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Full text of "Lotos leaves. Original stories, essays, and poems"

With half shut eyes ever to seem 
Falling asleep in a half dream.' 11 

ALFRED TENNYSON, The Lotos Eaters. 




ORIGINAL 



STORIES, ESSAYS, AND POEMS, 



BY 



WHITELAW REID, WILKIE COLLINS, MARK TWAIN, JOHN HAY, JOHN BROUGHAM, NOAH 
BROOKS, P. V. NASBY, I. H. BROMLEY, JOHN ELDERKIN, THOMAS W. KNOX, W. J. 
FLORENCE, CHANDOS FULTON, J. HENRY HAGAR, CHAMPION BISSELL, J. B. 
BOUTON. W. S. ANDREWS, GILBERT BURLING, CHAS. I. PARDEE, M. D., 
C. MCK. LEOSER, HON. R. B. ROOSEVELT, WILLIAM F. GILL, C. FLO- 
RIO, C. E. L. HOLMES, CHARLES GAYLER, JAMES PECH, MUS. 
DOC., H. S. OLCOTT, EDWARD GREEY, J. BRANDER 
MATTHEWS, AND ALFRED TENNYSON. 

EDITED BY 

JOHN BROUGHAM AND JOHN ELDERKIN. 



BOSTON: 
WILLIAM F. GILL AND COMPANY, 

LATE SHEPARD AND GILL, 

151 WASHINGTON STREET. 



7 

r 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, 

BY WILLIAM F. GILL AND COMPANY, 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 




TO 

ALFRED TENNYSON, 

THE POET OF OUR TIME, 

SHjis Book 

IS 

(WITH HIS SPECIAL PERMISSION) 

AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED 
BY 

THE LOTOS CLUB 

OF NEW YORK. 



M147340 
















*4**/ 




PREFACE. 




TO THE SOVEREIGN PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES. 

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR ROYAL MULTIPLICITY I 

'E, the subscribers hereto, appreciating the 
absorbing interest taken at the present 
period in the occult and the non-under- 
standable, beg to call the attention of 
pansophic inquirers to the singular MANI- 
FESTATIONS which will develop themselves 
in the pages following, emanating, as they 

do, from a group of edacious and bibitory media, who materialize 
daily at the refectory of the LOTOS CLUB. 

YOUR AUGUST POTENTIALITY will not fail to observe that those 
spiritual adumbrations are not evanescent or fugaceous, a latrocinous 
cheat, repugnant to common-sense and an insult to the most par- 
vanimous of human intelligences, but tangible entities, altogether 
stationary, and as visible to every eye as the readablest of printed 
work. 

The embodied essences which will in due time appear, psycholo- 
gic offspring evoluted from the mysterious union of the brain and pen, 
being polygenous, will of necessity be variform and dissimilar; 
but, however unlike in shape and feature they may be when com- 
pared with each other, yet individually they will be found to exhibit 
sufficient family resemblance to indicate their paternity. 



x PREFACE. 

In Books, as in Babies, one can readily discover excepting in the 
cases of unequal collaboration, or of entirely pilfered matter, foreign 
or domestic some characteristic trait hereditary, some trick of 
style or peculiarity of expression, through which to designate the 
author of their being. 

The cerebral progeny of the LOTOS will, in like manner, display 
upon their lineaments the shadowy sign-manual of their respective 
producers. 

With this brief but perspicuous prolegomenon, we send our mul- 
tigenerous youngsters out into the world, to be judged by their 
merits ; parental solicitude alone urging us to entreat for them a 
liberal indulgence, if it be only for their juvenility. 

It only remains to say that the pecuniary profits, if any, resulting 
from the promulgation of these LEAVES will be presented to the 

American Dramatic Fund. 

J. B. 
J. E. 




CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

SOME SOUTHERN REMINISCENCES .... Whitelaw Reid i 

THE HYMN OF PRINCES John Brougham 19 

AN ENCOUNTER WITH AN INTERVIEWER . Mark Twain 25 

MY HERMIT J. B. Bouton 33 

Miss TS'EU Edward Greey 59 

ANACREONTIC Charles Gayler ..... 69 

THE THEATER . John Elderkin 73 

POEM c. McK Leaser 97 

AN EPISODE OF THE WAR W. S. Andrews 101 

SUNRISE AND SUNSET C. E. L. Holmes in 

FAIRY GOLD John Brougham 115 

THE HAWK'S NEST Gilbert Burling 129 

To A FLOWER C. Florio 145 

THE PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS OF SONG . Charles Inslee Pardee, M. D. . 149 

THE TRUTHFUL RESOLVER Petroleum V. Nasby .... 157 

TRANSLATIONS C. Florio 169 



xii CONTENTS. 

A FATAL FORTUNE Wilkie Collins 175 

IN ECHO CANON Noah Brooks 203 

A FRAGMENTARY HINT ON A FAULT OF THE 

ENGLISH LANGUAGE Champion Bissell 221 

LIBERTY John Hay 227 

How WE HUNG JOHN BROWN Henry S. Olcott 231 

THE WEED THAT CHEERS J. Henry Hager 251 

THE ASPERITIES OF TRAVEL Thomas W. Knox .... 261 

EDGAR A. POE AND HIS BIOGRAPHER, RUFUS 

W. GRISWOLD William F. Gill 277 

LETHE C. McK. Leaser 307 

THE MIRACLE OF THE FISHES Robert R. Roosevelt . . . . 311 

THE LOTOS-EATERS . Alfred Tennyson 319 

PLAYERS IN A LARGE DRAMA /. ff. Bromley 329 

BERTHA KLEIN W. J. Florence 343 

NINE TALES OF A CAT J. Brander Matthews . . . 359 

JOHN AND SUSIE Chandos Fulton 367 

THE THREE GREAT SYMPHONISTS . . . James Pech 381 




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Engraved under the supervision of JOHN ANDREW AND SON. 



DRAWN BY ENGRAVED BY PAGE 

"WITH HALF-SHUT EYES EVER TO SEEM 

FALLING ASLEEP IN A HALF-DREAM " Alfred Fredericks. A Bobbett . Frontispiece. 

THE LOTOS John La Farge. H. Marsh . . Title Illus. 

LOG-ROLLING IN THE SOUTH . . . C. H. Miller. W. J. Linton ... 8 

HYMN OF PRINCES Alfred Fredericks. John Andrew and Son 22 

THE HERMIT J. H. Dolph. John Andrew and Son 36 

"K-E-E-s M-E-E" A. Lyall. John Andrew and Son 67 

ANACREONTIC C. H. Story. John Andrew and Son 71 

" WHEN THY ROSE LIPS I GAZE UPON " Arthur Lumley. John Andrew and Son 100 

FAIRY GOLD . . . . Alfred Fredericks. A. Bobbett . . . .124 

THE HAWK'S NEST Gilbert Burling. H. Linton . . . .132 

THE LEVIATHAN CLUB Th. Wust. John Andrew and Son 167 

HER ANSWER Arthur Lumley. John Andrew and Son 193 

ECHO CANON George White. John Andrew and Son 220 

LIBERTY Alfred Fredericks. A. Bobbett . . . .230 

THE WEED THAT CHEERS . . . . C. H. Chapin. John Andrew and Son 259 



xiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

POE'S SCHOOL AND PLAY-GROUND From the Original. John Andrew and Son 282 

"THE LOTOS BLOWS BY EVERY 

WINDING CREEK R. E. Piguet. W. J. Linton . . .321 

THE LEGEND OF THE TODESBLUME . George White. John Andrew and Son 342 
ST. CECILIA H. B. John Andrew 'and 'Son 381 



HALF-TITLE ILLUSTRATIONS. 

I. THE LOTOS EATER i 

II. EMBLEMS OF ROYALTY 19 

III. VIGNETTE 25 

IV. VIGNETTE 33 

V. ORIENTAL BARGE 59 

VI. LOTOS FLOWERS AND BUDS 69 

VII. GREEK MASKS TRAGEDY AND COMEDY 73 

VIII. VIGNETTE 97 

IX. EMBLEMS OF WAR 101 

X. VIGNETTE in 

XL VIGNETTE 115 

XII. VIGNETTE 129 

XIII. LILIES . . . . 145 

XIV. ANTIQUE LYRE 149 

XV. ANTIQUE EGYPTIAN FIGURE 157 

XVI. VIGNETTE 169 

XVII. CUPID'S DARTS . . . . . . . . . . .175 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xv 

XVIII. VIGNETTE ........... 203 

XIX. SPEECH AND SONG (HEAD) ....... 221 

XX. THE CROSS OF LIBERTY ........ 227 

XXI. IMMORTELLES .......... 231 

XXII. SYMBOLIC EMBLEM ( LOTOS) ....... 251 

XXIII. VIGNETTE ........... 261 

XXIV. RAVEN AND BELLS .......... 277 

XXV. ANTIQUE HEAD WITH LOTOS FLOWERS ..... 307 

XXVI. VIGNETTE ..... * ...... 3" 

XXVII. THE SPHINX ......... 3'9 

XXVIII. MASKS OF TRAGEDY AND COMEDY (MODERN) . . . .329 

XXIX. VIGNETTE .... ....... 343 

XXX. VIGNETTE ...... . . . -359 

XXXI. VIGNETTE ........... 3^7 



The ornamental initials at the opening of each article were expressly designed for this volume by 
JOHN ANDREW AND SON. 




LOTOS LEAVES. 



SOME SOUTHERN REMINISCENCES. 





SOME SOUTHERN REMINISCENCES. 

BY WHITELAW REID. 

HE Publishers' despatch demands, rather sud- 
denly, a contribution to the Lotos Leaves. 
Thus energetically summoned, I can, on the 
instant, think of nothing better than to go back 
to my real lotos-eating days. They were 
passed in that pleasant land where once, to 
cotton-planters as well as poets, it seemed always 
afternoon,, but where now, alas ! it too often looks as if the 
blackness of midnight had settled. I spent a year or two, after 
the close of the war in the Southern States, mostly on Louis- 
iana and Alabama cotton-plantations ; and if I must " write 
something and at once,' 1 I shall merely try to revive some recol- 
lections of that experience. 

It was one of those perfect days which Louisianians get in 
February, instead of waiting, like poor Massachusetts Yankees, 
till June for them, when I crossed from Natchez to take pos- 
session of two of the three river plantations on which I dreamed 
of making my fortune in a year. The road led directly down 
the levee. On the right rolled the Mississippi, still far below 
its banks, and giving no sign of the flood that a few months 
later was to drown our hopes. To the left stretched westward 
for a mile the unbroken expanse of cotton land, bounded by 



LOTOS LEAVES. 



the dark fringe of cypress and the swamp. Through a drove 
of scrawny cattle and broken-down mules, pasturing on the rich 
Bermuda grass along the levee, under the lazy care of the 
one-armed " stock-minder," I made my way at last down a 
grassy lane to the broad-porched, many-windowed cottage, 
propped up four or five feet from the damp soil by pillars of 
cypress, which the agent had called the " mansion." It looked 
out pleasantly from the foliage of a grove of China and pecan 
trees, and was flanked, on the one hand by a beautifully culti- 
vated vegetable garden, several acres in extent, and on the 
other by the " quarters," a double row of cabins, each with 
two rooms and a projecting roof, covering an earthen-floored 
porch. A street, overgrown with grass and weeds, ran from the 
"mansion" down between the rows of cabins, and stopped at 
the plantation blacksmith and carpenter shop. Behind each 
cabin was a little garden, jealously fenced off from all the rest 
with the roughest of cypress pickets, and its gate guarded by 
an enormous padlock. " Niggers never trust one another about 
their gardens or hen-houses," explained the overseer, who was 
making me acquainted with my new home. 

To the westward the plantations sloped gently back from the 
house to the cypress-swamp, which shut in the view. Not a 
tree or fence broke the monotony of the surface, but half a 
dozen wide open ditches led down to the swamp, and were 
crossed, at no less than seven places, by long lines of embank- 
ments, each, as one looked toward the swamp, seeming higher 
than those beyond it. The lands were entirely safe from any 
overflow from the Mississippi in front ; but crevasses, miles 
above, almost every year poured floods back into the swamp ; 
thence the enemy gradually crept up on the rear, and about 



SOME SOUTHERN REMINISCENCES. 5 

June the fight with the water began. An effort would be made to 
stop it at the first line of embankment ; this failing, the leading 
ditches would be closed, and the next embankment, a hundred 
and fifty yards farther up from the swamp, would be strength- 
ened and guarded. Failing there, the negroes would retreat to 
the next. The sluggish, muddy sheet of water would scarcely 
seem to move ; but each day it would advance a few inches. 
The year before, the negroes had only been able to arrest it 
at the embankment nearest the river. Some months later I 
soberly realized that I had done little better ; out of twelve 
hundred acres of cotton land, my predecessors had only been 
able to save three hundred, and I barely rescued two hundred 
more. Then, as the waters receded, we planted in the ooze, 
just in time to have the cotton beautifully fresh and tender for 
the worms in August. 

But as I rode out first, that perfect day, among the gang of a 
hundred and fifty negroes, who, on these plantations, were for 
the year to compromise between their respect and their new- 
born spirit of independence by calling me Mistah instead of 
Massa, there were no forebodings. Two "plough-gangs" and 
two "hoe-gangs" were slowly measuring their length along the 
two-mile front. Among each rode its own negro driver, some- 
times lounging in his saddle with one leg lodged on the pommel, 
sometimes shouting sharp, abrupt orders to the delinquents. 
In each plough-gang were fifteen pairs of scrawny mules, with 
corn-husk collars, gunny-bag back-bands, and bedcord plough- 
lines. The Calhoun ploughs (the favorite implement through all 
that region, then, and doubtless still, retaining the name given 
it long before war was dreamed of) were rather lazily managed 
by the picked hands of the plantation. Among them were 



6 LOTOS LEAVES. 

several women, who proved among the best laborers in the 
gang. A quarter of a mile ahead a picturesque sight presented 
itself. A great crowd of women and children, with a few aged 
or weakly men among them, were scattered along the old 
cotton-rows, chopping down weeds, gathering together the 
trash that covered the land, and firing little heaps of it, while 
through the clouds of smoke came an incessant chatter of the 
girls, and an occasional snatch of a camp-meeting hymn from 
the elders. " Gib me some backey, please," was the first saluta- 
tion I received. They were dressed in a stout blue cotton ade, 
the skirts drawn up to the knees, and reefed in a loose bunch 
about the waists ; brogans of incredible sizes covered their 
feet, and there was little waste of money on the useless decency 
of stockings, but gay bandannas were wound in profuse splendor 
around their heads. 

The moment the sun disappeared every hoe was shouldered. 
Some took up army-blouses or stout men's overcoats, and drew 
them on ; others gathered fragments of bark to kindle their 
evening fires, and balanced them nicely on their heads. In 
a moment the whole noisy crowd was filing across the plan- 
tation toward the quarters, joining the plough-gang, pleading 
for rides on the mules, or flirting with the drivers, and looking 
as much like a troop flocking to a circus or rustic fair as a 
party of weary farm-laborers. At the house the drivers soon 
reported their grievances. " Dem women done been squabblin' 
'mong dei'selves dis a'ternoon, so I 's hardly git any wuck at 
all out of 'em." f< Fanny and Milly done got sick to-day ; an' 
Sally 's heerd dat her husban' 's mustered out ob de army, 
an' she gone up to Natchez to fine him." "Dem sucklers ain't 
jus' wuf nuffin at all. 'Bout eight o'clock dey goes off to de 



SOME SOUTHERN REMINISCENCES. 7 

quarters to deir babies, an' I don' nebber see ntiffin mo' ob 'em 
till 'bout elebben. Den de same way in de a'ternoon, till I 's sick 
ob de hull lot." " De Moody [Bermuda grass] mighty tough 
'long heah, an' I could n't make dem women put in deir hoes to 
suit me nohow." Presently men and women trooped up for the 
tickets representing their day's work. The women were soon 
busy preparing their supper of mess pork and early vegetables ; 
while the plough-gang gathered about the overseer. "He'd 
done promise dem a drink o' whiskey, if dey 'd finish dat cut, 
and dey'd done it." The whiskey was soon forthcoming, well 
watered, with a trifle of cayenne pepper to conceal the lack of 
spirit, and a little tobacco soaked in it to preserve the color. 
The most drank it down at a gulp from the glass into which, 
for one after another, the overseer poured " de 'lowance." A 
few, as their turns came, passed up tin cups, and went off with 
the treasure, chuckling about "de splennid toddy we's hab to- 
night." Then came a little trade with the overseer at " the 
store." Some wanted a pound or two of sugar ; others, a paper 
of needles or a bar of soap ; many of the young men, " two bits' 
wuf " of candy, or a brass ring. In an hour trade was over, and 
the quarters were as silent as a churchyard. But, next morn- 
ing, at four o'clock, I was aroused by the shrill " driber's horn." 
Two hours later it was blown again, and, looking from my 
window just as the first red rays of light came level across the 
field, I saw the women filing out, with their hoes, and the plough- 
men leisurely sauntering down to the stables, each with corn- 
husk collars and bedcord plough-lines in his hands. 

Somewhat different was my first sight of our third plantation. 
It was fifteen miles farther down the river, from which it was 
hidden by a mile of swampy forest. It had been freshly cleared 



LOTOS LEAVES. 

a little before the war, had been neglected since, was overgrown 
with briers, and covered with fallen logs. Remote, wild, gloomy, 
it almost recalled that weird picture of the Red River plantation 
on which Mrs. Stowe abandoned Uncle Tom to the mercies of 
Legree. Nor was this impression lessened when I found that 
the overseer had for twenty years followed his calling during 
the existence of slavery. But the most cordial feeling seemed 
to subsist between him and the negroes. " Him allus good man, 
befo' dis time come in," they said. " He allus did us niggers 
jussice." Here he had them divided into three gangs, "the 
hoes, log-rollers, and ploughs." Riding through the quarters, one 
seemed to come out at once upon an immense Western clearing. 
Everywhere still stood the deadened cypresses : it was through 
a forest of their decaying bodies that the eye reached in the 
distance the living forest and the swamp. Half-way back was a 
scene of unusual animation. The overseer kept his three gangs 
near each other, the hoes ahead, pushing hard behind them the 
log-rollers, and, shouting constantly to the log-rollers to keep out 
of their way, the plough-men. The air was filled with a dense 
smoke from the burning briers and logs. Moving about among 
the fires, raking together the trash, chopping the briers, now 
seizing a brand from a burning heap and dexterously using it to 
fire half a dozen others, then hurrying forward to catch up with 
the gang, singing, laughing, teasing the log-rollers to "cotch us 
if you kin," were the short-skirted, black-faced damsels, twenty 
or twenty-five in number, who composed the trash-gang. Be- 
fore the little heaps were half burnt, the log-rollers were among 
them. A stout black fellow, whiskey-bottle in hand, gave direc- 
tions. At least half of this gang also were women, each armed, 
like the men, with a formidable hand-spike. They were very 



SOME SOUTHERN REMINISCENCES. 9 

proud of their distinction, and wanted it understood that " dey 
was n't none of you' triflin' hoe-han's ; dey was log-rollers, dey 
was." Selecting the log hardest to be moved as the centre for a 
heap, the driver shouted, " Now, heah, hurry up dat log dere, 
and put it on dis side, heah." A dozen hand-spikes were thrust 
under it, and every woman's voice shouted in shrill chorus, 
" Come up wid de log, come up wid de log." " Man agin man 
dere," the driver would cry, " gal agin gal ; all togedder wid 
you, if you spec any wate' out o' dis bottle." Sometimes be- 
fore these heaps were fired the ploughs were upon them, every 
ploughman urging his mules almost into a trot, and the driver 
occasionally shouting, " Git out o' de way dere, you lazy log- 
rollers, or we plough right ober ye." The land was a loose 
loam, turning up like an ash-heap, and both negroes and mules 
seemed to thrive on the hard work. 

The overseer rarely left the field. With one leg lazily 
thrown across the pommel of his saddle, he lounged in his 
seat, occasionally addressing a mild suggestion to one of the 
men, or saying to the driver that the other gangs were pressing 
him pretty close. Then, riding over to the next, he would hint 
that the trash-gang was getting ahead of them, or that the 
ploughs would catch them soon if they were n't careful. All 
treated him with the utmost respect. I am satisfied that no 
Northern laborers of the same degree of intelligence ever 
worked more faithfully, more cheerfully, or with better re- 
sults. 

Very novel, and sometimes very droll, seem to me now the 
experiences of the year on these plantations. One of the first 
was my effort to reform a "bad nigger." His old owner, so 
the gossip ran, had once or twice wanted him killed ; last year 



10 LOTOS LEAVES. 

the overseer had snapped a pistol at him ; altogether, there 
was no managing him. A genial old-time planter, my nearest 
neighbor, warned me that the boy was desperate, and ought 
to be driven off the place. In my Northern wisdom I laughed 
at the warning. " Of course your system drove any negro 
of spirit into revolt," I argued ; " and so you had what you 
call a dangerous nigger. Now he sees that he gets the re- 
ward of his own labor, and so freedom makes a first-class 
hand of him." But the old slaveholder shook his head. It 
was not long till I saw he had reason. My model reformed 
negro was caught stealing pork and selling it, getting drunk, 
drawing a loaded musket on his brother-in-law, and the like. 
" I '11 never give in to your new-fangled notions agin," growled 
the overseer. " A nigger 's a nigger, and I Ve only made a 
fool of myself in trying to make anything else out of him." 
And so a warrant was procured for his arrest. Hearing of 
the warrant, the boy ran away. In about three weeks he 
returned, very defiant, and boasting that no white man could 
arrest him. He had been to the Bureau, and knew the law ; 
he was armed, and meant to go where he pleased. But he 
was promptly taken, without resistance, before a justice of the 
peace. Three negro witnesses established his guilt, and he 
was committed to jail to await a trial by court, with every 
prospect of being sent to the penitentiary for a year or two. 
Among the witnesses against him was the brother-in-law he 
had threatened to shoot. When Philos was being locked up 
he called to this man and said, 

"Arthur, you know I 's alms hated you, and talked 'bout 
you ; but you was right, when you tole me not to git into 
no sich troubles as dis." 



SOME SOUTHERN REMINISCENCES. II 

" Philos," ejaculated Arthur, precipitating his words out in 
shotted volleys, " I allus tole you so. You said, when you 
come back, dat you 'd been to de Bureau, knowd de law, 
dat no white man could 'rest you. I tole you den you did n't 
know nuffin 'bout law, dat no law 'lowed you to carry on 
mean." 

"Well, I t'ought I did know sumfin 'bout law den, but I 
shore, now, I don't" 

" Dat 's so, Philos ; but I tell ye, you 'm got in a mighty safe 
place now, whar you 'm got nuffin in de wold to do but to study 
law ! I reckon, Philos, by de time you git out ob heah, you '11 
be a mighty larned nigger in de law ! Good by, Philos." 

" The worst thing about these niggers," explained the justice, 
" is, that they seem to have no conception of their responsibility. 
That boy, Philos, can't see why a word from his employer is n't 
enough now to release him, as it would have done while he was 
a slave. He does n't comprehend the fact that he has com- 
mitted an offence against the State, as well as against his em- 
ployer." 

Most of the negroes seemed very anxious to learn to read, 
but now and then one sturdily adhered to his old belief that 
learning was only good for white men. " Wat 's de use ob 
niggers pretendin' to learnin' ? " exclaimed one of my drivers. 
" Dere 's dat new boy Reub. Missah Powell sent me to weigh 
out his 'lowance. He brag so much about readin' an' edication 
dat I try him. I put on tree poun' po'k, an' I say, ' Reub, kin 
you read ? ' He say, ' Lor' bress you, did n't you know I 's edi- 
cated nigger ? ' I say, ' Well, den, read dat figger, an' tell me 
how much po'k you 'm got dar.' He scratch he head, an' look 
at de figger all roun', an' den he say, ' Jus' seben poun', zacly.' 



12 LOTOS LEAVES. 

Den I say to de po' fool, ' Take you' seben poun' an' go 'long.' 
Much good his larnin' did him. He los' a poun' o' po'k by it, 
for I was gwine to gib him fo' poun'." 

Early after my arrival, I had one of the overseers take me 
to the negro church. On secular days it was the blacksmith's 
shop. Now it looked fresh, and almost attractive, half rilled 
with the people of the plantation. All seemed pleased to see us 
enter, and I soon found that we were not to pass unnoticed. 
The old preacher, who was none other than the plantation gar- 
dener, was not one of those who fail to magnify their office. 
He was delighted at his Sunday official superiority to his em- 
ployer, and at the chance to level his broadsides at two white 
men ; and he certainly showed us no mercy. " White men might 
t'ink dey could git 'long, because dey was rich ; but dey 'd find 
demselves mistaken when damnation and hell-fire was a'ter dem. 
No, my breddering an' sistering, black an' white, we must all 
be 'umble. 'Umbleness '11 tote us a great many places whar 
money won't do us no good. De Lo'd, who knows all our 
gwines in an' comin's out, he '11 'ceive us all at de las', if we be- 
have ou'selves heah. Now, my breddering an' sistering, white 
an' black, I stand heah for de Lo'd, to say to ebery one ob you 
heah, be 'umble an' behave you'selves on de yearth, an' you shall 
hab a crown ob light. Ebery one ob you mus' tote his cross on 
de yearth, eben as our bressed Master toted hisn." 

This was about the average style of the sermon. Part of it 
was delivered in a quiet, conversational tone ; at other times the 
preacher's voice rose into a prolonged and not unmusical ca- 
dence. He was really a good man, and whenever any meaning 
lurked in his numberless repetitions of cant phrases, picked up 
from the whites to whom he had listened, it was always a good 



SOME SOUTHERN REMINISCENCES. 13 

one. The small audience sat silent and perfectly undemon- 
strative. The preacher once or twice remarked that there were 
so few present that he did n't feel much like exhorting ; it was 
hardly worth while to go to much trouble for so few ; and final- 
ly, with a repetition of this opinion, he told them " dey might 
sing some if dey wanted to," and took his seat. 

" D n the old fellow," whispered the overseer ; " he don't 
do no retail business. He wants to save souls by hullsale, or 
else not at all ! " 

The passion for whiskey seemed universal. I never saw man, 
woman, or child, reckless young scapegrace or sanctimonious 
old preacher, among them, who would refuse it ; and the most 
had no hesitancy in begging it whenever they could. Many of 
them spent half their earnings buying whiskey. That sold on 
any of the plantations I ever visited or heard of was always 
watered down at least one fourth. Perhaps it was owing to 
this fact, though it seemed rather an evidence of unexpected 
powers of self-restraint, that so few were to be seen intoxi- 
cated. 

During the two or three years in which I spent most of my 
time among them, seeing scores and sometimes hundreds in a 
day, I do not now remember seeing more than one man abso- 
lutely drunk. He had bought a quart of whiskey, one Saturday 
night, at a low liquor-shop in Natchez. Next morning early 
he attacked it, and in about an hour the whiskey and he were 
used up together. Hearing an unusual noise in the quarters, I 
walked down that way and found the plough-driver and the over- 
seer both trying to quiet Horace. He was unable to stand 
alone, but he contrived to do a vast deal of shouting. As I ap- 
proached, the driver said, " Horace, don't make so much noise ; 



14 LOTOS LEAVES. 

don't you see Mr. R. ? " He looked round, as if surprised at 
learning it. 

" Boss, is dat you ? " 

" Yes." 

"Boss, I 's drunk; boss, I 's 'shamed o' myself! but I 's 
drunk ! I 'sarve good w'ipping. Boss, boss, s-s-slap me in de 
face, boss." 

I was not much disposed to administer the " slapping " ; but 
Horace kept repeating, with a drunken man's persistency, 
" Slap me in de face, boss ; please, boss." Finally I did give 
him a ringing cuff on the ear. Horace jerked off his cap, and 
ducked down his head with great respect, saying, " T'ank you, 
boss." Then, grinning his maudlin smile, he threw open his 
arms as if to embrace me, and exclaimed, "Now kiss me, 
boss ! " 

Next morning Horace was at work with the rest, and though 
he bought many quarts of whiskey afterwards, I never saw him 
drunk again. 

But the revival of these old recollections of Southern experi- 
ence has already outrun reasonable, limits. Let me close with 
some brief account of a visit since made by many North- 
erners to the now well-known cemetery of Buonaventura, 
near Savannah. It was in the spring of 1865. Aside from 
the army officials, we were almost the first visitors from the 
North since the war. " Doesticks " (Mortimer Thompson), 
indeed, had preceded us, and to our amazement was found in 
Savannah editing a daily newspaper ; and, true to the tradi- 
tions of the craft, was breathing out threatenings and slaughter 
against the common enemy of most newspapers in war times, 



SOME SOUTHERN REMINISCENCES. 15 

the commanding general. The sandy roads leading into 
Savannah were still crowded with the rickety wagons of refu- 
gees, the whites fleeing from starvation, the negroes hurry- 
ing from the plantations they had never before been able to 
leave of their own free will, to get their first taste of liberty 
and city life. Out of this scene of squalor we suddenly turned 
into what seemed a great and stately forest. The finest live- 
oak trees I had seen in the South stretched away in long 
avenues on either hand, intersected by cross avenues, and 
arched with interlacing branches till the roof over our heads 
looked, in living green, a groining after the pattern of Gothic 
arches, in some magnificent old cathedral. One of the Tatnalls, 
probably an ancestor of the Commodore of our navy, of Chinese 
and Confederate note, long ago selected this site for his resi- 
dence, builded his house, and laid out the grounds in these 
noble avenues. The house was burned during some holiday 
rejoicings. An idea that the place was unhealthy possessed 
the owners, and, with a curious taste, the soil that was too dan- 
gerous for men to live upon was straightway selected for dead 
men to be buried in. We would hardly choose a malarious 
bottom or a Northern tamarack-swamp for a burying-ground, 
beautiful as either might be. But what matters it? After 
life's fitful fever, the few interred here sleep doubtless as 
sweetly beneath the gigantic oaks in the solemn avenues as 
if on breeziest upland of mountain heather. 

Even into this secluded gloom had come the traces of our 
civil wars. The only large monument in the cemetery bore 
the simple inscription of " Clinch," and within it lay, I was 
told, the father-in-law of " Sumter Anderson," as in all our 
history he is henceforth to be known. Some vandal had 



16 LOTOS LEAVES. 

broken down the marble slab that closed the tomb, and had 
exposed the coffins within. 

This very barbarism, and the absence of the rows of care- 
fully tended graves, and the headstones with affectionate 
inscriptions that mark all other cemeteries, increased the im- 
pressive gloom of the lonely place. The sun strove in vain 
to penetrate the arches overhead. Here and again a stray 
beam struggled through, only to light up with a ghostly silver 
radiance the long, downward-pointing spear of the Tillandsia, 
or Spanish moss. The coolness was marvellous ; the silence 
profound, deepened indeed by the gentle ripplings of the little 
stream, by which the farther side of the cemetery was bounded. 
Everywhere the arches were hung with the deathly festoons of 
the Spanish moss, slowly stealing sap and vigor fit funeral 
work from these giant oaks, and fattening on their decay. 
Drive where you would, the moss still fluttered in your face 
and waved over your head, and, lit with the accidental ray 
from above, pointed its warning silvery light toward the graves 
beneath your feet ; while it clung, in the embrace of death, to 
the sturdy oaks on which it had fastened, and preached and 
practised destruction together. Noble and lusty oaks are 
these ; glorious in spreading boughs and lofty arches and 
fluttering foliage, but dying in the soft embrace of the parasite 
that clings and droops, and makes yet more picturesque and 
beautiful in decay, dying, even as Georgia was dying in the 
embrace of another parasite, having a phase not less pictu- 
resque, and a poisonous progress not less subtly gentle. 

Some day, when Georgia has fully recovered, this spot, too, 
will feel the returning tide of her generous, healthy blood. The 
rank undergrowth will be cleared away ; broad walks will be 



SOME SOUTHERN REMINISCENCES. I/ 

laid out among the tombs where now are only tangled and 
serpent- infested paths ; shafts will rise up to the green arches 
to commemorate the names of those, of whatever race, most 
deserving in the State ; the heroes of past struggles will here 
find fit resting-place, whichever side they fought for, if only 
they did it on their consciences and like true men ; and the 
Tillandsia, still waving its witchery of silver, will then seem 
only like myriad drooping plumes of white, forever tremulously 
pendent over graves at which the State is weeping. 



THE HYMN OF PRINCES. 





THE HYMN OF PRINCES. 

BY JOHN BROUGHAM. 



" By the blessing of Heaven, twenty thousand of the enemy are left upon the 
field. Order a TE DEUM ! " Telegram from the King of Prussia to the Queen. 



ORD ! we have given, in thy name, 
The peaceful villages to flame. 
Of all, the dwellers we Ve bereft ; 
No trace of hearth, no roof-tree left. 
Beneath our war-steeds' iron tread 
The germ of future life is dead ; 

We have swept o'er it like a blight: 

To thee the praise, O GOD OF RIGHT! 



Some hours ago, on yonder plain 
There stood six hundred thousand men, 
Made in thine image, strong, and rife 
With hope and energy and life ; 
And none but had some prized one dear, 
Grief-stricken, wild with anxious fear : 
A third of them we have made ghosts : 
To thee the praise, O LORD OF HOSTS ! 



22 LOTOS LEAVES. 

We have let loose the demon chained 

In bestial hearts, that, unrestrained, 

Infernal revel it may hold, 

And feast on villanies untold ; 

With ravening drunkenness possessed, 

And mercy banished from each breast, 

All war's atrocities above : 

To thee the praise, O GOD OF LOVE ! 

Secure behind a wall of steel, 

To watch the yielding columns reel, 

While round them sulphurous clouds arise, 

Foul incense wafting to the skies 

From our Home-manufactured Hell ! 

Is royal pastime we like well, 

As momently Death's ranks increase : 

To thee the praise, O GOD OF PEACE ! 

Thy sacred temples we Ve not spared, 
For they the broad destruction shared ; 
The annals of time-honored lore, 
Lost to the world, are now no more. 
What reck we if the holy fane 
Or learning's dome is mourned in vain ? 
Our work those landmarks to efface : 
To thee the praise, O LORD OF GRACE ! 

Thus shall it be, while humankind, 
Madly perverse or wholly blind, 



THE HYMN OF PRINCES. 23 

Will so complacently be led, 

At our command, their blood to shed, 

For lust of conquest, >r the sly, 

Deceptive diplomatic lie : 

To us the gain, to them the ruth ; 

To thee the praise, O GOD OF TRUTH ! 



AN ENCOUNTER WITH AN INTERVIEWER. 





AN ENCOUNTER WITH AN IN- 
TERVIEWER. 

BY MARK TWAIN. 

HE nervous, dapper, " peart " young man took the 
chair I offered him, and said he was connected with 
the Daily Thunderstorm, and added, 

"Hoping it's no harm, I've come to interview 
you." 

"Come to what?" 
"Interview you." 

" Ah ! I see. Yes, yes. Urn ! Yes, yes." 
I was not feeling bright that morning. Indeed, my powers 
seemed a bit under a cloud. However, I went to the bookcase, 
and when I had been looking six or seven minutes, I found I 
was obliged to refer to the young man. I said, 
"How, do you spell it ?" 
"Spell what?" 
" Interview." 

" O my goodness ! What do you want to spell it for ? " 
" I don't want to spell it ; I want to see what it means." 
" Well, this is astonishing, I must say. 7 can tell you what it 
means, if you if you " 

" O, all right ! That will answer, and much obliged to you, 
too." 



28 LOTOS LEAVES. 

" I n, in, t e r, ter, inter ' 

"Then you spell it with an I?" 

" Why, certainly ! " 

" O, that is what took me so long." 

" Why, my dear sir, what did^w propose to spell it with ? " 

" Well, I I I hardly know. I had the Unabridged, and 
I was ciphering around in the back end, hoping I might tree 
her among the pictures. But it 's a very old edition." 

" Why, my friend, they would n't have a picture of it in 
even the latest e My dear sir, I beg your pardon, I mean no 
harm in the world, but you do not look as as intelligent 
as I had expected you would. No harm, I mean no harm 
at all." 

" O, don't mention it ! It has often been said, and by people 
who would not flatter and who could have no inducement to 
flatter, that I am quite remarkable in that way. Yes, yes; 
they always speak of it with rapture." 

" I can easily imagine it. But about this interview. You 
know it is the custom, now, to interview any man who has 
become notorious!" 

" Indeed ! I had not heard of it before. It must be very 
interesting. What do you do it with ? " 

" Ah, well, well, well, this is disheartening. It ought 
to be done with a club in some cases ; but customarily it con- 
sists in the interviewer asking questions and the interviewed 
answering them. It is all the rage now. Will you let me 
ask you certain (questions calculated to bring out the salient 
points of your public and private history ? " 

" O, with pleasure, with pleasure. I have a very bad mem- 
ory, but I hope you will not mind that. That is to say, it is an 



AN ENCOUNTER WITH AN INTERVIEWER. 29 

irregular memory, singularly irregular. Sometimes it goes in 
a gallop, and then again it will be as much as a fortnight pass- 
ing a given point. This is a great grief to me" 

" O, it is no matter, so you will try to do the best you 
can." 

" I will. I will put my whole mind on it." 

" Thanks. Are you ready to begin ? " 

" Ready." 

I 

Q. How old are you ? 

A. Nineteen, in June. 

Q. Indeed ! I would have taken you to be thirty-five or six. 
Where were you born ? 

A. In Missouri. 
* Q. When did you begin to write ? 

A. In 1836. 

Q. Why, how could that be, if you are only nineteen now ? 

A. I don't know. It does seem curious, somehow. 

Q. It does, indeed. Who do you consider the most remark- 
able man you ever met ? 

A. Aaron Burr. 

Q. But you never could have met Aaron Burr, if you are only 
nineteen years 

A. Now, if you know more about me than I do, what do 
you ask me for ? 

Q. Well, it was only a suggestion ; nothing more. How did 
you happen to meet Burr ? 

A. Well, I happened to be at his funeral one day, and he 
asked me to make less noise, and 

Q. But, good heavens ! if you were at his funeral, he must 



30 LOTOS LEAVES. 

have been dead ; and if he was dead, how could he care whether 
you made a noise or not ? 

A. I don't know. He was always a particular kind of a man 
that way. 

Q. Still, I don't understand it at all. You say he spoke to 
you and that he was dead. 

A. I did n't say he was dead. 

Q. But wasn't he dead? 

A. Well, some said he was, some said he was n't. 

Q. What did you think ? 

A. O, it was none of my business ! It was n't any of my 
funeral. 

Q. Did you However, we can never get this matter 
straight. Let me ask about something else. What was the 
date of your birth ? 

A. Monday, October 31, 1693. 

Q. What ! Impossible ! That would make you a hundred 
and eighty years old. How do you account for that ? 

A. I don't account for it at all. 

Q. But you said at first you were only nineteen, and now you 
make yourself out to be one hundred and eighty. It is an awful 
discrepancy. 

A. Why, have you noticed that ? (Shaking- hands?) Many 
a time it has seemed to me like a discrepancy, but somehow I 
could n't make up my mind. How quick you notice a thing ! 

Q. Thank you for the compliment, as far as it goes. Had 
you, or have you, any brothers or sisters ? 

A. Eh ! I I I think so, yes, but I don't remember. 

Q. Well, that is the most extraordinary statement I ever 
heard ! 



AN ENCOUNTER WITH AN INTERVIEWER. 31 

A. Why, what makes you think that? 

Q. How could I think otherwise ? Why, look here ! who is 
this a picture of on the wall ? Is n't that a brother of yours ? 

A. Oh ! yes, yes, yes ! Now you remind me of it, that was a 
brother of mine. That 's William, Bill we called him. Poor 
old Bill! 

Q. Why ? Is he dead, then ? 

A. Ah, well, I suppose so. We never could tell. There was 
a great mystery about it. 

Q. That is sad, very sad. He disappeared, then ? 

A. Well, yes, in a sort of general way. We buried him. 

Q. Buried him ! Buried him without knowing whether he 
was dead or not ? 

A. O no ! Not that. He was dead enough. 

Q. Well, I confess that I can't understand this. If you 
buried him and you knew he was dead 

A. No ! no ! we only thought he was. 

Q. O, I see ! He came to life again ? 

A. I bet he didn't. 

Q. Well, I never heard anything like this. Somebody was 
dead. Somebody was buried. Now, where was the mystery ? 

A. Ah, that 's just it ! That 's it exactly. You see we were 
twins, defunct and I, and we got mixed in the bath-tub 
when we were only two weeks old, and one of us was drowned. 
But we did n't know which. Some think it was Bill, some think 
it was me. 

Q. Well, that is remarkable. What do you think ? 

A. Goodness knows ! I would give whole worlds to know. 
This solemn, this awful mystery has cast a gloom over my whole 
life. But I will tell you a secret now, which I never have 



32 LOTOS LEAVES. 

revealed to any creature before. One of us had a peculiar 
mark, a large mole on the back of his left hand, that was 
me. That child was the one that was drowned. 

Q. Very well, then, I don't see that there is any* mystery 
about it, after all. 

A. You don't'? Well, / do. Anyway I don't see how they 
could ever have been such a blundering lot as to go and bury 
the wrong child. But, 'sh ! don't mention it where the family 
can hear of it. Heaven knows they have heart-breaking troubles 
enough without adding this. 

Q. Well, I believe I have got material enough for the present, 
and I am very much obliged to you for the pains you have 
taken. But I was a good deal interested in that account of 
Aaron Burr's funeral. Would you mind telling me what par- 
ticular circumstance it was that made you think Burr was such 
a remarkable man ? 

A. O, it was a mere trifle ! Not one man in fifty would 
have noticed it at all. When the sermon was over, and the pro- 
cession all ready to start for the cemetery, and the body all 
arranged nice in the hearse, he said he wanted to take a last 
look at the scenery, and so he got up and rode with the driver. 

Then the young man reverently withdrew. He was very 
pleasant company, and I was sorry to see him go. 



MY HERMIT. 




MY HERMIT. 

BY J. B. BOUTON. 
PART THE FIRST. 

N the early summer it pleases me to take late after- 
noon walks in the upper part of Central Park. Its 
natural scenery is varied and romantic, and judicious 
Art has heightened its picturesqueness. Best of all, 
it is not invaded by pedestrian mobs, whose feeble 
legs and unambitious souls restrict them to the con- 
ventional haunts below the Ramble. There, in a region 
sometimes all my own, not even a policeman pacing its 
foot-ways, I can stride along, swinging my cane freely, and 
whistling, chanting, or reciting favorite bits of poetry, no 
more noticed or obstructed than I would be in the wilds of 
Minnesota. I imagine myself in the real country, minus 
its dusty roads and frequent incident of dogs shooting out 
from wayside huts and snapping at my heels. It is good 
enough rurality for me. 

Last year (1872), about the close of June, I became 
aware unpleasantly aware, to be candid that the north 
end of the Park had another genius loci. I came across 
him in curving by-paths and odd nooks that I had claimed 
by right of sole tenantry. He particularly affected that 
snuggest and shadiest of retreats, the Grotto Bridge I call 



36 LOTOS LEAVES. 

it, beneath which one may sit on a ribbed and knobby 
bench, and be soothed by the drowsy monotone of the little 
waterfall in the Loch above, and rejoice what time the hot 
air is cooled by ribbon jets that spurt forever from the rough 
face of the grotto upon him. From the top wall of this 
concavity hang miniature stalactites two or three inches 
long, formed by deposits from water slowly trickling through 
limestone. These have been ten years in making ; and one 
idly speculates about them that, in a hundred centuries 
or less (or more), they will each be as thick as a man's 
thigh, and fill up the grotto till it looks like a bunch of 
organ-pipes. There is no place like it to sit and cool off, 
smoking a cigar and surrendering to a delicious stupor. 

This new man this rash invader of my domain was 
not very remarkable in appearance. He was strongly built, 
a perfect bull through neck and shoulders, and had a com- 
monplace face, which would not have caught my attention 
twice but for the furtive look that he cast at me when I 
first saw him. It was an oblique, suspicious glance, quick as 
lightning. Ever after, when I dropped upon him suddenly, 
as I wheeled a corner or dived into a hollow, he shot that 
searching eye at me. Then I began to study him. His 
face was one of which you may find a thousand duplicates 
at a mass meeting. Photographs show them pretty much 
alike, and verbal descriptions cannot do better. Nature's ev- 
ery-day pottery, a low flat forehead, pug nose, high cheek- 
bones, wide mouth, and thin lips. His cheeks were deeply 
bronzed, as if by frontage of wind and weather ; but I noticed 
once, when his hat was off, that his brow was white. He 
wore the brim well down over his eyes. His dress from 



MY HERMIT. 37 

head to foot looked second-hand and seedy ; it did not fit 
him anywhere. His eyes were clear, his face unbloated ; he 
was evidently not a 'drunkard, though his miserable clothes 
and dirty shirt looked like the last unpawned possession of 
the sot. A grizzled beard, perhaps of a month's growth, gave 
him the concluding touch of ugliness. 

Occasionally I surprised him in the act of eating crackers 
and cheese, bits of chicken, morsels of red herring, pickles, and 
other trifles as inharmonious. These odds and ends he carried 
loose in his coat-pockets, and when he saw that I observed 
him he hastily put away the fragments with a slight cough. 
I never caught him Dreading a book or a paper ; so, plainly, 
he was not a poor scholar. Though when seated he was 
looking intently at nothing, I did not imagine him to be a 
thinker, grubbing at some deep social problem, or an inventor 
distressing himself over some mechanical puzzle. If this able- 
bodied man was poor, why was he lounging in the Park, 
when he could get work down town on his own terms at 
eight hours a day ? If he was vicious and criminal, why 
was he not among his pals in the back slums and alleys ? 
The more I saw of him, the more my curiosity became ex- 
cited to know something of his history ; and one afternoon 
it fell out that my desire for knowledge was gratified. 

One hot day in the last week of June, I was out for 
exercise. My appetite being languid, I walked a little faster 
than my regulation gait to stir it up. Reaching the Grotto 
Bridge, I was somewhat heated and tired, and at first right 
vexed to find the rustic sofa occupied. The incumbent was 
MY MYSTERY. From the debris about him it was apparent 
he had been eating, of all things, soda-biscuit and pickles, 



38 LOTOS LEAVES. 

and the very moment I saw him he threw what looked like 
an empty jam-pot behind the seat. Never did the poor fel- 
low look so much confused, and I felt the impulse to pass on 
and leave him to his eccentric meal. But I was flushed and 
wearied, and needed coolness and rest. And then that was 
a time as good as any to drop into his acquaintance. 

I sat down and heaved a deep sigh of weariness. The 
man looked at me askew, and put out his hand to take up a 
walking-stick, made of the branch of a tree. I saw that I 
must act promptly. 

" Warmish," said I, mopping my face. 

" Ye-yes." And he moved as if to rise and be off. 

Something more decisive must be done. " Take a cigar," 
said I, offering him one. " Nice place this for a smoke." 

This touched his heart, and opened his mouth, as I knew 
it would. His eyes sparkled as he took the cigar and 
made a bow of thanks. Then he said, huskily, " Bern' as 
I 'm a hermit, sir, I can't afford cigars. I goes a pipe, and 
don't allers have terbacker for that." 

A hermit ! Well, I was astonished. From boyhood I had 
read of hermits, and taken a deep interest in those mys- 
terious beings. Twice I had made journeys of a number 
of miles into the depths of forests to find hermits, reported 
to inhabit certain huts ; but they were not at home, if, 
indeed, they existed outside the diseased imagination of news- 
paper paragraphists. And here was a hermit at my door, 
as I might say, in Central Park, of all places ! I would as 
soon have thought to see a boa-constrictor gliding across the 
Mall, or a whale spouting in the Ladies' Lake. 

" Ah ! so you are a hermit," said I, carelessly, to disguise 



MY HERMIT. 39 

my emotions, and as if hermits were the commonest crea- 
tures on earth. " Excuse me, may I ask where 's your 
cave ? " You see hermits were associated in my mind with 
caves primarily. 

" Cave ? There ain't no cave in the Park, 'cept the one 
everybody knows, a mile furder down. That air one 's too 
wet to live in. I tried it one night, and got the roomatiz." 

" Oh ! " said I, offhand-like, " I see, you are a wood- 
hermit. Plenty of trees and underbrush round here, where 
a fellow could stow himself away. Now, you know, I have 
always thought, if I should turn hermit, I 'd take to the 
woods. It must be glorious to sleep in the open air, these 
fine frights, beneath the grand old trees, canopied by the 
starry " 

The man interrupted me. " It 's cheap," said he. " It 
don't cost nothing. That 's what I likes it for." 

"Exactly, and healthy. Anybody could see that by your 
looks. But how do you manage when it rains ? " 

The man .peered at me out of the corners of his eyes, and 
hesitated. I knocked the ash from my cigar, and looked 
at him as innocently as I could. Then he said, in his shy 
half-voice : " You don't 'pear to be a detective, and I don't 
b'l'eve you 'd blow on a poor feller like me ; so I don't 
mind tellin' you how I works it." 

Hermit as he was, the man could not repress the social 
instincts of humanity. I saw he was bursting for confi- 
dence and sympathy. 

" My friend," said I, seriously, " your secret is safe with 
me. If there is anything I was brought up to respect, it 
is the feelings of hermits." 



40 LOTOS LEAVES. 

This reassured him. He sidled closer to me. " You 
know," said he, " the cops don't 'low nobody in the Park 
after nine clock at night. I don't do no harm here, but 
I has to be careful, or they'd nab me." Then he cast his 
eyes warily about, and pointed upward. " You see that cock- 
loft ? " 

I looked up and saw a large open space between a part 
of the stonework and the timbers of the bridge. I had often 
noticed it before, and thought it a mighty fine place for 
hiding. 

" When the weather is good and the grass dry, then you 
see I sleeps on the ground up in the woods on the hill yon- 
der. But if it 's rainy I gets on the bridge overhead and 
swings down easy nuf into that air cubby-hole. 'T ain't bad, 
I tell ye, with straw and leaves up there, and all out of 
sight" 

" And 't is very comfortable, I dare say ; but how do you 
dodge the police ? As you remark, they would turn you out 
or arrest you if they found you here after nine P. M. I know 
they are not as sharp or strict as the regular city police." 

" That 's it. You Ve hit it. If they wos the blue-coats 
they 'd snake me out in no time. But they 're another 
breed, them chaps in gray. They takes it easy. I jest 
minds my bizness and they minds theirs ; but out of re- 
speck for 'em, I keeps out o' sight arter I hears the fire-bells 
strike nine. Gi' me the Park perlice for not botherin' a 
feller " And the man checked himself as if he were about 
to say too much. 

I saw, by this time, that the man beside me was a vulgar 
person. Not a sage who had retired from life disgusted to 



MY HERMIT. 41 

chew on his misanthropy. Not a man once rich and used to 
luxury, suddenly made poor and reckless. It seemed impos- 
sible that such a tough specimen could have been mortally 
wounded through the affections. Still, he was a bona fide 
hermit, no better one, perhaps, within a thousand miles. 
And, in a certain sense, he was my hermit. I already began 
to feel a proprietary .interest in him. 

"My dear sir," said I, "may I be so bold as to ask how 
you live ? Have you any occupation ? " 

The hermit glanced suspiciously at me, coughed, and made 
no reply. I saw his embarrassment, and was sorry the impo- 
lite question had escaped me. So I said, jocosely : " Your 
expenses can't be much. Rent, they say, is one fifth the 
cost of living. Your rent costs you nothing. Five times 
naught is naught, how 's that for a calculation ? " 

He smiled and said, "That's about it." I perceived that I 
must try another tack. 

" Pray, sir, tell me one thing. Don't you find the time 
heavy, with nothing to do all these hours ? It would kill 
me." 

" I don't ketch your idee. Time heavy ! How can it be 
when I ain't at work, only whistlin' and walkin' about and 
sittin' down. That 's what I calls comfort." 

This strange person and myself took widely different views 
of life ; that was clear. So I only said : " It is a matter 
of taste. But I never could understand how a man could 
endure life without something to do. I 'm afraid I would 
never make a good hermit." 

He looked at me straight in the face, and slowly uttered 
these words : " / am broken hearted'.' There was no emotion 



42 LOTOS LEAVES. 

visible in his face ; his voice did not tremble ; but he cov- 
ered his eyes with his hands. 

The remark moved me deeply, for it was totally unex- 
pected, and seemed natural. I had read and heard of bro- 
ken-hearted men, but it had never been my good fortune (or 
otherwise) to know one personally. Therefore, I was not 
conversant, except through the pages of novels, with the 
external phenomena peculiar to the broken heart in males, 
but had somehow associated them with cadaverous visages 
and attenuated frames. Here was my hermit as fat as a 
buck and red as a lobster. A broken heart had not occurred 
to me as a part of his damaged general property. But he 
said he had a broken heart, and it was only civil to believe 
him. 

"The woman! the inevitable woman," I murmured to my- 
self; and I yearned to know what that dear disturber of the 
Universal Peace had done to my poor hermit, to drive him 
to lodgings al fresco, and a mixed diet of soda-crackers, her- 
rings, and pickles. "Tell me about it," said I, kindly. 

Gratefully he looked up. Still no tears in his eyes, no 
quiver on his lip. He was able to master his feelings, and 
that pleased me, for I should have been ashamed to see him 
blubbering like a school-boy. 

The substance of his story I will give in a few words in- 
stead of the many in which he told it. 

The man's name was Winterbottom, Thomas Winter- 
bottom, and he lived in the city, and was by trade a pic- 
ture-frame maker. He once had a good business, a wife not 
so good, and one child. All was going on happily in the 
Winterbottom nest, when a gas-fitter named Juggins appeared 



MY HERMIT. 43 

on the scene in the familiar role of the Demon of the House- 
hold, or the Destroyer of Domestic Peace. After the usual 
amount cf preliminary skirmishing, Mrs. Winterbottom came 
to open rupture with her husband, and in his absence left 
the house one night, and transferred herself, her child, and 
all her portable property to a new home, a home rented, 
furnished, and the running expenses thereof paid by Juggins, 
the perfidious gas-fitter. Winterbottom tracked his recreant 
partner to the Juggins lair, and would have taken her away 
but for the untoward circumstances that she drove him out 
of the room with a mop, and Juggins kicked him down stairs 
and threatened to shoot him if he showed himself again on 
the premises. 

My face must have betrayed my disgust at the pusilla- 
nimity of the man, for he said quickly, " Mind ye, Mister, 
'twas n't the mop I wos afraid on. I'm used to that. But 
Juggins is about seven foot high, and carries a six-shooter. 
What could I do ? /, a quiet, peaceable feller, what would n't 
hurt a mouse." 

"Don't ask me," said I, a little impatiently. "I can't med- 
dle in family quarrels." 

"I thought ter take the law on him. But there ain't no 
law." 

"Not much," said I. 

" I don't see but what he could shoot me, if he wanted ter, 
and get off." 

"I'm sure he could," said I. And I volunteered this addi- 
tional exposition of existing law (jury law) on the subject: 
"J u ggi ns or your wife could shoot you, or you could shoot 
Juggins or your wife, or both of them, or, for that matter, 



44 LOTOS LEAVES. 

you could shoot me or any other man. There 's no punish- 
ment for it. But on some accounts, slight, to be sure, it 
is inconvenient to take the law into your own hands, and I 
would not be understood as advising you to do it. If you 
really want my opinion " 

" I do, sir," said the hermit, respectfully. 

Then I say, " Pick up courage. Let your wife slide. Go 
to work." 

My advice was not very palatable to Winterbottom, espe- 
cially as I rose to leave, mindful of dinner, which was now 
quite due, and I three or four miles away. 

" My wife may slide, sir. She may slide as much as she 
pleases, sir. I 've done with her. But I can't work. I 'm 
broken-hearted, and I must be a hermit, allers a hermit. 
This is where I '11 pass the rest of my days, if the perlice 
don't drive me out, and I sha' n't live long noway." 

I had to show the common feelings of humanity, though 
my hermit was beginning to be a bore, and I said, "But 
what will you do in winter ? You cannot sleep in the Park. 
If you do you will freeze, or, if not freeze, starve to death." 

"Yes, I'll sleep here," he answered, recklessly; "on the 
snow, on the ice, anywhere. Some day you '11 read a story 
in the paper about a man frozen to death up in that hole 
thar. That '11 be Tommy Winterbottom. I don't mind. 
But there 's one favor I would ask, sir, if you please." 

I had put my best foot forward for a quick walk home ; 
but at this point I rested. 

" I spoke about my child, sir. Her name is A-Ara- 
Arabella. As you say, sir, and it 's very good of you, let 
Mrs. W. slide. But I want to save my child from her and 



. MY HERMIT. 45 

from that villain Juggins. She 's a bright, pooty gal, sir, 
'bout twelve year old ; 't would do your heart good to see her. 
And she vvos allers very fond of her pa. [Here my herrrnt 
pulled out a ragged and dirty handkerchief, and wiped his 
eyes, in which, however, I had not observed any moisture.] 
What I 'd like to do is this, sir. I 'd like to get a sight of 
her, by watchin' round the house, and kinder smuggle her 
off, sir. Her grandmother, sir, and lots of other relatives, 
lives in Philadelfy. They'd keep her, sir, and bring her up 
honest. I 'm sure they would, and no fifty Misses W.s 
could n't tear her away from 'em. That beast of a Jug- 
gins, he 'd be glad to be rid of her. My poor Arabella ! 
I hears as how he beats her, and she has n't no shoes to 
wear, and not a bonnet to her head. If I only had ten dol- 
lars, that ud get a ticket for her on the railroad, and a pair 
o' shoes, and p'r'aps a bonnet. Then I could steal her off 
some night, sir, and send her to Philadelfy, and I know 
she 'd be safe and happy. As for poor Tommy Winterbot- 
tom, he can stay here and die, cos his heart it is broken. 
Could n't you lend me ten dollars, sir ? Fancy how you 'd 
feel if you wos fixed like me." The speaker wiped his eyes 
(I forgot to note if they were dry this time) elaborately with 
his musty handkerchief. 

His narrative touched me. I tried to fancy how I should 
feel, as he requested me to, and I confessed to myself I 
should feel bad. But that did not warrant my giving him 
ten dollars. And, on a little reflection, I could not credit 
his story ; and even were it true, I had no business to be 
mixing myself up in a family quarrel and a kidnapping case 
to boot. I decided not to give him the sum asked, or to 



46 LOTOS LEAVES. 

countenance his romantic scheme in the least. But' still he 
was my hermit, and he looked to me for patronage. 

Rising hastily, and determined to put an end to this din- 
ner-killing interview, I handed him a small bill rolled up: 
" That 's the best I can do. It is for yourself only. I can- 
not interfere between you and Mrs. Winterbottom, but I pity 
you. And now, good by." 

:< Thank you, sir, for your kindness to a poor hermit, a 
hermit broken-hearted, and can't work." 

I hurried off to escape a longer outpouring of gratitude ; 
but just before I passed from his line of vision I glanced back 
over my shoulder. There he was, peeping at the end of the 
folded bill to see its value, and I could have sworn his 
mouth curved into a silent laugh. Had I been imposed on ? 
Sweet Charity, forbid ! 



PART THE SECOND. 

CENTRAL PARK has a peculiar and matchless charm on the 
Fourth of July ; for there, and there only, can the city es- 
cape the flash and bang everywhere else prevalent that day. 
Blessed be the Park commissioners for their anti-Chinese and 
possibly unpatriotic, but decidedly sensible and humane, regu- 
lation, forbiddipg fire-crackers in the territory under their 
sway ! For that reason, if for no other, I betook myself to 
the Park, July the Fourth, 1872. My hermit had not been 
much in my mind since that odd adventure with him, other 
persons and other events having quite jogged him aside. But 
when I entered the Park I could not help heading towards 



MY HERMIT. 47 

the Grotto Bridge as an objective point, and wondering if I 
should meet him there or thereabout. 

The Park, in its lower part, was full of people, come like 
myself for a little surcease from work, and to avoid the pyro- 
technic nuisance of a day in town. Women, children, and 
old persons, besides quiet-loving folk of my sort, occupied the 
seats, lined the bridges, sailed on the lakes, threw showers of 
crumbs to the pampered swans, lounged, flirted, and chattered 
in the bright sunshine and the very ecstasy of carelessness. 
There was a delightful absence of whooping small boys. They 
were all adding? to the uproar in the city, faint echoes of 
which I could imagine to reach me. 

Stalking over that populous region rapidly, I soon struck 
into the less traversed ways, and then kept a bright lookout 
for my hermit. I visited each nook and by-path where I 
had been accustomed to see him, and finally passed beneath 
the Grotto Bridge, confidently expecting to find him there. 
But no Winterbottom ! " What a fool ! " said I to myself. 
" He 's your debtor now, and of course invisible." Then I 
laughed as the droll idea occurred to me that Winterbottom 
had been watching me all this time from some neighboring 
elevation, knowing me to be in search of him and chuckling 
over my discomfiture. " My hermit no longer," thought I ; 
" not even a proprietary interest." So musing, I strolled into 
the open path, and, under the impression that he might be 
on the watch for me somewhere about, I looked across the 
Loch to the wooded hill. Sure enough there my good 
eyesight detected the sturdy figure of my man at an open- 
ing in the bushes. I made out his identity all the more 
easily because he turned away at once and disappeared. 



48 LOTOS LEAVES. 

I started after him in my fastest walk, which soon be- 
came a run. Crossing the little foot-bridge over the Loch, 
I bounded up the hillside, and soon reached a spot near 
which I had seen him ; but he was nowhere in sight. At 
that point two paths diverged, but I knew that they led 
by winding ways to the same place ; so I paused not, but 
trotted along, keeping a close lookout to right and left 
among the trees and bushes. After going at a rapid pace 
for about half a mile, I caught a glimpse of my hermit 
darting into a clump of underbrush. 

" Hallo, Winterbottom ! " said I ; "I was looking for you." 

The man made another forward jump, and then stopped. 
I knew why he checked himself when I glanced beyond the 
bushes and saw a gray-coated Park policeman, quietly patrol- 
ling the walk on the other side. In another moment Win- 
terbottom would have been in his arms. 

" Out of that there," cried the officer, who had heard 
the noise in the bushes. " You must stick to the walk, 
Fourth o' July or no Fourth." The policeman ' said this 
good-naturedly, as one who must be indulgent to his fel- 
low-citizens on the great holiday. 

" Beg pardin, sir. All right," answered Winterbottom, and 
he softly stepped out into the path where I stood. I never 
saw a man so changed. He was pale with fright or des- 
peration, the latter I thought, as I marked his flashing 
eyes. He had one hand in a coat-pocket, and I could not 
resist the impression, as I saw the outline of his knuckles 
through the cloth, that that hand grasped a knife or pistol. 
His whole aspect was of one at bay and determined to 
sell his life or liberty dearly. His rough bearded face, 



MX HERMIT. 49 

half-open mouth, showing two rows of glittering teeth, his 
square shoulders and broad chest and great girth of loins, 
made him a formidable animal. I could hardly conceive 
that the meek and pusillanimous creature of his own story 
could be transformed into such a fierce-looking ruffian. 

" Wot are yer chasm' me fer ? Wot der yer want ? " he 
muttered, as his eyes blazed upon me, and still keeping his 
hand in his pocket. It was the worst case of debtor vs. 
creditor that I ever saw. 

"I want nothing, my dear fellow," said I, "only to 'see you 
and ask how you are getting on. Sit down here and take 
a smoke. I want company." This I said as amiably as 
possible, and I am sure I looked kindly at him, for I meant 
not otherwise. 

His set face relaxed and he took his hand out of his 
pocket. But his glittering eyes were still fixed on my face. 
I produced the calumet, but to my surprise he declined it. 

" Why did you avoid me ? " said I, chidingly, as one might 
be allowed to upbraid one's own hermit. 

" Did n't know 't was you. Thought 't was a gray-coat 
arter me, fer sleepin' in the Park." 

I knew Winterbottom was lying to me, and my steady, 
reproving gaze spoke as much, for his eyes dropped. 

I paused a moment, thinking what to say to this extraordi- 
nary person, when he broke in with, 

"Yer say yer want company. Well, I don't want none. 
Wot 's the use o' bein' a hermit if yer can't be alone by 
yerself?" 

This was logic undeniably, and it puzzled me to answer 
him; and before I could do so, Winterbottom growled out, 



$0 LOTOS LEAVES. 

" Good mornin', sir. I 'm off this 'ere way." And he pushed by 
me and strode down the path over which I had chased him. 

I could not find it in my heart to be cross with the poor 
outcast. " Good by," said I, quietly ; " and forever," I added to 
myself, for I knew that after this my hermit and I would not 
be on speaking terms. 

Turning to resume my walk in a direction opposite to that 
taken by Winterbottom, I saw for the first time the figure of 
a woman, standing on a slight rise or crown of ground about 
thirty yards from me. She was looking intently at me ; and 
her face wore a startled expression. Then she strained her 
eyes towards the fast-vanishing form of the hermit, who in a 
second more was out of sight. As I neared this woman, I 
saw two tidily dressed little boys playing together a short dis- 
tance from her. " Mamma, mamma," one of them called. 
"In a moment, dear," said she. 

" May I speak a word with you, sir ? " she said timidly, in a 
low voice. 

"Certainly, madam," in a tone which encouraged her to 
proceed ; at least, I meant that it should. 

A fragile woman, with a thin, pale face, on which care and 
anxiety were deeply stamped ; poorly but neatly dressed ; 
looking like a seamstress fighting her solitary, hard battle, to 
keep herself and children alive ; a poor, half-broken, suppli- 
cating creature, touching the pity of every human heart ; such 
was my rapidly formed estimate. 

Her voice trembled and her whole frame vibrated as she 
made an effort to control herself. "I beg your pardon, sir," 
said she; "do you know that man you were speaking with? 
I know him, but I fear you do not." 



MY HERMIT. 51 

"Well, no, madam, I cannot exactly say that I know him. 
He is a queer sort of a fellow, something of a hermit, as 
he calls himself. I stumbled across him the other day. If 
you know him, please tell me who he is." 

" Ah, sir," heaving a deep sigh ; " I do know him to my 
cost. Alas ! I am his wife." 

I cannot say I was taken aback by this revelation, for when 
she first accosted me, I had guessed at the truth. But the 
coincidence of meeting her so near the spot where I had just 
parted from the hermit did surprise me. 

I told her I was glad to meet her, that I feared that 
man had attempted to deceive me, that now I should know 
the truth, with other reassuring phrases. "Take a seat, Mrs. 
Winterbottom," said I, motioning to one that stood invitingly 
by, for I saw that the poor woman, after the long holiday 
walk she had made with her little children, must be tired. 

"Winterbottom," she exclaimed; "that is not my name!" 

" And you are his wife ? " 

" I have my marriage certificate, and that man, that bad 
man's name is Bagfield." 

" Another question, Mrs. Bagfield ; have you a daughter 
Arabella?" 

" Arabella ! No ! I have two little boys, no more chil- 
dren, and there they are." 

" One question more." (This was a test one.) " Do you 
know a man named Juggins ? " 

"Juggins? Juggins? I never heard of him before." The 
candor of her sad face told me she was uttering no falsehood. 
I had narrowly escaped being duped by a clever rascal. 

" This is a very curious case," said I. " Pray tell me why 



52 LOTOS LEAVES. 

your husband if that is he is playing hide-and-seek in 
the Park. He sleeps here nights." 

" Why, sir, he escaped from Sing Sing about a month ago, 
the paper said, and he must be keeping out of sight of the 
regular police up here." 

" Whew ! And that 's my hermit, and his yarn to me was 
a hermit's sell, I may say." And I could not repress a wild 
laugh at the absurdity of the contrast forced upon my mind, 
a melodramatic anchorite changed into a vulgar jail-bird! 

" Pardon me, Mrs. Bagfield," said I, respectfully, as the suf- 
fering creature looked at me, astonished. " But that humbug, 
that lying thief, excuse me for my warmth, for he is your 
husband " 

" No excuse needed, sir. As you say, he is a liar and a 
thief, and he is my husband, though no more but in name." 
I had thought she would have burst out crying a minute be- 
fore ; but now her eyes flashed indignation, and, if I mistook 
not, revenge. 

"That fellow," I continued, "tried to swindle me out of 
money to help rob you of your only daughter, your Arabella, 
a girl of twelve years who loved her pa, and would go to the 
end of the world with him. I am laughing at myself, madam ; 
but you I pity from the bottom of my heart." Then I briefly 
related to her the substance of my conversation with the 
pseudo-hermit. She listened attentively, only interrupting me 
with exclamations, " The liar ! " " The thief! " " The traitor ! " 
and the like. 

" He must be arrested and sent back to prison," she said, 
firmly. Now I had finished my narrative, I had waited to 
hear her opinion on that point, before offering my own. 



MY HERMIT. 53 

" I agree with you, madam," said I. " It is hard enough 
to obtain the conviction and punishment of desperadoes in 
this city, and escape from prison must not be made easy 
for them. Are you in fear of this man if he is allowed to 
run loose ? " 

" I am afraid of him very much, sir. He thinks I caused 
his arrest, though God knows I did not. I would have 
shielded him if I could ; but not if I had known, as I now 
do, that he was spending his time and money on another 
woman, and neglecting me. That I will never forgive him 
for." And she stamped her foot fiercely on the ground. " He 
was a decent man once, sir, but that was long ago. Then 
he got into bad ways, through that woman, I suppose. He 
used to be away from me all night, and then he would come 
home and abuse me and those little children. Sometimes 
he showed me money, but none .of it was for me ; and I 
should 'a' starved, sir, and my children too, if some good 
friends had not given me work. I wondered how he got his 
money; for he had quit his trade, and he wasn't earning 
anything honestly. One day I found out ; for a policeman came 
to the house and arrested him. He had committed a bur- 
glary, they said, and almost killed a man. Bad as he was, sir, 
he was my husband, and it nigh broke my heart to think he 
should go to prison. But nothing I could do could save him. 
The proofs were too strong, and he was found guilty, and was 
sent up to Sing Sing for twenty years. I saw him the morn- 
ing they took him away, and he called me bad names, and 
said he would kill me when he got out, for I had betrayed 
him. I forgave him those cruel words then, but not after- 
wards, when I found out there was another woman at the 



54 LOTOS LEAVES. 

bottom of the whole trouble. Then I was glad he was locked 
up for twenty years; and he must go back there, he must 
go back ! It was two years ago, sir, that he was sentenced. 
I saw, by the papers, he had escaped last month, and there 
was a reward offered for him. The detectives have been 
watching round my lodgings, thinking he might come there. 
But he knew too much; he is a very cunning man, sir" 
(I nodded affirmatively), "and keeps away, though I believe, if 
he dared, he would come down some night and kill me. I say, 
sir, he must go back, and I will tell the police about him. 
It 's my duty, sir." 

There was one weak point in this case against Winter- 
bottom alias Bagfield. The woman might be mistaken in 
his identity, though she said she could swear to him posi- 
tively. It was somewhat singular, too, that he should have 
chosen for a hiding-place a resort as public as the Central 
Park. I admitted to myself that under the circumstances it 
was the place that is, the north end of the grounds 
where he would be least likely to be disturbed by the regular 
city police ; but I deemed it remarkable that the escaped con- 
vict should have had the shrewdness to select it. He must 
be a cunning fox, truly. I made up my mind what to do. 

"Madam," said I, respectfully, "I will see to this matter. 
Do not make yourself uneasy ; for if that man is Bagfield, 
he shall be sent back to Sing Sing in twenty-four hours, 
sure, and locked up safe for the rest of his term, let us 
hope. Leave the Park at once with your children, and go 
home, and trust everything to me." I asked for her address, 
and made a note of it, promising that she should hear of what 
I had done in due time. 



MY HERMIT. 55 

She thanked me most fervently and took my advice with- 
out delay. Not a moment should be lost, if Winterbottom, 
or Bagfield, was to be caught. I had looked about me during 
this strange interview with the woman who claimed to be his 
wife, thinking that my hermit might be watching us in the 
distance ; but there was no sign of him. Bidding her to keep 
up courage and hope for the best, and enjoining her again 
to return home immediately and await further news, I hur- 
ried on ahead to a police station in the vicinity of the Park. 
There I knew correct and full information relating to the case 
could be obtained. 

My mission was soon discharged. The Captaku of Police 
heard my story, and as soon as I came to the name of Bag- 
field, he smiled as if in recognition of it. Then he showed 
me a handbill which had been issued and distributed at all 
the station-houses, offering a reward for the arrest of Thomas 
Bagfield, alias "Tommy the Slouch," who had escaped from 
Sing Sing. The fellow's person was sufficiently described. 
It was a pen-portrait of my hermit, saving the stubby whis- 
kers grown in his brief absence from prison. He had made 
his escape through a drain, and gained the woods before the 
loss was discovered. An accomplice had there supplied him 
with a change of clothes. There was an active pursuit, but 
the hunted had a good hour's start, and by wonderful luck 
and craft had escaped capture, and slowly worked his way 
to the city. 

The worthy Captain knew much more of Bagfield's antece- 
dents than I could impart to him. He was a very desperate 
character, though, as the Captain said, "only an amatoor," 
not one of those gifted beings, the professionals in crime. 



56 LOTOS LEAVES. 

He had done a stroke or two in the confidence line, for which 
I thought him well fitted ; but his crowning achievements were 
burglaries. He was suspected of having broken into three 
or four private houses, and of having stabbed (but not fatally) 
a policeman in attempting to escape. In committing the par- 
ticular burglary for which he was sentenced to Sing Sing, 
he had struck down and severely injured the owner of the 
house with a slung-shot. " One of the Worst and most 
dangerous men I ever knew," added the Captain, with the 
cautious qualification, "for an amatoor." 

"Is it not singular," I asked, "that he should come to 
the city to hide?" 

"They all do," he explained. "Sooner or later we catch 
'em that is, most of 'em here. But it was a shrewd 
dodge in the fellow to hide himself in the Park. To my 
knowledge, the detectives have been watching his wife's house 
and his old hanging-out places ever since he got loose. It 's 
been a point of honor to bag him, you see, because he stabbed 

Policeman Q . But they never thought of looking in the 

Park for him ; and by playing his game fine I can see how 
he might have hung round there a long time, till he 
thought the hunt for him was given up and he could cut 
away to some other city ; but he 'd have been sure to come 
back here at last. If you 'd been fool enough I beg par- 
don for saying it to give him the money he asked for, he'd 
pushed before this, perhaps." The oddity of Mr. Bagfield's 
mixed diet pickles, crackers, and so forth the Captain 
clearly explained on the theory that he had broken into some 
restaurant near the Park and stolen those miscellaneous edi- 
bles, -or he might have taken the risk of foraging occasionally 



MY HERMIT. 57 

among the free lunches in the neighborhood, being very care- 
ful to avoid the police. Finally, the Captain promised to 
inquire into Mrs. Bagfield's circumstances, and if she was as 
respectable and deserving of confidence as I took her to be, 
he would see that the reward was sent to her, if paid to any- 
body. No one else could claim it, certainly not the police, 
who would be only too glad to pay something themselves for 
the pleasure of arresting and returning to Sing Sing the man 
who was believed to have stabbed Officer Q . 

Before the Captain had finished his remarks he had called 
two of his men, and they had started forth in citizen's dress 
in quest of the runaway. 

I had transacted my part of this unpleasant but necessary 
business, and did not care to wait and confront my hermit in 
his deserved misfortune, if they caught him. So I with- 
drew, having made arrangements with the Captain to learn 
the sequel promptly. 

Within half an hour from that time Bagfield was surprised 
and seized in the Park, not far from the Grotto Bridge. He 
was evidently all unsuspicious of . his peril ; but when the 
officers pounced upon him, these words burst from his lips 
with a curse : " Serves me right for talking with that feller 
t' other day." He was armed with an ugly looking knife, and 
attempted to stab one of his captors, but they overpowered 
him. That very night he was returned in safety to Sing 
Sing. 

The good Captain's inquiries proved that Mrs. Bagfield was 
worthy of all confidence and kindness ; and the reward was 
paid over to her by the practice of a little diplomacy excusa- 
ble under the circumstances. She was made to believe* that 



58 LOTOS LEAVES. 

it was a testimony of sympathy from a friend who desired to 
be unknown. Soon after I heard from the Captain that she 
had moved away with her children to the West, there to 
begin life anew under an assumed name, and rear her little 
ones in ignorance of their degraded father. God help her ! 



Miss TS'EU. 





MISS TS'E U: 

A TEA-TASTER'S STORY. 
BY EDWARD GREEY. 

(SUNG-TIE.) 

WAS listlessly watching a party of maskers, who 
were posturing for the amusement of some, to me un- 
seen, ladies, in the court-yard beneath the windows of 
the apartment in which I was nominally a prisoner," 
said the Tea-taster, " when I heard the pit-a-pat of a 
small-footed lady in the corridor leading to my room. 

" My curiosity being excited, I turned from the window 
and peered down the passage, but, seeing the place quite de- 
serted, thought no more of the circumstance, and, throwing 
myself upon my matted couch, began to ponder over my posi- 
tion. Any hinderance to progress in travel is annoying, but 
mine was particularly so. I had been despatched by my 
house to our Chinese agents in Fokeen, with orders to buy up 
every picul of the new crop of black teas harvested in that 
district, arid my chop, or passport, directed all officials to see 
that I was not delayed or molested by turbulent spirits ; yet 
His Excellency, Kee-Foo, Vice-Lieutenant-Governor of Min 
Shau-u, had taken the responsibility of placing me under 
friendly arrest, and had confined me in one of the rooms of 
his Ya-mun, ostensibly on the pretence of protecting me from 



62 LOTOS LEAVES. 

the rioters. It is true that the Chinese are somewhat demon- 
strative during the time of their New-Year festivities, but the 
fact was, a rival house in Hong Kong had despatched an 
agent with a heavy bribe to Mr. Kee-Foo, and the latter gen- 
tleman knew full well that, ere I reached the Woo-e Hill, my 
competitor would have purchased every picul of tea in the 
district. In vain I wrote to the unmoved official "that my 
orders were to proceed without delay " ; but he merely pen- 
cilled, " Impossible ; the people are in arms, and I am respon- 
sible for your head," across my memorials, and I was forced 
to submit. True, I could not complain of my accommoda- 
tions, and, the ladies of the house were evidently interested in 
my fate, judging by the presents of fruit and flowers I 
received morning and night ; but since the moment that I 
was introduced to my prison I had only seen one person, the 
servant who waited upon me, and he was a deaf-mute. 

Opposite to the wing in which my room was situated was 
a portion of the palace that was always kept closely screened. 
From the tone of the voices which proceeded from this part 
of the Ya-mun whenever the maskers did anything particu- 
larly amusing, I concluded that the ladies' apartments were 
situated there, and my surmise proved to be correct. 

I was wishing that some one would take pity upon me 
and pay me a. visit, when I again heard the pattering noise 
in the corridor. Cautiously rising, I crept to the open door, 
when I beheld a sight which at once astonished and delighted 
me, for there, laughing like a wayward child, just escaped 
from its nurse, stood a lovely girl about sixteen years old. 

She was of medium height, slender as a bamboo shoot, 
with an exquisitely formed oval face, straight nose, rosebud 



MISS TS'EU: A TEA-TASTER'S STORY. 63 

mouth, and dark, full, liquid eyes, that pierced your very 
soul in their innocent earnestness ; her charming features 
being crowned with a profusion of long, raven hair worn en 
queue. Her lower dresses were of colored satin ; each gar- 
ment shorter than the one beneath, the outer being pro- 
fusely embroidered with golden chrysanthemums, and her 
upper robes, of soft tinted crepe, were covered by a long 
jacket of pale blue brocade, so thickly embroidered as to 
almost hide the beautiful fabric. The nails of her tiny, dim- 
pled hands were each three inches in length, and cased in 
jewelled sheaths, while her doll-like shoes shone from beneath 
her robes like golden foot-notes on an illuminated manuscript 

Instead of screaming or fainting, this charming vision, with 
imperturbable comic seriousness and grace, opened her coral 
lips and inquired, in Chinese, 

" Are you the honorable Fankwei ? " 

As this meant, " Are you the foreign white devil ? " I felt 
exceedingly amused, and could hardly retain my self-posses- 
sion as I ^replied, 

"Met jin* I am that humble, never-to-be-too-much-exe- 
crated animal ! " 

Advancing, at first somewhat timidly, yet gradually, as- 
sured by my respectful manner, and growing more confident 
as she neared me, she gazed innocently into my eyes and 
faltered, 

" Tell me all about yourself !" 

This was said so nai'vely that I was completely conquered, 
and, although I knew it was totally contrary to Chinese eti- 
quette, I placed my arm around her lithe form and drew her 

* Beautiful lady. 



64 LOTOS LEAVES. 

towards me. Instead of repelling my advance, she nestled 
closer and, looking archly *into my face, said, 

"There was a rent in the mat which covers our window, 
and, my mother being below amusing herself by looking at 
the maskers, I I came here ! Now tell me about your- 
self. Do you eat human flesh ? No ! " 

" Certainly not ! " I quickly replied. " We are not tigers, 
as they represent us to you, nor do we treat our ladies as 
your men do theirs. In my country, America, women rule 
everything, and we almost worship them when they are as 
pretty as yourself!" 

" Worship them ! " she queried ; " how is that possible ? " 

" Yes, we are their slaves, and do their bidding ! Tell me 
your name, mei jin ! " 

Opening her bright eyes, and laughing at me with them, 
she slyly answered : 

" Why should I tell you my name ? When you go back 
to Mee-lee-kee you forget it ! " 

I protested "that as long as memory held," etc., etc., I 
should never forget her, and that I was really and truly in 
love with her! Not having a Chinese term by which to 
describe what we call love, I used the word worship, when 
she solemnly shook her head, saying, 

" To the gods, to your parents, to the spirits of your ances- 
tors, to your superiors, you burn incense and pay worship, 
but not to young girls! O you seen jin * I would like to go 
to. Mee-lee-kee ! " 

The look and the proximity of her cherry lips completed 
it, and I whispered* in English, for they never use the salute 

* A sort of Chinese angel. 



MISS TS'EU: A TEA-TASTER'S STORY. 65 

in China, and consequently have no word to express the 
action, 

" Kiss me, ching neu ! " 

" Ke-e-es ? " she queried. 

" Yes, kiss me ! " I cried, suiting the action to the 
word. 

She sprang from my arms like a frightened child and ran 
from the Apartment. Fearing that I had offended her, I was 
about to follow and endeavor to explain her mistake, when 
she stole softly into the room, and, standing before me, 
gently clicked her lips, as though she had partaken of 
something delicious. 

"Are you angry?" I asked. 

" For what did you do that ? " she gravely inquired. " I 
feared that after all you were a man-eater, but when I found 
that I was not injured I thought you only did it to try 
my courage ! " 

" If you tell me your name, I will explain the mystery ! " I 
replied. 

. "My worthless name is Ts'eu ! " she demurely said. "It 
is an odious appellation ! " 

As Ts'eu means, literally, " a star," I told her that she had 
a charming name. 

"If you like it so much, tell me about the rite of ke-e-es 
me ! " she shyly observed ; adding, " Ke-e-es-me ! ke-e-es- 
me!" 

" It is thus performed, little Ts'eu ! In my country, when 
a man wishes to show how much he worships the lady of his 
choice, he places his arm around her, thus, she looks up 

* Innocent one. 



66 LOTOS LEAVES. 

at him, just as you are doing at me now, you darling, 
then he pouts his lips, as I So mine, and you are doing 
yours, and he presses hers, so ! That is the American 
rite of kissing ! " 

Miss Ts'eu received the fervent tribute with evident de- 
light, but immediately after sobered down, and, looking sor- 
rowfully at me, pleaded: 

" O seen jin, I do not quite understand ! I cannot learn 
such a difficult rite in one lesson ! " 

I again pressed her sweet lips, and this time the kiss was 
returned ; however, the pause which succeeded the perform- 
ance did not augur a repetition of the exercise, but after a few 
moments she seemed to awaken from her revery and mur- 
mured, 

"Tell me again what you call that?" 

"Kissing, little Ts'eu!" 

" We have no such ceremony in our Book of Rites ! We 
have no name for such an act ! For thousands of periods 
we poor Chinese women have been ignorant of this delight- 
ful rite ! O seen jin, teach me, that I may become perfect 
in this!" 

I repeated the charming task, but soon in magnetic tender- 
ness of expression and delicate sweetness my pupil became 
my teacher. We felt like children stealing honey. After 
some moments Miss Ts'eu looked slyly up, and, quoting from 
an ancient song, chanted, 

" Jo lew ying fung"* 

" That is what / call KE-E-ESING ! " she added ; then, after 

* "The delicate willow meets the breeze." 



MISS TS'EU: A TEA-TASTER'S STORY. 



6 7 



glancing round, in order to ascertain if any one were watch- 
ing, she gently raised her lips to mine and whispered, 
" Ke-e-es me some more, seen jin Mee-lee-kee ! " 
The sound of her mamma's voice roused us from our dream 
of happiness, and, after exchanging one long, delicious salute, 
the fairy Ts'eu vanished from my sight, thus ending her first 
lesson. 




ANACREONTIC. 





ANACREONTIC. 




BY CHARLES GAYLER. 

ILL the cup ! Fill it up ! 

I 'm sad to-night. 
Let it sparkle clear and bright ; 
In it let me drown my pain. 
Fill it up ! Again ! Again ! 

I 'm sad to-night. Heigho ! 



7 2 LOTOS LEAVES. 

Fill the cup! Fill it up! 

I 'm gay to-night. 
Circle it with flowers of light, 
Let me drink deep the witching draught, 
My soul 't will to Elysium waft. 

I 'm gay to-night. Ha ! ha 

Fill the cup! Fill it up! 

I love to-night. 

Wine to Love adds double might. 
To her ! to her of the laughing eyes ! 
My life, my joy, my paradise ! 

I love to-night. Heigho ! 

Fill the cup ! Fill it up ! 

I weep to-night. 

My tears shall flow by its ruby light. 
O'er the daisied sod, above the breast 
Of my loved one, where she lies at rest, 

I weep to-night. Heigho ! 

Fill the cup ! Fill it up ! 

I die to-night ! 

Pledge me once more the goblet bright. 
I come, bright spirit! Ah, joy divine! 
Ye conquer Death, O Love and Wine ! 

I die to-night. Ha ! ha ! 



THE THEATER. 





THE THEATER. 

BY JOHN ELDERKIN. 



" THOROUGHLY RESPECTABLE. ' Well, I think you will suit me. What is your 
name ? ' 

" ' Shakespeare, ma'am ; but no relation to the play-actor of that name.' " Punch. 



HIS is 1874, and yet the ancient antipathy to 
the stage exists in the full vigor of ignorant and 
vulgar prejudice, with a fair prospect of healthy 
survival until the day of final judgment. 

I once heard a brilliant writer, a critic of the 
drama, assert in a dogmatic fashion, that the stage is a 
sham from end to end, that all connected with it, from the 
reigning star to the meanest agent of the manager, know it 
to be a sham, and in their business act under the influence 
of the consciousness that they are perpetrating a fraud. 

With this as a motive, little, certainly, could be expected 
of the drama, but the charge is based upon a shallow fallacy 
which would condemn all art. The drama, in reality, pos- 
sesses the noblest domain of art, the direct representation 
of life. It conforms to all the definitions of art. It is the 
result of contemplation and a study of causes, and is a pro- 
duction in which knowledge and creative power are exercised. 
It yields in definiteness, depth, subtlety, form, variety, and 
beauty to no other of the arts, and in its appeal to universal 



76 LOTOS LEAVES. 

humanity it excels them all. The illusions of the stage have 
a far greater degree of realism than the work of painter or 
sculptor, or that of the poet interpreted from the printed 
page. To produce them, all the arts co-operate, and, as near 
as may be, we have the action and passion wrought out with 
the heightening effects of personality, poetry, artistic adap- 
tation and sequence, costume, scenery, and every available 
accessory to give reality and power to the representation. 

It is not the art of the drama which is the cause of antip- 
athy and prejudice to the stage, and which has caused it to 
suffer condemnation of the Church. Dramatic art was born 
in the service of religion, and so long as it was its exclusive 
servant we search in vain for any anathematization of it. In 
order that this may be clearly shown, a brief sketch of the 
origin and connection of the drama with religion is necessary. 

The mysteries of the ancients, according to the best author- 
ities, were symbolical representations of religious history, and 
Greek tragedy in the beginning "was purely a religious wor-, 
ship and solemn service for the holidays ; afterwards it came 
from the temples to the theaters, admitted of a secular alloy, 
and grew to some image of the world and human life." The 
Hindoo drama was based on mythological narratives, and 
acted only on solemn occasions. In China alone, of all na- 
tions possessing a national drama, the ancient civilization 
has been so overlapped and obliterated by the changes and 
deposits of succeeding ages, that it is impossible to trace an 
original connection of the drama with religious observance. 
But the Roman drama and that of modern Europe was 
entirely derived from that of Greece. " It happened," says 
Addison, in the " Spectator," " that Cato once dropped into a 



THE THEATER. 77 

Roman theater when the Floralia were to be represented ; 
and as in that performance, which was a kind of religious 
ceremony, there were several indecent parts to be acted, the 
people refused to see them while Cato was present. Martial 
on this hint made the following epigram : 

" Why dost thou come, great censor of the age, 
To see the loose diversions of the stage ? 
With awful countenance and brow severe, 
What, in the name of goodness, dost thou here ? 
See the mixed crowd, how giddy, lewd, and vain, 
Didst thou come in but to go out again?" 

The early Christian Fathers were nourished on Greek learn- 
ing, and, witnessing the effect of the Greek drama upon the 
multitude, the Apollinarii, A. D. 370, turned particular histo- 
ries and portions of the Old and New Testament into come- 
dies and tragedies. But previous to the Apollinarii, fearful 
of the influence of Greek literature and philosophy and the 
attractions of the Greek drama, the Christians had denounced 
all heathen learning. Chrysostom, in his homilies, cries shame 
that people should listen to a comedian with the same ears 
that they hear an evangelical preacher. About A. D. 378, 
Gregory Nazianzen, Patriarch and Archbishop of Constanti- 
nople, one of the Fathers of the Church and master to the 
celebrated Jerome, composed plays from the .Old and New 
Testaments, which he substituted for the plays of Sophocles 
and Euripides at Constantinople, where the old Greek stage 
had flourished until that time. " If the ancient Greek tragedy 
was a religious spectacle, so the sacred dramas of Gregory 
Nazianzen were formed on the same model, and the choruses 
were turned into Christian hymns." It was in a tragedy of 



78 LOTOS LEAVES. 

this Patriarch that the Virgin Mary was first introduced upon 
the stage. 

Much of the rapidity with which Christianity supplanted 
the old faiths of Paganism is due to the facility with which 
it adapted itself to prevailing tastes and habits. Christian fes- 
tivals were instituted to supersede the old Bacchanalian and 
calendary shows and solemnities, and with very little change 
in the mode of celebration. During the whole of the Middle 
Ages the acting of mysteries or plays representing the mira- 
cles of saints, circumstances from apocryphal story, and sub- 
jects from the Old and New Testaments, formed an impor- 
tant part of every religious festival. These were often of a 
very questionable character, causing, even in those super- 
stitious days, the criticism to be made that there were many 
portions of the Scriptures unsuitable for representation in a 
play or mystery. But the mode of celebrating Christian fes- 
tivals during many centuries of the dark ages bore a nearer 
resemblance to the Roman Saturnalia than to anything so 
intellectual as a mystery ; and if mystery-plays at any time 
declined, it was because they were above the level of priests 
and people. 

The institution of pilgrimages gave a great impetus to the 
representation of mystery-plays in modern Europe. The pil- 
grims were accustomed to travel in companies, and in the 
various cities through which they passed took up their stand 
in the public squares, where they sang and acted in character, 
and afterward in public theaters, for the instruction and diver- 
sion of the people. 

In 1264 a company was instituted at Rome to represent the 
sufferings of Christ during Passion Week. In 1298, according 



THE THEATER. 79 

to Hone, the Passion was played at Friuli,.in Italy; and the 
same year the clergy of Civita Vecchia performed the play of 
"Christ, his Passion, Resurrection, Ascension, Judgment, and 
the Mission of the Holy Ghost," on the feast of Pentecost ; 
and again in 1304, they acted the "Creation of Adam and 
Eve," the annunciation of the Virgin Mary, the birth of Christ, 
and other subjects of sacred history. These pious spectacles 
were so much esteemed that they formed a part of every 
great occasion, the reception of princes, coronations and 
marriages, and extended to every part of Europe. In France 
these plays were greatly in vogue, and gradually from Scrip- 
tural subjects came to represent a great variety of scenes 
drawn from contemporary life and profane history. This ulti- 
mately excited the jealousy of the Church and the active hos- 
tility of the clergy. From being the handmaid the theater 
became the rival of the Church, and the enmity ensuing, like 
a family quarrel, appears all the more embittered because of 
the previous connection. 

Here we have the key to the hostility and prejudice against 
the stage in modern times. In a document amongst the 
archives of the Parliament of Paris, it appears that on the 
iQth of December, 1541, complaint was made against certain 
persons who, having undertaken to represent the mysteries of 
Christ's Passion, and the Acts of the Apostles, " had employed 
mean and illiterate fellows to act, who were not cunning in 
these matters, and to lengthen out their time had interpolated 
aprocryphal matters, and by introducing drolls and farces at 
the beginning and end had made the performance last six 
or seven months ; by means whereof nobody went to church, 
charity grew cold, and immoral excesses were occasioned." 



80 LOTOS LEAVES. 

The secularization of the drama was very rapid from this 
time, and the stage shared in the toleration which resulted 
from the multiplication of the objects of general interest 
to the common people, and the lessening rigor of opinion in 
matters of religious belief. But the distraction of public atten- 
tion from the churches to the theaters, " so that the preachers 
finding nobody to hear them left off preaching," and diminished 
revenues of the Church resulting from their desertion, were 
sore grievances to the clergy. They complained that the plays 
"occasioned junketings and extraordinary expenses among the 
common people," and in France the theaters were made to 
contribute a certain portion of their receipts to the poor, a 
custom which obtains to the present day. 

The precursors of the regular drama in England were 
mystery-plays, and the production of these plays is closely 
related to the progress of the Reformation. The Scriptures 
in English had been scrupulously withheld from the people, 
and the author of the Chester Mysteries, produced in 1328, 
was obliged to make three journeys to Rome before he could 
obtain leave of the Pope to produce them in the English 
tongue. The ecclesiastics were fearful that, once in posses- 
sion of the Scriptures in their own Jongue, the people would 
exercise private judgment, and their authority be diminished ; 
all of which fears were justified by the event. But the mystery- 
plays were in the hands of the priests, who " craftily used them 
to postpone the period of illumination, and to stigmatize by 
implication the labors of Wyckliffe." In this way plays became 
associated in the minds of the English Reformers with the 
" baleful errors and vain shows " of Papacy, and this led to the 
condemnation and persecution of the stage at a later day. 



THE THEATER. 8l 

After the Reformation, mystery-plays were composed to 
promote and secure the new order of things ; but Hone says, 
" There is no existing memorial of the representation of mys- 
teries in England since the latter end of the sixteenth cen- 
tury." The English puppet-show was also a vehicle for the 
production of mystery-plays, but in the adventures of the 
Punch of the puppet-show there is a complete departure from 
the mystery. Punch is always a " sensual, dissolute, hardened 
character, who beats his wife, disregards the advice of the 
priest, knocks him down, and exhibits a thorough contempt for 
moral reputation." 

That the attitude of Punch in the puppet-show was in a 
measure that of the early players of the English stage, seems 
to be probable from the way in which they are characterized in 
certian decrees for their regulation ; but an art which had 
been for so many centuries the companion and servant of 
religion had too healthy and strong a constitution to be smoth- 
ered in the muck in which it might happen for the moment 
to be cast. In a night it underwent a resurrection, and in its 
risen glory far outshone its previous estate. Under the domin- 
ion of the Elizabethan dramatists the stage became the rival 
of the pulpit as an eloquent teacher of morals and the vehicle 
of the most splendid literature given to the world since the 
days 'of the ancient Greek. The theatre afforded to Shake- 
speare and his contemporaries the. field for the employment of 
their genius. 

But the stage still had its trials and disabilities. Its legal 
recognition dates only from 1572, eight years after the birth 
of Shakespeare. In the royal license of that year players were 
assumed to be servants, and were empowered to play wherever 



82 LOTOS LEAVES. 

it seemed good to them, if their masters sanctioned their absence ; 
and an act of Parliament of the same year suppressed all wan- 
dering players unconnected with noble houses, characterizing 
them in terms of contumely, and providing condign punish- 
ment for offenders. The stage thus suffered from the servitude 
in which, by the barbarism of the age, players were held. It 
also suffered from severe supervision, legal prohibition of the 
introduction of subjects drawn from politics and religion, sus- 
pensions for indefinite periods, and the persecution of ignorant 
and bigoted officials. Even when sanctioned by the court, 
befriended by the noble, and followed by the general public, 
the players got themselves into trouble by their own impru- 
dence and wantonness. Contemned and tolerated on every 
hand, recklessness and defiance were begotten in them, which 
led them to outrage law and custom. 

In this condition it is not a matter of surprise that the stage 
excited the animosity of the English clergy, and drew forth 
those extraordinary diatribes which cannot now be read without 
exciting mirth. By the year 1578, according to Mr. Arber, the 
clergy habitually attacked the stage. The distraction of the 
people from the churches was still the sore grievance. One 
of them says, " Wyll not a fylthye play, wyth the blaste of a 
trumpette, sooner call thyther a thousande, than an houre's 
tolling of a bell bring to the sermon a hundred." Another, 
Stephen Gosson, who had himself aforetime written plays, 
"perceiving such a Gordian's knot of disorder in every play- 
house as woulde never be loosed without extremetie," was 
moved to " bidde them the base at their owne gole, and to give 
them a volley of heathen writers ; that our divines considering 
the daunger of suche houses as are set up in London against 



THE THEATER. 83 

the Lord, might batter them thoroughly withe greater shotte." 
There is a curious felicity in much of the logic launched by 
the worthy divines at the players, which is well illustrated by 
the famous syllogism of Master Coldocke, " The cause of plagues 
is sinne, and the cause of sinne are playes ; therefore the cause 
of plagues are playes." This logic appears to have been con- 
clusive, as licenses for playing, in the reign of King James, 
says Dr. Doran, were regulated by the greater or less preva- 
lence of the plague. 

The players were not unconscious of their power to punish 
these adversaries, and that they used it freely we have abun- 
dant testimony. The language which Shakespeare puts into 
the mouth of Hamlet shows how closely the stage resembled 
the press of the present day. Zealous partisans used it as a 
means of inflaming their followers, and public characters were 
reviled and caricatured, causing great scandal and just indig- 
nation. Citizens and justices were represented as " the most 
egregious of fools, arrant of knaves, and deluded of hus- 
bands." Jeremy Collier, commenting on the liberties taken by 
players with persons of quality, asks, " Must all men be han- 
dled alike ? Must their roughness be needs play'd upon 
title ? And has our stage a particular privilege ? Is their 
charter enlarged, and are they on the same foot of freedom 
with the slaves in the Saturnalia ? " That the clergy should 
come in for a share of the satire and pleasantry of the stage, 
considering the very aggressive position which they occupied 
toward it, is not a matter to excite any surprise or sympathy. 
The assertion of Jeremy Collier that its "aim is to destroy 
religion " will not hold good of the English stage of any 
period of its history. It is a hard thing to exact that the 



84 LOTOS LEAVES. 

priest shall always be treated with the dignity which attaches 
to his office, regardless of the lack of it which may distin- 
guish his character and manners. And this is the demand 
which the clergy have always made of the stage. When hit, 
they have cried out, " Are the poets ordinaries ? Is the pul- 
pit under discipline of the stage ? And are those fit to cor- 
rect the Church, that are not fit to come into it?" But there 
is a ground of justification for the attitude of the clergy in 
the offences against morality which have flourished so luxuri- 
antly on the boards of the theater. 

The stage, from its nature, living upon the breath of popu- 
lar applause, must please or perish. It is the creature of its 
patrons, dependent upon the fashion and taste of the period, 
holding the mirror up to those traits and habits which are 
regarded with pride or complacency, and reflecting social 
vices as a foil to social virtues. When there is a confounding 
of vice with virtue on the stage, it may safely be assumed that 
they were previously confounded in the mind of the public 
which patronizes it. But the pictures presented by the stage 
react powerfully upon the public, by stamping and giving cur- 
rency to types of character, manners, and modes of life which 
otherwise would be less widely known and lack the definite- 
ness to induce imitation. The morality of theatrical repre- 
sentations is, therefore, a matter of vast importance, and 
imposes upon the stage obligations which have been too fre- 
quently treated with contempt, giving its enemies an apparent 
justification for wholesale arraignment and vituperation. The 
charge of licentiousness which both poets and players have 
sustained since Plato excluded them from his model common- 
wealth and Ovid was banished from Rome, to the days of 



THE THEATER. 85 

Dumas the younger, and opera bouffe, is susceptible of too 
detailed a verification, and is too notorious to render any apol- 
ogy possible. 

With the multiplication of interests, increased complexity of 
relations, and refinement of manners, which characterize mod- 
ern society, the stage remains unemancipated from the presen- 
tation of lust. The appeal to sexual passion may be more 
veiled in expression, but in personal exposure and suggestive 
action it would be impossible to surpass the scenes to be 
witnessed on the modern stage, simply for the reason that 
" matters have already reached a point beyond which they 
cannot go." 

In place of the gross and indelicate compositions which 
our ancestors countenanced and admired, we have a lascivious 
musical medley wrought out by voluptuous figurantes, and a 
drama of adulterous intrigue, in which the moral inculcated 
is the utter helplessness and therefore innocence of the fe- 
male party to it. This drama has for its motive the con- 
donation of adultery and unchastity, and by a skilful play 
upon the passions, and the natural sympathy for a woman 
in distress, succeeds in confusing the mental perceptions and 
transforming in imagination a very weak, if not very wicked, 
sinner to an injured saint. 

In this insidious misrepresentation there is a sinister at- 
tack upon public virtue far more to be feared than the 
open assaults of the propagandists of passional freedom. 
In taking advantage of the phase of sentiment which ren- 
ders the production of these plays possible, the dramatists 
have probably no notion of disturbing the present relations 
of the sexes, but merely look upon it as a means of smug- 



86 LOTOS LEAVES. 

gling the potent element of licentious sexual passion into 
the theater. There is no palliation of this in the assertion 
that the drama is necessarily a mirror of the actual life of the 
time, as in the " actual life of the time " there is always much 
which must ever be remanded from the stage. The effort to 
justify such representations by attributing them to humane im- 
pulses, is a stretch of sentimentalism fatal to all distinctions of 
right and wrong, a price at which all the humanity of the age 
would be dearly bought. " The imitation of an ill thing may 
be the worse for being exact," but certainly no good can result 
to the stage or society from the teaching that the pariah is 
entitled to the position and privileges of purity. 

The fascination which attaches to these plays, as well as 
to the more gross representations of the spectacular drama, 
is at bottom nothing but that of licentiousness, which is 
brought forward under cover of a plea for female emanci- 
pation from the trammels of duty. It is one of the results 
of the foolish agitation which has brought the distinctions of 
sex prominently before the public mind, exaggerated the in- 
fluence of desire, and thus given an impulse to unlicensed 
passion. The effect is partly owing to the lack of popular 
sympathy with high ideals of life, which has rendered audi- 
ences insensible to heroic delineations, and driven the theatre 
to the vulgar sensation which should be the exclusive prop- 
erty of the newspaper. A reform can only be brought about 
by an exhibition of the real evil, and a popular demand for 
plays which have a higher aim than to pander to sexual 
passion. " The stage is respectable only as it is respected " ; 
and in order that it may be respected, it must be preserved 
from motives that are as inadmissible in art as they are an- 
tagonistic to morality. 



THE THEATER. 87 

But the presentation of licentiousness is an abuse, and not 
an essential feature of the drama. Dr. Channing says, " Po- 
etry has been made the instrument of vice, the pander of the 
passions ; but when genius thus stoops it parts with part of 
its power." The appeal to the lower instincts may draw 
crowds who delight only in sensuality, but the power ex- 
erted by the art is far less in degree, as it is lower in 
character, to that which is exerted when the impersonal and 
heroic instincts are properly addressed. The field of the 
drama is as wide as human experience and the sphere of 
poetic fancy and imagination ; being limited only by those 
restrictions which the usages of civilization have prescribed 
in reference to decency. It is not poverty of material which 
drives the stage to questionable sources, but the weakness 
of the dramatic genius which is compelled to make up for 
lack of power in treatment by the morbid fascination of for- 
bidden fruit. 

There is no degradation inherent in the stage as there is 
none in poetry, of which the stage is the interpreter. For a 
long time it held the same relation to poetry that the printing- 
press does to modern literature. It was through the instrumen- 
tality of the drama that the mass of people got their knowl- 
edge of the works of genius, and of history as well. It is by 
means of the stage that the mighty influence of Shakespeare 
has been exerted upon all English-speaking men and women, 
developing and modelling their intellectual structure. A great 
dramatic poet, said Goethe, if he is at the same time produc- 
tive and is actuated by a noble purpose, may succeed in mak- 
ing the soul of his pieces become the soul of the people, and 
this is what Shakespeare has accomplished. The drama is as 



88 LOTOS LEAVES. 

old as the first story-teller who tried to make his listeners 
realize his narrative by appropriate rhetoric and mimetic ges- 
tures. It is a moving spectacle of life and action, the product 
of history, imagination, and art, by which a chapter of human 
experience is realized to a sympathetic audience. But the 
sympathetic audience is indispensable to the life of the drama, 
and it naturally seizes upon that which attracts. The stage 
sinks to the level of its patrons. 

"The drama's laws -the drama's patrons give, 
And we that live to please must please to live." 

In a purely mercantile community in which little is respected 
but money, it is not to be premised that managers and drama- 
tists will be over-nice about the matter which they serve up to 
the public, especially if the worse the mixture the more greedily 
it is devoured. The conductors of the theater are not artists 
or moralists, but simply business men determined, if possible, 
to present a fair balance-sheet, and therefore mainly intent 
upon first meeting the popular demand. They do not presume 
to rise above the popular taste, and in deference to a nice 
sense of propriety shelve pieces which fill their houses and 
pockets. It is hard to condemn them for not being wiser 
than the audiences which assist, and no condemnation would 
be just which did not include the latter. None*the less does 
the representation of immoral plays injure the proper standing 
and just appreciation of the drama. In reaping the harvest 
an odium is incurred which drives from the theater many who 
would otherwise be appreciative and influential patrons, and a 
stain is inflicted on all connected with it. 

The stage is not the only institution which reflects the 



THE THEATER. 89 

infirmities of humankind. Government, politics, diplomacy, the 
press, the pulpit, and society are all afflicted, and its common 
origin forbids us to look to the stage for anomalous perfection. 
The mission of the stage renders it more liable to pander to 
the weaknesses of human nature, and to excite the censure 
of moralists. There is a perpetual struggle in the world be- 
tween duty and desire, work and play ; and it being the 
object of the stage to minister to human desire and pleas- 
ure, it is inevitable that in the conflict it should come in 
for abundant criticism and condemnation. But pleasure is 
essential to human well-being, and not even the religion 
which taught asceticism as the highest form of virtue was 
able to effect any important change in the conduct and 
opinion of the world. An institution, therefore, which has 
labored to lighten the miseries of existence by the cultiva- 
tion of pleasure, and by diffusing an atmosphere of contem- 
plation in which ideals of beauty and heroism are presented, 
has rested securely on the favor of the average mass of man- 
kind. 

Among the Latin nations, where the functions of govern- 
ment have had more of a paternal character than among the 
Germans, the idea has obtained that the theatre, like acade- 
mies and universities, could not rely upon the voluntary pat- 
ronage of. the people. In these countries the influence of 
vulgar tastes has been deliberately counteracted. Recogniz- 
ing the power of the stage to elevate the tone of public feeling 
and as a school of manners, the government in France has 
always, since the reign of Francis I., with the exception of a 
brief period during the Reign of Terror, granted a subvention 
to certain theaters of the capital, insuring the production of the 



90 LOTOS LEAVES. 

masterpieces of dramatic literature and a high standard of 
histrionic ability. 

It is only by the resources and power of the stage that 
the masterpieces of dramatic literature can ever be adequately 
interpreted. In regard to his " Iphigenia," Goethe said the 
printed words were only a faint reflex of the fire which stirred 
within him during the composition ; the actor must bring us 
back to the first fire which animated the poet Eloquence, 
according to the same high authority, is the very life of the 
stage. The power and meaning of poetry are only half dis- 
cerned until interpreted by a master acquainted with the 
resources of manner and expression. Instances will suggest 
themselves to every one acquainted with the stage and the 
triumphs of great actors. It still remains the heritage of the 
stage to reproduce the nobler passions and heroic proportions 
of humanity. In our day the novel, a form of dramatic com- 
position in which elaborate description supplies in a measure 
stage accessories, has for a time partially supplanted the art 
of the theater. But this is only a temporary result of an 
introspective and reading age, and the return of a more 
healthy, objective habit of mind cannot but witness a revival 
of a higher interest in the drama. It will be ascertained that 
we have overestimated the value of reading, both for the 
acquisition of knowledge and the appreciation of poetry. In 
order fully to realize the past, all the accessories of action 
must be brought to bear on the senses and imagination. 
" The drama," says Bacon, " is as history brought before 
our eyes." No critic or commentator has the power which 
the actor possesses in his voice and action. A great actor 
takes on the individualities which he personates, and stands 



THE THEATER. QI 

to the world as if they actually live in him. In this way the 
drama reproduces the most precious of human memories, 
the persons and characters of the men and women of the 
past. 

"The real object of the drama," says Macaulay, "is the 
exhibition of human character. To this fundamental law 
every other regulation is subordinate." Herein is the difficult 
art of the actor. Voice, expression, dress, and action are 
important as they assist in justly representing character. 
The finest qualities of mind and feeling conjoined with high 
culture and careful training are manifestly necessary to an 
actor fitly to represent the characters delineated in the mag- 
nificent literature of the drama. An actor by true and deep 
feeling has the power of bringing the impalpable before our 
eyes. "We turn," says Percy Fitzgerald, "to the old portraits 
of actors, and are amazed at the speaking intelligence, the 
bustling vivacity, the lines and channels of thought and rest- 
less ideas worn into their very cheeks ; the roving, brilliant 
eyes, the lips about to move ; and from these character pic- 
tures we see how, by sheer training and power of intellect, 
they forced their features to signify what they represented." 

The decline of the stage at the present time may be traced 
in a measure to the neglect of this primary purpose of the 
drama to represent character. The demand for dramatic en- 
tertainment has outrun the means of our dramatic artists. 
The number of actors capable of representing character is 
ridiculously small as compared with the number of theaters. 
In order to make up for the deficiency of genuine histrionic 
talent, every available device of spectacle, furniture, dress, 
slang, grotesque contortion, and commonplace incident of daily 



Q2 LOTOS LEAVES. 

life has been seized upon and paraded upon the boards, con- 
stituting a ridiculous travesty of the drama. The failure of 
these permanently to attract and interest might easily have 
been foreseen and predicted. Every play of enduring interest 
.hinges upon character, for it is character which creates story ; 
and the interest is due to the free and natural development 
and manifestation of character in varying circumstances. This 
is the only thing which has inexhaustible interest, and it is 
upon this rock that the legitimate drama is founded, and upon 
which all amorphous, parasitical growths will be ground to 
pieces. 

There is a. gulf between nature and art which cannot be 
bridged. Art is essentially imitative, and dramatic . art is an 
imitation of the characters and actions of individuals by indi- 
viduals, and therefore calculated to provoke comparison of 
persons. Between one who acts and speaks greatly in a great 
place and occasion, and one who imitates his action and 
speech on the mimic stage, there is a vast disparity, to over- 
come which is the immense task of the actor. The very ex- 
altation of the character and scenes represented provokes an 
unfavorable parallel. However admirable the acting, the po- 
etry, the stage accessories, the imagination of the a