HANDBOUND
AT THE
UNIVERSITY OF
THE
ATLANTIC MONTHLY
A MAGAZINE OF
iLiterature, Science, &rt 3 ana
VOLUME LXXX
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
, Camfiritige
1897
COPTBIOHT, 1897,
Bi HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY.
A*
The Rii>fr.iide\Pre,i*, Cambridge, Mats., U. S. A.
Klectrotyped and Pfiwted by H. O. Houghton & Company.
CONTENTS.
Africa, Twenty-Five Years' Progress in
Equatorial, Henry M. Stanley ....
After the Storm : A Story of the Prairie
Elia W. Peattie
Allen's, Mr., The Choir Invisible . . .
America, Belated Feudalism in, Henry G.
Chapman
American Fiction, Two Principles in Re-
cent, James Lane Allen .._....
American Forests, The, John Muir . . .
American Historical Novel, The, Paul
Leicester Ford
American Municipal Government, Pecu-
liarities of, E. L. Godkin
American Notion of Equality, The, Henry
Childs Merwin
Are the Rich growing Richer and the Poor
Poorer ? Carroll D. Wriyht
Astronomical Experience in Japan, An,
Mabel Loomis Todd
Atlantic Monthly, Forty Years of The . .
Bacon-Shakespeare Folly, Forty Years of,
John Fiske
Belated Feudalism in America, Henry G.
Chapman
Burke : A Centenary Perspective, Kate
Holladay Claghorn
Butterfield & Co., Frances Courtenay
Baylor 186,
Butterflies, Illustrations of North Ameri-
can
Caleb West, F. Hopkinson Smith 452, 653,
Carolina Mountain Pond, A, Bradford
Torrey
Chicago, The Upward Movement in, Henry
B. Fuller
Church Colleges, State Universities and,
Francis W. Kelsey
Coming Literary Revival, The, J. S. Tuni-
son 694,
Concerning a Red Waistcoat, Leon H.
Vincent
Confession of a Lover of Romance, The .
Constitution, The Frigate, Ira N . Hollis .
Contributors' Club, The . . . . . . .
Criticism and After, The Pause in, Wil-
liam Roscoe Thayer
D'Annunzio, Gabriele, the Novelist, Henry
D. Sedgwick, Jr
Decline of Legislatures, The, E. L. God-
kin
Delinquent in Art and in Literature, The,
Enrico Ferri
Democracy and the Laboring Man, F. J.
Stimson
Dwarf Giant, The
Equality, The American Notion of, Henry
Childs Merwin
Fair England, Helen Gray Cone ....
Feudalism in America, Belated, Henry G.
Cnapman
Fiction, Two Principles in Recent Ameri-
can, James Lane Allen
Forest Policy in Suspense, A
Forests, The American, John Muir . . .
PAOB PAQ
Forty Years of Bacon-Shakespeare Folly,
471 John Fiske 635
Forty Years of The Atlantic Monthly . . 571
393 French Mastery of Style, The,,F. Brune-
143 tiere 442
Frigate Constitution, The, Ira N. Hollis . 590
745 From a Mattress Grave, I. Zangwill . . 729
Future of Rural New England, The, Alvan
433 F.Sanborn 74
145 Game of Solitaire, A, Madelene Yale
Wynne 685
721 Great Biography, A : Mahan's Nelson . 264
Greatest of These, The, Henry B. Fuller . 762
620 Historical Novel, The American, Paul
Leicester Ford 721
354 Holy Picture, The, Harriet Lewis Bradley . 217
Human, On Being, Woodrow Wilson . . 320
300 Illustrations of North American Butter-
flies . . 278
418 In Quest of a Shadow : An Astronomical
571 Experience in Japan, Mabel Loomis
Todd 418
635 Japan, An Astronomical Experience in,
Mabel Loomis Todd 418
745 Jowett and the University Ideal, W. J.
Ashley 95
84 Juggler, The, Charles Egbert Craddock
106, 241
, 367 Kansas Community, A Typical, William
Allen White 171
278 Laboring Man, Democracy and the, F. J.
806 Stimson 605
Legislatures, The Decline of, E. L. God-
383 kin . . 35
Letters of Dean Swift, Some Unpublished,
534 George Birkbeck Hill . . 157, 343, 674, 784
Life of Tennyson, The, Hamilton Wright
826 Mabie 577
Life Tenant, A, Ellen Mackubin . . . . 130
797 Literary London Twenty_ Years Ago,
Thomas Wentivorth Higginson .... 753
427 Literary Revival, The Coming, J. S. Tuni-
281 son .694,797
590 London Twenty Years Ago, Literary,
715 Thomas Wentworth Higyinson .... 753
Making of the Nation, The, Woodrow Wil-
227 son 1
Man and the Sea, A, Guy H. Scull ... 422
508 Martha's Lady, Sarah Orne Jewett ... 523
Massachusetts Shoe Town, A, Alvan F.
35 Sanborn 177
Matine'e Performance, A 430
233 Mattress Grave, From a, I. Zangwill . . 729
Men and Letters 424
605 Municipal Administration : The New York
715 Police Force, Theodore Roosevelt ..... 289
Municipal Government, Peculiarities of
354 American, E. L. Godkin 620
604 Navy, A New Organization for the New,
Ira N. Hollis 309
745 N^g Cre"ol, Kate Chopin 135
Negro People, Strivings of the, W. E.
433 Burghardt Du Bois 194
268 New England, The Future of Rural, Alvan
145 F. Sanborn 74
IV
Contents.
New Organization for the New Navy, A,
Ira N. Hollis 309
New York Police Force, The, Theodore
Roosevelt 289
North American Butterflies, Illustrations
of . . 278
Notable Recent Novels 846
Novel, The American Historical, Paul
Leicester Ford 721
Novels, Notable Recent 846
Oliphant, Mrs., Harriet Waters Preston . 424
On an Old Plate 718
On Being Human, Woodrow Wilson . . 320
One Fair Daughter, Ellen Olney Kirk . . 54
Origin of the Universe, Recent Discoveries
respecting the, T. J. J. See 484
Our Soldier, Harriet Lewis Bradley . . . 363
Out of Bondage, Rowland E. Robinson . 200
Pause in Criticism and After, The, Wil-
liam Roscoe Thayer 227
Peculiarities of American Municipal Gov-
ernment, E. L. Godkin 620
Penelope's Progress. Her Experiences in
Scotland, Kate Douglas Wiggin 561, 702, 833
Recent Discoveries respecting the Origin
of the Universe, T. J.J.See. . . . 484
Red Waistcoat, Concerning a, Leon H.
Vincent 427
Rich growing Richer and the Poor Poorer ?
Are the, Carroll D. Wright 300
Russian Experiment in Self-Government,
A, George Kennan 494
Second Marriage, A, Alice Brown . . . 406
Shoe Town, A Massachusetts, Alvan F.
Sanborn 177
Southerner in the Peloponnesian War, A,
Basil L. Gildersleeve 330
State Universities and Church Colleges,
^ Francis W. Kelsey 826
Sterling, John, and a Correspondence be-
tween Sterling and Emerson, Edward
Waldo Emerson 14
Stony Pathway to the Woods, The, Olive
Thorne Miller 121
Strauss, the Author of the Life of Jesus,
Countess von Krockow 139
Strivings of the Negro People, W. E.
Burghardt Du Bois 194
Swift, Dean, Some Unpublished Letters of,
George Birkbeck Hill . . 157, 343. 674, 784
Teachers, The Training of : The Old View
of Childhood and the New, Frederic
Burk ............. 547
Tennyson, The Life of, Hamilton Wright
Mabie 577
Training of Teachers, The : The Old View
of Childhood and the New, Frederic
Burk
Twenty-Five Years' Progress in Equato-
547
471
rial Africa, Henry M. /Stanley
Two Principles in Recent American Fic-
tion, James Lane Allen 433
Typical Kansas Community, A, William
Allen White .......... 171
Universe, Recent Discoveries respecting
the Origin of the, T. J.J. See . . . . 484
Universities and Church Colleges, State,
Francis W. Kelsey 826
Unpublished Letters of Dean Swift, Some,
George Birkbeck Hill . . 157, 343, 674, 784
Upward Movement in Chicago, The, Henry
B. Fuller 534
Verse under Prosaic Conditions .... 271
Within the Walls, Guy H. Scull .... 198
POETRY.
Amid the Clamor of the Streets, William
A. Dunn 634
Autumn, P. H. Savage . ..... 728
Benedicite, Martha Gilbert Dickinson . . 366
Day in June, A, Alice Choate Perkins . . 129
Forever and a Day. A Song, Thomas Bai-
ley Aldrich 471
Freeman, The, Ellen Glasgow 796
In Majesty, Stuart Sterne 533
Sargasso Weed, Edmund Clarence Stedman 493
Willow Dale, Lucy S. Conant 405
BOOKS REVIEWED.
Allen, James Lane : The Choir Invisi-
ble 143
Chambers, Robert W. : With the Band . 273
Davis, Richard Harding: Soldiers of For-
tune .... 859
Du Maurier, George : The Martian . . . 851
Edwards, W. H. : The Butterflies of
North America 278
Howells, William Dean: An Open-Eyed
Conspiracy 859
Kipling, Rudyard : Captains Courageous . QKK
Mahaii, Alfred Thayer : The Life of Nel-
855
son, the Embodiment of the Sea Power
of Great Britain 264
Mitchell, S. Weir : Hugh Wynne, Free Qua-
ker 854
Spofford, Harriet Prescott : In Titian's
Garden, and Other'Poems 275
Stevenson, Robert Louis: St. lyes . . . 84(5
Stockard, Henry Jerome : Fugitive Lines 273
Strauss, David Friedrich, Letters of . . 139
Tennyson, Hallam, Lord : Alfred, Lord
Tennyson : A Memoir 577
Thompson, Francis : New Poems . . . 276
Wilkins, Mary E. : Jerome, a Poor Man . 857
THE
ATLANTIC MONTHLY:
at jftasa?ine of literature, Science, art, and
VOL. LXXX. JULY, 1897. No. CCCCLXXVIL
THE MAKING OF THE NATION.
THE making of our own nation seems
to have taken place under our very eyes,
so recent and so familiar is the story.
The great process was worked out in the
plain and open day of the modern world,
statesmen and historians standing by to
superintend, criticise, make record of
what was done. The stirring narrative
runs quickly into the day in which we
live ; we can say that our grandfathers
builded the government which now holds
so large a place in the world ; the story
seems of yesterday, and yet seems en-
tire, as if the making of the republic
had hastened to complete itself within a
single hundred years. We are elated to
see so great a thing done upon so great
a scale, and to feel ourselves in so inti-
mate a way actors in the moving scene.
Yet we should deceive ourselves were
we to suppose the work done, the nation
made. We have been told by a certain
group of our historians that a nation was
made when the federal Constitution was
adopted ; that the strong sentences of the
law sufficed to transform us from a league
of States into a people single and insepa-
rable. Some tell us, however, that it
was not till the war of 1812 that we grew
fully conscious of a single purpose and
destiny, and began to form policies as if
for a nation. Others see the process
complete only when the civil war struck
slavery away, and gave North and South
a common way of life that should make
common ideals and common endeavors
at last possible. Then, when all have
had their say, there comes a great move-
ment like the one which we call Popu-
lism, to remind us how the country still
lies apart in sections : some at one stage
of development, some at another; some
with one hope and purpose for America,
some with another. And we ask our-
selves, Is the history of our making as a
nation indeed over, or do we still wait
upon the forces that shall at last unite
us ? Are we even now, in fact, a nation ?
Clearly, it is not a question of senti-
ment, but a question of fact. If it be
true that the country, taken as a whole,
is at one and the same time in several
stages of development, not a great
commercial and manufacturing nation,
with here and there its broad pastures
and the quiet farms from which it draws
its food ; not a vast agricultural com-
munity, with here and there its ports
of shipment and its necessary marts of
exchange ; nor yet a country of mines,
merely, pouring their products forth into
the markets of the world, to take thence
whatever it may need for its comfort and
convenience in living, we still wait
for its economic and spiritual union. It
is many things at once. Sections big
enough for kingdoms live by agriculture,
and farm the wide stretches of a new
land by the aid of money borrowed from
other sections which seem almost like
another nation, with their teeming cities,
dark with the smoke of factories, quick
with the movements of trade, as sensitive
to the variations of exchange on London
as to the variations in the crops raised
by their distant fellow countrymen on
The Making of tliG Nation.
the plains within the continent. Upon
other great spaces of the vast continent,
communities, millions strong, live the dis-
tinctive life of the miner, have all their
fortune hound up and centred in a single
gi-oup of industries, feel in their utmost
concentration the power of economic
forces elsewhere dispersed, and chafe
under the unequal yoke that unites them
with communities so unlike themselves
as those which lend and trade and manu-
facture, and those which follow the
plough and reap the grain that is to feed
the world.
Such contrasts are nothing new in our
history, and our system of government
is admirably adapted to relieve the strain
and soften the antagonism they might
entail. All our national history through
our country has lain apart in sections,
each marking a stage of settlement, a
stage of wealth, a stage of development,
as population has advanced, as if by suc-
cessive journeyings and encampments,
from east to west ; and always new re-
gions have been suffered to become new
States, form their own life under their
own law, plan their own economy, ad-
just their own domestic relations, and
legalize their own methods of business.
States have, indeed, often been whimsi-
cally enough formed. We have left the
matter of boundaries to surveyors rather
than to statesmen, and have by no means
managed to construct economic units in
the making of States. We have joined
mining communities with agricultural,
the mountain with the plain, the ranch
with the farm, and have left the mak-
ing of uniform rules to the sagacity and
practical habit of neighbors ill at ease
with one another. But on the whole,
the scheme, though a bit haphazard, has
worked itself out with singularly little
friction and no disaster, and the strains
of the great structure we have erected
have been greatly eased and dissipated.
Elastic as the system is, however, it
stiffens at everyWint of national policy.
The federal government can make but
one rule, and that a rule for the whole
country, in each act of its legislation.
Its very constitution withholds it from
discrimination as between State and
State, section and section ; and yet its
chief powers touch just those subjects of
economic interest in which the several
sections of the country feel themselves
most unlike. Currency questions do not
affect them equally or in the same way.
Some need an elastic currency to serve
their uses ; others can fill their coffers
more readily with a currency that is in-
elastic. Some can build up manufac-
tures under a tariff law ; others cannot,
and must submit to pay more without
earning more. Some have one interest
in a principle of interstate commerce ;
others, another. It would be difficult to
find even a question of foreign policy
which would touch all parts of the coun-
try alike. A foreign fleet would mean
much more to the merchants of Boston
and New York than to the merchants of
Illinois and the farmers of the Dakotas.
The conviction is becoming painfully
distinct among us, moreover, that these
contrasts of condition and differences of
interest between the several sections of
the country are now more marked and
emphasized than they ever were before.
The country has been transformed with-
in a generation, not by any creations in
a new kind, but by stupendous changes
in degree. Every interest has increased
its scale and its individual significance.
The " East " is transformed by the vast
accumulations of wealth made since the
civil war, transformed from a simple
to a complex civilization, more like the
Old World than like the New. The
" West " has so magnified its character-
istics by sheer growth, every economic
interest which its life represents has be-
come so gigantic in its proportions, that
it seems to Eastern men, and to its own
people also, more than ever a region
apart. It is true that the "West" is
not, as a matter of fact, a region at all,
but, in Professor Turner's admirable
The Making of the Nation.
phrase, a stage of development, nowhere
set apart and isolated, but spread abroad
through all the far interior of the con-
tinent. But it is now a stage of devel-
opment with a difference, as Professor
Turner has shown, 1 which makes it prac-
tically a new thing in our history. The
" West " was once a series of States and
settlements beyond which lay free lands
not yet occupied, into which the restless
and all who could not thrive by mere
steady industry, all who had come too
late and all who had stayed too long,
could pass on, and, it might be, better
their fortunes. Now it lies without out-
let. The free lands are gone. New
communities must make their life suffi-
cient without this easy escape, must
study economy, find their fortunes in
what lies at hand, intensify effort, in-
crease capital, build up a future out of
details. It is as if they were caught in
a fixed order of life and forced into a
new competition, and both their self-con-
sciousness and their keenness to observe
every point of self-interest are enlarged
beyond former example.
That there are currents of national
life, both strong and definite, running
in full tide through all the continent
from sea to sea, no observant person can
fail to perceive, currents which have
long been gathering force, and which
cannot now be withstood. There need
be no fear in any sane man's mind that
we shall ever again see our national gov-
ernment threatened with overthrow by
any power which our own growth has
bred. The temporary danger is that,
not being of a common mind, because
not living under common conditions, the
several sections of the country, which a
various economic development has for
the time being set apart and contrasted,
may struggle for supremacy in the con-
trol of the government, and that we may
learn by some sad experience that there is
not even yet any common standard, either
of opinion or of policy, underlying our
1 American Historical Review, vol. i. p. 71.
national life. The country is of one mind
in its allegiance to the government and
in its attachment to the national idea ;
but it is not yet of one mind in respect
of that fundamental question, What pol-
icies will best serve us in giving strength
and development to our life ? Not the
least noteworthy of the incidents that
preceded and foretokened the civil war
was, if I may so call it, the sectionali-
zation of the national idea. Southern
merchants bestirred themselves to get
conventions together for the discussion,
not of the issues of polities, but of the
economic interests of the country. Their
thought and hope were of the nation.
They spoke no word of antagonism
against any section or interest. Yet it
was plain in every resolution they ut-
tered that for them the nation was one
thing and centred in the South, while
for the rest of the country the nation
was another thing and lay in the North
and Northwest. They were arguing the
needs of the nation from the needs of
their own section. The same thing had
happened in ihe days of the embargo
and the war of 1812. The Hartford
Convention thought of New England
when it spoke of the country. So must
it ever be when section differs from sec-
tion in the very basis and method of its
life. The nation is to-day one thing in
Kansas, and quite another in Massachu-
setts.
There is no longer any danger of a
civil war. There was war between the
South and the rest of the nation because
their differences were removable in no
other way. There was no prospect that
slavery, the root of those differences,
would ever disappear in the mere pro-
cess of growth. It was to be appre-
hended, on the contrary, that the very
processes of growth would inevitably
lead to the extension of slavery and the
perpetuation of radical social and eco-
nomic contrasts and antagonisms be-
tween State and State, between region
and region. An heroic remedy was the
The Making of the Nation.
only remedy. Slavery being removed,
the South is now joined with the " West,"
joined with it in a stage of development,
as a region chiefly agricultural, without
diversified industries, without a multifa-
rious trade, without those subtle extend-
ed nerves which come with all-round
economic development, and which make
men keenly sensible of the interests that
link the world together, as it were into
a single community. But these are lines
of difference which will be effaced by
mere growth, which time will calmly
ignore. They make no boundaries for
armies to cross. Tide -water Virginia
was thus separated once from her own
population within the Alleghany valleys,
held two jealous sections within her
own limits. Massachusetts once knew
the sharp divergences of interest and
design which separated the coast settle-
ments upon the Bay from the restless
pioneers who had taken up the free lands
of her own western counties. North
Carolina was once a comfortable and in-
different " East " to the uneasy " West "
that was to become Tennessee. Virginia
once seemed old and effete to Kentucky.
The " great West " once lay upon the
Ohio, but has since disappeared there,
overlaid by the changes which have car-
ried the conditions of the " East " to
the Great Lakes and beyond. There
has never yet been a time in our history
when we were without an " East " and
a " West," but the novel day when we
shall be without them is now in sight.
As the country grows it will inevitably
grow homogeneous. Population will not
henceforth spread, but compact ; for there
is no new land between the seas where
the " West " can find another lodgment.
The conditions which prevail in the ever
widening " East " will sooner or later
cover the continent, and we shall at last
be one people. The process will not be
a short one. It will doubtless run
through many generations and involve
many a critical question of statesman-
ship. But it cannot be stayed, and its
working out will bring the nation to its
final character and role in the world.
In the meantime, shall we not con-
stantly recall our reassuring past, re-
minding one another again and again, as
our memories fail us, of the significant
incidents of the long journey we have
already come, in order that we may be
cheered and guided upon the road we
have yet to choose and follow ? It is only
by thus attempting, and attempting again
and again, some sufficient analysis of
our past experiences that we can form
any adequate image of our life as a na-
tion, or acquire any intelligent purpose to
guide us amidst the rushing movement
of affairs. It is no doubt in part by re-
viewing our lives that we shape and de-
termine them. The future will not, in-
deed, be like the past ; of that we may
rest assured. It cannot be like it in de-
tail ; it cannot even resemble it in the
large. It is one thing to fill a fertile
continent with a vigorous people and
take first possession of its treasures ; it
is quite another to complete the work
of occupation and civilization in detail.
Big plans, though^ out only in the rough,
will suffice for the one, but not for the
other. A provident leadership, a patient
tolerance of temporary but unavoidable
evils, a just temper of compromise and
accommodation, a hopeful industry in
the face of small returns, mutual under-
standings, and a cordial spirit of cooper-
ation are needed for the slow intensive
task, which were not demanded amidst
the free advances of an unhampered peo-
ple from settlement to settlement. And
yet the past has made the present, and
will make the future. It has made us
a nation, despite a variety of life that
threatened to keep us at odds amongst
ourselves. It has shown us the processes
by which differences have been obliter-
ated and antagonisms softened. It has
taught us how to become strong, and
will teach us, if we heed its moral, how
to become wise, also, and single-minded.
The colonies which formed the Union
The Making of the Nation.
were brought together, let us first re-
mind ourselves, not merely because they
were neighbors and kinsmen, but because
they were forced to see that they had
common interests which they could serve
in no other way. "There is nothing
which binds one country or one State to
another but interest," said Washington.
" Without this cement the Western in-
habitants can have no predilection for
us." Without that cement the colonies
could have had no predilection for one
another. But it is one thing to have
common interests, and quite another to
perceive them and act upon them. The
colonies were first thrust together by the
pressure of external danger. They need-
ed one another, as well as aid from over-
sea, as any fool could perceive, if they
were going to keep their frontiers against
the Indians, and their outlets upon the
Western waters from the French. The
French and Indian war over, that pres-
sure was relieved, and they might have
fallen apart again, indifferent to any
common aim, unconscious of any com-
mon interest, had not the government
that was their common master set itself
to make them wince under common
wrongs. Then it was that they saw how
like they were in polity and life and in-
terest in the great field of politics, studied
their common liberty, and became aware
of their common ambitions. It was then
that they became aware, too, that their
common ambitious could be realized only
by union ; not single-handed, but united
against a common enemy. Had they
been let alone, it would have taken many
a long generation of slowly increased
acquaintance with one another to apprise
them of their kinship in life and inter-
ests and institutions ; but England drove
them into immediate sympathy and com-
bination, unwittingly founding a nation
by suggestion.
The war for freedom over, the new-
fledged States entered at once upon a
very practical course of education which
thrust its lessons upon them without re-
gard to taste or predilection. The Ar-
ticles of Confederation had been formu-
lated and proposed to the States for their
acceptance in 1777, as a legalization of
the arrangements that had grown up un-
der the informal guidance of the Conti-
nental Congress, in order that law might
confirm and strengthen practice, and be-
cause an actual continental war com-
manded a continental organization. But
the war was virtually over by the time
all the reluctant States had accepted the
Articles ; and the new government had
hardly been put into formal operation be-
fore it became evident that only the war
had made such an arrangement work-
able. Not compacts, but the compul-
sions of a common danger, had drawn
the States into an irregular cooperation,
and it was even harder to obtain obedi-
ence to the definite Articles than it had
been to get the requisitions of the un-
chartered Congress heeded while the war
lasted. Peace had rendered the make-
shift common government uninteresting,
and had given each State leave to with-
draw from common undertakings, and
to think once more, as of old, only of
itself. Their own affairs again isolated
and restored to their former separate
importance, the States could no longer
spare their chief men for what was con-
sidered the minor work of the general
Congress. The best men had been grad-
ually withdrawn from Congress before
the war ended, and now there seemed
less reason than ever why they should be
sent to talk at Philadelphia, when they
were needed for the actual work of ad-
ministration at home. Politics fell back
into their old localization, and every pub-
lic man found his chief tasks at home.
There were still, as a matter of fact,
common needs and dangers scarcely less
imperative and menacing than those
which had drawn the colonies together
against the mother country; but they
were needs and perils of peace, and or-
dinary men did not see them ; only the
most thoughtful and observant were con-
6
The Making of the Nation.
scions of them: extraordinary events were
required to lift them to the general view.
Happily, there were thoughtful and ob-
servant men who were already the chief
figures of the country, men whose
leadership the people had long since
come to look for and accept, and it
was through them that the States were
brought to a new common consciousness,
and at last to a real union. It was not
possible for the several States to live
self-sufficient and apart, as they had
done when they were colonies. They had
then had a common government, little
as they liked to submit to it, and their
foreign affairs had been taken care of.
They were now to learn how ill they
could dispense with a common provi-
dence. Instead of France, they now
had England for neighbor in Canada and
on the Western waters, where they had
themselves but the other day fought so
hard to set her power up. She was their
rival and enemy, too, on the seas ; re-
fused to come to any treaty terms with
them in regard to commerce ; and laughed
to see them unable to concert any poli-
cy against her because they had no com-
mon political authority among them-
selves. She had promised, in the treaty
of peace, to withdraw her garrisons from
the Western posts which lay within the
territory belonging to the Confederation ;
but Congress had promised that British
creditors should be paid what was due
them, only to find that the States would
make no laws to fulfill the promise, and
were determined to leave their federal
representatives without power to make
them ; and England kept her troops
where they were. Spain had taken
France's place upon the further bank of
the Mississippi and at the great river's
mouth. Grave questions of foreign poli-
cy pressed on every side, as of old, and
no State could settle them unaided and
for herself alone.
Here was a group of commonwealths
which would have lived separately and
for themselves, and could not; which
had thought to make shift with merely a
''league of friendship " between them and
a Congress for consultation, and found
that it was impossible. There were com-
mon debts to pay, but there was no com-
mon system of taxation by which to meet
them, nor any authority to devise and
enforce such a system. There were
common enemies and rivals to deal with,
but no one was authorized to carry out
a common policy against them. There
was a common domain to settle and ad-
minister, but no one knew how a Con-
gress without the power to command was
to manage so great a property. The
Ordinance of 1787 was indeed bravely
framed, after a method of real states-
manship ; but there was no warrant for
it to be found in the Articles, and no
one could say how Congress would ex-
ecute a law it had had no authority to
enact. It was not merely the hopeless
confusion and sinister signs of anarchy
which abounded in their own affairs
a rebellion of debtors in Massachusetts,
tariff wars among the States that lay
upon New York Bay and on the Sound,
North Carolina's doubtful supremacy
among her settlers in the Tennessee
country, Virginia's questionable authori-
ty in Kentucky that brought the States
at last to attempt a better union and
set up a real government for the whole
countiy. It was the inevitable continen-
tal outlook of affairs as well ; if nothing
more, the sheer necessity to grow and
touch their neighbors at close quarters.
Washington had been among the first to
see the necessity of living, not by a local,
but by a continental policy. Of course
he had a direct pecuniary interest in the
development of the Western lands,
had himself preempted many a broad
acre lying upon the far Ohio, as well as
upon the nearer western slopes of the
mountains, and it is open to any one
who likes the sinister suggestion to say
that his ardor for the occupancy of the
Western country was that of the land
speculator, not that of the statesman.
The Making of the Nation.
Everybody knows that it was a confer-
ence between delegates from Maryland
and Virginia about Washington's favor-
ite scheme of joining the upper waters
of the Potomac with the upper waters of
the streams which made their way to the
Mississippi a conference held at his
suggestion and at his house that led
to the convening of that larger confer-
ence at Annapolis, which called for the
appointment of the body that met at
Philadelphia and framed the Constitu-
tion under which he was to become the
first President of the United States. It
is open to any one who chooses to recall
how keen old Governor Dinwiddie had
been, when he came to Virginia, to watch
those same Western waters in the inter-
est of the first Ohio Company, in which
he had bought stock ; how promptly he
called the attention of the ministers in
England to the aggressions of the French
in that quarter, sent Washington out as
his agent to warn the intruders off, and
pushed the business from stage to stage,
till the French and Indian war was ablaze,
and nations were in deadly conflict on
both sides of the sea. It ought to be
nothing new and nothing strange to those
who have read the history of the Eng-
lish race the world over to learn that
conquests have a thousand times sprung
out of the initiative of men who have
first followed private interest into new
lands like speculators, and then planned
their occupation and government like
statesmen. Dinwiddie was no statesman,
but Washington was ; and the circum-
stance which it is worth while to note
about him is, not that he went prospecting
upon the Ohio when the French war was
over, but that he saw more than fertile
lands there, saw the " seat of a rising
empire," and, first among the men of his
day, perceived by what means its settlers
could be bound to the older communities
in the East alike in interest and in poli-
ty. Here were the first " West " and the
first " East," and Washington's thought
mediating between them.
The formation of the Union brought a
real government into existence, and that
government set about its work with an
energy, a dignity, a thoroughness of plan,
which made the whole country aware of it
from the outset, and aware, consequently,
of the national scheme of political life it
had been devised to promote. Hamilton
saw to it that the new government should
have a definite party and body of inter-
ests at its back. It had been fostered
in the making by the commercial classes
at the ports and along the routes of
commerce, and opposed in the rural dis-
tricts which lay away from the centres of
population. Those who knew the forces
that played from State to State, and
made America a partner in the life of
the world, had earnestly wanted a gov-
ernment that should preside and choose
in the making of the nation ; but those
who saw only the daily round of the
countryside had been indifferent or hos-
tile, consulting their pride and their pre-
judices. Hamilton sought a policy which
should serve the men who had set the
government up, and found it in the
funding of the debt, both national and
domestic, the assumption of the Revolu-
tionary obligations of the States, and the
establishment of a national bank. This
was what the friends of the new plan
had wanted, the rehabilitation of credit,
and the government set out with a pro-
gramme meant to commend it to men
with money and vested interests.
It was just such a government that
the men of an opposite interest and tem-
perament had dreaded, and Washington
was not out of office before the issue be-
gan to be clearly drawn between those
who wanted a strong government, with
a great establishment, a system of finance
which should dominate the markets, an
authority in the field of law which should
restrain the States and make the Union,
through its courts, the sole and final
judge of its own powers, and those who
dreaded nothing else so much, wished a
government which should hold the coun-
8
The Making of the Nation.
try together with as little thought as pos-
sible of its own aggrandizement, went
all the way with Jefferson in his jealousy
of the commercial interest, accepted his
ideal of a dispersed power put into com-
mission among the States, even among
the local units within the States, and
looked to see liberty discredited amidst a
display of federal power. When the first
party had had their day in the setting up
of the government and the inauguration
of a policy which should make it authori-
tative, the party of Jefferson came in to
purify it. They began by attacking the
federal courts, which had angered every
man of their faith by a steady main-
tenance and elaboration of the federal
power ; they ended by using that power
just as their opponents had used it. In
the first place, it was necessary to buy
Louisiana, and with it the control of the
Mississippi, notwithstanding Mr. Jeffer-
son's solemn conviction that such an act
was utterly without constitutional war-
rant ; in the second place, they had to en-
force an arbitrary embargo in order to
try their hand at reprisal upon foreign
rivals in trade ; in the end, they had to
recharter the national bank, create a na-
tional debt and a sinking fund, impose
an excise upon whiskey, lay direct taxes,
devise a protective tariff, use coercion
upon those who would not aid them in a
great war, play the role of masters
and tax-gatherers as the Federalists had
played it, on a greater scale, even, and
with equal gusto. Everybody knows the
familiar story : it has new significance
from day to day only as it illustrates
the invariable process of nation-making
which has gone on from generation to
generation, from the first until now.
Opposition to the exercise and ex-
pansion of the federal power only made
it the more inevitable try making it the
more deliberate. The passionate pro-
tests, the plain speech, the sinister fore-
casts, of such men as John Randolph
aided the process by making it self-con-
scious. What Randolph meant as an ac-
cusation, those who chose the policy of
the government presently accepted as a
prophecy. It was true, as he said, that
a nation was in the making, and a gov-
ernment under which the privileges of
the States would count for less than
the compulsions of the common interest.
Few had seen it so at first ; the men
who were old when the government was
born refused to see it so to the last ; but
the young men and those who came fresh
upon the stage from decade to decade
presently found the scarecrow look like
a thing they might love. Their ideal took
form with the reiterated suggestion ;
they began to hope for what they had
been bidden to dread. No party could
long use the federal authority without
coming to feel it national, without
forming some ideal of the common in-
terest, and of the use of power by which
it should be fostered.
When they adopted the tariff of 1816,
the Jeffersonians themselves formulat-
ed a policy which should endow the
federal government with a greater eco-
nomic power than even Hamilton had
planned when he sought to win the sup-
port of the merchants and the lenders
of money ; and when they bought some-
thing like a third of the continent be-
yond the Mississippi, they made it certain
the nation should grow upon a conti-
nental scale which no provincial notions
about state powers and a common gov-
ernment kept within strait bounds could
possibly survive. Here were the two
forces which were to dominate us till the
present day, and make the present issues
of our politics : an open " West " into
which a frontier population was to be
thrust from generation to generation, and
a protective tariff which should build up
special interests the while in the " East,"
and make the contrast ever sharper and
sharper between section and section.
What the " West " is doing now is sim-
ply to note more deliberately than ever
before, and with a keener distaste, this
striking contrast between her own devel-
The Making of the Nation.
9
opment and that of the " East." That was
a true instinct of statesmanship which led
Henry Clay to couple a policy of inter-
nal improvements with a policy of pro-
tection. Internal improvements meant
in that day great roads leading into the
West, and every means taken to open the
country to use and settlement. While
a protective tariff was building up spe-
cial industries in the East, public works
should make an outlet into new lands
for all who were not getting the benefit
of the system. The plan worked admi-
rably for many a day, and was justly
called "American," so well did it match
the circumstances of a set of communities,
half old, half new: the old waiting to be
developed, the new setting the easy scale
of living. The other side of the policy
was left for us. There is no longer any
outlet for those who are not the beneficia-
ries of the protective system, and nothing
but the contrasts it has created remains
to mark its triumphs. Internal improve-
ments no longer relieve the strain ; they
have become merely a means of largess.
The history of the United States has
been one continuous story of rapid, stu-
pendous growth, and all its great ques-
tions have been questions of growth. It
was proposed in the Constitutional Con-
vention of 1787 that a limit should be set
to the number of new members to be ad-
mitted to the House of Representatives
from States formed beyond the Allegha-
nies ; and the suggestion was conceived
with a true instinct of prophecy. The old
States were not only to be shaken out of
their self-centred life, but were even to
see their very government changed over
their heads by the rise of States in the
Western country. John Randolph voted
against the admission of Ohio into the
Union, because he held that no new part-
ner should be admitted to the federal
arrangement except by unanimous con-
sent. It was the very next year that
Louisiana was purchased, and a million
square miles were added to the territory
out of which new States were to be made.
Had the original States been able to live
to themselves, keeping their own people,
elaborating their own life, without a com-
mon property to manage, unvexed by a
vacant continent, national questions might
have been kept within modest limits.
They might even have made shift to di-
gest Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi,
Alabama, and the great commonwealths
carved out of the Northwest Territory,
for which the Congress of the Confeder-
ation had already made provision. But
the Louisiana purchase opened the con-
tinent to the planting of States, and took
the processes of nationalization out of
the hands of the original " partners."
Questions of politics were henceforth to
be questions of growth.
For a while the question of slavery
dominated all the rest. The Northwest
Territory was closed to slavery by the
Ordinance of 1787. Tennessee, Ken-
tucky, Mississippi, Alabama, took slavery
almost without question from the States
from which they were sprung. But Mis-
souri gave the whole country view of the
matter which must be settled in the mak-
ing of every State founded beyond the
Mississippi. The slavery struggle, which
seems to us who are near it to occupy so
great a space in the field of our affairs,
was, of course, a struggle for and against
the extension of slavery, not for or against
its existence in the States where it had
taken root from of old, a question of
growth, not of law. It will some day be
seen to have been, for all it was so stu-
pendous, a mere episode of development.
Its result was to remove a ground of eco-
nomic and social difference as between
section and section which threatened to
become permanent, standing forever in
the way of a homogeneous national life.
The passionate struggle to prevent its
extension inevitably led to its total abo-
lition ; and the way was cleared for the
South, as well as the " West," to become
like its neighbor sections in every ele-
ment of its life.
It had also a further, almost incalcu-
10
The Making of the Nation.
lable effect in its stimulation of a nation-
al sentiment. It created throughout the
North and Northwest a passion of de-
votion td the Union which really gave
the Union a new character. The nation
was fused into a single body in the fer-
vent heat of the time. At the begin-
ning of the war the South had seemed
like a section pitted against a section ;
at its close it seemed a territory con-
quered by a neighbor nation. That na-
tion is now, take it roughly, that " East "
which we contrast with the " West " of
our day. The economic conditions once
centred at New York, Boston, Philadel-
phia, Baltimore, Pittsburg, and the other
commercial and industrial cities of the
coast States are now to be found, hardly
less clearly marked, in Chicago, in Min-
neapolis, in Detroit, through all the great
States that lie upon the Lakes, in all the
old " Northwest." The South has fallen
into a new economic classification. In
respect of its stage of development it be-
longs with the " West," though in senti-
ment, in traditional ways of life, in many
a point of practice and detail, it keeps
its old individuality, and though it has in
its peculiar labor problem a hindrance
to progress at once unique and ominous.
It is to this point we have come in the
making of the nation. The old sort of
growth is at an end, the growth by
mere expansion. We have now to look
more closely to internal conditions, and
study the means by which a various peo-
ple is to be bound together in a single
interest. Many differences will pass away
of themselves. " East " and "West " will
come together by a slow approach, as cap-
ital accumulates where now it is ^nly bor-
rowed, as industrial development makes
its way westward in a new variety, as
life gets its final elaboration and detail
throughout all the great spaces of the
continent, until all the scattered parts of
the nation are drawn into real commu-
nity of interest. Even the race problem
of the South will no doubt work itself
out in the slowness of time, as blacks
and whites pass from generation to gen-
eration, gaining with each remove from
the memories of the war a surer self-pos-
session, an easier view of the division of
labor and of social function to be arranged
between them. Time is the only legis-
lator in such a matter. But not every-
thing can be left to drift and slow accom-
modation. The nation which has grown
to the proportions almost of the continent
within the century lies under our eyes,
unfinished, unharmonized, waiting still to
have its parts adjusted, lacking its last
lesson in the ways of peace and concert.
It required statesmanship of no mean
sort to bring us to our present growth
and lusty strength. It will require lead-
ership of a much higher order to teach
us the triumphs of cooperation, the self-
possession and calm choices of maturity.
Much may be brought about by a mere
knowledge of the situation. It is not
simply the existence of facts that governs
us, but consciousness and comprehension
of the facts. The whole process of states-
manship consists in bringing facts to light,
and shaping law to suit, or, if need be,
mould them. It is part of our present
danger that men of the " East " listen
only to their own public men, men of
the "West " only to theirs. We speak of
the " West " as out of sympathy with the
" East : " it would be instructive once
and again to reverse the terms, and ad-
mit that the " East " neither understands
nor sympathizes with the " West," and
thorough nationalization depends upon
mutual understandings and sympathies.
There is an unpleasant significance in the
fact that the " East " has made no serious
attempt to understand the desire for the
free coinage of silver in the " West " and
the South. If it were once really probed
and comprehended, we should know that
it is necessary to reform our currency
at once, and we should know in what
way it is necessary to reform it ; we
should know that a new protective tariff
only marks with a new emphasis the
contrast in economic interest between
The Making of the Nation.
11
the " East " and the " West," and that
nothing but currency reform can touch-
the cause of the present discontents.
Ignorance and indifference as between
section and section no man need wonder
at who knows the habitual courses of
history ; and no one who comprehends
the essential soundness of our people's
life can mistrust the future of the na-
tion. He may confidently expect a safe
nationalization of interest and policy in
the end, whatever folly of experiment and
fitful change he may fear in the mean-
while. He can only wonder that we
should continue to leave ourselves so ut-
terly without adequate means of formu-
lating a national policy. Certainly Provi-
dence has presided over our affairs with
a strange indulgence, if it is true that
Providence helps only those who first
seek to help themselves. The making of
a nation has never been a thing deliber-
ately planned and consummated by the
counsel and authority of leaders, but the
daily conduct and policy of a nation which
has won its place must be so planned.
So far we have had the hopefulness, the
readiness, and the hardihood of youth in
these matters, and have never become
fully conscious of the position into which
our peculiar frame of government has
brought us. We have waited a whole
century to observe that we have made no
provision for authoritative national lead-
ership in matters of policy. The Pre-
sident does not always speak with au-
thority, because he is not always a man
picked out and tested by any processes in
which the people have been participants,
and has often nothing but his office to
render him influential. Even when the
country does know and trust him, he can
carry his views no further than to recom-
mend them to the attention of Congress
in a written message which the Houses
would deem themselves subservient to
give too much heed to. Within the
Houses there is no man, except the Vice-
President, to whose choice the whole
country gives heed; and he is chosen,
not to be a Senator, but only to wait
upon the disability of the President, and
preside meanwhile over a body of which
he is not a member. The House of
Representatives has in these latter days
made its Speaker its political leader as
well as its parliamentary moderator ; but
the country is, of course, never consulted
about that beforehand, and his leader-
ship is not the open leadership of discus-
sion, but the undebatable leadership of
the parliamentary autocrat.
This singular leaderless structure of
our government never stood fully re-
vealed until the present generation, and
even now awaits general recognition.
Peculiar circumstances and the practical
political habit and sagacity of our peo-
ple for long concealed it. The framers
of the Constitution no doubt expected
the President and his advisers to exer-
cise a real leadership in affairs, and for
more than a generation after the setting
up of the government their expectation
was fulfilled. Washington was accepted
as leader no less by Congress than by
the people. Hamilton, from the Trea-
sury, really gave the government both
its policy and its administrative struc-
ture. If John Adams had less author-
ity than Washington, it was because the
party he represented was losing its hold
upon the country. Jefferson was the
most consummate party chief, the most
unchecked master of legislative policy,
we have had in America, and his dynas-
ty was continued in Madison and Mon-
roe. But Madison's terms saw Clay and
Calhoun come to the front in the House,
and many another man of the new gen-
eration, ready to guide and coach the
President rather than to be absolutely
controlled by him. Monroe was not of
the calibre of his predecessors, and no
party could rally about so stiff a man, so
cool a partisan, as John Quincy Adams.
And so the old political function of the
presidency came to an end, and it was
left for Jackson to give it a new one,
instead of a leadership of counsel, a
12
The Making of the Nation.
leadership and discipline by rewards and
punishments. Then the slavery issue
began to dominate politics, and a long
season of concentrated passion brought
individual men of force into power in
Congress, natural leaders of men like
Clay, trained and eloquent advocates
like Webster, keen debaters with a logic
whose thrusts were as sharp as those of
cold steel like Calhoun. The war made
the Executive of necessity the nation's
leader again, with the great Lincoln at
its head, who seemed to embody, with a
touch of genius, the very character of the
race itself. Then reconstruction came,
under whose leadership who could say ?
and we were left to wonder what,
henceforth, in the days of ordinary peace
and industry, we were to make of a gov-
ernment which could in humdrum times
yield us no leadership at all. The tasks
which confront us now are not like those
which centred in the war, in which pas-
sion made men run together to a common
work. Heaven forbid that we should ad-
mit any element of passion into the de-
licate matters in which national policy
must mediate between the differing eco-
nomic interests of sections which a wise
moderation will assuredly unite in the
ways of harmony and peace ! We shall
need, not the mere compromises of Clay,
but a constructive leadership of which
Clay hardly showed himself capable.
There are few things more disconcert-
ing to the thought, in any effort to fore-
cast the future of our affairs, than the
fact that we must continue to take our
executive policy from presidents given
us by nominating conventions, and our
legislation from conference committees
of the House and Senate. Evidently
it is a purely providential form of govern-
ment We should never have had Lin-
coln for President had not the Republi-
can convention of 1860 sat in Chicago,
and felt the weight of the galleries in its
work, and one does not like to think
what might have happened had M! r. Sew-
ard been nominated. We might have
had Mr. Bryan for President, because of
the impression which may be made upon
an excited assembly by a good voice and
a few ringing sentences flung forth just
after a cold man who gave unpalatable
counsel has sat down. The country
knew absolutely nothing about Mr. Bry-
an before his nomination, and it would
not have known anything about him
afterward had he not chosen to make
speeches. It was not Mr. McKinley, but
Mr. Reed, who was the real leader of
the Republican party. It has become a
commonplace amongst us that conven-
tions prefer dark horses, prefer those
who are not tested leaders with well-
known records to those who are. It has
become a commonplace amongst all na-
tions which have tried popular institutions
that the actions .of such bodies as our
nominating conventions are subject to the
play of passion and of chance. They
meet to do a single thing, for the plat-
form is really left to a committee, and
upon that one thing all intrigue centres.
Who that has witnessed them will ever
forget the intense night scenes, the fe-
verish recesses, of our nominating con-
ventions, when there is a running to and
fro of agents from delegation to delega-
tion, and every candidate has his busy
headquarters, can ever forget the shout-
ing and almost frenzied masses on the
floor of the hall when the convention is in
session, swept this way and that by every
wind of sudden feeling-, impatient of de-
bate, incapable of deliberation ? When
a convention's brief work is over, its own
members can scarcely remember the plan
and order of it. They go home un-
marked, and sink into the general body
of those who have nothing to do with the
conduct of government. They cannot be
held responsible if their candidate fails
in his attempt to carry on the Executive.
It has not often happened that can-
didates for the presidency have been
chosen from outside the ranks of those
who have seen service in national politics.
Congress is apt to be peculiarly sensitive
The Making of the Nation.
13
to the exercise of executive authority by
men who have not at some time been
members of the one House or the other,
and so learned to sympathize with mem-
bers' views as to the relations that ought
to exist between the President and the
federal legislature. No doubt a good
deal of the dislike which the Houses
early conceived for Mr. Cleveland was
due to the feeling that he was an " out-
sider," a man without congressional sym-
pathies and points of view, a sort of
irregular and amateur at the delicate
game of national politics as played at
Washington ; most of the men whom he
chose as advisers were of the same kind,
without Washington credentials. Mr.
McKinley, though of the congressional
circle himself, has repeated the experi-
ment in respect of his cabinet in the ap-
pointment of such men as Mr. Gage and
Mr. Bliss and Mr. Gary. Members re-
sent such appointments ; they seem to
drive the two branches of the government
further apart than ever, and yet they
grow more common from administration
to administration.
These appointments make cooperation
between Congress and the Executive
more difficult, not because the men thus
appointed lack respect for the Houses or
seek to gain any advantage over them,
but because they do not know how to
deal with them, through what persons
and by what courtesies of approach. To
the uninitiated Congress is simply a mass
of individuals. It has no responsible lead-
ers known to the system of government,
and the leaders recognized by its rules are
one set of individuals for one sort of
legislation, another for another. The
Secretaries cannot address or approach
either House as a whole ; in dealing with
committees they are dealing only with
groups of individuals ; neither party has
its leader, there are only influential
men here and there who know how to
manage its caucuses and take advan-
tage of parliamentary openings on the
floor. There is a master in the House,
as every member very well knows, and
even the easy-going public are beginning
to observe. The Speaker appoints the
committees ; the committees practically
frame all legislation; the Speaker, ac-
cordingly, gives or withholds legislative
power and opportunity, and members are
granted influence or deprived of it much
as he pleases. He of course administers
the rules, and the rules are framed to
prevent debate and individual initiative.
He can refuse recognition for the intro-
duction of measures he disapproves of as
party chief ; he may make way for those
he desires to see passed. He is chair-
man of the Committee on Rules, by which
the House submits to be governed (for
fear of helplessness and chaos) in the
arrangement of its business and the ap-
portionment of its time. In brief, he is
not only its moderator, but its master.
New members protest and write to the
newspapers ; but old members submit,
and indeed the Speaker's power is
inevitable. You must have leaders in a
numerous body, leaders with author-
ity ; and you cannot give authority in
the House except through the rules.
The man who administers the rules
must be master, and you must put this
mastery into the hands of your best par-
ty leader. The legislature being sepa-
rated from the executive branch of the
government, the only rewards and pun-
ishments by which you can secure party
discipline are those within the gift of the
. rules, the committee appointments and
preferences : you cannot administer these
by election ; party government would
break down in the midst of personal ex-
changes of electoral favors. Here again
you must trust the Speaker to organize
and choose, and your only party leader
is your moderator. He does not lead by
debate ; he explains, he proposes nothing
to the country ; you learn his will in his
rulings.
It is with such machinery that we are
to face the future, find a wise and mod-
erate policy, bring the nation to a com-
14
John Sterling.
mon, a cordial understanding, a real
unity of life. The President can lead
only as he can command the ear of both
Congress and the country, only as any
other individual might who could secure
a like general hearing and acquiescence.
Policy must come always from the de-
liberations of the House committees, the
debates, both secret and open, of the
Senate, the compromises of committee
conference between the Houses ; no one
man, no group of men, leading ; no man,
no group of men, responsible for the out-
come. Unquestionably we believe in a
guardian destiny ! No other race could
have accomplished so much with such a
system ; no other race would have dared
risk such an experiment. We shall work
out a remedy, for work it out we must.
We must find or make, somewhere in
our system, a group of men to lead us,
who represent the nation in the origin
and responsibility of their power ; who
shall draw the Executive, which makes
choice of foreign policy and upon whose
ability and good faith the honorable exe-
cution of the laws depends, into cordial
cooperation with the legislature, which,
under whatever form of government,
must sanction law and policy. Only un-
der a national leadership, by a national
selection of leaders, and by a method of
constructive choice rather than of com-
promise and barter, can a various nation
be peacefully led. Once more is our pro-
blem of nation-making the problem of a
form of government. Shall we show the
sagacity, the open-mindedness, the mod-
eration, in our task of modification, that
were shown under Washington and Madi-
son and Sherman and Franklin and Wil-
son, in the task of construction ?
Woodrow Wilson.
JOHN STERLING, AND A CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN STER-
LING AND EMERSON.
How much the world owes, how little
it credits, to the Illuminators. King Ad-
metus had one of these nominally tending
his herds for a time, but who did more
than this for him ; and the story has been
remembered the better because it has
been the fortune of many men to fall in
with one of the herdsman's descendants.
However dark the times and unpromising
the place, these sons of the morning will
appear, and their bright parentage shows
through life, for the years let them alone.
In Rome in her decline Juvenal found
this saving remnant, and rightly told their
lineage in the verses,
" Juvenes queis arte benigna
Et meliore luto finxit praecordia Titan."
Blest youths, though few, whose hearts the
God of Day
Fashioned with loving hand and from a nobler
clay.
Where they have come, they have gilded
the day for those around, and warmed
their hearts, and made the dim way plain ;
and when they suddenly passed, a bright
twilight has remained, and the voice has
rung for life in the ears that once knew it.
And because the twilight does not last,
and the echo perishes with the ears that
heard it, and the gain of these lives is of
a kind less easily pointed out to the com-
mon eye than if it had taken form in
" goods," or inventions, or institutions,
or even laurels, men often lament and
count such lives as lost.
In presenting the words of good cheer
that passed between John Sterling, the
poet, and a friend, never seen, beyond
the ocean, I wish to urge that here was
one whose nobility and sympathy illumi-
nated in his short day the lives of his
friends ; and though he died before his
John Sterling.
15
noon, leaving little lasting work, yet was
not the light lost, for the seemingly more
enduring work of his friends was done
in a measure in its rays.
" Poor Sterling," such is the ever
recurring burden of Carlyle's tribute
to his friend, which he seems to have
been pricked into writing largely because
Sterling's other loyal friend and biogra-
pher, Archdeacon Hare, who had loved
and labored with him in the Church of
England, deplored overmuch his throw-
ing off its rule and vestments. Though
Carlyle has no sympathy for Sterling's
knightly efforts to help the exile and the
slave, and for his apostolic labors among
the poor of England, scouts his verses and
makes light of his essays and romance,
and ever chafes because this fine courser
was not a mighty dray-horse like him-
self, yes, sad and soured by physical
ailments, he more than half blamed his
brave friend for having the cruel and
long disease through which he worked,
even to his censor's admiration, yet, in
spite of all, Carlyle's Life of Sterling
shows in every page that this man's short,
brave course lifted and illuminated all
about him, even that weary and sad-eyed
Jeremiah himself as he sat apart and
prophesied and lamented. One recoils
at much of Carlyle's expression in this
work, but, with all its blemish of pity
and Philistinism and pessimism, it stands
remarkable, a monument built by such
hands, I will not say planned by such a
mind, for the mind protested ; but never-
theless the hands, obedient to the spirit,
built it with the best they could bring
in gratitude to helpful love whose sun-
light had reached an imprisoned soul.
John Sterling died half a century ago.
Little of what he wrote remains. His
fine Strafford, a Tragedy, is now hard to
obtain, and few people even know Dae-
dalus, the best of his poems. His work
is noble in thought and often in expres-
sion, as befitted a man who bravely
turned away from his church, with all it
then meant of opportunity and vantage-
ground, saying simply to his pleading
friends, " No, I cannot lie for God."
I will briefly recall the few outward
events of Sterling's life. He was born in
1806, in the Island of Bute, of gentle
Scotch blood warmed and spiced by the
sojourn of his immediate forerunners in
Ireland, and his first years were passed
in Gaelic and Cymrjan lands ; it is no
wonder that the growth of the young
mind and spirit was determined rather
in the direction of bold and free and fine
imagination than along paths of unremit-
ting and faithful toil. Moreover, he had
that quick sympathy and entire generosi-
ty which, as prompting to turn aside for'
others' interests, do not favor the con-
centration of effort. These and the other
good traits of the Celtic races, their un-
questioning courage, loyalty, gayety, elo-
quence, gave Sterling his brilliancy, which
was saved from the faults that usually
go with the artistic temperament by a
delicate conscience and the controlling
moral sense and principle, the best Saxon
heritage.
He did not undergo the time-honored
and Philistine methods of the great pub-
lic schools, so prized as a foundation of
manhood and grammar for an English
gentleman. He did not need that rude
schooling ; the fire and manhood were
there, and he took to letters by nature.
He studied with various tutors, and be-
came a student at Cambridge. Here
he was a light in the brightest under-
graduate society of his day, among whom
were men destined to impress their gen-
eration. The best of these Frederick
Maurice, John Trench, John Kemble,
Richard Monckton Milnes, Charles Bul-
ler, and others were his friends. He
did not value the English university as it
was in his day.
After leaving the university, and after
some false starts like an attempt at read-
ing law and a temporary secretaryship
of a sort of politico-commercial associa-
tion, he soon came to his natural destiny,
a literary life, and of course gravitated
16
John Sterling.
to London, where his father, a man of
spirit and ability, was already a power
hi the Tunes newspaper.
Sterling joined with Maurice in con-
ducting The Athenaeum. Its high tone
was distinctive while Sterling was con-
nected with it, says Archdeacon Hare ;
and of his literary firstfruits, Essays and
Tales, many of them cast in a Greek
mould, even Carlyle, mainly contemptu-
ous of anything artistic, has to say that
they are " singularly beautiful and at-
tractive." " Everywhere the point of
view adopted is a high and noble one,
and the result worked out a result to be
sympathized with, and accepted as far
as it will go."
The outward life among the highest
literary society in London, in which his
fine - spirited personality soon gave him
prominence, was much to his taste, but
meanwhile his inner life was growing
richer with the days. The simple no-
bility of Arnold, the master of Rugby,
had early interested him ; even in
" Streaming London's central roar "
the voice of Wordsworth from the West-
moreland hills reached him, created a
calm, and brought happiness ; above all,
Coleridge, incomprehensible save to a
few, and now growing dim in age, but
to Sterling's eager soul illuminating the
mists in which he lived, became a pow-
er in his life. Indeed, of some of his
own Athenaeum papers Sterling modestly
wrote that he was " but a patch of sand
to receive and retain the Master's foot-
print." The gospel of the low place of
the understanding, and of faith as the
highest reason, lighted on their way the
disciples of this high priest strangely
arisen in the England of that day.
Sterling's youthful chivalry led him
to befriend and help tne Spanish polit-
ical refugees, of. whom a Numerous band
were in London. AmongV others, he in-
terested in this cause an\ adventurous
young kinsman, lately resigned from the
army, and keen for some daring enter-
prise, and, with the means and zeal which
this ally brought, a descent on the coast
of Spain, to raise the revolutionary stan-
dard there, was planned. Sterling for-
warded this scheme as he could, and
meant personally to share in it, but was
dissuaded because of ill health and his
recent engagement of marriage. The
vessel was seized at the point of rendez-
vous on the Thames, the day before it
was to sail, with Sterling on board help-
ing in the preparations. He escaped
with cool audacity, warned the adven-
turers, saved them from capture, and got
the now sorely crippled and disarmed ex-
pedition otherwise started. But disaster
dogged it, and after some tedious and
ineffectual attempts to promote a rising,
General Torrijos and his helpers, includ-
ing Sterling's young relative, were cap-
tured, and summarily shot on the plaza
of Malaga. Because he had aided the
rash venture, but had not shared its dan-
gers, the blow was almost overwhelm-
ing to a man of Sterling's high honor,
and it was a subject that could never be
spoken of in his presence.
Before the final blow came, he had
gone, because of alarming lung threaten-
ings, to assume the care of an inherited
family property in the Isle of St. Vin-
cent, in the West Indies, carrying his
young wife with him. There he met
slavery, and, sharing the responsibility
for it, began to consider, with both con-
science and common sense, what could *
be done for the poor degraded bonds-
men ; but his residence there was short,
only fifteen months, and his improved
health seemed to warrant an ending of
this exile, so he returned to England in
1832. Though his genius called him to
other works than professed philanthropy,
and these and all of his works had to be
done as they might with the sword of
Azrael hanging over him, wounding
him grievously many times before its
final fall, he did not forget the slaves,
and hoped he might yet serve their
cause.
John Sterling.
17
Once more at home in England, and
rejoicing in this, and yet more in the
blessing of wife and child, Sterling, now
maturing with richer experience, desiring
to serve his kind, and with new hope
and faith, essayed his hand in a thought-
ful novel, Arthur Coningsby, in which
he tried to show that the Church might
still have life and help hidden under its
externals. In this serious frame of mind
he chanced to meet his friend, Julius
Hare, a good man and a servant of the
Lord in the Church of England, who
well knew the nobility that lay in Ster-
ling ; and soon after he became Hare's
curate at Hurstmonceaux, in Sussex.
Into the high and the lowly duties of
his calling Sterling threw himself with
the zeal of the loved disciple, during the
few months that his health allowed him
to labor; though the zealous Paul was
rather his model, he said, and the village
cottages were to be to him his Derbe
and Lystra and Ephesus, a place where
he would bend his whole being, and
spend his heart for the conversion, pu-
rification, elevation, of the humble souls
therein. In that time he found much
happiness, and blessings followed his
steps in the village. But his physicians
told him that he could not do this work
and live, so with much regret he left the
post in which he had given such promise
of being helpful. It was a station on his
journey, a phase in his life ; but he passed
gn, and soon his growing spirit found it-
self cramped by walls built for men of
other centuries and other stature. Yet
for the remaining years of his maimed
and interrupted life he was a noble sol-
dier of the Church militant and univer-
sal, a helper and a light.
Through ten years, with his life in his
hands, under continual marching orders,
cruelly separating him from his loved
and loyal wife and little children, to Ma-
deira, Bordeaux, the southern towns of
England, and finally the Isle of Wight,
he never lost courage or faith, and
worked while yet there was day for him.
VOL. LXXX. NO. 477. 2
And though long disease wore out the
body, it could never touch his soul.
Sterling and Emerson never met face
to face, but there was so strong a like-
ness in some part of their lives both
the events and the spiritual experience
and growth that their friendship was,
as it were, ordained above. Both men,
born with a commanding call to letters ;
brought under the awakening influences
that moved England, Old and New, in
their generation ; helped first by Cole-
ridge and charmed by Wordsworth, ear-
nestly hoped to serve their fellow men
by living work in the church in which
they found themselves, though it seemed
well-nigh lifeless then. Both, after a
short service, found their growth resisted
by the walls around them, and at once
passed fearlessly out of the Church par-
tial to be workers in the Church uni-
versal. Disease added its burden to each
at this time, and was bravely borne.
The words of Carlyle came to them,
and moved them so strongly that each
stretched a joyful and grateful hand to
him at a time when it seemed as if none
heeded ; and this their service to his soul
bound him for life to them, though his
sad and stormy spirit chafed at their
singing and chided their hope. Brought
into relation with each other by him,
they met in their honor for him, and in
that other part of their lives to which
he was deaf and blind, their yearning
to express their respective messages in
lasting verse ; and in this especially, in
the five short years of their friendship,
their hands, held out across the sea to
each other, gave to both happiness and
help.
In Mr. Emerson's journal for the year
1843 is written the following pleasant
account of the coming together, along
lines of sympathy, of Sterling's life and
his own ;
" In Roxbury, in 1825, 1 read Cotton's
translation of Montaigne. It seemed to
18
John Sterling.
me as if I had written the book myself
in some former life, so sincerely it spoke
my thought and experience. No book
before or since was ever so much to me
as that. How I delighted afterwards in
reading Cotton's dedication to Halifax,
and the reply of Halifax, which seemed
no words of course, but genuine suffrages.
Afterwards I went to Paris in 1833, and
to the Pere le Chaise and stumbled on
the tomb of ,* who, said the stone,
formed himself to virtue on the Essays
of Montaigne. Afterwards, John Ster-
ling wrote a loving criticism on Mon-
taigne in the Westminster Review, with
a journal of his own pilgrimage to Mon-
taigne's estate and chateau ; and soon
after Carlyle writes me word that this
same lover of Montaigne is a lover of
me. Now I have been introducing to
his genius two of my friends, James and
Tappan, who both warm to him as to
their brother. So true is S. G. W.'s say-
ing that all whom he knew, met."
Here is the passage in the letter of
Carlyle above alluded to, written from
Chelsea on the 8th of December, 1837 :
" There is a man here called John
Sterling (Reverend John of the Church
of England too), whom I love better than
anybody I have met with, since a certain
sky-messenger alighted to me at Craigen-
puttock, and vanished in the Blue again.
This Sterling has written ; but what is far
better, he has lived, he is alive. Across
several unsuitable wrappages, of Church-
of-Englandism and others, my heart loves
the man. He is one, and the best, of a
small class extant here, who, nigh drown-
ing in a black wreck of Infidelity (light-
ed up by some glare of Radicalism only,
now growing dim, too) and about to per-
ish, saved themselves into a Coleridgian
Shovel-hattedness, or ^determination to
preach, to preach peace,Were it only the
spent echo of a peace once preached.
He is still only about tVirty ; young ;
and I think will shed the sm)vel-hat yet,
1 Left blank ; th| name probOT>ly forgotten.
2 Through the courtesy of Colo\el John Bar-
perhaps. Do you ever read Blackwood ?
This John Sterling is the ' New Contrib-
utor' whom Wilson makes such a rout
about, in the November and prior month:
Crystals from a Cavern, etc., which it
is well worth your while to see. Well,
and what then, cry you? Why, then,
this John Sterling has fallen overhead
in love with a certain Waldo Emerson,
that is all. He saw the little Book
Nature lying here ; and, across a whole
silva silvarum of prejudices, discerned
what was in it ; took it to his heart,
and indeed into his pocket ; and has car-
ried it off to Madeira with him, whither,
unhappily (though now with good hope
and expectation), the Doctors have or-
dered him. This is the small piece of
pleasant news : that two sky-messengers
(such they were both of them to me)
have met and recognized each other ;
and by God's blessing there shall one
day be a trio of us ; call you that no-
thing ? "
The news of this new friend and fel-
low worker was joyfully welcomed by
Emerson in his answer. After reading
the prose and verse in Blackwood, he
says, " I saw that my man had a head
and a heart, and spent an hour or two
very happily in spelling his biography
out of his own hand, a species of palmis-
try in which I have a perfect reliance."
The letters to Carlyle written during the
next year and a half tell of his growing
interest in the man and his writings. .
Emerson had sent to Sterling at vari-
ous times, through the hands of their
friend Carlyle, his orations, The Ameri-
can Scholar and Literary Ethics, deliv-
ered respectively before the Phi Beta
Kappa Society at Harvard University,
August 31, 1837, and the literary so-
cieties at Dartmouth College, July 24,
1838 ; and probably also his Address to
the Senior Class at the Divinity School
at Cambridge. These cumulative gifts
drew from Sterling the first letter. 2
ton Sterling, of London, I am permitted to
publish the following letters of his father.
John Sterling.
19
I. STERLING TO EMERSON.
CLIFTON, September 30, 1839.
MY DEAR SIR, It is a horrible ef-
fort to do at last what one ought to have
done long ago, were it not still more
horrible to postpone it longer. But hav-
ing a conscience, or something nameless
that does the work of one, I feel it some
consolation that I have wronged myself
most by my silence, and especially if I
have let you suppose me insensible to
the beauty and worth of the discourses
you sent me, and to the still more valu-
able kindness which led you to favour me
with them. Unhappily, I am a man of
ill health and many petty concerns, of
much locomotion and infinite laziness
and procrastination ; and though my
failures towards you are infinite, they
are, if possible, more than infinite to
my other friends, not better, but of
longer standing, and whose claims have
therefore increased at compound interest
to be still more serious than yours. One
of the worst results of my neglect is
that I can no longer offer you, in return
for your books, the first vivid impres-
sions which they made on me. I shall
only now say that I have read very, very
little modern English writing that has
struck and pleased me so much ; among
recent productions, almost only those of
our friend Carlyle, whose shaggy-browed
and deep-eyed thoughts have often a
likeness to yours which is very attractive
and impressive, neither evidently being
the double of the other. You must be
glad to find him so rapidly and strongly
rising into fame and authority among us.
It is evident to me that his suggestions
work more deeply into the minds of men
in this country than those of any living
man : work, not mining to draw forth
riches, but tunnelling to carry inwards
1 In writing to Carlyle himself Emerson said,
" I delighted in the spirit of that paper, lov-
ing you so well, and accusing you so conscien-
tiously."
In Carlyle's Life of Sterling, Part II. Cap. ii.,
it is hard to tell which to admire more, Ster-
ling's just criticism of Carlyle's (Teufels-
the light and air of the region from
which he starts. I rejoice to learn from
him that you are about to publish some-
thing more considerable, at least in bulk,
than what I have hitherto seen of yours.
I trust you will long continue to diffuse,
by your example as well as doctrine, the
knowledge that the Sun and Earth and
Plato and Shakespeare are what they are
by working each in his vocation ; and that
we can be anything better than mounte-
banks living, and scarecrows dead, only
by doing so likewise. For my better as-
surance of this truth, as well as for much
and cordial kindness, I shall always re-
main your debtor, and also,
Most sincerely yours,
JOHN STERLING.
II. EMEKSON TO STEBLING.
CONCORD, MASS., 29th May, 1840.
Mr DEAR SIR, I have trusted your
magnanimity to a good extent in neg-
lecting to acknowledge your letter, re-
ceived in the winter, which gave me
great joy, and more lately your volume
of poems, which I have had for some
weeks. But I am a worshipper of Friend-
ship, and cannot find any other good
equal to it. As soon as any man pro-
nounces the words which approve him
fit for that great office, I make no haste :
he is holy ; let me be holy also ; our re-
lations are eternal ; why should we count
days and weeks ? I had this feeling in
reading your paper on Carlyle, in which I
admired the rare behaviour, with far less
heed the things said ; these were opin-
ions, but the tone was the man. 1 But I
owe to you also the ordinary debts we
incur to art. I have read these poems,
and those, still more recent, in Black-
wood, with great pleasure. The ballad of
Alfred 2 delighted me when I first read
drockhs) attitude to the universe, so bravely
yet kindly expressed, or the simple and friend-
ly way in which Carlyle presents it, uncombat-
ed, to his readers.
2 Alfred the Harper, included later in Em-
erson's Parnassus.
20
John Sterling.
it, but I read it so often to my friends
that I discovered that the last verses
were not equal to the rest. Shall I gos-
sip on and tell you that the two lines,
" Still lives the song though Regnar dies !
Fill high your cups again,"
rung for a long time in my ear, and had
a kind of witchcraft for my fancy ? I
confess I am a little subject to these ab-
errations. The Sexton's Daughter is a
gift to us all, and I hear allusions to it
and quotations from it passing into com-
mon speech, which must needs gratify
you. My wife insists that I shall tell
you that she rejoices greatly that the man
is in the world who wrote this poem.
The Aphrodite is very agreeable to me,
and I was sorry to miss the Sappho
from the Onyx Ring. I believe I do
not set an equal value on all the pieces,
yet I must count him happy who has
this delirious music in his brain, who
can strike the chords of Rhyme with a
brave and true stroke ; for thus only do
words mount to their right greatness,
and airy syllables initiate us into the
harmonies and secrets of universal na-
ture. I am naturally keenly susceptible
of the pleasures of rhythm} and cannot
believe but that one day I ask not
where or when I shall attain to the
speech of this splendid dialect, so ardent
is my wish ; and these wishes, I suppose,
are ever only the buds of power ; but up
to this hour I have never had a true suc-
cess in such attempts. My joy in any
other man's success is unmixed. I wish
you may proceed to bolder, to the best
and grandest melodies whereof your
heart has dreamed. I hear with some
anxiety of your ill health and repeated
voyages. Yet Carlyle tells me that you
are not in danger. We shall learn one
day how to prevent these perils of dis-
ease, or to look at them with the seren-
ity of insight. It seems to me that so
great a task is imposed on the young
men of this generation that life and
health have a new value. \The problems
of reform are losing their local and sec-
tarian character, and becoming gener-
ous, profound, and poetic. If, as would
seem, you are theoretically as well as ac-
tually somewhat a traveller, I wish Amer-
ica might attract you. The way is shorter
every year, and the object more worthy.
There are three or four persons in this
country whom I could heartily wish to
show to three or four persons in yours,
and when I shall arrange any such in-
terviews under myown roof I shall be
proud and happy.
Your affectionate servant,
R. WALDO EMERSON.
JII. STERLING TO EMERSON.
CLIFTON NEAR BRISTOL, July 18, 1840.
MY DEAR FRIEND, Your cordial
letter is the pleasantest of transatlantic
greetings, and reminds me of the de-
light with which Columbus breathed the
air and saw the flowers of his New
World, which, though I have not dis-
covered either it or anything, salutes me
through you as kindly as if I too had
launched caravels and lighted on new
Indies. And so, in a sense, I have.
Treasures and spice islands of good will
and sympathy blow their airs to me from
your dim poetic distance. In fancy I
ride the winged horse you send me, to
visit you in return, and though prosaic
and hodiernal here, dream that I live
an endless life of song and true friend-
ly communion on the other side of the
great water. In truth, literature has
procured not one other such gratifica-
tion as your letter gives me. Every
other friend I have and I am not
unfurnished with good and wise ones
I owe to outward circumstances and
personal intercourse, and I believe you
are the only man in the world that has
ever found any printed words of mine
at all decidedly pleasant or profitable.
I heartily thank you for telling me the
fact, and also for the fact itself. There
are probably at least fifty persons in
England who can write better poetry
than mine, but I confess it pleases me
John Sterling.
21
very much that, independently of com-
parisons, you should see in it the thought
and feeling which I meant to express,
in words that few except yourself have
perceived to be anything but jingle.
I have lately read with much satis-
faction an American poem called What-
Cheer, 1 which you probably know. Why
did not the writer take a little more
pains ? It is more like my notion of a
real American epic on a small scale than
anything I had before imagined. With
us poetry does not flourish. Hartley
Coleridge, Alfred Tennyson, and Henry
Taylor are the only younger men I now
think of who have shown anything like
genius, and the last perhaps the most
remarkable has more of volition and
understanding than imagination. Milnes
and Trench are friends of mine, as
Taylor is, but their powers are rather
fine than truly creative. Carlyle, with
all the vehement prejudice that becomes
a prophet, is the great man arisen in later
years among us, and is daily more and
more widely felt, rather than understood,
to be so. I have just come from London,
where I saw a good deal of him during
the five or six days I was there. He is
writing down his last course of lectures,
and will no doubt publish them. You will
be amused by the clever and instructed
obtuseness of the criticism on him in the
Edinburgh Review, by I know not whom.
I was very near going to America by the
Great Western, a few days ago, to take
care of a sister-in-law bound for Canada,
where her husband, my brother, is. I
should have paid you a visit inevitably. . . .
My wife greets you and yours, as my
children would, were they sufficiently en-
lightened. The doctors have made me
dawdle myself away remedially, and per-
chance irremedially, into a most unpro-
fitable eidolon. Revive me soon with a
book of yours, and believe me faithfully
and gratefully yours,
JOHN STERLING.
1 What-Cheer, or Roger Williams in Banish-
ment, by Job Durf ec", LL. D., Chief Justice of
IV. EMERSON TO STERLING.
CONCORD, 31st March, 1841.
MY DEAR SIR, You gave me great
content by a letter last summer, which
I did not answer, thinking that shortly
I should have a book to send you ; but I
am very slow, and my Essays, printed
at last, are not yet a fortnight old. I
have written your name in a copy, and
send it to Carlyle by the same steamer
which should carry this letter. I wish,
but scarce dare hope, you may find in it
anything of the pristine sacredness of
thought. All thoughts are holy when
they come floating up to us in magical
newness from the hidden Life, and 't is
no wonder we are enamoured and love-
sick with these Muses and Graces, until,
in our devotion to particular beauties and
in our efforts at artificial disposition, we
lose somewhat of our universal sense
and the sovereign eye of Proportion.
All sins, literary and aesthetic and scien-
tific, as well as moral, grow out of un-
belief at last. We must needs meddle
ambitiously, and cannot quite trust that
there is life, self-evolving and indestruc-
tible, but which cannot be hastened, at
the heart of every physical and metaphy-
sical fact. Yet how we thank and greet,
almost adore, the person who has once
or twice in a lifetime treated anything
sublimely, and certified us that he be-
held the Law ! The silence and obscuri-
ty in which he acted are of no account,
for everything is equally related to the
soul.
I certainly did not mean, when I took
up this paper, to write an essay on Faith,
and yet I am always willing to declare
how indigent I think our poetry and all
literature is become for want of that. My
thought had only this scope, no more :
that though I had long ago grown ex-
tremely discontented with my little book,
yet were the thoughts in it honest in
their first rising, and honestly reported,
but that I am very sensible how much
Rhode Island, published in 1832, and later in
his Works in 1849.
22
John /Sterling.
in this, as in very much greater matters,
interference, or what we miscall art, will
spoil true things. . . .
I know not what sin of mine averted
from you so good a purpose as to come
to Canada and New England. Will not
the brother leave the sister to be brought
again ? We have some beautiful and
excellent persons here, to whom I long
to introduce you and Carlyle, and our
houses now stand so near that we must
meet soon.
Your affectionate servant,
K. W. EMERSON.
I have left for my Postscript what
should else be the subject of a new let-
ter. A very worthy friend of mine, bred
a scholar at Cambridge, but now an iron-
manufacturer in this State, named ,
writes me to request that I will ask you
for a correct list of your printed pieces,
prose and verse. He loves them very
much, and wishes to print them at Bos-
ton : he does not know how far our taste
will go, but he even hopes to realize
some pecuniary profit from the Phoeni-
cians, which he will eagerly appropriate
to your benefit. Send me, I entreat, a
swift reply.
V. STERLING TO EMERSON.
PENZANCE, April 30, 1841.
MY DEAR SIR, It is nearly a fort-
night since the receipt of your welcome
letter of March 31, in which you were good
enough to express a wish for a speedy re-
ply. The state of my health has, how-
ever, been such as to excuse some delay ;
and, moreover, during this very time I
have been employed in seeking for a
house somewhere in these western regions
of ours, as near as possible to America,
finding it impossible to live longer in the
dry, sharp, dogmatic air of Clifton. At
last I have made a bargain for a dwell-
ing at Falmouth. My family will pro-
bably be removing in\June, and until
then it may be feared that I shall have
but little quiet for any of the better ends
of life, which indeed the \frailty of my
health in a great degree withdraws me
from. One of the disadvantages of our
future abode is the remoteness from Lon-
don, whichproduces many inconveniences,
and among others delay and difficulty in
procuring books. Even now I feel the
mischief in the want of the copy of your
Essays which your kindness designed for
me. I console myself by reflecting that
I have a hid treasure which will come to
light some day. There are at this hour,
in the world, so far as I know, just three
persons writing English who attempt to
support human nature on anything bet-
ter than arbitrary dogmas or hesitating
negations. These are Wordsworth, Car-
lyle, and you. The practical effect, how-
ever, of Wordsworth's genius, though not
of course its intrinsic value, is much di-
minished by the extreme to which he
carries the expedient of compromise and
reserve ; and the same was even more
true of my dear and honoured friend Cole-
ridge. Neither Carlyle nor you can be
charged with such timidity, and I look for
the noblest and most lasting fruits from
the writings of both, to say nothing of
the profit and delight which they yield
to me personally, who am already at one
with those friends on many points that
most divide them from their contempora-
ries. Nothing seems more difficult than
to ascertain what extent of influence such
work as yours and his are gaining among
us, but in my boyhood, twenty years ago,
I well remember that, with quite insignifi-
cant exceptions, all the active and daring
minds which would not take for granted
the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Quarter-
ly Review took refuge with teachers like
Mackintosh and Jeffrey, or at highest Ma-
dame de Stae'l. Wordsworth and Cole-
ridge were mystagogues lurking in cav-
erns, and German literature was thought
of with a good deal less favour than we
are now disposed to show towards that of
China. Remembering these things, and
seeing the revolution accomplished among
a part of the most instructed class and
affecting them all, and also the blind,
John Sterling.
drunken movements of awakening intel-
ligence among the labourers, which have
succeeded to their former stupid sleep,
one can hardly help believing that as
much energetic and beneficial change has
taken place among us during the last
quarter of a century as at any former pe-
riod during the same length of time.
As to me, I certainly often have fan-
cied that, with longer intervals of health,
I might be a fellow worker with you and
the one or two others whose enterprise
has alone among all the projects round
us at once high worth and solid perma-
nence. But the gods have this matter
in their hands, and I have long discov-
ered that it is too large for mine. Lat-
terly I have been working at a tragedy,
but with many intimations that my own
catastrophe might come before that of
my hero. It may perhaps be possible to
complete the tangled net before the next
winter weaves its frostwork among the
figures and numbs the workman's hand.
Mr. , whom you wrote of, deserves
and has all my thanks. It is a true sun-
ny pleasure, worth more than all medi-
cine, to know of any one man in the world
who sees what one means, and cares for
it, and does not regard one's heart's blood
as so much puddle water. It would be
a great satisfaction to me to have my
things reprinted as a whole in Amer-
ica.
Forgive this random gossip, and the
emptiness of a letter which ought to have
expressed much better how truly and af-
fectionately I am yours,
JOHN STERLING.
VI. STERLING TO EMERSON.
FALMOUTH, December 2Sth, 1841.
MY DEAR FRIEND, Your Oration of
the llth August 1 has only just reached
me. Pray accept my thanks for it.
Without this new mark of your kind re-
1 The Method of Nature, delivered before the
Society of the Adelphi in Waterville College,
Maine.
collection I should have written to you
at this time, for, after much work and
much illness, I have been looking for-
ward to the end of the year as a time
when the last twelvemonth might be
pleasantly rounded off with letters to
several friends for a long while past too
much neglected. These are mostly per-
sons with whom I- have once been in
more familiar intercourse than at pre-
sent; years and saddening experiences
and local remoteness having a good deal
divided me of late from most of my for-
mer Cambridge and London intimates.
You are the only man in the world with
whom, though unseen, I feel any sort of
nearness ; all my other cordialities hav-
ing grown up in the usual way of per-
sonal intercourse. This sort of anoma-
lous friendship is owing, I think, even
more to your letters than to your books,
which, however, are always near my
hand. The Essays I have just read over
again, with new and great pleasure. It
also often occurs to me to look back with
joy at the kindness you have expressed
in writing to me, and to say, after all,
our clay has been mixed with something
happier than tears and blood ; for there
is a man beyond the Atlantic whom I
never saw, and who yet is to me a true
and understanding friend. By the way,
your Essays on Love and Friendship are
to me perhaps more delightful than any-
thing you have written. In this last
Oration there is much that I feel strong-
ly ; much, also, that makes me speculate
on the kind of Church or Public that
you address, which must be very un-
like anything among us ; much, again,
which does not find me, specially
that abnegation of individualism which
has become less possible for me as I have
gone on in life, and which, by the way,
is perhaps the most striking doctrinal
difference between you and Carlyle. As
to your audience or church, I doubt
whether there are anywhere in Britain,
except in London, a hundred persons to
be found capable of at all appreciating
John Sterling.
what seems to find, as spoken by you,
such ready acceptance from various
bodies of learners in America. Here
we have not only the same aggressive
material element as in the United States,
but a second fact unknown there, name-
ly, the social authority of Church Ortho-
doxy, derived from the close connection
between the Aristocracy (that is, the
Rich) and the Clergy. And odd it is to
see that, so far as appears on the surface,
the last twenty-five years have produced
more of this instead of less.
Incomparably our most hopeful phe-
nomenon is the acceptance of Carlyle's
writings. But how remarkable it is that
the critical and historical difficulties of
the Bible were pointed out by clear-
sighted English writers more than a cen-
tury ago, and thence passed through
Voltaire into the whole mind of Conti-
nental Europe, and yet that in this coun-
try both the facts and the books about
them remain utterly unknown except to
a few recluses ! The overthrow of our
dead Biblical Dogmatism must, however,
be preparing, and may be nearer than ap-
pears. The great curse is the wretched
and seemingly hopeless mechanical ped-
antry of our Monastic Colleges at Oxford
and Cambridge. I know not whether
there is much connection between these
things and the singular fact,' I believe
quite unexampled in England for three
hundred years, that there is no man liv-
ing among us, literally, I believe, not
one, under the age of fifty, whose
verses will pay the expense of publica-
tion. -Nevertheless I have been work-
ing in that way, remembering what Cor-
nelius, the German, the greatest of mod-
ern painters, said lately in London,
that he and Overbeck were obliged to
starve for twenty years, and then became
famous.
I am far from having forgotten my
promise to you to examine and revise all
my past writings. But I find little that
I am at present at all prepared to reprint.
The verses I have carefully corrected,
and these would form a volume about
the size of the last. But as only about
a hundred copies of that have been sold,
I dare not propose printing any more,
even under favour of my kind and muni-
ficent friend the Iron Master, to whom
and to you I hope to be able to send
soon Strafford, a Tragedy, in print. It
has cost me many months of hard work,
and I have some hope of finding a book-
seller rash enough to print it. It \spos-
sible that I may see you early in summer,
as there seems a chance of my having
to go on business to St. Vincent, and I
would try to take you and Niagara on
my way home.
Believe me your affectionate
JOHN STEELING.
VTI. EMERSON TO STERLING.
CONCORD, 1st April, 1842.
MY DEAR SIB, I will not reckon
how many weeks and months I have let
pass since I received from you a letter
which greatly refreshed me, both by its
tone and its matter. Since that time I
have been sorely wounded, utterly im-
poverished, by the loss of my only son, a
noble child a little more than five years
old, and in these days must beguile my
poverty and nakedness as I can, by books
and studies which are only a diversion ;
for it is only oblivion, not consolation,
that such a calamity can admit, whilst
it is new.
You do not in your letter distinctly say
that you will presently send me with the
Tragedy of Straff ord,. which I look for,
the promised list of prose and verse for
Mr. . Yet you must ; for I read a
few weeks ago, in a Southern newspaper,
the proposals of a Philadelphia bookseller
to print all your poems. I wrote imme-
diately to the person named as editor in
the advertisement, to inform him of our
project and correspondence with you,
and of the Tragedy that should come ;
and as I have heard nothing further, I
presume that he has desisted. So far,
then, his movement is only a good symp-
John Sterling.
25
torn, and should engage you to send the
list, with such errata or revisions as you
have, with the Straff ord, to which may
the Muse grant the highest success, the
noblest conclusion.
I read with great pleasure that per-
haps you will come to New England this
ensuing summer. Come, and bring your
scroll in your hand. Come to Boston
and Concord, and I will go to Niagara
with you. I have never been there ; I
think I will go. I am quite sure that, to
a pair of friendly poetic English eyes,
I could so interpret our political, social,
and spiritual picture here in Massachu-
setts that it should be well worth study
as a table of comparison. And yet per-
haps, much more than the large pictures,
I fancy that I could engage your interest
in the vignettes and pendants. However,
about this time, or perhaps a few weeks
later, we shall send you a large piece of
spiritual New England, in the shape of A.
Bronson Alcott, who is to sail for London
about the 20th April, and whom you must
not fail to see, if you can compass it. A
man who cannot write, but whose con-
versation is unrivalled in its way ; such
insight, such discernment of spirits, such
pure intellectual play, such revolutionary
impulses of thought ; whilst he speaks
he has no peer, and yet, all men say,
" such partiality of view." I, who hear
the same charge always laid at my own
gate, do not so readily feel that fault
in my friend. But I entreat you to see
this man. Since Plato and Plotinus we
have not had his like. I have written
to Carlyle that he is coming, but have
told him nothing about him. For I
should like well to set Alcott before that
sharp-eyed painter for his portrait, with-
out prejudice of any kind. If A. comes
into your neighborhood, he will seek
you.
Your picture of England I was very
glad to have. It confirms, however, my
own impressions. Perhaps you have
formed too favorable an opinion of our
freedom and receptivity here. And yet
I think the most intellectual class of my
countrymen look to Germany rather than
to England for their recent culture ; and
Coleridge, I suppose, has always had
more readers here than in Britain. . . .
Your friend,
R. W. EMERSON,
VIII. STERLING TO EMERSON.
FALMOUTH, June 6th, 1842.
MY DEAR FRIEND, I have just re-
turned after a two months' absence,
forced by ill health to the South. Three
weeks in Naples, which I had never seen
before, and one in Rome, have renewed
a thousand old impressions, given sub-
stance to many fancies, and confirmed
a faith in ancient Art which has few
sharers in this country, but is perhaps
as good notwithstanding as some other
faiths we know of.
Your letter spiced my welcome home,
and must be at once acknowledged.
Thanks, and again thanks. Of A. Bron-
son Alcott I have heard indirectly from
London ; and as I must go there soon,
I hope to see him there in Carlyle's
shadow. It seems too clear that actual
England will only a little more than
pain and confuse him, as it does every
one not swimming with that awful mud-
dy stream of existence which dwindles
your Mississippi to a gutter. Very plea-
sant, however, it will be to hear of this
from himself, and still more to find
him a real and luminous soul, and not a
mere denier and absorbent of the light
around.
As to my proceedings you must hear
a long story. Since my little volume of
poems I have written and published one
called the Election, of which a kind of
secret was made, partly as a condition
of Murray's agreeing to publish it,
otherwise you should have had a copy.
It seemed a work to give much offense,
but gave none, nobody reading it at all.
Besides this, I corrected the printed vol-
ume, and rewrote all that appeared in
Blackwood of my verses. Also a new
26
John Sterling.
poem, a Bernesque satire called Coeur de
Lion. Finally, the Tragedy of Strafford,
which Carlyle says is trash, but I know
not to be that, in spite of certain inevi-
table faults.
Now all these things are in the hands
of Lockhart, of the Quarterly Review,
he having proposed to deal with them
as if privately printed, and expressing an
opinion of them that would have made
his article an astonishment to his readers
and a comfort to my wife. Thus mat-
ters stood when I left, two months ago.
I have just written to him to know whe-
ther he still designs giving me publicity
through his huge trumpet. If, as seems
probable, he repents of his dangerous
good nature, I shall have no so satisfac-
tory course as to send to you the papers
now in his hands, to be used or suppressed
at your discretion. Immediately on re-
ceiving his answer I will write to inform
you of its purport. Whatever he may
do, I foresee no chance of being able to
print in this country, and shall be most
glad to find efficient patronage beyond
the Atlantic. Illness and business have
as yet stopped any sufficient revision of
my prose matters, which, however, I now
intend looking into and doctoring.
The pleasantest chance acquaintances
of my recent journey were Americans,
a Mr. and Mrs. M (he, a lawyer),
of Albany. His enjoyment of works of
art is. for a man who had never seen
any before, really wonderful. My future
movements most uncertain, not point-
ing, I fear, towards you ; perhaps Ma-
deira next winter. . . .
Yours, JOHN STERLING.
I have said nothing of the painful
part of your letter. You will know that
I grieve or you and Mrs. Emerson.
IX. STERLING TO EMERSON.
;. June 13th, 1842.
MY DEAR FRIEND, Lockhart's ill-
ness has prevented him doing anything
about my matters. But he still expresses
the same decided good will and purpose
for the future. Meanwhile I have asked
him for the MSS., and shall send you
very soon (probably within a fortnight)
a volume of prose tales, of which the
Onyx Ring is the principal (none of
them new), and about as much verse,
including the Sexton's Daughter, Miscel-
laneous Poems, and the Election. Of
course I will write with them. But it
may be said now that they must not be
printed among you unless with a fair
prospect of the expenses being paid. No
doubt they are better than a thousand
things that sell largely, but something in
them that would interest you and other
thinkers unfits them for the multitude
who have other business than thinking.
At all events, believe me always yours,
JOHN STERLING.
X. STERLING TO EMERSON.
LONDON, June 28th, 1842.
MY DEAR FRIEND, At last I have
been able to make some progress among
my papers, and am. about to despatch
a parcel to you, consisting of two main
divisions : the first containing eight Tales,
of which the largest and most important
is the Onyx Ring ; and the other of
five sections of Poems : first, The Sex-
ton's Daughter ; 2, Miscellaneous Poems
(those already published in my vol-
ume) ; 3, Hymns of a Hermit (greatly
altered); 4, Thoughts in Rhyme (cor-
rected) ; 5, The Election. These things,
if it be thought worth doing anything
with them, might appear either in two
small volumes, first verse, second prose,
or in one. If I am able to put together
a lot of strays and prose thoughts, you
shall have them by and by. But as to
the whole, I must earnestly beg that you
and my other kind friends in America
will feel yourselves at perfect liberty to
take no further step in the matter.
With my MSS. I shall put up a Tra-
gedy by a friend of mine, which strikes
me as singularly fine.
The last fortnight I have been in Lon-
don in the midst of bustle, but with the
John Sterling.
27
great delight of seeing Carlyle, who is
more peaceful than I have ever known
him. He is immersing himself in Pu-
ritanism and Cromwell, matters with
which you Americans have almost a
closer connection than we. If he writes
our Civil War, the book will have a pro-
digious advantage over his French Revo-
lution, that there will be one great Egyp-
tian Colossus towering over the temples,
tribes, and tents around.
Yesterday, on his table, I found the
newspaper report of certain lectures,
which, however, I could only glance at.
A deep and full phrase that, " The Poet
is the man without impediment."
Mr. Alcott has been kind enough to
call on me, but I was out (out indeed
then), and he would not leave his ad-
dress. Otherwise no engagement would
have prevented my finding him.
Thought is leaking into this country,
even Strauss sells. I hear his copy-
right is worth more in Germany than
that of any living writer. His books
selling like Bulwer's novels among us.
Some one else has arisen there who at-
tacks Strauss for being too orthodox ;
but the Prussian government has taken
Strauss under its wing, and forbidden his
opponent's books. Forgive this random
undiplomatic stuff from
Your affectionate
JOHN STERLING.
XI. STERLING TO EMERSON.
FALMOUTH, March 29th, 1843.
MY DEAR FRIEND, I have for many
months been leading a dream-life, fruit-
ful in no result. For a long part of the
time I was lying in bed very ill, and
indeed, as it seemed, near to death. The
prospect was indistinct enough, but far
from frightful, and at the worst of the
disease it never occurred to me as possi-
ble that one's thoughts would terminate
with one's pulse. On the whole, though
a great deal of time has been quite lost,
the experience is worth something. In
the last summer, also, I had a long and
severe illness. And the upshot seems to
me that I must live, if at all, on the
terms of the various mythical personages
doomed for alternate halves of their year
to be lost in Hades. Even the half is
more than I can count on in this upper-
living air. What uncertainty this gives
to all one's projects and arrangements
you can well imagine.
In the midst of this confusion, it is
some, though rather a melancholy amuse-
ment to continue one's lookout over the
world, and to see the daily mass of mis-
ery, nonsense, and non-consciousness shap-
ing itself into an historic period that will
some time or other have its chronicler
and heroic singer, and look not quite so
beggarly. Of the properly spiritual, Eng-
land, however, still shows almost as lit-
tle as the camps of the Barbarians who
deluged Rome. Carlyle is our one Man,
and he seems to feel it his function, not
to build up and enjoy along with his Age,
as even a Homer, a Herodotus, could, but
to mourn, denounce, and tear in pieces.
I find nothing so hard as to discover
what effect he really produces. Proba-
bly the greater part of his readers find
in him only the same sort of mock-turtle
nutriment as in Macaulay. Our mechan-
ical civilization, with us as with you, of
course, goes on fast enough. The Time
spins daily more and bigger teetotums
with increasing speed and louder hum,
and keeps on asking if they be not real-
ly celestial orbs, and that the music of
the spheres. Of anything much higher,
the men of your and my generation, from
whom ten years ago I hoped much, seem
hardly capable. A good many of them,
however, I do think wish for something
better than they are able to conceive
distinctly, much less to realize.
Of the last age, one respectable relic,
you will see, is just removed forever :
Southey is dead, with the applause of all
good men, but with hardly much deeper
feeling from any. Strange proof enough
of the want of poems in our language,
that he should ever have been held a
28
John Sterling.
writer of such. Partly, perhaps, because
his works had what one finds in so few
English, the greatness of plan and stead-
iness of execution required for a master-
work, though these were almost their
only merits. I never saw him, and do
not much regret it. One living man in
Europe whom I should most wish to see
is Tieck, by far, I think, the greatest
poet living. His Vittoria Accoramboua
is well worth your reading. It repro-
duces in the sixteenth century and in
Italy something like the crimson robe,
the prophetic slain Cassandra, and the
tragic greatness of the Agamemnonian
Muse, but this combined at once with
the near meanness and the refined culti-
vation of our modern life.
My own literary matters lie in mag-
netic sleep. Stratford is there finished.
But I have not been able to open it for
many months, and there are a couple of
minor scenes which I fancy I could mend;
and I can do nothing in the matter till
I look at these, which has not yet been
possible.
In the meanwhile, during my illness,
I have entangled myself in the fancy of
a long Orlandish or Odyssean poem, of
which I have written some eight cantos,
and can promise you at least some amuse-
ment from it a hundred and fifty years
hence, by the time England discovers
that it is farther from having a religion
and America a constitution than either
country now supposes.
Believe me with true affection yours,
JOHN STERLING.
XII. EMERSON TO STERLING.
CONCORD, 30th June, 1843.
MY DEAR FRIEND, I was very sorry
to let the last steamer go to England
without an acknowledgment of your last
letter, whose nobleness under such ad-
verse events had moved my admiration ;
but I waited to hear again from ,
until it was too late. ^1 have twice
charged that amiable but '' slow Morti-
mer " to write you himself a report of his
doubts and projects, and I hope he does
so by the packet of to-morrow. Lest he
should not, I will say that I have twice
heard from him since I sent him your
box of printed sheets and MSS. last sum-
mer (with my selected list of imprimen-
da), but both letters expressed a great
indecision as to what he should do. In
truth, our whole foreign -book market
has suffered a revolution within eighteen
months, by the new practice of printing
whatever good books or vendible books
you send us, in the cheapest newspaper
form, and hawking them in the streets
at twelve, eighteen, and twenty-five cents
the whole work ; and I suppose that
fears, if his book should prove popular,
that it would be pirated at once. I
printed Carlyle's Past and Present two
months ago, with a preface beseeching
all honest men to spare our book ; but
already a wretched reprint has appeared,
published, to be sure, by a man unknown
to the Trade, whose wretchedness of
type and paper, I have hope, will still
give my edition the market for all per-
sons who have eyes and wish to keep
them. But, beside the risk of piracy,
this cheap system hurts the sale of dear
books, or such whose price contains any
profit to an author. Add one more
unfavorable incident which damped the
design, that a Philadelphia edition of
Sterling's Poems was published a year
ago, though so ill got up that it did not
succeed well, our booksellers think.
must be forgiven if he hesitated, but he
shall not be forgiven if he do not tell
you his own mind. I am heartily sorry
that this friendly and pleasing design
should have arrived at no better issue.
We shall have better news for you one
day.
I am touched and stimulated by your
heroic mood and labours, so ill as you
have been. Please God, you are better
now, and, I hope, well. But truly I think
it a false standard to estimate health,
as the world does, by some fat man, in-
stead of by our power to do our work.
John Sterling.
If I should lie by whenever people tell
me I grow thin and puny, I should lose
all my best days. Task these bad bodies
and they will serve us and will be just
as well a year hence, if they grumble to-
day. But in this country this is safer,
for we are a nation of invalids. You
English are ruddy and robust, and sick-
ness with you is a more serious matter.
Yet everything in life looks so different-
ly before and behind, and we reverse our
scale of success so often, in our retrospec-
tions at our own days and doings, that
our estimate of our own health, even,
must waver when we see what we have
done and gained in the dark hours. I
fancy sometimes that I am more practi-
cally an idealist than most of my com-
panions ; that I value qualities more and
magnitudes less. I must flee to that re-
fuge, too, if I should try to tell you what
I have done and do. I have very little
to show. Yet my days seem often rich,
and I am as easily pleased as my chil-
dren are. I write a good deal, but it is
for the most part without connection,
on a thousand topics. Yet I hope, with-
in a year, to get a few chapters ripened
into some symmetry and wholeness on
the topics that interest all men perma-
nently.
Carlyle's new book, which on some ac-
counts I think his best, has given even
additional interest to your English prac-
tical problem ; and if your conservatism
was not so stark, an inertia passing that
of Orientalism, the world would look to
England with almost hourly expectation
of outbreak and revolution. But the
world is fast getting English now ; and
if the old hive should get too warm and
crowded, you may circumnavigate the
globe without leaving your language or
your kindred.
In the hope that my salutations may
find you stronger, and strong, and full
of good thoughts and good events, I am
yours affectionately,
R. W. EMERSON.
XIII. .STERLING TO EMEKSON.
VENTNOK, I. OF WIGHT,
October 1th, 1843.
MY DEAR FRIEND, At last on this
Saturday evening there is some cessation
of the din of workmen, and I can sit
down to write to you. The last three
months have been all one muddle of car-
penters and other materialists, who have
hardly left me an hour, and certainly not
a day, quite undisturbed by their practi-
cal nonsense. Now I can draw breath
(till Monday morning) in a house which
promises to be as good as a wise man
needs, and far better than most wise
men have ever enjoyed on earth. It
is adjoining a small new stone - built
town, on the south coast, and close to
the sea, and I have some acres (half a
dozen) of field and shrubbery about me.
One inducement for me is the shelter
and mild climate. But a thousand times
I have lamented my folly in engaging
myself with a pest of improvements,
etc., which has swallowed up all my
summer.
Would that I could hope to be re-
warded by such a pleasure as having you
sometime under my thatched roof ! In
the midst of these mechanical arrange-
ments, all higher thoughts have been like
birds in an aviary looking up through
squares of wire that cut across the sky,
whose winged children they imprison.
The birds are there, and the heavens
also, and how little it is, but how insu-
perable, that divides them ! If any good
has grown upon me strongly, it is the
faith in a Somewhat above all this, a
boat within reach of us at our worst.
Every soul on earth, says Mahomet, is
born capable of Islam. But you, per-
haps, though having your own difficul-
ties, hardly know the utter loneliness
of a Rational Soul in this England. Ex-
cept Carlyle, I do not know one man
who sees and lives in the idea of a God
not exclusively Christian : two or three
lads, perhaps ; but every grown man of
nobler spirit is either theoretical and
30
John Sterling.
lukewarm, or swathed up in obsolete sec-
tarianism.
On Sunday last I had indeed a visit
from an old Friend who delighted me by
his cordial candour, John Mill, son of
the historian of India, and in many ways
notable among us now. His big book on
Logic is, I suppose, the highest piece of
Aristotelianism that England has brought
forth, at all events in our time. How
the sweet, ingenuous nature of the man
has lived and thriven out of his father's
cold and stringent atheism is wonderful
to think, and most so to me, who dur-
ing fifteen years have seen his gradual
growth and ripening. There are very
few men in the world on whose generous
affection I should more rely than on his,
whose system seems at first (but only
seems) a Code of Denial.
I was more struck, not long ago, by the
mists of one of the most zealous of the
new Oxford School, like Newman, a
fellow of Oriel, and holding Newman the
first of teachers. Yet this man, who fan-
cies he can blot a thousand years out of
God's Doings, has a zeal, a modesty, a
greatness of soul, that I have hardly found
in more than half a dozen others on
earth. He is, I hear, sometimes half mad
with ill health and low spirits ; a schol-
ar, a gentleman, a priest, if there is any
true one living, and would let himself be
racked or gibbeted to help any suffering
or erring brother with less self-compla-
cence than most of us feel in giving away
a shilling. Strange, is it not, to find Ege-
ria still alive, and in this shape, too, in
fcece Romuli ?
I rejoice that you have something
more in store for us ; I shall look out
eagerly for your lights ahead. Life with
me has grown empty and dim enough,
and needs what comfort other men's
faith is capable of supplying. . . .
Yours, JOHN STERLING.
I do not know if the bookseller has
sent you a copy of a Ventnor Tragedy
which I ventured to decorate with your
name.
The Strafford was thus dedicated :
TO RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
Teacher of starry wisdom high serene,
Receive the gift our common ground supplies ;
Red flowers, dark leaves, that ne'er on earth
had been
Without the influence of sidereal skies.
VENTNOR, ISLB OF WIOHT,
Midsummer Day, 1843.
J.S.
XTV. EMERSON TO STERLING.
CONCORD, October llth, 1843.
My DEAR FRIEND, You have done
me an honour to which I have not the
least title, and yet it is very dear and
animating to me, in putting my name in
purple lines before this rich and wise
poem of Strafford. I blushed to read,
and then thought I should nevermore
be unworthy, and these loving words
should be an amulet against evil ever-
more. I might easily mistrust my judg-
ment of the Play in my love of the
Poet, and, if you think so, may be whol-
ly wrong, for I read it with lively inter-
est, like a friend's manuscript, from end
to end, and grew prouder and richer in
my friend with every scene. The sub-
ject is excellent, so great and eventful a
crisis, and each of the figures in that
history filled and drunk with a national
idea, and with such antagonism as makes
them colossal, and adds solemnity and
omens to their words and actions. I was
glad to find the Countess of Carlisle
in poetry, whom I had first learned to
know by that very lively sketch from Sir
Toby Matthew, which I read in one of
Forster's Lives. I do not yet know whe-
ther the action of the piece is sufficiently
stout and irresistible, alarming and vic-
timizing the reader after the use of the
old " purifiers ; " it seems to me, as I has-
tily read, managed with judgment and
lighted with live coals ; but I am quite
sure of the dense and strong sentences
whose energy and flowing gentleness at
the same time give the authentic expres-
sion of health and perfect manhood.
I rejoice when I remember in what
John /Sterling.
31
sickness and interruption, by your own
account, this drama had its elaboration
and completion. As soon as I had read
it once, Margaret Fuller, our genius and
Muse here, and a faithful friend of
yours, seized the book peremptorily and
carried it away, so that I am by no
means master of its contents. Mean-
time, may the just honour of all the best
in Old and in New England cherish the
poem and the Poet. Send me, I pray
you, better news of your health than
your last letter contained. I observe
that you date from the Isle of Wight.
Two letters (one from and one
from me) went to your address in Fal-
mouth, in the course of the last summer,
which I hope, for the exculpation of your
friends here, you received.
I am, I think, to sit fast at home this
winter coming, and arrange a heap of
materials that much and wide scribbling
has collected. I shall probably send this
letter by Mr. James, a man who adds to
many merits the quality of being a good
friend of both you and me, and who, pro-
posing with his family to spend a win-
ter in England, for health and travel,
thinks he has a right to see you. He is
at once so manly, so intelligent, and so
ardent that I have found him excellent
company. The highest and holiest Muse
dwell with you always.
Yours affectionately,
R. W. EMERSON.
My friend and near neighbor, W. El-
lery Channing (a nephew of the late
Dr. C.), desires me to send you his little
volume of poems. I love Ellery so
much as to have persuaded myself long
since that he is a true poet, if these lines
should not show it. Read them with as
much love in advance as you can. Mr. J.
will bring them.
XV. EMERSON TO STEELING.
CONCORD, October 15th, 1843.
MY DEAR STERLING, Henry James,
of New York, a man of ingenious and
liberal spirit, and a chief consolation to
me when I visit his city, proposes to
spend a winter in England with his fam-
ily, for his health and other benefit, and
desires to see you, for whom he has much
affection. I am quite sure that I shall
serve you both by sending him to you.
Yours, R. W. EMERSON.
XVI. EMERSON TO STERLING.
CONCORD, 31st January, 1844.
MY DEAR FRIEND, The mercury
has been at zero at my door, with little
variation, for more than a week. Boston
harbour is frozen up for six miles down
to the forts, yet the newspapers tell me
this morning that the merchants have
resolved to saw through these miles a
passage for your royal steamer and other
sea-going ships to-morrow, and I must
not wait another hour if I would speed
my good wishes to the Isle of Wight.
By an unhappy chance, the January
Dials did not sail as they ought in last
month's steamer, and you should receive
by this, via London and Carlyle, a copy
of No. XV., which contains a critique,
written by Margaret Fuller, on Straf-
ford, and other children of genius, both
yours and other men's. I heartily hope
you will find something right and wise
in my friend's judgments, if with some-
thing inadequate, and if her pen ramble
a little. It was her own proposition to
write the piece, led by her love both of
you and of me. After she began it, she
decided to spread her censure so wide,
and comprise all dramas as well as
Strafford. She was full of spirits in her
undertaking, but, unhappily, the week
devoted to its performance was exani-
mated, may I say, by cruel aches and
illness, and she wrote me word that she
was very sorry, but the piece was ruined.
However, as you are by temper and
habit such a cosmopolitan, I hope one
day you shall see with eyes my wise
woman, hear her with ears, and see if
you can escape the virtue of her en-
chantments. She has a sultry Southern
nature, and Corinna never can write.
32
John Sterling.
I learned by your last letter that you
had builded a house, and I glean from
Russell all I can of your health and
aspect ; and as James is gone to your
island, I think to come still nearer to
you through his friendly and intelligent
eyes. Send me a good gossiping letter,
and prevent all my proxies. What can
I tell you to invite such retaliation ? I
dwell with my mother, my wife, and two
little girls, the eldest five years old, in
the midst of flowery fields. I wasted
much time from graver work in the last
two months in reading lectures to Ly-
ceums far and near ; for there is now a
" lyceum," so called, in almost every
town in New England, and, if I would
accept every invitation, I might read a
lecture every night. My neighbors in
this village of Concord are Ellery Chan-
ning, who sent his poems to you, a youth
of genius; Thoreau, whose name you
may have seen in the Dial ; and Haw-
thorne, a writer of tales and historiettes,
whose name you may not have seen,
though he too prints books. All these
three persons are superior to their writ-
ings, and therefore not obnoxious to
Kant's observation, " Detestable is the
company of literary men."
Good as these friends are, my habit
is so solitary that we do not often meet.
My literary or other tasks accomplished
are too little to tell. I do not know how
it happens, but there are but seven hours,
often but five, in an American schol-
ar's day; the twelve, thirteen, fifteen,
that we have heard of, in German libra-
ries, are fabulous to us. Probably in
England you find a mean between Mas-
sachusetts and Germany. The perform-
ances of Goethe, the performances of
Scott, appear superhuman to us in their
quantity, let alone their quality. Some-
times I dream of writing the only his-
torical thing I know, the influence of
old Calvinism, now almost obsolete, upon
1 During the year Sterling's mother and wife
had died within three days. Sorrowful and
sick, he had moved with his six children, two
the education of the existing generation
in New England. I am quite sure, if
it could be truly done, it would be new
to your people, and a valuable memoran-
dum to ours.
I have lately read George Sand's Con-
suelo, of which the first volume pleased
me mightily, the others much less, and
yet the whole book shows an extraordi-
nary spirit. The writer apprehends the
force of simplicity of behaviour, and en-
joys, how greatly, the meeting of two
strong natures. But I have gossiped to
the end of my line, and so do commend
myself affectionately to you.
R. W. EMERSON.
XVII. STERLING TO EMERSON.
VENTNOR, February 20th, 1844.
MY DEAR FRIEND, I had proposed
a letter to you as this morning's work,
and now down the throat of my purpose
jumps your own of January 31. Long
since I ought to have thanked you for
the previous one, but have been too sick
and sad. 1 Your reception of Straff ord
was a great pleasure, so far as any-
thing is so now. The work has become
altogether distant and distasteful to me,
but I can enjoy your kindness. I got
from an English bookseller the October
Dial, which is pleasant reading. If one
could have the whole of the former num-
bers it would be good for me, but I own
that, except your own doings, there is lit-
tle in it that comes home. Channing, I
suppose, I must thank for his friendly
gift ; but the volume perhaps from
my own deadness gave me little true
comfort. It seemed to show abundant
receptivity, but of productivity little.
Everything can too easily be referred to
some other parent. If he would read
diligently the correspondence of Schiller
and Goethe, he would learn much, and
would either cease to be a poet or be-
come a good one. At least one hopes
of them infants, to his last earthly home, the
house in Ventnor.
John Sterling.
33
so. That book has to me greater value
than any or all those on the theory of
art, besides the beautiful, mild, and
solid humanity which it displays in every
word. There are hardly perhaps three
Englishmen living with the slightest
thought of what art is, the unity and
completeness of the Ideal. The crowd,
when weary of themselves and their own
noisy choking Reality, take refuge in
Fiction, but care not how lazy, coarse,
and empty. The few among us who
look higher, generally the young, seem
satisfied, not with the Ideal, but their
own feelings and notions about it, which
they substitute for the thing itself ; ser-
mons on the Incarnation instead of the
Incarnate God. Hence all the dreamy
Shelleyan rhapsodies and rhetorical
Wordsworthian moralizings. But who
seriously strives to create images ? Who
does not waste himself in hunting shad-
ows, forgetting that you cannot have them
without first getting the substance, and
that with it you can never be in want of
them ?
So it stands with us in England : is
it otherwise in America? I fear not.
Tennyson does better, but does little, and
they say will hardly wake out of tobacco
smoke into any sufficient activity. Car-
lyle, our far greater Tacitus, in truth
hates all poetry except for that element
in it which is not poetic at all, and aims
at giving a poetic completeness to historic
fact. He is the greatest of moralists and
politicians, a gigantic anti-poet. As far
as I know, there is not a man besides,
on either side of the Atlantic, writing in
English, either in prose or verse, who
need be spoken of.
Your friend James pleased me well.
Would that he could have stayed here
longer and let me know more of him !
But after all regrets, Life is good, to
Bee the face of Truth, and enjoy the
beauty of tears and smiles, and know
one's self a man, and love what belongs
to manhood, all this is a blessing that
VOL. LXXX. NO. 477. 3
may console us for all wants, and that
sickness and sorrow, and, one may trust,
Death, cannot take away. Yet I wish I
could have talk with you some day.
I am yours,
JOHN STERLING.
This is a miserable scrap to send in
the track of Columb.us and Raleigh. But
I have been too ill in body, and am still
too sad in mind.
XVIII. STERLING TO EMERSON.
VENTNOR, I. OF WIGHT, June 14-th, 1844.
MY DEAR FRIEND, Perhaps you
may have heard that for the last three
months I have been a dying man. It is
certain that I never can recover. But
there seems a melancholy possibility that
I may have to drag on a year or two of
helplessness, cut off from all society and
incapable of any exertion. It is a case
for submission, but hardly for thankful-
ness. The beginning of the illness was
a violent and extensive bleeding from
the lungs, of which, however, I have had
prelibations for many years. It was
strange to see the thick crimson blood
pouring from one's own mouth while
feeling hardly any pain ; expecting to
be dead in five minutes, and noticing
the pattern of the room-paper and of the
Doctor's waistcoat as composedly as if
the whole had been a dream.
At present I am quite incapable, as
indeed I was when I wrote last, of send-
ing you anything worth your reading.
On both sides of Eternity (the out
and in),
Your affectionate
JOHN STERLING.
XIX. EMERSON TO STERLING.
CONCORD, oth July, 1844.
MY DEAR FRIEND, What news you
send me, how dark and bitter, and
how unlooked for, and so firmly and sol-
dierly told ! I got your letter yesterday,
and in it the first hint I have had of this
disaster. I dream of you and of Car-
34
John Sterling.
lyle, whenever steamers go or come, but
easily omit to write ; and this is the pun-
ishment of my luxury, that you should
be threatened, and I should know no-
thing of your danger and mine. I cling
now to the hope you show me that these
symptoms may not be so grave or of
so instant sequel as their first menace.
Yesterday I thought I would go to Eng-
land, and see you alive ; it seemed prac-
ticable and right. But the same hour
showed inextricable engagements here
at home, and I could not see your man-
ly strength, which is so dear to me, and
I might easily make injurious demands
on a sick man. You are so brave you
must be brave for both of us, and suffer
me to express the pain I feel at these
first tidings. I shall come soon enough
to general considerations which will
weigh with you, and with me, I suppose,
to reduce this calamity within the sphere.
I, who value nothing so much as charac-
ter in literary works, have believed that
you would live to enjoy the slow, sure
homage of your contemporaries to the
valor and permanent merits of your
Muse ; and I have pleased myself how
deeply with a certain noble emulation
in which widely separated friends would
bear each other in constant regard, and
with months and years augment the
benefit each had to confer. This must
now be renounced, and the grand words I
hear and sometimes use must be verified,
and I must think of that which you re-
present, and not of the representative
beloved. Happy is it whilst the Blessed
Power keeps unbroken the harmony of
the inward and the outward, and yields
us the perfect expression of good in a
friend ! But if it will disunite the pow-
er and the form, the power is yet to be
infinitely trusted, and we must try, un-
willing, the harsh grandeurs^ of the spirit-
ual nature. Each of us mo^ readily
faces the issue alone than on the account
of his friend. We find something dis-
honest in learning to live without friends :
whilst death wears a sublime aspect to
each of us. God send you, my dear bro-
ther, the perfect mind of truth and heart
of love, however the event is to fall !
Thousands of hearts have owed to you
the finest mystic influences : I must and
will believe in happy reactions which
will render to you the most soothing
music at unawares.
If you have strength, write me, if only
your name. But I shall continue to
hope to see your face. And so I love
you and I thank you, dear Friend !
Yours, R. WALDO EMERSON.
XX. STERLING TO EMERSON.
HILLSIDE, VENTNOR, August 1st, 1844.
MY DEAR FRIEND, I am very ill
to-day, but, as I am likely to be worse
rather than better, I make the effort of
writing a few words to thank you for
your letter, and also for your care about
my papers.
You and I will never meet in this
world. Among my friends you are an
Unseen One, but not the less valued.
Heaven help you to realize all your in-
spirations. They will be a blessing to
many as well as yourself. My struggle,
I trust, is nigh over. At present it is a
painful one. But I fear nothing, and
hope much.
Your affectionate and grateful
JOHN STERLING.
In the last days of September Carlyle
wrote to tell Emerson of the death of
their friend ; how calm he had been,
and brave, and how to the very last he
worked alone, setting his house in or-
der and sending farewells to his friends,
whom he preferred not to see.
Carlyle's verdict on his friend's life, in
his Memoir, is that it was " a tragedy ;
high hopes, noble efforts ; under thick-
ening difficulties and impediments, ever
new nobleness of valiant effort ; and the
result death with conquests by no means
corresponding." But even while he is
The Decline of Legislatures.
35
writing this dismal summary, the beauty
and help that this short life had for
those who saw and felt it, and for those
who should later consider it, sweeps over
him, and, the human heart breaking
through the crust, he admits its claim, and
more, the call of Nature, and thus ends :
" The history of this long-continued
prayer and endeavour, lasting in various
figures for near forty years, may now and
for some time coming have something to
say to men !
" Nay, what of men, or of the world ?
Here, visible to myself for some while,
was a brilliant human presence, distin-
guishable, honourable, and lovable amid
the dim, common populations ; among
the million little beautiful, once more a
beautiful human soul, whom I, among
others, recognized and lovingly walked
with, while the years and hours were.
Sitting now by his tomb in thoughtful
mood, the new times bring a new duty
for me. ' Why write a Life of Ster-
ling ? ' I imagine I had a commission
higher than the world's, the dictate of
Nature herself to do what is now done.
Sic prosit"
Edward Waldo Emerson.
THE DECLINE OF LEGISLATURES.
THE Roman Senate was the proto-
type of all modern legislatures. It had
two great functions, auctoritas and con-
silium. The former was practically what
we call the " veto ; " that is, the Senate
could forbid any legislation not originat-
ing with itself, whether proposed by the
people in the comitia or by the magis-
trates. Nothing became- a law without
its sanction. The latter, consilium, was
nearly what we call " advice and con-
sent ; " that is, the Senate had to pass on
all proposals submitted to it by the exec-
utive officers, and approve or amend, as
the case might be. In considering the
proposals of the people, it decided whe-
ther they were wise and Roman ; but it
consulted with the magistrates concern-
ing every important action or enterprise
about to be undertaken. In all this it act-
ed under two powerful restraints, partly
like the theocracy in the early days of
New England, partly like our constitu-
tions to-day, namely, the mos majorum
and the auguries. It saw that every-
thing was done in the Roman or ancient
way, and that the unseen forces were
likely to favor it. 1 Now, how did this
system succeed ? On this point I cannot
do better than quote the testimony of
Mommsen :
" Nevertheless, if any revolution or
any usurpation appears justified before
the bar of history by exclusive ability to
govern, even its rigorous judgment must
acknowledge that this corporation duly
comprehended and worthily fulfilled its
great task. Called to power, not by the
empty accident of birth, but substantially
by the free choice of the nation ; con-
firmed every fifth year by the stern
moral judgment of the worthiest men ;
holding office for life, and so not depen-
dent on the expiration of its commission
or on the varying opinion of the people ;
having its ranks close and united even
after the equalization of its orders ; em-
bracing in it all the political intelligence
and practical statesmanship that the peo-
ple possessed ; absolute in dealing with
all financial questions and in the con-
trol of foreign policy ; having complete
power over the executive by virtue of
its brief duration and of the tribunitian
1 Willems' S4nat et R^publique Romaine,
pp. 34, 35.
36
The Decline of Legislatures.
intercession which was at the service of
the Senate after the termination of the
quarrels between the orders, the Ro-
man Senate was the noblest organ of the
nation, and in consistency and political
sagacity, in unanimity and patriotism, in
grasp of power and unwavering courage,
the foremost political corporation of all
times ; still even now an ' Assembly of
Kings,' which knew well how to combine
despotic energy with republican self-de-
votion. Never was a state represented
in its external relations more firmly and
worthily than Rome in its best days by
its Senate." 1
As I have said, the Senate was the pro-
totype of all modern legislatures ; but
only two, since the fall of the Roman
Empire, have at all resembled it, the
Venetian Grand Council and the British
Parliament. No others in the modern
world have attempted to discharge so
great a variety of duties, such as holding
large extents of conquered territory and
ruling great bodies of subject population,
or carrying on foreign wars. Its chief
distinction was that, as a rule, subjects
for consideration, on which it had to take
positive action, did not originate with it,
but were brought before it by the exec-
utive officers engaged in the active con-
duct of the government. So that it may
be called a consultative rather than a
legislative body. How this came about
and how it continued, it is not necessary
to discuss here. The general result was
that, through the whole course of Roman
history, the administrative officers re-
mained actually in charge of the govern-
ment, subject to the advice and control
of the legislature. The same system has
prevailed in the British Parliament ever
since it became a i sal power in the state.
Its proceedings are controlled and regu-
lated by the executive officers. They
submit measures to it, and ask its advice
and consent ; but if they cannot carry
them, the matter drops and they resign,
and others undertake the task. Practi-
1 History of Rome, vol. i. pp. 4JO-412.
cally, a private member cannot originate
a bill, or get it discussed, or procure its
passage, except with their consent. In-
deed, as a legislator he is always in a
certain sense an intruder. The function
of the two Houses is essentially, not the
drafting or proposing of laws, but seeing
that no law is passed which is not ex-
pedient and " constitutional ; " " consti-
tutional " being in the British sense what
the Romans meant by being in accord-
ance with the mos majorum and having
the approval of the auguries. The Brit-
ish ministry, in fact, legislates as well as
administers. Every bill is fathered by
the man who is engaged in the active
work of the department which it touches.
If it relate to the finances, it is framed
and introduced by the Chancellor of the
Exchequer ; if it relate to shipping, by
. the President of the Board of Trade ;
if to the army, by the Secretary of War,
and so on. Any private member who
should attempt to regulate these things
would be frowned down and silenced.
His business is to hear what the ministry
proposes, and to pass judgment on it.
Until the French Revolution there ex-
isted no real legislature in Europe except
that of England. After the sixteenth
century the Grand Council of Venice
had sunk into Insignificance. There was
in France, when the Revolution broke
out, hardly even a memory left of legisla-
tive or consulting bodies. Dumont tells
of his going to Paris in 1789, when the
country was busy trying to elect dele-
gates to the States General, and stopping
for breakfast at Montreuil - sur - Mer,
where he found that three days had been
wasted in confusion by the electors, be-
cause " they had never heard of such
things as a president, a secretary, or vot-
ing tickets." He and his friend, almost
by way of joke, drew up rules of pro-
cedure, for which the people were very
grateful and under which they acted. On
arriving in Paris, he found that the body
of the nation there saw nothing more in
the assembling of the States General
The Decline of Legislatures.
37
" than a means of diminishing taxes,"
and " the creditors of the state, so often
deprived of their dividends by a viola-
tion of public faith, considered the States
General as nothing more than a rampart
against a government bankruptcy." He
attended some meetings of the reform-
ers, which might be called caucuses, held
in private houses. In one at Brissot's
the subject under discussion was a con-
stitution or charter for the city of Paris.
A M. Palessit moved for a special ar-
ticle on " the right of representation,"
as " one of the most precious attributes
of liberty." Dumont and the Genevans
present thought of course he meant repre-
sentation in the legislature ; what he did
mean was the right of producing plays
at the theatre without the interference
of the censor. 1 In short, the idea of a
legislating assembly, one might say, had
perished from the European continent*
It was less familiar to the peoples of
modern Europe than it had been to the
ancients.
The reason why the English have
been able to preserve what is called the
" cabinet system " in their proceedings
that is, the dominance of the executive
officers in the deliberation of Parliament
is, I need hardly say, historical. Par-
liaments maybe said to have originated as
a check on the royal authority. In the
House of Commons government was re-
presented by the king. The ministry
was emphatically his ministry ; the op-
position was held together partly by fear
and partly by dislike of him. It never
reached the point of seeking to take the
administration of the government out of
his hands or out of those of his officers,
except in the rebellion of 1640. Its high-
est ambition was to be consulted about
what was going to be done, and to be al-
lowed to ask questions about it and to
vote the money for it. It never thought
of taking on itself the function of ad-
ministration. It confined itself to the
exercise of a veto. The ministry never
1 Recollections of Mirabeau, pp. 61-65.
parted with its power of initiation, and
it strengthened its position by what may
be called the solidarity of the cabinet ;
that is, the practice of treating each act
of any particular minister as the act of
the whole body, and standing or falling
by it as such. The occasions have been
rare, in English history, in which any
one member has been surrendered to the
dissatisfaction or reprobation of the op-
position. When Puritan and Cavalier
were succeeded by Whig and Tory, or
Whig and Tory by Conservative and Lib-
eral, the new order merely substituted
one executive for another in the House
of Commons, and did not create a new
kind of executive. No matter what the
relative strength of parties in the coun-
try might be, the dominant party ap-
peared in the House of Commons sim-
ply as administrative officers, seeking
and taking advice and approval from
the representative body.
Now, the value of the preservation of
the consultative rather than the legisla-
tive function by the House of Commons,
the auctoritas and consilium rather than
the initiative, has been brought out more
clearly than ever by the history of legis-
lative bodies on the Continent since the
revival of popular government in 1848,
and by the history of legislatures in this
country since the war. The English House
of Commons, one may say, has grown up
under the consultative system. No other
system has ever been seen or thought of.
Private members have learnt to sit and
listen, to have their opinions asked for
on certain proposals, and, if their advice
is not taken, to seek their remedy in
choosing other agents. They act on all
proposals submitted by the ministry, in
parties, not singly. The experience of
three centuries has taught each member
to be of the same mind, in every case,
as those with whom he ordinarily agrees.
When the House of Commons was taken
as a model on the Continent, especially
after 1848, what was set up was not
really the English Parliament, but a set
38
The Decline of Legislatures.
of councils for discussion, in which every
man had the right of initiative, or, at all
events, the right to say his say without
sharing with any one the responsibility
for what he said. It was the Witenage-
mote, or the Landesgemeinde, or the town
meeting, over again. The new govern-
ments all had ministries, after the Eng-
lish fashion, but no one in the legisla-
ture felt bound to approve, or felt bound
to join others in disapproving, of their
policy. In other words, the cabinet sys-
tem did not take root in the political
manners. In his Journals, during a visit
to Turin in 1850, Senior records a con-
versation with Cesare Balbo, a member
of the Chamber in the first Piedmontese
Parliament, in which Balbo said, after
an exciting financial debate : " We have
not yet acquired parliamentary discipline.
Most of the members are more anxious
about their own crotchets or their own
consistency than about the country. The
ministry has a large nominal majority,
but every member of it is ready to put
them in a minority for any whim of his
own." 1 This was probably true of every
legislative body on the Continent, and it
continues true to this day in Italy, Greece,
France, Austria, Germany, and the new
Australian democracies.
Parliamentary discipline has not gained
in strength. On the contrary, the ten-
dency to give new men a taste of par-
liamentary life, which is very strong par-
ticularly in France and Italy, has stimu-
lated the disposition to form " groups,"
or to act independently. A man who
is likely to serve for only one term is
unwilling to sink himself either in the
ministerial majority or in the opposition.
He wishes to make a reputation for him-
self, and this he cannot do by voting
silently under a chief. A reputation has
to be made by openly expressed criticism,
or by open hostility, or by the individ-
ual exercise of the initiative. To make
an impression on his constituents, he
has to have a programme of his own
1 Senior's Journals, vol. i. p. 323.
and to push it, to identify himself with
some cause which the men in power
either ignore or treat too coolly. As a
rule, the Continental legislatures, while
modeled on the British or cabinet sys-
tem, have really not copied its most im-
portant feature, the dominance of the
executive in the legislative body. In
Austria and Germany, where the king
or emperor is still a power, this is not
so apparent, but in France and Italy
and in Australia, where the Parliament
is well-nigh omnipotent, the result is in-
cessant changes of ministry, and a great
deal of legislation, intended not so much
to benefit the country as to gather up
and hold a majority.
In America, we have never tried the
cabinet system, partly because our legis-
latures were started before this system
became fairly established in England,
and partly because, in colonial times, the
executive was never in thoroughly friend-
ly relations with the legislative depart-
ment of any colony. Americans entered
on their national existence with the only
sort of legislature that was then known,
a council of equals, where one man had
as much right to originate legislation as
another, subject, of course, to the general
policy of the party to which he belonged.
The device with which we have striven
to meet the confusion thus created is the
formation of committees to examine and
report upon every project of law sub-
mitted by individual members. Every
legislature, including Congress, is now
divided into these committees. With
the executive it has no open or official
relations, for purposes of discussion. No
executive officer is entitled of right to
address, or advise, or consult it. He is
exposed to constant criticism, but he
cannot explain or answer. His presence,
even, in the legislative chambers is an
intrusion. He can communicate in writ-
ing any information which the legisla-
ture demands, but this is the limit of his
relations with it. The President and
every governor of a State have the right
The Decline of Legislatures.
39
to send what we call " messages " to the
legislature, directing its attention to cer-
tain matters and recommending certain
action, but it is very rare for these recom-
mendations to have much effect. The
messages are rhetorical performances,
intended to give the public an idea of
the capacity and opinions of the writers
rather than to furnish a foundation for
law-making.
There is nothing more striking in our
system than the perfunctoriness which
has overtaken both these documents and
the party platforms, and there can be no
better illustration of the effect of the ab-
sence of the executive from the legisla-
tive chambers. If there were a ministry,
or if there were members of a cabinet
sitting in the chambers and charged with
the initiation of legislation, they would
naturally be charged also with the duty of
carrying out the President's or the Gov
ernor's recommendations, and embody-
ing the party platform in laws. But
under the committee system nobody is
burdened with this duty, and after the
messages and platforms have been print-
ed they do not often receive any further
attention. Few can remember what a
party platform contains, a month after
its adoption, and it is very seldom that
any legislative notice is taken of it, ex-
cept by the opposition press, which oc-
casionally uses it to twit the party in
power with its inconsistency or negli-
gence. In fact, legislation, both in Con-
gress and in the state legislatures, may
be said to have become government by
committee. The individual member has
hardly more to do with it than is the
case in England. Yet this does not pre-
vent his making attempts to legislate.
He does not ask permission to introduce
bills, but he introduces them by thou-
sands every session. His right to legis-
late is recognized as good and valid, but
the rules which regulate the course of his
bill through the House make the right
of little more value than that of the
private member of the House of Com-
mons. His bill, as soon as it is preseni-
ed, passes into the custody of one of the
committees. He is not allowed to say a
word in its behalf, and he has no know-
ledge of what its fate will be. He is
literally cut off from debate no less by
the rules than by the Speaker's favor.
This functionary, by simply refusing to
see him, can condemn him to perpetual
silence, and has no hesitation in exercis-
ing his power to advance or retard such
business of the House as he approves or
dislikes.
It seems, at first sight, as if the pri-
vate member were in much the same
condition in America and in England.
In neither country is legislation within
his control. But there is this difference :
In England, the persons who take his
bill out of his hands, or refuse him per-
mission to introduce it, are themselves
engaged in the work of legislation. They
are responsible for the conduct of the
government. They profess to be supply-
ing all the legislation that is necessary.
They simply deny the private member any
participation in their work. In America,
the committee which takes his bill from
him and seals its fate is composed of his
own equals. They have no more to do
with the executive than he has. They
are no more charged with legislation on
any particular subject than he is. Their
main function is to examine and " re-
port," but whether they will ever report
is a matter entirely within their discre-
tion. They are not bound to substi-
tute anything for what they reject or
ignore. They have so much to pass
upon that their duty of initiation is re-
duced to a minimum. Moreover, when
they report favorably on any bill in their
custody, or originate one of their own,
they are not bound to allow full discus-
sion of it in the open House. All need-
ful discussion of it is supposed to have
taken place in their chamber. If any
one is allowed to say much about it in
the House, it is rather as a matter of
grace ; and unless he is an orator of re-
40
The Decline, of Legislatures.
putation, but few listen to him. Conse-
quently, there is in practice a wide dif-
ference between the control of legislation
in the British Parliament and the control
in our Congress. With us it is exercised
by an entirely different class of persons.
They are not accountable for the fate of
any bill. If they choose not to report
it, they are not bound to give their rea-
sons. The function of the British minis-
try is to provide the necessary legislation,
and as a rule the ministry is composed
of men well known to the public and of
more than usual experience. The func-
tion of the American committee, on the
other hand, is simply to sift or impede
the efforts of a large assembly, composed
of persons of equal authority, to pass
laws, with the execution of which, if
they were passed, they would have no-
thing to do. As everybody has a right
to introduce bills, without being in any
way responsible for their working, there
must be some power to examine, revise,
choose, or reject, and this need is sup-
plied by the committee system. 1
The great change in the position and
powers of the Speaker in Congress and
in all American legislatures has been due
to the same causes as the institution of
the committees. He has been changed
from his prototype, the judicial officer
who presides over debates in the House
of Commons, into something like the
European prime minister, so that he has
charge of the legislation of his party.
He appoints the various committees, and
can in this way make himself feared or
courted by ^members. By his power of
" recognitiok " he can consign any mem-
ber to obscurity. He can encourage or
hinder a committee in any species of legis-
lation. He can* check or promote extra-
vagance. He makes no pretension to im-
partiality : he professes simply to be as
impartial as a man can be who has to look
after the interests of his own party and
1 The working of this system and the actual
functions of the Speaker are well described in
Wilson's Congressional Government, and in Misa
see that its " policy " is carried out. In
fact, he differs but little from the "lead-
er" of the House of Commons, except that
he has nothing to do with the execution
of the laws after he has helped to make
them. He may have to hand them over
to a hostile Senate or to a hostile exec-
utive, after he has secured their passage
in his own assembly, and the country
does not hold him responsible for them.
No matter how badly they may work, the
blame is laid, not on him, but on " the
House " or on the party. He has no-
thing personal to fear from their failure,
however active he may have been in se-
curing their enactment. But the steady
acquiescence in his increased assumption
of power in every session of Congress
or of the legislatures is clearly an ad-
mission that modern democratic legisla-
tures are unfit for the work of legislation.
We attach importance to stronger and
more imperative leadership than has been
provided by any constitution.
There are two committees which may
be said to be charged with the work of
legislation, and these are the Committee
of Ways and Means and the Commit-
tee on Appropriations. But neither of
them supplies what may be called a" bud-
get ; " that is, a statement of necessary
expenditure and of probable revenue.
These calculations are made, it is true, in
the various administrative offices, but
the committees are not bound to take
notice of them. The Committee of Ways
and Means fixes the revenue, as a rule,
mainly with regard to the state of pub-
lic opinion touching the principal source
of revenue, the taxes on imports. If the
public is deemed to be at that moment
favorable to protection, these taxes are
put high ; if favorable to free trade, they
are put low. The relation to the public
outlay is not made the chief considera-
tion. In other words, " taxation for re-
venue only " is not an art practiced by
Follett's Speaker of the House of Representa-
tives.
The Decline of Legislatures.
41
either party. Taxation is avowedly prac-
ticed as the art of encouraging domestic
industry in some degree. The Commit-
tee on Appropriations has no relations
with the Ways and Means Committee.
It does not concern itself about income.
It adds to the necessary expenditure
of the government such further expen-
diture as is likely to be popular, as for
river and harbor improvements and for
pensions. In this way, neither commit-
tee is responsible for a deficit, for neither
is bound to make ends meet.
This absence of connection between
the levying and the spending authorities
would work speedy ruin in any Europe-
an government. The danger or incon-
venience of it here has been concealed
by the very rapid growth of the country
in wealth and population, and the result-
ing rapid increase of the revenue under
all circumstances. It is not too much to
say that the first serious deficiency of
revenue was experienced on the out-
break of the civil war. After the war,
there was no difficulty in meeting all
reasonable expenses until the yearly re-
curring and increasing surplus bred the
frame of mind about expenditure which
led to enormous appropriations for pen-
sions and domestic improvements. These
have at last brought about, and for the
first time in American history, a real
difficulty in devising sources of revenue.
At this writing the question under debate
is what taxes will be most popular in the
country, when it ought to be what taxes
will bring in most income. This has been
largely due to the appropriations for pur-
poses not absolutely necessary, but the
Committee of Ways and Means is com-
pelled to treat them as if they were le-
gitimate expenses. This separation be-
tween the power which lays taxes and
the power which spends them is proba-
bly the boldest of our experiments, and
one which has never before been tried.
Its inconveniences are likely to be felt
increasingly, as the habits bred by easy
circumstances become more fixed.
The tendency to lavish expenditure
has been stimulated, too, by the tempta-
tion of the protective system to make a
large revenue collected from duties on
imports seem necessary. All govern-
ments are prone to make taxation serve
some other purpose than to raise reve-
nue ; that is, to foster or maintain some
sort of polity. It was used for ages to
promote inequality ; now it is frequently
used to promote certain special interests.
In England, the import duties on corn
were meant to benefit the landed inter-
est and foster large estates. In Ameri-
ca, the duties on imports are meant to
benefit native manufactures indirectly ;
but by showing that they are also essen-
tial to the government, a great deal of
the opposition to them as a benefit to
the manufacturers is disarmed. In no
way can the needs of the government be
made so conspicuous as hy keeping the
treasury empty. Since protection for
industry was, after the war, incorporated
in the fiscal system of the government,
therefore, it has begotten extravagance
almost as an inevitable accompaniment.
The less money there is on hand, the
higher does it seem that duties ought to
be ; and the way to keep little on hand
is to spend freely.
The difficulty of getting rid of the
protective system, in any modern coun-
try, is to be found in part in the growth of
democracy. To the natural man, protec-
tion for his products against competition is
one of the primary duties of government.
Every citizen or mechanic would fain
keep the neighboring market to himself,
if he could. The shoemaker wishes to
make all the shoes of his village, the
carpenter to do all the carpentering.
In fact, protection is the economical
creed which the " uninstructed political
economist" always lays hold of first.
Its benefits seem clearest, and its opera-
tion in his own interest is most visible
and direct. This undoubtedly goes far to
account for, the failure of the free-trade
theory to make more way in the world
42
The Decline of Legislatures.
since the days of its early apostles. The
arguments by which it is supported are
a little too abstract and complex for the
popular mind. The consequence is that
a distinct revival of protectionism has
accompanied the spread of popular gov-
ernment both in Europe and Australia,
and in this country. The use of the gov-
ernment to keep the market for his pro-
ducts, and the theory that the market is
a privilege for the seller which he ought
not to be expected to share with an alien,
will long meet with ready acceptance
from the workingman ; so that the pro-
tective system will probably pass away
only under the influence, whether acci-
dental or intentional, of a signal prosper-
ity, which is clearly not due to the
system. Whatever be its industrial or
economical merits or demerits, its effect
politically, in stimulating expenditure in
the United States, has been plain ; and
as long as taxpayers respond so readily
to pecuniary demands on them as they
have always hitherto done, close calcula-
tion of outgoings and incomings will not
be easy to bring about. At present, the
" elasticity " of our revenue, owing to
the rapid increase of our population and
the magnitude of our undeveloped re-
sources, is one of the great wonders of
European financiers, and renders the edu-
cation of financial experts difficult. Any
source of taxation which even the most
inexperienced of our economists reaches
is apt to pour forth results so abundant-
ly as to make the caution, the anxiety,
and the nice adjustments on which the
financial system of the Old World is
based appear unnecessary or even ridicu-
lous.
But the most serious defect in the com-
mittee system, and the one that is hardest
to remedy, is the stopper it puts on de-
bate. The objection is often made, and
with a show of reason, to the cabinet
system, and its practice of deciding things
only after open discussion, that it un-
duly stimulates mere talk, and postpones
actual business for the purpose of allow-
ing a large number of persons to state
arguments which are found not to be
worth listening to and which have no
real influence on the results. This is
true, in particular, of all countries in
which, as on the Continent, an attempt
has been made to govern assemblies with-
out parliamentary discipline and without
practice in acting by parties rather than
singly or in groups. Various forms of
" closure " have been invented in order
to check this habit. It may be found in
an extreme degree in our own Senate,
which has no closure, and in which ir-
relevant speeches are inflicted by the
hour, and even by the day, on unwilling
listeners. But our demand on legisla-
tive bodies for " business " has carried
us to the other extreme, which may be
seen in the House of Representatives.
There is nothing, after all, more impor-
tant to the modern world than that the
intelligence and character of the nation
should find their way into the legisla-
tures ; and for this purpose the legisla-
tures should be made something more
than scenes of obscurity, hard work, and
small pay. The English House of Com-
mons owed its attractiveness for two cen-
turies, in spite of the non-payment of
members, to the fact that it was " the
pleasantest club in Europe." It was
also a place in which any member, how-
ever humble his beginnings, had a chance
to make fame as an orator. In recent
days, legislatures in all the democratic
countries have been made repulsive to
men of mark by the pains taken " to get
business done " and to keep down the
flood of speech. Everybody who enters
a legislature now for the first time, espe-
cially if he is a man of talent and char-
acter, is bitterly disappointed by find-
ing that the rules take from him nearly
every opportunity of distinction, and, in
addition, condemn him to a great deal
of obscure drudgery. It is only by the
rarest chance that he finds an opening
to speak, and his work on the commit-
tees never shows itself to the public. It
The Decline of Legislatures.
43
consists largely in passing on the mer-
its of the thousands of schemes concoct-
ed by inexperienced or ignorant men,
and has really some resemblance to a
college professor's reading of " themes."
In fact, the committee room may be
called the grave of honorable ambition.
We find, accordingly, that only few men
of real capacity, who have once gone to
the legislature or to Congress, are will-
ing to return for a second term, simply
because they find the work disagreeable
and the reward inadequate ; for it is one
of the commonplaces of politics that, in
every country, the number of able men
who will serve the public without either
pay or distinction is very small. Even
the most patriotic must have one or the
other ; and to set up legislatures, as all
the democratic countries have done, in
which no one can look for either, is an
experiment fraught with danger. If I
am not greatly mistaken, the natural re-
sult is beginning to show itself. There
is not a country in the world, living
under parliamentary government, which
has not begun to complain of the decline
in the quality of its legislators. More and
more, it is said, the work of governments
is falling into the hands of men to whom
even small pay is important, and who
are suspected of adding to their income
by corruption. The withdrawal of the
more intelligent class from legislative du-
ties is more and more lamented, and the
complaint is somewhat justified by the
mass of crude, hasty, incoherent, and un-
necessary laws which are poured on the
world at every session. It is increasingly
difficult to-day to get a man of serious
knowledge on any subject to go to Con-
gress, if he have other pursuits and other
sources of income. To get him to go to
the state legislature, in any of the pop-
ulous and busy States, is well-nigh impos-
sible. If he has tried the experiment
once, and is unwilling to repeat it, and
you ask him why, he will answer that the
secret committee work was repulsive ;
that the silence and the inability to ac-
complish anything, imposed on him by
the rules, were disheartening ; and that
the difficulty of communicating with his
constituents, or with the nation at large,
through the spoken and reported word,
deprived him of all prospects of being
rewarded by celebrity.
It is into the vacancies thus left that
the boss steps with full hands. He sum-
mons from every quarter needy young
men, and helps them to get into places
where they will be able to add to their
pay by some sort of corruption, however
disguised, perhaps rarely direct bri-
bery, but too often blackmail or a share in
jobs ; to whom it is not necessary that the
legislature should be an agreeable place,
so long as it promises a livelihood. This
system is already working actively in
some States ; it is spreading to others,
and is most perceptible in the great cen-
tres of affairs. It is an abuse, too, which
in a measure creates what it feeds upon.
The more legislatures are filled with bad
characters, the less inducement there is
for men of a superior order to enter
them ; for it is true of every sort of pub-
lic service, from the army up to the cabi-
net, that men are influenced as to enter-
ing it by the kind of company they will
have to keep. The statesman will not
associate with the boy, if he can help it,
especially in a work in which conference
and persuasion play a large part.
If it be true that the character and
competency of legislators are declining,
the evil is rendered all the more serious
by the fact that the general wealth has
increased enormously within the present
century. Down to the French Revolu-
tion, and we might almost say down to
1848, the western world, speaking broad-
ly, was ruled by the landholding or rich
class. Its wealth consisted mainly of
land, and the owners of the land carried
on the government. In commercial com-
munities, like Genoa or Venice, or the
Hanse Towns, the governing class was
made up of merchants, but it was still
the rich class. Within fifty years a great
44
The Decline of Legislatures.
change has occurred. The improvement
in communication has brought all the
land of the world into the great mar-
kets, and as a result the landowners have
ceased to be the wealthy, and the demo-
cratic movement has taken the govern-
ment away from them. From the hands
of the wealthy, the power, as a rule, has
passed or is passing into the hands of
men to whom the salary of a legislator
is an object of some consequence, and
who are more careful to keep in touch
with their constituents than to afford ex-
amples of scientific government, even if
they were capable of it. Probably no
greater revolution has taken place any-
where, during the past century, than this
change in the governing class. It can-
not be said, in the light of history, that
the new men are giving communities
worse government than they used to have,
but government in their hands is not
progressing in the same ratio as the other
arts of civilization, while the complexity
of the interests to be dealt with is stead-
ily increasing. Science and literature are
making, and have made, much more con-
spicuous advances than the management
of common affairs. Less attention is
given to experience than formerly, while
the expectation of some new idea, in
which the peculiarities of human nature
will have much slighter play, is becom-
ing deeper and more widespread.
No effect of this passage of legislative
work into less instructed hands is more
curious than the great stimulus it has
given to legislation itself. Legislators
now, apparently, would fain have the field
of legislation as wide as it was in the
Middle Ages. The schemes for the regu-
lation of life by law, which are daily
submitted to the committees by aspiring
reformers, are innumerable. One legis-
lator in Kansas was seeking all last win-
ter to procure the enactment of the Ten
Commandments. In Nebraska, another
has sought to legislate against the wear-
ing of corsets by women. Constant ef-
forts are made to limit the prices of
things, to impose fresh duties on com-
mon carriers, to restrain the growth of
wealth, to promote patriotic feeling by
greater use of symbols, or in some man-
ner to improve public morals by artifi-
cial restraints. There is no legislature
in America which does not contain mem-
bers anxious to right some kind of wrong,
or afford some sort of aid to human char-
acter, by a bill. Sometimes the bill is in-
troduced to oblige a constituent, in full
confidence that it will never leave the
committee room ; at others, to rectify
some abuse or misconduct which hap-
pens to have come under the legislator's
eye. Sometimes, again, the greater ac-
tivity of one member drives into legisla-
tion another who had previously looked
forward to a silent session. " The
laurels of Miltiades will not let him
sleep." Then it has to be borne in mind
that, under the committee system, which
has been faithfully copied from Congress
in all the legislatures, the only way in
which a member can make his constit-
uents aware that he is trying to earn
his salary is by introducing bills. It
does not much matter that they are not
finished pieces of legislation, or that
there is but little chance of their passage.
Their main object is to convince the dis-
trict that its representative is awake and
active, and has an eye to its interests.
The practice of " log-rolling," too, has
become a fixed feature in the procedure
of nearly all the legislatures ; that is, of
making one member's support of another
member's bill conditional on his receiv-
ing the other member's support for his
own. In the attempted revolt against the
boss, during the recent senatorial elec-
tion in New York, a good many mem-
bers who avowed their sense of Platt's
unfitness for the Senate acknowledged
that they could not vote against him
openly, because this would cause the de-
feat of local measures in which they
were interested. This recalls the fact
that many even of the best men go to the
legislature for one or two terms, not so
The Decline of Legislatures.
45
much to serve the public as to secure the
passage of bills in which they, or the vo-
ters of their district, have a special con-
cern. Their anxiety about these makes
their subserviency to the majority com-
pletg, on larger questions, however it is
controlled. You vote for an obviously
unfit man for Senator, for instance, be-
cause you cannot risk the success of a
bill for putting up a building, or erect-
ing a bridge, or opening a new street,
in your own town. You must give and
take. These men are reinforced by a
large number by whom the service is ren-
dered for simple livelihood. The spoils
doctrine that public office is a prize, or
a " plum," rather than a public trust
has effected a considerable lodgment in
legislation. Not all receive their places
as the Massachusetts farmer received his
membership in the legislature, a few
years ago, because he had lost some cows
by lightning, but a formidable number
young lawyers, farmers carrying heavy
mortgages, men without regular occupa-
tion and temporarily out of a job find
service in the legislature, even for one
term, an attractive mode of tiding over
the winter.
The mass of legislation or attempts at
legislation due to this state of affairs is
something startling. I have been unable
to obtain records of the acts and resolu-
tions of all the States for the same year.
I am obliged to take those of Arkansas
for the year 1893, four other States for
1894, ten for 1896, and the rest for 1895.
But I have taken only one year for each
State. The total of such acts and re-
solutions is 15,730, and this is for a
population of 70,000,000. In addition,
Congress in 1895-96 passed 457 acts
and resolutions. But the amount of work
turned out is really not very surprising,
when we consider the number of the legis-
lators. There are no less than 447 nation-
al legislators and 6578 state legislators,
in all 7025, exclusive of county, city,
and all other local authorities capable
of passing rules or ordinances. At this
ratio of legislators to population, 4000 at
least would be engaged on the laws of
Great Britain, without any provision for
India and the colonies, 3800 on those
of France, about 5000 on those of Ger-
many, and 3000 on those of Italy. It
will be easily seen what a draft this is on
the small amount of legislative capacity
which every community contains. No-
thing like it has ever been seen in the
history of the world. There is no coun-
try which has yet shown itself capable of
producing more than one small first-class
legislative assembly. We undertake to
keep going forty-five for the States alone,
besides those for Territories. All these
assemblies, too, have to do with interests
of the highest order. As a general rule,
in all governments the chief legislative
body is entrusted with the highest func-
tions. Its jurisdiction covers the weight-
iest interests of the people who live un-
der it. The protection of life and pro-
perty, the administration of civil and
criminal justice, and the imposition of
the taxes most severely felt are among
its duties. All minor bodies exist as its
subordinates or agents, and exercise only
such powers as it is pleased to delegate
to them. This brings to the superior as-
sembly, as a matter of course, the lead-
ing men of the country, and by far the
larger share of popular attention. In
the formation of our federal Constitu-
tion, this division, based on relative im-
portance to the community, was not pos-
sible. The States surrendered as little
as they could. The federal government
took what it could get, and only what
seemed absolutely necessary to the cre-
ation of a nation. The consequence is
that, though Congress appears to be the
superior body, it is not really so. It is
more conspicuous, and, if I may use the
word, more picturesque, but it does not
deal with a larger number of serious pub-
lic interests. The States have reserved
to themselves the things which most con-
cern a man's comfort and security as a
citizen. The protection of his property,
46
The Decline of Legislatures.
the administration of civil and criminal
justice, the interpretation of contracts
and walls, and the creation and regulation
of municipalities are all within their ju-
risdiction. Most of the inhabitants pass
their lives without once coining into con-
tact with federal authority. As a result,
an election to Congress is only seeming
political promotion. It gives the candi-
date more dignity and importance, but
he really has less to do with the every-
day happiness of his fellow citizens than
the state legislator. If he were deprived
of the power of raising and lowering the
duties on foreign imports and of bick-
ering with foreign powers, his influence
on the daily life of Americans would be
comparatively small. When he goes to
Washington, he finds himself in a larger
and more splendid sphere, but charged
with less of important governmental
work. The grave political functions of
the country are discharged in the state
legislatures, but as a rule by inferior men.
In so far as Congress makes a draft on
the legislative capacity of the nation, it
makes it at the expense of the local gov-
ernments.
For this anomaly it would be difficult
to suggest a remedy. The division of
powers between the Confederation and
the States, though not a logical one, was
probably the only possible one at the
time it was made. The main work of
government was left to the States, but by
its conspicuousness the field at Washing-
ton was made more attractive to men of
talent and energy in politics ; so that it
may be said that we give an inordinate
share of OUT parliamentary ability to af-
fairs which concern us in only a minor
degree. This, however, can hardly be
considered as the result of a democrat-
ic tendency. The federal arrangement
has really nothing to do with democra-
cy. It was made as the only practicable
mode of bringing several communities
into peaceful relations, and enabling them
to face the world as a nation, though it
might as readily have beerix the work of
aristocracies as of democracies ; but in
so far as it has in any degree lowered
the character of legislative bodies, demo-
cracy has been made and will be made
to bear the blame.
This opinion has been strengthened
by the discredit which has overtaken two
very prominent features of the federal
arrangement, the election of the Pre-
sident by the electoral college, and the
election of Senators by the state legisla-
tures. The fact is that the complete disuse
of their electoral functions within forty
years after the adoption of the Constitu-
tion was one of the most striking illus-
trations that history affords of the fu-
tility of political prophecy. Here is the
judgment on this feature of their work
by the framers of the Constitution, as
set forth in The Federalist :
" As the select assemblies for choosing
the President, as well^as the state legis-
latures who appoint the Senators, will in
general be composed of the most en-
lightened and respectable citizens, there
is reason to presume that their attention
and their votes will be directed to those
men only who have become the most dis-
tinguished by their abilities and virtue,
and in whom the people perceive just
grounds for confidence. The Constitu-
tion manifests very particular attention
to this object. By excluding men under
thirty-five from the first office, and those
under thirty from the second, it confines
the electors to men of whom the people
have had time to form a judgment, and
with respect to whom they will not be
liable to be deceived by those brilliant
appearances of genius and patriotism
which, like transient meteors, sometimes
mislead as well as dazzle. If the obser-
vation be well founded, that wise kings
will always be served by able ministers,
it is fair to argue that as an assembly
of select electors possess, in a greater de-
gree than kings, the means of extensive
and accurate information relative to men
and characters, so will their appoint-
ments bear at least equal marks of dis-
The, Decline of Legislatures.
47
cretion and discernment. The inference
is that President and Senators so chosen
will always be of the number of those
who best understand our national inter-
ests, whether considered in relation to
the several States or to foreign nations,
who are best able to promote those in-
terests, and whose reputation for integri-
ty inspires and merits confidence. With
such men the power of making treaties
may be safely lodged." 1
And here is the opinion of the earli-
est and most philosophic of our foreign
observers, M. de Tocqueville :
" When you enter the House of Re-
presentatives at Washington, you are
struck with the vulgar aspect of this
great assembly. The eye looks often in
vain for a celebrated man. Nearly all
its members are obscure personages,
whose names suggest nothing to the mind.
They are for the most part village law-
yers, dealers, or even men belonging
to the lowest classes. In a country in
which education is almost universal, it
is said there are representatives of the
people who cannot always write cor-
rectly. Two steps away opens the hall
of the Senate, whose narrow area in-
closes a large part of the celebrities of
America. One hardly sees there a sin-
gle man who does not recall the idea of
recent fame. They are eloquent advo-
cates, or distinguished generals, or able
magistrates, or well-known statesmen.
Every word uttered in this great assem-
bly would do honor to the greatest par-
liamentary debates in Europe.
" Whence comes this strange con-
trast ? Why does the elite of the na-
tion find itself in one of these halls
more than in the other ? Why does the
first assembly unite so many vulgar ele-
ments, while the second seems to have
a monopoly of talents and intelligence ?
Both emanate from the people and both
are the product of universal suffrage,
and no voice, until now, has been raised
in the United States to say that the
1 The Federalist, No. LXIII.
Senate was the enemy of popular inter-
ests. Whence comes, then, this enor-
mous difference ? I see only one fact
which explains it: the election which
produces the House of Representatives
is direct ; that which produces the Sen-
ate is submitted to two degrees. The
whole of the citizens elect the legisla-
ture of each State, "and the federal Con-
stitution, transforming these legislatures
in their turn into electoral bodies, draws
from them the members of the Senate.
The Senators, then, express, although in-
directly, the result of the popular vote ;
for the legislature, which names the Sen-
ators, is not an aristocratic or privileged
body, which derives its electoral rights
from itself ; it depends eventually on the
whole of the citizens. It is, in general,
elected by them every year, and they
can always govern its decisions by elect-
ing new members. But the popular will
has only to pass through this chosen as-
sembly to shape itself in some sort, and
issue from it in a nobler and finer form.
The men thus elected represent, then,
always exactly the majority of the na-
tion which governs ; but they represent
only the more elevated ideas which cir-
culate among them, the generous in-
stincts which animate them, and not the
small passions which often agitate them
and the vices which disgrace them. It
is easy to foresee a time when the Amer-
ican Republic will be forced to multiply
the two degrees in their electoral sys-
tem, on pain of wrecking themselves
miserably on the shores of democracy.
I do not hesitate to avow it. I see in
the double electoral degree the only
means of bringing political liberty with-
in the reach of all classes of the people.
Those who wish to make of it the ex-
clusive weapon of a party, and those
who fear it, seem to me to fall into the
same error." 2
It is more than half a century since
the electoral college, thus vaunted by its
inventors, exerted any influence in the
a De la Democratic en Ame'rique, t. ii. p. 53.
48
The Decline of Legislatures.
choice of the President. An attempt on
the part of one of its members to use
his own judgment in the matter would
be treated as an act of the basest trea-
chery. It has become a mere voting ma-
chine in the hands of the party. The
office of " elector " has become an emp-
ty honor, accorded to such respectable
members of the party as are unfit for,
or do not desire, any more serious place.
The candidates for the presidency are
now chosen by a far larger body, which
was never dreamed of by the makers
of the Constitution, rarely bestows any
thought on fitness as compared with
popularity, and sits in the presence of
an immense crowd which, though it does
not actually take part in its proceedings,
seeks to influence its decisions by every
species of noise and interruption. In
fact, all show of deliberation has been
abandoned by it. Its action is settled
beforehand by a small body of men sit-
ting in a private room. The choice of
the delegates is prescribed, and may be
finally made under the influence of a se-
cretly conducted intrigue, of a " deal,"
or of a wild outburst of enthusiasm
known as a " stampede." A more thor-
ough departure from the original idea
of the electoral college could hardly be
imagined than the modern nominating
convention. It exemplifies again the un-
fitness of a large body of equals, with-
out discipline or leadership, for any de-
liberative duty. As little as possible of
the work of the convention is left to the
convention itself. When the proceedings
begin in the general assembly, each de-
legate, as a rule, knows what he is to do.
When the members break away from this
inner control, under a sudden impulse,
as at Chicago in 1896, they are quite
likely to nominate a completely unknown
man like Bryan through admiration for
something like his " cross of gold " me-
taphor, which throws no light whatever
on his fitness for the office. The last
two conventions illustrated strikingly
the two dangers of these enormous as-
semblies. The one at Chicago nominat-
ed a man of whom the mass of the nation
had never heard, and the other simply
registered a decision which had been
carefully prepared by politicians a year
or two beforehand. In neither case was
there anything which could be called de-
liberation.
Much the same phenomena are to be
witnessed in the case of the election of
Senators by state legislatures. The ma-
chinery on which Tocqueville relied so
confidently, the use of which he expect-
ed to see spread, has completely broken
down. The legislators have not continued
to be the kind of men he describes, and
their choice is not governed by the mo-
tives he looked for. There is no longer
such a thing as deliberation by the legis-
latures over the selection of the Senators.
The candidate is selected by others, who
do not sit in the legislature at all, and
they supply the considerations which are
to procure him his election. He is given
the place either on account of his past
electioneering services to the party, or on
account of the largeness of his contribu-
tions to its funds. The part he will play
in the Senate rarely receives any atten-
tion. The anticipations of the framers of
the Constitution, as set forth in the pas-
sage from The Federalist which I have
quoted, have been in no way fulfilled.
The members of the legislature, as a gen-
eral rule, when acting as an electoral col-
lege, are very different from those whom
the fathers of the republic looked for.
In fact, the break-down of their system
is widespread, and appears to have ex-
erted such a deteriorating influence on
the character of the Senate that we are
witnessing the beginnings of an agita-
tion for the election of Senators by the
popular vote. Yet it is plain to be seen
that no change whatever in the quality
of the candidates can be expected from
this as long as our nominating system
remains what it is. The same persons
who now prescribe to the legislature
whom to elect would then prescribe to
The Decline of Legislatures.
49
the party whom to elect, and their orders
would be only occasionally disobeyed by
means of a popular " rising," when the
candidate's unfitness became more than
usually conspicuous.
II.
Why thd founders and Tocqueville
were mistaken about the double election
as a check is easily explained. The
founders knew little or nothing about
democracy except what they got from
Greek and Roman history ; Tocqueville
saw it at work only before the Eng-
lish traditions had lost their force. De-
mocracy really means a profound belief
in the wisdom as well as the power of
the majority, not on certain occasions,
but at whatever time it is consulted.
All through American history this idea
has had to struggle for assertion with
the inherited political habits of the An-
glo-Saxon race, which made certain
things " English " or " American " just
as to the Romans certain things were
" Roman," for no reason that could be
easily stated except that they were prac-
tices or beliefs of long standing. In
England these habits have always com-
posed what is called "the British Consti-
tution," and in America they have made
certain rights seem immemorial or in-
alienable, such as the right to a speedy
trial by jury, the right to compensation
for property taken for public use, the
right to the decision of all matters in
controversy by a court. This vague and
ill-defined creed existed before any con-
stitution, and had to be embodied in
every constitution. The nearest approach
to a name for it, in both countries, is the
" common law," or customs of the race,
of which, however, since it formed or-
ganized civilized societies, the courts of
justice have always been the fountains
or exponents. "We have had to ask the
judges in any given case what the " com-
mon law " is, there being no written
statement of it. It was consequently a
comparatively easy matter, in America,
VOL. LXXX. NO. 477. 4
to get all questions in any way affecting
the life, liberty, or property of individuals
put into a fundamental law, to be inter-
preted by the courts. Against this no-
tion of the fitness of things, democracy,
or the wisdom of the majority, has beaten
its head in vain. That it should be
hindered or delayed in carrying out its
will by a written instrument, expounded
and applied by judges, has, therefore, al-
ways seemed natural.
In all the countries of Continental Eu-
rope, at the beginning of this century, it
would have appeared a scandal or an ano-
maly that everybody should be liable to
be called into court, no matter what of-
fice he held, on the plaint of a private
man. With us the thing has always
been a simple and inherent part of our
system. But in the matter of appoint-
ment to office, which could have no effect
upon or relation to private rights, pure
democracy has never shown any dispo-
sition to be checked or gainsaid. It has
never shown any inclination to treat pub-
lic officers, from kings down, as other
than its servants or the agents of its
will. It revolted very early against
Burke's definition of its representatives,
as statesmen set to exercise their best
judgment in watching over the people's
interests. The democratic theory of the
representative has always been that he
is a delegate sent to vote, not for what
he thinks best, but for what his constit-
uents think best, even if it controverts
his own opinion. The opposition to this
view has been both feeble and incon-
stant ever since the early years of the cen-
tury. The " delegate " theory has been
gaining ground in England, and in
America has almost completely succeed-
ed in asserting its sway, so that we have
seen many cases recently in which mem-
bers of Congress have openly declared
their dissent from the measures for which
they voted in obedience to their constit-
uents.
It was this determination not to be
checked in the selection of officers, but to
50
The Decline of Legislatures.
make the people's will act directly on all
nominations, which led to the early re-
pudiation of the electoral college. That
college was the device of those who
doubted the wisdom and knowledge of
the majority. But the majority was de-
termined that in no matter within its
jurisdiction should its wisdom and know-
ledge be questioned. It refused to ad-
mit that if it was competent to choose
electors and members of Congress, it was
not competent to choose the President.
It accordingly set the electoral college
ruthlessly aside at a very early period
in the history of the republic. Tocque-
ville's idea that, in recognition of its own
weakness and incompetence, it would
spread the system of committing the ap-
pointing power to small select bodies of
its own people, shows how far he was
from comprehending the new force which
had come into the world, and which he
was endeavoring to analyze through ob-
servation of its working in American in-
stitutions.
It may seem at first sight as if this
explanation does not apply to the fail-
ures of the legislatures to act upon their
own judgment in the election of Sena-
tors. But the election of Senators has
run exactly the same course as the nom-
ination of Presidents ; the choice has been
taken out of the hands of the legislatures
by the political party, and in each polit-
ical party the people are represented by
its managers, or " the machine," as it is
called. They insist on nominating, or,
if in a majority, on electing the Sena-
tors, just as they insist on nominating,
or, if in a majority, on electing the Presi-
dent. Nearly every legislator is elected
now with a view to the subsequent elec-
tion of the Senators whenever there is a
vacancy. His choice is settled for him
beforehand. The casting of his vote is a
mere formality, like the vote of the presi-
dential electors. The man he selects for
the place is the man already selected by
the party. With this man's goodness
or badness, fitness or unfitness, he does
not consider that he has anything to do.
'Nothing can less resemble the legisla-
ture which filled the imagination of the
framers of the Constitution than a legis-
lature of our time assembled in joint
convention to elect a Senator. It has
hardly one of the characteristics which
the writers of The Federalist ascribed
to their ideal ; it is little affected by any
of the considerations which these gentle-
men supposed would be predominant with
it. This has already led to the begin-
nings of an agitation for the direct elec-
tion of Senators by the people ; but such
election, as I have tried to show, would
really, as long as our present system of
nomination continues, have very little or
no effect on the situation. The result of
their election by the people would be in
no respect different from the result of
their present election by the legislature,
except in the omission of the legislative
formality. They would still be designat-
ed by the party managers, and the choice
of the party managers would be set aside
by the public only on rare occasions.
Any change, to be effective, must be a
change in the mode of nomination. All
attempts to limit or control the direct
choice of the people, such as the use of
the lot or of election by several degrees,
as in Venice, must fail, and all machin-
ery created for the purpose will probably
pass away by evasion, if not by legisla-
tion. The difficulties of constitutional
amendment are so great that it will be
long before any legal change is made in
the mode of electing Senators. It is not
unsafe to assume that if any change be
made in the mode of nomination, one of
its first uses will be the practical impo-
sition on all legislatures of the duty of
electing to the Senate persons already
designated by the voters at the polls. It
must not be forgotten that democracy
has everywhere only recently begun to
rule, and that it is reveling in the enjoy-
ment of the power which has now first
come into its hands, and which it most
envied kings and emperors through long
The Decline of Legislatures.
51
ages, the power, that is, of appointing
to high offices. It is this novelty more
than aught else which fills all democratic
lands with a rage for place, and makes
the masses resent any attempt to inter-
fere with their freedom of choice. The
pleasure of seeing every place accessible
to any sort of man is one which will
decline but slowly, and will not be ex-
hausted completely without some long
experience of its disastrous effects ; so
that we can hardly expect any very sud-
den change.
As regards the state legislators them-
selves, it is well to remember that all
political prophets require nearly as much
time as the Lyell school of geologists.
It is difficult enough to foresee what
change will come about, but it is still
more difficult to foretell how soon it will
come about. No writer on politics should
forget that it took five hundred years
for Rome to fall, and fully a thousand
years to educe modern Europe from the
mediaeval chaos. That the present le-
gislative system of democracy will not
last long there are abundant signs, but
in what way it will be got rid of, or
what will take its place, or how soon
democratic communities will utterly tire
of it, he would be a very rash speculator
who would venture to say confidently.
The most any one can do is to point out
the tendencies which are likely to have
most force, and to which the public seems
to turn most hopefully.
At present, as far as one can see, the
democratic world is filled with distrust
and dislike of its parliaments, and sub-
mits to them only under the pressure of
stern necessity. The alternative appears
to be a dictatorship, but probably the
world will not see another dictator chosen
for centuries, if ever. Democracies do
not admit that this is an alternative, nor
do they admit that legislatures, such as
we see them, are the last thing they have
to try. They seem to be getting tired
of the representative system. In no
country is it receiving the praises it re-
ceived forty years ago. There are signs
of a strong disposition, which the Swiss
have done much to stimulate, to try the
" referendum " more frequently, on a
larger scale, as a mode of enacting laws.
One of the faults most commonly found
in the legislatures, as I have already
said, is the fault of doing too much. I
do not think I exaggerate in saying that
all the busier States in America, in which
most capital is concentrated and most
industry carried on, witness every meet-
ing of the state legislature with anxiety
and alarm. I have never heard such a
meeting wished for or called for by a se-
rious man outside the political class. It
creates undisguised fear of some sort of
interference with industry, some sort of
legislation for the benefit of one class, or
the trial of some hazardous experiment
in judicial or administrative procedure,
or in public education or taxation. There
is no legislature to-day which is controlled
by scientific methods, or by the opinion
of experts in jurisprudence or political
economy. Measures devised by such
men are apt to be passed with exceed-
ing difficulty, while the law is rendered
more and more uncertain by the enor-
mous number of acts passed on all sorts
of subjects.
Nearly every State has taken a step to-
wards meeting this danger by confining
the meeting of its legislature to every
second year. It has said, in other words,
that it must have less legislation. In
no case that I have heard of has the op-
position to this change come from any
class except the one that is engaged in
the working of political machinery ; that
is, in the nomination or election of can-
didates and the filling of places. The
rest of the community, as a rule, hails it
with delight. People are beginning to
ask themselves why legislatures should
meet even every second year ; why once
in five years would not be enough. An
examination of any state statute-book
discloses the fact that necessary legisla-
tion is a rare thing ; that the communi-
52
The Decline of Legislatures.
ties in our day seldom need a new law ;
and that most laws are passed without
due consideration, and before the need
of them has been made known either by
popular agitation or by the demand of
experts. It would not be an exaggera-
tion to say that nine tenths of our mod-
ern state legislation will do no good, and
that at least one tenth of it will do posi-
tive harm. If half the stories told about
state legislatures be true, a very large
proportion of the members meet, not with
plans for the public good, but with plans
either for the promotion of their person-
al interests or for procuring money for
party uses or places for party agents.
The collection of such a body of men,
not engaged in serious business, in the
state capital is not to be judged simply
by the bills they introduce or get passed.
We have also to consider the immense
opportunities for planning and scheming
which the meetings offer to political job-
bers and adventurers ; and the effect, on
such among them as still retain their po-
litical virtue, of daily contact with men
who are there simply for illicit purposes,
and with the swarm who live by lobby-
ing and get together every winter to
trade in legislative votes. If I said, for
instance, that the legislature at Albany
is a school of vice, a fountain of polit-
ical debauchery, and that few of the
younger men come back from it without
having learned to mock at political puri-
ty and public spirit, I should seem to be
using unduly strong language, and yet I
could fill nearly a volume with illustra-
tions in support of it. The temptation
to use their great power for the extor-
tion of money from rich men and rich
corporations, to which the legislatures
in the richer and more prosperous North-
ern States are exposed, is immense ; and
the legislatures are mainly composed of
very poor men, with no reputation to
maintain or political future to look after.
The result is that the country is filled
with stories of scandals after every ad-
journment, and the press teems with
abuse, which legislators have learned to
treat with silent contempt or ridicule, so
that there is no longer any restraint
upon them. Their reelection is not in
the hands of the public, but in those of
the party managers, who, as is shown in
the Payn case in New York, find that
they can completely disregard popular
judgments on the character or history of
candidates.
Side by side with the annual or bien-
nial legislature we have another kind of
legislature, the " Constitutional Conven-
tion," which retains everybody's respect,
and whose work, generally marked by
care and forethought, compares credit-
ably with the legislation of any similar
body in the world. Through the hun-
dred years of national existence it has
received little but favorable criticism
from any quarter. It is still an honor
to have a seat in it. The best men in
the community are still eager or willing
to serve in it, no matter at what cost to
health or private affairs. I cannot re-
call one convention which has incurred
either odium or contempt. Time and
social changes have often frustrated its
expectations, or have shown its provi-
sions for the public welfare to be inad-
equate or mistaken, but it is very rare
indeed to hear its wisdom and integrity
questioned. In looking over the list of
those who have figured in the conven-
tions of the State of New York since the
Revolution, one finds the name of near-
ly every man of weight and prominence ;
and few lay it down without thinking how
happy we should be if we could secure
such service for our ordinary legislative
bodies.
Now what makes the difference ?
Three things, mainly. First, the Con-
stitutional Convention, as a rule, meets
only 'once in about twenty years. Men,
therefore, who would not think of serv-
ing in an annual legislature, are ready
on these rare occasions to sacrifice their
personal convenience to the public in-
terest. Secondly, every one knows that
The Decline of Legislatures.
53
the labors of the body, if adopted, will
continue in operation without change for
the best part of one's lifetime. Thirdly,
its conclusions will be subjected to the
strictest scrutiny by the public, and will
not be put in force without adoption
by a popular vote. All this makes an
American state constitution, as a rule, a
work of the highest statesmanship, which
reflects credit on the country, tends pow-
erfully to promote the general happiness
and prosperity, and is quoted or copied
in foreign countries in the construction of
organic laws. The Constitutional Con-
vention is as conspicuous an example of
successful government as the state legis-
latures are of failure. If we can learn
anything from the history of these bodies,
therefore, it is that if the meetings of
the legislature were much rarer, say once
in five or ten years, we should secure
a higher order of talent and character
for its membership and more careful de-
liberation for its measures, and should
greatly reduce the number of the latter.
But we can go further, and say that in-
asmuch as all important matter devised
by the convention is submitted to the
people with eminent success, there is no
reason why all grave measures of ordi-
nary legislation should not be submitted
also. In other words, the referendum
is not confined to Switzerland. 1 We
have it among us already. All, or near-
ly all our state constitutions are the pro-
1 Oberholtzer's Referendum in America, p. 15.
duct of a referendum. The number of
important measures with which the le-
gislature feels chary about dealing, which
are brought before the people by its di-
rection, increases every year. Upon the
question of the location of the state cap-
ital and of some state institutions, of the
expenditure of public money, of the es-
tablishment of banks, of the maintenance
or sale of canals, of leasing public lands,
of taxation beyond a certain amount, of
the prohibition of the liquor traffic, of the
extension of the suffrage, and upon sev-
eral other subjects, a popular vote is of-
ten taken in various States.
In short, there is no discussion of the
question of legislatures in which either
great restriction in the number or length
of their sessions, or the remission of a
greatly increased number of subjects to
treatment by the popular vote, does not
appear as a favorite remedy for their
abuses and shortcomings. If we may
judge by these signs, the representative
system, after a century of existence, un-
der a very extended suffrage, has failed
to satisfy the expectations of its earlier
promoters, and is likely to make way in
its turn for the more direct action of
the people on the most important ques-
tions of government, and a much-dimin-
ished demand for all legislation what-
ever. This, at all events, is the only
remedy now in sight, which is much
talked about or is considered worthy of
serious attention.
E. L. Godkin.
54
One Fair Daughter.
ONE FAIR DAUGHTER.
I.
MR. REGINALD DORSEY not only re-
cognized the unique distinction of being
the father of such a girl as Edith, but
he felt as well the responsibilities of the
position. Mr. Dorsey had never taken
any responsibility lightly. He carried
a habit of high discretion into the least
detail of his mental operations. It must
be dazzling high noon before he would
fully admit that the day was likely to be
fine. He made no investment or pur-
chase until he had permitted the sun to
go down many times upon his indecision.
His ultimate opinion was watched, waited
for, and acted upon. Nine different cor-
porations boasted that he was one of their
directors, and that single circumstance
made each enterprise known as both pay-
ing and safe, like that tower instanced
by Dante which, firmly fixed, shakes not
its head for any blast that blows.
Edith had been motherless since she
was a child of three, and Mr. Dorsey
had been left unaided to grapple with
the crucial questions which rose at each
stage of the girl's development. He had
not only to arrive at some solution of
purely ethical and intellectual problems,
but to meet the climbing wave of femi-
nine evolution and to experiment with
modern ideas. Should Edith go in for
the higher education ? Should Edith
attend dancing-classes ? Should Edith be
permitted to learn to ride the bicycle ?
Each of these questions had in turn to
be met, looked at in all lights, and final-
ly decided by a conscientious and con-
sistent theory. Mr. Dorsey wished to
preserve in his daughter what he recog-
nized as her distinctive attributes: an
old-time modesty, seriousness, and sim-
plicity which raised her so far above van-
ity and caprice as to efface both. Still,
although it was his duty, his function,
the reason of his existence, to foster in
her the tendencies he loved and believed
in, what he tried to keep in mind was
her ultimate good. She was not only his
child, but the child of her age. Since she
had been born in the last quarter of the
century, he must meet its requirements
for her. Thus Edith took the prepara-
tory college course ; she rode the bicycle,
but round dances she did not learn. She
was brought up in almost conventual se-
clusion, and up to the age of nineteen, ex-
cept her father and her professors, she
had not one single acquaintance among
the opposite sex. Nevertheless, Mr.
Dorsey, who thought of every possible
emergency for Edith, had thought of her
marriage, a marriage which was to
crown a brilliant social career after her
education was complete, always with
compressed lips and a knitting of the
brows, which meant that no man would
ever become Edith's husband until he
had been weighed in the balance and not
found wanting, had gone through the
needle's eye, in short, submitted to a
series of rigid tests.
Thus when, soon after Edith's nine-
teenth birthday, Mr. Dorsey received a
proposal of marriage for his daughter,
the effect upon his mind was abrupt and
extraordinary. He had just returned
from a journey, and, washed, shaven, and
freshly dressed in his habitual suit of
gray tweed, had sat down in his library
to look over the letters which had ar-
rived in his absence, when a card was
brought to him, on which he read " Mr.
Gordon Rose." Who Mr. Gordon Rose
might be Mr. Dorsey was comfortably
far from having any idea. A strange
young man was ushered in, who met the
glance of the tall, slim, clear-eyed gen-
tleman almost like a culprit as he stam-
mered out a few faltering words to the
effect that Edith had accepted him, and
One Fair Daughter.
55
that he had come to ask her father's con-
sent to their marriage.
" Your marriage to my daughter ! "
ejaculated Mr. Dorsey. He went on to
observe that never in his life had he
heard of such presumption. He glanced
at the card which he had crumpled in
his hands. Mr. Gordon Rose, he de-
clared witheringly, was a perfect stran-
ger both to him and to Miss Dorsey.
" We have been together almost two
weeks," gasped Gordon.
Been together almost two weeks ! Fa-
tal two weeks, spent by Mr. Dorsey most
reluctantly in a trip to the Southwest
with a party of railway magnates to look
after the interests of a railroad which
had fallen into their hands. For the
period of his absence he had confided
Edith to the care of his aunt, Mrs. Car-
michael, an old lady, who, with an inva-
lid daughter, lived at Lenox. For almost
the first time in his life taken unaware,
Mr. Dorsey proceeded to put question
after question to his visitor. The situa-
tion became clear, painfully clear. Gor-
don Rose had been visiting at a place
adjoining Mrs. Carmichael's. He and
Edith had met ; he had taught her golf ;
they had played it together. Just twen-
ty-four hours before he had asked her
to marry him, and she had told him her
father was then upon the point of reach-
ing New York, and that she could do
nothing without his consent.
Without her father's consent ? Of
course Miss Dorsey could never become
engaged without her father's consent.
She could never become engaged at all
except by the gradual development of
an acquaintance of long years, the result
of thorough experience, a .perfect con-
geniality.
" There is the most perfect congenial-
ity ! " exclaimed Gordon in a tone almost
of indignation. " We fell in love on the
instant it was "
" Nonsense ! absurd ! " said Mr. Dor-
sey testily, and proceeded to define his
ideas of love and marriage, no acci-
dent, no haphazard outcome of spending
a few days in the same neighborhood, but
the irresistible evolution of a logical sit-
uation, each step developed on a precon-
ceived plan, in short, inevitable.
" This was inevitable," declared Gor-
don, trying to assert himself against that
freezing demeanor, that impenetrable
face, that icy glance, that cold, critical
tone which seemed not only unsympa-
thetic, but final. " We saw each other
from morning until night ; we "
" A mere chance acquaintance," Mr.
Dorsey insisted, " founded on no reason,
leading to no sequence."
" I wish to marry Miss Dorsey," fal-
tered Gordon. " I can support her hand-
somely."
" I can support my daughter without
the aid of any man alive," said Mr. Dor-
sey.
Gordon murmured deprecatingly that
he had no doubt of that. " But," he
added, " Edith likes me, and "
"She knows nothing, nothing what-
ever, on the subject. She has been care-
fully brought up. All her thoughts have
been given to her books. Her educa-
tion has hardly begun. She is to enter
college next year. She has never gone
into society. I consider twenty -three
years of age the time for a girl to enter
society. Edith is a mere child. If for
a few days while I took a business jour-
ney, leaving her, as I supposed, carefully
guarded and chaperoned "
" She was chaperoned, that is, Mrs.
Carmichael had us always in view as we
played golf ; she said she liked to watch
us through her opera-glass," Gordon ex-
plained.
"I blush to think of an honorable
man's taking advantage of such inno-
cence, such inexperience."
Gordon blushed for himself. Up to
this moment he had been inclined to ac-
cept a generous estimate of his circum-
stances and position, not to say his per-
sonal qualities, but he now felt himself
dwindling to the vanishing point.
56
One Fair Daughter.
" Knowing as I only can Miss Dor-
sey's preeminence in family position, in
social prestige, not to say in beauty, in
intellect, in character," pursued Mr. Dor-
sey, easily discerning the fact that the
young man was each moment becoming
more and more discomfited, " naturally
I have my own views regarding the alli-
ance I shall deem fitting for her when
she reaches the proper age."
Gordon's gaze fastened eagerly upon
the gray, grim, well-shaven face.
" I should like," Mr. Dorsey contin-
ued, " to see her the wife of an English
statesman, of a man like Mr. Glad-
stone."
Gordon's whole face expressed intense
passionate indignation. " Mr. Gladstone
is more than eighty years old ! " he burst
out.
" I mean a man of that sagacity, that
distinction, that trained ability, that test-
ed character. The matter of age I should
regard very little, unless possibly it was
too absolutely disproportionate. To my
mind, few men under fifty years of age
are safe guardians of a woman's happi-
ness."
Gordon uttered an expressive gasp.
" Failing such a statesman as Mr.
Gladstone," Mr. Dorsey proceeded more
and more blandly, " failing some English-
man not only of high birth, title, ances-
tral estates, but of the most unblemished
moral character, I should like her to be-
come the wife of one of our ambassadors."
" An American ambassador ? "
"An American ambassador such as
Mr. Motley or Mr. Lowell," Mr. Dorsey
explained.
Gordon looked bewildered ; he looked
also in despair. " Buty.they are dead,"
he murmured.
Mr. Dorsey did not gainsay the state-
ment, nor the possible inference that
what he demanded for Edith was some-
thing wholly out of reach. What he
needed to do was to nip this presumptu-
ous young fellow's aspirations in the bud,
and from Gordon's look and manner this
seemed successfully achieved. Sitting
in his familiar library chair, an elbow on
each arm, his hands raised, fingers ex-
tended as if ready to check off any dam-
aging admission, Mr. Dorsey now began
a series of categorical questions, and
they were answered in this wise.
Gordon Rose was the son of a Scotch-
man, poor, but of good family, who had
come to this country at the age of twen-
ty, taken a position in a New England
manufacturing concern, and five years
later married the daughter of the chief
partner. Both he and his wife had died
early, leaving Gordon, their only child,
to be brought up by his maternal grand-
father, Elihu Curtis. - Elihu Curtis had
retired from business ten years before,
and had settled down quietly in an in-
land city. He had now been dead almost
a year, and had left all he possessed to
his grandson. Had he, Gordon, been
well educated ? Gordon, recalling how
only by dint of being crammed by three
different experts he had finally passed
his examinations at Harvard, said diffi-
dently that he was afraid Mr. Dorsey
would not think so. Had he failed to
take a degree ? Oh, he was a B. A., but
no doubt the husband of Edith would be
expected to have Ph. D. or LL. D. after
his name. What was his age ? Twenty-
four ; and the shake of the head showed
that this was by far too young. What
friends had he to vouch for him ? Gor-
don named half a dozen without receiv-
ing more than a cold stare ; but when
he mentioned Bartram Van Kleeck, Mr.
Dorsey was so good as to remark dryly
that he believed Van Kleeck was engaged
to marry a distant cousin of his own and
a friend of Edith's.
" Bartram has known me all my life,"
Gordon was now ready to announce,
when Mr. Dorsey went on to add that
Van Kleeck being, he feared, destitute of
those qualities which command success,
he was hardly in a position to permit his
commendation to carry weight.
At this point it occurred to Gordon to
One Fair Daughter.
57
interpose a plea for himself. He knew,
he said, that he was altogether unworthy
of Miss Dorsey ; still
Mr. Dorsey snapped at the admission
as a hungry dog snaps at a bit of meat.
He observed frigidly that he could not
consent to his daughter's accepting the
attentions of a man who confessed him-
self unworthy of her, and he seemed so
ready to conclude the interview that Gor-
don, bewildered, disappointed, chilled to
the heart, with this denial reverberating
in his heart and brain, got himself out of
the house. Of course he was unworthy
of Edith. It was not that he fell short
of being Mr. Gladstone, an English peer,
or an American ambassador, but because
he was simply a man, while Edith was
an angel. Hitherto Gordon had taken
life only too happily ; he had not known
the meaning of despair. Now his de-
spair was great, and he poured it forth
in three letters to Edith.
Mr. Dorsey had lost no time in going
to Lenox and taking his daughter home
to their country place on the North Riv-
er, and these letters fell into his hands.
They were written with convincing force
and naturalness. He had seen Gordon,
and knew the handsome, eager young face
behind them, and they did not wholly dis-
please him. In fact, in spite of the in-
tense shock of feeling Gordon had given
him, something in the way the young
man had looked, listened, and spoken
had touched the paternal chord. Mr.
Dorsey had never had a son, but had al-
ways felt a vague yearning for one. Of
course this foolish young fellow was not
a suitable husband for Edith ; but then
Mr. Dorsey did not desire any sort of a
husband for Edith, not even an English
statesman or an American ambassador,
for at least ten years to come. He wished
to keep his daughter to himself.
But alas, he found that Edith was
pining, pining for the lover, the friend,
her father had denied her. Mr. Dorsey
set himself to the task of finding out all
he could about Gordon Rose. Gordon
had done as many foolish things as most
other young fellows, but perhaps he had
been led into them, and left to find his
own way out of the scrapes. They were
faults which a nervous, bilious, over-con-
scientious father might make out as big
as a steeple, but they were still the sort
of foibles which a man who longed to
see his daughter cease pining could put
in his sleeve. Mr. Dorsey sent for Bar-
tram Van Kleeck and had a talk with
him. Van Kleeck was conscientious to
the core, and no mere feeling of camara-
derie, of so to speak helping a lame dog
over a stile, could make him say that
he considered Gordon a model. To his
thinking, Gordon was spoiled, had had
too much of everything. No man amount-
ed to much who had never borne the yoke
in his youth, and no yoke had galled Gor-
don's shoulders ; indeed, old Elihu Cur-
tis had said that he wanted to see how a
young fellow would turn out who had al-
ways had a good time.
" Too high spirits ; he overdoes the
thing," said Van Kleeck. Still, when
pressed for facts, he admitted that Gor-
don's high spirits had not led him into
anything worse than absurdity. " If I
had his money and his leisure for diver-
sions, I should require them huge,"
said Van Kleeck. " He is only a boy ;
he may safely be forgiven a good deal."
Mr. Dorsey decided to go to Gordon's
rooms and have a talk with him. It was
such a pity, with his fortune, with his
advantages generally, to throw away his
chances without looking at them serious-
ly. Life is full of opportunities for re-
nunciation. Let him renounce. Let him
apply to himself a series of rigid tests.
Burning to impress these truths upon
Gordon, Mr. Dorsey tapped at his door.
He had chosen an unfortunate moment.
II.
"It is all over," Gordon said next
day in a sepulchral voice, looking up as
58
One Fair Daughter.
Bartram Van Kleeck entered his room.
Van Kleeck had dropped in to tell some
important news of his own, but, finding
Gordon plunged in the depths of de-
spair, was obliged to listen to an account
of Mr. Dorsey's visit.
" It 's all over," Gordon said again.
" He would n't hear a word I told him.
He simply ejaculated, ' This is incredi-
ble, this is incredible ! Unless I had
seen it with my own eyes, I could never
have believed it ! "
" I confess I can't blame him," said
Van Kleeck. " How a man deeply in
love, and in love too with a girl like
Edith Dorsey, as you profess to be "
" Profess to be ? "
" should lower his dignity by dan-
cing a skirt-dance "
" I was n't dancing a skirt-dance."
"You just told me that when Mr.
Dorsey entered the room he found you
executing a, pas seul."
" I explained to you how it happened,
I explained to Mr. Dorsey, but neither
of you will listen to me. It was Alexis
Brown, who was coming to my rooms to
take a lesson of Madame Bonf anti. She
and her daughter had arrived. I heard
the elevator, then a step in the hall. I
supposed it was Alexis. I slipped on the
skirt, raised one foot in air the door
opened "
" And instead of Alexis Brown it was
Mr. Dorsey," said Van Kleeck, when
Gordon paused and uttered a groan.
" He must have been surprised. He saw
Madame Bonfanti ? "
" Saw her ? He looked at her as if
she had been a cobra. You should have
heard her after he had gone out. She
went away in dudgeon, poor woman ! "
" She should n't have come."
" No doubt she should n't have come ;
but Alexis wanted to dance the ski\ -
dance at an entertainment lie and sonic!
other fellows are getting up, and as he
assured me there was n't room to swing
a cat in his quarters, I told him he might
come to mine and welcome."
"Certainly," said Van Kleeck, with
a shake of his grave, capable head, " it
was most unlucky."
" Unlucky ! If I could lay it to luck !
If I did not have to lay it to my being
a fool ! I had little or no hope before
of winning Edith ; now I Ve lost her
irretrievably, and the rest of life is no-
thingness and void, darkness and gnash-
ing of teeth. I did it all myself, but yet
I 'm not such an idiot as I seem. Bart,
I give you my word of honor I 'm not."
" It 's your confounded high spirits,"
said Van Kleeck.
The two young men had been friends
from their boyhood, but they were in all
respects opposites. Van Kleeck had al-
ways been poor, while Gordon was rich.
Gordon was fair, with golden-brown hair,
a bright chivalrous face, his whole look
and manner showing love of life and
capacity for enjoyment. Van Kleeck
was dark, sallow, saturnine, with deeply
set gray eyes under pent-house brows,
and a heavy jaw giving extra firmness
to his proud, well-curved lip. Every-
thing in his appearance suggested solid-
ity ; that he was a decided fellow, never
taken unaware ; with unerring judgment,
determined aims, and developed capaci-
ties. He had made his way through
college chiefly by gaining prizes and
fellowships ; but in spite of high degrees
in mathematics, physics, and chemistry,
at twenty - eight years of age he had
found nothing more profitable than an
instructorship. His phrase for two years
had been, " I must have money," and
his object in coming to-day was to tell
Gordon of a golden opportunity at last
presented. Self-denial and self-restraint
had always been the law of Van Kleeck's
existence, and accordingly he offered his
sympathy, and waited for his own chance
to come.
" It 's your confounded high spirits,"
he reiterated, sitting down opposite Gor-
don, and speaking with his usual air of
understanding the whole subject.
" High spirits ! " repeated Gordon in-
One Fair Daughter.
59
credulously. " If I had n't been so utter-
ly wretched, so utterly broken in spirit,
I could n't have permitted the thing to
happen. It was a mere stop-gap."
" I confess I have sometimes envied
you your high spirits," Van Kleeck con-
ceded, with an air as if his companion
had made no disclaimer.
" I shall never have any more high
spirits. I 'm out of conceit with exist-
ence. I understand to-day why men
commit suicide. It 's the irony of life,
of circumstances, that makes men cyn-
ical."
" You have n't the faintest notion of
what cynicism means," retorted Van
Kleeck, who began to feel that he had
done his duty. " How do you suppose
you would have borne what I have had
to bear, what I shall have to bear for a
long time yet ? "
" I consider you just the happiest fel-
low in the world, engaged to the girl you
love, nobody and nothing to hinder ! "
" Nothing to hinder, when we have
been engaged for two years, and are still
too poor to marry ! "
" Oh, the mere question of money "
" The mere question of money ! It 's
the only question. Here it is driving me
to a climate which may very possibly kill
me."
" Have you really got that offer you
were telling me about ? "
" Got it, and accepted it. I sail for
Southampton a week from to-day ; go to
London for instructions, then to South
Africa. I must have money, and this
is the only chance I know of getting it."
" Are you going to be married, and
take your wife with you ? "
" No," answered Van Kleeck, knitting
his brows. " Cerise flung herself into
the idea at first with her usual ardor ;
but her uncle objects, and, upon reflec-
tion, it seems the best thing for me to
go out alone, make and save all I can,
and wait another two years. Married
life is so expensive."
" It is hard," said Gordon in a tone
of commiseration. " Still, if I knew I
was sure to have Edith at the end even
of two years, I should be willing to work
like a galley-slave."
" I see you working like a galley-
slave ! "
" You don't know what is in me,"
Gordon declared. " Nobody except
Edith knows what 4s in me. Edith could
do anything with me. As Edith's hus-
band, I do believe even Mr. Dorsey
would never have occasion to find fault
with me. She could keep me straight.
Without her I shall go to the devil."
" A man walking upright, and not a
swine running headlong into the sea, has
no business to talk in that way," said
Van Kleeck, with impatient disgust.
" Whether you marry Edith or don't
marry Edith, you are yourself answer-
able to your Maker and to society for
your actions. If you could be a man
with her, you can be a man without her.
Besides, you do yourself injustice. I
have told you that I said to Mr. Dorsey
that if I were Gordon Rose with his
money and his leisure, instead of being
tied by the leg by poverty and overwork,
I should have done twenty foolish things,
not to say worse, where he has done one.
The push is in me, only I have no money."
" Mr. Dorsey believes the worst of
me, you may be sure of that."
" Nonsense ! I will go and see him.
If you really care about Edith, and she
cares about you, this absurdity will not
stand in the way. But show a little
sense, a little discrimination ; prove to
Mr. Dorsey that as his son-in-law "
" He will never give me the chance.
You should have seen his eyes, you should
have heard his tone, as he said, ' I have
come to return these letters, with the re-
quest that there shall be no more.' It
froze the very heart within me."
" You had written to Edith ? "
" Naturally I had written to her. You
don't suppose I "
" Did he intercept the letters ? "
" I dare say she handed them over to
60
One Fair Daughter.
him. That V Edith, all honor, all de-
votion, all duty ! She said to me that
her father had only her, and that she
had had only her father. Ah ! the look
she gave me as she said this, the look
which told me he was no longer every-
thing to her ! It goes through me like
a knife, it is an actual physical pain.
And now her father will tell her "
" Tell her you were dancing a skirt-
dance with a hideous old Frenchwoman."
" It was only a pretense. I was not
dancing it."
" But you had on the skirt."
Gordon groaned.
" I fancy, from certain things Cerise
has dropped, that Edith is a little au-
stere."
" No more austere than a woman
ought to be. I want a woman austere.
That 's why I love Edith, that 's why I
long to marry Edith, that she may be
my conscience-keeper."
" I confess I prefer to take care of
my own conscience, and my wife's too,"
said Van Kleeck. " It 's the law of con-
traries that draws us," he pursued philo-
sophically. " Now, you, who are perhaps
too mercurial, need a woman to brace
you up. I 'm a little dry and serious,
and I require relaxation and amusement ;
Cerise is such a fascinating mixture of
high spirits and submissive childlike sim-
plicity, she just suits me."
"There is an infinite variety about
Miss Gale, I should judge, from what lit-
tle I have seen of her," returned Gordon,
willing to humor his friend. " She may
not be beautiful like Edith, but she is "
" I consider her the most beautiful girl
I know," explained Van Kleeck, with
warmth. " Such a shimmer of radiance,
such endless variety."
" Certainly most attractive," Gordon
conceded. " I confess my ideal is of a
woman who is always the same."
Van Kleeck's ideal was exactly the
opposite. The subject was most suggest-
ive. Each saw his beloved in the hues
of his desire for her. Each tried to de-
fine to the other just where lay the over-
mastering charm. In the mere fact that
the two girls were cousins (thrice re-
moved) was some piquancy. Miss Dor-
sey offered a sense of tranquillity, of re-
pose ; Miss Gale, on the other hand,
stimulated. In Miss Dorsey's dress and
manner were no lures, no traps to the
imagination : her gowns were plain ; she
wore no curl, no flower, hardly a ribbon.
What especially bewitched Van Kleeck
was that Miss Gale and her frizzes, her
gowns, her ribbons, her laces, shoes, and
gloves all played into each other, as it
were. It was no easy matter to define
what was chiffon and what the woman.
" But, poor child, she will be terribly
lonely in that dreary suburb," said Van
Kleeck. " I do wish you would go and
see her once a week or so, Gordon."
" It would be something to do," said
Gordon ; " that is, if "
" She can tell you about Edith."
Where Van Kleeck was everything
fell into order. He had rallied Gordon
out of despair. Gordon had come to
New York to study law. He was to
have a desk in Judge Graham's office
and attend the law school, and now it
was settled that he should apply himself
with all his might and main, and show
Mr. Dorsey there was stuff in him.
"Just use a little judgment, a little
tact," insisted Van Kleeck. " These
rich men don't yearn to hand over their
money and their daughters to foolish
young fellows who will take no care of
either. Always be on your guard. Some-
body is always watching you, weighing
you. Now there was Macalpine, the capi-
talist, coming home from Mount Desert,
and somewhere the party he belonged to
missed a connection. Their tickets were
limited, and either they had to pay two
dollars extra, or sit down and wait for
a couple of hours for their own train.
* I don't know any easier way of making
two dollars than sitting down here and
waiting for two hours,' said old Macal-
pine. But there was Linsley Crooke,
One Fair Daughter.
61
who had been attentive to Mary Macal-
pine all that month at Mount Desert :
he said he could n't afford to wait two
hours for two dollars, so jumped into the
unlimited and went on. 'That young
man is too high-priced an article,' said
Macalpine. And so it appeared, for,
three days after, Mary Macalpine refused
Linsley point-blank. There 's a Provi-
dence that watches over these things."
" Good heavens," murmured Gordon
in a tone of awe, " what pitfalls there
are for fellows! With Edith along, I
would sit down cheerfully and wait for
a week; but otherwise Yet really,
now, Bartram, a business man might lose
a small fortune by sitting down and wait-
ing two hours."
" I know ; I thought of that when I
heard the story," Van Kleeck admitted,
wrinkling his forehead slightly. " These
distinctions are subtle. I simply wished
to warn you to be on guard, study hard,
gain the good opinion of solid men, and
your chance will come. Edith will be
faithful, like a rock, and finally Mr.
Dorsey is likely to give in. Still," Van
Kleeck added, with a sudden far-reach-
ing vista of thought, " it 's a little singu-
lar how apt a man who has one only
daughter is to sacrifice her. Look at
Agamemnon."
" And Jephthah ! " Gordon exclaimed,
aghast.
" Then there was the Merchant of
Venice," Van Kleeck pursued; "and
just recall how Portia's father limited her
free choice by means of those caskets."
" And how that horrible old Polonius
played with Ophelia ! "
" It 's the instinct of a man, if he has
one daughter and loves her devotedly, to
sacrifice her, no doubt of that," said
Van Kleeck. " Perhaps it is just as well
he should do so, for if he does not sacri-
fice her, she is likely to sacrifice him.
Look at Desdemona, for example."
Gordon tried to adjust these wide gen-
eralizations to personal particular mean-
ings. Van Kleeck could reduce his own
experience to a formula, but Gordon's ex-
perience always seemed chaotic, defying
fixed rules. In the present case, it turned
out that at this very hour, three o'clock
in the afternoon, while the two friends
were discussing the best means of propi-
tiating Mr. Dorsey, that gentleman and
his daughter had already embarked for
Europe. Before Gordon was aware of
the fact, there were some hundreds of
miles of " unplumb'd, salt, estranging
sea " between him and Edith. What
was she thinking of him ? What was she
doing ? Talking to others, devoting her-
self to others, while he himself was re-
jected, condemned unheard, pushed out
of sight, left to suffer. What was life
worth under these circumstances ?
Van Kleeck, sailing just one week later
than the Dorseys, bade Gordon study
law and go to see Miss Cerise Gale.
III.
Miss Gale was an orphan, and lived
with her uncle and aunt, who had a plea-
sant place at Capua, fifteen miles from
New York. To pay visits in the suburbs
requires no little premeditation. It
necessitates the study of time-tables ; it
is a sacrifice of time, also of money ; but
above all, it leads to intimacy by the
shortest route. In town, a man rings his
friend's door-bell, enters, and stays ten
minutes or an hour, as the spirit moves
him. In a remote suburb, his first in-
voluntary movement towards picking up
his hat is met by the precise statement
that one train has just gone, but that
there will be another in thirty-seven min-
utes. Those thirty-seven minutes have
altered the destiny of many a man.
The 4.03 train from town reached
Capua at 4.31. To return by the 4.58
gave Gordon exactly sixteen minutes to
spend with Miss Gale. Could this frac-
tion of an hour have been devoted solely
to inquiries about whether she had news
from Edith and her answers, he might,
62
One Fair Daughter.
after greedily snatching at this refresh-
ment, have flown to the station and
caught the last car of the 4.58. It was,
however, essential that he should endea-
vor to console Miss Gale for the absence
of Van Kleeck: thus he was obliged to
prolong his stay for a whole hour.
" I know what a sacrifice it is," Miss
Gale said, with appreciation. " I tell
Bartram, every time I write, what cour-
age you show. You are the most de-
voted friend to him ! Actually, if any
one has the supreme good fortune to live
in town, I don't consider life long enough
to live in a suburb."
" Life seems pretty long to me just at
present," Gordon answered, with a sigh.
" It 's a distinct relief to come out here
and "
" Talk about Edith," Miss Gale made
haste to suggest, with her half-arch, half-
pleading glance and smile. " It 's just
too awfully good of you. I know what
an effort it is, for my whole life has
been spoiled by the necessity of catching
trains. I never expect to sit through a
whole play or a whole concert ; and if I
go to a party, I miss the supper and the
dances with the partners I really care
about, for aunt whisks me away."
Embarked on this subject, Miss Gale
went on to describe the difficulties Bar-
tram had found in the way of taking her
to places of amusement, and how glad he
had been to give it all up, declaring that
a quiet talk before the fire and a good
book were so much more satisfactory.
" We have learhed to do things inex-
pensively," she added, sighing. " Bar-
tram is always praising economy." She
confided to Gordon the pathetic fact that
she cried herself to sleep every night.
He naturally improved this chance of as-
suring her that it was sure to be a brief
parting. Van Kleeck wou?d make a for-
tune ; his salary was large, his chances
for investment were good. If it were
but a question of money which divided
him from Edith !
Cerise had no alternative but to cheer
up the despondent lover. Although
cousin Reginald was jealous of every
man who came near Edith, still he had
actually but one wish, which was to make
the dear girl happy. " I have not the
least doubt but that you and Edith will
be married long before Bartram and I
are ! " she burst out, with strong feeling.
" We have been engaged already for two
years."
Gordon said that to be engaged, really
engaged, must of itself be such a hap-
piness ; and he went on to quote Van
Kleeck's observation, that a long engage-
ment was an admirable discipline.
" It is," returned Cerise. " It makes
one so sure of one's own heart. Bar-
tram said when he was going away, ' If
our love for each other were a thing of
days, of weeks, even of months, I might
tremble, but you have belonged to me for
two years.' "
With delightful candor, she described
the incidents of their love affair : her
impressions of Bartram, his impressions
of her ; the gradual leading up of their
acquaintance to their engagement. Goi'-
don waited impatiently for her to finish,
then gave the story of his thirteen days
with Edith, every day about sixteen
hours long. Each lent an outward atten-
tion to the other, eager for a chance to
pour out his or her personal revelations.
It is love's instinct to halo the absent,
and when Gordon wished to have Miss
Gale sing the praises of Edith he would
begin thus : " Van Kleeck has none of
the petty vices, the love of idleness and
luxury, which undermine the character
of most men."
" No, indeed. He says that most of
us manufacture our own indigestion and
laziness by eating bonbons. He does n't
approve of bonbons."
" What I admire in him is that he
carries the same consistent economy, the
same conscientious thrift and indepen-
dence, into the least detail of his conduct.
Now when I occasionally ask him to
dine with me, he insists on ordering his
One Fair Daughter.
63
own meal and paying for it. I should
rather enjoy doing the thing handsome-
ly, but it ends in our having each a chop
or beefsteak, a boiled potato, and a glass
of beer."
" He is not only abstemious himself,
but he makes other people abstemious ! "
Miss Gale would exclaim, with admira-
tion. " I have given up everything I
really like. I try to be a Spartan."
" He will not want you to be a Spar-
tan," Gordon would insist. " Quite the
contrary. He stints himself to be lavish
in other directions. He is always plan-
ning for a happy future. I said to him
once, ' Van Kleeck, what do you do with
your old clothes ? ' and he replied, ' I
wear them.' Now I call that heroic."
" Is n't it grand ? It 's what makes
me adore him. I only wonder how he
can stoop to care about poor little me."
A compliment was of course dropped
in here, just as a wise landowner pops
an acorn out of his pocket into a vacant
place on his estate, wishing it to grow
and flourish for five hundred years. Gor-
don, however, improved the occasion sim-
ply to fill up the gap which yawned for
it. He was not insincere, and there was
a certain zest, even in his present state
of desolation, in offering some mild form
of flattery to Miss Gale. She took it
with such artless joy. She seemed so
surprised. Her whole face lighted up
with such na'ive childish pleasure. At
first Gordon had coldly, critically said
to himself, " Of course she could never
be pretty with that nose" But after
taking a liking to a woman, one can ac-
cept her nose, even when it spoils the
outline of her face, as a circumstance
over which she has no control. Edith
Dorsey was faultlessly beautiful ; to
compare Cerise to her would be doing
the latter injustice. Yet there was, es-
pecially when she was happy and ani-
mated, a radiance, a shimmer about Ce-
rise, an impression of color, which made
one forget that she was plain. Her little
head was set in a golden glory, as it were,
for her hair was fluffy and of the most
peculiarly beautiful shade, her cheeks
were like the sunny side of a peach, her
blue eyes were bright, and her slight fig-
ure was always charmingly arrayed.
Gordon having done handsomely by
Van Kleeck, it was clearly Miss Gale's
duty to praise Edith. Edith, she said,
was an angel ; so lofty, so high-minded,
so indifferent to what others of her age
and sex were pining for. Once when
cousin Reginald had taken both girls to
Tiffany's and bidden them choose each
some pretty ornament, Edith had given
Cerise the first choice ; then, making her
own selection, had bestowed the jewel
on Cerise. " Take them both, dear,"
she said. " I have too many things al-
ready." Edith had no vanity, no world-
liness ; she was a saint.
" She is two years younger than I
am," Cerise continued, bubbling with en-
thusiasm, " but she seems to me ten years
older. Don't you look up to her with
reverence and awe ? "
" Like Dante to Beatrice," Gordon af-
firmed, with emotion. At Lenox, one
rainy day, he had found her reading
Dante. Of late she had forgotten her
duty, she told him, but she always in-
tended to read eighteen lines a day.
" I held the dictionary for her," said
Gordon, deeply moved.
It was one of the coincidences which
were all the time cropping up in the
two very different love affairs that Van
Kleeck and Cerise had also been read-
ing the Divine Comedy together.
" But not in Italian," Cerise explained.
" It 's quite sufficiently hard in English.
Bartram never told me I was like Bea-
trice," in a tone of poignant regret.
Gordon said he was sure Van Kleeck
wished her to resemble no one, to be
simply herself.
On the contrary, Van Kleeck was
certain to find some trait in every hero-
ine which he wished her to take example
by, all the girls in the Waverley novels,
all Shakespeare's women. Then there
64
One Fair Daughter.
was Ethel Newcome, and Dorothea in
Middlemarch. Finally he halted be-
tween Marcella and Trilby. Cerise had
thrown herself with zeal into the for-
mer's part, had delighted in visiting
slums ; but after she had brought home
three different diseases to the children,
her aunt objected. Then she tried to
talk politics and humanitarianism, and
her uncle objected ; and when one of the
class of workingmen to whom she read
Shakespeare took to bringing her flow-
ers, Bartram objected. As to Trilby,
Cerise had decided that the charm of
Trilby lay chiefly in the environment ;
at least it seemed incompatible with the
limitations of her aunt's house. And
Bartram, when he saw that she was try-
ing to find an outlet and escape from
every-day prosaic duties, was rather se-
vere, said it was the essential woman-
ly charm of Trilby which a man longed
fot, and wished to enshrine in the wo-
man he loved.
" Essential womanly charm," said Ce-
rise, extending one taper finger, "Mar-
cella's lofty ideals and social earnest-
ness," a second finger joined the first,
" Dorothea's belief in people, Ethel New-
come's brilliance and fascination, then
all Shakespeare's heroines and Scott's."
She paused. " I can be one woman," she
pursued, " I can be two women, I can, at
a pinch, be three women, but I can't be
all the women in all the books, can I ? "
" That 's only Bartram's love of high
ideas. He likes the best, ' the best
that is known and thought in the world.'
I fancy it 's a phrase he picked up some-
where."
"I've heard it," said Cerise mourn-
fully. " Sometimes I feel such a failure.
He always made a schedule of my time.
I was to read so much, practice so much,
sew so much. He insists that I shall get
myself into orderly habits by keeping a
list of my expenses. They never add
up right, and I hate to see my mistakes
glaring me in the face. Don't you ? He
wanted me to go to a cooking-school."
" Oh, what a wife he has in training ! "
" But he said the dishes I learned to
make gave him dyspepsia, and that, after
all, we ought to be able to afford a good
plain cook. Bartram has a way of sit-
ting silent and wrinkling up his forehead,
chewing the cud of conversation, he
calls it, and then bursting out with a
question: 'Cerise, have you any idea
how much it costs to keep a table, a
fairly generous table, you know, for a
week, say, coffee, chops or beefsteak,
for breakfast, a dainty little luncheon for
you, then a dinner with a good soup, a
joint of meat, two vegetables, a salad,
and a light dessert ? ' I answered that
I thought a hundred dollars ought to do
it ; but these figures gave him such a
shock I made haste to say I fancied my
estimate was too high, and that it might
be done for five."
" Did that please him ? "
" Not at all. He was more unhappy
than ever. We had a sort of quarrel.
I told him I hated these sordid, practi-
cal considerations ; that I wanted a little
room for imagination in the world."
" But you finally made up ? "
" Oh yes. When we quarrel, I always
give way. That 's why I adore Bartram.
He 's so strong. I worship force."
"Yes, Van Kleeck is strong. I ad-
mire his force."
" So presently I tell him that I know I
am all wrong, that he is right. ' I have
the habit of being right before I begin,'
he answers, and so it is all made up."
She brought the scene to Gordon ; it
was alive.
IV.
By the end of March it had become
the chief social occupation of Gordon
Rose to go to Capua twice a week. He
had not been contented with a bare
perfunctory performance of his duty to-
wards his absent friend, but had tried
to infuse into it something which should
give relief from the flatness and ennui
One Fair Daughter.
65
which a charming girl necessarily suffers
when parted from the man she loves.
Van Kleeck could very well discard
trivial attentions ; could label bonbons as
poisonous, cut flowers as unprofitable,
and tickets for the theatre and opera
as unsatisfactory. When Gordon carried
these slight offerings to Miss Gale, he
would say, " Van Kleeck can afford to
despise these things, but then I am not
Van Kleeck." He felt, in fact, that he
owed Cerise a debt of gratitude. With-
out this resource he would have been
absolutely shut out of Edith's world ;
but the two cousins wrote to each other
occasionally, and thus he had news of
the girl he loved. She was in London
pursuing her studies ; was to pass the
coming examinations, and then decide
what college to enter. Gordon pon-
dered much on the question of whether
he ought or ought not to break the
silence between them. He had stuck in-
defatigably to his routine of work, both
at the law school and in Mr. Graham's
office. He had begun to like it, not as
a mere grind, but finding order, reason,
logic, evolve out of what had seemed to
him at first nothing but a wordy chaos.
He had a sense that he was mastering
difficulties. He had heard that Mr.
Dorsey was obliged to be in New York
in April, and Gordon began to feel that
he could point to his winter's record and
ask if it might not balance that absurd
mistake of the preceding autumn ; if it
could not, indeed, atone for it and make
promise for the future. Mondays, Tues-
days, Thursdays, and Fridays the young
man patiently glued his eyes to the
pages before him, opened his ears to the
wisdom imparted, and wrote as he was
required, giving resounding phrase to
commonplace and locking subtleties into
impenetrable mystery. But on Wednes-
days, Saturdays, and Sundays there was a
sensible lightening in his whole demean-
or. It has been observed by philosophers
and naturalists, who like to stretch a
simple fact until it covers a theory, that
VOL. LXXX. NO. 477. 5
mules whose task it once was to draw
street cars in certain towns became used
to making five journeys from one end to
the other of the route before they were
released, and went four times content-
edly, but setting out on the final track
they brayed with joy. Thus Gordon, on
these three days, was kindled with a
sense of joyful expectation. Wednesday
and Sunday he went to Capua. On
Saturday it might be said that Capua
came to him, for on the morning of that
day Miss Gale almost invariably took the
11.58 train to town, and Gordon was
almost certain to meet her, and, with
the sort of paternal tenderness a mature
young fellow of twenty-four can feel in
giving pleasure to a sweet little girl of
one-and-twenty, take her to some matine'e
performance of opera or play. There
was a real satisfaction in thus answering
the passion, the enthusiasm, the ardent
curiosity which belonged to Cerise, which
had been hitherto starved on meagre fare.
However, one Sunday night late in
March, when Gordon was on his way
back to town after spending six hours
in Miss Gale's society (for, as was not
infrequent in these days, he had been in-
vited to remain and partake of the even-
ing meal of the family), his heart and
conscience were both brought up sudden-
ly by a sharp pull. It was a singular
circumstance that neither he nor Miss
Gale, in all those hours of intimate
conversation, had once alluded either to
Bartram Van Kleeck or to Edith Dorsey.
Never had Cerise been so entertaining.
On the Saturday before the two had had
a very successful day together ; she was
in the highest spirits, and the piquancy
and audacity of her criticisms, the feli-
city of her droll little hits, had made
him put off any mention of the absent
dear ones until it was too late, for he
had been obliged to run for the train.
This omission of Edith's name and of
Van Kleeck's had happened once before,
but Gordon now said to himself it must
not happen again. It meant neither for-
66
One Fair Daughter.
getf ulness nor disloyalty, of course ; per-
haps it was the inevitable reaction after
their early outpourings of confidence.
" The shallows murmur, but the deeps are
dumb."
He recalled one significant circum-
stance which showed that it was actually
Cerise's generous disposition to make the
best of things which kept her from harp-
ing on her desolate position. When, the
week before, he had alluded to South
Africa, she had exclaimed, with a sort
of shuddering sigh, "Don't talk about
South Africa ! "
" A fellow must have some subject,"
he had replied. "What shall I talk
about?"
"Talk about me," she retorted, with
her pretty childish air of petulance.
" That 's a charming subject, I admit,"
Gordon had observed inevitably.
He had noticed at times a sort of ex-
citement in Cerise, and he had said to
himself that she put on her blitheness
for Van Kleeck's sake. She wished to
please his friend, to make the hours
pass. The artless and spontaneous way
in which she discussed her own char-
acteristics, her impressions, her crying
wishes, and her imperious needs was all
a part of her devotion to Van Kleeck,
came from the instinct to seem gay and
happy and content. On Gordon's side,
it was his office to applaud the delightful
little creature ; for Van Kleeck's sake, to
keep her up to high-water mark, not per-
mit her to dwindle into dullness and low
spirits. Yet on this particular Sunday, hi
spite of such a plain deciphering of duty,
it seemed to Gordon flat disloyalty to his
absent friend to have been sitting easy
and comfortable, listening to Cerise talk-
ing of everything that came into her
head, silent about her betrothed husband,
who was toiling and sweating in a climate
which exposed him to every sort of peril.
No, Gordon was not content, and
when, on the following Wednesday, he
presented himself at Capua, he carried
in his hand a bunch of violets, together
with some jonquils. He gave the latter
flowers to Cerise, but retained the violets.
" They remind me of Edith," he said.
" There was a shady spot at Lenox where
they bloomed all summer."
" Oh," said Cerise, " you are always
thinking of Edith."
"Of course I am," Gordon retorted;
" just as you are always thinking about
Van Kleeck."
" Indeed I am not always thinking
about Bartram. I think about a great
many other things," Cerise declared, with
a vivid spot of color burning on each
cheek. " Why should I not ? He is
thinking of all sorts of things and doing
all sorts of things I know nothing about."
" But they all refer to you. I would
wager a considerable sum that he thinks
of you when he eats, when he works,
when he sleeps. 'Will Cerise like this? '
' Would Cerise be able to stand that ? '
' When shall I see Cerise ? ' " Gordon's
voice lingered on these questions. He
asked them with a lover's insistence.
She gave him a soft little glance.
There was an odd droop at the corners
of her lips.
" A man is bound to attend to his busi-
ness," he resumed.
" And is a woman not bound to attend
to hers ? " cried Cerise, smiting his ar-
gument with relentless logic. " He is in
South Africa, and I I am in Capua."
Her glance perplexed Gordon. It
seemed almost to include him in this iso-
lation, this separation from Van Kleeck.
It seemed to say, " You and I are here."
" His letters ought to account for a
good deal of his time," Gordon sug-
gested. " You say he writes you twelve
pages twice a week."
" They are all statistics. I don't care
in the least about statistics. Bartram is
so fond of giving information, and at least
eleven pages of each letter are devoted
to an account of the climate, productions,
and inhabitants of the gold region."
" But the other page no doubt makes
up for the rest."
One Fair Daughter.
67
" On the other page," said Cerise
blandly, " he praises economy, tells how
little he can live on in that climate, one
requires so few clothes, and he hopes I
like a vegetable diet, for it enables one
to save so much."
Gordon felt a rebellious rush of sym-
pathy for Cerise. He had indeed expe-
rienced it more than once before. Van
Kleeck was the noblest fellow in the
world, but he overdid the thing. A man
who loves a girl must not disregard the
life, the passion, the aspiration, which are
the essence of the creature. Certainly,
if he, Gordon, had a chance to write to
Edith, little enough of statistics and eco-
nomies would he try to give her. Nev-
ertheless, what he now observed to Miss
Gale was : " The truth is, money to Van
Kleeck means his happiness. Two thou-
sand a year is having you on the nar-
rowest possible margin ; three thousand,
with a little more comfort ; five thousand
and upward, with ease, elegance, luxury."
" I hate those material ideas. I don't
want to measure all the world by sordid
considerations," Cerise burst forth im-
petuously.
" Bartram is never sordid. His prac-
tical forethought is all for you. His only
wish is to have you for his wife."
" I don't want to be his wife. I don't
want to go to South Africa."
" Do you mean " Gordon began ;
then broke off aghast at the very sugges-
tion of such perfidy.
" Yes, that is what I mean," she said,
quite understanding.
" He thinks you love him devotedly ! "
" I did n't like to hurt his feelings."
Never in his life had Gordon experi-
enced such wretched discomfort. The two
were looking at each other intently, both
flushed, both tremulous, both wearing an
air of being a good deal frightened. But
besides this half-terror Gordon was con-
scious of something else in the look and
tone of Cerise, of elation, of having
found an outlet, an escape, from what had
cramped and thwarted her. Her bright,
fluffy little head was poised like a bird's.
He gazed at her with dire consternation,
feeling in his heart some vibrating re-
sponsive chord answering hef, and angry
with himself for feeling it.
" You should n't say such things ! " he
exclaimed, as if with intense indignation.
" You should stop and think."
" I don't want to-stop and think. You
ought to have told me long ago to stop
and think," Cerise retorted, also with an
air of being exasperated to the last de-
gree. " You have let me go on and on
you have brought me flowers you
have I don't want to stop and think.
It would make me miserable. I have n't
thought for a long time. I have just put
every idea away except except "
" Except what ? " demanded Gordon.
" Except that you would be here, if
not to-day, then to-morrow ; if not to-
morrow, next day."
Gordon sat as if stunned. He was
conscious of a strong current of emotion
through his veins, but could not define
the different sensations which seemed to
rush together and gather in a blow that
stupefied him. He saw that tears filled
her eyes and brimmed over. He pitied
her with all the strength of his nature.
" We have been so happy"
she faltered, bending forward and with
her wet face near his, speaking.in a tone
which addressed his heart rather than his
ear.
He jumped up, with a feeling of
wrenching himself away from a position
of extreme peril. " You don't think of
Van Kleeck. You don't think of Edith,"
he said. Feeling had roughened his
voice so that it was unrecognizable.
"You did n't think of Edith ! "
" I always think of Edith."
" Were you thinking of her last Sat-
urday, when we were going about to-
gether ? " Cerise asked this eagerly ;
then without waiting for him to answer
she went on: "You were not thinking
of her at all. You have not thought of
her of late. Why should you think of
68
One Fair Daughter.
her ? There is nothing for you to think
of. It is not as if you had actually been
engaged to her. If I can give up Bar-
tram after after being everything
to him for two years, and he everything
to me, why, it ought to be nothing, no-
thing in the world, to give up Edith, who
does not really care for you, who never
in her life cared for anybody but her fa-
ther, who is wrapped up in binomial the-
orems, who "
" Don't, don't, Cerise ! " cried Gordon,
raising his hand as if to ward off a blow.
" She is cold she is But no, no,
I will not be so unfair. She is greater
than I am, sweeter than I am, but oh,
Gordon, she does n't care about you as
I do."
The charm, the tyrannous actuality of
the real presence of a lovely girl close
beside one, her tearful eyes raised, her
moist red lips quivering, her whole face,
tone, gesture, eloquent alike ! At such
a moment a man's heart must respond in
some measure to what is so palpable, so
absolute ; the absent must become more
or less vague, shadowy, problematical.
"And you don't really care about
Edith," the voice went on in that terrible
whisper. " I saw that long ago. If I
had not seen it, if I had not known it
was a fiction, a pretense, I could n't have
begun to feel that "
Her tone thrilled him ; her look drew
him. Her quick sobbing breath the
tears on her cheek
He hardly knew what had happened,
but somehow his own face was wet. He
felt as if blinded and scorched by pure
flame. Yet in another moment he was
out of doors, on his way to the station.
Who knows whether destiny bade Mrs.
Gale stand sentinel that day ? Was it
simply because for domestic or economi-
cal reasons a guest would have been un-
welcome ? Or did she feel as if her niece's
tete-a-tete with the friend of her fiance
were somewhat unduly prolonged ? At
any rate, this happy accident was the re-
sult of her glance at the clock. Harold,
a lively boy of five, suddenly threw open
the parlor door, and called at the top of
his lungs, " Mr. Rose, mamma says, if
you want to take the 5.58 train, you will
have to make haste ! "
V.
" I feel absolutely stuck fast in the
mire ! " Gordon said to himself at least
a hundred times in the course of the next
forty-eight hours. Did this exclamation
come from a feeling of being entangled,
from a longing for deliverance ? And if
so, a longing for deliverance from what ?
From Edith ? From Cerise's snares and
nets ?
That last interview remained a fixed
impression, a speechless and sombre load
upon his heart and sense. He could not
shake it off. He could not understand
what had happened, why he felt
wrenched away, separated from what he
loved most. He put out his hands to
meet Edith, but they fell empty. Hither-
to, even with the ocean rolling between
them, she had been near, her heart beat-
ing with his, her faith answering his.
Now she was cold, remote ; imagina-
tion flapped a leaden wing and could not
soar : absolutely, it seemed to him he
had forgotten Edith's very look and fea-
tures.
But close beside him, too importunate
to be banished, too sweet, too seductive,
to be denied, was Cerise, flattering his
longing to be beloved, to love somebody.
The pathos of the situation was so deep.
Her cry for happiness, for freedom, for
the emancipation which lies in having a
hatful of money to spend, was one which
he could answer so ungrudgingly. It was
so pitiful that the charming little creature
could not have free play, she had been so
limited, so hindered ! They had already
enjoyed so much together.
Yes, Cerise no doubt had come close,
irresistibly close. She had made
everything so clear. Her sequences had
One Fair Daughter.
69
been appalling in their logic. The idea
that an imperative duty called him to
her thrilled his heart and imagination,
worked upon him like a spell, fevered
him with a restless happiness. He felt
himself to be a man pushed by destiny.
But there was not only Cerise in the
world. He might argue that no tie bound
him to Edith, that Edith could not accuse
him of duplicity. There was Van Kleeck,
and thinking of Van Kleeck, Gordon
loathed his own hollow and hypocritical
pretense of friendship.
" I don't think," Gordon nevertheless
argued to himself, with an effort at high
moral indignation, "that a man ought to
hand over his betrothed wife to another
man's keeping and go to the other end of
the world. I don't think it 's safe."
Here the inward monitor took up the
argument.
"It is true it might be safe with a
loyal, honorable fellow, and Van Kleeck
supposed I was loyal and honorable."
" He thought I loved Edith, that
nothing would make me unfaithful to
Edith."
" He believed Cerise, poor child, loved
him."
" He had spoken of the discipline of
a long engagement. He said it was the
supreme test that ought always to be im-
posed. But then Van Kleeck is not a
pendulum, vibrating first to the right,
then to the left."
These reflections did not pursue each
other coherently ; rather, like the occa-
sional bubble from the depths of a trou-
bled pool, each welled up as by irresisti-
ble pressure. More than once, in the two
nights which followed the Wednesday, he
started out of his sleep, with some new,
perverse, self-scrutinizing, nervous tre-
mor over the dilemma he was in. When
he was awake, his conscience was not so
much his monitor as his accomplice ; it
pointed to duty, but that duty was to
Cerise. The sensations she stirred in
him of inconsequent enjoyment, of plea-
sure in the lucky accident of their being
together, of his marching to her orders
and rather liking it, belonged to the re-
veries of his waking hours. In his sleep
his soul made its claim ; it was then that
his love for Edith asserted its power.
" I told Van Kleeck that without Edith
I should go to the devil," Gordon would
say to himself in despair. " / have ar-
rived"
In spite of all his thinking, he grew
hour by hour to know less and less what
he really thought. He had postponed any
absolute decision as to his future course
of conduct until Saturday, for on that day
he was to see Cerise again. In this inter-
val of irresolution it was a relief to fasten
with a fresh grip to his work. He liked
the hard, cold, remorseless logic of the
argument he was studying. What had
heretofore been dry, colorless, pedantic,
suddenly became infused with the decree
of the fixed, the immutable ; it gave him
intense satisfaction. A thing himself of
shreds and patches, of ideas starting from
no fundamental principle and leading to
no conclusion, it was a comfort to find
that human conduct is not to be based on
sentiment, on taste, even on passion. He
began dimly to feel that there must be a
tribunal before which he might state his
predicament and find some sort of deliv-
On that Friday afternoon Gordon was
sitting at his desk in Judge Graham's
office, working with a sort of fury at an
abstract which he had been asked to pre-
pare, oblivious of everything that was
going on about him, when all at once
there appeared on the sheet of foolscap
over which he was bending a very small
limber square of pasteboard, on which
was engraved, "Mr. Reginald Dorsey,
Gramercy Park."
Gordon stared at the card, as if some
inner spasm of feeling, of conscience,
of memory, had suddenly taken visible
shape and risen to accuse him. While
he was trying his wits at the riddle, the
clerk whispered in his ear, " Mr. Dorsey
70
One Fair Daughter.
is in Judge Graham's private office. He
wants to see you."
Gordon sprang to his feet. With a
beating heart he strode down the long
room, went out into the lobby, and, with
a feeling of being confronted with some
new trial whose difficulties he could not
measure, turned the handle of the sec-
ond door. Judge Graham was sitting
talking to Mr. Dorsey as the young man
entered.
"I must go," the judge said, rising.
" I have been telling Mr. Dorsey good
things about you, Rose. When you first
took a desk here, I thought to myself it
was a lucky thing for you you had n't to
make your living by the law. Now I 've
changed my opinion; I have decided
that with the requisite push of poverty
you would go far."
But Gordon heard nothing. Mr. Dor-
sey, shaking his hand and looking into
his face, was puzzled. The young fellow
was pale, but his eyes were burning ; his
lips were compressed ; altogether he had
an air as if bracing himself for a grapple
with an enemy.
All he said in response to Mr. Dorsey's
greeting was, " I supposed that you were
in Europe."
" Graham cabled for me. There was
important business. I came at an hour's
notice. I only got in last night."
Gordon's eyes had an eager question
in them, his lips seemed ready to utter
it ; but then he dropped his glance to the
floor, shut his mouth firmly, and said not
a word. He had wanted to ask if Edith
had come, but of course Edith had not
come.
" Are n't you well, Rose ? " Mr. Dor-
sey inquired.
" Oh yes, I'm well ; that is, physically."
Mr. Dorsey's instinct, sounding the
young man through, discovered some-
thing amiss, something wanting. But
after all, might it not be that Gordon
had something to forgive ? Had not his
claims been treated with ignominy ?
Had not his suit been dismissed, Edith
carried off, and he himself left to eat out
his heart with empty longing ?
" Sit down," said Mr. Dorsey. " I want
to talk with you. I decided last fall
that if you were really in love with my
daughter you ought to be able to endure
a six months' test. Afterwards when I
went to see you but we '11 pass that
over "
" I never wondered that you despised
me," Gordon broke in. " I feel that if
you told Edith how "
" I did not tell her. I saw Van
Kleeck in London, and he made it clear
to me how it happened. Rose, my dear
boy, I did not mean to be too rigid. But
a father's position is one of terrific re-
sponsibility. All Edith's future happi-
ness depends on the character of the man
she marries."
Gordon heaved a deep sigh, but for a
long moment answered not a word.
Mr. Dorsey looked surprised, almost
displeased. Something, everything he
expected was lacking in the young fel-
low. After such a concession from the
father of the girl he was prepared to
love eternally, he ought not to stand
dull, inert, staring as if at a blank
wall ; then, when aghast at the silence,
answering in the most perfunctory way,
Yes."
" It is not yet six months," observed
Mr. Dorsey succinctly, " since you pre-
sented yourself as Edith's suitor."
" It was on the twenty-second day of
last October."
" Precisely, hardly more than five
months. You told me then that you
loved my daughter devotedly."
" I loved her with all my heart," said
Gordon, with an energy in his accent
which suggested some bitterness of feel-
ing.
" Has there been any change in your
regard for her ? "
" Any change in my regard
for her ?"
I mean, do you love her still ? "
*' I adore her."
One Fair Daughter.
71
" You love her as you loved her then,
with all your heart and soul ? "
" With all my heart and soul." As
he spoke a gleam crossed Gordon's fea-
tures. It was the first sign of the passion-
ate gladness of the lover he had evinced
to Mr. Dorsey's disappointed eyes. But
just as this belated instinct of manly feel-
ing began to move him he pulled him-
self up, as it were. " That is," he added
hastily, " I should love her still with all
my heart and soul unless "
" Unless what ? "
" Don't ask me, sir. To enter into ex-
planations would lead to madness."
" Let me try to understand," said Mr.
Dorsey, endeavoring to command his
baffled and wrathful temper. " Do you
wish me to believe that you still love my
daughter? "
" I never loved anybody else, I
never could really love anybody else,"
said Gordon mechanically, all the fervor
of a lover absent from his look and tone.
" There is some one else," said Mr.
Dorsey sternly.
Gordon gave him a glance, a word-
less confession, but enough.
" There is some one else," Mr. Dorsey
reiterated.
Gordon drew his hand across his fore-
head. " I 'm utterly stupefied at the po-
sition in which I find myself," he mur-
mured blankly.
" Are you engaged to some one else ? "
" Oh no, sir, not engaged."
" Have you been making love to some
one else ? "
Gordon shuddered. His conscience
was on edge. " Not intentionally," he
muttered ; " still "
" You told me just now that you loved
Edith."
" I do love her."
" Do you love the other ? "
Gordon drew a deep breath. "If I
did not, I should be the most ungrateful
cur alive."
" It is impossible," Mr. Dorsey now
exclaimed in a tone of intense exaspera-
tion, " for a man to be in love with two
women at once."
" I used to think so," said Gordon in
a hollow voice.
" It is, at any rate, impossible for a man
to be married to two women at once."
" I know it," Gordon conceded, with a
sigh, " and I have become convinced that
most of the trage'dies in life are due to
that circumstance."
Mr. Dorsey, confounded, gazed at the
young man. The situation was incon-
ceivable. Here had he come back from
England feeling at last that the just and
right thing to do was to let Edith have
the lover she had not forgotten, whom
she could not forget ; who, in fact, Mr.
Dorsey had gradually grown to believe,
was the one man on earth whom he de-
sired for her husband and his own son.
He himself had hankered after the young
fellow almost if not quite as much as had
Edith. When he had heard how well
Gordon was behaving, how he fastened
to his desk like a bur, the older man's
heart had yearned over him. He had
come to love Gordon ; he repented his
hardness on Gordon's little naughtinesses
and naturalnesses. Still, he had been
right in the main. It was better that he
should not have given his consent at once.
Engaged to Edith, . Gordon would not
have shown the stuff that was in him.
So firm had been Mr. Dorsey's faith,
he had thought of no possibility except
that, at the first mention of Edith, Gor-
don would be on fire with longing to see
her.
" If you have been false to Edith, if
she is replaced in your affections," the
father now said, " I will go away on
the instant. If she is still anything to
you, I have, I think, a right to under-
stand "
" I wish with all my heart you did un-
derstand ! " Gordon burst out. " If some
one only knew just what has happened
how I am placed "
" Tell me about it."
" I don't know how. But I have just
72
One Fair Daughter.
begun to say to myself, ' If there were
but some one to whom I could go for
counsel ! ' '
" Why not to me ? "
" If I were the only one concerned "
" But there is the other the woman ?"
" Two others ! "
" Two women ? "
" No, only one woman ; the other is a
man, my friend."
It was an easy matter now to see that
there was some form of fierce self-con-
demnation in the young man's breast.
Mr. Dorsey had not, in general, the
faculty of reading the hearts and minds
of other men, and it was this incapacity
of swift insight which made him slow in
making up his mind. But at this mo-
ment, shaping itself little by little out of
various vague suggestions, came a tan-
gible idea. He remembered his cousin
Cerise. Three years before, he himself
had been for about forty-eight hours un-
der her spell. He had been a little be-
witched, he had almost thought of her as
a mother for Edith. Then espying in
himself such possibilities, he had rubbed
his eyes and awakened. He could re-
call now the fact that Edith had about
six weeks before been a little downcast
after receiving a letter from her cousin ;
that since that time she had not men-
tioned the name of Cerise, that is, not
voluntarily ; but when he alluded to Ce-
rise, she had spoken of her as so charm-
ing, so permeated with life and f reshness,
with audacity, with piquancy, with siu!h
an intense relish for life, she ought ^
have a chance to be happy, since some*
people were born to be happy, just as
for others were appointed renunciations.
With instant divination, Mr. Dorsey now
observed quietly, " You have been seeing
a good deal of my cousin, Miss Gale ? "
Gordon, sharply startled, assented.
" Has she broken her engagement to
Van Kleeck ? " Mr. Dorsey inquired fur-
ther, with clear significance.
"Not yet," Gordon responded, the
color rushing violently to his face, then
ebbing, leaving him suddenly more pale
than before.
" I fancy I see your dilemma," Mr.
Dorsey said, as if musing. " The fact is,
my cousin Cerise is a very charming
girl ; she is a girl, too, of unusual strength
of mind, with plenty of will of her own.
She has only one weakness, and that is a
dislike to have any man near her who is
not in love with her, at least a little in
love with her." He said no more, his in-
tuition telling him that discussion might
kindle fires not easily extinguished. " I
want," he added, rising, " to have you
tell me the whole story. This is not the
place. It will be better for you to dine
with me to-night."
VI.
Gordon was in no state of mind to
prepare his conversation skillfully. Still,
in the interval between parting with Mr.
Dorsey on Wall Street and presenting
himself at the door of the house in Gra-
mercy Park at twenty-five minutes past
seven, he did try to decide what he him-
self sincerely wished, and what he need-
ed to say to Mr. Dorsey. He had to re-
flect that Edith was well placed, happy,
with a devoted father, every material
thing she needed in the world within
reach, loving her studies, ambitious to
pursue them and excel. There was Ce-
rise, who needed him, who was betrothed
to a man not wholly congenial who had
left her alone. If she actually wished
to be released from her engagement to
Van Kleeck, was it not Gordon's duty to
shield and serve her in this crisis ? He
would entreat Mr. Dorsey to look at the
matter dispassionately ; to weigh the right
and wrong of it ; to tell him whether it
would be an unmanly breach of faith for
him to marry the woman who had been
for two years and more engaged to his
friend. At least one grandiloquent, not
to say pathetic phrase was to be pressed
into service.
One Fair Daughter.
73
" I can give up the woman I love, but
ought I to give up the woman who loves
me ? "
This was the case in a nutshell.
The visitor was admitted, and, pass-
ing through the still dismantled hall,
was ushered into the library, comfortably
warmed and lighted. There was no one
in the room, but easy-chairs were drawn
up temptingly before the fire. He did not
sit down. Comfort, ease, peace of mind,
were not for him. He had an ominous
vision of what Mr. Dorsey would say.
Here in this room, which he had once
entered with such very different feelings,
conscience pinched him like an ill-condi-
tioned garment. He would presently be
sent away miserable, pining, again shut
out as unworthy. The only consolation
possible was that he, no matter how de-
feated in sacredest hopes and wishes,
could at least insure the happiness of Ce-
rise. Poor little Cerise, who loved him !
He heard a sound at the door. It
was his host. It was also his censor, his
judge, indeed his executioner. His heart
was heavy with dread, but he turned.
The room was only half lighted ; that
is, all the lights were veiled. He saw a
figure entering, but not that of the gen-
tleman of the house. Instead it seemed
an apparition, a cloud of white that
glimmered, that wavered, that hesitated
to advance, that lingered in the far-off
gloom. Was it a girl, a beautiful girl
in a white gown ? It was Gordon who
advanced. It was Gordon who darted
across the room, who approached, who
stood as if overcome by the exquisite and
unexpected bliss of the moment, then
gasped out, " Edith ? You here ? "
The two stood looking each into the
other's face. There she was, tall, slen-
der, full of grace and dignity ; with that
pure, proud, unspeakably beautiful face ;
the candid brow, the wide-open eyes, the
tender lips that smiled in the corners.
" Have you actually remembered me
all this time ? " she asked, the little dim-
ples playing in her cheeks.
There came over Gordon, as he took a
hand of hers in each of his, such a poi-
gnant sense of happiness, of salvation, of
deliverance, that he had but one resource,
to clasp Edith in his arms ; and that
was what he did.
Mr. Dorsey presently followed his
daughter. If he had used his wits to
prepare a brilliant counterstroke, he had
been successful. He had never before
seen Gordon with Edith. Now that he
saw them together, he felt that he wished
never again to see them apart.
" If," he said with feeling, as Gordon
rushed towards him, and wrung his hand
over and over "if you love
her "
" Love her ? I worship her ! " cried
Gordon, and this time nothing of pas-
sionate gladness was missing in his look
and tone.
" She is all I have. I 'm like the man
in the play :
' One fair daughter, and no more,
The which he loved passing well.' "
" You will have me," said Gordon.
Later in the evening, Mr. Dorsey found
a chance to ask, " Did you tell Edith ? "
" There was nothing to tell her," an-
swered Gordon with decision, " no-
thing."
" I have a dislike for beginnings, but
once begun, I want things never to end."
" This shall never end."
" And by the way," said Mr. Dorsey,
" do you happen to know that Van Kleeck
has sent for Miss Gale ? He wants her
to go to Paris with some friends who sail
on the 6th of April. She will prepare
her trousseau in Paris, and he will meet
her there, and they will be married at the
American minister's."
Ellen Olney Kirk.
74
The Future of Rural New England.
THE FUTUKE OF RURAL NEW ENGLAND.
THE township of Dickerman, in the in-
terior of one of the New England States,
has a large area, with a scattered pop-
ulation of about fifteen hundred souls.
Farming is the only industry of the peo-
ple. The roads, bad at all seasons, and
in the spring almost impassable, are so
encroached upon by untrimmed brush
that wagons have much ado to pass one
another. Such guide-boards as are not
prone and crumbling are battered and
illegible. The mail-boxes at the cross-
roads are as untrustworthy as worn-out
pockets. The orchards are exception-
ally picturesque, but they owe their pic-
turesqueness to the unpruned, scraggly,
hollow-trunked condition of the trees.
The fields wear a disappointed, discour-
aged air, and the stone walls and rail
fences which outline them they can-
not by any stretch of the imagination be
said to inclose them sag at all possi-
ble angles, uncertain in their courses as
drunken men without guides. Piles of
magnificent logs, valuable even where
lumber is cheap, are rotting by the road-
sides, and stacks of cord-wood, long ready
to be transported, stand in the forests.
Many of the farmhouses have been
tenantless for years. Many of the oc-
cupied houses are so gray, moss-grown,
and dilapidated that they are only a tri-
fle less ghastly than the tenantless ones.
They are so weather-beaten as to retain
only the faintest traces of the paint that
once brightened them. Their windows
have the traditional stuffed panes, and
the blinds when there are any have
broken slats. The chimneys, ragged of
outline and almost mortarless, threaten
to topple over in the first high wind.
The outbuildings are flanked by fence-
rail buttresses, lest they fall over or
break apart. The) door-yards are over-
grown with rank weeds and overrun with
pigs and poultry ; the few flowers, which
fidelity to country tradition has planted
there, being forced to seek refuge behind
screens of rusty wire netting or palisades
of unsightly sticks. The barn-yards are
littered, miry, and foul-smelling, and the
stock within them with the exception
of the pigs, which thrive are lean and
hungry.
Even the few houses that have not
been allowed to fall into disrepair have
a sullen, forbidding appearance. The
blinds are closed or the curtains are
drawn at all but the kitchen windows.
Seen for the first time, they suggest a re-
cent death and an approaching funeral.
Every day, however, year in and year
out, it is the same with them ; they are
perpetually funereal. Spick-and-span-
ness they have, but without brightness,
and thrift, but without hospitality.
Dickerman is traversed by a railway,
with a station at the"" Corners," as that
section of the township is called which
contains the post-office, the town-house,
two stores, two churches, and a squalid
hotel, and which therefore comes a lit-
tle nearer than any other part to being
the village proper. Here are also a de-
serted store, abandoned saw and grist
mills, a long-disused academy, a neglect-
ed cemetery, and rather more than a
due proportion of empty and dilapidated
dwellings. The deserted store has never
been deprived of its fittings ; the dust-
coated shelves, counters, and glass show-
cases, the rust-incrusted scales, the cen-
tre stove and the circle of armchairs
about it, all remaining in their places,
as any one may see who takes the pains
to clean a spot for peering through one
of the bedaubed windows.
It is more than twenty years since the
wheel of the village mill stopped because
of the death of its owner, who left no
children. The mill is a sad ruin now,
almost roofless, two of its side-walls prone
The Future of Rural New England.
75
on the ground, its machinery oxidizing
and falling to pieces, and the piles of
sawed and unsawed lumber decomposing
around it. It is longer still more than
thirty years since the academy closed
its doors to pupils. The academy build-
ing was used for a variety of purposes
afterwards even as a dwelling be-
fore the ultimate and complete desertion
that is now its lot. Its sign has remained
in place through all its vicissitudes, and,
though badly weather-beaten, would still
be legible to an expert decipherer of in
scriptions.
There are Catholic communities, both
in America and in the Old World, where
an extreme wretchedness in the dwell-
ings is at once partially explained by the
richness and beauty of the churches.
But not so in Dickerman. On the con-
trary, both the Dickerman churches are
of a piece with their surroundings. The
Congregational Church, more than a cen-
tury old (" Orthodox " is the name it still
goes by), was a worthy structure in its
day, and would be so yet had it been
kept in good repair. Alas, it is only
the ghost of its former pretentious self !
Its sills are badly rotted. Its spire and
belfry have been shattered by lightning,
and imperfectly restored. Its roof is
leaky, the clapboards of its walls are
warped and blistered, and its heavy bell,
once sweet of tone, is cracked and dis-
sonant. The Baptist Church, built only
a few years ago, mainly at the expense
of a church building society, is one of
the shoddily constructed, many-gabled
atrocities due to the malign influence of
the so-called Queen Anne restoration. Its
original coat of paint of many colors has
mostly soaked into the surrounding soil.
Its panes of stained glass, as they have
been broken from time to time, have
been replaced by ordinary window-glass,
with piebald, uncanny results. The pre-
sent town-house (the original town-house
was burned several years ago), the only
public building in the place, comports
well with the churches, being a square,
squat, unpainted thing, with so striking
a resemblance to a barn that it would
surely be taken for one, were it not for
its lack of barn doors, its isolated and
honorable position in the centre of the
village common, and its adornment by a
bulletin-board thickly plastered with lists
of voters, town-meeting warrants, and
legal notices in large variety.
In a word, a stranger entering Dick-
erman for the first time could not fail to
be astounded by the marks of desolation
and decay on every hand. To him, the
most conspicuous evidence that it was or
had been a populated town would be
the closeness of the gravestones in the
graveyard ; the best evidence of business
enterprise, a freshly painted undertaker's
sign, bearing the brisk announcement
that coffins, caskets, and burial-robes are
always ready ; the one touch of beauty,
a magnificent double row of aged elms
leading up to the forsaken academy ; and
the one patch of warm color visible, the
flaming circus posters with which both
the outside and the inside of the Ortho-
dox Church sheds perennially bloom.
When first I saw the crumbling croft-
ers' huts of the Scottish Highlands, I felt
that I could never see anything sadder.
I had not then seen the deserted farms
of my own New England hills. When
I visited them, I recognized instantly a
sadder sight than the crofters' huts ; de-
cay in a new country being as much more
appalling than decay in an old country
as the loss of faculties in youth is more
appalling than the loss of them in age.
What Dickerman is in appearance, a
desolate, destitute community, that it is
in reality. To begin with homely and
material conditions, even at the risk of
seeming pettiness, a word must be said
regarding the food of its inhabitants.
The Dickerman diet is the most un-
wholesome possible. Pork in one form
or another is its staple, " meat " and
pork, " hearty food " and pork, are used
as synonyms ; and pork is supplemented
mainly with hot cream-of-tartar and sal-
76
The Future of Rural New England.
eratus biscuit, doughnuts, and pies. The
sanitary, not to mention the epicurean
possibilities of the meats, vegetables,
mushrooms, and fruits within easy reach,
either are not known or are ignored.
The results are just what might be ex-
pected. The men are listless, sullen,
stolid. Chronic dyspepsia and other in-
ternal disorders are common. That their
constitutions are not completely under-
mined is due largely to the power of re-
sistance that life in the open air gives
them. The women, who have not the
advantage of outdoor living, who indeed
are by necessity or choice quite as much
confined within doors as their sisters of
the cities, suffer frightfully. They take
refuge (as men would turn to drink) in
floods of unwholesome patent medicine,
and in the nostrums of quacks who ap-
pear at regular intervals in the village,
only to make a bad state of health a
worse one. Small wonder that as a class
they are pale, haggard, prematurely old,
shrill, ill-tempered, untidy, and inefficient
in their housekeeping. To the physical
and sensuous delights of the country
a little fishing and hunting on the part
of the men excepted one sex is as in-
different as the other.
The social life is pinched and bare.
The only organizations are the churches
and a moribund lodge of Good Templars.
Of neighborliness there is little, and that
little consumes itself so entirely in the
retailing of petty scandal that there is
nothing left for beneficence. To the
sights and sounds of nature the spring
flowers, the summer insects, the autumn
foliage, the winter chiaroscuro, the chants
of birds, brooks, and woodlands the
people are deaf and blind. The fresh-
ness of the morning and the glowing
colors of the sunset stir no more emo-
tion in them than inVtheir kine.
The schools are held\in poorly equipped
buildings, taught by girls without train-
ing or enthusiasm, and attended by chil-
dren devoid of ambition. One might al-
most say they are as bad as they could
be. The Sunday-schools are even worse.
Except the two Sunday-school libraries,
which are little better than nothing, there
is no circulating library in the whole
township. Memoirs of martyr mission-
aries and antiquated books of devotion
are among the heirlooms of many fam-
ilies ; they are held in profound respect,
but are never read. Such other books
as appear on the tables are those the
owners have been wheedled into purchas-
ing by clever book agents, subscription
books all : campaign Lives of candidates
for the presidency, county histories, cook-
books, sermons of evangelists and emo-
tional preachers, Home Treasuries of
prose and poetry ; above all, books of eti-
quette. The denominational religious
weeklies, the cheaper fashion and house-
keeping periodicals, the fifty-cent story
papers (whose real business is a traffic in
notions by post), and the stanch old par-
ty organs (daily, semi-weekly, and week-
ly) enter some of the households. But
the real, the typical reading of Dicker-
man, the reading of men and women,
young and old, is the sensational news-
paper of the worst kind, especially the
Sunday edition, which is sold at every
cross-roads in New England, even where
the railway has not yet penetrated.
One is not surprised to find a dearth
of public spirit. The civic sense of Dick-
erman manifests itself once a year only,
at town-meeting, chiefly in reducing the
regular and necessary appropriations to
the lowest possible limit, in protesting
against innovations on the ground of
burdensome taxes, and in quarreling over
trifles. In fact, were it not for the
fears of each of the several sections of
the township that it would get less than
its share of the public moneys, and for
the widespread desire to hold office, which
finds profit in encouraging these petty
sectional jealousies, there would hardly
be any public appropriations whatever
in Dickerman. Civic honesty, naturally
enough, is at the same low ebb as civic
spirit. The buying and selling of votes
The Future of Rural New England.
77
has been in vogue for years, and has
not been as much lessened by the intro-
duction of the secret ballot as in larger
communities, where secrecy of any sort
is more practicable. Only lately, the
chairman of the board of selectmen was
kept from foreclosing a mortgage solely
by the threat of his mortgagee to make
public the amounts that he and others
had received from the official for their
votes in the preceding election. Liquor-
selling under a state prohibitory law is
condoned by the selectmen for pecuniary
considerations, these being tacitly under-
stood to be legitimate perquisites of the
office of selectman.
The two churches of Dickevman are
not the dispensing centres of sweetness
and light that we would fain believe
all religious organizations to be. The
Orthodox Church, as immutable in its
methods as in its doctrines, is cold, un-
aggressive, self-righteous, and contempt-
uous of everything religious or anti-re-
ligious that is not part and parcel of its
tradition. The Baptist Church, equally
conservative in matters of doctrine, is
nevertheless committed to sensationalism
of method, and it is a poor year indeed
when it does not manage to produce at
least one genuine excitement. It indulges
in fierce and frequent tirades against
free-thinking, worldly amusements, and
Sabbath-breaking, and, for purposes of
edification, imports evangelists, Bible
readers, leaders of praying bands, total
abstinence apostles, refugee Armenians,
anti-Catholic agitators, educated freed-
men, and converted Jews. The church-
goers, while they are sadly lacking in the
positive virtues of honesty, generosity,
and brotherly love, are as a class fairly
faithful to the code of a conventional
negative morality that makes it incum-
bent upon them to be temperate and or-
derly, at least in public. The churches
are thus a valuable restraining force.
Furthermore, they discharge an impor-
tant social function in bringing together,
regularly, people who would otherwise
not be brought together at all in an or-
ganized way. Barren, then, as the life of
Dickerman is with its churches, it would
be still more barren without them. The
social immorality of rural New England
is a subject that does not fall directly in
our way, but it ought to be said that the
good people who take it for granted that
country life develops social purity pro-
bably do not know the true condition of
country life anywhere ; certainly they do
not know it in New England. If the
whole truth were told about the people
of Dickerman in this respect, it would
be sad truth. An eminent American has
recently been urging the protection of the
morals of the city against the country.
Novel as the argument seems, it is none
the less a sound one.
The foregoing description of life in
Dickerman is not exaggerated. Its out-
ward dilapidation and the emptiness of
its inner life could not be exaggerat-
ed. But there are, of course, individuals
who are intelligent, honest, large-hearted.
And things have not always been at
such a pass there. The very dilapida-
tion, destitution, and decay are eloquent,
as tombstones are eloquent, of a life that
has been, of a bygone golden age. Six-
ty years ago Dickerman was one of the
most flourishing farming communities in
its State. It was an important coaching
station on a main road, with a roomy and
hospitable road-house, whose tap-room
flip, jollity, and repartee enjoyed an in-
terstate reputation. Then, as now, except
that the sawmill and gristmill were al-
ways buzzing, farming was its only indus-
try. The farms were well tilled without
the assistance of machinery, and the farm-
buildings were kept in good repair. The
farmers were hard-working, thrifty, and
alert ; the farmers' wives were efficient
out of doors and within doors, and as well
able as the men to withstand a pork diet,
if that was then the fashion. Sons and
daughters alike were expected to do their
share towards the family's maintenance
during the busy season, in recompense
78
The Future of Rural New England.
for which they were allowed to devote
themselves heartily to the winter school.
This winter school was invariably taught
by a man, usually a college student ; the
work of the colleges then being arranged
to make teaching in winter possible. The
relation of the teacher to his pupils was
a highly personal one ; hence the ready
transmission of enthusiasm and the de-
velopment of individuality. Dickerman
Academy was the pride not only of the
township, but of a large rural district
from which it drewboarding-pupils. Even
to this day a few of the older citizens
who still hold to the Dickerman tradition
will name to you the eminent judges,
members of Congress, Senators, and cler-
gymen to whom Dickerman Academy
was an alma mater. A weekly lyceum
was held in the academy building during
the winters months, and a singing-school
in the schoolhouse. Neighborhood social
events were frequent, hearty, and whole-
some. The church (there was only one
then) was so conducted as to afford, in-
directly, large opportunities for the inter-
change of courtesies, news, and ideas. It
was generously supported, and so close
was the union of its interests with those
of the town that fidelity to the one
meant practically fidelity to the other.
Altogether it was a healthy, homogene-
ous life, a little slow, perhaps, but far
from lethargic, and productive of much
that was worth while, especially of the
thing the best worth while of all things,
character.
What has brought about the change
in Dickerman ? First, there was the dis-
covery of gold in California, with its
promises of large fortunes to all who
were enterprising enough to go across
the plains. Some went from Dicker-
man, the most ardent and adventurous
of those whose careers were not mapped
out for them, a few even of those to
whom a fair success in life was already
assured. Those who were left behind
had to be philosophers to remain serene
under the fabulous stories that came to
them, through the mails, from those who
had gone among the first ; and not all
stood this test.
Later, the railway came to Dicker-
man, establishing quick connection with
the manufacturing towns and cities, just
then entering on a period of extraordi-
nary activity, and with the New England
metropolis. The reports of the high and
steady wages to be earned in the shoe-
shops and in the cotton and woolen mills
made the young people even more rest-
less than the reports from the gold-fields
had made them, the shops and the
mills were so much nearer, and many
young women, as well as young men,
went forth to try their fortunes.
The civil war called a number away.
Of these, some of course were killed
in battle ; others, after their discharge,
yielded to the enticements of the cities,
and never went back to the farms. Of
those who returned to Dickerman to live,
a part were physically disabled, or were
demoralized by dissipated habits con-
tracted during their camp life.
Finally, the emigration which set in
from New England to the Western prai-
ries, and which brought the relatively
small and barren home farms into an ill-
deserved contempt, took a large part of
those who were left and were worth tak-
ing. By these successive losses of popu-
lation the town was at last so far im-
poverished that no great attraction from
without was necessary to keep up the
drain, for the very deadness and dull-
ness within exerted a strong expulsive
force ; depletion itself being a sufficient
reason for further depletion. There was
once a saying current to the effect that
as soon as a boy was able to walk, he
walked away from Maine. So it came
to be at Dickerman, and has been ever
since : as soon as a boy has become able
to walk, he has walked away from Dick-
erman. And, pray, why not? What
inducement could he have to remain?
Instead of leaving a good place to live in
for one that might or might not be bet-
The Future of Rural New England.
79
ter, as the first emigrants did, he was
merely leaving a bad place to live in for
a place that could not possibly be worse.
The same influences that caused the
depletion and the decay of Dickerman
the rush to the gold-fields, the civil
war, the emigration to the prairies, the
large cities, and the manufacturing towns,
and the feeling of isolation and lack of
opportunity resulting from this emigra-
tion have been operative throughout
all rural New England with more or less
disastrous results. Another influence,
just as generally operative, has been an
exaggerated notion of the luxury and
gentility of city life. To hail from Bos-
ton or from New York is to be both
wealthy and aristocratic, according to
the typical rural mind, which groups city
people together in a single social stratum,
without question as to where they live
or how they live, and assigns farmers,
whatever their individual qualities, to a
social stratum lower by many degrees.
This absurd notion has not only driven
country people away from the country,
but has also demoralized those whom it
has not driven away. Hence has come
the pathetic desire of such as find them-
selves doomed to live elsewhere than in
cities to imitate, as nearly as their imper-
fect knowledge permits, the manner of
life of city folk. They endeavor to dress
as city people dress, to furnish their rooms
as city people do, even to readjust their
houses to the city mode. They remodel
a fine, sensible old homestead into some-
thing that is neither a farmhouse nor a
town-house, but an ugly nondescript, with
the disadvantages of both and the ad-
vantages of neither ; or they demolish a
house honestly built to stand for gener-
ations to make way for a gingerbread
sham of a villa, as much out of place in
the midst of farm surroundings as bric-a-
brac would be in a stable. They discard
their heirlooms handsome, heavy, an-
tique furniture, and rare china for up-
to-date gewgaws, with neither durabili-
ty, usefulness, nor beauty to recommend
them. The women waste no end of time
and money, and fret and fuss their lives
out into the bargain, in a vain and ludi-
crous attempt to keep pace, from season
to season, with the changing fashions in
dresses and hats. Furthermore, this gro-
tesque exaltation of city conduct has bred
a contempt not only for the healthy out-
door work that women formerly did, but
also for menial labor of every sort even
within doors.
If these attempts to put away old
country fashions were genuine Teachings
out towards a higher life, there would
be no good reason for deploring them ;
but they are so plainly mere affecta-
tions that they are thoroughly pernicious.
The standards they are based upon are
ready-made importations, not the natural
and healthy outgrowth of rustic condi-
tions. The result is glaring incongruity ;
and incongruity is invariably either ludi-
crous or pathetic, never constructive. A
farmer might as well try to plough in a
dress suit as a farming community try to
ape the manners of a metropolis. The
undermining of character necessarily in-
volved in such a proceeding is its worst
consequence. Wasteful expenditure -is
an immediate result, for peddlers and
sharp - dealing tradespeople know this
rural weakness and take advantage of
it. The country people, being hopeless-
ly under the spell of the notion that
they must have things exactly as city
people have them, are easily beguiled
by cleverly exaggerated advertisements
and voluble chatter into believing that
many unnecessary things are necessary,
and that it costs nothing to buy on the ac-
cursed installment plan. They purchase
pianos and organs on which they never
learn to play ; reclining - chairs whose
mechanism is so defective that they re-
fuse to recline except at highly inoppor-
tune moments ; hanging - lamps, rarely
lighted, which, when lighted, are unfit to
read, to write, or to sew by ; smart sets of
parlor furniture, whose stuffing of Span-
ish moss takes impressions and keeps
80
The Future of Mural New England.
them, as putty does ; plush albums that
will not hold color even in the dim light
of the best room ; spectacles and eye-
glasses that do the eyes positive harm ;
ear-drums that give no aid to the deaf ;
and folding-beds and bed-lounges whose
only possible excuse for existence is the
lack of space in a city flat, space, so
dull is perversity, being the one thing
above all others in which country people
are privileged not to economize. It is
surprising how much these foolish pur-
chases cost. Only one who is familiar
with living on a small margin can know
how far the exchequer of the average
country family is demoralized by them.
A sixty-five-dollar cooking-stove that was
not needed, whatever its merits, the or-
gan that is never played, or the unlove-
ly plush album may be the very thing
that precludes the possibility of closing
the year out of debt.
When a young man, with only his
hands or his untrained brain to depend
upon for a living, deliberately refuses to
accept an average farm from his father
as a gift, subject to the condition that he
shall live on it and work it, a thing
that is constantly occurring in New Eng-
land, the natural conclusion is that
the young man sees no profit in farm-
ing ; and though in exceptional cases
his refusal may have other than finan-
cial reasons, the conclusion is generally
a sound one. The fact that farming as
ordinarily carried on does not pay is a
highly important factor in the present
situation. Most New England farmers
are up to their eyes in debt ; overbur-
dened with real estate and chattel mort-
gages which they can never hope to pay ;
constantly harassed by the insistence of
a dozen other obligations which they can
never hope to meet ; more than satisfied
if they are able to keep up the interest
on their mortgages, keep the town wait-
ing for their taxes, and get extension of
time on their notes. But it would be in-
structive to know whether the actual pro-
fits on capital and labor invested in New
England farming are any smaller to-day
than they were formerly, or whether it
is the foolhardy attempt to lead a city
life in a country environment that makes
them appear to be reduced. The farmers
themselves believe the profits to be much
smaller, but their belief is hardly conclu-
sive, inasmuch as in the first place they
are prejudiced observers, and in the sec-
ond place, for what reason I know not,
they are the most incorrigible grumblers
in the world. The proverbial discontent
of the laboring man is as nothing to theirs.
Besides the government, which we all de-
cry on occasion as a matter of habit, and
which may therefore be left out of the
account, the farmer has three favorite ob-
jects of abuse, the railroads, the specu-
lating capitalists, and the middlemen.
That the speculating capitalists play
with farm products as they would with
cards is notorious. That railroads some-
times impose exorbitant freights and
bribe legislatures, to their own advantage
and the farmers' confusion, is well known.
That the middlemen get more than their
proper share of the profit, though not
entirely clear in view of the risks they
run, is not unlikely. If we grant that
the farmer is right in believing himself
the victim of these men, we see only
the more clearly his own inferiority. In
truth, the failure of the average New
England farmer to make a good living
is probably due quite as much to his
incapacity as to the extravagance of his
imitations of city life, on the one hand,
and the impositions of his economic mas-
ters, on the other hand. This incapacity
is made up of unintelligence, shiftless-
ness, and dishonesty in about equal parts.
It is a trite saying, and only partially
true, but true enough to bear repeat-
ing, that if the average farmer did his
work with the same intelligence that the
average business man uses, he would suc-
ceed as well as the latter. The farmer,
instead of studying markets systemati-
cally, makes wild hits at them. Because
peas brought a good price a previous
The Future of Rural New England.
81
season, owing to their scarcity, he plants
ten times as many peas as usual ; forget-
ting that everybody else has planted peas
for the same reason. If he lives near
enough to a city to make dairying and
market-gardening profitable, he is like-
ly to become possessed with the desire
to raise only one or two vegetables ; or
he ignores the proper rotation of crops ;
or he is constantly sacrificing permanent
profit for ready cash, taking everything
out of the land, and putting nothing into
it. After leaving his wagons, tools, and
machines exposed to all the elements, he
is amazed and angry that he so often has
to buy new ones, curses them for being
poorly made, and inveighs boisterously
against the dishonesty of the time.
Such a farmer seems never to learn
that clubs and families in cities are will-
ing to pay a high price for thoroughly
honest products ; for when he finds per-
sons who might easily be made perma-
nent buyers from him, he estranges them
by inflicting upon them dishonest things.
Doing little to make his produce attrac-
tive, he nevertheless devotes a great deal
of ingenunity to arranging it dishonestly,
"deaconing it," to use the significant
country phrase. He " deacons " his fruit,
his vegetables, everything in fact, even
his eggs, selling as fresh eggs that have
been packed all winter, and taking it as
a sort of personal affront that the men
who stamp and guarantee their eggs can
command a fancy price all the year. Al-
though the farmer is perhaps not more
dishonest than other men, it is proba-
ble that he suffers more from his dishon-
esty than most others : partly because he
deals so largely with perishable materials,
in which fraud is easily and quickly de-
tected ; and partly because he is less sub-
tle in his deceits, and less apt in defend-
ing himself against the consequences of
detection. One year when the best ap-
ples were hard to dispose of, a certain
district Grange offered its members a
chance to send apples to Liverpool. Some
took advantage of the situation to get rid
VOL. rxxx. NO. 477. 6
of their poor fruit. The Liverpool agents
very naturally felt aggrieved, and the
Liverpool market was closed to the farm-
ers of that district for the rest of the
season, during which many barrels of
good fruit rotted.
The prime cause of the impoverish-
ment of the social life of rural New Eng-
land has been, of course, the impairment
of vital force by the loss of great num-
bers of worthy people, but this cause
alone does not entirely explain the de-
cline. The large size of the townships
and the long distances between dwellings
have had much to do with making social
coherence difficult. A single township
may embrace four or five communities
two or three miles apart, with no com-
mon rallying-point but the annual town-
meeting. Not only do these detached
sections get nothing socially from the
township as a whole, but they are not, as
a rule, populous or compact enough to
have any appreciable social activity of
their own. In this respect our farming
communities are at a distinct disadvan-
tage as compared with those of France
and most of the other countries of the Old
World. There the tillers of the soil live
closely together, in almost crowded vil-
lages, from which they go forth to their
work in the outlying fields. There is no-
thing in their situation to prevent their
life from being as highly organized as if
they were not tillers of the soil at all.
In Dickerman and Indian Ridge (as
I described the latter in The Atlantic
Monthly for May) two true if extreme
types of contemporary New England ru-
ral life have been presented ; one show-
ing progress at its best, the other show-
ing decay at its worst. There are few
Dickermans, there are still fewer Indian
Ridges. Most New England farming
towns range themselves between these
two types in poinfof character ; they are
not so dead as Dickerman, and not so en-
ergetic as Indian Ridge. That the coun-
try in general, however, has slipped back,
no one who knows it can doubt. But
82
The Future of Rural New England.
several influences which in a measure
counteract the general tendency to decay
must be mentioned. Village Improve-
ment Societies, though varying greatly in
their efficiency, have brought much bene-
fit to many localities. The Grange, while
doing little enough of the sort of service
that was expected of it in the reform
of economic conditions, is working social
and intellectual miracles. The Home
Culture Clubs and the Chautauqua Cir-
cles and Assemblies must be admitted
to have given an intellectual stimulus to
country life. An educational unity, pro-
ductive of better schools in towns of
scattered population, has been effected
by the simple device of free transpor-
tation to and from a centrally located
school. Public libraries have increased
in number, and the Sunday-school libra-
ries of some of the towns not yet provided
with public libraries have been so far lib-
eralized as to prove not unworthy substi-
tutes. The beauty of the memorial libra-
ry buildings and churches erected here
and there by wealthy individuals, and
the improvement that has taken place in
the architecture of the railway stations,
are doing something for the development
of taste.
I venture a few words, then, at the
risk of blundering badly, as to the future.
Farming communities which like Indian
Ridge have held out successfully against
the powerful disintegrating forces of the
last half - century have thereby proved
themselves possessed of so much inher-
ent virility that their life may be de-
pended upon to continue vigorous, what-
ever transformations it may undergo.
Then the trolley roads are rapidly cov-
ering Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and
Connecticut with a network that is slow-
ly and surely redistributing the popula-
tion ; it seems almost inevitable that a
1 The least important, perhaps, and yet to
some of us the saddest^thing about the decay
of New England country life has been the dis-
appearance of the hospitable wayside tavern.
Something similar, it is hoped, may be brought
great part of the present rural area of
these three States will ultimately be in-
cluded in the suburbs of their numerous
and widely scattered industrial centres
and of their dozen or more larger cities.
When this condition arrives, if it does
arrive, rural life will have become sub-
urban, and farming, aside from mar-
ket-gardening, will have practically dis-
appeared. The bicycle and good roads
are exerting a minor but considerable
influence in the same direction. 1
Equally important is the fact that
large areas in all sections of New Eng-
land are in process of transformation
from farms to sites of country-seats.
Residents of the cities are coming more
and more to make their real homes in
the country. They are building their
country houses with more comfort and
more solidity, and are living in them a
much larger part of the year than for-
merly. The country season extends al-
ready from the first of May to the first
of November, and is still lengthening.
Improved railway and steamboat trans-
portation, the multiplication of large for-
tunes, greater leisure, above all a grow-
ing appreciation of the sports and re-
sources of country life, have contributed
to this result. It looks very much as if
our urban society were attaching itself
primarily to the land, living on the
land, and leaving it for the city only in the
festive season. Whether this tendency
will produce again a landed aristocracy
instead of an aristocracy of other forms
of wealth, who can say ? One thing only
is sure, it would produce thereby a
new New England. During the hunt-
ing and fishing seasons of the last few
years, northern Maine, the wildest and
most remote section of New England, has
been visited by such numbers of sports-
men that the income to the residents has
in by the bicycle. It is much to be feared, how-
ever, that the new bicycle road-house will be
nothing more hospitable than a mammoth stand-
up lunch-counter.
The Future of Rural New England.
83
been prodigious. If this region is not
permanently reserved to sport (as it
ought to be), its magnificent lake, moun-
tain, and river districts will be crowded
with summer hotels, as soon as they be-
come a little more accessible by rail.
From the summer hotel to the summer
cottage is but a step, and from the sum-
mer cottage to the solid country house is
but another step. Considerable sections
of Vermont, New Hampshire, and west-
ern Massachusetts, and of the New Eng-
land coast from Eastport to the New
York line, have already been transfigured
by this remarkable return to the soil.
Curious indeed it would be if rural New
England, which has been largely depop-
ulated and impoverished by a movement
of country people to the city, should be
repopulated and enriched, should have
its economic and social equilibrium re-
stored, by a counter-movement of city
people to the country.
Finally, there is some hope for the
New England farms as farms, for
farms, although apparently destined to
play a less important part than they
formerly played, will hardly disappear
from such sections as are neither adja-
cent to the cities and industrial centres
nor specially attractive for residence,
and this hope seems to rest with our im-
migrants. They alone are willing and
able to lead simple farm lives, such as
the pioneers of the West or the original
New England settlers lived. The na-
tive Americans are now too impatient,
too extravagant, too proud, under the
changed conditions, to be successful
farmers. In many sections, this occupa-
tion and rehabilitation of the soil by for-
eigners has actually begun. Many of the
abandoned farms which come into the
market are bought by them at very low
prices. Most of these newcomers pro-
sper, just as the American settlers of a
former period prospered when they held
to the plain life of pioneers. If these
immigrant farmers were crowding native
Americans off the land, as immigrant
laborers have from time to time crowded
them out of the labor market, their ad-
vent would be ominous ; but since they
step in to fill a vacuum, to do what oth-
ers have failed to do, there is no good
reason why they should not have a hearty
welcome.
The old New England, the New Eng-
land of the farms, seems destined to dis-
appear, if indeed it has not disappeared
already. The people who gave it its
character have long been away from
the farms, building up and enriching the
West, the Northwest, the Southwest, the
interior, and the large cities and manu-
facturing towns of the Atlantic coast
States. The primitive, rugged, whole-
some life of the fathers is gone forever.
Nothing can bring it back. I have ven-
tured to predict a new New England,
composed of large cities and manufac-
turing towns of greatly expanded sub-
urbs, districts of country - seats, and a
remnant of farms worked by immigrant
farmers. The prophecy seems fair
enough in the light of the most conspic-
uous present conditions ; but so seemed
the prophecy, before the day of railways,
that New Orleans would be one of the
great cities of the world. As the rail-
ways prevented the development of New
Orleans and created Chicago, so such a
simple and probable event as the deri-
vation from the New England water-
courses of electrical power, and its trans-
mission for long distances, may of itself
be sufficient to change the life and as-
pect of all New England within a very
brief period.
The typical New England community
of to-day, however, is neither the de-
cayed farming town Yior the prosperous
farming town, but the manufacturing
town. Such a community will be the
subject of the next and final chapter of
these studies.
Alvan F. Sanborn.
84
Burke: A Centenary Perspective.
BURKE: A CENTENARY PERSPECTIVE.
JUST a hundred years ago there was
laid to rest in the quiet country church
at Beaconsfield one to whom we Ameri-
cans owe a debt of gratitude that has
never been fully paid. Edmund Burke,
whom the world now recognizes as one
of the few great men of all time, made
his first appearance in public life in con-
nection with American affairs. That
early speech which won him instant fame
as an orator was made in advocacy of
the rights and privileges of Americans.
In the course thus entered upon he per-
sisted with untiring interest through long
and discouraging years of ministerial
wrong-headedness and incapacity. He
brought to his service a deep and thor-
ough knowledge of American conditions,
a sound political philosophy, and a glow-
ing genius ; and yet Burke was little of
a hero in American eyes during the
struggle of the Revolution, and little of
a guide in the formative period that suc-
ceeded.
There are certain outer and obvious
reasons for this neglect, perceptible at
once as we glance, for instance, from
Bnrke to the one whom Americans did
cherish in their hearts as their chief pro-
tector and defender on English ground,
Lord Chatham. Burke was a begin-
ner in political life ; Chatham had been
for years a dominant figure in European
politics. Chatham had rank and high
social connection ; Burke was an obscure
young Irishman of no connection at all.
Chatham was a strong and masterful
party leader ; Burke stood, as he always
deliberately chose to stand when circum-
stances permitted it, in the subordinate
position of party follower.
For the failure of our ancestors to re-
cognize the value of Burke's services and
to adopt his ideas, there were, however,
other and deeper reasons, to be found in
certain general currents of thought and
feeling, opposing, crossing, and inter-
mingling in the political and social life
of the time.
The anti-American party in English
politics began its work of aggression un-
der the cover of legal right, a right
justifying any procedure that might be
warranted by the letter of law or the
wording of statute. Grenville, the man
who, in concocting the Stamp Act, struck
the match that set off the whole maga-
zine of revolution, was the arch-type of
the legal mind. The various celebrated
pen portraits that we have of him show
him to have been upright, painstaking,
and honest, but oppressively literal, mak-
ing no allowance for the disturbing force
of human emotion in schemes constructed
by the human intellect. Having, as he
thought, a legal competency to tax the
colonies, he saw no possible reason why
he should not exercise his right, and he
at once proceeded to do so. In oppo-
sition to his policy, the party of Chat-
ham and Camden, following the lines
laid down by their teacher, Locke, urged
the claims of a natural or moral right,
which, they maintained, graven deeply
and unmistakably in the individual con-
sciousness, offered to every man an in-
fallible test for determining when the
commands of positive law embodied jus-
tice, and when they did not.
The doctrine of moral right is to be
found in the colonies, also, in a state
of vigorous and flourishing growth.
Wrought out as it had been through
ages of social conflict, by one minority
party after another, as a weapon of de-
fense against the established law of a
hostile party in power, this doctrine was
peculiarly at home in a community which,
like colonial America, was largely peo-
pled by such a minority party and their
descendants. Nor was a doctrine of
legal right unfamiliar there ; but while
Burke: A Centenary Perspective.
85
in England law and nature, as political
principles, were pitted against one an-
other by party politicians, in the colonies
they were used to support one another
in a common cause of resistance to Eng-
lish oppression.
Two notable figures appear in colonial
history, the minister of religion and the
lawyer, the former the dominant per-
sonage in the seventeenth century, the
latter in the eighteenth ; and while the
former, as a true son of the Reformation,
had developed, expounded, and typified
the doctrine of moral right, until it had
become ingrained in the thought of the
people, the latter, when he came into
prominence, was eager to show his fa-
miliarity with the arts of his particular
vocation, all devices of offense and
defense that may claim as their warrant
the letter of law. We are not, however,
to regard the ministerial class in the
concrete, at the Revolutionary period,
as engaged in teaching a moral right ex-
clusively, while the lawyers, on the oth-
er hand, devoted themselves entirely to
legality. It was rather the case that the
moral or natural right theory, developed
and fostered in the period of theological
influence, descended to the legal period
to form part of a common stock of doc-
trine which was drawn upon freely by
any one at will, as occasion seemed to
require.
Burke, in the meantime, was conduct-
ing his American campaign along quite
other lines. Obedience makes govern-
ment, he thought, and obedience can be
secured only when the governor knows
and will work in harmony with the forces
of human motive actually in operation
in the people to be governed. If men
were beings of a simple nature, moved
by reason entirely, or by some one funda-
mental emotion such as fear, the moral
right resting on logic, and the legal right
resting on force, might do very well as sole
principles of government. But Burke
saw not only that men are curiously in-
tricate complexes of feeling, reason, de-
sire, belief, passion, and prejudice, but
that they are not even uniform in their
complexity. The elements of human na-
ture vary from race to race, from com-
munity to community, even from person
to person. The first task of the legisla-
tor, then, if he wants to form a plan of
government that will work successfully
in practice, must be to study the peculiar
temper and character of the particular
people with whom he is to deal.
Such a special study Burke made of
the American people, of its original
race traits, of its acquired characters,
and of all the influences of climate, soil,
geographical position, and social tradi-
tion that might be counted on to modify
those traits and to accentuate those char-
acters still further. From this research
into local conditions emerged certain psy-.
chological principles of general applica-
tion, prominent among them the law of
habit. Habit is the force, Burke thinks,
that has consolidated the elements of
feeling, instinct, and reason in the hu-
man mind into a smoothly working whole.
Habit gives to human action a strength,
surety, and swiftness that seem unattain-
able by any other means ; and the long-
er habit is at work, the greater will be
the effect produced by it. Escape from
the influence of habit is difficult, if not
impossible. Even when a person or a
community voluntarily determines wholly
to ignore it, and to reconstruct in every
detail the already established plan of
life, the attempt will result either in a
stoppage of action, or in a failure to
break away from custom after all. Much
less can habit be uprooted by external
agency. The legislator who tries to run
counter to the fixed customs of a people
will meet with a strength of resistance
that will be found insuperable.
Rejecting, then, a legal right which he
thought impracticable, and a moral right
which he thought misleading, Burke
founded his political philosophy upon
that use and wont, that custom from
time immemorial, which is the basis of
86
Burke: A Centenary Perspective.
the English common law, and in great
part of the English Constitution.
So far, Burke might be merely the
skillful politician, the Machiavelli of his
time, studying without approval or dis-
approval the complicated instrument he
is trying to know only that he may play
a tune of his own upon its stops. But a
thorough belief in his chosen principle
gives to Burke's philosophy an accent of
greatness. Use and wont are means not
only to easier but to better action. It
is true that habit must be reckoned with
by the legislator ; a people cannot be
permanently governed contrary to its in-
clinations, and its inclinations become
more firmly fixed and more definitely es-
tablished by long-continued custom. The
path is, however, to be kept not only be-
cause walking is difficult outside of it,
but because the track thus worn by the
converging tread of countless feet, at the
call of countless interests, desires, and
calculations, leads more directly to the
great ends of human society than any
new road, laid out arbitrarily by the sin-
gle speculator. And so innovation was,
for Burke, the great political heresy, and
his chief article of complaint against the
Tory party of his day in England.
Use and wont as a ground of doctrine
had their place in colonial thought by
right of inheritance from a long line of
English ancestry. Custom, as well as
moral and legal right, was freely alleged
in justification of American claims. In
the various addresses, petitions, and de-
clarations issued by the colonists from
time to time we may find expression of
all these doctrines, either separately or
in amicable even if somewhat incongru-
ous combination. But as the contest
went on, use and wont seemed to be
found less and less available as a basis of
argument. Hutchinson writes in 1774 :
" The leaders here seem to acknowledge
that their cause is not to be defended on
constitutional principles, and Adun's now
gives out that there is no need of it ;
they are upon better ground ; all men
have a natural right to change a bad
constitution for a better, whenever they
have it in their power." If the princi-
ple adopted by Burke was in reality a
sound and fruitful one, why should it
have been dropped from favor in this
way ?
With the passage of time the substan-
tial correctness of Burke's analysis of
the American situation is seen more and
more clearly. The revolt was brought
about, as Burke said it was, by British
violation of use and wont, by British con-
tempt for American opinion and f eeling.
The condition of affairs in America was
the result of natural growth and pre-
vailing circumstance substantially as he
depicted it iff his various speeches and
letters dealing with the American ques-
tion. Burke's doctrine of use and wont,
however, is a doctrine of the group ; and
the colonists were going all the time
further and further along the way of
individualism. The moral right so dear
to the colonists was based upon individ-
ual reason ; and the legal right invoked
so often both for and against them was
based upon individual will, either of the
one or of the many arbitrarily united.
The use and wont that Burke appealed
to, on the other hand, are the work, not
of some chance aggregation of unrelated
individuals, but of a social group, unit-
ed by ties of common descent, common
names, and mutual affection, a group
joining present, past, and future genera-
tions in intimate and living union. Into
this group, which Burke assumes as the
fundamental unit of human society, mem-
bers enter, as a rule, not by deliberate
choice, but by the involuntary avenue of
birth. It is made up, like the family
group, of the weak and the strong, of
the ignorant and the experienced ; and
as in the family group, the strong and
the wise are the natural leaders, the
weak and the ignorant are the willing
and obedient followers, while all mem-
bers work together, not for individual
profit, but for the good of the whole.
Burke: A Centenary Perspective.
87
Their plan of action is to be found in
the wisdom of ancestors, the know-
ledge gathered through ages of experi-
ence, and the principles worked out and
tested by the actual operation of events.
It is all very well, however, to have
recourse in this way to the wisdom of
ancestors and to institutions that have
stood the test of time and experience,
so long as one is in unbi'oken connection
with ancestors, and the conditions pro-
vided for in their institutions remain the
same ; but when ancestors cast one off
and circumstances change completely,
what is to be done ? The habit that
connected the colonists with England and
English institutions was necessarily some-
what weakened, as Burke himself had
shown, by the circumstances of coloniza-
tion. He had in mind particularly, as
causes of disconnection, the wide dis-
tances that separated the colonists from
their old home, and the necessity for
hardihood and individual self-reliance
arising in the settlement of a new and dif-
ficult country. We may see, in addition,
that the social group of early colonial
times was not, to begin with, the natural
group assumed by Burke as the unit of
society and as the author of use and wont,
but, consisting as it did mainly of adult
men and women who had deliberately
broken away from former local and so-
cial ties, and had deliberately united in
a new association by agreement, it was
in great degree a concrete example of
the artificial group assumed by Locke in
his compact theory, a group formed
by the free volition of independent and
equal individuals. The tradition of in-
dividual independence thus established
was never quite lost sight of, even after
long settlement had transformed the
originally artificial groups into natural
groups, which held largely to old Eng-
lish lines of thought and belief, and ar-
ranged themselves in the main under the
old English social and governmental
framework.
In the struggle with the mother
country, the necessity for independence
of thought and action became once more
pressing. More and more the colonists
found themselves cut off from precedent
and tradition; more and more they found
it necessary to assert the rights of the
individual against the power of the group
as represented by an oppressive govern-
ment ; more and more they were forced
into the position of revolt against all
establishment and control, although, as
Burke maintained, the establishment they
contended against was itself an innova-
tion, and the control was not the true
expression of group opinion, but the
violation of it. So, while Burke would
undertake the work of politics with a
" total renunciation of every speculation
of [his] own," and would put his " foot
in the tracks of our forefathers," where
he could *' neither wander nor stumble,"
the colonists, with Otis, were beginning
to see in the inherited laws of nations
"nothing more than the history of an-
cient abuses." While Burke thought that
" intemperately, unwisely, fatally, you
sophisticate and poison the very source
of government " by prying too closely
into its nature, the colonists were becom-
ing ready (again in Otis's words) " to
examine as freely into the origin, spring,
and foundation of every power and mea-
sure in the commonwealth as into a piece
of curious machinery." This fundamen-
tal difference of attitude regarding gov-
ernment and society was too great to be
overlooked, and accounts clearly enough
for an absence of strong sympathy on the
part of the colonists for Burke's leading
ideas, and indeed of any complete com-
prehension of them.
It would be natural to suppose that
when the war of the Revolution was over,
the constructive forces once at work in
colonial life would resume their activity.
The circumstances of the time seemed
to call for principles arid methods just
the opposite to those found necessary in
the struggle for independence. During
that struggle, the first necessity was to
88
Burke : A Centenary Perspective.
provide for the individual a way of es-
cape from the group ; now the individ-
ual must be brought into group relations
again, if the American people were to
work together as a political society.
At this time there did indeed arise
a party that looked first to social order,
opposed to a party that looked first
to individual liberty ; and in that party
of order the party of Madison and
Hamilton we might naturally expect
to find some reflection caught from the
great thinker who had expounded so wise-
ly, and so favorably to the cause of the
Americans, the fundamental principles of
social order. But during the period of
the formation and establishment of the
federal Constitution there is little trace
of the influence of Burke. Turning to
The Federalist, that authoritative text-
book of constitutional principle, we do,
it is true, find some suggestions of Burke's
thought and method. In it the com-
plexity of social workings is recognized ;
it is felt that slender results are to be at-
tained by the efforts of human sagacity ;
long adjustment of a system of govern-
ment to its surroundings is regarded as
necessary before it can work properly ;
function in government is more than
form, and parchment barriers cannot pre-
vent the encroachment of power ; gov-
ernment rests upon opinion, and requires
for real stability that veneration which
time bestows on everything.
But whatever its authors may have held
as personal opinion, the general direction
of argumentation taken in The Federal-
ist had to be along quite other lines than
those laid down in Burke's philosophy.
In urging the adoption of the Constitution,
its advocates cwild not expect to reach
a people in the f rtll tide of individualism,
after a successful revolt from the group,
by any appeals to a group theory of
use and wont ; and besides, by a curious
turn of affairs, so far as a doctrine of
use and wont could be applied, it would
work directly against their purposes.
Our Constitution has been amply shown
by numerous modern commentators to
be, in its substance, as much the embodi-
ment of actual experience as is the Eng-
lish Constitution itself. We suffer, in-
deed, from an embarrassment of riches
in sources of practice, American, English,
or Dutch, for its various formal provi-
sions. And yet, while the substance and
matter of the federal Constitution may
be old, there is enough in it that was new
in form at the time of its construction
to distract attention from more familiar
features. For example, popular thought
could not take in without difficulty the
idea of a political society made up of
States that were independent, and at the
same time under central control ; nor
could it understand a central control ex-
cept under the old form of king and
standing army. Furthermore, the circum-
stances attending the forming and adop-
tion of the Constitution were such as to
make it appear a new construction. The
meeting of a body of men representing a
nation, with the deliberate intention of
framing a fundamental law covering the
entire field of government, was a new
event in political experience. Although
much might be said in the convention
about English practice and the English
Constitution, the fact of choice, of free-
dom to adopt or reject, made even the
following of custom in some sort an act
of voluntary creation. This aspect of the
convention's work, at any rate, was the
aspect that impressed the imagination of
the time most forcibly, and has continued
to impress the imagination of succeed-
ing generations until within very recent
years.
To this apparently new device of in-
dividual creation were opposed those nat-
ural groups which had been slowly form-
ing out of the artificial groups of early
colonial society, through a hundred years,
more or less, of settlement, the differ-
ent States of the new union. They ex-
hibited the true characteristics of natural
groups : peculiar local traits, particular
local customs, differing local institutions,
Burke: A Centenary Perspective.
89
and a general sympathy for all that was
within the group, together with a gen-
eral indifference or hostility to all that
was without it. The framers of the Con-
stitution, in trying to establish a uniform
and stable system of government, found
themselves obliged to get behind the col-
lective personality of these groups to the
group members as separate and inde-
pendent individuals. " The great and
radical vice in the construction of the ex-
isting confederation," says Hamilton in
The Federalist, " is in the principle of
legislation for states or governments in
their corporate or collective capacities,
and as contradistinguished from the in-
dividuals of which they consist" Lu-
ther Martin, of the other party, com-
plained bitterly that such disregard was
paid in the Constitutional Convention to
the claims of state groups : " We had not
been sent to form a government over the
inhabitants of America considered as in-
dividuals, . . . but in our proceedings we
adopted principles which would be right
and proper only on the supposition that
there were no state governments at all,
but that all the inhabitants of this exten-
sive continent were in their individual
capacity, without government, and in a
state of nature" The advocates of the
Constitution, then, were obliged to meet
the charge of violation of use and wont,
that " innovation" which Burke saw
as the great vice of political action,
and they accepted the issue fairly and
squarely on that ground. Madison asks
in The Federalist : " Is it not the glory of
the people of America that, whilst they
have paid a decent regard to the opinions
of former times and other nations, they
have not suffered a blind veneration for
antiquity, for custom, or for names to
overrule the suggestions of their own
good sense, the knowledge of their own
situation, and the lessons of their own
experience ? . . . Happily for America,
happily, we trust, for the whole human
race, they pursued a new and more noble
course. They accomplished a revolution
which has no parallel in the annals of
human society. They reared the fabrics
of governments which have no model on
the face of the globe"
During all this time Burke himself was
becoming more and more openly and de-
finitely a supporter of tradition and the
group. While we were making and es-
tablishing our Constitution, he was be-
coming, by preoccupation with questions
of English local policy, less conspicuous
as a friend of American liberty ; and a
few years later he was seen occupying a
position that apparently indicated him as
the enemy of liberty in general. In the
overturning in France Burke thought he
saw the same spirit of innovation at work
that he had deplored in the conduct of
the English government in the American
matter, and he urged in resistance to it
the same considerations of use and wont,
of long - continued custom, that he had
urged on the former occasion ; but the ap-
plication of his doctrine made his course
appear diametrically opposite in the two
cases. What the unreflective mind saw
in both instances was a people trying to
win freedom, with Burke as their advo-
cate in the one case, against them in the
other. As a political philosopher, above
and beyond the party politician and bril-
liant orator, Burke first came into pro-
minence by means of his Reflections on
the Revolution in France, which was
widely and eagerly read from the time
of its publication. This work stamped
him in popular thought as the stanch up-
holder of royalty, of aristocracy, and of
governmental control, a position that
could hardly commend him in a country r
that had just shaken off royalty, and
that had scarcely founded a government.
There was besides, in America, a natural
feeling of sympathy for a country trying
to work out its destiny on principles os-
tensibly the same as those adopted in
American practice. Jefferson expresses
the feeling of the " French party " in his
disdainful comment on the picture of roy-
alty " gaudily painted in the rhapsodies
90
Burke: A Centenary Perspective.
of the Rhetor Burke, with some smart-
ness of fancy, but no sound sense." Even
the " English party " could not regard
with open approval a defense of institu-
tions that they themselves honestly felt
were superseded and antiquated, while
at the same time they had to suffer every
day the imputation of trying to restore
them.
The development of the individual, the
trust in his powers, the belief in his ca-
pabilities, continued unchecked through
the early years of our country's exist-
ence as a separate political society. Just
as the last portion of land taken into
cultivation fixes the rate of rent for all
other land in use, so the ever advancing
frontier fixed a general type of temper,
character, and manner for the whole
people. When the intricate network of
social relation and institution that each
individual has to fit himself to, in an old
and compact society, began to form in the
longer - settled communities, the young
and enterprising, who felt themselves
hampered by these growing restrictions,
found an ample outlet for their energies
in the boundless opportunities and wide
spaces of the West. It is not possible
to regard very seriously limitations from
which escape is so easy ; and so the free-
dom of the West was an ever present
influence in thought, even where condi-
tions were arising to prevent complete
individual liberty in practice. The
method of the pioneer the self-reliant,
resourceful man who can at call turn
his hand to anything was the method
of the whole country, not only because a
, constant process of new settlement de-
manded the continued use of that method
somewhere, but because it had been hand-
ed down by tradition from the days when
the frontier was the Atlantic seaboard,
as the way in which we were at one
time accustomed to conduct our affairs
everywhere. There was little or no re-
spect for the expert in any line ; a cer-
tain native shrewdness, unaided by spe-
cial training, long practice, or social sup-
port, was thought to be the entire outfit
needed by the free-born American to ac-
complish anything. To outsiders, too,
the typical " American " was the fron-
tiersman, because he was the superlative
degree of American tendencies, and be-
cause he afforded the most complete con-
trast to the European type of charac-
ter, and contrast always attracts ; so
this figure, reflected back through the
opinions of others, was fixed even more
firmly in the self - consciousness of the
American as his own true image.
This individualism of a society domi-
nated by the frontier ideal flourished,
until in the war of secession it attained
its culminating moment. The abstract
theory avowedly held by a whole people,
that all men are equal, and, by virtue
of bare humanity, endowed with certain
natural rights to certain desirabilities of
existence, had not been completely car-
ried out in practice, whatever legal cas-
uists might say to the contrary, while
human slavery existed as a social institu-
tion. Although it is true that political
and economic causes deeper than any
abstract doctrine of " rights " had their
powerful effect in bringing on the civil
war, it is no less true that one of its causes
was the constant discussion of rights and
the constant appeal to ostensibly accept-
ed principles, and that one of its great
results was a more complete realization
of those principles in the freeing of the
slaves. Another victory, too, for indi-
vidualism was won by the war. The nat-
ural groups represented in the States,
each with its own distinct social person-
ality, the same natural groups that had
resisted the adoption of a Constitution
which threatened to dissolve them into
their individual elements, were, in the
civil war, again arrayed against a power
that menaced group customs and habits.
The result of that war was still further
to reduce the power of those groups, to
violate local custom and local feeling,
and to establish a more general relation
of individuals with individuals, regard-
Burke: A Centenary Perspective.
91
less of state lines and of state author-
ity.
At this very moment of individualistic
triumph, however, group influence began
to assert itself again, and with ever in-
creasing power. In the South, the ruin
of the war was aggravated by the pre-
sence of a population recently freed
from a position of legal dependence, but
as yet unfitted for a position of econom-
ic and social independence. It had to
be admitted by the warmest lovers of
liberty that even for the enfranchised
class itself freedom from outer control
was not the unmixed blessing it had been
supposed to be ; and so the abstract the-
ory of moral or natural right got a blow.
The beautifully balanced Constitution
we took such pride in had been juggled
with by advocates and opponents of sla-
very, by Whigs and Democrats, until we
came to think that even the letter of . a
law might not be a certain safeguard ;
and so an abstract theory of legality was
weakened. Large numbers of foreign-
ers were already coming among us, and
inequalities of intelligence, varieties of
social condition and local characteristic,
were made so prominent that it was in-
creasingly difficult to think of men as
" man," but we were obliged to regard
them as particular kinds of men living in
particular ways. Pressure of a popu-
lation growing rapidly by immigration
and by natural growth brought a greater
degree of social control, men cannot
act with perfect freedom when they are
closely elbowing one another ; and from
this growing social control escape was less
and less easy to a frontier that was offer-
ing ever narrowing possibilities. Pres-
sure of population brought the large in-
dustry, which requires a wide and stable
market for its product ; and the large
industry brought a still further expansion
of social control. The large industry
makes men unequal and dependent, by
fitting them into a great system of un-
like and interlocking parts. They can
no longer stand in the individual single-
ness of the frontiersman, but are united
in mutual subordination in a group.
Since the war American society has
been arranging itself more and more
group-wise ; and, in consequence, Ameri-
can thought is becoming more conscious
of an inadequacy in the individualistic
theories of society. that flourished so nat-
urally and so vigorously in an individu-
alistic stage of social life.
About the time that individualism in
this country was at its highest point,
there emerged into notice, on the other
side of the water, a philosophy of the
group which had been long prepared for
in various movements of thought, and
which was soon to be the dominant in-
tellectual influence of the time. That
philosophy, eagerly taken up in this
country, was the general doctrine of evo-
lution. According to older theories of
the universe, each thing worked out its
own unimpeded course as a result of
qualities inherent from the beginning,
which made up its " nature," a nature
completely expressible in the logical de-
finition of the thing. The evolution phi-
losophy represents things in systems of
interaction, as a result of which charac-
ters are developed and qualities acquired;
and " nature " is not an abstract concep-
tion, but a concrete process. The ele-
ments in this process are indefinitely nu-
merous ; their reactions are perplexingly
intricate. The result of group action in
the process of evolution is unlikeness ;
it is not conceivable that all particles in
a system can be acted upon in the same
way at the same time, and the result of
unlike action is unlike quality, which in
its turn becomes the ground for a further
differentiation of elements. This theory
makes the group the controlling force,
the individual the result, and a result
varying in character as the conditions of
group action vary.
The application of this general idea
to political theory is obvious, and has
been widely made. We are now begin-
ning to regard human society as the re-
92
Burke : A Centenary Perspective.
suit of numberless actions and reactions
of elements, not always perceptible in
all the detail of their working, but obey-
ing fixed and constant laws. We are
beginning to recognize as a normal and
necessary process the control exerted by
a social group over its parts, its action
in assigning each to an appropriate place
and function, and its influence in estab-
lishing in them appropriately varying
characters. We are learning that rea-
son, logic, and abstract truth are not the
only elements to be considered in the
political process, but that the social emo-
tions, instincts, feelings, and impulses
caused by a long course of group actions
and reactions, differing in their charac-
ter with the peculiar circumstances and
conditions of each social group, are just
as important, if not more so.
With a growing prominence of the
group as an actual concrete fact in our
country, and with the growing preva-
lence of the group doctrine of evolution
as a theory, it seems as if the time were
now ripe for the great political philoso-
pher of the group, so long neglected, to
take his rightful place among us as a
source of theory and a guide to prac-
tice. The doctrine of natural selection,
the corner-stone of the evolution philo-
sophy, has two aspects, or two stages of
logical development, the struggle for
existence and the survival of the fittest.
For the former partial principle, Darwin
himself, the teacher of natural selection
to our generation, acknowledges his debt
to Malthus. But almost a century be-
fore Darwin, and a half-century before
Malthus, a distinct exposition of the lat-
ter principle was made. Burke's entire
political philosophy, from beginning to
end, is a copious, powerful -bid infinitely
varied treatment of the docti^ne of the
survival of the fittest. This is the funda-
mental principle of his conservatism,
the conservatism that he taught during
the American war as well as at the time
of the French Revolution, that he fol-
lowed in the matter of economical re-
form as well as in the matter of parlia-
mentary representation. It is hard to
catch any set formulation of this prin-
ciple in Burke's utterances, by reason of
a peculiarity that is itself the best ex-
pression of a principle, a dislike for
stating principle except in its concrete
application. But we may come pretty
near to such a formulation in this de-
scription of the British Constitution :
" And this is a choice not of one day or of
one set of people, not a tumultuary and
giddy choice ; it is a deliberate election
of ages and of generations ; it is a con-
stitution made by what is ten thousand
times better than choice ; it is made by
the peculiar circumstances, occasions,
tempers, dispositions, and moral, civil,
and social habitudes of the people, which
disclose themselves only in a long space
of time. It is a vestment which ac-
cqmmodates itself to the body. Nor is
prescription of government formed upon
blind, unmeaning prejudices ; for man
is a most unwise and a most wise being.
The individual is foolish. The multitude
for the moment is foolish, when they act
without deliberation ; but the species is
wise, and when time is given to it, as a
species it almost always acts right."
On nearly every page of Burke's work
is to be found some touch of detail, some
contributory figure to fill up and. adorn
this outline. His insistence upon the ne-
cessity of dealing with men according to
their special tempers and characters is an
insistence upon the great principle of
adaptation, so important in the evolution-
ary doctrine ; his constant reminder that
temper and character differ in different
groups of men is a reminder of the vary-
ing influences at work in the adaptive pro-
cess. His appeal to the feelings and even
the prejudices of men, as a surer guide
and stronger force than reasoned calcu-
lation, is an appeal to a wisdom gathered
and proved in long experience, until,
through habit, the conscious process of
thought has been consolidated into the un-
conscious process of instinct. For Burke,
Burke: A Centenary Perspective.
93
as for the modern evolutionist, " sur-
vival " is group survival. The end of
the process of selection in the physical
organism is the preservation or destruc-
tion of the whole group of related traits
and characters, forces and elements,
that we know as the living creature.
With Burke, the survival of the social
whole, not of any one element in it, nor
of all its elements taken out of relation
to it, was the great end to be sought in
the social process. This was, in practi-
cal affairs, the final ground of reform or
of conservatism, of action or of refusal
to act. The urgent " necessity " that
Burke allows as a valid plea for the
breaking of all bonds of legal and po-
litical institution is the necessity for so-
cial continuance ; the menacing danger
against which all barriers of law and or-
der, of instinct, reason, and feeling, must
be set up, is the danger of social, not
individual dissolution. In short, Burke
is found possessed in a remarkable de-
gree of the fundamental conceptions of
organic life long before any general re-
cognition of them. He approaches his
object of study the social group in
the very spirit of the biological student
yet to come, looking at it with a fine in-
stinct for the flowing, merging, and blend-
ing of subtle elements that make up the
life-process ; feeling in it, as it were with
sensitive finger-tips, the warmth and pul-
sation, the inexpressibly delicate and ir-
regular ramification of fibre and inter-
lacement of tissue, of the living thing.
Steeped as we are to-day in evolution-
ary conceptions, Burke's thought speaks
to us in the language we understand best ;
it speaks besides with a power that makes
it more than a simple parallel to already
existing influences. Modern evolution-
ary philosophy has produced no master
of political science worthy to be com-
pared for a moment to Burke, in depth
of thought, wealth of observation, experi-
ence, and research ; and above all, in that
primal energy of mind which, baffling all
explanation or formulation, in its mighty
outflow bears along with it the minds and
feelings of men in enforced but willing
subdual.
Although Burke has much to tell us
of bygone political complications that
have little or no living interest for us, he
has also much to tell us that we may
put to immediate practical use. He can
help us particularly in our endeavor to
deal with the problems presented as a
result of the growing power of the so-
cial group, by showing us the true na-
ture of social groups and their normal
laws of action. We may thank him for
offering in these laws and principles a
test by which we may see that the so-
cialism we are half tempted into, in our
feelingf that the individualism of an ear-
O
Her day is outworn, is in reality no
group theory at all, but simply another
individualism in disguise. The schemes
for group action, laboriously contrived
by the social theorist and enforced by
the legislator to serve the interests of the
social whole, are, Burke shows us, but
clumsy hindrances to true group action,
to the fine and delicate processes of so-
cial adjustment that go on by means of
the spontaneous growths and natural in-
tertwinings of all the interests, feelings,
sentiments, habits, and necessities of
men, a whole too complex ever to be
seen by one man in all its parts, much
less to be controlled and adjusted by
one man's calculation and forethought.
The same objection applies to that form
of socialism known as regulation of
trade. Here Burke may give us direct
assistance, because he dealt with that spe-
cial problem in his own practical polit-
ical work. In the heyday of the mer-
cantile system, before Adam Smith had
spoken, Burke was a free-trader, in com-
plete consistency with his own theory
of the group. It is just because the
group as a whole is so sure to work out
its own processes, because the wants and
desires of men will arrange themselves
so inevitably in an industrial system of
mutual demand and supply, that we need
94
Burke: A Centenary Perspective.
not form any artificial plan for their
guidance. Indeed, if we do adopt such
a plan, we shall lose the very good we
are aiming at. Under the influence of
Burke's teaching, we shall not so much
fear the natural and unimpeded develop-
ment of an industrial system, the grow-
ing complexity of which has caused a
certain alarm, as we shall fear to meddle
with it on every occasion by an ignorant
tinkering that will invariably do real
and serious harm, even when it brings a
little apparent good.
Much difficulty is felt, in our political
system, because of a lack of organization
along the lines of natural groups united
by common character, common interests,
and common sympathies. Recent polit-
ical studies have pointed out the oppor-
tunities for political corruption, or, to
say the least, for political ineffectiveness,
offered in the attempt to work as a po-
litical whole an artificial group that em-
braces inharmonious natural groups, or
cuts groups away from their natural al-
liances. One such instance may be a
large and compact city group, of distinct
type and character, united artificially
with a large and scattered country group,
of opposed type and character ; another
may be an upland, infertile district, with
certain needs and supporting certain in-
dustries, united with a lowland, alluvial
district, of quite other needs and sup-
porting quite other industries. From
Burke we may learn the advantages of
leaving natural groups as far as possible
to work out their own problems within
their own limits.
Most healthful for us would be that
respect for th-? expert that Burke teaches
not only in his theory, but by his practice.
All his attempts to deal with the work of
government were preceded by long and
careful study of each matter he took up,
even to the point of exhaustion. The
time-honored American theory that any
man can take up any task, with any or
no degree of preparation, is showing it-
self more and more inadequate in a more
and more complicated state of society
and government. The parliamentary
system under which our political affairs
are managed was the development, not
of democracy, but of that eighteenth-
century English oligarchy in which Burke
saw with too glowing idealization, per-
haps the type of a true aristocracy.
Is it not possible that the faults and fail-
ures we find occasion to deplore every
day in the working of that system with
us are to be provided for, its dangers and
perils met, only by recourse to the prin-
ciple on which it was originally based,
the principle taught by Burke, that lead-
ership by right belongs only to those
of sufficient ability and training to deal
skillfully with complicated affairs, and
with sufficient sense of responsibility to
the community to use their skill for the
common good ? It is, in fact, one of the
most necessary lessons we have to learn,
that the welfare of the state and the suc-
cessful conduct of affairs depend upon
personal integrity and ability, under the
guidance of which any form of govern-
ment will work, and without which no
form of government can work.
After all, the best good we may get
from Burke is contact with his lofty spi-
rit. The bare and naked truths of philo-
sophical doctrine he clothes in the gleam-
ing garments of the imagination, and sets
walking before us in all the glow and
flush of life, radiant forms that cap-
ture our dearest affections and claim our
deepest devotion. The state, for Burke,
is not a certain tract of bare ground from
which to wrest the material supplies of
physical existence ; it is figured under
" the image of a relation in blood," con-
straining love, reverence, and duty. It
is not for bare life alone, but for the best
life ; it is " a partnership in all science,
a partnership in all art, a partnership in
every virtue and in all perfection ; " it
comprehends " all the charities of all."
This generous ardor is contagious.
Civic enthusiasm, slightly out of fashion
with us for some time, is coming in again,
Jowett and the University Ideal.
95
though largely under the form of belli-
cose ebullitions of temper against foreign
nations. But the civic enthusiasm that
Burke inspires is for right living at
home, just dealing in internal as well as
external concerns, and regard for social
duties as well as for social rights. To
his mind, the due and faithful adminis-
tration of civil office, the honest and eco-
nomical disbursement of public money,
the painstaking adjustment of borough,
township, and city affairs, are as vital to
the state, as much matters of interest and
concern, as brilliant leadership in the
daring raids, the spectacular campaigns,
and the noisy victories of party politics
or foreign war.
From Burke we may catch not only
the spirit of duty, but the spirit of cour-
age and hope. Humanity as he sees it,
" with all its imperfections on its head,"
has within it certain strong life-forces,
that work often through crooked and
dubious ways, but that, if we give our dis-
interested service to their guidance, will
finally bring the race to higher levels.
With this fundamental conviction im-
planted in us, we need not despair of
the state : when theories break down, we
may simply think that growth is taking a
new direction ; when conditions become
perplexingly involved, we may trust that
after we have reached the limit of our
powers of reason and calculation to un-
ravel them they will work out their own
best answer ; when forms of government
and society seem hopelessly rotten and
bad, we may feel that there is always a
remedy to be found in the " plain, good
intention," the good faith and honor,
which cannot be entirely absent from a
people, and which need only encourage-
ment and a showing of the way to enter
helpfully into public affairs.
Kate HoUaday Claghorn.
JOWETT AND THE UNIVERSITY IDEAL.
THE expansion of American univer-
sities which has been so conspicuous a
feature of the last quarter of a centu-
ry is evidently slackening just now, un-
der the strain of business depression.
Academic revenues are shrinking ; new
endowments are rare ; the number of
students, instead of advancing by leaps
and bounds, is well-nigh stationary ; and
it is pretty generally recognized that any
enlargement of teaching or improvement
of surroundings that calls for further ex-
penditure must be postponed to a more
propitious season.
During this quarter of a century of ex-
pansion there has not only been material
growth ; new ideals of study, new meth-
ods of instruction, have been introduced,
which have already exerted no small in-
1 The Life and Letters of Benjamin Jowett,
Master of Balliol College, Oxford. By EVELYN
fluence on several generations of under-
graduates. Yet one cannot mingle much
with the younger generation of Ameri-
can professors without perceiving a cer-
tain uneasiness among them as to some
features of the new system, a certain ten-
dency to revert to older and apparent-
ly abandoned conceptions of academic
duty. The lull in things external seems
likely to be utilized for reflection on
things internal. In this time of halt, of
return upon ourselves, we cannot fail to
greet with peculiar interest the record
of the life-work of a great Academic in
another land. 1 It is from this point of
view, and this only, that I shall here con-
sider Jowett.
First a word or two as to the chro-
nology of his life. Born in 1817, he
ABBOTT and LEWIS CAMPBELL. In two vol-
umes. New York : E. P. Button & Co. 1897.
96
Jowett and the University Ideal.
received his early education at St. Paul's
School, and, after winning a Balliol schol-
arship in 1835, went up to Oxford in
1836. In 1838, while still an undergrad-
uate, he was elected to the Balliol Fel-
lowship, which he held until he became
Master. After taking his degree in 1839,
he became Assistant Tutor of his college
in 1841 ; was ordained in 1842, and was
appointed to the Tutorship which thence-
forward engaged most of his attention
until he exchanged it for the Master-
ship, itself, in his eyes, a sort of glo-
rified Tutorship. In 1855 appeared his
edition of three Epistles of St. Paul, and
in the same year he was appointed by
the Crown to the Regius Professorship
of Greek. The theological antagonism
awakened by his book on the Epistles
led to the salary attached in equity,
if not legally, to the Greek chair be-
ing withheld for a decade. Clerical hos-
tility was inflamed still further by the
appearance of Essays and Reviews in
1860, which contained a paper from Jow-
ett's pen on the Interpretation of Scrip-
ture. In 1870 he was chosen Master of
Balliol ; and the translation of Plato's
Dialogues, which was his most consider-
able literary work, appeared on the very
day of his election. In 1881 was issued
his translation of Thucydides ; in 1885
his translation of the Politics of Aristotle ;
and from 1882 to 1886 he served the
usual term of four years as Vice-Chan-
cellor of the university. He died on
October 1, 1893.
The reader who has glanced over this
short list of landmarks in Jowett's life
may be surprised to learn that in the Ox-
ford and England of our own time his
reputation rests almost entirely on his ac-
tivity as Master of his college. His the-
ological writings first attracted to him the
notice of the world at large ; his transla-
tions have opened the treasures of Greek
thought to thousands who could profit by
them, and to whom they would other-
wise have remained sealed. But more
than thirty years before his death Jowett
abandoned all attempts to guide the reli-
gious thought of the country. He long
dreamt of writing a Life of Christ ; but
when, in his later years, he was asked why
he did not carry out the plan, " he replied,
falling back in his chair, with tears in his
eyes, ' Because I cannot ; God has not
given me the power to do it.' " And his
biographers assure us that " after the
harsh reception of his theological work,
he was haunted by the fear that, by writ-
ing, he might do harm as well as good."
His translations, again, appeal more to
the general public than to the scholar ;
Jowett was not a great classical scholar,
in either the German or the English sense
of the word. In the field of university
politics, moreover, he does not seem to
have initiated any one movement of the
first importance. But as Master he was
a great and brilliant success, and in the
college and through the college he exer-
cised enormous influence. Early in his
reign he wrote to a friend, " I want to
hold out as long as I can, and hope to
make Balliol into a really great college
if I live for ten years." He lived for
twenty years, and died knowing that he
had accomplished his purpose. Never
was there a Head so bound up with his
college ; so keenly attached to its inter-
ests, its members, and its associations.
Without wife or child, and for the last
few years of his life without a single near
relative, the college was his only home,
and took the place of family ties. Never,
in return, was there a Head of whom
his college was so proud as Balliol was of
" old Jowler," or who was regarded with
the same mingled feeling of awe and ad-
miration and protecting affection.
How, then, did Jowett esteem his own
work ? What did he consider the pe-
culiar functions of the university or the
colleges ? It will be observed by every
attentive reader of the Life, first, that
Jowett hardly assigned any specific func-
tion to the university as such, as distinct
from the colleges ; and secondly, that
both for the college and for the univer-
Jowett and the University Ideal.
97
sity he laid almost exclusive stress on
the two tasks of promoting education
and of bringing about social intercourse.
In his first sermon in Balliol Chapel af-
ter his election to the Mastership, he
spoke of the college, " first, as a place
of education ; secondly, as a place of
society ; thirdly, as a place of religion."
He was accustomed to use very similar
language about the university : " There
are two things which distinguish a uni-
versity from a mere scientific institu-
tion: first of all, it is a seat of liberal
education ; and secondly, it is a place
of society." Both education and society
he conceived of nobly. He sought to
impress upon each generation of under-
graduates " the unspeakable importance
of the four critical years of life between
about eighteen and twenty-two," when
the task before each young man is " to
improve his mind, to eradicate bad men-
tal habits, to acquire the power of order
and arrangement, to learn the art of fix-
ing his attention." " The object of read-
ing for the schools " the final honor
examinations " is not chiefly to attain a
first class, but to elevate and strengthen
the character for life." As against those
who declare examinations injurious, he
maintained that " they give a fixed aim,
towards which to direct our efforts ; they
stimulate us by the love of honorable dis-
tinction ; they afford an opportunity of
becoming known to those who might not
otherwise emerge ; they supply the lead-
ing-strings which we also need. Neither
freedom nor power can be attained with-
out order and regularity and method.
The restless habit of mind which passes
at will from one view of a subject or
from one kind of knowledge to another
is not intellectual power." On the value
of social intercourse he laid almost equal
stress. " His ideal of the work and of-
fice of the university " was that it should
form " a bridge which might unite the
different classes of society, and at the
same time bring about a friendly feeling
in the different sects of religion, and that
VOL. LXXX. NO. 477. 7
might also connect the different branches
of knowledge which were apt to become
estranged one from another." He was
anxious " to bring men of different
classes into contact," for the benefit es-
pecially of those who had had no social
advantages. " Jowett observed that men
of very great ability often failed in life,
because they were unable to play their
part with effect. They were shy, awk-
ward, self-conscious, deficient in man-
ners, faults which were as ruinous as
vices." And the supreme end which
Jowett kept in mind for all this training
of every kind was " usefulness in after-
life."
Towards promoting social intercourse
much was done by college life itself,
by the mere juxtaposition of undergradu-
ates in hall and chapel and quadrangle,
by spontaneous association in sports and
debating clubs ; towards education much
was done by the stimulus and guidance
of a properly devised scheme of exam-
ination. But both together were insuffi-
cient, left to themselves ; another force
was necessary, and that force Jowett
found in the tutorial system.
I doubt whether it is possible to give
anything like an accurate impression of
the Oxford tutorial system to those who
have not seen it at work. There is the
initial difficulty of framing any brief
generalization which shall be reasonably
true for all the studies of the place and
all the colleges. The practice varies
from college to college ; and in several
colleges it has not seemed possible to ex-
tend tutorial supervision to the recently
introduced studies in physical and biolo-
gical science. It may be said with suffi-
cient accuracy that all save a small minor-
ity of undergraduates, during the greater
part of their university career, work un-
der the immediate oversight and direc-
tion of a college tutor, whether he actu-
ally bears that name or the more humble
designation of " lecturer." The system
is more highly developed with honor men
than with pass men, and it can be best
98
Jowett and the University Ideal.
studied in the two " honor schools " of
Liter* Humaniores and Modern Histo-
ry, which attract perhaps four out of five
honor students. Colleges prefer to ap-
point their tutors from among their own
Fellows ; and in spite of all the recent
changes, the majority of the tutors still
reside within the college walls.
The tutors of the last fifty years have
been among the most industrious of men,
taking their duties very seriously, and
watching with sedulous care the progress
of their pupils from week to week, and
from term to term. As a rule, each un-
dergraduate has a regular appointment
with his tutor every week ; he is seen
alone for half -an hour or three quarters,
and exhibits a piece of work, usually
in the form of an essay, which is then
and there read and criticised ; and these
weekly pieces of work are so arranged
that the undergraduate may acquaint
himself, during the allotted time, with
the whole field on which he proposes to
be examined.
This conception of tutorial duty has
been a growth of the present century,
and indeed would seem first to have
made itself visible about 1830 and in
Oriel College. Very different was the
condition of things when Gibbon went
up to Magdalen in 1752. His first tu-
tor, he tells us, was " one of the best
of the tribe," but even "he was satis-
fied, like his, fellows, with the slight and
superficial discharge of an important
trust." When the young Gibbon began
to make excuses they were received with
smiles. " The slightest motive of laziness
or indisposition, the most trifling avoca-
tion at home or abroad, was allowed as
a worthy impediment ; nor did my tutor
appear conscious of my absence or neg-
lect. No plan of study was recommend-
ed for my use ; no exercises were pre-
scribed for his inspection." His next
tutor was even worse. " Dr. well
remembered that he had a salary to re-
ceive, and only forgot that he had a
duty to perform. Excepting one volun-
tary visit to his rooms, during the eight
months of his titular office the tutor and
pupil lived in the same college as stran-
gers to each other."
Even after the reformed scheme of
examination for degrees was introduced
in 1802, largely owing to the efforts
of Eveleigh, the Provost of Oriel,
some time elapsed before college teach-
ing came to be directed towards fitting
men to obtain honors. " That was the
day," says Mark Pattison in his Me-
moirs, speaking of 1830, " of private tu-
tors ; it was the ' coach,' and not the col-
lege tutor, who worked a man up for his
' first.' " The originality of the first set
of energetic college tutors at Oriel
Newman, Hurrell Froude, and Robert
Wilberforce consisted precisely in this,
as a contemporary put it : that " they
bestowed on their pupils as much time
and trouble as was usually only expected
from very good private tutors."
When Jowett went up to Balliol, the
new tutorial enthusiasm had already
made its way thither, and his predecessor
as tutor, A. C. Tait (afterwards Arch-
bishop of Canterbury), had made a great
impression on the college by his assidu-
ity and his charm of manner. Jowett,
in spite of the shyness which hampered
him throughout life, applied himself
with extraordinary energy to the tutori-
al task ; and it was thus that, after a few
years, he began to gain influence, and to
win for himself the enthusiastic esteem
of scores of undergraduates. Varying
accounts are given of his early tutorial
years ; but it is certain that " his devo-
tion to his pupils was, at this time, some-
thing unique in Oxford." One distin-
guished pupil of his between 1852 and
1854 tells us that he " often took compo-
sition to Jowett at half past twelve at
night." Jowett early established the
custom of taking half a dozen men of
ability away with him in the vacations,
to work under his eye for a few weeks,
a practice he maintained till almost
the end of his life. Such zeal soon pro-
Jowett and the University Ideal.
99
duced a crop of first classes for Balliol,
and raised the intellectual reputation of
the college ; the infection was caught by
such of his own pupils as became tutors
at Balliol or at other colleges ; and tu-
torial ardor, once introduced, was fanned
by intercollegiate rivalry. As soon as
he became Master, Jowett added the
coping-stone to the fabric by " establish-
ing weekly tutorial meetings, at which
he never failed to attend, going through
the whole list of undergraduates, and sat-
isfying himself by inquiry about the work
of every man," two hundred or more ;
and other colleges, again, imitated, with
various modifications, the new machin-
ery. Among the qualities desirable in the
Head of a college, set down in some cu-
rious memoranda of Jowett's, occurs this
requirement : " He should know how to
' put pressure ' upon everybody." His
own Mastership left nothing to be de-
sired in this respect.
Jowett was thus, in large measure, the
creator of the modern tutorial ideal.
What that involves may be readily ga-
thered from a phrase used in passing by
one of the writers of the Life, himself an
eminent Balliol tutor. College tutors,
he tells us, are held " responsible for the
position of a pupil in the class list."
Yet as tutor he was more than an in-
structor. He wished to know his under-
graduates personally, to influence the de-
velopment of their- characters in every
possible way for good, to promote socia-
bility and bring men together. Hospi-
tality was therefore a duty as well as a
pleasure, and " he was the most hospi-
table of men." "When his stipend as
Greek professor was increased, the fact
was brought home to us his pupils by the
increase in the plates and dishes which
his servant piled up on the stairs lead-
ing to his room. He had undergradu-
ates with him at almost every meal ; he
wished to know as much of them as pos-
sible." What Jowett did, his disciples
who were tutors did in their turn ; when
he became Master, he " ui-ged the Balliol
tutors to do the same." In later years,
he rejoiced to fill the Master's Lodge,
from Saturday to Monday, with visitors
of distinction, and many a joke has been
cracked about this little hobby. But
" he never, in anything that he did, for-
got the college or the undergraduates,
and nothing was more remarkable in
him than the pains which he took about
the future careers of his ' young men.'
This was, in his opinion, one of the chief
duties of the head of a college."
So the ideal of the tutor was still fur-
ther enlarged and grew to be what we
know it : that combination of authority
and comradeship, of dignity and bonho-
mie, which is often presented in forms of
infinite attractiveness, and which has ex-
cited the longing admiration of so many
American observers.
There is a significant passage in Pat-
tison's Memoirs where he explains the
reasons which led the Provost of Oriel
to get rid of the three energetic and suc-
cessful tutors before mentioned : " New-
man insisted upon regarding his relation
to his pupils as a pastoral one. Unless
he could exercise the function of tutor on
this basis, he did not think that he, being
a priest, could be a tutor at all. . . .
The Provost's proposal that all under-
graduates should be entered under one
common name, and no longer under re-
spective tutors, interfered with New-
man's doctrine of the pastoral relation.
This was the point which Newman would
not give up, and for which he resigned."
Pattison remarks, in his unsympathetic
fashion, that if Newman had succeeded,
" a college would have become a mere
priestly seminary." But seven or eight
years later we find Tait, at Balliol, a
most unpriestly tutor, turning over in
his mind " what can be done to make
more of a pastoral connection between
the tutors and their pupils." In fact,
through all the changes that the last six-
ty years have brought, with most of the
tutors laymen, and many by no means
orthodox, with every effort to wear vel-
100
Jowett and the University Ideal.
vet gloves and to keep serious purposes
well in the background, the ideal of the
relation has continued to be, in a very
real sense, a pastoral one.
So much, then, for the theory ; now
as to the results. None but a fanatical
and unobservant adversary can deny that
the system is in many respects highly
beneficial to the undergraduates. The
abler men are taught to work rapidly
and consecutively ; they acquire a great
deal of information ; they learn the art
of presenting their knowledge in lucid
and forcible shape. The stupid and the
idle are made to do some systematic
work ; and an enthusiastic tutor will suc-
ceed in striking a spark of genuine in-
terest out of perhaps one in ten even of
them. But there are some deductions
to be made from the verdict of success.
The tutorial system often does for the
undergraduate more than is good for
him. In one of his sermons of 1885,
Jowett compares the present Balliol un-
dergraduate with his predecessor forty
or fifty years ago, not altogether to the
advantage of the former : " There is
greater refinement and greater decorum ;
there is also more knowledge and steady
industry. On the other hand, there was
more heartiness and originality and force
among the youth of that day." In that
entertaining and witty book, Aspects of
Modern Oxford, by a Mere Don, there
is the same lament : " There are certain
indications that the undergraduate is less
of a grown-up person than he was in the
brave days of old. It takes him a long
time to forget his schooldays. Only ex-
ceptionally untrammeled spirits regard
independent reading as more important
than the ministrations of their tutor."
If the intellectual results are not whol-
ly satisfactory, what of the social? Under
Jowett, Balliol grew in numbers, till it
outstripped all other colleges except Christ
Church ; and the undergraduate body be-
came more and more composite in social
origin, from the earl down, or up, to
the clever son of the artisan. Jowett's
dream was that the earl and the artisan's
son should fraternize ; but as a matter of
fact, they did not. It was notorious in
Oxford that Balliol was one of the most
cliquy of colleges. Jowett did his best
to fight against the growing evil. He
induced Mr. John Farmer to come from
Harrow and establish Sunday - evening
concerts of classical music, and Monday-
evening smoking - concerts with college
songs, as a means of binding the college
together. But, with all his shrewdness,
he failed to realize that a large and di-
versified college is incompatible with real
acquaintance with one another on the part
of the undergraduates. No quantity of
college songs or tutorial " tea and toast "
can make headway against the centrifu-
gal forces.
This is the undergraduate's side of
the account ; now for the tutor's. The
Oxford tutor his admirers, like "a
Mere Don," regretfully acknowledge it
has become a schoolmaster, with the
qualities and the defects of the qualities.
Other and external causes have contrib-
uted to make him the overworked school-
master he is ; for the number of tutors
has by no means increased, as it should
have done, in proportion to their labors.
Professor Freeman used to point out
as his recent biographer tells us that
"the university was becoming less and
less a centre for learning, and sinking
more and more int6 a mere education-
al machine ; " and that " meanwhile the
ablest works in philosophy and history
proceeded from university men, indeed,
but not, as a rule, from those who were
resident, but from the cabinet minister,
the banker, or the country clergyman."
This is not hard to account for. Let any
one read the humorous Diary of a Don,
in Aspects of Modern Oxford, with its
picture of perpetual bustle from morning
to night, and he will understand how
exceedingly difficult it must be to get
much time for steady reading or quiet
thought.
Did Jowett realize any part of this ?
Jowett and the University Ideal.
101
Hardly. And still there are some sig-
nificant phrases in his letters. Writing
to Stanley in 1852, and urging him to
take the headship of a proposed " Bal-
liol Hall," he was careful to point out
that the position was " not that of a
drudging college tutor." In 1870 he
confessed to the same friend that he
was glad to reach the Mastership, " be-
cause I want more rest and leisure to
think, and I have been overworked for
many years past." Among his Memo-
randa has been found a little set of
"Maxims for Statesmen and Others,"
wherein " Never spare " and " Never
drudge " stand cheek by jowl.
The pressure of duty upon the tutor
has been very considerably increased by
the growth of the " combined lecture "
plan. Many of the tutors, besides giving
instruction to their college pupils, lecture
two or three times a week, to all under-
graduates who choose to attend. As a
result, some of them perform what one
may describe as " professorial " functions
in addition to their strictly tutorial ones.
As Freeman put it less kindly, they have
" become mongrel beings, neither pro-
fessor, nor college tutor, nor private
coach." It needs but little reflection to
see how severe must be the strain upon
the teacher who, besides being responsi-
ble for the examination feats of a couple
of dozen undergraduates, tries to keep
abreast of the latest investigations in the
special subject on which he is lecturing.
Jowett viewed the outcome of these
tendencies with much disquietude, but,
characteristically enough, on account of
the lecturer, not of the hearer. The sub-
stitution of " praelections " for the older
catechetical instruction, he declared in
his later years, was " utterly bad for the
students, though flattering to the teach-
er." Often the mere listening to a lec-
ture is "no intellectual discipline at all."
Yet the " combined lecture " was in two
ways the result of Jowett's action and that
of men like him. It was the inevitable
result of the intercollegiate combination ;
it was also the outlet which the professo-
rial instinct, insuppressible in a great mod-
ern university, found for itself under the
tutorial regime. In his evidence before
the University Commission in 1877, Jow-
ett urged the necessity of enlarging the
professoriate in order to create " a career
to which college tutors can look forward,"
now that they no longer look to prefer-
ment in the Church. But nowadays men
are hardly likely to be appointed to pro-
fessorships unless they have done some
more or less original work in the subject
of the chair ; how men are to do that
original work, and at the same time be
college tutors of the kind Jowett would
have had them, it is not easy to see.
Up to this point, it will be observed,
I have abstained from criticising the tu-
torial ideal as Jowett cherished it, and
the preceding remarks as to its deficien-
cies have been based chiefly on Jowett's
own observations. The readers of this
paper probably do not need to be told
that another university ideal has had its
champions in Oxford, and that the tuto-
rial system has not been without its critics.
Of these the most vigorous and emphatic
was Mark Pattison, the late Rector of
Lincoln. According to Pattison, the col-
leges were never intended by their found-
ers to be " establishments for the educa-
tion of youth," " schools for young men
who had outgrown school," but rather to
be " retreats for study." The original
object of their foundation was " the pro-
motion of learning," " the endowment of
knowledge." "So far from its being
the intention of a fellowship to support
the Master of Arts as a teacher, it was
rather its purpose to relieve him from
the drudgery of teaching for a mainte-
nance, and to set him free to give his
whole time to the studies of his faculty."
It was the Jesuits who first introduced
" the principle of perpetual supervision,
of repeated examinations, of weekly ex-
ercises," that is, the tutorial method,
at first greeted as a reform, but found in
the end to produce "starved and shriveled
102
Jowett and the University Ideal.
understandings." Pattison demanded a
return to the old ideals, an " endowment
of research" in some shape or other,
even if it could take no better form than
the creation of a body of professors whose
true purpose was " veiled from the sneers
of Philistinism by the thin disguise of
setting them to deliver terminal courses
of lectures to empty benches." That
Oxford should do nothing but educate,
and educate for examinations,was bad, he
declared, for both teacher and taught,
and fatal to the university as a place of
learning. He had himself been a highly
successful tutor, and in his earlier days
had done for Lincoln something like
what Jowett, his contemporary, was do-
ing for Balliol. " I have never ceased,"
he declared in the closing days of his
life, " to prize as highly as I did at that
time the personal influence of mind upon
mind, the mind of the fully instructed
upon the young mind it seeks to form.
But I gradually came to see that it was
impossible to base a whole academical
system upon this single means of influ-
ence." Jowett, meanwhile, as his bio-
graphers tell us, " had no sympathy with
the organized endowment of research,
and he was strongly opposed to any
measures which were likely to lessen the
influence of the colleges." Nor was he
afraid to exclaim, " How I hate learn-
ing!"
Whatever the purposes of the original
founders may have been, we may be
pretty sure that the English universities
will never become primarily places of
original investigation or homes of learned
leisure. There is the crowd of under-
graduates to be dealt with somehow;
there is the obvious benefit that can be
conferred upon the students, and the in-
fluence for good that can be exercised
through them upon the nation. On the
other hand, it can hardly be maintained
that Oxford does as much as might fairly
be expected of her for the advancement
of knowledge ; and it is scarcely seemly
for her to be so very dependent for fresh
ideas and new conclusions upon German
universities and "private scholars." Of
course it is good for most scholars to be
compelled from time to time to take stock
of their labors and to put their results into
teachable shape. It is equally true that
academic teaching is bound, in the long
run, to deteriorate unless it is inspired
by the consciousness of widening know-
ledge and the hope of personally advan-
cing the cause of science. No Oxford
man who has had any experience in
American universities will be inclined to
underestimate the incalculable service
done to the undergraduate by collegiate
life and discipline. It is rather a case of
" These ye ought to have done, and not
to have left the other undone." Perhaps
even now forces are at work which will
restore the balance. The professorships
established by the last University Com-
mission are beginning to make them-
selves felt ; the number of " schools," or
curricula for honors, is being increased ;
two scholarly journals, comparable with
the best of any country, the English His-
torical Review and the Economic Jour-
nal, are being edited in Oxford ; and the
ideas of " graduate studies " and " re-
search degrees " are in the air. Oxford
has already much to offer the serious
American graduate student ; and per-
haps his resort thither will in some slight
measure help Oxford herself to return to
her older traditions.
When we turnfrom Oxford and Jowett
to the university problem in America,
our first impression, maybe, is of the to-
tal dissimilarity of conditions, and of the
hopelessness of deriving any lessons from
English experience. Yet the American
reader of Jowett's biography will be sin-
gularly irresponsive if it does not prompt
some consideration of the functions of
the university in this country. In what
I have left to say, I shall confine myself
to Harvard, with which alone, among
American universities, I have any inti-
mate acquaintance.
The peculiarity in the position of Har-
Jowett and the University Ideal.
103
vard is that while the professorial ideal
has definitely triumphed among the teach-
ing body, the tutorial ideal is still cher-
ished by the "constituency." Most of
the professors care first of all for the
advancement of science and scholarship ;
they prefer lectures to large audiences to
the catechetical instruction of multiplied
"sections," and they would leave stu-
dents free to attend lectures or neglect
them, at their own peril ; they would pick
out the abler men, and initiate them into
the processes of investigation in small
" research courses " or " seminaries ; "
and, to be perfectly frank, they are not
greatly interested in the ordinary un-
dergraduate. On the other hand, the
university constituency represented, as
I am told, by the Overseers insists
that the ordinary undergraduate shall be
" looked after : " that he shall not be al-
lowed to " waste his time ; " that he shall
be " pulled up " by frequent examina-
tions, and forced to do a certain mini-
mum of work, whether he wants to or
not. The result of this pressure has been
the establishment of an elaborate ma-
chinery of periodical examination, the
carrying on of a vaster book-keeping for
the registration of attendance and of
grades than was ever before seen at any
university, and the appointment of a le-
gion of junior instructors and assistants,
to whom is assigned the drudgery of
reading examination-books and conduct-
ing " conferences."
So far as the professors are concerned,
the arrangement is as favorable as can
reasonably be expected. Of course they
are all bound to lecture, and to lecture
several times a week ; they exercise a
general supervision over the labors of
their assistants ; they guide the studies
of advanced students ; they conduct the
examinations for honors and for higher
degrees ; they carry on a ceaseless corre-
spondence ; and each of them sits upon a
couple of committees. But they are not
absolutely compelled to undertake much
drudging work in the way of instruction,
and if they are careful of their time
they can manage to find leisure for their
own researches. As soon as " a course "
gets large, a benevolent Corporation will
provide an assistant. The day is past
when they were obliged, in the phrase of
Lowell, " to double the parts of profes-
sor and tutor."
But the soil of America is not as pro-
pitious as one could wish to the plant of
academic leisure. It is a bustling at-
mosphere ; and a professor needs some
strength of mind to resist the temptation
to be everlastingly " doing " something
obvious. The sacred reserves of time
and energy need to be jealously guard-
ed ; and there is more than one direction
from which they are threatened. Uni-
versity administration occupies what
would seem an unduly large number of
men and an unduly large amount of
time ; it is worth while considering whe-
ther more executive authority should
not be given to the deans. Then there
is the never ending stream of legislation,
or rather, of legislative discussion. I
must confess that when I have listened,
week after week, to faculty debates, the
phrase of Mark Pattison about Oxford
has sometimes rung in my ears : " the
tone as of a lively municipal borough."
It would be unjust to apply it ; for, after
all, the measures under debate have been
of far-reaching importance. Yet if any
means could be devised to hasten the
progress of business, it would be a wel-
come saving of time. Still another dan-
ger is the pecuniary temptation hardly
resistible by weak human nature to
repeat college lectures to the women stu-
dents of Radcliff e. That some amount of
repetition will do no harm to teachers of
certain temperaments and in certain sub-
jects may well be allowed, but that it is
sometimes likely to exhaust the nervous
energy which might better be devoted to
other things can hardly be denied. The
present Radcliffe system, to be sure, is
but a makeshift, and an unsatisfactory
one.
104
Jowett and the University Ideal,
The instructors and assistants, on their
part, have little to grumble at, if they, in
their turn, are wise in the use of their
time. It is with them, usually, but a few
years of drudgery, on the way to higher
positions in Harvard or elsewhere ; and
it is well that a man should bear the
yoke in his youth. Let him remember
that his promotion will depend largely
upon his showing the ability to do inde-
pendent work ; let him take care not to
be so absorbed in the duties of his tem-
porary position as to fail to produce some
little bit of scholarly or scientific achieve-
ment for himself. I have occasionally
thought that the university accepts the
labors of men in the lower grades of the
service with a rather stepmotherly dis-
regard for their futures.
Come now to the " students," for
whose sake, certainly, Harvard College
was founded, whatever may have been
the case with English colleges, and whose
presence casts upon those responsible for
academic policy duties which they can-
not escape, if they would. Grant that
education and education as Jowett un-
derstood it, the training of character as
well as mere instruction is the main
business of a university, what is to be
said of the situation of affairs ? That we
do as much here for the average man as
the Oxford tutorial system accomplishes,
it would be idle to affirm. The intro-
duction of the tutorial system, however,
is out of the question : it needs the small
college for its basis ; it requires that the
tutor should enjoy a prestige which we
cannot give him ; and it is still further
shut out by " elective " studies. Yet in
its way the Harvard practice suffers from
the same defects as the Oxford ; it does
too much for the men. Take the mat-
ter of examinations, for instance. Sure-
ly it would be better to relax the contin-
uous pressure, which after all is not
in any worthy sense effective, and to
reinforce it instead at special points. It
was the conviction, we are told, of Pro-
fessor Freeman that "if examinations
were necessary evils, they should be few,
searching, and complete, not many and
piecemeal." At present, there are so
many "tests," of one sort or another,
that no one examination sufficiently im-
presses the undergraduate mind. The
kind of work done by a student who is so
persistently held up by hour examinations
and conferences that he must be an ab-
normal fool to " fail " at the end, cannot
be regarded as really educational in any
high sense of the word. By a great many
men, the help showered upon them is re-
garded merely as the means of discover-
ing just how little they can do, and still
scrape through. To sweep away all ex-
aminations except the final annual one ;
to leave the student more to himself ; to
set a higher standard for passing, and
ruthlessly reject those who do not reach
it, would undoubtedly, in the long run,
encourage a more manly spirit on the
part of undergraduates, and a deeper re-
spect for the university. This I say with
the fuller confidence because, when I left
Oxford, some nine years ago, I could see
nothing but the evils of the examination
system as it there affects students of
promise. I am now convinced that it
would be possible and salutary in Har-
vard to add greatly to the awfulness of
examination; and that much could be
done in this direction without approach-
ing within measurable distance of any
results that need be feared.
From a natural distrust of examina-
tions and a desire to encourage indepen-
dent thought, it has of late become the
practice to prescribe two or more the-
ses during the progress of a "course."
The result is that many a man has half a
dozen or more theses to write during the
year, for two or three different teachers.
This undoubtedly " gets some work out
of the men." But the too frequent con-
sequence, with students who take their
work seriously, especially with gradu-
ates, is that they have no time for any-
thing but to get up their lectures and
prepare their theses. Any parallel read-
Jowett and the University Ideal.
105
in by the side of their lectures they find
in .practicable. But one of the best things
<t student can do is just to read intelli-
gently. Certainly the graduate students,
if not the undergraduates, would some-
times be the better for being left more to
themselves.
These are, however, relatively minor
matters. A good deal could be said
about that corner-stone of Harvard aca-
demic policy, the " elective " system. I
must confess that I have hitherto failed
to see the advantage of the completely
elective plan (for any but exceptional
students) over the plan of " groups," or
"triposes," or "schools," with some de-
gree of internal elasticity to suit particu-
lar tastes. That it is an improvement
on the old compulsory curriculum is like-
ly enough ; but I do not know that any
great American university has ever yet
fairly tried the group arrangement. This,
however, is too large a subject for the
end of a paper, and I hurry on to my
last point.
Of all the educational agencies at Ox-
ford, Oxford itself is the strongest.
" That sweet city with her dreaming spires
She needs not June foi- beauty's heighten-
ing."
Harvard, indeed, is truly " fair " at Com-
mencement, and in the evening lights
the Yard has always a sober dignity.
But Harvard in the daytime sadly needs
May or October for beauty's heightening.
The disadvantages of youth and climate
"may not be altogether surmountable ;
yet Cambridge surroundings could doubt-
less be made more comely and restful
with comparatively little trouble. There
must be a certain atrophy of the aesthetic
sense when luxuriously furnished dormi-
tories have no difficulty in securing ten-
ants though they face rubbish dumps,
and when rowing-men can practice with
equanimity beneath a coal-dealer's mam-
moth advertisement. What is much to
be desired for every young man most
of all for those from homes of little cul-
tivation is that he should live in the
presence of grace and beauty and state-
liness. The lesson of good taste cannot
be learnt from lectures, and is imbibed
unconsciously. Here we must turn to
our masters, the Corporation, and to the
worshipful Benefactors to come. Is all
the thought taken that might be taken,
all the pressure used that might be ex-
erted, to increase the amenity of the
neighborhood ? And further, is it Uto-
pian to imagine that some benefactor
will yet arise who will enable Harvard
to imitate the noble example of Yale,
and erect dormitories that shall delight
the eye ? Is it too much to hope that
the university may soon be enriched
with at least one more building such as
Memorial Hall ? For many a Harvard
student his daily meals in Memorial
Hall, in that ample space, beneath the
glowing colors of the windows and sur-
rounded by the pictures of the Harvard
worthies of the past, constitute the most
educative part of his university career,
though he may not know it. Only half
the students can now be brought within
this silent influence. A second dining-
hall, of like dignity, is the most urgent
educational need of Harvard, and the
need most easily supplied.
W. J. Ashley.
106
The Juggler.
THE JUGGLER.
XL
ROYCE waited over one day after this
agreement with Tynes, and marked with
satisfaction how thoroughly his will was
subject to his own control. He had seen
the Springs once. There was naturally
a certain mundane curiosity on his part
to be satisfied. Doubtless, after another
excursion or so thither, it would all pall
upon him and he would be more content,
since there was no dream of unattain-
able enchantments at hand upon which
he dared not look.
The place was singularly cheerful of
aspect in its matutinal guise. The diago-
nal slant of the morning sunshine struck
through the foliage of the great oaks and
dense shrubs ; but there was intervenient
shadow here, too, dank, grateful to the
senses, for the day already betokened the
mounting mercury. Across the valley
the amethystine mountains shimmered
through the heated air ; ever and anon
darkly purple simulacra of clouds went
fleeing along their vast sunlit slopes be-
neath the dazzling white masses in the
azure sky. In the valley, a tiny space of
blue-green tint amongst the strong full-
fleshed dark verdure of the forests of
July bespoke a cornfield, and through a
field-glass might be descried the little
log cabin with its delicate tendril of
smoke, the home of the mountaineer who
tilled the soil. Of more distinct value in
the landscape was the yellow of the har-
vested wheatfields in the nearer reaches
of the Cove, where the bare spaces re-
vealed the stage road here and there as
it climbed the summits of red clay hills.
There was no sound of music on the
air, the band being off duty for the nonce.
Even that instrument of torture, the ho-
tel piano, was silent. Tire wind played
through the meshes of the deserted ten-
nis-nets, and no clamor of rolling balls
thundered from the tenpin alley, the low
long roof of which glimmered in the
sunshine, down among the laurel on the
slope toward the gorge. The whole life
of the place was focused upon the ve-
randa. Royce's reminiscent eye, gazing
upon it all as a fragment of the past as
well as an evidence of the present, dis-
cerned that some crisis of moment in
the continual conjugation of the verb
s'armiser impended. The usual laborious
idleness of fancy-work would hardly ac-
count for the unanimity with which fem-
inine heads were bent above needles and
threads and various sheer fabrics, nor for
the interest with which the New Helvetia
youths watched the proceedings and self-
sufficiently proffered advice, despite the
ebullitions of laughter, scornful and su-
perior, with which it was inevitably re-
ceived. There was now and again an
exclamation of triumph when a pair of
conventionalized wings were held aloft,
completed, fashioned of gauze and wire
and profusely spangled with silver. He
caught the flash of tinsel, and gratula-
tion and great glee ensued when one of
the old ladies, fluttered with the anxiety
of the inventor, successfully fitted a sil-
ver crown upon the golden locks of a
poetic-faced young girl, a very Titania.
The jocose hobbledehoy whom Royce had
noted on the occasion of his previous ex-
cursion sat upon a step of the long flight
leading from the veranda to the lawn,
surrounded by half a dozen little maidens,
and, armed with a needle and a long
thread, sewed industriously, rewarded by
their shrieking exclamations of delight
in his f unniness every time he grotesque-
ly drew out the needle with a great curve
of his long arm, or facetiously but f utile-
ly undertook to bite the thread.
With zealous gallantry sundry of the
young men plied back and forth be-
tween the groups on the veranda to
The Juggler.
107
facilitate the exchange of silks and scis-
sors, and occasionally trotted on simi-
lar errands, businesslike and brisk, down
the plank walk to the store. Sometimes
they asked here for the wrong thing.
Sometimes they forgot utterly what they
were to ask for, and a return trip was in
order. Sometimes they demanded some
article a stranger to invention, unheard
of on sea or shore. Thus cruelly was
their ignorance of fabric played upon
by the ungrateful and freakish fair, and
the little store rang with laughter at the
discomfiture of the young Mercury so
humbly bearing the messages of the dei-
ties on the veranda; for the store was
crowded, too, chiefly with ladies in the
freshest of morning costumes, and Royce,
as he paused at the door, realized that
this was no time to claim the attention of
the smooth-faced clerk. That function-
ary was as happy as a salesman ever gets
to be. There was not a yard of any
material or an article in his stock that
did not stand a fair chance of immedi-
ate purchase as wearing apparel or stage
properties. Tableaux, and a ball after-
ward in the dress of one of the final pic-
tures, were in immediate contemplation,
as Royce gathered from the talk. This
was evidently an undertaking requiring
some nerve on the part of its projectors,
in so remote a place, where no opportu-
nities of fancy costumes were attainable
save what invention might contrive out of
the resources of a modern summer ward-
robe and the haphazard collections of a
watering-place store. Perhaps this add-
ed element of jeopardy and doubt and
discovery and the triumphs of ingenuity
heightened the zest of an amusement
which with all necessary appliances might
have been vapid indeed.
Royce could not even read the titles
of the books on the little shelf at this dis-
tance, above the heads of the press, and
he turned away to await a more conve-
nient season, realizing that he had at-
tracted naught but most casual notice,
and feeling at ease to perceive, from one
or two specimens to-day about the place,
that mountaineers from the immediate
vicinity were no rarity at New Helvetia ;
their errands to sell fruit to the guests or
vegetables or venison to the hotel being
doubtless often supplemented by a trifle
of loitering to mark the developments of
a life so foreign to their experience.
As he strolled along the plank walk, his
supersensitive consciousness was some-
what assuaged as by a sense of invisibil-
ity. Every one was too much absorbed
to notice him, and he in his true self
supported no responsibility, since poor
Lucien Royce was dead, and John Leon-
ard was merely a stray mountaineer,
looking on wide-eyed at the doings of the
grand folk.
From the locality of the portion of the
building which he had learned contained
the ballroom he heard the clatter of ham-
mer and nails. The stage was proba-
bly in course of erection, and, idly fol-
lowing the sound along a low deserted
piazza toward one of the wings, he stood
at last in the doorway. He gazed in list-
lessly at the group of carpenters work-
ing at the staging, the frame being al-
ready up. A blond young man, in white
flannel trousers and a pink -and -white-
striped blazer, was descanting with know-
ingness and much easy confidence of
manner upon the way in which the cur-
tain should draw, while the proprietor,
grave, saturnine, with a leaning toward
simplicity of contrivance and economy in
execution, listened in silence. The wind
blew soft and free through the opposite
windows. Royce looked critically at the
floor of the ballroom. It was a good
floor, a very good floor. Finally he
turned, with only a gentle melancholy in
his forced renunciation of youthful amuse-
ments, with the kind of sentiment, the
sense of far remove, which might ani-
mate the ghost of one untimely snatched
away, now vaguely awaiting its ultimate
fate. He continued to stroll along, en-
tering presently the quadrangle, and not-
ing here the grass and the trees and the
108
The Juggler.
broad walks ; the romping children about
the band-stand in the centre, dainty and
fresh of costume and shrill of voice ; the
chatting groups of old black " mammies "
who supervised their play. One was
pushing a perambulator, in which a pre-
cocious infant, totally ignoring passing
adults, after the manner of his kind,
fixed an eager, intent, curious gaze upon
another infant in arms, who so returned
this interested scrutiny that his soft neck,
as he twisted it in the support of his re-
tiring nurse, was in danger of disloca-
tion.
" Tu'n roun' yere, chile ! " she admon-
ished him as if he were capable of un-
derstanding, while she shifted him about
in her arms to cut off the vision of the
object of interest. " Twis' off yer hade
lak some ole owel, f us' t'ing ye know ;
owel tu'n his hade ef ye circle roun' him,
an' tu'n an' tu'n till his ole fool hade
drap off. Did n' ye know dat, honey ?
Set disher way. Dat 's nice ! "
She almost ran against the juggler as
she rounded the corner. He caught the
glance of her eye, informed with that
contempt for the poor whites which is so
marked a trait of negro character, as she
walked on, swaying gently from side to
side and crooning low to the baby.
He did not care to linger longer with-
in the premises. He could not even en-
joy the relapse into old sounds and sights
in a guise in which he was thought so
meanly of, and which so ill beseemed his
birth and quality. When he issued at
last from the quadrangle, at the lower
end of the veranda, he found he was
nearer the descent to the spring than to
the store. He thought he would slip
down that dank, bosky, deserted path,
make a circuit through the woods, and
thus regain the road homeward without
risking further observation and the la-
ceration of his quivering pride. False
pride he thought it might be, but ac-
coutred, alas, with sensitive fibres and
alert and elastic muscles for the writh-
ings of torture, with delicate membranes
to shrivel and scorch and sear as if it
were quite genuine and a laudable pos-
session.
The ferns with long wide - spreading
fronds, and great mossy boulders amongst
the dense undergrowth, pressed close on
either hand, and the thick interlacing
boughs of trees overarched the precipi-
tous path as he went down and down
into its green-tinted glooms. Now and
again it curved and sought a more lev-
el course, but outcropping ledges inter-
posed, making the way rugged, and soon
cliffs began to peer through the foliage,
and on one side they overhung the path ;
on the - other side a precipice lurked,
glimpsed through boughs of trees whose
trunks were fifty feet lower on a slope
beneath. An abrupt turn, the odor of
ferns blended with moisture came deli-
cately, elusively fragrant ; a great frac-
ture yawned amidst the rocks, and there,
from a cleft stained deeply ochreous
with the oxide of iron, a crystal - clear
rill fell so continuously that it seemed to
possess no faculty of motion in its limpid
interfacings and plaitings as of silver
threads ; only below, where the natural
stone basin hewn out by the constant
beating on the solid rock overflowed,
could its momentum and power be in-
ferred by the swift escape of the water,
bounding over the precipice and rushing
off in great haste for the valley. The
proprietor had had the good taste to
preserve the woodland character of the
place intact. No sign that civilization
had ever intruded here did Royce mark,
as he looked about, save that suddenly
his eye fell upon a book, open and turned
downward on a rock hard by. Some
one had sought this sylvan solitude for
a quiet hour in the fascinations of its
pages.
He hesitated a moment, then advanced
cautiously and laid his hand upon it.
How long, how long it seemed as if in
another existence since he had had a
book like this in his hand ! He caught
its title eagerly, and the name of the
The Juggler.
109
author. They were new to him. He
turned the pages with alert interest. The
book had been published since the date
of his exile. Once more he fluttered the
leaves, and, like some famished, thirsting
wretch drinking in great eager gulps, he
began to absorb the contents, his eyes
glowing like coals, his breath hot, his
hands trembling with nervous haste,
knowing that his time for this draught
of elixir, this refreshment of his soul,
was brief, so brief. It would never do,
for a man so humbly clad as he was, to
be caught reading with evident delight a
scholarly book like this. When at last
he threw himself down amongst the thick
and fragrant mint beside the rock, his
shoulders supported on an outcropping
ledge, his hat fallen on the ground, he
was not conscious how the time sped by.
His eyes were alight, moving swiftly
from side to side of the page. His face
glowed with responsive enthusiasm to the
high thought of the author. His troubles
had done much to chasten its expres-
sion and had chiseled its features. It
had never been so keen, so intelligent,
so frank, so refined, as now. He did not
see how the shadows shifted, till even
in this umbrageous retreat a glittering
lance of sunlight pierced the green gloom.
He was not even aware of another pre-
sence, a sudden entrance. A young lady,
climbing up from the precipitous slope
below, started abruptly at sight of him,
jeopardizing her already uncertain foot-
ing, then stared for an instant in blank
amazement.
So uncertain was her footing where
she stood, however, that there was no
safe choice but to continue her ascent.
He did not heed more the rustle of her
garments, as she struggled to the level
ground, than the rustle of the leaves,
nor the rattle of the little avalanche of
gravel as her foot upon the verge dis-
lodged the pebbles. Only when the shaft
of sunlight struck full upon her white
pique* dress, and the reflected glare was
flung over the page of the book and into
his eyes with that refulgent quality which
a thick white fabric takes from the sun,
he glanced up at the dazzling apparition
with a galvanic start which jarred his
every fibre. He stared at her for one
moment as if he were in a dream ; he
had come from so far, so very far !
Then he grasped his troublous identity,
and sprang to his feet in great embar-
rassment.
" I must apologize," he said, with his
most courteous intonation, "for taking
the liberty of reading your book."
" Not at all," she murmured civilly,
but still looking at him in much surprise
and with intent eyes.
Those eyes were blue and soft and
lustrous ; the lashes were long and black ;
the eyebrows were so fine, so perfect, so
delicately arched, that they might have
justified the writing of sonnets in their
praise. That delicate small Roman nose
one knew instinctively she derived from
a father who had followed its prototype
from one worldly advancement to anoth-
er, and into positions of special financial
trusts and high commercial considera-
tion. It would give distinction to her
face in the years to come, when her
fresh and delicate lips should fade, and
that fluctuating sea-shell pink hue should
no longer embellish her cheek. Her com-
plexion was very fair. Her hair, dense-
ly black, showed under the brim of the
white sailor hat set straight on her small
head. She was tall and slender, and
wore her simple dress with an effect of
finished elegance. She had an air of
much refinement and unconscious digni-
ty, and although, from her alert volant
poise, he inferred that she was ready to
terminate the interview, she did not move
at once when she had taken the book in
her hand.
" I merely intended to glance at the
title," he went on, still overwhelmed to
be caught in this literary poaching, and
hampered by the consciousness that he
and his assumed identity had become
strangely at variance. " But I grew so
110
The Juygler.
much interested that I I quite lost
myself."
She had some thought in her mind as
she looked down at the book in her
gloved hand, then at him. The blood
stung his cheek as he divined it. In
pity for his evident poverty and hanker-
ing for the volume, she would fain have
bid him keep it. If this stranger had
been a woman, she would have bestowed
it on the instant. As it was, with an ex-
acting sense of conventionality, she said
suavely, but with impersonal inexpres-
siveness, " It is no matter. I am glad
it entertained you. Good-morning."
He bowed with distant and unpresum-
ing politeness, and as she walked, with
a fine pose and a quick elastic gait, along
the shadowy green path, vanishing at the
first turn, he felt the blood beating in
his temples with such marked pulsation
that he could have counted the strokes
as he stood.
Did she deem him, then, only a com-
mon mountaineer, a graceless unlettered
lout ? She rated him as less than the
dust beneath her feet. He could not en-
dure that she should think of him thus.
How could she be so obtuse as to fail
to see that he was a gentleman for all
his shabby gear ! It was in him for a
moment to hasten after her and reveal
his name and quality, that she might
not look at him as a creature of no
worth, a being of a different sphere, hard-
ly allied even to the species she repre-
sented.
He was following on her path, when
the reflex sentiment struck him. " Am
I mad? " he said to himself. " Have I
lost all sense of caution and self-preser-
vation ? "
He stood panting and silent, the
wounded look in his eyes so intense that
by some subtle sympathetic influence
they hurt him, as if in the tension of a
strain upon them, and he passed his hand
across them as he took his way back to
the spring.
Did he wish the lady to recognize his
station in life, and speculate touching
his name ? He was fortunate in that she
was so young, for to those of more ex-
perience the incongruities of the inter-
est manifested by an uncouth and igno-
rant mountaineer in a metaphysical book
like that might indeed advertise mystery
and provoke inquiry. Was he hurt be-
cause the lady, noting his flagrant pov-
erty, had evidently wished to bestow upon
him the volume which he had been read-
ing with such delight, so little to her,
so infinite to him ? And should he not
appreciate her delicate sense of the ap-
propriate, that had forbidden this gen-
erosity, considering her youth, and the
fact that he was a stranger and seeming-
ly a rustic clown ? He rather wondered
at the scholarly bent of her taste in lit-
erature, and her avoidance of the mirth-
ful scenes of the veranda, that she might
spend the morning in thought so fresh,
so deep, so expansive. It hardly seemed
apposite to her age and the tale that the
thermometer told, for this was a book
for study. There was something simple-
hearted in his acceptance of this high
intellectual ideal which all at once she
represented to him. A few months ago
he would have scoffed at it as a pose ;
he would at least have surmised the fact,
a mistake caused by a similarity of
binding with a popular novel of the day
with which she had hoped to while away
the time in the cool recesses beside the
spring, and thus the volume had been
thrown discarded on the rock, while she
climbed the slopes searching for the
Chilhowee lily.
The fire of humiliation still scorched
his eyes, his deep depression was patent
in his face and figure, when he reached
the Sims house at last, and threw himself
down in a chair in the passage. One
arm was over the back of the chair, and
he rested his chin in his hand as he looked
out gloomily at the mountains that limit-
ed his world, and wished that he had
never seen them and might never see
them again. The house was full of the
The Juggler.
Ill
odor of frying bacon, for there was no
whiff of wind in the Cove. The rooms
were close and hot, and the sun lay half
across the floor, and burnt, and shim-
mered, and dazzled the eye. The suffo-
cating odor of the blistering clapboards,
and of the reserves of breathless heat
stored in the attic, penetrated the spaces
below. Jane Ann Sims sat melting by
degrees in the doorway, where, if a
draught were possible to the atmosphere
from any of the four quarters, she might
be in its direct route. Meantime she
nodded oblivious, and her great head and
broad face dripping with moisture wab-
bled helplessly on her bosom.
Euphemia, coming out suddenly with
a pan of peas to shell for dinner, and seek-
ing a respite from the heat, caught sight
of Royce with a radiant look of delight to
which for his life he could not respond.
She was pallid and limp with the heat and
the work of preparing dinner, and even
in the poetic entanglements of her curl-
ing shining hair she brought that most
persistent aroma of the frying-pan. The
coarse florid calico, the misshapen little
brogans which she adjusted on the rung
of her chair as she tilted it back against
the wall with the pan in her lap, her
drawling voice, the lapses of her igno-
rant speech, her utter lack of all the
graces of training and culture, impressed
him anew with the urgency of a fresh
discovery.
" What air it ez ails you-uns ? " she
demanded, with a certain anxiety in her
eyes. " Ye hev acted sorter cur'ous all
this week. Do you-uns feel seek enny-
whars ? "
" Lord, no ! " exclaimed the juggler
irritably ; " there 's nothing the matter
with me."
She looked at him in amazement for
a moment ; he had had no words for
her of late but honeyed praise. The
change was sudden and bitter. There
was an appealing protest in her fright-
ened eyes, and the color rushed to her
face.
He had no affinities for the role of
tickle-minded lover, and he was hardly
likely to seek to palliate the cruelty of
inconstancy. He took extreme pride in
being a man of his word. The sense of
honor, which was all the religion he had
and was chiefly active commercially, was
evident too in his personal affairs. Was
it her fault, his poor little love, that she
was so hopelessly rustic ? Had he not
sought her when she was averse to him,
and won her heart from a man she loved,
who would never have thought himself
too good for her? He would not apo-
logize, however. He would not let her
think that he had been vexed into hasty
speech by the sight of her, the sound of
her voice.
" You just keep that up," he said,
conserving an expression of animosity
before which she visibly quaked, " and
you '11 have Mrs. Sims brewing her in-
fernal herb teas for me in about three
minutes and a quarter. I want you to
stop talking about my being ill, short
off."
As she gazed at him she burst into a
little trill of treble laughter, that had
nevertheless the tone of tears ready to
be shed, in the extremity of her relief.
" I have walked twenty miles to-day,
and it 's a goodish tramp, over to New
Helvetia and back ; and I 'm fagged out,
that 's all."
Her equilibrium was restored once
more, and her eyes were radiant with the
joy of loving and being loved. Yet she
paused suddenly, her hand he winced
that he should notice how rough and
large it was, the nails blunt and short and
broad resting motionless on the edge
of the pan, as she said, " I wisht ye would
gin up goin' ter that thar hotel. Ye look
strange ter-day," her eyes searched
his face as if for an interpretation of
something troublous, daunting, " so
strange ! so strange ! "
" How ? " he demanded angrily, knit-
ting his brows.
" Ez ef ef ye hed been 'witched some-
112
The Juggler.
hows," she answered, " like I 'low folks
urns' look ez view a witch in the woods
an' git under some unyearthly spell. The
woods air powerful thick over to'des New
Heveshy, an' folks 'low they air fairly
roamin' with witches an' sech. I ain't
goin' ter gin my cornsent fur ye ter go
through 'em no mo'."
She pressed a pod softly, and the peas
flew out and rattled in the pan, and the
tension was at an end. He felt that she
was far too acute, however. He was
sorry she had ever known of his visits to
New Helvetia. She should suppose them
discontinued. He certainly coveted no
feminine espionage.
He could not escape the thought of the
place now. The face of the beautiful
stranger was before his eyes every wak-
ing hour ; and these were many, for the
nights had lost their balm of sleep. The
tones of her voice sounded in his ear.
The delicate values of her refined bear-
ing, the suggestions of culture and charm
and high breeding which breathed from
her presence like a perfume, had in-
thralled his senses as might the subtile
and aerial potencies of ether. He had
no more volition. He could not resist.
Yet it was not, he argued, this stranger
whom he adored. It was what she em-
bodied, what she represented. He per-
ceived at last that for him the artifi-
cialities of life were the realities. Even
his own cherished gifts were matters of
sedulous cultivation of certain natural
aptitudes, the training of which was more
remarkable than the endowment ; and
indeed, of what worth the talent without
that culture which gives it use, and in
fact recognized being at all ? The status
had an inherent integral value, the hu-
man creature was its mere incident. Na-
ture was naught to him. The triumphs
of the world are the uses man has made
of nature ; the force that has lifted him
from plane to plane, and sublimated the
mere intelligence, which he shares with
the beast, into intellectuality, which is
the extremest development of mind.
As he argued thus abstractly, the long-
ing to see her again grew resistless. Not
himself to be seen, and never, never again
by her ! He would only look at her from
afar, as one even so humble a wretch
might gaze at some masterpiece of the
artist's craft, might kneel in abasement
and self - abnegation before some noble
shrine. He craved to see her in her
splendid young loveliness and girlish en-
joyment, in gala attire, at the grand fete
on which the youth of New Helvetia
were expending their ingenuity of in-
vention and expansive energy. Even
prudence could not say him nay. Did
fate grudge him a glimpse that he might
gain at the door, or while between the
dances she walked with her partner on
the moonlit veranda ? Who would note
a flitting ghost, congener of the shadow,
lurking in the deep glooms beneath the
trees and looking wistfully at the world
from which he had been snatched away ?
It was with a lacerating sense of renun-
ciation that he parted with each instant
of the time during the momentous even-
ing when he might have beheld her in
the tableaux ; for he could with certainty
fix upon the place she occupied, having
gathered from the talk at the store the
date and order of the festivities.
But he could not rid himself of the
Sims family. It had been vaguely borne
in upon Mrs. Sims that he was growing
tired of them, and in sudden alarm lest
Euphemia's happiness prove precarious,
and with that disposition to assume the
blame not properly chargeable to one's
self which is common to some of the
best people, who perceive no turpitude in
lying when it is only to themselves, she
made herself believe that the change was
merely because she had been remiss in
her attentions to her guest, and had treat-
ed him too much and too informally as
one of the family. She smiled broadly
upon him, with each of her many dimples
in evidence, which had never won upon
him, even in the days of his blandest
contentment. She detained him in con-
The Juggler.
113
versation. She requested that he would
favor her with the exact rendition of the
air to which he sang the words of Rock
of Ages, one Sunday morning when he
had heard the bells of the St. Louis
church towers ringing from out of the
misty west ; and as he dully complied, his
tones breaking more than once, she ac-
commodatingly wheezed along with him,
quite secure of his commendation. For
Jane Ann Sims had been a " plumb spe-
cial singer " when she was young and
slim, and no matter how intelligent a
woman may be, she never outgrows her
attractions in her own eyes.
At last the house was still, and the jug-
gler, having endured an agony of sus-
pense in his determination to suppress
all demonstrations of interest in New
Helvetia, lest the intuition of the two
women should divine the cause from
even so slight indicia as might baffle
reason, found himself free from question
and surmise and comment. He was off
in the moonlight and the shadow and
the dew, with a furtive noiseless speed,
like some wild errant thing of the night,
native to the woods. He had a sense
of the shadow and of the sheen of a
fair young moon in the wilderness ; he
knew that the air was dank and cool and
the dew fell ; he took note mechanically
of the savage densities of the wilds when
he heard the shrill blood-curdling quaver-
ing of a catamount's scream, and he laid
his grasp on the handle of a sharp knife
or dagger that he wore in his belt, which
he had bought for a juggling trick that
he had not played at the curtailed per-
formance in the schoolhouse, and wished
that it were instead Tubal Cain's shoot-
ing-iron. But beyond this his mind was
a blank. He did not think ; he did not
feel ; his every capacity was concen-
trated upon his gait and the speed that
he made. He did not know how soon
it was that the long series of points of
yellow light, like a chain of glowing
topaz, shone through the black darkness
and the misty tremulous dimness of the
VOL. LXXX. NO. 477. 8
moon. His teeth were set; he was fit
to fall ; he paused only a moment, lean-
ing on the rail of the bridge to draw a
deep breath and relax his muscles. Then
he came on, swift, silent, steady, to the
veranda.
Around the doors, outside the ballroom,
were crowded groups of figures, whose
dusky faces and ivory teeth caught the
light from within and attested the enjoy-
ment of the servants of the place as
spectators of the scene. He saw through
an aperture, as one figure moved aside, a
humble back bench against the wall, on
which sat two or three of the mountain-
eers of the vicinity, calmly and stolidly
looking on, without more facial expres-
sion of opinion than Indians might have
manifested. He would not join this
group, lest she might notice him in their
company, which he repudiated, as if his
similarity of aspect were not his reliance
to save all that he and men of his ilk
held dear. The windows were too high
from the ground to afford a glimpse of
the interior ; he stood irresolute for a
moment, with the strains of the waltz
music vibrating in his very heart-strings.
Suddenly he marked how the ground
rose toward the further end of the build-
ing. The last two windows must be par-
tially blockaded by the slope so close
without, and could serve only purposes
of ventilation. Responsive to the thought,
he climbed the steep slant, dark, dewy,
and solitary, and, lying in the soft lush
grass, looked down upon the illuminated
ballroom.
At first he did not see her. With his
heart thumping much after the fashion
of the bass viol, till it seemed to beat in
his ears, he gazed on the details of a scene
such as he had thought never to look
upon again. He recognized with a sort
of community spirit and pleasure how
well the frolicsome youth had utilized
their slender opportunities, so far from
the emporiums of civilization. Great
branching ferns had adequately enough
supplied the place of palms, their fronds
114
The Juggler.
waving lightly from the walls in every
whirling breeze from the flight of the
dance. Infinite lengths of vines the
Virginia creeper, the ground ivy, and
the wild grape twined about the pillars,
and festooned the ceiling, the band-stand,
and the chandeliers. For the first time
he was made aware of the decorative
values of the blackberry, when it is red,
and, paradoxically, green. The unripe
scarlet clusters were everywhere massed
amidst the green vines with an effect as
brilliant as holly. All the aisles of the
surrounding woods had been explored for
wild flowers. Here and there were tables
laden with great masses of delicate blos-
soms, and from time to time young cou-
ples paused in their aimless strolling back
and forth, for the music had ceased for
the nonce, and examined specimens,
and disputed over varieties, and apparent-
ly disparaged each other's slender scraps
of botany.
The band, high in their cage, pro-
sperous, pompous darkies, of lofty man-
ners, but entertaining with courteous con-
descension any request which might be
preferred, in regard to the music, by the
young guests of the hotel, looked down
upon the scene complacently. Now and
then they showed their ivory teeth in
an exchange of remarks which one felt
sure must be worth hearing. Against the
walls were ranged the chaperons in their
most festal black attire, enhanced by fine
old lace and fragile glittering fans and a
somewhat dazzling display of diamonds.
The portly husbands and fathers, fitting
very snugly in their dress suits, hovered
about these borders with that freshened
relish of scenes of youthful festivity which
somehow seems increased in proportion
as the possibility aud privilege of parti-
cipation are withdrawn. Some of the
younger gentlemen also wore merely the
ordinary evening dress, the difficulty of
evolving a fancy costume, or a secret aver-
sion to the characters they had represent-
ed in the tableaux, warranting this de-
parture from the spirit of the .occasion.
Everywhere, however, the younger
feminine element blossomed out in poetic
guise. Here and there fluttered many a
fairy with the silver-flecked gauze wings
that Royce had seen a-making, and Tita-
nia still wore her crown, although Bottom
had thrown his pasteboard head out of the
window, and was now a grave and sedate
young American citizen. Red Riding-
Hood and the Wolf still made the grand
tour in amicable company, and Pocahon-
tas, in a fawn-tinted cycling skirt and leg-
gings and a red blanket bedizened with
all the borrowed beads and feathers that
the Springs could afford, was esteemed
characteristic indeed. Davy Crockett had
a real coonskin cap which he had bought
for lucre from a mountaineer, and which
he intended to take home as a souvenir
of the Great Smokies, although he was
fain to carry it now by the tail because of
the heat ; but he invariably put it on and
drew himself up to his tableau estimate
of importance whenever one of the el-
derly ladies clutched at him, as he passed,
to inquire if he were certainly sure that
the long and ancient flintlock (borrowed)
which he bore over his shoulder was
unloaded. There had evidently been a
tableau representing Flora's court or sim-
ilar blooming theme, since so many per-
sonified flowers were wasting their sweet-
ness on the unobservant and unaccus-
tomed air. The wild rose was in several
shades of fleecy pink, festooned with her
own garlands. A wallflower a dashing
blonde was in brown and yellow, and
had half the men in the room around her.
Suddenly Lucien Royce's heart gave
a great throb and seemed to stand still,
for, on the arm of her last partner, com-
ing slowly down the room until she stood
in the full glow of the nearest chandelier,
all in white, in shining white satin, with a
grace and dignity which embellished her
youth, was she whom he had so longed
to see. Her bare arms and shoulders
were of a soft whiteness that made the
tone of the satin by contrast glazing
and hard. Her delicate head, with its
The Juggler.
115
black hair arranged close and high, had
the pose of a lily on its stalk. Scat-
tered amid the dense dark tresses dia-
monds glittered and quivered like dew-
drops. Her face had that flower-like
look not uncommon among the type of
the very fair women with dark hair from
the extreme south. Over the white satin
was some filmy thin material, like the
delicate tissues of a corolla ; and only
when he had marked these liliaceous
similitudes did he observe that it was the
Chilhowee lily which she had chosen to
represent. Now and again that most
ethereal flower showed amongst the folds
of her skirt. A cluster as fragile as a
dream lay on her bosom, and in her hand
she carried a single blossom, poetic and
perfect, trembling on its long stalk.
There rose upon the air a sudden
welling out of the music. The band was
playing Home, Sweet Home. She had
moved out of the range of his vision.
There was a murmur of voices on the
veranda as the crowd emerged. The
lights were abruptly quenched in dark-
ness. And he laid his head face down-
ward in the deep grass and wished he
might never lift it again.
XII.
Owen Haines spent many a lonely hour,
in these days, at the foot of a great tree
in the woods, riving poplar shingles.
Near by in the green and gold glinting
of the breeze-swept undergrowth another
great tree lay prone on the ground. The
space around him was covered with 'the
chips hewn from its bole, an illumi-
nated yellow-hued carpet in the soft wa-
vering emerald shadows. The smooth
shingles, piled close at hand, multiplied
rapidly as the sharp blade glided swiftly
through the poplar fibres. From time to
time he glanced up expectantly, vainly
looking for Absalom Tynes ; for it had
once been the wont of the young preacher
to lie here on the clean fresh chips and
talk through much of the sunlit days to
his friend, who welcomed him as a desert
might welcome a summer rain. He would
talk on the subject nearest the hearts of
both, his primitive theology, a subject
from which Owen Haiues was otherwise
debarred, as no other ministerial magnate
would condescend to hold conversation on
such a theme with the laughing-stock of
the meetings, whose aspirations it was
held to be a duty in the cause of religion
to discourage and destroy if might be.
Only Tynes understood him, hoped for
him, felt with him. But Tynes was at the
schoolhouse in the Cove, listening in fas-
cinated interest to the juggler as he re-
cited from memory, and himself reading
in eager and earnest docility, copying
his master's methods.
Therefore, when the step of a man
sounded along the bosky path which
Haines had worn to his working-place,
and he looked up with eager anticipation,
he encountered only disappointment at
the sight of Peter Knowles approaching
through the leaves.
Knowles paused and glanced about
him with withering disdain. " Tynes
ain't hyar," he observed. " I dunno ez I
looked ter view him, nuther."
He dropped down on the fragrant car-
pet of chips, and for the first time Haines
noticed that he carried, after a gingerly
fashion, on the end of a stick, a bun-
dle apparently of clothes, and plentifully
dusted with something white and pow-
dery. Even in the open air and the rush
of the summer wind the odor exhaled
by quicklime was powerful and pungent,
and the scorching particles came flying
into Haines's face. As he drew back
Knowles noticed the gesture, and adroit-
ly flung the bundle and stick to leeward,
saying, " Don't it 'pear plumb cur'ous
ter you-uns, the idee o' a minister o'
the gorspel a-settin' out ter 1'arn how ter
read the Bible from a onconverted sin-
ner ? I hearn this hyar juggler - man
'low ez he warn't even a mourner,
though he said he hed suthin' ter mourn
116
The Juggler.
over. An' I '11 sw'ar he hev," he add-
ed significantly, " an' he may look ter
hev more."
The poplar slivers flew fast from the
keen blade, and the workman's eyes were
steadfastly fixed on the shingle growing
in his hand.
Peter Knowles chewed hard on his
quid of tobacco for a moment ; then he
broke out] abruptly, " Owen Haines, I
knows ye want ter sarve the Lord, an'
thar 's many a way o' doin' it besides
preachin', else I 'd be a-preachin' my-
self."
Such was the hold that his aspiration
had taken upon Haines's mind that he
lifted his head in sudden expectancy and
with a certain radiant submissiveness on
his face, as if his Master's will could come
even by Peter Knowles !
" I brung ye yer chance," continued
the latter. Then, with a quick change
from the sanctimonious whine to an
eager, suppressed voice full of excite-
ment, " What ye reckon air in that
bundle ? "
Haines, surprised at this turn of the
conversation, glanced around at the bun-
dle in silence.
" An' whar do ye reckon I got it ? "
asked Knowles. Then, as Owen Haines's
eyes expressed a wondering question,
he went on, mysteriously lowering his
voice, " I fund it in my rock-house, flung
in thar an' kivered by quicklime ! "
Haines stared in blank amazement for
a moment. " I 'lowed ye hed plugged
up the hole goin' inter yer rock-house,
ter keep the lime dry, with a big boul-
der."
" E4zac'ly, edzac'ly ! " Knowles as-
sented, his long narrow face and close-
set eyes so intent upon his listener as to
put Haines out of countenance in some
degree.
Haines sought to withdraw his glance
from their baleful significant expression,
but his eyelids faltered and quivered,
and he continued to look wincingly at
his interlocutor. " I 'lowed 't war too
heavy for any one man ter move," he
commented vaguely, at last.
" 'Thout he war holped by the devil,"
Knowles added.
There was a pause. The young work-
man's hand was still. His companion's
society did not accord with his mood.
The loneliness was soft and sweet, and
of peaceful intimations. His frequent
disappointments were of protean guise.
Where was that work for the Master
that Peter Knowles had promised him ?
" Owen Haines," cried Peter Knowles
suddenly, " hev that thar man what calls
hisself a juggler-man done ennythin' but
harm'sence he hev been in the Cove an'
the mountings ? "
Haines, the color flaring to his brow,
laid quick hold on his shingle-knife and
rived the wood apart ; his breath came
fast and his hand shook, although his
work was so steady. He was all un-
noting that Peter Knowles was watch-
ing him with an unguarded eye of open
amusement, and a silent sneer that left
his long tobacco-stained teeth visible be-
low his curling upper lip. But a young
fool's folly is often propitious for the
uses of a wiser man, and Knowles was
not ill pleased to descry the fact that the
relations between the two could not ad-
mit of friendship, or tolerance, or even in-
difference.
" Fust," he continued, " he gin that
onholy show in the church-house, what I
never seen, but it hev set folks power-
ful catawampus an' hendered religion,
fur the devil war surely in it."
Owen Haines took off his hat to toss
his long fair hair back from his brow,
and looked with troubled reflective eyes
down the long aisles of the gold-flecked
verdure of the woods.
" Then he tricked you-uns somehows
out'n yer sweetheart, what ye hed been
keepin' company with so long."
Haines shook his head doubtfully.
" We-uns quar'led," he said. " I dunno
ef he hed nuthin' ter do with it."
" Did she an' you-uns ever quar'l 'fore
The Juggler.
117
he kem ter Sims's ? " demanded the sly
Knowles.
They had never quarreled before
Haines " got religion " and took to
" prayin' fur the power." He had never
thought the juggler chargeable with
their differences, but the fallacy now oc-
curred to him that they might have been
precipitated by Royce's ridicule of him
as a wily device to rid her of her lover.
His face grew hot and angry. There
was fire in his eyes. His lips parted
and his breath came quick.
" He hev toled off Tynes too," resumed
Knowles, with a melancholy intonation.
" He hev got all the lures and witch-
ments of the devil at command. I kem
by the church-house awhile ago, an' I
hearn him an' Tynes in thar, speakin'
an' readin'. An' I sez ter myself, sez I,
'Pore Owen Haines, up yander in the
woods, hev got nuther his frien', now, nor
his sweetheart. Him an' Phemie keeps
company no mo' in this worl'.' "
There was a sudden twitch of Haines's
features, as if these piercing words had
been with some material sharpness thrust
in amongst sensitive tissues. It was all
true, all true.
The iron was hot, and Peter Knowles
struck. " That ain't the wust," he said,
leaning forward and bringing his face
with blazing eyes close to his companion.
" This hyar juggler hev killed a man, an'
flung his bones inter the quicklime in my
rock-house."
Haines, with a galvanic start, turned,
pale and aghast, upon his companion.
He could only gasp, but Knowles went
on convulsively and without question :
"I s'picioned him from the fust. He
stopped thar whar I was burnin' lime
the night o' the show, an' helped ter put
it in outer the weather, bein' ez the rain
would slake it. An' he axed me ef quick-
lime would sure burn up a dead body.
An' when I told him, he turned as he
went away an' looked back, smilin' an'
sorter motionin' with his hand, an' looked
back agin, an' looked back."
He reached out slowly for the stick
with the bundle tied at the end, and
dragged it toward him, the breath of
the scalding lime perceptible as it was
drawn near.
" Las' week, one evenin' late," he said
in a lowered voice and with his eyes
alight and glancing, " hevin' kep' a watch
on this young buzzWd, an' noticin' him
forever travelin' the New Helveshy road
what ain't no business o' his'n, I 'lowed
I 'd foller him. An' he kerries a bundle.
He walks fast an' stops short, an' stud-
ies, an' turns back suddint, an' stops
agin, an' whirls roun' an' goes on. An'
his face looks like death ! An' sometimes
he stops short to sigh, ez ef he could n't
get his breath. But he don't go ter New
Helveshy. He goes ter my rock-house.
An' he hev got breath enough ter fling
away that tormented big boulder, an'
toss in these gyarmints, an' churn the
lime over 'em with a stick till he hed ter
hold his hand over his eyes ter keep his
eyesight, an' fling back the boulder, an'
run off faster 'n a fox along the road ter
Sims's."
There was a long silence as the two
men looked into each other's eyes.
" What air ye tellin' this ter me fur ? "
said Haines at last, struggling with a mad
impulse of hope of joy, was it ? For if
this were true, and true it must be,
the spurious supplantation in Euphemia's
affections might soon be at an end. If her
love could not endure ridicule, would it
condone crime ? All might yet be well ;
justice tardily done, the law upheld ; the
intruder removed from the sphere where
he had occasioned such woe, and the old
sweet days of love's young dream to be
lived anew. %
" Fur the Marster's sarvice," said the
wily hypocrite. " I sez ter myself, ' Owen
Haines won't see the right tromped on.
He won't see the ongodly flourish. He
won't see the wolf a-lopin' through the
fold. He won't hear in the night the
blood o' Abel cryin' from the groun' agin
the guilty Cain, an' not tell the sher'ff
118
The Juggler.
what air no furder off, jes' now, 'n 'Pos-
sum Cross-Roads.' "
" Why don't you-uns let him know
yerse'f ? " demanded Haines shortly.
" Waal, I be a-settin' up nights with
my sick nephews : three o' them chil'n
down with the measles, an' my sister an'
brother-in-law bein' so slack-twisted I be
'feard they 'd gin 'em the wrong med'-
cine ef I warn't thar ter gin d'rections."
His eye brightened as he noted Haines
reaching forward for the end of the stick
and slowly drawing the bundle toward
him.
It is stated on excellent authority that
a leopard cannot change his spots, and,
without fear of successful contradiction,
one may venture to add to the illustra-
tions of immutability that a coward can-
not change his temperament. Now that
Peter Knowles was a coward had been
evinced by his conduct on several occa-
sions within the observation of his com-
patriots. His craft, however, had served
to adduce mitigating circumstances, and
so consigned the matter to oblivion that
it did not once occur to Haines that it
was fear which had evolved the subter-
fuge of enlisting his well-known enthu-
siasm for religion and right, and his nat-
ural antagonism against the juggler, in
the Master's service. On the one hand,
Knowles dreaded being called to account
for whatever else might be found uncon-
sumed by the lime in his rock-house, did
he disclose naught of his discovery. On
the other hand, the character of inform-
er is very unpopular in the mountains,
owing to the revelations of moonshining
often elicited by the rewards offered by
the revenue laws. Persons of this class
sometimes receive a recompense in an-
other metal, which, if not so satisfactory
as current coin, is more conclusive and
lasting. It was the recollection of leaden
tribute of this sort, should the matter
prove explicable, or the man escape, or
the countryside resent 4 the appeal to the
law, which induced Peter Knowles to
desire to shift upon Haines the active
responsibility of giving information : his
jealousy in love might be considered a
motive adequate to bring upon him all the
retributions of the recoil of the scheme
if aimed amiss.
He watched the young man narrowly
and with a glittering eye as, with a trem-
bling hand and a look averse, he began
to untie the cord which held the package
together.
" He killed the man, Owen, ez sure
ez ye air livin', an' flunged his bones in
the quicklime, an' now he flunged in his
clothes," Knowles was saying as the bun-
dle gave loose in the handling.
Drawing back with a sense of suffo-
cation ,as a cloud of minute particles
of quicklime rose from the folds of the
material, Owen Haines nevertheless re-
cognized upon the instant the garments
which the juggler himself had worn when
he first came to the Cove, the unaccus-
tomed fashion of which had riveted his
attention for the time at the " show " at
the church-house.
With a certain complex duality of emo-
tion, he experienced a sense of dismay
to note how his heart sank with the ex-
tinguishment of his hope that the man
might prove a criminal and that this
discovery might rid the country of him.
How ill he had wished him ! Not only
that the fierce blast of the law might
consume him, but, reaching back into the
past, that he might have wrought evil
enough to justify it and make the retribu-
tion sure ! With a pang as of sustaining
loss he gasped, " Why, these hyar gyar-
mints air his own wear. I hev viewed
him in 'em many a time whenst he fust
kem ter the Cove ! "
Knowles glared at him in startled
doubt, and slowly turned over one of the
pointed russet shoes.
" He hed 'em on the night he gin the
show in the Cove," said Haines.
" I seen him that night," said Knowles
conclusively. " He hed on no sech
cur'ous clothes ez them, else I 'd hev re-
marked 'em, sure ! "
The Juggler.
119
" Ye lowed 't war night an' by the
flicker o' the fire, an' ye war in a corn-
sider'ble o' a jigget 'bout'n yer lime."
" Naw, sir ! naw, sir ! he hed on no
sech coat ez that," protested Knowles.
Then, with rising anger, " Ye air a pore
shoat fur sense, Owen Haines ! Ef they
air his gyarmints, what 's the reason he
hid 'em so secret an' whar the quicklime
would deestroy 'em ; bein' so partic'lar
ter ax o' me ef 't would burn boots an'
clothes an' bone, bone, too ? "
" I dunno," said Haines, at a loss, and
turning the black-and-red blazer vaguely
in his hands.
" I do ; them folks over ter New Hel-
veshy wears sech fool gear ez these."
"Thar ain't nobody missin' at New
Helveshy ! " Haines argued, against his
lingering hope.
" How do you-uns know ? " exclaimed
Knowles hurriedly, and with a certain
alert alarm in his face. " Somebody
comin' ez never got thar ! Somebody
goin' ez never got away ! " He had risen
excitedly to his feet. What ghastly se-
cret might be hidden beneath the resi-
due of quicklime in his rock-house, the
responsibility possibly to be laid at his
door !
Owen Haines, looking up at him with
childlike eyes, was slowly studying his
face, a fierce face, with the savagery
of his cowardice as predatory an element
as the wantonness of his malice.
" These hyar air his clothes," Haines
reiterated; " I 'members 'em well. This
hyar split buttonhole at the throat "
" That 's whar he clutched the mur-
dered one," declared Knowles tumultu-
ously.
" an' these water-marks on these
hyar shoes, they hed been soaked,
an' this hyar leather belt, whar two p'ints
hed been teched through with a knife-
blade, stiddier them round holes, ter
draw the belt up tighter 'n it war made
ter be wore, I could swar ter 'em,
an' this hyar "
Knowles looked down at him in angry
doubt. " Shucks," he interrupted, " ye
besotted idjit ! I dunno what ailed me ter
kem ter you-uns. I 'lowed ye war so beset
ter do yer Marster's work ! "
with a mocking whine. " But ye ain't.
Ye seek yer own chance ! The Lord tied
yer tongue with a purpose, an' he wasted
no brains on a critter ez he did n't 'low
ter hev gabblin' round the throne. Ye
see ter it ye say nuthin' 'bout'n this, else
jestice '11 take arter you-uns, too, an'
ye won't be much abler ter talk ter the
court o' law 'n the court o' the Lawd."
He wagged his head vehemently at the
young man, while kneeling to make up
anew the bundle of garments, until the
scorching vapor compelled him to turn
aside. When he arose, he stood erect for
one doubtful instant. Then, satisfied by
the reflection that for the sake of his own
antagonism toward the juggler the jeal-
ous and discarded lover would do naught
to frustrate the vengeance that menaced
Royce, he turned suddenly, and, with the
bundle swaying as before on the end of
the stick, started without a word along
the path by which he had come, leaving
Owen Haines gazing after him till he
disappeared amongst the leaves.
How long Owen Haines sat there star-
ing at the vanishing point of that bosky
perspective he could hardly have said.
When he leaped to his feet, it was with a
repentant sense of the waste of time and
the need of haste. His long, lank, slouch-
ing figure seemed incompatible with any
but the most languid rate of progression ;
and indeed it was not his habit to get over
the ground at the pace which he now set
for himself. This was hardly slackened
through the several miles he traversed
until he reached the schoolhouse, which
he found silent and empty. After a wild-
eyed and hurried survey, he set forth
anew, his shoulders bent, his head thrust
forward, his gait unequal, tired, breath-
less ; for he was not of the stalwart phy-
sique common amongst the youth of the
Cove. He reached the Sims cabin, pant-
ing, anxious-eyed, and hardly remember-
120
The Juggler.
ing his grievances against Phemie when
he came upon her in the passage. She
looked at him askance over her shoulder
as she rose in silent disdain to go indoors.
" I ain't kem hyar ter plague you-uns,
Phemie," he called out, divining her in-
terpretation of his motive. " I want ter
speak ter that thar juggler-man," he
could not bring himself to mention the
name.
She paused a moment, and he per-
ceived in surprise that her proud and
scornful face bore no tokens of happi-
ness. Her lips had learned a pathetic
droop ; her eyelids were heavy, and the
long lashes lifted barely to the level of
her glance. The words in a low voice,
" He ain't hyar," were as if wrung from
her by the necessity of the moment, so
unwilling they seemed, and she entered
the house as Mrs. Sims flustered out of
the opposite door.
" Laws-a-massy, Owen Haines," she
exclaimed, " ye better lef ' be that thar
juggler-man, ez ye calls him ! He could
throw you-uns over his shoulder. Ye '11
git inter trouble, meddlin'. Phemie be
plumb delighted with her ch'ice, an' a gal
hev got a right ter make a ch'ice wunst
in her life, ennyhows."
He sought now and again to stem the
tide of her words, but only when a breath-
less wheeze silenced her he found oppor-
tunity to protest that he meant no harm
to the juggler, and he held no grudge
against Euphemia ; that he was the bear-
er of intelligence important to the jug-
gler, and she would do her guest a favor
to disclose his whereabouts.
There were several added creases
they could hardly be called wrinkles
in Mrs. Sims's face of late, and a certain
fine network of lines had been drawn
about her eyes. She was anxious, trou-
bled, irritated, all at once, and entertained
her own views touching the admission of
the fact of the juggler's frequent and
lengthened absence from his beloved.
Euphemia's fascinations for him were
evidently on the wane, and although he
was gentle and considerate and almost
humble when he was at the house, he
seemed listless and melancholy, and had
grown silent and unobservant, and they
had all marked the change.
"We-uns kin hardly git shet o' the
boy," said Mrs. Sims easily, lying in an
able-bodied fashion. " But I do b'lieve
ter-day ez he hev tuk heart o' grace an'
gone a-huntin'."
Owen Haines's countenance fell. Of
what avail to follow at haphazard in the
vastness of the mountain wilderness ?
There was naught for him to do but re-
turn to his work, and wait till nightfall
might bring home the man he sought.
Meantime, the sheriff was as near as
'Possum Cross-Roads, only twelve miles
down the valley. Peter Knowles would
probably give the information which he
had tried to depute to the supplanted
lover. Haines did not doubt now the
juggler's innocence, but the hiding away
of those garments in so mysterious a
manner might be difficult to explain, and
might cost him at least a wearisome im-
prisonment. It was within Haines's ob-
servation that other men had found it
well to be out of the way at a time of
suspicion like this. He appreciated the
cruel ingenuity of perverse circumstances,
and he had felt the venom of malice.
Thus it was that he had sought to warn
the man of the discovery which Peter
Knowles had made, and of the strange
and forced construction he was disposed
to place upon the facts, seeming in
themselves, however, inexplicable.
Charles Egbert Craddock.
The Stony Pathway to the Woods.
121
THE STONY PATHWAY TO THE WOODS.
" The gods talk in the breath of the woods,
They talk in the shaken pine."
THE way to the woods was by an old
road that wound around between the
rocks to the top of the ledge, so long
unused that it was given over to grass
and flowers. Tall feathery meadow rue
peeped out from the bushy growth of al-
ders on one side ; white-faced daisies, and
buttercups with " tiny polished urns held
up," waved over the old wheel - track ;
while wild roses perfumed the air, and
a little farther in,
" beneath dim aisles, in odorous beds,
The slight Linnsea hung its twin-born heads."
The woods into which the stony way
plunged, the moment it left the main road,
were Nature's own. She had sown her
spruces and pines and birches on a bit of
the earth almost impassable to man. A
jumble of rocks piled in dire confusion,
presenting sharp edges at every possi-
ble angle, or covered inches deep with
soft moss yielding to the feet like a
cushion, and all extremely slippery from
the fallen spruce leaves of many years ;
trees growing wherever they could secure
foothold ; dead hanging branches and
prostrate trunks bristling with jagged
points, the whole impenetrable except
to wings. It was one of Nature's inimi-
table wild gardens,
" an unkempt zone
Where vines and weeds and spruce-trees inter-
twine,
Safe from the plough."
Thanks to the difficulties with which
it was surrounded and the little tempta-
tion it offered for clearing, it was abso-
lutely untouched by man, excepting here
and there in a more practicable spot,
where he had made a small inroad. It
was a paradise for birds and bird-lovers,
though the latter were obliged to content
themselves with what they could see on
the edge and by looking in.
Up that delectable path was my morn-
ing walk. Along its rugged sides cer-
tain approximately level rocks made rest-
ing-places on which to pause and look
about. The first halt was under a low
cedar-tree, and in a warbler neighbor-
hood. As soon as I became quiet my
ears were assailed by faint notes almost
like insect sounds, " pip " or " tic," some-
times whispered " smacks " or squeals,
and I watched eagerly for a stirring leaf
or a vibrating twig. Many times I was
not able, with my best efforts, to see the
least movement, for spruce boughs re-
spond but slightly to the light touch of
tiny creatures. But usually silence and
absolute quiet had their reward. Here
I saw the magnolia warbler in his gor-
geous dress of black and gold, calling an
anxious " davy-davy ! which is it ? " and
bustling about after a restless youngster
the size of a walnut, with the nestling's
down still clinging to his head. Into a
low tree across the pathway came often
the black-and-white creeper, tiptoeing
his way up the trunk and uttering his sib-
ilant " see-see ! see-see ! " On one side ap-
peared once or twice a redstart, prancing
over the ground in his peculiar " show-
ing off " manner, in which he " folds and
unfolds his twinkling tail in sport," and
in his brilliant orange and black looks
as much out of place in the simplicity of
the woods as a fine lady in full dress.
This was also the haunt of a myrtle war-
bler in sombre black and white, quaint-
ly decorated with four patches of bright
yellow, and very much concerned about
a nest somewhere in that lovely green
world.
In this nook I was visited daily by a
chickadee family, " droll folk quite in-
nocent of dignity," as Dr. Coues says,
who fascinated me with their pretty ways
and the many strange utterances of their
queer husky voices. At first, on finding
122
The Stony Pathway Ifo the Woods.
an uninvited guest in their quarters, they
were very circumspect, and carried on
their conversation overhead in the odd-
est little squeaky tones, not to be heard
ten feet away. Once an elderly bird
got the floor and gave an address, per-
haps pointing out the dangers to be
feared from the monster sitting so silent
under the cedar. The burden of his
talk sounded to me like " chit-it-it-day !
day ! " but there were varied inflections,
and it evidently meant something very
serious, for every twitter was hushed,
while the discourse was loud, urgent, and
snapped out in a way I never thought
possible to the
" Merry little fellow with the cheery little
voice."
The sermon, or lecture, was ended by
one of the audience interrupting with the
plaintive little two-note song of the fami-
ly, upon which they all broke out chat-
ting again, and scurried over the trees
with a thousand antics. As they grew
accustomed to my presence they became
more demonstrative and voluble, show-
ing me unsuspected capabilities of chick-
adese. Such squeaks and calls and re-
markable notes, such animated discus-
sions and such irrepressible baby-talk,
were altogether enchanting. One infant
sometimes came alone, talking to him-
self, and at intervals essaying in a feeble,
unsteady manner the " pe-wee " note of
his race. On one occasion, the head of
the family as I suppose flew down
toward me, alighted just before my face
not two feet away, and looked at me
sharply. I spoke to him quietly in at-
tempted imitation of his language, but
my little effort at conversation was not
a complete success, for after a short, not
too civil answer he flew away.
The crowning delight of my chickadee
study was the song to which I was treated
one day. A bird was singing when I
arrived, so that I stopped short of my
seat and listened. The song was so low
that it could not be heard unless one were
very near, and in a tone so peculiar that
I could not believe it came from a
chickadee until I saw him. It consisted
of the usual utterances differently ar-
ranged. There seemed to be, first, a
succession of " dee-dee's " followed by a
solitary " chick " a third lower, then the
same repeated and interrupted by the
" pe-wee," but all slurred together and
given in tremolo style utterly unlike any
chickadee performance I had ever heard.
It was most bewitching, and was kept up
a long time.
Having at last settled myself in my
usual place, and while waiting for the
next caller to show himself, I had lei-
sure to notice and admire the peculiar
character of the woods ; for Nature has
infinite resources at command, and no
two spots are arranged on the same
plan. Spruces were most prominent, with
birches and maples to soften their se-
verity, lighten their sombreness, and give
a needed touch of grace. The mixture
was felicitous. The white stems of the
birch, " most shy and ladylike of trees,"
stood out finely against the dark spruces,
just then decked with fresh tips to every
twig, which gave somehow a rich velvety
appearance to the foliage. The pic-
turesque irregularity of the birch trunks
was very noticeable. Hardly one was
straight. Some leaned to one side, as
if it had been hard to get the delicate
branches in between the stiff and angu-
lar boughs of the spruces among which
they grew ; others had turned this way
and that, in wavering uncertainty, as if
they had been unable to decide which
way they would go, till they were full
grown, and the indecisions of youth were
perpetuated in a crooked trunk.
There was n.o appearance of indeci-
sion, past or present, about the spruces.
Each stem stood as straight as a fresh
West Point cadet. There was never an
instant's doubt in what direction one
of those sturdy trees had set its heart.
Straight up was the aim of every one,
and straight up it vent ; stern, unbend-
ing, self-willed, like some of our own
The Stony Pathway to the Woods.
123
race, with branches at right angles on
every side, let neighbors less strong of
purpose fare as they could.
The beauties and idiosyncrasies of
these woods might be enjoyed at leisure,
for they possessed one great advantage
over any other I have found east of
the Rocky Mountains. Through all this
month of July which I spent among
them, not a fly showed his impertinent
head, and mosquitoes appeared but rare-
ly. When any of the latter did make
themselves obvious, they presented their
little bills in the most modest manner.
They asked so very, very little, and asked
it so gently, no one could refuse or re-
sent it. It was darkly whispered by those
who in the past had outstayed July that
the whole season was not so blessed ;
that insect hordes were simply biding
their time, and later they would come
out in force. But later one need not be
here.
I noted also with relief that there was
another absentee, the red -eyed vireo,
common almost everywhere, to whose
jerky, hurried, never ending song dis-
tance lends enchantment in exact propor-
tion to the number of rods it is removed.
Not one of those lovely and well-mean-
ing but woefully misguided birds did I
see or hear in the woods of that happy
island.
Warblers, however bewitching, and
I admit their claims, and woods, how-
ever suggestive and delightful, could not
content me long ; for voices were calling
from above, voices most potent of all,
thrushes. After an hour under the
cedar I resumed my stony way up the
hill to the edge of an opening where trees
had been felled, a " cut-out," as it
is called, and there, on a convenient-
ly placed rock, I waited for who might
come. One day, as I sat there, a royal
guest appeared, alighted on a small tree,
and threw up his tail in characteristic
fashion ; then his eyes fell upon me,
perhaps thirty feet away. I remained
motionless while the bird a hermit
thrush took a long and close look at
the intruder upon his grounds. Quiet
as I might be, it was plain the beautiful
creature was not for a moment deceived.
He recognized me as one of the race
against whom he must be on his guard.
He wished to pass on, but panic or even
vulgar haste is not in his nature. He
stood a few moments, calmly answered a
hermit call from the woods, then with-
out hurry flew to the ground, ran lightly
along to a rock, on the highest peak of
which he paused again, tossed his tail,
and looked at me ; then on again to the
next rock, where he repeated the pro-
gramme. And so he proceeded, greet-
ing me gracefully from the top of every
eminence before he ran on to the next,
until he gained the cover of the woods
across the open, all in the most digni-
fied way.
This experience seemed to give the
bird courage, for the next time he found
me in my customary seat he mounted a
stump, sang a snatch of his song, ran
to a low bush and added a few more
notes, came to the ground, where he for-
aged among the dead leaves a minute,
then up again on a bent sapling, bub-
bling over in joyous notes ; and thus he
went on singing and eating in the most
captivating way, and in apparent indif-
ference to his unobtrusive but delighted
spectator on the rock. I was surprised ;
this bird being one of our greatest sing-
ers, I had a feeling that a certain amount
of " dress parade " must accompany his
performance. Indeed, those of his kind
I had seen before had always taken a
" position " to sing.
If the hermit thrush could be per-
suaded to end his chant with the second
clause, he would be unapproachable as a
musical performer, as he and his near
relations are already in quality of voice.
But he seems to be possessed of an un-
fortunate desire to sing higher than his
register, and invariably, so far as I have
heard, he persists in this effort, and goes
all to pieces on the high note. At least
124
The Stony Pathway to the Woods.
so his song sounds to one listener, who
finds the heavenly first clauses sadly
marred by the closing one.
Somewhere in this attractive place was
hidden an oven-bird's nest which I want-
ed much to see. I never thought, how-
ever, of undertaking the hopeless task
of hunting for it; but one day, when
I happened upon one of the birds with
worms in her mouth, prepared to feed
her brood, I was seized with the hope that
she would be simple enough to point it
out to me, and at once devoted my whole
attention to watching her movements.
Her tactics were admirable. When she
first saw me she stood on a low bush and
stared at me, head feathers erected like
a crest, showing plainly the golden crown
that gives the name, golden-crowned war-
bler, and uttering her curious " smack."
In a few minutes she was joined by her
mate, also with a mouthful of squirming
provisions.
For some time the pair stood still,
doubtless waiting for me to pass on ; but
finding that I did not leave, they grew
impatient and began moving about. The
female would go to the ground with an
air of the greatest caution, run about
among the leaves and fallen sticks as if
she had important business, every mo-
ment glancing at me, till she came to a
slight ridge of earth, or a small rock or
log, behind which she would straightway
vanish. In vain did I watch intently
for her to reappear on the other side.
No doubt as soon as she found herself
out of my sight she ran like a mouse,
keeping the stone or log well between us
as a screen. Meanwhile her mate aided
her efforts nobly by making himself most
conspicuous, fidgeting about on his bush,
mounting a stump and singing " teacher !
teacher ! teacher ! " at the top of his
voice, as if calling for help, and in every
way trying to keep my attention fixed
upon him. After a while the other par-
ty to the little game would fly up from a
point far away from where she had dis-
appeared, with an empty beak and an
innocent air of never having dreamed of
a nest, and begin to " smack " as when
she first discovered me. Then it was
her turn to keep me diverted while her
mate slipped away. Sometimes they em-
barrassed me further by separating wide-
ly, so that I could not keep my eyes on
both. In fact, after some hours given
to the beguilements of this brave pair,
and much searching among the dead
leaves in places they had apparently
pointed out, I was obliged to confess my-
self outwitted by the clever little actors.
But there was a stranger in the woods,
a thrush, I judged from the voice and the
manner of singing, who had tantalized
me from the day I entered that enchant-
ed isle on the coast of Maine. From the
distant forest came a strange, loud call
in the peculiar tremulous tones of the
veery, sounding to me like " wake up !
Judy ! " the first two notes with falling,
the last two with rising inflection. As
evening of that first day drew on, the
call to Judy was accompanied by other
sounds uttered in the same voice, a loud
ringing song or recitative composed of
similar ejaculations, with varied modu-
lations that gave it greater resemblance
to conversation than to music. Indeed,
while I sat and listened through the long
twilight to two or three birds calling
and answering one another from distant
treetops, I could not rid myself of the
fancy that they were exchanging opin-
ions across their green world. The next
morning I was wakened by an unfamiliar
and remarkable bird note, a low liquid
"quit," sometimes followed by an ex-
plosive sound impossible to characterize,
a sort of subdued squawk, or what one
might suppose to be as near a squawk as
a refined, well-bred bird could accom-
plish. Naturally, all this, mystified me
and aroused great interest, and now I
was waiting and longing for an opportu-
nity to see the mysterious unknown.
As we have been told, and as some of
us know, " all things come in time to
him who can wait." To me at last came
The Stony Pathway to the Woods.
125
my chance. One afternoon there rolled
in upon us, from our restless neighbor the
sea, an all-embracing fog, which grad-
ually enfolded us till we were closely
wrapped as in a heavy blanket. The
fog-bell on a point near by tolled dis-
mally, and a more distant whistling buoy
sent out at intervals a groan, as if wail-
ing for all who had found graves beside
the rocks it was now set to guard. All
night this continued, and in the morn-
ing the fog was lighter, but a steady rain
was falling. Now, I thought, is my time
to see the stranger who has so interested
me ; for in a steady rain birds find it
somewhat less comfortable on the tree-
tops, and incline to get under the leafy
roofs for shelter as well as for food.
Duly encumbered by wraps and protect-
ors that man has devised as shields from
the weather, I hastened to a bit of the
woods where for a few rods it was level
and penetrable, and where I had heard
the luring voice. Here, with some dif-
ficulty, I found a spot firm enough to
support the legs of my chair, and settled
myself to wait.
More conspicuous than ever were the
contrasted tree trunks, as the dampness
turned the spruces black, and brought
out the beauty of the decorative lichens
in every shade of green, from almost
white to dead black, with here and there
bits of pink and drab, all standing up,
living and beautiful as always in a soak-
ing rain. Even the rocks were glorified
by great patches of these curious plants,
which show freshness and life only when
wet, the tender blue-green leaves, if
one may call them so, with their rich
brown lining, all expanded in exquisite
ruffle-like convolutions.
Spruce trunks had also another peculi-
arity. As they had grown they had shed
their youthful branches. One young tree,
not more than ten feet high, had already
dropped off twenty-seven branchlets, re-
taining only a few at the top, and bend-
ing all its energies to the task of reach-
ing and penetrating the thick green roof
to the sunlight above. Each limb, as it
broke off, left a part, a few inches or a
foot long, standing straight out from the
trunk, the whole forming a sort of cir-
cular ladder, by which it seemed one
might mount to the upper regions, and,
better yet, offering convenient perches
for the feathered woodlanders.
While I was absorbed in admiration
of my surroundings a bird note fell upon
my ear, a low " quit " in an unmistakable
thrush tone. Turning my eyes quickly,
I saw the speaker, standing on a round
of the ladder encircling a tall old spruce-
tree at the outer edge of the little clear-
ing, pioneer of that bit of woods. Very
slowly I brought my glass to bear upon
him. A thrush, certainly, but none that I
knew ; neither hermit, wood, nor tawny.
While I tried to see some characteristic
by which to identify him, he spoke again,
this time the rich " quit " with the pe-
culiar added squawk, as I will call it,
which had mystified me in the morning.
Meanwhile another of the family came
noiselessly to a tree over my head, and
whispered the same cry in an indescriba-
bly sweet and liquid tone. Still I looked
in silence, and still the bird remained on
the spruce. But after a while the dan-
ger of the presence of one of the human
family seemed to be borne in upon him,
and he suddenly startled me with a new
sound, a sort of shriek, loud and on a
much higher key. Even then I remained
motionless ; at last he grew somewhat
more calm, and as if to put my last doubt
to rest and to prove that he alone was
author of all the sounds that had per-
plexed me, he began to sing in a low tone
many of the strange clauses that I had
heard shouted from the treetops. Final-
ly, when confidence was assured by my
unvarying stillness, he flew to another
tree trunk, then to a second, and at last
to the ground, where he busied himself
among the dead leaves.
I continued to sit without moving, and
presently another of the family came
about, with manners somewhat different.
126
The Stony Pathway to the Woods.
He stood on one of the broken branches,
in plain sight, and treated me to a curi-
ous exhibition. Beginning with the usual
" quit," very loud and on a high key, he
repeated it many times, each repetition
being lower in pitch and softer, till it
became the merest murmur, almost in-
audible at my short distance, with eyes
fixed on me all the time. Strangely
enough, as he proceeded, one after an-
other of the birds around us warblers,
j uncos, and others was hushed, till not
a sound was heard excepting the rain on
the leaves overhead. Then, having re-
duced his small world to absolute silence,
he broke into a queer medley, whether
song or scold, or a mixture of both, I
could only guess. First came the com-
mon call uttered in the customary tone,
then this call with added squawk, then
the startling shriek on a high key, and
after that a combination of all with some
scraps of song. It was a confused jum-
ble of all his accomplishments, forming
a potpourri such as I never heard from
thrush before. I was greatly interested
in this exhibition of his character, and
surprised at his versatility. Though he
lacked the serene repose, the perfect dig-
nity, of some of his family, he was a bird
of marked individuality, and one well
worthy of study.
After two hours with the thrush the
olive-backed, or Swainson's, as I found
out later I turned from the woods and
made my way back down the stony path-
way, very wet, indeed, but very happy ;
for I had added an acquaintance to my
delightful list, and henceforth, whenever
his peculiar inspiring notes might fall
upon my ear, I should know him. Many
evenings and mornings were passed lis-
tening to his song, and at last I felt fa-
miliar with every loud utterance of the
bird, and was content to wait till some
future summer for the pleasure of seeing
him in his domestic relations and know-
ing him more intimately.
One thing more I must add to this lit-
tle chronicle of the olive-backed thrush.
A friend who had the happiness to see
a family of five olive-backed younglings
take flight in the woods close by brought
me the nest and its surroundings. It was
an exquisite affair ; being the whole up-
per part of a young spruce six or seven
feet high, with the little homestead two
feet from the top, resting on three branch-
lets and surrounded by many more. And
as the leaves fell off, revealing the deli-
cately marked golden-brown twigs form-
ing a complete protection on every side,
it was picturesque and beautiful, worthy
of a highly original member of one of
our most characteristic and interesting
bird families.
This quiet corner of my lovely island
Mount Desert by name was not
without the mysteries that all students
of bird life find. Before I had been on
the ground an hour I was puzzled by
a song of four notes deliberately pro-
nounced, a drowsy, hot -noon kind of
strain, in a minor key. I hurried out
to see the singer, but he was as elusive
as he was singular, slipping away through
a tangle of bushes and young trees,
and avoiding my sight completely. The
white - throated sparrow, with his very
precise song, was a resident of the vicin-
ity, and the voice and manner of the
unknown suggested that bird. But the
white-throat's song as given in the books,
and as I had always heard it, is one, or
at most two regular arrangements of
two or three notes, followed by a trio of
triplets, and variously characterized by
words, the most familiar being those
which give him his popular name in
New England, the Peabody bird, " Old
Tom Peabody, Peabody, Peabody."
The unknown, I thought, might be a
bird of erratic tastes, a misanthrope, pos-
sibly, who had turned the serene and
cheerful carol of his tribe into a dismal
performance, and I made great efforts to
see him in the nook where he always
appeared to sing. All in vain. As I came
near, the song invariably ceased and
the songster vanished. Finally I aban-
The Stony Pathway to the Woods.
127
doned the attempt to see him, and con-
fined myself to hearing. Several days
or a week he kept to his score, but one
day, perhaps in a fit of absence of mind,
he added the three triplets of the white-
throat. He might as well have shouted
his name, for his identity was at once
established. And as a matter of fact,
later in the season I saw him, and caught
him in the act of uttering his simple
minor, then reversing it, and further
than that presenting a totally different
arrangement of the notes, so that he
sang at least three distinct songs. But
for weeks he was to me only a voice.
Far more perplexing than this was
the conduct of a bird in another part of
the island. One day, with a fellow bird-
lover, I was walking down a shady road
that led to the sea. Part of the way the
path ran through a bit of woods, wholly
old spruces, gloomy and high-arched,
with softest carpet of fallen needles
and green mosses, where no underbrush
was tolerated, a grim and sombre, yet
somehow a noble way, with its peaceful-
ness and its unobscured views on every
side. We had emerged from the woods
and were passing along the deserted road,
listening as usual to various bird notes,
prominent among them, as it invari-
ably is wherever it is heard, that of New
England's bird, the white-throated spar-
row. Suddenly, on one side, a rather
harsh voice broke out into three or four
loud, ringing triplets, a rough imita-
tion, as it seemed, of part of the white-
throat's song, though differing from the
genuine both in manner and in quality.
" Some boy's poor attempt," I said.
" I could do better myself," and we went
on, a little annoyed at this intrusion upon
our quiet.
In a moment we passed beyond the
close border of greenery beside the road,
and came into view of some very tall
old trees farther back. Again the loud,
incisive notes rang out, sounding even
less birdlike than before ; and casting
my eyes toward the quarter whence they
came, I was astounded to see that they
were produced by a bird, perched on the
top twig of the tallest spruce. In an in-
stant our glasses were up, but so far away,
and against a white cloudy sky, he was
unrecognizable. Whoever he might be,
he was evidently proud of his achieve-
ment, for he stood there in plain sight,
and repeated his mockery, till he had
every white-throat in the neighborhood
wild, singing at the top of his voice,
though not one of them could compete
with him in power.
But who could this wonderful mimic
be ? Hopeless of identifying him that
evening, we went home completely mys-
tified, resolved to return in the morning
to hunt him down. Long after I reached
the house I heard his loud, penetrating
notes, though not another bird voice
reached me from that distance. More-
over, I found the white-throat near home
so excited that he could not sleep, for
three or four times during the night,
which was very dark, I heard his erratic
minor strain.
At the first opportunity we went again
down the shady road, and placed our-
selves beside a clump of trees, near
where the mysterious bird had sung.
Before long we heard him afar, and
he gradually approached, singing as he
came, till at last he obligingly flew to
the top of a small tree, perhaps fifteen
feet high and twenty feet from us, and,
with eccentric flourishes of body, shouted
out his extraordinary solo. But again
we could not see him well, for the sun
was behind him. We carefully studied
his unique performance, however, and
while in arrangement it greatly resem-
bled part of the song of the white-throat,
being three sets of triplets rapidly re-
peated, it differed in every other way.
The song of the white-throat is dig-
nified, calm, and tranquil in tone and
manner, while his clumsy mocker threw
his head far back and flung his notes
into the air with the utmost vehemence
and abandon, and with great apparent
128
The Stony Pathway to the Woods.
effort He was restless, constantly fid-
geting, throwing up his tail, and jerking
himself about in the pauses of his song.
In the genuine melody the triplets sound
like one note " shaken," but the imitator
gave the three as distinct and staccato
as if each one were a word. Again, the
white-throat is a modest singer, but this
stranger allowed us to level our glasses
at him, move about, and talk, and he was
as unconcerned through all as a robin.
Everything indicated that he was a mere
mocker, and not a good one at that.
We noted all these points carefully,
discussing them freely and comparing
our impressions, before the bird flew.
This time he alighted farther off, on a
taller tree, but the light was in our favor
and my glass was good. I saw at once
that his throat was white, and when, in
one of his pauses, he put his head down
to arrange the plumage of his breast, con-
spicuous stripes over the crown came into
view, and I was startled. In a moment
he confirmed my sudden suspicion by
turning his back to us, thereby showing
his sparrow colors.
He was a white-throat himself !
I was more surprised than if I had
found him anything else. If he were
one of the family, whence this astonish-
ing eccentricity ? Why did he not sing
in a white-throat voice, and the proper
white-throat song ? Why should he so
far depart from the ways of his kindred
as to shout from the top of the tallest
tree in that bold way, and what object
could he have in setting the whole tribe
frantic ? Had he secured a white-throat
mate with that intolerable voice, and had
he a family coming up to imitate his un-
natural performance ? Or was he a dis-
appointed bachelor, aiming to stir up his
domestic brethren ?
All these questions pressed to our lips,
but there was no reply ; and as long as
we stayed he continued to render his
triplets, sometimes prefacing them with
the two or three long notes that belong
to them, but all on the same key, utterly
unlike his fellows, and loud enough to be
heard a mile away.
The solo of the white-throated spar-
row differs from nearly all other bird
songs that I know, being a clear, dis-
tinct whistle that may easily be reduced
to our musical scale, and perfectly imi-
tated by the human voice ; in this lat-
ter quality it is almost unique. The
notes are very few, usually two, never,
I think, more than three ; and the lit-
tle ditty consists of, first, a single long,
deliberate note, then two short repeti-
tions of one a third higher, followed by
three triplets at the same pitch. There
seems small chance for changes in such
a limited register, but I found the song
capable of very different arrangements,
and on recording those I had heard I
was surprised to see that I had noted
seventeen distinct ones. How many va-
riations were made by one bird I was
not able to determine, from the diffi-
culty of keeping one under observation,
now that the young were able to go about
and nobody was confined to any special
locality. But one, as I have already
mentioned, certainly sang three songs,
and I know no reason why he may not
have sung a dozen. I am obliged to
confess that although it is delightful to
hear one of these sparrows, or two to-
gether, a chorus of a dozen or more must
be considered a failure, as music. Each
bird has a decided musical pitch of his
own, and unless the several singers hap-
pen to harmonize they produce an un-
pleasant discord.
After this disappointing solution to
the mystery which had so interested me,
and while there still remained ten days
of the second summer month, that lovely
corner of the world was again wrapped
in a smothering fog, which came in the
afternoon and remained all night, with
rain. The next morning was clear and
bright, but a strange hush had fallen
upon us. Not a bird note was to be
heard save
" The gossip of swallows all through the sky."
A Day in June.
129
Warblers and thrushes, white-throats and
even juncos, seemed to have departed in
a body. All day this unnatural silence
continued. I was alarmed. Had migra-
tion already begun ? Had the warblers,
who heretofore had hardly moved with-
out uttering their little calls and cries,
taken leave for the season? Had the
olive-backed thrush, so voluble only the
day before, been suddenly stricken dumb?
I sought the records, and found that
migrating warblers began to be due in
the neighborhood of New York about
ten days later, and as I knew they
sometimes lingered here and there on
their way, it might indeed be true that
they had started. My first impulse was
to follow, in my slower way; but the
country was still beautiful, the weather
perfect, they could not all have disap-
peared in a night, and I resolved to wait.
In a day or two some of the white-
throats recovered their voices. The mis-
guided genius down by the sea shouted
as usual from afar, though not so often,
and my neighbor up by the house sang
a little, but not with the old spirit ; once
or twice a thrush plucked up heart for a
few musical remarks, and a robin, whose
mate was sitting, down the lane, tried,
with indifferent success, to keep up the
music. But the glory of summer songs
had departed, and now
" Day after day there were painstaking lessons
To teach sky science and wings delight,"
in preparation for the final hegira.
I made many excursions to see if the
birds had really gone so early. Now
and then in my rambles I came upon
a black-throated green warbler, whose
song had heretofore made the woods re-
sound, going about shyly and without
a peep ; and a glimpse or two I had of
others, preserving the same unaccount-
able quiet. Even the stony pathway,
rallying-place for nearly all the bird pop-
ulation, was now silent as a desert way,
and melancholy as a tomb to the bird-
lover, and I was forced to conclude that
if not absolutely departed, these tiny fel-
low creatures were engaged in putting
on their traveling-suits for the long jour-
ney, and it was time for me to resume
my own, and to return where
" the noisy world drags by
In the old way, because it must."
Olive Thome Miller.
A DAY IN JUNE.
SOFT breezes through the apple orchards blow.
Deep in the tangle of the matted grass
Lies golden silence. High above me pass
The summer clouds, white, fathomless, and slow.
The dim green aisles beneath the branches low
Are hushed and still ; only one merry bird
Clear calling from a treetop high is heard.
The sunlight glances through the leaves below.
There is a sense as of a world apart,
Where peace and beauty hand in hand will go.
Lost is all bitterness, and hate, and wrong.
Concealed within the dusky wood's deep heart
The quiet hours seem lingering as they go,
And all the perfect day is one glad song.
Alice Choate Perkins.
VOL. LXXX. NO. 477. 9
130
A Life Tenant.
A LIFE TENANT.
DANE was a tall, robust, handsome
man of thirty when he arrived in Zenith
City, and he gave immediate token that
his coming would prove an epoch in the
history of the precocious infant town.
He possessed a little money, much en-
ergy, and a talent for inducing other
people to accept his point of view. As
for his luck, it was unfailing, and every-
thing he undertook succeeded. He ac-
knowledged, with a candor which was
as cynical as his good humor, that such
luck was a new experience to him. But
he repeated gayly the threadbare quota-
tion that there is a tide in each man's
affairs which will float him to prosper-
ity if promptly used, and he added that
he was not likely to miss his opportuni-
ty. He made no pretense of public spi-
rit in his enterprises, a sincerity that
naturally increased his neighbors' belief
in his honesty, and their desire to share
the schemes which resulted in fat profit
to him. He started a " general store,"
so thoroughly stocked that custom de-
serted a rival establishment of previous
popularity. Six months after his arrival
he sold out this store with gain, and
opened an office where he received de-
posits, managed investments, and con-
ducted a banking business in a small
way. This was an advance in civilization
greatly appreciated by the soberest of
the citizens, who became regular depos-
itors, while the ranchmen of Coun-
ty soon learned to bring thither the re-
sults of their cattle - sales, which had
hitherto been mostly lavished on riotous
living.
Dane was well bred, well educated,
and, though favorably inclined to poker
and to jovial company, he took no part
in the grosser dissipation which degraded
the town. His preferred associates were
the younger officers at Fort Fletcher,
three miles away across the prairie, yet
that the association was constant rather
than intimate was his fault, not theirs.
Close comradeship bound them together,
and they would willingly have included
Dane ; but his cool reticence nipped con-
fidences as with a frost. Great, then, was
the surprise among them when, more
than a year after they had made his
acquaintance, he manifested an unsus-
pected capacity for strong feeling. Sev-
eral of the lieutenants had spent the day
in Zenith City, and had persuaded Dane
to return with them to the post for an
evening's jollification. As they rode
through the ragged outskirts of the town,
a woman's voice called sharply, " Edna !
Edna ! "
Dane started so visibly in his saddle,
and the color rushed so warmly over his
dark face, that the officer beside him
broke into a laugh. " Who is Edna ? "
he asked.
" There is only one for me," Dane
answered gravely. " She is in Virginia,
but I hope to bring her to live here
soon."
" Boys ! He is in love ! He is going
to be married ! " the lieutenant cried
across his shoulder to those who followed.
They drew nearer, with gay exclama-
tions of incredulity :
" Impossible ! "
" Nobody can fall in love without los-
ing his heart. Dane has never had a
heart to lose : therefore he cannot be in
love."
Dane, however, had recovered his
usual ironical placidity. " Why have I
no heart ? " he demanded. " Because I
don't display it for you" fellows ? "
" Exactly ! You would not sleep less
soundly if the redskins should wipe out
the whole regiment in the next cam-
paign."
" Teddy stated your case at the club,
a night or two ago."
A Life Tenant.
131
" Teddy is keen ! What was the ver-
dict of his discernment ? "
" He said that you were like a man
who, not owning a house, could not be
blamed for inhospitality though he never
entertained a guest."
" Teddy is wrong. I possess the pro-
perty he denies me, but it is fully occu-
pied by a life tenant ! "
The joking vanished before the frank-
ness of Dane's smile. The inquiries
which ensued were made with friendly
eagerness, and the diffuseness of his re-
plies was almost as unexpected as his
sentiment. He had been engaged to
his sweetheart for six years, during
which he had not seen her. She was
the only child of a wealthy Virginian,
who, alarmed by rumors of Dane's -wild
youth and the certainty of his empty
pockets, had refused to allow her to
marry him. Dane had come West with
her promise never to give him up, and
his own resolve never to claim her un-
til he could prove his disinterestedness.
Twice in these six years fortune had
slipped from his grasp just when he
had thought his hold assured. But now
the father was dead, and, through one
of those periodical crises which upset
our country's finances, he had left his
daughter penniless. Dane's resolve had
endured this practical test. She had
promised to marry him so soon as he
could go to Virginia for her, and he in-
tended to get away within a couple of
weeks.
There was general curiosity to see the
bride, a month later, when it became
known that Dane had returned from his
wedding journey, and had said that he
should bring her to service at Fletcher
on the following Sunday. It would be
his first appearance, also, in the chapel,
and the garrison ladies argued favorably
for her influence among the younger set
by this evidence of its tendencies. A
thrill of surprise pervaded the congre-
gation when the two entered together,
a surprise which, however, grew less
with every succeeding glance at Dane's
wife. She was not very young. She was
not very pretty. But there was a bright-
ness in her gray eyes, a sweetness about
her delicate lips, which Teddy declared
brought to his mind somebody's lovely
ideal of " a face which made sunshine
in a shady place."
The ladies waited as unanimously as
the officers to meet her after service,
and " Mrs. Colonel " invited her and her
husband to luncheon. Thus began a so-
cial success which did not visibly elate
its subject, who was probably used to it.
Nor did Dane exult in it.
" She has a way with her," he said,
when her popularity was pointed out to
him. " Who should be better aware of
her power than I, who am the chief of
her victims ? "
It was a power difficult to explain in
other fashion than the perspicacious Ted-
dy's. She was no more brilliant than
she was beautiful, yet the soft radiance
which surrounded her made her presence
a charming abiding-place. And in Ze-
nith City, throughout a winter of ex-
ceptional severity and widespread illness,
she proved a valuable assistant to an
overworked doctor and an inexperienced
young priest.
Except, however, in the constant manr
ifestation of his devotion to her, his mar-
riage had neither added to nor subtracted
from Dane's previous habits. Shrewd,
cynical, good-humored, he managed vari-
ous money - making enterprises besides
his bank, and joined an occasional poker
party at the post according to his wont.
" He loves her with what is good in
him, but she has no influence with what
is bad. She is so different from him
that she has not yet perceived his lim-
itations nor her own. Something inter-
esting will happen when she does."
Thus prophesied Teddy ; but nobody
was more amazed than he at the manner
in which his prophecy was fulfilled.
Early in the succeeding summer Mrs.
132
A Life Tenant.
Dane went to Virginia for a visit, and it
was announced that Dane would short-
ly join her and bring her home again.
Those who saw her before her departure
reported that her radiance had been sadly
overcast in leaving her husband.
" She did not want to go," Dane
himself said, while watching the noisy
process by which the Great Northwest
got into midstream. " She needs a
change after all the hardship she went
through last winter, but she went away
only to please me. She she " his
voice shook perceptibly " she would
turn her back on heaven, if I wished her
to do so."
" I should say that she is more likely
to take you to heaven against your will,"
declared Teddy, to whom this curious
utterance was delivered.
" She is a saint," Dane murmured
half audibly, with a smile, a smile
whose blended tenderness and tyranny
Teddy long remembered. " But she loves
my will better than her own ! " Then
he resumed his usual briskness, and dis-
cussed the probable arrival of freight
for whose safe transport he had become
responsible to the consignee, a remote
ranchman.
A fortnight later Dane's bank re-
mained closed one morning, and inves-
tigation revealed the fact that he had
disappeared with all available funds.
Zenith City is not easily startled by any
exhibition of the frailty of human na-
ture, but this shook it as with a moral
earthquake, and the losses sifted through
every class. Everybody had believed in
Dane's prosperity, and had trusted the
man who, with so blithe a repudiation
of higher motives, had asserted his belief
that honesty was the best business policy.
Everybody had lost something, from the
wealthiest cattle-owner in County to
the widow of a notorious gambler whose
disreputable associates had recently de-
posited a collection for her benefit.
As a first expression of public feel-
ing the rougher citizens desired to tear
down the frame bank building, which
contained also the rooms to which Dane
had brought home his bride. But this
was decided to be a futile vengeance, and
destructive of the only assets left by the
defaulter.
How he had gone, and whither, next
became questions of literally vital inter-
est ; for the merest new-comer in Zenith
City understood that Dane's life would
not be worth ten minutes' purchase should
that mob find him. When twenty-four
hours brought no answer to these ques-
tions, their interest grew languid. Dane,
who was familiar with the potentialities
of his neighbors, was unlikely to have
wasted that length of time in getting be-
yond their reach.
On the second day after the catastro-
phe half a dozen of the prominent losers
were assembled within the bank. It
was a rather hopeless consultation, for,
though a description of Dane had been
telegraphed to Bismarck and to Bozeman,
the prairie offered present sanctuary and
future escape to a refugee so well en-
dowed with wit and ready money.
The thirty or forty loafers who had
hitherto hung about the doors of the
bank had deserted to the landing, where
the weekly steamer had just arrived. It
was the Great Northwest, which on its
last down trip had carried Mrs. Dane
away. The feelings of that curious as-
semblage were too intricate for a limited
analysis when, amidst the noisy disem-
barkation of freight and passengers, that
lady's graceful figure appeared on the
gangway.
What had brought her back, when
she could not have gone further on her
journey than to Bismarck ? Two facts
seemed clear to those perplexed specta-
tors : though she was the wife of a man
whom they would lynch at sight, she
must be yet more wronged than they,
for only ignorance of his plans could
have induced her return ; though she
was the wife of a man who had robbed
them, she was the woman to whom half
A Life Tenant.
133
their number had owed kindness during
the bitter winter in which Zenith City
had learned to rejoice in her presence.
Thus it was that nothing worse than
gloomy silence received her when she
found herself among those familiar faces.
But this was not the welcome Edna Dane
had expected from those whom she con-
sidered her friends. A haunting anxiety
which had forced her to return acquired
sudden substance.
" Some of you would say that you are
glad to see me, unless harm had hap-
peried to my husband," she said, stand-
ing still and straight, as though her brave
spirit braced her frail body to hear the
reply. " Where is he ? "
" That is what we want to know ! "
insolently cried the voice of one who was
a stranger to her.
There followed a growl, not loud,
but fierce. The animal was well devel-
oped in that humanity, and it made it-
self heard.
The deck-hands, busy unloading boxes
and barrels, halted glowingly, anticipat-
ing a row. A couple of stalwart fellow
passengers drew nearer Mrs. Dane, as
she paused beside the gangway. But
their protection was not needed.
An elderly man advanced from among
those growling roughs. " We don't know
where Dane has gone," he said harshly.
" But he has robbed us. They will tell
you more at the bank. Go to them."
" Robbed you ? " she repeated haughti-
ly. " That is impossible." Her bright
eyes swept the hard, worn faces, and her
haughtiness softened tremulously. " You
believe what you say. i"ou are very
troubled, I see ! " she exclaimed. " But
I swear to you that my husband will make
all right for you if he is alive."
With that, surrounded by silence, she
turned away, and walked swiftly up the
long street which led from the riverside
to her home. When she entered the
bank, the leading citizens there assembled
would have been less astounded to see
Dane. But the frontier deference for
womanhood brought those loungers to
their feet instantly. She looked very
white and slight, and she clasped her
hands on the back of a chair, as though
needing support. Yet her eyes did not
flinch, nor did her voice falter.
" I have heard that my husband has
left the town, and that there are accu-
sations against him," she said. " Will
you tell me what you know ? "
Thereupon she heard what has been
already told here, and furthermore that
papers had been found which proved
ruinous loss to Dane's investments for
his clients during nearly a year, and that
his defalcation had been prompted by
certain large funds deposited with him
recently. These facts were related, with-
out comment, by a man who respected
this woman whom he believed more
cruelly robbed than himself. When he
paused, she covered her face and sank
to her knees. For a moment they thought
that she was fainting. Then it dawned
upon the most spiritually dull of them
that she had taken her shame and her
grief away from their tribunal. Nobody
spoke for a space, nor were they sure
whether that space had been long or
short when she rose. Color had come into
her cheeks, and more than their wonted
brightness shone in her gray eyes.
" Will you listen to me now ? " she said
clearly. " You know that I left here a
fortnight since to go to Virginia for sev-
eral months. I have returned because
the fear has haunted me night and day
that my husband needed me."
Still nobody spoke. Each man knew
that her return was indeed a contra-
diction of the plan with which she had
begun her journey. Not one of them
doubted her explanation of the impulse
which had brought her back. They
waited dumbly to hear how she purposed
to use her strangely influenced presence
among them.
" My husband has wronged you," she
continued steadily, " but there is that in
his heart which will save him, and re-
134
A Life Tenant.
store to you all that he has taken from
you. This is why God has led me here."
She broke off once more with a quick,
quivering sigh. " I will remain under
your care until my husband comes for
me and delivers to you the money which
belongs to you," she ended firmly.
There was a chorus of repudiation, a
chorus of relief from the spell her in-
tense conviction had laid upon them :
" We have no grudge against you."
"A man's wife ain't responsible for
his misdoings."
" Dane is n't likely to come back into
a trap, for anybody."
Dane's wife smiled a very brave, white
smile. " He will come back for me" she
said, " and when he has paid you every-
thing he owes you, I think you' will let
him take me away."
There were some who felt a choking in
their throats which forbade speech, but
he who had told the story of Dane's
dishonor was made of sterner stuff.
" You are a good woman, and we know
that Dane is fond of you," he exclaimed,
" but he will not give up the money for
which he has risked so much ! This is
a state's-prison job, and the kind of man
he is cannot live without his freedom."
" He cannot live without me ! " she
cried, with a passion which transfigured
her. " Keep me here ; shut me up ; pub-
lish it everywhere that I refuse to leave
here until he comes for me, and he will
come ! "
They believed her. Half a dozen of
the shrewdest and most prosperous citi-
zens of County, where the quality
of shrewdness must be keen indeed to
develop prosperity, they believed her ;
they obeyed her.
Their decision and the terms of it
were discussed in wide-scattered ranches,
V
on Yellowstone steamers, on wandering
" prairie schooners," as far east as Bis-
marck, even so far as Chicago. It stirred
human nature, according to its quality,
to derision or to tears, to scoffing or to
confidence.
While they yet disputed concerning
his coming, Dane came. He appeared in
the twilight to the deputy sheriff, who,
since recent events, had been domiciled
at the bank. " Send for your betters,"
he said roughly. " I 'm going upstairs
to my wife."
Edna Dane had spent those days and
nights in the rooms she had first seen as
a bride, and for the greater part of the
time Teddy's sister had kept her compa-
ny, but she was alone on this evening.
God knows how far away a woman's
heart hears the step she loves ! She
met Dane in the doorwaj'. She made
him sit in his own armchair. She knelt
beside him and looked into his haggard
eyes.
" I thought you would forgive me
anything and meet me anywhere," he
murmured. "They may break their word
to you, now that I am in their power.
Why have you brought me here ? "
" Because I love you," she answered ;
" not only these dear hands that I kiss,
not only this dear head that I hold upon
my breast, I love you, yourself, your
soul ! " She laid her face down close on
his. " And he shall save his soul alive,"
she whispered, with holy passion.
Zenith City kept its word to Edna Dane.
A certain magnanimity runs thread by
thread with sternness through the rough
woof of the Northwest.
" She has made him bring back to us
what we want," Zenith City said. " Let
her take away what she wants."
Ellen Mackubin.
Ney Creol.
135
NF.G CRF.OL.
AT the remote period of his birth he
had been named Cdsar Francois Xavier,
but no one ever thought of calling him
anything but Chicot, or Ne*g, or Marin-
gouin. Down at the French market,
where he worked among the fishmongers,
they called him Chicot, when they were
not calling him names that are written
less freely than they are spoken. But
one felt privileged to call him almost
anything, he was so black, lean, lame,
and shriveled. He wore a head-kerchief,
and whatever other rags the fishermen
and their wives chose to bestow upon
him. Throughout one whole winter he
wore a woman's discarded jacket with
puffed sleeves.
Among some startling beliefs enter-
tained by Chicot was one that "Michie'
St. Pierre et Michid St. Paul " had cre-
ated him. Of " Michie" bon Dieu " he
held his own private opinion, and a not
too flattering one at that. This fantas-
tic notion concerning the origin of his
being he owed to the early teaching of
his young master, a lax believer, and a
great farceur in his day. Chicot had
once been thrashed by a robust young
Irish priest for expressing his religious
views, and another time knifed by a Si-
cilian. So he had come to hold his peace
upon that subject.
Upon another theme he talked freely
and harped continuously. For years he
had tried to convince his associates that
his master had left a progeny, rich, cul-
tured, powerful, and numerous beyond
belief. This prosperous race of beings
inhabited the most imposing mansions in
the city of New Orleans. Men of note
and position, whose names were familiar
to the public, he swore were grandchil-
dren, great-grandchildren, or, less fre-
quently, distant relatives of his master,
long deceased. Ladies who came to the
market in carriages, or whose elegance
of attire attracted the attention and ad-
mii-ation of the fishwomen, were all des
'tites cousines to his former master, Jean
Boisdure". He never looked for recogni-
tion from any of these superior beings,
but delighted to discourse by the hour
upon their dignity and pride of birth
and wealth.
Chicot always carried an old gunny-
sack, and into this went his earnings.
He cleaned stalls at the market, scaled
fish, and did many odd offices for the
itinerant merchants, who usually paid in
trade for his service. Occasionally he
saw the color of silver and got his clutch
upon a coin, but he accepted anything,
and seldom made terms. He was glad
to get a handkerchief from the Hebrew,
and grateful if the Choctaws would trade
him a bottle of file 1 for it. The butcher
flung him a soup-bone, and the fishmon-
ger a few crabs or a paper bag of shrimps.
It was the big mulatresse, vendeuse de
cafe, who cared for his inner man.
Once Chicot was accused by a shoe-
vender of attempting to steal a pair of
ladies' shoes. He declared he was only
examining them. The clamor raised in
the market was terrific. Young Dagoes
assembled and squealed like rats ; a
couple of Gascon butchers bellowed like
bulls. Matteo's wife shook her fist in the
accuser's face and called him incompre-
hensible names. The Choctaw women,
where they squatted, turned their slow
eyes in the direction of the fray, taking
no further notice ; while a policeman
jerked Chicot around by the puffed sleeve
and brandished a club. It was a nar-
row escape.
Nobody knew where Chicot lived. A
man even a ne*g cre"ol who lives
among the reeds and willows of Bayou
St. John, in a deserted chicken-coop con-
structed chiefly of tarred paper, is not go-
ing to boast of his habitation or to invite
136
Neg Crtol.
attention to his domestic appointments.
When, after market hours, he vanished
in the direction of St. Philip Street, limp-
ing, seemingly bent under the weight of
his gunny-bag, it was like the disappear-
ance from the stage of some petty actor
whom the audience does not follow in
imagination beyond the wings, or think
of till his return in another scene.
There was one to whom Chicot's com-
ing or going meant more than this. In
la maison grise they called her La Chou-
ette, for no earthly reason unless that she
perched high under the roof of the old
rookery and scolded in shrill sudden out-
bursts. Forty or fifty years before, when
for a little while she acted minor parts
with a company of French players (an
escapade that had brought her grand-
mother to the grave), she was known as
Mademoiselle de Montallaine. Seventy-
five years before she had been christened
Aglae" Boisdure'.
No matter at what hour the old negro
appeared at her threshold, Mamzelle
Aglae* always kept him waiting till she
finished her prayers. She opened the
door for him and silently motioned him
to a seat, returning to prostrate herself
upon her knees before a crucifix and a
shell filled with holy water that stood on
a small table ; it represented in her ima-
gination an altar. Chicot knew that she
did it to aggravate him ; he was con-
vinced that she timed her devotions to
begin when she heard his footstep on the
stairs, He would sit with sullen eyes con-
templating her long, spare, poorly clad
figure as she knelt and read from her
book or finished her prayers. Bitter was
the religious warfare that had raged for
years between them, and Mamzelle Aglae*
had grown, on her side, as intolerant as
Chicot. She had come to hold St. Peter
and St. Paul in such utter detestation
that she had cut their pictures out of her
prayer-book.
Then Mamzelle Aglae" pretended not
to care what Chicot had in his bag. He
drew forth a small hunk of beef and laid
it in her basket that stood on the bare
floor. She looked from the corner of
her eye, and went on dusting the table.
He brought out a handful of potatoes,
some pieces of sliced fish, a few herbs, a
yard of calico, and a small pat of butter
wrapped in lettuce leaves. He was proud
of the butter, and wanted her to notice it.
He held it out and asked her for some-
thing to put it in. She handed him a
saucer, and looked indifferent and re-
signed, with lifted eyebrows.
" Pas d' sucre, Ne"g ? "
Chicot shook his head and scratched
it, and looked like a black picture of dis-
tress und mortification. No sugar ! But
to-morrow he would get a pinch here and
a pinch there, and would bring as much
as a cupful.
Mamzelle Aglae* then sat down, and
talked to Chicot uninterruptedly and con-
fidentially. She complained bitterly, and
it was all about a pain that lodged in her
leg ; that crept and acted like a live, sting-
ing serpent, twining about her waist and
up her spine, and coiling round the shoul-
der-blade. And then les rhumatismes in
her fingers ! He could see for himself
how they were knotted. She could not
bend them ; she could hold nothing in
her hands, and had let a saucer fall that
morning and broken it in pieces. And
if she were to tell him that she had slept
a wink through the night, she would be
a liar, deserving of perdition. She had
sat at the window la nuit blanche, hear-
ing the hours strike and the market-
wagons rumble. Chicot nodded, and
kept up a running fire of sympathetic
comment and suggestive remedies for
rheumatism and insomnia : herbs, or ti-
sanes, or grigris, or all three. As if he
knew ! There was Purgatory Mary, a
perambulating soul wnose office in life
was to pray for the shades in purgatory,
she had brought Mamzelle Aglae* a
bottle of eau de Lourdes, but so little of
it ! She might have kept her water of
Lourdes, for all the good it did, a drop !
Not so much as would cure a fly or a
Neg Creol.
137
mosquito! Mamzelle Aglae" was going
to show Purgatory Mary the door when
she came again, not only because of her
avarice with the Lourdes water, but, be-
side that, she brought in on her feet dirt
that could only be removed with a shovel
after she left.
And Mamzelle Aglae" wanted to inform
Chicot that there would be slaughter and
bloodshed in la maison grise if the people
below stairs did not mend their ways.
She was convinced that they lived for no
other purpose than to torture and molest
her. The woman kept a bucket of dirty
water constantly on the landing with the
hope of Mamzelle Aglae" falling over it
or into it. And she knew that the chil-
dren were instructed to gather in the hall
and on the stairway, and scream and
make a noise and jump up and down like
galloping horses, with the intention of
driving her to suicide. Chicot should no-
tify the policeman on the beat, and have
them arrested, if possible, and thrust into
the parish prison, where they belonged.
Chicot would have been extremely
alarmed if he had ever chanced to find
Mamzelle Aglae" in an uncomplaining
mood. It never occurred to him that she
might be otherwise. He felt that she
had a right to quarrel with fate, if ever
mortal had. Her poverty was a disgrace,
and he hung his head before it and felt
ashamed.
One day he found Mamzelle Aglae
stretched on the bed, with her head tied
up in a handkerchief. Her sole com-
plaint that day was, " Aie aie aie !
Aie aie aie ! " uttered with every
breath. He had seen her so before, es-
pecially when the weather was damp.
" Vous pas bdzouin tisane, Mamzelle
Aglae" ? Vous pas veux mo cri gagni
docteur ? "
She desired nothing. " Aie aie
aie ! "
He emptied his bag very quietly, so as
not to disturb her ; and he wanted to
stay there with her and lie down on the
floor in case she needed him, but the wo-
man from below had come up. She was
an Irishwoman with rolled sleeves.
" It 's a shtout shtick I 'm afther giv-
ing her, Ne"g, and she do but knock on
the flure it 's me or Janie or wan of us
that '11 be hearing her."
" You too good, Brigitte. Aie aie
aie ! U ne goutte d'eau sucre", Ne"g !
That Purg'tory Marie,* you see hair,
ma bonne Brigitte, you tell hair go say
li'le prayer la-bas au Cathedral. Aie
aie aie ! "
Ne"g could hear her lamentation as he
descended the stairs. It followed him
as he limped his way through the city
streets, and seemed part of the city's
noise ; he could hear it in the rumble of
wheels and jangle of car-bells, and in the
voices of those passing by.
He stopped at Mimotte the Voudou's
shanty and bought a grigri, a cheap
one for fifteen cents. Mimotte held her
charms at all prices. This he intended
to introduce next day into Mamzelle
Aglae*'s room, somewhere about the al-
tar, to the confusion and discomfit of
"Michie" bon Dieu," who persistently de-
clined to concern himself with the wel-
fare of a Boisdure*.
At night, among the reeds on the bay-
ou, Chicot could still hear the woman's
wail, mingled now with the croaking of
the frogs. If he could have been con-
vinced that giving up his life down there
in the water would in any way have bet-
tered her condition, he would not have
hesitated to sacrifice the remnant of his
existence that was wholly devoted to her.
He lived but to serve her. He did not
know it himself ; but Chicot knew so lit-
tle, and that little in such a distorted way !
He could scarcely have been expected,
even in his most lucid moments, to give
himself over to self-analysis.
Chicot gathered an uncommon amount
of dainties at market the following day.
He had to work hard, and scheme and
whine a little ; but he got hold of an or-
ange and a lump of ice and a chou-fleur.
He did not drink his cup of cafe au lait,
138
Neg Creol.
but asked Mimi Lambeau to put it in
the little new tin pail that the Hebrew-
notion - vender had just given him in
exchange for a mess of shrimps. This
time, however, Chicot had his trouble for
nothing. When he reached the upper
room of la maison grise, it was to find
that Mamzelle Aglae" had died during
the night. He set his bag down in the
middle of the floor, and stood shaking,
and whined low like a dog in pain.
Everything had been done. The Irish-
woman had gone for the doctor, and Pur-
gatory Mary had summoned a priest.
Furthermore, the woman had arranged
Mamzelle Aglae" decently. She had cov-
ered the table with a white cloth, and had
placed it at the head of the bed, with
the crucifix and two lighted candles in
silver candlesticks upon it : the little bit
of ornamentation brightened and embel-
lished the poor room. Purgatory Mary,
dressed in shabby black, fat and breath-
ing hard, sat reading half audibly from
a prayer-book. She was watching the
dead and the silver candlesticks, which
she had borrowed from a benevolent so-
ciety, and for which she held herself re-
sponsible. A young man was just leav-
ing, a reporter snuffing the air for
items, who had scented one up there in
the top room of la maison grise.
All the morning Janie had been escort-
ing a procession of street Arabs up and
down the stairs to view the remains.
One of them a little girl, who had had
her face washed and had made a species
of toilet for the occasion refused to be
dragged away. She stayed seated as if
at an entertainment, fascinated alternate-
ly by the long, still figure of Mamzelle
Aglae", the mumbling lips of Purgatory
Mary, and the silver candlesticks.
" Will ye get down on yer knees, man,
and say a prayer for the dead ! " com-
manded the woman.
But Chicot only shook his head, and
refused to obey. He approached the bed,
and laid a little black paw for a moment
on the stiffened body of Mamzelle Aglae".
There was nothing for him to do here.
He picked up his old ragged hat and his
bag and went away.
" The black h'athen ! " the woman
muttered. " Shut the dure, child."
The little girl slid down from her chair,
and went on tiptoe to shut the door which
Chicot had left open. Having resumed
her seat, she fastened her eyes upon Pur-
gatory Mary's heaving chest.
" You, Chicot ! " cried Matteo's wife
the next morning. " My man, he read iu
paper 'bout woman name' Boisdure', use'
b'long to big-a famny. She die roun'
on St. Philip po', same-a like church
rat. It 's any them Boisdure's you alia
talk 'bout ? "
Chicot shook his head in slow but em-
phatic denial. No, indeed, the woman
was not of kin to his Boisdure's. He sure-
ly had told Matteo's wife often enough
how many times did he have to repeat
it ! of their wealth, their social stand-
ing. It was doubtless some Boisdure* of
les Attakapas ; it was none of his.
The next day there was a small fu-
neral procession passing a little distance
away, a hearse and a carriage or two.
There was the priest who had attended
Mamzelle Aglae", and a benevolent Cre-
ole gentleman whose father had known
the Boisdure's in his youth. There were
a couple of player-folk, who, having got
wind of the story, had thrust their hands
into their pockets.
" Look, Chicot ! " cried Matteo's wife.
" Yondago the fune'al. Mus-a be that-a
Boisdure* woman we talken 'bout yesa-
day."
But Chicot paid no heed. What was
to him the funeral of a woman who had
died in St. Philip Street ? He did not
even turn his head in the direction of the
moving procession. He went on scaling
his red-snapper.
Kate Chopin.
Strauss, the Author of The Life of Jesus.
139
STRAUSS, THE AUTHOR OF THE LIFE OF JESUS.
THOUGH posthumous, the recently pub-
lished volume of Letters of David Frie-
drich Strauss, the author of The Life of
Jesus, does not smell of dust. On the
contrary, it is thoroughly alive in the
vigor of its uneasy polemic spirit and
fleet touch. It opens with the year 1830,
when Strauss was twenty-two years old,
and had just finished his career at the
University of Tubingen with brilliant
honors. He was serving as temporary
vicar to the pastor of the parish of Klein-
Ingersheim, and that his religious opin-
ions were already novel and independent
is shown by the letters to his friend
Marklin. In reply to the latter's scru-
ples about a freethinker like himself min-
istering to an orthodox flock, Strauss
maintains that the case of a liberal pas-
tor is precisely analogous to that of a
prince who is endowed with more intel-
ligence than his subjects : let both see to
it that first of all they fulfill the duties
of the offices to which they have been
called. He makes a distinction between
a man's individual, private life and his
life as an official, a view which is like-
ly to be condemned by persons who are
taught to regard the preaching of the
gospel as a calling, but is both natural
and frequent among the clergy of na-
tions which support an established state
church.
Strauss did not remain long in an am-
biguous incumbency. He quitted the pul-
pit within a year for a professor's chair
in Maulbronn, and this chair, in the au-
tumn of 1831, for the University of Ber-
lin, where he sat at the feet of Hegel till
Hegel's death (in November, 1831). In
the following year the theological semi-
nary of Tubingen counted him among
its tutors.
Thus at the very opening of this
indirect autobiography is betrayed the
need that Strauss felt of a frequent
change of abode, a peculiarity that was
shown throughout his life. The occasion
of his removal was sometimes a definite-
ly disagreeable experience, such as the
dismissal from the Tubingen seminary
on account of the publication of The
Life of Jesus ; sometimes it was an in-
definite and even unreasonable feeling
of unrest ; in only a few instances was
it a real consideration ; generally he was
moved by a hope of finding better com-
panionship and means for research. An
explanation which he once gave of his
peevish fits of discontent takes the re-
sponsibility entirely off his own shoul-
ders and puts it upon the broad back of
heredity. His mother, he says, told him
that his father, who had killed her love
and the affection of all his friends and
relations by his selfishness, became pas-
sionately devoted to their first-born child,
so that when the boy died he went near-
ly mad. One day he would sink into de-
spairing dejection ; the next he would
be furious with wrath against the Al-
mighty. " And at this period of pater-
nal disquiet," writes Strauss, " I was
conceived and born."
Strauss thought himself indebted to
his father for the logical clearness of his
style. " But everything else in me that
is good, and of any worth, I owe to my
mother, yet I do not amount to half
what she was for all that," he laments
to his friend Rapp. " She had the ca-
pacity of not being prevented by small
things from keeping the greater things
in mind ; she understood art, and she
managed always to keep the upper hand
over painful feelings and a mastery of
distressing emotions by the simple method
of holding herself fast to some hard piece
of work. Yet how unworldly was her
spirit in spite of all this show of the prac-
tical ! " he adds. " She despised senti-
mentality and cant in religion with all
140
Strauss, the Author of The Life of Jesus.
her heart. She could feel so sure, for
instance, that labor might be a real kind
of divine service, under certain circum-
stances, that occasionally she would take
up something to do on Sunday, and the
reproachful looks of her church-going
relatives she would charm away by the
tranquil and joking remarks which she
let fall. But it was ever for others she
worked, never for herself ; generally it
was for her children."
In truth, if fortitude can be an inherit-
ance, then it was from his maternal par-
ent that Strauss derived his. He needed
a goodly portion to weather the storm
that burst upon his head on the occasion
of the publication of The Life of Jesus ;
and fortunately for his health and well-
being he possessed it. The book came out
in Tubingen, in the spring of 1835, when
he had just attained his twenty-eighth
year. It represented, it seems, only one
part of a vast general design that in-
cluded the whole sum and substance of
the world's dogmatic history. The Ttt-
bingen university cast him out ; his name
was stricken off its list of tutors, and his
literary work was reduced to the pro-
duction of replies to adversaries. His
mind and strength were diverted from
his great work then and there, for good
and all.
In Ludwigsburg, whither he retired
after the loss of his position in Tubingen,
he revised a second edition of the Life,
and wrote unfruitful polemical pam-
phlets. His courage was unbroken, but
all too soon he became ill at ease again.
The truth is, his native town was hardly
the right place for him at this time. He
had many good friends, to be sure, but
his family was a source of disquiet to
him. His father, who really rejoiced in
secret at the blow that his son had struck
in the simpleton face of Piety, as he ex-
pressed it, professed to disapprove of him
in public. Strauss was forced, on the
other hand, to see his mother wearing an
air of hardest indifference to the world
while she was smarting inwardly. Once
she said to him, " There is one thing in
me, Fritz, that is immortal, I am sure,
and will continue to live in me on the
other side. That is my love." This was
uttered in a gay and tender tone, but
Strauss knew what heavy grief could lie
close in his mother's soul behind the
light messengers of banter that she sent
forth. Who wonders that he grew sick
of life ? He wrote to Rapp that the
subject of religion palled on him. Sci-
ence lost its interest for him, too. He
wished to go away from Ludwigsburg.
Now Rapp was a clergyman in full
and regular orders, and as such he could
not see that there was any scientific need
of The Life of Jesus. Yet he remained
devoted to Strauss at this time, like the
rest of Strauss's intimates, the most of
whom were theologians ; and he an-
swered the disheartened letter by recom-
mending occupation, and the acceptance
of the chair of theology in Zurich which
had been offered him. Strauss had hoped
for a more distinguished call, but he
thought that the best thing to do for the
present was to accept the Swiss offer. A
little later, however, he and his friends
learned that the country round about
Zurich was stirred up against the nom-
ination of the author of The Life of
Jesus to a chair in the new university.
Then came the news that a mob of pea-
sants, headed by priests, had marched
into Zurich and threatened the magis-
trates with harm if they persisted in their
appointment, and had emphasized their
threat by burning Strauss in effigy. Soon
afterward he received a letter from the
embarrassed authorities of the univer-
sity, offering him a pension of a thou-
sand francs a year. But he had already
penned a dignified not* of resignation.
He relinquished not only the chair of
theology in Zurich, but every hope of a
career as professor. It is safe to say,
indeed, that this blow was felt more
keenly by Strauss than the public con-
tumely which succeeded the publication
of the Life. It drove the fact into his
Strauss, the Author of The Life of Jesus.
141
soul that there is a power in religious
feelings that a man cannot stand against
alone. He had not before been able to
believe it, but now he had the proof.
He was then residing in Stuttgart. A
letter from his elder brother, William,
brought him back for a while to Ludwigs-
burg. His mother seemed uncommon-
ly weak. Strauss was frightened, and
watched over her and nursed her most
devotedly, but in vain. "Just at this
time, Fritz," she says deprecatingly to
her son on her deathbed, " it 's too bad.
People will say it is grief over your Zu-
rich trouble that carries me off."
There were excellent galleries of pic-
tures and a good opera troupe in Stutt-
gart, and he devoted himself to art and
music. His interpreter of music was the
beautiful prima donna, Fraulein Christina
Schebest. But an artist does not always
make a good housewife ; and Strauss
wrote to Rapp, asking if he and his wife
would not look about a little for a lady
who would suit his tastes, belonging to
some worthy family of the middle class.
It was quite useless, he said, to try to set-
tle down to any earnest task in his present
uninspired mood : he must be wrought
up to a fine fury of enthusiasm in order
to write, and he felt now that he must
fall into the clutches of some passion, or
perish. Rapp seems to have fancied that
a note from the Stuttgart Royal Opera
House had fallen into his old classmate's
letter, for he answered in such common-
place fashion that Strauss was offended,
and dropped the correspondence for a
long time. When he resumed it, he wrote
one of the most delightful gruffly frank
notes that I remember ever to have read,
declaring that he will never again
turn to Rapp for sympathy. Yet a lit-
tle further along in the volume we read,
in a letter to the same friend, a confi-
dential description of how Juno-like is
the figure, how noble the carriage, of
Fraulein Schebest, and how, in spite of
all, she loves him ! A few weeks later
Strauss announces that he and Christina
are to be married, and declares that
Rapp, and no other, shall unite them.
Now for a season the letters are very
foolish honeymoon letters. Instead of
resuming the observations on men and
things which make his correspondence so
uncommonly diverting, Strauss scribbles
verses on Christina's doughnuts, and de-
scribes her efforts -to attain to the stan-
dard which he has set for a perfect cook.
In a little while, however, his letters to
all the old friends whom he had neglect-
ed for Christina become very frequent
again. Before long a still further hint of
impending evil is encountered, a hint
not only of domestic and sentimental
satiety, but of something much worse.
We are slow in coming clearly to the
plain truth, for the editor evidently has
suppressed a great deal of his material ;
but by gleanings from detached sentences,
scattered in a half dozen letters, we ar-
rive at the indubitable fact at last that
the pair separate. Strauss settles for a
while in Heilbronn, while Christina rees-
tablishes herself in Stuttgart, with their
son and daughter. No reason for the
separation is allowed to appear. Strauss
once makes an accusation to the effect
that Christina is too self-complacent, but
this can hardly have been the whole rea-
son for disagreement. Christina wrote
two books subsequently, one of which was
a textbook on acting. She died in Stutt-
gart in 1870, aged fifty-seven, but she is
not mentioned again in Strauss's letters.
It appears as a saving grace in Strauss's
character that the breaking of family ties
caused a good deal of wavering. No
other event of his life so shook his nat-
ural fortitude as this. He was tempted
again and again to go back to his home.
He longed for his children. He saw in
Venice Titian's picture of the child Mary
ascending the steps of the Temple, was
reminded of his own little daughter, and
felt ready to weep. Nor could he go to
the opera for many a year without noting
the inferiority of the singers to Christina
as she used to be.
142
Strauss, the Author of The Life of Jesus.
With his self-willed separation from
Christina, however, the climax of his
emotional life passed. He experienced
no more passions. Of the brief political
career which followed, he writes that he
had no pleasure in being a deputy, and
we discern for ourselves that he pos-
sessed no political sagacity, although
events have proved that he had extraor-
dinary political foresight. His life, from
the time when he quitted his seat in the
Wurtemberg Landtag, in 1849, till its
close in 1874, was one of pure mentality.
He occupied himself with the study of
material for biographies and with culti-
vating his taste for art, to the exclusion
of all practical activities. The single in-
terruption of his domestic loneliness
the return of his two children to his sare
was of short duration because they
were soon placed in boarding-schools.
Yet for all this solitude no stagnation
ever took place in his interest in things.
He shifted his residence, he made new
acquaintances, he traveled to Italy, Swit-
zerland, and Vienna, in order to learn ;
and the register of "names referred to "
in the Letters, which comprises more than
seven hundred, might be balanced by a
similar register of " things referred to,"
quite as long and miscellaneous, so nu-
merous are his themes. He led the tra-
ditional existence of a German scholar
without falling into the German scholar's
habitual tenuity of thought. His liveli-
ness of style is encouraged by the variety
of his topics, and by a habit of referring
to the dramatic side of incidents.
The fact is, Strauss was the " artist by
nature's malevolence," which he once in
early life described himself to be. He
was wanting in the higher creative tal-
ent, but his style in writing proves that
he had a graphic" gift of imitation. What
could be neater and clearer and more
full of life than the few lines on George
Eliot, from Munich, in July, 1858 ? " I
had a charming little experience on
Thursday last in meeting the English
translator of my Life of Jesus, who is now
the wife of Mr. Lewes, the author of the
Life of Goethe. When they heard of my
being here they both called on me, but
I was out. When I returned the visit I
found only her. I had seen her once
before in Cologne as Miss Evans, when
she could not speak any German at all.
Now she can talk it pretty well. She is
in her thirties, not beautiful, but with a
transparent countenance full of expres-
sion, more from the heart than the brain.
. . . As I rose to go the amiable woman
said, ' When you came in I was so de-
lighted I could not speak.' "
Finally be it remarked that Strauss's
vividness and virility extended to his
hatreds as well as his loves. He called
a spade a spade. Old and half-dead as
Strauss was in January, 1874, he still
wrote the following against the Bayreuth
and Viennese idols of the day : " You
say in your letter that Hermann Grimm
has described Dttrer as being a great
man, but not a great artist. I hope
these are not Grimm's own words. . . .
Dttrer no artist ! the man who possessed
imagination, the highest gift of artists,
in such over - abundant measure that
whole generations of painters supplied
their wants from it ! Beauty, it is true,
is not to be found in his works. Yet
what artistic reserve do they display,
what knowledge and conscientious mas-
tery of technique, what profound human
feeling ! But then, to be sure, in the
eyes of our contemporaries he had the
fault of being estimable in private life,
and of attaining simplicity and beauty of
character. The men whom folks admire
nowadays and take to be great artists,
Richard Wagner and Hans Makart, are
just the contrary kind of men to Diirer,
are sybaritic beggars or self - idolizing
blasphemers."
Blasphemous Strauss was called ; but
no man, after reading these revelations
of his life, can throw at him the worse
epithets of sybaritic and self-idolizing.
Countess von Krockow.
Mr. Allen's The Choir Invisible.
143
MR. ALLEN'S THE CHOIR INVISIBLE.
IT is not altogether easy to say whether
a poet and a historian have been deflect-
ed in Mr. James Lane Allen, or a novel-
ist is in process of development through
the absorption of lyric and historic pro-
pensities. Certain it is that in his latest
book 1 Mr. Allen does not yet show him-
self a great story-teller, but so far from
disappointing the reader, he arouses the
liveliest anticipations, and causes one to
wonder just how he will emerge under
the various influences which seem to be
impelling him. We think he will be a
novelist, perhaps even a great novelist,
one of the few who hold large powers of
divers sort in solution to be precipitated
in some new, unexpected form. For af-
ter all, his prime interest, as this book
discloses, is in character, and character
dramatically presented, and this is the
fundamental aim of the great novelist.
Yet the structural story of The Choir
Invisible is meagre, and Mr. Allen has
not even made the most of the opportuni-
ty for narrative which it presents. John
Gray, a young Kentucky schoolmaster
of Scotch parentage and Pennsylvania
backwoods rearing, five years before the
close of the last century, thought himself
in love with Amy Falconer, the coquet-
tish niece of Major Falconer, of Lex-
ington. He was about to offer himself
to her, in spite of the guarded dissuasion
of Major Falconer's young wife, who
had read the girl's nature more clearly
than John, when the caprice of fortune
and a careless jest separated the two,
and another lover stepped in and carried
off the prize. The true woman whom
nature had designed for him was Mrs.
Falconer, but under the influence, so to
speak, of the choir invisible, this man and
woman missed the perfection of union,
1 The Choir Invisible. By JAMES LANE
ALLEN. New York : The Macmillan Company.
1897.
and, after a time of tremulous nearness,
separated at a parting of the ways.
As we have said, story there is none
in the plain acceptation of the term.
There are two or three moving incidents,
as the fight with the panther and the
tussle with a coarse mischief-maker, but
the drama which is enacted, a spiritual
drama of real significance, finds but
casual materialization in the events of
life as led by the dramatis personce.
Mr. Allen's attention is fixed upon the
struggle which is going on within the
breast of John Gray, first when he is
losing Amy, and then when he is finding
Jessica. It is, by the way, one of the
delicate touches by which Mr. Allen adds
to the sanctuary about his heroine that he
scarcely refers to her by this name. She
is " Mrs. Falconer " throughout, " aunt
Jessica " once or twice, and " Jessica "
once only in a bird's remote call to the
hero's consciousness. All besides this is
treated as episodical. The incidents
which carry the narrative along are the
mere nothings of life. In one aspect
this nonchalance of narrative heightens
the effect of the spiritual story ; yet it is
a dangerous expedient. A great esoteric
action craves great exoteric art, and we
think Mr. Allen depends too much upon
the suggestion of incident, as when, at a
critical moment in his hero's life, he be-
trays the inward movement only by an
almost casual reference to a night ride
back to the heroine's neighborhood.
The story is set in a slight frame-
work of pioneer life, and there are a
few hints at that undercurrent of history
which nearly swept Kentucky into the
deep waters of imperial dreams. Again,
this lightly sketched background appears
to have been used for the purpose of
throwing the lovers into higher relief,
yet one looks wistfully at the possibilities
implied in the historic events. The fine
144
Mr. Allen s The Choir Invisible.
imaginative power with which Mr. Allen
reconstructs the period holds out such
promise of vigorous action and portrait-
ure that the reader is inclined to regret
the trivial use to which the power is put.
Surely the love story would not have suf-
fered if it had been the centre of a po-
litical storm as well. But this is going
beyond our limits. We have to do with
the story Mr. Allen wrote, not with the
one we wished him to write. Only, we
urge, why throw back so modern a theme
into a former century and not derive
still greater benefit from the rejection ?
We value the sureness with which the
ethical problem implied in the story is
stated and solved ; we set a very high
estimate on the power of historic im-
agination which Mr. Allen shows, and
recognize with the greatest pleasure that
he is not exploiting local idiosyncrasies,
but drawing with a free hand the out-
lines of an adolescent state, and if we
had only these elements of a worthy
novel we should think ourselves fortu-
nate. But the charm which The Choir
Invisible holds for an attentive reader
does not lie in either of these elements
half so much as it springs from the in-
forming spirit of the book, a spirit so
rare in our fiction that we watch it here
with the keenest pleasure. The humor
and grace which attend upon a refined
estimate of life we have had in our fic-
tion ; the purity of tone, also, which is
the fragrance of a delicate perception of
values. Mr. Allen himself, in previous
books, has shown a playfulness which
is winning ; there is less of it in this.
But the imaginative beauty which lies
deep at the roots of things and makes
him who perceives it rather grave than
merry, this is a rarer grace, a more en-
during quality of fine literature. We
have had the opportunity of noting it
once or twice. Mr. Arthur Sherburne
Hardy has disclosed it in Passe Rose,
and there have been touches of it in
minor pieces of fiction. Hawthorne had
it supremely, yet one cannot read Haw-
thorne without being reminded of Cole-
ridge's river Alph flowing through sun-
less caverns. This beauty has lain in
other books by Mr. Allen, but in none,
we think, has it been under such high
command as in this.
It would be ineffective to attempt to
persuade the reader of this by means of
single passages, though many could be
cited which would at once give out their
own music. The beauty is largely due
to the noble use which Mr. Allen makes
of the note which nature sounds. Again
and again one is reminded, not by a
f anoiful interpretation, but by strong im-
aginative penetration, of the elemental
forces of nature as they make themselves
known in various forms of life. It is as
if one had held communion with nature,
not as a hermit nor as a scientific inves-
tigator, but as a poet with strong human
sympathies, and then, essaying to render
plain the passages of a man's heart, had
brought with him this hypaethral light
and let it flow into all the recesses.
Indeed, paradoxical though it be, this
very quality of beauty, almost lyrical
sometimes in its form, has misled Mr.
Allen in his task as a writer of fiction.
It has apparently persuaded him to be
neglectful of the homely virtues without
which fiction cannot maintain a secure
hold on life. In his deep interest in his
hero and heroine he has too often for-
gotten his story, and the three, author,
hero, and heroine, have gone off into the
woods by themselves. The reader fol-
lows them, but at too great a distance,
after all, for his own satisfaction. He
does not miss the rare strain of music
in Jessica Falconer, o the shrill sweet-
ness of the parson ; he is aware of the
vibrant melody in John Gray himself ;
but the choir invisible is a little too
screened from view, a trifle too remote,
to permit its harmony the full measure
of tone which the reader of this book
divines rather than dkectly perceives.
THE
ATLANTIC MONTHLY:
of literature, Science, art, ana
VOL. LXXX. A UGUST, 1897. No. CCCCLXXVIII.
THE AMERICAN FORESTS.
THE forests of America, however
slighted by man, must have been a great
delight to God ; for they were the best
he ever planted. The whole continent
was a garden, and from the beginning it
seemed to be favored above all the other
wild parks and gardens of the globe.
To prepare the ground, it was rolled and
sifted in seas with infinite loving delib-
eration and forethought, lifted into the
light, submerged and warmed over and
over again, pressed and crumpled into
folds and ridges, mountains and hills,
subsoiled with heaving volcanic fires,
ploughed and ground and sculptured into
scenery and soil with glaciers and rivers,
every feature growing and changing
from beauty to beauty, higher and higher.
And in the fullness of time it was plant-
ed in groves, and belts, and broad, ex-
uberant, mantling forests, with the lar-
gest, most varied, most fruitful, and most
beautiful trees in the world. Bright seas
made its border with wave embroidery
and icebergs ; gray deserts were out-
spread in the middle of it, mossy tun-
dras on the north, savannas on the south,
and blooming prairies and plains ; while
lakes and rivers shone through all the
vast forests and openings, and happy
birds and beasts gave delightful anima-
tion. Everywhere, everywhere over all
the blessed continent, there were beauty,
and melody, and kindly, wholesome, food-
ful abundance.
These forests were composed of about
five hundred species of trees, all of them
in some way useful to man, ranging in
size from twenty-five feet in height and
less than one foot in diameter at the
ground to four hundred feet in height
and more than twenty feet in diameter,
lordly monarchs proclaiming the gos-
pel of beauty like apostles. For many a
century after the ice-ploughs were melt-
ed, nature fed them and dressed them
every day ; working like a man, a loving,
devoted, painstaking gardener; fingering
every leaf and flower and mossy furrowed
bole ; bending, trimming, modeling, bal-
ancing, painting them with the loveliest
colors ; bringing over them now clouds
with cooling shadows and showers, now
sunshine ; fanning them with gentle
winds and rustling their leaves ; exercis-
ing them in every fibre with storms, and
pruning them ; loading them with flowers
and fruit, loading them with snow, and
ever making them more beautiful as the
years rolled by. Wide -branching oak
and elm in endless variety, walnut and
maple, chestnut and beech, ilex and lo-
cust, touching limb to limb, spread a leafy
translucent canopy along the coast of
the Atlantic over the wrinkled folds and
ridges of the Alleghanies, a green bil-
lowy sea in summer, golden and purple
in autumn, pearly gray like a steadfast
frozen mist of interlacing branches and
sprays in leafless," restful winter.
To the southward stretched dark,
level-topped cypresses in knobby, tangled
swamps, grassy savannas in the midst
of them like lakes of light, groves of
gay sparkling spice-trees, magnolias and
palms, glossy-leaved and blooming and
146
The American Forests.
shining continually. To the northward,
over Maine and the Ottawa, rose hosts
of spiry, rosiny evergreens, white pine
and spruce, hemlock and cedar, shoulder
to shoulder, laden with purple cones,
their myriad needles sparkling and shim-
mering, covering hills and swamps, rocky
headlands and domes, ever bravely aspir-
ing and seeking the sky ; the ground in
their shade now snow-clad and frozen,
now mossy and flowery ; beaver meadows
here and there, full of lilies and grass ;
lakes gleaming like eyes, and a silvery
embroidery of rivers and creeks water-
ing and brightening all the vast glad
wilderness.
Thence westward were oak and elm,
hickory and tupelo, gum and lirioden-
dron, sassafras and ash, linden and lau-
rel, spreading on ever wider in glorious
exuberance over the great fertile basin
of the Mississippi, over damp level bot-
toms, low dimpling hollows, and round
dotting hills, embosoming sunny prai-
ries and cheery park openings, half sun-
shine, half shade ; while a dark wilder-
ness of pines covered the region around
the Great Lakes. Thence still w'estward
swept the forests to right and left around
grassy plains and deserts a thousand
miles wide : irrepressible hosts of spruce
and pine, aspen and willow, nut - pine
and juniper, cactus and yucca, caring no-
thing for drought, extending undaunted
from mountain to mountain, over mesa
and desert, to join the darkening mul-
titudes of pines that covered the high
Rocky ranges and the glorious forests
along the coast of the moist and balmy
Pacific, where new species of pine, giant
cedars and spruces, silver firs and se-
quoias, kings of their race, growing close
together like grass in a meadow, poised
their brave domes and "spires in the sky
three hundred feet above the ferns and
the lilies that enameled the ground ; tow-
ering serene through the long centu-
ries, preaching God's forestry fresh from
heaven.
Here the forests reached their highest
development. Hence they went waver-
ing northward over icy Alaska, brave
spruce and fir, poplar and birch, by the
coasts and the rivers, to within sight of
the Arctic Ocean. American forests !
the glory of the world ! Surveyed thus
from the east to the west, from the
north to the south, they are rich beyond
thought, immortal, immeasurable, enough
and to spare for every feeding, shelter-
ing beast and bird, insect and son of
Adam ; and nobody need have cared had
there been no pines in Norway, no cedars
and deodars on Lebanon and the Hima-
layas, no vine-clad selvas in the basin of
the Amazon. With such variety, har-
mony, and triumphant exuberance, even
nature, it would seem, might have rested
content with the forests of North Amer-
ica, and planted no more.
So they appeared a few centuries ago
when they were rejoicing in wildness.
The Indians with stone axes could do
them no more harm than could gnaw-
ing beavers and browsing moose. Even
the fires of the Indians and the fierce
shattering lightning seemed to work to-
gether only for good in clearing spots
here and there for smooth garden prai-
ries, and openings for sunflowers seeking
the light. But when the steel axe of
the white man rang out in the startled
air their doom was sealed. Every tree
heard the bodeful sound, and pillars of
smoke gave the sign in the sky.
I suppose we need not go mourning
the buffaloes. In the nature of things
they had to give place to better cattle,
though the change might have been made
without barbarous wickedness. Like-
wise many of nature's five hundred kinds
of wild trees had to nuake way for or-
chards and cornfields. In the settlement
and civilization of the country, bread
more than timber or beauty was wanted ;
and in the blindness of hunger, the early
settlers, claiming Heaven as their guide,
regarded God's trees as only a larger
kind of pernicious weeds, extremely hard
to get rid of. Accordingly, with no eye
The American Forests.
147
to the future, these pious destroyers
waged interminable forest wars ; chips
flew thick and fast ; trees in their beauty
fell crashing by millions, smashed to con-
fusion, and the smoke of their burning
has been rising to heaven more than two
hundred years. After the Atlantic coast
from Maine to Georgia had been mostly
cleared and scorched into melancholy
ruins, the overflowing multitude of bread
and money seekers poured over the Al-
leghanies into the fertile middle West,
spreading ruthless devastation ever wider
and farther over the rich valley of the
Mississippi and the vast shadowy pine
region about the Great Lakes. Thence
still westward the invading horde of de-
stroyers called settlers made its fiery
way over the broad Rocky Mountains,
felling and burning more fiercely than
ever, until at last it has reached the
wild side of the continent, and entered
the last of the great aboriginal forests
on the shores of the Pacific.
Surely, then, it should not be wondered
at that lovers of their country, bewailing
its baldness, are now crying aloud, " Save
what is left of the forests ! " Clearing
has surely now gone far enough ; soon
timber will be scarce, and not a grove
will be left to rest in or pray in. The
remnant protected will yield plenty of
timber, a perennial harvest for every
right use, without further diminution of
its area, and will continue to cover the
springs of the rivers that rise in the
mountains and give irrigating waters to
the dry valleys at their feet, prevent
wasting floods and be a blessing to every-
body forever.
Every other civilized nation in the
world has been compelled to care for its
forests, and so must we if waste and de-
struction are not to go on to the bitter end,
leaving America as barren as Palestine
or Spain. In its calmer moments in the
midst of bewildering hunger and war
and restless over-industry, Prussia has
learned that the forest plays an impor-
tant part in human progress, and that
the advance in civilization only makes it
more indispensable. It has, therefore,
as shown by Mr. Pinchot, refused to de-
liver its forests to more or less speedy
destruction by permitting them to pass
into private ownership. But the state
woodlands are not allowed to lie idle.
On the contrary, they are made to pro-
duce as much timber as is possible with-
out spoiling them. In the administration
of its forests, the state righteously consid-
ers itself bound to treat them as a trust
for the nation as a whole, and to keep in
view the common good of the people for
all time.
In France no government forests have
been sold since 1870. On the other
hand, about one half of the fifty million
francs spent on forestry has been given
to engineering works, to make the re-
planting of denuded areas possible. The
disappearance of the forests in the first
place, it is claimed, may be traced in
most cases directly to mountain pastur-
age. The provisions of the code concern-
ing private woodlands are substantially
these : No private owner may clear his
woodlands without giving notice to the
government at least four months in ad-
vance, and the forest service may forbid
the clearing on the following grounds:
to maintain the soil on mountains, to de-
fend the soil against erosion and flooding
by rivers or torrents, to insure the ex-
istence of springs and watercourses, to
protect the dunes and seashore, etc. A
proprietor who has cleared his forest
without permission is subject to heavy
fine, and in addition may be made to re-
plant the cleared area.
In Switzerland, after many laws like
our own had been found wanting, the
Swiss forest school was established in
1865, and soon after the Federal Forest
Law was enacted, which is binding over
nearly two thirds of the country. Under
its provisions, the cantons must appoint
and pay the number of suitably educated
foresters required for the fulfillment of
the forest law ; and in the organization
148
The American Forests.
of a normally stocked forest, the object
of first importance must be the cutting
each year of an amount of timber equal
to the total annual increase, and no
more.
The Russian government passed a law
in 1888, declaring that clearing is for-
bidden in protection forests, and is al-
lowed in others " only when its effects
will not be to disturb the suitable rela-
tions which should exist between forest
and agricultural lands."
Even Japan is ahead of us in the man-
agement of her forests. They cover an
area of about 29,000,000 acres. The
feudal lords valued the woodlands, and
enacted vigorous protective laws ; and
when, in the latest civil war, the Mi-
kado government destroyed the feudal
system, it declared the forests that had
belonged to the feudal lords to be the pro-
perty of the state, promulgated a forest
law binding on the whole kingdom, and
founded a school of forestry in Tokio.
The forest service does not rest satisfied
with the present proportion of woodland,
but looks to planting the best forest trees
it can find in any country, if likely to be
useful and to thrive in Japan.
In India systematic forest manage-
ment was begun about forty years ago,
under difficulties presented by the
character of the country, the prevalence
of running fires, opposition from lum-
bermen, settlers, etc. not unlike those
which confront us now. Of the total
area of government forests, perhaps
70,000,000 acres, 55,000,000 acres have
been brought under the control of the
forestry department, a larger area
than that of all our national parks and
reservations. The chief aims of the
administration are effective protection
of the forests from fire, an efficient sys-
tem of regeneration, and cheap trans-
portation of the forest products ; the
results so far have been most beneficial
and encouraging.
It seems, therefore, that almost every
civilized nation can give us a lesson
on the management and care of forests.
So far our government has done nothing
effective with its forests, though the best
in the world, but is like a rich and fool-
ish spendthrift who has inherited a mag-
nificent estate in perfect order, and then
has left his rich fields and meadows, for-
ests and parks, to be sold and plundered
and wasted at will, depending on their
inexhaustible abundance. Now it is plain
that the forests are not inexhaustible,
and that quick measures must be taken
if ruin is to be avoided. Year by year
the remnant is growing smaller before
the, axe and fire, while the laws in exist-
ence provide neither for the protection
of the timber from destruction nor for
its use where it is most needed.
As is shown by Mr. E. A. Bowers,
formerly Inspector of the Public Land
Service, the foundation of our protective
policy, which has never protected, is an
act passed March 1, 1817, which author-
ized the Secretary of the Navy to re-
serve lands producing live-oak and ce-
dar, for the sole purpose of supplying
timber for the navy of the United States.
An extension of this law by the pas-
sage of the act of March 2, 1831, pro-
vided that if any person should cut live-
oak or red cedar trees or other timber
from the lands of the United States for
any other purpose than the construction
of the navy, such person should pay a
fine not less than triple the value of the
timber cut, and be imprisoned for a
period not exceeding twelve months.
Upon this old law, as Mr. Bowers points
out, having the construction of a wooden
navy in view, the United States govern-
ment has to-day chiefly to rely in pro-
tecting its timber throughout the arid
regions of the West, where none of the
naval timber which the law had in mind
is to be found.
By the act of June 3, 1878, timber
can be taken from public lands not sub-
ject to entry under any existing laws ex-
cept for minerals, by bona fide residents
of the Rocky Mountain States and Terri-
The American Forests.
149
tories and the Dakotas. Under the tim-
ber and stone act, of the same date, land
in the Pacific States and Nevada, val-
uable mainly for timber, and unfit for
cultivation if the timber is removed, can
be purchased for two dollars and a half
an acre, under certain restrictions. By
the act of March 3, 1875, all land-grant
and right-of-way railroads are author-
ized to take timber from the public lands
adjacent to their lines for construction
purposes ; and they have taken it with a
vengeance, destroying a hundred times
more than they have used, mostly by al-
lowing fires to run into the woods. The
settlement laws, under which a settler
may enter lands valuable for timber as
well as for agriculture, furnish another
means of obtaining title to public tim-
ber.
With the exception of the timber cul-
ture act, under which, in consideration
of planting a few acres of seedlings,
settlers on the treeless plains got 160
acres each, the above is the only legisla-
tion aiming to protect and promote the
planting of forests. In no other way
than under some one of these laws can
a citizen of the United States make any
use of the public forests. To show the
results of the timber-planting acty it need
only be stated that of the 38,000,000
acres entered under it, less than 1,000,-
000 acres have been patented. This
means that less than 50,000 acres have
been planted with stunted, woebegone,
almost hopeless sprouts of trees, while
at the same time the government has
allowed millions of acres of the grandest
forest trees to be stolen, or destroyed,
or sold for nothing. Under the act of
June 3, 1878, settlers in Colorado and
the Territories were allowed to cut tim-
ber for mining and agricultural purposes
from mineral land, which in the practi-
cal West means both cutting and burn-
ing anywhere and everywhere, for any
purpose, on any sort of public land.
Thus, the prospector, the miner, and
mining and railroad companies are al-
lowed by law to take all the timber they
like for their mines and roads, and the
forbidden settler, if there are no mineral
lands near his farm or stock-ranch, or
none that he knows of, can hardly be
expected to forbear taking what he
needs wherever he can find it. Timber
is as necessary as bread, and no scheme
of management failing to recognize and
properly provide for this want can pos-
sibly be maintained. In any case, it
will be hard to teach the pioneers that
it is wrong to steal government timber.
Taking from the government is with
them the same as taking from nature,
and their consciences flinch no more in
cutting timber from the wild forests than
in drawing water from a lake or river.
As for reservation and protection of for-
ests, it seems as silly and needless to
them as protection and reservation of
the ocean would be ; both appearing to
be boundless and inexhaustible.
The special land agents employed
by the General Land Office to protect
the public domain from timber depreda-
tions are supposed to collect testimony to
sustain prosecution, and to superintend
such prosecution on behalf of the gov-
ernment, which is represented by the
district attorneys. But timber - thieves
of the Western class are seldom con-
victed, for the good reason that most of
the jurors who try such cases are them-
selves as guilty as those on trial. The
effect of the present confused, discrim-
inating, and unjust system has been to
place almost the whole population in
opposition to the government; and as
conclusive of its futility, as shown by Mr.
Bowers, we need only state that during
the seven years from 1881 to 1887 in-
clusive the value of the timber reported
stolen from the government lands was
$36,719,935, and the amount recovered
was $478,073, while the cost of the
services of special agents alone was
$455,000, to which must be added the
expense of the trials. Thus for nearly
thirty-seven million dollars' worth of tim-
150
The American Forests.
her the government got less than no-
thing ; and the value of that consumed
by running fires during the same period,
without benefit even to thieves, was pro-
bably over two hundred millions of dol-
lars. Land commissioners and Secreta-
ries of the Interior have repeatedly called
attention to this ruinous state of affairs,
and asked Congress to enact the requi-
site legislation for reasonable reform.
But, busied with tariffs, etc., Congress
has given no heed to these or other ap-
peals, and our forests, the most valuable
and the most destructible of all the nat-
ural resources of the country, are being
robbed and burned more rapidly than
ever. The annual appropriation for so-
called " protection service " is hardly
sufficient to keep twenty - five timber
agents in the field, and as far as any effi-
cient protection of timber is concerned
these agents themselves might as well be
timber.
That a change from robbery and ruin
to a permanent rational policy is urgent-
ly needed nobody with the slightest know-
ledge of American forests will deny. In
the East and along the northern Pacific
coast, where the rainfall is abundant,
comparatively few care keenly what be-
comes of the trees as long as fuel and
lumber are not noticeably dear. But in
the Rocky Mountains and California and
Arizona, where the forests are inflam-
mable, and where the fertility of the
lowlands depends upon irrigation, public
opinion is growing stronger every year
in favor of permanent protection by the
federal government of all the forests
that cover the sources of the streams.
Even lumbermen in these regions, long
accustomed to steal, are now willing and
anxious to buy lumber for their mills
under cover of law : some possibly from
a late second growth of honesty, but
most, especially the small mill - owners,
simply because it no longer pays to steal
where all may not only steal, but also
destroy, and in particular because it costs
about as much to steal timber for one
mill as for ten, and therefore the ordi-
nary lumberman can no longer compete
with the large corporations. Many of
the miners find that timber is already
becoming scarce and dear on the denud-
ed hills around their mills, and they too
are asking for protection of forests, at
least against fire. The slow-going, un-
thrifty farmers, also, are beginning to
realize that when the timber is stripped
from the mountains the irrigating streams
dry up in summer, and are destructive
in winter ; that soil, scenery, and every-
thing slips off with the trees : so of course
they are coming into the ranks of tree-
friends.
Of all the magnificent ceniferous for-
ests around the Great Lakes, once the
property of the United States, scarcely
any belong to it now. They have dis-
appeared in lumber and smoke, mostly
smoke, and the government got not one
cent for them ; only the land they were
growing on was considered valuable, and
two and a half dollars an acre was
charged for it. Here and there in the
Southern States there are still consider-
able areas of timbered government land,
but these are comparatively unimpor-
tant. Only the forests of the West are
significant in size and value, and these,
although still great, are rapidly vanish-
ing. Last summer, of the unrivaled red-
wood forests of the Pacific Coast Range
the United States Forestry Commission
could not find a single quarter - section
that remained in the hands of the gov-
ernment.
Under the timber and- stone act of
1878, which might well have been called
the " dust and ashes act," any citizen of
the United States could take up one hun-
dred and sixty acres of timber land, and
by paying two dollars and a half an acre
for it obtain title. There was some vir-
tuous effort made with a view to limit
the operations of the act by requiring
that the purchaser should make affidavit
that he was entering the land exclusively
for his own use, and by not allowing any
The American Forests.
151
association to enter more than one hun-
dred and sixty acres. Nevertheless, un-
der this act wealthy corporations have
fraudulently obtained title to from ten
thousand to twenty thousand acres or
more. The plan was usually as follows :
A mill company desirous of getting title
to a large body of redwood or sugar-
pine land first blurred the eyes and ears
of the land agents, and then hired men
to enter the land they wanted, and im-
mediately deed it to the company after
a nominal compliance with the law ; false
swearing in the wilderness against the
government being held of no account.
In one case which came under the ob-
servation of Mr. Bowers, it was the prac-
tice of a lumber company to hive the
entire crew of every vessel which might
happen to touch at any port in the red-
wood belt, to enter one hundred and six-
ty acres each and immediately deed the
land to the company, in consideration
of the company's paying all expenses
and giving the jolly sailors fifty dollars
apiece for their trouble.
By such methods have our magnificent
redwoods and much of the sugar-pine
forests of the Sierra Nevada been ab-
sorbed by foreign and resident capital-
ists. Uncle Sam is not often called a
fool in business matters, yet he has sold
millions of acres of timber land at two
dollars and a half an acre on which a
single tree was worth more than a hun-
dred dollars. But this priceless land has
been patented, and nothing can be done
now about the crazy bargain. Accord-
ing to the everlasting laws of righteous-
ness, even the fraudful buyers at less
than one per cent of its value are mak-
ing little or nothing, on account of fierce
competition. The trees are felled, and
about half of each giant is left on the
ground to be converted into smoke and
ashes ; the better half is sawed into choice
lumber and sold to citizens of the United
States or to foreigners : thus robbing the
country of its glory and impoverishing
it without right benefit to anybody, a
bad, black business from beginning to
end.
The redwood is one of the few coni-
fers that sprout from the stump and
roots, and it declares itself willing to
begin immediately to repair the dam-
age of the lumberman and also that of
the forest-burner. As soon as a red-
wood is cut down or burned it sends up a
crowd of eager, hopeful shoots, which,
if allowed to grow, would in a few de-
cades attain a height of a hundred feet,
and the strongest of them would finally
become giants as great as the original
tree. Gigantic second and third growth
trees are found in the redwoods, forming
magnificent temple -like circles around
charred ruins more than a thousand years
old. But not one denuded acre in a
hundred is allowed to raise a new forest
growth. On the contrary, all the brains,
religion, and superstition of the neigh-
borhood are brought into play to prevent
a new growth. The sprouts from the
roots and stumps are cut off again and
again, with zealous concern as to the best
time and method of making death sure.
In the clearings of one of the largest
mills on the coast we found thirty men
at work, last summer, cutting off redwood
shoots " in the dark of the moon," claim-
ing that all the stumps and roots cleared
at this auspicious time would send up no
more shoots. Anyhow, these vigorous, al-
most immortal trees are killed at last, and
black stumps are now their only mon-
uments over most of the chopped and
burned areas.
The redwood is the glory of the Coast
Range. It extends along the western
slope, in a nearly continuous belt about
ten miles wide, from beyond the Oregon
boundary to the south of Santa Cruz, a
distance of nearly four hundred miles,
and in massive, sustained grandeur and
closeness of growth surpasses all the
other timber woods of the world. Trees
from ten to fifteen feet in diameter and
three hundred feet high are not uncom-
mon, and a few attain a height of three
152
The American Forests.
hundred and fifty feet, or even four
hundred, with a diameter at the base
of fifteen to twenty feet or more, while
the ground beneath them is a garden of
fresh, exuberant ferns, lilies, gaultheria,
and rhododendron. This grand tree, Se-
quoia sempervirens, is surpassed in size
only by its near relative, Sequoia gigan-
tea, or big tree, of the Sierra Nevada,
if indeed it is surpassed. The semper-
virens is certainly the taller of the two.
The gigantea attains a greater girth, and
is heavier, more noble in port, and more
sublimely beautiful. These two sequoias
are all that are known to exist in the
world, though in former geological times
the genus was common and had many
species. The redwood is restricted to
the Coast Range, and the big tree to the
Sierra.
As timber the redwood is too good to
live. The largest sawmills ever built are
busy along its seaward border, " with all
. the modern improvements," but so im-
mense is the yield per acre it will be long
ere the supply is exhausted. The big tree
is also to some extent being made into lum-
ber. Though far less abundant than the
redwood, it is, fortunately, less accessi-
ble, extending along the western flank of
the Sierra in a partially interrupted belt
about two hundred and fifty miles long,
at a height of from four to eight thou-
sand feet above the sea. The enormous
logs, too heavy to handle, are blasted into
manageable dimensions with gunpowder.
A large portion of the best timber is
thus shattered and destroyed, and, with
the huge knotty tops, is left in ruins for
tremendous fires that kill every tree
within their range, great and small. Still,
the species is not in danger of extinction.
It has been planted and is flourishing
over a great part of Europe, and magni-
ficent sections of the aboriginal forests
have been reserved as national and state
parks, the Mariposa Sequoia Grove,
near Yosemite, managed by the State of
California, and th6 General Grant and
Sequoia national parks on the King's,
Kaweah, and Tule rivers, efficiently
guarded by a small troop of United
States cavalry under the direction of
the Secretary of the Interior. But there
is not a single specimen of the redwood
in any national park. Only by gift or
purchase, so far as I know, can the gov-
ernment get back into its possession a
single acre of this wonderful forest.
The legitimate demands on the forests
that have passed into private ownership,
as well as those in the hands of the gov-
ernment, are increasing every year with
the rapid settlement and upbuilding of
the country, but the methods of lumber-
ing are as yet grossly wasteful. In most
mills only .the best portions of the best
trees are used, while the ruins are left
on the ground to feed great fires which
kill much of what is left of the less de-
sirable timber, together with the seedlings
on which the permanence of the forest
depends. Thus every mill is a centre of
destruction far more severe from waste
and fire than from use. The same thing
is true of the mines, which consume and
destroy indirectly immense quantities of
timber with their innumerable fires, ac-
cidental or set to make open ways, and
often without regard to how far they run.
The prospector deliberately sets fires to
clear off the woods just where they are
densest, to lay the rocks bare and make
the discovery of mines easier. Sheep-
owners and their shepherds also set fires
everywhere through the woods in the
fall to facilitate the march of their count-
less flocks the next summer, and perhaps
in some places to improve tbe pasturage.
The axe is not yet at the root of every
tree, but the sheep is, or was before the na-
tional parks were established and guard-
ed by the military, the only effective and
reliable arm of the government free from
the blight of politics. Not only do the
shepherds, at the driest time of the year,
set fire to everything that will burn, but
the sheep consume every green leaf, not
sparing even the young conifers when
they are in a starving condition from
The, American Forests.
153
crowding, and they rake and dibble the
loose soil of the mountain sides for the
spring floods to wash away, and thus at
last leave the ground barren.
Of all the destroyers that infest the
woods the shake-maker seems the happi-
est. Twenty or thirty years ago, shakes,
a kind of long boardlike shingles split
with a mallet and a frow, were in great
demand for covering barns and sheds,
and many are used still in preference
to common shingles, especially those
made from the sugar-pine, which do not
warp or crack in the hottest sunshine.
Drifting adventurers in California, after
harvest and threshing are over, often-
times meet to discuss their plans for the
winter, and their talk is interesting.
Once, in a company of this kind, I heard
a man say, as he peacefully smoked
his pipe : " Boys, as soon as this job 's
done I 'in goin' into the duck business.
There 's big money in it, and your grub
costs nothing. Tule Joe made five hun-
dred dollars last winter on mallard and
teal. Shot 'em on the Joaquin, tied
'em in dozens by the neck, and shipped
'em to San Francisco. And when he
was tired wading in the sloughs and
touched with rheumatiz, he just knocked
off on ducks, and went to the Contra
Costa hills for dove and quail. It 's a
mighty good business, and you 're your
own boss, and the whole thing 's fun."
Another of the company, a bushy-
bearded fellow, with a trace of brag in
his voice, drawled out : " Bird business is
well enough for some, but bear is my
game, with a deer and a California lion
thrown in now and then for change.
There 's always a market for bear grease,
and sometimes you can sell the hams.
They 're good as hog hams any day.
And you are your own boss in my busi-
ness, too, if the bears ain't too big and
too many for you. Old grizzlies I de-
spise, they want cannon to kill 'em ;
but the blacks and browns are beauties
for grease, and when once I get 'em just
right, and draw a bead on 'em, I fetch
'em every time." Another said he was
going to catch up a lot of mustangs as
soon as the rains set in, hitch them to a
gang-plough, and go to farming on the
San Joaquin plains for wheat. But most
preferred the shake business, until some-
thing more profitable and as sure could
be found, with equal comfort and inde-
pendence.
With a cheap mustang or mule to
carry a pair of blankets, a sack of flour, a
few pounds of coffee, and an axe, a frow,
and a cross - cut saw, the shake - maker
ascends the mountains to the pine belt
where it is most accessible, usually by
some mine or mill road. Then he strikes
off into the virgin woods, where the
sugar-pine, king of all the hundred spe-
cies of pines in the world in size and
beauty, towers on the open sunny slopes
of the Sierra in the fullness of its glory.
Selecting a favorable spot for a cabin
near a meadow with a stream, he un-
packs his animal and stakes it out on the
meadow. Then he chops into one after
another of the pines, until he finds one
that he feels sure will split freely, cuts
this down, saws off a section four feet
long, splits it, and from this first cut,
perhaps seven feet in diameter, he gets
shakes enough for a cabin and its fur-
niture, walls, roof, door, bedstead, ta-
ble, and stool. Besides his labor, only a
few pounds of nails are required. Sap-
ling poles form the frame of the airy
building, usually about six feet by eight
in size, on which the shakes are nailed,
with the edges overlapping. A few bolts
from the same section that the shakes were
made from are split into square sticks
and built up to form a chimney, the in-
side and interspaces being plastered and
filled in with mud. Thus, with abun-
dance of fuel, shelter and comfort by his
own fireside are secured. Then he goes
to work sawing and splitting for the
market, tying the shakes in bundles of
fifty or a hundred. They are four feet
long, four inches wide, and about one
fourth of an inch thick. The first few
154
The American Forests.
thousands he sells or trades at the near-
est mill or store, getting provisions in
exchange. Then he advertises, in what-
ever way he can, that he has excellent
sugar-pine shakes for sale, easy of access
and cheap.
Only the lower, perfectly clear, free-
splitting portions of the giant pines are
used, perhaps ten to twenty feet from
a tree two hundred and fifty in height ;
all the rest is left a mass of ruins, to rot
or to feed the forest fires, while thou-
sands are hacked deeply and rejected in
proving the grain. Over nearly all of the
more accessible slopes of the Sierra and
Cascade mountains in southern Oregon,
at a height of from three to six thousand
feet above the sea, and for a distance
of about six hundred miles, this waste
and confusion extends. Happy robbers !
dwelling in the most beautiful woods,
in the most salubrious climate, breath-
ing delightful doors both day and night,
drinking cool living water, roses and
lilies at their feet in the spring, shed-
ding fragrance and ringing bells as if
cheering them on in their desolating
work. There is none to say them nay.
They buy no land, pay no taxes, dwell
in a paradise with no forbidding angel
either from Washington or from heaven.
Every one of the frail shake shanties is
a centre of destruction, and the extent
of the ravages wrought in this quiet way
is in the aggregate enormous.
It is not generally known that, not-
withstanding the immense quantities of
timber cut every year for foreign and
home markets and mines, from five to
ten times as much is destroyed as is
used, chiefly by running forest fires that
only the federal government can stop.
Travelers through the West in summer
are not likely to forget the fire-work dis-
played along the various railway tracks.
Thoreau, when contemplating the de-
struction of the forests on the east side
of the continent, said that soon the coun-
try would be so bald that every man
would have to grow whiskers to hide its
nakedness, but he thanked God that at
least the sky was safe. Had he gone
West he would have found out that the
sky was not safe ; for all through the
summer months, over most of the moun-
tain regions, the smoke of mill and forest
fires is so thick and black that no sun-
beam can pierce it. The whole sky, with
clouds, sun, moon, and stars, is simply
blotted out. There is no real sky and
no scenery. Not a mountain is left in
the landscape. At least none is in sight
from the lowlands, and they all might
as well be on the moon, as far as scenery
is concerned.
The half dozen transcontinental rail-
road companies advertise the beauties
of their lines in gorgeous many-colored
folders, each claiming its as the " scenic
route." " The route of superior desola-
tion " the smoke, dust, and ashes route
would be a more truthful description.
Every train rolls on through dismal
smoke and barbarous melancholy ruins ;
and the companies might well cry in
their advertisements : " Come ! travel
our way. Ours is the blackest. It is
the only genuine Erebus route. The
sky is black and the ground is black,
and on either side there is a continuous
border of black stumps and logs and
blasted trees appealing to heaven for
help as if still half alive, and their mute
eloquence is most interestingly touching.
The blackness is perfect. On account of
the superior skill of our workmen, ad-
vantages of climate, and the kind of trees,
the charring is generally deeper along
our line, and the ashes w are deeper, and
the confusion and desolation displayed
can never be rivaled. No other route
on this continent so fully illustrates the
abomination of desolation." Such a
claim would be reasonable, as each se.ems
the worst, whatever route you chance to
take.
Of course a way had to be cleared
through the woods. But the felled tim-
ber is not worked up into firewood for
the engines and into lumber for the
The American Forests.
155
company's use : it is left lying in vulgar
confusion, and is fired from time to time
by sparks from locomotives or by the
workmen camping along the line. The
fires, whether accidental or set, are al-
lowed to run into the woods as far as
they may, thus assuring comprehensive
destruction. The directors of a line
that guarded against fires, and cleared
a clean gap edged with living trees, and
fringed and mantled with the grass and
flowers and beautiful seedlings that are
ever ready and willing to spring up,
might justly boast of the beauty of their
road ; for nature is always ready to heal
every scar. But there is no such road
on the western side of the continent.
Last summer, in the Rocky Mountains,
I saw six fires started by sparks from
a locomotive within a distance of three
miles, and nobody was in sight to pre-
vent them from spreading. They might
run into the adjacent forests and burn
the timber from hundreds of square
miles ; not a man in the State would
care to spend an hour in fighting them,
as long as his own fences and buildings
were not threatened.
Notwithstanding all the waste and use
which have been going on unchecked
like a storm for more than two centu-
ries, it is not yet too late, though it is
high time, for the government to begin
a rational administration of its forests.
About seventy million acres it still owns,
enough for all the country, if wisely
used. These residual forests are gen-
erally on mountain slopes, just where
they are doing the most good, and
where their removal would be followed
by the greatest number of evils ; the
lands they cover are too rocky and high
for agriculture, and can never be made
as valuable for any other crop as for the
present crop of trees. It has been shown
over and over again that if these moun-
tains were to be stripped of their trees
and underbrush, and kept bare and sod-
less by hordes of sheep and the innu-
merable fires the shepherds set, besides
those of the millmen, prospectors, shake-
makers, and all sorts of adventurers, both
lowlands and mountains would speedily
become little better than deserts, com-
pared with their present beneficent fer-
tility. During heavy rainfalls and while
the winter accumulations of snow were
melting, the larger streams would swell
into destructive torrents ; cutting deep,
rugged-edged gullies, carrying away the
fertile humus and soil as well as sand and
rocks, filling up and overflowing their
lower channels, and covering the lowland
fields with raw detritus. Drought and
barrenness would follow.
In their natural condition, or under
wise management, keeping out destruc-
tive sheep, preventing fires, selecting the
trees that should be cut for lumber, and
preserving the young ones and the shrubs
and sod of herbaceous vegetation, these
forests would be a never failing fountain
of wealth and beauty. The cool shades
of the forest give rise to moist beds and
currents of air, and the sod of grasses
and the various flowering plants and
shrubs thus fostered, together with the
network and sponge of tree roots, absorb
and hold back the rain and the waters
from melting snow, compelling them to
ooze and percolate and flow gently
through the soil in streams that never
dry. All the pine needles and rootlets
and blades of grass, and the fallen de-
caying trunks of trees, are dams, storing
the bounty of the clouds and dispensing
it in perennial life-giving streams, in-
stead of allowing it to gather suddenly
and rush headlong in short-lived devas-
tating floods. Everybody on the dry
side of the continent is beginning to find
this out, and, in view of the waste going
on, is growing more and more anxious
for government protection. The out-
cries we hear against forest reserva-
tions come mostly from thieves who are
wealthy and steal timber by wholesale.
They have so long been allowed to steal
and destroy in peace that any impedi-
ment to forest robbery is denounced as
156
The American Forests.
a cruel and irreligious interference with
" vested rights," likely to endanger the
repose of all ungodly welfare.
Gold, gold, gold ! How strong a voice
that metal has !
" wae for the siller, it is sae preva'lin'."
Even in Congress, a sizable chunk of gold,
carefully concealed, will outtalk and out-
fight all the nation on a subject like for-
estry, well smothered in ignorance, and
in which the money interests of only a
few are conspicuously involved. Under
these circumstances, the bawling, blether-
ing oratorical stuff drowns the voice of
God himself. Yet the dawn of a new day
in forestry is breaking. Honest citizens
see that only the rights of the govern-
ment are being trampled, not those of
the settlers. Merely what belongs to all
alike is reserved, and every acre that is
left should be held together under the
federal government as a basis for a gen-
eral policy of administration for the pub-
lic good. The people will not always be
deceived by selfish opposition, whether
from lumber and mining corporations or
from sheepmen and prospectors, however
cunningly brought forward underneath
fables and gold.
Emerson says that things refuse to be
mismanaged long. An exception would
seem to be found in the case of our for-
ests, which nave been mismanaged ra-
ther long, and now come desperately
near being like smashed eggs and spilt
milk. Still, in the long run the world
does not move backward. The wonder-
ful advance made in the last few years,
in creating four national parks in the
West, and thirty forest reservations, em-
bracing nearly forty million acres ; and
in the planting of the borders of streets
and highways and spacious parks in all
the great cities, to satisfy the natural
taste and hunger for landscape beauty
and righteousness that God has put, in
some measure, into every human being
and animal, shows the trend of awaken-
ing public opinion. The making of the
far-famed New York Central Park was
opposed by even good men, with mis-
guided pluck, perseverance, and ingenu-
ity ; but straight right won its way, and
now that park is appreciated. So we con-
fidently believe it will be with our great
national parks and forest reservations.
There will be a period of indifference on
the part of the rich, sleepy with wealth,
and of the toiling millions, sleepy with
poverty, most of whom never saw a for-
est ; a period of screaming protest and
objection from the plunderers, who are
as unconscionable and enterprising as
Satan. But light is surely coming, and
the friends of destruction will preach
and bewail in vain.
The United States government has
always been proud of the welcome it has
extended to good men of every nation,
seeking freedom and homes and bread.
Let them be welcomed still as nature
welcomes them, to the woods as well as
to the prairies and plains. No place is
too good for good men, and still there is
room. They are invited to heaven, and
may well be allowed in America. Every
place is made better by them. Let them
be as free to pick gold and gems from
the hills, to cut and hew, dig and plant,
for homes and bread, as the birds are to
pick berries from the wild bushes, and
moss and leaves for nests. The ground
will be glad to feed them, and the pines
will come down from the mountains for
their homes as willingly as the cedars
came from Lebanon for Solomon's tem-
ple. Nor will the woods be the worse
for this use, or their befiign influences
be diminished any more than the sun is
diminished by shining. Mere destroyers,
however, tree - killers, spreading death
and confusion in the fairest groves and
gardens ever planted, let the government
hasten to cast them out and make an
end of them. For it must be told again
and again, and be burningly borne in
mind, that just now, while protective
measures are being deliberated languidly,
destruction and use are speeding on faster
Some Unpublished Letters of Dean Swift.
157
and farther every day. The axe and
saw are insanely busy, chips are flying
thick as snowflakes, and every summer
thousands of acres of priceless forests,
with their underbrush, soil, springs, cli-
mate, scenery, and religion, are vanish-
ing away in clouds of smoke, while, ex-
cept in the national parks, not one forest
guard is employed.
All sorts of local laws and regulations
have been tried and found wanting, and
the costly lessons of our own experience,
as well as that of every civilized nation,
show conclusively that the fate of the
remnant of our forests is in the hands
of the federal government, and that if
the remnant is to be saved at all, it must
be saved quickly.
Any fool can destroy trees. They can-
not run away ; and if they could, they
would still be destroyed, chased and
hunted down as long as fun or a dollar
could be got out of their bark hides,
branching horns, or magnificent bole
backbones. Few that fell trees plant
them ; nor would planting avail much
towards getting back anything like the
noble primeval forests. During a man's
life only saplings can be grown, in the
place of the old trees tens of centuries
old that have beien destroyed. It took
more than three thousand years to make
some of the trees in these Western woods,
trees that are still standing in perfect
strength and beauty, waving and sing-
ing in the mighty forests of the Sierra.
Through all the wonderful, eventful cen-
turies since Christ's time and long be-
fore that God has cared for these
trees, saved them from drought, disease,
avalanches, and a thousand straining,
leveling tempests and floods ; but he can-
not save them from fools, only Uncle
Sam can do that.
John Muir.
SOME UNPUBLISHED LETTERS OF DEAN SWIFT.
I.
JOHN FORSTKR, who lived to complete
but one of the three volumes in which he
had planned to write the Life of Jona-
than Swift, speaks in the preface of his
hero's correspondence " with his friend
Knightley Chetwode, of Woodbrooke,
during the seventeen years (1714-1731)
which followed his appointment to the
deanery of St. Patrick's. Of these let-
ters," Forster goes on to say, " the rich-
est addition to the correspondence of this
most masterly of English letter-writers
since it was first collected, more does
not need to be said here ; but of the
late representative of the Chetwode fam-
ily I crave permission to add a word.
His rare talents and taste suffered from
his delicate health and fastidious tem-
perament, but in my life I have seen few
things more delightful than his pride
in the connection of his race and name
with the companionship of Swift. Such
was the jealous care with which he pre-
served the letters, treasuring them as an
heirloom of honour, that he would never
allow them to be'moved from his family
seat ; and when, with his own hand, he
had made careful transcript of them for
me, I had to visit him at Woodbrooke
to collate his copy with the originals.
There I walked with him through ave-
nues of trees which Swift was said to
have planted."
As Forster did not bring down the Life
later than 1711, three years and more
before the first of these letters was writ-
ten, he made scarcely any use of the
correspondence. He refers to it twice,
and twice only. On his death, the copy
of the originals, with the corrections he
158
Some Unpublished Letters of Dean Swift.
had made, was returned to Woodbrooke.
It has lately come into my possession.
What wonder would have seized on
Swift's mind had it been foretold to him
that these letters of his, after lying hid-
den nearly two hundred years, were first
to see the light of day in an American
magazine ! America, to borrow the words
of Edmund Burke, "served for little
more than to amuse him with stories of
savage men and uncouth manners." For
him " the angel did not draw up the
curtain, and unfold the rising glories of
the country." He rarely mentions the
settlements in his writings ; and when
lie does, it is for the most part with ig-
norance and contempt. He regrets that
England's long and ruinous war with
France had kept " Queen Anne's care
of religion from reaching her American
plantations. These noble countries," he
continues, "stocked by numbers from
hence, whereof too many are in no very
great reputation for faith or morals,
will be a perpetual reproach to us, until
some better care be taken for cultivat-
ing Christianity among them." In his
Modest Proposal for Preventing the
Children of Poor People in Ireland
from being a Burden to their Parents
or Themselves, he says, " I have been
assured by a very knowing American of
my acquaintance in London, that a young
healthy child, well nursed, is at a year
old a most delicious, nourishing, and
wholesome food, whetker stewed, roast-
ed, baked or boiled." His strange igno-
rance of the natural history of America
is shown in one of his papers in The
Spectator, where he makes some Indian
kings who had visited London say that
" whigs and tories engage when they
meet as naturally as the elephant and
the rhinoceros."
Of the intimacy of Knightley Chet-
wode with Swift nothing, apparently, was
known to the dean's earlier biographers.
He is not mentioned in the more recent
Life by Craik. His name is found only
once in the twenty-four volumes of Nich-
ols's edition of Swift's works. He was
sprung from a family which for some
centuries had its seat at Warkworth, near
Banbury, where the tombs of many gen-
erations of Chetwodes can still be seen.
In the reign of James I., the head of
the house ruined himself in vainly assert-
ing his claim to the Barony De Wahull.
Warkworth was sold. His son went into
the Church, became Dean of Gloucester,
and died on the edge of the Promised
Land, a bishop elect. It was the dean's
son who was Swift's correspondent. He
married the daughter and heiress of
Richard Brooking of Totness, and settled
in Ireland, near Portarlington, Queen's
County, about fifty miles southwest of
Dublin. The house which he built still
stands in its main fabric. He called it
Woodbrooke, a name compounded of the
second syllable of Chetwode and the first
of Brooking.
Swift's first letter to Chetwode was
written less than two months after the
queen's death had broken the whole
scheme of his life, and sent him back
to Ireland a soured and querulous man.
He who had been hand in glove with
great ministers of state was now to be
bullied by Dublin's archbishop and pelt-
ed by its mob. " I '11 lay you a groat,
Mr. Dean, I don't know you," said an
Irishman to him after his fall, with whom,
in the days of his prosperity, he had
lived in the greatest intimacy. " I '11 lay
you a groat, my Lord, I don't know you,"
Swift retorted to him, some years later,
when " the whirligig of time had brought
about its revenges," and he was the fa-
vorite, if not of the crown, at all events
of the people. Before those happier days
came he had long " to shelter himself in
unenvied obscurity." During the seven
years which followed the accession of
George I., Swift continued, to use his
own words, " in the greatest privacy.
This manner of life," he added, " was
not taken up out of any sort of affection,
but merely to avoid giving offence, and
for fear of provoking party zeal."
Some Unpublished Letters of Dean Swift.
159
" And oh ! how short are human schemes !
Here ended all our golden dreams."
It was in these lines that he mourned
the ruin which had come on himself and
his friends by the death of a foolish wo-
man. The blow surely was one which a
great man should have borne without a
lamentation prolonged from year to year.
Of Anne no one now thinks without a
certain feeling of good-natured contempt.
She is the last person whom we associate
with her own age. The age of Queen
Anne is the age of Marlborough, of
Addison and Steele, of Swift and Pope,
of Prior and Gay, and not of the weak,
silly woman who sat on the throne. In
nothing does Swift more show that vein
of baseness which ran through him than
in his dejection at her death and in his
estimate of her character. In his will he
described her as "of ever glorious, im-
mortal, and truly pious memory, the
real nursing mother of her kingdoms."
In his sixty-third year he wrote to Lord
Bolingbroke, " I was forty-seven years
old when I began to think of death." It
was the queen's death, he implies, which
first turned his thoughts towards mor-
tality. In his lamentations over her we
seem to hear " a broken worldling wail."
The blow which had fallen upon him was
indeed severe. His great friends had
lost their places ; some of them had fled
across the sea, others were in the Tower,
while he himself was a suspected man.
Nevertheless, why should he have been
greatly troubled in mind ? Why should
he have given way to " reiterated wail-
ings " ? He was the proud patriot who
boasted that
" Fair liberty was all his cry ;
For her he stood prepared to die."
He was the Christian philosopher
" Who kept the tenour of his mind
To merit well of humankind."
His querulousness never came to an end,
not even when he had shaken off the
dread of prosecutions, and had gained
a high place, not among ministers and
Courtiers, but in the love of the people
among whom his lot was cast.
His correspondence withChetwode cov-
ers both these periods, his downfall
and his dejection, his second elevation
and his haughty pride. It covers, too,
the rapid growth of that terrible malady
which far more even than disappointed
ambition clouded his, life. In the midst
of all his moody discontent and his suf-
ferings he shows that "fidelity in friend-
ship " for which he was praised by one
who knew him well. His advice and his
aid were for many years at Chetwocle's
service. It is true that their friendship
was at last dissolved in anger, but it
seems likely that the chief blame of the
rupture did not lie at Swift's door. In
the second year of their correspondence
he had to rebuke Chetwode for " an
ugly suspicion ; " as one " who has," he
added, " more of punctilio and suspicion
than I could wish." It was an ugly sus-
picion which parted them in the end.
The squire of Woodbrooke, as is shown
by the last letters which passed between
them, was a suspicious man. Swift, more-
over, was not an easy man to deal with.
" He predominated over his companions
with very high ascendancy, and probably
would bear none over whom he could
not predominate. To give him advice
was, in the style of his friend Delany,
' to venture to speak to him.' "
In preparing these letters for publica-
tion, I may justly claim some small share
of credit for my moderation in sparing
my readers most of the learned notes
which I had accumulated. Had I only
had them at my mercy between the cov-
ers of a book, I could have found it in
my heart to bestow on them all my te-
diousness. I could still find it ; but let
them be of good cheer : they are under
the safeguard of an editor who will not
tolerate dullness, even though it should
come robed in erudition.
*So much by way of introduction. It
is time to raise the curtain, and to let
Swift spaak for himself.
160
Some Unpublished Letters of Dean Swift.
[To Knightley Chetwood Esqre at his House
near Port-Arlington in the Queen's County.]
[pr post.]
DUBLIN. Septr 27-1714.
S R [SiB], The Person who brought
me your Letter delivered it in such a
Manner, that I thought I was at Court
again, and that the Bearer wanted a
Place ; and when I received it, I had
my answer ready to give him after Pem-
sall, that I would do him what service I
could. But I was easy when I saw your
Hand at the Bottom, and then I recol-
lected I was in Irel d [Ireland], that the
Queen was dead, the Ministry changed,
and I was onely the poor Dean of St.
Patricks. My Chapter joyns with me :
we have consulted a Lawyer, who (as it
is usuall) makes ours a very good Case ;
my desires in that point are very moder-
ate, onely to break the Lease, and turn
out nine Singing men. I should have
been with you before this time, if it had
been possible for me to find a Horse ; I
have had twenty sent to me ; I have got
one, but it is good for nothing ; and my
English horse was so ill I was forced to
send him to Grass. There is another
Evil, that I want a Stock of Hay, and
I cannot get any : I remember Prince
Butler used to say, By my Soul there is
not a Drop of Water in the Thames for
me. This is my Case ; I have got a
Fool to lend me 50 Pounds, and now I
can neither get Hay nor Horse, and the
Season of the former is going. How-
ever if I cannot soon get a Horse, I will
send for my own from Grass, and in two
days endeavour to reach you ; for I hear
Octob r is a very good month.
Jordan has been often telling my
Agent of some idle Pretence he has to a
bitt of one of my Parishes worth usually
about 5 lb p. ami. [five pounds per annum],
and now the Queen is dead perhaps he
may talk warmer of it. But we in pos-
session always answer in those Cases, that
we must not injure our Successors. Those
idlej claims are usual in Irel' 1 , where there
ha^ been so much Confusion in Parishes,
bu't they never come to anything.
1 1 desire my humble Service may be
presented to M rs Chetwood.
\ I am your most obedient
humble Servt
1 JON : SWIFT.
Bept. 28. This was writt last night not
knowing the Post day ; I now tell you
that by noise and Bone-fires I suppose
the Pacquets are come in with account
of -the King's arrivall.
The " singing men " of his cathedral
gave Swift some trouble. " My amuse-
ments," he wrote to Pope, " are defend-
ing my small dominions against the arch-
bishop and endeavouring to reduce my
rebellious choir."
His difficulty about getting a good
horse lasted at least seven years longer.
For providing post-horses he knew of a
simple expedient. More than a century
later, Miss Edgeworth accompanied Sir
Walter Scott and his son the captain on
a tour in Ireland. " When some diffi-
culty occurred about horses Sir Walter
said, ' Swift, in one of his letters, when
no horses were to be had, says, " If we
had but a captain of horse to swear for
us we should have had the horses at
once ; " now here we have the captain
of horse, but the landlord is not moved
even by him.' "
" Prince Butler " wag Brinsley Butler.
He and his brother Theophilus (after-
wards first and second Barons of New-
town) were at Trinity College, Dublin,
with Swift. " Brinsley " he cut down
to "Prince," "Theophilus" to "Ophy."
The pretense to a bit of one of his
parishes he thus humorously mentions
in a letter to Lord Bolingbroke : " I
would retire if I could ; but my country
seat, where I have an acre of ground,
is gone to ruin. The wall of my own
apartment is fallen down, and I want
mud to rebuild it, and straw to thatch it.
Besides a spiteful neighbour has seized
Some Unpublished Letters of Dean Swift.
161
on six feet of ground, carried off my
trees, and spoiled my grove."
George I. arrived at Greenwich on
September 18, ten days before the news
reached Dublin.
n.
DUBLIN. Ocber 6th 1714
S R , I acknowledge both your Let-
ters, and with any common Fortune
might have spared you the Trouble of
reading this by coming my self : I used to
value a good Revenue, because I thought
it exempted a man from the little sub-
altern Cares of Life ; and so it would if
the Master were wise, or Servants had
honesty and common Sense : A man who
is new in a House or an Office has so
many important Nothings to take up his
time, that he cannot do what he would
I have got in Hay ; but my Groom
offended against the very letter of a Pro-
verb, and stackt it in a rainy day, so
that it is now smoaking like a Chimny ;
my Stable is a very Hospitall for sick
Horses. A Joyner who was to shelve a
Room for my Library has employed a
fortnight, and yet not finished what he
promised in six days. One Occasion I
have to triumph, that in six weeks time
I have been able to get rid of a great
Cat, that belonged to the late Dean, and
almost poisoned the House. An old
Woman under the same circumstances
I can not yet get rid of, or find a Maid.
Yet in Spight of all these Difficultyes, I
hope to share some part, of October at
Wood-brook. But I scorn your Coach
for I find upon Tryall I can ride.
Indeed I am as much disquieted at the
Turn of publick Affairs as you or any
man can be. It concerns us Spirituall
men in a tender temporall Point. Every
thing is as bad as possible ; and I think
if the Pretender ever comes over, the pre-
sent men in Power have traced traced
[sic] him the Way Y r Servant is just
come for this, and I am dressing fast for
Prayers.
Y r most obed* &c. J. S.
VOL. LXXX. NO. 478. 11
Irish servants Swift attacked from
the pulpit. " Are our goods embezzled,
wasted and destroyed ? is our house
burnt to the ground ? It is by the sloth,
the drunkenness or the villany of ser-
vants. Are we robbed and murdered in
our beds ? It is by confederacy with our
servants. . . . Nay the very mistakes,
follies, blunders and, absurdities of those
in our service are able to ruffle and
discompose the mildest nature, and are
often of such consequence as to put whole
families into confusion."
He described his library as " a little
one. A great library always makes me
melancholy, where the best author is as
much squeezed and as obscure as a por-
ter at a coronation."
He was exact in his daily attendance
at the cathedral service. Three weeks
before the date of this letter, he wrote,
" I live a country life in town, see no-
body, and go every day once to prayers ;
and hope in a few months to grow as
stupid as the present situation of affairs
will require." He used to read prayers
every evening to his household, but so
secretly that a friend had lived with him
more than six months without discover-
ing it.
in.
DUBLIN. Octber 20th 1714.
S R , The Bishop of Dromore is ex-
pected this night in Town on purpose to
restore his Cat, who by her perpetual
noise and Stink must be certainly a whig.
In complyance to y r observation of old
women's tenderness to each other, I have
got one as old and ugly as that the Bish-
op left, for the Ladys of my Acquaint-
ance would not allow me one with a
tolerable Face tho I most earnestly in-
terceded for it. If I had considered the
uncei'tainty of weather in our CHmat,
I should have made better use of that
short sunshine than I did ; but I was
amusing myself to make the Publick Hay
and neglected my own Do you mean
my Lady Jenny Forbes that was ? I had
almost forgot her. But when Love is
162
Some Unpublished Letters of Dean Swift.
gone, Friendship continues. I thought
she had not at this time of day been at
a loss how to bring forth a child. I find
you are ready" at kindling other peoples
bonfires than y r own. I had one last
night par maniere d'acquit, and to save
my windows.
Your closet of 18 foot square is a
perfect Gasconnade I suppose it is the
largest Room in y r House or rather two
Rooms struck out into one. I thank you
for your Present of it, but I have too
many rooms already, I wish you had all
I could spare, tho' I were to give you
money along with them. Since you talk
of your Cave de brique, I have bought
46 dozen Bottles and want nothing but
the Circumstance of Wine to be able to
entertain a Friend. You are mistaken,
I am no Coy Beauty but rather with sub-
mission like a Wench who has made an
Assignation and when the day comes,
has not a Petticoat to appear in. I am
plagued to death with turning away and
taking Servants, my Scotch groom ran
away from me ten days ago and robbed
me and several of the neighbourhood. I
cannot stir from hence till a great Vessell
of Alicant is bottled and till my Horse
is in a condition to travel and my chim-
ney piece made I never wanted so
much a little country air, being plagued
with perpetual Colds and twenty Ayl-
ments yet I cannot stir at present as
things stand.
I am y r most obedient &c.
The Bishop of Dromore, Dr. John
Sterne, was " the late Dean " of a preced-
ing letter. Swift, in some lines written
on a window of the deanery house, de-
scribes the change which his promotion
had caused :
" In the days of good John, if yon came here
to dine,
You had choice of good meat, but no choice
of good wine.
In Jonathan's reign, if you come here to eat,
You have choice of good wine, but no choice
of good meat."
Swift was fond of wine. In his old age
he wrote to a London alderman, " My
chief support is French wine, which,
although not equal to yours, I drink a
bottle to myself every day." " He was
always careful of his money," writes John-
son, " and was therefore no liberal en-
tertainer, but was less frugal of his wine
than of his meat. At last his avarice
grew too powerful for his kindness ; he
would refuse a bottle of wine, and in
Ireland no man visits where he cannot
drink." " You tell us," Swift himself*
once wrote to a friend, " your wine is
bad and that the clergy do not fre-
quent your house, which we look upon
as tautology."
In his abuse of the Whigs Swift almost
surpassed Johnson, who maintained that
the first Whig was the devil, and that
" the Whigs of America multiply with
the fecundity of their own rattlesnakes."
Nevertheless, the dean said, and said
with much truth, that " he was always a
Whig in politics." It was in church mat-
ters that he was a Tory.
The bonfire was kindled on account
of the coronation of George I. In some
towns in England the window - break-
ing was all the other way. The cry
of the Bristol rioters, for instance, was,
" Damn all foreign governments." In
Dublin the mob was Protestant and
Hanoverian.
*
IV.
[Indorsed, " A pencil note fr Wodebrook where
he came in K. C's [Knightley Chetwode's]
absence dining out."]
Not to disturb you in the good work
of a Godfather nor spoil y r dinner,
I onely design M rs Chetwode and you
would take care not to be benighted ;
but come when you will you shall be
heartily welcome to my House. The
children's Tutor is gone out and so there
was no Pen and ink to be had.
WOODBROOK. Novr 6'*
past one in the afternoon.
\
Some Unpublished Letters of Dean Swift.
163
v.
[Indorsed, " This was my advice to a young
Lady."]
I look [sic] over the inclosed some
time ago, and again just now ; it con-
tains many good Things, and wants
many alterations. I have made one or
two, and pointed at others, but an Author
can only sett his own Things right.
Friday.
VI.
[per messenger.]
DUBLIN. Decbr 3. 1714.
S B , M r Graves never came to me
till this morning, like a vile Man as he
is. I had no Letters from Engl d ; to vex
me except on the publick Account, T am
now teazed by an impertinent woman,
come to renew her Lease, the Baron and
she are talking together I have just
squired her down, and there is at pre-
sent no body with me but yes now
M r Wall is come in and now another
You must stay ; Now I am full of
company again and the Baron is in hast,
I will write to you in a Post or two.
Manly is not Commiss nr nor expects it.
I had a very ingenious Tory Ballad sent
me printed, but receiving it in a Whig
house I suddenly read it, and gave it to
a Gentleman with a wink, and ordered
him to burn it, but he threw another Pa-
per into the Fire. I hope to send you
a Copy of it. I have seen nobody since
I came. Bolton's Patent for St. War-
braw is passed, and I believe I shall
find Difficultyes with the Chapter about
a Successor for him. I thought to give
the Baron some good Coffee, and they
made it so bad, that I would hardly give
it to Wharton. I here send some Snuff
to M rB Chetwood ; the Baron will tell
you by what Snatches I write this Paper.
I am y rs &c.
My humble Service to Dame Plyant.
Manley was Postmaster-General of
Ireland in 1718. Swift, in that year,
sending a letter by private hand, wrote
by way of explanation, " M r Manley has
been guilty of opening letters that were
not directed to him."
The dean prided himself on his skill
in making coffee. He once said to a lady
who asked for a cup, " You shall have
some in perfection ; for when I was
chaplain to the Earl of Berkeley, who
was in the government here, I was so
poor I was obliged to keep a coffee-
house, and all the nobility resorted to it
to talk treason." He thereupon made
the coffee himself. Lord Wharton, to
whom he would hardly have given the
bad coffee, had been Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland. " He was," said Swift, " the
most universal villain that I knew." His
son was scarcely less profligate. " One
day he recounted to the dean several
wild frolics he had run through. ' My
Lord,' said Swift, 'let me recommend
one more to you take a frolic to be
good ; rely upon it, you will find it the
pleasantest frolic you ever were engaged
in.' "
" Dame Plyant " was no doubt Chet-
wode's wife.
VII.
[pr private -hand.]
Janry 3d 17}
... I believe you may be out of the
Peace, because, I hear almost all our
Friends are so. I am sorry Toryes are
put out of the King's Peace : he may
live to want them in it again. My Vis-
itation is to be this day Sennight, after
which I soon intend for the county of
Meath : I design great Things at my
Visitation, and I believe my Chapter
will joyn with me : I hear they think
me a smart Dean : and that I am for
doing good : my notion is, that if a
man cannot mend the Publick he should
mend old shoes if he can do no better ;
and therefore I endeavor in the little
Sphere I am placed to do all the good it
is capable of. As for judicious John,
he is walked off : y r curssed good Ale
ruined him. He turned such a Drunk-
ard and Swaggerer, I could bear him no
164
Some Unpublished Letters of Dean Sivift.'
longer : I reckon every visit I make you
will spoil a Servant. I shall come with
2 Servants and 3 Horses, but a Horse
and a Serv* I shall leave at Trim. I
hear an universall good Character of M r
Davise ; but however I shall have my
eye over him and the lads. As for news,
the D 1 a bitt do I ever hear, or suf-
fer to be told me. I saw in a Print that
the K - [King] has taken Care to
limit the Clergy what they shall Preach ;
and that has given me an Inclination to
preach what is forbid : for I do not con-
ceive there is any Law yet for it. My
humble Service to Dame Ply ant. You
talk of ye Hay but say nothing of ye
Wine. I doubt it is not so good as at
Woodbrook : and I doubt I shall not
like Martrey half so well as Wood-
brook. . . .
The government, threatened by inva-
sion from without and insurrection from
within, had no hesitation in removing
Tories from the magistracy. Three
even of the English judges lost their
places on the king's accession.
Trim, where Swift was to leave a
horse and a servant, is a small town
twenty miles from Dublin, pleasantly
mentioned in Thackeray's lines about
the Duke of Wellington :
" By memory backwards borne,
Perhaps his thoughts did stray
To that, old house where he was born
Upon the first of May.
" Perhaps he did recall
The ancient towers of Trim ;
And County Meath and Dangan Hall
They did revisit him."
At Laracor, close by, was Swift's vicar-
age, where he spent some of his happi-
est days. In his absence it was com-
monly inhabited by Stella and her com-
panion ; when he returned they moved
into Trim. The garden which he laid
out, the willows which he planted, the
winding walk and the pool which he
made, have long disappeared. Of the
vicarage nothing is standing but the
fragment of an old wall. His duties as
parish priest were light. " I am this
minute very busy," he wrote, " being to
preach before an audience of at least
fifteen people, most of them gentle and
all simple."
VIII.
[private hand.]
DUBLIN Mar. 31. 1715.
S R , I have been these ten weeks re-
solving every week to go down to Trim,
and "from thence to Martry ; and have
not been able to compass it, tho' my
Country Affairs very much required my
Presence. This week I was fully de-
termined to have been at Trim, but my
Vicars hinder me, their Prosecutions be-
ing now just come to an Issue, and I
cannot stir from hence till the end of
April, when nothing but want of Health
or Horses shall hinder me. I can tell
you no news. I have read but one
Newspaper since I left you. And I
never suffer any to be told me. I send
this by my Steward, who goes to Trim,
to look after my Rents at Laracor
Pray present my most humble service to
Dame Plyant ; I suppose you do not very
soon intend to remove to the Queen's
County ; when I come to Trim I shall
after a few days there, stay awhile with
you, and go thence to Arthy [Athy] ; and
thence if possible to Connaught and half
round Irel d ; I hope y r little fire Side is
well. I am with great Truth and Es-
teem
Y r most obd 1 humble ser 1
J. S.
Is it impossible to get a plain easy
sound trotting Horse ?
The vicars under whose prosecutions
Swift suffered were the vicars-choral of
his cathedral, the " singing men " of his
first letter. Of his ignorance of public
news he protests somewhat too often and
too much. Some years later he wrote
to Pope : " I neither know the names
nor number of the Royal Family which
now reigns farther than the prayer-book
Some Unpublished Letters of Dean Swift.
165
informs me. I cannot tell who is Chan-
cellor, who are Secretaries, nor with what
nations we are in peace or war."
IX.
DUBLIN. April 6th 1715.
S R , Your Messenger brought me
y r Letter when I was under a very bad
Barbers hands, meaning my own ; I sent
for him up, because I heard he was some-
thing Gentlemannish, and he told me he
returned to-day ; so that I have onely
time to thank you for y r letter, and as-
sure you, that bar accidents I will be in
Trim in a fortnight I detest the Price
of tbatHorseiyoujmention, and as for your
Mare I will never trust her ; my Grand-
mother used to say that good Feeding
never brings good Footing ; I am just
going to Church, and can say no more,
but my humble service to Dame Plyant.
I believe the fellow rather thinks me
mad than is mad himself ; 16 lb ? why tis
an Estate, I shall not be master of it in
16 years.
I thought that Passage out of Shake-
spear, had been of my own Starting, and
that the Magistrate of Martry would not
have imagined it How can you talk of
going a Progress of 200 miles.
I know nothing of any Shoes I left.
I am sure they are not p d for and so at
least I shall be no loser whatever you
may be. Adieu.
Whether the saying that Swift at-
tributes to his grandmother was really
hers may well be doubted. " He used
to coin proverbs and pass them off for
old. One day when walking in a gar-
den he saw some fine fruit, none of which
was offered him by its stingy owner.
' It was an old saying of my grandmo-
ther's,' he said ; ' always pull a peach
when it lies in your reach.' He accord-
ingly plucked one, and his example was
immediately followed by all the rest of
the company under the sanction of that
good old saying." Another day, seeing
a farmer thrown from his horse into a
slough, he asked him whether he was
hurt. " ' No,' he replied ; ' but I am
woundily bemired.' l You make good
the old proverb,' said Swift, ' the more
dirt, the less hurt.' The man seemed
much comforted with the old saying,
but said he had never heard of it be-
fore ; and no wonder, for the dean had
made it on the occasion."
x.
[per post.]
DUBLIN. June 21. 1715.
I was to see Jordan, who tells me
something but I have forgot it, it was,
that he had a Letter ready and you were
gone, or something of that kind. I had
a terribly hot journey and dined with
Forbes, and got here by 9. I have been
much entertained with news of myself
since I came here, tis s d there was an-
other Packet directed to me, seised by
the Government ; but after opening sev-
eral Seals it proved onely plum-cake. I
was this morning with the A. Bp : [Arch-
bishop] who told me how kind he had
been in preventing my being sent to &c ;
I s d I had been a firm" friend of the last
Ministry, but thought it brought me to
trouble my self in little Partyes without
doing good, that I therefore expected
the Protection of the Government and
that if I had been called before them I
would not have answered one Syllable
or named one Person He s d that would
have reflected on me, I answered I did
not value that ; that I would sooner suf-
fer more than let any body else suffer by
me as some people did The Letter
w ch was sent was one from the great L dy
[Lady] you know, and inclosed in one
from her Chaplin my Friends got it,
and very wisely burned it after great
Deliberation, for fear of being called to
swear ; for w ch I wish them half hangd
I have been named in many Papers
as a proclaimed for 500 Ib I want to be
with you for a little good meat and cold
Drink ; I find nothing cold here but the
Reception of my Friends. I s d a good
166
Some Unpublished Letters of Dean Swift.
deal more to the A. Bp : not worth tell-
ing at this distance I told him I had
several Papers, but was so wise to hide
them some months ago. A Gentleman
was run through in the Play-house last
night upon a squabble of their Footmen's
taking Places for some Ladyes. My
most humble Service to Dame Plyant,
pray God bless her fireside.
They say the Whigs do not intend to
cut of Ld. [Lord] Oxford's head but
that they will certainly attaint poor Ld.
Bolingbroke.
Twelve years later Swift wrote to the
archbishop : " From the very moment
of the Queen's death your grace has
thought fit to take every opportunity of
giving me all sorts of uneasiness, with-
out ever giving me in my whole life one
single mark of your favour, beyond com-
mon civilities."
The "great L dy " was the Duchess
of Ormond, whose husband had fled to
France. Though Swift, to use his own
words, " looked upon the coming of the
Pretender as a greater evil than any we
are likely to suffer under the worst Whig
ministry that can be found," neverthe-
less by the Protestant mob of Dublin he
was at this time treated as a Jacobite.
He never went abroad without servants
armed to protect him.
The misconduct of footmen was com-
mon enough in those days. In Swift's
Directions to Servants, " the last ad-
vice to the footman relates to his beha-
viour when he is going to be hanged."
In London, many years later, when an
effort was made to put an end to the
custom of guests giving servants vails
(presents of money), the footmen, night
after night, raised a riot in Ranelagh
Gardens, and mobbed some gentlemen
who had been active in the attempt.
" There was fighting with drawn swords
for some hours ; they broke one chariot
all to pieces."
Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, was
attainted of high treason, but after an
imprisonment of nearly two years in the
Tower he was acquitted. On his way
to the coronation " he had been hissed
by the mob ; some of them threw halters
into his coach." On his acquittal " the
acclamations were as great as upon any
other occasion." Bolingbroke escaped
to France.
XI.
DUBLIN. June 28. 1715.
I .write to you so soon again, contrary
to my nature and Custom which never
suffered me to be a very exact Corre-
spondent. I find you passed y r Time
well among Ladyes and Lyons and St.
Georges and Dragons Yesterday's post
brought us an Ace* that the D of
O [Duke of Ormond] is voted to be
impeached for high Treason. You see
the Plot thickens ; I know not the pre-
sent Disposition of People in Engl d but
I do not find myself disposed to be sorry
at this news However in generall my
Spirits are disturbed, and I want to be
out of this Town. A Whig of this Coun-
try now in Engl d has writt to his Friends,
that the Leaders there talk of sending
for me to be examined upon these Im-
peachments, I believe there is nothing
[in] it ; but I had tlris t notice from one
who said he saw the Letter or saw some-
body that saw it. I write this Post to
D r Raymd [Raymond] to provide next
Sunday for M r Sub, so I suppose he may
be at ease, and I wish I were with him.
I hope Dame has established her Credit
with you for ever, in the point of Valor
and Hardyness You surprise me with
the Ace 1 [account] of a Disorder in y r
head I know what it is too well and I
think Dame does so too. You must drink
less small beer, eat less sallad, think less,
walk and drink more, I mean Wine and
Ale, and for the rest, Emeticks and bit-
ters are certainly the best Remedyes.
What Length has the River walk to 30
foot bredth ? I hope 8 thousand at
least. If Sub. had no better a tast for
Bief and Claret than he has for Improve-
mts of Land, he should provide no Din-
Some Unpublished Letters of Dean Swift.
167
ners for me Does Madam gamble now
and then to see it ? How is the Dean's
field ? So it cost a bottle of wine ex edy
[?] to dry poor Sub. I hope he some-
times loses his eyes to please Dame.
There is a Collegian found guilty of
speaking some words ; and I hear they
design in mercy to whip or Pillory him.
I went yesterday to the Courts on pur-
pose to show I was not run away. I had
warning given me to beware of a fel-
low that stood by while some of us were
talking It seems there is a Trade go-
ing of carrying stories to the Govr t
[Government], and many honest Folks
turn the Penny by it I can not yet
leave this Place but will as soon as pos-
sible. Tom this minute brought me up
word that the Baron's man was here,
and that his master is in Town I hope
to see him, and give him half a breast
of mutton before he goes back. He is
now with a Lawyer. I believe old Lom-
bard Street is putting out money The
Repoi-t of the Secret Committee is pub-
lished. It is a large volume. I onely
just saw it Manly [? at Manly's]. It is
but a Part, and probably there will be as
much more.
I do not believe or see one word is
offered to prove their old Slander of
bringing in the Pretender. The Trea-
son lyes wholly in making the Peace.
Ch. Ford is with L d Bol [Lord Boling-
broke] in Dauphine within a League of
Lyons, where his L d ship [Lordship] is
retired ; till he sees what the Secret Com-
mittee will do. That is now determined
and his L d ship will certainly be attainted
by Act of Parl m>t [Parliament]. The
Impeachm* 8 are not yet carryed up to
the L d8 [Lords]. I suppose they intend
to make one work of it.
Dr. Raymond was the vicar of Trim,
where Stella often was his guest. He
visited Swift in London. " Poor Ray-
mond," the dean wrote to her, " just
came in and took his leave of me ; he is
summoned by high order from his wife,
but pretends he has had enough of Lon-
don."
" M r Sub " was the subdean of St.
Patrick's Cathedral.
The disorder in the head, of which
Swift knew what it was too well, marred
his whole life. " The two maladies of
giddiness and deafness from which he
suffered had their common origin in a
disease in the region of the ear, to which
the name of labyrinthine vertigo has
been given." " I got my giddiness," he
wrote, " by eating a hundred golden pip-
pins at a time." On this Johnson re-
marks : " The original of diseases is com-
monly obscure. Almost every boy eats
as much fruit as he can get without any
great inconvenience." Thinking little,
exercise, and wine were Swift's chief re-
medies. " Vive la bagatelle " was his fa-
vorite maxim.
On July 7 of this year the Archbishop
of Dublin wrote to Addison : " 'T is
plain there 's a nest of Jacobites in the
college ; one was convicted last term ;
two are run away, and, I believe, bills
are found against one or two more."
A master of arts was expelled for mak-
ing a copy of the pamphlet Nero Secun-
dus, and two bachelors of arts and two
students paid the same penalty for speak-
ing disrespectfully of the king. Of the
whipping or pillory with which Swift's
" collegian " was threatened I can find
no mention.
The Secret Committee of the House
of Commons had examined into the ne-
gotiations for the Treaty of Utrecht. As
the result, Oxford, Bolingbroke, and Or-
mond were impeached. " You know,"
Swift wrote to Pope, " how well I loved
both Lord Oxford and Bolingbroke, and
how dear the Duke of Ormond is to me.
Do you imagine I can be easy while
their enemies are endeavouring to take
off their heads ? ' I nunc, et versus te-
cum meditare canoros.' " Anne's Tory
ministers, he said, had not " designed
any more to bring in the Pretender than
the Great Turk."
168
Some Unpublished Letters of Dean Swift.
XII.
DUBLIN July 7. 1715.
I had y r Letter tother day by M r
Foxcroft who was so kind to call on me
this morning, but would not stay and
dine with me tlio' I offered him Mutton
and a Bottle of Wine. I might have
been cheated of my Gingerbread for any
thing you s d [said] in your letter, for I
find you scorn to take notice of Dame's
kind Present ; but I am humbler and
signify to her that if she does not receive
by M r Foxcroft a large tin pot well
crammed with the D. of Omds. [Duke
of Ormond's] snuff, holding almost an
ounce, she is wronged. I wish. Lough-
lin had not been mistaken when he saw
me coming into your Court, I had much
rather come into it than into the Court
of Engl d I used formerly to write Let-
ters by bits and starts as you did when
Loghlin thought I was coming ; and so
now I have been interrupted these 3
hours by company, and have now just
eaten a piece of Bief Stake spoiled in the
dressing, and drunk a Cup of Sour Ale,
and return to finish my Letter ; Walls
sate by me while I was at my dinner,
and saw me finish it in five minutes,
and has left me to go home to a much
better. . . . Sure you stretch ye Walk
when you talk of 5000 foot, but y r
Ambition is to have it longer than M r
Rochfort's Canal, and with a little Ex-
pense it will be made a more beautif ull
thing. Are you certain that it was Ma-
dam's green Legs you saw by the River
Side, because I have seen in England a
large kind of green Grass hopers, not
quite so tall but altogether as slender,
that frequent low marishy grounds. The
Baron told me he was employd here,
by you in an Affair of Usury (of w ch I
give you Joy) but did not tell me the
particulars. I believe the Affair of y r
English Uncle is true, I have had it from
many Hands. How is that worse than
the B p of London's Let r [Letter] to his
Clergy and their Answer, both ov\ning
that the Tumults were in order to bring
in Popery and Arbitrary Power a Re-
proach which the Rabble did not de-
serve ; and has done us infinite hurt. I
have not seen the Articles, I read no
news and hear little. There is no mercy
for the poor Collegian : and indeed as
he is s d to have behaved himself, there
could none be expected. The Report is
printed here but I have not read it. I
think of going for Eng d (if I can get
leave) when L d Sund [Lord Sunder-
land] comes over, but not before unless
I am sent for with a Vengeance. I am
not much grieved at y r being out of the
Peace ; I heard something of it the day
I left you, but nothing certain. Major
Champigne has hard usage, and I am
truly concerned for him and his Lady.
I am told here that some of our Army
is to be transported for Engl d . I had a
Letter this Day from thence, from the
Person who sent me one from a Lady,
with great Satisfaction that hers to me
was not seized. That Letter talks doubt-
fully of the D. Ormd. [Duke of Or-
mond] that the Parlmt. resolves to carry
matters to the highest Extreems, and are
preparing to impeacli the D. Shrows b-
[Duke of Shrewsbury] which the K.
[King] would not suffer at first, but at
length has complyed with. That Prior
is kept closer than Greg, to force him
to accuse Ld. Oxfrd [Lord Oxford] tho*
he declares he knows nothing ; and that
it is thought he will be hanged if he will
not be an Evidence, and that Ld. Oxf d
confounds them with his Intrepidity &c.
I think neither of y r Places is remote
enough for me to be att, and I have some
Project of going further, and am look-
ing out for a Horse ; I believe you will
be going for Engl d by the Time I shall
be ready to leave this ; hasty foolish Af-
fairs of the Deanery keep me thus long
here. My humble Service to Dame, pray
God bless her and her Fireside. The
Baron gave me hopes of doing something
about Kilberry Did he tell you how
I pulled Toms Locks the wrong way for
Some Unpublished Letters of Dean Swift.
169
holding a Plate under his Arrnpitt and
what cursed Bacon we had with our
Beans ?
Adieu.
Swift wrote of snuff : "I believe it
does neither hurt nor good ; but I have
left it off, and when anybody offers me
their box I take about a tenth part of
what I used to do, and then just smell
to it, and privately fling the rest away :
I keep to my tobacco still." He never
smoked, but " he used to snuff up cut
and dry tobacco, which sometimes was
just coloured with Spanish snuff. He
would not own that he took snuff."
On Archdeacon Walls's vicarage Swift
wrote some charming verses. It was so
small that no one guessed it was for hu-
man habitation.
" The doctor's family came by,
And little miss began to cry,
Give me that house in my own hand !
Then madam bade the chariot stand,
Called to the clerk, in manners mild,
Pray reach that thing here to the child :
That thing, I mean, among the kale ;
And here 's to buy a pot of ale.
The clerk said to her in a heat,
What ! sell my master's country seat ! "
Swift had described the Bishop of Lon-
don as having ; ' a saint at his chin and
a seal at his fob." He was at that time
Dean of Windsor and Lord Privy Seal,
one of the last Churchmen in Eng-
land who held high political office. The
" saint," I suppose, was the bands he
wore as a priest. He had not in his Let-
ter to his Clergy gone quite so far as
Swift says he had. " The disturbances,"
he had written, " will prove in the end
introductive of Popery and Arbitrary
Power."
The " D. Shrows b " was the Duke of
Shrewsbury. Swift's spelling indicates
the proper pronunciation of the name of
the town. " I hope you say Shrews-
bury," an old gentleman who had spent
some of his early days there once said
to me. At the present time almost every-
body makes the first syllable rhyme with
" shoes," and not with " shows." The
duke was not impeached. He had held
high office ; nevertheless he said, '' Had
I a son, I would sooner breed him a cob-
bler than a courtier, and a hangman than
a statesman."
The poet Prior was one of the com-
missioners by whom the Peace of Utrecht
was made.
Gregg (not Greg), who in 1708 was
a clerk in the office of the Secretary of
State, was detected in treasonable corre-
spondence with France, and condemned
to death. While lying under sentence
he was examined in Newgate by " seven
lords of the Whig party." It was al-
ways said that had he implicated the
secretary (Harley, afterwards Earl of
Oxford) his life would have been spared.
He persisted, however, in taking the
whole guilt upon himself, and at the end
of a month he was executed.
Dr. Johnson was more patient with
his black servant Frank than Swift was
with his Irish Tom. Miss Reynolds tells
us how " one day, as his man was waiting
at Sir Joshua's table, he observed with
some emotion that he had the salver un-
der his arm." The emotion did not ex-
press itself in hostile acts.
XIII.
Aug. 2d 1715.
Considering how exact a Correspondent
you are, and how bad a one I am my
self, I had clearly forgot whether you
had answered my last Letter, and there-
fore intended to have writt to you today
whether I had heard from you or no :
because M r Warburton told me you were
upon y r return to Martry. Tho it be
unworthy of a Philosopher to admire at
any thing, and directly forbidden by
Horace, yet I am every day admiring at
a thousand things. I am struck at the
D. of O [Duke of Ormond's] flight,
a great Person here in Power read us
some Letters last night importing that
he was gone to the Pretender, and that
upon his first Arrivall at Calais he talked
170
Some Unpublished Letters of Dean Swift.
of the K. [King] only as Elector &c. But
this is laughed at, and is indeed wholly
unlike him, and I find his Friends here
are utterly ignorant where he is, and
some think him still in Engl d Aug. 4.
I was interrupted last post; but I just
made a Shift to write a few words to the
Baron. The Story of an Invasion is all
blown off ; and the Whigs seem to think
there will be no such Thing. They as-
sure us of the greatest Unanimity in
Engl d to serve the K. and yet they con-
tinue to call the Toryes all Jacobites.
They say they cannot imagine why any
Tory should be angry, since there never
was the least Occasion given : and par-
ticularly they cry up their Mercy shown
to Bingley. There is no news of any
more People gone off : tho' Ld. Shrews'*
was named. The Suspending the Habeas
Corpus Act has frightened our Friends
in Engl d . I am heartily concerned for
poor Jo, and should be more so if he
were not swallowed up by his Betters.
Give my Service to Dame Plyant, and
desire her to let you know what quantity
of Cherryes she has for Brandy ; you
may steep them in just enough to keep
them alive, and I will send you some
very good if I can and you will tell me
how much. But here I want Jo. I hope
Dame found the boys well and that she
gave them good Counsell upon the Sub-
ject of Gooseberryes and Codlings for I
hear the eldest had been a little out of
order.
I am glad to hear you and the
Doc tr [Doctor] are grown so well to-
gether, and was not M R. the civilest
thing in the world ? I find you intend
to take some very sudden Resolution, and
truly I was like to be as sudden for
I was upon the Ballance two hours whe-
ther I should not take out a License of
Absence immediately upon a Letter I
received ; but at last I thought I was too
late by a week for the Design ; and so I
am dropt again into my old Insipidness :
And the weather has been so bad, that
together with my want of a Horse, and
my Steward using one Every day about
my Tythes, I have not been a Mile out of
Town these 5 weeks, except once on foot.
I hear Major Champigny was left half
pay ; and consequently that he will now
have whole : so that he may yet eat bread.
God preserve you and Dame and the
fire-side, believe me ever
entirely y rs &c.
Swift could not long have doubted
that the Duke of Ormond spoke of King
George as Elector of Hanover, for on
landing in France he joined the Pretend-
er's party. He had in vain urged Lord
Oxford to fly with him. " Farewell, Ox-
ford, without a head," he said. Oxford
answered, " Farewell, duke, without a
duchy." The duke lost his duchy, but
Oxford kept his head, and his earldom
as well.
Two days before Swift wrote " the
Story of an Invasion is all blown off,"
the Earl of Mar had v stolen away from
London to raise the Highlands for King
James.
"Poor Jo" was Joseph Beaumont,
" an eminent tallow-chandler in Trim."
He is
" The grey old fellow, poet Jo,"
in Swift's verses on Archdeacon Walk's
house. He was a "projector," who hoped
to win the government reward for the
discovery of a method of ascertaining the
longitude. His disappointment, it was
believed, turned his brain, and he made
away with himself. Swift said that he
had known only two projectors, one of
whom ruined himself, and the other
hanged himself.
George Birkbeck Hill.
A Typical Kansas Community.
171
A TYPICAL KANSAS COMMUNITY.
FORTY years ago there were on the
map of Kansas a few red spots indicat-
ing the location of forts, and here and
there along the streams near the State's
eastern border were little circles indi-
cating towns. Many of the names upon
that early map remain, and designate
hopeless villages, the scenes of brave
deeds and patriotic efforts ; and a few of
the towns of a generation ago survive,
fulfilling in some small measure the
bright dreams of their founders. But
most of the old names, once familiar to
the whole nation, are forgotten. Could
some ghost of those stirring times come
back to call the roll, how many such
towns would fail to respond ! Quidaro ?
Gone ! Mariposa ? Gone ! Sumner ?
Gone ! Tecumseh ? Gone ! Minneola ?
Gone !
From 1870, for several years eastern
and central Kansas was a battle-ground
between man and nature. In those years
the desert was finally subdued. Dur-
ing the succeeding decade, men devoted
themselves to the occupation of running
up and down the newly made garden
with surveyors' chains, making squares
and parallelograms, and selling them to
one another, or to such strangers as
were drawn into the game by the entice-
ment of speculation. Fictitious values
prevailed. There was a very plague of
financial delusions. Men from all parts
of the world were victims of the disease,
and came to Kansas to satisfy their long-
ing to behave unwisely. Cities sprang
up in a month. Men ceased to be busi-
ness men, and became gamblers, with
land as the stakes. Then, nine years ago,
the crash came. Since that time, the
face of the Kansas town, and the heart
of it too, have changed. One might rea-
sonably call the present an era of home-
making. The gambler has gone. The
speculator finds his market unrespon-
sive. Another generation is reaching
maturity. This generation, which is not
native to the State, is trying to make
home more attractive ; indeed, the word
"home" has been -generally applied to
Kansas for the first time during the last,
five years. The present residents of the
State mean to remain. They are no
longer in camp. No one now talks of
going " back home " when his fortune
is made. To mention this condition as
remarkable may amuse the outside world,
but the experience is a new and delight-
ful one for Kansas.
Chiefly by reason of its newness and of
a certain cosmopolitan aspect, the Kan-
sas town differs from villages elsewhere
in the United States, and presents a few
interesting variations from the common
type. The largest town in the com-
monwealth has hardly forty thousand
inhabitants. Most of the county-seats in
the eastern half of the State, where the
rainfall is copious and where crops are
bountiful and regular, contain about three
thousand persons each. The county-seat
is in the strictest sense a country town.
The people live almost entirely upon the
tributary country. There are no fac-
tories. The money that the farmers of
the county spend for food, clothing, fuel,
and the comforts of the farm home is
the cash capital upon which the town
does its business. This capital is passed
from the grocers to the clothing mer-
chants, to the druggists, to the furniture
dealers, to the hardware sellers, and to
professional men. In the older commu-
nities of the Eastern and Middle States
necessity has developed factories, which
convert raw material into finished pro-
ducts, and money from the outside world
comes in. But Kansas is yet hardly a
generation old, and it has not entered
the manufacturing era of industry.
In Kansas towns the streets run at
172
A Typical Kansas Community.
right angles. The highways are as
straight as the surveyor's chain could
make them. Set back at regular dis-
tances from the sidewalks are the more
pretentious residences, built in the obtru-
sive architectural style of the " boom "
days, complacent in their sham mag-
nificence. The paint has been washed
from many of them, and their faded ap-
pearance is almost tragic. The story of
these unpainted houses is written upon
the town, and in the leafless season it de-
presses the stranger ; but in early spring,
when the grass comes, nature covers up
the barren aspect. The smaller houses
of the village are less depressing. Per-
haps they do not cover such bitter disap-
pointment. They are like modest cot-
tages the world over.
There is in these towns an intense
social democracy, such as does not exist
in older American States. Class lines
are but indistinctly drawn. The term
u family," as used to distinguish the old
rich from the new rich, is meaningless.
There are of course gradations, lines
of difference, and distinction between
cliques and coteries, in the polite society
of any town. There are indeed the up-
per and the lower crusts in the social
formation. But there is no " dead-line."
In every Kansas community, society is
graded something after this fashion : the
" old whist crowd," the " young whist
crowd," the " literary crowd," the
" young dancing crowd," the " church
social crowd " or " lodge crowd," and the
" surprise party crowd." It often hap-
pens, in a family containing several
grown-up children, that one daughter at-
tends lodge socials, where there are
spelling-matches, and where she may en-
joy what the reporter for the country
paper calls " a literary and musical pro-
gramme." Perhaps the eldest daughter
attends the meeting of the Browning
Circle, where she is bored for an hour
or two ; she probably comes home with
a married couple who live on her street.
The son of the family goes across the rail-
road track, and dances a noisy quadrille
on a bare kitchen floor, to the music of
a cabinet organ and a fiddle. It is pos-
sible that the parents may be present
at the weekly meeting of the Bon Ton
Whist Club, where the festivities begin
with an elaborate seven o'clock supper.
At these stately functions, the awarding
of the gilt-edged copy of Ben-Hur and
the hand-painted smoking-set to the best
players forms an important part of the
evening's enjoyment.
This fictitious but typical instance
should -not be taken too literally, though
it is true enough to indicate the utter
absence in Kansas society of what in
older communities are called class lines.
One may almost choose his own compan-
ions. Wealth plays a minor part in the
appraisal of people. Indeed, the com-
mercial rating of the " lodge crowd " is
probably higher than that of the " old
whist crowd," although the " lodge
crowd " does reverence to the " old whist
crowd " by referring to it sneeringly as
" society." Since there are no old so-
cial standards, and since no one knows
anybody's grandfather's previous condi-
tion, young people find their own places.
The assorting occurs in the high school.
An ambitious mother, living on the
wrong side of the railroad, is glad to
find that her daughter has passed above
the " surprise party crowd," has gone
around the " church socials," and at the
end of her schooldays has planted her-
self firmly among the "entre-nous"
girls. There the young lawyer's wife
and the old cattleman's daughter meet.
A young woman in this group finds an
opportunity to marry into the " young
whist crowd." After the children are
in school she may be graduated easily
into the Bon Ton Whist Club. But if
she does not improve the opportunities
offered at the " entre-nous " gatherings,
in a few years she will begin to cultivate
her mind, and will drift naturally into
the Browning Circle. Then she will
appear occasionally at the quarterly town
A Typical Kansas Community.
173
dances, when the most exclusive wo-
men of the village wear their second-best
gowns as a rebuke to the men for invit-
ing such a mixed company.
Generally the church members do not
view these semi-public dances with alarm.
The Methodists are the strictest of the
popular sects in nearly every Kansas
community. When the State was safely
Republican by enthusiastic majorities, it
used to he said that the Methodist church
was the Republican church. In the old
days of the hoom, the Baptist church
was often called the Democratic church.
Even now the Baptists find their congre-
gations somewhat smaller than those of
the Presbyterians. In nearly every town
there is a struggling Episcopal chu'rch,
and in its folds gather the society lead-
ers, and the wives of the traveling men
who make their homes there. On the
outskirts of every important village are
to be found the humble meeting-houses
of worshipers after the old fashion,
the Friends, the Free Methodists, the
United Brethren, and the Dunkards.
These churches gather their congrega-
tions from the one-story houses of the
town and from the farms near by. Fre-
quently waves of intense religious feel-
ing sweep over these flocks. In winter
they hold "protracted meetings," and
glow with a fervor all unknown to the
dwellers in the upper streets. In sum-
mer these simple worshipers hold camp-
meetings in the groves along the creeks,
and members of the more fashionable
churches drive from town in the cool of
the evening, and from their buggies watch
them with patronizing interest.
It is the occupants of the buggies who
give the town whatever intellectual repu-
tation it may have in the State. They
are the buyers and the readers of books.
Nothing else indicates the exact grade of
a town's intelligence so clearly as the
books which the people read. The town
in which I write is a fair example of
Kansas communities ; and here all the
most interesting new books in popular
literature and the best periodicals have
a good market. Yet our kinspeople in
the Eastern States carefully save their
year-old magazines and books to send
to us. In every Kansas town there is
a group of men and women who read
the best books, and who go regularly to
Chicago or to St. Louis every year to
hear the best music..
During the days of the boom innumer-
able " real estate " colleges sprang up.
They indicated the presence of men and
women whose ideals were high, and who,
when money was abundant, immediately
began to surround themselves with those
influences that would soften the hard
environments of the Western life, and
make " reason and the will of God "
prevail. Their zeal led these promoters
beyond the limits of sound judgment,
but it is to their credit that their inten-
tions were good. The colleges survive,
and they are the best things that have
outlived the boom. Only here and there
has one been abandoned ; on the other
hand, in many a Kansas town, the little,
debt-ridden college that has survived, af-
ter a struggle against great odds, is the
nucleus around which gathers whatever
light the community may have. The chil-
dren of the adjacent country are sent to
these schools ; for though they are not the
best possible, they are the best now ob-
tainable. One finds, for instance, their
instructors on the school boards and in
the city councils. They appear as dele-
gates to the state political conventions,
indicating by their presence that the vot-
ers in the towns bear no grudge against
a man for being careful of his " seens "
and " saws." whatever men in the coun-
try may think of such refinements of
speech.
The best manifestation of the influ-
ence of the college is found in the se-
curity and growth of the town public
library. It is worth a ward politician's
political life to talk about cutting down
library expenses. Generally a public
library contains from one thousand to
174
A Typical Kansas Community.
four thousand books. The schoolchil-
dren, black and white, spend their odd
moments in the reading-room. Women
from every social circle use the books.
E. P. Roe is still the favorite author, as
he is the favorite author of the frequent-
ers of libraries in some of the Eastern
States. On the other hand, in one public
library in Kansas the copy of Emerson's
First Series of Essays has been rebound
four times. In this village no bookseller
finds it profitable to keep the old-fash-
ioned dime novels, so popular among boys
ten years ago.
When Kansas goes to the theatre, how-
ever, it drops back into the dark ages.
Doubtless there are worse theatrical com-
panies than those that visit Kansas, but
no one has ever described them. The
best people leave the theatre to those who
like to hear the galleries echo with mer-
riment when the supernumeraries walk
before the curtain to light the gas foot-
lights. The opera-house is not a town
gathering-place, except when the gradu-
ating exercises of the high school are held
there, and when the townspeople come
together to hear the terrible annual con-
cert of the silver cornet band. On these
occasions one observes the absence of the
chaperon, and here, as elsewhere in the
town, young men and women meet upon
terms of equality.
There are three out - of - doors town
gatherings, football games, baseball
games, and political meetings, where-
at men play a more important part than
they play in the opera-house, for they
are not manacled by decorum. At the
political meetings the men predominate ;
but at the town games it is the women
the younger women who give the scene
the appearance which may have made
ancient tournaments so glorious. Here
there is a homely familiarity. When one
pounds whoever sits beside him on the
bench, at the climax of the game, it is with
the assurance that one is pounding an
old friend. The men take off their coats,
but the crowd is decorous. There is no
drinking. A drunken boy at a Kansas
game would cause nearly as much com-
ment as a drunken girl. The girls join
in the college yells, talk across the ropes
to the players in the field, surge up and
down the line with the boys, and no one
sneers.
There are no rich men in these Kan-
sas towns. The men who own a million
dollars' worth of property number less
than half a score in the whole State.
Those who control half a million dollars'
worth of property might ride together
in a sleeping-car, with an upper berth or
two to spare. Every town has its rich
man, measured by a local standard, who
is frequently a retired farmer turned
banker ; not one in five of these is rated
at $100,000, but each is the autocrat
of his county, if he cares to be. The
mainspring that moves the town's daily
machinery may be found in the back
room of the bank. There it is decided
whether or not the bonds shall be voted.
There it is often determined whether
there shall be eight or nine months of
school. There the village chronicles are
spread upon the great ledgers every day.
The town banker supplies the money for
every contest. If he is wise, he watches
his little corner of the world as a spider
watches from its web. The great trust
which he keeps requires a knowledge of
the details of the game that men are
playing around him. Yet with all his
power this town banker would be count-
ed a poor man in the city. Seldom is
his annual income as much as $10,000.
But he lives in the best house in the town.
The butcher saves his best cuts for him,
the grocer puts aside his best vegetables,
and the whole town waits to do his bid-
ding.
Next to the banker in economic im-
portance is the best lawyer. If the town
is a thriving one, the lawyer makes per-
haps $4000 a year. But he does not
receive all his income in cash. Some of
it he takes in trade : from the farmer
butter and eggs, from the storekeeper
A Typical Kansas Community.
175
his wares, from the editor printing.
There are from three to five lawyers, in
each good county town in Kansas, who
earn more than $1500 a year. When
a lawyer gets in debt to a respectable
minority of the influential people, he
may be elected county attorney, and
during his term of office he is expected
to pay his debts. If he fulfills the pub-
lic expectation, he has another season
of waiting, and at the end of it he is
made district judge, when the balance-
sheet with the town is supposed again
to be made up. A district judge, upon
retirement, can generally make a living.
The town doctor knows so many things
about so many people, and so many peo-
ple owe him money, that he too is al-
ways considered a safe man to put on
a local county ticket. Be it said to his
credit he makes an efficient officer ; there
is no man in better standing than he.
In a community where there is no large
source of outside revenue, where no fac-
tory pours its wages into the local com-
merce, much of the business is done on
credit. The storekeepers do so much
bartering that they have established a
system of currency of their own. A mer-
chant will issue sets of coupons, in one
dollar and five dollar books. The cou-
pons are of various decimal denomina-
tions, and they read, " This coupon is
good for cents in trade at Wither-
spoon's grocery." When the cash in the
drawer is low, and when the creditor
will accept them, these coupons pass
over the counter for cash. They pass
from one hand to another, and are usually
accepted at face value. The merchant
invests his earnings in local bank-stock,
farms, or farm mortgages, and after
a while he may retire from business to
lend his money : then he is on the way
to the presidency of the bank. The real
estate agent and insurance broker who
lends money in a small way is also in
the line of promotion to the banker's
desk. But before he reaches the goal
he lives many a shabby day, which he
hopes the grocer and the coal dealer have
forgotten.
The real estate agent's money comes in
lumps, and he lacks the peace of mind
which the storekeeper's clerk enjoys,
whose wages may be $20 or $40 or even
$80 a month ; for his wages come regu-
larly, and there is always the reasonable
hope that some day he may be a partner
in the business or have a store of his own.
In addition to this hope, the clerk's so-
cial position may be as good as any-
body's. His wife and daughter may find
friends among the most desirable peo-
ple in the community. If the clerk and
his son do not meet their employer at
the whist club, it may be only because it
is their night " off " and his night " on "
at the store. Prices of real estate are
so low that many a man earning $50
a month builds a cottage by the aid of
the Home Building and Loan Company
which flourishes in every town. Instead
of paying rent, he pays interest and a
few dollars of the principal every month.
On his own lot he may grow flowers for
the annual sweet-pea contest, and fortune
may send him such a bounty of bloom
as will give him the right to assume a
tolerant air when discussing floriculture
with the man who holds his note.
The tenement-house and the flat are
unknown in Kansas. Wages are not
high, but opportunities for saving are
many. The man who, rated by his wages,
in another State would be called a poor
man, in Kansas is fairly well-to-do. A
printer's wages, for instance, are rare-
ly more than eight dollars a week, yet
many a printer has made a start in life,
and has even bought the paper which em-
ployed him. There is a tradition that
the Kansas country editor is poor. The
truth is, he earns from $1200 to $3000
a year. He lives well ; and being a pol-
itician, he frequently shares the party
loaves and fishes. He is respected and
his credit is good at the bank, where he
is able, and generally willing, to give the
one good turn which deserves another.
176
A Typical Kansas Community.
It may be said in the editor's favor that
he is the only regular employer of skilled
labor in the community. The mason
and the carpenter work at odd times.
The village cobbler does repairing only.
There are no great factories that employ
hundreds of laborers. Here and there
is a town favored with a railroad-shop,
where a few score men find irregular
work repairing damaged cars. But the
dinner-pail is hardly seen in Kansas.
A well-known writer of Western sto-
ries, half a decade ago, drew a picture
of 'the hopeless faces of the women who
rode in a parade of the Kansas Farmers'
Alliance. The type in the story was
interesting, but the real Kansas women
who rode in the Alliance parade saved
it from being a clumsy and stupid af-
fair. By their very presence they made
it a cheering, good-natured, color-flecked
pageant. They rode on hay-racks cov-
ered with patriotic bunting, and they
were dressed in white and in yellow at
the ratio of sixteen to one, to symbolize
their financial creed. In all the parades
of any political party the women are an
important feature. But their participa-
tion in politics practically ends with the
parades. They vote only in municipal
and school elections. Now and then, at
a municipal election in a very small town,
it happens that, half in a jocose spirit,
the men elect a woman's ticket, when
there is absolutely nothing for the woman
elected to do. The incident is a neigh-
borhood joke, at which the women laugh ;
and the thrifty correspondents of Eastern
journals sell to their papers " stories "
about the " great fight between the men
and the women of Kansas, which ended
in the overthrow of the men." Women
are often elected to clerical positions in
the county and in the city. A woman
was once successful as assistant attorney-
general of the State. When the Kansas
woman becomes a bread-winner, her so-
cial position is not affected. There is
no social circle that the working woman
finds it impossible to enter. The steno-
grapher, with her $50 a month, may
snub the banker's daughter. The school-
teacher finds no door closed to her social
advancement.
Yet it is said that Kansas is governed
by petticoats. If by this it be meant
that women shape the public sentiment
of the Kansas town, the saying is true.
In most towns in other States, the cor-
ners of the principal streets are occupied
by dram-shops. In the town where this
paper is written, the influence of women
has been exerted so forcibly that three
of the four corners where the two main
streets cross are occupied by banks. In-
stead of Hogan's Retreat on the fourth
corner stands a bookstore. There the
boys and the young men of the town
find a meeting-place. There they make
their appointments. There they browse
through the weekly illustrated papers
and the magazines, and look through new
books. In this bookstore the football
games are bulletined, the baseball games
are talked over, and politics finds its fo-
rum. Among all the men and boys who
frequent this resort there is no habitual
drinker ; there is not one whose naYne
has been stained with scandal. These
young fellows are business men, clerks,
professional men, real estate brokers,
and college students. They are clean,
shrewd, active young men, who have
been brought up in a town where the
women make public sentiment, in a
town of petticoat government, wherein a
woman has never held an administrative
municipal office. It is a town of eight
thousand inhabitants, without a saloon,
without a strange woman, without a town
drunkard.
Sloping down from a gentle hill to-
ward a creek, the Kansas town shows at
a distance its pointed steeples, its great
iron water-tower, and its massive school-
house, which stands above the elms and
cottonwoods and maples. No smoke-
stack pours its blackening flood over the
natural beauty of the grass and trees.
At night, the farmer across the valley
A Massachusetts Shoe Town.
177
sees the town as a garden of lights. At
such a time, one does not recall the
geometrically exact angles of the streets
and the gray dust upon the unpainted
houses ; the night softens the garish
remnants of the boom. Then the sun-
burned Kansas town has a touch of ro-
mance.
William Allen White.
A MASSACHUSETTS SHOE TOWN.
BROMPTON was one of the earlier New
England settlements. Its cemeteries con-
tain numerous stones dating back almost
to the middle of the seventeenth century,
and the town celebrated its bicentennial
years ago. Its first meeting-house was
burned by Indians. In the Revolution-
ary era its citizens hurried away to the
earliest engagements around Boston ; and
of that period it preserves many me-
morials, notably two fine old taverns, in
which some of the most famous of the
Continental officers are known to have
lodged. But we are not now concerned
with its history, and I come directly to
the time, a decade or so before the civil
war, when the town, after having been
for more than a century and a half a
small farming community, for which all
necessary boot and shoe making and re-
pairing were easily done by a few cob-
blers, was beginning to make shoes on a
larger scale, for export.
Brompton has neither water - power
nor any of the other natural advantages
which would have made it possible to
predict a manufacturing community.
Indeed, most shoe towns lack natural
advantages. The Providence which de-
termined the establishment of the first
shoe-shop in a new locality was inscruta-
ble. The first person to make shoes in
Brompton for sale elsewhere was a na-
tive of the tdwn, who had returned
thither with a competence, after several
years of experience in the shoe trade in
a neighboring town. A very old man,
now a hermit on a farm in Maine, who
worked in this Brompton shop during
VOL. LXXX. NO. 478. 12
his early manhood, recently said to me :
" They 're always a-tellin' they 's a
powerful lot o' wonderful new machines
been invented sence I worked in the shop,
nigh fifty year agone, an' I 'm willin'
to believe 'em ; but I '11 bet anything
they 's one thing they can't never make,
with all their inventin', an' that 's a ma-
chine to peg shoes with." This, from a
shoemaker, nearly a generation after the
pegging-machine had come into general
use, serves better than any detailed state-
ment to illustrate the simplicity of the
shoemaking methods of the early time.
The shop did not employ more than a
dozen men, all acquaintances of the manu-
facturer. The sons of the resident farm-
ers were quick to take to the new oc-
cupation, and several other shops were
started before the outbreak of the civil
war. A number of them, remodeled into
cottages, barns, store - houses, even hen-
houses, still stand, reminders of the mea-
gre beginnings of a great industry.
The immigrants to Massachusetts from
the northern New England States,
more especially from Maine, who began
to come about this time, found their way
to Brompton, as soon as the supply of
workmen from the neighborhood became
inadequate. The newcomers were for
the most part enterprising, unattached
young men, of good habits and antece-
dents. They were cordially received.
Although the transformation from a farm-
ing town to a manufacturing town was
fast taking place, the community was yet
essentially homogeneous in race, customs,
and religion.
178
A Massachusetts Shoe Town.
The first foreign immigrants were the
Irish, who, though they began work with
pick and shovel, speedily found employ-
ment in the shops. While not openly
maltreated by the native workmen,
Brompton was a dignified and orderly
community, they did not receive a
hearty welcome. The ill-omened Know-
Nothing movement came to embitter the
mutual dislike. Something of a communi-
ty of feeling was brought about, however,
by the later arrival of a common enemy,
the French Canadians, to whom, curiously
enough, the Irish, in spite of the iden-
tity of their religion, were quite as hos-
tile as the native Americans. In some
shops, the excitement waxed so fierce
that the Canadians were put to work in
rooms by themselves. Many devices were
employed by the jealous Irishmen to
make their lives miserable, one of which
was to dangle a big green-headed frog
on the end of a line before the windows
of their work-rooms ; the dangling being
accompanied, of course, by loud jeers re-
garding the traditional frog-eating pro-
clivities of Frenchmen. By a happy
chance, the first Frenchman who ven-
tured into Brompton is still living there ;
by a happier chance, he has a sense of
humor. He loves to tell of the mingled
curiosity and abhorrence his appearance
excited. " They had no notion of what
a Frenchman was like," he says. " They
stared at me and whispered about me as
if I were some strange animal. For a
long time they could n't make up their
minds whether I had horns under my
hat or not, but in the end they decided
that I had."
Early in the seventies to choose a
period long enough subsequent to the
civil war for the exceptional war condi-
tions to be eliminated Brompton had
grown from a farming town of two thou-
sand inhabitants' or less to a shoe town
of six thousand or more. A few wooden
blocks of business buildings were strung
along a central street, which was still
bordered in part by dwelling-houses and
open fields. There were a new and ex-
pensive town hall, the sole brick struc-
ture, a creditable soldiers' monument, and
a high-school building, lineal descendant
of the original academy. On the prin-
cipal streets were the town pumps. The
town had two Catholic churches (for
French and Irish respectively), five Pro-
testant churches, graded schools crowd-
ed into two large barnlike buildings,
the beginnings of a public library
thanks to the generous thought of one of
its " forehanded " storekeepers which
was kept in a room of the town hall,
lodges of several secret orders, a recent-
ly organized post of the Grand Army of
the Republic, a single weekly paper, a
volunteer militia company, two volunteer
fire companies, a brass band, a choral
society, a temperance reform club, and
the like. But the inner life of Bromp-
ton then was in every way significant.
Aside from the ready deference to
the ministers, doctors, lawyers, and edi-
tors, which was accorded always and
everywhere, Brompton was absolutely
without social distinctions. The typical
American shoemaker was under no so-
cial condemnation for the work he did.
He was able to associate on equal terms
with all the other people, including even
the families of his employers ; and while
the town was already of such a size that
it was not literally true that everybody
knew everybody else, it was at least true
that everybody could know everybody
else. The young man went courting
wherever his affections led him, and mar-
ried into whatever family he wished,
without question as to social privilege.
Then he rented an upstairs tenement, in
which his family lived on terms of equal-
ity and the greatest intimacy with the
family of the landlord, occupying the
ground floor, until such time as he could
buy or build a house for himself, the up-
per story of which could in its turn be
rented.
The newly married woman, trained in
the belief that it was her duty to do her
A Massachusetts Shoe Town.
179
part in one way or another either by
earning or by saving, or by both to-
ward the support of the family, kept on
working in the shop, if she had been
employed there before marriage, until
the arrival of children forced her to
withdraw. Then she did shoe-work at
home ; for the development of machin-
ery, considerable as it had been, had not
gone so far as to preclude that possibili-
ty. If she had not been a shop-worker
before marriage, she found some imme-
diately remunerative home - work soon
after, straw-sewing, perhaps ; for the
regular visitations of the " straw-men "
with wages and relays of work were an
important part of the daily routine on
many streets. She made her husband's
shirts and stockings, all the children's
clothes, and a large part of her own
millinery and dresses, and, except in
cases of invalidism or illness, did all her
housework, including the washing. How
she did all these things without neglect-
ing her children, or breaking down utter-
ly in health, is a mystery that only one
of these calculating, hard-working wo-
men could explain ; and then it would
be only another calculating hard-work-
ing woman who could understand the
explanation. That it meant no end of
aches, worries, and self-sacrifice is cer-
tain. Indeed, these women were as
true pioneers in their way as the wives
of the original settlers. There was no
great financial risk involved in marrying,
in those days. On the contrary, mar-
riage was likely to prove a good invest-
ment ; for such women saved their hus-
bands far more than they cost them.
The husband was no less devoted and
industrious after his fashion. Beside
working ten hours a day in the shop, he
toiled night and morning over a garden
plot. Many other things also he thought
he must do : there were ledges to be
cleared away ; uneven spots to be leveled ;
cellars to be banked ; wood to be sawed
and split ; grapevines, raspberry, cur-
rant, blackberry, and gooseberry bushes,
plum, peach, cherry, and apple trees, to
be set out and watched and pruned ; hens,
and sometimes a pig and a cow, to be
cared for. These out-of-shop activities
assured the family a bountiful supply of
fresh eggs, and fruit and vegetables in
larger variety than the average farmer
had, who devoted his attention to staple
crops. Furthermore, there was always
a surplus, greater or less, to be bartered
for meats and groceries. With an up-
stairs tenant more than providing for
the expense of repairs and taxes, the
orchard and garden going a long way
towards supplying food, and the thrifty
wife saving in a hundred ways, it was
possible for the shop-worker who owned
his house to put by a considerable part
of his wages. A description of the eco-
nomical devices of these workingmen's
households would fill a volume, and be
good reading all the way through, so re-
plete would it be with the humor and the
pathos of primitive living.
Sunday was scrupulously observed as
a day of rest even by, those who were
not members of the churches, the only
labor done being the rather formidable
getting ready for church, the prepa-
ration of meals, and the putting of the
clothes in soak for the Monday washing.
This conscientious observance of Sunday
is in all likelihood one reason why these
men and women did not succumb under
the strain of work to which they deliber-
ately subjected themselves.
The pleasures of their lives were of
the simplest, most inexpensive sort, so
homely as to seem hardly worth men-
tioning. In the winter, when the days
were too short to admit of much work
out of doors, and on occasional spare
evenings in the summer, the men strolled
down town, after supper, to attend their
lodges or to gossip in the stores and
markets, which still retained the tenden-
cy to sociability characteristic of coun-
try marts. A curious social feature of
the town was the gathering at the post-
office, to await the distribution of the
180
A Massachusetts Shoe Town.
mails, of the business men, who made it
a point to be on the ground a full half-
hour too early, to chat together the
longer. Noteworthy, too, was the social
atmosphere of the shop, under the easy
supervision then in vogue. Good-na-
tured raillery and capital jokes did
much to vary the monotony of labor.
There was a healthy helpfulness among
the workers that felt no need of the ma-
chinery of organization. Financial mis-
fortune falling suddenly on any one of
their number evoked immediate and
generous subscriptions, and in cases of
serious sickness there were many volun-
teer watchers. "
Among the women neighborliness pre-
vailed to the fullest extent, and in this lay
a large share of their diversion. There
were continuous borrowings and lendings
of household supplies, shri-ll communica-
tions from window to window, and ex-
changes of confidence over the back
yard fences. Housewives sallied forth,
after the dinner dishes were cleared
away, sewing-work in hand, and as like
as not baby in arms, to sit and work
and rock and gossip with the neighbors.
Then there were the formal invitations
to " come and spend the afternoon and
stay to tea," the acceptance of which in-
volved " fixing up " and the substitution
of fancy-work for necessary sewing on
the part of both hostess and guest. The
church sewing-circle, the hospitalities of
which were often extended to non-mem-
bers, was another large feminine re-
source, and funerals were still another.
It was the era of croquet, surprise par-
ties, wedding anniversaries, church " so-
ciables " that did not belie their name,
baby-shows, singing-schools, school ex-
hibitions, Grand Army of the Republic
camp-fires open to the public, exciting
religious revivals, pledge-soliciting tem-
perance crusades almost as exciting, po-
litical rallies taken seriously, Election
Day militia musters, and annual prize
exhibitions and parades by the farmers
and tradesmen. Thanksgiving Day and
Fast Day had still some civil and reli-
gious significance ; the war was yet near
enough for the Decoration Day exercises
to provoke real emotion. The rivalry of
the two local fire companies with those
of the neighboring towns and with each
other prompted many challenges, high-
colored parades, and thrilling trials of
strength. An annual lecture course was
directed by a committee of the citizens,
and the choral society could be counted
on to give at least one concert a winter.
Not the least interesting of the events
of each year were the regular and spe-
cial town meetings, which gave to all the
men an opportunity of informing them-
selves and expressing themselves on
matters of town policy, and to the few
who were ambitious to become proficient
in public speaking and'debate an excel-
lent opportunity for practice. The town
meetings were undoubtedly a strong in-
fluence in arousing and keeping eager
an enlightened public spirit. In nearly
all the events and diversions, even the
town meeting, the children shared. Just
as they were taken to church long be-
fore the age of comprehension, so they
were taken to lectures, concerts, and so-
cial functions quite beyond them ; the
family, not the individual, being account-
ed the social unit.
The limitations of this life are appar-
ent, especially the limitations that come
from the narrowness of the church creeds
and from a too exclusive attention to the
acquisition of money for its own sake.
Protestants and Catholics despised one
another cordially, not as individuals, but
as Protestants and Catholics. Congrega-
tionalists and Unitarians were unwilling
to forget their ancient disputes and the
schism that had caused them to separate.
The evangelical denominations, though
united in scorn of Universalists and Uni-
tarians, were jealous of one another in
the pettiest conceivable ways ; and while
no one church claimed social superiority
over the others, church life was so dis-
proportionate a part of the whole life that
A Massachusetts Shoe Town.
181
church lines were in too many cases the
lines of friendship, and even of acquaint-
ance. Cards, billiards, the dance, and
the theatre were held in abhorrence by
the members of the evangelical churches,
though, with the humorous inconsis-
tency characteristic of narrowness, they
raised no objection to their children's
playing the most vulgar kissing-games,
and it made no end of garrulous scan-
dal, especially at the sewing-circles, if a
church member was even suspected of
indulging in any of these amusements.
Economy often shriveled into pitiful
miserliness ; and even when it did not
turn out so badly, it became a fixed habit
which it was impossible to break after
the necessity for it had long passed away.
Every aspect of existence was somehow,
sooner or later, adjusted to a financial
standard ; even religion, which, translat-
ed into the vernacular, meant a hard,
methodical, assiduous " laying up of trea-
sure in heaven." Utility was everything;
beauty, emotion, were as nothing. Ve-
getable patches were allowed to invade
front yards ; hens were permitted every-
where except in the gardens ; the grass
around the houses was mown only at
long intervals because of its value as
hay ; and if a pet cat, though loved as a
child, was detected catching chickens, it
had to die, because chickens were worth
money, and cats were not. Such a habit
of life, while it assured an old age free
from danger of the poorhouse, also as-
sured a resourceless, joyless one.
It was a peculiar period, this of the
early seventies of Brompton, unfamiliar
enough already to most of us, though so
near in time. A simple, frugal, indus-
trious, earnest, honest, homely existence,
it was also a hard, narrow, sombre one.
Did the people take themselves alto-
gether too seriously ? Perhaps. At any
rate, whatever its merits and defects,
Brompton was to all intents and pur-
poses, at that time, a pure social demo-
cracy. Because it was a social democra-
cy it has been worth describing in detail.
Let us leap over a quarter of a cen-
tury. Brompton has to-day more than
twice the population it had in the earlier
period, and it is governed by a mayor
and aldermen instead of by a town meet-
ing and a board of selectmen. The
Irish and the French have continued to
come in, until they constitute a majority
of the population. . There has also been
a large immigration from the maritime
provinces of Canada. Other industries
than shoemaking have been introduced
from time to time, but, except those that
are cognate to shoemaking, they have not
been able to gain a permanent foothold.
Accordingly, Brompton remains, and for
a long time yet is likely to remain, a
town of a single industry.
Its streets now have sidewalks, and
they are lighted by electric lights and
traversed by electric cars. The main
street is an unbroken double row of well-
constructed brick blocks. There are a
hospital, a park, an opera-house, a water
supply, a sewerage system, and a mail
delivery service. The dwelling-houses
are almost pretentious, and their grounds
are scrupulously trim with velvety lawns.
The public schools are better housed and
better equipped than they used to be,
and the long-languishing district schools
have been happily suppressed ; the few
children still living in the outskirts are
brought into the centre daily at the city's
expense. The public library, much in-
creased in size, improved and supple-
mented by a complete reading-room, in
a beautiful memorial building of stone
adorned with works of art, is now sec-
ond in educational influence only to the
schools.
The early hostility between the French
and the Irish is extinct. Between the
Protestants and the Catholics something
of the old religious antagonism persists,
it is true, but it has ceased to have viru-
lence or any influence in town affairs.
It has well-nigh succumbed to the mu-
tual understanding and appreciation pro-
duced by long and constant association ;
182
A Massachusetts Shoe Town.
and it is a significant if trifling fact that
the first one of the clergymen of Bromp-
ton to call upon the rector of a newly
founded Episcopal church was the Irish
priest. It is no uncommon thing for
all the churches to unite in a work of
general beneficence.
Sunday, without ceasing to be a day
of rest, has become a day of rational and
quiet pleasures also ; for Sunday is the
especial day for bicycling, driving, and
social visiting. Church -going has de-
creased relatively to the growth in popu-
lation, and the influence of the churches
upon the community has been even more
than correspondingly lessened. The au-
thority of the churches is but the shadow
of what it once was in Brompton. This
new independence, however, is a sign of
honest personal thinking rather than of
indifference to serious things. It is ac-
companied in many instances by an awak-
ening of intelligent interest in practical
charity, philanthropy, or social reform.
In the last twenty-five years, then,
Brompton has not only grown rapidly in
size and improved greatly in appearance,
but it has been " liberalized in theology
and life." The element of charm has
entered. Life has been softened, sweet-
ened, refined ; it has come to touch the
big world at more points and enjoy it at
more ; it is freer, fuller, brighter, more
graceful, in a word, more civilized.
There have been other and more
radical changes. Tenement-houses have
become numerous ; not yet, fortunately,
those of the large city type, nor the
dreary, monotonous block-houses of mill
towns, but houses built to rent solely
as a speculation by non-resident as well
as resident owners. With the disappear-
ance of the upstairs tenement has disap-
peared also the old cordial social rela-
tion between landlord and tenant, which
has been replaced by a purely commer-
cial relation. It is no longer considered
respectable to belong to the class of man-
ual laborers. A young man, and even
more a young woman, who is employed
in a shoe-shop suffers a discrimination
which only an exceptional bonhomie or
social talent is sufficient to overcome.
Just as the young men of the farms
came to work in the shops of Brompton,
years ago, quite as much because they
felt themselves disgraced by farm labor
as because they hoped to mend their for-
tunes, so their sons, inflamed by the san-
guine circulars of commercial colleges
and flie braggart talk of " drummers,"
feel contempt for the metier of the fa-
thers, and are seeking positions as clerks
and salesmen. And just as the young
farmers found the young women of their
native places reluctant to become their
wives while they continued farmers, so in
Brompton the young men find the young
women slow to marry shop-workers.
How far the more and more complete
subdivision of labor through the multi-
plication of machines is a reason of the
loss of respect for the man who works
in the shop it is difficult to say. In the
shoe industry, however it may be in
other employments, it has probably been
a less important influence than it is usu-
ally thought to be. It requires as good
judgment and as great care, and in-
volves quite as much responsibility, to
run most of the machinery of a modern
shoe-shop as it did to do the hand-work
of former days ; the difference between
the old worker and the new being not
unlike that between the horse-car driver
and the electric-motor man.
Women who do their own work, not
to mention those who help the family
exchequer by earning money after the
former fashion, are considered as little
respectable as men who do manual labor.
Recently married women, no better off
financially than their mothers were at the
same period of their lives, contract large
bills for millinery and dressmaking, and
employ servants to do all the work, or
outsiders to come in for the harder part
of it ; while young husbands, no better
off than their fathers were, smoke ex-
pensive cigars, whereas their fathers
A Massachusetts Shoe Town.
183
smoked cheap pipes if anything, and
hire laboring men to shake down their
furnaces and to mow their lawns. Sum-
mer outings in the country (though
Brompton itself is still country enough
to be a resort for city people) are re-
garded as an indispensable part of the
yearly programme of families who would
be considered comme ilfaut.
In further evidence of the social change
may be cited a socially exclusive club for
men, housed in a richly appointed club
building ; a similarly exclusive club for
women ; a supplanting of the old neigh-
borly running in and out by formal calls ;
the giving of conventionally stupid after-
noon teas and pretentious evening recep-
tions ; the entry, very recent, into the
latter, of the dress coat for men and the
decollete corsage for women ; the appear-
ance of the punch-bowl ; a general elabo-
ration of dress and house - furnishings,
and a decided amelioration of street,
drawing-room, and table manners. In
a word, the people of Brompton who do
not work with their hands imitate the
society of the large cities, and hold them-
selves aloof from those who do work with
their hands ; and those who work, hop-
ing against hope to secure social recogni-
tion, imitate the imitators, whose claims
to social superiority they acknowledge
only too readily.
More avenues of expense and relative-
ly fewer sources of income mean extrava-
gance, and extravagance means habitual
non-payment of debts, which in the end
saps integrity, as several firms at Bromp-
ton, obliged to go into bankruptcy, not
from dearth of custom, but from inability
to collect outstanding bills, would feel-
ingly testify. A part of the decrease of
integrity may be traced to the deceits
practiced in these later days in the mak-
ing of a shoe. Though the workmen hold
themselves no more responsible for these
deceits than the machines through whose
aid, as well as their own, they are effect-
ed, the influence in the long run can
hardly fail to be morally deleterious.
Under these conditions, cheating comes
easily to be regarded as a necessary and
legitimate business operation.
Greater extravagance has made mar-
riage a formidable thing, and it is ac-
cordingly postponed, with the inevitable
bad result on morals. An additional
cause of immorality and of other moral
disorders is the utter lack of rational even-
ing amusement for the young men and
young women who, owing to the insist-
ence on social distinctions, cannot go into
" society," and who, feeling that they
must go somewhere, frequent the most
available place, the street. The presence
of a branch of the Young Men's Chris-
tian Association is at once a confession
of this social destitution, and an attempt,
not too wisely nor too well directed, to
relieve it. Any evening, but especially
on Saturday evening, crowds of these
young men and young women, arrayed
in their "loudest" clothes, promenade
up and down the main street, ogling and
chaffing and flirting. That the ogling
and chaffing and flirting sometimes result
disastrously scarcely need be said ; that
they do not oftener result disastrously is
a marvel, to be explained only by the
proverbial virtue of the shop-girl.
Yet the transformation of Brompton
is far less complete than might appear
from these somewhat bald statements.
The life of the former Brompton has not
entirely disappeared. Such is not the
manner of social evolution. Always the
old persists within the new. The work-
ing men and women who established
themselves under the democratic regime
are still granted social consideration, how-
ever far from the genteel path their
course of life may be, and a portion of
this consideration is extended to their
children, whatever may be their means
of livelihood. There are still detached
families who have a simple, wholesome,
satisfying home life, and many parents
who are practicing a rigid, self-sacrifi-
cing economy. All classes of citizens
patronize the public schools, and in them
184
A Massachusetts Shoe Town.
social democracy prevails almost as of
old, and it abides also in some of the
churches. But these and other traces of
the past are really exceptions to the rule.
Broadly speaking, Brompton has under-
gone an internal revolution, as a result
of which economy, simplicity, and social
equality have been superseded by extra-
vagance, display, and social distinctions.
The foreigners of Brompton deserve
separate and special consideration. The
improvement they have made in their
ways of living, particularly in the last
quarter of a century, is nothing short of
phenomenal. Originally, they were un-
tidy as well as wretchedly poor, and their
settlements for, with the clannishness
characteristic of foreigners, they herded
together were veritable slums in as-
pect. Their unpainted houses, little bet-
ter than shanties, and their grassless and
disorderly yards, swarmed with smutty,
frouzly - headed, half - naked children.
Now, their houses are so well built and
well painted, their grounds so well kept,
and their families so well groomed, that
it would not be easy for a stranger to
distinguish the abodes of the foreigners
from those of the American population.
Their children are sent to school, and are
capable, alert, and ambitious. So far as
the foreign young men are concerned,
they are more resolute, in appearance at
least, and they make more serious at-
tempts at self-teaching and general self-
improvement, than the young men of na-
tive parents. Indeed, it is not improba-
ble that the young Irishmen of Brompton
have to-day, as a class, the fullest por-
tion of the American spirit, as this term
used to be understood. It was my own
lot if a single intimate personal refer-
ence may be pardoned to grow up in
a shoe town similar to Brompton. When
I go back for occasional visits, I find
none among the young men of my ac-
quaintance whom I am every way hap-
pier to meet than my old Irish play-
mates and schoolmates, and none taking
a keener interest in the larger things of
life, or putting forth more honest and
earnest efforts to make the most of their
opportunities. The foreigners, moreover,
have contributed their due proportion
of successful manufacturers, merchants,
lawyers, doctors, and school-teachers, as
well as of skillful workmen, and they
have sent their due proportion out into
the world. As citizens they are. in pub-
lic spirit, the more zealous element,
always ready to appropriate money for
the common weal, particularly for the
library and the schools. Hardly a public
improvement has been carried through,
since they came to be an important fac-
tor in the population, that has not en-
countered more active and serious op-
position from the native element than
from them.
In view of the race and religious pre-
judices current at the time, the entry of
the foreigners, first into unskilled and
later into skilled labor, was one of the
influences which brought manual work
into disrepute with the native popula-
tion. That it was not the only influence,
however, is shown by the fact that farm
labor fell into a similar disrepute a full
generation before foreigners began to
take up the farms. Brompton has un-
questionably done great things for its
foreign population ; and its foreign pop-
ulation, if it cannot as yet be said to
have done great things for Brompton,
has at least a lively sense of gratitude
for benefits received, and the desire, and
it is to be hoped the capacity, ultimate-
ly to repay them. On the other hand,
there are two or three things much to
the discredit of the foreigners, which
in all fairness should be mentioned. In
politics, they have always given the blind-
est, most unthinking, most servile alle-
giance to a single party. A great part
of the drunkenness with which the town
has been cursed has occurred among their
number. They have also furnished a
large proportion of the saloon-keepers,
a fact which would not of itself be so
much to their disgrace, perhaps, if it
A Massachusetts Shoe Town.
185
were not true also that the saloon-keep-
ers have carried on their business badly.
The trade union is another factor of
the life of the community with which it
is hard to deal fairly. It is not too
much to say, however, that in the shoe-
shops of Brompton, as wherever the trade
union exists, notably in England, the ripe
result of the organization of labor has
made just as surely for industrial peace
as the groping, feeble beginnings of its
organization made for industrial disturb-
ance. This is a peace like the armed
neutrality of Europe, it is true, based on
the fear which the strength of each par-
ty inspires in the other ; nevertheless it
is a peace to be counted on. Thus, in the
later seventies, during the days of the
raw and badly organized Knights of St.
Crispin, there were serious labor trou-
bles at Brompton, leading to riot and to
personal violence ; but since the genuine,
closely organized trade union has become
powerful enough to be feared, labor ad-
justments have been achieved without
strikes, as a rule, and when strikes have
occurred, they have been of short du-
ration and free from violence. Under
the present re'gime of factories so large
that employers cannot have personal
knowledge of their employees and take
a personal interest in them even if they
wish ; of indifferent, non - resident em-
ployers who would not take notice of
their employees even if they could ; and
of a rapidly growing contempt for labor,
and social ostracism of the laboring man,
the trade union is for the Brompton
shop-worker an absolutely indispensable
weapon of self-defense.
In illustration of the changes taking
place in manufacturing New England,
I have chosen to present a shoe town,
partly because the shoe town employs a
comparatively high grade of labor, and
partly because I am familiar with its
life and growth. The history and pre-
sent status of Brompton are typical,
however, not only of the shoe towns,
but, mutatis mutandis, of all the manu-
facturing communities of New England ;
the only important difference between
them and the mill towns, for instance,
being, that in the mill towns the social
changes have been effected more rapidly,
and are consequently more complete.
The social stratification of the large
cities admits of no question. Now, if
it be true that the tendency in the rural
districts is towards the development of
an " aristocracy " attached to the land,
through the gradual transformation of
the summer visitor into the permanent
resident ; and if it be true also that the
manufacturing communities, which prac-
tically constitute the residue, are, like
Brompton, in a process of social stratifi-
cation, is it too bold to suggest that for
New England as a whole which, after
all, is not greater in extent than many
a single State, nor greater in population
than the city of London a highly civi-
lized society, so clearly stratified as to
have pronounced types like the civiliza-
tions of the Old World, may be the final
and not too remote outcome ?
Why not ? Is there any good reason
why such an outcome should be deplored ?
May it not be that class distinctions are
an inevitable product of civilization ?
Surely, social democracy, except in new,
raw pioneer communities such as Bromp-
ton once was, is as yet a pretty dream
which has never been realized. One must
needs be doctrinaire indeed to be sure
that a clearly stratified, highly civilized
society is necessarily inferior unless
too much virility be lost in taking on the
graces to a socially democratic but un-
lovely pioneer society, if the two be mea-
sured in all their bearings. Each may
be the best for its time. It may be a
question simply of age, after all. Strat-
ification is among the marks of matu-
rity, and New England is getting old
enough to have some of the characteris-
tics of maturity.
Alvan F. Sanborn.
186
Butterfield & Co.
BUTTERFIELD & CO.
IN TWO PARTS. PART ONE.
FOB nearly a hundred years " Butter-
field's " was as well known in the town
of Slumborough as the post-office, and
almost as much frequented. Before the
war the firm was represented by Joseph
Butterfield, a most comfortably prosper-
ous, mild man, who had succeeded to the
honors of his house as hereditary grocer .
there. Nominally a grocer, but if any
feminine stranger had chanced to be in
pressing need of, say, a hoopskirt, of the
kind in vogue then, she would probably
have been directed to Butterfield's, where
she would have found some of these ele-
gant and indispensable articles of dress
swinging gracefully from hooks in the
doorway of the store. For " Hang the
hoops in the do' of the sto' " was one of
the orders of the head of the firm, given
as regularly as the day came and the
" sto' " was opened. Had any mascu-
line stranger wished to provide himself
with a book, it was to Butterfield's that
he would have been sent by almost any-
body in the town, either there or to
the chemist's ; and he would have found,
on a shelf flanked by ginger jars and all
the spices of Arabia, perhaps, or above a
meal-bin, very likely, his Bunyan, or his
Doddridge, or his Shakespeare, or even
the last elegant Book of Beauty or an-
nual in the time of the third Joseph, who
had a fondness for books, or rather, af-
fected one, and wore a velvet ribbon
above his queue on Christmas Day and
at Michaelmas and Easter, in imitation
of the local gentry. Did any child, na-
tive or foreign, need a doll, a whip, a
pair of skates, a top, or a ball, it was still
Butterfield who supplied it, and threw
in one of the large, yellow, toothsome
squares of gingerbread baked every Sat-
urday by Mrs. Butterfield in the seclu-
sion of the back premises.
From this it will be seen that Butter-
field's had a scope and range that made
it of far more value to a country town
than if it had confined itself rigidly to
what Mr. Butterfield called "its prime
line ; " and it must be further recorded
that the business was conducted not only
" on the fair and on the square, let an-
gels say to the contrary," again to quote
Mr. Butterfield, but in a spirit of gener-
osity which was uncalculating and genu-
ine, and the best advertisement that could
have been framed. It was the only one,
too ; for if there was a thing that Mr.
Butterfield was violently opposed to, it
was advertising. Ordinarily as soft and
yielding as his own butter in the month
of July, he became adamant the moment
the question of advertising was brought
up. " It ain't respectable, to begin with,"
he said. " We ain't never done it. We
ain't never going to do it. And it ain't
no use, either. Everybody knows what
we 've got in the sto' ; and if they don't,
they can find out mighty quick by ask-
ing ; and when they want anything they
are going to ask for it, they ain't too
modest for that."
Mr. Butterfield's family was made up
of his wife whose gingerbread has been
mentioned already, and whose principal
claim to his affection lay in her having
borne him a son " to carry on and hold
up and be ekil to Butterfield's," as he
put it and that son. Kind and affec-
tionate in his ordinary relations with his
" Jinny," he petrified into the head of
the firm, and instantly ceased to be mere-
ly the head of the family, when it came
to the " sto'." Anything in her conduct
that militated against or injuriously af-
fected that institution was sternly re-
buked. She was up long before the sun
rose every day, reprinting butter, right-
Butterjield & Co.
187
ing the " sto'," scrubbing, dusting, mak-
ing ready for " the opening," of which
she spoke and which she regarded as a
great and solemn function, although it
consisted only of taking down a wooden
shutter and opening a small green door,
hanging the hoopskirts, and arranging a
tasteful heap of tomatoes, potatoes, and
the like beneath, always excepting the
window. This Mr. Butterfield would not
have trusted her, would not have trusted
any living person but himself, to arrange.
It is not too much to say that all his
life long he had seen everything around
and about him through the medium of
that window's dozen green panes. What
would look well in it, what would never
do for it, what might be adapted for it,
what disfigured and spoiled it, these
were the questions into which most other
questions resolved themselves in the alem-
bic of the Butterfield mind ; and the only
time in all his life that his wife ever saw
him "tumble" was when he marched
into her kitchen, one morning, and pas-
sionately flung down a loaf of her baking,
saying, " I found this here thing in But-
terfield's winder ! Do you call it fit to
set there ? Give it to the pigs, and never
do you put the like there agin, the long-
est day you live." She had profaned a
hallowed spot with her bad bread, and
it was not until she had invented and
popularized a bun that Judge Barton
(the gourmand of the little community)
declared to be the best he had ever put
into his mouth that she was quite for-
given.
A flourishing institution, too, was But-
terfield's ; that is, for Slumborough.
" We 've ordered from Baltimore as often
as twict in one week," said the head of
the house. " We 've sold imported pickles
over that counter, and sugar by the bar-
rel, without a grain of sand in it from
head to bottom. Before I would let a
pound of sugar leave Butterfield's mixed
with anything, if it was gold-dust, Jinny,
I 'd starve, and let the boy starve, which
is more."
The business methods of the firm, how-
ever, were not those generally adopted at
present throughout the country. They
would be considered remarkable, now-
adays, I am afraid, not to say eccentric.
Mr. Butterfield knew every creature in
Slumborough, black and white, to begin
with. He was full of the milk of human
kindness. He did not so much buy and
sell as sit in his gates, like a Spanish
alcalde, and adjudicate upon the claims
and demands presented to him. Did
Miss Sally Brown, who was sixteen, and
kept house, after a fashion, for an in-
valid mother, come in and want to buy
five pounds of candles, Mr. Butterfield
would say, " Why, Miss Sally, what kind
of a housekeeper are you, anyway ?
Your ma's got a whole box of candles
down from Baltimore. I saw them in the
cart in front of her do' last Saturday.
You don't want no candles ; you go home
and look in the storeroom, and I reckon
you '11 find them there," which would
end the transaction, certainly, but was
not likely to make a " corner " in sperma-
ceti. Did Widow Lester come in, and,
after casting a hungry, humble look about
the place, deprecatingly ask for "rice,
two pounds, and never mind about the
weevil," or the red herrings and corn
meal on which she chiefly nourished
her orphan brood of six, what did Mr.
Butterfield do but give her four pounds
of the best " Carolina," and perhaps a
string of fresh fish, and always a parcel
of something as " a little extry." But
when the judge bought his month's stores
of " goodies " of all kinds, Mr. Butter-
field was severe with his weights and
balances, though always careful to stick
to market prices in his charges. " The
rich is them that ought to pay, mother,
for the poor's victuals, and I know when
and where to skimp, well, not skimp,
either, but even up, and when and
where to throw in and not see good," he
would say to his wife, his head on one
side and his mouth rigidly focused over
his scales.
188
Butterfield & Co.
As to children, it was preposterous, or
would have been to the hard-fisted, to
see Mr. Butterfield's dealings with them
in the guise of a business transaction.
" Take this box of figs and go 'long,
honey, go 'long home ; your ma 's done
sent here twict already this morning fur
yer. Take your five cents, too, Looisy ;
there ain't room in the till for no more
silver." Some inveterate youthful ha-
bitue" of the place falling asleep here or
there, on bale "or box, on warm days, Mr.
Butterfield would carry the child into the
back bedroom and lay him on his own
bed, put a net over him to keep the flies
from " pestering " him, and tip back to
the store, leaving him to enjoy a com-
fortable nap. Several times in every
season, when the skies were cloudy and
the weather " just right," Mr. Butter-
field, who loved a boy and loved to fish,
would shut up the store, and go off with
" the youngsters " down the valley to
catch bass ; and customers, coming to the
shop door to buy something much need-
ed, would find the stout green planks
adorned with no weak explanation of
that gentleman's defection. Butterfield's
belonged to Mr. Butterfield, and not to
the public ; to go or to come was the in-
herent right of a citizen generally pub-
lic-spirited enough to be a fixture behind
his counter, but quite at liberty to leave
it if he were so disposed.
Somehow nobody ever dreamed of tak-
ing offense, much less of resenting these
commercial eccentricities. Mrs. Perkins,
one of the first ladies of the place, would
cheerfully wait two weeks for something
that Mr. Butterfield was " out of " rather
than buy elsewhere ; and all the " regu-
lars," to a woman, showed the most de-
licate consideration for Mr. Butterfield's
feelings. When his jars and boxes began
to run low, they would apologetically ask
for " barely enough to get along with "
until his supplies should be replenished,
and would actually blush if, by some
thoughtless order, the very last fig was
torn from the drum, and the bareness of
Butterfield's stood revealed to the scoffer
of the opposition, a patron of Lecky's.
Little Miss Bradley, whose grandmo-
ther had " bought everything at Butter-
field's," always got near -sighted when
anything went wrong there, and turned
her back on empty barrels as if they had
been so many parvenues, and " would
not lower herself so far " as to try in tea
the, molasses bought there, as her friend
Miss Mastin (of the opposition) strongly
advised. Both these ladies lived at the
other end of the town, and usually came
down together in the car, a lumbering
ex-omnibus, that crawled down the main
street at somewhere about the same time
every day. There were people who com-
plained that it did not run oftener and
faster, but they were strangers, and most-
ly from the North. Slumborough folks
were quite content with it. Its pace was
the pace of Slumborough, indeed, and
suited them perfectly ; for it would cer-
tainly have been most disconcerting to
go rushing along on general and absurd
principles, simply in order to get over so
much ground in a'given time. It was al-
together more convenient for Miss Brad-
ley to doze comfortably on through the
outskirts, and when the principal thor-
oughfare was reached to call out to the
driver, " Are those sweet potatoes at
Finlay's ? Get off, will you not, if you
please, Hobson, and let me know the
price ? " When he returned she would
quietly make up her mind about the po-
tatoes, and either get off with Cynthia (a
small maid with a big basket, and a very
long and very white pinafore buttoned
up the back, the sole attendant of Miss
Bradley) and make her purchases (the
car waiting the while), or decline to do
so, saying, " Hobson, they look frost-bit-
ten ; you can go on, thank you." It of-
ten happened that Cynthia would waylay
the car, as it were, later in the day, on
a return trip, and would shake her kinky
locks at Hobson threateningly if he
showed symptoms of moving on after fif-
teen minutes' or so vain attendance on
Butterjield & Co.
189
Miss Bradley, protesting, " You ain't
goin' widout Miss Ellen, is you ? Don't
you know she takes dis here car always ?
She 's just gone round home a minute to
see her ma, and den to see 'bout gittin'
my shoes and to buy some sponge cake
for supper ; she '11 be along presently."
And sure enough, presently Miss Brad-
ley would come in sight, and advancing
at her usual pace would climb up the
step with Hobson's assistance, saying,
" I 'm afraid I have kept you waiting,
Hobson. I am obliged to you." To this
he would reply, " Lor', no, ma'am, you
ain't ! I give Bill and Bob [the horses]
a bite, and I ain't pressed for time ; "
while the passengers would all hasten
with one accord to assure the dear little
lady that they also had not minded in
the least, and were not pressed for time
either. It was one of the beauties of
Slumborough that everybody had as much
time as the patriarchs, and had nothing
to do that interfered with everybody's be-
ing always perfectly courteous to every-
body else.
There were occasions when Mr. But-
terfield's views as to times and seasons
were fully as placid, and opposed to any-
thing like slavish observance of routine
or unseemly haste. In the spring, for
instance, when he was deeply interested
in a small garden at the back of his
lot, which he cultivated himself, nothing
made him so angry as to be summoned
by his wife to wait on a customer ; and
if it turned out to be a man, he would
say, " What kind of a sort of a feller air
you, anyway, to come asking for herrings,
with my peas waiting to be stuck ? " or
(after ascertaining his sex) would keep
him waiting for half an hour, while he
transplanted his tomatoes in a leisurely
fashion, and shaded them from the sun.
Everything planted in " Uncle Jo's " gar-
den throve and flourished. (It was as
" Uncle Jo " that he was known to half
of Slumborough.) Everything that he
touched succeeded, during these years of
plenty, and trouble or want of any kind
seemed only the shadow, seen in other
lives, of a brilliant prosperity attending
everybody connected with Butterfield's.
Yet trouble there was, and to spare,
ahead of them all ; though on the sur-
face it would have appeared that hearts
and lives like theirs, so innocent, so kind-
ly, so useful, would present no target for
the slings and arrows of outrageous for-
tune. It came with the war, that fruit-
ful source of all manner of woes for all
manner of people. Mr. Butterfield had
no more military spirit or fire in him,
to begin with, than one of his own fir-
kins. The whole political situation, in-
deed, with him, resolved itself into sav-
ing Butterfield's, not the country. For
six months the milky sweetness of Uncle
Jo's thoughts was curdled by a grave
and painful doubt. Ought he to go into
the army, or ought he to stick to the
" sto' " ? That was the question. But
when man after man of his acquaintance,
friend after friend, neighbor after neigh-
bor, caught the fever ; when people took
to hinting that he was ." able-bodied,"
and talked scornfully of " stay-at-homes,"
and wanted to know what he gave his
substitute " to get killed for him ; " when
his minister asked him earnestly if he
was doing his duty by his home and his
country, this doubt became a sad burden,
and assumed every shape that a question
could. Was he letting other men give
their lives for Jinny and little Jo and
Butterfield's, while he stayed at home
and made money ? Was he a coward ?
Was he doing his duty ? At last this
mildest and least bloodthirsty of men
could stand it no longer. He shut up
the store for a day, and gave out that he
had gone fishing. He went out into the
country, and lay down behind a haystack
flat on his back, looking up into the sky
for more hours than he ever realized ;
and when he arose and dusted himself
off, that afternoon, and removed telltale
straws lest they should show which way
the wind had blown, he had come to a
conclusion. He announced it that even-
190
Butterfteld & Co.
ing to his wife, in tones not in the least
like those of Boanerges, Son of Thunder.
" Mother," said he, " don't you say a
word. It won't be no use. I 'm settled,
and bent, and determinated. I 'm go-
ing to this here war, though I ain't no
soldier, and you 've got to carry on But-
terfield's."
" My sakes alive ! have you gone plum
crazy, Jo ? Me carry on Butterfield's ! "
she shrieked, feeling as if the universe
had suddenly been handed over to her to
" carry on."
But that was just what he had meant,
and he declined to discuss the subject of
his plans with her. That very night he
drew up a sort of Code Butterfield for
the regulation and continuation of the
business, and two days later volunteered
to go with the Slumborough Guards to
the front, before his wife had sufficiently
recovered from her amazement to com-
bat vigorously such an extraordinary re-
solution. His last words to her were not
much like those accredited to the world's
heroes, but they would have done no dis-
credit to any of them, for they were the
words of an honest man.
" Mother," said he, with his arms
around his boy, while his comrades wait-
ed at the door, " do you always give 'em
the worth of their money every time.
Good goods at fair prices is what it 's
always been at Butterfield's ; and ef I
was to die, I could n't rest in my grave
if I thought there was a mite of sand
in a single pound of sugar sold over this
counter, or a bar'l of flour wheeled over
that there doorsill that warn't sugar-
house Looisiany. And don't you never
go distressing of the poor, remember ;
nor troubling them that ain't got it to
pay, that ain't Butterfield's ; nor keep-
ing open on Sundays, : that ain't Butter-
field's ; nor falling low in qualities, nor
skimping in quantities, that ain't But-
terfield's. And if I neve:~ come back,
bring up Jo, here, to know what Butter-
field's has been, and always was, and
always has got to be. . . . Good-by, now,
Jinny. I 've got my orders, and you 've
got yours. Go 'long with your ma, now,
Jo."
To this his wife made copious answers,
weeping the while, and vowing fidelity
and obedience as solemnly as she did on
the day of her marriage.
With Mr. Butterfield's career as a
soldier we have nothing whatever to do,
except to say that he did his duty in a
way scarcely to have been expected of a
man of his peaceful character, training,
and occupation. And his wife did hers.
She bought, and sold, and baked, and
cooked, and cleaned, like the faithful,
industrious creature that she was, and
would have held it a shameful thing not
to keep in spirit and letter to the instruc-
tions left by her husband. It was not
so much the business as the religion of
her life to carry them out. She showed
tact and skill in her management of
things and people, judgment and shrewd-
ness in her purchases, a whole host
of qualities that had lain dormant in her
character, overshadowed by the authori-
ty of her spouse. If anybody could have
" carried on," made, saved, extended,
and perfected Butterfield's, it would have
been Jane Eliza, the devoted and inde-
fatigable. But alas ! and alas again !
Eighty - seven times was Slumborough
captured and recaptured during the next
four years ! Five times was Butterfield's
raided by friend and foe. The sixth
time, Jane, cowardly woman creature
that she was, stood in the door with an
axe and successfully warded off ruin.
Three times was the store set on fire,
with other houses in that part of the
town, and it was Jane who got help and
put out the flames. Over and over again
she bolted and barricaded herself and
little Joseph in for ten days at a time,
until it was safe to take down the shut-
ters.
But luck and pluck, though they do
a great deal and wear through many a
rough day, and even experience hardly
Butterjield & Co.
191
learned, cannot do everything, and so it
happened that a soldier succeeded in put-
ting the torch to Butterfield's, one bitter
winter's night, and utterly consuming it.
Jane, seizing her son by the hand, had
barely time to escape before the house
fell with a crash that to her was more
awful than the fall of an empire. But-
terfield's was no more ! Half distraught
with grief and rage, the poor soul haunt-
ed the spot for weeks afterwards, star-
ing at the charred beams and timbers
and bricks, poking in the ashes in a vain
hope of recovering some of the money
that she had left in the till, something,
anything, that might have escaped the
flames. The neighbors, many of them
oppressed by woes of their own, took
pains to draw her from the spot, gave
her and her son a shelter, and did what
in them lay to soothe and comfort her.
But trouble was to be the worthy wo-
man's portion for many a day, for Joseph
(now grown a tall lad) was given em-
ployment in a cloth - mill, and shortly
after was caught in the machinery and
killed. His mother never held up her
head after this, but was always pitiful-
ly repeating, " He left the business and
the boy to me, and they are both gone !
gone ! gone ! " Three months later she
sickened and died.
So it came about that a battered and
tattered veteran, returning with other vet-
erans in no better case to Slumborough
after Appomattox, was to find how much
harder it is to have a bleeding heart than
feet that " track " the snow. He had
hopefully, if painfully, hobbled for many
a weary mile with blood oozing from the
strips of old carpet that served him for
shoes, without uttering such a groan of
despair as burst from him when he again
stood upon the spot that had once been
home. Communication between himself
and his wife had been interrupted, and
he had no knowledge of what had hap-
pened. Good husband though he was,
and good father, I am bound to say that
the thing which brought a sickening sense
of collapse, that made his head reel and
the world seem as unreal as the smoke
of a battlefield, was the fact that Butter-
field's was no more. For domestic be-
reavements his simple mind had perhaps
been prepared, but this was Night, Chaos,
Anguish !
Honest tears did Mr. Butterfield shed
over his wife and son in the Slumborough
churchyard, but the bitterest came one
day when he stumbled upon a blackened
tomato -can among the debris of what
had once been the " sto'." Habit, affec-
tion, regret, the hopes, pride, illusions,
honorable ambitions, and hereditary pre-
judices of his whole life and the lives of
his father and grandfather before him,
were all in that can, and his hands shook
as he picked it up and looked at it with
tragic intentness, then flung it from him,
and fell upon the earth, with his face
in the ashes of what had constituted his
world. He was still lying there, when
old Mrs. Nicodemus, leaning on her stick,
came slowly by, and stopped to see what
such a sight might mean..
" Get up, Joseph, get up from there,
and come along home with me ; I 'm
feeble and need help," she said, with
her woman's wit in such matters not in
the least dulled by age. " I don't know
what 's come to me ; I 've very near fell
twice this week, and three times last.
People are always telling me to give over
going about ; but how 'd they like it, is
what I say. Give me your arm ; no, not
this side, the other side, man ! " And
pretending to make of him a prop, this
artful, kindly old granny bore off the de-
feated and despairing one to her tiny
cottage, and forthwith announced one
thing : " You 're to live here with me,
Joseph, and take care of me, till my son
that you was brought up with, and has
been friends with you all your life, comes
home. And I don't mean to keep you
long ; mercy, I ain't a fool ! You '11 get
the money somehow, and build the sto'
up again before long, and have to mind
it, of course ; but not too soon, if I am
192
Butterjield & Co.
asked to give my say, for I won't be left
alone, and I tell you that flat, with no
pardons asked. Why don't you get me
a chair ? Don't you see me standing
here ? When I was young, old people
did n't have to beg and pray for chairs
to be given them ; they was offered.
Hang up your hat on that nail, Joseph,
and make up the fire, and we '11 have a
bite of something together ; and that lit-
tle place next ain't much more than a
cupboard, but I reckon you 've slept in
worse in the army, now ain't you ? And
I '11 make you comfortable."
Thus taken possession of, and com-
forted, and bullied, and encouraged, as
a man never is or can be except by a
woman of the right sort, poor Uncle Jo
gave a meek sigh and did as he was bid ;
and presently he was drinking some cof-
fee, yes, and enjoying it, too, and
the despairing mood of the morning was
gone, and life had again become possi-
ble. A new motive power had been put
into him : Butterfield's should be rebuilt.
All was not lost, and he had still some-
thing to live for ; consideration of ways
and means he left to the future.
After this came a short season of heal-
ing quiet and comfort, in which it often
seemed to the old soldier as if he were
again a child, and Mother Nicodemus,
peremptory, benevolent, full of all kind-
ly care and thought for him, the mo-
ther whom he dimly remembered. He
called her " Mother Nicodemus," and for
her he never was or could be more than
six years old, the age at which she
had first made his acquaintance. But
all the same he had no better friend,
and kinder treatment of a different sort
would not have been half as good for
him ; her bark was indeed just the ton-
ic that ho most needed, mixed as it was
with a real tenderness for him. Her
bright old eyes were not long in discov-
ering that he would relapse into his mel-
ancholy if he long remained dependent
upon her bounty. So after much thought
she concluded, one day, to consult her
lifelong patron, Miss Bradley. The very
next time that Miss Bradley came to see
her, therefore, she essayed to speak, al-
though it was not an easy task. Fluent
and even aggressive with her equals, she
had a respect so great for her " betters "
that, beyond rising and curtsying re-
peatedly and receiving their orders, she
generally preserved a silence that made
them consider her " a most respectful
and self-respecting quiet creature." She
was just tying on her plain poke bonnet
(guiltless of plumes and flowers) to go
to Wednesday afternoon service, when
Miss Bradley came to the door.
It was while they were discussing a
new set of caps for Miss Bradley, which
were to have rosettes in front, but " not
too high, for that would look positively
fast, I fear," that Mrs. Nicodemus intro-
duced the matter of Butterfield's ; for she
had it in mind to resurrect that commer-
cial Phosnix somehow through Miss Brad-
ley's influence. That lady was now in
an enviable position, for Slumborough ;
that is, a few thousand dollars had been
invested for her before the war, in Bal-
timore, and she was consequently enjoy-
ing a small but fixed and fairly comfort-
able income.
" Something must be done, I quite
agree with you, Mrs. Nicodemus ; it will
never do to let Butterfield's be wiped
out by the Federals," she answered, as if
" the late unnatural and fratricidal " had
been inaugurated and pursued solely with
a view to the annihilation of that estab-
lishment. " Yes, something shall be done.
It shall indeed, I assure you. I have
no control of my money ; my nephew in
Baltimore manages everything for me.
But there must be something that I can
do, and I shall most certainly take the
matter up, and see if I cannot put it be-
fore our leading families in a way that
will insure action. Make the frills full
at the back, if you please, Mrs. Nicode-
mus. Cynthia does not mind the trouble
of getting them up, and is quite vexed
if they are so plain as to be unbecoming.
Butterfield & Co.
193
And she thought two lilac ribbons of dif-
ferent shades for the morning-caps would
look well."
The little old lady pattered away home,
her mind full of her new mission ; and
for many a day afterward she found
pretty employment in it. But just then
the leading families were having very
hard work of it to restore their own
waste places and altars. After much
correspondence with the hard - headed
nephew in Baltimore, who would not let
her give any of her own money, she one
day bethought herself of a certain Colo-
nel Jackson. Miss Bradley was a good
Southerner and a loyal one, but she was a
better Christian, and this had led her to
take into her house and nurse a wounded
Federal officer, of whom she was wont to
say, " Of course it is very sad, his being
a Federal, but we should remember that
our place of birth, our youthful associa-
tions, and the prejudices of a whole com-
munity will affect any man's nature, how-
ever just and upright, and warp it from
the truth. I have no doubt that Illinois
is a highly respectable State ; it was once
a part of Virginia. And I will say that
he has, under trying circumstances, ever
comported himself like the true gentle-
man. And so he has become my valued
Friend." Miss Bradley seemed always
to talk in capitals, like one of Bulwer's
essays.
To the misguided colonel, then, with
whom she had preserved an affectionate
relation, Miss Bradley poured out her
plaint, in spite of Cynthia, grown the real
ruler of the house, a benevolent despot,
who interested herself in all that her soi-
disant mistress did.
" He ain't gwine give you nothin' for
no white man, Miss Ellen," said Cynthia.
" He 's one er dem Bobolitionists. You
tell him it 's to edgercate me, and den
you '11 git some swe ; and den you kin
spend it to suit yerself. You ain't smart,
Miss Ria ! "
" I, a Bradley, tell a deliberate false-
hood ! I get money under false pre-
tenses ! " exclaimed Miss Bradley, aghast
at this result of all her efforts to make
Cynthia " respectable " and " high-prin-
cipled." " Leave my presence, Cynthia !
Go!"
" If she had set her heart on restor-
ing Kenilworth, the dear old lady could
not write in a more historical, poeti-
cal, plaintive vein," thought the colonel,
when he got Miss Bradley's lengthy ap-
peal. " But since she has asked a kind-
ness of me for the first time "
Well, Miss Bradley got her checque ;
and upstairs, in a secret compartment of
an ancient chest of drawers, though no
one knew it, Miss Bradley had some gold
that helped matters on. In a month, a
little building, half house and half shan-
ty, fitted for a store and having a sort
of shed attachment at the back, was put
up. It is hard to say whether Miss
Bradley, or Mrs. Nicodemus, or Uncle
Jo was the happiest for seeing it there !
Butterfield's redwivus ! It was a great,
a delicious moment for them all. Miss
Bradley was so afraid of being thanked
that she scuttled off home as soon as
she had given up the key. Cynthia was
not so precipitate. She stayed behind
and filched a basket of eatables from the
counter.
Mrs. Nicodemus talked over the great
possibilities of the place, seated on an in-
verted lime-bucket left by the workmen,
and Uncle Jo laughed out for the first
time since Appomattox. They sang Miss
Bradley's praises, antiphonally, with all
their hearts, to Cynthia's Selah, " Dat's
so!"
Frances Courtenay Baylor.
VOL. LXXX. NO. 478.
13
194
/Strivings of the Negro People.
STRIVINGS OF THE NEGRO PEOPLE.
BETWEEN me and the other world
there is ever an unasked question : un-
asked by some through feelings of deli-
cacy ; by others through the difficulty
of rightly framing it. All, nevertheless,
flutter round it. They approach me in
a half-hesitant sort of way, eye me cu-
riously or compassionately, and then, in-
stead of saying directly, How does it
feel to be a problem ? they say, I know
an excellent colored man in my town ;
or, I fought at Mechanicsville ; or, Do not
these Southern outrages make your blood
boil? At these I smile, or am interest-
ed, or reduce the boiling to a simmer, as
the occasion may require. To the real
question, How does it feel to be a pro-
blem ? I answer seldom a word.
And yet, being a problem is a strange
experience, peculiar even for one who
has never been anything else, save per-
haps in babyhood and in Europe. It is
in the early days of rollicking boyhood
that the revelation first bursts upon one,
all in a day, as it were. I remember
well when the shadow swept across me.
I was a little thing, away up in the hills
of New England, where the dark Housa-
tonic winds between Hoosac and Tagha-
nic to the sea. In a wee wooden school-
house, something put it into the boys' and
girls' heads to buy gorgeous visiting-cards
ten cents a package and exchange.
The exchange was merry, till one girl,
a tall newcomer, refused my card,
refused it peremptorily, with a glance.
Then it dawned upon me with a certain
suddenness that I was different from the
others ; or like, mayhap, in heart and
life and longing, but shut out from their
world by a vast veil. I had thereafter
no desire to tear down that veil, to creep
through ; I held all beyond it in com-
mon contempt, and lived above it in a
region of blue sky and great wandering
shadows. That sky was bluest when I
could beat my mates at examination-time,
or beat them at a foot-race, or even beat
their stringy heads. Alas, with the years
all this fine contempt began to fade ; for
the world I longed for, and all its daz-
zling opportunities, were theirs, not mine.
But they should not keep these prizes, I
said ; some, all, I would wrest from them.
Just how I would do it I could never de-
cide : by reading law, by healing the sick,
by telling the wonderful tales that swam
in my head, some way. With other
black boys the strife was not so fiercely
sunny : their youth shrunk into tasteless
sycophancy, or into silent hatred of the
pale world about them and mocking dis-
trust of everything white ; or wasted it-
self in a bitter cry, Why did God make
me an outcast and a stranger in mine
own house ? The " shades of the prison-
house " closed round about us all : walls
strait and stubborn to the whitest, but
relentlessly narrow, tall, and unscalable
to sons of night who must plod darkly on
in resignation, or beat unavailing palms
against the stone, or steadily, half hope-
lessly watch the streak of blue above.
After the Egyptian and Indian, the
Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mon-
golian, the Negro is a sort of seventh
son, born with a veil, and gifted with
second-sight in this American world,
a world which yields him no self -con-
sciousness, but only lets him see him-
self through the revelation of the other
world. It is a peculiar sensation, this
double-consciousness, this sense of always
looking at one's self through the eyes
of others, of measuring one's soul by
the tape of a world that looks on in
amused contempt and pity. One ever
feels his two-ness, an American, a Ne-
gro ; two souls, two thoughts, two unre-
conciled strivings ; two warring ideals in
one dark body, whose dogged strength
alone keeps it from being torn asunder.
Strivings of the Negro People.
195
The history of the American Negro is
the history of this strife, this longing
to attain self - conscious manhood, to
merge his double self into a better and
truer self. In this merging he wishes
neither of the older selves to be lost.
He does not wish to Africanize Amer-
ica, for America has too much to teach
the world and Africa ; he does not wish
to bleach his Negro blood in a flood of
white Americanism, for he believes
foolishly, perhaps, but fervently that
Negro blood has yet a message for the
world. He simply wishes to make it pos-
sible for a man to be both a Negro and
an American without being cursed and
spit upon by his fellows, without losing
the opportunity of self-development.
This is the end of his striving : to be
a co-worker in the kingdom of culture, to
escape both death and isolation, and to
husband and use his best powers. These
powers, of body and of mind, have in the
past been so wasted and dispersed as to
lose all effectiveness, and to seem like ab-
sence of all power, like weakness. The
double-aimed struggle of the black arti-
san, on the one hand to escape white con-
tempt for a nation of mere hewers of
wood and drawers of water, and on the
other hand to plough and nail and dig for
a poverty-stricken horde, could only re-
sult in making him a poor craftsman, for
he had but half a heart in either cause.
By the poverty and ignorance of his
people the Negro lawyer or doctor was
pushed toward quackery and demagog-
ism, and by the criticism of the other
world toward an elaborate preparation
that overfitted him for his lowly tasks.
The would-be black savant was confront-
ed by the paradox that the knowledge his
people needed was a twice-told tale to
his white neighbors, while the knowledge
which would teach the white world was
Greek to his own flesh and blood. The
innate love of harmony and beauty that
set the ruder souls of his people a-dan-
cing, a-singing, and a-laughing raised but
confusion and doubt in the soul of the
black artist ; for the beauty revealed to
him was the soul-beauty of a race which
his larger audience despised, and he could
not articulate the message of another peo-
ple.
This waste of double aims, this seek-
ing to satisfy two unreconciled ideals, has
wrought sad havoc with the courage and
faith and deeds of eight thousand thou-
sand people, has sent them often wooing
false gods and invoking false means of
salvation, and has even at times seemed
destined to make them ashamed of them-
selves. In the days of bondage they
thought to see in one divine event the
end of all doubt and disappointment ;
eighteenth - century Rousseauism never
worshiped freedom with half the unques-
tioning faith that the American Negro
did for two centuries. To him slavery
was, indeed, the sum of all villainies,
the cause of all sorrow, the root of all
prejudice ; emancipatiqn was the key
to a promised land of sweeter beauty
than ever stretched before the eyes of
wearied Israelites. In his songs and ex-
hortations swelled one refrain, liberty;
in his tears and curses the god he im-
plored had freedom in his right hand.
At last it came, suddenly, fearfully,
like a dream. With one wild carnival of
blood and passion came the message in
his own plaintive cadences :
"Shout, O children!
Shout, you 're free !
The Lord has bought your liberty ! "
Years have passed away, ten, twenty,
thirty. Thirty years of national life,
thirty years of renewal and development,
and yet the swarthy ghost of Banquo
sits in its old place at the national feast.
In vain does the nation cry to its vastest
problem,
" Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
Shall never tremble ! ' '
The freedman has not yet found in free-
dom his promised land. Whatever of
lesser good may have come in these years
of change, the shadow of a deep disap-
pointment rests upon the Negro people,
196
Strivings of the Negro People.
a disappointment all the more bit-
ter because the unattained ideal was un-
bounded save by the simple ignorance
of a lowly folk.
The first decade was merely a prolon-
gation of the vain search for freedom,
the boon that seemed ever barely to
elude their grasp, like a tantalizing
will-o'-the-wisp, maddening and mislead-
ing the headless host. The holocaust of
war, the terrors of the Kuklux Klan,
the lies of carpet-baggers, the disorgan-
ization of industry, and the contradictory
advice of friends and foes left the be-
wildered serf with no new watchword
beyond the old cry for freedom. As
the decade closed, however, he began to
grasp a new idea. The ideal of liberty
demanded for its attainment powerful
means, and these the Fifteenth Amend-
ment gave him. The ballot, which before
he had looked upon as a visible sign of
freedom, he now r regarded as the chief
means of gaining and perfecting the lib-
erty with which war had partially en-
dowed him. And why not ? Had not
votes made war and emancipated mil-
lions ? Had not votes enfranchised the
freedmen ? Was anything impossible to
a power that had done all this ? A million
black men started with renewed zeal to
vote themselves into the kingdom. The
decade fled away, a decade containing,
to the f reedman's mind, nothing but sup-
pressed votes, stuffed ballot-boxes, and
election outrages that nullified his vaunt-
ed right of suffrage. And yet that
decade from 1875 to 1885 held another
powerful movement, the rise of another
ideal to guide the unguided, another pil-
lar of fire by night after a clouded day.
It was the ideal of " book-learning ; " the
curiosity, born of compulsory ignorance,
to know and test the power of the cabalis-
tic letters of the white man, the longing
to know. Mission and night schools
began in the smoke of battle, ran the
gauntlet of reconstruction, and at last
developed into permanent foundations.
Here at last seemed to have been dis-
covered the mountain path to Canaan ;
longer than the highway of emancipation
and law, steep and rugged, but straight,
leading to heights high enough to over-
look life.
Up the new path the advance guard
toiled, slowly, heavily, doggedly ; only
those who have watched and guided the
faltering feet, the misty minds, the dull
understandings, of the dark pupils of
these schools know how faithfully, how
piteously, this people strove to learn. It
was weary work. The cold statistician
wrote down the inches of progress here
and there, noted also where here and
there a foot had slipped or some one had
fallen. To the tired climbers, the hori-
zon was ever dark, the mists were often
cold, the Canaan was always dim and far
away. If, however, the vistas disclosed
as yet no goal, no resting - place, little
but flattery and criticism, the journey at
least gave leisure for reflection and self-
examination ; it changed the child of
emancipation to the youth with dawning
self -consciousness, self-realization, self-
respect. In those sombre forests of his
striving his own soul rose before him, and
he saw himself, darkly as through a
veil ; and yet he saw in himself some faint
revelation of his power, of his mission.
He began to have a dim feeling that, to
attain his place in the world, he must be
himself, and not another. For the first
time he sought to analyze the burden he
bore upon his back, that dead-weight of
social degradation partially masked be-
hind a half-named Negro problem. He
felt his poverty ; without a cent, without
a home, without land, tools, or savings, he
had entered into competition with rich,
landed, skilled neighbors. To be a poor
man is hard, but to be a poor race in a
land of dollars is the very bottom of
hardships. He felt the weight of his
ignorance, not simply of letters, but
of life, of business, of the humanities ;
the accumulated sloth and shirking and
awkwardness of decades and centuries
shackled his hands and feet. Nor was
Strivings of the Negro People.
197
his burden all poverty and ignorance.
The red stain of bastardy, which two
centuries of systematic legal defilement
of Negro women had stamped upon his
race, meant not only the loss of ancient
African chastity, but also the heredita-
ry weight of a mass of filth from white
whoremongers and adulterers, threaten-
ing almost the obliteration of the Negro
home.
A people thus handicapped ought not
to be asked to race with the world, but
rather allowed to give all its time and
thought to its own social problems. But
alas ! while sociologists gleefully count
his bastards and his prostitutes, the very
soul of the toiling, sweating black man
is darkened by the shadow of a vast de-
spair. Men call the shadow prejudice,
and learnedly explain it as the natural
defense of culture against barbarism,
learning against ignorance, piu-ity against
crime, the " higher " against the " low-
er " races. To which the Negro cries
Amen ! and swears that to so much of
this strange prejudice as is founded
on just homage to civilization, culture,
righteousness, and progress he humbly
bows and meekly does obeisance. But
before that nameless prejudice that leaps
beyond all this he stands helpless, dis-
mayed, and well-nigh speechless ; before
that personal disrespect and mockery,
the ridicule and systematic humiliation,
the distortion of fact and wanton license
of fancy, the cynical ignoring of the
better and boisterous welcoming of the
worse, the all-pervading desire to incul-
cate disdain for everything black, from
Toussaint to the devil, before this there
rises a sickening despair that would dis-
arm and discourage any nation save that
black host to whom " discouragement "
is an unwritten word.
They still press on, they still nurse the
dogged hope, not a hope of nauseating
patronage, not a hope of reception into
charmed social circles of stock-jobbers,
pork-packers, and earl-hunters, but the
hope of a higher synthesis of civilization
and humanity, a true progress, with which
the chorus " Peace, good will to men,"
" May make one music as before,
But vaster."
Thus the second decade of the Ameri-
can Negro's freedom was a period of con-
flict, of inspiration and doubt, of faith
and vain questionings, of Sturm und
Drang. The ideals of physical freedom,
of political power, of school training, as
separate all-sufficient panaceas for social
ills, became in the third decade dim and
overcast. They were the vain dreams of
credulous race childhood ; not wrong, but
incomplete and over-simple. The train-
ing of the schools we need to-day more
than ever, the training of def fc hands,
quick eyes and ears, and the broader,
deeper, higher culture of gifted minds.
The power of the ballot we need in
sheer _self-defense, and as a guarantee
of good faith. We may misuse it, but
we can scarce do worse in this respect
than our whilom masters. Freedom, too,
the long-sought, we still seek, the free-
dom of life and limb, the freedom to
work and think. Work, culture, and lib-
erty, all these we need, not singly, but
together ; for to-day these ideals among
the Negro people are gradually coales-
cing, and finding a higher meaning in
the unifying ideal of race, the ideal
of fostering the traits and talents of the
Negro, not in opposition to, but in con-
formity with, the greater ideals of the
American republic, in order that some
day, on American soil, two world races
may give each to each those character-
istics which both so sadly lack. Already
we come not altogether empty-handed :
there is to-day no true American music
but the sweet wild melodies of the Negro
slave ; the American fairy tales are In-
dian and African ; we are the sole oasis
of simple faith and reverence in a dusty
desert of dollars and smartness. Will
America be poorer if she replace her
brutal, dyspeptic blundering with the
light-hearted but determined Negro hu-
mility ; or her coarse, cruel wit with lov-
198
Within the Walls.
ing, jovial good humor ; or her Annie
Rooney with Steal Away ?
Merely a stern concrete test of the un-
derlying principles of the great republic
is the Negro problem, and the spiritual
striving of the freedmen's sons is the tra-
vail of souls whose burden is almost be-
yond the measure of their strength, but
who bear it in the name of an historic
race, in the name of this the land of their
fathers' fathers, and in the name of hu-
man opportunity.
W. E. Burghardt Du Bois.
WITHIN THE WALLS.
ON the green lawn in front of the
white stone hospital a man stood leaning
against a tree. Beside him, on the grass,
stretched out in one of the cradle-like
couches used for sunning the patients,
lay a white -robed figure, which might
have belonged to either sex, had it not
been for the smoothness of the. pallid
cheeks and the long black hair spread
tangled on the pillow.
" So you are all well again," the wo-
man said languidly. " Does your knee
hurt you at all ? "
" Not much," the man answered light-
ly ; " and it would n't be well even by
now," he continued, smiling, " if you
hadn't been here to put me in such
excellent spirits when we enjoyed the
sun together."
"It has been a very pleasant time
for me also," the woman said. " I don't
think I shall ever have as pleasant a one
again. The doctor does n't give me very
much time, so if it does come, it will have
to be soon."
She spoke despondently, in even tones,
as though what she said had been so
often the subject of her thoughts that it
had ceased to retain her interest, and re-
mained merely the cold, inevitable fact
against which, she had learned long ago,
it did no good to complain.
"Oh, come, come," he said cheeringly,
" it is n't as bad as that. You '11 be out
of here in less than six weeks."
" No, I 'm afraid not," the woman an-
swered, slightly shaking her head. "But
thank you all the same." She stopped
as she looked up at him, and saw in his
eyes the expression of deep concern.
" Don't bother about me, please," she
continued quickly ; " there are other
things outside those things you told
me about that will need all your at-
tention. So tell me, when do you go ? "
"This afternoon."
" This - Why, how glad I am ! "
She tried to laugh, to make him think
she was ; and in its purpose the laugh
succeeded, for the man, suddenly aroused
to interest in the active life he was soon
to resume after his two months' idle-
ness, rushed eagerly ahead in his plans
and prospects away to an after-life. The
woman listened dejectedly, running her
finger in a careless way along a fold in
the covering sheet. The man broke off
abruptly in the midst of his grand career.
" There," he said, " I tire you ; and
besides, it is time for me to be going."
He reached down and held her hand
for a moment.
"I I wish you luck," she said slowly.
When he had walked away a few steps,
he turned with a sudden impulse and
came back to her.
" I thought you might like these. My
brother brought them to me this morn-
ing."
As he spoke, he took from his button-
hole a small bunch of violets and handed
them to her with a bow of laughing gal-
lantry. A light tinge of color showed in
her cheeks as she took them from him,
Within the Walls.
199
and again he started to walk across the
grass toward the gate.
And she, lying behind in her nar-
row wooden bed, looked sadly over the
curve of her pillow at the slow-moving
figure of the man. When at last he
disappeared through the gateway, she
still gazed after him for several minutes,
as though he were yet there ; then she
turned her eyes to the bunch of pur-
ple flowers she held, and brushed their
heads back lightly with her hand.
Not until then, with the lonesomeness
of her own poor existence fresh upon
her, did she realize that he had gone,
gone into that outer world where she
would never follow. During the last
few weeks, with him to talk to and
amuse her, she had at times almost for-
gotten her pitiful condition in the little
pleasure it afforded, and had grown to
regard her afternoon sunning as the one
bright spot in the weary day. He had
so often lain beside her there in the sun,
and sat beside her when he was better,
that half involuntarily she moved her
head, as if to nod back her appreciation
of some bright jest or compliment, only
to see the empty lawn stretching clear to
the hospital wall.
But even in its emptiness it was yet
the place where she had laughed with
him from pure happiness alone, and she
smiled faintly at the leaves above her
as she thought of being brought out here
day after day, until until that time, so
near at hand, when it would be necessa-
ry no longer.
" Come," said a soft voice, " it is time
for you to go in."
The woman looked up quickly into the
nurse's face.
" Can't I stay here a little longer ? "
she asked. " I should like to very much."
" But it 's growing damp, and it 's bad
for you."
" Bad for me ? " the woman said slow-
ly. " Why should that make any differ-
ence ? It 's all the same in the end, and
I want so much to stay."
The nurse seemed puzzled for an in-
stant, but seeing the flowers in the wast-
ed hand she nodded her head quietly
as though thinking to herself, and then
moved silently away.
So he had gone. The woman won-
dered if he would ever think of her, now
that he was outside the walls : two or
three times to-day, perhaps, once to-mor-
row, and then no more. But to her
these last few weeks had been so great
a part of the short time she had yet to
live, that whereas formerly in her sick-
ness her memories were all of her earlier
life, now she would look no farther back
than the time when he was there. And
so she thought whilst the remembrance
lived vivid in her mind, and the long,
distorted shadows crawled across the
lawn as the sun dropped down behind
the hospital.
Then as the afternoon drew to a close
she was carried in, and put to bed in her
room in the quiet ward.
" I think," she said wearily to the
nurse, " I '11 go to sleep. I don't care
for any supper to-night." She finished
speaking with her eyes already closed,
and as unconsciousness stole upon her
and her breathing softened down, the
hand that was holding the violets re-
laxed, letting the flowers fall scattered
to the floor.
When the nurse, a half-hour later,
came in and saw them lying there, she
gathered them deftly, and stuck them,
one by one, in the grasp of the half-
closed, sleeping fingers.
Guy If. Scull.
200
Out of Bondage.
OUT OF BONDAGE.
I.
FRIEND LEMUEL VARNEY urged his
well-conditioned but tired mare along the
highway with a more impatient voice
than he was wont to use ; for the track
was heavy with the deep, unbeaten snow
of a recent storm, and Lemuel was in a
hurry to deliver an article of value which
had been entrusted to his care. Except
that the article was somewhat bulky,
nothing could have been guessed of its
character from the irregular rounded
form vaguely shown by the buffalo skin
which covered it and the legs of the
driver, and for the latter it left none
too much room in the ample bread-tray-
shaped body of the sleigh. The high
back of this conveyance hid from rear-
ward observation all the contents except
Lemuel's head, over which was drawn, for
the protection of his ears, a knit woolen
cap of un - Quakerly red, a flagrant
breach of discipline which was atoned for
by the broad brim and the hard discom-
fort of the drab beaver hat which sur-
mounted and overshadowed it.
The light of the brief winter day, fur-
ther abbreviated by a cloudy sky, was
fading, and the pallid dusk of the longer
night was creeping over the landscape ;
blurring the crests of woodlands against
the sky, blending their nearer borders
with the dimmed whiteness of the fields,
and turning stacks, barns, and isolated
groups of trees to vague, undistinguish-
able blots upon the fields, whose fences
trailed away into obscurity.
Friend Lemuel carefully scanned the
wayside for landmarks by which to note
his progress, but looked more anxiously
behind when the jingle of sleigh-bells
approaching from that direction struck
his ear. It was a pleasant and cheerful
discord of high and low pitched tones
of Boston bells, but it seemed to have a
disquieting effect upon his accustomed
placidity.
" There comes the stage, sure enough.
I- did hope I could git tu where we turn
off tu Zeb'lon's afore it come along," he
said, with some show of irritation, and
not quite as if speaking to himself or to
the mare, which he now addressed as he
vigorously shook the reins : " Do git up,
thee jade, why don't thee ? I say for it,
if I had a whip, I should be almost tempt-
ed tu snap it at thee. But I know thee 's
tired, poor creatur', and I had n't ort tu
blame thee, if I be tried."
In response to the threat or the ex-
pression of sympathy the mare mended
her pace, as Lemuel cast another glance
behind and saw the stage and its four
horses, vaguely defined, moving briskly
down the descending road. He slight-
ly raised the edge of the buffalo, and,
bending toward ^t, said in a low voice,
" Thee 'd better fill thyself up with fresh
air as quick as thee can, for the stage is
comin', and I shall have tu cover thee
pretty clust till it gits past."
There was a slight movement under
the robe, but nothing became visible ex-
cept some quickly recurring puffs of
vapor steaming out upon the cold air.
After a moment Lemuel replaced the
robe and gave it a cautionary pat. " Now
thee must keep clust, for there 's no tellin'
who may be a-lookin' at us out o' that
stage."
The stage-sleigh, roofed and curtained,
was close behind him, the muffled driver
shouting imperative orders to the pri-
vate conveyance to get out of the road.
Lemuel pulled his mare out of the track
at some risk of a capsize, for the pack-
ing of successive snowfalls had raised
the beaten path considerably above the
general level of the road.
" Git aout o' the road, ol' stick-in-the-
mud ! " the driver called, as his horses
Out of Bondage.
201
came to a walk and the merry jangle of
the bells fell to a soberer chime.
" Thee '11 hafter give me a little time,"
Lemuel urged mildly ; " it 's consid'able
sidelin', an' I dare say, if thee had a bag
of pertaters in thy sleigh, thee would n't
want 'em upsot in the snow, this cold
night."
" Oh, blast your 'taters ! " the other
said. " What 's 'taters compared tu the
United States mail I 've got under my
laigs ? " And then, in better humor as
the bread-tray sleigh, after a ponderous
tilt, regained its equilibrium, " There, I
c'n git by naow, if ye '11 take off your
hat an' turn it up aidgeways. Say," con-
tinuing his banter in a tone intended only
for the Quaker's ear, as -he leaned toward
him from his lofty perch and cast a scru-
tinizing glance upon the sleigh, " your
'taters hain't niggertoes, be they ? "
Lemuel gave an involuntary upward
look of surprise, but answered quietly,
as the driver touched the leaders with
his long lash and the heavy passenger
sleigh swept past, " No ; long Johns."
He was chuckling inwardly at the hid-
den meaning of his ready answer, as the
mare climbed the bank to regain the
track at a steeper place than she had
left it, when the lurching sleigh lost its
balance and turned over upon its side,
tumbling out all its contents into tke
snow. Lemuel was upon his feet almost
instantly, holding up the frightened mare
with, a steady hand and soothing her with
a gentle voice, while the buffalo robe
seemed imbued with sudden life, tossing
and heaving in strange commotion as
a smothered, alarmed voice issued from
it : " 'Fore de Lawd, marse, is we done
busted ? " and then the voice broke in a
racking cough.
" Keep quiet, John," Friend Lemuel
said in a low tone, " an' git behind the
sleigh as quick as thee can. The stage
hain't out o' sight." As he righted the
sleigh, a tall, stalwart negro, creeping
from under the robe, took shelter behind
the high back till the path was regained,
and then resumed his place and was
again covered by the robe.
" 'Fore de Lawd, Marse Varney," he
whispered hoarsely, venturing his head a
little above the robe, " I was dat skeered
I 's jus' shook to pieces."
"John," exclaimed Lemuel, with se-
verity, " thee must n't call me or any
other man ' master,' as I 've told thee
more than once. I am thy friend and
brother, and thee must n't call me any-
thing else."
" 'Pears like I could n't get useter dat
away, nohow, Marse Frien' Varney."
" But thee will," said Lemuel decided-
ly, " when thee gets used tu the fact that
thee is thy own master, with no one over
thee but thy heavenly Father, the Lord
and Master of the highest and the low-
est of moi'tals. Now take a doste of
this hive surrup an' cover up thy head,
for this cold air won't help thy cough a
mite." So saying, he drew forth a vial
from the inner breast pocket of his tight-
fitting surtout and held it to the negro's
lips, then covered his head carefully, and
urged forward the tired mare.
II.
" What was it you were saying to that
old chap about niggahs ? " asked a dark,
keen-eyed man who shared the box with
the stage driver.
" Niggers ? Oh, niggertoes was what
I said," the driver laughed, and went on
to explain : " That 's the name of a kin'
o' 'taters they hev raound here. Pooty
good kind o' 'taters they be, tew, good
yielders, an' cook up mealy ; but some
folks spleen agin 'em 'caount o' the' bein'
black, but I don't. I 've knowed some
tol'able dark - complected folks yes,
rael niggers 'at was pooty good sorter
folks."
" Co'se," assented the passenger. " Nig-
gahs are all right in their place. I would
n't object to ownin' a hundred likely
boys."
202
Out of Bondage.
" Wai," considered the driver, " I do'
know ezackly 'baout ownin' so many
folks. One 's 'baout all I c'n manage,
an' he 's gin me consid'able trouble sen I
come of age. Ownin' other folks kin' o'
goes agin my Yankee grain." Hearing
no answer, he recurred to the opening of
the conversation : " That was oP Uncle
Lem Varney, an' I was jes' a-jokin' on
him a leetle. They say 'at he lies deal-
in's wi' the undergraoun' railroad, an' I
was tryin' tu make him think 'at I s'mised
he hed a runaway nigger 'n under his
buffalo, but I hed n't no sech a idee."
The traveler turned in his seat and
looked back interestedly, while the driver
continued :
" I do' know 's I should keer if he
hed, fer kerryin' that kind o' passengers
don't interfere much wi' my business.
The' was tew on 'em, though, on my
stage las' summer, jest the cutest. One
on 'em was as light-complected as what
you be, an' a tumble genteel lookin' an'
actin' feller, an' he made b'lieve he was
master tu t'other one, which he was so
black a coal would make a white mark on
him ; an' they rid right along as grand
as Cuffy, nob'dy s'pectin' nothin' till a
week arter. Then they was arter 'em
hot-foot f'm away daown tu Virginny ;
but Lord ! they was safe beyund Caner-
dy line days afore."
" And you people gen'ally favor that
sort o' thing ? " the stranger asked.
" Wai, no, not tu say favor. The
gen'al run don't bother 'emselves one
way ner t'other, don't help ner hender ;
an' then agin the' 's some 'at 's mean
'nough tu du anythin' fer pay."
" And they help the niggahs ? " sug-
gested the traveler.
" Bless ye, no. They help the ketch-
ers ; the' hain't no money in helpin' nig-
gers."
The other only said " H-m-m " in a
tone that might imply doubt or assent,
and seemed inclined to drop the conver-
sation, and the driver, after mentally
wondering for some time, commented,
" One of them blasted Southerners." The
stranger's speech was unfamiliar, soften-
ing the r's too much for a Yankee of the
Champlain Valley, and not as deliberate-
ly twisting the vowels as a Yankee of
any sort does, but giving them an illusive
-turn that type cannot capture, midway
between the nasal drawl of the New Eng-
lander and the unctuous roll of the New
Yorker.
The lights of a little hamlet began to
glimmer along the dusky road, and pre-
sently the steaming horses were haloed in
the broad glare of the tavern bar-room
and came.. to a halt before the wide stoop,
where the bareheaded landlord and lan-
tern-bearing hostlers bustled forth, with
a more leisurely following of loungers,
to welcome an arrival that lost nothing
in interest or importance through semi-
daily occurrence.
The driver threw down the mail-bag,
tossed the reins to a hostler, and, clam-
bering from his seat, stamped straight-
way into the bar-room. The landlord
opened the doo/of the coach, and invited
the passengers to alight while the horses
were changed, an invitation which was
accepted with alacrity by all. He ushered
them into the welcome indoor warmth,
closed the door behind the last guest,
and fell to feeding the fire within the
huge box stove with a generous supply of
wood. With this clatter and the roar
of the opened draught he mingled com-
ments on the weather and words of hos-
pitable intent, and then made the most
of the brief time to learn what he might
of his guests, whence coming and whi-
ther going, according to the custom of
landlords in those days, when the coun-
try tavern had neither the name nor the
register of a hotel.
The outside passenger invited the com-
pany to drink at his expense, and every
one accepted save a stalwart Washing-
tonian ; for it was before the days of
prohibition, when many otherwise goodly
people drank unadulterated liquor pub-
licly in Vermont inns, without shame or
Out of Bondage.
203
fear of subpoenas. The stranger called
for Bourbon, to the bewilderment of
Landlord Manum.
" Borebone ? That must be some
furrin drink, suthin' like Bord O, meb-
by ? " he queried, with a puzzled face,
half resentful of a joke.
" Never heard of Boobon whiskey,
sir, the best whiskey in the wauld, sir?"
asked the stranger.
" Wai, if it 's good whiskey you want,
I 've got some Monongerhely 'at 's ten
year ol' ; " and the stranger accepted the
compromise with a look of approval,
while each of the others, according to
taste or predilection, warmed his interior
with Medford, Jamaica, gin, brandy, or
wine.
Then the driver began to muffle his
head in a voluminous comforter and slow-
ly to draw on his gloves, and when he
announced, " Stage ready, gentlemen,"
there was a general exodus of the com-
pany, but the outside passenger did not
remount ,to his place.
" Just chuck me my valise. I reckon
I '11 stop heah a day or so."
A cylindrical leathern portmanteau,
such as was in common use by horse-
back travelers, was tossed down upon the
stoop. The driver tucked himself in,
gathered up the reins, cracked his whip,
and with a sudden creak the sleigh start-
ed on its course and went jangling away
into the dusk. The landlord and the
hostlers watched it intently, as if to as-
sure themselves of its actual departure ;
then of one accord retreated from the
outer chill into the warmth of the bar-
room. The host helped the guest to rid
himself of his overcoat and hung it on a
hook, where it impartially covered the last
summer's advertisements of the Cham-
plain steamers and of a famous Morgan
stallion. The three or four remaining
idlers resumed their accustomed places.
The hostlers diffused an odor of the sta-
ble as they divested themselves of their
coats and began their ablutions at the
corner sink, where a soiled roller towel
and the common comb and brush, at-
tached to a nail by a long string, hung
on opposite sides of a corrugated little
looking-glass. The landlord closed the
draught of the stove, subduing its roar
to a whisper, and then blew out one of
the lights. The other two seemed to
burn more dimly, the smoky atmosphere
grew heavier, and the room took on
again its wonted air of dull expectancy
that rarely received a higher realization
than the slightly varied excitements of
the stage arrivals.
Having performed all other duties,
the landlord, who was also postmaster,
now took the mail -bag from the floor
where it had been tossed and had re-
mained an object of secondary interest,
carried it into the office adjoining the
bar, and began a deliberate sorting of
the mail, curiously watched through the
narrow loopholes of the boxes by sev-
eral of the loungers. The Washingtoni-
an drummed persistently on the window
of his box till he was given his copy of
the county paper, which he at once be-
gan reading, after comfortably seating
himself, with legs at full length, on the
bunk which was a table by day, a bed
by night. Others receiving their papers
pocketed them to await more leisurely
digestion at home. One who was given
an unexpected letter studied the post-
mark and address a long time, trying to
guess from whom it came, and then put-
ting it in his pocket still sat guessing,
oblivious of the conversation going on
about him.
A traveler who " treated " was one
whose acquaintance was worth cultivat-
ing by the bar-room loungers, and they
had already made some progress in that
direction when the landlord's announce-
ment of supper dispersed them reluctant-
ly to their own waiting meals, from which
they returned as soon as might be, with
reinforcements.
The free-handed stranger gave them
to understand that he was a Pennsylva-
nian, making a winter tour of the North-
204
Out of Bondage.
ern States and Canada for his own plea-
sure and enlargement of information,
and he quite won their hearts by his
generous praise of their State, its thrift,
its Morgan horses, its merino sheep, and
especially the bracing sub-arctic atmos-
phere, in which all true Vermonters take
pride.
The Washingtonian, still sitting on
the bunk, was so absorbed in the county
paper, read by the light of the small
whale-oil lamp, that he took no part in
the conversation till he had finished the
last item of news and glanced over the
probate notices. Then he laid the paper
across his outstretched legs and took off
his spectacles, but kept both in hand for
the contingency of immediate need, as he
remarked, with an inclusive glance of the
company, " Wai, it does beat all haow
they be a-agitatin' slav'ry, an' what ef-
forts they be a-makin' to diabolish it.
They 've ben a-hevin' a anti-slav'ry con-
vention up to Montpelier, an' they raised
a turrible rookery an' clean broke it up.
I jest ben a-readin' a piece abaout it
here in the paper."
" Sarved 'em right," declared a big,
burly, red-faced fellow who occupied a
place by the stove opposite the stranger.
" Blast the cussed Aberlitionists, they 'd
ort tu be 'bleeged tu quit meddlin' wi'
other folks' business."
" Wai, I do' know," said the reader,
laying aside the paper and putting his
spectacles into his pocket as he swung his
legs off the bunk. " It 's a free country,
an' folks has got a right to tell what they
think, an' to argy, an' hev the' argyments
met wi' argyments. Rotten aigs hain't
argymeiits, Hiel."
" Good 'nough argyments fer cussed
nigger-stealin' Aberlitionists," Hiel de-
clared, "a - interferin' wi' other folks'
prop'ty."
" Sho, Hiel, they hain't interferin' wi'
nobody's prop'ty. They b'lieve it hain't
right to hoi' slaves, an' they say so,
that 's all," the other replied.
" Don't they ? " Hiel sneered. " They
're al'ys a-coaxin' niggers tu run away,
an' a-helpin' on 'em steal 'emselves, which
is the same as stealin'. Look of ol' Qua-
ker Barclay over here, Jacup Wright.
I '11 bet he everiges a dozen runaway
niggers hid in his haouse ev'y year 'at
goes over his head. Damn him ! he
don't du nothin' else only go tu nigger-
huggin' Boberlition meetin's."
" Exceptin' when he 's a-raisin' sub-
scriptierns to git caows fer folks 'at 's
lost theirn," said Jacob quietly.
" I never ast him tu raise no 'scrip-
tierns fer me, a caow," said Hiel James
quickly.
" He done it jest the same, a-headin'
on 't wi' five dollars," Jacob replied.
" Wai, if folks is a mineter gi' me a
caow, I hain't fool 'nough tu refuse it,"
Hiel said, dismissing the subject with a
coarse laugh. " Blast the runaway nig-
gers ! Let 'em stay where they b'long.
I 'd livser help ketch 'em an' take 'em
back 'an tu help 'em git away."
" Oh, sho, Hiel ! No, you would n't
nuther, Hiel ! That would be pooty
mean business fer a V'monter. 'T hain't
never ben in their line to send slaves
back to the' masters."
During the conversation a stalwart
young man had entered the room, and
after including the company in a common
salutation, he got his mail from the of-
fice, and stood at the bar to read a let-
ter. He had a brave, handsome face,
and his well-formed figure was clad in
garments of finer fashion, more easily
worn, than was the wont of young farm-
ers. Yet a shrewd guess would place
him as a prosperous member of that class.
He took no part in the conversation nor
gave it apparent heed, yet joined in the
general murmur of approval with which
Jacob's remark was received by all but
the non-committal landlord, the silent
stranger, whose keen, deliberate eyes
roved over the company, and Hiel, who
stoutly asserted, " I 'd jest as soon du it
as send a stray hoss er critter back tu the'
owner. Yis, sir, jest as soon aim a dollar
Out of Bondage.
205
a-ketchin' a nigger as any other sort o'
prop'ty."
" I think you would, Hiel," said the
newcomer, in a tone that for all its quiet-
ness did not conceal contempt ; and then
he went out, and his sleigh-bells were
already jingling out of hearing when
Hiel's slow retort was uttered :
" That 'ere Bob Ransom cuts consid-
'able of a swath, but he '11 be consid'able
older 'n he is naow 'fore he gits ol' Qua-
ker Barclay's darter. Ketch him lettin'
his gal marry anybody aoutside o' the
Quaker an' Boberlition ring."
In some way, the brawny, coarse-fea-
tured Hiel seemed more than others to
attract the regard of the stranger, who
held him in casual conversation till the
rest had departed, and warmed his heart
with a parting glass of the landlord's
most potent liquor.
III.
The stage-coach had left Lemuel far
behind when he turned into a less fre-
quented road, which led him, after a mile
of uninterrupted plodding, to a group
of farm - buildings that flanked it on
either side, and clustered about a great
square unpainted house. From the un-
shuttered lower windows broad bands
of light shone hospitably forth into the
dim whiteness, revealing here the fur-
rows of a newly beaten track, there a
white-capped hitching-post, and above, a
shining square of snowy shed-roof, be-
neath which the mare made her way
.without guiding. Lemuel, disembarking
noiselessly, looked cautiously about be-
fore he uncovered his passenger, and
whispered to him to follow into the sta-
ble, whither he led as one familiar with
the place even in the darkness. Opening
the door of an inclosed stall, and assur-
ing himself by feeling that it was filled
with straw, he gently pushed the negro
in.
" Now thee cover thyself up an' keep
still till thee hears thy name called. Put
this medicine in thy pocket, and don't
let thyself cough. Thee '11 be made com-
fortable as soon as possible, but thee must
be patient."
With these whispered injunctions Lem-
uel silently closed the door upon his
charge, and, after blanketing the mare,
entered the house without other an-
nouncement than the stamping of his
snowy feet. The family were at supper
in the large kitchen, which was full of
the light and warmth of a wide fireplace,
and the savor of wholesome fare that the
chilled and hungry guest sniffed with ap-
preciative foretaste.
Zebulon Barclay, a man of staid, be-
nevolent mien, with kindly keen gray
eyes, sat at the board opposite Deborah,
his wife, a portly woman, whose calm
face, no less kindly than his own, wore
the tranquil dignity of self-conquest and
assured peace of soul. Beside her sat
their daughter Ruth, like her mother in
feature, and with promise of the attain-
ment of the maternal serenity in her
bright young face, yet with some harm-
less touches of worldly vanity in the fash-
ion of her dress. There were also Julia,
the hired girl, a brisk spinster of thirty-
five, and Jerome, the hired man, a rest-
less-eyed Canadian, both of whom were
of the world's people ; the one shocked
their employers by her levity, and the
other with his mild profanity.
" How does thee do, Deb'ry ? " said
the visitor, advancing straight to the
matron with outstretched hand, as she
turned in her seat and recognized him.
" Keep thy settin', keep thy settin'," he
protested against her rising to greet him,
and then bustled around to Zebulon, who
arose to give him welcome, and a glance
of intelligence passed between him and
his wife which the* daughter caught and
understood.
" Why, Lemuel," said the host hearti-
ly, " hpw does thee do ? And how are
Rebecca and the children ? "
As Lemuel replied he mumbled in an
206
Out of Bondage.
undertone, " I left a package in the stable
for thee."
" Oh, Rebecca is well, is she ? " Zebu-
Ion remarked with satisfaction, and with-
out apparent notice of the other informa-
tion. " And is it a general time of health
among Friends in your Quarter ? Well,
lay off thy greatcoat, and have some
supper as soon as thee 's warm enough.
Jerome will put out thy horse directly."
Lemuel hesitated, but began the ardu-
ous task of getting off his tight surtout
as the Canadian arose from the table and
took the tin lantern from its hook.
" I b'lieve I hain't seen thee afore, Je-
rome. Is thee tol'able well ? And I say
for it, if that hain't thee, Julia ! Thee
stays right by, don't thee ? Wai, that 's
clever." He paused in the struggle with
his surtout, when the Canadian went out,
to ask, with a nod toward the door that
had closed behind him, "Is he a safe
person, Zeb'lon ? "
" I 'm not quite clear, but I fear not,"
said Zebulon, laying hold of the stub-
born coat. " We '11 be on our guard.
While he 's out, Ruth, thee 'd better
carry some victuals up to the room, and
when he comes in I '11 get him out of
the way till we get our package upstairs.
Has thee had it in thy keeping long,
Lemuel ? "
" Goin' on a week, an' would ha' ben
glad tu a spell longer, for he 's got a
turrible cold an' cough ; but we 'spected
they was sarchin' for him, an' we dassent
keep him no longer, an' so I started at
four o'clock this mornin' ; an' I tell thee,
I found tough travelin' most o' the way."
" Well, I 'm glad thee 's got here safe,
Lemuel. Now sit right down to thy
supper. Theo '11 have a chance to step
out and bring in thy goods."
The Canadian entered hastily and in
evident trepidation. * Say, Me*sieu Bar-
cle," he burst out, " you s'pose ghos' can
cough, prob'ly ? "
" What 's thee talking about, Jerome ? "
Zebulon asked in surprise.
" Yas, sah, bah jinjo, Ah'm was hear
nowse in de barn zhus' sem lak some-
body cough, an' Ah b'lieve he was ghos'
of dat hoi' man come dead for 'sumption
on de village las' week 'go."
" Nonsense, Jerome ; it was a cat sneez-
ing that thee heard. Don't put out the
lantern, but come down cellar with me
and get some small potatoes for the
sheep."
" Cat ? Bah gosh, you '11 got cat sneeze
lak dat, Ah'm ant want for hear it yal-
ler, me," Jerome retorted, as he led the
way down cellar.
Lemuel's hand was on the latch, when
there was a sound of arriving sleigh-
bells.
" What be we goin' tu du ? " he asked,
turning a troubled face to the women.
" That poor creatur' must n't stay aout
in the cold no longer. Who 's that
a-comin' in, wi' bells on the' horse ? "
" Let me go," said Ruth, blushing red
as a rose. " I can bring the man in safe."
" Oh, it 's some friend of thine that 's
come ? " Lemuel asked ; but the shrewd
twinkle of his eyes showed that he need-
ed no answer. " Well, go intu the box
stall and call for John, and bring in the
one who answers."
Ruth hastily put on a hood and shawl
and went out. A tall figure advanced
from the shed to meet her with out-
stretched hands, which she clasped for an
instant as she said in a low voice, " Don't
speak to me. Don't see me, nor any
one I may have with me ; and wait a lit-
tle before thee comes in, Robert," and
she disappeared in the dark shadows of
the building.
Presently she came out with the shiv-
ering negro almost crouching behind
her, and led him into the house. In the
kitchen her mother met him with an as-
suring word of welcome, and guided him
from it so quickly into a narrow stair-
case that it seemed to the others as if
they had seen but a passing shadow, gone
before they could catch form or feature.
When Zebulon Barclay returned from
the cellar, Lemuel was quietly eating
Out of Bondage.
207
his supper, waited upon by the nimble-
handed Julia, Ruth sat by the fireplace
in decorous, low-voiced conversation with
Robert Ransom, and the quiet room gave
no hint of a recent unaccustomed pre-
sence. Lemuel pushed aside his plate
and supped the last draught of tea from
his saucer with a satisfied sigh before he
found time for much conversation.
" I s'pose thee 's heard what turrible
goin's-on the anti-slavery meetin' lied tu
Montpelier, Zeb'lon ? " he asked.
" Heard ? " his friend replied, his calm
face flushing and his eyes kindling. " I
saw it with my own eyes, and a shame-
ful sight it was to see in the capital of
this free State. Deborah and I were
there."
" Thee don't say so ! And was it as
bad as the papers tell for ? "
" Even worse than any papers but our
own report it. The Voice of Freedom
and the Liberator tell it as it was. Sev-
eral of the speakers were pelted with rot-
ten eggs, and there were threats of laying
violent hands upon some."
" But the' wa'n't nobody r'ally hurt ? "
" No, but Samuel J. May was serious-
ly threatened ; and I don't know what
might have happened if Deborah, here,
had n't taken his arm and walked out
through the mob with him. That shamed
them to forbearance."
" Thee don't say so ! " Lemuel again
ejaculated. " But I guess if Jonathan
Miller was there, he was n't very do-
cyle ? "
" Well, no," rejoined Zebulon, " Jona-
than is not a man of peace, and he called
the rioters some pretty hard names, and
faced them as brave as a lion."
Lemuel rubbed his hand in un-Quaker-
ly admiration of this truculent champion
of the oppressed, and said, with a not
altogether distressed sigh, " I 'm afeard
he would n't hesitate tu use carnal weep-
ons if he was pushed tew fur. He has
been a man of war, an' fit in Greece."
" Wat dat ? " asked Jerome, who had
been listening intently as he slowly cut
the sheep's potatoes, and now held his
knife suspended and stared in wide-eyed
wonder. " He was faght in grease ?
Ah'm was hear of mans, faght in snow,
an' faght in water, an' faght in mud, but
bah jinjo, faght in grease, Ah ant never
was hear so 'fore, me."
" Why, Jerome," explained Zebulon,
with an amused smile? " thee don't under-
stand. Greece is a country, away across
the sea, where this brave man went, ac-
cording to his light, to help the people
war against their oppressors, the Turks."
" Bah jinjo," said the Canadian, re-
suming his occupation, " dat mus' be
w'ere de folkses leeve on de fat of de
Ian', sem Ah'ms hear you tol' of sometam.
An' dey got turkey too, hein ? Ah'ms
b'lieve dat was good place for go, me."
"When it is quite convenient, Zeb'lon,"
Lemuel said, after some further talk of
anti-slavery affairs, diverging to the most
economic means of procuring free-labor
goods, " I want an opportunity tu open
my mind tu thee an' Deb'ry consarnin'
certain weighty matters."
" Come right in the other room," re-
sponded the host, rising and leading the
way. " I think Deborah is there."
The Canadian, presently finishing his
task and his last pipe, lighted a candle
and climbed the stairs to his bed in the
kitchen chamber, and Julia, having .set
the supper dishes away and hung her
wiping-cloths on the poles suspended
from the ceiling by iron hooks, with a
satisfied air of completion, discreetly
withdrew, and the young people had the
rare opportunity of being alone.
" Ruth, you must give me a glimmer
of hope," Robert Ransom pleaded.
"How can I when it would grieve
father and mother so to have me joined
to a companion who is not of our faith,
and has so little unity with us on the
question of slavery ? If thee could but
have light .given thee to see these mat-
ters as they are so clearly shown to us ! '
" If I would pretend to be a Quaker,
and meddle with affairs that don't con-
208
Out of Bondage.
cern me," he said bitterly, " I should be
all right, and they would give me their
daughter. But I can't pretend to believe
what I don't, even for such a reward.
As for the other matter of difference,
you know, Ruth, that I would n't hold a
slave or send one back to his master ;
but slavery exists under the law, and we
have no more business to interfere with
the slaveholders' rights than they with
ours."
" There can be no right to do wrong,
and it is every one's business to bear tes-
timony against evil-doing. Thee knows,
Robert, I would not take thee on any
pretense of belief. But if thee could
only have light ! "
" Oh, Ruth, you will not let these dif-
ferences of belief keep us apart ? What
are they, to stand in the way of our love ? "
" It would not be right to deny thee
is very dear to me, Robert, and that I
pray the way may be opened for us, but
I cannot see it clear yet." Ruth's eyes
met his with a look that was warmer than
her calm words.
" But you will, Ruth," he said, with
suppressed earnestness ; and then a stir
and louder murmur of voices were heard
in the next room. " The Friends have
' broke their meeting,' as your people say,
and it 's time for me to go. I want to
caution you, though, to keep a certain
person you have in the house very close.
I 'm afraid there are parties on the look-
out for him not far off."
" Oh, thank thee, Robert. Why does
thee think so ? " she asked in some alarm.
" From something I heard in the vil-
lage to-day, I think there 's a party of
slave-hunters prowling around in this
part of the State, and I saw a stranger at
Manum's to-night who is likely enough to
be one of them. It 's an odd season for
a man to be traveling for pleasure here.
There may be nothing in it, but tell your
father to be careful. Good-night."
Under cover of the noise of Ransom's
exit Jerome closed the disused stovepipe
hole in the chamber floor, at which he
had been listening, crept into bed, and
fell asleep while puzzling out the mean-
ing of what he had overheard.
Ruth Barclay lost no time in impart-
ing the caution to her parents and their
trusty friend Lemuel, and her father's
thoughtful face was troubled as he said,
" Our poor friend must have rest. Thy
mother has been ministering to him, and
says he is a very sick man. He cannot
J /
go farther at present, but I wish he was
nearer Canada. Well, we will watch and
wait for guidance. Perhaps to-morrow
night I can take him to thy uncle Aaron's,
and then we can count on his safety. I
hope thee has not been indiscreet in let-
ting Robert into our secret, my child ? "
"Thee need not fear, father," Ruth
answered, with quiet assurance. " Rob-
ert is faithful."
" I am not quite clear," and the father
sighed. " Robert is not light or evil-
minded, but his father is a Presbyterian
and a Democrat, and very bitter against
Friends and anti-slavery people. I am
not quite clear .concerning Robert."
rv.
The next morning Jerome was en-
couraging the fire newly kindled from
the bed of coals on the hearth, and tip-
toeing between it and the wood-box in
his stockings, when Julia made her ap-
pearance in the kitchen, holding between
her compressed lips some yet unutilized
pins while she tied the strings of her
check apron.
" Morny, Julie," he saluted cheerily.
Her speech being restrained by the pins,
she nodded, and he went on interroga-
tively, as he seated himself and began
mellowing his stiff boots with thumb and
fingers : " Ah'ms toP you, Julie. W'at
you s'pose kan o' t'ing was be raoun' dese
buildin' for scairt me so plenty ? "
" Why, J'rome ? " Julia, like a true
Yankee, answered with a question, when
she had found a place in her dress for
Out of Bondage.
209
the last pin. " What hes ben a-scarin'
of you, I sh'd like tu know ? "
"Ah'ms can' tol' you, 'cause Ah'ms
can' see ; Ah'ms only zhus' hear. Las'
naght w'en Ah'ms go on de barn, Ah'ms
hear some nowse lak somebody cough,
cough, an' dere ant not'ing for see. W'en
Ah'ms go on de bed, Ah'ms hear it some
more upstair, cough, cough, zhus' de sem.
Ah'ms b'lieve it was ghos'."
Julia searched his face with a quick
glance, and compelled her own to express
no less fear and wonder. " Good land o'
massy ! You don't say ! " she exclaimed
in an awed undertone. " Where did it
'pear tu be, J'rome ? "
" All don' know if it be in de chim-
bley or behin' de chimbley, me. Ah'ms
'fraid for ex-amine."
" Examine ! Ketch me a-pokin' behind
that 'ere chimbley, if I c'd git there,
which it 's all closed up these I do'
know haow many year. No, sir, not for
all this world, in broad daylight, I would
n't ! " Julia protested, with impressive
voice and slow shakes of the head.
" Bah jinjo ! W'at you s'pose he
was ? " Jerome asked, under his breath.
" I 've hearn tell 't the Injuns er the
British killed some hired man there, 'way
back in Gran'f'ther Barclay's day," Julia
whispered ; and then, in a more reassur-
ing tone, " But you may depend it hain't
nothin' 'at '11 hurt us, if we let it alone,
J'rome."
" W'at for Zeb'lon try foolish me wid
cat-sneeze w'en he know it was be ghos' ?
Ah'ms ant s'pose Quaker mans was tol'
lie, prob'ly. Ah'ms hear dat Ramson
tol' Rut' he 'fraid somet'ing. Ah don'
know, me." And having pulled on his
boots after a brief struggle, he lighted
the lantern and went out to his chores.
" I wonder haow much the critter
heard," Julia soliloquized, as she leaned
on the broom and looked with unseeing
eyes at the door which had just closed
behind him, " an' if he mistrusts suthin' ?
I would n't trust him no furder 'n I 'd
trust a dog wi' my dinner."
VOL. LXXX. NO. 478. 14
When Deborah Barclay came into the
kitchen her usually placid face was trou-
bled, and it was not lightened when Ju-
lia told her suspicions, ending with the
declaration, " You can't never trust a
Canuck, man or womern, an' this 'ere
J'rome loves colored folks as a cat loves
hot soap. He 's al'ys an' forever a-goin'
on abaout 'em."
" Ah me ! " Deborah sighed. " The
way seems dark this morning. Zebulon
was taken with one of his bad turns in
the night and is n't able to get up, and
Lemuel is obliged to go home at once.
We heard last night that there are slave-
hunters about, and if it is needful to re-
move our poor friend upstairs to a safer
place we have no one that we can trust
to do it, if indeed he can be removed
without endangering his life ; for he 's
in a miserable way, and needs rest and
nursing. But perhaps the way will be
made clear to us. It always has been in
these matters."
Friend Lemuel reernbarked on his
homeward voyage, in the huge bread-
tray, soon after the early breakfast, and
the Quaker household fell into more
than its wonted outward quiet. This
was scarcely disturbed when, in the af-
ternoon, Jehiel James drove past, and
halted a little for a chat with Jerome to
discuss the merits of the colt the latter
was breaking. It did not escape Julia's
sharp eyes that the two had their heads
together, nor did her ears fail to catch
Kiel's parting injunction : " Come over
tu the tarvern in the evenin' an' we '11
strike up a dicker for the cult."
" I guess suthin' 11 happen so 's 't
you won't go tu no tarvern tu-night,"
she said to herself. " I b'lieve there '11
be a way pervided, as aour folks says, tu
hender it," and she went about her work
considering the possible ways of Provi-
dence.
Not long afterward Jerome came in,
and on some pretext went up to his
sleeping-room. Julia, listening intently
while he moved stealthily to and fro, or
210
Out of Bondage.
maintained suspicious intervals of silence,
thought she detected once the cautious
opening of a door. When he reap-
peared there was an ill-concealed gleam
of triumph in his beady black eyes, and
they furtively sought hers as if to read
her thought.
" Ah'ms t'ink Ah'ms ant mos' never
goin' fan mah tobac," he said, ostenta-
tiously biting off a corner of a plug, and
then asked, " Haow was be Zeb'lon ? He
ant goin' be seek, don't it ? "
" I do' know, J'rome. He 's putty
bad off. He 's got a burnin' fever an' a
tumble pain acrost him. I should n't
wonder if you lied tu go arter the dark-
ter this evenin'."
" Ah'ms can' go dis evelin'," he an-
swered hastily. " Ah'ms gat some beesi-
nees, me. Wat for Ah can' go gat doc-
ter 'fore de chore, hein ? "
" You '11 hafter go right past the tar-
vern tu git the Thompsonian darkter,
which aour folks won't hev no other,"
she answered irrelevantly.
" More Ah'ms t'ink of it," Jerome
said, after a little consideration, " more
Ah'ms t'ink Ah'm could go."
" If I only hed sperits enough," Julia
communed with herself meantime, " I 'd
git you so all-fired minky, you would n't
know where tu go, an' would n't git there
if you did. But Mis' Barclay would n't
le' me hev enough tu du that, not tu save
all Afriky. Mebby, though," with a
flash of inspiration, " she 'd le' me hev
a good doste for medicine."
"J'rome," she said aloud, "what's
the motter ails ye ? Ye hain't a-lookin'
well."
" Me ? Ah'm was feel fus'-rate."
" But you hain't well, I know you
hain't. You look pale 's you can, com-
plected as you be, and you 're dark 'n
under your eyes. I must git you suthin'
tu take. Mebby I c'n git a doste o' hot
sperits f'm Mis' Barclay."
Jerome's face was comical, with its
mixed expression of satisfaction and sim-
ulated misery. " Bah jinjo, Julie, Ah'ms
ant felt so well Ah'ms t'ink Ah was.
Ah'ms gat col' come, w'en Ah'ms chau-
pin'. Dey ant not'ing cure me so fas'
lak some whiskey."
" Don't you say nothin', an' I '11 see if
I c'n git you a doste afore supper."
Ruth was in close attendance upon
her father while her mother ministered
to the hidden fugitive, so the handmaid-
en had little opportunity for speech with
either till toward nightfall. At the first
chance, in a beguiling tone, she besought
Deborah : " I du hate tu ask you, but I
be so tuckered an' kinder all gone, I
wish 't you 'd gi' me a rael big squilch o'
sperits."
" Why, surely, thee poor child, if thee
needs it, thee shall have it. I '11 give
thee the bottle, and thee can help thy-
self. I know thee '11 be prudent," and
Deborah passed up the narrow staircase
with a steaming bowl of gruel.
When possessed of the spirits, Julia
fortified herself with a moderate dram,
"jest tu keep my word good," she said
to herself. " Now I '11 see what I can
du for the benefit of your health, Mr.
J'rome," and she poured out a bountiful
draught of the ripe old Jamaica, and
added to it, from a vial, a spoonful of
a dark liquid, carefully stirred the mix-
ture, and tasted it with critical deliber-
ation.
" That tinctur' o' lobele does bite, but
my sakes, he won't never notice. There
you come," as she heard Jerome stamp-
ing at the threshold. " I hope this 'ere
won't kill ye, not quite, but you '11 think
it 's goin' tu if you never took no lobele
afore. My senses ! " and she made a
disgusted face as she recalled her own
experiences of Thompsonian treatment.
A few minutes later she covertly handed
Jerome the glass, and with a sense of
righteous guilt watched his eager drain-
ing of the last drop.
" Oh, Julie," he whispered hoarsely,
with resounding smacks of satisfaction,
" you was good womans. Dat was cure
me all up."
Out of Bondage.
211
" I du hope it '11 du good," she re-
sponded, and mentally added, " an' keep
you f'm tellin' tales out o' school."
Warmed by the potent spirits, and
without the calm restraint of his em-
ployer's presence, Jerome was more than
usually garrulous at the supper-table, till
suddenly his tongue began to falter and
a ghastly pallor overspread his dark
face.
" Oh ! " he groaned, as his glaring eyes
sought imploringly the alarmed counte-
nances of the women, lingering longest
upon Julia's, " w'at you s'pose hail me ?
Oh, Ah'ms goin' to dead ! Mah hinside
all turn over ! Oh, Julie, was you pazzin
me wid bugbed pazzin ? " He pushed
himself from the table and staggered to-
ward the door, whither he was anxiously
followed by Deborah and Ruth.
" What is it, Jerome ? Is it a sickness
or a pain ? " Deborah inquired with con-
cern. " Shall I give thee some pepper
tea, or salt and water ? Thee 'd better
go upstairs and lie down."
" Oh, sacre, mon Dieu ! " he groaned.
" All Ah'ms want was for dead, so quick
Ah can ! Oh, Ah'ms bus' open ! Ah'ms
bile over ! Ah'ms tore up ! Dat damn
hoi' gal Julie spile me all up ! " and he
floundered out of doors, retching and
groaning.
Deborah was about to follow him, when
she was withheld by Julia. " Don't you
stir a step arter him, Mis' Barclay. He '11
come all right plenty soon 'nough. I
know what ails him. I only give him a
little doste o' medicine."
" Julia Peck," said Deborah severely,
" what has thee been doing ? "
" I '11 tell ye the hull truth, Mis' Bar-
clay, as true as I live an' breathe. I was
jes' as sure as I stan' here that him an'
that 'ere Hiel James was a-connivin' tu
help take that man we 've got in aour
chamber, an' Jerome was a - peekin'
raoun' this very arternoon tu find aout
if he was here ; an' I know by the look
of him he did find aout, an' he was
a-goin' tu the tarvern tu-night tu let 'em
know, an' I jest put a stop tu it; for
what was we a-goin' tu du, with Mr.
Barclay sick abed, an' nob'dy but us wo-
men ? Naow, I don't think he '11 go jest
yit."
Deborah smiled while she tried to ex-
press a proper degree of severity in her
words and voice. " Julia, I fear thee has
done wrong. I do. hope thee has n't
given the poor misguided man anything
very injurious ? "
" As true as I live an' breathe, it
hain't nothin' but tinctur' o' lobele, an'
it '11 clear aout his stomach an' du him
good."
" We will hope for the best. But ah
me, we are sore beset. We have no
way to get our friend to a place of safe-
ty to - night, and to - morrow the slave-
hunters may be here, and they will search
the whole house. Besides, the poor man's
cough would betray him wherever we hid
him. What can we do ? "
" Would n't Mr. Weeks help, if we c'd
git him word ? I c'd cut over there in
no time, if you say so," and Julia made
a move toward her hood and shawl be-
hind the door.
" Thee 's very kind. I 've thought of
him, but he 's gone across the lake to
visit Friends, and won't be back till Sev-
enth Day. And he 's the only Friend
here that 's in full unity with us in these
matters," and Deborah sighed.
" Could n't I take Tom and get the
man to uncle Aaron's before morning,
mother ? " asked Ruth.
" Oh, my child, if thee could, he is not
able to ride so far. No, dear ; yet I
know not what to do or which way to
turn," said the mother, and she walked
to the window, and stood looking out, as
if some guidance was to come to her out
of the growing shadows of evening.
" Mother," said Ruth earnestly, after
an unbroken silence of some length, " I
will get some one to help us. Julia, will
thee help me harness Tom ? Don't ask
me any questions, mother, but thee trust
212
Out of Bondage.
" I do trust thee, my child. But I
can't think who thee can get."
" I '11 harness or du anything, Reuth ;
but if that Canuck does turn hisself
wrong side aout an' die, don't you tell of
me. But I guess he wa'n't borned tu
die of Thompsonian medicine ; an' there
he comes. I 'm glad, for I al'ys did
spleen agin findin' corpses layin' raoun'
permiscus."
Jerome came into the room, and, woe-
begone of countenance and limp of form,
too sick to notice any lack of sympathy,
he crept ignominiously on all fours up
the stairs to bed. Julia gave a sigh of
relief as she closed the door behind the
abject figure.
" There, thanks be tu goodness and
lobele, he 's safte for this night. Naow,
Reuth, we '11 harness the hoss."
V.
The faithful old family horse seemed
to understand the necessity of a swifter
pace than was employed in his jogging to
First Day and Fifth Day meetings, and
he took a smart trot with little urging
by his young mistress. The half -buried
fences and the trees drifted steadily
past, and the long shadows cast in the
light of the rising moon swung slowly
backward, while the jagged crests of the
distant hills marched forward in stately
procession ; yet in her anxiety the pro-
gress was slow to Ruth, the way never so
long. It was shortened by the good for-
tune of meeting Robert Ransom a half-
mile from his home, and she counted it no
less a favor to be saved the awkwardness
of seeking an interview with him.
She was not disappointed in his re-
sponse to her appeal, and it was not long
before he was at her father's bedside.
A short consultation was held concerning
the best means of baffling the slave-hunt-
ers whose descent upon this suspected
hiding-place of the fugitive might occur
at any time.
" I '11 carry the man anywhere you
say, Mr. Barclay. Mrs. Barclay says
he 's too weak to go far, and I '11 tell
you my plan. It 's to take him to our
sugar-house. No one ever goes there till
sugaring-time, after the wood is hauled,
and that 's just finished. It 's warm and
there 's a bunk in it, so that by carrying
along some buffaloes and blankets he can
be made almost as comfortable as in any
house."
" I don't know a safer place, for no one
would ever think of looking for a run-
away negro on thy father's premises,"
said Zebulon, with due deliberation, yet
with a humorous twinkle in his eye, and
then added, " My ! what would he say ? "
" I don't think it necessary to ask him,
and I '11 take the man there at once, if
you say so." The young man's kindly
face expressed an earnestness in which
there was no guile.
"I think thy plan is the only one we
can adopt, and the sooner we do so the
better. The women folks will provide
thee with blankets, and there must be
food and medicine. Deborah, does thee
think he will be able to keep his own
fire and wait on himself ? "
" He is not fit to leave his bed," she
answered ; " but he must, long enough
to get to a place of safety. Does thee
think I should go with him, Zebulon ?
I don't see the way clear to leave thee,
my dear, nor to let Ruth go, though she
would not shrink from it if it seemed
best."
Robert's face flushed, and he hastily
said, " Ruth go to nurse a sick " The
offensive name " nigger," forbidden in
that household, though familiar enough
in his own, was barely withheld. " No,
it would n't be right for either to go,
Mrs. Barclay. I will take care of the
man."
Zebulon bestowed a grateful look upon
him, and stretched forth his hand to clasp
that of the young man. " Robert, I
never thought to look to thee for help
in such a case. Thee is very kind, and
Out of Bondage.
213
I shall not forget it in thee. If it is
ever in my power to serve thee, thee
must feel free to call on me."
Robert blushed almost guiltily as he
silently thought of the reward he most
desired, and quietly thanked the sick man
for his kindly expressions.
" Now, I think thee would better be
about the matter at once. Look out for
Jerome, and be sure that no one is watch-
ing the house when thee starts, Robert.
Farewell."
Deborah stayed a moment to adminis-
ter a dose of Thompsonian medicine
known as "No. 6," when Zebulon said,
getting his breath after the fiery draught,
" Well, help has come in an unexpect-
ed way. I did not expect so much from
Neighbor Ransom's son."
" It is indeed a favor," and there was
a hope in the mother's heart that the
way might also become clear for her
daughter's happiness.
The Canadian had fallen into such a
deep sleep from the reaction of Julia's
heroic treatment that he was not aroused
by any stir around the house. The fu-
gitive was taken from his hiding-place,
a snug little chamber back of the great
warm chimney, which had given safe and
comfortable shelter to many escaping
slaves, a use to which it was devoted.
With the help of his ready-handed female
assistants Robert soon had his charge
in the sleigh, with bedding, provisions,
and medicines.
When the sick man was carefully
wrapped in blankets and hidden under
the buffalo, Robert drove along the high-
way, swiftly and silently, till at last he
turned through a gap into a pathless field,
across which he made slower progress to
the dusky border of the woods. Guided
by familiar landmarks, he came to the
narrow portal of a wood-road that wound
its unbeaten but well-defined way among
gray tree -trunks, snow-capped stumps
and rocks, and thick haze of under-
growth. Inanimate material forms and
impalpable blue shadows assumed shapes
of fearful living things to the strained
imagination of the negro, who was now
permitted to free his head from the
robe. He shrank as if struck when a
tree snapped under stress of the cold,
a noise unaccountable to him, but like the
click of a gun-lock, or the shot of a rifle,
or the crack of a whip.
With calm manner and reassuring
words Ransom again and again quieted
the often reawakened fears of the fugi-
tive, till at last they reached the sugar-
house. It was a picture of loneliness
and desertion, with smokeless, snow-
capped chimney and pathless approach.
When they entered, the bare interior re-
vealed by the light of a candle was dis-
mal and comfortless. The blankets and
pillows were soon arranged upon the
bunk, and, having made his guest as
easy as possible, Ransom kindled a fire
in the great arch over which the sap was
boiled, and put the stock of provisions
into the rude corner cupboard.
The yellow light of the candle and
the red gleams of the fire were reflected
by some tin utensils that hung on the
wall, by an old musket leaning in a cor-
ner, and by the piled tier of sap-buckets ;
the dancing shadows tripped to a less
solemn measure ; a genial warmth began
to pervade the room, and soon the place
assumed the cheerful homeliness of a
snug winter camp.
The troubled face of the negro bright-
ened as he looked around, watching his
companion's preparations with languid
interest.
" Dis yere 's a mighty nice place fur
layin' low," he said in a hoarse voice.
" You 's powerful good to fetch me here,
marster, an' I 's 'bleeged to ye."
" That 's all right, my man," Robert
replied, as he set an inverted sap-tub by
the bunk and placed a bottle of medicine
upon it. " Now here 's the medicine for
you to take, and my watch to show you
when to take it. Keep quiet, and I '11 be
back in a couple of hours ; " and after re-
plenishing the fire, he departed to take
214
Out of Bondage.
the horse home, and finally returned on
foot to his self-appointed post.
Perhaps the secrecy of the service, the
relish of baffling eager search, and the
possible chance of adventure made Ran-
som's task more congenial than the mere ,
sense of duty could have done, and he
plodded his way back over the snowy
road with a cheerful heart. When he
had ministered to his patient's needs
and fed the fire, he rolled himself in his
blankets and fell asleep.
VI.
Morning found Jerome recovered from
the last night's illness, but not restored
to good humor. He had satisfied him-
self that the negro had been removed
from the house, but how or where he
could not conjecture, and he was sav-
agely disappointed that the chance and
reward of betrayal had slipped beyond
his reach. As he plied his axe in Zeb-
ulon Barclay's woodlot, the strokes fell
with spiteful vigor ; and when a great tree
succumbed to them and went groaning
to the final crash of downfall, he gloated
over it as if it were a personal enemy.
As the echoes boomed their last faint re-
verberation and left him in the midst of
silence, his ear caught the sound of dis-
tant axe-strokes ; and when, across the
narrow cleared valley that lay between
him and the next wooded hillside, he saw
a column of smoke rising above the tops
of the maples, after a long, intent look he
asked himself, " Wat you s'pose some-
bodee was do on hoi' Ramson sugar-place,
dis tarn de year ? "
Unable to answer except by unsatisfac-
tory guesses, he resumed his chopping ;
but the itch of curiosity gave him no rest,
for he was as inquisitive as any native
of the soil ; and when it could no longer
be endured, he struck his axe into a
stump, and set forth in quest of the cer-
tain knowledge which should be its cure.
As he cautiously drew near the sugar-
house, in its rear, under cover of the great
maple trunks that stood about it on every
side, he heard low voices in broken con-
versation, and a moment later a racking,
distressful cough which excited his sus-
picions.
Stooping low, he crept from the near-
est tree to the one window, whose board
shutter was swung open for the admission
of light, and peered stealthily in. The
brief survey revealed Robert Ransom
looking anxiously down on the ghastly
face of the negro. There was no soften-
ing touch of pity in the malignantly tri-
umphant gleam of the Canadian's snaky
eyes as he returned to the cover of the
trees, gliding from one to another till he
regained the valley, and then resumed
his chopping.
Throughout the day, at the sugar-
house, the winter stillness was unbroken
save by the small voices of the titmice
and nuthatches and the subdued tapping
of the industrious woodpeckers, sounds
that harmonized with it and but inten-
sified it. The place seemed as secure
from enemies in its complete isolation as
it was remote from the reach of medical
aid, which Ransom felt was needed, and
of which he was often on the point of go-
ing in quest. The sick man was racked
with pain at times, his mind wandered,
and he talked incoherently.
" It 's mighty good to be free, Marse
Ransom, 'deed it is dat. Oh, but it 's col'
up dis away. Oh, de snow ! I 's wadin'
in de snow de hull endurin' time ! It 's
freezin' on me ! I 's comin to de sun-
shine ! I kin feel it a-warmin' ! I 's in
de eberlastin' snow, an' de dogs is arter
me ! I can't git ahead none ! Fur de
Lawd's sake, don' let 'em kotch me ! "
" Don't be afraid. Nothing shall harm
you. We 're safe here," Ransom would
repeat again and again in reassuring
tones, while great beads of perspiration
gathered on the dusky face, ashen gray
with sickness and terror, and the stalwart
form would now be shaken with ague,
now burned with fever.
Out of Bondage.
215
" Take a drink of hot stuff, John, and
let me cover you up warm and good,"
Ransom urged, bringing a steaming cup
of herb tea from the fire, saying to him-
self, "It 's old woman's medicine, but
it 's all I have."
In the afternoon the sick man became
easier, and fell into such a quiet sleep
that his nurse began to think the rest
and the simple remedies were working
a cure. When night fell and the multi-
tude of shadows were merged in univer-
sal gloom, he closed the window shutter,
lighted the candle, and made needful
preparations for the lonely night-watch.
As he sat by the bunk, ready to at-
tend to any want, there was no sound
but the regular labored breathing, the
crackling fire, the fall of a smouldering
brand, and the slow gnawing of a wood-
mouse behind the tier of tubs. He felt
a kind of exhilaration when he realized
that he was so interested in the welfare
of this poor waif that he thought no-
thing of his own weariness or ti'ouble, but
only how he could best serve the forlorn
stranger.
After the passing of some hours, his
charge still sleeping peacefully, Ransom
thought he himself might take a little
rest. He noiselessly replenished the fire
with the last of the wood, and quietly
stepped outside for more. He paused
on the log step a moment, listening for
one pulse of sound in the dead silence
of the winter night. Not a withered leaf
rustled in the bare treetops, not a buried
twig snapped under the soft footfalls of
. wandering hare or prowling fox. Ran-
som loosed his held breath and was about
to step into the moonlight, when he detect-
ed a stealthy invasion of the silence, and
recognized the sharp screech of sleigh-
runners and the muffled tread of horses.
His heart leaped at the probability of
coming help, for it could hardly be aught
else. Yet he would not be too sure, and,
reentering the house, he closed the door
softly.
He slipped aside the covering of a small
loophole in the door, made to afford the
sugar-maker the amusement of shooting
crows when time hung heavy on his
hands, and looked out upon the scene.
The full moon had climbed halfway to
the zenith, and its beams fell in broad
bands of white between the blue shad-
ows of the tree-trunks and full upon the
open space in front of the sugar-house.
Presently a sleigh came into the narrow
range of his vision. It halted, and three
men alighted. He started back in dis-
may, for at the first glance he recognized
the burly form and coarse features of
Hiel, and the dark-visaged traveler whom
he had seen at the tavern, while the third
figure was unknown. He hurriedly fas-
tened the door, for there could be no
doubt as to the purpose of the visitors.
Who could have betrayed the fugi-
tive's hiding-place ? Escape was impos-
sible, and successful resistance no less so.
What could he do ? As the unanswered
questions rapidly revolved in his mind,
his heart grew suddenly sick with the
thought that the Barclays might suspect
him of treachery. The fugitive's safety
had been entrusted to him on his own
offer. He was sharply recalled from
these swift thoughts by a stir in the bunk.
Aroused by the noise and instinctively
divining danger, the negro had started
up in terror and was staring imploringly
at Ransom.
" Dey 's arter me, marse. Don' let 'em
git me. Dey '11 wollup me. Dey '11 jes'
cut me to pieces. Don' let 'em kotch me."
" No, they shan't get you. Lie down
and keep quiet," said Ransom in a low,
reassuring tone, still engaged with watch-
ing the movements of those outside.
The negro sank back submissively,
with deep sighs and incoherent mutter-
ings.
The door was now violently tried and
loudly beaten upon, and a voice demand-
ed that it should be opened.
" Who 's there ? " asked Ransom.
" Never mind. You jest open the door
an' let us in," Kiel's voice answered.
216
Out of Bondage.
" What do you want ? "
" We want the nigger. Open the door,
or we '11 bust it. Come, naow, no foolin'."
" I won't open the door," said Ransom
firmly ; " break it in if you dare."
As his eyes searched the room almost
hopelessly for some means of defense or
deliverance, they fell upon the old mus-
ket in the corner, and in the same glance
he saw that a great and sudden change
had come upon the face of the negro.
The shock of fright had been too great,
and the stamp of death was already set
upon the drawn features. After the first
instant a strange exultation sprang up
in Ransom's heart. An invisible ally
would snatch the prey from their grasp,
if he could but hold the hunters at bay
for a while. He seized the musket and
ran to the door. Looking out from his
coign of vantage, he saw the three men
advancing, carrying a heavy stick from
the woodpile with the evident purpose of
using it as a battering-ram. He thrust
the rusty gun-muzzle through the loop-
hole and called out, " Drop that, or I '11
send a charge of shot into you ! "
The assailants hesitated only a moment
when they saw the threatening muzzle,
and then Ransom heard the log drop
in the snow. Soon, after some consulta-
tion, there was a sound of stealthy foot-
steps in the rear of the shanty, as of
some one reconnoitring in that quarter;
then the silence was broken by the gasp-
ing breath and whispers of the dying
man. Ransom set the gun by the door
and went to him.
" I 's mos' ober de ribber de dogs
can't kotch me. De sun sliinin' de
birds singin' de bees hummin'. Good-
by, marse, I 's gwine."
The massive chest ceased its labored
heavings. The look of terror faded out
of the face, to give place to that expres-
sion of perfect rest which is the hopef ul-
est solution to the living of the awful
mystery of death.
Suddenly there were heavy blows on
the shuttered window, which crashed in
at once. At the same moment with this
diversion in the rear came an assault
upon the door. Ransom undid the fasten-
ing and threw it open. " You can come
in," he said quietly.
Hiel and the stranger whom Ransom
had first seen at the tavern entered cau-
tiously, as if suspecting a trap, the latter
with a cocked pistol in his hand.
" Don't be afraid, Hiel," Ransom said
contemptuously ; " the gun has n't been
loaded for a year."
" Damn putty business fer Square
Ransom's son, stealin' niggers is," Hiel
declared. " Where 's yer nigger, any-
way ? "
Ransom pointed to the bunk, and the
stranger, drawing a pair of handcuffs
from his pocket, advanced toward the
motionless figure. "Come, boy," he said
sharply, " the little game is up, an' it 's
no use playin' 'possum. Hold out your
hands." He roughly seized one of the
lifeless hands. " What the hell ! " he
exclaimed, recoiling from the icy touch.
After an intent look at the quiet, peace-
ful face of him who had escaped from
all bondage, he turned to Ransom, who
stood calmly regarding him. " Well, Mr.
Ransom, I reckon you 've played it ra-
ther low down on us, but you 've won
the game and the niggah 's yours. I
reckon I don't want him. Come, boys,
let 's be off."
Rowland E. Robinson.
The Holy Picture.
217
THE HOLY PICTURE.
IT is most curious how many untold
stories go to make up the sum of a single
story told, a single song sung, a single
painting completed. I was thinking of
this the other day as I stood before a
certain picture in the gallery of an art
exhibition. It was a very gentle, quiet
picture, and yet, after they had gone the
rounds of the rooms, people were quite
sure to turn back for another look ; and
often as they stood before it tears rose
unbidden to their eyes, not because the
picture was sad, but because it was beau-
tiful.
The title given in the catalogue read,
" And our Lord came to the Gateway of
the Little Garden."
" Whose little garden ? " I heard some
one ask ; and some one else replied, " Oh,
don't you know ? That is a quotation
from a poem." And the second speaker
added she was quite sure she should be
able to find the poem, and they would
look for it that evening.
I could have spared the vain search,
only what I knew about the picture was
altogether too much to tell in a public
place and at a moment's notice; its story
being made up of three others, that of
my brother Edward, that of his friend
Janet, and that of Mary Morrison, " the
Winsome Lady."
Edward has his studio on the upper
floor of an old brick house halfway down
a crooked street: a most respectable
street, having only one saloon to its four
corners ; a picturesque street, on account
of the bend and of the curious collection
of carts drawn up along the sidewalk
toward evening and on Sundays and holi-
days; a merry, amusing street, always
something going on, little boys and
girls playing, older boys and girls dancing
to the music of a hand-organ, scissors-
grinders, fishmongers, buyers of old rags,
venders of fruit, vegetables, small wares,
and plants in bloom, continually passing
and repassing.
On specified occasions the little girls
and boys climb the stairs to my brother's
studio, and look through the portfolios
of prints and photographs kept for their
especial entertainment. On other occa-
sions the men and women of the neigh-
borhood come, and the older children :
more pictures are shown and discussed,
light refreshments are passed, perhaps a
lantern-slide exhibition is held, or it rnay
be a concert is improvised by the guests.
Edward is. poor, naturally, being a
painter ; still, he is rich enough to do as
he pleases, which, all things considered,
is wealth indeed, and it pleases him to
paint in a manner as refined and deli-
cate and out of date as that of a Raphael
Madonna, and to live in what he calls a
" studio settlement."
His friend Janet occupied, until the
other day, two back rooms on the floor
below, and, as part of her busy life,
took charge of my brother's domestic
concerns. By profession, according to
her own definition, she was a " poor old
scrub ; " otherwise expressed, a washer-
woman. Edward had a habit of alluding
to her as a washerwoman by mistake, and
of insisting that her position admirably
illustrated the general upside-downness
of the world ; that nothing made him
more uncomfortable than to see such a
dainty little old lady trudging abroad
with her heavy bundles, whatever the
wind or the weather ; and that it was his
fixed intention to offer, on stormy nights,
his personal assistance in carrying home
the wash, an intention which, I believe,
at various times he attempted to put
into execution, thereby causing himself
to be seriously reprimanded for what Ja-
net termed a lack of sense of propriety.
To go back half a century and more in
the little Scotchwoman's history, there
218
The Holy Picture.
was then, twenty -four miles out from
Glasgow, a wee whitewashed cottage
looking toward Ben Lomond ; and by
the kitchen window, within, the mother's
wheel went humming, and under the win-
dow, without, a little brook went rippling.
Here Janet was born, and having grown
up to " a bonnie lassie 0," she wandered
away and across the sea ; met Robin with
the blue eyes, the fair hair, and the smile
and bow that made one feel as if it were a
May morning and some one had brought
in a nosegay ; and in due course of time
Janet promised to marry Robin for richer
for poorer, it proving to be always for
poorer.
Once married, they built them a nest
in the old brick house of the crooked
street, and there lived bravely on through
many a toilsome year, until, in the home
country, the mother's wheel had long been
silent, the little brook had run dry, a rail-
road was speeding its way over the spot
where the whitewashed cottage had stood,
and their own youth and middle life had
been spent ; until a moment came when
Robin was taken ill and carried to a hos-
pital, where he died, and in the early
afternoon before New Year's Day the
church gave him his burial, he having
neglected to follow Janet's prudent ad-
vice and example, and having made no
previous provision for this last emer-
gency.
On the evening of New Year's Day
Mary Morrison knocked at Janet's door,
bearing in her hand a jar of marmalade,
which she had brought on the general
principle that it is easier to make a visit
of condolence if one carries some offer-
ing. She found Janet seated by the ta-
ble, the lamp lighted. Behind the latter,
neatly piled against the wall, were her
Bible, Prayer Book, Hymnal, and a little
gilt-clasped, gilt-edged, morocco-bound
copy of the New Testament, a souvenir of
girlish days in Scotland, with time-tinted
pages, and having in the back the Psalms
of David in metre " moro plain, smooth,
and agreeable than any heretofore," and
a collection of such old tunes as Kilmar-
nock, New Lydia, St. Mirrins, Tranquil-
lity, and Stroudwater. On top of the
little old book lay a rose. Edward had
placed it there that the room might seem
less sorrowful, toward which purpose the
rose helped, perhaps, in some slight de-
gree, and the jar of marmalade assisted.
Janet was gazing toward the wall above
the books on the table. " I am thinking
of death and the judgment," she said to
her visitor. " I am peering, as it were,
into eternity. I strain and I strain my
eyes, and I discover nothing."
Then she told of a custom inherited
from parents and grandparents through
many generations, that of opening the
Bible at midnight on the eve of such
great festivals as Christmas, New Year's,
Easter, and Whitsunday, preceding the
opening of the book by repeating, " In
the name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Ghost. Amen," fer-
vently believing that the verse on which
the eye first rested would be one of espe-
cial significance. The verse to which she
had turned on the night before had been,
" In my Father's house are many man-
sions." And she said she feared Robin
would never be content in a mansion ; he
was used to having things compact and
cosy.
" If there are many of them," ob-
served Mary Morrison, " they are proba-
bly of many kinds, some large and some
small."
" A wee whitewashed cottage is what
I should prefer," said Janet, brightening
for a moment ; " and it must be over-
grown with roses, and on the hearth a
turf fire and a cricket to sing."
" And outside," suggested Mary Mor-
rison, " a little garden with bluebells and
heather."
" And a hawthorn hedge," Janet add-
ed, " and a sweetbrier bush, and a bed
of mignonette. Robin was always fond
of a sprig of mignonette for his button-
hole. And there must be cabbages and
onions."
The Holy Picture.
219
Mary Morrison said she hardly thought
there would be cabbages and onions in
heaven, though of course there might be.
"Nor shall I need them there," re-
turned Janet. " The spirit does not eat."
She spoke in a tone of severity, like one
suddenly realizing and rebuking an ir-
reverent turn in conversation, and, fold-
ing her hands, seemed trying to again
concentrate her mind on the subject of
her interrupted reflections.
This attempt she repeated evening af-
ter evening, thereby growing more and
more thought-entangled, helpless, and be-
wildered, until, notwithstanding the fact
that she considered Mary Morrison whol-
ly unreliable in her views touching a
future state, she came at last to seek
moments of refuge and distraction in the
fancy presented, and to talk of the pre-
tended existence of the little garden in
heaven, disapprovingly, to be sure, but
still with evident interest: and in this way
she spoke of it to Edward, at the same
time tellingjhim something of Mary Mor-
rison herself, that she was always put-
ting the most foolish ideas into one's
head, and that one could never be quite
sure whether she half believed what she
was saying, only, being such a winsome
lady, one was obliged to listen to her.
Shortly after this, in an idle moment,
Edward painted a picture of the Little
Garden with the hawthorn hedge about
it ; and within, the wee cottage, with its
roses and a sweetbrier bush growing by
the doorway, and under the window a
touch of green which he said was mignon-
ette. He made the picture purposely of
some size, that it might cover as much as
was possible of that portion of the wall
toward which Janet was accustomed to
gaze when she sat down, after the day's
work, and attempted to peer into eternity.
But when he proposed to hang it
above the table, Janet answered quickly,
" Not there, that place is reserved ;
hang it to one side."
Then it appeared that Janet had a
long-cherished plan concerning this par-
ticular place, and had for years coveted,
and still hoped to possess, a holy picture
that should hang above her holy books,
thus converting the back of the table
into a sort of altar ; and that for this pur-
pose she had once been given a head of
Christ, which she had returned, not find-
ing the expression agreeable. " The face
of our Lord," said Janet, " should always
be a pleasant one."
The front of the table served as a
humble board from which were dispensed
the loving sacrifices of a never failing
and never lessening hospitality. At pre-
sent the guests especially favored were,
first, pretty Barbara, a young orphan
girl, getting along as best she could, with
no one of her own to watch over and
mother her ; secondly, Sarah Milligan,
to whom the occasional use of a corner
of Janet's table offered a highly desir-
able change in conditions of light and
air at meal - times, Sarah's abode be-
ing a small dark bedroom, in Janet's
words, no better than -a clothes - press,
and she did n't know what Sarah meant
by treating herself in such an un-Chris-
tian manner; thirdly, Mrs. McNulty, who
occupied a portion of the basement, and
was in most necessitous circumstance,
made still more complicated by the pos-
session of what Janet described as a
" noble spirit," every effort to keep her
from the verge of starvation having to be
conducted with extreme discretion and
delicacy. Then there were numberless
others, all wanting something : it might
be a little washing and ironing for which
they were unable to offer remuneration,
or perhaps a little sympathy, a little ad-
vice, a friendly word, a welcome by a
warm fireside.
" Why do they all come to you ? " I
asked one day, having discovered pretty
Barbara, and Sarah of the dark bedroom,
and Mrs. McNulty of the noble spirit,
socially partaking at Janet's table of tea
and toast and herring.
" Possibly," was the reply, " because I
am good to them. When you are good to
220
The Holy Picture.
people, it is likely to keep them coming
as long as grass grows and water runs."
It was a hard winter, little to do
and little money. Janet had work, it
was true, and pretty Barbara, who pasted
labels on bottles ; also Mary Morrison
and Sarah Milligan in their respective
professions, of whose nature we were ig-
norant, they being silent on this subject.
It was surmised, however, by Edward
and myself, that Mary Morrison had
work of some literary character, and it
was surmised by Janet that her friend
Sarah was connected with a certain down-
town theatre in the way of either mend-
ing or cleaning. Mrs. McNulty had no
work, and Mrs. McNulty's case repre-
sented one in thousands.
A sad state of things, verily ! Through
dying Robin had escaped much that was
pitiful.
There were two experiences in that
dreary winter which, as I now recall
them, stand out by themselves with the
fairness of mountain harebells growing
in some rocky crevice. They were very
simple experiences, things to feel rather
than to tell, to love rather than to show.
One was more particularly Edward's,
the other more particularly mine. Ed-
ward's was a discovery. After hanging
the Little Garden in Heaven on old
Janet's wall, he began to stroll uncon-
sciously and always farther and farther
into old Janet's heart, until he chanced
upon a nook where no one had been for
many a year, not even the owner herself,
and there found safely stored a treasure
of old tales, old songs, superstitions, re-
miniscences, and border ballads, fresh
and ready for his coming, quite as if
he had brushed away a weight of dead
leaves, and beneath a sonsie brook ran
rippling, having its own violets to bend
over it, its own mavis to sing.
And now, when professional duties or
neighborly kindnesses brought my bro-
ther and Janet together, they were sure
to forget in a twinkling the vreal and
the woe of the world about them, to for-
get who was who and what was what ;
and Janet would call Edward " dearie "
and " darling " without the slightest sus-
picion of thus addressing him, since they
were both in their thoughts off and away,
perhaps in the Highlands, perhaps in the
Lowlands, perhaps remembering Robin,
as far even as there where " the day is
aye fair in the Land o' the Leal," off
and away following Prince Charlie, he
of the fair yellow locks flowing over his
shoulders ; or else it might be in Rob
Roy's cave at a gathering of the clans,
or listening to the good Presbyterians
singing psalms in their hiding-places, or
parting with Highland Mary, or assisting
at the episode of Lord Ullin's daughter,
and Janet would exclaim, exactly as if
she had been present, " Oh, what a ter-
rible night it was ! how it thundered and
lightened ! " and then very likely they
would repeat in concert :
" ' Now who be ye, would cross Lochgyle,
This dark and stormy water ? '
O, I 'm the chief of Ulva's isle,
And this Lord Ullin's daughter.' "
Like the music of old Scotch melodies,
the sound of their voices comes back to
me across the recollection of that sor-
rowful winter, and closely following is
the memory of my own experience, the
meeting and learning to know Mary Mor-
rison, Janet's Winsome Lady.
On evenings when it best suited our
convenience Edward and I were in the
habit of dining together at some pet Bo-
hemian restaurant ; on other evenings I
went alone to the pleasant little hotel
of St. Margaret, a sort of worldly con-
vent, being intended only for women,
the tables of whose dining-room were
daintily spread, each for four persons.
As a more or less frequent guest I soon
appropriated to myself an especial cor-
ner, and before long noticed that another
guest as regularly occupied the seat op-
posite. She was a slender, girlish wo-
man, having a face of singular grace and
tenderness. Our companions at the ta-
The Holy Picture.
221
ble varied with every meal. They were
strangers engaged in shopping and sight-
seeing, or college girls enjoying the free-
dom of a too brief vacation, or dressmak-
ers from out of town unfolding across
the table the merits of sundry establish-
ments where one might behold the most
modern creations of feminine attire ; or
they were artists full of comment and
criticism, or teachers, authors, musicians,
journalists, or now and then women in
the picturesque garb of some sisterhood,
or followers of the Salvation Army in
the brave red and blue.
Thus incidentally, my opposite neigh-
bor and I found ourselves attaining a
mutual store of most varied and exten-
sive information. The next development
of our acquaintance came through the
Torrey Botanical Society, to one of whose
meetings Edward had invited me to ac-
company him. We were a little late,
and as we entered heard the name of a
new member voted upon and accepted,
the name being Mary Morrison. The
paper that evening treated of rhododen-
drons, and in its discussion the question
was asked how far north they grew,
whereupon some one directly behind us
replied that she had found them on the
shores of Lake Sebago in Maine. The
speaker proved to be Mary Morrison,
the new member ; proved likewise to be
my opposite neighbor at dinner, and also
Janet's Winsome Lady, as Edward dis-
covered in the social period after the
discussion.
And now when Mary Morrison and I
met at St. Margaret's we fell into a way
of prolonging our dinner hour to a sec-
ond hour of rambling through favorite
streets, or of viewing the world from the
amusing position afforded by the top of a
Fifth Avenue stage ; or, taking a trolley
to the Battery, we watched the lights in
the ferry-boats, for the spring days were
at hand, and the twilights long and tempt-
ing ; and we talked of the books we had
read, the places we had seen, the people
we had observed in the dining-room of
the little hotel, talked of the Torrey
Botanical Society, and of the shores of
Lake Sebago in Maine ; and perhaps for
lack of time, perhaps for some other rea-
son, we did not speak of Mary Morrison
herself.
Sometimes Edward joined us, and we
took longer rambles. On one of these
occasions it was our last of the season
we were just starting forth from the
old brick house in the crooked street,
which happened that day to be the ren-
dezvous, when on the steps we found
Alice and Josephine, two of the neigh-
borhood children, bending over a dead
canary. Alice, the younger, was weep-
ing bitterly.
" She wants it to sing again," said Jo-
sephine. " You can't sing again if you
are dead. My grandfather died the other
day. I went to the funeral."
Mary Morrison sat down by the chief
mourner, explaining how the song had
gone away, how the bird in the child's
hand was only something which had held
the song. There was a sound in her voice
that brought comfort and conviction.
Alice, being in sore need, accepted both,
although not immediately.
In the mean time, at Mary Morrison's
suggestion, Edward had gone up to his
studio, and returned with a small box
and a bit of cotton-wool, to which he had
added a violet bloomed out that morn-
ing in a diminutive fragment of country
field which he was cultivating on the
balcony of his fire-escape ; it being my
brother's custom, as soon as the spring
appeared in New England, to send thither
for a yard square of native earth stocked
with sample specimens of hepaticas, vio-
lets, ferns, grasses, buttercups, all for
the joy and enlightenment of the chil-
dren in the crooked street, who were for
the most part unknowing of wild flowers.
We made a soft bed and laid the canary
upon it, the little head nestling against
the New England violet. Then we took
a last look, this being Josephine's sug-
gestion. At her grandfather's funeral
222
The Holy Picture.
every one had taken a last look. After
this Mary Morrison led us away from
Edward's street for the length of a block
or two ; at a corner drug-store she went
in, and reappeared with a key. Just be-
yond, in a low stone wall, was a door,
which Edward and I had passed hun-
dreds of times without suspecting that it
concealed what was left of a long-forgot-
ten graveyard, a door to which few
came now, and behind which nothing
happened except the flitting of light and
shade, and the fall of the rain and snow.
" Very conveniently for us," said Mary
Morrison, unlocking the door in the
wall, "I was sent this way once to look
up some old inscriptions ; and so, in our
present need, I knew about the place and
where the key was kept."
We went in, and Edward dug a little
grave under a rose-bush.
" They say things at funerals," ob-
served Josephine, when the box had been
hidden from sight.
" Listen," said Mary Morrison, as a
bird alighted on the wall and began to
sing, " listen ; things are being said now.
It 's a thrush ; it 's on its way to the
woods in the North. I think it must
have stopped to sing at the canary's fu-
neral."
The children thought so, too, and Jo-
sephine wished to know where North was.
" North is Maine," replied Edward.
" Rhododendrons grow there on the
shores of Lake Sebago."
Then it became necessary to explain
at some length about Maine, and about
rhododendrons, and about the shores of
Lake Sebago ; and thus pleasantly con-
versing we conducted the children to
within sight of their doorway, and left
them wonderfully cheerful considering
the circumstances, the chief mourner be-
ing able to kiss her hand to us with a
smile.
Summer was at hand now, with its
changes of abiding-places. We did not
see Mary Morrison again until the fol-
lowing November, when the irregular
dining together at the little hotel was re-
newed ; and now and then we met at the
Torrey Botanical Society or had a cup of
tea in Edward's studio.
On one of the easels, generally covered
from sight, being unfinished, was a study
of the man Christ Jesus. As we were
looking at it one day, Mary Morrison said
she always wondered over a work of art
in the same way that she wondered over
a flower, and she thought a true painter
must be very much like a true gardener,
a man who worked industriously,
waited patiently, lived honestly, kindly,
lovingly, until at the proper season he
would produce again and again things
so beautiful that no one could look upon
them unmoved ; and it would be said
they were done in a moment of inspi-
ration, whereas they were the result of
an unfolding as gloriously natural and as
gloriously mysterious as the blooming of
a flower.
" And suppose you were a painter,"
said Edward, " waiting for the blooming
of your flower, to use your own little
simile, and suppose you had attempt-
ed, as I have, the subject on the easel,
how would you think it out ? What would
be your conception of it ? "
" First of all," said Mary Morrison
presently, "I should try to make my
mind realize some very simple circum-
stance into which our Lord might come,
as for instance he might come to the
gateway of Janet's Little Garden in Hea-
ven to welcome her, perhaps, after her
toilsome journey ; and as I painted I
should think of him familiarly, as of one
who would enjoy the hawthorn hedge,
and .the sweetbrier bush, and the mignon-
ette."
" And after that ? " said Edward.
" And after that I should think of
various sorrowful things connected with
Janet's life, things which she has often
tried to tell me, but could never finish to
the end, they being too full of bitterness
for utterance ; and I should think that
when our Lord came to the Little Gar-
The Holy Picture.
223
den, it would be like the coming of One
who knew all that one had ever feared
and suffered, all that had been in one's
heart since the beginning, and there would
be perfect understanding with no pain
of explanation. Of course you don't be-
lieve in any Little Garden in Heaven,''
Mary Morrison went on more lightly,
" you are too intelligent ; and Janet does
n't believe in it, either, though she does
believe in the judgment-seat ; and I sup-
pose we all believed once, more or less,
in golden crowns, and harps, and gir-
dles, and candlesticks, and never fading
flowers, and fields of living green."
" But I do believe in the Little Gar-
den," said Edward obligingly ; " that is,
in a general way. I believe in something
pleasant, and what is there pleasanter
than a garden ? Moreover, I believe it 's
a great mistake to be what you call intel-
ligent in these matters. One loses too
much. Besides, how can one be intelli-
gent about that ' which passeth all un-
derstanding ' ? It is n't possible, any
more than that a child should think the
thoughts of a man."
The winter went by, and still no more
than Janet knew of her friend Sarah Mil-
ligan's private life did we know of our
friend Mary Morrison's. Indeed, we
had long ceased to consider that she had
any life other than that which we in our
minds had bestowed upon her. Chance,
however, was now to enlighten us. My
brother happened to be passing through
a street, one of whose houses stood sadly
silent, its curtains drawn and a sign of
mourning on its door. As he approached
the house a woman came out, in whom he
recognized Mary Morrison. Two other
women followed. Edward was nearer
now, and heard one of them say that
never before had she seen things done
with such thoughtful and tender appreci-
ation of every circumstance ; that it was
like having a very dear friend appear
unexpectedly in a moment of sorrow.
" It was more like an angel sent from
heaven," the other woman answered.
The words awakened a train of thought
in my brother's mind, vague at first, but
gradually assuming shape until it reached
back as far as the canary bird's funeral.
He went into a shop and consulted a di-
rectory, and a little later found his way
to a door bearing the names " Morrison
& Morrison," and which Janet's Win-
some Lady had entered just before him.
" I have been hearing about you," he
said to her, " and I have come to hear
more. Have you time to tell me now,
and will you begin at the very begin-
ning ? "
" Then I must tell you first about fa-
ther and uncle," Mary Morrison replied,
offering him a chair, and seating herself
in the one opposite. Briefly narrated,
this is the account she gave :
" Father and uncle and I lived in a
little village not far from the shores of
the lake where the rhododendrons grow.
Father and uncle kept the village store,
put on the village double windows in
the autumn, took them off in the spring,
mended people's furniture and furnaces,
mended everything, in fact, except the
people themselves : the village doctor did
that when he could ; when he could n't,
and the minister had said what he had
to say, father and uncle did what was
left to do, they being the village under-
takers, notwithstanding which no one
ever thought of connecting them with
things sad and gloomy, but rather with a
sense of security and peace.
" I had a curious childhood as far as
surroundings were concerned. I kept
my dolls in a large roomy box acquired
by way of business, and marked in star-
ing letters ' Bon Jour Shrouds.' From
that inscription I learned my first French
lesson. Back of the store stood an old
abandoned Methodist meeting - house,
bought and moved thither by father and
uncle, and adapted by them as a place of
storage for the hearse and coffins. To
us village children the coffins meant go-
ing to bed to sleep until the coming of
the angel of the resurrection.
224
The Holy Picture.
" I remember asking father what the
angel would say, and father asked uncle,
and uncle said it might be, ' Awake, thou
that sleepest, arise from the dead, and
Christ shall give thee light.' We chil-
dren thought it would be very beautiful
to have that said to us, only it seemed a
pity to be obliged to sleep so long ; we
felt that we had hardly time to sleep at
all, there was so much to do. Conse-
quently, we were not particularly inter-
ested in the coffins, but we were delighted
with the hearse. It made such a capital
place in which to play hide-and-seek.
" When I grew older I went to the
academy of the neighboring town, and
from there to college, and then accompa-
nied a family abroad to take charge of
the studies of two young girls. With
the latter I spent a number of pleasant
years, at the end of which father and
uncle both fell asleep, to wait, as they
were accustomed to say of others, for the
coming of the angel. I returned home
shortly after this, feeling very sad and
lonely. One day I met John Morrison,
a cousin of father's and uncle's, who was
also an undertaker. He told me, among
other things, of the death of his partner,
and how he was looking for some one to
replace him, and he asked, half seriously,
how I would like the position.
" I thought hard for a moment. I
knew the world to be filled to superflu-
ity with women teachers and women in
almost every occupation, but I had never
heard of a woman following John Mor-
rison's profession. I remembered, too,
how once, when a little English child had
died in a foreign hotel, and I had been
able to render the mother assistance in
the spirit of father and uncle, she had
said what a comfort it would be if always
at such a time there were some woman
upon whom one might call, whose pre-
sence would be' like that of a friend.
And so I accepted John Morrison's offer.
That was five years ago.
" And now I have told you everything,
just as you asked me."
For the first time in her long life old
Janet was very ill ; '" almost ready to go
to the Little Garden in Heaven," she ob-
served, as she lay down apparently to die.
The doctor and the minister, speedi-
ly summoned, arrived, and administered
each according to his profession. Mrs.
McNulty gave up such desultory occu-
pation as she was able to procure, and,
assuming the vacant place at the wash-
tub, saved inconvenience to every one
concerned, and to the little household in
particular any diminution of income ; for
not one penny would Mrs. McNulty ac-
cept in recognition of services rendered.
Sarah of the dark bedroom saw to it that
Mrs. McNulty was supplied with nourish-
ing food, Knd Edward that the basement
rent was paid ; pretty Barbara and the
Winsome Lady appeared regularly and
helpfully, as did other people ; in short,
the world, notwithstanding its well-estab-
lished reputation for ingratitude, conduct-
ed itself in a thoroughly commendable
manner.
Thus two weeks went by, and in the
little inner room old Janet awaited the
coming of that supreme moment when
she should straighten her own limbs and
close her own eyes, according to a pre-
viously announced determination ; which
latter, being generally known, kept those
about her in constant apprehension, and
some one continually stealing into the
room to see if anything had happened,
until Janet herself most unexpectedly re-
lieved the strain of the situation by say-
ing, " I will inform you, children, when
the end is at hand."
During the two weeks she remained
for the most part in a sort of stupor, sel-
dom speaking or rousing of her own ac-
cord, except when my brother entered
the room. Then she generally had some
dream to relate, of once upon a time
in Scotland. One was of losing some
money at a fair, the sum of a year's eco-
nomies, saved it may have been to buy
some longed-for trinket or a bunch of
blue ribbons.
The Holy Picture.
225
" A basket of posies,
A garland of lilies, a gift of red roses,
A little straw hat to set off the blue ribbons."
Another dream and this one had the
peculiarity of repeating itself was of a
pair of wee shoes made for the child Ja-
net by her father, he being a shoemaker,
from a bit of the finest of fine kid left
over after making the Sunday shoes of the
six young ladies at the " grand house."
We had long known about the six young
ladies : that their names were Mary and
Flora and Jessie, and Charlotte and Ellen
and Elisabeth ; that when their fortunes
were dissipated by the wild young men
of the family, they had been obliged to
go out as governesses ; and we had often
deplored their fate, but never before felt
so near them as now through this fre-
quent mentioning of their Sunday shoes.
In Mrs. McNulty's words, " it was as if
Janet had shoes on the brain."
On the evening before Good Friday,
my brother had come in to make his usual
visit, and Mrs. McNulty, taking advan-
tage of his presence, had run down to
the corner grocery for some needed ar-
ticle.
Janet seemed to be sleeping. Sudden-
ly she opened her eyes and said in quite
the old voice that she helieved she was
improving, that she should like a good
bowl of barley broth, and that she felt as
if the swelling had gone out of her feet.
" Then you will soon be able to wear
your new shoes again," returned my bro-
ther, referring, not to the wee ones of her
dream, of course, but to another pair, the
immediate need of which, and whose in-
tended purchase, supposed by every one
to have been successfully accomplished,
had been discussed among us just before
Janet's illness.
" I have no new shoes," said Janet, in
rather a reluctant and shamefaced fash-
ion.
"But I met you going out to buy
them," insisted Edward, " don't you
remember ? "
Yes, Janet remembered. She also re-
VOL. LXXX. NO. 478. 1 5
membered having met Mrs. McNulty a
few moments later ; and Mrs. McNulty
being in great need, she had given her
a portion of the sum she had gathered,
and the next day a trifle more, ?.nd the
same the next, and the next, until the
wherewithal for the purchase of new
shoes had completely vanished. " And
never shall I forget," continued Janet,
" how my feet ached with the cold the
last time I went out, although I walked
on the sunny side of the street, and how
when I came where there was a fire I
stood so close as to burn the leather of
the old things I was wearing without
once perceiving the heat ; and I am quite
well aware that I have fallen ill and
made great trouble on account of having
been too accommodating. Still, what is
one to do ? Has not our Lord enjoined
upon us to be kind to one another ? "
And then she added, commentingly, one
could be kind, but it was not necessary to
overstep.
When Edward went back presently to
his studio, he had in his hand the picture
of the Little Garden. He had taken it
from the wall as he passed through the
outer room, with a vague idea of making
some tall white lilies to bloom in it for
Easter morning. But the next day, as
he sat down before it, thinking half con-
sciously of Janet's gentle life, its courage,
its absence of bonnie things, its fullness
of weariness, its sweet consistency with
one of her own quaint sayings, that
trouble is sent to us to see how graceful-
ly we can bear our cross, instead of
the lilies he commenced the outline of a
figure standing at the gateway ; intend-
ing to make the figure that of an angel
bringing it might be a message, and to
give it a certain resemblance to Mary
Morrison. The thought of the latter sug-
gested other thoughts. Words drifted
through his mind, spoken that day in the
studio before the still unfinished study
of the man Christ Jesus : " I should
think of him familiarly, as of one who
would enjoy the hawthorn hedge, and
226
The Holy Picture.
the sweetbrier bush, and the mignonette.
... I should think that when our Lord
came to the Little Garden, it would be
like the coming of One who knew all
that one had ever feared and suffered,
all that had been in one's heart since the
beginning."
My brother put aside the picture taken
from Janet's wall and began another, and,
forgetting himself in his work, painted
all day until the light faded. When he
carried what he had done to Janet, she
asked how it was that he could paint our
Blessed Lord just as one would think
he must have looked, having never seen
him, and said her room was no place for
a picture like this, it should rather
hang in a church ; only then there would
be the danger of disti'acting the attention
of the worshipers, who would be always
wondering about it, no mention being
made in the sacred Scriptures of a Little
Garden with a hawthorn hedge and a
bonnie wee house half hidden under roses.
My brother, however, left it hanging
over the table, above the holy books,
where, for fear of injury, it was always
kept carefully covered except on Sun-
days and in the evening.
Janet was right when she said she
believed she was improving. Not many
weeks after Easter she found herself able
to put on the strong new shoes which had
been provided for her recovery, and to
resume her customary calling. And life
went on as before in the old brick house
of the crooked street, except that after a
little the painter's studio was closed, it
being the time of summer holidays,
the time when, according to popular par-
lance, every one is out of town and no
one in town, which really means, when
one counts numbers, that two or three
people are away and millions are left
behind.
Mary Morrison took her vacation, this
year, in late September and early Octo-
ber. On one of these early October days
she and Edward were straying together
along a wooded road, my brother hav-
ing wandered so far north as the shores
of Lake Sebago in Maine, when a boy
came running toward them with a mes-
sage sent by Mrs. McNulty ; entirely on
her own responsibility, as she explained
later, because she felt, if any one ought
to be notified, it was the painter.
The painter read the message, and
Mary Morrison read it. Then they
turned back to the village, breaking off as
they went along little branches of fir and
pine and bay with leaves turned crimson,
and stalks of goldenrod and purple as-
ters. In the village they found a bed
of lady's - delights, from whose flowers
Mary Morrison made a bonnie bunch by
themselves.
There had been no particular illness ;
" a general breaking up " was what the
doctor had pronounced it ; when one has
worked early and late for nearly seven-
ty years, there naturally comes a time
when all things wear out together. Ja-
net's own diagnosis was given in the
quiet remark, " The oil has gone out of
my joints, and I know of no place to get
more."
Her last words had been to call Mrs.
McNulty a foolish woman, advising her
to lie down and have a good night's rest :
this was when the latter declared her
intention of sitting up to watch. " In
fact," said Mrs. McNulty, " she appeared
quite displeased with me, but I was well
enough acquainted with her to know
that the displeasure was only outward."
The day before her death she had par-
taken of the Blessed Sacrament, and also
given certain directions. The Holy Pic-
ture was to be returned, carefully cov-
ered, to the painter's studio, and with
it her copy of Robbie Burns's poems, Ja-
net's one worldly book, which she hoped
the painter would be pleased to accept
as a keepsake. For the painter's sister
was to be set aside the little New Testa-
ment with the old tunes in the back, and
for the Winsome Lady a rosewood work-
The Pause in Criticism and After.
227
box containing various girlish trinkets,
souvenirs of more prosperous days, pre-
ciously kept through days of poverty.
Then, after suitable disposition had been
made of Bible, Prayer Book, Hymnal,
flat-irons, articles of clothing, and furni-
ture, came the final bequest, that the
sum of five dollars and seventy-five cents,
gathered toward the next month's rent,
be entrusted to the painter, and by him
bestowed on some needy and religious
old woman.
This last will and testament, faithfully
recorded in Mrs. McNulty's mind, and
from there transmitted to my brother
as he laid the bonnie bunch of lady's-
delights on his old friend's heart, and
above her feet the goldenrod and pur-
ple asters, the little branches of fir and
pine and bay with leaves turned crimson,
was duly reported to Mary Morrison that
night, with the amendment, " The Holy
Picture is yours. It was always yours,
painted by me in translation of your
thought, lent to Janet for a season."
These are the three stories of three
lives which go to make one story, and
which passed through my mind as, that
day at the art exhibition, standing before
the picture whose title in the catalogue
read, " And our Lord came to the Gate-
way of the Little Garden," I overheard
some one ask, " Whose little garden ? "
and some one else reply, " Oh, don't you
know ? That is a quotation from a poem."
Harriet Lewis Bradley.
THE PAUSE IN CRITICISM AND AFTER.
WE are most of us conscious of an
insufficiency in literary criticism to-day.
Never were more opinions printed about
books than now ; the publishers' lists
swarm with the titles of manuals, essays,
compendiums ; our schools, our colleges,
pride themselves on providing instruc-
tion in literature ; even the daily press
rescues an occasional column from the
chronicles of crime and politics, and de-
votes it to notices of current publications.
And yet, despite all these evidences of
apparent critical activity, we are con-
scious of a lack, which few of us define.
Amid a babel of conflicting utterances,
we listen for an authoritative voice, but
we hear none. Why is this ?
One might dismiss the question with
the remark that great critics, like mas-
ters in any sphere, are rare, and that this
happens to be a time when none flour-
ish ; but it may be possible to indicate
a reason, more general in its nature and
less dependent on chance, which accounts
in part for the present condition of crit-
icism, without reference to the dearth
of great critics. Genius regarded singly
can never be explained, but from the
principles which guide workers we can
often deduce helpful conclusions as to
the success or failure of their work.
About the middle of this century, men
began to apply the methods of the evolu-
tionist to the study of literature. That
application gave a most salutary impetus
to criticism, but the time has come when
the stimulus has about spent itself. The
change wrought by the evolutionist meth-
od can be understood at a glance, if we
remember that fifty years ago critics were
disputing over the relative rank of au-
thors, whether Homer were superior
to Dante, Wordsworth to Byron, Moliere
to Calderon ; and in the long run it ap-
peared that the verdict rested, not on
established laws, but on the taste of the
individual critic. " Is it not wonderful,"
asks Fitzgerald, after reading the Life of
Macaulay, " how he, Hallam, and Mack-
intosh could roar and bawl at one an-
228
The Pause in Criticism and After.
other over such Questions as Which is
the Greatest Poet ? Which is the great-
est Work of that Greatest Poet ? etc., like
Boys at some Debating Society ? "
The evolutionist treatment put an end
to such questions, and busied itself ' in
tracing the historic development of lit-
erature, and in discovering the heredity
and environment of individual authors.
It inquired where a man belonged in
the historic series, whom he came after,
whom he preceded, quite unconcerned
as to his standing on an arbitrary rank-
list. It compiled literary pedigrees,
works which have a value similar to that
of herd-books and stud-books. Its inves-
tigations have been immensely profitable,
leading to the classification in proper
chronological order of the various world-
literatures, a classification in which
both the serial interdependence of indi-
vi'dual authors and the mutual relations
between different literatures are clearly
set forth. To such good purpose has a
generation of scholars devoted itself to
this task that now the thinnest manual
suffices to contain the chief literary
pedigrees, and the formulas which were
strange and hard only a little while ago
are the commonplaces of our schoolrooms
to-day. A Freshman can tell you just
where each poet or novelist fits into his
sequence ; how Tennyson derives from
Keats and Wordsworth, and Aldrich
from Tennyson ; how Realism in fiction
descends from Stendhal to Zola ; how
the Italian Renaissance inspired first
Wyatt and Surrey, who communicated
the inspiration to Sidney and Spenser,
through whom it kindled one Elizabethan
after another, until its last bright glow
in Ben Jonson's Faithful Shepherdess
and in Milton's Comus.
Thus have the masterpieces of litera-
ture been ree'dited, the annals rewritten,
the conditions of production carefully
surveyed. A latter-day tyro can visualize
the skeleton over which each literature
has worn a body ; nay, with the evolu-
tionist formula to direct him, he can take
the skeleton apart, and mount it again,
bone by bone, in exact articulation. Cu-
vier confidently reconstructed an extinct
animal from a single fossil vertebra ; the
archaeologist will deduce a vanished civ-
ilization from two fingers and a toe of
an otherwise destroyed statue : not less
skillful than these, the literary anatomist
would not despair of reconstructing the
entire literature of a bygone race from
but one of its books. Skeptics, indeed,
men who perceive that " our knowledge
is as a drop, and our ignorance is as an
ocean," may be surprised that any one
can be so learned in details where every
one must be so ignorant of ultimates ;
but even skeptics heartily recognize the
great benefit which the application of
the evolutionist method to literature has
brought. The gain has been precious ;
it will be permanent ; for it has reduced
to convenient form many facts which
criticism may use for a further advance.
But progress never long pursues a
straight line. After going a certain dis-
tance in one direction, it turns and moves
in the opposite. The curve not more ex-
actly typifies beauty than the zigzag repre-
sents progress. The course changes from
generation to generation, but the men of
all generations have a common charac-
teristic in that they believe their own
course to be all-important. Theology and
science, classicism and romanticism, au-
thority and self-government, these are
some of the ideals towards which the
ship of Progress has steered on its tacks
over the sea of life, yet not one of them
has led to the final haven. After a while,
it may be centuries, the wind changes,
the helm must be put about, and again
all on board thrill with the belief that
this new course surely will bring them
into port.
To apply this figure to criticism, can
we not discern in the present conditions
a sign that the evolutionist method has
sped us almost as far as it can, and that
we must soon look for a favoring breeze
from another quarter ? Is it not evident
The Pause in Criticism and After.
229
that a process which seeks to prove the
continuity of a long series will pay great-
er heed to those points of resemblance
which enable each part to be fitted into
the series than to those qualities by which
each part differs from the rest ? If you
give an anatomist a heap of bones to
mount, he exerts himself to find where
the humerus joins the scapula or the
tibia the femur, without regard to their
special functions. In like manner, the
evolutionist critic not only emphasizes
the lines of junction or blending, whereby
he hopes at last to show the structural
continuity of literature, but he also mag-
nifies resemblances, and takes as little
note as may be of differences. He even
supplies missing links, hot from the forge
of analogy. And he labors so success-
fully that his system, emerging out of the
mists of theory, stands visible to us all.
When knowledge has reached this
stage, where it can be packed into for-
mulas, one of two things happens : either
the formulas are easily learned and re-
peated mechanically, which leads to pet-
rifaction, or they serve as new points of
departure from which the untrammeled
spirit sets out on a higher quest.
Of the former case we need no better
example than rhetoric. I do not recall
that a single master in literature men-
tions his obligation to the rhetoric books
as aids by which he moulded his style ;
yet the biographies of men of genius are
full of acknowledgments of their indebt-
edness to the poets and thinkers, the ro-
mancers and essayists, who fired their
imagination, spurred their ambition, or
taught them by example the art of ut-
terance. Is there in the non-professional
works of the expounders of rhetoric a
single passage, except perhaps a page
here and there in Whately, which rises
above self-conscious mediocrity? Read
but a little in any of them, and present-
ly the vision of an egg-dancer, painfully,
cautiously, picking his intricate way, will
float before your eyes. Take up Longi-
nus, and you will soon perceive that here
is the undertaker come to measure the
corpse of classic literature for its coffin.
Could you set Rudyard Kipling at one
table, and a coalition of all the rhetoric
teachers extant at another, from which
should you expect, at the end of a given
time, a vigorous, clear, charming, origi-
nal sketch ? Assuredly, all this does not
mean that the facts 'or laws of rhetoric
may not, conceivably, be of some use, or
that the rhetoric teacher may not be a
worthy member of society, no one de-
nies the respectability or the usefulness
of the undertaker, but it illustrates
how, when the laws of an art or of a
science have long been formulated, petri-
faction is likely to supervene. And in
passing be it remarked that the rhetoric
teacher can no more impart the secret
of living literature than can the dissector
who operates to such good purpose on a
cadaver create a living soul. The dissec-
tor, indeed, never pretends that he can
create living beings, but nearly all rheto-
ric teachers harbor the delusion that they
possess not only the art of dissection, but
also the secret of creation.
How different is the aspect of those
sciences and arts in which classification
neither implies arrested development,
nor marks the limit beyond which pro-
gress cannot be made ! We need cite
as an illustration only the mathematics,
one of the branches of knowledge in
which fixed laws were earliest formu-
lated, and the science above all others
in which absolute accuracy can be at-
tained at every step : age for it does not
mean senility ; rules are not shackles.
The laws of his science lift the mathe-
matician into the very empyrean of
knowledge. They enable the physicist
to bridge the Mississippi and to harness
Niagara. They give the astronomer
wings wherewith he follows comets in
their courses, tracks the constellations
weaving their patterns on the floor of
heaven, and moves a freeman among the
wonders of sidereal space and through
the vistas of incalculable time.
230
The Pause in Criticism and After.
Let us ask, now, to which of these ex-
amples the evolutionist study of litera-
ture should be likened. Can there be
any doubt that, having demonstrated the
process of development, the structural
growth, the serial continuity, of litera-
ture, the evolutionist has accomplished
nearly all that his method is fitted to
accomplish in this field ? Evolution led
us out of the old and sterile formalism ;
but what will that avail us if it leaves
us in a formalism of its own ? Merely
to go on repeating results which nobody
denies cannot help us, that is petri-
faction, not growth. Along which road,
then, can we advance ? One way beck-
ons very clearly, and it is this. Equipped
with the knowledge of the general growth
of literature which the evolutionist sup-
plies, let us proceed to the interpreta-
tion of representative masters as indi-
viduals. Instead of laying chief stress
on the analysis of externals, of form,
of structure, of the accidents of time
and place, let us seek to penetrate the
inner meaning, the spiritual significance,
the absolute value, of authors.
Many persons will doubtless urge that
the interpretative method has never been
abandoned ; they will assert that teach-
ers and critics of literature employ it at
least as often as the evolutionist method,
and they will quote one contemporary
writer or another to fortify their asser-
tion. But the evidence is against them :
the evidence, first, of the literary man-
uals and commentaries, which are al-
ways valuable indications of prevailing,
accepted methods, because orthodoxy
alone is permitted in the schools ; next,
the evidence of such recent critical es-
says as may be regarded as typical ; and
finally, the evidence furnished by the
very lack of an authoritative voice, the
tone of uncertainty, aiid the inharmoni-
ous mingling of various methods, obser-
vable in a great part of our current crit-
icism. Moreover, the way in which men
trained in one school practice the prin-
ciples of an opposite school can never
do full justice to the latter. The qual-
ity of the interpretation in recent works
must, accordingly, have been affected
by the evolutionist sources from which
it sprang. But in truth, since Lowell
and Arnold died, what great interpret-
er, writing in English, has arisen ? In
France, unless we except M. Brune-
tiere, have the successors of Taine,
the man of letters who, it seems to me,
got the richest possible results from the
evolutionist method, turned away from
his brilliant example ? Long is it since
Germany has bred a critic of interna-
tional reputation, but you need examine
only a small fraction of the commenta-
ries poured out each year by the pains-
taking German scholars in order to de-
tect the methods which dominate them.
The heredity and environment of an au-
thor, and his place in his series, are still
the chief concern of criticism.
Interpretation, that, then, to state
much in a single word, is the means by
which advance is to be sought. The
evolutionist, aspiring to formulate gen-
eral laws, rightly investigates the com-
mon characteristics of great masses, and
extends his scrutiny over long periods.
But literature is the expression of indi-
viduals, the domain where masses do
not count, the highest example of an
undebased aristocracy. By no addition
or multiplication of masses can you pro-
duce the equivalent of Shakespeare. To
understand him, you must approach him
as an individual, and not merely as a
writer occupying a certain place in the
development of the Elizabethan drama.
To know his structural significance is
interesting, and may be important, but
it is not indispensable. Only by treat-
ing him absolutely, as a poet of indi-
vidual utterance, who produces a differ-
ent effect on you than any or all others
produce, can you interpret him. Your
interpretation, moreover, will measure
yourself not less than him : it will re-
veal to us how much of Shakespeare
you are capable of holding. After all,
The Pause in Criticism and After.
231
the test of utterance is, How does it af-
fect us ? The academic world is popu-
lous with men who can assign his proper
place to every author from Homer to
Hugo, but who have been stirred by none,
a barren erudition ! For to know
where Burns belongs in the pedigree of
literature is as irrelevant to the effect his
songs produce on you as to know the or-
nithological pedigree of the oriole who
showers his inimitable lyrics from the elm
by your roadside. Who will deny that
this absolute treatment is the natural
treatment ? You do not look upon your-
self, and your father, and your friends as
simply units in a sequence, but as distinct
persons, each possessing qualities which
create for him an absolute individual-
ity. Neither can the great companions
to whom literature introduces us be com-
prehended until they mean more to us
than mere links in a chain.
It follows, therefore, that to the two ob-
jects of criticism promulgated by Taine,
and still pursued by most of the critics
of literature, we must add a third : be-
sides the moment and the milieu, we
must seek to understand the message.
Otherwise we cannot rise from the plane
of classification to that of interpretation.
The models left by the best critics ad-
monish us that this is the true method.
Goethe and Coleridge, Carlyle and Low-
ell and Arnold, were interpreters : some
of them lived and died before the doc-
trine of the milieu and the moment had
been broached, and yet their criticism
still stands. To Goethe, bent on pene-
trating to the very heart of Hamlet and
drawing out its message, such questions
as Shakespeare's place in the develop-
ment of the English drama, or who
were his ancestors, or what he ate and
wore, had but a casual interest, such
an interest as he might have felt, when
he listened to a violoncello concerto, in
knowing what wood the instrument was
made of, or the maker's name and date.
In like manner, the interpretative critic
chooses to expound for us Dante's theo-
logy, rather than to add another to the
many discussions of how much of his
theology Dante borrowed from Thomas
Aquinas. To this method, also, we owe
Caiiyle's wonderful essay on Samuel
Johnson, and Emerson's transcendental
exposition of Plato and Montaigne ; out
of this came Arnold's revelations for
such, indeed, they are of Marcus Au-
relius and Joubert and Heine. Criti-
cism of this supreme sort is as the rod
wherewith Moses smote the rock in Ho-
reb and living waters gushed forth.
I need not dwell here upon the rare
qualities demanded of the critic as inter-
preter. Like every one who pierces be-
neath the outer shows of things, he must
have insight. The evolutionist's most
necessary faculty is observation ; the in-
terpreter requires imagination. Scan-
ning the masters of literature face to
face, dwelling with them as an individ-
ual among individuals, he cannot regard
them impassively, as he might count so
many telegraph-poles or links in a chain ;
neither will he see in them only illus-
trations of abstract laws, formulas ill
concealed behind a thin veil of flesh ;
but he will recognize that they are the
highest embodiments of varied human
nature. Accordingly, his criticism will
be personal, human, concrete. Evolu-
tionist critics, on the contrary, end with a
mechanical classification ; they establish
the series they had in view ; they pay
their tribute to logic ; and yet they leave
us conscious of the lack of creative ge-
nius in themselves, and in their system
of the complexness and elasticity and
surprise of life. We may be nothing
but automata, society may be only a co-
lossal mechanism operated by inflexible
laws, but nature at least hides this from
us in an illusion of spontaneity. Critics
of the moment and the milieu, in making
too visible the boiler and piston and rods,
too audible the roar of wheels and the
hissing of valves, fall far short of nature.
Whenever a system arrives at the con-
clusion that man is a machine, we may
232
The Pause in Criticism and After.
be sure that the system itself is mechani-
cal. For man is a spirit, and literature,
the supreme form of his self - manifes-
tation, must be interpreted spiritually.
When we appeal, therefore, for a return
to the method of interpretation, we do
not counsel a retreat ; we point to the
surest road for advance. The know-
ledge acquired in other schools will not
be wasted, but will contribute whatever
it can towards a higher interpretation.
We can foresee, of course, that among a
large number of interpretations few will
have value, and that there will seldom
be unanimity, even among the best. But
what of that ? Every so-called law was
originally only the opinion of one man.
I doubt whether any universal laws will
ever be deduced for literary criticism.
I suspect the critic who so confidently
trusts to a foot-rule. The utmost that
the best critic can do for me is to show
me the utmost he has found in a given
author ; I shall agree with him or not
according as my understanding and in-
sight and needs correspond to his. Vol-
taire saw little in Shakespeare ; conse-
quently his opinion of Shakespeare car-
ries no weight among those who see
much. Many readers think Don Quixote
only an amusing satire on books of chiv-
alry ; Coleridge discerned in it an alle-
gory of the conflict of the idealist with
a matter-of-fact world, and his in-
terpretation will endure until somebody
shall suggest a better. The man who
tells us that Dante wrote the Inferno in
order to have the satisfaction of taking
vengeance on his enemies furnishes valu-
able elucidation about himself.
That the interpretative method may
bear a large crop of extravagances and
absurdities argues nothing as to its va-
lidity. We do not judge a system by its
worst representatives. We do not de-
clare evolutionist criticism inadequate be-
cause it bears such works as Dilntzer's
Life of Goethe, in which the biographer,
patiently striving to " explain " Goethe
by his moment and his milieu, gravely
records the poet's bills of fare, and would
fain describe, if space permitted, the
mine which supplied silver for the poet's
shoe-buckles ; but when evolutionist crit-
icism, as practiced by a genius so clear
and learned and alert as Taine, con-
structs a vast machine and assures us
that this is life, life, which is so plas-
tic, so immeasurable, so full of surprise
and mystery, then we may well pro-
nounce it inadequate. And we need not
fear lest, having bidden forth interpret-
ers, we have in reality hastened the com-
ing of chaos in criticism. Better even
the whims and puerilities of a method
which may lead to the highest results
than the orderliness of a method which
does not aim at the highest.
If literature be no more to you than
amusement, then will you regard its
Shakespeares and Dantes as but toy-
makers ; if it be but a verbal quarry,
you will work in it, like the philologist
or the grammarian, for material to con-
struct a schoolhouse ; if it be but the re-
cord of serial development, then you will
make of it a museum like that wherein
the naturalist exhibits specimens, fossil
or recent, showing the growth of organ-
isms. But literature is more, infinite-
ly more, than any of these. It is the
book, more enduring than tables of stone,
wherein is written the revelation of man-
kind ; it is the memory of the race, mak-
ing the past present, without which the
experience of all our yesterdays would
profit us nothing, and we should begin,
each morning, like the Papuan, a dull
round of half-brutish life, incapable of
advance. To every one of us, even the
dullest or shallowest, come Joy and Grief,
Sin and Failure and Death, each with his
challenge., " What do I mean to you ? "
Literature embodies the replies which
the spokesmen of the race have given
to these supernal questioners. To inter-
pret their replies, that is the mission
of the critic.
WUliam Roscoe Thayer.
The Delinquent in Art and in Literature.
233
THE DELINQUENT IN ART AND IN LITERATURE.
FROM the very beginning art has dealt
with crime and criminals, and for ages
it was art alone, poetic or pictorial, that
made known the physical and mental
features of the delinquent. It often suc-
ceeded by a wonderful intuition, and it
often failed for lack of scientific know-
ledge. But recently science has taken
the criminal in hand for investigation,
and it is the purpose of this essay to de-
termine how accurately poets and paint-
ers have anticipated or followed, in their
descriptions of some of the most famous
types of criminals, the knowledge gained
by the scientific study of them.
The older, or classical criminologists
occupied themselves with crime, and not
with criminals ; treating them, with the
rare exception of confirmed drunkards
and deaf mutes, as average men. They
worked to find the article of the penal
code best suited to the case that they
were considering. They made studies,
not of the man, but of the violation of
law of which he had been found guilty.
Experimental science, on the other hand,
has closely studied the diverse figures
of criminals themselves, until nearly all
criminologists now classify them into the
five sections in which I was the first to
arrange them.
The congenital criminal, the organic
and psychic monster whose existence
criminal anthropology has demonstrated,
was long ago dimly recognized by popu-
lar intuition, even while he remained un-
observed, or while his existence was de-
nied by the teachers of religious dogmas.
It is natural that this type should not
often be met in artistic creations until
our own time. Indeed, not even Shake-
speare, nor Dostoievsky in his personal
observations of Siberian criminals, nor
Eugene Sue in his studies of the dregs
of the Parisian mob, was able to deline-
ate him. But no sooner had criminal an-
thropology discovered him and identified
him than he became at once a subject
of contemporary art, thanks especially to
Zola. In these unmoral men, the con-
genital criminals, who lack all guiding
social instincts, there is usually a great
development of self-seeking impulses and
of mental astuteness, leading to successful
careers in a society based on free com-
petition, which is but a species of dis-
guised and indirect anthropophagia, and
which constitutes for the honest man a
hindrance rather than a help in the race
of life. It is precisely their apparent-
ly normal intelligence and sentiments,
masking their profound and secret moral
insensibility, which make this type so dif-
ficult for any but the scientifically trained
student to recognize. The mad criminal,
on the other hand, was always easy to
discern, and it was natural that he should
appear in art ; but art has generally dealt
only with real madmen, rarely with those
who because of some degeneration or
some congenital malformation are un-
hinged, though they have lucid intervals ;
for in cases of this kind it is not easy
to detect the external evidences. Infre-
quent, too, in art, except in those novels
and plays whose chief aim is the repre-
sentation of the criminal world, is the
figure of the habitual criminal, inasmuch
as he is an anti-social type, made by so-
ciety and our prison systems. He rarely
commits any great offense, but carries on
a miserable existence of petty delinquen-
cy, and belongs to the large class of the
socially submerged.
The artistic material in crime which
has been most frequently used consists of
the other two criminal types, the occa-
sional criminal and the passionate crim-
inal. The occasional criminal, who is
almost a normal man, lends himself par-
ticularly well to artistic representation.
We meet him as the adulterer, more or
234
The Delinquent in Art and in Literature.
less professional ; the swindler, more or
less circumspect ; the gambler, more or
less of a cheat ; the defamer, more or
less venomous. These characters are
the stock in trade of many novels and
plays constructed after certain formulae,
but, except in the hands of writers of
genius, they do not offer sufficient psy-
chological relief and contrast to warrant
a profound and minute artistic analysis.
Indeed, the occasional criminal belongs
to the numerous mediocrities of the anti-
social world, and is of an undecided qual-
ity, fluctuating between vice and virtue
according to his surroundings.
But since passions and sentiments are
the true materials of art, the criminal by
passion has always attracted the atten-
tion of artists. They like to deal with
crimes committed by men, often of whole-
some life, who, stung into violence by
some great injustice or some deep wrong
to their affections, rush into crime in
a tempestuous psychological fever ; and
mankind delights to follow the artist's
interpretation. An intimate knowledge
abides in the reader that he might be
similarly tempted under the same cir-
cumstances, and artists, with their fine-
strung sensibilities and highly developed
nerves, feel an elective affinity with the
man who has killed another for love or
jealousy, or some other passion.
After this rapid survey of the most
characteristic of the various types of de-
linquents, as revealed by the positive data
of the new criminal science, let us com-
pare them with some of the most noted
imaginary figures that art has delineated
with the intuition of genius. We shall
find that art, just because it has remained
close to life, even when the excesses of
an ascetic or philosophic idealism divert-
ed human interests from the earth to sub-
jective contemplation of a world beyond,
has portrayed in its greatest creations
the most marked characteristics of the
criminal type. Indeed, to his surprise,
the criminal anthropologist perceives that
the artist has often anticipated his most
definite observations. Thus the anthro-
pologist finds that in Bernini's Moor on
the fountain of the Piazza Navona in
Rome, and in the four Moors on the no-
ble monument erected in Leghorn to the
memory of the Grand Duke Ferdinand
I., the special physical traits of the Ne-
gro race are artistically recorded. Dr.
Charcot found that the physical charac-
teristics and the peculiar contortions of
the hysterical and the epileptic have been
reproduced in art. A remarkable exam-
ple is the boy possessed of a devil, in the,
foreground of Raphael's Transfiguration.
Criminal types, of course, are infre-
quently represented in painting and sculp-
ture. Of one hundred notable pictures,
not more than one or two have for their
principal theme or secondary episode the
image of a criminal, and the proportion
is even smaller in statues. But of one
hundred popular plays no fewer than
ninety elucidate some crime ; and the pro-
portion is even greater in novels. The
artist is not encouraged to fix with his
brush or chisel a repellent figure or deed.
Then, too, the painter and the sculptor
can catch only the passing act of one or
more persons, and the representation of
a crime is in great measure forbidden by
the necessity of restricting the expression
to a single moment. The emotions are
best aroused and kept in tension by de-
scriptions of the various psychological
moments which the soul of the delinquent
traverses. Such psychological descrip-
tions are possible only in descriptive art,
either analytic as in the novel, or syn-
thetic as in the drama. Yet painters
and sculptors have discovered some of
the characteristic traits. A careful study
of the busts of the Caesars reveals as a
family peculiarity the abnormal distance
of the eyes from the root of the nose, and
notably in the criminal Caesars, above
all in Nero and Caligula, the most com-
mon features of the criminal type. In
Caligula the upper lip is raised on one
side, like the lip of a wild beast about
to bite. This feature has been noted by
The Delinquent in Art and in Literature.
235
Darwin as frequently met with in mur-
derers.
Painting yields a richer harvest than
sculpture. The pictorial representations
of Cain and Abel, of Judith and Holo-
fernes, of the Murder of the Innocents,
of the Crucifixion of Christ, of the Chris-
tian Martyrs, of the Last Judgment, as
well as pictures from Christian hagiolo-
gy, portray murderers, executioners, trai-
tors, and villains with the well - known
traits of the criminal type, large and
angular heads, asymmetric faces, small
and ravenous eyes, large square jaws,
Tow and receding foreheads, projecting
or pointed ears, abundance of stubbly
hair, and thin beards. In addition to
painters of pictures in which the crimi-
nal element is merely incidental, there
are painters who have chosen their prin-
cipal subjects from the criminal world.
Goya the Spaniard, who flourished in
the eighteenth century, became the court
painter, so to call him, of brigands and
highwaymen. In France, Prud'hon, be-
side a picture entitled Allegory of Justice,
which represents a delinquent brought to
court, painted Murder pursued by Re-
venge and Justice, in the conception of
which he fell into the common error that
remorse pursues every type of criminal.
Remorse is unknown to the congenital
and habitual criminal, and makes itself
but feebly felt in a few cases of irrespon-
sible and impulsive madness and of oc-
casional crime. It is vehement only in
criminals by passion. It is these who are
often impelled to commit suicide imme-
diately after the criminal paroxysm has
passed. Of other French painters of
criminal subjects, the most conspicuous is
GeVicault, whose picture The Head of a
Guillotined is justly famous. The painter
has put on his canvas all the abnormali-
ties that belong to the sanguinary crim-
inal type. In the famous Kiss of Judas,
by Ary Scheffer, Judas is represented
with all the characteristics of the swindler
and the liar ; and in the same way, Dela-
croix's Hamlet displays, not the traits of
a common criminal type, but a wander-
ing, restless, lunatic physiognomy. Ar-
tists of all times and lands have por-
trayed empirically various criminal types
by characteristics which science has re-
cently found to be exact. The criminal
type discovered by Lombroso, and ac-
curately studied by the Italian criminal
anthropological school, is perfectly drawn
in the artistic works of many centuries.
Let us now pass from the physiognomic
depiction of criminals in art to their psy-
chological delineation in the drama and
in literature. I shall disregard that great
army of minor delinquents who are the
material used in the manufacture of so
many second-rate novels and plays, but
who have been presented occasionally as
a true type which has become legendary,
such as the Don Juan of Byron, the Wan-
trin of Balzac, or the Don Marzio of
Goldoni. I shall omit political criminals
also, for similar reasons. But it is worth
remembering that the history of human
progress shows how many times the mad
genius or even the criminal, because less
enslaved than other men by the conven-
tionalism of mental and social habits, and
because less careful of his personal profit,
has given the decisive impetus to the re-
alization of reforms which were already
matured in the collective conscience, and
only awaited a final impulse.
In the Divine Comedy, the principal
theme of which may be said to be crimes
and punishments, we do not find types
of true delinquents, except perhaps such
figures as Vanni Fucci in the canto of the
thieves, and Francesca da Rimini among
the adulterers. Indeed, Dante's poem
deals almost wholly with political crimi-
nals. The evolution of criminality since
the Middle Ages shows conspicuously
the ever growing prevalence of crimes of
fraud over crimes of violence, and Dante
concerned himself with the crime rather
than with the criminal. For the crimino-
logists of the positive or anthropological
school, who are more occupied with the
criminal than with the crime, a much
236
The Delinquent in Art and in Literature.
richer mine of psychological observation
is found in tragedies and dramas which
present some decided type of criminal
man.
Crimes of blood have been the staple
material of the drama, and the Greek de-
stiny which drove a man into crime was
only the modern heredity. We pass over
the ancient drama, which need not detain
us, and come to the drama of modern
times. Here we encounter the frequent
delineation of the three characteristic fig-
ures, instinctive criminals, criminals
by madness, homicides by passion, the
latter completing their due psychological
outlines by superadding remorse and sui-
cide.
The most marvelous description of
these three types is found in Shakespeare.
Macbeth is the instinctive or born crim-
inal ; Hamlet, the mad criminal ; Othello,
the criminal by passion. Shakespeare's
artistic work is such a mine that not only
students of art, but economists and even
criminologists may extract from it facts
and documents of vital historical inter-
est. Criminal psychology finds in his
three legendary types of homicides three
human documents in which the accuracy
of observation is no less wonderful than
the excellence of the art. Macbeth is
the type of the born criminal, a sad and
monstrous offshoot from the pathological
trunk of nervous and criminal epilepsy.
And in Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth
is the true epileptic from his birth, an
epileptic of the least apparent type, that
is called psychic or masked epilepsy, be-
cause it exists without the terrible muscu-
lar convulsions which we think of when
epilepsy is named, and because it is lim-
ited to a temporary insensibility, often
unnoticed, which is the psychic equiva-
lent of muscular convulsions.
" My lord is often thus,
And hath been from his youth : pray you, keep
seat;
The fit is momentary ; upon a thought
He will again be well : if much you note him.
You shall offend him and extend his passion,"
says Lady Macbeth to her guests, sur-
prised at the strange attitude of their
royal host. The tragedy reveals still an-
other psychological intuition of Shake-
speare, which, lying somewhat aside from
the habitual rules of common psychology,
is rarely noted by superficial observers.
Only the intuitive art of a great genius
or the patient observation of a scientific
investigator would reach the truth, that
in the soul of the born criminal, however
much, apparently, he may resemble the
normal man because he shows no marked
external signs of madness, there exist
psychologic attributes and habits differ-
ent from those of other men. Scarcely has
Macbeth killed Duncan when he bursts
on the scene, brandishing his bloody wea-
pon, and telling his wife all he felt before
and after the deed. Tommaso Salvini,
one of the greatest interpreters of Mac-
beth, called this powerful scene unnatu-
ral, because it seems contrary to the care
every man takes to cover up his crime.
Certainly, according to the psychology of
normal men, his first act would be to hide
all evidences of his guilt ; but those who
have studied criminals know that the
imprudent revelation of their own dark
deeds, especially where murder is con-
cerned, is one of the surest data of crim-
inal psychology. So common, indeed, is
this trait that it is through it, rather than
through the miraculous sagacity of the
police, so vividly described in the police
novels, that murder is almost always re-
vealed. Criminals will speak of their
crime as an honest workman speaks of
his labor. Yet another great genius,
Ariosto, noted this trait, of which crimi-
nal annals furnish innumerable examples,
in his famous lines :
" II peccator . . .
Che se medesmo, senz' altrui richesta,
luavvedutamente manifesta."
This " unnatural " Shakespearean scene,
then, is quite natural.
I may remark incidentally that I know
of no more fallacious criterion than that
of verisimilitude, which is almost always
The Delinquent in Art and in Literature.
237
contrary to truth, whether met with in
the halls of justice, where many errors
are committed in its name, or in the daily
and constantly erroneous judgments of
ordinary life. A similar example of er-
roneous application of the criterion of
verisimilitude, transporting into criminal
psychology the data of common psycholo-
gy, I find in the Phedre of Racine, where
the poet employs as Hippolytns's excuse
the same argument which the crimino-
logist Prospero Farinaccio put forward
some years ago as the basis for his cele-
brated defense of Beatrice Cenci :
" Examinez ma vie et songez qui je snis.
Quelques crimes toujours precedent les grandes
crimes ;
Quiconque a pufranchir les bornes legitimes
Pent violer enfin les droits, les plus sacres ;
Ainsi que la vertu, le crime a ses degres ;
Et jamais on n'a vu la timide innocence
Passer subiternent a I'extrSme licence.
Un jour seul ne fait pas d'un mortel vertueux
Un perfide assassin, un lache incestueux."
This method of arguing, which we do
not find in the Plied ra of Euripides, we
meet in the Cosmopolis of Paul Bourget ;
while it may hold good for criminals by
acquired habit, it is not true, though it
sounds plausible, of congenital criminals,
who rush at once into the worst of crimes.
To return to Macbeth, I should like to
note another psychological intuition of
Shakespeare's, which is that women com-
mit fewer crimes than men ; but when
they commit them they are more cruel
and more obstinately recidivist than men.
Lady Macbeth, for example, is more in-
humanly ferocious than her husband.
It is easier to deal with the other two
Shakespearean murderers in accordance
with criminal psychology, though even to
them the criteria of common psychology
have too often been applied. Thus while
Hamlet is a perfect type of the criminal
madman as interpreted by the data of
criminal psychology, there have been
critics who maintained that he became
mad after feigning insanity. Hamlet is
really most masterfully delineated as a
criminal lunatic with lucid and even rea-
sonable intervals, a type ignored by
those untrained observers who look on
all lunatics as necessarily raging and in-
coherent, but which the great English
psychologist comprehended by intuition.
The diagnosis of the psycho-pathological
symptoms in Hamlet could not be more
characteristic than Shakespeare's descrip-
tion of him, beginning with the halluci-
nation, when he sees the ghost, which is
a decisive feature of mental alienation.
The very simulation of madness, which
laymen interpret as a caprice or a trick,
marvelously agrees with scientific obser-
vation, because it is now known that sim-
ulated madness is a frequent symptom of
lunacy, in spite of the " dictum of com-
mon sense " that " he who feigns is not
mad." The madness of Hamlet belongs
precisely to that form of lucid madness
which permits the sufferer from time to
time to realize his own insanity. In his
letter to Ophelia Hamlet speaks of his sick
state, and after the murder of Polonius
he exclaims that "not Hamlet, but his
madness," has killed his friend. Ham-
let's madness is of the kind shown by
those whom the French school of crim-
inologists calls " superior degenerates,"
in distinction from idiots and imbeciles,
who are called "inferior degenerates."
Another symptom of Hamlet's condition
is a partial paralysis of the will. To this
pathological lack of will are attributable
all his hesitations in executing the ven-
detta of his father, together with an in-
stinctive repugnance to murder, which,
as I have shown elsewhere, survives in
lunatics of mral integrity even after
their intelligence has been shipwrecked.
Shakespeare's observation manifests it-
self in showing how Hamlet, an intel-
lectual youth, a university student, still
retained, even with a clouded brain, the
power to reason rightly ; as, for example,
in his moralizing over Yorick's skull, or
in his reflection that if he killed the king
while at prayer, he would send him to
heaven, and so miss revenge. But, how-
ever lucid and reasonable at times, Ham-
238
The Delinquent in Art and in Literature.
let is none the less mad because his deed
is inspired by a noble motive, and his
madness makes itself plainly manifest in
his gratuitous murder of old Polonius.
So true to life 'is Othello that he has
become the typical embodiment of homi-
cide by passion ; for though he is less
abnormal than Macbeth or Hamlet, he
is still a true homicidal criminal. This
view is confirmed by his suicide ; Shake-
speare, with his profound intuition, does
not permit either Macbeth or Hamlet to
die by his own hand. The immediate
reaction toward suicide, after a homi-
cidal attack, is a specific symptom of the
criminal by passion, whose moral sense,
momentarily obscured by the hurricane
of his passion, regains the upper hand,
and pushes him to self-destruction in his
spasm of instantaneous remorse. It is
just this subtle distinction, made plain by
criminal anthropology, that Shakespeare
perceived.
To come down to more recent times, a
successful instantaneous photograph of
the criminal world is found in Cavalleria
Rusticana, where we are hurried from
crime to crime in a whirlwind of rapidly
succeeding events. Or turn to fiction.
Some years ago, a class of novels dealing
with penal law proceedings Gaboriau's
were chief among them were much in
vogue. In these penal studies the crim-
inal takes a secondary place, and is near-
ly always a sort of lay figure used to
represent a mysterious crime. The real
hero is the police, personified in some spe-
cially astute agent who unravels the mys-
tery. Tabaret, the best of these agents,
is made, in L'Affaire Lerouge, to praise
his own craft of man-chasing, which he
declares to be much superior to animal-
hunting. He deplores that great crimes
are on the decrease, and that they have
given place to vulgar petty delinquen-
cies, a very true observation, as is also
his remark that criminals nowadays sign
their deeds, so to speak, and leave their
visiting-cards behind them, t>o that dis-
covery is easy. Analogous to these nov-
els are the plays which revolve around
the discovery of some crime, usually hom-
icide, with the introduction of the usual
more or less definite judicial errors. Fer-
re*ol, by Victorien Sardou, is an excellent
example of this type. But these penal
law plays, most popular in folk theatres,
have less interest for us, whose purpose
it is to seek in the intuitions of art the
confirmation of the positive statements
of criminal anthropological science. It
is therefore enough to have named them
as an interesting variety and offshoot of
the artistic representation of delinquent
man.
A tragically acute and suggestive mo-
ment in the study of criminal man is his
execution. Yet, curiously enough, art
has scarcely ever attempted the repre-
sentation of this most highly dramatic
phase of criminal life. The exceptions
are the pathetic scenes of Mary Stuart
and Beatrice Cenci, and more recently,
the Dame de Challant, by Giacosa, and
the Tosca, by Sardou. Here, however,
we are in the domain of common, not of
criminal psychology, since we are deal-
ing only with criminals by passion and
political criminals. The wide sweep of
emotions felt by a criminal who passes
at once from the vigor of life to death,
in the flower of his years, tempted the
genius of Victor Hugo. In Les Mise'-
rables the hero is a criminal, but Jean
Valjean is only a fancy criminal, whom
no criminologist of the new school would
have condemned to prison. And be-
cause he is a pseudo-criminal Jean Val-
jean does those pitiful and heroic deeds
which his creator assigns to him. Vic-
tor Hugo wrote also about the last days
of a criminal condemned to death ; but
though eloquent and artistic, the descrip-
tion deals only with the superficial as-
pects of the life of a condemned man,
and in its psychology is not correct.
Penal annals have already given us a
number of documents bearing on crimi-
nal psychology, showing the apathetic at-
titude of the criminal and his congenital
The Delinquent in Art and in Literature.
239
physical and moral insensibility, an
attitude which writers like Victor Hugo
mistake for courage.
At the middle of the present century,
imaginative literature found itself com-
pelled to choose between two supreme
necessities : it had either to reconstruct
itself or to perish. Balzac led the way
with the luminous Come'die Humaine.
Then followed Flaubert with his Madame
Bovary. Both writers sought in social
environment the reasons for individual
character. At almost the same time, the
true basis of positive science was laid by
the biology of Darwin and the philoso-
phy of Spencer. It was impossible that
contemporary fiction should not be af-
fected by such mighty and far-reaching
influences. The novelists soon forsook
the well-trodden conventional roads, and
hastened to study the human soul under
the new search-light of science. Hence
arose the naturalistic and the psycholo-
gical romance, some writers preferring
to study the determining causes of the
environment, while others were drawn
rather to the analysis of the soul of the
individual. All, however, were guided
by the influence of the new anthropo-
logical data which they thus helped to
popularize. But art is not science. Sci-
ence is above all things impersonal and
objective, while a work of art, as Zola
says, is a corner of nature seen through
a temperament. In this difference lies
the chance for the artist. Le Crime et le
Chatiment, by Dostoievsky, and La Bete
Humaine, by Zola, are for psycho-patho-
logy and criminal anthropology a propa-
ganda a thousand times more suggestive
than the laborious observations of sci-
ence, and they are at the same time
excellent artistic works ; for while they
paint truth boldly, they do not distort its
proportions. To miss the proper propor-
tion is the sin of inferior artists, and they
miss it in the very effort to make their
figures more veracious, as they think.
Zola, although in recent years he has
not steered clear of a tendency to yield to
commercial influences, is one of the great-
est contemporary writers. His works
are of undeniable importance as studies
of delinquency, notwithstanding the fact
that the caprices of decadent art point
to a reaction against the artistic value
of the naturalistic romance. With The
Rougen-Maquart Zola opened new hori-
zons to art. He was the first to intro-
duce the figure of the congenital criminal,
substituting it for the worked-out figure
of the mad criminal or the criminal by
passion. Since his success the novelists
of all lands have sought among anthro-
pological data for a vital basis on which
to build up the products of their fancy.
It is curious to note how even a modern
champion of the spiritual psychological
romance, like Paul Bourget, has in some
of his novels drawn on the sources of nor-
mal and criminal anthropology. Thus
in the preface of Cosmopolis Bourget
frankly admits that, " notwithstanding
the identity of the social environment in
which his idle group of cosmopolitans
are found, they always bear in their feel-
ings and in their actions the seal of the
race to which they belong ; " and since
race is for a people what temperament
is for an individual, it is easy to see that
the thesis of Cosmopolis coincides with
the fundamental conclusion of criminal
sociology, that crime is a phenomenon
determined not alone by the conditions
of social environment, but also by bio-
logical conditions. In Le Disciple and
in Andre' Corne'lis, Bourget furnishes us
with the psychological description of two
quasi - delinquents. But he never goes
outside of common psychology. Crim-
inal psychology requires not only the
internal inspection of one's own con-
science, but the external and anatomic
observation of the criminal soul, both in
social life and in the prison and the mad-
house. By reason of his observations
Dostoievsky is among artists the Dante
of criminal psychology, as well when he
writes of the living sepulchre in which
he passed so many years, as when he
240
The Delinquent in Art and in Literature.
creates the Shakespearean figure of Ra-
skolinkopp in Le Crime et le Chatiment.
It is now about twelve years that
southern Europe has been powerfully
swayed by northern art in the drama and
in the novel. Ibsen, Tolstoi, and Dos-
toievsky are the trio who artistically re-
present delinquent man, and have set
the fashion. Of Ibsen's works, Ghosts
is the drama which above all others most
intensely follows the lines of human pa-
thology as revealed by modern science,
although the crime it involves is only
faintly indicated, and we are left uncer-
tain at the end whether the mother gives
to her son the liberating poison craved
by this victim of paternal vice. Another
confirmation of " the right to die " is
found in CoppeVs Bon Crime, showing
how this view is making headway among
higher thinkers. Ibsen's work is in-
spired by a rare knowledge of scientific
facts, reproduced with a more or less
philosophic precision. Thus Hedda Ga-
bler hews out as from a rude block the
figure of a neurotic woman, hysterical
and criminal. In The Wild Duck we
encounter the triumphant criminal and
swindler, a contemporary figure of haute
finance now too often met with. In The
Pillars of Society Ibsen depicts the so-
called great men of politics, at once crim-
inals and neurotics, who display in a dif-
ferent environment the environment
of parliamentary life the same tenden-
cies that influence the brigands of the
roads. In Ghosts, wherein the author
attempts to demonstrate the organic basis
of crime or madness, the picture of Os-
wald lacks somewhat the precision of
a hospital diagnosis, but the making of
diagnoses is not the function of art. It
suffices that it should ask of science the
fundamental facts of life, and then be
free to change the colors in order the
better to impose its real artistic creations
on the collective conscience. This effect
is attained by Ghosts, as it is also attained
by Zola's L'Assommoir, which has fixed
the disasters resulting from alcoholism,
just as Ghosts has made us comprehend
the hereditary transmission of paternal
degeneration, even though the inexorable
uniformity of this law is a little exagger-
ated.
Tolstoi, who has been as absurdly
praised as he has been absurdly con-
demned, furnishes us with two types of
homicides. In The Kreutzer Sonata we
encounter the familiar jealous husband,
who vindicates his violated right of pro-
perty in his wife by murdering her, in
accordance with the morality of those
savage tribes who punish adultery with
death, just as they punish theft. But
the character of the criminal is not well
studied. He is rather a lay figure, of
which the author makes use to expound
his curious thesis. Much abler and truer
are the criminal figures in The Powers
of Darkness, that graphic and vivid de-
scription of Russian peasant life. In the
title he has chosen, Tolstoi, once again
in agreement with science, means to sig-
nify how from the dark regions of the
unconscious there springs up. in the hu-
man soul the poison of those criminal
thoughts, sentiments, and acts which un-
fortunately play so lai-ge a part in life.
I have thus rapidly passed in review
a sanguinary and repulsive crowd, upon
whom art has wrought, giving too much
glorification to criminals. It is time it
should turn its light on the great mass
of suffering men and women, ill-fed,
rude, and perverted, it may be, yet sim-
ple, laborious, and unconsciously altruis-
ti C} w ho, despite their misery and hun-
ger, remain honest, and obey the human
sentiment that revolts against the idea
of doing violence to a fellow creature.
Enrico Ferri.
The Juggler.
241
THE JUGGLER.
XIII.
WHEN this crisis supervened, Lucien
Royce was at New Helvetia Springs, at
the bowling-alley. His resolution that
the beautiful girl, whom he had learned
to adore at a distance, should never see
him again in a guise so unworthy of him,
of his true position in life, and of his
antecedents, collapsed one day in an in-
cident which was a satiric comment upon
its importance. He met her unexpect-
edly face to face in the mountain woods,
within a few miles of the Cove, one of a
joyous young equestrian party, and riding
like the wind. The plainness of the black
habit, the hat, the high close white collar,
seemed to embellish her beauty, in that
no adornments frivolously diverted the
attention from the perfection of its detail.
The flush on her cheek, the light in her
eye, the lissome grace of her slender fig-
ure, all attested the breezy delight in the
swift motion ; her smile shone down upon
him like the sudden revelation of a star
in the midst of a closing cloud, when he
sprang forward and handed her the whip
which she had dropped at the moment
of passing, before the cavalier at her side
could dismount to recover it. A polite
inclination of the head, a murmur of
thanks, a broadside of those absolutely
unrecognizing eyes, and she was gone.
She evidently had no remembrance
of him. His alert intuition could have
detected it in her face if she had. For
her he had no existence. He thought,
as he walked on into the silence and the
wilderness, of his resolution and his self-
denial, and he laughed bitterly at the
futility of the one and the pangs of the
other. He need never wince to be so
lowly placed, so mean, so humble, for she
never thought of him. He need not fear
to go near her, to haunt, like the ghost
he was, her ways in life, for she would
VOL. LXXX. NO. 478. 16
never look at him, she would never real-
ize that he was near ; for most people are
thus insensible of spectral influences.
When he sat for the first time on a
bench against the wall, by the door of the
bowling-alley, with two or three moun-
taineers whose lethargic curiosity their
venison or peaches having been sold
was excited in a degree by the spectacle
of the game of tenpins, he had much
ado to control the agitation that beset
him, a certain sensation in his throat as
if some sharp blade grazed and rasped
it internally. But after this day he came
often, availing himself of the special
courtesy observed by the players in pro-
viding a bench for the mountaineers, as
spectators who were indeed never intru-
sive or out of place, and generally of most
listless and uninterested attitude toward
the freaks and frivolities of New Hel-
vetia. This attention seemed a gracious
and kindly condescension, and flattered
a conscious sentiment of noblesse oblige.
There were other spectators, of better
quality, on the other side of the long
low building, the elders among the so-
journers at New Helvetia Springs,
while down the centre, between the two
alleys, were the benches on which the
players were ranged.
She was sometimes among these, al-
ways graceful and girlish, with a look of
innocence in her eyes like some sweet
child's, but wearing her youth and beau-
ty like a crown, with that unique touch
of dignity suggestive of a splendid future
development, and that these days, lovely
though they might be, were not destined
to be her best. One might have pitied
the hot envy he felt toward the youths
who handed her the balls and applauded
her play, and hung about near her, and
talked in the intervals, so foolish, so
hopeless, so bitter it was. Sometimes he
heard her responses : little of note, the
242
The Juggler.
talk of a girl of his day and world, but
animated with a sort of individuality, a
something like herself, or did he fancy
it was like no one else ? He had met his
fate too late ; this was the one woman
in all the world for him. She could
have made of him anything she would.
His heart stirred with a vague impulse
of reminiscent ambitions that might have
been facts had she come earlier. He loved
her, and he felt that never before had he
loved. The slight spurious evanescent
emotion, evoked from idleness or folly or
caprice, in sundry remembered episodes
of his old world, or evolved in the desert
of his loneliness for Euphemia, how
vain, how unreal, how ephemeral, how un-
justified ! But she who would have been
the supreme power in his life had come at
last and come too late. How truly he
reasoned he knew well, as he sat in his
humble garb amongst his uncouth asso-
ciates on the segregated bench, and heard
the thunder of the balls and the swift
steps of the lightly passing figures at the
head of the alley ; but surely he should
not have been capable of an added pang
when he discerned, with a sense almost
as impersonal as if he were indeed the
immaterial essence he claimed to be, her
fate in the identity of a lately arrived
guest. This was a man of middle height
and slender, about thirty-five years of age,
with a slight bald spot on the top of his
well-shaped head. He had a keen nar-
row face, an inexpressive calm manner,
and was evidently a personage of weight
in the world of men, sustaining a high
social and financial consideration. He
did not take part in the game. He leaned
against a pillar near her, and bent over
her, and talked to her in the intervals of
her play. When he was not in attend-
ance on her he was with her parents. His
mission here was most undisguised, and
it seemed to the poor juggler that the
fortunate suitor was but a personified
conventionality, whom no woman could
truly love, and who could truly love no
woman.
When once he had acquired the sense
of invisibility, he put no curb on his poor
and humble cravings to see her, to hear
the sound of her voice albeit she spoke
only to others. Every day found him on
the mountaineers' bench at the bowling-
alley, sometimes alone, sometimes in gro-
tesque company, the ridicule, he knew, of
the young and thoughtless ; and he had
no care if he were ridiculed too. Some-
times she came, and he was drearily hap-
py. Frequently she was absent, and in
dull despair he sat and dreamed of her
till the game was done. He grew to love
the inanimate things she touched, the
dress she wore ; he even loved best that
which she wore most often, and his heart
lightened when he recognized it, as if the
sight of it were some boon of fate, and
their common preference for it a bond of
sympathy. Once she came in late from
a walk in the woods, wearing white, with
a purple cluster of the wild verbena at
her bosom. There was a blossom fallen
upon the floor after they were all gone.
He saw it as it slipped down, and he
waited, and then, in the absolute soli-
tude, with a furtive gesture he picked it
up, and after that he always wore it,
folded in a bit of paper, over his heart.
In the midst of this absorbing emotion
Lucien Royce did not feel the pangs of
supplantation till the fact had been re-
peatedly driven home. When, returning
from New Helvetia, he would find Jack
Ormsby sitting on the steps of the cabin
porch, talking to Euphemia, he welcomed
as a relief the opportunity to betake him-
self and his bitter brooding thoughts
down to the bank of the river, where he
was wont to walk to and fro under the
white stars, heedless of the joyous voices
floating down to him, deaf to all save
the inflections of a voice in his memory.
He began gradually to note with a dull
surprise Euphemia's scant, overlooking
glance when her eyes must needs turn
toward him ; her indifferent manner,
even averse, it might seem ; her disaf-
fected languor save when Jack Orms-
The Juggler.
243
by's shadow fell athwart the door. In
some sort Royce had grown obtuse to
all except the sentiment that enthralled
him. Under normal circumstances he
would have detected instantly the flimsy
pretense with which she sought to stim-
ulate his jealousy, to restore his alle-
giance, to sustain her pride. She had not
dreamed that her hold upon his heart,
gained only by reason of his loneliness
and despair and the distastefulness of his
surroundings, had slackened the instant
a deep and real love took possession of
him. She had not divined this hopeless,
silent love from afar, from infinite
lengths of despair ! for another. She
only knew that somehow he had grown
oblivious of her, and was much absent
from her. This touched her pride, her
fatal pride ! And thus she played off
Jack Ormsby against him as best she
might, and held her head very high.
The sense of desertion inflicted upon
him only a dull pain. He said listlessly
to himself, his pride untouched, that she
had not really loved him, that she had
been merely fascinated for a time by the
novelty of the " readin's," and now she
cared for them and him no more. He
recalled the readiness with which she
had forsworn her earlier lover, when his
conscience had conflicted with her pride,
and this seeming fickleness was accented
anew in the later change. Royce tacitly
acquiesced in it, no longer struggling as
he had done at first with a sense of loy-
alty to her, but giving himself up to his
hopeless dream, precious even in its con-
scious futility.
How long this quiescent state might
have proved more pleasure than pain it is
hard to say. There suddenly came into
its melancholy serenities a wild tumult
of uncertainty, a mad project, a patent
possibility that set his brain on fire and
his heart plunging. He argued within
himself with some doubting, denying,
forbidding instinct of self-immolation, as
it seemed, that had somehow attained
full control of him in these days that
in one sense he was fully the equal of
Miss Fordyce, as well born, as well bred,
as she, as carefully trained in all the es-
sentials that regulate polite society. She
would sustain no derogation if he could
contrive an entrance to her social circle,
and meet her there as an equal. He had
heard from the fragmentary gossip men-
tion of people in New Orleans, familiars
of her circle, to whom he was well known.
He did not doubt that his father's name
and standing would be instantly recog-
nized by her father, Judge Archibald
Fordyce, the sojourners at New Hel-
vetia were identifiable to him now by
name, or indeed by any man of con-
sequence of his acquaintance. Under
normal circumstances the formality of an
introduction would be a matter of course.
If she had chanced to spend a winter in
St. Louis, he would doubtless have danced
with her at a dozen different places ; he
wondered blankly if he would then have
adequately valued the privilege ! He
felt now that he would give his life for
a touch of her hand, a look of her eyes
fixed upon him observingly ; how the
utter neutrality of her glance hurt him !
He would give his soul for the bliss of
one waltz. He trembled as he realized
how possible, how easily and obviously
practicable, this had become.
For the tableaux and fancy-dress ball
had been so relished by the more juvenile
element of New Helvetia that the succes-
sor of that festivity was already project-
ed. This was in the nature of a " calico
ball," to be a grotesquerie in costume
and mask, exclusively of facetious char-
acters. The masks were deemed essen-
tial by the small designers of the enter-
tainment, since the secrets of the various
disguises had not been carefully kept,
and these vizards were ingenuously re-
lied on to protect the incognito of certain
personages garbed, with the aid of sym-
pathetic elders, as Dolly Varden, Tilly
Slowboy (with a rag-doll baby furnished
with a head proof against banging on
door-frames or elbows), Sir John Fal-
244
The Juggler.
staff, three feet high, Robinson Crusoe,
and similar celebrities. The whole affair
was esteemed a tedious superfluity by the
youths of twenty and a few years upward, -
already a trifle blase", who sometimes lin-
gered and talked and smoked in the
bowling-alley after the game was finished
and the ladies had gone. It was from
overhearing this chat that Royce learned
that although the majority, tired with
one effort of devising costumes, had de-
clined to go in calico and in character,
still, in deference to the style of the en-
tertainment and the importunity of the
children who had projected it, they had
agreed to attend in mask. Their out-of-
door attire of knickerbockers and flannel
shirts and blazers ought to be deemed,
they thought, shabby enough to appease
the "tacky "requirements of the juve-
nile managers ; for they were pleased to
call their burlesque masquerade a " tacky
party," calico as a fabric not being de
rigueur.
Then it was that Royce realized his
opportunity. The knickerbockers and
flannel shirt, the red -and -black blazer
and russet shoes, in which he had entered
Etowah Cove, now stowed away in the
roof-room of Tubal Cain Sims's house,
were not more the worse for wear than
much of such attire at New Helvetia
Springs after a few weeks of mountain
rambles. Ten minutes in the barber-shop
of the hotel, at a late hour when it would
be deserted by its ordinary patrons,
would put him in trim for the occasion,
and doubtless its functionaries who had
never seen him would fancy him in this
dress a newly arrived guest of the hotel
or of some of the New Helvetia summer
cottagers. He had even a prevision of
the free and casual gesture with which
he would hand an attendant a quarter of
a dollar and send across the road to the
store for a mask. And then and then
he could feel already the rhythm of
the waltz music beating in every pulse ;
he breathed even now the breeze quick-
ening in the motion of the dance, en-
dowed with the sweetness of the zephyrs
of the seventh heaven. It was she
she alone whom he would care to ap-
proach ; the rest, they were as naught !
One touch of her hand, the rapture of one
waltz, and he would be ready to throw
himself over the bluff ; for he would have
attained the uttermost happiness that
earth could bestow upon him now.
And suddenly he was ready to throw
himself over the bluff that he should even
have dreamed this dream. For all that
his pulses still beat to the throb of that
mute strain, that his eyes were alight
with an unrealized joy, that the half
quiver, half smile of a visionary expec-
tation lingered at his lips, the red rush of
indignant humiliation covered his face
and tingled to the very tips of his fingers.
He was far on the road between the Cove
and the Springs, and he paused in the
solitude that he might analyze this thing,
and see where he stood and whither he
was tending. He, of all men in the
world, an intruder, a partaker of plea-
sures designed exclusively for others !
He to wear a mask where he might not
dare to show his face ! He to scheme to
secure from Her, from Her! through
false pretenses, under the mistake that
he was another, a notice, a word, chance
phrases, the touch of her confiding hand,
the ecstasy-of a waltz ! He had no words
for himself ! He was an exile and pen-
niless. He .had no identity. He could
reveal himself only to be falsely sus-
pected of a vile robbery in a position of
great trust ; any lapse of caution would
consign him to years of unjust im-
prisonment in a felon's cell. He was
the very sport of a cruel fate. He had
naught left of all the lavish earthly en-
dowments with which he had begun life
but his own estimate of his own sense of
honor. And this was still precious to
him. Bereft as he was, he was still a
gentleman at heart. He claimed that,
he demanded of himself his own recog-
nition as such. Never again, he deter-
mined, as he began to walk slowly along
The Juggler.
245
the road once more, never again should
expert sophistries tempt him. He would
not argue his equality with her, his birth,
his education, the social position of his
people. It was enough to reflect that if
she knew all she would shrink from him.
He would not again seek refuge in the im-
possibility that his identity could be dis-
covered as a guest at the ball. He would
not contemplate the ignoble advantage.
He would not plead as a set-off against
the deception how innocent its intention,
how transient, how venial a thing it was.
And lest in his loneliness, for since the
atmosphere of his old world had come
once more into his lungs he was as iso-
lated in the Sims household, he found
its air as hard to breathe, as if he were in
an exhausted receiver, in his despair,
in the hardship of his lot, in the deep,
deep misery of the first true, earnest,
and utterly hopeless love of his life, some
fever of wild enterprise should rise like
a delirium in his brain, and confuse his
sense of right and wrong, and palsy his
capacity for resistance, and counsel dis-
guise, and destroy his reverent apprecia-
tion of what was due to Her, he would
put it beyond his power ever to mas-
querade in the likeness of his own self
and the status of his own true position
in the world ; he would render it neces-
sary that he should always appear be-
fore Her in the absolutely false and con-
temptible role of a country boor, an un-
couth, unlettered clown.
At this paradox of his conclusion he
burst into a grim laugh ; then for he
would no longer meddle with these subtle
distinctions of right and wrong, where,
in the metamorphoses of deduction, the
false became true, and interchangeably
the true was false he began to run,
and in the strong vivacity of his pride in
his physical prowess he was able to re-
flect that better time was seldom made
by an amateur, unless for a short spurt,
than the pace he kept to the Sims cabin.
He would not let himself think in the
roof-room while he rolled the clothes
into a bundle. He set his teeth and
breathed hard as he recognized a certain
pleasure which his finger-tips derived
from the very touch of the soft, fine
texture of the cloth, and realized how
tenuous was the quality of his resolution,
how quick he must needs be to carry into
effect the conclusions of his sober judg-
ment, lest he waver anew. He was out
again and a mile away before, he began
to debate the disposition which it would
be best to make of the bundle under his
arm. He thought with a momentary
regret of Mrs. Sims's kitchen fire, over
which doubtless Euphemiawas now bend-
ing, busy with the johnny-cake for the
evening meal. He dismissed the thought
on the instant. The feminine ideas of
economy would never suffer the destruc-
tion of so much good all wool gear,
whatever its rescue might cost in the
future. Moreover, it would be inex-
plicable. He could get a spade and
bury the bundle, and dig it up, too, the
next time this mad, unworthy temptation
should assail him. He could throw it
into the river, and some one might fish
it out, recognize it as his property, and
call him to account for the mystery of
its destruction.
Suddenly he remembered the lime-kiln.
The greater portion of its product had
been used long ago, but the residue still
lay unslaked in the dry rock-house, and
more than once, in passing, he had noted
the great boulder rolled to the aperture
and securely closing it against the en-
trance of air and moisture. The place
was in the immediate vicinity, and some-
how, although he had been there often
since, the predominant impression in his
mind, when he reached the jutting pro-
montory of rock and gazed down at the
sea of foliage in the Cove, that surely
had once known the ebb and flow of tides
other than the spring bourgeonings and
the autumn desiccations, was the reminis-
cence of that early time in Etowah Cove
when he had stood here in the white glare
from the lime - kiln and watched that
246
The Juggler.
strange anamorphous presentment of the
lime-burner's face through the shimmer-
ing medium of the uprising heat. He
seemed to see it again, all unaware that
now, in its normal proportions, that face
looked down upon him from the height
of the cliff above, albeit its fright, its
surprise, its crafty intimations, its male-
volence, distorted it hardly less than the
strange effects of the writhing currents
of heat and air in that dark night so
long ago.
The young man hesitated once more
as he unrolled the garments. He had a
certain conscientious reverence for pro-
perty and order ; it was with a distinct
wrench of volition that he would destroy
aught of even small value. As he seated
himself on the ledge, shaking out the
natty biack-and-red blazer, he recognized
the melody that was mechanically mur-
muring through his lips, again, still
again, the measures of a waltz, that waltz
through whose enchanted rhythms he had
fancied that he and she might dreamily
drift together. He sprang to his feet
in a panic. With one mighty effort he
flung the great boulder aside. Hastily
he dropped the garments into the rock-
house, and with a long staff stirred the
depths of the lime till it rose above them.
More than once he was fain to step back
from the scorching air and the smarting
white powder that came in puffs from
the interior.
" That 's enough," he muttered mock-
ingly after a moment, as he stood with
his muscles relaxed, sick with the senti-
ment of the renunciation of the world
which the demolition of the civilized garb
included in its significance. " I cannot
undertake to dance with any fine lady in
this toggery now ; she 'd think I had
come straight from hell. And," with a
swift change of countenance, " so I have !
so I have ! "
Then, with his habitual carefulness
where any commercial interest, however
small, was concerned, he roused himself,
wrenched the great boulder back into its
place, noting here and there a crevice, and
filling it with smaller stones and earth
that no air might gain admission ; and
with one final close scrutiny of the en-
trance he took his way into the dense
laurel and the gathering dusk, all un-
aware of the peering, suspicious, fright-
ened face and angry eyes that watched
him from the summit of the cliff above.
The discipline of life had certain sub-
duing effects on Lucien Royce. He felt
very much tamed when next he took a
seat upon the bench placed aside in the
corner of the bowling-alley, to affect to
watch the game, but in truth to give his
humble ddspair what added pain it might
call pleasure and clutch as solace, by the
sight of her smiles won by happier men,
the sound of her voice, the meagre reali-
ties of the day to supplement the lavish
and fantastic visions of his dreams. He
had reached the point where expectation
fails. He looked only for the eventless
routine of the alley, the hour of amuse-
ment for the others, the lingering separa-
tion, the silence of the deserted building,
and the living on the recollection of a
glance of the eye, a turn of the head, a
displaced tendril of hair, softly curling,
until to-morrow, or the next day, or the
next, should give him the precious privi-
lege of making such observations for the
sustenance of his soul through another
interval of absence. Suddenly, his heart,
dully beating on through these dreary
days, began to throb wildly, and he gazed
with quickening interest at the scene
before him : the long narrow shell of
a building with the frequent windows
where the green leaves looked in, the
brown unplastered walls, the dark rafters
rising into the shadowy roof, and the
crossing of the great beams into which
records of phenomenal successions of ten
strikes were cut by the vaunting win-
ners of matches, with their names and
the dates of the event, the year of the
Lord methodically affixed, as if these
deeds were such as were to be cherished
by posterity. Down the smooth and
The Juggler.
247
shining alley a ball was rolling. Miss
Gertrude Fordyce, wearing a sheer green-
and-white dress of simple lawn and a
broad hat trimmed with ferns, was stand-
ing at the head of the alley, about to
receive her second ball from the hands
of a blond young cavalier in white flan-
nels. Royce had seen him often since
the morning when he had observed him
giving his valuable advice as to the erec-
tion of the stage in the ballroom, and
knew that he was Millden Seymour, just
admitted to the bar, with a reputation
for talent, an intelligent face, and a
smooth and polished bonhomie of man-
ner ; he was given to witty sayings, and
was a little too intent upon the one he
was exploiting at this moment to notice
that the pins at the further end had not
been set up, the hotel functionary de-
tailed for that duty not having arrived.
She hesitated, with the ball in her hand,
in momentary embarrassment, the color
in her cheeks and a laugh in her eyes.
Royce sprang up, and running lightly
down by the side of the alley placed
the pins in readiness to receive her sec-
ond ball ; then stood soberly aside, his
hat in his hand, as if to watch the execu-
tion of the missile.
" How very polite ! " said one of the
chapei'ons over her knitting to another.
" I often notice that young man. He
seems to take so much interest in the
game."
This trifling devoir, however, which
he had not hesitated to offer to a lady,
savored of servility in its appropriation
by a man. Nevertheless, he was far too
discreet, too well aware of what was due
to Her, to allow the attention to seem a
personal tribute from him. He cursed
his officiousness, notwithstanding, as he
bent down to set the tenpins in place
for the second player, who happened to
be the smart young cavalier. Only with
an effort he conserved his blithe air and
a certain amiable alacrity as through a
round or two of the game he continued to
set up the pins ; but when the flustered
and hurried bell-boy whose duty he had
performed came panting in, Royce could
have broken the recreant's head with
right good will, and he would not re-
strain a tendency to relapse into his old
gait and pose, which had no savor of
meekness, as he sauntered up the side
of the alley to his former seat beside the
mountaineers, who had gazed stolidly at
his performance.
Royce noted that one or two of the
more athletic of the young men had
followed his movements with attention.
" Confound you ! " he said to himself ir-
ritably. " I am man enough to throw
you over that beam, and you are hardly
so stupid as to fail to know it."
Miss Fordyce had not turned her eyes
toward him, no more, he said to him-
self, than if he had been the side of
the wall. And notwithstanding the in-
signia of civilization thrust out of sight
into the quicklime and the significance
of their destruction, and the flagellant
anguish of the discipline of hopelessness
and humiliation, he felt this as a burn-
ing injustice and grief, and the next in-
stant asked himself in disdain what could
such a man gain that she should look at
him in his lowly and humble estate ?
Royce brooded gloomily upon these
ideas during the rest of the game ; and
when the crowd had departed, and he had
risen to take leave of the scene that he
lived by, he noticed, with only the sense
that his way was blocked, several of the
young men lingering about the door.
They had been glancing at him, and as
one of them, it was Seymour, in a
very propitiatory manner, approached
him, he became suddenly awarfe that they
had been discussing the appropriateness
of offering him a gratuity for setting up
the tenpins in the heat and dust while
they played. Seymour was holding out
their joint contributions in his hand ; but
his affability was petrified upon his coun-
tenance as his mild eyes caught the fiery
glance which Royce flung at the group,
and marked the furious flush which suf-
248
The Juggler.
fused neck and face and ears as he real-
ized their intention. It was a moment
of mutual embarrassment. They meant
no offense, and he knew it. Had he been
what he seemed, it would have been
shabby in the last degree to accept such
friendly offices with no tender of remu-
neration. Royce's ready tact served to
slacken the tension.
" Here," he said abruptly, but despite
his easy manner his voice trembled, " let
me show you something."
He took a silver quarter of a dollar
from the handful of small change still
mechanically extended, and, turning to a
table which held a tray with glasses, he
played the trick with the goblet and the
bit of money that had so interested the
captain of the ill-fated steamboat on the
night when Lucien Royce perished so
miserably to the world. It was with
a good-natured feigning of interest that
the young men pressed round, at first,
all willing to aid the salving of the hon-
est pride which their offering had evi-
dently so lacerated. But this gave way
to an excitement that had rarely been
paralleled at New Helvetia Springs, as
feat succeeded feat. The juggler was
eager now to get away, having served his
purpose of eluding their bounty, but this
was more difficult than he had antici-
pated. He feared troublesome ques-
tions, but beyond a " Say, how in thun-
der did you learn all this ? " there were
none ; and the laconic response, " From
a traveling fellow," seemed to allay their
curiosity.
After a little he forgot their ill-starred
benevolence ; his spirits began to ex-
pand in tfiis youthful society, the tone of
which was native to him, and from which
he had long been an outcast. He began
to reflect subacutely that the idea of a
fugitive from justice would not occur to
them so readily as to the mountaineers,
who were nearer the plane of the ranks
from which criminals are usually recruit-
ed, being the poor and the humble. He
might seem to them, perhaps, a man edu-
cated beyond his prospects in life and
his station, and ashamed of both ; such
types are not altogether unknown. Or
perhaps he might be rusticating in this
humble fashion, being a person of small
means, or a man with some latent mal-
ady, sojourning here for health, and of
a lower grade of society. " For they
tell me," he said scornfully to himself,
" that such people have lungs and livers
like the best of us ! " He might be a
native touched by some unhallowed am-
bition, and, having tried his luck in the
outer world, flung back upon his de-
spised beginnings and out of a job. He
might be the schoolmaster in the Cove,
of a vastly higher grade than the na-
tive product, doubtless, but these young
swells were themselves new to the moun-
tains, and hardly likely to evolve accu-
rate distinctions. He felt sure that the
idea of crime would occur to these gay
butterflies the most remotely of all the
possible solutions of the anomalies of
his presence and his garb. He began to
give himself up unconsciously to the
mild pleasure of their association ; their
chatter, incongruously enough, revived
his energies and solaced his feelings like
some suave balm. But he experienced
a quick repulsion and a start of secret
terror when two or three, having consult-
ed apart for a few moments, joined the
group again, and called upon him to ad-
mire their " cheek," as they phrased it,
in the proposition they were about to
make, no less than that he should con-
sent to perform some of his wonderful
feats of sleight of hand at an entertain-
ment which they proposed to give at
New Helvetia. They explained to him,
as if he had not grievous cause to know
already, that the young ladies had de-
vised ' a series of tableaux followed by
a ball ; that the children had scored a
stunning success in a " tacky party ; "
that the married people had preempted
the not very original idea of &fete cham-
petre, and to preclude any unmannerly
jumping of their claim had fixed the
The Juggler.
249
date, wind and weather permitting, and
had formally bidden the guests, all the
summer birds at New Helvetia Springs.
And now it devolved upon the young
men to do their part toward whiling
away time for the general pleasure,
a task for which, oddly enough, they
were not so well equipped as one might
imagine. They were going to give a
dramatic entertainment upon the stage
erected for the tableaux in the ballroom,
which still stood, it being cheaper, the
proprietor remarked, to leave it there
than to erect it anew ; for no one could
be sure when the young people would
want it again. There would be college
songs first, glees and so forth, and they
made much of the prestige of a banjo-
player in their ranks. Some acrobatic
feats by the more athletic youths were
contemplated, but much uneasiness was
felt because a budding litterateur this
was again Mr. Seymour was giving to-
ken of a total breakdown in a farce he
was writing for the occasion, entitled The
New Woman, which, though beginning
with aplomb and brilliancy, showed no
signs of reaching a conclusion, a flat-
tering tribute to the permanence of the
subject. Mr. Seymour might not have it
completed by the date fixed. The skill
of this amateur prestidigitator would
serve to fill the breach if the playwright
should not be ready ; and even if inspi-
ration should smile upon him and bring
him in at the finish, the jugglery would
enliven the long waits while the scenes
were being prepared and the costumes
changed.
Royce, with a sudden accession of pru-
dence, refused plumply ; a sentiment of
recoil possessed him. He felt the pres-
sure of the surprise and the uncertainty
like a positive pain as he sat perched on
the high window-sill, and gazed out into
the blank unresponsiveness of the un-
dergrowth of the forest, wilting in the
heat of a hazy noon. The young men
forbore to urge him ; that delicate point
of offering money, obviously so very
nettling to his pride, which seemed alto-
gether a superfluous luxury for a man
in his position, hampered them. He
might, however, be in the habit of giving
exhibitions for pay ; for aught they knew,
the discussion of the honorarium was in
order. But they had been schooled by
the incident of the morning ; even the
quarter of a dollar which had lent itself
to the nimble gyrations of legerdemain
had found its way by some unimagined
art of jugglery into the pocket of its
owner, and Millden Seymour, who had a
bland proclivity to smooth rough places
and enjoy a i-efined peace of mind, was
swearing by all his gods that it should
stay there until more appropriately eli-
cited.
An odd thing it was, the juggler was
feeling, that without a moment's hesita-
tion he should accept the box receipts
of the show in the Cove, on which he
had subsisted for weeks, and yet in his
uttermost necessity he could not have
brooked appearing as a juggler before
the sojourn ers at New Helvetia Springs
for his own benefit. The one audience
represented the general public, he sup-
posed, and was far from him. The other
he felt as his own status, his set ; and he
could as soon have handed around the
hat, after one of the snug little bachelor
dinners he used to be so fond of giving
in St. Louis, as ask remuneration for his
assistance in this amateur entertainment
of the young butterflies at New Helvetia.
He burst into abrupt and sardonic
laughter as he divined their line of cogi-
tation, and realized how little they could
imagine the incongruities of his respon-
sive mental processes. In the quick
change from a pondering gravity to this
repellent gayety there was something of
the atmosphere of a rude rebuff, and a
certain dignity and distance informed
the manner of the few who still lounged
about with their cigars. Royce hastened
to nullify this. They had shown much
courtesy to one of his low degree, and
although he knew from experience,
250
The Juggler.
poor fellow that it was prompted not
so much by a perception of his deserts as
by a realization of their own, it being
the conduct and sentiment which graced
them and which they owed to persons
of their condition, he had no wish to be
rude, even though it might seem that he
owed a man in his position nothing.
" Oh, I '11 help you," he said hastily,
" though we shall have to rig up some
sort of properties. But I don't need
much."
The talk fell upon these immediately,
and he forthwith perceived that he was
in for it. And why not ? he asked him-
self. How did it endanger him, or why
should he shun it? All the Cove and
the countryside for twenty miles around
knew of his feats of sleight of hand ; and
since accident had revealed his knack to
this little coterie of well-bred and well-
placed young men, why should he grudge
the exhibition to the few scores of ladies
and children at New Helvetia, to aid the
little diversion of the evening ? His scru-
ples could have no force now, for this
would bring him the social pariah !
no nearer to them than when he sat by
the tenpin alley and humbly watched his
betters play. The episode of the jug-
glery, once past, would be an old story
and bereft of interest. He would have
had his little day, basking in the sun of
the applause of his superiors, and would
sink back to his humble obscurity at the
side of the bowling-alley. Should he
show any disposition to presume upon
the situation, he realized that they well
understood the art of repressing a for-
ward inferior. The entertainment con-
templated no subsequent social festivi-
ties. The programme, made out with
many an interlineation, had been calcu-
lated to occupy all the time until eleven
o'clock ; and Royce, looking at it with
the accustomed eye of a manager of pri-
vate theatricals, felt himself no prophet
to discern that midnight would find the
exhausted audience still seated, enjoying
that royal good measure of amusement
always meted out by bounteous amateurs.
Throughout the evening he would be im-
mured with the other young men in the
close little pens which served for dress-
ing and green rooms, for all the actors
in the farce were to be men, save for
the fraction of time when his jugglery
should necessitate his presence on the
stage. True, Miss Fordyce, should she
patronize the entertainment, might then
have to look at him somewhat more dis-
cerningly than she would look at the wall,
perhaps ! It could surely do her no
harm. She had seen worse men, he pro-
tested, jtvith eager self - assertion. She
owed him that much, one glance, one
moment's cognition of his existence. It
was not much to ask. He had made a
great sacrifice for her sake, and all un-
known to her. He had had regard to
her estimate of her dignity and held it
dear. He had done her reverence from
the depths of his heart, regardless that
it cost him his last hope.
The powers of the air were gradually
changing at New Helvetia Springs. The
light of the days had grown dull and
gray. Masses of white vapor gathered
in the valley, rising, and rising, and fill-
ing all its depths and slopes, as if it were
the channel of some great river, till only
the long level line of the summit of the
opposite range showed above the impal-
pable tides in the similitude of the fur-
thest banks of the great stream. It was a
suggestive resemblance to Lucien Royce,
and he winced as he looked upon it. He
was not sorry when it had gone, for the
gathering mists soon pervaded the for-
ests, and hid cliffs and abysses and even
the familiar path, save for the step before
the eye, and in this still whiteness all the
world was lost ; at last one could only
hear for it too shared the invisibili-
ties the rain falling in its midst, stead-
ily, drearily, all the day and all the long,
long hours of the black night. The bowl-
ing-alley was deserted ; lawn-tennis had
succumbed to the weather ; the horses
stood in the stalls. One might never
The Juggler.
251
know that the hotel at New Helvetia
Springs existed except that now and
again, in convolutions of mist as it rolled,
a gable high up might reveal itself for a
moment, or a peaked turret, or a dormer
window ; unless indeed one were a ghost,
to find some spectral satisfaction in slip-
ping viewless through the white envelop-
ing nullity, and gazing in at the window
of the great parlor, where a log fire was
ruddily aflare and the elders read their
newspapers or worked their tidies, and
the youth swung in rocking-chairs and
exchanged valuable ideas, and played
cards, and read a novel aloud, and hung
in groups about the tortured piano. So
close stood a poor ghost to the window
one day, risking observation, that he
might have read, over the charming out-
line of sloping shoulders clad faultlessly
in soft gray cloth, the page of the novel
which Miss Fordyce had brought there
to catch the light ; so close that he might
have heard every syllable of the conver-
sation which ensued when the man in
whom he discovered her destiny the
cold, inexpressive-looking, " personified
conventionality " came and sat beside
her on the sofa. But the poor ghost had
more scruples than reality of existence,
and, still true to the sanctions that con-
trol gentlemen in a world in which he
had no more part, he turned hastily away
that no syllable might reach him. And
as he turned he ran almost into the arms
of a man who had been tramping heavily
up and down the veranda in the white ob-
scurities, all unaware of his propinquity.
It might have been better if he had !
XIV.
For there were strangers at New
Helvetia, two men who knew nobody
and whom nobody knew. Perhaps in all
the history of the watering-place this in-
stance was the first. The patronage of
New Helvetia, like that of many other
secluded southern watering places, had
been for generations among the same
clique of people, all more or less allied
by kindred or hereditary friendship,
or close association in their respective
homes or in business interests, and the
traditions of the place were community
property. So significant was the event
that it could scarcely escape remark.
More than one of- the hereditary so-
journers observed to the others that the
distance of fifty miles from a railroad
over the worst stage-road in America
seemed, after all, no protection. And
around the flaring, flaring red fire, in the
heart of the sad, gray day, they all
hearkened with gloomy forecast to a
dread tale recounted by a knowing old
lady who came here on her bridal tour,
sixty years ago, of the sudden prosperity,
popularity, and utter ruin of a secluded
little watering-place some hundred miles
distant, which included the paradoxical
statement that nobody went there any
more, and yet that this summer it is so
crowded that wild rumors prevail that
they have to put men to sleep on the bil-
liard-tables and on the piano, only be-
cause a railroad had invaded the quiet
contiguous valleys. , There was no rail-
road near New Helvetia, yet here were
two strange men who knew nobody,
whom nobody knew, and who seemed
not even to know each other. They
were of types which the oldest inhabitant
failed to recognize. One was a quiet,
decorous, reserved person who might be
easily overlooked in a crowd, so null was
his aspect. The other had good, hearty,
aggressive, rural suggestions about him.
He was as stiffly upright as a ramrod,
and he marched about like a grenadier.
He smoked and chewed strong, rank to-
bacco. He flourished a red - bordered
cotton handkerchief. He had been care-
fully trimmed and shaved by his barber
for the occasion, but alas, the barber's
embellishments can last but from day to
day, and the rougher guise of his life was
betrayed in certain small habitudes, con-
spicuous among which were an oblivious-
252
The Juggler.
ness of many uses of a fork and an aston-
ishing temerity in the thrusting of his
knife down his throat at the dinner-table.
The two strangers appeared on the
evening of the dramatic entertainment
among the other guests of the hotel in
the ballroom, as spectators of the " Un-
rivaled Attraction " profusely billed in
the parlor, the office of the hotel, and the
tenpin alley. The rain dashed tempestu-
ously against the long windows, and the
sashes now and again trembled and clat-
tered in their frames, for the mountain
wind was rising. Ever and anon the
white mist that pressed with pallid pre-
sence against the panes shivered convul-
sively, and was torn away into the savage-
ry of the fastnesses without and the wild
night, returning persistently, as if with
some fatal affinity for the bright lights
and the warm atmosphere that would
annihilate its tenuous existence with but
a single breath. The blended sound of
the torrents and the shivering gusts was
punctuated by the slow dripping from
the eaves of the covered walks within
the quadrangle close at hand, that fell
with monotonous iteration and elastic re-
bound from the flagging below, and was
of dreary intimations distinct amid the
ruder turmoil of the elements. But a
cheerful spirit pervaded the well-housed
audience, perhaps the more grateful for
the provision for pleasantly passing the
long hours of a rainy eveningin the coun-
try, since it did not snatch them from al-
ternative pleasures ; from languid strolls
on moonlit verandas, or contemplative
cigars in the perfumed summer woods
under the stars, or choice conferences
with kindred spirits in the little observa-
tory that overhung the slopes. The Un-
rivaled Attraction had been opportunely
timed to fill an absolute void, and it could
not have been presented before more
leniently disposed spectators than those
rescued from the jaws of unutterable en-
nui. There was a continuous subdued
ripple of laughter and stir of fans and
murmur of talk amongst them ; but al-
though richly garbed in compliment to
the occasion, the brilliancy of their ap-
pearance was somewhat reduced by the
tempered light in which it was essential
that the audience should sit throughout
the performance and between the acts,
for the means at the command of the
Unrivaled Attraction were not capable
of compassing the usual alternations of
illumination, and the full and permanent
glare of splendor was reserved to suffuse
the stage. The audience was itself an
object of intense interest to the actors
behind the scenes, and there was no in-
terval in which the small rent made in
the curtain for the purpose of observa-
tion was not utilized by one or another
of the excited youths, tremulous with
premonitions of a fiasco, from the time
when the first groups entered the hall to
the triumphant moment when it became
evident that all New Helvetia was turn-
ing out to honor the occasion, and that
they were to display their talents to a
full house. It was only when the stir
of preparation became tumultuous one
or two intimations of impatience from
the long-waiting audience serving to ad-
monish the performers that Lucien
Royce found an opportunity to peer out
in his turn upon the scene in the dusky
clare-obscure. Here and there the yel-
low globes of the shaded lamps shed
abroad their tempered golden lustre, and
occasionally there came to his eye a
pearly gleam from a fluttering fan, or
the prismatic glitter of a diamond, or the
ethereal suggestion of a girl in a white
gown in the midst of such sombre inti-
mations of red and brown and deeply
purple and black in the costumes of the
dark-robed elders that they might hardly
be accounted as definite color in the scale
of chromatic values. With such a dully
rich background and the dim twilight
about her, the figure and face of the girl
he sought showed as if in the glamours
of some inherent light, reminding him of
that illuminating touch in the method
of certain painters whose works he had
The Juggler.
253
seen in art galleries, in which the radi-
ance seems to be in the picture, indepen-
dent of the skylight, and as if equally
visible in the darkest night. She wore a
light green dress of some silken texture,
so faint of hue that the shadows of the
soft folds appeared white. It was fash-
ioned with a long, slim bodice, cut square
in the neck, and a high, flaring ruff
of delicate old lace, stiff with a Medici
effect, which rose framing the rounded
throat and small head with its close and
high-piled coils of black hair, through
which was thrust a small comb of carved
coral of the palest possible hue. She
might have been a picture, so still and
silent she sat, so definitely did the light
emanate from her, so completely did the
effect of the pale, lustrous hues of her
attire reduce to the vague nullities of a
mere background the nebulous dark and
neutral tints about her. How long Royce
stood and gazed with all his heart in his
eyes he never knew. He saw naught
else. He heard naught of the stir of
the audience, or the wild wind without,
or the babel upon the stage where he
was. He came to himself only when he
was clutched by the arm and admonished
to clear the track, for at last, at last the
curtain was to be rung up.
What need to dwell on the tremulous
eagerness and wild despair of that mo-
ment, the glee club all ranged in order
on the stage, and with heart-thumping
expectation, the brisk and self-sufficient
tinkle of the bell, the utter blank im-
movableness of the curtain, the subdued
delight of the audience ? Another tin-
tinnabulation, agitated and querulous ;
a mighty tug at the wings ; a shiver in
the fabric, a sort of convulsion of the
texture, and the curtain goes up in slow
doubt, all awry and bias, it is true, but
still revealing the " musicianers," a trifle
dashed and taken aback, but meeting
a warm and reassuring reception which
they do not dream is partly in tribute to
the clownish tricks of the curtain.
Royce, suddenly all in heart, exhila-
rated by the mere sight of her. flung
himself ardently into the preparations
progressing in the close little pens on
either side and at the rear of the stage.
The walls of these were mere partitions
reaching up only some ten feet toward
the ceiling, and they were devoid of any
exit save through the stage and the eye
of the public. Hence it had been neces-
sary that all essentials should be careful-
ly looked to and provided in advance.
Now and then, however, a wild alarum
arose because of the apparent non-exist-
ence of some absolutely indispensable
article of attire or furniture, to be suc-
ceeded by embarrassed silence on the part
of the mourner when the thing in ques-
tion was found, and a meek submission
to the half-suppressed expletives of the
rest of the uselessly perturbed company.
It was a scene of mad turmoil. Young
men already half clad in feminine attire
were struggling with the remainder of
their unaccustomed raiment, the actors
to take part in the farce The New Wo-
man. Others were in their white flan-
nel suits, no longer absolutely white,
hot, dusty, perspiring, the scene-shift-
ers and the curtain contingent, all lugu-
briously wiping their heated brows and
blaming one another. The mandolin and
banjo players, in faultless evening dress,
stood out of the rush and kept themselves
tidy. And now arose a nice question, in
the discussion of which all took part, be-
coming oblivious, for the time, of the au-
dience without and the tra-la-la-ing of
the glee singers, the boyish tones of ar-
gument occasionally rising above these
melodious numbers. It was submitted
that in case the audience should call for
the author of The New Woman, and
it would indeed be unmannerly to omit
this, the playwright ought to be in full
dress to respond, considering the circum-
stances, the place, and the full dress of
the audience. And here he was in his
white flannel trousers and a pink-and-
white striped blazer at this hour of the
night, and his room a quarter of a mile
254
The Juggler.
away in a pitching mountain rain, whither
certain precisians would fain have him
hie to bedizen himself. He listened to
this with a downcast eye and a sinking
heart, and doubtless would have acted
on the admonition save for the ludicrous
effect of emerging before the audience as
he was, and returning to meet the same
audience in the blaze of full-dress glory.
" It 's no use talking," he said at last,
decisively. " We are caught here like
rats in a trap. There is no way of get-
ting out without being seen. I wonder
I did n't think to have a door cut."
Repeatedly there rose on the air the
voice of one who was a slow study re-
peating the glib lines of The New Wo-
man ; and once something very closely
approximating a quarrel ensued upon
the discovery that the budding author,
already parsimonious with literary ma-
terial, had transferred a joke from the
mouth of one character to that of an-
other ; the robbed actor came in a bound-
ing fury and his mother's false hair,
mildly parted and waving away from his
fierce, keen young face and flashing eyes,
to demand of the author-manager its re-
storation. His decorous stiffly lined skirts
bounced tumultuously with his swift
springs forward, and his fists beneath
the lace frill of his sleeves were held in
a belligerent muscular adjustment.
" It 's my joke," he asseverated vehe-
mently, as if he had cracked it himself.
" My speech is ruined without it, world
without end ! I will have it back ! I
will ! I will ! " he declared as violently
as if he could possess the air that would
vibrate with the voice of the actor who
went on first, and could put his collar on
the syllables embodying the precious jest
by those masterful words, " I will ! "
The manager had talents for diplo-
macy, as well he should. He drew the
irate antique-seeming dame into the cor-
ner by the lace on the sleeve and, look-
ing into the wild boyish face, adjured
him, " Let him have it-, Jack, for the love
of Heaven. He does it so badly, and he
is such a slow study, that I 'm afraid the
first act will break down if I don't give
it some vim ; after you are once on, the
thing will go and I shan't care a red."
And so with the dulcet salve of a little
judicious flattery peace came once more.
Royce, as he took his place upon the
narrow stage, felt as if he had issued
from the tumultuous currents of some
wild rapids into the deep and restful
placidities of a dark untroubled pool.
The air of composure, the silence, the
courteous attention of the audience, all
marked a transition so abrupt that it had
a certain perturbing effect. He had
never felt more ill at ease, and perhaps
he had never looked more composed than
when he advanced and stood bowing at
the footlights. He had forgotten his as-
sumed character of a mountaineer, his
coarse garb, his intention to seek some
manner that might consist with both. He
was inaugurating his share of the little
amateur entertainment with a grace and
address and refinement of style that were
astonishing his audience far more than
aught of magic that his art could com-
mand, although his resources were not
slight. He seemed some well-bred and
talented youth of the best society, dressed
for a rural r6le in private theatricals.
Now and again, there was a flutter of
inquiry here and there in the audience,
answered by the whispered conclusions
of Tom or Jack, retailed by mother or
sister. For the youth of New Helvetia
Springs had accepted the explanation
that he was out of a position, " down on
his luck," and hoped to get a school in
Etowah Cove. He had gone by the
sobriquet of " the handsome mountain-
eer," and then " the queer mountaineer,"
and now, " He is no mountaineer," said
the discerning Judge Fordyce to a man
of his own stamp at his elbow.
What might have been the estimate of
the two strangers none could say. They
sat on opposite sides of the building, tak-
ing no note of each other, both stolidly
gazing at the alert and graceful figure
The Juggler.
255
and the handsome face alight with intel-
ligence, and made no sign. One might
have been more competent than the other
to descry inconsistencies between the sta-
tus which the dress suggested and the
culture and breeding which the manner
and accent and choice of language be-
spoke, but both listened motionless as if
absorbed in the prestidigitator's words.
Royce had made careful selection
among his feats in view of the character
of his audience, and the sustaining of
such poor dignity as he might hope to
possess in Miss Fordyce's estimation.
There were no uncouth tricks of swal-
lowing impossible implements of cutlery,
which sooth to say would have vastly
delighted the row of juvenile spectators
on the front bench. Perhaps they were
as well content, however, with the ap-
pearance of two live rabbits from the
folds of the large white silk handker-
chief of an old gentleman in the crowd,
borrowed for the purpose, and the little
boy who came up to receive the article
for restoration to its owner went into
an ecstasy of cackling delight, with the
whole front row in delirious refrain, to
find that he had one of the live rabbits in
each of the pockets of his jacket, albeit
the juggler had merely leaned over the
footlights to hand him back the hand-
kerchief. The audience applauded with
hearty good will, and a general ripple of
smiles played over the upturned faces.
" Ladies and gentlemen," said the jug-
gler, picking up a small and glittering
object from the table, " if I may ask
your attention, you will observe that each
chamber of this revolver is loaded "
With his long, delicate, deft white
hands he had turned aside the barrel, and
now held the weapon up, the two parts
at right angles, each cartridge distinctly
visible to the audience.
But a sudden authoritative voice arose.
" No pistols ! " called out a sober pater-
familias, responsible for four boys in the
audience.
" No pistols ! " echoed Judge Fordyce.
There had been a momentary shrink-
ing among the ladies, whose curiosity,
however, was greater than their fear, and
who sustained a certain doubtful and dis-
appointed aspect. But the shadowy bul-
let-heads of the whole front row were
turned with one accord in indignant and
unfilial protest.
Royce understanding in a moment,
with a quick smile shifted all the car-
tridges out into his hand, held up the
pistol once more so that all might see the
light through the empty chambers, then
with an exaggerated air of caution laid
all the shells in a small heap on one of
the little tables and the pistol, still dis-
located, on another table, the breadth of
the stage between them ; and with a sa-
tiric " Hey ! Presto ! " bowed, laughing
and complaisant, to a hearty round of
applause from the elders. For although
his compliance with their behests had
been a trifle ironical, the youths of New
Helvetia were not accustomed to submit
with so good a grace or so completely.
The two elderly strangers accommo-
dated the expression of their views to
the evident opinion of those of their
time of life, applauding when the gen-
tlemen about them applauded, maintain-
ing an air of interest when they were
receptive and attentive. Was it pos-
sible, one might wonder in looking at
them, that they could conceive that dif-
ferences so essential could be unre-
marked that it was not patent to the
most casual observer that they were not
among their kind ? The perspicacity of
the casual observer, however, was ham-
pered by the haze of the pervasive ob-
scurity ; from the stage each might seem
to the transient glance merely a face
among many faces, the divergences of
which could be discerned only when some
intention or interest informed the gaze.
Lucien Royce saw only that oasis in the
gloom where the high lights of her deli-
cately tinted costume shone in the dusk.
He was keenly mindful of a flash of girl-
ish laughter, the softly luminous glance
256
The Juggler.
of her eye, the glimmer of her white teeth
as her pink lips curled, the young delight
in her face. How should he care to note
the secret, down-looking countenance o'f
the one man, the grizzled stolid bourgeois
aspect of the other ?
The manager, keenly alive to the suc-
cess of the entertainment, advanced a
number of the programme since the pis-
tol trick was discarded. He handed
through the wings a flower-pot filled with
earth for a feat which it had been his
intention to reserve until after the first
act of The New Woman.
" Now, ladies and gentlemen," said
the juggler, " oblige me by looking at
this acorn. It is considered quite harm-
less. True, it will shoot, too, if you give
it half a chance ; but I am told," with
a glance of raillery, " that its projectile
effects are not deleterious in any respect
to the human anatomy."
The ladies who had been afraid of
the pistol laughed delightedly, and the
guyed elderly gentlemen good-naturedly
responded in another round of applause,
so grateful were they to have no shooting
on the stage, and no possible terrifying
accidents to their neighbors, themselves,
and their respective families.
" There is nothing but pulverized soil
in this flower-pot," continued the jug-
gler, running his hand through the fine
white sand, and shaking off the particles
daintily, " a little too sandy to suit my
views and experience in arboriculture, but
we shall see 1 what we shall see ! I
plant the acorn, thus ! I throw this cloth
over the flower-pot, drawing it up in a
peak to give air. And now, since we
shall have to wait for a few moments, I
shall, with your kind indulgence, beguile
the tedium, in imitation of the jongleurs
of eld, with a little song."
The audience sat patient, expectant.
A guitar was lying where one of the
glee singers had left it. Royce turned
and caught it up, then advanced down
toward the footlights, and paused in the
picturesque attitude of the serenader of
the lyric stage. He drew from the in-
strument a few strong resonant chords,
and then it fell a-tinkling again.
But what new life was in the strings,
what melody in the air? And as his
voice rose, the scene-shifters were silent
in the glare of the pens ; the actors-ex-
pectant thronged the wings ; the audi-
ence sat spellbound.
No great display of art, to be sure !
But the mountain wilds were without,
and the mountain winds were abroad,
and there was something strangely som-
bre, romantic, akin to the suggestion and
the sourid in the rich swelling tones of
the young voice so passionately vibrant
on the air. Though obviously an ama-
teur, he sang with a careful precision
that bespoke fairly good advantages am-
ply improved, but the singing was in-
stinct with that ardor, that love of the
art, that enthusiasm, which no training
can supply or create. The music and the
words were unfamiliar, for they were his
own. Neither was devoid of merit. In-
deed, a musical authority once said that
his songs would have very definite pro-
mise if it were not for a determined ef-
fort to make all the science of harmony
tributary to the display of Lucien Royce's
high A. A recurrent strain now and
again came, interfluent through the drift
of melody, rising with a certain ecstatic
elasticity to that sustained tone, which
was soft, yet strong, and as sweet as sum-
mer.
As his voice thus rang out into the si-
lence with all its pathos and its passion,
he turned his eyes on the eyes he had so
learned to love, and met those orbs, full
of delight and of surprise and a patent
admiration, fixed upon his face. The
rest of the song he sang straight at Ger-
trude Fordyce, and she looked at the
singer, her gaze never swerving. For
once his plunging heart in triumph felt
he had caught and held her attention ;
for once, he said to himself, she did not
look at him as impersonally as if he were
the side of the wall.
The Juggler.
257
It was over at last, and he was bow-
ing his acknowledgments to the wildly
applauding audience. The jugglery was
at a discount. He had drawn off the
white cloth from the flower-pot, where a
strongly rooted young oak shoot two feet
high appeared to have grown while he
sang. But the walls of the room re-
sounded with the turbulent clamors of
an insistent encore. Only the eyes of the
rustic-looking stranger were starting out
of his head as he gazed at the oak shoot,
and there came floating softly through
his lips the involuntary comment, " By
gum ! "
It was necessary in common courtesy
to sing at least the last stanza again,
and as the juggler did so he was almost
happy in singing it anew to her starry
eyes, and noting the flush on her cheeks,
and the surprise and pleasure in her beau-
tiful face. The miracle of the oak shoot
went unexplained, for all New Helvetia
was still clapping a recall when the jug-
gler, bowing and bowing, with the guitar
in his hand, and ever retreating as he
bowed, stepped off at the wings for in-
structions, and was met there by renewed
acclamations from his fellow entertainers.
" You 'd better bring on the play if
you don't want to hold forth here till
the small hours," he said, flushed, and
panting, and joyous once more.
But the author-manager was of a dif-
ferent mind. The child of his fancy
was dear to him, although it was a very
grotesque infant, as indeed it was neces-
sary that it should be. He deprecat-
ed submitting it to the criticism of an
unwilling audience, still clamoring for
the reappearance of another attraction.
However, there would not be time enough
to respond to this encore, and yet bring
the farce on with the deliberation essen-
tial to its success, and the effect of all its
little points.
" You seem to be the star of the even-
ing," he said graciously. " And I
should like to hear you sing again my-
self. But we really have n't time. As
VOL. LXXX. NO. 478. 17
they are so delighted with you, suppose,
by way of letting them down gently, we
give them another sight of you by moving
up the basket trick on the programme, in-
stead of letting it come between the sec-
ond and third acts of the play, we have
had to advance the feat that was to have
come between the first and second acts,
anyhow, and have no jugglery between
the acts."
Royce readily agreed, but the man-
ager still hesitated while the house
thumped and clapped its recall in great
impatience, and a young hobbledehoy
slipped slyly upon the stage and face-
tiously bowed his acknowledgments, with
his hand upon his heart, causing spasms
of delight among the juvenile contingent
and some laughter from the elders.
Said the hesitating manager, uncon-
scious of this interlude, " I don't half
like that basket trick."
" Why ? " demanded the juggler, sur-
prised. " It 's the best thing I can do.
And when we rehearsed it, I thought we
had it down to a fine point."
"Yes," still hesitating, "but I'm
afraid it 's dangerous."
The juggler burst into laughter. " It 's
as dangerous as a pistol loaded with blank
cartridges ! See here," he cried joyously,
turning with outspread arms to the group
of youths fantastic in their stage tog-
gery, " I call you all to witness if ever
Millden Seymour hurts me, I intended to
let him do it. Come on ! " he exclaimed
in a different tone ; " I 'm obliged to
have a confederate in this, and we have
rehearsed it without a break time and
again."
In a moment more they were on the
stage, side by side, and the audience,
seeing that no more minstrelsy was in
order, became reconciled to the display
of magic. A certain new element of in-
terest was infused into the proceedings
by the fact that another person was in-
troduced, and that it was Seymour who
made all the preparations, interspersing
them with jocular remarks to the audi-
258
The Juggler.
ence, while the juggler stood by, silent
and acquiescent. He seemed to be the
victim of the manager, in some sort,
and the juvenile spectators, with beating,
hearts and open mouths and serious eyes,
watched the proceedings taken against
him as his arms were bound with a rope
and then a bag of rough netting was
slipped over him and sewed up at the
end.
" I have him fast and safe now," the
manager declared. " He cannot delude
us with any more of his deceits, I am
sure."
The juggler was placed at full length
on the floor and a white cloth was thrown
over him. The manager then exhibited
a large basket some three feet long and
with a top to it, which he also thrust un-
der the cloth. Taking advantage of the
evident partisanship of the children for
their entertainer, he spoke for a few min-
utes in serious and disapproving terms of
the deceits of the eye, and made a very
pretty moral arraignment of these dubi-
ous methods of taking pleasure, which
was obviously received in high dudgeon.
He then turned about to lead his captive,
hobbled and bound, off the stage. Lift-
ing the cloth he found no trace of the
juggler ; the basket with the top beside
it was revealed, and on the floor was the
netting, a complete case with not a
mesh awry through which he could have
escaped. The manager stamped about
in the empty basket and finally emerged
putting on the top and cording it up.
Whereupon one antagonistic youth in
the audience opined that the juggler
was in the basket.
"He is, is he?" said the manager,
looking up sharply at the bullet-headed
row. " Then what do you think of this,
and this, and this ? "
He had drawn the sharp bowie-knife
with which Royce had furnished him,
and was thrusting it up to the hilt here,
there, everywhere through the interstices
of the wickerwork. This convinced the
audience that in some inscrutable manner
the juggler had been spirited away, im-
possible though it might seem. The
stage, in the full glare of all the lamps
at New Helvetia Springs, was in view
from every part of the house, and it was
evident that the management of the Un-
rivaled Attraction was incapable of stage
machinery, trap-doors, or any similar ap-
pliance. In the midst of the discussion,
very general over the house, the basket
began to roll about. The manager viewed
it with the affectation of starting eyes
and agitated terror for a moment. Then
pouncing upon it in wrath he loosened
the cords, took off the top, and pulled
out the juggler, who was received with
acclamations, and, bowing and smiling
and backing off the stage, he retired, the
hero of the occasion.
Seymour at the wings was giving or-
ders to ring down the curtain to pre-
pare the stage for The New Woman.
" Don't do it unless you mean it for
keeps, Mill," remonstrated the proper-
ty-man. " The devil 's in the old rag, I
believe. It might not go up again easi-
ly, and I 'm sure, from the racket out
there, they are going to have the basket
trick over again."
For the front row of bullet-heads was
conducting itself like a row of gallery
gods and effervescing with whistlings
and shrill cries. The applause was gen-
eral and tumultuous, growing louder
when the over-cautious father called out
" No pistols and no knives ! "
" Oh, they can take care of them-
selves," said a former adherent of his
proposition, for the feat was really very
clever, and very cleverly exploited, and
he was ready to accredit the usual
amount of sagacity to youths who could
get up so amusing an entertainment.
No one was alert to notice save his
mere presence as some messenger or
purveyor of properties a dazed-looking
young mountaineer, dripping with the
rain and apparently drenched to the
skin, who walked down the main aisle
and stepped awkwardly over the foot-
The Juggler.
259
lights, upon the stage. He paused bewil-
dered at the wings, and Lucien Royce be-
hind the scenes, turning, found himself
face to face with Owen Haines. The
sight of the wan, ethereal countenance
brought back like some unhallowed spell
the real life he had lived of late into
the vanishing dream-life he was living
now. But the actualities are constrain-
ing. " You want me ? " he said, with a
sudden premonition of trouble.
" I hev s'arched fur you-uns fur days,"
Haines replied, a strange compassion in
his eyes, contemplating which Lucien
Royce felt his blood go cold. " But the
Simses deceived me ez ter whar ye be ;
they never told me till ter-night, an' then
I bed ter tell 'em why I wanted you-uns."
" Why ? " demanded Royce, spell-
bound by the look in the man's eyes, yet
almost overmastered by the revulsion of
feeling in the last moment, the quaking
of an unnamed terror at his heart.
Nevertheless, with his acute and ver-
satile faculties he heard the clamors of
the recall still thundering in the room,
he noted the passing of the facetiously
bedight figures for the farce. He was
even aware of glances of curiosity from
one or two of the scene-shifters, and had
the prudence to draw Haines, who heard
naught and saw only the face before him,
into a corner.
"Why?" reiterated Royce. "Why
do you want me ? "
" Bekase," said Haines, " Peter Knowles
seen ye fling them clothes inter the quick-
lime, an' drawed the idee ez ye bed
slaughtered somebody bodaciously, an'
kivered 'em thar too."
The juggler reddened at the mention
of the clothes and the thought of their
sacrifice, but he was out of countenance
before the sentence was concluded, and
gravely dismayed.
" Oh, pshaw ! " he exclaimed, seeking
to reassure himself. " They would have
to prove that somebody is dead to make
that charge stick."
Then he realized the seriousness of
such an accusation, the necessity of ac-
counting for himself before a legal in-
vestigation, and this, to escape one false
criminal charge, must needs lead to a
prosecution for another equally false.
The alternative of flight presented itself
instantly. " I can explain later, if neces-
sary, as well as now," he thought. " I 'm
a thousand times obliged to you for tell-
ing me," he added aloud, but to his
amazement and terror the man was
wringing his hands convulsively and his
face was contorted with the agony of a
terrible expectation.
" Don't thank me," he said huskily.
Then, with a sudden hope, " Is thar enny
way out'n this place 'ceptin' yon ? " he
nodded his head toward the ballroom on
the other side of the partition.
" No, none," gasped Royce, his nerves
beginning to comprehend the situation,
while it still baffled his brain.
"I'm too late, I'm too late!" ex-
claimed Haines in a tense, suppressed
voice. " The sher'ff 's thar, 'mongst the
others, in that room. I viewed him thar
a minit ago."
Assuming that he knew the worst,
Royce's courage came back. With some
wild idea of devising a scheme to meet
the emergency, he sprang upon the va-
cant stage, on which the curtain had
been rung down despite the applause,
still resolutely demanding a repetition of
the feat, and through the rent in the
trembling fabric swiftly surveyed the
house with a new and, alas, how differ-
ent a motive ! His eyes instantly fixed
upon the rustic face, the hair parted far
to the side, as the sheriff vigorously
stamped his feet and clapped his hands
in approbation. That oasis of refined,
ideal light where Miss Fordyce sat did
not escape Royce's attention even at this
crisis. Had he indeed brought this sorry,
ignoble fate upon himself that he might
own one moment in her thoughts, one
glance of her eye, that he might sing
his song to her ear ? He had certainly
achieved this, he thought sardonically.
260
The Juggler.
She would doubtless remember him to
the last day she should live. He won-
dered if they would iron him in the pre-
sence of the ladies. Could he count upon
his strong young muscles to obey his will
and submit without resistance when the
officers should lay their hands upon him,
and thus avoid a scene ?
And all at once perhaps it was the
sweet look in her face that made all
gentle things seem possible it occurred
to him that he despaired too easily. An
arrest might not be in immediate con-
templation, the corpus delicti was im-
possible of proof. He could surely make
such disposition of his own property as
seemed to him fit, and the explanation
that he was at odds with his friends,
dead-broke, thrown out of business in
the recent panic, might pass muster with
the rural officer, since no crime could be
discovered to fit the destruction of the
clothes. Thus he might still remain un-
identified with Lucien Royce, who pre-
tended to be dead and was alive, who
had had in trust a large sum of money
in a belt which was found upon another
man, robbed, and perhaps murdered for
it The sheriff of Kildeer County had
never dreamed of the like of that, he
was very sure.
The next moment his heart sank like
lead, for there amongst the audience,
quite distinct in the glooms, was the
sharp, keen, white face of a man he had
seen before, a certain noted detective.
It was but once, yet, with that idea of
crime rife in his mind, he placed the man
instantly. He remembered a court-room
in Memphis, during the trial of a cer-
tain notable case, where he had chanced
to loiter in the tedium of waiting for a
boat on one of his trips through the city,
and he had casually watched this man
as he gave his testimony. His presence
here was significant, conclusive, to be in-
terpreted far otherwise than any mission
of the sheriff of the county. Royce did.
not for one moment doubt that it was in
the interests of the marble company, the
tenants of the estate per autre vie, al-
though the criminal charge might ema-
nate directly from the firm whose funds
had so mysteriously disappeared from his
keeping, whose trust must now seem so
basely betrayed. There was no possible
escape ; the stanch walls of the building
were unbroken even by a window, and
the only exit from behind the partition
was through the stage itself in full view
of the watchful eyes of the officers. Any
effort, any action, would merely acceler-
ate the climax, precipitate the shame of
the arrest he dreaded, and in her pre-
sence ! He felt how hard the heart of
the cestui que vie was thumping at the
prospect of the summary resuscitation.
He said to himself, with his ironical habit
of mind, that he had found dying a far
easier matter. But there was no re-
sponsive satire in the hunted look of
his hot, wild, glancing eyes, the qxiiver
of every muscle, the cold thrills that suc-
cessively trembled through the nervous
fibres. He looked so unlike himself for
the moment, as he turned with a violent
start on feeling the touch of a hand on
his arm, that Seymour paused with some
deprecation and uncertainty. Then with
a renewed intention the manager said
persuasively, " You won't mind doing it
over again, will you ? You see they won't
be content without it."
A certain element of surprise was
blended with the manager's cogitations
which he remembered afterward rather
than realized at the moment. It had to
do with the altered aspect of the man,
a sudden grave tumultuous excitement
which his manner and glance bespoke ;
but the perception of this was subacute
in Seymour's mind and subordinate to
the awkward dilemma in which he found
himself as manager of the little enter-
prise. There was not time, in justice to
the rest of the programme, to repeat the
basket trick> and had the farce been the
work of another he would have rung the
curtain up forthwith on its first scene.
But the pride and sensitiveness of the
The Juggler.
261
author alike forbade the urging of his
own work upon the attention of an audi-
ence still clamorously insistent upon the
repetition of another attraction, and hard-
ly likely, if balked of this, to be fully
receptive to the real merits of the little
play.
Seymour remembered afterward, but
did not note at the time, the obvious effort
with which the juggler controlled his
agitation. " Oh, anything goes ! " he
assented, and in a moment more the
curtain had glided up with less than its
usual convulsive resistance. They were
standing again together with composed
aspect in the brilliance of the footlights,
and Seymour, with a change of phrase
and an elaboration of the idea, was dilat-
ing afresh upon the essential values of
the positive in life ; the possible perni-
cious effects of any delusion of the senses ;
the futility of finding pleasure in the
false, simply because of the flagrancy of
its falsity ; the deleterious moral effects
of such exhibitions upon the very young,
teaching them to love the acrobatic lie
instead of the lame truth, from all of
which he deduced the propriety of tying
the juggler up for the rest of the evening.
But the bullet-heads were not as dense
as they looked. They learned well when
they learned at all, and the pauses of
this rodomontade were filled with callow
chuckles and shrill whinnies of appre-
ciative delight, anticipative of the won-
der to come. They now viewed with
eager forwarding interest the juggler's
bonds, little dreaming what grim pro-
phecy he felt in their restraint, and the
smallest boy of the lot shrilly sang out,
when all was done, " Give him another
turn of the rope ! "
Seymour, his blond face flushed by
the heat and his exertions to the hue of
his pink-and-white blazer, ostentatiously
wrought another knot, and down the jug-
gler went on the floor, encased in the
unbroken netting ; the cloth was thrown
over the man and the basket, and Sey-
mour turned anew to the audience and
took up the thread of his discourse. It
came as trippingly off his tongue as be-
fore, and in the dusky gray-purple haze,
the seeming medium in which the audi-
ence sat, fair, smiling faces, full of ex-
pectation and attention, looked forth
their approval, and now and again broke
into laughter. When, having concluded
by announcing that he intended to con-
vey the discomfited juggler off the stage,
he found naught under the cloth but the
empty net without a mesh awry, the man
having escaped, his rage was a trifle more
pronounced than before. With a wild
gesture he tossed the fabric out to the au-
dience to bid them observe how the vil-
lain had outwitted him, and then sprang
into the basket and stamped tumultuous-
ly all around in the interior, evidently
covering every square inch of its surface,
while the detective's keen eyes watched
with an eager intensity, as if the only
thought in his mind were the miracle of
the juggler's withdrawal. Out Seymour
plunged finally, and with dogged resolu-
tion he put the lid on and began to cord
up the basket as if for departure.
" Save the little you 've got left," whin-
nied out a squirrel-toothed mouth from
the front bench, almost too broadly a-grin
for articulation.
" Get a move on ye, get a move ! "
shouted another of the callow youngsters,
reveling in the fictitious plight of the
discomfited manager as if it were real.
He seemed to resent it. He looked
f rowningly over the footlights at the front
row, as it hugged itself and squirmed on
the bench and cackled in ecstasy.
" I wish I had him here ! " he ex-
claimed gruffly. " I 'd settle him
with this and this and this ! " Each
word was emphasized with the successive
thrusts of the sharp blade of the bowie-
knife through the wickerwork.
" That 's enough ! That 's enough ! "
the remonstrant elder in the audience ad-
monished him, and he dropped the blade
and came forward to beg indulgence
for the unseemly and pitiable position
262
The Juggler.
in which he found himself placed. He
had barely turned his back for a moment,
when this juggler whom he had taken so
much pains to secure, in order to pro-^
tect the kind and considerate audience
from further deceits of a treacherous art,
mysteriously disappeared, and whither
he was sure he could not imagine. He
hesitated for a moment and looked a
trifle embarrassed, for this was the point
at which the basket should begin to roll
along the floor. He gave it a covert
glance, but it was motionless where he
had left it. Raising his voice, he re-
peated the words as with indignant em-
phasis, thinking the juggler had not
caught the cue. He went on speaking
at random, but his words came less free-
ly ; the audience was silent, expectant ;
the basket still lay motionless on the
floor. Seeing that he must needs force
the crisis, he turned, exclaiming with up-
lifted hands, " Do my eyes deceive me,
or is that basket stirring, rolling on the
floor ? "
But no ; the basket lay as still as he
had left it. There was a moment of
tense silence in the audience, and then
his face grew suddenly white and chill,
his eyes dilated fixed on something
dark, and slow, and sinuous, trickling
down the inclined plane of the stage.
He sprang forward with a shrill excla-
mation, and catching up the bowie-knife
severed with one stroke the cords that
bound the basket.
" Are you hurt ? " he gasped in a
tremulous voice to the silence beneath
the lid, and as he tossed it aside he re-
coiled abruptly, rising to his feet with a
loud and poignant cry, " Oh, my God !
he is dead ! he is dead ! "
The sudden transition from the pure-
ly festival character of the atmosphere
to the purlieus of grim tragedy told
heavily on every nerve. There was one
null moment blank of comprehension,
and then women were screaming, and
more than one fainted ; the clamor of
overturned benches added to the confu-
sion, as the men, with grim set faces
and startled eyes, pressed forward to the
stage ; the children cowered in ghastly
affright close below the footlights, except
one small creature who thought it a part
of the fun, not dreaming what death
might be, and was laughing aloud in
high-keyed mirth down in the dusky
gloom. A physician among the summer
sojourners, on a flying visit for a breath
of mountain air, was the first man to
reach the stage, and, with the terror-
stricken Seymour, drew the long lithe
body out and straightened it on the floor,
as the cuVtain was lowered to hide a
mise en scene which it might be terror
to women and children to remember.
His ready hand desisted after a glance.
The man had died from the first stroke
of the bowie-knife, penetrating his side,
and doubtless lacerating the outer tis-
sues of the heart. The other strokes
were registered, the one on his hand,
the other, a slight graze, on the neck. A
tiny package had fallen on the floor as
the hasty hands had torn the shirt aside
from the wound : the deft professional
fingers unfolded it, a bit of faded
flower, a wild purple verbena ; the phy-
sician looked at it for a moment, and
tossed it aside in the blood on the floor,
uninterested. The pericardium was more
in his line. He was realizing, too, that
he could not start to-morrow, as he had
intended, for his office and his rounds
among his patients. The coroner's jury
was an obstinate impediment, and his
would be expert testimony.
Upon this inquest, held incongruously
enough in the ballroom, the facts of the
information which Owen Haines had
brought to the juggler and the presence
of the officers in the audience were elicit-
ed, and added to the excitements inci-
dent to the event. The friends of young
Seymour, who was overwhelmed by the
tragedy, believed and contended that
since escape from prosecution for some
crime was evidently impossible, the jug-
gler had in effect committed suicide by
The Juggler.
263
holding up his left arm that the knife
might pierce a vital part. Thus they
sought to avert the sense of responsibil-
ity which a man must needs feel for so
terrible an accident wrought by his own
hand. But crime as a factor seemed
doubtful. The sheriff, indeed, upon the
representations of Sims, supplemented
by the mystery of the lime-kiln which
Knowles had disclosed, had induced the
detective to accompany him to the moun-
tains to seek to identify the stranger as
a defaulting cashier from one of the cities
for whose apprehension a goodly amount
of money would be paid. But in no re-
spect did Royce correspond to the per-
petrator of any crime upon the detective's
list.
" He need n't have been afraid of me,"
he observed dryly; "I saw in a minute
he was n't our fellow. And I was just
enjoying myself mightily."
The development of the fact of the
presence of the officers and the juggler's
knowledge that they were in the audi-
ence affected the physician's testimony
and his view of the occurrence. He ac-
counted it an accident. The nerve of
the young man, shaken by the natural
anxiety at finding himself liable to im-
mediate arrest, was not sufficient to carry
him through the feat. He failed to shift
position with the celerity essential to the
basket trick, and the uplifted position of
the arm, which left the body unprotected
to receive the blow, was but the first ef-
fort to compass the swift movements ne-
cessary to the feat. The unlucky young
manager was exonerated from all blame
in the matter, but the verdict was death
by accident.
Nevertheless, for many a day and all
the years since the argument continues.
Along the verge of those crags over-
looking the valley, in the glamours of a
dreamy golden haze, with the amethys-
tine mountains on the horizon reflecting
the splendors of the sunset sky, and with
the rich content of the summer solstice
in the perfumed air; or amongst the
fronds of the ferns about the fractured
cliffs whence the spring wells up with a
tinkling tremor and exhilarant freshness
and a cool, cool splashing as of the ver-
itable fountain of youth; or in the
shadowy twilight of the long, low build-
ing where the balls go crashing down
the alleys ; or sometimes even in the
ballroom in pauses of the dance when
the music is but a plaint, half-joy, half-
pain, and the wind is singing a wild and
mystic refrain, and the moonlight comes
in at the windows and lies in great blue-
white silver rhomboids on the floor de-
spite the dull yellow glow of the lamps,
in all these scenes which while yet in
life Lucien Royce had haunted, with a
sense of exile and a hopeless severance,
as of a man who is dead, the mystery of
his fate revives anew and yet once more,
and continues unexplained. Conjecture
fails, conclusions are vain, the secret re-
mains. Hey ! Presto ! The juggler has
successfully exploited his last feat.
Charles Egbert Craddock.
264
A Great Biography: Mohan's Nelson.
A GREAT BIOGRAPHY: MAHAN'S NELSON.
THERE comes a period when the work
and character of a great man can be
fairly summed up for all time by the
biographer ; when the judgment is as
nearly in focus as ever the fallible hu-
man judgment can be ; when the dis-
tortion of passions and the multiplicity
of details inseparable from nearness of
view, and the obscuring, sometimes mag-
nifying effects of distance are both at a
minimum. Certainly that time had not
come for Nelson when Charnock and
Barker, or even Southey, wrote the life
of the great admiral. But the right
man does not always come at the right
time, and the world's general estimate
of its illustrious men not infrequently
remains without any adequate concrete
expression.
Individual judgments are necessarily
fallible and incomplete. They are either
strong and masterful, tainted by preju-
dices and warped by that constitutional
way of looking at things which we call
the personal equation, or weak and color-
less, the loose gathering up of that crude
public opinion which surrounds a great
name as the photosphere surrounds the
sun. Still, the general consensus of opin-
ion of great men, as of great books, is
not far out of the way. The critical
acumen of the scholar, the professional
knowledge of the expert, the feeling,
taste, and judgment of the few, and the
shrewd common sense of the many,
something of all these is found in the
popular verdict ; and this composite pic-
ture, as it were, derived from so many
sources, is usually not far from right.
But just because, though so well defined,
it is so composite, the biographer who
can intelligently represent it is rare. " A
true delineation of the smallest man,"
says Carlyle, " is capable of interesting
1 The Life of Nelson, the Embodiment of the
Sea Power of Great Britain. By ALFRED
the greatest man." What an interest a
man would have for us if we knew that
he was thus to sum up for posterity our
life - work ! We should ask, not only,
What access has he to the record ? but
also, What professional capacity, what
temper of mind., what human experience
of life, will he bring to the analysis of
our motives, the judgment of our acts,
the weighing of our character ?
We had the right to expect much from
Captain Mahan, especially that he would
give us a critical estimate of Nelson's
genius from the point of view of the naval
expert, and that he would show us the
relations of Nelson's naval operations
to the general course of contemporary
events in 
