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i did not ask i was beyond it |
i was chilled to the bone wet tired hungry |
i had long been wishing that an old fashioned christmas had been completely extinct before i had thought of adventuring in quest of one |
here we be that might be so |
there be the door in front of you you go up three steps if you can find em |
there's a knocker if none of em haven't twisted it off |
there appeared to be no knocker though whether it had been twisted off was more than i could say |
no answer though i allowed a more than decent interval |
better ring again suggested the driver hard |
maybe they're up to some of their games and wants rousing |
the bell reverberated through what seemed like an empty house |
presently feet were heard advancing along the passage several pairs it seemed and a light gleamed through the window over the door |
a voice inquired who's there |
the information was greeted with what sounded uncommonly like a chorus of laughter |
there was a rush of retreating feet an expostulating voice then darkness again and silence |
who lives here are the people mad |
i tolled the bell again |
after a vast amount of unfastening the door was opened and on the threshold there stood a girl with a lighted candle in her hand |
i'm mister christopher from london |
we've lost the key of the cellar and there's nothing out except water and i don't think you'd care for that |
with an education which ought to have ensured me an honourable standing in the world with some intelligence wit good literary and scientific knowledge and endowed with those accidental physical qualities which are such a good passport into society i found myself at the age of twenty the mean follower of a sublime art i... |
i was compelled by poverty to become a member of a musical band in which i could expect neither esteem nor consideration and i was well aware that i should be the laughing stock of the persons who had known me as a doctor in divinity as an ecclesiastic and as an officer in the army and had welcomed me in the highest so... |
i felt that in my first profession as i was not blessed with the vocation necessary to it i should have succeeded only by dint of hypocrisy and i should have been despicable in my own estimation even if i had seen the purple mantle on my shoulders for the greatest dignities cannot silence a man's own conscience |
besides i was of opinion that a man's profession whatever it might be ought to supply him with enough money to satisfy all his wants and the very poor pay of an officer would never have been sufficient to cover my expenses because my education had given me greater wants than those of officers in general |
our scandalous proceedings often exposed us to the greatest danger |
we would very often spend the whole night rambling about the city inventing and carrying into execution the most impertinent practical jokes |
we did the same with physicians whom we often sent half dressed to some nobleman who was enjoying excellent health |
whenever we could contrive to get into a church tower we thought it great fun to frighten all the parish by ringing the alarm bell as if some fire had broken out but that was not all we always cut the bell ropes so that in the morning the churchwardens had no means of summoning the faithful to early mass |
this is the amusing adventure which closed our exploits |
in every one of the seventy two parishes of the city of venice there is a large public house called magazzino |
yet there are a few private rooms which contain a table surrounded with benches in which a respectable family or a few friends can enjoy themselves in a decent way |
the waiter of the magazzino came to be paid and our chief gave him what was due enjoining silence under penalty of death |
we took our three prisoners to a large boat |
where is my husband |
never fear you shall see him again to morrow |
my readers may imagine whether we felt inclined to laugh when the charming creature bade us good night thanking us all with perfect good faith |
two days afterwards our nocturnal orgy began to be talked of |
it went on to say that the two men who had carried her off had taken her to such a place where they had an hour later been met by the other six and that they had all repaired to the two swords where they had spent an hour in drinking |
there was no cowardly traitor amongst us although we were all poor but fear had its effect and our nocturnal pranks were not renewed |
i picked it up and coming up to him just as he was going down the steps i handed it to him |
i told him and he insisted upon my coming with him in the gondola saying that he would leave me at my house |
i rubbed it with all my strength but he told me in a sort of indistinct whisper that the numbness was spreading all along the left side and that he was dying |
i jumped out of the gondola and found myself on the very spot where three years before i had taught razetta such a forcible lesson i enquired for a surgeon at the first coffee house and ran to the house that was pointed out to me |
taking everything upon myself i ordered a servant to hurry out for a physician who came in a short time and ordered the patient to be bled again thus approving the first bleeding prescribed by me |
thinking i had a right to watch the sick man i settled myself near his bed to give him every care he required |
they did not know who i was and did not like to ask me whilst i thought it better to preserve a modest silence |
he had gambled and lost a great deal and his brother was his most bitter enemy because he was infatuated with the idea that he had tried to poison him |
the physician who attended him was named terro he thought by some peculiar train of reasoning that he could cure him by applying a mercurial ointment to the chest to which no one raised any objection |
delighted with such a fortunate result we lay down again |
he entreated me to tell him the truth |
what extraordinary things will sometimes occur from mere chance or from the force of circumstances |
unwilling to hurt his vanity by telling him that he was mistaken i took the wild resolution of informing him in the presence of his two friends that i possessed a certain numeral calculus which gave answers also in numbers to any questions i liked to put |
i obeyed implicitly and met your excellency |
the three friends were astounded |
i declared myself quite willing for it was necessary to brazen it out after having ventured as far as i had done |
he wrote the question and gave it to me i read it i could not understand either the subject or the meaning of the words but it did not matter i had to give an answer |
if the question was so obscure that i could not make out the sense of it it was natural that i should not understand the answer |
they all asked me how long i would require to teach them the rules of my sublime calculus |
not very long i answered and i will teach you as you wish although the hermit assured me that i would die suddenly within three days if i communicated my science to anyone but i have no faith whatever in that prediction |
they believed that through me they possessed the philosopher's stone the universal panacea the intercourse with all the elementary heavenly and infernal spirits they had no doubt whatever that thanks to my sublime science they could find out the secrets of every government in europe |
but although believing fully in my oracles they were too kind hearted to think them the work of the devil and it suited their natural goodness better to believe my answers inspired by some heavenly spirit |
they were not only good christians and faithful to the church but even real devotees and full of scruples |
as for the eucharist transubstantiation the real presence it was all no mystery to them but palpable evidence and yet they were not jesuits |
i might be told that if i had wished to follow the rules of pure morality i ought either to have declined intimate intercourse with them or to have undeceived them |
besides i found it very flattering to my vanity to become the subject of the speculative chattering of empty fools who having nothing else to do are always trying to find out the cause of every moral phenomenon they meet with which their narrow intellect cannot understand |
whoever you may be i am indebted to you for my life |
your apartment is ready you may send your clothes you shall have a servant a gondola at your orders my own table and ten sequins a month |
you need not think of the future think only of enjoying yourself and take me as your adviser in everything that may happen to you in everything you may wish to undertake and you may be certain of always finding me your friend |
i threw myself at his feet to assure him of my gratitude and embraced him calling him my father |
shasta rambles and modoc memories |
arctic beauty and desolation with their blessings and dangers all may be found here to test the endurance and skill of adventurous climbers but far better than climbing the mountain is going around its warm fertile base enjoying its bounties like a bee circling around a bank of flowers |
perhaps the profession of doing good may be full but every body should be kind at least to himself |
go quietly alone no harm will befall you |
but it is far better to go afoot |
one blanket will be enough to carry or you may forego the pleasure and burden altogether as wood for fires is everywhere abundant |
only a little food will be required |
thus one saunters on and on in the glorious radiance in utter peace and forgetfulness of time |
yet strange to say there are days even here somewhat dull looking when the mountain seems uncommunicative sending out no appreciable invitation as if not at home |
at such time its height seems much less as if crouching and weary it were taking rest |
every crystal dances responsive to the touches of the sun and currents of sap in the growing cells of all the vegetation are ever in a vital whirl and rush and though many feet and wings are folded how many are astir |
slight rainstorms are likely to be encountered in a trip round the mountain but one may easily find shelter beneath well thatched trees that shed the rain like a roof |
then the shining of the wet leaves is delightful and the steamy fragrance and the burst of bird song from a multitude of thrushes and finches and warblers that have nests in the chaparral |
a thousand thousand voices are heard but so finely blended they seem a part of the night itself and make a deeper silence |
in setting out from strawberry valley by bearing off to the northwestward a few miles you may see |
in approaching it its suspicious looking yellow spotted hood and watchful attitude will be likely to make you go cautiously through the bog where it stands as if you were approaching a dangerous snake |
it is lined with emerald algae and mosses and shaded with alder willow and thorn bushes which give it a fine setting |
it is three or four miles long and terminates at an elevation of about nine thousand five hundred feet above sea level in moraine sprinkled ice cliffs sixty feet high |
the long gray slopes leading up to the glacier seem remarkably smooth and unbroken |
most of the drainage of the glacier vanishes at once in the porous rocks to reappear in springs in the distant valley and it is only in time of flood that the channel carries much water then there are several fine falls in the gorge six hundred feet or more in height |
tracing this wild changing channel gorge gully or canyon the sections will show mount shasta as a huge palimpsest containing the records layer upon layer of strangely contrasted events in its fiery icy history |
regaining the low ground at the base of the mountain and holding on in your grand orbit you pass through a belt of juniper woods called the cedars to sheep rock at the foot of the shasta pass |
here you strike the old emigrant road which leads over the low divide to the eastern slopes of the mountain |
mount bremer is the most noted stronghold of the sheep in the whole shasta region |
large flocks dwell here from year to year winter and summer descending occasionally into the adjacent sage plains and lava beds to feed but ever ready to take refuge in the jagged crags of their mountain at every alarm |
while traveling with a company of hunters i saw about fifty in one flock |
the mule deer are nearly as heavy |
their long massive ears give them a very striking appearance |
but neither the glorified woods on the one hand nor the lake on the other could at first hold the eye |
then fell the gloaming making everything still more forbidding and mysterious |
then darkness like death |
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