURNE. I 'm afraid I rather
incommode you ; but I shall be delight-
ed to go into the town when we come
back.

Miss D. You had better never come
back. No one will speak to you !

MRS. C. My dear Frederick, if you
are joking, your joke 's in dreadful taste.

WINTERBOURNE. I 'm not joking in
the least. The young lady 's to be here
at three.

MRS. C. She herself is joking, then.
She won't be so crazy as to come.

REVERDY, who has gone to the para-
pet and looked off to right, coming back,
taking out his watch. It 's close upon
three, and the boat 's at the wharf.

WINTERBOURNE, watch in hand. Not
quite yet. Give her a moment's grace.

MRS. C. It won't be for us to give
her grace : it will be for society.

WINTERBOURNE, flattering. Ah, but
you are society, you know. She wants
immensely to know you.

MRS. C., ironical. Is that why she is
flinging herself at you ?

WINTERBOURNE, very gravely. Lis-
ten to me seriously, please. The poor

little girl has given me a great mark — •
a very touching mark — of confidence.
I wish to present her to you, because I
wish some one to answer for my honor.

MRS. C. And pray, who is to answer
for hers ?

WINTERBOURNE. Oh, I say, you 're
cruel !

MRS. C. I 'm an old woman, Freder-
ick ; but I thank my stars I 'm not too
old to be horrified! (The bell of the
steamboat is heard to ring in the dis-
tance.)

REVERDY. There 's your boat, sir.
I 'm afraid you '11 miss it !

WINTERBOURNE, watch still in hand,
aside. Three o'clock. Damn that cou-
rier !

MRS. C. If she does n't come, you
may present her.

Miss D. She won't come. We must
do her justice.

DAISY, hurrying out of the hotel. I say,
Mr. Winterbourne I 'm as punctual as
you ! (She wears a charming travelling-
dress, and is buttoning her glove. Euge-
nio appears in the porch of the hotel, and
stands there, with his hands in his pock-
ets and with a baffled but vindictive air,
watching the rest of the scene.)

REVERDT. Alas, the presentation 's
gone !

„ DAISY, half aloud. Gracious, how
they glare at' me!

WINTERBOURNE, hurriedly. Take my
arm. The boat 's at the wharf. (She
takes his arm, and they hasten away,
passing through the little gate of the par-
apet, where they descend and disappear.
The bell of the steamer continues to ring.
Mrs. Costetto and her companions have
watched them ; as they vanish, she and
Miss Durant each drop into a chair.)

MRS. C. They '11 never come back !

Miss D., eagerly. Is n't it your duty
to go after them ?

REVERDY, between the two, as if to
the public. They '11 be lovely company
for the rest of the day !

Henry James, Jr.

1883.]

Pillow-Smoothing Authors.

457

PILLOW-SMOOTHING AUTHORS.
WITH A PRELUDE ON NIGHT-CAPS, AND COMMENTS ON AN OLD WRITER.

COTTON MATHER says of our famous
and excellent John Cotton, " the Father
and Glory of Boston," as he calls him,
that, " being asked why in his .Latter
Days he indulged Nocturnal Studies
more than formerly, he pleasantly re-
plied, Because 1 love to sweeten my
mouth with a piece of Calvin before I
go to sleep" Hot in the mouth, rather
than sweet, we of to-day might think
his piece of Calvin ; but as a good many
" night-caps " are both hot and sweet as
well as strong, we need not quarrel with
the worthy minister who has been with
the angels for more than two hundred
years.

It is a matter of no little importance
that the mind should be in a fitting con-
dition for sleep when we take to our pil-
lows. The material " thought-stopper,"
as Willis called it, in the shape of al-
coholic drinks of every grade, from beer
to brandy, has penalties and dangers I
need not refer to. Still greater is the
risk of having recourse to opium and
similar drugs. I remember the case of
one who, being fond of coffee, and in the
habit of taking it at night, made very
strong, found himself so wakeful after
it that he was tempted to counteract its
effects with an opiate. It led to the
formation of a habit which he never got
rid of. We must not poison ourselves
into somnolence.

Still, we must sleep, or die, or go mad.
We must get a fair amount of sleep, or
suffer much for the want of it. Among
the means for insuring peaceful slum-
ber at the right time, and enough of it,
the frame of mind we take to bed with
us is of the highest importance. Just as
the body must have its ligatures all loos-
ened, its close-fitting garments removed,
and bathe itself, as it were, in flowing

folds of linen, the mind should undress
itself of its daily cares and thoughts as
nearly as its natural obstinacy will per-
mit it to do, and wrap itself in the light-
est mental night-robes.

Now there are books that make one
feel as if he were in his dressing-gown
and slippers, if not as if in his night-
gown. I have found a few such, and I
have often finished my day with one of
them, as John ' Cotton wound up his
with Calvin. From a quarter to half an
hour's reading in a book of this kind
just, before leaving my library for the
bed-room has quieted my mind, brought
in easy-going, placid trains of thought,
which were all ready to pass into the
state of dreamy forgetfulness, and taken
the place which might have been held
by the dangerous stimulant or the dead-
ly narcotic. One of these books is that
of which I shall say something in the
following pages.

In passing a shop where books of
every grade of cheapness are exposed I
came upon an old edition of Burton's
Anatomy of Melancholy. I always pity
a fine old volume which has fallen into
poor company, and sometimes buy it,
even if I do not want it, that it may
find itself once more among its peers.
But in this case I was very glad to ob-
tain a good copy of a good edition of
a famous book at a reasonable and not
an insulting price ; for I remember be-
ing ashamed, once, when I picked up
some Alduses at the cost of so many ob-
solete spelling-books. The prize which
I carried home with me was a folio in
the original binding, with the engraved
title and in perfect preservation, the
eighth edition, " corrected and augment-
ed by the author," the date 1676. I
had never thoroughly read Burton, and

458

Pilloiv-Smoothing Authors.

[April,

I knew enough of the book to think it
was worth reading as well as dipping
into, as most readers have done. So I
took it for my mental night-cap, and
read in it for the last quarter or half
hour before going to bed, until I had fin-
ished it, which slow process took up a
year or more, allowing for all interrup-
tions. I made notes of such things as
particularly struck me, — brief refer-
ences, rather, to them, — in pencil, at
the end of the volume. It is with
these I propose to entertain the reader,
using them somewhat as a clergyman
uses his text, which furnishes him a pre-
text that will stretch like an india-rub-
ber baud to hold whatever he chooses
to have it.

The first edition of the Anatomy of
Melancholy was published in 1624, the
year after the first folio edition of the
Plays of Shakespeare, the Poems hav-
ing been long before the public. Bur-
ton quotes a passage from Venus and
Adonis, referring to its author " Shake-
speare " in the margin, and calling him
in the text "an elegant poet of our
time." I note a certain number of co-
incidences, which look as if Burton was
familiarly acquainted with the Plays.'
Falstaff " lards the lean earth as he
walks along." The scribblers, whom
Burton found so numerous even in his
day, " lard their lean books with the fat
of others' works." John of Gaunt says
of himself, —

" My oil-dried lamp and time-bewasted light
Shall be extinct with age and endless night ; "

and Burton says of life that it " is in
the end dryed up by old age, and extin-
guished by death for want of matter, as
a Lamp for defect of oyl to maintain
it." Burton tells the Christopher Sly
story from two old authors, but makes
no allusion to Shakespeare's use of it.

" Non omnem molitor quafluit undo, videt."

" The miller sees not all the water that
goes by his mill," says Burton.

" What, man ! more water glideth by the mill
Than wots the miller of,"

says Demetrius, in Titus Andronicus.
Burton speaks of " Benedict and Bet-
teris in the Comedy," with the marginal
reference " Shakspeare." The name
" Betteris " can hardly be a misspelling,
but is probably a popular form of the
Italian appellative.

Of the more or less curious words
used by Burton, the following particular-
ly attracted my attention. I will give
them, or some of them, in their connec-
tion : —

" Of 15,000 proletaries slain in a bat-
tel, scarce fifteen are recorded in histo-
ry, or one alone, the General perhaps."

" A good, honest, painful man many
times hath a shrew to his wife, a sickly,
dishonest, slothful, foolish, careless wom-
an to his mate, a proud peevish flurt"
and worse, if possible. The word which
a generation or two ago meant a kind of
half courtship between young people, is
now applied to the more or less ques-
tionable relations of married persons
tired of their own firesides.

He speaks of some demons, devils, or
genii who as far excel men in worth as a
man excels the meanest worm, " though
some of them are inferior to those of
their own rank in worth as the black
guard in a Prince's Court."

Speaking of the excesses into which
one who is fond of praise is liable to be
led by his vanity, he says, after telling
how one compares himself to Hercules
or Samson, another to Tully or Demos-
thenes, another to Horaer or Virgil, —

"He is mad, mad, mad, no whoe with him."
Certain " epicureal tenents " are " most
accurately ventilated by Jo. Sylvaticus,
a late Writer and Physitian of Millan."

On the same page is the well-known
passage, " The Turks have a drink called
Coffa (for they use no wine), so named
of a berry as black as soot, and as bit-
ter (like that black drink which was in
use among the Lacedaemonians, and per-
haps the same), which they still sip of,
and sup as warm as they can suffer."

Burton must have been a bachelor,

1883.]

Pillow-Smoothing Authors.

459

for if he had been a married man he
would never have dared talk of women
as he did.

" Take heed of your wives' flattering
speeches over night, and curtain ser-
mons in the morning."

His vocabulary of satire abounds
with happy expressions. " Theologas-
ters " is credited to him, and what can
be more descriptive than his expression
" collapsed ladies " ?

" Bayards" gapers, " stupid, igno-
rant, blind " creatures, " dummerers"
impostors feigning dumbness, " Abra-
ham men " pretending blindness, are
no longer heard of ; but when we hear
that Jodocus Damhoderius " hath some
notable examples of such counterfeit
Cranks," we find that a word only re-
cently come into common use is an old
one recalled from the rich phraseology
of the Elizabethan period. Burton rec-
ommends " cowcumbers " to such as are
of too ardent a temperament. Tobacco
he spells as we do, but speaks of it in a
way that reminds us at once of Charles
Lamb's often-quoted Farewell to the
great vegetable, which it probably sug-
gested : —

" Tobacco, divine, rare, superexcellent
Tobacco, which goes far beyond all their
Panaceas, potable gold and Philosophers
stones, a soveraign remedy to all dis-
eases. A vertuous herb, if it be well
qualified, opportunely taken, and medi-
cinally used, but as it is commonly
abused by most men, which take it as
Tinkers do Ale, 't is a plague, a mischief,
a violent purger of goods, land, health,
hellish, devilish and damned Tobacco,
the ruine and overthrow of body and
soul."

Burton makes great fun of the foolish
old questions of the schoolmen and ped-
ants, such as " ovum prius extiterit an
gallina" — whether the egg or the hen
came first into being. He is a good
Protestant, and very bitter at times
against the " Papists," but I cannot help
suspecting his own orthodoxy. One is

reminded of the more recent " Genesis
and Geology " battles in reading such
sentences as this : " But to avoid these
Paradoxes of the earth's motion (which
the Church of Rome hath lately con-
demned as heretical) our latter mathe-
maticians have rolled all the stones that
may be stirred : and to solve all appear-
ances and objections, have invented new
hypotheses and fabricated new systems
of the World, out of their own Deda-
lean heads ; " or, as we should say, pro-
jected them out of their own inner con-
sciousness. You may find here the mill
of conscience that grinds the souls of
sinners, as expressed by " those Egyp-
tians in their Hieroglyphics" and the say-
ing " quod ideo credendum quod incre-
dibile" — it is to be believed because it
is incredible, — from Tertullian. One is
surprised in reading this book, more than
any other that I am acquainted with, to
find how much of the new corn comes
out of the old fields. The quarrel be-
tween science and that which calls itself
religion was the same, essentially, in the
days of Burton and those older authors
whom he quotes that it is now.

" Others freely speak, mutter and
would persuade the world (as Marinus
Marcenus complains) that our modern
Divines are too severe and rigid against
Mathematicians ; ignorant and peevish
in not admitting their true demonstra-
tions and certain observations, that they
tyrannize over art, science, and all phi-
losophy in suppressing their labors
(saith Pomponatius), forbidding them to
write, to speak a truth, all to maintain
their superstition, and for their profits
sake. As for those places of Scripture
which oppugn it, they will have spoken
ad captum vulgi, and if rightly under-
stood, and favorably interpreted, not at
all against it." We find the same old
difficulties, and the same subterfuges to
escape from them that we have seen
and still see in our own day. Doctrines
which we have always thought of- as be-
longing to our own theology are traced

460

Pillow-Smoothing Authors.

[April,

to other and remote sources. Plato
learned in Egypt that the devils quar-
relled with Jupiter, and were driven by
him down to hell. Others of our gen-
erally accepted beliefs he claims as of
heathen parentage. " Twas for a pol-
itique end, and to this purpose the old
Poets feigned those Elysian fields, their
uHJanus, Minos, and Rhadamantus, their
infernal judges, and those Stygian lakes,
fiery Phlegeton's, Pluto's Kingdom, and
variety of torments after death. Those
that had done well went to the Elysian
fields, but evil doers to Cocytus and to
that burning lake of Hell with fire and
brimstone forever to be tormented."

" Old Probabilities " was anticipated
by Lucian's Jupiter^ who, as Burton
says, spent much of the year, among
other occupations, in " telling the hours
when it should rain, how much snow
should fall in such a place, which way
the wind should stand in Greece, which
way in Africk."

Never was there such a pawn-shop
for poets to borrow from as the Anat-
omy of Melancholy. Byron knew this
well, and tells the world as much. His
own

"Mountains interposed
Make enemies of nations who had else,
Like kindred drops, been mingled into one,"

may have been suggested by the fluvio*
vel nionte distincti sunt dissimiles, which
Burton gives without assigning its au-
thorship. Herrick's beautiful

" Gather ye rose buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying,"

finds its original more nearly in the
lines Burton quotes from Ausonius than
in the verse from the Wisdom of Solo-
mon, from which it has been thought
to have been borrowed : —

" Colllge virgo rosns dumjlosnovus et nova pubes
Et memor esto tevum sic properare tuum."

" Where God hath a Temple the Devil
will have a Chappel," familiarly known
in the couplet of Defoe, and referred
by Mr. Bartlett to the " Jacula Pruden-
tum," is found here also.

" Quijacet in terra non habet unde cadat,"
says Burton.

" He that is down needs fear no fall,"
says Bunyan.

" He that is down can fall no lower,"
says Butler, in Hudibras.

"To be prepared for war is one of
the most effectual means of preserving
peace." So spoke George Washington.

" The Commonwealth of Venice in
their Armory have this inscription,
Happy is that City which in time of
peace thinks of war. Felix civitas quce
tempore pads de bello cogitat." So says
Burton.

" Qui desiderat pacem prteparet bellum "

is referred, in Familiar Quotations, to
Vegetius, a Roman writer on military
affairs, of the fourth century.

I read Mr. Emerson's complaint, in
his first Phi Beta Kappa oration, that
" the state of society is one in which
the members have suffered amputation
from the trunk, and strut about so many
walking monsters, — a good finger, a
neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never
a man." Compare this with Burton's
passage from Scaliger : " Nequaquam
nos homines sumus, sed paries hominis,
ex omnibus aliquid fieri potest, idque
non magnum; ex singulis fere nihil"

We have been in the habit of think-
ing that " liquor or fight " was a form
of courtesy peculiar to our Western civ-
ilization. But we may learn from Bur-
ton that our German ancestors were be-
fore us in this social custom : " How
they love a man that will be drunk, crown
him and honour him for it, hate him
that will not pledge him, stab him, kill
him : A most intolerable offence, and
not to be forgiven. He is a mortal en-
emy that will not drink with him, as
Munster relates of the Saxons." We
all remember Byron's writing under
the inspiration of gin. His familiarity
with Burton may have supplied him
with the suggestion, for Burton tells us
that " our Poets drink sack to improve
their inventions." We are surprised,

1883.]

Pillow-Smoothing Authors.

461

in reading the old author, to come upon
ideas and practices which we thought
belonged especially to our own time : —

" Such occult notes, Stenography,
Polygraphy, Nuncius animatus, or mag-
netical telling of their minds, which Ca-
beus the Jesuit, by the way, counts fab-
ulous and false."

If Burton had not been an irreclaim-'
able bachelor, he would never have dared
to make an onslaught like the following
upon the female sex : —

" To this intent they crush in their
feet and bodies, hurt and crucifie them-
selves, .sometimes in lax clothes, one
hundred yards I think in a gown, a
sleeve, and sometimes again so close, ut
nudos exprimant artus. Now long tails
and trains, and then short, up, down,
high, low, thick, thin, etc. Now little
or no bands, then as big as cart-wheels ;
now loose bodies, then great fardingals
and close girt," etc.

The trailing dresses which delicate
ladies wore but a very few years ago,
through our slovenly streets, were al-
ways an object of aversion to men, and
seriously lowered the sex in their eyes.
Nobody, however, seems to have taken
the offense so much to heart as Sir Da-
vid Lyudsay, — the old Scotch minstrel
whom Sir Walter Scott speaks of as

" Sir David Lyndsay of the mount,
Lord Lyon king at arms."

Before the disagreeable fashion threat-
ens us again, let us hope that our ladies
will read the old poet's " Supplication
in Contemption of Side Tails ; " for this
is the name he gave to the bedraggled
finery with which showy women swept
the sidewalks in his day, as they have
done in ours, — side tails meaning only
long dresses,

" Whilk through the dust and dubs trails
Three quarters lang behind their heels —
Wherever they go it may be seen
How kirk and causay they soop clean, —
In summer when the streets dries
They raise the dust aboon the skies ;
Nane may gae near them at their ease
Without they cover mouth and neese."

Sir David uses some harder words than
these about the garments

" Whilk over the mires and middings trails,"
and ends with a couplet doubtless very
severe, but which fortunately few of us
can interpret : —

" Quoth Lindsay in contempt of the side tails
That duddrons and duntibours through the dubs
trails."

One can never be sure, in reading
Burton, that he will not find his own
thoughts, his own sayings in prose or
verse, anticipated.

" So that affliction is a School or
Academy, wherein the best Scholars are
prepared to the commencements of the
deity."

Till dawns the great commencement day on every

land and sea

And expectantur all mankind to take their last
• degree.

It was a coincidence, and not a borrow-
ing, for I had never read Burton when
I wrote those lines. I do not believe
there is any living author who will not
find that he is represented in his prede-
cessors, if he will hunt for himself in
Burton. Even the external conditions
of the residence of myself and my im-
mediate neighbors are described as if he
had just left Us ; for the dwellers in this
range of houses on one side " see the
ships, boats and passengers go by, out of
their windows," and on the other look out
into a " thoroughfare street to behold a
continual concourse, a promiscuous rout,
coming and going," — which conditions
he considered as " excellent good " for
the infirmity of which he was treating, or
professing to treat, while he discoursed
about everything.

What a passion many now famous in
other pursuits have had for poetry, and
what longings for the power to express
themselves in harmonious numbers !
Blackstone and Murray, John Quincy
Adams and Joseph Story, at once oc-
cur to our memory. It was said that
at one time every member of the ex-
isting British cabinet had published his

462

Pillow-Smoothing Authors.

[April,

volume of verse. Every one remembers
the story of Wolfe and Gray's Elegy.
But I confess I was a little surprised to
find a famous old scholar bewitched to
such an extent as Burton represents him :
" Julius Scaliger was so much affected
with Poetry that be brake out into a
pathetical protestation, he had rather be
the author of twelve Verses in Lucan
or such an Ode in Horace (Lib. 3, Ode
9) than Emperour of Germany" A
charming little quarrel it is between
Horace and Lydia, but one would hard-
ly have expected such a juvenile out-
burst from a gray-beard old scholiast like
Julius Csesar Scaliger.

From page to page we get striking
and life-like portraits of notable men of
olden time. Here is a charming one of
a great Dutch scholar and crific : —

" Heinsius, the keeper of the Library
at Leiden in Holland, was mewed up in
it all the year long ; and that which to
thy thinking should have bred a loath-
ing, caused in him a greater liking.

" ' 1 no sooner (saith he) come into
the Library, but I bolt the door to me, ex-
cluding lust, ambition, avarice, and all
such vices, whose nurse is idleness, their
mother Ignorance, and Melancholy her-
self, and in the very lap of eternity,
amongst so many divine souls, I take my
seat, with so lofty a spirit and sweet con-
tent, that I pity all our great ones, and
rich men that know not this happiness.' "

And take as a background to this de-
lightful picture the dreadful glimpse
which this brief passage gives us :
" Servetus the heretick that suffered in
Geneva, when he was brought to the
stake, and saw the executioner come
with fire in his hand, homo viso igne
tarn horrendum exclamavit, ut universum
populum perterre facerit, roared so loud
that he terrified the people."

We are often surprised at finding there
are good reasons for practices which
seem to us quite singular, and even ab-
surd. I remember the first time I wan-
dered in the streets of an old European

city, — Rouen, — I felt as if I was at
the bottom of a deep crevice, looking up
at a narrow ribbon of blue sky. I read
in Burton, " In hot Countreys they make
the streets of their Cities very narrow.
Monpelier, the habitation and Univer-
sity of Physitians, is so built, with high
houses, narrow streets to divert the
suns scalding rayes, which Tacitus com-
mends," etc.

There is but one street at the West
End of our city, Boston, — the new part
of it, — which one can walk through in
the middle of a hot summer day without
danger of a sun-stroke : that is Boylston
Street. The front yards of all the oth-
ers are so wide that the sidewalks are
in full sunshine, while this is a shady
refuge for the unfortunate prisoner in-
tra muros.

I once amused myself with calculating
how many grains of sand there would
be in our earth if it was made of them.
It was only necessary to see how many
grains it took to make a line of an inch
in length, and this number, if I recollect,
was about a hundred, which gives a mill-
ion to the cubic inch, and so on ; and
although one might miss a few grains
in calculating the number of cubic feet
in the oblate spheroid upon which we
dwell, it was easy to come near enough
for all practical purposes. But Burton
reminds me that I was only doing what
Archimedes had done before me.

He is severely satirical in speaking
of the corrupt practices and the quarrels
of doctors. He accuses them of taking
all manner of advantage of their privi-
leged intimacy. " Paracelsus did that in
Physick which Luther did in Divinity."
"A drunken rogue he was, a base fellow,
a Magician, he had the Devil for his
master, Devils his familiar companions,
and what he did, was done by the help of
the Devil." " Thus they contend and
rail, and every Mart [sec] write Books
pro and con and adhuc sub judice Us est ;
let them agree as they will, I proceed."

Not less sharp is he in commenting

1883.]

Pillow-Smoothing Authors.

463

upon the practices of another profession :
"Now as for Monks, Confessors and
Friers — under colour of visitation, au-
ricular confession, comfort and penance,
they have free egress and regress, and
corrupt God knows how many."

" Mutual admiration " alliances are
not the invention of this century, for Bur-
ton speaks of " mutual offices," " praise
and dispraise of each other," "mulus
mulum scabtt," one mule scratches an-
other. In that very amusing book,
which has much in it that sounds like
Dickens, with a great deal that is its
own, the Reverend Jonathan Jubb is
busy writing the Life and Times of
Rummins, while Rummius is equally
busy writing the Life and Times of the
Reverend Jonathan Jubb.

I have said that Burton must have
been a bachelor, and so he must have
been; and the gentle sex will exclaim
that he was a hard-hearted old wretch,
too, for he says, " As much pity is to
be taken of a woman weeping as of a
Goose going barefoot."

Perhaps some wives with irritable
husbands may like to hear the advice
contained in his story of the honest
woman " who, hearing one of her gos-
sips by chance complain of her husband's
impatience, told her an excellent re,m-
edy for it, and gave her withal a glass
of water, which when he brauled she
should hold still in her mouth, and that
toties quoties, as often as he chid." This
had such a good effect that the woman
wished to know what she had mingled
in her prescription, when her adviser
" told her in brief what it was, Fair
Water and no more : for it was not the
water but her silence which performed
the cure. Let every froward woman
imitate this example, and be quiet with-
in doors," and so on, giving his advice
to the poor scolded woman as if she
was to blame, and not the brauling hus-
band ! I am afraid the Cochituate will
not be largely drawn upon by our ma-
trons whose lords take their constitu-

tional exercise in finding fault with their
ladies.

I cannot be answerable for Burton's
advice to women, but he gives some
most sensible and kindly counsel to
those who are abused by others, the
substance of which is, Keep your tem-
per and hold your tongue, but illustrat-
ed, amplified, made palpable and inter-
esting by the large drapery of quota-
tions in which it is robed, according to
his habitual way of expanding and glo-
rifying a maxim. " Deesse robur arguit
dicacitas" or, as Dr. Johnson might
have translated it, Verbosity indicates
imbecility. Burton quotes the Latin
phrase, and then pours out a flood of
words to illustrate it.

That great modern naturalist, so well
remembered, and so dear to many of us,
used to remind me of the ancient ob-
server and philosopher whom he ad-
mired, and in many points resembled.

" How much did Aristotle and Ptolo-
my spend ? Unius regni precium, they
say, more than a king's ransom ; how
many crowns per annum, to perfect arts,
the one about his History of Creatures,
the other on his Almagest" These are
the words of Burton.

" How much," I once said to Agassiz,
" would you really want for your Mu-
seum, if you could get it ? "

" Ten millions ! " was his immediate,
robust, magnificent answer. " Ah ! " I
thought to myself, " what a pity there
is not an Alexander for this Aristotle ! "
My wish came nearer fulfilment in after
years than I could have dreamed at that
time of its ever coming.

Even the puns and quibbles we have
thought our own we are startled to find in
these pages of Burton, which take, not
the bread out of our mouths, perhaps,
but at least the Attic salt which was
the seasoning of our discourse. When
we find him asking " What 's matri-
mony but a matter of money ? " we
cannot help feeling that more jesting
glideth through the lips than wots Joe

464

Modern Fiction.

[April,

Miller of, or even my good friend Mr.
Punch, whom I have never thanked as
I ought to have done for the pretty
compliment he paid me some time ago.

And now let any somnolent reader
who has tried on my night-cap wake
himself up, and take down excellent
Mr. Allibone's great Dictionary of Au-
thors and turn to Burton. He will find
what a high estimate was placed upon
the work I have been getting my scant
spicilegium out of for his entertainment.
It was greatly esteemed by Johnson,
by Sterne, who showed his regard by
helping himself to his pleasantry and pa-

thos, and by various other less gener-
ally known writers. Byron says that if
the reader has patience to go through
the Anatomy of Melancholy " he will
be more improved for literary conversa-
tion than by the perusal of any twen-
ty other works with which I am ac-
quainted."

I did not read it to equip myself for
"literary conversation," but to predis-
pose myself to somnolence ; and if, as I
hope, this article shall prove as effective
in bringing about that result for the
reader as the book was for myself, it
will have fully answered my tamest ex-
pectations.

Oliver Wendell Holmes.

MODERN FICTION.

ONE of the worst characteristics of
modern fiction is its so-called truth to
nature. For fiction is an art, as paint-
ing is, as sculpture is, as acting is. A
photograph of a natural object is not
art ; nor is the plaster cast of a man's
face, nor is the bare setting on the stage
of an actual occurrence. Art requires
an idealization of nature. The amateur,
though she may be a lady, who attempts
to represent upon the stage the lady of
the drawing-room, usually fails to con-
vey to the spectators the impression of
a lady. She lacks the art by which the
trained actress, who may not be a lady,
succeeds. The actual transfer to the
stage of the drawing-room and its occu-
pants, with the behavior common in
well-bred society, would no doubt fail
of the intended dramatic effect, and the
spectators would declare the representa-
tion unnatural.

However our jargon of criticism may
confound terms, we do not need to be
reminded that art and nature are dis-
tinct ; that art, though dependent on na-
ture, is a separate creation ; that art is

selection and idealization, with a view
to impressing the mind with human, or
even higher than human, sentiments
and ideas. We may not agree whether
the perfect man and woman ever exist-
ed, but we do know that the highest
representations of them in form — that
in the old Greek sculptures — were the
result of artistic selection of parts of
many living figures.

When we praise our recent fiction for
its photographic fidelity to nature we
condemn it, for we deny to it the art
which would give it value. We forget
that the creation of the novel should be,
to a certain extent, a synthetic process,
and impart to human actions that ideal
quality which we demand in painting.
Heine regards Cervantes as the origina-
tor of the modern novel. The older
novels sprang from the poetry of the
Middle Ages : their themes were knight-
ly adventure, their personages were the
nobility; the common people did not
figure in them. These romances, which
had degenerated into absurdities, Cer-
vantes overthrew by Don Quixote. But

1883.]

Modern Fiction.

465

in putting an end to the old romances
he created a new school of fiction, called
the modern novel, by introducing into
his romance of pseudo- knighthood a
faithful description of the lower classes,
and intermingling the phases of popu-
lar life. But he had no one-sided ten-
dency to portray the vulgar only ; he
brought together the higher and the
lower in society, to serve as light and
shade, and the aristocratic element was
as prominent as the popular. This no-
ble and chivalrous element disappears
in the novels of the English who imi-
tated Cervantes. " These English nov-
elists since Richardson's reign," says
Heine " are prosaic natures ; to the prud-
ish spirit of their time even pithy de-
scriptions of the life of the common peo-
ple are repugnant, and we see on yon-
der side of the Channel those bourgeoisie
novels arise, wherein the petty hum-
drum life of the middle classes is de-
picted." But Scott appeared, and ef-
fected a restoration of the balance in fic-
tion. As Cervantes had introduced the
democratic element into romances, so
Scott replaced the aristocratic element,
when it had disappeared, and only a pro-
saic, bourgeoisie fiction existed. He re-
stored to romances the symmetry which
we admire in Don Quixote. The char-
acteristic feature of Scott's historical ro-
mances, in the opinion of the great Ger-
man critic, is the harmony between the
aristocratic and democratic elements.

This is true, but is it the last analysis
of the subject ? Is it a sufficient ac-
count of the genius of Cervantes and
Scott that they combined in their ro-
mances a representation of the higher
and lower classes ? Is it not of more
importance how they represented them ?
It is only a part of the achievement of
Cervantes that he introduced the com-
mon people into fiction ; it is his higher
glory that he idealized this material ;
and it is Scott's distinction also that he
elevated into artistic creations both no-
bility and commonalty. In short, the

VOL. LI. — NO. 306. 30

essential of fiction is not diversity of so-
cial life, but artistic treatment of what-
ever is depicted. The novel may deal
wholly with an aristocracy, or wholly
with another class, but it must idealize
the nature it touches into art. The
fault of the bourgeoisie novels, of which
Heine complains, is not that they treat-
ed of one class only, and excluded a
higher social range, but that they treat-
ed it without art and without ideality.
In nature there is nothing vulgar to
the poet, and in human life there is noth-
ing uninteresting to the artist ; but na-
ture and human life, for the purposes
of fiction, need a creative genius. The
importation into the novel of the vul-
gar, sordid, and ignoble in life is always
unbearable, unless genius first fuses the
raw .material in its alembic.

When, therefore, we say that one of
the worst characteristics of modern fic-
tion is its so-called truth to nature, we
mean that it disregards the higher laws
of art, and attempts to give us unideal-
ized pictures of life. The failure is not
that vulgar themes are treated, but that
the treatment is vulgar ; not that com-
mon life is treated, but that the treat-
ment is common ; not that care is taken
with details, but that no selection is
made, and everything is photographed
regardless of its artistic value. I am
sure that no one ever felt any repug-
nance on being introduced by Cervantes
to the muleteers, contrabandistas, ser-
vants and serving-maids, and idle vag-
abonds of Spain, any more than to an
acquaintance with the beggar-boys and
street gamins on the canvases of Mu-
rillo. And I believe that the philosophic
reason of the disgust of Heine and of
every critic with the English bourgeoisie
novels, describing the petty, humdrum
life of the middle classes, was simply
the want of art in the writers ; the fail-
ure on their part to see that a literal
transcript of nature is poor stuff in lit-
erature. We do not need to go back
to Richardson's time for illustrations

466

Modern Fiction.

[April,

of that truth. Every week the English
press — which is even a greater sinner
in this respect than the American —
turns out a score of novels which are
mediocre, not from their subjects but
from their utter lack of the artistic qual-
ity. It matters not whether they treat
of middle-class life, of low, slum life,
or of drawing-room life and lords and
ladies ; they are equally flat and dreary.
Perhaps the most inane thing ever put
forth in the name of literature is the so-
called domestic novel, an indigestible,
culinary sort of product, that might be
named the doughnut of fiction. The
usual apology for it is that it depicts
family life with fidelity. Its charac-
ters are supposed to act and talk as peo-
ple act and talk at home and in society.
I trust this is a libel, but, for the sake
of the argument, suppose they do. Was
ever produced so insipid a result ? They
are called moral ; in the higher sense
they are immoral, for they tend to lower
the moral tone and stamina of every
reader. It needs genius to import into
literature ordinary conversation, petty
domestic details, and the commonplace
and vulgar phases of life. A report of
ordinary talk, which appears as dialogue
in domestic novels, may be true to na-
ture ; if it is, it is not worth writing or
worth reading. I cannot see that it
serves any good purpose whatever. For-
tunately, we have in our day illustrations
of a different treatment of the vulgar.
I do not know any more truly realistic
pictures of certain aspects of New Eng-
land life than are to be found in Judd's
Margaret, wherein are depicted exceed-
ingly pinched and ignoble social condi-
tions. Yet the characters and the life
are drawn with the artistic purity of
Flaxman's illustrations of Homer. An-
other example is Thomas Hardy's Far
from the Madding Crowd. Every char-
acter in it is of the lower class in Eng-
land. But what an exquisite creation it
is ! You have to turn back to Shake-
speare for any talk of peasants and

clowns and shepherds to compare with
the conversations in this novel, so racy
are they of the soil, and yet so touched
with the finest art, the enduring art.
Here is not the realism of the photo-
graph, but of the artist ; that is to say,
it is nature idealized.

When we criticise our recent fiction,
it is obvious that we ought to remember
that it only conforms to the tendencies
of our social life, our prevailing ethics,
and to the art conditions of our time.
Literature is never in any age an iso-
lated product. It is closely related to
the development or retrogression of the
time in all departments of life. The
literary production of our day seems,
and no doubt is, more various than that
of any other, and it is not easy to fix
upon its leading tendency. It is claimed
for its fiction, however, that it is analyt-
ic and realistic, and that much of it has
certain other qualities that make it a
new school in art. These aspects of it
I wish to consider in this paper.

It is scarcely possible to touch upon
our recent fiction, any more than upon
our recent poetry, without taking into
account what is called the aesthetic move-
ment, — a movement more prominent in
England than elsewhere. A slight con-
templation of this reveals its resem-
blance to the Romantic movement in
Germany, of which the brothers Schlegel
were apostles, in the latter part of the
last century. The movements are alike
in this : that they both sought inspira-
tion in mediaevalism, in feudalism, in the
symbols of a Christianity that ran to
mysticism, in the quaint, strictly pre-
Raphael art, which was supposed to be
the result of a simple faith. In the one
case, the artless and childlike remains
of old German pictures and statuary
were exhumed and set up as worthy of
imitation ; in the other, we have car-
ried out in art, in costume, and in do-
mestic life, so far as possible, what has
been wittily and accurately described as
" stained-glass attitudes." With all its

1883.]

Modern Fiction.

467

peculiar vagaries, the English school is
essentially a copy of the German, in its
return to mediae valism. The two move-
ments have a further likeness, in that
they are found accompanied by a highly
symbolized religious revival. English
oestheticism would probably disown any
religious intention, although it has been
accused of a refined interest in Pan and
Venus ; but in all its feudal sympathies
it goes along with the religious art and
vestment revival, the return to symbol-
ic ceremonies, monastic vigils, and sis-
terhoods. Years ago, an acute writer
in the Catholic World claimed Dante
Rossetti as a Catholic wrijter, from the
internal evidence of his poems. The
German Romanticism, which was fos-
tered by the Romish priesthood, ended,
or its disciples ended, in the bosom of
the Roman Catholic church. It will be
interesting to note in what ritualistic
harbor the sestheticism of our day will
finally moor. That two similar revivals
should come so near together in time
makes us feel that the world moves
onward, if it does move onward, in cir-
cular figures of very short radii. There
seems to be only one thing certain in
our Christian era, and that is a periodic
return to classic models ; the only stable
standards of resort seem to be Greek
art and literature.

The characteristics which are prom-
inent, when we think of our recent fic-
tion, are a wholly unidealized view of
human society, which has got the name
of realism ; a delight in representing
the worst phases of social life ; an ex-
treme analysis of persons and motives ;
the sacrifice of action to psychological
study ; the substitution of studies of
character for anything like a story ; a
notion that it is not artistic, and that
it is untrue to nature to bring any novel
to a definite consummation, and especial-
ly to end it happily; and a despond-
ent tone about society, politics, and the
whole drift of modern life. Judged by
our fiction, we are in an irredeemably

bad way. There is little beauty, joy,
or light-heartedness in living ; the spon-
taneity and charm of life are analyzed
out of existence ; sweet girls, made to
love and be loved, are extinct ; melan-
choly Jaques never meets a Rosalind in
the forest of Arden, and if he sees her
in the drawing-room he poisons his
pleasure with the thought that she is
scheming and artificial ; there are no
happy marriages, — indeed, marriage it-
self is almost too inartistic to be per-
mitted by our novelists, unless it can be
supplemented by a divorce, and art is
supposed to deny any happy consumma-
tion of true love. In short, modern so-
ciety is going to' the dogs, notwithstand-
ing money is only three and a half per
cent. It is a gloomy business life, at
the best. Two learned but despondent
university professors met, not long ago,
at an afternoon "coffee," and drew
sympathetically together in a corner.
" What a world this would be," said
one, " without coffee ! " " Yes," replied
the other, stirring the fragrant cup in
a dejected aspect, — " yes ; but what a
H. of a world it is with coffee ! "

The analytic method in fiction is in-
teresting, when used by a master of dis-
section, but it has this fatal defect in a
novel, — it destroys illusion. We want
to think that the characters in a story
are real persons. We cannot do this if
we see the author set them up as if they
were marionettes, and take them to
pieces every few pages, and show their
interior structure, and the machinery by
which they are moved. Not only is the
illusion gone, but the movement of the
sjory, if there is a story, is retarded, till
the reader loses all enjoyment in impa-
tience and weariness. You find yourself
saying, perhaps, What a very clever fel-
low the author is ! What an ingenious
creation this character is ! How brightly
the author makes his people talk ! This
is high praise, but by no means the
highest, and when we reflect we see
how immeasurably inferior, in fiction,

468

Modern Fiction.

the analytic method is to the dramatic.
In the dramatic method the characters
appear, and show what they are by what
they do and say ; the reader studies
their motives, and a part of his enjoy-
ment is in analyzing them, and his
vanity is flattered by the trust reposed
in his perspicacity. We realize how
unnecessary minute analysis of charac-
ter and long descriptions are in reading
a drama by Shakespeare, in which the
characters are so vividly presented to us
in action and speech, without the least
interference of the author in description,
that we regard them as persons with
whom we might have real relations, and
not as bundles of traits and qualities.
True, the conditions of dramatic art and
the art of the novel are different, in that
the drama can dispense with delinea-
tions, for its characters are intended to
be presented to the eye ; but all the same,
a good drama will explain itself without
the aid of actors, and there is no doubt
that it is the higher art in the novel,
when once the characters are introduced,
to treat them dramatically, and let them
work out their own destiny according
to their characters. It is a truism to
say that when the reader perceives that
the author can compel his characters to
do what he pleases all interest in them
as real persons is gone. In a novel
of mere action and adventure, a lower
order of fiction, where all the interest
centres in the unraveling of a plot, of
course this does not so much matter.

Not long ago, in Edinburgh, I amused
myself in looking up some of the local-
ities made famous in Scott's romances,
which are as real in the mind as any
historical places. Afterwards I read
The Heart of Midlothian. I was sur-
prised to find that, as a work of art, it
was inferior to my recollection of it.
Its style is open to the charge of pro-
lixity, and even of slovenliness in some
parts ; and it does not move on with in-
creasing momentum and concentration
to a climax, as many of Scott's novels

[April,

do ; the story drags along in the dispo-
sition of one character after another.
Yet, when I had finished the book and
put it away, a singular thing happened.
It suddenly came to me that in reading
it I had not once thought of Scott as
the maker ; it had never occurred to
me that he had created the people in
whose fortunes I had been so intensely
absorbed ; and I never once had felt
how clever the novelist was in the nat-
urally dramatic dialogues of the charac-
ters. In short, it had not entered my
mind to doubt the existence of Jeanie
and Effie Deans, and their father, and
Reuben Butler, and the others, who
seem as real as historical persons in
Scotch history. And when I came to
think of it afterwards, reflecting upon
the assumptions of the modern realistic
school, I found that some scenes, nota-
bly the night attack on the old Tolbooth,
were as real to me as if I had read them
in a police report of a newspaper of the
day. Was Scott, then, only a reporter ?
Far from it, as you would speedily see
if he had thrown into the novel a police
report of the occurrences at the Tol-
booth, before art had shorn it of its ir-
relevances ; magnified its effective and
salient points ; given events their proper
perspective, and the whole picture due
lig*ht and shade.

The sacrifice of action to some extent
to psychological evolution in modern fic-
tion may be an advance in the art as an
intellectual entertainment, if the writer
does not make that evolution his end,
and does not forget that the indispensa-
ble thing in a novel is the story. The
novel of mere adventure or mere plot,
it need not be urged, is of a lower order
than that in which the evolution of char-
acters and their interaction make the
story. The highest fiction is that which
embodies both; that is, the story in
which action is the result of mental and
spiritual forces in play. And we pro-
test against the notion that the novel of
the future is to be, or should be, merely

1883.]

Modern Fiction.

469

a study of, or an essay or a series of
analytic essays on, certain phases of so-
cial life.

It is not true that civilization or culti-
vation has bred out of the world the lik-
ing for a story. In this the most high-
ly educated Londoner and the Egyptian
fellah meet on common human ground.
The passion for a story has no more
died out than curiosity, or than the pas-
sion of love. The truth is not that sto-
ries are not demanded, but that the born
raconteur and story-teller is a rare per-
son. The faculty of telling a story is
a much rarer gift than the ability to
analyze character, and even than the
ability truly to draw character. It may
be a higher or a lower power, but it
is rarer. It is a natural gift, and it
seems that no amount of culture can at-
tain it, any more than learning can make
a poet. Nor is the complaint well-
founded that the stories have all been
told, the possible plots all been used,
and the combinations of circumstances
exhausted. It is no doubt our individual
experience that we hear almost every
day — and we hear nothing so eagerly
— some new story, better or worse, but
new in its exhibition of human charac-
ter, and in the combination of events.
And the strange, eventful histories of
human life will no more be exhausted
than the possible arrangements of math-
ematical numbers. We might as well
say that there are no more good pictures
to be painted as that there are no more
good stories to be told.

Equally baseless is the assumption
that it is inartistic and untrue to nature
to bring a novel to a definite consumma-
tion, and especially to end it happily,
Life, we are told, is full of incompletion,
of broken destinies, of failures, of ro-
mances that begin but do not end, of am-
bitious and purposes frustrated, of love
crossed, of unhappy issues, or a resultless
play of influences. Well, but life is full,
also, of endings, of the results in concrete
action of character, of completed dramas.

And we expect and give, in the stories
we hear and tell in ordinary intercourse,
some point, some outcome, an end of
some sort. If you interest me in the
preparations of two persons who are
starting on a journey, and expend all
your ingenuity in describing their outfit
and their characters, and do not tell me
where they went or what befell them
afterwards, I do not call that a story.
Nor am I any better satisfied when you
describe two persons whom you know,
whose characters are interesting, and
who become involved in all manner of
entanglements, and then stop your nar-
ration ; and when I ask, say you have
not the least idea whether they got out
of their difficulties, or what became of
them. In real life we do- not call that
a story where everything is left uncon-
cliided and in the air. In point of fact,
romances are daily beginning and daily
ending, well or otherwise, under our ob-
servation.

Should they always end well in the
novel ? I am very far from saying that.
Tragedy and the pathos of failure have
their places in literature as well as in
life. I only say that, artistically, a
good ending is as proper as a bad end-
ing. Yet 'the main object of the novel
is to entertain, and the best entertain-
ment is that which lifts the imagina-
tion and quickens the spirit ; to light-
en the burdens of life by taking us for
a time out of our humdrum and per-
haps sordid conditions, so that we can
see familiar life somewhat idealized, and
probably see it all the more truly from
an artistic point of view. For the ma-
jority of the race, in its hard lines, fic-
tion is an inestimable boon. Incident-
ally the novel may teach, encourage, re-
fine, elevate. Even for these purposes,
that novel is the best which shows us
the best possibilities of our lives, — the
novel which gives hope and cheer in-
stead of discouragement and gloom.
Familiarity with vice and sordidness in
fiction is a low entertainment, and of

470

Modern Fiction.

[April,

doubtful moral value, and their intro-
duction is unbearable if it is not done
with the idealizing touch of the artist.

Do not misunderstand me to mean
that common and low life are not fit
subjects of fiction, or that vice is not to
be lashed by the satirist, or that the
evils of a social state are never to be ex-
posed in the novel. For this, also, is an
office of the novel, as it is of the drama,
to hold the mirror up to nature, and to
human nature as it exhibits itself. But
when the mirror shows nothing but vice
and social disorder, leaving out the sav-
ing qualities that keep society on the
whole, and family life as a rule, as sweet
and good as they are, the mirror is not
held up to nature, but more likely re-
flects a morbid mind. Still it must be
added that the study of unfortunate
social conditions is a legitimate one for
the author to make ; and that we may
be in no state to judge justly of his ex-
posure while the punishment is being
inflicted, or while the irritation is fresh.
For, no doubt, the reader winces often
because the novel reveals to himself cer-
tain possible baseness, selfishness, and
meanness. Of this, however, I (speak-
ing for myself) may be sure : that the
artist who so represents vulgar life that
I am more in love with my kind, the
satirist who so depicts vice and villainy
that I am strengthened in my moral
fibre, has vindicated his choice of mate-
rial. On the contrary, those novelists
are not justified whose forte it seems to
be to so set forth goodness as to make it
unattractive.

But we come back to the general
proposition that the indispensable condi-
tion of the novel is that it shall enter-
tain. And for this purpose the world is
not ashamed to own that it wants, and
always will want, a story, — a story that
has an ending ; and if not a good ending,
then one that in noble tragedy lifts up
our nature into a high plane of sacrifice
and pathos. In proof of this we have
only to refer to the masterpieces of fic-

tion which the world cherishes and loves
to recur to.

I confess that I am harassed with
the incomplete romances, that leave me,
when the book is closed, as one might
be on a waste plain, at midnight, aban-
doned by his conductor, and without a
lantern. I am tired of accompanying
people for hours through disaster and
perplexity and misunderstanding, only
to see them lost in a thick mist at last.
I am weary of going to funerals, which
are not my funerals, however chatty and
amusing the undertaker may be. I con-
fess that I should like to see again the
lovely heroine, the sweet woman, capa-
ble of a great passion and a great sacri-
fice ; and I do not object if the novelist
tries her to the verge of endurance, in
agonies of mind and in perils, subjecting
her to wasting sicknesses even, if he only
brings her out at the end in a blissful
compensation of her troubles, and en-
dued with a new and sweeter charm.
No doubt it is better for us all, and bet-
ter art, that in the novel of society the
destiny should be decided by character.
What an artistic and righteous consum-
mation it is when we meet the shrewd
and wicked old Baroness Bernstein at
Continental gaming-tables, and feel that
there was no other logical end for the
worldly and fascinating Beatrix of Hen-
ry Esmond ! It is one of the great priv-
ileges of fiction to right the wrongs of
life, to do justice to the deserving and
the vicious. It is wholesome for us to
contemplate this justice, even if we do
not often see it in society. It is true
that hypocrisy and vulgar self-seeking
often succeed in life, occupy high places,
and make their exit in the pageantry of
honored obsequies. Yet always the man
is conscious of the hollo wness of his
triumph, and the world takes a pretty
accurate measure of it. It is the privi-
lege of the novelist, without introduc-
ing into such a career what is called dis-
aster, to satisfy our innate love of jus-
tice by letting us see the true • nature of

1883.]

Modern Fiction.

471

such prosperity. The unscrupulous man
amasses wealth, lives in luxury and
splendor, and dies in the odor of re-
spectability. His poor and honest neigh-
bor, whom he has wronged and defraud-
ed, lives in misery, and dies in disap-
pointment and penury. The novelist
cannot reverse the facts without such a
shock to our experience as shall destroy
for us the artistic value of his fiction,
and bring upon his work the deserved
reproach of indiscriminately " rewarding
the good and punishing the bad." But
we have a right to ask that he shall re-
veal the real heart and character of this
passing show of life ; for not to do this,
to content himself merely with exterior
appearances, is for the majority of his
readers to efface the lines between vir-
tue and vice. And we ask this not for
the sake of the moral lesson, but because
not to do it is, to our deep consciousness,
inartistic and untrue to our judgment of
life as it goes on. Thackeray used to
say that all his talent was in his eyes ;
meaning that he was only an observer
and reporter of what he saw, and not
a Providence to rectify human affairs.
The great artist undervalued his genius.
He reported what he saw as Raphael
and Murillo reported what they saw.
With his touch of genius he assigned to
everything its true value, moving us to
tenderness, to pity, to scorn, to righteous
indignation, to sympathy with humanity.
I find in him the highest art, and not
that indifference to the great facts and
deep currents and destinies of human
life, that want of enthusiasm and sym-
pathy, which has got the name of " art
for art's sake." Literary fiction is a
barren product, if it wants sympathy
and love for men. " Art for art's sake "
is a good and defensible phrase, if our
definition of art includes the ideal, and
not otherwise.

I do not know how it has come about
that in so large a proportion of recent
fiction it is held to be artistic to look al-
most altogether upon the shady and the

seamy side of life, giving to this view
the name of " realism ; " to select the
disagreeable, the vicious, the unwhole-
some ; to give us for our companions,
in our hours of leisure and relaxation,
only the silly and the weak-minded
woman, the fast and slangy girl, the in-
trigante and the " shady," — to borrow
the language of the society she seeks, —
the hero of irresolution, the prig, the
vulgar, and the vicious ; to serve us only
with the foibles of the fashionable, the
low tone of the gay, the gilded riff-raff
of our social state ; to drag us forever
along the dizzy, half-fractured precipice
of the seventh commandment ; to bring
us into relations only with the sordid
and the common ; to force us to sup
with unwholesome company on misery
and sensuousness, in tales so utterly un-
pleasant that we are ready to welcome
any disaster as a relief ; and then — the
latest and finest touch of modern art —
to leave the whole weltering mass in a
chaos, without conclusion and without
possible issue.

And this is called a picture of real
life ! Heavens ! Is it true that in
England, where a great proportion of
the fiction we describe and loathe is
produced ; is it true that in our New
England society there is nothing but
frivolity, sordidness, decay of purity
and faith, ignoble ambition and ignoble
living ? Is there no charm in social life,
— no self-sacrifice, devotion, courage
to stem materialistic conditions, and live
above them ? Are there no noble women,
sensible, beautiful, winning, with the
grace that all the world loves, albeit
with the feminine weaknesses that make
all the world hope ? Is there no manli-
ness left ? Are there no homes where
the tempter does not live with the tempt-
ed in a mush of sentimental affinity ?
Or is it, in fact, more artistic to ignore
all these, and paint only the feeble and
the repulsive in our social state ? The
feeble, the sordid, and the repulsive in
our social state nobody denies, nor does

472

Modern Fiction.

[April,

anybody deny the exceeding cleverness
with which our social disorders are re-
produced in fiction by a few masters of
their art ; but is it not time that it should
be considered good art to show some-
thing of the clean and bright side ?

This is preeminently the age of the
novel. The development of variety
of fiction since the days of Scott and
Cooper is prodigious. The prejudice
against novel-reading is quite broken
down, since fiction has taken all fields
for its province ; everybody reads nov-
els. Three quarters of the books taken
from the circulating library are stories ;
they make up half the library of the
Sunday-schools. If a writer has any-
thing to say, or thinks he has, he knows
that he can most certainly reach the ear
of the public by the medium of a story.
So we have novels for children ; novels
religious, scientific, historical, archaeolog-
ical, psychological, pathological, total-
abstinence ; novels of travel, of adven-
ture and exploration ; novels domestic,
and the perpetual spawn of books called
novels of society. Not only is every-
thing turned into a story, real or so
called, but there must be a story in
everything. The stump-speaker holds
his audience by well-worn stories ; the
preacher wakes up his congregation by
a graphic narrative ; and the Sunday-
school teacher leads his children into all
goodness by the entertaining path of
romance ; we even had a President who
governed the country nearly by anec-
dotes.

The result of this universal demand
for fiction is necessarily an enormous
supply, and as everybody writes, with-
out reference to gifts, the product is
mainly trash, and trash of a deleterious
sort ; for bad art in literature is bad mor-
als. I am not sure but the so-called do-
mestic, the diluted, the "goody," nam-
by-pamby, un-robust stories, which are
so largely read by school-girls, young
ladies, and women, do more harm than
the " knowing," audacious, wicked ones,

also, it is reported, read by them, and
written largely by their own sex. For
minds enfeebled and relaxed by stories
lacking even intellectual fibre are in
a poor condition to meet the perils of
life. This is not the place for discuss-
ing the stories written for the young and
for the Sunday-school. It seems impos-
sible to check the flow of them, now that
so much capital is invested in this indus-
try ; but I think that healthy public sen-
timent is beginning to recognize the
truth that the excessive reading of this
class of literature by the young is weak-
ening to the mind, besides being a se-
rious hindrance to study and to attention
to the literature that has substance.

In his account of the Romantic
School in Germany, Heine says, "In
the breast of a nation's authors there al-
ways lies the image of its future, and
the critic who, with a knife of sufficient
keenness, dissects a new poet can easily
prophesy, as from the entrails of a sac-
rificial animal, what shape matters will
assume in Germany." Now if all the
poets and novelists of England and
America to-day were cut up into little
pieces (and we might sacrifice a few for
the sake of the experiment), there is no
inspecting augur who could divine there-
from our literary future. The diverse
indications would puzzle the most acute
dissector. Lost in the variety, the multi-
plicity of minute details, the refinements
of analysis and introspection, he would
miss any leading indications. For with
all its variety, it seems to me that one
characteristic of recent fiction is its nar-
rowness,— narrowness of vision and of
treatment. It deals with lives rather
than with life. Lacking ideality, it fails
of broad perception. We are accustomed
to think that with the advent of the gen-
uine novel of society, in the first part of
this century, a great step forward was
taken in fiction. And so there was. If
the artist did not use a big canvas, he
adopted a broad treatment. But the
tendency now is to push analysis of in-

1883.]

Modern Fiction.

473

dividual peculiarities to an extreme, and
to substitute a study of traits for a rep-
resentation of human life.

It scarcely need be said that it is not
multitude of figures on a literary can-
vas that secures breadth of treatment.
The novel may be narrow, though it
swarms with an hundred personages.
It may be as wide as life, as high as
imagination can lift itself ; it may image
to us a whole social state, though it puts
in motion no more persons than we
made the acquaintance of in one of the
romances of Hawthorne. Consider for
a moment how Thackeray produced his
marvelous results. We follow with him,
in one of his novels of society, the for-
tunes of a very few people. They are
so vividly portrayed that we are con-
vinced the author must have known
them in that great world with which he
was so familiar ; we should not be sur-
prised to meet any of them in the streets
of London. When we visit the Charter
House School, and see the old forms
where the boys sat nearly a century
ago, we have in our minds Colonel
Newcome as really as we have Charles
Lamb and Coleridge and De Quiucey.
We are absorbed, as we read, in the
evolution of the characters of perhaps
only half a dozen people ; and yet all
the world, all great, roaring, struggling
London, is in the story, and Clive, and
Philip, and Ethel, and Becky Sharpe,
and Captain Costigan are a part of life.
It is the flowery month of May ; the
scent of the hawthorn is in the air, and
the tender flush of the new spring suf-
fuses the Park, where the tide of fash-
ion and pleasure and idleness surges
up and down, — the sauntering throng,
the splendid equipages, the endless cav-
alcade in Rotten Row, in which Clive
descries afar off the white plume of his
lady-love dancing on the waves of an
unattainable society ; the club windows
are all occupied ; Parliament is in ses-
sion, with its nightly echoes of imperial
politics ; the thronged streets roar with

life from morn till nearly morn again ;
the drawing-rooms hum and sparkle in
the crush of a London season ; as you
walk the midnight pavement, through
the swinging doors of the cider-cellars
comes the burst of bacchanalian song.
Here is the world of the press and of
letters ; here are institutions, an army,
a navy, commerce, glimpses of great
ships going to and fro on distant seas,
of India, of Australia. This one book is
an epitome of English life, almost of
the empire itself. We are conscious of
all this, so much breadth and atmos-
phere has the artist given his little his-
tory of half a dozen people in this
struggling world.

But this background of a great city,
of an empire, is not essential to the
breadth of treatment upon which we
insist in fiction, to broad characteriza-
tion, to the play of imagination about
common things which transfigures them
into the immortal beauty of artistic cre-
ations. What a simple idyl in itself is
Goethe's Hermann and Dorothea ! It
is the creation of a few master touches,
using only common material. Yet it
has in it the breadth of life itself, the
depth and passion of all our human
struggle in the world, — a little story
with a vast horizon.

It is constantly said that the condi-
tions in America are unfavorable to the
higher fiction ; that our society is un-
formed, without centre, without the def-
inition of classes, which give the light
and shade that Heine speaks of in Don
Quixote ; that it lacks types and cus-
toms that can be widely recognized and
accepted as national and characteristic ;
that we have no past ; that we want both
romantic and historic background ; that
we are in a shifting, flowing, forming
period which fiction cannot seize on ;
that we are in diversity and confusion
that baffle artistic treatment ; in short,
that American life is too vast, varied,
and crude for the purpose of the nov-
elist.

474

A Poet.

[April,

These excuses might be accepted as
fully accounting for our failure, — or
shall we say our delay ? — if it were not
for two or three of our literary perform-
ances. It is true that no novel has been
written, and we dare say no novel will
be written that is, or will be, an epitome
of the manifold diversities of American
life, unless it be in the form of one of
Walt Whitman's catalogues. But we
are not without peculiar types ; not with-
out characters, not without incidents,
stories, heroisms, inequalities ; not with-
out the charms of nature in infinite va-
riety; and human nature is the same
here that it is in Spain, France, and
England. Out of these materials Coo-
per wrote romances, narratives stamped
with the distinct characteristics of Amer-
ican life and scenery, that were and
are eagerly read by all civilized peoples,
and which secured the universal verdict
which only breadth of treatment com-
mands. Out of these materials, also,
Hawthorne, child endowed with a crea-
tive imagination, wove those tragedies
of interior life, those novels of our pro-
vincial New England, which rank among
the great masterpieces of the novelist's
art. The master artist can idealize even
our crude material, and make it serve.

These exceptions to a rule do not go
to prove the general assertion of a pov-
erty of material for fiction here ; the
simple truth probably is that, for reasons
incident to the development of a new
region of the earth, creative genius has
been turned in other directions than that

of fictitious literature. Nor do I think
that we need to take shelter behind the
well-worn and convenient observation,
the truth of which stands in much doubt,
that literature is the final flower of a
nation's civilization.

However, this is somewhat a digres-
sion. We are speaking of the tendency
of recent fiction, very much the same
everywhere that novels are written,
which we have imperfectly sketched.
It is probably of no more use to protest
against it than it is to protest against the
vulgar realism in pictorial art, which
holds ugliness and beauty in equal es-
teem ; or against aestheticism gone to
seed in languid affectations ; or against
the enthusiasm of a social life which
wreaks its religion on the color of a
vestment, or sighs out its divine soul
over an ancient pewter mug. Most of
our fiction, in its extreme analysis, in-
trospection and self-consciousness, in its
devotion to details, in its disregard of
the ideal, in its selection as well as in its
treatment of nature, is simply of a piece
with a good deal else that passes for
genuine art. Much of it is admirable
in workmanship, and exhibits a clever-
ness in details and a subtlety in the ob-
servation of traits which many great
novels lack. But I should be sorry "to
think that the historian will judge our
social life by it, and I doubt not that
most of us are ready for a more ideal,
that is to say a more artistic, view of
our performances in this bright and pa-
thetic world.

Charles Dudley Warner.

A POET.

THKEE things he knew : the shock that sorrow brings,
The woodland's secrets, and one woman's heart.
These made the gamut of his flame-wrought art, —
Grief, truth, and love: from these the poet springs.

L. Frank Tooker.

1883.]

A New Parishioner.

A NEW PARISHIONER.

IT was about half past ten o'clock in
the forenoon, and the time of year was
late September. Miss Lydia Dunn was
busy in her kitchen, where the faded sun-
light lay across the floor, and the after-
breakfast work was beginning to give
way to the preparations for dinner. Miss
Dunn had lived alone through a good
many years, but, to use her own favorite
remark, she always treated herself as if
she were a whole family.

" I found myself living at the pan-
try shelves, quick as mother died," she
said. " It did n't seem to be worth while
to set a table and get a lot of dishes
about just for one. I got so I stopped
the baker every time he come by, and
the end of it was I did n't eat any of-
tener than I could help. I took to being
low in my mind, and thought I wa' n't
ever going to be any more use in the
world ; and I was always reading some
yaller old sermon books, that I never
should if I had been well ; it seemed as
if they had been laying about the house
hoping to get a chance to gnaw some-
body, for they worked me up dreadfully.
Mother and I had lived together so long
that I missed her, — seemed as if I could
n't never get used to living alone ; but
at last it come to me what part o' the
trouble was, and I set right to, and from
that day to this I 've given myself three
good regular meals every day. I tell
you, you must feed folks same as you
do creaturs, if you want to get any kind
o' work out of 'em."

It was certainly a blessing to other
people that Miss Dunn had come to this
wise decision, for, after the death of her
mother, who had needed all her daugh-
ter's care in the later years of her life,
she had always been more than ready
to use her freedom and strength and
good sense in other people's behalf.
She had a great deal of sound discretion,

and a quick insight into men and things
on which she valued herself not a little,
as well she might. If she had been bad-
tempered she would have been feared,
for she had a quick wit and a bitter im-
patience with shiftiness and deceit ;
but her bark was worse than her bite,
and one after another of her neighbors
and townspeople were helped by her
over hard places in their lives, and every
year they grew more strongly attached
to her. It is true that she was often
thought a little hard, and that she gained
the ill-will of some of her associates,
whose lives were not wholly spent in
following the paths of rectitude. She
sometimes felt sorry that there was no-
body who belonged to her, or who real-
ly loved her because they were of the
same flesh and blood. It is a rare thing
to find a woman of her age in a New
England village who has no near rela-
tions; for when there was less inter-
course with the rest of the world than
nowadays, and families were larger,
the people were apt to be closely con-
• nected by frequent intermarriages, and
it made a community of interest and
a clannishness which had many advan-
tages in spite of its defects. Now that
the young people go from the farming
communities to the shops and factories
of the larger towns, they are surer to
marry strangers and foreigners than
their old schoolmates and playmates,
and the state of society in these latter
days in such a town as Walton is pretty
well disintegrated.

Miss Dunn's grandfather had been
the minister of Walton for forty years.
That of itself gave her a right to assert
herself in parish matters, and her inher-
ited love of reading and thinking helped
her tq look of tener at the principles and
causes of things than at their incidents
and effects. The elder people of the

476

A New Parishioner.

[April,

town still turned back with reverence
to the deeds and opinions of old Parson
Dunn, and gave an honored place in
their councils to his upright and straight-
forward granddaughter.

On this Friday morning she felt un-
commonly well and active, and had been
scurrying about her house ever since
she had waked, sweeping and dusting,
and putting things to rights generally.
She remembered her mother's saying
that all out-doors always seemed to try
to get under cover before cold weather,
and she angrily threw away the collec-
tions of dust and lint which she swept
up in one room after another. When
she had finished her own room she came
out, bringing the broom and dustpan and
duster all at once, and before she began
to get dinner she stood for a minute be-
fore the small glass in the case of the
kitchen clock. The big gingham hand-
kerchief was still tied over her head, to
keep the dust off, and she took a good
look at herself.

" You 're getting along in years, that 's
a fact, Lyddy Dunn," said she, good-
naturedly ; and then she sighed, and put
away the handkerchief in its drawer,
and went forward with some prepara-
tions for dinner.

The house in which she lived was one
that her grandfather had bought in his
last days, and in which his son had lived
after him. There was no village in
Walton, at least in that part of it, but
farm joined farm, and there was no
waste land. The main road of the town
traversed a long ridge from eud to end ;
the old church stood at the very top,
blown by all the winds of heaven, like a
ship on the high seas, and on the south-
ern slope, close at the road-side, was Miss
Dunn's house.

The front of it faced the south, and
the front door opened into a prim little
garden, where some sheltered hollyhocks
and chiua asters still lingered ; beyond
was an orchard, where many of the old
trees had died or been blown down, and

had been replaced by young ones. The
leaves were falling fast now, but noth-
ing held on better than the apple and
lilac-leaves, and these were growing
browner, and rustling louder when the
wind blew, day by day. Miss Dunn
was very fond of her house. The main
part of it had two rooms on each floor ;
but the lower roof of it, that covered the
big kitchen and down-stairs bedroom and
the great kitchen - chamber, was older
than the other, and was gambrel-shaped,
and had for its centre an enormous chim-
ney, that was, as it should be, the warm
heart of the house.

The outer kitchen door opened to the
road in a most hospitable fashion, and
some smooth gray flagstones, like a stray
bit of sidewalk, led along under the
kitchen windows as far as the front gate.
Miss Dunn suddenly bethought herself
to sweep these, and fetched her second-
best broom. There was a pleasant fra-
grance of faded leaves in the air ; the
sunshine was very warm, and the maple
leaves seemed to have fallen too soon on
the thick green grass, which still looked
as fresh as if it were June. In the low-
lands far below, there was a most lovely
blur and haze with the misty air and the
colors of the trees ; the sky was cloud-
less but a little dim, and the snowberry
bushes rustled so over the fence, in the
breeze that came past the corner of the
house, that our friend looked around at
them as if somebody had spoken. A
little stick, that was shaped like some
thin, twisted mockery of a human be-
ing, was lying against the kitchen door-
step, as if it had tried to climb in and
had failed ; and Lydia Dunn stooped to
pick it up, and perched it on the outside
window-sill, where it stood with one
foot crooked into the little staple to
which the blind was sometimes hooked,
and seemed to look into the kitchen
wistfully.

Miss Dunn smiled as she looked at it,
and had a feeling flit over her that some-
thing was going to happen ; there was

1883.]

A New Parishioner.

477

an uncanny look about the strange bit
of a lilac bush. She caught the sound
of an approaching footstep, and as quick
as one of the leaves that were flittering
about at her feet she went back into
the house again. She knew well enough
the familiar figure that was still some
distance away down the road, and was
sure that she was to have a visit. She
was much attached to Jonas Phipps,
and quite dependent on his assistance in
her housekeeping, but she always felt
a little antagonistic and on the off-side
of things when he first made his ap-
pearance.

" Of course he must put into port
here for his dinner, when I Ve had a
busy forenoon ! " she said angrily, and
began to change the kettles about on
the stove ; and she whisked the tea-ket-
tle over to the sink as if she were put-
ting it in jail for its sins, but it went on
singing cheerfully, as if it had a good
conscience.

Presently the latch clicked, and Mr.
Jonas Phipps came in at the door, clos-
ing it softly after him ; and as he felt
at once that unmistakable lack of wel-
come which was not unusual, he dropped
his hat on the floor beside the chair
he dropped himself into, and took a
long breath to show that he was much
fatigued. He was a lame man, and
there was something appealing about
him, as well as something indescribably
shrewd and quick, — the helplessness of
a wounded and hampered fox or other
cunning creature, that has not the phys-
ical strength to make the best use of its
instincts.

" There, do spudge up a little, Jonas,"
said Miss Lydia, moving to and fro
about the kitchen as fast as she could.
" You remind me of an old limp calico
bag that 's hung up against the wall, —
nothing to take out of it, and every
chance to put in."

Jonas brightened up at once, and sat
erect, as if his hostess had furnished him
with a backbone.

" You always have your joke," said
he, chuckling. " Ain't nothing I could
do for you to-day, I expect ? "

" I 'm about out of kindling wood,"
said Miss Dunn doubtfully. " I sup-
pose you know that as well as I do. I
thought you were going to get Otis's
boy to help you, and cut me up a good
lot of small wood some time this week.
You 'd better stop, now you 're here, —
though to-morrow will do just as well,
and you can come earlier in the fore-
noon."

" To-morrow and Monday — I 've got
to be off both them days," said Jonas,
not without pride. " You '11 have to take
me when you can git me, for once ; "
and putting on his much-battered hat he
shuffled toward the door that led out to
the woodshed. " Have you heard — I
spose you have — that Henry Stroud, old
Ben Stroud's oldest son, has come back,
and is stopping over to Whitehouse's
tavern ? He was over here driving about
yesterday afternoon, and he stopped to
have some talk with me. I had an er-
rand over Donnell's way to help him
get in his cabbages, but they 'd got them
all in before I got there. I thought it
was Thursday he wanted me, but when
I got there he said it was Wednesday ; "
and Jonas was silent, as if he wished
to respectfully give place to the scold-
ing Miss Dunn commonly furnished him
with at such confessions of his laziness.

But she merely laughed, and then
asked, " What 's he here for ? He
can't think that anybody is in distress
to see him."

" I don't know what he come for, un-
less he wanted to look round his old
haunts. He bespoke me to go up to his
father's place with him to set things to
rights in the burying lot. I told him I
was n't much of a hand for such things
now, 'count of my lameness, but I 'd do
what I could. He was real friendly and
free-spoken, and knowed me right away.
Him and me 's about of an age, — sixty-
two in the month of January next;"

478

A New Parishioner.

[April,

and Jonas went slowly out to the wood-
shed, and began to chop the large sticks
of pine into kindlings with leisurely
blows, as if there were no hurry about
either that or anything else.

" Well, I do declare ! " said Miss
Lydia Dunn. " I wonder what will hap-
pen next ! " She longed to question
Jonas further, but she did not ; and later,
when the soup that she had been warm-
ing for her own dinner was in readiness
to be eaten, she carried out a comfort-
able bowlful to him, and set it down
without a word.

" Now I call that real clever of ye,"
said Mr. Phipps. " I was just 'lowing
I 'd better be getting home to my din-
ner," — which was a great lie, since he
had been sniffing the fragrance of the
soup and expecting this provision eager-
ly for at least half an hour.

" I suppose Henry Stroud must have
aged a good deal ? " she asked, linger-
ing for a minute in the doorway.

" Not so much as you might sup-
pose, seeing he 's been gone thirty-five
years, — no, forty years it must be, or
rising forty. It was the fall after his fa-
ther died, and Henry was out of his time
the spring before. Well, he 's got the
ginooine Stroud looks ; he 's featured
for all the world like the old man. I
know it was forty years sence he died,
because that was the year we moved
over to the Ashby place, — fork of the
roads as you go to Knowles's mills. The
house is been gone this gre't while."

"There, your soup '11 all get cold,
Jonas," said Miss Dunn impatiently,
and at once retreated to the kitchen,
fearing that the accounts of the changes
of residence of the Phipps family might
otherwise be continued all the rest of
the afternoon. Jonas liked nothing bet-
ter than to tell long stories, involving
infinite ramblings and details, to any au-
dience he was able to muster.

That evening Miss Dunn stood look-
ing out of the window down the road,
noticing the lights in the houses. She

always had a fancy for sitting a while in
the twilight, after supper, which came
early at this time of year, when the days
were growing so short; and before she
lit her lamp she liked to take a survey
of the neighborhood and of the sky.
The stars were bright and the weather
was satisfactory, but from one of the
three houses which were in sight there
was an unusual radiance, and our friend
saw at once, to her surprise, that there
was a lamp in the best parlor. Nothing
could be more amazing than this, and
at first Miss Dunn thought that some
member of the family had gone into the
room on an errand, it being used as to
its closet for a treasure chamber.

" I hope that old Mr. Singer has n't
been taken with one of his bad ill turns,"
she said to herself, anxiously. " I
know they always keep some spirit in
that closet." But the light shone stead-
ily on, like a beacon, until there was no
room for doubt that the Singers had
company to tea.

At last Miss Dunn composed herself
to her evening's work of knitting and
reading together, and resolutely drew
and bolted the close shutters and lighted
the lamp. She was very fond of read-
ing, but there was only a small harvest
of books to be reaped in Walton, and
she was just then working her way
through a dull memoir of an injudicious
and unhappy man who had mistaken his
calling and tried to preach. The book
was written by some one who ought to
have profited by this sad example ; and
Miss Dunn, who knew a good book
when she saw it, but would usually rath-
er have a dull one than none at all, soon
read the less and knitted the more, until
the leaves of the volume fluttered up
unheeded, and she lost her place with-
out observing it. She really had too
much to think about, herself, to give her
mind to other people's thoughts. Her
excitements and pleasures were like the
pasturage that sheep find near the sea ;
like those delicious nibbles close to the

1883.]

A New Parishioner.

479

rocks, which have a flavor that no in-
land field can give to its plentiful grass
blades. Henry Stroud had come back.
He had once shown a great liking for
her, when they were boy and girl, which
she had disdained and her family disap-
proved. More than this, which was a
half-forgotten memory, at that very mo-
ment an unknown company was assem-
bled under her neighbor's roof. What
dismal tale of a life that had made its
failures through stupidity could wile her
mind from such diversions ? It was dif-
ficult to even guess at the reasons that
had led to Mr. Stroud's return. His his-
tory was little known to his old acquaint-
ances, except that at one time he had
been very rich in South America, and
had afterwards failed in his business.
And after saying to the subject of the
memoir that he was an old dromedary,
if ever there was one, Miss Lydia Dunn
gave herself up to reflection, until she
was so sleepy that she could hardly stum-
ble off to bed. The lights were not out
even then at the Singers'.

Early the next morning, Mary Ann
Singer came up the road with a little
pitcher to borrow some yeast, and Miss
Lydia gave her a cordial welcome.

" We 're sort of behindhand this fore-
noon," the visitor said, " for we had com-
pany last night."

" I noticed the best room was lighted
up," said Miss Dunn, with the full ex-
pectation of hearing all about it.

" You see, just before tea we saw a
buggy drive up, and a stranger come in
and asked to see the folks. I thought
he was an agent or something, but it was
a Mr. Stroud, who used to live here
when he was a boy. He has been most
all over the world, and he 's come back
to see the old place. I just wish you
could have heard him talk ; it was splen-
did. He says he don't know but he
may settle here, — for summers, at any
rate. His health 's broke down, being in
hot climates, and he said two or three
times he did n't mean to do any more

business. I guess he 's rich ; he looked
as if he had means. He inquired for you,
and said he was going to call and see
you."

" Much obliged to him," said Miss
Dunn grudgingly.

" He 's stopping over to Whitehouse's
tavern," said Mary Ann. " 1 never saw
anything better than the clothes he had
on, and everything about him spoke of
wealth. He said he had been to see the
minister, and he meant to do something
for the church, on account of his moth-
er's being a member."

" More 'n ever his father was," said
Miss Dunn. " I ain't going to say any-
thing 'gainst Henry Stroud without hav-
ing seen him these forty years ; but he
wa'n't much thought of as a young fel-
low, and his father cheated my poor old
grandfather out of about all he had, ex-
cept this place. I don't like the breed ;
but then, as I say, I ain't going to run
a man down I don't know."

" He seemed to be religious," said
Mary Ann, who was unwilling to have
the glory of her guest tarnished in this
way ; and Miss Dunn responded that re-
ligion ought to make some difference, if
it was the real kind ; after which young
and inexperienced Miss Singer went
away with the yeast, somewhat crest-
fallen.

" Guess they must be going to bake
Sunday, if they have n't got their bread
a-going yet," thought Miss Dunn. " I 'd
'a' put it to rise after he went off, last
night, if it had been me ; but I suppose
they were all so betwattled they did n't
know which end they was on. I should
think it would be a lesson to 'em to air
out that south setting-room once or twice
a month. Between being scared of the
dust in the summer and not using it af-
ter the cold weather come, the air don't
get changed three times a year. And
come to heat it up with an air-tight
stove ! "

The next day being Sunday, and the
weather being fair, there was an unusu-

480

A New Parishioner.

[April,

ally large congregation in the church ;
and the news of the stranger's coming
having flown far and wide, all eyes were
ready to follow him, as he walked up
the aisle behind the minister to the par-
sonage pew. The minister's wife be-
trayed a consciousness of being in unac-
customed society ; and when the guest
and the parson both waited to usher her
into the pew, it was most annoying to
stumble and almost fall over the crick-
ets, on the way to her seat. Her face
was very red, as she picked herself up,
and even the children all looked that
way as they heard the loud and sudden
noise.

Mr. Stroud listened intently to the
sermon. He was a good-looking man,
but he had a difficulty in looking you
straight in the eyes, and he was dressed
in a way that his former townspeople
could not fail to admire. And when
the service was over, and the Sunday-
school was assembled, Mr. Peckham, the
minister, called upon Brother Stroud
to lead in prayer ; and Brother Stroud
prayed long and eloquently, greatly to
the approval of his hearers. It was re-
ally very pleasant to find that a man
so distinguished in his appearance had
so good a memory for his old friends.
He seemed to remember everybody who
remembered him, and was always ready
to remind his old acquaintances of things
that had happened before he went away,
while he spoke of the departed members
of the parish to their living connections
with much interest and sympathy. On
that first Sunday there was a great loi-
tering about and hand-shaking ; in fact,
there was not the usual hurry to get the
horses unfastened and to start for home.
Miss Dunn said to herself often, in those
first days, that she could understand
the young folks running after him, but
she should think the old ones, that had
known him root and branch, would rath-
er wait a while. She could not explain
even to herself the feeling of antipathy
that rushed over her at the first sight of

him. She grudged all the deference and
civilities that were shown him, and yet
she was obliged to acknowledge that he
deserved consideration, and that he was
fine-looking and had a good manner, —
" a way with him," most of the people
said. He seemed disposed to be very
friendly and generous. The young peo>
pie admired him a good deal, and from
the very first he received great attention
and hospitality. *

Mr. Peckham was more delighted with
this new parishioner than any one else,
for he saw in him the promise of help
for some of his cherished projects. His
predecessor had been an old-school par-
son, preaching sound and harmless ser-
mons twice on every Sunday ; exchang-
ing with his brother ministers with due
regularity and suitable infrequency. Old
Mr. Duncan had been much loved and
respected. The joys and sorrows of his
congregation rarely were disconnected
from him ; for he was a cheerful soul,
most fatherly and kind, and was not
instinctively set aside entirely to the
performance of ecclesiastical rites and
ceremonies. Under his care the church
and parish existed in a most comfort-
able fashion, and the average of things
was kept up year after year. It was
somewhat of a shock to the parishion-
ers to find that Mr. Peckham consid-
ered all these years unfruitful, and the
revival which followed his teachings, or
led them, in the first winter of his set-
tlement, seemed to cast blame, by con-
trast, on the orderly progress of the
former additions to the church member-
ship. Mr. Peckham was an earnest, ex-
citable, self-denying little man, though
his self-denials were often in further-
ance of his own selfish ends. He was
ambitious and ascetic, and he was apt
to be dyspeptic and low in his mind,
which he and his parishioners occasion-
ally mistook for anxiety and discour-
agement over the wickedness and willful-
ness of this world in general. He liked
to have a good deal going on, though

1883.]

A New Parishioner.

481

he bewailed the exhaustive nature of a
clergyman's work ; and just now he was
trying hard to get the people of his par-
ish to build a vestry, or small chapel-
like building, for the benefit of the Sun-
day-school and of evening meetings.

But the slow old farmers were not
disposed to move in a hurry. They were
too tired and sleepy to go to any meet-
ings after dark, especially when they
lived far from the church, as most of
them did; and unless there was some-
thing that really promised a sufficient
reward of excitement and interest, they
held their evening meetings at home.
They had an unexpressed conviction
that the large attendance at the revival
meetings of the winter before could not
be expected to last, though Mr. Peck-
ham were never so eloquent. One old
man, who was rarely absent from his
pew on Sundays, from one end of the
year to the other, said impressively to
his neighbor, as they unfastened their
horses from the long, well-gnawed hitch-
ing-rail at the back of the church, " I
don't see, Silas, why there 's any need
we should build a second-sized meetin'-
house, for the good o' the six or eight
women folks who goes reg'lar to the
evening meetin's. There 's double the
expense for heatin' the two buildiu's
every Sunday, and long 's they always
had the Sabbath-school in the meetiu'-
house, I don't see why they can't con-
tinue," — which was very old-fogyish
doctrine to the minds of some young
people, and particularly to the mind of
Mr. Peckham.

Sometimes the minister had felt him-
self to be unappreciated and mistaken,
because his people balked like unruly
horses, and would not follow him in the
carrying out of his cherished plans, and
so he welcomed this sympathetic and
apparently rich stranger with open arms.
He could not resist saying that it was
sometimes hard for a man who had had
a wider outlook over the world to suit
himself to the limited ideas of a coun-

VOL. LI. — NO. 306. 31

try parish. If the truth were known,
he had been born and brought up in
much the same sort of a community;
but he had been a fly on the wheel of a
large theological school, and imagined
himself to be the possessor of a far
greater knowledge of the world and of
human nature than is apt to fall to the
lot of most men, especially clergymen.
It is a strange fact that the training
of that profession aims so seldom at a
practical acquaintance and understand-
ing with the fellow-creatures whom it is
empowered to direct and advise. The
theories which are laid down in books
are often as dangerous for the clergy-
man to follow as for the physician.

Mr. Stroud had accepted an invita-
tion to spend a few days at the parson-
age, and that evening he opened his
heart to the minister in a gratifying
way, and spoke freely of his aims and
projects.

" I have been a busy man until this
last summer," he said ; '• but I have had
a serious illness, and my physicians or-
dered me to free myself from all busi-
ness cares. As I have told you, I am
alone in the world ; and having to leave
New Orleans for a colder climate, I did
not know at first which way to turn. I
have always had an inclination to re-
turn to my boyhood's home, if merely
to pay a visit to the hills and fields, and
I must confess that I was quite unpre-
pared for the affection that overcame
me at the sight of the old places and
faces. I do not think that I have much
time to live, and I have made up my
mind to stay here and make it my home
for the present, at any rate. I have had
an eventful life, and the repose of such
a place as this is eminently soothing. I
am much touched by the interest that
my coming seems to have aroused, and
I shall take pleasure in trying to prove
myself a friend to these good neighbors,
and a worthy member of your church
and parish."

There was a good deal of dignity

482

A New Parishioner.

about Mr. Strond, and a deep tone of
humility and pathos when he spoke of
his loneliness, and of his almost ended
life, and his desire to make the most of
his last days, which almost overcame
the little minister, and he grasped his
new parishioner's hand.

" I foresee a strong helper in you, my
dear sir," he said softly, " in the good
work I am trying to do. I hope you
will command my services as pastor and
friend." And a league was formed be-
tween them.

As the autumn days went on, Mr.
Stroud became a familiar sight, as he
drove or walked slowly along the coun-
try roads. His expedition with Jonas
Phipps to the family burying-ground on
the old Stroud farm had resulted in his
spending much money in the fencing
and grading of it, and the broken and
fallen stones were replaced or put to
rights carefully. It happened that the
present owners of the farm had built a
new house, and were living more com-
fortably than most people in Walton,
and the arrangement was made that Mr.
Stroud should go there to board. Mrs.
West, the farmer's wife, was much court-
ed and questioned by her acquaintances ;
and being a somewhat sentimental soul,
as well as a lover of a good story, she
had many an interesting fact to commu-
nicate. All the neighbors knew how
many newspapers Mr. Stroud took, and
how many letters he had to answer ;
what beautiful shirts he wore, and how
he gave next to no trouble, and hardly
ever could bear to speak of his wife,
and that he liked a dinner of boiled fowls
better than most anything, and every
day went down to the burying lot, as if
it were all he had in the world. In so-
ciety he was a very agreeable man ; he
talked well, though he was rather pom-
pous, and it became the fashion to defer
to him upon any questions of the out-
side world's affairs.

Everybody followed this leader but

[April,

Miss Lydia Dunn. Strange to say, she
liked him less and less ; she was preju-
diced to an unwarrantable degree. It
made no difference to her that he made
long and eloquent prayers ; that he was
going to give a new library to the Sun-
day-school, and had spoken of her as
the proper person to select it in com-
pany with the minister. He had called
upon her within a week or two of his
arrival in town, and from the minute
she gave him the first steady look out
of her sharp-sighted eyes, and he turned
away, a little embarrassed, to admire the
view from the windows, she would join
in none of the praise of him with which
the air was filled, and listened to the
petty gossip about his acts and affairs
with an ill-concealed impatience. She
doubted him, she did not know why.
She reproached herself, and fought the
feeling she had toward him most bitter-
ly at first ; but it was of no use. She
feared that the townspeople thought
she cherished the old grudge against
the name, and hated him for his father's
sins ; but dislike and distrust him she
certainly did, and she could not deceive
other people or herself.

It is unnecessary to say that she was
in the minority, for all Walton treated
him like a king. His money seemed to
be at everybody's service, when it suited
his pleasure to hear the hints with which
his ears were filled. He helped one
farmer to lift a mortgage, with which
the recklessness of a dissipated son had
burdened him ; he visited more than
one poor old soul, and left a bank-note
in her hand when he said good-by. He
found a cousin of his mother living alone,
very feeble and poor, in a dilapidated
house in a distant part of the town; and
he had the house repaired, and hired a
strong young woman to take care of
things, with the assurance that he would
be responsible for all bills. He came
forward liberally with his subscription
to every good work that was undertaken,
whether religious or secular, and people

1883.]

began to wonder how Walton had ever
got on without him.

The announcement of his crowning
piece of generosity came just before
Thanksgiving. Jonas Phipps, whom
Miss Lydia Dunn had carefully engaged
to come early on the Monday morning
to aid her in the severer duties of house-
keeping, came loitering down the hill
about eleven o'clock, as if nobody in the
world were in the least hurry. Miss
Lydia had been in a blazing rage with
him for at least three hours, and received
him in ominous silence; but he sat down,
and dropped his hat beside him, and be-
gan to rub his lame leg diligently.

*' I do' know 's I 'm going to be good
for anything this winter," he whined
dolefully ; and Miss Dunn snapped him
up with exceeding promptness : —

" Folks would be astonished if you
was ! "

" I hoped you would n't lay it up
against me for my being late this morn-
ing," he apologized. " I should ha' got
here before eight, but they hailed me
from the parsonage. Mr. Stroud, he
was there a'ready, and they said they
were going to run the lines for the new
vestry as soon as the men come from
Walpole."

" What new vestry ? " asked Miss
Lydb, coming out from the pantry with
a dish !n her hand, ready to forget all
private grievances in hearing this inter-
esting news.

" Then you ain't heard that Mr. Stroud
is going to build one ? Well, I was only
acquainted with the facts this morning.
I found I could be o' some use, and I
s'posed you would n't be very particular
about having of me round until you
were about through with the washing."

" Don't you know I never wash the
Monday of Thanksgiving week ? " and
Miss Dunn stood ready again to fight
her own battles. " You know just as
well as I do that I wanted you here
early, and now I 've been so put back in
my work that I 'm ready to say I don't

A New Parishioner.

483

want you to show yourself inside my
doors again. I can't be so bothered and
fretted. You're worse than ever you
were, and there 's no disguising it."

Jonas gave a heavy sigh. " It 's go-
ing to be a real ornamental building, I
heard some of 'em say. It '11 set in the
far corner of the lot, between them two
balm-o'-Gilead trees. Mr. Stroud was
saying he should have liked to get into
it this winter, but winter plastering is
always a-cracking. They 're going to
haul the stone for the foundation from
Beckett's quarry, and they '11 do that
right off. They '11 be getting jealous
of us over to Raynham. Gives like
a prince, don't hie ? I tell you, we 're
awful fortunate to have such a man
come among us. Mis' Peckham was
saying yesterday, when I was over to
the parsonage, that he 'd give some kind
of a hint to the minister about a new
communion service."

" The old one 's good enough," barked
Miss Dunn. " I ain't one that wants to
do away with all the old associations.
And, for my part, I don't like to see
anybody too good. My father always
used to say, ' When you see anybody too
good, look out for 'em.' I don't know
anything against Henry Stroud, but he
ain't got the mean Stroud look out of
his face, if he has got rich and pious."

" I thought 't was right to go accordin'
to Scriptur' ; ' By their works ye shall
know 'em,' " Jonas suggested with con-
siderable spirit ; but he was doomed to
have his loyalty quenched, for Miss
Dunn retorted that he had better be med-
itating on that verse for his own good.

" But I ought to be ashamed of twit-
ting you or throwing disrepute on any-
body," said the good woman. " And I
tell you honest, Jonas, I wish I had a
more Christian feeling about that man.
I know folks says it 's jealousy, and that
I ain't able to forget his father's cheating
my grandfather ; but if I 'd liked him,
and believed he was a straightforward
man, I never would have thought of

484

A New Parishioner.

[April,

keeping any old grievances. There ain't
any of us but has lived down some of
our old sius we 're ashamed to think of
now, and it 's fair to look at a man as
he is, and not go raking up old matters.
It seems to me as if he was kiiid of buy-
ing his way into heaven out of his pock-
et, and as if he liked to be king of his
company, and the big man of the place,
now he 's come back to it. I don't like
the looks of him ; but as for the good he
does, that '11 stay after him."

"You always do have good judg-
ment," said Jonas. " I can't say I got
the measure of him the first time I see
him. He had a kind of meaching cast
o' countenance, though you can't tell by
the looks of a toad how far he '11 jump.
But when you come to see how he
spends his money right and left, and the
good he does with it, and hear how he
leads in prayer, I don't see how anybody
can speak agin him. Miss Singer said
it fetched the tears right out o' her eyes
to hear him lamenting his sins as he
does in the evening meeting, as if he
was the wickedest man there."

" Perhaps he's only telling the truth,"
said Miss Dunn, and Jonas rose in in-
dignation.

" I don't see how you can talk so on-
Christian ! " he said. " But there," he
added, in a milder tone, " we all have
our feeliu's about such things, and I
do' know but what it 's as well to be
honest about 'em." Jonas could not
help being mindful of Miss Dunn's
kindness and generosity and patience,
which had lasted year in and year out ;
for his slender fortunes would be slender-
er still without her assistance. He and
his mother, a very old and almost help-
less woman, lived in a house that was
one of the most ancient and shiftlessly
kept of any in that region, and Jonas
hardly ever descended the hill toward
it from Miss Dunn's without some plate
or basket of food, or other help to the
housekeeping. Beside this lame man
and the woman of nearly ninety years,

there was a little orphan niece of Jonas's,
who was growing up under that cheer-
less roof. There were so few really
poor people in Walton that great capital
was made of these ; and the sewing so-
ciety sewed for them, and the church, of
which old Mrs. Phipps had been a some-
what unsatisfactory member, paid their
rent, and some bills beside. Miss Dunn
did not believe in making dependents
and paupers of them. She insisted that
people should work when they could,
and be paid for it, and unless Jonas
rendered her some service she had noth-
ing to give him, though he hung round
despairingly, and rubbed his knee with
no end of devotion and apparent dis-
traction of pain.

As the cold weather came on, it was
told sadly from one parishioner to an-
other that Mr. Stroud's health was fail-
ing, and he really did look feeble and
old. The people with whom he made
his home gave dismal accounts of his
sufferings from bad attacks of pain, and
every Sunday, when he took his seat in
church, pitying eyes followed him. The
stories of his generosities still went on.
He met the Phipps child going home
from school, one November day, and took
her into his wagon and drove her to the
Walton store, where he bought her a
hood and mittens, and some clotn for a
dress, and a big shawl, which never could
be folded small enough for her, or so
that the corner of it would not trail on
the ground and gather little sticks. He
gave the minister an encyclopedia and
a new winter overcoat, and the Sunday-
school library was promised, and was to
be Mr. Stroud's Christmas present to
the Sunday-school. The old deacons,
who had been for many years chief au-
thorities in parish matters, — without
whose slow consent nothing had hereto-
fore been done, — found themselves ig-
nored and completely set aside. Every-
thing was to be done as Mr. Stroud and
the minister saw fit. The deacons, no

1883.]

A New Parishioner.

485

doubt, felt a certain sorrow at their deg-
radation, but they could only swim with
the stream, and express their thankful-
ness for the zeal of the brother who had
come among them.

Everybody drifted with this current
but Miss Dunn, and at last her antago-
nistic feeling became a cause of great
sorrow to her. She searched her heart '
for the sin of envy and malice, but with
all her prayer and penance she could
cultivate no better charity toward her
neighbor. It was curious that, in spite
of wind and rain, the crooked little twig
still clung to her kitchen window-sill,
and looked in at her every morning as
she opened the shutter. It seemed as
if it held a dwarfed and wretched soul
within its ragged bark ; and our friend
connected it in her thoughts, she could
not tell why, with the stranger and his
coming. She felt that she ought to be
charitable, and that it was wicked to hate
without cause ; but Mr. Stroud was still
outside the pale of her affections, and
the lilac twig that looked like a man
still clung outside the window, in the
cold. She could not throw it away, but
she wished every morning that it might
have blown away in the night, and so
have freed her from its haunting un-
pleasantness. She had not believed be-
fore that she was superstitious, and al-
together this was a troubled time in her
life ; but the days grew shorter and
shorter, the stones for the foundation
of the vestry went crawling up the long
hill, load after load, and she filled her
cellar fuller of provisions than ever, and
set her face resolutely toward getting
through with another long, hard Walton
winter.

It was curious that Mr. Stroud seemed
eager to be friendly with Miss Dunn.
He treated her with great respect and
deference, and appeared to take no no-
tice of her abrupt and slighting manner
toward him, though many of the lookers-
on accused her of disgraceful rudeness.
She said to herself many times that she

would treat him civilly ; but she did not
always succeed, and she became con-
scious that the new parishioner was anx-
ious to gain her good will, in spite of it.
His manner toward her was called long-
suffering and really Christian by his ad-
mirers ; and, if the truth must be told,
Miss Dunn became unpopular with her
neighbors, and felt herself to be alone
on the losing side, a most unhappy mi-
nority of one. She would not have be-
lieved that some of the people who had
always been her friends could have
thrown off the old ties so easily ; and it
hurt her pride not a little, for she had
always been a person of great conse-
quence and influence, and had been
faithful and dutiful to the very utmost.
She was often slighted and set aside,
in these autumn days, and her opinions
were seldom sought or listened to. She
would have been more than human if
she had not remembered how well she
had served her towns-folk in their hours
of need, and had carried a kind heart
and ready hand to help in their days of
pleasuring, year after year. She felt
very sorry when the thought came to
her that her friends were suspecting her
of jealousy.

Mr. Stroud had been very friendly
and talkative when he had called upon
Miss Dunn, soon after he came to Wal-
ton, and she had received him with more
show of interest than she was able to
muster afterward. He did not repeat
the visit until one afternoon in the mid-
dle of December, when, with much sur-
prise, she saw him drive up to the fence,
and after fastening his horse, cover him
up carefully, as if he meant to make a
long call. Luckily the sitting-room was
well warmed already from the kitchen,
and Miss Lydia had time to touch a
match to the pine-cone kindlings of the
fire that was laid in the Franklin stove ;
and by the time she had somewhat stiffly
ushered in her guest, he could have
thought the fire was already half an
hour old.

486

A New Parishioner.

[April,

They talked about the weather, and
how the snow kept off, and about an
old person in the neighborhood who
was near death, and with whom Miss
Dunn had been watching ; and at last
there fell an awkward silence, and the
longer it continued the harder it became
to say anything.

" I have been much pained at discov-
ering that my father was much in fault
toward your family," said Mr. Stroud
at last, with a good deal of effort. " I
wish I had known it sooner ; but you
will easily understand that, leaving home
early in life as I did, and forming new
associations, I knew nothing of it. I
am anxious now to make restitution. I
should have done so years ago if I had
known. I cannot say how deeply I re-
gret the disgrace " — and the visitor
looked pained and troubled ; and as he
seemed to feel so keenly the shadow
that rested on his name, Miss Dunn's
kind heart came to his rescue.

" I should let bygones be bygones, if
I was you," she said. " And your moth-
er, you know, was a most excellent wom-
an ; as good a neighbor as there was in
Walton. Yes, your father got my grand-
father to sign for him, and made prom-
ises to him that he knew was lies. It
was very hard on the poor old gentle-
man, but I don't put it down against
you, and I don't want you to think
there 's any account between us. I 've
got enough to carry me through, unless
something extra should happen. You
've been doing for the good of the par-
ish, and so we '11 say no more about it."

But Mr. Stroud met this generous
speech — generous in other ways than
in its refusal of the payment of a debt
— in a cold-hearted way.

" You are very kind," he said, " but I
shall insist upon paying you the amount
of the principal, — the original sum that
your grandfather lost. I should be glad
to include the interest also, but I fear I
am not able at this time, without impair-
ing some good work that I have hoped

to do " — he was about to add " in oth-
er directions," but checked himself in
time. " I will make restitution to you
so far as I can," and the visitor leaned
his head on his hand, and gave a heavy
sigh. It was very still in the little sit-
ting-room ; the fire had passed the ardor
of its youth, and the pine-cones and
crow-sticks having snapped and crackled
away up the chimney, the sound wal-
nut and maple sticks were now burning
lazily but steadily. The picture of old
Parson Dunn looked down solemnly
from the wall, and for a minute his
granddaughter felt inadequate to the
occasion.

" If it is to satisfy your own feelings
and conscience," she said at last, " I
shall put no bar in your way ; but I see
no use in it and no need of it. I will
tell people that you offered to do it, and
that I refused to take it, and " —

" I care nothing for the praise of
men." The guest flushed, and was some-
what nettled at this, and Miss Lydia
felt that she had spoken unkindly in her
frankness. She did not know how to
soften her speech, and said nothing;
wishing more and more that Mr. Stroud
would end this quixotic business call,
and go away.

She took a good look at him, and was
shocked to see how much he was changed
and how ill he looked. Her long expe-
rience in taking care of sick people had
made her eyes quick to see the signs of
disease, and she felt a thrill of pity for
him and shame for her own uncharita-
bleuess, and spoke again, more kindly
than before : —

" I want you should let bygones be
bygones, Mr. Stroud."

" You are most considerate," he an-
swered ; " but I came prepared to give
you my note for the six thousand dollars,
with six per cent, interest from date.
If I am living, I will pay it within a
year ; if not, you will look to my execu-
tors ; " and with a most impressive and
solemn manner he drew a folded paper

1883.]

A New Parishioner.

487

from his pocket. Miss Dunn looked at
him and looked at the paper ; she did
not know whether to laugh or cry.

She urged him to stay to tea, when,
after a few minutes, he rose from his
chair and made ready to go. He looked
about the room, and appeared to be
struck by its old-fashioned comfort and
warm, plain snugness. "You have a
most enviable home," he said, in a way
that instantly suggested his being only
a boarder in Walton, and a sick man at
that. Miss Dunn stood by the kitchen
window, and watched him climb, with
a good deal of effort, into his carriage,
and afterward watched the wagon far
down the hill and out of sight. Then
she sat down, and looked at the note
which she had been holding fast in her
hand. " Lord forgive me for my wick-
edness," she said, " but I can't like that
man, and I never want to touch his mon-
ey." She went into the front room,
and laid the bit of paper on the table,
and sat down again and looked at it.
" He lied when he said he did n't know
about it," she told herself indignantly.
" He was a boy of sixteen or seventeen
when it happened, and nobody talked
of anything else." But she thought for
the hundredth time that if he were a
cheat, somebody ought to have distrust-
ed him beside herself ; and after all,
what had he done but good since he
came to Walton ?

For the next day or two it must be
confessed that Miss Dunn's heart was
greatly softened toward the new parish^
ioner. She thought of him a great deal,
as she went about her work, and she
kept herself awake nearly the whole of
one night, — a thing which seldom hap-
pened in connection with her own af-
fairs, though she had lost many a night's
rest in the interest of other people. She
said to herself over and over again that
she had no right to sit in judgment, and
that she was simply finding fault with
the man for being himself and doing
things in his own way, ^ I might as

well blame the cat because she is n't
a dog," she told herself. " I ought to
wait, any way, until Henry Stroud does
one piece of mischief here in Walton."
And little by little, in spite of her in-
stinct, which continued its quiet warn-
ing, she persuaded herself first into tol-
eration, and then into pity and interest.
For would not she be very well off as
to money, since this late repayment of
a debt had changed her carefully man-
aged provision into a comfortable prop-
erty, and was not Henry Stroud the
cause of the difference ? She had been
richer than many of her neighbors, but
she had often been anxious lest the end
of the year might find her in debt ; and
the off-years of the apple orchard and
the drouth that lessened her hay-crop
forced her to self-denials and economies
most trying to her generous nature.
Then the thought of the man's illness
and failing health would haunt her, and
she wished she had a chance to suggest
some simple remedies that would be like-
ly to make him more comfortable. His
loneliness appealed to her sympathy,
for she knew the hardships of it only
too well, though the fact remained that
nothing had ever tempted her to invite
another solitary woman to share her
home.

On the second day, while the note
still lay untouched on the sitting-room
table, and when she felt more shaken
and tired than was usual with her, even
at her busiest seasons, she stood late in
the morning at the kitchen door. The
day was uncommonly mild for the sea-
son, and the house had seemed a lit-
tle lonely. For a wonder, none of the
neighbors had been in ; not even Jonas
Phipps had strayed along ; and she had
not spoken to any one all the day be-
fore, indeed, since she had parted from
Mr. Stroud himself. She leaned against
the door, and looked up and down the
road. She would really have liked to see
somebody coming, with whom she could
exchange greetings ; but nobody was in

488

A New Parishioner.

sight, up the hill or down, and she gave
a little sigh, and then bestowed her at-
tention upon the bits of leaves and lit-
tle sticks that the wind of the night be-
fore had swept off the grass to the flag-
stones, and had piled against the door-
step. She thought it looked untidy, and
briskly went in again to get her broom
with which to set the disorders to rights.
It was time to take something out of the
oven, and this made a little delay ; and
when she returned to the outer world
she saw a wagon approaching, and saw
also that its driver was Mr. Stroud.

Her first impulse was to dart back
into the kitchen, but it was quite too late
for that, and she returned the saluta-
tion with considerable friendliness. Mr.
Stroud half checked his horse, and there
was a moment of awkwardness, which
Miss Dunn ended by speaking in flat-
tering terms of the weather.

" Won't you get out and come in ? "
she asked, being possessed by a sense of
great obligation ; and added, " I 've just
taken a pan of gingerbread out of the
oven ; perhaps you would relish a piece.
It 's what my grandmother used to call
betwixt hay and grass, as to dinner and
breakfast."

Mr. Stroud seemed pleased by this
unwonted show of hospitality, and turned
his horse toward the hitching-post at
once, while his hostess' heart misgave
her at the thought of her fireless sitting-
room, and the litter of pans and dishes
that possessed the kitchen table. But
her guest appeared unconscious of any
lack of dignity in his reception, and took
the rocking-chair by the front window,
and proceeded to eat two large pieces of
the hot gingerbread, that must have se-
riously impaired his appetite for dinner.
He looked entirely out of place in the
kitchen, however, and made Miss Dunn
somewhat uncomfortable ; it would have
suited her much better if she could have
asked him into the sitting-room, but,
contrary to her usual custom, she had
kept the door shut all the morning.

[April,

They talked about nothing that was
very interesting, with a good deal of
earnestness. Miss Dunn had a little
feeling of embarrassment, which was
doubled when Mr. Stroud, after having
declined further supplies of gingerbread,
said in a pointed way, " I have enjoyed
thinking of my visit here the day before
yesterday."

" I 'm sure I was pleased to see you,"
untruthfully responded Miss Lydia.

" I think you have a very pleasant
home ; it is a thing for which we cannot
be too grateful to a kind Providence,"
and he sighed heavily.

Miss Dunn had been afraid that he
would make some allusion to the note
for six thousand dollars, and showed her
gratitude at being spared that by say-
ing, " How is your health, Mr. Stroud ?
Seems to me you have picked up a lit-
tle."

But Mr. Stroud sighed again, and
shook his head sadly. u I don't seem to
have gained," he said.

" 1 know of some excellent teas for
your complaints," she suggested. " Folks
laugh nowadays at some o' the old-fash-
ioned remedies, but I must say I like
'em as well as any. I don't think they
've had their day yet."

" I should be very grateful for help,"
said the guest, " and I wish I could thank
you for your sympathy ; " and he gave
her a look that said so much that it set
Miss Lydia's heart into a great flutter;
but the next minute she flushed, and was
angry with herself for being such a fool,
and the old feeling of dislike and dis-
trust crept over her, surely and sud-
denly.

If Jonas Phipps had been the angel
Gabriel, she could not have been more
grateful to him for his friendship and
assistance in paying her a morning visit
at that particular moment, and she of-
fered him the plate of gingerbread with
a feeling of real affection.

Jonas selected the largest piece, and
disappeared through the woodshed door,

1883.]

A New Parishioner.

489

by which he had entered ; and Mr. Stroud
also took his departure, after making
some further expressions of his grati-
tude. Miss Dunn's brain was in a whirl,
but she sought Jonas, and offered him
rebuke after rebuke, until he left some
long-neglected wood-splitting in self-de-
fense, and went limping away with a
piece of board and two stakes and the
axe, to mend a broken place in the far
corner of the orchard fence ; and there
he dwelt in unmolested safety until din-
ner-time.

That afternoon Miss Dunn went out
on an errand of mercy to an invalid
neighbor, who lived a mile or two away,
and did not allow herself to think about
her own affairs in peace until she sat
down alone, after supper. Then there
was nothing else to be done, and she
began to feel very much upset. There
was an unmistakable meaning and in-
tention quite separate from any words
that Mr. Stroud had said to her that
morning, and she was both angry and
pleased together. She could not fight
down the certainty that she was no
longer young, and that she was quite
alone in the world ; that it would be a
blessed thing to have some one near her
who loved her dearly and would take
care of her. It would make life a great
deal more interesting if she were doing
her round of every-day work for some-
body else's sake, as well as her own. It
would -be a great victory won from cer-
tain members of the parish, also single
women, if she became the wife of Mr.
Stroud ; and she was not without ambi-
tion. But, on the other hand, though
he was the greatest man in Walton, he
was still a Stroud ; and she smiled grim-
ly as she thought that some of her own
ancestors would be disturbed in their
graves at the thought of her marrying
one of that family. And it was a doubt-
ful question whether she was wise in
undertaking the care of a sick man ; for,
in spite of her skill in nursing, he might
not be going to spend much more time

in this world. At last she rose impa-
tiently, and marched off to bed, and said
to herself the last thing before she went
to sleep, " I guess I 'd better wait until
I 've heard more about it, before I begin
to worry myself ; but he need n't think
I'm going to run after him the way
some folks have."

She was almost ashamed when she
found herself thinking about the new
parishioner the first thing in the morn-
ing, and called herself an old fool ; but
there was, after all, satisfaction in the
thought of his admiration of her ginger-
bread, and she recalled some ignominious
failure that Mrs. West, his present host-
ess, had made in the cake line at a par-
ish supper, not long before, and she won-
dered if the poor man were often treated
to such cooking as that. She went into
the front room and took up the bit of
paper which he had given her, and
smoothed it out, and looked at the clerk-
ish, regular writing with interest. " I
dare say he would have to go to New
York arid round on business," she told
herself, and then thought with awe and
satisfaction of his wealth. " I always
did think I should like traveling," she
said ; and then was so angry with her-
self, that if Jonas had appeared at that
moment it would have fared cruelly hard
with him.

But a little later in the day the tide
of her feeling turned, for Jonas came
bravely in to offer his congratulations
for her good fortune. Miss Dunn had
not spoken of Mr. Stroud's repayment
of the old debt to any one. She had
known that it would be right and just,
and had been girding up her strength to
the fray. Somebody else had been be-
fore her, and it must have been none
other than her benefactor himself. It
will easily be imagined how the story
of this great piece of generosity flew
from house to house, and Jonas said that
everybody knew of it all over town, in
answer to Miss Lydia's startled inquiry.
This spoilt everything, and the new

490

A New Parishioner.

[April,

growth of interest was crashed, and the
world was seen to be the same world as
before, only more in shadow than ever,
and our friend hardly knew why she
was so provoked and disappointed. She
said to herself that it was no use to go
against your nature, and she knew what
sort of a man he was the first time she
set eyes on him ; if other folks did n't,
the worst was their own. But she went
about the house drearily, and Jonas, who
was promptly dismissed, though he was
sure she wished him to fill a certain wa-
ter hogshead from the orchard spring,
reported at the next neighbor's that
Miss Lyddy was taking her prosperity
dreadful hard. For his part, he won-
dered whether she was kind of mortified,
or whether she was scared to stay alone
with so much money in the house.

It was a great relief on the next day,
which was Sunday, that there was so
deep a fall of snow that even so con-
stant and devoted a church-goer as our
heroine was obliged to stay at home.
Though she was glad of this excuse
from facing her accusing neighbors, they
felt it to be a loss of entertainment; and
perhaps it was for the satisfaction of
these deferred hopes of seeing her come
into church that the Wednesday evening
meeting was uncommonly well attend-
ed. It was a clear, bright night, and the
Sunday's snow was trodden into capital
sleighing, and as good walking as can
ever be in country roads. ' It was a long
while since the moon had had to light
so many Walton people to the Wednes-
day meeting, and it was for anything
but to say their prayers together.

The new parishioner sat in his accus-
tomed seat near the pulpit, and Miss
Dunn sat in her old family pew, which
was on the side and faced the congrega-
tion. She would not have sat anywhere
else for untold gold, and she made so
much effort to look unconcerned that
her cheeks were red with excitement,
and her hands shook when she held the
hymn-book. Mr, Peckham spoke with

great feeling of his pleasure at meet-
ing so large a congregation, and Mr.
Stroud prayed, and two women made an
ostentatious use of their pocket-hand-
kerchiefs for several minutes afterward.
The old deacons followed in their turn,
the hymns were sung, and the meeting
was possessed of a good deal more fer-
vor than usual. Mr. Peckham had read
a few verses from the book of the Rev-
elation, and was explaining them ear-
nestly. Miss Dunn had felt as if this
meeting were to be in some way per-
sonal and condemnatory of herself ; but
as the hour went on she quite recovered
her self-possession, and the horrors of
her position as regarded Walton society
became much less.

At the last of the evening, while Mr.
Stroud himself was speaking, she heard
the door of the church open, and look-
ing around she saw two men come quick-
ly in and seat themselves in the pew
nearest the door. From her own pew
at the side of the church she could look
up and down the aisle, and she saw these
strangers give a little nod at each other,
and look amused as they listened to the
speaker. She loitered in her pew for a
few minutes after the meeting was over,
as was her habit, and spoke to one and
another of her friends as usual. She
had a great anxiety not to do anything
uncommon, and when she was half-way
down the aisle she felt herself to have
regained her equilibrium. Old Mrs.
Bangs, who was waiting by the stove
for the deacon to get his horse ready,
and bring him round from the rail to the
church door, caught at her sleeve as she
went by, and after speaking about the
meeting and some general matters added
bluntly, " Well Lyddy, you can't say
anything against Mr. Stroud, now. I *m
sure he has done handsome by you."

" I 've never meant to say anything
against him," answered Miss Dunn ; " but
I think he was foolish to do what he has.
I tried to persuade him out of it, I 'm
sure." And just at this moment Mr.

1883.]

A New Parishioner.

491

Stroud and the minister came by, and
Miss Dunn, who had for a few moments
forgotten the two strangers, noticed just
then that they were still in the pew next
the door.

One of them stepped forward and
spoke to Mr. Stroud, who looked dis-
turbed and shocked. He leaned back
against the pew, and acted as if he we're
much in despair. The two men watched
him, and seemed to be waiting, and it
was only a minute before he turned to
Mr. Peckham, and said, — Miss Dunn
being so near that she heard every word,
— "I find I must take a long, cold jour-
ney to-night. My presence is needed
in New York, and I must go at once to
catch the train at Walpole."

Mr. Peckham expressed his sorrow
for this, his friend being so feeble and
sensitive to cold. He said a good deal
in trying to urge him to wait until morn-
ing ; but after one look at the grim mes-
sengers, Mr. Stroud politely waived the
arguments, and buttoned up his overcoat
and went out into the moonlight night.
One of the strangers got into the sleigh
with him, and the other followed alone ;
and that was the last that was seen of
the New Parishioner, and the last of
his illustrious reign in Walton.

" My conscience! " said Jonas Phipps,
one day early in the spring, when he
made his first appearance at Miss Dunn's
after a long illness. " How come you
to see through that cheat, when all the
rest of us was so taken in ? I don't
know 's Mr. Peckham is ever going to
git over it. We all took him to be spend-
ing money by the fistful, and most of it
was nothing but givin' his note and say-
ing ' Charge it to me,' as if he was the
great Lord Gull. Nobody had any kind
of doubt but what his pockets was lined
with money. Not but what it wa'n't a
kind of dreadful thing that he should
ha' died all alone in his bed over there
to Walpole. I s'pose 't was that long
ride in the cold and his being upset by

the officers pouncing on to him so, —
right in the meeting-house. He did spend
some honest money though: I can think
o' four or five hundred dollars he left
in one place and another whilst he was
here."

Miss Dunn said nothing, and after re-
flecting a while Jonas went on : —

" He was gifted in prayer more than
most, now, was n't he ? I think, being a
sick man, and knowing it, after he de-
faulted down South there, he thought
he would be as religious as he could
while he had time. He must have felt
as safe here as anywhere. They pro-
nounced his name different down South,
you know. Strude they called it ; and
somebody was telling me folks thought
it was likely he 'd been going under an-
other name, any way. Land ! there 's
all that foundation stone for the ves-
try laying up there on the meetin' house
yard. I wonder when they 're going to
raise. And the parish 's got to pay for
that new library he gave it for a Christ-
mas present. Run an awful rig, did n't
he ? I 've sometimes thought he was a
little sprung. How he did strut about,
and all the women made everything of
him but you," said Jonas, trying to turn
a pretty compliment to Miss Dunn's
discretion. " I wonder who paid the
bills for his funeral ? Nobody seemed
to know at the time."

" It was just as well if they did n't,"
said Lydia Dunn, looking a little con-
scious. " Now, Jonas Phipps, we 've
both got work to do, and lives to live,
and that poor creature 's gone to his last
account ; we have n't any business with
him, as I know of. He could n't help
being a Stroud, and the sins he could
help he 's had a chance to be ashamed
of before this. For my part, I don't
want to hear another thing about him.
But I do thank my stars I never made
a fool of myself, and I wish others, for
their sakes, could say as much. I guess
I had trouble o' mind enough to last me
one while. I don't know as some folka

492

A New Parishioner.

[April,

knows what honesty is: you might as
well blame a black and white cat for not
being a good mouser."

" How 's that little gray cat turned
out, you started to raise along in the
winter ? " interrupted Jonas earnestly ;
and Miss Dunn replied, not without
a smile, that she seemed to be a likely
kitten.

" Any way, folks thinks a sight of
your opinion," said Jonas again. " And
mother, she sticks to it you did me a
sight more good than the doctor. She
says I never should ha' pulled through
if it had n't been for the time you spent
a-watching of me, and them things you
recommended. I guess everybody has
to allow that in the long run you Ve
done more good than Stroud," and grate-
ful Mr. Phipps rubbed his eyes with his
coat sleeve. " I told the minister so last
time he come to see me. ' Rising sixty
year,' says I, ' she 's been doing of good
works ! ' " But at this Miss Lydia looked
displeased. " He 's dreadful ashamed,
now, about having took up with Stroud
so. ' Talk 's cheap,' says I to Mr. Peck-
ham, ' and Stroud was great on talk.' "

" Now, Jonas Phipps," said Miss
Lydia, " there was nobody who kept
round Henry Stroud any closer than
you did. You always were telling me
how rich he was, and how much he gave
away, and everything he 'd been doing,
and what an addition he was to the
place."

" It did look like it for a time," said
Jonas humbly. " Even you would ha'
liked him if you could, but your good
judgment would n't allow. Seems dread-
ful dull since I got about again, not hear-
ing anything about his goin's-on. Asa
Singer was telling of me, as I come up
the hill, — he called me in to get me to
try a bar'l of cider they 'd just tapped for
spring use, he said there wa'n't an ap-
ple in it but what was sound, and it did
go to the right spot, I tell ye, — Asa
was telling of me that a bill come from
somewheres South only yesterday. I

wonder what he 'd 'a' done if he had
n't died ; they all say he had n't much
money by him."

Miss Dunn felt a sense of nearness
to the edge of a precipice. She often
remembered, in these days, that she had
taken at least one step in a most dan-
gerous direction. She had called her-
self names all winter long, and felt like
a hypocrite when people complimented
her on her superior discretion. It is a
most humiliating thing to lose one's self-
respect, and she never could forget that
for a few hours she had been in peril of
defeat, and of being bought over, like
the rest. She had allowed herself to
glance at the temptation, and she could
make no excuse for herself. The Lord
had made her a woman, to be sure, but
she need not have been a silly one.

Jonas went on with his reflections :
" I can't believe but what he 'd done
better if he 'd had a longer chance. He
was a great hand for a meeting, and he
seemed to want to do well by every-
body ; but they say he 'd had to clear
out from three or four places running,
and some thinks he may have got the
money he spent here by gambling."

" It 's no kind of use to make a man
out worse than he is," said Miss Dunn
angrily, " and for my part I am sick to
death of hearing about Henry Stroud.
I hoped it had blown over a little, but
I suppose it 's natural you should want
to take your turn at it. First, folks was
all pecking at me because I would n't
bow down and worship him, and now
they want me to throw rocks at his
tomb-stone. They go just like a pack
of sheep over a stone wall ; one gets
her nose over, and all the rest think
they 've got to die if they don't follow.
He 's gone to his last account, and we 'd
better let him alone."

It was easy enough to say this, but
the subject continued to be an interest-
ing one, and provoked frequent discus-
sions for many months afterward, in that
neighborhood. It was some time before

1883.]

Love's Opportunity.

493

the residents of surrounding towns could
resist asking such Walton people as ven-
tured to stray away from home what
had become of the great man they used
to have over there, or if they had moved
into the new vestry yet.

As for the twig at the window, the
outer blind got loose one windy winter
night, and struck against it and set it
free, and it was blown along the frozen
snow far down the hill and out of sight ;
and in the morning Miss Dunn felt
lighter-hearted, because she missed it
from its place. It seemed to her that
she was growing old and notional. She
had felt as young as ever until that win-

ter, for her girlhood had been a dutiful
and quiet one. It was fortunate that she
found so much to do inside her house
and out, and everybody said that her
front yard was the handsomest in Wal-
ton that summer ; the flowers bloomed
in great splendor, and her two best china
vases from the parlor mantel-piece were
filled for the adornment of the pulpit
Sunday after Sunday. Even Jonas
Phipps did not suspect, as he toiled in
her company, that sad thoughts often as-
sailed her, and could not be driven away
either by a double diligence in her soli-
tary housekeeping, or by her painstaking
care that the garden pinks and lilies
should be untroubled by weeds.

Sarah Orne Jewett.

LOVE'S OPPORTUNITY.

EARLY they came, yet they were come too late.
The tomb was empty ; in the misty dawn
Angels sat watching, but the Lord was gone.
Beyond earth's clouded daybreak far was he, —
Beyond the need of their sad ministry.
Regretful stood the three, with doubtful breast ;
Their gifts unneeded, and in vain their quest.

The spices, — were they wasted ? Legend saith
That, flung abroad on April's gentle breath,
They course the earth, and evermore again
In spring's sweet odors they come back to men.
The tender thought ? Be sure he held it dear ;
He came to them with words of highest cheer,
And mighty joy expelled their heart's brief fear.

Yet happier that morning, happier yet,

I count that other woman in her home,

Whose feet impatient all too soon had come ;

Who ventured chill disfavor at the feast,

'Mid critic's murmurs sought that lowliest Guest,

Broke her rare vase, its fragrant wealth outpoured,

And gave her gift aforehand to her Lord.

Sophie Winthrop Weitzel.

494

An Early Humanist.

[April,

AN EARLY HUMANIST.

SOME three hundred and seventy
years ago, Sir Thomas More, then a
rising barrister, not long married, and
already set, by the favor of young King
Harry, on the high-road to honor and to
martyrdom, translated and adapted out
of the Renaissance Latin in which it was
first written, published, and dedicated as
a New Year's gift to his " right entirely
beloved sister in Christ, Joyeuce Leigh,"
the life of John Pico della Mirandola.

The quaint little black-letter quarto,
long since become a prize among book-
fanciers, bears at the foot of its last
printed page the ever-interesting note,
" Emprynted at London in the Flete-
street at the Sygne of the Sonne, by
me Wynkyn de Worde." There is no
date, but Stapleton, one of More's early
biographers, fixes the year at about
1510. He tells us that when, by the
advice of his director, Dean Colet, More
finally renounced the purpose, long cher-
ished in secret, of embracing the relig-
ious life, he " determined to set before
his eyes some renowned layman, to
whose example he might conform his
own living." And as he reviewed in
his mind " all those, whether at home
or abroad, who were at that time emi-
nent for learning and piety," the name
of the celebrated Pico occurred to him
as the most illustrious of all. Stapleton
also says that the work was undertaken
"more for his own edification than for
the sake of communicating it to others,
although for that also ; " whence we may
surmise that it was published almost
as soon as completed. " I therefore,
mine heartly beloved sister." 1 says the
translator in his dedicatory preface, " in
good luck of this new year, have sent
you such a present as may bear witness

1 The lady thus distinguished was not the own
sister of Sir Thomas More, for he had but two,
whose names were Elizabeth and Joanna. She
was probably the child, by a previous marriage,

to the happy continuance and gracious
increase of virtue in your soul ; and
whereas the gifts of other folk declare
that they wisheth their friends to be
worldly-fortunate, mine testifieth that I
desire to have you godly-prosperous."

The figure thus selected by the fu-
ture Lord Chancellor for his reverent
consideration was indeed one of the
most radiant and winning conspicuous-
ly presented to the eyes of that eager
generation. Pico della Mirandola, the
" phoenix of spirits," the knight-errant
of the classical revival, had been but
sixteen years dead, when he was thus
enshrined. He might well, could we
imagine his swift career retarded and
prolonged for a very few years only be-
yond the allotted seventy, have wit-
nessed the triumphant death of his Eng-
lish biographer for the faith to which
he himself clung with so impassioned
a loyalty. And there is something
so striking and touching in the close
kinship between these two dmes d'elite
and the contrast in their fates, and the
old world English into which More has
rendered the life of Pico has so strong
an individuality, and is, for the most
part, so peculiarly apt and beautiful,
that we have chosen to base on extracts
from his works our own reminiscences
of the great Italian humanist. The
purely picturesque aspect of Pico's life
was treated by Mr. Pater, not long ago,
in a charming essay. More followed a
biographer whose personal and party
bias led him to dwell too exclusively,
it may be, upon the reverse or ascetic
side. In the living man, &he two were
fused into a singularly sweet and sym-
metrical whole, — a gracious type, or
prophecy of a type, which passed too

of the second or third wife of Sir John More, the
father of Thomas, both of whom were widows when
married to him.

1883.]

An Early Humanist.

quickly, and for whose reappearance the
world may, in some sort, be said to have
waited ever since in vain.

The biography of which More's is
a considerably abridged translation was
written by John Francis Pico, the
nephew and namesake of its subject,
who had enjoyed the confidential friend-
ship of his young uncle, and to whom
the latter made over during his life the
greater part of his large possessions.
The difference in the ages of the two
men was small, for the elder Pico was
the youngest of a large family.1 He
was born at Mirandola, February 24,
1463, " Pius II. being then the vicar of
Christ his church, and Frederic, the
third of that name, ruling the Empire."
More gives a certain ceremonious prom-
inence to his hero's fabulously high de-
scent at the same time that he affects
to overlook it : " John Picus, of his fa-
ther's side, was descended of the worthy
lineage of the Emperor Constantine, by
a nephew of the said emperor called
Picus, from whom all the ancestors of
this Johan Picus undoubtedly bear that
name. But we shall let his ancestors
pass, to whom, though they were right
excellent, he gave again as much hon-
or as he received." This last remark,
indeed, is quoted from John Francis,
who, however, puts the Emperor Con-
stantine into a parenthesis, and gives
particulars about the immediate ances-
try of his kinsman which More omits.
Even he, however, makes no mention of
the wildest and darkest passage in the
family annals, an intensely Italian epi-
sode, recalling that most heart-rending
page of the Inferno which immortalizes
the torment of Ogolino della Gerhar-
desca. Francesco Pico della Mirandola,
a Ghibelline chief, was made podestd of
Modena in 1310, and expelled by the
Guelphs July 8, 1312. Restored by

1 The Life in question was prefixed to the ear-
liest edition of Pico's complete works, published
at Bologna in 1496, or only two years after his
death. Their popularity is shown by the fact that
two other editions had been published — one at

the Emperor Henry VII. and raised to
royal power, he grossly abused his of-
fice, and finally sold the city for fifty
thousand florins to Passerine Bonacossi,
a lord of Mantua, and retired to Miran-
dola. Bonacossi, impatient to recover
his money, surprised Mirandola in 1321,
took Francesco prisoner, and murdered
him and two of his sons in their dun-
geon. A third son, Nicolo Pico, es-
caped ; and when, seven years later, the
Bonacossis were driven by the Gonza-
gas out of Mantua and Modena, this Ni-
colo joined ilie victors, but demanded
and obtained, as the price of his adhe-
sion, that Francesco Bonacossi, the son
of Passerino, should be given up to him,
to be starved in the prison where his
own father and brothers had suffered
death.

There was therefore a strain suffi-
ciently dark and fierce in the blood of
the man whose birth, to the dilated eyes
of his own star-gazing generation, was
ushered in by the fairest of prodigies.
" For," says More, — in this case quite
literally translating the original, — "a
marvellous sight was there seen before
his birth. There appeared a fiery gar-
land, standing over the chamber of his
mother while she travailed, and suddenly
vanished away. Which appearance was,
peradventure, a token that he who should
that hour, in the company of mortal
men be born, in the perfection of under-
standing should be like the perfect figure
of that round circle or garland, and that
his excellent name should, round about
the circle of the whole world, be mag-
nified ; whose mind should alway, as
the fire, aspire upward unto heavenly
things, and whose fiery eloquence should
with an ardent heat in time to come
worship and praise Almighty God with
all his strength. And, as the same sud-
denly vanished, so should this fire soon,

Venice in 1498, and one at Reggio in 1506, — be-
fore Sir Thomas's translation was made. Another
very beautiful edition was published in Venice in
1557, and a fifth, now reckoned the standard, at
Basle, in 1572.

496

An Early Humanist.

[April,

from the eyen of mortal people, be
hid."

There follows a minute pen-portrait
of Pico in his boyish prime, which fully
justifies the tradition, inseparable from
his name, of extraordinary personal
beauty : " He was of feature and shape
seemly and beauteous ; of stature good-
ly and high, of flesh tender and soft,
his visage lovely and fair, his color white
intermingled with comely reds, his eyen
gray and quick of look, his teeth white
and even, his hair yellow and not too
piked " (or elaborately dressed).

His prodigious aptitude for learning
appeared at a very early age. Taught
by private tutors at home, in the little
court of Mirandola, under the supervis-
ion of his mother, the accomplished
Julia dei Boiardi, until he was fourteen
years of age, he was then sent to the
University of Bologna to study canon
law. He was destined for the church,
in the mind of his mother, who dreamed
of seeing this last and brightest of her
offspring who knows how eminent
an ecclesiastic ? But at the end of two
years — that is to say, at sixteen — " he
fell from it, yet lost not his time there-
in, since he compiled a breviary or
summe upon all the decretals, in which,
as briefly as possible, was compressed
the effect of all the whole great volume.
After this, as a desirous enserchour (cu-
pidus explorator) of the secrets of na-
ture, he left these common trodden
paths, and gave himself wholly to spec-
ulation and philosophy, as well human
as divine."

It is time to pause for a moment, and
consider what sort of world that was
which claimed the first glad activities
of this precocious mind, and under the
compulsion of what manner of Zeitgeist
he forsook the sober path which had
been marked out for him, and gave him-
self to secular study. It was full sun-
rise, though misty as yet, in the world
of modern thought ; in Italy, the most
dazzling moment of the Renaissance in

letters, unquestionably, if not yet in art.
The whole country was enjoying a peace,
of halcyon brevity. Lorenzo the Mag-
nificent, at the age of thirty-one, was the
assured ruler of Florence ; a year hav-
ingx passed since the quelling of the
Pazzi conspiracy, in which his own life
had been attempted, and his brother
Giuliano slain behind the high altar in
the Duomo. Marsilio Ficino had just
finished his translation of the works of
Plato into Latin, having been trained
from boyhood for this especial work in
the household of the Medici. Augelo
Poliziano, the first of Italian poets after
Petrarch, and the first of Latin poets
since the end of the classic age, had
begun the translation of Homer into
Latin verse ; had dramatized the fable
of Orpheus ; had sung, in his melodi-
ous stanze, of the prowess of the fallen
Giuliano and the tragic death of his
lady, the beautiful Sirnonetta, for whom
all Florence had wept aloud, when she
was carried to her vernal grave, two
years to a day before her murdered lov-
er. Savonarola had taken his Domin-
ican vows, and was preparing himself,
by a life of mortification and prayer, for
his coming career as a preacher in Flor-
ence. With every one of these ever
memorable men the beautiful young
Prince of Mirandola was destined, with-
in a few years, to come into the most in-
timate personal relations : with Lorenzo
and Poliziano, in light poetic rivalries,
as well as in May masques and midnight
dances, and all the extravagant trifling
rife in Florence in the hour when the
tide of her glory was just upon the
turn ; with them also, but more partic-
ularly with Marsilio Ficino, in his grav-
er pursuits, — in the oriental studies
which the two may be said to have in-
augurated, and in the preparations of
the Platonic academy ; with the Prior
of San Marco, as the religious counsel-
or of his later and more austere days.

From Bologna, the young student of
philosophy went first to Ferrara, — his

1883.]

An Early Humanist.

497

elder brother, Galeotto, having married
Bianca d'Este, sister of Ercole, the reign-
ing Duke. There he remained for a
year or more, under the tuition of the
celebrated Giambattista Guarino, and
thence he returned for a while to Miran-
dola in 1481. A letter of Pico's, writ-
ten from Mirandola in this year to An-
gelo Poliziauo in Florence, proves that-
he had already made acquaintance with
some members of that renowned circle
of which he was presently to become the
star. From Mirandola he went, with a
private tutor, Manuello Adramiteno, to
Pavia, to perfect himself in the Greek
language ; from Pavia, for a time to
Padua ; and his first recorded visit to
Florence took place in 1483, when he
had just completed his twentieth year.

He came, thus juvenile in years and
fascinating in person, with the fame of
a scholar and the prestige of a prince ;
and his welcome in the first society of
the place and time may be imagined.
His earliest literary efforts were in the
line of that romantic and amorous verse,
both Latin and Italian, which was at
that time cultivated by Lorenzo and
Poliziano. In a note to the latter, writ-
ten in 1484, Pico says, " I am vacil-
lating between poetry, letters, and phi-
losophy, and I doubt the desire to keep
a foot in both stirrups will prevent my
becoming either a poet, an orator, or a
philosopher." Not long after the date
of this letter, Pico submitted to Polizi-
ano five books of verses for correction.
" Be to me," he gracefully entreated,
"judice cequo, non iniquo, — I mean se-
vere, not indulgent." Poliziano recom-
mended a few alterations, — " after the
example," as he said, " of him who found
fault with the sandals of the goddess of
beauty, because he could find none with
herself," and because a few verses had
seemed to him " only of equestrian rank,
while the rest were patrician and sena-
torial." To this courtly apology, Pico
replied with thanks for the corrections,
and complained only that the censor

VOL. LI. — NO. 306. 32

had been too indulgent. " No one," he
protested, "could object to die by the
sword of such a friend." To the same
period of his early success in the Gay
Science and social popularity in Flor-
ence belong two letters of Pico's, which
acquired a certain celebrity. The one
was a eulogy of the poems of Lorenzo
de' Medici, addressed to that potentate
himself, and awarding him the palm
over both Dante and Petrarch ! The
other was to Ermolao Barbaro, a young
Venetian ecclesiastic, three years older
than Pico, and only less brilliant in his
scholastic promise, afterward made Pa-
triarch of Aquileia by Innocent VIII.,
and who died a year later than Loren-
zo, a year earlier than Pico and Polizi-
ano ; swept away, he also, before his
prime, by that strange blast of mortal-
ity which devastated the first blossom-
ing of the Italian revival ere its fruit
had had time to form. The letter to
Ermolao treated of the scholastic style,
which Pico describes as barbarous but
exact. " The philosophers," said he,
" have no need to adorn their writings
con amore. It is enough for them to
speak the truth, and to care for this
only." Ermolao notices a certain super-
ciliousness in the tone of this dictum,
but says it may well be pardoned on the
score of Pico's extreme youth, and also
because of the elegance of the style in
which he himself pleads for the barba-
risms of other philosophers.

There are no letters of Pico's dated
from Italy between the middle of the
year 1485 (his twenty-second) and the
early part of 1486. The interval com-
prises his first visit to the University of
Paris, where he learned what he calls
" il linguaggio parisienne" and where
he received a new and powerful impulse
to deeper philosophic, and especially
Platonic, studies ; where, finally, he first
conceived the audacious idea of his own
grand philosophic adventure. This was
nothing less than an attempt to establish
the essential concord between Pagan-

498

An Early Humanist.

[April,

ism, more particularly Platonism, and
Christianity, in nine hundred theses,
which, after the fashion of the day, the
boyish champion proposed to set up in
Rome itself ; inviting scholars from all
parts of the world to come thither and
dispute with him de omni re scibili, and
magnificently offering to pay the ex-
penses of such as were too poor to un-
dertake the journey.

In pursuance of this purpose, Pico re-
turned to Florence from Paris, in April,
1486 ; and then occurred an episode in
his life, solitary of its kind, entirely
passed over by his nephew, from motives
obvious enough, and not altogether dis-
honorable, — an episode of which More
may possibly have been entirely igno-
rant, but which seems to us quite essen-
tial to a perfect picture and full under-
standing of the man. Up to that time
he had been hardly less conspicuous for
the purity of his life than for the charm
of his presence and the precocity of his
attainments. But in May of this year,
amid the preparations for his grand en-
counter with the wits of all the world,
he fell captive to the allurements of
Margarita, the wife of Giuliano Marotti
de' Medici, a distant and seemingly rath-
er obscure relative of the great family
whose home was at Arezzo. We know
that this lady was beautiful, or that the
young Mirandolano thought her so, and
we know very little else to her advan-
tage. She was of inferior birth, even
to her husband, and a widow when mar-
ried to Giuliano; whence it would ap-
pear that, like the first love of many
less famous men, she must have been
older than her princely adorer.

Howbeit, having given out that he
was going to Rome to set up his much-
talked-of theses, he sent forward his lug-
gage, and started, with about twenty fol-
lowers, both horse and footmen, arriving
on the afternoon of the 9th of May at a
small village called II Bastardo. Thence
he pushed forward by night toward
Arezzo, and took up his lodging outside

the walls ; where, at ten A. M. of the fol-
lowing day, he captured Margarita, on
her way, with a child and a servant, to
hear mass in the old cathedral outside
the walls, lifted her upon his own good
steed, and rode away. An alarm was
instantly raised, the storm-bell rung to
gather the people of Arezzo, chase given,
and the fugitives presently overtaken ;
when, after a sharp skirmish between
the two bands, the lady was recovered
and carried back " a grandissimo hono-
re " by her proper lord, while Pico and
his chancellor were made prisoners. All
the powerful friends and Connections of
Pico — Lorenzo in Florence, and the
Estes in Ferrara — at once interceded
in his behalf, and soon obtained his re-
lease ; but the adventure was a humili-
ating and inauspicious one, and may
very well have helped to create a preju-
dice against him in Rome. Several let-
ters to Lorenzo de' Medici on the sub-
ject are preserved in the archives of
Florence; one from Giuliano Marotti
de' Medici himself. He forgave his wife
with great facility, albeit one of his own
servants, who had been engaged in the
fray, insists, in a letter to Lorenzo, that
she mounted into the saddle quite of
her own free will (come inamorata e
ciecha di si bel corpo).

The most serious impression produced
by this unfortunate and slightly absurd
business seems to have been on the
mind of the young knight-errant him-
self, whose expressions, in subsequent
letters, of humble and remorseful regret,
show a delicacy of conscience and a re-
finement of spirit sufficiently rare in the
Italy of that day. There is a letter of
Pico's to Andrea Corneo, of Urbino,
written in October of the same year,
in reply, seemingly, to one in which his
correspondent had urged him to forsake
the study of philosophy for a stirring
and civic life (vitam actuosam et civilem)
in the service of some greater prince.
Pico repels the suggestion warmly, and
professes, in his most eloquent Latin,

1883.]

An Early Humanist.

499

an unwavering devotion to higher and
more disinterested aims. All this part
of the letter is quoted by Sir Thomas
More,1 and is very fine in his translation.
But he breaks off abruptly, and inter-
polates a " Fare ye well " before what
is, to us, the most interesting and touch-
ing part of the original letter. Pico
expresses his sense of Andrea's gener-
osity in being willing to excqse " what
took place near Florence," by the ex-
ample of "kings David and Solomon,
not to speak of Aristotle " (!) ; but he
says that he cannot so easily forgive
himself. " These palliations, and, as it
were, screenings, thy friend embraces
not, nor loves ; rather he repels, refuses,
rejects them. He grieves over his sin.
He defends it not." Others may deem
it an excuse to say " naught is weaker
than man, naught stronger than love ; "
but for himself, he will only plead that
it was his first fall, and that he was ig-
norant and rash. " He who puts to
sea for the first time may well be over-
come of Neptune ; but if he twice make
shipwreck upon the same rock, let none
pity or stretch forth a hand to save him.
But enough of this, for it is thy friend's
desire, ' hujusmodi facti memoriam non
solum aliquo modo literis tradi sed quod
sequens vita faciat obliterari penitus.' "
Notwithstanding the forlorn play of
words upon literce, we recognize here
the very accent of that true compunc-
tion which the author of the Imitation
says it is better to feel than to be able
to define. Even the use of the third
person deepens the effect of ingenuous
shame. We would far rather know that
a young man so singularly tempted erred
once in this way, and never again, than
to believe him incapable of erring at all.

1 He, however, mistakes the date of the letter,
which is Perugia (Perusias), not Paris, October 16,
1486. Pico did not start on his second journey to
Paris until the close of 1487.

2 We translate a half dozen out of the nine hun-
dred theses, chosen absolutely at random, as a
specimen of their range and quality : —

Form is generated by accident.

Christ, in the last judgment, will judge not

The unpracticed gallant eventually
pursued his interrupted journey to Rome,
and there his nine hundred Conclusiones
were at last published in December of
the same year, 1486. The discussions
were advertised to begin after the Epiph-
any, permission for the same having, of
course, been previously obtained of the
reigning pontiff, Innocent VIII. But
no discussions ever came off. A great
clamor immediately arose, against both
the theses and their author, a charge
of heresy was preferred, and the public
disputations were arrested by papal edict
until this charge should have been in-
vestigated. John Francis Pico, as quot-
ed by More, says briefly that "it was
through the envy of his malicious ene-
mies that Pico could never bring about
to have a day for his dispicions appoint-
ed," and that there was plenty of bitter
personal feeling against him among the
members of the papal court there is no
reason to doubt. His youth, his pres-
tige, his pretensions, were a sufficient
guarantee for that. But the theses, as
we attempt to peruse them now, really
constitute so amazing a melange of mys-
tical fancies, and crude physical specu-
lations of pietism, Platonism, and magic,
" and sundry matters sought out as well
of the Latin authors as the Greek, and
partly set out of the secret mysteries of
the Hebrews, Chaldees, and Arabics,
and many things drawn out of the old
obscure philosophy of Pythagoras, Tris-
megistus, and others, and many things
strange to all folk, except right few spe-
cial excellent men," that the word heresy
could have had little meaning in those
days, if they had not incurred suspicion
of it.2

Before the commission of inquiry,

merely in his human nature, but according to his
human nature.

No definition is adequate to the thing denned.

There is a natural right hand (dextrum) in
heaven, which never changes, as the parts of the
globe do change.

Apollo is the solar intelligence ; ^Esculapius, the
lunar.

Nothing in the universe is susceptible either of

500

An Early Humanist.

[April,

Pico was permitted to appear from time
to time, and defend his positions, and so
the case dragged on until midsummer.
That it was going against the defendant
must have been evident long before its
close. Pico himself clearly foresaw it,
as we know from a subsequent letter of
his to Lorenzo de' Medici.1 But he adds
firmly that he considered himself amen-
able for his opinions to the Holy Father
alone, and free to defend and explain
them until the pontiff had actually pro-
nounced his interdict. At what time
Pico's Apologia, or defense of thirteen
out of the nine hundred propositions, was
actually prepared was a disputed point
even in his life-time ; and it is still one
of interest to determine, since it touches
not only his loyalty as a Catholic, but
his veracity as a gentleman. The brief
of Innocent VIIL, which condemned
the theses in general and forbade their
open discussion, while at the same time
it distinctly declared their author to be
free from censure, was dated August 5,
1487,2 but it was not issued until the
15th of the following December. The
Apologia, which was dedicated to Lo-
renzo, was certainly not published until
some days, at least, after the issue of
the brief, but it was dated some months
earlier than the latter, or May 31, 1487.
Pico's enemies accused him of having
contumaciously prepared his apology
after receiving the papal edict, had it
printed with great secrecy in a cave near
Naples, and disingenuously antedated it
by seven months. This, in the letter to
Lorenzo, already mentioned (August 27,

death or corruption ; hence, as a corollary, life is
everywhere, Providence everywhere, immortality
everywhere.

It is not within the power of man, as a free
agent, to believe an article of faith, or disbelieve
it, as he will.

1 Dated August 27, 1489 ; preserved in the ar-
chives of Florence.

2 Von Reumont says 1486, but it is evident that
in this case the usually exact biographer of Lo-
renzo the Magnificent has made a mistake of a
year. Pico was not in Rome at all, so far as we
know, during the summer and autumn of 1486,
the months immediately succeeding the Arezzo

1489), Pico most earnestly and explicit-
ly denies ; affirming that the interdict, so
long threatened and suspended, was not
issued until after he had left Rome, on
his second journey to France ; and that,
when it overtook him on the road, upon
the 6th of January, 1488, his apology
had already been dispatched to Lorenzo.
Pico's word was quite enough for that
independent potentate, and indeed for
all who loved him ; and we may add
that it is, upon the whole, borne out by
the character of the Apologia, which is
rather a development or commentary
than a defense, and which concerns itself
with thirteen propositions only, and
those not specially selected in the brief
for censure. The tone of the dedica-
tion to Lorenzo, and of the envoi ap-
pended to the apology, is that of a man
sincerely, and even distressfully, desir-
ous of guarding against misunderstand-
ing. He points out that many of the
theses refer purely to profane matters,
were advanced by him as probabilities
only, and were never intended for gener-
al reading, but for private debate among
the learned ; and finally he beseeches
that they may be read no more, either
by his friends or his enemies, in their
original bald form, but only with the
explanations herein offered.

But, however honestly intended in the
first place, the apology had been pre-
pared on a rumor of papal disapproba-
tion, had beeii gotten before the world
through a species of quibble, and its
effect was to add fuel to the fire already
raging at Rome against the young phi-
affair. In Pico's published correspondence, be-
side the letter to Andrea Corneo, already quoted,
written at Perugia, in October, 1486, there is an-
other to an unknown friend, dated in November
of the same year, in which he says that he cannot
answer certain questions pertaining to the study
of Hebrew, and especially the works of Josephus,
" because his books have preceded him to Rome.1'
The year 1487, which Von Reumont supposes Pico
to have passed in France, was really his year of
suspense and disappointment at Rome. His sec-
ond visit to France was a brief one, comprising
only the earliest months of the year 1488.

1883.]

An Early Humanist.

501

losopher. Lorenzo, and the literary
world of Florence both lay and clerical,
received it with enthusiasm, and as early
as January 19, 1488, we have the first
of a long series of very spirited letters
on the part of Lorenzo to Lanfredini,
the Florentine ambassador at the papal
court, urgently requesting, not to say
demanding, a reconsideration of his fa-,
vorite's case, and his full restoration to
ecclesiastical favor. But Innocent re-
mained immovable. It was one thing,
as he once remarked to Lanfredini, to
oblige Lorenzo in the matter of his boy
(that is to say, by making a cardinal, at
fourteen, of Giovanni de' Medici, after-
wards Leo X.), and another to yield
upon a point of doctrine. Tacitly, how-
ever, he suffered Pico to return to Italy,
and live there unmolested ; and accord-
ingly, in the spring of the same year,
1488, we find him back in Florence,
which he never quitted again save for
one short visit to Ferrara. Sometimes
he was a member of Lorenzo's house-
hold, at Careggi or in town ; sometimes
he lived in his own rural villa of Quer-
ceto, the music of whose whispering
oaks yet lingers in its name ; oftenest
of all, toward the last, in the Abbey at
Fiesole, with that glorious view ever be-
neath his eyes, which almost pains the
stranger out of colder lands when he be-
holds it first, so far he feels its beauty
and significance to transcend his feeble
appreciation.

But the glimpses of Pico's daily life
during this latter residence in Florence,
which we soon begin to discern in the
letters and memoirs of the time, reveal
a man deeply changed from the fiery and
self-confident champion of letters, who
had made his splendid debut there two
years before. No outward charm is miss-
ing, but a something is added, of remote
and unearthly radiance. Just so swiftly
and completely as he embraced all other
knowledge, he had learned, in that in-
terval, the vanity of ambition and ac-
quirements of love and fame. Despite

the misconceptions under which he
suffered so keenly, life still smiled for
the Prince of Mirandola as it has rarely
smiled for any man. But for him, at
twenty-five the spell of life was broken ;
" and despising the blast of vainglory
which he before desired, now with all
his mind he began to seek the glory
and profit of Christ his church, and
so began to order his conscience that
from thenceforth he might have been
approved, though his enemy were his
judge."

It is not possible for us heartily to
sympathize with the satisfaction of
Pico's austere kinsman, when he goes on
to say that " he now burned those books
which, in his youth of wanton bliss, he
had made in the vulgar tongue." On
the contrary, we would give more for a
fragment of the love poems, so tender-
ly corrected by Poliziano, than for the
whole of those " noble books of com-
mentary upon the Scriptures, which tes-
tify both his angelic wit, his ardent la-
bor, and his profound erudition, — some
of which we have, and some, as an
inestimable treasure, we have lost."
All the literary work that he was yet to
do lay more or less in this direction,
but his zeal for study was not one jot
abated. " Great libraries, — it is mar-
velous with what celerity he read them
o'er ; " and " seven thousand ducats he
laid out in the gathering together of
volumes of all manner of literature."

Another writer of that period, Paolo
Cortese, thus describes Pico's manner
of life in Florence and Fiesole at this
time : " He studied not less than twelve
hours a day, with extraordinary inten-
sity of attention. In the morning, as
he himself tells us in his letter to Bat-
tista Mantonana, he applied himself to
his work on the concord between Plato
and Aristotle. The afternoon he re-
served to his friends and for recreation ;
and therein, to soothe his soul of its
cares, he touched the strings of the lyre,
or married to music the verses which

502

An Early Humanist.

[April,

he had himself composed, or read the
poets and orators. The evening he con-
secrated to meditation on the sacred
pages, the which brought him great
satisfaction, both of the intellect and
heart. ' Philosophy,' he once said to
this same friend, ' seeks truth ; theology
finds it ; religion hath it.' "

Combined with his ever-growing spir-
itual steadfastness and mental concen-
tration, there is, however, something
touching and ominous in the state of
personal detachment and bodily unrest
revealed by the following anecdote, as
we have it embodied in More's quaint
phraseology : " Wedding and worldly
business, he fled almost alike. Notwith-
standing, when he was axed once in sport
whether of those two burdens seemed
lighter, and which he would choose, if
he should of necessity be driven to one,
and at his election ; which he sticked
thereat awhile, but at last he shook his
head, and a little smiling, he answered
that he had liever take him to marriage
as the thing in which was less servitude
and not so much jeopardy. Liberty
above all things he loved, to which both
his own natural affection and the study
of philosophy inclined him, and for it
he was always wandering and flitting,
and would never take himself to any
certain dwelling. ... Of outward ob-
servances he gave no very great force.
We speak not of those observances
which the church demandeth, for in
those he was diligent, but we speak of
those ceremonies which folk bring up

— setting the very service of God aside

— which is, as Christ says, to be wor-
shipped in spirit and in truth."

The study of the Hebrew Scriptures,

l Pico's manly simplicity, we may say his
truly marvelous naivete and unworldliness, is no-
where more conspicuous than in the letter to Lo-
renzo of August 29, 1489, in which he appears to
be so confident that the Heptaplo, just published,
will have set him quite right with the church that
he even suggests an outline of the form of excul-
pation to be used by his Holiness, requesting Lo-
renzo to see that it is put in the proper official
shape. Laufredini, whose position was certainly

in which he now so ardently engaged,
was virtually a study to find Plato and
Aristotle in them. His darling aim con-
tinued to be that of establishing the
original divinity and oneness, at their
source, of all religions, — the essential
identity, in all times and places, of that
" true light which lighteth every man
that cometh into the world." His first
essay in exegesis — if his strained and
visionary interpretations can be held to
deserve the name — was the Heptaplo,
or Seven Expositions upon the Days of
Genesis, published in June, 1489, and
dedicated, like the Apologia, to Loren-
zo. It was a fixed and characteristic
idea of Pico's that God had never suf-
fered the deepest mysteries of any faith
to be committed to writing ; that the
visible text ever conveyed only the
lower and more literal meaning, be-
hind which the docile spirit may seek
and find the symbolical and the celes-
tial. The Heptaplo professed to indi-
cate the hidden significance of the Mo-
saic cosmogony. It has little interest
for modern readers, save as it " blazes "
the solitary path followed by the au-
thor's mind, for whom, however, it did
not help to smooth matters at Rome.1
The treatise De Ente et Uno, pub-
lished two years later, and dedicated to
Poliziano, gives a stricter and more co-
gent development to many of the views
advanced in the Heptaplo ; and though
embodying something like the Pytha-
gorean idea of the divinity of number,
has always been reckoned by the learned
in philosophy as Pico's most substantial
work. To nearly the same period be-
long several meditations on the Psalms ;
an elaborate commentary upon a son-

a difficult one, had to write to Lorenzo that this
really would not do, and that the Holy Father was
becoming daily more incensed against them both.
In October of the same year, however, Lanfredini
is able to report some signs of relenting, and good
Marsilio Ficino told Pico to be patient; for that he
knew, by astrological signs, that he would erelong
be relieved of all censure, — as indeed he was, but
only by Innocent's successor, Alexander VI., and
after Lorenzo's death.

1883.]

An Early Humanist.

503

net by his friend and almoner, the poet
Benivieni, translated into English, fifty
years later, by the poet Thomas Stan-
ley, under the title of A Discourse upon
Platonick Love ; and the fragment of a
tract against the astrologers. The latter
reveals instincts in the matter of phys-
ical investigation which proved prophet-
ically just, and it was enthusiastically
commended by Savonarola, under whose
rapidly ascendant spell Pico passed more
completely than any other member of
the inner Medicean circle. Poliziano,
on the contrary, told Pico, in an impa-
tient epigram, that he was wasting his
powers upon such work, and that his
"style was too good for a generation
of jugglers." Pico's last literary work,
destined also to remain unfinished, was
a treatise on the harmony between Plato
and Aristotle. His views on this head
had already been foreshadowed in the
Apologia, and Marsilio Ficino had said
of him, when that work appeared, in the
high-flown phraseology of their circle,
that he ought, by rights, to be styled
the Duke rather than the Count of Con-
cord,1 since " he had reconciled Jews
and Christians, Peripatetics and Plato-
nists, Greeks and Latins."

It does not answer to depend entirely
upon John Francis Pico and More for
the events of Mirandola's latest years,
for the reason that the nephew became
one of Savonarola's most fanatical ad-
herents, — was indeed the first and chief
biographer of the Dominican ; opposed
in principle, therefore, to the whole Med-
icean party, and unwilling to dwell upon
his uncle's close affiliation with them.
But we may safely follow for a little
our most sympathetic guide, while we
" pass over those powers " of his hero's
soul " which appertain to understanding
and knowledge, and speak of them which
belong to the achieving of noble acts.
The year before his death, to the end
that, all charge and business of lordship

1 Pico's full title was Prince of Mirandola and
Count of Concordia.

set aside, he might lead his life in rest
and peace ... all his patrimony and
dominion, that is to say, the third part
of the Earldom of Mirandola and of
Concordia, unto John Francis his nephew
he sold ; and that so good cheap that it
seemed rather a gift than a sale. All
that ever he received of this bargain,
partly he gave out to poor folk, partly
he bestowed on the buying of a little
land " (the villa of Querceto) " to the
finding of him and his household. And
over that much silver vessel and plate,
with other precious and costly house-
hold utensils, he divided among poor
people. He was content with mean fare
at his table, howbeit somewhat yet re-
taining of the old plenty in dainty viand
and silver vessel. Every day, at cer-
tain hours he gave himself to prayer.
To- poor men alway, if any came, he
plenteously gave out his money ; and
not content to give them only that he
had himself, he wrote to a certain Flor-
entine, a well lettered man " (the sacred
poet Girolamo Beuivieni) " whom he
singularly loved, that he should with
his own money ever help poor folk, and
give maidens money to their marriage,
and always send him word what he had
laid out, that he might pay him again.
. . . He was of cheer always merry,
and of so benignant nature that he was
never troubled with anger. He said
once to his nephew that, whatsoever
should happen, he could never, as him
thought, be moved to wrath but if his
chystes perished, in which his books
lay that he had, with great travail and
watch, compiled. But forasmuch as he
considered that he labored only for the
love of God and profit of his church,
and that he had dedicate unto Him all
his works, his studies and his doings,
and sith he saw that sith God is al-
mighty they could not miscarry but if
it were either by his commandment or
by his sufference, he verily trusted, sith
God is all-good, that He would not suffer
him to have that occasion of heaviness.

504

An Early Humanist.

[April,

O very happy mind, which none adver-
sity might oppress and which no pros-
perity might enhance ! ... In renay-
ing the shadow of glory he labored for
very glory, and was come to that prick
of perfect humility that he little forced
whether his works went out under his
own name or not, so that they might as
much profit as if they were given out
under his name. . . . The little affec-
tion of an old man or an old woman to
Godward he set more by than by all
his own knowledge, as well of natural
things as godly. And oftentimes, in
communication, he would admonish his
familiar friends how greatly these mor-
tal things bow and draw to an end, how
slipper and how falling it is that we live
in now ; how firm and how stable it
shall be that we shall hereafter live in.
The same thing in his book which he
entitled De Ente et Uno lightsomely he
treateth ; where he interrupteth the
course of his dispicion, and turning his
words to Angelo Poliziano to whom he
dedicateth that book he writeth in this
wise : ' But now behold, my well-be-
loved Angel, what madness holdeth us ?
Love God while we be in this body.
We rather may than either know Him,
or by speech utter Him.' . . . Liberality
in him passed measure, for so far was he
from the beginning of any diligence to
earthly things, that he seemed somewhat
besprent with the freckle of negligence.
His friends often admonished him that
he should not all utterly despise riches ;
showing him that it was his dishonesty
and rebuke when it was reported that
his negligence and setting naught by
money gave his servants occasion of de-
ceit and robbery. Nevertheless that
mind of his, which evermore only cleaved
fast in contemplation, and the euchering
of nature's counsel, could never let down
itself to the consideration and oversee-
ing of these base, abject, and vile earth-
ly trifles. His high-steward came on a
time to him, and desired him to receive
his account of such money as he had, in

many years, received of his, and brought
forth his book of reckoning. Pico an-
swered him in this wise : ' My friend, I
know well ye have mought oftentimes,
and may yet deceive me, and ye list ;
wherefore the examination of these ex-
penses shall not need. There is no more
to do. If I be aught in your debt, I
shall pay you by and by, and if you be
in mine pay me ; — either now, if ye
have it, or hereafter, if ye be now not
able.' "

The contemporary memoirs of the
tragical last decade of the fifteenth cen-
tury in Florence abound in references
to Pico : now as active at the sessions
of the nascent Platonic Academy, in
the halls or open loggie of Careggi ; now
as deep in theological discourse with
Savonarola in the library of San Marco.
The places which knew these vivid spir-
its are strangely unaltered in three hun-
dred and ninety years. One has to shake
himself free of their mysterious contact,
rather than spur his imagination to re-
call them there. It was probably under
Savonarola's influence that Pico began
divesting himself of his wealth in 1493.
We know, from the funeral sermon
preached in the Duomo by the Prior of
St. Mark's, that he had used his utmost
influence to induce Pico to assume the
Dominican vow ; and, very possibly, had
both lived long into the dark days to
come, he might have succeeded. Al-
ready, a year previously, the first light-
ning-stroke had fallen. Lorenzo fell

gravely ill ; and — it is useless to shud-
der at the accounts we have of the med-
ical practice which he underwent — for
the magnificent tyrant of his fair na-
tive land, the poet, the gallant, the
philosopher, the ardent friend, the most
sumptuous and the most unscrupulous
of citizens, the end was come at forty-
two. Poliziano was always at his bed-
side, the black-oak, red-canopied bed in
the homely palace chamber, by which
to-day the stranger may linger till he
loses himself. We must make room for

1883.]

An Early Humanist.

505

the poet's own tearful account of Pico's
last appearance there, contained in a let-
ter of Poliziano's to Jacopo Antiqua-
rio : —

" And when he was near to death at
Careggi, looking gently at me as was
his wont, he said, ' O Angelo, art thou
here ? ' and lifting his languid arms, he
earnestly pressed both my hands. I
could not restrain my sobs, which nev-
ertheless I endeavored to conceal by
turning away my face. But he, not in
the least overcome, continued to clasp
my hands in his. When, however, he
perceived that my distress prevented me
from speaking, little by little, he let me
go. And I ran quickly into the neigh-
boring cabinet and gave vent to my sor-
row and weeping. Afterwards I dried
my eyes and returned, and the instant he
perceived me, he asked for Pico della
Mirandola. I told him that Pico had
remained in the city for fear of burden-
ing him by his presence. ' And I,' said
Lorenzo, ' if I had not feared that the
journey would incommode him, would
entreat to see him and speak with him
for the last time before I leave you all.'
' Shall I then send for him ? ' said I.
* Do so,' he said, and as soon as might
be, it was done. Pico came and took
his place at the bedside. And I too
dropped at his knees, that I might the
better hear, for the last time, the now
feeble voice of my master. Good God,
with what courtesy, I may say caresses,
Lorenzo welcomed him ! He began by
asking pardon for having put him to so
great trouble. He besought him to con-
sider it as a sign of the love and friend-
ship which he had for him. He said
that he should die the more willingly
for having seen once more so beloved a
friend. After that he passed, as was
his wont, to pleasant and familiar talk.
Nay, he even jested with us, and ' I
could wish,' said he, ' that death had at
least delayed until your library had been
filled.' "

Immediately after Pico's withdrawal

Savonarola was admitted, for that terri-
ble last interview of which such contra-
dictory accounts have been given to the
world. John Francis Pico, whose life
of Savonarola was probably compiled
from materials furnished him by the
brethren of San Marco, is responsible
for the statement, so generally received,
that the prior refused absolution to Lo-
renzo because he would not promise to
restore the liberties of Florence. Set-
ting aside the vanity of such a demand
at such a moment, and the impossibility
of complying with it, the story is quite
inconsistent with the narrative of Poli-
ziano, — a devoted, though perhaps par-
tial, eye-witness ; and we may observe,
as tending to sustain the truth of the
latter, that Savonarola could not have
refused Lorenzo absolution, since he
had- already received extreme unction at
other hands before even Pico arrived.

This was in July, 1492. In May,
1493, the new Pope, Alexander VI., is-
sued a brief, relieving the Prince of Mi-
randola of all censure in the matter of
the theses, and removing the ban from
his works. In September of the same
year, Pico, " feeling that his life was ac-
complished," made his will ; devising all
the real estate with which he had not
yet parted to the Hospital of Santa Ma-
ria Novella, and the residue of his per-
sonal property to his brother Antonio.
Poliziano and Savonarola both wit-
nessed the will. One more short year,
full of civic trouble and agitation as of
spiritual peace, and, in the late autumn
of 1494, under the dim skies and amid
the dropping rose-leaves of the Floren-
tine November, with the " drums and
tramplings " of a French army already
beginning to echo along the Val d'Arno,
Pico fell ill of a mortal fever. Once
again let us yield the pen to More. No
words can describe the final scene so
fittingly as his : —

" After that he had received the holy
body of our Saviour, when they of-
fered unto him the crucifix, . . . that

506

An Early Humanist.

[April,

he might, ere he gave up the ghost, re-
ceive his full draught of love and com-
passion, and the priest demanded him
whether he firmly believed the crucifix
to be the image of him that was very
God and very man . . . and such other
things as they be wont to inquire of
folk in that case, Pico answered him
that he not only believed but most cer-
tainly knew it. His nephew Albert
spake of release from suffering, but
Pico answered that he welcomed death
rather as the release from sin. He asked
also all his servants' forgiveness, — if
he had ever, before that day, offended
any of them. . . . He lay always with a
pleasant and merry countenance, and in
the very twitches and pangs of death,
he spake as though he beheld the heav-
ens open. And all that came to him
and saluted him, offering their service,
with very loving words he received,
thanked and kissed. . . . And in this
wise into the hands of our Saviour he
gave up his spirit."

It was the 17th of November, 1494.
The gates of Florence had been opened
to the army of Charles VIII. of France
that very day. The narrow streets were
full of sullen din ; the bravest hearts in
the city were heaviest. But the struggle
was just over in the chamber of the ag-
onizing, when there entered two of the
French king's own physicians, sent by
their master to bear letters of compli-
ment to the sufferer, and " do him all
the good they might."

There is a little story, well enough
authenticated, which reflects, as from a
score of facets, the spirit and the foibles
of the time. Prophecy, as we know, was
coming much into fashion, and a certain
sickly Camilla Rucellai was become a
noted seer. She had stated some years
before that " Pico would die in the time
of the lilies," and they taxed her with
it now. " Oh," replied the adroit vis-
ionary, " I meant the lilies of France."

Savonarola had also his vision, which
he described somewhat minutely in the
sermon already mentioned, preached in
the Duomo after Pico's death. He be-
held his friend in the penal fire, but
was able to assure the Florentines that
his detention would be but brief, and
was due entirely to his reluctance to en-
ter the Dominican order. This may be
classed with Savonarola's other visions.

The prince was buried in the cloister
of San Marco, in a white robe and scar-
let cap. Long years afterward, we are
told by an Italian writer on the Incor-
ruzione Naturale dei Cadaveri, the tomb
was opened by two of the brethren of
St. Mark, and the remains were seen
therein still fresh and undecayed. The
epitaph upon the cloister wall is daily
scanned by vagrants out of " antipodal "
regions, of which the poet could have
dreamed but vaguely in 1494, despite
his confident prediction of a world-wide
fame : —

" Johannes jacet hie Mirandola ; caetera norunt
Et Tagus et Ganges, forsan et Antipode."

The world of to-day " knows the rest "
quite as well as the inquisitive fifteenth
century knew it. Pico della Mirandola
died at thirty-two, disappointed of his
chief ambition, and leaving behind him
no work commensurate with his renown
for learning and ability. Of the vast
and miscellaneous mass of his acquire-
ments, the greater part was singularly
useless ; nor have his speculations, wheth-
er in physics or philosophy, proved par-
ticularly fruitful as seeds of later dis-
covery. Yet he has always been count-
ed, and justly, among the pioneers of
modern progress. His was the merit of
a mind wide open to inspiration from
every quarter of God's universe, and
chivalric in the disinterestedness of its
devotion to truth, and he has enriched
the world by the jewel of an exquisite
human memory.

Harriet Waters Preston.

1888.] The Bacon-Shakespeare Craze. 507

HEREDITY.

A SOLDIER of the Cromwell stamp,
With sword and prayer-book at his side,
At home alike in church and camp :
Austere he lived, and smileless died.

But she, a creature soft and fine, —
From Spain, some say, some say from France :
Within her veins leapt blood like wine, —
She led her Roundhead lord a dance !

In Grantham church they lie asleep ;
Just where, the verger may not know.
Strange that two hundred years should, keep
The old ancestral fires aglow !

In me these two have met again;
To each my nature owes a' part :
To one, the cool and reasoning brain ;
To one, the quick, unreasoning heart !

Thomas Bailey Aldrich.

THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CRAZE.

WOULD to heaven there were unques- English people at the time when they
tionable evidence that Bacon did write were produced ; for the statesman-phi-
the plays contained in the famous folio losopher and the player-poet were strict-
volume published at London in 1 623 ! ly contemporaries, and lived at the same
Would that, as there is now what some time in the same city. The question (if
folk think it fine to call " a consensus " it were a question) is not at all akin to
of critical opinion that the lady of the that, for example, which has been so
last century who decided that it was long discussed, and which is not yet de-
Ben Jonson who "wrote Shikspur" was cided, as to the authorship of the Iliad
wrong (although even that, it would and the Odyssey. For that is not a mere
seem, is not sure beyond a doubt), it effort of curiosity to find out whether
might be made as clear as the sun in the those poems were produced by a blind
heavens that her rival female critics of ballad-singer who spelled his name Ho-
our own day are right in proclaiming mer, or by an open-eyed epic poet of
Francis Bacon the man ! True, this de- some other name, but a question as to
cision, like the other, affects in no way the period of the production of the po-
the value or the interest of the plays, ems, as to their purpose, as to the con-
It neither lessens nor enlarges their sig- dition of the society in which they were
nificance as regards the material, the produced, as .to the intellectual record
mental, or the moral condition of the embodied in their language, and as to the

508

The Bacon-Shakespeare Craze.

[April,

historical value of the incidents which
they profess to record. It is a question
which touches the origin, the character,
and the development of the most re-
markable people and the brightest, rich-
est, and most influential civilization of
antiquity. But whether Hamlet, King
Lear, and Othello were written by Fran-
cis Bacon, or by William Shakespeare,
or by John Smith, so they were written
by an Englishman, in London, between
the years 1590 and 1610, affects in no
way their literary importance or interest,
their ethnological or their social signm-
cance, their value as objects of literary
art, or their power as a civilizing, elevat-
ing influence upon the world. The ques-
tion (if it were a question) is merely a
large variety of that small sort of literary
puzzles which interest pene-literary peo-
ple, of the sort who are disturbed to the
profoundest shallows of their minds by
uncertainty as to who is the author of
that foolish saying, " Consistency, thou
art a jewel," and who search volumes of
Familiar Quotations and vex other folk
with letters there-anent, in hopes to allay
the agitation of their souls.1 For one,
I avow myself wholly indifferent upon
the subject. What is Shakespeare to me,
or what am I to Bacon? They are no
more. Even what they were when they
lived concerned only themselves and
their personal friends. What they did
is of the greatest moment to the world
for all time ; but it would be of the same
value, the same interest, the same po-
tential influence, whether the Novum
Organ urn and the Comedy of Errors
were written by either of them, or by
both, or by neither, or whether Shake-
speare wrote the Novum Organum and
Bacon the Comedy of Errors. I am
no partisan of William Shakespeare's.
I take no more interest in him, qua
William Shakespeare, than the United

1 Or who spring to life in the discovery that
Hamlet should say that he is "to the manor born."
I have certainly received fifty letters, indeed many
more than fifty, suggesting this new reading. A
man who could make it should no more be trusted

States troops appeared to take in the
battle sometimes called the Bladensburg
races. I should not feel aggrieved or in-
jured to the value of the pen with which
I am writing if it were proved that the
Stratford yeoman's son, who went to
London and became rich in the theatrical
business, was as incapable of writing his
very name as his father and his mother
were ; but every man of common sense,
and even a little knowledge of the lit-
erary and dramatic history of the times
of Elizabeth and James I., has the right
to feel aggrieved and injured when the
productions of the two greatest minds
of modern times are made the occasion
of a gabble of controversy, the sole
foundation of which is a petty parade of
piddling, perverted verbal coincidences,
which have no more real significance than
the likeness of the notes of two cuckoos,
or of two cuckoo clocks. And therefore
placeat Diis that there might be discov-
ered, under the hand and seal of Will-
iam Shakespeare, a confession that he
was an impostor, and that the Earl of
Southampton and Ben Jonson and John
Heminge and Henry Condell, and the
people of London generally, were dupes,
and that Francis Bacon did write Titus
Androuicus and the Comedy of Errors,
and so forth through the list. There
would be so much more passed to the
credit of him who perhaps was " the
greatest, wisest," but was surely not " the
meanest, of mankind." 2 That is all.
This fuss would be over, " and soe well
ended."

The subject is one upon which some
very worthy and very " literary " peo-
ple are in a sad state of mind, and about
which they have been going on in a
more or less spasmodical way for some
years ; and now there comes about it a
stout handsome volume of six hundred
and twenty-five pages, which represents

with a copy of Shakespeare than a boy of nine
years old with a revolving razor.

2 See Evenings with a Reviewer, by James
Spedding, 2 vols. 8vo, 1883: see also The Person-
al History of Lord Bacon, by Hepworth Dixon.

1883.]

The Bacon-Shakespeare Craze.

509

so much genuine enthusiasm and such an
amount of honest, thorough, systematic
work on the part of an intelligent, ac-
complished gentlewoman, that to treat it
as it must be treated, only upon its mer-
its, is an ungrateful and almost a forbid-
ding task.1 The occasion of this volume
and the substance of it are furnished by
some memorandums of words, phrases,
proverbs, adages, and so forth in Ba-
con's handwriting, which seem to have
been made by him perhaps for reference,
and possibly for the improvement of his
style. They fill fifty sheets or folios,
as we are told, and they are preserved
in the well-known Harleian Collection
of manuscripts in the British Museum.
Known long ago, they were described by
Spedding, Bacon's able and accomplished
editor, who, however, did not deem them
of sufficient importance to be included in
his great edition of Bacon's writings. It
would have been well if they had been
left to moulder in their fitting obscurity ;
for they tell the world nothing that it
did not know before ; and so far as Ba-
con himself is concerned, they add noth-
ing to his reputation either for wisdom
or for knowledge, certainly nothing for
scholarship or for critical acumen. In
fact, they are at best only the dust and
sweepings of his study; such stuff as
everybody, except those whose literary
appetite is a small sort of curiosity about
distinguished people, would gladly see
put to real service to mankind in the
kindling of fires or other like domestic
function. Their editress, however (Spen-
ser says " poetress," and Ben Jouson
"conqueress;" why may we not say ed-
itress?), brings them now to light with
a higher purpose than the mere gratifi-
cation of petty -literary curiosity. She
fancies (fancies! believes, with a faith
which would remove mountains, if faith
indeed were such an uncommon carrier)
that they establish beyond all reasonable

1 The Promus of Formularies and Elegancies
(being private notes, circa 1594, hitherto unpub-
lished) of Francis Bacon, illustrated and elucidated

doubt the claim which she and a few
fond fellow-worshipers have set up for
Bacon to the authorship of the plays
which William Shakespeare, in his life-
time, claimed as his ; which all his per-
sonal frieuds, and more, his personal ene-
mies, believed to be his ; and which have
been accepted as his for nearly three
hundred years, not only by the world in
general, but by all the scholars and crit-
ics who were thoroughly informed upon
the subject : — a not illaudable purpose,
and one which she has pursued with
such a touching union of fervor and sin-
gleness of heart, and such perfection of
that candor which disdains to take ad-
vantage by any 'concealment or dexter-
ous perversion, — common accompani-
ments of enthusiasm, — that the result
of her labors cannot be contemplated
•without sadness, and, moreover, without
sorrow that it cannot be treated with
patience, hardly with decorum.

The theory which this great mass
of unconnected memorandums is pub-
lished to sustain is simply this: Ba-
con must have written out these words
and phrases and proverbs for his own
use. Some few of them are found in
his acknowledged writings, but the
most of them he did not use in those
writings ; and between these, and in-
deed between a great number of them,
and certain passages of the Shakespeare
plays there is (so says enthusiasm) such
likeness, either in word or in thought,
that the unavoidable conclusion is that
he wrote the plays. The logic is of the
lamest ; for it ignores practically, if not
avowedly, the fact that these words and
phrases and adages are in their very es-
sence the common property of the world,
— were the common property of the
world at the time that Bacon made these
memorandums ; and that Bacon made
them for his own convenience chiefly be-
cause they were such common property.

by passages from Shakespeare. By Mus. HENRY
POTT. With Preface by E. A. ABBOTT, D. D.
Boston : Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

610

The Bacon-Shakespeare Craze.

[April,

Moreover, the painful and elaborate de-
ploying of the passages in the plays
which are supposed to sustain this the-
ory, or, to speak rightly, this fancy, ex-
hibits no identity of phrase or of thought
which will sustain this conclusion, or
indeed a conclusion of any kind, about
them. There is only one way of show-
ing what and how great the failure is ;
and that is the examination of some of
the most striking of the sixteen hundred
and fifty-five memorandums which, with
their accompanying illustrative passages,
make up the bulk of this big book.
The process may be wearisome ; but if
our task is to be performed at all, it is
unavoidable.

The very first memorandum which is
illustrated is most characteristic of the
whole of this inept and absurdly incon-
clusive performance. It is, —

" Corni contra croci. Good means
against badd, homes to crosses." (Pro-
mus, 2.)

This is illustrated by five passages
from the plays, of which here follow
four : —

"And bear with mildness my misfortune's
cross." (3 Henry VI., IV. iv.)

" I have given way unto this cross of fortune."

(Much Ado About Nothing, IV. i.)
" And curbs himself even of his natural scope
When you do cross his humor."

(1 Henry IV., III. ii.)
" I love not to be crossed.
"He speaks the mere contrary. Crosses love
not him." (Love's Labour 's Lost, I. ii.)

This is a hapless beginning ; for ex-
cept in the last line of the last quota-
tion, " cross," although it has the same
sound and is spelled with the same let-
ters, is really not the same word that
appears in Bacon's memorandum. Al-
though etymologically the same, as an
expression of thought it is uot the
same; for it means a wholly different
thing. The cross in the Promus adage
is the material cross (-|-)5 produced by
the setting together of two straight rods
or sticks at right angles. It is the cross
of the crucifix, used figuratively to rep-

resent the influence of divine goodness
and self-sacrificing love. On the other
hand, the horns of the adage are the
horns of Satan, which are used to typify
the spirit of evil. Thus the opposition
of good and evil was expressed. More-
over, the crucifix, or any cross, as that
of a sword-hilt, was supposed, even in
Bacon's time, to have the power of ex-
orcising evil spirits. Satan himself
could not face it. An impressive scene
it is in Faust where the throng of armed
men draw their swords, and present to
Mephistopheles, not their points or their
edges, but their cross-hilts, from the
sight of which he hides his eyes and
shrinks away. This is the cross, and
this the meaning of the Promus adage.
But in all the instances cited above
from Shakespeare the word " cross "
means merely opposition, movement
against, and (except in the third and
fourth cases) consequent disaster. " This
cross of fortune " is, This disastrous op-
position of fortune ; " When you do
cross his humour " is, When you do vex-
atiously run counter to his humor. So
in the other cases. In these passages
there is not the remotest suggestion of
the cross of the crucifix which is to be
opposed, as a token of divine love and
power, to the horns of Satan, as the
embodiment of evil. The notion of any
connection between them and the adage
is preposterous. We are told at the end
of the illustrative passages that the word
occurs " thirty times " in Shakespeare's
plays, which any one might see by con-
sulting Mrs. Clarke's Concordance. So
it might have occurred three thousand
times, and with just as little significance
or pertinence to the matter in hand. As
well cite in illustration of the Promus

" Cross-patch,
Draw the latch,
Sit by the fire and spin; "

and very much better,

" Ride a cock horse
To Danbury-crosa; "

1883.]

The Bacon-Shakespeare Craze.

511

for at Danbury there was such a cross
as Bacon had in mind.

Because this is the first example, and
because it is so very characteristic and
typical an example, of these marvelous
illustrations of the coincidences between
the Shakespeare plays and Bacon's Pro-
mus, more time and attention have been
given to it than can be spared to those
which follow ; through the fretful array
of which we must push rapidly.

We turn a leaf, and at the top of the
page we find, "Nolite dare sanctum
canibus, — Give not that which is holy
unto dogs" (Promus, 11) ; which is il-
lustrated by the following passage from
As You Like It : —

" Celia. Why cousin! . . . not a word?
Eos. Not one to throw at a dog.
Celia. No, thy words are too precious to be cast
away upon curs."

Again a typical example of a sort of
" illustration " which swarms through
these pages. It is absolutely without
importance, and without significance of
any kind. For, as the reader will doubt-
less have already seen, the words in the
Promus are from the New Testament
(Matt. vii. 6) ; they were known all
over Europe, and had surely been in
constant colloquial use for centuries be-
fore Bacon was born. And there are
hundreds of just such meaningless illus-
trations in this volume.

It is difficult to keep one's counte-
nance, even if the effort should be made,
when we find Bacon's memorandum
(Promus, 24) of Virgil's " Procul, o
procul este profani " (Away, away, ye
profane), illustrated by Falstaff's out-
break upon Nym and Pistol : —

" Rogues, hence ! avaunt ! vanish like hailstones !
go!"

In the newest f angle of Shakespearean
or an ti- Shakespearean criticism are we
required to assume as a postulate that
a dramatist of the Elizabethan period
was unable to use his mother tongue in
a plain, direct, and somewhat effective
manner, without reference to a common-
place book of the Latin classics ?

Our next example is one of a sort not
uncommon, in which the same word oc-
curs in both Promus and play, but with a
meaning wholly and absolutely opposite.
It is the following : " Semper virgines
furiae " (Promus, 43) ; in which Erasmus
notes the remarkable fact that the Furies
are always represented as maidens, as
angels are always masculine. The illus-
tration here is from Much Ado About
Nothing : —

" Her cousin, an she were not possessed with a
fury, exceeds her as much in beauty as the first
of May doth the last of December."

In this speech, Benedick, on the con-
trary, expresses his surprise ; he regards
it as an extraordinary combination that
virginal beauty should be accompanied
by sharp temper and a shrewish tongue,
— a union that would not have aston-
ished Erasmus, nor, indeed, Bacon.

These illustrations of Bacon's com-
monplacing by the Shakespeare plays
frequently present us, on the one hand,
an adage or a phrase so long known
the civilized world over that no repeti-
tion nor use of it by any writer in any
language, within the last five hundred
years, would be stronger proof of ac-
quaintance with any other writer who
also used it than the assertion that
there was a sun in the heavens would ;
and, on the other, a string of passages
which have not only no relation to
the phrase to be illustrated, but none to
each other ; and which are like a class
in a district school, — Yankees, Irish,
Germans, French, and Italians ; all
bawling out together at the word of com-
mand ; some right and some wrong, none
with any real understanding of what
they are saying, and having in blood,
in speech, or in purpose no semblance
of kindred, coherence, or unity. Of this
sort is the following : —

"Et justificata est sapientia a filiis
suis, — Wisdom is justified of her chil-
dren." (Promus, 249.)

This, again, is from the New Testa-
ment (Matt. xi. 19), and was the com-

512

The Bacon-Shakespeare Craze.

[April,

mon property of Europe for centuries
before Bacon's time; its English form
having been nearly as well known as
the Ten Commandments or the Lord's
Prayer three hundred years before Ba-
con was born. It means, we need hard-
ly say, that the children of wisdom jus-
tify (that is, prove) their parentage by
their conduct ; they " behave as sich," —
an adage equally true with " Train up
a child in the way he should go, and
when he is old he will not depart from
it," or with " Just as the twig is bent
the tree 's inclined." This has the fol-
lowing illustrations : —

"And make us heirs of all eternity." (Love's
Labour '3 Lost, I. i.)

" Earthly godfathers of heaven's lights." (Ib.)

" This child of fancy." (76.)

" The first heir of my invention." (Dedication
to Venus and Adonis.)

" The children of an idle brain." (Romeo and
Juliet, I. iv. )

What possible connection or relation
is discoverable between these passages
and the declaration in regard to the chil-
dren of wisdom ? There is none, except
that in the one, as in the others, the idea
of childhood or of heirship is presented.
Had Elizabeth given her young Lord
Keeper a monopoly of these ?

Passing rapidly on, among these mem-
orandums we find the very familiar
phrase " Prima facie " (Promus, 299) ;
the illustration of which (Love at first
sight. As You Like It, III. v. 81 ;
Troilus and Cressida, V. ii. ; Tempest,
I. ii.) I pass by in mute admiration,
as I do that of our next example, " A
catt may look on a kynge " (Promus,
489) ; which is supposed to be the or-
igin of the following question and an-
swer : —

"Ben. What is Tybalt ?

Mer. More than prince of cats." (Romeo and
Juliet, II. iv.)

That is, I would pass it by, leaving it
to stand in staring ineptness and pueril-
ity, but for its flagrant exhibition of a
kind and degree of ignorance of Shake-
speare's writings which is characteristic

of the Bacon-saving Shakespearean. For
the reason of Juliet's cousin being called
prince of cats by the witty Mercutio is
that "Tybert, Tybalt, Thibault" (all
really one name), means a cat, just as
" Graymalkin " and "Tabby" do in
English. Tybert is the name of the
cat in the Middle Age apologue, Rey-
nard the Fox. And in the old Ital-
ian story of Romeo and Julietta, which
furnishes the whole substance of the
Shakespeare tragedy, Juliet's cousin is
named Tibaldo. This story was trans-
lated by Arthur Brooke into an Eng-
lish poem, Romeus and Julietta, and
published at London in 1562 ; and this
poem it is that was dramatized into the
great English tragedy. In it, Juliet's
cousin's name is Tybalt. So far, then,
is it from being true that he was called
prince of cats because Francis Bacon
wrote among his commonplaces, " A
catt may look on a kynge " (shade of
Aristotle, what an inference !), that it is
absolutely impossible that the Promus
memorandum had any connection with
Mercutio's speech ; for Juliet's quarrel-
some kinsman was made known to all
English readers by his typical name in
a rhymed story, which was well known
(and which soon became popular) at a
time when the future philosopher and
Lord Chancellor was in long clothes, —
he having been born in the year before
that in which Brooke's Romeus and Ju-
lietta was published. His Promus mem-
orandum could have had no more to do
with the calling Tybalt prince of cats
than it had with the origin of Puss in
Boots.

"Neither too heavy nor too hot"
(Promus, 651), a saying which was ap-
plied to a bold thief, who would steal
anything not too heavy or too hot for
him to carry, is illustrated by sixteen
passages from the plays, not one of
which has the slightest connection with
it or similarity to it, except the pres-
ence of one. of the two common English
words, " heavy " and " hot ; " as may be

1883.]

The Bacon-Shakespeare Craze.

513

gathered from the fact that the first is,
" Are you so hot, sir ? " (1 Henry V.,
III. ii.), and the last, " Seneca cannot
be too heavy nor Plautus too light."
(Hamlet, IV. ii.)

Perhaps one of the most startling of
these illustrations is that of " a ring of
gold on a swynes snout " (687) ; which
degrading satirical comparison is pre-
se'nted as the origin of Romeo's beauti-
ful extravagance "like a rich jewel in
an Ethiop's ear." The absurdity of this
is not all apparent without a considera-
tion of the whole of the lover's simile: —

"It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear; "

which is but a variation of the passage
in the XXVIIth Sonnet: —

"Save that my soul's imaginary sight
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
Which like a jewel hung in ghastly night
Makes black night beauteous, and her old face
new."

It would seem, then, that the solemn fig-
ure of Night with her dark, begemmed
robe was suggested to the author of Ro-
meo and Juliet by a pig's snout, with a
ring in it to keep him from rooting.

That memorandum 706, " Laconis-
mus," from Erasmus's Adagia, should
be illustrated by "Like the Romans in
brevity" is Hibernian in its blunder-
ing, as the Laconians were not Romans,
but Greeks, which Francis Bacon surely
knew. But as the illustration is from
King Henry IV., perhaps it was the em-
bryo Pistol who put in his oar here.
He was in the habit of talking of Tro-
jan Greeks and Phrygian Turks, and
the like two-headed monsters.

Many others of Bacon's Promus mem-
orandums are from Erasmus ; and at
meeting among them the one here fol-
lowing, every true American heart must
flutter with joy and pride : —

" Riper than a mulberry. (Maturior
moro, — Of a mild, soft-mannered man,"
etc.) Promus, 869.

Did Bacon, — tell us, did he, — look-
ing forward nearly three centuries, pro-
ject his all-creative mind into the dra-

VOL. LI. — NO. 306. 33

matic future of this country, and in this
memorandum give the New World the
germ of the great mulberry, Colonel
Mulberry Sellers ? It must be so. The
colonel, beyond a doubt, was a mild,
soft-mannered man. How is it possible
that anybody could have dreamed of a
mulberry, unless the word had been pre-
viously commonplaced by Bacon ! Per-
ish the thought ! The discovery of the
Promus establishes, beyond a question,
that Mulberry Sellers is Bacon's boon
to America.

In like manner we learn that Charles
Reade has hitherto been most unjust-
ly credited with the conception of one
of his own novels ; for as number 959
of the Promus memorandums we find
"Love me little, love me long;" and

7 O '

what more is needed to show where Mr.
Reade found the title and the motive of
his charming book ?

In memorandum 1544, " Soleil qui
luise au matin, femme qui parle latin,
enfant nourrit de vin, ne vient point a
bonne fin," who can hesitate for a mo-
ment at discovering that we have the
origin of that admirable poetical embodi-
ment of common sense and common ex-
perience,

" Whistlin' gals an' crowin' hens
Never comes to no good ends " ?

But this part of our subject is becom-
ing too grave and serious, and I must
bring it to a close with an illustration of
a lighter and more amusing nature ; to
wit, the following : — •

" Nourriture passe nature." (Promus,
1595.)

This adage, it need hardly be said,
means that breeding is a second nature,
stronger than that with which a man is
born. Would it be believed, without
the evidence of black and white before
us, that, in proof that Bacon wrote
Shakespeare's plays, the first and prin-
cipal illustration of this adage is the fol-
lowing passage from Pericles ? —

" Those mothers, who, to nousle up their babes
Thought not too curious, are ready now

514

The Bacon-Shakespeare Craze.

[April,

To eat those little darlings whom they loved.
So sharp are hunger's teeth, that man and wife
Draw lots who first shall die to lengthen life."
(Act I. Scene iv.)

The italic emphasis of the third line is
mine ; and I have thus distinguished
it, because as an illustration of " Nourri-
ture passe nature," it surpasses all the
Shakespearean jokes that I have had the
good fortune to encounter. There are
five hundred mortal octavo pages of
proofs and illustrations, of which the
foregoing are fair examples, that Fran-
cis Bacon wrote William Shakespeare's
thirty -seven comedies, histories, and
tragedies ! One more of them shall de-
lay us a moment. Promus memoran-
dum 1404 is "O the ; " and this wholly
senseless union of words is seriously il-
lustrated by the following passages, of
which it is assumed to be the origin :
" O the heavens ! " " O the devil ! " " O
the time!" "O the gods!" "O the
good gods ! " " O the vengeance ! " " O
all the devils ! " " O the Lord ! " " O
the blest gods ! " It is needless to give
the titles of the plays from which they
are taken. When Benedick said that he
should die a bachelor he did not think
that he would live to be married. When
I wrote the foregoing assertion about
Shakespearean jokes I had not read this
number of the Promus and its illustra-
tions. They bear the palm. The fair
editress might have deprived us of our
laugh if she had perceived that the
meaningless " O the," which could be
the origin of nothing, is a mere irregu-
lar phonetic spelling of oath, — othe, in
which the first letter was accidentally
separated from the second, which is
shown by the immediately following
memorandums: (1405) "O my L[ord]
Sr," (1406) " Beleeve it," (1409)
" Mought it please God that," or, " I
would to God." Why Bacon wrote down
phrases like this, here and elsewhere,
seems inexplicable ; but that is not to
the purpose.

What is evidently regarded as the

strong point of this array of evidence
in favor of the Baconian origin of the
Shakespeare plays is Folio 111 of the
Promus. It is indorsed by Bacon,
" Formularies and Elegancies ; " and it
con tains forty-five memorandums (1189-
1233) of phrases either of salutation or
of complimentary remark in connection
with the time of day, or what has been
known time out of mind in the English
language, and among people of English
blood and speech, as giving the time of
day. First among these memorandums
is " Good morrow " (1189) ; we find also
among them "Good matens" (1192),
"Good betimes" (1193), "Bon iouyr,
Bon iour bridegroome " (1194), " Good
day to me, and good morrow to you "
(1195), and the pretty conceit, "I have
not said all my prayers till I have bid
you good morrow " (1196). Here Ba-
con's enthusiastic champion throws down
the gauge and takes a stanJ so boldly,
and maintains it so earnestly, that it
would be both unfair and unwise not to
set forth fully the point upon which she
joins issue. It is asserted that this folio
generally, and particularly in these
phrases of morning salutation, supports
" a reasonable belief that these Promus
notes are by the same hand that penned
Romeo and Juliet." The ground of
this reasonable belief is that these forms
of salutation, although they " are intro-
duced into almost every play of Shake-
speare, . . . certainly were not in com-
mon use until many years after the pub-
lication of these plays," and that " it
appears to be the case " (risum teneatis ?)
that " they were of Bacon's introduc-
tion." This is insisted upon again and
again : as, for example, " It certainly
does not appear that, as a rule, any
forms of morning and evening salutation
were used in the early part of the six-
teenth century, nor, indeed, until after
the writing of this folio (111), which is
placed between the folios dated Decem-
ber, 1594, and others bearing the date
January 27, 1595;" and again, "It

1883.]

The Bacon-Shakespeare Craze.

515

seems to have been the practice for
friends to meet in the morning, and to
part at night) without any special form
of greeting or valediction ; " and again,
" In Ben Jonson's plays . . . there is
hardly one, except in Every Man in his
Humour, where you twice meet with
' good morrow.' But this play was
written in 1598, a year after Romeo and
Juliet was published, and four years
after the date usually assigned to that
tragedy. ' Good morrow ' might have
become familiar merely by means of
Romeo and Juliet ; but it does not ap-
pear that it had become a necessary
or common salutation," etc. ; and yet
again, " It is certain that the habit of
using forms of morning and evening sal-
utation was not introduced into Eng-
land prior to the date of Bacon's notes,
1594."

This is the most amazing assertion,
and this the most amazing inference,
that exists, to my knowledge, in all
English critical literature. If the as-
sertion had been made in connection
with another subject, and the inference
had been drawn in regard. to a point of
less general interest than the influence
of Bacon or of Shakespeare upon the
manners and speech of their time, or
even if they had not been here trumpet-
ed so triumphantly as a note of victory,
they might well have been passed by in
smiling silence. But the circumstances
give them an importance not their own ;
and the confident manner in which they
are set forth, with an array of citation
that may be mistaken for proof, might
mislead many readers whose knowledge
of the subject is even less than that
which is shown by the compiler of this
volume.

First, the fact asserted is in its very
nature so incredible that it could not be
received as established upon any merely
negative evidence. That any civilized,
or half-civilized, people of the Indo-Eu-
ropean race should have existed in the
sixteenth century without customary

salutation and valediction at morning
and evening could not be believed, upon
the mere absence of such phrases in
their literature. Such absence, if it ex-
isted, would have to be accounted for
upon some other supposition. This is
one of those cases in which reasoning a
priori is of more weight than negative
evidence. A society so beyond civil-
ity as to be without forms of salutation
would be one in which neither a Bacon
nor a Shakespeare would be possible.
But leaving this point without further
remark, it is to be said simply that the
assertion is absolutely untrue ; and with
the assertion goes, of course, the infer-
ence drawn from it. Mrs. Pott herself
furnishes evidence against it. For she
is very candid ; and indeed, were her
knowledge and her critical ability only
equal to her candor and her industry,
she would have produced a very valu-
able and interesting work, or — none at
all. She has painfully searched an al-
most incredible number of books of the
Elizabethan and post-Elizabethan pe-
riod, for the purpose of illustrating and
maintaining her thesis, and has even
catalogued the results of her examina-
tion. Hence alone her careful readers
are able to see, even if they did not
know it before, that such forms as
"good morrow," "goodnight," "good
bye," and the like, are used by these
writers of that time : Gascoigne, Stubbs,
Ben Jonson, Fletcher, Beaumont, and
Heywood, all of them men who wrote
between 1580 and 1620; and to these
there might be numerous additions.
Is it to be believed that these writers
put into the mouths of their personages
phrases of this nature which were not
in common colloquial use ? But we are
told that people began suddenly, and all
at once, to say " good morrow," and the
like, to each other, because Francis
Bacon had elaborated those phrases in
his Promus, and introduced them in his
Romeo and Juliet to the English peo-
ple. Bacon is made equivalent to the

516

The Bacon-Shakespeare Craze.

[April,

hunger which " expedivit [Persius's]
psiltaco suum xalPe" Will any one not
bitten and mad with the Bacon-Shake-
speare restrum believe this, or pause
for one moment in doubt over its pre-
posterous incredibility ? But even our
Bacon enthusiast is, in candor, obliged
to confess one fact which is mortal to
the theory which she has undertaken
to maintain. We are told in a foot-
note, and in one of the appendices, that
since the volume was compiled its edi-
tress, or some one for her, has discov-
ered that the salutation " good morrow "
occurs in the dialogue of John Bon and
Master Person [parson], which was
printed in 1548, nearly half a century
before Bacon jotted down his Promus,
and, what is something to the purpose,
thirteen years before he was born.

" The Parson. What, John Bon ! Good mor-
rowe to thee !

John Bon. Nowe good morrowe, Mast. Parson,
so mut I thee." l

The fact that Gascoigne published in
1587, before Bacon was born, two po-
ems, Good Morrow and Good Night, had
been set aside, or " got over," by the
astonishing plea that these were only
titles, and not colloquial uses of these
phrases ! (But if they were not known
as salutations, with what propriety were
they used as titles ?) And as to John
Bon and Master Person, there is a de-
spairing attempt to show that "good
morrow " was not a morning salutation,
and that " the first use for that purpose
seems to be in Romeo and Juliet."
Great Phoebus, god of the morning, for
what, then, was good morrow used ?
Surely, the force of self-delusion could
no further go.

To have given so much time to the
examination of this frantic fancy would
have been more than wasteful, were
it not that within its petty convolu-
tions is involved another, which is of
as much importance as anything can be

l So mut [or mote] I thee = so might I thrive ;
so may I prosper.

that is connected with this subject. It
is fortunate, ad hoc, that the point was
made ; for it is fatal to the whole bear-
ing of this Promus upon the Bacon theo-
ry of the Shakespeare plays. It is so
because we have, according to the Ba-
con-saving-Shakespeare folk themselves,
Bacon's own testimony that English
people, of all sorts and conditions, were
in the constant habit of using saluta-
tions, particularly in the morning.

In the Second Part of King Henry
VI., Act III. Sc. i., is the following
passage : —

" Queen. We know the time since he was mild

and affable,

And if we did but glance a far-off look,
Immediate!}' he was upon his knee,
That all the court admired him for submission.
But meet him now, be it in the morn,
When every one will give the time of day,
He knits his brow and shows an angry eye,
And passeth by," etc.

The bearing of this passage is such, it is
so broad, so clear, so direct, and its tes-
timony comes from such a quarter, that
it might be well to leave the point upon
which it touches without another word
of remark ; but it may also be well to set
forth its full importance and significance.
It will be seen that here, according to
those who proclaim that Bacon is Shake-
speare, and that they are his prophets,
Bacon himself declares that at the time
when he wrote this passage " every one "
in England said good morning ; that it
was recognized as so general and ab-
solute a requirement of good manners
that the omission of it gave occasion for
censure. Now this passage, although it
is found in the Second Part of King
Henry VI., appears originally, word for
word, in a play of which Bacon (or,
as some un-illuminated people believe,
Shakespeare) was one of the writers,
called The First Part of the Contention
of the Two Noble Houses of York and
Lancaster, which was worked over into
the Henry VI. play, and which must
have been in existence in the year 1591,
as it is referred to in a book published
in 1592. Whence we see that this dec-

1883.]

The S aeon-Shakespeare Craze.

517

laration of Bacon the playwright as to
giving the time of day " in the morn "
by " every one " antedates the memo-
randum of Bacon the Promus writer at
least three years. According, therefore,
to people with whose fancies we are
now dealing seriously, Bacon himself
tells us that he did not teach the peo-
ple of England to bid each other good
morrow by writing Romeo and Juliet ;
and perhaps even they — the Bacon-
Shakespeare folk — are now beginning
to suspect that the writer of John Bou
and Master Person and the poet Gas-
coigne, when they used " good morrow "
and "good night," were merely repeat-
ing phrases which were even common-
er than mere household words, and had
been so in England for centuries.

And yet again, this passage, which
appears in The First Part of the Con-
tention and in the Second Part of King
Henry VI., is one of those as to the
authorship of which there is no doubt.
Whatever his name was, the writer of
it was the writer of the Shakespeare
plays. Whoever wrote that passage
wrote also As You Like It, Hamlet,
King Lear, and Othello, and the rest.
And this man, as we have seen, was
not the one who felt it necessary to pot-
ter over a Promus of elegancies in sal-
utation to justify him in the use of
" good morrow." For, moreover, this
man had used this phrase in at least
five plays which preceded the Promus
and Romeo and Juliet. It occurs (as
any one may see by referring to Mrs.
Clarke's Concordance) in Love's La-
bour 's Lost, The Two Gentlemen of

1 What ignorance may, and generally does, ac-
company the effort to transmute Shakespeare into
Bacon is shown here in regard to this very ques-
tion of the date of the production of Romeo and
Juliet. It is remarked in the Introductory Essay
(page 68), "The publication of Romeo and Juliet
is fixed at 1597, and its composition has been usu-
ally ascribed to 1594-5. . . . Recently, however,
Dr. Delius has proposed the date 1592 for the com-
position of Romeo and Juliet, on the ground that a
certain earthquake which took place in 1580 is al-
luded to by the Nurse (I. iii. ) as having happened

Verona, Titus Andronicus, King Rich-
ard III., and A Midsummer - Night's
Dream, all of which are earlier than
Romeo and Juliet, as it should seem
that any person who ventured to write
upon this subject would know.1 That
Romeo and Juliet brought " good mor-
row " into use in England as a morning
salutation is impossible ; the notion that
any writer brought it into use in the
reign of Elizabeth, or within centuries
of that reign, is, to any person compe-
tent to have an opinion upon the subject,
ridiculously absurd.

We have, however, not yet seen the
extreme of the ignorance which is dis-
played in this attempt to show that the
writer of the Promus was also the writ-
er of Romeo and Juliet. In this folio
(111) of the Promus, memorandum
1200 is " rome ; " upon which we find
the following comment in the Introduc-
tory Essay to this volume : —

" One can scarcely avoid imagining
that the solitary word ' rome,' which is
entered six notes (44) farther on in the
Promus with a mark of abbreviation
over the e, may have been a hint for the
name of the bridegroom himself. It
has been suggested that ' rome ' may be
intended for the Greek work pw/xiy =
strength, and that the mark may denote
that the vowel (e) is long in quantity.
The objection to this suggestion is that
Bacon frequently uses a mark of abbre-
viation, whilst in no other Greek word
does he take any heed of quantity ; but
were it so, it would not extinguish the
possibility that the word may have been
intended as a hint for the name of

eleven j'ears ago." Wonderful discovery on the
part of the German doctor ! Wonderful discovery
of the German doctor by our editress ! This point
as to the bearing of the Nurse's earthquake on the
date of the play was made by Tyrwhitt more
than a hundred years ago, and has been discussed
by every considerable editor since. The notes
upon it in Furness's variorum edition of Romeo
and Juliet fill two pages. Proposed by Dr. Delius !
But if ignorant English-speaking folk will run
after strange gods, they cannot complain if they
are led into trouble.

518

The Bacon-Shakespeare Craze.

[April,

Romeo, alluding perhaps to the strength
of the love which is alluded to in the
following passages," etc.

If what we have seen before is amaz-
ing, the gravity of this is astounding.
A hint for the name of the bridegroom !
An allusion in Greek to the strength of
his passion ! Why, who that has the
slightest and most superficial acquaint-
ance with the origin of Shakespeare's
plays does not know that the name of
the bridegroom in this tragedy was fur-
nished by the old poem, of which it is
a mere dramatization, — a poem famil-
iar to the people of London for years
before the tragedy was produced, or
the Promus memorandums written, —
and that it came into that poem from a
story which had been told and retold
by various writers for generations ?
The " name of the bridegroom " was set-
tled in Italy, centuries before Bacon or
Shakespeare could write it. The writer
of the tragedy took all its principal per-
sonages, and their names with them,
from the old poem, and he would not
have thought of such a thing as chang-
ing the name of its hero. He chose his
plot because it was that of the old pop-
ular story of the sad fate of the two
lovers, — Romeo of the Montagues and
Juliet of the Capulets, — with which
he wished to please his audience, by
putting it before them in a dramatic
form. There was no occasion for a
hint as to the name of the bridegroom;
he had been baptized long before.

It seems very strange to be obliged
to treat such fancies even with a sem-
blance of respect ; but these are char-
acteristic of the methods by which this
foolish fuss is kept up, and is pressed
upon the attention of the uninformed,
or the more easily deceived half -in-
formed, as if it were a serious literary
question.

As to this Promus memorandum
" rome," if it has any connection with
Romeo and Juliet, which is not at all
probable, it may possibly be of this na-

ture : The Italian pronunciation of Ro-
meo is Romeo ; but Brooke, in his poem
Romeus and Juliet, published in 1562
(and consequently Shakespeare in his
tragedy), accented it upon the first syl-
lable, whether in the Latin or the Ital-
ian form, as will appear by the follow-
ing passage : —

" Fayre Juliet tourned to her chayre with plesaunt

• cheere,
And glad she was her Romeus approched was so

neere.

At thone side of her chayre her lover Romeo
And on the other syde there sat one cald Mercu-

tio."

The distortions of proper names, in this
manner, by English writers of the Eliza-
bethan period are monstrous and ridic-
ulous. For example, Robert Greene,
a university scholar, not only deprives
poor Iphegenia entirely of the ei in her
name, Ic^iy^i/eta, but actually pronounces
it If-fij-in-ay : —

" You '11 curse the hour wherein you did denay
To join Alphonsus with Iphigena.

And so by marriage of Iphigena
You soon shall drive the danger clear away."
(Alphonsus, Act III.)

Now it is just not impossible that Ba-
con, having read Brooke's poem, or seen
Shakespeare's play, made a memoran-
dum, imperfect and obscure, as to either
the proper pronunciation, or the cus-
tomary English mispronunciation, of the
e in Romeo ; but, nevertheless, we may
be pretty sure that his " rome " had no
more to do with Romeo than his " good
morrow " with the appearance of that
phrase in Shakespeare's plays, or its
use by English people.

To one stumbling-block in the path
of the Bacon-Shakespeare theorists they
seem to be quite blind, — the Sonnets.
They busy themselves with Bacon's
writings, the plays, and the concord-
ance; and with their eyes fixed upon
the one point which they hope to attain,
these headlong literary steeple-chasers,
with their noses in the air, look right
over this obstacle, which is one of many,
each one of which would bring them to

1883.]

The Bacon-Shakespeare Craze.

519

the ground. They have little to say
about it ; and what they do say is not
at all to the purpose. If there is one
fact in literary history which, upon mor-
al grounds, upon internal and external
evidence, is as certain as any recorded
fact in general history, or as any dem-
onstrated mathematical proposition, it is
that the writer of the plays was also
the writer of the sonnets, both of which
bear the name of Shakespeare. In
spirit, in manner, and in the use of lan-
guage, their likeness is so absolute that
if either one of the two groups had been
published anonymously, there would
have been no room for doubt that it was
by the writer of the other. Now the
sonnets, or a considerable number of
them, had been written before the year
1597 ; for, as all students of the litera-
ture of the period know, they are men-
tioned by Francis Meres in his Palladis
Tamia, which was published in 1598.
They were not then published ; they
were not written for the public, as Meres
tells us ; they were not printed until
eleven years afterwards, when they
were procured for publication in some
surreptitious or ^Mast-surreptitious way.
Meres mentions them as Shakespeare's
" sugred sonnets among his private
friends." Now, if Bacon wrote the
plays, he also wrote the sonnets : and
consequently we must believe that the
lawyer, philosopher, and statesman, who
at twenty-six years of age had planned
his great system of inductive investiga-
tion, who never took his eye from that
grand purpose ; who was struggling with
unpropitious fortune, who had difficul-
ty in procuring the means of living in
modest conformity to his position as a
gentleman of good birth and high con-
nection, who was a hard-working bar-
rister conducting great public as well
as private causes, an active member of
Parliament, and a scheming, if not an
intriguing, courtier, occupied himself,
not only in writing plays, for which he
might have got a little (for one like him

a very little) money, but in writing fan-
ciful sonnets, — not an occasional son-
net or two, but one hundred and fifty-
four sonnets, more than Wordsworth in-
flicted upon the world, — which were
not to be published or put to any profit-
able use, but which he gave to an actor,
to be handed about as his own among
his private friends, for their delectation
and his own glory. This Bacon did, or
he did not write the plays. That he
did so is morally impossible ; and indeed
the supposition that he could have done
so is too monstrously absurd to merit
this serious examination of its possibility.
Besides all which, there are many of
these sonnets, • and they by no means
the least meritorious or the least char-
acteristic of them, that are of such a na-
ture in their subjects and their language
and their allusions that any one at all
acquainted with Bacon's tastes, or his
moral nature, would hesitate at accept-
ing them, would revolt from accepting
them, as his, even upon positive and
direct testimony. Bacon certainly did
not write the sonnets ; and therefore, as
certainly, he did not write the plays.
(It shames me to seem to rest such a
decision upon a formula of grave and
sober reasoning.) There is no visible
avoidance of this conclusion.

And now we are face to face with
what is, after all, the great inherent ab-
surdity (as distinguished from evidence
and external conditions) of this fantasti-
cal notion, — the unlikeness of Bacon's
mind and of his style to those of the
writer of the plays. Among all the men
of that brilliant period who stand forth
in the blaze of its light with sufficient
distinction for us, at this time, to know
anything of them, no two were so ele-
mentally unlike in their mental and mor-
al traits and in their literary habits
as Francis Bacon and William Shake-
speare ; and each of them stamped his
individuality unmistakably upon his
work. Both were thinkers of the high-
est order ; both, what we somewhat

520

The Bacon-Shakespeare Craze.

[April,

loosely call philosophers : but how dif-
ferent their philosophy, how divergent
their ways of thought, and how notably
unlike their modes of expression ! Ba-
con, a cautious observer and investigator,
ever looking at men and things through
the dry light of cool reason ; Shake-
speare, glowing with instant inspiration,
seeing by intuition the thing before him,
outside and inside, body and spirit, as
it was, yet moulding it as it was to his
immediate need, — finding in it mere-
ly an occasion of present thought, and
regardless of it, except as a stimulus to
his fancy and his imagination : Bacon,
a logician ; Shakespeare, one who set
logic at naught, and soared upon wings,
compared with which syllogisms are
crutches : Bacon, who sought, in the
phrase of Saul of Tarsus, — that Shake-
speare of Christianity, — to prove all
things, and to hold fast that which is
good ; Shakespeare, one who, like Saul,
loosed upon the world winged phrases,
but who recked not his own rede, proved
nothing, and held fast both to good and
evil, delighting in his Falstaff as much
as he delighted in his Imogen : Bacon,
in his writing, the most self-asserting
of men ; Shakespeare, one who, when
he wrote, did not seem to have a self :
Bacon, the most cautious and pains-
taking, the most consistent and exact,
of writers ; Shakespeare, the most heed-
less, the most inconsistent, the most in-
exact, of all writers who have risen to
fame : Bacon, sweet sometimes, sound
always, but dry, stiff, and formal ;
Shakespeare, unsavory sometimes, but
oftenest breathing perfume from Para-
dise, grand, large, free, flowing, flexi-
ble, unconscious, and incapable of for-
mality : Bacon, precise and reserved in
expression ; Shakespeare, a player and
quibbler with words, and swept away
by his own verbal conceits into intellect-
ual paradox, and almost into moral ob-
liquity : Bacon, without humor ; Shake-
speare's smiling lips the mouthpiece of
humor for all human kind : Bacon, look-

ing at the world before him and at the
teaching of past ages with a single eye
to his theories and his individual pur-
poses ; Shakespeare, finding in the wis-
dom and the folly, the woes and the
pleasures, of the past and the present
only the means of giving pleasure to
others and getting money for himself,
and rising to his height as a poet and a
moral teacher only by his sensitive intel-
lectual sympathy with all the needs and
joys and sorrows of humanity : Bacon,
shrinking from a generalization even in
morals ; Shakespeare, ever moralizing,
and dealing even with individual men
and particular things in their general
relations: both worldly-wise, both men
of the world, and both these master in-
tellects of the Christian era were world-
ly-minded men in the thorough Bunyan
sense of the term : but the one using his
knowledge of men and things critically
in philosophy and in affairs ; the other,
his synthetically, as a creative artist :
Bacon, a highly trained mind, and show-
ing his training at every step of his
cautious, steady march ; Shakespeare,
wholly untrained, and showing his want
of training even in the highest reach
of his soaring flight : Bacon, utterly with-
out the poetic faculty even in a second-
ary degree, as is most apparent when
he desires to show the contrary ; Shake-
speare, rising with unconscious effort
to the highest heaven of poetry ever
reached by the human mind. To sup-
pose that one of these men did his own
work and also the work of the other is
to assume two miracles for the sake of
proving one absurdity, and to shrink
from accepting in the untaught son of
the Stratford yeoman a miraculous mir-
acle, that does not defy or suspend the
laws of nature.

Many readers of The Atlantic prob-
ably know that this notion that our
Shakespeare, the Shakespeare of As
You Like It and Hamlet and King
Lear, was Francis Bacon masking in the
guise of a player at the Globe Theatre

1883.]

The Bacon-Shakespeare Graze.

is not of very recent origin. It was first
brought before the public by Miss De-
lia Bacon (who afterwards deployed her
theory in a ponderous volume, with an
introduction by Nathaniel Hawthorne,
— who did not advocate it) in an arti-
cle in Putnam's Magazine for January,
1856. Some time before that article was
published, and shortly after the publi-
cation of Shakespeare's Scholar, it was
sent to me in proof by the late Mr.
George P. Putnam, with a letter call-
ing my attention to its importance, and
a request that I would write an intro-
duction to it. After reading it careful-
ly and without prejudice (for I knew
nothing of the theory or of its author,
and, as I have already said, I am per-
fectly indifferent as to the name and the
personality of the writer of the plays,
and had as lief it should have been
Francis Bacon as William Shakespeare)
I returned the article to Mr. Putnam,
declining the proposed honor of intro-
ducing it to the public, and adding
that, as the writer was plainly neither a
fool nor an ignoramus, she must be in-
sane ; not a maniac, but what boys call
" loony." So it proved : she died a lu-
natic, and I believe in a lunatic asylum.
I record this incident for the first time
on this occasion, not at all in the spirit
of I-told-you-so, but merely as a fitting
preliminary to the declaration that this
Bacon-Shakespeare notion is an infatua-
tion ; a literary bee in the bonnets of cer-
tain ladies of both sexes, which should
make them the objects of tender care and
sympathy. It will not be extinguished
at once ; on the contrary, it may become
a mental epidemic. For there is no no-
tion, no fancy or folly, which may not
be developed into a " movement," or
even into a " school," by iteration and
agitation. I do not despair of seeing a
Bacon-Shakespeare Society, with an ar-
ray of vice-presidents of both sexes, that
may make the New Shakspere Soci-
ety look to its laurels. None the less,

however, is it a lunacy, -which should be
treated with all the skill and the ten-
derness which modern medical science
and humanity has developed. Proper
retreats should be provided, and ambu-
lances kept ready, with horses harnessed ;
and when symptoms of the Bacon-Shake-
speare craze manifest themselves, the
patient should be immediately carried
off to the asylum, furnished with pens,
ink, and paper, a copy of Bacon's works,
one of the Shakespeare plays, and one
of Mrs. Cowden-Clarke's Concordance
(and that good lady is largely responsi-
ble for the development of this harm-
less mental disease, and other " fads "
called Shakespearean) ; and the literary
results, which would be copious, should
be received for publication with deferen-
tial, respect, and then — committed to
the flames. In this way the innocent
victims of the malady might be soothed
apd tranquillized, and the world protect-
ed against the debilitating influence of
tomes of tedious twaddle.

As to treating the question seriously,
that is not to be done by men of com-
mon sense and moderate knowledge of
the subject. Even the present not very
serious, or, I fear, sufficiently consider-
ate, examination of it (to which I was
not very ready, as the editor of the At-
lantic will bear witness) provokes me to
say almost with Henry Percy's words,
that I could divide myself and go to buf-
fets for being moved by such a dish of
skimmed milk to so honorable an action.
It is as certain that William Shake-
speare wrote (after the theatrical fashion
and under the theatrical conditions of
his day) the plays which bear his name
as it is that Francis Bacon wrote the
Novura Organum, the Advancement of
Learning, and the Essays. The notion
that Bacon also wrote Titus Andronicus,
The Comedy of Errors, Hamlet, King
Lear, and Othello is not worth five min-
utes' serious consideration by any rea-
sonable creature.

Richard Grant White.

522

Bird-Songs.

[April,

BIRD-SONGS.

WHY do birds sing ? Has their mu-
sic a meaning, or is it all a thing of
blind impulse ? Some bright morning
in March, as you go out-of-doors, you
are greeted by the notes of the first rob-
in. Perched in a leafless tree, there he
sits, facing the sun like a genuine fire-
worshiper, and singing as though he
would pour out his very soul. What is
he thinking about? What spirit pos-
sesses him ?

It is easy to ask questions until the
simplest matter comes to seem, what at
bottom it really is, a thing altogether
mysterious ; but if our robin could un-
derstand us, he would, likely enough,
reply : —

" Why do you talk in this way, as
if it were something requiring explana-
tion that a bird should sing ? You seem
to have forgotten that everybody sings,
or almost everybody. Think of the
insects, the bees and the crickets and
the locusts, to say nothing of your inti-
mate friends, the mosquitoes ! Think,
too, of the frogs, and the hylas, and
the salamanders ! If these cold-blooded,
low-lived creatures, after sleeping all
winter in the mud,1 are free to make so
much use of their voices, surely a bird
of the air may sing his unobtrusive song
without being cross-examined concern-
ing the purpose of it. Why do the mice
sing, and the monkeys, and the bats ?
Why do you sing, yourself ? "

This matter-of-fact Darwinism need
not frighten us. It will do us no harm
to remember, now and then, " the hole
of the pit whence we were digged ; "
and besides, as far as any relationship
between us and tl e birds is concerned,
it is doubtful whether we are the ones
to complain.

l I'here is no Historic-Genealogical Society
jjmong; the birds, and the robin is not aware
that his o?Tn remote ancestors were reptiles. If he

But avoiding "genealogies and con-
tentions," and taking up the question
with which we began, we may safely
say that birds sing, sometimes to gratify
an innate love for sweet sounds ; some-
times to win a mate, or to tell their love
to a mate already won ; sometimes as
practice, with a view to self-improve-
ment ; and sometimes for no better rea-
son than the poet's, — "I do but sing
because I must." In general, they sing
for joy ; and their joy, of course, has
various causes.

For one thing, they arc very sensi-
tive to the weather. With them, as
with us, sunlight and a genial warmth
go to produce serenity. A bright sum-
mer-like day, late in October, or even in
November, will set the smaller birds to
singing, and the grouse to drumming.
I heard a robin venturing a little song
on the 25th of last December; but
that, for aught I know, was a Christmas
carol. No matter what the season, you
will not hear a great deal of bird music
during a high wind ; and if you are
caught in the woods by a sudden shower
in May or June, and are not too much
taken up with thoughts of your own
condition, you will hardly fail to notice
the instant silence which falls upon the
woods with the rain. Birds, however,
are more or less inconsistent (that is a
part of their likeness to us), and some-
times they will sing most freely when
the sky is overcast.

But their highest joys are by no
means dependent upon the moods of the
weather. A comfortable state of mind
is not to be contemned, but beings who
are capable of deep and passionate af-
fection recognize a difference between
comfort and ecstasy. And the peculiar

were, he would hardly speak so disrespectfully of
these batrachians.

1883.]

Bird-Songs.

523

glory of birds is just here, in the all-
consuming fervor of their love. It
would be commonplace to call them
models of conjugal and parental faithful-
ness. With a few exceptions (and these,
it is a pleasure to add, not singers), the
very least of them is literally faithful
unto death. Here and there, in the
notes of some collector, we read of the
difficulty he has had in securing a cov-
eted specimen : the tiny creature, whose
mate had been already " collected,"
would persist in hovering so closely
about the invader's head that it was
hard to shoot him without spoiling him
for the cabinet by blowing him to
pieces !

Need there be any mystery about the
singing of such a lover ? Is it strange
that sometimes he is so enraptured
that he can no longer sit tamely on the
branch, but must dart into the air, and
go circling round and round, singing as
he flies ?

So far as song is the voice of emo-
tion, it must vary with the emotion ; and
every one who has ears must have heard
once in a while a song of quite unusual
fervor. I have seen a least fly-catcher
who was almost beside himself ; flying
in a circle, and repeating breathlessly
his emphatic chebec. And once I found
a wood pewee in a somewhat similar
mood. He was more quiet than the
least fly-catcher, although he too sang on
the wing, but I have never heard notes
which seemed more expressive of hap-
piness. Many of them were quite new
and strange, although the familiar pewee
was introduced among the rest. As I
listened, I felt it to be an occasion for
thankfulness that the delighted creature
had never studied anatomy, and did not
know that the structure of his throat
made it improper for him to sing. In
this connection, also, I recall a cardinal
grosbeak, whom I heard several years
ago, on the bank of the Potomac River.
An old soldier and I were visiting the
Great Falls, and as we were clambering

over the rocks this grosbeak began to
sing ; and soon, without any hint from
me, and without knowing who the in-
visible musician was, my companion re-
marked upon the uncommon beauty of
the song. The cardinal is always a great
singer, having a voice which, as Euro-
pean writers say, is almost equal to the
nightingale's ; but in this case the more
stirring, martial quality of the strain
had given place to an exquisite mellow-
ness, as if it were, what I have no doubt
it was, a song of love.

Every kind of bird has notes of its
own, so that a thoroughly practiced ear
would be able to discriminate the differ-
ent species with nearly as much cer-
tainty as Professor Baird would feel
after an examination of the anatomy and
plumage. Still this strong specific re-
semblance is far from being a dead uni-
formity. Aside from the fact, already
mentioned, that the characteristic strain
is sometimes given with extraordinary
sweetness and emphasis, there are often
to be detected variations of a more
formal character. This is noticeably
true of robins. It may almost be said
that no two of them sing alike ; while
now and then their vagaries are conspic-
uous enough to attract general attention.
One who was my neighbor last year in-
terjected into his song a series of four
or five most exact imitations of the peep
of a chicken. When I first heard this
performance, I was in company with
two friends, both of whom noticed and
laughed at it ; and some days afterwards
I visited the spot again, and found the
bird still rehearsing the ridiculous med-
ley. I conjectured that he had been
brought up near a hen-coop, and, more-
over, had been so unfortunate as to lose
his father before his notes had become
thoroughly fixed ; and then, being com-
pelled to finish his musical education by
himself, had taken a fancy to practice
these chicken calls. This guess may not
have been correct. All I can affirm is
that he sang exactly as he might have

524

Bird-Songs.

[April,

been expected to do, on that supposition ;
but certainly the resemblance seemed
too close to be accidental.

The variations of the wood thrush
are fully as striking as those of the rob-
in, and sometimes it is impossible not to
feel that the artist is making a deliber-
ate effort to do something out of the or-
dinary course, something better than he
has ever done before. Now and then
he prefaces his proper song with many
disconnected, extremely staccato notes,
following each other at very distant and
unexpected intervals of pitch. It is
this, I conclude, which is meant by some
writer (who it is I cannot now remem-
ber) who criticises the wood thrush for
spending too much time in tuning his
instrument. But the fault is the critic's,
I think ; to my ear these preliminaries
sound rather like the recitative which
goes before the grand aria.

Still another singer who delights to
take liberties with his score is the to-
whee bunting, or chewink. Indeed, he
carries the matter so far that sometimes
it seems almost as if he suspected the
proximity of some self-conceited orni-
thologist, and were determined, if possi-
ble, to make a fool of him. And for my
part, being neither self-conceited nor an
ornithologist, I am willing to confess
that I have once or twice been so badly
deceived that now the mere sight of this
Pipilo is, so to speak, a means of grace
to me.

One more of these innovators (these
heretics, as they are most likely called
by their more conservative brethren) is
the field sparrow, better known as Spi-
zella pusilla. His usual song consists
of a simple line of notes, beginning lei-
surely, but growing shorter and more
rapid to the close. The voice is so
smooth and sweet, and the acceleration
so well managed, that, although the
whole is commonly a strict monotone,
the effect is not in the least monotonous.
This song I once heard rendered in re-
verse order, and the result was so strange

that I did not suspect the identity of
the singer till I had crept up within
sight of him. Another individual of the
species, who has passed the last two sea-
sons in my neighborhood, sings the song
double ; going through it in the usual
way, and then, just as you expect him
to conclude, catching it up again, Da
capo.

But birds like these are quite out-
done by such species as the song spar-
row, the white-eyed vireo, and the West-
ern meadow lark, — species of which
we may say that each individual bird
has a whole repertory of songs at his
command. The song sparrow, who is
the best known of the three, will sing
one melody perhaps a dozen times, then
change it for a second, and in turn leave
that for a third ; as if he were singing
hymns of twelve or fifteen stanzas each,
and sang each hymn to its appropriate
tune. It is something well worth listen-
ing to, common though it is, and may
easily suggest a number of questions
about the origin and the meaning of bird
music.

The white-eyed vireo is a singer of
astonishing spirit, and his sudden changes
from one theme to another are some-
times almost startling. He is a skillful
ventriloquist, also, and I remember one
in particular who outwitted me com-
pletely. He was singing a well-known
strain, but at the end there came up
from the bushes underneath a querulous
call. At first I took it for granted that
some other bird was in the underbrush ;
but the note was repeated too many
times, and came in too exactly on the
beat.

I have no personal acquaintance with
the Western meadow-lark, but no less
than twenty-six of his songs have been
printed in musical notation, and these
are said to be by no means all.1

Others of our birds have similar gifts,
though no others, so far as I know, are

l Mr. C. N. Allen, in Bulletin of the Nuttall
Ornithological Club, July, 1881.

1883.]

Bird-Songs.

525

quite so versatile as these three. Sev-
eral of the warblers, for example, have
attained to more than one set song, not-
withstanding the deservedly small repu-
tation of this misnamed family. I have
myself heard the golden-crowned thrush,
the black-throated green warbler, the
black-throated blue, the yellow-rumped,
and the chestnut-sided, sing two melodies
each, while the blue golden-winged has
at least three ; and this, of course, with-
out making anything of slight variations
such as all birds are more or less accus-
tomed to indulge in. The best of the
three songs of the blue golden-wing I
have never heard except on one occa-
sion, but then it was repeated for half
an hour under my very eyes. It bore
no resemblance to the common dsee, dsee,
dsee, of the species, and would appear
to be seldom used ; for not only have I
never heard it since, but none of the
writers seem ever to have heard it at all.
However, I still keep a careful descrip-
tion of it, which I took down on the
spot, and which I expect some future
golden-wing to verify.

But the most celebrated of the war-
blers in this regard is the golden-crowned
thrush, otherwise called the oven-bird
and the wood-wagtail. His ordinary ef-
fort is one of the noisiest, least melodi-
ous, and most incessant sounds to be
heard in our woods. His song is anoth-
er matter. For that he takes to the air
(usually starting from a tree-top, al-
though I have seen him rise from the
ground), whence, after a preliminary
chip, chip, he lets fall a sudden flood of
notes, in the midst of which can usually
be distinguished his familiar weechee,
weechee, weechee. It is nothing wonder-
ful that he should sing on the wing, —
many other birds do the same, and very
much better than he ; but he is singular
in that he strictly reserves his aerial
music for late in the afternoon. I
have heard it as early as three o'clock,
but never before that, and it is most
common about sunset. Writers speak

of it as limited to the season of court-
ship, but I have heard it almost daily
till near the end of July. But who
taught the little creature to do this, —
to sing one song in the forenoon perched
upon a twig, and to keep another for
afternoon, singing that invariably on the
wing ? and what difference is there be- '
tween the two in the mind of the sing-
er ?

It is an indiscretion ever to say of a
bird that he has only such and such
notes. You may have been his friend
for years, but the next time you go into
the woods he will likely enough put you
to shame by singing something not even
hinted at in your description. I thought
I knew the song of the yellow-rumped
warbler, having listened to it many
times, — a slight, characterless thing,
sharp and unmusical. But coming down
Mount Willard one day in June, I heard
a warbler's song which brought me to a
sudden halt. It was new and beautiful,
— more beautiful, it seemed at the mo-
ment, than any warbler's song I had
ever heard. What could it be ? A lit-
tle patient waiting (while the black-flies
and mosquitoes " came upon me to eat
up my flesh "), and the singer appeared
in full view, — my old acquaintance,
the yellow-rumped warbler.

With all this strong tendency on the
part of birds to vary their music, how
is it that there is still such a degree of
uniformity, so that, as we have said,
every species may be recognized by its
notes ? Why does every red-eyed vireo
sing in one way, and every white-eyed
vireo in another ? Who teaches the
young chipper to trill, and the young lin-
net to warble ? In short, how do birds
come by their music ? Is it all a matter
of instinct, inherited habit, or do they
learn it ? The answer seems to be that
birds sing as children talk, by simple
imitation. Nobody imagines that the
infant is born with a language printed
upon his brain. The father and mother
may never have known a word of any

526

Bird-Songs.

[April,

tongue except the English, but if the
child is brought up to hear only Chinese,
he will infallibly speak that, and nothing
else. And careful experiments have
shown that the same is true of birds.1
Taken from the nest just after they
leave the shell, they invariably sing, not
their own so-called natural song, but the
song of their foster-parents ; provided,
of course, that this is not anything be-
yond their physical capacity. The no-
torious house sparrow (our " English "
sparrow), iu his wild or semi-domesticat-
ed state, never makes a musical sound ;
but if he is taken in hand early enough,
he may be taught to sing, so it is said,
nearly as well as the canary. Bechstein
relates that a Paris clergyman had two
of these sparrows whom he had trained
to speak, and, among other things, to
recite several of the shorter command-
ments ; and the narrative goes on to say
that it was sometimes very comical,
when the pair were disputing over their
food, to hear one gravely admonish the
other, "Thou shalt not steal!" It
would be interesting to know why crea-
tures thus gifted do not sing of their
own motion. With their amiability and
sweet peaceableness they ought to be
caroling the whole year round.

This question of the transmission of
songs from one generation to another is,
of course, a part of the general subject
of animal intelligence, a subject much
discussed in these days on account of its
bearing upon the modern doctrine con-
cerning the relation of man to the infe-
rior orders.

We have nothing to do with such a
theme, but it may not be out of place
to suggest to preachers and moralists
that here is a striking and unhackneyed
illustration of the force of early train-
ing. Birds sing by imitation, it is true,
but as a rule they imitate only the notes
which they hear during the first few

1 See the paper of Daines Harrington in Philo-
sophical Transactions for 1773; also, Darwin's De-
scent of Man, and Wallace's Natural Selection.

weeks after they are hatched. . One of
Mr. Barrington's linnets, for example,
after being educated under a titlark, was
put into a room with two birds of his
own species, where he heard them sing
freely every day for three months. He
made no attempt to learn anything from
them, however, but kept on singing what
the titlark had taught him, quite uncon-
scious of anything singular or unpatri-
otic in such a course. This law, that
impressions received during the imma-
turity of the powers become the unal-
terable habit of the after life, is perhaps
the most momentous of all the laws in
whose power we find ourselves. Some-
times we are tempted to call it cruel.
But, if it were annulled, this would be
a strange world. What a hurly-burly
we should have among the birds ! There
would be no more telling them by theii
notes. Thrushes and jays, wrens and
chickadees, finches and warblers, all
would be singing one grand medley.

Between these two opposing tenden-
cies, one urging to variation, the oth-
er to permanence (for Nature herself
is half radical, half conservative), the
language of birds has grown from rude
beginnings to its present beautiful diver-
sity; and whoever lives a century of
millenniums hence will listen to music
such as we in this day can only dream
of. Inappreciably but ceaselessly the
work goes on. Here and there is born
a master-singer, a feathered genius, and
every generation makes its own addition
to the glorious inheritance.

It may be doubted whether there is
any real connection between moral char-
acter and the possession of wings. Nev-
ertheless there has long been a popular
feeling that some such congruity does
exist ; and certainly it seems reasonable
to expect that creatures who are able to
soar at will into the heavens should also
have other angelic attributes. But, be
that as it may, our friends, the birds,
are undeniably a good example for us
in several respects. To mention only

1883.]

Bird-Songs.

527

one, how delightful is their observance
of morning and evening song ! In spite
of their industrious spirit (and few of
us work more hours daily), neither their
first nor their last thoughts are given to
the question, What shall we eat, and
what shall we drink ? Possibly their
habit of saluting the rising and setting
sun may be thought to favor the theo-
ry that the worship of the god of day
was the original religion. I know noth-
ing about that. But it would be a sad
change if the birds, declining from their
present beautiful custom, were to sleep
and work, work and sleep, with no holy
hour between, as is too much the case
with the being who, according to his
own pharisaic notion, is the only relig-
ious animal.

In the season, however, the woods
are by no means silent, even at noon-
day. Many species (such as the vireos
and warblers, who get their living amid
the foliage of trees) sing as they work ;
while the thrushes and others, who keep
business and pleasure more distinct, are
often too happy to go many hours to-
gether without a hymn. I have even
seen robins singing without quitting the
turf ; but that is unusual, for somehow
birds have come to feel that they must
get away from the ground when the
lyrical mood is upon them. This may
be a thing of sentiment (for is not lan-
guage full of uncomplimentary allusions
to earth and earthliness ?), but more
likely it is prudential. The gift of song
is no doubt a dangerous blessing to crea-
tures who have so many enemies, and
we can readily believe that they have
found themselves safer to be up where
they can look about them while they are
thus publishing their whereabouts.

A very interesting exception to this
rule is the Savannah sparrow, who sings
habitually from the ground. But even
he shares the common feeling, and
stretches himself to his full height with
an earnestness which is almost laughable,
in view of the result ; for his notes are

hardly louder than a cricket's chirp.
Probably he has fallen into this lowly
habit from living in meadows and salt
marshes, where bushes and trees are not
readily to be come at ; and it is worth
noticing that, in the case of the skylark
and the white -winged blackbird, the
same conditions have led to a result pre-
cisely opposite. The sparrow, we may
presume, was originally of a humble
disposition, and when nothing better of-
fered itself for a singing-perch easily
grew accustomed to standing upon a
stone or a little lump of earth ; and this
practice, long persisted in, naturally had
the effect to lessen the loudness of his
voice. The skylark, on the other hand,
when he did not readily find a tree-top,
said to himself, " Never mind ! I have
a pair of wings." And so the lark is
famous, while the sparrow remains un-
heard-of, and is even mistaken for a
grasshopper.

How true it is that the very things
which dishearten one nature and break
it down, only help another to find out
what it was made for! If you would
foretell the development, either of a
bird or of a man, it is not enough to
know his environment, you must also
know what there is in him.

We have possibly made too much of
the Savannah sparrow's innocent eccen-
tricity. He fills his place, and fills it
well ; and who knows but that he may
yet outshine the skylark ? There is a
promise, I believe, for those who hum-
ble themselves. But what shall we say
of birds that do not even try to sing,
and that, although they have all the
structural peculiarities of singing birds,
and must, almost certainly, have come
from ancestors who were singers ? We
have already mentioned the house spar-
row, whose defect is the more mysteri-
ous on account of his belonging to so
highly musical a family. But he was
never accused of not being noisy enough,
while we have one bird who, though he
is ranked with the oscines, passes his

528

life in almost unbroken silence. Of
course I refer to the waxwing, or ce-
dar-bird, whose faint, sibilant whisper
can hardly be thought to contradict the
foregoing description. By what strange
freak he has lapsed into this ghostly
habit, nobody kiiows. I make no ac-
count of the insinuation that he gave
up music because it hindered his suc-
cess in cherry-stealing. He likes cher-
ries, it is true ; and who can blame
him ? But he would need to work hard
to steal more than does that indefatiga-
ble singer, the robin. I feel sure he has
some better reason than this for his
Quakerish conduct. But, however he
came by his stillness, it is likely that by
this time he plumes himself upon it.
Silence is golden, he thinks the supreme
result of the highest aesthetic culture.
Those loud creatures, the thrushes and
finches ! What a vulgar set they are,
to be sure, the more 's the pity ! Cer-
tainly if he does not reason in some such
way, bird nature is not so human as we
have given it credit for being. Besides,
the waxwing has an uncommon appre-
ciation of the decorous ; at least, we
must think so if we are able to credit a
story of Nuttall's. He declares that a
Boston gentleman, whose name he gives,
saw one of a company of these birds
capture an insect, and offer it to his
neighbor ; he, however, delicately de-

Unloved. [April,

clined the dainty bit, and it was offered
to the next, who, in turn, was equally
polite ; and the morsel actually passed
back and forth along the line, till, final-
ly, one of the company was persuaded
to eat it. I have never seen anything
equal to this ; but one day, happening
to stop under a low cedar, I discovered
right over my head a waxwing's nest
with the mother-bird sitting upon it,
while her mate was perched beside her
on the branch. He was hardly out of
my reach, but he did not move a mus-
cle ; and although he uttered no sound,
his behavior said as plainly as possible,
" What do you expect to do here ? Don't
you see 1 am standing guard over this
nest ? " I should be ashamed not to be
able to add that I respected his dignity
and courage, and left him and his castle
unmolested.

Observations so discursive as these
can hardly be finished ; they must break
off abruptly, or else go on forever. Let
us conclude, then, with expressing our
hope that the cedar-bird, already so
handsome and chivalrous, will yet take
to himself a song ; one sweet and orig-
inal, worthy to go with his soft satin
coat, his ornaments of sealing-wax, and
his magnificent top-knot. Let him do
that, and he shall always be made wel-
come ; yes, even though he come in
force and in cherry-time.

Bradford Torrey.

UNLOVED.

PALER than the water's white
Stood the maiden in the shade,
And more silent than the night
Were her lips together laid;

Eyes she hid so long and still
By lids wet with unshed tears,
Hands she loosely clasped at will,
Though her heart was full of fears.

1883.]

Stage Buffoons.

529

Never, never, never more

May her soul with joy be moved ;

Silent, silent, silent — for

He was silent whom she loved !

Rose Hawthorne Lathrop.

STAGE BUFFOONS.

SCHLEGEL has remarked that every
stage has had its merryman or jester.
Man, being the animal who laughs and
weeps, has required, in every country in
which the drama has been developed,
that this form of entertainment should
offset the tears. Perhaps it was because
there was so much weeping that the
clown became indispensable to the dra-
matis personce. In general characteris-
tics he has been the same everywhere,
but in smaller topical details he has
changed according to his country. The
inquiry as to the nature of histrionic
buffoons is more interesting than the
world, to judge by its literature on the
subject, has ever imagined. To know a
man by his companions is a very feeble
indication of character. " Tell me what
thou laughest at," is far more searching.
The inexplicable laughter of Ashmodai,
or Asmodeus, before the Rabbis is the
most dramatically unearthly touch in all
the Talmud. The laughter of women
at witless remarks, like that of a negro
beholding Niagara, or of a Spaniard at
seeing a horse disemboweled, suggests
that the ideal jesters of each of these
types of mankind would be strangely
different.

The contrast between Indian and
Greek thought is nowhere more forci-
bly marked than in the conceptions of
the dramatic merryman evolved by these
two great branches of the Aryan race.
In the Hindu theatre, in some partic-
ulars singularly like the English, the
role of jester is given to a Brahman.
He who by right of caste is entitled to

VOL. LI. — NO. 306. 34

religious respect is on the stage made
ridiculous. The Vidushaka, as he is
called, is the companion and friend of
the hero of the play, whom he loves
with the devotion of a Sancho Panza.
He is not quite like the clown of any
other theatre, but combines the peculiar-
ities of the Greek parasite and the Ital-
ian Pantaleone with a clerical piety all
his own, and an incomparable greedi-
ness. If Queen Mary thought the word
Calais would be engraved on her heart,
because of the foremost place it occu-
pied in her thoughts, by the same rule
the word Food would be stamped in
large letters on that of the Vidushaka ;
that is, if his stomach leaves him room
for one. His insatiable appetite unfits
him for any higher or even lower emo-
tions. Much of the humor peculiar to
jesters in all ages and countries has de-
pended upon their grotesque appear-
ance.

If the Greek gods, as represented
by Homer, could laugh at Vulcan be-
cause he was lame, it is not surprising
that mortals have felt justified in mak-
ing merry over the physical deformities
of their fellow-men, until noses large
out of all proportion and crooked backs
have become badges of buffoonery. But
the grotesqueness of the Vidushaka's
exterior is usually caused by his cos-
tume, and not by any natural unsightli-
ness ; perhaps because to the Hindus
bodily malformation is so associated
with the idea of divinity that it seems
beautiful. Another source of amuse-
ment to the majority of men is the

530

Stage Buffoons.

[April,

sight of physical suffering. The pleas-
ure Romans found in the combats of
gladiators, that Spaniards derive from
their bull-fights and English and Amer-
icans from prize-fights, is given in a less-
er degree by the rude practical jokes
and the tumblings and writhings of buf-
foons. As a rule, it makes very little
difference who gets the beating. But it
is natural that the Hindu jester should
be always the victim of the joke, since
for a Brahnian to chastise another man
would never have been remarkable.
This has happened only too often in real
life. Yet to see a Brahman fooled and
ill treated must always have been honey
and nectar to proud Vaisyas and poor
crushed Sudras ; their delight, no doubt,
being enhanced when, as in the play of
Ratn aval i, or The Necklace, the attack
was made by women.

There was no special jester in the old
Greek comedy, where all were comic,
and where the principal jesting consisted
in personal satire. But the law finally
forbade the dramatist to satirize any
one by name, and after the time of
Aristophanes comedy acquired a form
more familiar to moderns. The new
dramatists, instead of confining them-
selves to the mythological world, bor-
rowed characters from human life, and
presented them in every-day situations.
In the end, they contented themselves
with a certain number of dramatis per-
sonae, whose individual line of action
never varied, the only change being the
manner in which they were grouped to-
gether. The slave of the new comedy
was the real buffoon, though the part
played by the parasite was farcical
enough. The facetiousness of the slave
was not particularly brilliant. Attic
wit in his case, seems to have consisted
in a comic mask and garments of cor-
responding exaggeration. In addition
to looking ridiculous, his duty was to
tease, torment, and deal out blows. If,
as Athenaeus tells us, the Tyrrhenians
flogged people to the sound of the lute,

the Greek jester acted to the accompa-
niment of flogging. Sometimes he was
a simpleton and coward ; at others, a
rogue and a braggart. Occasionally the
Pantaloon or scapegoat of the farce was
represented by a Scythian, who to the
Greeks and Romans was a delightful
subject for laughing-stock. He was their
Irishman or Dutchman, and they en-
joyed his broken Greek or Scyth-pidgin.
It is a curious fact that Lodge, the old
English dramatist, makes the clown in
one of his plays talk broken French, to
add to the comic effect.

The Greeks, who loved life, aimed at
making it as beautiful and harmonious
as possible. Therefore, when popular
taste called for a buffoon, the part was
assigned to a slave, who, as the meanest
member of society, properly ministered
to the lower emotions. All the harmony
of social life would have been destroyed
had those whom the people respected
become typical of licentiousness or stu-
pidity. But in India the Brahmans, who
teach life to be a delusion and activ-
ity a snare, are, through their superior-
ity of caste, heirs to by far the greatest
share of those earthly pleasures which
they pronounce unreal. The falseness
of their position has apparently never
struck them, and their simplicity, born
of too great sensuality, has fitted them
to the role of Vidushaka, or priestly
jester. In a life where nothing is real,
he who is most deceived by the illusion
is the greatest fool. This is the lesson
taught by the pious clown of the Hindu
theatre. In one country Lilliputians
laughed at a captured Gulliver ; in the
other it was the giant who was amused
by the pigmies. Both these countries
have had additional buffoons or mounte-
banks, not unlike the jugglers and tum-
blers still to be seen at our country fairs.
In Greece the Magodos was a great fa-
vorite with the people. He did not be-
long to the regular theatre, though his
performances, as Aristoxenus said, were
like comedy. He traveled alone up and

1883.]

Stage Buffoons.

531

down the land, capering like a Satyr and
joking like a Momus, and was most glo-
rious during the Lensean festival, when,
seated on a wagon, " he sang low songs
to drums and cymbals loud, and jested
with the idle passers-by." In India the
Bhanrs, who correspond to the Magodi,
are even to-day popular jesters. Then
there is another buffoon, who appears
only in the pantomimes, or Gatras, the
Hindu " Mysteries " which illustrate the
adventures of Krishna. Among the
Bengalese, during these representations,
two characters, called respectively Na-
rad a and Vasyadeva, go through a se-
ries of tricks interspersed with songs
and dances, very much in the manner
of some of our Western burlesque ac-
tors. In fact, Krishna himself is a very
jovial jester, as befits the god of genial
pleasure.

Latin comedy was derived from the
Greek, and Plautus and Terence were
direct imitators of Hellenic comedians.
But Italy had her own jesters. The
Romans borrowed the famous Atellanse
Fabulae from the Oscans, the aboriginal
inhabitants of Italy. They were rude,
improvised dialogues, with no object but
burlesquing and lively satire of popular
vices and follies. Born before Roman
civilization, they have survived to our
times. Even their gestures, which form
a very copious sign language, appearing
on thousands of Etrusco-Greek vases,
are all preserved at the present day in
Naples, as is shown by the canon An-
drea de Joris.1 One might almost re-
write their farces from these hand hie-
roglyphs. Maccus, Bucco^and Pappus
were the most famous, and their antics
and jests were always welcomed as a
cheerful relief, after the gloom attend-
ant upon the performance of a tragedy.
Their costumes answered the purpose of
the Prologue in Bottom's play of Pyra-
mus and Thisbe, since they announced

1 In La Mimica degli Antichi investigata nel
Gestire Napoletano, Naples, 1832. For a repro-
duction in English of all that is important in
this work, with much additional matter of inter-

the part each was to enact. These jest-
ers were at once recognized by the audi-
ence, just as Punch and Harlequin are
to-day : the one by his large nose and
hump ; the other, by his party-colored
dress, his wand, and his mask. Maccus
was always the hero, though all were
equally buffoons. He was insolent, vul-
gar, and witty, with a little of the comic
ferocity of his successor, Pulcinello. He
was represented with bald head, enor-
mous ears, and nose of the Jewish type,
and was doubly hump-backed. His ugli-
ness was keenly enjoyed by a race of
warriors like the Romans, who necessa-
rily prided themselves upon straight
limbs and fine • physiques. He wore a
tunic and slippers, and at each corner of
his mouth were small silver coins. His
malicious nature, gross as his face, led
him into adventures in which he was
not always successful. Bucco was a glut-
ton, boaster, and bare -faced liar, who
would have cheerfully committed any
felony or folly for the sake of a good
supper. Pappus was a jealous, avari-
cious old man, defiant and credulous. He
was the original, probably, of Tartaglia
and Pantaleone. Besides these, there
were Dossemus, a pompous pedant, like
the later Italian Dottoce ; Manducus, a
frightful ogre, who opened his mouth and
showed all his teeth, as if he would like
nothing better than to swallow the whole
world ; and Lamia, an ogress, whose
pleasant duty was to devour little chil-
dren. Some archaeologists have disputed
as to the origin of Maccus. They argue,
from ihe Jewish cast of features iii those
representations of him which have been
preserved, that the Hebrews had carried
into their Egyptian captivity little pup-
pets or dolls, which were their children's
playthings, and which their captors ap-
propriated. From Egypt these could easi-
ly have passed into Greece or Italy, and
this possibly was the case. There were
est, vide Sign Language among North American
Indians, by Lieutenant-Colonel Garrick Mallery,
U. S. A., Washington, 1881.

532

Stage Buffoons.

[April,

one or two points of resemblance be-
tween the Egyptian and the Greek and
Roman buffoons. The fox's tail was one
of their most characteristic emblems, as
indeed it was of jesters throughout the
East. Reynard had early become a type
of cunning, and he entered largely into
ancient symbolization. His tail was the
insignia of jesting ; and to this day the
licentious buffoons who accompany the
Ghawazi into Egypt either carry in
their hands or fasten to their nether
garments this badge of the profession.
The Mimes and Sannios of Rome, who
could be hired to contribute entertain-
ment at public festivals or at private
banquets, must be mentioned in any ac-
count of histrionic clowns. From the
former descended the jesters, who, during
the early ages of Christianity, penetrated
into almost every European country, and
kept alive the old buffooneries, until these
were again given a place in the drama ;
while the latter is the original of Har-
lequin, who in some parts of Italy, as in
England, is still known as Zani. The
Sannio wore a particularly grotesque
mask, the mouth of which was not un-
like that of the gargoyles on mediaeval
cathedrals. He carried the wand, with-
out which the ancient jester would have
been as incomplete as a bishop without
his crosier.

" The people will amuse themselves,"
D'Israeli says, in his Curiosities of Lit-
erature, " though their masters may be
conquered ; and tradition has never
proved more faithful than in preserving
popular sports." Even after the new
civilization had destroyed the pagan the-
atre, and while the new drama was not
yet formed, the Atellani continued their
performances and retained their popu-
larity, and the merryman was every-
where a welcome guest. For though
people lived in daily expectation of the
end of the world, and religion taught
that all earthly pleasures were evils,
men could not subdue their desire for
laughter. In addition to the fool, who,

during the Dark Ages and early mediaeval
period, occupied such an important post
in royal courts, in papal and episcopal
palaces, and in squires' halls, there were
the wandering jongleurs and minstrels,
who united to their song-singing and
harp-playing the duties of jugglers and
buffoons. At court festivities and at
the country fairs, then the great occa-
sions for merry-making, they performed
in pantomimes, and often improvised
comic dialogues. The church and her
clergy inveighed against them, but
monks and nuns, even the professors of
asceticism, received them with open
arms. So great was the monastic at-
tachment to these emissaries of Satan
that the brethren of an English con-
vent once thrust from their gates two
poor mendicant friars, who at first sight
had been mistaken for minstrel mounte-
banks. Indeed, it was to wean the affec-
tion of the people from such worldly
entertainments that the Mysteries were
made ludicrously lively. This end was
so successfully attained that markets
and mysteries became terms for pleas-
ure, and the same amount of amusement
was derived from Playes of Miracles
and Marriages.

In the Mysteries we have the begin-
ning of the modern drama, and in them
Satan, a queer combination of Ahriman,
Loki, and Pan, as jester outrivaled the
buffoons of market fairs. The jolly
horned and cloven-footed satyr-demon,
who grinned from gray cathedral walls
and jested in legend and romance, be-
came the Merry-Andrew of the stage.
The German proverb, Der Teufel ist
Gotfs Affe (the devil is God's ape), was
thus verified. Just as the Hindu loves
to ridicule the Brahman, who is his mas-
ter, so the European, in the ages of
faith, amused himself at the expense of
Satan, his greatest enemy. Jean Paul
has said that it is only when men firmly
believe in their religion that they can
ridicule it. It was when Satan was
most feared that he was most travestied

1883.]

Stage Buffoons.

533

and caricatured. A queer proof of this
lies in the fact that to-day, while the
comic demon is omitted from the Pas-
sion Play at Oberammergau, he is still
retained in the same representation in
Spain, which is the most truly devout
of all Catholic countries. The devil, as
jester, was so popular that sometimes,
as in a German Mystery of the fifteenth
century, eight were introduced into one
performance. Hans Sachs, in his sacred
plays, still retained him as chief jester.
There is a bill of a painter, who was
employed at the playhouse in the Dutch
town of Alkmaar, which testifies to the
importance of this character : —

Imprimis, made for the clerks a hell.

Item, the pavilion of Satan.

Item, two pairs of devil's breeches.

Item, a shield for the Christian knight.

Item, have painted the devils when-
ever they played.

Item, some arrows and other small
matters.

Even after the clown took his place
on the English stage, there seem to have
been regrets for the old favorite. Ben
Jonson, who gives such life-like pictures
of the people and customs of his times,
makes one of his characters exclaim,
" My husband, Timothy Tattle, — God
rest his poor soul ! — was wont to say,
there was no play without a fool and a
devil in 't ; he was for the devil still, God
bless him ! The devil for his money,
would he say. I would fain see the
devil." The thrashing of one demon by
another was considered irresistibly laugh-
able. Gross ribaldry was often intro-
duced into the role, and scurrilous inde-
cencies were indulged in, even in con-
nection with the Crucifixion. The mere
ifientiou of sin or the flames of hell made
the demon-jesters "readie to burste
with laughter." In an English Mys-
tery, a devil tells us the ne plus ultra of
a joke, that

" Soaks cam so thyk now late unto helle,

As ever
Our porter at Helle gate

So halden [held] so strate [strict],
Up erly and downe late,

He rystys [rests] never."

Occasionally, some other character was
introduced as buffoon, as, for example,
the jester of King Herod's court, in the
Massacre of the Innocents ; but the devil
was always the favorite.

In the Moralities his part fell to Vice,
who carried a wooden sword instead of
a wand, and who, says Ben Jonson,

"in the fit
Of mimicry gets th' opinion of a wit."

In the oldest Moralities Satan still ap-
peared, and was teased and badgered by
evil, as it was only just he should be,
after his long reign as chief tormentor
and distributer of blows. This was
probably the origin of Punch, in the
puppet show, making off with the devil.
The custom of associating jollity and
laughter with Satan led to extraordinary
results. Misery and sin were joined in
a grotesque, but to us repulsive, fellow-
ship with mirth, and finally even death
was allied with folly. It was as if rank
poisons and healthy fruits, growing side
by side, had become so intertwisted as to
be inseparable. In dances, satires, and
pictures, Death, as the symbol of droll-
ery, was a favorite jest or jester. Men
and women in skeleton masks danced in
the very graveyards, while their painted
and embroidered representations adorned
the walls of churches and castles. This
famous Dame Macabre culminated in
Holbein's Dance of Death, which is an
expressive witness of the unnatural ex-
tremes to which morbid fancies, under
the cloak of religion, can be carried.

Mysteries and Moralities gradually
degenerated into coarse burlesques of
Scripture. Under the influence of the
Reformation and the Renaissance, the
people pronounced them stupid and in
bad taste, and the clergy condemned
them as immoral and irreverent. Thus
attacked on all sides, they and their
devil and death buffoons perished before
the advance of the new culture. With

534

Stage Buffoons.

[April,

the modern revival of the drama usage
at first required a merryman of the
stage. The mediaeval spirit of grotesque
and child-like mirth grew doubly strong
immediately before its disappearance.
In proportion as the public became
more refined the folly of professional
jesters seemed to grow coarser, and the
pleasure of the people in it greater. In
England the clown continued to be so
popular that he was the principal per-
sonage in every sport and amusement.
It was the fashion, among all who could
pay for it, to keep a private jester,
who, says Lodge, in his Wit's Miserie,
" laughes intemperately at every little
occasion, and dances about the house,
leaps over tables, outskips men's heads,
trips up his companion's heeles, burns
sack with a candle and hath all the
feats of a lord of misrule in the coun-
trie." So it followed that liveliness, su-
perior or at least equal to that he had
at home, should be required at seasons
and places of public merry-making. No
court pageant was complete without a
clown. He danced in the morris, ca-
pered around the Maypole, played in
the pantomime of country fairs, and
every great holiday was the signal for
him to don the motley coat. " There 's
nothing in a play like to a clown," was
the then prevailing opinion. In France,
the Enfans Sans Soucis, with their sot-
tises, drove the Confrerie de la Passion
and the Clercs de Bezoche from the
dramatic boards. Tabarin, with wit of
coarseness far beyond that of Rabelais,
collected crowds around the stand of the
charlatan Monor, the seller of a won-
derful balm, while the theatres were
deserted. " All amusement has disap-
peared since Tabarin departed from us,"
the Parisians declared, when this farceur,
to whom Moliere is said to have owed
many of his best points, left the city.1
Cardinal Richelieu laughed immoderate-

1 Vide Les (Euvres de Tabarin et Autres Pieces
Tabarinique. Prdface et Notes par Georges de
Hermonville. Paris. 185°

ly over a farce played by Gros-Guil-
laume, Gautier-Garguille, and Turlupin,
in which the first named, a very Daniel
Lambert in size, was dressed up like
an old woman. His eminence was so
pleased with the talents of these three
friends that he enrolled them with the
regular comedians of the theatre. Act-
ors and audiences have never given
themselves up to such intemperate rail-
lery and such foul jokes as they did at
the Hotel Bourgogne, in Paris, at the
beginning of the seventeenth century.

It was not only natural, but impera-
tive, that a character so keenly appre-
ciated by all classes as the buffoon
should be assigned a place in the new
drama. In Spain, the role fell upon
the Gracioso, a facetious and familiar
servant. It was his special function to
swear in a manner that would have sat-
isfied Panurge, in his wrath against
Tronillogan ; and the drollery of his
oaths was increased for the devout
Spaniard by the fact that every saint
in the calendar, as well as many out of
it, was called upon. In England, the
jester appeared in tragedy as well as in
comedy, and the part was given to a
professional fool or to a clownish ser-
vant. But already in Shakespeare's
time we find the privileges of this char-
acter, which at first had " as large a
charter as the wind," more and more
restricted. " Let those that play your
clowns," Hamlet says to the play-actors,
" speak no more than is set down for
them," — which shows that the license
originally allowed them was fast losing
favor. The giving and taking of blows,
and the ridiculous situations, which had
constituted much of the fun of the
clowns and droll servants in his early
plays, were later exchanged for more re-
fined and purer wit. There is a great
contrast between the humor of the two
Dromios, or of Launce and Speed, and
that of Touchstone, or the fool in King
Lear. In Germany, the buffoon, though
retained in the scriptural dramas which

1883.]

Stage Buffoons.

535

succeeded the Mysteries, was not always
countenanced. As early as 1585, Duke
Albert, of Prussia, forbade by decree
the appearance of " stage devils, fools,
and other abominable masks," in these
performances. In France, tragedy and
comedy were separated by a line as dis-
tinct as that which divided the aristoc-
racy from the bourgeois, and the pres-
ence of a jester was permissible only in
the latter. Moliere, in the Italian style
which had become fashionable, relied for
success upon the conventional situations
in which ridiculous valets, pedants,
and braggarts were placed. But even
he and his admirers recognized that wit-
ty dialogue and keen, satirical humor
are truer elements of genuine comedy
than burlesque parody. People have
not yet ceased to laugh at absurd cos-
tumes, monstrous masks, and grotesque
posturings, but the laws of modern taste
require that these should not be pre-
sented on the legitimate stage. The
sphere of the real merryman or clown
has long been limited to farces, in which
all his surroundings are as ridiculous
as himself, to pantomimes, and to pup-
pet shows.

Italy was the cradle land of the mod-
ern species of jester, quite as truly as
she was the home of the papacy. In that
country, the old Sannio, or Zany, and
the Mimes, who had survived as favorite
carnival characters, were, in the four-
teenth century, introduced on the com-
ic stage. Like the legendary dragon,
which, when one of its heads is cut off,
can produce seven to replace it, each
buffoon, when restored to something
like his old dignity, reappeared with
fresh energy in several new varieties.
It was a sign of awakening interest in
this world and in human life that men
who had been wont to laugh their heart-
iest at the expense of the other world
and the things of religion began to hold
up for derision the faults and short-com-
ings of their fellow-beings. The name
of the Italian jesters is legion. Their

masks and costumes, immortalized by
the etchings of Callot, were in them-
selves ridiculous, and the fun peculiar to
each was so well known to the specta-
tor that

" The very peeping out of one of them would

have
Made a young man laugh though his father lay

a-dying."

The dialogue was so subordinate to ap-
pearance and droll situations that it was
often left to the improvisation of the
actors. The Italians, with their strong
dramatic instinct and powers of impro-
vising, usually made it sprightly enough ;
but witty conversation never was the
important factor it is in real comedy. It
would be impossible to enumerate all
these buffoons, since each Italian city
has had its special types, differing from
the others in titles and attributes. But
there are a few who have been made
specially prominent because the follies
they typified were world-wide, and not
peculiar to certain cities or provinces.
Thus, there was the Dottore, first cre-
ated to ridicule the doctors of Bologna,
but who in main characteristics is broth-
er to all quacks. He always carried a
volume of Aristotle in his hand, and
from it read passages, which, serious in
their actual signification, became farcical
through his interpretation. He inter-
spersed his conversation with quotations,
delivered in a manner worthy of a Mrs.
Malaprop, and was profuse in Latin and
Greek phrases of startling construction.
Every theatre has had its Capitano Spa-
vento, or Bobadil. On the Italian comic
stage it was the Capitano, who, in antici-
pation of danger, could not be stopped
by " a river of blood," but who, when
the reality came, turned and fled at
the first attack with a garden -squirt.
" We are never made so ridiculous by
the qualities we have," says the wise
Rochefoucauld, "as by those we affect
to have." The absurdity of the Capita-
no's cowardice was forgotten in the ex-
quisite drollery of his vaunted bravery.

636

Stage Buffoons.

[April,

In words he was a Hotspur ; in action,
a Bob Acres. All the names given to
him were indicative of his poltroonery.
He was known as Spaveuto, " horridly
frightful ; " Spezza-fer, " shiver-spear ; "
and Spavento de Val Inferno, " terror
from the infernal regions." Later, when
the Spaniards were in Italy, his titles
were Sangre e fuego, " blood and fire,"
and Matamoro, " Moor-killer." Though
the French had their own Capitano in
Moliere's Sganarelle, who armed him-
self with a coat of mail, and then ex-
plained it to be a protection against pos-
sible rain, and who never attacked his
enemy until the latter's back was turned,
still the Italian jester was borrowed by
them. He retained his old name, and
was usually known as Le Capitaine
Matamore, though this was sometimes
changed to Le Capitaine Fracasse. Like
the Spanish hero, he wore a large nose,
which has been very generally made in-
dicative of cowardice. Underneath his
pictures these two lines are always
found : —

"Tout m'aime ou tout me craint, soit en paix,

soit en guerre,
Je croquerais un prince aussi bien qu'un oignon."

(All love or fear me, in war and in
peace, for I would crunch a prince as
readily as an onion.)

Tartaglia and Pantaleone were two
foolish old dotards, who had not learnt
the art of growing old gracefully. The
former, who was always represented as
very large and fat, was a Neapolitan
creation. His peculiarity was an in-
ability to express his ideas in words,
which far exceeded that of the house-
hold dog or the young Briton, though
the powerlessness of expression in these
two has been declared to be the most
pathetic on record. When speech was
granted to Tartaglia, it came in a tor-
rent of inane witticisms and vile jests,
which he delivered with an air of great
propriety and seriousness. The com-
bination of senility, sensuality, stupid-
ity, cowardice, and obscenity in one

r61e seems to have had a demoralizing
effect on the actor. As a rule, Tartag-
lias off the stage have spent much of
their time in prison, but no one has
thought the worse of them on that ac-
count ; the reality, bad as it may have
been, being infinitely better than the
acted part. There are growlings and
grumblings to-day about unruly ser-
vants ; if the Scapin and Scaramouch
of the stage are faithful types, our
maids and footmen are angels compared
to those of earlier ages. To judge by
the swarms of comic valets in the old
theatres, the only attendants to be had
in the good old days of chivalry and
romance were, if clever, wicked, and if
good so stupid that their goodness
availed nothing. When a master was
honest, his servants conspired against
him ; when the former was a rogue, the
latter joined in league with him. Sca-
pino, converted by the French into
Scapiu, was the most celebrated of the
roguish crew, and usually waited upon
the Dottore, who gave him plentiful op-
portunities for sly joking. He original-
ly used the dialect of Bergamo, which at
one time was proverbial for the num-
ber of cheats and knaves among its pop-
ulation. He was witty and cunning,
and, if not absolutely a coward, thought
discretion the better part of valor, and
when iu danger relied upon his legs for
safety. Liar, pander, and thief, he was
as fond of changing his master as his
Irish successor io to-day, and his best
beloved pastime was laying waste the
hearts of susceptible soubrettes. Then
there was Scaramouch, who, according to
his own account, had been a nobleman,
but was now reduced by cruel reverses
of fortune to menial servitude. More
unconscientious than Scapiu, he also
excelled him in cowardice. Fear para-
lyzed him, but, while trembling from
head to foot, he would maintain a show
of valor. " Who 's afraid ? " he would
cry, when, crouching under chair or ta-
ble, he tried to evade the blows of Pul-

1883.]

Stage Buffoon*.

637

cinello. " Away with the weak courage
of the lamb, I say ! Mine is the dar-
ing of the wolf ! " It was in this char-
acter that Tiberio Fiurelli succeeded
in making Louis XIII., gravest of all
men, laugh. Poor, stupid Pierrot, with
his occasional outbreaks of keen, wicked
humor, and Brighella, stupidest of all
stupid valets, intriguer, and pander, but
as brave as the Capitano was cowardly,
often disputed the honors with Scapin
and Scaramouch. As if these charac-
ters were not droll enough, a regular
clown was usually added to the dramatis
personae ; and it was in filling this part
that Salvator Rosa achieved a success
of which he was almost as proud as of
his fame as painter.

But among all the Italian jesters
there are two who have always occupied
the foremost rank in the affections of
the people, and who have been so thor-
oughly domesticated all over Europe
and America that they seem like natives
in lauds which have adopted them.
Pulcinello and Harlequin are to their
fellow-actors what Achilles and Ulysses
were to the heroes of the Homeric epics.
In Italy, the adventures of Pulcinello
are not confined to the performances
of puppets ; the part is played by men
quite as often as by marionettes. On
the Neapolitan stage alone there are
two : one, stupid and awkward, the vic-
tim of every one's mischief ; the other,
a cheat and a cunning fool, who indulges
in practical jokes at the expense of his
nearest and dearest associates. In
proof of his popularity, D'Israeli tells
the story of an Italian gentleman, a
scholar and a man of refinement, who,
when living in London, so missed the
jokes of Pulcinello that at great trouble
he had a company of puppets brought
from Italy, for his own private delecta-
tion. And, adds D'Israeli, the sentiment
awakened in him by the tin whistle,
though of a different nature, was equal
in intensity to the tenderness aroused
ui the Swiss patriot by the Raiiz des

Vaches. To account for the English
name Punch given to Pulcinello, some
scholars contend that it is derived from
the Indian- Romany word panj, — that
is, five, — and that this buffoon was first
brought to England by gypsies. Fur-
ther confirmation of their theory might
be found in the fact that this hero's
costume is always red and yellow ; and,
as all versed in gypsy lore know,

" Blue and pink for the Gorgiee
But red and yellow for Komany."

Though Punch is never seen off the pup-
pet stage except in Italy, he must be
included in. the list of modern jesters.
In the old times puppets were as popu-
lar as living actors, and their repertoire
was not as restricted as it is now. Le-
gend hath it that it was from a puppet
performance of Faust that Goethe first
derived the idea of writing his play.
Dr. Johnson saw no reason why marion-
ettes should not perform Macbeth ; and
indeed Henry Rowe, better known as
the "York Trumpeter," had his own
version of that tragedy arranged for his
troop of puppets. Punch at first ap-
peared indiscriminately in any play, even
in those of a scriptural character. One
of his most famous jokes, at one time,
was his remark to Noah, in the puppet
version of the Flood, when the patriarch
was safely housed in the ark : " Hazy
weather, Master Noah ! " The truth
is, the plot has ever been of little ac-
count,

"Provided Punch — for there '8 the jest —
Be soundly maul'd and plague the rest."

Every one is familiar with the modern
hero of the puppet stage, who beats his
dog, kills Scaramouch, murders his child
because it cries, slays poor faithful Judy,
who commits the crime of asking for
her offspring, hangs Jack Ketch, and,
as a last stroke of diplomacy, puts an
end to the devil himself, after which
he sagely remarks he has nothing more
to fear. He is gayly mischievous or
stolidly brutal, according to the nation-
ality and temperament of his showman.

538

Stage Buffoons.

[April,

A French paper, some years since, feel-
ingly commented upon the great brutal-
ity of the English Punch, when com-
pared with the more polished villainy
of the French Polichinelle, or Guignol.
The writer of the article concluded by
declaring that the wickedness of the
former could not possibly be represent-
ed in France, as it would make all the
dear little French children faint in their
nurses' arms ! Of the comparative in-
decency of Guignol and Punch, who is,
if murderous, at least " moral," he says
nothing.

In Germany, Punch is often replaced
by the national buffoon Hanswurst, or
Jackpudding, to whom a part was given
in the old popular dramatic version of
Faust.

Harlequin has passed through a va-
ried and checkered career. On his first
appearance on the Italian stage, he was
a greedy, stupid valet, always blunder-
ing and stumbling ; but Goldoni con-
verted him into a " child of nature,"
bright, witty, and jolly, and without, the
least vulgarity. In France, he lost his
chief roguish characteristics, and figured
as a moral wit ; while in England, as
Fielding says, the " gentleman of that
name is not at all related to the French
family, for he is of a much more serious
disposition." Christmas harlequinades
are entirely an English invention, and
in the present form are credited to
Weaver, a dancing - master in Shrews-
bury in the last century. They are a
faint revival of the old court pageants,
which were given during the holiday
season. A hidden meaning has been
discovered in these pantomimes, and the
adventures of the actors therein have
been carried back into the dim dawn of
history, and connected with the rites of
Egyptian, Cabiric, and Mithraic mys-
tics. Harlequin is no less a personage
than Hermes ; Columbine is Psyche,
the soul ; and Pantaloon is Charon,
who, shamefully P( cting his office as
ferryman, enga' services of the

clown, or Momus, in the pursuit of
Psyche. This may be, and perhaps,
when looking on at a pantomime, we are
unconsciously participating in Mysteries
that were celebrated in caverns and
shielded with secrecy. But if so, how
the gods have

" Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen.
Fallen from their high estate " !

In our degenerate days the clown, and
not Harlequin, is the central figure of
the pantomime. As the electric light
outshines gas, so have his more spright-
ly charms overshadowed the magical
powers of Harlequin and the grace of
Columbine. The last survival of a
" goodlie and merrie companie," he has
combined in his one person almost all
the traits of his predecessors. His cos-
tume is usually that of the old court
fool ; his whitened face is his inherit-
ance from Gros-Guillaume, who was the
first to use this substitute for a mask ;
his greediness is like that of the Hindu
Vidushaka. As Pantaloon's servant, he
bears some kinship to the Greek slave
and French valet ; and his " Here-we-
are-again " is an echo of the " Halloe "
with which the devil of the Mysteries
greeted his audience. Just as it is im-
possible to tell wherein lies the charm
of certain beauty, so it is difficult to
define the humor of the pantomime
clown. Mere skill as an acrobat or
grimacer is not in itself sufficient.
Above and beyond this there must be
a bonhommie, a spice of Falstaffian good
fellowship, which is as indispensable as
it is indescribable. Grimaldi possessed
this attraction to a wonderful extent.
Ouce, owing to illness, he had been re-
placed at Sadlers Wells Theatre by a
man named Bradbury, who was such an
excellent gymnast that Grimaldi feared
his own popularity had been destroyed.
The first night he acted, after his recov-
ery, he and Bradbury were to appear
in alternate scenes. The latter began
the performance ; but when he attempt-
ed to continue the part, after Grimaldi

1883.]

Stage Buffoons.

539

had been on the stage, the people hissed
him off, and would have nothing more
to do with him, though it was his bene-
fit night. Grimaldi could not compete
with him as a leaper or jumper, but he
had that nameless charm which brought
him at once en rapport with his au-
dience. **...

In the circus, the clown divides the
honors with the crowds of Amazons,
wild riders of the prairies, giants, dwarfs,
and all the great natural and artificial
wonders. He is always in the ring ;
he tumbles and talks, jests and jumps,
laughs and leaps. His gymnastic feats
are subordinate to his " gift of the gab."
Like Athenseus, he prepares a "deli-
cious feast of words." Some poets have
lived solely through the merits of one
poem, and many clowns become famous
from one very poor joke. There was one
American favorite who was popular for
years, owing to an absurd story of an
experiment to convert pancakes into
bed-coverings ; the experiment failing
because, when he awoke, shivering, it
was always to find that he had eaten
his counterpane. Another made his
reputation simply by joking in Pennsyl-
vania " Dutch."

The clown as assistant of the itin-
erant doctor or merchant is not a new
creation. He was in existence among
the Greeks. A satirical picture on an
old Greek vase represents Apollo carry-
ing on a brisk business as a quack
mountebank. He was known in the
times of Charlemagne, and, as we have
seen, it was in this character that Taba-
rin distinguished himself. To-day, in
the East, especially in Japan, it is com-

mon for street venders to entice patrons
to their stalls by the tumblings of acro-
bats and the jokes of jesters. The
quack, or the " fakir," in America sets
up his stand in the busiest part of the
town, as his prototype did, long ago, in
the sunlit streets of Athens. The clown
lolls by his side, making hideous faces
and playing inane tricks, whereby he
attracts idlers and pleasure - seekers.
Like the chorus in Greek tragedies, he
gives his explanation and opinions of
the words and actions of the principal
actor. His remarks are usually deliv-
ered sotto voce, and accompanied by a
feint of suffocated and uncontrollable
mirth. His volubility is most astonish-
ing. He out-Herods Herod, while the
ease with which his partner can keep
up -a steady flow of conversation about
nothing has no parallel in history, save
perhaps in the Goliards of the Middle
Ages.

There is, it is true, no buffoon in the
legitimate drama of the present day, but
this, unfortunately, may not imply purer
and more refined dramatic taste in the
public. Among the most popular and
paying performances now are spectacu-
lar pieces and burlesques, the actors in
which compare rather unfavorably with
the clowns of the Elizabethan age.
The latter were often coarse enough,
but their fun was that of exuberant an-
imal spirits, whereas that of their mod-
ern successors is too often the outcome
of vulgarity. Theatre-goers in our age,
however, can sit through a comedy or
tragedy unenlivened by the presence of
a clown, and this would have been an
impossibility in the old times.

Elizabeth Robins.

540

Recent Biographies.

[April,

RECENT BIOGRAPHIES.

To call the volumes in the series of
American Men of Letters biographies
is merely to avoid a more refined de-
scription. So far as they fulfill the
avowed purpose of the series they are
not biographies, but critical studies based
upon biographic and historic material.
The lives of literary men resolve them-
selves so easily into this class of litera-
ture that one may easily think the dis-
tinction a forced one ; yet it is true that
the life of no man, whether of action or
of letters, can fairly be read until we
can reach some middle ground of judg-
ment, which is made up of both exterior
and interior views. We need to see the
man as the world in which he lived saw
him, and we need also to see him from
the nearer cover of his home, and if
possible to look upon the world from his
side.

Mr. Lounsbury, in his study of Coo-
per,1 started under the disadvantage of
having no access to the private Cooper.
The filial obedience of his children to
their father's wish has kept the shutters
up in the great novelist's house, and Mr.
Lounsbury had no opportunity of know-
ing the man beyond what any student
of literature and character might have.
He has used this common opportunity,
however, as no one else has used it, and
by his diligence and critical acumen has
really rescued the personality of Cooper
from oblivion. It cannot, indeed, be
said that Cooper's best known novels
excite a strong desire to become ac-
quainted with the author. This is, in
part, because the time when one reads
them most enthusiastically is not the
time of personal curiosity ; but the chief
reason is in the nature of the works
themselves, which create an interest in

i James Fenimore Cooper. By THOMAS R.
LOUNSBURY. [American Men of Letters.] Bos-
ton : Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1883.

the object, not the subject. If there
was an original of Leatherstocking, one
would be zealous in his effort to get at
him; but the creator of Leatherstock-
ing has kept himself detached from the
character.

We may take it almost as a piece of
good fortune for Cooper that he has
been compelled to wait for Mr. Louns-
bury, and the generation which will first
read Mr. Lounsbury's book. Of all
men, Cooper demands the judgment of
a scientific mind, and that Mr. Louns-
bury has ; while the temper of the read-
ing public is favorable to a just, impar-
tial measure of a writer who holds a
conventional eminence in the annals of
American literature. More than this,
Cooper's fervid, almost apoplectic pa-
triotism stands a far better chance of
generous appreciation now than it did
when he was alive, because the criticism
which his patriotic nature vented upon
his country can be regarded in a his-
toric, and not a personal, view.

At all events, Mr. Lounsbury has
given us in detail the grounds for a
clear understanding of Cooper's nature,
as it was revealed in writing, speech,
and action to the public. We repeat
that the understanding would probably
have been corrected, had the material
been possible for a disclosure of his
family life ; but the very scrupulousness
with which Cooper secluded this forms
a silent but powerful witness to the
strength of his affection and the integ-
rity of his character in the innermost
relations. It is every way probable that
Cooper's injunction, forbidding his fam-
ily to authorize any life of him, grew out
of his sense of the sanctity of the per-
son, reinforced by his experience of the
coarseness and vulgar insolence of many
of his contemporaries. They stopped
short of nothing in their slander, and he

1883.]

Recent Biographies*.

541

who had been fighting them bitterly in
life would give them no advantage by
his death.

The circumstances of Cooper's life
which resulted from his literary occupa-
tion have afforded Mr. Lounsbury the
largest field for his biographic activity,
because they called for the most dili-
gence in a historical student. Thus the
purely literary history and the literary
criticism are somewhat slight, and we
are a little disappointed that Mr. Louns-
bury should have contented himself with
a few generalizations, all the more that
these frequently afford acute comments
on Cooper's genius. As a quiet illus-
tration of Cooper's weaknesses, the fol-
lowing passage is singularly happy :
" Cooper, indeed, exemplified in his lit-
erary career a story he was in the habit
of telling of one of his early adventures.
While in the navy he was traveling in
the wilderness bordering upon the On-
tario. The party to which he belonged
came upon an inn, where they were not
expected. The landlord was totally un-
prepared, and met them with a sorrow-
ful countenance. There was, he assured
them, absolutely nothing in his house
that was fit to eat. When asked what
he had that was not fit to eat, he could
only say, in reply, that he could furnish
them with venison, pheasant, wild duck,
and some fresh fish. To the astonished
question of what better he supposed
they could wish, the landlord meekly
replied that he thought they might have
wanted some salt pork. The story was
truer of Cooper himself than of his inn-
keeper. Nature he could depict, and
the wild life led in it, so that all men
stood ready and eager to gaze on the
pictures he drew. He chose too often
to inflict upon them, instead of it, the
most commonplace of moralizing, the
stalest disquisitions upon manners and
customs, and the driest discussions of
politics and theology."

Thus, again, he gives an insight into
Cooper's method when he says of him.

" He had a full artistic appreciation of
the impressiveness of the unknown.
For in stories of this kind [sea-tales]
the vagueness of the reader's knowledge
adds to the effect upon his mind, be-
cause, while he sees that mighty agencies
are at work in perilous situations, his
very ignorance of their exact nature
deepens the feeling of awe they are of
themselves calculated to produce." We
wish that here, or in the admirable sum-
mary in the last chapter, Mr. Lounsbury
had made more of that essential attri-
bute of Cooper's power which consists
in the dominance of the great forces of
nature, — the sea, the storm, the woods,
the prairie. It was the expression of
this power in literature which made
Cooper justly great, and rendered his
petty slips in English ineffectual to turn
men's attention away from his work.

In connection with this, there was
opportunity for an interesting study of
the causes of Cooper's popularity in
Europe, and, by comparison with Irving,
a criticism upon the impact of America
upon European life and thought. There
is a distinct reference to Cooper, we are
sure, in such work as that of Chateau-
briand and his school, and the philo-
sophic succession is in the relation sub-
sisting between Walt Whitman and the
English poets of the day. The contrast
between an overwrought civilization
and a' savagery which has physical free-
dom is one which has more than once
left its impress upon literature.

It is, however, as we have said, upon
the circumstances of Cooper's literary
life that Mr. Lounsbury has expended
his greatest care ; and these circum-
stances were of such unceasing warfare
that we are really obliged to the indus-
trious student for leading us safely
through the recital of the separate con-
flicts. The humorous side of the fight
is recognized by Mr. Lounsbury, and
thus we are saved from the dreariness
which might otherwise have been our
fate. These wrangles, though starting

542

Recent Biographies.

[April,

often from petty occasions, frequently
involved interesting questions of man-
ners and politics, and by means of the
narrative one gets a novel glimpse of
society in America, when it was in its
most crude and formative condition.
The conflict between Cooper's demo-
cratic principles and his aristocratic
tastes is extremely interesting, and the
battle of frogs and mice which we are
invited to witness is much more than a
burlesque upon a greater Iliad. The
reader rises from Mr. Lounsbury's book
with an admiration for Cooper and an
interest which lead him to regret strong-
ly that the opportunity for an intimate
acquaintance cannot be granted. The
book, indeed, excites a stronger desire
to know Cooper familiarly than do the
novels themselves. In the absence of
this familiar knowledge, we have, at any
rate, the outlines of a most interesting
character, and the clue to an important
literary study.

To pass from Cooper to Ole Bull is
to change all the circumstances of life,
and yet to keep some of the common
phases of character. The literary artist
in the one case, the musical artist in the
other, possessed an individuality in which
a stout self-assertion was a very positive
element. Even on the artistic side a
nice comparison might be made; for
Cooper was scarcely more the interpret-
er, through literature, of a large, force-
ful nature than was Ole Bull, with his
violin, a singer of the wild, rushing, and
impending nature of Norway. Each
was a passionate patriot, though the
conditions of the two countries rendered
the forms which the patriotism assumed
somewhat divergent. In a subtle yet
entirely frank way, the great Norwegian
musician is made, in the volume de-
voted to his memory,1 to appeal to the
reader, not simply through his musical
genius, but through his generous Norse
spirit, which was identified in a striking

i Ole Bull: A Memoir. By SARA C. BULL.
With Ole Bull's Violin Notes, and Dr. A. B. Cros-

mauner with the hopes and purposes of
modern Norway. To the American,
the figure of Ole Bull was that of an
improvisatore, who appeared suddenly
and unexpectedly in this city or that,
and kept great audiences under a magic
spell. A poetic haze surroupded him,
which was deepened and colored by the
popular identification of him with the
" rapt musician " of Longfellow's Tales
of a Wayside Inn. How many recog-
nized at once the picture which the poet
drew ! —

"And ever and anon he bent
His head upon his instrument,
And seemed to listen, till he caught
Confessions of its secret thought, —
The joy, the triumph, the lament,
The exultation and the pain ;
Then, by the magic of his art,
He soothed the throbbings of its heart,
And lulled it into peace again."

Never was there seen here so poetic a
figure, and the public were entirely in-
different to the criticisms with which
Ole Bull was assailed by members of
the musical profession. The charm of
his presence, and of what seemed his
improvisation, was acknowledged and
obeyed.

It is much, therefore, that this charm
returns through the paler medium of a
book, and that there is added a new
presentation in the vigorous, enthusiastic
Norse patriot. There is a -certain thin-
ness about the life of a musician who is
only or chiefly an artist, but the warm
current of national feeling which per-
vades this history gives a robustness to
the figure of the great artist. Indeed,
this Norwegian spirit appears to have
possessed the writer of the book ; and
she has so completely effaced herself in
her labor that there is even an accent,
so to speak, in the style of the memoir,
and the reader half suspects that he is
reading a translation from the Norwe-
gian. We have rarely seen a biography
so wholly reflective of the subject, and
in the entire subordination of herself

by's Anatomy of the Violinist. Boston : Hough-
ton, Mifflin & Co. 1883.

1883.]

Recent Biographies.

543

Mrs. Bull has achieved the highest re-
sults. Greater praise we cannot give
than to say that the writer never once
makes us think of her; but when the
book is ended we wish to turn and
thank her warmly.

The naivete which we are so apt to
find in any native expression of North-
ern life characterizes this book, and the
reader is admitted to the most delight-
ful knowledge of Ole Bull's childhood,
with its instinctive musical tone, to his
struggling youth, and to his generous
manhood. The anecdotes, which follow
one another with a careless grace, are
felicitous interpreters of the life ; and
by examples, rather than by cold analy-
sis, Mrs. Bull permits us to get glimpses
of her husband's nature. The accumula-
tion of these illustrations leaves at length
a fairly complete picture of the man ;
and this method is especially suited to
display the character of a person so
unique as Ole Bull, — a man who refuses
to be classified, but maintains a singular
integrity. There is only one omission
which we note : if more could have
been said of Ole Bull's disastrous at-
tempt at establishing a Norwegian col-
ony in America, the story would have
had a special interest for American
readers.

As it is, the book will be especially
welcome here, because the musician,
who was an ardent Norseman, and yet
by his art and career a citizen of the
world, may almost be said to have taken
out his naturalization papers in this
country. In spite of the disagreeable
encounters which he had with individual
Americans, and of the experience which
he had with the country when it was in
the uncouth condition which maddened
Cooper, he had a poet's vision of Amer-
ica, and saw here the unbounded oppor-
tunities for the realization of dreams
which he had for his little Norway.
The hearty faith which he had in Amer-
ica was repaid by the genuine admira-
tion which Americans showed for him,

and this delightful memoir, which does
so much because it attempts so little,
will help to keep his memory green.

It chances that the same season brings
us the life of another European,1 who
became even more identified with Amer-
ican life than Ole Bull. Francis Lieber
was born in 1800, and was a boy sol-
dier in a Prussian regiment at the bat-
tle of Waterloo, where he was severe-
ly wounded. He went afterward with
some young German enthusiasts to fight
the battles of Greece, but was thorough-
ly disenchanted, and, making his way
back to Rome, had the good fortune to
fall into the hands of Niebuhr, who re-
ceived him into his house as tutor to his
son Marcus. He returned to Berlin,
but met with so much tyrannical treat-
ment at the hands of his government,
which seemed determined to regard him
with suspicion, and even to deny him
the education and service which were to
make him a worthy citizen, that he
broke away in despair from his country,
and sought refuge in England. There
he led a precarious life as teacher, but
made a great gain in the person of his
faithful wife, and after a brief stay
turned his face to these shores. He
opened a swimming-school in Boston ;
but quickly becoming known to the best
men, he received aid and encouragement
which led to an engagement as trans-
lator and editor in charge of the En-
cyclopaedia Americana. This work and
other literary enterprises gave him sub-
stantial reputation, and he was invited
to the chair of history and political
economy in the University of South
Carolina. He went to South Carolina
in 1835, and in spite of the uncongenial-
ity of his surroundings — for Dr. Lie-
ber was a man who hungered lor large
intellectual intercourse with men — he
remained there more than twenty years.
He hated slavery with a philosophical

1 The Life and Letters of Francis Lieber.
Edited by THOMAS SERGEANT PERRY. With
Portrait. Boston : J. R. Osgood £ Co. 1882.

544

Recent Biographies,

[April,

hatred, and his professional teaching
was in direct opposition to the institu-
tion : but he was a German, and thus
less obnoxious than a Northern citizen
would have been who should have held
the same views ; and he was a large man,
of genial nature, who attached his pupils
and associates to himself. He was, be-
sides, recognized as an eminent man,
and policy as well as personal regard
forbade open hostility toward him.

He was always an exile there, how-
ever, in his own mind, and he breathed
more freely and naturally when he left
South Carolina, in 1857, and accepted a
similar position in connection with Co-
lumbia College. He now made his resi-
dence in New York, where he remained
until his death, in 1872. His life in
the South, so difficult to interpret fully,
brought a terrible affliction upon him ; for
his eldest son died in the service of the
Confederacy, a name which stood for a
serious offense against history in the fa-
ther's eyes. His younger sons served
in the Union army, and he himself lent
his pen and counsel vigorously to the
same cause.

This life, so varied and romantic, is
told in the letters, which form, almost
exclusively, the contents of the volume
of life and letters. Mr. Perry's work
has been to select from a large and most
interesting correspondence such passages
as would tell Dr. Lieber's fortunes and
convey a clear idea of his political prin-
ciples. In this he has succeeded ; for,
whatever material he may have been
forced to omit, that which remains is
abundantly illustrative of a great man,
not only in his public aspect, but in many
of the more private relations of life. In
the earlier part of the work Mr. Perry
has supplied context for the letters, and
out of the full store of his own informa-
tion has put the reader into clearer pos-
session of the facts requisite for an in-
telligent apprehension of Lieber's youth.
We regret that he has not continued
this excellent course throughout the vol-

ume. While the letters largely inter-
pret themselves, the reader has a right
to the directer statement of a biographer.
He is left too often to guess at matters
which a few words from Mr. Perry
would have made intelligible. What
was the mission to Europe, of which he
writes in his diary, September 19, 1834?
What is the " inclosed " to which he refers
in a letter to Hillard, October 4, 1854.
as filling him with bitterness of heart
and a sense of utter helplessness ? Was
there nothing to be said regarding the
temporary estrangement from Sumner
except what Dr. Lieber himself reports ?
What was the vote of which Sumner
wrote him in 1864? Lieber appears to
have held some post in connection with
the archive office of the war department.
Exactly what was it, and what was the
nature of his work ? Did the bill, pre-
pared by Lieber at General Garfield's in-
stance, to establish a record of natural-
ization, become a law ? These and other
questions are raised by the book, and
ought to have been answered in their
places by Mr. Perry.

In spite of this defect, the narrative of
Lieber's life is so graphically related by
the letters that we are grateful to the
editor for withholding any formal biogra-
phy. It was a scholar who underwent
the varied experience recorded in the
book, and the strange union of activity
and thought renders Lieber's life ex-
ceptional among the lives of scholars.
Above all, the generous proportions of
the man rise before the reader. There
was something so Continental in his po-
litical speculations that they have a fas-
cination for the student. He carried
two countries in his head and his heart ;
for America and Germany found ample
room in his affections and interest. The
great lines on which his thought moved
made him a welcome companion for
statesmen and publicists, while the pre-
dominant ethical cast of his mind ren-
dered his counsel especially valuable.
There was, besides, so practical a use of

1883.]

Law and Lawyers in Literature.

545

his principles that they did not discharge
themselves in mere intellectual vapor,
but were constantly employed in settling
questions of expediency.

The letters which fill the volume are
addressed to persons who in the main
were in public life, and they are rich in
illustration of our history. It gives one,
a curious sense of the simplicity of our
early national life to find President
Adams visiting Dr. Lieber's swimming-
school, and taking a header; and one
comes almost to know Lieber's corre-
spondents through his letters to them.
The absence of mere tattle and the pres-
ence of personal references of a higher
order make the volume one in which
the reader will find entertainment with-
out the loss of his own self-respect. He
is not obliged, as some one has said, to
shut the doors of his room when he reads
it. He will get a little glimpse also of
Dr. Lieber's own generous weaknesses,
and come to look with an amused feel-
ing for the unfailing pamphlet which
Dr. Lieber wrote a definite number of

years ago, whenever any public question
arises.

It is more to the purpose that the
reader will find in these animated letters
a fragmentary yet forcible presentation
of those great political principles which
were elaborated in Dr. Lieber's writings,
especially his Political Ethics and Civil
Liberty ; and many, doubtless, will lay
aside this work with a resolution to at-
tack the somewhat formidable volumes,
which represent high thoughts of the
greatest value. Much that Dr. Lieber
wrote has become inwrought in the po-
litical writings of other men, and his
ideas are found in current speculations ;
his correspondence served to make these
ideas known, and he was the teacher of
thousands of young men. That these
ideas should be studied in the very form
in which they were cast is desirable ; but
after all, even though the volumes may
stand unopened, the life of Dr. Lieber
has entered American history, and this
volume will preserve the record for a
grateful people.

LAW AND LAWYERS IN LITERATURE.

A NOVEL or a play without a lawyer
in it is rare and unconventional. Wills
have to be made, criminals to be tracked,
and family secrets to be ferreted out or
locked up in the incommunicable bosom
of the legal adviser. Somewhere or
other in its development the literary
worker finds a fillip for his story, if not
a basis for all of it, in the tangles and
mysteries of jurisprudence. Many re-
sources of both scenery and character
are opened to him by the law ; but not
content with the legitimate advantages
which it affords, the unscrupulous litte-
rateur twists and tortures it to suit his
purpose, without regard for its letter or
its spirit. When necessary, iudeed, he

VOL. LI. — NO. 306. 35

creates a judicial system entirely and
peculiarly his own, and under it adjudi-
cates for his litigious puppets with a
license which reflects less credit on his
knowledge than on the ingenuity of his
imagination.

This is one of the aspects of literature
in its relation with law which Mr. Irving
Browne writes of in his recent volume,1
and he shows that it is not the minor
novelists alone who err. Some of the
greater authors are as absurdly inaccu-
rate as those of little note and the reck-
less young ones, who take a cavalry
dash at all things, and are not in the

1 Law and Lawyers in Literature. By IRVINO
BROWNE. Boston : Soulfr and Bugbee. 1883.

546

Law and Lawyers in Literature.

[April,

least shy of the wildest improbabilities.
Trollope, Reade, Lever, Fenimore Coo-
per, Samuel Warren, and the late Lord
Lytton are among the offenders whom
Mr. Browne quotes, though it is known
that the author of The Caxtons, on one
occasion at least, took the precaution,
which may be commended to all story-
writers, of submitting his hypothetical
case to counsel. The law has many pit-
falls, indeed, for those who attempt to
explore its mazes without some profes-
sional knowledge of them ; and when
the author involves his characters in a
lawsuit, he usually involves himself in a
variety of grotesque errors. Mr. Browne
singles out for exception a story by Mr.
P. Deming, published in The Atlantic
Monthly for April, 1882, of which he
flatteringly says, " I have never read
anything more correctly realistic." But
the law of most story-writers is little
different from the comical judges and
juries of Mr. Gilbert's travesties.

Mr. Browne's book is not exclusively
devoted to the legal solecisms of careless
writers of fiction, however. It embraces
extracts from the chief dramatists, histo-
rians, essayists, and moralists who have
written or spoken about law and lawyers.
It contains extracts from Juvenal, Aris-
tophanes and Ammianus Marcellinus,
Wycherley and Emerson, Napoleon
Bonaparte, Miss Edgeworth, and Cruik-
shank's Comic Almanacks. " The law
and the lawyer," says the compiler,
"have oftener been the subject of ani-
madversion and ridicule on the stage
than any other class and profession. . . .
Perhaps the playwrights, themselves
originally ostracized, desired to bring
down a powerful class to their own level.
. . . The vulgar playwright, supple-
mented by a vulgar actor, never fails to
bring down the house by caricaturing
an attorney. We will not waste our
time over him, but will review the more
respectable dramatists, and their method
of portraying our subject."

Mr. Browne takes the slurs which

have been cast upon his profession very
much to heart, and in a triumphant man-
ner he remarks that, in proportion to
the carelessness and indifference, or the
hostility and envy, with which learned
men are regarded when they are not
wanted, are the slavishness of the de-
pendence and the implicitness of the
trust which are shown when their ser-
vices are necessary. " And so, when a
man wants a contract or a will drawn,
or to sue, or to defend a suit, or to get
rid of his wife, or to prevent his wife
from getting rid of him, or to rescue
his own estate, or to capture somebody
else's, he retains legal counsel, and for-
gets all about his long speeches and long
bills, his wig and his gown and his
green bag, his willingness to serve the
first paying comer, and his zeal, which,
like the affliction of the hired mourner
in the East, is at the service of his client,
without much regard to his deserts."
So, too, the clergyman who has been
called a hypocrite, and the physician
who has been called a murderer, are hur-
riedly summoned and respectfully lis-
tened to the moment that sickness and
death threaten.

But though Mr. Browne ignores " the
second-rate novelist " and " the vulgar
playwright," he seems to have found lit-
tle in praise of lawyers elsewhere ; and
an imposing number of the authors whom
he quotes revile and satirize the delays,
quibbles, and sordidness of the profes-
sion. Judged by his work, the novel-
ists and dramatists deal gently with
the knights of the coif, compared with
the poets, moralists, historians, and es-
sayists.

The poets quoted are almost without
exception scornful. Juvenal describes
a lawyer who, with " pick-lock tongue,
perverts the law ; " and Quarles, speak-
ing of the golden age, says, —

" There was no client now to wait
The leisure of his long-tail'd advocate."

Sewell, in his tragedy of Sir Walter
Raleigh, refers to " the unskilful lies,

1883.]

Law and Lawyers in Literature.

547

hot from his venal tongue," uttered by
a lawyer ; and Boileau excuses himself
for his desertion of law by asking, —

" Can I in such a barbarous country bawl,
And rend with venal lungs the guilty hall;
Where innocence does daily pay the cost,
And in the labyrinth of law is lost;
Where wrong by tricks and quirks prevails

o'er right,

And black is by due form of law made white ?
E'er I a thought like this can entertain,
Frost shall at midsummer congeal the Seine."

Thomson, also, is unflattering, and
writes of the toils of law, which " dark
insidious men " have perverted to
"lengthen simple justice into trade;"
Swift has his fling, both in prose and
verse ; Southey was fond of associating
the devil and lawyers ; and few things
ever written have been as savage as
Shelley's lines to Lord Chancellor El-
don. Coleridge wrote a somewhat coarse
epigram against lawyers ; and Moore,
describing a visit of the devil to London,

" Away he posts to a man of law,
And oh, 't would make you laugh to 've seen 'em,
As paw shook hand, and hand shook paw,
And 't was ' Hail, good fellow, well met ' between
'em."

American poets have had little to say
about the law, but of the only two men-
tioned by Mr. Browne one is Bryant,
who, referring in some verses to his early
experiences in a law office, regrets that
he is

" Forced to drudge for the dregs of men,

And scrawl strange words with a barbarous pen,"

a drudgery from which he was fortu-
nately relieved.

The chapter in which are embraced
the sayings of moralists, essayists, his-
torians, and satirists contains a few com-
plimentary quotations, but here, again,
are many gibes at the law. Ammianus
Marcellinus speaks in his Roman history
of lawyers as " that tribe of men who,
sowing every variety of strife and con-
test in thousands of actions, wear out
the door-posts of widows and the thresh-
olds of orphans, and create bitter hatred

among friends, relations, or connections
who have any disagreement." Napoleon
describes lawsuits as a social cancer.
" My code," he adds, " had singularly
diminished lawsuits, by placing numer-
ous causes within the comprehension
of every individual. But there still re-
mained much for the legislator to ac-
complish. Not that I could hope to
prevent men from quarreling, — this
they have done in all ages ; but I might
have prevented a third party in society
from living upon the quarrels of the
other two, and even stirring up disputes
to promote their own interest. It was,
therefore, my intention to establish the
rule that lawyers should never receive
fees except when they gained causes.
Thus, what litigations would have been
prevented ! " Richard de Bury, Bishop
of Durham and Lord Chancellor of Eng-
land under Edward III., said of lawyers
that they " indulge more in protracting
litigation than in peace, and quote law,
not according to the intention of the
legislator, but violently twist his words
to the purpose of their own machina-
tions."

In this chapter, however, Mr. Browne
manages to elicit some eulogy out of the
authors whom he has consulted. Sir
Philip Sidney recognizes in the lawyer
one who "seeketh to make men good.
. . . Our wickedness maketh him neces-
sarie and necessitie maketh him honor-
able." Owen Feltham, speaking of the
profession, says, " They have knowledge
and integrity, and being versed in books
and men, in the noble acts of justice
and of prudence, they are fitter for
judgement and the regiment of the world
than any men else that live." Burke
attributed the untractable spirit of the
American colonists in a large measure
to their general study of the law, which,
he says, " renders men acute, inquisi-
tive, dexterous, prompt in attack, ready
in defence, full of resources. In other
countries, the people, more simple, and
of a less mercurial cast, judge of an ill-

548

Law and Lawyers in Literature.

[April,

principle in government only by an ac-
tual grievance ; here they anticipate the
evil, and judge of the pressure of the
grievance by the badness of the princi-
ple. They augur misgovernment at a
distance, and snuff the approach of tyr-
anny in every tainted breeze."

De Tocqueville has the most exalted
opinion of American lawyers. " The
special information," he says, " which
lawyers derive from their studies insures
them a separate rank in society, and they
constitute a sort of privileged body in the
scale of intellect. ... If I were asked
to place the American aristocracy, I
should reply, without hesitation, that it
is not among the rich, who are united
by no common tie, but that it occupies
the judicial bench and bar." Again, con-
trasting American lawyers with others,
he says, "A French observer is sur-
prised to hear how often an English or
American lawyer quotes the opinion
of others, and how little he alludes to
his own ; while the reverse occurs in
France. There the most trifling litiga-
tion is never conducted without the in-
troduction of an entire system of ideas
peculiar to the counsel employed, and
the fundamental principles of law are
discussed in order to obtain a perch of
land by the decision of the court. This
abnegation of his own opinion and this
implicit deference to the opinion of his
forefathers, which are common to the
English and American lawyer, this ser-
vitude of thought which he is obliged to
profess, necessarily give him more timid
habits and more conservative inclina-
tions in England and America than in
France."

But, as Mr. Browne truly says, if this
friendly critic had an opportunity to ob-
serve the workings of the American
courts at the present time he would find
occasion to change his opinion. The
"opinion of our forefathers" receives

little respect, and the decisions of the
highest courts alter the rules of law on
nearly every given point from year
to year; nay, even from one term of
court to another, and on the gravest con-
stitutional questions.

We have already called attention to
Mr. Browne's solicitude for the good
name of his profession. Whenever he
discovers a word in behalf of it, he re-
fers to the author with reciprocal appro-
bation ; but the kindly word is infre-
quent, and his interesting book shows
that some very eminent persons have
entertained as low an opinion of law-
yers as the creators of the pettifogging
attorneys whose vulpine proclivities sea-
son the inferior melodrama.

His work indicates that he possesses
the compiler's qualification of knowing
where to look for interesting material ;
but when, as he frequently does, he con-
stitutes himself a critic of the authors
whom he quotes, he is not always suc-
cessful. He is resolutely rancorous
when he thinks that his profession has
been unduly aspersed. One of the best
scenes in A Modern Instance is confi-
dently described as being " tolerably ex-
citing, but cheap ; " the ever vivacious
Lever is uncivilly compared to an old
woman ; Lord Lytton is hastily classed
as mediocre ; Samuel Warren is dis-
posed of as being " an amiable and fun-
ny but rather mean-spirited barrister ; "
and Fenimore Cooper, also, is dismissed
as a second-rate person. Of Mr. Trol-
lope Mr. Browne says, " If I were
called on to designate the most brilliant
writer of fiction of the present century,
I should hesitate ; but if I were re-
quired to name the dullest, I could not
hesitate a moment in awarding this
voluminous writer the palm." This
may be offered as a specimen of Mr.
Browne's criticisms, which certainly do
not add to the value of his book.

1883.]

Memorials of Rossetti.

649

MEMORIALS OF ROSSETTI.

" EGOTISM," says Thackeray, " is
good talk. Even dull biographies are
pleasant to read." This, while true
enough in a general sense, is too elastic a,
statement to be serviceable in criticism,
which must draw its meshes close if it
would ascertain what is worth keeping.
Of egotism there is certainly something
in the two volumes on Rossetti now given
to the world so punctually, within less
than a year after his death ; and notice-
ably in the work of Mr. T. Hall Caine,1
which we shall consider first. Curiously
enough, this egotism comes to the front
by reason of the writer's effort to pre-
serve his modesty in explaining why he
must allude so much as he does to him-
self and his own work. He consumes,
besides, a good deal of time in brief dis-
sertations on the most desirable mode
of arranging his material, and in express-
ing various literary opinions, which are
not always strictly relevant. To this,
however, he is in part constrained by
the circumstances of his first acquaint-
ance with Rossetti, which had its origin
in a correspondence growing out of his
public championship of the poet before
he knew him. It does not, of course,
follow that, because there is egotism,
there is also dullness ; yet we cannot
escape the conviction that, if Mr. Caine
had confined himself to the plainest and
most succinct narrative form, he would
have given us a much more valuable
record and one much pleasanter to read
than that which he has produced. An-
other disadvantage under which Mr.
Caine labors, as well as Mr. William
Sharp, in his more formal work, is the
supposed necessity of dwelling at con-
siderable length on the beauties of Ros-
setti's several longer poems. Critical or
laudatory opinion is really not what we

l Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. By
T. HALLCAINK. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1883.

crave from these writers, both of whom
are young ; and Mr. Caine is most inter-
esting when he adheres, as in the first
chapter, to a recital of events in the early
part of the poet's life, or, as in the clos-
ing chapters, to incidents and impres-
sions of his actual intercourse with him.
It was the singular fortune of the author
of these Recollections, although the jun-
ior of Rossetti by twenty-five years, to
become his intimate friend, housemate,
and to some extent confidant, during the
final twelvemonth of that remarkable
poet-painter's life ; and such a fact alone
gives permanent value to whatever he
may have to tell from his own observa-
tion. As an example of the unprofit-
able matter with which he too often cloga
his pages, this sentence may be cited :
" The Blessed Damozel is a conception
dilated to such spiritual loveliness that
it seems not to exist within things sub-
stantially beautiful, or yet by aid of im-
ages that coalesce out of the evolving
memory of them, but outside of every-
thing actual." It seems to us that the
view stated in these extraordinarily infe-
licitous terms does a radical injustice to
Rossetti's exquisite youthful masterpiece,
which simply could not exist without the
aid of images that "coalesce out of"
memories of the substantially beauti-
ful ; and we sincerely hope that the Eng-
lish Renaissance is not destined to crum-
ble into the dust and rubbish of such ver-
biage as this. There are various traces
of hasty composition in the volume, as
where letters are spoken of as being
" called forth in the course of an inter-
course ; " and again, where it is said that
" his reception of my intimation of an
intention to call upon him was received,"
etc. But, passing over the fact that Mr.
Caine has no style and relates his story
cumbrously, we are able to derive a good
deal of satisfaction from the glimpses

550

Memorials of Rossetti.

[April,

which he gives of a singular and striking
person, who will undoubtedly hold here-
after a distinctive place in the annals
of English poetry, and one of great im-
portance relative to the development of
English art in our time. There is, appar-
ently, not a great deal to be told in the
way of incident connected with the sub-
ject's career. The son of an Italian poet
land patriot, who was obliged to fly from
Naples in 1820, he was born in Eng-
land, and was christened Gabriel Charles
Dante (as we learn from Mr. Sharp),
but dropped the middle name, and re-
versed the others, so that he has passed
into history as Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
At the age of eighteen he wrote the
Blessed Damozel; and by the time he
was twenty he had also written a pow-
erful, though short, artistic romance, ex-
ecuted in somewhat archaic style, called
Hand and Soul, and had painted a crude
but remarkable picture, The Girlhood of
Mary Virgin, which still holds high rank.
Both his poetic and his pictorial work
were marked by maturity at the very
start, so that they do not offer any spec-
tacle of striking changes or develop-
ments, unless it be in those two late bal-
lads, The King's Tragedy and The White
Ship, which indicate a tendency to be-
come more objective, impersonal, and
dramatic than he had previously been.
Mr. Caine says Rossetti saw this ten-
dency, and had resolved not to write any-
thing more as from himself ; but that
was not long before his sudden death, at
fifty-two. At thirty-two he married a
Miss Siddall, who had been his model,
and herself showed talent in painting ;
but his wife, resorting to laudanum for
relief from neuralgia, died by an over,
dose of the poison when they had been
married only two years. This event ap-
pears to have thrown a heavy shadow
4<">ver the whole of Rossetti's subsequent
\ X Becoming more and more subject
c isomnia, he was led by medical ad-
"L to use chloral, gradually became a

10 " drug, and was eventually

vice i

slave to the ,

killed by it, although for some years he
did not feel its evil effects, and pursued
his avocation as a painter with great suc-
cess. There was an alarming nervous
collapse in 1872, from which he recov-
ered; but his days were thenceforth em-
bittered by the delusions attendant on
the use of chloral, until within a few
weeks of his death. At that time, a par-
tial paralysis occurring, he was forced
by his physician to abandon chloral at
once and wholly. There was a terrible
struggle of nature ; he was delirious for
many hours. At length he came to him-
self, calm, happy, freed from the old
delusions, and looking forward healthily
to fresh achievements. But the crisis
had occurred too late, and his long-under-
mined vitality soon flickered and faded
out. Although he had no English blood
in him, he regarded himself as entirely
an Englishman. He had never been out
of England except for one tour in Hol-
land, undertaken as a young man, where
he was lastingly impressed by Memme-
ling and Jan Van Eyck, and two brief
visits to Paris. " He seemed always to
me an unmistakable Englishman," says
Mr. Sharp, " yet the Italian element was
frequently recognizable."

We judge from Mr. Caine's account
that, since it was possible for him to
leave off chloral at all, his life might
have been prolonged and rendered much
brighter had his friends 'earlier insisted
on forcibly restraining him from the ru-
inous indulgence. But it must be re-
membered that they had an individual
of exceptional difficulty to deal with ;
a man imperious and forceful, though
also tender and dependent, — one who
had always, no doubt, been morbidly
sensitive and seclusive. For example,
during the two years before Mr. Caine
met him he had not been out of his
house afoot, excepting when he walked
in the garden at its back ; and on the
occasion of the garden — the leasehold
of which had been severed from that
of the house — being plowed up, pre-

1883.]

Memorials of Rossetti.

551

paratory to building, he remained im-
mured for a week. It is only confirma-
tory of the impression many must have
received from the simple reading of
Rossetti's poems to have Mr. Caine
declare a belief that " irresolution, with
melancholy, lay at the basis of his na-
ture." Into the causes of the morbid-
ness, unquestionable as it is, we can
hardly penetrate with comprehensive-
ness until further data are provided ;
but we suspect that they lay in the
physical as well as mental constitution
of Rossetti. At all events, it is clear,
from his poetry, that his mind was one
which brooded over every phase of be-
ing laid before it with an intensity that
passed almost at once into pain. He
was like a person born too far-sighted,
whose every effort to contract the gaze
upon the near objects of daily life must
result in a straining pressure upon eye
and brain ; he looked through existing
things, in order to get at their spiritual
basis and meaning ; yet at the same time
few men have been gifted with a more
precise, vivid, and colorific vision for
immediate physical beauty than he.
This simultaneous fixing of the mind
on the near and the far, the substance
and the essence, was very possibly the
fundamental cause of his melancholy.
There could hardly be a more exact il-
lustration of passion in its literal and
etymological sense of " suffering " than
his mental nature affords ; for, with
him, all emotion was so acute that it
became a pang and a burden. This
explains the oppressive atmosphere of
which we are conscious in reading his
strong, often beautiful poems, which are
heavy with compressed meaning and
packed phrase, like a too-honeyed clus-
ter of tube-roses or magnolia-blooms.
It gives us the key, also, to that misun-
derstanding of his spiritual aims by sun-
dry critics, which caused him so much
unhappiness. In contemplating the
wonder and fairness of the body, he
was doubtless aware of a perception in

himself that reached out towards the
most subtile and refined significance of
what he beheld ; and, to convey this,
what more natural than that he should
depict in the most glowing words the
physical presence that awoke such a
perception ? But, in doing so, he fre-
quently lost the spiritual significance,
and some readers saw nothing in the
result but a "fleshly" picture. We
have not the least thought of accusing
his intention, but we think that, owing
to his overstrained sensibility, his exe-
cution laid him fairly open to misunder-
standing. Beauty became his disease.
Composition itself was an anguish to
him. "I lie on the couch," he said,
speaking to Mr. Caine of the way in
which his poems were produced, " the
racked and tortured medium, never per-
mitted an instant's surcease of agony
until the thing on hand is finished."
Strikingly consonant with this sad and
impassioned personality were the hab-
its and surroundings of the man. Mr.
Caine makes no secret of the dismal
influence which he himself felt on first
going into Rossetti's habitation at 16
Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, known as Tu-
dor House, from the tradition that Eliz-
abeth Tudor once lived there, and sup-
posed to be the one that Thackeray took
as a model for the home of the Coun-
tess of Chelsey, in Henry Esmond. On
another page he says that when he left
the house, "outside, the air breathed
freely. Within, the gloom, the mediaeval
furniture, the brass censers, sacramentai
cups, lamps, and crucifixes conspired,
I thought, to make the air heavy and
unwholesome." Mr. Caine observes of
Rossetti, " He constantly impressed me,
during the last days of his life, with the
conviction that he was, by religious bias
of nature, a monk of the Middle Ages ; "
and further, " His life was an anachro-
nism. Such a man should have had no
dealings with the nineteenth century :
he belonged to the sixteenth, or perhaps
the thirteenth, and in Italy, not Eng-

552

Memorials of Rossetti.

[April,

land." The inference is, perhaps, too
obvious to be well founded ; in the
Middle Ages this identical Rossetti
might have failed of his development
altogether, but precisely the conflict be-
tween his inherent tendencies and our
modern conditions enabled him to be-
come a new and valuable force, at a
time when one was needed, though he
himself may have been in a measure
the victim of the conflict. It is quite
natural that many should have sup-
posed, from the known fact of Rossetti's
retired mode of life and the quiet ex-
clusiveness which has characterized the
group to which he belonged, — that of
Morris, Swinburne, Madox Browne,
Burne Jones, Watts, Stanhope, and the
like, — that he was indifferent to the
merits of distinguished contemporaries
with whom he had no outward affilia-
tion ; but Mr. Caine's testimony must
quite dissipate this notion. There is am-
ple evidence that he cordially admired
Tennyson, Mrs. Browning, Robert
Browning, and various less known poets
of his period. " Probably," he once
said, " the man does not live who could
write what I have written more briefly
than I have done," — an utterance
which involves something of pardonable
over-estimate; but the sense of his own
power seems not to have excluded the
sincerest appreciation of what others
were doing. With equally frank criti-
cism of himself, he wrote in a letter,
" All poets nowadays are redundant ex-
cept Tennyson." The eighth chapter
of this volume, which consists mainly
of extracts from the poet's letters, con-
tains a number of extremely interesting
remarks on the English sonnet in gen-
eral and in particular, and bears amaz-
ing testimony to the persistence of his
intellectual activity, even under the
deadly sway of the drug to which he
was subjected. It is a pity that Mr.
Caine did not decide to give the letters
in full, seeing what encomiums he has
passed upon them as comparable with

the best in English literature in " free-
dom of phrase, in power of throwing
off parenthetical reflections always fault-
lessly enunciated, in play of humor,
often in eloquence, . . . sometimes in
pathos.' His selections produce but a
fragmentary effect, yet they give one
an intimate insight into Rossetti's taste
for careful study of the poetic art and
its history in England. That he pos-
sessed a true critical faculty is not made
evident, even in connection with his
frequent and minute revision or ampli-
fication of his own published pieces;
but indirectly, a knowledge is gathered
of the elaborate way in which a great
deal of his own work must have been
built up, notwithstanding that he some-
times wrote very rapidly. Here may
be mentioned an emphatic maxim which
escapes him in one of these letters :
" Conception, fundamental brain-work,
is what makes the difference in all art.
Work your metal all that you like, but
first take care that it is gold, and worth
working." His humor comes out pleas-
antly in this passage : " I am sure I
could write one hundred essays, on all
possible subjects (I once did project a
series under the title Essays Written in
the Intervals of Elephantiasis, Hydro-
phobia, and Penal Servitude), without
once experiencing the 'aching void,'
which is filled by such words as ' my-
thopceic' and 'anthropomorphism.' I
do not find life long enough 4to know
in the least what they mean." This
certainly is an unexpected burst from
the author of Dante at Verona, and
brings us to know him and like him
better as a man.

It is interesting to hear that Rossetti
spoke of Mrs. Carlyle as " a bitter little
woman ; " and though he added that she
was always kind to the poor, this phrase
may some time serve to mitigate the
offenses of the great humorist and his-
torian in the eyes of those who have
shown so much vindictiveness towards
him since the publishing of the Reminis-

1883.]

Memorials of Rossetti.

553

cences. There is but one other kindred
allusion to a public contemporary, and
that is to Longfellow, who called upon
him, but " seemed to know little about
painting as an art," and also made the
mistake of supposing that it was Rosset-
ti's brother who was the poet. Rossetti's
own dictum upon the painter's art is a
trifle unexpected : that it depends upon
unwritten rules, which are as system-
atically to be taught as arithmetic ; and
that, aside from " fundamental concep-
tion, . . . the part of a picture that is
not mechanical is often trivial enough."
That Rossetti did not see more of the
famous men and women about him, and
that, accordingly, he appears in the me-
morials of him as rather mournfully
alone and unrelated, is due to the un-
healthy isolation in which he dwelt. Mr.
Caine has a remark of no little penetra-
tion on the cause of his retirement :
" There are men who feel more deeply
the sense of isolation amidst the busiest
crowds than within the narrowest circle
of intimates. . . . Perhaps, after all, he
wandered from the world rather from the
dread than with the hope of solitude."

Mr. Caine's outline of this peculiar
character as he saw it has a certain
jagged and uncomely reality, which will
inevitably make it an important contri-
bution : he has drawn from the life
sympathetically, yet relentlessly. On
the other hand, Mr. William Sharp, him-
self a poet, though far more sympathetic,
and going deeply into the characteris-
tics of Rossetti's product in two arts,
presents a portraiture which, because it
is less unconventional and less detailed
than the other, does not yield so graphic
an impression.1 Mr. Sharp, however,
says, " Again and again I have seen in-
stances of those marvelous gifts which
made him at one time a Sydney Smith
in wit and a Coleridge in eloquence,"
and adds this description of Rossetti's ap-

1 Dante Gabriel Rossetti. A Eecord and a
Study. By WILLIAM SHARP. London : Macmillan
& Co. 1883.

pearance : " He was, if anything, rather
over middle height, and, especially lat-
terly, somewhat stout ; his forehead was
of splendid proportions, recalling instan-
taneously to most strangers the Strat-
ford bust of Shakespeare ; and his gray-
blue eyes were clear and piercing, and
characterized by that rapid penetrative
gaze so noticeable in Emerson." Touches
like these, by calling up the personal
presence, are of more service just now
than many pages devoted to discrimi-
nating and appreciative study upon the
writings or the pictures. It transpires
also, in Mr. Sharp's record, that Rossetti,
at about the age of twenty, was greatly
impressed by Browning's poems ; wrote
to Browning ; afterwards painted his por-
trait ; and projected, but only half car-
ried out, some designs illustrating works
of his. He at last " held Tennyson to
be the greatest poet of the period, and
he was gratified as if by a personal
pleasure when Mr. Watts, also an ar-
dent believer in Tennyson, wrote his
fine sonnet to the Laureate. . . . He
appreciated to a generous extent the
poetry of present younger writers, but
failed to see in nine tenths of it any of
that originality and individual aura that
characterize work that will stand the
stress of time." It is not hard to con-
ceive how a man who united with his
own artistic mastery so much cordial ad-
miration for that of others ; who, if some-
times unjust and harsh to his friends,
was always manfully and pathetically
penitent afterwards ; who had such great
powers of conversation, and was so sus-
ceptible to feeling that he could seldom
read his own poems aloud without shed-
ding tears, — how such a man should
have won a number of devoted friends,
and should have exercised a potent in-
fluence on the art of his period, difficult
though that influence may be to trace
through all its channels. Mr. Sharp de-
votes only one chapter to the Life. This
is succeeded by a chapter on the Pre-
Raphaelite idea, historical, but taking

554

Memorials of Rossetti.

[April,

besides a controversial tone, which is in-
advisable at this late day. The best point
in it is the author's establishing of a
connection between the Pre-Raphaelite
movement and the Tractarian stir at
Oxford, made by Newman, Pusey, and
Keble. Religion and art at that time
were " closelier " drawn together, and a
few artists banded themselves in favor
of choosing higher themes, and working
them out with an earnestness and faith-
fulness that were devotional. Never-
theless, Mr. Sharp thinks, the primary
impulse of these men was one of skep-
tical revolt against the feeble traditions
of English art, which was in part a re-
flex of the prevailing skepticism in sci-
ence and philosophy. Although it wears
a mask of paradox, such a theory of the
movement doubtless rests upon truth, and
would account for the points of serious
divergence between the Pre-Raphaelites
and the Tractarians, who had in common
a desire to rekindle the devout enthusi-
asms of the mediaeval time. Mr. Sharp
gives an extended account of The Germ,
the organ of the " Brotherhood," and
quotes suggestively from its contents ;
so that we get from him what it is now
very difficult, for American readers in
particular, to obtain elsewhere. The
rest of the volume is assigned to a close
and long review of Rossetti's complete
labors as both painter and poet. His
pictures in water -color and oils, his
sketches and replicas, are all described in
chronological order ; and a table at the
end of the book presents a still fuller
list of the three hundred and ninety-five
pictorial productions which Rossetti left,
with their dates and ownership attached.
We own to a good deal of weariness
in toiling through these chapters, which,
being without any kind of illustration,
place the frightful tax on the mind of
reimaginiug, by aid of a few bald words,
the pictures enumerated. But there can
be no doubt that for purposes of ref-
erence Mr. Sharp's review will remain
exceedingly convenient, in fact indis-

pensable, to students of modern art. It
cannot be said that his critical survey
of the poetical works is of equal worth,
although he gives a good many curious
facts as to corrections made by the au-
thor in different editions, and shows a
commendable independence in his judg-
ments. In one instance Mr. Sharp
seems to us strangely uudiscerning : that
is, where he refers to the peculiar and
impressive design called How They Met
Themselves as being simply a pictorial
representation of the Doppelganger le-
gend. The whole penetrating and fine
significance of the design in question
lies in the marvelous variation between
the actual lovers and their doubles, whom
they meet in the forest, — a variation in-
troduced without disturbing the likeness.
The spectral pair represent the man and
woman as they once were, and show an
ideality, a youthful grace and fervor,
which the real man and woman have
lost. These latter find themselves con-
fronted, by this apparition, with the
tragedy of their own slow, unsuspected
deterioration. But if he has failed in
his interpretation here, Mr. Sharp makes
amends by his fine analysis (pages 114
and 115) of the female facial type which
Rossetti created, — the type that reap-
pears in many of his works, and is per-
haps his most remarkable contribution to
art. As Mr. Sharp well says, " there are
occasions when the intensity of its inner
significance is so strong as to constrain
the beholder to the strange spiritual per-
sonality represented, alone, leaving him
altogether oblivious to the details of the

rendering."

Mr. Sharp's style, unfortunately, is
often loose and ungrammatical. He
speaks of " regarding " a picture " a fine
production," instead of " considering " it
so ; and in another place says exactly
the opposite of what he means, thus :
" The pressure of as many commissions
for pictures as he could . . . execute . . .
prevented little being done " upon a pro-
posed work of translation. Perhaps his

1883.]

Memorials of Rossetti.

555

masterpiece of bad construction is the
clause, " Reflecting as it does in under-
tone the subdued murmur of ' wan water,
wandering water weltering,' and for the
reason that the cause of its beauty is not
at first perceptible is doubtless how it
grows more and more with every read-
ing, till, I am certain, with many it be-
comes one of the chief favorites." But
all this does not prevent him from lay-
ing his finger with precision on " the
constant union of poetic emotion with
artistic idea in everything that came
from the pencil or the brush of Dante
Rossetti," as the circumstance which
raised the painter high above the plane
of English art in general. He also notes
that Rossetti's development in paint-
ing was much slower than his literary
growth : in poetry he matured almost
immediately, but there was a long term
during which his pictorial work was
crude. This fact, as we apprehend it,
points indirectly to his possession of a
larger possibility as an artist than as a
poet, which required a longer period for
its realization. In painting he perfected
a depth and splendor of coloring which
is unrivaled except by that of Titian
and Giorgione ; but to English litera-
ture he did not add anything, we think,
of corresponding distinctiveness or im-
portance, nor did he in that field invent
anything so original as the facial type
already mentioned. Therefore, although
a master in both his arts, he will, unless
our estimate be falsified by time, stand
higher as a painter than as a poet. His
poems were rather the accompaniment
of his art than the results of a nature
inclined by its deepest promptings to
expression in language ; they were the
musical overflow of a genius too richly
endowed to find complete satisfaction
even in the art to which it was best

adapted. Their being in a manner sec-
ondary, notwithstanding the strong indi-
viduality with which they are imbued,
may be one reason why they reflect so
much more of the bitterness and sadness
of life than his pictures do. But, what-
ever conclusion we may reach on this
head, we are indebted to Mr. Caine and
Mr. Sharp for making us better ac-
quainted with the source from which
both the pictures and the poems pro-
ceeded. Mr. Caine's book contains, fur-
thermore, a striking photograph of Ros-
setti, which brings before us his singu-
lar, sensuous, melancholy, intent visage,
with the noble forehead and the " bar of
Michael Angelo " between the eyes ; and
Mr. Sharp has had reproduced as a fron-
ispiece a beautiful design, in which the
poet inclosed his transcript of the son-
net on the sonnet,

"A sonnet is a moment's monument,"
which, the lettering in one corner re-
cords, " D. G. Rossetti pro matre fecit."
It is a mournful study that is laid before
us in these volumes, that of a great-
ly gifted man, whose life was clouded by
sorrow and blasted by a fatal weak-
ness. He comes before us as a sort of
Keats (without the joy), who had weath-
ered adversity and gained middle life
only to become a hypochondriac, whom
no successes could console ; while in
his weakness, and in the sloth he him-
self condemned, he resembles a Cole-
ridge modified into the pure artist. But,
in addition, he is himself ; and it is of
this self, which has been indicated to us
only in its salient points, that we should
like to know more. It is to be hoped
that those who knew Rossetti longest
and most intimately will join their forces
with his friend Theodore Watts (another
artist and poet) in perfecting an ade-
quate biography.

556

A Frenchman in the United States in 1881.

[April,

A FRENCHMAN IN THE UNITED STATES IN 1881.

THERE is a curious contrast between
the Souvenirs of M. de Bacourt, which
were noticed in the Atlantic for Febru-
ary, and the Impressions of the Vicomte
d'Haussonville, which are" now before
us.1 It would be difficult to imagine
a more striking picture of the marvel-
ous progress of the United States than
is presented by a comparison of De Ba-
court's description of the crude, un-
formed civilization, the undeveloped so-
ciety, the uncomfortable every-day exist-
ence which he found here in 1840, and
that given by the Vicomte d'Hausson-
ville of the impressions which he gath-
ered during his hasty visit in 1881, as
one of the guests of the nation at the
Yorktown celebration. One can hardly
believe that the two men are writing
about the same country. It must be
admitted, however, that the difference
between the United States in 1840 and
in 1881 is hardly more marked than
the contrast between De Bacourt and
D'Haussonville themselves. The former
was a shallow, narrow-minded man, fee-
ble, discontented, and possessing but lit-
tle imagination. The latter is a shrewd
and careful observer, liberal, kindly,
generous, with a great deal of imagina-
tion, and a pleasant tinge of French ro-
manticism, at which he himself is strong-
ly inclined to smile a little sadly as one
of the memories of youthful days.

There are many passages which show
M. d'Haussonville to have a strong
sense of humor, and he is invariably
good-tempered ; but his book is sober
and thoughtful, with no effort to be brill-
iant or witty, and ought t« find many
readers in this country. It well repays,
both in interest and instruction, a care-
ful perusal.

In a necessarily brief notice it is im-

1 A Travers let fetats Unit. Notes et Impres-
sions. Par LK VICOMTK D'HAUSSONVILLE, An-

possible to examine such a book as this
as minutely as it deserves, or to do more
than touch upon some of its most salient
points. It may be said at the outset
that M. d'Haussonville found nothing
of " that strange and eccentric charac-
ter which Frenchmen always foolishly
expect to find in America." Another
peculiarity is that he was thoroughly
grateful for the sincere and hearty hos*
pitality which was shown him. As he
gracefully says, in speaking of a fire in
New York, he could not help wonder-
ing " whether one of the committee
which had received us in the morning
had not pushed his gallantry so far as to
set fire to his house, in order to give us
the pleasure of seeing it extinguished."

M. d'Haussonville has something to
say on a large variety of subjects, and
his remarks show great justice and keen-
ness of apprehension. It will surprise
some of our Europeanized Americans
to learn that he considers our press, even
of the second and third class, to have far
more news and to be much better edit-
ed than the French journals. He also
found the former, despite their bitter
political articles, singularly free from
talk and gossip about private individ-
uals, or about those persons who really
desire privacy, and he adds that " leg
fails scandaleux et les proces scabreux "
which occupy so large a space in such
newspapers as the Paris Figaro are with
us relegated to their proper place in a
separate column.

He examined with great care, and on
the whole sums up very accurately, the
state of our politics ; defining the re-
publicans as the centralizing, and the
democrats as the states-rights, party, —
a description which has perhaps more
historical than contemporary exactness.

cien Depute. Paris: Calmann L#.vy, fiditeus.
1883.

1883.]

A Frenchman in the United States in 1881.

557

The old memories and passions of the
war, he thinks, are not dead, but the
predominant, overmastering feelings at
present are love for the Union and na-
tional pride. In his judgment, not only
slavery, but secession as well, is effaced
forever, and those who look for another
separatist movement will be wofully dis-
appointed, as they were when the coun-
try submitted without a murmur to the
decision of the electoral commission.
He studied with some care the results
of the rebellion, and after every allow-
ance for the evils it brought he says
finely, after giving an account of his
visit to Arlington, " After all, only a
great people is capable of a great civil
war."

At the same time, his admiration of
results does not blind him to existing
evils. He points out the demoralizing
mischief of the reconstruction period,
and finds the perils which now men-
ace us in the political corruption that
crops out in our cities and in our great
national departments. He regards the
" spoils system " as part of the same de-
teriorating influence, and looks upon the
inferior character and ability of men in
politics and public life as a great mis-
fortune. But M. d'Haussonville also
believes that a reaction has begun ; that
public opinion, outside of active poli-
ticians, is a mighty force, and is both
sound and strong. He hopes most, how-
ever, from the well-regulated love of
liberty, characteristic of the race ; the
law-abiding instinct shown in the pop-
ular deference, as he puts it, for the
policeman's " baton ; " and the strong
religious respect, in the existence of
which he has more faith than most
Americans. M. d'Haussonville says too
that signs are not wanting to indicate
the appearance of a higher class of men
in politics, from which he draws en-
couragement as to our future. Al-
though our political defects are marked,
and even dangerous, he has no idea
that they will prove fatal, and is of

opinion that we have the ability to rise
to the level of our unequaled opportu-
nities. His views of our politics, and
of our political prospects, without being
very rosy or extremely optimistic, are
on the whole cheerful, and praise and
blame are both awarded with much
moderation. He is perfectly satisfied,
moreover, that those of his countrymen
who speak of us as in a state of deca-
dence are not only very ignorant and
prejudiced, but utterly mistaken.

On social matters M. d'Haussonville
is no less correct than on matters polit-
ical, and is far more amusing. In one
place, he says that he wishes those who
think there are no classes in America
would come here and see for themselves.
Social distinctions appeared to him very
rigid, and affection for the past and for
tradition very strong, — two easily ex-
plicable facts, which surprised him not
a little. The latter admirable quality is
part of the conservatism of the English
race, and it is peculiarly vigorous in the
United States from the very fact that
our history is so brief and our own es-
pecial past so limited. As to the social
distinctions in a country where all dis-
tinctions have been swept away, so far
as law and constitutions can do it, it is
only natural that, from their inherent
weakness and necessary frailty, they
should be more jealously guarded than
in other lands, where they are forti-
fied by statute, custom, and authority.
Yet the democracy and the equality are
none the less real because these harmless
and rigid social distinctions exist in the
United States. Apart from outward
graces and refinements, our manners
are, on the average and at bottom, bet-
ter than those of any other people, and
for a very simple reason. Democracy
destroys forms, but it demands and
breeds the kindliness and good-nature
which are the essence of the best man-
ners ; and this fact M. d'Haussonville
recognizes and admits. He makes an
honest confession on this point after

558

A Frenchman in the United States in 1881.

[April,

describing the Pullman-car conductor on
the train to Chicago to whom he was
formally introduced. After shaking
hands the conductor discussed with him
the French reception in Rhode Island
and many other topics ; all of which
seemed to the Vicomte rather absurd,
especially when he pressed a fee of two
dollars into his friend's willing hand.
But when he comes to the end of this
little incident, he frankly grants that
the conductor was, in all essentials, a
better-mannered man than any of his
class in Europe ; and hence follows the
further admission of this as a general
truth applicable to the people of a
country at large. In whatever he says
about society, however, M. d'Hausson-
ville shows that penetrating perception
of which his race is sometimes capable,
and he places his finger with unerring
accuracy upon that which is at once
our most distinguished social peculiarity
and our chief defect. The passage is
worth quoting : " En Amerique lorsque
vous partez pour une ville quelconque,
on vous dit invariablement, * Vous -ver-
rez la de tres jolies jeunes filles, — very
pretty girls.' En France on dirait, de
tres jolies femmes. Toute la difference
dont je parle se traduit par 1'emploi de
ces deux mots. En Amerique, c'est pour
les jeunes filles qu'est organise le mouve-
ment social, — bal, cotillons, matine'es,
parties de campagne, tout roule sur elles ;
et les jeunes femraes, sans en etre ex-
clues, n'y prennent qu'une part restreinte,
le plus souvent sous pre'texte de chape-
ronner une ou plusieurs soeurs, cousines,
ou amies. Les jeunes personnes vont
egalement beaucoup au theatre, dinent
seules en ville, ou vont faire des sejours
chez des amies mariees. . . . En un
mot, elles comprennent la vie telle que
la comprend cette vieille ballade du Ga-
teau de la mariee, qu'on recite ou qu'on
recitait autrefois en Bretagne a chaque
jeune fille le jour de ses noces : —

"Vous n'irez plus au bal,
Madame la marine,"

et qui se termiue par cet avertissement
funebre : —

" Ce gateau est pour vous dire
Qu'il faut souffrir et mourir."

Nothing could be happier or more clever
than this description of the system which
prevails everywhere in the United States
except in Washington, where it is neces-
sarily limited by circumstances. Amer-
ican society, as now carried on, is main-
tained solely for the benefit of young
girls, and is generally little better than
a marriage mart. The parents launch
their offspring as well as possible, and
display their wares to the greatest ad-
vantage, but the business of the market
is carried on chiefly by the young girls
themselves, instead of by their mothers
as in England and Europe. There is
no special objection to this method of
transacting the business, but it is pre-
posterous that young girls and their
affairs should overshadow and shut out
everything and everybody else. The
result of this absorption in one class and
one pursuit is that American society is
often insufferably dull and flat. It is
made up too exclusively of ignorant
girls and their attendant boys. Half the
education of a cultivated and attractive
woman is of course that which is de-
rived from society and from the world ;
and yet American society is almost
wholly given up to the business of en-
tertaining and marrying those who are
necessarily wholly destitute of such an
education. Another effect of the prev-
alence of social principles of this de-
scription is the supremacy of that most
rustic and unattractive of habits, the
pairing system, which converts society
into a vast aggregation of tete-a-tetes.
This prevails all over the world to a
greater or less extent, but it should nev-
er reign supreme. The upshot of the
whole thing with us is to drive out of
society nearly all married people, — for
marriage under such a system is de-
structive of social value ; nearly all un-
married women over twenty-five, who

1883.]

A Frenchman in the United States in 1881.

559

are thought to have overstayed their
market ; and, finally, a considerable pro-
portion of the unmarried men of thirty
and upwards. In other words, except
at a few large balls and receptions, all
the best and most intelligent part of
society is usually lacking. It has been
pushed aside, and is obliged to find,
all its social amusement in small coteries
of its own. This retirement is of course
voluntary, because the pairing system
ruins general society, and makes it, in
fact, impossible in the best and truest
sense. A clever young Englishman not
long ago expressed his surprise at the
fact that, whenever he asked who a lady
of a certain age, as the French say,
might be, he was invariably told, not
that she was Mrs. Blank, but that she
was the mother of Miss Blank. The
girl, like the boy, is properly the most
insignificant member of society. When
a young man goes forth into the world,
he starts at the bottom of the ladder,
and works his way up. The same rule
should apply to young women in society.
They have their place, and it is an im-
portant one ; but they should not start
in social life at the top, and then slowly
descend. Such a system is against every
law of nature or of art, and with its in-
evitable concomitant of universal tete-
a-tgtes makes really attractive general
society impossible. We place the social
pyramid upon its apex instead of upon
its base, and then wonder that it is a
poor, tottering, and unlovely object.

M. d'Haussonville is remarkably ac-
curate in all his statements, not only
about society, but about everything which
he noticed, and which offered food for
reflection. We have detected but two
errors, and for only one of them is the
author wholly responsible. He says, in
speaking of Washington's diary, that
the entry of December 13, 1799, was the
last, and that on the following night
the general was found dead in his bed.
Washington died of laryngitis on the
night of December 14th, after twenty-

four hours of acute suffering. He was
perfectly conscious to the end, and, far
from being found dead in his bed, died
surrounded by his family and friends.
The other mistake was due to a Catholic
bishop in Rhode Island, who informed
M. d'Haussonville that the Roman Cath-
olics were the most numerous of the
Christian sects in the United States.
The census of 1870, to which the bish-
op referred, does not give the number
of communicants, as the bishop said,
but the number of church sittings. By
that census the Roman Catholics stood
fourth, being surpassed in numbers by
the Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyte-
rians. The Methodists are three times,
the Baptists twice, and the Presbyte-
rians twenty per cent, larger than the
Roman Catholics. The Baptists and
Methodists together comprise nearly half
of the whole population of the country.
But it would be obviously unfair to
hold M. d'Haussonville responsible for
the misstatements of a Roman Catho-
lic priest;

We have spoken of the contrast be-
tween M. d'Haussonville and M. de Ba-
court, but there is one point of resem-
blance which curiously justifies what we
said of Frenchmen in our former notice,
with reference to their lack of the ad-
venturous, colonizing spirit which has
made the English race so great and
powerful. M. d'Haussonville talked
with the emigrants on the Canada,
during his voyage to this country, and
wondered greatly at their courage.
" Rather than boldly break," he says,
"with the memories and the affections
which help man to support life, I should
prefer to continue to suffer where I have
lived, and die where I was born." But,
unlike M. de Bacourt, M. d'Haussonville
admires the hardy spirit of the colonist
and emigrant, and appreciates its impor-
tance and meaning. The French names
of towns in the United States led him
to mourn that the empire of France in
the New World has departed, and that

560

Carlyle and Emerson.

[April,

her influence, except in the matter of
woman's dress and comic opera, is whol-
ly extinct. " O France ! " he cries,
" chere patrie si douloureusement aimee,
es-tu done definitivement vaincue dans la
grande lutte des nations, et comme la
Grece antique, en es-tu re"duite a te ven-
ger du moude en lui donnant tes vices ! "
He concludes with an appeal to his coun-

try to at least preserve its love for the
ideal, its sense of beauty, and its prefer-
ence of beauty to utility, and ends with
the wish that she may deserve to be
called, as she has been named, the poet
of nations, — a very strange idea in re-
gard to a race which, with all its achieve-
ments, is almost wholly destitute of any
really great poetry.

CARLYLE AND EMERSON.

THAT one day which Emerson made
"look like enchantment," in the poor
house of the lonely hill-country where
Carlyle was biding his time, may well
be reckoned memorable and fortunate
in the annals of literature. It knit to-
gether, at the beginning of their career,
the two men who were to give, each in
his own land, the most significant and
impressive utterance of spiritual truth
in their age. Mutual respect and open
sympathy arose in their hearts at first
sight, and soon became a loyal and trust-
ful affection, which, endeared by use and
wont, proved for almost fifty years one
of the best earthly possessions that fell
to their lot. Throughout this period,
except for a few brief weeks, they
lived separate, and hence this Corre-
spondence l is a nearly complete record
of their friendship as it was expressed
in words and acts. On our side of the
ocean was Emerson, at Concord : freed
from pressing care by his competency
of twenty thousand dollars ; serene in
his philosophy of " acquiescence and op-
timism ; " working in his garden or walk-
ing by Walden Pond ; discovering gen-
iuses among the townspeople ; lecturing
in the neighborhood, or jotting down es-
says for his readers, — " men and women

i The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and
Ralph Waldo Emerson. 1834-1872. 2 vols. Bos-
ton : James R. Osgood & Co. 1883.

of some religious culture and aspira-
tions, young or else mystical." On the
other side was Carlyle, " the poorest
man iu London ; " hag-ridden by spirits
of revolt and despair ; wrestling with his
books as with the demon, " in desperate
hope ; " finding the face of nature spec-
tral, and the face of man tragically bur-
lesque ; saying to himself, " Surely, if
ever man had a fiuger-of-Providenco
shown him, thou hast it ; literature will
neither yield the bread nor a stomach to
digest bread with ; quit it in God's name,
— shouldst thou take spade and mattock
instead ; " yet heartening himself with
his mother's words, " They cannot take
God's providence from thee." The let-
ters of these two friends, so sharply
contrasted by circumstances and nature,
must be, one thinks, of extraordinary
interest, and possibly some wonder may
spring up at finding the talk in them
about every-day matters, — family, work,
business, friends, and the like ; but to
us the special charm of the correspond-
ence lies in this fact, in its being human
rather than literary, in its naturalness
of speech, man to man, whether the
theme, in Emerson's phrase, " savor of
eternity," or concern the proper mode
of cooking Indian meal. It is difficult
to give in brief compass an adequate
idea of the multifarious subjects dis-
cussed, or of the modification of the gen-

1883.]

Carlyle and Emerson.

561

eral estimate of Carlyle that the total
contents of the volume make necessary.
We can only select what seems of lead-
ing importance, and trust our readers to
criticise and generalize for themselves.

In the earlier portion there is much
about " a New England book," as Car-
lyle, putting Old England to the blush,,
called it, — Sartor Resartus, — and of
its welcome to Cape Cod and Boston
Bay, which made Fraser " shriek." We
are proud of that ; and now we can be
glad to know of the money that went
to Carlyle from us for this and other
books, when he needed money, and can
feel a sympathetic indignation against
the " gibbetless thief," Appleton, whose
piracies troubled Emerson in his good
work, even though we get a cheap satis-
faction in knowing that a " brother cor-
sair " in England did the like when Car-
lyle tried to reciprocate his friend's good
offices. There is much, too, about Car-
lyle's coming to America to lecture : de-
tails of probable costs and profits ; as-
surances that, advertised as " the person-
al friend of Goethe," he would, mere-
ly " for the name's sake," be " certain
of success for one winter, but not af-
terwards;" congratulations that "Dr.
Chanuing reads and respects you, a fact
of importance ; " probabilities of " the
cordial opposition" of the university.
(Ah, poor Harvard ! But what can be
expected from a son of thine who writes,
" The educated class are of course less
fair-minded than others"?) Nothing
came of all this, though Carlyle did not
yield his wish to visit us until he was an
old man. Glimpses of humorous sights
and things are given from the first : of
Dr. Furness, " feeding Miss Martineau
with the Sartor ; " of " Alcott's Eng-
lish Tail of bottomless imbeciles " in
London ; of Brook Farm days, — " not
a reading man but has a draft of a new
Community in his waistcoat pocket ; " of
Carlyle himself (a sight, one would
think, to stir Rabelaisian laughter) at a
water-cure, — " wet wrappages, solitary

VOL. LI. — NO. 306. 36

sad steepages, and other singular pro-
cedures." Now and then, too, they
praise each other, as friends should.
Thus Carlyle, on reading the Phi Beta
Kappa oration, breaks out, " I could
have wept to read that speech ; the clear
high melody of it went tingling through
my heart. I said to my wife, ' There,
woman ! ' " But they praise with reser-
vations, as befitted their independence
and differences. Carlyle is shy of his
friend's genius as of a possible will-o'-
the-wisp (beautiful, but leading whith-
er?), and Emerson looks askance at
the Harlequinries of his Teufelsdrockh.
They confide their bereavements to each
other, simply, manfully : now it is Em-
erson's little boy, " the bud of God,"
who is gone ; and soon it is Carlyle's
tenderly loved mother, and at last the
wife. They send their friends to each
other, — Emerson, of course, by far the
larger number, — and they talk them
over. In these criticisms and charac-
terizations is the principal literary inter-
est of the collection. Most of them are
by Carlyle, and they exhibit the same
power as similar passages of his Rem-
iniscences, but more wisely used.

Here is Alcott, whom Emerson had
sent on " with his more than a prophet's
egotism, a great man if he cannot write
well ; " whom Carlyle found " a genial,
innocent, simple-hearted man, of much
natural intelligence and goodness, with
an air of rusticity, veracity, and dignity,
— the good Alcott, with his long, lean
face and figure, with his gray-worn tem-
ples and mild, radiant eyes, all bent on
saving the world by a return to acorns
and the golden age ; ... let him love
me as he can, and live on vegetables in
peace, and I living partly on vegetables
will continue to love him ! " Margaret
Fuller Emerson describes as " without
beauty or genius," — "with a certain
wealth and generosity of nature." Car-
lyle had larger language for her : " Such
a predetermination to eat this big Uni-
verse as her oyster or her egg, and to be

562

Carlyle and Emerson.

[April,

absolute empress of all height and glory
in it that her heart could conceive, I
have not before seen in any human soul.
Her ' mountain-me,' indeed! — but her
courage, too, is high and clear, her chiv-
alrous nobleness indeed is great, her
veracity in its deepest sense a toute
epreuve." In briefer strokes, Miss Marti-
neau, " swathed like a mummy into So-
ciuian and Political - Economy formu-
las, and yet verily alive in the inside
of that ; " the " pretty little robin-red-
breast of a man," Lord Houghton ;
Dr. Hedge, — "a face like a rock ; a
voice like a howitzer ; " Southey, —
" the shovel-hat is grown to him ; "
Macready, who " puts to shame our
Bishops and Archbishops." The list is a
long one, and it is pleasing to notice
that, except in one case (Heraud, whose
cause we abandon), Carlyle recognizes
and appreciates good qualities in those of
whom he writes. Two more of these por-
traits cannot be spared. Of Webster
he writes, " As a Logic-fencer, Advo-
cate, or Parliamentary Hercules, one
would incline to back him at first sight
against all the extant world. The tanned
complexion, that amorphous, crag-like
face, the dull black eyes under their
precipice of brows, like dull anthracite
furnaces, needing only to be blown, the
mastiff - mouth accurately closed, — I
have not traced so much of silent JBer-
serkir rage that I remember of in any
other man." Finally, of Tennyson,
before he was taken up " in the top of
the wave," — " Alfred is one of the few
British or Foreign Figures who are and
remain beautiful to me ; a true human
soul, or some authentic approximation
thereto, to whom your own soul can say,
Brother ! . . . a man solitary and sad
as certain men are, dwelling in an ele-
ment of gloom. . . . One of the finest-
looking men in the world ; a great
shock of rough, dusty-dark hair ; bright-
laughing hazel eyes ; massive aquiline
face, most massive yet most delicate ;
of sallow-brown complexion, almost In-

dian-looking ; clothes cynically loose,
free-and-easy ; smokes infinite tobacco.
His voice is musical metallic, — fit for
loud laughter and piercing wail, and all
that may lie between ; speech and specu-
lation free and plenteous. I do not meet,
in these late decades, such company over
a pipe." Elsewhere, with the Carlyle
touch, " He wants a task ! "

Year by year these letters go, and
" the cleft of difference " grows wider
between the two : Carlyle glowing more
intense with the heat of a dark realism ;
Emerson becoming more ethereal in his
ideality. Their mutual recognition is
as generous as ever, but each wishes
the other different. Carlyle calls for
" some concretion of these beautiful ab-
stracta." " I love your Dial," he writes,
" and yet it is with a kind of shudder.
You seem to me in danger of dividing
yourselves from the Fact of this present
Universe, and soaring away after Ideas,
Beliefs, Revelations, and such like, —
into perilous altitudes beyond the curve
of perpetual frost. ... I do believe, for
one thing, a man has no right to say to
his own generation, turning quite away
from it, ' Be damned ! ' It is the whole
Past and the whole Future, this same
cotton-spinning, dollar-hunting, canting
and shrieking, very wretched genera-
tion of ours. Come back into it, I tell
you." Again and again he repeats his
warning, and calls, " Come down and
help us." Emerson, on his side, speaks
his own discontent with " that spend-
thrift style of yours," those " sky-vault-
ings," and the like, but easily tolerates
his friend's peculiarities, and at last takes
him as " a highly virtuous gentleman
who swears ; " while to the summons to
leave the mountain-tops, and " come
down," he replies, " I don't know what
you mean." The genius of each domi-
nated him, and the world has not lost
thereby. In the style of the one there
was the aroma of Babylon, and in that
of the other something of the day-dawn,
as they said in their genuine compli-

1883.]

Carlyle and Emerson.

563

ments ; but the two men could coalesce
as little as would the two metaphors.
They advanced in age, and the letters
grew more infrequent : the fault was
Emerson's. It is pitiful to read Car-
lyle's appeals against his friend's si-
lence, the silence of that voice which
was to him, he says over and over, the
only human voice he ever heard in re-
sponse to his own soul. He was wander-
ing about his native country with that
" fatal talent of converting all nature
into Preternaturalism," or standing in
Luther's room in the Wartburg, — "I
believe I actually had tears in my eyes
there, and kissed the old oak table ; " or
he was struggling with Friedrich, and
ever repeating, "I am lonely — I am
lonely." At the end of a long, impas-
sioned protest (and the passion is next
to tears) against the misapprehension of
the phrase of " the eighteen million
fools," he first makes his prayer, " O
my Friend, have tolerance for me, have
sympathy with me ! " Again, as early
as 1852, he writes, " My manifold sins
against you, involuntary all of them, I
may well say, are often enough present
to my sad thoughts ; and a kind of re-
morse is mixed with the other sorrow,
— as if I could have helped growing to
be, by aid of time and destiny, the grim
Ishmaelite I am, and so shocking your
serenity by my ferocities ! I admit
you were like an angel to me, and ab-
sorbed in the beautifullest manner all
thunder-clouds into the depths of your
immeasurable aether ; and it is indu-
bitable I love you very well, and have
long done, and mean to do. And on
the whole you will have to rally your-
self into some kind of correspondence
with me again. To me, at any rate, it
is a great want, and adds perceptibly to
the sternness of these years ; deep as
is my dissent from your Gymnosophist
view of Heaven and Earth, I find an
agreement that swallows up all conceiv-
able dissents." But the letters remained
long unanswered upon Emerson's table,

in spite of this and other like appeals ;
he had forgotten his early words,
" Please God, I will never again sit six
weeks of this short human life over a
letter of yours without answering it."
When he does write he assures him of
"the old love with the old limitations,"
counts it his " eminent happiness to
have been your friend " and discoverer,
and may well say, " There is no exam-
ple of constancy like yours." The fact
remains. Emerson appreciated love as
the comradeship of noble minds ; but of
the love that clings and yearns, and seeks
only repose in the friend, he knew not.
Every syllable he ever wrote of love or
friendship is thought, not passion. Car-
lyle had the peasant's heart, the heart of
a simple man ; learning had not dried it,
nor flattery hardened it, nor the charities
of a fortunate life lulled it. He knew
Emerson's fidelity ; what he wanted was
not the knowledge, but the sense of love.

O •*

He was not to have it in the fullness he
desired : he grew older and more lonely,
and the letters fewer, until they ceased,
ten years before the death of the friends,
in the business necessary for the con-
veyance of Carlyle's bequest of books
to Harvard College, in which he took
great pleasure, as in " something itself
connected with THE SPRING in a higher
sense, — a little white and red lipped bit
of Daisy, pure and poor, scattered into
TIME'S Seed-field." Here it seems fit
to notice, once for all, the deep inter-
est and friendliness of Carlyle toward
America, as it is shown throughout
these letters. To quote but one or two
phrases, America is at the beginning
" the other parish " — " the Door of
Hope to distracted Europe." Of the
subduing of the Western prairies he ex-
claims, " There is no myth of Athene
or Herakles equal to that fact." Final-
ly, at the close of all, he confesses, " I
privately whisper to myself, * Could any
Friedrich Wilhelm, now, or Friedrich,
or most perfect Governor you could
hope to realize, guide forward what is

564

The Negro Race in America.

[April,

America's essential task at present fast-
er or more completely than "anarchic
America " herself is now doing ? ' Such
1 Anarchy ' has a great deal to say for
itself (would to Heaven ours of Eng-
land had as much !), and . . . toward
grand anti- Anarchies in the future ; . .' .
I hope, with the aid of centuries, im-
mense things from it in my private
mind." Burke's famous admission, in
his Reflections on the French Revolu-
tion, that he might be wrong, after all,
was not more creditable to his large
wisdom than is this to Carlyle's deep
sincerity.

From what has been said, it will be
seen that, in our judgment, the reputa-
tion of Carlyle has materially gained by
this Correspondence, while Emerson re-
mains the man we have always known.
As in the Reminiscences, we see again
the grimness, the frightful intensity, the
solitude, of Carlyle's life, which is al-
ready seen to be the most tragical in
our literary history. It is marvelous to

notice how exactly Carlyle's account of
his states of feeling, written from mem-
ory, agrees with the contemporary rec-
ord of the letters. But beyond what was
told us before, we possess now clearer
proofs of his sympathy and tenderness ;
his heart is laid bare, and we, being
freed from the prejudices stirred by the
praise or blame that came from it in
particular cases, can better appreciate
his humanity. His genius was of that
kind which makes misapprehension and
hatred easy ; this volume helps to show
us the man as he truly was, one of the
noblest of men. In this service to his
friend, the editor, Professor Norton,
whose work, it is almost superfluous to
say, is unobtrusively and thoroughly
done, has enjoyed a fortune given to few.
The memory of a fine friendship, which
may well prove hereafter the most not-
able in our literature, has been added to
the spiritual inheritance of the world,
and by its light genius, misunderstood
and maligned, will be justified.

THE NEGRO RACE IN AMERICA.

FOE the first time, an educated col-
ored man in America has undertaken to
write the history of his race. There
have been fragmentary books, such as
Mr. W. C. Nell's Colored Patriots of
the American Revolution, Dr. William
W. Brown's The Black Man, and The
Negro in the Rebellion, besides the
work on Emancipation, its Cause and
Progress, lately written by Mr. Joseph
T. Wilson, and printed at the Hampton
school. There is also the encyclopaedic
volume called A Tribute to the Negro,
and published by an Englishman, Mr.
Wilson Armistead, some forty years ago.
But none of these can compare in ex-

1 A. History of the Negro Race in America
from 1619 to 1880. By GEORGE W. WILLIAMS.

tent of plan or general merit of execu-
tion with the elaborate work by Mr.
George W. Williams, of which the first
volume lies before us.1 If we frankly
point out its defects as well as its mer-
its, it is because its author has honestly
aimed to place it on that high plane
where it can be judged by the standard
of its absolute worth, without any sort
of reference to " race, color, or previous
condition of servitude." To criticise it
thus impartially is a recognition of its
value.

Its author, Mr. George W. Williams,
was educated for the ministry, as he
states, at the Baptist seminary in New-

In two volumes. Vol. I. 1619-1800. New York :
G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1883.

1883.]

The Negro Race in America.

565

ton, Mass. He has since, as we under-
stand, fought in the war for the Union,
practiced law in Ohio, and been a mem-
ber of the legislature of that State. He
has had access to the State Library of
Ohio, to the Congressional Library at
Washington, and to the library of the
New York Historical Society. He has,
had the friendship and advice of Dr.
George H. Moore and Mr. J. Austin
Allibone. The seven years bestowed
upon his book have in themselves been
a liberal education, and have left him
far better trained at the end than he was
at the beginning. The general plan and
arrangement of the work are excellent,
and a mere look at the table of contents
will show that it is well arranged and
methodically worked out. It is care-
fully annotated, fully indexed, and well
printed and bound. It is, in short, in
all externals, a most creditable and pre-
sentable book.

When we enter on the early chapters,
the impression is less encouraging. For
the author to base his whole view upon
such a frank assumption as " It is fair to
presume that God gave all the races of
mankind civilization to start with " (i.
22) is to place himself on ground quite
apart from anything that can be called
science. Nor is the detailed treatment
any more satisfactory ; it is not appar-
ent that the author at all recognizes the
amount of learning now needed to dis-
cuss such problems as The Unity of
Mankind, or The Negro in the Light of
Philology ; and the few authorities he
cites — such as Blumenbach, Prichard,
Smyth, Nott, Gliddon — are somewhat
superseded. His view of the present
condition of Africa is better, but still
very inadequate. He does not, for in-
stance, make any reference to the ex-
traordinary progress and influence of Mo-
hammedanism among the native tribes.
Nor does his information give us all we
need to know about those races which
he describes most fully. For instance,
he mentions the Yorubas, aud tells us

sbmething about that remarkable man,
Rev. Samuel Crowther, but does not so
much as mention his Vocabulary of the
Yoruba Language (London, 1852), a
book whose remarkable collection of
native proverbs has given the tribe a
place in literature. Some of Mr. Will-
iams's generalizations, too, are very hasty
and sweeping, as when he says, "The
great majority of Negroes in Africa are
both orators and logicians " (p. 75) ; or,
" It is a fact that all uncivilized nations
are warlike " (p. 61) ; or, " The children
[in Africa] are very noble in their rela-
tion to their mothers," to which he pres-
ently adds, " The old are venerated, and
when they become sick they are aban-
doned to die alone " (p. 83). His un»
bounded admiration for the Christian
humanity of Mr. Henry M. Stanley will
not be universally accepted ; and he is
occasionally betrayed into such slips of
style as to say of Mr. Winwood Reade,
" He is a good writer, but sometimes
gets real funny ! " (p. 61).

If we frankly mention these defects,
it is to emphasize the fact that Mr.
Williams's book grows better as it goes
on. The chapters on Sierra Leone and
Liberia are decidedly superior to the
more miscellaneous pages which pre-
cede them ; and when he comes to his
own proper ground, the Negro Race in
America, a still further improvement is
shown. The chapters on slavery in the
colonies represent much original work,
and are uniformly, though not equally,
valuable.

One sees at a glance that Mr. Will-
iams has built largely on the labors of
his predecessors. His treatment of the
military services of the negroes is based
on the admirable work of the late
George Livermore ; but adds to it.
His discussion of slavery in Massachu-
setts is mainly founded on the elaborate
work of Dr. G. H. Moore. As a nat-
ural consequence, each of these depart-
ments is treated on a larger scale than
the rest of the book ; and the author has

566

The Negro Race in America.

[April,

been, in some cases, hindered as well as
helped by the authority he has followed.
This is especially the case with what he
has drawn from Dr. Moore, who, while
eminent among historical scholars, has
a strong controversial tendency, which
makes him a dangerous guide for an
inexperienced writer. Accordingly, we
find this polemic tone exaggerated, not
diminished, in his disciple. This is a
pity, for the work of Dr. Moore, which
called out some controversy in its day,
has now been generally accepted as
a very important contribution to the
theme it treats, and does not gain by
having its militant aspect revived and
intensified, sixteen years later. Besides,
there is a great difference, both in man-
ner and in weight of metal, between the
original champion and his imitator. Dr.
Moore, though sometimes sharp, was
rarely discourteous ; and he was, at any
rate, dealing with men who, like himself,
belonged to the guild of mature and ex-
perienced scholars, and who, moreover,
were still living. Mr. Williams, on the
other hand, has to do with men now
dead, to whose standing and attainments
a young writer owes at least the tribute
of respect ; and yet it cannot be denied
that where Dr. Moore is sharp Mr. Will-
iams is simply pert. To show this a
single extract will suffice, premising that
the subject under discussion is the date
of the introduction of slavery into Mas-
sachusetts : —

" But there is n't the least fragment
of history to sustain the hap-hazard
statement of Emory Washburn that
slavery existed in Massachusetts ' from
the time Maverick was found dwelling
on Noddle's Island, in 1630.' We are
sure this assertion lacks the authority
of historical data. It is one thing for a
historian to think certain events hap-
pened at a particular time, but it is quite
another thing to be able to cite authority
in proof of the assertion. But no doubt
Mr. Washburn relies upon Mr. Palfrey,
who refers his reader to Mr. Josselyn.

Palfrey says, 'Before Winthrop's arri-
val, there were two negro slaves in Mas-
sachusetts, held by Mr. Maverick, on
Noddle's Island'" (i. 175-6).

Now this passage includes a series of
unfortunate misstatements, and is marked
by the greatest unfairness. The extract
from Dr. Palfrey's history is apparent-
ly transferred by Mr. Williams from
Dr. Moore's History of Slavery in Mas-
sachusetts, where it is contradicted in
the same way. Now Dr. Moore's his-
tory was published in 1866 ; and his
citation from Dr. Palfrey's work, as
originally published in 1860, was cor-
rectly given. But Dr. Moore accident-
ally overlooked the fact that no such
statement existed in the edition of 1865,
which was already before the public
when his own book was published. Dr.
Palfrey had seen reason to doubt the
correctness of his own inference, and
had altered the words " before Win-
throp's arrival " to the more careful
phrase " before the year 1639," thus
disarming Dr. Moore's criticism in ad-
vance. It might fairly be said that Dr.
Moore, as a librarian and careful histori-
an, was bound to take note of this cor-
rection, though he published his book
only a year after the change had been
made. No man should make a citation
for purposes of controversy without
verifying it in the latest edition of his
author. But if even Dr. Moore must
be convicted of an oversight, how much
greater the oversight of Mr. Williams !
He publishes a book in 1883, and se-
lects for severe criticism, in the great
work of Palfrey, a sentence which has
not stood in its pages for eighteen years;
and has, indeed, been twice altered, for
the present editions give " 1 638 " in-
stead of " 1639."

So much for that part of the passage
above quoted which relates to Palfrey;
now let us consider that part relating to
the other writer criticised. Mr. Will-
iams says that Judge Washburn " no
doubt " relies upon Dr. Palfrey for his

1883.]

The Negro Race in America.

567

statement as to early slavery. But if
he had taken the pains simply to look
at the dates of the books he quotes,
he would have found that Judge Wash-
burn's statement was published in 1858,
and the second volume of Dr. Palfrey's
history — which is the volume cited —
in 1860. The fable of the wolf and
the lamb is not clearer than that, un-
der these circumstances, it must rather
have been the Doctor who relied upon
the Judge. But, beyond this, Mr. Will-
iams here again commits an unfairness,
very much like that of which he was be-
fore guilty. Judge Wash burn's early
work was but preliminary to a much
more elaborate lecture on Slavery in
Massachusetts, printed in the Histori-
cal Society's Lowell Lectures in 1869.
In that lecture — published, be it ob-
served, fourteen years before Mr. Will-
iam s's book — Judge Washburn follows
Dr. Palfrey in modifying his original
statement, and says only, " When Joss-
lyn was here in 1638 he found Mr.
Maverick the owner of three slaves.
He probably acquired them from a ship
which brought some slaves from the
West Indies in that year " (Lowell Lec-
tures, page 207) ; this being precisely
the statement also made by Mr. Will-
iams. It thus appears that Mr. Williams
quotes from two eminent authors an ear-
ly misapprehension, which they them-
selves had separately corrected, ignores
the fact of these alterations, and claims
for himself the merit of the revised
statement.

It is peculiarly unfortunate for Mr.
Williams that he should not have seen
this later lecture by Professor Wash-
burn, both because it is one of the most
elaborate essays on the subject, and be-
cause it traverses some of the most im-
portant positions assumed by Dr. Moore
and too implicitly followed by Mr. Will-
iams. But this is not the only error of
the kind by our author. He not merely
ignores some of the most important as-
sertions of others, but he ignores his

own. For example, after citing with
just praise the bill passed in Connecticut
in October, 1774, aimed against the
slave-trade, — but not, as Mr. Williams
implies, against slavery itself, — he
says, —

" The above bill was brief, but point-
ed ; and showed that Connecticut was
the only one of the New England colo-
nies that had the honesty and courage
to legislate against slavery " (i. 261).

And yet it appears, by his own previ-
ous pages, that the Massachusetts legis-
lature had passed three different bills to
prohibit the slave-trade, — one in 1771
and two in 1774, — all of which failed
only because the royal governor refused
to sign them. This is only an instance
of the curious feeling of petty hostility
to Massachusetts which runs through all
Mr. Williams's colonial chapters. The
feeling is curious, because, by his own
statement, he owes his education large-
ly to the institutions of Massachusetts,
and ought at least to do her common
justice ; and the hostility is petty,
because he overlooks the result and
cavils at the ups and downs of the pro-
cess. Few will now claim that there was
in Massachusetts, at any rate during the
provincial period, any very general ele-
vation of tone above the other colonies,
upon the slavery question. But after
the Revolution the matter can be tested
by results ; and any question over the
phases of the contest becomes trivial,
in view of the fact that Massachusetts
succeeded where others had failed. By
Mr. Williams's own showing (i. 436)
the census of 1790 reported slaves in
every State of the Union, save Massa-
chusetts alone. Tho final test of the
battle is the victory. The world has
never found much time to listen to those
who argue that Wellington was, after all,
a poor general, and ought not to have
happened to conquer at Waterloo. To
add on the next page that Vermont, be-
cause it came into the Union in 1791
with an antislavery constitution, was

568

The Negro Race in America.

[April,

therefore " the first one to abolish and
prohibit slavery in North America " is
idle. In 1790 Massachusetts was with-
out a slave, whereas at a previous pe-
riod she had had some five thousand.
Whether the change was brought about
by legislation or by custom is a mere
matter for Dryasdusts. If to be volun-
tarily without slaves, after having once
held them, is not to have abolished slav-
ery, what is ?

But it is not alone where Mr. Will-
iams has a case to make out that he is
tempted to hasty assumptions. Not
only does he begin his history with
1619, and make no allusion whatever to
the fact that negro slavery was first in-
troduced on what is now United States
soil by the Spaniards at St. Augustine
in 1565, but he seems to suppose that
he is announcing something new in stat-
ing that the first slaves were brought to
Virginia in 1619. He says that." near-
ly all " writers on American history,
" except the laborious and scholarly
Bancroft and the erudite Campbell,"
have made the mistake of assigning
1620 as the date. But it was, in truth,
the laborious and scholarly Bancroft
who, by employing the incorrect date in
more than a dozen successive editions
of his history, did more than anybody
else to set later writers on the wrong
track. As a matter of fact, the error
has long since been thoroughly corrected
even by Mr. Bancroft himself, and the
current school manuals of American
history now give the correct date. Mr.
Williams's own theory, which he says
" we are strangely moved to believe,"
that the actual landing may have been,
after all, in 1618, is not very clearly
stated by him, and seems to have little
foundation.

To the chapter on the Military Em-
ployment of Negroes we can give hearty
praise. Though necessarily founding
his work upon the monograph of Mr.
Livermore, the present author has great-
ly amplified that, has followed up ref-

erences and authorities, and has made
faithful use of the new matter which
has since accumulated. Where, for in-
stance, Mr. Livermore obtained from
the Rhode Island archives manuscript
copies of some papers in regard to Gen-
eral Varnum's project of raising a ne-
gro battalion in 1778, Mr. Williams
has the whole archives at his command,
they having been mainly printed during
the twenty years since Livermore wrote.
The later chapters of the book are ex-
cellent, but it is a little hurried toward
the close, and omits much that is im-
portant. This is especially true in re-
gard to the literature of the subject.
The author does not even mention the
books which did most to mould public
sentiment and rouse humane feeling
toward the negro race. He not only
names, but reprints, that noble protest
by Samuel Sewall, entitled The Selling
of Joseph, published in 1700, which,
taken in connection with his unique
Diary and his brave self-humiliation
after the witchcraft trials, will make
him more and more famous as time
goes on, as being not merely the Pepys
of his generation, but its most heroic
figure. Mr. Williams also refers to
the antislavery pamphlets of Appleton,
Swan, Coleman, and Salisbury. But
there were publications far more influ-
ential, which he does not mention. He
does not speak of John Woolman's
Considerations on the Keeping of Ne-
groes (Philadelphia, 1754), or its se-
quel in 1762. He does not allude to
Benjamin Rush's Address to the In-
habitants of the British Settlements in
America, upon Slave Keeping (Phila-
delphia and Boston, 1773) ; or his larg-
er pamphlet, vindicating this from a
criticism " by a West Indian " in the
same year. He does not speak of the
Forensic Dispute at Harvard College
in 1773, on The Legality of Enslaving
the Africans ; or of William Pinckney's
noble speech made before the Maryland
House of Delegates in November, 1787 ;

1883.]

The Contributors' Club.

569

or of the sermon by Jonathan Edwards,
on The Injustice and Impolicy of the
Slave-Trade, preached at New Haven,
Ct., September 15, 1791. He might
well have mentioned also the remark-
able Letter to George Washington on
his Continuing to be a Proprietor of
Slaves, by Edward Rushton, which ap-
peared at Liverpool in 1797. But with

whatever defects of omission and com-
mission, the author has produced a work
of great value ; one that will be a treas-
ury of facts for future students, and
greatly facilitate their work, although
it will inevitably be superseded in time
by a history prepared with yet fuller
research, more careful literary training,
and a more judicial spirit.

THE CONTRIBUTORS' CLUB.

A CHAPLAIN in a Southern peniten-
tiary, who is also doing a noble mis-
sionary and educational work among the
poor and destitute colored people in his
vicinity, sends his friends a graphic ac-
count of the unpacking of a Christmas
box, received from friends at the North
for the school-children under his charge.
The humor of it is so quaint and deli-
cious that the private circle of friends
for whose amusement and edification
alone it was written, ought not to have
the sole enjoyment of it. The immedi-
ate theme is a boy's remonstrance and
protest because the contents of the box
seemed chiefly intended for the girls.

" The boys have long felt themselves
aggrieved, but whether through design,
or because of nature's reservations in
the matter of boys North, they could not
quite determine ; some inclining to think
one way, some the other.

" Last year, looking in at the win-
dow during the process of unpacking,
one boy observed with much acrimony,
' Dat yer 's de tenf doll dat 's come out'
dat one box, 'sides all de dresses and
white fixins ; and all fur no 'count gals.
I 'se disgusted, I is.' And he sat down
with his back to the window, as if there
were nothing worth looking at.

" ' An' what 's ten dolls mongst a hun-
dred gals ? ' said a sprightly girl, quick-
ly facing him. ' Dey ain't one on 'um

fur me, kase I ain't had a good lessing
since I 'member. An' what 's you mak-
ing a fuss fur ? Boys can't git it all.'

" * Git it all ! ' replied the boy, rising
in wrath. ' Did ye see ten marbles, or ten
pair of breeches, or ten jackets, or ten
nuffin else fur boys ? Git it all ! — you 'se
a baggage, you is. We uns don' spec
for to git nuffin whatsumdever, an' we
don't want your dolls ! '

" ' An' a good reason why you can't
git nuffin, kase de folks Norf knows you
is n't wuf a gif, you lump of livin' im-
perance,' said the girl, no ways daunted
by the boy's threatening manner. ' An'
ef dere is n't any boys dere, wich I
t'inks very likely, it 's kase de Norven
folks has got more sense dan Souvern
folks, an' knows what boys is too well
t' ave 'em a kickin' roun'. You is a mis-
placed creation anyhow, boys is ; allers
a-grumblin', an' a-hollerin', an' a-slam-
min' doors, an' a-fochin' in dirt. What
good 'ud new clothes do you, you mud-
rollin', tree-climbin', peach-stealin' cree-
tur?'

" The rejoinder to this is not recorded
among my memoranda, so I cannot give
it. But I find among them, written on
loose sheets, and of about the same
date, a conversation wherein the boy's
views are set forth with some force.
My notes indicate a conversation, but
comprise only the heads and occasional

570

The Contributors' Club.

[April,

oddities of expression on the part of one
speaker, hence it must here take the
form of a monologue ; but it is altogether
too good a specimen of ' unique ' elo-
quence to be lost.

" '' Not meanin' to be saucy, nur to be
runnin' any on necessary risks, "we has
yit sumpin fur to say about dis yer mat-
ter, bein' as we don' see no jestice in de
way t'ings goes on. Talk about shoes !
Jus' look at dese, w'ich is de only ones
dis miserbul worF has for me. See my
big toe an' his little brudder a-tastin'
of de fros' an' col' dis ebenin'. Is n't
you 'shamed fur to see dat ar', while you
has de bes' dat de Ian' fords ? An' look
at dis yere hat ! Dis is all de coverin'
fur my pore head dat I is had fur goin'
on five year. It ain't got no top nur
yit no brim. De col' rains o' de skeyi
comes down onchecked fur to gim me
rheutnatiz ; an' when I goes to take it
off fur to bow to de ladies, I allers pulls
my own har. Is n't you 'shamed o' dat
in a member o' de schule consarnin'
w'ich you is one ob um ? I won't speak
o' dese yere pants, kase dey is full of
motives w'ich speak fur dere selvs, only
I will jes menchin dat my daddy has
no trouble fur to fin' a place fur to gim-
me a 'membrancer ; I does n't have to
ondress. 1 jus' leaves it to you if it 's
one o' de greeabilities o' 'xistence to be
'bleeged t' allers crawfish outen a room
back'ards, 'r to be keerful whar I sits
down, 'r to be a 'tinual subjec o' larfin'
on de part of dose oufeelin' ones what
has no sympathy wiz misfortin'. De
las' time my mammy mended 'em she
sewed on a gunny bag wiz my las' kite
string ; an' I ain't been able to tell
w'ich wuz wussr de scratchin' o' de
gunny bag or de miserbulness of nuffin.
I ain't got a pockit what '1 hole what 's
put inter it, an' I conserkently has to
make a pockit out'n my mouf, w'ich ain't
de bes' 'dapted fur dat perfession, bein'
made 'riginally fur swallerin', — w'ich it
do, sometimes, wiz tings dat I is sorry
fur to lose. If you t'inks dat all dis is

n't much, what dus you 'pinion 'bout
my jackit ? [He was in his shirt sleeves]
Is n't it pretty ? You kin see right froo
it widout any trouble. Sort o' gossamer
like ; s' like what de ladies wears when
dey wants to make b'lieve dey has clo's
on. Mammy says I had a jackit wonst,
an' ef I hed been keerful I might a' had
it yit. It wur when I was a baby, dat
jackit wur, an' I leaves it to you ef I
could a wored it ever since. When de
wind blows col' I tries to 'member how
dat jackit use' to feel, but I don' find it
warmin'. I won't speak o' dis yere shirt,
as it ain't much to speak of, an' is tored
now opin all de way down in front.
Dis yere frien'ly string is all dat hoi's
it togedder ; an f I wor to menchin it
as I feels, 't might go on a strike, an' den
whar 'd I be ? Now dese dat I is been
a menchinin' is all dat I has in dis worl',
'ceptin' some marbles an' udder t'ings
dat I has buried away in a safe place
down in de lot. Lots of de fellers is no
better off nor I is. If dere is any thin'
in dis yere worl' meant fur yus I hain't
foun' it out yit. I has allers heard that
boys worn't good fur nuffin. I 'spresses
no 'pinion 'bout dat, at present. What
I knows is dat dey don't git nuffin in dis
yere miserbul worl', 'ceptin' kicks an'
cuffs an' sottin's down. I hearn tell dat
dere is folkses up Norf what sorry fur
de pore nigger. So dey is, I jedge, fur
de men and de wimming, an' mos' 'spe-
cially fur de gals ; but I don' see no signs
goin' fur to show dat dey keers for nig-
ger boys. I t'inks dat de hull worl's
out of jint in dis matter, 'specially since
de Sunday-school 's gone back on us, too.
But I dunno of no way to help it, t'ings
bein' as dey is now.' "

— Some mornings ago, a portion of
the social world was considerably agi-
tated by a rumor that one Timotheus,
poet, had used a lyre with twelve strings ;
the original number had been seven,
but had answered very well all bardic
purposes. When the legislating wor-
thies of Sparta (for this was in Sparta)

1883.]

heard of the affair, they had Timotheus
called, tried, and found guilty of the of-
fense alleged ; doubtless, too, the sen-
tence aud its execution were character-
istically Laconic. At our remove, it is
difficult to appreciate the objection at
the time brought against this lyrical im-
provement; we only know, there was
grave apprehension that the twelfth
string, if retained, would prelude the
entrance of luxury and civic degener-
acy, against which the guardians of the
state had always presented a firm front.

We smile at the scruples of those
crusty conservatives, — most un-Greek-
like Greeks that they were ! Here we
have a harp of a thousand strings, and
they disputed the propriety of adding a
pitiful five! Do we continually prac-
tice a beggarly, bound-out philosophy,
because we dare not risk contact with
the delicate and pleasant things of life,
lest they steal our strength and valor ?
On the contrary, we import our philos-
ophy from Persia, and maintain that we
are better candidates for citizenship,
both in this world and the next, in pro-
portion as we increase the number of
our enjoyments, and expand our capaci-
ty for enjoying. We praise prosper-
ity ; sweet are its uses. Perhaps in no
other age before this could each human
being so well suit himself from the
treasury and armory of his time. He
has but to beckon his choice, and it
hastens to him, with means and equip-
ments, from among the crowd of benev-
olent genii. One's chief difficulty is to
decide which, of all these wooing op-
portunities, it were best to wed.

So we say, exulting in the plenitude
and variety of modern life. Yet it is
possible that the old Spartan fear was
not altogether groundless. Are we sure
that the harp with its thousand strings
makes purer and stronger harmony than
the same instrument when the strings
were fewer ? We have books, the lec-
ture, music, art, the drama, and number-
less other generous contributors to our

The Contributors' Club.

571

instruction and entertainment ; we each
receive into our mass a portion of the
lively leaven, taste ; we have " social
contact," which quickens sympathy and
makes wit nimble ; we have at hand all
our powers can absorb, — are soothed,
satisfied, unadventurous. On the im-
aginative side, our growth seems not
commensurate with the apparent advan-
tage and encouragement of the situation.
Would we not be justified if we drew
the following conclusion : material pos-
session of the things it accounts desir-
able oftener sates the imagination and
puts it to sleep than rouses and stimu-
lates it. The child that has not its
amusement provided from the toy-shop,
the child without companions, invents
and constructs for itself the furniture
of .its play, — dramatizes its thought,
and therefrom peoples the solitude.
Imagination, genius, often works to best
advantage when, to the casual observer,
it appears to be exiled and defrauded.
What it misses most it straightway ex-
erts itself to supply by ideal creations.
These ideal creations are the " sum and
substance " of poetry.

— This is a world of compromises, of
balancing contraries, weighing of pleas-
ures against pains, etc., and, by dint of
close search and careful adjustment, one
generally succeeds in getting hold of the
correspondences and making the scale
swing even. But bad weather is one of
the things that the most optimistic phi-
losopher may find a difficulty in finding
a set-off for, especially if he live at a
remove from the stones of a city pave-
ment, the sole security for the foot in
this present weather dispensation of slip-
ping and splashing on ice or in slush,
and when pedestriauism is only a trifle
worse than getting about in vehicles
which go skating around icy corners,
dragging over muddy clearings, and jolt-
ing over the gulfs of gutter-crossings.
Nature has had a dismal face on during
the past few weeks ; the landscape has
had the smudgy look of a poor mezzotint,

572

The Contributors' Club.

[April,

— nothing but blurred lines and a dull
uniformity of color. To-day the weath-
er is still bad, according to barometers
and in the meaning of weather prophe-
cies ; but at length has come a change in
the aspect of things, which one may take
as compensation for their unpleasant-
ness to the mere bodily sensation. Un-
til ten A. M. there was no visible world,
external to the few feet of space in
which each one found himself. Then
began a battle between the dense fog
and the sun, aided by a feeble breath of
southwest wind. The sun peered for a
moment over the edge of vapor-drift, in
size and color like a pale moon, and
then sank and was lost again beneath
the billows of mist. The mist decidedly
had the best of it, and I was glad to see
the sun go under. Across the frozen
river a layer of white vapor stretched
motionless along the hillside, and looked
like another solid stream, bounded by a
second blue hill range. When I pres-
ently went out in the sleigh, and turned
toward the south, the mountains that
run westwardly and cross the line of
vision were looming grandly up, while
above the actual mountain was a splen-
did cloud-piled height. Looking off at
it over the length of intervening valley,
I could almost fancy myself on the Ax-
enstein, gazing Lucerne-ward to Pilatus
and his great confreres. Another turn
of the road brought the river into sight
again, and right across the narrow open-
ing between the hills, at right and left,
lay a low fog wreath, which a chance sun-
gleam fell on, and turned into a gold-
tipped barrier closing the way to fairy-
land. Out of such stuff as these float-
ing, fluctuating mists it is that fancy
loves to build cloud-capped towers and
gorgeous palaces, which presently are
*' melted into air, thin air." There is
hardly a street in our town from which
some glimpse may not be had of the
river below and the hills beyond, and, as
we turned to the north again, on our way
homeward, I glanced down a side street,

and saw what seemed the remains of a
great conflagration ; for the sun just then
had quite disappeared, and the heavy
masses of fog lying below, at the end of
the street vista, were the color of thick
smoke, which seemed to hang over the
smouldering ashes of a huge fire just ex-
tinguished. Why has there never aris-
en a second Turner to attempt the not-
ing of these curious atmospheric effects,
which are sometimes, though not so often,
seen inland as well as on and by the sea ?
Any one with an eye for color of course
finds a never-failing and intense delight
in the effects of dawn, sunset, and twi-
light, and the variations of tones in clear
or partially clear skies ; but we are not
so apt to take note of color effects in
dull weather with clouded skies. I, for
one, know that I have Ruskin to thank
for directing me to find a pleasure in
observing the delicate gradations and
subtle blending of tone in neutral skies
and landscape. I never could see the
truth of his statement, however, that
nature does not use brown paint.

— A curious and beautiful little plant
is the mimosa, but if it could be ren-
dered spontaneous in my garden I would
not encourage its growing there ; to be
continually offending so delicate a crea-
ture would be far from pleasant. The
same consideration might warrant one's
hesitating to cultivate in his garden of
choice acquaintances many human coun-
terparts of the genus mimosa. These
sensitive plants, by reason of the tender,
irritable surface they present, always
manage to convince us, while we are
with them, that our moral touch is ex-
ceptionally harsh and clumsy. We are
not aware of having given offense until
we see the recoil of the sensitive plant,
— its leaves shrinking and folding to-
gether, retiring about the stem; until
we meet, instead of genial reciprocity,
a precipitate withdrawing into itself
of our friend's personality, all kindly
mutualities being temporarily suspended.
How much patient adroitness it takes

1883.]

The Contributors' Club.

573

to bring back in statu quo our relations
with the wounded, only those know who
have had to deal with the plant. We
have referred, casually, to some con-
temporaneous instance, or have passed
criticism upon remote affairs or persons,
or have drawn a harmless, humorous
characterization, when, presto, our lis-
tener feels a hand laid upon him. He
never " gives away the sermon," but
takes all to himself ; and the humorous
characterization, also, he contrives to
carry off, to his own discomfiture. And
we are left to plead guilty to an ugly
gaucherie ! If the sensitive plant would
only consider of what inverse misery it
is the cause ! But that is rarely the na-
ture of the plant ; it has little power to
exchange places with another, little im-
agination where itself is not immediate-
ly concerned. After some not unuseful
experience of its peculiarities, it has
dawned upon us that selfishness is the
big tap-root which feeds the germina-
tion and morbid growth of such sensi-
tiveness. It might not be amiss to lay
down a rule : Doubt those persons who
are frequently given to the confession
that they are sensitive, — far too sensi-
tive for their own good. (The latter half
of the statement is true enough, but not
in the sense intended by them.) If
they were indeed as sensitive as they
would have us believe, the fact would
have to be ascertained in some other
way than through oral acknowledgment.
Having to deal with them, we probably
find that what they mistake in them-
selves for fine spiritual acumen and sen-
sibility is something very akin to jeal-
ousy, — an ungenerous distrustfulness
of nature. " To cherish good hopes,
and to believe I am loved by my friends "
— recommended by no less authority
than Marcus Antoninus — is an excel-
lent specific in these aggravated cases.
Who that maintains continual bivouac,
lest at some unguarded moment he fall
victim to Punic faith, is a suitable can-
didate for any of the ingenuous offices of

friendship ? He is undoubtedly too wary
and suspicious (not sensitive) for his
own good. The only admirable order
of sensitiveness is that to which the
Apostle's definition of charity is applica-
ble. Like that Christian virtue, it suf-
fers long, is patient, vaunteth not itself.
It has a shy " elvish face," and is not
to be met with upon the street. It so
sedulously hides itself that the kindest
house-mate impinges on it unawares. It
has a rare aptitude for vicarious suffer-
ing, and every day immolates itself, un-
thanked, for some one. It supposes
every one it meets to be endowed with
as thin a skin as its own, and is there-
fore constantly on its guard to commit
no cruelty. Often it absurdly overrates
the tender susceptibility of others ; takes
superfluous pains to direct its eye-shot
well above any physical or moral imper-
fection of its neighbor, and in any com-
pany is always " headiag off " the con-
versation, lest it range over the opinions
and prejudices of those present. So
vivid is its dramatic imagination that it
is sometimes perilously near sympathiz-
ing with depravity, its manners becom-
ing infected with the neighboring base-
ness. Then its behavior is not unlike
that of Christabel, who unconsciously
narrowed the eye, and repeated the vi-
cious glance of the serpent-lady.

Genuine sensitiveness parries discov-
ery by a variety of ingenious methods,
one of which is to announce its complete
imperviousness ; it bids you feel the rhi-
noceros rings and bosses it has put on,
intending to pass them for its natural
habit. To conclude, we give the depo-
sition with which a sensitive plant lately
favored us : " It is the frank and ego-
tistic behavior I have adopted, of late
years, that makes it seem easy to lay
hands upon my heart and life ; but I
find the device protective, and the hurts
I receive are far less painful than they
used to be."

— May I be pardoned the imperti-
nence, but I have of late taken some

574

Books of the Month.

[April,

pains to ascertain the age of the hero-
ine, — the heroine of the contemporary
novel. Examining carefully, in several
instances, the data furnished by her
sponsors, I have sorted out and tabu-
lated certain general facts. These facts
show her age to be, never under twenty ;
rarely two-and-twenty ; usually from
twenty-four to twenty-seven, twenty-
eight, and even there-above, giving an
average of twenty-five (plus). While
pursuing these numerical calculations, I
am closely observing the heroine's face.
There are no " telling lines " upon the
brow or about the eye, and her color is
still faultless. It is to be noted, more-
over, that she retains in her manner
a wonderful measure of youthful vivac-
ity and frankness. I am far from cav-
iling at the happy ease and graceful-
ness with which she carries the weight
of her years. This is as we would have
it ; but the singularity of the case ap-
pears, when her age is contrasted with
that of her predecessor, the heroine
of the old-fashioned novel. The lat-
ter is always a jeune Jille, who, when
the narrative of her fortunes is con-
cluded, has scarcely more than crossed
the threshold of the twenties. Rustic
and unschooled, or accomplished and
sophisticated ; phlegmatic or piquant,
timid or audacious, — whatever her tem-
perament and behavior, she is invariably
lovely and of tender age. What writer
of fiction in its early days would have

presented, or what reader would have
accepted, a heroine who did not possess
the two chief requisites, beauty and
youth ? Of beauty, it is still expected
the heroine shall have a certain allow-
ance, as a pair of fine eyes or a " sensi-
tive mouth." As to youth, the restric-
tion no longer holds. Why the changed
fashion ? I account for it in only one
way : the metaphysical tendency of the
modern novel seems to require that the
character of central importance shall
interest us subjectively. This character
must be subtended by actual experience,
ripe feeling, settled convictions, and a
clever vein of casuistry. Now, as these
do not consist with the idea of extreme
youth, and as consistency aiul realism
are the special jewels of the present
fiction school, it follows that we have a
heroine who, to say the least, is "no
longer young." Again, conversation
is, as every reader knows, an essential
element of the contemporary novel ; and
analysis would probably show the fol-
lowing ratio : Conversation, including
speculative interpolation by the author,
three parts ; incident, one. What, in the
present exigency, were a silent or mon-
osyllabic heroine ? The heroine is she
who converses subtilely, saying far more
than "meets the ear," adroitly touch-
ing both the heights and deeps of expe-
rience. The conversation of school-girls
is not wont to be of this order; hence
the reigning heroine's maturer age.

BOOKS OF THE MONTH.

Poetry and the Drama. On Viol and Flute is
a volume of poems selected for an American pub-
lisher (Holt) by Edmund W. Gosse from those
previously published in England. The fine schol-
arship, good taste, and literary atmosphere of the
author are very noticeable. He has so fine a lit-
erarj- sense that he almost creates nature. — Lyr-
ical and Dramatic Poems selected from the works
of Robert Browning, by Edward T. Mason (Holt),

is preceded by a portion of Mr. Stedman's criti-
cism of Browning. The book appears to have the
design rather of persuading people to read Brown-
ing, by showing that he is not always obscure,
than of giving a typical selection. — College
Verses, compiled by the Berkeleyan Stock Com-
pany (The California Publishing Company, San
Francisco), is a selection of verses which have
been written at various times between 1872 and

1883.]

Books of the Month.

575

1878 by members of the University of California.
The book indicates a clearer understanding of
what poetry is than similar works published at
the East. — It may be allowed to draw attention
to a little volume of privately printed poems by
E. R. Sill, formerly connected with the same uni-
versity as officer, entitled The Venus of Milo and
other Poems, in which one may detect something
more than clever versification. Two of the poems,
The Fool's Prayer and Five Lives, have excep-
tional value. — Mirabeau, an Historical Drama by
George H. Calvert (Lee & Shepard), bears witness
to a spirit of scholarship which troubles itself but
little with poetic fashions. — Poems, by Ernest
Warburton Shurtleff, with an introduction by Hez-
ekiah Butterworth (Williams), is a volume of quiet
poetry, written out of a sincere feeling for the purer
elements of life and nature. — Songs of an Idle
Hour, by William J. Coughlin (Williams), make
one wonder what the author does when he is
busy.

History and Biography. Haydn's Dictionary
of Dates and Universal Information relating to all
ages and nations has passed to its seventeenth
edition, which contains the history of the world to
the autumn of 1881. Benjamin Vincent is the ed-
itor, as he has been since 1855, and the long life
of the work goes far to remove the appearance of
arrogance on the title-page. It has been revised
for American readers by George Gary Eggleston,
who "has corrected errors in the English work
with respect to American matters ; has added
American dates to all important titles from which
they were omitted in the English work; and has
inserted such additional titles relating to American
subjects as were necessary to fit the work for the
use of American readers." (Harpers.) It is fur-
nished with a full index. — The Shenandoah
Valley in 1864. by George E. Pond, associate
editor of the Army and Navy Journal (Scribners),
is the eleventh in the series of campaigns of the
civil war, and contains an account of the impor-
tant battle of Cedar Creek. — Reminiscences and
Memorials of Men of the Revolution and their
Families, by A. B. Muzzey (Estes & Lauriat), is
based upon personal recollection of many men of
note in the neighborhood of Boston, and is de-
voted to an affectionate and amiable account of
persons and families. The writer is an old gen-
tleman, who values the past and lingers over its
memories. — Mr. Josiah Quincy in Figures of the
Past, from the Leaves of old Journals (Roberts),
has done a somewhat similar task, but has confined
himself more closely to his own recollections, and
has had the advantage of drawing from a long se-
ries of journals. The book is a series of simple
and often very agreeable pictures of life, chiefly
in Boston and vicinity, extending over a period
of more than half a century. Mr. Quincy, who
died before the book was published, belonged to
a notable family, and his recollections have the
charm of good-breeding, even when the literary
form is negligee.

Literature and Literary Criticism. The third
series of Spare Hours, by Dr. John Brown (Hough-
ton, Milllin & Co.), is largely devoted to semi-
professional papers, but Dr. Brown in his medical

character is rarely technical and always a familiar
friend. There are few recent English writers who
have established such intimate relations with their
readers. — A new edition of Hawthorne's works
has been begun (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) with
Twice-Told Tales, Mosses from an Old Manse, The
Wonder Book, and The House of the Seven Gables,
four of the twelve volumes promised. The type is
admirable, the accompanying etchings very agree-
able, and the bibliographical introductions by Mr.
Lathrop reserved and interesting. Altogether the
edition has the appearance of having been care-
fully planned, as it certainly is well executed. —
In the new issue of Dr. Holmes's writings, The
Poet at the Breakfast Table (Houghton, Mifflin &
Co.) comes second, and is furnished with a new
preface. — Early English Literature (to Wiclif),
by Bernhard Ten Brink (Holt), is translated from
the German Ly Horace M. Kennedy. It treats of
the literary monuments of England of the earliest
period, and is a minute, painstaking study, some-
what dry, but not without a conception of the
forces which lie behind literature. It may be com-
mended to students. — A History of Latin Litera-
ture from Ennius to Boethius, by G. A. Simcox
(Harpers), in two volumes, is rather for the gen-
eral' reader than the special student. " My orig-
inal aim," the author says, "in writing, was to
do something toward making Latin literature in-
telligible and interesting, as a whole, to the culti-
vated laity who might like to realize its literary
worth, whether they read Latin or no." The book
has a special value from its literary treatment of
the Latin Fathers. — The Iliad of Homer, done
into English prose by Andrew Lang, Walter Leaf,
and Ernest Myers (Macmillan), is a companion
velume to Butcher and Lang's Odyssey; and al-
though prose befits the Iliad less than the Odyssey,
many readers will find a new charm in this trans-
lation, since it permits a more nervous and yet
flowing English than is possible in verse. — Soc-
rates, a translation of the Apology, Crito, and parts
of the Phaedo of Plato (Scribners), is a new issue
in paper of a translation published anonymously
in 1878, and prefaced by an introduction from
Professor Goodwin, of Harvard. — In Foreign
Classics for English Readers, Rousseau, by Henry
Grey Graham, has appeared (Lippincott), and il-
lustrates English conservatism as well as French
philosophical romance.

Business. The Business Man's Commercial
Law and Business Forms Combined, by J. C.
Bryant (J. C. Bryant, Buffalo, N. Y.), is described
further as a vade mecum for the counting-house.
It deals with such matters as come within the
range of ordinary business, and is also furnished
with questions which render it useful as a text-
book. The author is one of the well-known firm
of Bryant and Stratton, who have long conducted
an organization of business colleges.

Household Economy. Ice-Cream and Cakes,
a new collection of standard fresh and original
receipts for household and commercial use, by an
American. (Scribners.) This business-like volume
contains nearly five hundred receipts and wise
counsels, among which we note with pleasure the
injunction, " Just as soon as you have done using

576

Books of the Month.

[April.

any dish or implement, wipe it perfectly clean,
and set it in a dry place. Don't wait till a more
convenient time."

Education and Text-Books. A Hand-Book of
English and American Literature, for the use of
schools and academies, by Esther J. Trimble
(Eldredge and Brother, Philadelphia), begins its
preface with the hopeful sentence in italics, The
study of literature is the study of the works of an
author, and closes with a discouraging sentence,
also in italics: Encourage pupils to make their
own criticisms of an author's style. The book it-
self affords somewhat distracting help in each di-
rection. • The editor tries to pack much illustrative
history in a small space, and gives the most frag-
mentary examples of literature, while the criti-
cisms, especially upon current writers, are very
poor models for the youthful critic. The trouble
with the editor is that she has good principles, but
forgets them as soon as she engages upon her
work, and becomes involved in a hopeless attempt
to tell young readers everything. — From Chicago
(Townsend MacCoun) come two tidy books, Muel-
ler's Horace and Dindorf's Iliad. They are sim-
ply texts, being a part of Trubner's series, adopted
by an American house. The neatness of the bind-
ing commends the book both for text-book use and
for the book-shelf. — Mr. John Wentworth Sanborn
publishes from Batavia, N. Y., a manual which he
has prefaced with the title A Method of Teaching
the Greek Language, tabulated ; together with di-
rections for pronouncing Greek, rules of accent,
division of words into syllables, formation of tenses
of the verb, and on reading Greek at sight. It is
in effect a drill book, and is intended to give the
grammatical side with precision and iteration. —
Professor J. B. Greenough, of Harvard, has issued
with Ginn & Heath a Virgil, which comprises the
Bucolics and six books of the JEneid. It is fully
annotated, furnished with a vocabulary, and fur-
ther illustrated by a number of descriptive wood-
cuts. A second volume is to follow, containing
the remainder of the ^Eneid and the Georgics.
The book has an attractive air of thoroughness
and finish. — In the Pestalozzian series (C. W.
Bardeen, Syracuse, N. Y.) has been published
First Year Arithmetic, accompanied in the same
Tolume by a Teacher's Manual. It has been pre-
pared by James H. Hoose, and professes to be based
upon Pestalozzi's system of teaching elementary
number. — The dime question books of the same
publishers now include Botany, General History,
Astronomy, Mythology, and Rhetoric and Com-
position. — Mr. Rolfe's edition of Shakespeare's
Plays (Harpers) is completed by Pericles and Two
Noble Kinsmen, on the title-page of the latter of
which he places also Fletcher's name. He omits
Titus Andronicus from his series, in which he may
be right on strictly critical grounds ; and one could
well spare the gory horrors of the play, but there
are some passages which are Shakespearean enough
to be Shakespeare's. The series, as a whole, is ad-
mirably adapted for the purpose for which it is
designed, — use in schools.

Fiction. Dust, a novel by Julian Hawthorne
(Fords, Howard and Hulbert) is a story of Eng-
lish life in the early part of this century. — The

Surgeon's Stories by Z. Topelius, is a series of six
Swedish Historical Romances, of which the first,
under title of Times of Gustaf Adolf, has just
been published by Jansen, McClurg £ Co., Chica-
go. — The Jews of Barnow, stories by Karl Emil
Franzos, translated from the German by M. W.
Macdowall (Appleton) gives an interesting inte-
rior view of Jewish life in Poland, pnd comes at
a time when the public is readier to be interested
than it once was. — Mrs. Lorimer, a Sketch in
Black and White, by Lucas Malet (Appleton), is
the reprint of an English novel which has excited
attention in England. — Dukesborough Tales, by
Richard Malcolm Johnston, in Harper's Franklin
Square Library is an American book, revived by
its author, who has added other more recent sto-
ries in the same vein. The old-fashioned air of
the work ought not to deter readers, and will not
if they should happen to light first on the singu-
larly clever story of The Various Languages of
Billy Moon. The book, .besides its interest as a
volume of stories, portrays curious provincial life
in Georgia. — In the same series is My Connaught
Cousins, a novel of Irish life, prefaced by Robert
Buchanan, who vouches for the truthfulness of the
pictures. — Homespun Stories, by Ascott R. Hope
(Appleton), is a collection of lively stories, of
school-boj' life chiefly.

Philosophy and Religion. Notes on Evolution,
and Christianity, by J. F. Yorke (Holt), has for its
object, in the words of the preface, "to turn a
small stream of fact and criticism on to an impor-
tant question. Is there in the teaching of Christ
an originality so wonderful as to be accounted for
only by the assumption of a special divine reve-
lation? " Mr. Yorke does not put out the ques-
tion by his stream. He concludes by appealing
to his readers to accept " the teaching of the last
and greatest of God's prophets, science, who
alone can tell us truly what we ought to do and
what we may become." As if the fundamental
relation of man to Christ was that of a student to
a teacher ! — Ingersollism from a Secular Point
of View, by George R. Wendling (Jansen, Mc-
Clurg & Co., Chicago), is also from a violent and
oratorical point of view. — In the Philosophic
Series (Scribners) which Dr. McCosh is issuing,
the second number is Energy, efficient and final
cause.

Nonsense. A book written by the Spirits of the
So-called Dead, with their own materialized hands,
by the process of independent slate-writing,
through Miss Lizzie S. Green and others, as me-
diums. Compiled and arranged by C. G. Helle-
berg, of Cincinnati, Ohio. The title-page bears a
stanza from Longfellow's Psalm of Life, in which
we are told that Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
was not spoken of the soul ; but we never saw any
dustier souls than those that are taken down
from the top shelf in this book.

Fine Arts. In the Bibliotheque de 1'Enseigne-
ment des Beaux Arts, published by A. Quantin,
Paris, to which we have already called attention,
three new volumes have appeared: La Peinture
Anglaise by Ernest Chesneau, Les Proce'de's de la
Gravure by A. de Lostalot, and La Gravure by
Henri Delaborde.

THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY:

of Literature;, Science, art, an& $otttfc&

VOL. LI. — MAT, ,1883. — No. COCVH.

DAISY MILLER.

A COMEDY. IN THREE ACTS.

ACT II.

A beautiful afternoon in the gardens of the Pin-
dan Hill in Rome. A view of St. Peter's in
the distance.

SCEWE I. WlNTERBOURNE, MADAME DE

KATKOFF, meeting from opposite sides. He
stands before her a moment, and kisses her
hand.

WINTERBOURNE. When, at your ho-
tel just now, they told me you had gone
out, I was pretty sure you had come
here.

MME. DE K. I always come here as
soon as I arrive in Rome, for the sake of
that view. It 's an old friend of mine.

WINTERBOURNE. Have you no old
friends but that, and was n't it also — a
little — for the sake of meeting one or
two of them ? We all come here, you
know.

MME. DE K. One or two of them ?
You don't mean two — you mean one !
I know you all come here, and that 's
why I have arrived early, before the
crowd and the music.

WINTERBOURNE. That 's what I was
counting on. I know your tastes. I
wanted to find you alone.

MME. DE K. Being alone with you
is n't one of my tastes ! If I had known
I should meet you, I think I should n't
have left my carriage.

WINTERBOURNE. If it 's there, at
hand, you might invite me to get into
it.

MME. DE K. I have sent it away for
half an hour, while I stretch myself a
little. I have been sitting down for a
week — in railway trains.

WINTERBOURNE. You can't escape
from me, then !

MME. DE K. Don't begin that way,
or you '11 disappoint me. You speak as
if you had received none of my letters.

WINTERBOURNE. And you speak as
if you had written me a dozen ! I re-
ceived three little notes.

MME. DE K. They were short, but
they were clear.

WINTERBOURNE. Oh, very clear in-
deed ! " You 're an awful nuisance,
and I wish never to hear of you again."
That was about the gist of them.

MME. DE K. " Unless you promise
not to persecute me, I won't come to
Rome." That 's more how I should ex-
press it. And you did promise.

WINTERBOURNE. I promised to try
and hate you, for that seemed to be
what you wished to bring me to ! And
I have been waiting for you these three
weeks, as a man waits for his worst en-
emy.

MME. DE K. I should be your worst
enemy, indeed, if I listened to you — if

578

Daisy Miller.

[May,

I allowed you to mingle your fresh, in-
dependent life with my own embarrassed
and disillusioned one. If you have been
here three weeks, you ought to have
found some profitable occupation.

WINTERBOURNE. You speak as if I
were looking out for a job ! My prin-
cipal occupation has been waiting for
you.

MME. DE K. It must have made you
pleasant company to your friends.

WINTERBOURNE. My friends are
only my aunt and the young lady who
is with her — a very good girl, but
painfully prim. I have been devoted
to them, because I said to myself that
after you came —

MME. DE K. You would n't have pos-
session of your senses ? So it appears.
On the same principle, I hope you have
shown some attention to the little girl
who was at Vevey, whom I saw you in
such a fair way to be intimate with.

WINTERBOURNE, after a silence.
What do you know about her?

MME. DE K. Nothing but that we are
again at the same hotel. A former ser-
vant of mine, a very unprincipled fel-
low, is now in her mother's employ, and
he was the first person I met as I left
my rooms to-day. I imagine from this
that the young lady is not far off.

WINTERBOURNE. Not far off from
him. I wish she were farther !

MME. DE K. She struck me last sum-
mer as remarkably attractive.

WINTERBOURNE. She 's exactly what
she was last summer — only more so !

MME. DE K. She must be quite en-
chanting, then.

WINTERBOURNE. Do you wish me to
fall in love with her ?

MME. DE K. It would give me par-
ticular pleasure. I would go so far as
:to be the confidant of your passion.

WINTERBOURNE. I have no passion
-to confide. She 's a little American
flirt.

MME. DE K., aside. It seems to me
.there is a certain passion in that !

WINTERBOURNE. She 's foolish, friv-
olous, futile. She is making herself ter-
ribly talked about.

MME. DE K. She looked to me very
innocent — with those eyes !

WINTERBOURNE. Oh yes, I made a
great deal of those eyes — they have
the most charming lashes. But they
look at too many people.

MME. DE K. Should you like them
to fix themselves on you ? You 're
rather difficult to please. The young
lady with your aunt is too grave, and
this poor little person is too gay ! You
had better find some one who 's between
the two.

WINTERBOURNE. You are between
the two, and you won't listen to me.

MME. DE K. I think I understand
your countrypeople better than you do.
I have learned a good deal about them
from my observation of yourself.

WINTERBOURNE. That must have
made you very fond of them !

MME. DE K. It has made me feel
very kindly toward them, as you see
from my interest in those young ladies.
Don't judge them by what they seem.
They are probably just the opposite,
for that is precisely the case with your-
self. Most people think you very cold,
but I have discovered the truth. You
are like one of those tall German stoves,
which present to the eye a surface of
smooth white porcelain, without the
slightest symptom of fuel or of flame.
Nothing at first could seem less glow-
ing ; but after you have been in the
room with it for half an hour you feel
that the temperature is rising — and you
want to open a window !

WINTERBOURNE. A tall German
stove — that 's a very graceful compar-
ison.

MME. DE K. I 'm sure your grave
young lady is very gay.

WINTERBOURNE. It does n't matter :
she has got a young man of her own.

MME. DE K. The young man who
was always with them ? If you are

1883.]

Daisy Miller.

579

going to be put off by a rival, I have
nothing to say.

WINTERBOTJRNE. He 's not a rival of
mine ; he 's only a rival of my aunt's.
She wants me to marry Miss Durant,
but Miss Durant prefers the gallant
Reverdy.

MME. DE K. That simplifies it.

WINTERBOTTRNE. Not so very much ;
because the gallant Reverdy shows a
predilection for Miss Daisy Miller.

MME. DE K. Ah, then he is your
rival !

• WINTERBOURNE. There are so many
others that he does n't count. She has
at least a dozen admirers, and she
knocks about Rome with all of them.
She once told me that she was very
fond of gentlemen's society ; but unfor-
tunately, they are not all gentlemen.

MME. DE K. So much the better
chance for you !

WINTERBOURNE. She does n't know,
she can't distinguish. She is incredibly
light.

MME. DE K. It seems to me that you
express yourself with a certain bitter-
ness.

WINTERBOURNE. I 'm not in the
least in love with her, if that 's what
you mean. But simply as an outsider,
as a spectator, as an American, I can't
bear to see a nice girl — if she is a nice
girl — expose herself to the most odious
misconception. That is, if she is a nice
girl!

MME. DE K. By my little system,
she ought to be very nice. If she
seems very wild, depend upon it she is
very tame.

WINTERBOURNE. She has produced
a fearful amount of scandal.

MME. DE K. That proves she has
nothing to hide. The wicked ones are
not found out !

WINTERBOURNE. She has nothing to
hide but her mother, whom she conceals
so effectually that no mortal eye has
beheld her. Miss Daisy goes to parties
alone ! When I say alone, I mean that

she is usually accompanied by a foreign-
er with a waxed moustache and a great
deal of manner. She 's too nice for a
foreigner !

MME. DE K., smiling. As a Russian,
I 'm greatly obliged to you !

WINTERBOURNE. This isn't a Rus-
sian. He's a Roman — the Cavaliere
Giovanelli.

MME. DE K. You spoke of a dozen,
and now you have settled down to
one.

WINTERBOURNE. There were a dozen
at first, but she picked them over and
selected. She has made a mistake, be-
cause the man she has chosen is an ad-
venturer.

MME. DE K. An adventurer ?

WINTERBOURNE. Oh, a very plausi-
ble one. He is very good looking, very
polite ; he sings little songs at parties.
He comes of a respectable family, but
he has squandered his small patrimony,
and he has no means of subsistence but
his personal charms, which he has been
hoping for the last ten years will en-
dear him to some susceptible American
heiress — whom he flatters himself he
has found at last !

MME. DE K. You ought to advise
her — to put her on her guard.

WINTERBOURNE. Oh, she 's not se-
rious ; she is only amusing herself.

MME. DE K. Try and make her se-
rious. That 's a mission for an honest
man !

WINTERBOURNE, after a moment. It 's
so odd to hear you defending her! It
only puzzles me the more.

MME. DE K. You ought to under-
stand your countrywomen better.

WINTERBOURNB. My country women?

MME. DE K. I don't mean me: I
mean Miss Daisy Miller.

WINTERBOURNE. It seems very stu-
pid, I confess ; but I 've lived so long
in foreign parts, among people of differ-
ent manners. I mean, however, to set-
tle the question to-day and to make up
my mind. I shall meet Miss Daisy at

580

Daisy Miller.

[May,

four o'clock. I have promised to go to
Mrs. Walker's.

MME. DE K. And pray who is Mrs.
Walker ?

WINTERBOURNE. The wife of the
American consul — a very good-natured
woman, who has a passion for afternoon
tea. She took up Miss Daisy when they
came ; she used to call her the little
Flower of the West. But now she 's
holding the little flower in her finger-
tips at arm's length, trying to decide to
let it drop.

MME. DE K. Poor little flower 1 It
must be four o'clock now.

WINTERBOURNE, looking at his watch.
You 're in a great hurry to get rid of
. me ! Mrs. Walker's is close at hand,
just beyond the Spanish Steps. I shall
have time to stroll round the Pincian
with you.

MME. DE K., shaking her head. I
have had strolling enough. I shall wait
for my carriage.

WINTERBOURNE. Let me at least
come and see you this evening.

MME. DE K. I should be delighted,
but I'm going to the opera.

WINTERBOURNE. Already ? The first
night you 're here ?

MME. DE K. It's not the first; it's
the second. I 'm very fond of music.

WINTERBOURNE. It 's always bad in
Italy.

MME. DE K. I have made provision
against that in the person of the Rus-
sian ambassador, whom I have asked
to come into my box.

WINTERBOURNE. Ah, with ambassa-
dors I stand no chance.

MME. DE K., smiling. You 're the
greatest diplomatist of all ! Good -by
for the present. (She turns away. Win-
tcrbourne looks after her a moment.)

WINTERBOURNE. You decide more
easily than Mrs. Walker: you have
dropped me!

MME. DE K. Ah, but you 're not a
flower ! ( Winterbourne looks at her an
instant longer ; then, with a little pas-

sionate switch of his stick, he walks off.
Just as he disappears, Eugenio comes in
at the back.) And now I shall have a
quiet evening with a book !

SCENE II. MADAME DB KATKOFF, EUGE-
NIC, who enters hat in hand, with a bow.

EUGENIO. It's the second time to-
day that I have had the pleasure of
meeting Madame.

MME. DE KATKOFF. I should like
very much to believe it would be the
last ! ,

EUGENIO, twirling his hat. That,
perhaps, is more than I can promise.
We will call it the last but one ; for my
purpose in approaching Madame is to
demand an interview — a serious inter-
view ! Seeing Madame, at a distance,
in conversation with a gentleman, I
waited till the gentleman had retired ;
for I must do Madame the justice to
admit that, with Madame, the gentle-
men do usually, at last, retire !

MME. DE K. It 's a misfortune to
me, since they leave me exposed !

EUGENIO. Madame is not exposed;
Madame is protected. So long as I
have an eye on Madame, I can answer
for it that she will suffer no injury.

MME. DE K. You protect me as the
butcher protects the lamb ! I suppose
you have come to name your price.

EUGENIO. Madame goes straight to
the point ! I have come to name my
price, but not to ask for money.

MME. DE K. It 's very kind of you
to recognize that I have not money
enough.

EUGENIO. Madame has money
enough, but the talents of Madame are
still greater than her wealth. It is with
the aid of these talents that I shall in-
vite Madame to render me a service —
a difficult, delicate service, but so valu-
able that it will release Madame from
further obligations.

MME. DE K., ironical. It 's delight-
ful to think of being released 1 I sup-

1883.]

Daisy Miller.

pose the service is to recommend you
as a domestic. That would be difficult,
certainly.

EUGENIO. Too difficult — for Ma-
dame ! No ; it is simply, as I say, to
grant me an interview, when I can ex-
plain. Be so good as to name an hour
when I can wait upon you.

MME. DE K. In my apartments ? I
would rather not see ydu there. Ex-
plain to me here.

EUGENIO. It 's a little delicate for a
public place. Besides, I have another
appointment here.

MME. DE K. You do a great business !
If you mean that I am to wait upon you,
we may as well drop negotiations.

EUGENIO. Let us compromise. My
appointment will end in a quarter of an
hour. If at that time Madame is still
on the Pincian —

MME. DE K. You would like me to
sit upon a bench till you are ready to
attend to me ?

EUGENIO. It would have the merit
of settling the matter at once, without
more suspense for Madame.

MME. DE K., thoughtfully, aside. That
would be a merit, certainly ; and I 'm
curious about the exercise he wishes to
offer my talents ! (Aloud.) I shall
stroll about here till my carriage comes ;
if you wish to take advantage of that —

EUGENIO. To take advantage is ex-
actly what I wish ! And as this partic-
ular spot is exceptionally quiet I shall
look for Madame here.

MME. DE K., as she strolls away. How
unspeakably odious !

EUGENIO, alone a moment, looking
after her. She shall bend till she breaks !
The delay will have the merit, too, of
making me sure of Giovanelli — if he
only keeps the tryst ! I must n't throw
away a card on her before I 've won the
game of him. But he 's such a deuced
fine gentleman that there 's no playing
fair ! (Seeing Giovanelli, who comes in
at the left.) He is up to time, though.
(Bowing.) Signer Cavalierel

SCENE HI. EUGENIO, GIOVAKELLI.

GIOVANELLI, very elegant, with flow-
ers in his button-hole ; cautious, looking
round him. You might have proposed
meeting in some less conspicuous spot !

EUGENIO. In the Coliseum, at mid-
night ? My dear sir, we should be much
more compromised if we were discov-
ered there !

GIOVANELLI. Oh, if you count upon
our being discovered ! . . .

EUGENIO. There is nothing so un-
natural in our having a little conversa-
tion. One should never be ashamed of
an accomplice ! •

GIOVANELLI, with a grimace, disgust-
ed. Don't speak of accomplices, as if
we were concocting a crime !

EUGENIO. What makes it a work of
merit is my conviction that you are a
perfect gentleman. If it had n't been
for that, I never should have presented
you to my family.

GIOVANELLI. Your family ? You
speak as if, in marrying the girl, I should
become your brother-in-law.

EUGENIO. We shall certainly be
united by a very peculiar tie !

GIOVANELLI. United — united ? I
don't know about that ! After my mar-
riage, I shall travel without a courier.
(Smiling.) It will be less expensive!

EUGENIO. In the event you speak of,
I myself hardly expect to remain in the
ranks. I have seen too many campaigns :
I shall retire on my pension. You look
as if you did n't understand me.

GIOVANELLI. Perfectly. You expect
the good Mrs. Miller to make you com-
fortable for the rest of your days.

EUGENIO. What I expect of the good
Mrs. Miller is one thing ; what I expect
of you is another : and on that point we
had better be perfectly clear. It was to
insure perfect clearness that I proposed
this little conference, which you refused
to allow to take place either in your
own lodgings or in some comfortable,
cafe*. Oh, I know you had your rea-

582

Daisy Miller.

[May,

sons ! You don't exhibit your little in-
terior ; and though I know a good deal
about you, I don't know where you live.
It does n't matter, I don't want to know :
it 's enough for me that I can always find
you here, amid the music and the flow-
ers. But I can't exactly make out why
you would n't meet me at a cafe. I
would gladly have paid for a glass of
beer.

GIOVANELLI. It was just your beer
I was afraid of ! I never touch the
beastly stuff.

EUGENIC. Ah, if you drink nothing
but champagne, no wonder you are look-
ing for an heiress ! But before I help
you to one, let me give you a word of
advice. Make the best of me, if you
wish me to make the best of you. I
was determined to do that when I pre-
sented you to the two most amiable
women in the world.

GIOVANELLI. I must protest against
your theory that you presented me. I
met Mrs. Miller at a party, as any gen-
tleman might have done.

EUGENIO. You met her at a party,
precisely ; but unless I wish it, Mrs.
Miller does n't go to a party ! I let you
know she was to be there, and 1 advised
you how to proceed. For the last three
weeks I have done nothing but arrange
little accidents, little surprises, little oc-
casions, of which I will do you the jus-
tice to say that you have taken excel-
lent advantage. But the time has come
when I must remind you that I have
not done all this from mere admiration
of your distinguished appearance. I
wish your success to be my success !

GIOVANELLI, pleased, with a certain
simplicity. I am glad to hear you talk
about my success !

EUGENIO. Oh, there's a good deal to
be said about it ! Have you ever been
to the circus ?

GIOVANELLI. I don't see what that
has to do with it !

EUGENIO. You 've seen the bareback
rider turn a somersault through the pa-

per hoops ? It 's a very pretty feat, and
it brings him great applause ; but half
the effect depends upon the poor devil —
whom no one notices — who is perched
upon the edge of the ring. If he did n't
hold the hoop with a great deal of skill,
the bareback rider would simply come
down on his nose. . You turn your little
somersaults, Signor Cavaliere, and my
young lady claps her hands ; but all the
while /'m holding the hoop !

GIOVANELLI. If I 'm not mistaken,
that office, at the circus, is usually per-
formed by the clown.

EUGENIO. Take very good care, or
you '11 have a fall !

GIOVANELLI. I suppose you want to
be paid for your trouble.

EUGENIO. The point is n't that I want
to be paid: that goes without saying!
But I want to be paid handsomely.

GIOVANELLL What do you call hand-
somely ?

EUGENIO. A commission proportion-
ate to the fortune of the young lady. I
know something about that. I have in
my pocket (slapping his side) the letter
of credit of the Siguora. She lets me
carry it — for safety's sake !

GIOVANELLI. Poor Signora! It 's a
strange game we 're playing !

EUGENIO, looking at him a moment.
Oh, if you doubt of the purity of your
motives, you have only to say so. You
swore to me that you adored my young
lady.

GIOVANELLI. She 's an angel, and I
worship the ground she treads on. That
makes me wonder whether I could n't
get on without you.

EUGENIO, dryly. Try it and see. I 've
only to say the word, and Mrs. Miller
will start to-morrow for the north.

GIOVANELLI. And if you don't say
the word, that 's another thing you want
to be paid for ! It mounts up very fast.

EUGENIO. It mounts up to fifty thou-
sand francs, to be handed to me six
months after you are married.

GIOVANELLI. Fifty thousand francs ?

1883.]

Daisy Miller.

583

EUGENIO. The family exchequer will
never miss them. Besides, I give you
six months. You sign a little note,
" for value received."

GIOVANELLI. And if the marriage —
if the marriage —

EUGENIO. If the marriage comes to
grief, I burn up the note.

GIOVANELLI. How can I be sure of
that?

EDGENIO. By having already per-
ceived that I 'm not an idiot. If you
don't marry, you can't pay : I need no
one to tell me that. But I intend you
shall marry.

GIOVANELLI, satirical. It's uncom-
monly good of you ! After all, I have
n't a squint !

EUGENIO. I picked you out for your
good looks ; and you 're so tremendous-
ly fascinating that even when I lose pa-
tience with your want of everything
else I can't afford to sacrifice you.
Your prospects are now very good.
The estimable mother —

GIOVANELLI. The estimable mother
believes me to be already engaged to
her daughter. It shows how much she
knows about it !

EUGENIO. No, you are not engaged,
but you will be, next week. You have
rather too many flowers there, by the
way : you overdo it a little. (Pointing
to Giovanelli's button-hole.)

GIOVANELLI. So long as you pay for
them, the more the better! How far
will it carry me to be engaged ? Mr.
Miller can hardly be such a fool as his
wife.

EUGENIO, stroking his mustache. Mr.
Miller ?

GIOVANELLI. The mysterious father,
in that unpronounceable town ! He
must be a man of energy, to have made
such a fortune, and the idea of his en-
ergy haunts me !

EUGENIO. That 's because you 've got
none yourself.

GIOVANELLI. I don't pretend to that ;
I only pretend to — a —

EUGENIO. To be fascinating, I know !
But you 're afraid the papa won't
see it.

GIOVANELLI. I don't exactly see why
he should set his heart on a Roman son-
in-law.

EUGENIO. It 's your business to pro-
duce that miracle !

GIOVANELLI. By making the girl
talked about ? My respect for her is in
proportion to the confidence she shows
me. That confidence is unlimited.

EUGENIO. Oh, unlimited ! I have
never seen anything like that confi-
dence ; and if out of such a piece of
cloth as that you can't cut a coat —

GIOVANELLI. I never pretended to
be a tailor ! And you must not forget
that I have a rival.

EUGENIO. Forget it ? I regard it as
a particularly gratifying fact. If you
did n't have a rival I should have very
small hopes of you.

GIOVANELLI. I confess I don't follow
you. The young lady's confidence in
Mr. Winterbourne is at least equal to
her confidence in me.

EUGENIO. Ah, but his confidence in
the young lady ? That 's another affair !
He thinks she goes too far. He 's an
American, like herself ; but there are
Americans and Americans, and when
they take it into their heads to open
their eyes they open them very wide.

GIOVANELLI. If you mean that this
American's a donkey, I see no reason
to differ with you.

EUGENIO. Leave him to me. I 've
got a stick to beat him with !

GIOVANELLI, uneasy. You make me
shiver a little ! Do you mean to put
him out of the way ?

EUGENIO. I mean to put him out of
the way. Ah, you can trust me! I
don't carry a stiletto, and if you '11 ex-
cuse me I won't describe my little plan.
You'll tell me what you think of it
when you have seen the results. The
great feature is simply that Miss Daisy,,
seeing herself abandoned —

584

Daisy Miller.

[May,

GIOVANELLI. Will look about her
for a consoler ? Ah, consolation is a
specialty of mine, and if you give me
a chance to console I think I shall be
safe.

EUGENIO. I shall go to work on the
spot ! ( Takes out his pocket-book, from
which he extracts a small folded paper,
holding it up a moment before Giovanelli.)
Put your name to that, and send it back
to me by post.

GIOVANELLI, reading the paper with
a little grimace. Fifty thousand ! Fifty
thousand is steep.

EUGENIO. Signer Cavaliere, the let-
ter of credit is for half a million !

GIOVANELLI, pocketing the paper.
Well, give me a chance to console —
give me a chance to console ! ( Goes off
at the back, while, at the same moment,
Madame de Katkoff reappears.)

SCENE IV. EUGENIO, MADAME DE EATKOFF.

EUGENIO, perceiving her, aside. The
Katkoff — up to time ! If my second
little paper works as well as my first,
I've nothing to fear. {Aloud.) I am
quite at the service of Madame.

MME. DE K. My carriage has not
come back ; it was to pick up a friend
at St. Peter's.

EUGENIO. I am greatly indebted to
Madame's friends. I have my little
proposition ready.

MME. DE K. Be so good as to let me
hear it.

EUGENIO. In three words it is this :
Do me the favor to captivate Mr. Win-
terbourne ! Madame starts a little. She
will pretend, perhaps, that Mr. Winter-
bourne is already captivated.

MME. DE K. You have an odd idea
of my pretensions ! I would rather pay
you a sum of money than listen to this
sort of thing.

EUGENIO. I was afraid you would be
a little shocked — at first. But the pro-
posal I make has the greatest recom-
mendations.

MME. DE K. For Mr. Winterbourne,
certainly !

EUGENIO. For Mr. Winterbourne,
very plainly ; but also for Madame, if
she would only reflect upon the facil-
ity—

MME. DE K. What do you know
about facility ? Your proposal is odi-
ous!

EUGENIO. The worst is already done.
Mr. Winterbourne is deeply interested
in Madame.

MME. DE K. His name has no place
in our discussion. Be so good as not to
mention it again.

EUGENIO. It will be easy not to men-
tion it : Madame will understand with-
out that. She will remember, perhaps,
that when I had the honor of meeting
her, last summer, I was in the service
of a distinguished family.

MME. DE K. The amiable Mrs. Mil-
ler? That name has stuck in my mind !

EUGENIO. Permit me to regard it as
a happy omen ! The amiable Mrs. Mil-
ler, as I then informed Madame, has a
daughter as amiable as herself. It is
of the greatest importance that this
young lady should be detached from the
gentleman whose name I am not allowed
to mention.

MME. DE K. Should be detached?

EUGENIO. If he is interested in Ma-
dame, he is also a little interested in the
Signorina. You know what men are,
Madame !

MME. DE K. If the Signorina is as
amiable as you say, I can imagine no
happier circumstance.

EUGENIO. From the point of view of
Madame, who is a little tired of the gen-
tleman ; but not from my own, who
wish the young lady to make another
marriage.

MME. DE K. Excuse me from enter-
ing into your points of view and your
marriages !

EUGENIO, abruptly. Ah, if you choose
to terminate the discussion, it wasn't
worth while to wait. (A pause.)

1883.]

Daisy Miller.

585

MME. DE K., aside. It was worth
while to wait — to learn what a coward
I am ! {Aloud, after a moment.) Is
Miss Miller in love with Mr. Winter-
bourne ?

EUGENIC, smiling. I thought Madame
would come to the name ! (Aside.) It
was the idea that fetched her ! (Aloud.)
Miss Miller is not, perhaps, exactly in
love with Mr. Winterbourne, but she
has a great appreciation of his society.
What I ask of you is to undertake that
for the next two months she shall have
as little of it as possible.
• MME. DE K. By taking as much of it
myself ? You ask me to play a very
pretty part.

EUGENIC. Madame would play it to
perfection !

MME. DE K. To break a young girl's
heart — to act an abominable comedy ?

EUGENIC. You won't break any one's
heart, unless it be Mr. Winterbourne's
— which will serve him right for being
so tiresome. As for the comedy, re-
member that the best actresses receive
the highest salary.

MME. DE K. If I had been a good
actress, you never would have got me
into your power. What do you propose
to do with your little American ?

EUGENIC. To marry her to a Roman
gentleman. All I ask of you is to use
a power you already have. I know that
of late it has suited your pleasure not to
use it : you have tried to keep Mr. Win-
terbourne at a distance. But call him a
little nearer, and you will see that he
will come !

MME. DE K. So that the girl may see
it too ? Your ingenuity does you great
honor. I don't believe in your Roman
gentleman.

EUGENIC. It is not necessary that
you should believe. Believe only that
on the day the Signorina becomes en-
gaged to the irreproachable person I
have selected I will place in your hands
the document which I hold at your dis-
position.

MME. DE K. How am I to be sure of
that?

EUGENIC, aside. They all want to
be sure ! (Aloud.) Nothing venture,
nothing have !

MME. DE K. And if she never be-
comes engaged?

EUGENIC. Ah, then, I confess, I must
still hold the document. {Aside.) That
will make her work for it ! (Aloud.)
Why should you trouble yourself with
irrelevant questions ? Your task is per-
fectly definite. Occupy Mr. Winter-
bourne, and leave the rest to me.

MME. DE K. I must tell you — disa-
greeable as it may be to me to do so —
that I shall have 'to make a very sudden
turn.

EUGENIC. It will be all the more ef-
fective. (Complacently.) Sudden turns
are the essence of fascination !

MME. DE K., aside. It 's insufferable
to discuss with him ! But if there 's a
hope — if there 's a hope . . . (Aloud.)
I told Mr. Winterbourne, not an hour
ago, that I wished never to see him
again.

EUGENIC. I can imagine no more
agreeable surprise to him, then, than to
be told, half an hour hence, that you
can't live without him ! You know the
things the ladies say ! Don't be afraid
of being sudden : he '11 think it the more
romantic. For you those things are
easy, Madame (bowing tow) ; for you
those things are easy. I leave the mat-
ter to your consideration. {Aside, as
he goes off.) She '11 do it ! (Exit.)

MME. DE K., alone a moment. Those
things are easy — those things are easy ?
They are easier, perhaps, than paying
out half one's fortune. (Stands a mo-
ment thoughtful, then gives a little ner-
vous gesture, as of decision.) If I give
him leave to come to the opera, I must
go myself — to Italian music ! But an
hour or two of Donizetti, for the sake
of one's comfort ! . . . He said he would
come back — from the wife of the con-
sul. (Looking about her, she goes out.)

586

Daisy Miller.

[May,

SCENE V. DAISY, then GIOVANELLI.

DAISY, coming in with a certain haste,
and glancing behind her. It 's a pity
you can't walk in Rome without every
one staring so ! And now he 's not here

— he 's not where he said he would be.
I don't care. He 's very nice, but I cer-
tainly shan't go and look for him. I '11
just wait a little. Perhaps, if I don't
walk round, they won't stare at me so
much. I did n't say good-by to Mrs.
Walker, because she was talking to Mr.
Winterbourne, and I shan't go near
Mr. Winterbourne again till he comes
near me. Half an hour in the room,
and never within ten yards of me ! He
looks so pleasant when he talks — even
when he talks to other girls. He 's al-
ways talking to other girls, and not even
to girls — to old women, and gentlemen,
and foreigners. I've done something
he does n't like, I 'm very sure of that.
He does n't like anything — anything
that / do. It 's hard to know what he
does like ! He 's got such peculiar tastes

— from his foreign education ; you can't
ever tell where you '11 find him. Well, I
have n't had a foreign education, and I
don't see that I 'm any the worse for
that. If I 'd had a foreign education, I
might as well give up ! I should n't be
able to breathe, for fear I was breathing
wrong. There seem to be so many
ways, over here ; but I only know one
way, and I don't see why I should learn
the others when there are people who
do like — who do like — what I do.
They say they do, at any rate, and they
say it so prettily ! The English say it
very nicely, but the Italians say it best.
As for the Americans, they don't say it
at all, and Mr. Winterbourne less than
any of them ! Well, I don't care so
much about the Americans : I can make
it all right with the Americans when I
get home. Mr. Winterbourne is n't an
American; I never saw any one like
him over there. If I had, perhaps I
should n't have come away; for over

there it would all be different. Well,
it is n't different here, and I suppose it
never will be. Everything is strange
over here ; and what is strangest of all
is one's liking people that are so pecul-
iar. (Stands thoughtful a moment, then
rouses herself.) There 's Mr. Giovanelli
— a mile off. Does he suppose I wish
to communicate with him by signs ?
( Giovanelli comes in, hat in hand, with
much eagerness.)

GIOVANELLI. I have looked for you
everywhere !

DAISY. Well, I was n't everywhere ;
I was here.

GIOVANELLI. Standing all alone,
without a protector !

DAISY. I was n't more alone than I
was at Mrs. Walker's.

GIOVANELLI, smiling, slightly fatuous.
Because 1 was not there ?

DAISY. Oh, it was n't the people who
were not there ! (Aside.) If they had
known I was coming, I suppose there
would n't have been any one !

GIOVANELLI, in an attitude of the
most respectful admiration. How can I
sufficiently thank you for granting me
this supreme satisfaction?

DAISY. That's a very fine name to
give to a walk on the Pincian. You had
better put on your hat.

GIOVANELLI. You wish to escape no-
tice ? Perhaps you are right. That was
why I did n't come to Mrs. Walker's,
whose parties are so charming ! I
thought that if we slipped away togeth-
er it might attract attention.

DAISY. Do you mean they would
have thought it improper ? They would
have thought it still more improper to
see me leaving alone ; so I did n't say a
word to any one — only mother.

GIOVANELLI. Ah, you told your ad-
mirable parent ? She is with us, then,
in spirit !

DAISY. She wanted to get away her-
self, if that 's what you mean ; but
she did n't feel as if she could leave
till Eugenio came for her. And Eu-

1883.]

Daisy Miller.

587

genio seems to have so much to do to-
day !

GIOVANELLI. It 's doubtless in your
interest. He 's a very faithful servant.

DAISY. Well, he told mother she
must stay there an hour : he had some
business of importance.

GIOVANELLI. Let us hope that his
business is done, and that the patient
Mrs. Miller is released.

DAISY. She was patient enough when
I told her I should n't come to dinner.

GIOVANELLI, starting, with an air of
renewed devotion. Am I to understand
that you have consented to my little
fantasy ?

DAISY. Of dining at that old tavern,
where the artists go ?

GIOVANELLI. The renowned and de-
lightful Falcone, in the heart of ancient
Rome ! You are a person of delicious
surprises ! The other day, you would
n't listen to it.

DAISY. I don't remember the other
day : all I know is, I '11 go now. (Aside.)
The other day Mr. Winterbourne spoke
to me !

GIOVANELLI. My dear young lady,
you make me very happy !

DAISY. By going to eat maccaroni
with you ?

GIOVANELLI. It is n't the maccaroni ;
it 's the sentiment !

DAISY. The sentiment is yours, not
mine. I have n't any : it 's all gone !

GIOVANELLI. Well, I shan't com-
plain if I find myself at table with you
in a dusky corner of that picturesque
little cook-shop, where the ceiling is
black, and the walls are brown, and the
floor is red !

DAISY, watching him as he describes
it. Oh dear ! it must be very lovely.

GIOVANELLI. And the old wine-flasks,
covered with plaited straw, are as big
round — are much bigger round — than
your waist !

DAISY. That's just what I want to
see. Let 's go there at once !

GIOVANELLI, consulting his watch.

Half past four. Is n't that rather soon
to dine ?

DAISY. We can go on foot through
the old streets. I 'm dying to see them
on foot.

GIOVANELLI, aside. That will be
cheaper than a cab ! (Aloud.) We
should get there at five — a little early
still. Might n't we first take a few
turns round this place ?

DAISY, after a pause. Oh, yes, if you
like.

GIOVANELLI, aside. I should like
my creditors to see ! (Aloud.) Per-
haps it does n't suit you : you 're a little
afraid.

DAISY. What should I be afraid of ?

GIOVANELLI, smiling. Not of meet-
ing your mother, I know !

DAISY. If I had been afraid, I should
n't have come.

GIOVANELLI. That is perfect. But
let me say one thing : you have a way
of taking the meaning from the favors
you bestow.

DAISY. The meaning? They have
n't got any meaning !

GIOVANELLI, vaguely. Ah ! (Mrs.
Costcllo, Miss Durant, and Charles jRev-
erdy appear.)

DAISY, looking at Mrs. Oostello and
Miss Durant. Unless it be to make
those dreadful women glower ! How
d' ye do, Mr. Reverdy ?

GIOVANELLI, smiling. I see you are
not afraid ! (He goes out with her.)

SCENE VI. MRS. COSTELLO, Miss DURANT,
CHARLES KEVERDY.

Miss D. She has grown to look very
hard.

MRS. C. The gentleman looks soft,
and that makes up for it.

Miss D. Do you call him a gentle-
man?

MRS. C. Ah, compared with the cou-
rier ! She has a different one every
tune.

REVERDY, with the camp-stool, aside.

588

Daisy Miller.

[May,

A different one every time, but never,
alas, this one !

MRS. C. There 's one comfort in it
all : she has given up Frederick.

Miss D. Ah, she goes too far even
for him !

REVERDY. Too far with other men :
that 's the trouble ! With him she went
as far as the Castle of Chillon.

MRS. C. Don't recall that episode.
Heaven only knows what happened
there.

REVERDY. I know what happened :
he was awfully sold. That 's why he let
you carry him off.

MRS. C. Much good it did us ! I 'm
very much disappointed in Frederick.

Miss D. I can't imagine what you
expected of him.

MRS. C. I expected him to fall in
love with you — or to marry you, at
any rate.

Miss D. You would have been still
more disappointed, then, if I had refused
him.

MRS. C., dryly. I should have been
surprised.

REVERDY, sentimentally. Would you
have refused him, Miss Durant ?

Miss D. Yes, on purpose to spite
you. You don't understand ? It takes
a man to be stupid ! If Mr. Winter-
bourne were to marry some one else, it
would leave Miss Daisy Miller free.

REVERDY. Free to walk about with
the native population? She seems to
be free enough already. Mrs. Costello,
the camp-stool is at your service.

MRS. C. Give it to me, and I '11 go
and sit in the shade. Excuse me, I
would rather carry it myself. ( Taking
the camp-stool, aside to Miss Durant.)
If he proposes, mind you accept him.

Miss D. If who proposes ?

MRS. C. Our young companion ! He
is manoeuvring to get rid of me. He
has nothing but his expectations, but
his expectations are of the best. (She
marches away with her camp-stool, and
seats herself at a distance, where, with

her eyeglass raised, she appears to look
at what goes on in another part of the
garden.)

Miss D., aside. Am 1 one of his ex-
pectations ? Fortunately, I don't need
to marry for money. (Aloud.) Cousin
Louisa is furious with me for not being
more encouraging to Mr. Winterbourne.
I don't know what she would have liked
me to do !

REVERDY. You have been very
proper, very dignified.

Miss D. That 's the way I was
brought up. I never liked him, from
the first.

REVERDY. Oh, he 's a stupid stick !

Miss D. I don't say he 's stupid —
and he 's very good looking.

REVERDY. As good looking as a
man can be in whom one feature —
the most expressive — has been entire-
ly omitted. He has got no eyes in his
head.

Miss D. No eyes ?

REVERDY. To see that that poor lit-
tle creature is in love with him.

Miss D. She has a queer way of
showing it.

REVERDY. Ah, they always have
queer ways !

Miss D. He sees it, but he doesn't
care.

REVERDY. That's still worse, — the
omission not of a feature, but of an or-
gan (tapping his heart and smiling), the
seat of our purest and highest joys !

Miss D., aside. Cousin Louisa was
right! (Aloud.) Do you mean that he
has no heart ?

REVERDY. If he had as big a one as
the rosette on your shoe, would he leave
me here to do all the work ?

Miss D., looking at her foot. The
rosette on my shoe is rather big.

REVERDY, looking as well. It is n't
so much the size of the rosette as the
smallness of the shoe !

Miss D., aside. Cousin Louisa is
certainly right ! (Aloud, smiling.)
Yours, I suppose, is bigger than that

1883.]

Daisy Miller.

689

REVERB Y. My shoe ? I should think
so — rather !

Miss D. Dear, no ! I mean your
heart. Though I don't think it 's at all
nice in you to complain of beinr left
with us.

REVERDY. When I 'm left with you,
I don't complain ; but when I 'in left
with her ! (Indicating Mrs. Costello.)

Miss D. Well, you 're not with her
now.

REVERDY. Ah, now it's very pleas-
ant. Only she has got the camp-stool.

Miss D. Do you want it for your-
self?

REVERDY. Yes ; I have been carry-
ing it for the last six months, and I feel
rather awkward without it. It gives
one confidence to have something in
one's hand.

Miss D. Good heavens ! What do
you want to do ?

REVERDY. I want to make you a lit-
tle speech.

Miss D. You will do very well as
you are.

REVERDY. I'll try it. (In an atti-
tude.) Six months ago I had moments
of rebellion, but to-day I have come to
love my chains ! Accordingly — (Mrs.
Gostello starts up and hurries forward,
the camp-stool in her hand.) By Jove !
if she hears me, she '11 rivet them faster !

MRS. C., seizing Miss Duranfs arm.
My poor, dear child, whom do you think
I 've seen ?

REVERDY. By your expression, the
ghost of Julius Caesar !

MRS. C. The Russian woman — the
princess — whom we saw last summer.

Miss D. Well, my dear cousin, she
won't eat us up !

MRS. C. No, but she '11 eat Freder-
ick!

REVERDY. On the contrary, her ap-
petite for Frederick is small. Don't
you remember that, last summer, she
left the hotel as soon as he arrived ?

MRS. C. That was only a feint, to put
us off the scent. He has been in secret

correspondence with her, and their meet-
ing here is prearranged.

Miss D. I don't know why you call
their correspondence secret, when he
was always going to the post-office !

MRS. C. Ah, but you can't tell what
he did there ! Frederick is very deep.

REVERDY. There 's nothing secret,
at any rate, about her arrival here.
She alighted yesterday at our own ho-
tel, in the most public manner, with the
landlord and all the waiters drawn up
to receive her. It did n't occur to me
to mention it.

MRS. C. I don't really know what
you are with us for !

Miss D. Oh, Cousin Louisa, he is
meant for better things than that !

MRS. C., to Miss Durant, aside. Do
you mean that he has proposed ?

Miss D. No, but he was just going
to.

MRS. C., disappointed. Ah, you 've
told me that before !

Miss D. Because you never give
him time.

MRS. C. Does he want three hours ?

Miss D. No, but he wants three
minutes !

REVERDY, who has strolled away, oft-
serving them, aside. Happy thought, to
make them fight about me ! Mutual
destruction would ensue, and I should
be master of the situation. (Aloud.) I
am only a man, dear Madam ; I am not
a newspaper.

MRS. C. If you only were, we could
stop our subscription ! And, as a proof
of what I say, here comes Frederick, to
look after his Russian. ( Winterlourne
comes in, with Mrs. Walker.)

REVERDY. With the wife of the con-
sul, to look after him !

SCENE VII. MRS. COSTELLO, Miss DURANT,
REVERDY, WINTEHBOURNE, MRS. WALKER.

MRS. WALKER. Oh, you dreadful
people, what are you doing here, when
you ought to be at my reception ?

590

Daisy Miller.

[May,

MRS. COSTELLO. We were just
thinking of going ; it 's so very near.

MRS. W. Only round the corner !
But there are better reasons than that.

Miss D. There can hardly be a very
good one, when you yourself have come
away !

MRS. W. You 'd never imagine what
has brought me ! I 've come hi pursuit
of little Daisy Miller.

MRS. C. And you 've brought my
nephew to help you !

WINTERBOURNE. A walk in such
charming company is a privilege not to
be lost. Perhaps, dear aunt, you can
give us news.

MRS. C. Of that audacious and des-
perate person ? Dear me, yes. We
met her just now, on the arm of a dread-
ful man.

MRS. W. Oh, we 're too late then.
She's lost!

MRS. C. It seems to me she was lost
long ago, and (significantly, at Winter-
bourne) that this is not the first rendez-
vous she has taken.

WINTERBOURNE, smiling. If it does
her no more harm than the others, Mrs.
Walker had better go back to her tea-
pot!

REVERDY, to Miss Durant. That 's
an allusion to the way he was sold !

MRS. W. She left my house, half an
hour ago, without a word to any one
but her goose of a mother, who thought
it all right that she should walk off to
the Pincian to meet the handsome Gio-
vanelli. I only discovered her flight
just now, by a lady who was coming in
at the moment that Miss Daisy, shaking
out her little flounces and tossing up her
little head, tripped away from my door,
to fall into the arms of a cavalier !

Miss D. Into his arms ? Ah, Mrs.
Walker !

MRS. W. My dear young lady, with
these unscrupulous foreigners one can
never be sure. You know as well as I
what becomes of the reputation of a girl
who shows herself in this place, at this

hour, with all the rank and fashion of
Rome about her, with no more respon-
sible escort than a gentleman renowned
for his successes !

REVERDY, to Miss Durant. It 's as if
y .. were here with me, you know !

MRS. W. This idea came over me
with a kind of horror, and I determined
to save her if I could.

MRS. C. There 's nothing left of her
to save!

MRS. W. There is always something
left, and my representative position
makes it a duty. My rooms were filled
with guests — a hundred and fifty peo-
ple — but I put on my bonnet and
seized Mr. Winterbourne's arm.

WINTERBOURNE. You can testify
that I did n't wince ! I quite agree with
you as to the importance of looking her
up. Foreigners never understand.

REVERDY, aside. My dear fellow,
if they understand no better than
you ! . . .

MRS. W. What I want of you dear
people is to go and entertain my vis-
itors. Console them for my absence,
and tell them I shall be back in five
minutes.

Miss D. It will be very nice to give
a reception without any trouble.

MRS. C. Without any trouble —
scarcely ! But there is nothing we
would n't do —

MRS. W. For the representative of
one's country ! Be charming, then, as
you can so well. (Seeing Daisy and
Giovanelli come in.) I shall not be long,
for by the mercy of Heaven the child is
guided to this spot !

REVERDY. If you think you have
only to pick her up, we won't wait for
you ! (He goes out with Mrs. CosteUo
and Miss Durant.)

SCENE VIII. MRS. WALKER, WINTER-
BOURNE, DAISY, GIOVANELLI.

WINTERBOURNE, a* the two others
slowly come in together, not at Jirst see-

1883.]

Daisy Miller.

591

ing him. We shall have a siege : she
won't give him up for the asking.

MRS. WALKER. We must divide our
forces, then. You will deal with Daisy.

WINTERBOURNE. I would rather at-
tack the gentleman.

MRS. W. No, no ; there '11 be trouble.
Mr. Giovanelli, I should like a little -
conversation with you.

GIOVANELLI, starting, and coming
forward ; very polite. You do me great
honor, Madame !

MRS. W. I wish to scold you for not
coming to me to-day ; but to spare your
blushes, it must be in private. (Strolls
away with him, out of sight.)

DAISY, aside. They have come to
take me away. Ah, they are very cruel !

WINTERBOURNE. I had no chance to
speak to you at Mrs. Walker's, and I 've
come to make up for my loss.

DAISY, looking at him a moment.
What is Mrs. Walker doing here ? Why
does n't she stay with her guests ?

WINTERBOURNE. I brought her away
— to do just what she has done.

DAISY. To take away Mr. Giovanelli?
I don't understand you.

WINTERBOURNE. A great many peo-
ple think that you understand, but that
you don't care.

DAISY. I don't care what people think.
I have done no harm.

WINTERBOURNE. That 's exactly what
I say — you don't care. But I wish you
would care a little, for your friends are
very much frightened. When Mrs.
Walker ascertained that you had left
her house alone, and had come to meet a
gentleman here — here, where all Rome
assembles at this hour to amuse itself,
and where you would be watched and
criticised and calumniated — when Mrs.
Walker made this discovery, she said
but three words — " To the rescue ! "
But she took her plunge, as if you had
been drowning.

DAISY. And you jumped overboard,
too!

WINTERBOURNE. Oh dear, no ; I 'm

standing on the brink. I only interpret
her sentiments. I don't express my
own.

DAISY. They would interest me more
than Mrs. Walker's ; but I don't see
what either of you have to do with me.

WINTERBOURNE. We admire you
very much, and we hate to see you mis-
judged.

DAISY. I don't know what you mean,
and I don't know what you think I want
to do.

WINTERBOURNE. I have n't the least
idea about that. All I mean is that if
you could see, as I see it, how little it 'a
the custom here to do what you do, and
how badly it looks to fly in the face of
the custom, you would be a little more
on your guard.

DAISY. I know nothing about the
custom. I 'm an American ; I 'm not
one of these people.

WINTERBOURNE. In that case, you
would behave differently. Your being
an American is just the point. You are
a very conspicuous American, thanks to
your attractions, to your charms, to the
publicity of your life. Such people,
with the best intentions in the world,
are often very indiscreet ; and it 's to
save the reputation of her compatriots
that the fairest and brightest of young
American girls should sacrifice a little
of her independence.

DAISY. Look here, Mr. Winterbourne,
you make too much fuss : that 's what 's
the matter with you !

WINTERBOURNE. If I make enough
to persuade you to go home with Mrs.
Walker, my highest ambition will be
gratified.

DAISY. I think you are trying to
mystify me : I can tell that by your
language. One would never think you
were the same person who went with
me to that castle.

WINTERBOURNE. I am not quite the
same, but I 've a good deal in common
with him. Now, Mr. Giovanelli does n't
resemble that person at all.

592

Daisy Miller.

[May,

DAISY, coldly. I don't know why you
speak to me about Mr. Giovanelli.

WINTERBOURNE. Because — because
Mrs. Walker asked me to.

DAISY. It would be better if she
should do it herself.

WINTERBOURNE. That 's exactly what
I told her ; but she had an odd fancy
that I have a kind of influence with you.

DAISY, with expression. Poor Mrs.
Walker !

WINTERBOURNE. Poor Mrs. Walker !
She does n't know that no one has any
influence with you — that you do noth-
ing in the world but what pleases your-
self.

DAISY. Whom, then, am I to please ?
The people that think such dreadful
things of me ? I don't even understand
what they think ! What do you mean,
about my reputation ? I have n't got
any reputation ! If people are so cruel
and wicked, I am sure I would rather
not know it. In America they let me
alone, and no one ran after me, like
Mrs. Walker. It's natural I should
like the people who seem to like me,
and who will take the trouble to go
round with me. The others may say
what they like. I can't understand
Italian, and I should never hear of it if
you did n't come and translate.

WINTERBOURNE. It's not only the
Italians — it 's the Americans.

DAISY. Do you mean your aunt and
your cousin ? I don't know why I should
make myself miserable for them !

WINTERBOURNE. I mean every one
who has ever had the very questionable
advantage of making your acquaintance
— only to be subjected to the torment
of being unable either to believe in you
or to doubt of you.

DAISY. To doubt of me? You are
very strange !

WINTERBOURNE. You are stranger
still. But I did n't come here to reason
with you: that would be vain, for we
speak a different language, and we should
n't understand each other. I only came

to say to you, in the most respectful
manner, that if you should consult your
best interests you would go home with
Mrs. Walker.

DAISY. Do you think I had such a
lovely time there, half an hour ago,
when you didn't so much as look at
me?

WINTERBOURNE. If I had spoken to
you, would you have stayed ?

DAISY. After I had an engagement
here ? ( With a little laugh.) I must
say> you expect a great deal !

WINTERBOURNE, looking at her a mo-
ment. What they say is true — you 're
a thorough-going coquette !

(Mrs. Walker, reappears, with Giovanelli.)

DAISY. You speak too much of what
they say. To escape from you, I '11 go
anywhere !

MRS. W., to Winterbourne, while Gio-
vanelli speaks to Daisy. He 's very ac-
commodating, when you tell him that if
Mrs. Miller gets frightened she will
start off for America.

WINTERBOURNE. It's more than I
can say of Miss Daisy !

MRS. W. Have you had no success ?

WINTERBOURNE. I have had my ears
boxed !

MRS. W., to Daisy. My precious child,
you escaped from my drawing-room be-
fore I had half the talk we wanted.

DAISY. Are they all waiting there to
see me brought back ?

MRS. W. Oh dear, no ; they 've plen-
ty to think about — with Mrs. Costello
and Miss Durant.

DAISY. Ah, those ladies are there?
Then I certainly shan't go back.

MRS. W., alarmed. Hush ! They 're
relations of Mr. Winterbourne.

DAISY. All the more reason for my
hating them I

MRS. W., to Winterbourne. You must
excuse her ; she is very wicked to-day !
(To Daisy.) If you won't go home, then
I '11 stay with you here. Mr. Giovanelli,
you promised me you would go to my
house.

1883.]

Daisy Miller.

593

GIOVANELLI. I am at the orders of
Mademoiselle.

DAISY. You may do what you please
till dinner-time.

WINTERBOURNE, aside. Gracious
heavens ! is she going to dine with him ?
(Aloud, to Daisy.) We were interrupt-
ed, but I have a great deal more to say.,

DAISY. More of the same sort? It
will be a pleasure to hear that !

WINTERBOURNE. What's coming is
a great deal better. — Do you dine at
your table d'hote ?

DAISY. Oh, yes. Randolph likes the
table d'hote.

WINTERBOURNE. I will ask for a
place there this evening, and, with your
permission, it shall be next to yours.

DAISY. I 'm very sorry, but I 'm not
sure of this evening.

WINTERBOURNE, gravely. That 's a
great disappointment to me. (A short
silence.)

MRS. W., to Giovanelli. You prom-
ised me you would go to my house !

GIOVANELLI. As a man of honor,
then, I must go. But I assure you,
Mademoiselle (to Daisy), that I soon
return.

DAISY; As soon as you like ! ( Gio-
vanelli walks away. To Winterbourne.)
Can't you come some other night ?

WINTERBOURNE. Oh, yes, by waiting
a little. But with the uncertainty of
your stay in Rome, this would be always
something gained.

DAISY. What will you do after din-
ner ?

WINTERBOURNE. With your kind
permission, I will adjourn with you to
your mother's sitting-room.

DAISY. You are very devoted, all of
a sudden !

WINTERBOURNE. Better late than
never !

DAISY. You are just as you were at
that castle !

WINTERBOURNE. So are you — at
this moment. We can dream we are in
that happy place !

VOL. LI. — NO. 307. 38

DAISY, aside. He can do with me
what he will. (Aloud, quickly.) I'll
tell them to keep you a seat !

WINTERBOURNE. I shall be indebted
to you forever !

DAISY. Oh, if I don't see about it,
they '11 put you at the other end.

WINTERBOURNE. Next you — that 's
the point.

DAISY. Between me and Randolph !
At half past six !

WINTERBOURNE. At half past six.

MRS. W., to Winterbourne. You can
go about your business. I have some-
thing to say to her alone.

DAISY. Don't forget half past six I

WINTERBOURNE. Never in the world.
At half past six ! ( Walks away.)

MRS. WALKER, alone with Daisy.
And now may I be permitted to inquire
whether you had arranged to dine with
that Italian ?

DAISY, smiling. In the heart of an-
cient Rome ! But don't tell Mr. Win-
terbourne what I gave up !

MRS. WALKER, aside. I '11 get you
out of Rome to-morrow ! (Aloud.) I
must show you to the crowd — with me.
( Goes out leading Daisy.)

SCENE IX. REVERDT, RANDOLPH.

REVERDY, coming in just as the oth-
ers pass out, and completing Mrs. Walk-
er's phrase. The wife of the American
consul ! The American consul is all
very well, but I '11 be hanged if I '11
carry on the business ! It 's quite enough
to do odd jobs for Mrs. Costello, with-
out taking service at the consulate. Fif-
ty carriages before the door, and five
hundred people up-stairs. My compan-
ions may get up if they can ! It 's the
first time to-day I 've had a moment for
a quiet smoke. (Lights a cigar, and
while he is doing so Randolph comes in.)

0 Lord, the Old Man of the Sea !
RANDOLPH, planted before Reverdy.

1 say, Mr. Reverdy, suppose you offer
me a cigar.

594

Daisy Miller.

[May,

REVERDT. My poor child, my cigars
are as big as yourself !

RANDOLPH. There 's nothing fit to
smoke over here. You can't get 'em as
you can in America.

REVERDT. Yes, they 're better in
America (smoking) ; but they cost a
good deal more.

RANDOLPH. I don't care what I pay.
I 've got all the money I want.

REVERDY. Don't spend it ; keep it
till you grow up.

RANDOLPH. Oh, I ain't going to grow
up- I 've been this way for ever so
long. Mother brought me over to see
if I would n't start, but I have n't start-
ed an inch. You can't start in this old
country.

REVERDT. The Romans were rather
tall!

RANDOLPH. I don't care for the Ro-
mans. A child 's as good as a man.

REVERDT, aside. The future of de-
mocracy ! (Aloud.) You remind me
of the infant Hannibal.

RANDOLPH. There 's one good thing :
so long as I 'm little, my mother can't
see me. She 's looking all round.

REVERDT. I was going to ask you if
she allowed you to mingle in this hu-
man maze.

RANDOLPH. Mother 's in the carriage,
but I jumped out.

REVEUDT. Imprudent little man ! At
the risk of breaking your neck ?

RANDOLPH. Oh, we were crawling
along — we have n't American trotters.
I saw you walking about, and when
mother was n't looking I just dropped.
As soon as she missed me, she began to
howl !

REVEBDT. I am sorry to be the occa-
sion of a family broil.

RANDOLPH. She thinks I am run
over ; she has begun to collect a crowd.

REVERDT. You wicked little per-
son! I must take you straight back
to her,

RANDOLPH. I thought you might like
'. to know w.hefe any sister is.

REVERDT. At the present moment
my anxiety is about your mother.

RANDOLPH. Daisy 's gone on a ben-
der. If you '11 give me a cigar, I '11 put
you up to it.

REVERDT. You 're a vulgar little boy.
Take me instantly to your mother.

RANDOLPH, very sarcastic. Would n't
you like to carry me on your back ?

REVERDT. If you don't come, I'll
take you under my arm. (Starts to seize
him.)

RANDOLPH, dodging. I won't come,
then !

REVERDT. Blast the little wretch ! I
must relieve his mother. (Makes an-
other attempt to capture Randolph, who
escapes^ while Reverdy gives chase, and
they disappear.)

SCENE X. WINTERBOURNE, then MADAME
DE KATKOPF.

WINTERBOURNE, coming in alone.
Remarkable family, the Millers ! Mrs.
Miller, standing up in her carriage, in
the centre of a crowd of Italians, and
chattering to them in her native tongue.
She falls upon my neck when she sees
me, and announces that the gifted Ran-
dolph is no more. He has tumbled out
of the vehicle, and been trampled to
death ! We institute a search for his
remains, and as it proves fruitless she
begs me to come and look for him here.

(Looking round him.) I don't perceive
any remains ! He has mingled in the
giddy throng, and the giddy throng may
bring him back ! It 's the business of
that ruffian of a courier ! (Seeing Ma-
dame de Katkoff", aside.) Is she still
here ? (Aloud.) To meet you again is
better fortune than I hoped.

MME. DE KATKOFF, strolling in slow-
ly, with an air of deliberation, and stand-
ing a moment thoughtful. Will you do
me the favor to dine with me to-night?

WINTERBOURNE, startled. To dine
with you to-night ?

MME. DE K. You stare as if I were

1883.]

Daisy Miller.

595

a ghost ! It 's very simple : to dine
with me to-night, at seven o'clock, at the
Hotel de Paris ?

WINTERBOURNE, aside. It 's a little
awkward. (Aloud.) Do you dine at
the table d'hote ?

MME. DE K. At the table d'hote, with
that rabble of tourists ? I dine in my
own apartments.

WINTERBOURNE. I supposed you had
left the Pincian ; I had no idea you
were lingering.

MME. DE K. Apparently I had a pur-
pose, which you seem quite unable to
appreciate. You are very slow in ac-
cepting !

WINTERBOURNE. To tell you the
honest truth, I have made an engage-
ment.

MME. DE K. An engagement? A
moment ago you were dying to spend
the evening with me.

WINTERBOURNE. A moment ago you
would n't listen to me.

MME. DE K., after a pause. My dear
friend, you are very stupid. A woman
doesn't confess the truth at the first
summons !

WINTERBOURNE. You are very
strange. I accepted an invitation just
after we parted.

MME. DE K. Send word you can't
come.

WINTERBOURNE. It was from the
young lady you recommended me so
strongly to turn my attention to.

MME. DE K. Ah, she gives invita-
tions ?

WINTERBOURNE. I confess I asked
for this one. They are also at the H6-
tel de Paris, and they dine at the table
d'hote.

MME. DE K. A charming place to
carry on a courtship !

WINTERBOURNE. It's not a court-
ship — however much I may have
wished to please you.

MME. DE K. Your wish to please me
has suddenly diminished. Apparently,
I am to understand that you refuse !

WINTERBOURNE. Even when you are
kind, there 's something cruel in it ! —
I will dine with you with pleasure.

MME. DE K. Send word, then, to
your little American.

WINTERBOURNE. Yes, I '11 send word.
(Aside.) That 's uncommonly rough !
(Aloud.) After dinner, I suppose, you
'11 go to the opera.

MME. DE K. I don't know about the
opera. (Looking at him a moment.)
It will be a splendid night. How should
you like a moonlight drive ?

WINTERBOURNE. A moonlight drive
— with you ? It seems to me you mock
me !

MME. DE K., in the same tone. To
wander through the old streets, when
everything is still ; to see the solemn
monuments wrapped up in their shad-
ows ; to watch the great fountains turn
to silver in the moonshine — that has
always been a dream of mine ! We '11
try it to-night.

WINTERBOURNE, affected by her tone.
We '11 see the great square of St. Pe-
ter's ; we '11 dip our hands in the Foun-
tain of Trevi ! You must be strangely
beautiful in the moonlight.

MME. DE K. I don't know. You
shall see.

WINTERBOURNE. What will you do
with the Russian ambassador ?

MME. DE K. Send him about his busi-
ness.

WINTERBOURNE. An ambassador !
For me ?

MME. DE K. Don't force me to say
it ; I shall make you too vain.

WINTERBOURNE. I 'm not used to be-
ing treated so, and I can't help feeling
that it may be only a refinement of
cruelty.

MME. DE K. If I 've been cruel be-
fore, it was in self-defense. I have
been sorely troubled, and I don't pre-
tend to be consistent. Women are nev-
er so — especially women who love !

WINTERBOURNE. I ask no questions ;
I only thank you.

596

Daisy Miller.

[May,

MME. DE K. At seven o'clock, then.

WINTERBOURNE. You are very
strange ; but you are only the more
adorable. At seven o'clock !

MME. DE K. You are not to come
with me ; my carriage is there. (Aside,
as she leaves htm.) Ingenuous young
man !

WINTERBOURNE, alone, standing a
moment in thought. " Women are never
consistent — especially women who
love ! " I 've waited three years, but it
was worth waiting for ! ( Mrs. Walker
comes in with Daisy, without his seeing
them.)

SCENE XI. WINTERBOURNE, MRS. WALKER,
DAISY, then EUGENIO AND GIOVANELLI.

DAISY. Well, Mr. Winterbourne, is
that the way you look for my brother ?
You had better not come to dinner un-
less you find him.

WINTERBOURNE. I was just wonder-
ing which way I had better go.

MRS. WALKER. Mrs. Miller has
pressed us into the service, and she
wants every one to go in a different di-
rection. But I prefer (significantly) that
Daisy and I should stick together.

DAISY, happily. Oh, I don't care now.
You may take me anywhere !

WINTERBOURNE, aside. Poor little
thing ! And I 've got to disappoint
her ! (Aloud.) I suppose I had better
separate from you, then.

EUGENIO, arriving hastily. Mr. Ran-
dolph has been found — by Mr. Rever-
dy ! (To Daisy.) If I leave your mother
a moment, a misfortune is sure to arrive.

MRS. W., aside. The misfortune, in-
deed, is his being found ! • (To Daisy.)
If you will join your mother, I will go
back to my guests (seeing Giovanelli) —
whom Mr. Giovanelli has already de-
serted.

GIOVANELLI, coming in. Your guests
have deserted me, Madame. They have
left your house in a caravan : they could
n't stand your absence.

MRS. W., to Daisy. I have offended
all my friends for you, my dear. You
ought to be grateful.

DAISY. The reason they left was not
because you came away, but because
you did n't bring me back. They want-
ed to glare at me.

GIOVANELLI, with a little laugh. They
glared at me a good deal !

MRS. W. I '11 admit that they don't
like you. (To Daisy.) Let me place
you in your mother's hands.

EUGENIO, with importance. I will
take charge of my young lady, Madame.

WINTERBOURNE, to Daisy. Before
you go just let me say a word.

DAISY. As many as you please —
only you frighten me !

WINTERBOURNE, aside. I'm rather
frightened myself. (Aloud.) I 'm very
much afraid I shall not be able to dine
to-night.

DAISY. Not be able — after your
promise ?

WINTERBOURNE. It 's very true I
promised, and I 'm greatly ashamed.
But a most unexpected obstacle has
sprung up. I'm obliged to take back
my word — I 'm exceedingly sorry.

MRS. W., in a low voice to Winter-
bourne. Ah, my dear sir, you 're making
a mess !

DAISY. Your obstacle must have come
very quickly.

WINTERBOURNE. Only five minutes
ago.

EUGENIO, aside. The Katkoff 's as
good as her word !

DAISY, much affected. Well, Mr. Win-
terbourne, I can only say I too am very
sorry.

WINTERBOURNE. I '11 come the very
first evening I 'm free.

DAISY. I did n't want the first even-
ing ; I wanted this one.

WINTERBOURNE. I beg you to for-
give me. My own loss is greater than
yours.

GIOVANELLI, aside. My friend the
courier is a clever man !

1883.]

The Pennyroyal.

597

DAISY, thoughtful a moment. Well,
it's no matter.

MKS. W., to Eugenia. Please take
her to her mother.

EUGENIC. I must act at my conven-
ience, Madame !

DAISY. I 'm not going to my mother.
Mr. Giovanelli !

GIOVANELLI, with alacrity. Signo-
rina?

DAISY. Please to give me your arm.
We '11 go on with our walk.

MRS. W., coming between the two.
Now don't do anything dreadful !

DAISY, to Giovanelli. Give me your
arm. (Giovanelli passes behind Mrs.
Walker, and gives Daisy his arm on the
other side. She continues, with a sud-
den outbreak of passion.) I see nothing
dreadful but your cruel accusations ! If
you all attack me, I 've a friend to de-
fend me.

GIOVANELLI. I will defend you al-
ways, Signorina ! ~V

MRS. W. Are you going to take her
to that drinking-shop ?

DAISY. That 's our own affair. Come
away, come away !

WINTKRBOURNE. I have done you a
greater injury than I supposed.

DAISY. The injury was done when
you spoke to me that way !

WINTERBOURNE. When I spoke to
you ? I don't understand.

DAISY. Half an hour ago, when you
said I was so bad !

GIOVANELLI. If people insult you,
they will answer to me.

WINTERBOURNE, to Giovanelli. Don't
be rash, sir ! You will need all your
caution.

MRS. W. High words between gen-
tlemen, to crown the horrors ! ( To Eu-
genio.) Go straight and ask Mrs. Miller
if she consents.

EUGENIO, smiling. Mrs. Miller con-
sents to everything that I approve.

DAISY. Come away, Mr. Giovanelli !

GIOVANELLI, aside. I shall have to
take a cab ! ( They walk up the stage.)

MRS. W. Mercy on us ! She is lost !

WINTERBOURNE, sternly. Leave her
alone ! She only wants a pretext !

DAISY, who has heard him, turning as
she reaches the top of the stage, and look-
ing back a moment. Thank you, Mr.
Winterbourne ! (She goes out with Gio-
vanelli.)

MRS. W., to Winterbourne. Yes, my
dear sir, you 've done a pretty piece of
work !

EUGENIO, with his hands in his pock-
ets, as at the end of the first act, watching
the scene complacently. My little revenge
on the journey to the castle !

WINTERBOURNE, looking at his watch,
to himself. Well, / shall have that moon-
light drive !

Henry James, Jr.

THE PENNYROYAL.

I MARKED this morning, by the wood,

What way the pennyroyal grew,
Amid the waste of snow that stood

Deep on the path which well I knew ;
For every slender stem upreared

Its head within a little round,
In which no leaf nor blade appeared

Save its sweet self from the bare ground.
Its own warm heart had nestled there,

A sheltered home wherein to thrive,

598

Niagara Revisited.

[May,

Looking so stately, fresh, and fair,

And where all else was dead, alive.
There, in its charmed hold serene,

And strong and fragrant as it rose,
It made me think of my soul's queen,

Whom I from all the world had chose.
I thought of one whose heart of love,

Where'er she dwells, her circle finds ;
Amid life's frost, who soars above

The weariness of vacant minds ;
Who rules her little realm, content,

Not caring for a large applause,
Still finding in all hearts consent

To make her wishes more than laws.
Go, fragrant sprays, and touch her hand,

Or press her lip, if it may be ;
May her charmed circle soon expand

Enough to find there room for me.

Thomas Wittiam Parsons.

NIAGARA REVISITED, TWELVE YEARS AFTER THEIR WED-
DING JOURNEY.

LIFE had not used them ill in this
time, and the fairish treatment they
had received was not wholly unmerited.
The twelve years past had made them
older, as the years must in passing.
Basil was now forty-two, and his mous-
tache was well sprinkled with gray.
Isabel was thirty-nine, and the parting
of her hair had thinned and retreated ;
but she managed to give it an effect of
youthful abundance by combing it low
down upon her forehead, and rough-
ing it there with a wet brush. By gas-
light she was still very pretty ; she be-
lieved that she looked more interesting,
and she thought Basil's gray moustache
distinguished. He had grown stouter ;
he filled his double-breasted frock coat
compactly, and from time to time he
had the buttons set forward ; his hands
were rounded up on the backs, and he
no longer wore his old number of gloves
by two sizes ; no amount of powder or
manipulation fro>^ the young lady in

the shop would induce them to go on.
But this did not matter much now, for
he seldom wore gloves at all. He was
glad that the fashion suffered him to
spare in that direction; for he was
obliged to look somewhat carefully after
the out-goes. The insurance business
was not what it had been, and though
Basil had comfortably established him-
self in it, he had not made money. He
sometimes thought that he might have
done quite as well if he had gone into
literature ; but it was now too late.
They had not a very large family : they
had a boy of eleven, who " took after "
his father, and a girl of nine, who took
after the boy ; but with the American
feeling that their children must have
the best of everything, they made it an
expensive family, and they spent nearly
all Basil earned.

The narrowness of their means, as
well as their household cares, had kept
them from taking many long journeys.

1883.]

Niagara Revisited.

599

They passed their winters in Boston, and
their summers on the South Shore, —
cheaper than the North Shore, and near
enough for Basil to go up and down
every day for business ; but they prom-
ised themselves that some day they
would revisit certain points on their
wedding journey, and perhaps some-,
where find their lost second-youth on
the track. It was not that they cared
to be young, but they wished the chil-
dren to see them as they used to be when
they thought themselves very old ; and
one lovely afternoon in June they start-
ed for Niagara.

It had been very hot for several days,
but that morning the east wind came in,
and crisped the air till it seemed to rustle
like tinsel, and the sky was as sincerely
and solidly blue as if it had been chro-
moed. They felt that they were really
looking up into the roof of the world,
when they glanced at it ; but when an
old gentleman hastily kissed a young
woman, and commended her to the con-
ductor as being one who was going 'all
the way to San Francisco alone, and
then risked his life by stepping off the
moving train, the vastness of the great
American fact began to affect Isabel dis-
agreeably. " Is n't it too big, Basil ? "
she pleaded, peering timidly out of the
little municipal consciousness in which
she had been so long housed. • In that
seclusion she had suffered certain orig-
inal tendencies to increase upon her :
her nerves were more sensitive and
electrical; her apprehensions had mul-
tiplied quite beyond the ratio of the dan-
gers that beset her ; and Basil had
counted upon a tonic effect of the change
the journey would make in their daily
lives. She looked ruefully out of the
window at the familiar suburbs whisk-
ing out of sight, and the continental im-
mensity that advanced devouringly upon
her. But they had the best section in
the very centre of the sleeping-car, — she
drew what consolation she could from
the fact, — and the children's premature

demand for lunch helped her to forget
her anxieties ; they began to be hungry
as soon as the train started. She found
that she had not put up sandwiches
enough ; and when she told Basil that he
would have to get out somewhere and
buy some cold chicken, he asked her
what in the world had become of that
whole ham she had had boiled. It seemed
to him, he said, that there was enough
of it to subsist them to Niagara and
back ; and he went on as men do, while
Somerville vanished, and even Tufts
College, which assails the Bostonian
vision from every point of the compass,
was shut out by the curve at the foot of
the Belmont hills.

They had chosen the Hoosac Tunnel
route to Niagara, because, as Basil said,
their experience of travel had never yet
included a very long tunnel, and it
would be a signal fact by which the
children would always remember the
journey, if nothing else remarkable
happened to impress it upon them. In-
deed, they were so much concerned in
it that they began to ask when they
should come to this tunnel, even before
they began to ask for lunch ; and the
long time before they reached it was
not perceptibly shortened by Tom's
quarter-hourly consultations of his fa-
ther's watch.

It scarcely seemed to Basil and Isa-
bel that their fellow-passengers were
so interesting as their fellow-passen-
gers used to be in their former days of
travel. They were soberly dressed, and
were all of a middle-aged sobriety of
deportment, from which nothing salient
offered itself for conjecture or specula-
tion ; and there was little within the car
to take their minds from the brilliant
young world that flashed and sang by
them outside. The belated spring had
ripened, with its frequent rains, into the
perfection of early summer; the grass
was thicker and the foliage denser than
they had ever seen it before ; and when
they had run out into the hills beyond

600

Niagara Revisited.

[May,

Fitchburg, they saw the laurel in bloom.
It was everywhere in the woods, lurk-
ing like drifts among the underbrush,
and overflowing the tops, and stealing
down the hollows, of the railroad em-
bankments ; a snow of blossom flushed
with a mist of pink. Its shy, wild
beauty ceased whenever the train
stopped, but the orioles made up for its
absence with their singing in the vil-
lage trees about the stations ; and though
Fitchburg and Ayer's Junction and
Athol are not names that invoke his-
torical or romantic associations, the
hearts of Basil and Isabel began to stir
with the joy of travel before they had
passed these points. At the first Basil
got out to buy the cold chicken which
had been commanded, and he recognized
in the keeper of the railroad restaurant
their former conductor, who had been
warned by the spirits never to travel
without a flower of some sort carried
between his lips, and who had preserved
his own life and the lives of his passen-
gers for many years by this simple de-
vice. His presence lent the sponge
cake and rhubarb pie and baked beans
a supernatural interest, and reconciled
Basil to the toughness of the athletic
bird which the mystical ex-partner of
fate had sold him ; he justly reflected
that if he had heard the story of the
restaurateur's superstition in a foreign
land, or another time, he would have
found in it a certain poetry. It was
this willingness to find poetry in things
around them that kept his life and Isa-
bel's fresh, and they taught their chil-
dren the secret of their elixir. To be
sure, it was only a genre poetry, but it
was such as has always inspired English
art and song ; and now the whole family
enjoyed, as if it had been a passage
from Goldsmith or Wordsworth, the
flying sentiment of the railroad side.
There was a simple interior at one
place, — a small shanty, showing through
the open door a cook stove surmounted
by the evening coffee-pot, with a lazy

cat outstretched upon the floor in the
middle distance, and an old woman
standing just outside the threshold to
see the train go by, — which had an un-
rivaled value till they came to a super-
annuated car on a siding in the woods,
in which the railroad workmen board-
ed : some were lounging on the plat-
form and at the open windows, while
others were " washing up " for supper,
and the whole scene was full of holiday
ease and sylvan comradery that went to
the hearts of the sympathetic specta-
tors. Basil had lately been reading aloud
the delightful history of Rudder Grange,
and the children, who had made their
secret vows never to live in anything but
an old canal-boat when they grew up,
owned that there were fascinating pos-
sibilities in a worn-out railroad car.

The lovely Deerfield Valley began
to open on either hand, with smooth
stretches of the quiet river, and breadths
of grassy intervale and table-land ; the
elms grouped themselves like the trees
of a park ; here and there the nearer
hills broke away, and revealed long,
deep, chasmed hollows, full of golden
light and delicious shadow. There were
people rowing on the water ; and every
pretty town had some touch of pictur-
esqueness or pastoral charm to offer : at
Greenfield, there were children playing
in the new-mown hay along the railroad
embankment ; at Shelburne Falls, there
was a game of cricket going on (among
the English operatives of the cutlery
works, as Basil boldly asserted). They
looked down from their car-window on
a young lady swinging in a hammock, in
her door-yard, and on an old gentleman
hoeing his potatoes; a group of girls
waved their handkerchiefs to the passing
train, and a boy paused in weeding a
garden bed, — and probably denied that
he had paused, later. In the mean time
the golden haze along the mountain side
changed to a clear, pearly lustre, and the
quiet evening possessed the quiet land-
scape. They confessed to each other that

1883.]

Niagara Revisited.

601

it was all as sweet and beautiful as it
used to be ; and in fact they had seen
palaces, in other days, which did not give
them the pleasure they found in a wood-
cutter's shanty, losing itself among the
shadows in a solitude of the hills. The
tunnel, after this, was a gross and mate-
rial sensation ; but they joined the chil-
dren in trying to hold and keep it, and
Basil let the boy time it by his watch.
" Now," said Tom, when five minutes
were gone, " we are under the very cen-
tre of the mountain." But the tunnel
was like all accomplished facts, all hopes
fulfilled, valueless to the soul, and scarce-
ly appreciable to the sense ; and the
children emerged at North Adams with
but a mean opinion of that great feat of
engineering. Basil drew a pretty moral
from their experience. " If you rode
upon a comet you would be disappointed.
Take my advice, and never ride upon a
comet. I should n't object to your rid-
ing on a little meteor, — you would n't
expect much of that ; but I warn you
against comets ; they are as bad as tun-
nels."

The children thought this moral was
a joke at their expense, and as they
were a little sleepy they permitted them-
selves the luxury of feeling trifled with.
But they woke, refreshed and encour-
aged, from slumbers that had evidently
been unbroken, though they both pro-
tested that they had not slept a wink
the whole night, and gave themselves up
to wonder at the interminable levels of
Western New York over which the train
was running. The longing to come to
an edge, somewhere, that the New Eng-
land traveler experiences on this plain
was inarticulate with the children ; but
it breathed in the sigh with which Isa-
bel welcomed even the architectural in-
equalities of a city into which they drew
in the early morning. This city showed
to their weary eyes a noble stretch of
river, from the waters of which lofty
piles of buildings rose abruptly ; and
Isabel, being left to guess where they

were, could think of no other place so
picturesque as Rochester.

" Yes," said her husband ; " it is our
own Enchanted City. I wonder if that
unstinted hospitality is still dispensed by
the good head waiter at the hotel where
we stopped, to bridal parties who have
passed the ordeal of the haughty hotel
clerk. I wonder what has become of
that hotel clerk. Has he fallen, through
pride, to some lower level, or has he
bowed his arrogant spirit to the demands
of advancing civilization, and realized
that he is the servant, and not the mas-
ter, of the public ? I think I 've noticed,
since his time, a growing kindness in
hotel clerks ; or perhaps I have become
of a more impressive presence ; they
certainly unbend to me a little more. I
should like to go up to our hotel, and
try myself on our old enemy, if he is
still there. I can fancy how his shirt
front has expanded in these twelve years
past ; he has grown a little bald, after
the fashion of middle-aging hotel clerks,
but he parts his hair very much on one
side, and brushes it squarely across his
forehead to hide his loss ; the forefinger
that he touches that little snap-bell with,
when he does n't look at you, must be
quite pudgy now. Come, let us get out
and breakfast at Rochester ; they will
give us broiled white-fish ; and we can
show the children where Sam Patch
jumped over Genesee Falls, and " —

" No, no, Basil," cried his wife. " It
would be sacrilege ! All that is sacred
to those dear young days of ours ; and
I would n't think of trying to repeat it.
Our own ghosts would rise up in that
dining-room to reproach us for our in-
trusion ! Oh, perhaps we have done a
wicked thing in coming this journey!
We ought to have left the past alone ;
we shall only mar our memories of all
these beautiful places. Do you suppose
Buffalo can be as poetical as it was
theu ? Buffalo ! The name does n't in-
vite the Muse very much. Perhaps it
never was very poetical ! Oh, Basil, dear,

602

Niagara Revisited.

[May,

I 'm afraid we have only come to find
out that we were mistaken about every-
thing ! Let 's leave Rochester alone, at
any rate ! "

" I 'm not troubled ! We won't dis-
turb our dream of Rochester ; but I
don't despair of Buffalo. I 'm sure that
Buffalo will be all that our fancy ever
painted it. I believe in Buffalo."

" Well, well," murmured Isabel, " I
hope you 're right ; " and she put some
things together for leaving their car at
Buffalo, while they were still two hours
away.

When they reached a place where
the land mated its level with the level
of the lake, they ran into a wilderness
of railroad cars, hi a world where life
seemed to be operated solely by loco-
motives and their helpless minions. The
bellowing and bleating trains were ar-
riving in every direction, not only along
the ground floor of the plain, but state-
ly stretches of trestle-work, which curved
and extended across the plain, carried
them to and fro overhead. The travel-
ers owned that this railroad suburb had
its own impressiveness, and they said
that the trestle-work was as noble in ef-
fect as the lines of aqueduct that stalk
across the Roman Campagna. Perhaps
this was because they had not seen the
Campagna or its aqueducts for a great
while ; but they were so glad to find
themselves in the spirit of their former
journey again that they were amiable
to everything. When the children first
caught sight of the lake's delicious blue,
and cried out that it was lovelier than
the sea, they felt quite a local pride in
their preference. It was what Isabel
had said twelve years before, on first be-
holding the lake.

But they did not really see the lake
till they had taken the train for Niagara
Falls, after breakfasting in the depot,
where the children, used to the severe
native or the patronizing Irish ministra-
tions of Boston restaurants and hotels,
reveled for the first time in the affec-

tionate devotion of a black waiter. There
was already a ridiculous abundance and
variety on the table ; but this waiter
brought them strawberries and again
strawberries, and repeated plates of grid-
dle cakes with maple syrup ; and he hung
over the back of first one chair and then
another with an unselfish joy in the ap-
petites of the breakfasters which gave
Basil renewed hopes of his race. " Such
rapture in serving argues a largeness
of nature which will be recognized here-
after," he said, feeling about in his waist-
coat pocket for a quarter. It seemed a
pity to render the waiter's zeal retro-
actively interested, but in view of the
fact that he possibly expected the quar-
ter, there was nothing else to do ; and
by a mysterious stroke of gratitude the
waiter delivered them into the hands of
a friend, who took another quarter from
them for carrying their bags and wraps
to the train. This second retainer ap-
proved their admiration of the aesthetic
forms and colors of the depot colonnade ;
and being asked if that were the depot
whose roof had fallen in some years be-
fore, he proudly replied that it was.

" There were a great many killed,
were n't there ? " asked Basil, with sym-
pathetic satisfaction in the disaster.
The porter seemed humiliated ; he con-
fessed the mortifying truth that the loss
of life was small, but he recovered a
just self-respect in adding, " If the roof
had fallen in five minutes sooner, it
would have killed about three hundred
people."

Basil had promised the children a
sight of the Rapids before they reached
the Falls, and they held him rigidly ac-
countable from the moment they entered
the train, and began to run out of the
city between the river and the canal.
He attempted a diversion with the canal
boats, and tried to bring forward the
subject of Rudder Grange in that con-
nection. They said that the canal boats
were splendid, but they were looking for
the Rapids now ; and they declined to

1883.]

Niagara Revisited.

603

be interested in a window in one of the
boats, which Basil said was just like the
window that the Rudder Granger and
the boarder had popped Pomona out of
when they took her for a burglar.

" You spoil those children, Basil,"
said his wife, as they clambered over
him, and clamored for the Rapids.

" At present I 'm giving them an ob-
ject-lesson in patience and self-denial ;
they are experiencing the fact that they
can't have the Rapids till they get to
them, and probably they'll be disap-
pointed in them when they arrive."

In fact, they valued the Rapids very
little more than the Hoosac Tunnel, when
they came in sight of them, at last ; and
Basil had some question in his own mind
whether the Rapids had not dwindled
since his former visit. He did not
breathe this doubt to Isabel, however,
and she arrived at the Falls with un-
abated expectations. They were going
to spend only half a day there ; and
they turned into the station, away from
the phalanx of omnibuses, when they
dismounted from their train. They
seemed, as before, to be the only pas-
sengers who had arrived, and they found
an abundant choice of carriages waiting
in the street, outside the station. The
Niagara hackman may once have been a
predatory and very rampant animal, but
public opinion, long expressed through
the public prints, has reduced him to
silence and meekness. Apparently, he
may not so much as beckon with his
whip to the arriving wayfarer ; it is cer-
tain that he cannot cross the pavement
to the station door ; and Basil, inviting
one of them to negotiation, was himself
required by the attendant policeman to
step out to the curbstone, and complete
his transaction there. It was an impres-
sive illustration of the power of a free
press, but upon the whole Basil found
the effect melancholy ; it had the sadden-
ing quality which inheres in every sort
of perfection. The hackman, reduced
to entire order, appealed to his compas-

sion, and he had not the heart to beat
him down from his moderate first de-
mand, as perhaps he ought to have done.

They drove directly to the cataract,
and found themselves in the pretty grove
beside the American Fall, and in the air
whose dampness was as familiar as if
they had breathed it all their childhood.
It was full now of the fragrance of some
sort of wild blossom ; and again they
had that old, entrancing sense of the
mingled awfulness and loveliness of the
great spectacle. This sylvan perfume,
the gayety of the sunshine, the mildness
of the breeze that stirred the leaves
overhead, aud the bird-singing that made
itself heard amid the roar of the Rapids
and the solemn incessant plunge of the
cataract, moved their hearts, and made
them children with the boy and girl, who
stood rapt for a moment and then broke
into joyful wonder. They could sympa-
thize with the ardor with which Tom
longed to tempt fate at the brink of the
river, and over the tops of the parapets
which have been built along the edge of
the precipice, and they equally entered
into the terror with which Bella screamed
at his suicidal zeal. They joined her in
restraining him ; they reduced him to a
beggarly account of half a dozen stones,
flung into the Rapids at not less than
ten paces from the brink ; and they would
not let him toss the smallest pebble over
the parapet, though he laughed to scorn
the notion that anybody should be hurt
by them below.

It seemed to them that the triviality
of man in the surroundings of the Falls
had increased with the lapse of time.
There were more booths and bazars, and
more colored feather fans with whole
birds spitted in the centres ; and there
was an offensive array of blue and green
and yellow glasses on the shore, through
which you were expected to look at the
Falls gratis. They missed the simple
dignity of the blanching Indian maids,
who used to squat about on the grass,
with their laps full of moccasins and pin-

604

Niagara Revisited.

[May,

cushions. But, as of old, the photogra-
pher came out of his saloon, and invited
them to pose for a family group ; repre-
senting that the light and the spray were
singularly propitious, and that every-
thing in nature invited them to be taken.
Basil put him off gently, for the sake of
the time when he had refused to be
photographed in a bridal group, and
took refuge from him in the long low
building from which you descend to the
foot of the cataract.

The grove beside the American Fall
has been inclosed, and named Prospect
Park, by a company which exacts half a
dollar for admittance, and then makes
you free of all its wonders and conven-
iences, for which you once had to pay
severally. This is well enough ; but
formerly you could refuse to go down
the inclined tramway, and now you can-
not, without feeling that you have failed
to get your money's worth. It was in
this illogical spirit of economy that Ba-
sil invited his family to the descent ; but
Isabel shook her head. " No, you go
with the children," she said, "and I
will stay here, till you get back ; " her
agonized countenance added, " and pray
for you ; " and Basil took his children on'
either side of him, and rambled down
the terrible descent with much of the
excitement that attends travel in an open
horse-car. When he stepped out of the
car he felt that increase of courage
which comes to every man after safely
passing through danger. He resolved to
brave the mists and slippery stones at
the foot of the Fall ; and he would have
plunged at once into this fresh peril, if
he had not been prevented by the Pros-
pect Park Company. This ingenious
association has built a large tunnel-like
shed quite to the water's edge, so that
you cannot view the cataract as you
once could, at a reasonable remoteness,
but must emerge from the building into
a storm of spray. The roof of the tun-
nel is painted with a lively effect in
party-colored stripes, and is lettered

" The Shadow of the Rock," so that you
take it at first, to be an appeal to your
aesthetic sense; but the real object of
the company is not apparent till you
put your head out into the tempest,
when you agree with the nearest guide
— and one is always very near — that
you had better have an oil-skin dress, as
Basil did. He told the guide that he
did not wish to go under the Fall, and
the guide confidentially admitted that
there was no fun in that, any way ; and
in the mean time he equipped him and
his children for their foray into the mist.
When they issued forth, under their
friend's leadership, Basil felt that, with
his children clinging to each hand, he
looked like some sort of animal with its
young, and, though not unsocial by na-
ture, he was glad to be among strangers
for the time. They climbed hither and
thither over the rocks, and lifted their
streaming faces for the views which the
guide pointed out ; and in a rift of the
spray they really caught one glorious
glimpse of the whole sweep of the Fall.
The next instant the spray swirled back,
and they were glad to turn for a sight
of the rainbow, lying in a circle on the
rocks as quietly and naturally as if that
had been the habit of rainbows ever
since the flood. This was all there was
to be done, and they streamed back into
the tunnel, where they disrobed in the
face of a menacing placard, which an-
nounced that the hire of a guide and a
dress for going under the Fall was one
dollar.

" Will they make you pay a dollar
for each of us, papa ? " asked Tom, fear-
fully.

'• Oh, pooh, no ! " returned Basil ; " we
have n't been under the Fall." But he
sought out the proprietor with a trem-
bling heart. The proprietor was a man
of severely logical mind : he said that
the charge would be three dollars, for
they had had the use of the dresses and
the guide just the same as if they had
gone under the Fall ; and he refused to

1883.]

Niagara Revisited.

605

recognize anything misleading in the
dressing-room placard. In fine, he left
Basil without a leg to stand upon. It
was not so much the three dollars as the
sense of having been swindled that vexed
him ; and he instantly resolved not to
share his annoyance with Isabel. Why,
indeed, should he put that burden upon ,
her ? If she were none the wiser, she
would be none the poorer ; and he ought
to be willing to deny himself her sym-
pathy for the sake of sparing her need-
less pain.

He met her at the top of the inclined
tramway with a face of exemplary un-
consciousness, and he listened with her
to the tale their coachman told, as they
sat in a pretty arbor looking out on the
Rapids, of a Frenchman and his wife.
This Frenchman had returned, one morn-
ing, from a stroll on Goat Island, and re-
ported with much apparent concern that
his wife had fallen into the water, and
been carried over the Fall. It was so
natural for a man to grieve for the loss
of his wife, under the peculiar circum-
stances, that every one condoled with
the widower ; but when, a few days later,
her body was found, and the distracted
husband refused to come back from
New York to her funeral, there was a
general regret that he had not been ar-
rested. A flash of conviction illumed
the whole fact to Basil's guilty conscious-
ness : this unhappy Frenchman had paid
a dollar for the use of an oil-skin suit
at the foot of the Fall, and had been
ashamed to confess the swindle to his
wife, till, in a moment of remorse and
madness, he shouted the fact into her
ear, and then —

Basil looked at the mother of his
children, and registered a vow that if he
got away from Niagara without being
forced to a similar excess he would con-
fess his guilt to Isabel at the very first
act of spendthrift profusion she commit-
ted. The guide pointed out the rock in
the Rapids to which Avery had clung
for twenty-four hours before he was car-

ried over the Falls, and to the morbid
fancy of the deceitful husband Isabel's
bonnet ribbons seemed to flutter from
the pointed reef. He could endure the
pretty arbor no longer. " Come, chil-
dren ! " he cried, with a wild, unnatural
gayety ; " let us go to Goat Island, and
see the Bridge to the Three Sisters, that
your mother was afraid to walk back on
after she had crossed it."

" For shame, Basil ! " retorted Isabel.
" You know it was you who were afraid
of that bridge."

The children, who knew the story by
heart, laughed with their father at the
monstrous pretension ; and his simulated
hilarity only increased upon paying a
toll of two dollars at the Goat Island
bridge.

" What extortion ! " cried Isabel, with
an indignation that secretly unnerved
him. He trembled upon the verge of
confession ; but he had finally the moral
force to resist. He suffered her to com-
pute the cost of their stop at Niagara
without allowing those three dollars to
enter into her calculation ; he even be-
gan to think what justificative extrava-
gance he could tempt her to. He sug-
gested the purchase of local bricabrac;
he asked her if she would not like to
dine at the International, for old times'
sake. But she answered, with disheart-
ening virtue, that they must not think of
such a thing, after what they had spent
already. Nothing, perhaps, marked the
confirmed husband in Basil more than
these hidden fears and reluctances.

In the mean time Isabel ignorantly
abandoned herself to the charm of the
place, which she found unimpaired, in
spite of the reported ravages of improve-
ment about Niagara. Goat Island was
still the sylvan solitude of twelve years
ago, haunted by even fewer nymphs and
dryads than of old. The air was full of
the perfume that scented it at Prospect
Park; the leaves showered them with
shade and sun, as they drove along. " If
it were not for the children here," she

606

Niagara Revisited.

[May,

said, " I should think that our first drive
on Goat Island had never ended."

She sighed a little, and Basil leaned
forward and took her hand in his. *' It
never has ended ; it 's the same drive ;
only we are younger now, and enjoy it
more." It always touched him when
Isabel was sentimental about the past,
for the years had tended to make her
rather more seriously maternal towards
him than towards the other children ; and
he recognized that these fond reminis-
cences were the expression of the girl-
hood still lurking deep within her heart.

She shook her head. " No, but I 'm
willing the children should be young in
our place. It 's only fair they should
have their turn."

She remained in the carriage, while
Basil visited the various points of view
on Luna Island with the boy and girl.
A boy is probably of considerable in-
terest to himself, and a man looks back
at his own boyhood with some pathos.
But in his actuality a boy has very lit-
tle to commend him to the toleration of
other human beings. Tom was very
well, as boys go ; but now his contribu-
tion to the common enjoyment was to
venture as near as possible to all peril-
ous edges ; to throw stones into the
water, and to make as if to throw them
over precipices on the people below ; to
pepper his father with questions, and to
collect cumbrous mementos of the veg-
etable and mineral kingdoms. He kept
the carriage waiting a good five min-
utes, while he could cut his initials on a
hand-rail. " You can come back and
see 'em on your bridal tower," said the
driver. Isabel gave a little start, as if
she had almost thought of something
she was trying to think of.

They occasionally met ladies driving,
and sometimes they encountered a cou-
ple making a tour of the island on foot.
But none of these people were young,
and Basil reported that the Three Sis-
ters were inhabited only by persons of
like maturity ; even a group of people

who were eating lunch to the music of
the shouting Rapids, on the outer edge
of the last Sister, were no younger, ap-
parently.

Isabel did not get out of the carriage
to verify his report ; she preferred to re-
fute his story of her former panic on
those islands by remaining serenely
seated while he visited them. She thus
lost a superb novelty which nature has
lately added to the wonders of this Fall,
in that place at the edge of the great
Horse Shoe where the rock has fallen
and left a peculiarly shaped chasm :
through this the spray leaps up from
below, and flashes a hundred feet into
the air, in rocket-like jets and points,
and then breaks and dissolves away in
the pyrotechnic curves of a perpetual
Fourth of July. Basil said something
like this in celebrating the display, with
the purpose of rendering her loss more
poignant ; but she replied, with tranquil
piety, that she would rather keep her
Niagara unchanged; and she declared
that, as she understood him, there must
be something rather cheap and con-
scious in the new feature. She ap-
proved, however, of the change that had
removed that foolish little Terrapin
Tower from the brink on which it stood,
and she confessed that she could have
enjoyed a little variety in the stories
the driver told them of the Indian burial-
ground on the island : they were exact-
ly the stories she and Basil had heard
twelve years before, and the ill-starred
goats, from which the island took its
name, perished once more in his narra-
tive.

Under the influence of his romances
our travelers began to find the whole
scene hackneyedj and they were glad to
part from him a little sooner than they
had bargained to do. They strolled
about the anomalous village on foot, and
once more marveled at the paucity of
travel and the enormity of the local
preparation. Surely the hotels are no-
where else in the world so large ! Could

1883.]

Niagara Revisited.

607

there ever have been visitors enough at
Niagara to fill them ? They were built
so big for some good reason, no doubt ;
but it is no more apparent than why all
these magnificent equipages are waiting
about the empty streets for the people
who never come to hire them.

" It seems to me that I don't see so
many strangers here as I used," Basil
had suggested to their driver.

" Oh, they have n't commenced com-
ing yet," he replied, with hardy cheer-
fulness, and pretended that they were
plenty enough in July and August.

They went to dine at the modest
restaurant of a colored man, who adver-
tised a table d'hote dinner on a board at
his door ; and they put their misgivings
to him, which seemed to grieve him, and
he contended that Niagara was as pros-
perous and as much resorted to as ever.
In fact, they observed that their regret
for the supposed decline of the Falls as
a summer resort was nowhere popular
in the village, and they desisted in their
offers of sympathy, after their rebuff
from the restaurateur.

Basil got his family away to the sta-
tion after dinner, and left them there,
while he walked down the village street,
for a closer inspection of the hotels.
At the door of the largest a pair of chil-
dren sported in the solitude, as fearless-
ly as the birds on Selkirk's island ; look-
ing into the hotel, he saw a few porters
and call-boys seated in statuesque re-
pose against the wall, while the clerk
pined in dreamless inactivity behind the
register ; some deserted ladies flitted

through the door of the parlor at the
side. He recalled the evening of his
former visit, when he and Isabel had
met the Ellisons in that parlor, and it
seemed, in the retrospect, a scene of the
wildest gayety. He turned for consola-
tion into the barber's shop, where he
found himself the only customer, and
no busy sound of " Next " greeted his
ear. But the barber, like all the rest,
said that Niagara was not unusually

empty ; and he came out feeling bewil-
dered and defrauded. Surely the agent
of the boats which descend the Rapids
of the St. Lawrence must be frank, if
Basil went to him and pretended that
he was going to buy a ticket. But a
.glance at the agent's sign showed Basil
- that the agent, with his brave jollity
of manner and his impressive " Good-
morning," had passed away from the
deceits of travel, and that he was now
inherited by his widow, who in turn was
absent, and temporarily represented by
their son. The boy, in supplying Basil
with an advertisement of the line, made
a specious show of haste, as if there
were a long queue of tourists waiting
behind him to be served with tickets.
Perhaps there was, indeed, a spectral
line there, but Basil was the only tour-
ist present in the flesh, and he shivered
in his isolation, and fled with the adver-
tisement in his hand. Isabel met him
at the door of the station with a fright-
ened face.

" Basil," she cried, " I have found
out what the trouble is ! Where are the
brides ? "

He took her outstretched hands in
his, and passing one of them through
his arm walked with her apart from the
children, who were examining at the
news-man's booth the moccasins and the
birch-bark bricabrac of the Irish aborig-
ines, and the cups and vases of Niagara
spar imported from Devonshire.

" My dear," he said, " there are no
brides ; everybody was married twelve
years ago, and the brides are middle-
aged mothers of families now, and don't
come to Niagara if they are wise."

" Yes," she desolately asserted, " that
is so! Something has been hanging
over me ever since we came, and sud-
denly I realized that it was the absence
of the brides. But — but — Down at
the hotels — Did n't you see anything
bridal there? When the omnibuses
arrived, was there no burst of minstrel-
sy ? Was there " —

608

Niagara Revisited.

[May,

She could not go on, but sank nerve-
lessly into the nearest seat.

" Perhaps," said Basil, dreamily re-
garding the contest of Tom and Bella
for a newly-purchased paper of sour
cherries, and helplessly forecasting in
his remoter mind the probable conse-
quences, " there were both brides and
minstrelsy at the hotel, if I had only
had the eyes to see and the ears to hear.
In this world, my dear, we are always
of our own time, and we live amid con-
temporary things. I dare say there
were middle-aged people at Niagara
when we were here before, but we did
not meet them, nor they us. I dare
say that the place is now swarming
with bridal couples, and it is because
they are invisible and inaudible to us
that it seems such a howling wilderness.
But the hotel clerks and the restaura-
teurs and the hackmen know them, and
that is the reason why they receive with
surprise and even offense our sympa-
thy for their loneliness. Do you sup-
pose, Isabel, that if you were to lay your
head on my shoulder, in a bridal man-
ner, it would do anything to bring us
en rapport with that lost bridal world
again ? "

Isabel caught away her hand. " Bas-
il," she cried, " it would be disgusting !
I wouldn't do it for the world — not
even for that world. I saw one middle-
aged couple on Goat Island, while you
were down at the Cave of the Winds,
or somewhere, with the children. They
were sitting on some steps, he a step
below her, and he seemed to want to
put his head on her knee ; but I gazed
at him sternly, and he did n't dare. We
should look like them, if we yielded to
any outburst of affection. Don't you
think we should look like them ? "

" I don't know," said Basil. " You are
certainly a little wrinkled, my dear."

" And you are very fat, Basil."

They glanced at each other with a
flash of resentment, and then they both
laughed. " We could n't look young if

we quarreled a week," he said. " We
had better content ourselves with feeling
young, as I hope we shall do if we live
to be ninety. It will be the loss of oth-
ers if they don't see our bloom upon ua.
Shall I get you a paper of cherries, Isa-
bel? The children seem to be enjoy-
ing them."

Isabel sprang upon her offspring with
a cry of despair. " Oh, what shall I
do ? Now we shall not have a wink of
sleep with them to-night. Where is that
nux ? " She hunted for the medicine in
her bag, and the children submitted ; for
they had eaten all the cherries, and they
took their medicine without a murmur.
" I wonder at your letting them eat the
sour things, Basil," said their mother,
when the children had run off to the
news-stand again.

" I wonder that you left me to see
what they were doing," promptly retort-
ed their father.

" It was your nonsense about the
brides," said Isabel ; " and I think this
has been a lesson to us. Don't let them
get anything else to eat, dearest."

" They are safe ; they have no more
money. They are frugally confining
themselves to the admiration of the
Japanese bows and arrows yonder. Why
have our Indians taken to making Jap-
anese bows and arrows ? "

Isabel despised the small pleasantry.
" Then you saw nobody at the hotel ? "
she asked.

" Not even the Ellisons," said Basil.

"Ah, yes," said Isabel; "that was
where we met them. How long ago it
seems ! And poor little Kitty ! I won-
der what has become of them ? But
I 'm glad they 're not here. That 's
what makes you realize your age : meet-
ing the same people in the same place a
great while after, and seeing how old
they 've grown. I don't think I could
bear to see Kitty Ellison again. I 'm
glad she did n't come to visit us in Bos-
ton, though, after what happened, she
could n't, poor thing ! I wonder if she 's

1883.]

Niagara Revisited.

609

ever regretted her breaking with him in
the way she did. It 's a very painful
thing to think of, — such an inconclu-
sive conclusion ; it always seemed as if
they ought to meet again, somewhere."

" I don't believe she ever wished it."

" A man can't tell what a woman
wishes."

" Well, neither can a woman," re-
turned Basil, lightly.

His wife remained serious. " It was
a very fine point, — a very little thing to
reject a man for. I felt that when I
first read her letter about it."

Basil yawned. " I don't believe I
ever knew just what the point was."

" Oh yes, you did ; but you forget
everything. You know that they met
two Boston ladies just after they were
engaged, and she believed that he did n't
introduce her because he was ashamed
of her countrified appearance before
them."

" It was a pretty fine point," said
Basil, and he laughed provokingly.

" He might not have meant to ignore
her," answered Isabel thoughtfully; "he
might have chosen not to introduce her
because he felt too proud of her to sub-
ject her to any possible misappreciation
from them. You might have looked at
it in that way."

" Why did n't you look at it in that
way ? You advised her against giving
him another chance. Why did you ? "

" Why ? " repeated Isabel, absently.
" Oh, a woman does n't judge a man by
what he does, but by what he is! I
knew that if she dismissed him it was
because she never really had trusted or
could trust his love ; and I thought she
had better not make another trial."

" Well, very possibly you were right.
At any rate, you have the consolation
of knowing that it's too late to help
it now."

" Yes, it 's too late," said Isabel ; and
her thoughts went back to her meeting
with the young girl whom she had liked
so much, and whose after history had

VOL. LI. — NO. 307. 39

interested her so painfully. It seemed
to her a hard world that could come to
nothing better than that for the girl
whom she had seen in her first glimpse
of it that night. Where was she now ?
What had become of her ? If she had
married that man, would she have been
any happier? Marriage was not the
poetic dream of perfect union that a girl
imagines it ; she herself had found that
out. It was a state of trial, of proba-
tion ; it was an ordeal, not an ecstasy.
If she and Basil had broken each other's
hearts and parted, would not the frag-
ments of their lives have been on a much
finer, much higher plane ? Had not the
commonplace, every-day experiences of
marriage vulgarized them both ? To be
sure, there were the children ; but if
they had never had the children, she
would never have missed them ; and if
Basil had, for example, died just before
they were married — She started from
this wicked reverie, and ran towards her
husband, whose broad, honest back, with
no visible neck or shirt-collar, was turned
towards her, as he stood, with his head
thrown up, studying a time-table on the
wall ; she passed her arm convulsively
through his, and pulled him away.

"It 's time to be getting our bags out
to the train, Basil ! Come, Bella ! Tom,
we 're going ! "

The children reluctantly turned from
the news-man's trumpery ; and they all
went out to the track, and took seats on
the benches under the colonnade. While
they waited, the train for Buffalo drew
in, and they remained watching it till it
started. In the last car that passed
them, when it was fairly under way, a
face looked full at Isabel from one of
the windows. In that moment of aston-
ishment she forgot to observe whether
it was sad or glad ; she only saw, or be-
lieved she saw, the light of recognition
dawn into its eyes, and then it was gone.

" Basil ! " she cried, " stop the train !
That was Kitty Ellison ! "

" Oh no, it was n't," said Basil, easily,

610

Life.

[May,

"It looked like her; but it looked at
least ten years older."

" Why, of course it was ! We 're all
ten years older," returned his wife in
such indignation at his stupidity that she
neglected to insist upon his stopping the
train, which was rapidly diminishing in
the perspective.

He declared it was only a fancied re-
semblance ; she contended that this was
in the neighborhood of Eriecreek, and it
must be Kitty ; and thus one of their
most inveterate disagreements began.

Their own train drew into the depot,
and they disputed upon the fact in ques-
tion till they entered on the passage of
the Suspension Bridge. Then Basil

rose and called the children to his side.
On the left hand, far up the river, the
great Fall shows, with its mists at its
foot and its rainbow on its brow, as si-
lent and still as if it were vastly painted
there; and below the bridge, on the
right, leap the Rapids in the narrow
gorge, like seas on a rocky shore. " Look
on both sides, now," he said to the chil-
dren. " Isabel, you must see this ! "

Isabel had been preparing for the
passage of this bridge ever since she left
Boston. " Never ! " she exclaimed. She
instantly closed her eyes, and hid her
face in her handkerchief. Thanks to
this precaution of hers, the train crossed
the bridge in perfect safety.

William Dean Howells.

LIFE.

SPRING'S breath is in the air: the dreaming Earth,

Long wrapped in deep repose,
Beneath the snows,

Waiting the season's birth,
Stirs in her sleep;

Still her warm heart doth keep
Sweet memories of love's departed days;

Yet does her bosom thrill

Beneath its mantle chill,
Owning the magic of her lover's gaze ;

For now her lord, the Sun,

Afar his course hath run,
And comes to wake her with his kindling rays.

Ah ! *t is no idle word,

In song and saga heard,
That tells the tale of love's awakening power.

The Northmen's myth sublime,

The poet's tender rhyme,
Breathe kindred truths, that fit the passing hour.

Poet or Viking, heart of flesh or flame !

That heart's own history

Revealed life's mystery ;
To Nature's child the nature secret came.

And who shall say

That in the heart of clay,

1883.] Life. 611

Throbbing beneath our feet, no spirit dwells ?

Or that yon star,

Pulsating from afar,
Naught save a blind mechanic forco impels?

O ye who deeply con great Nature's lore,
(Yet backward read,)

Do ye not miss, indeed,
The mightiest truth in all that mighty store?

Ye deftly read that hieroglyphic page,

And downward trace

The footsteps of the race,
Until ye find the glory of our age,

Its thought sublime,

Lost in primeval slime.

Ye .hold the substance, but the vital flame

Eludes your grasp;

Spirit ye cannot clasp :
O brave truth-seekers, can ye therefore claim

That love and trust

Are accidents of dust ?

Though ye may scan

The unfolding powers of man,
And mark the height to which his thought may soar,

How can ye tell
t What inner life may dwell

Even in the slime that paves the ocean floor ?

"God's spirit moved above the lifeless waves,

And life was born : "

'T is thus creation's morn
Has shone on us across the centuries' graves.
To-day the lamp of ancient faith burns dim ;

New lights arise,

And flood the eastern skies,
And echoes far great Nature's primal hymn.

Life is, and was, and shall be, ever still,

The regnant soul ;

While suns and planets roll,
Shall bend obedient matter to its will ;

Day after day

Shall veil itself in clay,
And ever thus its spiral track ascend :

Each shell downcast

More perfect than the last,
Each step more potent for the crowning end.

612

Colonialism in the United States.

'Tis thus I fain would read the ancient writ

Of ages gone,

Graven on crumbling stone ;
At the great mother's feet, I thus would sit,
And list the story of her morning time ;

And as I heard,

Each retrospective word
Should inly glow with prophecies sublime ;
Life is, and was, and shall be, evermore.

Oh, deep and vast

The records of the past,
But measureless the promises in store.

& E. G.

[May,

COLONIALISM IN THE UNITED STATES.

NOTHING is more interesting than to
trace, through many years and almost
endless wanderings and changes, the for-
tunes of an idea or habit of thought.
The subject is a much - neglected one,
even in these days of sweeping and mi-
nute investigation, because its inherent
difficulties are so great, and the data so
multifarious, confused, and sometimes
contradictory, that absolute proof and
smooth presentation seem well-nigh im-
possible. Yet the ideas, the opinions,
even the prejudices of men, impalpable
and indefinite as they are, have at times
a wonderful vitality and force. The
conditions under which they have been
developed may change, or pass utterly
away, while they, mere shadowy crea-
tions of the mind, will endure for gener-
ations. Long after the world to which
it belonged has vanished, a habit of
thought will live on, indelibly imprinted
upon a race or nation, like the foot-
print of some extinct beast or bird
upon a piece of stone. The solemn big-
otry of the Spaniard is the fossil trace
of the fierce struggle of eight hundred
years with the Moors. The theory of
the Lord's day peculiar to the English
race all over the world is the deeply
branded sign of the brief reign of Pu-

ritanism. A certain fashion of thought
prevailed half a century ago ; another is
popular to-day. There is a resemblance
between the two, the existence of both is
recognized, and both, without much con-
sideration, are set down as sporadic and
independent. We have all heard of those
rivers which are suddenly lost to sight
in the bowels of the earth, and, coming
as suddenly again to the surface, flow
onward to the sea as before. Despite
the vanishing, it is always the same
river. Or the wandering stream may
turn aside into fresh fields, and, with
new shapes and colors, seem to have no
connection with the waters of its source
or those which finally mingle with the
sea. It is exactly so with some kinds
of ideas and modes of thought, — those
that are wholly distinct from the count-
less host of opinions which perish ut-
terly, and are forgotten in a few years,
or which are still ofteuer the creatures
of a day, or an hour, and die by myriads,
like the short-lived insects whose course
is run between sunrise and sunset.

The purpose of this article is to dis-
cuss briefly certain opinions which be-
long to the more enduring class. They
are sufficiently well known. When they
are mentioned every one will recognize

1883.]

Colonialism in the United States.

618

them, and will admit their existence at
the period to which they belong. The
point which is overlooked is their con-
nection and relationship. They all have
the same pedigree, a marked resem-
blance to each other, and they derive
their descent from a common ancestor.
My intention is merely to trace the,
pedigree and narrate the history of this
numerous and interesting family. I
have entitled them collectively Coloni-
alism in the United States, a description
which is more comprehensive than satis-
factory or exact.

In the year of grace 1776, we pub-
lished to the world our Declaration of
Independence. Six years later, Eng-
land assented to the separation. These
are tolerably familiar facts. That we
have been striving ever since to make
that independence real and complete,
and that the work is not yet entirely
finished, are not, perhaps, equally obvi-
ous truisms. The hard fighting by which
we severed our connection with the
mother country was in many ways the
least difficult part of the work of build-
ing up a great and independent nation.
The decision of the sword may be rude,
but it is pretty sure to be speedy.
Armed revolution is quick. A South
American, in the exercise of his consti-
tutional privileges, will rush into the
street and declare a revolution in five
minutes. A Frenchman will pull down
one government to-day, and set up an-
other to-morrow, besides giving new
names to all the principal streets of
Paris during the intervening night. We
English-speaking people do not move
quite so fast. We come more slowly
to the boiling point; we are not fond
of violent changes, and when we make
them we consume a considerable time
iu doing it. Still, at the best, a revolu-
tion by force of arms is an affair of a
few years. We broke with England in
1776, we had won our victory m 1782,
and by the year 1789 we had a new na-
tional government in operation.

But if we are slower than other peo-
ple in the conduct of revolutions, owing
largely to our love of dogged fighting
and inability to recognize defeat, we
are infinitely more deliberate than our
neighbors in altering, or even modify-
ing, our ideas and modes of thought.
The slow mind and ingrained conserva-
tism of the English race are the chief
causes of their marvelous political and
material success. After much obstinate
fighting in the field, they have carried
through the few revolutions which they
have seen fit to engage in ; but when
they have undertaken to extend these
revolutions to the domain of thought,
there has arisen always a spirit of stub-
born and elusive resistance, which has
seemed to set every effort, and even
time itself, at defiance.

By the treaty of Paris our indepen-
dence was acknowledged, and in name
and theory was complete. We then
entered upon the second stage in the
conflict, that of ideas and opinions.
True to our race and to our instincts,
and with a wisdom which is one of the
glories of our history, wo carefully
preserved the principles and forms of
government and law, which traced an
unbroken descent and growth from the
days of the Saxon invasion. But while
we kept so much that was of inestima-
ble worth, we also retained, inevitably,
of course, something which it would
have been well for us to have shaken
off together with the rule of George III.
and the British Parliament. This was
tho colonial spirit in our modes of
thought.

The word "colonial " is preferable to
the more obvious word "provincial," be-
cause the former is absolute, while the
latter, by usage, has become in a great
measure relative. We are very apt to
call an opinion, a custom, or a neighbor
" provincial," because we do not like the
person or thing in question ; and in this
way the true value of the word has of
late been frittered away. But colonial-

614

Colonialism in the United States.

ism is susceptible of accurate definition.
A colony is an offshoot from a parent
stock, and its chief characteristic is de-
pendence. In exact proportion as de-
pendence lessens, the colony changes its
nature and advances toward national
existence. For a hundred and fifty
years we were English colonies. Just
before the Revolution, in everything but
the affairs of practical government, the
precise point at which the break came,
we were still colonies in the fullest sense
of the term. Except in matters of food
and drink, and of the wealth which we
won from the soil and the ocean, we
were in a state of complete material
and intellectual dependence. Every lux-
ury, and almost every manufactured ar-
ticle, came to us across the water. Our
politics, except those which were purely
local, were the politics of England, and
so also were our foreign relations. Our
books, our art, our authors, our com-
merce, were all English ; and this was
true of our colleges, our professions,
our learning, our fashions, and our man-
ners. There is no need here to go into
the details which show the absolute su-
premacy of the colonial spirit and our
entire intellectual dependence. When
we sought to originate, we simply imi-
tated. The conditions of our life could
not be overcome.

The universal prevalence of the colo-
nial spirit is shown most strongly by
one great exception, just as the flash of
lightning makes us realize the intense
darkness of a thunder-storm at night.
In the midst of the provincial and bar-
ren waste of our intellectual existence in
the eighteenth century there stands out
in sharp relief the luminous genius of
Franklin. It is true that Franklin was
cosmopolitan in thought, that his name
and fame and achievements in science
and literature belonged to mankind ; but
he was all this because he was genu-
inely and intensely American. His au-
dacity, his fe- \:ty, his adaptability, are
all character oi .> of America, and not

[May,

of an English colony. He moved with
an easy and assured step, with a poise
and balance which nothing could shake,
among the great men of the world , he
stood before kings and princes and court-
iers, unmoved and unawed. He was
strongly averse to breaking with Eng-
land ; but when the war came he was the
one man who could go forth and repre-
sent to Europe the new nationality with-
out a touch of the colonist about him.
He met them all, great ministers and
great sovereigns, on a common ground,
as if the colonies of yesterday had been
an independent nation for generations.
His autobiography is the corner-stone,
the first great work of American liter-
ature. The plain, direct style, almost
worthy of Swift, the homely, forcible
language, the humor, the observation,
the knowledge of men, the worldly phi-
losophy of that remarkable book, are
fan- :liar to all ; but its best and, consid-
ering its date, its most extraordinary
quality is its perfect originality. It is
American in feeling, without any taint
of English colonialism. Look at Frank-
lin in the midst of that excellent Penn-
sylvanian community ; compare him and
his genius with his surrounding, and
you get a better idea of what the colo-
nial spirit was in America in those days,
and how thoroughly men were saturated
with it, than in any other way.

In general terms it may be said that,
outside of politics and the still latent
democratic tendencies, the entire intel-
lectual life of the colonists was drawn
from England, and that to the mother
country they looked for everything per-
taining to the domain of thought. The
colonists in the eighteenth century had,
in a word, a thoroughly and deeply rooted
habit of mental dependence. The man-
ner in which we have gradually shaken
off this dependence, retaining of the past
only that which is good, constitutes the
history of the decline of the colonial
spirit in the United States. As this
spirit existed everywhere at the outset,

1883.]

Colonialism in the United States.

615

and brooded over the whole realm of in-
tellect, we can in most cases trace its
history best in the recurring and suc-
cessful revolts against it, which, break-
ing out now here, now there, have at last
brought it so near to final extinction.

In 1789, after the seven years of dis-
order and demoralization which followed
the close of the war, the United States
government was established. Every visi-
ble political tie which bound us to Eng-
land had been severed, and we were ap-
parently entirely independent. But the
shackles of the colonial spirit, which had
been forging and welding for a century
and a half, were still heavy upon us, and
fettered all our mental action. The
work of making our independence real
and genuine was but half done, and the
first struggle of the new national spirit
with that of the colonial past was in the
field of politics, and occupied twenty-five
years before victory was finally obtained.
We still felt that our fortunes were in-
extricably interwoven with those of Eu-
rope. We could not realize that what
affected us nearly when we were a part
of the British Empire no longer touched
us as an independent nation. We can
best understand how strong this feeling
was by the effect which was produced
here by the French Revolution. That
tremendous convulsion, it may be said,
was necessarily felt everywhere ; but
one much greater might take place in
Europe to-day without producing here
anything at all resembling the excite-
ment of 1790. We had already achieved
far more than the French Revolution
sought or accomplished. We had gone
much further on the democratic road than
any other nation. Yet worthy men in
the United States put on cockades and
liberty caps, erected trees of liberty,
called each other " Citizen Brown " and
" Citizen Smith," drank confusion to ty-
rants, and sang the wild songs of Paris.
All this was done in a country where
every privilege and artificial distinction
had been swept away, and where the

government was the creation of the peo-
ple themselves. These ravings and sym-
bols had a terrific reality in Paris and
in Europe, and so, like colonists, we felt
that they must have a meaning to us,
and that the fate and fortunes of our
ally were our fate and fortunes. A part
of the people engaged in an imitation
that became here the shallowest non-
sense, while the other portion of the
community, which was hostile to French
ideas, took up and propagated the no-
tion that the welfare of civilized society
lay with England and with English
opinions. Thus we had two great par-
ties in the United States, working them-
selves up to white heat over the politics
of England and France. The first
heavy blow to the influence of foreign
politics was Washington's proclamation
of neutrality. It seems a very simple
and obvious thing now, this policy of
non-interference in the affairs of Eu-
rope which that proclamation inaugu-
rated, and yet at the time men marveled
at the step, and thought it very strange.
Parties divided over it. People could
not conceive how we could keep clear
of the great stream of European events.
One side disliked the proclamation as
hostile to France, while the other ap-
proved it for the same reason. Even
the Secretary of State, Thomas Jeffer-
son, one of the most representative men
of American democracy, resisted the
neutrality policy in the genuine spirit of
the colonist. Yet Washington's proc-
lamation was simply the sequel to the
Declaration of Independence. It mere-
ly amounted to saying, We have created
a new nation, and England not only
cannot govern us, but English and Eu-
ropean politics are none of our business,
and we propose to be independent of
them and not meddle in them. The
neutrality policy of Washington's ad-
ministration was a great advance toward
independence and a severe blow to colo-
nialism in politics. Washington himself
exerted a powerful influence against the

616

Colonialism in the United /States.

[May,

colonial spirit. The principle of nation-
ality, then just entering upon its long
struggle with state rights, was in its
very nature hostile to everything colo-
nial ; and Washington, despite his Vir-
ginian traditions, was thoroughly imbued
with the national spirit. He believed
himself, and insensibly impressed his
belief upon the people, that true nation-
ality could only be obtained by holding
ourselves aloof from the conflicts and
the politics of the Old World. Then, too,
his splendid personal dignity, which still
holds us silent and respectful after the
lapse of a hundred years, communicated
itself to his office, and thence to the na-
tion of which he was the representative.
The colonial spirit withered away in the
presence of Washington.

The only thorough-going nationalist
among the leaders of that time was
Alexander Hamilton. He was not born
in the States, and was therefore free
from all local influences ; and he was by
nature imperious in temper and impe-
rial in his views. The guiding principle
of that great man's public career was
the advancement of American nation-
ality. He was called " British " Ham-
ilton by the very men who wished to
throw us into the arms of the French
republic, because he was. wedded to the
principles and the forms of constitutional
English government, and sought to pre-
serve them here adapted to new condi-
tions. He desired to put our political
inheritance to its proper use, but this was
as far removed from the colonial spirit
as possible. Instead of being " British,"
Hamilton's intense eagerness for a
strong national government made him
the deadliest foe of the colonial spirit,
which he did more to strangle and
crush out than any other man of his time.
The objects at which he aimed were
continental supremacy, and complete in-
dependence in business, politics, and in-
dustry. In all these departments he
saw the belittling effects of dependence,
and so he assailed it by his reports and

by his whole policy, foreign and domes-
tic. So much of his work as he carried
through had a far-reaching effect, and
did a great deal to weaken the colonial
spirit. But the strength of that spirit
was best shown in the hostility or in-
difference which was displayed toward
his projects. The great cause of oppo-
sition to Hamilton's financial policy pro-
ceeded, undoubtedly, from state jealousy
of the central government ; but the re-
sistance to his foreign policy arose from
the colonial ignorance which could not
understand the real purpose of neutral-
ity, and which thought that Hamilton
was simply and stupidly endeavoring
to force us toward England as against
France.

Washington, Hamilton, and John
Adams, despite his New England prej-
udices, all did much while they were in
power, as the heads of the federalist par-
ty, to cherish and increase national self-
respect, and thereby eradicate colonialism
from our politics. The lull in Europe,
after the fall of the federalists led to a
truce in the contests over foreign af-
fairs in the United States, but with the
renewal of war the old conflict broke
out. The years from 1806 to 1812 are
among the least creditable in our history.
The federalists ceased to be a national
party. The fierce reaction against the
French Revolution drove them into an
unreasoning admiration of England.
They looked to England for the salva-
tion of civilized society. Their chief
interest centred in English politics, and
the resources of England formed the
subject of their thoughts and studies,
and furnished the theme of conversation
at their dinner tables. It was just as
bad on the other side. The republicans
still clung to their affection for France,
notwithstanding the despotism of the
empire. They regarded Napoleon with
reverential awe, and shivered at the
idea of plunging into hostilities with
any one. The foreign policy of Jeffer-
son was that of a thorough colonist.

1883.]

Colonialism in the United States.

617

He shrank with horror from war. He
would have had us confine ourselves to
agriculture, and to our flocks and herds,
because our commerce, the commerce
of a nation, was something with which
other powers were likely to interfere.
He would have had us exist in a state
of complete commercial and industrial,
dependence, and allow England to carry
for us and manufacture for us, as she
did when we were colonies, weighed
down by the clauses of the navigation
acts. His plans of resistance did not
extend beyond the old colonial scheme
of non-importation and non-intercourse
agreements. Read the bitter debates
in Congress of those years, and you
find them filled with nothing but the
politics of other nations. All the talk
is saturated with colonial feeling. Even
the names of opprobrium which the
hostile parties applied to each other
were borrowed. The republicans called
the federalists " tories " and a " British
faction," while the federalists retorted
by stigmatizing their opponents as jaco-
bins. During these sorry years, however,
the last in which our politics bore the co-
lonial character, a new party was grow-
ing up, which may be called the nation-
al party, not as distinguished from the
party of state rights, but as the opposi-
tion to colonial ideas. This new move-
ment was headed and rendered illustri-
ous by such men as Henry Clay, John
Quincy Adams, the brilliant group from
South Carolina, comprising Calhoun,
Langdon Cheves, and William Lowndes,
and at a later period by Daniel Webster.
Clay and the South Carolinians were
the first to push forward the resistance
to colonialism. Their policy was crude
and ill defined. They struck out blindly
against the evil influence which, as they
felt, was choking the current of national
life. They were convinced that, to be
truly independent, the United States
must fight somebody. Who that some-
body should be was a secondary ques-
tion. Of all the nations which had been

kicking and cuffing us, England was, on
the whole, the most arrogant, and offen-
sive ; and so the young nationalists
dragged the country into the war of
1812. We were wonderfully successful
at sea, but in other respects this war
was neither very prosperous nor very
creditable. The treaty of Ghent was
absolutely silent as to the objects for
which we had expressly declared war.
But the real purpose of the war was
gained, despite the silent and almost
meaningless treaty which concluded it.
We had proved to the world and to
ourselves that we existed as a nation.
We had demonstrated the fact that we
had ceased to be colonies. We had
torn up colonialism in our public affairs
by the roots, and we had crushed out
the colonial spirit in our politics. After
the war of 1812 our politics might be
good, bad, or indifferent, but they were
our own politics, and not those of Eu-
rope. The wretched colonial spirit
which had belittled and warped them
for twenty-five years had perished ut-
terly, and with the treaty of Ghent it
was buried so deeply that not even its
ghost has since crossed our political
pathway.

Besides being the field where the
first battle with the colonial spirit was
fought out, politics then offered almost
the only intellectual interest of the
country, outside of commerce, which was
still largely dependent in character, and
very different in its scope from the great
mercantile combinations of to-day. Re-
ligious controversy was of the past, and
except in New England, where the lib-
eral revolt against Calvinism was in
progress, there was no great interest in
theological questions. When the con-
stitution went into operation the profes-
sions of law and medicine were in their
infancy. There was no literature, no
art, n.o science, none of the multifarious
interests which now divide and absorb
the intellectual energies of the commu-
nity. In the quarter of a century which

618

Colonialism in the United States.

[May,

closed with the treaty of Ghent we can
trace the development of the legal and
medical professions, and their advance
towards independence and originality.
But iu the literary efforts of the time
we see the colonial spirit displayed more
strongly than anywhere else, and in ap-
parently undiminished vigor.

Our first literature was political, and
sprang from the discussions incident to
the adoption of the constitution. This
literature was concerned with our own
affairs, and aimed at the foundation of
a nation. It was therefore fresh, vig-
orous, often learned, and thoroughly
American in tone. Its masterpiece
was the Federalist, which marks an era
in the history of constitutional discus-
sion, and which was the conception of
the thoroughly national mind of Ham-
ilton. After the new government was
established, our political literature, like
our politics, drifted back to provincial-
ism of thought, and was absorbed in the
affairs of Europe ; but the first advance
on the road to literary independence was
made by the early literature of the con-
stitution.

To this period, between the years
1789 and 1815, Washington Irving, our
first eminent name in literature, belongs.
This is not the place to enter into au
analysis of Irving's genius, but it may
be fairly said that while in feeling he
was a thorough American, in literature
he was a cosmopolitan. His easy style,
the tinge of romance, and the mingling
of the story-teller and the antiquarian
remind us of his great contemporary,
Walter Scott. In his quiet humor and
gentle satire, we taste the flavor of Ad-
dison. In the charming legends with
which he has consecrated the beauties of
the Hudson River valley, and thrown
over that beautiful region the warm light
of his imagination, we find the genuine
love of country and of home. In like
manner we perceive his historical taste
and his patriotism in the last work of
his life, the biograp) of his great name-

sake. But he wrought as well with the
romance of Spain and of England. He
was too great to be colonial ; he did
not find enough food for his imagina-
tion in the America of that day to be
thoroughly American. He stands apart,
a great gift from America to English
literature, but not a type of American
literature itself. He had imitators and
friends, whom it has been the fashion to
call a school, but he founded no school,
and died as he had lived, alone. He
broke through the narrow trammels of
colonialism himself, but the colonial
spirit hung just as heavily upon the
feeble literature about him.

In that same period there flourished
another literary man, who was far re-
moved in every way from the brilliant
editor of Diedrich Knickerbocker, but
who illustrated by his struggle with co-
lonialism the strength of that influence
far better than Irving, who soared so
easily above it. Noah Webster, poor,
sturdy, independent, with a rude but
surprising knowledge of philology, re-
volted in every nerve and fibre of his
being against the enervating influence of
the colonial past. The spirit of nation-
ality had entered into his soul. He felt
that the nation which he saw growing
up about him was too great to take its
orthography or its pronunciation blindly
and obediently from the mother laud.
It was a new country and a new nation,
and Webster determined that so far as
in him lay it should have linguistic in-
dependence. It was an odd idea, but it
came from his heart, and his national
feeling found natural expression in the
study of language, to which he devoted
his life. He went into open rebellion
against British tradition. He was
snubbed, laughed at, and abused. He
was regarded as little better than a mad-
man to dare to set himself up against
Johnson and his successors. But the
hardheaded New Englander pressed on,
and finally brought out his dictionary, —
a great work, which has fitly preserved

1883.]

Colonialism in the United States.

619

his name. His knowledge was crude,
his general theory mistaken ; his system
of changes has not stood the test of
time, and was in itself contradictory ;
but the stuhborn battle which he fought
for literary independence and the hard
blows he struck should never be for-
gotten, while the odds against which he,
contended and the opposition he aroused
are admirable illustrations of the over-
powering influence of the colonial spirit
in our early literature.

What the state of our literature was,
what the feelings of our few literary
men, and what the spirit with which
Webster did battle all come out in a few
lines written by an English poet. We
can see everything as by a sudden flash
of light, arid we do not need to look
further to understand the condition of
American literature in the early years
of the century. In the waste of bar-
barism called the United States, the only
oasis discovered by the delicate sensi-
bilities of Mr. Thomas Moore was in
the society of Mr. Joseph Dennie, a
clever editor and essayist, and his little
circle of friends in Philadelphia. The
lines commonly quoted in this connec-
tion are those in the epistle to Spencer,
beginning, —

" Yet, yet, forgive me, O ye sacred few,

Whom late by Delaware's green banks I knew ; "

which describe the poet's feelings to-
ward America, and his delight in the
society of Mr. Dennie and his friends.
But the feelings and opinions of Moore
are of no moment. The really impor-
tant passage describes not the author,
but what Dennie and his companions
said and thought, and has in this way
historical if not poetic value. The lines
occur among those addressed to the
Boston frigate when the author was
leaving Halifax: —

" Farewell to the few I have left with regret;

May they sometimes recall, what I cannot forget,

The delfgfct of those evenings, — too brief a de-
light,

When in converse and song we have stol'n on the
night;

When they 've asked me the manners, the mind,

or the mien
Of some bard I had known or some chief I had

seen,
Whose glory, though distant, they long had

adored,
Whose name had oft hallowed the wine-cup they

poured.

And still, as with sympathy humble but true
I have told of each bright son of fame all I

knew,
They have listened, and sighed that the powerful

stream

Of America's empire should pass like a dream,
Without leaving one relic of genius, to say
How sublime was the tide which had vanished

away ! ' '

The evils apprehended by these excel-
lent gentlemen are much more strongly
set forth in the previous epistle, but
here we catch sight of the men them-
selves. There they sit adoring English-
men, and eagerly inquiring about them
of the gracious Mr. Moore, while they
are dolefully sighing that the empire of
America is to pass away and leave no
relic of genius. In their small way
they were doing what they could toward
such a consummation. It may be said
that this frame of mind was perfectly
natural under the circumstances ; but it
is not to the purpose to inquire into
causes and motives ; it is enough to state
the fact. Here was a set of men of
more than average talents and educa-
tion; not geniuses, like Irving, but clever
men, forming one of the two or three
small groups of literary men in the
United States. They come before us as
true provincials, steeped to the eyes in
colonialism, and they fairly represent
the condition of American literature at
that time. They were slaves to the
colonial spirit, which bowed before Eng-
land and Europe. They have not left
a name or a line which is remembered
or read, except to serve as a historical
illustration, and they will ultimately find
their fit resting-place in the foot-notes
of the historian.

With the close of the English war
the United States entered upon the sec-
ond stage of their development. The
new era, which began in 1815, lasted un-

620

Colonialism in the United States.

[May,

til 1861. It was a period of growth
not simply in the direction of a vast ma-
terial prosperity and a rapidly increas-
ing population, but in national sentiment,
which made itself felt everywhere.
Wherever we turn during those years,
we discover a steady decline of the co-
lonial influence. Politics were wholly
national and independent. The law was
illustrated by great names, which take
high rank in the annals of English juris-
prudence. Medicine began to have its
schools, and to show practitioners who
no longer looked across the sea for in-
spiration. The Monroe doctrine bore
witness to the strong foreign policy of
an independent people. The tariff gave
evidence of the eager desire for indus-
trial independence, which found practical
expression in the fast -growing native
manufactures. Internal improvements
were a sign of the general faith and in-
terest in the development of the national
resources. The rapid multiplication of
inventions resulted from the natural
genius of America in that important
field, where it took almost at once a lead-
ing place. Science began to have a
home at our seats of learning, and in
the land of Franklin it found a con-
genial soil.

But the colonial spirit, cast out from
our politics and fast disappearing from
business and the professions, still clung
closely to literature, which must always
be the best and last expression of a na-
tional mode of thought. In the admira-
ble Life of Cooper, just published, by
Professor Lounsbury, the condition of
our literature in 1820 is described so
vividly and so exactly that it cannot be
improved. It is as follows : —

" The intellectual dependence of
America upon England at that period
is something that it is now hard to un-
derstand. Political supremacy had been
cast off, but the supremacy of opinion
remained absolutely unshaken. Of cre-
ative literature there was then very lit-
tle of any value produced ; and to that

little a foreign stamp was necessary,
to give currency outside of the petty cir-
cle in which it t originated. There was
slight encouragement for the author to
write ; there was still less for the pub-
lisher to print. It was, indeed, a posi-
tive injury, ordinarily, to the commercial
credit of a bookseller to bring out a vol-
ume of poetry or of prose fiction which
had been written by an American ; for
it was almost certain to fail to pay ex-
penses. A sort of critical literature was
struggling, or rather gasping, for a life
that was hardly worth living ; for its
most marked characteristic was its ser-
vile deference to English judgment and
dread of English censure. It requires a
painful and penitential examination of
the reviews of the period to comprehend
the utter abasement of mind with which
the men of that day accepted the foreign
estimate upon works written here, which
had been read by themselves, but which
it was clear had not been read by the
critics whose opinions they echoed. Even
the meekness with which they submitted
to the most depreciatory estimate of
themselves was outdone by the anxiety
with which they hurried to assure the
world that they, the most cultivated of
the American race, did not presume to
have so high an opinion of the writings
of some one of their countrymen as had
been expressed by enthusiasts, whose
patriotism had proved too much for
their discernment. Never was any class
so eager to free itself from charges that
imputed to it the presumption of hold-
ing independent views of its own. Out
of the intellectual character of many of
those who at that day pretended to be
the representatives of the highest educa-
tion in this country, it almost seemed
that the element of manliness had been
wholly eliminated ; and that, along with
its sturdy democracy, whom no obsta-
cles thwarted and no dangers daunted,
the New World was also to give birth
to a race of literary cowards and para-
sites."

1883.]

Colonialism in the United States.

621

The case is vigorously stated, but is
not at all overcharged. Far stronger, in-
deed, than Professor Lounsbury's state-
ment is the commentary furnished by
Cooper's first book. This novel, now
utterly forgotten, was entitled Precau-
tion. Its scene was laid wholly in Eng-
land; its characters were drawn from,
English society, chiefly from the aris-
tocracy of that favored land ; its conven-
tional phrases were all English ; worst
and most extraordinary of all, it pro-
fessed to be by an English author, and
was received on that theory without sus-
picion. In such a guise did the most
popular of American novelists and one
of the most eminent writers of fiction
of the day first appear before his coun-
trymen and the world. If this were
not so pitiable, it would be utterly ludi-
crous. The most melancholy feature
of the case is that Cooper was not iu
the least to blame, and no oue found
fault with him. His action was regard-
ed by every one as a matter of course.
In other words, the first step of an
American entering upon a literary ca-
reer was to pretend to be an English-
man, hi order that he might win the ap-
proval, not of Englishmen, but of his
own countrymen.

If this preposterous state of public
opinion had been a mere passing fashion
it would hardly be worth recording.
But it represented a fixed and settled
habit of mind, and is only one example
of a long series of similar phenomena.
We look back to the years preceding
the Revolution, and there we find this
mental condition flourishing and strong.
At that time it hardly calls for com-
ment, because it was so perfectly natural.
It is when we find such opinions exist-
ing in the year 1820 that we are con-
scious of their significance. They be-
long to colonists, and they are uttered by
the citizens of a great and independent
state. The sorriest part of it is that
these views were chiefly held by the best
educated portion of the community. The

great body of the American people, who
had cast out the colonial spirit from
their politics and their business, and
were fast destroying it in the professions,
was sound and true. The parasitic lit-
erature of that day makes the boastful
and rhetorical patriotism then in the
exuberance of youth seem actually no-
ble and fine, because, with all its faults,
it was honest, genuine, and inspired by
a real love of country.

Yet it was during this period, between
the years 1815 and 1861, that we began
to have a literature of our own, and one
which any people could take pride in.
Cooper himself was the pioneer. In his
second novel, The Spy, he threw off
the wretched spirit of the colonist.
The popularity of this story broke down
all barriers, and it was read everywhere
with delight and approbation. The
chief cause of the difference between
the fate of this novel and that of its
predecessor lies in the fact that The Spy
was of genuine native origin. Cooper
loved and knew American scenery and
life. He understood certain phases of
American character on the prairie and
the ocean, and his genius was no longer
smothered by the dead colonialism of
the past. The Spy, and those of Coo-
per's novels which belong to the same
class, have lived and will live, and cer-
tain American characters which he drew
will likewise endure. He might have
struggled all his life in the limbo of in-
tellectual servitude to which Moore's
friends consigned themselves, and no one
would have cared for him then or re-
membered him now. But with all his
foibles, Cooper was inspired by an in-
tense patriotism, and he had a bold, vig-
orous, aggressive nature. He freed his

* OO

talents at a stroke, and giving them full
play attained at once a world-wide repu-
tation, which no man of colonial mind
could ever have dreamed of reaching.
Yet his countrymen, long before his
days of strife and unpopularity, seem to
have taken singularly little patriotic

622

Colonialism in the United States.

[May,

pride in his achievements, and the well
bred and well educated shuddered to
hear him called the " American Scott ; "
not because they thought it inappropri-
ate and misapplied, but because it was a
piece of irreverent audacity toward a
great light of English literature.

Cooper was the first, after the close
of the war of 1812, to cast off the colo-
nial spirit and take up his position as a
representative of genuine American lit-
erature ; but he soon had companions,
who carried still higher the standard
which he had raised. To this period,
which closed with our civil war, belong
many of the names which are to-day
among those most cherished by English-
speaking people everywhere. We see
the national spirit in Longfellow turn-
ing from the themes of the Old World
to those of the New. In the beautiful
creations of the sensitive and delicate
imagination of Hawthorne, the greatest
genius America has as yet produced,
there was a new tone and a rich orig-
inality. The same influence may be de-
tected in the wild fancies of Poe. We
find a like native strength in the spark-
ling verses of Holmes, in the pure and
gentle poetry of Whittier, and in the
firm, vigorous work of Lowell. A new
leader of independent thought arises in
Emerson, destined to achieve a world-
wide reputation. A new school of his-
torians appears, adorned by the talents
of Prescott, Bancroft, and Motley.
Many of these distinguished men were
far removed in point of time from the
beginning of the new era. They all,
however, belong to and are the result of
the national movement, which began its
onward march as soon as we had shaken
ourselves clear from the influence of the
colonial spirit upon our public affairs by
the struggle which culminated in " Mr.
Madison's war," as the federalists loved
to call it.

These successes in the various de-
partments of intellectual activity were
all due to an instinctive revolt against

provincialism. But, nevertheless, the
old and time-worn spirit which made
Cooper pretend to be an Englishman in
1820 was very strong, and continued to
impede our progress toward intellectual
independence. We find it clinging to
the lesser and weaker forms of literature.
We see it in fashion and society and in
habits of. thought, but we find the best
proof of its vitality in our sensitiveness
to foreign opinion. This was a univer-
sal failing. The body of the people
showed it by bitter resentment ; the cul-
tivated and highly educated by abject
submission and deprecation, or by cries
of pain.

As was natural to a very young na-
tion, just awakened to its future destiny,
just conscious of its still undeveloped
strength, there was at this time a vast
amount of exuberant self-satisfaction, of
cheap rhetoric, and of noisy self-glorifi-
cation. There was a corresponding readi-
ness to take offense at the unfavorable
opinion of outsiders, and yet an eager
curiosity to hear foreign opinions of any
kind. We were, of course, very open to
satire and attack. We were young, un-
developed, with a crude, almost raw civ-
ilization, and a great inclination to be
boastful and conceited. Our English
cousins, who had failed to conquer us,
bore us no good will, and were quite
ready to take all the revenge which
books of travel and criticism could af-
ford. It is to these years that the Mar-
ryats and Trollopes, the authors of Cyril
Thornton and of the American Notes,
belong. Most of these productions are
quite forgotten now. The only ones
which are still read, probably, are the
American Notes and Martin Chuzzle-
wit : the former preserved by the fame
of the author, the latter by its own merit
as a novel. There was abundant truth
in what Dickens said, to take the great
novelist as the type of this group of for-
eign critics. It was an age in which
Elijah Pogram and Jefferson Brick
flourished rankly. It is also true that

1883.]

Colonialism in the United States.

623

all that Dickens wrote was poisoned by
his utter ingratitude, and that to describe
the United States as populated by noth-
ing but Bricks and Pograms was one-
sided and malicious, and not true to
facts. But the truth or the falsehood, the
value or the worthlessness, of these criti-
cisms are not of importance now. The
striking fact, and the one we are in
search of, is the manner in which we
bore these censures when they appeared.
We can appreciate contemporary feel-
ing at that time only by delving in much-
forgotten literature ; and even then we
can hardly comprehend fully what we
find, so completely has our habit of mind
altered since those days. We received
these strictures with a howl of anguish
and a scream of mortified vanity. We
winced and writhed, and were almost
ready to go to war, because English
travelers and writers abused us. It is
usual now to refer these ebullitions of
feeling to our youth, probably from an-
alogy with the youth of an individual.
But the analogy is misleading. Sensi-
tiveness to foreign opinion is not char-
acteristic of a youthful nation, or at
least we have no cases to prove it, and
in the absence of proof the theory falls.
On the other hand, this excessive and
almost morbid sensibility is a character-
istic of provincial, colonial or depend-
ent states, especially in regard to the
mother country. We raged and cried
out against adverse English criticism,
whether it was true or false, just or un-
just. We paid it this unnatural atten-
tion because the spirit of the colonist
still lurked in our hearts and affected
our mode of thought. We were advan-
cing: fast on the road to intellectual and

moral independence, but we were still
far from the goal.

This second period in our history
closed, as has been said, with the strug-
gle generated by a great moral question,
which finally absorbed all the thoughts
and passions- of the people, and culmi-
nated in a terrible civil war. We fought

to preserve the integrity of the Union ;
we fought for our national life, and na-
tionality prevailed. The grandeur of
the conflict, the dreadful suffering which
it caused for the sake of principle, the
uprising of a great people, elevated and
ennobled the whole country. The flood-
gates were opened, and the tremendous
tide of national feeling swept away every
meaner emotion. We came out of the
battle, after an experience which brought
a sudden maturity with it, stronger than
ever, but much graver and soberer than
before. We came out self-poised and
self-reliant, with a true sense of dignity
and of our national greatness, which
years of peaceful development could not
have given us. The sensitiveness to
foreign opinion which had been the
marked feature of our mental condition
before the war had disappeared. It had
vanished in the smoke of battle, as the
colonial spirit disappeared from our pol-
itics in the war of 1812. Englishmen
and Frenchmen have come and gone,
and written their impressions of us, and
made little splashes in the current of
every-day topics, and have been forgot-
ten. Just now it is the fashion for
every Englishman who visits this coun-
try, particularly if he is a man of any
note, to go home and tell the world what
he thinks of us. Some of these writers
do this without taking the trouble to
come here first. Sometimes we read
what they have to say out of curiosity.
We accept what is true, whether unpal-
atable or not, philosophically, and smile
at what is false. The general feeling is
one of wholesome indifference. We no
longer see salvation and happiness in
favorable foreign opinion, or misery in
the reverse. The colonial spirit in this
direction also is practically extinct.

But while this is true of the mass
of the American people whose mental
health is good, and is also true of the
great body of sound public opinion in
the United States, it has some marked
exceptions ; and these exceptions consti-

624

Colonialism in the United States.

[May,

tute the lingering remains of the colo-
nial spirit, which survives, and shows it-
self here and there even at the present
day, with a strange vitality.

In the years which followed the close
of the war, it seemed as if colonialism
had been utterly extinguished. Un-
fortunately, this was not the case. The
multiplication of great fortunes, the
growth of a class rich by inheritance,
and the improvement in methods of
travel and communication all tended to
carry great numbers of Americans to
Europe. The luxurious fancies which
were born of increased wealth, and the
intellectual tastes which were developed
by the advance of the higher education,
and to which an old civilization offers
peculiar advantages and attractions,
combined to breed in many persons a
love of foreign life and foreign manners.
These tendencies and opportunities have
revived the dying spirit of colonialism.
We see it most strongly in the leisure
class, which is gradually increasing in
this country. During the miserable as-
cendency of the Second Empire, a band
of these persons formed what was known
as the " American colony," in Paris.
Perhaps they still exist ; if so, their ex-
istence is now less flagrant and more
decent. When they were notorious they
presented the melancholy spectacle of
Americans admiring and aping the man-
ners, habits, and vices of another nation,
when that nation was bent and corrupt-
ed by the cheap, meretricious, and rot-
ten system of the third Napoleon. They
furnished a very offensive example of
peculiarly mean colonialism. This par-
ticular phase has departed, but the same
sort of Americans are, unfortunateljr,
still common in Europe. I do not
mean, of course, those persons who go
abroad to buy social consideration, nor
the women who trade on their beauty
or wits to gain a brief and dishonoring
notoriety. These last are merely ad-
venturers and adventuresses, who are
common to all nations. The people re-

ferred to here form that large class, com-
prising many excellent men and women,
no doubt, who pass their lives in Eu-
rope, mourning over the inferiority of
their own country, and who become thor-
oughly denationalized. They do not
change into Frenchmen or Englishmen,
but are simply disfigured and deformed
Americans.

We find the same wretched habit of
thought in certain groups among the
rich and idle people of our great East-
ern cities, especially in New York, be-
cause it is the metropolis. These groups
are for the most part made up of young
men, who despise everything American,
and admire everything English. They
talk and dress and walk and ride in cer-
tain ways, because the English do these
things in those ways. They hold their
own country in contempt, and lament
the hard fate of their birth. They try to
think that they form an aristocracy, and
become at once ludicrous and despica-
ble. The virtues which have made the
upper classes in England what they are,
and which take them into public affairs,
into literature and politics, are forgot-
ten. Anglo-Americans imitate the vices
or the follies of their models, and stop
there. If all this were merely a passing
fashion, an attack of Anglo-mania or of
Gallo-mania, of which there have been
instances enough everywhere, it would
be of no consequence. But it is a re-
currence of the old and deep-seated
malady of colonialism. It is a lineal
descendant of the old colonial family.
The features are somewhat dim now,
and the vitality is low, but there is no
mistaking the hereditary qualities. The
people who thus despise their own land,
and ape English manners, natter them-
selves with being cosmopolitans, when
in truth they are genuine colonists,
petty and provincial to the last degree.

We see a like tendency in the same
limited but marked way in our litera-
ture. Some of our cleverest and best
fiction has been largely devoted to study-

1883.]

Colonialism in the United States.

625

ing the character of our countrymen
abroad ; that is, either denationalized
Americans, or Americans with a foreign
background. At times this species of lit-
erature resolves itself into an agonized
effort to show how foreigners regard us,
and to point out the defects which jar
upon foreign susceptibilities even while -
it satirizes the denationalized American.
The endeavor to turn ourselves inside
out in order to appreciate the trivialities
of life which impress foreigners un-
pleasantly is very unprofitable exertion,
and the Europeanized American is not
worth either study or satire. Writings
of this kind, again, are intended to be
cosmopolitan in tone, and to evince a
knowledge of the world ; they are in
reality steeped in colonialism. We can-
not but regret the influence of a spirit
which wastes fine powers of mind and
keen perceptions in a fruitless striving
and a morbid craving to know how we
appear to foreigners, and to show what
they think of us.

We see also men and women of talent
going abroad to study art and remain-
ing there. The atmosphere of Europe
is more congenial to such pursuits, and
the struggle as nothing to what must
be encountered here. But when it leads
to an abandonment of America, the re-
sult is wholly vain. Sometimes these
people become tolerably successful
French artists, but their nationality and
individuality have departed, and with
them originality and force. The admi-
rable school of etching, which has arisen
in New York ; the beautiful work of
American wood-engraving ; the Chelsea
tiles of Lowe, which have carried the
highest prizes at English exhibitions ;
the silver of Tiffany, specimens of which
were bought by the Japanese commis-
sioners at the Paris Exposition, are all
strong, genuine work, and are doing
more for American art, and for all art,
than a wilderness of over-educated and
denationalized Americans who are paint-
ing pictures and carving statues and

VOL. LI. — NO. 307. 40

writing music in Europe or in the Unit-
ed States, in the spirit of colonists, and
bowed down by a wretched dependence.

There is abundance of splendid mate-
rial all about us here for the poet, the
artist, or the novelist. The conditions
are not the same as in Europe, but they
are not, on that account, inferior. They
are certainly as good. They may be
better. Our business is not to grumble,
because they are different, for that is
colonial. We must adapt ourselves to
them. We alone can use properly our
own resources ; and no work in art or
literature ever has been, or ever will be,
of any real or lasting value which is not
true, original, and independent.

If these remnants of the colonial
spirit and influence were, as they look
at first sight, merely trivial accidents,
they would not be worth mentioning.
The range of their influence is limited,
but it affects an important class. It ap-
pears almost wholly among the rich or
the highly educated in art and litera-
ture ; among men and women of talent
and refined sensibilities. The follies of
those who imitate English habits belong
really to but a small portion of even
their own class. But as these follies
are contemptible, the wholesome preju-
dice which they excite is naturally, but
thoughtlessly, extended to all who have
anything in common with those who are
guilty of them. In this busy country
of ours the men of leisure and educa-
tion, although increasing in number, are
still few, and they have heavier dirties
and responsibilities than any where else.
Public charities, public affairs, politics,
literature, all demand the energies of
such men. To the country which has
given them wealth and leisure a«d ed-
ucation they owe the duty of faithful
service, because they, and they alone,
can afford to do that work which must
be done without pay. The few who are
imbued with the colonial spirit not only
fail in their duty, and become contempti-
ble and absurd, but they i-BJure the in-

626

Colonialism in the United States.

[May,

fluence and thwart the activity of the
great majority of those who are similar-
ly situated, and who are patriotic and
public spirited.

In art and literature the vain struggle
to be somebody or something other than
an American, the senseless admiration
of everything foreign, and the morbid
anxiety about our appearance before
foreigners have the same deadening
effect. Such qualities were bad enough
in 1820. They are a thousand times
meaner and more foolish now. They
retard the march of true progress, which
must be here, as elsewhere, in the di-
rection of nationality and independence.
This does not mean that we are to ex-
pect or to seek for something utterly
different, something new and strange, in
art, literature, or society. Originality is
thinking for one's self. Simply to think
differently from other people is eccen-
tricity. Some of our English cousins,
for instance, have undertaken to hold
Walt Whitman up as the herald of the
coming literature of American democ-
racy, merely because he departed from
all received forms, and indulged in
barbarous eccentricities. They mistake
difference for originality. When Whit-
man did best, he was nearest to the
old and well-proved forms. We, like
our contemporaries everywhere, are the
heirs of the ages, and we must study the
past, and learn from it, and advance
from what has been already tried and
found good. That is the only way to
success anywhere, or in anything. But
we cannot enter upon that or any other
road until we are truly national and in-
dependent intellectually, and are ready
to think for ourselves, and not look to
foreigners, to see what they think.

To those who grumble and sigh over
the inferiority of America we may com-
mend the opinion of a distinguished
Englishman, as they prefer such author-
ity. Mr. Herbert Spencer said recent-
ly, " I think that whatever difficulties
they may have to surmount, and what-

ever tribulations they may have to pass
through, the Americans may reasonably
look forward to a time when they will
have produced a civilization grander
than any the world has known." Even
the Englishmen whom our provincials
of to-day adore, even those who are
most hostile, pay a serious attention to
America. That keen respect for suc-
cess and anxious deference to power
characteristic of Great Britain find ex-
pression every day, more and more, in
the English interest in the United
States, now that we do not care in the
least about it ; and be it said in pass-
ing, no people despises more heartily
than the English a man who does not
love his country. To be despised abroad,
and regarded with contempt and pity at
home, is not a very lofty result of so
much effort. But it is the natural and
fit reward of colonialism. Members of
a great nation instinctively patronize
colonists.

It is interesting to examine the sources
of the colonial spirit, and to trace its
influence upon our history and its grad-
ual decline. The study of a habit of
mind, with its tenacity of life, is an in-
structive and entertaining branch of his-
tory. But if we lay history and philos-
ophy aside, the colonial spirit as it sur-
vives to-day, although curious enough,
is a mean and noxious thing, which
cannot be too quickly or too thoroughly
stamped out. It is the dying spirit of
dependence, and wherever it still clings
it injures, weakens, and degrades. It
should be exorcised rapidly and com-
pletely, so that it will never return. I
cannot close more fitly than with the
noble words of Emerson : —

" Let the passion for America cast out
the passion for Europe. They who find
America insipid, they for whom Lon-
don and Paris have spoiled their own
homes, can be spared to return to those
cities. I not only see a career at home
for more genius than we have, but for
more than there is in the world."

Henry Cabot Lodge.

1883.]

A Landless Farmer.

627

A LANDLESS FARMER.

IN TWO PARTS. PART I.

IT was late in a lovely day of early
spring, the first warm Sunday of the
year, when people who had been housed
all winter came out to church, like flies
creeping out of their cracks to crawl
about a little in the sunshine. It seemed
as if winter, the stern old king, had
suddenly died, and as if the successor to
the throne were a tender-hearted young
princess, and everybody felt a cheerful
sense of comparative liberty and free-
dom. The frogs were lifting up their
voices in all the swamps, having discov-
ered all at once that they were thawed
out, and that it was time to assert them-
selves. A faint tinge of greenness
suddenly appeared on the much-abused
and weather-beaten grass by the road-
sides, and the willows were covered with
a mist of greenish gold. The air was
fragrant, and so warm that it was almost
summer-like; but the elderly people
shook their heads, as they greeted each
other gravely in the meeting-house yard,
and said it was fine weather overhead,
or spoke of the day reproachfully as a
weather-breeder. There seemed to be
a general dislike to giving unqualified
praise to this Sunday weather, which
was sure to be like one of the sweet
spring flowers that surprise us because
they bloom so early, and grieve us be-
cause they are so quick to fade.

After church was over in the after-
noon, two or three men were spending
an idle hour on a little bridge where the
main highway of Wyland crossed Cran-
berry brook ; a small stream enough in
summer, when it could only provide
water sufficient for the refreshment of
an occasional horse or dog belonging
to some stray traveler. It was apt to
dry up altogether just when it was need-
ed most ; but now the swamp which it

drained was running over with water,
and sent down a miniature flood, that
bit at the banks and clutched at the
roots and tufts of rushes as if it wished
to hold itself back. It had piled al-
ready a barricade of leaves and sticks
and yellow foam against the feeble fence
that crossed it at the roadside, and the
posts, which were already rotted away,
were leaning over and working to and
fro, as if they had hard work to stand
the strain, and might fall with a great
splash and go down stream with the
mossy rails and the sticks and yellow
foam any minute.

The water had risen to within a short
distance of the floor of the bridge, and
the three men stood watching it with
great interest. Two of them, who had
come from church, had found the other
standing there. He owned the pasture
through which the brook ran on its way
to the river ; but on that side of the road
the ground fell off, so there was a small
cascade ; and his own stone walls, which
stopped at the edge of this, were in no
danger. He wore his every-day clothes,
but the other men were in their Sunday
best.

" Warm for the time o' year, ain't
it ? " asked one of these, taking off his
hat, and giving his forehead a rub with
his coat sleeve. " I wore my overcoat
that I have been wearing this winter to
meeting this morning, and the heft of it
was more than a load of hay. I come
off without it this afternoon. The folks
said I should get my death o' cold, and
I do' know but they was right, but I
wa'n't going to swelter as I did in the
forenoon for nobody."

" T is warm," said Ezra Allen, who
was without his own waistcoat, and who
whittled a deliciously smooth and soft

628

A Landless Farmer.

[May,

bit of pine with a keen-edged knife, in
ideal Yankee fashion. " I 've been look-
ing to see that old fence of Uncle Jen-
kins's topple over; the stream's most
as high as I ever see it. I should n't
wonder if it come over the bridge, if
this weather holds."

" Crambry Brook 's b'en over this
bridge more times V you've got fin-
gers and toes, Ezra," said the third
man, scornfully. " Guess you 've forgot.
When I was a boy, 't was customary for
it to go over the bridge every spring, and
I do' know but I Ve seen it in the fall
rains as well. Parker Jenkins come near
getting drowned here once, you know."

" You 're thinking of the little old
bridge that used to be over it when we
was boys ; 't was two or three foot low-
er than this. The road used to be all
under water in them days ; I know that
well as anybody. I was n't referring to
the bridge. I said the brook was high
as I ever see it. Ef you had that little
bridge here before they histed up the
road, I guess you 'd find it well wet
down."

" Don't seem to me as if the brooks
run so high as they used," suggested
Henry Wallis, mildly. " They say it 's
because the country 's been stripped of
its growth so. Cutting the pines all off
lets the sun get to the springs, and the
ground dries right up. I can't say I
understand it myself, but they 've got
an argument for everything nowadays."

" There ain't so much snow as there
used to be when we was boys," said
Ezra Allen. " I never see no such
drifts anywhere about as used to be
round the old school-house ; we used to
make caves in 'em that you could stand
right up in, and have lots o' clear room
overhead, too."

" You 're considerable taller than you
was in them days, Ezry," said Asa Par-
sons. " That makes some difference ; "
and the three neighbors laughed togeth-
er, as if it were a great joke.

All through the parish were little

knots of people like this, gossiping to-
gether on their unfrequented front steps,
or before the barn doors, where happy
fowls fluffed their feathers and scratched
the wet ground, or quawked and strutted
to and fro. There was a good deal of
social visiting going on, and as the three
men stood together on the bridge, which
was a favorite abiding place in summer,
being not far from several farmhouses,
they spoke to one neighbor after another,
as he or she went along in the muddiest
possible wagons. As for the horses,
they were steaming as if they had come
from the races, and looked as if they
wished, like their masters, to be relieved
of their winter coats.

" Seems to me everybody was out to-
day," said Ezra Allen, who was a rosy-
faced, pleasant - looking man of about
forty. " I do' know when I 've missed
a Sunday before ; " and he went on clip-
ping little white chips from his stick,
which was dwindling away slowly.

The other men waited for a few mo-
ments, until they became certain that he
would say no more of his own accord ;
and then Asa Parsons boldly inquired
what had kept him at home from meet-
ing, and was told that he had watched
the night before with old Mr. Jerry
Jenkins.

"I want to know if you did," said
Wallis, with much concern. " I 'd no
idea that he was so bad off as to have
watchers. And I should think his own
folks might take care of him amongst
themselves. He ain't been sick enough
to tucker them out, seems to me."

" I guess I 'm as near to being his
own folks as anybody, if setting by him
counts for anything," said Ezra, with a
good deal of feeling. " I always thought
everything of Uncle Jerry. He 's done
me more kind turns than anybody else
ever did, and he 's a good-hearted man,
if ever there was one. He 's none of
your sharpers, but he 's got the good
will of everybody that knows him, 'less
it 's his own children."

1883.]

A Landless Farmer.

629

The three friends were leaning against
the rail of the bridge, all in a row.
Ezra whittled fiercely for a minute; the
hands of his companions were plunged
deep into their already sagging pockets.
They looked at him eagerly, for they
knew instinctively that he was going to
say something more. He shut his jack--
knife with a loud snap, and turned and
threw the bit of white pine into the
noisy, rushing brook. It was only a
second before it had gone under the
bridge, to show itself white and light on
the brown water, and lift itself as if for
a leap on the rounded edge of the little
fall, and disappear. Ezra's forced dis-
cretion seemed to have been thrown
away with it.

" Sereny Nudd found out, somehow
or 'nother, before I come away this
morning, that I mistrusted about things,
and she come meachin' round, wanting
me not to tell ; but all I told her was
that I would n't have done it, if I was
her, if I was going to be ashamed of it.
I don't know when anything has riled
me up so. Says I, right to her face and
eyes, I 'm mortified to death to think I
am any relation to such folks as you be,
and she shut the door right in my face,
and I cleared out. I 've been sorry all
day I said it ; not on account of her,
but now she 's mad she won't let me go
near the old gentleman, if she can help
it, and I might have looked after him a
good deal."

" What 's to pay ? " asked Wallis and
Parsons, eagerly ; it was some time since
anything had happened to them which
promised to be of so much interest as
this. Ezra Allen was not easily excited,
and was an uncommonly peaceable man
under ordinal')' circumstances.

" Well, if I must say it, they 've pre-
vailed upon that poor old man to sign
away his property, and I call it a burn-
ing shame."

" How long ago ? " and the hearers
looked at Ezra with startled counte-
nances. Yet there could be seen a flick-

er of satisfaction at this beginning of
his story.

" Some time in the winter," answered
Ezra. " The poor creatur' has been laid
up, you know, a good deal of the time,
and there come a day when he was
summoned to probate court, on account
of that trust money he 's got for the
Foxwell child'n. You know he 's guar-
deen for 'em, and it's been a sight o'
trouble to him. He might have sent
word to the judge that he wa'n't able to
come and see to it, and 't would ha' done
just as well three months hence, being
a form of law he had to go through ;
but what does them plants o' grace do
but work him all up, and tell him a lot
o' stuff an' nonsense, until he was ready
to do whatever they said. He put the
power into Aaron Nudd's hands to go
over and tend to the Foxwell matter;
and then they went at him again (he
told me all about it in the night, though
I have had an inkling of it for some
time past), and they told him 't want
likely he 'd ever get about again, and he
was too old to look after business, and
go hither and yon about the country.
All he wanted was his livin', they told
him, and he 'd better give them the care
of things and save himself all he could,
and make himself comfortable the rest
of his days. Sereny Nudd is dreadful
fair-spoken when she gives her mind to
it, and uncle, he 's somehow or 'nother
always had a great respect for her judg-
ment, and been kind of 'fraid of her into
the bargain ; and he was sick and weak,
and they bothered him about to death,
till he signed off at last, just to get a
little peace. Mary Lyddy Bryan was
there at the time, a mournin' and com-
plainin', same as she always is. Sereny
won't have her about, generally, but she
got her to help then, and between 'em
they won him over. Mary Lyddy is
always a dwellin' on being left a widow
with no means, and a gre't family to
fetch up, and her father 's always had
to help her. Both of her boys is big

630

A Landless Farmer.

[May,

enough to be doing for themselves, and
ought to be put on to farms, or to some
trades ; but they '11 never do a stroke of
work if they can help it."

" Did they draw up the papers just
as they wanted 'em, and make the old
sir sign 'em ? " asked Parsons. " I
should n't ha' thought he 'd been fool
enough."

" Nor I, neither," replied Ezra, who
was in the flood tide of successful nar-
ration ; " but we know, all of us, that
their father ain't what he used to be,
and he was a sick man at the time.
They put it to him this way : that he
would have everything he wanted, same
's if 't was his own, and that he should
have his say about everything just the
same, — 't was only to save him trouble
of the care of things, — and the way
Sereny fixed it was abominable. She
got him, first of all, to give Mary Lyddy
her place to Harlow's Mills, where she
lives, out and out, ' because,' says she,
' it may smarten up the boys, and give
them some ambition, if they feel it 's
their own.' Mary Lyddy always was
kind of wanting, and she never see
through it that Sereny was getting dou-
ble what she was. she was so pleased
about getting her place in her own right.
Uncle, he told me he did n't want to do
anything about the bank stock, and, to
tell the truth, he always meant the farm
for Parker ; but the girls set to so about
him that there wa'u't no use. Sereny
said if ever her father wanted to change
his mind he could do it, and make out
riew papers."

(i Alter he 'd gone and give it to her,
it wa'n't his to give," growled Asa Par-
sons. '• Did n't he know that ? "

" Well, I can tell you he 's been sick
ever since he realized what he 'd done,"
said K'/ra. " He said last night that it
had been gnawing at his conscience that
it wa'n't fair to Parker or to Mary
Lyddy, neither. I stuck up for Parker,
but I told him Mary Lyddy wouldn't
be any better off if she had a million ;

and Sereny wa'n't far from the truth
when she said he 'd always been doing
for her. But as for Parker, he 'd done
well enough if he had n't been nagged
to death. I know he drank more 'n was
good for him, and hated farm work ; but
there was sights o' good things about
him, and he wa'n't no common fool.
They 've dinned it into the old man's
ears that he must be dead, they ain't
heard from him for so long ; but Sereny
never would write to him, and the old
man's eyesight 's failed him of late. He
cried like a child as he lay there in bed,
last night. He got hold of my hand
and gripped it, and said he did n't know,
till he got Mary Lyddy to read him the
paper all through, once when Sereny
was out to a neighbor's, that they 'd
worded it so 's to leave Parker out.
It gives Mary Lyddy her place, and a
piece of woodland beside, that comes
from her mother's folks ; and everything
else — this farm, and the bank stock
and everything, — to Sereny. She 's
got as much as three thousand dollars
more than her half, — grasping crea-
tur's both on 'em, she and Aaron Nudd
is, and they Ve got a young one that 's
going to be worse 'n either of 'em. I
thought last night that the sooner poor
old uncle was laid away, down in the
burying-ground, the better 't would be
for him. Like 's not they '11 never
trouble themselves to set up a stone for
him ; but I '11 see to it myself, sure as
the world, if they don't show him re-
spect, — taking away his rights, kind as
he 's always been, and a good neighbor.
His only fault has been that he was
too lavish. There ain't much the mat-
ter with him that I can see, except he's
distressed, and seemed to feel he was
broke in his mind, and there was noth-
ing to look forward to. They 've moved
him out of the room where he always
slept into a back bed-room, where there
ain't room to swing' a cat, and no chance
for a fire. I like to have iroze to death.
I set up in my overcoat all night, for

1883.]

A Landless Farmer.

631

't was chillier than you 'd suppose be-
fore such a mild day. He wa'n't warm
enough along towards morning, and I
scouted rouud till I got some blankets,
— for there was n't nothing over him
but old quilted spreads. Sereny come
in in the morning, mad as fire any way,
because it seems she heard us talking in '
the night ; but when she see them blan-
kets, she like to have died, and asked
why I did n't come to her if I wanted
more bedclothes, — 't was too bad to
spill medicines all over the best she had.
' There ain't a spot on 'em, nor a brack
in 'em,' said I, real pleasant, though I
could ha' bit her head off. ' I remem-
ber I was with your mother when she
bought 'em ; 't was one of the last times
she was ever over to the mills. I hap-
pened to be into Harlow's shop when
she was selecting them, — she got them
very cheap. 1 told our folks what a
bargain they was for the quality ; not
that I pretend to be a judge of such
things, but the women thought they
did n't need them.' I just spoke of it to
Sereny, so she 'd see I knew they were
none of her buying ; and I said, right
before her, ' The best ain't too good for
you, uncle ' " —

" Well," said Henry Wallis prudent-
ly, " I never thought I should like to
take up with Sereny Nudd, for better
for worse ; but she may do well by her
father, after all. Old folks has been
known to be difficult, but she ain't done
right so far as we can see."

" Done right ! " exclaimed Asa Par-
sons. " It 's a burning shame, and I
hope she '11 be met with. That 's what
was going on one day last winter, when
I saw that sneaking Josh Hayden rid-
ing home with Aaron Nudd. He 's a
lawyer, — what there is of him, — and
I suppose they got him over to do the
business. I heard he 'd deeded Mary
Lyddy her place."

" I don't want to think of it," said
Ezra, disgustedly, " but it follows me
about the whole time. I suppose I

could have got out to meeting to-day,
but it would have been more than I
could stand to see Nudd and Sereny
parade up the broad aisle. I wa'n't so
beat out that I could n't have gone ; one
night's watching won't use me up ! "

The friends now separated, for the
air was growing cold and damp. Asa
Parsons mentioned that his overcoat
would n't do him any harm if he had
it then, and he and Wallis went away
together, while Ezra turned toward the
other direction.

" Suppose you '11 be out to town-
meeting," Wallis called after him. It
was fairly amazing that nobody should
have spoken about the great day, antici-
pations of which were in every man's
mind, to a greater or less degree. Ezra
Allen had not been without his hopes
of running for selectman, — to tell the
truth, he had looked forward all the
week before to furthering his cause
among his neighbors by a friendly word
in season on Sunday ; but his uncle's
wrongs had driven his own political
interests quite out of his head. He
walked slowly home in the fast-gather-
ing spring chilliness, the noise of the
brook growing fainter and fainter. He
suffered a slight reaction from his en-
thusiasm, and wished he had not spoken
so warmly against his cousins. " Mary
Lyddy 's a poor dragging creatur'," he
said to himself; "and as for Sereny,
she 's near, and set in her own way, but
she may treat the old gentleman well,
for shame's sake. I don't know but I
was hasty, but I don't care if I was ;
it wa'n't the right thing for her to do ;
and then, there 's Parker." By way of
balancing any harm he might have done,
he held his peace in his own household,
and refrained from beguiling the tedi-
ousness of a Sunday evening by intro-
ducing this most interesting subject of
conversation. He had a way of keep-
ing things to himself at times, which his
wife found most provoking ; but he was
possessed of that uncharacteristic trait

632

A Landless Farmer.

[May,

of many reticent people, of telling his
secrets generously and even recklessly,
if he once was forced to break through
the first barrier of reserve.

The next morning was clear and not
cold, but the warmth aud revivifying in-
fluence of the day before was not to be
felt. It was commonplace New Eng-
land spring weather, and had a relation-
ship to the melting of snow and the
lingering of winter which was most un-
consoling. A large number of persons
had taken violent colds, and the frogs
preserved a discreet silence. Asa Par-
sons wore not only his overcoat to town-
meeting, but a woolen comforter round
his throat as well ; and he sneezed from
time to time, angrily, as if it were a
note of disapproval and contempt. There
was a grand quarrel over the laying out
of a new piece of road, and it was at
first found very difficult to choose the
town officers. There was a monotonous
repetition of polling the house, and when
Ezra Allen lost, at last, the coveted po-
sition of selectman, he had become so
angry with some of his opponents, and so
tired with the noisy war, that the glory
of the occasion was very much tarnished.
It was over at four o'clock, and nobody
had had any dinner, except a slight re-
freshment of wilted russet apples and
very watery and sour cider, which could
be bought at abominable prices over the
tailboard of one of the wagons which
were fastened in long rows to the fences
near the old meeting-house, which had
been given over to governmental pur-
poses.

Aaron Nudd was by no means a fa-
vorite among his townsfolk. He was
very stingy, and had saved considerable
money, for which it was supposed Se-
rena Jenkins had married him. He was
of the opposite party in politics to Ezra
Allen, and he had been the opposing
and successful candidate for the office
which Ezra had lost. Aaron's wagon
was next but one, and the two men un-
fastened their horses sulkily, without

looking at each other. Ezra went home
prepared to believe any report of cruelty
or injustice on the part of his uncle's chil-
dren, and full of the intention to tell the
story of their trickery in his own house-
hold. But he was not even to have this
pleasure on that unlucky day. His wife
asked him reproachfully, as he entered,
why he had said nothing of what every-
body had been talking about who went
by the house, and which would have been
no story at all without his own report
(already much magnified) of the mean-
ness and knavery of Serena Nudd.

The next morning Ezra resumed his
business of wheelwright, from which he
had taken a two days' vacation ; but the
excitement had been a good deal of a
strain upon him, and he worked without
much enthusiasm for a few hours, and
about eleven o'clock laid down his tools
altogether. The spoke-shave was so
dull that it needed grinding, and there
was nobody to turn the grindstone, and
his head ached a little. He did not feel
inclined to start out upon a new piece
of work, and, taking a disgusted look
around the shop at the disjointed limbs
of various old and new vehicles, he
threw off his apron, and went to the
house, which was only a few rods dis-
tant along the road. Outside the shop
door were stacked some dozens of wheels
in various stages of decay and decrepi-
tude, and two or three old wagon-bodies
and chaise-tops were resting on the
ground in most forlorn condition, as if
they had been relentlessly exposed to
all the winter weather. The wood-work
of one new farm cart was set up ou
trestles, and had received its first coat
of paint ; but that was the only sign of
any progress of the art that was carried
on within. One would think, from the
outward appearance of a wheelwright's
shop, that it was also a repository of
worn-out carriages of every description.
The trade is apparently never carried
on without much useless rubbish, unless
one may venture the suggestion that it

1883.]

A Landless Farmer.

633

is necessary to have a collection of speci-
mens showing the advances and effects
of various diseases of wheels, as surgeons

7 o

are furnished forth with anatomical cab-
inets. On the seat- of an old wagon
there was perched a large rag doll, and
when Ezra saw it he smiled, for the first
time that morning. He was very fond'
of his little girl, to whom the doll be-
longed.

He pushed open the kitchen door with
some faint thrills of pleasure, for a great
whiff of a well-known odor blew out
through the half-opened window which
he had just passed. His wife was fry-
ing doughnuts, and he did not notice at
first, for the smoke and steam obscured
the atmosphere, that some one was sit-
ting at the other side of the room.

" Just in time, ain't I ? " said Ezra,
cheerfully ; then, to his great disgust
and confusion, he saw that the guest
was his cousin. " Is that you, Sere-
ny ? " he asked, in quite another tone.

" Yes, it is," said Mrs. Nudd, snap-
pishly, " and I should think yon 'd be
ashamed to look me in the face, Ezra
Allen. You 've been and done the best
you could to take away my good name,
and I don't see what harm I ever done
you nor yours ; " and she began to cry
in a most obnoxious fashion.

Ezra gave himself an angry twitch
and went over to the window, where he
stood with his back to the company, and
looked longingly at the safe harbor of
the shop which he had just left. His
wife, who was a fearful soul and who
hated a quarrel, escaped with her col-
ander full of doughnuts to the recesses
of the pantry, from whence she stole a
glance now and then at the others, like
a distressed mouse which had doubts
about venturing out of its hole. Mrs.
Nudd sniffed and sobbed, and wiped her
not very wet eyes with her handkerchief
again and again ; but still Ezra did not
speak, and nothing could be more aggra-
vating.

" Enoch Foster said, this morning,"

she remarked, in a broken voice, " that
he supposed you was put out about the
election, and Aaron's getting in ahead
of you. But I wa'n't going to hear my
own first cousin spoken of no such way,
and I said that had n't nothing to do
with it ; you was too straightfor'ard a
man. I knew you was hasty to speak,
but there never was nothing mean about
you, with all your faults ; and I ex-
plained it as best I could, for I 'm sure
I don't know no other reason. Poor
old father's mind is broke more than
folks think, who comes in and sees him
for a visit ; and he 's got set upon our
having got away -his property from him.
'T was all his own set-out to deed it to
us now in his life-time. He got kind of
worried and confused a spell ago, and
seemed to want to be rid of the care of
it ; and we made the change to gratify
him. Aaron said he would n't have no
such goings-on, and that he did n't want
the farm nohow. He 's been desiring for
a long spell to move to Harlow's Mills
and go into the shoe factory ; he could
have had a first-rate chance any time in
the boxing room, but we seemed to be
pinned right down where we was, on
father's account."

" You need n't have drove off Parker,
then," grumbled Ezra ; but though Mrs.
Allen heard him in the pantry, and
shook for fear, Mrs. Nudd went on com-
placently : —

" I 'm sure we 've always done the
best we could by our folks, and by the
neighbors. We ain't had the means to

be free-handed, for we never knew what
was our own and what was n't. One
day father 'd be real arbitrary, and gath-
er up whatever there was, even the but-
ter money, that anybody 'd think I might
have a right to ; and next thing, he
would n't want to be consulted about
anything. Aaron went to him one day
about a bunch o' laths, when he was go-
ing to alter the hen-coop, and father
give it to him right an' left, because he
bothered him about it. He refused him

634

A Landless Farmer.

[May,

the money, and said Aaron had made
enough off from the place, and he should
think he might attend to a job of that
size himself."

Ezra gave a sympathetic chuckle, and
his cousin wished she had left out this
illustration. " I only spoke of it be-
cause some days father would have
grieved hisself to death if he had n't
been told something that was half the
importance," she explained, in a higher
key than ever. " If you had to summer
and winter him I guess you 'd find out.
He ain't so easy-going and pleasant as
folks seem to think. I know it ain't
right to talk so about my own father,
that 's failed from what he used to be,
but I 've got to stand up for myself, if
my own relations won't stand up for
me ; " and at this point she cried again,
more sorrowfully than before. " I do
have a hard time," she said, in conclu-
sion : " father to please ; and Mary
Lyddy a-dwellin' on her trials, and tell-
in' her complaints, and wan tin' to bor-
row everything I 've got ; and Aaron
a-fussin' and discontented, and talking
about going West; and Parker, he spent
about all the ready money he could
tease out of father. I wonder the place
ain't all mortgaged, and I dare say we
shall find it is. Some days, I wish I
was laid in my grave, for I sha'n't get
no rest this side of it."

Ezra's wife, in the pantry, was ready
to cry, also, by the time she heard the
end of this touching appeal, and she did
not see how her husband could be so
stony-hearted. She wished he would
say something, and knocked two pans
together for a signal, and then was
dreadfully shocked by what she had
done. She was not very fond of Serena
Nudd, and could talk angrily about her,
behind her back, at any time ; but being
a weak little soul, and anxious to avoid
contention, when there was any danger
of getting a blow herself, she was ready,
being also a woman, to take her com-
plaining visitor's part.

But Ezra shifted his weight from one
foot to the other, and fumbled a button
which was at the back of his collar, and
which, at that opportune moment, came
off and dropped on the floor. " I guess
you '11 have to set a stitch in this, if you
will, Susan," he said, with well-feigned
indifference ; and Susan came obedient-
ly out from among the pots and pans,
very shamefaced and meek. The but-
ton had rolled almost to Mrs. Nudd's
feet, and when Ezra looked for it un-
successfully, she stooped and picked it
up, and handed it to his wife with a
heavy sigh, and then rose to take leave.

" I shall be ready any time to watch
with the old gentleman, if he needs it,
or even thinks he does," remarked Ezra,
as if he had heard nothing of what his
cousin Serena had said ; and she did not
know how to answer him, though usu-
ally she was equal to the occasion. She
went away in doubt whether she had
won a great victory, or had been defeat-
ed ; and she took the plate of doughnuts
which Susan humbly offered in the old
gentleman's behalf, hardly knowing what
it was, she felt so unlike herself, all of a
sudden. But she " came to " before she
was out of sight of the house, and though
she hated Ezra worse than ever, she ate
one of the doughnuts with uncommon
relish, and put another in her pocket.

The spring days lengthened and grew
into summer, and the excitement which
attended the knowledge of the transfer
of old Mr. Jenkins's property died slow-
ly away. He looked so wilted and
changed by his illness of the winter
that it was by no means difficult for the
town's-people to believe that his mind
had become as much enfeebled as his
body. As for his nearest neighbors,
they saw him rarely, for he was too
lame to make the short journey to their
houses ; and in the early summer busi-
ness of the farms, nobody found much
time to go visiting Serena Nudd, or her
most unpopular husband. He was a
sly-looking, faded-out little man, of no

1883.]

A Landless Farmer.

attractions, and a sneaking manner which
disgusted the persons he sought most
eagerly to please. It had been thought
that he would favor some projects about
the new road, which he frowned upon
directly he was in office; and that an-
gered the parties who were most con-
cerned, and there grew steadily a feel-'
ing of shame and regret that he should
have won so easily his prominent posi-
tion in town affairs. He paid the taxes
on the farm with unusual promptness,
and the treasurer took notice that he
had crossed out Mr. Jenkins's name
from the tax- bill and inserted his own
in its place. There was a good deal of
sympathy felt for the old man, because
he had not deserved such a miserable
son-in-law. People hoped that he was
treated well, but it was taken for granted,
in those few weeks, that the poor old
farmer was fast breaking up, and, under
the circumstances, nobody could wish
him to live long, since it would only in-
volve the greater discomforts of old age,
and a continued suffering of one sort and
another. As for his daughter Serena,
she was making great bids for friend-
ship, and was showing herself both gen-
erous and neighborly, in a way that
much surprised her acquaintances. She
spoke with great concern of her father's
failing health, and some persons began
to say she was good-hearted, and what
a pity it was that she should have thrown
herself away on such a man as Aaron
Nudd. She drove old Mr. Jenkins to
church one hot Sunday, when Aaron
was reported to be kept at home by the
expected swarming from a hive of bees;
and it was certainly very kind, the way
in which she helped him down out of
the high wagon, and along the broad
aisle to his pew. He looked round the
church as pleased as a child, and seemed
to enjoy the unusual opportunity of be-
ing among his friends and neighbors.
The older people watched him affection-
ately, — he was younger than several
who were there, — and many of the

younger members of the congregation
expected him to betray in some way his
shattered wits. But he seemed to be in
full possession of his faculties as far as
any one could decide at that time ; and
when Serena ostentatiously found his
place in a hymn-book, and offered it to
him, he shook his head at her in great
perplexity, and proceeded to search for
the right page in his own copy of Watts'
and Select Hymns, which was of large
type, arid for years had been ready to
his hand in the corner of the pew. "I'm
all right, if it was n't for my lameness,"
he told a half dozen of the friends who
crowded about him. " I can get about
a good deal better than the folks think
I can, too ; but Sereny keeps right after
me," he added, in a lower voice to Ezra
Allen, who had been more pleased than
anybody to see his uncle in his accus-
tomed seat, and who indulged a hope
that now he was about again he would
take things into his own hands. But
the poor man stumbled on the meeting-
house steps that very Sunday, and gave
himself a bad strain, and passed many
a long and lonely day afterward in his
dark, close bedroom, in that summer
weather. Out-of-doors the birds sang,
and the grass grew and grew, until it
waved in the wind and was furrowed
like the sea. The old farmer worried
and fretted about the crops, and could
not imagine how the fields got on with-
out his oversight and care. He was
always calling Aaron, or the man who
had been engaged to help him, and de-
manding strict account of the potatoes
and corn and beans. He had worked
day in and day out on his land, until
that summer, and he was sure every-
thing must be going to wreck and ruin
without him. Aaron evaded some of
his questions, he thought, and treated
him like a child. If it had not been for
his lameness, he would have risen in
wrath from his bed, and have dispersed
the whole family, like marauding chick-
ens. Even Ezra Allen was not atten-

636

A Landless Farmer.

[May,

tive, and this was hard to understand,
though the frequent breaking of farm
tools and the wear and tear of the vehi-
cles of the town gave him more than
enough to do, while he had his own
farming to look after beside.

Serena grew less and less amiable,
but she was what she and her neighbors
called a regular driver, and she had a
hard fight to get through with her every-
day work. If her father demanded a
long explanation of the reasons that had
led to the selling of a cow, she was by
no means ready to satisfy him, and to
stop in the midst of everything to an-
swer his restless, eager questions by
quieting accounts of the circumstances ;
and as for the man who had come sev-
eral times to make the bargain, he was
kept out of the old farmer's hearing al-
together. At last, in a desperate mo-
ment, Mr. Jenkins, like a distressed New
England Lear, said that as soon as he
was well enough he should go to stay
for a while with his other daughter ; for
Mary Lyddy was always civil spoken to
him, and was always pleased to see
him, if other people were not. " It will
be a first-rate thing to get rid of him
through haying," Serena told her lord
and master that night. " I 'm thankful
it was his own proposal ; " and then
they talked over the question of her fa-
ther's prompt removal to another scene
of uselessness.

The next morning but one, Serena put
her head inside the old man's door, and
said she guessed he had better get out
into the fresh air that day. Aaron was
coming right in to help him. This was
good news, for Mr. Jenkins had urged
his daughter to believe that there was
no need of his lying in bed any longer,
while she had insisted that she was fol-
lowing the doctor's orders, and that if
he stirred before the proper time he
would only bring fresh disasters upon
himself and his family. He found him-
self weak and stiff when he tried to
move about, but such was his delight at

being again his own master that he soon
felt uncommonly strong and energetic,
and sat down at the breakfast-table in
the kitchen with a look of proud satis-
faction.

"I'm going to be in first-rate trim for
haying," he announced gravely. Aaron
had swallowed his breakfast as nearly
whole as possible, and had departed ;
and Serena was already clattering at the
dishes.

" This is prime corn-cake," said the
farmer. " I declare, Sereny. it tastes
like it used to, — just like what your
mother used to make."

" It always tastes alike to me,"- re-
sponded Mrs. Nudd, in a not unkindly
tone. " You 're getting to be notional."
Serena was not celebrated for her skill
in cookery, and this compliment had
touched her tenderly.

" Ain't it a good while since we have
had a nice cabbage ? " asked Mr. Jen-
kins, presently. " I suppose, though,
they 're about gone. I declare, how the
weeks fly by ! It don't seem but a fort-
night since we were getting 'em in, in
the fall of the year."

" For mercy sake ! " said Serena. "I
believe you are losing your faculties !
The idea of cabbages keeping through
haying ! You might as well wish for
some of the Thanksgiving pies. There !
I do the best I can to suit you, but it 's
hard for one pair o' hands to do every-
thing. I did expect, to have help in
haying time, but Aaron says he can't
afford it, now he 's got the whole farm
to lug."

" He 's got the whole farm to help
him, at any rate," said Mr. Jenkins,
blazing up into something like his youth-
ful spirit. " He was always crying poor,
and wheedling round, and you was, too,
till you got the farm, and now you 're
worse off than you was before. I 've
always made an honest living, and stood
well in the town, and I 've brought up
my children, and kept my fences and
buildings in good order. I won't have

1883.]

A Landless Farmer.

637

such talk from you nor Aaron Nudd
neither." But Serena had flown, and the
old man might have relieved his mind
by more just accusations without caus-
ing trouble, for there was nobody within
hearing. The kitchen was hot, and the
late June light was flaring in at the
windows and door; it promised to be'
a very hot day. Mr. Jenkins felt a lit-
tle tired and weak ; he wished he had
not said so much, and told himself
again the familiar and unwelcome truth
that he had had his day. He looked
about the room, which did not seein nat-
ui-al, for some reason or other. " Sere-
ny ! " he suddenly shouted. " What 's
become of my chist o' drawers, — my
desk ? My papers is all in it. I hope
you have n't got them into a mess ; " and
he looked around him again, puzzled,
and miserable. There was a noise of
the pounding and creaking caused by a
rolling-pin in the great pantry, and pres-
ently Serena said that he used it very
little, and it was considerably in the
way, and an old furniture dealer had
come along and offered a good price for
it, and she had sold it. She needed a
new sewing-machine, and she didn't
suppose he would care. She always
wanted that place for her sewing-ma-
chine, right between the windows, where
there was a good light.

"I am going to learn you that I
won't be pulled about by the nose in
this way another d.ay ; " and Mr. Jen-
kins's daughter did not remember that
she had ever seen her father in such a
rage before. " You can tell Aaron to
hunt up that man, and get my piece o'
f urniture back ; 't was my father's be-
fore me, and it has stood in this kitchen
a hundred years. I don't care what
you want, nor what you don't want, nor
nothing about your sewing-machine.
You just go and get that secretary back,
or it'll be the worse for you. I don't

see as you 've any call to act as if I was
dead, right before my face. It 's a hard
thing for a man o' my years to see an-
other master over his own house, and
live to see himself forgotten ; " and the
poor old creature, whose pleasure at be-
ing about the house again was so cruelly
spoiled, shook with anger, and meant to
walk out-of-doors indignantly ; but his
strength suddenly failed, and he leaned
back in his chair again. Serena had
nothing further to say, and the knocking
and rolling still continued. She was
making a tough company of dried-apple
pies for the family sustenance in the
haying season. . The kitchen looked
strangely empty without its one hand-
some and heavy piece of furniture, whose
dark wood and great dull brass handles
had 'somehow given a nobler character
to the room, which was the usual gath-
ering place of the family. In Serena's
mother's day the bat-handles had always
been well polished, and had many an
evening reflected the brightness of the
roaring great chimney -place fire. A
little later in the morning, the farmer
asked his daughter to fetch him the
papers which had been kept carefully
in the quaint corners and pigeon-holes.
She feared to disobey, and for hours the
old man sat drearily unfolding and por-
ing over the small basketful of worn
papers which held his history and his
few business records. There was a curl
which his wife had cut from the head of
their little child who had died, and there
was a piece of the Charter Oak at Hart-
ford, and a bit of California gold that
his brother had sent home in the early
days of the gold-diggings stored away
with the rest, — the old man's few treas-
ures and playthings. They were hud-
dled together in miserable confusion,
though he had always known where to
put his hand on each, when they were
in their places.

Sarali Orne Jewett.

638

The Pauper Question.

THE PAUPER QUESTION.

THE labors of Henry Ozanam in
Paris, of Edward Denison and Octavia
Hill in London, of Daniel von der
Heydt in Elberfeld, of Charles L. Brace
and Mrs. Charles R. Lowell in New
York, embracing diverse fields of action,
have aroused a new interest in social
problems, because they have animated
the benevolent with the hope that the
evils of pauperism and crime are not in-
eradicable. These names are but rep-
resentative of a long list of persons,
whose disinterested zeal and intelligence
have adorned the age with examples of
the noblest humanity. By a law of
compensation which seems always to
work in human affairs, as the industrial
reconstruction of society, consequent
upon discoveries in science and their
application in arts, went on, invading
and overturning old relations and hab-
its, there sprang up a race of philan-
thropists to meet this moral confusion
by reknitting the ties which hold all
parts of the community in healthful so-
cial order.

A characteristic of modern benevo-
lence is its recognition of the solidarity
of human society. By virtue of this
fact, man can no longer be regarded as
a self-poised, isolated unit, whose char-
acter is the result of his own determina-
tion, but as the creature of his environ-
ment. Two fruitful inferences proceed
from this principle : first, the inadequacy
of mere physical instrumentalities to
work a change in the condition of the
debased, since these do not reach their
fellowships ; and secondly, the compli-
city of society in the evils of its wretch-
ed classes. Outlawry is a fiction ; the
word of the magistrate cannot undo the
deed of God. For weal or harm, every
living soul is an integral part of society ;
his deterioration is a disorder in the
whole body. Probably these conclu-

sions have not been formulated in the
minds of many wise and effective dis-
ciples of charity, but they emerge none
the less from all careful investigations
into the situation and requirements of
the miserable, and they are disclosed in
the strenuous efforts of thoughtful phi-
lanthropists to reform the institutions
and methods of the community, as an in-
dispensable prerequisite to the reforma-
tion of persons. Let this contrast serve
for an illustration : Professor Fawcett,
in his work on Pauperism, tells us that
an English landlord, desirous of improv-
ing the character of his agricultural
tenants, whose bestiality was attributed
to overcrowding, enlarged his cottages
by adding rooms, so that the family
could separate into decent privacy. In-
stead of doing this, however, his tenants
sublet the new rooms, and thus increased
the evils. These laborers were not con-
scious of any wants which could not be
satisfied by herding in a single room.
Their character was unchanged, and a
mere mechanical improvement in their
surroundings could not alter their hab-
its. If Miss Octavia Hill met with bet-
ter results in Barrett's Court, she was
not less convinced than the landlord
mentioned that no reformation was prac-
ticable among the objects of her solici-
tude, until their habitations were suited
to good manners, and reflected upon
them the standards of respectable soci-
ety. But she knew equally well that
her presence must enforce a decent dis-
cipline, and link her wards to a higher
order of feeling and motive, or her ten-
ants would go on as of old, turning the
passage-ways into receptacles of gar-
bage, and hewing the staircases into
fire-wood. Miss Hill's success grew out
of the recognition of two facts : the
complicity of society in the degradation
of her wards, and their capacity to re-

1883.]

The Pauper Question.

639

spond to moral influences. They were
the victims of neglect, and hence worse
sufferers in character than in circum-
stances ; but they were also human
souls, susceptible to the order and beau-
ty of discipline, when it was presented
by one whose trained faculties attached
her in a hundred joyous, honorable,
ways to that society which discipline
unites and regally endows. '

The proper mode of dealing with pau-
perism is involved with various proposi-
tions for remodeling existing systems of
charity. Were poverty and misfortune
identical with pauperism, no vexatious
question would arise to perplex a con-
scientious benevolence. Technically,
the pauper is simply a person who has
become dependent on the community.
But a vast deal more is attached to the
term in every mind. There is a type
of character implied in it. A grave
change, indeed, must have gone on in in-
dividual character before a person's pri-
vate trials can become subjects of public
concern. Mere poverty does not dissolve
those ties of kindred and acquaintance
which avail for even the severest misfor-
tunes of life. A man loses his place in
society, with its kindly ministries of
good-will, and becomes an object of pub-
lic relief by the decay of those finer
qualities which render man a social be-
ing and not a brute, and the community
a society and not a herd. Pauperism
is an anti-social condition, and that is a
moral state. It is the nearest approach
to actual outlawry that human nature
can exhibit. If we may pronounce the
judgment which Mr. R. L. Dugdale only
suggests in his pamphlet, The Jukes,
which is a study of hereditary pauperism
pursued through six generations, em-
bracing several hundreds of descendants
of the same stock, pauperism involves a
deeper incapacity to sustain social rela-
tions than crime. It is a lower abyss
of physical and mental inaptitude, and,
consequently, it is more incorrigible.
It is doubtful if any class of unfortu-

nates, whether reduced by the " hand of
God," as the old phrase ran, or by vice,
can escape the taint of spiritual debase-
ment, when they become objects of pub-
lic and official relief.

Inasmuch as a frightful chasm lies be-
tween that position where a man is sus-
tained by those resources of industry,
thrift, affection, and esteem which cen-
tre legitimately in himself, and that
whereiti these are all dried up and pub-
lic relief takes their place, the attention
of social economists has long been di-
rected towards the danger of offering
facilities for crossing the chasm to those
who are tempted to take the step by the
pressure of poverty, — a danger which
is enhanced by the fact that the tempta-
tion a'ppeals to those who have the few-
est safeguards of intelligence and self-
respect. It is widely felt that public
charity does present such facilities, and
that it is a source of corruption, unless
accompanied by provisions for restrict-
ing it to unavoidable suffering. Some
of the humanest spirits, who have sac-
rificed themselves without reservation
to charitable labors, even sympathetic
women, through the secret chambers of
whose heart the cry of pain went vi-
brating like a trumpet-blast from heav-
en, summoning them to duty, have re-
garded the prodigal relief of the present
day as a source of no less mischief than
intemperance. This opinion stands on
record in a most emphatic way. Lord
Grey's reform of the English poor law
in 1834 was preceded by the most thor-
ough scrutiny ever made of the pauper
system of that country, by a parliament-
ary commission. It resulted in the
creation of a national board of commis-
sioners, who were to give effect to the
changes deemed necessary. After sev-
eral years' experience, in the midst of a
succession of bad harvests, and when
the accompanying pressure of disordered
markets had spread distress over the
whole realm, the commissioners said, in
their report to Parliament in 1839, that

640

The Pauper Question.

[May,

" all poor laws are in their essence im-
politic and uncalled for, and that, conse-
quently, their abolition ought to be the
ultimate object of any changes that may
be made, — an object, however, that
cannot be attained without being pre-
ceded by several years of careful prep-
aration for it."

For the reasons now alleged, much
criticism has turned upon the system of
legal relief practiced in England and
America. One feature of it is general-
ly reprobated by thoughtful men, and
that is the out-door relief administered
by overseers or guardians of the poor.
The suppression of this form of assist-
ance is the first step urged, but it is
only a first step. Still further measures
would undoubtedly follow, and indeed
they are already set on foot, but their
efficiency is hindered by the distribu-
tion of public doles. Little reflection is
needed to perceive that this simple re-
form aims at a vast deal more than the
relief of the taxpayer from an insignifi-
cant burden ; at more even than a with-
drawal of a limited amount of tempta-
tion from the poor. It is designed to
be the entering wedge of a system of
effective action. The corner stone of
that system is the discrimination be-
tween real and simulated destitution,
with a practical control of those who be-
come the wards of charity. Should out-
door legal relief be abolished, it would
then be possible to erect an English
system which should incorporate the
best features of French and German
charity.

A comparison of the three systems
will go far to show what amendments
the administration of poor relief in
America requires. For this purpose
European experience is especially valu-
able for us, since nearly all the States
of our Union have imported the English
plan and theory of official charity, with-
out much scrutiny, and with all their
defects. Besides this, the information
concerning pauperism in Europe is

much more thorough and systematic
than with us.

The English scheme of poor relief
lies in confusion. Until Lord Grey's
government, the justices of the peace
had authority to order pauper relief at
their discretion. There was no uni-
formity of method observed in the realm,
but each parish was at liberty to pur-
sue its own counsels. The local officers
had some ground for prodigality in the
standard set up by a statute of 1796,
which directed the public pauper to be
maintained "in a state of comfort."
Poor-houses, built under the Elizabeth-
an statute of 1601, existed in most par-
ishes, but they were designed only for
impotent folk. At the beginning of the
present century pauperism increased
with great rapidity, and in some seven-
teen years the ratepayers' burden was
doubled, — a tax that in some instances
amounted to a confiscation of ratable
property. Whether as a consequence
or a cause of this increase, the justices
of the peace had adopted the expedient
of making allowances from the parish
treasury for insufficient wages, and had
fixed a standard to which the weekly in-
come of paupers should be raised out of
the rates. They justified this course
by the argument that it was cheaper to
provide a partial than an entire main-
tenance for the dependents upon the
parish. The effect was disastrous, for
it appeared in the general reduction of
wages, which brought the most indus-
trious to the brink of starvation, and
destroyed the motive of self-support.

When the ruinous nature of this meth-
od was brought to light by a parlia-
mentary investigation which occupied
four years, Lord Grey carried an amend-
ment to the poor law through the legis-
lature, which stripped the local justices
of the power to order relief, created a
national board of commissioners, with
district commissioners under them, and
ordered the erection of work-houses in
every parish, or authorized union of

1883.]

The Pauper Question.

641

parishes. It was the intention of the
framers of this amendment to confine
all relief to inmates of the work-house,
except in cases of peculiar emergency.
The parish officers were to see that
work was provided for and secured from
all the inmates who were capable of
performing it, especially able-bodied de-
pendents. Those who would not accept
this mode of relief were to be held as
not sufficiently pinched by want to be
objects of official aid. This is the fa-
mous but neglected " work-house test "
of England. Its character and issue
were tersely stated by Mr. Edward Den-
ison in 1869, the year previous to his
death : " The framers of the poor law
of 1834 never seriously considered how
they could find work for the destitute.
They only wanted a disagreeable and
deterrent occupation. Their principle
was to offer board and lodging in the
work-house to all who would take it;
the only further consideration being
how to make the recipient's condition
so uncomfortable that he would avoid
it as long as he could, and get out of it
on the first opportunity. Possibly this
system, thoroughly and universally en-
forced by able administrators, would
have stamped out pauperism altogether,
to the infinite advantage of the whole
laboring class. But the law never was
in harmony with public opinion ; it was
very partially and negligently executed,
arid of course broke down. The poor
law of 1834 has practically been re-
pealed long ago." Four causes wrecked
the plans of Lord Grey's government :
the recalcitrancy of the parish authori-
ties, who would not follow the instruc-
tions of the board of commissioners ;
the distress consequent upon the bad
harvests of 1837-39, and upon the com-
mercial depression of that period ; the
sundering of families in the work-house ;
and the lack of proper discrimination
between helpless and able-bodied in-
mates. One building and one admin-
istration were offered to the infant and

VOL. LI. — NO. 307. 41

the idle, to the aged and the vagabond,
to the deserted mother and the penniless
inebriate, to the blind or maimed and
the street beggar. Two incompatible
designs were to be pursued under one
roof. The same institution was to be
a hospital for the helpless and an agen-
cy for repressing importunity. Human-
ity lay behind one part of the scheme,
and suspicion behind the other. Occu-
pation meant to be " deterrent " in one
ward could not be regarded as honora-
ble in another. The work-house dress
and discipline confounded the impotent
with the vagabond. Misfortune wore
the badge of vice. Of course, in such
an institution, the natural associations
of the family must be broken up by
artificial classifications. Parents are
sundered from children, husbands from
wives, brothers from sisters, — a sepa-
ration which is the bane of institutional
life. The one cause rendered the work-
house unpopular, while the other ren-
dered its repressive design fruitless.
The general commissioners were not
clothed with authority over the parish
guardians, whose administration still
managed the tax-rate, and distributed
its proceeds. Local self-sufficiency and
usage met the intervention of a nation-
al committee with jealousy and obsti-
nacy, as if it were an impertinence.
Then, the quick succession of general
distress compelled the commissioners to
relax their instructions, and in three
or four years after the poor law was
amended there were in England seven
out-door beneficiaries of the parish-rate
to one inmate of the work-houses, — a
proportion which has been maintained
ever since with disheartening monot-
ony. The sequel is thus narrated by Ed-
ward Denison : " The guardians, with
short-sighted economy, knowing that the
fewer the inmates of the work-house the
smaller their expenses, neglected to offer
the work-house when they ought to have
offered it, and got into a way of giving
small doles of out-door relief to those

642

The Pauper Question.

[May,

whom they knew they ought to have
admitted. Once embarked on the sys-
tem of giving out-door relief, without
the application of either work-house or
labor test, there was naturally no end to
it. They had taken the lock off the
door ; they had no means of discriminat-
ing the applicants. These, of course,
became more and more numerous, as it
became evident that any one might get
relief, if he were lucky, deserving or
undeserving. Then, having voluntarily
pulled down the barrier which excluded
only the unworthy, they were at length,
in self-defense, compelled to put up an-
other of some sort, and they put up one
which excluded all alike, or, at least, let
no more than half in. They gave so
little relief that it was a mere mockery.
Then in comes public benevolence, says
the poor law has broken down, and does
its best to make a real break-down of
it. That, in my view, is the history of
the matter." To this statement he adds
his opinion, formed when he was living
in Philpot Street, at the East End of
London, whither he went to obtain by
daily contact with it some clear insight
into the nature of pauperism : " The
remedy is to bring back the poor law to
the spirit of its institution." The same
conclusion had been reached by Sir
Charles Trevelyan, a coadjutor of Dem-
son's in philanthropic endeavor, and one
of the most patient students of this so-
cial problem in England. It is shared
by Professor Fawcett, the present post-
master-general of the realm. And it
has also recently been proposed by Mr.
Seth Low, the mayor of Brooklyn, be-
fore a conference of charities held in
Boston ; and his intelligent devotion to
the cause of the poor in his native city
attracted to him that attention which
raised him to civic honors, usually re-
served, not for riper, but for more pro-
tracted years.

How exactly this brief account is par-
alleled by our American States ! New
York, for example, by a statute which

Mr. Low thinks to be " as nearly per-
fect as can be," but which, " unhappily,
has been much disregarded," restricts
out-door relief, to quote Mr. Low's
words again, " to persons not in a con-
dition to be removed to the poor-house,
and in cases where the disability is likely
to be temporary." So distinct is this
provision that the city of Brooklyn was
impelled in 1878 to withhold its custom-
ary appropriations for out-door relief,
and with what results will be told fur-
ther on. Here, then, is English expe-
rience repeated. An excellent repres-
sive law is neglected ; an unlawful sys-
tem of inadequate doles to the lucky
is set up ; in self-defence a barrier is
erected against the depletion of the pub-
lic treasury by excluding, without dis-
crimination between need and mere
greedy clamor, half the claimants of re-
lief. Then voluntary charity steps in,
and creates a confusion amenable to no
method or discipline. Divided among
a hundred practically irresponsible or-
ganizations, and flowing from thousands
of hands, guided by neither experience
nor information, the generosity of men,
conscientious enough to give but not to
befriend, engulfs the poor in stronger
temptations to pauper life.

In one respect Mr. Denison's repre-
sentation may fairly be controverted.
" They gave," he says of the guardians,
" so little relief that it was a mere mock-
ery." Probably he would himself have
consented to change this sentence, and
make it read, " They gave so unsuitably
that it was a mere mockery ; " for his
published letters show that he deplored
the lavishness of English relief, and
that he commended the Paris scale of
relief, which is so small that §ne may
wonder whether there is any use of dis-
pensing it at all. The Parisian allow-
ance for a paralytic or blind person is
one dollar per month. This is the scale
of relief for a pauper in his seventieth
year. From this sum it rises slowly to
$2.40 for one in his eighty-fifth year.

1883.]

The Pauper Question.

643

Septuagenarians and octogenarians en-
titled to hospital relief may have $4.80
on each of the five wintry months, atid
$3.80 on each of the remaining months
of the year. These are the largest al-
lowances authorized, and comprise near-
ly all that are made in money. Relief
in kind is on a still smaller scale, and
is denied to able-bodied men except in
extraordinary cases.

A few years since the city of Leipsic
had a standard of maximum relief to
cover clothing, rental, fuel, light, and
food. It was about sixty-two cents per
week of our money for able-bodied men ;
women, children, and the aged were
deemed to require less. This standard
has been abolished, but the actual sub-
sequent distribution of relief has aver-
aged below it. The old Leipsic stand-
ard does not differ materially from that
of Elberfeld, in Rhenish Prussia, a city
notable in the charitable world for the
excellence, thoroughness, and efficiency
of its relief system. Now these low
standards are not to be accounted for
by the parsimonious spirit of the com-
munities where they exist, nor by the
cheapness of the necessaries of life there.
They are found to be adequate, while
under our prodigality and disorder soci-
ety constantly presents the aspect of un-
satisfied pauperism. Beggars are never
absent from our streets ; the child's whine
for cold pieces is heard almost daily at
our back doors ; the stoves of the poor are
never sufficiently replenished with char-
ity coal ; the dispensaries are crowded ;
the soup-kettles are draining all winter
into the messengers' pails ; the sick are
constantly waiting for the hospital bed
to become vacant ; the merciful man
walks all his life among supplicating
hands. There is no such appearance of
mendicancy in France, nor in the better
organized German towns ; not even in
Belgium, "the classic land of pauper-
ism," as it has been called. The 'penu-
riousness of France or Prussia avails
to do what the strenuous lavishing of

England and America cannot accom-
plish.

It is time to ask the reason of this dif-
ference. We have mentioned France
and some German cities as examples of
economy. la them there are two sys-
tems, conceived in exactly opposite po-
litical theories ; but notwithstanding this,
their administration of relief quite as
exactly corresponds in principle and in
method. Under each the entire control
of relief is substantially held by one
management ; therefore the pauper is
practically in the custody of a single
authority ; the work-house test is fully
compensated for by a system of investi-
gation which makes relief at the homes
of the poor quite safe ; and two great
remedial influences are kept iu constant
action upon the pauper, namely, em-
ployment and the constant pressure of
friendship. How these things are ac-
complished we are now briefly to in-
quire.

Louis XIV. invited the great chari-
table foundations of France, in terms
that could not be resisted, to confide
their trusts to the government. The
movement thus begun was completed by
Napoleon I., when he sequestered the
revenues of the church, and made the
priesthood directly dependent upon the
treasury of the empire. But while Louis
XIV. was thus enlarging the functions
of the French government, his troops
were ravaging Germany. At the peace
of Westphalia, a generation earlier, the
population of Germany was found to be
reduced to one fourth its former num-
ber ; its cities were in ruins, its finances
in disorder ; its institutions had to be
created afresh. Thus Germany was one
of the latest of modern European na-
tions to establish order and accumulate
trusts. There are fewer institutions
originating in private, self -controlled
charitable foundations in that country
than in any European country west of
Russia and the Balkan peninsula. Her
hospitals and asylums are largely the

644

The Pauper Question.

[May,

creation of civic munificence, and there-
fore amenable to authority. There are
exceptions to this statement, but they
are not serious enough to hinder the ap-
plication of coordinated charity to the
best systems of German relief.

The theoretical divergence of the
French and German schemes of public
charity is this : in France the state ab-
sorbs private benevolence into its official
organization ; in Germany the state ab-
stains from official action, but authorizes
private organization, and clothes it with
needful powers.

It must be understood, however, that
in speaking of a German system of poor
relief reference is made to the success-
ful methods employed in typical Ger-
man cities, as in Hamburg, Berlin, Leip-
sic, Elberfeld, Barmen, and Oefeld. Of
the North German Confederation, and
of nearly every German state, it may
be said there is no system. Their legis-
lation has thus far been confined to lay-
ing down the principles upon which the
liability of each state, or each commu-
nity, for the relief of the poor is to be
determined, and to prescribing the ?ines
within which each poor district may ex-
ercise authority. As in England and
America, the details of administration
are left to each locality.

A rapid survey of the French and
German schemes will elicit their com-
mon features. Paris may be taken as
the completest illustration of the prac-
tice throughout the country, — a practice
followed in Belgium in all its respects.
We have already seen that the ancient
and valuable charity foundations of
France passed into government control.
Under the civil code, private generosity
is forbidden to erect any new eleemosy-
nary institutions without the permission
of the chief executive of the state, — a
permission which is very rarely accord-
ed. Individuals may endow government
institutions as much as they please, but
the state is strictly averse to independ-
ent, self-regulated charity organizations,

and will not incorporate them. From
these old trusts there accrues an income,
not only for the maintenance of hospi-
tals, but for distribution in alms. To
this resource are added the contributions
of the benevolent, the proceeds of cer-
tain fines, and, when occasion requires,
a subvention from the public treasury.
Here we reach the first principle of
French relief. Although administered
by the state, this relief is charity. The
funds are supplied by the voluntary acts
of the people ; the official is but the al-
moner of them. Consequently, the pau-
per can set up no claim to aid. This
principle is in direct contrast to the
English theory. Under the latter, ap-
plicants for aid have brought the poor
guardians into court to compel them to
givo relief ; and it has been held that,
although the pauper could not recover
damages, the guardian was liable to pen-
alty for a denial of statutory relief.
Probably the same doctrine would be
held in the American courts notwith-
standing the difference of method be-
tween Great Britain and America in
levying the poor tax.

The agency for dispensing the money
entrusted to the state for charitable dis-
tribution in France is called the " Bu-
reau de Bienfaisance." There is one
for each commune, or borough, in Paris,
as it is intended there shall be one for
each commune throughout the land. Of
this bureau the maire is hereditary pres-
ident, and his aids are hereditary or ex-
officio vice-presidents. Twelve admin-
istrators are appointed in each bureau,
and assigned each to one division of the
commune. Their appointment proceeds
from the Prefect of the Seine, who, in
turn, is the creature of the interior sec-
retary of the national government. The
functions of the administrator are those
of an overseer of the poor, with a voice
and vote in the business of the bureau.
In addition to these, the Prefect of the
Seine appoints a secretary-treasurer of
each bureau, in whose hands are the

1883.]

The Pauper Question.

645

registers and the money, and who is in
subordination to the Director-General
of Public Relief, another agent «f the
general government. The bureau em-
ploys a staff of doctors, midwives, and
Sisters of Charity, but all paid employees
hold office from the Prefect of the Seine.
So far everything is official. The pro--
vision for voluntary effort is this : Each
administrator may nominate as many as-
sistants in his division as he can per-
suade the board of direction to accept.
They are described as commissioners
and charitable ladies, and their duties
are thus prescribed: "They second the
administrators in their care of house-
holds inscribed in the registers; they
are specially charged with the duty of
obtaining all possible information of the
poor to l>e entered on the books ; they
propose their admission ; they distribute
at each dwelling the ordinary and ex-
traordinary contributions ; they visit the
persons assisted by the bureau, to learn
their position, the resources of the fam-
ily, and all other facts which may en-
lighten the board."

Let» it also bo considered that this
system of administration is closely sup-
ported by the police ; that every person
must be inscribed upon the register be-
fore relief can be obtained ; that a pau-
per must prove a residence of twelve
months in Paris, and give notice of any
change of lodging ; that he is dependent
on the administrator for the certificates
required for unusual surgical appliances,
for pensions from the war department,
for legal papers affecting inheritance or
exemption from taxes and fines, and for
admission to hospital relief ; that the
separate bureaux are all bound in one
administration by means of conferences
held under the Director-General of Pub-
lic Relief, and of reports made to his
office ; and it will be seen that very
little opportunity is left to voluntary
and private effort. The whole plan is
summed up in the words of Mr. Edward
Deriison : —

" Whoever desires to understand the
French system of dealing with destitu-
tion must constantly bear in mind these
two facts : —

"(1.) That in France the state makes
no special provision for the poor.

" (2.) That in France no one can do
anything at all except through state ma-
chinery.

" The result of the joint operation of
these two circumstances is tliat private
charity supplies the funds, and state ma-
chinery administers them."

One point remains to be noticed. AH
in-door or institutional relief is restrict-
ed to the smallest limits possible. Even
in the case of a septuagenarian applying
for extraordinary hospital relief, every
inducement is held out to him to remain
with his relatives. There is no work-
house in France ; no almshouse, even,
in our sense of the word. The Depots
de Mendicite, which may be thought to
correspond with the work-house, are not
tests of destitution, nor relieving agen-
cies at all. They are the receptacles of
persons convicted before a magistrate
of some petty misdemeanor, as begging,
vagranc}7, drunkenness, and such of-
fenses as with us consign the perpetra-
tor to the house of correction.

A system like this assumes the prac-
tical custody of the pauper from the
moment he begins to receive aid. He
is placed in subordination to an author-
ity, which controls every avenue of re-
lief; he is under the constant super-
vision of visitors, who not only deliver
to him his allowance, but who befriend
and counsel him, who seek employment
for him, and teach him the best use of
his own resources. Except in cases of
nearly complete impotency, from age or
defect, he is never maintained, but only
assisted, by public relief.

On the other hand, the bureau takes
every precaution that no form of distress
shall need to apply elsewhere. While
the profligate has little opportunity to
take refuge among strangers, and to ply

646

The Pauper Question.

[May,

the arts of mendicancy on disconnected
and discordant societies, the needy is
not forced to go from office to office, to
obtain fuel here, medicine there, and
food elsewhere. Provision is made for
every form of exposure to suffering
from birth to the tomb. Even bed-
clothes are loaned, dresses for the first
communion are supplied, and studious
apprentices are encouraged with small
annual gifts of money. And all this
apparatus is directed by a single man-
agement, in the decisions of which the
judgments of men actually engaged in
the work unite.

It has sometimes been disputed wheth-
er there was less suffering from want in
Paris than in other large cities, but it is
not questioned that France is remarka-
bly free from mendicants. Should it be
said that this may be attributed to the
proverbial habits of economy and thrift
which characterize the French poor, it
might well be retorted that their inde-
pendence is not assailed by the tempta-
tions of unwise and cruel charity.

An examination of the system prac-
ticed in Elberfeld will show that the
same results are aimed at by very sim-
ilar means. The Elberfeld plan has
been adopted in the neighboring cities
of Barmen and Crefeld ; it is analogous
to that of Hamburg, Leipsic, and Ber-
lin. We shall state the features com-
mon to those cities. In the original
conception of these relief agencies, the
care of the poor is wholly entrusted to
" a society of patriotic men, authorized
by the municipal council to administer
poor relief," as the constitution of the
Leipsic Directory phrases it. These so-
cieties are self-perpetuating and self-
regulated, though liable to be overruled
by the civil authority. They connect
themselves with the municipal authority
by assigning seats in their boards of
direction to some municipal councilors,
burgomeisters, and financial officers.
They coordinate their enterprise with
hospitals and like foundations, as in

Hamburg and Berlin, by giving them
a representation in the board, or, as in
Leipsic, by a municipal ordinance requir-
ing voluntary societies to divulge the
nature and amount of relief which they
grant to the beneficiaries of the direc-
tory. In Hamburg, at one time, a po-
lice regulation went so far as to forbid
almsgiving on the street. The volun-
tary society is authorized to collect sub-
scriptions from the citizens, and to dis-
burse them at its discretion. The funds
so procured are augmented in some in-
stances by police fines and licenses for
places of amusement. In Prussia, a
citizen chosen to act as an agent of a
municipal relief society is liable to a
penalty if he refuses his unpaid services.
At Elberfeld he loses his communal
vote, and has his taxes raised. Usually,
the service is cheerfully rendered as an
honorable trust.

. The Armen Directory, or whatever
the society may be called, divides the
city into numerous wards or divisions,
each under one or two overseers. Each
overseer has associated with him a num-
ber of private citizens as visitors, chosen
from the division under his charge. At
Leipsic, a few years since, there were
sixty visitors for a population of ninety
thousand. This proportion was thought
too small, and together with the fact
that the different overseers did not meet
sufficiently often for conference, and
consequently carried diverse methods
and vigilance into the work, was be-
lieved to impair the efficiency of the sys-
tem. Elberfeld had two hundred and
fifty-two visitors for a population of
seventy-one thousand, or one visitor for
every eight cases of registered paupers.
A point is made, in this city, that no vis-
itor shall have more than four cases in
charge at one time, and it is rigidly ob-
served ; for it will be noticed that eight
cases annually would hardly furnish four
at one time. Berlin must come very
close to the Elberfeld standard, since
this capital is divided into one hundred

1883.]

The Pauper Question.

647

and sixteen districts, each under a sub-
committee of from fifteen to thirty vis-
itors. Did each sub-committee average
twenty members, there would have been
eight cases of pauperism annually to
each visitor, when the population was
seven hundred and twenty thousand.

The English type of the work-house
is almost unknown in Germany, though
in some states, as Saxony and Bavaria,
for example, legal provision is made for
it. The attempt was twice made to
introduce it into Leipsic, but in 1846
the institution was finally abandoned.
The German work-house is a convict
place. Its doors open only to the man-
date of the magistrate. The Armenhaus,
or almshouse, is usually an asylum for
impotent folk ; and while these are em-
ployed as their capacity will allow, the
institution does not aim at being a test
of destitution. In Berlin, the great in-
flux of population since the city became
an imperial capital has forced the work-
house into a new and probably tem-
porary use. As building has not kept
pace with the increase of population,
rents have risen rapidly, forcing the
poorer tenants to seek for cheaper apart-
ments. These are not easily found,
and dislodged families obtain a refuge
in the work-house while in quest of new
homes.

But the prevailing sentiment of Ger-
many is averse to in-door relief, on ac-
count of the separation of families which
it involves. The Prussian law makes
husbands and wives, parents and chil-
dren, liable for each others' maintenance,
if they have the means therefor. This
requirement is extended in some in-
stances by communal law to half broth-
ers and sisters, to grandparents and
grandchildren. Where so much empha-
sis is laid upon the natural duties of re-
lationship, no plan which sunders fami-
lies or weakens their sense of responsi-
bility one for another can receive much
countenance.

Another feature of German law is

that relating to settlements. Formerly,
each state, to avoid the expense of pau-
per support, erected barriers to immigra-
tion from other states. The North Ger-
man Confederation has now provided
that any German may receive assistance
from the commune where his necessity
arises, but that the cost of it may be re-
covered from the commune where he
has a legal residence. In Prussia, arbi-
tration courts are established, with juris-
diction over this question. The prac-
tical result is that a record of pauper-
ism is kept, almost as strict as that of
France. The pauper cannot escape
from the environment of kindred and
acquaintance, — a fact which in itself is
a great obstacle to imposture.

When a destitute person wishes to be
aided, under either the Leipsic or the
Elberfeld plan, he must apply to the
visitor in the locality where he resides.
Thus his petition is brought before the
overseer and the directory. He is then
subjected to a most rigid inquisition,
which is called the " Fragebogen " in
Leipsic, the " instruction " in Elberfeld.
He is informed that if he accepts relief
he immediately parts with his civic
rights, and that he must observe a cour-
teous and perfect subordination to the
relieving officers. Any willful untruth
in his declarations subjects him to the
custody of the police. He is" then re-
quired to furnish a correct statement,
and a record is made of his kindred in
ascending and descending lines ; of his
occupation and the means of earning of
each member of his family ; of his pre-
vious history, particularly if he has ever
been in the hands of the police ; of his
furniture, jewelry, goods in pawn, loans,
debts, membership of any beneficial club,
and his claims therein ; of his rental,
and whether it includes furniture, fuel,
and light, and whether he sublets any of
his apartments. He is questioned as to
his efforts to obtain work, and idleness
for a certain number of months without
an effort to get employment is a misde-

648

The Pauper Question.

[May,

meaner punishable with imprisonment.
While he is receiving relief, he must not
keep a dog, or frequent places of amuse-
ment, or refuse the labor that may be
assigned to him, or use the aid granted
him for any purpose but his own imme-
diate and personal wants. This may
seem an impertinent, despotic regimen,
but it is not without valuable advantages.
Above all, it furnishes the information
so essential to a proper management of
the case, and it enables his guardians
to protect him from enticements to sink
into a dissembling vagabond.

The pauper, once registered, is placed
in the care of a visitor, who is not only
unpaid, but a reputable citizen, and who
is enjoined to be a faithful, vigilant
friend. The visitor is to seek employ-
ment for his wards ; to visit them week-
ly ; to observe any changes in their cir-
cumstances ; to help them make the best
use of their own resources, and leave
tho charity lists as soon as possible.
The relief accorded is determined at a
meeting of the directory, at which the
overseers assist, and to which the vis-
itors may come. It is to be in kind,
when possible, and is not to be called
for, but regularly carried to the pauper's
home. At Elberfeld, every month the
lists arc revised in the board meeting,
reports are received of any change of
circumstances in the condition of tho
beneficiaries, and all whose necessities
have ceased are dismissed.

The result of Von der Heydt's Elber-
feld plan was so remarkable as to attract
attention from all parts of Europe and
America. lu 1852, the year before Von
der Heydt's society was formed, the
city, with a population of fifty thousand,
had four thousand paupers. In 1869 the
population was seventy - one thousand,
and the paupers one thousand and sixty-
two, while the expense had dwindled one
half. In Leipsic, the ratio of paupers
in 1832 was 9.2 per cent., in 1870 it was
3.26 per cent. In Berlin, the ratio of
out-door paupers is about 2.5 per cent.,

and it is not materially different in
Hamburg.

In these European systems, the French
scheme is that of official relief, the Ger-
man that of organized private charity.
Both are alike in the following princi-
ples : unity of action ; the practical and
exclusive control of the beneficiary; aid
rather than maintenance; out-door rath-
er than in-cloor relief ; assistance based
upon thorough information as to the pau-
per's disposition, resources, and needs,
administered by experienced hands, and
adequate in character and duration of
time to prevent all suffering; and the
earliest possible restoration to indepen-
dence of the pauper. The remedial fea-
tures of these systems aro dependent
upon a complete acquaintance with each
case, and the absence of interference
with its management. Can these two
features be grafted on our Anglo-Amer-
ican system ? Or rather, since we have
no system, can these two principles be
rooted in our free soil, so that our rank
growths of prodigality and caprice may
on this stock bear wholesome fruit?

This is what our benevolent econo-
mists seem to aim at. If legal relief can
be restrained to the inmates of public
institutions, at once a coordination of
work will ensue. Private charity takes
up the out-door poor ; the state assumes
the care of the in-door paupers. Those
who are in public institutions pass under
the discipline of a single authority, and
in that custody are removed from the
interference of inexperienced, undiscrim-
inating hands, and from the opportunity
to practice tho dishonorable shifts of
the professional mendicant. Moreover,
these public institutions are in turn more
amenable to the best opinions of the
community. Mistakes here soon become
obvious, and are more easily remedied.
Then, too, public relief comes into or-
derly relation with private benevolence.
The state alone can restrain and coerce.
That power is needed when the persua-
sions of free society fail. Those whom

1883.]

The Pauper Question.

649

voluntary charity finds incorrigible, or
beyond its influences, will gravitate into
public institutions. Thus, private efforts
for the good of the depressed will be
accompanied with the alternative of the
discipline of official oversight, when
moral forces prove insufficient.

But is it safe to trust private hands
with the whole control of out-door pau-
perism ? In view of the fitfulness,
caprice, sentimentality, and corrupting
lavishness of ignorant benevolence, stu-
dents of social science have long: been

deprecating the disorders of spontaneous
charity. Well, it exists as a very mo-
mentous part of our social machinery.
Nor is there any trace of the slightest
disposition on the part of the free-born
American or Englishman to surrender
his inalienable right to give away his
money just as he chooses. He is neither
a German nor a Frenchman. We must
deal, therefore, with private charity as
best we can, appealing to the good sense
of the community, and to that genuine
humanity which, in every generous
breast, is deeper than the desire to grat-
ify a mere sentiment for improved meth-
ods of working.

The attempt to organize the charita-
ble forces of society on a basis of vol-
untary adhesion, which began in London
more than a dozen years ago, not unin-
fluenced by the example of Elberfeld,
has already made encouraging progress
in England, and is rapidly taking root
in our chief cities. Those economists
who have most earnestly advocated the
abolition of public out-door relief, like
Sir Charles Trevelyan, Edward Deni-
son, Octavia Hill, Professor Fawcett,
and Seth Low, who have been already
mentioned, with a host of others who
might be named, have been warm friends
of the charity organization movement.
In its essential idea, charity organiza-
tion aims to establish a bureau, through
which every established institution and
society formed for the assistance of the
poor and every private citizen may act

in cooperation. It renounces the pleas-
ure of giving any relief which can be
procured from agencies already existing.
In pursuit of this idea, it schedules and
classifies all the discoverable resources
of charity, and says to the generous
and to the destitute, " Here is where
you can best accomplish your aims ; here
are the means appropriate to your desire
or your need."

Charity organization, drawing its
agents from workers already in the field,
or from fresh volunteers, distributes
them through every precinct of the city,
to discover what forms of human mis-
ery are hidden there ; to probe the social
wounds, and ascertain how far they
penetrate through the flesh into the char-
acter ; " to search out the cause they
know not ; " to be discreet friends to
the weak and incompetent; to open to
them the sources of help, and first of
all those which place them upon their
feet, and put a brave, hopeful, self-re-
specting heart in their breasts. Its pur-
pose is that not an outcast soul, however
dislodged from society, shall go misun-
derstood and unbefriended.

Holding this purpose, it comes to the
community and says, " We will accept
the responsibility of every case of real
or simulated distress which you may
throw upon us. We will not relieve it
ourselves unless it be so exceptional an
instance tliat no other resource is at
hand ; for our aim is not to create a new
organization, but to systematize and
bring to the highest efficiency the hun-
dreds of agencies already available, and
so put an end to their disorder and
waste." It is an agency for investiga-
tion, and as such it becomes a bureau of
registration, at which relief societies may
detect the overlapping of their work,
the concealed assistance of their bene-
ficiaries, and the impostures practiced
upon them. Here they may find the
means to discriminate between merito-
rious and dissembling want.

Charity organization is a scheme of

650

The Pauper Question.

[May,

conference. Workers fresh from the
field come together, that a hundred ex-
periences may converge into some lumi-
nous ray of guidance, that the dispirited
and perplexed may be encouraged, that
the one - sidedness of individual sym-
pathy and observation may be correct-
ed, that the wisdom of the many may
coalesce into the wisdom of each one.

A plan like this has in it the merito-
rious points of the Elberfeld system ;
or, at least, it will have them as soon as
private and public relief shall be sep-
arated and put in supplementary rela-
tions. It has the virtue of being a vol-
untary " society of patriotic citizens ; " it
furnishes friendly visitors, allotting the
field among them, so that they do not
cover the same cases, nor become over-
burdened with duty ; it acquires that
information which makes imposture diffi-
cult, and suffers no destitute person to
be neglected ; it elicits and brings into
order the resources of benevolence, so
that no form of want goes unprovided
for ; by checking waste and distributing
applicants systematically, it reduces re-
lief from maintenance to assistance, from
the prop of idleness to the crutch of the
lame, and it can prolong well-adjusted
aid while the necessity for it lasts ;
finally, being a system of unity and thus
gaining in a large measure control over
the wards of charity, it can terminate
relief when the occasion for it passes,
and the dependent upon it is ready to
" graduate " into the great world of in-
dustrial, social, and moral order.

Such is the significance of the attempt
to curtail legal relief to the limits of
institutions. It is an important, if not
an essential, step to systematized work,
and until pauperism is confronted with
system there is no hope of eradicating it.

This paper, already long, ought not
to pass over certain facts which illus-
trate and support its argument. Chal-
mers's experiment in one of the poorest
and most populous parishes of Glasgow
is a case in point, an'3 is freshly appealed

to as an example of wise administra-
tion. He abolished all legal relief in
his parish, and charged every new case
of pauparism that arose upon an even-
ing penny collection, which amounted
to $400 a year. In a population of ten
thousand but twenty new cases arose in
four years, of which five were the re-
sults of illegitimate births or family
desertion, and two of disease. The cost
of their relief was but $175 a year. In
a few years the established pauperism
of the parish sank from 1 64 to 99, and
Dr. Chalmers had to find new educa-
tional methods for employing his super-
fluous poor funds.

Mr. Low, in a paper to be found in
the published proceedings of the Nation-
al Conference of Charities and Correc-
tion of 1881, brings forward three in-
stances of the sudden curtailment of
public official out-door relief which were
attended by no discoverable distress.
In 1876, the township in which Indian-
apolis is, by a change in the trusteeship
of poor relief, reduced its expense from
$90,000 a year to $8000. In 1878, the
city of Brooklyn ceased to give out-door
relief, in which $141,207 had been ex-
pended the previous year. The sudden
withdrawal of this large sum found no
compensations elsewhere that could be
detected. There was no increase in the
population of the almshouse or hospital,
no augmented demand upon the treas-
ury of the General Relief Society of
the city, no police reports of unusual
mendicancy or want. On the contrary,
since the cutting-off of public out-door
relief, with the exception of 1879, when
the inmates of the hospital and alms-
house were increased by only eleven,
this in-door population and the expendi-
tures of the Society for Improving the
Condition of the Poor have diminished.
Like statements may be made concern-
ing Philadelphia, where the municipal
councils in 1879 declined any further
appropriations for out-door relief, al-
though they had voted $66,000 to this

1883.]

The Pauper Question.

651

purpose the previous year. No new
strain was put upon either the public
institutions or the resources of charita-
ble societies.

For some years the East End Union
of London, within whose limits lies one
of the most poverty-stricken districts of
that city, has abolished all official out-,
door relief, with a most encouraging
gain upon the pauperism of its territory.

One of the best informed writers on
the subject of Italian pauperism writes,
" When Napoleon abolished the relig-
ious orders and the convent alms at
Rome, out of thirty thousand beggars,
thus left without assistance, only fifteen
thousand had themselves registered and
taken into St. John Lateran's. The
same thing happened in Lombardy in
the time of Joseph II. When the work*
houses of Pizzighettone, Abbiategrasso,
and Milan were opened for beggars, the
greater part of them disappeared."

These instances are taken from widely
different countries, times, and circum-
stances, yet they concur to show that
no small part of the apparent pauperism
of the community is only simulated, in
order to share in the spoils of charity.
They sustain with uniformity the oft-
repeated proposition that mendicancy
grows by the provision made for it.

Probably few would object to the ex-
pansion of their comfort which even
mendicants may gain by their vulgar
cunning, if this were all that should be
taken into account. We might well say
with Charles Lamb, " Rake not into
the bowels of unwelcome truth to save
a half-penny." But the half-penny is
not the consideration at all. It is the
saving of a human being. And the
corrupting influence of professional, or
mechanical, or official charity is beyond
all denial. In it the element of per-
sonal sympathy is almost wholly ob-
scured. The fountain of beneficence is
concealed. Paupers do not drink at the
clear spring. The almoner of a public
fund does not give his own away, but

simply distributes among clamorous
claimants what they regard as morally
their own. They can recognize but lit-
tle more ground of gratitude to the
mechanism of distribution than to the
hydrant which brings the water that it
taints into their dwellings. There is
little in this perfunctoriness to reinstate
the poor in the consciousness of social
ties. Rather, the official agency of re-
lief is a bar to the avenues of society.
It is a gate where those stand, to use
Longfellow's graphic words,

" Who amid their wants and woes
Hear the sound of doors that close,
And of feet that pass them by ;
Grown familiar with disfavor,
Grown familiar with the favor
Of the bread by which men die."

Whatever scheme of dealing with
pauperism may be pressed upon our
notice, one truth will doubtless emerge
from every experiment, clad in re-
pulsiveness until society recognizes it,
transfigured with divine radiance when
obeyed. It is the truth that man is not an
animal, but a moral and social being.
The system must be simply the method
by which the noblest spirit acts, not a
labor-saving mechanism. The English
work-house, with all its discriminating
rules, has lapsed again and again into a
winter's refuge of vagabonds, a recu-
perating asylum of the inebriate and
licentious, a source of infection to its
hapless innocent inmates, and a prop to
prolong the career of profligacy. Un-
der the elaborate and splendidly adjusted
organization of the Bureaux de Bienfai-
sance, Napoleon III. thought it neces-
sary, during his reign, to expend more
than $360,000,000 on the public im-
provements of Paris, in order to furnish
employment to the people, while Bel-
gium is " the classic land of pauperism."
The severe Fragebogen of Leipsic can-
not remedy the faithlessness or indiffer-
ence of the overseer, nor the lack of
moral influences attaching to the paucity
of visitors. Under all systems, every-
thing depends on the manner of admin-

652

Winter-Killed.

[May,

istration, and the spiritual wealth of the
community at their command. While
the scope of relief extends to no greater
wants than an intelligent farmer consid-
ers in his herd, the pauper cannot but
feel that he is placed among the cattle
outside, and excluded from all partici-
pation in the life of these households.
The closing of the doors to high human
fellowships, with their moral basis of
order and concord, with their bright con-
ventions of courtesy and refinement, with
their rich play of responsive sympathies,
with their hope exciting vistas of still
ampler and purer prospects, — this is
the saddest element in the situation of
those whom adversity, ignorance, or vice
has depressed. The poor wretch, who,
lapsed from the pale of cosmic life, is
sinking into the debasement of animal-
ism, where intelligence turns to preda-
tory instincts, the voice of conscience is

quiet, the faculties for fellowship wither
up, and the hope of better things does
not stir the heart, needs to be environed
by the friendships of the capable and
strong. Without this higher and hard-
er charity, organization is not method,
but mechanism. The hand without the
mind is but a tool. Together they are
the artist. The mechanisms of charity
can never shape the hard rock of pau-
perism into the features and forms of
beauty. For that underlying society
must become an inspired artist. May
not this persuasion have led the apostle
Paul to couple the principle and exhor-
tation together ? " He that soweth to
his flesh shall of the flesh reap corrup-
tion ; but he that soweth to the spirit,
shall of the spirit reap life everlasting.
And let us not be weary in well-doing ;
for in due season we shall reap if we
faint not."

D. 0. Kellogg.

WINTER-KILLED.

BENEATH the snow the roses sleep,
Below the wave the pearls lie deep ;
Wedged in the rock-rift, centuries old,
Lie yellow veins of virgin gold ;
Ice-locked within its forest nook
Sleeps the bright spirit of the brook :
And under more than wintry fate,
Or ocean's depths, or bowlder's weight,
Or fettering ice, or frozen grass,
Dishonored Love lies dead, alas !

Yet spring shall wake the rose once more,

The diver bring the pearl to shore;

With sturdy toil, the miner bold

Shall blast the rock and glean the gold,

Aud April set the brooklet free

To seek its waiting bride, the sea:

But not spring's vivifying kiss,

Nor summer rain's persuasiveness,

Nor toil, nor search, nor patient pain,

Can bring dead Love to life again.

Helen E. Starbleak.

1883.]

The Floods of the Mississippi Valley.

653

THE FLOODS OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.

As man extends his control over the
surface of this continent, he finds that
perfect mastery of it is not easily at-
tained. He deals here with a ruder ,
mother earth than that which environed
him in the Old World ; frost, flood, and
drought, the three dangers of climates
in high latitudes, are all more serious
evils on this continent than he found
them in the cradle lands of his race. In
Europe and Western Asia the land is
divided into physical kingdoms, or sub-
divided into principalities, by mountains
or arms of the seas. The forces of na-
ture are tamed by the division ; floods
and famines find barriers set against
them, and the worst natural accidents
are local in their action. In America
there is far more unity in the destiny of
the land ; blessings and curses have a
wider, freer range.

Let us notice at the outset that there
are two different North Americas : the
one the geographical continent, such as
is delineated in maps, and the other the
continent that can have any profitable
relations to man, — which can support
him by its soil, or help him by its min-
eral resources.

As far as man is concerned, all the
areas of North America that drain into
the Arctic Sea, and nearly all that drain
into Hudson's Bay, may be regarded as
not existing. It would be well if they
could be taken below the sea, for there
is no human promise to them, and if
they were away the rest would be more
favored in its climate. "We must make
a similar subtraction for all the region
between the meridian of Omaha and that
of Sacramento and north of Mexico.
Here and there, in this area, are patches
of land where men may win bread ; but
of it all, not over the tenth part will
ever see a harvest.

South of the United States, in Mex-

ico and Central America, nature is less
niggardly than in the Northern Cordil-
leran section, and there is a chance for
patches of fertility high enough in the
mountains to escape the evils of the
tropics ; but, as a whole, we may say
that man has already entered on all his
inheritance on this continent.

In its economic aspect, this conti-
nent divides itself into four main re-
gions, which, though not very distinct
from each other, are peculiar enough
to deserve separate names. They are
the Atlantic coast belt, including the
borders of the Mexican Gulf ; the Lau-
rentian basin ; the Pacific coast ; and,
between these, the great basin of the
Mississippi. Of these areas, tho great
central river basin is the chief ; we may
indeed call it the trunk and viscera of
the continent's body, the other parts be-
ing only the outlying limbs. Measured
in terms of men yet to live on this
land, the Mississippi area is many times
greater than all the rest of the conti-
nent put together. Measured by its
future acres of grain, or the future ton-
nage of minerals, the two prime mo-
tors of our economic life, we find that
it holds the material wealth on which
must rest the burden of the life in the
twentieth, and we know not how many
more centuries.

As the largest element of our national
heritage, this great valley may well re-
ceive the especial consideration of the
state.

The Mississippi Valley differs in many
ways from any other river valley with
which our race has had to deal. In the
first place, it is much larger than any of
the valleys of Europe ; it has a greater
share of alluvial lands along its several
streams, and a more extensive delta at
its mouth, than any Old World rivers.
The process of occupation by man, and

654

The Floods of the Mississippi Valley.

[May,

the change in the conditions which this
occupation brings about, have taken
place with great rapidity, without allow-
ing any time for the readjustment of
the physical conditions which the use
of a region by civilized men compels.

When our race came to occupy the
Mississippi Valley, its conditions had
already been modified by the action of
his Indian predecessors to a considerable
degree. Nearly all the region west of
the Mississippi, and a large portion of
that to the north and west of the Ohio,
where now lie the States of* Indiana,
Illinois, and Wisconsin, were destitute
of forests. In part, this absence of
woods was due to the original influence
of climate ; but in larger degree it was
owing to the Indian habit of burning
the herbage, to foster the growth of the
fresh grasses which were so advanta-
geous to the buffalo and other large
game. East of the Mississippi, it seems
pretty clear that this process of defor-
esting was principally, if not entirely,
due to this peculiar forest and prairie
burning habit of our predecessors on
this continent.

Thus the whites came to this valley
at a time when it was in good part un-
wooded ; when the great unbroken for-
ests were, in the main, limited to the
eastern or Ohio district of the valley.
This district was harder to deforest than
that west of the Mississippi, on account
of its greater rainfall. The eastern side
of the Mississippi has at least twice the
rainfall that comes to the western side of
the valley ; so its wet forests were hard
to burn. To this, we owe the fact that
the Indians had not carried the treeless
belt up to the very foot of the Allegha-
nies.1 But what the savages could not
do with fire, their successors, more skill-
ful despoilers of the earth, have set
about with the axe. A large part of
the forest coating of the Ohio Valley

l I am aware that this view of the origin of the
prairies in the Ohio Valley is not generally ac-
cepted, and cannot here enter on the proof of it;

has disappeared, and what remains is
marked all over by the hand of man.

The first and most important result
of this invasion of the forests by civili-
zation is that the rain-water flows more
rapidly into the streams, and thence to
the sea, than it did before. We easily
perceive how this is brought about. In
the old virgin forests, whose wildnesses
are known to few, the water had a long
and slow journey to the main streams.
There was commonly a. foot or more of
vegetable mould, porous as a sponge,
and capable of retaining a rainfall of
several inches, which it yielded slowly
to the streams. This was overlaid in
every direction by fallen trees, whose
mouldering frames made little dams
across every depression, from which the
water would slowly filter down the
drainage slopes. In the torrential rains
that flooded the surface of the wood,
the action of the flowing water heaped
the decayed debris in every channel,
and served to bar its path to the main
streams. When the flood had found its
way to the open brooks, it encountered
the system of beaver dams, which once
existed in thousands along all the lesser
streams. These wonderful structures
have long since passed away ; but when
the whites first came to this country,
every stream less in size than the smaller
rivers was dammed here and there by
these barriers, so admirably fitted for
retaining the waters in the flood times.
It was the habit of these primitive hy-
draulic engineers to abandon their dams
whenever they had cleared away their
favorite species of trees that grew near
them, and to build others ; so that a col-
ony of beavers would in a few years
construct several dams beside the one
they occupied at any particular time.
Each of these barriers held the waters
imperfectly, serving only to hinder the
flood in its swift course; no one dam

but I may say that, in my opinion, it rests on
abundant evidence.

1883.]

The Floods of the Mississippi Valley.

655

would hold more than a few acres of
water ; but, with every little " branch "
full of them, the aggregate restraining
effect on the current was very great in-
deed. The floating ice and drift-wood
would catch on the barrier of the dam,
and so increase its effect in holding back
the waters.

There are no data for estimating the
relative length of time it required for
the floods to escape while these condi-
tions prevailed, compared with the rate
of speed that now marks these down-
going waters. But it is pretty clear that
it must have required at least twice, per-
haps thrice, the time for a flood to pour
its waters by a particular point on the
Ohio one hundred and fifty years ago
that it does at present. Let us consider
how man's interference has changed the
behavior of these floods. In the first
place, the larger part of the forests have
utterly disappeared. Instead of the
spongy mass of the forest bed that never
could be entirely closed by frost, and
of the sheltering woods that fenced the
snow from the sun and from warm winds,
we now have more than half the valley,
with bare fields, compacted by tillage,
open to sun and to the south wind, freez-
ing to the hardness of stone, and from
which the rains of the late winter flow
away as speedily as they do from the
house roofs.

Besides this, all the beaver-dammed,
timber -obstructed streams are cleared
out, in order that the lumberman may
" run " his logs from the remnants of
forests among the hills. All the allu-
vial lands along the streams are turned
into open fields, so that the overflowing
water has no longer to creep through a
tangle of vegetation, as soon as it es-
capes from the channel, but may move
swiftly, however wide its stream. If
now, after a time of frost, there comes
a general rain that exceeds two or three
inches in total fall, the water from the
most of the valleys is swiftly precipitated
into the main ways, and it all hurries at

the average rate of six or more miles
an hour from the place where it falls to
the earth to the great rivers. These
main rivers speedily escape from their
banks, and flood the fields and towns
throughout the alluvial plains, carrying
destruction all the way to the sea. For
a time, the increasing volume of the
flood waters that each year has brought
has managed to make some compensa-
tion for itself. The main channels have
been widened by cutting away the allu-
vial plain on either side. In this fash-
ion the flood water way of the Ohio has
widened by about one fifth since the set-
tlement of the country began. But now,
when many cities have grown on its
banks, and the alluvial lands have come
to be highly valued, means have been
taken to keep the stream as far as pos-
sible within its bounds, and even to re-
cover some part of its recent gains on
its shores. So the waters are compelled
to mount in height, and they rush on-
ward in a swift tide that requires several
days to pass any given point. As this
flood, reinforced by every tributary, goes
onward, it lengthens, but becomes less
deep, and takes more hours to pass by.
Thus a flood that will be dangerously
high for only two days in the upper Ohio
will be a week above the danger line on
the Mississippi, It is impossible to es-
timate the loss by such a flood as that
of February, 1883, on the Ohio. We
can only enumerate the classes of dam-
age done. First, we have the loss from
the sweeping away of the soil. As I
stood, during the time of the February
flood, on a bridge over the Ohio at
Cincinnati, looking at the roaring mass
of waters, full of wreckage of fences,
bridges, houses, and barns, that gathered
in quivering, changing heaps against
each of the massive piers, I felt that
the immediate loss of these temporary
structures was less important than the
wastage of soil that the stream was
bearing away to the sea. Each minute
the fertility of a farm went by in the

656

The Floods of the Mississippi Valley.

[May,

yellow tide. In this floating soil, the
slow winning of many geological peri-
ods, the possibilities of food for millions
to come slips away unseen in the turbid
waters. This is the greatest and least
replaceable of the losses. Next comes
the immediate loss of structures of all
kinds ; then the interruption to business
in the alluvial tracts that take the bur-
den of the flood ; last, and most griev-
ous, but hardest to estimate in money,
the epidemics that follow in the train
of these floods. The great overflows
of 1847 and 1852, which this flood of
February, 1883, far exceeded, were fol-
lowed, in the succeeding warm seasons,
by calamitous outbreaks of cholera and
related diseases. The lesser inunda-
tions of intervening years have appar-
ently left their several marks on the
death-rate of the valley. The flood of
February of this year is estimated to
have occasioned a loss of a million and
a half dollars at Cincinnati alone. It
is doubtful if the direct loss in the Mis-
sissippi Valley will be less than fifty
million dollars ; and if pestilence should
come in its train, the money damage
may go far beyond this amount.

Bad as this is at the moment, the
prospect for the future is yet more dis-
couraging. The remaining forests of
the Ohio Valley, which still cover some-
thing over one third of its surface, and
serve to modify the floods, lie princi-
pally in the mountain districts about
its head waters, — the head streams of
the Tennessee, Cumberland, Kentucky,
Licking, Sandy, Kanawha, Monongahe-
la, etc. These forests clothe steep hill-
sides, whence the infinitely ramifying
streams fall rapidly to the main rivers.
The heaviest rainfall of the valley is in
this district. As yet the lumberman has
left much of this country unchanged ;
the flood water has there something of
the slow escape that once marked its
overflow in all the lower regions as well.
Now, however, the changes arising from
settlement is invading these valleys ; the

axe is stripping their hill-sides, turning
them into bare roofs, from which soil
and water flow away in swift yellow tor-
rents. The streams are losing the old
barriers of fallen trees and the tangle

of lodged drift-wood, that moderated the
speed of the current even after the
beaver dams had disappeared. When
these mountain ridges have been thor-
oughly subjugated, a process that will
be complete within half a century, the
disastrous power of the flood will be
greatly enhanced ; for this region has
the largest rainfall of any part of the
valley, and when stripped of its forests
will, on account of . its steepness of
surface, send its tide of water with
greater speed to the low countries than
those regions which now give the worst
floods. The question comes before us,
Is there any remedy for these inunda-
tions, or must they be submitted to with
the necessary patience with which we
endure cold and droughts ? For the
lower portions of the Mississippi, that
vast alluvial plain, richer than the low-
lands of Holland or of the Nilotic delta,
a remedy, or at least a satisfactory pal-
liative, may be found in the system of
diking and of side outlets, which have
been so well proven in many other lands
for thousands of years. As soon as the
nation comes to a full sense of its duty
by its inheritance, this part of the evil
will certainly be dealt with. On the
upper waters, the greater height of the
flood line in relation to the alluvial
lands makes the problem much more
difficult. Dikes twenty feet high would
often be needed to make a safe barrier
to the stream. The construction and
maintenance of such works, though not
beyond the powers of engineering, would
be a work of impracticable magnitude.
Moreover, the inconvenience of such
barriers would be very great. In the
numerous cities that have grown and
are to grow along these streams, such
dikes would prove more inconvenient
than the walls of mediajval burgs. Ad-

1883.]

The Floods of the Mississippi Valley.

657

ditional outlets for the waters are not
possible here, as they are in the- delta
region of the main river.

The only conceivable resources may
be found in the possible means of re-
taining the flood waters in the uplands,
so that they may be more slowly dis-
charged into the greater tributaries..
Speaking generally, we may say that a
flood that will be disastrous if it passes
a given point in six days will not rise
out of the usual water way if it could
be made to take eight days in its pas-
sage. Is it possible to retain 'in the up-
lands enough of the flood waters of the
Ohio to prolong the period of its pas-
sage, say at Cincinnati, by as much as
two or three days ? This problem has
never, to my knowledge, received the dis-
cussion which it merits. Some years
ago, a Mr. Charles Ellet, Jr., a distin-
guished engineer, proposed to construct
a large dam on the upper Kanawha,
designed to retain enough water for the
replenishment of the stream in times
when the water becomes too shallow for
the uses of navigation. This is the only
considerable inquiry into the problem of
water storage in the Ohio basin that is
known to me.

Some years ago, while acting as state
geologist and surveyor of Kentucky, I
looked into the old natural function of
the beaver dams ; and from them I ob-
tained the idea that it might be possible
to make temporary reservoirs, which
should be flooded for only a few days
in the year, and which would serve to
retain enough water to lower the flood
height of the main stream by a few feet.
I examined a few specimen areas in that
State, to determine the possible size and
to get approximate estimates of the cost
of such dams. My data were very imper-
fect : but it seemed possible, with about
one thousand reservoirs, averaging fifty
acres in surface, with a mean depth of
ten feet, to hold back the dangerous, or
at least the most destructive, part of the
flood tide that passes Cincinnati in one

VOL. LI. — NO. 307. 42

day ; and that three thousand dams of
this area, or a total surface of somewhat
over one hundred thousand acres of wa-
ter reservoirs, having a mean depth of
ten feet, would be required to lower the
water at Cincinnati below the level of
great destruction during such a flood as
that of February last. The cost of
such dams would be great, but it seemed
to me likely that it would not exceed
an average of somewhere near ten thou-
sand dollars each, or a total of about
thirty million dollars for the completed
work. There would probably be no se-
rious difficulty in insuring the automatic
action of these dams, so that supervision
would not be expensive. The struc-
tures being of a cheap character, the
annual repairs should not be a serious
charge. The occupation of the land by
the waters would be only temporary;
it need not endure beyond the period of
winter ; by the middle of March the
gates of the dams could be thrown wide
open to the passage of the waters, and
the land given to the plow. The effect
of this overflowing, provided it did not
extend later into the season than the
first of April, would be advantageous to
the land. It would receive each winter
a refreshment from the silt deposited
upon it, so that, in place of being harmed,
it would be helped by the flooding.

If this system should, on careful in-
quiry, be found practicable, it would be
easy, with slight modifications, to make
it serve the purpose of maintaining a
sufficient depth of water for navigation
during the summer season. It was once
supposed that the extension of railways
would destroy the usefulness of these
water ways, but experience has shown
that the navigation of the Ohio grows
greater each year. The carriage of
freight now far exceeds the traffic on
any railway in the country. Through
its channels the coal supply of the re-
gion adjacent to the Mississippi natural-
ly finds its way from the vast coal fields
of the Appalachian Mountains. An

658

The Floods of the Mississippi Valley.

[May,

immense and rapidly growing freight of
iron, salt, and lumber passes along its
ways to market, at a cost of less than
half what would be required for its car-
riage on any railway. Owing to the
widening of the channel and to the loss
of water-storing power in the country,
the river is essentially unfit for this
work for several months each year ; the
water being too shallow for any but the
smallest steamers. By making a part
of these dams storeplaces for the waters
of the later spring season, and releasing
this water in the time' of droughts, as
proposed by Mr. Ellet, a better depth of
stream could be maintained during the
period of short rainfall. I believe that
the profit to the country derived from
this benefit alone would go far to com-
pensate for the cost of the whole project,
if it did not in itself entirely warrant
it. This plan is not purely speculative,
for something of this sort has been ac-
complished in certain European rivers,
where a system of temporary rises in
the water of navigable streams, little
freshets, coming at short intervals, is
produced by means of such storage res-
ervoirs.

It should not be supposed that this
project of flood retention is sufficiently
matured to warrant its immediate adop-
tion. It may be claimed, however, as
it is the only possible solution of a very
grave problem, that it is fairly worth
the thorough inquiry which only a care-
ful and widely extended survey could
give it.

We may notice that any scheme
which would serve to lower the flood
line at Cincinnati by as much as ten
feet would diminish the freshet level
on the lower Mississippi, below Cairo,
by a proportionate amount, or probably
by something like two or three feet of
altitude. This would make the problem
of protecting the lands of the lower
Mississippi, the most fertile lands of
America, a region that has a food-giving
power as great as half the State of Iowa,

much easier than it now appears to be.
The essential difficulty of the lower
Mississippi floods lies in the upper three
feet of their rise. If that much could
be taken away, the problem would be
far simpler than it now is.

We may also notice that this project
is consistent with the plan of improving
the navigation of the smaller tributaries
of the Mississippi system, which has al-
ready received some attention from the
federal government. To give good ac-
cess to those stores of mineral wealth
in the Appalachians, which the proper
development of the whole valley de-
mands, will require the improvement, by
locks and dams, of these streams in the
admirable fashion in operation in France
and parts of Germany, where every
stream that can in any way be made an
outlet for trade has been brought into
use. Such a system of water ways will
require an extensive series of pools for
water storage, which would naturally be
a part of the proposed reservoirs for
the retention of the flood waters. In-
deed, when this system of lockage and
damming is completed, the works neces-
sary for the retention of floods and for
the maintenance of a summer supply in
the main river would incidentally be,
in part, accomplished. So that all the
necessities of improvement in this river
system are parts of the same great
task.

Somewhat apart from these lines of
profit, but still worthy of notice, we
may note the probable advantages to
the climate and tillage of the country
derived from the longer retention of the
waters in the lands. Although a certain
proportion of these reservoirs would
be used only for the temporary storage
of the water, it is likely that a large
part of them would be used to retain
their water to the times of drought.
The presence of these reservoirs in the
region could hardly fail to have some
effect upon the climate in dry seasons
through the evaporation of their water.

1883.]

The Floods of the Mississippi Valley.

659

Just as the forests engender thunder-
storms from the great volume of water
they yield to the air in hot seasons, so
a multiplicity of small lakes would act
to supply the material for local rains.
There is yet another advantage to be
derived from the detained flood waters :
they could be used for the purposes
of irrigation, an art that can be profit-
ably applied to most of the fields of the
Mississippi Valley that border on the
streams. The trouble is that, during
the time of drought, these streams yield
so little water that they could not be
made to serve for irrigation. The wa-
ters held back by dams from the flood
season could be made to serve this
need in times of heat and drought, and
would doubtless, in time, be availed of
to the great benefit of the agriculture
of the district.

It is not to be denied that the perfect
control of the Mississippi system of
waters is perhaps the greatest engineer-
ing problem that our race has ever had
to attack. The great rivers of China
are the only streams of the thickly peo-
pled parts of the world that present
anything like the difficulties that we
have to encounter here. The larger
streams of Europe, the Rhine, the Dan-
ube, the Po, and the Rhone, all have
great natural storage reservoirs on their
upper waters, that limit the action of
the mountain-born floods, and tend to
equalize the flow of their waters. No
such reservoirs exist on the tributaries
of the Ohio and the Missouri, or any
other of the Mississippi affluents, except
on the head waters of the stream which
is incorrectly termed the upper Missis-
sippi.

I have limited these considerations to
the valley of the Ohio, because the
problem is more serious in that valley
than in those of the other great em-
branchments of the Mississippi. Its
greater rainfall, the denser population,
bringing more cities upon its banks,
makes the needs more imminent there

than elsewhere. In the Missouri Valley
there are few forests to clear away,
the rainfall is much less, and popula-
tion has not become great enough for
its banks to be occupied with great cities ;
still the problem there is only less seri-
ous than on the Ohio. Very destructive
floods ravage its fertile alluvial lauds ;
and if the destruction is less wide-spread
than on the Ohio, it is in part because
there is, as yet, less to destroy. More-
over, the Missouri Valley is a region
where the incidental profit which would
arise from the storage of water would
be greater than in the more eastern val-
ley of the Ohio, for the reason that the
summer droughts are more serious, the
river then shrinks to a lesser stream,
and the need of irrigation water is more
serious. Apart from the effect in miti-
gating floods, the storage of water in
the uplands of this woody region would
l)e very profitable to all its interests.
Indeed, this system is demanded in all
the great valleys that enter the Missis-
sippi from the west.

Nature, in giving us the finest river
valley for the benefit of our race that
the world affords, has given with it a
burden of labor worthy of our govern-
ment. Unhappily, at the present time,
the evils of our system of national ap-
propriations for internal improvement
have brought a certain odium upon all
schemes for the betterment of our wa-
ter ways. There is an unreasoning dis-
position among our people unreflectingly
to condemn all such projects.

This state of the public mind will, it
is to be hoped, prove transitory. The
problem of the Mississippi water sys-
tem is a national problem. It will soon
become so urgent that it must be treated
in a national way. If the federal gov-
ernment, led by a sectional feeling that
is in striking contrast with the state of
the public mind a decade ago, refuses
to undertake the matter, then it will
necessarily be undertaken by some form
of association among the States that are

660

The " Harnt " that walks Chilhowee.

[May,

most immediately concerned therein. It
needs no Daniel come to judgment to
show that such an associated action of
States in a matter of continuous gov-
ernmental work would be full of the
gravest political dangers. It would be
a federation within the nation for mu-
tual protection against a danger that the
general government had failed to repel.
It could not fail to weaken the bond of
common interest, the source of common
obligation, which we gave a generation
of labor and of life to affirm. Once let
it be established in the public mind
that the vital interests of each section
must be cared for by associations of the
States that are immediately concerned
therein, and the idea of a great all-
sustaining commonwealth will be fa-
tally weakened. Such a sundering of the
moral union of the people would pave
the way to, if it did not in itself war-
rant, a political disintegration of the
nation. It seems to me certain that no
such policy of blind neglect can ever
meet with continued approval in this
country. If the governments of Europe,

despite their burden of war, and of con-
stant preparation for war, can care for
the condition of their water ways, if
Great Britain can secure to the people
of India the advantages of storage res-
ervoirs to meet the needs of drought-
times, our own government, free from
all burden of armaments, and soon to be
free from the load of national debt, will
surely prove that it is willing to do all
that is possible to meet such exigencies.
Against this tide of necessity political
prejudices and sectional jealousies can
make no permanent headway. Practi-
cal modern governments exist for such
duties, and will be properly judged by the
efficiency with which they accomplish
them. Just as ancient regimes main-
tained themselves by the power with
which they resisted armies, keeping out
the Goth, or the Turk, or other foe, so
the governments of the practical age we
are entering will stand or fall by their
power to combat the elemental enemies,
pestilence, flood, and famine, or what
else of ill to which man once tamely
submitted.

N. S. Shaler.

THE "HARNT" THAT WALKS CHILHOWEE.

JUNE had crossed the borders of Ten-
nessee. Even on the summit of Chil-
howee Mountain the apples in Peter
Giles's orchard were beginning to red-
den, and his Indian corn, planted on so
steep a declivity that the stalks seemed
to have much ado to keep their footing,
was crested with tassels and plumed
with silk. Among the dense forests,
seen by no man's eye, the elder was
flying its creamy banners in honor of
June's coming, and, heard by no man's
ear, the pink and white bells of the aza-
lea rang out melodies of welcome.

" An' it air a toler'ble for'ard season.
Yer wheat looks likely ; an' yer gyarden

truck air thrivin' powerful. Even that
cold spell we-uns bed about the full o'
the moon in May ain't done sot it back
none, it 'pears like ter me. But, 'cord-
ing ter my way o' thinkin', ye hev got
chickens enough hyar ter eat off every
pea-bloom ez soon ez it opens." And
Simon Burney glanced with a gardener's
disapproval at the numerous fowls, lift-
ing their red combs and tufted top-knots
here and there among the thick clover
under the apple-trees.

" Them 's Clarsie's chickens, — my
darter, ye know," drawled Peter Giles,
a pale, listless, and lauk mountaineer.
" An' she hev been gin ter onderstand

1883.]

The " Harnt " that walks Chilhowee.

661

ez they hev got ter be kep' out 'n the
gyarden; 'thout," he added indul-
gently, — " 'thout I 'm a-plowin', when
I lets 'em foller in the furrow ter pick
up worms. But law ! Clarsie is so spry
that she don't ax no better 'n ter be let
ter run them chickens off'n the peas."

Then the two men tilted their chairs,
against the posts of the little porch in
front of Peter Giles's log cabin, and
puffed their pipes in silence. The pan-
orama spread out before them showed
misty and dreamy among the delicate
spiral wreaths of smoke. But was that
gossamer-like illusion, lying upon the
far horizon, the magic of nicotian, or the
vague presence of distant heights ? As
ridge after ridge came down from the
sky in ever-graduating shades of intenser
blue, Peter Giles might have told you
that this parallel system of enchantment
was only " the mountings : " that here
was Foxy, and there was Big Injun,
and still beyond was another, which he
had hearn tell ran spang up into Vir-
ginny. The sky that bent to clasp this
kindred blue was of varying moods.
Floods of sunshine submerged Chil-
howee in liquid gold, and revealed that
dainty outline limned upon the northern
horizon ; but over the Great Smoky
mountains clouds had gathered, and a
gigantic rainbow bridged the valley.

Peter Giles's listless eyes were fixed
upon a bit of red clay road, which was
visible through a gap in the foliage far
below. Even a tiny object, that ant-
like crawled upon it, could be seen from
the summit of Chilhowee. "I reckon
that 's my brother's wagon an' team,"
he said, as he watched the moving atom
pass under the gorgeous triumphal arch.
" He 'lowed he war goin' ter the Cross-
Roads ter-day."

Simon Burney did not speak for a
moment. When he did, his words
seemed widely irrelevant. " That 's a
likely gal o' yourn," he drawled, with
an odd constraint in his voice, — "a
likely gal, that Clarsie."

There was a quick flash of surprise in
Peter Giles's dull eyes. He covertly
surveyed his guest, with an astounded
curiosity rampant in his slow brains.
Simon Burney had changed color ; an
expression of embarrassment lurked in
every line of his honest, florid, hard-
featured face. An alert imagination
might have detected a deprecatory self-
consciousness in every gray hair that
striped the black beard raggedly fring-
ing his chin.

" Yes," Peter Giles at length replied,
" Clarsie air a likely enough gal. But
she air mightily sot ter hevin' her own
way. An' ef 't ain't give ter her
peaceable-like, she jes' takes it whether
or no."

This statement, made by one pre-
sumably fully informed on the subject,
might have damped the ardor of many
a suitor, — for the monstrous truth was
dawning on Peter Giles's mind that
suitor was the position to which this
slow, elderly widower aspired. But Si-
mon Burney, with that odd, all-pervad-
ing constraint still prominently appar-
ent, mildly observed, " Waal, ez much
ez I hev seen of her goin's-on, it 'pears
ter me ez her way air a mighty good
way. An' it ain't comical that she likes
it."

Urgent justice compelled Peter Giles
to make some amends to the absent
Clarissa. " That 's a fac'," he admitted.
" An' Clarsie ain't no hand ter jaw.
She don't hev no words. But then,"
he qualified, truth and consistency alike
constraining him, "she air a toler'ble
hard-headed gal. That air a true word.
Ye mought as well try ter hender the
sun from shining ez ter make that thar
Clarsie Giles do what she don't want ter
do."

To be sure, Peter Giles had a right
to his opinion as to the hardness of his
own daughter's head. The expression
of his views, however, provoked Simon
Burney to wrath ; there was something
astir within him that in a worthier sub-

662

The " Harnt " that walks Chilhowee.

[May,

ject might have been called a chivalric
thrill, and it forbade him to hold his
peace. He retorted : " Of course ye
kin say that, ef so minded ; but enny-
body ez hev got eyes kin see the change
ez hev been made in this hyar place
sence that thar gal hev been growed.
I ain't a-purtendin' ter know that thar
Clarsie ez well ez you-uns knows her
hyar at home, but I hev seen enough,
an' a deal more 'n enough, of her goin's-
on, ter know that what she does ain't
done fur herself. An' ef she will hev
her way, it air fur the good of the whole
tribe of ye. It 'pears ter me ez thar
ain't many gals like that thar Clarsie.
An' she air a merciful critter. She air
mighty savin' of the feelin's of every-
thing, from the cow an' the mare down
ter the dogs, an' pigs, an' chickens ; al-
ways a-feedin' of 'em jes' ter the time, an'
never draggin', an' clawin', an' beatiu' of
'em. Why, that thar Clarsie can't put
her foot out 'n the door, that every
dumb beastis on this hyar place ain't
a-runnin' ter git nigh her. I hev seen
them pigs mos' climb the fence when
*he shows her face at the door. 'Pears
'ter me ez that thar Clarsie could tame a
b'ar, ef she looked at him a time or two,
she 's so savin' o' the critter's feelin's !
An' thar 's that old yaller dog o' yourn,"
pointing to an ancient cur that was
blinking in the sun, " he 's older 'n
Clarsie, an' no 'count in the worl'. I hev
hearn ye say forty times that ye would
kill him, 'ceptin' that Clarsie purtected
him, an' bed sot her heart on his a-livin'
along. An' all the home-folks, an'
everybody that kerns hyar ter sot an'
talk awhile, never misses a chance ter
kick that thar old dog, or poke him with
a stick, or cuss him. But Clarsie ! —
I hev seen that gal take the bread an'
meat off'n her plate, an' give it ter that
old dog, ez 'pears ter me ter be the
worst clispositionest dog I ever see, an'
no thanks lef in him. He hain't hed
the grace ter wag his tail fur twenty
year. That thar1 Clarsie air surely a

merciful critter, an' a mighty spry, like-
ly young gal, besides."

Peter Giles sat in stunned astonish-
ment during this speech, which was de-
livered in a slow, drawling monotone,
with frequent meditative pauses, but
nevertheless emphatically. He made no
reply, and as they were once more si-
lent there rose suddenly the sound of
melody upon the air. It came from be-
yond that tumultuous stream that raced
with the wind down the mountain's side ;
a great log thrown from bank to bank
served as bridge. The song grew mo-
mentarily more distinct; among the
leaves there were fugitive glimpses of
blue and white, and at last Clarsie ap-
peared, walking lightly along the log,
clad in her checked homespun dress,
and with a pail upon her head.

She was a tall, lithe girl, with that
delicately transparent complexion often
seen among the women of these moun-
tains. Her lustreless black hair lay
along her forehead without a ripple or
wave ; there was something in the ex-
pression of her large eyes that suggested
those of a deer, — something free, un-
tamable, and yet gentle. " 'T ain't no
wonder ter me ez Clarsie is all tuk up
with the wild things, an' critters giner-
ally," her mother was wont to say.
" She sorter looks like 'em, I 'm a- think-
in'."

As she came in sight there was a re-
newal of that odd constraint in Simon
Burney's face and manner, and he rose
abruptly. "Waal," he said, hastily,
going to his horse, a raw-boned sorrel,
hitched to the fence, " it 's about time I
war a-startin' home, I reckons."

He nodded to his host, who silently
nodded in return, and the old horse
jogged off with him down the road, as
Clarsie entered the house and placed
the pail upon a shelf.

" Who d' ye think hev been hyar
a-speakiu' of complimints on ye, Clar-
sie?" exclaimed Mrs. Giles, who had
overheard through the open door every

1883.]

The " Harnt" that walks Chilhowee.

663

word of the loud, drawling voice on the
porch.

Clarsie's liquid eyes widened with
surprise, and a faint tinge of rose sprang
into her pale face, as she looked an ex-
pectant inquiry at her mother.

Mrs. Giles was a slovenly, indolent
woman, anxious, at the age of forty-five,,
to assume the prerogatives of advanced
years. She had placed all her domestic
cares upon the shapely shoulders of her
willing daughter, and had betaken her-
self to the chimney-corner and a pipe.

" Yes, thar hev been somebody hyar
a-speakin' of compllmints on ye, Clar-
sie," she reiterated, with chuckling
amusement. " He war a mighty peart,
likely boy, — that he war ! "

Clarsie's color deepened.

" Old Simon Burney ! " exclaimed
her mother, in great glee at the incon-
gruity of the idea. " Old Simon Bur-
ney.' — jes' a-sittin' out thar, a-wastin'
the time, an' a-burnin' of daylight —
jes' ez perlite an' smilin' ez a basket of
chips — a-speakin' of compYimints on
ye!"

There was a flash of laughter among
the sylvan suggestions of Clarsie's eyes,
— a flash as of sudden sunlight upon
water. But despite her mirth she
seemed to be unaccountably disappoint-
ed. The change in her manner was not
noticed by her mother, who continued
banteringly, —

" Simon Burney air a mighty pore
old man. Ye oughter be sorry fur him,
Clarsie. Ye must n't think less of folks
than ye does of the dumb beastis, — that
ain't religion. Ye knows ye air sorry
fur IHOS' everything ; why not fur this
comical old consarn ? Ye oughter mar-
ry him ter take keer of him. He said
ye war a merciful critter ; now is yer
chance ter show it ! Why, air ye a-goiu'
ter weavin', Clarsie, jes' when I wants
ter talk ter ye 'bout'n old Simon Bur-
ney ? But law ! I knows ye kerry him
with ye in yer heart."

The girl summarily closed the con-

versation by seating herself before a
great hand-loom ; presently the persist-
ent thump, thump, of the batten and the
noisy creak of the treadle filled the
room, and through all the long, hot
afternoon her deft, practiced hands light-
ly tossed the shuttle to and fro.

The breeze freshened, after the sun
went down, and the hop and gourd
vines were all astir as they clung about
the little porch where Clarsie was sit-
ting now, idle at last. The rain clouds
had disappeared, and there bent over
the dark, heavily wooded ridges a pale
blue sky, with here and there the crys-
talline sparkle of a star. A halo was
shimmering in the east, where the mists
had gathered about the great white
moon, hanging high above the moun-
tains. Noiseless wings flitted through
the dusk ; now and then the bats swept
by so close as to wave Clarsie's hair
with the wind of their flight. What an
airy, glittering, magical thing was that
gigantic spider-web suspended between
the silver moon and her shining eyes !
Ever and anon there came from the
woods a strange, weird, long-drawn
sigh, unlike the stir of the wind in the
trees, unlike the fret of the water 011
the rocks. Was it the voiceless sorrow
of the sad earth ? There were stars in
the night besides those known to as-
tronomers : the stellular fire-flies gemmed
the black shadows with a fluctuating
brilliancy ; they circled in and out of
the porch, and touched the leaves above
Clarsie's head with quivering points of
light. A steadier and an intenser gleam
was advancing along the road ; and the
sound of languid footsteps came with
it ; the aroma of tobacco graced the at-
mosphere, and a tall figure walked up to
the gate.

" Come in, come in," said Peter Giles,
rising, and tendering the guest a chair.
"Ye air Tom Pratt, ez well ez I kin
make out by this light. Waal, Tom, we
hain't furgot ye sence ye done been
hyar."

664

The " Harnt " that walks Chilhowee.

[May,

As Tom had been there on the pre-
vious evening, this might be considered
a joke, or an equivocal compliment.
The young fellow was restless and awk-
ward under it, but Mrs. Giles chuckled
with great merriment.

" An' how air ye a-comin' on, Mrs.
Giles ? " he asked propitiatorily.

"Jes' toler'ble, Tom. Air they all
well ter your house ? "

" Yes, they 're toler'ble well, too."
He glanced at Clarsie, intending to ad-
dress to her some polite greeting, but
the expression of her shy, half-startled
eyes, turned upon the far-away moon,
warned him. " Thar never war a gal
so skittish," he thought. " She 'd run a
mile, skeered ter death, ef I said a word
ter her."

And he was prudently silent.

"Waal," said Peter Giles, "what's
the news out your way, Tom? Enny-
thing a-goin' on ? "

" Thar war a shower yander on the
Backbone ; it rained toler'ble hard fur
a while, an' sot up the corn wonderful.
Did ye git enny hyar ? "

" Not a drap."

" 'Pears ter me ez I kin see the
clouds a-circlin' round Chilhowee, an'
a-rainin' on everybody's corn-field 'ceptin'
ourn," said Mrs. Giles. " Some folks
is the favored of the Lord, an' t'others
hev ter work fur everything an' git
nothin'. Waal, waal ; we-uns will see
our reward in the nex' worP. Thar 's
a better worl' than this, Tom."

" That 's a fac'," said Tom, in ortho-
dox assent.

" An' when we leaves hyar once, we
leaves all trouble an' care behind us,
Tom ; fur we don't come back no more."
Mrs. Giles was drifting into one of her
pious moods.

"I dunno," said Tom. "Thar hev
been them ez hev."

" Hev what ? " demanded Peter Giles,
startled.

" Hev come back ter this hyar yearth.
Thar's a harnt that walks Chilhowee

every night o% the worl'. I knows them
ez hev seen him."

Even Clarsie's great dilated eyes
were fastened on the speaker's face.
There was a dead silence for a moment,
more eloquent with these looks of amaze-
ment than any words could have been.

" I reckons ye remember a puny,
shriveled little man, named Reuben
Crabb, ez used ter live yander, eight
mile along the ridge ter that thar big
sulphur spring," Tom resumed, appeal-
ing to Peter Giles. " He war born with
only one arm."

" I 'members him/' interpolated Mrs.
Giles, vivaciously. " He war a mighty
porely, sickly little critter, all the days
of his life. 'T war a wonder he war
ever raised ter be a man, — an' a pity,
too. An' 't war powerful comical, the
way of his takin' off; a stunted, one-
armed little critter a-ondertakin' ter
fight folks an' shoot pistols. He hed
the use o' his one arm, sure."

" Waal," said Tom, " his house ain't
thar now, 'kase Sam Griru's brothers
burned it ter the ground fur his a-killin'
of Sam. That warn't all that war done
ter Reuben fur killin' of Sam. The
sheriff run Reuben Crabb down this
hyar road 'bout a mile from hyar, —
mebbe less, — an' shot him dead in the
road, jes' whar it forks. 'Waal, Reuben
war in company with another evil-doer,
— he war from the Cross- Roads, an' I
furgits what he hed done, but he war
a-tryiu' ter hide in the mountings, too ;
an' the sheriff lef Reuben a-lying thar
in the road, while he tries ter ketch up
with the t'other ; but his horse got a
stone in his hoof, an' he los' time, an'
hed ter gin it up. An' when he got
back ter the forks o' the road whar he
had lef Reuben a-lyin' dead, thar war
nothin' thar 'ceptin' a pool o' blood.
Waal, he went right on ter Reuben's
house, an' them Grim boys hed burnt it
ter the ground ; but he seen Reuben's
brother Joel. An' Joel, he tole the
sheriff that late that evenin' he hed tuk

1883.]

The " Harnt " that walks Chilhowee.

665

Reuben's body out'n the road an' buried
it, 'kase it bed been lyin' thar in the
road ever sence early in the mornin',
an' he could n't leave it thar all night,

O '

an' he hed n't no shelter fur it, sence the
Grim boys hed burnt down the house.
So he war obleeged ter bury it. An'
Joel showed the sheriff a new-made ,
grave, an' Reuben's coat whar the sher-
iff's bullet hed gone in at the back an'
kem out'n the breast. The sheriff 'lowed
ez they 'd fine Joel fifty dollars fur
a-buryin' of Reuben afore the cor'ner
kem ; but they never done it, ez I knows
on. The sheriff said that when the
cor'ner kem the body would be tuk up
fur a 'quest. But thar hed been a pow-
erful big frishet, an' the river 'twixt the
cor'ner's house an' Chilhowee could n't
be forded fur three weeks. The cor'-
ner never kem, an' so thar it all stayed.
That war four year ago."

" Waal," said Peter Giles, dryly, " I
ain't seen no harnt yit. I knowed all
that afore."

Clarsie's wondering eyes upon the
young man's moonlit face had elicited
these facts, familiar to the elders, but
strange, he knew, to her.

" I war jes' a-goin' on ter tell," said
Tom, abashed. " Waal, ever sence his
brother Joel died, this spring, Reuben's
harnt walks Chilhowee. He war seen
week afore las', 'bout daybreak, by
Ephraim Blenkins, who hed been a-fish-
in', an' war a-goin' home. Eph happened
ter stop in the laurel ter wind up his
line, when all in a minit he seen the
harnt go by, his face white, an' his eye-
balls like fire, an' puny an' one-armed,
jes' like he lived. Eph, he owed me
a haffen day's work ; I holped him ter
plow las' month, an' so he kem ter-day
an' hoed along cornsider'ble ter pay fur
it. He say he believes the harnt never
seen him, 'kase it went right by. He
'lowed ef the harnt hed so much ez cut
one o' them blazin' eyes round at him
he couldn't but hev drapped dead.
Waal, this mornin', 'bout sunrise, my

brother Bob's little gal, three year old,
strayed off from home while her mother
war out milkin' the cow. An' we went
a-huntin' of her, mightily worked up,
'kase thar hev been a bar prowlin'
round our corn-field twict this summer.
An' I went ter the right, an' Bob went
ter the lef . An' he say ez he war
a-pushin' 'long through the laurel, he
seen the bushes ahead of him a-rustlin'.
An' he jes' stood still an' watched 'em.
An' fur a while the bushes war still too ;
an' then they moved jes' a little, fust this
way an' then that, till all of a suddint
the leaves opened, like the mouth of hell
mought hev done, an' thar he seen Reu-
ben Crabb's face. He say he never
seen sech a face ! Its mouth war open,
an' its eyes war a-startin' out'n its head,
an' its skin war white till it war blue ;
an' ef the devil hed hed it a-hangin' over
the coals that minit it couldn't hev
looked no more skeered. But that war
all that Bob seen, 'kase he jes' shet his
eyes an' screeched an' screeched like he
war extracted. An' when he stopped
a second ter ketch his breath he hearn
su'thin' a-answerin' him back, sorter
weak -like, an' thar war little Peggy
a-pullin' through the laurel. Ye know
she's too little ter talk good, but the
folks down ter our house believes she
seen the harnt, too."

" My Lord ! " exclaimed Peter Giles.
" I 'low I could n't live a minit ef I war
ter see that thar harnt that walks Chil-
howee ! "

"I know /couldn't," said his wife.

" Nor me nuther," murmured Clarsie.

" Waal," said Tom, resuming the
thread of his narrative, " we hev all
been a-talkin' down yander ter our house
ter make out the reason why Reuben
Crabb's harnt hev sot out ter walk jes'
sence his brother Joel died, — 'kase it
war never seen .afore then. An' ez nigh
ez we kin make it out, the reason is
'kase thar's nobody lef in this hyar
worl' what believes he warn't ter blame
in that thar killin' o' Sam Grim. Joel

666

The "Harnt" that walks Chilhowee.

[May,

always swore ez Reuben never killed
him no more 'n nothin' ; that Sam's own
pistol went off in his own hand, an' shot
him through the heart jes' ez he war
a-drawiu' of it ter shoot Reuben Crabb.
An' I hev hearn other men ez war
a-standin' by say the same thing, —
though them Grims tells another tale ;
but ez Reuben never owned no pistol in
his life, nor kerried one, it don't 'pear
ter me ez what them Grims say air rea-
sonable. Joel always swore ez Sam
Grim war a mighty mean man, — a
great big feller like him a-rockin' of a
deformed little critter, an' a-mockin'
of him, an' a-hittin' of him. An' tho
day of the fight, Sam jes' knocked
him down fur uothin' at all ; an' afore
ye could wink Reuben jumped up sud-
dint, an' flew at him like an eagle, an'
struck him in the face. An' then Sam
drawed his pistol, an' it went off in his
own hand, an' shot him through the
heart, an' killed him dead. Joel said
that ef he could hev kep' that pore little
critter Reuben still, an' let the sheriff
arrest him peaceable-like, he war sure
the jury would hev let him off ; 'kase
how war Reuben a-goin' ter shoot enny-
bo<ly when Sam Grim never left a-holt
of the only pistol between them, in life
or in death? They tells me they hed
ter bury Sara Grim with that thar pistol
in his hand ; his grip war too tight fur
death to unloose it. But Joel said that
Reuben war sartain they'd hang him.
He hed n't never seen no jestice from
enny one man, an' he could n't look fur
it from twelve men. So he jes' sot out
ter run through the woods, like a paint-
er or a wolf, ter be hunted by the sher-
iff, an' he war run down an' kilt in the
road. Joel said he kep' up arter the
sheriff ez well ez he could on foot, —
fur the Crabbs never hed no horse, —
ter try ter beg fur Reuben, if he war
cotched, an' tell how little an' how weak-
ly he war. I never seen a young man's
head turn white like Joel's done ; he
said he reckoned ' ir his troubles.

But ter the las' he stuck ter his rifle
faithful. He war a powerful hunter ;
he war out rain or shine, hot or cold, in
sech weather ez other folks would think
thar war n't no use in tryin' ter do noth-
in' in. I 'm mightily afeard o' seein'
Reuben, now, that 's a fac'," concluded
Tom, frankly ; " 'kase I hev hearn tell,
an' I believes it, that ef a harnt speaks
ter ye, it air sartain yo 're bound ter die
right then."

" 'Pears ter me," said Mrs. Giles,
" ez many mountings ez thar air round
hyar, he mought hev tuk ter walkin'
some of them, stiddier Chilhowee."

There was a sudden noise close at
hand : a great inverted splint-basket,
from which came a sound of flapping
wings, began to move slightly back and
forth. Mrs. Giles gasped out an ejacu-
lation of terror, the two men sprang to
their feet, and tho coy Clarsie laughed
aloud in an exuberance of delighted
mirth, forgetful of her shyness. " I de-
clar ter goodness, you-uns air all skeered
fur true ! Did ye think it war the harnt
that walks Chilhowee ? "

4< What 's under that thar basket ? "
demanded Peter Giles, rather sheepish-
ly, as he sat down again.

" Nothin' but the duck-legged Domi-
nicky," said Clarsie, " what air bein'
broke up from settin'." The moonlight
was full upon the dimpling merriment
in her face, upon her shining eyes and
parted red lips, and her gurgling laugh-
ter was pleasant to hear. Tom Pratt
edged his chair a trifle nearer, as he, too,
sat down.

" Ye ought n't never ter break up
a duck-legged hen, nor a Dominicky,
nuther," ho volunteered, "'kase they
air sech a good kind o' hen ter kerry
chickens; but a hen that is duck-legged,
an' Dominicky, too, oughter be let ter
set, whether or no."

Had he been warned in a dream,
he could have found no more secure
road to Clarsie's favor and interest than
a discussion of the poultry. " I 'm

1883.]

The uffarnt" that walks Chilhowee.

a-thinkin'," she said, " that it air too hot
fur hens ter set now, an' 't will be till
the las' of August."

" It don't 'pear ter me ez it air hot
much in June up hyar on Chilhowee,
— thar 's a differ, I know, down in the
valley ; but till July, on Chilhowee, it
don't 'pear ter me ez it air too hot ter
set a hen. An' a duck-legged Domi-

nicky air mighty hard ter break up."

" That's a fac'," Clarsie admitted ;
" but I '11 hev ter do it, somehow, 'kase
I ain't got no eggs fur her. All my
hens air kerryin' of chickens."

" Waal ! " exclaimed Tom, seizing
his opportunity, " I '11 bring ye some
ter-morrer night, when I come agin.
We-uns hev got eggs ter our house."

"Thanky," said Clarsie, shyly smil-
ing.

This unique method of courtship would
have progressed very prosperously but
for the interference of the elders, who
are an element always more or less
adverse to love-making. " Ye oughter
turn out yer hen now, Clarsie," said
Mrs. Giles, " ez Tom air a-goin' ter
bring ye some eggs ter-morrer. I won-
der ye don't think it's mean ter keep
her up longer 'n ye air obleeged ter.
Ye oughter remember ye war called a
merciful critter jes' ter-clay."

Clarsie rose precipitately, raised the
basket, and out flew the " duck-legged
Dominicky," with a frantic flutter and
hysterical cackling. But Mrs. Giles
was not to be diverted from her pur-
pose ; her thoughts had recurred to the
absurd episode of the afternoon, and
with her relish of the incongruity of
the joke she opened upon the subject
at once.

"Waal, Tom," she said, "we'll be
haviu' Clarsie married, afore long, I 'm
a-thinkin'." The young man sat bewil-
dered. He, too, hud entertained views
concerning Clarsie's speedy marriage,
but with a distinctly personal applica-
tion ; and this frank mention of the
matter by Mrs. Giles had a sinister sug-

gestion that perhaps her ideas might be
antagonistic. " An' who d 'ye think
hev been hyar ter-day, a-speakin' of
covaplimints on Clarsie?" He could
not answer, but he turned his head with
a look of inquiry, and Mrs. Giles con-
tinued, " He is a mighty peart, likely
boy, — he is."

There was a growing anger in the
dismay on Tom Pratt's face ; he leaned
forward to hear the name with a fiery
eagerness, altogether incongruous with
his usual lack-lustre manner.

" Old Simon Burney ! " cried Mrs.
Giles, with a burst of laughter. " Old
Simon Burney! Jes' a-speakin' of com-
plimints on Clarsie ! "

The young fellow drew back with a
look of disgust. " Why, he 's a old man ;
he ain't no fit husband fur Clarsie."

" Don't ye be too sure ter count on
that. I war jes' a-layin' off ter tell
Clarsie that a gal oughter keep mighty
clar o' widowers, 'thout she wants ter
marry one. Fur I believes," said Mrs.
Giles, with a wild flight of imagination,
" ez them men hev got some sort'n
trade with the Evil One, an' he gives
'em the power ter witch the gals, some-
how, so 's ter git 'em ter marry ; 'kase
I don't think that any gal that 's got good
sense air a-goin' ter be a man's second
ch'ice, an' the mother of a whole puck of
step-chil'ren, 'thout she air under some
sort'n spell. But them men carries the
day with the gals, ginerally, an' I'm
a-thinkin' they 're banded with the devil.
Ef I war a gal, an' a smart, peart boy
like Simon Burney kem around a-speak-
in' of compli/nzwfs, an' sayin' I war a
merciful critter, I 'd jes' give it up, an*
marry him fur second ch'ice. Thar 's
one blessin'," she continued, contem-
plating the possibility in a cold-blooded
fashion positively revolting to Tom
Pratt : " he ain't got no tribe of chil'ren
fur Clarsie ter look arter; nary chick
nor child hev old Simon Burney got —
He hed two, but they died."

The young man took leave presently,

668

The " Harnt" that walks Chilhowee.

[May,

in great depression of spirit, — the idea
that the widower was banded with the
powers of evil was rather overwhelming
to a man whose dependence was in
merely mortal attractions ; and after
he had been gone a little while Clarsie
ascended the ladder to a nook in the
roof, which she called her room.

For the first time in her life her
slumber was fitful and restless, long in-
tervals of wakefulness alternating with
snatches of fantastic dreams. At last
she rose and sat by the rude window,
looking out through the chestnut leaves
at the great moon, which had begun to
dip toward the dark uncertainty of the
western ridges, and at the shimmering,
translucent, pearly mists that filled the
intermediate valleys. All the air was
dew and incense ; so subtle and pene-
trating an odor came from that fir-tree
beyond the fence that it seemed as if
some invigorating infusion were thrilling
along her veins ; there floated upward,
too, the warm fragrance of the clover,
and every breath of the gentle wind
brought from over the stream a thousand
blended, undistinguishable perfumes of
the deep forests beyond. The moon's
idealizing glamour had left no trace of
the uncouthness of the place which the
grayish daylight revealed ; the little log
house, the great overhanging chestnut-
oaks, the jagged precipice before the
door, the vague outlines of the distant
ranges, all suffused with a magic
sheen, might have seemed a stupendous
alto-rilievo in silver repousse. Still,
there came here and there the sweep of
the bat's dusky wings ; even they were
a part of the night's witchery. A tiny
owl perched for a moment or two amid
the dew-tipped chestnut-leaves, and
gazed with great round eyes at Clarsie
as solemnly as she gazed at him.

" I 'HI thankful enough that ye had
the grace not ter screech while ye war
hyar," she said, after his flight. " I
ain't ready ter die yit, an' a screech-owe^
air the sure sign."

She felt now and then a great impa-
tience with her wakeful mood. Once
she took herself to task : " Jes' a-sittin'
up hyar all night, the same ez ef I war
a fox, or that thar harnt that walks Chil-
howee ! "

And then her mind reverted to Tom
Pratt, to old Simon Burney, and to her
mother's emphatic and oracular decla-
ration that widowers are in league with
Satan, and that the girls upon whom
they cast the eye of supernatural fasci-
nation have no choice in the matter.
"I wish I knowed ef that thar sayin'
war true," she murmured, her face still
turned to the western spurs, and the
moon sinking so slowly toward them.

With, a sudden resolution she rose to
her feet. She knew a way of telling
fortunes which was, according to tradi-
tion, infallible, and she determined to
try it, and ease her mind as to her fu-
ture. Now was the propitious moment.
" I hev always hearn that it won't come
true 'thout ye try it jes' before day-
break, an' a-kneelin' down at the forks
of the road." She hesitated a moment
and listened intently. " They 'd never
git done a-laughin' at me, ef they fund
it out," she thought.

There was no sound in the house, and
from the dark woods arose only those
monotonous voices of the night, so fa-
miliar to her ears that she accounted
their murmurous iteration as silence too.
She leaned far out of the low window,
caught the wide-spreading branches of
the tree beside it, and swung herself
noiselessly to the ground. The road
before her was dark with the shadowy
foliage and dank with the dew ; but now
and then, at long intervals, there lay
athwart it a bright bar of light, where
the moonshine fell through a gap in the
trees. Once, as she went rapidly along
her way, she saw speeding across the
white radiance, lying just before her
feet, the ill-omened shadow of a rabbit.
She paused, with a superstitious sinking
of the heart, and she heard the animal's

1883.]

The "Harnt" that walks Chilhowee.

669

quick, leaping rush through the bushes
near at hand ; but she mustered her cour-
age, and kept steadily on. " 'T ain't no
use a-goin' back ter git shet o' bad luck,"
she argued. " Ef old Simon Burney air
my fortune, he '11 come whether or no,
— ef all they say air true."

The serpentine road curved to the-
mountain's brink before it forked, and
there was again that familiar picture of
precipice, and far-away ridges, and shin-
ing mist, and sinking moon, which was
visibly turning from silver to gold. The
changing lustre gilded the feathery ferns
that grew in the marshy dip. Just at the
angle of the divergent paths there rose
into the air a great mass of indistinct
white blossoms, which she knew were
the exquisite mountain azaleas, and all
the dark forest was starred with the
blooms of the laurel.

She fixed her eyes upon the mystic
sphere dropping down the sky, knelt
among the azaleas at the forks of the
road, and repeated the time-honored in-
vocation : —

" Ef I 'm a-goin' ter marry a young
man, whistle, Bird, whistle. Ef I 'm
a-goin' ter marry an old- man, low,
Cow, low. Ef I ain't a-goin' ter marry
nobody, knock, Death, knock."

There was a prolonged silence in the
matutinal freshness and perfume of the
woods. She raised her head, and lis-
tened attentively. No chirp of half-
awakened bird, no tapping of wood-
pecker, or the mysterious death-watch ;
but from far along the dewy aisles
of the forest, the ungrateful Spot, that
Clarsie had fed more faithfully than
herself, lifted up her voice, and set the
echoes vibrating. Clarsie, however, had
hardly time for a pang of disappoint-
ment. While she still knelt among the
azaleas her large, deer-like eyes were
suddenly dilated with terror. From
around the curve of the road came the
quick beat of hastening footsteps, the
sobbing sound of panting breath, and
between her and the sinking moon there

passed an attenuated, one-armed figure,
with a pallid, sharpened face, outlined
for a moment on its brilliant disk, and
dreadful starting eyes, and quivering
open mouth. It disappeared in an in-
stant among the shadows of the laurel,
and Clarsie, with a horrible fear clutch-
ing at her heart, sprang to her feet.

Her flight was arrested by other
sounds. Before her reeling senses could
distinguish them, a party of horsemen
plunged down the road. They reined
in suddenly as their eyes fell upon her,
and their leader, an eager, authoritative
man, was asking her a question. Why
could she not understand him ? With
her nerveless hands feebly catching at
the shrubs for support, she listened
vaguely to his impatient, meaningless
words, and saw with helpless depreca-
tion the rising anger in his face. But
there was no time to be lost. With a
curse upon the stupidity of the moun-
taineer, who could n't speak when she
was spoken to, the party sped on in a
sweeping gallop, and the rocks and the
steeps were hilarious with the sound.

When the last faint echo was hushed,
Clarsie tremblingly made her way out
into the road ; not reassured, however,
for she had a frightful conviction that
there was now and then a strange stir
in the laurel, and that she was stealthily
watched. Her eyes were fixed upon the
dense growth with a morbid fascination,
as she moved away ; but she was once
more rooted to the spot when the leaves
parted and in the golden moonlight the
ghost stood before her. She could not
nerve herself to run past him, and he
was directly in her way homeward. His
face was white, and lined, and thin ;
that pitiful quiver was never still in the
parted lips ; he looked at her with fal-
tering, beseeching eyes. Clarsie's mer-
ciful heart was stirred. " What ails
yer, ter come back hyar, an' foller me ? "
she cried out, abruptly. And then a
great horror fell upon her. Was not
one to whom a ghost should speak

670

The " Harnt " that walks Chilhowee.

doomed to death, sudden and immedi-
ate ?

The ghost replied in a broken, shiv-
ering voice, like a wail of pain. " I war
a-starvin', — I war a-starviu'," ne said,
with despairing iteration.

It was all over, Clarsie thought. The
ghost had spoken, and she was a doomed
creature. She wondered that she did
not fall dead in the road. But while
those beseeching eyes were fastened in
piteous appeal on hers, she could not
leave him. " I never hearn that 'bout
ye," she said, reflectively. "I knows
ye hed awful troubles while ye war
alive, but I never knowed ez ye war
starved."

Surely that was a gleam of sharp sur-
prise in the ghost's prominent eyes, suc-
ceeded by a sly intelligence.

"Day is nigh ter breakin'," Clarsie
admonished him, as the lower rim of
the moon touched the silver mists of the
west. " What air ye a-wantin' of me ? "

There was a short silence. Mind
travels far in such intervals. Classic's
thoughts had overtaken the scenes when
she should have died that sudden terri-
ble death : when there would be no
one left to feed the chickens ; when no
one would care if the pigs cried with
the pangs of hunger, unless, indeed, it
were time for them to be fattened before
killing. The mare, — how often would
she be taken from the plow, and shut
up for the night in her shanty without
a drop of water, after her hard day's
work ! Who would churn, or spin, or
weave ? Clarsie could not understand
how the machinery of the universe could
go on without her. And Towse, poor
Towse ! He was a useless cumberer of
the ground, and it was hardly to be sup-
posed that after his protector was gone
he would be spared a blow or a bullet,
to hasten his lagging death. But Clar-
sie still stood in the road, and watched
the face of the ghost, as he, with his
eager, starting eyes, scanned her open,
ingenuous countenan^.

[May,

" Ye do ez ye air bid, or it '11 be the
worse for ye," said the " harnt," in the
same quivering, shrill tone. " Thar 's
hunger in the nex' woiT ez well ez in
this, an' ye bring me some vittles hyar
this time ter-morrer, an' don't ye tell
nobody ye hev seen me, nuther, or
it '11 be the worse for ye."

There was a threat in his eyes as he
disappeared in the laurel, and left the
girl standing in the last rays of moon-
light.

A curious doubt was stirring in Clar-
sie's mind when she reached home, in
the early dawn, and heard her father
talking about the sheriff and his posse,
who had stopped at the house in the
night, and reused its inmates, to know
if they had seen a man pass that way.

" Clarsie never hearn none o' the
noise, I'll be bound, 'kase she always
sleeps like a log," said Mrs. Giles, as
her daughter came in with the pail, after
milking the cow. "Tell her 'bout'n
it."

" They kem a-bustin' along hyar a
while afore day-break, a-runnin' arter
the man," drawled Mr. Giles, dramat-
ically. " An' they knocked me up, ter
know ef ennybody hed passed. An*
one o' them men — I never seen none
of 'em afore ; they 's all valley folks,
I 'm a-thinkin' — an' one of 'em bruk
his saddle-girt' a good piece down the
road, an' he kem back ter borrer mine ;
an' ez we war a-fixin' of it, he tole me
what they war all arter. He said that
word war tuk ter the sheriff down yan-
der in the valley — 'pears ter me them
town-folks don't think nobody in the
mountings hev got good sense — word
war tuk ter the sheriff 'bout this one-
armed harnt that walks Chilhowee ; an*
he sot it down that Reuben Crabb war
n 't dead at all, an' Joel jes' purteuded
ter hev buried him, an' it air Reuben
hisself that walks Chilhowee. An' thar
air two hunderd dollars blood-money
reward fur ennybody ez kin ketch him.
These hyar valley folks air powerful

1883.]

The "Harnt" that walk* Chilhowee.

671

cur'ous critters, — two hunderd dollars
blood-money reward fur that thar harnt
that walks Chilhowee ! I jes' sot myself
ter laughin' when that thar cuss tole it
so solemn. I jes' 'lowed ter him ez he
could n't shoot a harnt nor hang a harnt,
an' Reuben Crabb lied about got done
with his persecutions in this worl'. An' ,
he said that by the time they hed scoured
this mounting, like they hed laid off ter
do, they would find that that thar puny
little harnt war nothin' but a mortal man,
an' could be kep' in a jail ez handy ez
enny other flesh an' blood. He said the
sheriff 'lowed ez the reason Reuben hed
jes' taken ter walk Chilhowee sence
Joel died is 'kase thar air nobody ter
feed him, like Joel done, mebbe, in the
nights ; an' Reuben always war a pore,
one-armed, weakly critter, what can't
even kerry a gun, an' he air driv by
hunger out'n the hole wliar he stays,
ter prowl round the cornfields an' hen-
coops ter steal suthin', — an' that 's how
he kem ter be seen frequent. The
sheriff 'lowed that Reuben can't find
enough roots an' yerbs ter keep him
up ; but law ! — a harnt eatin' ! It
jes' sot me off ter laughin'. Reuben
Crabb hev been too busy in torment
fur the las' four year ter be a-studyin'
'bout eatin' ; an' it air his harnt that
walks Chilhowee."

The next morning, before the moon
sank, Clarsie, with a tin pail in her hand,
went to meet the ghost at the appointed
place. She understood now why the
terrible doom that falls upon those to
whom a spirit may chance to speak had
not descended upon her, and that fear
was gone ; but the secrecy of her errand
weighed heavily. She had been scru-
pulously careful to put into the pail only
such things as had fallen to her share
at the table, and which she had saved
from the meals of yesterday. " A gal
that goes a-robbin' fur a hongry harnt,"
was her moral reflection, "oughter be
throwed bodaciously off n the bluff."

She found no one at the forks of the

road. In the marshy dip were only the
myriads of mountain azaleas, only the
masses of feathery ferns, only the con-
stellated glories of the laurel blooms.
A sea of shining white mist was in the
valley, with glinting golden rays strik-
ing athwart it from the great cresset of
the sinking moon ; here and there the
long, dark, horizontal line of a distant
mountain's summit rose above the va-
porous shimmer, like a dreary, sombre
island in the midst of enchanted waters.
Her large, dreamy eyes, so wild and yet
so gentle, gazed out through the laurel
leaves upon the floating gilded flakes
of light, as in the deep coverts of the
mountain, where the fulvous-tinted deer
were lying, other eyes, as wild and as
gentle, dreamily watched the vanishing
moon. Overhead, the filmy, lace-like
clouds, fretting the blue heavens, were
tinged with a faint rose. Through the
trees she caught a glimpse of the red sky
of dawn, and the glister of a great lu-
cent, tremulous star. From the ground,
misty blue exhalations were rising, alter-
nating with the long lines of golden light
yet drifting through the woods. It was
all very still, very peaceful, almost holy.
One could hardly believe that these con-
secrated solitudes had once reverberated
with the echoes of man's death-dealing
ingenuity, and that Reuben Crabb had
fallen, shot through and through, amid
that wealth of flowers at the forks of
the road. She heard suddenly the far-
away baying of a hound. Her great eyes
dilated, and she lifted her head to listen.
Only the solemn silence of the woods,
the slow sinking of the noiseless moon,
the voiceless splendor of that eloquent
day-star.

Morning was close at hand, and she
was beginning to wonder that the ghost
did not appear, when the leaves fell into
abrupt commotion, and he was standing
in the road, beside her. He did not
speak, but watched her with an eager,
questioning intentness, as she placed the
contents of the pail upon the moss at

672

The " Sarnt " that walks Chilhowee.

[May,

the roadside. " I 'm a-comin' agin ter-
morrer," she said, gently. He made no
reply, quickly gathered the food from
the ground, and disappeared in the deep
shades of the woods.

She had not expected thanks, for she
was accustomed only to the gratitude
of dumb beasts ; but she was vaguely
conscious of something wanting, as she
stood motionless for a moment, and
watched the burnished rim of the moon
slip down behind the western mountains.
Then she slowly walked along her misty
way in the dim light of the coming dawn.
There was a footstep iu the road behind
her ; she thought it was the ghost once
more. She turned, and met Simon Bur-
ney, face to face. His rod was on his
shoulder, and a string of fish was in his
hand.

" Ye air a-doin' wrongful, Clarsie,"
he said, sternly. " It air agin the law
fur folks ter feed an' shelter them ez is
a-runuin' from jestice. An' ye '11 git
yerself inter trouble. Other folks will
find ye out, besides me, an' then the
sheriff '11 be up hyar arter ye."

The tears rose to Clarsie's eyes.
This prospect was infinitely more terri-
fying than the awful doom which follows
the horror of a ghost's speech.

" I can't holp it," she said, however,
doggedly swinging the pail back and
forth. " I can't gin my consent ter
starvin' of folks, even ef they air a-hid-
in' an' a-runnin' from jestice."

" They mought put ye in jail, too, I
dunno," suggested Simon Burney.

"• 1 can't holp that, nuther," said Clar-
sie, the sobs rising, and the tears falling
fast. " Ef they comes an' gits me, an'
puts me in the pen'tiary away down
yander, somewhars in the valley, like
they done Jane Simpkins, fur a-cut-
tin' of her step-mother's throat with a
butcher-knife, while she war asleep, —
though some said Jane war crazy, —
I can't gin my consent ter starvin' of
folks."

A recollection came over Simon Bur-

ney of the simile of " hendering the sun
from shining."

" She hev done sot it down in her
mind," he thought, as he walked on be-
side her and looked at her resolute face.
Still he did not relinquish his effort.

" Doin' wrong, Clarsie, ter aid folks
what air a-doin' wrong, an' mebbe hev
done wrong, air powerful hurtful ter
everybody, an' benders the law an' jes-
tice."

" I can't holp it," said Clarsie.

" It 'pears toler'ble comical ter me,"
said Simon Burney, with a sudden per-
ception of a curious fact which has
proved a marvel to wiser men, " that
no matter how good a woman is, she
ain't got no respect fur the laws of the
country, an' don't sot no store by jes-
tice." After a momentary silence he ap-
pealed to her on another basis. " Some-
body will ketch him arter a while, ez
sure ez ye air born. The sheriff 's
a-sarchin' now, an' by the time that word
gits around, all the mounting boys '11
turn out, 'kase thar air two hunderd dol-
lars blood -money fur him. An' then
he '11 think, when they ketches him, —
an' everybody '11 say so, too, — ez ye
war constant in feedin' him jes' ter 'tice
him ter comin' ter one place, so ez ye
could tell somebody whar ter go ter
ketch him, an' make them gin ye haffen
the blood-money, mebbe. That 's what
the mounting will say, mos' likely."

" I can't holp it," said Clarsie, once
more.

He left her walking on toward the
rising sun, and retraced his way to the
forks of the road. The jubilant morn-
ing was filled with the song of birds;
the sunlight flashed on the dew ; all the
delicate enameled bells of the pink and
white azaleas were swinging tremulous-
ly in the wind ; the aroma of ferns and
mint rose on the delicious fresh air.
Presently he checked his pace, creeping
stealthily on the moss and grass beside
the road rather than in the beaten path.
He pulled aside the leaves of the laurel

1883.]

The " Harnt " that walks Chilhowee.

673

with no more stir than the wind might
have made, and stole cautiously through
its dense growth, till he came suddenly
upon the puny little ghost, lying in the
sun at the foot of a tree. The fright-

ened creature sprang to his feet with a
wild cry of terror, but before he could
move a step he was caught and held fast
in the strong grip of the stalwart moun-
taineer beside him. " I hev kem hyar
ter tell ye a word, Reuben Crabb," said
Simon Burney. " I hev kem hyar ter
tell ye that the whole mounting air
a-goin' ter turn out ter sarch fur ye;
the sheriff air a-ridin' now, an' ef ye
don't come along with me they '11 hev
ye afore night, 'kase thar air two hun-
derd dollars reward fur ye."

What a piteous wail went up to the
smiling blue sky, seen through the dap-
pling leaves above them ! What a horror,
and despair, and prescient agony were
in the hunted creature's face ! The ghost
struggled no longer ; he slipped from
his feet down upon the roots of the tree,
and turned that woful face, with its
starting eyes and drawn muscles and
quivering parted lips, up toward the
unseeing sky.

" God A'mighty, man ! " exclaimed
Simon Burney, moved to pity. " Why
n't ye quit this hyar way of livin' in
the woods like ye war a wolf ? Why n't
ye come back' an' stand yer trial ? From
all I 've hearn tell, it 'pears ter me ez
the jury air obleeged ter let ye off, an'
I '11 take keer of ye agin them Grims."

"I hain't got no place ter live in,"
cried out the ghost, with a keen despair.

Simon Burney hesitated. Reuben
Crabb was possibly a murderer, — at
the best could but be a burden. The
burden, however, had fallen in his way,
and he lifted it.

" I tell ye now, Reuben Crabb," he
said, "I ain't a-goin' ter holp no man
ter break the law an' hender jestice ;
but ef ye will go an' stand yer trial, I '11
take keer of ye agin them Grims ez
long ez I kin fire a rifle. An' arter the

VOL. LI. — NO. 307. 43

jury hev done let ye off, ye air welcome
ter live along o' me at my house till ye
die. Ye air no-'count ter work, I know,
but I ain't a-goin' ter grudge ye fur a
livin' at my house."

And so it came to pass that the re-
ward set upon the head of the harnt
that walked Chilhowee was never
claimed.

With his powerful ally, the forlorn
little spectre went to stand his trial, and
the jury acquitted him without leaving
the box. Then he came back to the
mountains to live with Simon Burney.
The cruel gibes of his burly mockers
that had beset his feeble life from his
childhood up, the deprivation and lone-
liness and despair and fear that had
filled those days when he walked Chil-
howee, had not improved the harnt's
temper. He was a helpless creature,
not able to carry a gun or hold a plow,
and the years that he spent smoking his
cob-pipe in Simon Burney's door were
idle years and unhappy. But Mrs.
Giles said she thought he was "a mighty
lucky little critter : fust, he hed Joel ter
take keer of him an' feed him, when he
tuk ter the woods ter purtend he war a
harnt ; an' they do say now that Clar-
sie Pratt, afore she war married, used
ter kerry him vittles, too ; an' then old
Simon Burney tuk him up an' fed him
ez plenty ez ef he war a good workiu'
hand, an' gin him clothes an' house-
room, an' put up with his jawiu' jes'
like he never hearn a word of it. But
law ! some folks dunno when they air
well off."

There was only a sluggish current of
peasant blood in Simon Burney's veins,
but a prince could not have dispensed
hospitality with a more royal hand. Un-
grudgingly he gave of his best ; valiant-
ly he defended his thankless guest at
the risk of his life ; with a moral gal-
lantry he struggled with his sloth, and
worked early and late, that there might
be enough to divide. There was no
possibility of a recompense for him, not

674 The Flaneur. [May,

even in the encomiums of discriminating The grace of culture is, in its way, a
friends, nor the satisfaction of tutored fine thing, but the best that art can do
feelings and a practiced spiritual dis- — the polish of a gentleman — is hard-
cerument ; for he was an uncouth crea- ly equal to the best that Nature can do
ture, and densely ignorant. in her higher moods.

Charles Egbert Craddock.

THE FLANEUR.

BOSTON COMMON, DECEMBER 6, 1882.
DURING THE TRANSIT OF VENUS.

I LOVE all sights of earth and skies,
From flowers that glow to stars that shine ;
The comet and the penny show,
All curious things, above, below,
Hold each in turn my wandering eyes:
I claim the Christian Pagan's line,
Humani nihil, — even so, —
And is not human life divine?

When soft the western breezes blow,

And strolling youths meet sauntering maids,

I love to watch the stirring trades

Beneath the Vallombrosa shades

Our much-enduring elms bestow;

The vender and his rhetoric's flow,

That lambent stream of liquid lies;

The bait he dangles from his line,

The gudgeon and his gold-washed prize.

I halt before the blazoned sign

That bids me linger to admire

The drama time can never tire,

The little hero of the hunch,

With iron arm and soul of fire

And will that works his fierce desire, —

Untamed, unscared, unconquered Punch !

My ear a pleasing torture finds

Jn tones the withered sibyl grinds, —

The dame sans merci's broken strain,

Whom I erewhile, perchance, have known,

When Orleans filled the Bourbon throne,

A siren singing by the Seine.

But most I love the tube that spies
The orbs celestial in their march ;

1883.] The Flaneur. 675

That shows the comet as it whisks
Its tail across the planets' disks,
As if to blind their blood-shot eyes ;
Or wheels so close against the sun
We tremble at the thought of risks
Our little spinning ball may run,
To pop like corn that children parch,
From summer something overdone,
And roll, a cinder, through the skies.

Grudge not to-day the scanty fee
To him who farms the firmament,
To whom the milky way is free ;
Who holds the wondrous crystal key,
The silent Open Sesame,
That science to her sons has lent; :(. "•
Who takes his toll, and lifts the bar
That shuts the road to sun and star.
If Venus only comes tg time,
(And prophets say she must and shall,)
To-day will hear the tinkling chime
Of many a ringing silver dime,
For him whose optic glass supplies
The crowd with astronomic eyes, —
The Galileo of the Mall.

Dimly the transit morning broke ;
The sun seemed doubting what to do,
As one who questions how to dress,
And takes his doublets from the press,
And halts between the old and new.
Please Heaven he wear his suit of blue,
Or don, at least, his ragged cloak,
With rents that show the azure through!

I go the patient crowd to join

That round the tube my eyes discern,

The last new-comer of the file,

And wait, and wait, a weary while,

And gape, and stretch, and shrug, and smile,

(For each his place must fairly earn,

Hindmost and foremost, in his turn),

Till hitching onward, pace by pace,

I gain at last the envied place,

And pay the white exiguous coin :

The sun and I are face to face;

He glares at me, I stare at him ;

And lo! my straining eye has found

A little spot that, black and round,

Lies near the crimsoned fire-orb's rim.

676 The Flaneur. [May,

0 blessed, beauteous evening star,

Well named for her whom earth adores, —
The Lady of the dove-drawn car, —
, I know thee in thy white simar;
But veiled in black, a rayless spot,
Blank as a careless scribbler's blot,
Stripped of thy robe of silvery flame, —
The stolen robe that Night restores
When Day has shut his golden doors, —

1 see thee, yet I know thee not;
And canst thou call thyself the same?

A black, round spot, — and that is all ;
And such a speck our earth would be
If he who looks upon the stars
Through the red atmosphere of Mars
Could see our little creeping ball
Across the disk of crimson crawl
As I our sister planet see.

And art thou, then, a world like ours,

Flung from the orb that whirled our own

A molten pebble from its zone?

How must thy burning sands absorb

The fire-waves of the blazing orb,

Thy chain so short, thy path so near,

Thy flame-defying creatures hear

The maelstroms of the photosphere!

And is thy bosom decked with flowers

That steal their bloom from scalding showers ?

And hast thou cities, domes, and towers,

And life, and lovo that makes it dear,

And death that fills thy tribes with fear ?

Lost in my dream, my spirit soars
Through paths the wandering angels know ;
My all-pervading thought explores
The azure ocean's lucent shores ;
I leave my mortal self below,
As up the star-lit stairs I climb,
And still the widening view reveals
In endless rounds the circling wheels
That build the horologe of time,
•New spheres, new suns, new systems gleam ;
The voice no earth-born echo hears
Steals softly on my ravished ears :
I hear them " singing as they shine " —
— A mortal's voice dissolves my dream:
My patient neighbor, next in line,
Hints gently there are those who wait.
O guardian of the starry gate,

1883.]

College Athletics.

677

What coin shall pay this debt of mine?
Too slight thy. claim, too small the fee
That bids thee turn the potent key
The Tuscan's hand has placed in thine.
Forgive my own the small affront,
The insult of the proffered dime ;
Take it, O friend, since this thy wont,
But still shall faithful memory be
A bankrupt debtor unto thee,
And pay thee with a grateful rhyme.

Oliver Wendell Holmes,

COLLEGE ATHLETICS.

A QUARTER of a century ago the only
indication at our colleges of interest in
athletics was to be found in the rou<*h-

and-tumble game of foot-ball and the
annual boat-races. Athletic contests, in
the narrow sense to which the phrase
is technically limited, were unheard
of. Systematic training at the gymna-
sium, for the purpose of uniform bod-
ily development ; organizations for the
improvement of the various out-door
games which are of interest to player
and public ; contests between teams or
sets of players of different classes, or of
different colleges; foot-races and simi-
lar exhibitions of individual prowess, —
all were neglected, or were totally un-
known. The admirable work done to-
day-at the gymnasium was then impossi-
ble, because much of the machinery now
in use had not been invented. There
were not sufficient numbers interested
in the walking, running, and leaping
contests between individual amateurs to
bring forward either prizes or candi-
dates for the annual competitions. Base-
ball and foot-ball as then played fur-
nished only suggestions for the games
of to-day. Lacrosse was unknown as a
college game, and tennis had not be-
come fashionable. In short, there has
grown up at our colleges, during this
period, a new department, which thrives

in proportion to the encouragement
gjven by the faculties, but which thrives
even where it is discouraged by official
frowns. This department is almost ex-
clusively under the charge of the stu-
dents, and the first thing that strikes
the attention of the investigator is its

wonderful organization. Not only are
the various crews, teams, and sets of
players under the leadership of captains,
but each game has its representative as-
sociation, which in turn forms part of a
comprehensive organization, whose func-
tion it is to supervise in a general way
the affairs of all. This tendency is also
shown in the systematic character of
the gymnastic exercises, and iu the won-
derful contests, restrained by rule, and
managed with generalship and strategy,
which have crystallized out of the rude
and boisterous games which "boys for-
merly played for fun and for exercise.

These changes have been so great,
the interest taken by the student and
the public is so prominent, the influence
exerted by them is so manifest, that the
question to what extent college facul-
ties should encourage athletic contests
and intercollegiate games has become a
subject for public discussion. Many par-
ticipate in this discussion who know but
little of the actual condition of athletics
in our colleges, but who predicate their

678

College Athletics.

[May,

opinions upon college life as they for-
merly knew it ; theorizing upon the
effects which they believe to have been
wrought by these changes. Possibly a
more complete knowledge of the sub-
ject would not alter the preconceived
notions of such disputants, but the at-
tention given by the press to the games
and the thousands who flock to see
them testify to a public interest in the
matter, which will welcome any contri-
bution to the knowledge of these af-
fairs. The gymnasium, with its lad-
ders, bars, and swinging rings, its row-
ing, fencing, and sparring rooms, and
perhaps also its bowling alleys, is to-
day an essential part of a thoroughly
equipped college. In charge of it is
placed an educated man, — a member,
perhaps, of the faculty, — whose duty it
is to examine physically any student who
may submit himself for the purpose,
and to prescribe the amount and char-
acter of exercise desirable for the per-
son thus examined. To accomplish the
uniform development of all the muscles
of the body, to counteract cases of ab-
normal development, and to overcome
cases of abnormal weakness, movements
of weights of various sizes, in every
conceivable direction and from all sorts
of attitudes, are prescribed.

The contestants in the various races
and games find in the gymnasium, at all
seasons of the year, the opportunity and
the means to maintain the physical con-
ditions essential for success. Here, also,
the young man of sedentary habits can
take the gentler exercise adapted to his
condition ; and here, in friendly compe-
tition, the vigorous youth, who seeks
only amusement in his exercise, can
vault, and leap, and test his strength
with many a willing competitor. Taken
in hand in this manner, the gymnasium
is of the same value to all the students,
whatever their physical state. Only the
best of results can follow from such in-
telligent exercise. This is especially
true in the case of those whose habits

of life are sedentary, and who are phys-
ically feeble. Encouraged and directed
by competent authority, they take suit-
able exercise, and are restrained from
competition with their more vigorous
companions, which might prove equally
disastrous with total neglect. If to the
foregoing it be added that prizes are
occasionally offered by apostles of mus-
cular development for the student who
shall show the greatest gain within a
given period, it will be understood how
important a position the gymnasium has
assumed in the modern college.

Almost equally essential with the
gymnasium is a field for games, large
enough for a foot-ball, a base-ball, a
lacrosse, and a cricket ground, and also
for a number of lawn - tennis courts.
Towards this field, each afternoon when
the weather permits, the current of play-
ers will set from the college yard. Clad
in the uniforms of their respective clubs,
or as fancy dictates, the effect of the
many-colored garments of the players
upon the eye of the spectator is at once
pleasing and attractive. Knickerbocker
suits, bright -colored stockings, gaudy
caps, white canvas shoes, and merino
shirts or flannel blouses, either white or
of the college colors, — such are the pre-
vailing characteristics of the costumes
of the players.

Rows of seats line the field, and so
general is the interest in the contests
that even when ordinary practice games
are going on there is a fair sprinkling
of spectators in these seats.

The most popular game, not only with
the students, but also with the public,
is base-ball. It of course needs no de-
scription, the game as played by the
college nines being identical with that
played by the professional clubs.

The intercollegiate contest which at-
tracts the greatest attention, is the
source of the greatest expense, and has
been the most roundly abused, but in
which, at the same time, the college
pride is most conspicuously aroused, is

1883.]

College Athletics.

679

the annual boat-race. The details of the
races have for years been telegraphed
over the country, and public attention
has been so thoroughly called to them
that many who never saw a shell can
discuss the last Oxford and Cambridge

or Harvard and Yale race.

Lawn tennis, although so recent a
candidate for popular favor, has already
won for itself a position from which it
cannot easily be dislodged. It demands
little strength from the player, but calls
for dexterity in serving the ball, agility
in receiving it, rapid decision in deter-
mining whether the service should be
returned or will defeat itself by falling
outside the court, and great restraint in
batting, when under the excitement of
quick play, so as to avoid sending the
ball beyond the limits of the court. The
advantage of the game is that the small
size of the courts permits great numbers
of them to be laid out without interfer-
ing with the other games ; and further,
so few players are required for a set
that games can be organized by those
who are at liberty, and need the exer-
cise, at hours when some of the mem-
bers of the nines and elevens will be
sure to be engaged in the recitation
room.

Why lawn tennis should have slum-
bered so long, to be revived now with
such vigor, it is difficult to say. Strutt
asserts that tennis courts were common
in the sixteenth century. He describes
a picture of the game published in 1658,
with players serving the ball over a line,
and also says, " We have undoubted au-
thority to prove that Henry VII. was a
tennis player. In a manuscript register
of his expenditures, made in the thir-
teenth year of- his reign, and preserved
in the remembrancer's office, this entry
occurs : ' Item, for the king's loss at ten-
nis, twelvepence ; for the loss of balls,

l The game is mentioned by name in the Rela-
tion of 1636, by Father Brebeuf, and is described
from time to time by the Jesuits in their Relations,
and by other writers who have occasion to describe
Indian habits. Latitau, in 1724, following his

threepence.' Hence we may infer that
the game was played abroad, for the
loss of the balls would hardly have
happened in a tennis court." In other
words, the game was substantially the
lawn tennis of to-day, and not the game
with the covered court. The difference
between the net and the rope is not es-
sential to the game, as the rule in each
case requires that the service shall be
" over," — a rule the infraction of which
is inevitably disclosed by the net, but
which might be avoided if a rope were
used.

Lacrosse 1 as a collegiate game is yet
in its youth. It is of Indian origin, and
hence has the right to claim that it is
distinctively American.

Between the years 1760 and 1776,
Alexander Henry, a trader, was engaged
in traffic and travel in Canada and in
the Indian territories. He thus de-
scribes the game of " Baggatiway, called
by the Canadians le jeu de la crosse : "
" It is played with a bat and ball, the
bat being about four feet in length,
curved, and terminated in a sort of
racket. Two posts are placed in the
ground a considerable distance from
each other, say a mile or more. Each
party has its post, and the game consists
in throwing the ball up to the post of
the adversary. At the beginning the
ball is placed in the middle of the
course, and each party endeavors as
well to throw the ball out of the direc-
tion of his own post as into that of the
adversary." At the siege of Detroit, in
May, 1763, Pontiac, according to Park-
man, made use of a game of ball, " tho
better to cover his designs." That this
game was lacrosse is evident from tho
account, given in a note, of a tradition
that Pontiac himself gave an Ojibway
girl, whom he suspected of having be-
trayed him, "a severe beating with a

special craze, which was to identify Indian cus-
toms with those of the ancients, devotes some pages,
in his quaint and pedantic way, to prove that the
game was nothing more nor less than one called
by Pollux Episcyre.

680

College Athletics.

[May,

species of racket such as the Indians
used in ball play." Henry was at
Michillimackinac on the 4th of June,
1763, when the garrison of that fort
was massacred ; and although he did not
see the game of Baggativvay, by means
of which the Indians, under a chief
named Minararana, lulled the suspicions
of the soldiers and gained entrance to
the fort, he gives a long account of
how this was accomplished. " Nothing
could be less liable," he says, " to ex-
cite premature alarm than that the ball
should be tossed over the pickets of the
fort, nor that, having fallen there, it
should be followed, on the instant, by all
engaged in the game, as well the one
party as the other, all eager, ail strug-
gling, all shouting, all in the unre-
strained pursuit of a rude athletic exer-
cise. Nothing could be less likely to ex-
cite premature alarm. Nothing could be
more happily devised, under the circum-
stances, than a stratagem like this ; and
this was in fact the stratagem which the
Indians had employed, and by which
they had obtained possession of the
fort."

Jonathan Carver, " a captain of the
provincial troops in America," visited
the spot in 1766, and in the book of
travel which he published he gives an
account of the surprise of the garri-
son. In his description of the game he
says, " It is played by large companies,
that sometimes consist of more than
three hundred." The posts are fixed in
the ground, " about six hundred yards
apart." " They " — the Indians — " aro
so exceedingly dexterous in this manly
exercise that the ball is usually kept
flying in different directions by the force
of the rackets, without touching the
ground during the whole contention."
Notwithstanding the fact that severe
accidents frequently happen, they seem
never to provoke spite. " Nor," he
adds, " do any disputes ever happen be-
tween the parties."

As played to-day, the number of

players on each side is limited to twelve.
Crosses, similar to those described by
Henry, are used for batting and throw-
ing the ball. Two flag-staffs, six feet
high and six feet apart, are planted at
each end of the field, the length of which
will vary with the skill of the players.
The ball, which during the game cannot
be touched by the hand, must be driven
between these posts, in order to score a
goal. The players are distributed over
the field in such positions that each
player is faced by an opponent. The
game is opened by the ball being placed
in the centre of the field, and the two
men stationed there begin the struggle
for its possession as soon as the game is
called. The players acquire great dex-
terity in throwing and catching the ball
with their rackets. To secure a throw
during the game, when opposed by an
adversary who is endeavoring by every
means to dislodge the ball, requires
great skill and self-control. The player
must still shape the direction of its
flight, even when compelled to wield his
cross in a constrained or unnatural posi-
tion. The way in which some players
succeed in thus projecting the ball to-
wards the desired goal, in spite of the
efforts of their opponents to disturb
them, is remarkable, and attracts the at-
tention of the observer more, perhaps,
than the neat way in which they catch
it in their rackets, their adroit methods
of picking it up with their crooks alone,
or even the great distances which they
are enabled to project it. Great skill is
also requisite to retain the ball on the
flat net of the racket, while running
across the field over which the opposing
force is scattered ; but the capacity to do
this is an element of good play. It is
not improbable that this game will be-
come popular among our collegians. It
has not as yet had time to assert all its
claims for approval. It is plain, how-
ever, that it calls for grace, skill, and
agility in the player.

Why cricket should be so popular in

1883.]

College Athletics.

681

England, and prove such a failure with
our young men, is inexplicable; but, not-
withstanding the organization of cricket
elevens, and the attempts made from
time to time to create an interest in the
game, we do not seem to have been able
as yet to develop good cricket players.
Nevertheless, cricket clubs are kept up,
and a languid interest in the game is
maintained, which may at some future
time develop into vigorous life.

Hare and hounds associations, either
independently or under the management
of the athletic associations, exist at
many of our colleges. Their meets fur-
nish an interesting run for the hares and
the twenty or thirty hounds who pursue
them, and the send-off is a pretty sight.
The hares are given a suitable start.
They carry with them bags filled with
small bits of paper, from which, as they
run, they sprinkle their path with pieces,
to give a distinct clue to the hounds.
When fairly out in the country they ex-
ercise the utmost ingenuity to perplex
the pursuing hounds : choosing routes
which lead through brush and bog ; now
in at the window of some barn or out-
house, and out at a hole in the side
or floor ; over hedge and through ditch,
across brook and river, until the spot is
reached where the scent bags are aban-
doned, — the sign to the hounds that
the run is over and that they can make
their best time to the goal.

The interest in this sport is main-
tained not only by the general competi-
tion between hares and hounds, but also
by the spii'it of emulation which prevails
among the hounds as to the order of
their arrival at goal, on their return.

Bicycle clubs are to be found at most
of the colleges. The number who have
the taste for this form of exercise, and
who can afford to purchase the expen-
sive machines necessary for its indul-
gence, is limited. In the neighborhood
of our colleges, wherever the roads are
level, young men will be met, bestriding
their bicycles, and with easy, gentle mo-

tion traversing the highways which pen-
etrate the surrounding country. The
interest taken in the bicycle clubs is net
general, but to those who are in position
to join them there is much pleasure to
be derived from these afternoon excur-
sions, and much benefit to be gained
from the exercise.

The game which, next to base-ball,
attracts the student is foot-ball : not the
game prohibited in Great Britain by
edict of Edward III., nor that of which
Strutt quaintly remarks, " When the ex-
ercise becomes exceeding violent, the
players kick each others' shins without
the least ceremony, and some of them
are overthrown at the hazard of their
limbs ; " nor is it exactly like' the game
into which Tom Brown was plunged, so
soon after his arrival at Rugby. Strutt
would find very little kicking of shins in
the game of to-day, — very little kick-
ing, indeed, of any sort ; and instead
of the whole school mustering on the
ground, Tom Brown would find only
eleven on each side.

The game as played to-day requires
generalship on the part of the captain,
and discipline on the part of the team.
Avoirdupois and strength are at a pre-
mium for rushing, blocking, and tack-
ling ; fleetness of foot for running with
the ball ; and skill in kicking for sending
the clumsy oval whirring through the
air at the exact angle and line that shall
carry it over the bar and between the
posts of the adversary's goal.

As the game progresses, a wise cap-
tain can detect the weak points in the
opposing team, and can utilize his own
forces so as to take advantage of them.
He can, for a purpose, strengthen his
rushers at the expense of weakening the
defenses of his goal. He can, from time
to time, change the tactics of his half-
backs ; now urging them to run with the
ball, and again, if he finds the tackling
of his adversary so perfect that he can
gain no ground by this, causing the ball
to be punted before the kicker is men-

682

College Athletics.

[May,

aced by a tackle. But while it is true
that the influence of the captaiu in the
previous training and in the manage-
ment of the team during the game is
necessarily great, and may be decisive,
it is also true that there is no game
played at the colleges which offers such
opportunities for brilliant individual play
as foot-ball. A successful run with the
ball, a fortunate escape from an im-
pending capture, a quick puut in the
face of a threatened tackle, an adroit
check of some disaster, perhaps the
overthrow by a light weight of a heavy
rusher, who is rapidly nearing the goal
line with the ball in his arms, — all these
are readily appreciated by the spectators,
who watch the fluctuations of the game
with as much interest as the players
themselves, and who invariably greet a
brilliant individual play in a match game
with cheer upon cheer for the lucky
player who has made it. A handsome
check of an attempt to break through
the line of rushers, in a scrimmage ; a
successful tackle in the field ; a fortu-
nate pass of the ball when running, be-
set by the opposing side ; in short, any
good p]#y, whether by the team or by
individuals in it, is recognized, and re-
ceived with hearty, enthusiastic applause.
Rewards of this nature make a position
on the eleven desirable to the student ;
and were it not for the streak of bru-
tality which has run through some of
the matches, it might be doubted wheth-
er foot-ball would not usurp the pres-
ent popularity of base -ball. If that
element can ever be held in complete
check by any system of rules, it may
well be that the greater elasticity of the
game, together with the chance that it
affords for a display of tactics on the
part of the leader, and for brilliant in-
dividual play on the part of the mem-
bers of the team, will win for it the po-
sition in the affection of the students
which it will then fairly deserve.

Hundreds who do not understand
foot-ball flock to see the match games

in the intercollegiate contests, and easily
comprehend enough of their strategy
and management to derive enjoyment
from them. With a knowledge of the
rules of the game, with a thorough un-
derstanding of the position of affairs as
it moves along, and with an appreciation
of what constitutes good play comes
that livelier satisfaction and keener en-
joyment which inspires the student to
an enthusiasm in which even the disin-
terested spectator must participate.

Hazlitt quotes from a letter written
in March, 1560, the following sentiment,
which, when applied to our college
matches, is equally true to-day : —

" You may do well, if you have any
idle time, to play the good fellow, and
come and see our matches at foot-ball ;
for that and bowling will be our best
entertainment."

And so, too, in this nineteenth cen-
tury, it may be well for some of the
critics who denounce the policy of en-
couraging athletic sports in colleges ;
who charge to the debit of this policy
many evils that fairly belong there, and
some that do not ; who find in these
sports nothing but a wretched imitation
of the habits of English collegians, — it
may be well for some of them " to play
the good fellow, and come and see some'
of our matches." And not only the
matches, but the daily outpouring of the
students into the green fields, where
they can breathe the pure air of out-
doors, and for the moment forget their
books, and with joyous excitement ob-
tain that bodily exercise which all need,
but many neglect. It would be well for
those who criticise to remember that to
achieve distinction in any of these sports
is not consistent with a life of debauch-
ery, or irregular habits of any sort, but
that the members of teams and crews
who enter upon a course of training
voluntarily adopt methodical habits of
life, content themselves with a simple
diet, abandon all forms of indulgence
which are condemned by sanitary au-

1883.]

College Athletics.

683

thorities, keep early hours, and in gen-
eral conform their lives to just the
model that would be selected for them
by their well-wishers. Nor do the hours
adopted for their daily exercise neces-
sarily interfere with the maintenance of
a good standard of scholarship.

The daily routine work of the gym-
nasium is in itself a bore, which would
soon drop into desuetude were it not
for the companionship of the great num-
bers interested in athletics, whose buoy-
ant health and overflowing spirits re-
lieve the hour of its tedium, and convert
a task into a pleasure.

If we admit, as we must, that there
are young men who overdo the thing,
whose ambition does not rise beyond a
place in the University crew ; that the
contests stimulate a tendency to back
up the college by betting ; that . the ex-
penses of the various teams have to be
paid by somebody, and that subscription
papers are passed around for the pur-
pose of raising such funds ; that the
traveling about to play matches during
term time interferes with the studies of
those on the teams, and that the games
ought to be so arranged as to prevent
this, — if we admit all this, still the
weight of these charges is partially off-
set by the stimulus which these games
give to the great health-giving system
of athletics, which keeps our young men
boys for a year or two longer, and will
lengthen the lives of many of them by
a decade.

The young man whose sole ambition
it is to row in the University crew, and
who devotes his attention to this at the
expense of his studies, would probably
come to college if there were no crew,
and his ambition would then be satisfied
with some similar standard. If he gains
nothing else, the nut-brown skin, the
deep layers of muscles on chest and
back and arm, are better than the pallid
complexion and flaccid muscles which
would come from late hours spent over
the card table, in drinking and smoking.

If there are some weak enough to
gamble upon the results of these matches,
and to think that loyalty to their Alma
Mater compels them to back up her
team or crew with money, shall we
charge the whole of this offense to the
account of these matches ? Is not some
part of this evil due to the fact that
public opinion itself is at fault ? Look
at the enormous volume of the transac-
tions on margins and in futures in stocks,
oil, cotton, tobacco, and grain at the
exchanges in our cities, — transactions
which are almost entirely outside the
wants of legitimate trade, which are in
their nature mere speculative ventures,
and which are generally characterized
as gambling. To judge of the effects
of this upon a community, step into the
narrow streets in Chicago, in the rear
of -the Exchange, and see the pool shops,
where contingencies are sold at prices
varying from ten dollars to ten cents,
thus enabling even the street boot-blacks
to take their little ventures. It can but
be that this open defiance of the austere
views upon the subject of gambling,
held by a large portion of our people,
must have its effect upon our collegians.
If this be true, this lamentable failing
on their part, which tends to bring dis-
grace upon intercollegiate games, should
be charged, in part at least, to a de-
bauched public sentiment. The games
serve rather to disclose than to cause an
evil, which, if it exists, will find indul-
gence even if the occasion for its display,
the match game, be withdrawn. The
billiard table, the private card table, and
alas, too often, the public game of faro
furnish constant opportunities for the
gratification of this taste. The strength
of mind that can resist the temptation
within the college walls will not be se-
verely tried in the open air, even under
the excitement of the match game.

That young men who join the teams
are sometimes put to extraordinary ex-
penses, and that their fellows are oc-
casionally appealed to in behalf of the

684

The Rain and the Fine Weather.

[May,

teams, is true ; and probably it is true
that some are weak enough to subscribe
who wish they had the strength of char-
acter to say no. But after all, is there
any great harm in this ? One of the
great lessons in life to the easy-going
spirit is to learn when to say no. The
very strength of this argument is its
weakness. There are so many teams,
there are so many occasions for subscrip-
tion papers, that no young man with or-
dinary means can afford to put his name
down to all. Therefore, all are obliged
to decline some of the subscriptions, and
each person can decline any that he
chooses, with the certainty that he is
not a special object of comment.

Even if all the charges brought against
intercollegiate games are true, the fact

that they stimulate athletics in our col-
leges must be passed to their credit. If
the evils which follow in their train are
all that they are asserted to be, still
the good they bring is so plain that
the effort should be not to prevent the
games, but to regulate them so that the
attendant evils shall be avoided, and all
their good influences be exerted.

Again we say to the critics, " Play
the good fellow, and come and see our
matches," and join with us in urging
the faculties to do nothing which shall
check the growing taste for athletics in
our colleges, but rather to put forth
their efforts in giving the intercollegi-
ate games such tone and form as shall
relieve them from complaint and free
them from possible criticism.

Andrew M. F. Davis.

THE RAIN AND THE FINE WEATHER.

IN looking over my year-book, I find
no entry recording a holiday spoiled
by the rain, while numerous instances
are noted of holidays gained from that
source. Wherefore " la pluie et le
beau temps " of the sweeping Gallic
phrase are in my version freely ren-
dered as equivalents ; or, at least, the
rain is regarded as one phase of that
fine weather which we enjoy the whole
year round. How can I entirely sym-
pathize with those who reckon their
time by a sun-dial, and boast it as a vir-
tue that they " count the bright hours
only " ? The sun-dial and the bright
hours are well, but I should be loath
to repudiate those gray and lowering
hours, in which the countenance of our
thoughts so easily outshines that of the
weather, — some of the more radiant
days being, perhaps, a trifle too vivid
for our ordinary spiritual habit. If I
keep a sun-dial, I have also a tower of
the winds and a musical clepsydra, the

latter propelled directly by the cascade
from heaven : thus I think to deal equi-
tably by all hours and seasons.

Our roof-trees grow dense and dark
above us, every year more and more
shutting off the prospect skyward.
Thanks to the rain that we are occa-
sionally called out to inspect the " brave
o'erhanging firmament ; " for who is not
concerned to watch the arrival and un-
lading of the great galleys which bring
us our fresh and soft water supplies ?
Frowns and corrugations on the face of
heaven shall succeed in commanding
our attention, where ten days together
of ethereal smiles and tenderness shall
fail. There is one pleasure in the rain
itself, and another in anticipating it by
predictions. Distant be the day when
the spectroscope, with its " rain band "
indicator, shall come into general use,
superseding oral prognostication. When
this day arrives, it will be to the grief
and confusion of those clever meteorolo-

1883.]

The Rain and the Fine Weather.

685

gists who are found in every neighbor-
hood. After all, will the gain in scien-
tific certitude compensate for the loss of
pleasure to be derived from pure specu-
lation ? Notwithstanding the superior
skepticism with which we meet the dicta
of our familiar weather oracle, there is
commonly a kernel of natural philos-
ophy as well as natural poetry within
the absurd envelope of vulgar tradition.
Most of the twelve cardinal rain signs
enumerated in the Georgics are still
in good repute. " Never hath a show-
er hurt any person unforewarned." It
took me some time to probe to the prob-
able origin of the saying with regard to
the new moon and the Indian's powder-
horn. Why, indeed, should that abo-
riginal worthy hang the powder-horn
upon a dry rather than a wet moon ?
The mystery was cleared up for me on
my hearing a hunter express his prefer-
ence for wet weather, as then the leaves
on the forest floor, being moist, would
not rustle under foot, and betray his
presence to the game. Of course, the
wood-crafty Indian knew this fact, and
took advantage of it ; he would, there-
fore, have his powder-horn in use dur-
ing a wet time, but in the dry would
naturally suspend it on the convenient
lunar peg ! True, there are those who
have no respect for this trite omen, hav-
ing from their own experience evolved
a more likely system of prognostics. I
have a neighbor who asks no stronger
argument in favor of rain than to see
his dog eat grass. Another observer is
specially in the confidence of the " line
storm " agent, and has been assured that
the direction of the wind during this
period " pretty nearly " determines the
direction in which we are to look for all
the storms of the season following.
Still another, unconsciously verifying
the Emersonian maxim, hitches the
wagon of his weather faith to a shooting
star. A transcendental farmer he, whose
vane is the meteor's dart shot into the
teeth of the approaching but yet invisi-

ble storm; where the star falls, from
that quarter he anticipates the next
rough weather. This is the farmer who
plants his apple-trees at a slight deflec-
tion from the vertical, so that their tops
shall exactly indicate the " two o'clock
sun." The trees are thus, as he argues,
given a westing, so that all the strong
prevailing winds from that quarter can
do is to lift them to a perpendicular po-
sition, by the time they are 'full-grown.
This system of planting, though it may
be good arboriculture, would go far to-
wards doing away with the picturesque
wryness of the apple orchard.

It may be questioned whether the
clouds of heaven have their favorite
lanes and by-ways marked out on the
map of the country over which they
pass, yet I frequently hear that the rain
" follows the river." If this be true,
the rain has a sufficiently puzzling route,
as the river in question abhors a right
line, and delights to double upon itself
as often as it can. It is to be remarked
that the Lake (Erie), but a few miles
distant, is not popularly held to have
such a following as is claimed for its
humble tributary. No local savant can
satisfactorily apologize for the slight.
I am assured by one living near the
river that lightning strikes in its vicinity
more frequently than elsewhere ; that
the chestnut oftener than any other
tree, except the hemlock, is the mark of
the thunderbolt ; and that the beech en-
joys a singular immunity from danger,
— so much so that my informant would
not believe, on report, that a beech had
been struck, but would require to see
the mischief with his own eyes. It
would be an entertaining, and perhaps
not unprofitable, task to edit the science
and pseudo-science in common circula-
tion within the area of a single county,
district, or township.

" The former and the latter rains "
play the same part in the year's tillage
as they did when the first furrows were
drawn in the earth. The spring still

686

The Rain and the Fine Weather.

[May,

comes riding in on the moist surges of
the south wind, and the departing sum-
mer, also, goes by water, embarking on
the tumbling flood of the big September
storm. Though one season indulges in
a reckless expenditure of moisture, and
another pinches us with drought, we are
pretty sure that the account balances.
If any region, formerly well supplied
with rain, has come to suffer from arid-
ity, it is probably because the forests,
those natural well-sweeps connecting
with the heavenly cisterns, have been
cut down. A pity it is that their hy-
draulic action is not visible in some such
way as the sun and his specious water-
buckets, so that man should be advised
by self-interest to stay his inroads upon
the sylvan territory. Is the rain sent
alike upon the just and the unjust?
There is one class of the unjust, name-
ly, the timber destructionists, who are
likely to bring about a reversal of the
old benevolent decree.

It is a little strange that the poets,
while so free to praise the summer rain,
should have nothing to say about raia
in the winter. Have they not heard the
wild hunter, who, with his rattling shot,
brings down the coveys of the frost, —
the headlong charioteer cracking his
thousand whips in the vacant air, unin-
tercepted by leafy branches ? How his
lashes score and lacerate the earth's
false cuticle of ice and snow, until the
quick is reached, and dorm-ant vitality
excited! In every February rain faint
vernal rumors are heard, and cipher dis-
patches are sent to the initiated. The
rain in March brings overbold decla-
ration for spring, afterwards diplomat-
ically offset by an occasional demonstra-
tion in honor of winter. I am sorry
for those who fail to perceive the honest
stuff there is in March, who can never
get along with his chaff and swagger.
It must be that nature relishes the ex-
travagant impersonations of this actor,
else he would not be encouraged to re-
main so long upon the scene, or be so

frequently recalled, — " with hey, ho,
the wind and the rain ! " As yet, the
skies are not blue, but only blue-eyed,
the azure seen in glimpses through the
clouds as through rough eye-sockets.
The fields present an unfamiliar topog-
raphy, all depressions having been filled
up by the rain. A pool thus formed is
a kaleidoscope of color and motion : the
wind produces on its surface a veiny
arabesque, and at one side of the mar-
gin the breaking of the ocean surf is
imitated. Every gust darkens it most
wonderfully, as though there had been
thrown into the water some instantly
dissolving pigment. This sudden depth
of shade is due to the bulk of the water
having been swept aside, thus destroy-
ing the glaze of reflected light, and re-
vealing the dark bottom of the pool.
" The river is bluer than the sky " is
good painting. Heaven, as seen in the
watery mirror, is always deeper in hue
than the actual sky. Whence is the
mordant used to set this dye ? If there
be any hair-line rift in the clouds
through which a blue ray can fall, trust
the rain-pool to detect and report it with
liberal exaggeration. One will often
be baffled in his search for the zenith to
match the smiling under-heaven laid
open in the transient perspective glass^
at his feet. With ne small speculative
delight have I seen the village, after an
abundant rain, apparently built over a
celestial abysm, and threatening every
moment to fall and disappear over the
frail earth-verge. The more frequent
the pools, the more extensive the down-
ward aerial prospect, and the more ex-
quisite the sense of suspension between
two infinities. To my surprise, the
passers-by seemed wholly oblivious to
the fine peril which threatened, as they
plodded their way through the unsolid
streets, grumbling at the inefficiency of
the road supervisor.
April comes,

" With boweriness and showeriness
And rare delights of rain."

1883.]

The Rain and the Fine Weather.

687

Mantling in the suu's warmth, and daily
replenished, the pasture pools are now,
at the surface, rinks for the nimble gy-
rations of various water-flies, while be-
low swarm the fairy shrimps, simulat-
ing the fin-waving life of the fish. In
their green translucency they look not
unlike animated bits of some pulpy,
aquatic plant, so that the name of the
order, phyllopoda, is well illustrated by
this species. In one season of unusual
mildness, I knew these creatures to
make their appearance as early as the
middle of February.

Rain in April ! Who knows not the
capricious, partial shower that runs out
in shining array, under review of the
sun, advancing a furlong or so, then
stopping short, as though recalled by
solar command ? Not a yard further
will the precious moisture go, however
the mouth of nature may water in ex-
pectation. I hear the ever-thirsty grass,
with a slight, tremulous sigh, express its
disappointment and sense of neglect.
There is a copious drinker ! I almost
think to measure the depth of the rain-
fall by ascertaining the liquid contents
in the brimming tube of a blade of grass.
In the space between morning and
evening, it has plainly lifted itself high-
er, and acquired a livelier color.

After a parched interval, with what
alertness we look and listen for indica-
tions of rain ! — not, however, forgetting
to remind each other that " all signs fail
in dry weather." We are fain to credit
the " more wet " of the quail, the cease-
less trilling of the tree-frog, the chuc-
kle of the cuckoo, and the shutting of
various sunny eyes in the grass. We
also take fresh hope when the trees
that have so long stood sultrily immo-
bile begin swaying tumultuously, utter-
ing hoarse, delirious murmurs of antici-
pation. Yet we have often before seen
this majestically looming cloud break
and dissolve in gusty sighs, without
showing any practical benevolence. We
do not expect much from these sparse,

loud-clicking drops, sown broad-cast,
like a handful of pluvial " small change,"
or beggars' pence, just to test nature's
alacrity in picking up alms. Falling in
the fine dust of the road, they are at
once absorbed, curiously dotting or stip-
pling the powdery surface ; falling on the
leaves, which the drought has rendered
tense and crisp, like a sort of drum parch-
ment, they beat a brisk, urgent tattoo ;
the grass blades seem to dodge the sharp
fusillade. The looming cloud, for once,
does not disappoint us, but ascends, and
spreads rapidly a gray, uniform canopy.
When the lightning flashes, it advises
us there is brilliant repartee in the
heavens. What a keen Jew d 'esprit was
this last ! In the soul is a spark of ven-
turous, fiery wit, which in spite of the
mortal body's fear starts up to fence
with the lightning, singing, as the shaft
flies past, " Strike me, and I strike
back ! " Now comes the rain, a celes-
tial ocean at flood-tide. It has its surges
and billows, its mighty " third Waves,"
its momentary lulls and recessions.
How far is it through this liquid obscu-
rity up to the azure and the sunbeam ?
We will walk abroad under the rain,
like divers in the pearl gulfs ; we will
take a surf bath, where nothing is lack-
ing but the saline taste : for, if this be
not a true sea in which we disport, it is
at least the returning wave of sublimat-
ed lakes and rivers, the tribute of the
naiads and of the earth now refunded.

.Even in this temperate latitude we
frequently have, at the beginning of a
summer storm, an interval of elemental
chaos that would do credit to a Central
American temporal. The trees rock
and bend, leaning to the leeward, with
all their foliage blown out, like a gar-
ment, in one direction, revealing their
lithe and robust anatomy. What ad-
mirable elasticity and dexterous trim-
ming to the storm are seen among these
hardy, long-disciplined Spartans of na-
ture ! Occasionally, a young tree, de-
ficient in athletic training, is snapped

688

The Rain and the Fine Weather.

[May,

off at the ankle ; and as though the
storm carried a pruning-knife, and this
were the month for pruning, numerous
small branches, twigs, and single leaves
are remorselessly shorn away and scat-
tered to the winds. After a continued
rain, such as in June lodges the crops,
the infinite rank growth of leafage
seems completely to muffle up the world.

" The boweriness and floweriness
Make one abundant heap."

The trees are heavy and torpid with
moisture ; there is no motion in the fo-
liage, except as some terminal leaf twin-
kles in discharging a drop larger than
usual. The rain trickles down the rough,
swollen bark, finding its way by casual
channels, as the water from a spring
drips through the loose black clods of a
shaded hillside. A momentary jet rises
wherever a drop falls on a hard surface.
Well-washed stones become dark and
semi-reflective, showing, like a roiled
stream, distorted and indistinct images
of surrounding objects. The long un-
dulation of meadows and grain -fields,
the liquescent greens of the landscape,
faintly seen through the waving veil of
the rain, suggest a submarine vegetation,
swept by a gale of waters. When there
is no wind, the rain is of such temper
that we characterize it as " gentle ; " it
then comes serenely down by a direct
path ; when set on by the wind, it drives
in keen oblique splinters. Sometimes
there is a crossing of lances, as though
two rain armies were in the field. If the
eye is rejoiced at the descending shower,
the ear also has its share of pleasure.
From all sides comes up the whispered
acclamation of a million grateful leaves.
We infer their gratitude, as, in any hu-
man crowd, we understand the drift of
communication, though unable to distin-
guish individual voices. After listening a
while to this comfortable susurrus of the
leaves, we seem to hear a monotonous
rhythm, to which we readily set sympho-
nious words, or syllables, without mean-
ing. Whatever the style of parley the

rain may hold with the sea or with the
open prairie, its loquacity must always
be sweetest in a wooded country. The
senses of sight and hearing are not the
only ones regaled at this time. Before
the rain comes the breath of the rain,
bringing flavorous news from all lush
places in the woods and pastures. Vir-
gil's farmer knew what it meant when
he saw his cattle "snuff the air with
wide-open nostrils." In the first rain of
autumn, after intense summer heat, the
leaves of the maple give out a subtle
aroma, as if the essential principle of
the sap and tissues had been volatilized ;
though already burnt in the summer's
censer, their ashes are fragrant when
put in solution by the rain.

Nature is on good terms with her chil-
dren on a rainy day, seeming to treat it
as a dies non, giving herself up to their
amusement. If we are not afraid of a
wetting, we may meet some very pretty
gossips abroad, since we are not alone
in our enjoyment of the rain and fine
weather. The robin shows himself pre-
eminently a rain-bird. He takes a posi-
tion as nearly vertical as possible, so as
to shed the water, his plumage grow-
ing darker for the drenching. He has
moistened his whistle (as the flute-player
moistens his flute), and is now blowing
out the superfluous drops in a series
of mellow dissyllabic notes, somewhat
more pensive and refined than his ordi-
nary efforts. He sings the lyric of the
rain. A " sprinkle " encourages rather
than interrupts the chimney-swifts in
their airy pursuit of food ; and the more
familiar sparrows dart under the eaves,
into porches, even alighting on window-
sills, in quest of insects that have sought
shelter in these places. In the orchard
the wren is on the alert, scrambling
along the leaning trunk with the dexter-
ity of the woodpecker or the creeper,
and peering into every nook and cranny
of the bark. He, too, is foraging, yet
— that he may not be accused of being
wholly absorbed in this sordid occupa-

1883.]

Willow.

tion — from time to time pipes a moist
and rippling stave, whose " expression
mark " might be allegretto grazioso.
There is still another creature, from
which, if gifted vocally, we should prob-
ably hear some thrilling wet -weather
notes. At the first report of rain, our
old doorside friend, the toad, exhibits
all the delight possible to an organiza-
tion so cold and phlegmatic. His yel-
low sides and throat seem to throb with
excitement, as he comes out of his her-
mitage in the mould of a neglected flow-
er-pot. As soon as wet, his spotted mo-
saic coat becomes brighter, resembling
in color and markings some freaked peb-
ble washed up by the waves. With an
eye to business (he is possibly some-
thing of a savant, and counts upon the
present atmospheric condition as favor-
able to his fly-catching enterprise), he
gathers himself up and hurries into the
grass, looping himself along by his long,
ridiculous legs.

While these visible rillets of the rain
are making their way, with much froth-
ing and bubbling, to some permanent

vein of water, one imagines the streams
underground rejoicing, in their own dark,
voiceless way, at the reinforcement they
receive. For hours afterward I taste
the river of heaven in water from the
well. Some time ago I made the dis-
covery of a music-box or whispering-
gallery of the rain, which I had passed
a hundred times without suspecting its
musical capacity. It is entirely subter-
ranean, with a tube or shaft connecting
it with the surface. Laying my ear to
this, I hear a succession of delicious
melodies, abounding in trills, turns,
grace-notes, and broken chords, in which
the last fine high note is followed by
an echo. It is Nicor, chief of water-
sprites, sitting in a cavern and playing
liquid chimes, laughing to himself during
the rests ! The mason who constructed
this music-box with bricks and mortar
thought only to produce a cistern, not
dreaming of the acoustic luxury that
should result from his labors. This is
the clepsydra that keeps the rainy hours,
dropping the minutes and seconds in a
silver or crystal coinage of sound.

Edith M. Thomas.

VOL. LI. — NO.

WILLOW.

0 SLENDER willow, that beside

The meadow brooklet leanest here,

Sad, in this joy-time of the year,
Dost cast gold catkins on the tide,

As strips the widowed Hindoo bride

Her jeweled arms, with grief austere, —
O slender willow ? . . .

Or makest fickle haste to hide

The pale young sunshine's gifts, once dear,
Ere beam more splendid shall appear,
To clothe thee all in verdurous pride, —
O slender willow ?

C. E. Sutton.

307. 44

690

President Monroe.

[May,

PRESIDENT MONROE.

THE full title of Mr. Oilman's schol-
arly essay on James Monroe 1 hints at
the grounds on which the fifth Presi-
dent finds a place in the careful list of
American statesmen, and Monroe's own
career and historic associations suggest
very interesting speculations as to the
future conditions of public life in Amer-
ica. John Quincy Adams was more
distinctly trained to an administrative
life ; but he was also a man of more
striking individuality, and the figure
which he shows in our history is that of
a person, rather than that of an officer.
His official position served as a back-
ground upon which to write his charac-
ter, and although he lived from boyhood
in the atmosphere of public service, he
can scarcely be called the product of
that service.

The character of Monroe, on the
other hand, does not indicate a power
which would have made him a marked
man under all conditions. The fact
that he has hitherto not been the sub-
ject of a formal biography is a slight
sign of the absence in him of strong
lines of personality. Mr. Oilman, in ac-
cordance with the scheme of the series
in which his book stands, has not at-
tempted a life. He invites some histor-
ical student, in search of a subject, to
undertake a full life of Monroe ; yet it
is doubtful if any student would be at-
tracted by the personal element in the
subject. The few pages which Mr. Oil-
man gives to this side are interesting and
satisfactory ; one does not care for much
more. An indefinite series of anecdotes
or illustrations, if they could be found,
would hardly build any very picturesque
figure. Monroe appears as an awkward,
diffident man, slow of speech, courteous,

1 James Monroe in his Relations to the Public
Service during Half a Century, 1776 to 1826. By
DANIEL C. OILMAN, President of the Johns Hop-

unimaginative, a little dull, perhaps, but
uniformly unselfish, honorable, and faith-
ful. He was, as Mr. Oilman points out,
rather a man of action than of intellec-
tual power ; and his promptness and
self-reliance during the second war with
Great Britain certainly seem to bear
out this view, and lead one to believe
that Colonel Monroe, as he was com-
monly called, would have made a good
general in the war for independence, if
he had been older then, and would be
an efficient railroad president, if he
were in his prime now.

It is chiefly from the recollections of
Judge "Watson, contributed to this vol-
ume, that we get our notion of Monroe
in his personal relations, and there are
one or two passages which are interest-
ing as bringing us closer to the man
as he knew himself. " There was not,"
says Judge Watson, " the least particle
of conceit in Mr. Monroe, and yet he
seemed always strongly to feel that he
had rendered great public service. From
Washington to John Quincy Adams, he
was the associate and co-laborer of the
greatest and best men of his day. . . .
One striking peculiarity about Mr. Mon-
roe was his sensitiveness, his timidity
in reference to public sentiment. I do
not mean as it respected his past public
life ; as to that, he appeared to feel se-
cure. But in retirement his great care
seemed to be to do and say nothing
unbecoming in an ex-President of the
United States. He thought it incum-
bent on him to have nothing to do with
party politics. This was beneath the
dignity of an ex-President ; and it was
unjust to the people who had so highly
honored him to seek to throw the weight
of his name and character on either side

kins University, Baltimore. Boston : Houghton,
Miffliu & Co. 1883. [American Statesmen Series.]

1883.]

President Monroe.

691

of any contest between them. Hence,
Mr. Monroe, after retiring from office,
rarely, if ever, expressed his opinions of
public men or measures, except confi-
dentially."

From these and other details, it is not
difficult to reconstruct Mr. Monroe as
he saw himself, and one can have only
respect for a man who took so serious a
view of his office and its responsibilities.
In a merely external view, Monroe's of-
ficial honor was very great. " No one
but Washington was ever reelected to the
highest office in the land with so near
an approach to unanimity." It is true
that the calm of the political waters
upon the reelection of Monroe was not
very profound, but the common consent
by which he was continued in office was
a just tribute to the integrity and good
sense of the President. One who had
enjoyed this public confidence might
fairly be complacent over it, but Mon-
roe showed his fine character by respect-
ing the public as much as the public re-
spected him, and by using his office as
the chief servant of the nation.

What impresses us most in his public
life is the completeness with which he
caught the sentiment of the people, and
reproduced it in his official papers.
The Monroe Doctrine is the completest
expression of this. Mr. Gilman has
shown how little that doctrine was a
mere pronunciameuto of the President,
and how gradually it was evolved as the
growth of the public consciousness. In
giving voice to the gathering conviction
of the nation, Mr. Monroe was the
spokesman of the people, and not its
champion. Historical students, indeed,
will be a little disappointed that Mr.
Gilman has not discussed the question
of the share which the Secretary of
State had in the document. So little is
Mr. Monroe's personal equation of force
that it remained for a still later devel-
opment of the popular thought to give
the formal statement a fuller content;
so that when we speak, to-day, of the

Monroe Doctrine it becomes necessary
to discriminate between the historic ex-
pression and the convenient formula
which stands now for somewhat more.
The doctrine is one of the landmarks
of national progress, but, like other
landmarks in nature, it diminishes in
apparent greatness as one comes nearer
to it.

It is, however, as we have hinted,
chiefly as an illustration of administra-
tive evolution that President Monroe's
career may be studied to advantage. If
we were to select representatives of
this evolution in the three periods of
United States history, they would be
Monroe, Buchanan, and Garfield. Mr.
Buchanan hit himself off, when he la-
beled himself, like a wax figure, an Old
Public Functionary. He is the Tur-
veydrop of American statesmen, and rep-
resents a condition of public life when
the highest officer of the nation was a
puppet in the hands of stronger men.
He was the outgrowth of an oligarchy ;
he had passed his life in office, learning
thoroughly all parts of the mechanism ;
he was entirely at home in the artificial
political life which was built upon the
conception of the administration as a
delicately adjusted machine, contrived
for continuing the party in power. The
administration in Buchanan's time was
the government, but it pretended to be
only the attorney for the government.
It would, perhaps, be more exact to say
that the real government was in the
hands of a compact body of men, who
ruled in the name of the people, and
employed the administration as their
agency.

Mr. Monroe, on the other hand, while
he had served the same kind of appren-
ticeship as Mr. Buchanan, was the prod-
uct of a different time. The English
and colonial conception of the adminis-
tration as the real government lingered
for some time after the formal proclama-
tion of democratic principles, and in the
early years of the republic, when the cen-

692

Mr. Quinces Reminiscences.

[May,

tral organization was simple and very
limited in its agencies, the government
was largely aristocratic. It was under
this regime that Monroe was trained,
and he came to the top when the sys-
tem was giving way before the rising
tide of democracy. He inherited the
ideas of the strong men who had laid
the foundations of the nation, and he
carried them out faithfully and with a
high sense of honor. Place was a trust,

and he never failed so to regard it.

In the administration which it was
hoped would bear Mr. Garfield's name,
the people looked with eagerness and
some confidence for the realization of a
public life which should make the ad-
ministration, what the theory of democ-
racy demands, a register of the best pub-
lic mind. As the country grows more
complex in its inter-relations, it requires
that the management of its public af-
fairs should be entrusted to men who
have been trained for it, and trained in
a school which recognizes one authority,
— we, the people. It is for this reason
that so positive an injunction has been
given to rid the civil service of its oli-
garchic taint. No facts in our recent
political history are so significant as the

decision with which this injunction has
been pronounced, and the silent, unor-
ganized combination which has used the
ballot as a skillful weapon. The truth
is that a century of ballot-throwing has
been needed to perfect the engine ; and
now that it is in the possession of the
people, and well adjusted to their hands,
it is used with tremendous force. The
individual ballot and the unpolitical office
go together, and in the new era upon
which we are entering this presentation
of Monroe's career becomes of great
value. We believe that the govern-
ment is passing into the hands of the
people, and we have reason to believe
that an administration will result which
will express that government as admir-
ably as Monroe's expressed the aristo-
cratic government of his day.

We ought not to leave Mr. Oilman's
book without recognizing the thorough-
ness of its equipment. He has made a
readable book for any citizen ; he has
also made a most serviceable hand-book
for the special student ; and by his rele-
gation to an appendix of matters which
constitute an index to his subject, he
has served both classes, and offended
neither.

MR. QUINCY'S REMINISCENCES.

IT is not without a sense of its priv-
ileges that The Atlantic Monthly is
housed in a mansion famous for the men
and women who have lived in it, or been
entertained at its hospitable board ; thus
it is with a slight sense of returning
courtesies that it welcomes a book1
which brings back so many figures once
familiar in the Quincy mansion in Park
Street, Boston, and not the least among

l Figures of the Past, from the Leaves of Old
Journals. By JOSIAH Quiucr. Boston : Kob-
erts Brothers." 1883.

them that of the cheerful narrator of
old scenes. For although Mr. Quincy
writes mainly of other and often more
famous men than himself, the glimpses
which he gives of his own personality
are delightful. He is an old man, tell-
ing mainly of scenes through which he
passed in his youth ; and he looks back
upon the young man who figured as the
annalist in his diary with a whimsical
alienation, as upon a prankish colt, who
amuses him greatly now. There are
intimations, now and then, in his book,

1883.]

Mr. Quincy's Reminiscences.

693

that the .records have been obliged to
pass the scrutiny of some vigilant lit-
erary censor; and Mr. Quincy even
protests, with the air of an uncle who
is under some tyrannical surveillance,
that he is not allowed to tell some ex-
cellent stories which he had set down.
We have no doubt of it. We are sure
that he might shock us, and give us a
guilty sense of enjoyment, and perhaps
his censor was right ; but after all, we
are most pleased that the garrulousness
of a sunny age has not been entire-
ly checked, for the stream of remi-
niscences is one which flows on with
a careless ease, very delightful to the
reader.

Mr. Quincy gave a happy title to his
volume, for it is eminently a book which
calls up the figures of the past. The
writer himself was not only brought
into familiar relations with notable per-
sons, when he was a young man, but it
is plain that his interest in persons has
always been lively, and the frank catho-
licity of his temper and belief made
him quick to recognize the virtue which
resides in character aside from circum-
stance. He is a democratic gentleman,
who has all the fine instincts which ena-
ble him to penetrate mere class or arbi-
trary distinctions. A singular illustra-
tion of this is in the admirable portrait
which he has drawn of Andrew Jackson.
He has not himself called our attention
to his own good breeding, but the reader
will scarcely fail to observ'e in the Gov-
ernor's young aid, who did escort duty
to the President when he made his tour
in Massachusetts, a genuine courtesy,
which was no sham official politeness.
Mr. Quincy recalls with candor the prej-
udice which he felt toward Jackson, and
gracefully acknowledges his own uncon-
ditional surrender. In doing so, he
not only gives us a clear and honorable
sketch of the President, but he unwit-
tingly writes down his own generous and
chivalrous nature.

" I was fairly startled," he writes, " a

few days ago, at the remark of a young
friend,1 who is something of a student
of American history. ( Of course,' said
he, ' General Jackson was not what you
would call a gentleman ! ' Now, al-
though I had only a holiday acquaint-
ance with the general, and although a
man certainly puts on his best manners
when undergoing a public reception, the
fact was borne in upon me that the
seventh President was, in essence, a
knightly personage, — prejudiced, nar-
row, mistaken upon many points, it might
be, but vigorously a gentleman in his
high sense of honor, and in the natu-
ral, straightforward courtesies which
are easily to be distinguished from the ve-
neer of policy ; and I was not prepared
to be favorably impressed with a man
who was simply intolerable to the Brah-
min caste of my native State. Had not
the Jackson organs teemed with abuse
of my venerated friend, John Adams?
Had not the legislature of New Hamp-
shire actually changed the name of a
town from Adams to Jackson ; thereby
performing a contemptible act of flat-
tery, which, to the excited imaginations
of the period, seemed sufficient to dis-
credit republican government forever
after ? Had not this man driven from
their places the most faithful officers of
government, to satisfy a spirit of per-
secution relentless and bitter beyond
precedent ?

" I did not forget these things when
I received Governor Lincoln's order to
act as special aide-de-camp to the Pres-
ident, during his visit to Massachusetts ;
and I felt somewhat out of place when
I found myself advancing from one side
of Pawtucket Bridge (on the morning
of June 20, 1833) to meet a slender,
military-looking person, who had just
left the Rhode Island side of that struc-
ture. Lawyers are credited with the
capacity of being equally fluent upon

1 In our unworthy jealousy of Mr. Quincy's
literary adviser, we have decided to consider him
and the young friend named above as identical.

694

Mr. Quinces Reminiscences.

[May,

all sides of a question; and if I had
suddenly received orders to express to
General Jackson my detestation of his
presidential policy, I think I should
have been equal to the occasion. My
business, however, was to deliver an ad-
dress of welcome ; and here was Jackson
himself, advancing in solitary state to
hear it. Well in the rear of the chief
walked the Vice-President and heir-
apparent, Martin Van Buren ; and
slowly following came the Secretaries
of War and the Navy, Cass and Wood-
bury. It is awkward to make a formal
speech to one man, and I missed the
crowd, which the military, upon both
sides of the bridge, were keeping upou
terra firma. I seemed to be the mouth-
piece of nobody but myself. The ad-
dress, somehow, got delivered, the dis-
tinguished guest made his suitable reply,
and then we walked together to the
fine barouche-and-four, which was to
take us through the State. The Presi-
dent and Vice-President were waved
to the back of the carriage; Colonel
Washburn and myself occupied the
front seat; the Cabinet were accommo-
dated with chariots, somewhat less tri-
umphal, behind us ; the artillery fired
(breaking many windows in Pawtucket,
for which the State paid a goodly bill),
and we were off."

This was the beginning of an inter-
course which has supplied Mr. Quiucy
with reminiscences occupying a score of
pages ; he has consulted his diaries and
his memory, and has drawn thence a
number of fresh and natural impres-
sions regarding the President. " His
conversation," he says, " was interesting,
from its sincerity, decision, and point.
It was easy to see that he was not a
man to accept a difference of opinion
with equanimity ; but that was clearly
because, he being honest and earnest,
Heaven would not suffer his opinions
to be other than right. Mr. Van Buren,
on the other hand, might have posed for
a statue of Diplomacy. He had the

softest way of uttering his cautious ob-
servations, and evidently considered the
impression every word would make."

Mr. Quincy gives an amusing incident
which occurred during a review of the
Boston Brigade, and takes the opportu-
nity, with a somewhat mock gravity, of
exonerating himself from an imputa-
tion under which he has rested for fifty
years. Mr. Van Buren and the mem-
bers of the Cabinet had declined to take
part in the review, but suddenly recon-
sidered their decision, when all the suita-
ble horses had been otherwise engaged.
" I frankly told him," says Mr. Quincy,
" that I had given up the animals that
had been engaged, and that the party
must now take such leavings as might
be had. Remembering that from a
militia stand-point the trappings are
about seven eighths of the horse, I at
once ordered the finest military saddles,
with the best quadrupeds under them
that were procurable. They appeared
in due time, and we mounted and pro-
ceeded to the field in good order; but
the moment we reached the Common,
the tremendous discharge of artillery
which saluted the President scattered
the Cabinet in all directions. Van
Buren was a good horseman, and kept
his seat, but, having neither whip nor
spur, found himself completely in the
power of his terrified animal, who, com-
mencing a series of retrograde move-
ments of a most uumilitary character,
finally brought up with his tail against
the fence which then separated the
mall from the Common, and refused
to budge another inch. In the mean
time the President and his staff had gal-
loped cheerfully round the troops, and
taken up their position on the rising
ground, near the foot of Joy Street, to
receive the marching salute. ' Why,
where 's the Vice-President ? ' suddenly
exclaimed the President, turning to me
for an explanation. 'About as near on
the fence as a gentleman of his positive
political convictions is likely to get,'

1883.]

Mr. Quinces Reminiscences.

695

said I, pointing him out. I felt well
enough acquainted with Jackson, by this
time, to venture upon a little pleasan-
try. ' That 's very true,' said the old
soldier, laughing heartily ; ' and you 've
matched him with a horse who is even
more non-committal than his rider.'
Now the democrats were very sensitive
about Mr. Van Buren, and among thdm
started a report that I had provided
their prince imperial with this prepos-
terous horse, in order to put him in a
ridiculous position. I was much an-
noyed by this story, and although it may
be thought a little late to give it a for-
mal contradiction through the press,
I feel constrained to do so. It was
the Vice-President's own fault, and no
neglect on the part of the managing
aide-de-camp, that placed him in a po-
sition to which his party so reasonably
objected."

The President certainly made a con-
vert of the young officer who was so near
to him in those days, — a convert, not
to his political doctrines, but to a belief
in the chief's integrity and true nobility.
Mr. Quincy bears testimony to the in-
domitable will by which Jackson tri-
umphed over the frailties of his phys-
ical nature : " An immaterial something
flashed through his eye, as he greeted
us in the breakfast room, and it was evi-
dent that the faltering body was again
held in subjection." He relates how
the general was compelled, at a public
reception in Cambridge, to abandon hand-
shaking, but that he made an exception
in favor of two pretty children. " He
took the hands of these little maidens,
and then lifted them up and kissed them.
It was a pleasant sight, one not to be
omitted when the events of the day were
put upon paper. This rough soldier,
exposed all his life to those temptations
which have conquered public men whom
we still call good, could kiss little chil-
dren with lips as pure as their own."

There is a delightful air of gallan-
try about these reminiscences. To the

young Mr. Quincy, jotting down his
day's experience in his diary, the maid-
ens with whom he danced and rode were
wonderfully lovely and witty ; to the
old Mr. Quincy, turning over the leaves
of his diary, and piecing out the records
with his memory, the loveliness and wit
are just as real and lasting. A sigh es-
capes him, now and then, over the lost
fragrance of the bouquet, and the femi-
nine figures of the past move across the
stage in the somewhat attenuated form
of Miss A. and Miss B. ; but we are
spared those hypocritical ejaculations of
the vanity of life, which blooming youth
sometimes brings to the lips of trembling
age. On the contrary, there is a hearti-
ness of enjoyment in the recollection of
mirth, which gives one a sense of the
generous nature of the fine old gentle-
man who reviews his past. Sometimes,
indeed, ho tells frankly whom he ad-
mired, and we cannot do better than re-
produce a couple of pages of his book,
which have the vigor of honest admira-
tion, and conclude with a redoubtable
caution: "Wednesday, March 8 [1826],
spent the evening at Mrs. Bozeley's
ball [in Baltimore], where I was great-
ly struck by the beauty of the ladies.
The principal belles were Miss Clap-
ham, Miss Gallatin, and Miss Johnson.
This last lady has one of the most strik-
ing faces I ever saw. It is perfectly
Grecian. And this, added to her fine
figure and graceful movement, presented
a tout ensemble from which I could not
keep my eyes. I was introduced to her,
and found her manners as bewitching as
her person. She was all life and spirit.
After finishing the first dance, I discov-
ered a corner, where we sat for nearly
an hour, keeping up an easy, laughing
sort of conversation. This would have
occasioned observation elsewhere ; but
here no one seemed to notice it, except
the gentleman who wished to dance with
her, so I had a very comfortable time.
When we were obliged to separate, I
tried to dance with Miss Clapham, but

696

Mr. Quincy's Reminiscences.

[May,

found she was engaged. I could only
represent to her partner that I should
never have another opportunity of dan-
cing with this lady, whereas he would
have many others ; but he was inexora-
ble, and refused to give her up ; so I did
the next best thing in standing by her
and talking to her during all the inter-
vals of the dance. After it was over, I
retired, well satisfied that the reputation
of Baltimore for the gayety and beauty
of its ladies was fully deserved.

" There is no use in multiplying ex-
tracts like this," continues Mr. Quincy,
philosophically. " It is the old, old
story of maidenly fascinations upon a
young man. Let me hope that the in-
tuitive sympathy of a few youthful read-
ers will give piquancy to the foolish
words which chronicle experiences once
so vivid. At yet another ball, my jour-
nal tells how I was introduced to Miss

, ' the great belle of the city,' and

testifies that I found her ' pretty, agree-
able, and sensible.' And then there is
written some idle gossip of the young
fellows of Baltimore about this fair lady.
The question with them was, Why did

not Miss marry ? She was nearly

as old as the century, and had had an-
nual crops of eligible offers, from her
youth up. There must be some expla-
nation ; and then excellent and appar-
ently conclusive reasons why the lady
had not married, and never would marry,
were alleged, and these were duly con-
fided to the guardianship of my journal.
It is apropos to this lady that I shall be
generous enough to relate a subsequent
awkwardness of my own ; for it enforces
what may be called a social moral, which
it is useful to remember. A few years
after this (that is, they seemed very few
years to me), a gentleman from Balti-
more was dining at my house. During
one of the pauses of conversation, it oc-
curred to me to inquire after the former
belle of his city, about whom I had
heard so much speculation. Expecting
an immediate acquiescence in the nega-

tive, I carelessly threw out the remark,

' Miss , of Baltimore, I believe, was

never married.' No sooner were the
words uttered than I saw that something
was wrong. My guest changed color,
and was silent for some moments. At
length came the overwhelming reply :
' Sir, I hope she was married. She is
my mother.' And so the moral is that
we cannot be too cautious in our in-
quiries concerning the life, health, or
circumstances of any mortal known in
other years, and bounded by another
horizon."

Mr. Quincy's reminiscences are made
to revolve around certain important cen-
tres. He gives a few chapters to stu-
dent life at Harvard sixty years ago,
and calls up with mingled respect and
entertainment the figure of Professor
Popkin, whose name raises expectations
which will not be disappointed. John
Adams makes another centre, and so
does Daniel Webster and Lafayette.
It seems impossible for the old to com-
municate to the young the enthusiasm
which Lafayette inspired when he re-
turned to this country. They look back
upon the days of that great triumphal
reception with a half - puzzled air, and
try in vain to record the immense ex-
citement which pervaded the thinly set-
tled country. " To me," says Mr. Quincy,
" his last words were, ' Remember, we
must meet again in France ! ' and so
saying, he kissed me upon both cheeks.
' If Lafayette had kissed me,' said an
enthusiastic lady of my acquaintance,
'depend upon it, I would never have
washed my face as long as I lived ! '
The remark may be taken as fairly
marking the point which the flood-tide
of affectionate admiration reached in
those days."

Of all the figures in the book, how-
ever, Joseph Smith, the Mormon, comes
forward with perhaps the most distinct-
ness and freshness. It is worth while
to get the impressions of such a man
upon the mind of so honest a gentleman

1883.]

Woodberry's History of Wood-Engraving.

697

and good observer as Mr. Quincy ; and
we value the impressions the more that
Mr. Quincy makes so little attempt to
construct' a theory about the prophet.
He does better than that : he gives us a
series of instantaneous photographs. la
fine, the whole volume is a most agree-
able addition to the scanty memoirs of
our social life in the early part of the
century ; and since we have not reached
the somewhat scornful height of Mr.
Wendell Phillips's depreciation of dia-
ries, we are well content to applaud Mr.
Quincy's half-serious, half-whimsical de-
fense of himself for these trifles : " Ah,
Mr. Phillips, let us not altogether de-
spise the poor fribbles who keep jour-
nals. They do manage to keep a few
myths out of history, after all. . . . 'You
can count on the fingers of your two
hands all the robust minds that have
kept journals,' says my eminent friend.
Well, perhaps you can; but I think it

might require all the hands of Briareus
to number the robust minds that have
lamented that they took no written note
of the scenes and persons among which
they passed. Most pathetic in its re-
gret was the language I have heard
from Judge Story, and other first-class
men, respecting this omission. It has
rung in my ears when, tired and full of
business, I was disposed to shirk the
task. So let us possess our souls in pa-
tience, even if our * sixpenny neighbor '
is keeping a journal. ... It is Arthur
Helps who says that poor ' sixpenny '
Pepys has given us ' the truest book
that ever was written ; ' no slight praise
this, as it seems to me. But let not the
reader fear that any chronicles of mine
shall be catalogued among the diaries
and journals from which Mr. Phillips
would deliver us. I have taken strin-
gent measures to secure him and his
posterity from so great a calamity."

WOODBERRY'S HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING.

MR. WOODBERRY makes generous
acknowledgment to Professor Charles
Eliot Norton, without whose aid and
counsel he declares that his book l could
not have been written ; but it should
not be inferred from this that there is,
in his treatment of the history of wood-
engraving, any lack of individuality and
independence. Far from that, a prin-
cipal charm of this volume lies in the
fact that it is characterized by a clear
sight, and a comprehensiveness not
thwarted by undue bias in favor of one
theory or one master, although we feel
the personality of the author in his writ-
ing, and are agreeably aware of his
preferences. Only at one or two points

1 A History of Wood-Engraving. By GEORGE
E. WOODBKRRY. Illustrated. New York : Har-
per & Brothers. 1883.

is he pursued, and to some extent en-
snared, by the old, haunting idea which
takes possession of so many persons,
that limits must be set, beyond which
no achievement, however skillful and
refined, however artistic or gratifying
to the eye, can be reckoned as legiti-
mate. It may be admitted that Holbein
made his work with the graver the
highest exemplar of what may be wise-
ly attempted on the original basis of
wood-engraving ; but it does not follow
that there should be no new departures,
no variations or adventurings in new
paths. Mr. Woodberry says of Hol-
bein, " He perceived more clearly than
Diirer the essential conditions under
which wood-engraving must be prac-
ticed. ... If he had needed cross-
hatching, fine and delicate lines, har-

698

Woodberry's History of Wood-Engraving.

[May,

monies of tone, and soft transitions of
light, he would have had recourse to

O •

copperplate ; but not finding them nec-
essary, he contented himself with the
bold outlines, easily cut and easily
printed, which were the peculiar prov-
ince of wood-engraving." Now, when
the province of an art is spoken of, crit-
ics are too ready to forget that this may
include several departments ; or that
the province may annex to itself other
territories, and become a kingdom or a
republic, having various sovereignties
within itself. There are those who in-
sist that the methods of Jean-Francois
Millet in painting are unjustifiable, and
would like to carry all painting back to
the careful definition of detail in Ver-
onese ; people who admire some acces-
sory, put in by an apprentice, perhaps,
in the picture of a great Italian, more
than the best work of a modern master,
equally devout and equally truthful,
but approaching things from a point of
view wholly different. Victor Hugo
was for a long time denounced as not
writing French, simply because he gave
a new direction to the language in its
use for fiction ; and it is but a little
while since Richard Wagner was bitter-
ly opposed by a large class, for his
abandonment of melody. In the same
way, Mr. Woodberry speaks with dis-
satisfaction of the recent tendency of
engraving towards " refining or aban-
doning line." It is true, as was said in
our notice of Mr. Linton's History of
Wood-Engraving in America, that lines
are to the engraver what words are to
the poet ; but the question whether he
has put meaning into them can be de-
cided only by a broad and sympathetic
mode of interpretation, and not by a
single rigid canon. The engraver must
be granted a fair choice of ways in
which he shall impart significance, like
that which the poet enjoys. It is hy-
percritical to condemn him for employ-
ing the same texture on different sur-
faces in one composition, so long as he

does not vitiate the truthfulness of his
effect by so doing ; and if he wishes oc-
casionally to mimic the brush-marks of
the designer, there seems to be no sound
artistic principle forbidding him thus to
attest the fact which we all know, that
he is reproducing a picture. The engrav-
er is not really enslaved to the draughts-
man by the new system, for he is often
called upon to interpret passages in his
own way. Still,' on the whole, he is
subordinate, and occupies the relation of
the musical virtuoso to the composer.
But it is difficult to maintain that there
should not be a body of reproducing en-
gravers, and that they may not have as
distinct an artistic value as the origina-
tors, like Holbein and William Blake
and Mr. Linton ; a value as proper to
wood-engraving, too, though it may not
be as high. Nor can we see how even
an originator, if he chose to adopt the
modern style, would prove himself false
to the true aims of the art. In the new
movement, however, we must expect
many extravagances and weaknesses,
along with the good attained. Our il-
lustrated magazines furnish multitu-
dinous examples of manifestly absurd
choice of texture, obscuration of form,
useless blindness, and flatness of effect ;
and Mr. Woodberry must be thanked
for protesting against these, notwith-
standing that he is somewhat affected
by a conservatism which, if obeyed,
might hold wood-engraving in a state of
stagnation. In a work of this kind it
is impossible to do justice to individuals
by the selection of specimens of their
work; but it strikes us as unfortunate
for the completeness of the last chapter
that there should be no example given
of Mr. Anthony, Mr. Henry Marsh,
or Mr. Linton, who are appreciatively
mentioned. A more serious omission,
perhaps, is the failure to include even a
solitary cut of the modern French en-
gravers. Taken altogether, neverthe-
less, the illustrations afford much reason
for satisfaction. They constitute an

1883.]

Symonds's Renaissance in Italy.

699

abundant, progressive, and useful series.
In his text, Mr. Woodberry groups the
divisions of the subject with excellent
judgment. There is first a chapter on
the origin of the art and the " holy
prints ; " then the block-books, and
early printed books at the North, and
early Italian engraving on wood are sur-
veyed. The history is carried on swift-
ly, but without any slurring, through
the period of Diirer and Holbein to the
rapid decline and extinction of the art,
after scarcely three centuries of growth ;
and finally the revival, which in Eng-
land was led by Bewick, towards the
end of the last century, and the recent
development in America are chronicled.
Generally Mr. Woodberry's style is at-

tractive, and contributes much to the
charm of his exposition : he is suave and
observes a becoming leisure ; yet he
wastes no time, and he is both forcible
and eloquent when he is bestowing ad-
miration, or has a lesson to inculcate.
The purpose of arranging that which is
essential to a just knowledge of the sub-
ject in a popular form, but with all the
virtue of a ripe cultivation, is eminent-
ly well carried out, and is assisted by a
list of the chief works on wood-engrav-
ing, at the end. Its temperate, discrim-
inating tone, and the thoroughness of
the review it gives from the earliest to
the latest moment of the art, make the
volume a very useful addition to one
important alcove of literature.

SYMONDS'S RENAISSANCE IN ITALY.

IN these two volumes * the author
presents his study of the Italian liter-
ature of the Renaissance, to which his
previous works on the political history
and the fine arts of the same period
were preliminary. Even here, in preface
to his immediate subject, he has found
it necessary to occupy a considerable
space with an account of the earlier lit-
erature that furnished the material and
suggested the artistic methods of the
later writers. He marks three periods
of literary development : the mediaeval,
ending with the death of Boccaccio
(1375), during which Italian literature
was formed ; the humanistic, ending
with the birth of Lorenzo de' Medici
(1448), during which scholars reverted
to the Latin culture, at the expense of
the vulgar tongue ; the renascent, end-
ing with the death of Ariosto (1533),
during which the divided currents of

1 Renaissance in Italy. Italian Literature. In
Two Parts. By JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS.
New York : Henry Holt & Co. 1882.

the modern and Latin spirit merged in
the golden age of letters. Incidentally,
he discusses such familiar topics of sub-
sidiary interest as the history of the
popular legends that gave the theme for
imagination, and the blight that fell on
the miracle plays before they could re-
sult in drama. But the most important
portion of his work is a biographical
and critical account of the authors of
the romantic epics, burlesque tales, nov-
els, and idyls of the final period, accom-
panied by a running comment in reply
to the repeated and significant question,
Why did Italy produce no Shakespeare,
Moliere, or Calderon, — more than all,
why had she no Juvenal ?

The traditional romance that hangs
about Italy has fostered a popular mis-
apprehension of nearly all things Ital-
ian. As the mother of Christian art
and the Catholic church, the land is
supposed to be religious ; as the long-
enslaved and last-freed of the nations
of Europe, the race is believed to be de-

700

Symonds's Renaissance in Italy.

[May,

ficient in political sagacity. Yet it re-
quires but little reflection, hardly more
than a thought of the Reformation, to
prevent surprise at the fact that the
Italians were at heart the most irrelig-
ious of Christian peoples, and that the
church, viewed by them always as a
secular institution, is a monument of
their genius applied to practical affairs.
Italian art, too, as an expression of na-
tional life, must be ascribed less to piety
than to the native bent of mind, the in-
bred race disposition, which seeks to
bring all spiritual things within the per-
ception of the senses ; indeed, the course
of development in Italian art lies prin-
cipally in the gradual substitution of an
aesthetic aim for a devout motive as the
source of inspiration. No people is less
dreamy, in the Northern sense ; the gen-
ius of the race is positive, definite, ob-
jective, practical, circumscribed in the
tangible and visible facts of experience.
Between Italian intellect and Italian
feeling there seems to be no border-land.
Ecstasy may fall from heaven and kin-
dle masses of men into passion, as in
the case of the Flagellanti, but it is a
malady of emotion only; the madness
passes, the mind remains untouched. In
Dante's poem, as has been often pointed
out, these race qualities are clearly ap-
parent : the journey is mapped out as on
a chart ; the hours are duly reckoned ;
the world beyond is laid open to accu-
rate observation ; the dark places of his
Vision are not dark with the spirit's ex-
cess of light, but with mediaeval meta-
physics. In later authors, however dif-
ferent the subject, the temper of mind is
the same. The grasp on reality is no less
tenacious, the attention to detail no less
careful ; the incidents of the adventure,
the look of the landscape, the physiog-
nomy of the characters, no less plainly
defined as phenomena ocularly seen.

In the tales of chivalry, whether ro-
mantic, heroic, or burlesque, which seem
to us to possess the characteristics of
later Italian literature in most variety,

this realism is veiled by the apparent un-
reality of the fable. Arthur and Ro-
land belong to the North ; and to the
Northern mind itself, although they
have the substance of ideals, they are
very remote. But the Arthur of Italian
nobles, the Roland of the Italian people,
are the thinnest of shades ; nor were
they less insubstantial to most of the
poets of the golden age than to us.
The people gave the Caroliugian myth
to them as the burden of their stories ;
but, leaving Boiardo out of the account,
they could not accept the conditions of
that imaginative world and believe in it ;
nor could Boiardo, who had without
doubt a real enthusiasm for chivalry, be-
lieve with Spenser's faith. Italy had no
feudal past ; how could the bourgeois
Pulci feel any living sympathy with
feudal ideals ? The myth was emptied
of its moral contents ; how could Arios-
to be earnest as Tennyson is ? In deal-
ing with deeds of knight-errantry, ad-
ventures in the lists and the forest, wiz-
ard springs and invincible armor, all
the poets were conscious of something
quixotic; to Ariosto it was the main
element. He could not be serious ; the
mock gravity of irony was the most he
could compass. This sense of unreal-
ity in the legend was not all that led
especially the last poets of the age to
play with their art. A more powerful
reason was the hopelessness of society
in their age, deep as that which in ear-
lier times fell on their ancestors, who
witnessed the barbarian incursions on
Roman soil. Politically, morally, and
religiously, society was breaking up.
What was there to be serious about ?
All that gives meaning to life was gone :
the ties of family, country, and God
were snapped. What better thing was
there to do than to retire to the coun-
try, and let the world go " the primrose
way " ? The striking thing in all this
is that the sense of the pleasure to
be derived from the refinements of cul-
ture excluded from the minds of nearly

1883.]

Symonds's Renaissance in Italy.

701

all the most gifted Italians that gloom
which would have wrapped a Northern
nation, at the sight of an anarchy which,
if less terrible with blood than the
French Revolution, was more appalling
to the spirit. The Italians, however,
went to their villas, to hear Bandello
tell stories and Berni read verses. The
City of the Plague, from which Boccac-
cio's garden party fled, is the permanent
background of this golden age.

Life was something left behind, but
art remained ; and for the purposes
of art, whose function was entertain-
ment, the adventures of Orlando and his
like were sufficiently serviceable. Such
myths afforded opportunity for inex-
haustible invention of incident, for the
play of fancy and the exhibition of the
courtesies and humors of life ; and
should there be a lapse into seriousness,
there was room for satire on the clergy
and for sentiments of the Reformation.
These tales, it is true, were products of
culture separated from the realities of
society, and neglectful of them ; but
they were not, as might have been an-
ticipated, expressive of individual rath-
er than national temperament. They
are prominently characterized by the
Italian love of incident, pictures, and
fun. The incidents are invented for
their own sake, not to develop charac-
ter or exhibit it in action ; they are only
adventures, happenings, skillfully in-
terwoven and rapidly passed ; but amid
them the conduct of the personages is
true Italian, realistic. In presenting
these incidents and the scenes in which
they take place, the poets, as Lessing
complained, adopt pictorial methods :
they describe the ladies piecemeal, the
landscapes leaf by leaf. Possibly, as
Mr. Symonds suggests, the habitual
sight of pictures enables the Italian to
succeed where the German fails ; to
harmonize the colors on the canvas and
build up the fragments into a propor-
tioned statue, and thus obtain a single
mental impression. Whether this be so

or not, the pictorial quality is a tribute
exacted from literature by the ruling
art, and illustrates the Italian proclivity
to identify the mind's eye with the
body's, to turn the things of the intel-
lect into objects of sense. This realism,
too, is shown as continuously in the fre-
quent lapsing of Pulci's story, for ex-
ample, into undisguised burlesque, low
comedy, and broad fun ; and more subtly
in the prevailing irony of Ariosto, — in
the tolerance yielded by him, to use the
author's simile, with the elderly acqui-
escence in a story told to children. The
poems thus constructed were an accept-
able, usually a high, mode of amuse-
ment ; they interested the fancy, de-
lighted the senses, and stirred laughter.
The Italians of the Renaissance asked
no more.

In the novettce, of which so large a
number were written on the model of
Boccaccio, the absorption of interest in
simple incident is more plain, and the
presence of contemporary manners more
manifest. Various as they are, includ-
ing every rank of life in their charac-
ters and every phase of action in their
events, they all bear a family resem-
blance. They are for the most part
comedies of intrigue, arresting attention
by romantic or piquant situations ; usu-
ally immoral, not infrequently obscene.
The crafty seducer is the text, the fool
of a husband the comment ; and when
the gloss is read, afforded by the lives of
the cardinals and the wit of the capitoli,
no ground remains for doubting that
they hold the mirror up to society as it
then was. If they have any other than
a humorous or romantic interest, it is
the interest of the tragedy of physical
horror, as in our English Titus Audro-
nicus. Of course there are many no-
velise to which this broad and rapid gen-
eralization would not apply, — tales
wholly innocent, or harmless at least,
full of movement, fancy, and action,
graceful and charming with the art of
story-telling at its Italian best ; but, as

702

Symonds's Renaissance in Italy.

[May,

a whole, they must be described as ex-
hibiting a masque of sin. They are
bourgeoise in taste and temper ; the
corruption they set forth is not of the
court or the curia only, but of the citi-
zens ; the laugh with which they con-
clude is an echo from the lips of the
trades - people. Their principal value
now is historic ; they are the clear rec-
ord of that social decay which con-
demned Italy to centuries of degrada-
tion. To ask why they did not gener-
ate the novel or suggest the drama is to
state a literary puzzle ; but the hundred
considerations which have been put
forth to explain the abortive issue of the
miracle plays apply here also. It would
seem as if the laws of spiritual devel-
opment were unperceived ; as if the
knowledge of right and wrong as inde-
structible agencies to build or shatter
character did not exist ; as if the spirit
'had stiffened into that senseless stupor
in which evil is no longer recognized
for itself. It was left for the dramatists
of the Globe Theatre to take these ex-
ternal incidents and show the meaning
they had for humanity ; to transfer the
interest from the momentary and outer
act, and centre it upon the living soul
within. The Italians could not work
the mines they owned ; the pure gold
of poetry that the novellas held in amal-
gamation was to be the treasure of Eng-
land. The novelize of the last years do
not differ from the original of Boccaccio
except for the worse ; his successors
never equaled their master, nor have
their works obtained currency, like his,
among men, as a part of the general lit-
erature of the cultivated world.

As the novelists make more prominent
the realistic element of the narrative
poems, the idyllic writers develop more
plainly the pure poetic quality ; in read-
ing them one willingly assents to the
enthusiasm which names their works
the literature of the golden age. More
than the epic of the novella, the idyl in-
fluenced the future. Arcadia is a well-

known region in every great literature
of Europe, and its atmosphere still hangs
over the opera. The creator of this
pastoral myth was the father of much
beauty. Something was borrowed from
the Garden of Eden, from the Virgil-
ian fields, and from the Earthly Para-
dise ; the religious, classical, and medi-
aeval moods united in it ; but essentially
it was pure Italian, — Arcadia was an
idealized Italy. The scene presented
was the same country life that forms
the background of all contemporary lit-
erature, but charmed, ennobled, and
bathed in a softer than Italian air.
There was little left in that age of ruin
but delight in the natural beauty that
was darkened by no shadow of human-
ity. The villa, the cultivated fields, the
still, calm morning sky, were probably
never more dear to the Italian heart
than then, and it was this unsophisti-
cated and keenly felt delight in nature
that flowered in the idyl. To Northern
nations Arcadia must always be a dream ;
to the Italians, then, at least, it was only
the refinement of what was most real to
them. It was because the idyl was so
deeply rooted in a genuine emotion
that it outlived the other modes of lit-
erature contemporary with it, and devel-
oped its final perfection only in the next
age of the counter reformation, in the
art of Tasso and Guarini. But even in
its earlier history the idyl shares with
the best narrative poems that beauty
of form which has conferred on both
an immortality denied to the novelise.
The poets were all literary artists : they
polished their verses with assiduous care ;
they expended many years in correction,
elaboration, and adjustment ; and they
obtained that exquisite finish which,
surface-like as it may seem, is adamant
to the tooth of time. They achieved
beauty, and won the delight that comes
from its creation and contemplation ;
humor, too, they made their own, and
gave it universal interest; they illus-
trated in practice the theory of art for

1883.]

Recent American Fiction.

art's sake; yet, after all, what is the
judgment of posterity, we will not say
on the men who were never suspected
of being heroes, but on their works ?
They have left a literature, not of intel-
lectual or moral weight, but of recre-
ation ; one that does not reveal, but
amuses, — does not enlighten, inform, or
guide life, but solaces and helps to while
it away. This literature enriched the
Northern minds by making them more
sensitive to beauty, and by sharpening
their perception of artistic refinements ;
it has left no other mark on civilization.
The interest which the golden age ex-
cites in cultivated minds seldom loses its
dilettante character; the really serious
interest is in the Italy of Dante and
Giotto, or in the genius of isolated men
who stand apart, like Michel Angelo.

In a brief and rapid review of so wide
a field as is opened in these two vol-
umes, much must necessarily be neglect-
ed which would afford that limitation of
general statements which can be given
only by details ; but the best of the
literature described by Mr. Symonds is
broadly featured as has been indicated.
Some works detach themselves from
any classification here possible, and
are of a nobler kind, such as Alberti's,
Castiglione's, and especially Macchiavel-
li's and Campanella's ; but they are
more affected by individuality of tem-
perament. Mr. Symonds's characteriza-
tion of each author separately is very
full, and if sometimes novel, as is the

case with his praise of Poliziano, — " of
this Italy (of the Renaissance) Polizi-
ano was the representative hero, the
protagonist, the intellectual dictator," —
or if sometimes less favorable than late
criticism has adopted, as in the case of
Macchiavelli, it is always scholarly and
deserving of thoughtful consideration.
Yet in his work as a whole, including
the previous volumes, it seems to us
that the point of view chosen is not the
best, if the Renaissance was to be pre-
sented in the most powerful way. The
literature of the golden age, which he
has made the culmination of his work,
is not the centre of interest in the period
under review. The Renaissance was a
movement of civilization not less im-
portant than the Reformation or the
Revolution, and to Italy, as its source,
the debt of the world is great. But the
Renaissance was not conveyed to Europe
by the literature of its corruption ; it
was conveyed in far different ways. To
fasten attention on this literature, as the
conclusion of the whole matter, is to
mislead the mind and obscure the facts.
It follows from this that we regard the
earlier or introductory volumes as the
most valuable to those who would learn
what the Renaissance really was ; this
literature serves as an illustration, but
it is not the heart of the matter. Within
their own limits, however, it needs to
be said, these two volumes are the best,
the only adequate, account of their sub-
ject in English.

RECENT AMERICAN FICTION.

THE discovery of Europe by Amer-
icans is making good headway, and we
have to chronicle three books which, in
their separate spheres, illustrate very
well the enterprise of Americans, and
the facility with which our countrymen

possess themselves of the country. It
can no longer be said that our explorers
have only coasted along the shores and
held parley with the natives : they have
pushed into the interior, and traced some
streams to near their source ; they have

704

Recent American Fiction.

discovered some ruins, and have begun
to speculate a little upon the origin of
the native races, and to describe their
manners and customs in detail. For
the better acquaintance and more scien-
tific study of life, colonies have been
formed, and some adventurous students
have adopted the mode, and to a cer-
tain extent become naturalized in the
land. It is none the less true, and a
fact not to be regretted, that in liter-
ature as in society men change the sky
they live under, but not the natures
which they carry.

Mr. Julian Hawthorne, by virtue of a
patient endurance of England, has given
us not only a novel1 wholly English
in its circumstance, but one which deals
with a historic England. He has chosen
the period of the first quarter of the
present century, and by so doing has rid
himself quite completely of all tempta-
tion to insert anv Americanism. The
England of that (day and the United
States were farther apart in their mu-
tual influence than they had been before
or have been since.\ There is nothing,

therefore, in the for
the slightest hint o
English nativity ; an
himself by detectin
note which suggest
viewing England, ai
the soil. To be su
of a historical roma

little outside of his s abject; and perhaps
this helps to confirnr
entertaining, — that

of the book to give

any other than an

yet one may amuse

, now and then, a

that the writer is

d is not himself of

•e, the very attitude

icer is necessarily a

the illusion we are
the American, how-

ever long he may re main away from his
native soil, never qi lite loses the native
accent.

Be this as it m^y, we doubt if an
Englishman would detect the subtle
presence of America in the book any
more readily than ian American. Mr.
Hawthorne has the artist's rather than
the historical student's faculty, and he
has helped himself tjo the tone and color

1 Dust. A Novel. E y JULIAN HAWTHORWB.
New York: Fords, Howiird & Hulbert. 1883.

[May,

of the life which he depicts with a quick-
ness of perception and a deftness of
touch which make mere historical treat-
ment seem lumbering and ineffective.
He has not, it would appear, given him-
self the trouble which Thackeray took
to preserve the vraisemblance of an ear-
lier period, but he has not been betrayed
into too great anxiety for historical ef-
fect. He has allowed his story to move
on its way unencumbered by an excess
of antiquarian baggage, and the result
is a freedom which constantly makes the
reader forget that he is reading a story,
and persuades him that ho is listening
to a veritable narrative.

It certainly is an admirable art which
does this, and Mr. Hawthorne has se-
cured his success by asking tho reader's
interest in the persons of his drama, and
not in the stage properties among which
they move. The principal characters
are not many, and they are all involved
in the plot of tho story. A young man,
who figures as a very self-conscious and
self-analytic poet ; an old man of singu-
larly marked features, who yet moves
about apparently unrecognized in a cir-
cle to which he returns, after a sudden
disappearance under a cloud a score of
years or more before ; a rascally bank-
er ; a cold-blooded solicitor ; a young
woman of a somewhat heavy cast, but
very vigorous in nature ; a young wom-
an of brilliant parts and passionate ca-
price, — these are not singularly new to
fiction, and when one reviews the story
he almost fails to discover why he be-
came so much interested in the move-
ment of these characters.

Yet interested most will become, and
it is this vitality in the book which is
a mark of strength in the author. He
tells his story with a will, and one is
carried along by the very force of the
action. This is the more noticeable that
the resolution of the author is expended
upon a fictitious moral. The motif of
the book is self-sacrifice, and by a care-
ful concealment of tho nature of thia

1883.]

Recent American Fiction.

705

sacrifice until the story is nearly com-
pleted, the author succeeds in develop-
ing the plot without injury. It is as if
a series of business transactions were to
be conducted upon the basis of coun-
terfeit money. As long as everybody
concerned believes the money to be gen-
uine, all seems to go well ; but when any
one outside discovers the metal to be
base, he may look with some interest
upon the business, but he will not him-
self engage in it.

Mr. Hawthorne would have us be-
lieve that Sir Francis Bendibow, the
rascally banker, and Mr. Charles Grant-
ley, the old man of marked features,
were associated in business when young
men ; that Mr. Grantley discovered Sir
Francis to be a gambler of the deepest
dye, who had misappropriated the funds
of the bank ; that, in order to shield Sir
Francis, Charles Grantley placed all his
money in his partner's hands to make
good the loss of the bank, left his wife
and young daughter in the gambler's
care, and fled to India, to begin life over
again, — his expectation being that his
own name would thus be stained, and
his partner's cleared. His return fills
Sir Francis with dismay. The wife of
Grantley had died. The daughter had
been married to a French marquis, and
had now come back a widow, bent on
making mischief generally. She is Per-
dita, the young woman of brilliant parts,
and no actual recognition ever takes
place between her and her father, who
continues his course of generosity by
leaving all his fortune to the other young
woman, if she will accept it, and as an
alternative, if she refuse, to his daughter.
He is killed by Sir Francis, who fears
that he will divulge the secret which he
carries ; and it is in the Dust which all
these and more events raise that his ac-
tions smell sweet and blossom.

Where the plot is so intricate as it is in
this book, it is not easy to make a brief
statement serve as explanation, nor is it
quite fair to attempt this ; but the point

VOL. LI. — NO. 307. 45

we would emphasize is the nonsensical
nature of the self-sacrifice which Mr.
Grantley makes, and upon which the
whole development of the novel turns.
Self-sacrifice is a fine thing, but it must
be allowed a justifiable motive. To
shield a villain, when every indication
points to the villainy being ingrained,
one does not part with his good name,
and at the same time bestow upon his
daughter the inheritance of felony. He
does not leave his daughter to be pious-
ly brought up by the villain who has
wronged him, and go off to India to
make his fortune, and bring it back for
the benefit of another young woman, his
landlady's daughter.

There comes, through this misappli-
cation of morality, to be a certain air of
unreality about the monetary transac-
tions of the book. This great banking
house, a rival of Childs', is built on the
bottomless pit of a gambling hell ; the
poet receives a check for eleven hundred
and fifty pounds — which we hope, in
passing, was not drawn on Bendibow
Brothers — ten days after his great
Southeyan poem of Iduna is published.
Nothing in the book is more unreal than
these eleven hundred a'ld fifty pounds :
an English publisher makes his account*
more exact than that ; there should
be some odd shillings, pence, and half-
pence. The twenty thousand pounds
which Mr. Grantley leaves dance about
from hand to hand, with the alacrity
of counterfeit coin ; and finally, when
the hero has got into a pecuniary scrape,
where his own and his wife's integrity
have placed him, he is pulled out by a
lucky five thousand pounds, left him by
a nebulous ducal uncle. Money, indeed,
in this book, has an air of legerdemain
about it, which makes it curiously vola-
tile. We begin to want a little of it.

In one respect we may commend the
author, that he has shown a reserve in
using his heroine's capacity for second
sight. She employs it twice quite ef-
fectively, but we are very glad she does

706

Recent American Fiction.

hot use it again. As a delicate piece of
machinery in a novel, such a contrivance
may work well, but only when carefully
handled. In spite of the central fault
of the book, there is so much cleverness
about it, so much good writing, and so
many skillful touches that one cannot
help admiring the author's faculty. No
one who throws so much vitality into
his work can be blamed for writing nov-
els as often as he wants to.

Mr. James, as is well known, is the
most brilliant of the discoverers of Eu-
rope, yet he has been quite us much in-
terested in watching the movements of
his fellow explorers. Indeed, his close
familiarity with them and the Europe-
ans among whom they pass has made
him at times a little negligent of his
country, and too much disposed, perhaps,
to confine his portrayal of the American
type to those varieties which have been
seen in Europe. Thus, in his narrative
of the Siege of London l by a persistent
and victorious young Western woman,
he has fallen a little into that vague and
indolent geographical spirit which so
amusingly characterizes the English peo-
ple whom he banters. Mrs. Headway,
who constituted the entire force which
laid siege to London, was an indefinitely
married lady of the Southwest. There
is something rather fine in the large-
ness of Mrs. Headway's previous district
" I 'm very well known in the West,"
she says, when making an attack upon
one of the outposts, " I 'm known from
Chicago to San Francisco, if not per-
sonally (in all cases), at least by reputa-
tion." San Diego was the scene of her
latest movements. It was there that
Mr. Littlemore, the American gentle-
man, who presents the most formidable
obstacle to her successful siege, knew
her, when he was himself looking after
his silver mine. " She thought it a dis-
advantage, of old," Mr. James tells his

1 The Siege of London, The Pension Beaurepas,
and The Point of View. By HENRY JAMES, Jr.
Boston : James R. Osgood & Co. 1883.

[May,

readers, " to live in Arizona, in Dako-
tah, in the newly admitted States ; " and
the severe and virtuous American, who
has not been abroad and even doubts
if Europe be quite proper, is strongly
moved to ask geographical questions of
Mr. James.

It is, however, no very difficult task to
bound Mrs. Headway. On the contrary,
although Mr. James is reticent as to her
exact history, and there is a somewhat
legendary air about her early exploits,
he manages to impress the reader with
her limitations, and to indicate very
shrewdly the limitations, in another way,
of the young English baronet who is
the citadel which she has made up her
mind to capture, and finally does capture
by strategy. The story, as we have in-
timated, is of an American adventuress
who, in her excessive power of adapta-
tion, reaches an admirably simulated re-
spectability, and, having fascinated Sir
Arthur Demesne, finally turns his de-
fences against himself. As a piece of
warfare, Mrs. Headway's siege is con-
ducted with admirable address. The
reader is puzzled to know how a young
woman, whose reported conversation,
though entertaining, is undeniably the
expression of a hard, vulgar person, will
succeed in making capture of the Eng-
lishman, who, if slow-witted, has at any
rate the sensibilities of a gentleman.
Time, of so much consequence in most
sieges, seems here a dangerous element,
and one would suspect that Sir Arthur's
wits would catch up at last with his in-
stincts. So they would, but Mrs. Head-
way uses against him the very weapons
upon which Sir Arthur must rely. He
has an honor which has been wrought
out of somewhat poor material in a long
series of generations, until now it has a
nobility of temper, and thus far Sir Ar-
thur Demesne has used it effectively.
At the critical moment Mrs. Headway
deftly wrests it from him, and points its
blade another way.

It is hardly worth while to look for

1883.]

Recent American Fiction.

707

any very deep meaning in this brilliant
little story. As a sketch of superficial
manners it is vivacious and very intelli-
gible. The humor in the study of the
young diplomatist is capital, and one
may take a grim satisfaction* in seeing
the very cautious Mr. Littlemore de-
feated by his own caution, and left to
all the dissatisfaction which a too tardy
resolution must have brought him.

In the Pension Beaurepas, already
known to the readers of The Atlantic,
Mr. James has made us acquainted with
two foreign Americans, who enable us
to enter a little more easily into the per-
plexities of native Europeans, when
they try to form their impressions of
Americans from the specimens thrown
up on their shores. Mrs. Church, the
American mother, who has tried to ef-
face her nationality with a wash of Euro-
pean culture of a severe order, and Miss
Aurora Church, her daughter, who at-
tempts a feeble revolt into the condition
of free-born American girls, are individ-
uals, but scarcely types. They amuse
us as much as they must puzzle our
European inquirers, and belong in the
international museum of literature as
examples of climatic and other effects
upon the American genus, when under-
going voluntary or involuntary exile.
The shade of distinction between Miss
Ruck, the genuine American girl, and
Miss Church, who makes desperate ef-
forts at recovering her nationality, is a
very nice one, and, with the help of a
pretty vigorous treatment of Miss Ruck,
is made clear and decisive.

Miss Church reappears as one of the
half dozen people who cross to America
and make report in The Point of View
of the impression created upon them
by American life. Mr. James's subtlety
never appeared to better advantage than
in this clever bundle of letters. When
one considers that he has undertaken to
make Americans, who have been Euro-
peanized, return to America and report
on the country, either to Europeans or

to those of their own special kind, one
sees what a feat is accomplished. These
letters are so agile, so true to every wind
of doctrine that blows, so prospective,
retrospective, and introspective, that the
reader is lost in admiration. They are
instantaneous mental photographs, and
among the freshest of Mr. James's witty
decisions upon his country men and
women. He even abandons himself, in
Marcellus Cockerel, to a certain luxury
of praise of things American, which has
hardly a trace of irony, and shows, better
than anything in the book, Mr. James's
power of dramatic assumption. One
generally feels that, however elaborately
the various characters are dressed, the
voice is always the voice of Mr. James,
and that the blessing intended for the
character falls upon the head of the
spirited wit who has planned the dis-
guise ; but there is a downright quality
about Mr. Cockerel's speech, a vehe-
mence of American assertion, which in-
vests him with a singular individual-
ity. We do not recall another instance
where Mr. James has so entirely with-
drawn himself from view.

Mr. James has in various instances
made such good occupation of French
territory that one is a little surprised to
find an American author, hitherto un-
known in polite literature, who has been
also very much at home in France, and
yet appears not to have made the ac-
quaintance of his compatriot. Indeed, the
American colony is conspicuously absent
from the circle into which Mr. Hardy
introduces us in his novel, But Yet a
Woman.1 None the less, it is clear that
Mr. Hardy also has made his voyage of
discovery, and has penetrated the inte-
rior. So completely has he adopted the
French life that one might almost fancy
one was reading in this book the trans-
lation of a report, made by a Frenchman
himself, of the society in which he lived.
This is, however, but a momentary

i But Yet a Woman. By ARTHUR S. HARDY.
Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1883.

708

Recent American Fiction.

[May,

fancy, due to the confidence with which
Mr. Hardy moves among scenes wholly
foreign from America. When one comes
to look at the book more closely, one rec-
ognizes qualities which one would fain
believe to be of home origin. In a nega-
tive way, the book is free from anything
like a posture. The absence of attitudi-
nizing is in itself a sign of quiet power,
and the reader has not gone far into the
narrative before he commits himself with
confidence to a master who, he perceives,
has entered the heart, and not merely
the manners, of his characters.

The story of the book, in its main
outline, is the gradual supremacy which
love asserts over the heart of a woman.
The incidents, which are not various,
are selected from those which pertain to
the life of a French maiden, living with
a bookish uncle, and looking forward to
conventual vows, who is thrown into
the society of a young physician, the son
of her uncle's friend, and through the
relation is turned aside from her first
purpose. The woman in her asserts
itself, not in violent or conflicting emo-
tions, but attains to a domination, as the
sun rises above the mists. There is no
struggle between a human love and a
divine call, but there is an expansion
and elevation of the human love ; so that,
in the transfiguration of the woman, the
religious purpose remains as a constitu-
ent part of the nature.

It is here that we think Mr. Hardy
has shown a temper alien from French
thought land more akin to American.
There is a freedom and breadth in the
treatment of Renee which removes the
question involved from the region of
conventional morality, and gives one the
sense that a higher court is appealed
to. With equal power, a subtle change
is made to go on in the young physi-
cian, Roger, by which a nature, whose
tendency rather than determination is
toward a merely physical apprehension
of life, becomes enriched and idealized
in Re'ne'e's love. It must not be sup-

posed from this that the reader is in-
vited to a theological discussion, or pre-
sented with a disguised tract. No : Mr.
Hardy is an artist, and he has treated
his theme in an artistic manner ; but he
is also an artist who recognizes the play
of deep and moving passions in human
society, which are not based on merely
physical laws. The attraction of Re'ne'e
and Roger to each other is the attrac-
tion of natures which, in their sepa-
rate movements, are capable of high
thought, and act upon each other not
in the ignorance, but in the activity, of
these thoughts. There is an imagination
which pictures scenes, outward show,
appearances, and confesses only so much
of cause as lies immediately behind the
changes produced ; and there is an im-
agination of a more penetrative kind,
which is constantly opening to the read-
er glimpses of a deeper life, and sug-
gesting that the actions of men and
women have a more substantial base
than the conventions of society.

To the calm, fine nature of Rene*e,
which opens as a flower opens, there is
opposed the more striking and masterly
character of Stephanie, a woman of rest-
less nature, of large ambition, and yet
capable of being dominated by the high-
est qualities of womanhood. If Renee
was yet a. woman, when all was told,
and could lay aside the religieuse as one
lays aside a garment no longer needed,
Stephanie was yet a woman also in the
expression of the highest power of self-
sacrifice. She might have had the love
of Roger, or, more exactly, she might
have robbed Renee of that love ; and in
the exercise of her restraint there is the
expression of a truly great character. It
is long since we have seen the finer
qualities of womanhood so generously
and so subtly displayed as in these two
figures, each needed to complement the
other. It is possible to be said that Mr.
Hardy has rather the light than the fire
of love in his novel, but at least this
result is not reached by the use of a

1883.]

The Contributors' Club.

709

cold analysis ; it is rather the outcome
of thoughtfulness in the artist, who feels
deeply the life of his creations, and is
perhaps less concerned with the effect
which they may produce upon others
than with the working out of their sev-
eral destinies.

It is true also that Mr. Hardy's hand
is not wholly that of a practiced artist.
He has told a story, he has put into ac-
tion well - distinguished characters, and
he has inspired his work with a fine
motive, but he has written rather cau-
tiously than in the confidence of one who
knows his instruments thoroughly. The
evil genius of the book, for example,
though studied with care, does not al-
ways seem to move of his own accord.
One feels the author give him a little
push, now and then. The hold which
he has upon Stephanie is not very
clearly explained ; the mystery is more
annoying than moving, and one begins
to suspect that the author had not quite
made up his mind what the influence
was, or that he feared, by making it
plain, to throw Stephanie's fine nature
off the track.

The incidents of the book, the story
of Stephanie's dealings with the Comte
de Chambord and the journey in Spain,
with the graphic sketch of Antonio,

are all necessary to the elaboration of
the plot, and add positively to its rich-
ness. The minor characters are deli-
cately touched, especially Father Le
Blanc, and the flavor of the story given
by the reflection and comment is always
fine and gracious. It is a positive pleas-
ure to take up a book so penetrated as
this is by pure and noble thought, and
marked by so high a respect of the au-
thor for his work. Mr. Hardy has, as
it were, gone to France as artists of the
brush have gone. Like them, he has
studied with French masters, and his
first work, like theirs, is of French sub-
jects. But, not always like them, he
carried a nature which has not been
translated into the French idiom ; and it
is fair to believe, it certainly is reason-
able to hope, that this success, for it is
a success, may be followed by the treat-
ment of subjects nearer home. We do
not complain, however, of the foreign
air ; there is no doubt ' that a work of
imagination gains by the distance thus
given ; but we have a little regret that
Mr. Hardy will miss an audience which
turns more easily to scenes where it can
supply the lower standards of familiar-
ity, and we have a strong regret that a
large audience may thus miss a noble
pleasure.

THE CONTRIBUTORS' CLUB.

PARIS has been persistently inhospita-
ble towards Wagner the artist, and yet,
during more than half his life, Paris ap-
peared to him as the Mecca of art. His
first visit to Paris was made in 1841.
Wagner was then twenty-eight years of
age : he had written two operas, — the
Three Fairies, and the Novice of Pa-
lermo, or the Defense of Love, taken
from Measure for Measure ; he had
married his first wife, a Magdeburg

actress, Wilhelmina Planer ; he had been
successively bandmaster in the theatres
of Magdeburg, Koenigsberg, Dresden,
and Riga ; but hitherto fortune had not
smiled upon the young musician. Paris !
Why not try Paris ? Every year, how
many young musicians come to Paris, in
the hazardous quest of glory and wealth,
and how very few achieve either !

Accompanied by his wife and a big
dog, Wagner arrived at Boulogne from

710

The Contributors' Club.

[May,

Riga, by way of London, in the begin-
ning of 1841. At Boulogne he had the
good fortune to meet Meyerbeer, hi8
compatriot, who gave him letters of in-
troduction to Leon Fillet, the manager
of the Opera ; Autenor Joly, the manager
of the Renaissance theatre ; and Schle-
singer, the music publisher. Wagner had
played to Meyerbeer the first two acts
of Rienzi, a new opera which he had
begun to write ; he had developed to
the famous composer his own ideas and
projects with juvenile and communica-
tive enthusiasm. Meyerbeer had list-
ened with interest, and so Wagner ar-
rived at Paris full of faith and hope.
Meyerbeer had indeed told him that he
would probably meet with great difficul-
ties ; he had even significantly asked
him if he had means to enable him to
live and wait for ten years ; but Wag-
ner was confident in his future, and
probably attached more importance to
Meyerbeer's letters of recommendation
than Meyerbeer himself did. Thanks
to these letters, Wagner found himself
well received, it is true ; but, in spite of
his German density, he soon came to
comprehend the superficiality of French
politeness, — thanks to many months of
cruel experience, during which he and
his wife and his dog lived in a single
miserably furnished room in the old Rue
de la Tonnellerie. And the daily bread ?
It was earned with pain by reading
proofs for Brandus, by arranging scores
for the piano and for the flute and cor-
net-k-piston, by writing frenetic galops.
The current piano scores of La Favo-
rite, of the Reine de Chypre, of the Gui-
tarrero, are by Wagner ; by him, too, is
the music of Heine's Two Grenadiers.
Wagner also wrote at this time some ro-
mances to the words of Ronsard's Mig-
nouue and Victor Hugo's Dors mon En-
fant, and he was even reduced to writing
the music for the couplets of Dumanoir's
vaudeville La Descente de la Courtille,
most of which the leader of the orches-
tra of the Varietes declared to be inex-

ecutable. One of the songs of this
vaudeville, Allons a la Courtille, had, it
appears, its hour of celebrity. We may
imagine what a humiliation it must have
been for Wagner to have recourse to
such means of bread-winning, which bare-
ly left him time at night to work at his
Rienzi and his Phantom Ship. At this
time Wagner began his career as a
writer, and contributed several articles
to Schlesinger's Gazette Musicale, in
which he constantly speaks of the supe-
riority of the French over the German
school. His opinions on this point wero
destined to change radically. Mean-
while, times became so hard that Wag-
ner resorted to a strange means of rais-
ing the wind. He hired some rooms,
and, after living in them a week or two,
he sublet them, hired others, and sublet
them, and so on. Finally, his creditors
became so ferocious that he had to take
refuge at an inn in the wood of Meudon,
where he began to write his Tannhaiiser.
To add to the gloom of the situation,
Rienzi was refused at the Opera, and
the manager of the Renaissance, who
had accepted it, failed before the re-
hearsals had begun. But a singer of
talent and heart, Madame Schroeder-
Devrient, touched by Wagner's inces-
sant misfortunes, undertook to get the
work played at Dresden. She attained
her object : the opera was a great suc-
cess, and Wagner was immediately ap-
pointed Capellmeister to the King of
Saxony. This was in 1842. Dawn had
at length broken.

During this first visit, Wagner suc-
ceeded in getting only one of his pieces
played, the overture of Christopher Co-
lumbus ; and that, too, in an obscure con-
cert given by the Gazette Musicale to
its subscribers. The Opera also paid
him five hundred francs for his libretto
of the Phantom Ship, but refused his
music. M. Dietsch wrote some music
for this libretto, which was produced
unsuccessfully at the Opera in 1842, but
without Wagner's name.

1883.]

The Contributors' Club.

711

Wagner returned to Paris for a few
days in 1848. The musician, although
Capellmeister of the king, had declared
himself an ardent revolutionary ; he had
fought behind the barricades of Dres-
den, and had been obliged to fly. Final-
ly, he settled at Zurich, where he pub-
lished his pamphlet on Art and Revolu-
tion, in which he distinctly took up a
position as the reformer of the modern
lyric stage. Ten years later, in 1859,
Wagner was living in grand style in
an elegant villa in the Rue Newton, at
Paris. At his Wednesday receptions
we find Berlioz, Emile Perrin, Emile
Ollivier, Carvalho, etc. There is a Wag-
nerian cenaclc, with Champfieury, Bau-
delaire, and Courbet at the head. Wag-
ner is even powerfully protected at court
by the Austrian ambassadress, Madame
de Metternich. What a difference be-
tween 1841 and 1859 ! The fact is that in
the mean time Wagner had grown fa-
mous. Lohengrin and Tannhaiiser had
been performed all over Germany ; the
music of Wagner had been presented by
himself and by the critics as essentially
revolutionary ; Liszt had become the
Calvin of the reform of which Wagner
was the Luther ; the music of the future
had provoked fierce debates. Tannhaii-
ser, too, had been played before the two
emperors, on the occasion of their in-
terview at Stuttgart in 1857 ; and the
French journalists, the historiographers
of the imperial journey, had spoken in de-
tail of the great German musical reform.
Some fragments of Wagner had even
been played at concerts in Paris, before
the master's arrival in 1859.

The incidents of Wagner's attempt to
conquer the Parisians during his second
residence in Paris are curiously illus-
trative ot the national character. He
gave a concert at the Theatre des Ita-
liens on January 25, 1860. The pro-
gramme comprised fragments from the
Phantom Ship, Tannhauser, Tristan and
Jsault, and Lohengrin. The concert
ended in almost a riot, and the press was

nearly unanimous in condemning the
music of Wagner. On March 13, 1861,
Tannhauser was performed at the Grand
Opera by Mesdames Tedesco, Marie
Sass, and Reboux, and Messieurs Mo-
relli and Niemann. It was hissed and
whistled down, and was withdrawn after
the third night. The piece had not been
heard, but the press nevertheless de-
clared with unanimity that a trial had
been given, and that now " the music of
the future was dead and buried." What
is the explanation of this senseless op-
position? As regards the representa-
tion of Tannhauser, there is a secret
history, of which something will be said
shortly. But the opposition to the con-
cert in 1860, — what was the cause of
that ? We might ask, in the same way,
What was the cause of the hostility to
the Romanticists of 1830 ? In all coun-
tries, innovators of genius encounter at
first an instinctive hatred on the part of
the public, a certain ordinary and fatal
resistance. In France they encounter
more than this. The French tempera-
ment — so smart, so mobile, so predis-
posed to mockery and ridicule — lacks,
precisely on account of these character-
istics, one quality which is indispensable
for the comprehension of masterpieces :
I mean artlessness, simplicity, or what
the French call naivete. The French
have a tendency to discover the ridicu-
lous side of grandeur of sentiments, of
sublimity, of noble or terrible passions.
The French temperament naturally sees
the great figures of mythology through
the spectacles of Offenbach. What
pleases the French particularly is agree-
able, witty, and slightly sentimental art,
fine observation, and ingenious satire.
And so no nation equals them in comic
opera, vaudeville, and comedy of man-
ners. For them art is, above all things,
an amusement, a distraction, and not a
study. They are readily bored by any-
thing serious, and when by chance they
do admit a masterpiece on one of their
stages it is only by way of a curiosity.

712

The Contributors' Club.

[May,

You do not find Calderon, Goethe, or
Shakespeare played on the Parisian
stage. Even Victor Hugo, a native gen-
ius, has been unable to overcome the
antipathy of his countrymen for serious
works. Why should we expect the se-
ductions of music to accomplish this
miracle ? Wagner, too, had against him
his nationality and the zeal of his apos-
tles ; and so the French wits did not
spare the music of the future and its
Teuton Messiah, who laid himself open
to the shafts of satire by his excessive
vanity and pretensions. At the concert
the public howled, and almost came to
blows with the few who ventured to pro-
test. In the press tho critics were all
against the intruder. Even Hector Ber-
lioz wrote, in the Journal des Debats,
that he could not agreo with those who
declare " that the ear ought to become
accustomed to everything, — to series of
diminished sevenths ascending and de-:
scending, to triple dissonances without
preparation or resolution, to atrocious
modulations." The Italian Fiorentino,
the shining critical light of the Consti-
tutionnel, fell foul of the composer's
personal appearance. " M. Wagner,"
he wrote, "looks like a notary in tho
execution of his functions. His physi-
ognomy is intelligent, his air stiff and
starchy. He has a fine, noble, and high
forehead ; tho lower part of the face is
crushed and vulgar. One might imag-
ine that two fairies had presided over
his birth : the one angry, the other kind
and affectionate. The fairy of harmony
caressed and beautified the brow, from
which so many bold conceptions and
strong thoughts were to issue ; the fairy
of melody, foreseeing the harm this child
was destined to do her, sat on his face
and flattened his nose." The next day
Fiorentino's mot went the round of
Paris, and Wagner was judged !

The failure of this concert was, how-
ever, only negative ; it attracted every-
body's attention to Wagner, and he was
veritably the lion of the season. Wag-

ner had, too, the good or the ill fortune
to be protected by Madame de Metter-
nich, who was then all-powerful at the
Tuileries ; and it was through her influ-
ence that Tannhaiiser was performed at
the Grand Opera in 1861, "by order of
the emperor." The anecdotic history
of the time says that this imperial order
was not issued out of pure love of art,
or even out of simple curiosity. The
story runs that they were playing a
game of forfeits, one night, at the Tui-
leries ; the emperor lost, and Madame
de Metternich decided that the penalty
should be the production of Tannhaiiser.
Wagner's other lady protectress, the
Countess von Schelnitz, was less fortu-
nate in her instances with tho P^mperor
of Germany to obtain for Wagner the
title of general director of German mu-
sic, as tho final and official consecration
of his career. The emperor recognized
the genius of Wagner the musician, but
he never forgot that Wagner the revolu-
tionary of 1848 had fired upon his sol-
diers from behind the barricades of
Dresden.

However, Tannhaiiser was performed
in the presence of the emperor and of
all the celebrities of Paris. It was
hissed, as we have already seen. In her
anger, Madame de Metternich flung an
ultra- Parisian epithet in the face of the
audience, and broke her fan — a lovely
fan, painted by Watteau — on the edge
of her box. In Jules Janin's article on
the performance, the phrase "O le bel
e"ventail brise" ! " returned like a eulo-
gic refrain. For Jan in the failure of
Taunhaiiser was unimportant ; the evil
was not irreparable ; but that fan that
Watteau had painted, — who could re-
place it? " O le bel eventail brise ! "

The enigma of the scandal of the fall
of Tannhauser has several solutions.
First of all, Tannhauser had the disad-
vantage of being a serious work, requir-
ing continuous attention on the part of
the auditors. Then there was a political
solution. The empire was becoming un-

1883.]

The Contributors' Club.

713

popular ; the spirit of opposition was be-
ginning to take a definite form, and the
malcontents, the jealous, and the gapers
and badauds thought they were manifest-
ing their independence by barking in
unison against the favorite of the Tuile-
ries, the German composer, who got his
works played " by imperial oi'der." Fur-
thermore, a recent decree had restored
certain liberties of speech and of the
press, and the long-restrained torrent
dashed upon the first victim that pre-
sented itself. This victim, this scape-
goat, happened to be Wagner. Add to
these circumstances the fact that the
piece was badly put upon the stage,
poorly interpreted, and wretchedly
played by an orchestra whom Wagner's
natural irritability had ill disposed dur-
ing the rehearsals. Then, again, there
was the question of the ballet, — a ques-
tion which was hotly discussed for
months before the opera was produced.
" An opera without a ballet ? What did
that mean ? " asked the gentlemen of the
Jockey Club, the pillars of the Opera.
" Take care ! " said the minister to Wag-
ner ; and Wagner made concessions after
the first night, only to find himself furi-
ously blamed for having abandoned his
principles. And the strident symphony
continued, and the latch-keys of the
Jockey Club triumphed. These gentle-
men were in the right. If they had not
protested, Tannhaiiser would have been
imposed upon them for at least a month,
and their amiable friends of the corps
du ballet would have languished for want
of occupation. Wagner's music was
evidently noise and verbiage ; the gen-
tlemen of the Jockey Club required
melody and legs. So Tannhaiiser was
withdrawn, and there remained in sou-
venir thereof a verb of the first con-
jugation, tannhauser, the meaning of
which was, during the brief period of
its vogue, to bore with useless talk and
fuss without arriving at any practical
conclusion.

Wagner received, in compensation for

this painful scandal, the news that his
exile was at an end. He returned to
Germany, and achieved those triumphs
that are familiar to all. The French
Wagnerians held together bravely, with
M. Pardeloup at their head. From time
to time M. Pardeloup would introduce
a fragment of Lohengrin into the pro-
gramme of his popular concerts at the
Cirque d'Hiver, and the public would
hiss and howl instinctively. In 1868
M. Pardeloup, being then lessee of the
Theatre Lyrique, completed his ruin
by mounting Wagner's Rienzi, which
failed most completely. Just after the
war Wagner grossly offended the Paris-
ians by writing a ridiculous and stupid
" comedy in the antique manner." in
which he scoffed at the sufferings of
the Parisians during the siege. This in-
sult the Parisians have never forgotten.
Finally, in 1881, the Parisians, for some
inexplicable reason, or rather, perhaps,
caprice, consented to make a distinction
between Wagner the man and Wagner
the musician. The Wagner concerts at
the Chateau d'Eau theatre had great suc-
cess. Wagnerism became a fashionable
musical tenet, and that year every Pa-
risian who respected himself was bound
to have heard the first act of Lohengrin
and Ques aco ? the delicious Parisienne-
rie sung by Madame Judic in Lili, at
the Varietes.

At the present moment Paris counts
a goodly number of Wagnerians, miti-
gated Wagnerians, who endure frag-
ments, but who certainly would not en-
dure Wagner on the French stage. In-
deed, the feeling against Wagner is stilj
so strong that many years must elapse
before any attempt can be made in that
direction, — a fact which was sufficiently
proved two years ago, when M. Angelo
Neumann announced his intention of
playing Lohengrin at the Theatre du
Nations. The simple announcement
raised such a tempest in the press that
M. Neumann very prudently vanished
into the background, and abandoned a

714

The Contributors' Club.

[May,

considerable sum of money, which he
had paid as a deposit for the theatre.

In conclusion, it may be interesting
to see what was Wagner's own feeling
about his reception in France. An em-
inent French critic, M. Fourcaud, has
recorded the master's own words in an
account of an interview he had with him
at Bayreuth, at the time of the Parsifal
performances.

" Pardeloup," said Wagner, " does all
he can to acclimatize me iu France, and
I am very grateful to him. But I shall
never be understood in concerts. I am
a theatrical man, and I need not only
actors, but also scenery and complicated
mise-en-scene. In a dramatic work, ev-
erything holds together, and the condi-
tions of its execution cannot be changed
with impunity. For that matter, I shall
never be played commonly in France.
My music is too German. I try to be
of my country as profoundly as I can.
It is dangerous to sing me without my
verses : they are the indispensable com-
plement of my melodic declamations.
... I know that I am not played, for
certain sad and paltry reasons. . . . But
let us say no more about that affair. It
is a thing of the past. People think I
guard rancor. Rancor ? And why ?
Because Tannhaiiser was hissed ? But
was Tannhaiiser heard, even ? No, the
moment for sincere music has not yet
come. As for the press, I have not had
to complain so much as people think. I
did not pay visits to the journalists, as
Meyerbeer did ; but Baudelaire, Champ-
fleury, and Schure, nevertheless, wrote
the finest things that have been written
about me. You see I have no reason
to be as dissatisfied as I am said to be ;
and I am not dissatisfied, either."

— One evening, not long ago, I was
sitting before the library fire in a certain
house in Boston, and some one went to
the piano and began to play a piece of
music which was entirely unfamiliar to
me. I quickly went off into a delight-
ful unconsciousness of outward things,

and instead of following the notes, and
being aware of the mechanical part of
the harmony, I found myself remem-
bering the days I had spent in Norway
some time before. I looked up again
at the seven mountains that tower above
the old city of Bergen. I saw the shin-
ing waters of the fiord, and the quaint
prows, and heavy square sails of the
Norland ships corning solemnly up the
long harbor, as if they were manned by
crews of Norsemen, who had been be-
witched and delayed by some enchant-
ment, and had reached their port many
centuries too late. I saw the old wooden
houses of the town, and the clean-swept
paving-stones of the wide torvets, or pub-
lic squares ; and I heard the strange-
sounding chatter at the fish-market,
where the buyers stood on shore and
bargained for the fish that were eagerly
held up in the crowded boats of the
sellers. And I looked in at the windows
of the fur shops and silver shops, as I
went along the narrow streets. I could
see the dried-up old men and women,
who sat in the streets to sell their
strange fruits and wooden shoes, and the
bright colors and curious white caps of
the peasant women's costumes. Then
I remembered one cloudy morning,
when, through the quickly falling, warm
summer showers, I drove to a black lit-
tle lake lying between two high moun-
tains, which made for it most bleak and
barren shores. A lonely sea-bird flut-
tered to and fro, as if it were under
some spell, and were imprisoned there
for its sins. The water seemed like
that in some subterranean cavern which
had been suddenly unroofed and opened
to the dim light of that dark day. It
was like a vision of a lake in Hades.

As we drove down the steep roads
back to the city, the sun blazed out sud-
denly and the trees glistened, and the
rosy-faced children called to each other,
and ran about clacking their wooden
shoes on the pavement and looking at
us curiously. " Now we will have just

1883.]

The Contributors' Club.

715

time to go to see the Griegs," said my
friend ; " they are not far away ; " and
presently we stopped before a high
wooden house, and were again lucky
enough to have a sight of the charming
face of the Norwegian composer. It
was a great satisfaction and pleasure
(having scarcely done more than look
at him before) to see him quietly in his
own house ; to see his own old-fashioned
piano, and to hear him talk in delight-
ful fragments of English ; to watch his
delicate pale face and slender figure be-
come alert and quick with enthusiasm,
and his eyes flash with fun. One could
only regret that so fine a genius as Ed-
ward Grieg's had not a stronger body
for its servant. His wife, a most ac-
complished and interesting woman, with
her bright, sweet face, and curly hair,
that waved about as she moved, and
curved back from her forehead thick and
soft, like a bird's winter feathers, seemed
as merry and busy as possible. They
had lately come from Germany, and now
were going down to the Hardangerfiord
for some holidays; and Mrs. Grieg (or
Fru Grieg, as one would say in Nor-
way) told us that she had been packing
and unpacking their traveling boxes all
the morning, making ready for a start.
"Were we going to leave Norway with-
out seeing the Hardanger ? That was
a great pity ! Why could we not come
with them ? It could not always rain ;
it would be bright weather soon ; it was
pleasant in the Hardanger even if it did
rain." . . . The composer's wife is a
rare musician, also ; we were told that
there is nothing more charming than to
hear her sing to her husband's playing.
But for us this pleasure was put off
until we should see them again, which,
unfortunately, never happened. My own
interest in them was entirely personal ;
for, not being possessed of any right to
be called musical, I had little knowl-
edge of either the great man or his
works. I had been very glad to go and
see Grieg with my friend, who was an

old friend of his, and who parted from
him sorrowfully because he looked so
far from strong, and as if some gentler
climate than Norway's ought to be giv-
ing him its protection. He and his wife
stood together in the doorway to watch
us go away, and I shall long remem-
ber their faces, spirited and delicate, and
full of the signs of rare power and
promise. They seemed very merry with
each other, and glad to1 be together,
these dear people. I hope some other
day I shall hear them play and sing.

These were some of the things I
dreamed about as the music went on ;
I even said to myself that it was a great
pity I did not know by heart a great
deal of Grieg's music, for I was sure
that I would liko it.

Then the sound of the piano ceased,
and everybody stirred a little in the
usual fashion, and said, " Oh, lovely ! "
And one listener asked, " What is that ?
It is something new." To which the
fair musician answered, " It is some-
thing I have just been learning of
Grieg's."

— Having occasion, lately, to look
into a volume of essays which I had not
opened since student days, and which
had then been a source of In'gh inspira-
tion, I found myself curiously moved.
As I turned the leaves, I was conscious
that they still retained a divine warmth
and glow. Something of the ability
claimed by the trance-reader seemed
mine. I needed not to follow the print ;
electric memory served me instead of
literal sight. I had forgotten neither
page nor place on the page occupied by
those maxims and " jewels five-words-
long," which I had been wont to trans-
fer to my note-book ; coining, and add-
ing thereto, other maxims and jewels,
whose stolen sheen I could not then de-
tect. For me, now, the margins of that
friendly text are significantly illumi-
nated, stamped with the bright vaga-
ries and ambitious heraldic devices of
fire-new youthful imagination. I per-

716

The Contributors' Club.

ceive that, although our souls may have
grown cold through long hardening and
prosaic years, a cited or remembered
sentence from some inspired writ of our
early acceptation restores, for the time,
the same clear-sighted, imponderous
frame that was ours at the first read-
ing. Talk of personal magnetism ! The
magnetism impersonal of some books
is quite as remarkable. We are taken
captive and carried whither they will,
into strange, outlying regions of which
our mental topography hitherto has
taken no account. JEneas, enveloped
in a kindly mist, breathed from Paphos,
and so withdrawn from the sight and
power of his enemies, was not luckier
than are we, when some mighty van-
isher, dwelling between covers, reaches
forth, conceals, and spirits us away, just
as the superior numbers of the worldly,
the trivial, and the commonplace are
like to prove too much for our valor
and resistance. Some books meet us
at the drift period of our history, and
reorganize and solidify our distracted
and floating elements; others dislodge
our false foundations, leaving us to as-
certain for ourselves on what plan it
were best to rebuild. Tyndall, with
his treasured, stall-worn copy of Emer-
son, dating a new starting-point from
the moment of purchase, strikes us as
a notable illustration of the reproductive
virtue to be found in certain books.
But what shall be said of the following
case ? My friend tells me he is thinking
of dropping the company of a particular
author, inasmuch as the latter is always
markedly rebuking him, always whip-
ping the world over his shoulders !
" Stand and receive," would seem to
be the best counsel in this instance. We
can afford to endure uncomplainingly
whatever chastisement our keen under-
standers see fit to administer. If it
hurts, there is proof that we are not
incorrigible. The choice observation,
the apt characterization, the right-nam-
ing faculty, when we come upon them

[May,

in a book, pique and quicken such as
we possess of the same power. Our
imagination begins to show unwonted
mettle, and is impatient at having any
Pegasus ahead of it on the road. How
can we rest unaffected by that which,
in a quicker and finer spirit, excites
awe, transport, sacred delight ? In some
way we must manage to put ourselves
into the state in which these high ef-

fects are receivable and communicable.

There are the books which, from the
earliest times, have served as touch-
stones for testing intellectual and spirit-
ual quality. One, a considerable epic
poem, carried by Alexander in a choice
casket through all his Asiatic campaigns,
has come safely down to us, despite the
wear and tear of ages. Its casket, the
perpetual suffrage of youth and poetry,
has preserved it. Said disillusioned
Middle Age to Boyhood, come exul-
tant from the battles of the Iliad and
the marvelous voyages of the Odyssey,
" You act as though you thought Mas-
ter Homer had never been read until
you took him in hand, and as though
he is beholden to you for recognition ! "
Perhaps the satiric commentator spoke
wiser than he knew. Who does not
remember what a night's reading of
Chapman's Homer did for a young
English poet, the ancient vintage work-
ing upon his fancy, and causing it to
throw off, by next morning, the sonnet
for which alone he deserved to wake
and find himself famous !

A few books out of all the centuries
may be likened to vast Atlantic conti-
nents, presenting a diverse coast of dis-
covery to each adventurer from beyond
the seas. Each, on landing, plants a
standard, and claims a new world for
that Castile and Leon from which he
happens to have sailed. The mainlands
which many unlike crafts visit are usu-
ally those of the richest and most va-
ried endowment. The "poet's poet,"
surely Spenser ; the poet's encyclopae-
dist, Burton, with his huge Anatomy;

1883.]

Books of the Month..

Ill

the poet's ancient historian, Herodotus ;
the poet's story-teller, Boccaccio ; the
poet's mediaeval chronicler, Froissart;
and others, lesser and greater, are en-
titled to all the complimentary additions
we can give them, for the munificent
invitation they hold out to " free plun-
der." They say, in effect, " Come, take
from me what you will; it shall not
be charged against you." Montaigne
everywhere boasts of his profitable bor-
rowings from the ancient philosophers.
He even enters upon a defense of Sen-
eca and Plutarch, on the ground that
it becomes him to stand up for their
.honor, since his own works are " en-
tirely built up " of what he has taken

from them. The books of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries have been
found (by Thoreau) to suggest " a cer-
tain fertility, an Ohio soil, as if they
were making a humus for new litera-
ture to spring in." Who can say that
any book of enduring memory has yet
been explored to its very centre ; that
it has not warming and illuminating re-
sources, packed away in its understrata
for the use of future discoverers ? On
the bulletin-board of the ages is a stand-
ing advertisement calling for inspired
readers. Occasionally, a situation is
filled, whereat the unquiet names of
some inspired writer is soothed and pla-
cated.

BOOKS OF THE MONTH.

History and Biography. The fourth of Mr.
Froude's Shoi't Studies on Great Subjects (Scrib-
ners) closes the series. It is devoted to a half
dozen essays, chiefly biographical and historical,
including one of special interest on the Oxford
Counter-Reformation, in which he goes over the
ground of Thomas Mozley's recent volumes, and
treats the subject from a different point of view.
Each writer complements the other. Mr. Froude's
spirit in the volume is one of despair tempered by
philosophy. — The first volume of Jowett's Thucy-
dides has been reissued in an American edition
(Lothrop) under the care of Professor A. P. Pea-
body. The accompanying volume of essaj's and
criticisms has not been reprinted, and this work
appears as a complete one. It is, in fact, the
translation only, with its marginal notes, and for
the full worth the reader must still go to the
English edition. It will be much, however, if
American students are led to read this fine trans-
lation of a great work. — Leading Men of Japan,
with an historical summary of the empire by
Charles Lanman (Lothrop), is a composite work ;
the former half being devoted to a collection of
biographical sketches of Japanese men of affairs,
and the latter to a description of the country and
its recent development. The work gives in a
half-journalistic manner a readable statement of
Japan. — Life of Lord Lawrence, by R. Bosworth
Smith, in two volumes (Scribners), is a full, de-
tailed biography of a man great in character, in
opportunity, and achievement ; and since Lawrence
was identified with the British empire in India
during its most critical period, the reader has
abundant opportunity for acquainting himself

with the history of administration there. A sin-
gle chapter only is required to describe the last
ten years of Lord Lawrence's life, spent in Eng-
land. The work is well furnished with maps- —
A new and notable claimant for historical honors
conies in the person of John Bach McMaster, a
professor, we believe, in Princeton, who has pub-
lished the first of five volumes, to contain A His-
tory of the People of the United States from the
Revolution to the Civil War. (Appleton.) The
volume before us, a comely octavo, carries the
narrative into Jackson's administration; but the
reader will find that administrations are rather
landmarks than stopping-places in this history,
and that he is invited to get abreast of a great and
growing mass of people, to hear what they were
doing in their homes when the great men were
imagining that they themselves were governing
at Philadelphia and Washington. It must not be
supposed, however, that the great subjects of his-
tory are overlooked; they are treated, but rather
from the illustrative side of manners. We are
much mistaken if this work does not spring at
once into a deserved popularity. — Mr. Parke
Godwin has given to the world the biography of
William Cullen Bryant (Appleton), which has been
looked for with interest. It is in two octavo vol-
umes, with portraits of the early and the later face.
As the first full biography of the greater men of
letters in America, after Irving, it will have a spe-
cial value. — Messrs. Roberts Brothers have begun
a series of Famous Women, of which George Eliot,
by Mathilde Blind, is the first volume. The sketch
is mingled biography of the woman and criticism
of her writings. — The Autobiography of James

718

Books of the Month.

[May,

Nasmyth, engineer, edited by Samuel Smiles, is
published in the Franklin Square Library. (Har-
pers.;— The lovers of Shelley will be glad to get
in so compact a shape a selection of his letters,
with an introduction by Mr. Richard Garnett. ( Ap-
pleton.) The volume is neatly printed, and very
prettily bound in vellum.

Apologetics and Homiletics. Professor Frederic
Huidekoper, of Mead vi lie, reissues in two volumes
(David G. Francis, New York) his important trea-
tises, Judaism at Rome, B. C. 76 to A. D. 140, In-
direct Testimony of History to the Genuineness of
the Gospels, Acts of Pilate, and The Belief of the
First Three Centuries concerning Christ's Mission
to the Under-World. Professor Huidekoper's
learning is well fortified by copious citation and
reference, and his work will have a special value
for students whose own libraries are meagre, since
they will find here a thesaurus of historical learn-
ing. — The Yale Lectures on Preaching, which
have already drawn out some admirable books by
Dre. Storrs, Brooks, and others, appear this year
in the course given by President Robinson, of
Brown University. (Holt.) The treatment is in-
teresting to others than preachers, for it covers
the relation of the pulpit to modern society. —
Principles of Agnosticism Applied to Evidences of
Christianity is a volume of nine sermons, to which
a tenth is added, on the Christian Doctrine of the
Trinity, by John Andrews Harris. (Whittaker.)
Mr. Harris grapples with his subject manfully,
employing, it may be, somewhat old-fashioned
methods to meet the latest skepticism, and we are
not quite sure that he has measured his antago-
nist. — Lectures on The Calling of a Christian
Woman, and her Training to Fulfill it, by Morgan
Dix, Rector of Trinity Church, New York (Apple-
ton), is a little volume which raised a deal of dust
about the author, when it was in the form of news-
paper reports. Since much of current comment is
based on hearsay, the critics of Dr. Dix would do
well to read his work as he puts it forth, before
they turn their backs on him. Dr. Dix may need
to be scolded, but the present aspect of woman-
kind in America does not seem to render pulpit
exercises uncalled for. — The Relations of the
Church to the Colored Race is a speech delivered
by Rev. J. L. Tucker, D.D., of Jackson, Miss., be-
fore the Richmond Church Congress (Charles
Winkle}', Jackson) and is well worth the attention
of all who are interested in the question of chris-
tianizing the freedmen. Dr. Tucker brings to the
discussion an exceptional experience with the col-
ored race, and his earnest appeal has practical di-
rection and force.

Literature. The Epic of Kings is the title
which Miss Helen Zirnmern gives to her very in-
teresting and valuable rendition of stories from
the Persian poetFirdusL Miss Zimmern has done
her work, not from the original Persian, but from
the French translation by Jules Mohl. This is,
however, of little consequence, since Mohl's trans-
lation is faithful and her work is reconstructive.
It is interesting to see how the great national
works are becoming the inheritance and furnish-
ing of other and remote nations. It is through
such literature that a true and generous breadth

of vision is secured. — Four more volumes of the
Riverside Hawthorne (Hotighton, Mifflin & Co.)
have been published, — The Scarlet Letter and the
Blithedale Romance, The Marble Faun, Our Old
Home, and English Note-Books. The etchings
which front these books are especially to be com-
mended; indeed, all the parts of the volumes as
examples of book-making are well studied.

Fiction. Mr. Black's Shandon Bells (Harpers)
employs the figure of the journalist and author to
give a peculiar!}' present tense to the story. Some-
how, this character, in a novel, has a painfully
self-conscious attitude; the novelist who includes
a writer among his dramatis persona appears to
be mixing subject and object in a perplexing fash-
ion.— L'Evangdiste, a Parisian novel, by Al-
phonse Daudet, is translated by Mary Neal Sher-
wood (Petersons), and may possibly convey to
American readers phases of Parisian life for which
they have standards of comparison in their own
experience. — The author of Miss Molly appears
in a new story, Geraldine Hawthorne, which is
published in the Leisure Hour series. (Holt.) It
is a curious book. The author has laid the scenes
during our war for independence in a nebulous
America. It would be impossible, one would think,
to be more timid than she has been in her histor-
ical romance. The words Boston and Ticonderoga
and General Washington come out on the page oc-
casionally in a half-frightened manner, but it is
plain that the author does not intend to be caught
in any anachronism, if she can help it, and so she
studiousfy avoids dates and places and facts. —
The Gentle Savage, by Edward King (Osgood), is
a contribution to international literature, and in-
troduces an old friend in the nearly extinct Yan-
kee, and a new one in the Indian of the future.
With these and a Nihilist and Europeans of differ-
ent degrees of civilization, and foot-notes which
interpret the foreign phrases, one feels as if he
had traveled very much by the time he has fin-
ished the novel. — An Honorable Surrender, by
Mary Adams (Scribners), is a novel of the order
which has become somewhat plentiful, wherein a
girl of twenty shows the advantages and disad-
vantages of a sharp intellect, — so sharp as to be
forever dividing and whittling. — Tontine, by
Matilda J. Barnett (F. Pitman, London) is a pre-
posterous novel. We do not remember ever be-
fore to have come across a case of a heroine named
after an insurance company. — In the No Name
series (Roberts) a new volume is A Daughter of
the Philistines, which deals with American life in
some of its expansive activities. — Angus Graeme,
Gamekeeper, is a two-volume novel (Alexander
Gardner, London), of Scottish life, in which lowly
devotion gets its deserts.— In Harper's Franklin
Square Library, the latest numbers are My Con-
naught Cousins, Bid me Discourse, by Mary Cecil
Hay, and Unspotted from the World, by Mrs. G-
W. Godfrey. — The War of the Bachelors is a
story of the Crescent City at the period of the
Franco-German war. It is by "Orleanian," and
is printed for the author. It can be had of George
F. Wharton in New Orleans. We doubt if it be
worth sending for. — Mr. Howells's farce of The
SJeeping Car (Osgood), comes very near being

1883.]

Books of the Month.

719

the most delightful thing he has written. The
humor and ingenuity of this little piece are rare
both in kind and degree.

Science and Empirical Philosophy. Physiog-
nomy is further described as a manual of instruc-
tion in the knowledge of the human physiognomy
and organism, considered chemically, architectu-
rally, and mathematically; embracing the discov-
eries of located traits, with their relative organs
and signs of character, together with the three
grand natural divisions of the human face. The
author is Mary Olmstead Stanton, who issues the
book herself in San Francisco. No one who had
not previously seen a human face would be likely
to recognize it in the extraordinary collection of
faces which illustrate the volume. Indeed, the
general analysis of the human being leaves one a
little in doubt whether he ever saw a man or
woman. — The Gallop, by Edward L. Anderson
(David Douglas, Edinburgh), is an interesting
piece of criticism, illustrated by photographs and
diagrams of Governor Stanford's book. Mr. An-
derson seeks to discriminate the gallop from the
fast pace, and to correct what he regards as false
impressions created by Mr. Muybridge's photo-
graphs. — Animal Intelligence, by George J. Ro-
manes, is one of the International Scientific series
(Appleton), and is concerned chiefly with a collec-
tion of pertinent facts in the whole range of the
animal kingdom from mollusks to monkeys. The
author reserves for another volume the considera-
tion of these facts in their relation to the theory
«f descent. This work, thus, is not a mere collec-
tanea, but has a definite intention. The unscien-
tific reader will find it very entertaining; the sci-
entific reader a contribution also to comparative
psychology. — Postal Telegraphy, an address be-
fore the Board of Trade of Scranton, Pa., by J.
A. Price, is a plea for governmental occupation of
the telegraph system. (M. R. Walter, Scranton.)

Poetry and Anthologies. The Lowell Birthday
Book (Houghton, Miffiin & Co.) is upon the plan
of the previous Longfellow, Emerson, and Whit-
tier birthday books of the same house, and is
happy in its selections from a writer who is emi-
nently quotable. — Poems and Essays is the title
of a volume by Gideon Dickinson (A. Williams),
and the title-page obligingly informs us, further,
that the book includes The Fallen Chief, The Min-
strel's Curse, Kenilworth, Tributes to Holmes and
Longfellow, Booth as Hamlet, The Wizard's Grave;
also, early and juvenile poems, and translation,
from the German, with some account of minstrels
and minstrelsy of the Middle Ages, and early bal-
lad-poetry of different nations. Mr. Dickinson is
certainly liberal in his bill of fare. He thinks, in
his prefatory poem, that scorn and hatred will be
hurled at the book. — Songs of Humanity and
Progress, by John T. Markley (H. Holloway,
Eastbourne, Eng. ), is a collection by the author
of his rather violent and beefy lyrics. — Angeline,
by George II. Calvert, is a poem of forty-six nine-
line stanzas. — Songs and Song-Legends of Dah-
kotah Land, by Edward L. Fales (The Highland
Publishing Co., St. Paul, Minn.), is a pamphlet of
thirty-two pages, having partly to do with Dakota,
but chiefly with the author's own sentiments.

Theology and Philosophy. Dorner on the Future
State (Scribners) is a translation of so much of
that author's system of Christian doctrine as re-
lates to the doctrine of the last things. It is in-
troduced and annotated by Newman Smyth, who
offers it as his contribution to the discussion which
is raging, and will some day be noted as one sign
of the current renaissance of theology. — The Re-
ligions of the Ancient World, by George Rawlin-
son (Scribners), is a small volume by an historical
student, who could not well treat of Oriental mon-
archies without some special reference to their re-
ligious systems, and in this work has given a
sketch of the religions of Egypt, Assyria and Baby-
lonia, Persia, India, Phoenicia, Etruria, Greece,
and Rome. — Final Causes, by Paul Janet (Scrib-
ners ), is a reprint of an English translation from
the French by William Affleck, with a preface by
Robert Flint, Professor of Divinity in the Uni-
versity of Edinburgh. Dr. Flint regards it as the
most comprehensive work which has been written
on the subject, although it confessedly omits the
treatment of final causes in the regions of intellect
and emotion, morality and history. — The Rela-
tions of Christianity to Civil Society (Whittaker)
is a volume of Bohlen Lectures of uncommon
vigor. Bishop Harris, of Michigan, the author
of the work, has treated his subject in a broad,
positive manner; and even if one should question
some of his premises and assumptions, as, for ex-
ample, the identification of the Church and Chris-
tianity, he cannot fail to admire the virility of
the treatment and the frankness with which
Bishop Harris has made his applications. There
is one conclusion which he does Hot state, and
yet seems to us unavoidable, and that is that all
the churches in Bishop Harris's diocese ought to
be taxed.

Politics and Economy. The Science of Politics
is the forty-third volume in the International Sci-
entific series (Appleton), and is by Sheldon Amos,
well known by his former work on the science of
law. The subject of politics was once before
treated in this series in the volume of Physics and
Politics by Mr. Bagehot ; Mr. Amos has had a
somewhat different task in his effort to apply sci-
entific methods to politics, and he has certainly
succeeded in producing a most interesting work,
and one which fully recognizes the ethical prop-
erties of politics as predominating over the merely
conventional. — The Works of James Abram Gar-
field, in two octavo volumes, edited by B. A.
Hinsdale (Osgood), comprise the record of Pres-
ident Garfield's public life from the time of his
entrance into Congress until his death, as con-
tained in his speeches and addresses. Mr. Hins-
dale has prefaced the volumes with a vigorous and
clear analysis and statement of President Gar-
field's intellectual nature, and by the thorough-
ness of his work has justified his selection as ed-
itor. So far as these speeches required introduc-
tion and comment, Mr. Hinsdale has given them,
and the volumes will prove a storehouse for stu-
dents of our history during the period of the war
and reconstruction. The versatility, the energy,
and the unflagging industry of the President are
well shown, and both the native power and the

720

Books of the Month.

[May.

power of circumstance render him an admirable
expositor of the great historic problems which
have vexed the country for the past quarter cen-
tury.— The Rev. Richard Hibbs sends us a vig-
orous brochure, entitled Prussia and the Poor, or
observations upon the systematized relief of the
poor at Elberfeld in contrast with that of England.
(Frederic Morgate, London). The book is found-
ed upon a visit and personal inquiry, but chiefly
upon an acquaintance with the depths of English
misery, and a fiery indignation at his country-
men's cant. We recommend the author to read
Bishop Harris's Bohlen Lectures, to which we
refer elsewhere. The}' will give direction to his
thought. — Wealth Creation, by Augustus Mou-
gredien, with an introduction by Simon Sterne
(Cassell, Fetter, Galpin & Co.), is the work of a
merchant, who carries into his studies of politi-
cal economy the experience of practical manage-
ment of affairs. Mr. Sterne thinks that " it is un-
rivaled in demonstrating that all trade is barter,
and that the intervention of money is a mere lu-
bricant to facilitate barter." — The eighth of the
Economic Tracts, published by the Society for Po-
litical Education in New York, is the Caucus Sys-
tem, by Frederic W. Whitridge, which is a his-
torical review and criticism.

Literary Criticism and History. English Lit-
erature in the Eighteenth Century, by Thomas
Sergeant Perry (Harpers), is in substance a course
of lectures upon the subject, and has the mode of
direct address; for this reason, also, in part, the
book is not a history of the literature of that cen-
tury, but an essay upon the laws governing it, with
illustrations drawn from well-known examples.
These illustrations are abundant and give a half-
anecdotal character to the work. — Landmarks of
English Literature, by Henry J. Nicoll (Appleton),
undertakes to deal solely with the very greatest
names in the several departments of English litera-
ture. Mr. Nicoll takes a sensible and somewhat
rough-and-rendy survey of literature, but he is
rather a descriptive than philosophic guide. He
deals chiefly with the plainer, more obvious aspects
of his subject. — Emerson as a Poet, by Joel Ben-
ton (M. L. Holbrook & Co., New York), is an in-
teresting and thoughtful little essay, very attrac-
tively and modestly printed, which collectors of
Emersoniana ought not to overlook. The book,
besides, has Mr. Kennedy's useful brief concord-
ance. It is a pleasure to find this independent
contribution to literary criticism. The frontis-
piece is especially desirable as one of the best like-
nesses of Emerson.

Fine Arts. The third volume of Audsley's Pop-
ular Dictionary of Architecture and the Allied
Arts (Putnams) carries the work through the let-
ter B. Like the previous volumes, it is rather an
encyclopaedia than a dictionary; for while some of
the terms are briefly described, others are treated
as articles, — the title Basilica, for example, cover-
ing more than sixty of the large octavo page*.
Thg illustrations are strictly descriptive and defin-
itive, and are judicious!}' employed. — Messrs. Fir-
min-Didot & Co., of Paris, send the fifteenth part

of A. Racinet's Le Costume Historique, this part
consisting wholly of very delicate lithographs of
costume. — Gatherings from an Artist's Portfolio
in Rome, by James E. Freeman (Roberts Bros.),
follows a previous volume with the same title, and
like that is an agreeable series of notes and recol-
lections by a kind and companionable artist, who
has long lived amongst the scenes which he de-
picts. It is the artist quality of the sketches which
leads us to place the book in this division. — Notes
on the Principal Pictures in the Louvre Gallery at
Paris and in the Brera Gallery at Milan, by Charles
L. Eastlake (Houghton, Mifflin £ Co.), serves the
traveler well by selecting for him out of a great
number of paintings those on which he would most
wish to spend his time. The notes are brief, but
pointed, and free from critical rubbish. There are
many diagrams, also, which will serve to identify
the pictures ; but we commiserate the student of
the fine arts who innocently attempts to build an
idea of the paintings upon them.

Travel and Chorography. On the Desert, with
a brief review of recent events in Egypt, by Henry
M. Field (Scribners), is a volume formed upon
notes of travel through the Sinai peninsula. It
is the work of a journalist and experienced trav-
eler rather than of a man of artistic sense and lit-
erary power. It should be added that Dr. Field's
tone is throughout one of Christian interest in the
great historic scenes enacted in the desert. — On
the Wing is the title of a volume of rambling notes
of a trip to the Pacific by Mary E. Blake. (Lee &
Shepard.) Mrs. Blake is an agreeable companion
on the trip, and one conies to accept cordially all
the good words which she has for the business
company which managed her traveling affairs.

Health and Medicine. Hygiene for Girls, by
Irenseus P. Davis, M. D. (Appleton), is frank an4
plain spoken. It is in the main sensible, yet it
strikes us as rather a book to be read by those who
have the care of girls than by girls themselves. —
Early Aid in Injuries and Accidents, by Dr. Fried-
rich Esmarch (H. C. Lea's Son & Co., Philadel-
phia), is translated from the German by H. R. H.
Princess Christian, who was very wisely occupied
when she was placing these simple and intelligible
instructions within the reach of her countrywomen.
The book, both in its original form and as trans-
lated, is part of a very general movement to render
people less helpless in emergencies.

Books for Young People. Old Ocean, by Ernest
Ingersoll (Lothrop), is a collection of papers de-
voted to the surface of the ocean and somewhat
also to its depths. It tells of the commerce which
is carried on across the waters, of pirates and ex-
plorers, and it tells also of sea animals, of light-
houses, of ship and sea-weed. It is an entertain-
ing medley, and may be commended as a readable
book, which will both stimulate and satisfy a
healthy curiosity. — Tim and Tip, or the Adven-
tures of a Boy and a Dog, by James Otis (Har-
pers), is a lively narrative of the experience of a
little runaway, who was quite justified in his suc-
cessive escapes. There is, however, too much bru-
tality in the book.

THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY:
of Literature,, Science^ atrt3 and

VOL. LI. — JUNE, 1883. — No. CCCVffl.

DAISY MILLER.

A COMEDY. IN THREE ACTS.

ACT III.

Rome. Public parlors at the Hotel de Paris;
evening. Wide windows at the back, overlook-
ing the Corso, open upon a balcony, which must
be apparent, behind light curtains, to the audi-
ence. The Carnival is going on outside, and
the flare of torches, the sound of voices and of
music, the uproar of a popular festival, come
into the room, rising and falling at intervals
during the whole act.

SCENE I. MRS. COSTELLO, Miss DURANT,
CHARLES REVERDY. He comes in first at
the left, holding the door open for the others to
follow,

REVERDY. You can see very well
from this balcony, if you won't go down
into the street.

MRS. C. Down into the street — to
be trampled to death? I have no de-
sire to be butchered to make a Roman
holiday.

REVERDY, aside. They would find
you a tough old morsel ! {Aloud.) It 's
the last night of the Carnival, and a
peculiar license prevails.

MRS. C. I 'm happy to hear it 's the
last night. Their tooting and piping
and fiddling has n't stopped for a week,
and my poor old head has been racked
with pain.

Miss D. Is it very bad now? You
had better go to our own quiet parlor,
which looks out on the back.

MRS. C. And leave you here with
this youth ?

Miss D. After all — in the Carni-
val!

MRS. C. A season of peculiar license
— as he himself confesses. I wonder
you don't propose at once to mingle with
the populace — in a fancy dress !

Miss D. I should like to very much !
I 'm tired of being cooped up in a bal-
cony. If this is the last night, it 's my
only chance.

MRS. C., severely. Alice Durant, I
don't recognize you ! The Carnival
has affected you — insidiously. You 're
as bad as Daisy Miller.

REVERDY. Poor little butterfly !
Don't speak harshly of her : she is lying
ill with Roman fever.

MRS. C. Since her visit to the Coli-
seum, in the cool of the evening, with
the inveterate Giovanelli ?

Miss D. I suppose he '11 marry her
when she recovers — if she does re-
cover !

REVERDY. It was certainly idiotic,
from the point of view of salubrity, to
go to enjoy the moonlight in that par-
ticularly mouldy ruin, and the inveterate
Giovanelli, who is old enough to know
better, ought to have a thrashing. The
poor girl may never recover. The lit-
tle Flower of the West, as Mrs. Walker

722

Daisy Miller.

[June,

says, is withering on the stem. Fancy
dying to the music of the Carnival !

MRS. C. That 's the way I shall die,
unless you come now and take your last
look, so that we may go away and have
done with it. (Goes to the window.)
Good heavens, what a rabble ! (Passes
out on the balcony.)

REVERDY, to Miss Durant, remaining
behind. Will you give her the slip, and
come out with me ?

Miss D., looking at him, and listening
to the music. In a fancy dress ?

REVERDY. Oh, no ; simply in a mask.
I 've got one in my pocket. ( Takes out
a grotesque mask and holds it to his face
a moment, shaking his head at her.) How
d'ye do, lovely woman ?

Miss D. Dear me, how very hideous !

REVERDY. If you put it on, I shall
be as handsome as ever.

Miss D., aside. If he should propose
out there, it would hide my blushes !

MRS. C., from the balcony. Young
people, what are you doing ? Come out
here this minute !

REVERDY. There she is again !
(Aloud.) Are you afraid they will pelt
you with flowers ?

MRS. C. A gentleman has already
kissed his hand to me !

REVERDY. A season of peculiar li-
cense ! ( To Miss Durant.) We can't
escape from her now, but it won't be
long ! ( They rejoin Mrs. Costello on the
balcony, Reverdy holding the mask be-
hind him. While they remain there, ap-
parently absorbed in the spectacle in the
street, Eugenio and GiovaneUi come in.)

SCENE II. EUGENIO, GIOVANELLI ; then REV-
EEDY, Miss DURANT.

EUGENIO. You must come in here;
we can't talk in the hall.

GIOVANELLI, with a bouquet of jlow-
ers. I have come for news of the dear
young lady. I 'm terribly nervous.

EUGENIO. You think you may lose
her ? It would serve you right !

GIOVANELLI. If I lose her I shall

never try again. I am passionately in
love with her.

EUGENIO. I hope so, indeed ! That
was part of our agreement.

GIOVANELLI. If you begin to joke, I
see she 's better.

EUGENIO. If I begin to joke ? I 'm
as serious as you. If she 's better it 's
no thanks to you — doing your best to
kill her on my hands.

GIOVANELLI. It was no fault of mine.
She had her own way.

EUGENIO. The Coliseum by moon-
light — that was a lovely invention !
Why did n't you jump into the Tiber at
once?

GIOVANELLI. We are not the first
who have been there. It 's a very com-
mon excursion.

EUGENIO. By daylight, of course ;
but not when the miasma rises.

GIOVANELLI. Excuse me : it is rec-
ommended in the guide-books.

EUGENIO. Do you make love accord-
ing to Murray? — or, perhaps, accord-
ing to Badeker? I myself have con-
ducted families there, to admire the
general effect ; but not to spend the
evening.

GIOVANELLI. I was afraid for myself,
Heaven knows I

EUGENIO. " Afraid for yourself " is
good — with an American heiress be-
side you 1

GIOVANELLI. I couldn't induce her
to come away, the moon was so bright
and beautiful ! And then you wanted
her to be talked about.

EUGENIO. Yes : but I wanted you to
take her alive. She 's talked about
enough to-day. It was only a week
ago, but the whole town knows it.

GIOVANELLI. Per Bacco ! That sol-
emn fool of a Winterbourne has spread
the story.

EUGENIO. The further the better !
But I thought I had given him some-
thing else to do*

GIOVANELLI. I don't know what you
had given him to do ; but, as luck would

1883.]

Daisy Miller.

723

have it, he turned up at the Coliseum.
He came upon us suddenly, and stood
there staring. Then he took off his
hat to my companion, and made her the
lowest of bows.

EUGENIO. Without a word ?

GIOVANELLI. Without a word. He
turned his back and walked off.

EUGENIO. Stupid ass ! But it is all
right : he has given her up.

GIOVANELLI. He gave her up that
day on the Pincian ; he has not been
near her since.

EUGENIO, aside. The Katkoff is real-
ly perfect ! — though he comes to ask
about her every day. (Aloud.) Yes, but
he wanted a reason : now he has got his
reason.

GIOVANELLI, pretentiously. I'll give
him a better one than that !

EUGENIO. He 's perfectly content
with this one ; and it must be admitted
it would suit most people. We must
hope it will suit Mr. Miller.

GIOVANELLI, gloomily. Ah, Mr. Mil-
ler ? I seemed to see him there, too, in
the moonlight !

EUGENIO. You 're afraid of him, and
your fear makes images. What did Miss
Daisy do ?

GIOVANELLI. After the American
had left us ? She held her tongue still
till we got home.

EUGENIO. She said nothing about
him?

GIOVANELLI. Never a word, thank
goodness !

EUGENIO, thoughtful a moment. Cav-
alier e, you 're very limited.

GIOVANELLI. I verily believe I am,
to stand here and answer your questions.
All this time you have told me nothing
about my adored !

EUGENIO. She is doing very well ; it
has been a light attack. She has sat up
these three days, and the doctor says
she needs only to be careful. But be-
ing careful does n't suit her ; she 'a in
despair at missing the Carnival.

GIOVANELLI, tenderly. Enchanting

young person ! Be so good as to give
her these flowers. Be careful of them,
you know !

EUGENIO. I should think so — when
I pay for them myself.

GIOVANELLI. And ask if I may come
up and see her.

EUGENIO, looking at the bouquet. You
get 'em handsome, I must say. — I don't
know what the doctor would say to that.

GIOVANELLI, smiling. Let me be the
doctor. You '11 see !

EUGENIO. You 're certainly danger-
ous enough for one. But you must
wait till we go out — the mother and
the brother and I.

GIOVANELLI. Where are you going,
at this hour ?

EUGENIO. To show that peevish little
brat the illumination.

GIOVANELLI. Mrs. Miller leaves her
daughter — at such a time ?

EUGENIO. Master Randolph 's the
head of the family.

GIOVANELLI. I must get his consent
to the marriage, then ?

EUGENIO. You can get it with a pound
of candy.

GIOVANELLI. I'll buy him a dozen
to-morrow.

EUGENIO. .And charge it to me, of
course.

GIOVANELLI, stiffly. Please to open
the door. I '11 wait in the hall till you
go out. (Eugenio opens the door, looks
at him, and then passes out first. Gio-
vanelli follows. When they have left the
room, Reverdy and Miss Durant come
in from the balcony.) rttf»

REVERDY, Ms finger on his lips. Hush,
hush ! She 's looking for the gentleman
who kissed his hand.

Miss D. When she kissed hers back,
she frightened him away !

REVERDY. I can't stand that balcony
business ! I want to dance and sing, in
the midst of it, with a charming creature
on my arm !

Miss D. I forbid you to touch any
of your creatures ! -

724

Daisy Miller.

[June,

REVERDY. In the Carnival one may
touch any one. All common laws are
suspended.

Miss D. Cousin Louisa won't listen
to that.

REVERDY. She 's a great deal worse
than we herself — having an affair with
a perfect stranger ! Now 's our chance
to escape; before she misses us, we
shall be a mile away.

Miss D. A mile away is very far!
You make me feel dreadfully like Daisy
Miller.

REVERDY. To be perfect, all you
want is to be a little like her.

Miss D. Oh, you wretch — I never !

REVERDY. There, now, you 're just
like her !

Miss D. I certainly am not used to
being a wall-flower.

REVERDY. A plant in a balcony 's
even worse. Come, come ! here 's the
mask.

Miss D. It 's very dreadful. I can't
bear to look so ugly !

REVERDY. Don't I know how pretty
you are ?

Miss D., taking his arm, aside. He
can do anything with me he wants !
(Exeunt. Enter Daisy on the opposite
side.)

SCENE III. DAISY alone ; then WIKTEE-
BOURNE, a WAITER ; MRS. COSTELLO.

DAISY. She wears a light dressing-
gown, like an invalid, and it must be ap-
parent that she has been ill, though this
appearance must not be exaggerated. She
wanders slowly into the room, and pauses
in the middle. Ah, from here the mu-
sic is very distinct — and the voices of
the crowd, and all the sound of the fete.
Upstairs, in our rooms, you can hear it
just dimly. That 's the way it seemed
to me — just faint and far — as I lay
there with darkened windows. It 's
hard to be sick when there 's so much
pleasure going on, especially when you
're so foiid of pleasure as poor silly
me ! Perhaps I 'm too fond ; that 's one

of the things I thought of as I lay there.
I thought of so many — and some of
them so sad — as I listened to the far-
away Carnival. I think it was this that
helped me to get better. I was afraid
I had been bad, and I wanted to live to
be good again. I was afraid I should (
die, and I did n't want to die. But I 'm
better now, and I can walk and do every-
thing I want. (Listening again.) Every
now and then it grows louder, as if the
people were so happy ! It reminds me
of that poetry I used to learn at school,
" There was a sound of revelry by
night." That 's a sound I always want- •
ed to hear. This is the last night ; and
when mother and Randolph went out, I
couldn't stay there alone. I waited a
little ; I was afraid of meeting some one
on the stairs. But every one is in the
streets, and they have gone to see the
illumination. I thought of that balcony :
just to look out a little is better than
nothing. (Listens again a moment.)
Every now and then it increases. ( Goes
to the window, but seeing Mrs. Costello
outside comes back.) Ah, there 's some
one there ; and with this old wrapper
. . . (Looking at her dressing-gown.)
Perhaps the night air is n't good for me ;
the doctor forbids the night air. Ah,
what a pity it 's the last evening ! ( Goes
to the window again, and while she stands
there a waiter throws open the door and
ushers in Winterbourne, who at first does
not see her.)

THE WAITER. The ladies are here,
sir. (Surprised not to find them.) Ex-
cuse me. I saw them come in with Mr.
Reverdy, but they have gone out again.

WINTERBOURNE. It's not those la-
dies I want. Please to ask Madame
de Katkoff if she can see me.

THE WAITER. Won't you go up to
her sitting-room? She has a great
many guests.

WINTERBOURNE, annoyed. A great
many guests ?

THE WAITER. A party of friends,
who have come to see the fete from one

1883.]

Daisy Miller.

725

of her windows. Her parlor is in the
Square, and the view is even finer than
from here.

WINTERBOURNE. I know all about
her parlor. (Aside.) It 's hateful to
see her with a lot of others ! (Aloud.)
Ask her if she will kindly speak to me
here.

THE WAITER. Ah, you lose a great
deal, sir ! (Exit.)

WINTERBOURNE. The servants in
this place are impossible ; the young
Randolph has demoralized them all !
That's the same fellow who, last sum-
mer, wanted to give me a definition of
my aunt. (Seeing Daisy.) Ah, that
poor creature ! (Aloud.) I 'm afraid
I 'm intruding on you here.

DAISY, coming forward. You have as
good a right here as I. I don't think I
have any.

WINTERBOURNE. You mean as an in-
valid ? I am very happy to see you
better.

DAISY. Thank you. I 'm very well.

WINTERBOURNE. I asked about you
every day.

DAISY. They never told me.

WINTERBOURNE. That was your
faithful courier !

DAISY. He was so frightened at my
illness that he could n't remember any-
thing.

WINTERBOURNE. Oh, yes, he was
terribly afraid he should lose you. For
a couple of days it was very serious.

DAISY. How do you know that ?

WINTERBOURNE. I asked the doctor.

DAISY, aside. He 's very strange.
Why should he care ?

WINTERBOURNE. He said you had
done what might kill you.

DAISY. At the Coliseum ?

WINTERBOURNE. At the Coliseum.

DAISY. Why did n't you tell me that,
when you saw me there ?

WINTERBOURNE. Because you had
an adviser in whom you have much
more faith.

DAISY. Mr. Giovanelli? Oh, it 's

not his fault. He begged me to come
away.

WINTERBOURNE. If you did n't mind
him, you would n't have minded me.

DAISY. I did n't care what happened.
But I noticed, all the same, that you
did n't speak to me.

WINTERBOURNE. I had nothing to
say.

DAISY. You only bowed, very low.

WINTERBOURNE. That was to ex-
press my great respect.

DAISY. I had never had such a bow
before.

WINTERBOURNE. You had never
been so worthy of it !

DAISY, aside. He despises me ! Well,
I don't care ! (Aloud.) It was lovely
there in the moonlight.

WINTERBOURNE. I was sure you
found it so. That was another reason I
did n't wish to interrupt you.

DAISY, playing indifference. What
were you doing there, all alone ?

WINTERBOURNE. I had been dining
at a villa in that part of Rome, and I
simply stopped, as I walked home, to
take a look at the splendid ruin.

DAISY, after a pause, in the same
manner. I should n't think you 'd go
round alone.

WINTERBOURNE. I have to go as I
can ; I have n't your resources.

DAISY. Don't you know any ladies ?

WINTERBOURNE. Yes ; but they don't
expose themselves . . .

DAISY, with quick emotion. Expose
themselves to be treated as you treated
me !

WINTERBOURNE. You're rather dif-
ficult to please. (Reenter the waiter.)

THE WAITER. Madame de Katko
will come in about ten minutes, sir.

WINTERBOURNE. Very good.

THE WAITER. She 's just pouring
out tea for the company.

WINTERBOURNE. That will do.

THE WAITER, smiling. You know
the Russians must have their tea, sir.

WINTERBOURNE. You talk too much.

726

Daisy Miller.

[June,

THE WAITER, going out. He 's very
sharp to-night ! (Exit Waiter.)

DAISY, who has turned away a mo-
ment, coming down. If you are expect-
ing some one, I '11 go away.

WINTERBOURNE. There 's another
public room. I '11 see my friend 'there.

DAISY. I've nothing to do here.
( Goes toward the door, but stops half-way,
looking at him.) You see a great deal
of Madame de Katkoff. Doesn't she
expose herself ?

WINTERBOURNE, smiling. To dan-
gerous consequences ? Never !

DAISY. She comes down again, as if
unable to decide to leave him. Aside.
I 'm determined to know what he thinks.
(Aloud, in a different tone.) I was go-
ing out on the balcony, to see what's
going on.

WINTERBOURNE. Aren't you afraid
of the night air ?

DAISY. I 'm not afraid of anything !

WINTERBOURNE. Are you going to
begin again ?

DAISY. Ah, I 'm too late ! It 'a near-
ly over. (At the moment she speaks,
Mrs. Costello appears in the window,
from the balcony. Heenter Mrs. Cos-
tello.)

MRS. C., to Winterbourne. Merciful
powers ! I thought you were Mr.
Reverdy ! (Looking at Daisy.) And
that this young lady was my Alice !

DAISY. Something very different, you
see ! Now I can have the balcony.
(She passes out of the window.)

MRS. C. What are you doing with
that girl ? I thought you had dropped
her.

WINTERBOURNE. I was asking about
her health. She has been down with
the fever.

MRS. C. It will do her good —
make her reflect 'on her sins. But what
have you done with my young compan-
ions ?

WINTERBOURNE. Nothing in the
world. The last I saw of them they
were frolicking in the Corso.

MRS. C. Frolicking in the Corso?
Alice and Mr. Reverdy ?

WINTERBOURNE. I met them as I
was coming from my lodgings to the
hotel. He was blowing a tin trumpet,
and she was hiding behind a mask.

MRS. C. A tin trumpet and a mask !
Have they gone to perdition ?

WINTERBOURNE. They are only tak-
ing advantage of the Carnival.

MRS. C. Taking advantage of my
back ; I had turned it for three min-
utes ! They were on the balcony with
me, looking at this vulgar riot, and they
slipped away to come in here.

WINTERBOURNE. You never give
them a chance : they hunger and thirst !

MRS. C. A chance to masquerade?
Think of her education !

WINTEKBOURNE. I 'm thinking of it
now. You see the results.

MRS. C. I said to myself that I was
perhaps too vigilant, and I left them
here a moment to talk things over. I
saw through the window a young lady
and a gentleman, and I took it for
granted it was they.

WINTERBOURNE. Ingenuous aunt !
They were already a mile away !

MRS. C. It 's too horrible to believe.
You must immediately bring them
back.

WINTERBOURNE. Impossible just
now. I have an engagement here.

MRS. C. I '11 go and look for them
myself !

WINTERBOURNE, laying his hand on
her arm. Don't, deu't ! Let them have
a little fun !

MRS. C. I never heard of anything
so cynical !

WINTERBOURNE. Don't you want
them to marry ?

MRS. C. To marry, yes ; but not to
elope !

WINTERBOURNE. Let them do it
in their own way.

MRS. C. With a mask and a tin
trumpet? A girl I've watched like
that!

1883,]

Daisy Miller.

727

WINTERBOURNE. You 've watched

too much. They '11 come home engaged.

MRS. C. Ah, bring them, then, quick-

iyi

WINTERBOURNE. I'll go down into
the street and look ; and if I see them,
I '11 tell them what 's expected of them.

MRS. C. I '11 go to my room ; I feel
a headache coming on. {Before she
goes out, to herself, as if a thought has
struck her.) Had they bribed that mon-
ster to kiss his hand ? (JExeunt.)

SCENE IV. GTIOVANELLI, DAISY. He enters
the room, and she comes in from the balcony at
the same moment. He advances with a radiant
smile, takes both of her hands, holds them for a
moment devotedly, then kisses each of them.

GIOVANELLI. Garissima signorina !
When I see you restored to health, I
begin to live myself !

DAISY. Poor old Giovanelli! I be-
lieve you do care for me !

GIOVANELLI. Care for you ? When
I heard you were ill, I neither ate nor
slept. I thought I, too, should have to
have the doctor.

DAISY, laughing. I should have sent
you mine if I had known it. You must
eat a good supper to-night, for I am all
right now.

GIOVANELLI. You look still a little
pale.

DAISY. I look like a fright, of course,
in this dreadful dress ; but I 'm only a
convalescent. If I had known you were
coming, I should have worn something
better.

GIOVANELLI. You look like an an-
gel, always. You might have been sure
I would come, after so many days. I
was always at your door, asking for
news. But now, I think, we shall never
again be separated.

DAISY. Never again ? Oh, don't
talk about the future ! What were you
doing there in the street ?

GIOVANELLI. When I looked up and
saw you on the balcony, bending over
like a little saint in her shrine? It

was that vision that made me come up
again.

DAISY. You had gone out to enjoy
the Carnival ?

GIOVANELLI. I had come here to see
you ; but I learned from your excellent
Eugenio that your mother and your
brother were going out in a carriage.
They appeared at that moment, and I
went down with them to the door, to
wish them a happy drive. Little Ran-
dolph was greatly excited.

DAISY. He insisted on mother's go-
' ing ; she '11 do anything for Randolph.
But she did n't want to leave me.

GIOVANELLI, smiling. She has left
you to me !

DAISY. Did Eugenio go with them ?

GIOVANELLI. Oh, yes ; he got into
the carriage. {Aside.) The cheek of
that man !

DAISY. They have left me alone,
then.

GIOVANELLI. I am almost of the
family, dear Miss !

DAISY, apparently not hearing him,
listening to the sounds from without.
They oughtn't to have left me alone
— when I 'm sick, when I 'm weak.

GIOVANELLI, anxiously. You are not
so well, then, as you say ?

DAISY, looking at him a moment, with
a little laugh. You look so scared at
the idea of losing me ! Poor old Gio-
vanelli ! What should you do if you
were to lose me ?

GIOVANELLI. Don't speak of it —
it 's horrible ! If you are not well, you
should go to your room.

DAISY. Oh, I 'm all right. I only
wanted to frighten you.

GIOVANELLI. It is n't kind — when
you know how I love you !

DAISY. I don't know it, and I don't
want to know it, as I 've told you often.
I forbid you to speak of that.

GIOVANELLI. You will never let me
mention the future.

DAISY. I hate the future ; I- care only
for the present !

728

Daisy Miller.

[June,

GIOVANELLI. The future is the pres-
ent, when one sees it as we see it.

DAISY. I don't see it at all, and I
don't want to see it. I saw it for a mo-
ment, when I was sick, and that was
enough.

GIOVANELLI. You have suffered
much ; but it was not my fault.

DAISY. I don't blame you, Giova-
nelli. You are very kind. Where are
they going, mother and Randolph ?

GIOVANELLI. Up and down the Cor-
so ; wherever there is something to see.
They have an open carriage, with lots
of flowers.

DAISY. It must be charming. Have
you been going round ?

GIOVANELLI. I have strolled about
a little.

DAISY. Is it very, very amusing ?

GIOVANELLI. Ah, you know, I 'm
an old Roman ; I have seen it many
times. The illumination is better than
usual, and the music is lively enough.

DAISY. Listen to the music — listen
to it!

GIOVANELLI, smiling. You must n't
let it go to your head. (Daisy goes to
the window, and stands there a moment.')
She has never been so lovely as to-
night !

DAISY, coming back, with decision.
Giovanelli, you must get me a carriage.

GIOVANELLI, startled. A carriage,
signorina ?

DAISY. I must go out — I must !

GIOVANELLI. There is not a carriage
to be had at this hour. Everything is
taken for the fete.

DAISY. Then I'll go on foot. You
must take me.

GIOVANELLI. Into the air of the
night, and the crowded streets ? It 's
enough to kill you !

DAISY. It 's a lovely night, as mild
as June ; and it 's only for five minutes.

GIOVANELLI. The softer the nighf,
the greater the danger of the malaria.
Five minutes, in your condition, would
bring back the fever.

DAISY. I shall have the fever if I
stay here listening, longing, fidgeting !
You said I was pale ; but it 's only the
delicacy of my complexion.

GIOVANELLI. You are not pale now ;
you have a little spot in either cheek.
Your mother will not be happy.

DAISY. She shouldn't have left me
alone, then.

GIOVANELLI. You are not alone
when you 're with me.

DAISY. Of what use are you, except
to take me out ?

GIOVANELLI. It 's impossible to con-
tradict you. For five minutes, then, re-
member !

DAISY. For five minutes, then ; or
for ten ! I '11 go and get ready. Don't
mind about the carriage : we '11 do it
better on foot.

GIOVANELLI, at the door. It's at
your own risk, you knoW. I '11 try for
a cab.

DAISY. My own risk ! I 'm not
afraid.

GIOVANELLI, kissing his hand to her.
You are awfully beautiful ! (Exit
Giovanelli.)

DAISY, alone. I 'm not afraid — I
don't care ! I don't like him to-night ;
he 's too serious. I would rather be
out-of-doors with him than shut up here.
Poor Giovanelli ; if he thinks I love
him, after all I 've said to the contrary
... I can dress in three minutes.
(She is going to the door opposite to the
one through which Giovanelli has made
his exit when Madame de Kaikoff comes
in, meeting her.)

SCENE V. DAISY, MADAME DE KATKOFF.
They stand a moment, looking at each other.

MME. DE KATKOFP, very kindly. I
have not the pleasure of knowing you,
though we have spent half the winter
in the same hotel ; but I have heard of
your illness, and you must let me tell
you how glad I am to see you better.

DAISY, aside. Why does she speak
to me? I don't like her, nor want to

1883.]

Daisy Miller.

729

know her. ^Atoud.) Thank you, I 'm
better. I 'm going out.

MME. DE K. You must be better, in-
deed ; but (with interest} you look a
little flushed.

DAISY. It 's talking with a stranger.
I think I must go.

MME. DE K. Perhaps you can tell
me something first. A gentleman sent
me his name, and I was told I should
find him here. May I ask you whether
you have seen such a person ?

DAISY. If you mean Mr. Winter-
bourne, he was here just now ; but he
went away with his aunt.

MME. DE K. I suppose he '11 come
back, then. But he oughtn't to keep
me waiting.

DAISY, very coldly. I haven't the
least idea what he ought to do. I know
nothing whatever of his movements.

MME. DE K., aside. Poor little thing,
she hates me ! But she does n't hate
him. (Aloud.) I'm a stranger as you
say ; but I should be very glad to be-
come a little less of one.

DAISY. Why should you want to
know me ? I 'm not of your age.

MME. DE K., aside, smiling. She
hates me indeed ! (Aloud.') I should
be tempted to say that we might know
each other a little as mother and daugh-
ter — if I had n't heard that you are
already the devoted daughter of a de-
voted mother.

DAISY. She 's good enough for me —
and I 'm good enough for her.

MME. DE K., more and more gracious.
I envy you both, and I am happy to
have the opportunity of saying so. One
does n't know how pretty you are till
one talks to you.

DAISY. If you are laughing at my
dress, I am just going to change it.

MME. DE K. Laughing at your dress ?
It has always been my admiration.

DAISY, aside. What does she mean
by that ? It 's not as good as hers.
(Aloud.) I can't stay with you. I'm
going to the Carnival.

MME. DE K. It will last all night ;
you have plenty of time. I have heard
Mr. Winterbourne speak of you.

DAISY. I did n't suppose he ever did
that.

MME. DE K. Oh ! very often. That 's
why I want to know you.

DAISY. It 's a strange reason. He
must have told you pretty things of me.

MME. DE K. He has told me you 're
a charmyig young girl.

DAISY, aside. Oh, what an awful
story ! (Aloud.) I don't understand
what you want of me.

MME. DE K., aside. I can hardly tell
her that I want to make up to her for
the harm I have done her, for I can't do
that unless I give up everything. (Aloud,
as if struck by an idea.) I want to be
kind to you. I want to keep you from
going out.

DAISY, smiling. I don't think you
can do that.

MME. DE K. You are barely conva-
lescent : you must n't expose yourself.

DAISY. It won't hurt any one but
me.

MME. DE K. We all take a great
interest in you. We should be in de-
spair if you were to have a relapse.

DAISY. You all despise me and think
me dreadful ; that 's what you all do !

MME. DE K. Where did you learn
that remarkable fact ?

DAISY. Mr. Winterbourne told me
— since you speak of Mr. Winter-
bourne.

MME. DE K. I don't think you un-
derstood him. Mr. Winterbourne is a
perfect gentleman.

DAISY. Have you come here to praise
him to me ? That 's strange — for you !

MME. DE K. You know at least that
I consider him an excellent friend.

DAISY. I know nothing whatever
about it. (Aside.) She wants to torture
me — to triumph !

MME. DE K., aside. She 's as proud
as she 's pretty ! (Aloud.) Are you go-
ing out alone ?

730

Daisy Miller.

[June,

DAISY. No, indeed. I have a friend.

MME. DE K., aside. A friend as well
as I. (Aloud.) My dear child, I am very
sorry for you. You have too many
wrong ideas.

DAISY. That 's exactly what they say !

MME. DE K. I don't mean it as other
people may have meant it. You make
a great many mistakes.

DAISY. As many as I possibly can !
In America I was always righ^

MME. DE K. Try and believe you are
in America now. I 'm not an American,
but I want to be your friend.

DAISY. I'm much obliged to you, but
I don't trust you.

MME. DE K. You trust the wrong
people. With whom are you going
out?

DAISY. I don't think I 'm obliged to
tell you.

MME. DE K., gently. I ask for a very
good motive.

DAISY, aside. She may be better than
I think. (Aloud.) With Mr. Giovanelli.

MME. DE K., smiling. A mysterious
Italian — introduced by your courier !

DAISY, with simplicity. Oh, no ; Eu-
genio got some one else !

MME. DE K., aside. Adorable inno-
cence ! (Aloud.) That 's all I wanted
to know.

DAISY. I hope you Ve got nothing to
say against him.

MME. DE K. Nothing but this: he 's
not a gentleman.

DAISY. Not a gentleman ? Poor old
Giovanelli !

MME. DE K, aside. " Poor old Gio-
vanelli ? " Good ! (Aloud.) If he were
a gentleman, he would n't ask you to do
what you tell me you are on the point
of doing.

DAISY. He never asked me. He does
what I wish !

MME. DE K., aside. She does n't care
a fig for him — and I should like to ex-
asperate the . courier. (Aloud.) It 's
none of my business ; but why do you
wish, in your condition, to go out ?

DAISY. Because it 's the last night of
the Carnival, and I have no one else to
take me.

MME. DE K. Excuse me ; but where
is your mother ?

DAISY. Gone out with my brother.

MME. DE K., aside. Extraordinary
family ! (Aloud.) Let me make you an
offer : I will order out my carriage, and
take you myself.

DAISY, staring. Take me yourself?
(Then abruptly, ironically.) Pray, what
would become of Mr. Winterbourne ?

MME. DE K., aside. She adores him !
(Aloud.) Ah, you don't care for Gio-
vanelli !

DAISY. Whether I care for him or
not, I must n't keep him waiting. (Exit
Daisy, hastily.)

MME. DE K., alone. She 's trembling
with agitation, and her poor little heart
is full. She thought I wished to tor-
ment her. My position is odiously false !
And to think I hold her happiness in
my hands 1 ( Winterbourne comes in.)
His, too, poor fellow ! Ah, I can't hold
it any longer !

SCENE VI. MME. DE KATKOFF, WINTER-
BOURNE.

WINTERBOURNE. I am afraid I have
kept you waiting. I was carried away
by my aunt.

MME. DE K. Is she keeping the Car-
nival, your aunt ?

WINTERBOURNE. No, but her com-
panions are. They are masquerading
in the Corso, and she 's in despair. She
sent me to hunt them up, but they are
lost in the crowd.

MME. DE K. Do you mean the young
lady whom you described as so prim ?
If that 's a specimen of her primness, I
was right in my little theory.

WINTERBOURNE. Your little theory?

MME. DE K. That the grave ones are
the gay ones.

WINTERBOURNE. Poor Miss Durant
is n't gay : she 's simply desperate. My
aunt keeps such watch at the door that

1883.]

Daisy Miller,

she has been obliged to jump out of
the window. — Have you waited very
long?

MME. DE K. I hardly know. I have
had company — Miss Daisy Miller !

WINTERBOURNE. That must have
made the time fly !

MME. DE K. She 's very touching.

WINTERBOURNE. Very, indeed. She
has gone to pieces.

MME. DE K. Gone to pieces ?

WINTERBOURNE. She 's quite impos-
sible. You ought n't to talk to her.

MME. DE K., aside. Ah, what a fool
I 've made of him I (Aloud.) You think
she '11 corrupt my innocence ?

WINTERBOURNE, after a moment. I
don't like you to speak of her. Please
don't.

MME. DE K. She completes my lit-
tle theory — that the gay ones are the
grave ones.

WINTERBOURNE. If she's grave, she
well may be : her situation is intensely
grave. As for her native solemnity,
you used to insist upon that when, for
reasons best known to yourself, you
conceived the remarkable design of in-
ducing me to make love to her. , You
dropped the idea as suddenly as you
took it up ; but I 'm very sorry to see
any symptoms of your taking it up
again. It seems to me it 's hardly the
moment.

MME. DE K., aside. It's more tho
moment than you think.

WINTERBOURNE, rather harshly. I
was very sorry to learn, on coming here,
that you have your rooms full of peo-
ple.

MME. DE K. They have come to
look out of my windows. It is not my
fault that I have such a view of the
Corso.

WINTERBOURNE. You had given me
to understand that we should be alone.

MME. DE K. I did n't ask them ; they
came themselves.

WINTERBOURNE, impatiently. I wish
to goodness they had stayed at home !

MME. DE K. Should you like me to
turn them out ?

WINTERBOURNE. I should like it par-
ticularly.

MME. DE K. The ambassador and all?

WINTERBOURNE. You told me a
month ago that where I was concerned
you did n't care a straw for the ambas-
sador.

MME. DE K., after a moment. A month

ago — yes

WINTERBOURNE. If you intended to
change so soon, you ought to have noti-
fied me at the moment.

MME. DE K. The ambassador is very
considerate. When I have a few vis-
itors, he helps- me to entertain them.

WINTERBOURNE. That proves how
little you have need of me.

MME. DE K. I have left my guests in
his charge, with perfect confidence.

WINTERBOURNE. Oh, if you mean
you are at liberty, that's just what I
want.

MME. DE K. What does it occur to
you to propose ?

WINTERBOURNE. That you: should
drive out with me, to see the illumina-
tion.

MME. DE K. I have seen fifty illumi-
nations ! I am sick of the Carnival.

WINTERBOURNE. It is n't the Carni-
val ; it 's the drive. I have a carriage
at the door.

MME. DE K. I have no doubt it would
be charming ; but I am not at liberty in
that sense. I can't leave a roomful of
people planted there ! I really don't
see why they should make you so sav-
age.

WINTERBOURNE. I am not savage, but
I am disappointed. I counted on this
evening : it 's a week since we have
been alone.

MME. DE K. Do I appear to so lit-
tle advantage in company? Are you
ashamed of me when others are present?
I do the best I can.

WINTERBOURNE, You were always
strange — and you always will be !

732

Daisy Miller.

[June,

Sometimes I think you have taken a
vow to torment -me.

MME. DE K. I have taken a vow —
that 's very true ; and I admit I 'm
strange. We Russians are, you know :
you had warning of that !

WINTERBOURNE. Yes ; but you abuse
the national privilege. I 'm never safe
with you — never sure of you. You
turn from one thing to the other.

MME. DE K., aside. Poor fellow, he 's
bewildered ! (Aloud.) Will you do me
a favor ?

WINTERBOURNE. I 'm sure it 's some-
thing horrible !

MME. DE K. You say you have a
carriage at the door. Take it, and go
after that poor girl.

WINTERBOURNE. Oh, are you coming
back to her ? You try my patience !

MME. DE K. She has just risen from
an attack of fever, and it strikes her as
a knowing thing to finish her evening
in the streets !

WINTERBOURNE, starting a little. She
has gone out — looking that way ?

MME. DE K., aside. That will touch
him! (Aloud.) She won't come home
alive.

WINTERBOURNE, attentive. Do you
believe that?

MME. DE K., aside. It has touched
him. (Aloud.) I think it's madness.
Her only safety was to have left Rome
the moment she could be moved.

WINTERBOURNE, after a pause. I 'm
not sure the best thing that can hap-
pen to her is not to die ! She ought to
perish in her flower, as she once said to
me !

MME. DE K. That 's a convenient
theory, to save you the trouble of a
drive !

WINTERBOURNE. You 're remarkably
pressing, but you had better spare your
sarcasm. I have no further interest in
the fate of Miss Daisy Miller, and no
commission whatever to interfere with
her movements. She has a mother —
a sort of one — and she has other pro-

tectors. I don't suppose she has gone
out alone.

MME. DE K. She has gone with her
Italian.

WINTERBOURNE. Giovanelli ? Ah,
the scoundrel !

MME. DE K., smiling, aside. My dear
friend, you 're all right. (Aloud.) Gen-
tly, gently ! It 's not his fault.

WINTERBOURNE. That she is infatu-
ated ? Perhaps not.

MME. DE K. Infatuated ? She does
n't care a straw for him !

WINTERBOURNE. And to prove her
indifference, she lets him take her on
this devil's drive ? I don't quite see it.

MME. DE K. He 's her convenience
— her little pretext — her poor old Gio-
vanelli. He fetches and carries, and
she finds him very useful ; but that 's
the end of it. She takes him to drive :
he does n't take her.

WINTERBOURNE. Did she kindly in-
form you of these interesting facts ?

MME. DE K. I had a long talk with
her. One woman understands another!

WINTERBOURNE. I hope she under-
stands you. It 's more than I do.

MME. DE K. She has gone out be-
cause she 's unhappy. She does n't care
what becomes of her.

WINTERBOURNE. I never suspected
her of such tragic propensities. Pray,
what is she unhappy about ?

MME. DE K. About the hard things
people say of her.

WINTERBOURNE. She has only to
behave like other girls, then.

MME. DE K. Like your friend, Miss
Durant ? A pretty model, this evening !
You say you hope poor Daisy under-
stands me ; but she does n't — and that 's
part of the misery. She can't make out
what I have made of you !

WINTERBOURNE. A creature as mis-
erable as herself ! You might have ex-
plained : you had the opportunity.

MME. DE K. She left me abruptly —
and I lost it forever !

WINTERBOURNE. All this is noth-

1883.]

Daisy Miller.

733

ing to us. When will your friends leave
you?

MME. DE K., after a pause. No, it 's
nothing to us. — I haven't asked my
friends how long they mean to stay.

WINTERBOURNE. Till eleven o'clock

— till twelve ?

MME. DE K. Till one in the morning,
perhaps — or till two. They will see
the Carnival out. (Smiling.) You had
much better join us !

WINTERBOURNE, passionately. Un-
fathomable woman ! In pity's name,
what did you mean by raising my hopes
to such a point, a month ago, only to
dash them to the ground ?

MME. DE K. I tried to make you
happy — but I did n't succeed.

WINTERBOURNE. You tried? Are
you trying now ?

MME. DE K. No, I have given it up :
it 's a waste of time !

WINTERBOURNE. Have you forgotten
the day on the Pincian, after your ar-
rival, and what you suddenly offered me

— what you promised me — there ? You
had kept me at arm's length for three
years, and suddenly the barrier dropped.
The angel of justice has kept the record
of my gratitude and eagerness — as well
as of my surprise ; and if my tenderness
and respect were not greater than ever,
it is because you had already had the
best of them ! Have you forgotten our
moonlight drive through the streets of
Rome, with its rich confusion of ancient
memories and new-born hopes? You
were perfect that evening, and for many
days afterwards. But suddenly you be-
gan to change — to be absent, to be si-
lent, to be cold, to go back to your old
attitude. To-night it 's as if you were
trying to make me angry ! Do you
wish to throw me over, and leave me
lying in the dust? Are you only the
most audacious of coquettes ?

MME. DE K. It 's not I who have
changed ; it 's you ! Of course I re-
member our moonlight drive, and how
glad you were to take it. You were

happy for an hour — you were happy
for three days. There was novelty and
excitement in finding that, after all, I
had a heart in my bosom ; and for a
moment the discovery amused you. But
only for a moment ! So long as I re-
fused to listen to you, you cared for
me. From the day I confessed myself
touched, I became a bore !

WINTERBOURNE. If you want to get
rid of me, don't put it off on me !

MME. DE K. You don't really care
for me ; your heart is somewhere else.
You are too proud to confess it, but
your love for me is an elaborate decep-
tion.

WINTERBOURNE. The deception is
yours, then — not mine !

MME. DE K. You are restless, discon-
tented, unhappy. You are sore and
sick at heart, and you have tried to for-
get it in persuading yourself that /can
cure your pain. lean cure it; but not
by encouraging your illusion !

WINTERBOURNE. If you thought it
an illusion, why did you turn there and
smile on me ?

MME. DE K. Because I was vile and
wicked — because I have played a part
and worn a mask, like those idiots in
the Carnival — because I 'm a most un-
happy woman !

WINTERBOURNE, looking at her, sur-
prised. I assure you, I understand you
less and less !

MME. DE K. I had an end to gain,
and I thought it precious ; but I have
suddenly begun to loathe it ! When I
met that poor girl just now, and looked
into her face, I was filled with compas-
sion and shame. She is dying, I say,
and between us we are killing her ! Dy-
ing because she loves you, and because
she thinks you despise her ! Dying be-
cause you have turned away from her,
and she has tried to stifle the pang !
Dying because I have held you here —
under compulsion of a scoundrel — and
she thinks she has lost you forever ! I
read it all in her eyes — the purest I

734

Daisy Miller.

[June,

ever saw ! I am sick of the ghastly
comedy, and I must tell the miserable
truth. If you '11 believe me, it 's not
too late !

WINTERBOURNE, amazed and bewil-
dered. Under compulsion — of a scoun-
drel?

MME. DE K. I have the misfortune
to be in the clutches of one, and so has
our little friend. You know that her
mother's horrible courier was once in
my husband's service. Thanks to that
accident, he has some papers of mine
which I wish to buy back. To make
me pay for them, he has forced me to
play his game.

WINTERBOURNE. His game ? What
has he to do with a game ?

MME. DE K. I don't defend him : I
explain. He has selected a husband
for his young lady, and your superior at-
tractions had somehow to be muffled up.
You were to be kept out of the way.

WINTERBOURNE, frowning. Because
I love her? (Correcting himself.) I
mean, because he thinks so ?

MME. DE K., smiling. You see I 'm
right ! Because she loves you : he has
discovered that ! So he had the happy
thought of saying to me, " Keep Mr.
Winterbourne employed, and if the
young lady marries my candidate you
shall have your letter."

WINTERBOURNE. Your letter ? What
letter ? «

MME. DE K. A very silly — but very
innocent — one that I wrote some ten
years ago.

WINTERBOURNE. Why did n't yon
ask me to get it ?

MME. DE K. Because I did n't want
it enough for that ; and now I don't
want it at all.

WINTERBOURNE. You shall have it
— I promise you that.

MME. DE K. You are very generous,
after the trick I have played you.

WINTERBOURNE. The trick? Was
it all a trick ?

MME. DE K. An infamous, pitiless

trick ! I was frightened, I was tempted,
I was demoralized ; he had me in his
power. To be cruel to you was bad
enough : to be cruel to her was a crime
I shall try to expiate !

WINTERBOURNE, seated, his head in
his hands. You '11 excuse me if I feel
rather stunned.

MME. DE K., sinking on her knees. I
ask your forgiveness ! I have been liv-
ing in a bad dream.

WINTERBOURNE. Ah, you have hurt
me — more than I can say !

MME. DE K., rising to her feet. Don't
think of yourself, — think of her ! If
I had only met her before, how much
sooner 1 should have done that ! We
will go and find her together ; we will
bring her back ; we will nurse her and
comfort her, and make her understand !

WINTERBOURNE. It 's all so extraor-
dinary — and I have only your word
for it.

MME. DE K. See if she contradicts
me when you tell her you love her !
You don't venture to deny that.

WINTERBOURNE. I have denied it to
myself : why should n't I deny it to
you !

MME. DE K. You have denied it to
yourself ? Who, then, had charged you
with it ?

WINTERBOURNE. You are not con-
sistent, but you are perhaps more con-
sistent than I ! And you are very deep !

MME. DE K. I am deep enough to be.
very sure that from this moment for-
ward I shall be nothing to you. If I
have cured you of a baselesfc passion,
that at least is a good work. Venture
to say ttiat for these three weeks I have
satisfied you.

WINTERBOURNE, turning away. You
are pitiless — you are terrible !

MME. DE K., looking at him a moment.
My vanity bleeds : be that my penance !
Don't lose time. Go to her now.

WINTERBOURNE, in thought, gloomily.
Dying ? — Dying ? — Dying ?

MME. DE K. That was a little for the

1883.]

Daisy Miller.

735

sake of argument. She will live again

— for you !

WINTERBOURNE, in the same tone.
Gone out with that man ? Always with
him!

MME. DE K. My dear friend, she has
her little pride, as well as you. She
pretends to flirt with Giovanelli because
her poor, swollen heart whispers to her
to be brave !

WINTERBOURNE, uncertain. Pretends

— only pretends ?

MME. DE K., impatient. Oh, you 've
been stupid ; but be clever now !

WINTERBOURNE, after a pause. How
am I to know that this is not another
trick ?

MME. DE K., clasping her hands, but
smiling. Have mercy on me ! Those
words are my punishment !

WINTERBOURNE. I have been an idiot

— I have been a brute — I have been a
butcher !

MME. DE K. Perhaps she has come
back. For God's sake, go and see !

WINTERBOURNE. And if she 's still
out there ? I can't talk of these things
in the street.

MME. DE K. Bring her home, bring
her home ! Every moment 's a danger.
I offered to go with you ; but you would
rather go alone.

WINTERBOURNE, takes up his hat.
Yes, I would rather go alone. You
have hurt me very much ; but you shall
have your letter.

MME. DE K. I don't care for my let-
ter now. There 's such a weight off my
heart that I don't feel that one. (She
leaves the room by the right, and Winter-
bourne is on the point of quitting it on
the other side, when Mrs. Walker, Miss
Durant and Charles Reverdy come in,
meeting him.)

SCENE VII. WINTERBOURNE, MRS. WALKEB,
Miss DURANT, EEVERDT.

MRS. W. Pray, where is your aunt,
Mr. Winterbourne ? I have brought
her back her truants.

WINTERBOURNE. She has retired to
her room, to nurse a headache produced
by the sudden collapse of her illusions.

Miss D. I thought she would be
rather shocked ; but Mr. Reverdy as-
sured me that in the Carnival all com-
mon laws are suspended.

REVERDY. So we thought the law
that governs Mrs. Costello's headaches
might conform to the others.

WINTERBOURNE. What did you think
about the law that governs her temper ?

REVERDY. Nothing at all, because,
so far as I have ascertained, there is n't
any!

MRS. W., to Winterbourne. They
were jostling along, arm in arm, in the
midst of the excited populace. I saw
them from my carriage, and, having the
Consul with me, I immediately over-
hauled them. The young lady had a
wonderful disguise, but I recognized her
from Mr. Reverdy's manner.

Miss D. There, sir, I told you you
had too much !

REVERDY, aside. One needs a good
deal, when one 's about to make an offer
of one's heart. (Aloud.) It takes a
vast deal of manner to carry off a tin
trumpet ! ( Winterbourne has listened to
this absently; he appears restless and
preoccupied; walks up, and goes out
upon the balcony.)

MRS. W., noticing Winterbourne.
What 's the matter with him ? — All I
can say is that in my representative
position I thought I must interfere.

REVERDY, aside. The wife of the
Consul again ? Our consuls ought to
be bachelors !

MRS. W. You were dragging her
along, with your arm placed as if you
were waltzing.

REVERDY. That 's very true; we
were just trying a few rounds.

MRS. W. In that dense mass of peo-
ple, where you were packed like sar-
dines?

REVERDY. We were all turning to-
gether ; it was all one waltz !

736

Daisy Miller.

[June,

MRS. W., to Miss Durant. Mrs. Cos-
tello, my dear, will make you dance in
earnest !

Miss D. I don't care for Mrs. Cos-
tello now !

REVERDY. Let me thank you for
those noble words. (Aside.) You un-
derstood, then ?

Miss D., ingenuous. Understood
what?

REVERDY. What I was saying when
she came down on us.

Miss D. Oh yes, as far as you 'd
got!

REVERDY. I must get a little far-
ther.

MRS. W., who has gone up to Winter-
bourne, and comes down with him. You
may be interested to hear that I saw
our little friend in the crowd.

WINTERBOURNE. Our little friend ?

MRS. W. Whom we tried to save
from drowning. I did n't try this time.

WINTERBOURNE. In the crowd, on
foot?

MRS. W. In the thickest and rough-
est part of it, on Giovanelli's arm. The
crush was so dense, it was enough to kill
her.

Miss D. They are very good-natured,
but you do suffocate !

MRS. W. She '11 suffocate easily, in
her weak state.

WINTERBOURNE. Oh, I can't stand
this ! Excuse me. (Exit Winterbourne*)

MRS. W. What 's the matter with
him, I should like to know ?

Miss D. He has been like that these
three weeks, rushing in and out — al-
ways in a fidget.

REVERDT, to Mrs. Walker. He's in
love with Miss Durant, and he can't
stand the spectacle of our mutual at-
tachment.

Miss D., gayly. You horrid vain
creature ! If that 'a all that troubles
him !

REVERDY, aside. She '11 accept me !
(Aloud.) Courage — the old lady! (En-
ter Mrs. Costello.)

SCENE VIII. MRS. WALKER, Miss DURANT,
KEVERDY, MRS. COSTELLO ; then DAIST,
WINTERBOURNE, GIOVANELLI, MME. DE
KATKOFF.

MRS. C. (She stops a moment, looking
sternly from Miss Durant to Reverdy.)
Alice Durant, have you forgotten your
education ?

Miss D. Dear Cousin Louisa, my
education made no provision for the
Carnival !

REVERDY. That 's not in the regular
course ; it 's one of the extras.

Miss D. I was just going to your
room, to tell you we had come back.

MRS. C. I've passed an hour there,
in horrible torture. I could stand it no
longer : I came to see if, for very shame,
you had n't reappeared.

MRS. W. The Consul and I picked
them up, and made them get in to our car-
riage. So you see it was not for shame !

REVERDY. It was n't for ours, at
least ; it was for yours.

MRS. C., with majesty, to Miss Du-
rant. We shall start for America to-
morrow.

Miss D. I 'm delighted to hear it.
There, at least, we can walk about.

MRS. C. Ah, but you '11 find no Car-
nival !

REVERDY. My dear Madam, we shall
make our own.

MRS. C., aside to Miss Durant. This
time, it 's to be hoped, he has done it ?

Miss D., blushing and looking down.
He was on the very point, when Mrs.
Walker interrupted !

MRS. C. I declare, it 's beyond a
joke — to take you back just as I
brought you.

Miss D. It 's very tiresome ; but it 's
not my fault.

REVERDY, who has been talking to
Mrs. Walker. Miss Alice, shall we try
the balcony again ?

MRS. C. It 's past midnight, if you
please ; time for us all to retire.

REVERDY. That 's just what I pro-
pose : to retire to the balcony !

1883.]

Daisy Miller.

Miss D., to Mrs. Costello. Just occu-
py Mrs. Walker !

REVERDY, to Mrs. Walker. Just keep
hold of Mrs. Costello ! ( Offers his arm
to Miss Durant, and leads her to the bal-
cony.)

MRS. W., looking after them. I must
wait till the Consul comes. My dear
friend, I hope those young people are
engaged.

MRS. C., with asperity. They might
be, if it had n't been for you !

MRS. W., surprised. Pray, how have
I prevented ? . . .

MRS. C. You interrupted Mr. Rev-
erdy, just now, in the very middle . . .

MRS. W. The middle of a declara-
tion ? I thought it was a jig ! (As the
door of the room is flung open.) Bless
my soul! what's this? (Enter rapidly
Winterbourne, carrying Daisy, in a
swoon, in his arms, and followed by Gio-
vanelli, who looks both extremely alarmed
and extremely indignant. At the same
moment Madame de Katkoff enters from
the opposite side.)

MME. DE K., with a cry. Ah, it 's all
over ! She is gone !

WINTERBOURNE. A chair ! A chair !
Heaven forgive us, she is dying ! ( Gio-
vanelli has quickly pushed forward a
large arm-chair, in which Winterbourne
places Daisy with great tenderness. She
lies there motionless and unconscious.
The others gather round. Miss Durant
and Reverdy come in from the balcony.)

MRS. C., seeing the two last. Ah,
they 're interrupted again !

MRS. W. This time, she 's really
drowned !

GIOVANELLI, much agitated, but smil-
ing to Mrs. Costello and Mrs. Walker.
It will pass in a moment. It is only
the effect of the crowd — the pressure
of the mob !

WINTERBOURNE, beside Daisy, with
passionate tenderness. It will pass —
because she 's passing ! Dead — dead
— in my arms !

MRS. C., harshly. A pretty place for

VOL. LI. — NO. 308. 47

her to be ! She '11 come to life again :
they don't die like that.

MRS. W., indignant, to Giovanelli.
The pressure of the mob ? A proper
pressure to subject her to 1

GIOVANELLI, bewildered and apolo-
getic. She was so lovely that they all
made way ; but just near the hotel we
encountered one of those enormous cars,
laden with musicians and maskers. The
crowd was driven back, and we were
hustled and smothered. She gave a
little cry, and before I knew it she had
fainted. The next moment this gentle-
man — by I know not what warrant —
had taken her in his arms.

WINTERBOURNE. By the warrant of
being her countryman ! Instead of en-
tertaining those ladies, you had better
go for a doctor.

GIOVANELLI. They have sent from
the hotel. Half a dozen messengers
started.

REVERDY. Half a dozen is no one at
all ! I '11 go and bring one myself —
in five minutes.

Miss D. Go, go, my dear ! I give
you leave. (Reverdy hurries out.)

MRS. C., to Miss Durant. " My dear,
my dear " ? Has he done it, then ?

Miss D. Oh yes, we just managed it.
(Looking at Daisy.) Poor little thing !

MRS. C. Ah, she has n't a husband !

WINTERBOURNE, angry, desperate, to
the others. Can't you do something?
Can't you speak to her ? — can't you
help her ?

MRS. W. I'll do anything in the
world ! I '11 go for the Consul. (She
hurries away on the right.)

MRS. C. I 've got something in my
room — a precious elixir, that I use for
my headaches. ( To Miss Durant.) But
I '11 not leave you !

Miss D. Not even now ?

MRS. C. Not till you 're married !
( They depart on the left.)

WINTERBOURNE, holding Daisy's
hands and looking into her face. Daisy !
— Daisy ! — Daisy !

738

Daisy Miller.

[June,

MME. DE K., who all this time has
been kneeling on the other side of her, her
face buried on the arm of the chair, in
the attitude of a person weeping. If she
can hear that, my friend, she 's saved !
(To Daisy, appealing.) My child, my
child, we have wronged you, but we love
you !

WINTERBOURNE, in the same manner.
Daisy, my dearest, my darling ! Wake
a moment, if only to forgive me !

MME. DE K. She moves a little !
(Aside, rising to her feet.) He never
spoke so to me !

GIOVANELLI, a little apart, looking
round him. Where is he, where is he
— that ruffian Eugenio ?

WINTERBOURNE. In the name of
pity, has no one gone for her mother ?
(To Giovanelli.) Don't stand there, sir!
Go for her mother !

GIOVANELLI, angrily. Give your
commands to some one else ! It is not
for me to do your errands.

MME. DE K., going to him pleadingly.
Have n't you common compassion ? Do
you want to see the child die ?

GIOVANELLI, folding his arms. I
would rather see her die than live to be
his!

WINTERBOURNE. There is little hope
of her being mine. I have insulted —
I have defamed — her innocence !

GIOVANELLI. Ay, speak of her inno-
cence ! Her innocence was divine !

DAISY, stirring and murmuring.
Mother ! Mother !

WINTERBOURNE. She lives, she lives,
and she shall choose between us !

GIOVANELLI. Ah, when I hear her
voice, I obey ! (Exit.)

DAISY, slowly opening her eyes. Where
am I ? Where have I been ?

MME. DE K. She's saved! She's
saved !

WINTERBOURNE. You 're with me,
little Daisy. With me forever !

MME. DE K. Ah, decidedly I had
better leave you ! ( Goes out to the bal-
cony.)

DAISY, looking at Winterbourne. With
you ? With you ? What has happened ?

WINTERBOURNE, still on his knees be-
side her. Something very blessed. I
understand you — I love you !

DAISY, gazing at him a moment. Oh,
I 'm very happy ! (Sinks back again,
closing her eyes.)

WINTERBOURNE. We shall be happy
together when you have told me you
forgive me. Let me hear you say it —
only three words ! (He waits. She re-
mains silent.) Ah, she sinks away
again ! Daisy, won't you live — won't
you live for me?

DAISY, murmuring. It was all for
you — it was all for you !

WINTERBOURNE, burying his head in
her lap. Vile idiot ! Impenetrable fool !

DAISY, with her eyes still closed. I
shall be better — but you must n't leave
me.

WINTERBOURNE. Never again, Daisy
— never again ! (At this moment Eu-
genio strides into the room ty the door
opposite to the one through which Giova-
nelli has gone out.)

SCENE IX. WINTERBOURNE, DAISY, EUGB-
NIO, MADAME DK KATKOFF ; then RAN-
DOLPH, and all the others.

EUGENIO, looking amazed at Daisy
and Winterbourne. What does this mean ?
What horrible thing has happened ?

WINTERBOURNE, on his feet. You
will learn what has happened quite soon
enough to please you ! But in the mean-
while, it is decent that this young lady
should see her mother. ( While he speaks,
Madame de Katkoff 'comes back and takes
her place at Daisy's side, where she
stands with her eyes fixed upon Eugenio.)

EUGENIO. Her mother is not impor-
tant : Miss Miller is in my care. Cara
signorina, do you suffer ?

DAISY, vaguely. Poor mother, poor
mother ! She has gone to the Carnival.

EUGENIO. She came home half an
hour ago. She has gone to bed,-

MME. DE K. Don't you think there

1883.]

Daisy Miller.

739

would be a certain propriety in your re-
questing her to get up ? (Randolph
comes in at this moment, hearing Ma-
dame de Katkojfs words.)

RANDOLPH. She is getting up, you
can bet your life ! She 's going to give
it to Daisy.

MME. DE KATKOFP. Come and speak
to your sister. She has been very ill.
(She draws Randolph towards her, and
keeps him near her.)

DAISY, smiling languidly at her broth-
er. You are up very late — very late.

RANDOLPH. I can't sleep — over
here ! I 've been talking to that waiter.

EUGENIO, anxious. I don't see the
Cavaliere. Where is he gone ?

RANDOLPH. He came up to tell moth-
er, and I came back ahead of him. (To
Giovanelli, who at this moment returns.)
Hallo, Cavaliere !

GIOVANELLI, solemnly, coming in.
Mrs. Miller is dressing. She will pres-
ently arrive.

MME. DE K., to Randolph. Go and
help your mother, and tell her your
sister is better.

RANDOLPH. I '11 tell her through the
door — or she '11 put me to bed ! (Marches
away.)

GIOVANELLI, approaching Eugenio,
aside. I shall never have the girl !

EUGENIO. You had better have killed
her ! (Aside.) He shall pay me for his
flowers ! (Reenter Reverdy.)

REVERDT. The doctor will be here
in five minutes.

MME. DE K. He won't be necessary
now ; nor even (seeing Mrs. Costello
come hack with a little bottle, and accom-
panied by Miss Durant) this lady's pre-
cious elixir !

MRS. C., approaching Daisy, rather
stiffly. Perhaps you would like to hold
it to your nose.

DAISY, takes the phial, looking at Mrs.
Costello with a little smile. Well, I was
bound you should speak to me !

REVERDY. And without a presenta-
tion, after all !

WINTERBOURNE. Oh yes, I must pre-
sent. (To his aunt.) I present you my
wife!

GIOVANELLI, starting ; then recover-
ing himself and folding his arms. I
congratulate you, Mademoiselle, on your
taste for the unexpected.

DAISY. Well, it is unexpected. But
I never deceived you !

GIOVANELLI. Oh, no, you have n't
deceived me : you have only ruined me !

DAISY. Poor old Giovanelli ! Well,
you 've had a good time.

MRS. C., impressively, to Winter-
bourne. Your wife ?

WINTERBOURNE. My dear aunt, she
has stood the test !

EUGENIO, who has walked round to
Madame de Katkoff, in a low tone. You
have n't kept the terms of our bargain.

MME. DE K. I'm sick of your bar-
gain — and of you !

EUGENIO. (He eyes her a moment ;
then, vindictively.) I shall give your let-
ter to Mr. Winterbourne.

MME. DE K. Coward ! (Aside, joy-
ously.) And Mr. Winterbourne will give
it to me.

GIOVANELLT, beside Eugenio. You
must find me another heiress.

EUGENIO. I thought you said you 'd
had enough.

GIOVANELLI. I have been thinking
over my debts.

EUGENIO. We '11 see, then, with my
next family. On the same terms, eh ?

GIOVANELLI. Ah, no ; I don't want
a rival ! (Reenter Mrs. Walker.)

MRS. W., to Daisy. I can't find tne
Consul ; but as you 're better it does n't
matter.

DAISY. I don't want the Consul : I
want my mother. ,,

MRS. W. I went to her room as well.
Randolph had told her you were bet-
ter, and so — and so — (Pausing, a lit-
tle embarrassed, and looking round the
circle.)
• DAISY. She is n't coming ?

MBS. W. She has gone back to bed !

740

Monserrat.

[June,

MRS. C., as to herself and the audi-
ence. They are queer people, all the
same !

Miss D., to Mrs. Costello. Shall we
start for America now ?

REVERDY. Of course we shall — to
be married ! i>. •-!!•]

WINTERBOURNE, laying Ma hand on
Heverdy's shoulder. We shall be married
the same day. (To Daisy.) Sha'n't we,
Daisy — in America ?

DAISY, who has risen to her feet, lean-
ing on his arm. Oh, yes ; you ought
to go home !

Henry James, Jr.

MONSERRAT.

THE queerest freak of nature in
Spain, and perhaps in Europe, is Mon-
serrat, the convent mountain on the east
coast, about thirty miles from Barce-
lona. Goethe refers to it in the second
part of Faust, where we read : —

" It is not unamusing to see Nature
From the Devil's point of view."

It is not generally supposed that the
devil, whose office it is to destroy, ever
created anything, but if he should try his
hand at a landscape the result would be
something like Mouserrat. Whether
he would fill its almost inaccessible
caves and the holes in the rocks with
hermits is a question for the theologians.
That he resisted the establishment
there of one of the greatest convents of
the Middle Ages, I presume there is no
doubt, and that he sees with chagrin the
one hundred thousand pilgrims annually
crowding to its broken shrines is taken
for granted. It is not probable, however,
with his Mephistophelean sympathy
with the " progress of the age," that he
is disturbed by the curiosity -hunters,
who have, to use his own language, " a
devil of a time " in getting there, or by
the thrifty spirit which makes a little
money out of the desire to see its sacred
places and buy pious souvenirs.

We took the rail from Barcelona to
Zaragoza, one day early in June, and
rode a couple of hours to the little sta-
tion of Monistrol. The country is bro-
ken into low hills and sharp ravines,

and although it is absolutely barren of
grass and ragged in aspect, it is much
better cultivated than most parts of
Spain, and presents an appearance of
industrious agriculture. By contrast to
the thriftlessness elsewhere, it is a par-
adise of verdure, and when its naked-
ness is covered by the vines is far from
being unpleasing. From the station,
where the road runs along an upland
slope, we looked down upon the river
Llobregat and its valley. There, at the
very base of the mountain, lies the
straggling village of Monistrol, with its
old stone bridge and high, quaint, dilap-
idated buildings.

Out of this valley rises the scarped,
gashed, and flamboyant mountain, as
by a tour de force, thrust up, with al-
most perpendicular sides, into the air
nearly four thousand feet. It is said
to have a circumference at its base of
about twenty -four miles. It springs
out of the valley an irregular, unique,
independent mass of rock, with little
verdure apparently, and glowing in the
afternoon light with a dull reddish col-
or. I do not know whether it was
really thrown up in some prehistoric
spasm of nature, or whether its peculiar
form is owing to gradual degradation
and decay ; but it looks like a molten
mass spouted from a solid base into
fantastic, contorted, and twisted flames,
freaky shapes of fire caught and solidi-
fied into pointing fingers, towers, pinna-

1883.] Momerrat.

cles, beacons, and writhing attitudes of
stone. Another mountain so airy, gro-
tesque, and flame-like does not exist.
It cannot be anything else than nature
from the devil's point of view, and it
might well suggest the idea that it is a
veritable piece of the infernal landscape
flung up here as a curiosity and a warn-
ing. This mass of rock is rent by a
deep gash on the east side. That this
appalling cleft was not there originally,
but was formed by a convulsion at the
moment of the crucifixion in Palestine,
I have only the authority of the monk-
ish writers, who have made this moun-
tain of miracles a subject of deep
scientific study. There is this confirma-
tion of the theory : that nobody except
the monks can tell when the chasm was
made. And there is this, further, to be
said : that but for this gash, this ragged
ravine, there would have been no place
for the convent, and only the poorest
sort of shelter for the hermits.

A lumbering omnibus-diligence was
waiting at the Monistrol station to take
passengers up the mountain. These
are sociable conveyances in Spain, hav-
ing some of the uses and none of the
conveniences of railway palace and din-
ing-room cars. Into the interior were
jammed nurses, babies, soldiers, priests,
and peasants ; all talking and chattering,
all eating or nursing, all sweltering and
half stifled in the clouds of dust that
enveloped the coach. It is the fashion
in Spain, when one eats his luncheon or
dinner in a public conveyance, to offer
of his food and drink to his fellow-trav-
elers ; it would be very uncivil not to
do this. It is the fashion, also, to de-
cline to take it ; so that Spain is the
land that combines extreme generosity
with the least expense. No doubt both
the generosity and the economy are gen-
uine. It does one good in his soul to
be liberal in the offer of his bread and
boiled meat (left from the soup eaten
at home) and sour wine to his com-
panions, and they are all put in good

741

humor by declining. We secured places
on the driver's seat in front, where
we had the full benefit of the dust, and
were deprived of the sustenance con-
tained in the garlic-laden air of the in-
terior. We dashed along at a fine rate
down into the valley, and clattered into
the town with a good deal of impor-
tance ; but that was the end of our live-
liness. Thenceforward, for four mortal
hours, we dragged up the side of the
mountain at what seemed to be about
the rate of movement of a glacier. The
town of Monistrol is picturesque at a
distance, and unsightly close at hand.
Its tall houses, with recessed balconies
the width of the front on each story, are
piled one above another in shabby dis-
order, on the steep sides of the river
and up the hill. These balconies, which
appear to be the living and lounging
places of the families, are screened from
the sun by curtains of matting, and are
gay with garments of all colors and all
styles of wear. Before beginning the
ascent the diligence halted at a friendly
little posada, with a flower-garden, where
lively and pretty girls served the pas-
sengers with such refreshments as they
called for. The road climbing the moun-
tain — like nearly all the roads in Spain,
where the government has thought it
worth while to make any — is splen-
didly built. It is carried up the moun-
tain side, along ledges and precipices, in
a series of gradually ascending loops and
curves, constantly doubling on itself,
and going a distance of two miles to
make a quarter of a mile ascent. Late-
ly, trees — figs, maples, cherries, pines,
and aspens — have been planted along
this broad highway, so that in a few
years its sun -beaten travelers will enjoy
a much-needed shade. All the ravines
about which the road coils like an inter-
minable serpent are terraced, and care-
fully cultivated and set with vines.

The slow, creeping movement of the
diligence at length became so intolerable
that several of the passengers dismount-

742

ed, and walked on, reaching the monas-
tery before it. As we rose, the capri-
cious character of the mountain became
more apparent. Great masses of rock
overhung the road ; the walls were but-
tressed like artificial fortifications, and
a range of tapering towers, not needles
and spires, as in the dolomites and the
pointes d'aiguilles at Charnouni, but
bluntly and clumsily terminated, like
fingers and thumbs, stood up in the air.
At one point we passed beneath a par-
tially isolated column that is held aloft
exactly like a light-house. The moun-
tain is longest from east to west, and
the old monks fancied that it had the
form of a gigantic ship, with its prow
upheaved ; a mysterious vessel in which
the Virgin Mary conducted her devotees
— some of whom, however, suffered
shipwreck, according to the legends —
to the port of Salvation. It might as
well be called a Noah's ark, stranded in
a dry time. The mountain in its for-
mation and composition is of the utmost
interest to geologists and mineralogists.
A near inspection shows that the entire
mass, ledges, walls, towers, and pinna-
cles, is composed of small round stones,
of various colors, agglomerated into a
sort of pudding-stone, a party-colored
mosaic, reddish and greenish and gray-
ish, and very beautiful when the sun
strikes it. The mountain is also very
rich, for the botanist, in plants and wild
flowers.

After miles of weary curving and
doubling the road sweeps along the north
side of the mountain and enters the
eastern cleft, in which the convent build-
ings and gardens are found. There was
no sign of any habitation, or possible
place for one, until we were actually
in it. The ravine ends in a horseshoe
curve, set about with perpendicular pre-
cipices and towers, the latter leaning
towards each other in drunken confu-
sion, pointing in various directions into
the sky ; some the shape of monstrous
tenpins, and one, which was my favor-

Monserrat. [June,

ite, exactly the shape of a thumb with
a distinctly accented nail. In this almost
inaccessible spot, nobody except relig-
ious fanatics would ever have deemed
it possible to obtain standing-room for
extensive religious houses. But here,
jammed into this crevice, frowned on
by precipices all around, with a ragged,
yawning gulf in front and below, extend-
ing down, down, to the far-off, dreamy
valley, are the several houses of a vast
monastery, a large church, buildings for
laymen, a great restaurant, ruins of fine
Gothic edifices destroyed by the ever-
barbarous French invaders, some cy-
presses, and some tiny garden spots.
All these structures cluster about the
head of the ravine, and rest on ledges
over which the rocks hang in threaten-
ing attitudes. Standing in the court-
yard of the church, about which are the
high barracks of the " religious," and
looking up to the beetling, impending
crags and the blue heavens above the
dark mass, one has a conception of the
sublime daring of religious faith in the
presence of forbidding and implacable
nature. Round about, high up among
the rocks, are the caves and the ruined
stone huts of the old hermits.

It was near sundown when we reached
this haven of rest and made a demand
on its hospitality for the few days of
our pilgrim sojourn. The monastery
has a great history, into which it is no
part of this paper to enter. It was sup-
pressed over forty years ago, and is no
longer of much importance as an active
religious community ; it has less than a
score of monks to occupy its vast bar-
racks. But it is now, as it has been for
ages, a thronged place of pilgrimage on
account of its famed image of the Black
Virgin. Many years ago extensive build-
ings were erected for the temporary ac-
commodation of pilgrims and lay broth-
ers, and in these strangers are hospitably
assigned quarters for three days, or for
nine days on special permission, without
charge for lodging. But Spain is like

1883.]

Monserrat.

743

other lands, where something is not given
for nothing, and the stranger, at the end
of his stay, is expected to put into the
box of the custodian about as much as
he would pay for lodgings at a good
hotel, and as much more as his piety
dictates.

No enthusiasm was exhibited on our
arrival, and there was no one to welcome
us or to direct us. We were left on the
pavement, where the diligence landed us
with our luggage, utterly at a loss how
to effect an entrance into any of the
stone jails in sight. At length we were
directed to the hospederia, where a civil
brother in a black robe informed us that
a lay brother would assign us quarters
presently. The lay brother, when he
appeared, hardly filled one's idea of a
brother, nor had he the neatness that
one requires in a chamber-maid, which
was his office with regard to our rooms.
He showed me into a room in the plain
stone building of Santa Theresa of Jesus,
as the inscription over the door informed
me, built early in the sixteenth century.
The room was a dirty, whitewashed
cell, with one window and a stone floor,
and contained for furniture a narrow
bedstead, a rickety, dirty washstaud, a
shaky chair, and a bit of mirror. To this
ascetic den the brother brought sheets,
a towel, and a jug of water, gave me the
key of it, and set me up in housekeeping.
When I had visited the restaurant and
bought a fat tallow candle, I wanted
nothing more that was to be obtained.
The room was comfortable enough, but
not calculated to win one to take up
a permanent abode in it and abandon
the luxury of the world. Yet when I
opened the window, in the deepening
twilight, and looked out, through the
branches of a couple of tall trees that
manage somehow to grow in that stony
place, down the ravine lying in the
shadow of the precipices, on further into
the valley, hazy in a golden mist of early
evening, and felt the cool air, not un-
laden with sweetness, blow up from be-

low, and heard the faint and fainter
bird twitterings and the hushed hum of
a June night, I think that I experienced,
in this high seclusion, something of
that calm which hermits term the peace
of God. Indeed, one could take his
choice of emotions in this solitude, which
witnessed strange antediluvian freaks,
which was haunted by sylvan shapes in
Roman times, where Venus was no doubt
a goddess before Mary, which was a
hunting ground of Goths and Saracens,
where Charlemagne set up a shrine to
Santa Cecilia in the eighth century,
where the image of the Virgin wrought
miracles in the ninth century, where
Philip II. spent vast sums in building to
the glory of God and himself, and where,
in the chapel hard by, Ignatius Loyola
spent a night in meditation before the
shrine of the Virgin, on whose altar he
laid his sword in the hours when he
dedicated himself, her true knight, to the
foundation of the Order of Jesus.

The hospitality of the brethren stops
with shelter ; the pilgrim must go to
the restaurant for his food. This is a
" Frenchy " sort of establishment, not
conducted on an ascetic regimen, and its
flaunting presence here, together with
the holy booth for the sale of photo-
graphs and superstitious trinkets, gives a
sort of show appearance to this sacred
place. It has become a pleasure resort,
— pleasure of a chastened sort. The
restaurant has three stories, like a graded
school, in which the food served is graded
to suit the purses of the pilgrims. The
lower floor is rudely furnished, like the
peasants' dining-room in a posada ; the
second is a little better ; the third has
more pretensions to elegance. The trav-
eler can begin below and eat himself up-
ward into expensive meals, or he can
begin at the top and drop down to econ-
omy as his purse fails. The natives
probably get about as good food in the
lowest room as strangers get in the
highest. The traveler, however, will fare
tolerably well there, and he will be

744

Monserrat.

[June,

served with that absolute indifference
to whether he likes it or not that char-
acterizes the proud caterers of noble
Spain.

The glory of Monserrat is the image
of the Virgin. It was this that built its
monastery and church, drew countless
treasure to the coffers of the fraterni-
ty for hundreds of years, and that still
attracts annually tens of thousands of
curious and devout pilgrims. The his-
tory of it is interesting, though origi-
nal only in some points, for there is a
monotonous sameness in all these monk-
ish inventions. There was a great strife
all through the Middle Ages, among
convents and churches, for objects that
should attract the pence and excite the
piety of the devout, and many a church
was built and gorgeously decorated by
reason of its possession of some uncom-
monly attractive relic. Black images of
the Virgin are common in Spain. A
very popular one is the Virgin of the
Pillar, at Zaragoza, over which the
Cathedral El Filar was erected to keep
it safe and honor it. In this church is
shown the alabaster pillar on which the
Virgin stood when she descended to have
an interview with Santiago. By reason
of this special mark of the favor of the
Virgin, Zaragoza claimed the primacy
of Aragon. Upon the pillar stands a
very ancient image of the Virgin ; it is
small, and carved out of resinous and
very black wood. The Virgin holds the
Infant in one hand, and gathers her
drapery in the other. The pillar, which
is the object of passionate devotion to
the people of Zaragoza, can be seen
through a small orifice in the marble
casing, but the spot in sight is much
worn by the kisses of the faithful. Few
Catholics visit the church without put-
ting their lips to the sacred stone. In
the old Cathedral of San Leo, in the
same city, is a spot marked in the pave-
ment where the Virgin stood and spoke
to Canon Funes. Toledo, not to be
outdone, has also a small image called

the Great Queen, carved in black wood.
In 711 it was saved from the infidel
Saracens by an Englishman, who hid it
in a vault. It is one of the treasures of
the cathedral, which has also the stone
slab on which the Virgin alighted when
she conversed with San Ildefonso, who
died in 617. To this circumstance To-
ledo owes its elevation to the primacy
of Castile.

The image now at Monserrat has its
origin in the love of the Virgin for the
Catalanes, who saw with pity their grief
at the favoritism shown the Aragonese
in the possession of the Virgin of the
Pillar. It was probably carved by St.
Luke, — the first of the master wood-
carvers, — and brought to Barcelona by
St. Peter, in the year 50. When it was
endangered by the Moorish invasion in
717, it was carried to this mountain, hid
in a cave, and forgotten for a hundred
and sixty-three years. In 880, some
shepherds wandering over the mountain
were attracted to the place of its con-
cealment by heavenly lights. They in-
formed Gondemar, Bishop of Vique, who
repaired to the spot, and, guided by a
sweet smell, discovered the image in
a cave. This cave, over which is now
erected a beautiful and exceedingly
damp and bone-chilling chapel, where
daily masses are said, is one of the chief
places of pilgrimage. It lies on a nar-
row ledge deep down in the ravine, a
mile or more from the monastery. Bish-
op Gondemar, rejoicing in his discovery,
set out with a procession of clergy to
bear the image over the mountain to his
church in Manresa. When they had
toiled up the ragged ravine, and reached
a level ledge not far from where the
monastery now stands, the Virgin obsti-
nately refused to go any farther. As
there was no reasoning with a graven
image, it was placed on the spot where
it wished to rest, and a rude chapel was
built over it, in which it remained for
one hundred and sixty years. A cross
now marks the spot.

1883.]

Monserrat.

745

How did the Virgin indicate to the
priests her refusal to go any farther?
This is one of those skeptical questions
which it is easy to ask, and somewhat
difficult to answer. It is, however, a
scientific fact that if you attempt to
carry a wooden image over such a moun-
tain as Monserrat there will come ,a
point in the journey where the image
becomes heavy, and apparently refuses
to go on without a long rest.

A nunnery was afterwards founded
here, which in 976 was converted into a
Benedictine convent. In the year 1599
Philip II. dedicated the church which
is the present home of the venerated im-
age, where it shines in all the splendor
of lace and jewelry high up in a recess
above the high altar. Every day after
midday mass the pilgrims are permitted
to ascend, and adore it. The approach
to it is through several apartments by
flights of stairs. In the rear of the im-
age is the Virgin's waiting-room, a small
chamber, from which the devotees pass
round singly to the narrow platform in
front of the image. The day of our as-
cent the chamber was crowded with a
devout, or at least devoutly-seeming,
throng : worshipers, travelers with note-
books and pencils, and artists. Each
one in turn passed in front to gaze at
or to kiss the object of the pilgrimage.
Many a woman returned with moist
eyes and deeply moved. The image
itself is of black wood ; of what sort the
custodians are unable to say, but they
declare that it is sweetly odorous and
incorruptible. It is painted and finely
gilded. The figure is seated, with the
child in her lap, the latter holding a
globe in his right hand. The position
of both figures is stiff and archaic, but
the face of the Virgin is well carved
and pleasing.

In one of the rooms in the rear is the
wardrobe of the Virgin, containing many
sorts of raiment, rich and ornamented
stuffs, the gifts of kings, princes, prel-
ates, and wealthy devotees. Another

large chamber contains the votive offer-
ings, the most curious collection in
Europe, and not unlike the shop of a
thriftless pawnbroker. Those restored
to health by touching the sacred image
have deposited here whatever was pre-
cious to them, and many of the memen-
tos speak the touching thankfulness of
poverty. There are wretched pictures
of sick-beds, shipwrecks, accidents of all
sorts, and rescues ; pieces of lace, real
and imitation ; crutches and canes ; an
exploded musket ; human hair of every
color and degree of fineness, — one long
and superb braid of glossy black,' the
wealth and pride of some grateful,
and perhaps penitent, Spanish beauty ;
swords, broken and hacked in service,
and parade rapiers ; clothing of every
description, — gowns of silk and woolen
and cotton, underwear of nameless sorts,
pantaloons and waistcoats too ragged for
a beggar to covet, coats antiquated be-
yond all fashion plates ; hats and caps by
the dozen, — hats old and bad, new and
shining, hats of silk, of felt, and of straw,
sombreros and wide-awakes, belonging
to peasants, priests, sailors, and soldiers,
all hung up out of gratitude, or weari-
ness of the hat ; wax images, without
number, of babies, of heads, of arms,
hips, bodies, and breasts ; bandages and
supports ; models of ships elaborately
carved and rigged ; knapsacks ; banners
of embroidered silk, presented by cities,
municipalities, and nobles. An offering
that attracted as much attention as any
was a lady's necktie, a deft construction
of blue ribbon and lace. I saw women
looking longingly at it, and wondering,
perhaps, how a girl could make up her
mind to give up such a fresh and sweet
thing.

"We made, one day, the ascent of the
mountain to the summit, to Monte San
Geronimo, where was one of the hermit
shrines. The severe climb requires an
hour and a half ; it repays the trouble,
as well for the extensive prospect as for
the knowledge it gives of the structure

746

Monserrat.

[June,

of this fantastic mountain. The way
lies up ledges and through ravines and
valleys, variegated with sweet shrubs,
wild flowers, and verdure, and enlivened
with birds, under and around the bases
of the detached columns of stone, some
of which rise three hundred feet in the
air, to the highest point, a bare field of
rock. From this windy summit we
peeped between the columns, leaning
over the dizzy precipice, looking down
fully two thousand feet to other ledges
below. The prospect is very compre-
hensive and pleasing to those who enjoy
panoramic and map-like views. On a
clear day the white snow of the Pyr-
enees can be seen, the coast and Barce-
lona, and the Mediterranean and the
Balearic Islands. We saw none of these
objects in the hazy horizon. Beneath
the overhanging rocks is a coffee-house
where once the hermit's hut stood, in
which travelers shelter themselves from
the wind, and partake of a beverage
called coffee. It is a very wild and
gloomy place, and abounds in curious
rocky freaks. We were not alone. A
company of chatty, and for Spaniards
merry, pilgrims had arrived before us,
who were much more impressed with the
hardships of the way than with the mag-
nificences and wonders of the mountain.
I had the honor — I mention it because
it gave a fleeting charm to the barren
region — to assist a Spanish beauty,
who was painfully picking her way up
the rough ascent in satin slippers, and
whose husband unsentimentally clung
to the shelter of the hut. I carried her
formidable fan, a weapon the Spanish
woman never parts with, blow it high or
low, and when I restored it, on our re-
turn from the thrilling expedition of a
few rods, I could not have been thanked
with more eloquent eyes, sweeter voice,
and profounder bow if I had saved her
life. How sweet, sometimes, it is to
sacrifice one's self for others !

Several hundred feet above the res-
taurant, in the face of the cliff, and ac-

cessible only by a narrow ledge not dis-
cernible from the road below, is the
cave of Joan Gari. In this hole in the
rock that excellent ancient hermit prob-
ably passed the last five years of his
useful life, never stirring out of it, his
few wants being supplied by charitable
souls. I found that La Cueva de Gari,
when I reached it, was an irregular cav-
ity in the rock, perhaps twelve feet long
and not so deep as long, and about four
feet high. It is protected in front by
a double iron grating four feet square.
In it reposes a stone image of the holy
man, life size, with a venerable beard.
He lies reclining on one elbow, contem-
plating a skull, which has lost several
of its teeth and is presumably his own,
and a representation of the miraculous
image of the Virgin and Child. The
clasped hands rest upon an open book
and beads, and a rude little cross is
stuck in the rock before him. Behind
him lies his wallet and his staff, a bas-
ket that perhaps once held the contri-
butions of the charitable, and a broken
water-jug. This primitive furniture is
probably all that the apartment ever
contained in the days when the entrance
to the cave was thronged by devout
spectators of a man's ability to lie down
on a bed of stone and straw for five
years.

The story of Joan Gari is a testimony
to the wonder-working power of the
Monserrat image. It illustrates also the
virtue of penitence, and throws light
upon the candid answer of the lovely
French catechumen, who, when she was
asked, What is it necessary to do in
order to repent ? replied, It is necessary
to sin. I take the story as I find it in
the authorized Historia de Monserrat,
which I bought at the monastery.

Joan Gari was a hermit of Monserrat
in the ninth century, who had a great
repute for sanctity and purity and de-
votion to Santa Cecilia. Naturally, Joan
Gari prided himself upon his sanctity,
and God determined to put it to proof.

1883.] Monserrat.

There reigned at that time at Barce-
lona, Count Wilfredo el Velloso, the
father of a beautiful and charming
daughter, who, for the secret purposes
of the divine will, was afflicted with a
malign spirit, which, it was declared,
would not depart out of her and leave
her in health except at the mandate of
Joan Gari. And it was necessary that
the maiden should seek the holy man
alone in the mountain where he abode.
Count Wilfredo, moved by his affection
and against all the dictates of prudence,
consented to this pilgrimage of his bloom-
ing daughter. She departed to the
mountain, and never returned. Many
years elapsed before her fate was known
to the count. The hermit had received
her, dishonored her, murdered her to con-
ceal his crime, and buried her body in a
crevice in the rocks. Overcome at last
by remorse, Joan Gari threw himself
at the feet of the image of the Virgin,
and begged her pity and help. In order
to get an indulgence for his sins he made
a journey to Rome, and the Pope ab-
solved him on condition that he should
expiate his crime by becoming a beast
like Nebuchadnezzar and roaming about
on all fours. This Gari did faithfully
for six years, crawling about among the
rocks on his hands and knees, exposed
to the elements, foraging for his food
like an animal in the thickets, until he
became a hairy, unmentionable monster
of the forest. One day in the year 894,
Count Wilfredo, with a troop of attend-
ants, went forth to hunt in the wilds of
Monserrat. His companions, beating
about in the wilderness, routed out a
nondescript monster, who permitted him-
self to be taken alive into the presence
of Count Wilfredo. The count was
much amused with this capture, and de^
termined to take him as a trophy to
Barcelona, whither Gari was nothing
loath to go, as he was determined to
suffer in silence all the punishment that
God and the count might inflict. He
was taken to Barcelona, and exhibited

747

as a real monster of the forest. And
there God at last saw and accepted the
penitence of Gari. One day, when the
count had a great feast, he ordered the
monster to be brought into the banquet-
hall, in order to entertain his guests
with the uncouth curiosity. But lo!
while they made merry over him at the
feast, God spoke out of the heavens, and
said, " Arise, Joan Gari ! God has par-
doned thy sins." All heard the voice,
but could hardly believe what they
heard. But Gari, emboldened by the
heavenly aid, arose and stood upright,
and prostrating himself at the feet of
the count confessed all. And Count
Wilfredo, who declared that it did not
become him to withhold a forgiveness
that "God had granted, pardoned him on
condition that he should lead them to
the grave of the murdered girl. This
Gari did, and when they stood by the
grave of his victim, lo ! grace 'Succeeded
grace. Requilda awoke from her long
and tranquil sleep in the arms of Mary
the Mother of God, and rose up radiant,
and kissed her wondering father. Like
a true woman as she was, her first peti-
tion to her father was that he should
forgive her destroyer, and the next was
that she should be permitted to conse-
crate herself to the service of the Holy
Virgin, at this very shrine, in the shadow
of which she had been dishonored, mur-
dered, buried, and resurrected after a
sleep of seven years. So Requilda be-
came a nun, and Joan Gari crawled, I
suppose, into his hole, where he ended
a life which diffuses a sanctity over all
this region. Whether he is, as I have
read, the most beautiful exemplar of all
the virtues, the reader must judge. It
seems to me that he missed some of
them. What they were his image is
perhaps intended to represent him as
inquiring, in his phrenological attitude
of studying his own skull.

It is a very soothing and peaceful
place to sojourn in, this secluded nook
in the mountain. One is lifted up

748

Morality in the Public Schools.

[June,

above the world, which is nevertheless
in sight, and protected without any
sense of being imprisoned. It adds
something to the feeling of repose that
one can look so far down the ravine, off
over the widening valley, and out upon
a great expanse of country, which he
knows is humming with life, no sound
of which reaches him in his secure re-
treat. If one is in search of a good solid
solitude, let him come and dwell here.
An air of quiet reigns. All the visitors,
pilgrims, and curiosity-hunters do not
seem to break it. The ruins, the half-
neglected gardens, the gaunt old monas-
tery with its rows of factory-like win-
dows, the antiquated houses of entertain-
ment, the big church hanging over the
precipice, the savage rocks, the gashed
ravines, the fantastic towers that lean

in the background, would subdue the
most jaunty spirit ; and' yet it is not a
melancholy place. The birds like it,
the flowers bloom there with tender
grace, the air is fresh and inspiring.
The few friars who glide about the
courts and occasionally show themselves
at a window, the servants who keep the
place in order, the little colony that has
gathered there to serve the public,
scarcely disturb the ancient quiet. I
fancy that the atmosphere of monkish
reticence and silence still remains. It
is one of the few spots left in the world
where a scholar might sit down, undis-
turbed by any suggestions of an un-
easy age, and compose such intermina-
ble theological tomes as those that slum-
ber in its libraries, which nobody can
read.

Charles Dudley Warner.

MORALITY IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

THE state finds its warrant for the
establishment of free common schools
in the well-founded assumption that the
education of the young is necessary to
good citizenship and the safety of free
institutions. If this assumption were
proved false, education would become a
matter of private concern chiefly, with
which the state would have no right to
interfere. Some excellent men, indeed,
of whom the late Hon. Gerrit Smith was
one, have stoutly contended that this
interference is an injurious departure
by the government from its normal
sphere. It would be far better in the
long run, they insist, to rely upon the
voluntary action of the people, inspired
by parental affection, religion, and pa-
triotism, to make all needful arrange-
ments for the education of the young
than to depend upon the necessarily
complicated, clumsy, and imperfect ma-
chinery of the state. Whatever may

be said in support of this doctrine, we
need not stop to consider it here ; for
the people are as nearly unanimous in
rejecting it as they are ever likely to
be upon any subject whatever. Our
States are committed to the common-
school system as essential to the public
safety and welfare, and it becomes the
duty of every good citizen to inquire
how that system can be made to an-
swer best its great end.

It is universally conceded that secular
knowledge alone is not sufficient for
good citizenship. This is not the sen-
timent of Christians only, but also of
leading men wholly outside of the Chris-
tian fold. That eminent scientist and
agnostic philosopher, Herbert Spencer,
has lately spoken of " the universal de-
lusion about education as a panacea for
political evils," and declared that the
fitting of men for free institutions " is
essentially a question of character, and

1883.]

Morality in the Public /Schools.

only in a secondary degree a question
of knowledge ; " and he adds that " not
lack of information, but lack of certain
moral sentiments, is the root of the evil."
If Mr. Spencer is right, — and who can
doubt it ? — the practical inquiry in re-
lation to the public schools would seem
to be, How shall they be made effect-
ive for the inspiration and culture of
the " moral sentiments," in which char-
acter is confessedly rooted ? Can they
do this work at all ? and if so, in what
way ? Here is the very kernel of the
problem before us.

In the early days of the republic the
matter was simple enough. The fathers
began their New World experiment with
a union — in some respects qualified, but
still very real — between the state and
the church, the former being essentially
theocratic. In the then comparatively
homogeneous state of society, ministers
of the gospel were admitted to the
schools to give moral and religious in-
struction, and no one was found to ob-
ject. The idea of teaching morality
apart from religion had then scarcely
dawned upon the minds of the people ;
and if such a thing had been suggested,
it would have been scouted as- utterly
impracticable. In the New England
schools, therefore, the children were in-
doctrinated in all the mysteries of the
Westminster Catechism, and no limit
was set to religious any more than to
secular teaching. And this was well, so
long as the people were united in wish-
ing it to be so. But diversities of re-
ligious belief become more pronounced ;
sects multiplied, and skepticism assert-
ed itself. The separation of the state
from the church grew from a private
sentiment into a visible reality; the
right to teach religion in the schools
was questioned, but no distinct plan for
teaching morality, aside from religion,
was even suggested. The clergy aban-
doned their semi-official visitations for
catechetical instruction, and the read-
ing of the Bible " without note or com-

ment," and the recitation of the Lord's
prayer at the opening of the schools in
the morning, were all that survived of
the earlier customs ; these, in later years,
have been supplemented, in many cases,
by the singing of devotional hymns.
But these exercises are now objected to
as sectarian by the Catholic church, as
well as by vast numbers of citizens be-
longing to no religious denomination;
while many of those who favor them
profess to do so only, or mainly, upon
the ground that they are useful as a
means of promoting morality among the
pupils. Of their value in this partic-
ular, however, many Christians confess
their doubts. Formal and perfunctory
exercises of this sort, it is confessed,
are wholly inadequate as a means of
moral instruction, while their distinc-
tively religious character makes them
objectionable to many sincere friends of
the schools.

In these circumstances, fierce contro-
versies have arisen in many places, and
are still raging, to the great detriment
of the schools. In these controversies
the sectarian spirit has been and still is
rampant, blocking the way to an agree-
ment upon any specific plan for teach1-
ing morality in the schools. The Catho-
lics almost unanimously and not a few
Protestants repudiate the idea that mo-
rality can be taught without at the same
time teaching religion, and they unite
in pronouncing " godless " the schools in
which the pupils are not instructed in
the duties they owe to God. But the
Catholics and the class of Protestants
referred to, while agreeing that religion
must be taught as the only foundation
of morality, differ irreconcilably as to
the right method of teaching it. The
Protestant demands the use of the Bible
and certain simple forms of prayer,
which he insists are unsectarian ; while
the Catholic will be content with noth-
ing less than placing at least the chil-
dren of Catholic parents under such
religious teaching as the church may

750

Morality in the Public Schools.

[June,

from time to time prescribe. No com-
promise between these parties is possi-
ble, and the state can yield to neither
without again entering into partnership
with the church. Meanwhile, the ne-
cessity of some more efficient method
of teaching morality in the schools is
generally acknowledged, and the belief
that the object can be attained without
introducing religious instruction in any
form is very widely diffused.

We have come, it would seem, to a
time when the whole subject needs to
be carefully considered. If, as people
of every variety of belief in respect to
religion confess, a sound moral charac-
ter is indispensable to good citizenship,
it behooves the state, if possible, to find
a way of so training the youth of the
country that they will be reasonably
certain to form such a character. It
must not content itself with imparting
secular and scientific instruction alone.
The consciences and the affections, or,
as Mr. Spencer says, the moral senti-
ments, of children must be cultivated,
or the quality of citizenship will so de-
teriorate as to endanger the republic.
If the state is incapacitated for this
work, then it has no excuse for engag-
ing at all iu the business of education,
and should take itself out of the way,
leaving a clear field for other and more
appropriate agencies. A confession on
the part of the state of such incompe-
tence would seem to imply a fatal de-
ficiency of structure, suggesting a doubt
whether, after all, the divorce from the
church was not a mistake that should be
speedily corrected. Such a confession,
moreover, would be fatal to free gov-
ernment, and remand us again to the
ancient despotisms, under which the
many were born to be ruled without
their consent. Not yet are the American
people ready for this backward step.
Their faith in the republican govern-
ment is unimpaired, and they will find
a way of accomplishing by its means
whatever the public safety may require.

That a soundly moral man, however
ignorant, is a better citizen than a
knave, however learned, is a self-evident
truth, to which men of every shade of
religious or non-religious belief yield a
ready assent. Morality finds champions
outside of the church as earnest as any
that are within its pale. Those who
have no faith in supernaturalism are not,
for that reason, indifferent to public or
private morality, or less desirous than
the most orthodox Christians that the
children of the country should be trained
to the practice of the highest virtue.
Nay, I will go still farther, and say that
even among low-toned and vicious par-
ents it would be hard to find one who,
if he sought education at all for his
children, would not choose to send them
to a school where the teaching was mor-
ally sweet and wholesome, rather than
to one in which their passions would be
unrestrained. Who has not witnessed
or heard of striking examples of par-
ents whose own lives were sadly spot-
ted, but who took the utmost pains to
conceal their true history from their
children, and, while they were them-
selves unreformed, trained their off-
spring in ways of virtue and even of
piety ? Let us thank God for such
gleams of light shining forth from the
black clouds of degradation and vice,
and attesting the dignity and worth of
human nature. We who call ourselves
Christians, and esteem the Bible as the
Book of books, will do great injustice to
the doubters of our time, by whatsoever
name called, if we assume that they are
less anxious than ourselves that the chil-
dren of the land should lay in the public
schools the solid foundations of a no-
ble character. The difference between
them and the most orthodox of our num-
ber, let us candidly confess, is not as to
the need of morality, but only as to the
right way of teaching it. The question
is whether or not this difference is in-
superable ; in other words, whether it is
possible to bring all classes of the Amer-

1883.]

Morality in the Public Schools.

751

ican people, in spite of their divergences
upon other subjects, to act together
in support of some plan for teaching
morality in the public schools. Many
will be ready to say it is impossible, and
it must be confessed that the difficulties
in the way are formidable. Neverthe-
less, our faith is strong that they can
and will be overcome, — as respects the
great majority of the people very soon,
and in Tegard to all, or nearly all, at
no distant day. Is not such an object
worth striving for ? To accomplish it,
ought not the oppugnancies and strifes
of creed and sect to be, so far as possi-
ble, set aside, and the question consid-
ered upon the highest and broadest
grounds ? If the union so much to be
desired necessitated a surrender of prin-
ciple on the part of any class of citizens,
it would be idle to seek it ; but since
it requires no sacrifice of anything but
long-indulged prejudices and mistaken
opinions, and since it promises to rescue
our country from one of its gravest dan-
gers, we surely ought not to despair of
its attainment. The object of this pa-
per is, if possible, to clear away some of
the confusion in which the question is
involved, and show that the friends of
education, however discordant their opin-
ions upon other subjects may be, can
consistently act together upon this.

In the first place, it is necessary to
say that a republican state, recognizing
the perfect equality of citizens and sects
in all things pertaining to religion, is
incapacitated for religious teaching, in
whatever form. If it undertakes such a
work, it must decide for itself which one
of all the religions of the world is true,
and which are false ; and this requires
an investigation, for which it is wholly
unfitted ; for of course a question of so
much importance should not be decided
ignorantly or arbitrarily. How shall
such an investigation be conducted?
Fancy the question introduced in a con-
stitutional convention, formed as such
bodies usually are, and necessarily must

be. What a bedlam the convention
would become ! But suppose that Chris-
tianity, as the nominal religion of the
majority of citizens, were adopted as
the religion of the state ; even then the
confusion would not be ended. Shall
the state be Catholic or Protestant, Or-
thodox or Liberal ? Shall it acknowl-
edge the infallibility of the church and
the Pope, or adopt the Bible as an in-
fallible guide ? What doctrines shall
be set forth in the creed, and what con-
demned as heretical ? What rites and
forms shall be prescribed? To enter-
tain such questions is to remove the
foundations of. republican government,
and revive the doctrines and assump-
tions out of which grew the Inquisition
with all its bloody horrors, and make
the stake and the fagot once more the
terror of dissenters from the orthodox
faith.

The objects of a republican state are
purely civil and secular, relating to the
present, not to a future life ; to the
duties which citizens owe to each oth-
er, not to those which they owe to the
invisible God. It knows men neither
as Christians, Mohammedans, nor Jews,
neither as Catholics, Protestants, nor
Skeptics, Theists nor Atheists, Ortho-
dox nor Liberals, but simply and solely
as citizens, extending equal protection
to all. The Hindoo may erect his tem-
ple, the Mohammedan his mosque, the
Buddhist his shrine, the Chinaman his
joss-house, and the Jew his synagogue,
just as freely as the Christian may build
his cathedral, church, or chapel ; and
the protection of the government is ex-
tended equally to all the various forms
of worship, so far as they do not endan-
ger the public peace. Still further, the
Infidel, the Atheist, or the Freethinker
may erect his hall wherever he lists, and
the meetings held therein will be under
the same protection as the assemblies
for the worship of God. Such is the
nature, the height and depth, the length
and breadth, of that liberty which is the

752

Morality in the Public Schools..

[June,

boast of this republic, and which is not
its shame, but its glory. " Congress,"
says the constitution, " shall make no
law respecting an establishment of re-
ligion, or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof, or abridging the freedom of
speech or of the press." The oath (or
affirmation) required of the President
and of members of Congress and the
state legislatures is purely secular, con-
taining no recognition of a Supreme
Being ; while it is expressly provided
that " no religious test shall ever be re-
quired as a qualification to any office or
public trust under the United States."
The full meaning and spirit of these pro-
visions, as understood by the fathers,
is revealed in the treaty made with
Tripoli on the 4th of November, 1796,
in the eleventh article of which occurs
this declaration : " As the government
of the United States is not in any sense
founded on the Christian religion ; as it
has in itself no character of enmity
against the laws, religion, or tranquillity
of Mussulmans, ... it is declared by
the parties that no pretext arising from
religious opinions shall ever produce an
interruption of the harmony existing be-
tween the two countries." This treaty,
framed under the direction of Washing-
ton, was ratified by the Senate, without
objection, so far as appears, from any
quarter, and is now a part of " the su-
preme law of the land," by which " the
judges in every State are bound, any-
thing in the constitution or laws of any
State to the contrary notwithstanding."
In this treaty, and in the constitu-
tional provisions above cited, the fa-
thers struck with a firm hand the key-
note of that anthem of religious liberty
which surprised and enchanted the civil-
ized world. Historically, some of the
States are older than the Nation ; and if,
from their constitutions, laws, and judi-
cial decisions, utterances not in harmony
with the national key-note are some-
times heard, it is because the former
have not yet been brought quite up to

concert pitch. Such a reform as the
divorce of the state from the church is
never completed at a single stroke. It
is only natural that customs and even
laws originating in the discarded union,
and enshrined in the habits and affec-
tions of the people, should long survive
and be quoted by reactionists, who nei-
ther approve nor even understand the
reform. We have among us a consid-
erable class of religious men who, while
they disclaim any wish to remarry the
church to the state, do yet shudder at
the complete logical and necessary re-
sults of their divorce. They insist that
the state is bound to be Christian, to as-
sert the being of God, the divinity of
Christ, and the infallible authority of
the Scriptures ; and that the refusal to
do this proves it to be godless and pro-
fane. They forget that religion is a
matter exclusively between the indi-
vidual soul and God, and that he judges
men, not in the mass, nor as gathered
in associations, for whatever purpose
formed, but as persons, each one being
required to give account of himself. The
state, being formed for secular purposes
only, cannot interfere with citizens in
their personal relations to their Maker.
But no inference prejudicial to Chris-
tianity or any other form of religion is
to be drawn from this non-interference.
If the state does not affirm and propa-
gate religion, so neither does it oppose
nor obstruct it. In protecting freedom
of speech and action for its champions
and supporters it does for religion all
that it has any right to do. To mur-
mur because it confines itself to secular
affairs, and refuses to enter the sphere of
religion, is as unreasonable as to com-
plain of railroads because they do not
provide facilities for crossing the ocean,
of a court of justice that it does not per-
form the duties of a legislature, or of a
threshing-machine because it does not
fulfill the uses of the magnetic telegraph.
In regard to Christianity I go still far-
ther, and affirm that the state could not

1883.]

Morality in the Public Schools.

753

lend itself to its direct support without
doing it far more injury than good. All
experience goes to show that Christian-
ity prospers best when church and state
move in spheres entirely distinct from
each other, and each minds its own busi-
ness. It was to his disciples, not to any
earthly power, that Jesus addressed the
command, " Go into all the world, and
preach the gospel to every creature ; "
and if the church had always been as
free from alliances with the state as it
was before the time of Constantine, and
as it is now in this country, the progress
of Christianity would have been far
more rapid than it has been. The
church, indeed, .can much better afford
to be persecuted by the state than to
fall into its embrace. They are plotters
of mischief for Christianity who are
seeking to incorporate their theology in
the constitution of the United States ;
and any form of religion which cannot
endure the freedom of our institutions,
but seeks the sword of temporal power
to enforce its claims, attests thereby its
conscious weakness, and brands itself as
spurious. Christianity is wounded in
the house of her friends whenever they
attempt to supplement her moral and
spiritual authority by the decrees of
earthly governments. " My kingdom,"
said Jesus, "is not of this world," and
this should be an end of controversy
upon the subject.

At this point we encounter the objec-
tion that the exclusion from the schools
of all religious worship and instruction
will make them godless, which is a
frightful thought to every devout mind.
No amount of Protestant Bible-read-
ings, hymns, and prayers is sufficient
even now to protect the schools from
this imputation on the part of Roman
Catholics. Of what avail, they ask, are
religious forms other than those pre-
scribed by God' s infallible church ? Not
a few Protestants, in their way, are
equally narrow. Schools without relig-
ious instruction godless ? Yes, in the

VOL. LI. — NO. 308. 48

same sense that a note of hand, a mort-
gage, a bill of lading, or a coin is god-
less, because it bears upon its face no
inscription of the name of God ; in the
same sense that a railway, insurance, or
banking corporation is godless, because
it does not open its meetings with prayer
and Scripture-reading ; in the same
sense that an election is godless, where
the ballot-boxes are consecrated by no
religious ceremonies ; in the same sense
that the American Bible Society, during
the first ten or fifteen years of its ex-
istence, was godless, in that, in conde-
scension to the scruples of its Quaker
members, its anniversary meetings were
opened without " formal prayer ; " in
the same sense, finally, that all social
gatherings, for whatever purpose, are
godless, unless accompanied by some
form of devotional exercises. The ob-
jection has its root in a formalism as in-
consistent with the true spirit of Chris-
tianity as it is contrary to common sense.
It is the last despairing cry of religious
bigotry, the feeble wail of a moribund
sacerdotalism, which halts in " the letter
that killeth," and has no appreciation of
" the spirit that maketh alive." Con-
trast with this the example of Jesus,
who neither prefaced nor concluded one
of his public discourses with prayer ! Is
the Sermon on the Mount godless, and
was that a godless assembly to which it
was delivered ? If Jesus could preach
to multitudes day after day without
once formally lifting up his voice in
public prayer, may we not venture to
teach our children to read, write, and
spell, without pausing for devotional ex-
ercises ? Will the sticklers for religious
ceremonies in the schools condescend to
tell us how many lessons may be learned,
how many classes recite, before the
teacher must either stop to offer a
prayer, or suffer his school to lapse into
a condition of godlessness ? If we must
blend with the exercises of the school the
forms of the church, let us be sure that
we mix them in their due proportions-

754

Morality in the Public Schools.

[June,

But how, it is asked, will you teach
morality without religion ? Morality, it
is insisted, grows out of religion as a
tree from its roots ; it will die if the
connection is not maintained. This ob-
jection is so sincerely made that it de-
serves to be treated with respect. But
it is true, rather, that religion and mo-
rality have a common source in that hu-
man nature which is made in the im-
age and likeness of God, and that the
latter may be successfully cultivated by
itself, without reference to the super-
naturajism which forms so large a part
of the current religions, and concerning
which the world is so hopelessly divided.
It would certainly be a great calamity if
this were not so. We may well be grate-
ful that the distinction between right and
wrong, and the duty to do the one and
avoid the other, are plain to multitudes
who stumble at theological problems
and supernatural mysteries. There are
many noble men, pure in every rela-
tion of life, and devoted to the welfare
of the human race, who frankly confess
that they have no clearly defined faith
in God, no sense of his presence, no be-
lief in a supernatural revelation, and to
whom the whole science of theology is
an inexplicable muddle. They are as
sensitive to every moral obligation as
any canonized saint of the church, and
on the score of character have no oc-
casion to blush in the presence of the
most exacting orthodoxy. They may
lack a certain spiritual richness which
can only grow from religious faith and
hope; what then? Are not the Mas-
ter's words as applicable to them as
to others ? — " Ye shall know them by
their fruits. Do men gather grapes of
thorns or figs of thistles ? " Does not
God find a way of " working in them,"
as in others, " to will and to do of his
good pleasure " ?

The Christian world has been all too
ready to assume that morality cannot be
taught upon any basis of its own, or
rest upon any other than a supernatural

foundation. It is an every -day assump-
tion among Protestants that the Bible
is the only standard of morals ; but that
book sets up no such claim in its own
behalf. The Catholics insist that the
standard is not the Bible, but in the in-
fallible church, whose forms of worship
and instruction are ordained of God as
the only means of training the young
in a sound morality. In the Catholic
World for November last it is affirmed,
as the result of experience, " that it is
quite impossible to restrain the tendency
which youths have to corrupt one an-
other, or to promote habits of truthful-
ness, personal chastity, and obedience,
without the aid of the confessional."
Every Protestant will smile at this as a
curious exhibition of sectarian bigotry ;
but is it less bigoted to insist that some
form of Protestant worship and instruc-
tion is necessary to preserve morality
in the schools? And yet thousands of
Protestants affirm that unless the ex-
istence of a personal God is either posi-
tively taught or assumed, the Bible rec-
ognized as a supernatural revelation,
and the children trained to utter some
form of prayer or bow their heads in
worship, all attempts to teach a sound
morality in the schools will be only a
mockery. Is this declaration founded
in truth ? If so, the state must take
its choice between abandoning the work
of education as beyond its sphere and
assuming the functions of a religious
teacher. Morality must be taught in
the schools, whatever difficulties may
lie in the way. If the state cannot do
it, it must give way to some other
agency. But the assumption is unwar-
ranted. The laws of morality did not
originate either with the Bible or Chris-

tianity, but are as old as humauky it-
self. They are a part of human nature,
and were as authoritative before patri-
archs spoke, or prophets wrote, or Jesus
and his Apostles proclaimed their mes-
sage, as they have been since. The
moral inculcations and appeals of the

1883.]

Morality in the Public Schools.

755

Bible are addressed to men as knowing
the difference between right and wrong.
Indeed, but for such knowledge on their
part, the book might as well have been
sent to the brutes as to them.

I write not in the interest of skepti-
cism, but as one who cherishes a pro-
found belief in God and in Christianity
as taught by Jesus himself. Moreover,
the views which I have expressed have
the sanction of eminent men in the
orthodox ranks. One such man, the
Rev. Dr. Samuel T. Spear, of Brooklyn,
N. Y., a Presbyterian of the highest
standing, published, a few years since,
a book * in which this subject is very
ably and thoroughly discussed. An ex-
tract will best exhibit its spirit and pur-
pose.

" The public school," says Dr. Spear,
" by the very terms of both the process
and the end, naturally and necessari-
ly involves the element of moral educa-
tion. The children form a society for the
time being, and for that time the school--
house is their dwelling-place. In it they
spend their school hours, in constant in-
tercourse with their teachers, and sub-,
ject to their authority. These teachers,
if what they should be, are discreet and
well-behaved persons, having a good
moral character, cleanly in their habits,
pure and chaste in their language, and
honest and upright in their discipline.
It is their province to preserve school
order, to subject their scholars to whole-
some restraints, to commend and en-
courage them when they do well, to con-
demn and rebuke them when they do
wrong, to see to it that they accomplish
their task ; and thus develop in this thea-
tre a set of school virtues in the habits
of patience, diligence, industry, steadi-
ness of application, submission to author-
ity, respect for superiors and for the
rights of each other, cleanliness of per-
son, good manners, self-control, truth-
fulness, honesty, and the like, — habits

i Religion and the State ; or, The Bible and the
Public Schools. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co.

which in kind have their basis and
sanction in our moral nature, and which,
moreover, are just the habits to fit
and dispose them to act well their part
in maturer years. These virtues are
state virtues, business virtues, and are
also in constant demand for the purposes
of this life, independently of any con-
siderations that respect the future, and
may be powerfully enforced by argu-
ments that relate purely to the interests
of time. They are certainly good for
this world and good for citizenship,
whether there be any hereafter or not.

" Such elementary moral principles,"
continues Dr. .Spear, " have existed in
human thought, and to some extent in
human practice, wherever man has been
found. They attach themselves to his
nature and relations. They are not pe-
culiar to Christendom or Christianity,
but rather belong to man as man. His
depravity has never sunk so low as to
involve their total absence. Christian-
ity fosters these virtues, and begets
others of a higher grade ; but it is a
grave mistake to suppose that those
who administer Christianity, repeat its
precepts, teach its doctrines, and preach
its sanctions, whether in the pulpit or
out of it, are the only apostles of mo-
rality in the world, or that they have
any monopoly in this kind of teaching.
This is not true, — never has been and
never will be true.

"Morality, in the large sense," our
author further observes, " is a sponta-
neous outgrowth of human nature and
human relations, notwithstanding the
terrible depravity that has infected the
race. It is a thing of home, of the
street, of the public lecture, of business
intercourse, of the state, of the court-
room, of the jury-box, of the school-
room, — yea, of the ten thousand influ-
ences that operate in the formation of
human character, — as really as it is of
the ministry or the church. . . . There
is a generic morality, whose usefulness
no one questions, that comes within

756

Morality in the Public Schools.

[June,

the province of the public school. . . .
For the want of a better term, let us
call it secular morality. ... It is cer-
tainly the kind of morality which the
state is immensely concerned to secure ;
which makes the orderly, the peaceful,
and law-abiding citizen ; and which also
forms one of the primary objects and
great blessings of the public school.

" Secular education," the author goes
on to say, " is not religious in the sense
of relating to God, or the duties we
owe to him, or of affirming or resting
upon the authority of the Bible. . . .
It omits to consider these dogmas, just
as chemistry does not determine mathe-
matical questions," etc. (Pages 58-60.)
The potency of all that I have said
and all that I desire to say on the sub-
ject before us is in these strong, forci-
ble words of Dr. Spear. Once adopt this
view of the subject, and there will be
no further obstacle in the way of a com-
plete union of all the friends of educa-
tion, both in regard to the morality to be
taught in the schools and the way of
teaching it. It involves no surrender
of principle on the part of any one ; only
the yielding up of prejudices, the 're-
moval of misunderstandings, originating
in past conflicts and long fostered by
a partisan spirit. There is need of an
educational symposium of representative
men of all shades of religious belief and
speculation, — Catholic and Protestant,
Orthodox and Liberal, Jew and Agnos-
tic, — to consider this subject. Sitting
down together, and looking into each
other's faces with sentiments of mutual
esteem ; setting aside for the moment all
speculative questions, and fixing their
thoughts upon the one subject of moral
teaching in the schools, they would no
doubt be astonished to find themselves
in perfect agreement. Upon the ab-
stract question whether the ultimate
basis of morality is to be sought in a
supernatural revelation, or in the nature
of man and the testimony of experience
and observation, they would of course

differ widely ; but as to morality itself,
in its practical relations to the education
of the young, they would speak with
one voice. Traveling by different roads,
they would find that they had arrived at
one and the same place, and were all
seeking a common end. And the mo-
rality which they would all commend as
essential to the purity of society and the
safety of the republic, and therefore in-
dispensable to good citizenship, would
be, in substance, that of the New Tes-
tament, which has its grandest illustra-
tion in the teaching and example of
Jesus, — his example in death as well
as in life. What matters it that some
of them hold this morality to be bind-
ing upon men upon supernatural, and
others upon purely natural, grounds,
since they heartily agree that it is abso-
lutely binding upon all men, and that
there is a crying need that it should be
taught in the schools ? Does any one
doubt the reality of this agreement?
- Let him remember that the Agnosticism
of this day, whatever may be said of
that of earlier times, is not seeking to
•absolve men from moral restraints, but
puts a strong emphasis upon ethics.
It forms societies for " ethical culture,"
and on moral grounds has no occasion,
to shrink from criticism. Even Robert
Ingersoll, while denying supernatural-
ism in every form, is careful to say that
he accepts the morality of the Gospels
as to him the law of life. Mr. John
Fiske speaks for all the scientific skep-
tics of the time when he says, " The
principles of right living are really con-
nected with the constitution of the uni-
verse." Is there not here a platform
broad enough and strong enough for all
the friends of the public schools ? Why
will they not all plant their feet upon
it, and stand shoulder to shoulder as one
brotherhood in a common effort to edu-
cate the conscience as well as the intel-
lect of the children and youth of the re-
public, and aid them in laying the foun-
dations of that moral character which is

1883.]

Morality in the Public Schools.

757

the primary condition of good citizen-
ship ?

The controversy between naturalism
and superuaturalism must of course go
on. I am by no means blind to its im-
portance. But I insist that our public
schools, by consent of parties, should be
kept out of this fiery vortex. It is a
question not for children, but for grown
men. However much, as a Christian, I
may long to make all the children of
the land familiar with doctrines and be-
liefs to me most precious, I frankly ac-
knowledge that I have no claim upon
the state to assist me in the attainment
of this object. As a citizen, I am con-
tent to stand, in everj^thing pertaining
to religion, upon the same ground with
those whose views differ most widely
from my own, — even those who think
my religion a worthless superstition. I
make no demand upon the government
save for protection in the " free exer-
cise " of my religion ; and what I ask
for myself is what I willingly accord
to others, whatever form of faith or no-
faith it may please them to adopt. Lib-
erty, as thus broadly defined, is the vital
breath of free government, the atmos-
phere most congenial to the growth of
true religion. Whoever fears that his
religion will not endure this liberty, and
therefore seeks to ally it with the state,
evidences a suspicion, if not a conscious-
ness, that that religion is fatally weak.

Philosophical disquisitions upon the
foundations of morality have no legiti-
mate place in the school-room, as every
well-instructed teacher will admit. The
precepts and rules by which children
and youth must be taught to regulate
their conduct are such as will commend
themselves at once to their moral con-
sciousness, leaving no room for doubt of
their binding force. A very large pro-
portion, if not a majority, of the pupils
in our schools come from homes the
atmosphere of which is at least condu-
cive to a sound morality, and they in
turn will do much to make such an at-

mosphere in the school-room. In not a
few neighborhoods, however, the pupils
*"will be of a coarser, ruder mould, impos-
ing upon their teachers a harder task.
But even in such cases the well-instruct-
ed teacher will find his moral resources
ample, without entering the domain of
religion. It would be easy, I am sure,
if it were worth while, for a conference
of men, representing the different shades
of opinion upon religious subjects, to
agree upon a code of school morals,
embodying all that is essential, and of-
fending no honest scruples. Such a
code is needed, if at all, rather to insure
a good understanding among the sup-
porters of the schools than for use in
the schools themselves. Care should be
taken not to hamper teachers with rigid
rules. Moral instruction, to be effec-
tive, must be spontaneous and free, and
skillfully adapted to cases as they arise.
The best teachers, as a general rule,
will have the shortest code of laws, if
indeed they have any code at all.

But it is not the object of this paper
to prescribe any exact method of teach-
ing morality in the schools. My pur-
pose is fulfilled if I have succeeded in
showing that the incapacity of the state
for teaching religion does not imply an
incapacity for teaching morality as an
essential part of the education of the
young, and that there is a ground for
such teaching on which all true friends
of the schools may consistently stand
and cooperate. That there is need of
such cooperation, that the schools have
suffered for lack of it, and that the secta-
rian and theological contentions which
have made it impossible hitherto are to
be deeply regretted, few will deny. Is
it too much to hope that religious men,
without distinction of sect, will erelong
abandon as unreasonable the attempt to
make the public school an agent for
religious propagandism, and unite with
their fellow-citizens of every class in an
effort to make it as efficient in the field
of morals as in that of science ?

Oliver Johnson.

758 A Call on Sir Walter Raleigh. [June,

A CALL ON SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

AT YOUGHAL, IRELAND.

" AY, not at home, then, didst thou say ?

And, prithee, hath he gone to court ? "
" Nay ; he hath sailed but yesterday,

With Edmund Spenser, from this port.

"This Spenser, folk do say, hath writ

Twelve cantos called The Faerie Queene :
To seek for one to publish it

They go, — on a long voyage, I ween."

Ah me! I came so far to see

This ruffed and plumed cavalier, —
He whom romance and history,

Alike, to all the world make dear.

Great Shakespeare's friend — the more than peer

Of Philip Sidney, whose bright head,
Crowned with one golden deed, we hear,

Dropped, young, upon an honored bed.

And I had some strange things to tell
Of our new world, where he hath been;

And now they say, — I marked them well, —
They say the Master is not in !

The knaves speak not the truth ; I see

Sir Walter at the window there.
That is the hat, the sword, which he

In pictures hath been pleased to wear;

There hangs the very cloak whereon

Elizabeth set foot. (But oh,
Young diplomat, as things have gone,

Pity it is she soiled it so !)

' And there — but look ! He 's lost in smoke.

(That weirdly charmed Virginia weed !)
Make haste ! bring anything ! his cloak —
They save him with a shower, indeed !

. . . Ay, lost in smoke ! I linger where

He walked his garden. Day is dim,
And death-sweet scents rise to the air

From flowers that gave their breath to him.

1883.]

A Landless Farmer.

There, with its thousand years of tombs,

The dark church glimmers where he prayed ; 1

Here, with his head unshorn of plumes,
The tree he planted gave him shade.

His head unshorn of plumes ? Even so

It stained the Tower, when gray with grief.

0 tree he planted, as I go,

For him I tenderly take a leaf.

1 have been dreaming here, they say,
Of one dead knight, forgot at court ;

And yet he sailed but yesterday,

With Edmund Spenser, from this port.

Sattie M. B.

759

A LANDLESS FARMER.

IN TWO PAETS. PAET II.

SERENA'S not very tender heart was
somewhat touched at last, -and she no-
ticed how worn and old her father
looked, and wished she had not sold
the secretary without speaking to him
about it first. She thought it was no
time then to say what a good price she
had wrung out of the man who had
made the purchase, and at any rate her
father might insist upon putting the
money in his own pocket. She was un-
usually good-natured all that day, and
even went so far as*to say that she was
glad to see him about the house again.
She was a good deal of a coward, as all
tyrants and bullies are apt to be ; and
she began to be a little afraid, when
her father's weakness and dependency
seemed to have been replaced by a sul-
len indifference to both her words and
actions when she came near, and a look
of wounded disapproval when she left
him to himself.

The next morning he said that he
wanted some one to go over to Mary

i St. Mary's Church, one of the most ancient
and interesting, from an historical point of view,

Lyddy's with him, and bring the horse
home. Somehow, Serena felt a shame-
ful sense of guilt and almost of repent-
ance, as she stood in the kitchen door
and watched her father drive away. It
seemed as if he might have started of
his own accord upon a journey from
whence there could be no return. He
did not turn his head after the horse
had started ; he had not even said good-
by. There was a small trunk in the
back of the wagon, an odd, ancient thing,
studded with many nails and covered
with moth-devoured leather ; one might
believe it had attained a great age be-
fore starting on this first journey, it
looked so unused to travel and so garret-
like. Into it, very early in the morning,
Mr. Jenkins had packed some of his
few personal possessions, and his daugh-
ter looked at it again and again with
suspicious eyes. " I declare, it 's a
dreadful thing to get to be old and past
our usefulness," she said. " Who would
have thought that father would have

among Irish churches, almost adjoins the house
known as Sir Walter Raleigh's, at Youghal.

760

A Landless Farmer.

[June,

turned against me so, just for selling an
old, out-o'-fashion chist o' drawers, after
the way I've tended and nursed him,
and mended him up and waited upon him
by inches ? Well, it 's the way of the
world ! " And after these reflections, the
rattling wagon and plodding -horse and
the stern, upright figure of the aggrieved
old man having passed out of sight over
the brow of a hill which rose beyond
the house, she turned back into the
kitchen again. " Father used to be a
dreadful easy-going man," she said to
herself, later. " I wonder how long he
and Mary Lyddy will hitch their horses
together. But I 'most wish I had n't

let the secr'tary go without consulting
him. I suppose 'twas his right. I'll
let him stay a spell over to the Mills,
and he '11 be sure to get over his huff,
and be homesick and wore out with Mary
Lyddy's ramshackle ways, and I '11 go
over, just's if nothing had happened,
and fetch him home."

Harlow's Mills was an unattractive
village, which had grown up suddenly,
a few years before, around some small
manufactories. Mrs. Bryan's husband
had been a very successful, industrious
man, and it had been thought a most
lucky thing for her when he had fallen
in love with her pretty face, without
waiting to see what sort of character
lay behind it. He had done well in his
business, and kept everything straight
at home as long as he had lived ; but
when he died of fever, at the prime of
his life, he had saved only a small prop-
erty, and his inefficient wife was left to
fight her way alone. She surrendered
ignominiously, and had been tugged
along the path of life by her friends and
relatives, who grudged even their sym-
pathy more and more. " When you 've
lugged folks one mile, you like to see
'em try to go the next themselves, —
not sit right down in the road," Serena
Nudd had said more than once, and not
without reason. Poor Mary Lydia had
sheltered her laziness behind various

chronic illnesses, which had excused her
from active participation in the world's
affairs ; though when anything was go-
ing forward in which she cared, for any
reason, to join, it had often been noticed
that she would step forward with the
best. A funeral had such attractions
for her that nothing short of her own
death-bed would divert her attention or
keep her at home. She had vast re-
serves of strength and will, but she
passed most of her time in an unstrung,
complaining state. Her house was for-
lorn, and her boys had grown used to
her feeble protests and appeals, and
rarely took much notice of what she
. said except to escape from the whining
and scolding as soon as they could.
There was a good deal in her life which
was pitiable, but still more for which one
might blame her ; and it was her com-
fortless house, with its dreary, shaded,
unfruitful bit of land, to which the once
busy old farmer had fled for refuge.
The maple-frees that Henry Bryan had
planted had grown too luxuriantly in
that damp place, and the grass under-
neath was all in coarse tufts, mixed with
a rank growth of plantain leaves, be-
side a fine nursery of young burdocks
which that summer had started up un-
heeded in a corner-
Mr. Jenkins felt more and more sad-
dened and disturbed all the way, and
the drive to the Mills seemed very long
and hot. He had little to say to his
companion, though he sometimes com-
mented upon the different fields and
pastures that skirted the roads. One
neighbor's potatoes and another's corn
looked strong and flourishing ; he took
note of them with wistfulness. " I 'm
done, — I 'm done," he said once or
twice, half to himself. He stopped, at
last, at his daughter's door, and while
his companion took the little trunk
down from the wagon, he went in search
of the mistress of the house. There
was a strong odor of camphor in the

1883.]

A Landless Farmer.

761

darkened, close front room, and a voice
asked feebly who was there.

" I 've come to stop with you for a
spell," answered the old man. " I have
been laid up, and not good for much of
anything ; and Sereny, she carried too
many guns for me, and I thought, per-
haps you might like to have comp'ny."
There was a pathetic attempt at joking
which would have touched the heart of
a stone, and Mary Lyddy was quick
to catch at this advantage over her sis-
ter, and rose slowly from her couch.
The old man's eyes were blinded at
coming into this darkness from the glare
of sunlight without, and he could not
see a yard before him. He already felt
homesick, and would have given any-
thing if he had not brought the trunk,
which was just now set down on one
end, heavily, in the entry just behind
him.

" I 'm real pleased to see you, though
I wish you had come last week, when
I could have enjoyed you more. I
don't know when I have been so well
in health as I was last week, but to-day
I am so troubled with neurology in my
head that I can hardly live. I do' know
what there is for dinner. I told the
boys they must pick up a lunch some-
how or other, for I could n't go near
a stove; the heat of it would kill me.
We will get along somehow, though,"
she added, more cheerfully, suddenly
mindful of the man from the farm, and
anxious that he should not carry back
anything but a good report of her fa-
ther's reception. " I declare, it does me
good to see you ; " and she came for-
ward, and gave her guest, unwelcome as
he had been the moment before, a most
affectionate kiss. For all that, when
Washington Tufts had driven away
down the street, to do some errands at
the stores for Sereny before he went
home, Mr. Jenkins watched htm sadly
from the door, and felt as if he had
burnt his ships behind him.

But his daughter was very cheerful

all that day, and it seemed to him in
the evening as if he had done the right
thing. He would not look upon it as a
permanent change, by any means ; but
what could be more likely than that,
not being quite fit for work, he should
come to pay a visit to his younger
daughter? He imagined that everybody
would wonder at his being there, and
apologized for it elaborately to every
one who came in. He received a good

deal of attention for a time, being well
known in his county and much respect-
ed ; and he had long talks with Mrs.
Bryan, who dearly liked conversation,
and together they recalled people and
events of years before, and the house-
wifely virtues of Mrs. Jenkins, who
had been a busy and helpful soul, of
better sense and deeper affections than
either of her daughters. The farmer
was fond of saying " in your mother's
day," when he spoke to his children ;
indeed, the later years of his life had
been a sad contrast to the earlier, though
he had not felt the change and loss half
so keenly until the last few months, when
he could no longer spend an almost un-
tired strength and energy in the cease-
less round and routine of his work. Se-
rena Nudd was not over-fond of hear-
ing her mother's day referred to, and
resented the implied superiority to her
own ; but during the first of the visit
Mary Lyddy and her father talked about
the good woman to their hearts' content,
and Mr. Jenkins said that it seemed
more homelike than the old place itself
ever did nowadays. Serena's child was
not a pleasant boy, and he tired and
fretted his grandfather in a miserable
way. The young Bryans kept their
wrong-doings and laziness pretty well
out of the old man's sight, and their
mother forbore to harangue and scold
them in his hearing.

The novelty and mild excitement of
the visit appeared to act like a tonic
upon Mrs. Bryan for a time, but at
length her nature began to assert itself,

762

A Landless Farmer.

[June,

and her guest at the same time began to
be restless and uneasy in his new quar-
ters. He made short excursions about
the town, and read the newspaper with
unusual care ; but he was not used to
seeing a daily paper, and it was more
reading than he really liked to under-
take. One of the neighbors sent it to
him every day, with great kindness ; but
though he was in many ways well treat-
ed, it seemed to him more and more
that he could not bear any longer to be
away from home. He could not help
thinking and worrying about the farm
work ; he did not trust Aaron Nudd's
judgment about the management of
things, and he watched the street every
day anxiously, in the hope of seeing
Serena approach in quest of him. He
even lamented his impatience, and took
her part against himself. But as the
days went by, and she did not appear,
his heart failed him; for he had not
thought they would have found it so
easy to get on without him. Shut up in
the hot and noisy little village, and see-
ing every day so many people whom he
did not know, he longed for the farm-
house where he had spent all his life,
and he was homesick for the wide out-
look over the fields and woodlands, and
felt strangely lost and alone and old.

Mary Lyddy became querulous and
tiresome ; it would have made a differ-
ence to her if she had had hopes of gain,
and her father did not take long to dis-
cover that he was a burden to her as well
as to Serena. Mrs. Bryan had handed
him the bill for town taxes, and he had
looked at her with a grieved surprise.
" I have n't got the money to pay it, if
that 's what you mean," he said at length.
" I 'm kept on short commons, I tell
you. Serena was dreadful put out, one
day, because the dealer that takes the
butter called and paid his month's ac-
count, and I wanted part of it to pay
the minister ; she said Aaron had seen
to his and mine together, and went
graiuping round the kitchen the rest o'

the morning. I told her 't was the first
week since I was out o' my time that I
had been without a dollar in my pocket.
Aaron cut considerable of a piece o'
pine growth this last winter, but I never
could find out what become of the money.
One time he had n't got settled up, and
the next time he begun to squeal about
its taking every cent he could rake and
scrape to keep the farm above water.
He flung at me about my doctor's bills
once or twice ; miser'ble farmer he is,
any way. I 've got a little money they
don't know about in the North Bank, and
I '11 get you some of it quick 's I get a
chance to send : but I 've nobody but
Aaron, and I never want to say nothing
to him about it. I thought I might get
into a straiter place than any I 've been
in, and I 've been holding on to it.
'T ain't much, but it '11 do to bury me,
if they can't find the means."

" There, don't, father ! You make
my blood run cold," said Mary Lyddy
fretfully. " I 'm sure you can't doubt
but what we shall do what 's proper for
you, dead or alive. 1 felt 't was a mis-
take all the time that you should n't ha'
kept things in your own hands ; but Se-
reny talked all of us over at the time,
and — well, you should have thought
more about it before you did it, that's
all I 've got to say. I shall have to get
rid of this place, 'less the boys get to
earning something pretty soon, for it 's
more 'n I can afford to keep. I 'm worse
off than before I owned it, having no-
body to help along. Everything would
have gone well if poor Henry had only
lived ; " and she began to cry as if she
meant to give a good deal of time to
tears, and her father took his hat and
walked drearily away. It was his best
hat, and he often wished for the old one,
which he had left hanging on its nail at
the farmhouse.

He hoped that he might see some-
body from home, and looked at the
wagons and teams as they passed him ;
until presently somebody hailed him with

1883.]

A Landless Farmer.

763

a cheerful " Well, uncle, you 've been
and given haying the slip, this year."
When the old man turned, he found
with delight that it was Ezra Allen, and
declared that he was glad to see him.
It seemed as if he had n't seen any of
the folks for a month ; it had been the
longest week he had ever spent in his
life. " Get in, won't ye ? " said the
nephew, affectionately. " Why can't ye
ride over to Jack Townsend's with me ?
I want to see him about doing a lot of
ironing for my running work. I 've got
three or four wagons where I can't go
no further with them ; and Estes is sick,
and won't be able to work at blacksmith-
ing for some weeks. I want to take
hold of these things right away. I 'm
about through with what little haying
I do. Been a good hay year so far,
has n't it ? "

" I don't know much about it," sor-
rowfully confessed the old farmer, climb-
ing quickly into the wagon.

" Seems to me you are as quick as an
eel to what you was a month ago," said
Ezra. " You look about as well as ever
you did ; good for ten years yet, uncle
Jerry," and he started the horse at a
good pace. There never was a more
contented pair of relatives : the younger
man had wished for just this chance to
hear the particulars of the visit, and
the elder one was only too glad to fall
m with a sympathetic companion, who
had always been kind to him, and who
seemed now to have belonged to his
better days.

" How d' ye like it over here ? " in-
quired Ezra, turning round with a beam-
ing smile to take a good look at his
uncle.

"Well, fairly," answered Mr. Jen-
kins, without enthusiasm. " But old
folks is better off at home, seems to me.
Mary Lyddy does the best she knows
how ; but the girls don't neither of 'em
take after their mother, somehow or
'nother ; I don't know why it is. Sereny
kept me feeling like a toad under a har-

row, and seems as if I was in the way,
and sort of under-foot to both houses.
I done just as they wanted me 'long in
the winter, and give the reins into their
own hands ; but they don't like me none
the better for it, nor so well, far 's I can
see, and I don't know what to do. I
had n't been accustomed to sickness,
and when I was so afflicted in the cold
weather, and got down so low, I thought
I 'd got about through with things. You
know I 'd been ailing and doctoring
some months before I had the worst
spell come on. They never treated me
so clever as they did the time when I
was give over, and old Dr. Banks said
there wa'n't no help for me. But I 've
come up considerable, more 'n ever I
expected, and I 've had times of feel-
ing just like myself, of late ; and I see
how the land lays, and between you and
me, Ezry, I wish it was different. I Ve
had my day, though, and I don't want
to stand in the way of nobody else's
chance."

" Where 's Parker ? Do you get any
news from him? " asked Ezra, giving
the horse a flick with his whip, putting
it quickly in its socket, and taking a firm
hold of the reins. He knew that his
uncle was fond of a good horse, and he
was very proud of this new one, and
wished it to be noticed and praised.

" Don't hurry the beast," said the
old man ; " we 've got time enough, and
it kind of jars me, to what it used, to
ride fast. When I 'm after a likely
creatur', such as this, that can show a
good pace, I 'm satisfied. As for Par-
ker, I ain't heard from him for hard
on to eight months. He was n't prompt
about writing, and I 've been wanting
the girls to set to work and find out
about him. Serena goes into a dread-
ful frame o' mind if I much as mention
his name, and Mary Lyddy 's always
going to do it the next day. My eye-
sight 's failed dreadfully ; it 's better 'n it
was, but none too good. I did scratch
a few lines twice or three times, and

764

A Landless Farmer.

[June,

send them to the last place I knew him
to be in, and I directed once to the post-
master ; but he has made no answer yet,
BO I keep a-hopin'. Parker had his
faults, and perhaps I indulged him more
than was good for him, but he was more
like his mother 'n an}' of 'em. He and
Sereny never got along. I don't s'pose
she means it, but she 's got a dreadful
nagging way. I did let him have a
good deal o' money, and I don't know
but it was foolish. Parker 's got a
quick temper, same 's his mother had,
but it ain't Sereny's kind. She gnaws
and picks all day long about a thing she
don't like; but Parker '11 knock ye down
with one hand, and pick ye right up
again with the other. They 're always
warniu' me that he was onsteady, and a
disgrace to his folks ; but I have known
many a man that has had his fling, and
settled down and been useful afterwards.
Parker 's got good natural ability, and
I guess he '11 make his way yet if he
gets the right chance."

" I never could bear Aaron Nudd, if
I must say it," growled Ezra. " He
was distressin' himself the other day
into Henry Wallis's, about being afraid
all the time Parker might turn up, —
poor, wandering vagabone, he called
him. I 'd knocked him down, if I 'd
heard him. I mean to see if I can find
where Parker is. There ain't a cousin
I've got that I ever set so much by,
spite of his leanin' in wrong directions.
We 've always been chums, 'spite of his
being so much younger, — you know it,
don't ye, uncle Jerry ? And I 've al-
ways stood up for him ; I 'm going to
see if he can't have his rights, if you did
sign that paper."

The old man's voice faltered as he
tried to speak. " I do' know where I
could ask him to, if I did send for him
to come home now," he said. "If /
know anything about a hoss, this one is
the best you ever drove, Ezry. Where
did you pick her up ? Not round here,
I'll make a guess," and the conversa-

tion steered bravely out into this most
congenial subject to both travelers.

At ten o'clock that very morning
Susan Allen, Ezra's wife, was bending
over her ironing-board and bumping
away with her flat-iron, when some-
body suddenly came outside the window,
and laid his arms on the sill and looked
in. At first he seemed to be a stranger,
and Susan was chilled from head to
foot with fear ; but she stared and stared
again at the smiling face before she
spoke, and finally she clapped her
hands, and said, " I '11 give up if it
ain't, — Parker Jenkins ! I want to
know if that 's you ? " and this question
of his identity having been decided, the
young man strolled round to the door,
and came in as if he had never been
away.

" How 's all the folks ? " he asked.
" Where 's Ezra ? I looked in at the
shop first, but there was nobody there."

" We did n't know but you was
dead," said Susan, who was much ex-
cited. " Your father has been dreadful
distressed about you. I do think you
ought to have wrote him, Parker. But
you can make up with him easy enough ;
he '11 be glad enough to see you."

The visitor had looked very solemn
as he listened to the first mention of
his father's name, but his expression
quickly changed to a look of wild as-
tonishment. " Do you mean to tell me
father is n't dead ? " he said, rising to
his feet.

" Dead, no ! " answered Susan. " He
had a long spell of sickness, beginning
in the fall of the year, and we nil
supposed he was breaking up ; and
along in the first of the winter he had
a very bad time, when we give him up
for certain, and there was two days and
a night when they thought he might be
taken away any minute ; but he pulled
through " —

Parker had seated himself again, and
did not seem to be listening to this ac-

1883.]

A Landless Farmer.

765

count. He had put his head on his
arm down upon the ironing-board, and
was crying like a child. Susan felt as
if this were a somewhat theatrical per-
formance, and a little unnecessary. She
was vaguely reminded of his being ad-
dicted to drink, and of the story of the
Prodigal Son ; and then she noticed
how broad his shoulders had grown,
and that his coat was made of a beauti-
ful piece of cloth, and that he was quite
citified in his appearance.

" Don't take on so," she begged him
nervously, after a few minutes, for it
made her very ill at ease.

And the unexpected guest lifted his
head presently, and wiped his eyes with
a handsome, bright-colored silk hand-
kerchief. " I never had anything coine
over me so in my life," he said, begin-
ning to laugh in the midst of his tears.
" I must go right up to the house and
see him. Serena wrote me along in the
winter that they 'd give him up, and he
would n't be alive when I got the letter.
They did n't expect him to get through
the afternoon. I never heard any more
from her, and I 've mourned him as
dead. I wrote on to Ezra to tell me
the particulars ; for after finding Serena
did n't write again, I got mad with her,
and then I got mad with Ezra because
he didn't write, and 1 thought you were
all banded together to kick me over."

" He never got the letter," said Su-
san. "I hope to die if he ever did,
Parker. The last letter that ever come
inside this house from you was one Ezra
got, saying you were going out into the
mining country. You know you ain't
much of a hand to write, nor Ezra
neither ; but of course he would have
answered such a letter as that, and told
you your father was living. I don't
know but he '11 see him this morning.
The old gentleman went over to stop
with Mary Lyddy for a while."

Parker had been standing by the door
for the last few minutes, as if he were
impatient to be off; but he came back

wonderingly into the room again, and
Susan, after prefacing her remarks with
" Well, I may 's well tell you first as
last," embarked upon a minute explana-
tion of the state of affairs.

The young man seemed at last to be
able to listen to no more. He threw off
his coat, and sat by the window in his
shirt sleeves, and when he had kept
quiet as long as was possible he in-
dulged in some very strong language,
and expressed feelings toward his sister
Serena and Aaron Nudd that would
have startled them a good deal if they
had been within hearing. He was out-
raged at their conniving to get all the
property into their own hands in his ab-
sence, and at first he threatened them
with such terrors of the law that Susan
began to shake in her shoes, and be-
came as afraid of his anger as if she
had been only a mole burrowing in the
mountain side, which had started an
avalanche downward on its path of de-
struction. It was a solemn scene when
Parker Jenkins met his sister, later in
the afternoon ; but by that time Susan
had become so used to excitements of
this kind — her own explanations and
the accompanying comments having
been repeated after Ezra's return —
that she had a feeling of envy when
she saw her husband and his cousin
marching away toward the farmhouse.
" I don't know now what it was fetched
me here," Parker was saying. " I
made up my mind forty times that I
never would set foot inside town limits
again ; but I wanted to be sure every-
thing was right and proper in the bury-
ing lot, and it seemed as if you would
set some things straight that I could ri't
understand, any way I looked at 'em,
and I wanted to let folks see I had n't
quite run to seed."

Serena's face was a picture of de-
fenseless misery when she first caught
sight of her brother. She had had a

long, hard morning's work already, and

766

A Landless Farmer.

[June,

she felt guilty and on the losing side.
Parker had passed through his unrea-
soning storm of rage, and had sailed
into smoother but very deep waters of
contempt. He said very little beyond
remarking that, not having heard any-
thing after her last letter, he had sup-
posed that his father was dead. He an-
nounced in the course of conversation
that he had done well, on the whole, and
that he did not think he should return
to Colorado at present.

Serena was pale and crimson by turns,
and tried her best to be affectionate and
conciliatory. She ventured at last to
speak of her father, and to say that
somebody should go over to the Mills
and bring him home that very afternoon.
" We '11 have supper late, and he '11 be
here by that time. You '11 find him a good
deal changed, but it's nothing to what he
was in the winter," she said, fearfully.

Parker fixed his eyes on her, and
presently gave a contemptuous little
laugh. Ezra's excitement reached its
topmost pitch.

" Serena ! " said the returned wander-
er, " I should think you 'd be ashamed
to come near decent folks. I Ve no
right to boast, and I 've been a con-
founded fool, I '11 own, but I never set
to work to cheat folks, or to sneak, or
to lose folks' respect, so that I could
have one more dirty dollar tucked away
in the bank. As far as I can find out,
you have cheated me and Mary Lyddy
out of our rights, and you have treated
your poor old father anything but Chris-
tian. As for Aaron Nudd, I won't
have anything to say to such cattle.
The writings you got from father won't
stand one minute in the eye of the law,
but your false pretenses and your tricks
will, and if either of you make any
trouble I '11 just fix you so you '11 wish
you 'd held your peace. I may have
shown signs of being a scapegrace, and
being gone hook and sinker ; but I 'm
older than I was ,when I went off, and
though I dou't make no boasts, as I say,

I don't mean my folks shall ever be
ashamed of me. I 'm going over myself
to fetch father home, and afterward I 'm
going to stay here, and you can do as
you see fit."

It was only three or four days after
this that, late on a Sunday afternoon,
Parker and Ezra Allen stood on the little
bridge over the brook. Parker was fash-
ionably dressed. He had attracted a good
deal more attention than the minister,
that day, for he had accompanied his
father to church, and had received con-
gratulations on his return from all his
acquaintances. Old Mr. Jenkins was so
happy that he smiled continually, and
glanced round proudly at his son when
he should have been listening to the ser-
mon. It seemed to him a greater proof
of the providence of God than had ever
before been vouchsafed him, and he ap-
peared to have taken, as everybody said,
a new lease of life.

" Done well, out there among the
mines, you said ? " inquired Ezra, some-
what indifferently, though he was eager
to ask a few questions before any other
neighbor should join them.

" First rate," responded Parker ;
" though I have n't made the fortunes
some do. Trouble is, you either lose
all you 've got, or else you have luck,
and then get picked off with a bullet
from behind a bush. We struck a good
vein in a claim I had shares in, and some
fellows were out there from New York
wanting to buy a good mining property,
and — well, I'll tell you all about it
some day ; but the end of it was, I sold
out to them for twenty-five thousand
dollars. I think they chuckled over it
lively, and thought they 'd made an aw-
ful good thing out of me ; but I said to
myself that a bird in the hand 's worth
two in the bush. You see they had n't
been taking out much of any ore each
side of us. I had some thoughts of going
into business with a fellow I know in
New York. We come on East together

1883.]

A Landless Farmer.

but I don't know what I shall do. It
seems pleasant at the old place, and
father he holds on to me. I don't take
much to farming, but I 've thought a
good many times what a chance there
is to raise cranberries up here in the
swamp. I've got forty notions. I'll
wait a while before I settle down any-
where. I can afford to."

" Aaron Nudd told Asa Parsons yes-
terday that he guessed he should go
over to Harlow's Mills quick 's the crops
were in, and take a place in the boxing
room at the shoe factory they 've been
urging him to fill," said Ezra, with a
wise smile.

" I 'd just as soon he would, for my
part,-7' said Parker. " They 're both soft-
spoken and meaching as any two you
ever saw, and Sereny makes excuses
about things from morning to night,
worse than poor Mary Lyddy ever
thought of. I don' know, but I never
did seem to have a right sort o' feelin'
for the girls. But it pleases me to
death to see how satisfied the old gentle-
man is. It kind of makes me feel bad,
Ezra. I guess I shall steady down for
good ; but I 've seen something of hard
times and raking round, for a fellow of
my age. I ain't one to talk religious,
but I 'm going to look after father ; he
does set everything by me, don't he ?
And a more homesick man I never saw
than he was, sitting in the front door

' O

over there to Mary Lyddy's. He 's got
quite a notion, since I spoke of it, of
setting out a lot of cranberries. I point-
ed out to him how well the land lay for
it, and the springs watered it just right.
I 've seen a good deal of 'em down to-
wards the Cape. I was there some time,
you know, when I first cleared out from
home. But there, I 'm a roving fellow
by nature. I shan't make any plans yet
a while."

" There was an awful sight of water
come down out of the swamp this last
spring." said Ezra, turning to look at
the brook. " I 've always heard cran-

berries was an uncertain crop, and don't
you go throwing away your means till
you know what you 're about. But you
stick to the old gentleman, Parker; if
ever I pitied a man in my life, it was
him, this summer."

It was soon observed how Mr. Jerry
Jenkins had improved in health and
spirits since his son's return. He re-
sumed his place in society, and entered
upon such duties as fell to his share
with pleased alacrity. He was compli-
mented on his recovery, and though
some grumbling people, who always
chose to be on the off side, spoke with
pity of the Nudds, and expressed a sym-
pathy for Aaron's having undertaken
the farm only to be ousted, other people
thought of them with scorn. However,
worldly prosperity is one of the surest
titles to respect, and after it was known
that Aaron had bought an interest in
one of the shoe-manufacturing compa-
nies at Harlow's Mills he was looked
up to as much as he deserved, at any
rate, and possibly more. Some people
who knew him held him up as an exam-
ple of its being worth while to save and
be thrifty ; but Ezra Allen and others of
his way of thinking could not use hard
enough language to suit themselves,
whenever his name was mentioned.
Serena was much more popular in the
village than her sister. She dressed
conspicuously, as she thought became
her station, and she took an active part
in church matters, being very efficient
in the sewing society and the social re-
lations of the parish. She assented em-
phatically to all the doctrines, and in-
sisted upon the respectability of the
Christian virtues ; but it must be owned
that she practiced very few of them
which related to the well-being and com-
fort of other people. She and Aaron
and their boy drove out to the farm oc-
casionally, in a shiny top-buggy, to see
her father, and such visits were out-
wardly successful and harmonious.

768

A Landless Farmer.

[June,

At the farm itself life went on smooth-
ly. Mr. Jenkins had been troubled at
first with many fears, when he found
that Serena was really going to depart
early in the fall, after her brother's re-
turn, and he could not forbear some ex-
pressions of wonder at her sudden change
of feeling in regard to farming. She
constantly said that she had never liked
it, that it was a dog's life for any woman
to do the housework on a large farm ;
and her father only replied that her
tune had changed a good deal within a
year. He took a long breath as he saw
her go away in a heavily laden wagon,
which preceded the team in which her
household goods were being moved to
the Mills. She had waited until the
last minute, as if she feared that some
treasures might be abstracted from the
load. " She 's about stripped the house,"
said Mr. Jenkins, with a chuckle, as he
came back into the kitchen ; " but we '11
get along somehow, Parker." I 've done
the best I could by her, I know that ! "

Parker chuckled in his turn. "She 's
an awful grabber," said he. "I'm hanged
if I did n't catch her down cellar this
morning fishing into the pork barrel ;
she did n't hear me coming, and she was
started, and let a piece drop, and it sent
the brine all up into her face and eyes."

" It can't be possible that new barrel
is so low as that a' ready," said the old
man. " I guess she had made a good
haul before you come. Well, I 'm glad,
I 'm sure. I should n't want any child
o' mine to be without pork. And there
was times Sereny was right down clever
and pleasant spoken. I don't blame her
for wanting to be where there is more
going forrard, if she takes a notion to it."

As for Parker Jenkins, he settled
down on the old farm, as many another
New Englishman has done, after two or
three voyages at sea, or long journeys in
quest of wealth to California or Texas
or the Western country. He looked
upon himself as being much more a man

of the world than his neighbors, and hia
consideration for his old father was most
delightful. The housekeeping went on
well enough under the auspices of a
cousin, a good, sensible woman, who was
set adrift just in good time for these two
unprotected men by the death of her
own father, who had been for some
years dependent on her care. It was
soon known, however, that the chief
reason of young Jenkins's contentment
with so quiet a life was his attraction,
toward a pretty daughter of his neigh-
bor, Asa Parsons, who was only too
ready to smile upon so pleasant and
good-looking a person, while her father
and mother were mindful of his wealth.
So we leave the old fanner, no longer
feeling cast off and desolate, to live out
the rest of his days. He forgot even
the worst of his sorrows in that unhappy
winter and summer. It seemed as if
most of them had been fanciful and con-
nected with his illness. Serena was apt
to be reminded oftener and oftener, as
he grew older, of how impossible he
found it to get on comfortably without
his old secretary, and she came to re-
gret deeply that her love for gain had
allowed her to part with it, when the
craze for old furniture reached Harlow's
Mills in its most unreasoning form, and
a piece of furniture that could be called
centennial was a credit to its owner.

The old man often said that his ill-
ness had broken him down ; and that
he had never been the same man since.
Those of his neighbors who had known
his sorrows, and the pain which had
been harder to bear than the long sick-
ness itself, were glad that this blessed
Indian summer had come to him to
warm him through and through, and
smile upon him in the late autumn of
his life's year.

Heaven only knows the story of the

lives that the gray old New England

. farmhouses have sheltered and hidden

away from curious eyes as best they

might. Stranger dramas than have

1883.]

The Biography of Two Famous Songs.

769

ever been written belong to the dull-
looking, quiet homes, that have seen
generation after generation live and die.
On the well-worn boards of these pro-
vincial theatres the great pjays of life,

the comedies and tragedies, with their
lovers and conspirators and clowns ;
their Juliets and Ophelias, Shylocks and
King Lears, are acted over and over and
over again.

Sarah Orne Jewett.

THE BIOGRAPHY OF TWO FAMOUS SONGS.

EXCURSIONS into Ballad- Land are
not now regarded as altogether literary
trifling. We have found out that, as
proverbs embody a nation's practical ex-
perience, songs express audibly its heart
and its imagination. When Addison de-
voted two numbers of the Spectator —
70 and 74 — to an old song, he did it
with an air of patronage, and was evi-
dently afraid the plaything might tum-
ble his ruffles ; but editors are now lit-
erary radicals, and a popular song is as
likely to catch their ear as an historical
essay, or the sections of a new law.
Without being inclined to indorse alto-
gether the hackneyed aspiration about
law-makers and song-makers, it is un-
deniable that learned men have made
songs which, in their widespread and en-
during influence, have moulded national
character and national events.

When the Rev. John Skinner wrote
Tullochgorum, had he any idea that this
one song would link his name with that
of Burns and Auld Lang Syne, in per-
ennial honor and affection ? Yet Rob-
ert Chambers says, " Certainly, no song
has taken a deeper hold on the affec-
tions of the people, or attained a wider
celebrity. It is sung at our social
gatherings, printed in every ' collection,'
and there are few Scotch people who
cannot quote some of its sparkling, pithy
lines." For instance, when speaking
of the tunes of other countries, what
Scotchman will not answer, —

"I wadna gie our ain strathspeys
For half a hunder score o' them."

VOL. LI. — NO. 308.

Burns called Tullochgorum " the best
Scotch song Scotland ever saw ; " and
as a social song it stands to-day with
Auld Lang Syne. But unlike Auld
Lang Syne, the words will not, except
in rare cases, recall the name of the
man who wrote them. The memory of
Burns is inseparable from his works,
but very few have heard of the Rev.
John Skinner. He was born in 1721, at
Balfour, Aberdeenshire, where his father
was school-master, and he very early
gave indications of great ability. At
twelve years of age he was a fine Latin
scholar, and at thirteen competed suc-
cessfully for one of the most valuable
bursaries in Marischal College. When
scarcely out of his minority he was hap-
pily married, and in charge of a small
Episcopalian congregation at Longside,
in his native county. This was his only
church : in it he ministered for sixty-
five years, and before old age compelled
him to sever the tie he had the unusual
experience of serving under a bishop
who was in an ecclesiastical sense his
father, but in a natural sense his son.

Soon after receiving his preferment
there came that " news from Moidart "
which roused the clans in every glen
and misty island : —

" Ships o' war hae just come in
And landed Koyal Charlie."

John Skinner's whole heart was with
the Stuart rising, and after the fatal
field of Culloden he suffered severely.
The Episcopalians, being almost univer-
sally Jacobites, were subjected to very

770

The Biography of Two Famous Songs.

[June,

cruel oppressions, and the clergy were
special objects of resentment. Their
houses were plundered, their churches
destroyed, and their lives in constant
danger. In 1746 a law was passed
making it illegal for them to officiate to
more than four persons, beside the mem-
bers of their own household ; and two
years later they were forbidden even
" to exercise the function of a chaplain in
any family." The penalty for infring-
ing these enactments was imprisonment
for the first offense, and exile from
Britain for the second. Mr. Skinner
evaded the law in its letter for several
years ; his little congregation gathered
around his cottage, and he read the ser-
vices of the church to them through an
open window. But he was finally ap-
prehended in the discharge of this duty
and suffered a six months' imprison-
ment.

Yet, though he loved the creed of his
adoption, he had not an atom of bigotry
in his nature. One day, while passing a
Dissenting chapel, a psalm was being
sung, and he reverently lifted his hat
and walked on uncovered. The friend
who was with him said in amazement,
" John Skinner ! Don't you know those
people are anti-burghers ? " " Ah ! "
he replied ; " but they are singing to the
glory of God, and I respect and love
any of my fellow creatures who are so
engaged."

At that time the rural population
were not only bigoted, they were also
very ignorant. On one occasion, when
a farmer was spending an evening with
Mr. Skinner, the conversation turned
upon the motion of the earth.

" It 's the sun gaes roun' the earth,
and the earth ne'er gaes oot o' the pairt,"
said the farmer ; " forbye, doesna the
Scriptures say the Lord commanded the
sun to stan' still ? "

" Just so," replied the minister : " it is
very true that the sun was commanded
to stand still ; and there he stands still,
for he never was commanded to take the

road again," — a mode of reasoning far
more satisfactory to the man than the
most accurate scientific demonstration
would have been.

Though ,Mr. Skinner's salary was
never more than forty pounds a year,
and his manse but a thatched cottage, he
was a man of eminence, both as a scholar
and a theologian. He assisted Dr. Gleig,
who had then the management of tke
Encyclopaedia Britannica, in the prepa-
ration of many articles for that work ;
and he wrote an elaborate Ecclesiastical
History of Scotland, besides many po-
lemical papers and tracts ; but it is the
song of Tullochgorum that keeps the
very memory of these things alive.

Tullochgorum had a kindly, pleasant
origin. There was a meeting of clergy-
men at Ellon, a small village in Aber-
deen shire ; and several of them were en-
tertained by a lady named Montgomery.
After dinner an eager political dispute
arose. There were men there who still
drank "the health of the King over
the water ; " and the Whig clergy, who
clung to the House of Hanover, did not
have much brotherly affection for them.
The argument waxed hotter and hotter,
and Mrs. Montgomery, to put an end to
it, asked Mr. Skinner for a song; ex-
pressing her surprise that he had never
written words for the fine old reel of
Tullochgorum."

" It 's af ten ye hae written a sang to
pleasure ye 're ain lasses, Mr. Skinner ;
noo, then, ye '11 just gie me ane to the
reel o' Tullochgorum." The request
was almost immediately gratified, and
the first verse of the song aptly recalls
the circumstances of the composition.
It was published in the Scot's Maga-
zine in 1776, some time after its pro-
duction. Burns was then a lad of sev-
enteen years old, and likely enough
saw it immediately afterwards ; for it
took the popular heart by storm, and was
speedily scattered over the whole land in
those penny broadsheets which consti-
tuted the popular literature of the day.

1883.]

The Biography of Two Famous Songs.

771

TULLOCHGORUM.

COME gie 's a sang, Montgomery cry'd,
And lay your disputes all aside,
What signifies "t for folks to chide

For what was done before them :
Let Whig and Tory all agree,

Whig and Tory, Whig and Tory,

Whig and Tory all agree

To drop their Whig-mig-morum ;
Let Whig and Tory all agree
To spend the night wi' mirth and glee,
And cheerfu' sing alang wi' me

The Reel o' Tullochgorum.

0" Tullochgorum 's my delight,

It gars us a' in ane unite,

And ony sumph that keeps a spite,

In conscience I abhor him :
For blythe and cheerie we '11 be a',

Blythe and cheerie, blythe and cheerie,

Blythe and cheerie we '11 be a',

And mak' a happy quorum ;
For blythe and cheerie we '11 be a'
As lang as we hae breath to draw,
And dance till we be like to fa'

The Reel o' Tullochgorum.

What needs there be sae great a fraise
Wi' dringing dull Italian lays,
I wadna gie our ain strathspeys

For half a hunder score o' them ;
They 're dowf and dowie at the best,

Dowf and dowie, dowf and dowie,

Dowf and dowie at the best,

Wi' a' their variorum;
They 're dowf and dowie at the best,
Their allegros and a' the rest,
They canna' please a Scottish taste

Compar'd wi' Tullochgorum.

Let wardly worms their minds oppress
Wi' fears o' want and double cess,
And sullen sots .themsells distress

Wi' keeping up decorum :
Shall we sae sour and sulky sit,

Sour and sulky, sour and sulky,

Sour and sulky shall we sit

Like old philosophorum !
Shall we sae sour and sulky sit
Wi' neither sense, nor mirth, nor wit,
Nor ever try to shake a fit,

To th' Reel o' Tullochgorum?

May choicest blessings aye attend
Each honest, open-hearted friend,
And calm and quiet be his end,

And a' that 's good watch o'er him ;
May peace and plenty be his lot,

Peace and plenty, peace and plenty,

Peace and plenty be his lot,

And dainties a great store o' them ;
May peace and plenty be his lot,
Unstain'd by any vicious spot,
And may he never want a groat

That 's fond o' Tullochgorum.

But for the sullen, frumpish fool,
That loves to be oppression's tool,
May envy gnaw his rotten soul,
And discontent devour him;
May dool and sorrow be his chance,
Dool ayd sorrow, dool and sorrow,
Dool and sorrow be his chance,
And nane say, wae's me for him ;
May dool and sorrow be his chance
Wi' a' the ills that come frae France,
Wha e'er he be that winna dance
' The Reel o' Tullochgorum.

When Burns paid his visit to the
North in 1787, he met Bishop Skinner,
the bard's son, in Aberdeen. During
the conversation Burns asked the bish-
op, " Didna your father write also The
Ewie wi' the Crookit Horn ? " " Yes,"
was the reply. " Oh ! an' I had the
loun that did it," Burns continued, in
a rapture of praise, " only to tell him
how I love his truly Scottish muse ! "
When he subsequently remarked that
he had been at Gordon Castle and
Peterhead, the bishop said, " Then you
were within four Scot's miles of Tul-
lochgorum's dwelling." Burns was very
much disappointed at not having known
this, and Mr. Skinner was equally sorry
to have missed seeing the famous plow-
man poet. But he at once wrote to
Burns, and proposed a correspondence ;
the epistle being in verse, which recalls
Burns's own style : —
"Wae's my auld heart, I wasna wi' you,

Tho' worth your while, I couldna gie you,

But sin' I hadna hap to see you
Whan ye was North

I 'm bauld to send my service to you
Hj'ne o'er the Forth."

The closing verses of this letter are dig-
nified by a fine touch of devotion, well
becoming the message of an old poet to
a young one : —

"An hour or sae, by hook or crook,
And maybe twa, some orra ouk
That I can spare from holy book,

For that 's my hobby,
I '11 slip awa' to some bye neuk

And crack wi' Robbie.

" Sae canty ploughman, fare ye weel,
Lord bless you lang wi' hae and heil,
And keep you aye the honest chiel

That ye hae been ;
Syne lift you to a better biel

When this is dane."

772

The Biography of Two Famous Songs.

[June,

A strong attachment and an interest-
ing correspondence followed, and in a
letter dated October 25, 1787, Skinner
says, " While I was young I dabbled a
good deal in these things, but on getting
the black gown I gave it pretty much
over, till my daughters grew up, who,
being all tolerably good singers, plagued
me for words to some of their favorite
tunes, and so extorted those effusions
which have made a public appearance
beyond my expectations; at the same
time that I hope there is nothing to be
found in them unbecoming the cloth,
which I would always wish to see re-
spected."

Skinner looked forward to a long
and honored career for his peasant-poet
friend, and had written to him thus : —
" But thanks to praise, ye 're i' TOUT prime,

And may chant on, this lang, laug time,

For, let me tell you, 't war a crime

To baud yonr tongue ;

Wi' eic a knack's ye hae at rhyme,
And ye sae young."

Yet Burns had been lying eleven years
in Dumfries churchyard when Skinner
died. They were " a noble twain " in
their warm and disinterested affection,
and Burns bears this honorable testi-
mony to his friend: " He is one of the
worthiest of mankind." It is this fact
which illumines the whole life of the
simple parish priest. The district in
which he lived was one of the most deso-
late in Scotland : a great moor, unbro-
ken by tree, or shrub, or house. But
there was always light and warmth
and welcome in the minister's cottage.
** What a consolation have I ! " the good
man used to say : " my taper never burns
in vain ; for should it fail to cheer my-
self and family, it seldom fails to cheer
and guide some solitary traveler ; " and
indeed he could not go to rest with
comfort while there was the chance of
any human creature crossing the loneJy
moor.

Undoubtedly, John Skinner was a
happy man, in spite of his poverty, for
it is of himself he write* in die Stipend-

less Parson and the Old Man's Song ;
the latter, in spite of its odd metre, a
worthy companion to " John Anderson,
my jo, John." The following three
stanzas are from it : —

" We began in the world wi' naething, O,
And we 've jogg'd on, and toil'd lor the ae

thing, O;

We made use of what we had,
And our thankful hearts were glad,
When we got the bit meat and the claithing, 0.

" What tho' we cannot boast of our guineas, Of
We have plenty of Jockies and Jeanies, 0 ;

And these, I am certain, are

More desirable by far
Than a bag full of poor yellow steinies, 0.

" And when we leave this poor habitation, O,
We '11 depart with a good commendation, O;

We '11 go hand in hand, I wiss,

To a better house than this,
To make room for the next generation, O."

His wife, however, went first. They
had lived together in a rare felicity for
fifty-eight years, and Skinner was nearly
eighty when she left him. But he bore
the loss with characteristic serenity and
hopefulness, and when Ferguson of Pit-
four wrote to ask " what he could do to
make him comfortable " answered, —
" Xow in my eightieth year, my thread near spun,
My race through poverty and labor run,
Wishing to be by all my flock beloved,
And for long service by my Judge approved,
Death at my door, and heaven in my eye,
From rich or great, what comfort now need I ? "

Seven years after this event, his son,
Bishop of Aberdeen, pressed him to
come and spend his last days with him ;
and he accepted this invitation with a
frank pleasure, writing thus : " I cor-
dially embrace your proposal, and am
making preparations to be with you,
God willing, next week. ... I wish
much to see once more my children's
grandchildren, and peace upon Israel."

Then he resigned the flock he had
lovingly tended for nearly sixty-five
years, and removed to Aberdeen. On
the twelfth day afterwards, being then
eighty-six years old, he fell asleep, with-
out a struggle or a sigh, in the arms of
his beloved son.

Just about the time that Skinner

1883.]

The Biography of Two Famous Songs.

773

wrote the song of Tullochgorum, the
University of Aberdeen took a most un-
usual step. It sought out a priest of
the Church of Rome, and voluntarily
conferred on him the degree of LL. D.
This man, selected from the papal ranks
by a Presbyterian body as worthy of
honor, was Alexander Geddes ; and he
was the first Roman Catholic on whom
it had been bestowed by this seat of
learning since the Reformation. The
honor — for such it was undoubtedly re-
garded— was not given in recognition
of any special or splendid literary or
theological attainments, but simply for
a catholicity so broad and grand and
genial that even the stern, narrow, cov-
enanting spirit of that day acknowledged
and admired it. Loyal to the Church
of Rome and her traditions, he had the
kindliest feeling towards all men, no
matter by what religious name they were
known ; and he not only held pleasant
social intercourse with Protestant min-
isters, but not seldom had been present
at their worship. This conduct did not
commend itself to his superiors. He
was ordered to renounce all heretics,
or resign his charge. He gave up his
charge, though he remained hi full al-
legiance to his order. It was to mark
its sympathy with the priest in this crisis
of his life that the University of Aber-
deen gave him a degree. But in other
respects the man was well worthy of it.
He was a fine Hebrew, Greek, and
Latin scholar, and had also an intimate
and practical knowledge of French, Ger-
man, Spanish, and Low Dutch ; while
in biblical history his attainments were
wide and far-reaching. There was prob-
ably another reason why the Senatus
of Aberdeen espoused his cause : he was
a Scotsman, and a Scot of that part of
the country from which the great north-
ern university draws most of its students.
Dr. Geddes was born in Banffshire,
and he inherited his singularly broad
religious sympathies ; for although his
father and mother were Catholics, they

sent him to a school where the Shorter
Catechism was a text-book, Reasons,
and Reasons Annexed included ; and
also permitted him to read the Protes-
tant version of the Scriptures. He stud-
ied subsequently at the Roman Catholic
school of Sculan, which was situated in
such a deep and dismal glen that the
sun was not visible there for many
months in the year. " Pray be so kind,"
Geddes wrote to a friend, " as to make
particular inquiries after the health of
the sun ; fail not to present my compli-
ments, and tell him I still hope some
day to renew my personal acquaintance
with him."

In his twenty-seventh year he became
chaplain to the Earl of Traquare. He
was handsome, polished, and clever, and
a young relative of the earl's fell deeply
in love with the fascinating priest Her
love was ardently returned, but his vows
and his honor alike forbade the affec-
tion, and after a bitter struggle with
himself he bade farewell to love and
Traquare, and, hiding himself among the
libraries of Paris, strove to forget, amid
abstruse learning, one fair, haunting face.

After many years he returned to
Scotland, and built up a noble church,
but his utter want of sectarian policy
again brought on him the censure of
his bishop ; and as he persistently re-
fused to believe that all stones would be
rejected save those fashioned by Rome,
he was again suspended. Then the
Earl of Traquare, remembering the no-
ble conduct of the young priest years
before, became his warm friend, and
procured him the office of priest to the
Austrian embassy. The duties of this
position were so light that he began at
once a task which he had long contem- •
plated, — a translation of the Bible for
English Catholics. When the first vol-
ume appeared, Protestants and Catholics
alike condemned it ; not for any in-
accuracy, but for the author's own criti-
cal remarks, he having raised the same
doubts and questions that in more re-

774

Carlyle and Emerson.

[June,

cent times are associated with Bishop
Colenso's name. In the second volume
he was no more prudent, and the work
was a financial failure ; but so thorough-
ly was the man loved and respected that
the clergy of the time — Protestant and
Catholic alike — contributed a sum of
money sufficient to free him from pecu-
niary annoyance and obligation.

He died in 1802, and biographical
notices of that date speak highly of his
polemical and theological works, and say
that, in addition, he wrote " some indif-
ferent songs." Posterity has reversed
this judgment. His learned writings
are forgotten, his translation of the
Bible is a curiosity, and the " indiffer-
ent " poems are the link between Dr.
Geddes and all future lovers of Scotch
song. Indeed, if he had written noth-
ing but that most touching of all Jaco-
bite songs, " Oh ! send Lewie Gordon
hame," he would never be forgotten.

The Pretender was of course " the
lad we daurna name," and Lewie Gor-
don was the third son of the Duke of
Gordon. In the rising of 1745, the
head of the house remained faithful to
the house of Hanover ; but young Louis

went with the clans, and after Culloden
had to flee the country. All the Gor-
dons sympathized with them, and his
sister, the Countess of Aberdeen, a very
beautiful woman, stopped the Duke of
Cumberland on the highway to reproach
him with his brutality. "Who are
you ? " he asked, bluntly enough. She
lifted her head defiantly, and answered
not, I am Countess of Aberdeen, but " I
am the sister of Lord Louis Gordon."

The exquisite words were set to a
fine old air, once sung in the Roman
church as a Sanctus, and which may yet
be found in Whittaker's Church Music
as a hymn harmonized for four voices.
But never did words and music fit each
other more perfectly ; almost any lover
of Scotch song and Scotch music would
declare that they must have come from
one and the same inspiration. Perhaps
it was so, because in this case the mu-
sician's lyre was the musician's heart,
and from the sorrow aud disappointment
of life came the touching little song, —

"Oh! send Lewie Gordon hame,
And the lad I daurna name ;
Though his back be at the wa',
Here 's to him that 's far awa'."

Amelia Barr.

Lu.

happy m
it is of him.

CARLYLE AND EMERSON.

A BALE-FIRE kindled in the night,

By night a blaze, by day a cloud,

With flame and smoke all England woke, —

It climbed so high, it roared so loud.

While over Massachusetts' pines
Uprose a white and steadfast star;
And many a night it hung unwatched, —
It shone so still, it seemed so far.

But Light is Fire, and Fire is Light;
And mariners are glad for these, —
The torch that flares along the coast,
The star that beams above the seas.

Montgomery Schuyler,

1883.]

Bridget's Story.

lib

BRIDGET'S STORY.

WELL, miss, you see the trouble is,
Ellen gets a bit religious now an' then,
an' spends more > time prayin' than may
be the Lord requires of a woman as 'as
a big family to see to. She 's a nice
woman tho', an* 'as a good 'ead to 'er,
steadier nor 'er 'usband's. 'E 's stylish-
like, an' 'e 'd be pleased if she 'd go with
finer sort o' company nor she do. She
just laughs at 'im, an' says, " Oh, bah,
John, you '11 never catch me a-runnin'
after my betters. Them as was good
enough for us when we was yoong is
good enough now we is old."

" 'E 'd like me," says she, " to be
dressed in satin from Monday to Satur-
day, let alone Sunday; an' 'ow would
the washin' an' the bakin' fare then ? "

I think mysel' Ellen had the rights
of it. She 's just a common, nice body,
an' what 'ould be the use o' 'er trickin'
'ersel' out like a gran' leddy. It 's only
people in this country as try to make
themsel's look yoong, an' finer nor their
condition. I think it 's ridic'lous for
owld women to fix themsel's out like
yoong wenches. I like to see the qual-
ity dress up, but it 's not allays the gran'-
est as go the gayest. I remember, in
England, the first time the Queen coom
to Chatsworth after she was married.
The Duke 'ad an eye on the Queen
when she was yoong, an' she coom there ;
an' for five or six weeks before, all the
gentry was givin' the owld women round
about new petticoats an' new shoes, so 's
they should look nice for the Queen to
see. I 'ad a sister in service at Chats-
worth, an' so we went over there from
where we lived in Lancashire. I 'm
Irish born, you know, but we 'd lived in
Lancashire since I wur a little child,
an' folks say as I spake nayther like the
Irish nor the English. I 'm just 'alf an'
'alf, a kind of a mixed creatur' at best.
I know the Lancashire di-log, but I don't

spake it often ; my father never liked to
hear it in the 'ouse, for he wur an edu-
cated man. Well, we took a spring
cart an' drove to Chatsworth, the night
before the Queen coom, an' we lodged
in a public 'ouse, the whole on us in
one room, all but my father, as 'ad a
friend in the town, an owld man, who
took 'im 'ome to 'is 'ouse.

The next day we went to the park,
an' they ranged us along to see the
sight, with the smaller children in front.
An' when the Queen coom, why, she 'ad
on just a black silk gown, with never a
flounce nor a tuck on it, — not so much as
a tuck. She wore mud boots, too, laced
up at the side, an' 'er 'air brought down
on 'er forehead, an' then brushed back
plain, an' twisted behind 'er 'ead ; not a
fashionable knob, nayther, — nothing but
a little twist. She coom along, an' be-
hind was the nurse with the Queen's
child, carryin' it out so in 'er arms ; an'
the Queen spoke to the woman, an' she
coom close to where we was stan'in',
so 's I put out my 'and an' touched the
child's dress, as was long, an' soft, an'
white. She 'eld it down so 's we could
all see it, an' then another maid took it
an' cart-ied it off to show to the people
in another part o' the park.

Then two men took the gran' cushions
out o' the Queen's carriage, an' lifted
all the little lads an' wenches into the
carriage. Eh, but they throwed thenv
sel's back an' sat down, afore they were
lifted out the other side. They went
streamin' in an' out, an' I was among
'em. I have sat in the Queen's carriage !

Aw well, — it 's a long road from
the Queen at Chatsworth to Ellen Mc-
Kiernan an' 'er man up 'ere, but now
my lines are cast among such as the
McKiernans.

Mr. McKiernan is a bit yoonger nor
she, an' 'e 's like a man yoonger nor

776

Bridget's Story.

[June,

'e is, an' that, I think, 'elps to make a
little trouble between 'em, off an' on.
Then Tom, the eldest boy, is 'is father's
idol ; but when the lad took to bad ways,
drinkin', idlin' nights, an' gamblin',
Ellen did not like it, an' fussed about it,
while the father, as ought to ha' known
better, said, —

"Whisht, let the lad alone. Yoong
men must 'ave their fling. I was just
like 'im at 'is age."

" The more shame to you ! " cried
Ellen, " for tellin' on it afore the chil-
der, an' spakin' light o' the laws of God
V man."

So she turned to Tom, an' says she,
" Tom, I worked in the mill day-times,
an' I worked in the 'ouse nights, when
I was the mother of seven small chil-
der ; an' you, as 'as nothin' but a man's
part to do in this world, 'ill never know
'ow 'ard a woman's lot can be. I never
shirked my work, for I wanted to give
you schoolin', an' 'ave you larn a good
trade. I kept you at school till you was
fourteen, when all yer mates went in
the mill at twelve year old, an' yoonger ;
an' now you 're twenty, you 've larned
the machinist's trade, you can do for
yersel', an' I won't put up with your
coomin' 'ome late nights, makin' a row,
bringin' drink an' bad company in the
'ouse, an' tachin' bad ways to your broth-
ers an' sisters. If you cannot coom
peaceable, an' in due season, you must
go somewheres else to board."

She spoke up pretty fierce, but she
had n't no more thought the lad 'ould go
away nor she 'ad that the man in the
moon 'ould coom down to live wid her.
But the father said as if the boy went
'e 'd go too ; an' then she wur mad, an'
says she, —

" Ye 'd better be off wid ye, John
McKiernan, than stoppin' at 'ome, up-
howldin' the boy in bad ways. A man
o' your age ! Ye 'd better be on your
knees a-sayin' your prayersJ'

Then the father an' sou marched off,
'oldiii' up their 'eads like soldiers ; an'

they both stopped out late that night,
an' coom 'ome a-roarin' an' singin'.
John McKiernan is quite a pote; 'e
makes little rhymes, an' puts the words
in their places so 's the verses coom out
right ; an' when 'e coom into the kitchen,
a-racketin' an' a-knockin' over the chairs
in the dark, 'e was singin' away verses
about Ellen 'ersel', as 'e 'd made up.
She 'eared 'im, but she spake never a
word, only bolted 'er bedroom door fast ;
while 'e begins to sing, When I was
a Bachelor, an owld Irish song, as I
'ave 'eared my father sing when I was
a bit of a girl. There 's not manny folk
as know it now. I can say it in Irish
an' English both. 'E shouted out in the
dead o' night, the most aggeravatin' of
all the verses : —

" I fancied the mopsey,
Her fortune 'as deceived me,
It makes me cry an' often sigh,
The shirt I cannot wear it.

" When I rise in the morning,
I go to my labor,
I never do coom 'ome,
Till duskes cooms on fairly.

" I find me cabin dirty,
An' me bed, it 's in bad order,
Me wife is cabin hearing,
An' me baby always bawlin'."

That was n't a pleasin' song for Ellen
to 'ear, an' it wur n't true, nayther ; for
she 's not a mopsey, but a clean, decent
body, as keeps a nice 'ouse, an' does n't
run round to the neighbors no more'n
is reasonable for a live woman, as does
n't expect to wrap 'erseP up in a sheet,
an' keep as distant from folks as a
ghost.

When 'e 'ad finished the verses, an'
was just beginnin' again When I was a
Bachelor, McKiernan tries the bedroom
door, an' finds it locked on 'im. So
then 'e swears, an' Ellen spakes for the
first time, an' calls through the key-
hole, —

" I 've got the childer in 'ere, an'
I 've spent the night a-prayin' for you.
You an' Tom may go up to the attic ;

1883.]

Bridget's Story.

Ill

an' my counsel is for you to get on yer
knees yersel'."

Then there was more row, an' at the
last Mr. McKiernan an' 'is son both
posted off; an' the Lord knows where
they passed the night.

In the mornin' the father coom an'
fetched 'is clothes an' the lad's, an' they
both took board together nigh to the
mill, where Mr. McKiernan is a spin-
ner.

Ellen took it pretty lofty at first.

" It 's well they 're away," said she.
" The owld man was daft about the lad,
an' I '11 not deny 'e 's a 'andsome, well-
lookin' boy ; but if there 'd 'a' been a
robbery or a murder in the street, an'
Tom 'ad been arrested on us, we could
not have accounted for 'im, for 'alf the
time we did not know where 'e was.
As for the man, we Ve lived together
two an' twenty year, an' now, if 'e 's
minded to go away, I '11 niver go after
'im, nor ask 'im to coom back, — no,
not so much as walk by Mrs. Flinn's
'ouse, where 'e boards. I counseled 'im
in good ways, an' the ways o' the church,
an' I '11 not make any lamentation be-
cause 'e 's gone. It 's every day such
things 'appen, a man leaves 'is woman.
Lettin' alone is the best treatment for
'em."

For all 'er talk, I often seed 'er eyes
was red, an' she went to church steadier
'n ever, an' she 'ad the childer an'
'erseF a prayin' a good bit o' the time.

There was another in trouble, too, an'
that was little Rosie Roberts, a pretty
girl, with yellow 'air as looks like a
dandelion. She 'd set 'er 'eart on Tom
McKiernan, but 'er folks was always
agin it. They was pretty 'igh-toned
people. The mother kep' a store, an'
the father was on the train. They
looked 'igh for Rosie, an' the mother
watched 'er like a cat. They was Protes-
tants too, an' the difference of religion
made troubles both sides. For my part,
I think as we all worships the same
God, — still, I confess as what he 'as

ordained he 'as ordained, an' it '11 stan'
forever ; an' them as does n't go to mass
misses a blessing, sure, as they might
'ave ; for the mass is a holy thing as
'ull do anybody good, an' not Catholics
alone.

I 'm not goin' to say as it 's well for
Protestants an' Catholics to wed, but I
always liked Rosie, an' when I see 'ow
'er 'eart was set on Tom, I was such
a great fool as I thought the religion
'ould not make so much 'arm, for she
wur not one to argue, an' I wished Tom
'ould behave himsel' an' marry 'er, an'
be a good man to 'er, for I does like to
see young folks 'appy.

But oh, when Tom was out o' 'is
mother's eye, it seemed as if 'e would
go to the devil straight, for Mr. McKier-
nan could no more manage the lad nor
a three-year old child could fly a six-
foot kite. The boy went from bad to
worse, an' Mr. Roberts forbade 'im the
'ouse entirely, an' Rosie's eyes was red-
der 'n Ellen's.

I coomed by Mr. Roberts' one night,
an' I seed Rosie hangin' over the gate,
talkin' with Tom, outside. There was
a bright moon, an' I seed the sad look
was gone from 'er bonny face, which
was all dimples an' smiles. But. as I
was a-staring at 'er, out coom Mr. Rob-
erts, like a turkey gobbler rushin' at a
red rag, an' dragged Rosie in, swearin' as
she should not go to shame right out of
'er father's door. Tom started after, but
Rosie cried out for 'im to go away ; an'
Missis Roberts an' a lot more women
coom out, a-talkin' an' yellin', an' they
got the girl in, an' shut the door, an'
left Tom outside fightin' wid Rosie's
brother.

I coom away then, for I spied the
policeman a-coomin' up the street ; an'
that 's a sight as 'as a won'erful power
to put a stop to an old woman's curi-
osity.

I went into Missis Roberts's store
the next day, an' Rosie was there, with
'er little sister in 'er lap, — a baby as is

778

Bridget's Story.

[June,

fretful, an' always wants summun to be
settin' under 'er. Rosie looked very
pale, but 'er mother looked black. The
super of the Sunday-school was there,
a sayin', —

" Missis Roberts, I 'm very sorry as
Rosie should ha' set gossip goin' about
'er."

Then Missis Roberts rose up to 'er
feet an' flung out 'er 'and at the girl,
an' says, " There, Rosie ! do ye 'ear
that ? Perhaps you '11 mind what your
mother says after this, an* not wait till
the stones in the streets is a hollain' out
my very words, an' cryin' shame on
ye."

" Oh," said the super, tryin* then to
quiet the mother down, " I 've no man-
ner o' doubt Rosie '11 be a good girl
after this."

'E spoke to the baby, an' 'e said as
'e 'd like to buy some tape, an' so 'e
got away ; but Rosie said never a word
to 'im, only grew whiter 'n' whiter, an'
let 'er 'ands fall down at 'er side, so 'a
the baby 'ad to 'old 'er own little back
up.

While the super was buyin' the tape,
I said to Rosie, —

" 'Ad you been walkin' with Tom,
last night? "

" Yes," said she ; " we 'd walked from
the grocer's. I only met 'im by
chance."

" But you like 'im," said I, " an' 'e 's
a wild lad."

" We never 'ad no love talk," said
she; an' then, in a minute more, she
spake again : " I '11 never stay 'ere to be
talked about."

Then the mother coom back to us,
an' I went out o' the store.

Sure enough, the girl runned away,
an' then there was more talk than ever
about 'er.

Ellen coom out in the middle of the
day to tell me, though she was doin' a
bleach, an' 'ad not so much as a shawl
about 'er. She'd just run out in 'er
figger. She cried, an' said as 'ow Tom

was good enough for any girl in the
place : an' one minute she vowed 'e was
too good for a girl as 'ould do such a
shameful thing as run away from 'ome,
an' next she 'd say that Rosie was a
sweet innocent thing, an' she 'oped she'd
see 'er Tom's wife yet, an' it was only
people's goin' back an' forth an* tellin'
things as 'ad ever made any trouble.
She was just distraught, an' she said
whatever coom into 'er silly 'ead ; so
at last it coom out that when Tom 'ad
'eared as Rosie was gone 'e 'ad quit
work, an' was on a spree then.

"An' I've not seen 'im," cried 'is
mother ; " I only 'ear about 'im on the
street, — my own eldest born 1 "

I met Tom a day or two after on the
street, an' I went up to 'im, an' laid a
'and on 'is arm. I looked 'im steady in
the eye, an' 'e reddened a bit, an' 'is
mouth trembled like a baby's.

" Tom," said I, " what 's the use of
a fine lad like you goin' to the bad,
when 'e might just as easy go to the
good, an' make 'is friends all 'appy ? "

" It 's not many friends I 'as," said
the young fellow. " You know, Bridget,
I 'd never V done 'arm to Rosie ; but
she runs away, when she 'ears 'er name
mentioned with mine, as if I was the
plague."

« Oh," said I, " you think you 'd
never 'a' done 'er 'arm ; but it 's little
lads know what they '11 coom to do as
keeps bad coompany, an' takes no coun-
sel but their own wild wishes. She
runned to save 'ersel', — a wise little
body ! Go after 'er, Tom, bring 'er
'ome to be your mother's daughter, an'
make up your mind once for all to be a
decent, steady man."

I don't know what got into me to
speak them words, but when 'e 'eared
me, first 'e grew white, an' then 'e grew
red.

" You 're a wise woman, too," said he,
an' 'e walked away, an' the next day
they telled me 'e 'ad gone from the
town.

1883.]

Bridget's Story.

779

The Robertses soon 'eared from Rosie,
W she 'ad got a good place with a rich
family in Fall River ; so they thought
it best to leave 'er there. But where
Tom was we did not know.

Well, Ellen took it 'ard, an' she
seemed to feel the father's bein' away
more, now Tom was clean gone ; an' yet/
the man did not coom back. She 'd
stan' at 'er door at night, an' strain 'er
eyes lookin' towards the mill, where
McKiernan worked, but she never see
'im coomin' towards 'er. Eb, but wom-
en is queer creatur's, cryin' an' scoldiu'
an' sputterin', yet lovin' all the while.

She fell sick, bein' so worried, an'
one night I stayed wid 'er. I was dozin'
in the kitchen, when I 'eared a great
crash ; I runned into the other room,
an' there Ellen lay on the floor, wid 'er
eyes wide starin' open, an' 'er limbs
stretched out on the boards, an' in one
'and she 'ad a lock o' 'er own 'air, as
she 'd pulled out.

" Oh," cried I, " 'ow long 'ave you
been there?"

" Whisht, whisht ! " says she. " Do
ye 'ear the music ? "

" Music ! " says I. " Are ye mad ? "

" Oh," says she, " it 's gran' music ;•
an' do ye see the fine yoong ladies ; as is
makin' it ? There they is, all stan'in'
round against the wall. Look at 'em,
dressed in white, an' with bells on their
fingers ! "

She was so wild, I was scared, an' I
humored 'er a bit, an' said as I 'eared
'em an' seed 'em, an' coaxed 'er the
while back to bed.

She laid 'er 'ead down on the pillow,
an' fetched a great sigh. "Ah," says
she, " they 're just vanishin', vanishing
an' the music 's a-fadin' away."

Then she wrung 'er 'ands an' fell
a-cryin', an' I 'ad plenty o' work that
night to do, caring for 'er. But she
mended fearful 'at after, an' in a day or
two she was quite well.

Then she went to the priest, an' telled
'im all 'er trouble : 'ow Mr. McKiernan

'ad been a good 'usband an' very agree-
able to 'er for twenty-two years, an' 'ow
'ard she thought it as 'e should leave
'er now ; an' she towld 'im all about
Tom, too.

Father Kent treated 'er very kind,
an' says 'e, —

" I cannot 'elp ye about Tom. Yoong
men will 'ave their fling ; an' any way,
'e 's beyond my reach. Ye can do
nought but pray for 'im, as was always
a mother's work, from the time of the
Blessed Virgin. As for your 'usband,
I '11 see to 'im."

Ellen coomed 'ome wid a lighter 'eart,
an' waited, wid 'er little ones around 'er,
for the coomin' o' the man.

Father Kent went twice to the mill
to see Mr. McKiernan, an' the second
time the man got mad, an" spake up
saucy, an' said queer things to the priest.

" I don't doubt, Father Kent," says
'e, " as you 're a scholard an' a gentle-
man, an' I knows you 're a priest, but
you need n't coom meddlin' with me."

Then Father Kent stamped 'is foot,
an' says 'e,

" You 've 'eared what I 'ad to say,
McKiernan. Go ye 'ome to your wife,
an' don't force me to coom again about
this business."

An' that night Mr. McKiernan went
'ome. Ellen telled me all about it. She
wur stan'in' at the table cuttin' out a
dress for a neighbor ; for she 's very
'andy at such things, an' willin' to do
little jobs o' that sort for anybody. It
was about nine in the evenin', an' as she
stood with 'er back to the door in
stalked Mr. McKiernan, lookiu' as sour
as a boy as 'as been licked. Ellen's
'eart give a jump, but she never said
nothin', nor turned round, only caught
a side glance of 'im as 'e went past 'er.

'E sat down in a chair, an' 'e kicked
off first one shoe, an' then another ; an'
all the while 'er scissors wur goin' faster
than ever. When 'e 'd sat still about
five minutes, up 'e got, an' stamped
away to 'is room. Then Ellen turned,

780

Bridget's Story.

[June,

an' threw up 'er arms wid a great swoop,
an' says she, 'alf aloud, —

" Lord save us, see the ghost ! " An'
the little childer began to titter at that.

" Shut up," says she, " laughin' at
your dad."

But little Peter, he giggled on, an'
the father growled from the other room ;
so Ellen caught up the boy, an' rocked
'im, an' hugged 'im, an' got 'im quiet.
She was that glad 'er 'usband 'ad coom
'ome, I think, she did not care 'ow mad
an' glum 'e acted.

When Mr. McKiernan came out for
'is breakfast, the next morning, Ellen
flew to the table, an' began movin' some
dishes.

"I'll clear off Peter's things," said
she.

" Oh," said Mr. McKiernan, " ye
like to 'ear yerseF talk ; " an* 'e shov-
eled in 'is meat, an' said no more, till
she asked 'im, timid-like, should she send
'is dinner to the mill.

" Are n't ye the 'ousekeeper ? " says
'e, sharp again. " Ye like to 'ear yer-
sel' talk ; " an' off 'e went to 'is work.

That afternoon I was goin' by, an'
Ellen called me to coom in.

" I must go 'ome an' feed my cat,"
said I.

She laughed. " Hoot wi' yer cat,"
says she. " I hunted 'er off o' my chick-
ens the other day. Coom in ; it 's sum-
mat better worth 'earin' nor a cat 's
meowiii', as I 'ave to tell ye."

So I stopped in, an' she made me
laugh till my sides ache, a-mimickin' all
Mr. McKiernan's gran' ways an' sour
looks. But she stopped in 'er laughin'
an' cried a bit, sayin', —

" I 'm the wretchedest mother in the
town," says she ; " an' Father Kent
said 'e could not 'elp me about Tom."

So wan tin' to cheer 'er, I says, —

" Mr. McKiernan only shows 'is good
sense in coomin' 'ome, Ellen. There 's
not a woman I knows as keeps a cheer-
fuller kitchen."

" It 'ould not ha' been cheerful long,"

says she, " if 'e 'ad not coom, for I 'm
near out o' money."

"Well, 'e is coom," says I. "An'
now you must keep 'im. What did you
send 'im for 'is dinner ? "

" Beefsteak," says she, catchin' up lit-
tle Peter, as 'ad been pullin' at 'er knee,
an' suckin' at a lump o' sugar.

" That 's right," says I. " Now you
must ha' summat good for 'is supper."

" Yes," says she. " What do ye
think on?" '

" Scollops," says I.

" What 's them ? " says she, takin'
'old of Peter's 'ands, an1 swingin' 'im
down to the floor, an' then bringin' 'im
up again on 'er knees, an' 'e a-laughin'
till 'e almost choked.

"A kind o' fish," says I. "I'll
be bound Mr. McKiernan 'ull like 'em.
Send Katie down to the market for 'em.
They '11 be about thirty cents a quart."

So she said she would ; an' I seed she
felt quite 'appy, so I picked up my
shawl an' the pail of milk I was takiu'
'ome, an' trudged on to my cellar an'
my cat.

The next day was Sunday, an' as I
was coomin' 'ome from church, when I
got opposite Mr. McKiernan's 'ouse,
Ellen, as was stan'in' in the door, not
'avin' took off 'er bonnet, called to me.

" Just stop to dinner, Bridget ! " says
she.

" Nay, nay," says I. " A family likes
to 'ave its Sunday dinner to theirsel's."

Her face clouded, but Mr. McKier-
nan, as was smokin' in the yard, says, —

" Coom in, Bridget ; there 's always a
seat for you at my table."

So seein' 'im so cordial, I went in ; an'
Ellen, I thought, was glad not to be
left much alone wid 'im. I sat there
till about three, when 'e marches up to
'is wife an' speaks very pleasant, an'
says, "Just make me a cup o' tea,
Ellen ; " an' up she jumps, with smiles
all over 'er face, to do it. Then I
thought they was gettin' friendly, an'
I coomed away.

1883.]

Bridget's Story.

781

But she bade me to coom in the very
next night, for she said she 'ad to ask
'im for money, an* she felt she 'd be
bolder to do it if I was by. So Mon-
day evening I was there before duskes.
They was always a family as provided
well, the way I like to see folks do, — 'alf
a barrel o' flour, an' 'alf a keg o' butter,
an' a whole ham at a time ; but while
Mr. McKiernan was off, Ellen 'ad been
put to it to keep things up, an' 'ad run
low in every way.

After we 'ad 'ad a good supper, she
picked up Jimmy, one o' the little boys ;
an' while Peter hung on 'er knees, she
poked 'er fingers careless-like into the
'oles in Jimmy's shoes, till 'e squealed
out as she tickled 'im, an' says he, —

" Mammy, I want some new shoes."

" Eh," says I ; " let 's see the shoes
ye 've got on."

Then the little fellow twisted round
in 'is mother's lap, an' stuck out 'is
two feet to me.

" They '»e awful bad," says the boy.
An' Mr. McKiernan spoke up from the
table, where 'e sat readin' an owld paper :

" Why don't you get 'im some shoes,
Ellen ? "

'E spoke gently, an' Ellen laughed,
an' says she, —

" I never knew shoes to coona walkin'
into a 'ouse without feet in 'em, or feet
goin' after 'em."

" An' money, too," says I.

" Don't ye 'ave no paper, now ? "
says Mr. McKieman, takin' no notice
of what we 'd been a-sayin'.

"No," says Ellen. "There wa'n't
nobody to read it, an' I stopped it."

" Well," says 'e, risin' up, " I '11 go
an' give an order for one to be left
every night, after this."

" That '11 be good," says Ellen, bent
on pleasin' 'im, " for I did miss 'earin'
you talk about the news."

Then she played some more with
Jimmy's shoes ; an' says 'e again, like a
little parrot, —

" Mammy, I want some shoes."

" Ah," says the mother, " I 'd give
you some, quick, if I 'ad the money;
but fifty cents won't buy ye shoes, now
you 've growed so big."

Mr. McKiernan 'ad got on 'is coat
by this time, an' says 'e, in a lofty way, —

" Give me your fifty cents, Ellen, an'
I '11 give you a ten-dollar bill for it."

Ye may be sure, she was n't no great
time makin' that change ; an' 'e went
out o' the 'ouse, an' she clapped on 'er
bonnet an' shawl, an' started off 'erseP
for the shoes.

They coomed back together, talkin'
an' carryin' parcels like a couple of
young sweet' earts, an' I just laughed at
'em. As we all stood round, with the
childer 'angin' on our legs, the door
burst open, an' in coom Tom an' Rosie.

« Holloa ! " cried Tom ; an' Ellen
fetched a screech, an' rushed at the lad
as if she 'd smother 'im ; but Rosie
stood apart, with a shy look in 'er eyes
an' a blush on 'er cheek, till Tom left
'is mother, an' took the girl's 'and, an'
said, like a man, —

" I went after 'er, an' one day, as
she was washin' dishes, I coom softly
into the kitchen ; an' when she looked
up she saw me, an' she cried out, an' let
the cup fall as she was 'oldin', an' it
broke, an' out coom the missus to know
what was the matter ; an' I telled 'em
both together as I 'd made up my mind
to be a steady fellow, an' I 'd coom to
marry Rosie ; an' Rosie, she made be-
lieve as she did n't care about me, till
the missus laughed, an' bade 'er speak
the truth ; an' then " —

" Now, Tom, you need n't say no
more," said Rosie ; an' Mr. McKiernau
marched up to 'er, an' says, very cour-
teous-like, —

" I '11 make ye kindly welcome to be
my son's wife."

" Eh, but she 's that already ! " cried
Tom. " We was married a week ago."

Everybody screamed but Ellen, who
just throwed 'er arms round the girl's
neck an' hugged 'er 'ard. .

L. C. Wyman.

782

Life in Old Siena.

[June,

LIFE IN OLD SIENA.

IN many of the more ancient Italian
cities, and most of all in Rome, we are
continually irritated by contrasts. We
pass in a moment from all that is noble
in what is old to all that is trivial in
what is new, making incessant effort to
attune ourselves to our surroundings.
The worst of it is we are often attacked
by a painful suspicion that the occasion-
al involuntary relief we experience, on
releasing our attention from the great
demands of antiquity upon it, is a sign
that we ourselves may partake of the
cheapness and gaudiness of modern
times : we feel shrunken, disheartened,
humiliated ; one life seems but a trivial
thing beside these forms which have
watched the passing of thousands of gen-
erations ; we are like butterflies beating
against a tomb. "Whether one gathers
the wild flowers in the clefts of the Col-
iseum, or lies gazing at the Alps from
the amphitheatre at Verona, or sees the
relics of a greater city unearthed beneath
the feet of the living at Bologna, mel-
ancholy — passive and tender, indeed,
but still melancholy — is and must be
the predominant tone of feeling. So it
is in Venice, in Pisa, in Ravenna, in a
hundred other places ; and it has its
charm. I know of only one city in Italy
where, instead of being placed in antag-
onism to the past, one seems assimilated
with it. The reason of this I find to
be the entire harmony of the surround-
ings, which altogether exclude the idea
of newness, while they yet make no
painful suggestions of decay. Not only
do the buildings preserve the old tradi-
tions in great measure, but even the an-
cient inhabitants of Siena do not seem
entirely to have passed away. They ap-
pear to have undergone a perpetual me-
tempsychosis, which has preserved much
of the old trick of thought and speech
and gesture, and they are not in the least

out of harmony with the old palaces
they inhabit. If they are obliged to
construct new habitations, they do it in
the antique fashion so far as possible,
and manage these "restorations" with
a reverent touch, in which there is no
trace of personal vanity. Therefore, at
Siena one is content and tranquil as
well as awed and interested. Is there
a subtile flattery in these old buildings
which open their doors to us^ as if we
were not unworthy of their fame, in-
stead of relegating us to some newly
built hotel in the " strangers' quarter " ?
Certainly, as we sit on a balcony over-
looking the Piazza del Campo on the
day of the great races, when all the an-
cient bravery of battle array comes
forth, — the carroccio, the men full clad
in armor, the mediaeval costumes of the
pages, the gayly-caparisoned horses, the
tapestried windows, — it is difficult to
persuade ourselves that we are in and
of the nineteenth century.

Nor does the past seem far away or
strange to the Sienese of the present
day. However tame and monotonous
may be the actual life in so small a city,
Siena never forgets the dignity and ac-
tivity which has once been hers. From
the thirteenth century onwards, nothing
has faded out of her memory. Even in
the middle of this century, at the time
when Florence became the capital of
Italy, and delegations from all parts of
the country were hastening thither, it
was difficult, says Mr. Trollope, to per-
suade the Sienese that they would be
well received ; and when the reason was
finally arrived at, it was found to be a
fear that the Florentines still bore them
a grudge on account of the disastrous
defeat of the Florentine army at Monte
Aperto, in 1260 !

This battle is indeed an epoch in Si-
ena's history ; for the great victory over

1883.]

Life in Old Siena.

783

the Guelph party allowed the city a
period of repose, in which it grew and
prospered, and which was its golden
age. Familiar as the story is, I never
return to Siena without feeling a fresh
interest in it. As I pass through the
Piazza Tolomei, I seem to see the el-
ders of the city and the populace assem-
bled there on that September morning,
when the haughty message is received
from the besieging army spread out on
the plains below : " Make breaches in
your walls, so that we can enter at our
will." I hear Bandinelli's wily insinu-
ations that it might be better to com-
ply with the demand ; and then the in-
dignant retort of Provenzano Salvani,
whose indomitable firmness overcomes
hesitation, and makes treachery slink
away. A dictator for the time being is
chosen, and the great banker Salimbeni
promptly offers a loan of 18,000 florins,
to quicken the zeal of the German mer-
cenaries by double pay. The new dic-
tator, Bonaguida Lucari, now comes for-
ward and addresses the people : " It
seems to me fitting at this juncture that
we should devote our persons and our
wealth, our city and our district, with
all that we have, to the Virgin Mary."
He bares his head and his feet, and lays
aside his robes, and in his tunic, with a
rope around his neck and the keys of
the city in his hand, he heads a proces-
sion of the citizens, all barefoot like him-
self, to the cathedral. The venerable
archbishop meets him at the threshold,
and embraces him with tears. There
is weeping and embracing throughout
the great building, with the reconcilia-
tion and oblivion of long-existing feuds,
as Bonaguida advances to the high al-
tar, and, kneeling before the statue of
the Virgin, solemnly dedicates the city
and its inhabitants to the " most pitiful
mother, the counselor and helper of the
distressed." But there was work as
well as prayer. All night the city was
astir ; " old men, women, and children
aided in preparing armor ; " and at day-

break the long procession filed out of
Porta Pispini (then San Viene), with
the great battle-car in the midst. Not
an able-bodied man was left in Siena
that day. Those who could not fight
crowded to the Duomo to pray, while
from time to time the sentinels on the
Marescotti l tower gave notice of the
varying fortunes of the battle : " Pray
for our army, for it seems to waver ; "
and again, " Now it is the enemy that
is in flight ; " until towards sunset comes
the joyful notice from the trumpeter,
" sounding from his tower the signal of
victory," that the Florentine standards
are prostrate, and their forces in con-
fusion. Through the same gate, the
next day, came back the conquering
army, preceded by the messenger who
had brought the insolent summons rid-
ing on an ass, with his face towards the
ass's tail, and his hands bound behind
him ; the proud banner of Florence
trailing in the dust. Again to the Du-
omo, this time with psalms of thanks-
giving ; and it was ordered that " every
citizen over sixteen years old should
offer a wax candle at the cathedral on
Assumption Day," and that to the in-
scription " Sena Vetus " oh the coins
should be added, " Civitas Virginis."

An uncle of Dante, Brunetto Bellin-
cioni, was in the Guelphic army, and it
is not impossible, as a recent writer re-
marks, that from his lips the poet may,
when a child, have heard the story of
that woful day. "Wandering, in later
years, by the little stream, whose banks
were thickly sown with the bones of his
kindred, his wrath burned hot against
Siena, and imbittered every mention of
her race in his great poem.

Now began a period of prosperity
and luxury unequaled in Siena's earlier
or later annals. This was the time of
the " Brigata Godereccia," • or twelve
young gentlemen, who undertook " to
do things that would make the world
wonder ; " they succeeded so well that
l Now Palazzo Saraceni.

784

Life in Old Siena.

[June,

they have been a laughing-stock ever
since. They spent all their money in
less than two years, by means of feast-
ing, and throwing the dishes of gold and
silver out -of the windows after every
banquet. But there were many nobler
uses of this prosperity : money was free-
ly lavished on art and architecture ; the
building of the Duomo was continued on
a greatly enlarged scale, and its bewil-
deringly rich fa9ade was begun. The
population of the city had increased to
two hundred thousand at the time when
the plague broke out, in 1348, and
brought desolation and almost ruin to
the city. Some historians say that it
carried off nine tenths of the people ;
others, that only fifteen thousand were
left alive. From this blow Siena never
entirely recovered. The broken arches
of the unfinished facciatone of the Duo-
mo bear witness still to the calamity.
The cathedral no longer needed to be
of such vast proportions for the dimin-
ished congregation. But the spirit of
the Sienese was not broken. Wars and
sieges were still before them, and to a
period of luxury succeeded one of stern
and almost savage temper, in which even
the amusements of the people partook
of the barbarian quality of the times.
The favorite guioco delle pugna, or box-
ing game, was often prohibited by the
authorities, and again permitted by pop-
ular desire. On the last Sunday of the
Carnival, two great tents were erected
in the Piazza del Campo, and whoever
was disposed to take part in the game
repaired thither. The contestants were
under the direction of two captains,
and marched to combat to the sound of
trumpets and amid a crowd of excited
spectators. The effects of the fray are
thus described by Sermini, in one of his
novelle : " There are at least two hun-
dred, who, for a month to come, will
not be able to earn their bread, by rea-
son of their hurts. This one has a hand

1 Some of the gates of 'Siena are even now shut
at sunset, and it consequently once happened to

lamed, another an arm, another his jaw
broken, or his shoulder dislocated, or
his ribs fractured ; here is a fellow quite
used up and half dead. This one has
lost his cloak, and that one his jacket,
and another his cap, and they will have
to wait long enough for new ones.
' Where is your brother ? ' ' He has
been assisted home.' ' And are not you
going too ? ' ' No ; I must stay here for
the present, though I know very well
that I can't eat my supper to-night, on
account of my smashed jaws.' 'And I
can hardly speak, my ribs are so doubled
up.' ' Ah, but I have two teeth less for
to-day's fight.' 'And your neighbor,
who was carried home, — how is he ? '
' To-morrow we shall see, but I fear we
shall have to bury him. By reason of
this fight, six or more fellows will be
dead before Easter. But you know
how it is : if some die, others are always
being born. However, for my part, I
think that the lookers-on have the best
of it.' "

From novelists such as Sermini, Soz-
zini, Bargagli, and Ilicini, we get most
curious pictures of the manners and
customs of the olden time in Siena.
Many of their works have been lately
republished ; and modern writers, like
Falletti-Fossati, Carpellini, Banchi, and
Acquarone, are indefatigable in their
efforts to restore the couleur locale to
Siena's history. By the help of these
books, old and new, we can understand
pretty well what were the ways of daily
life in Siena four hundred years ago.

We will suppose a stranger to have
arrived at Siena towards the close of
the fourteenth century. Having been
detained on the way thither, he has not
reached the top of the long ascent till
after sunset, and he finds the city gates
closed.1 He must therefore be content
with a lodging for himself and his
horses and servants at a humble osteria
outside the walls. His repose will not

the writer to have to make a long detour in order
to enter the city after a country walk.

1883.]

Life in Old Siena.

785

be untroubled, for all night long trains
of mules will be arriving, laden with
grain, stuffs, skins, and all manner of
merchandise, and their drivers will be
carousing in the courtyard. He will be
quite ready to join the miscellaneous
procession, when, at daybreak, the great
bell from the tower of the Palazzo Pub-
blico announces that night is past, and
that the citizens may issue from their
houses. Slowly the heavy gates creak
open, and through the narrow entrance
pours the crowd of men and beasts,
pushing, struggling, held back by the
gabellieri until the tedious search for
contraband articles and the payment of
duties on lawful ones have taken place ;
these gabellieri being in their turn un-
der the surveillance of men in the secret
service of the municipality. Once in-
side the city gates, and toiling up the
steep, narrow streets, the traveler sees
the workmen hastening to their tasks,
with hooded heads and enveloped in
long cloaks ; for the autumn mornings
are frosty on the hill-top, and the chill
of night still lingers in the streets. The
chief movement is towards the Piazza
del Campo, in the centre of the city,
where, all around the outer edge of the
great shell-like cavity, booths are being
erected, and the venders of fish, flesh,
straw, fruit, stuffs, and every imaginable
article of commerce are spreading forth
their wares. The centre of the shell is
reserved for the sellers of earthen ves-
sels. Vociferous bargaining with early
housewives has already begun, and oxen,
horses, cocks, mules, pigs, and sheep
lend their voices to this matinee. The
gay dresses of the peasants and the
white head-cloths of the city servants
add picturesqueness to the scene.

It is now seven o'clock, and the bell
from the Mangia tower begins to sound
again. This time it summons the city
officials to their posts ; and they come
striding through the crowd with their
red tunics and black or crimson hoods.
They are hurrying along at a rather un-

VOL. LI. —NO. 308. 50

dignified pace, in order to reach the pa-
lazzo before the bell shall have stopped
ringing, lest they should incur a fine
for tardiness. Seated in their high-
backed chairs behind a broad table, sur-
rounded by their secretaries and mes-
sengers, they present a much more im-
posing appearance. All sorts of taxes
must be received by them, and it is
also their duty to preserve or dispose
of all sequestrated property, especially
weapons found on persons not allowed
to carry them, to register the names of
criminals, and to pay bounties to those
who have procured any benefit to the
city, such as the killing of a wolf or
the building of a cistern. Other officers,
each escorted by two soldiers in full
armor, may be seen departing on their
rounds to inspect all the shops and dis-
cover any false weights or smuggled
goods. Suddenly a trumpet sounds;
the babel of voices is hushed, and all
eyes are turned towards the banditore,
or herald, who advances from one of the
dark streets on horseback. It would
seem a sacrilege to call this gorgeous
creature a town-crier; he is clad in red
and white, and boasts a silver trumpet
and a silken banner.- As he is the only
medium of public or official news, it
well becomes all citizens to pay atten-
tion to him, until, with a parting flour-
ish on his instrument, he dismisses his
audience and disappears.

Our traveler by this time is glad to
quit the noisy piazza, and seek the
inn, whither his servants have preceded
him. The landlord of the Three Kings
has been only informed that a "' pezzo
grosso " (man of consideration) is com-
ing, and the hotel is full of the good-
natured bustle in which Italian courtesy
shows itself. Here, in the best room, he
will get some good old Chianti wine
and a dish of tripe, or of fish from the
Arbia; and the landlord will promise
him a lasca from Lake Thrasymene for
his dinner, if the Illustrissimo will honor
his poor dwelling, or will whisper, care-

786

Life in Old Siena.

[June,

fully looking to see that no strangers
are listening, that he has a fine shoulder
of mutton in the cupboard. But this is
a dead secret, for sheep's and pigs' flesh
is not allowed to be sold within the
city or suburbs ; and if the vender were
discovered, he would be obliged not only
to pay a heavy fine, but to stand a whole
day in the piazza, with the meat hung
round his neck, a butt for the ridicule
of all the street gamins.

Going out for a walk after breakfast,
the Illustrissimo would find the streets
full of the higher classes of the people :
riders of gay horses careering through
the streets (innocent now, as then, of
sidewalks), crying "Salva! Salva ! "
to the pedestrians in their way ; dam-
sels on their high saddles, and pious
dames on foot, returning from mass at
their parish churches. The nobles were
not, as in these days, distinguishable by
being the worst dressed men in the
crowd ; on the contrary, they were known
from the burghers by their black hats
with golden cords and white plumes.
They had an advantage over the other
sex as to street costumes : they could
display all their bravery abroad, while
strict sumptuary laws relegated the ele-
gant toilets of women to the house.
The men's attire, of richest silk and
velvet, sparkled with precious stones,
and their horses were not infrequently
shod with silver. But women of re-
spectability were forbidden to appear
out-of-doors in garments of luxury. No
stuffs with woven or embroidered de-
signs of flowers, fruits, animals, or ara-
besques were allowed. The girdle, from
the earliest times one of the most cost-
ly portions of the dress, must no longer
be " a veder piii che la persona ; " it
must not be worth more than four
florins, and even then must be entirely
concealed. For did not those stern and
bejeweled law-makers surely know that
deft fingers, if allowed to display their
handiwork, would make a thing of beau-
ty out of the commonest and least ex-

pensive materials ? A dark-colored man-
tle, ample enough to hide the figure,
must also envelop the whole person
from head to foot. But even these laws
were not so stringent as those of Flor-
ence at the same period, which regulat-
ed the minutest details of female cos-
tume, even to jewelry ; while the Sienese
dame might display, in holding her man-
tle about her chin with one hand, and
managing her train with the other, as
many rings and bracelets as she chose.
However, the dark eyes- and brilliant
complexions of the Sienese beauties
doubtless shone all the more brightly in
the setting of their dull mantles; and
veils were not only not enjoined, but
strictly forbidden, as tending to favor
secrecy and unlawful designs. A lady
of quality never went out on foot with-
out being attended by two men-servants,
one preceding and the other follow-
ing her, while her maid walked, at a
respectful distance, by her side ; and
there might also be a page to relieve
her of the fatigue of holding up her
long train. Thus attended, and deeply
versed as any Turveydrop in the laws of
deportment, " vera incessu patuit dea."
She well knew that her step must not
betoken pride, embarrassment, or frivol-
ity ; that her glance must evince, or at
least affect, simplicity and honesty. As
to natural, free exercise on foot in the
open air, it was, and is in great measure
to this day, a thing unknown to Italian
women. The impossibility of young
unmarried women going out alone early
induces the habit of remaining in the
house, which eventually makes it irk-
some to do more than creep to mass at
a neighboring church.

But we will suppose our traveler to
have gazed his fill at these unknown
damsels and squires, for the bells of the
churches are ringing for noon, and all
Siena dines at this hour. Let us hope
that mine host of the Three Kings
has fulfilled his promises, and given the
stranger occasion to think well of the

1883.]

Life in Old Siena.

787

Sienese cuisine. At all events, he will
have plenty of talk to season his repast,
for the landlord will look in to see that
his distinguished guest is well served,
and to get the latest foreign news from
him, in return for which he will detail
all that is going on in the city. It is a
pity that the Illustrissimo had not come
a couple of months earlier, to see the
race for the polio. " It was quite won-
derful this year," says the host ; " and
our district, of the Bull, won the prize."
And then follows a long description of
the splendors of that great occasion,
which I will not inflict upon my read-
ers, who may have seen, or may see, that
most beautiful and fascinating of all
public festivals still kept upon Assump-
tion Day, in the same manner as it was
four hundred years ago. Besides, my
wish is simply to describe an ordinary
day's routine.

" After his siesta, the Illustrissimo will
think it time to pay visits to such ac-
quaintances as he may have in the city.
He will find the crowd in the streets
even greater than in the morning. It
is the hour of amusement and relaxation.
Here a group has gathered around an
improvisatore ; or a cantastorie is dron-
ing out his long ballads in a monotonous
recitative. Politicians are " discreetly "
discussing public affairs about the shop
doors ; young girls are being safely con-
voyed by lynx-eyed mammas, and young
men are intently studying the pretty
faces as they pass, and perhaps getting
a chance to whisper " Bella ! " into some
ear. It is not mere idle curiosity on
their part, for all men between the ages
of twenty-eight and fifty must marry, or
be ineligible for any public office. The
text of this curious law, which was pro-
mulgated in 1405, runs thus : " The
city of Siena being deficient in popula-
tion, and the wish of the citizens being
that said city should prosper, it is pro-
vided and ordered that every citizen be-
tween the ages of twenty-eight and fifty
years shall be bound and obliged to

take a wife within a year from the day
when the present provision goes into
effect. And whoever is of contrary
mind and neglects to obey cannot and
shall not hold any public office until he
takes a wife ; the penalty for any such
person who accepts office being one
hundred pounds in Sienese money, and
removal from said office ; and it shall
be lawful to bring accusations, and the
fourth part of said penalty shall go to
the accuser, another fourth part to the
official who tries the case, and the half
to the Commune of Siena. And the
present provision does not include those
who can give a -legitimate reason for be-
ing excused on account of infirmity."

Following the stranger to the house
of his friend, we find him received with
the usual ceremonious and compliment-
ary Southern welcome. In those old
days, when visitors were rare and for-
tunes larger than at present, it could
not be permitted that even an unex-
pected guest should remain at an inn.
He is at once invited to pass the re-
mainder of his stay in Siena under his
friend's hospitable roof, with many re-
proaches for not having sooner made
known his presence. Of course he en-
deavors to excuse himself. J/a, che !
servants are quickly dispatched to the
Three Kings for the stranger's impedi-
menta ; and they are bidden to make
haste, for the sun is setting, and the first
curfew has already begun to ring. The
city gates are closed, the shops are shut-
ting, and the night watchmen are put-
ting on their armor and gathering at
headquarters. An hour later the sec-
ond curfew sounds, and whoever has to
go through the streets at this late hour
must carry with him a wax candle, of
a size regulated by law. Hasty good-
nights are exchanged between the few
passers-by, all quickening their steps to
reach their homes before the third and
last curfew shall strike ; for then all the
people must be within their houses, or
pay the penalty of citation for their dis-

788

Life in Old Siena.

[June,

obedience. Thus two hours after sun-
set, by half past seven on this October
evening, the streets are silent save for
the watchman's tread, and dark except
for the twinkling ray from some lamp
before a shrine. Even now, with the
blaze of gaslight, the open shops, and
the busy crowd, there are steep, narrow
lanes and flights of steps, where shadows
lurk in the recesses and doorways ; and
the Via del Coltellaccio — the Street of
the Ugly Knife — has an ominous sound.
But the citizens of Siena were not, as
it would at first appear, deprived of all
social pleasures after nightfall. Those
bridges thrown from the upper story of
one house to that of another, over streets
and passages, of which one still sees
many in all Italian cities, were not in-
tended solely for the support of the
high buildings against winds and earth-
quakes, or for escape in case of assault.
They served also a pleasanter purpose as
a means of communication during the
hours when it was forbidden to go into
the streets ; and a whole neighborhood
could thus assemble, and protract their
festivities to as late an hour as they
pleased. The Illustrissimo Signore, says
his friend, has arrived at an opportune
moment. To-night there is to be a
conversazione in the house of the Pic-
colomini, and all the elite of Siena will
be there. Those who live at too great
a distance to avail themselves of the
bridges will come early, and pass the
night in the Piccolomiui Palace, or in
the houses of friends. He will be de-
lighted to show his friend the beauty
and fashion of Siena, of which he can
have seen but little out-of-doors. And
truly, the stranger owns himself dazzled,
as, after threading narrow passages and
steep staircases and dizzy bridges, he
emerges into a brilliantly lighted gallery,
full of liveried servants, and is conducted
to the vast salon, already peopled with
gorgeously appareled guests. For this
is the hour of the Sienese woman's tri-
umph and revenge. While in the morn-

ing her lord's dress outshone her own,
now she eclipses his. The Sienese la-
dies, says an old chronicler, " diligently
sought out the finest and very best ma-
terials ; " they loved embroidery and
pearls and gold and precious stones so
well, and wore them in such profusion,
that the richest toilet that ever made a
husband of to-day repine would seem
tame and ordinary in comparison. The
toilet of a gran signorct, in any part of
Italy, was fuller of mysteries than that
of the Empress Josephine. There were
all sorts of washes, and unguents, and
powders, and tresses of golden thread to
be inwoven with the hair. Allessandro
Piccolomini, in his curious little satire,
" Delia bella creanza delle donne," tells
us that there was not a woman in Siena
who did not make use of these aids to
beauty. He puts into the mouth of his
Raffaella this receipt for a cosa raris-
sitna for the complexion, which is not
much worse than some veritable Vene-
tian or Florentine ones which have come
down to us : "I take a pair of pigeons
and bone them ; then I put some Vene-
tian turpentine, lily blossoms, fresh eggs,
apples, sea-crabs, pounded pearls, and
camphor inside the pigeons, and leave
them to simmer in a glass bottle by a
slow fire. Then I take musk and amber
and more pearls and silver ; and having
pulverized them, I put them in a cloth,
and tie it over the mouth of the bottle,
so that the liquid will run out through
it, after which it must stand a few days."
But of these things the Illustrissimo is
supposed to be profoundly unconscious.
The result which is before him enchains
his eyes. He sees brilliant complexions,
in which red and white are skillfully,
if not naturally, mingled, melting dark
eyes and heavy eyebrows, abundant
hair carelessly gathered into a gold or
silver net, and a diadem on the brow.
The dress fijts closely to the bust, with
bouffant sleeves, and the girdle is now
exposed in all its splendor. The but-
tons of the dress are of wrought gold,

1883.]

Mr. Washington Adams in England.

789

and necklace, bracelets, and rings spar-
kle with diamonds and rubies, while the
foot, in its high-heeled, painted slipper,
peeps out from the short front of the
trained skirt. Complicated forms and
extravagant ornamentation had already
taken the place of the simple and noble
styles of the thirteenth century. Any
book of ancient costumes will show this
gradual depravation of taste in dress,

which — shall we dare to say it ? —
has not yet had its risorgimento.

Where can we better leave our trav-
eler than in. the company of these noble
cavaliers and dames, gazing at the fres-
coes of Signorelli and Gozzoli, listening
to sweet voices accompanied by spinet
or guitar, or dancing in stately fashion
till long after midnight has tolled from
the Mangia tower ?

E. D. JR. Bianciardi.

MR. WASHINGTON ADAMS IN ENGLAND.

ONE bright September day I was on

my way from London to in

shire, where I expected to ramble for
half a week among the farmsteads and
cottages, unknowing and unknown, and
then to visit a gentleman of the county,
whom I had not seen since he parted
from me at my own door, leaving pleas-
ant memories behind him. I was alone
in the railway carriage, and was as near-
ly in a state of perfect happiness as a
man could be who was away from home
and from those who make it home, and
the desire of whose life was not only
unattained but unattempted. The air
was soft ; the gray-blue sky was light-
ly clouded ; the morning beamed with
a mellow brightness that was like the
smile of a happy woman. Sitting in
the middle back seat, leaning at mine
ease in mine inn, swift-moving, silent,
secluded, luxurious, I looked alternately
through one window and another upon
that beautiful human scenery of England
which was such a never-ending, ever-
varying source of delight to me that
its only shadow was the regret which
it now and then awakened that a cer-
.tain steeple-crowned gentleman had not
stayed at home and minded his business,
instead of .seeking that " freedom to

worship God," which, having obtained,
he immediately proceeded to deny to
others.

My reveries did not attain the dignity
of thought ; and I was as nearly in the
state of sweet-doing-nothing as is pos-
sible to a man of English blood and
American birth in the nineteenth cen-
tury. The speed of the train was di-
minished by almost insensible gradation,
until we stopped at one of the minor
way-stations, where I saw half a dozen
persons waiting : a clergyman, manifest-
ly, not only from the cut and color of
his coat, and his hat, and his white tie in
the morning, but most of all from his
very clerical but cheerful countenance ;
a hard-featured commercial traveler or
two ; a lean, pale, spinster-looking gen-
tlewoman, with a maid of dangerous
freshness of lip and roundness of waist,
carrying her bag ; and a farmer, not big
and burly, but rather under-sized, with
a gnarled and almost knotted visage.
All these were evidently going short
distances, and they disappeared into
other carriages; when, just as the train
was about moving, my open door was
darkened by a porter who had in his
hand a small portmanteau, on which I at
once saw, among others and relics of
others, two labels that interested me, —
Boston and Roma. " Step quick, sir,

790

Mr. Washington Adams in England.

please," said the porter; and the pas-
senger was iu his seat, with his portman-
teau at his feet, before I recognized
him. " Why, Humphreys, is it you ?
How came you here ? " " In a fly," he
answered, with a smile, partly at his
old joke, partly of pleasant recognition.
After a grasp of the hand, which was
somewhat closer than it would have
been if we had met in Broadway or in
Beacon Street, we fell into the quick
inquiring and replying chat of compatri-
ots who meet unexpectedly in a strange
country.

Mansfield Humphreys, whose first
name was William, but who was always
called by his second, that of his rnoth-
» er's family, was a New England man,
who spent a great part of his time in
New York. His people were of well-
settled respectability in the interior of
Massachusetts: his father, a judge, an
Episcopalian when Episcopalians were
rare in the Old Commonwealth, an un-
flinching Federalist in the waning days of
federalism ; his mother, the daughter of
a Congregational minister. They were
one of those numerous New England
families who, having lived savingly in
the past on fewer hundreds a year than
many of them now have thousands, had
yet been known through generations
for their culture, their fine breeding,
and their character. Whether all the
men were brave we know not ; and if all
the women were not virtuous, that too
was never known ; but they were of
that order of New England folk among
whom the doing of a shabby thing was
almost social death, and for generations
they had held their heads high with
modest dignity ; so that in the times
when representatives were chosen be-
cause they were thought to be worthy
of consideration, and the fittest men to
speak and act for their fellow-citizens,
the Humphreys sat again and again in
the General Court of Massachusetts. He
was a Harvard man, and a lawyer by
profession ; but he had appeared little

in the courts, and was chiefly employed
as counsel for railway companies, in one
or two of which he was a shareholder.
In the civil war, after standing uncer-
tain for a while (for he was no aboli-
tionist), he became a very pronounced
Unionist ; not because he went with the
multitude, but chiefly, I suspect, because
of his resentment of the political dom-
ineering and social arrogance of the
South. He did not go into the army ; for
although he was very young at the time,
he thought he could do more service put
of the field than in it. " I 've no mili-
tary instincts," he said ; " if I were to
put on a uniform, I should only feel as
if I was going to a bal costume in a
character that did n't suit me. I hardly
know one end of a gun from the other ;
I never in my life fired even a revolver;
and in battle I should count only as one
man, either to shoot or to be shot at ;
but of such perhaps if I stayed at home
I might count for quite half a dozen."
Wherefore he stayed ; and he did count
for many half dozens by his energy
and skill in affairs, and his indomitable
spirit in the darkest days of the Union.
He was very versatile ; and one unex-
pected manifestation of a special talent
brought us into close communion. In
a series of amateur dramatic perform-
ances, got up for the purpose of com-
bining social entertainment with the
raising of funds for the equipment of a
regiment, I had acted as a sort of stage
manager, and he had been general busi-
ness manager and treasurer; on the de-
fection of one of the principal amateur
artists, and the despair of the company
at finding a remplapant, he, to the sur-
prise of all, declared that he would take
the vacant role himself. To the still
greater surprise of all, this sober lawyer
and then nascent railway manager dis-
played a marked histrionic ability. Al-
though he was a fine-looking fellow, he
had a face and a figure that were not
impressively individual, and when he
appeared upon the stage he was dressed

1883.]

Mr. Washington Adams in England.

791

and made up with such skill that, if his
name had not been known, his nearest
friends would not have recognized him.
He played with an entire unconscious-
ness of self, and with such a dry, pun-
gent humor that his speeches told like

rifle-bullets on his audience. His suc-

•

cess did not turn his head. After the
war was over he could not be induced to
repeat his theatrical performances. He
subsided again into his business, and
grew quietly rich ; and in the mature
man who looked after stocks and legis-
latures no one, except a few who re-
membered the young fellow of fifteen
years before, would have supposed there
was an amateur actor of the first qual-
ity.

This was the man who dropped by my
side, out of the clouds into a railway car-
riage. As we chatted the train stopped
again, and there entered our compart-
ment a tall, fine-looking man, with dark
eyes and hair, aquiline features, and
military - looking moustache and whis-
kers in which a little gray was gleam-
ing. He looked strong and alert, not-
withstanding a pale face and a rather
slender figure. Taking off his hat, after
bidding us good-morning, he put it in
the rack above his head, and substituted
for it a little black silk smoking-cap.
Then he took up a railway novel and
began to read. Soon, turning to Hum-
phreys, who was on the opposite seat,
he said, " I beg your pahdon, but would
you kindly tell me if this is a fast train ?
I forgot to inquire."

" With pleasure," said Humphreys ;
" but I don't know, myself. I 'm quite
a stranger here, — an American."

If instead of this answer in Hum-
preys' sweet, rich voice he had received
a snub, he could not have shown more
astonishment in the change of the ex-
pression of his face. His eye rested a
moment on Humphreys, and with " Ah,
thanks," he slowly went back to his book.
After reading a while, with an uneasy
hitch or two of his elbows, he suddenly

turned to Humphreys again, saying, " I
beg your pahdon, but you said you were
an American. You were n't jokin'?"

" Not at all ; " and after a glance at
me, with an affirmative glance in reply,
" My friend here and I are both Amer-
icans, — Yankees. I 've been here be-
fore, but I believe this is his first visit
to England."

" Indeed ! That 's very surprisin'.
Will you pahdon a stranger for saying
so, but (I 've never been in America)
you 're not at all the sort of person that
we take Americans to be, and generally
find 'em, if you '11 excuse me for sayin'
so. Indeed, I know I 'm takiu' a liberty ;
but I was so much surprised that —
that — I 'm sure — I hope you '11 pah-
don me."

-It is impossible to exaggerate the
manly courtesy and deference of his
manner as he spoke, looking frankly and
modestly from his hazel eyes, and the
little hesitation in his speech rather lent
it grace and charm.

" Pray don't apologize," said Hum-
phreys, " but let me ask in turn, What
sort of creature do you expect an Ameri-
can to be, — black, with woolly hair, or
copper-colored, with a scalp-lock and a
tomahawk in hand ? "

He laughed gently, and replied, " Not
exactly that ; at least except in some
cases. But the few Americans that I Ve
seen could be told for American across
a theatre : their faces, their figures,
their carriage, the cut of their clothes,
all told it ; and if one were blind they
could be known by their voices, and, if
you '11 pahdon me, by the very queer
language they used, which was English
merely because it was n't anything else.
I know I 've no right to presume on
these criticisms to you ; but you seemed
to invite it, after kindly passin' over my
first intrusion."

" Pray be at ease on that score. We 're
very glad, I 'm sure, of a little enlight-
enment in regard to those very queer
people, ' the Americans,' who you seem

792

Mr. Washington Adams in England.

[June,

to think are all as like as Rosalind's half
pence. But now pardon me for saying,
in my turn, that if you were to come
to Boston you would be taken, by most
of my friends, at least in your evening
dress, for a Yankee, except by those
whose quick ears detected some slight
John Bullish inflections in your voice,
or whose quick eyes discovered some
kindred and equally slight peculiarities
of manner."

" I taken for a Yankee ! " and he
looked blank, and even slightly aghast.

It was the nearest approach to un-
pleasantness that our fellow - traveler
had yet been guilty of ; but it was so
honest and simple, so plainly without
thought of offense, and so earnest,
that Humphreys and I enjoyed it, and
laughed; at which he blushed like a
girl, and then laughed himself, with
gleaming teeth and mobile lips.

" Why," said Humphreys, " are you
not English ? "

" What a question ! To be sure I
am."

" English for many generations ? "

"For more than I know. My peo-
ple were here when William the Con-
queror came over."

" So were mine ; so were my friend's ;
so were those of most of our friends at
home. Did you ever think of that ? "

" Ah — yes. Just so ; quite so, quite
so. That 's an old story. But has n't
there been some admixture — ah, some
interminglin', or — ah somethin' ? Else
how could we tell an American the mo-
ment we look at him, — the very mo-
ment, don't you see ? You find 'em in
Paris and all over the Continent, and
you can tell 'em as you pass 'em in the
street."

" Hardly, it would seem ; for here 's
a case this morning, perhaps two," with
a glance at me, who kept silence, " in
which it seems the sure tests failed."

" Ah, yes, — 'm ; just so ; quite so,
quite so. You 're right there. Bless my
soul ! I never was so astonished in my

life as when you coolly told me you
were an American."

" Coolly ? "

" I beg your pahdon ; " and again he
blushed. " I meant no offense."

" Not more than I did, I 'm sure,
when I said that you might be taken
for a Yankee."

I saw by his eye that he winced again,
internally ; but he said nothing.

" Of course," said Humphreys, in an
easy, off-hand manner, " we can always
tell an Englishman by his face and his
figure, and his dress and his speech."

" Ah, just so ; I should think so,"
with a little involuntary drawing of him-
self up.

" Oh, yes ; we all know an English-
man by his being red-faced and bull-
necked and clumsy, with coat and trou-
sers of a furious check, and a waistcoat
of a different suit, and a lot of chains and
rings, and his saying Hengland for Eng-
land and calling a hen an N. We can't
mistake them." And as Humphreys told
this off, there was a good-natured smile
upon his lip and a twinkle in his eye
that made it impossible for our carriage
companion to take offense at what he
himself had provoked. But he rejoined
quickly and rather sharply, dropping his
voice, —

" I beg your pahdon, I beg your pah-
don ; you said that you 'd been here be-
fore. Did you ever happen to be in the
company of an English gentleman ? "

" This morning, at least, I hope and
believe," said Humphreys, bowing and
looking him very steadily in the eye.

There was a slight pause, and then
the Englishman said, " I ask your pah-
don, I ask your pahdon ; I see I was
wrong. But it 's all so very odd, so very
strange. The truth is that — you see
that, as I told you, I 've never been
in America, and the few Americans I 've
seen I 've met by chance, and did n't
know who or what they were, — and
that, by the way, is n't an easy thing to
find out about Americans ; and so —

1883.]

Mr. Washington Adams in England.

793

well, I suppose," with a pleasant smile
and a very sweet and simple courtesy,
— "I suppose I have n't happened to
fall in with an American gentleman un-
til this morning."

" A Roland for my Oliver," said
Humphreys, with a frank smile ; " but
let us leave compliments and fencing,
and talk a little plain common sense.
What do you mean by an American ? "

" Oh, a man born in America, to be
sure, — a man from the States."

" That 's a definition that would quick-
ly land you on very queer and hetero-
geneous shores. For it would include
some millions of negroes, some hun-
dreds of thousands of Indians, to say
nothing of a great number of sons of
Irishmen and Germans, whose brothers
and sisters, as well as whose parents,
were born in Ireland or in Germany.
Now all these people are almost as com-
pletely separated from each other, and
from us Yankees, and from Virginians
and South Carolinians, as if they or
their parents had remained at home.
The time will come when they — the
whites among them at least — will all be
blended into one people ; but many gen-
erations must pass away before that is
brought about. Meantime, they are all
citizens of the United States, just as all
your Irishmen and Scotchmen and East
Indiamen are British subjects. But al-
though they are thus one people polit-
ically, and are scattered over half a con-
tinent that has no distinctive name, and
thus for convenience' sake are called
Americans because there is no other
way of designating them, they are in no
sense one people, like the English peo-
ple, or the Irish, or the Scotch, or the
French, or like the Germans and the
Italians, who have been distinctive races
or peoples from prehistoric times, but
only recently have become politically
nations."

" Ah, I see ; just so, just so. But
what has that to do with my taking you
and your friend, as a matter of course,

for Englishmen, and my being taken
for — for — a Yankee ? "

" Well, this : Are you not apt to
forget that New England and Virginia
(and Virginia historically means all the
South) were settled by Englishmen, who
went over there in large numbers two
centuries and a half ago, — Englishmen
who were, so to speak, the most Eng-
lish of their kind, typical representatives
of the Anglo-Saxon race as it had been
developed in England during one thou-
sand years ; the men who had beheaded
Charles I. because he was a faithless ty-
rant, and who made the Commonwealth ?
Don't you forget that these men and
their descendants, through a century and
a half (with no important admixture),
settled and built up the country, and
framed a society and a system of gov-
ernment which, omitting only the ele-
ments of monarchy and aristocracy, was
thoroughly English in its spirit, in its
laws, and in its habits and customs —
which indeed 'could not have been other
than thoroughly English, because they
were English ; and that American so-
ciety as they thus made it was subjected
to no considerable external influences
until about fifty years ago ? It is with-
in that time, within the memory of
men yet living and acting, that the emi-
gration from other countries than Eng-
land began. Fifty years ago the peo-
ple of New England and Virginia (ex-
cluding the slaves) were probably the
most thoroughly English people in the
world."

The Englishman raised his eyebrows,
and looked inquiringly.

" Because," Humphreys continued, in
reply to the look, " there was less ad-
mixture of any foreign element among
them than there was in England itself.
You might then travel through New
England in its length and breadth, and
not encounter, in your journey, half a
dozen names that were not English.
Do you suppose that the blood, the na-
ture, of these men was changed because,

794

Mr. Washington Adams in England.

[June,

in contending for their rights as Eng-
lishmen, they had severed their political
connection with the mother country?
Did the absence of monarchy affect their
race, or change their race traits ? Were
Cromwell's Ironsides any less English-
men than Goring's troopers ? Were Eng-
lishmen any less English under the
Commonwealth than they had been be-
fore under Charles I., or than they be-
came afterwards under Charles II. ? "

" I suppose not. I never thought of
that. But they were in England."

" And you suppose that that made
them Englishmen ? I thought, on the
contrary, that Britain became England
because Englishmen lived there, pos-
sessed the country, and ruled it."

" Very true. Just so ; quite so, quite
so."

" Well, if a large body of Englishmen
went to another country, and possessed
it and ruled it, would they therefore
cease to be Englishmen ? "

" N-n-no ; I can't see exactly how
they would. But they might change,
you know, in time, and by intermixture
with other people, — natives of the new
country, the aborigines, you know ; and
that would modify their language and
their customs, and so gradually make
them a different people."

" So it might, in a long period of time.
But what are two centuries in the life
of a race, and above all a race so scru-
pulously averse to social intermixture
as the English race is when it colonizes?
Aborigines ! Why, the Englishmen that
came from Jutland into Britain did n't
sweep it so clean of the British tribes
as the Englishmen who came from Old
England to America swept their part
of the country clean of Americans.
Yes " (in answer to a look of surprise
at the word), " Americans ; for you 've
only to turn back less than a hundred
years in English literature to find the
word ' American ' applied (and rightly)
only to the tribes for whose miserable
remnants you have now to go to the

Rocky Mountains, two thousand miles
from Boston, — farther than from Lon-
don to St. Petersburg. And then these
Englishmen clung with singular tenacity
to every element of their English birth-
right, its laws, its language ; and chiefly
to its English Bible, which has been
thus far the most indestructible of all
the bonds of union between scattered
men of English race, even the most
godless of them. But we 're getting
into deep waters for a railway chat, and
I 'm almost lecturing you."

" No, no ; do go on. I suppose I
knew all this before ; but I never saw
it before quite in this light."

" Well, however it all may be that
I 've just been telling you, at the risk
of being trite and commonplace, is it
not reasonable, in judging a country in
which a new government and a new so-
ciety have been established, to judge it
by those who have been longest under
the influences of the country, physical,
political, and social ? Must not they be
the best examples of what that new
country, as you call it, and that new gov-
ernment and society have produced ? "

" Ab ! 'm ! seems so ; can't say but
they are."

" How could it be otherwise ? Now
the most thoroughly English-seeming
men that you will find in America are
New England men and Virginians
whose families have been in New Eng-
land and Virginia for two hundred years.
I remember a man on shipboard whom
not one of those whom you call Brit-
ishers " —

"We?"

" Surely you, or nobody. It is a word
never heard in the United States, abso-
lutely unknown except as a quizzical
quotation of what you must pardon me
for calling British blundering."

" Well, well ! " said our railway friend,
a little testily. " There would seem to
be no end to our blunderin'. You mean,
I suppose, your English shipmates."

" Some were English, yes ; but some

1883.]

Mr. Washington Adams in England.

795

were Scotch, some Irish, and there was
a handsome Welshman, with a sweet
English wife. But they were all British
subjects, as they might all have been
citizens of the United States, might they
not ? "

" I 'm afraid you 're e,n American
Socrates, and are gettin' me into 'a
corner with your questions ; but I sup-
pose that I must admit that they might."

" And in that case would they have
ceased to be English, Irish, Scotch, and
Welsh ? "

" To be sure they would."

"How is that? Would the govern-
ment under which they chose to live
change their identity, their race, and
make them other than they were born ? "

" N-n-no. At least, I can't say just
now how it would. But are n't you put-
tin' rather too fine a point on it, as we
say in England ? "

" And as we say in New England. I
think not. But be that as it may, this
motley crowd of four races undertook to
label some dozen or twenty of their
fellow passengers as foreigners, because
they were born in America, — men of
as unmitigated English blood as could
be found between the Humber and the
Channel. But this one man to whom
I alluded they positively refused to ac-
cept as an American, even upon the as-
surance of his countrymen insisting upon
it, in a hooting sort of way, that he was
English. And so he was, — as English
as King Alfred ; but, as I happened to
know, he was from the interior of New
England, where his father's family and
his mother's had lived for more than two
hundred years."

" A singular exception, I suppose.
There must always be such exceptions,
you know."

" Pardon me, rather as you know ;
just such exceptions as you found my
friend here and myself." And as Hum-
phreys smiled, his good-natured collo-
quist smiled, too, and said, —

" You have me there. But you see,

I 'm no fair match for you. You have
thought on this subject, and I have n't."

" And therefore you have undertaken
to decide it ; for yourself, at least."

" Come, come ! This is getting to be
a little too much. I did n't expect that
when I asked a simple question I should
be sat down upon in this awful way ; "
saying this in the pleasantest tone and
with perfect good-nature, and yet evi-
dently feeling a little nettled at Hum-
phreys' close pursuit.

" Is n't the truth of the matter that
you — I mean you in the Old Home
here — have done the sitting down your-
selves for so long that you don't quite
like any change in the fashion ? "

There was a silence of a few mo-
ments, broken only by the half-musical
hum with which a fast English railway
train pursues its swift but gentle course ;
and I, looking out of the window, as we
passed, upon a viaduct, over a pretty
road, saw a great van toiling along just
under us, and a humble foot-passenger
resting himself on a bench under an old
oak opposite a little inn, at the door of
which stood a stout, red-faced woman,
probably the wife of the publican. I
had hardly had this glimpse, and we
were whisking again through sprout-
fields and meadows, when the English-
man resumed the conversation, saying,
" Perhaps, perhaps. The truth is that
perhaps we have been a little hard upon
you, from Mrs. Trollope down."

" Ay," answered Humphreys ; " you
all begin with Mrs. Trollope's damna-
ble book. And yet Mrs. Trollope was
right."

" Right ! And you say that ? "

" I. So far as I have the means of
knowing, Mrs. Trollope was quite cor-
rect in all her descriptions."

"Quite .so," I said, putting in my lit-
tle oar for the first time, as the Eng-
lishman turned to me with an astonished
and inquiring eye.

" And yet you called her book dam-
nable."

796

Mr. Washington Adams in England.

[June,

" And so it was," said Humphreys ;
" professing as it did to give a picture
of the domestic manners of the Amer-
icans, and taken, as it was, to be a cor-
rect representation of society in the
United States. It was written in a
pleasing and picturesque style, — for
Mrs. Trollope's style was better than
her son Anthony's ; and that book has
leavened, or rather soured and doughed,
British opinion and tinged British feel-
ing in regard to the Americans to this
day."

" Correct, and yet damnable ; pleas-
ing and picturesque, and yet souring
and doughing ! Matters, I must say, are
becoming rather complicated ; ' mixed '
I believe it 's called in America."

" Do you know," said Humphreys,
sharply, " anything of the geography of
the United States, and did you ever hear
of Botany Bay ? "

" Oh, yes," replied our companion,
blandly brightening ; " I 'm pretty well
up there. I know, of course, that the
States lie south of Canada, and north of
the island of Nassau; and I know all
about your big rivers and lakes, and
your immense prairies, and the Rocky
Mountains, and California, and all that
sort of thing. But what has that to do
with Botany Bay ? "

" Do you know how far New Orleans
and Cincinnati are from Boston and
Philadelphia ? "

" New Orleans ? That 'a where the
British troops lost a battle. Washing-
ton defeated us there, did n't he ? You
see I 'm determined to be fair. Quite
at the South, is n't it ? And Cincinna-
tus, — one of your Western towns, is n't
it, near Chicago ? I suppose they must
both be pretty well away from Bos-
ton ; some two or three hundred miles
or so."

" And do you know when Mrs. Trol-
lope wrote her book ? "

" I can answer that question of my
American catechism, too," he replied.
" I know it 's not a new book, — twenty

or thirty years old ; and since that time,
I know," he continued, with a courtesy
which I thought rather severely tried
by Humphreys' sharp fire of questions,
"the Americans have made great ad-
vances, — very great advances, indeed,"
bowing to both of us.

" My stars and garters ! nothing of
the sort," rejoined Humphreys, like a
steel-trap. " If you mean that we 've
grown richer, and bigger, and stronger,
very well ; that 's true enough. But if
you mean that we've made great ad-
vances in morality, in social refinement,
and particularly in domestic manners, to
use Mrs. Trollope's very good phrase,
permit me to assure you, you 're quite
wrong. This was before my memory :
I 'm not praising the doings of the days
when I was a boy. I spare you the
quotation " —

" Sese puero," murmured our friend.
— " but if you will look into the books
of some British travelers who preceded
Mrs. Trollope a generation or so, you
will find that they present a picture of
morals and manners in the United
States much more admirable than could
be composed from the columns of our
own newspapers at the present day."

"You have been deteriorating, then,
you mean to say ? "

" Looking at the surface of our soci-
ety without discrimination, it must be
admitted that the deterioration has been
great in those respects."

" I 'm sorry to hear it ; and to tell
you the truth, I think something of the
same sort has been going on in Eng-
land. To what do you attribute it ? "

" Several causes ; but chiefly, our
great and sudden increase in wealth,
the war, and — largely, European in-
fluence."

" Whew ! " — a soft whistle of sur-
prise.

" Not such European influence as
would be likely to be under your per-
sonal cognizance, or to occur to you in
your estimate of social forces. But let

1883.]

Mr. Washington Adams in England.

797

me go on as I began. The deteriora-
tion in morals is so certain and so well
known that no one thinks of disputing
it. To look through a file of one of our
leading newspapers for the last fifteen
years is to be led to the conclusion that
personal honesty has become the rarest
of virtues in the United States, except
public probity, which seems no longer to
exist. The very ruins of it have disap-
peared. Our state legislatures, instead
of being composed of men to whom
their constituents looked up, are now
composed of men upon whom their con-
stituents look down, — not second rate,
nor even third rate, but fourth and fifth
rate men, sordid in morals and vulgar in
manners, who do politics as a business,
for the mere purpose of filling their own
pockets. No one thinks of disputing
this more than the presence of the blood-
sucking insects of summer. Congress
itself is openly declared by our own
journals to be, because it is known to
be, the most corrupt body in civilized
Christendom. Within the last fifteen
years we have seen men occupying the
highest, the two very highest, positions
in the government of the United States,
who were not only purchasable, but who
had been purchased, and at a very small
price. I know what I say, and mean it "
(in answer to a look of surprise). " The
cabinets, during the same period, have
been so rotten with corruption that the
presence in them of two or three men of
integrity could not save them. Worse
even than this, judges are openly called
Mr. This-one's judge, or Mr. That-one's ;
their owner being generally the control-
ling stockholder and manager of some
great corporation, which coins wealth
for him and his satellites by schemes of
gigantic extortion. I know something
of this by personal observation. There
was a time when the bench of the United
States was not inferior in probity, and
hardly in learning or ability, to that of
Great Britain. As to manners, did you
see that social sketch in Punch ticketed

" In Mid- Atlantic," in which a bishop
or a dean, who has plainly been en-
gaged in an upper -deck fair -day chat
with an American mother, turns to her
son, a lad in knickerbockers, and look-
ing with benign reproof upon him says,
' My young friend, when I was of your
age it was not thought decorous for
young people to mingle in the conversa-
tions of their elders, unless they were
requested to do so.' And young Hope-
ful replies, ' That must have been eighty
years ago, and we've changed all that
now.' The cut is hardly an exaggera-
tion ; but here are my friend and myself,
who are little more than half the age at-
tributed to your bishop, and who can tell
you that in our boyhood that point of
breeding was not only taught and insist-
ed on, but punctiliously observed among
all respectable New England folk. And
who, at that time, among such people,
even not in our boyhood, would have
ventured to come up to two persons en-
gaged in conversation, and break direct-
ly in upon them with another topic, at
his pleasure, or for his interest, as now
is done constantly ? Deterioration of
manners indeed ! "

" But these are comparatively trifling
matters, mere surface marks, — not pe-
culiar to America, you may be sure.
Boys are saucier in England than they
used to be ; and here rude men thrust
themselves upon you now with a free-
dom that certainly shows the world is
movin' ; but as to which way, they and
you might have a different opinion."

" Surface marks ! So are the bub-
bles on a stream ; but they float with
its current, and the foul air that fills
them comes from the bottom. Let me
tell you, ex cathedra, what I know, but
merely .as every observing man who has
the means of knowing knows : that
the manners and the manner, as well as
the morals, of America — let us say of
Boston and Philadelphia, for example,
and the surrounding country — were
of a much finer type in the days of

798

Mr. Washington Adams in England.

[June,

our fathers than they are in ours. Be-
havior is common now in splendid draw-
ing-rooms, filled with every attainable
object of luxury and of taste, which then
would not have been tolerated in mod-
est parlors of people who lived frugal-
ly and worked hard for their moderate
incomes. Among them, young people
did not lounge and loll about and talk
slang in the presence of their elders and
of ladies."

" Come, come ! Are n't you playin'
the middle-aged cynic? That's not at
all peculiar to America. The very same
change has been remarked upon here."

" And therefore," remarked Hum-
phreys, with a little smile, " Americans
have been becoming unlike English-
men ? Strange, that among people so
unlike, the social changes should have
been the same within the same period
of time ! "

<l H'm ! Democratic tendencies ; in-
fluence of democracy in both countries ;
lack of deference for authority in both
countries."

" Perhaps. But among the changes
in manners in England have n't you ob-
served the incoming of a certain mild-
ness and gentleness of tone, a consid-
erate charity for weakness and misfor-
tune, and for the feelings of inferiors ?
Are personal defects and failings, and
the ridicule that Juvenal tells us is in-
herent in poverty, now openly made the
butts of the more fortunate so much as
they used to be, say, even when Miss
Austen wrote her novels ? "

" No, they 're not. In that respect I
must say there has been a marked im-
provement. I suppose the same has
taken place with you." < •>

" No."

" No ? "

" Not at all : simply because it was
not needed. I don't know how it was
at the South ; but among New England
people of decent breeding in colonial
days, and in the early years of the re-
public, any reflection upon personal de-

fects or misfortune, any assumption of
superiority because of mere money pros-
perity, was regarded as the most offen-
sive form of ill-manners ; so much so
that among such people it may be said
to have been almost unknown. And
this social trait may be taken as typical
of the tone and the manners of New
England society at the time we aro
speaking of."

" Very admirable, if — pahdon me —
you 're sure you 're correct ; and quite
destructive to a suggestion I was about
to make, — that the Americans, whose
manners and mental tone and habits
you seem to think should be taken as
characteristic, are not real Americans,
products of your soil, but Europeanized
Americans."

"Now," said Humphreys, smartly,
" if you use that phrase and take that
position, I shall — to adopt an expres-
sion of the elegant Miss Harriet By-
ron's— 'rear .up.' The Americans of
whom I am speaking are, true enough,
not products of the soil ; — in the name
of Christopher Columbus how could
they be ? — but they were those who
had been free from European influence,
not only from their birth, but for gen-
erations, — people who had never been
in Europe, and whose forefathers had
never been there from the time when
they first went to America, two hundred
and fifty years ago. They were the peo-
ple who, Lord Lovelace said, in Queen
Anne's time, had, with their colonial and
republican simplicity of life, the man-
ners of courtiers, and wondered (igno-
rant as he was) where they could have
got their manners. He reminds me of
another more distinguished peer, or man
who became a peer, — Bulwer, Lord
Lytton. Once, at his own table, when
there was a discussion as to some mat-
ter of taste as to which an American,
there present, ventured to express an
opinion adverse to that^ prevalent in
England, and to refer to the standard in
his own country, Bulwer said, turning

1883.]

Mr. Washington Adams in England.

799

pointedly to him, ' "We 're not accus-
tomed to look to America for opinions
on matters of good taste,' — a speech
which would have been regarded as
very rude in America, even in the rural
districts of New England ; above all, to
a guest at one's own table."

" Rather rough, I must confess. But
you must n't judge all English gentle-
men by that ; for, with all his fine talk,
I 'm inclined to think that Bulwer was
somethin' of a sham."

" I 'm not surprised to hear you say
so ; and I don't judge all English gentle-
men by such a speech, — only some of
them ; but unfortunately they are they
whose voices are most frequently heard
by Americans."

" Ah, yes ; just so, just so ; just as
the American voices that we most fre-
quently hear are pitched in a tone not
quite so agreeable as — those I 've
heard this morning. Pahdon me for
being a little personal."

" With all my heart, so far as your in-
tention goes ; but as to the fact, I don't
know that your apology much helps the
matter. For, excuse me for saying that
your very apology shows either that
you speak in ignorance, or that you
pick out what is antipathetic to you,
and label that, and that only, as Ameri-
can. Your countrymen, even the intel-
ligent and kindly intentioned, are so
stung with a craze after something pe-
culiarly American from America that
they refuse to accept anything as Amer-
ican that is not extravagant and gro-
tesque. Even in literature they accept
as American only that which is as
strange and really as foreign to the
taste and habits of the most thorough-
bred Americans as it is to them."

" Bret Harte ? "

" Verily : I should say so. The per-
sonages in Bret Harte's brilliant sketches
are just as strange, and in the same
way strange, to decent people in Bos-
ton and Philadelphia as they are to peo-
ple in London and in Oxford ; and they

interest the one exactly as they do the
other, and for the same reasons: and
they had no peculiarly American char-
acter."

" That 's an astonishing criticism."

" None but that given them by their
scenes being laid in a part of America
three thousand five hundred ^iles from
Boston, farther in distance than from
New York to London, and thrice as far
in time. Any writer of Bret Harte's
talent, whose mother tongue was Eng-
lish, would — must — have made them
just as American as he did. And be-
sides, the men he wrote about were
no more American than British. Half
the early Californian mining popula-
tion were of British birth, — English or
Scotch, with a few Irish."

'< Are you sure of that ? "

" Sure, if you don't pin me down to
tens in a row 'of figures. Don't you
remember in the letter of the Fifth
Avenue belle to her California lover,

" And how I went down the middle
With the man that shot Sandy McGee " ?

And don't you remember that she her-
self was ould Follinsbee's daughter ? Mr.
McGee and Mr. Follinsbee were typ-
ical men, in whom your interest was
as great as ours, and for whom your
responsibility was much greater. But
to turn back to Bulwer, and his pret-
ty speech : he deserved, I hope you '11
think, to have the truth told him, — that
among Americans of the best breeding
his earlier novels were condemned, al-
though they were read."

" Ah, yes ; for their immorality, I sup-
pose. I 've always heard that in such
matters you were of a most exemplary
particularity ; although you seem, in
those also " (with a sly smile) " to have
made some progress."

" Less on that account than for their
bad taste and their low social tone.
Men of my age can remember hear-
ing Bulwer spoken of in our boyhood,
by our elders, as essentially vulgar, a
snob, — a gilded snob, but none the less

800

Mr. Washington Adams in England.

[June,

a snob. Is not that true ? " turning to
me.

" Yes," I answered ; " but he im-
proved in this respect astonishingly.
There is hardly a more remarkable
phenomenon in literature than Bulwer's
moral growth. You would hardly be-
lieve that the same soul and the same
breeding were in the man who wrote
Pelham and The Caxtons."

" But after all," urged Humphreys,
" was n't this the result rather of an in-
tellectual perception of moral beauty
than of a regenerate condition? Had
he in him, the man who wrote Pelham,
the capacity of ever becoming, at heart,
a gentleman ? "

" I 'm afraid you 're right," said our
friend ; " but have n't we taken rather
a flyer ? What has all this to do with
Mrs. Trollope, and New Orleans, and
Cincinnatus, and Botany Bay ? "

" This," answered Humphreys, with
a mild conclusive fall of his voice ; " the
people who thus condemned Bulwer,
just as you condemn him, on the score
of taste and true good breeding, were
the very Americans whose domestic
manners Mrs. Trollope's book misrep-
resented."

" Beg pahdon, I thought you said her
book was true."

" So it was. It did not caricature, —
or very little. What it did was to pre-
sent to the ignorant and prejudiced peo-
ple of England a carefully made, but
lively and graphic, series of sketches of
society, which were about as fair repre-
sentations of the domestic manners of
such Americans I ever met under a
roof a& a series of like sketches of the
society of Botany Bay at that time
would have been of any English people
that you are likely to know anything
about."

" I don't quite understand. Pray ex-
plain.' '

" Mrs. Trollope published her book
not twenty or thirty years ago, but fifty.
She entered the America which she

professed to describe, not at Boston,
New York, or Philadelphia, but at New
Orleans ; and going up the Mississippi
a thousand miles, — yes" (in answer to
a look of astonished inquiry), " one
thousand miles, and more, — she estab-
lished herself as the keeper of a sort
of big milliner's shop, or bazaar, at Cin-
cinnati. Now Cincinnati is not two or
three hundred miles from Boston or
Philadelphia, but almost a thousand ;
and it 's not near Chicago, but three
hundred miles from it; and when she
was there Chicago did n't exist. Cin-
cinnati was then not only its thousand
miles from Boston and Philadelphia, but
as socially remote from any of the cen-
tres of civilization in which the domes-
tic manners of the Americans could be
properly studied as Botany Bay was
from London and Oxford."

Doubt, astonishment, and interest
were strongly expressed in the face of
our fellow-traveler; and he said, in a
low apologetic tone, " But Botany Bay
was a penal colony."

" Of course," said Humphreys, " I
don't mean to compare the two places
in that respect. They had no such like-
ness, even at that time. I specified Bot-
any Bay only for the sake of using a
name that would bring to your mind
vividly a very remote colony of Eng-
lishmen cut off from intercourse with
established English society, surrounded
by a wild country, and composed chiefly
of people whom circumstances had made
pioneers on the remotest confines of
civilization. You in England have to
reach your colonies of that sort by sea ;
we, so vast is the territory of the United
States, reach ours by laud. The coun-
try around Cincinnati then, within a few
miles, was covered by the primeval for-
est, through which people who must trav-
el passed, upon tracks rather than roads,
on horseback or in vehicles of the rudest
and most primitive construction. It
was then the far West, and not only
physically distant, but a great deal far-

1883.]

Mr. Washington Adams in England.

801

ther removed from the long-established

and slowly-developed social centres of
America than any place in, the world is
now from any other place, except the
interior of Russia, Siberia, and South-
ern Africa. My father had to go to
Ohio, at that time, or later, on some
professional business connected with a
land claim. He used to tell the story
of it years afterward; and child as I
was, I shall never forget his description
of his experiences : how he was two
weeks in getting there, creeping across
the State of New York in a canal boat,
traveling through Ohio on horseback,
with saddle bags, his papers in one and
his few tpilet articles in another, and
his scanty wardrobe in a leathern valise
strapped behind his saddle — I 've got
it yet : — his description of the queer,
uncouth people that he met, the priva-
tions he endured : how one day, when he
had ridden from morning almost till
night without coming upon anything
like an inn, he stopped at a house that
seemed to consist of two or three rooms,
and asked for something to eat; and
how the mistress of the establishment,
who was the only person visible, set be-
fore him a coarse earthen dish, in which
were some slices of cold boiled pork
surrounded by dirty congealed fat, some
half-sodden cakes of Indian corn, and a
jug of whisky ; and how the repulsive-
ness of the viands and of all the sur-
roundings, including the slatternly wom-
an, so affected him that, fatigued and
famished as he was, he could not eat.
For it 's apropos of our subject for me
to say, after some acquaintance with so-
ciety in England and on the Continent,
that he was one of the daintiest and
most fastidious of men, although his
father had reared his family with difficul-
ty upon a slender income. I remember
that in his story this woman spoke of
her husband as the Judge, or rather the
Jedge."

" Yes, he was a justice of the peace."

" Judge ! "

VOL. LI. — NO. 308. 51

" A justice of the peace ! Pahdon nay
repeatin' your words."

" You are surprised : naturally. Your
justices of the peace are county gentle-
men and clergymen. With us a justice
of the peace is the very lowest in con-
sideration of all official dignities, simply
because it is the least profitable."

" This is very strange, — a justice of
the peace holdin' his office for profit ! "

" Yes ; that is one of the differences
between the two countries. And you
may set this down as an axiom of general
application : that everything in America
is done, every position is sought, with a
single eye to pecuniary profit."

" And have you no gentlemen of lei-
sure and character who might hold such
an important position ? "

"•Very few ; and they don't want
official position. Why should they ? It
would bring them no distinction, no
honor among men of their own condi-
tion in life, and would subject them to
experiences from which they would
shrink. We have some men of wealth
who, to become senator, with a chance
for the presidency or a first-rate foreign
mission, will spend a moderate fortune."

" Bless my soul ! How, pray ? "

" In bribery : bribing caucus mana-
gers, bribing legislators, bribing even po-
litical parties ; and so establishing what
in our politics are called claims. But
we are wandering. It was in such so-
ciety as she found in these then remote
and uncivilized regions, and others lit-
tle differing from them, that Mrs. Trol-
lope drew her pictures, and labeled them
Domestic Manners of the Americans.
She has at the end of her book a few
pages of kind approval of Boston, New
York, and Philadelphia. Why, I can
remember how our friend used to lis-
ten to my father's descriptions of his
Western travel as they would now if a
man had returned from Patagonia or
Japan ; quite ignorant that pictures of
that strange life were accepted by the
world of Europe as faithful descriptions

802

Mr. Washington Adams in England.

[June,

of their manners and customs. The
great difficulty with you here upon this
subject is that to you America — you
don't know exactly what the name
means — is simply America, all one and
the same ; and that Americans are sim-
ply Americans, all alike. At the pres-
ent day they are becoming more and
more alike, under the shaping material
and moral forces which have been de-
veloped during the last twenty years ;
but before that limit of time the unlike-
ness was greater than you seem to be
able to imagine."

" Quite so, I should say, from what
you tell me of the effect of the strange-
ness upon yourselves."

" Strangeness, indeed ! Let me tell
you a little characteristic story of old
New England domestic manners, which
you may compare with your recollec-
tions of Mrs. Trollope's book. My friend
here will assure you of its literal truth ;
for he knows it. In 1789, when Wash-
ington was traveling slowly through
New England, receiving and paying
visits, he called at a house in Connecti-
cut, the master of which although one of
the leading men in his neighborhood, a
scholar, and one who lived comfortably,
never saw one thousand dollars in money
(that 's two hundred pounds, you know)
in a year in all his life. Washington,
when he departed, was conducted to the
door by his host and hostess, accompa-
nied by their daughter, a young girl just
in her 'teens. She of course did not pre-
sume to say good-by to General Wash-
ington ; but as she opened the door for
him and stood modestly aside that he
might pass out, the great ex-commander
in chief of the ragged Continental army,
looking down upon her from his six feet
two of stature and from his Olympian
top of grandeur, laid his hand with state-
ly kindness upon her head, saying,

1 It is only by the use of a superfluous o that I
can indicate the prolonged vowel sound in this
word, which is one of the very few and slight dif-
ferences in pronunciation between English and
New England or New York men of similar breed-

' Thank you, my little lady ; I wish you
a better office.' ' Yes, sir,' she replied,
doing reverence with a gentle curtsey,
4 to let you in.' "

" By George ! worthy of a duchess !
Only half of 'em would n't be up to it.
'T would take Waldegrave to say that."

" I sha'n't say it was n't ; but I know
it is merely a somewhat salient and
striking example of New England man-
ners until within the last forty years or
so ; and among people who were with-
out servants that opened their doors for
them on any occasion."

" Most extrawd'nary condition of so-
ciety ! "

" Extraordinary to you, but quite
natural to us at that time : the union of
culture and character and fine manners
with the absence even of moderate
wealth was quite as common in New
England as their union with wealth is
here. Now the great mistake that you
all make, in your uneasy search after
' the American ' and the American thing,
is that you don't look for them among
those who have made America what it
is (or what it was till within the last
few years), and who are the product of
generations of American breeding, but
among " —

Here the train slowed, and our fellow-
traveler, interrupting Humphreys hur-
riedly, said, " This has been very inter-
estin' to me ; but now I 'm afraid I must
say good-mornin'. Can't I have the
pleasure of seeiu' you again, and your
friend ? See ; this is my address," tak-
ing out his card, and writing a word or
two on it in pencil. " If you 're in my
country, do look me up. Almost any
one '11 tell you where I live ; and I '11
be delighted to see you, gentlemen, both
of you, and make you as comfortable as
I can. Give you some good shoootin',
too, as you '11 come after the 1st." 1

ing. The dropping of the g from the syllable ing
is not universal among men of this class in Eng-
land, but it is very common ; much more common
than in the class just below them.

1883.]

Mr. Washington Adams in England.

803

We exchanged cards, and parted
pleasantly.

" Hi ! " said Humphreys (showing me
the card, on which appeared in plain,
bold script, every letter of which pro-
claimed Strongi'tharm — EARL OF TOP-
PINGHAM, and in pencil The Priory,
Toppingtori), " I Ve a letter to him in
my pocket from Dr. Tooptoe, his old tu-
tor at Oxford, who says he 's one of the
best fellows in the world, but too inde-
pendent ; that is, from old Dr. Tooptoe's
point of view. You may think it queer
that he asked two strangers, that he
chanced upon in a railway carriage, to
his house. With us, we should never
venture on such a step ; but here a man
like him can do almost anything in rea-
son without risk, — not only because
of his rank, but because he's a tip-top
man among his peers. And then we 're
Americans. If we were John Bulls,
catch him at it ! Besides, Americans
are always interesting subjects of study,
and objects to be exhibited."

" You know something of him, then.
He seems, indeed a thorough good fel-
low, with charming manners."

" Only in a general way, and from
what Dr. Tooptoe told me. Just think
of it ! that man took a double first class ;
and to do that at Oxford an earl must
work like any other man ; besides, he
counts for something in the House of
Lords. And yet his ignorance ! New
Orleans was to him a place where the
British troops were defeated, and by
Washington ! and the States lie to the
north of the island of Nassau ! "

"Well, well, what occasion has he
had to know more ? If he had, he could
learn it all, pretty well, in an hour's
smart reading."

" All the more ! Why the deuce, then,
does n't he read, and waste an hour upon
such a country as the United States,
and where so many of his kindred are ?
Confound him ! he thinks much of him-
self, as well he may, because his fore-
fathers were at Toppington when Wil-

liam came over. So was mine, or very
near by ; and until the time of Henry
VIII. they were both in very much the
same rank of life. Then his ancestor
was knighted, and soon got the Priory
out of Cromwell, and then a peerage
out of the king ; and they went on mar-
rying money and rising in rank, till since
Walpole's time they 've been earls."

" You '11 go, of course, — with your
letter and his invitation, too ? "

" H'm, I am not so sure of that.
Where are you going now ? "

" After knocking about a few days,
as I told you, I shall go to Boreham
Hall. Sir Charles has asked me there
to spend two or three days."

" Boreham Hall ! You '11 find it
dreadfully dull there."

" Why ? Sir Charles was pleasant
enough when he was in New York."

" He was well enough ten years ago ;
good-natured, and a gentleman, and all
that. But he has married, since, a brew-
er's daughter, who brought him fifty
thousand pounds, and who is as tame as
a sheep, and bleats just like one ; and
he's settled down into a mere squire,
and has grown burly and squirish. But
that '11 do very well. You 're sure to
go to Lord Toppingham's. All these
people know each other, and all about
each other ; that 's one comfort of their
society. Boreham Hall is only a few
miles from Toppington Priory, — just a
pleasant ride, or walk ; and you 're sure
to go if you will. It suits me well."

« How ? "

" Why, you see these people are so
beset with their craze after their real
Americans that I 've a notion to give my
Lord Toppingham an opportunity of see-
ing one. In your few days of knocking
about, I can find Washington Adams,
who 's over here I believe, and who 's
just the sort of man for the purpose.
I'll send Dr. Tooptoe's letter to Top-
pington Priory, inclosed in one saying
I 'm prevented from coming myself for
the present, but that I shall take the

804

Mr. Washington Adams in England.

[June,

liberty of introducing a friend, a real
American. Yes," with a brightening
eye, " by Jove, I '11 do it ! "

" Rather a cool proceeding, under the
circumstances."

" Oh, it '11 do, — under the circum-
stances, as you say, — especially if you
're there at the time. I know my man.
So when you 're going to the Priory

just drop me a line at B , and it '11

be all right."

" But who is Washington Adams ? "

" Don't you know Washington Adams,
the Honorable Washington J. Adams,
Wash Jack Adams, as they call him?
Why, he 's the Member of Assembly
from your own district."

" Quite likely ; but I don't know
him."

" That argues yourself unknown, as
I once heard an editor say to him, with
a sober face ; — and to see him expand
and beam with credulous vanity ! He 's
the son of old Phelim McAdam, who
ran two gin-mills in Mackerelville, and
who, instead of dying in the odor of
drunkenness, as you 'd suppose, hardly
ever was drunk in his life ; he might
have been a drunker and a better man ;
he made some money by his gin-mills,
set up respectability, and joined the re-
publican party."

" An Irishman in New York join the
republican party ! "

" Irishman yourself ! as he would
have said. Mr. Phelim McAdam was
an American born. Never was such a
flagrant example of Americanism. Thus
it was," in answer to my look of won-
der : " Phelim McAdam was the son
of an Irish emigrant. He came near
being born in no country, but under the
British flag ; for his mother was expect-
ing his appearance on the voyage, as
she approached the shores of the home
of the free and the land of the brave.
But the lady lagged, or the good ship
hastened, and Phelim first saw the light
of freedom dimmed by filtering through
the dirty panes of the upper windows

of a Mackerelville tenement house, and
bloomed upon the world a true-born
American, whatever that may be. His
gin-mills brought him some money, as
I said before, and he married the daugh-
ter of a Division Street pawn-broker,
who came out of — the Lord knows
where ! — but who was sharp and smart
and ambitious ; and at her instigation
he cut his Irish connection, moved up
town, dropped the Me from his name and
signed himself 'P. Adam,' to which
the lady, who erelong set up a visiting
card, quietly added an s. And so, in ten
or fifteen years, — you know fifteen
years is the beginning of all things in
New York, — no one recognized, in a
paragraph mentioning, to the lady's de-
light, ' P. Adams, Esq., of East Eleventh
Street,' the ' McAdam, Phelim, liquors,
Essex Street,' of the New York direc-
tory."

"You seem strangely well-informed
on such a subject."

" You forget that I 've been a railway
lawyer, and am familiar with the lobby.
He bought some shares in one, and, aid-
ed by his wife, got upon the Board."

"His wife?"

" She was a handsome hussy, schem-
ing and pushing, and as crafty as Satan ;
and one winter she went to Albany,
where I saw her, and had occasion to
find out all about her, — all that was
find-out-able. This was long ago ; during
the civil war. Well, as I was saying,
like most of his sort, he was exceedingly
American ; and oh, it was edifying to
hear him, with an upper lip that weighed
a pound, talk about 'them low Irish.'
Consequent upon his American pride,
his son — the only one with which
his ' lady ' condescended to favor him

— was borne away from the font with
the name Washington Jackson Adams ;
which, when he went into politics — as
he did soon after reaching his majority

— was trimmed, in that elegant style so
distinctive of New York politics, into
Wash Jack Adams ; often it became

1883.]

Sow the Women went from Dover.

805

Washed Adams ; and this, after a cer-
tain investigation, the democratic Penny
Trumpet converted into Whitewashed
Adams, — a name that might have been
fastened upon him if he had been impor-
tant enough to be talked about. Now,
he's just the sort of creature that our
friends here recognize as a real Amer-
ican ; he 's decent looking enough, —
not at all Irish; took after his moth-
er ; and I 've a notion of giving some
of them a chance to see him. So, good-

by ! Don't forget to let me know."
This passed as we neared his station.
He and his portmanteau disappeared ;
but just as the train was starting he
came rushing back, and looking in said,
" You 've never seen this Washington
Adams ? "

« Not I."

" Well, if it should occur to you that
you ever did at any time, keep quiet."

" As a pretty widow about her age."
And on I went toward Boreham.

Richard Grant White.

HOW THE WOMEN WENT FROM DOVER.1

1662. '

THE tossing spray of Cocheco's fall
Hardened to ice on its rocky wall,
As through Dover town, in the chill, gray dawn,
Three women passed, at the cart- tail drawn !

Bared to the waist, for the north wind's grip
And keener sting of the constable's whip,
The blood that followed each hissing blow
Froze as it sprinkled the winter snow.

Priest and ruler, boy and maid
Followed the dismal cavalcade ;
And from door and window, open thrown,
Looked and wondered gaffer and crone.

i The following is a copy of the warrant issued
b}' Major Waldron, of Dover, in 1662. The Qua-
kers, as was their wont, prophesied against him,
and saw, as they supposed, the fulfillment of their
prophecy when, many years after, he was killed
by the Indians.

To the constables of Dover, Hampton, Salisbury,
Newbury, Rowley, Ipswich, Wenham, Lynn,
Boston, Roxbury, Dedham, and until these vag-
abond Quakers are carried out of this jurisdic-
tion.

You, and every one of you, are required, in the
King's Majesty's name, to take these vagabond
Quakers, Anne Colman, Mary Tomkins, and Alice
Ambrose, and make them fast to the cart's tail,
and driving the cart through your several towns,
to whip them upon their naked backs, not exceed-

ing ten stripes a piece on each of them, in each
town; and so to convey them from constable to
constable, till the}- are out of this jurisdiction, as
you will answer it at your peril; and this shall be
your warrant. RICHARD WALDROX.

Dated at Dover, December 22, 1662.

This warrant was executed only in Dover and
Hampton. At Salisbury the constable refused to
obey it. He was sustained by the town's people,
who were under the influence of Major Robert
Pike, the leading man in the lower valley of the
Merrimac, who stood far in advance of his time,
as an advooate of religious freedom, and an oppo-
nent of ecclesiastical authority. He had the moral
courage to address an able and manly letter to the
court at Salem, remonstrating against the witch-
craft trials.

806 Sow the Women went from Dover. [June,

"God is our witness," the victims cried,

" We suffer for Him who for all men died ;
The wrong ye do has been done before,
We bear the stripes that the Master bore !

"And thou, 0 Kichard Waldron, for whom
We hear the feet of a coming doom,
On thy cruel heart and thy hand of wrong
Vengeance is sure, though it tarry long.

"In the light of the Lord, a flame we see
Climb and kindle a proud roof-tree;
And beneath it an old man lying dead,
With stains of blood on his hoary head."

"Smite, Goodman Hate-Evil ! — harder still!"
The magistrate cried, " lay on with a will !
Drive out of their bodies the Father of Lies,
Who through them preaches and prophesies ! "

So into the forest they held their way,
By winding river and frost-rimmed bay,
Over wind-swept hills that felt the beat
Of the winter sea at their icy feet.

The Indian hunter, searching his traps,
Peered stealthily through the forest gaps ;
And the outlying settler shook his head, —
•" They 're witches going to jail," he said.

At last a meeting-house came in view ;
A blast on his horn the constable blew ;
And the boys of Hampton cried up and down,
" The Quakers have come 1 " to the wondering town.

From barn and woodpile the goodman came ;
The goodwife quitted her quilting frame,
With her child at her breast; and, hobbling slow,
The grandam followed to see the show.

Once more the torturing whip was swung,
Once more keen lashes the bare flesh stung.
" Oh, spare ! they are bleeding ! " a little maid cried,
And covered her face the sight to hide.

A murmur ran round the crowd : " Good folks,"
Quoth the constable, busy counting the strokes,
" No pity to wretches like these is due,
They have beaten the gospel black and blue!"

1883.] How the Women went from Dover. 807

Then a pallid woman, in wild-eyed fear,
With her wooden noggin of milk drew near.
" Drink, poor hearts ! " A rude hand smote
Her draught away from a parching throat.

" Take heed," one whispered, " they '11 take your cow
For fines, as they took your horse and plow,
And the bed from under you." u Even so,"
She said. "They are cruel as death I know."

Then on they passed, in the waning day,
Through Seabrook woods, a weariful way ;
By great salt meadows and sand-hills bare,
And glimpses of blue sea here and there.

By the meeting-house in Salisbury town,
The sufferers stood, in the red sundown,
Bare for the lash ! 0 pitying Night,
Drop swift thy curtain and hide the sight !

With shame in his eye and wrath on his lip
The Salisbury constable dropped his whip.
" This warrant means murder foul and red ;
Cursed is he who serves it," he said.

" Show me the order, and meanwhile strike
A blow at your peril!" said Justice Pike.
Of all the rulers the land possessed,
Wisest and boldest was he and best.

He scoffed at witchcraft ; the priest he met
As man meets man ; his feet he set
Beyond his dark age, standing upright,
Soul-free, with his face to the morning light.

He read the warrant : " These convey
From our precincts; at every town on the way
Give each ten lashes" " God judge the brute !
I tread his order under my foot!

" Cut loose these poor ones and let them go ;
Come what will of it, all men shall know
No warrant is good, though backed by the Crown,
For whipping women in Salisbury town ! "

The hearts of the villagers, half released
From creed of terror and rule of priest,
By a primal instinct owned the right
Of human pity in law's despite.

808 Authorship in America. [June,

For ruth and chivalry only slept,
His- Saxon manhood the yeoman kept ;
Quicker or slower, the same blood ran
In the Cavalier and the Puritan.

The Quakers sank on their knees in praise
And thanks. A last, low sunset blaze
Flashed out from under a cloud, and shed
A golden glory on each bowed head.

The tale is one of an evil time,

When souls were fettered and thought was crime,

And heresy's whisper above its breath

Meant shameful scourging and bonds and death !

What marvel, that hunted and sorely tried,
Even woman rebuked and prophesied,
And soft words rarely answered back
The grim persuasion of whip and rack !

If her cry from the whipping-post and jail
Pierced sharp as the Kenite's driven nail,
O woman, at ease in these happier days,
Forbear to judge of thy sister's ways !

How much thy beautiful life may owe
To her faith and courage thou canst not know,
Nor how from the paths of thy calm retreat
She smoothed the thorns with her bleeding feet.

John Greenleaf Whittier.

AUTHORSHIP IN AMERICA.

THE United States census, two or sheltered ourselves in the census behind

three decades ago, in its summary of such evasive titles as journalist, or ed-

persons engaged in various occupations itor, or professor, or, if especially cour-

included a poet. He lived in Arkansas, ageous, literary man. Mr. Carlyle, in

if I remember rightly, but may have his celebrated petition, wrote himself

perished from want, for I have looked down as a maker of books ; but every

in vain for him in later issues of the one feels that Mr. Carlyle's was a case

census reports. I have often thought of of affected humility and bluntness. If

him, however, when speculating about he had had the nerve of the man from

the conditions of authorship in America, Arkansas, he would have subscribed

and have admired the courage with himself a genius, or a man that turns

which he made his confession. He was the world upside down,
the only poet in America to stand up There is unquestionably a reluctance

boldly and be counted. The rest of us on the part of all of us, whether poets,

1883.]

Authorship in America.

809

or American humorists, or men of gen-
eral genius, — for since I am not going
to sign this paper, I am as bold as Snug
the joiner, — there is a reluctance, I
say, on our part to be classified. A
guild of authors could exist only as
a mutual burial society ; though there
would seem to be many interests which
authors might combine to defend or re-
sist, as a matter of fact there is, I be-
lieve, but one literary club in the coun-
try which makes the authorship of books
a condition of membership, and this Au-
thors' Club has been derided for its arro-
gance, as if it were another instance of
the three tailors of Tooley Street. When
any movement is to be made which af-
fects the whole body of literary men,
what member has the boldness to mar-
shal his fellows into any phalanx of re-
monstrants or petitioners ? Even in the
matter of international copyright, the
views of authors have been reached only
by individual solicitation from publish-
ing houses or trade journals.

The truth is that this individuality of
authors, which seems to some to spring
from jealousy or a suspicious habit of
mind, is an essential characteristic of
their vocation, and a necessary result
from the material conditions of their
profession. There can be an association
of artists, with the object to maintain a
school of painters, or to conduct an ex-
hibition of paintings ; there can be an
historical society to collect materials for
history, to discuss and criticise historical
writings, and to print papers ; but there
cannot be anything more than a social
basis for an authors' league, because the
individual interests of every author are
vastly greater to: him than the combined
interests of all authors, but chiefly be-
cause there exists for him already a
complement organization which no vol-
untary association with other authors
could supply. An author with his man-
uscript is an incomplete figure ; a hun-
dred authors associated are only a hun-
dred times more incomplete, and the

various authors' unions and publication
societies which have attempted to dis-
prove this have invariably proved it.

The devices of authors to get along
without publishers have succeeded only
so far as authors have abandoned their
legitimate function and become publish-
ers, and such successes have merely reg-
istered a loss to authorship and a gain
to publishing. It would seem a waste
of time to demonstrate that in the or-
ganization of modern society the author
needs a publisher as much as the pub-
lisher needs an author, and that each
supplies the other's defects ; but while
most would concede this without dis-
pute, there are frequent attitudes taken
by one or the other of these two classes
which practically deny the proposition.
The publisher, for example, is often
spoken of as if he were the author's nat-
ural enemy; and I have heard people
make the preposterous remark that the
publisher grows rich, while the authors
for whom he publishes continue to be
poor. Of course he does ; if he is faith-
ful to the interests of the authors, he
must, or what would be the meaning of
the rule of three ? A publisher with his
hundred books ought to be better off for
money than each of a hundred authors
with one book. Even if it should be
capable of proof that he was better off
than the hundred authors combined, one
would be obliged next to prove that au-
thorship was a trade, of which the prime
purpose was to make money.

On the other hand, publishers some-
times speak of my authors very much
as they would speak of my employees,
or regard every desire of an author to
understand his accounts as a breach of
confidence, or think and speak of his
work as a mere arrangement of words,
or imagine that his literary reputation
has been made solely by the publisher's
advertisement. There is plenty of room
for misunderstanding between a publish-
er and an author, but the fact remains
that the interests of the two are identi-

810

Authorship in America.

[June,

cal ; that in the long run any injury or
injustice to the one affects equally the
other ; that neither party to the contract
can safely ignore the other; that, in '
fine, literature and the publishing busi-
ness are spirit and body.

The publisher, in the last analysis, is
neither printer nor bookseller, but ad-'
vertiser. It is his business to make the
author known. He may take a book
from the author after it has been printed
and bound, and he may never sell a sin-
gle copy directly to a reader ; but the
one function which he cannot rid him-
self of is that of making the book known
to the world, — of publishing it. But
to publish a book with intelligence one
must know something about the book,
and a great deal about the public; he
must know the various avenues by which
the public eye and ear are to be reached,
and he must possess that power of or-
ganization and executive ability which
will bring the author face to face with
a great number of persons scattered all
over the land. When one adds to this
that the publisher, in the highest devel-
opment, includes the manufacturer and
the merchant, it is easily seen how much
may go to the success of a publishing
house. When a business like that of
publishing becomes thus highly organ-
ized, it is also highly sensitive to all
manner of influences ; and the more com-
plex it becomes, the more perfectly is it
able to correspond to the needs of the
author.

It is one of the commonplaces of his-
torical philosophy that the literature of
a people is the highest expression of its
character and genius. But what is a
book ? In one aspect, it is a bundle of
sheets of paper, stamped with little char-
acters, sewed together, put between cov-
ers of pasteboard dressed in cloth. It
can be used to build block houses with,
as a missile, to raise the seat at the
piano, to set off a cabinet of shelves ; but
for all these purposes a block of wood
or a bit of stamped leather would be

more serviceable. Then it is a power,
a spirit, a friend, something altogether
imponderable and immeasurable. Now
it is in this double property of the ma-
terial and the immaterial that we are
constantly compelled to consider books
when we legislate about them or deter-
mine their conditions. Into the making
and selling of them go an infinite vari-
ety of industries and organizations and
a network of social order ; the fortunes
of books are constantly subject to in-
fluences which extend from a machine
to a solitary scholar, and in the decis-
ions made with regard to them there is
necessitated an equilibrium of the two
natures involved in them.

A few years ago an effort was made
by some persons to change the ad valo-
rem duty on imported books to a specific
duty, of a certain rate per pound, and
great was the derision at such a mechan-
ical test; yet it was not more arbitrary
than the test of price, and much more
convenient and desirable for the pur-
poses of impost. By a comparison of
fair typical cases, it was found that a
measurement of books by weight would
yield, at twenty-five cents a pound, just
about the same revenue as the existing
tariff of twenty-five per cent, ad valorem,
if that duty were honestly collected ; and
every one knows that where a specific
duty is practicable it cannot be evaded,
as an ad valorem duty can be.

I speak of this only as illustrating in
an extreme way the fact that books are
capable of being treated not merely as
pieces of merchandise, but upon the basis
of their most material properties. In-
deed, every one who deals in books is
constantly confronted by the fact that
the price is largely determined by the
weight and size of the book, and not by
its beauty, the character of its contents,
or the money and labor which have
been put into it. It is impossible to es-
cape from the most gross conditions,
when considering the fortune of books.
As articles of commerce, as related to

1883.]

Authorship in America.

811

mechanical industries, they are subject
to the laws which govern in commerce
and manufacture, and no wise student
of literature can ignore these facts when
he is inquiring into the influences which
affect authorship or reading.

The publisher and manufacturer of
books does not call the author into ex- '
istence, neither does the author make
the publisher ; but both act upon each
other by turns, for both are parts of an
intricate order. The publisher is the
first to feel the conditions which affect
the market for books, but he is very quick
to communicate these influences to the
author. In a general way, one readily
sees that in what are called good times
the publisher will encourage the author
to produce, and in hard times will dis-
courage him when he brings his manu-
script. There are winds and tides in
human affairs which are beyond the
reach either of individuals or of classes,
but there are also movements which are
under control ; and certainly it is the
part of a wise man to forecast the effect
of these movements, and to guide them
if he can.

An instance occurred lately which il-
lustrates my subject. In the revision
of the tariff it was proposed to remove
the existing duty upon imported books.
The proposition was received favorably
both in and out of Congress. Knowl-
edge was to be free, at least English
knowledge was, and a relic of barbarism
unworthy of an enlightened nation was
to be swept away. Many publishers,
however, and with them a few authors,
united in a remonstrance against the re-
moval of the duty, and Congress finally
declined to alter the tariff on this point.
This remonstrance was characterized
as a piece of selfishness on the part of
the publishers, and of timidity or folly
on the part of the authors, who were
treated with a delicious arrogance by
the censors of literature and morals. It
was supposed that those persons who
had given honorable thought to litera-

ture, and had, indeed, in the homely
phrase, made it their business to write
books, were quite incapable of under-
standing a few simple laws of economy
and their effect upon literature and au-
thors.

There are always people who imagine
themselves about to live in a world
which they have prearranged upon a
scientific basis. It is indeed base to say
that imagination is lacking in America
so long as there are theorists who man-
ufacture entire systems of social life
upon the foundation of a few simple
principles ; but theorists in government,
in finance, in economy, while they have
plenty of room in America, are not the
rulers. The tariff, whether it be a weed
or a serviceable plant, has very long
roots, and there are few people so san-
guine as to think that it can be pulled
up forcibly, and leave no derangement
behind. What, for example, would be
the effect were the tariff on books to be
removed ? That is the question which
any reasonable legislator might ask be-
fore he voted to remove it, and I think
he would be the wisest congressman
who took the widest range in his in-
quiry. It would be easy to show that
the mercantile interests involved were
pitifully small when compared with the
iron or wool interests, but it would be
easier to trace the connection between
the lower and the higher interests than
it would be in the case of those indus-
tries.

I think the matter might be stated
in a series of propositions ; at any rate,
by choosing this form I guard myself
against the temptation to fly off into
generalities, and I make the way plain
for any one who has already ranged him-
self on the other side of the question to
demolish my positions. For convenience,
I use those which formed the text of the
remonstrance made by certain authors ;
for I am not considering the matter
from the publishers' side, except as they
have common concern with the authors.

812

Authorship in America.

[June,

These writers, then, based their objec-
tion to a removal of the duty on these
grounds : —

First, that the prosperity of authors is
closely connected with the prosperity of
publishers, who are their agents in man-
ufacturing, advertising, and selling the
books which they write,

This is a harmless-looking sentence,
and as I have already treated the mat-
ter in a sufficiently elementary way, I
think I need not detain the reader with
any expansion of so reasonable a state-
ment, but go on to

Second, that American books demand
American publishers, and whatever seri-
ously checks the business of publishing
checks the freedom of writing.

The latter part of this proposition
would appear to be the corollary of that
with which the remonstrance led off, but
the former part introduces a new mem-
ber. Is it especially necessary that books
written by Americans should be pub-
lished by Americans ? Why not go to
the publisher who can give the books the
widest circulation, whether in America
or England ; or why not go to the pub-
lisher who can pay the heaviest royalty,
whether in America or England ? I do
not know that such questions would be
seriously asked ; and yet if it should
prove that American authors could gain
substantially by employing English pub-
lishers for both countries, it would in-
dicate an uneven state of affairs. The
relation between author and publisher is
natural and organic, not mechanical ;
they are complementary to each other,
as I have before said, and until one has
rid himself of all relation to his coun-
try he cannot separate himself from so
constituent a part of the order in which
he lives. It would certainly be an
anomalous condition if an author, writ-
ing, as he cannot help writing, mainly
for readers in his own country, should
employ a foreign agent to help him find
these readers. I do not believe such
a state of affairs will ever be brought

about, because I do not believe that na-
tionality is going to give way to univer-
sality ; but if it were to be, the first step
would be taken when the American pub-
lisher had been divorced by his partner.
Third, that the removal or essential re-
duction of the existing tariff on books
would give the foreign publisher an ad-
vantage over the American publisher, by
enabling him to occupy the American
market with books written and made
abroad at a lower rate than they can be
made in this country.

This statement looks to a simple com-
mercial fact. It assumes books to be
purely objects of merchandise, subject to
the laws which govern merchandise. It .
assumes that the publisher who can
make books cheaper than his neighbor,
and at the same time deprive them of
no essential value, will hold the market.
It assumes that a book is a book, and it
almost eliminates the element of author-
ship. Under these assumptions, it main-
tains that in the competition American
publishers, unless protected by a duty of
twenty-five per cent, on English goods,
would suffer seriously. The whole
proposition is so degrading to ordinary
intelligence that it needs close examina-
tion. Is it true that a book is a book ?
A clerical friend of mine, who knows
books which are books, went into a
bookstore one day, and asked, —
" Have you a copy of Bossuet ? "
" No," was the prompt reply, " but
we have Balzac." That young man
knew how to keep store. He missed
his customer this time, but he answered
by rule, and knew that nine out of ten
chance buyers would have taken another
French book by an author whose name
began with B, if the one they had heard
of was not to be had. The truth is
that the cultivated few, who buy a book
in current literature because they know
about the author, do not make the great
public that supports bookstores. That
is made of people who want something
to read, — the latest, freshest, cheapest

1883.]

Authorship in America.

813

book, — and of people who have serious
intentions towards classic authors. The
very men who have most to do with the
distribution of literature — the book-
sellers — buy their stock with reference
to its saleworthiness, and to the margin
of profit between the buying and selling
price ; and they know that, with the ex7
ception of a few books by men of world-
wide note and a few that are immedi-
ately advertised in an extensive way, a
pound of books is a pound of books, and
the public at large buys by the pound,
and wants its money's worth.

To particularize : There are two great
classes of books which are bought and
sold as merchandise under the common
laws which affect trade. One is a class
made up of a few works so individual
that the author gives the entire value to
the property ; the other, of a great mul-
titude of works, where the author's
name, when known, scarcely affects the
value of the property at all. The former
of these classes goes by the name of
standard books, and is a very important
element in the publishing business. The
publisher has no power to add to their
number ; he cannot, by his dictum, de-
termine that a book shall be standard :
the world and time do that for him. He
only looks on, and as a servant of the
public sees that they are never left in
want. Now the element of speculation,
which is never absent from new books,
need scarcely be present when books
which have stood the test of time are
concerned. There the problem is a sim-
ple one. Can the publisher give a bet-
ter, more marketable edition of a stand-
ard book than his neighbor ? Can he
bring out a peculiar excellency which
will stamp his edition as the most desir-
able, or can he produce a cheaper book
for the size ? He has not to create a de-
mand, but to satisfy it. The bookseller
is constantly applied to by the publish-
er to buy from him his Shakespeare,
or his Scott, or Thackeray, or Dick-
ens, or Macaulay, or Milton. There are

more than sixty editions of the Pilgrim's
Progress published in America, at prices
ranging from six cents to fifteen dollars.
The latter of the two classes of which
I have spoken goes by the name of ju-
venile books, and it constitutes one of
the bulkiest parts of the publishing busi-
ness. There are many modest persons
engaged in the writing of these books,
and the proportion of anonymous or
pseudonymous titles is larger, it may
safely be said, than in any other order
of literature. The author's name has
comparatively little to do with the for-
tune of juveniles. Of course, here and
there an author's name has a great
significance, especially when he has al-
ready made his reputation iu a higher
class of literature, and then his juve-
nile book gets lifted out of the crowd ;
but, in the main, the publisher and the
bookseller know that the sales are de-
termined by a few simple considerations.
They both know that the public will
buy the showiest, most attractive books,
and those which seem to give the most

for the money ; that the question of
home or foreign production, whether
in authorship or manufacture, scarcely
weighs a feather with the public ; and
that pictures and binding determine most
confidently the fate of any one book.
The publisher keeps in mind also the
important fact that the bookseller will
buy these goods of the person who will
give him the most favorable discount.
The great individuality of standard
books, the absence of individuality in
juvenile books, alike throw the burden
of these two great classes upon the pub-
lisher, and it is the conditions which he
can control that make the books success-
ful or unsuccessful.

Now tho practical effect of this state
of things is that the English publisher
goes to the bookseller with these two
classes of books, the standard and the
juvenile, and sells them to him at bet-
ter rates than the American publisher
can. It is a fact, and not a theory,

814

Authorship in America.

[June,

that for the last few years the English
books in these two departments have
been steadily pushing American ones to
the wall, and the more far-sighted Amer-
ican publishers have maintained that the
tariff of twenty-five per cent, is the only
serious obstacle to a pretty full occupa-
tion of the American market ; that were
this tariff to be removed, or greatly low-
ered, the English publisher would have
an advantage which distance from the
market and the cost of freight would
not materially lessen.

Can English books, then, be made
cheaper than American ? Yes. First,
because the American manufacturer is
already heavily taxed in all the duties
laid upon the materials which enter into
the production of a book. Second, be-
cause, while the American has the ad-
vantage in machinery, ninety per cent,
of the cost of electrotype plates — the
investment of a book — is in hand labor,
and hand labor in England is much
lower than in America. Third, because
the plant of book manufacture in Eng-
land is so extensive, so highly organ-
ized, and so wealthy, that, with a great
market in addition to their own, Eng-
lish publishers can afford to produce
books at a smaller margin of profit on
each copy than is possible among manu-
facturers whose earnings have not yet
paid for the newer plant.

But granting all this, one may impa-
tiently ask, Why not buy Shakespeare
in an English edition, if it be better
and cheaper ; and why not buy English
books for the young, if they are pret-
tier? The answer, for my purposes, is
suggested by the last two propositions
in the authors' remonstrance, and so I
give them together : —

" Fourth, that the effect will be to force
American publishers into the publication
of those copyright books only whose rep-
utation has already been made, or of
those which serve professional uses, as re-
ports of courts and school books. Fifth,
that higher literature witt be discouraged,

and that the greatest volume of current
literature, which is in the form of read-
ing for the young, will be guided by for-
eign authors, instead of by men and
women of their own nation."

That is to say, if publishers were to
be crowded out of the market in the field
of what is known as miscellaneous and
juvenile books, from inability to make
any profit in them, they would give their
attention to those books in the publica-
tion of which they are protected. Such
protection exists in the case of copyright
books, whose reputation has already been
made ; it exists also in the case of books
which are not properly literature, but
rather the intellectual tools required by
students and professional workers, and
can best be made by those who are
brought into close connection with the
persons who use them. But the con-
traction of the publishing business means
the restriction of experiments in liter-
ature, and the pursuit of a conservative
policy on the part of publishers toward
the beginners in authorship. A broad
industrial basis is requisite for success-
ful ventures in newer fields. If the
effect of legislation were to cut off
from American publishers the manufac-
ture and sale of standard uncopyright
books, and of juvenile books of home
origin, then, so far, such legislation
would be a blow at American author-
ship, not of juvenile books merely, but
of all new contributions to literature.

As a specific illustration of this point,
it is worth while to note that the rates
of payment for copyright on books for
the young are notoriously lower than
for copyright on books in general liter-
ature. The reason is easily stated. The
publisher has to give a much larger dis-
count to the dealer than on other books,
and the margin of profit is smaller. But
why does he have to give larger dis-
counts ? Because the competition is
closer, owing to the impersonal charac-
ter of this literature, and to the great
tide of English books.

1883.]

Authorship in America.

I have been drawn away somewhat
from my immediate subject by this study
of a special illustration, but I am not
sorry if it has served to emphasize the
statement that authorship in America is
so closely identified with publishing en-
terprise as to be sensitive to the same
influences. The truth is that publish-
ing in America is more nearly allied
with professional life than with trade,
and it is likely that the relations be-
tween publishers and authors will grow
closer, and partake more of a partner-
ship character, than heretofore. The
publisher has been the author's servant,
and he has been the author's employer.
I think that a more natural and a more
honorable connection is steadily form-
ing. As one indication of an elevation
of the business, I have little hesitation
in saying that there are more men who
have received a collegiate education now
engaged in the publishing business in
America than there are in the ranks of
men of letters.

It is not surprising that this is so.
The demands made upon publishers in
this country are of a kind to test them
severely, and to make the important
prizes come within the grasp of those
only who are capable of large and com-
prehensive views. There is a vast terri-
tory in which to operate ; an innumerable
throng of readers ; no compact educated
class ; no distinctive and authoritative or-
gans of opinion or information ; a great
number of small centres ; a scattering,
and not a concentration, of forces. All
these conditions, taken with the details
involved in publishing, the large capital
required in proportion to the business
done, the speculative nature of the busi-
ness, and the constant presence of a
highly organized foreign competition,
working indeed from a distant base, but
with the distance yearly lessening under
the applications of science, — these con-
ditions, I say, tend to discourage the
smaller publishers, and to build up a few
great houses. It is a matter of fact that

within ten years past there has been
scarcely an addition to the list of pub-
lishing houses.

The effect of all this is to throw the
initiative of literature more and more
into the hands of the publishers. I am
speaking, of course, of such literature
as can be deliberately planned. In
the matter of the highest literature, it
can be said that, so far as publishers
occupy a middle ground between com-
mercial and professional lines, they have
it in their power to perceive the pres-
ence of genius, and to give it a chance ;
to detect the absence of genius and to
put obstacles in the way of its encumber-
ing literature. The main province, how-
ever, of publishing enterprise is in the
field of that great body of literature
which has to do with knowledge ; and
here the higher organization of the pub-
lishing business means the greater op-
portunity for authorship. The publisher
who has developed the industrial and
distributing part of his business is com-
pelled to do more than select from the
works which are offered to him; he
must shape the course of his business
at its source as well as at its outlet,
and invite certain books as well as judge
those which come without solicitation.

It is this function of the^ publisher
which may be watched with the liveliest
interest. I am inclined to think that it
is destined to be largely developed in
America, and that the most thoroughly
equipped publishing houses are to be
great centres of intellectual force ; col-
lecting the scattered powers of litera-
ture, and redistributing them in ordered
form. In this respect more is to be
hoped from them than from the univer-
sities. Authorship and university life
are not nearly so closely connected as
authorship and publishing. The effect,
indeed, of university life upon authorship
is on the whole a repressive one. The
university man is undermined by his
disposition to perfect his work, and by
the air of criticism which prevails about

816

Authorship in America.

[June,

him. He is too near a few readers and
critics, and too remote from the many
readers, to work either with freedom, or
with the stimulus which great mpve-
ments of life give to him. The very
limitations of a scholastic life are un-
favorable to the man of letters. He is
constantly tempted, in the routine of
that life, to refine indefinitely and to lose
the large purposes of literature.

Yet the university might well range
itself among the forces which are to
stimulate and control letters in America.
I can see no good reason why it should
not ally itself with publishing houses in
the organization of literature. It has
funds for the encouragement of stu-
dents ; why should it not have funds for
the encouragement of learning ? It need
not have its bookstore or printing office,
nor need it engage in the business of
publishing ; but it may fairly put its seal
upon a translation of Aristotle, or a
thoroughly edited and complete series
of the writings of Washington.

The close connection which exists be-
tween author and publisher compels us
to ask what are the author's proprie-
tary rights, by which he is enabled to
meet the publisher on even grounds ?
The •copyright laws give him control of
his writings for a period of twenty-eight
years, with a right to renew for fourteen
years at the end of the first period. For
forty-two years, then, the author has
peculiar property in a book ; after that
he has no legal right, and however hon-
orable his own publisher may be, both
author and publisher are at the mercy
of any rogue who may choose to pub-
lish a book, the copyright of which has
expired. The period of forty-two years
is too short for reasonable protection.
Books published by an author when he
is under thirty are taken away from
him just when he most needs the in-
come from them. For example, I pub-
lished a book when I was twenty-four
years old ; it continues to bring me in
a yearly return. I am already looking

forward to my sixty-sixth year ; but
when that time comes the investment
which I made in my youth will be near-
ly worthless to me, and I shall be grind-
ing out work when I ought to be en-
gaged only in writing in autograph al-
bums. Besides, it is unreasonable to
compel an author to remember when
the twenty-eighth birthday of each of
his books comes round, with a penalty
of losing his property in them if he for-
gets it. No ; a fairer law would be one
which gave an author a hundred years'
right in his book. The valueless books
would be no more valuable if they en-
joyed a perpetual copyright ; but if a
book has vitality enough to last forty-
two years it may fairly hope to live a
hundred, and after that, if it is still alive,
it ought to be everybody's property. I
am communist enough for that.

In considering the material conditions
of authorship in America, it is impossi-
ble to leave out of account the absence
of an international copyright. It has a
great deal more to do with literature
than a tariff on books has ; and since,
when the tariff was in danger, a few au-
thors came forward and lent a hand to
their partners, I think it would be a
retort courteous if the publishers were
to show a little more diligence in secur-
ing such ' an international copyright as
authors have been individually calling
for any time these last forty years.
Upon the plane of commerce it is clear
that the conditions for free trade in
literature are much sounder now than
they ever have been. In the exchange
of literary wares there is a closer ap-
proach to even terms. Upon the higher
ground of the recognition of rights, it is
to be hoped that the nation is prepared
to treat its own authors with dignity,
even if it be indifferent to the fortunes
of foreigners. The assumption in copy-
right is that the nation has a final pro-
prietorship in its literature ; it grants a
monopoly for a term as an encourage-
ment and protection to its authors. Very

1883.]

Authorship in America.

817

well ; let it take a step in advance by
extending that copyright in time to a
hundred years, and by extending it in
space so as to make it cover English
speaking countries. But it cannot do
this last without reciprocity, and of all
the methods proposed I know of none
so simple as the change of the copy-
right law by which persons and not
citizens may take out copyright, with
the condition that prior publication be
made in this country ; but such priority
need be no more than a day.

Yet when I begin to think of in-
ternational copyright, my mind always
flies back to the immensely larger inter-
ests involved in national copyright. The
American author who secures a hear-
ing in England has first found his au-
dience in this country. The English
sometimes please themselves with the
complacent notion that American litera-
ture exists after it has been indorsed in
England. The notion does them no
harm, and it amuses us. Perhaps we
have sometimes imagined that we have
made the reputation of English authors.
Really, an author is made out of much
the same stuff as his readers. I have
suggested that the university may ren-
der needed help to authors engaged upon
work which promises little pecuniary
return, but the system of schools which
prevails, with variations upon one com-
mon plan, throughout the United States
offers a more important aid to author-
ship in America by supplying readers.
It is the absence of a class of readers
which has affected the conditions of au-
thorship here ; it is the presence of a
nation of readers which ought to affect
those conditions still more powerfully.
The immediate outlook is not especially
encouraging. We have, no doubt, a vast
body of people who can read, but their
reading is largely confined to newspa-
pers. The lever to raise this mass of
indifferent readers is to be found in the
system which has hitherto formed them.
The introduction of a high order of lit-

VOL. LI. — NO. 308. 52

erature into the common schools is a
movement which has begun, and if it be
carried forward will have more effect
upon authorship in America than all
other causes combined. It has not been
possible hitherto, because there has been
no native literature at the service of the
schools. Now, the accumulation of a
body of prose and poetry, with its or-
igin in national life, has become a sub-
stantial foundation upon which a love
of literature may be built. It is difficult
for the older readers in America to-day
to comprehend the significance of the
change which is going on. They drew
their literary impulses quite as much
from foreign as from native sources.
It is not so with the young people of to-
day. They find already existing a body
of American classics, and unless I mis-
read the signs of the times these books
are to have a profound influence in the
education of Americans. They are to
constitute the humane letters of the
common school, and it is impossible to
measure the power which they will ex-
ert in enlarging and lifting the mental
life of the people.

So far as authors are concerned, the
effect, as I have said, will be to give
them more readers. The gracious lives
of the elder American writers will pass
into the fortunes of the younger men,
not only by the direct influence of their
thought and art, but through the indirect
service which they have rendered to no-
ble literature. It was theirs to make
this literature at home in America, and
a familiarity with it is to be one of the
great conservative forces in American
life. There will always be more room
and welcome for authors in America,
because these have become permanent
guests. After all, when one sums up
the conditions of authorship in America
to-day, is not the final and comprehen-
sive one to be found in the existence of
America itself? I mean an America
which stands for a distinct, resolute
power in history, having its own organic

818

Mr. Emerson in the Lecture Room.

[June,

life, planted between the great oceans,
hospitable to all influences. There are
not wanting signs of a conscious life
which breathes through literature : the
new and ardent' devotion to our own
history is one sign ; the disposition to
make fresh examinations of foreign life
and ancient literature is another. One

may easily stray away from the mate-
rial conditions of authorship in any such
survey, and my wish has been chiefly
to inquire into some of those material
conditions ; but authorship has a way of
trying to catch a breath of the upper air.
It has indeed feet of clay, but it lifts a
golden head.

MR. EMERSON IN THE LECTURE ROOM.

THE following reminiscences of a
course of lectures by Emerson, deliv-
ered before the post-graduate class of
Harvard University during April and
May, 1870, were written in letters to
an absent friend. They cannot be con-
sidered in any sense as reports of the
lectures, but rather as memory-pictures
of our New England master and teach-
er. To those persons who can recall
the tones of Emerson's voice and his
manner in speaking, such fragments pos-
sess an interest apart from the thoughts
they contain. Personal memories tinge
the sentiments they convey, but they
present, at least, a picture painted with
reverence and affection.

BOSTON, April 28, 1870.
DEAR : I have the happiness of

being one of thirty persons who attend
a course of lectures by Mr. Emerson,
intended for the graduates of Harvard.
. . . His general topic is Notes on the
History of the Intellect, and he began
his first lecture with a witty disclaimer
against being considered a metaphysi-
cian himself, in any ordinary accepta-
tion of that term. He said that Reid,
Hamilton, Berkeley, Kant, give us less,
with all their systems, than Montaigne,
Montesquieu, Diderot, or even Rabelais,
with his breadth of humor. " The trouble
is," he continued, " men ordinarily take
no note of their thoughts. They say one

thing to-day and another thing to-mor-
row, and forget them all. Our thoughts
are our companions and our guides ; but
sometimes we find ourselves less famil-
iar with these interior friends than with
exterior ones. It is the development of
mind which makes the science of mind.

" The miracle is the tally of thoughts
to things. A new thought is retrospec-
tive. It is like fire applied to a train of
gunpowder. It lights all that has gone
before.

" We are impatient of too much intro-
spection. What the eye sees, and not
the eye, is what we chiefly regard. We
are broken into sparkles of thought, like
the stars in the system of Copernicus.
To Be is the great mystery ! We are
angles ; each one makes an angle with
Truth. Our thoughts are like facets
cut on the jewel of Truth. Intellect is
not a gift, but the presence of God."

You will see from these morsels that
I attempt nothing like a report in your
behalf. Few things disturb Mr. Emer-
son so much as to see a note-book ; so
we only have a right to carry away
what we can put into the pocket of our
memories. He seldom speaks an hour ;
once he gave us but twenty minutes ; in-
deed, I think half an hour is about the
measure of his discourse. He said one
day, "The mind is what has and sees
and is seen. There is perfect unison be-
tween mind and matter ; hence the value

1883.]

Mr. Emerson in the Lecture Room.

819

of a new word, which is a gift to the
world. Plato gave us one of the most
valuable words and definitions when he
used ' analogy,' and defined it as ' iden-
tity of ratios.' No definition of genius,
however, can equal the word, and Mr.
Carlyle's book on Heroism is at once
outdone to the gentle mind by the pres-
ence of the hero.

" The best study of metaphysics is
physics. The subtle relations between
things, the discovery that every system
is but a part of the one great system,
— this is the wonderful lesson the uni-
verse teaches us.

" There is no stop ; all is pulsation,
undulation. The world is framed of
atoms, and in every atom we may dis-
cern Man.

" Growth and birth and the sexes, —
all these words belong also to the mind ;
for there is assuredly sex in the mind,
though not the same. A masculine
mind is sometimes found in the woman,
and a feminine in the man.

" The mind is a deep, unfathomable
cavern. Man is forever a stranger to
himself, and what a blessing is he who
can help us to a better acquaintance !
What a torch is that which can throw
one gleam down into the spirit's cavern-
ous depths ! We are to each other as
our perception is. Perception is power.
The first apprehension is the germ from
which all science results.

" Thoughts are rare ; whoever has
one to give, that person is needed. Young
people often feel as if they were burst-
ing with them ; but when they try to
deliver themselves, it is discovered to be
all a false alarm. The heavens appear
to be sown with countless stars ; but
when we try to number those we really
see, they only amount to a few hundreds.
So it is with our thoughts. Herschel
computed there were only about one
hundred hours in the year when his great
forty-foot telescope was of any avail for
observations. Our hours of thought are
as rare. It is not every undisturbed day

which is fruitful in them. They belong
to happy periods.

" Perception is swiftness ; they who
see first what to do can do it first, ex-
cept some few inspired idiots, who are
full and see much, but cannot be tapped
anywhere. Words and definitions are
often the result of this swift apprehen-
sion. Perception helps expression, which
is but partial at best. If we could once
but free our thought, we should be lib-
crated into the universe.

" Talent is ever in demand. A man
who can do anything well is needed.
We utilize talent too much in this age.
It goes for nothing if it be not lucrative.
A useful talent is wanted twelve hours
in the day.

" Bohemianism is the surrender of
talent to money. Isocrates said of Pro-
tagoras, and that class of philosophers,
that they would sell anything but their
hope in the immortality of their own
souls for four minae. Talent is every-
where in great repute with us. To say
clever things, to be sharp and brilliant,
is to be well regarded."

Mr. Emerson seldom announces any
subject or subdivision of his general
topic, but one afternoon he began by
saying, " My subject is Memory. Every
machine must be perfect to be in run-
ning order. Wheels, cogs, teeth, must
all match and hold well together. It is
the healthy mind whose memory works
perfectly. Memory should shut tight
on its subject as the jaws of a bull-dog.
It is cement, bitumen, matrix, to the
mind, the cohesion which creates knowl-
edge. It is retroactive, working backward
as well as forward in an ever-lengthen-
ing chain. Akin to the power of crea-
tion is the joy of calling back into ex-
istence, by the compelling force of will,
something which had disappeared from
life.

" Tenacity, accessibility or choice,
and swiftness are qualities of memory.
No memory holds a variety of subjects.
We remember according to our aflfec-

820

Mr. Emerson in the Lecture Room.

[June,

tions. Napoleon could remember the
army roll, but said his memory was so
poor that an Alexandrine verse was im-
possible to him. If the army roll were
put on* one side, and all the great po-
ems of the world on the other, he should
choose the army roll. He wrote down
everything else which it was important
to record ; that he remembered without
an effort.

" Quintilian has said, ' Memory is the
measure of mind.' Frederick the Great
knew every man in his army and every
bottle in his wine-cellar. Boileau, com-
ing to read a poem to Daguesseau, many
pages in length, the latter, on Boileau's
ceasing to read, immediately repeated
the whole after him, saying he had heard
it before. Boileau was at first distressed,
but soon discovered it to be simply a
feat of memory. Dr. Johnson could re-
peat whole books which he had read but
once. This power failed somewhat after
he was forty years old.

" The faculty of memory does not ap-
pear to grow ; there is some wildness in
it. Horses possess in their wild state a
swiftness which is never attained after
they are broken ; so the sleep of sav-
ages and children, which people of cul-
ture and care never know again. Such
is the undisturbed power of memory in
childhood. We never forget what is
absorbed in those few first years of ex-
istence. The power of vivid remem-
brance seems to make time very 'long to
children. We hear one who can scarcely
speak say to his companion, ' Can't you
berember how we used to make mud
pies and play in puddles ? ' — yet per-
haps it was to us a very short time be-
fore, though seeming years to them.
This wild memory belongs both to chil-
dren and to the childhood of the world.
There is an Eastern poem in existence,
said to be longer than the Iliad and
Odyssey, which exists only in the mem-
ories of its people.

" Memory is not only subject to will,
but it has a will of its own. It is like

a looking-glass, because it reflects what
passes before it ; yet, unlike a looking-
glass, it retains, and at will reproduces,
any figure that is wanted in the very
centre of the plate. What the power
is by which a subject is often uncon-
sciously retained, through years, un-
called for, and is suddenly produced
when needed, no one has ever been able
to turn himself inside out quick enough
to discover.

" There is a bit of journal, written
by an English gentleman after a pleas-
ant visit to a country-house, in which he
says, ' I left Lady *s house several

J 7 •/

days ago. I heard many good things
there which I have been intending to set
down, but have not yet found time. I
take a look at them now and then, in my
memory, to be sure they are quite safe.'

" Who of us has not known kindred
experiences ! Memory accelerates life,
and lengthens it. How a short period
may be made a long one by a diversity
of subjects being presented to us which
are worth remembering, we all know.
So a person of quick perception to be-
hold and memory to secure will be pos-
sessed of something of which a slower
man, having the same experience, may
be altogether unconscious of. What a
convenience and resource is memory !
To have what is needed always on de-
mand ! It was said of a German pro-
fessor that he was a third university ;
he carried a whole library in his head.

" This memory is after all so rare that
let a man read what everybody else has
read, just one year later and he w'll ap-
pear to other people to be a sphinx.
The swiftness of memory distinguishes
it. To immediately produce the thing
wanted, — that is the point. It is no
marvel to see anybody perform the feats
of Safford with pen and paper. Every-
body can do that ! But at the age of ten,
with a multiplicand of fifteen figures
and a multiplier of fifteen figures, to
give the result at once, was indeed a
marvel, and this ten years before he

1883.]

Mr. Emerson in the Lecture Room.

821

came to our university. Nevertheless,
memory appears to be no test of the
original power of the mind. With a
certain ideal class it seems rather to in-
terfere. Wordsworth and Goethe, for
instance, could never bring the mem-
ory to explain the meaning and connec-
tion of certain passages written in thei'r
youth. Whatever coherence there was
in their own minds with what went be-
fore or came after was not easily per-
ceived by others, nor to be explained
by themselves. Not unfrequeutly, how-
ever, the connection between thoughts,
lost by the author, may be discovered
by other imaginative minds brought to
bear upon the subject. There is some-
thing ideal in memory. What is ad-
dressed to the imagination is oftentimes
retained, if everything beside be lost.
When we discover that a man remem-
bers many things we have not ; when
we perceive that he does not do this by
a knot in his handkerchief, or a bit of
worsted, or by any trick, but by some
hidden and fine relation between sub-
ject and subject, which we cannot dis-
cern, then we feel the greatness of the
power, and we seem to talk with Jove.

" The memory of beautiful things re-
tards time ; music conceals it. Thus the
allegory of Siva, when he comes to ask
the god to give him one of three princes
in marriage for his daughter. As he
approaches the oracle he hears sounds
of music, which appear to him so beau-
tiful that he delays a while to listen ; and
while he delays the first strain ceases,
and another begins, which he also waits
to hear. When at last there is silence
he asks the god for one of the three
princes. He is assured that it is impos-
sible ; for riot only the three princes, but
all their children and great-grandchil-
dren to the third generation, have al-
ready married while he was listening to
the music.

" Memory, with most people, consists
of a record of what notes are given and
when the payment is due ; with others,

it is formative and a token of love. We
naturally hate all docked or shallow-
thoughted men. Simonides is called the
Father of Memory. It is recorded on
the tomb of Abelard that he knew all
that was kuowable. The best office
of memory is to forget all that is pain-
ful, and remember only our joys. Fate
is an artist, and lets us forget what we
should forget. Most of us remember
only what we have remembered before ;
but deep thought holds in solution all
facts. The best art of memory is to
understand things thoroughly. New
knowledge always calls upon old knowl-
edge. Memory should enshrine princi-
ples instead of traditions."

The serious significance of this lec-
ture was lightened for the public mind
by a number of humorous illustrations.
Mr. Emerson said that there were va-
rious directions as to how memory may
be acquired. " I remember reading,"
he continued, " in an old book called
Fullom's Casket of Memory, that it is
good to make a gargle, to be taken
warm in the morning, to be composed of
a concoction of flowers, new milk, and
pennyroyal ! Dr. Johnson said he could
remember the man he had kicked last."
Speaking, one day, of imagination, Mr.
Emerson quoted Sir Thomas Browne,
who said, " The severe schools shall
never laugh me out of the philosophy
of Hermes, that this visible world is but
a picture of the invisible, wherein as in
a portrait, things are not, truly, but in
equivocal shapes, and as they counter-
feit some more real substance in that
invisible fabric."

" No one, perhaps, has given us a bet-
ter exposition of this doctrine than Em-
manuel Swedenborg. The substance of
his teaching is how, out of the shows of
things, to obtain reality. Imagination
predicts Nature, and leads our thought
upward from point to point. To discern
the thought beneath the form is its of-
fice. The imagination following the
steps of a new thought hears it echoed

822

Mr. Emerson in the Lecture Room.

[June,

from pole to pole. The symbol plays a
large part in our speech. We could not
do without it. Few can either give or
receive unrelieved thought in conversa-
tion. A symbol or trope lightens it.
We remember a happy comparison all
our lives. Machiavelli said the papacy
was a great stone in the wound of Italy
to keep it from healing. Genius shows
itself in sprightly suggestion. A good
analogy to my thought is far more to
me than to find that Plato or Sweden-
borg agree with it. To find that the
elm-tree nods assent to it and that run-
ning waters conform to it, — this alone
is confirmation.

" Dante's poetry has hands and feet.
I went into a painter's studio once, where
I found he had modeled the figures of
Dante's characters in clay before begin-
ning to paint his picture ; and 1 was half
persuaded the poet did the same him-
self."

All this seems like a wretched prose
translation of what Mr. Emerson said.
The lectures themselves are poetry and
music. Speaking of dreams, he con-
tinued, " More than what Plato or any
philosopher can or ever shall give us is
sometimes unveiled in these unaccounta-
ble experiences. No drama in five acts
ever written can compare with the dra-
ma in fifty acts unfolded to the dirtiest
sluggard upon the floor of the watch-
house.

" The words Fancy and Imagination
are frequently used without discrimina-
tion. It is a mistake. Fancy is full of
accidental surprises, and amuses the va-
cant or idle mind. Imagination silences
Fancy, which becomes speechless in its
presence. Imagination deals with the
identity of things. It is real, central,
tragic. Sometimes we think it makes
all we call Nature.

" My friend Thoreau was full of fan-
ciful suggestions from natural objects :
such as ' the tanager setting the woods
on fire as he flies through them ; ' ' the
golden-rod waving its yellow banners,

and marching eastward to the Cru-
sade ; ' ' the dewy cobwebs, handker-
chiefs dropped by fairies.' And of
Wachusett as seen from Concord he
used to say, ' Look at the back of that
great whale just under our bows! They
have stuck a harpoon in him, and he is
plowing his way off across the conti-
nent.' I can never see it without that
thought coming again to my mind. Im-
agination gives us the like romantic el-
ements for our life, and feeds us with
commanding thoughts.

" Every one would be a poet if his
intellectual digestion were perfect.

" The transition from the subject of
Imagination to that of Inspiration is easy.
No fable of metamorphosis, but a truth,
is this which inspiration works in us.
Plato has said no man who al \vays un-
derstands himself can ever be a poet.
There is an essence which passes from
an intelligence higher than ourselves,
and sways us. We cannot compel it by
our will. We throw up our work for
it (wishing it may come), to no purpose.
When we least hope for it in lyric
glances, it shines upon us. Unstable in
its course, it fills the agitated soul.

" Wordsworth said he cared little for
those poets who understood what they
did, like Byron and Scott. He much
preferred William Blake. We never
know the depth of the notes we acci-
dentally sound. Heat is necessary. We
must have heat. Enthusiasm daring
ruin for its object.

" Pit-coal, — where to find it ! We
may have engines which work as perfect-
ly as watches, but they are all nothing
if we cannot strike the mine.

" There is contagion in inspiration.
It was said of Mirabeau that ' to-morrow
was no impostor to him ; ' all who came
near him learned how much the hours
meant to him. We love to be magnet-
ized.

" The story of the Pleiades, — by what
poet has it not been sung ! Every nun
in retirement makes the lost Pleiad the

1883.]

Mr. Emerson in the Lecture Room.

823

subject of her song. I think there must
be a universal chord struck in the idea,
which is that of a lost thought. How
to obtain thoughts is the question.

" Condensation, concentration, high
flights of the soul, — these are some of
the means by which thoughts visit us.
But there is no continuance, no perma-
nency, in their presence. They are sub-
ject to continual ebb and flow ; beside,
we lose much by the breaking up of hours
and by sleep. We are sometimes like the
cat's back, breaking out all over in spar-
kles of thought. Are these moods with-
in control ? Where is the Franklin for
this fluid ? Poetry is full of apostrophe
to inspiration, much of it commonplace
enough ; but Herrick's little poem is
worth reading ; also the preface written
by William Blake to his poems. A cer-
tain recognition of this power beyond
themselves is often manifested by great
men, as when Kepler said he could af-
ford to wait one hundred years for a
reader, since God had waited five thou-
sand years for such an astronomer as
himself.

" How many sources of inspiration can
we count ? As many as are our affini-
ties. First, I would say health ; second,
sleep. Life is in short periods ; cut into
strips, as it were. We lie down spent ;
we rise with powers new born. As
a third source of inspiration I would
choose solitary converse with nature.
What student does not know this ? The
mornings, the deep woods, the yellow
autumn-time. There is much in that
French motto, ' II n'y a que le matin.'
Thought is clear then ; life is new and
strong. But to save the hours, to pre-
vent the frightening away of thought !
It is a difficult problem. At home I
shut myself up, frequently with great
detriment to my affairs (being small
farmer as well as householder), and must
not be interrupted. But the only safe
refuge is a country inn or a city hotel.
There no one can call you, and the hours
flow on in astronomic leisure. Years

ago, I remember, Mr. Carlyle projected
a study at the top of his house, subject
to no housemaid. Late in life this
plan of his was accomplished, and Fred-
erick the Great was the result. Cold
is another enemy. George Sand says,
somewhere, she never had an idea that
the slightest chill could not drive away
from her. To some, a fine view, the
face of external nature, is a hindrance.
William Blake said nature was a dis-
turbance to his work. Sir Joshua Rey-
nolds disliked Richmond, and said his
landscape was the human face divine.

" We remember the plainness of Goe-
the's study. New poetry, too, is inspi-
ration. I mean for the most part old
poetry read for the first time ; so also
with new words. Almost we say, not
even friends ! a word is best.

"Next, I would put conversation.
Good conversation is a wonderful pro-
moter of intellectual activity. We be-
come emulous. If one says better things
than we could, or different, we are stim-
ulated in turn. Conversation is the
right metaphysical professor. Sincere
and happy conversation always doubles
our power."

On another day, in approaching the
subject of Genius, Mr. Emerson said,
" Walter Scott described it as Perse-
verance, and it has also been described
as Attention ; but I hold that Genius is
Veracity, and with it always the year is
one and the emperor present. With
Genius there is always youth, and never
the obituary eloquence of memory.
Who taught Raphael and Correggio to
paint ? They were taught of God in a
dream.

" Shakespeare, Voltaire, Byron, Dan-
iel Webster, and Father Taylor were
equally interesting to all classes ; for
there are two brains in every man of
genius. Talent is vice-president and
presiding officer, never the king. Truth
is sensibility to the laws of the world,
and genius is always governed by truth.
Genius deals with the elemental, the

824

Mr. Emerson in the Lecture Room.

[June,

roots of things, and takes nothing sec-
ond hand."

Once, in speaking of common sense,
Mr. Emerson said, " It is a power all
esteem. It reaps, plows, sows, threshes,
sweats. No one would be without it.
Bonar said, ' Common sense and genius
make the world,' not wit ; that is only
a side issue. Artists affect sticking to
facts. Goethe was full of this. Like
Pericles, he needed a helmet lo conceal
the dreaded infirmity of his head. He
had a large air-chamber ; but if any of
his neighbors caught him creeping into
the chamber of the Muses, he would
deny it point blank, saying, ' No, no ; I
was going to the county jail.' Some
nations appear more distinguished for
this quality than others. I think the
English excel ; although with them it is
apt to degenerate into brutality. The
French people perhaps manage it more
courteously ; yet a republic is a better
field for its development. With a mon-
archy and the small circle of aristocracy
come idealism and exemption. In a
republic all find use for hands and feet.
Napoleon conversing with an officer on
a matter of business, the functionary
said, ' I can hardly talk with you as I
should like about this, for I am not a
witty man.' Napoleon answered, ' I do
not want your wit. I want the work ! '
One of the German princes, to whom
Mr. Osborne, of England, was sent as
minister, being interested in ghostly ap-
pearances, assured Mr. Osborne, if he
would accompany him at twelve o'clock
midnight to the neighboring churchyard,
he would show him a ghost. ' If I may
take six grenadiers with me, who shall
shoot at the apparition when it comes, I
will accompany your majesty gladly,'
was the reply. The rendezvous did not
take place. The Duke of Wellington
having a bullet-proof shirt brought him
by the inventor, ' Bullet-proof, you say ? '
asked the duke. ' Yes,' was the reply.
* Will you put it on yourself, and allow
me to order in sbc soldiers to shoot at

it ? ' The man did not press his suit —
nor wear it. Lord Palmerston, being
asked to serve on the cholera committee
in Edinburgh, declined, saying, ' They
would do better to obey the laws of
health.' Sir Fowell Buxton's book is
full of common sense regarding Parlia-
ment and the character of speeches there.
Many of the rules he lays down would
be good for more Parliaments than that
of England.

" Common sense was a great charac-
teristic of Dr. Johnson, and his conver-
sation can never be overrated. It will
live when much of the Rambler will be
forgotten.

" The primal facts of Intellect lie
close under the surface of Nature. Some-
times we feel Nature to be a chamber
lined with mirrors, wherein we see re-
flected the disguised mau. The analogy
between processes of thought and those
of the physical world is perfect, thor-
ough. Good work does itself; there is
growth in the night.

" The fame of the Mons pear came
from the saliency of the trees as well as
the excellence of the fruit. The shoots
were continually cut off and new graft-
ings made. Saliency of the mind may
be encouraged by use. We need salien-
cy. Nothing is more simple than the
fact discovered yesterday, nothing more
wonderful than the fact to be discovered
to-morrow. In the old schools of Italy
they would dry up a man to make a
grammarian. We will hope that the
mended humanity of republics will save
us.

"We are inspired by every kind of
true vigor. We do not need to meet
vigor of our own kind, but misalliance,
misassociation, must be shunned. It
is of no avail. Genius ill-companioned
is no genius ; without identity of base,
chaos must be forever. We are sur-
prised by occult sympathies. In each
form of nature we seem to see ourselves
in some distorting glass. Nature is sat-
urated with Deity. The solar architec-

1883.]

Mr. Emerson in the Lecture Room.

825

ture, upon which we gaze in wonder, is
not so marvelous as the same system in
the revolving mind.

" Thoughts run parallel with the crea-
tive law ; to unveil them, to understand
their action from the laws of the world,
— this is imagination, this is the poetic
gift. Among the laws of the mind are
powers and analogies which should be
considered. First among them stands
Identity ; then follow Metamorphosis,
Flux "... Here Mr. Emerson paused,
his sentence still unfinished, while he
seemed to search among his papers for
its conclusion. After a few moments,
finding nothing to advance the subject
satisfactorily, he rose, and so ended the
lecture of the day.

On another occasion Mr. Emerson
renewed this subject. " The detachment
and flux of our natures," he said, " are
the metres of their strength. Nothing
remains ; everything is becoming other
than it is ; this doctrine is the secret
of things. Wisdom consists in keeping
the soul fluent, resisting petrifaction.
We see this in all things ; we are asked
why there is a hole in the bottom of
the flower-pot ! The moment there is
fixation, petrifaction and death ensue.
The very word Nature makes us to
know this : ' natura ; ' becoming about
to be born. We are immortal by the
force of transits. The law of the world
is transition, and our power lies in that.
No wonder children delight in masks
and plays, — in being other than they
are ; so do older children ; it is the in-
stinct of the universe.

" Pace is yet another power or qual-
ity of mind. The swift mind is capable
of spiritual sculpture, and can build a
statue in the air with every word. The
artist values himself on his speed.
Saadi says, ' With the budding out of the
leaf this work began, and was ended
with the falling of the same.' Shake-
speare seems to have lived faster than
any other man ; he appears to have been
a thousand years old when he wrote his

first line, and his judgment is as won-
derful to us as his pace. Quick wit is
always a miracle, but for fesprit de Fes-
calier we have no respect ; everybody
has that. Good fortune is only another
name for quick perceptions. Improvisa-
tion is simply acceleration. We have
nothing of value in literature done that
way ; what is gained in one direction is
lost in another. It is thought our pace
is injured by civilization ; untutored
peoples are said to do what they do
more rapidly than we. When results
are shown to us without the processes
by which they were produced, we are
lost in wonder.. In this way Sir George
Beaumont made Wilkie's sudden reputa-
tion in London. He went about saying,
' Here 's a young man who has just come
to 'London, who went at once to see a
picture by Teniers, and then ran home
and painted The Village Politicians.'

" Each power, when largely devel-
oped, exhausts some other. The Del-
phian prophetess at her altar is herself
a victim. But the pace of Nature is
strong ! We never hear that she has
sprained her foot. We become spent,
and fail ; she thanks ' God that she
breathes very well.'

" We find grown people, with quick
perceptions, whose judgment is two
years old, — Hercules with a withered
arm ! This element of Time is a won-
derful magician. I once went to a
beautiful fete, where was a little old
man in a gray coat. Presently some
one asked him for one of Dolland's
great telescopes ; and he produced it
immediately, no larger at first than a
microscope, from his waistcoat pocket.
Soon after a lady stepped up, and said
she should like a Turkey carpet laid on
the lawn, if he had one about him ; and
the little gray man took that out, too,
and presently a marquee was added to
the rest. Time, the little gray man,
has made, and is making, changes . as
wonderful upon every one of us. No
Turkey carpets nor marquee tents can

826

Mr. Emerson in the Lecture Room.

[June,

be so extraordinary as the processes
in chemistry, miraculous to our uniu-
structed eyes.

" Bias is yet another quality or power
of the mind to be considered, — power
to resist shocks of contending temper-
aments. Faraday discovered that cer-
tain minerals would obey the two poles
of the magnet, north aud south, while
others would only seek those diametric-
ally opposed. Polarity is a universal
law ; every mind is a magnet, with a
new north.

" We soon discern whether a man
speaks from himself, or is giving us
something at second hand. We see
through all his paint ; he may as well
wash it off at once. He who made the
world lets that speak for itself, and does
not employ a town-crier. So shall each
soul speak for itself as God made it.
Opinions are organic. They should be
fostered by our studies into a healthy
natural growth. We say of a man,
' Where is his home ? ' There where he
is incessantly called.

" Do not fear to push these individu-
alizations to their farthest divergence.
Excellence is an inflamed personality.
Power fraternizes with power, and wishes
you to be not like himself. We acqui-
esce in what we are. We do not wish
conformity or fair words ; yea and nay
will suffice. God makes but one man
of each kind. ' My son will not be like
me, and can never fill my place,' said
Napoleon, ' but he will fulfill his own
destiny.' A human soul is a momen-
tary fixation of power. The tenacity of
retention must be in proportion to the
idea it represents.

" Everybody can do his best work
easiest. While the master works in his
own way, and draws on his own power,
he cannot be supplanted. Man resents
the rule which cripples him. We must
do our best in our own way. We do
not wish praise ; we never forgive over-
appreciation. Keserve, pique, — both
these can help to stimulate us. Do not

fear to be a monotone ! We wish every
man to truly please himself ; then ho
will please us."

Mr. Emerson read in connection with
this subject a passage from Varnhagen
von Ense upon Vicarious Sacrifice. He
said it was so fine that it would not be
out of place anywhere, and belonged to
the philosophy of history.

One day he remarked that he had
always considered a course of lectures
at Harvard University would be incom-
plete if a series upon Plato and the
Platonists were omitted. " Thought has
subsisted for the most part on one root ;
the Norse mythology, the Vedas, Shake-
speare, have served for ages. The his-
tory of our venerable Bible, — what
heights, what lights, what strength, does
this contain ! We see how Nature loves
to cross her stocks ; the invaded by the
invader. We see this in the history of
the Aryans, of the Pelasgi as invaded
by the lonians, of the East by Alexan-
der, and so on continually. There must
be both power and provocation to de-
velop the highest in man.

" The systems of philosophy are few,
and repeat each other ; there is little
that is new. One philosopher unfolds
the doctrine of materialism ; the next
will unfold the same doctrine, but after
the fashion of his own mind ; another
will dispute sense and talk non-sense ;
the fourth will take a middle ground,
until we have Materialism, Idealism,
Dogmatism, Skepticism, and few new
thoughts.

" When Orientalism in Alexandria
found the Platouists, a new school was
produced. The sternness of the Greek
school, feeling its way forward from ar-
gument to argument, met and combined
with the beauty of Orientalism. Plo-
tinus, Proclus, Porphyry, aud Jamblicus
were the apostles of the new philoso-
phy-

" Some truths were then, perhaps, first

unveiled : such as, pure power is more
felt than anything purely intellectual ;

1883.]

Mr. Emerson in the Lecture Room.

827

Mind is the source of things, the truth
of absolute units ; Being, or First Cause,
creates to the end of imparting happi-
ness. This philosophy was the conso-
lation of the human race. The princi-
ples of Plato were distilled in various
schools, and at last went down with
the greatness of Rome. Then came,
not until the third century of our era,
Plotinus. He was the founder of the new
Platonism. The wisdom of its method
is great and worthy of profound study.
Music, Love, Philosophy, were the three
powers of which he has left us a beauti-
ful analysis." Mr. Emerson read care-
fully selected passages from Plotinus,
and afterward gave the history of his
life so far as it is known ; then, taking
up an octavo volume translated by
Thomas Taylor, of Norwich, which con-
tained the essay of Synesius on Provi-
dence, he spoke of its untold value to
the world. His audience could under-
stand at least how precious the book
was to him. Doubtless many a reader,
remembering his words concerning it,
has turned its mystic pages ; but the
readers must be few who have seen the
mysterious light shining in them which
the poet found.

Of Proclus Mr. Emerson said, " I am
always astonished at his strength. He
has purple deeps which I can never
fully sound. What literature should
be, he is. Proclus first called attention
to Chaldaic oracles. There are hardly
men athletic enough to read him. How
insignificant and far behind Proclus is
what we call Scotch philosophy. It is
like comparing Phidias and Uncle Toby.

" For a period of the world's history
Plato and the Platonists were almost
lost, as it appeared. But the disciples
always reappear ; thus, curiously, in
our age have these doctrines revived.
As surely as Wilkinson is the pupil of
Swedenborg, and as surely as everything
must come round, so here in our time
arrives a scholar who sets the Platonists
on their legs again, and calls everybody

to hear these sages who wrote fifteen
hundred years ago. Thomas Taylor
was a man of singular character : a rug-
ged Englishman, without one refreshing
stroke of wit, or even of good sense,
haughtily believing in his work, he ac-
cepted poverty proudly to the end of its
accomplishment. He cannot suppress
his high contempt for those who are ig-
norant of Greek philosophy. He equals
Gibbon in his pride, and Johnson in his
gloom. There is little recorded of his
life, but I draw much of my information
from Person. Thomas Taylor says, ' No
living author beside myself has devoted
himself to Plato.' Elsewhere he speaks
of his ' solitary road ; ' and indeed it was
a road no man had traversed for centu-
ries. Niebuhr has a touching reference
to him ; the name is not given, but it
can be no one else. Sydenham also,
whom I should hardly quote here but
for his strange fate and the interest his
early death excites in us.

" Taylor tilts against many notable
windmills. Like Coleridge, he thanked
God that he knew no French. He calls
Christianity a gigantic impiety. Like
Winckelmann, he was a man born out of
due time. Taylor had no faith in the
education of the masses ; his whole idea
of government was founded on Plato's
republic ; he eagerly dissuaded the un-
educated from reading his books. He
received scorn for scorn. Even learned
England knew nothing of him, gave
him no attention. Hallam had never
heard of him, nor Milman, nor, I think,
had Macaulay. I met a gentleman who
thought he could find out something for
me, but the whole result of the inquiry
was that Taylor's eldest son was named
Proclus. There are very few facts be-
side. His wife married him suddenly,
when she was about to be compelled to
marry a rich man in his stead, and for a
year or more they subsisted on seven
shillings a week, which he made by copy-
ing. His labors were immense. Aris-
totle, Plato, Plotinus, Proclus, Syne-

828

Mr. Emerson in the Lecture Room.

[June,

sius, all exist from his hand, and many
other works. He was turned out of a
good boarding-place because he wished
to sacrifice a bull to Jupiter Olympus in
the best parlor. His translation of Sy-
nesius will live with Comus, Laodamia,
and a few other things of that nature."

The next afternoon Mr. Emerson
said his subject was The Conduct of
the Intellect. " I have arranged," he
continued, " with some amplitude the
study of the working agents of the mind,
that we may become conscious as far
as possible how system and ppwer may
be reached by persons desirous of true
culture. First, we will consider Atten-
tion, which is the natural prayer we
make to Truth that she will discover
herself to us. Attention is perpetual
application of the will. Sir Isaac New-
ton said that what he had accomplished
was done by always intending his mind.
Goethe said that he believed every child
should learn drawing ; for it unfolds
attention, the highest of our skills and
virtues. This power cannot always be
called into its fullest force, and it is dif-
ferently excited in different persons, or
in the same persons at different times.
When you cannot flog your mind into
power in your library, you go to family
and friends, where it becomes refreshed.
Some men have found the public their
school and study. They go to their au-
dience as others go to their closet, and
learn there what they should say.

" This brings me again to Bias, that
indispensable condition of all true influ-
ence. Each makes and should make
one reserve in the canon of nature,
namely, himself ! Not the fact, but what
he makes of it, is its value, after all. Be
yourself ! Don't walk one way and look
another. Straining, tour de force, will
accomplish for the time, but the result
is always weariness and waste. You
cannot disguise your opinions. This
faculty is your lot in life ; therefore
make the most of it, instead of wishing
it something el?'). Abandon yourself
,' f

to your real love and hate ! That which
burns you can alone set other minds in
flame. Labor, drudge, and wrestle for
it ; profound sincerity is the only basis
of character. Beware of the tempta-
tion to patronize Providence. Set down
a wise man in the centre of a town, and
he will create a new consciousness of
wealth. He will show the rich their
mistakes and poverty, and to the poor
he will discover their own resources.
He will establish an immovable equal-
ity.

" Most books of travel tell us nothing ;
but take the men born to travel and to
see, and we recognize at once that they
are inspired for discoverers. The poet
sees also, and if he sees only in frag-
ments he paints those with what energy
he has.

" The primary quality of Genius is
Veracity. ' What he would write, he
was before . he writ,' said Lord Brooke.
Youth and truth should be inseparable.
No proselytizing adviser is then needed.
I want nothing less Truth. I will wear
her garment, rather than array myself
in a red rag of any borrowed garniture.
I see how grand it is.

" The condition of sanity is to keep
down talent and to preserve instinct.
Otherwise we find talent substituted for
genius, sensuality for art. There is an
organic order in every mind, therefore
there is natural order in our thought ;
but bad artists do not foresee the end
from the beginning."

Mr. Emerson here spoke of the Clas-
sic and Romantic schools of art, and of
the essential quality of Affirmation.

" The affirmative position of the
mind," he continued ; " knowing what
we like best, and acknowledging it;
discovering the grand basis where lies
the joy of the great masters that they
are all alike ; not dealing with petty
differences ; not seeing less than the
immortal, — this is the duty of every
healthy soul. It is the causal fact in
every forward nature that he shall look

1883.]

Mr. Emerson in the Lecture Room.

829

affirmatively upon subjects. An affirm-
ative talker is always safe. I think it
is the main guard not to accept degrad-
ing views. Don't try to make the uni-
verse a blind alley. We must march
under the banner of the advancing

cause. There is no limit to the strength
of affirmation ; we can go on, sky over
sky and through soundless deeps, and
the follower learns that truth has steeps
unapproachable to the profane foot. No
negative evidence can be worth one af-
firmative. It is the mind, never the body,
which will conquer, and will burst up to
carry all away as with a sea-stroke.
The true poet, if such could be embod-
ied, would electrify us with truth, once
heard. What is now the capital would
be so no longer : grass would grow in
its streets ; it would soon be superseded.
Good order, analogy, health, benefit, —
to each and all of these the assenting
soul sings paean ! Said a good saint
once to me, ' The Lord gives, but he
never takes away.' We must cleave to
God against the name of God.

" I think Keats's best lines are those
in Hyperion : —
" ' So Saturn, as he walked into the midst.

Felt faint, and would have sunk among the rest

But that he met Enceladus's eye,

Whose mightiness and awe of him at once

Came like an inspiration.'

" The contagion of an affirmative dis-
position is very great, and the gift or
acquirement of this generosity is one of
the consolations of life. Therefore use
the faculty ; labor, drudge, for it. Put
to it the spirit of Napoleon when he
was asked to repeat an order, and re-
plied, ' Pensez, fripon ! I never repeat ;
it is for you to remember.' Go, and be
like Napoleon! Let his endeavor be
your constant type and exemplar. He
was always on the offensive, and, as he
said himself, never on the defensive, ex-
cept in the night, when he could not see
his enemy. Use your powers, and put
them to a better use than Napoleon put
his. Use them all ; otherwise we shall
be like the Indians, with thick legs and

thin arms. We need all our resources
to live in the world which is to be used
and decorated by us. Socrates under-
stood this well. His humility was sin-
cere, but he used it also with exquisite
tact, making of it a better eyeglass to
penetrate farther than the vision of oth-
er men.

" We must lie in wait for thoughts,
for times when the intellect is facile ;
think with the flower of the soul. Be
confident that a man cannot exhaust the
abilities of his nature, and the best is
never attained but at the price of con-
tinual labor. Success depends on pre-
vious preparation. If principles and
high conduct be sustained by continual
practice, their virtue will be inexhaust-
ible. The question always is how to
keep up to the top of my condition !

" A good day's work is too valuable to
be broken in upon lightly. Continence
must be attained. A certain continence
is always to be remembered. Seven
silences for one word. Let the thinker
keep his secret ; we hate a leaky mind.
Continuity, — we must strive also for
that, although true thoughts arrange
themselves. But let us be no chiffoniers ;
have a piece of twine, and it will lead
to royal truths. Have control ; it is in-
dispensable ! Primal powers will not sit
for their portraits, and are always melt-
ing into each other ; but he who gains
control shall use a ladder of lightning,
and efface his steps as he mounts.

" Following upon our labor for
thought come sometimes periods of full-
ness, when the whole being is fused, yet
we cannot express a word. We are lifted
above expression, and filled with a sub-
lime life. This joy compensates. The
question must always be whether the
mind possesses control of its thoughts,
or they of it. We sometimes go to sects
to ask of some member the secret of his
peace or progression, but we find he
cannot formulate. He impresses those
who know him by the honesty and truth
of his worship, but he cannot convey

830

Mr. Emerson in the Lecture Room.

[June,

the ground of his satisfaction to us.
George Fox was filled with groaninga
that could not be uttered ; and so it
has ever been. Wordsworth called his
brother ' a voiceless poet,' and the
world is filled with these dumb souls.
The primary rule is to have control of
the thoughts without losing the natural
action ; this is the power of the proph-
ets.

" But you must formulate your
thought, or you have all stars and no
sky ! It is a want of self-possession not
to learn this control. Has a metaphysi-
cian no art for his bad memory or atten-
tion ? Has he no balloon to send up into
the empyrean, to bring down its wonder-
ful hues ? Father Taylor's grand sea-
horses have always drawn him up and
down only on condition that he shall not
guide them. The faculties are continual
assertors of immortality for what never
could be said. Locomotive destiny must
be hitched on to the cars in which we
all are.

" There is a sense of power attendant
always upon the period when thought
comes. We stand like Atlas, on our
legs, and feel as if we could move the
world. We have such debility of na-
ture that a new thought is as a god to
us. We can no more manage it than a
thunderbolt. But after a time its affinities
begin to appear ; we become accustomed
to its presence ; we can call it by name
and grow familiar with it ; then we can
compare it with others, and begin to dis-
tribute them.

" The endless procession of thoughts
is the miracle of every day. What shall
we say of these potentates ? To the
healthy man there is always one wait-
ing at the door when he awakes. Won-
derful they are in their relation to each
other. What is written in the mind in
indelible ink is brought out by the fire
of thought.

<; Certain medicinal value is in all in-
tellectual action. Sit down to work with
weak eyes, and when your imagina-

tion begins to work your eyes become
strong. Dumont, in his life of Mirabeau,
says, when the husband of Madame
Claviere was about to be elected to the
ministry she became ill of nervous fever ;
but when he was elected, her physician
declared that in four days she would be
able to appear in public ; which proved
true, for at the end of that time she ap-
peared in perfect health as the mistress
of her own salon, in the new hotel as-
signed her husband.

*' Despair shows we have been living
on a low plane, in the sense or under-
standing. It is a sign of the decay of
thought. The brave uplift us. Jarnbli-
cus tells us some have been burned, and
not apprehended it. After the last great
defeat of the Athenians there was evi-
dent loss of power for wide thought.

" We must all recognize the influence
of two distinct classes of persons. One
class of men and women appear to bring
their power from a moral source, and
the other from intellectual forces. Thus
Dr. Channing, the oracle of morals
and religion forty years ago, drew his
power clearly from a moral force in-
stinct within him ; and this as contrasted
with what we call intellectual power,
exemplified in such men as Michael
Angelo, Shakespeare, and others. In
the first class we find men of strength,
whose names are unheard of by the
world, often in humble company and
perhaps without a talent by which to
express themselves; nevertheless, their
power is indisputable and puts all talent
to shame. We do not, however, pause
upon their thought ; it is something high-
er than that which sways us. The pow-
er of man is twofold : one part man and
one woman, the masculine and feminine
elements, the moral and intellectual ;
the soul in which one predominates is
ever watchful and jealous ; where intel-
lect leads it grows skeptical, narrow,
worldly, and runs down into talent. On
the other hand, clear-thoughted minds
complain of the opposing class as of

1883.]

Mr. Emerson in the Lecture Room.

831

wandering spirits, who cannot formulate
their faith or make their light evident.
Aristotle said the origin of reason is
not in itself, but in something better ;
and one of the ancients says, ' The
two elements are united at their sum-
mit in being God.'

" As a student of the laws of the
mind, learning to believe more deeply in
proportion to research into its divine
potentiality, I do not believe in any ob-
jector who would make that respon-
sible for vices and failure. Dumesnil
calls Michael Angelo ' the conscience
of Italy,' and there is a probity of the
intellect which demands more than any
Bible has enjoined. All feel the mys-
tery of this twofold genius at the head
of creation. Looking back upon the
philosophy of the ancients with this
idea in my mind, I find this conception
of the Highest present everywhere :
in Plato, Plothms, and in the Hindoo
books. There is always a light which
is recognized as of older birth than the
intellect. One says, ' Intellect has two-
fold energies : some of these powers act
as Intellect, others as Being inebriated
with nectar.' We say the soul grows
by moral obedience. This is the only
true foundation, and we find it treason
in the philosopher to do wrong. The
mind knows nature by sharing it, but re-
ligion, that home of genius, will strength-
en the mind as it does the character.
The obedience to a man's genius is the
particular of faith ; the obedience to
his religion, the general of faith. This
sentiment is the affirmative of affirma-
tives ; it is love itself. Strength enters
into us, a new life opens upon us, if we
possess this truth.

" A devout sentiment has the effect of
genius uttered in society. How often
we lament the development of talent
when we see the heart of man disap-
pear, and we say, ' Happy are those who
have no talent. Plato, Dante, Shake-
speare, we could not do without ; but the
central guard of all is the quiet influ-

ences of society, — the men who have no
talent, but who see the right and do it.
Such moral forces are perhaps the high-
est in the scale." Here Mr. Emerson
quoted a passage from the novel " Coun-
terparts." He often spoke of this book
as one possessing singular power and
significance. " It would be easy," he
continued, " to show the irreligion of
people, not from their writings, but from
their table-talk and the asides of life.
For wisdom, for sanity, you must have
some entrance into the heart of human-
ity. He who is exclusive excludes him-
self. There is something very delicate
in the moral sentiment ; it is a flower
which will not bear handling, but must
lie gently in the mind and bear fruit
there. Piety gives an elegance of man-
ners which the court cannot teach ; we
never obtain sincerity in any speech un-
less we feel a degree of tenderness.
Christianity taught this ; the beauty and
the strength of this truth was only
brought to perfection in the life and
teaching of Jesus Christ. Wisdom has
its root in goodness, not goodness in
wisdom. I ever hear in the voice of
genius invariably the moral tone : the
finer the sense of genius, the finer is the
influence.

" The one avenue to truth and wisdom
is love. Here, then, is the foundation,
— that all growth comes from moral
obedience.

" What we call poetical justice, that
is real justice. We call the characters
who rest on these foundations ' real
men,' as distinguished from men of the
world who act from other motives.
Piety is the essential condition of sci-
ence. When the time came that we
had to praise John Brown of Ossawa-
tomie, I remember what a world of old
poetry fitted him exactly, — Shake-
speare, Wordsworth, Herbert ; indeed,
there was no end to it !

" It is common to find the contrary to
much that I have said. Napoleon is an
example of genius without morality, but

832

Table Talk.

[June,

Wellington spoke once to the effect
that it was a moral failure which first
made it possible for him to see how to
defeat Napoleon. The exceptions still
show the truth. How coarse and rude
was the masculinity of the French Rev-
olution, — how different from New Eng-
land in its harshest days of creed ! In-
tellect is purged by humility ; no great
intellect but is bankrupted by moral
defects. Algernon Sidney, Marcus An-
toninus, are noble examples of moral
power. Some of the greatest state-
ments of the truths of Christianity
which are found outside of it are in the
Hindoo literature." Here Mr. Emerson
quoted from the Purana, from Fox, Beh-
men, Swedenborg, and others, where,
as he said, "great sensibility of con-
science has stood in lieu of mental de-
velopment."

Again, he continued, " The persons
generally most praised and esteemed
are not those we most value. We praise
talent and cheaper things ; we can make
an inventory of affairs of the world, but
we cannot do that with the hero. We
can have only one hero, here and there,
to preserve the line in the world ; quiet
and obscure they are, often, but keen
and sure almost as Socrates when the
time comes for them to observe. These
are not men who are spoken of ; they
are left alone, for the most part, as gods
are ; they are elemental, and not made
for ball-rooms, — not heroes of communi-
ties ; nothing could be more private, but

always able to come in exigency and
ready for our sorriest plight. Such are
strong in the drudgeries of endeavor ;
they excel in extricating us from bad
society. To such a hero as I have de-
scribed, men will listen as if they were
under a perpetual spell. Such I call
not so much men as influences ! I
knew one : he was at this university ;
of all unknown and unseen. I will
read you something he has left, to show
you how he looked upon the world."
Here Mr. Emerson read Thoreau's
poem called The Stranger, and after-
ward, to illustrate his remarks upon
eternity and patience to this end, he
read also fragments from Sappho and
Michael Angelo. Mr. Emerson then
continued : " The fondness of the mind
for stability is a very remarkable fact.
Whatever is ancient and long in time
has attractions for us. The man of
thought is willing to live, or living to
die ; he probably sees the cord reaching
both up and down. You shall not say
' Oh, my bishop, Oh, my pastor, is there
any resurrection ? ' or ' Did Channing
believe ? ' Go read Milton, ^schylus,
Plato, St. Augustine, and ask no such
school-dame questions as these ! True
lives, those of prophets, philosophers,
thinkers, students, such as I have quot-
ed, suggest vast leisure. In reading
some of their sentences you feel the cer-
tainty of immortality. Belief in the
future of the mind is only such to those
who use it." '

A. F.

TABLE TALK.

" DID you ever hear me preach ? "
said Coleridge to Lamb, seizing him one
day in Bloomsbury, as his own Ancient
Mariner did the wedding -guest. "I
never he - heard you d - do anything
else ! " was the reply, as, drawing a

knife from his pocket, he cut off the
button by which he was detained and
marched away. Coming back, hours
after, Lamb found his friend standing
on the same spot, twirling between
thumb and forefinger the button he had

1883.]

Table Talk.

833

removed by a surgical operation and
still preaching to an imaginary audi-
ence.

This, I take it, is a symbolical inci-
dent, a prophetic and indeed pathetic
shadow of the dark age in which the
very brightest conversational lights had
no better chance of shining than their
farthing-dip neighbors, and were finally
to be extinguished by the relentless
snuffers of a dull and impatient genera-
tion. Table talkers there may be still
somewhere in the world, blankly con-
templating' the button by means of
which they once secured a hearing, but
where are the listeners ?

Where are the successors of the young
men and maidens, old men and chil-
dren, who rushed from all parts of the
United Kingdom to Mr. Gilman' s house
at Highgate to hear Coleridge " dis-
course on every subject, human and di-
vine, for hours " night after night, and,
dazzled by the rays of a splendid intel-
lect, assented to everything, were con-
verted to anything, wept in the right
place, never laughed in the wrong one,
followed intelligently all his metaphys-
ical speculations, appreciated the most
subtle niceties of thought and expres-
sion, and at last went home enraptured
with the poet and lamenting the loss of
the weekly conversazione like so many
Peris on whom the gates of Paradise
had been closed ? And what of the peo-
ple who used to assemble around Mrs.
Thrale's tea - table and listen with awe
and rapture to the dogmatic utterances
of the Great Bear, only too charmed to
be effaced, really gratified by snubs, and
never dreaming of interrupting the feast
of reason and the flow of soul, never ob-
jecting to any proposition, and scarcely
ever interpolating so much as a single
phrase ? Boswell in a revolutionary,
daring mood once got so far as, " I
wonder " — after the Doctor had got off
about two pages of close print on some
topic of the day, but was instantly and
very properly suppressed. " Dou't won-

VOL. LI. —NO. 308. 53

der, Boswell ! " commanded the great
man with stern repressiveness ; and if
the company dared to indulge in the
forbidden luxury after that, we may be
sure that it was at the impertinence of
Boswell's attempting to palm off a con-
versational sixpence and small beer on
, a company waiting to be paid vast sums
in the gold of Guinea and the wine of
ecstasy.

The more we read of the celebrated
c6teries of past times, the more amazing
do we find the difference between, not the
talkers, but the listeners of this and that
period ; the people who skipped nimbly
from bon mots to Essays on the Genius
of Christianity in the wake of the wits
of the Parisian salons ; assisted greedily
at the tremendous conferences of the
Klopstockian and Wertherian school of
philosophers at Weimar ; and intrigued
to be allowed to join the delightful con-
clave at Holland House. Listeners are
the great stumbling-block in the way of
such institutions being revived. Some
faint echo of them is to be found in the
immense enthusiasm of the King of Ba-
varia and the other disciples of Wagner,
and the attitudes of devotion expressed
in twisted legs and clasped hands, " the
rapt soul sitting in the eyes " of the
aesthetics groveling at the feet of their
Gamaliels, — Burne-Jones, Rossetti, and
Morris, — but the spirit of the age is
so opposed to such demonstrations that
they excite considerably more ridicule
than admiration.

Indeed, the world seems to have
rushed to the opposite extreme. It has
not only run away from the table talk-
ers, but stuffed its fingers in its ears and
refused to listen, charm they never so
wisely. The men best worth hearing
have found this out long ago, and taken
their cases to that supreme and final
court of appeal, the Press. Morse him-
self cannot telegraph without a wire ;
it must be properly insulated ; the con-
nection must be perfect ; the operator at
the other end of the line must have a

834

Table Talk.

[June,

certain degree of intelligence, must be
in a receptive attitude, and pay close
attention to the workings of the divine
current, before genius can flash its mes-
sage through the world. What can
have destroyed the essential conditions
in which the table talker lived, and
moved, and made his reputation ? Can
any one tell ? Can it be railroads, tele-
graphs, steamboats, telephones, the pub-
lic school system, the Declaration of
Independence and the triumph of repub-
lican principles, nihilism or communism
that has played us the scurvy trick ?
Can human nature have changed, along
with everything else in this changeful
age?

In the golden age of table talk the
listener seems to have had all the vir-
tues and none of the faults of the tribe,
as we know them. He was able to
grasp any subject, however abstruse. He
always understood the Jirst time. He
never had a post-mortem appreciation
of jokes, and burst out in a guffaw long
after everybody had forgotten all about
them. He never kindly translated what
had been said and made it mean some-
thing totally different from what was
intended. He never rejected the slow
march of demonstration and leaped to
the -wrong conclusion, thereby utterly
routing the raconteur, and putting him
to flight horse and foot. He never pro-
claimed a statute of limitation, and said,
u Very true, my dear Jones, up to a cer-
tain point. But you go too far. Your
theory carried to its logical conclusion
would " — (Here twenty minutes of
illogical absurdities and niggling ob-
jections follow.) He never stopped
you in the middle of a good story to in-
sist with painful accuracy that some
town incidentally alluded to was not fif-
teen miles from Carlisle, but fourteen
and three quarters, or begged pardon
for interrupting you but your mention
of Scotch whiskey reminded him of one
of the most amusing episodes in his
whole life, which he related at great

length and bored everybody to extinc-
tion, besides killing the original story
outright. He never abstracted himself
-from the conversation while he hunted
up his arguments and epigrams, and
then inserted them violently in the first
pause that occurred, or made an oppor-
tunity if none existed. He never
wrecked a rich freight-train of ideas by
a feeble pun or a hackneyed quotation.
He thrilled at an impassioned appeal,
melted over a noble sentiment, under-
stood every classical allusion, withered
under sarcasm, delighted in brilliant im-
agery, and never resented the most caus-
tic wit. He was a luminous, gifted, pa-
tient creature, all soul (except what was
ears), and we shall ne'er look upon his
like again. The poor relation who cor-
roborates every utterance with fulsome
additions of her own did not exist then.
The people who pay no attention to
what is being said and burn to get in
their reply had not been invented. The
man who habitually invalidates every
statement that has not had the honor of
emanating from him, who would con-
tradict Faraday flatly about the influ-
ence of magnetism on light, and could
not be convinced that he was mistaken
in any scientific conclusion, by Sir Da-
vid Brewster, Cuvier, Hugh Miller,
Herschel, Humboldt, Laplace, Playfair,
Darwin, and Huxley combined, had not
yet reared his ignorant, obstinate, dog-
matic crest. It was the Age of Listen-
ers, and listening is a lost art.

I appeal to you, sir, who have a fund
of information, a quickness at repartee,
a wealth of anecdote not often met
with, and can tell a story as well as any
man in America, to confirm this state-
ment. How often do you get off that
delightful experience of yours in a Bul-
garian cafe during the Russo-Turco war,
in which you imitate officers of six na-
tionalities so inimitably, before an even
fairly attentive and appreciative audi-
ence ?

Suppose yourself dining out, not at

1883.]

Table Talk.

your friend Sowerby's where the seven
children are all at the table, and their
fond mamma dribbles out a dreary do-
mestic record of bad servants and ab-
normally clever children at one end,
and the father, with a note-to-meet-in-
Bank-and-no-money-to-do-it-with expres-
sion, growls out a few sentences at the
other, and the Irish maid gives her
views when the conversation flags, and
drops the leg of mutton on the thresh-
old, and finally retires to the adjoining
kitchen to rake the ashes out of the fur-
nace noisily, and sing The Wearing of
the Green. No, take American life under
its most favorable conditions, and fancy
yourself breaking Vienna bread at the
table of some hospitable millionaire. Do
you suppose that all the company is
going to sit silent, attentive, entranced,
while you express your opinion of the
Egyptian situation ? No, not if you
were Ebers or Sir Garnet Wolseley.
No, not if it were the late Arctic Ex-
pedition instead, and you were Lieuten-
ant Danenhower.

Sentimental lady opposite, addressing
the chandelier apparently, would mur-
mur, " Oh, those poor dear Egyptians !
I do hope they won't get hurt. I Ve
always doted upon the Egyptians. I
always keep a crocodile paper-weight on
my writing table, and dear papa thinks
me so like his print of Cleopatra."

Gentleman on the left would say,
" Have you seen the leaders in the
Tribune and the Herald, and Smith's
article, The Land of the Pharoahs, in
the South American Review ? Covers
the whole ground." You have seen
Smith's paper, and are about to take is-
sue wifth him on several points, when
a conversational non-combatant below
you makes a deprecating appeal to you
as the superior man of the party, " Is
it true, sir, that the Nile overflows its
banks every year ? How do they get
it back again ? " You begin : " As far
back as the days of Moses " — Irrev-
erent youth breaks in with " Moses in

the bulrushes keeping off the mosqui-
toes ! " as a perfectly pertinent and
welcome addendum, and you retire dis-
gusted. On leaving the room the would-
be-intellectual young lady stops you and
says, "Thank you, dear Mr. Powell,
for talking so very beautifully about
Egypt. I was taking notes of what you
said all the time, behind the epergne,
and shall put it all down in my diary
to-night." You grind your teeth and
pull your moustache and try to look
pleased as you mutter, " Delighted, I 'm
sure ! " But shades of Hazlitt, Coleridge,
Dr. Johnson, Sydney Smith, and Ma-
caulay, what would you say to such ta-
ble talk ? Many years ago, the writer
was breakfasting one morning in Lon-
don with a friend, and among other
guests was the late Matthew F. Maury
of Virginia (the simplest and best, as
well as one of the most distinguished of
savants), and a very handsome, bump-
tious young fellow, a nephew of the
host, just up from Oxford, with all the
world in a sling, and a strong disposi-
tion to give the sun a black eye on the
smallest possible provocation. He was
placed at table just opposite Commodore
Maury, whom he knew very well by rep-
utation, but had never associated with
the quiet, kindly old gentleman across
the mahogany. The conversation turn-
ing upon the origin and influence of the
Gulf Stream the Commodore was ap-
pealed to, and with the beautiful mod-
esty and simplicity for which he was
noted began to make his statement. I
say began, for he was never allowed to
finish it. Young Oxford objected to,
sniffed at, and utterly pooh-poohed every
proposition, and it was charming to see
the old man laying no claim whatever to
superior knowledge, but mildly asking
if it had " occurred to him to look at it
in this light," gently deprecating his
conclusions, and patiently explaining
his own position. But all in vain ; he
was only trampled the more under the
heel of assertion, and at last meekly re-

836

Table Talk.

[June,

tired from the contest, bowed, and fol-
lowed the ladies into the library, leav-
ing his antagonist swelling with a sense
of victory. All this time the host had
been fretting and fuming at the other
end of the table, out of range, and now
burst out in a turkey-cock fury with,
"Frank, do you know that you have
been making a consummate ass of your-
self ? Do you know who you have been
talking to ? That is Maury ! " Poor
young Oxford's face, on hearing this,
expressed an amount of amazement and
mortification that spoke well for its in-
genuousness. His rosy cheeks turned
quite purple, and he gasped out in a hor-
rified way, " Good Heavens ! You don't
mean it," and, napkin in hand, jumped
up, rushed after the Commodore, and
made the most profuse apologies in a
red-heat of contrition, and was then dis-
missed with a kindly pat on the, shoul-
der and a " Never mind, never mind,
my dear boy. You are very young,"
that was pulverizing in the extreme.
Women are supposed to have more tact
and finer sensibilities than the grosser
sex, yet how few of them resemble
Madame de Stae'l " qui savait bien
•e'couter."

Conceding, then, that there are no
listeners who hear through every pore
and sympathize in every fibre of their
being, have we lost so much, after all,
by the decadence of table talk ? Haz-
litt confesses that he was often dread-
fully bored by the guild ; and Scott told
Lockhart that he would rather hear the
simple thoughts and tales of his poor,
uneducated neighbors, from whom he
heard higher sentiments than he had
ever met with, out of the pages of the
Bible. If a great deal of the talk was
wonderfully brilliant, a considerable por-
tion was dull and forced ; and if some of
the witticisms recorded had come down
to us C. O. D., like our parcels, icono-
clastic as it sounds, I dare say they would
have been sold at a literary express
office as so much waste paper. Most

of us know a half-dozen people who say
better things every day in the week, and
do not lie awake at night fancying them-
selves geniuses either. Is there not
plenty of pleasant, bright exchange of
ideas nowadays? There is very little
that is Shakespeare and the musical
glasses in most cultivated households.
Universal education, incessant travel,
the faculties for girdling the earth in
a way Puck little dreamed of, and a
multitude of publications have brought
about a quite millennial state of general
intelligence, though there will always
exist rich veins of ignorance in certain
directions, and mountain fastnesses of
prejudice and superstition in which in-
dividuals and nations can take refuge.
Mention Timbuctoo or Kamschatka in
one of the great capitals at your club,
and four or five men can be found to
give an accurate account of its climate,
customs, population, productions, etc.,
with a mass of other information the
result of personal experience. If we
have not the eloquence of " the in-
spired charity boy," Macaulay's flashes
of silence, Sydney Smith saying that
his idea of heaven is to eat pate de fois
gras to the sound of trumpets, or the
" puns and punch of bread-aud-cheese-
time " in Inner Temple Lane, and dear
Elia's stuttered whimsicalities, we es-
cape a great deal, too. Our guests do
not riddle us like Swift, or get tipsy
like Burns, or call the lady of the house
by her Christian name and sprawl full-
length on the sofa like Hogg, or sit
speechless for hours like De Quincey.
They are sober, decent folk, not malig-
nantly dull, by any means, but able to
discourse pleasantly on a variety of top-
ics. And at any rate, like Mrs. Poyser,
when we come to die, we shall have the
satisfaction of knowing that we have
" said our say."

Poor music that we make ourselves,
it has been said, is more enjoyed than
the finest that can bo made for us, and a
friendly conversational chorus is vastly

1883.]

Jane Welsh Carlyle.

837

preferable to an intellectual solo. To
look on and see the lion toss his mane
grows monotonous after a while, and
what right has he to silence with his
roar the pleasant chirp of birds, the baa

of lambs, or even the hisses of geese in
a world which was not made for giants
and elephants alone but for all God's
creatures ? Causons-nous done, mes
freres. Ainsi soit-il !

F. G. Baylor.

JANE WELSH CARLYLE.

UNCONSCIOUS autobiography is inter-
esting, but it is seldom fair and adequate.
In this last instance, The Letters and
Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle,1 one
reads plainly the petty and mean details
of a thirty years' housekeeping ; but it
is only inferentially that one gains an
impression of the charm that, before
Mrs. Carlyle's marriage, surrounded her
with lovers, and, after it, made her the
prized friend of men of intellect, and
the refuge of all mad and miserable
people, and won for her, when she grew
old, the enthusiastic affection of her as-
sociates of all ages and all degrees of
talent or stupidity. She has fared ill
in having her familiar letters given to
the world just as they were written, in
the raw, with all their feminine confi-
dences, which an editor with a touch of
the old-fashioned chivalrous feeling for
women would have suppressed, with
their hasty account of her domestic vex-
ations of body and mind, their revela-
tion of her little necessary social hypoc-
risies, and even the heart-burnings that
she entrusted only to her diary. Her
husband, it is true, prepared the letters
for publication ; he was led to do so by a
wish to honor her, and also by a feeling
of remorse and a desire to do penance
for fcis ill-treatment ; but he left the de-
cision in the matter to Froude, on whom
the responsibility lies. It is useless to
lament the indiscretion and obtuseness

1 Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Car-
lyle. Prepared for publication by THOMAS CAR-
LYLE. Edited by JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE.

of this editor; the hero has found his
valet, and the preacher of silence is to
have as many words made about him
and his as possible ; it is only left to the
public to be thankful that the house,
which is now lighted up and thrown
open from kitchen to bedroom, had no
wors6 secrets for disclosure.

The letters, being written by an un-
suspecting woman who was unusually
genuine, frank, original, audacious in
word and act, and unconventional to a
fault, and being, moreover, seasoned
with entertaining literary and social gos-
sip, are, of course, full of interest. Vi-
vacity is the marked trait of the writer ;
but the continual reference to her happy
girlhood and its scenes, growing more
pathetic year after year, and the contin-
ual lament of Carlyle in his notes, — like
a Greek chorus, giving a kind of artistic
unity to the series, — lend an effect of
sadness to the whole. The life of the
heroine — she deserves the name — was
impressive ; amid the ignoble trivialities
that fell to her daily lot, she kept to the
high purposes involved in them with
great courage and self-control, and with
unremitting devotion. An only child,
reared in a wealthy and refined home,
the favorite of all who knew her, with
many rich and intelligent suitors about
her, she had chosen to wed the poor and
obscure man in whose genius she alone
believed, and, against the advice of her

In two volumes.
Sons. 1883.

New York : Charles Scribirer's

838

Jane Welsh Carlyle.

[June,

friends, had married him, and gone to
the lonely Scotch farm to be practically
his household servant ; there she had
spent- six toilsome years, and now they
had come to London, to the house that
was to be her home until death. These
letters cover this latter period, of the
household affairs of which they contain
a complete account. Her work was less
menial, since they kept a servant, so
that she no longer had to mop up her
own floors ; but the tasks set her were
difficult and exhausting. To provide
meals that Carlyle could eat without too
violent storming, — for, as she said in
Mazzini's phrase, Carlyle " loved silence
somewhat platonically ; " to shield him
from the annoyances of visitors and bad
servants ; to rid the neighborhood, by
ingenious diplomacy, of the nuisances
of ever-reappearing parrots, dogs, cocks,
and the like enemies of sleep and med-
itation, her own as well as his ; to buy
his clothes, see lawyers and agents, even
to protest against his high taxes before
the commissioners, and, in all possible
ways, to save his money at the expense
of her own tastes and even of her health ;
to attend to refittings of the house by
carpenters, painters, and masons, while
he was away on his summer vacations ;
in brief, to spare him all the ills of the
outer world, to make the conditions of
his work favorable, and himself as com-
fortable as it was possible for a morose
dyspeptic to be, and at the same time to
prevent his seeing how much trouble and
anxiety it cost her, — such was the duty
prescribed to herself and done faithfully
for years without complaint, amid ill-
nesses not light nor few, which were
" not without their good uses," she wrote,
because she arose from them " with new
heart for the battle of existence, — what
a woman means by new heart, not new
brute force, as you men understand it,
but new power of loving and enduring."
In this effective practical life she tried
to repress some portion of her womanly
nature, for she agreed, verbally at least,

with Carlyle's disapproval of " moods,"
" feelings," " sentiments," and similar
phases of emotion not resulting in work
done ; but her nature, being pathetically
susceptible to these forbidden experi-
ences, often overruled her philosophy,
and brought the knowledge of her soli-
tude home to her ; for she had no direct
°hare in her husband's work, no marks
of tenderness from him, and few words
or deeds in recognition of her sacrifices
for him. She succeeded only too well
in blinding him to her own pain, which
was, indeed, the easiest of her tasks.
Her words on Carlyle's sending her a
birthday present just after her mother's
death are significant of much that is un-
said, and contain the explanation she
gave to herself of his earlier neglect. " I
cannot tell you," she writes, "how wae
his little gift made me, as well as glad ;
it was the first thing of the kind he ever
gave to me in his life. In great matters
he is always kind and considerate ; but
these little attentions, which we women
attach so much importance to, he was
never in the habit of rendering to any
one ; his up-bringing and the severe turn
of mind he has from nature had alike
indisposed him toward them. And now
the desire to replace to me the irreplace-
able makes him as good in little things
as he used to be in great." This was
in the sixteenth year after marriage.

There was a limit, however, to Mrs.
Carlyle's power of self-sacrifice. Her
proud, spirited, sensitive nature was ever
reasserting itself, persistently refusing
to be lost in her husband's individuality.
She thirsted both for expressed recog-
nition and for expressed affection. In
an early letter to Sterling she writes
thus: "In spite of the honestest efforts
to annihilate my I-ety or merge it in
what the world doubtless considers my
better half, I still find myself a self-sub-
sisting and, alas ! self-seeking me. Lit-
tle Felix in the Wanderjahre, when, in
the midst of an animated scene between
Wilhelni and Theresa, he pulls There-

1883.]

Jane Welsh Carlyle.

839

sa's gown and calls out, 'Mama The-
resa, I, too, am here ! ' only speaks out
with the charming trustfulness of a lit-
tle child what I am perpetually feeling,
though too sophisticated to pull people's
skirts, or exclaim, in so many words,
* Mr. Sterling, I, too, am here ! ' " The
recognition which she desired was abun-,
dantly given by the men who gath
ered about Carlyle, many of whom were
more attached to her than to him ; and
the despised " feelings " found an outlet
in brightening various miserable lives,
poor exiles of all nations, unfortunate
maidens, lost children, and, in general,
all people in affliction, who were attract-
ed to her, she said, as straw to amber.
Notwithstanding the affection and devo-
tion of her many friends, she seems to
have remained lonely at heart ; but she
kept on with the old routine, while the
French Revolution and Cromwell were
being written, and she found comfort, if
not contentment, in the sense of fulfilled
duty and the knowledge that she had
materially helped her husband in her
silent way. The whisper of fame grew
loud, the doors of the great flew open ;
but when her faith in Carlyle's genius
was at last justified and her hopes for
him realized, something happened that
had not entered into her calculations.
Carlyle was finding the sweetest reward
• in the society of another woman. This
was the first Lady Ashburton, who was
" the cleverest woman out of sight " that
Mrs. Carlyle ever saw, and at whose
home, a centre of intellectual society,
both she and her husband often visited ;
but it seems that in London the wives
of men of genius, like the wives of bish-
ops, do not take the social rank of their
husbands ; so Froude assures us, and
Lady Ashburton made the fact plain to
Mrs. Carlyle. The result was, that, to-
ward the close of a ten years' acquaint-
ance, the latter grew so jealous of the
former's fascination as to make herself
very wretched. Miss Geraldine Jews-
bury, her most intimate friend, explains

the affair in a very sensible note. She
says that any other wife would have
laughed at Carlyle's bewitchment, but
this one, seeing Lady Ashburton ad-
mired for sayings and doings for which
she was snubbed, and contrasting the
former's grand-dame manners with her
own homely endeavors to help her hus-
band and serve him through years of
hardship, became more abidingly and in-
tensely miserable than words can utter ;
her inmost life was solitary, without ten-
derness, caresses, or loving words from
him, and she felt that her love and life
were laid waste. All this she willingly
endured while he neglected her for his
work ; but when this excuse could no
longer be made for him, the strain told
on her, and, without faltering from her
ptirpose of helping and shielding him,
she became warped. Such is Miss Jews-
bury's account, nearly in her own words.
There is no need to apportion the blame
between the pair. The fact is that Mrs.
Carlyle suffered, and that, for some time
after she became aware of her own
real feeling, her letters are less confid-
ingly affectionate in regard to her hus-
band, and contain more or less open dis-
content of a, very justifiable kind. Af-
ter Lady Ashburton's death, she writes
to him as follows : " I have neither the
strength and spirits to bear up against
your discontent, nor the obtuseness to
be indifferent to it. You have not the
least notion what a killing thought it is
to have put into one's heart, gnawing
there day and night, that one ought to
be dead, since one can no longer make
the same exertions as formerly ; " and
there is more to the same effect, to which
Carlyle affixes his note, " Alas ! alas !
sinner that I am ! " Notwithstanding '
such plain words, which are indeed in-
frequent, Mrs. Carlyle still guarded her
husband, standing between him and the
objects of his wrath, "imitating, in a
small, humble way, the Roman soldier
who gathered his arms full of the ene-
my's spears, and received them all into

840

Recent English Poetry.

[June,

his own breast," on which sentence Car-
lyle again comments, " Oh heavens, the
comparison ! it was too true." As time
went on they drew together more close-
ly. The second Lady Ashburton ap-
peared, who became very dear to Mrs.
Carlyle, and was even advised by her to
" send a kiss " to the now aging philos-
opher. Carlyle himself understood bet-
ter his wife's moods and needs, though
still imperfectly, and he was more kind
in word and more thoughtful in act than
of old. Thus, at last, the letters con-
clude as pleasantly as they began, with
Mrs. Carlyle's elation over the Edin-
burgh triumph, from which her husband
returned to find her dead.

On the whole, we thiuk that, in spite
of appearances, the married life here
laid bare was not an exceptionally un-
happy one ; nor does it seem to us that
Carlyle's neglect of his wife sprang from
any moral fault, but merely from his na-
tive insensibility, his absorption in his
work, arid that unconscious selfishness
which is ordinarily induced in even the
best men by persistent silent sacrifice on

their behalf. He simply did not see, did
not know, did not understand his wife's
trials and nature ; but that he had deep
tenderness in his heart is plain, both
from his works, where it is shown imag-
inatively, and from many things recorded
of his own acts in these volumes and
elsewhere. That his love was single
and his loyalty entire these pitiful notes
amply and painfully prove. But inde-
pendently of him altogether, Mrs. Car-
lyle deserves remembrance for her own
sake, not merely for the work done by
her as a true wife, nor for the heroic
spirit shown in the doing it, but for an
intrinsically refined and gentle nature,
the history of which leaves the impres-
sion that, although it always remained
noble and attractive, it was injured by
the circumstances amid which she was
placed. The total effect of her letters,
so far as they relate to herself, goes to
confirm Miss Jewsbury's summary, that
" the lines in which her character was
laid down were very grand, but the re-
sult was blurred and distorted and con-
fused."

RECENT ENGLISH POETRY.

AN author's influence upon other au-
thors may be expressed in terms of
either attraction or repulsion ; and the
one who repels is often found to be the
one whose influence is deepest although
it be more tardily acknowledged. To-
day Robert Browning exhibits the most
sharply accented personality among writ-
ers of English poetry ; and his latest
publication l proves that he is not like-
ly to lose the distinction with advancing
age.

" Darkling, I keep my sunrise-aim,"
he reminds us, in the closing lines of

'! Jocoseria. By ROBERT BROWHING. Boston:
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1883.

Jocoseria. He keeps on asserting his
personality, too, with spontaneous ve-
hemence. He is more various, though
lyrically less great and in art less well-
balanced, than Tennyson. The most
masculine nature and the most subtile
perception of character owned by any
contemporary English poet are admit-
ted to be his. And yet he is not the
leader of the younger school, which —
for instance through one of its most
skilled and winning representatives, Mr.
Edmund Gosse — shows a decided af-
finity with Rossetti. On the other hand
we know that Rossetti himself, in the
earlier part of his career, felt deeply the

1883.]

Recent English Poetry.

841

influence of Browning. Is there not
some plausibility in the speculation that
the younger men, by following Rossetti,
will turn out to have been paying trib-
ute indirectly to the genius which at
first commanded Rossetti's own ? The
fact that their work moves in a direc-
tion so opposed to Browning's ought
perhaps to be regarded as merely one
swing of the pendulum, which will be
followed by an action precisely reverse.
But, whatever the case may be as to
that point, one will very naturally look
to this latest volume by the author of
Sordello and The Ring and the Book
for some further clue as to what the
" sunrise-aim " really has been, to which
he alludes. Without entering into any
lengthy analysis, we may say that it
has consisted apparently in a resolve to
depict through the medium of verse, re-
gardless of technical tradition, every
possible phase of life just as it chanced
to impress the writer. All the jagged
prominences, the deep abysses of crime
or imperfection, the strange sinuosities
of passion eating its way into the heart
of man, the dewy valleys in which pure
love rests, the sudden bursts of feeling,
the stretches of barrenness not without
meaning, which present themselves on
a general view of human nature, were
to be reproduced as if upon a raised
map ; or we might say by means of an
orrery, having suitable apparatus to dem-
onstrate the movements of bodies terres-
trial and celestial. Mr. Browning's own
comment was to supply a sort of poetic
anthropology. There had always been
a somewhat scientific bias in his view
of life ; but it was empirical, wanting in
method, and continually swayed this way
or that by a desire for purely poetic ex-
pression. The very essence of his aim,
however, seems to have been to avoid
bringing observation within the bounds of
any symmetrical or classically moulded
design : he has wished his poetry to be
like that which it represents, — rough,
bristling, unexpected, heterogeneous.

Beauty and ugliness, the lovely and the
grotesque, must according to his prac-
tice be treated with a commanding im-
partiality, which shall leave chiefly with
the reader the task of striking the bal-
ance. Hence proceed his many deficien-
cies of form ; and the same cause may
be assigned for the result that his emi-
nence as a dramatist (not for the mod-
ern stage) is hardly surpassed by his
power as a writer of lyrical and medita-
tive verse. Such a man must be equally
capable in the management of several
dissimilar modes of imparting thought.
It is not surprising, either that his im-
partiality should issue in something al-
lied to a buoyant indifference, which
might be said fitly to terminate with
a collection like Jocoseria ; because we
find in its contents a mingling of sober
and even tragic elements with others
of a facetious or half-cynical cast, and
there runs through the whole a vein of
mildly contemptuous pity for the lot of
mankind, their illusions, their mean-
nesses, aspirations, and self-deceits. A
compensation for the unsatisfactoriness
of life is suggested in the nameless pre-
lude, the airy chanson, in which these
verses occur : —
" Wanting is — what ?

Beamy the world, yet a blank all the same,
— Framework which waits for a picture to frame :
What of the leafage, what of the flower ?
Roses embowering, with nought they embower !
Come then, complete incompletion, O comer,
Pant through the blueness, perfect the summer !
Breathe but one breath
Rose-beauty above,
And all that was death
Grows life, grows love! "

The suggestion, it is true, is vague ; but
we credit the poet with meaning that
without love, which is the " complete
incompletion," nothing avails. On this
thread the several poems of the series
appear to string themselves. The first
one, Donald, treats of the relation of
man and brute, in a way that makes it
serve as a sort of pendant to the Mou-
leykeh of the Dramatic Idylls. A dar-
ing Highlander ascends some indefinite

Recent English Poetry.

[June,

mountain, and on a narrow path meets
a large red stag, where there is no room
to pass.

" These are the moments when quite new sense,

To meet some need as novel,
Springs up in the brain : it inspired resource :
— ' Nor advance nor retreat — but grovel.' "

Accordingly Donald lies down, breast
upwards ; and the stag, recognizing the
emergency, steps carefully over him
with delicate feet : —

" So a mother removes a fly from the face
Of her babe asleep supinely."

But at the last moment the brilliant
idea occurs to the Highlander of stab-
bing the stag, while he holds with his
hand the hind leg that is being lifted
over him. Donald is carried down the
mountain-side by the wounded animal,
and maimed for life. Here is an in-
stance of the want of love, in a broad
sense ; yet while Mr. Browning renders
the lesson plainly, he chooses to strike
an attitude of worldly savoir faire in
respect of it. He professes to have met
the crippled Donald relating the adven-
ture and receiving gratuities from sports-
men ; whereupon, " I hope I gave twice
as much as the rest," he exclaims, and
proceeds to name the man an ingrate,
rightly rewarded for his dastard conduct.
We have no space to analyze the other
short pieces, in their bearing on the cen-
tral theme. Solomon and Balkis is a
pungent satire, which reveals the im-
manence of vanity in the king, and of
feminine desire for conquest on the part
of the Queen of Sheba, just when they
are expressing the most abstract admi-
ration for wisdom and unalloyed good-
ness. Christina and Monaldeschi, in
somewhat wooden stanzas, sets forth the
vengeance of another queen upon her
treacherous favorite ; there is a brief
exposition of Mary Wollstonecraft's
hopeless passion for Fuseli ; and then
we are given a little fable concerning
Adam, Lilith, and Eve to illustrate the
cases of a woman who pretends less love
than she really feels, and of one who

puts on the air of a greater affection
than she in fact has ; neither of them
deceiving the man. Only in Ixion, and
the song called Never the Time and the
Place, preceding the epilogue, does the
author surrender to a free play of en-
thusiasm or sentiment. We may leave
it to the Browning societies to settle the
exact construction which should be
placed upon Ixion : whether or not it
be an indirect protest against the an-
thropomorphic idea of God, we discern
in these sonorous elegiac verses a grand
and passionate sense of the indomitable-
ness of man. Assuredly they offer a
new view of the myth ; they set aside
the traditional notion that Ixion was
justly punished for his temerity, and
bring him forward as an exponent of a
high principle. Thus : —
" Strive my kind, though strife endure through

endless obstruction,
Stage after stage, each rise marred by as certain

a fall!

Never so baffled but — when Man pays the price

of endeavor,
Thunderstruck, downthrust, Tartaros-doomed to

the wheel, —
Then, ay, then from the tears, and sweat, and

blood of his torment,
E'en from the triumph of Hell, up let him look

and rejoice!"

Incidentally we may pay our tribute
to the aptness and maturity of art indi-
cated in the trip-hammer force of that
spondaic measure, " Thunderstruck,
downthrust." The lyric which we have
mentioned deserves quotation as one of
the most exquisite in the whole range
of the writer's production.

" Never the time and the place

And the loved one all together!
This path — how soft to pace !

This May — what magic weather !
Where is the loved one's face ?
In a dream that loved one's face meets mine,
But the house is narrow, the place is bleak,
Where, outside, rain and wind combine
With a furtive ear, if I strive to speak.

Do I hold the Past

So firm and fast,

Yet doubt if the Future hold I can ?
This path so soft to pace shall lead •
Thro' the naagic of May to herself indeed !

1883.]

Recent English Poetry.

843

Or narrow if needs the house must be,
Outside are the storms and strangers : we —
Oh, close, safe, warm sleep I and she,
— I and she! "

The final turn, here, reminds one of
Ben Jonson's closing of Her Triumph,
in Underwoods —
" Oh so white, oh so soft, oh so sweet is she ! "

— but only as one is reminded of Von
Weber in that strain which Mendelssohn
borrowed to enrich his music for the
Midsummer-Night's Dream, and made
his own, simply by altering the tempo
and the manner in which it was used.

Jochanan Hakkadosh, the longest
poem in the book, is extremely disap-
pointing, and suggests a melancholy de-
cline from that high level of fine phi-
losophy and terse formulation which
the author long ago attained in Rabbi
Ben Ezra; and as for Pambo, which
concludes the collection, no more may
be said than that it contains a grain of
wisdom wrapped up in something very
like nonsense-verses. To decry Mr.
Browning's latest contribution would
not for a moment be justifiable; and a
more detailed review could easily make
it clear that a consummate literary skill
underlies all the surface vagaries of
these compositions. The author is not
on this occasion, any more than hither-
to, thoroughly dramatic, because he is
too individual to allow the persons
whose situation he imagines to speak in
any way but his own. Neither can we
agree with the criticism which has been
made, that he is too analytic to be crea-
tive ; since when he attempts analysis,
it is continually dissolved into images,
one following another in a blinding
shower. He remains semi-dramatic,
vividly picturesque, sometimes strongly
lyrical ; but, as we intimated in the first
part of this notice, he brings up at a
species of cynicism : his restless obser-
vation and diversified sympathies end
by giving a view of things which is but
half-serious, although intermittently he
throws off the jocose mood, and trusts

wholly to earnest, unsophisticated feel-
ing.

This is not at all the way in which
Mr. Gosse approaches the work of trans-
muting experience or the substance of
reverie into poetic literature.1 Mr.
Gosse sets out to paint something defi-
nite in words,/o fix upon our minds a
beautiful outline, and to imbue us with
a specified sentiment, or idea, or associa-
tion. In looking through the selected

o o

series of fifty-four of his poems, lately
published in this country, it is likely
enough that the reader will sometimes
think him imitative ; but if a musician
plays upon a silver trumpet with sincere
and charming mastery, it is not profita-
ble to inquire who first made that spe-
cial form of instrument. Mr. Brown-
ing, as we have hinted, never forgets to
be himself. Mr. Gosse, apparently,
never concerns himself on this point,
and yet the mellifluous flow of his verse
carries with it irresistibly the sense of a
strong, quiet, and sufficient personality,
rich in comprehension of the most that
is fair and elevating in this world, and
endowed with a power to express it in
enchanting terms. Whatever of imita-
tiveness may be suspected does not con-
sist in any echo of thoughts or phrases
used by others, but in a singular apti-
tude for reproducing the loveliest effects
of poetic inspiration that the best minds
have hitherto supplied, at the same time
that Mr. Gosse's personal observation
and feeling act spontaneously and leave
upon his page the traces of unmistaka-
ble genuineness. Nothing could express
more delightfully the atmosphere of old
romance than his Wind of Provence : —

" 0 wind of Provence, subtle wind that blows
Through coverts of the impenetrable rose,
O musical soft wind, come near to*ne,
Come down into these hollows by the sea,

0 wind of Provence, heavy with the rose ! "

He is especially happy in delicate utter-

1 On Viol and Flute. Selected Poems. By
EDMUND WILLIAM GOSSE. New York: Henry
Holt & Co. 1883.

844

Recent English Poetry.

[June,

ances like those of Sunshine in March,
where he says : —

" The breathing heavens are full of liquid light ;
The dew is on the meadow like a cloud; "

and, voicing the snow-drops : —

" We were the hopeless lovers of the Spring

Yet we have felt her, as the buried grain

May feel the rustle of the unfallen rain ;

We have known her as the star that sets too

soon
Bows to the unseen moon."

There are similar touches in The Char-
coal-Burner, the hero of which is "a
still old man with grizzled beard " whom
the shyest woodland creatures do not
fear.

" He lives within the hollow wood

I love to watch the pale blue spire
His scented labor builds above it ;

I track the woodland by his tire,
And, seen afar, I love it.

" It seems among the serious trees

The emblem of a living pleasure,
It animates the silences
As with a tuneful measure."

We are struck, in this case as in that of
the poem entitled Palingenesis, with a
quality of subtile insight very much like
that of Emerson. There can be no
doubt that Mr. Gosse possesses an ex-
ceedingly keen vision and is rigidly true
to it in his rhythmic record of what he
sees. It is impossible to enumerate in
this place all the felicities of phrase that
occur in the volume, or even to do jus-
tice to the wide range of his work. His
fertility is remarkable, and what is more
remarkable still is that he almost with-
out exception satisfies by the fullness,
the sweetness, the naturalness, and the
polished grace of his exposition. The
Cruise of the Rover is quite out of his
usual vein, and, notwithstanding, is per-
fect of *Us kind, surpassing in depth of
conception and in technical force Ten-
nyson's ballad of The Revenge, which
it calls to mind. Mr. Gosse, however,
appears nowhere to better advantage
than in his sonnets, of which The Bath
is an excellent example.

" With rosy palms against her bosom pressed
To stay the shudder that she dreads of old,
Lysidice glides down, till silver-cold

The water girdles half her glowing breast ;

A yellow butterfly on flowery quest
Kitles the roses that her tresses hold :
A breeze comes wandering through the fold
on fold

Of draperies curtaining her shrine of rest

Soft beaufy, like her kindred petals strewed
Along the crystal coolness, there she lies.
What vision gratifies those gentle eyes?

She dreams she stands where yesterday she
stood,

Where, while the whole arena shrieks for blood,
Hot in the sand a gladiator dies."

Alcyone, which is a sonnet in dialogue,
is chiseled like a Greek marble. Phoe-
bus seeks to console Alcyone for the
loss of her husband, and she asks : —
" What canst thou give to me or him in me ? "

The god answers in one splendid line
which ends the sonnet : —

"A name in story and a lighten song."

We do not need the evidence of a son-
net addressed to Rossetti to establish
a connection between Mr. Gosse and
the painter-poet whom he addresses as
" master ; " for there are many poems
in On Viol and Flute which make us
think of such an affiliation as inevita-
ble. The volume belongs altogether to
the latest rank of Victorian poets. It
has nothing to do with the turmoil and
the endless agitation of complicated
passion which Mr. Browning continues
to reflect ; but, on the contrary, it sum-
mons us away into a region of ideal re-
pose and the luxury of classic form. It
proffers, in short, a silent remonstrance
against the latter-day clamor which has
unquestionably invaded the poetry of
Browning. None, but those who have
subjected themselves to a set theory of
progress, can well object to the defen-
sibleness of Mr. Gosse' s choice ; and in-
deed it must remain at least an open
question whether poetry gains in the
long run by trying to occupy the field
of science and the newspaper. At all
events it is a good fortune which gives
the world two such admirable fruits of
imagination at one time, in England. If

1883.] Virginia from English and American Points of View. 845

we choose, we may figure Mr. Brown- to the English violet growing in a hol-
ing by the oak — tough, gnarled, pow- low at the foot of the oak. Every one
erful, aud thrusting its growth out at un- knows that to ascertain the relative
expected angles : to carry on this kind value of the oak and the violet, sesthet-
of analogy we should have to fancy a ically, is out of the question, and that
resemblance on the part of Mr. Gosse we cannot dispense with either.

VIRGINIA FROM ENGLISH AND AMERICAN POINTS OF VIEW.

THERE are two great peoples who
have a share in the history of Virginia
prior to the establishment of the United
States : they are the United States and
England. It has been customary and
entirely logical to begin the writing and
the reading of United States history
with the discovery by Columbus, since
the first footfall of the European upon
these shores still has its faint echoes in
our national life ; but the unbroken suc-
cession of events which finds a moving
terminus in our present is also a con-
tinuation of history, and it only needs
for one to have the historic conscious-
ness of England to read in our colo-
nial period the development of English
thought and institutions.

This is, of course, patent enough as
soon as one has said it ; yet in the de-
tailed extension of the historic conscious-
ness it would be exceedingly difficult
for an Englishman to write of American
colonial life in the same manner as
would an American. There are now,
and there will always remain, two modes
of treating early Virginia, the English,
and the American, and the distinction
between the two modes will be likely to
grow more marked rather than faint-
er. When Dr. Palfrey, in his History
of New England, gave much space to
the contemporary history of England,
and pointed out the interaction of the
two countries, the English critics were
very scornful, and regarded the claims
which he presented of a New England

influence upon the Commonwealth as a
piece of provincial vanity. Mr. Wingate
Thornton, in his valuable tract, The
Historical Relation of New England to
the English Commonwealth, gave even
more specific illustrations of this rela-
tion, and it is to be noted that, with the
increasing importance of the United
States in current history, there is a grow-
ing disposition on the part of European,
especially of English, students to revise
their judgments of our early history, and
to find in the foundations of our political
life a subject for respectful considera-
tion.

This increased interest is due also to
the great attention which is given now
to institutional and constitutional his-
tory. The English school of Maine,
Stubbs, and Freeman may be expected
to find a most attractive field in Amer-
ican history, since here there have been
developed, under simpler conditions,
ideas which rise slowly out of the more
complex society of England. When
one considers how important were the
two great periods of Elizabeth and
Cromwell in the evolution of English
law and liberty, and remembers that the
foundations of America were laid and
built upon then, he can readily see how
the English student will constantly be
attracted to the study of American in-
stitutions.

May it not be said with equal truth
that, while our students, influenced not
only by the prevailing modes of thought

846

Virginia from English and American Points of View. [June,

in historical investigation, but by the
political instinct which is born of Amer-
ican life, will work at the same prob-
lems, they may be expected to take
more note of the personal and popular
influences which have been at work ?
At any rate, we have an interesting con-
trast presented in two recent works on
Virginia, one by an Englishman, and
one by an American. Mr. Doyle's book a
is a portion only of a projected work,
and it does not include the entire his-
tory of Virginia. He has set himself
the task, as he says, " to describe and
explain the process by which a few scat-
tered colonies along the Atlantic sea-
board grew into that vast confederate
republic, the United States of America."
" I have preferred," he says, " to regard
the history of the United States as the
transplantation of English ideas and in-
stitutions to a distant soil, and the adap-
tation of them to new wants and altered
modes of life." The present volume
carries the account of Virginia down
to the close of the seventeenth cen-
tury, and the headings of his chapters,
The Virginia Company, Virginia un-
der Royal Government, Virginia under
the Commonwealth, Virginia after the
Restoration, indicate clearly enough his
view of the colony from across the
water.

The other book is by an American,
or, as we suspect he would prefer to be
called, a Virginian. Mr. Trescot, in a
suggestive oration delivered before the
South Carolina Historical Society in
1859, said : " If an American be asked
abroad, Of what country are you ? his
first impulse is to answer, I am a New
Yorker, a Virginian, a Massachusetts
man, or a Carolinian, as the fact may be.
Whatever his pride in his nationality,
his home instincts and affections are
bounded by state lines." There are a
great many more who would demur to

* English Colonies in America : Virginia, Mary-
land, and the Carolina!. By J. A. DOYLB. Nevr
York : Henry Holt & Co. 1882.

this statement now than there were in
1859, but now, as then, those who would
accept it would be found chiefly at the
South. It is not that the States' rights
doctrine is more distinctly an exponent
of Southern political thought, but the
whole texture of social life at the South
has hitherto tended to emphasize state
lines as distinct from national lines, and
it would be difficult to find a more in-
teresting illustration of it than appears
unconsciously in Mr. Cooke's mono-
graph on Virginia.2

Mr. Cooke is well known as an au-
thor of novels the scenes of which are
laid in Virginia, and his literary repu-
tation has been built upon the fidelity
which he has shown to Virginian life.
He comes before the public, therefore,
with a special claim to attention in this
new book, and it is easy to see that he
has written out of a love as well as a
knowledge of his subject. Everywhere
there are touches impossible to any one
not native to the soil, and the human
interest which pervades the work gives
it a character entirely distinct from the
institutional side, which is developed in
Mr. Doyle's work. Mr. Doyle writes
as a man who finds in Virginia an ex-
ample of the working of certain laws of
government and trade: Mr. Cooke as
one who is upon an ancestral estate, and
profoundly interested in the lives of his
ancestors.

As a slight illustration of the advan-
tage which falls to a man who is writ-
ing of his own home, one may take the
paragraph which Mr. Cooke gives to the
first settlement in Virginia. He has
been describing the approach of the ex-
pedition to the shores, and of the cau-
tious advance of the ships. " Before
them," he continues, " was the great ex-
panse of Chesapeake Bay, the ' Mother
of Waters ' as the Indian name signified,
and in the distance the broad mouth of

3 Virginia : A History of the People. By JOHN
ESTEN COOKE [American Commonwealths]. Bos-
ton: Houghton, Mifflin £ Co. 1883.

1883.] Virginia from English and American Points of View. 847

a great river, the Powhatan. As the
ships approached the western shore of
the bay the storm had spent its force,
and they called the place Point Com-
fort. A little further, — at the present.
Hampton, — they landed and were hos-
pitably received by a tribe of Indians.
The ships then sailed on up the river,
which was new-named James River, and
parties landed here and there, looking
for a good site for the colony. A very
bad one was finally selected, — a low
peninsula half buried in the tide at high
water. Here the adventurers landed on
May 13, 1607, and gave the place the
name of Jamestown, in honor of the
king. Nothing remains of this famous
settlement but the ruins of a church
tower covered with ivy, and some old
tombstones. The tower is crumbling
year by year, and the roots of trees
have cracked the slabs, making great
rifts across the names of the old Armi-
gers and Honourables. The place is
desolate, with its washing waves and
flitting sea-fowl, but possesses a singu-
lar attraction. It is one of the few lo-
calities which recall the first years of
American history ; but it will not recall
them much longer. Every distinctive
feature of the spot is slowly disappear-
ing. The river encroaches year by
year, and the ground occupied by the
original huts is already submerged."

It is by this familiar acquaintance
with localities, a familiarity which read-
ing cannot give, that a historian is able
to give warmth to his narrative, and
bring the scenes near to the eye. Mr.
Cooke has availed himself of this knowl-
edge of the country in the most natural
manner; and since Virginia, especially
in its formative period, was a country of
neighborhoods, a writer who recognizes
the fact is able to reproduce in his
pages some of the most interesting fea-
tures of the life which he is recording.
From time to time Mr. Cooke takes
surveys of the State which are rather
picturesque than philosophical in their

character, and if he resorts to some of
the phrases of the romancer, there is an
ingenuous air about them which well be-
fits a state so remote in its life from
modern organization.

The vitality, however, in his work
lies in the application of imagination to
historical writing. The process of gen-
erations in Virginia, which issued in the
splendid figures of Washington and his
associates, may be disclosed in the suc-
cessive careers of the persons who came
to the front, and Mr. Cooke' has cared
for these persons as persons, and not as
types. It is this intimate acquaintance
with the men and women of Virginia
which enables him to produce a chron-
icle, just as his familiarity with the
ground which they trod enables him to
call up the circumstance of life. His
treatment of Bacon's rebellion is a case
in point. He has availed himself of the
same material which was open to Mr.
Doyle, but he was more interested in the
figure of Bacon as the hero of the re-
bellion, and his interest leads him into
a more vivid portraiture of the man.

At the same time he is able, by this
personal appropriation of the charac-
ters of his history, to reach some admi-
rable and just generalizations. All that
he says, for example, of Virginia in its
attitude toward the Stuarts and the
Commonwealth is excellent. He is not
bound by the formal legislative record ;
he understands the men who enacted
the legislation, and reaches thus a high-
er and clearer truth. "The Virgin-
ians," he says, " were simply English
people living in America, who were re-
solved to have their rights. They were
Cavaliers, if the word meant Royalists,
and adherents of the Church of Eng-
land. They would defend king and
church — the one from his enemies, and
the other from dissent and popery ; but
they meant to defend themselves too,
— to take up arms against either king
or Commonwealth, if that was necessary
to protect their rights. It is essential

848

Samuel Johnson.

[June,

to keep tLis fact in view, if the reader
wishes to understand the history of the
people at this period and in all periods.
Jealousy of right went before all. The
dusty records, often so obscure and com-
plicated with small events, clearly dem-
onstrate that the Virginians were ready
to make war on the monarchy and Par-
liament alike if they were oppressed."

In making the comparison between
Mr. Cooke's book and Mr. Doyle's we
have wished to intimate the different
lights in which they are written rather
than to give special criticism. We find
Mr. Doyle's book a painstaking, con-
scientious work, which moves along cau-
tiously, as if the writer were working
out his problem page by page, but the
conclusions reached are those of a fair-
minded man. Its accuracy is not be-
yond question, as where, for example,

he confounds Bacon's wife and Law-
rence's, but its examination of the co-
lonial relation which Virginia sustained
to England is always fresh, and often
acute.

Both books are welcome, because
they invite to a study of the early con-
ditions of American life. Few studies
deserve heartier encouragement, for
none are so likely to aid in practical
politics ; and politics, after all, is the
common education of the people. The
habit of historical study is the habit
of inquiry into causes, and the worst
thing that can happen to a free people
is to be governed in its policy simply by
considerations of immediate expedien-
cy,— and history is always offering an
answer to the questions of the day, —
an answer which rests upon cause and
effect.

SAMUEL JOHNSON.

MR. LONGFELLOW'S volume,1 made
up of a biography of some one hundred
and fifty pages, and a series of lectures,
sermons, essays, and addresses, selected
with excellent judgment from the mass
of Mr. Johnson's manuscripts and print-
ed writings, should not only be a very
precious one to those who have here-
tofore been well acquainted with this
thinker and his thoughts, but it should
attract to him a host of fresh readers.

Samuel Johnson was born in Salem,
Mass., October 10, 1822. An active,
daring boy, but studious withal, " Sa-
lem great pasture" and the beaches of
the town and of Marblehead, four miles
away, were among the most efficient of
his early tutors. Among these Mr.
Longfellow also ranks the East India
Museum, questioning whether it did not

l Lectures, Essays, and Sermons. By SAMUEL
JOHNSON, author of Oriental Religions. With a

give the first impulse to his Oriental
studies. More certainly, we find here
the beginning of his interest in geology
and mineralogy, an interest which con-
tinued through his life. We also note
the omen that he was born in the very
house where Bowditch, the astronomer,
first saw the light. His home nourished
his youth with his life-long satisfactions,
— music, and flowers, and books, and
"a simple, rational piety of the Unita-
rian stamp." It was a home of strong
affections, and it was the only home that
Johnson knew until his father's death,
in 1876 ; for he was never married, and
the duties of his manhood did not oblige
him to relinquish it. Entering Harvard
at sixteen, he was graduated in 1842.
Mr. Longfellow's earliest recollection
of his friend is on " class-day " of that

Memoir by SAMUFL LONGFELLOW. Houghton,

Mifflin & Co. 1883.

1883.]

Samuel Johnson.

849

year, when he read the class oration,
a fact which proved that his studious
habits had not cut him off from the sym-
pathy and admiration of his fellow-stu-
dents. His letters home are full of warm
affection, and characterized by moral
earnestness. One of the first records
his admiration for Henry Ware Jr.'s
sermon on the Personality of God,' —
the sermon in reply to Emerson's fa-
mous Divinity School Address of 1838,
with which Johnson was soon to find
himself in perfect sympathy. Forty
years later he recalled the Moral Phi-
losophy of Jouffroy and Cousin's criti-
cism of Locke as among the rarest satis-
factions of his college life. He entered
the Divinity School in the autumn of
his graduating year. There Mr. Long-
fellow met him, and their friendship of
forty years began. The Transcendental
movement was in full career. Emer-
son's Nature and the great Address,
Walker's lectures on Natural Religion
and Parker's sermon on The Transient
and Permanent in Christianity, had been
given to the world. Johnson, his biog-
rapher assures us, was a Transcenden-
talist by nature. " He instinctively
sought truths by direct vision, not by
processes of induction. . . . But his
Transcendentalism, which was later to
become a carefully weighed rationale of
thought, was, however, nature, a per-
ception, a sentiment, an unargued faith."
Moreover, it took on a decidedly mys-
tical form, of which certain letters af-
ford ample evidence. A brief poem of
these days gives us a glimpse of his
mind. The poem is called Sickness.
Thou, Lord, hast taken all my strength away,
Both from the spirit and her faithful form
The bodily instrument ; and now decay
The powers that prompted fearlessness in storm,
And energy, faith-kindled sight, whereby
I felt as on a warm aspiring hill
Watching the changing forms in earth and sky,
Men and their works; and from a higher Will
Having interpretations, in a trance
Of spirit, through their holiness and love.
A spell of mystery was on me, and a sense
As of a presence that with boundless rove
Gave joys unasked, and worthy self-esteem.

VOL. LI. — NO. 308. 54

But Thou tak'st back " the visionary gleam"
Into Thyself ; I strive in vain to see ;
And till Thou come again, must keep me trust-
fully.

The sickness which so deeply colors
these lines compelled him, in May, 1844,
to leave the school and go abroad. In
1845 we find him back again in Cam-
bridge, and graduating in the following
year. Some of his rarest hymns were
written in these days; it was at this
period he compiled, in connection with
Mr. Longfellow, that Book of Hymns
which Theodore Parker used to call
" The Book of Sams."

The virtual excommunication of The-
odore Parker by the Unitarians was
then a recent consummation. The chiv-
alry of Johnson's nature, even more
than his agreement in opinion, com-
pelled him to go outside the camp with
him, sharing his reproach. And so his
" candidating " was no holiday affair.
To his sympathy with Parker he added
sympathy with the antislavery move-
ment.

Johnson's first regular preaching was
to a new society in Dorchester. His po-
litical outspokenness broke up this con-
nection after some two years of faithful
service. Ecclesiasticism had for him no
charms. " I do not desire to sustain the
churches," he writes, " false aggrega-
tions as they are for selfish and tempo-
rary purposes." Indeed, already he had
become jealous of all organized bodies.
" Johnson is a man of the desert," said
Emerson to Bartol. He was, and he
was not. He would have no invasion
of his individuality by organized bodies.
But his human sympathies were ever
warm and deep. He worked with vari-
ous societies, — the Free Religious, the
Antislavery, and so on. He bound him-
self to none.

In 1853 he took charge of a new so-
ciety in Lynn, to which he had for some
time been preaching. It was a " Free
Church," withdrawn, at his instance,
from the Unitarian communion. He

850

Samuel Johnson.

[June,

did not " administer the sacraments."
But he was not a preacher, merely. He
knew his people well, and was often in
their homes, a radiant, joyful presence,
and in their sorrow a voice of tender con-
solation. He worked hard in winter,
but he knew how to rest in summer.
He had a passion for the mountains and
the sea. He was an untiring walker.
He went abroad with geologic bag and
hammer. He made up a cabinet of min-
erals, but his excursions brought him
better things than these : crystalline
clearness for his thought, and images of
beauty for its illustration.

Early in his ministry at Lynn we find
him working at certain ' Eastern Lec-
tures,' which grew at length into the
bulky volumes on the Religions of India
and China, and that on Persia, uncom-
pleted at his death, — alas for him and
for us ! But these deeper studies did not
obscure for him the concrete aspects of
the time. The antislavery struggle was
progres'sing, and no phase of it escaped
his vigilance. The inadequacy of Mr.
Longfellow's biography and the papers
following is on this side of Johnson's
character and work. It may be doubted
whether the noblest passion of the time
found upon any other lips a more lofty
expression. Here and there in the let-
ters is a passage that brings back to us
the man ; his impassioned presence is
again before us, and we hear his ringing
words. For example, " Who shall dare
be silent even for a day, while the na-
tion is persecuting its prophets, and send-
ing its saints to the scaffold, — while the
public conscience seems to be drugged
and stifled almost beyond rousing ; and
to look with a kind of vacant unconcern
upon insidious processes by which the
national legislature is being turned into
a court of inquisitorial powers, and the
national judiciary into mere machinery
for the swift destruction of inalienable
liberties ! "

In 1859 we find him and John Brown
together, and a letter to Mr. Longfel-

low gives the impression made upon
the peace-loving preacher by the man
of war. In 1860 he again visited Eu-
rope, this time with Mr. Longfellow for
his companion. He was absent fifteen
months. It was mainly a play-time, but
some work was done. The Book of
Hymns was made over into Hymns of
the Spirit, in a damp chamber of the
" Pension Besson," at Nice ; and there,
too, Johnson wrote several of his most
beautiful devotional pieces.

Johnson's letters from Europe are de-
lightful reading. Though often dealing
with hackneyed themes, they do it al-
ways in his own manner. Returning to
his work in Lynn and to his home in
Salem, the old duality engrossed him, —
political interests and Oriental studies.
To the problems of reconstruction he
brought the standard of ideal justice.
But 'its application was no easy mat-
ter. Right or wrong, his opinions were
always his own. His correspondence
with various friends from this time on-
ward, as before, takes form and color
from everything that is most vital in the
passing days, — questions of education
and reform, the labor agitation, the ad-
vance of science and its criticism on his
Transcendental doctrines. Ever an af-
fluent correspondent, his letters show
how various were his reading and his
thought. Some of his most notable let-
ters are addressed to R. H. Manning, a
man of business and affairs, living in
Brooklyn. N. Y., whose sturdy protests
from the standpoint of science frequent-
ly put him on the defensive, but never
dull the edge of his regard. In the par-
ticular results of science no one rejoiced
more heartily than he, but he was not in
the least disposed to exchange its stand-
point for his own. To convict other
men of atheism was never his delight.
He much preferred finding essential the-
ism implicated in their negations; and
he could detect an earnest thinker, and
admire him, under whatever mask. Thus,
for the writings of John Morley he had

1883.]

Samuel Johnson.

851

great respect and admiration. In 1870
his ministry at Lynn was ended. Two
years later he published the first volume
of his Oriental Religions, that upon In-
dia, and in 1877 that upon China. Mr.
Longfellow has done admirable justice
to these wide and careful studies, still
leaving the impression that the student's
best reward was in his work. These
books could not be popular ; they made
too heavy a demand upon the reader's
time and his attention. So much read-
ing, so much patience, so much medita-
tion, went to their preparation that they
yield their charm only to those who ap-
proach them with an earnestness akin to
Johnson's own. For such the charm is
great, and grows with each return to
their abounding wealth.

We should like nothing better than
to follow closely upon Johnson's track
along the course of letters that reveal
him in the final decade of his life ; to go
with him to North Andover, whither, in
1876, he retires to live on the ancestral
farm ; to share the interests of study
and affection that engross him there ; to
note how clearly, in that seclusion, he
hears the various voices of the time and
flings out his response. " Ever a fighter,
so one fight more," we seem to hear him
say, as the gauntlet of positivist, ma-
terialist, or supernaturalist rings at his
feet, and he goes forth in letter or address
to meet them, with real joy of battle.

We have but narrow space in which
to speak of the essays and addresses that
make up the greater part of Mr. Long-
fellow's volume. They do not fully
represent Johnson. His genius was so
various, his range was so wide, that this
was not to be expected. Knowing well
the quality of "his average preaching, we
crave some fuller sign of that, and also
some of his prophetic utterances in the
times that tried men's souls. That these
last would have a historic rather than a
present and permanent interest seems
hardly a sufficient reason for their entire
exclusion. But what we have embraces

many aspects of his thought and style.
The first three papers are upon Florence,
The Alps of Switzerland and the Alps
of the Ideal, and Symbolism of the Sea.
These show the poet side, the fancy
and imagination of the man. They also
show how impossible it was for him to
rest content with the mere outside of
things. The Florence would be over-
rich in style, were it not for the under-
lying substance of the thought, which,
like Titian's men and women, can carry
off any magnificence. This idealist was
a realist as well. His eye and ear were
marvelously sensitive to their respective
pleasures. He was microcosmic as well
as macrocosmic. Ghiberti's Gates of
Paradise are described with loving faith-
fulness. And as he saw these wonders
of. art, he saw the wonders of nature
minutely ; yet the multitude of parts did
not obscure the whole. But what is most
notable in these essays is that Florence,
the Alps, and the Sea all bring to him
his own of thought and aspiration. They
show his interest in men, his passion
for all noble liberties of body and of
mind, his faith in popular government,
his subordination of all things to the
ethical.

The three papers next following these
are on Fulfillment of Functions, Equal
Opportunity for Woman, and Labor
Parties and Labor Reform. These have
none of the warmth and color of the
preceding papers. The description of
Channing's style, "a naked thought,"
applies to them ; but the thought is a
Damascus blade. Johnson, never pas-
sionate, is naturally impassioned. By
the earnestness of his conviction he
" makes the cold air fire." It would be
hard to find a nobler, calmer, sterner
criticism on our educational, industrial,
and political methods than the Fulfill-
ment of Functions, a demand that men
shall make the acceptance of their lim-
itations a road to victory and peace.
The papers on The Law of the Blessed
Life, Gain in Loss, The Search for God,

852

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Living by Faith, and The Duty of De-
light report the most ideal and spiritual
aspects of his mind. His insight, his
faith, his ethical nobility, shine out on
every page. They are none of them so
lofty that they do not touch the humblest
things with their illumination. What-
ever be our science and philosophy, we
see not what escape there is from the
moral exigency of The Search for God.
Here are abiding principles, let part
what may.

A long and elaborate essay upon
Transcendentalism, fitly concludes the
book. It was a late production, written
in full view of the criticism of Spencer,
Lewes, and their school upon the Tran-
scendental system. It is Johnson's com-
pletest rationale of the philosophy which
underlay the whole of his career. Amer-
ica has furnished no other statement at
once so full and compact of this philoso-
phy. But it may be doubted whether it
combats the criticism of Spencer and his
school as completely as it does that of
Locke ; whether the ideas which John-
son considers necessary do not so appear
to us because they have been plowed
into the mind by an experience of half a
million years, hereditarily transmitted
and confirmed. Mr. Frothingham wrote

to Johnson, on the publication of this
essay, " If this is Transcendentalism, I
am a Transcendentalist." And as re-
spects its fundamental idea, no scientist
or evolutionist is debarred from saying
as much. For this idea, fundamental to
every word of Johnson's protest against
materialism, evolution, positive science,
is that thought cannot be the product of
things ; that evolution, which he does
not deny, involves an infinite element at
every step. There can be no production
of a greater by a less.

In all of Johnson's writings, certain
words appear with a frequency that is
significant. They are Mind, Spirit, Law,
Unity, Substance, Permanence, Right,
Freedom, Duty, God. They indicate the
continental masses of conviction and en-
thusiasm, joy and peace, around which
the tides of lesser things swept back and
forth, and left them steadfast and im-
movable. To these words we must add
two others which as frequently recur :
Limitations and Disciplines. He saw
that, rightly apprehended, Limitations
are Disciplines ; that only by respecting
them do we arrive at freedom and abid-
ing peace. He spoke these things out
of the depth of a profound experience
of sorrow and of joy.

THE CONTRIBUTORS' CLUB.

A CERTAIN contributor, whose pen-
slips are so rare that it is quite a treat
to his readers when he makes one,
writes to us as follows : —

The error I committed in ascribing

"Mountains interposed
Make enemies of nations "

to Byron instead of to Cowper is going
round the globe in the track of the Con-
cord musket-shot. It has reached Paris,
and is no doubt still on its travels, so
that I may expect to hear from it in

Pekin in the course of a few weeks. In
order to save labor to the innumerable
correspondents who are kindly anxious
about the matter, I would like to say,
once for all, that they are right, and I
accept the correction. But there are
palliating circumstances. I was think-
ing of a passage very similar to that
from Cowper, to be found in Childe
Harold, Canto I., stanzas 32 and 33,
which may very probably have been
suggested by the fluvio vel monte dis-

1883.]

The Contributors' Club.

853

tincti dissimiles of Burton. I will cite
the second of these stanzas. Byron is
referring to the line which separates
Spain from Portugal : —

" But these between a silver streamlet glides,
And scarce a name distinguisheth the brook,
Though rival kingdoms press its verdant sides.
Here leans the idle shepherd on his crook,
And vacant on the rippling waves doth look,
That peaceful still 'twixt bitterest foemen flovv^
For proud each peasant as the noblest duke:
Well doth the Spanish hind the difference know
'Twixt him and Lusian slave, the lowest of the
low."

The words in italics correspond very
closely tojtuvio distincti dissimiles. The
idea is the same in the passages from
Byron and Cowper ; they lay side by
side in my memory, and I got their au-
thorship mixed, that was all.

— Ought there not to be some recog-
nized standard for the spelling and pro-
nunciation of geographical names ? As
it is, the petrifying of our language by
the dictionary-makers — who have sanc-
tioned all the blunders of the ignorant
past, both in typography and in attempts
at phonetic renderings of foreign words
in a barbarously unphonetic orthography
— has made a pretty confusion. The
geographers have been true neither to the
genius of our own language nor to that
of others. Outside of geography, in cer-
tain things, we show an undue deference
to foreign tongues, particularly in the
matter of titles. We call a Frenchman
Monsieur, a German Herr, an Italian
Signor, a Spaniard Senor, and it would
not be surprising if pretty soon we got
to calling a Russian Gospod, or what-
ever may be the Muscovite equivalent
of Mister. We carry ourselves in this
matter beyond the verge of lingual self-
respect.

Other nations are more sensible. The
French and Germans, for instance, use
their own titles for persons of other na-
tionalities. It is often ridiculous to hear
the struggles of our actors with foreign
titles. At a performance of Sardou's
A Scrap of Paper in one of our thea-
tres, I noticed something like a half-

dozen different ways of pronouncing
Monsieur and Mademoiselle, and no one
of them was right.

But to return to geography. It is
probably the best plan, as a general rule,
to follow the usage in the language of
the respective localities. Custom, how-
ever, has authorized certain forms from
which it would be hardly possible to de-
part. It would of course be absurd to
pronounce Paris as the French do, or
to say Roma instead of Rome. Every
country has its own spelling and pro-
nunciation for certain names, — like the
German Mailand and Venedig for Milan
and Venice. Some of the widest de-
partures from .the original names are
due both to efforts at correct pronuncia-
tion and to the subsequent phonetic em-
bodiments of those efforts. Our own
authorities have appropriated too indis-
criminately the work of French geog-
raphers, and have thereby originated
pronunciations which are neither .French
nor English. Take, for example, the
French Hague and Prague for the Dutch
Haag and the German Prag. The
French endeavored to regard the orig-
inal sounds by adding the ue, and thus
preserve the sound of the final g. But
English-speaking readers naturally take
this spelling to mean a pronunciation
of the a like that in plague. In direct
disregard of the genius of our language,
we have adopted French names for the
German Saxon duchies Sachsen-Wei-
mar and Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha : Saxe-
Weimar and Saxe- Coburg- Gotha. To be
correct we should say Saxon Weimar
and Saxon Coburg- Gotha. Else why
not deny our Anglo-Saxon race, and say
Saxe for Saxony ? We also say, with
the French, Hesse and Hesse- Cassel tor
the German Hessen and Hessen-Cassel,
when we should call those duchies Hes-
sia and Hessian Cassel, just as we call
Thiiringen Thuringia.

A case where orthography leads our
pronunciation astray is that of Alsace,
which people commonly pronounce Al-

854

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sace, whereas the German spelling, El-
sass, leads us phonetically nearer the
truth. It would probably be better for
us to use the classic designation, Alsatia.
The fact that there is no other civilized
language so difficult for the English
tongue to master as the French, with its
delicate intricacies, its nasals and vocal
shadings, is a satire upon the choice of
our geographers.

How cau a novice judge of the pro-
nunciation of the Alsatian mountains,
the Vosges ? Singularly enough, the
phonetic rendering which school -boys
commonly give, — the Vos-ges, — comes
much nearer the original name than
the French pronunciation. The French
designation came from an ineffectual
attempt to pronounce the old German
name, the Wassigen, or Watery moun-
tains, so called from their abundant
brooks. The Germans derived their
modern name for these mountains, —
the Vogesen, — from the French corrup-
tion, which they Germanized, but now
that Alsatia has been reannexed, the an-
cient German name has been restored.

A curious blunder is that whereby
we call the Russian capital Saint Pe-
tersburg, when rightfully it is simply
Petersburg, being named for Peter the
Great, and not for the celestial gate-
keeper.

Spanish names have not suffered much
orthographically at our hands. They
are often barbarously mispronounced,
however, although there is little excuse
for it, Spanish being almost purely a
phonetic tongue.

It would be an easy matter to give,
in connection with the geographical in-
struction in our schools, the rules for the
continental pronunciation of the vowels,
and also of the consonants in various
languages. Such peculiarities as the
Italian pronunciation of c like our ch,
and the Spanish II, as in Sevilla, like lya
(Sevilya), would not be left to be picked
up at hap-hazard.

Our ignorance of foreign spellings acd

pronunciations often leads to some cu-
rious mistakes. I have known people
to pass through Prague without know-
ing it, on account of the difference in
spelling, although a Frenchman would
have have recognized it by the pronun-
ciation. I once met an Englishman in

the capital of Bavaria, who actually did
not know that he was in Munich. He
said that he had been wondering how
there could ever have been such a large
city as Munchen, and he never have
heard of it until he got there. " And
by Jove, it is really a fine place, don't
you see ! " he exclaimed.

There are people in certain regions of
the West who appear to be unaware
that there is such a thing as a broad
sound to the vowel a, and they accord-
ingly most exasperatingly " mash " out
every word as flat as their native prai-
ries. It is enough to set one's teeth on
edge to hear them call Colorado Colo-
raydo, Nevada Nevayda, and Montana
Alontayna. These people very irration-
ally insist on their idea of English pho-
neticism in some things, and violently
disregard it in others. For instance,
there are American residents in Ari-
zona's principal town, Tucson, who de-
lude themselves with the idea that they
are speaking correct Spanish when they
say Too-son, when there is probably not
a Mexican who omits to pronounce the
c exactly as it would be spoken in Eng-
lish.

— I am fond of quoting, and still
fonder of remembering, an experience
of Eugenie de Guei in's. She says in her
journal that, one morning, on her way
to church, she passed some little wild
flowers, and at first stooped to pick them,
but on second thought decided to leave
them until she returned, for they would
only wilt if she held them in her hand
until mass was over. But she went
home by another path through the
woods, and quite forgot them, and writes
in her dear journal that it is often so in
life, — our opportunities do not return.

1883.]

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855

It is a great gift to recognize quickly
the things that belong to us, and to seize
them with a swift and willing hand, as
one goes along the highways and by-
ways of life. To some people's well-
being a great many small things are
necessary, and nothing makes such per-
sons more miserable than to have lost
a chance of securing some such treas-
ure, which we never are offered twice.
Sometimes it is through a fit of dullness,
that hinders one from appropriating
one's own at first sight, and sometimes
the fancied wisdom of a friend's advice
stands in the way ; we are ashamed to
carry out our own wishes in the face
of disapproval. These words are not
said with a view to such readers as are
independent of their outward surround-
ings, — who are not shocked at the
thought of beginning life in the next
world empty-handed ; who could be as
contented in a nun's cell, without one
personal belonging, as in a long-lived-
in-house, filled with beloved traps and
trifles. But there are some people who
have not outgrown the instinct for mak-
ing to themselves idols, and who fill their
homes with shrines, old and new. They
build themselves a wall of happiness
with their treasures, and if one brick
has not been secured it always leaves a
gap ; its place cannot be filled in with
anything else. From the person who
clings desperately to a few things that
are dear from long association, to the
person who has a mania for making col-
lections and filling cabinets, is a very
wide range, but it is the same instinct,
— a love of things. The often-quoted
depravity of inanimate objects seems a
slur to them ; they understand only the
friendly and companionable side of na-
ture and art ; they unconsciously per-
sonify things, and attribute much sensi-
tiveness to them.

I do not doubt that Mdlle. de Gue"rin
thought about the flowers more than
once afterward, and wished that she
could beg their forgiveness for her neg-

lect. It seems sometimes as if the un-
used life in the world, that waits its
proper development, must be stored
away in sticks and stones. What should
draw some of us so closely to certain
flowers, that seem to look eagerly and
with perfect self-consciousness into our
faces ? What is it that makes it impos-
sible for us to leave a table or a chair
for somebody else to buy and to live
with?

I remember that one spring, when
I was driving in the country, I saw un-
der a barberry bush a blue violet, which
appeared to follow me appealingly with
its eyes as I went by. I felt an impulse
to stop and • to gather it, but I did not,
— there was some reason. I thought
my companion would laugh at me, or
for some other cause it was not worth
while. But the farther I went away
from it the sorrier I was, and that violet
has haunted me even to this day. The
tall white daisies, or white-weeds, have
a way of fixing their eyes upon you, as
if they wished for something. And I
remember that a friend once told me, in
sacred confidence, about a little maple-
tree that had stood at the roadside as
she drove by and begged her to take it
away. She did not stop. She never
knew, and never would have known,
any way, from what loneliness and sor-
row it wished to be removed ; but these
many years she has regretted that she
did not respond to its perfectly evident
longing for her sympathy and assistance.
It was a very young and small maple-
tree. She described it to me touching-
ly : its leaves were brilliant with the
colors of its first autumn, and when
they had fallen it must have been only
a thin, unnoticeable twig.

Desires for certain objects of art lead
some persons into careers of wretched
extravagance ; but to a person who is
sensible, and has a proper amount of
self-control, there need be no such dan-
ger. Indeed, it is the things we saw
and loved, and knew to belong to us,

856

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and yet did not take or buy, that cause
us most sorrow. The things for which
we have the greatest and most unbeara-
ble yearnings are almost always within
our reach, and only hesitation makes us
lose them. Perhaps the influence of
our surroundings plays a greater part
in the development of our characters
than we have ever recognized, and we
are given our instincts for a picture, or a
china cup, or a Chippendale chair, with
a wise and secret purpose. Reason
should not attempt to decide these ques-
tions, for they do not belong to reason's
province. Out-of-doors, flowers are get-
ting ready to bloom for us, and in-doors,
books and pictures and china cups and
little boxes are being made for us here
and there all over the world, and we are
wise to take them when we find them.
If they have gone astray, and landed in
some friend's parlor instead of our own,
and can neither be bought nor stolen,
we must make the best of it, but remem-
ber that they are ours and we are theirs,
all the same, and revel in the secret un-
derstanding. But it is very puzzling to
know why some things should have had
anything to do with us. I have been
troubled for some time with the small
ghost of a cigarette-case that was dis-
played for sale in the chief room of a
quaint old hotel in Northern Italy. It
was curiously made of some East Indian
grass -cloth fabric, and its colors were
soft and pretty. It was filled with ciga-
rettes, and I did not like to be thought
a smoker. I did not succeed in giving
myself any reasons for buying it, but I
went near the case which contained it,
and looked at it lovingly and longingly
whenever I could, and then at last came
away without it, knowing myself to have
done wrong, and to be the concealer
forever of an incurable regret. But
the memory of this is nothing beside
the sadder one of a green glass vase,
hung with little gold rings, that I left
behind me long ago, one day in Amster-
dam.

— What ambitious sculptor was that
who proposed to hew the side of Mount
Athos into the likeness of the human
profile ? A bold conception, but not
bolder, perhaps, than the converse, which
would trace the mountain's physiognomy
in a human face ; yet, it would not have
been strange if some tough old Mace-
donian soldier had been thought by his
contemporaries to resemble neighboring
Mount Athos. We have lately lost a
sculptor (whose tools were heroic words)
who could carve a great man's face in
the similitude of the mountain, giving
his work an almost vital reality and
granite perpetuity. No bust nor por-
trait of Webster so impresses us as does
this graven image of him, done by the
hand of Carlyle. The " amorphous,
crag-like face," who does not see it?
and the " dull, black eyes under their
precipice of brows, like dull anthracite
furnaces ! " No ether-wrapped moun-
tain, we infer, but one subject to fiery
upheavals and throbs of cyclopean ac-
tivity.

It is not my fortune to know any
faces that present so sublime a topog-
raphy ; indeed, I hesitate, for fear of a
reductio ad absurdum, to describe the
first facial landscape that comes to my
mind. It is a homely, rustic visage ;
all its features at angular odds with
each other ; hair and beard unkempt
and wiry, curiously harmonizing in color
and quality with the raveled and hang-
ing braids of an old straw hat ; lastly,
a pair of small, bright, roving eyes.
Where does this face lead me ? To a
" slashing," or partial clearing on the
border of the woods. I see charred and
hollow stumps, gossamer stretched be-
tween and across them, rank blackberry
briers, lusty thistles, tall fireweed, and
wild lettuce. And the small, roving
eyes, — they are the small, quick-flitting
birds that commonly haunt the slashing.
Another face of my acquaintance pos-
sesses a very different picturesqueness,
always suggesting Wordsworth's Lucy,

1883.]

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857

whom Nature took to rear and educate
after her own heart. The Lucy whom
I know seems to me to have been at the
same sylvan school, to have "leaned
her ear in many a secret place," to have
walked by musical streams, listening
and sympathizing, until " beauty born
of murmuring sound" passed into her
face. A child was at a loss to describe
his teacher so that she miffht be distin-

guished among several others. After
short reflection, he exclaimed, " She 's
the one that looks like the lake ! "
When, afterwards, I met the original of
this description, it was easy to justify
the child's, unconscious poesy. There
was the lake ; at least, the same cool
serenity ; the same sparkling freshness ;
the " unmeasured laughter," not of
waves, but of the pure, jocund spirit
that animated the entire countenance.

In this system of live personifications,
the four seasons appear to me, at odd
intervals, in the faces of four different
persons. One looks the spring; another
the summer ; a third, with warm, olive
complexion and hazy, brown eyes, rep-
resents fine, indolent October weather,
while a fourth looks the soul of winter,
keen, " frosty, but kindly."

When we turn to the poets, we find,
as we might expect, plentiful illustra-
tion of this power to see elemental na-
ture in the human countenance. Some-
times they throw out meteorological sug-
gestion,— delicate indices to the "prob-
abilities " of the mind. One speaks of
" the cloudy foreheads of the great ; "
a description which we might be inclined
to question, since, instead of looking for
clouds on the foreheads of the great,
theirs is just that quarter of the firma-
ment from which we expect sunshine
and glad weather. Better are the lines
which show us how the author of the
Faerie Queene looked in the large gaze
of a young and loving disciple, who hails
him across the ages. Thus Keats :

" Spenser ! thy brows are arched, open, kind,
And come like a clear sunrise to my mind."

One more instance, — the opening
verse in a love song of the seventeenth
century, — " There is a garden in her
face." This is an exquisite summary of
all the gracious details the poet saw in
his lady's countenance, — inclusive of
the roses, the lilies, and the cherries
ripe. We would not blame the lover,
who, having likened the Most Beautiful
Eyes to twin stars, proceeded a step
further in hyperbole, and discovered the
whole orb of the starry, summer heav-
ens in the face of the Beloved.

— We shall never be able to discover,
from any diligent search through the
mighty volumes of the invaluable Au-
dubon, any trace whatever of the pos-
sible species of that great, innumerable
flock of the feathered tribe so unfairly
described, in a low, commercial way, as
worth only half as much singly as " a
bird in the hand." Shall we therefore
meekly submit to the uncompromising
statement that is so constantly flung at
us in its hard and striking shape, and
never even pause a moment to give a
thought to those humble little fellows,
snugly perched out of reach of danger,
cooing softly to one another " in the
bush " ?

The "bird in the hand" has been
eaten up long ago, bones, feathers, and
all ; or he turned stale on our hands ;
or, after the most careful attention and
lavish expenditure of regard, he slipped
away on the first opportunity ; or — the
cat got him.

Just for the time, a moment or two,
he seemed worth all the other birds
in the bush, but not for very long ; he
was just a little disappointing : too old or
too lean, too small or too battered with
shot, — something that ought to have
been better after all our pains and labors.
We started for wild turkeys, or per-
haps canvas-back ducks, and this is only
a robin, or an ortolan, barely a mouth-
ful. Still, some of the sportsmen re-
gard us with profoundest envy, and even
set up various claims to our bird, so that

858

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bis waning value gets a shade brighter
at the sight of other eager claimants,
who treat our resistance of their de-
mands with indignation and threats, leav-
ing: us, alas ! with sneers and envious

O 7

maledictions, to a solitary enjoyment of
our selfish success.

All the time, on a slender twig sur-
rounded by leafy verdure, softly ro-
mancing side by side, perch two little
birds of lovely plumage, casting their
bright, round eyes in all directions, —
two little objects that make a picture
that changes its aspect as often as we
choose ; these are the dear little delu-
sive " two in the bush." They cannot
be approached very closely, and none of
the tribe was ever inside of a vulgar
cage ; thus our only chance of enjoying
them is to watch from a little distance,
for, curiously enough, if we succeed in
killing them, no remains will be found,
so that nothing but disappointment
would result from a nearer approach.
Oh, those •' birds in the bush " ! — long
years of care and strife have been ren-
dered bearable, dark days brightened,
pain allayed, and vigor renewed, by a
glimpse of that fairy pair, ever cooing
their dear, deceptive lay.

Who shall rob us of them — our cas-
tles in the air? They are our one safe
possession, that none can deprive us of ;
our exclusive property, out of reach and
sight of everybody else, and always in
the act of flying to us.

Commercial moralists shall uot have
it all their own way, and dogmatize us
into misers and misanthropes with hard
facts and hard lines, too, for away be-
yond their ken and safe for all times
are our sweetest possession, those " two
in the bush."

Whenever a poor mortal faints by the
roadside, and, notwithstanding all the
helps of modern science, dies in grief
and sadness, if we could carefully scru-

tinize his inner consciousness we should
probably find that life had proved too
hard for him, through pinning his faith
blindly to the rough, curt dogma, " A
bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."
— The other day a young middle-aged
person called at my house. She had
read certain things of mine which she
did not wholly dislike, and desired a few
minutes' converse with me, surrounded
by my Lares and Penates. I call her
a young middle-aged person because,
though she was of an uncertain age, —
which always means past thirty-five, —
she was, in manner and habiliments,
young. She came from the West, the
land of promise, the land which gives
us our presidents, and is, some day, to
give us our literature. She was not a
brilliant conversationalist, but she was
not without a certain aplomb that fitted
her for dropping in on an entire stranger,
and occupying time which, so far as she
knew, might have been very valuable to
him. As a host, it was my duty to be
courteous ; as an author, it was. my wish
not to shatter any possible ideal that
she had formed of me from my humble
writings. I found that I had undertaken
a difficult contract. My elderly young
friend had very little to say for herself;
she was a most uusuggestive person ;
her remarks were up-side-down hooks,
upon which it was nearly impossible to
hang anything. In order to avoid those
dreadful hiatuses which occur between
constrained or stupid people, I was
obliged to talk and talk and talk. At

last my guest departed. A few days
afterwards I saw everything that I did
n't say on that occasion fully reported
in the columns of the Western Reserve
Bugle.

I would like to ask some contributor
to furnish me with a phrase that will
adequately characterize the conduct of
that middle-aged young person.

1883.]

Books of the Month.

859

BOOKS OF THE MONTH.

History and Biography. Studies in Church
History, by Henry C. Lea (Henry C. Lea's Son
& Co.), is an enlarged edition of the work pub-
lished by the author in 1869. Mr. Lea then col-
lected his papers on The Rise of the Temporal
Power, Benefit of Clergy, and Excommunication,
and has now added a chapter on the Early Church
and Slavery. The larger part of his volume is a
close study of the growth of worldliness within
the church, and a .most instructive examination
of ecclesiasticism. It is, perhaps, rather for the
student than for the general reader, but its worth
lies in the severity of Mr. Lea's treatment, and
his freedom from mere prejudice. — The impor-
tant series of Campaigns of the Civil War is to
have a companion in The Navy in the Civil War
(Scribners), the first volume of which is The
Blockade and the Cruisers, by Professor J. R.
Soley, of the Naval Academy. The treatment of
the South is fair, and will do much to commend
the book, and the author draws some conclusions
pertinent to the present condition of affairs. —
Letters to a Friend, by Connop Thirlwall, edited
by Dean Stanlejr (Roberts), will give incidentally
something of the life of a remarkable man.
Bishop Thirlwall has not been a very familiar
name to American readers, who have associated
him chiefly with a little-read history of Greece,
and it is to be hoped that Dean Stanley's introduc-
tion will do something to make him better known.
Aside from its disclosure of the social side of the
Bishop's life, the book is valuable as a stimulant
to thought. — Dean Stanley himself appears in a
volume of Recollections of Arthur Penrhyn Stan-
ley, by his successor at Westminster, George
Granville Bradley (Scribners). Dean Bradley
gives his reminiscences in the form of three lec-
tures, a form very well adapted to the material,
since he is speaking directly to friends of a friend.

— The autobiography of James Nasmyth, edited
by Samuel Smiles, to which we referred last
month, has been issued by the Harpers, in cloth,
as well as in the Franklin Square Library. — The
literature of ante-mortem biography has been in-
creased by a volume upon Oliver Wendell Holmes,
poet, litterateur, scientist, by W. S. Kennedy (S.
E. Cassino & Co., Boston). Mr. Kennedy ingen-
iously quotes Dr. Holmes himself in defence of his
work, by placing upon a fly-leaf the words, "It is
an ungenerous silence which leaves all the fair
words of honestly-earned praise to the writer of
obituary notices and the marble-worker." We
have become so used, however, to having the cur-
tain drawn in famous houses — from the outside

— that the appearance of such a book fails to make
one feel so creepy as it once would. — Mr. S. C.
Hall's Retrospect of a Long Life (Appletons) cov-
ers the period from 1815 to 1883, and as Mr. Hall
was a man of letters by profession, as he announces
on the title-page, and connected with a great va-
riety of literary enterprises, his work, which is in

effect an autobiography, will be found very at-
tractive to those who are already at home in mod-
ern English literature, and enjoy every new ac-
count of the persons who figured in it.— There are
four American reprints of Mrs. Carlyle's Letters,
two by Scribner's Sons and two by the Harpers.
The work is reviewed elsewhere in this magazine.
Literature and Literary Criticism. The new
volumes in the Riverside Hawthorne are the
American Note-Books, and the French and Italian
Note-Books, furnished like the previous ones with
etchings and with preliminary notes by Mr. La-
throp. — Selections from the Poetry of Robert
Browning (Dodd, Mead, & Co.) is introduced by
Mr. R. G. White, who gives an interesting ac-
count of the method of the selection, and adds
some random criticism upon the poetry. He has
done well in bringing forward the marvelous
poem of Child Roland, which never seems to have
received the attention which is its due. The se-
lection seems weak only on the side of simple sen-
timent in such poems as Two in the Campagna. —
Living English Poets (Roberts) is a reissue of an
English anthology published last Christmas, and
devoted to a few poems, each from the leading
current poet of England. The poems are not al-
ways the greatest of the respective writers. Dr.
Hake, for example, might better have been shown
in his Old Souls, but probably considerations of
space have had something to do with the selection.
In the American edition Jean Ingelow is added,
although no note is made of it. We wonder if the
original preface does not therefore need correction.
The anthology gives one a good chance to make a
survey of current English verse. — American Hu-
morists, by the Rev. H. R. Haweis (Funk & Wag-
nails, New York), is a collection of lectures by a
man without humor upon the extraordinary com-
bination of Irving, Holmes, Lowell, Artemas Ward,
Mark Twain, and Bret Harte. He seems to have
resorted to the practice of chopping his lectures
into fine bits, in a desperate attempt to make them
look either witty or wise. — Chats about Books,
by Mayo Williamson Hazeltine (Scribners), is a
series of brief papers on poets and novelists,
which appeared originally in the Sunday edition
of the New York Sun. They are book notices of
a liberal character, and though it is always agree-
able to run one's eye over a group of books, as
one can here do, we cannot say that we find any
singular insight in Mr. Hazeltine's reviews. —
Libraries and Readers, by William E. Foster
(Leypoldt), is a little volume which gathers the
papers published first by the author in the Li-
brary Journal. They have an interest as the re-
sult of observation by an experienced librarian,
and remind us again how valuable a person in the
community is the librarian of the new school, who
is no longer a mere custodian and cataloguer, but
a real administrator of a public trust, and a
friend and adviser of the ingenuous reader.

860

Books of the Month.

[June.

Education and Text-Books. The Diadem of
School Songs, by William Tillinghast (C. W. Bar-
deen, Syracuse, N. Y. ), contains songs and music
for all grades of schools, a new system of instruc-
tion in the elements of music, and a manual of di-
rections for the use of teachers. — The same pub-
lisher adds to his dime question books one on Al-
gebra, by Albert P. Southwick, and collects into
one volume under the title of the Advanced Ques-
tion Book, the ten books already published in the
Dime series. — The Harpers add to their Greek
and Latin Texts the Libri Socratici of Xenophon.

— The Board of Education of Cincinnati issue a
volume containing for its first part the fifty-third
annual report of the Board, and for the second
part a hand-book for the school year, which con-
tains, besides the rules and regulations, the courses
of stud}', and examination papers.

Lexicography. The Imperial Dictionary in four
volumes (The Century Company) comes not only
with the weight of its own learning but with the
promise of even more liberal scholarship in the
future. The work is an English one, which has
been bought by the Century Company for issue
on this side of the water, and the publishers an-
nounce that they have engaged a competent body
of American scholars to make the work the basis
for an even more thorough and comprehensive
dictionary. We welcome the book if for no other
reason, because every fresh inrentory of the Eng-
lish language reduces the tyranny of any one dic-
tionary.

Political Science and Economy. Mr. F. W.
Taussig, instructor in Political Economy in Har-
vard College, has published an interesting essay
under the title of Protection to Young Industries,
as applied in the United States. (Moses King,
Cambridge.) The essay won the Toppan prize,
and is a careful and interesting historical study.

— The second part of the American Citizen's Man-
ual, by Worthington C. Ford (Putnams), to which
we have already referred, is devoted to the Func-
tions of the Government, State and Federal, and
escapes the danger of telling what these functions
should be.

Theology and Biblical Criticism. Under the
title of Sacred Scriptures of the World (Putnams),
Rev. M. K. Schermerhorn has compiled, edited,
and in part retranslated selections of the most de-f
votional and ethical portions of the ancient He-
brew and Christian Scriptures, with kindred selec"
tions from other ancient Scriptures of the world.
Mr. Schermerhorn hopes that his volume will be
used in "churches, schools, and homes, or wher-
ever else the devout and moral teachings of the
world may be needed for purposes of religious in-
spiration or of ethical instruction." It is singular
to see how bibliolatry prevails amongst men who
most violently oppose what they would call bib-
liolatry. — Old Testament Revision, by Alexander
Roberts (Scribners), is a forerunner of the work
of the Revision Committee. It does not proceed
from that committee, but is the work of an inde-
pendent scholar who has his own views as to what
the revision should be. — A Critique of Design —
Arguments, by L. E. Hicks (Scribners), is an his-

torical review and free examination of the meth-
ods of reasoning in natural theology. Professor
Hicks is a vigorous writer, who aims at reaching
his result through a classification and criticism of
previous works, especially those which still have
influence on thought.

Science and Philosophy. The Alternative, a
Study in Psychology (Macmillan), is a forcible
presentation of the choice of automatism or con-
scious freedom in the philosophy of human na-
ture. The writer, in spite of his devotion to a
specific terminology, is one who clears the air. —
In his Philosophic Series Dr. McCosh has pub-
lished a third number, Development : What it can
do and What it cannot do. (Scribners.) He in-
sists upon the inclusion of mental phenomena
within any philosophy of development, but he re-
fuses to find a sufficient explanation in physical
processes. — The Modern Sphinx and some of her
Riddles, by M. J. Savage (George H. Ellis, Bos-
ton ), is a series of examinations of current prob-
lems of life and philosophy. They are, so to
speak, a preacher's editorials. The standpoint of
the writer is one of extreme individualism. — Sci-
ence in Short Chapters, by W. Mattieu Williams
(Funk & Wagnalls, New York), is a popular
treatment of all sorts of subjects in science, espe-
cially as related to human comfort and conven-
ience. The chapters appear to have been origi-
nally newspaper essays.

Medicine and Hygiene. — Medical Economy
during the Middle Ages, by George F. Fort (J.
W. Bouton, New York), is a contribution to the
history of European morals, from the time of the
Roman Empire to the close of the Fourteenth Cen-
tury. It involves, of course, not medical science
alone, as we now understand it, but the supernat-
uralism which pervaded medicine as well as all
other departments of thought. It is a treasury
of curious information. — Study and Stimulants,
edited by A. Arthur Reade (Lippincott), is an en-
tertaining collection of notes upon the use of in-
toxicants and narcotics in relation to intellectual
life, as derived chiefly from answers made by lit-
erary and scientific men to a circular letter asking
questions. The final result reached is not very
definite, but the reader will find amusement in the
personal disclosures. It really seems as though
the mention of wine had a somewhat weakening
effect upon the intellect of some of these writers.
— Alcoholic Inebriety from a Medical Standpoint,
with Cases from Clinical Records, by Dr. Joseph
Parrish (Blakiston), is a small volume drawn
chiefly from a physician's own experience, and
having a value through its reserve and freedom
from generalizing. — Brain-Rest, by Dr. J. Leon-
ard Corning (Putnams), is an amplification of the
author's monograph, Carotid Compression and
Brain-Rest. It will have an interest for people
afflicted with insomnia. — Insanity: its Causes
and Prevention, by Henry Putnam Stearns, M. D.
(Putnams), is a general work by a superintendent
of a retreat for the insane, and while not devoid
of interest to specialists is designed rather to give
plain and sensible warnings and advice to all peo-
ple who are interested in the subject.

T. MAR 7 ' 1968

AP The Atlantic monthly

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