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Produced by Levent Kurnaz and Jose Menendez
The Fall of the House of Usher
Son coeur est un luth suspendu;
Sitot qu'on le touche il resonne.
DE BERANGER.
During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the
autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the
heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a
singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself,
as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the
melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was--but, with the
first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom
pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was
unrelieved by any of that half-pleasureable, because poetic,
sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest
natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the
scene before me--upon the mere house, and the simple landscape
features of the domain--upon the bleak walls--upon the vacant
eye-like windows--upon a few rank sedges--and upon a few white
trunks of decayed trees--with an utter depression of soul which I
can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the
after-dream of the reveller upon opium--the bitter lapse into
everyday life--the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was
an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart--an unredeemed
dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could
torture into aught of the sublime. What was it--I paused to
think--what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of
the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I
grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I
pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory
conclusion, that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations
of very simple natural objects which have the power of thus
affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among
considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected,
that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the
scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to
modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful
impression; and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse
to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in
unruffled lustre by the dwelling, and gazed down--but with a
shudder even more thrilling than before--upon the remodelled and
inverted images of the grey sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems,
and the vacant and eye-like windows.
Nevertheless, in this mansion of gloom I now proposed to
myself a sojourn of some weeks. Its proprietor, Roderick Usher,
had been one of my boon companions in boyhood; but many years had
elapsed since our last meeting. A letter, however, had lately
reached me in a distant part of the country--a letter from
him--which, in its wildly importunate nature, had admitted of no
other than a personal reply. The MS gave evidence of nervous
agitation. The writer spoke of acute bodily illness--of a mental
disorder which oppressed him--and of an earnest desire to see me,
as his best, and indeed his only personal friend, with a view of
attempting, by the cheerfulness of my society, some alleviation
of his malady. It was the manner in which all this, and much
more, was said--it was the apparent heart that went with his
request--which allowed me no room for hesitation; and I
accordingly obeyed forthwith what I still considered a very
singular summons.
Although, as boys, we had been even intimate associates, yet
I really knew little of my friend. His reserve had been always
excessive and habitual. I was aware, however, that his very
ancient family had been noted, time out of mind, for a peculiar
sensibility of temperament, displaying itself, through long ages,
in many works of exalted art, and manifested, of late, in
repeated deeds of munificent yet unobtrusive charity, as well as
in a passionate devotion to the intricacies, perhaps even more
than to the orthodox and easily recognisable beauties of musical
science. I had learned, too, the very remarkable fact, that the
stem of the Usher race, all time-honoured as it was, had put
forth, at no period, any enduring branch; in other words, that
the entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and had
always, with very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain.
It was this deficiency, I considered, while running over in
thought the perfect keeping of the character of the premises with
the accredited character of the people, and while speculating
upon the possible influence which the one, in the long
lapse of centuries, might have exercised upon the other--it was
this deficiency, perhaps, of collateral issue, and the consequent
undeviating transmission, from sire to son, of the patrimony with
the name, which had, at length, so identified the two as to merge
the original title of the estate in the quaint and equivocal
appellation of the "House of Usher"--an appellation which seemed
to include, in the minds of the peasantry who used it, both the
family and the family mansion.
I have said that the sole effect of my somewhat childish
experiment--that of looking down within the tarn--had been to
deepen the first singular impression. There can be no doubt that
the consciousness of the rapid increase of my superstition--for
why should I not so term it?--served mainly to accelerate the
increase itself. Such, I have long known, is the paradoxical law
of all sentiments having terror as a basis. And it might have
been for this reason only, that, when I again uplifted my eyes to
the house itself, from its image in the pool, there grew in my
mind a strange fancy--a fancy so ridiculous, indeed, that I but
mention it to show the vivid force of the sensations which
oppressed me. I had so worked upon my imagination as really to
believe that about the whole mansion and domain there hung an
atmosphere peculiar to themselves and their immediate vicinity--an
atmosphere which had no affinity with the air of heaven, but
which had reeked up from the decayed trees, and the grey wall,
and the silent tarn--a pestilent and mystic vapour, dull,
sluggish, faintly discernible, and leaden-hued.
Shaking off from my spirit what must have been a dream,
I scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building. Its
principal feature seemed to be that of an excessive antiquity.
The discoloration of ages had been great. Minute fungi
overspread the whole exterior, hanging in a fine tangled web-work
from the eaves. Yet all this was apart from any extraordinary
dilapidation. No portion of the masonry had fallen; and there
appeared to be a wild inconsistency between its still perfect
adaptation of parts, and the crumbling condition of the
individual stones. In this there was much that reminded me of
the specious totality of old wood-work which has rotted for long
years in some neglected vault, with no disturbance from the
breath of the external air. Beyond this indication of
extensive decay, however, the fabric gave little token of
instability. Perhaps the eye of a scrutinizing observer might
have discovered a barely perceptible fissure, which, extending
from the roof of the building in front, made its way down the
wall in a zigzag direction, until it became lost in the sullen
waters of the tarn.
Noticing these things, I rode over a short causeway to the
house. A servant in waiting took my horse, and I entered the
Gothic archway of the hall. A valet, of stealthy step, thence
conducted me, in silence, through many dark and intricate
passages in my progress to the studio of his master. Much
that I encountered on the way contributed, I know not how, to
heighten the vague sentiments of which I have already spoken.
While the objects around me--while the carvings of the ceilings,
the sombre tapestries of the walls, the ebony blackness of the
floors, and the phantasmagoric armorial trophies which rattled as
I strode, were but matters to which, or to such as which, I had
been accustomed from my infancy--while I hesitated not to
acknowledge how familiar was all this--I still wondered to find
how unfamiliar were the fancies which ordinary images were
stirring up. On one of the staircases, I met the physician of
the family. His countenance, I thought, wore a mingled
expression of low cunning and perplexity. He accosted me with
trepidation and passed on. The valet now threw open a door and
ushered me into the presence of his master.
The room in which I found myself was very large and lofty.
The windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a
distance from the black oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessible
from within. Feeble gleams of encrimsoned light made their way
through the trellised panes, and served to render sufficiently
distinct the more prominent objects around; the eye, however,
struggled in vain to reach the remoter angles of the chamber, or
the recesses of the vaulted and fretted ceiling. Dark draperies
hung upon the walls. The general furniture was profuse,
comfortless, antique, and tattered. Many books and musical
instruments lay scattered about, but failed to give any vitality
to the scene. I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow.
An air of stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom hung over and
pervaded all.
Upon my entrance, Usher rose from a sofa on which he had
been lying at full length, and greeted me with a vivacious warmth
which had much in it, I at first thought, of an overdone
cordiality--of the constrained effort of the ennuye man of
the world. A glance, however, at his countenance, convinced me
of his perfect sincerity. We sat down; and for some moments,
while he spoke not, I gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity,
half of awe. Surely, man had never before so terribly altered,
in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher! It was with
difficulty that I could bring myself to admit the identity of the
man being before me with the companion of my early boyhood. Yet
the character of his face had been at all times remarkable. A
cadaverousness of complexion; an eye large, liquid, and luminous
beyond comparison; lips somewhat thin and very pallid, but of a
surpassingly beautiful curve; a nose of a delicate Hebrew model,
but with a breadth of nostril unusual in similar formations; a
finely-moulded chin, speaking, in its want of prominence, of a
want of moral energy; hair of a more than web-like softness and
tenuity; these features, with an inordinate expansion above the
regions of the temple, made up altogether a countenance not
easily to be forgotten. And now in the mere exaggeration of the
prevailing character of these features, and of the expression
they were wont to convey, lay so much of change that I doubted to
whom I spoke. The now ghastly pallor of the skin, and the now
miraculous lustre of the eye, above all things startled and even
awed me. The silken hair, too, had been suffered to grow all
unheeded, and as, in its wild gossamer texture, it floated rather
than fell about the face, I could not, even with effort, connect
its Arabesque expression with any idea of simple humanity.
In the manner of my friend I was at once struck with an
incoherence--an inconsistency; and I soon found this to arise
from a series of feeble and futile struggles to overcome an
habitual trepidancy--an excessive nervous agitation. For
something of this nature I had indeed been prepared, no less by
his letter, than by reminiscences of certain boyish traits, and
by conclusions deduced from his peculiar physical conformation
and temperament. His action was alternately vivacious and
sullen. His voice varied rapidly from a tremulous indecision
(when the animal spirits seemed utterly in abeyance) to
that species of energetic concision--that abrupt, weighty,
unhurried, and hollow-sounding enunciation--that leaden,
self-balanced and perfectly modulated guttural utterance, which may
be observed in the lost drunkard, or the irreclaimable eater of
opium, during the periods of his most intense excitement.
It was thus that he spoke of the object of my visit, of his
earnest desire to see me, and of the solace he expected me to
afford him. He entered, at some length, into what he conceived
to be the nature of his malady. It was, he said, a
constitutional and a family evil, and one for which he despaired
to find a remedy--a mere nervous affection, he immediately added,
which would undoubtedly soon pass off. It displayed itself in a
host of unnatural sensations. Some of these, as he detailed
them, interested and bewildered me; although, perhaps, the terms,
and the general manner of the narration had their weight. He
suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most
insipid food was alone endurable; he could wear only garments of
certain texture; the odours of all flowers were oppressive; his
eyes were tortured by even a faint light; and there were but
peculiar sounds, and these from stringed instruments, which did
not inspire him with horror.
To an anomalous species of terror I found him a bounden
slave. "I shall perish," said he, "I must perish in this
deplorable folly. Thus, thus, and not otherwise, shall I be
lost. I dread the events of the future, not in themselves, but
in their results. I shudder at the thought of any, even the most
trivial, incident, which may operate upon this intolerable
agitation of soul. I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger,
except in its absolute effect--in terror. In this unnerved--in
this pitiable condition--I feel that the period will sooner or
later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in
some struggle with the grim phantasm, FEAR."
I learned, moreover, at intervals, and through broken and
equivocal hints, another singular feature of his mental
condition. He was enchained by certain superstitious impressions
in regard to the dwelling which he tenanted, and whence, for many
years, he had never ventured forth--in regard to an influence
whose supposititious force was conveyed in terms too shadowy here
to be re-stated--an influence which some peculiarities in the
mere form and substance of his family mansion, had, by
dint of long sufferance, he said, obtained over his spirit--an
effect which the physique of the grey walls and turrets, and
of the dim tarn into which they all looked down, had, at length,
brought about upon the morale of his existence.
He admitted, however, although with hesitation, that much of
the peculiar gloom which thus afflicted him could be traced to a
more natural and far more palpable origin--to the severe and
long-continued illness--indeed to the evidently approaching
dissolution--of a tenderly beloved sister--his sole companion for
long years--his last and only relative on earth. "Her decease,"
he said, with a bitterness which I can never forget, "would leave
him (him the hopeless and the frail) the last of the ancient race
of the Ushers." While he spoke, the lady Madeline (for so was
she called) passed slowly through a remote portion of the
apartment, and, without having noticed my presence, disappeared.
I regarded her with an utter astonishment not unmingled with
dread--and yet I found it impossible to account for such
feelings. A sensation of stupor oppressed me, as my eyes
followed her retreating steps. When a door, at length, closed
upon her, my glance sought instinctively and eagerly the
countenance of the brother--but he had buried his face in his
hands, and I could only perceive that a far more than ordinary
wanness had overspread the emaciated fingers through which
trickled many passionate tears.
The disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the skill
of her physicians. A settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of
the person, and frequent although transient affections of a
partially cataleptical character, were the unusual diagnosis.
Hitherto she had steadily borne up against the pressure of her
malady, and had not betaken herself finally to bed; but, on the
closing in of the evening of my arrival at the house, she
succumbed (as her brother told me at night with inexpressible
agitation) to the prostrating power of the destroyer; and I
learned that the glimpse I had obtained of her person would thus
probably be the last I should obtain--that the lady, at least
while living, would be seen by me no more.
For several days ensuing, her name was unmentioned by either
Usher or myself: and during this period I was busied in earnest
endeavours to alleviate the melancholy of my friend. We
painted and read together; or I listened, as if in a dream, to
the wild improvisations of his speaking guitar. And thus, as a
closer and still closer intimacy admitted me more unreservedly
into the recesses of his spirit, the more bitterly did I perceive
the futility of all attempt at cheering a mind from which
darkness, as if an inherent positive quality, poured forth upon
all objects of the moral and physical universe, in one unceasing
radiation of gloom.
I shall ever bear about me a memory of the many solemn hours
I thus spent alone with the master of the House of Usher. Yet I
should fail in any attempt to convey an idea of the exact
character of the studies, or of the occupations, in which he
involved me, or led me the way. An excited and highly
distempered ideality threw a sulphureous lustre over all. His
long improvised dirges will ring for ever in my ears. Among
other things, I hold painfully in mind a certain singular
perversion and amplification of the wild air of the last waltz of
Von Weber. From the paintings over which his elaborate fancy
brooded, and which grew, touch by touch, into vagueness at which
I shuddered the more thrillingly, because I shuddered knowing not
why;--from these paintings (vivid as their images now are before
me) I would in vain endeavour to educe more than a small portion
which should lie within the compass of merely written words. By
the utter simplicity, by the nakedness of his designs, he
arrested and overawed attention. If ever mortal painted an idea,
that mortal was Roderick Usher. For me at least--in the
circumstances then surrounding me--there arose out of the pure
abstractions which the hypochondriac contrived to throw upon his
canvas, an intensity of intolerable awe, no shadow of which felt
I ever yet in the contemplation of the certainly glowing yet too
concrete reveries of Fuseli.
One of the phantasmagoric conceptions of my friend,
partaking not so rigidly of the spirit of abstraction, may be
shadowed forth, although feebly, in words. A small picture
presented the interior of an immensely long and rectangular vault
or tunnel, with low walls, smooth, white, and without
interruption or device. Certain accessory points of the design
served well to convey the idea that this excavation lay at an
exceeding depth below the surface of the earth. No outlet was
observed in any portion of its vast extent, and no torch,
or other artificial source of light was discernible; yet a flood
of intense rays rolled throughout, and bathed the whole in a
ghastly and inappropriate splendour.
I have just spoken of that morbid condition of the auditory
nerve which rendered all music intolerable to the sufferer, with
the exception of certain effects of stringed instruments. It
was, perhaps, the narrow limits to which he thus confined himself
upon the guitar, which gave birth, in great measure, to the
fantastic character of the performances. But the fervid
facility of his impromptus could not be so accounted for.
They must have been, and were, in the notes, as well as in the
words of his wild fantasias (for he not unfrequently accompanied
himself with rhymed verbal improvisations), the result of that
intense mental collectedness and concentration to which I have
previously alluded as observable only in particular moments of
the highest artificial excitement. The words of one of these
rhapsodies I have easily remembered. I was, perhaps, the more
forcibly impressed with it, as he gave it, because, in the under
or mystic current of its meaning, I fancied that I perceived, and
for the first time, a full consciousness on the part of Usher, of
the tottering of his lofty reason upon her throne. The verses,
which were entitled "The Haunted Palace," ran very nearly, if not
accurately, thus:
I.
In the greenest of our valleys,
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace--
Radiant palace--reared its head.
In the monarch Thought's dominion--
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair.
II.
Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow;
(This--all this--was in the olden
Time long ago)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odour went away.
III.
Wanderers in that happy valley
Through two luminous windows saw
Spirits moving musically
To a lute's well tuned law,
Round about a throne, where sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.
IV.
And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.
V.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch's high estate;
(Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him, desolate!)
And, round about his home, the glory
That blushed and bloomed
Is but a dim-remembered story,
Of the old time entombed.
VI.
And travellers now within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows, see
Vast forms that move fantastically
To a discordant melody;
While, like a rapid ghastly river,
Through the pale door,
A hideous throng rush out forever,
And laugh--but smile no more.
I well remember that suggestions arising from this ballad,
led us into a train of thought wherein there became manifest an
opinion of Usher's which I mention not so much on account of its
novelty (for other men* have thought thus,) as on account of the
pertinacity with which he maintained it. This opinion, in its
general form, was that of the sentience of all vegetable things.
But, in his disordered fancy, the idea had assumed a more daring
character, and trespassed, under certain conditions, upon the
kingdom of inorganization. I lack words to express the full
extent, or the earnest abandon of his persuasion. The
belief, however, was connected (as I have previously hinted) with
the gray stones of the home of his forefathers. The conditions
of the sentience had been here, he imagined, fulfilled in the
method of collocation of these stones--in the order of their
arrangement, as well as in that of the many fungi which
overspread them, and of the decayed trees which stood around--above
all, in the long undisturbed endurance of this arrangement,
and in its reduplication in the still waters of the tarn. Its
evidence--the evidence of the sentience--was to be seen, he said,
(and I here started as he spoke,) in the gradual yet certain
condensation of an atmosphere of their own about the waters and
the walls. The result was discoverable, he added, in that
silent, yet importunate and terrible influence which for
centuries had moulded the destinies of his family, and which made
him what I now saw him--what he was. Such opinions need no
comment, and I will make none.
Our books--the books which, for years, had formed no small
portion of the mental existence of the invalid--were, as might be
supposed, in strict keeping with this character of phantasm. We
pored together over such works as the Ververt et Chartreuse
of Gresset; the Belphegor of Machiavelli; the Heaven and
Hell of Swedenborg; the Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm by
Holberg; the Chiromancy of Robert Flud, of Jean D'Indagine,
and of De la Chambre; the Journey into the Blue Distance of
Tieck; and the City of the Sun by Campanella. One favourite
volume was a small octavo edition of the Directorium
Inquisitorum, by the Dominican Eymeric de Gironne; and there
were passages in Pomponius Mela, about the old African Satyrs
and OEgipans, over which Usher would sit dreaming for hours. His
chief delight, however, was found in the perusal of an
exceedingly rare and curious book in quarto Gothic--the manual of
a forgotten church--the Vigiliae Mortuorum Secundum Chorum Ecclesiae
Maguntinae.
I could not help thinking of the wild ritual of this work,
and of its probable influence upon the hypochondriac, when, one
evening, having informed me abruptly that the lady Madeline was
no more, he stated his intention of preserving her corpse for a
fortnight, (previously to its final interment), in one of the
numerous vaults within the main walls of the building. The
worldly reason, however, assigned for this singular proceeding,
was one which I did not feel at liberty to dispute. The brother
had been led to his resolution (so he told me) by consideration
of the unusual character of the malady of the deceased, of
certain obtrusive and eager inquiries on the part of her medical
men, and of the remote and exposed situation of the burial-ground
of the family. I will not deny that when I called to mind the
sinister countenance of the person whom I met upon the staircase,
on the day of my arrival at the house, I had no desire to oppose
what I regarded as at best but a harmless, and by no means an
unnatural, precaution.
At the request of Usher, I personally aided him in the
arrangements for the temporary entombment. The body having been
encoffined, we two alone bore it to its rest. The vault in which
we placed it (and which had been so long unopened that our
torches, half smothered in its oppressive atmosphere, gave us
little opportunity for investigation) was small, damp, and
entirely without means of admission for light; lying, at great
depth, immediately beneath that portion of the building in which
was my own sleeping apartment. It had been used, apparently, in
remote feudal times, for the worst purposes of a donjon-keep, and,
in later days, as a place of deposit for powder, or some other
highly combustible substance, as a portion of its floor,
and the whole interior of a long archway through which we reached
it, were carefully sheathed with copper. The door, of massive
iron, had been, also, similarly protected. Its immense weight
caused an unusually sharp grating sound, as it moved upon its hinges.
Having deposited our mournful burden upon tressels within
this region of horror, we partially turned aside the yet
unscrewed lid of the coffin, and looked upon the face of the
tenant. A striking similitude between the brother and sister now
first arrested my attention; and Usher, divining, perhaps, my
thoughts, murmured out some few words from which I learned that
the deceased and himself had been twins, and that sympathies of a
scarcely intelligible nature had always existed between them.
Our glances, however, rested not long upon the dead--for we could
not regard her unawed. The disease which had thus entombed the
lady in the maturity of youth, had left, as usual in all maladies
of a strictly cataleptical character, the mockery of a faint
blush upon the bosom and the face, and that suspiciously
lingering smile upon the lip which is so terrible in death. We
replaced and screwed down the lid, and, having secured the door
of iron, made our way, with toil, into the scarcely less gloomy
apartments of the upper portion of the house.
And now, some days of bitter grief having elapsed, an
observable change came over the features of the mental disorder
of my friend. His ordinary manner had vanished. His ordinary
occupations were neglected or forgotten. He roamed from chamber
to chamber with hurried, unequal, and objectless step. The
pallor of his countenance had assumed, if possible, a more
ghastly hue--but the luminousness of his eye had utterly gone
out. The once occasional huskiness of his tone was heard no
more; and a tremulous quaver, as if of extreme terror, habitually
characterized his utterance. There were times, indeed, when I
thought his unceasingly agitated mind was labouring with some
oppressive secret, to divulge which he struggled for the
necessary courage. At times, again, I was obliged to resolve all
into the mere inexplicable vagaries of madness, for I beheld him
gazing upon vacancy for long hours, in an attitude of the
profoundest attention, as if listening to some imaginary
sound. It was no wonder that his condition terrified--that it
infected me. I felt creeping upon me, by slow yet certain
degrees, the wild influences of his own fantastic yet impressive
superstitions.
It was, especially, upon retiring to bed late in the night
of the seventh or eighth day after the placing of the lady
Madeline within the donjon, that I experienced the full power of
such feelings. Sleep came not near my couch--while the hours
waned and waned away. I struggled to reason off the nervousness
which had dominion over me. I endeavoured to believe that much,
if not all of what I felt, was due to the bewildering influence
of the gloomy furniture of the room--of the dark and tattered
draperies, which, tortured into motion by the breath of a rising
tempest, swayed fitfully to and fro upon the walls, and rustled
uneasily about the decorations of the bed. But my efforts were
fruitless. An irrepressible tremor gradually pervaded my frame;
and, at length, there sat upon my very heart an incubus of
utterly causeless alarm. Shaking this off with a gasp and a
struggle, I uplifted myself upon the pillows, and, peering
earnestly within the intense darkness of the chamber, hearkened--I
know not why, except that an instinctive spirit prompted me--to
certain low and indefinite sounds which came, through the pauses
of the storm, at long intervals, I knew not whence. Overpowered
by an intense sentiment of horror, unaccountable yet unendurable,
I threw on my clothes with haste (for I felt that I should sleep
no more during the night,) and endeavoured to arouse myself from
the pitiable condition into which I had fallen, by pacing rapidly
to and fro through the apartment.
I had taken but few turns in this manner, when a light step
on an adjoining staircase arrested my attention. I presently
recognized it as that of Usher. In an instant afterwards he
rapped, with a gentle touch, at my door, and entered, bearing a
lamp. His countenance was, as usual, cadaverously wan--but,
moreover, there was a species of mad hilarity in his eyes--an
evidently restrained hysteria in his whole demeanour. His
air appalled me--but anything was preferable to the solitude
which I had so long endured, and I even welcomed his presence as
a relief.
"And you have not seen it?" he said abruptly, after having
stared about him for some moments in silence--"you have
not then seen it?--but, stay! you shall." Thus speaking, and
having carefully shaded his lamp, he hurried to one of the
casements, and threw it freely open to the storm.
The impetuous fury of the entering gust nearly lifted us
from our feet. It was, indeed, a tempestuous yet sternly
beautiful night, and one wildly singular in its terror and its
beauty. A whirlwind had apparently collected its force in our
vicinity; for there were frequent and violent alterations in the
direction of the wind; and the exceeding density of the clouds
(which hung so low as to press upon the turrets of the house) did
not prevent our perceiving the lifelike velocity with which they
flew careering from all points against each other, without
passing away into the distance. I say that even their exceeding
density did not prevent our perceiving this--yet we had no
glimpse of the moon or stars--nor was there any flashing forth of
the lightning. But the under surfaces of the huge masses of
agitated vapor, as well as all terrestrial objects immediately
around us, were glowing in the unnatural light of a faintly
luminous and distinctly visible gaseous exhalation which hung
about and enshrouded the mansion.
"You must not--you shall not behold this!" said I,
shudderingly, to Usher, as I led him, with a gentle violence,
from the window to a seat. "These appearances, which bewilder
you, are merely electrical phenomena not uncommon--or it may be
that they have their ghastly origin in the rank miasma of the
tarn. Let us close this casement;--the air is chilling and
dangerous to your frame. Here is one of your favourite romances.
I will read, and you shall listen;--and so we will pass away this
terrible night together."
The antique volume which I had taken up was the "Mad
Trist" of Sir Launcelot Canning; but I had called it a favourite
of Usher's more in sad jest than in earnest; for, in truth, there
is little in its uncouth and unimaginative prolixity which could
have had interest for the lofty and spiritual ideality of my
friend. It was, however, the only book immediately at hand; and
I indulged a vague hope that the excitement which now agitated
the hypochondriac, might find relief (for the history of mental
disorder is full of similar anomalies) even in the extremeness of
the folly which I should read. Could I have judged, indeed, by
the wild overstrained air of vivacity with which he
hearkened, or apparently hearkened, to the words of the tale, I
might well have congratulated myself upon the success of my
design.
I had arrived at that well-known portion of the story where
Ethelred, the hero of the Trist, having sought in vain for
peaceable admission into the dwelling of the hermit, proceeds to
make good an entrance by force. Here, it will be remembered, the
words of the narrative run thus:
"And Ethelred, who was by nature of a doughty heart, and who
was now mighty withal, on account of the powerfulness of the wine
which he had drunken, waited no longer to hold parley with the
hermit, who, in sooth, was of an obstinate and maliceful turn,
but, feeling the rain upon his shoulders, and fearing the rising
of the tempest, uplifted his mace outright, and, with blows, made
quickly room in the plankings of the door for his gauntleted
hand; and now pulling therewith sturdily, he so cracked, and
ripped, and tore all asunder, that the noise of the dry and
hollow-sounding wood alarmed and reverberated throughout the
forest."
At the termination of this sentence I started, and for a
moment, paused; for it appeared to me (although I at once
concluded that my excited fancy had deceived me)--it appeared to
me that, from some very remote portion of the mansion, there
came, indistinctly, to my ears, what might have been, in its
exact similarity of character, the echo (but a stifled and dull
one certainly) of the very cracking and ripping sound which Sir
Launcelot had so particularly described. It was, beyond doubt,
the coincidence alone which had arrested my attention; for, amid
the rattling of the sashes of the casements, and the ordinary
commingled noises of the still increasing storm, the sound, in
itself, had nothing, surely, which should have interested or
disturbed me. I continued the story:
"But the good champion Ethelred, now entering within the
door, was sore enraged and amazed to perceive no signal of the
maliceful hermit; but, in the stead thereof, a dragon of a scaly
and prodigious demeanour, and of a fiery tongue, which sat in
guard before a palace of gold, with a floor of silver; and upon
the wall there hung a shield of shining brass with this legend
enwritten--
Who entereth herein, a conquerer hath bin;
Who slayeth the dragon, the shield he shall win;
and Ethelred uplifted his mace, and struck upon the head of the
dragon, which fell before him, and gave up his pesty breath, with
a shriek so horrid and harsh, and withal so piercing, that
Ethelred had fain to close his ears with his hands against the
dreadful noise of it, the like whereof was never before heard."
Here again I paused abruptly, and now with a feeling of wild
amazement--for there could be no doubt whatever that, in this
instance, I did actually hear (although from what direction it
proceeded I found it impossible to say) a low and apparently
distant, but harsh, protracted, and most unusual screaming or
grating sound--the exact counterpart of what my fancy had already
conjured up for the dragon's unnatural shriek as described by the
romancer.
Oppressed, as I certainly was, upon the occurrence of the
second and most extraordinary coincidence, by a thousand
conflicting sensations, in which wonder and extreme terror were
predominant, I still retained sufficient presence of mind to
avoid exciting, by any observation, the sensitive nervousness of
my companion. I was by no means certain that he had noticed the
sounds in question; although, assuredly, a strange alteration
had, during the last few minutes, taken place in his demeanour.
From a position fronting my own, he had gradually brought round
his chair, so as to sit with his face to the door of the chamber;
and thus I could but partially perceive his features, although I
saw that his lips trembled as if he were murmuring inaudibly.
His head had dropped upon his breast--yet I knew that he was not
asleep, from the wide and rigid opening of the eye as I caught a
glance of it in profile. The motion of his body, too, was at
variance with this idea--for he rocked from side to side with a
gentle yet constant and uniform sway. Having rapidly taken
notice of all this, I resumed the narrative of Sir Launcelot,
which thus proceeded:
"And now, the champion, having escaped from the terrible
fury of the dragon, bethinking himself of the brazen shield, and
of the breaking up of the enchantment which was upon it, removed
the carcass from out of the way before him, and approached
valorously over the silver pavement of the castle to where
the shield was upon the wall; which in sooth tarried not for his
full coming, but fell down at his feet upon the silver floor,
with a mighty great and terrible ringing sound."
No sooner had these syllables passed my lips, than--as if a
shield of brass had indeed, at the moment, fallen heavily upon a
floor of silver--I became aware of a distinct, hollow, metallic,
and clangorous, yet apparently muffled reverberation. Completely
unnerved, I leaped to my feet; but the measured rocking movement
of Usher was undisturbed. I rushed to the chair in which he sat.
His eyes were bent fixedly before him, and throughout his whole
countenance there reigned a stony rigidity. But, as I placed my
hand upon his shoulder, there came a strong shudder over his
whole person; a sickly smile quivered about his lips; and I saw
that he spoke in a low, hurried, and gibbering murmur, as if
unconscious of my presence. Bending closely over him, I at
length drank in the hideous import of his words.
"Not hear it?--yes, I hear it, and have heard it.
Long--long--long--many minutes, many hours, many days, have I heard
it--yet I dared not--oh, pity me, miserable wretch that I am!--I
dared not--I dared not speak! We have put her living in
the tomb! Said I not that my senses were acute? I now tell
you that I heard her first feeble movements in the hollow coffin.
I heard them--many, many days ago--yet I dared not--I dared
not speak! And now--to-night--Ethelred--ha! ha!--the breaking
of the hermit's door, and the death-cry of the dragon, and the
clangour of the shield!--say, rather, the rending of her coffin,
and the grating of the iron hinges of her prison, and her
struggles within the coppered archway of the vault! Oh whither
shall I fly? Will she not be here anon? Is she not hurrying to
upbraid me for my haste? Have I not heard her footsteps on the
stair? Do I not distinguish that heavy and horrible beating of
her heart? Madman!" here he sprang furiously to his feet, and
shrieked out his syllables, as if in the effort he were giving up
his soul--"Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the
door!"
As if in the superhuman energy of his utterance there had
been found the potency of a spell--the huge antique panels to
which the speaker pointed, threw slowly back, upon the instant,
their ponderous and ebony jaws. It was the work of the
rushing gust--but then without those doors there DID stand the
lofty and enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline of Usher. There
was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter
struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame. For a moment
she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold,--then,
with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person
of her brother, and in her violent and now final death-agonies,
bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he
had anticipated.
From that chamber, and from that mansion, I fled aghast.
The storm was still abroad in all its wrath as I found myself
crossing the old causeway. Suddenly there shot along the path a
wild light, and I turned to see whence a gleam so unusual could
have issued; for the vast house and its shadows were alone behind
me. The radiance was that of the full, setting, and blood-red
moon which now shone vividly through that once barely-discernible
fissure of which I have before spoken as extending from the roof
of the building, in a zigzag direction, to the base. While I
gazed, this fissure rapidly widened--there came a fierce breath
of the whirlwind--the entire orb of the satellite burst at once
upon my sight--my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing
asunder--there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the
voice of a thousand waters--and the deep and dank tarn at my feet
closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the "House of
Usher".
* Watson, Dr Percival, Spallanzani, and especially the Bishop of Landaff. |
10,240 |
Produced by Martin Ward
Weymouth New Testament in Modern Speech, 2 Corinthians
Third Edition 1913
R. F. Weymouth
Book 47 2 Corinthians
001:001 Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God--
and our brother Timothy: To the Church of God in Corinth,
with all God's people throughout Greece.
001:002 May grace and peace be granted to you from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ.
001:003 Heartfelt thanks be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ--
the Father who is full of compassion and the God who
gives all comfort.
001:004 He comforts us in our every affliction so that we may be able
to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction by means
of the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
001:005 For just as we have more than our share of suffering for
the Christ, so also through the Christ we have more than our
share of comfort.
001:006 But if, on the one hand, we are enduring affliction, it is
for your comfort and salvation; and if, on the other hand,
we are receiving comfort, it is for your comfort which is
produced within you through your patient fortitude under
the same sufferings as those which we also are enduring.
001:007 And our hope for you is stedfast; for we know that as you are
partners with us in the sufferings, so you are also partners
in the comfort.
001:008 For as for our troubles which came upon us in the province of Asia,
we would have you know, brethren, that we were exceedingly
weighed down, and felt overwhelmed, so that we renounced
all hope even of life.
001:009 Nay, we had, as we still have, the sentence of death within
our own selves, in order that our confidence may repose,
not on ourselves, but on God who raised the dead to life.
001:010 He it is who rescued us from so imminent a death, and will
do so again; and we have a firm hope in Him that He will
also rescue us in all the future,
001:011 while you on your part lend us your aid in entreaty for us,
so that from many lips thanksgivings may rise on our behalf
for the boon granted to us at the intercession of many.
001:012 For the reason for our boasting is this--the testimony of our own
conscience that it was in holiness and with pure motives before God,
and in reliance not on worldly wisdom but on the gracious
help of God, that we have conducted ourselves in the world,
and above all in our relations with you.
001:013 For we are writing to you nothing different from what we have
written before, or from what indeed you already recognize
as truth and will, I trust, recognize as such to the very end;
001:014 just as some few of you have recognized us as your reason
for boasting, even as you will be ours, on the day of
Jesus our Lord.
001:015 It was because I entertained this confidence that I intended
to visit you before going elsewhere--so that you might receive
a twofold proof of God's favour--
001:016 and to pass by way of Corinth into Macedonia. Then my plan
was to return from Macedonia to you, and be helped forward
by you to Judaea.
001:017 Did I display any vacillation or caprice in this?
Or the purposes which I form--do I form them on worldly principles,
now crying "Yes, yes," and now "No, no"?
001:018 As certainly as God is faithful, our language to you is not now "Yes"
and now "No."
001:019 For Jesus Christ the Son of God--He who was proclaimed
among you by us, that is by Silas and Timothy and myself--
did not show Himself a waverer between "Yes" and "No."
But it was and always is "Yes" with Him.
001:020 For all the promises of God, whatever their number, have their
confirmation in Him; and for this reason through Him also our "Amen"
acknowledges their truth and promotes the glory of God
through our faith.
001:021 But He who is making us as well as you stedfast through union
with the Anointed One, and has anointed us, is God,
001:022 and He has also set His seal upon us, and has put His Spirit
into our hearts as a pledge and foretaste of future blessing.
001:023 But as for me, as my soul shall answer for it, I appeal to God
as my witness, that it was to spare you pain that I gave up
my visit to Corinth.
001:024 Not that we want to lord it over you in respect of your faith--
we do, however, desire to help your joy--for in the matter
of your faith you are standing firm.
002:001 But, so far as I am concerned, I have resolved not to have
a painful visit the next time I come to see you.
002:002 For if I of all men give you pain, who then is there to gladden
my heart, but the very persons to whom I give pain?
002:003 And I write this to you in order that when I come I may
not receive pain from those who ought to give me joy,
confident as I am as to all of you that my joy is the joy
of you all.
002:004 For with many tears I write to you, and in deep suffering
and depression of spirit, not in order to grieve you,
but in the hope of showing you how brimful my heart is with
love for you.
002:005 Now if any one has caused sorrow, it has been caused not so much
to me, as in some degree--for I have no wish to exaggerate--
to all of you.
002:006 In the case of such a person the punishment which was inflicted
by the majority of you is enough.
002:007 So that you may now take the opposite course, and forgive him
rather and comfort him, for fear he should perhaps be driven
to despair by his excess of grief.
002:008 I beg you therefore fully to reinstate him in your love.
002:009 For in writing to you I have also this object in view--
to discover by experience whether you are prepared to be
obedient in every respect.
002:010 When you forgive a man an offence I also forgive it;
for in fact what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything,
has always been for your sakes in the presence of Christ,
002:011 for fear Satan should gain an advantage over us.
For we are not ignorant of his devices.
002:012 Now when I came into the Troad to spread there the Good News
about the Christ, even though in the Lord's providence a door
stood open before me,
002:013 yet, obtaining no relief for my spirit because I did not find our
brother Titus, I bade them farewell and went on into Macedonia.
002:014 But to God be the thanks who in Christ ever heads our
triumphal procession, and by our hands waves in every place
that sweet incense, the knowledge of Him.
002:015 For we are a fragrance of Christ grateful to God in those whom
He is saving and in those who are perishing;
002:016 to the last-named an odor of death predictive of death,
and to the others an odor of life predictive of life.
And for such service as this who is competent?
002:017 We are; for, unlike most teachers, we are not fraudulent
hucksters of God's Message; but with transparent motives,
as commissioned by God, in God's presence and in communion
with Christ, so we speak.
003:001 Do you say that this is self-recommendation once more?
Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you
or from you?
003:002 Our letter of recommendation is yourselves--a letter written
on our hearts and everywhere known and read.
003:003 For all can see that you are a letter of Christ entrusted
to our care, and written not with ink, but with the Spirit
of the ever-living God--and not on tablets of stone,
but on human hearts as tablets.
003:004 Such is the confidence which we have through Christ in the
presence of God;
003:005 not that of ourselves we are competent to decide anything
by our own reasonings, but our competency comes from God.
003:006 It is He also who has made us competent to serve Him in connexion
with a new Covenant, which is not a written code but a Spirit;
for the written code inflicts death, but the Spirit gives Life.
003:007 If, however, the service that proclaims death--its code
being engraved in writing upon stones--came with glory,
so that the children of Israel could not look steadily
on the face of Moses because of the brightness of his face--
a vanishing brightness;
003:008 will not the service of the Spirit be far more glorious?
003:009 For if the service which pronounces doom had glory, far more
glorious still is the service which tells of righteousness.
003:010 For, in fact, that which was once resplendent in glory has no
glory at all in this respect, that it pales before the glory
which surpasses it.
003:011 For if that which was to be abolished came with glory,
much more is that which is permanent arrayed in glory.
003:012 Therefore, cherishing a hope like this, we speak without reserve,
and we do not imitate Moses,
003:013 who used to throw a veil over his face to hide from the gaze
of the children of Israel the passing away of what
was but transitory.
003:014 Nay, their minds were made dull; for to this very day during
the reading of the book of the ancient Covenant, the same
veil remains unlifted, because it is only in Christ that it
is to be abolished.
003:015 Yes, to this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies
upon their hearts.
003:016 But whenever the heart of the nation shall have returned
to the Lord, the veil will be withdrawn.
003:017 Now by "the Lord" is meant the Spirit; and where the Spirit
of the Lord is, freedom is enjoyed.
003:018 And all of us, with unveiled faces, reflecting like bright
mirrors the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into
the same likeness, from one degree of radiant holiness to another,
even as derived from the Lord the Spirit.
004:001 Therefore, being engaged in this service and being mindful
of the mercy which has been shown us, we are not cowards.
004:002 Nay, we have renounced the secrecy which marks a feeling of shame.
We practice no cunning tricks, nor do we adulterate God's Message.
But by a full clear statement of the truth we strive to commend
ourselves in the presence of God to every human conscience.
004:003 If, however, the meaning of our Good News has been veiled,
the veil has been on the hearts of those who are on the
way to perdition,
004:004 in whom the god of this present age has blinded their unbelieving
minds so as to shut out the sunshine of the Good News
of the glory of the Christ, who is the image of God.
004:005 (For we do not proclaim ourselves, but we proclaim Christ Jesus
as Lord, and ourselves as your bondservants for the sake of Jesus.)
004:006 For God who said, "Out of darkness let light shine," is He who
has shone in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge
of God's glory, which is radiant on the face of Christ.
004:007 But we have this treasure in a fragile vase of clay, in order
that the surpassing greatness of the power may be seen
to belong to God, and not to originate in us.
004:008 We are hard pressed, yet never in absolute distress;
perplexed, yet never utterly baffled;
004:009 pursued, yet never left unsuccoured; struck to the ground,
yet never slain;
004:010 always, wherever we go, carrying with us in our bodies
the putting to death of Jesus, so that in our bodies it may
also be clearly shown that Jesus lives.
004:011 For we, alive though we are, are continually surrendering
ourselves to death for the sake of Jesus, so that in this mortal
nature of ours it may also be clearly shown that Jesus lives.
004:012 Thus we are constantly dying, while you are in full
enjoyment of Life.
004:013 But possessing the same Spirit of faith as he who wrote,
"I believed, and therefore I have spoken," we also believe,
and therefore we speak.
004:014 For we know that He who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead
will raise us also to be with Jesus, and will cause both us
and you to stand in His own presence.
004:015 For everything is for your sakes, in order that grace,
being more richly bestowed because of the thanksgivings of the
increased number, may more and more promote the glory of God.
004:016 Therefore we are not cowards. Nay, even though our outward
man is wasting away, yet our inward man is being renewed
day by day.
004:017 For this our light and transitory burden of suffering is
achieving for us a preponderating, yes, a vastly preponderating,
and eternal weight of glory;
004:018 while we look not at things seen, but things unseen;
for things seen are temporary, but things unseen are eternal.
005:001 For we know that if this poor tent, our earthly house,
is taken down, we have in Heaven a building which God has provided,
a house not built by human hands, but eternal.
005:002 For in this one we sigh, because we long to put on over it
our dwelling which comes from Heaven--
005:003 if indeed having really put on a robe we shall not be found
to be unclothed.
005:004 Yes, we who are in this tent certainly do sigh under our burdens,
for we do not wish to lay aside that with which we are
now clothed, but to put on more, so that our mortality may
be absorbed in Life.
005:005 And He who formed us with this very end in view is God, who has
given us His Spirit as a pledge and foretaste of that bliss.
005:006 We have therefore a cheerful confidence. We know that while we
are at home in the body we are banished from the Lord;
005:007 for we are living a life of faith, and not one of sight.
005:008 So we have a cheerful confidence, and we anticipate with
greater delight being banished from the body and going home
to the Lord.
005:009 And for this reason also we make it our ambition, whether at
home or in exile, to please Him perfectly.
005:010 For we must all of us appear before Christ's judgement-seat
in our true characters, in order that each may then receive
an award for his actions in this life, in accordance with what
he has done, whether it be good or whether it be worthless.
005:011 Therefore, because we realize how greatly the Lord is to be feared,
we are endeavouring to win men over, and God recognizes
what our motives are, and I hope that you, in your hearts,
recognize them too.
005:012 We are not again commending ourselves to your favour,
but are furnishing you with a ground of boasting on our behalf,
so that you may have a reply ready for those with whom
superficial appearances are everything and sincerity of heart
counts for nothing.
005:013 For if we have been beside ourselves, it has been for God's glory;
or if we are now in our right senses, it is in order to be
of service to you.
005:014 For the love of Christ overmasters us, the conclusion at which
we have arrived being this--that One having died for all,
His death was their death,
005:015 and that He died for all in order that the living may no longer
live to themselves, but to Him who died for them and rose again.
005:016 Therefore for the future we know no one simply as a man.
Even if we have known Christ as a man, yet now we do so no longer.
005:017 So that if any one is in Christ, he is a new creature:
the old state of things has passed away; a new state of things
has come into existence.
005:018 And all this is from God, who has reconciled us to Himself
through Christ, and has appointed us to serve in the
ministry of reconciliation.
005:019 We are to tell how God was in Christ reconciling the world
to Himself, not charging men's transgressions to their account,
and that He has entrusted to us the Message of this reconciliation.
005:020 On Christ's behalf therefore we come as ambassadors, God, as it were,
making entreaty through our lips: we, on Christ's behalf,
beseech men to be reconciled to God.
005:021 He has made Him who knew nothing of sin to be sin for us,
in order that in Him we may become the righteousness of God.
006:001 And you also we, as God's fellow workers, entreat not to be
found to have received His grace to no purpose.
006:002 For He says, "At a time of welcome I have listened to you,
and on a day of salvation I have succoured you."
Now is the time of loving welcome! Now is the day of salvation!
006:003 We endeavour to give people no cause for stumbling in anything,
lest the work we are doing should fall into discredit.
006:004 On the contrary, as God's servants, we seek their full approval--
by unwearied endurance, by afflictions, by distress, by helplessness;
006:005 by floggings, by imprisonments; by facing riots, by toil,
by sleepless watching, by hunger and thirst;
006:006 by purity of life, by knowledge, by patience, by kindness,
by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love;
006:007 by the proclamation of the truth, by the power of God;
by the weapons of righteousness, wielded in both hands;
006:008 through honour and ignominy, through calumny and praise.
We are looked upon as impostors and yet are true men;
006:009 as obscure persons, and yet are well known; as on the point of death,
and yet, strange to tell, we live; as under God's discipline,
and yet we are not deprived of life;
006:010 as sad, but we are always joyful; as poor, but we bestow
wealth on many; as having nothing, and yet we securely
possess all things.
006:011 O Corinthians, our lips are unsealed to you:
our heart is expanded.
006:012 There is no narrowness in our love to you: the narrowness
is in your own feelings.
006:013 And in just requital--I speak as to my children--let your
hearts expand also.
006:014 Do not come into close association with unbelievers,
like oxen yoked with asses. For what is there in common
between righteousness and lawlessness? Or what partnership
has light with darkness?
006:015 Where can harmony between Christ and Belial be found?
Or what participation has a believer with an unbeliever?
006:016 And what compact has the Temple of God with idols?
For *we* are the Temple of the ever-living God; as God has said,
"I will dwell among them, and walk about among them;
and will be their God, and it is they who shall be My people."
006:017 Therefore, "`Come out from among them and separate yourselves,'
says the Lord, `and touch nothing impure; and I will receive you,
and will be a Father to you,
006:018 and you shall be My sons and daughters,' says the Lord
the Ruler of all."
007:001 Having therefore these promises, beloved friends, let us
purify ourselves from all defilement of body and of spirit,
and secure perfect holiness through the fear of God.
007:002 Make room for us in your hearts. There is not one of you
whom we have wronged, not one to whom we have done harm,
not one over whom we have gained any selfish advantage.
007:003 I do not say this to imply blame, for, as I have already said,
you have such a place in our hearts that we would die with you
or live with you.
007:004 I have great confidence in you: very loudly do I boast of you.
I am filled with comfort: my heart overflows with joy amid
all our affliction.
007:005 For even after our arrival in Macedonia we could get no relief
such as human nature craves. We were greatly harassed;
there were conflicts without and fears within.
007:006 But He who comforts the depressed--even God--comforted us
by the coming of Titus, and not by his coming only,
007:007 but also by the fact that he had felt comforted on your account,
and by the report which he brought of your eager affection,
of your grief, and of your jealousy on my behalf, so that I
rejoiced more than ever.
007:008 For if I gave you pain by that letter, I do not regret it,
though I did regret it then. I see that that letter,
even though for a time it gave you pain, had a salutary effect.
007:009 Now I rejoice, not in your grief, but because the grief
led to repentance; for you sorrowed with a godly sorrow,
which prevented you from receiving injury from us in any respect.
007:010 For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation,
a repentance not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world
finally produces death.
007:011 For mark the effects of this very thing--your having sorrowed
with a godly sorrow--what earnestness it has called forth in you,
what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm,
what longing affection, what jealousy, what meting out of justice!
You have completely wiped away reproach from yourselves
in the matter.
007:012 Therefore, though I wrote to you, it was not to punish the offender,
nor to secure justice for him who had suffered the wrong,
but it was chiefly in order that your earnest feeling on our
behalf might become manifest to yourselves in the sight of God.
007:013 For this reason we feel comforted; and--in addition to this
our comfort--we have been filled with all the deeper joy
at Titus's joy, because his spirit has been set at rest
by you all.
007:014 For however I may have boasted to him about you, I have no
reason to feel ashamed; but as we have in all respects spoken
the truth to you, so also our boasting to Titus about you
has turned out to be the truth.
007:015 And his strong and tender affection is all the more drawn
out towards you when he recalls to mind the obedience which
all of you manifested by the timidity and nervous anxiety
with which you welcomed him.
007:016 I rejoice that I have absolute confidence in you.
008:001 But we desire to let you know, brethren, of the grace of God
which has been bestowed on the Churches of Macedonia;
008:002 how, while passing through great trouble, their boundless
joy even amid their deep poverty has overflowed to increase
their generous liberality.
008:003 For I can testify that to the utmost of their power,
and even beyond their power, they have of their own free
will given help.
008:004 With earnest entreaty they begged from us the favour of
being allowed to share in the service now being rendered
to God's people.
008:005 They not only did this, as we had expected, but first of all in
obedience to God's will they gave their own selves to the Lord
and to us.
008:006 This led us to urge Titus that, as he had previously been
the one who commenced the work, so he should now go and complete
among you this act of beneficence also.
008:007 Yes, just as you are already very rich in faith, readiness of speech,
knowledge, unwearied zeal, and in the love that is in you,
implanted by us, see to it that this grace of liberal giving
also flourishes in you.
008:008 I am not saying this by way of command, but to test by the standard
of other men's earnestness the genuineness of your love also.
008:009 For you know the condescending goodness of our Lord Jesus Christ--
how for your sakes He became poor, though He was rich,
in order that you through His poverty might grow rich.
008:010 But in this matter I give you an opinion; for my doing this helps
forward your own intentions, seeing that not only have you
begun operations, but a year ago you already had the desire
to do so.
008:011 And now complete the doing also, in order that, just as there
was then the eagerness in desiring, there may now be
the accomplishment in proportion to your means.
008:012 For, assuming the earnest willingness, the gift is acceptable
according to whatever a man has, and not according to what
he has not.
008:013 I do not urge you to give in order that others may have relief
while you are unduly pressed,
008:014 but that, by equalization of burdens, your superfluity
having in the present emergency supplied their deficiency,
their superfluity may in turn be a supply for your deficiency
later on, so that there may be equalization of burdens.
008:015 Even as it is written, "He who gathered much had not too much,
and he who gathered little had not too little."
008:016 But thanks be to God that He inspires the heart of Titus
with the same deep interest in you;
008:017 for Titus welcomed our request, and, being thoroughly in earnest,
comes to you of his own free will.
008:018 And we send with him the brother whose praises for his
earnestness in proclaiming the Good News are heard throughout
all the Churches.
008:019 And more than that, he is the one who was chosen by the vote
of the Churches to travel with us, sharing our commission
in the administration of this generous gift to promote
the Lord's glory and gratify our own strong desire.
008:020 For against one thing we are on our guard--I mean against blame
being thrown upon us in respect to these large and liberal
contributions which are under our charge.
008:021 For we seek not only God's approval of our integrity,
but man's also.
008:022 And we send with them our brother, of whose zeal we have had
frequent proof in many matters, and who is now more zealous
than ever through the strong confidence which he has in you.
008:023 As for Titus, remember that he is a partner with me, and is
my comrade in my labours for you. And as for our brethren,
remember that they are delegates from the Churches, and are
men in whom Christ is glorified.
008:024 Exhibit therefore to the Churches a proof of your love,
and a justification of our boasting to these brethren about you.
009:001 As to the services which are being rendered to God's people,
it is really unnecessary for me to write to you.
009:002 For I know your earnest willingness, on account of which I
habitually boast of you to the Macedonians, pointing out
to them that for a whole year you in Greece have been ready;
and the greater number of them have been spurred on
by your ardour.
009:003 Still I send the brethren in order that in this matter our
boast about you may not turn out to have been an idle one;
so that, as I have said, you may be ready;
009:004 for fear that, if any Macedonians come with me and find
you unprepared, we--not to say you yourselves--should be put
to the blush in respect to this confidence.
009:005 I have thought it absolutely necessary therefore to request
these brethren to visit you before I myself come, and to make
sure beforehand that the gift of love which you have already
promised may be ready as a gift of love, and may not seem
to have been something which I have extorted from you.
009:006 But do not forget that he who sows with a niggardly hand will
also reap a niggardly crop, and that he who sows bountifully
will also reap bountifully.
009:007 Let each contribute what he has decided upon in his own mind,
and not do it reluctantly or under compulsion.
"It is a cheerful giver that God loves."
009:008 And God is able to bestow every blessing on you in abundance,
so that richly enjoying all sufficiency at all times,
you may have ample means for all good works.
009:009 As it is written, "He has scattered abroad, he has given
to the poor, his almsgiving remains for ever."
009:010 And God who continually supplies seed for the sower and bread
for eating, will supply you with seed and multiply it,
and will cause your almsgiving to yield a plentiful harvest.
009:011 May you be abundantly enriched so as to show all liberality,
such as through our instrumentality brings thanksgiving to God.
009:012 For the service rendered in this sacred gift not only helps
to relieve the wants of God's people, but it is also rich
in its results and awakens a chorus of thanksgiving to God.
009:013 For, by the practical proof of it which you exhibit in
this service, you cause God to be extolled for your fidelity
to your professed adherence to the Good News of the Christ,
and for the liberality of your contributions for them and
for all who are in need,
009:014 while they themselves also in supplications on your behalf
pour out their longing love towards you because of God's
surpassing grace which is resting upon you.
009:015 Thanks be to God for His unspeakably precious gift!
010:001 But as for me Paul, I entreat you by the gentleness and
self-forgetfulness of Christ--I who when among you have not
an imposing personal presence, but when absent am fearlessly
outspoken in dealing with you.
010:002 I beseech you not to compel me when present to make a bold
display of the confidence with which I reckon I shall show
my `courage' against some who reckon that we are guided
by worldly principles.
010:003 For, though we are still living in the world, it is no worldly
warfare that we are waging.
010:004 The weapons with which we fight are not human weapons,
but are mighty for God in overthrowing strong fortresses.
010:005 For we overthrow arrogant `reckonings,' and every stronghold
that towers high in defiance of the knowledge of God,
and we carry off every thought as if into slavery--
into subjection to Christ;
010:006 while we hold ourselves in readiness to punish every act
of disobedience, as soon as ever you as a Church have fully
shown your obedience.
010:007 Is it outward appearances you look to? If any man is confident
as regards himself that he specially belongs to Christ,
let him consider again and reflect that just as he belongs
to Christ, so also do we.
010:008 If, however, I were to boast more loudly of our Apostolic authority,
which the Lord has given us that we may build you up,
not pull you down, I should have no reason to feel ashamed.
010:009 Let it not seem as if I wanted to frighten you by my letters.
010:010 For they say "His letters are authoritative and forcible,
but his personal presence is unimpressive, and as for eloquence,
he has none."
010:011 Let such people take this into their reckoning, that whatever
we are in word by our letters when absent, the same are we
also in act when present.
010:012 For we have not the `courage' to rank ourselves among,
or compare ourselves with, certain persons distinguished
by their self-commendation. Yet they are not wise,
measuring themselves, as they do, by one another and comparing
themselves with one another.
010:013 We, however, will not exceed due limits in our boasting,
but will keep within the limits of the sphere which God has
assigned to us as a limit, which reaches even to you.
010:014 For there is no undue stretch of authority on our part,
as though it did not extend to you. We pressed on even
to Corinth, and were the first to proclaim to you the Good News
of the Christ.
010:015 We do not exceed our due limits, and take credit for
other men's labours; but we entertain the hope that,
as your faith grows, we shall gain promotion among you--
still keeping within our own sphere--promotion to a larger
field of labour,
010:016 and shall tell the Good News in the districts beyond you,
not boasting in another man's sphere about work already
done by him.
010:017 But "whoever boasts, let his boast be in the Lord."
010:018 For it is not the man that commends himself who is really approved,
but he whom the Lord commends.
011:001 I wish you could have borne with a little foolish boasting
on my part. Nay, do bear with me.
011:002 I am jealous over you with God's own jealousy. For I have
betrothed you to Christ to present you to Him like a faithful
bride to her one husband.
011:003 But I am afraid that, as the serpent in his craftiness deceived Eve,
so your minds may be led astray from their single-heartedness
and their fidelity to Christ.
011:004 If indeed some visitor is proclaiming among you another Jesus
whom we did not proclaim, or if you are receiving a Spirit
different from the One you have already received or a Good News
different from that which you have already welcomed,
your toleration is admirable!
011:005 Why, I reckon myself in no respect inferior to those
superlatively great Apostles.
011:006 And if in the matter of speech I am no orator, yet in knowledge
I am not deficient. Nay, we have in every way made that fully
evident to you.
011:007 Is it a sin that I abased myself in order for you to be exalted,
in that I proclaimed God's Good News to you without fee or reward?
011:008 Other Churches I robbed, receiving pay from them in order
to do you service.
011:009 And when I was with you and my resources failed, there was
no one to whom I became a burden--for the brethren
when they came from Macedonia fully supplied my wants--
and I kept myself from being in the least a burden to you,
and will do so still.
011:010 Christ knows that it is true when I say that I will not be
stopped from boasting of this anywhere in Greece.
011:011 And why? Because I do not love you? God knows that I do.
011:012 But I will persist in the same line of conduct in order
to cut the ground from under the feet of those who desire
an opportunity of getting themselves recognized as being
on a level with us in the matters about which they boast.
011:013 For men of this stamp are sham apostles, dishonest workmen,
assuming the garb of Apostles of Christ.
011:014 And no wonder. Satan, their master, can disguise himself
as an angel of light.
011:015 It is therefore no great thing for his servants also
to disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.
Their end will be in accordance with their actions.
011:016 To return to what I was saying. Let no one suppose that I
am foolish. Or if you must, at any rate make allowance
for me as being foolish, in order that I, as well as they,
may boast a little.
011:017 What I am now saying, I do not say by the Lord's command,
but as a fool in his folly might, in this reckless boasting.
011:018 Since many boast for merely human reasons, I too will boast.
011:019 Wise as you yourselves are, you find pleasure in tolerating fools.
011:020 For you tolerate it, if any one enslaves you, lives at your expense,
makes off with your property, gives himself airs, or strikes
you on the face.
011:021 I use the language of self-disparagement, as though I
were admitting our own feebleness. Yet for whatever
reason any one is `courageous'--I speak in mere folly--
I also am courageous.
011:022 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are
they descendants of Abraham? So am I.
011:023 Are they servants of Christ? (I speak as if I were out of my mind.)
Much more am I His servant; serving Him more thoroughly than they
by my labours, and more thoroughly also by my imprisonments,
by excessively cruel floggings, and with risk of life
many a time.
011:024 From the Jews I five times have received forty lashes all but one.
011:025 Three times I have been beaten with Roman rods, once I have
been stoned, three times I have been shipwrecked, once for full
four and twenty hours I was floating on the open sea.
011:026 I have served Him by frequent travelling, amid dangers
in crossing rivers, dangers from robbers; dangers from my
own countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles; dangers in the city,
dangers in the Desert, dangers by sea, dangers from spies
in our midst;
011:027 with labour and toil, with many a sleepless night,
in hunger and thirst, in frequent fastings, in cold,
and with insufficient clothing.
011:028 And besides other things, which I pass over, there is that
which presses on me daily--my anxiety for all the Churches.
011:029 Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is led astray into sin,
and I am not aflame with indignation?
011:030 If boast I must, it shall be of things which display my weakness.
011:031 The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ--He who is blessed
throughout the Ages--knows that I am speaking the truth.
011:032 In Damascus the governor under King Aretas kept guards at
the gates of the city in order to apprehend me,
011:033 but through an opening in the wall I was let down in a basket,
and so escaped his hands.
012:001 I am compelled to boast. It is not a profitable employment,
but I will proceed to visions and revelations granted me
by the Lord.
012:002 I know a Christian man who fourteen years ago--whether in
the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know;
God knows--was caught up (this man of whom I am speaking)
even to the highest Heaven.
012:003 And I know that this man--whether in the body or apart from
the body I do not know;
012:004 God knows--was caught up into Paradise and heard unspeakable
things which no human being is permitted to repeat.
012:005 Of such a one I will boast; but of myself I will not boast,
except in my weaknesses.
012:006 If however I should choose to boast, I should not be a fool
for so doing, for I should be speaking the truth.
But I forbear, lest any one should be led to estimate me
more highly than what his own eyes attest, or more highly
than what he hears from my lips.
012:007 And judging by the stupendous grandeur of the revelations--
therefore lest I should be over-elated there has been sent to me,
like the agony of impalement, Satan's angel dealing blow
after blow, lest I should be over-elated.
012:008 As for this, three times have I besought the Lord to rid
me of him;
012:009 but His reply has been, "My grace suffices for you,
for power matures in weakness." Most gladly therefore
will I boast of my infirmities rather than complain of them--
in order that Christ's power may overshadow me.
012:010 In fact I take pleasure in infirmities, in the bearing of insults,
in distress, in persecutions, in grievous difficulties--
for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.
012:011 It is foolish of me to write all this, but you have compelled
me to do so. Why, you ought to have been my vindicators;
for in no respect have I been inferior to these superlatively
great Apostles, even though in myself I am nothing.
012:012 The signs that characterize the true Apostle have been done
among you, accompanied by unwearied fortitude, and by tokens
and marvels and displays of power.
012:013 In what respect, therefore, have you been worse dealt with than
other Churches, except that I myself never hung as a dead
weight upon you? Forgive the injustice I thus did you!
012:014 See, I am now for the third time prepared to visit you, but I
will not be a dead weight to you. I desire not your money,
but yourselves; for children ought not to put by for their parents,
but parents for their children.
012:015 And as for me, most gladly will I spend all I have and be
utterly spent for your salvation.
012:016 If I love you so intensely, am I the less to be loved?
Be that as it may: I was not a burden to you.
But being by no means scrupulous, I entrapped you, they say!
012:017 Have I gained any selfish advantage over you through any one
of the messengers I have sent to you?
012:018 I begged Titus to visit you, and sent our other brother
with him. Did Titus gain any selfish advantage over you?
Were not he and I guided by one and the same Spirit, and did
we not walk in the same steps?
012:019 You are imagining, all this time, that we are making our
defense at your bar. In reality it is as in God's presence
and in communion with Christ that we speak; but, dear friends,
it is all with a view to your progress in goodness.
012:020 For I am afraid that perhaps when I come I may not find you to be
what I desire, and that you may find me to be what you do not desire;
that perhaps there may be contention, jealousy, bitter feeling,
party spirit, ill-natured talk, backbiting, undue eulogy, unrest;
012:021 and that upon re-visiting you I may be humbled by my God
in your presence, and may have to mourn over many whose
hearts still cling to their old sins, and who have not
repented of the impurity, fornication, and gross sensuality,
of which they have been guilty.
013:001 This intended visit of mine is my third visit to you.
"On the evidence of two or three witnesses every charge
shall be sustained."
013:002 Those who cling to their old sins, and indeed all of you,
I have forewarned and still forewarn (as I did on my second
visit when present, so I do now, though absent) that, when I
come again, I shall not spare you;
013:003 since you want a practical proof of the fact that Christ
speaks by my lips--He who is not feeble towards you,
but powerful among you.
013:004 For though it is true that He was crucified through weakness,
yet He now lives through the power of God. We also are weak,
sharing His weakness, but with Him we shall be full of life
to deal with you through the power of God.
013:005 Test yourselves to discover whether you are true believers:
put your own selves under examination. Or do you not know
that Jesus Christ is within you, unless you are insincere?
013:006 But I trust that you will recognize that we are not insincere.
013:007 And our prayer to God is that you may do nothing wrong;
not in order that our sincerity may be demonstrated,
but that you may do what is right, even though our sincerity
may seem to be doubtful.
013:008 For we have no power against the truth, but only for the furtherance
of the truth;
013:009 and it is a joy to us when we are powerless, but you are strong.
This we also pray for--the perfecting of your characters.
013:010 For this reason I write thus while absent, that when present I
may not have to act severely in the exercise of the authority
which the Lord has given me for building up, and not
for pulling down.
013:011 Finally, brethren, be joyful, secure perfection of character,
take courage, be of one mind, live in peace. And then God
who gives love and peace will be with you.
013:012 Salute one another with a holy kiss.
013:013 All God's people here send greetings to you.
013:014 May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God,
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Weymouth New Testament in Modern
Speech, 2 Corinthians, by R. F. |
10,240 |
Produced by Anthony J. Adam
MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE
By James Russell Lowell
ONE of the most delightful books in my father's library was White's
"Natural History of Selborne." For me it has rather gained in charm with
years. I used to read it without knowing the secret of the pleasure I
found in it, but as I grow older I begin to detect some of the simple
expedients of this natural magic. Open the book where you will, it takes
you out of doors. In our broiling July weather one can walk out with
this genially garrulous Fellow of Oriel and find refreshment instead
of fatigue. You have no trouble in keeping abreast of him as he ambles
along on his hobby-horse, now pointing to a pretty view, now stopping to
watch the motions of a bird or an insect, or to bag a specimen for the
Honorable Daines Barrington or Mr. Pennant. In simplicity of taste and
natural refinement he reminds one of Walton; in tenderness toward
what he would have called the brute creation, of Cowper. I do not know
whether his descriptions of scenery are good or not, but they have made
me familiar with his neighborhood. Since I first read him, I have walked
over some of his favorite haunts, but I still see them through his eyes
rather than by any recollection of actual and personal vision. The book
has also the delightfulness of absolute leisure. Mr. White seems never
to have had any harder work to do than to study the habits of his
feathered fellow-townsfolk, or to watch the ripening of his peaches on
the wall. His volumes are the journal of Adam in Paradise,
"Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade."
It is positive rest only to look into that garden of his. It is vastly
better than to
"See great Diocletian walk
In the Salonian garden's noble shade,"
for thither ambassadors intrude to bring with them the noises of Rome,
while here the world has no entrance. No rumor of the revolt of the
American Colonies seems to have reached him. "The natural term of an
hog's life" has more interest for him than that of an empire. Burgoyne
may surrender and welcome; of what consequence is _that_ compared with
the fact that we can explain the odd tumbling of rooks in the air
by their turning over "to scratch themselves with one claw"? All the
couriers in Europe spurring rowel-deep make no stir in Mr. White's
little Chartreuse;(1) but the arrival of the house-martin a day earlier
or later than last year is a piece of news worth sending express to all
his correspondents.
(1) _La Grande Chartreuse_ was the original Carthusian monastery in
France, where the most austere privacy was maintained.
Another secret charm of this book is its inadvertent humor, so
much the more delicious because unsuspected by the author. How pleasant
is his innocent vanity in adding to the list of the British, and
still more of the Selbornian, _fauna!_ I believe he would gladly have
consented to be eaten by a tiger or a crocodile, if by that means
the occasional presence within the parish limits of either of these
anthropophagous brutes could have been established. He brags of no
fine society, but is plainly a little elated by "having considerable
acquaintance with a tame brown owl." Most of us have known our share
of owls, but few can boast of intimacy with a feathered one. The great
events of Mr. White's life, too, have that disproportionate importance
which is always humorous. To think of his hands having actually been
though worthy (as neither Willoughby's nor Ray's were) to hold a stilted
plover, the _Charadrius himaniopus,_ with no back toe, and therefore
"liable, in speculation, to perpetual vacillations"! I wonder, by
the way, if metaphysicians have no hind toes. In 1770 he makes the
acquaintance in Sussex of "an old family tortoise," which had then been
domesticated for thirty years. It is clear that he fell in love with it
at first sight. We have no means of tracing the growth of his passion;
but in 1780 we find him eloping with its object in a post-chaise. "The
rattle and hurry of the journey so perfectly roused it that, when I
turned it out in a border, it walked twice down to the bottom of my
garden." It reads like a Court Journal: "Yesterday morning H.R.H. the
Princess Alice took an airing of half an hour on the terrace of Windsor
Castle." This tortoise might have been a member of the Royal Society,
if he could have condescended to so ignoble an ambition. It had but
just been discovered that a surface inclined at a certain angle with
the plane of the horizon took more of the sun's rays. The tortoise had
always known this (though he unostentatiously made no parade of it),
and used accordingly to tilt himself up against the garden-wall in the
autumn. He seems to have been more of a philosopher than even Mr. White
himself, caring for nothing but to get under a cabbage-leaf when
it rained, or the sun was too hot, and to bury himself alive before
frost,--a four-footed Diogenes, who carried his tub on his back.
There are moods in which this kind of history is infinitely
refreshing. These creatures whom we affect to look down upon as the
drudges of instinct are members of a commonwealth whose constitution
rests on immovable bases, never any need of reconstruction there! _They_
never dream of settling it by vote that eight hours are equal to ten, or
that one creature is as clever as another and no more. _They_ do not
use their poor wits in regulating God's clocks, nor think they cannot
go astray so long as they carry their guide-board about with them,--a
delusion we often practise upon ourselves with our high and mighty
reason, that admirable finger-post which points every way and always
right. It is good for us now and then to converse with a world like Mr.
White's, where Man is the least important of animals. But one who, like
me, has always lived in the country and always on the same spot, is
drawn to his book by other occult sympathies. Do we not share his
indignation at that stupid Martin who had graduated his thermometer no
lower than 4o above zero of Fahrenheit, so that in the coldest weather
ever known the mercury basely absconded into the bulb, and left us to
see the victory slip through our fingers, just as they were closing
upon it? No man, I suspect, ever lived long in the country without being
bitten by these meteorological ambitions. He likes to be hotter and
colder, to have been more deeply snowed up, to have more trees and
larger blow down than his neighbors. With us descendants of the Puritans
especially, these weather-competitions supply the abnegated excitement
of the race-course. Men learn to value thermometers of the true
imaginative temperament, capable of prodigious elations and
corresponding dejections. The other day (5th July) I marked 98o in the
shade, my high water mark, higher by one degree than I had ever seen it
before. I happened to meet a neighbor; as we mopped our brows at each
other, he told me that he had just cleared 100o, and I went home
a beaten man. I had not felt the heat before, save as a beautiful
exaggeration of sunshine; but now it oppressed me with the prosaic
vulgarity of an oven. What had been poetic intensity became all at once
rhetorical hyperbole. I might suspect his thermometer (as indeed I did,
for we Harvard men are apt to think ill of any graduation but our
own); but it was a poor consolation. The fact remained that his herald
Mercury, standing a tiptoe, could look down on mine. I seem to glimpse
something of this familiar weakness in Mr. White. He, too, has shared in
these mercurial triumphs and defeats. Nor do I doubt that he had a
true country-gentleman's interest in the weather-cock; that his first
question on coming down of a morning was, like Barabas's,
"Into what quarter peers my halcyon's bill?"
It is an innocent and healthful employment of the mind,
distracting one from too continual study of himself, and leading him to
dwell rather upon the indigestions of the elements than his own. "Did
the wind back round, or go about with the sun?" is a rational question
that bears not remotely on the making of hay and the prosperity of
crops. I have little doubt that the regulated observation of the vane
in many different places, and the interchange of results by telegraph,
would put the weather, as it were, in our power, by betraying its
ambushes before it is ready to give the assault. At first sight,
nothing seems more drolly trivial than the lives of those whose single
achievement is to record the wind and the temperature three times a day.
Yet such men are doubtless sent into the world for this special end, and
perhaps there is no kind of accurate observation, whatever its object,
that has not its final use and value for some one or other. It is even
to be hoped that the speculations of our newspaper editors and their
myriad correspondence upon the signs of the political atmosphere may
also fill their appointed place in a well-regulated universe, if it
be only that of supplying so many more jack-o'-lanterns to the future
historian. Nay, the observations on finance of an M.C. whose sole
knowledge of the subject has been derived from a life-long success
in getting a living out of the public without paying any equivalent
therefor, will perhaps be of interest hereafter to some explorer of our
_cloaca maxima,_ whenever it is cleansed.
For many years I have been in the habit of noting down some of
the leading events of my embowered solitude, such as the coming of
certain birds and the like,--a kind of _memoires pour servir,_ after
the fashion of White, rather than properly digested natural history.
I thought it not impossible that a few simple stories of my winged
acquaintances might be found entertaining by persons of kindred taste.
There is a common notion that animals are better meteorologists
than men, and I have little doubt that in immediate weather-wisdom
they have the advantage of our sophisticated senses (though I suspect a
sailor or shepherd would be their match), but I have seen nothing that
leads me to believe their minds capable of erecting the horoscope of a
whole season, and letting us know beforehand whether the winter will be
severe or the summer rainless. I more than suspect that the clerk of the
weather himself does not always know very long in advance whether he
is to draw an order for hot or cold, dry or moist, and the musquash is
scarce likely to be wiser. I have noted but two days' difference in
the coming of the song-sparrow between a very early and a very backward
spring. This very year I saw the linnets at work thatching, just before
a snow-storm which covered the ground several inches deep for a number
of days. They struck work and left us for a while, no doubt in search
of food. Birds frequently perish from sudden changes in our whimsical
spring weather of which they had no foreboding. More than thirty years
ago, a cherry-tree, then in full bloom, near my window, was covered
with humming-birds benumbed by a fall of mingled rain and snow, which
probably killed many of them. It should seem that their coming was dated
by the height of the sun, which betrays them into unthrifty matrimony;
"So priketh hem Nature in hir corages;"(1)
but their going is another matter. The chimney swallows leave us early,
for example, apparently so soon as their latest fledglings are firm
enough of wing to attempt the long rowing-match that is before them. On
the other hand the wild-geese probably do not leave the North till they
are frozen out, for I have heard their bugles sounding southward so
late as the middle of December. What may be called local migrations are
doubtless dictated by the chances of food. I have once been visited by
large flights of cross-bills; and whenever the snow lies long and deep
on the ground, a flock of cedar-birds comes in mid-winter to eat the
berries on my hawthorns. I have never been quite able to fathom the
local, or rather geographical partialities of birds. Never before this
summer (1870) have the king-birds, handsomest of flycatchers, built in
my orchard; though I always know where to find them within half a mile.
The rose-breasted grosbeak has been a familiar bird in Brookline (three
miles away), yet I never saw one here till last July, when I found a
female busy among my raspberries and surprisingly bold. I hope she was
_prospecting_ with a view to settlement in our garden. She seemed, on
the whole, to think well of my fruit, and I would gladly plant another
bed if it would help to win over so delightful a neighbor.
(1) Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales, Prologue,_ line 11.
The return of the robin is commonly announced by the
newspapers, like that of eminent or notorious people to a
watering-place, as the first authentic notification of spring. And such
his appearance in the orchard and garden undoubtedly is. But, in spite
of his name of migratory thrush, he stays with us all winter, and I
have seen him when the thermometer marked 15 degrees below zero of
Fahrenheit, armed impregnably within,(1) like Emerson's Titmouse, and as
cheerful as he. The robin has a bad reputation among people who do not
value themselves less for being fond of cherries. There is, I admit,
a spice of vulgarity in him, and his song is rather of the Bloomfield
sort, too largely ballasted with prose. His ethics are of the Poor
Richard school, and the main chance which calls forth all his energy
is altogether of the belly. He never has these fine intervals of lunacy
into which his cousins, the catbird and the mavis, are apt to fall. But
for a' that and twice as muckle's a' that, I would not exchange him for
all the cherries that ever came out of Asia Minor. With whatever faults,
he has not wholly forfeited that superiority which belongs to the
children of nature. He has a finer taste in fruit than could be
distilled from many successive committees of the Horticultural Society,
and he eats with a relishing gulp not inferior to Dr. Johnson's. He
feels and freely exercises his right of eminent domain. His is the
earliest mess of green peas; his all the mulberries I had fancied mine.
But if he get also the lion's share of the raspberries, he is a
great planter, and sows those wild ones in the woods that solace the
pedestrian, and give a momentary calm even to the jaded victims of the
White Hills. He keeps a strict eye over one's fruit, and knows to a
shade of purple when your grapes have cooked long enough in the sun.
During the severe drought a few years ago the robins wholly vanished
from my garden. I neither saw nor heard one for three weeks, meanwhile
a small foreign grape-vine, rather shy of bearing, seemed to find the
dusty air congenial, and, dreaming, perhaps of its sweet Argos across
the sea, decked itself with a score or so of fair bunches. I watched
them from day to day till they should have secreted sugar enough from
the sunbeams, and at last made up my mind that I would celebrate my
vintage the next morning. But the robins, too, had somehow kept note of
them. They must have sent out spies, as did the Jews into the promised
land, before I was stirring. When I went with my basket at least a
dozen of these winged vintagers bustled out from among the leaves, and
alighting on the nearest trees interchanged some shrill remarks about
me of a derogatory nature. They had fairly sacked the vine. Not
Wellington's veterans made cleaner work of a Spanish town; not Federals
or Confederates were ever more impartial in the confiscation of neutral
chickens. I was keeping my grapes a secret to surprise the fair Fidele
with, but the robins made them a profounder secret to her than I had
meant. The tattered remnant of a single bunch was all my harvest-home.
How paltry it looked at the bottom of my basket,--as if a humming-bird
had laid her egg in an eagle's nest! I could not help laughing; and
the robins seemed to join heartily in the merriment. There was a native
grape-vine close by, blue with its less refined abundance, but my
cunning thieves preferred the foreign flavor. Could I tax them with want
of taste?
(1) "For well the soul, if stout within, Can arm impregnably the skin."
_The Titmouse,_ lines 75, 76.
The robins are not good solo singers, but their chorus, as, like
primitive fire-worshippers, they hail the return of light and warmth to
the world, is unrivalled. There are a hundred singing like one. They are
noisy enough then, and sing, as poets should, with no afterthought. But
when they come after cherries to the tree near my window, they muffle
their voices, and their faint _pip pip pop!_ sounds far away at the
bottom of the garden, where they know I shall not suspect them of
robbing the great black-walnut of its bitter-rinded store.(1) They are
feathered Pecksniffs, to be sure, but then how brightly their breasts,
that look rather shabby in the sunlight, shine in a rainy day against
the dark green of the fringe-tree! After they have pinched and shaken
all the life of an earthworm, as Italian cooks pound all the spirit
out of a steak, and then gulped him, they stand up in honest
self-confidence, expand their red waistcoats with the virtuous air of
a lobby member, and outface you with an eye that calmly challenges
inquiry. "Do _I_ look like a bird that knows the flavor of raw vermin?
I throw myself upon a jury of my peers. Ask any robin if he ever ate
anything less ascetic than the frugal berry of the juniper, and he will
answer that his vow forbids him." Can such an open bosom cover such
depravity? Alas, yes! I have no doubt his breast was redder at that very
moment with the blood of my raspberries. On the whole, he is a doubtful
friend in the garden. He makes his dessert of all kinds of berries, and
is not averse from early pears. But when we remember how omnivorous he
is, eating his own weight in an incredibly short time, and that Nature
seems exhaustless in her invention of new insects hostile to vegetation,
perhaps we may reckon that he does more good than harm. For my own part,
I would rather have his cheerfulness and kind neighborhood than many
berries.
(1) The screech-owl, whose cry, despite his ill name, is one o the
sweetest sounds in nature, softens his voice in the same way with the
most beguiling mockery of distance. J.R.L.
For his cousin, the catbird, I have a still warmer regard. Always a
good singer, he sometimes nearly equals the brown thrush, and has the
merit of keeping up his music later in the evening than any bird of my
familiar acquaintance. Ever since I can remember, a pair of them have
built in a gigantic syringa near our front door, and I have known the
male to sing almost uninterruptedly during the evenings of early summer
till twilight duskened into dark. They differ greatly in vocal talent,
but all have a delightful way of crooning over, and, as it were,
rehearsing their song in an undertone, which makes their nearness
always unobtrusive. Though there is the most trustworthy witness to the
imitative propensity of this bird, I have only once, during an intimacy
of more than forty years, heard him indulge it. In that case,
the imitation was by no means so close as to deceive, but a free
reproduction of the notes of some other birds, especially of the oriole,
as a kind of variation in his own song. The catbird is as shy as the
robin is vulgarly familiar. Only when his nest or his fledglings are
approached does he become noisy and almost aggressive. I have known
him to station his young in a thick cornel-bush on the edge of the
raspberry-bed, after the fruit began to ripen, and feed them there for a
week or more. In such cases he shows none of that conscious guilt which
makes the robin contemptible. On the contrary, he will maintain his post
in the thicket, and sharply scold the intruder who ventures to steal
_his_ berries. After all, his claim is only for tithes, while the robin
will bag your entire crop if he get a chance.
Dr. Watts's statement that "birds in their little nests agree," like
too many others intended to form the infant mind, is very far from
being true. On the contrary, the most peaceful relation of the different
species to each other is that of armed neutrality. They are very jealous
of neighbors. A few years ago I was much interested in the housebuilding
of a pair of summer yellow-birds. They had chosen a very pretty site
near the top of a tall white lilac, within easy eye-shot of a chamber
window. A very pleasant thing it was to see their little home growing
with mutual help, to watch their industrious skill interrupted only
by little flirts and snatches of endearment, frugally cut short by the
common-sense of the tiny house-wife. They had brought their work
nearly to an end, and had already begun to line it with fern-down, the
gathering of which demanded more distant journeys and longer absences.
But, alas! the syringa, immemorial manor of the catbirds, was not more
than twenty feet away, and these "giddy neighbors" had, as it appeared,
been all along jealously watchful, though silent, witnesses of what they
deemed an intrusion of squatters. No sooner were the pretty mates fairly
gone for a new load of lining, than
"To their unguarded nest these weasel Scots
Came stealing."(1)
Silently they flew back and forth, each giving a vengeful dab at the
nest in passing. They did not fall-to and deliberately destroy it, for
they might have been caught at their mischief. As it was, whenever
the yellow-birds came back, their enemies were hidden in their own
sight-proof bush. Several times their unconscious victims repaired
damages, but at length, after counsel taken together, they gave it up.
Perhaps, like other unlettered folk, they came to the conclusion
that the Devil was in it, and yielded to the invisible persecution of
witchcraft.
(1) Shakespeare: _King Henry V.,_ act i, scene 2.
The robins, by constant attacks and annoyances, have succeeded
in driving off the blue-jays who used to build in our pines, their gay
colors and quaint, noisy ways making them welcome and amusing neighbors.
I once had the chance of doing a kindness to a household of them, which
they received with very friendly condescension. I had had my eye for
some time upon a nest, and was puzzled by a constant fluttering of what
seemed full-grown wings in it whenever I drew nigh. At last I climbed
the tree, in spite of angry protests from the old birds against my
intrusion. The mystery had a very simple solution. In building the nest,
a long piece of packthread had been somewhat loosely woven in. Three
of the young had contrived to entangle themselves in it, and had become
full-grown without being able to launch themselves upon the air. One was
unharmed; another had so tightly twisted the cord about its shank that
one foot was curled up and seemed paralyzed; the third, in its struggles
to escape, had sawn through the flesh of the thigh and so much harmed
itself that I thought it humane to put an end to its misery. When I took
out my knife to cut their hempen bonds, the heads of the family seemed
to divine my friendly intent. Suddenly ceasing their cries and threats.
they perched quietly within reach of my hand, and watched me in my work
of manumission. This, owing to the fluttering terror of the prisoners,
was an affair of some delicacy; but ere long I was rewarded by seeing
one of them fly away to a neighboring tree, while the <DW36>, making
a parachute of his wings, came lightly to the ground, and hopped off as
well as he could with one leg, obsequiously waited on by his elders. A
week later I had the satisfaction of meeting him in the pine-walk, in
good spirits, and already so far recovered as to be able to balance
himself with the lame foot. I have no doubt that in his old age he
accounted for his lameness by some handsome story of a wound received at
the famous Battle of the Pines, when our tribe, overcome by numbers,
was driven from its ancient camping-ground. Of late years the jays have
visited us only at intervals; and in winter their bright plumage, set
off by the snow, and their cheerful cry, are especially welcome. They
would have furnished Aesop with a fable, for the feathered crest in
which they seem to take so much satisfaction is often their fatal snare.
Country boys make a hole with their finger in the snow-crust just large
enough to admit the jay's head, and, hollowing it out somewhat beneath,
bait it with a few kernels of corn. The crest slips easily into the
trap, but refuses to be pulled out again, and he who came to feast
remains a prey.
Twice have the crow-blackbirds attempted a settlement in my
pines, and twice have the robins, who claim a right of preemption,
so successfully played the part of border-ruffians as to drive them
away,--to my great regret, for they are the best substitute we have
for rooks. At Shady Hill(1) (now, alas! empty of its so long-loved
household) they build by hundreds, and nothing can be more cheery than
their creaking clatter (like a convention of old-fashioned tavern-signs)
as they gather at evening to debate in mass meeting their windy
politics, or to gossip at their tent-doors over the events of the day.
Their port is grave, and their stalk across the turf as martial as that
of a second-rate ghost in Hamlet. They never meddled with my corn, so
far as I could discover.
(1) The home of the Nortons, in Cambridge, who were at the time of this
paper in Europe.
For a few years I had crows, but their nests are an irresistible bait
for boys, and their settlement was broken up. They grew so wonted as
to throw off a great part of their shyness, and to tolerate my near
approach. One very hot day I stood for some time within twenty feet of a
mother and three children, who sat on an elm bough over my head gasping
in the sultry air, and holding their wings half-spread for coolness.
All birds during the pairing season become more or less sentimental, and
murmur soft nothings in a tone very unlike the grinding-organ repetition
and loudness of their habitual song. The crow is very comical as a
lover, and to hear him trying to soften his croak to the proper Saint
Preux(1) standard has something the effect of a Mississippi boatman
quoting Tennyson. Yet there are few things to my ear more melodious than
his caw of a clear winter morning as it drops to you filtered through
five hundred fathoms of crisp blue air. The hostility of all smaller
birds makes the moral character of the row, for all his deaconlike
demeanor and garb, somewhat questionable. He could never sally forth
without insult. The golden robins, especially, would chase him as far
as I could follow with my eye, making him duck clumsily to avoid their
importunate bills. I do not believe, however, that he robbed any nests
hereabouts, for the refuse of the gas-works, which, in our free-and-easy
community, is allowed to poison the river, supplied him with dead
alewives in abundance. I used to watch him making his periodical visits
to the salt-marshes and coming back with a fish in his beak to his young
savages, who, no doubt, like it in that condition which makes it savory
to the Kanakas and other corvine races of men.
(1) See Rousseau's _La Nouvelle Heloise._
Orioles are in great plenty with me. I have seen seven males
flashing about the garden at once. A merry crew of them swing their
hammocks from the pendulous boughs. During one of these later years,
when the canker-worms stripped our elms as bare as winter, these birds
went to the trouble of rebuilding their unroofed nests, and chose for
the purpose trees which are safe from those swarming vandals, such as
the ash and the button-wood. One year a pair (disturbed, I suppose,
elsewhere) built a second next in an elm within a few yards of the
house. My friend, Edward E. Hale, told me once that the oriole rejected
from his web all strands of brilliant color, and I thought it a striking
example of that instinct of concealment noticeable in many birds, though
it should seem in this instance that the nest was amply protected by its
position from all marauders but owls and squirrels. Last year, however,
I had the fullest proof that Mr. Hale was mistaken. A pair of orioles
built on the lowest trailer of a weeping elm, which hung within ten feet
of our drawing-room window, and so low that I could reach it from the
ground. The nest was wholly woven and felted with ravellings of woollen
carpet in which scarlet predominated. Would the same thing have happened
in the woods? Or did the nearness of a human dwelling perhaps give the
birds a greater feeling of security? They are very bold, by the way, in
quest of cordage, and I have often watched them stripping the fibrous
bark from a honeysuckle growing over the very door. But, indeed, all
my birds look upon me as if I were a mere tenant at will, and they
were landlords. With shame I confess it, I have been bullied even by a
hummingbird. This spring, as I was cleansing a pear-tree of its lichens,
one of these little zigzagging blurs came purring toward me, couching
his long bill like a lance, his throat sparkling with angry fire, to
warn me off from a Missouri-currant whose honey he was sipping. And many
a time he has driven me out of a flower-bed. This summer, by the way,
a pair of these winged emeralds fastened their mossy acorn-cup upon a
bough of the same elm which the orioles had enlivened the year before.
We watched all their proceedings from the window through an opera-glass,
and saw their two nestlings grow from black needles with a tuft of
down at the lower end, till they whirled away on their first short
experimental flights. They became strong of wing in a surprisingly short
time, and I never saw them or the male bird after, though the female was
regular as usual in her visits to our petunias and verbenas. I do not
think it ground enough for a generalization, but in the many times when
I watched the old birds feeding their young, the mother always alighted,
while the father as uniformly remained upon the wing.
The bobolinks are generally chance visitors, tinkling through the
garden in blossoming-time, but this year, owing to the long rains early
in the season, their favorite meadows were flooded, and they were driven
to the upland. So I had a pair of them domiciled in my grass field. The
male used to perch in an apple-tree, then in full bloom, and, while I
stood perfectly still close by, he would circle away, quivering round
the entire field of five acres, with no break in his song, and settle
down again among the blooms, to be hurried away almost immediately by a
new rapture of music. He had the volubility of an Italian charlatan at a
fair, and, like him, appeared to be proclaiming the merits of some quack
remedy. _Opodeldoc-opodeldoc-try-Doctor-Lincoln's-opodeldoc!_ he seemed
to repeat over and over again, with a rapidity that would have distanced
the deftest-tongued Figaro that ever rattled. I remember Count Gurowski
saying once, with that easy superiority of knowledge about this country
which is the monopoly of foreigners, that we had no singing-birds! Well,
well, Mr. Hepworth Dixon(1) has found the typical America in Oneida and
Salt Lake City. Of course, an intelligent European is the best judge
of these matters. The truth is there are more singing-birds in Europe
because there are fewer forests. These songsters love the neighborhood
of man because hawks and owls are rarer, while their own food is more
abundant. Most people seem to think, the more trees, the more birds.
Even Chateaubriand, who first tried the primitive-forest-cure, and whose
description of the wilderness in its imaginative effects is unmatched,
fancies the "people of the air singing their hymns to him." So far as my
own observation goes, the farther one penetrates the sombre solitudes of
the woods, the more seldom does he hear the voice of any singing-bird.
In spite of Chateaubriand's minuteness of detail, in spite of that
marvellous reverberation of the decrepit tree falling of its own weight,
which he was the first to notice, I cannot help doubting whether he
made his way very deep into the wilderness. At any rate, in a letter to
Fontanes, written in 1804, he speaks of _mes chevaux paissant a quelque
distance._ To be sure Chateaubriand was at to mount the high horse,
and this may have been but an afterthought of the _grand seigneur,_ but
certainly one would not make much headway on horseback toward the druid
fastnesses of the primaeval pine.
(1) In his book of travels, _New America._
The bobolinks build in considerable numbers in a meadow within
a quarter of a mile of us. A houseless land passes through the midst of
their camp, and in clear westerly weather, at the right season, one
may hear a score of them singing at once. When they are breeding, if
I chance to pass, one of the male birds always accompanies me like a
constable, flitting from post to post of the rail-fence, with a short
note of reproof continually repeated, till I am fairly out of the
neighborhood. Then he will swing away into the air and run down the
wind, gurgling music without stint over the unheeding tussocks of
meadow-grass and dark clumps of bulrushes that mark his domain.
We have no bird whose song will match the nightingale's in
compass, none whose note is so rich as that of the European blackbird;
but for mere rapture I have never heard the bobolink's rival. But his
opera-season is a short one. The ground and tree sparrows are our most
constant performers. It is now late in August, and one of the latter
sings every day and all day long in the garden. Till within a fortnight,
a pair of indigo-birds would keep up their lively _duo_ for an hour
together. While I write, I hear an oriole gay as in June, and the
plaintive _may-be_ of the goldfinch tells me he is stealing my
lettuce-seeds. I know not what the experience of others may have been,
but the only bird I have ever hard sing in the night has been the
chip-bird. I should say he sang about as often during the darkness as
cocks crow. One can hardly help fancying that he sings in his dreams.
"Father of light, what sunnie seed,
What glance of day hast thou confined
Into this bird? To all the breed
This busie ray thou hast assigned;
Their magnetism works all night,
And dreams of Paradise and light."
On second thought, I remember to have heard the cuckoo strike the hours
nearly all night with the regularity of a Swiss clock.
The dead limbs of our elms, which I spare to that end, bring us
the flicker every summer, and almost daily I hear his wild scream and
laugh close at hand, himself invisible. He is a shy bird, but a few days
ago I had the satisfaction of studying him through the blinds as he sat
on a tree within a few feet of me. Seen so near and at rest, he makes
good his claim to the title of pigeon-woodpecker. Lumberers have a
notion that he is harmful to timber, digging little holes through the
bark to encourage the settlement of insects. The regular rings of such
perforations which one may see in almost any apple-orchard seem to give
some probability to this theory. Almost every season a solitary quail
visits us, and, unseen among the currant bushes, alls _Bob White, Bob
White,_ as if he were playing at hide-and-seek with that imaginary
being. A rarer visitant is the turtle-dove, whose pleasant coo
(something like the muffled crow of a cock from a coop covered with
snow) I have sometimes heard, and whom I once had the good luck to see
close by me in the mulberry-tree. The wild-pigeon, once numerous, I have
not seen for many years.(1) Of savage birds, a hen-hawk now and then
quarters himself upon us for a few days, sitting sluggish in a tree
after a surfeit of poultry. One of them once offered me a near shot from
my study-window one drizzly day for several hours. But it was Sunday,
and I gave him the benefit of its gracious truce of God.
(1) They made their appearance again this summer (1870).--J.R.L.
Certain birds have disappeared from our neighborhood within my
memory. I remember when the whippoorwill could be heard in Sweet Auburn.
The night-hawk, once common, is now rare. The brown thrush has moved
farther up country. For years I have not seen or heard any of the larger
owls, whose hooting was once of my boyish terrors. The cliff-swallow,
strange emigrant, that eastward takes his way, has come and gone again
in my time. The bank-swallows, wellnigh innumerable during my boyhood,
no longer frequent the crumbly cliff of the gravel-pit by the river.
The barn-swallows, which once swarmed in our barn, flashing through the
dusty sun-streak of the mow, have been gone these many years. My father
would lead me out to see them gather on the roof, and take counsel
before their yearly migration, as Mr. White used to see them at
Selborne. _Eheu fugaces!_ Thank fortune, the swift still glues his
nest, and rolls his distant thunders night and day in the wide-throated
chimneys, still sprinkles the evening air with his merry twittering. The
populous heronry in Fresh Pond meadows has wellnigh broken up, but still
a pair or two haunt the old home, as the gypsies of Ellangowan their
ruined huts, and every evening fly over us riverwards, clearing their
throats with a hoarse hawk as they go, and, in cloudy weather. scarce
higher than the tops of the chimneys. Sometimes I have known one to
alight in one of our trees, though for what purpose I never could
divine. Kingfishers have sometimes puzzled me in the same way, perched
at high noon in a pine, springing their watchman's rattle when they
flitted away from my curiosity, and seeming to shove their top-heavy
heads along as a man does a wheelbarrow.
Some birds have left us, I suppose, because the country is
growing less wild. I once found a summer duck's nest within a quarter of
a mile of our house, but such a _trouvaille_ would be impossible now as
Kidd's treasure. And yet the mere taming of the neighborhood does not
quite satisfy me as an explanation. Twenty years ago, on my way to bathe
in the river, I saw every day a brace of woodcock, on the miry edge of
a spring within a few rods of a house, and constantly visited by thirsty
cows. There was no growth of any kind to conceal them, and yet these
ordinarily shy birds were almost as indifferent to my passing as common
poultry would have been. Since bird-nesting has become scientific, and
dignified itself as oology, that, no doubt, is partly to blame for some
of our losses. But some old friends are constant. Wilson's thrush comes
every year to remind me of that most poetic or ornithologists. He flits
before me through the pine-walk like the very genius of solitude. A
pair of pewees have built immemorially on a jutting brick in the arched
entrance to the ice-house; always on the same brick, and never more than
a single pair, though two broods of five each are raised there every
summer. How do they settle their claim to the homestead? By what right
of primogeniture? Once the children of a man employed about the place
_oologized_ the nest, and the pewees left us for a year or two. I
felt towards those boys as the messmates of the Ancient Mariner(1) did
towards him after he had shot the albatross. But the pewees came back at
last, and one of them is now on his wonted perch, so near my window that
I can hear the click of his bill as he snaps a fly on the wing with the
unerring precision a stately Trasteverina shows in the capture of her
smaller deer. The pewee is the first bird to pipe up in the morning; and
during the early summer he preludes his matutinal ejaculation of _pewee_
with a slender whistle, unheard at any other time. He saddens with the
season, and, as summer declines, he changes his note to _cheu, pewee!_
as if in lamentation. Had he been an Italian bird, Ovid would have had a
plaintive tale to tell about him. He is so familiar as often to pursue a
fly through the open window into my library.
(1) In Coleridge's poem of that name.
There is something inexpressibly dear to me in these old
friendships of a lifetime. There is scarce a tree of mine but has had,
at some time or other, a happy homestead among its boughs, and to which
I cannot say,
"Many light hearts and wings,
Which now be head, lodged in thy living bowers."
My walk under the pines would lose half its summer charm were I to miss
that shy anchorite, the Wilson's thrush, nor hear in haying-time
the metallic ring of his song, that justifies his rustic name of
_scythe-whet._ I protect my game as jealously as an English squire. If
anybody had oologized a certain cuckoo's nest I know of (I have a pair
in my garden every year), it would have left me a sore place in my mind
for weeks. I love to bring these aborigines back to the mansuetude they
showed to the early voyagers, and before (forgive the involuntary pun)
they had grown accustomed to man and knew his savage ways. And they
repay your kindness with a sweet familiarity too delicate ever to breed
contempt. I have made a Penn-treaty with them, preferring that to the
Puritan way with the natives, which converted them to a little Hebraism
and a great deal of Medford rum. If they will not come near enough to me
(as most of them will), I bring them close with an opera-glass,--a much
better weapon than a gun. I would not, if i could, convert them from
their pretty pagan ways. The only one I sometimes have savage doubts
about is the red squirrel. I _think_ he oologizes. I _know_ he eats
cherries (we counted five of them at one time in a single tree, the
stones pattering down like the sparse hail that preludes a storm), and
that he gnaws off the small end of pears to get at the seeds. He steals
the corn from under the noses of my poultry. But what would you have?
He will come down upon the limb of the tree I am lying under till he is
within a yard of me. He and his mate will scurry up and down the great
black-walnut for my diversion, chattering like monkeys. Can I sign his
death-warrant who has tolerated me about his grounds so long? Not I. Let
them steal, and welcome. I am sure I should, had I had the same bringing
up and the same temptation. As for the birds, I do not believe there is
one of them but does more good than harm; and of how many featherless
bipeds can this be said? |
10,240 |
Produced by David Widger. HTML version by Al Haines.
MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE
By Nathaniel Hawthorne
EARTH'S HOLOCAUST
Once upon a time--but whether in the time past or time to come is a
matter of little or no moment--this wide world had become so
overburdened with an accumulation of worn-out trumpery, that the
inhabitants determined to rid themselves of it by a general bonfire.
The site fixed upon at the representation of the insurance
companies, and as being as central a spot as any other on the globe,
was one of the broadest prairies of the West, where no human
habitation would be endangered by the flames, and where a vast
assemblage of spectators might commodiously admire the show. Having
a taste for sights of this kind, and imagining, likewise, that the
illumination of the bonfire might reveal some profundity of moral
truth heretofore hidden in mist or darkness, I made it convenient to
journey thither and be present. At my arrival, although the heap of
condemned rubbish was as yet comparatively small, the torch had
already been applied. Amid that boundless plain, in the dusk of the
evening, like a far off star alone in the firmament, there was merely
visible one tremulous gleam, whence none could have anticipated so
fierce a blaze as was destined to ensue. With every moment,
however, there came foot-travellers, women holding up their aprons,
men on horseback, wheelbarrows, lumbering baggage-wagons, and other
vehicles, great and small, and from far and near, laden with
articles that were judged fit for nothing but to be burned.
"What materials have been used to kindle the flame?" inquired I of a
bystander; for I was desirous of knowing the whole process of the
affair from beginning to end.
The person whom I addressed was a grave man, fifty years old or
thereabout, who had evidently come thither as a looker-on. He
struck me immediately as having weighed for himself the true value
of life and its circumstances, and therefore as feeling little
personal interest in whatever judgment the world might form of them.
Before answering my question, he looked me in the face by the
kindling light of the fire.
"O, some very dry combustibles," replied he, "and extremely suitable
to the purpose,--no other, in fact, than yesterday's newspapers,
last month's magazines, and last year's withered leaves. Here now
comes some antiquated trash that will take fire like a handful of
shavings."
As he spoke, some rough-looking men advanced to the verge of the
bonfire, and threw in, as it appeared, all the rubbish of the
herald's office,--the blazonry of coat armor, the crests and
devices of illustrious families, pedigrees that extended back, like
lines of light, into the mist of the dark ages, together with stars,
garters, and embroidered collars, each of which, as paltry a bawble
as it might appear to the uninstructed eye, had once possessed vast
significance, and was still, in truth, reckoned among the most
precious of moral or material facts by the worshippers of the
gorgeous past. Mingled with this confused heap, which was tossed
into the flames by armfuls at once, were innumerable badges of
knighthood, comprising those of all the European sovereignties, and
Napoleon's decoration of the Legion of Honor, the ribbons of which
were entangled with those of the ancient order of St. Louis. There,
too, were the medals of our own Society of Cincinnati, by means of
which, as history tells us, an order of hereditary knights came near
being constituted out of the king quellers of the Revolution. And
besides, there were the patents of nobility of German counts and
barons, Spanish grandees, and English peers, from the worm-eaten
instruments signed by William the Conqueror down to the bran-new
parchment of the latest lord who has received his honors from the
fair hand of Victoria.
At sight of the dense volumes of smoke, mingled with vivid jets of
flame, that gushed and eddied forth from this immense pile of
earthly distinctions, the multitude of plebeian spectators set up a
joyous shout, and clapped their hands with an emphasis that made the
welkin echo. That was their moment of triumph, achieved, after long
ages, over creatures of the same clay and the same spiritual
infirmities, who had dared to assume the privileges due only to
Heaven's better workmanship. But now there rushed towards the
blazing heap a gray-haired man, of stately presence, wearing a coat,
from the breast of which a star, or other badge of rank, seemed to
have been forcibly wrenched away. He had not the tokens of
intellectual power in his face; but still there was the demeanor,
the habitual and almost native dignity, of one who had been born to
the idea of his own social superiority, and had never felt it
questioned till that moment.
"People," cried he, gazing at the ruin of what was dearest to his
eyes with grief and wonder, but nevertheless with a degree of
stateliness,--"people, what have you done? This fire is consuming
all that marked your advance from barbarism, or that could have
prevented your relapse thither. We, the men of the privileged
orders, were those who kept alive from age to age the old chivalrous
spirit; the gentle and generous thought; the higher, the purer, the
more refined and delicate life. With the nobles, too, you cast off
the poet, the painter, the sculptor,--all the beautiful arts; for
we were their patrons, and created the atmosphere in which they
flourish. In abolishing the majestic distinctions of rank, society
loses not only its grace, but its steadfastness--"
More he would doubtless have spoken; but here there arose an outcry,
sportive, contemptuous, and indignant, that altogether drowned the
appeal of the fallen nobleman, insomuch that, casting one look of
despair at his own half-burned pedigree, he shrunk back into the
crowd, glad to shelter himself under his new-found insignificance.
"Let him thank his stars that we have not flung him into the same
fire!" shouted a rude figure, spurning the embers with his foot.
"And henceforth let no man dare to show a piece of musty parchment
as his warrant for lording it over his fellows. If he have strength
of arm, well and good; it is one species of superiority. If he have
wit, wisdom, courage, force of character, let these attributes do
for him what they may; but from this day forward no mortal must hope
for place and consideration by reckoning up the mouldy bones of his
ancestors. That nonsense is done away."
"And in good time," remarked the grave observer by my side, in a low
voice, however, "if no worse nonsense comes in its place; but, at
all events, this species of nonsense has fairly lived out its life."
There was little space to muse or moralize over the embers of this
time-honored rubbish; for, before it was half burned out, there came
another multitude from beyond the sea, bearing the purple robes of
royalty, and the crowns, globes, and sceptres of emperors and kings.
All these had been condemned as useless bawbles, playthings at best,
fit only for the infancy of the world or rods to govern and chastise
it in its nonage, but with which universal manhood at its full-grown
stature could no longer brook to be insulted. Into such contempt
had these regal insignia now fallen that the gilded crown and
tinselled robes of the player king from Drury Lane Theatre had been
thrown in among the rest, doubtless as a mockery of his brother
monarchs on the great stage of the world. It was a strange sight to
discern the crown jewels of England glowing and flashing in the
midst of the fire. Some of them had been delivered down from the
time of the Saxon princes; others were purchased with vast revenues,
or perchance ravished from the dead brows of the native potentates
of Hindustan; and the whole now blazed with a dazzling lustre, as if
a star had fallen in that spot and been shattered into fragments.
The splendor of the ruined monarchy had no reflection save in those
inestimable precious stones. But enough on this subject. It were
but tedious to describe how the Emperor of Austria's mantle was
converted to tinder, and how the posts and pillars of the French
throne became a heap of coals, which it was impossible to
distinguish from those of any other wood. Let me add, however, that
I noticed one of the exiled Poles stirring up the bonfire with the
Czar of Russia's sceptre, which he afterwards flung into the flames.
"The smell of singed garments is quite intolerable here," observed
my new acquaintance, as the breeze enveloped us in the smoke of a
royal wardrobe. "Let us get to windward and see what they are doing
on the other side of the bonfire."
We accordingly passed around, and were just in time to witness the
arrival of a vast procession of Washingtonians,--as the votaries of
temperance call themselves nowadays,--accompanied by thousands of
the Irish disciples of Father Mathew, with that great apostle at
their head. They brought a rich contribution to the bonfire, being
nothing less than all the hogsheads and barrels of liquor in the
world, which they rolled before them across the prairie.
"Now, my children," cried Father Mathew, when they reached the verge
of the fire, "one shove more, and the work is done. And now let us
stand off and see Satan deal with his own liquor."
Accordingly, having placed their wooden vessels within reach of the
flames, the procession stood off at a safe distance, and soon beheld
them burst into a blaze that reached the clouds and threatened to
set the sky itself on fire. And well it might; for here was the
whole world's stock of spirituous liquors, which, instead of
kindling a frenzied light in the eyes of individual topers as of
yore, soared upwards with a bewildering gleam that startled all
mankind. It was the aggregate of that fierce fire which would
otherwise have scorched the hearts of millions. Meantime numberless
bottles of precious wine were flung into the blaze, which lapped up
the contents as if it loved them, and grew, like other drunkards,
the merrier and fiercer for what it quaffed. Never again will the
insatiable thirst of the fire-fiend be so pampered. Here were the
treasures of famous bon vivants,--liquors that had been tossed on
ocean, and mellowed in the sun, and hoarded long in the recesses of
the earth,--the pale, the gold, the ruddy juice of whatever
vineyards were most delicate,--the entire vintage of Tokay,--all
mingling in one stream with the vile fluids of the common pot house,
and contributing to heighten the self-same blaze. And while it rose
in a gigantic spire that seemed to wave against the arch of the
firmament and combine itself with the light of stars, the multitude
gave a shout as if the broad earth were exulting in its deliverance
from the curse of ages.
But the joy was not universal. Many deemed that human life would be
gloomier than ever when that brief illumination should sink down.
While the reformers were at work I overheard muttered expostulations
from several respectable gentlemen with red noses and wearing gouty
shoes; and a ragged worthy, whose face looked like a hearth where
the fire is burned out, now expressed his discontent more openly and
boldly.
"What is this world good for," said the last toper, "now that we can
never be jolly any more? What is to comfort the poor man in sorrow
and perplexity? How is he to keep his heart warm against the cold
winds of this cheerless earth? And what do you propose to give him
in exchange for the solace that you take away? How are old friends
to sit together by the fireside without a cheerful glass between
them? A plague upon your reformation! It is a sad world, a cold
world, a selfish world, a low world, not worth an honest fellow's
living in, now that good fellowship is gone forever!"
This harangue excited great mirth among the bystanders; but,
preposterous as was the sentiment, I could not help commiserating
the forlorn condition of the last toper, whose boon companions had
dwindled away from his side, leaving the poor fellow without a soul
to countenance him in sipping his liquor, nor indeed any liquor to
sip. Not that this was quite the true state of the case; for I had
observed him at a critical moment filch a bottle of fourth-proof
brandy that fell beside the bonfire and hide it in his pocket.
The spirituous and fermented liquors being thus disposed of, the
zeal of the reformers next induced them to replenish the fire with
all the boxes of tea and bags of coffee in the world. And now came
the planters of Virginia, bringing their crops of tobacco. These,
being cast upon the heap of inutility, aggregated it to the size of
a mountain, and incensed the atmosphere with such potent fragrance
that methought we should never draw pure breath again. The present
sacrifice seemed to startle the lovers of the weed more than any
that they had hitherto witnessed.
"Well, they've put my pipe out," said an old gentleman, flinging it
into the flames in a pet. "What is this world coming to? Everything
rich and racy--all the spice of life--is to be condemned as useless.
Now that they have kindled the bonfire, if these nonsensical
reformers would fling themselves into it, all would be well enough!"
"Be patient," responded a stanch conservative; "it will come to that
in the end. They will first fling us in, and finally themselves."
From the general and systematic measures of reform I now turn to
consider the individual contributions to this memorable bonfire. In
many instances these were of a very amusing character. One poor
fellow threw in his empty purse, and another a bundle of counterfeit
or insolvable bank-notes. Fashionable ladies threw in their last
season's bonnets, together with heaps of ribbons, yellow lace, and
much other half-worn milliner's ware, all of which proved even more
evanescent in the fire than it had been in the fashion. A multitude
of lovers of both sexes--discarded maids or bachelors and couples
mutually weary of one another--tossed in bundles of perfumed letters
and enamored sonnets. A hack politician, being deprived of bread by
the loss of office, threw in his teeth, which happened to be false
ones. The Rev. Sydney Smith--having voyaged across the Atlantic for
that sole purpose--came up to the bonfire with a bitter grin and
threw in certain repudiated bonds, fortified though they were with
the broad seal of a sovereign state. A little boy of five years
old, in the premature manliness of the present epoch, threw in his
playthings; a college graduate, his diploma; an apothecary, ruined
by the spread of homeopathy, his whole stock of drugs and medicines;
a physician, his library; a parson, his old sermons; and a fine
gentleman of the old school, his code of manners, which he had
formerly written down for the benefit of the next generation. A
widow, resolving on a second marriage, slyly threw in her dead
husband's miniature. A young man, jilted by his mistress, would
willingly have flung his own desperate heart into the flames, but
could find no means to wrench it out of his bosom. An American
author, whose works were neglected by the public, threw his pen and
paper into the bonfire and betook himself to some less discouraging
occupation. It somewhat startled me to overhear a number of ladies,
highly respectable in appearance, proposing to fling their gowns and
petticoats into the flames, and assume the garb, together with the
manners, duties, offices, and responsibilities, of the opposite sex.
What favor was accorded to this scheme I am unable to say, my
attention being suddenly drawn to a poor, deceived, and
half-delirious girl, who, exclaiming that she was the most worthless
thing alive or dead, attempted to cast herself into the fire amid
all that wrecked and broken trumpery of the world. A good man,
however, ran to her rescue.
"Patience, my poor girl!" said he, as he drew her back from the
fierce embrace of the destroying angel. "Be patient, and abide
Heaven's will. So long as you possess a living soul, all may be
restored to its first freshness. These things of matter and
creations of human fantasy are fit for nothing but to be burned when
once they have had their day; but your day is eternity!"
"Yes," said the wretched girl, whose frenzy seemed now to have sunk
down into deep despondency, "yes, and the sunshine is blotted out of
it!"
It was now rumored among the spectators that all the weapons and
munitions of war were to be thrown into the bonfire with the
exception of the world's stock of gunpowder, which, as the safest
mode of disposing of it, had already been drowned in the sea. This
intelligence seemed to awaken great diversity of opinion. The
hopeful philanthropist esteemed it a token that the millennium was
already come; while persons of another stamp, in whose view mankind
was a breed of bulldogs, prophesied that all the old stoutness,
fervor, nobleness, generosity, and magnanimity of the race would
disappear,--these qualities, as they affirmed, requiring blood for
their nourishment. They comforted themselves, however, in the belief
that the proposed abolition of war was impracticable for any length
of time together.
Be that as it might, numberless great guns, whose thunder had long
been the voice of battle,--the artillery of the Armada, the
battering trains of Marlborough, and the adverse cannon of Napoleon
and Wellington,--were trundled into the midst of the fire. By the
continual addition of dry combustibles, it had now waxed so intense
that neither brass nor iron could withstand it. It was wonderful to
behold how these terrible instruments of slaughter melted away like
playthings of wax. Then the armies of the earth wheeled around the
mighty furnace, with their military music playing triumphant
marches,--and flung in their muskets and swords. The
standard-bearers, likewise, cast one look upward at their banners, all
tattered with shot-holes and inscribed with the names of victorious
fields; and, giving them a last flourish on the breeze, they lowered
them into the flame, which snatched them upward in its rush towards
the clouds. This ceremony being over, the world was left without a
single weapon in its hands, except possibly a few old king's arms
and rusty swords and other trophies of the Revolution in some of our
State armories. And now the drums were beaten and the trumpets
brayed all together, as a prelude to the proclamation of universal
and eternal peace and the announcement that glory was no longer to
be won by blood, but that it would henceforth be the contention of
the human race to work out the greatest mutual good, and that
beneficence, in the future annals of the earth, would claim the
praise of valor. The blessed tidings were accordingly promulgated,
and caused infinite rejoicings among those who had stood aghast at
the horror and absurdity of war.
But I saw a grim smile pass over the seared visage of a stately
old commander,--by his war-worn figure and rich military dress, he
might have been one of Napoleon's famous marshals,--who, with the
rest of the world's soldiery, had just flung away the sword that had
been familiar to his right hand for half a century.
"Ay! ay!" grumbled he. "Let them proclaim what they please; but,
in the end, we shall find that all this foolery has only made more
work for the armorers and cannon-founders."
"Why, sir," exclaimed I, in astonishment, "do you imagine that the
human race will ever so far return on the steps of its past madness
as to weld another sword or cast another cannon?"
"There will be no need," observed, with a sneer, one who neither
felt benevolence nor had faith in it. "When Cain wished to slay his
brother, he was at no loss for a weapon."
"We shall see," replied the veteran commander. "If I am mistaken,
so much the better; but in my opinion, without pretending to
philosophize about the matter, the necessity of war lies far deeper
than these honest gentlemen suppose. What! is there a field for all
the petty disputes of individuals? and shall there be no great law
court for the settlement of national difficulties? The battle-field
is the only court where such suits can be tried."
"You forget, general," rejoined I, "that, in this advanced stage of
civilization, Reason and Philanthropy combined will constitute just
such a tribunal as is requisite."
"Ah, I had forgotten that, indeed!" said the old warrior, as he
limped away.
The fire was now to be replenished with materials that had hitherto
been considered of even greater importance to the well-being of
society than the warlike munitions which we had already seen
consumed. A body of reformers had travelled all over the earth in
quest of the machinery by which the different nations were
accustomed to inflict the punishment of death. A shudder passed
through the multitude as these ghastly emblems were dragged forward.
Even the flames seemed at first to shrink away, displaying the shape
and murderous contrivance of each in a full blaze of light, which of
itself was sufficient to convince mankind of the long and deadly
error of human law. Those old implements of cruelty; those horrible
monsters of mechanism; those inventions which it seemed to demand
something worse than man's natural heart to contrive, and which had
lurked in the dusky nooks of ancient prisons, the subject of
terror-stricken legend,--were now brought forth to view. Headsmen's
axes, with the rust of noble and royal blood upon them, and a vast
collection of halters that had choked the breath of plebeian
victims, were thrown in together. A shout greeted the arrival of
the guillotine, which was thrust forward on the same wheels that had
borne it from one to another of the bloodstained streets of Paris.
But the loudest roar of applause went up, telling the distant sky of
the triumph of the earth's redemption, when the gallows made its
appearance. An ill-looking fellow, however, rushed forward, and,
putting himself in the path of the reformers, bellowed hoarsely, and
fought with brute fury to stay their progress.
It was little matter of surprise, perhaps, that the executioner
should thus do his best to vindicate and uphold the machinery by
which he himself had his livelihood and worthier individuals their
death; but it deserved special note that men of a far different
sphere--even of that consecrated class in whose guardianship the
world is apt to trust its benevolence--were found to take the
hangman's view of the question.
"Stay, my brethren!" cried one of them. "You are misled by a false
philanthropy; you know not what you do. The gallows is a Heaven-ordained
instrument. Bear it back, then, reverently, and set it up
in its old place, else the world will fall to speedy ruin and
desolation!"
"Onward! onward!" shouted a leader in the reform. "Into the flames
with the accursed instrument of man's bloody policy! How can human
law inculcate benevolence and love while it persists in setting up the
gallows as its chief symbol? One heave more, good friends, and the
world will be redeemed from its greatest error."
A thousand hands, that nevertheless loathed the touch, now lent
their assistance, and thrust the ominous burden far, far into the
centre of the raging furnace. There its fatal and abhorred image
was beheld, first black, then a red coal, then ashes.
"That was well done!" exclaimed I.
"Yes, it was well done," replied, but with less enthusiasm than I
expected, the thoughtful observer, who was still at my side,--"well
done, if the world be good enough for the measure. Death, however,
is an idea that cannot easily be dispensed with in any condition
between the primal innocence and that other purity and perfection
which perchance we are destined to attain after travelling round the
full circle; but, at all events, it is well that the experiment
should now be tried."
"Too cold! too cold!" impatiently exclaimed the young and ardent
leader in this triumph. "Let the heart have its voice here as well
as the intellect. And as for ripeness, and as for progress, let
mankind always do the highest, kindest, noblest thing that, at any
given period, it has attained the perception of; and surely that
thing cannot be wrong nor wrongly timed."
I know not whether it were the excitement of the scene, or whether
the good people around the bonfire were really growing more
enlightened every instant; but they now proceeded to measures in the
full length of which I was hardly prepared to keep them company.
For instance, some threw their marriage certificates into the
flames, and declared themselves candidates for a higher, holier, and
more comprehensive union than that which had subsisted from the
birth of time under the form of the connubial tie. Others hastened
to the vaults of banks and to the coffers of the rich--all of which
were opened to the first comer on this fated occasion--and brought
entire bales of paper-money to enliven the blaze, and tons of coin
to be melted down by its intensity. Henceforth, they said,
universal benevolence, uncoined and exhaustless, was to be the
golden currency of the world. At this intelligence the bankers and
speculators in the stocks grew pale, and a pickpocket, who had
reaped a rich harvest among the crowd, fell down in a deadly
fainting fit. A few men of business burned their day-books and
ledgers, the notes and obligations of their creditors, and all other
evidences of debts due to themselves; while perhaps a somewhat
larger number satisfied their zeal for reform with the sacrifice of
any uncomfortable recollection of their own indebtment. There was
then a cry that the period was arrived when the title-deeds of
landed property should be given to the flames, and the whole soil of
the earth revert to the public, from whom it had been wrongfully
abstracted and most unequally distributed among individuals.
Another party demanded that all written constitutions, set forms of
government, legislative acts, statute-books, and everything else on
which human invention had endeavored to stamp its arbitrary laws,
should at once be destroyed, leaving the consummated world as free
as the man first created.
Whether any ultimate action was taken with regard to these
propositions is beyond my knowledge; for, just then, some matters
were in progress that concerned my sympathies more nearly.
"See! see! What heaps of books and pamphlets!" cried a fellow, who
did not seem to be a lover of literature. "Now we shall have a
glorious blaze!"
"That's just the thing!" said a modern philosopher. "Now we shall
get rid of the weight of dead men's thought, which has hitherto
pressed so heavily on the living intellect that it has been
incompetent to any effectual self-exertion. Well done, my lads!
Into the fire with them! Now you are enlightening the world
indeed!"
"But what is to become of the trade?" cried a frantic bookseller.
"O, by all means, let them accompany their merchandise," coolly
observed an author. "It will be a noble funeral-pile!"
The truth was, that the human race had now reached a stage of
progress so far beyond what the wisest and wittiest men of former
ages had ever dreamed of, that it would have been a manifest
absurdity to allow the earth to be any longer encumbered with their
poor achievements in the literary line. Accordingly a thorough and
searching investigation had swept the booksellers' shops, hawkers'
stands, public and private libraries, and even the little book-shelf
by the country fireside, and had brought the world's entire mass of
printed paper, bound or in sheets, to swell the already mountain
bulk of our illustrious bonfire. Thick, heavy folios, containing the
labors of lexicographers, commentators, and encyclopedists, were
flung in, and, falling among the embers with a leaden thump,
smouldered away to ashes like rotten wood. The small, richly gilt
French tomes of the last age, with the hundred volumes of Voltaire
among them, went off in a brilliant shower of sparkles and little
jets of flame; while the current literature of the same nation
burned red and blue, and threw an infernal light over the visages of
the spectators, converting them all to the aspect of party-colored
fiends. A collection of German stories emitted a scent of
brimstone. The English standard authors made excellent fuel,
generally exhibiting the properties of sound oak logs. Milton's
works, in particular, sent up a powerful blaze, gradually reddening
into a coal, which promised to endure longer than almost any other
material of the pile. From Shakespeare there gushed a flame of such
marvellous splendor that men shaded their eyes as against the sun's
meridian glory; nor even when the works of his own elucidators were
flung upon him did he cease to flash forth a dazzling radiance from
beneath the ponderous heap. It is my belief that he is still
blazing as fervidly as ever.
"Could a poet but light a lamp at that glorious flame," remarked I,
"he might then consume the midnight oil to some good purpose."
"That is the very thing which modern poets have been too apt to do,
or at least to attempt," answered a critic. "The chief benefit to
be expected from this conflagration of past literature undoubtedly
is, that writers will henceforth be compelled to light their lamps
at the sun or stars."
"If they can reach so high," said I; "but that task requires a
giant, who may afterwards distribute the light among inferior men.
It is not every one that can steal the fire from heaven like
Prometheus; but, when once he had done the deed, a thousand hearths
were kindled by it."
It amazed me much to observe how indefinite was the proportion
between the physical mass of any given author and the property of
brilliant and long-continued combustion. For instance, there was
not a quarto volume of the last century--nor, indeed, of the
present--that could compete in that particular with a child's little
gilt-covered book, containing _Mother Goose's Melodies_. _The Life
and Death of Tom Thumb_ outlasted the biography of Marlborough. An
epic, indeed a dozen of them, was converted to white ashes before
the single sheet of an old ballad was half consumed. In more than
one case, too, when volumes of applauded verse proved incapable of
anything better than a stifling smoke, an unregarded ditty of some
nameless bard--perchance in the corner of a newspaper--soared up
among the stars with a flame as brilliant as their own. Speaking of
the properties of flame, methought Shelley's poetry emitted a purer
light than almost any other productions of his day, contrasting
beautifully with the fitful and lurid gleams and gushes of black
vapor that flashed and eddied from the volumes of Lord Byron. As
for Tom Moore, some of his songs diffused an odor like a burning
pastil.
I felt particular interest in watching the combustion of American
authors, and scrupulously noted by my watch the precise number of
moments that changed most of them from shabbily printed books to
indistinguishable ashes. It would be invidious, however, if not
perilous, to betray these awful secrets; so that I shall content
myself with observing that it was not invariably the writer most
frequent in the public mouth that made the most splendid appearance
in the bonfire. I especially remember that a great deal of
excellent inflammability was exhibited in a thin volume of poems by
Ellery Channing; although, to speak the truth, there were certain
portions that hissed and spluttered in a very disagreeable fashion.
A curious phenomenon occurred in reference to several writers,
native as well as foreign. Their books, though of highly
respectable figure, instead of bursting into a blaze or even
smouldering out their substance in smoke, suddenly melted away in a
manner that proved them to be ice.
If it be no lack of modesty to mention my own works, it must here be
confessed that I looked for them with fatherly interest, but in
vain. Too probably they were changed to vapor by the first action
of the heat; at best, I can only hope that, in their quiet way, they
contributed a glimmering spark or two to the splendor of the
evening.
"Alas! and woe is me!" thus bemoaned himself a heavy-looking
gentleman in green spectacles. "The world is utterly ruined, and
there is nothing to live for any longer. The business of my life is
snatched from me. Not a volume to be had for love or money!"
"This," remarked the sedate observer beside me, "is a bookworm,--one
of those men who are born to gnaw dead thoughts. His clothes, you
see, are covered with the dust of libraries. He has no inward
fountain of ideas; and, in good earnest, now that the old stock is
abolished, I do not see what is to become of the poor fellow. Have
you no word of comfort for him?"
"My dear sir," said I to the desperate bookworm, "is not nature
better than a book? Is not the human heart deeper than any system
of philosophy? Is not life replete with more instruction than past
observers have found it possible to write down in maxims? Be of
good cheer. The great book of Time is still spread wide open before
us; and, if we read it aright, it will be to us a volume of eternal
truth."
"O, my books, my books, my precious printed books!" reiterated the
forlorn bookworm. "My only reality was a bound volume; and now they
will not leave me even a shadowy pamphlet!"
In fact, the last remnant of the literature of all the ages was now
descending upon the blazing heap in the shape of a cloud of
pamphlets from the press of the New World. These likewise were
consumed in the twinkling of an eye, leaving the earth, for the
first time since the days of Cadmus, free from the plague of
letters,--an enviable field for the authors of the next generation.
"Well, and does anything remain to be done?" inquired I, somewhat
anxiously. "Unless we set fire to the earth itself, and then leap
boldly off into infinite space, I know not that we can carry reform
to any farther point."
"You are vastly mistaken, my good friend," said the observer.
"Believe me, the fire will not be allowed to settle down without the
addition of fuel that will startle many persons who have lent a
willing hand thus far."
Nevertheless there appeared to be a relaxation of effort for a
little time, during which, probably, the leaders of the movement
were considering what should be done next. In the interval, a
philosopher threw his theory into the flames,--a sacrifice which, by
those who knew how to estimate it, was pronounced the most
remarkable that had yet been made. The combustion, however, was by
no means brilliant. Some indefatigable people, scorning to take a
moment's ease, now employed themselves in collecting all the
withered leaves and fallen boughs of the forest, and thereby
recruited the bonfire to a greater height than ever. But this was
mere by-play.
"Here comes the fresh fuel that I spoke of," said my companion.
To my astonishment the persons who now advanced into the vacant
space around the mountain fire bore surplices and other priestly
garments, mitres, crosiers, and a confusion of Popish and Protestant
emblems with which it seemed their purpose to consummate the great
act of faith. Crosses from the spires of old cathedrals were cast
upon the heap with as little remorse as if the reverence of
centuries passing in long array beneath the lofty towers had not
looked up to them as the holiest of symbols. The font in which
infants were consecrated to God, the sacramental vessels whence
piety received the hallowed draught, were given to the same
destruction. Perhaps it most nearly touched my heart to see among
these devoted relics fragments of the humble communion-tables and
undecorated pulpits which I recognized as having been torn from the
meeting-houses of New England. Those simple edifices might have
been permitted to retain all of sacred embellishment that their
Puritan founders had bestowed, even though the mighty structure of
St. Peter's had sent its spoils to the fire of this terrible
sacrifice. Yet I felt that these were but the externals of
religion, and might most safely be relinquished by spirits that best
knew their deep significance.
"All is well," said I, cheerfully. "The wood-paths shall be the
aisles of our cathedral, the firmament itself shall be its ceiling.
What needs an earthly roof between the Deity and his worshippers?
Our faith can well afford to lose all the drapery that even the
holiest men have thrown around it, and be only the more sublime in
its simplicity."
"True," said my companion; "but will they pause here?"
The doubt implied in his question was well founded. In the general
destruction of books already described, a holy volume, that stood
apart from the catalogue of human literature, and yet, in one sense,
was at its head, had been spared. But the Titan of innovation,--angel
or fiend, double in his nature, and capable of deeds befitting
both characters,--at first shaking down only the old and rotten
shapes of things, had now, as it appeared, laid his terrible hand
upon the main pillars which supported the whole edifice of our moral
and spiritual state. The inhabitants of the earth had grown too
enlightened to define their faith within a form of words, or to
limit the spiritual by any analogy to our material existence.
Truths which the heavens trembled at were now but a fable of the
world's infancy. Therefore, as the final sacrifice of human error,
what else remained to be thrown upon the embers of that awful pile,
except the book which, though a celestial revelation to past ages,
was but a voice from a lower sphere as regarded the present race of
man? It was done! Upon the blazing heap of falsehood and worn-out
truth--things that the earth had never needed, or had ceased to
need, or had grown childishly weary of--fell the ponderous church
Bible, the great old volume that had lain so long on the cushion of
the pulpit, and whence the pastor's solemn voice had given holy
utterance on so many a Sabbath day. There, likewise, fell the
family Bible, which the long-buried patriarch had read to his
children,--in prosperity or sorrow, by the fireside and in the
summer shade of trees,--and had bequeathed downward as the heirloom
of generations. There fell the bosom Bible, the little volume that
had been the soul's friend of some sorely tried child of dust, who
thence took courage, whether his trial were for life or death,
steadfastly confronting both in the strong assurance of immortality.
All these were flung into the fierce and riotous blaze; and then a
mighty wind came roaring across the plain with a desolate howl, as
if it were the angry lamentation of the earth for the loss of
heaven's sunshine; and it shook the gigantic pyramid of flame and
scattered the cinders of half-consumed abominations around upon the
spectators.
"This is terrible!" said I, feeling that my check grew pale, and
seeing a like change in the visages about me.
"Be of good courage yet," answered the man with whom I had so often
spoken. He continued to gaze steadily at the spectacle with a
singular calmness, as if it concerned him merely as an observer.
"Be of good courage, nor yet exult too much; for there is far less
both of good and evil in the effect of this bonfire than the world
might be willing to believe."
"How can that be?" exclaimed I, impatiently. "Has it not consumed
everything? Has it not swallowed up or melted down every human or
divine appendage of our mortal state that had substance enough to be
acted on by fire? Will there be anything left us to-morrow morning
better or worse than a heap of embers and ashes?"
"Assuredly there will," said my grave friend. "Come hither
to-morrow morning, or whenever the combustible portion of the pile
shall be quite burned out, and you will find among the ashes
everything really valuable that you have seen cast into the flames.
Trust me, the world of to-morrow will again enrich itself with the
gold and diamonds which have been cast off by the world of today.
Not a truth is destroyed nor buried so deep among the ashes but it
will be raked up at last."
This was a strange assurance. Yet I felt inclined to credit it, the
more especially as I beheld among the wallowing flames a copy of the
Holy Scriptures, the pages of which, instead of being blackened into
tinder, only assumed a more dazzling whiteness as the fingermarks of
human imperfection were purified away. Certain marginal notes and
commentaries, it is true, yielded to the intensity of the fiery
test, but without detriment to the smallest syllable that had flamed
from the pen of inspiration.
"Yes; there is the proof of what you say," answered I, turning to
the observer; "but if only what is evil can feel the action of the
fire, then, surely, the conflagration has been of inestimable
utility. Yet, if I understand aright, you intimate a doubt whether
the world's expectation of benefit would be realized by it."
"Listen to the talk of these worthies," said he, pointing to a group
in front of the blazing pile; "possibly they may teach you something
useful, without intending it."
The persons whom he indicated consisted of that brutal and most
earthy figure who had stood forth so furiously in defence of the
gallows,--the hangman, in short,--together with the last thief and
the last murderer, all three of whom were clustered about the last
toper. The latter was liberally passing the brandy bottle, which he
had rescued from the general destruction of wines and spirits. This
little convivial party seemed at the lowest pitch of despondency, as
considering that the purified world must needs be utterly unlike the
sphere that they had hitherto known, and therefore but a strange and
desolate abode for gentlemen of their kidney.
"The best counsel for all of us is," remarked the hangman, "that,
as soon as we have finished the last drop of liquor, I help you, my
three friends, to a comfortable end upon the nearest tree, and then
hang myself on the same bough. This is no world for us any longer."
"Poh, poh, my good fellows!" said a dark-complexioned personage, who
now joined the group,--his complexion was indeed fearfully dark, and
his eyes glowed with a redder light than that of the bonfire; "be
not so cast down, my dear friends; you shall see good days yet.
There is one thing that these wiseacres have forgotten to throw into
the fire, and without which all the rest of the conflagration is
just nothing at all; yes, though they had burned the earth itself to
a cinder."
"And what may that be?" eagerly demanded the last murderer.
"What but the human heart itself?" said the dark-visaged stranger,
with a portentous grin. "And, unless they hit upon some method of
purifying that foul cavern, forth from it will reissue all the
shapes of wrong and misery--the same old shapes or worse ones--which
they have taken such a vast deal of trouble to consume to ashes. I
have stood by this livelong night and laughed in my sleeve at the
whole business. O, take my word for it, it will be the old world
yet!"
This brief conversation supplied me with a theme for lengthened
thought. How sad a truth, if true it were, that man's age-long
endeavor for perfection had served only to render him the mockery of
the evil principle, from the fatal circumstance of an error at the
very root of the matter! The heart, the heart, there was the little
yet boundless sphere wherein existed the original wrong of which the
crime and misery of this outward world were merely types. |
10,240 |
Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Tonya Allen, and Project
Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders
FOLIAGE
VARIOUS POEMS
BY
WILLIAM H. DAVIES
1913
CONTENTS
THUNDERSTORMS
STRONG MOMENTS
A GREETING
SWEET STAY-AT-HOME
THE STARVED
A MAY MORNING
THE LONELY DREAMER
CHRISTMAS
LAUGHING ROSE
SEEKING JOY
THE OLD OAK TREE
POOR KINGS
LOVE AND THE MUST
MY YOUTH
SMILES
MAD POLL
JOY SUPREME
FRANCIS THOMPSON
THE BIRD-MAN
WINTER'S BEAUTY
THE CHURCH ORGAN
HEIGH HO, THE RAIN
LOVE'S INSPIRATION
NIGHT WANDERERS
YOUNG BEAUTY
WHO I KNOW
SWEET BIRDS, I COME
THE TWO LIVES
HIDDEN LOVE
LIFE IS JOLLY
THE FOG
A WOMAN'S CHARMS
DREAMS OF THE SEA
THE WONDER-MAKER
THE HELPLESS
AN EARLY LOVE
DREAM TRAGEDIES
CHILDREN AT PLAY
WHEN THE CUCKOO SINGS
RETURN TO NATURE
A STRANGE CITY
THUNDERSTORMS
My mind has thunderstorms,
That brood for heavy hours:
Until they rain me words,
My thoughts are drooping flowers
And sulking, silent birds.
Yet come, dark thunderstorms,
And brood your heavy hours;
For when you rain me words,
My thoughts are dancing flowers
And joyful singing birds.
STRONG MOMENTS
Sometimes I hear fine ladies sing,
Sometimes I smoke and drink with men;
Sometimes I play at games of cards--
Judge me to be no strong man then.
The strongest moment of my life
Is when I think about the poor;
When, like a spring that rain has fed,
My pity rises more and more.
The flower that loves the warmth and light,
Has all its mornings bathed in dew;
My heart has moments wet with tears,
My weakness is they are so few.
A GREETING
Good morning, Life--and all
Things glad and beautiful.
My pockets nothing hold,
But he that owns the gold,
The Sun, is my great friend--
His spending has no end.
Hail to the morning sky,
Which bright clouds measure high;
Hail to you birds whose throats
Would number leaves by notes;
Hail to you shady bowers,
And you green fields of flowers.
Hail to you women fair,
That make a show so rare
In cloth as white as milk--
Be't calico or silk:
Good morning, Life--and all
Things glad and beautiful.
SWEET STAY-AT-HOME
Sweet Stay-at-Home, sweet Well-content,
Thou knowest of no strange continent:
Thou hast not felt thy bosom keep
A gentle motion with the deep;
Thou hast not sailed in Indian seas,
Where scent comes forth in every breeze.
Thou hast not seen the rich grape grow
For miles, as far as eyes can go;
Thou hast not seen a summer's night
When maids could sew by a worm's light;
Nor the North Sea in spring send out
Bright hues that like birds flit about
In solid cages of white ice--
Sweet Stay-at-Home, sweet Love-one-place.
Thou hast not seen black fingers pick
White cotton when the bloom is thick,
Nor heard black throats in harmony;
Nor hast thou sat on stones that lie
Flat on the earth, that once did rise
To hide proud kings from common eyes,
Thou hast not seen plains full of bloom
Where green things had such little room
They pleased the eye like fairer flowers--
Sweet Stay-at-Home, all these long hours.
Sweet Well-content, sweet Love-one-place,
Sweet, simple maid, bless thy dear face;
For thou hast made more homely stuff
Nurture thy gentle self enough;
I love thee for a heart that's kind--
Not for the knowledge in thy mind.
THE STARVED
My little Lamb, what is amiss?
If there was milk in mother's kiss,
You would not look as white as this.
The wolf of Hunger, it is he
That takes away thy milk from me,
And I have much to do for thee.
If thou couldst live on love, I know
No babe in all the land could show
More rosy cheeks and louder crow.
Thy father's dead, Alas for thee:
I cannot keep this wolf from me,
That takes thy milk so bold and free.
If thy dear father lived, he'd drive
Away this beast with whom I strive,
And thou, my pretty Lamb, wouldst thrive.
Ah, my poor babe, my love's so great
I'd swallow common rags for meat--
If they could make milk rich and sweet.
My little Lamb, what is amiss?
Come, I must wake thee with a kiss,
For Death would own a sleep like this.
A MAY MORNING
The sky is clear,
The sun is bright;
The cows are red,
The sheep are white;
Trees in the meadows
Make happy shadows.
Birds in the hedge
Are perched and sing;
Swallows and larks
Are on the wing:
Two merry cuckoos
Are making echoes.
Bird and the beast
Have the dew yet;
My road shines dry,
Theirs bright and wet:
Death gives no warning,
On this May morning.
I see no Christ
Nailed on a tree,
Dying for sin;
No sin I see:
No thoughts for sadness,
All thoughts for gladness.
THE LONELY DREAMER
He lives his lonely life, and when he dies
A thousand hearts maybe will utter sighs;
Because they liked his songs, and now their bird
Sleeps with his head beneath his wing, unheard.
But what kind hand will tend his grave, and bring
Those blossoms there, of which he used to sing?
Who'll kiss his mound, and wish the time would come
To lie with him inside that silent tomb?
And who'll forget the dreamer's skill, and shed
A tear because a loving heart is dead?
Heigh ho for gossip then, and common sighs--
And let his death bring tears in no one's eyes.
CHRISTMAS
Christmas has come, let's eat and drink--
This is no time to sit and think;
Farewell to study, books and pen,
And welcome to all kinds of men.
Let all men now get rid of care,
And what one has let others share;
Then 'tis the same, no matter which
Of us is poor, or which is rich.
Let each man have enough this day,
Since those that can are glad to pay;
There's nothing now too rich or good
For poor men, not the King's own food.
Now like a singing bird my feet
Touch earth, and I must drink and eat.
Welcome to all men: I'll not care
What any of my fellows wear;
We'll not let cloth divide our souls,
They'll swim stark naked in the bowls.
Welcome, poor beggar: I'll not see
That hand of yours dislodge a flea,--
While you sit at my side and beg,
Or right foot scratching your left leg.
Farewell restraint: we will not now
Measure the ale our brains allow,
But drink as much as we can hold.
We'll count no change when we spend gold;
This is no time to save, but spend,
To give for nothing, not to lend.
Let foes make friends: let them forget
The mischief-making dead that fret
The living with complaint like this--
"He wronged us once, hate him and his."
Christmas has come; let every man
Eat, drink, be merry all he can.
Ale's my best mark, but if port wine
Or whisky's yours--let it be mine;
No matter what lies in the bowls,
We'll make it rich with our own souls.
Farewell to study, books and pen,
And welcome to all kinds of men.
LAUGHING ROSE
If I were gusty April now,
How I would blow at laughing Rose;
I'd make her ribbons slip their knots,
And all her hair come loose.
If I were merry April now,
How I would pelt her cheeks with showers;
I'd make carnations, rich and warm,
Of her vermilion flowers.
Since she will laugh in April's face,
No matter how he rains or blows--
Then O that I wild April were,
To play with laughing Rose.
SEEKING JOY
Joy, how I sought thee!
Silver I spent and gold,
On the pleasures of this world,
In splendid garments clad;
The wine I drank was sweet,
Rich morsels I did eat--
Oh, but my life was sad!
Joy, how I sought thee!
Joy, I have found thee!
Far from the halls of Mirth,
Back to the soft green earth,
Where people are not many;
I find thee, Joy, in hours
With clouds, and birds, and flowers--
Thou dost not charge one penny.
Joy, I have found thee!
THE OLD OAK TREE
I sit beneath your leaves, old oak,
You mighty one of all the trees;
Within whose hollow trunk a man
Could stable his big horse with ease.
I see your knuckles hard and strong,
But have no fear they'll come to blows;
Your life is long, and mine is short,
But which has known the greater woes?
Thou has not seen starved women here,
Or man gone mad because ill-fed--
Who stares at stones in city streets,
Mistaking them for hunks of bread.
Thou hast not felt the shivering backs
Of homeless children lying down
And sleeping in the cold, night air--
Like doors and walls in London town.
Knowing thou hast not known such shame,
And only storms have come thy way,
Methinks I could in comfort spend
My summer with thee, day by day.
To lie by day in thy green shade,
And in thy hollow rest at night;
And through the open doorway see
The stars turn over leaves of light.
POOR KINGS
God's pity on poor kings,
They know no gentle rest;
The North and South cry out,
Cries come from East and West--
"Come, open this new Dock,
Building, Bazaar or Fair."
Lord, what a wretched life
Such men must bear.
They're followed, watched and spied,
No liberty they know;
Some eye will watch them still,
No matter where they go.
When in green lanes I muse,
Alone, and hear birds sing,
God's pity then, say I,
On some poor king.
LOVE AND THE MUSE
My back is turned on Spring and all her flowers,
The birds no longer charm from tree to tree;
The cuckoo had his home in this green world
Ten days before his voice was heard by me.
Had I an answer from a dear one's lips,
My love of life would soon regain its power;
And suckle my sweet dreams, that tug my heart,
And whimper to be nourished every hour.
Give me that answer now, and then my Muse,
That for my sweet life's sake must never die,
Will rise like that great wave that leaps and hangs
The sea-weed on a vessel's mast-top high.
MY YOUTH
My youth was my old age,
Weary and long;
It had too many cares
To think of song;
My moulting days all came
When I was young.
Now, in life's prime, my soul
Comes out in flower;
Late, as with Robin, comes
My singing power;
I was not born to joy
Till this late hour.
SMILES
I saw a black girl once,
As black as winter's night;
Till through her parted lips
There came a flood of light;
It was the milky way
Across her face so black:
Her two lips closed again,
And night came back.
I see a maiden now,
Fair as a summer's day;
Yet through her parted lips
I see the milky way;
It makes the broad daylight
In summer time look black:
Her two lips close again,
And night comes back.
MAD POLL
There goes mad Poll, dressed in wild flowers,
Poor, crazy Poll, now old and wan;
Her hair all down, like any child:
She swings her two arms like a man.
Poor, crazy Poll is never sad,
She never misses one that dies;
When neighbours show their new-born babes,
They seem familiar to her eyes.
Her bonnet's always in her hand,
Or on the ground, and lying near;
She thinks it is a thing for play,
Or pretty show, and not to wear.
She gives the sick no sympathy,
She never soothes a child that cries;
She never whimpers, night or day,
She makes no moans, she makes no sighs.
She talks about some battle old,
Fought many a day from yesterday;
And when that war is done, her love--
"Ha, ha!" Poll laughs, and skips away.
JOY SUPREME
The birds are pirates of her notes,
The blossoms steal her face's light;
The stars in ambush lie all day,
To take her glances for the night.
Her voice can shame rain-pelted leaves;
Young robin has no notes as sweet
In autumn, when the air is still,
And all the other birds are mute.
When I set eyes on ripe, red plums
That seem a sin and shame to bite,
Such are her lips, which I would kiss,
And still would keep before my sight.
When I behold proud gossamer
Make silent billows in the air,
Then think I of her head's fine stuff,
Finer than gossamer's, I swear.
The miser has his joy, with gold
Beneath his pillow in the night;
My head shall lie on soft warm hair,
And miser's know not that delight.
Captains that own their ships can boast
Their joy to feel the rolling brine--
But I shall lie near her, and feel
Her soft warm bosom swell on mine.
FRANCIS THOMPSON
Thou hadst no home, and thou couldst see
In every street the windows' light:
Dragging thy limbs about all night,
No window kept a light for thee.
However much thou wert distressed,
Or tired of moving, and felt sick,
Thy life was on the open deck--
Thou hadst no cabin for thy rest.
Thy barque was helpless 'neath the sky,
No pilot thought thee worth his pains
To guide for love or money gains--
Like phantom ships the rich sailed by.
Thy shadow mocked thee night and day,
Thy life's companion, it alone;
It did not sigh, it did not moan,
But mocked thy moves in every way.
In spite of all, the mind had force,
And, like a stream whose surface flows
The wrong way when a strong wind blows,
It underneath maintained its course.
Oft didst thou think thy mind would flower
Too late for good, as some bruised tree
That blooms in Autumn, and we see
Fruit not worth picking, hard and sour.
Some poets _feign_ their wounds and scars.
If they had known real suffering hours,
They'd show, in place of Fancy's flowers,
More of Imagination's stars.
So, if thy fruits of Poesy
Are rich, it is at this dear cost--
That they were nipt by Sorrow's frost,
In nights of homeless misery.
THE BIRD-MAN
Man is a bird:
He rises on fine wings
Into the Heaven's clear light;
He flies away and sings--
There's music in his flight.
Man is a bird:
In swiftest speed he burns,
With twist and dive and leap;
A bird whose sudden turns
Can drive the frightened sheep.
Man is a bird:
Over the mountain high,
Whose head is in the skies,
Cut from its shoulder by
A cloud--the bird-man flies.
Man is a bird:
Eagles from mountain crag
Swooped down to prove his worth;
But _now_ they _rise_ to drag
Him down from Heaven to earth!
WINTER'S BEAUTY
Is it not fine to walk in spring,
When leaves are born, and hear birds sing?
And when they lose their singing powers,
In summer, watch the bees at flowers?
Is it not fine, when summer's past,
To have the leaves, no longer fast,
Biting my heel where'er I go,
Or dancing lightly on my toe?
Now winter's here and rivers freeze;
As I walk out I see the trees,
Wherein the pretty squirrels sleep,
All standing in the snow so deep:
And every twig, however small,
Is blossomed white and beautiful.
Then welcome, winter, with thy power
To make this tree a big white flower;
To make this tree a lovely sight,
With fifty brown arms draped in white,
While thousands of small fingers show
In soft white gloves of purest snow.
THE CHURCH ORGAN
The homeless man has heard thy voice,
Its sound doth move his memory deep;
He stares bewildered, as a man
That's shook by earthquake in his sleep.
Thy solemn voice doth bring to mind
The days that are forever gone:
Thou bringest to mind our early days,
Ere we made second homes or none.
HEIGH HO, THE RAIN
The Lark that in heaven dim
Can match a rainy hour
With his own music's shower,
Can make me sing like him--
Heigh ho! The rain!
Sing--when a Nightingale
Pours forth her own sweet soul
To hear dread thunder roll
Into a tearful tale--
Heigh ho! The rain!
Sing--when a Sparrow's seen
Trying to lie at rest
By pressing his warm breast
To leaves so wet and green--
Heigh ho! The rain!
LOVE'S INSPIRATION
Give me the chance, and I will make
Thy thoughts of me, like worms this day,
Take wings and change to butterflies
That in the golden light shall play;
Thy cold, clear heart--the quiet pool
That never heard Love's nightingale--
Shall hear his music night and day,
And in no seasons shall it fail.
I'll make thy happy heart my port,
Where all my thoughts are anchored fast;
Thy meditations, full of praise,
The flags of glory on each mast.
I'll make my Soul thy shepherd soon,
With all thy thoughts my grateful flock;
And thou shalt say, each time I go--
How long, my Love, ere thou'lt come back?
NIGHT WANDERERS
They hear the bell of midnight toll,
And shiver in their flesh and soul;
They lie on hard, cold wood or stone,
Iron, and ache in every bone;
They hate the night: they see no eyes
Of loved ones in the starlit skies.
They see the cold, dark water near;
They dare not take long looks for fear
They'll fall like those poor birds that see
A snake's eyes staring at their tree.
Some of them laugh, half-mad; and some
All through the chilly night are dumb;
Like poor, weak infants some converse,
And cough like giants, deep and hoarse.
YOUNG BEAUTY
When at each door the ruffian winds
Have laid a dying man to groan,
And filled the air on winter nights
With cries of infants left alone;
And every thing that has a bed
Will sigh for others that have none:
On such a night, when bitter cold,
Young Beauty, full of love thoughts sweet,
Can redden in her looking-glass;
With but one gown on, in bare feet,
She from her own reflected charms
Can feel the joy of summer's heat.
WHO I KNOW
I do not know his grace the Duke,
Outside whose gilded gate there died
Of want a feeble, poor old man,
With but his shadow at his side.
I do not know his Lady fair,
Who in a bath of milk doth lie;
More milk than could feed fifty babes,
That for the want of it must die.
But well I know the mother poor,
Three pounds of flesh wrapped in her shawl:
A puny babe that, stripped at home,
Looks like a rabbit skinned, so small.
And well I know the homeless waif,
Fed by the poorest of the poor;
Since I have seen that child alone,
Crying against a bolted door.
SWEET BIRDS, I COME
The bird that now
On bush and tree,
Near leaves so green
Looks down to see
Flowers looking up--
He either sings
In ecstasy
Or claps his wings.
Why should I slave
For finer dress
Or ornaments;
Will flowers smile less
For rags than silk?
Are birds less dumb
For tramp than squire?
Sweet birds, I come.
THE TWO LIVES
Now how could I, with gold to spare,
Who know the harlot's arms, and wine,
Sit in this green field all alone,
If Nature was not truly mine?
That Pleasure life wakes stale at morn,
From heavy sleep that no rest brings:
This life of quiet joy wakes fresh,
And claps its wings at morn, and sings.
So here sit I, alone till noon,
In one long dream of quiet bliss;
I hear the lark and share his joy,
With no more winedrops than were his.
Such, Nature, is thy charm and power--
Since I have made the Muse my wife--
To keep me from the harlot's arms,
And save me from a drunkard's life.
HIDDEN LOVE
The bird of Fortune sings when free,
But captured, soon grows dumb; and we,
To hear his fast declining powers,
Must soon forget that he is ours.
So, when I win that maid, no doubt
Love soon will seem to be half out;
Like blighted leaves drooped to the ground,
Whose roots are still untouched and sound,
So will our love's root still be strong
When others think the leaves go wrong.
Though we may quarrel, 'twill not prove
That she and I are less in love;
The parrot, though he mocked the dove,
Died when she died, and proved his love.
When merry springtime comes, we hear
How all things into love must stir;
How birds would rather sing than eat,
How joyful sheep would rather bleat:
And daffodils nod heads of gold,
And dance in April's sparkling cold.
So in our early love did we
Dance much and skip, and laugh with glee:
But let none think our love is flown
If, when we're married, little's shown:
E'en though our lips be dumb of song,
Our hearts can still be singing strong.
LIFE IS JOLLY
This life is jolly, O!
I envy no man's lot;
My eyes can much admire,
And still my heart crave not;
There's no true joy in gold,
It breeds desire for more;
Whatever wealth man has,
Desire can keep him poor.
This life is jolly, O!
Power has his fawning slaves,
But if he rests his mind,
Those wretches turn bold knaves.
Fame's field is full of flowers,
It dazzles as we pass,
But men who walk that field
Starve for the common grass.
This life is jolly, O!
Let others know they die,
Enough to know I live,
And make no question why;
I care not whence I came,
Nor whither I shall go;
Let others think of these--
This life is jolly, O!
THE FOG
I saw the fog grow thick,
Which soon made blind my ken;
It made tall men of boys,
And giants of tall men.
It clutched my throat, I coughed;
Nothing was in my head
Except two heavy eyes
Like balls of burning lead.
And when it grew so black
That I could know no place,
I lost all judgment then,
Of distance and of space.
The street lamps, and the lights
Upon the halted cars,
Could either be on earth
Or be the heavenly stars.
A man passed by me close,
I asked my way, he said,
"Come, follow me, my friend"--
I followed where he led.
He rapped the stones in front,
"Trust me," he said, "and come";
I followed like a child--
A blind man led me home.
A WOMAN'S CHARMS
My purse is yours, Sweet Heart, for I
Can count no coins with you close by;
I scorn like sailors them, when they
Have drawn on shore their deep-sea pay;
Only my thoughts I value now,
Which, like the simple glowworms, throw
Their beams to greet thee bravely, Love--
Their glorious light in Heaven above.
Since I have felt thy waves of light,
Beating against my soul, the sight
Of gems from Afric's continent
Move me to no great wonderment.
Since I, Sweet Heart, have known thine hair,
The fur of ermine, sable, bear,
Or silver fox, for me can keep
No more to praise than common sheep.
Though ten Isaiahs' souls were mine,
They could not sing such charms as thine.
Two little hands that show with pride,
Two timid, little feet that hide;
Two eyes no dark Senoras show
Their burning like in Mexico;
Two coral gates wherein is shown
Your queen of charms, on a white throne;
Your queen of charms, the lovely smile
That on its white throne could beguile
The mastiff from his gates in hell;
Who by no whine or bark could tell
His masters what thing made him go--
And countless other charms I know.
October's hedge has far less hues
Than thou hast charms from which to choose.
DREAMS OF THE SEA
I know not why I yearn for thee again,
To sail once more upon thy fickle flood;
I'll hear thy waves wash under my death-bed,
Thy salt is lodged forever in my blood.
Yet I have seen thee lash the vessel's sides
In fury, with thy many tailed whip;
And I have seen thee, too, like Galilee,
When Jesus walked in peace to Simon's ship
And I have seen thy gentle breeze as soft
As summer's, when it makes the cornfields run;
And I have seen thy rude and lusty gale
Make ships show half their bellies to the sun.
Thou knowest the way to tame the wildest life,
Thou knowest the way to bend the great and proud:
I think of that Armada whose puffed sails,
Greedy and large, came swallowing every cloud.
But I have seen the sea-boy, young and drowned,
Lying on shore and by thy cruel hand,
A seaweed beard was on his tender chin,
His heaven-blue eyes were filled with common sand.
And yet, for all, I yearn for thee again,
To sail once more upon thy fickle flood:
I'll hear thy waves wash under my death-bed,
Thy salt is lodged forever in my blood.
THE WONDER MAKER
Come, if thou'rt cold to Summer's charms,
Her clouds of green, her starry flowers,
And let this bird, this wandering bird,
Make his fine wonder yours;
He, hiding in the leaves so green,
When sampling this fair world of ours,
Cries cuckoo, clear; and like Lot's wife,
I look, though it should cost my life.
When I can hear that charmed one's voice,
I taste of immortality;
My joy's so great that on my heart
Doth lie eternity,
As light as any little flower--
So strong a wonder works in me;
Cuckoo! he cries, and fills my soul
With all that's rich and beautiful.
THE HELPLESS
Those poor, heartbroken wretches, doomed
To hear at night the clocks' hard tones;
They have no beds to warm their limbs,
But with those limbs must warm cold stones;
Those poor weak men, whose coughs and ailings
Force them to tear at iron railings.
Those helpless men that starve, my pity;
Whose waking day is never done;
Who, save for their own shadows, are
Doomed night and day to walk alone:
They know no bright face but the sun's,
So cold and dark are human ones.
AN EARLY LOVE
Ah, sweet young blood, that makes the heart
So full of joy, and light,
That dying children dance with it
From early morn till night.
My dreams were blossoms, hers the fruit,
She was my dearest care;
With gentle hand, and for it, I
Made playthings of her hair.
I made my fingers rings of gold,
And bangles for my wrist;
You should have felt the soft, warm thing
I made to glove my fist.
And she should have a crown, I swore,
With only gold enough
To keep together stones more rich
Than that fine metal stuff.
Her golden hair gave me more joy
Than Jason's heart could hold,
When all his men cried out--Ah, look!
He has the Fleece of Gold!
DREAM TRAGEDIES
Thou art not always kind, O sleep:
What awful secrets them dost keep
In store, and ofttimes make us know;
What hero has not fallen low
In sleep before a monster grim,
And whined for mercy unto him;
Knights, constables, and men-at-arms
Have quailed and whined in sleep's alarms.
Thou wert not kind last night to make
Me like a very coward shake--
Shake like a thin red-currant bush
Robbed of its fruit by a strong thrush.
I felt this earth did move; more slow,
And slower yet began to go;
And not a bird was heard to sing,
Men and great beasts were shivering;
All living things knew well that when
This earth stood still, destruction then
Would follow with a mighty crash.
'Twas then I broke that awful hush:
E'en as a mother, who does come
Running in haste back to her home,
And looks at once, and lo, the child
She left asleep is gone; and wild
She shrieks and loud--so did I break
With a mad cry that dream, and wake.
CHILDREN AT PLAY
I hear a merry noise indeed:
Is it the geese and ducks that take
Their first plunge in a quiet pond
That into scores of ripples break--
Or children make this merry sound?
I see an oak tree, its strong back
Could not be bent an inch though all
Its leaves were stone, or iron even:
A boy, with many a lusty call,
Rides on a bough bareback through Heaven.
I see two children dig a hole
And plant in it a cherry-stone:
"We'll come to-morrow," one child said--
"And then the tree will be full grown,
And all its boughs have cherries red."
Ah, children, what a life to lead:
You love the flowers, but when they're past
No flowers are missed by your bright eyes;
And when cold winter comes at last,
Snowflakes shall be your butterflies.
WHEN THE CUCKOO SINGS
In summer, when the Cuckoo sings,
And clouds like greater moons can shine;
When every leafy tree doth hold
A loving heart that beats with mine:
Now, when the Brook has cresses green,
As well as stones, to check his pace;
And, if the Owl appears, he's forced
By small birds to some hiding-place:
Then, like red Robin in the spring,
I shun those haunts where men are found;
My house holds little joy until
Leaves fall and birds can make no sound;
Let none invade that wilderness
Into whose dark green depths I go--
Save some fine lady, all in white,
Comes like a pillar of pure snow.
RETURN TO NATURE
My song is of that city which
Has men too poor and men too rich;
Where some are sick, too richly fed,
While others take the sparrows' bread:
Where some have beds to warm their bones,
While others sleep on hard, cold stones
That suck away their bodies' heat.
Where men are drunk in every street;
Men full of poison, like those flies
That still attack the horses' eyes.
Where some men freeze for want of cloth,
While others show their jewels' worth
And dress in satin, fur or silk;
Where fine rich ladies wash in milk,
While starving mothers have no food
To make them fit in flesh and blood;
So that their watery breasts can give
Their babies milk and make them live.
Where one man does the work of four,
And dies worn out before his hour;
While some seek work in vain, and grief
Doth make their fretful lives as brief.
Where ragged men are seen to wait
For charity that's small and late;
While others haunt in idle leisure,
Theatre doors to pay for pleasure.
No more I'll walk those crowded places
And take hot dreams from harlots' faces;
I'll know no more those passions' dreams,
While musing near these quiet streams;
That biting state of savage lust
Which, true love absent, burns to dust.
Gold's rattle shall not rob my ears
Of this sweet music of the spheres.
I'll walk abroad with fancy free;
Each leafy, summer's morn I'll see
The trees, all legs or bodies, when
They vary in their shapes like men.
I'll walk abroad and see again
How quiet pools are pricked by rain;
And you shall hear a song as sweet
As when green leaves and raindrops meet.
I'll hear the Nightingale's fine mood,
Rattling with thunder in the wood,
Made bolder by each mighty crash;
Who drives her notes with every flash
Of lightning through the summer's night.
No more I'll walk in that pale light
That shows the homeless man awake,
Ragged and cold; harlot and rake,
That have their hearts in rags, and die
Before that poor wretch they pass by.
Nay, I have found a life so fine
That every moment seems divine;
By shunning all those pleasures full,
That bring repentance cold and dull.
Such misery seen in days gone by,
That, made a coward, now I fly
To green things, like a bird. Alas!
In days gone by I could not pass
Ten men but what the eyes of one
Would burn me for no kindness done;
And wretched women I passed by
Sent after me a moan or sigh.
Ah, wretched days: for in that place
My soul's leaves sought the human face,
And not the Sun's for warmth and light--
And so was never free from blight.
But seek me now, and you will find
Me on some soft green bank reclined;
Watching the stately deer close by,
That in a great deep hollow lie
Shaking their tails with all the ease
That lambs can. First, look for the trees,
Then, if you seek me, find me quick.
Seek me no more where men are thick,
But in green lanes where I can walk
A mile, and still no human folk
Tread on my shadow. Seek me where
The strange oak tree is, that can bear
One white-leaved branch among the green--
Which many a woodman has not seen.
If you would find me, go where cows
And sheep stand under shady boughs;
Where furious squirrels shake a tree
As though they'd like to bury me
Under a leaf shower heavy, and
I laugh at them for spite, and stand.
Seek me no more in human ways--
Who am a coward since those days
My mind was burned by poor men's eyes,
And frozen by poor women's sighs.
Then send your pearls across the sea,
Your feathers, scent and ivory,
You distant lands--but let my bales
Be brought by Cuckoos, Nightingales,
That come in spring from your far shores;
Sweet birds that carry richer stores
Than men can dream of, when they prize
Fine silks and pearls for merchandise;
And dream of ships that take the floods
Sunk to their decks with such vain goods;
Bringing that traitor silk, whose soft
Smooth tongue persuades the poor too oft
From sweet content; and pearls, whose fires
Make ashes of our best desires.
For I have heard the sighs and whines
Of rich men that drink costly wines
And eat the best of fish and fowl;
Men that have plenty, and still growl
Because they cannot like kings live--
"Alas!" they whine, "we cannot save."
Since I have heard those rich ones sigh,
Made poor by their desires so high,
I cherish more a simple mind;
That I am well content to find
My pictures in the open air,
And let my walls and floors go bare;
That I with lovely things can fill
My rooms, whene'er sweet Fancy will.
I make a fallen tree my chair,
And soon forget no cushion's there;
I lie upon the grass or straw,
And no soft down do I sigh for;
For with me all the time I keep
Sweet dreams that, do I wake or sleep,
Shed on me still their kindly beams;
Aye, I am richer with my dreams
Than banks where men dull-eyed and cold
Without a tremble shovel gold.
A happy life is this. I walk
And hear more birds than people talk;
I hear the birds that sing unseen,
On boughs now smothered with leaves green;
I sit and watch the swallows there,
Making a circus in the air;
That speed around straight-going crow,
As sharks around a ship can go;
I hear the skylark out of sight,
Hid perfectly in all this light.
The dappled cows in fields I pass,
Up to their bosoms in deep grass;
Old oak trees, with their bowels gone,
I see with spring's green finery on.
I watch the buzzing bees for hours,
To see them rush at laughing flowers--
And butterflies that lie so still.
I see great houses on the hill,
With shining roofs; and there shines one,
It seems that heaven has dropped the sun.
I see yon cloudlet sail the skies,
Racing with clouds ten times its size.
I walk green pathways, where love waits
To talk in whispers at old gates;
Past stiles--on which I lean, alone--
Carved with the names of lovers gone;
I stand on arches whose dark stones
Can turn the wind's soft sighs to groans.
I hear the Cuckoo when first he
Makes this green world's discovery,
And re-creates it in my mind,
Proving my eyes were growing blind.
I see the rainbow come forth clear
And wave her coloured scarf to cheer
The sun long swallowed by a flood--
So do I live in lane and wood.
Let me look forward to each spring
As eager as the birds that sing;
And feed my eyes on spring's young flowers
Before the bees by many hours,
My heart to leap and sing her praise
Before the birds by many days.
Go white my hair and skin go dry--
But let my heart a dewdrop lie
Inside those leaves when they go wrong,
As fresh as when my life was young.
A STRANGE CITY
A wondrous city, that had temples there
More rich than that one built by David's son,
Which called forth Ophir's gold, when Israel
Made Lebanon half naked for her sake.
I saw white towers where so-called traitors died--
True men whose tongues were bells to honest hearts,
And rang out boldly in false monarch's ears.
Saw old black gateways, on whose arches crouched
Stone lions with their bodies gnawed by age.
I looked with awe on iron gates that could
Tell bloody stones if they had our tongues.
I saw tall mounted spires shine in the sun,
That stood amidst their army of low streets.
I saw in buildings pictures, statues rare,
Made in those days when Rome was young, and new
In marble quarried from Carrara's hills;
Statues by sculptors that could almost make
Fine cobwebs out of stone--so light they worked.
Pictures that breathe in us a living soul,
Such as we seldom feel come from that life
The artist copies. Many a lovely sight--
Such as the half sunk barge with bales of hay,
Or sparkling coals--employed my wondering eyes.
I saw old Thames, whose ripples swarmed with stars
Bred by the sun on that fine summer's day;
I saw in fancy fowl and green banks there,
And Liza's barge rowed past a thousand swans.
I walked in parks and heard sweet music cry
In solemn courtyards, midst the men-at-arms;
Which suddenly would leap those stony walls
And spring up with loud laughter into trees.
I walked in busy streets where music oft
Went on the march with men; and ofttimes heard
The organ in cathedral, when the boys
Like nightingales sang in that thunderstorm;
The organ, with its rich and solemn tones--
As near a God's voice as a man conceives;
Nor ever dreamt the silent misery
That solemn organ brought to homeless men.
I heard the drums and soft brass instruments,
Led by the silver cornets clear and high--
Whose sounds turned playing children into stones.
I saw at night the City's lights shine bright,
A greater milky way; how in its spell
It fascinated with ten thousand eyes;
Like those sweet wiles of an enchantress who
Would still detain her knight gone cold in love;
It was an iceberg with long arms unseen,
That felt the deep for vessels far away.
All things seemed strange, I stared like any child
That pores on some old face and sees a world
Which its familiar granddad and his dame
Hid with their love and laughter until then.
My feet had not yet felt the cruel rocks
Beneath the pleasant moss I seemed to tread.
But soon my ears grew weary of that din,
My eyes grew tired of all that flesh and stone;
And, as a snail that crawls on a smooth stalk,
Will reach the end and find a sharpened thorn--
So did I reach the cruel end at last.
I saw the starving mother and her child,
Who feared that Death would surely end its sleep,
And cursed the wolf of Hunger with her moans.
And yet, methought, when first I entered there,
Into that city with my wondering mind,
How marvellous its many sights and sounds;
The traffic with its sound of heavy seas
That have and would again unseat the rocks.
How common then seemed Nature's hills and fields
Compared with these high domes and even streets,
And churches with white towers and bodies black.
The traffic's sound was music to my ears;
A sound of where the white waves, hour by hour,
Attack a reef of coral rising yet;
Or where a mighty warship in a fog,
Steams into a large fleet of little boats.
Aye, and that fog was strange and wonderful,
That made men blind and grope their way at noon.
I saw that City with fierce human surge,
With millions of dark waves that still spread out
To swallow more of their green boundaries.
Then came a day that noise so stirred my soul,
I called them hellish sounds, and thought red war
Was better far than peace in such a town.
To hear that din all day, sometimes my mind
Went crazed, and it seemed strange, as I were lost
In some vast forest full of chattering apes.
How sick I grew to hear that lasting noise,
And all those people forced across my sight,
Knowing the acres of green fields and woods
That in some country parts outnumbered men;
In half an hour ten thousand men I passed--
More than nine thousand should have been green trees.
There on a summer's day I saw such crowds
That where there was no man man's shadow was;
Millions all cramped together in one hive,
Storing, methought, more bitter stuff than sweet.
The air was foul and stale; from their green homes
Young blood had brought its fresh and rosy cheeks,
Which soon turned colour, like blue streams in flood.
Aye, solitude, black solitude indeed,
To meet a million souls and know not one;
This world must soon grow stale to one compelled
To look all day at faces strange and cold. |
10,240 |
Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny
THE NAPOLEON OF THE PEOPLE
By Honore De Balzac
Translated by Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell.
PREPARER'S NOTE
The Napoleon of the People was originally published in Le Medicin de
Campagne (The Country Doctor). It is a story told to a group of peasants
by the character of Goguelat, an ex-soldier who served under Napoleon in
an infantry regiment. It was later included in Folk-tales of Napoleon:
Napoleonder from the Russian, a collection of stories by various
authors. This translation is by Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell.
THE NAPOLEON OF THE PEOPLE
Napoleon, you see, my friends, was born in Corsica, which is a French
island warmed by the Italian sun; it is like a furnace there, everything
is scorched up, and they keep on killing each other from father to son
for generations all about nothing at all--'tis a notion they have. To
begin at the beginning, there was something extraordinary about the
thing from the first; it occurred to his mother, who was the handsomest
woman of her time, and a shrewd soul, to dedicate him to God, so that he
should escape all the dangers of infancy and of his after life; for she
had dreamed that the world was on fire on the day he was born. It was
a prophecy! So she asked God to protect him, on condition that Napoleon
should re-establish His holy religion, which had been thrown to the
ground just then. That was the agreement; we shall see what came of it.
Now, do you follow me carefully, and tell me whether what you are about
to hear is natural.
It is certain sure that only a man who had had imagination enough to
make a mysterious compact would be capable of going further than anybody
else, and of passing through volleys of grape-shot and showers of
bullets which carried us off like flies, but which had a respect for his
head. I myself had particular proof of that at Eylau. I see him yet;
he climbs a hillock, takes his field-glass, looks along our lines, and
says, "That is going on all right." One of the deep fellows, with a
bunch of feathers in his cap, used to plague him a good deal from all
accounts, following him about everywhere, even when he was getting
his meals. This fellow wants to do something clever, so as soon as the
Emperor goes away he takes his place. Oh! swept away in a moment! And
this is the last of the bunch of feathers! You understand quite clearly
that Napoleon had undertaken to keep his secret to himself. That is why
those who accompanied him, and even his especial friends, used to drop
like nuts: Duroc, Bessieres, Lannes--men as strong as bars of steel,
which he cast into shape for his own ends. And here is a final proof
that he was the child of God, created to be the soldier's father; for
no one ever saw him as a lieutenant or a captain. He is a
commandant straight off! Ah! yes, indeed! He did not look more than
four-and-twenty, but he was an old general ever since the taking of
Toulon, when he made a beginning by showing the rest that they knew
nothing about handling cannon. Next thing he does, he tumbles upon us.
A little slip of a general-in-chief of the army of Italy, which had
neither bread nor ammunition nor shoes nor clothes--a wretched army as
naked as a worm.
"Friends," he said, "here we all are together. Now, get it well into
your pates that in a fortnight's time from now you will be the victors,
and dressed in new clothes; you shall all have greatcoats, strong
gaiters, and famous pairs of shoes; but, my children, you will have to
march on Milan to take them, where all these things are."
So they marched. The French, crushed as flat as a pancake, held up their
heads again. There were thirty thousand of us tatterdemalions against
eighty thousand swaggerers of Germans--fine tall men and well equipped;
I can see them yet. Then Napoleon, who was only Bonaparte in those days,
breathed goodness knows what into us, and on we marched night and day.
We rap their knuckles at Montenotte; we hurry on to thrash them at
Rivoli, Lodi, Arcola, and Millesimo, and we never let them go. The army
came to have a liking for winning battles. Then Napoleon hems them in on
all sides, these German generals did not know where to hide themselves
so as to have a little peace and comfort; he drubs them soundly, cribs
ten thousand of their men at a time by surrounding them with fifteen
hundred Frenchmen, whom he makes to spring up after his fashion, and at
last he takes their cannon, victuals, money, ammunition, and everything
they have that is worth taking; he pitches them into the water, beats
them on the mountains, snaps at them in the air, gobbles them up on the
earth, and thrashes them everywhere.
There are the troops in full feather again! For, look you, the Emperor
(who, for that matter, was a wit) soon sent for the inhabitant, and told
him that he had come there to deliver him. Whereupon the civilian finds
us free quarters and makes much of us, so do the women, who showed great
discernment. To come to a final end; in Ventose '96, which was at that
time what the month of March is now, we had been driven up into a corner
of the _Pays des Marmottes_; but after the campaign, lo and behold! we
were the masters of Italy, just as Napoleon had prophesied. And in the
month of March following, in one year and in two campaigns, he brings
us within sight of Vienna; we had made a clean sweep of them. We had
gobbled down three armies one after another, and taken the conceit out
of four Austrian generals; one of them, an old man who had white hair,
had been roasted like a rat in the straw before Mantua. The kings were
suing for mercy on their knees. Peace had been won. Could a mere mortal
have done that? No. God helped him, that is certain. He distributed
himself about like the five loaves in the Gospel, commanded on the
battlefield all day, and drew up his plans at night. The sentries always
saw him coming; he neither ate nor slept. Therefore, recognizing these
prodigies, the soldier adopts him for his father. But, forward!
The other folk there in Paris, seeing all this, say among themselves:
"Here is a pilgrim who appears to take his instructions from Heaven
above; he is uncommonly likely to lay a hand on France. We must let him
loose on Asia or America, and that, perhaps, will keep him quiet."
The same thing was decreed for him as for Jesus Christ; for, as a matter
of fact, they give him orders to go on duty down in Egypt. See his
resemblance to the Son of God! That is not all, though. He calls all his
fire-eaters about him, all those into whom he had more particularly put
the devil, and talks to them in this way:
"My friends, for the time being they are giving us Egypt to stop our
mouths. But we will swallow down Egypt in a brace of shakes, just as we
swallowed Italy, and private soldiers shall be princes, and shall have
broad lands of their own. Forward!"
"Forward, lads!" cry the sergeants.
So we come to Toulon on the way to Egypt. Whereupon the English put to
sea with all their fleet. But when we are on board, Napoleon says to us:
"They will not see us: and it is right and proper that you should know
henceforward that your general has a star in the sky that guides us and
watches over us!"
So said, so done. As we sailed over the sea we took Malta, by way of
an orange to quench his thirst for victory, for he was a man who
must always be doing something. There we are in Egypt. Well and good.
Different orders. The Egyptians, look you, are men who, ever since the
world has been the world, have been in the habit of having giants to
reign over them, and armies like swarms of ants; because it is a country
full of genii and crocodiles, where they have built up pyramids as big
as our mountains, the fancy took them to stow their kings under the
pyramids, so as to keep them fresh, a thing which mightily pleases them
all round out there. Whereupon, as we landed, the Little Corporal said
to us:
"My children, the country which you are about to conquer worships a lot
of idols which you must respect, because the Frenchman ought to be
on good terms with all the world, and fight people without giving
annoyance. Get it well into your heads to let everything alone at first;
for we shall have it all by and by! and forward!"
So far so good. But all those people had heard a prophecy of Napoleon,
under the name of _Kebir Bonaberdis_; a word which in our lingo means,
"The Sultan fires a shot," and they feared him like the devil. So the
Grand Turk, Asia, and Africa have recourse to magic, and they send a
demon against us, named the Mahdi, who it was thought had come down from
heaven on a white charger which, like its master was bullet-proof, and
the pair of them lived on the air of that part of the world. There are
people who have seen them, but for my part I cannot give you any certain
informations about them. They were the divinities of Arabia and of the
Mamelukes who wished their troopers to believe that the Mahdi had the
power of preventing them from dying in battle. They gave out that he was
an angel sent down to wage war on Napoleon, and to get back Solomon's
seal, part of their paraphernalia which they pretended our general had
stolen. You will readily understand that we made them cry peccavi all
the same.
Ah, just tell me now how they came to know about that compact of
Napoleon's? Was that natural?
They took it into their heads for certain that he commanded the genii,
and that he went from place to place like a bird in the twinkling of an
eye; and it is a fact that he was everywhere. At length it came about
that he carried off a queen of theirs. She was the private property of
a Mameluke, who, although he had several more of them, flatly refused to
strike a bargain, though "the other" offered all his treasures for her
and diamonds as big as pigeon's eggs. When things had come to that pass,
they could not well be settled without a good deal of fighting; and
there was fighting enough for everybody and no mistake about it.
Then we are drawn up before Alexandria, and again at Gizeh, and before
the Pyramids. We had to march over the sands and in the sun; people
whose eyes dazzled used to see water that they could not drink and shade
that made them fume. But we made short work of the Mamelukes as usual,
and everything goes down before the voice of Napoleon, who seizes Upper
and Lower Egypt and Arabia, far and wide, till we came to the capitals
of kingdoms which no longer existed, where there were thousands and
thousands of statues of all the devils in creation, all done to
the life, and another curious thing too, any quantity of lizards. A
confounded country where any one could have as many acres of land as he
wished for as little as he pleased.
While he was busy inland, where he meant to carry out some wonderful
ideas of his, the English burn his fleet for him in Aboukir Bay, for
they never could do enough to annoy us. But Napoleon, who was respected
East and West, and called "My Son" by the Pope, and "My dear Father" by
Mahomet's cousin, makes up his mind to have his revenge on England,
and to take India in exchange for his fleet. He set out to lead us into
Asia, by way of the Red Sea, through a country where there were palaces
for halting-places, and nothing but gold and diamonds to pay the troops
with, when the Mahdi comes to an understanding with the Plague, and
sends it among us to make a break in our victories. Halt! Then every man
files off to that parade from which no one comes back on his two feet.
The dying soldier cannot take Acre, into which he forces an entrance
three times with a warrior's impetuous enthusiasm; the Plague was too
strong for us; there was not even time to say "Your servant, sir!" to
the Plague. Every man was down with it. Napoleon alone was as fresh as a
rose; the whole army saw him drinking in the Plague without it doing him
any harm whatever.
There now, my friends, was that natural, do you think?
The Mamelukes, knowing that we were all on the sick-list, want to stop
our road; but it was no use trying that nonsense with Napoleon. So he
spoke to his familiars, who had tougher skins than the rest:
"Go and clear the road for me."
Junot, who was his devoted friend, and a first-class fighter, only takes
a thousand men, and makes a clean sweep of the Pasha's army, which
had the impudence to bar our way. Thereupon back we came to Cairo, our
headquarters, and now for another story.
Napoleon being out of the country, France allowed the people in Paris
to worry the life out of her. They kept back the soldiers' pay and all
their linen and clothing, left them to starve, and expected them to
lay down law to the universe, without taking any further trouble in
the matter. They were idiots of the kind that amuse themselves with
chattering instead of setting themselves to knead the dough. So our
armies were defeated, France could not keep her frontiers; The Man was
not there. I say The Man, look you, because that was how they called
him; but it was stuff and nonsense, for he had a star of his own and all
his other peculiarities, it was the rest of us that were mere men. He
hears this history of France after his famous battle of Aboukir,
where with a single division he routed the grand army of the Turks,
twenty-five thousand strong, and jostled more than half of them into the
sea, rrrah! without losing more than three hundred of his own men. That
was his last thunder-clap in Egypt. He said to himself, seeing that all
was lost down there, "I know that I am the saviour of France, and to
France I must go."
But you must clearly understand that the army did not know of his
departure; for if they had, they would have kept him there by force to
make him Emperor of the East. So there we all are without him, and in
low spirits, for he was the life of us. He leaves Kleber in command,
a great watchdog who passed in his checks at Cairo, murdered by an
Egyptian whom they put to death by spiking him with a bayonet, which
is their way of guillotining people out there; but he suffered so much,
that a soldier took pity on the scoundrel and handed his flask to him;
and the Egyptian turned up his eyes then and there with all the pleasure
in life. But there is not much fun for us about this little affair.
Napoleon steps aboard of a little cockleshell, a mere nothing of a
skiff, called the _Fortune_, and in the twinkling of an eye, and in the
teeth of the English, who were blockading the place with vessels of the
line and cruisers and everything that carries canvas, he lands in France
for he always had the faculty of taking the sea at a stride. Was that
natural? Bah! as soon as he landed at Frejus, it is as good as saying
that he has set foot in Paris. Everybody there worships him; but he
calls the Government together.
"What have you done to my children, the soldiers?" he says to the
lawyers. "You are a set of good-for-nothings who make fools of other
people, and feather your own nests at the expense of France. It will not
do. I speak in the name of every one who is discontented."
Thereupon they want to put him off and to get rid of him; but not a bit
of it! He locks them up in the barracks where they used to argufy and
makes them jump out of the windows. Then he makes them follow in his
train, and they all become as mute as fishes and supple as tobacco
pouches. So he becomes Consul at a blow. He was not the man to doubt the
existence of the Supreme Being; he kept his word with Providence, who
had kept His promise in earnest; he sets up religion again, and gives
back the churches, and they ring the bells for God and Napoleon. So
every one is satisfied: _primo_ the priests with whom he allows no
one to meddle; _segondo_, the merchant folk who carry on their trades
without fear of the _rapiamus_ of the law that had pressed too heavily
on them; _tertio_, the nobles; for people had fallen into an unfortunate
habit of putting them to death, and he puts a stop to this.
But there were enemies to be cleared out of the way, and he was not the
one to go to sleep after mess; and his eyes, look you, traveled all over
the world as if it had been a man's face. The next thing he did was
to turn up in Italy; it was just as if he had put his head out of the
window and the sight of him was enough; they gulp down the Austrians at
Marengo like a whale swallowing gudgeons! _Haouf_! The French Victories
blew their trumpets so loud that the whole world could hear the noise,
and there was an end of it.
"We will not keep on at this game any longer!" say the Germans.
"That is enough of this sort of thing," say the others.
Here is the upshot. Europe shows the white feather, England knuckles
under, general peace all round, and kings and peoples pretending to
embrace each other. While then and there the Emperor hits on the idea of
the Legion of Honor. There's a fine thing if you like!
He spoke to the whole army at Boulogne. "In France," so he said, "every
man is brave. So the civilian who does gloriously shall be the soldier's
sister, the soldier shall be his brother, and both shall stand together
beneath the flag of honor."
By the time that the rest of us who were away down there in Egypt had
come back again, everything was changed. We had seen him last as a
general, and in no time we find that he is Emperor! And when this was
settled (and it may safely be said that every one was satisfied) there
was a holy ceremony such as was never seen under the canopy of heaven.
Faith, France gave herself to him, like a handsome girl to a lancer, and
the Pope and all his cardinals in robes of red and gold come across the
Alps on purpose to anoint him before the army and the people, who clap
their hands.
There is one thing that it would be very wrong to keep back from you.
While he was in Egypt, in the desert not far away from Syria, _the Red
Man_ had appeared to him on the mountain of Moses, in order to say,
"Everything is going on well." Then again, on the eve of victory at
Marengo, the Red Man springs to his feet in front of the Emperor for the
second time, and says to him:
"You shall see the world at your feet; you shall be Emperor of the
French, King of Italy, master of Holland, ruler of Spain, Portugal, and
the Illyrian Provinces, protector of Germany, saviour of Poland, first
eagle of the Legion of Honor and all the rest of it."
That Red Man, look you, was a notion of his own, who ran on errands and
carried messages, so many people say, between him and his star. I myself
have never believed that; but the Red Man is, undoubtedly, a fact.
Napoleon himself spoke of the Red Man who lived up in the roof of the
Tuileries, and who used to come to him, he said, in moments of trouble
and difficulty. So on the night after his coronation Napoleon saw him
for the third time, and they talked over a lot of things together.
Then the Emperor goes straight to Milan to have himself crowned King of
Italy, and then came the real triumph of the soldier. For every one
who could write became an officer forthwith, and pensions and gifts of
duchies poured down in showers. There were fortunes for the staff that
never cost France a penny, and the Legion of Honor was as good as an
annuity for the rank and file; I still draw my pension on the strength
of it. In short, here were armies provided for in a way that had never
been seen before! But the Emperor, who knew that he was to be Emperor
over everybody, and not only over the army, bethinks himself of the
bourgeois, and sets them to build fairy monuments in places that had
been as bare as the back of my hand till then. Suppose, now, that you
are coming out of Spain and on the way to Berlin; well, you would see
triumphal arches, and in the sculpture upon them the common soldiers are
done every bit as beautifully as the generals!
In two or three years Napoleon fills his cellars with gold, makes
bridges, palaces, roads, scholars, festivals, laws, fleets, and harbors;
he spends millions on millions, ever so much, and ever so much more to
it, so that I have heard it said that he could have paved the whole of
France with five-franc pieces if the fancy had taken him; and all this
without putting any taxes on you people here. So when he was comfortably
seated on his throne, and so thoroughly the master of the situation,
that all Europe was waiting for leave to do anything for him that he
might happen to want; as he had four brothers and three sisters, he said
to us, just as it might be by way of conversation, in the order of the
day:
"Children, is it fitting that your Emperor's relations should beg their
bread? No; I want them all to be luminaries, like me in fact! Therefore,
it is urgently necessary to conquer a kingdom for each one of them, so
that the French nation may be masters everywhere, so that the Guard may
make the whole earth tremble, and France may spit wherever she likes,
and every nation shall say to her, as it is written on my coins, 'God
protects you.'"
"All right!" answers the army, "we will fish up kingdoms for you with
the bayonet."
Ah! there was no backing out of it, look you! If he had taken it into
his head to conquer the moon, we should have had to put everything in
train, pack our knapsacks, and scramble up; luckily, he had no wish for
that excursion. The kings who were used to the comforts of a throne, of
course, objected to be lugged off, so we had marching orders. We march,
we get there, and the earth begins to shake to its centre again. What
times they were for wearing out men and shoe-leather! And the hard
knocks that they gave us! Only Frenchmen could have stood it. But you
are not ignorant that a Frenchman is a born philosopher; he knows that
he must die a little sooner or a litter later. So we used to die without
a word, because we had the pleasure of watching the Emperor do _this_ on
the maps.
[Here the soldier swung quickly round on one foot, so as to trace a
circle on the barn floor with the other.]
"There, that shall be a kingdom," he used to say, and it was a kingdom.
What fine times they were! Colonels became generals whilst you were
looking at them, generals became marshals of France, and marshals became
kings. There is one of them still left on his feet to keep Europe in
mind of those days, Gascon though he may be, and a traitor to France
that he might keep his crown; and he did not blush for his shame, for,
after all, a crown, look you, is made of gold. The very sappers and
miners who knew how to read became great nobles in the same way. And I
who am telling you all this have seen in Paris eleven kings and a crowd
of princes all round about Napoleon, like rays about the sun! Keep this
well in your minds, that as every soldier stood a chance of having a
throne of his own (provided he showed himself worthy of it), a corporal
of the Guard was by way of being a sight to see, and they gaped at him
as he went by; for every one came by his share after a victory, it
was made perfectly clear in the bulletin. And what battles they were!
Austerlitz, where the army was manoeuvred as if it had been a review;
Eylau, where the Russians were drowned in a lake, just as if Napoleon
had breathed on them and blown them in; Wagram, where the fighting was
kept up for three whole days without flinching. In short, there were as
many battles as there are saints in the calendar.
Then it was made clear beyond a doubt that Napoleon bore the Sword
of God in his scabbard. He had a regard for the soldier. He took the
soldier for his child. He was anxious that you should have shoes,
shirts, greatcoats, bread, and cartridges; but he kept up his majesty,
too, for reigning was his own particular occupation. But, all the same,
a sergeant, or even a common soldier, could go up to him and call him
"Emperor," just as you might say "My good friend" to me at times. And he
would give an answer to anything you put before him. He used to sleep
on the snow just like the rest of us--in short, he looked almost like
an ordinary man; but I who am telling you all these things have seen him
myself with the grape-shot whizzing about his ears, no more put out by
it than you are at this moment; never moving a limb, watching through
his field-glass, always looking after his business; so we stood our
ground likewise, as cool and calm as John the Baptist. I do not know
how he did it; but whenever he spoke, a something in his words made
our hearts burn within us; and just to let him see that we were his
children, and that it was not in us to shirk or flinch, we used to walk
just as usual right up to the sluts of cannon that were belching smoke
and vomiting battalions of balls, and never a man would so much as say,
"Look out!" It was a something that made dying men raise their heads to
salute him and cry, "Long live the Emperor!"
Was that natural? Would you have done this for a mere man?
Thereupon, having fitted up all his family, and things having so turned
out that the Empress Josephine (a good woman for all that) had no
children, he was obliged to part company with her, although he loved her
not a little. But he must have children, for reasons of State. All the
crowned heads of Europe, when they heard of his difficulty, squabbled
among themselves as to who should find him a wife. He married an
Austrian princess, so they say, who was the daughter of the Caesars, a
man of antiquity whom everybody talks about, not only in our country,
where it is said that most things were his doing, but also all over
Europe. And so certain sure is that, that I who am talking to you have
been myself across the Danube, where I saw the ruins of a bridge built
by that man; and it appeared that he was some connection of Napoleon's
at Rome, for the Emperor claimed succession there for his son.
So, after his wedding, which was a holiday for the whole world, and when
they let the people off their taxes for ten years to come (though they
had to pay them just the same after all, because the excisemen took no
notice of the proclamation)--after his wedding, I say, his wife had a
child who was King of Rome; a child was born a King while his father was
alive, a thing that had never been seen in the world before! That day a
balloon set out from Paris to carry the news to Rome, and went all the
way in one day. There, now! Is there one of you who will stand me out
that there was nothing supernatural in that? No, it was decreed on high.
And the mischief take those who will not allow that it was wafted over
by God Himself, so as to add to the honor and glory of France!
But there was the Emperor of Russia, a friend of our Emperor's, who was
put out because he had not married a Russian lady. So the Russian backs
up our enemies the English; for there had always been something to
prevent Napoleon from putting a spoke in their wheel. Clearly an end
must be made of fowl of that feather. Napoleon is vexed, and he says to
us:
"Soldiers! You have been the masters of every capital in Europe, except
Moscow, which is allied to England. So, in order to conquer London and
India, which belongs to them in London, I find it absolutely necessary
that we go to Moscow."
Thereupon the greatest army that ever wore gaiters, and left its
footprints all over the globe, is brought together, and drawn up with
such peculiar cleverness, that the Emperor passed a million men in
review, all in a single day.
"Hourra!" cry the Russians, and there is all Russia assembled, a lot
of brutes of Cossacks, that you never can come up with! It was country
against country, a general stramash; we had to look out for ourselves.
"It was all Asia against Europe," as the Red Man had said to Napoleon.
"All right," Napoleon had answered, "I shall be ready for them."
And there, in fact, were all the kings who came to lick Napoleon's hand.
Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Poland, and Italy, all speaking us
fair and going along with us; it was a fine thing! The Eagles had never
cooed before as they did on parade in those days, when they were reared
above all the flags of all the nations of Europe. The Poles could not
contain their joy because the Emperor had a notion of setting up their
kingdom again; and ever since Poland and France have always been like
brothers. In short, the army shouts, "Russia shall be ours!"
We cross the frontiers, all the lot of us. We march and better march,
but never a Russian do we see. At last all our watch-dogs are encamped
at Borodino. That was where I received the Cross, and there is no
denying that it was a cursed battle. The Emperor was not easy in his
mind; he had seen the Red Man, who said to him, "My child, you are going
a little too fast for your feet; you will run short of men, and your
friends will play you false."
Thereupon the Emperor proposes a treaty. But before he signs it, he says
to us:
"Let us give these Russians a drubbing!"
"All right!" cried the army.
"Forward!" say the sergeants.
My clothes were all falling to pieces, my shoes were worn out with
trapezing over those roads out there, which are not good going at
all. But it is all one. "Since here is the last of the row," said I to
myself, "I mean to get all I can out of it."
We were posted before the great ravine; we had seats in the front row.
The signal is given, and seven hundred guns begin a conversation fit to
make the blood spirt from your ears. One should give the devil his due,
and the Russians let themselves be cut in pieces just like Frenchmen;
they did not give way, and we made no advance.
"Forward!" is the cry; "here is the Emperor!"
So it was. He rides past us at a gallop, and makes a sign to us that a
great deal depends on our carrying the redoubt. He puts fresh heart into
us; we rush forward, I am the first man to reach the gorge. Ah! _mon
Dieu_! how they fell, colonels, lieutenants, and common soldiers, all
alike! There were shoes to fit up those who had none, and epaulettes for
the knowing fellows that knew how to write.... Victory is the cry all
along the line! And, upon my word, there were twenty-five thousand
Frenchmen lying on the field. No more, I assure you! Such a thing was
never seen before, it was just like a field when the corn is cut, with a
man lying there for every ear of corn. That sobered the rest of us. The
Man comes, and we make a circle round about him, and he coaxes us round
(for he could be very nice when he chose), and persuades us to dine
with Duke Humphrey, when we were hungry as hunters. Then our consoler
distributes the Crosses of the Legion of Honor himself, salutes the
dead, and says to us, "On to Moscow!"
"To Moscow, so be it," says the army.
We take Moscow. What do the Russians do but set fire to their city!
There was a blaze, two leagues of bonfire that burned for two days! The
buildings fell about our ears like slates, and molten lead and iron
came down in showers; it was really horrible; it was a light to see our
sorrows by, I can tell you! The Emperor said, "There, that is enough of
this sort of thing; all my men shall stay here."
We amuse ourselves for a bit by recruiting and repairing our frames,
for we really were much fatigued by the campaign. We take away with us
a gold cross from the top of the Kremlin, and every soldier had a little
fortune. But on the way back the winter came down on us a month earlier
than usual, a matter which the learned (like a set of fools) have never
sufficiently explained; and we are nipped with the cold. We were no
longer an army after that, do you understand? There was an end of
generals and even of the sergeants; hunger and misery took the command
instead, and all of us were absolutely equal under their reign. All we
thought of was how to get back to France; no one stooped to pick up
his gun or his money; every one walked straight before him, and armed
himself as he thought fit, and no one cared about glory.
The Emperor saw nothing of his star all the time, for the weather was so
bad. There was some misunderstanding between him and heaven. Poor man,
how bad he felt when he saw his Eagles flying with their backs turned
on victory! That was really too rough! Well, the next thing is the
Beresina. And here and now, my friends, any one can assure you on his
honor, and by all that is sacred, that _never_, no, never since there
have been men on earth, never in this world has there been such a
fricasse of an army, caissons, transports, artillery and all, in such
snow as that and under such a pitiless sky. It was so cold that you
burned your hand on the barrel of your gun if you happened to touch
it. There it was that the pontooners saved the army, for the pontooners
stood firm at their posts; it was there that Gondrin behaved like a
hero, and he is the sole survivor of all the men who were dogged enough
to stand in the river so as to build the bridges on which the army
crossed over, and so escaped the Russians, who still respected the Grand
Army on account of its past victories. And Gondrin is an accomplished
soldier, [pointing at Gondrin, who was gazing at him with the rapt
attention peculiar to deaf people] a distinguished soldier who deserves
to have your very highest esteem.
I saw the Emperor standing by the bridge, and never feeling the cold at
all. Was that, again, a natural thing? He was looking on at the loss
of his treasures, of his friends, and those who had fought with him in
Egypt. Bah! there was an end of everything. Women and wagons and guns
were all engulfed and swallowed up, everything went to wreck and ruin. A
few of the bravest among us saved the Eagles, for the Eagles, look you,
meant France, and all the rest of you; it was the civil and military
honor of France that was in our keeping, there must be no spot on the
honor of France, and the cold could never make her bow her head. There
was no getting warm except in the neighborhood of the Emperor; for
whenever he was in danger we hurried up, all frozen as we were--we who
would not stop to hold out a hand to a fallen friend.
They say, too, that he shed tears of a night over his poor family of
soldiers. Only he and Frenchmen could have pulled themselves out of such
a plight; but we did pull ourselves out, though, as I am telling you,
it was with loss, ay, and heavy loss. The Allies had eaten up all our
provisions; everybody began to betray him, just as the Red Man had
foretold. The rattle-pates in Paris, who had kept quiet ever since the
Imperial Guard had been established, think that _he_ is dead, and
hatch a conspiracy. They set to work in the Home Office to overturn the
Emperor. These things come to his knowledge and worry him; he says to
us at parting, "Good-bye, children; keep to your posts, I will come back
again."
Bah! Those generals of his lose their heads at once; for when he was
away, it was not like the same thing. The marshals fall out among
themselves, and make blunders, as was only natural, for Napoleon in his
kindness had fed them on gold till they had grown as fat as butter,
and they had no mind to march. Troubles came of this, for many of them
stayed inactive in garrison towns in the rear, without attempting to
tickle up the backs of the enemy behind us, and we were being driven
back on France. But Napoleon comes back among us with fresh troops;
conscripts they were, and famous conscripts too; he had put some
thorough notions of discipline into them--the whelps were good to set
their teeth in anybody. He had a bourgeois guard of honor too, and fine
troops they were! They melted away like butter on a gridiron. We may
put a bold front on it, but everything is against us, although the army
still performs prodigies of valor. Whole nations fought against nations
in tremendous battles, at Dresden, Lutzen, and Bautzen, and then it was
that France showed extraordinary heroism, for you must all of you bear
in mind that in those times a stout grenadier only lasted six months.
We always won the day, but the English were always on our track, putting
nonsense into other nations' heads, and stirring them up to revolt. In
short, we cleared a way through all these mobs of nations; for wherever
the Emperor appeared, we made a passage for him; for on the land as on
the sea, whenever he said, "I wish to go forward," we made the way.
There comes a final end to it at last. We are back in France; and in
spite of the bitter weather, it did one's heart good to breathe one's
native air again, it set up many a poor fellow; and as for me, it put
new life into me, I can tell you. But it was a question all at once of
defending France, our fair land of France. All Europe was up in arms
against us; they took it in bad part that we had tried to keep the
Russians in order by driving them back within their own borders, so
that they should not gobble us up, for those Northern folk have a strong
liking for eating up the men of the South, it is a habit they have; I
have heard the same thing of them from several generals.
So the Emperor finds his own father-in-law, his friends whom he had made
crowned kings, and the rabble of princes to whom he had given back their
thrones, were all against him. Even Frenchmen and allies in our own
ranks turned against us, by orders from high quarters, as at Leipsic.
Common soldiers would hardly be capable of such abominations; yet these
princes, as they called themselves, broke their words three times a day!
The next thing they do is to invade France. Wherever our Emperor shows
his lion's face, the enemy beats a retreat; he worked more miracles for
the defence of France than he had ever wrought in the conquest of
Italy, the East, Spain, Europe, and Russia; he has a mind to bury every
foreigner in French soil, to give them a respect for France, so he lets
them come close up to Paris, so as to do for them at a single blow, and
to rise to the highest height of genius in the biggest battle that ever
was fought, a mother of battles! But the Parisians wanting to save their
trumpery skins, and afraid for their twopenny shops, open their gates
and there is a beginning of the _ragusades_, and an end of all joy and
happiness; they make a fool of the Empress, and fly the white flag out
at the windows. The Emperor's closest friends among his generals forsake
him at last and go over to the Bourbons, of whom no one had ever heard
tell. Then he bids us farewell at Fontainebleau:
"Soldiers!"... I can hear him yet, we were all crying just like
children; the Eagles and the flags had been lowered as if for a funeral.
Ah! and it was a funeral, I can tell you; it was the funeral of the
Empire; those smart armies of his were nothing but skeletons now. So he
stood there on the flight of steps before his chateau, and he said:
"Children, we have been overcome by treachery, but we shall meet again
up above in the country of the brave. Protect my child, I leave him in
your care. _Long live Napoleon II._!"
He had thought of killing himself, so that no one should behold Napoleon
after his defeat; like Jesus Christ before the Crucifixion, he thought
himself forsaken by God and by his talisman, and so he took enough
poison to kill a regiment, but it had no effect whatever upon him.
Another marvel! he discovered that he was immortal; and feeling sure of
his case, and knowing that he would be Emperor for ever, he went to an
island for a little while, so as to study the dispositions of those folk
who did not fail to make blunder upon blunder. Whilst he was biding his
time, the Chinese and the brutes out in Africa, the Moors and what-not,
awkward customers all of them, were so convinced that he was something
more than mortal, that they respected his flag, saying that God would be
displeased if any one meddled with it. So he reigned over all the rest
of the world, although the doors of his own France had been closed upon
him.
Then he goes on board the same nutshell of a skiff that he sailed in
from Egypt, passes under the noses of the English vessels, and sets foot
in France. France recognizes her Emperor, the cuckoo flits from steeple
to steeple; France cries with one voice, "Long live the Emperor!" The
enthusiasm for that Wonder of the Ages was thoroughly genuine in these
parts. Dauphine behaved handsomely; and I was uncommonly pleased to
learn that people here shed tears of joy on seeing his gray overcoat
once more.
It was on March 1st that Napoleon set out with two hundred men to
conquer the kingdom of France and Navarre, which by March 20th had
become the French Empire again. On that day he found himself in Paris,
and a clean sweep had been made of everything; he had won back his
beloved France, and had called all his soldiers about him again, and
three words of his had done it all--"Here am I!" 'Twas the greatest
miracle God ever worked! Was it ever known in the world before that a
man should do nothing but show his hat, and a whole Empire became his?
They fancied that France was crushed, did they? Never a bit of it. A
National Army springs up again at the sight of the Eagle, and we all
march to Waterloo. There the Guard fall all as one man. Napoleon in his
despair heads the rest, and flings himself three times on the enemy's
guns without finding the death he sought; we all saw him do it, we
soldiers, and the day was lost! That night the Emperor calls all his old
soldiers about him, and there on the battlefield, which was soaked with
our blood, he burns his flags and his Eagles--the poor Eagles that had
never been defeated, that had cried, "Forward!" in battle after
battle, and had flown above us all over Europe. That was the end of
the Eagles--all the wealth of England could not purchase for her one
tail-feather. The rest is sufficiently known.
The Red Man went over to the Bourbons like the low scoundrel he is.
France is prostrate, the soldier counts for nothing, they rob him of
his due, send him about his business, and fill his place with nobles who
could not walk, they were so old, so that it made you sorry to see them.
They seize Napoleon by treachery, the English shut him up on a desert
island in the ocean, on a rock ten thousand feet above the rest of the
world. That is the final end of it; there he has to stop till the Red
Man gives him back his power again, for the happiness of France. A lot
of them say that he is dead! Dead? Oh! yes, very likely. They do not
know him, that is plain! They go on telling that fib to deceive the
people, and to keep things quiet for their tumble-down government.
Listen; this is the whole truth of the matter. |
10,240 |
Produced by David Widger
QUOTES AND IMAGES FROM THE DIARY OF PEPYS
THE DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS
By Samuel Pepys
20s. in money, and what wine she
needed, for the burying him
A good handsome wench I kissed, the
first that I have seen
A fair salute on horseback, in
Rochester streets, of the lady
A most conceited fellow and not over
much in him
A conceited man, but of no Logique in
his head at all
A pretty man, I would be content to
break a commandment with him
A lady spit backward upon me by a
mistake
A play not very good, though commended
much
A cat will be a cat still
A book the Bishops will not let be
printed again
A most tedious, unreasonable, and
impertinent sermon
About two o'clock, too late and too
soon to go home to bed
Academy was dissolved by order of the
Pope
Act of Council passed, to put out all
<DW7>s in office
Advantage a man of the law hath over
all other people
Afeard of being louzy
After taking leave of my wife, which we
could hardly do kindly
After awhile I caressed her and parted
seeming friends
After many protestings by degrees I did
arrive at what I would
After oysters, at first course, a hash
of rabbits, a lamb
After a harsh word or two my wife and I
good friends
All ended in love
All made much worse in their report
among people than they are
All the fleas came to him and not to me
All divided that were bred so long at
school together
All may see how slippery places all
courtiers stand in
All things to be managed with faction
All the towne almost going out of towne
(Plague panic)
Ambassador--that he is an honest man
sent to lie abroad
Among many lazy people that the
diligent man becomes necessary
An exceeding pretty lass, and right for
the sport
An offer of L500 for a Baronet's
dignity
And for his beef, says he, "Look how
fat it is"
And if ever I fall on it again, I
deserve to be undone
And a deal of do of which I am weary
And they did lay pigeons to his feet
And there, did what I would with her
And so to sleep till the morning, but
was bit cruelly
And so to bed and there entertained her
with great content
And feeling for a chamber-pott, there
was none
And with the great men in curing of
their claps
And so by coach, though hard to get it,
being rainy, home
Angry, and so continued till bed, and
did not sleep friends
Aptness I have to be troubled at any
thing that crosses me
Archbishop is a wencher, and known to
be so
As much his friend as his interest will
let him
As very a gossip speaking of her
neighbours as any body
As all other women, cry, and yet talk
of other things
As he called it, the King's seventeenth
whore abroad
As all things else did not come up to
my expectations
Asleep, while the wench sat mending my
breeches by my bedside
At least 12 or 14,000 people in the
street (to see the hanging)
At a loss whether it will be better for
me to have him die
Badge of slavery upon the whole people
(taxes)
Baker's house in Pudding Lane, where
the late great fire begun
Baseness and looseness of the Court
Bath at the top of his house
Beare-garden
Because I would not be over sure of any
thing
Before I sent my boy out with them, I
beat him for a lie
Begun to smell, and so I caused it to
be set forth (corpse)
Being there, and seeming to do
something, while we do not
Being cleansed of lice this day by my
wife
Being very poor and mean as to the
bearing with trouble
Being taken with a Psalmbook or
Testament
Below what people think these great
people say and do
Best fence against the Parliament's
present fury is delay
Better now than never
Bewailing the vanity and disorders of
the age
Bite at the stone, and not at the hand
that flings it
Bleeding behind by leeches will cure
him
Bold to deliver what he thinks on every
occasion
Book itself, and both it and them not
worth a turd
Bookseller's, and there looked for
Montaigne's Essays
Bottle of strong water; whereof now and
then a sip did me good
Bought for the love of the binding
three books
Bought Montaigne's Essays, in English
Bowling-ally (where lords and ladies
are now at bowles)
Boy up to-night for his sister to teach
him to put me to bed
Bring me a periwig, but it was full of
nits
Bringing over one discontented man, you
raise up three
Bristol milk (the sherry) in the vaults
Broken sort of people, that have not
much to lose
Burned it, that it might not be among
my books to my shame
Business of abusing the Puritans begins
to grow stale
But a woful rude rabble there was, and
such noises
But so fearful I am of discontenting my
wife
But I think I am not bound to discover
myself
But we were friends again as we are
always
But this the world believes, and so let
them
But if she will ruin herself, I cannot
help it
But my wife vexed, which vexed me
Buy some roll-tobacco to smell to and
chaw
Buying up of goods in case there should
be war
Buying his place of my Lord Barkely
By his many words and no understanding,
confound himself
By chewing of tobacco is become very
fat and sallow
By and by met at her chamber, and there
did what I would
By her wedding-ring, I suppose he hath
married her at last
Called at a little ale-house, and had
an eele pye
Came to bed to me, but all would not
make me friends
Cannot bring myself to mind my business
Cannot be clean to go so many bodies
together in the same water
Cast stones with his horne crooke
Castlemayne is sicke again, people
think, slipping her filly
Catched cold yesterday by putting off
my stockings
Catholiques are everywhere and bold
Cavaliers have now the upper hand clear
of the Presbyterians
Charles Barkeley's greatness is only
his being pimp to the King
Chocolate was introduced into England
about the year 1652
Church, where a most insipid young
coxcomb preached
City to be burned, and the <DW7>s to
cut our throats
Clap of the pox which he got about
twelve years ago
Clean myself with warm water; my wife
will have me
Comb my head clean, which I found so
foul with powdering
Come to see them in bed together, on
their wedding-night
Come to us out of bed in his furred
mittens and furred cap
Comely black woman.--[The old
expression for a brunette.]
Coming to lay out a great deal of money
in clothes for my wife
Commons, where there is nothing done
but by passion, and faction
Compliment from my aunt, which I take
kindly as it is unusual
Confidence, and vanity, and disparages
everything
Confusion of years in the case of the
months of January (etc.)
Consult my pillow upon that and every
great thing of my life
Content as to be at our own home, after
being abroad awhile
Contracted for her as if he had been
buying a horse
Convenience of periwiggs is so great
Could not saw above 4 inches of the
stone in a day
Counterfeit mirthe and pleasure with
them, but had but little
Court is in a way to ruin all for their
pleasures
Court attendance infinite tedious
Craft and cunning concerning the buying
and choosing of horses
Credit of this office hath received by
this rogue's occasion
Cruel custom of throwing at cocks on
Shrove Tuesday
Cure of the King's evil, which he do
deny altogether
Dare not oppose it alone for making an
enemy and do no good
Declared he will never have another
public mistress again
Delight to see these poor fools decoyed
into our condition
Deliver her from the hereditary curse
of child-bearing
Desk fastened to one of the armes of
his chayre
Did dig another, and put our wine in
it; and I my Parmazan cheese
Did extremely beat him, and though it
did trouble me to do it
Did so watch to see my wife put on
drawers, which (she did)
Did take me up very prettily in one or
two things that I said
Did much insist upon the sin of
adultery
Did go to Shoe Lane to see a
cocke-fighting at a new pit there
Did find none of them within, which I
was glad of
Did tumble them all the afternoon as I
pleased
Did trouble me very much to be at
charge to no purpose
Did see the knaveries and tricks of
jockeys
Did not like that Clergy should meddle
with matters of state
Did put evil thoughts in me, but
proceeded no further
Dined with my wife on pease porridge
and nothing else
Dined upon six of my pigeons, which my
wife has resolved to kill
Dined at home alone, a good calves head
boiled and dumplings
Dinner, an ill and little mean one,
with foul cloth and dishes
Discontented at the pride and luxury of
the Court
Discontented that my wife do not go
neater now she has two maids
Discourse of Mr. Evelyn touching all
manner of learning
Discoursed much against a man's lying
with his wife in Lent
Discoursing upon the sad condition of
the times
Disease making us more cruel to one
another than if we are doggs
Disorder in the pit by its raining in,
from the cupola
Disquiet all night, telling of the
clock till it was daylight
Do outdo the Lords infinitely (debates
in the Commons)
Do look upon me as a remembrancer of
his former vanity
Do bury still of the plague seven or
eight in a day
Doe from Cobham, when the season comes,
bucks season being past
Dog attending us, which made us all
merry again
Dog, that would turn a sheep any way
which
Doubtfull of himself, and easily be
removed from his own opinion
Down to the Whey house and drank some
and eat some curds
Dr. Calamy is this day sent to Newgate
for preaching
Drink a dish of coffee
Driven down again with a stinke by Sir
W. Pen's shying of a pot
Duke of York and Mrs. Palmer did talk
to one another very wanton
Duodecimal arithmetique
Durst not take notice of her, her
husband being there
Dying this last week of the plague 112,
from 43 the week before
Eat some of the best cheese-cakes that
ever I eat in my life
Eat of the best cold meats that ever I
eat on in all my life
Eat a mouthful of pye at home to stay
my stomach
Eat some butter and radishes
Enough existed to build a ship (Pieces
of the true Cross)
Enquiring into the selling of places do
trouble a great many
Erasmus "de scribendis epistolis"
Even to the having bad words with my
wife, and blows too
Every man looking after himself, and
his owne lust and luxury
Every small thing is enough now-a-days
to bring a difference
Every body leads, and nobody follows
Every body is at a great losse and
nobody can tell
Every body's looks, and discourse in
the street is of death
Exceeding kind to me, more than usual,
which makes me afeard
Exclaiming against men's wearing their
hats on in the church
Excommunications, which they send upon
the least occasions
Expectation of profit will have its
force
Expected musique, the missing of which
spoiled my dinner
Faced white coat, made of one of my
wife's pettycoates
Familiarity with her other servants is
it that spoils them all
Fanatiques do say that the end of the
world is at hand
Fashionable and black spots
Fear all his kindness is but only his
lust to her
Fear that the goods and estate would be
seized (after suicide)
Fear it may do him no good, but me hurt
Fear I shall not be able to wipe my
hands of him again
Fear she should prove honest and refuse
and then tell my wife
Feared I might meet with some people
that might know me
Fearful that I might not go far enough
with my hat off
Fears some will stand for the
tolerating of <DW7>s
Fell to sleep as if angry
Fell a-crying for joy, being all
maudlin and kissing one another
Fell to dancing, the first time that
ever I did in my life
Fetch masts from New England
Feverish, and hath sent for Mr. Pierce
to let him blood
Few in any age that do mind anything
that is abstruse
Find that now and then a little
difference do no hurte
Find it a base copy of a good
originall, that vexed me
Find myself to over-value things when a
child
Finding my wife not sick, but yet out
of order
Finding my wife's clothes lie
carelessly laid up
Fire grow; and, as it grew darker,
appeared more and more
First time that ever I heard the organs
in a cathedral
First their apes, that they may be
afterwards their slaves
First thing of that nature I did ever
give her (L10 ring)
First time I had given her leave to
wear a black patch
Fixed that the year should commence in
January instead of March
Fool's play with which all publick
things are done
For my quiet would not enquire into it
For, for her part, she should not be
buried in the commons
For a land-tax and against a general
excise
For I will not be inward with him that
is open to another
For I will be hanged before I seek to
him, unless I see I need
Force a man to swear against himself
Forced to change gold, 8s. 7d.;
servants and poor, 1s. 6d.
Forgetting many things, which her
master beat her for
Formerly say that the King was a
bastard and his mother a whore
Found my brother John at eight o'clock
in bed, which vexed me
Found him a fool, as he ever was, or
worse
Found him not so ill as I thought that
he had been ill
Found in my head and body about twenty
lice, little and great
Found to be with child, do never stir
out of their beds
Found guilty, and likely will be hanged
(for stealing spoons)
France, which is accounted the best
place for bread
Frequent trouble in things we deserve
best in
Frogs and many insects do often fall
from the sky, ready formed
From some fault in the meat to complain
of my maid's sluttery
Gadding abroad to look after beauties
Galileo's air thermometer, made before
1597
Gamester's life, which I see is very
miserable, and poor
Gave him his morning draft
Generally with corruption, but most
indeed with neglect
Gentlewomen did hold up their heads to
be kissed by the King
Get his lady to trust herself with him
into the tavern
Give the King of France Nova Scotia,
which he do not like
Give her a Lobster and do so touse her
and feel her all over
Give the other notice of the future
state, if there was any
Glad to be at friendship with me,
though we hate one another
Gladder to have just now received it
(than a promise)
God knows that I do not find honesty
enough in my own mind
God forgive me! what thoughts and
wishes I had
God help him, he wants bread.
God forgive me! what a mind I had to
her
God! what an age is this, and what a
world is this
Going with her woman to a hot-house to
bathe herself
Gold holds up its price still
Goldsmiths in supplying the King with
money at dear rates
Good sport of the bull's tossing of the
dogs
Good wine, and anchovies, and pickled
oysters (for breakfast)
Good purpose of fitting ourselves for
another war (A Peace)
Good writers are not admired by the
present
Got her upon my knee (the coach being
full) and played with her
Great thaw it is not for a man to walk
the streets
Great newes of the Swedes declaring for
us against the Dutch
Great deale of tittle tattle discourse
to little purpose
Great many silly stories they tell of
their sport
Greater number of Counsellors is, the
more confused the issue
Greatest businesses are done so
superficially
Had no more manners than to invite me
and to let me pay
Had his hand cut off, and was hanged
presently!
Had what pleasure almost I would with
her
Had the umbles of it for dinner
Half a pint of Rhenish wine at the
Still-yard, mixed with beer
Hanged with a silken halter
Hanging jack to roast birds on
Hard matter to settle to business after
so much leisure
Hate in others, and more in myself, to
be careless of keys
Hates to have any body mention what he
had done the day before
Hath not a liberty of begging till he
hath served three years
Hath a good heart to bear, or a cunning
one to conceal his evil
Hath given her the pox, but I hope it
is not so
Have not known her this fortnight
almost, which is a pain to me
Have not any awe over them from the
King's displeasure (Commons)
Have not much to lose, and therefore
will venture all
Have been so long absent that I am
ashamed to go
Having some experience, but greater
conceit of it than is fit
He that will not stoop for a pin, will
never be worth a pound
He made but a poor sermon, but long
He has been inconvenienced by being too
free in discourse
He having made good promises, though I
fear his performance
He hoped he should live to see her
"ugly and willing"
He is too wise to be made a friend of
He was fain to lie in the priest's hole
a good while
He was charged with making himself
popular
He is, I perceive, wholly sceptical, as
well as I
He is a man of no worth in the world
but compliment
He is not a man fit to be told what one
hears
Heard noises over their head upon the
leads
Heeling her on one side to make her
draw little water
Helping to slip their calfes when there
is occasion
Her months upon her is gone to bed
Here I first saw oranges grow
Hired her to procure this poor soul for
him
His enemies have done him as much good
as he could wish
His readiness to speak spoilt all
His satisfaction is nothing worth, it
being easily got
His company ever wearys me
Holes for me to see from my closet into
the great office
Hopes to have had a bout with her
before she had gone
Houses marked with a red cross upon the
doors
How the Presbyterians would be angry if
they durst
How highly the Presbyters do talk in
the coffeehouses still
How little merit do prevail in the
world, but only favour
How little heed is had to the prisoners
and sicke and wounded
How unhappily a man may fall into a
necessity of bribing people
How natural it is for us to slight
people out of power
How little to be presumed of in our
greatest undertakings
Hugged, it being cold now in the
mornings. . . .
I took occasion to be angry with him
I could not forbear to love her
exceedingly
I do not value her, or mind her as I
ought
I did what I would, and might have done
anything else
I have itched mightily these 6 or 7
days
I know not whether to be glad or sorry
I was as merry as I could counterfeit
myself to be
I could have answered, but forbore
I have a good mind to have the
maidenhead of this girl
I know not how in the world to abstain
from reading
I fear that it must be as it can, and
not as I would
I had six noble dishes for them,
dressed by a man-cook
I find her painted, which makes me
loathe her (cosmetics)
I did get her hand to me under my cloak
I perceive no passion in a woman can be
lasting long
I having now seen a play every day this
week
I was very angry, and resolve to beat
him to-morrow
I know not yet what that is, and am
ashamed to ask
I do not like his being angry and in
debt both together to me
I will not by any over submission make
myself cheap
I slept soundly all the sermon
I and she never were so heartily angry
in our lives as to-day
I calling her beggar, and she me
pricklouse, which vexed me
I love the treason I hate the traitor
I would not enquire into anything, but
let her talk
I kissed the bride in bed, and so the
curtaines drawne
I have promised, but know not when I
shall perform
I met a dead corps of the plague, in
the narrow ally
I am a foole to be troubled at it,
since I cannot helpe it
I was exceeding free in dallying with
her, and she not unfree
I was a great Roundhead when I was a
boy
I pray God to make me able to pay for
it.
I took a broom and basted her till she
cried extremely
I was demanded L100, for the fee of the
office at 6d. a pound
I never designed to be a witness
against any man
I fear is not so good as she should be
If the exportations exceed importations
If it should come in print my name
maybe at it
Ill from my late cutting my hair so
close to my head
Ill all this day by reason of the last
night's debauch
Ill sign when we are once to come to
study how to excuse
Ill humour to be so against that which
all the world cries up
Ill-bred woman, would take exceptions
at anything any body said
In my nature am mighty unready to
answer no to anything
In men's clothes, and had the best legs
that ever I saw
In our graves (as Shakespeere resembles
it) we could dream
In discourse he seems to be wise and
say little
In perpetual trouble and vexation that
need it least
In comes Mr. North very sea-sick from
shore
In a hackney and full of people, was
ashamed to be seen
In my dining-room she was doing
something upon the pott
Inconvenience that do attend the
increase of a man's fortune
Inoffensive vanity of a man who loved
to see himself in the glass
Instructed by Shakespeare himself
Irish in Ireland, whom Cromwell had
settled all in one corner
It not being handsome for our servants
to sit so equal with us
Justice of God in punishing men for the
sins of their ancestors
Justice of proceeding not to condemn a
man unheard
Keep at interest, which is a good,
quiett, and easy profit
King is at the command of any woman
like a slave
King shall not be able to whip a cat
King was gone to play at Tennis
King hath lost his power, by submitting
himself to this way
King do resolve to declare the Duke of
Monmouth legitimate
King himself minding nothing but his
ease
King is not at present in purse to do
King is mighty kind to these his
bastard children
King the necessity of having, at least,
a show of religion
King be desired to put all Catholiques
out of employment
King still do doat upon his women, even
beyond all shame
King is offended with the Duke of
Richmond's marrying
King of France did think other princes
fit for nothing
King governed by his lust, and women,
and rogues about him
King do tire all his people that are
about him with early rising
King's service is undone, and those
that trust him perish
King's Proclamation against drinking,
swearing, and debauchery
Kingdom will fall back again to a
commonwealth
Kiss my Parliament, instead of "Kiss my
[rump]"
Know yourself to be secure, in being
necessary to the office
L'escholle des filles, a lewd book
Lady Castlemayne is compounding with
the King for a pension
Lady Duchesse the veryest slut and
drudge
Lady Batten to give me a spoonful of
honey for my cold
Lady Castlemaine is still as great with
the King
Lady Castlemayne's nose out of joynt
Lady Castlemayne is now in a higher
command over the King
Lady Castlemayne do rule all at this
time as much as ever
Laissez nous affaire--Colbert
Last day of their doubtfulness touching
her being with child
Last act of friendship in telling me of
my faults also
Laughing and jeering at every thing
that looks strange
Lay long caressing my wife and talking
Lay long in bed talking and pleasing
myself with my wife
Lay chiding, and then pleased with my
wife in bed
Lay with her to-night, which I have not
done these eight (days)
Learned the multiplication table for
the first time in 1661
Learnt a pretty trick to try whether a
woman be a maid or no
Lechery will never leave him
Let me blood, about sixteen ounces, I
being exceedingly full
Let her brew as she has baked
Lewdness and beggary of the Court
Liability of a husband to pay for goods
supplied his wife
Liberty of speech in the House
Listening to no reasoning for it, be it
good or bad
Little content most people have in the
peace
Little children employed, every one to
do something
Little worth of this world, to buy it
with so much pain
Long cloaks being now quite out
Look askew upon my wife, because my
wife do not buckle to them
Lord! to see the absurd nature of
Englishmen
Lord! in the dullest insipid manner
that ever lover did
Lust and wicked lives of the nuns
heretofore in England
Luxury and looseness of the times
Lying a great while talking and
sporting in bed with my wife
Made a lazy sermon, like a Presbyterian
Made to drink, that they might know him
not to be a Roundhead
Made him admire my drawing a thing
presently in shorthand
Magnifying the graces of the nobility
and prelates
Make a man wonder at the good fortune
of such a fool
Man cannot live without playing the
knave and dissimulation
Matters in Ireland are full of
discontent
Meazles, we fear, or, at least, of a
scarlett feavour
Methought very ill, or else I am grown
worse to please
Milke, which I drank to take away, my
heartburne
Mirrors which makes the room seem both
bigger and lighter
Money I have not, nor can get
Money, which sweetens all things
Montaigne is conscious that we are
looking over his shoulder
Most flat dead sermon, both for matter
and manner of delivery
Most homely widow, but young, and
pretty rich, and good natured
Mr. William Pen a Quaker again
Much discourse, but little to be
learned
Musique in the morning to call up our
new-married people
Muske Millon
My wife, coming up suddenly, did find
me embracing the girl
My wife hath something in her gizzard,
that only waits
My heart beginning to falsify in this
business
My old folly and childishnesse hangs
upon me still
My new silk suit, the first that ever I
wore in my life
My Lord, who took physic to-day and was
in his chamber
My wife will keep to one another and
let the world go hang
My wife this night troubled at my
leaving her alone so much
My wife was making of her tarts and
larding of her pullets
My head was not well with the wine that
I drank to-day
My first attempt being to learn the
multiplication-table
My intention to learn to trill
Necessary, and yet the peace is so bad
in its terms
Never laughed so in all my life. I
laughed till my head ached
Never, while he lives, truckle under
any body or any faction
Never to trust too much to any man in
the world
Never was known to keep two mistresses
in his life (Charles II.)
Never could man say worse himself nor
have worse said
New Netherlands to English rule, under
the title of New York
No Parliament can, as he says, be kept
long good
No manner of means used to quench the
fire
No pleasure--only the variety of it
No money to do it with, nor anybody to
trust us without it
No man is wise at all times
No man was ever known to lose the first
time
No man knowing what to do, whether to
sell or buy
No sense nor grammar, yet in as good
words that ever I saw
No good by taking notice of it, for the
present she forbears
Nonconformists do now preach openly in
houses
None will sell us any thing without our
personal security given
Nor would become obliged too much to
any
Nor will yield that the <DW7>s have
any ground given them
Nor was there any pretty woman that I
did see, but my wife
Nor offer anything, but just what is
drawn out of a man
Not well, and so had no pleasure at all
with my poor wife
Not eat a bit of good meat till he has
got money to pay the men
Not the greatest wits, but the steady
man
Not when we can, but when we list
Not to be censured if their necessities
drive them to bad
Not more than I expected, nor so much
by a great deal as I ought
Not thinking them safe men to receive
such a gratuity
Not permit her begin to do so, lest
worse should follow
Nothing in the world done with true
integrity
Nothing in it approaching that single
page in St. Simon
Nothing of the memory of a man, an
houre after he is dead!
Nothing is to be got without offending
God and the King
Nothing of any truth and sincerity, but
mere envy and design
Now above six months since (smoke from
the cellars)
Offer me L500 if I would desist from
the Clerk of the Acts place
Offered to stop the fire near his house
for such a reward
Officers are four years behind-hand
unpaid
Once a week or so I know a gentleman
must go. . . .
Opening his mind to him as of one that
may hereafter be his foe
Ordered him L2000, and he paid me my
quantum out of it
Ordered in the yarde six or eight
bargemen to be whipped
Origin in the use of a plane against
the grain of the wood
Out also to and fro, to see and be seen
Painful to keep money, as well as to
get it
Parliament being vehement against the
Nonconformists
Parliament hath voted 2s. per annum for
every chimney in England
Parliament do agree to throw down
Popery
Parson is a cunning fellow he is as any
of his coat
Peace with France, which, as a
Presbyterian, he do not like
Pen was then turned Quaker
Periwigg he lately made me cleansed of
its nits
Peruques of hair, as the fashion now is
for ladies to wear
Pest coaches and put her into it to
carry her to a pest house
Petition against hackney coaches
Pit, where the bears are baited
Plague claimed 68,596 victims (in 1665)
Plague is much in Amsterdam, and we in
fears of it here
Plague, forty last night, the bell
always going
Play good, but spoiled with the ryme,
which breaks the sense
Pleases them mightily, and me not at
all
Poor seamen that lie starving in the
streets
Posies for Rings, Handkerchers and
Gloves
Pray God give me a heart to fear a
fall, and to prepare for it!
Presbyterians against the House of
Lords
Presse seamen, without which we cannot
really raise men
Pressing in it as if none of us had
like care with him
Pretends to a resolution of being
hereafter very clean
Pretty sayings, which are generally
like paradoxes
Pretty to see the young pretty ladies
dressed like men
Pride of some persons and vice of most
was but a sad story
Pride and debauchery of the present
clergy
Protestants as to the Church of Rome
are wholly fanatiques
Providing against a foule day to get as
much money into my hands
Put up with too much care, that I have
forgot where they are
Quakers being charmed by a string about
their wrists
Quakers do still continue, and rather
grow than lessen
Quakers and others that will not have
any bell ring for them
Rabbit not half roasted, which made me
angry with my wife
Raising of our roofs higher to enlarge
our houses
Reading to my wife and brother
something in Chaucer
Reading over my dear "Faber fortunae,"
of my Lord Bacon's
Receive the applications of people, and
hath presents
Reckon nothing money but when it is in
the bank
Reduced the Dutch settlement of New
Netherlands to English rule
Rejoiced over head and ears in this
good newes
Removing goods from one burned house to
another
Reparation for what we had embezzled
Requisite I be prepared against the
man's friendship
Resolve to have the doing of it
himself, or else to hinder it
Resolve to live well and die a beggar
Resolved to go through it, and it is
too late to help it now
Resolving not to be bribed to dispatch
business
Ridiculous nonsensical book set out by
Will. Pen, for the Quaker
Rotten teeth and false, set in with
wire
Sad sight it was: the whole City almost
on fire
Sad for want of my wife, whom I love
with all my heart
Said to die with the cleanest hands
that ever any Lord Treasurer
Saw "Mackbeth," to our great content
Saw two battles of cocks, wherein is no
great sport
Saw his people go up and down louseing
themselves
Saying, that for money he might be got
to our side
Says, of all places, if there be hell,
it is here
Says of wood, that it is an excrescence
of the earth
Sceptic in all things of religion
Scotch song of "Barbary Allen"
Searchers with their rods in their
hands
See whether my wife did wear drawers
to-day as she used to do
See how a good dinner and feasting
reconciles everybody
See how time and example may alter a
man
Sent my wife to get a place to see
Turner hanged
Sent me last night, as a bribe, a
barrel of sturgeon
Sermon without affectation or study
Sermon ended, and the church broke up,
and my amours ended also
Sermon upon Original Sin, neither
understood by himself
Sermon; but, it being a Presbyterian
one, it was so long
Shakespeare's plays
Shame such a rogue should give me and
all of us this trouble
She is conceited that she do well
already
She used the word devil, which vexed me
She was so ill as to be shaved and
pidgeons put to her feet
She begins not at all to take pleasure
in me or study to please
She is a very good companion as long as
she is well
She also washed my feet in a bath of
herbs, and so to bed
She had got and used some puppy-dog
water
She hath got her teeth new done by La
Roche
She loves to be taken dressing herself,
as I always find her
She so cruel a hypocrite that she can
cry when she pleases
She finds that I am lousy
Short of what I expected, as for the
most part it do fall out
Shy of any warr hereafter, or to
prepare better for it
Sick of it and of him for it
Sicke men that are recovered, they
lying before our office doors
Silence; it being seldom any wrong to a
man to say nothing
Singing with many voices is not singing
Sir W. Pen was so fuddled that we could
not try him to play
Sir W. Pen did it like a base raskall,
and so I shall remember
Sit up till 2 o'clock that she may call
the wench up to wash
Slabbering my band sent home for
another
Smoke jack consists of a wind-wheel
fixed in the chimney
So home to supper, and to bed, it being
my wedding night
So great a trouble is fear
So to bed, to be up betimes by the
helpe of a larum watch
So much is it against my nature to owe
anything to any body
So home, and after supper did wash my
feet, and so to bed
So home to prayers and to bed
So I took occasion to go up and to bed
in a pet
So to bed in some little discontent,
but no words from me
So home and to supper with beans and
bacon and to bed
So we went to bed and lay all night in
a quarrel
So much wine, that I was even almost
foxed
So good a nature that he cannot deny
any thing
So time do alter, and do doubtless the
like in myself
So home and to bed, where my wife had
not lain a great while
So out, and lost our way, which made me
vexed
So every thing stands still for money
Softly up to see whether any of the
beds were out of order or no
Some merry talk with a plain bold maid
of the house
Some ends of my own in what advice I do
give her
Sorry in some respect, glad in my
expectations in another respect
Sorry for doing it now, because of
obliging me to do the like
Sorry thing to be a poor King
Spares not to blame another to defend
himself
Sparrowgrass
Speaks rarely, which pleases me
mightily
Spends his time here most, playing at
bowles
Sport to me to see him so earnest on so
little occasion
Staid two hours with her kissing her,
but nothing more
Statute against selling of offices
Staying out late, and painting in the
absence of her husband
Strange things he has been found guilty
of, not fit to name
Strange the folly of men to lay and
lose so much money
Strange how civil and tractable he was
to me
Street ordered to be continued, forty
feet broad, from Paul's
Subject to be put into a disarray upon
very small occasions
Such open flattery is beastly
Suffered her humour to spend, till we
begun to be very quiet
Supper and to bed without one word one
to another
Suspect the badness of the peace we
shall make
Swear they will not go to be killed and
have no pay
Take pins out of her pocket to prick me
if I should touch her
Talk very highly of liberty of
conscience
Taught my wife some part of subtraction
Tax the same man in three or four
several capacities
Tear all that I found either boyish or
not to be worth keeping
Tell me that I speak in my dreams
That I might not seem to be afeared
That I may have nothing by me but what
is worth keeping
That I may look as a man minding
business
The unlawfull use of lawfull things
The devil being too cunning to
discourage a gamester
The most ingenious men may sometimes be
mistaken
"The Alchymist,"--[Comedy by Ben Jonson]
The barber came to trim me and wash me
The present Irish pronunciation of
English
The world do not grow old at all
The ceremonies did not please me, they
do so overdo them
The rest did give more, and did believe
that I did so too
Thence by coach, with a mad coachman,
that drove like mad
Thence to Mrs. Martin's, and did what I
would with her
There is no passing but by coach in the
streets, and hardly that
There eat and drank, and had my
pleasure of her twice
There did 'tout ce que je voudrais
avec' her
There setting a poor man to keep my
place
There is no man almost in the City
cares a turd for him
There being ten hanged, drawn, and
quartered
These young Lords are not fit to do any
service abroad
These Lords are hard to be trusted
They were so false spelt that I was
ashamed of them
They want where to set their feet, to
begin to do any thing
This day churched, her month of
childbed being out
This absence makes us a little strange
instead of more fond
This week made a vow to myself to drink
no wine this week
This day I began to put on buckles to
my shoes
This unhappinesse of ours do give them
heart
This kind of prophane, mad
entertainment they give themselves
Those absent from prayers were to pay a
forfeit
Those bred in the North among the
colliers are good for labour
Though he knows, if he be not a fool,
that I love him not
Thus it was my chance to see the King
beheaded at White Hall
Tied our men back to back, and thrown
them all into the sea
To Mr. Holliard's in the morning,
thinking to be let blood
To be enjoyed while we are young and
capable of these joys
To see Major-general Harrison hanged,
drawn; and quartered
To the Swan and drank our morning draft
To see the bride put to bed
Too much of it will make her know her
force too much
Took physique, and it did work very
well
Tory--The term was not used politically
until about 1679
Tried the effect of my silence and not
provoking her
Trouble, and more money, to every
Watch, to them to drink
Troubled me, to see the confidence of
the vice of the age
Trumpets were brought under the
scaffold that he not be heard
Turn out every man that will be drunk,
they must turn out all
Two shops in three, if not more,
generally shut up
Uncertainty of all history
Uncertainty of beauty
Unless my too-much addiction to
pleasure undo me
Unquiet which her ripping up of old
faults will give me
Up, leaving my wife in bed, being sick
of her months
Up, finding our beds good, but lousy;
which made us merry
Up and took physique, but such as to go
abroad with
Upon a very small occasion had a
difference again broke out
Venison-pasty that we have for supper
to-night to the cook's
Very angry we were, but quickly friends
again
Very great tax; but yet I do think it
is so perplexed
Vexed at my wife's neglect in leaving
of her scarf
Vexed me, but I made no matter of it,
but vexed to myself
Vices of the Court, and how the pox is
so common there
Voyage to Newcastle for coles
Waked this morning between four and
five by my blackbird
Was kissing my wife, which I did not
like
We are to go to law never to revenge,
but only to repayre
We had a good surloyne of rost beefe
Weary of it; but it will please the
citizens
Weather being very wet and hot to keep
meat in.
What way a man could devise to lose so
much in so little time
What I said would not hold water
What I had writ foule in short hand
What they all, through profit or fear,
did promise
What a sorry dispatch these great
persons give to business
What is there more to be had of a woman
than the possessing her
Where money is free, there is great
plenty
Where I find the worst very good
Where a piece of the Cross is
Where a trade hath once been and do
decay, it never recovers
Where I expect most I find least
satisfaction
Wherein every party has laboured to
cheat another
Which he left him in the lurch
Which I did give him some hope of,
though I never intend it
Whip this child till the blood come, if
it were my child! |
10,240 |
Produced by David Widger
LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI
BY MARK TWAIN
Part 10.
Chapter 46 Enchantments and Enchanters
THE largest annual event in New Orleans is a something which we arrived
too late to sample--the Mardi-Gras festivities. I saw the procession of
the Mystic Crew of Comus there, twenty-four years ago--with knights and
nobles and so on, clothed in silken and golden Paris-made
gorgeousnesses, planned and bought for that single night's use; and in
their train all manner of giants, dwarfs, monstrosities, and other
diverting grotesquerie--a startling and wonderful sort of show, as it
filed solemnly and silently down the street in the light of its smoking
and flickering torches; but it is said that in these latter days the
spectacle is mightily augmented, as to cost, splendor, and variety.
There is a chief personage--'Rex;' and if I remember rightly, neither
this king nor any of his great following of subordinates is known to any
outsider. All these people are gentlemen of position and consequence;
and it is a proud thing to belong to the organization; so the mystery in
which they hide their personality is merely for romance's sake, and not
on account of the police.
Mardi-Gras is of course a relic of the French and Spanish occupation;
but I judge that the religious feature has been pretty well knocked out
of it now. Sir Walter has got the advantage of the gentlemen of the cowl
and rosary, and he will stay. His medieval business, supplemented by
the monsters and the oddities, and the pleasant creatures from fairy-
land, is finer to look at than the poor fantastic inventions and
performances of the reveling rabble of the priest's day, and serves
quite as well, perhaps, to emphasize the day and admonish men that the
grace-line between the worldly season and the holy one is reached.
This Mardi-Gras pageant was the exclusive possession of New Orleans
until recently. But now it has spread to Memphis and St. Louis and
Baltimore. It has probably reached its limit. It is a thing which could
hardly exist in the practical North; would certainly last but a very
brief time; as brief a time as it would last in London. For the soul of
it is the romantic, not the funny and the grotesque. Take away the
romantic mysteries, the kings and knights and big-sounding titles, and
Mardi-Gras would die, down there in the South. The very feature that
keeps it alive in the South--girly-girly romance--would kill it in the
North or in London. Puck and Punch, and the press universal, would fall
upon it and make merciless fun of it, and its first exhibition would be
also its last.
Against the crimes of the French Revolution and of Bonaparte may be set
two compensating benefactions: the Revolution broke the chains of the
ANCIEN REGIME and of the Church, and made of a nation of abject slaves a
nation of freemen; and Bonaparte instituted the setting of merit above
birth, and also so completely stripped the divinity from royalty, that
whereas crowned heads in Europe were gods before, they are only men,
since, and can never be gods again, but only figureheads, and answerable
for their acts like common clay. Such benefactions as these compensate
the temporary harm which Bonaparte and the Revolution did, and leave the
world in debt to them for these great and permanent services to liberty,
humanity, and progress.
Then comes Sir Walter Scott with his enchantments, and by his single
might checks this wave of progress, and even turns it back; sets the
world in love with dreams and phantoms; with decayed and swinish forms
of religion; with decayed and degraded systems of government; with the
sillinesses and emptinesses, sham grandeurs, sham gauds, and sham
chivalries of a brainless and worthless long-vanished society. He did
measureless harm; more real and lasting harm, perhaps, than any other
individual that ever wrote. Most of the world has now outlived good
part of these harms, though by no means all of them; but in our South
they flourish pretty forcefully still. Not so forcefully as half a
generation ago, perhaps, but still forcefully. There, the genuine and
wholesome civilization of the nineteenth century is curiously confused
and commingled with the Walter Scott Middle-Age sham civilization; and
so you have practical, common-sense, progressive ideas, and progressive
works; mixed up with the duel, the inflated speech, and the jejune
romanticism of an absurd past that is dead, and out of charity ought to
be buried. But for the Sir Walter disease, the character of the
Southerner--or Southron, according to Sir Walter's starchier way of
phrasing it--would be wholly modern, in place of modern and medieval
mixed, and the South would be fully a generation further advanced than
it is. It was Sir Walter that made every gentleman in the South a Major
or a Colonel, or a General or a Judge, before the war; and it was he,
also, that made these gentlemen value these bogus decorations. For it
was he that created rank and caste down there, and also reverence for
rank and caste, and pride and pleasure in them. Enough is laid on
slavery, without fathering upon it these creations and contributions of
Sir Walter.
Sir Walter had so large a hand in making Southern character, as it
existed before the war, that he is in great measure responsible for the
war. It seems a little harsh toward a dead man to say that we never
should have had any war but for Sir Walter; and yet something of a
plausible argument might, perhaps, be made in support of that wild
proposition. The Southerner of the American Revolution owned slaves; so
did the Southerner of the Civil War: but the former resembles the latter
as an Englishman resembles a Frenchman. The change of character can be
traced rather more easily to Sir Walter's influence than to that of any
other thing or person.
One may observe, by one or two signs, how deeply that influence
penetrated, and how strongly it holds. If one take up a Northern or
Southern literary periodical of forty or fifty years ago, he will find
it filled with wordy, windy, flowery 'eloquence,' romanticism,
sentimentality--all imitated from Sir Walter, and sufficiently badly
done, too--innocent travesties of his style and methods, in fact. This
sort of literature being the fashion in both sections of the country,
there was opportunity for the fairest competition; and as a consequence,
the South was able to show as many well-known literary names,
proportioned to population, as the North could.
But a change has come, and there is no opportunity now for a fair
competition between North and South. For the North has thrown out that
old inflated style, whereas the Southern writer still clings to it--
clings to it and has a restricted market for his wares, as a
consequence. There is as much literary talent in the South, now, as ever
there was, of course; but its work can gain but slight currency under
present conditions; the authors write for the past, not the present;
they use obsolete forms, and a dead language. But when a Southerner of
genius writes modern English, his book goes upon crutches no longer, but
upon wings; and they carry it swiftly all about America and England, and
through the great English reprint publishing houses of Germany--as
witness the experience of Mr. Cable and Uncle Remus, two of the very few
Southern authors who do not write in the Southern style. Instead of
three or four widely-known literary names, the South ought to have a
dozen or two--and will have them when Sir Walter's time is out.
A curious exemplification of the power of a single book for good or harm
is shown in the effects wrought by 'Don Quixote' and those wrought by
'Ivanhoe.' The first swept the world's admiration for the medieval
chivalry-silliness out of existence; and the other restored it. As far
as our South is concerned, the good work done by Cervantes is pretty
nearly a dead letter, so effectually has Scott's pernicious work
undermined it.
Chapter 47 Uncle Remus and Mr. Cable
MR. JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS ('Uncle Remus') was to arrive from Atlanta at
seven o'clock Sunday morning; so we got up and received him. We were
able to detect him among the crowd of arrivals at the hotel-counter by
his correspondence with a description of him which had been furnished us
from a trustworthy source. He was said to be undersized, red-haired, and
somewhat freckled. He was the only man in the party whose outside
tallied with this bill of particulars. He was said to be very shy. He
is a shy man. Of this there is no doubt. It may not show on the
surface, but the shyness is there. After days of intimacy one wonders
to see that it is still in about as strong force as ever. There is a
fine and beautiful nature hidden behind it, as all know who have read
the Uncle Remus book; and a fine genius, too, as all know by the same
sign. I seem to be talking quite freely about this neighbor; but in
talking to the public I am but talking to his personal friends, and
these things are permissible among friends.
He deeply disappointed a number of children who had flocked eagerly to
Mr. Cable's house to get a glimpse of the illustrious sage and oracle of
the nation's nurseries. They said--
'Why, he's white!'
They were grieved about it. So, to console them, the book was brought,
that they might hear Uncle Remus's Tar-Baby story from the lips of Uncle
Remus himself--or what, in their outraged eyes, was left of him. But it
turned out that he had never read aloud to people, and was too shy to
venture the attempt now. Mr. Cable and I read from books of ours, to
show him what an easy trick it was; but his immortal shyness was proof
against even this sagacious strategy, so we had to read about Brer
Rabbit ourselves.
Mr. Harris ought to be able to read the <DW64> dialect better than
anybody else, for in the matter of writing it he is the only master the
country has produced. Mr. Cable is the only master in the writing of
French dialects that the country has produced; and he reads them in
perfection. It was a great treat to hear him read about Jean-ah
Poquelin, and about Innerarity and his famous 'pigshoo' representing
'Louisihanna RIF-fusing to Hanter the Union,' along with passages of
nicely-shaded German dialect from a novel which was still in manuscript.
It came out in conversation, that in two different instances Mr. Cable
got into grotesque trouble by using, in his books, next-to-impossible
French names which nevertheless happened to be borne by living and
sensitive citizens of New Orleans. His names were either inventions or
were borrowed from the ancient and obsolete past, I do not now remember
which; but at any rate living bearers of them turned up, and were a good
deal hurt at having attention directed to themselves and their affairs
in so excessively public a manner.
Mr. Warner and I had an experience of the same sort when we wrote the
book called 'The Gilded Age.' There is a character in it called
'Sellers.' I do not remember what his first name was, in the beginning;
but anyway, Mr. Warner did not like it, and wanted it improved. He asked
me if I was able to imagine a person named 'Eschol Sellers.' Of course I
said I could not, without stimulants. He said that away out West, once,
he had met, and contemplated, and actually shaken hands with a man
bearing that impossible name--'Eschol Sellers.' He added--
'It was twenty years ago; his name has probably carried him off before
this; and if it hasn't, he will never see the book anyhow. We will
confiscate his name. The name you are using is common, and therefore
dangerous; there are probably a thousand Sellerses bearing it, and the
whole horde will come after us; but Eschol Sellers is a safe name--it is
a rock.'
So we borrowed that name; and when the book had been out about a week,
one of the stateliest and handsomest and most aristocratic looking white
men that ever lived, called around, with the most formidable libel suit
in his pocket that ever--well, in brief, we got his permission to
suppress an edition of ten million {footnote [Figures taken from memory,
and probably incorrect. Think it was more.]} copies of the book and
change that name to 'Mulberry Sellers' in future editions.
Chapter 48 Sugar and Postage
ONE day, on the street, I encountered the man whom, of all men, I most
wished to see--Horace Bixby; formerly pilot under me--or rather, over
me--now captain of the great steamer 'City of Baton Rouge,' the latest
and swiftest addition to the Anchor Line. The same slender figure, the
same tight curls, the same springy step, the same alertness, the same
decision of eye and answering decision of hand, the same erect military
bearing; not an inch gained or lost in girth, not an ounce gained or
lost in weight, not a hair turned. It is a curious thing, to leave a man
thirty-five years old, and come back at the end of twenty-one years and
find him still only thirty-five. I have not had an experience of this
kind before, I believe. There were some crow's-feet, but they counted
for next to nothing, since they were inconspicuous.
His boat was just in. I had been waiting several days for her,
purposing to return to St. Louis in her. The captain and I joined a
party of ladies and gentlemen, guests of Major Wood, and went down the
river fifty-four miles, in a swift tug, to ex-Governor Warmouth's sugar
plantation. Strung along below the city, were a number of decayed, ram-
shackly, superannuated old steamboats, not one of which had I ever seen
before. They had all been built, and worn out, and thrown aside, since I
was here last. This gives one a realizing sense of the frailness of a
Mississippi boat and the briefness of its life.
Six miles below town a fat and battered brick chimney, sticking above
the magnolias and live-oaks, was pointed out as the monument erected by
an appreciative nation to celebrate the battle of New Orleans--Jackson's
victory over the British, January 8, 1815. The war had ended, the two
nations were at peace, but the news had not yet reached New Orleans. If
we had had the cable telegraph in those days, this blood would not have
been spilt, those lives would not have been wasted; and better still,
Jackson would probably never have been president. We have gotten over
the harms done us by the war of 1812, but not over some of those done us
by Jackson's presidency.
The Warmouth plantation covers a vast deal of ground, and the
hospitality of the Warmouth mansion is graduated to the same large
scale. We saw steam-plows at work, here, for the first time. The
traction engine travels about on its own wheels, till it reaches the
required spot; then it stands still and by means of a wire rope pulls
the huge plow toward itself two or three hundred yards across the field,
between the rows of cane. The thing cuts down into the black mold a foot
and a half deep. The plow looks like a fore-and-aft brace of a Hudson
river steamer, inverted. When the <DW64> steersman sits on one end of it,
that end tilts down near the ground, while the other sticks up high in
air. This great see-saw goes rolling and pitching like a ship at sea,
and it is not every circus rider that could stay on it.
The plantation contains two thousand six hundred acres; six hundred and
fifty are in cane; and there is a fruitful orange grove of five thousand
trees. The cane is cultivated after a modern and intricate scientific
fashion, too elaborate and complex for me to attempt to describe; but it
lost $40,000 last year. I forget the other details. However, this
year's crop will reach ten or twelve hundred tons of sugar, consequently
last year's loss will not matter. These troublesome and expensive
scientific methods achieve a yield of a ton and a half and from that to
two tons, to the acre; which is three or four times what the yield of an
acre was in my time.
The drainage-ditches were everywhere alive with little crabs--
'fiddlers.' One saw them scampering sidewise in every direction
whenever they heard a disturbing noise. Expensive pests, these crabs;
for they bore into the levees, and ruin them.
The great sugar-house was a wilderness of tubs and tanks and vats and
filters, pumps, pipes, and machinery. The process of making sugar is
exceedingly interesting. First, you heave your cane into the
centrifugals and grind out the juice; then run it through the
evaporating pan to extract the fiber; then through the bone-filter to
remove the alcohol; then through the clarifying tanks to discharge the
molasses; then through the granulating pipe to condense it; then through
the vacuum pan to extract the vacuum. It is now ready for market. I
have jotted these particulars down from memory. The thing looks simple
and easy. Do not deceive yourself. To make sugar is really one of the
most difficult things in the world. And to make it right, is next to
impossible. If you will examine your own supply every now and then for a
term of years, and tabulate the result, you will find that not two men
in twenty can make sugar without getting sand into it.
We could have gone down to the mouth of the river and visited Captain
Eads' great work, the 'jetties,' where the river has been compressed
between walls, and thus deepened to twenty-six feet; but it was voted
useless to go, since at this stage of the water everything would be
covered up and invisible.
We could have visited that ancient and singular burg, 'Pilot-town,'
which stands on stilts in the water--so they say; where nearly all
communication is by skiff and canoe, even to the attending of weddings
and funerals; and where the littlest boys and girls are as handy with
the oar as unamphibious children are with the velocipede.
We could have done a number of other things; but on account of limited
time, we went back home. The sail up the breezy and sparkling river was
a charming experience, and would have been satisfyingly sentimental and
romantic but for the interruptions of the tug's pet parrot, whose
tireless comments upon the scenery and the guests were always this-
worldly, and often profane. He had also a superabundance of the
discordant, ear-splitting, metallic laugh common to his breed--a
machine-made laugh, a Frankenstein laugh, with the soul left out of it.
He applied it to every sentimental remark, and to every pathetic song.
He cackled it out with hideous energy after 'Home again, home again from
a foreign shore,' and said he 'wouldn't give a damn for a tug-load of
such rot.' Romance and sentiment cannot long survive this sort of
discouragement; so the singing and talking presently ceased; which so
delighted the parrot that he cursed himself hoarse for joy.
Then the male members of the party moved to the forecastle, to smoke and
gossip. There were several old steamboatmen along, and I learned from
them a great deal of what had been happening to my former river friends
during my long absence. I learned that a pilot whom I used to steer for
is become a spiritualist, and for more than fifteen years has been
receiving a letter every week from a deceased relative, through a New
York spiritualist medium named Manchester--postage graduated by
distance: from the local post-office in Paradise to New York, five
dollars; from New York to St. Louis, three cents. I remember Mr.
Manchester very well. I called on him once, ten years ago, with a couple
of friends, one of whom wished to inquire after a deceased uncle. This
uncle had lost his life in a peculiarly violent and unusual way, half a
dozen years before: a cyclone blew him some three miles and knocked a
tree down with him which was four feet through at the butt and sixty-
five feet high. He did not survive this triumph. At the seance just
referred to, my friend questioned his late uncle, through Mr.
Manchester, and the late uncle wrote down his replies, using Mr.
Manchester's hand and pencil for that purpose. The following is a fair
example of the questions asked, and also of the sloppy twaddle in the
way of answers, furnished by Manchester under the pretense that it came
from the specter. If this man is not the paltriest fraud that lives, I
owe him an apology--
QUESTION. Where are you?
ANSWER. In the spirit world.
Q. Are you happy?
A. Very happy. Perfectly happy.
Q. How do you amuse yourself?
A. Conversation with friends, and other spirits.
Q. What else?
A. Nothing else. Nothing else is necessary.
Q. What do you talk about?
A. About how happy we are; and about friends left behind in the earth,
and how to influence them for their good.
Q. When your friends in the earth all get to the spirit land, what shall
you have to talk about then?--nothing but about how happy you all are?
No reply. It is explained that spirits will not answer frivolous
questions.
Q. How is it that spirits that are content to spend an eternity in
frivolous employments, and accept it as happiness, are so fastidious
about frivolous questions upon the subject?
No reply.
Q. Would you like to come back?
A. No.
Q. Would you say that under oath?
A. Yes.
Q. What do you eat there?
A. We do not eat.
Q. What do you drink?
A. We do not drink.
Q. What do you smoke?
A. We do not smoke.
Q. What do you read?
A. We do not read.
Q. Do all the good people go to your place?
A. Yes.
Q. You know my present way of life. Can you suggest any additions to
it, in the way of crime, that will reasonably insure my going to some
other place.
A. No reply.
Q. When did you die?
A. I did not die, I passed away.
Q. Very well, then, when did you pass away? How long have you been in
the spirit land?
A. We have no measurements of time here.
Q. Though you may be indifferent and uncertain as to dates and times in
your present condition and environment, this has nothing to do with your
former condition. You had dates then. One of these is what I ask for.
You departed on a certain day in a certain year. Is not this true?
A. Yes.
Q. Then name the day of the month.
(Much fumbling with pencil, on the part of the medium, accompanied by
violent spasmodic jerkings of his head and body, for some little time.
Finally, explanation to the effect that spirits often forget dates, such
things being without importance to them.)
Q. Then this one has actually forgotten the date of its translation to
the spirit land?
This was granted to be the case.
Q. This is very curious. Well, then, what year was it?
(More fumbling, jerking, idiotic spasms, on the part of the medium.
Finally, explanation to the effect that the spirit has forgotten the
year.)
Q. This is indeed stupendous. Let me put one more question, one last
question, to you, before we part to meet no more;--for even if I fail to
avoid your asylum, a meeting there will go for nothing as a meeting,
since by that time you will easily have forgotten me and my name: did
you die a natural death, or were you cut off by a catastrophe?
A. (After long hesitation and many throes and spasms.) NATURAL DEATH.
This ended the interview. My friend told the medium that when his
relative was in this poor world, he was endowed with an extraordinary
intellect and an absolutely defectless memory, and it seemed a great
pity that he had not been allowed to keep some shred of these for his
amusement in the realms of everlasting contentment, and for the
amazement and admiration of the rest of the population there.
This man had plenty of clients--has plenty yet. He receives letters
from spirits located in every part of the spirit world, and delivers
them all over this country through the United States mail. These letters
are filled with advice--advice from'spirits' who don't know as much as
a tadpole--and this advice is religiously followed by the receivers.
One of these clients was a man whom the spirits (if one may thus
plurally describe the ingenious Manchester) were teaching how to
contrive an improved railway car-wheel. It is coarse employment for a
spirit, but it is higher and wholesomer activity than talking for ever
about 'how happy we are.'
Chapter 49 Episodes in Pilot Life
IN the course of the tug-boat gossip, it came out that out of every five
of my former friends who had quitted the river, four had chosen farming
as an occupation. Of course this was not because they were peculiarly
gifted, agriculturally, and thus more likely to succeed as farmers than
in other industries: the reason for their choice must be traced to some
other source. Doubtless they chose farming because that life is private
and secluded from irruptions of undesirable strangers--like the pilot-
house hermitage. And doubtless they also chose it because on a thousand
nights of black storm and danger they had noted the twinkling lights of
solitary farm-houses, as the boat swung by, and pictured to themselves
the serenity and security and coziness of such refuges at such times,
and so had by-and-bye come to dream of that retired and peaceful life as
the one desirable thing to long for, anticipate, earn, and at last
enjoy.
But I did not learn that any of these pilot-farmers had astonished
anybody with their successes. Their farms do not support them: they
support their farms. The pilot-farmer disappears from the river
annually, about the breaking of spring, and is seen no more till next
frost. Then he appears again, in damaged homespun, combs the hayseed out
of his hair, and takes a pilot-house berth for the winter. In this way
he pays the debts which his farming has achieved during the agricultural
season. So his river bondage is but half broken; he is still the
river's slave the hardest half of the year.
One of these men bought a farm, but did not retire to it. He knew a
trick worth two of that. He did not propose to pauperize his farm by
applying his personal ignorance to working it. No, he put the farm into
the hands of an agricultural expert to be worked on shares--out of every
three loads of corn the expert to have two and the pilot the third. But
at the end of the season the pilot received no corn. The expert
explained that his share was not reached. The farm produced only two
loads.
Some of the pilots whom I had known had had adventures--the outcome
fortunate, sometimes, but not in all cases. Captain Montgomery, whom I
had steered for when he was a pilot, commanded the Confederate fleet in
the great battle before Memphis; when his vessel went down, he swam
ashore, fought his way through a squad of soldiers, and made a gallant
and narrow escape. He was always a cool man; nothing could disturb his
serenity. Once when he was captain of the 'Crescent City,' I was
bringing the boat into port at New Orleans, and momently expecting
orders from the hurricane deck, but received none. I had stopped the
wheels, and there my authority and responsibility ceased. It was
evening--dim twilight--the captain's hat was perched upon the big bell,
and I supposed the intellectual end of the captain was in it, but such
was not the case. The captain was very strict; therefore I knew better
than to touch a bell without orders. My duty was to hold the boat
steadily on her calamitous course, and leave the consequences to take
care of themselves--which I did. So we went plowing past the sterns of
steamboats and getting closer and closer--the crash was bound to come
very soon--and still that hat never budged; for alas, the captain was
napping in the texas.... Things were becoming exceedingly nervous and
uncomfortable. It seemed to me that the captain was not going to appear
in time to see the entertainment. But he did. Just as we were walking
into the stern of a steamboat, he stepped out on deck, and said, with
heavenly serenity, 'Set her back on both'--which I did; but a trifle
late, however, for the next moment we went smashing through that other
boat's flimsy outer works with a most prodigious racket. The captain
never said a word to me about the matter afterwards, except to remark
that I had done right, and that he hoped I would not hesitate to act in
the same way again in like circumstances.
One of the pilots whom I had known when I was on the river had died a
very honorable death. His boat caught fire, and he remained at the
wheel until he got her safe to land. Then he went out over the breast-
board with his clothing in flames, and was the last person to get
ashore. He died from his injuries in the course of two or three hours,
and his was the only life lost.
The history of Mississippi piloting affords six or seven instances of
this sort of martyrdom, and half a hundred instances of escapes from a
like fate which came within a second or two of being fatally too late;
BUT THERE IS NO INSTANCE OF A PILOT DESERTING HIS POST TO SAVE HIS LIFE
WHILE BY REMAINING AND SACRIFICING IT HE MIGHT SECURE OTHER LIVES FROM
DESTRUCTION. It is well worth while to set down this noble fact, and
well worth while to put it in italics, too.
The 'cub' pilot is early admonished to despise all perils connected with
a pilot's calling, and to prefer any sort of death to the deep dishonor
of deserting his post while there is any possibility of his being useful
in it. And so effectively are these admonitions inculcated, that even
young and but half-tried pilots can be depended upon to stick to the
wheel, and die there when occasion requires. In a Memphis graveyard is
buried a young fellow who perished at the wheel a great many years ago,
in White River, to save the lives of other men. He said to the captain
that if the fire would give him time to reach a sand bar, some distance
away, all could be saved, but that to land against the bluff bank of the
river would be to insure the loss of many lives. He reached the bar and
grounded the boat in shallow water; but by that time the flames had
closed around him, and in escaping through them he was fatally burned.
He had been urged to fly sooner, but had replied as became a pilot to
reply--
'I will not go. If I go, nobody will be saved; if I stay, no one will
be lost but me. I will stay.'
There were two hundred persons on board, and no life was lost but the
pilot's. There used to be a monument to this young fellow, in that
Memphis graveyard. While we tarried in Memphis on our down trip, I
started out to look for it, but our time was so brief that I was obliged
to turn back before my object was accomplished.
The tug-boat gossip informed me that Dick Kennet was dead--blown up,
near Memphis, and killed; that several others whom I had known had
fallen in the war--one or two of them shot down at the wheel; that
another and very particular friend, whom I had steered many trips for,
had stepped out of his house in New Orleans, one night years ago, to
collect some money in a remote part of the city, and had never been seen
again--was murdered and thrown into the river, it was thought; that Ben
Thornburgh was dead long ago; also his wild 'cub' whom I used to quarrel
with, all through every daylight watch. A heedless, reckless creature
he was, and always in hot water, always in mischief. An Arkansas
passenger brought an enormous bear aboard, one day, and chained him to a
life-boat on the hurricane deck. Thornburgh's 'cub' could not rest till
he had gone there and unchained the bear, to'see what he would do.' He
was promptly gratified. The bear chased him around and around the deck,
for miles and miles, with two hundred eager faces grinning through the
railings for audience, and finally snatched off the lad's coat-tail and
went into the texas to chew it. The off-watch turned out with alacrity,
and left the bear in sole possession. He presently grew lonesome, and
started out for recreation. He ranged the whole boat--visited every part
of it, with an advance guard of fleeing people in front of him and a
voiceless vacancy behind him; and when his owner captured him at last,
those two were the only visible beings anywhere; everybody else was in
hiding, and the boat was a solitude.
I was told that one of my pilot friends fell dead at the wheel, from
heart disease, in 1869. The captain was on the roof at the time. He saw
the boat breaking for the shore; shouted, and got no answer; ran up, and
found the pilot lying dead on the floor.
Mr. Bixby had been blown up, in Madrid bend; was not injured, but the
other pilot was lost.
George Ritchie had been blown up near Memphis--blown into the river from
the wheel, and disabled. The water was very cold; he clung to a cotton
bale--mainly with his teeth--and floated until nearly exhausted, when he
was rescued by some deck hands who were on a piece of the wreck. They
tore open the bale and packed him in the cotton, and warmed the life
back into him, and got him safe to Memphis. He is one of Bixby's pilots
on the 'Baton Rouge' now.
Into the life of a steamboat clerk, now dead, had dropped a bit of
romance--somewhat grotesque romance, but romance nevertheless. When I
knew him he was a shiftless young spendthrift, boisterous, goodhearted,
full of careless generosities, and pretty conspicuously promising to
fool his possibilities away early, and come to nothing. In a Western
city lived a rich and childless old foreigner and his wife; and in their
family was a comely young girl--sort of friend, sort of servant. The
young clerk of whom I have been speaking--whose name was not George
Johnson, but who shall be called George Johnson for the purposes of this
narrative--got acquainted with this young girl, and they sinned; and the
old foreigner found them out, and rebuked them. Being ashamed, they
lied, and said they were married; that they had been privately married.
Then the old foreigner's hurt was healed, and he forgave and blessed
them. After that, they were able to continue their sin without
concealment. By-and-bye the foreigner's wife died; and presently he
followed after her. Friends of the family assembled to mourn; and among
the mourners sat the two young sinners. The will was opened and
solemnly read. It bequeathed every penny of that old man's great wealth
to MRS. GEORGE JOHNSON!
And there was no such person. The young sinners fled forth then, and
did a very foolish thing: married themselves before an obscure Justice
of the Peace, and got him to antedate the thing. That did no sort of
good. The distant relatives flocked in and exposed the fraudful date
with extreme suddenness and surprising ease, and carried off the
fortune, leaving the Johnsons very legitimately, and legally, and
irrevocably chained together in honorable marriage, but with not so much
as a penny to bless themselves withal. Such are the actual facts; and
not all novels have for a base so telling a situation.
Chapter 50 The 'Original Jacobs'
WE had some talk about Captain Isaiah Sellers, now many years dead. He
was a fine man, a high-minded man, and greatly respected both ashore and
on the river. He was very tall, well built, and handsome; and in his
old age--as I remember him--his hair was as black as an Indian's, and
his eye and hand were as strong and steady and his nerve and judgment as
firm and clear as anybody's, young or old, among the fraternity of
pilots. He was the patriarch of the craft; he had been a keelboat pilot
before the day of steamboats; and a steamboat pilot before any other
steamboat pilot, still surviving at the time I speak of, had ever turned
a wheel. Consequently his brethren held him in the sort of awe in which
illustrious survivors of a bygone age are always held by their
associates. He knew how he was regarded, and perhaps this fact added
some trifle of stiffening to his natural dignity, which had been
sufficiently stiff in its original state.
He left a diary behind him; but apparently it did not date back to his
first steamboat trip, which was said to be 1811, the year the first
steamboat disturbed the waters of the Mississippi. At the time of his
death a correspondent of the 'St. Louis Republican' culled the following
items from the diary--
'In February, 1825, he shipped on board the steamer "Rambler," at
Florence, Ala., and made during that year three trips to New Orleans and
back--this on the "Gen. Carrol," between Nashville and New Orleans. It
was during his stay on this boat that Captain Sellers introduced the tap
of the bell as a signal to heave the lead, previous to which time it was
the custom for the pilot to speak to the men below when soundings were
wanted. The proximity of the forecastle to the pilot-house, no doubt,
rendered this an easy matter; but how different on one of our palaces of
the present day.
'In 1827 we find him on board the "President," a boat of two hundred and
eighty-five tons burden, and plying between Smithland and New Orleans.
Thence he joined the "Jubilee" in 1828, and on this boat he did his
first piloting in the St. Louis trade; his first watch extending from
Herculaneum to St. Genevieve. On May 26, 1836, he completed and left
Pittsburgh in charge of the steamer "Prairie," a boat of four hundred
tons, and the first steamer with a STATE-ROOM CABIN ever seen at St.
Louis. In 1857 he introduced the signal for meeting boats, and which
has, with some slight change, been the universal custom of this day; in
fact, is rendered obligatory by act of Congress.
'As general items of river history, we quote the following marginal
notes from his general log--
'In March, 1825, Gen. Lafayette left New Orleans for St. Louis on the
low-pressure steamer "Natchez."
'In January, 1828, twenty-one steamers left the New Orleans wharf to
celebrate the occasion of Gen. Jackson's visit to that city.
'In 1830 the "North American" made the run from New Orleans to Memphis
in six days--best time on record to that date. It has since been made in
two days and ten hours.
'In 1831 the Red River cut-off formed.
'In 1832 steamer "Hudson" made the run from White River to Helena, a
distance of seventy-five miles, in twelve hours. This was the source of
much talk and speculation among parties directly interested.
'In 1839 Great Horseshoe cut-off formed.
'Up to the present time, a term of thirty-five years, we ascertain, by
reference to the diary, he has made four hundred and sixty round trips
to New Orleans, which gives a distance of one million one hundred and
four thousand miles, or an average of eighty-six miles a day.'
Whenever Captain Sellers approached a body of gossiping pilots, a chill
fell there, and talking ceased. For this reason: whenever six pilots
were gathered together, there would always be one or two newly fledged
ones in the lot, and the elder ones would be always'showing off' before
these poor fellows; making them sorrowfully feel how callow they were,
how recent their nobility, and how humble their degree, by talking
largely and vaporously of old-time experiences on the river; always
making it a point to date everything back as far as they could, so as to
make the new men feel their newness to the sharpest degree possible, and
envy the old stagers in the like degree. And how these complacent
baldheads WOULD swell, and brag, and lie, and date back--ten, fifteen,
twenty years,--and how they did enjoy the effect produced upon the
marveling and envying youngsters!
And perhaps just at this happy stage of the proceedings, the stately
figure of Captain Isaiah Sellers, that real and only genuine Son of
Antiquity, would drift solemnly into the midst. Imagine the size of the
silence that would result on the instant. And imagine the feelings of
those bald-heads, and the exultation of their recent audience when the
ancient captain would begin to drop casual and indifferent remarks of a
reminiscent nature--about islands that had disappeared, and cutoffs that
had been made, a generation before the oldest bald-head in the company
had ever set his foot in a pilot-house!
Many and many a time did this ancient mariner appear on the scene in the
above fashion, and spread disaster and humiliation around him. If one
might believe the pilots, he always dated his islands back to the misty
dawn of river history; and he never used the same island twice; and
never did he employ an island that still existed, or give one a name
which anybody present was old enough to have heard of before. If you
might believe the pilots, he was always conscientiously particular about
little details; never spoke of 'the State of Mississippi,' for instance
--no, he would say, 'When the State of Mississippi was where Arkansas now
is,' and would never speak of Louisiana or Missouri in a general way,
and leave an incorrect impression on your mind--no, he would say, 'When
Louisiana was up the river farther,' or 'When Missouri was on the
Illinois side.'
The old gentleman was not of literary turn or capacity, but he used to
jot down brief paragraphs of plain practical information about the
river, and sign them 'MARK TWAIN,' and give them to the 'New Orleans
Picayune.' They related to the stage and condition of the river, and
were accurate and valuable; and thus far, they contained no poison. But
in speaking of the stage of the river to-day, at a given point, the
captain was pretty apt to drop in a little remark about this being the
first time he had seen the water so high or so low at that particular
point for forty-nine years; and now and then he would mention Island So-
and-so, and follow it, in parentheses, with some such observation as
'disappeared in 1807, if I remember rightly.' In these antique
interjections lay poison and bitterness for the other old pilots, and
they used to chaff the 'Mark Twain' paragraphs with unsparing mockery.
It so chanced that one of these paragraphs--{footnote [The original MS.
of it, in the captain's own hand, has been sent to me from New Orleans.
It reads as follows--
VICKSBURG May 4, 1859.
'My opinion for the benefit of the citizens of New Orleans: The water is
higher this far up than it has been since 8. My opinion is that the
water will be feet deep in Canal street before the first of next June.
Mrs. Turner's plantation at the head of Big Black Island is all under
water, and it has not been since 1815.
'I. Sellers.']}
became the text for my first newspaper article. I burlesqued it
broadly, very broadly, stringing my fantastics out to the extent of
eight hundred or a thousand words. I was a 'cub' at the time. I showed
my performance to some pilots, and they eagerly rushed it into print in
the 'New Orleans True Delta.' It was a great pity; for it did nobody
any worthy service, and it sent a pang deep into a good man's heart.
There was no malice in my rubbish; but it laughed at the captain. It
laughed at a man to whom such a thing was new and strange and dreadful.
I did not know then, though I do now, that there is no suffering
comparable with that which a private person feels when he is for the
first time pilloried in print.
Captain Sellers did me the honor to profoundly detest me from that day
forth. When I say he did me the honor, I am not using empty words. It
was a very real honor to be in the thoughts of so great a man as Captain
Sellers, and I had wit enough to appreciate it and be proud of it. It
was distinction to be loved by such a man; but it was a much greater
distinction to be hated by him, because he loved scores of people; but
he didn't sit up nights to hate anybody but me.
He never printed another paragraph while he lived, and he never again
signed 'Mark Twain' to anything. |
10,240 |
Produced by David Widger. HTML version by Al Haines
A WONDER-BOOK FOR GIRLS AND BOYS
By Nathaniel Hawthorne
THE MIRACULOUS PITCHER
CONTENTS:
THE HILLSIDE.--Introductory to "The Miraculous Pitcher"
THE MIRACULOUS PITCHER
THE HILLSIDE--After the Story
INTRODUCTORY TO "THE MIRACULOUS PITCHER"
And when, and where, do you think we find the children next? No longer
in the winter-time, but in the merry month of May. No longer in
Tanglewood play-room, or at Tanglewood fireside, but more than half-way
up a monstrous hill, or a mountain, as perhaps it would be better
pleased to have us call it. They had set out from home with the mighty
purpose of climbing this high hill, even to the very tiptop of its bald
head. To be sure, it was not quite so high as Chimborazo, or Mont
Blanc, and was even a good deal lower than old Graylock. But, at any
rate, it was higher than a thousand ant-hillocks, or a million of mole
hills; and, when measured by the short strides of little children, might
be reckoned a very respectable mountain.
And was Cousin Eustace with the party? Of that you may be certain; else
how could the book go on a step further? He was now in the middle of
the spring vacation, and looked pretty much as we saw him four or five
months ago, except that, if you gazed quite closely at his upper lip,
you could discern the funniest little bit of a mustache upon it.
Setting aside this mark of mature manhood, you might have considered
Cousin Eustace just as much a boy as when you first became acquainted
with him. He was as merry, as playful, as good-humored, as light of
foot and of spirits, and equally a favorite with the little folks, as he
had always been. This expedition up the mountain was entirely of his
contrivance. All the way up the steep ascent, he had encouraged the
elder children with his cheerful voice; and when Dandelion, Cowslip, and
Squash-blossom grew weary, he had lugged them along, alternately, on his
back. In this manner, they had passed through the orchards and pastures
on the lower part of the hill, and had reached the wood, which extends
thence towards its bare summit.
The month of May, thus far, had been more amiable than it often is, and
this was as sweet and genial a day as the heart of man or child could
wish. In their progress up the hill, the small people had found enough
of violets, blue and white, and some that were as golden as if they had
the touch of Midas on them. That sociablest of flowers, the little
Housatonia, was very abundant. It is a flower that never lives alone,
but which loves its own kind, and is always fond of dwelling with a
great many friends and relatives around it. Sometimes you see a family
of them, covering a space no bigger than the palm of your hand; and
sometimes a large community, whitening a whole tract of pasture, and all
keeping one another in cheerful heart and life.
Within the verge of the wood there were columbines, looking more pale
than red, because they were so modest, and had thought proper to seclude
themselves too anxiously from the sun. There were wild geraniums, too,
and a thousand white blossoms of the strawberry. The trailing arbutus
was not yet quite out of bloom; but it hid its precious flowers under
the last year's withered forest-leaves, as carefully as a mother-bird
hides its little young ones. It knew, I suppose, how beautiful and
sweet-scented they were. So cunning was their concealment, that the
children sometimes smelt the delicate richness of their perfume, before
they knew whence it proceeded.
Amid so much new life, it was strange and truly pitiful to behold, here
and there, in the fields and pastures, the hoary periwig of dandelions
that had already gone to seed. They had done with summer before the
summer came. Within those small globes of winged seeds it was autumn
now!
Well, but we must not waste our valuable pages with any more talk about
the spring-time and wild flowers. There is something, we hope, more
interesting to be talked about. If you look at the group of children,
you may see them all gathered around Eustace Bright, who, sitting on the
stump of a tree, seems to be just beginning a story. The fact is, the
younger part of the troop have found out that it takes rather too many
of their short strides to measure the long ascent of the hill. Cousin
Eustace, therefore, has decided to leave Sweet Fern, Cowslip,
Squash-blossom, and Dandelion, at this point, midway up, until the return
of the rest of the party from the summit. And because they complain a
little, and do not quite like to stay behind, he gives them some apples
out of his pocket, and proposes to tell them a very pretty story.
Hereupon they brighten up, and change their grieved looks into the
broadest kind of smiles.
As for the story, I was there to hear it, hidden behind a bush, and
shall tell it over to you in the pages that come next.
THE MIRACULOUS PITCHER.
One evening, in times long ago, old Philemon and his old wife Baucis sat
at their cottage-door, enjoying the cahn and beautiful sunset. They had
already eaten their frugal supper, and intended now to spend a quiet
hour or two before bedtime. So they talked together about their garden,
and their cow, and their bees, and their grapevine, which clambered over
the cottage-wall, and on which the grapes were beginning to turn purple.
But the rude shouts of children and the fierce barking of dogs, in the
village near at hand, grew louder and louder, until, at last, it was
hardly possible for Baucis and Philemon to hear each other speak.
"Ah, wife." cried Philemon, "I fear some poor traveller is seeking
hospitality among our neighbors yonder, and, instead of giving him food
and lodging, they have set their dogs at him, as their custom is!"
"Well-a-day!" answered old Baucis, "I do wish our neighbors felt a
little more kindness for their fellow-creatures. And only think of
bringing up their children in this naughty way, and patting them on the
head when they fling stones at strangers!"
"Those children will never come to any good," said Philemon, shaking his
white head. "To tell you the truth, wife, I should not wonder if some
terrible thing were to happen to all the people in the village, unless
they mend their manners. But, as for you and me, so long as Providence
affords us a crust of bread, let us be ready to give half to any poor,
homeless stranger, that may come along and need it."
"That's right, husband!" said Baucis. "So we will!"
These old folks, you must know, were quite poor, and had to work pretty
hard for a living. Old Philemon toiled diligently in his garden, while
Baucis was always busy with her distaff, or making a little butter and
cheese with their cow's milk, or doing one thing and another about the
cottage. Their food was seldom anything but bread, milk, and
vegetables, with sometimes a portion of honey from their beehive, and
now and then a bunch of grapes, that had ripened against the cottage-wall.
But they were two of the kindest old people in the world, and
would cheerfully have gone without their dinners, any day, rather than
refuse a slice of their brown loaf, a cup of new milk, and a spoonful of
honey, to the weary traveller who might pause before their door. They
felt as if such guests had a sort of holiness, and that they ought,
therefore, to treat them better and more bountifully than their own
selves.
Their cottage stood on a rising ground, at some short distance from a
village, which lay in a hollow valley, that was about half a mile in
breadth. This valley, in past ages, when the world was new, had
probably been the bed of a lake. There, fishes had glided to and fro in
the depths, and water-weeds had grown along the margin, and trees and
hills had seen their reflected images in the broad, and peaceful mirror.
But, as the waters subsided, men had cultivated the soil, and built
houses on it, so that it was now a fertile spot, and bore no traces of
the ancient lake, except a very small brook, which meandered through the
midst of the village, and supplied the inhabitants with water. The
valley had been dry land so long, that oaks had sprung up, and grown
great and high, and perished with old age, and been succeeded by others;
as tall and stately as the first. Never was there a prettier or more
fruitful valley. The very sight of the plenty around them should have
made the inhabitants kind and gentle, and ready to show their gratitude
to Providence by doing good to their fellow-creatures.
But, we are sorry to say, the people of this lovely village were not
worthy to dwell in a spot on which Heaven had smiled so beneficently.
They were a very selfish and hard-hearted people, and had no pity for
the poor, nor sympathy with the homeless. They would only have laughed,
had anybody told them that human beings owe a debt of love to one
another, because there is no other method of paying the debt of love and
care which all of us owe to Providence. You will hardly believe what I
am going to tell you. These naughty people taught their children to be
no better than themselves, and used to clap their hands, by way of
encouragement, when they saw the little boys and girls run after some
poor stranger, shouting at his heels, and pelting hum with stones. They
kept large and fierce dogs, and whenever a traveller ventured to show
himself in the village street, this pack of disagreeable curs scampered
to meet him, barking, snarling, and showing their teeth. Then they
would seize him by his leg, or by his clothes, just as it happened; and
if he were ragged when he came, he was generally a pitiable object
before he had time to run away. This was a very terrible thing to poor
travellers, as you may suppose, especially when they chanced to be sick,
or feeble, or lame, or old. Such persons (if they once knew how badly
these unkind people, and their unkind children and curs, were in the
habit of behaving) would go miles and miles out of their way, rather
than try to pass through the village again.
What made the matter seem worse, if possible, was that when rich persons
came in their chariots, or riding on beautiful horses, with their
servants in rich liveries attending on them, nobody could be more civil
and obsequious than the inhabitants of the village. They would take off
their hats, and make the humblest bows you ever saw. If the children
were rude, they were pretty certain to get their ears boxed; and as for
the dogs, if a single cur in the pack presumed to yelp, his master
instantly beat him with a club, and tied him up without any supper.
This would have been all very well, only it proved that the villagers
cared much about the money that a stranger had in his pocket, and
nothing whatever for the human soul, which lives equally in the beggar
and the prince.
So now you can understand why old Philemon spoke so sorrowfully, when he
heard the shouts of the children and the barking of the dogs, at the
farther extremity of the village street. There was a confused din,
which lasted a good while, and seemed to pass quite through the breadth
of the valley.
"I never heard the dogs so loud!" observed the good old man.
"Nor the children so rude!" answered his good old wife.
They sat shaking their heads, one to another, while the noise came
nearer and nearer; until, at the foot of the little eminence on which
their cottage stood, they saw two travellers approaching on foot. Close
behind them came the fierce dogs, snarling at their very heels. A
little farther off, ran a crowd of children, who sent up shrill cries,
and flung stones at the two strangers, with all their might. Once or
twice, the younger of the two men (he was a slender and very active
figure) turned about, and drove back the dogs with a staff which he
carried in his hand. His companion, who was a very tall person, walked
calmly along, as if disdaining to notice either the naughty children, or
the pack of curs, whose manners the children seemed to imitate.
Both of the travellers were very humbly clad, and looked as if they
might not have money enough in their pockets to pay for a night's
lodging. And this, I am afraid, was the reason why the villagers had
allowed their children and dogs to treat them so rudely.
"Come, wife," said Philemon to Baucis, "let us go and meet these poor
people. No doubt, they feel almost too heavy-hearted to climb the
hill."
"Go you and meet them," answered Baucis, "while I make haste within
doors, and see whether we can get them anything for supper. A
comfortable bowl of bread and milk would do wonders towards raising
their spirits."
Accordingly, she hastened into the cottage. Philemon, on his part, went
forward, and extended his hand with so hospitable an aspect that there
was no need of saying, what nevertheless he did say, in the heartiest
tone imaginable,--
"Welcome, strangers! welcome!"
"Thank you!" replied the younger of the two, in a lively kind of way,
notwithstanding his weariness and trouble. "This is quite another
greeting than we have met with yonder, in the village. Pray, why do you
live in such a bad neighborhood?"
"Ah!" observed old Philemon, with a quiet and benign smile, "Providence
put me here, I hope, among other reasons, in order that I may make you
what amends I can for the inhospitality of my neighbors."
"Well said, old father!" cried the traveller, laughing; "and, if the
truth must be told, my companion and myself need some amends. Those
children (the little rascals!) have bespattered us finely with their
mud-ball; and one of the curs has torn my cloak, which was ragged enough
already. But I took him across the muzzle with my staff; and I think
you may have heard him yelp, even thus far off."
Philemon was glad to see him in such good spirits; nor, indeed, would
you have fancied, by the traveller's look and manner, that he was weary
with a long day's journey, besides being disheartened by rough treatment
at the end of it. He was dressed in rather an odd way, with a sort of
cap on his head, the brim of which stuck out over both ears. Though it
was a summer evening, he wore a cloak, which he kept wrapt closely about
him, perhaps because his under garments were shabby. Philemen
perceived, too, that he had on a singular pair of shoes; but, as it was
now growing dusk, and as the old man's eyesight was none the sharpest,
he could not precisely tell in what the strangeness consisted. One
thing, certainly, seemed queer. The traveller was so wonderfully light
and active, that it appeared as if his feet sometimes rose from the
ground of their own accord, or could only be kept down by an effort.
"I used to be light-footed, in my youth," said Philemen to the
traveller. "But I always found my feet grow heavier towards nightfall."
"There is nothing like a good staff to help one along," answered the
stranger; "and I happen to have an excellent one, as you see."
This staff, in fact, was the oddest-looking staff that Philemon had ever
beheld. It was made of olive-wood, and had something like a little pair
of wings near the top. Two snakes, carved in the wood, were represented
as twining themselves about the staff, and were so very skilfully
executed that old Philemon (whose eyes, you know, were getting rather
dim) almost thought them alive, and that he could see them wriggling and
twisting.
"A curious piece of work, sure enough!" said he. "A staff with wings!
It would be an excellent kind of stick for a little boy to ride astride
of!"
By this time, Philemon and his two guests had reached the cottage-door.
"Friends," said the old man, "sit down and rest yourselves here on this
bench. My good wife Baucis has gone to see what you can have for
supper. We are poor folks; but you shall be welcome to whatever we have
in the cupboard."
The younger stranger threw himself carelessly on the bench, letting his
staff fall, as he did so. And here happened something rather
marvellous, though trifling enough, too. The staff seemed to get up
from the ground of its own accord, and, spreading its little pair of
wings, it half hopt, half flew, and leaned itself against the wall of
the cottage. There it stood quite still, except that the snakes
continued to wriggle. But, in my private opinion, old Philemon's
eyesight had been playing him tricks again.
Before he could ask any questions, the elder stranger drew his attention
from the wonderful staff, by speaking to him.
"Was there not," asked the stranger, in a remarkably deep tone of voice,
"a lake, in very ancient times, covering the spot where now stands
yonder village?"
"Not in my day, friend," answered Philemon; "and yet I am an old man,
as you see. There were always the fields and meadows, just as they are
now, and the old trees, and the little stream murmuring through the
midst of the valley. My father, nor his father before him, ever saw it
otherwise, so far as I know; and doubtless it will still be the same,
when old Philemon shall be gone and forgotten!"
"That is more than can be safely foretold," observed the stranger; and
there was something very stern in his deep voice. He shook his head,
too, so that his dark and heavy curls were shaken with the movement,
"Since the inhabitants of yonder village have forgotten the affections
and sympathies of their nature, it were better that the lake should be
rippling over their dwellings again!"
The traveller looked so stern, that Philemon was really almost
frightened; the more so, that, at his frown, the twilight seemed
suddenly to grow darker, and that, when he shook his head, there was
a roll as of thunder in the air.
But, in a moment afterwards, the stranger's face became so kindly and
mild, that the old man quite forgot his terror. Nevertheless, he could
not help feeling that this elder traveller must be no ordinary
personage, although he happened now to be attired so humbly, and to be
journeying on foot. Not that Philemon fancied him a prince in disguise,
or any character of that sort; but rather some exceedingly wise man, who
went about the world in this poor garb, despising wealth and all worldly
objects, and seeking everywhere to add a mite to his wisdom. This idea
appeared the more probable, because, when Philemon raised his eyes to
the stranger's face, he seemed to see more thought there, in one look,
than he could have studied out in a lifetime.
While Baucis was getting the supper, the travellers both began to talk
very sociably with Philemon. The younger, indeed, was extremely
loquacious, and made such shrewd and witty remarks, that the good old
man continually burst out a-laughing, and pronounced him the merriest
fellow whom he had seen for many a day.
"Pray, my young friend," said he, as they grew familiar together, "what
may I call your name?"
"Why, I am very nimble, as you see," answered the traveller. "So, if
you call me Quicksilver, the name will fit tolerably well."
"Quicksilver? Quicksilver?" repeated Philemon, looking in the
traveller's face, to see if he were making fun of him. "It is a very
odd name! And your companion there? Has he as strange a one?"
"You must ask the thunder to tell it you!" replied Quicksilver, putting
on a mysterious look. "No other voice is loud enough."
This remark, whether it were serious or in jest, might have caused
Philemon to conceive a very great awe of the elder stranger, if, on
venturing to gaze at him, he had not beheld so much beneficence in his
visage; But, undoubtedly, here was the grandest figure that ever sat so
humbly beside a cottage-door. When the stranger conversed, it was with
gravity, and in such a way that Philemon felt irresistibly moved to tell
him everything which he had most at heart. This is always the feeling
that people have, when they meet with any one wise enough to comprehend
all their good and evil, and to despise not a tittle of it.
But Philemon, simple and kind-hearted old man that he was, had not many
secrets to disclose. He talked, however, quite garrulously, about the
events of his past life, in the whole course of which he had never been
a score of miles from this very spot. His wife Baucis and himself had
dwelt in the cottage from their youth upward, earning their bread by
honest labor, always poor, but still contented. He told what excellent
butter and cheese Baucis made, and how nice were the vegetables which he
raised in his garden. He said, too, that, because they loved one
another so very much, it was the wish of both that death might not
separate them, but that they should die, as they had lived, together.
As the stranger listened, a smile beamed over his countenance, and made
its expression as sweet as it was grand.
"You are a good old man," said he to Philemon, "and you have a good old
wife to be your helpmeet. It is fit that your wish be granted."
And it seemed to Philemon, just then, as if the sunset clouds threw up a
bright flash from the west, and kindled a sudden light in the sky.
Baucis had now got supper ready, and, coming to the door, began to make
apologies for the poor fare which she was forced to set before her
guests.
"Had we known you were coming," said she, "my good man and myself would
have gone without a morsel, rather than you should lack a better supper.
But I took the most part of to-day's milk to make cheese; and our last
loaf is already half eaten. Ah me! I never feel the sorrow of being
poor, save when a poor traveller knocks at our door."
"All will be very well; do not trouble yourself, my good dame," replied
the elder stranger, kindly. "An honest, hearty welcome to a guest works
miracles with the fare, and is capable of turning the coarsest food to
nectar and ambrosia."
"A welcome you shall have," cried Baucis, "and likewise a little honey
that we happen to have left, and a bunch of purple grapes besides."
"Why, Mother Baucis, it, is a feast!" exclaimed Quicksilver, laughing,
"an absolute feast! and you shall see how bravely I will play my part at
it! I think I never felt hungrier in my life."
"Mercy on us!" whispered Baucis to her husband. "If the young man has
such a terrible appetite, I am afraid there will not be half enough
supper!"
They all went into the cottage.
And now, my little auditors, shall I tell you something that will make
you open your eyes very wide? It is really one of the oddest
circumstances in the whole story. Quicksilver's staff, you recollect,
had set itself up against the wall of the cottage. Well; when its
master entered the door, leaving this wonderful staff behind, what
should it do but immediately spread its little wings, and go hopping and
fluttering up the doorsteps! Tap, tap, went the staff, on the kitchen
floor; nor did it rest until it had stood itself on end, with the
greatest gravity and decorum, beside Quicksilver's chair. Old Philemon,
however, as well as his wife, was so taken up in attending to their
guests, that no notice was given to what the staff had been about.
As Baucis had said, there was but a scanty supper for two hungry
travellers. In the middle of the table was the remnant of a brown loaf,
with a piece of cheese on one side of it, and a dish of honeycomb on the
other. There was a pretty good bunch of grapes for each of the guests.
A moderately sized earthen pitcher, nearly full of milk, stood at a
corner of the board; and when hands had filled two bowls, and set them
before the strangers, only a little milk remained in the bottom of the
pitcher. Alas! it is a very sad business, when a bountiful heart finds
itself pinched and squeezed among narrow circumstances. Poor Baucis
kept wishing that she might starve for a week to come, if it were
possible, by so doing, to provide these hungry folks a more plentiful
supper.
And, since the supper was so exceedingly small, she could not help
wishing that their appetites had not been quite so large. Why, at their
very first sitting down, the travellers both drank off all the milk in
their two bowls, at a draught.
"A little more milk, kind Mother Baucis, if you please," said
Quicksilver. "The day has been hot, and I am very much athirst."
"Now, my dear people," answered Baucis, in great confusion, "I am so
sorry and ashamed! But the truth is, there is hardly a drop more milk
in the pitcher. O husband! husband! why didn't we go without our
supper?"
"Why, it appears to me," cried Quicksilver, starting up from table and
taking the pitcher by the handle, "it really appears to me that matters
are not quite so bad as you represent them. Here is certainly more milk
in the pitcher."
So saying, and to the vast astonishment of Baucis, he proceeded to fill,
not only his own bowl, but his companion's likewise, from the pitcher,
that was supposed to be almost empty. The good woman could scarcely
believe her eyes. She had certainly poured out nearly all the milk, and
had peeped in afterwards, and seen the bottom of the pitcher, as she set
it down upon the table.
"But I am old," thought Baucis to herself, "and apt to be forgetful. I
suppose I must have made a mistake. At all events, the pitcher cannot,
help being empty now, after filling the bowls twice over."
"What excellent milk!" observed Quicksilver, after quaffing the contents
of the second bowl. "Excuse me, my kind hostess, but I must really ask
you for a little more."
Now Baucis had seen, as plainly as she could see anything, that
Quicksilver had turned the pitcher upside down, and consequently had
poured out every drop of milk, in filling the last bowl. Of course,
there could not possibly be any left. However, in order to let him know
precisely how the case was, she lifted the pitcher, and made a gesture
as if pouring milk into Quicksilver's bowl, but without the remotest
idea that any milk would stream forth. What was her surprise,
therefore, when such an abundant cascade fell bubbling into the bowl,
that it was immediately filled to the brim, and overflowed upon the
table! The two snakes that were twisted about Quicksilver's staff (but
neither Baucis nor Philemon happened to observe this circumstance)
stretched out their heads, and began to lap up the spilt milk.
And then what a delicious fragrance the milk had! It seemed as if
Philemon's only cow must have pastured, that day, on the richest herbage
that could be found anywhere in the world. I only wish that each of
you, my beloved little souls, could have a bowl of such nice milk, at
supper-time!
"And now a slice of your brown loaf, Mother Baucis," said Quicksilver,
"and a little of that honey!"
Baucis cut him a slice, accordingly; and though the loaf, when she and
her husband ate of it, had been rather too dry and crusty to be
palatable, it was now as light and moist as if but a few hours out of
the oven. Tasting a crumb, which had fallen on the table, she found it
more delicious than bread ever was before, and could hardly believe that
it was a loaf of her own kneading and baking. Yet, what other loaf
could it possibly be?
But, oh the honey! I may just as well let it alone, without trying to
describe how exquisitely it smelt and looked. Its color was that of the
purest and most transparent gold; and it had the odor of a thousand
flowers; but of such flowers as never grew in an earthly garden, and to
seek which the bees must have flown high above the clouds. The wonder
is, that, after alighting on a flower-bed of so delicious fragrance and
immortal bloom, they should have been content to fly down again to their
hive in Philemon's garden. Never was such honey tasted, seen, or smelt.
The perfume floated around the kitchen, and made it so delightful, that,
had you closed your eyes, you would instantly have forgotten the low
ceiling and smoky walls, and have fancied yourself in an arbor, with
celestial honeysuckles creeping over it.
Although good Mother Baucis was a simple old dame, she could not but
think that there was something rather out of the common way, in all that
had been going on. So, after helping the guests to bread and honey, and
laying a bunch of grapes by each of their plates, she sat down by
Philemon, and told him what she had seen, in a whisper.
"Did you ever hear the like?" asked she.
"No, I never did," answered Philemon, with a smile. "And I rather
think, my dear old wife, you have been walking about in a sort of a
dream. If I had poured out the milk, I should have seen through the
business, at once. There happened to be a little more in the pitcher
than you thought,--that is all."
"Ah, husband," said Baucis, "say what you will, these are very uncommon
people."
"Well, well," replied Philemon, still smiling, "perhaps they are. They
certainly do look as if they had seen better days; and I am heartily
glad to see them making so comfortable a supper."
Each of the guests had now taken his bunch of grapes upon his plate.
Baucis (who rubbed her eyes, in order to see the more clearly) was of
opinion that the clusters had grown larger and richer, and that each
separate grape seemed to be on the point of bursting with ripe juice.
It was entirely a mystery to her how such grapes could ever have been
produced from the old stunted vine that climbed against the cottage-wall.
"Very admirable grapes these!" observed Quicksilver, as he swallowed one
after another, without apparently diminishing his cluster. "Pray, my
good host, whence did you gather them?"
"From my own vine," answered Philemon. "You may see one of its branches
twisting across the window, yonder. But wife and I never thought the
grapes very fine ones."
"I never tasted better," said the guest. "Another cup of this delicious
milk, if you please, and I shall then have supped better than a prince."
This time, old Philemon bestirred himself, and took up the pitcher; for
he was curious to discover whether there was any reality in the marvels
which Baucis had whispered to him. He knew that his good old wife was
incapable of falsehood, and that she was seldom mistaken in what she
supposed to be true; but this was so very singular a case, that he
wanted to see into it with his own eyes. On taking up the pitcher,
therefore, he slyly peeped into it, and was fully satisfied that it
contained not so much as a single drop. All at once, however, he beheld
a little white fountain, which gushed up from the bottom of the pitcher,
and speedily filled it to the brim with foaming and deliciously fragrant
milk. It was lucky that Philemon, in his surprise, did not drop the
miraculous pitcher from his hand.
"Who are ye, wonder-working strangers?" cried he, even more bewildered
than his wife had been.
"Your guests, my good Philemon, and your friends," replied the elder
traveller, in his mild, deep voice, that had something at once sweet and
awe-inspiring in it. "Give me likewise a cup of the milk; and may your
pitcher never be empty for kind Baucis and yourself, any more than for
the needy wayfarer!"
The supper being now over, the strangers requested to be shown to their
place of repose. The old people would gladly have talked with them a
little longer, and have expressed the wonder which they felt, and their
delight at finding the poor and meagre supper prove so much better and
more abundant than they hoped. But the elder traveller had inspired
them with such reverence, that they dared not ask him any questions.
And when Philemon drew Quicksilver aside, and inquired how under the sun
a fountain of milk could have got into air old earthen pitcher, this
latter personage pointed to his staff.
"There is the whole mystery of the affair," quoth Quicksilver; "and if
you can make it out, I'll thank you to let me know. I can't tell what
to make of my staff. It is always playing such odd tricks as this;
sometimes getting me a supper, and, quite as often, stealing it away.
If I had any faith in such nonsense, I should say the stick was
bewitched!"
He said no more, but looked so slyly in their faces, that they rather
fancied he was laughing at them. The magic staff went hopping at his
heels, as Quicksilver quitted the room. When left alone, the good old
couple spent some little time in conversation about the events of the
evening, and then lay down on the floor, and fell fast asleep. They had
given up their sleeping-room to the guests, and had no other bed for
themselves, save these planks, which I wish had been as soft as their
own hearts.
The old man and his wife were stirring, betimes, in the morning, and the
strangers likewise arose with the sun, and made their preparations to
depart. Philemon hospitably entreated them to remain a little longer,
until Baucis could milk the cow, and bake a cake upon the hearth, and,
perhaps, find them a few fresh eggs, for breakfast. The guests,
however, seemed to think it better to accomplish a good part of their
journey before the heat of the day should come on. They, therefore,
persisted in setting out immediately, but asked Philemon and Baucis to
walk forth with them a short distance, and show them the road which they
were to take.
So they all four issued from the cottage, chatting together like old
friends. It was very remarkable indeed, how familiar the old couple
insensibly grew with the elder traveller, and how their good and simple
spirits melted into his, even as two drops of water would melt into the
illimitable ocean. And as for Quicksilver, with his keen, quick,
laughing wits, he appeared to discover every little thought that but
peeped into their minds, before they suspected it themselves. They
sometimes wished, it is true, that he had not been quite so quick-witted,
and also that he would fling away his staff, which looked so
mysteriously mischievous, with the snakes always writhing about it.
But then, again, Quicksilver showed himself so very good-humored, that
they would have been rejoiced to keep him in their cottage, staff,
snakes, and all, every day, and the whole day long.
"Ah me! Well-a-day!" exclaimed Philemon, when they had walked a little
way from their door. "If our neighbors only knew what a blessed thing
it is to show hospitality to strangers, they would tie up all their
dogs, and never allow their children to fling another stone."
"It is a sin and shame for them to behave so,--that it is!" cried good
old Baucis, vehemently. "And I mean to go this very day, and tell some
of then what naughty people they are!"
"I fear," remarked Quicksilver, slyly smiling, "that you will find none
of them at home."
The elder traveller's brow, just then, assumed such a grave, stern, and
awful grandeur, yet serene withal, that neither Baucis nor Philemon
dared to speak a word. They gazed reverently into his face, as if they
had been gazing at the sky.
"When men do not feel towards the humblest stranger as if he were a
brother," said the traveller, in tones so deep that they sounded like
those of an organ, "they are unworthy to exist on earth, which was
created as the abode of a great human brotherhood!"
"And, by the by, my dear old people," cried Quicksilver, with the
liveliest look of fun and mischief in his eyes, "where is this same
village that you talk about? On which side of us does it lie? Methinks
I do not see it hereabouts."
Philemon and his wife turned towards the valley, where, at sunset, only
the day before, they had seen the meadows, the houses, the gardens, the
clumps of trees, the wide, green-margined street, with children playing
in it, and all the tokens of business, enjoyment, and prosperity. But
what was their astonishment! There was no longer any appearance of a
village! Even the fertile vale, in the hollow of which it lay, had
ceased to have existence. In its stead, they beheld the broad, blue
surface of a lake, which filled the great basin of the valley, from brim
to brim, and reflected the surrounding bills in its bosom, with as
tranquil an image as if it had been there ever since the creation of the
world. For an instant, the lake remained perfectly smooth. Then, a
little breeze sprang up, and caused the water to dance, glitter, and
sparkle in the early sunbeams, and to dash, with a pleasant rippling
murmur, against the hither shore.
The lake seemed so strangely familiar, that the old couple were greatly
perplexed, and felt as if they could only have been dreaming about a
village having lain there. But, the next moment, they remembered the
vanished dwellings, and the faces and characters of the inhabitants, far
too distinctly for a dream. The village had been there yesterday, and
now was gone!
"Alas!" cried these kind-hearted old people, "what has become of our
poor neighbors?"
"They exist no longer as men and women," said the elder traveller, in
his grand and deep voice, while a roll of thunder seemed to echo it at a
distance. "There was neither use nor beauty in such a life as theirs:
for they never softened or sweetened the hard lot of mortality by the
exercise of kindly affections between man and man. They retained no
image of the better life in their bosoms; therefore, the lake, that was
of old, has spread itself forth again, to reflect the sky!"
"And as for those foolish people," said Quicksilver, with his
mischievous smile, "they are all transformed to fishes. There needed
but little change, for they were already a scaly set of rascals, and the
coldest-blooded beings in existence. So, kind Mother Baucis, whenever
you or your husband have an appetite for a dish of broiled trout, he can
throw in a line, and pull out half a dozen of your old neighbors!"
"Ah," cried Baucis, shuddering, "I would not, for the world, put one of
them on the gridiron!"
"No," added Philemon, making a wry face, "we could never relish them!"
"As for you, good Philemon," continued the elder traveller,--"and you,
kind Baucis,--you, with your scanty means, have mingled so much
heartfelt hospitality with your entertainment of the homeless stranger,
that the milk became an inexhaustible fount of nectar, and the brown
loaf and the honey were ambrosia. Thus, the divinities have feasted, at
your board, off the same viands that supply their banquets on Olympus.
You have done well, my dear old friends. Wherefore, request whatever
favor you have most at heart, and it is granted."
Philemon and Baucis looked at one another, and then,--I know not which
of the two it was who spoke, but that one uttered the desire of both
their hearts.
"Let us live together, while we live, and leave the world at the same
instant, when we die! For we have always loved one another!"
"Be it so!" replied the stranger, with majestic kindness. "Now, look
towards your cottage!"
They did so. But what was their surprise, on beholding a tall edifice
of white marble, with a wide-open portal, occupying the spot where their
humble residence had so lately stood!
"There is your home," said the stranger, beneficently smiling on them
both. "Exercise your hospitality in yonder palace, as freely as in the
poor hovel to which you welcomed us last evening."
The old folks fell on their knees to thank him; but, behold! neither he
nor Quicksilver was there.
So Philemon and Baucis took up their residence in the marble palace, and
spent their time, with vast satisfaction to themselves, in making
everybody jolly and comfortable who happened to pass that way. The
milk-pitcher, I must not forget to say, retained its marvellous quality
of being never empty, when it was desirable to have it full. Whenever
an honest, good-humored, and free-hearted guest took a draught from this
pitcher, he invariably found it the sweetest and most invigorating fluid
that ever ran down his throat. But, if a cross and disagreeable
curmudgeon happened to sip, he was pretty certain to twist his visage
into a hard knot, and pronounce it a pitcher of sour milk!
Thus the old couple lived in their palace a great, great while, and grew
older and older, and very old indeed. At length, however, there came a
summer morning when Philemon and Baucis failed to make their appearance,
as on other mornings, with one hospitable smile overspreading both their
pleasant faces, to invite the guests of overnight to breakfast. The
guests searched everywhere, from top to bottom of the spacious palace,
and all to no purpose. But, after a great deal of perplexity, they
espied, in front of the portal, two venerable trees, which nobody could
remember to have seen there the day before. Yet there they stood, with
their roots fastened deep into the soil, and a huge breadth of foliage
overshadowing the whole front of the edifice. One was an oak, and the
other a linden-tree. Their boughs it was strange and beautiful to
see--were intertwined together, and embraced one another, so that each
tree seemed to live in the other tree's bosom, much more than in its own.
While the guests were marvelling how these trees, that must have
required at least a century to grow, could have come to be so tall and
venerable in a single night, a breeze sprang up, and set their
intermingled boughs astir. And then there was a deep, broad murmur in
the air, as if the two mysterious trees were speaking.
"I am old Philemon!" murmured the oak.
"I am old Baucis!" murmured the linden-tree.
But, as the breeze grew stronger, the trees both spoke at once,--"Philemon!
Baucis! Baucis! Philemon!"--as if one were both and both
were one, and talking together in the depths of their mutual heart. It
was plain enough to perceive that the good old couple had renewed their
age, and were now to spend a quiet and delightful hundred years or so,
Philemon as an oak, and Baucis as a linden-tree. And oh, what a
hospitable shade did they fling around them! |
10,240 |
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Distributed Proofreading Team
Editorial note: Long s's have been turned into s's, and the occasional
use of a macron over a vowel to express a following
n or m has been replaced with the following n or m.
Otherwise, the spelling is as in the original edition
of 1617, as difficult and inconsistent as it may be.
THE BRIDE
By Samuel Rowlands
With an Introductory Note by Alfred Claghorn Potter
_Introductory Note_
When the complete works of Samuel Rowlands were issued by the
Hunterian Club in 1872-1880, in an edition of two hundred and ten copies,
the Editor was obliged to omit from the collection the poem entitled
"The Bride." No copy of this tract was supposed to be extant. Twenty
years later, in the article on Rowlands in the Dictionary of National
Biography, Mr. Sidney Lee also names this poem as one of the author's
lost works. All that was known of it was the entry in the Stationers'
Register: [Footnote: _Arber's Transcript, vol. iii. p. 609_.]
"22 [degrees] Maij 1617
"Master Pauier. Entred for his Copie vnder the handes
of master TAUERNOR and both the wardens, A Poeme
intituled _The Bride_, written by SAMUELL ROWLANDE vj'd."
While all of Rowlands's works are classed by bibliographers as "rare,"
this one seemed to have disappeared entirely. No copy was to be
found in any of the large libraries or private collections, nor was there
any record of its sale.
Last spring a copy was discovered in the catalogue of a bookseller in a
small German town, and was secured for the Harvard College Library,
being purchased from the Child Memorial Fund. The copy is perfect,
except that the inner corner at the top of the second and third leaves
has been torn off, with the loss of parts of two words, which have
been supplied in manuscript. From this copy the present reprint is
made. As in the Hunterian Club edition of Rowlands's Works, to which
this may be considered a supplement, the reprint is exact. The general
makeup of the book as to style and size of type has been followed as
closely as possible; and the text has been reproduced page for page
and word for word. The misprints, which are unusually numerous, even
for a book of this period, have been left uncorrected. The title-page
and the two head-pieces have been reproduced by photography.
Of the poem itself, since it is now before the reader, little need be
said. It cannot be claimed that it presents great poetical merit.
Rowlands at his best was but an indifferent poet,--hardly more
than a penny-a-liner. In his satirical pieces and epigrams, and in
that bit of genuine comedy, "Tis Merrie vvhen Gossips meete," his
work does have a real literary value, and is distinctly interesting as
presenting a vivid picture of London life at the beginning of the
seventeenth century. In "The Bride," it must be confessed, Rowlands
falls below his own best work. Yet the poem is by no means wholly
lacking in interest. If not his best work, "The Bride" is by no means
his worst. Like most of his poems, it is written in an heroic stanza
of six lines, and, as is not so common with him, is in dialogue form.
The dialogue for the most part is well sustained and sprightly. The
story of the birth of Merlin, it is true, seems to have been inserted
mainly to fill out the required number of pages; but this digression has an
interest of its own, in that the name here given to Merlin's mother,
"Lady Adhan," does not appear in the ordinary versions of the legend.
Of Rowlands's life almost nothing is known: that little is told in the
Memoir by Mr. Gosse prefixed to the Hunterian Club edition, and by
Mr. Lee in the Dictionary of National Biography, and need not be
repeated here. All that is known with certainty is that Samuel
Rowlands was a writer of numerous poems and pamphlets, published
between the years 1598 and 1628. During this period there appeared
almost every year a pamphlet bearing his name or the well known initials,
"S. R." Twenty-eight separate works, of which many passed through
several editions, are known to have been written by him. All of these
early editions are rare; at least two of the works have been lost; several
are extant only in the second or later editions; and of at least ten, only
single copies are known to exist. Beside the edition of the Works already
referred to, a number of Rowlands's tracts have been separately reprinted,
in limited editions, by Sir Walter Scott, by S. W. Singer, by
E. V. Utterson, by Halliwell-Phillipps, by J. P. Collier, and by
E. F. Rimbault in the publications of the Percy Society; to this series
of reprints, "The Bride" is now added.
ALFRED CLAGHORN POTTER
_Harvard College Library_
_January, 1905_
THE BRIDE
BY S.R.
LONDON
Printed by W. I. for T. P. 1617
THE BRIDE TO ALL MAYDES.
Not out of bubble blasted Pride,
Doe I oppose myselfe a Bride,
In scornefull manner with vpbraides:
Against all modest virgin maides.
As though I did dispise chast youth,
This is not my intent of truth,
I know they must liue single liues,
Before th'are graced to be wiues.
But such are only touch'd by me,
That thinke themselues as good as wee:
And say girles, Weomens fellows arr,
Nay sawcely, Our betters farr:
Yea will dispute, they are as good,
Such Wenches vex me to the blood,
And are not to be borne with all:
Those I doe here in question call,
Whome with the rules of reasons Arte:
He teach more wit before we part,
Sylence, of kindnes I beseech,
Doe you finde eares, and weele finde speach.
THE BRIDE
Virgins, and fellow maydes (that were of late)
Take kindly heere my wedding dayes a dew,
I entertayne degree aboue your state:
For Marriage life's beyond the single crew,
Bring me to Church as custome sayes you shall,
And then as wife, farewell my wenches all.
I goe before you vnto Honour now,
And _Hymen's_ Rites with ioy doe vndertake
For life, I make the constant Nuptiall vow,
Striue you to follow for your credits sake,
For greater grace to Womankind is none
Then Ioyne with husband, faithfull two in one.
God Honoured thus, our great Grand-mother _Eue_
And gaue thereby the blessing of increase,
For were not mariage we must all beleeue,
The generations of the earth would cease.
Mankind should be extinguish'd and decreas'd
And all the world would but consist of beast.
Which caused me to finde my Mayden folly,
And having found it, to reforme the same:
Though some of you, thereat seeme melancholy
That I for ever doe renounce your name.
I not respect what censure you can giue,
Since with a loving Man I meane to liue.
Whose kindest heart, to me is worth you all,
Him to content, my soule in all things seekes,
Say what you please, exclaiming chide and brall,
Ile turne disgrace unto your blushing cheekes.
I am your better now by _Ring_ and _Hatt_,
No more playn _Rose_, but _Mistris_ you know what.
Marrie therefore and yeald increase a store,
Else to what purpose weare you breed and borne:
Those that receaue, and nothing giue therefore:
Are fruitles creatures, of contempt and scorne,
The excellence of all things doth consist,
In giuing, this no reason can resist.
The glorious Sun, in giving forth his light,
The Earth in plants, and hearbs & countles things
The trees their fruit, The _Empresse_ of the Night
_She_ bountious gives to rivers flouds and springs,
And all that heaven, and all that earth containes,
Their goodnes, in Increase of guifts explaynes.
But what doe you that neither give nor take,
(As only made for hearing, and for seeing,)
Although created helpers for Mans sake:
Yet Man no whit the better for your being,
That spend consume and Idle out your howers,
Like many garden-paynted vselesse flowers.
Your liues are like those worthles barren trees,
That never yeald (from yeare to yeare) but leaues:
Greene-bowes vpon them only all men sees,
But other goodnes there is none receaues,
They flourish sommer and they make a showe,
Yet to themselues they fruitles spring & growe.
Consider beast, and fish and foule, all creatures,
How there is male and female of their kinde,
And how in loue they doe inlarge their natures:
Even by constrayn'd necessity inclyn'd:
To paire and match, and couple tis decreed,
To stocke and store the earth, with what they breed.
In that most powerfull word, still power doth lye,
To whose obedience all must subiect bee,
That sayd at first, _Increase and multiply_,
Which still enduers from age to age we see:
Dutie obligeth every one should frame,
To his dread will, that did commaund the same.
_It is not good for Man to be alone_,
Sayd that great God, who only knowes whats best:
And therefore made a wife of _Adams_ bone,
While he reposing slept, with quyet rest,
Which might presage, the great Creator ment,
In their coniunction, sume of earths content,
_Mistris Susan_.
Good _Mistris Bride_, now we haue hard your speach
In commendation of your Nuptiall choyse,
Giue me a little favour I beseech,
To speake vnto you with a Virgins voyce:
Though diuers elder maydes in place there be,
Yet ile begin, trusting they'le second me.
We are your fellows but to Church you say,
As custome is that maydes, should bring the _Bride_
And for no longer then the wedding day,
You hould with vs, but turne to tother side:
Boasting of Honour you affend vnto,
And so goe forward making much adoe.
But this vnto you lustly I obiect,
In the defence of each beloued mayde,
_Virginity_, is life of chast respect,
No worldly burden thereupon is layd:
Our syngle life, all peace and quiet bringes,
And we are free from carefull earthly things.
We may doe what we please, goe where we list,
Without pray _husband will you giue me leaue_
Our resolutions no man can resist,
Our own's our owne, to giue or to receiue,
We live not under this same word obay:
_Till Death depart us_, at our dying day.
We may delight in fashion, weare the same,
And chuse the stuffe of last devised sale:
Take Taylors counsell in it free from blame,
And cast it off assone as it growes stale:
Goe out, come in, and at selfe pleasure liue,
And kindly take, what kind youngmen do giue.
Wee have no checking churlish taunts to feare us,
We have no grumbling at our purse expence:
We seeke no misers favour to forbeare us,
We use no houshold wranglings and offence:
We have no cocke to over crowe our combe,
_Cate_.
Well said good _Susan_, now thou pay'st her home.
_Bride_.
A little favour pray, good _Mistris Sue_,
You haue a time to heare aswell as speake:
You challenge more by odds then is your due,
And stand on Arguments are childish weake:
Of freedome, liberty, and all content,
But in the aire your breath is vainely spent.
It is your shame to bost you haue your will,
And that you are in feare of no controwle,
Your cases _Sufan_, are more bad and ill,
Most dangerous to body and to soule:
A woman to her will hath oft bin try'd,
To run with errour, on the left hand side.
Pray did not danger then to _Eue_ befall,
When she tooke liberty without her heda,
The _Serpent_ ouercame her therwithall,
And thorow will, she wilfull was misled:
Yelding assoone as _Sathan_ did intice,
And of her husband neuer tooke aduise.
In wit to men we are inferiour far,
For arts for learning, and Ingenious things,
No rare Inuentions in our braynes there are,
That publique profit to a kingdome brings:
Tis they that must all callings execute,
And wee of all their labours reape the fruite.
They are Diuines for soules true happines,
They Maiestraites to right offensiue wronges,
They souldiers for their martiall valiantnes,
They artizans, for all to vse belonges:
They husbandmen to worke the earths increase,
And they the some of womens ioye and peace.
And shall not we performe obedience then?
As wee are bound by law of God and nature,
Yealding true harts affection unto men,
Ordain'd to rule and gouerne euery creature:
Why then of all on earth that liue and moue,
We should degenerate and monsters proue.
_Besse_.
Monsters (forsoth) nere sleepe in maidens beds,
But they are lodged with your married wiues,
The knotty browes, and rugged butting heds,
Concerne not vs, professing single liues,
To learne your horne-booke we have no deuotion
Keepe monsters to your selues, we scorne the motion.
_Bride_.
Besse, of such shapes, when your turne coms to marry
A carefull mynd, in choyse of husband beare,
For if your browes from former smothnes varry,
Thinke on this speach, _It commeth with a feare:_
Which I am past, perplexe me no feare can.
Being sure I haue a constant honest man.
_Iane_.
Belieue you haue, and t'is enough they say,
But you and I agree not in a mynde,
I read in storyes men will run astray,
Yet make their foolish wiues beleeue th'are kind:
And therefore since they are so cunning knowne
He keepe my selfe a maide and trust to none.
Had I one sutor swore himselfe loue-sicke,
Another for his Mistris sake would die,
A third thorow _Cupids_ power growne lunaticke,
A fourth that languishing past hope did lye:
And so fift, sixt, and seauenth in loues passion,
My Maiden-head for them should ner'e change fashion.
_Aeneas_ told many a cogging tale,
To Dido that renowned worthy Queene,
And _Iason_ with his flatterings did preuaile,
Yet falser knaues in loue were neuer seene:
And at this instant hower, as they were then,
The world aboundeth with deceitfull men.
_Doll_.
_Iane_, thats too true, for to you all I sweare,
How I was bobd by one tis shame to tell,
A smoother fellow neuer wench did heare,
And as I liue, I thought he lou'd me well:
Heere you shall fee one of his cunning letters,
Which still I keepe, & meane to shew his betters.
In Romane hand, on guilded paper writ,
Pray _Dorothy_ read you it to the rest,
But whether his owne head inuented it,
Or robd some printed Booke, I doe protest:
I cannot tell, but his owne name is to it,
Which proues he takes vpon him for to doe it.
* * * * *
The Loue Letter.
_The truest heart, shall nought but falshood cherish,
The mildest man, a cruell tyrant prooue,
The water drops, the hardest flint shall perish,
The hilles shall walke, and massie earth remooue:
The brightest Sun shall turne to darkesome clowde,
Ere I prooue false, where I my loue haue vowde._
_Ere I prooue false, the world desolu'd shall be,
To that same nothing that it was before,
Ere I prooue false mine eyes shall cease to see,
And breath of life shall breath in me no more:
The strong built frame shall moue from his foundation
Ere I remoue my soules determination._
_Death shall forget to kill, and men to dye,
Condemned soules shall laugh, and cease to mourne,
The lowest hell shall rise and meete the skye,
Time shall forget his course and backe returne:
Contrary vnto kinde each thing shall proue,
Ere I be false or once forget my loue._
_Oh then deare heart regard my sad estate,
My passions griefe and wofull lamentation,
Oh pittie me ere pittie come too late,
That hold thee deare past mans imagination:
Preserue my life and say that thou wilt haue me,
Or else I die the whole world cannot saue me_.
_Grace_.
This is a Ballad I haue heard it sung.
_Doll_.
Well, be or be not, that's not to the matter,
But who will trust a louers pen or tongue,
That vse all protestations thus to flatter:
For this base fellow that was so perplext,
Sent this one monday, and was married next.
_Sara_.
Now out vpon him most dissembling creature,
Ile warrant you that he can neuer thriue,
He showes himselfe, euen of as bad a nature,
As euer was in any man aliue:
Alas poore foole that hath this fellow got,
Shee hath a Iewell of him, hath she not?
_Nell_.
Yes surely hath she, (waying all things deepe,)
A louer that will tast as sweete as gall,
One that is better farre to hang then keepe,
And I perswade me you doe thinke so all:
Excepting onely partiall _Mistris Bride_,
For she stands stoutly to the married side.
_Bride_.
So farre as reason, and as right requires,
I will defend them both by word and deede,
Yet haue I no apology for lyers,
And ill conditions that false hearts doe breede:
"All that are married be not faithfull kinde,
Nor all vnmarried, are not chast in minde."
Are there not maids (vpon your coscience speake?)
Knowne to your selues as well as you knowe me,
Will vowe their loue to men, and falsly breake,
Which in the number of your _Virgins_ be,
That will delude some halfe a score young men,
And hauing gull'd them, take some other then.
I will not name her was in loue with ten,
But in your eares i'le note her secret; harke,
She had both Courtiers, Cockneys, Country-men,
Yet in the ende a Saylor boards her Barke:
And therefore put not men in all the blame,
But speake the trueth, and so the diuell shame.
_Grace_.
I knowe the partie well that you doe meane,
And thus much for her I dare boldly say,
To diuers sutors though she seemed to leane,
To trye her fortunes out the wisest way:
Yet did she neuer plight her faith to any,
But vnto him she had, among so many:
And ther's no doubt but diuers doe as she,
Your selfe in conscience, haue had more then one,
To whom in shewe you would familiar be,
And comming to the point why you would none:
Ciuilitie allowes a courteous cariage,
To such as proffer loue by way of marriage.
An affable behauiour may be vsed,
And kinde requitall answere kinde deseart,
And yet no honest man thereby abused,
With fained showes, as if he had the heart:
When there is purpose of no such intent
To gull him with his time and mony spent.
_Mall_.
Were I to giue maides counsell, they to take it,
And that they would consent to doe as I,
Who offered us his loue, we would forsake it,
And like _Dianes Nymphs_ would liue and die:
For I protest your louers should haue none,
But wiues and widdowes to put tricks vpon.
We would reuenge the crafty double dealing,
Thousands of harmelesse virgins doe endure,
By their deceitfull art of kinde-hart stealing,
Keeping our loues vnto our selues secure:
And credit to their vowes, should be no other,
But in at one eare, and goe out at t'other.
_Bride_.
This you would doe, and y'are in that minde now,
But I perswade me tis but rashly spoken,
And therefore _Mary_ make no foolish vow,
For if you doe in conscience t'will be broken:
Say you doe meane to keepe you free from man,
But to be sure, still put in _If you can_.
Or else you may presume aboue your power,
Twixt words and deedes, great difference often growes,
You may be taken such a louing hower,
Your heart may all be _Cupids_ to dispose:
Then vve shall haue you sicke, & pine and grieue,
And nothing but a husband can relieue.
Aske but your elders that are gone before,
And the'le say marry maide as we haue done,
Twixt twelue and twenty open loue the doore,
And say you vvere not borne to liue a Nonne:
Vnperfect female, liuing odde you are,
Neuer true euen, till you match and paire.
Iust-_Nature_ at the first this course did take,
Woman and man deuided were in twaine,
But by vniting both did sweetely make,
Deuisions blisse contenfull to remaine,
Which well made lawe of _Nature_ and of kinde,
To matters reasonles doe nothing binde.
Nothing vnfit, nothing vniust to doe,
But all in order orderly consisting,
Then what seeme they that wil not ioine their two
And so be one, without vnkinde resisting:
Surely no other censure passe I can,
But she's halfe woman liues without a man.
One, that depriues her selfe of whats her right,
Borne vnto care, and ignorant of ease,
A lustlesse liuing thing, without delight,
One, whom vnpleasantnesse best seemes to please:
Depriu'd of lifes sweete ioy, from kind remoued,
Of worthlesse parts, vnworthy to be loued.
Who will in paine pertake with such a one,
(Whom we may most vnhappy creature call,)
Who will assist her, when her griefe makes mone,
Or who vphold her if she chance to fall:
The burthen one doth beare is light to two,
For twisted cordes are hardest to vndoe.
The loue and ioy doth absolute remaine,
That in posteritie is fixed fast,
For thou in children art new borne againe,
When yeeres haue brought thee to thy breath-spent last:
Those oliue plants, shall from each other spring,
Till _Times_ full period endeth euery thing.
This being thus, what sencelesse girles you be,
To iustifie a life not worth embracing,
Opposing silly maiden wits gainst me,
That will not yeelde an ynch to your out-facing:
For were heere present all the maydes in towne,
With marriage reasons I would put them down.
_Prudence_.
Kinke sisters all, now I haue heard the _Bride_,
Will you haue my opinion, not to flatter,
Sure I am turning to the wedding side,
I heare such good sound reason for the matter:
Let _Grace_, _Doll_, _Besse_, and _Susan_, _Mary_, _Iane_,
Leade apes in hell, I am not of their vaine.
As sure as death ile ioyne my selfe with man,
For I perswade me tis a happy life,
Ile be a Bride vvith all the speede I can,
It's vvonder how I long to be a vvife:
_Grace_ heer's good counsell, had you grace to take it
_Susan_ tis sound, oh _Besse_ doe not forfake it.
Good husband-men vve see doe euer vse,
To chuse for forfit those that breede the best,
And none vvill keepe bad breeders that can chuse,
Euen so your fowlers that often brood the nest,
Are most esteem'd, & their kinds worthiest thoght
All barren things, by all are counted nought.
Who plantes an orchard vvith vnfruitfull trees,
None but a madman so vvill vvast his ground,
Or vvho sowes corne vvhere onely sand he sees,
Assured that there vvill no increase be found:
And in a vvord all that the vvorld containes,
Haue excellence in their begetting gaines.
For my part therefore I resolue me thus,
Vnto the purpose I was borne, ile liue,
All maydes are fooles that vvill not ioyne vvith vs,
And vnto men their right of marriage giue:
Most vvorthy Bride, here is my hand and vow,
I loue a man in heart, as vvell as thou.
_Francis_.
_Prudence_, I am of your opinion iust,
A vvif's farre better than a matchlesse maide,
Ile stay no longer virgin then needes must,
The law of Nature ought to be obayde:
Either vve must haue inward loue to men,
Or else beare hate, and so be brutish then.
Doth not the vvorld instruct vs this by others,
That vvedlocke is a remedy for sinne,
Shall vve be vviser then our reuerent mothers,
That married, or we all had bastards bin:
And ere our mothers lost their maiden Iemme,
Did not our grandhams euen as much for them.
From whence haue you the gift to liue vnwed,
Pray of what stuffe are your straight bodies made,
By what chast spirit was your nicenesse bred,
That seeme of flesh to be so purely stayde:
Are not all here made females for like ends,
Fye, fye for shame, disemble not with friends.
Ile tell you one thing which by proofe I knowe,
My mother had a cocke that vs'd to roame,
And all the hens would to our neighbours goe,
We could not keepe them for our liues at home:
Abroad they went, though we wold nere so saine
Vntill by chance we got our cocke againe.
And so my fathers pigeons in like sort,
Our matchlesse hens about would euer flye,
To paire with other doues they would resort,
(Pray laugh not _Susan_, for it is no lye)
I haue it not from other folkes relation,
But from mine owne, and mothers obseruation.
_Susan_.
I laugh that you compare vs to your hens,
Or straying pigions that abroad haue flowne,
To seeke about for cocks of other mens,
Because (you say) they wanted of their owne:
But _Francke_, though you like them be francke and free,
You must not iudge all other so to be.
We doe not vse to hunt abroad for cockes,
But rather shun the places where they be,
The prouerbe sayes, _let geese beware the fox_,
Tis easie making prayes of such as we:
That will not keepe them from the charmers charme
Mens flatteries doe maiden-heads much harme.
_Bride_.
Flatterers are of all to be reiected,
As well of wiues as you that are but maydes,
We praise not faults wherewith men are infected,
Nor yeeld applause to euery one perswades:
Our praysing men thus vnderstand you must,
Tis meant of those are honest, louing, iust.
Why there are men doe erre in what you hold,
Chast batchelers that neuer meane to match,
Who for the siugle life smooth tales haue told,
And yet the fleshly knaues will haue a snatch:
Ile ne're trust those that of themselues doe boast,
The great'st presisians will deceiue you most.
I knew a prating fellow would maintaine,
A married man had but two merry dayes,
His wedding day the ioyfull first of twaine,
For then God giue you ioy, euen all men sayes:
The second merry day of married life,
Is that whereon he burieth his wife.
And woemen vnto shippes he would compare,
Saying as they continually lacke mending,
So wiues still out of repairations are,
And vrge their husbands daily vnto spending:
Yea worse disgrace, he would presume to speake:
Which I will spare, least I offend the weake.
But note the badnesse of this wretches life,
That counted woemen abiect things forsaken,
He raune away at last with's neighbours wife,
Worthy of hanging were the rascall taken:
Such odious actes haue such dishonest mates,
that against marriage, rude and senceles prates.
But you most wilfull wenches that oppose,
Against the state that you are borne to honour,
A prophesie vnto you Ile disclose,
And she that here doth take most nice vpon her:
Pray note it well, for there is matter in it,
And for to doe you good thus I beginne it.
When fish with fowle change elements together,
The one forsaking aire, the other water,
And they that woare the finne, to weare the feather,
Remaining changelings all the worlds time after:
The course of nature will be so beguilde,
One maide shall get another maide with childe.
When euery Crow shall turne to be a Parret,
And euery Starre out-shine the glorious Sunne,
And the new water works runne white and clarret,
That come to towne by way of _Islington_,
Woemen and men shall quite renounce each other.
And maides shall bee with childe, like _Merlins_ mother.
_Grace_.
Like _Merlins_ mother, how was that I pray,
For I haue heard he was a cunning man,
There lines not snch another at this day,
Nor euer was, since _Brittans_ first began:
Tell vs the story, and we well will minde it.
Because they say, _In written bookes we finde it_.
_Bride_.
Marry this _Merlins_ mother was welsh Lady,
That liued in _Carnaruan_ beautious maide,
And loue of Lords and Knights shee did not way by,
But set all light, and euery one denay'd:
All Gentlemen, (as all you knowe be there,)
That came a wooing were no wit the neere.
At length it hapned that this gallant girle,
Which scorned all men that she euer saw,
Holding her selfe to be a matchlesse Pearle,
And such a Loadestone that could Louers draw:
Grew belly-full, exceeding bigge and plumpe,
Which put her Mayden-credit in a dumpe.
Time running course, and her full stomacke fed,
When consumation of fewe months expired,
Shee husbandlesse, a mayde was brought to bed,
Of that rare _Merlin_ that the world admired:
This to be honest, all her friends did doubt it,
Much prittle prattle was in _Wales_ about it.
So that ere long, the strangnes of the thing,
To heare that Lady _Adhan_ had a childe,
Caus'd famous _Arthur_ (being Brittans King)
Send for her to the Court, and reason milde:
To know how this rare matter could be done,
And make her finde a father for her sonne.
She told his Maiestie with sighes and teares,
That keeping beautie carefull from the Sunne,
Within her chamber safely shut from feares,
Till _Phoebus_ horses to the West were runne:
The doores fast lock'd, and she her selfe alone,
Came in a gallant stranger, meere vnknowne.
Who euer came in courting manner to her,
With all the louing courage could be thought:
So powerfull in perswasions force to woe her,
That to his will constrained she was brought:
Although her heart did firme deniall vow,
Yet she was forc'd to yeeld and knew not how.
So oft he came (quoth she) priuate and strange,
When I shut vp my selfe in most sad humor,
That I began to finde an inward change,
Which brought me quickly to an outward tumor:
An't please your highnes I was in such case,
That to the world I durst not show my face.
My foes reioyced, all my friends were sad,
My selfe in sorrow spent both day and night,
No satisfaction my wrong'd honour had,
Was neuer maide in such perplexed plight:
To be with child whether I will or no,
And for my child, no humane father know.
Had I bin married (quoth she) as I ought,
And with my loue, the loue of man requited,
I had not to this woefull state bin brought,
In all contempt, disgracefully despighted:
And tearmed strumpet by the rude vnciuill,
Who say my sonne is bastard to the diuell.
Wherefore I wish Ladies of my degree,
And all the rest inferiour sorts of maydes,
To take a warning (for their good) by me,
Yeelding affection when kind men perswades:
And hate disdaine that vile accursed sin,
Least they be plagu'd for pride as I haue bin.
How say you to this warning wenches now,
That Lady _Adhan_ giues vnto you all,
Were you not better marriage to allow,
Then in a manner for a Midwife call:
I thinke you were if I might iudge the cause,
How say you _Susan_, speake good _Doll_ and _Grace_.
_Grace_.
This is a story that seemes very strange,
And for my part, it doth me full perswade,
My Mayden-head with some man to exchange,
I will not liue in danger of a mayde:
The world the flesh, the diuell tempts vs still,
Ile haue a husband, I protest I will.
If I were sure none of you here would blabbe,
I would euen tell you of a dreame most true,
And if I lye, count me the veriest drabbe,
That euer any of you saw or knewe:
When a friend speakes in kindnes do not wrong her:
For I can keepe it (for my life) no longer.
One night (I haue the day of moneth set downe)
Because I will make serious matters sure,
Me thought I went a iourney out of towne,
And with a propper man I was made sure:
As sure as death, me thought we were assured,
And all things for the businesse were procured.
We did agree, and faith and troath did plight,
And he gaue me, and I gaue him a Ring,
To doe as _Mistris Bride_ will doe at night,
And I protest me thought he did the thing:
The thing we stand so much vpon he tooke,
And I vpon the matter bigge did looke.
Forsooth (in sadnes,) I was bigge with childe,
And had a belly, (marry God forbid,)
Then fell a weeping, but he laught and smil'd,
And boldly said, weele stand to what we did:
Fye, fye (quoth I) who euer stands I fall,
Farewell my credit, maydenhead and all.
Thus as I cry'd and wept and wrong my hands,
And said deare maydes and maydenhead adue,
Before my face me thought my mother stands,
And question'd with me how this matter grew:
With that I start awake as we are now,
Yet feard my dreame had bin no dreame I vow.
I could not (for my life) tell how to take it,
For I was stricken in a mightie maze,
Therefore if marriage come Ile not forsake it,
Tis danger to liue virgin diuers wayes,
I would not in such feare againe be found,
Without a husband, for a thousand pound.
_Susan_.
Is it euen so _Grace_, are you come to this,
You that perswaded me from loue of late,
When you knew who, sent me a Ring of his:
And would haue had me bin his turtle mate,
You cunningly did make me to forsake him,
Because I thinke in conscience you will take him.
Ile trust your word another time againe,
That can dissemble so against your heart,
Wishing that I should earnestly refraine,
From that which thou thy selfe embracer art:
This is braue doing, I commend you _Grace_,
But ile nere trust you more in such a case.
_Bride_.
I pray you here let this contention ende,
(We being all of selfe same woman kind,)
And each the other, with aduise befriend,
Because I see some of you well enclin'd:
To take good wayes, and so become good wiues,
Ile teach you certaine rules to leade your liues.
You that intend the honourable life,
And vvould vvith ioy liue happy in the same,
Must note eight duties doe concerne a wife,
To vvhich vvith all endeuour she must frame:
And so in peace possesse her husbands loue,
And all distast from both their hearts remooue.
The first is that she haue domestique cares,
Of priuate businesse for the house vvithin,
Leauing her husband vnto his affaires,
Of things abroad that out of doores haue bin:
By him performed as his charge to doe,
Not busie-body like inclin'd thereto.
Nor intermedling as a number will,
Of foolish gossips, such as doe neglect,
The things which doe concerne them, and too ill,
Presume in matters vnto no effect:
Beyond their element, when they should looke,
To what is done in Kitchin by the Cooke.
Or vnto childrens vertuous education,
Or to their maides that they good huswiues be,
And carefully containe a decent fashion,
That nothing passe the lymmits of degree:
Knowing her husbands businesse from her own,
And diligent doe that, let his alone.
The second dutie of the wife is this,
(Which shee in minde ought very carefull beare)
To entertaine in house such friends of his,
As she doth know haue husbands welcome there:
Not her acquaintance without his consent,
For that way Iealousie breeds discontent.
An honest woman will the scandall shun,
Of that report is made of wantonnesse,
And feare her credit will to ruine run,
When euill speakers doe her shame expresse:
And therefore from this rule a practise drawes,
That the effect may cease, remoue the cause.
Th'ird dutie is, that of no proude pretence,
She moue her husband to consume his meanes,
With vrging him to needlesse vaine expence,
Which toward the Counter, or to Ludgate leanes:
For many ydle huswiues (London knowes)
Haue by their pride bin husbands ouerthrowes,
A modest woman will in compasse keepe,
And decently vnto her calling goe,
Not diuing in the frugall purse too deepe,
By making to the world a pecocke showe:
Though they seeme fooles, so yeelde vnto their wiues,
Some poore men doe it to haue quiet liues.
Fourth dutie is, to loue her owne house best,
And be no gadding gossippe vp and downe,
To heare and carry tales amongst the rest,
That are the newes reporters of the towne:
A modest vvomans home is her delight,
Of businesse there, to haue the ouersight.
At publike playes she neuer will be knowne,
And to be tauerne guest she euer hates,
Shee scornes to be a streete-wife (Idle one,)
Or field vvife ranging vvith her vvalking mates:
She knows how wise men censure of such dames,
And how with blottes they blemish their good names.
And therefore with the doue sheele rather choose,
To make aboade where she hath dwelling place,
Or like the snayle that shelly house doeth vse,
For shelter still, such is good-huswiues case:
Respecting residence where she doth loue,
As those good housholders, the snayle and doue.
Fift dutie of a wife vnto her head,
Is her ohedience to reforme his will,
And neuer with a selfe conceit be led,
That her aduise prooues good, his counsell ill:
In Iudgement being singular alone,
As hauing all the wit, her husband none.
She must not thinke her wisedome to be thus,
(For we alasie are weakelings vnto men)
What singular good thing remaines in vs,
Of wife ones in a thousand, show me ten,
Her stocke of wit, that hath the most (I say,)
Hath scarse enough for spending euery day.
When as the husband bargaines hath to make,
In things that are depending on his trade,
Let not wifes boldnes, power vnto her take,
As though no match were good but what she made
For she that thus hath oare in husbands boate,
Let her take breech, and giue him petti-coate.
Sixt dutie is, to pacific his yre,
although she finde that he empatient be,
For hasty words, like fuell adde to fire,
And more, and more insenceth wraths degree:
When she perceiues his choller in a fit,
Let her forbeare, and that's a signe of wit. |
10,240 |
Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Distributed Proofreaders
THE NORSK NIGHTINGALE
Being the Lyrics of a "Lumberyack"
By William F. Kirk
1905
PREFACE
It is with a certain amount of misgiving that the author sends out this
little volume of Scandinavian dialect verses. To the residents of
Northern Wisconsin and Minnesota, where the "lumberyack" lives and
thrives, the dialect will seem familiar enough; but to other readers
such terms as "skol" (shall or will), "ban" (been), "panga" (money),
"sum" (than or as), may convey little or no meaning.
But, if the Scandinavian dialect verses are not widely popular, they are
at least comparatively fresh and original; and to those readers who can
readily grasp the patois, as well as to those who are compelled to
struggle painfully through its labyrinths, this volume is respectfully
dedicated.
CONTENTS
HIS LYRICS
"Yim"
Tillie Olson
The "Lumberyack"
Little Steena Yohnson
Olaf
"Yennie Dear"
"Peek-a-Boo"
Sonnet on Stewed Prunes
A Good Fellow
"It's Up to You"
HIS HISTORICAL TALES
Horatius at the Bridge
William Tell
The Courtship of Miles Standish
Robinson Crusoe
George Washington
Paul Revere
Waterloo
Barbara Frietchie
Sheridan's Ride
HIS POETICAL TRANSLATIONS
Speak Gently
The Barefoot Boy
Father William
Abou Swen Anson
Maud Muller
Lucy Gray
Stealing a Ride
"Curfew shall not Ring To-night"
A Psalm of Life
Annie Laurie
The Charge of the Light Brigade
Excelsior
Mortality
The Day is Done
HIS LYRICS
"YIM"
Dar ban a little faller,
Ay tenk his name ban Yim,
And nearly every morning
Ay used to seeing him.
He used to stand in gatevay,
And call me Svede, and ay
Ant lak to hear dis nickname:
Ay ban a Norsk, yu say.
But he ban little faller,
Ay tenk 'bout sax years old,
And so ay used to lak him--
He ban too small to scold.
Ay used to say, "Val, Yimmie,
Ay ant ban Svede, but yu
Can call me Svede,--ay lak yu
And ant care vat yu du."
By Yeorge! Ay'm glad, ay tal yu,
Dat ay ban gude to him,
Because one venter morning
Ay ant see little Yim.
And next day funeral vagon
Com driving op to door,
And Yim, poor little faller,
Can't call me Svede no more!
TILLIE OLSON
Little Tillie Olson
Ban my little pearl;
God ant never making
Any nicer girl.
Dis har Qveen of Sheba,
She ban nice to see;
But little Tillie Olson
Ban gude enuff for me.
Ay ban yust a svamper
Vorking op in voods;
Ay ant ever having
Much of dis vorld's goods.
Ay know lots of ladies
Var ay used to be,
But little Tillie Olson
Ban gude enuff for me.
Over in Chicago
'Bout sax veeks ago,
Torger Yohnson tak me
Out to see nice show.
Chorus girls ban dancing
Purty fine, by yee;
But little Tillie Olson
Ban gude enuff for me.
Ven ve sit by fireplace
Op at Tillie's house,
She ban cuddling near me,
Yust lak little mouse.
After ve ban married,
Happy ve skol be.
Yas, little Tillie Olson
Ban gude enuff for me.
THE "LUMBERYACK"
"Roll out!" yell cookee
"It ban morning," say he,
"It ban daylight in svamps, all yu guys!"
So out of varm bunk
Ve skol falling kerplunk,
And rubbing lak blazes our eyes.
Breakfast, den hustle; dinner, den yump!
Lumberyack faller ban yolly big chump.
"Eat qvick!" say the cook.
"Oder fallers skol look
For chance to get grub yust lak yu!"
So under our yeans
Ve pack planty beans,
And Yim dandy buckvheat cakes, tu.
Den out on the skidvay, vorking lak mule.
Lumberyack faller ban yolly big fule.
"Vatch out!" foreman say.
Den tree fall yure vay,
And missing yure head 'bout an inch.
Ef timber ban green,
Ve skol rub kerosene
On places var coss cut skol pinch.
Sawing and chopping, freeze and den sveat.
Lumberyack faller ban yackass, yu bet.
Ven long com the spring,
Ve drenk and we sing;
And calling town faller gude frend,
He help us to blow
Our whole venter's dough,
But ant got no panga to lend.
Drenk and headache, headache and drenk.
Lumberyack faller ban sucker, ay tenk.
LITTLE STEENA YOHNSON
Ay ban tenking lots of yu,
Little Steena Yohnson,
Ay ban sure yu love me true,
Little Steena Yohnson.
Oder geezers lak to play
In yure yard, but yu skol say,
"Ay don't lak yu fallers, nay!"
Little Steena Yohnson.
Some day yu skol be my vife,
Little Steena Yohnson:
Ay ban glad, yu bet yure life,
Little Steena Yohnson.
Ay ban vork lak <DW65>, tu,
Yumping 'round vith treshing crew;
Ay skol building home for yu,
Little Steena Yohnson.
Maybe ve skol saving dough,
Little Steena Yohnson;
Back to Norvay ve skol go,
Little Steena Yohnson--
Back var dis har midnight sun
Shining lak a son of a gun;
Ant yu tenk dis har ban fun,
Little Steena Yohnson?
OLAF
Yust two years ago last venter
Ay meet Olaf op in camp;
Ve ban lumberyacks togedder.
Every morning we skol tramp
'Bout sax miles yust after breakfast
Till we come to big pine-trees;
Den our straw boss he skol make us
Vork lak little busy bees.
Olaf, he ban yolly faller,
He skol taling yoke all day;
Sometimes he sing dis har ragtime,
Yust to passing time avay.
And at night, ven we ban smoking
After supper, he skol make
All us lumberyacks to laughing
Till our belts skol nearly break.
Me and Olaf bunked together,
And sometimes he taling me
'Bout his vife and little Torger,
Who ban living cross big sea.
"Ay ban saving dough," say Olaf;
"And next summer, ef ay can,
Ay skol send for vife and baby;
Den ay ban a happy man!"
One night Olaf getting letter
Ven we coming back to camp;
He yust tal me, "Little Torger,"
And his eyes ban gude and damp.
Dis ban how ay know vy Olaf
Never taling no more yoke,--
Vy he yust sit down at night-time,
Close by me, var he skol smoke.
"YENNIE DEAR"
Vy yu mak my heart to yump,
Yennie dear?
Ay ban yust a fulish chump,
Yennie dear.
Yu ban sveet lak summer rose,
Lak a qveen from head to toes.
Ay ant fit for you, ay s'pose,
Yennie dear.
Yu ban gude the whole day long,
Yennie dear;
Yu ant never du no wrong,
Yennie dear.
Ay ban tuff old lumberyack,
Taking drenk yust ven ay lak,
Getting slugged and slugging back,
Yennie dear.
But ven ay ban tenk of yu,
Yennie dear,
Ay ban all made over new,
Yennie dear,
Ef ay have yu at my side,
Ef yu ban my little bride,
Ay skol let dese fallers slide,
Yennie dear.
Oh, ay need yu in my life,
Yennie dear;
Ef ay have an anyel vife,
Yennie dear,
Maybe ay can learn to be
Part lak anyel, tu, yu see;
But it ban big yob for me,
Yennie dear.
"PEEK-A-BOO"
"Peek-a-boo!" say little Olaf.
"Yu can't find me. Ay ban hid."
Den ay used to look all over
For my little blue-eyed kid.
Op in attic, down in cellar,
Back of chairs on parlor floor;
Den he used to laugh, and tal me,
"Ay ban back of kitchen door."
"Peek-a-boo!" he used to tal me.
"Shut yure eyes, and don't you peek!"
Den ay feel his arms around me
And his kisses on my cheek.
"Now ay'm hiding, dad," he tal me!
"Maybe, ef you look some more,
Yu skol find yure little Olaf--
Ay ban back of kitchen door."
"Peek-a-boo!" ay hear him calling,
Lak he called long time ago.
Var ban little Olaf hiding?
Maybe anyel fallers know.
Tousand times ay look to find him
Hiding back of kitchen door,
But ay only see some shadows:
Ay can't find him any more.
SONNET ON STEWED PRUNES
Ay ant lak pie-plant pie so wery vell;
Ven ay skol eat ice-cream, my yaws du ache;
Ay ant much stuck on dis har yohnnie-cake
Or crackers yust so dry sum peanut shell.
And ven ay eat dried apples, ay skol svell
Until ay tenk my belt skol nearly break;
And dis har breakfast food, ay tenk, ban fake:
Yim Dumps ban boosting it, so it skol sell.
But ay tal yu, ef yu vant someteng fine,
Someteng so sveet lak wery sveetest honey,
Vith yuice dat taste about lak nice port vine,
Only it ant cost hardly any money,--
Ef yu vant someteng yust lak anyel fude,
Yu try stewed prunes. By yiminy! dey ban gude.
A GOOD FELLOW
Dey tal me ay ban a gude faller.
Ay guess dey ban right; but, yee whiz!
Ef yu ever ban a gude faller,
Yu know 'bout how costly it is.
Ay vork op in voods since Nowember,
And ban op on drive all the spring,
And den ay com down har in city
And vatch all my riches tak ving.
Oh, yes, ay ban yolly gude faller,--
All venter ay eat pork and beans;
Ay only ban har since last Monday,
Now ay ant got cent in my yeans.
Dese geezers dat call me "Old Stocking,"
And pat me lak hal on the back,
Skol give me gude snub 'bout to-morrow,
And calling me "slob lumberyack!"
Ay meet bunch of fallers last Monday,
Yust after ay cashing my check;
Ay s'pose dat ay have it all coming.
Val, ay getting it gude, right in neck.
Ay meet little blonde, her name's Yulia,
Ay tenk dis har Yulia ban Yew;
She touch me for 'bout saxty dollars,
And little gold watch ay have, tu.
But Yulia she call me gude faller,
Ay s'pose she tenk dat vill help some;
And all of dem call me gude faller,
And helping to put me on bum.
Val, back to the pines, Maester Olaf,
And driving yure old team of mules.
Put dis in yure pipe, tu, and smoke it:
Gude fallers ban mostly dam fules.
"IT'S UP TO YOU"
Ay s'pose yu tenk life ban hard game.
Ay guess yu lak to qvit, perhaps.
Ay hear yu say, "It ban a shame
To see so many lucky chaps."
Yu say, "Dese guys ban mostly yaps:
Ay vish ay had some money, tu,
And not get all dese gude hard raps."
Val, Maester, it ban op to yu.
Sometimes ay s'pose yu vork long hours,
And ant get wery fancy pay;
Den yu can't buying stacks of flowers
And feed yure girl in gude cafe,
And drenk yin rickies and frappe.
Oh, yes! dis mak yu purty blue.
Yu lak to have more fun, yu say?
Val, Maester, it ban op to yu.
Dis vorld ant got much room to spare
For men vich make dis hard-luck cry,--
'Bout von square foot vile dey ban har,
And six feet after dey skol die.
Time "fugit,"--high-school vord for "fly";
And purty sune yure chance ban tru.
So, ef yu lak to stack chips high,
Val, Maester, it ban op to yu.
HIS HISTORICAL TALES
HORATIUS AT THE BRIDGE
Horatius ban brave yentleman,
Who vatch big bridge at night:
It ban gude many years ago,
Ay ant got date yust right.
Dar ban some foxy geezers
Who march avay from home,
And tenk they having qvite gude chance
To raise some hal in Rome.
Lars Porsena ban starting it,--
Ay tenk Lars ban a Svede;
He raise 'bout tousand soldiers,
And put himself in lead.
Then he began tu marching,
And all his frends march, tu,
Till they skol come almost to Rome,
Var dey skol rest a few.
Then op spake Maester Horatius,
Captain of dis har gate:
"To every yackass on dis earth
Death coming sune or late.
So how can ay die better
Than vatching bridge, yu say?
Now who skol standing on my front
And vatching bridge vith me?"
Then Maester Laertus Larson,
A scrapper fine ban he,
Say, "Ay skol standing on yure back,
But not on front, by yee!"
And old Herminius Hermanson--
He ban gude fighter, tu,
Say, "Ay skol taking little smash
At dese har Svedes vith yu!"
So ven dis Maester Porsena
Ban come to big bridge gate,
He sees three husky lumberyacks,
And know he come tu late.
But Lars, he ant ban qvitter,
He send 'bout saxteen men
To taking bridge,--by yiminy,
Dey ant come back again!
While old Horatius and his frends
Ban vatching bridge so gude,
Some aldermen on oder shore
Ban sawing planty vood.
Ay tal yu, ven dese boodlers
Ban start to tear tengs down,
Dar ant no better vorkers
Novere in whole dam town.
So ven dis bridge start falling,
Horatius' frends yump back;
And he skol stand alone dar--
He ban brave lumberyack.
Then he yump into Tiber,
And say, "Ay skol svim home!"
Dis har ban how Horatius
Skol turn gude trick for Rome.
WILLIAM TELL
Dar ban a man named Villiam Tell
Who ban a qvite gude shot.
Ay bet yu, ven he tak nice aim,
He alvays hit the spot.
Ay s'pose he hunting every day
And killing lots of game;
Ef he ban missing such a chance,
Ay tenk it ban a shame.
Some fallers yump on him von day,
And taking him to yail,
And tal him he skol have to pay
Sax tousand dollars' bail.
"Yeew hiz!" say Tell. "Sax tousand bones!
Ay ant got saxty cents!"
And so dey mak him breaking stones
Behind big iron fence.
Den Olaf Gessler say to him:
"Bill, yu ban qvite gude shot,
So ay skol give yu yust von chance
To vinning nice yack pot.
Yure son ban purty brave young kid;
Ay tell yu, on the dead,
Yu skol go free ef you can shoot
Dis apple off his head."
"Yerusalem!" say Bill, "ef you
Skol give me drenk of bock,
Ay bet yu ay can shoot dis fruit
Off little Yimmie's block;
But, ef ay shoot tu low, val, den
Yust sidestep qvick, by heck,
Or yu skol finding little bunch
Of arrows in yure neck!"
So Olaf frame it op for Bill,
And Bill he tak gude aim,
And shoot at little Yimmie's block,--
Ay tal yu, he ban game.
And Bill skol knocking apple off,
And Yim vent back to school;
But Olaf put Bill back in yail,
And tal him, "April fool!"
THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH
Miles Standish ban having a courtship
Ven all of his fighting ban tru;
Maester Longfaller tal me about it,
And so ay skol tal it to yu.
He say to his room-mate, Yohn Alden:
"Yu know dis Priscilla, ay s'pose.
Last veek, ven ay try to get busy,
Priscilla yust turn op her nose."
Yohn Alden ban nervy young faller.
So Standish yust tal him: "Old pal,
Pleese boost me to dis har Priscilla,
Yu know ay can't talk wery val.
Pleese tal her ay ban a gude soldier,
And say ay have money in bank.
Ay'd du dis myself, but, ay tal yu,
My manners in parlor ban rank."
So Yohn go and call on Priscilla,
And happen to finding her in;
He sit close beside her on sofa,
And give her gude lots of his chin.
"Miles Standish," he say, "ban gude faller,
Hot stuff vith his pistol and knife;
And so ay ban coming to tal yu
He'd lak yu, Priscilla, for vife."
Priscilla, she listen to Alden,
And den give him cute little venk,
And say: "Vy not speak for yureself, Yohn?
Miles Standish ban lobster, ay tenk."
So Standish get double crossed planty;
And dat's yust vat AY vant, by yee,
Ef ever ay get any faller
To doing my sparking for me!
ROBINSON CRUSOE
Maester Robinson Crusoe ban lonely old faller
Who ban on an island gude long time ago;
His friends all ban lost in a yolly big shipwreck;
But Robinson alvays ban lucky, yu know.
He get on dis island, and can't get avay,
"By yiminy," say Crusoe, "ay tenk ay skol stay!"
Von day some cannibals com to dis island,
And brenging some frends just to make little stew.
Dese frends dey ant lak to be made into cooking,
And von faller dodge dis har cannibal crew.
His name it ban Friday. He ban a gude <DW53>,
And Crusoe and he start to eat from same spoon.
Dey have lots of fun on dis har desert island,
Dey play seven up and casino, ay tenk;
And Crusoe put on a nice bar-tender's apron,
And taught Maester Friday to mix a gude drenk.
Dey get kind o' used to dis old desert isle,
And get 'long togedder qvite gude for a vile.
But Friday ban <DW53>, and yu know dese <DW53> fallers
Ban looking for tips yust so sharp sum dey can.
So Friday yust tal Maester Robinson Crusoe,
"Ay tenk, Maester Crusoe, yu ban a cheap man."
Den he yump into ocean, and svim yust lak hal,
And Robinson Crusoe ban losing his pal.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
Yeorge Vashington ban honest man.
Ven dis har country first began,
Yeorge ban a yen'ral, and yu bet
Dese English fallers know it yet.
Ven he ban small, his fader say,
"Ef yu skol breng in vood to-day,
And feeding cow and chickens, tu,
Ay skol yust blow myself on yu."
Val, sure enuff, ven Yeorge du chore,
His fader hike for hardvare store,
And buy gude hatchet, only it
Ban second-hand a little bit.
Dar ban on edge some little dents,
It ban marked down to saxty cents.
He pay sax cents to sharpen axe,
And so it cost him saxty-sax.
He tak it home to Yeorgie, tu,
And say, "Ay ant ban fuling you."
Next day Yeorge tak dis hatchet out,
And start to rubber all about
For someteng he can chop, yu see,
And den he pipe nice cherry-tree.
"By Yudas! Dis ban soft!" say he.
"Ef dis har axe ban any gude,
Dis tree skol sune ban kindling vood."
So Yeorge give cherry-tree gude whack,
And sveng dis axe lak lumberyack;
And yust ven tree ban falling down,
His fader coming back from town.
Yeorge see old yent ban standing dar,
Smoking gude fifteen-cent cigar;
And so he say: "Val, holy yee!
Ay guess the yig ban op vith me.
Dear fader, AY chopped down dis tree!"
Dar ban gude moral har for youth:
Ven lie ban fulish, tal the truth!
PAUL REVERE
Listen, Christina, and yu skol hear
'Bout midnight ride of Paul Revere.
Seventeen hundred seventy-five,
Hardly a geezer ban now alive
Who live har ven Paul ban wolunteer.
Some British fallers ban getting gay,
So Paul yust giving his horse some hay
And say, "Ay skol mak a grand-stand play!"
Den he tal Yohn Brenk,--Yohn ban his frend
Who borrow venever Paul skol lend,--
"Yohn, yust go up har in old church tower,
And, yust so sune sum yu find out hour
British skol march, give me good yal,
And ay skol hustle and ride lak hal!"
So op in the church go old Yohn Brenk,--
It ban first time in his life, ay tenk;
And, ven dese English get busy, he yal,
And vave big lantern to his gude pal,
Maester Paul Revere, who yump on mare,
And off for Lexington he skol tear.
"Yee whiz!" he say, "after dis, ay guess,
Ay skol getting my picture in _Success_.
Dey skol tenk ay'm smart old son of a gun
Ven I gallop into Lexington!"
Val, he mak dis ride, yu bet yure life!
And fallers grab gun and drum and fife,
And march to scrap vith dese British men.
Maester Paul ban yolly brave hero den.
And back in the church tower old Yohn Brenk
Climb from his perch, and tak gude drenk.
Val, dis ban all, Christina dear,
'Bout midnight ride of Paul Revere.
WATERLOO
At Vaterloo dar ban a scrap
Gude many year ago.
Napolyun, he ban brave old chap
And boss of whole French show.
And Maester Vellington, he say,
"Ay skol mak gude defence,
And make dis Bonypart and Ney
To look lak saxty cents."
Dey start to fight on Sunday morn;
And preacher say to Nap:
"Now, yust so sure sum yu ban born,
Yu're going to fall in trap.
Ef yu got any vork to du,
Yust chuse some oder day."
But Nap say, "To the voods vith yu!
Mak dis bar bugle play!"
Ven Maester Vellington vake op,
He see a gude big hill,
Vith plenty soldier men on top,--
Ay bet he got gude chill.
"Yerusalem!" he tal his men,
"Dese French ban purty t'ick.
Ay tenk by qvarter after ten
Dey skol feel gude and sick."
Den Yen'ral Blucher com along,
And loading op his gun;
And dis mak tengs look purty strong
For Maester Vellington.
Two heads ban more sum von, yu see;
And Vellington, he say,
"Yust keep yure Yerman gang vith me,
And ve skol vinning day."
Den all his English soldiers scrap
Vith guns so big sum trees;
And Yermans fight vith lager tap
And planty Brickstein cheese.
And so, betveen the two, dey chase
Dese Frenchmen to tall pines;
And old Napolyun hide his face,
And yumping back to mines.
Napolyun, he feels purty bum;
And after vile he say,
"Ef Maester Grouchy only com,
Ve could have von to-day."
But Grouchy ban asleep at svitch,
So vat could Frenchman du?
Dis har ban all the history vich
Ay know 'bout Vaterloo.
BARBARA FRIETCHIE
Barbara Frietchie ban brave old hen,
Her age it ban tree score and ten.
She living in Frederick, Maryland,--
It ban yust a dinky von night stand.
But Barbara rise to fame, yu bet,
And folks ban talking about her yet.
Ef yu lak to know yust how dis ban,
Ay skol tal yu story the best ay can.
Op the street com Yen-ral Yackson,
Ay bet yu he ban a gude attraction;
For all dese Reubs skol rubber lak hal,
And some of dem calling the yen'ral "pal."
Yackson, he see dem on both sides
Shooting dis bunk to save deir hides.
Den op in vindow he see big flag,
And tenk at first he must have a yag.
No: sure enuff, it ban Union Yack.
So Stonevall stand on his horse's back,
Yell at his men. Dey shoot, von and all,
And into the gutter flag skol fall.
Den Barbara get pretty mad, yu bet,
And say, "Ay skol fule dese geezers yet."
She run to her bureau double haste,
And, yerking out dandy peek-a-boo waist,
Nail it to flagstaff, and vave it hard,
And say: "Dis skol hold yu avile, old pard.
Shoot, ef yu must, dis peek-a-boo,
Ef it ant qvite holy enough for yu,
And tak gude aim at dis old gray head,
But spare yure country's flag!" she said.
Den Stonevall Yackson look purty cheap,
And all his soldiers feel yust lak sheep.
He say: "Dis lady skol standing pat.
She ban game old party, ay tal yu dat.
Who taking a shot at yon gray hair
Skol get gude ticket for Golden Stair!"
All day long in Frederick town
Soldiers ban marching op and down.
And late dat night, ven dey leave on Soo,
Dey see dis fluttering peek-a-boo.
And Stonevall Yackson say, "Vat yu tenk!"
And yerk out bottle and tak gude drenk.
SHERIDAN'S RIDE
Ef yu ban vise, and ay s'pose yu ban,
Yu know 'bout Yeneral Sheridan;
But maybe yu ant remember the day
Ven he yump on horse, and den he say,
"Ay'm yust about tventy-sax miles avay."
Some rebel fallers ban start big row
In Vinchester. Ay ant know yust how,
But ay tenk dey yump on some Yankee guys,
And trying to give dem gude black eyes.
So Yeneral Sheridan hear dese guns,
And drank some coffee and eat some buns,
And tal dis har landlord, "Gude-by, Yack,
Ay skol paying my bill ven ay com back!"
Den he ride so fast that sune he say,
"Val, now ay ban saxteen miles avay!"
Dese cannons ban roaring gude and loud,--
It ban tough game for dis Yankee crowd;
And Lieut. Olson, he tal his pal,
"'Ay tank we ban due to run lak hal!"
So dey start to run, or else retreat,--
Dis ban noder name for gude cold feet;
And dey run so fast sum dey can go,
Lak Russians luring dese Yaps, yu know.
"Yee whiz!" say Sheridan. "Yump, old hoss!
Ay tenk my soldiers get double cross,
Ay s'pose yure hoofs getting purty sore,
But we only got 'bout sax miles more!"
Val, Yeneral Sheridan meet his men,
And he say: "It's now yust half-past ten.
Ay hope ay skol never go to heaven
Ef dese Rebel Svedes ant licked by eleven.
Yust turn round now in yure track!
Come on, yu fallers! Ve're going back!"
And yu bet yure life dey vent back, tu,
And put gude crimp in dis Rebel crew.
But soldiers ban careless sons of guns,
And the yeneral never settled for buns.
HIS POETICAL TRANSLATIONS
SPEAK GENTLY
Speak yentle; it ban better far
To rule by love dan fear;
Ef yu speak rough, yu stand nice chance
To get gude smash on ear.
Speak yentle to the coal-man--he
Ban easy to get mad;
Ef yu ant getting any coal,
By yinger, dat ban bad!
Speak yentle to the alderman,
Ven he ban feeling blue,
And maybe, ven he turn gude trick.
He skol whack op vith yu.
Speak yentle to yure lady frends,
And give gude lots of bunk,
Ef yu skol lak to getting chance
To put yure clothes in trunk.
Speak yentle to Yim Yeffries, tu,--
Ay tenk dis ban gude hunch;
Den yu ant need to put yure face
On Maester Yeffries' punch!
Speak yentle everyvere yu go,
And people skol forget
That yu ban vatching for gude chance
Tu vinning every bet!
THE BAREFOOT BOY
Blessings on yu, little man!
Barefoot boy, ay tenk yu can
Getting all yu lak, by yee!
Yu ban gude enuff for me.
Yu ant got so many clo'es,
Dar ban freckles on yure nose,
And ay guess yu're purty tuff,
'Cause yu ask for chew of snuff.
But, by yinks, ay lak yure face,
Yu can passing any place.
Barefoot boy, ef ay could du
Yenuine po'try lak the kind
Maester Vittier wrote for yu,
Ay vould write; but never mind,
Ay can tal yu vat ay know,
Even ef dese vords ant flow
Half so slick sum poet's song.
Anyhow, ay don't mean wrong.
Ven ay see yu, little kid,
Ay skol taking off my lid.
Oder little boys ay see
Ant look half so gude to me.
Some of dem ban rich men's boys,
Who ban having planty toys,
Vearing nicest clo'es in town,
Lak dis little Buster Brown.
Don't yu care! Ven dey grow up,
And ban shining at pink tea,
Drenking tea from china cup,
Yu skol give dem loud tee-hee.
Yu skol laugh at dis har mob
Ven dey come to yu for yob.
Barefoot boy, yu ant got cent;
But ay tal yu dis, some day
Yu got chance for president
Ef dese woters com yure vay.
Yust keep vistling all day long,
Yust keep senging little song,
And ef yu skol alvays love
Some one who ban op above,
Who ban making day and night,
He skol fix yu out all right.
FATHER WILLIAM
"Yu ban old, Fader Olaf," a young geezer
say, "yure hair it ban whiter sum snow;
Ay lak yu to tal me how yu keep so young.
By Yudas! Ay ant hardly know."
"Ven ay ban a young kid," Fader Olaf he
say, "ay never hang out in saloon;
Ay never ban smoking dese har cigarettes, or
sitting on sofa and spoon!"
"Yu ban slim, Fader Olaf," the young faller
say: "old fallers ban mostly dam fat.
Yu measure 'bout tventy-sax inches reund
vaist, vat for ban the reason of dat?"
"In the days of my youth," Fader Olaf
reply, "ay ant drenk no lager from cup;
Ay let all my frends fight dis bourbon and
rye, and alvays pass breakfast fude up!"
"Fader Olaf, yure eyes ban so bright sum a
star, yu ant vear no glasses at all;
Ay lak yu to tal me gude reason for dis;
ay hope yu don't give me no stall."
"All the days of my life," Fader Olaf den
say, "ay never ban going to shows,
And straining my eyes vatching dese chorus
girls vich ant veering wery much clo'es!"
Den young faller say, "Fader Olaf, ay tenk
yu ban full of yinger, old pal;
But yu had to be missing gude times all yure
life, so ay skol keep on raising hal!"
ABOU SWEN ANSON
Abou Swen Anson (he ban yolly dog)
Ban asleep von night so sound lak log,
Ven all at vonce he tenk it sure ban day.
"Ay skol vake op now," Maester Anson say.
But, ven he vake, it ant ban day at all,
He see a gude big light right close to vall,
And dar ban anyel faller vith stub pen.
"Gude morning, maester anyel man," say Swen.
"Ay s'pose," he tal the anyel, "yu ban har
To pay me wisit. Skol yu have cigar?"
The anyel shake his head, and Abou Swen
Ask him: "Val, Maester, vy yu com har den?
Vat skol yu write in dis har book of gold?"
The anyel say, "All fallers, young and old,
Who go to church and prayer-meeting, tu;
But ay ant got a place in har for yu."
"Ay s'pose," say Abou, "yu got noder book
For common lumberyacks vich never took
Flyer at church or dis har Sunday-school,
But yust try hard to keeping Golden Rule.
Ef yu got dis book, Maester, put me in!"
Den anyel look at Abou, and he grin.
"Abou," he say, "shak hands. Yu talk qvite free
But, yiminy Christmas, yu look gude to me!"
MAUD MULLER
Maude Muller, on nice summer day,
Raked in meadows sveet vith hay.
Her eyes ban sharp lak gude sharp knife;
She ban nice girl, ay bet yure life.
Before she ban dar wery long,
She start to senging little song.
The Yudge come riding down big hill
In nice red yumping ottomobill.
Maude say, "Hello, Yudge,--how ban yu?"
The Yudge say, "Maudie, how y' du?"
He say: "Skol yu tak little ride?
Ef yu skol lak to, yump inside."
So Maude and Yudge ride 'bout sax miles,
And Yudge skol bask in Maude's sveet smiles.
The Yudge say, "Skol yu be my pal?"
Den ottomobill bust all to hal.
Den Maude ban valking 'bout half vay
Back to meadows sveet vith hay.
"Ay luv yu still, dear," say the Yudge,
But Maude she only say, "O fudge!"
Of all sad vords dat men skol talk,
The saddest ban, "Valk, yu sucker, valk!"
LUCY GRAY
Ay s'pose yu know 'bout Lucy Gray
Who used to play on moor,
And having qvite gude time all day
Beside her fader's door.
Dis Maester Vordsvorth write it down,
Gude many years ago,
How Lucy start to valk to town
In gude big drifts of snow.
"Lucy," her fader say, "yust tak
Dis lantern from the shelf."
Say Lucy, "Ay have kick to mak;
Vy don't yu go yureself?"
But Lucy's dad ant stand no talk,
And say, "Yu have to go!"
So Lucy Gray tak little valk
To town in dis har snow.
Miss Lucy ant come back dat night,
And ant come back next day;
And den her parents get gude fright.
"Our kid ban lost!" dey say.
Dey look for tracks vich Lucy mak,
And find some tracks dat go
Up to a bridge on little lake,
And den ban lost in snow.
And so dey tenk Miss Gray ban lost,
And feeling purty bum.
The funeral saxty dollars cost,
And all the neighbors com.
But Lucy ant ban lost at all.
She met a travelling man.
He ban a bird. His name ban Hall,
And off for town dey ran.
And Maester Hall and Lucy Gray
Ban married in St. Yo,
And dey ban keeping house to-day
In Kansas City, Mo.
STEALING A RIDE
Yumping over crossings,
Bumping over svitches,
Till ay tenk dis enyine
Going to fall in ditches;
Hiding vith some cattle,
Ay tenk 'bout saxty-eight;
Yiminy! Dis ban yolly,--
Stealing ride on freight
Ay ban yust tru treshing
Op in Nort Dakota;
Now ay guess ay'm going
Back to old Mansota.
Now dis train ban stopping,
'Bout sax hours to vait;
Yiminy! Dis ban yolly,--
Stealing ride on freight.
Ay skol stretch a little
Yust to tak a sleep;
Den my head bump into
Gude big fader sheep.
Yee! His head ban harder
Sum a china plate;
Dis ban yolly doings,--
Stealing ride on freight.
Yumping over crossings,
Bumping over svitches,
Till my side ban getting
Saxty-seven stitches.
Ay hear brakeman faller
Say, "Yust ten hours late!"
It ban hal, ay tal yu,
Stealing ride on freight.
"CURFEW SHALL NOT RING TO-NIGHT"
England's sun ban slowly setting on big hilltops far avay;
Dis bar sun ban tired of standing, so it lak to set, yu say;
And yust ven dis sun ban setting, it shine hard on Yosephine;
She ban talking to the sexton, and ban feeling purty mean.
"Now," she tal him, "yust be careful,... ay skol fix it op all right;
Yust one teng ay lak to tal yu, Curfew skol not reng to-night!"
Val, the sun yust keep on setting, and the sexton start for bell.
"Vait a minute!" Yosie tal him; sexton answer, "Vat to 'ell?"
"Val," she say, "ay having sveetheart who ban over har in yail,
Ay ban vorking hard for money, nuff so ay can pay his bail;
But it ant no use to du it, and dis har old yudge skol write
That he dies ven bell start going. Curfew skol not reng to-night!"
Den, yu say, dis maester sexton, he can't hearing Yosephine;
He ban vork in boiler factory ven he ban about saxteen,
And it mak him deaf lak blazes. So he go and grabbing rope;
But Miss Yosephine ant qvitter, she ant losing any hope.
No, sir! she run op in bell tower, yust so fast sum she can run,
And she tak gude hold on bell tongue, and hang on lak son of a gun.
Maester sexton, he keep renging, but dis bell ant reng, yu say;
For Miss Yosephine ban op dar; she ant ban no country yay.
Ay yust bet yu she get groggy, for her yob ban purty tough;
But the bell don't "dingle dangle," it ant even making bluff.
"Val, by yinger!" say the sexton, "dis har rope ban awful tight."
Yosephine look down, and tal him, "Curfew skol not reng to-night!"
Purty soon it ban all over. Sexton, he ban start for town,
And Miss Yosie rest a minute, den ay s'pose she coming down.
Anyhow, she go next morning for gude talk vith some poleece,
And she yolly Maester Cromwell--he ban Yustice of the Peace.
"Gude for yu," say Maester Cromwell, "ay skol let him live, all right:
Yust because yu fule dis sexton--curfew skol not reng to-night!"
A PSALM OF LIFE
Tal me not, yu knocking fallers,
Life ban only empty dream;
Dar ban planty fun, ay tal yu,
Ef yu try Yohn Yohnson's scheme.
Yohn ban yust a section foreman,
Vorking hard vay up on Soo;
He ban yust so glad in morning
As ven all his vork ban tru.
"Vork," say Yohn, "ban vat yu mak it.
Ef yu tenk yure vork ban hard,
Yu skol having planty headaches,--
Yes, yu bet yure life, old pard;
But ay alvays yerk my coat off,
Grab my shovel and my pick,
And dis yob ant seem lak hard von
Ef ay du it purty qvick."
Yohn ban foreman over fallers.
He ant have to vork, yu see;
But, yu bet, he ant no loafer,
And he yust digs in, by yee!
"Listen, Olaf," he skol tal me,
"Making living ant no trick.
And the hardest yob ban easy
Ef yu only du it qvick!"
"Let us den be op and yumping,
Always glad to plow tru drift;
Ven our vork ban done, den let us
Give some oder faller lift.
Den, ay bet yu, old Saint Peter,
He skol tenk ve're purty slick;
Ve can go tru gates, ay bet yu,
Ef ve only du it qvick!"
ANNIE LAURIE
Minneapolis ban qvite bonny
Ven early fall the dew;
It ban dar dat ay ask Steena
To mak her promise true,--
To mak her promise true;
But she yust pass me by;
And she tal me, "Maester Olaf,
Yu skol pleese lay down and die."
Her brow ban yust lak snowdrift
Or Apple Blossom flour;
And she smile lak anyel fallers,
Ay tenk of her each hour,--
Ay tenk of her each hour,
And feel lak ay can cry,
Ven she tal me, "Maester Olaf,
Yu skol pleese lay down and die."
Like dew on sidevalk falling,
She du me gude, ay guess.
Ay tal her, "Pleese, Miss Steena,
Vy don't yu answer yes?--
Vy don't yu answer yes?"
But she yust venk her eye,
And she tal me, "Maester Olaf,
Yu skol pleese lay down and die."
THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE
Yoyfully, yoyfully,
Yoyfully onvard,
In dis har walley of death
Rode the sax hundred!
It ban a cinch, ay tenk,
Some geezer blundered.
"Hustle, yu Light Brigade!
Yump!" Maester Olson said;
Den in the walley of death
Go the sax hundred.
Cannon on right of dem,
Cannon on left of dem,
Cannon on top of dem,
Wolleyed and t'undered;
Smashed vith dis shot and shal,
Dey ant do wery val;
Most of dem ketching hal,--
Nearly sax hundred!
Yes, all dem sabres bare
Flash purty gude in air;
Each faller feel his hair
Standing. No vonder!
Yudas! It ant ban yob
For any coward slob,
Fighting dis Russian mob.
Ay tenk ay vudn't stand
Yeneral's blunder.
Cannon on right of dem,
Cannon on top of dem,
Cannon behind dem, tu,
Wolleyed and t'undered.
Finally say Captain Brenk,
"Ve got enuff, ay tenk,
Let's go and getting drenk."
'Bout tventy-sax com back
Out of sax hundred.
Ven skol deir glory fade?
It ban gude charge dey made,
Every von vondered.
Every von feeling blue,
'Cause dey ban brave old crew,
Yolly gude fallers, tu,
Dis har sax hundred!
EXCELSIOR
The shades of night ban falling fast,
Ven tru Dakota willage passed
Young faller who skol carry flag
And yell, so loud sum he can brag,
"Excelsior!"
Ay ant know yust vat he skol mean,
But yust lak dis har talk machine
He keep on saying, night and day
(Ay s'pose to passing time avay),
"Excelsior!"
Swen Swenson tal me dis har guy
Ban crazy; den he tal me why. |
10,240 |
Produced by David Widger
LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI
BY MARK TWAIN
Part 5.
Chapter 21 A Section in My Biography
IN due course I got my license. I was a pilot now, full fledged. I
dropped into casual employments; no misfortunes resulting, intermittent
work gave place to steady and protracted engagements. Time drifted
smoothly and prosperously on, and I supposed--and hoped--that I was
going to follow the river the rest of my days, and die at the wheel when
my mission was ended. But by and by the war came, commerce was
suspended, my occupation was gone.
I had to seek another livelihood. So I became a silver miner in Nevada;
next, a newspaper reporter; next, a gold miner, in California; next, a
reporter in San Francisco; next, a special correspondent in the Sandwich
Islands; next, a roving correspondent in Europe and the East; next, an
instructional torch-bearer on the lecture platform; and, finally, I
became a scribbler of books, and an immovable fixture among the other
rocks of New England.
In so few words have I disposed of the twenty-one slow-drifting years
that have come and gone since I last looked from the windows of a pilot-
house.
Let us resume, now.
Chapter 22 I Return to My Muttons
AFTER twenty-one years' absence, I felt a very strong desire to see the
river again, and the steamboats, and such of the boys as might be left;
so I resolved to go out there. I enlisted a poet for company, and a
stenographer to 'take him down,' and started westward about the middle
of April.
As I proposed to make notes, with a view to printing, I took some
thought as to methods of procedure. I reflected that if I were
recognized, on the river, I should not be as free to go and come, talk,
inquire, and spy around, as I should be if unknown; I remembered that it
was the custom of steamboatmen in the old times to load up the confiding
stranger with the most picturesque and admirable lies, and put the
sophisticated friend off with dull and ineffectual facts: so I
concluded, that, from a business point of view, it would be an advantage
to disguise our party with fictitious names. The idea was certainly
good, but it bred infinite bother; for although Smith, Jones, and
Johnson are easy names to remember when there is no occasion to remember
them, it is next to impossible to recollect them when they are wanted.
How do criminals manage to keep a brand-new ALIAS in mind? This is a
great mystery. I was innocent; and yet was seldom able to lay my hand
on my new name when it was needed; and it seemed to me that if I had had
a crime on my conscience to further confuse me, I could never have kept
the name by me at all.
We left per Pennsylvania Railroad, at 8 A.M. April 18.
'EVENING. Speaking of dress. Grace and picturesqueness drop gradually
out of it as one travels away from New York.'
I find that among my notes. It makes no difference which direction you
take, the fact remains the same. Whether you move north, south, east, or
west, no matter: you can get up in the morning and guess how far you
have come, by noting what degree of grace and picturesqueness is by that
time lacking in the costumes of the new passengers,--I do not mean of
the women alone, but of both sexes. It may be that CARRIAGE is at the
bottom of this thing; and I think it is; for there are plenty of ladies
and gentlemen in the provincial cities whose garments are all made by
the best tailors and dressmakers of New York; yet this has no
perceptible effect upon the grand fact: the educated eye never mistakes
those people for New-Yorkers. No, there is a godless grace, and snap,
and style about a born and bred New-Yorker which mere clothing cannot
effect.
'APRIL 19. This morning, struck into the region of full goatees--
sometimes accompanied by a mustache, but only occasionally.'
It was odd to come upon this thick crop of an obsolete and uncomely
fashion; it was like running suddenly across a forgotten acquaintance
whom you had supposed dead for a generation. The goatee extends over a
wide extent of country; and is accompanied by an iron-clad belief in
Adam and the biblical history of creation, which has not suffered from
the assaults of the scientists.
'AFTERNOON. At the railway stations the loafers carry BOTH hands in
their breeches pockets; it was observable, heretofore, that one hand was
sometimes out of doors,--here, never. This is an important fact in
geography.'
If the loafers determined the character of a country, it would be still
more important, of course.
'Heretofore, all along, the station-loafer has been often observed to
scratch one shin with the other foot; here, these remains of activity
are wanting. This has an ominous look.'
By and by, we entered the tobacco-chewing region. Fifty years ago, the
tobacco-chewing region covered the Union. It is greatly restricted now.
Next, boots began to appear. Not in strong force, however. Later--away
down the Mississippi--they became the rule. They disappeared from other
sections of the Union with the mud; no doubt they will disappear from
the river villages, also, when proper pavements come in.
We reached St. Louis at ten o'clock at night. At the counter of the
hotel I tendered a hurriedly-invented fictitious name, with a miserable
attempt at careless ease. The clerk paused, and inspected me in the
compassionate way in which one inspects a respectable person who is
found in doubtful circumstances; then he said--
'It's all right; I know what sort of a room you want. Used to clerk at
the St. James, in New York.'
An unpromising beginning for a fraudulent career. We started to the
supper room, and met two other men whom I had known elsewhere. How odd
and unfair it is: wicked impostors go around lecturing under my NOM DE
GUERRE and nobody suspects them; but when an honest man attempts an
imposture, he is exposed at once.
One thing seemed plain: we must start down the river the next day, if
people who could not be deceived were going to crop up at this rate: an
unpalatable disappointment, for we had hoped to have a week in St.
Louis. The Southern was a good hotel, and we could have had a
comfortable time there. It is large, and well conducted, and its
decorations do not make one cry, as do those of the vast Palmer House,
in Chicago. True, the billiard-tables were of the Old Silurian Period,
and the cues and balls of the Post-Pliocene; but there was refreshment
in this, not discomfort; for there is rest and healing in the
contemplation of antiquities.
The most notable absence observable in the billiard-room, was the
absence of the river man. If he was there he had taken in his sign, he
was in disguise. I saw there none of the swell airs and graces, and
ostentatious displays of money, and pompous squanderings of it, which
used to distinguish the steamboat crowd from the dry-land crowd in the
bygone days, in the thronged billiard-rooms of St. Louis. In those
times, the principal saloons were always populous with river men; given
fifty players present, thirty or thirty-five were likely to be from the
river. But I suspected that the ranks were thin now, and the
steamboatmen no longer an aristocracy. Why, in my time they used to
call the 'barkeep' Bill, or Joe, or Tom, and slap him on the shoulder; I
watched for that. But none of these people did it. Manifestly a glory
that once was had dissolved and vanished away in these twenty-one years.
When I went up to my room, I found there the young man called Rogers,
crying. Rogers was not his name; neither was Jones, Brown, Dexter,
Ferguson, Bascom, nor Thompson; but he answered to either of these that
a body found handy in an emergency; or to any other name, in fact, if he
perceived that you meant him. He said--
'What is a person to do here when he wants a drink of water?--drink this
slush?'
'Can't you drink it?'
'I could if I had some other water to wash it with.'
Here was a thing which had not changed; a score of years had not
affected this water's mulatto complexion in the least; a score of
centuries would succeed no better, perhaps. It comes out of the
turbulent, bank-caving Missouri, and every tumblerful of it holds nearly
an acre of land in solution. I got this fact from the bishop of the
diocese. If you will let your glass stand half an hour, you can separate
the land from the water as easy as Genesis; and then you will find them
both good: the one good to eat, the other good to drink. The land is
very nourishing, the water is thoroughly wholesome. The one appeases
hunger; the other, thirst. But the natives do not take them separately,
but together, as nature mixed them. When they find an inch of mud in the
bottom of a glass, they stir it up, and then take the draught as they
would gruel. It is difficult for a stranger to get used to this batter,
but once used to it he will prefer it to water. This is really the
case. It is good for steamboating, and good to drink; but it is
worthless for all other purposes, except baptizing.
Next morning, we drove around town in the rain. The city seemed but
little changed. It WAS greatly changed, but it did not seem so; because
in St. Louis, as in London and Pittsburgh, you can't persuade a new
thing to look new; the coal smoke turns it into an antiquity the moment
you take your hand off it. The place had just about doubled its size,
since I was a resident of it, and was now become a city of 400,000
inhabitants; still, in the solid business parts, it looked about as it
had looked formerly. Yet I am sure there is not as much smoke in St.
Louis now as there used to be. The smoke used to bank itself in a dense
billowy black canopy over the town, and hide the sky from view. This
shelter is very much thinner now; still, there is a sufficiency of smoke
there, I think. I heard no complaint.
However, on the outskirts changes were apparent enough; notably in
dwelling-house architecture. The fine new homes are noble and beautiful
and modern. They stand by themselves, too, with green lawns around
them; whereas the dwellings of a former day are packed together in
blocks, and are all of one pattern, with windows all alike, set in an
arched frame-work of twisted stone; a sort of house which was handsome
enough when it was rarer.
There was another change--the Forest Park. This was new to me. It is
beautiful and very extensive, and has the excellent merit of having been
made mainly by nature. There are other parks, and fine ones, notably
Tower Grove and the Botanical Gardens; for St. Louis interested herself
in such improvements at an earlier day than did the most of our cities.
The first time I ever saw St. Louis, I could have bought it for six
million dollars, and it was the mistake of my life that I did not do it.
It was bitter now to look abroad over this domed and steepled
metropolis, this solid expanse of bricks and mortar stretching away on
every hand into dim, measure-defying distances, and remember that I had
allowed that opportunity to go by. Why I should have allowed it to go
by seems, of course, foolish and inexplicable to-day, at a first glance;
yet there were reasons at the time to justify this course.
A Scotchman, Hon. Charles Augustus Murray, writing some forty-five or
fifty years ago, said--'The streets are narrow, ill paved and ill
lighted.' Those streets are narrow still, of course; many of them are
ill paved yet; but the reproach of ill lighting cannot be repeated, now.
The 'Catholic New Church' was the only notable building then, and Mr.
Murray was confidently called upon to admire it, with its'species of
Grecian portico, surmounted by a kind of steeple, much too diminutive in
its proportions, and surmounted by sundry ornaments' which the
unimaginative Scotchman found himself 'quite unable to describe;' and
therefore was grateful when a German tourist helped him out with the
exclamation--'By ---, they look exactly like bed-posts!' St. Louis is
well equipped with stately and noble public buildings now, and the
little church, which the people used to be so proud of, lost its
importance a long time ago. Still, this would not surprise Mr. Murray,
if he could come back; for he prophesied the coming greatness of St.
Louis with strong confidence.
The further we drove in our inspection-tour, the more sensibly I
realized how the city had grown since I had seen it last; changes in
detail became steadily more apparent and frequent than at first, too:
changes uniformly evidencing progress, energy, prosperity.
But the change of changes was on the 'levee.' This time, a departure
from the rule. Half a dozen sound-asleep steamboats where I used to see
a solid mile of wide-awake ones! This was melancholy, this was woeful.
The absence of the pervading and jocund steamboatman from the billiard-
saloon was explained. He was absent because he is no more. His
occupation is gone, his power has passed away, he is absorbed into the
common herd, he grinds at the mill, a shorn Samson and inconspicuous.
Half a dozen lifeless steamboats, a mile of empty wharves, a <DW64>
fatigued with whiskey stretched asleep, in a wide and soundless vacancy,
where the serried hosts of commerce used to contend!{footnote [Capt.
Marryat, writing forty-five years ago says: 'St. Louis has 20,000
inhabitants. THE RIVER ABREAST OF THE TOWN IS CROWDED WITH STEAMBOATS,
LYING IN TWO OR THREE TIERS.']} Here was desolation, indeed.
'The old, old sea, as one in tears, Comes murmuring, with foamy lips,
And knocking at the vacant piers, Calls for his long-lost multitude of
ships.'
The towboat and the railroad had done their work, and done it well and
completely. The mighty bridge, stretching along over our heads, had
done its share in the slaughter and spoliation. Remains of former
steamboatmen told me, with wan satisfaction, that the bridge doesn't
pay. Still, it can be no sufficient compensation to a corpse, to know
that the dynamite that laid him out was not of as good quality as it had
been supposed to be.
The pavements along the river front were bad: the sidewalks were rather
out of repair; there was a rich abundance of mud. All this was familiar
and satisfying; but the ancient armies of drays, and struggling throngs
of men, and mountains of freight, were gone; and Sabbath reigned in
their stead. The immemorial mile of cheap foul doggeries remained, but
business was dull with them; the multitudes of poison-swilling Irishmen
had departed, and in their places were a few scattering handfuls of
ragged <DW64>s, some drinking, some drunk, some nodding, others asleep.
St. Louis is a great and prosperous and advancing city; but the river-
edge of it seems dead past resurrection.
Mississippi steamboating was born about 1812; at the end of thirty
years, it had grown to mighty proportions; and in less than thirty more,
it was dead! A strangely short life for so majestic a creature. Of
course it is not absolutely dead, neither is a crippled octogenarian who
could once jump twenty-two feet on level ground; but as contrasted with
what it was in its prime vigor, Mississippi steamboating may be called
dead.
It killed the old-fashioned keel-boating, by reducing the freight-trip
to New Orleans to less than a week. The railroads have killed the
steamboat passenger traffic by doing in two or three days what the
steamboats consumed a week in doing; and the towing-fleets have killed
the through-freight traffic by dragging six or seven steamer-loads of
stuff down the river at a time, at an expense so trivial that steamboat
competition was out of the question.
Freight and passenger way-traffic remains to the steamers. This is in
the hands--along the two thousand miles of river between St. Paul and
New Orleans---of two or three close corporations well fortified with
capital; and by able and thoroughly business-like management and system,
these make a sufficiency of money out of what is left of the once
prodigious steamboating industry. I suppose that St. Louis and New
Orleans have not suffered materially by the change, but alas for the
wood-yard man!
He used to fringe the river all the way; his close-ranked merchandise
stretched from the one city to the other, along the banks, and he sold
uncountable cords of it every year for cash on the nail; but all the
scattering boats that are left burn coal now, and the seldomest
spectacle on the Mississippi to-day is a wood-pile. Where now is the
once wood-yard man?
Chapter 23 Traveling Incognito
MY idea was, to tarry a while in every town between St. Louis and New
Orleans. To do this, it would be necessary to go from place to place by
the short packet lines. It was an easy plan to make, and would have
been an easy one to follow, twenty years ago--but not now. There are
wide intervals between boats, these days.
I wanted to begin with the interesting old French settlements of St.
Genevieve and Kaskaskia, sixty miles below St. Louis. There was only one
boat advertised for that section--a Grand Tower packet. Still, one boat
was enough; so we went down to look at her. She was a venerable rack-
heap, and a fraud to boot; for she was playing herself for personal
property, whereas the good honest dirt was so thickly caked all over her
that she was righteously taxable as real estate. There are places in New
England where her hurricane deck would be worth a hundred and fifty
dollars an acre. The soil on her forecastle was quite good--the new crop
of wheat was already springing from the cracks in protected places. The
companionway was of a dry sandy character, and would have been well
suited for grapes, with a southern exposure and a little subsoiling.
The soil of the boiler deck was thin and rocky, but good enough for
grazing purposes. A <DW52> boy was on watch here--nobody else visible.
We gathered from him that this calm craft would go, as advertised, 'if
she got her trip;' if she didn't get it, she would wait for it.
'Has she got any of her trip?'
'Bless you, no, boss. She ain't unloadened, yit. She only come in dis
mawnin'.'
He was uncertain as to when she might get her trip, but thought it might
be to-morrow or maybe next day. This would not answer at all; so we had
to give up the novelty of sailing down the river on a farm. We had one
more arrow in our quiver: a Vicksburg packet, the 'Gold Dust,' was to
leave at 5 P.M. We took passage in her for Memphis, and gave up the idea
of stopping off here and there, as being impracticable. She was neat,
clean, and comfortable. We camped on the boiler deck, and bought some
cheap literature to kill time with. The vender was a venerable Irishman
with a benevolent face and a tongue that worked easily in the socket,
and from him we learned that he had lived in St. Louis thirty-four years
and had never been across the river during that period. Then he wandered
into a very flowing lecture, filled with classic names and allusions,
which was quite wonderful for fluency until the fact became rather
apparent that this was not the first time, nor perhaps the fiftieth,
that the speech had been delivered. He was a good deal of a character,
and much better company than the sappy literature he was selling. A
random remark, connecting Irishmen and beer, brought this nugget of
information out of him--
They don't drink it, sir. They can't drink it, sir. Give an Irishman
lager for a month, and he's a dead man. An Irishman is lined with
copper, and the beer corrodes it. But whiskey polishes the copper and is
the saving of him, sir.'
At eight o'clock, promptly, we backed out and crossed the river. As we
crept toward the shore, in the thick darkness, a blinding glory of white
electric light burst suddenly from our forecastle, and lit up the water
and the warehouses as with a noon-day glare. Another big change, this--
no more flickering, smoky, pitch-dripping, ineffectual torch-baskets,
now: their day is past. Next, instead of calling out a score of hands
to man the stage, a couple of men and a hatful of steam lowered it from
the derrick where it was suspended, launched it, deposited it in just
the right spot, and the whole thing was over and done with before a mate
in the olden time could have got his profanity-mill adjusted to begin
the preparatory services. Why this new and simple method of handling the
stages was not thought of when the first steamboat was built, is a
mystery which helps one to realize what a dull-witted slug the average
human being is.
We finally got away at two in the morning, and when I turned out at six,
we were rounding to at a rocky point where there was an old stone
warehouse--at any rate, the ruins of it; two or three decayed dwelling-
houses were near by, in the shelter of the leafy hills; but there were
no evidences of human or other animal life to be seen. I wondered if I
had forgotten the river; for I had no recollection whatever of this
place; the shape of the river, too, was unfamiliar; there was nothing in
sight, anywhere, that I could remember ever having seen before. I was
surprised, disappointed, and annoyed.
We put ashore a well-dressed lady and gentleman, and two well-dressed,
lady-like young girls, together with sundry Russia-leather bags. A
strange place for such folk! No carriage was waiting. The party moved
off as if they had not expected any, and struck down a winding country
road afoot.
But the mystery was explained when we got under way again; for these
people were evidently bound for a large town which lay shut in behind a
tow-head (i.e., new island) a couple of miles below this landing. I
couldn't remember that town; I couldn't place it, couldn't call its
name. So I lost part of my temper. I suspected that it might be St.
Genevieve--and so it proved to be. Observe what this eccentric river
had been about: it had built up this huge useless tow-head directly in
front of this town, cut off its river communications, fenced it away
completely, and made a 'country' town of it. It is a fine old place,
too, and deserved a better fate. It was settled by the French, and is a
relic of a time when one could travel from the mouths of the Mississippi
to Quebec and be on French territory and under French rule all the way.
Presently I ascended to the hurricane deck and cast a longing glance
toward the pilot-house.
Chapter 24 My Incognito is Exploded
AFTER a close study of the face of the pilot on watch, I was satisfied
that I had never seen him before; so I went up there. The pilot
inspected me; I re-inspected the pilot. These customary preliminaries
over, I sat down on the high bench, and he faced about and went on with
his work. Every detail of the pilot-house was familiar to me, with one
exception,--a large-mouthed tube under the breast-board. I puzzled over
that thing a considerable time; then gave up and asked what it was for.
'To hear the engine-bells through.'
It was another good contrivance which ought to have been invented half a
century sooner. So I was thinking, when the pilot asked--
'Do you know what this rope is for?'
I managed to get around this question, without committing myself.
'Is this the first time you were ever in a pilot-house?'
I crept under that one.
'Where are you from?'
'New England.'
'First time you have ever been West?'
I climbed over this one.
'If you take an interest in such things, I can tell you what all these
things are for.'
I said I should like it.
'This,' putting his hand on a backing-bell rope, 'is to sound the fire-
alarm; this,' putting his hand on a go-ahead bell, 'is to call the
texas-tender; this one,' indicating the whistle-lever, 'is to call the
captain'--and so he went on, touching one object after another, and
reeling off his tranquil spool of lies.
I had never felt so like a passenger before. I thanked him, with
emotion, for each new fact, and wrote it down in my note-book. The pilot
warmed to his opportunity, and proceeded to load me up in the good old-
fashioned way. At times I was afraid he was going to rupture his
invention; but it always stood the strain, and he pulled through all
right. He drifted, by easy stages, into revealments of the river's
marvelous eccentricities of one sort and another, and backed them up
with some pretty gigantic illustrations. For instance--
'Do you see that little boulder sticking out of the water yonder? well,
when I first came on the river, that was a solid ridge of rock, over
sixty feet high and two miles long. All washed away but that.' [This
with a sigh.]
I had a mighty impulse to destroy him, but it seemed to me that killing,
in any ordinary way, would be too good for him.
Once, when an odd-looking craft, with a vast coal-scuttle slanting aloft
on the end of a beam, was steaming by in the distance, he indifferently
drew attention to it, as one might to an object grown wearisome through
familiarity, and observed that it was an 'alligator boat.'
'An alligator boat? What's it for?'
'To dredge out alligators with.'
'Are they so thick as to be troublesome?'
'Well, not now, because the Government keeps them down. But they used to
be. Not everywhere; but in favorite places, here and there, where the
river is wide and shoal-like Plum Point, and Stack Island, and so on--
places they call alligator beds.'
'Did they actually impede navigation?'
'Years ago, yes, in very low water; there was hardly a trip, then, that
we didn't get aground on alligators.'
It seemed to me that I should certainly have to get out my tomahawk.
However, I restrained myself and said--
'It must have been dreadful.'
'Yes, it was one of the main difficulties about piloting. It was so hard
to tell anything about the water; the damned things shift around so--
never lie still five minutes at a time. You can tell a wind-reef,
straight off, by the look of it; you can tell a break; you can tell a
sand-reef--that's all easy; but an alligator reef doesn't show up, worth
anything. Nine times in ten you can't tell where the water is; and when
you do see where it is, like as not it ain't there when YOU get there,
the devils have swapped around so, meantime. Of course there were some
few pilots that could judge of alligator water nearly as well as they
could of any other kind, but they had to have natural talent for it; it
wasn't a thing a body could learn, you had to be born with it. Let me
see: there was Ben Thornburg, and Beck Jolly, and Squire Bell, and
Horace Bixby, and Major Downing, and John Stevenson, and Billy Gordon,
and Jim Brady, and George Ealer, and Billy Youngblood--all A 1 alligator
pilots. THEY could tell alligator water as far as another Christian
could tell whiskey. Read it?--Ah, COULDN'T they, though! I only wish I
had as many dollars as they could read alligator water a mile and a half
off. Yes, and it paid them to do it, too. A good alligator pilot could
always get fifteen hundred dollars a month. Nights, other people had to
lay up for alligators, but those fellows never laid up for alligators;
they never laid up for anything but fog. They could SMELL the best
alligator water it was said; I don't know whether it was so or not, and
I think a body's got his hands full enough if he sticks to just what he
knows himself, without going around backing up other people's say-so's,
though there's a plenty that ain't backward about doing it, as long as
they can roust out something wonderful to tell. Which is not the style
of Robert Styles, by as much as three fathom--maybe quarter-LESS.'
[My! Was this Rob Styles?--This mustached and stately figure?-A slim
enough cub, in my time. How he has improved in comeliness in five-and-
twenty year and in the noble art of inflating his facts.] After these
musings, I said aloud--
'I should think that dredging out the alligators wouldn't have done much
good, because they could come back again right away.'
'If you had had as much experience of alligators as I have, you wouldn't
talk like that. You dredge an alligator once and he's CONVINCED. It's
the last you hear of HIM. He wouldn't come back for pie. If there's one
thing that an alligator is more down on than another, it's being
dredged. Besides, they were not simply shoved out of the way; the most
of the scoopful were scooped aboard; they emptied them into the hold;
and when they had got a trip, they took them to Orleans to the
Government works.'
'What for?'
'Why, to make soldier-shoes out of their hides. All the Government shoes
are made of alligator hide. It makes the best shoes in the world. They
last five years, and they won't absorb water. The alligator fishery is
a Government monopoly. All the alligators are Government property--just
like the live-oaks. You cut down a live-oak, and Government fines you
fifty dollars; you kill an alligator, and up you go for misprision of
treason--lucky duck if they don't hang you, too. And they will, if
you're a Democrat. The buzzard is the sacred bird of the South, and you
can't touch him; the alligator is the sacred bird of the Government, and
you've got to let him alone.'
'Do you ever get aground on the alligators now?'
'Oh, no! it hasn't happened for years.'
'Well, then, why do they still keep the alligator boats in service?'
'Just for police duty--nothing more. They merely go up and down now and
then. The present generation of alligators know them as easy as a
burglar knows a roundsman; when they see one coming, they break camp and
go for the woods.'
After rounding-out and finishing-up and polishing-off the alligator
business, he dropped easily and comfortably into the historical vein,
and told of some tremendous feats of half-a-dozen old-time steamboats of
his acquaintance, dwelling at special length upon a certain
extraordinary performance of his chief favorite among this distinguished
fleet--and then adding--
'That boat was the "Cyclone,"--last trip she ever made--she sunk, that
very trip--captain was Tom Ballou, the most immortal liar that ever I
struck. He couldn't ever seem to tell the truth, in any kind of
weather. Why, he would make you fairly shudder. He WAS the most
scandalous liar! I left him, finally; I couldn't stand it. The proverb
says, "like master, like man;" and if you stay with that kind of a man,
you'll come under suspicion by and by, just as sure as you live. He
paid first-class wages; but said I, What's wages when your reputation's
in danger? So I let the wages go, and froze to my reputation. And I've
never regretted it. Reputation's worth everything, ain't it? That's the
way I look at it. He had more selfish organs than any seven men in the
world--all packed in the stern-sheets of his skull, of course, where
they belonged. They weighed down the back of his head so that it made
his nose tilt up in the air. People thought it was vanity, but it
wasn't, it was malice. If you only saw his foot, you'd take him to be
nineteen feet high, but he wasn't; it was because his foot was out of
drawing. He was intended to be nineteen feet high, no doubt, if his foot
was made first, but he didn't get there; he was only five feet ten.
That's what he was, and that's what he is. You take the lies out of
him, and he'll shrink to the size of your hat; you take the malice out
of him, and he'll disappear. That "Cyclone" was a rattler to go, and
the sweetest thing to steer that ever walked the waters. Set her
amidships, in a big river, and just let her go; it was all you had to
do. She would hold herself on a star all night, if you let her alone.
You couldn't ever feel her rudder. It wasn't any more labor to steer
her than it is to count the Republican vote in a South Carolina
election. One morning, just at daybreak, the last trip she ever made,
they took her rudder aboard to mend it; I didn't know anything about it;
I backed her out from the wood-yard and went a-weaving down the river
all serene. When I had gone about twenty-three miles, and made four
horribly crooked crossings--'
'Without any rudder?'
'Yes--old Capt. Tom appeared on the roof and began to find fault with me
for running such a dark night--'
'Such a DARK NIGHT?--Why, you said--'
'Never mind what I said,--'twas as dark as Egypt now, though pretty soon
the moon began to rise, and--'
'You mean the SUN--because you started out just at break of--look here!
Was this BEFORE you quitted the captain on account of his lying, or--'
'It was before--oh, a long time before. And as I was saying, he--'
'But was this the trip she sunk, or was--'
'Oh, no!--months afterward. And so the old man, he--'
'Then she made TWO last trips, because you said--'
He stepped back from the wheel, swabbing away his perspiration, and
said--
'Here!' (calling me by name), 'YOU take her and lie a while--you're
handier at it than I am. Trying to play yourself for a stranger and an
innocent!--why, I knew you before you had spoken seven words; and I made
up my mind to find out what was your little game. It was to DRAW ME OUT.
Well, I let you, didn't I? Now take the wheel and finish the watch; and
next time play fair, and you won't have to work your passage.'
Thus ended the fictitious-name business. And not six hours out from St.
Louis! but I had gained a privilege, any way, for I had been itching to
get my hands on the wheel, from the beginning. I seemed to have
forgotten the river, but I hadn't forgotten how to steer a steamboat,
nor how to enjoy it, either.
Chapter 25 From Cairo to Hickman
THE scenery, from St. Louis to Cairo--two hundred miles--is varied and
beautiful. The hills were clothed in the fresh foliage of spring now,
and were a gracious and worthy setting for the broad river flowing
between. Our trip began auspiciously, with a perfect day, as to breeze
and sunshine, and our boat threw the miles out behind her with
satisfactory despatch.
We found a railway intruding at Chester, Illinois; Chester has also a
penitentiary now, and is otherwise marching on. At Grand Tower, too,
there was a railway; and another at Cape Girardeau. The former town gets
its name from a huge, squat pillar of rock, which stands up out of the
water on the Missouri side of the river--a piece of nature's fanciful
handiwork--and is one of the most picturesque features of the scenery of
that region. For nearer or remoter neighbors, the Tower has the Devil's
Bake Oven--so called, perhaps, because it does not powerfully resemble
anybody else's bake oven; and the Devil's Tea Table--this latter a great
smooth-surfaced mass of rock, with diminishing wine-glass stem, perched
some fifty or sixty feet above the river, beside a beflowered and
garlanded precipice, and sufficiently like a tea-table to answer for
anybody, Devil or Christian. Away down the river we have the Devil's
Elbow and the Devil's Race-course, and lots of other property of his
which I cannot now call to mind.
The Town of Grand Tower was evidently a busier place than it had been in
old times, but it seemed to need some repairs here and there, and a new
coat of whitewash all over. Still, it was pleasant to me to see the old
coat once more. 'Uncle' Mumford, our second officer, said the place had
been suffering from high water, and consequently was not looking its
best now. But he said it was not strange that it didn't waste white-
wash on itself, for more lime was made there, and of a better quality,
than anywhere in the West; and added--'On a dairy farm you never can get
any milk for your coffee, nor any sugar for it on a sugar plantation;
and it is against sense to go to a lime town to hunt for white-wash.' In
my own experience I knew the first two items to be true; and also that
people who sell candy don't care for candy; therefore there was
plausibility in Uncle Mumford's final observation that 'people who make
lime run more to religion than whitewash.' Uncle Mumford said, further,
that Grand Tower was a great coaling center and a prospering place.
Cape Girardeau is situated on a hillside, and makes a handsome
appearance. There is a great Jesuit school for boys at the foot of the
town by the river. Uncle Mumford said it had as high a reputation for
thoroughness as any similar institution in Missouri! There was another
college higher up on an airy summit--a bright new edifice, picturesquely
and peculiarly towered and pinnacled--a sort of gigantic casters, with
the cruets all complete. Uncle Mumford said that Cape Girardeau was the
Athens of Missouri, and contained several colleges besides those already
mentioned; and all of them on a religious basis of one kind or another.
He directed my attention to what he called the'strong and pervasive
religious look of the town,' but I could not see that it looked more
religious than the other hill towns with the same <DW72> and built of the
same kind of bricks. Partialities often make people see more than really
exists.
Uncle Mumford has been thirty years a mate on the river. He is a man of
practical sense and a level head; has observed; has had much experience
of one sort and another; has opinions; has, also, just a perceptible
dash of poetry in his composition, an easy gift of speech, a thick growl
in his voice, and an oath or two where he can get at them when the
exigencies of his office require a spiritual lift. He is a mate of the
blessed old-time kind; and goes gravely damning around, when there is
work to the fore, in a way to mellow the ex-steamboatman's heart with
sweet soft longings for the vanished days that shall come no more. 'GIT
up there you! Going to be all day? Why d'n't you SAY you was petrified
in your hind legs, before you shipped!'
He is a steady man with his crew; kind and just, but firm; so they like
him, and stay with him. He is still in the slouchy garb of the old
generation of mates; but next trip the Anchor Line will have him in
uniform--a natty blue naval uniform, with brass buttons, along with all
the officers of the line--and then he will be a totally different style
of scenery from what he is now.
Uniforms on the Mississippi! It beats all the other changes put
together, for surprise. Still, there is another surprise--that it was
not made fifty years ago. It is so manifestly sensible, that it might
have been thought of earlier, one would suppose. During fifty years, out
there, the innocent passenger in need of help and information, has been
mistaking the mate for the cook, and the captain for the barber--and
being roughly entertained for it, too. But his troubles are ended now.
And the greatly improved aspect of the boat's staff is another advantage
achieved by the dress-reform period.
Steered down the bend below Cape Girardeau. They used to call it
'Steersman's Bend;' plain sailing and plenty of water in it, always;
about the only place in the Upper River that a new cub was allowed to
take a boat through, in low water.
Thebes, at the head of the Grand Chain, and Commerce at the foot of it,
were towns easily rememberable, as they had not undergone conspicuous
alteration. Nor the Chain, either--in the nature of things; for it is a
chain of sunken rocks admirably arranged to capture and kill steamboats
on bad nights. A good many steamboat corpses lie buried there, out of
sight; among the rest my first friend the 'Paul Jones;' she knocked her
bottom out, and went down like a pot, so the historian told me--Uncle
Mumford. He said she had a gray mare aboard, and a preacher. To me,
this sufficiently accounted for the disaster; as it did, of course, to
Mumford, who added--
'But there are many ignorant people who would scoff at such a matter,
and call it superstition. But you will always notice that they are
people who have never traveled with a gray mare and a preacher. I went
down the river once in such company. We grounded at Bloody Island; we
grounded at Hanging Dog; we grounded just below this same Commerce; we
jolted Beaver Dam Rock; we hit one of the worst breaks in the
'Graveyard' behind Goose Island; we had a roustabout killed in a fight;
we burnt a boiler; broke a shaft; collapsed a flue; and went into Cairo
with nine feet of water in the hold--may have been more, may have been
less. I remember it as if it were yesterday. The men lost their heads
with terror. They painted the mare blue, in sight of town, and threw
the preacher overboard, or we should not have arrived at all. The
preacher was fished out and saved. He acknowledged, himself, that he had
been to blame. I remember it all, as if it were yesterday.'
That this combination--of preacher and gray mare--should breed calamity,
seems strange, and at first glance unbelievable; but the fact is
fortified by so much unassailable proof that to doubt is to dishonor
reason. I myself remember a case where a captain was warned by numerous
friends against taking a gray mare and a preacher with him, but
persisted in his purpose in spite of all that could be said; and the
same day--it may have been the next, and some say it was, though I think
it was the same day--he got drunk and fell down the hatchway, and was
borne to his home a corpse. This is literally true.
No vestige of Hat Island is left now; every shred of it is washed away.
I do not even remember what part of the river it used to be in, except
that it was between St. Louis and Cairo somewhere. It was a bad region--
all around and about Hat Island, in early days. A farmer who lived on
the Illinois shore there, said that twenty-nine steamboats had left
their bones strung along within sight from his house. Between St. Louis
and Cairo the steamboat wrecks average one to the mile;--two hundred
wrecks, altogether.
I could recognize big changes from Commerce down. Beaver Dam Rock was
out in the middle of the river now, and throwing a prodigious 'break;'
it used to be close to the shore, and boats went down outside of it. A
big island that used to be away out in mid-river, has retired to the
Missouri shore, and boats do not go near it any more. The island called
Jacket Pattern is whittled down to a wedge now, and is booked for early
destruction. Goose Island is all gone but a little dab the size of a
steamboat. The perilous 'Graveyard,' among whose numberless wrecks we
used to pick our way so slowly and gingerly, is far away from the
channel now, and a terror to nobody. |
10,240 |
Produced by Martin Ward
Weymouth New Testament in Modern Speech, Hebrews
Third Edition 1913
R. F. Weymouth
Book 58 Hebrews
001:001 God, who in ancient days spoke to our forefathers in many
distinct messages and by various methods through the Prophets,
001:002 has at the end of these days spoken to us through a Son,
who is the pre-destined Lord of the universe, and through whom
He made the Ages.
001:003 He brightly reflects God's glory and is the exact representation
of His being, and upholds the universe by His all-powerful word.
After securing man's purification from sin He took His seat
at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
001:004 having become as far superior to the angels as the Name He
possesses by inheritance is more excellent than theirs.
001:005 For to which of the angels did God ever say, "My Son
art Thou: I have this day become Thy Father;" and again,
"I will be a Father to Him, and He shall be My Son"?
001:006 But speaking of the time when He once more brings His Firstborn
into the world, He says, "And let all God's angels worship Him."
001:007 Moreover of the angels He says, "He changes His angels into winds,
and His ministering servants into a flame of fire."
001:008 But of His Son, He says, "Thy throne, O God, is for ever
and for ever, and the sceptre of Thy Kingdom is a sceptre
of absolute justice.
001:009 Thou hast loved righteousness and hated lawlessness;
therefore God, Thy God, has anointed Thee with the oil
of gladness beyond Thy companions."
001:010 It is also of His Son that God says, "Thou, O Lord,
in the beginning didst lay the foundations of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of Thy hands.
001:011 The heavens will perish, but Thou remainest; and they will
all grow old like a garment,
001:012 and, as though they were a mantle Thou wilt roll them up;
yes, like a garment, and they will undergo change.
But Thou art the same, and Thy years will never come to an end."
001:013 To which of the angels has He ever said, "Sit at My right hand
till I make Thy foes a footstool for Thy feet"?
001:014 Are not all angels spirits that serve Him--whom He sends out
to render service for the benefit of those who, before long,
will inherit salvation?
002:001 For this reason we ought to pay the more earnest heed
to the things which we have heard, for fear we should drift
away from them.
002:002 For if the message delivered through angels proved to be true,
and every transgression and act of disobedience met
with just retribution,
002:003 how shall *we* escape if we are indifferent to a salvation
as great as that now offered to us? This, after having first
of all been announced by the Lord Himself, had its truth made
sure to us by those who heard Him,
002:004 while God corroborated their testimony by signs and marvels
and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit
distributed in accordance with His own will.
002:005 It is not to angels that God has assigned the sovereignty
of that coming world, of which we speak.
002:006 But, as we know, a writer has solemnly said, "How poor a creature
is man, and yet Thou dost remember him, and a son of man,
and yet Thou dost come to him!
002:007 Thou hast made him only a little inferior to the angels;
with glory and honour Thou hast crowned him, and hast set
him to govern the works of Thy hands.
002:008 Thou hast put everything in subjection under his feet."
For this subjecting of the universe to man implies the leaving
nothing not subject to him. But we do not as yet see
the universe subject to him.
002:009 But Jesus--who was made a little inferior to the angels in order
that through God's grace He might taste death for every
human being--we already see wearing a crown of glory and honour
because of His having suffered death.
002:010 For it was fitting that He for whom, and through whom,
all things exist, after He had brought many sons to glory,
should perfect by suffering the Prince Leader who had saved them.
002:011 For both He who sanctifies and those whom He is sanctifying
have all one Father; and for this reason He is not ashamed
to speak of them as His brothers;
002:012 as when He says: "I will proclaim Thy name to My brothers:
in the midst of the congregation I will hymn Thy praises;"
002:013 and again, "As for Me, I will be one whose trust reposes in God;"
and again, "Here am I, and here are the children God
has given Me."
002:014 Since then the children referred to are all alike sharers
in perishable human nature, He Himself also, in the same way,
took on Him a share of it, in order that through death He
might render powerless him who had authority over death,
that is, the Devil,
002:015 and might set at liberty all those who through fear of death
had been subject to lifelong slavery.
002:016 For assuredly it is not to angels that He is continually reaching
a helping hand, but it is to the descendants of Abraham.
002:017 And for this purpose it was necessary that in all respects He
should be made to resemble His brothers, so that He might become
a compassionate and faithful High Priest in things relating
to God, in order to atone for the sins of the people.
002:018 For inasmuch as He has Himself felt the pain of temptation
and trial, He is also able instantly to help those who are
tempted and tried.
003:001 Therefore, holy brethren, sharers with others in a
heavenly invitation, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the Apostle
and High Priest whose followers we profess to be.
003:002 How faithful He was to Him who appointed Him, just as Moses
also was faithful in all God's house!
003:003 For Jesus has been counted worthy of greater glory than Moses,
in so far as he who has built a house has higher honour
than the house itself.
003:004 For every house has had a builder, and the builder of all
things is God.
003:005 Moreover, Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant
in delivering the message given him to speak;
003:006 but Christ was faithful as a Son having authority over God's house,
and we are that house, if we hold firm to the End the boldness
and the hope which we boast of as ours.
003:007 For this reason--as the Holy Spirit warns us, "To-day, if you
hear His voice,
003:008 do not harden your hearts as your forefathers did in the time
of the provocation on the day of the temptation in the Desert,
003:009 where your forefathers so sorely tried My patience and saw
all that I did during forty years.
003:010 Therefore I was greatly grieved with that generation, and I said,
`They are ever going astray in heart, and have not learnt
to know My paths.'
003:011 As I swore in My anger, they shall not be admitted to My rest"--
003:012 see to it, brethren, that there is never in any one of you--
as perhaps there may be--a sinful and unbelieving heart,
manifesting itself in revolt from the ever-living God.
003:013 On the contrary encourage one another, day after day, so long
as To-day lasts, so that not one of you may be hardened
through the deceitful character of sin.
003:014 For we have, all alike, become sharers with Christ, if we
really hold our first confidence firm to the End;
003:015 seeing that the warning still comes to us, "To-day, if you
hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as your forefathers
did in the time of the provocation."
003:016 For who were they that heard, and yet provoked God? Was it
not the whole of the people who had come out of Egypt under
the leadership of Moses?
003:017 And with whom was God so greatly grieved for forty years?
Was it not with those who had sinned, and whose dead bodies
fell in the Desert?
003:018 And to whom did He swear that they should not be admitted
to His rest, if it was not to those who were disobedient?
003:019 And so we see that it was owing to lack of faith that they
could not be admitted.
004:001 Therefore let us be on our guard lest perhaps, while He
still leaves us a promise of being admitted to His rest,
some one of you should be found to have fallen short of it.
004:002 For Good News has been brought to us as truly as to them;
but the message they heard failed to benefit them, because they
were not one in faith with those who gave heed to it.
004:003 We who have believed are soon to be admitted to the true rest;
as He has said, "As I swore in My anger, they shall not be
admitted to My rest," although God's works had been going
on ever since the creation of the world.
004:004 For, as we know, when speaking of the seventh day He has
used the words, "And God rested on the seventh day from
all His works;"
004:005 and He has also declared, "They shall not be admitted to My rest."
004:006 Since, then, it is still true that some will be admitted to
that rest, and that because of disobedience those who formerly
had Good News proclaimed to them were not admitted,
004:007 He again definitely mentions a certain day, "To-day,"
saying long afterwards, by David's lips, in the words
already quoted, "To-day, if you hear His voice, do not
harden your hearts."
004:008 For if Joshua had given them the true rest, we should not
afterwards hear God speaking of another still future day.
004:009 It follows that there still remains a sabbath rest for the
people of God.
004:010 For He who has been admitted to His rest, has rested from His
works as God did from His.
004:011 Let it then be our earnest endeavour to be admitted to that rest,
so that no one may perish through following the same
example of unbelief.
004:012 For God's Message is full of life and power, and is keener
than the sharpest two-edged sword. It pierces even to
the severance of soul from spirit, and penetrates between
the joints and the marrow, and it can discern the secret
thoughts and purposes of the heart.
004:013 And no created thing is able to escape its scrutiny;
but everything lies bare and completely exposed before the eyes
of Him with whom we have to do.
004:014 Inasmuch, then, as we have in Jesus, the Son of God,
a great High Priest who has passed into Heaven itself,
let us hold firmly to our profession of faith.
004:015 For we have not a High Priest who is unable to feel for us
in our weaknesses, but one who was tempted in every respect
just as we are tempted, and yet did not sin.
004:016 Therefore let us come boldly to the throne of grace,
that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our
times of need.
005:001 For every High Priest is chosen from among men, and is
appointed to act on behalf of men in matters relating to God,
in order to offer both gifts and sin-offerings,
005:002 and must be one who is able to bear patiently with the ignorant
and erring, because he himself also is beset with infirmity.
005:003 And for this reason he is required to offer sin-offerings
not only for the people but also for himself.
005:004 And no one takes this honourable office upon himself,
but only accepts it when called to it by God, as Aaron was.
005:005 So Christ also did not claim for Himself the honour of being
made High Priest, but was appointed to it by Him who said
to Him, "My Son art Thou: I have to-day become Thy Father;"
005:006 as also in another passage He says, "Thou art a priest for ever,
belonging to the order of Melchizedek."
005:007 For Jesus during his earthly life offered up prayers and entreaties,
crying aloud and weeping as He pleaded with Him who was able
to bring Him in safety out of death, and He was delivered
from the terror from which He shrank.
005:008 Although He was God's Son, yet He learned obedience from
the sufferings which He endured;
005:009 and so, having been made perfect, He became to all who obey
Him the source and giver of eternal salvation.
005:010 For God Himself addresses Him as a High Priest for ever,
belonging to the order of Melchizedek.
005:011 Concerning Him we have much to say, and much that it would
be difficult to make clear to you, since you have become
so dull of apprehension.
005:012 For although, considering the long time you have been believers,
you ought now to be teachers of others, you really need some one
to teach you over again the very rudiments of the truths of God,
and you have come to require milk instead of solid food.
005:013 By people who live on milk I mean those who are imperfectly
acquainted with the teaching concerning righteousness.
005:014 Such persons are mere babes. But solid food is for adults--
that is, for those who through constant practice have
their spiritual faculties carefully trained to distinguish
good from evil.
006:001 Therefore leaving elementary instruction about the Christ,
let us advance to mature manhood and not be continually
re-laying a foundation of repentance from lifeless works
and of faith in God,
006:002 or of teaching about ceremonial washings, the laying on of hands,
the resurrection of the dead, and the last judgement.
006:003 And advance we will, if God permits us to do so.
006:004 For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once for all
been enlightened, and have tasted the sweetness of the heavenly gift,
and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit,
006:005 and have realized how good the word of God is and how mighty
are the powers of the coming Age, and then fell away--
006:006 it is impossible, I say, to keep bringing them back to a
new repentance, for, to their own undoing, they are repeatedly
crucifying the Son of God afresh and exposing Him to open shame.
006:007 For land which has drunk in the rain that often falls upon it,
and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sakes,
indeed, it is tilled, has a share in God's blessing.
006:008 But if it only yields a mass of thorns and briers, it is
considered worthless, and is in danger of being cursed,
and in the end will be destroyed by fire.
006:009 But we, even while we speak in this tone, have a happier
conviction concerning you, my dearly-loved friends--
a conviction of things which point towards salvation.
006:010 For God is not unjust so that He is unmindful of your labour and
of the love which you have manifested towards Himself in having
rendered services to His people and in still rendering them.
006:011 But we long for each of you to continue to manifest
the same earnestness, with a view to your enjoying fulness
of hope to the very End;
006:012 so that you may not become half-hearted, but be imitators
of those who through faith and patient endurance are now heirs
to the promises.
006:013 For when God gave the promise to Abraham, since He had no one
greater to swear by, He swore by Himself,
006:014 saying, "Assuredly I will bless you and bless you, I will
increase you and increase you."
006:015 And so, as the result of patient waiting, our forefather
obtained what God had promised.
006:016 For men swear by what is greater than themselves; and with them
an oath in confirmation of a statement always puts an end
to a dispute.
006:017 In the same way, since it was God's desire to display more
convincingly to the heirs of the promise how unchangeable
His purpose was,
006:018 He added an oath, in order that, through two unchangeable things,
in which it is impossible for Him to prove false,
we may possess mighty encouragement--we who, for safety,
have hastened to lay hold of the hope set before us.
006:019 That hope we have as an anchor of the soul--an anchor that can
neither break nor drag. It passes in behind the veil,
006:020 where Jesus has entered as a forerunner on our behalf,
having become, like Melchizedek, a High Priest for ever.
007:001 For this man, Melchizedek, King of Salem and priest of
the Most High God--he who when Abraham was returning after
defeating the kings met him and pronounced a blessing on him--
007:002 to whom also Abraham presented a tenth part of all--
being first, as his name signifies, King of righteousness,
and secondly King of Salem, that is, King of peace:
007:003 with no father or mother, and no record of ancestry:
having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made
a type of the Son of God--this man Melchizedek remains
a priest for ever.
007:004 Now think how great this priest-king must have been to whom Abraham
the patriarch gave a tenth part of the best of the spoil.
007:005 And those of the descendants of Levi who receive the priesthood
are authorized by the Law to take tithes from the people, that is,
from their brethren, though these have sprung from Abraham.
007:006 But, in this instance, one who does not trace his origin from
them takes tithes from Abraham, and pronounces a blessing
on him to whom the promises belong.
007:007 And beyond all dispute it is always the inferior who is blessed
by the superior.
007:008 Moreover here frail mortal men receive tithes: there one
receives them about whom there is evidence that he is alive.
007:009 And Levi too--if I may so speak--pays tithes through Abraham:
007:010 for Levi was yet in the loins of his forefather when
Melchizedek met Abraham.
007:011 Now if the crowning blessing was attainable by means of
the Levitical priesthood--for as resting on this foundation
the people received the Law, to which they are still subject--
what further need was there for a Priest of a different kind
to be raised up belonging to the order of Melchizedek instead
of being said to belong to the order of Aaron?
007:012 For when the priesthood changes, a change of Law also of
necessity takes place.
007:013 He, however, to whom that prophecy refers is associated
with a different tribe, not one member of which has anything
to do with the altar.
007:014 For it is undeniable that our Lord sprang from Judah, a tribe
of which Moses said nothing in connection with priests.
007:015 And this is still more abundantly clear when we read that it
is as belonging to the order of Melchizedek that a priest
of a different kind is to arise,
007:016 and hold His office not in obedience to any temporary Law,
but by virtue of an indestructible Life.
007:017 For the words are in evidence, "Thou art a priest for ever,
belonging to the order of Melchizedek."
007:018 On the one hand we have here the abrogation of an earlier code
because it was weak and ineffective--
007:019 for the Law brought no perfect blessing--but on the other hand
we have the bringing in of a new and better hope by means
of which we draw near to God.
007:020 And since it was not without an oath being taken--
007:021 for these men hold office without any oath having been taken,
but He holds it attested by an oath from Him who said
to Him, "The Lord has sworn and will not recall His words,
Thou art a Priest for ever"--
007:022 so much the more also is the Covenant of which Jesus has become
the guarantor, a better covenant.
007:023 And they have been appointed priests many in number,
because death prevents their continuance in office:
007:024 but He, because He continues for ever, has a priesthood
which does not pass to any successor.
007:025 Hence too He is able to save to the uttermost those who come
to God through Him, seeing that He ever lives to plead for them.
007:026 Moreover we needed just such a High Priest as this--
holy, guileless, undefiled, far removed from sinful men
and exalted above the heavens;
007:027 who, unlike other High Priests, is not under the necessity
of offering up sacrifices day after day, first for His own sins,
and afterwards for those of the people; for this latter thing
He did once for all when He offered up Himself.
007:028 For the Law constitutes men High Priests--men with all
their infirmity--but the utterance of the oath, which came
later than the Law, constitutes High Priest a Son who has
been made for ever perfect.
008:001 Now in connexion with what we have been saying the chief point
is that we have a High Priest who has taken His seat at
the right hand of the throne of God's Majesty in the heavens,
008:002 and ministers in the Holy place and in the true tabernacle
which not man, but the Lord pitched.
008:003 Every High Priest, however, is appointed to offer both bloodless
gifts and sacrifices. Therefore this High Priest also must
have some offering to present.
008:004 If then He were still on earth, He would not be a priest at all,
since here there are already those who present the offerings
in obedience to the Law,
008:005 and serve a copy and type of the heavenly things, just as Moses
was divinely instructed when about to build the tabernacle.
For God said, "See that you make everything in imitation
of the pattern shown you on the mountain."
008:006 But, as a matter of fact, the ministry which Christ has
obtained is all the nobler a ministry, in that He is at
the same time the negotiator of a sublimer covenant,
based upon sublimer promises.
008:007 For if that first Covenant had been free from imperfection,
there would have been no attempt to introduce another.
008:008 For, being dissatisfied with His people, God says, "`There are
days coming,' says the Lord, `When I will establish with the house
of Israel and with the house of Judah a new Covenant--
008:009 a Covenant unlike the one which I made with their forefathers
on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out from
the land of Egypt; for they would not remain faithful to that.'
`So I turned from them,' says the Lord.
008:010 `But this is the Covenant that I will covenant with the house
of Israel after those days,' says the Lord: I will put My
laws into their minds and will write them upon their hearts.
And I will indeed be their God and they shall be My People.
008:011 And there shall be no need for them to teach each one his fellow
citizen and each one his brother, saying, Know the Lord.
For all will know Me from the least of them to the greatest;
008:012 Because I will be merciful to their wrongdoings, and their sins
I will remember no longer.'"
008:013 By using the words, "a new Covenant," He has made the first
one obsolete; but whatever is decaying and showing signs
of old age is not far from disappearing altogether.
009:001 Now even the first Covenant had regulations for divine worship,
and had also its sanctuary--a sanctuary belonging to this world.
009:002 For a sacred tent was constructed--the outer one, in which
were the lamp and the table and the presented loaves;
and this is called the Holy place.
009:003 And behind the second veil was a sacred tent called
the Holy of holies.
009:004 This had a censer of gold, and the ark of the Covenant lined
with gold and completely covered with gold, and in it were
a gold vase which held the manna, and Aaron's rod which budded
and the tables of the Covenant.
009:005 And above the ark were the Cherubim denoting God's glorious
presence and overshadowing the Mercy-seat. But I cannot now
speak about all these in detail.
009:006 These arrangements having long been completed, the priests,
when conducting the divine services, continually enter
the outer tent.
009:007 But into the second, the High Priest goes only on one day
of the year, and goes alone, taking with him blood,
which he offers on his own behalf and on account of the sins
which the people have ignorantly committed.
009:008 And the lesson which the Holy Spirit teaches is this--
that the way into the true Holy place is not yet open so long
as the outer tent still remains in existence.
009:009 And this is a figure--for the time now present--answering to
which both gifts and sacrifices are offered, unable though they
are to give complete freedom from sin to him who ministers.
009:010 For their efficacy depends only on meats and drinks and
various washings, ceremonies pertaining to the body and imposed
until a time of reformation.
009:011 But Christ appeared as a High Priest of the blessings that are
soon to come by means of the greater and more perfect Tent
of worship, a tent which has not been built with hands--
that is to say does not belong to this material creation--
009:012 and once for all entered the Holy place, taking with Him
not the blood of goats and calves, but His own blood,
and thus procuring eternal redemption for us.
009:013 For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer
sprinkling those who have contracted defilement make them
holy so as to bring about ceremonial purity,
009:014 how much more certainly shall the blood of Christ,
who strengthened by the eternal Spirit offered Himself to God,
free from blemish, purify your consciences from lifeless
works for you to serve the ever-living God?
009:015 And because of this He is the negotiator of a new Covenant,
in order that, since a life has been given in atonement
for the offences committed under the first Covenant,
those who have been called may receive the eternal inheritance
which has been promised to them.
009:016 For where there is a legal `will,' there must also be a death
brought forward in evidence--the death of him who made it.
009:017 And a will is only of force in the case of a deceased person,
being never of any avail so long as he who made it lives.
009:018 Accordingly we find that the first Covenant was not
inaugurated without blood.
009:019 For when Moses had proclaimed to all the people every commandment
contained in the Law, he took the blood of the calves and
of the goats and with them water, scarlet wool and hyssop,
and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people,
009:020 saying, "This is the blood which confirms the Covenant that God
has made binding upon you."
009:021 And in the same way he also sprinkled blood upon the Tent
of worship and upon all the vessels used in the ministry.
009:022 Indeed we may almost say that in obedience to the Law everything
is sprinkled with blood, and that apart from the outpouring
of blood there is no remission of sins.
009:023 It was needful therefore that the copies of the things in Heaven
should be cleansed in this way, but that the heavenly things
themselves should be cleansed with more costly sacrifices.
009:024 For not into a Holy place built by men's hands--a mere copy
of the reality--did Christ enter, but He entered Heaven itself,
now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.
009:025 Nor did He enter for the purpose of many times offering Himself
in sacrifice, just as the High Priest enters the Holy place,
year after year, taking with him blood not his own.
009:026 In that case Christ would have needed to suffer many times,
from the creation of the world onwards; but as a matter of fact
He has appeared once for all, at the Close of the Ages,
in order to do away with sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
009:027 And since it is reserved for all mankind once to die,
and afterwards to be judged;
009:028 so the Christ also, having been once offered in sacrifice in order
that He might bear the sins of many, will appear a second time,
separated from sin, to those who are eagerly expecting Him,
to make their salvation complete.
010:001 For, since the Law exhibits only an outline of the blessings
to come and not a perfect representation of the things themselves,
the priests can never, by repeating the same sacrifices
which they continually offer year after year, give complete
freedom from sin to those who draw near.
010:002 For then would not the sacrifices have ceased to be offered,
because the consciences of the worshippers--who in that case
would now have been cleansed once for all--would no longer
be burdened with sins?
010:003 But in those sacrifices sins are recalled to memory year after year.
010:004 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to
take away sins.
010:005 That is why, when He comes into the world, He says,
"Sacrifice and offering Thou has not desired, but a body Thou
hast prepared for Me.
010:006 In whole burnt-offerings and in sin-offerings Thou hast
taken no pleasure.
010:007 Then I said, `I have come--in the roll of the book it is written
concerning Me--to do Thy will, O God.'"
010:008 After saying the words I have just quoted, "Sacrifices and
offerings or whole burnt-offerings and sin-offerings Thou hast
not desired or taken pleasure in"--all such being offered
in obedience to the Law--
010:009 He then adds, "I have come to do Thy will." He does away
with the first in order to establish the second.
010:010 It is through that divine will that we have been set free
from sin, through the offering of Jesus Christ as our sacrifice
once for all.
010:011 And while every priest stands ministering, day after day,
and constantly offering the same sacrifices--though such can
never rid us of our sins--
010:012 this Priest, on the contrary, after offering for sins
a single sacrifice of perpetual efficacy, took His seat
at God's right hand,
010:013 waiting from that time onward until His enemies be put as a
footstool under His feet.
010:014 For by a single offering He has for ever completed the blessing
for those whom He is setting free from sin.
010:015 And the Holy Spirit also gives us His testimony; for when
He had said,
010:016 "`This is the Covenant that I will make with them after those days,'
says the Lord: `I will put My laws upon their hearts and will
write them on their minds;'"
010:017 He adds, "And their sins and offences I will remember no longer."
010:018 But where these have been forgiven no further offering for
sin is required.
010:019 Since then, brethren, we have free access to the Holy place
through the blood of Jesus,
010:020 by the new and ever-living way which He opened up for us through
the rending of the veil--that is to say, of His earthly nature--
010:021 and since we have a great Priest who has authority over
the house of God,
010:022 let us draw near with sincerity and unfaltering faith,
having had our hearts sprinkled, once for all, from consciences
oppressed with sin, and our bodies bathed in pure water.
010:023 Let us hold firmly to an unflinching avowal of our hope,
for He is faithful who gave us the promises.
010:024 And let us bestow thought on one another with a view to arousing
one another to brotherly love and right conduct;
010:025 not neglecting--as some habitually do--to meet together,
but encouraging one another, and doing this all the more
since you can see the day of Christ approaching.
010:026 For if we wilfully persist in sin after having received the full
knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains in reserve
any other sacrifice for sins.
010:027 There remains nothing but a certain awful expectation of judgement,
and the fury of a fire which before long will devour the enemies
of the truth.
010:028 Any one who bids defiance to the Law of Moses is put to death
without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.
010:029 How much severer punishment, think you, will he be held to deserve
who has trampled under foot the Son of God, has not regarded
as holy that Covenant-blood with which he was set free from sin,
and has insulted the Spirit from whom comes grace?
010:030 For we know who it is that has said, "Vengeance belongs
to Me: I will pay back;" and again, "The Lord will be
His people's judge."
010:031 It is an awful thing to fall into the hands of the ever-living God.
010:032 But continually recall to mind the days now past, when on
being first enlightened you went through a great conflict
and many sufferings.
010:033 This was partly through allowing yourselves to be made
a public spectacle amid reproaches and persecutions,
and partly through coming forward to share the sufferings
of those who were thus treated.
010:034 For you not only showed sympathy with those who were imprisoned,
but you even submitted with joy when your property was taken
from you, being well aware that you have in your own selves
a more valuable possession and one which will remain.
010:035 Therefore do not cast from you your confident hope, for it
will receive a vast reward.
010:036 For you stand in need of patient endurance, so that,
as the result of having done the will of God, you may receive
the promised blessing.
010:037 For there is still but a short time and then "The coming One
will come and will not delay.
010:038 But it is by faith that My righteous servant shall live;
and if he shrinks back, My soul takes no pleasure in him."
010:039 But we are not people who shrink back and perish, but are among
those who believe and gain possession of their souls.
011:001 Now faith is a well-grounded assurance of that for which we hope,
and a conviction of the reality of things which we do not see.
011:002 For by it the saints of old won God's approval.
011:003 Through faith we understand that the worlds came into being,
and still exist, at the command of God, so that what is seen
does not owe its existence to that which is visible.
011:004 Through faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice
than Cain did, and through this faith he obtained testimony
that he was righteous, God giving the testimony by accepting
his gifts; and through it, though he is dead, he still speaks.
011:005 Through faith Enoch was taken from the earth so that he did
not see death, and he could not be found, because God
had taken him; for before he was taken we have evidence
that he truly pleased God.
011:006 But where there is no faith it is impossible truly to please Him;
for the man who draws near to God must believe that there
is a God and that He proves Himself a rewarder of those who
earnestly try to find Him.
011:007 Through faith Noah, being divinely taught about things as yet unseen,
reverently gave heed and built an ark for the safety of his family,
and by this act he condemned the world, and became an heir
of the righteousness which depends on faith.
011:008 Through faith Abraham, upon being called to leave home and go into
a land which he was soon to receive for an inheritance, obeyed;
and he went out, not knowing where he was going to.
011:009 Through faith he came and made his home for a time in a land
which had been promised to him, as if in a foreign country,
living in tents together with Isaac and Jacob, sharers with him
in the same promise;
011:010 for he continually looked forward to the city which has
the foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
011:011 Through faith even Sarah herself received strength to become
a mother--although she was past the time of life for this--
because she judged Him faithful who had given the promise.
011:012 And thus there sprang from one man, and him practically dead,
a nation like the stars of the sky in number, and like the sands
on the sea shore which cannot be counted.
011:013 All these died in the possession of faith. They had not received
the promised blessings, but had seen them from a distance
and had greeted them, and had acknowledged themselves to be
foreigners and strangers here on earth;
011:014 for men who acknowledge this make it manifest that they are
seeking elsewhere a country of their own.
011:015 And if they had cherished the remembrance of the country they
had left, they would have found an opportunity to return;
011:016 but, as it is, we see them eager for a better land, that is to say,
a heavenly one. For this reason God is not ashamed to be
called their God, for He has now prepared a city for them.
011:017 Through faith Abraham, as soon as God put him to the test,
offered up Isaac. Yes, he who had joyfully welcomed the promises
was on the point of sacrificing his only son
011:018 with regard to whom he had been told, "It is through Isaac
that your posterity shall be traced."
011:019 For he reckoned that God is even able to raise a man up from
among the dead, and, figuratively speaking, it was from among
the dead that he received Isaac again.
011:020 Through faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, even in connexion
with things soon to come.
011:021 Through faith Jacob, when dying, blessed each of Joseph's sons,
and, leaning on the top of his staff, worshipped God.
011:022 Through faith Joseph, when he was near his end, made mention
of the departure of the descendants of Israel, and gave orders
about his own body.
011:023 Through faith the child Moses was hid for three months by
his parents, because they saw his rare beauty; and the king's
edict had no terror for them.
011:024 Through faith Moses, when he grew to manhood, refused to be
known as Pharaoh's daughter's son,
011:025 having determined to endure ill-treatment along with the people
of God rather than enjoy the short-lived pleasures of sin;
011:026 because he deemed the reproaches which he might meet
with in the service of the Christ to be greater riches
than all the treasures of Egypt; for he fixed his gaze on
the coming reward.
011:027 Through faith he left Egypt, not being frightened by the king's anger;
for he held on his course as seeing the unseen One.
011:028 Through faith he instituted the Passover, and the sprinkling
with blood so that the destroyer of the firstborn might not
touch the Israelites.
011:029 Through faith they passed through the Red Sea as though they
were passing over dry land, but the Egyptians, when they
tried to do the same, were swallowed up.
011:030 Through faith the walls of Jericho fell to the ground after
being surrounded for seven days.
011:031 Through faith the notorious sinner Rahab did not perish
along with the disobedient, for she had welcomed the spies
and had sheltered them.
011:032 And why need I say more? For time will fail me if I tell
the story of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, and of David
and Samuel and the Prophets;
011:033 men who, as the result of faith, conquered whole kingdoms,
brought about true justice, obtained promises from God,
stopped lions' mouths,
011:034 deprived fire of its power, escaped being killed by the sword,
out of weakness were made strong, became mighty in war,
put to flight foreign armies.
011:035 Women received back their dear ones alive from the dead;
and others were put to death with torture, refusing the deliverance
offered to them--that they might secure a better resurrection.
011:036 Others again were tested by cruel mockery and by scourging;
yes, and by chains and imprisonment.
011:037 They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, they were
tried by temptation, they were killed with the sword.
They went from place to place in sheepskins or goatskins,
enduring want, oppression and cruelty.
011:038 (They were men of whom the world was not worthy.)
They wandered across deserts and mountains, or hid themselves
in caves and in holes in the ground.
011:039 And although by their faith all these people won God's approval,
none of them received the fulfilment of His great promise;
011:040 for God had provided for them and us something better, so that
apart from us they were not to attain to full blessedness.
012:001 Therefore, surrounded as we are by such a vast cloud of witnesses,
let us fling aside every encumbrance and the sin that so readily
entangles our feet. And let us run with patient endurance
the race that lies before us,
012:002 simply fixing our gaze upon Jesus, our Prince Leader in the faith,
who will also award us the prize. He, for the sake of the joy
which lay before Him, patiently endured the cross, looking with
contempt upon its shame, and afterwards seated Himself--
where He still sits--at the right hand of the throne of God.
012:003 Therefore, if you would escape becoming weary and faint-hearted,
compare your own sufferings with those of Him who endured
such hostility directed against Him by sinners.
012:004 In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted so as
to endanger your lives;
012:005 and you have quite forgotten the encouraging words which are
addressed to you as sons, and which say, "My son, do not
think lightly of the Lord's discipline, and do not faint
when He corrects you;
012:006 for those whom the Lord loves He disciplines: and He scourges
every son whom He acknowledges."
012:007 The sufferings that you are enduring are for your discipline.
God is dealing with you as sons; for what son is there whom
his father does not discipline?
012:008 And if you are left without discipline, of which every true
son has had a share, that shows that you are bastards,
and not true sons.
012:009 Besides this, our earthly fathers used to discipline us and we
treated them with respect, and shall we not be still more
submissive to the Father of our spirits, and live?
012:010 It is true that they disciplined us for a few years according
as they thought fit; but He does it for our certain good,
in order that we may become sharers in His own holy character.
012:011 Now, at the time, discipline seems to be a matter not for joy,
but for grief; yet it afterwards yields to those who have passed
through its training a result full of peace--namely, righteousness.
012:012 Therefore strengthen the drooping hands and paralysed knees,
012:013 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame
may not be put entirely out of joint
012:014 but may rather be restored. |
10,240 |
Produced by Michael Castelluccio
POEMS OF PAUL VERLAINE
By Paul Verlaine
Translated by Gertrude Hall
Pictured by Henry McCarter
[Illustration: "Portrait of Paul Verlaine"]
Contents
I. FETES GALANTES
Clair de Lune
Sur L'Herbe
L'Allee
A la Promenade
Le Faune
Mandoline
L'Amour Par Terre
En Sourdine
Colloque Sentimental
II. LA BONNE CHANSON
Since Shade Relents, Since 'Tis Indeed the Day
Before Your Light Quite Fail
O'er the Wood's Brow
The Scene Behind the Carriage Windowpanes
The Rosy Hearth, The Lamplight's Narrow Beam
It Shall Be, Then, Upon a Summer's Day
III. ROMANCES SANS PAROLES
ARIETTES OUBLIEES
It Weeps In My Heart
The Keyboard, Over Which Two Slim Hands Float
O Heavy, Heavy My Despair
The Trees' Reflection in the Misty Stream
PAYSAGES BELGES
Bruxelles
BIRDS IN THE NIGHT
You Were Not Over-patient with Me, Dear
But You Will Own That I was in the Right
And Wherefore Should I Lay My Heartwounds Bare?
Now I Do Not Intend--What Were the Gain?
I See You Still. I Softly Pushed the door
I See You Still. I Softly Dressed in a Summer Dress
Some Moments I'm the Tempest-driven Bark
AQUARELLES
Green
Spleen
Streets
IV. SAGESSE
What Sayst Thou, Traveller, Of All Thou Saw'st Afar?
The False Fair Days
Give Ear Unto the Gentle Lay
I've Seen Again the One Child: Verily
"Son, Thou Must Love Me!--See-" My Saviour Said
Hope Shines--As in a Stable a Wisp of Straw
Sleep, Darksome, Deep
The Sky-Blue Smiles Above the Roof
It Is You, It Is You, Poor Better Thoughts
'Tis the Feast of Corn, 'Tis the Feast of Bread
V. JADIS ET NAGUERE
JADIS
Prologue
Langueur
NAGUERE
Prologue
VI. PARALLELEMENT
Impression Fausse
VII. POEMES SATURNIENS
Prologue
MELANCHOLIA
Nevermore
Apres Trois Ans
Mon Reve Familier
A Une Femme
PAYSAGES TRISTES
Chanson D'Automne
Le Rossignol
CAPRICES
Il Bacio
EPILOGUE
Fetes Galantes
[Illustration: "Clair De Lune"]
CLAIR DE LUNE.
Your soul is as a moonlit landscape fair,
Peopled with maskers delicate and dim,
That play on lutes and dance and have an air
Of being sad in their fantastic trim.
The while they celebrate in minor strain
Triumphant love, effective enterprise,
They have an air of knowing all is vain,--
And through the quiet moonlight their songs rise,
The melancholy moonlight, sweet and lone,
That makes to dream the birds upon the tree,
And in their polished basins of white stone
The fountains tall to sob with ecstasy.
SUR L'HERBE.
"The abbe rambles."--"You, marquis,
Have put your wig on all awry."--
"This wine of Cyprus kindles me
Less, my Camargo, than your eye!"
"My passion"--"Do, mi, sol, la, si."--
"Abbe, your villany lies bare."--
"Mesdames, I climb up yonder tree
And fetch a star down, I declare."
"Let each kiss his own lady, then
The others."--"Would that I were, too,
A lap-dog!"--"Softly, gentlemen!"--
"Do, mi."--"The moon!"--"Hey, how d'ye do?"
L' ALLEE.
Powdered and rouged as in the sheepcotes' day,
Fragile'mid her enormous ribbon bows,
Along the shaded alley, where green grows
The moss on the old seats, she wends her way
With mincing graces and affected airs,
Such as more oft a petted parrot wears.
Her long gown with the train is blue; the fan
She spreads between her jewelled fingers slim
Is merry with a love-scene, of so dim
Suggestion, her eyes smile the while they scan.
Blonde; dainty nose; plump, cherry lips, divine
With pride unconscious.--Subtler, certainly,
Than is the mouche there set to underline
The rather foolish brightness of the eye.
A LA PROMENADE.
The milky sky, the hazy, slender trees,
Seem smiling on the light costumes we wear,--
Our gauzy floating veils that have an air
Of wings, our satins fluttering in the breeze.
And in the marble bowl the ripples gleam,
And through the lindens of the avenue
The sifted golden sun comes to us blue
And dying, like the sunshine of a dream.
Exquisite triflers and deceivers rare,
Tender of heart, but little tied by vows,
Deliciously we dally 'neath the boughs,
And playfully the lovers plague the fair.
Receiving, should they overstep a point,
A buffet from a hand absurdly small,
At which upon a gallant knee they fall
To kiss the little finger's littlest joint.
And as this is a shocking liberty,
A frigid glance rewards the daring swain,--
Not quite o'erbalancing with its disdain
The red mouth's reassuring clemency.
LE FAUNE.
An ancient terra-cotta Faun,
A laughing note in'mid the green,
Grins at us from the central lawn,
With secret and sarcastic mien.
It is that he foresees, perchance,
A bad end to the moments dear
That with gay music and light dance
Have led us, pensive pilgrims, here.
MANDOLINE.
The courtly serenaders,
The beauteous listeners,
Sit idling 'neath the branches
A balmy zephyr stirs.
It's Tircis and Aminta,
Clitandre,--ever there!--
Damis, of melting sonnets
To many a frosty fair.
Their trailing flowery dresses,
Their fine beflowered coats,
Their elegance and lightness,
And shadows blue,--all floats
And mingles,--circling, wreathing,
In moonlight opaline,
While through the zephyr's harping
Tinkles the mandoline.
L'AMOUR PAR TERRE
The wind the other night blew down the Love
That in the dimmest corner of the park
So subtly used to smile, bending his arc,
And sight of whom did us so deeply move
One day! The other night's wind blew him down!
The marble dust whirls in the morning breeze.
Oh, sad to view, o'erblotted by the trees,
There on the base, the name of great renown!
Oh, sad to view the empty pedestal!
And melancholy fancies come and go
Across my dream, whereon a day of woe
Foreshadowed is--I know what will befall!
Oh, sad!--And you are saddened also, Sweet,
Are not you, by this scene? although your eye
Pursues the gold and purple butterfly
That flutters o'er the wreck strewn at our feet.
[Illustration: "En Sourdine"]
EN SOURDINE
Tranquil in the twilight dense
By the spreading branches made,
Let us breathe the influence
Of the silence and the shade.
Let your heart melt into mine,
And your soul reach out to me,
'Mid the languors of the pine
And the sighing arbute-tree.
Close your eyes, your hands let be
Folded on your slumbering heart,
From whose hold all treachery
Drive forever, and all art.
Let us with the hour accord!
Let us let the gentle wind,
Rippling in the sunburnt sward,
Bring us to a patient mind!
And when Night across the air
Shall her solemn shadow fling,
Touching voice of our despair,
Long the nightingale shall sing.
COLLOQUE SENTIMENTAL
In the deserted park, silent and vast,
Erewhile two shadowy glimmering figures passed.
Their lips were colorless, and dead their eyes;
Their words were scarce more audible than sighs.
In the deserted park, silent and vast,
Two spectres conjured up the buried past.
"Our ancient ecstasy, do you recall?"
"Why, pray, should I remember it at all?"
"Does still your heart at mention of me glow?
Do still you see my soul in slumber?" "No!"
"Ah, blessed, blissful days when our lips met!
You loved me so!" "Quite likely,--I forget."
"How sweet was hope, the sky how blue and fair!"
"The sky grew black, the hope became despair."
Thus walked they'mid the frozen weeds, these dead,
And Night alone o'erheard the things they said.
La Bonne Chanson
SINCE SHADE RELENTS
Since shade relents, since 'tis indeed the day,
Since hope I long had deemed forever flown,
Wings back to me that call on her and pray,
Since so much joy consents to be my own,--
The dark designs all I relinquish here,
And all the evil dreams. Ah, done am I
Above all with the narrowed lips, the sneer,
The heartless wit that laughed where one should sigh.
Away, clenched fist and bosom's angry swell,
That knave and fool at every turn abound.
Away, hard unforgivingness! Farewell,
Oblivion in a hated brewage found!
For I mean, now a Being of the Morn
Has shed across my night excelling rays
Of love at once immortal and newborn,--
By favor of her smile, her glance, her grace,
I mean by you upheld, O gentle hand,
Wherein mine trembles,--led, sweet eyes, by you,
To walk straight, lie the path o'er mossy land
Or barren waste that rocks and pebbles strew.
Yes, calm I mean to walk through life, and straight,
Patient of all, unanxious of the goal,
Void of all envy, violence, or hate
It shall be duty done with cheerful soul.
And as I may, to lighten the long way,
Go singing airs ingenuous and brave,
She'll listen to me graciously, I say,--
And, verily, no other heaven I crave.
[Illustration: "Avant Que Tu T'en Ailles."]
BEFORE YOUR LIGHT QUITE FAIL
Before your light quite fail,
Already paling star,
(The quail
Sings in the thyme afar!)
Turn on the poet's eyes
That love makes overrun--
(See rise
The lark to meet the sun!)
Your glance, that presently
Must drown in the blue morn;
(What glee
Amid the rustling corn!)
Then flash my message true
Down yonder,--far away!--
(The dew
Lies sparkling on the hay.)
Across what visions seek
The Dear One slumbering still.
(Quick, quick!
The sun has reached the hill!)
O'ER THE WOOD'S BROW
O'er the wood's brow,
Pale, the moon stares;
In every bough
Wandering airs
Faintly suspire....
O heart's-desire!
Two willow-trees
Waver and weep,
One in the breeze,
One in the deep
Glass of the stream....
Dream we our dream!
An infinite
Resignedness
Rains where the white
Mists opalesce
In the moon-shower....
Stay, perfect hour!
THE SCENE BEHIND THE CARRIAGE WINDOW-PANES
The scene behind the carriage window-panes
Goes flitting past in furious flight; whole plains
With streams and harvest-fields and trees and blue
Are swallowed by the whirlpool, whereinto
The telegraph's slim pillars topple o'er,
Whose wires look strangely like a music-score.
A smell of smoke and steam, a horrid din
As of a thousand clanking chains that pin
A thousand giants that are whipped and howl,--
And, suddenly, long hoots as of an owl.
What is it all to me? Since in mine eyes
The vision lingers that beatifies,
Since still the soft voice murmurs in mine ear,
And since the Name, so sweet, so high, so dear,
Pure pivot of this madding whirl, prevails
Above the brutal clangor of the rails?
THE ROSY HEARTH, THE LAMPLIGHT'S NARROW BEAM
The rosy hearth, the lamplight's narrow beam,
The meditation that is rather dream,
With looks that lose themselves in cherished looks;
The hour of steaming tea and banished books;
The sweetness of the evening at an end,
The dear fatigue, and right to rest attained,
And worshipped expectation of the night,--
Oh, all these things, in unrelenting flight,
My dream pursues through all the vain delays,
Impatient of the weeks, mad at the days!
IT SHALL BE, THEN, UPON A SUMMER'S DAY
It shall be, then, upon a summer's day:
The sun, my joy's accomplice, bright shall shine,
And add, amid your silk and satin fine,
To your dear radiance still another ray;
The heavens, like a sumptuous canopy,
Shall shake out their blue folds to droop and trail
About our happy brows, that shall be pale
With so much gladness, such expectancy;
And when day closes, soft shall be the air
That in your snowy veils, caressing, plays,
And with soft-smiling eyes the stars shall gaze
Benignantly upon the wedded pair.
Romances sans Paroles
Ariettes Oubliees
Il pleut doucement sur la ville.--ARTHUR RIMBAUD
It weeps in my heart
As it rains on the town.
What is this dull smart
Possessing my heart?
Soft sound of the rain
On the ground and the roofs!
To a heart in pain,
O the song of the rain!
It weeps without cause
In my heart-sick heart.
In her faith, what? no flaws?
This grief has no cause.
'Tis sure the worst woe
To know not wherefore
My heart suffers so
Without joy or woe.
Son joyeux, importun, d'un clavecin sonore.--PETRUS BOREL
The keyboard, over which two slim hands float,
Shines vaguely in the twilight pink and gray,
Whilst with a sound like wings, note after note
Takes flight to form a pensive little lay
That strays, discreet and charming, faint, remote,
About the room where perfumes of Her stray.
What is this sudden quiet cradling me
To that dim ditty's dreamy rise and fall?
What do you want with me, pale melody?
What is it that you want, ghost musical
That fade toward the window waveringly
A little open on the garden small?
[Illustration: "Le Piano Que Baise Une Main Frele"]
Oh, heavy, heavy my despair,
Because, because of One so fair.
My misery knows no allay,
Although my heart has come away.
Although my heart, although my soul,
Have fled the fatal One's control.
My misery knows no allay,
Although my heart has come away.
My heart, the too, too feeling one,
Says to my soul, "Can it be done,
"Can it be done, too feeling heart,
That we from her shall live apart?"
My soul says to my heart, "Know I
What this strange pitfall should imply,
"That we, though far from her, are near,
Yea, present, though in exile here?"
Le rossignol qui du haut d'une branche se regarde
dedans, croit etre tombe dans la riviere. Il est au sommet
d'un chene, et toutefois il a peur de se noyer.
CYRANO DE BERGERAC.
The trees' reflection in the misty stream
Dies off in livid steam;
Whilst up among the actual boughs, forlorn,
The tender wood-doves mourn.
How wan the face, O traveller, this wan
Gray landscape looked upon;
And how forlornly in the high tree-tops
Lamented thy drowned hopes!
Paysages Belges
BRUXELLES
Hills and fences hurry by
Blent in greenish-rosy flight,
And the yellow carriage-light
Blurs all to the half-shut eye.
Slowly turns the gold to red
O'er the humble darkening vales;
Little trees that flatly spread,
Where some feeble birdling wails.
Scarcely sad, so mild and fair
This enfolding Autumn seems;
All my moody languor dreams,
Cradled by the gentle air.
Birds in the Night
I
You were not over-patient with me, dear;
This want of patience one must rightly rate:
You are so young! Youth ever was severe
And variable and inconsiderate!
You had not all the needful kindness, no;
Nor should one be amazed, unhappily:
You're very young, cold sister mine, and so
'Tis natural you should unfeeling be!
Behold me therefore ready to forgive;
Not gay, of course! but doing what I can
To bear up bravely,--deeply though I grieve
To be, through you, the most unhappy man.
II
But you will own that I was in the right
When in my downcast moods I used to say
That your sweet eyes, my hope, once, and delight!
Were come to look like eyes that will betray.
It was an evil lie, you used to swear,
And your glance, which was lying, dear, would flame,--
Poor fire, near out, one stirs to make it flare!--
And in your soft voice you would say, "Je t'aime!"
Alas! that one should clutch at happiness
In sense's, season's, everything's despite!--
But 'twas an hour of gleeful bitterness
When I became convinced that I was right!
III
And wherefore should I lay my heart-wounds bare?
You love me not,--an end there, lady mine;
And as I do not choose that one shall dare
To pity,--I must suffer without sign.
Yes, suffer! For I loved you well, did I,--
But like a loyal soldier will I stand
Till, hurt to death, he staggers off to die,
Still filled with love for an ungrateful land.
O you that were my Beauty and my Own,
Although from you derive all my mischance,
Are not you still my Home, then, you alone,
As young and mad and beautiful as France?
IV
Now I do not intend--what were the gain?--
To dwell with streaming eyes upon the past;
But yet my love which you may think lies slain,
Perhaps is only wide awake at last.
My love, perhaps,--which now is memory!--
Although beneath your blows it cringe and cry
And bleed to will, and must, as I foresee,
Still suffer long and much before it die,--
Judges you justly when it seems aware
Of some not all banal compunction,
And of your memory in its despair
Reproaching you, "Ah, fi! it was ill done!"
V
I see you still. I softly pushed the door--
As one o'erwhelmed with weariness you lay;
But O light body love should soon restore,
You bounded up, tearful at once and gay.
O what embraces, kisses sweet and wild!
Myself, from brimming eyes I laughed to you
Those moments, among all, O lovely child,
Shall be my saddest, but my sweetest, too.
I will remember your smile, your caress,
Your eyes, so kind that day,--exquisite snare!--
Yourself, in fine, whom else I might not bless,
Only as they appeared, not as they were.
VI
I see you still! Dressed in a summer dress,
Yellow and white, bestrewn with curtain-flowers;
But you had lost the glistening laughingness
Of our delirious former loving hours.
The eldest daughter and the little wife
Spoke plainly in your bearing's least detail,--
Already 'twas, alas! our altered life
That stared me from behind your dotted veil.
Forgiven be! And with no little pride
I treasure up,--and you, no doubt, see why,--
Remembrance of the lightning to one side
That used to flash from your indignant eye!
VII
Some moments, I'm the tempest-driven bark
That runs dismasted mid the hissing spray,
And seeing not Our Lady through the dark
Makes ready to be drowned, and kneels to pray.
Some moments, I'm the sinner at his end,
That knows his doom if he unshriven go,
And losing hope of any ghostly friend,
Sees Hell already gape, and feels it glow.
Oh, but! Some moments, I've the spirit stout
Of early Christians in the lion's care,
That smile to Jesus witnessing, without
A nerve's revolt, the turning of a hair!
Aquarelles
GREEN
See, blossoms, branches, fruit, leaves I have brought,
And then my heart that for you only sighs;
With those white hands of yours, oh, tear it not,
But let the poor gift prosper in your eyes.
The dew upon my hair is still undried,--
The morning wind strikes chilly where it fell.
Suffer my weariness here at your side
To dream the hour that shall it quite dispel.
Allow my head, that rings and echoes still
With your last kiss, to lie upon your breast,
Till it recover from the stormy thrill,--
And let me sleep a little, since you rest.
SPLEEN
The roses were so red, so red,
The ivies altogether black.
If you but merely turn your head,
Beloved, all my despairs come back!
The sky was over-sweet and blue,
Too melting green the sea did show.
I always fear,--if you but knew!--
From your dear hand some killing blow.
Weary am I of holly-tree
And shining box and waving grass
Upon the tame unending lea,--
And all and all but you, alas!
STREETS
Let's dance the jig!
Above all else I loved her eyes,
More clear than stars of cloudless skies,
And arch and mischievous and wise.
Let's dance the jig!
So skilfully would she proceed
To make a lover's bare heart bleed,
That it was beautiful indeed!
Let's dance the jig!
But keenlier have I relished
The kisses of her mouth so red
Since to my heart she has been dead.
Let's dance the jig!
The circumstances great and small,--
Words, moments... I recall, recall
It is my treasure among all.
Let's dance the jig!
Sagesse
WHAT SAYST THOU, TRAVELLER, OF ALL THOU SAW'ST AFAR?
What sayst thou, traveller, of all thou saw'st afar?
On every tree hangs boredom, ripening to its fall,
Didst gather it, thou smoking yon thy sad cigar,
Black, casting an incongruous shadow on the wall?
Thine eyes are just as dead as ever they have been,
Unchanged is thy grimace, thy dolefulness is one,
Thou mind'st one of the wan moon through the rigging seen,
The wrinkled sea beneath the golden morning sun,
The ancient graveyard with new gravestones every day,--
But, come, regale us with appropriate detail,
Those disillusions weeping at the fountains, say,
Those new disgusts, just like their brothers, littered stale,
Those women! Say the glare, the identical dismay
Of ugliness and evil, always, in all lands,
And say Love, too,--and Politics, moreover, say,
With ink-dishonored blood upon their shameless hands.
And then, above all else, neglect not to recite
Thy proper feats, thou dragging thy simplicity
Wherever people love, wherever people fight,
In such a sad and foolish kind, in verity!
Has that dull innocence been punished as it should?
What say'st thou? Man is hard,--but woman? And thy tears,
Who has been drinking? And into what ear so good
Dost pour thy woes for it to pour in other ears?
Ah, others! ah, thyself! Gulled with such curious ease,
That used to dream (Doth not the soul with laughter fill?)
One knows not what poetic, delicate decease,--
Thou sort of angel with the paralytic will!
But now what are thy plans, thine aims? Art thou of might?
Or has long shedding tears disqualified thy heart?
The tree is scarcely hardy, judging it at sight,
And by thy looks no topping conqueror thou art.
So awkward, too! With the additional offence
Of being now a sort of dazed idyllic bard
That poses in a window, contemplating thence
The silly noon-day sky with an impressed regard.
So totally the same in this extreme decay!
But in thy place a being with some sense, pardy,
Would wish at least to lead the dance, since he must pay
The fiddlers,--at some risk of flutt'ring passers-by!
Canst not, by rummaging within thy consciousness,
Find some bright vice to bare, as 't were a flashing sword?
Some gay, audacious vice, which wield with dexterousness,
And make to shine, and shoot red lightnings Heavenward!
Hast one, or more? If more, the better! And plunge in,
And bravely lay about thee, indiscriminate,
And wear that face of indolence that masks the grin
Of hate at once full-feasted and insatiate.
Not well to be a dupe in this good universe,
Where there is nothing to allure in happiness
Save in it wriggle aught of shameful and perverse,--
And not to be a dupe, one must be merciless!
--Ah, human wisdom, ah, new things have claimed mine eyes,
And of that past--of weary recollection!--
Thy voice described, for still more sinister advice,
All I remember is the evil I have done.
In all the curious movements of my sad career,
Of others and myself, the chequered road I trod,
Of my accounted sorrows, good and evil cheer,
I nothing have retained except the grace of God!
If I am punished, 'tis most fit I should be so;
Played to its end is mortal man's and woman's role,--
But steadfastly I hope I too one day shall know
The peace and pardon promised every Christian soul.
Well not to be a dupe in this world of a day,
But not to be one in the world that hath no end,
That which it doth behoove the soul to be and stay
Is merciful, not merciless,--deluded friend.
THE FALSE FAIR DAYS
The false fair days have flamed the livelong day,
And still they flicker in the brazen West.
Cast down thine eyes, poor soul, shut out the unblest:
A deadliest temptation. Come away.
All day they flashed in flakes of fire, that lay
The vintage low upon the hill's green breast,
The harvest low,--and o'er that faithfullest,
The blue sky ever beckoning, shed dismay.
Oh, clasp thy hands, grow pale, and turn again!
If all the future savoured of the past?
If the old insanity were on its way?
Those memories, must each anew be slain?
One fierce assault, the best, no doubt, the last!
Go pray against the gathering storm, go pray!
GIVE EAR UNTO THE GENTLE LAY
Give ear unto the gentle lay
That's only sad that it may please;
It is discreet, and light it is:
A whiff of wind o'er buds in May.
The voice was known to you (and dear?),
But it is muffled latterly
As is a widow,--still, as she
It doth its sorrow proudly bear,
And through the sweeping mourning veil
That in the gusts of Autumn blows,
Unto the heart that wonders, shows
Truth like a star now flash, now fail.
It says,--the voice you knew again!--
That kindness, goodness is our life,
And that of envy, hatred, strife,
When death is come, shall naught remain.
It says how glorious to be
Like children, without more delay,
The tender gladness it doth say
Of peace not bought with victory.
Accept the voice,--ah, hear the whole
Of its persistent, artless strain:
Naught so can soothe a soul's own pain,
As making glad another soul!
It pines in bonds but for a day,
The soul that without murmur bears....
How unperplexed, how free it fares!
Oh, listen to the gentle lay!
I'VE SEEN AGAIN THE ONE CHILD: VERILY
I've seen again the One child: verily,
I felt the last wound open in my breast,
The last, whose perfect torture doth attest
That on some happy day I too shall die!
Good icy arrow, piercing thoroughly!
Most timely came it from their dreams to wrest
The sluggish scruples laid too long to rest,--
And all my Christian blood hymned fervently.
I still hear, still I see! O worshipped rule
Of God! I know at last how comfortful
To hear and see! I see, I hear alway!
O innocence, O hope! Lowly and mild,
How I shall love you, sweet hands of my child,
Whose task shall be to close our eyes one day!
"SON, THOU MUST LOVE ME! SEE--" MY SAVIOUR SAID
"Son, thou must love me! See--" my Saviour said,
"My heart that glows and bleeds, my wounded side,
My hurt feet that the Magdalene, wet-eyed,
Clasps kneeling, and my tortured arms outspread
"To bear thy sins. Look on the cross, stained red!
The nails, the sponge, that, all, thy soul shall guide
To love on earth where flesh thrones in its pride,
My Body and Blood alone, thy Wine and Bread.
"Have I not loved thee even unto death,
O brother mine, son in the Holy Ghost?
Have I not suffered, as was writ I must,
"And with thine agony sobbed out my breath?
Hath not thy nightly sweat bedewed my brow,
O lamentable friend that seek'st me now?"
[Illustration: "Mon Dieu M'a Dit."]
HOPE SHINES--AS IN A STABLE A WISP OF STRAW
Hope shines--as in a stable a wisp of straw.
Fear not the wasp drunk with his crazy flight!
Through some chink always, see, the moted light!
Propped on your hand, you dozed--But let me draw
Cool water from the well for you, at least,
Poor soul! There, drink! Then sleep. See, I remain,
And I will sing a slumberous refrain,
And you shall murmur like a child appeased.
Noon strikes. Approach not, Madam, pray, or call....
He sleeps. Strange how a woman's light footfall
Re-echoes through the brains of grief-worn men!
Noon strikes. I bade them sprinkle in the room.
Sleep on! Hope shines--a pebble in the gloom.
--When shall the Autumn rose re-blossom,--when?
SLEEP, DARKSOME, DEEP
Sleep, darksome, deep,
Doth on me fall:
Vain hopes all, sleep,
Sleep, yearnings all!
Lo, I grow blind!
Lo, right and wrong
Fade to my mind....
O sorry song!
A cradle, I,
Rocked in a grave:
Speak low, pass by,
Silence I crave!
[Illustration: Le Ciel et Les Toits.]
THE SKY-BLUE SMILES ABOVE THE ROOF
The sky-blue smiles above the roof
Its tenderest;
A green tree rears above the roof
Its waving crest.
The church-bell in the windless sky
Peaceably rings,
A skylark soaring in the sky
Endlessly sings.
My God, my God, all life is there,
Simple and sweet;
The soothing bee-hive murmur there
Comes from the street!
What have you done, O you that weep
In the glad sun,--
Say, with your youth, you man that weep,
What have you done?
IT IS YOU
It is you, it is you, poor better thoughts!
The needful hope, shame for the ancient blots,
Heart's gentleness with mind's severity,
And vigilance, and calm, and constancy,
And all!--But slow as yet, though well awake;
Though sturdy, shy; scarce able yet to break
The spell of stifling night and heavy dreams.
One comes after the other, and each seems
Uncouther, and all fear the moonlight cold.
"Thus, sheep when first they issue from the fold,
Come,--one, then two, then three. The rest delay,
With lowered heads, in stupid, wondering way,
Waiting to do as does the one that leads.
He stops, they stop in turn, and lay their heads
Across his back, simply, not knowing why."*
Your shepherd, O my fair flock, is not I,--
It is a better, better far, who knows
The reasons, He that so long kept you close,
But timely with His own hand set you free.
Him follow,--light His staff. And I shall be,
Beneath his voice still raised to comfort you,
I shall be, I, His faithful dog, and true.
* Dante, Purgatorio.
'TIS THE FEAST OF CORN
'Tis the feast of corn, 'tis the feast of bread,
On the dear scene returned to, witnessed again!
So white is the light o'er the reapers shed
Their shadows fall pink on the level grain.
The stalked gold drops to the whistling flight
Of the scythes, whose lightning dives deep, leaps clear;
The plain, labor-strewn to the confines of sight,
Changes face at each instant, gay and severe.
All pants, all is effort and toil 'neath the sun,
The stolid old sun, tranquil ripener of wheat,
Who works o'er our haste imperturbably on
To swell the green grape yon, turning it sweet.
Work on, faithful sun, for the bread and the wine,
Feed man with the milk of the earth, and bestow
The frank glass wherein unconcern laughs divine,--
Ye harvesters, vintagers, work on, aglow!
For from the flour's fairest, and from the vine's best,
Fruit of man's strength spread to earth's uttermost,
God gathers and reaps, to His purposes blest,
The Flesh and the Blood for the chalice and host!
Jadis et Naguere
Jadis
PROLOGUE
Off, be off, now, graceless pack:
Get you gone, lost children mine:
Your release is earned in fine:
The Chimaera lends her back.
Huddling on her, go, God-sped,
As a dream-horde crowds and cowers
Mid the shadowy curtain-flowers
Round a sick man's haunted bed.
Hold! My hand, unfit before,
Feeble still, but feverless,
And which palpitates no more
Save with a desire to bless,
Blesses you, O little flies
Of my black suns and white nights.
Spread your rustling wings, arise,
Little griefs, little delights,
Hopes, despairs, dreams foul and fair,
All!--renounced since yesterday
By my heart that quests elsewhere....
Ite, aegri somnia!
LANGUEUR
I am the Empire in the last of its decline,
That sees the tall, fair-haired Barbarians pass,--the while
Composing indolent acrostics, in a style
Of gold, with languid sunshine dancing in each line.
The solitary soul is heart-sick with a vile
Ennui. Down yon, they say, War's torches bloody shine.
Alas, to be so faint of will, one must resign
The chance of brave adventure in the splendid file,--
Of death, perchance! Alas, so lagging in desire!
Ah, all is drunk! Bathyllus, hast done laughing, pray?
Ah, all is drunk,--all eaten! Nothing more to say!
Alone, a vapid verse one tosses in the fire;
Alone, a somewhat thievish slave neglecting one;
Alone, a vague disgust of all beneath the sun!
Naguere
[Illustration: "Crepuscule du Soir Mystique."]
PROLOGUE
Glimm'ring twilight things are these,
Visions of the end of night.
Truth, thou lightest them, I wis,
Only with a distant light,
Whitening through the hated shade
In such grudging dim degrees,
One must doubt if they be made
By the moon among the trees,
Or if these uncertain ghosts
Shall take body bye and bye,
And uniting with the hosts
Tented by the azure sky,
Framed by Nature's setting meet,--
Offer up in one accord
From the heart's ecstatic heat,
Incense to the living Lord!
Parallelement
IMPRESSION FAUSSE
Dame mouse patters
Black against the shadow grey;
Dame mouse patters
Grey against the black.
Hear the bed-time bell!
Sleep forthwith, good prisoners;
Hear the bed-time bell!
You must go to sleep.
No disturbing dream!
Think of nothing but your loves:
No disturbing dream,
Of the fair ones think!
Moonlight clear and bright!
Some one of the neighbors snores;
Moonlight clear and bright--
He is troublesome.
Comes a pitchy cloud
Creeping o'er the faded moon;
Comes a pitchy cloud--
See the grey dawn creep!
Dame mouse patters
Pink across an azure ray;
Dame mouse patters....
Sluggards, up! 'tis day!
Poemes Saturniens
PROLOGUE
The Sages of old time, well worth our own,
Believed--and it has been disproved by none--
That destinies in Heaven written are,
And every soul depends upon a star.
(Many have mocked, without remembering
That laughter oft is a misguiding thing,
This explanation of night's mystery.)
Now all that born beneath Saturnus be,--
Red planet, to the necromancer dear,--
Inherit, ancient magic-books make clear,
Good share of spleen, good share of wretchedness.
Imagination, wakeful, vigorless,
In them makes the resolves of reason vain.
The blood within them, subtle as a bane,
Burning as lava, scarce, flows ever fraught
With sad ideals that ever come to naught.
Such must Saturnians suffer, such must die,--
If so that death destruction doth imply,--
Their lives being ordered in this dismal sense
By logic of a malign Influence.
Melancholia
NEVERMORE
Remembrance, what wilt thou with me? The year
Declined; in the still air the thrush piped clear,
The languid sunshine did incurious peer
Among the thinned leaves of the forest sere.
We were alone, and pensively we strolled,
With straying locks and fancies, when, behold
Her turn to let her thrilling gaze enfold,
And ask me in her voice of living gold,
Her fresh young voice, "What was thy happiest day?"
I smiled discreetly for all answer, and
Devotedly I kissed her fair white hand.
--Ah, me! The earliest flowers, how sweet are they!
And in how exquisite a whisper slips
The earliest "Yes" from well-beloved lips!
APRES TROIS ANS
When I had pushed the narrow garden-door,
Once more I stood within the green retreat;
Softly the morning sunshine lighted it,
And every flow'r a humid spangle wore.
Nothing is changed. I see it all once more:
The vine-clad arbor with its rustic seat....
The waterjet still plashes silver sweet,
The ancient aspen rustles as of yore.
The roses throb as in a bygone day,
As they were wont, the tall proud lilies sway.
Each bird that lights and twitters is a friend.
I even found the Flora standing yet,
Whose plaster crumbles at the alley's end,
--Slim,'mid the foolish scent of mignonette.
MON REVE FAMILIER
Oft do I dream this strange and penetrating dream:
An unknown woman, whom I love, who loves me well,
Who does not every time quite change, nor yet quite dwell
The same,--and loves me well, and knows me as I am.
For she knows me! My heart, clear as a crystal beam
To her alone, ceases to be inscrutable
To her alone, and she alone knows to dispel
My grief, cooling my brow with her tears' gentle stream.
Is she of favor dark or fair?--I do not know.
Her name? All I remember is that it doth flow
Softly, as do the names of them we loved and lost.
Her eyes are like the statues',--mild and grave and wide;
And for her voice she has as if it were the ghost
Of other voices,--well-loved voices that have died.
A UNE FEMME
To you these lines for the consoling grace
Of your great eyes wherein a soft dream shines,
For your pure soul, all-kind!--to you these lines
From the black deeps of mine unmatched distress.
'Tis that the hideous dream that doth oppress
My soul, alas! its sad prey ne'er resigns,
But like a pack of wolves down mad inclines
Goes gathering heat upon my reddened trace!
I suffer, oh, I suffer cruelly!
So that the first man's cry at Eden lost
Was but an eclogue surely to my cry!
And that the sorrows, Dear, that may have crossed
Your life, are but as swallows light that fly
--Dear!--in a golden warm September sky.
Paysages Tristes
CHANSON D'AUTOMNE
Leaf-strewing gales
Utter low wails
Like violins,--
Till on my soul
Their creeping dole
Stealthily wins....
Days long gone by!
In such hour, I,
Choking and pale,
Call you to mind,--
Then like the wind
Weep I and wail.
And, as by wind
Harsh and unkind,
Driven by grief,
Go I, here, there,
Recking not where,
Like the dead leaf.
LE ROSSIGNOL
Like to a swarm of birds, with jarring cries
Descend on me my swarming memories;
Light mid the yellow leaves, that shake and sigh,
Of the bowed alder--that is even I!--
Brooding its shadow in the violet
Unprofitable river of Regret.
They settle screaming--Then the evil sound,
By the moist wind's impatient hushing drowned,
Dies by degrees, till nothing more is heard
Save the lone singing of a single bird,
Save the clear voice--O singer, sweetly done!--
Warbling the praises of the Absent One....
And in the silence of a summer night
Sultry and splendid, by a late moon's light
That sad and sallow peers above the hill,
The humid hushing wind that ranges still
Rocks to a whispered sleepsong languidly
The bird lamenting and the shivering tree.
Caprices
IL BACIO
Kiss! Hollyhock in Love's luxuriant close! |
10,240 |
Produced by Anthony J. Adam
"ORATIONS"
By John Quincy Adams
"The Jubilee of the Constitution, delivered at New York, April 30, 1839,
before the New York Historical Society."
Fellow-Citizens and Brethren, Associates of the New York Historical
Society:
Would it be an unlicensed trespass of the imagination to conceive that
on the night preceding the day of which you now commemorate the fiftieth
anniversary--on the night preceding that thirtieth of April, 1789, when
from the balcony of your city hall the chancellor of the State of New
York administered to George Washington the solemn oath faithfully to
execute the office of President of the United States, and to the best
of his ability to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution of the
United States--that in the visions of the night the guardian angel of
the Father of our Country had appeared before him, in the venerated form
of his mother, and, to cheer and encourage him in the performance of the
momentous and solemn duties that he was about to assume, had delivered
to him a suit of celestial armor--a helmet, consisting of the principles
of piety, of justice, of honor, of benevolence, with which from his
earliest infancy he had hitherto walked through life, in the presence of
all his brethren; a spear, studded with the self-evident truths of the
Declaration of Independence; a sword, the same with which he had led the
armies of his country through the war of freedom to the summit of
the triumphal arch of independence; a corselet and cuishes of long
experience and habitual intercourse in peace and war with the world of
mankind, his contemporaries of the human race, in all their stages of
civilization; and, last of all, the Constitution of the United States,
a shield, embossed by heavenly hands with the future history of his
country?
Yes, gentlemen, on that shield the Constitution of the United States was
sculptured (by forms unseen, and in characters then invisible to mortal
eye), the predestined and prophetic history of the one confederated
people of the North American Union.
They had been the settlers of thirteen separate and distinct English
colonies, along the margin of the shore of the North American Continent;
contiguously situated, but chartered by adventurers of characters
variously diversified, including sectarians, religious and political, of
all the classes which for the two preceding centuries had agitated
and divided the people of the British islands--and with them were
intermingled the descendants of Hollanders, Swedes, Germans, and French
fugitives from the persecution of the revoker of the Edict of Nantes.
In the bosoms of this people, thus heterogeneously composed, there was
burning, kindled at different furnaces, but all furnaces of affliction,
one clear, steady flame of liberty. Bold and daring enterprise, stubborn
endurance of privation, unflinching intrepidity in facing danger,
and inflexible adherence to conscientious principle, had steeled to
energetic and unyielding hardihood the characters of the primitive
settlers of all these colonies. Since that time two or three generations
of men had passed away, but they had increased and multiplied with
unexampled rapidity; and the land itself had been the recent theatre of
a ferocious and bloody seven years' war between the two most powerful
and most civilized nations of Europe contending for the possession of
this continent.
Of that strife the victorious combatant had been Britain. She had
conquered the provinces of France. She had expelled her rival totally
from the continent, over which, bounding herself by the Mississippi, she
was thenceforth to hold divided empire only with Spain. She had acquired
undisputed control over the Indian tribes still tenanting the forests
unexplored by the European man. She had established an uncontested
monopoly of the commerce of all her colonies. But forgetting all the
warnings of preceding ages--forgetting the lessons written in the blood
of her own children, through centuries of departed time--she undertook
to tax the people of the colonies without their consent.
Resistance, instantaneous, unconcerted, sympathetic, inflexible
resistance, like an electric shock, startled and roused the people of
all the English colonies on this continent.
This was the first signal of the North American Union. The struggle was
for chartered rights--for English liberties--for the cause of Algernon
Sidney and John Hampden--for trial by jury--the Habeas Corpus and Magna
Charta.
But the English lawyers had decided that Parliament was omnipotent--and
Parliament, in its omnipotence, instead of trial by jury and the
Habeas Corpus, enacted admiralty courts in England to try Americans for
offences charged against them as committed in America; instead of
the privileges of Magna Charta, nullified the charter itself of
Massachusetts Bay; shut up the port of Boston; sent armies and navies to
keep the peace and teach the colonies that John Hampden was a rebel and
Algernon Sidney a traitor.
English liberties had failed them. From the omnipotence of Parliament
the colonists appealed to the rights of man and the omnipotence of the
God of battles. Union! Union! was the instinctive and simultaneous
cry throughout the land. Their Congress, assembled at Philadelphia,
once--twice--had petitioned the king; had remonstrated to Parliament;
had addressed the people of Britain, for the rights of Englishmen--in
vain. Fleets and armies, the blood of Lexington, and the fires of
Charlestown and Falmouth, had been the answer to petition, remonstrance,
and address....
The dissolution of allegiance to the British crown, the severance of
the colonies from the British Empire, and their actual existence as
independent States, were definitively established in fact, by war and
peace. The independence of each separate State had never been declared
of right. It never existed in fact. Upon the principles of the
Declaration of Independence, the dissolution of the ties of allegiance,
the assumption of sovereign power, and the institution of civil
government, are all acts of transcendent authority, which the people
alone are competent to perform; and, accordingly, it is in the name and
by the authority of the people, that two of these acts--the dissolution
of allegiance, with the severance from the British Empire, and the
declaration of the United Colonies, as free and independent States--were
performed by that instrument.
But there still remained the last and crowning act, which the people
of the Union alone were competent to perform--the institution of civil
government, for that compound nation, the United States of America.
At this day it cannot but strike us as extraordinary, that it does not
appear to have occurred to any one member of that assembly, which had
laid down in terms so clear, so explicit, so unequivocal, the foundation
of all just government, in the imprescriptible rights of man, and the
transcendent sovereignty of the people, and who in those principles had
set forth their only personal vindication from the charges of rebellion
against their king, and of treason to their country, that their last
crowning act was still to be performed upon the same principles. That
is, the institution, by the people of the United States, of a civil
government, to guard and protect and defend them all. On the contrary,
that same assembly which issued the Declaration of Independence, instead
of continuing to act in the name and by the authority of the good people
of the United States, had, immediately after the appointment of the
committee to prepare the Declaration, appointed another committee,
of one member from each colony, to prepare and digest the form of
confederation to be entered into between the colonies.
That committee reported on the twelfth of July, eight days after the
Declaration of Independence had been issued, a draft of articles of
confederation between the colonies. This draft was prepared by John
Dickinson, then a delegate from Pennsylvania, who voted against the
Declaration of Independence, and never signed it, having been superseded
by a new election of delegates from that State, eight days after his
draft was reported.
There was thus no congeniality of principle between the Declaration of
Independence and the Articles of Confederation. The foundation of the
former was a superintending Providence--the rights of man, and the
constituent revolutionary power of the people. That of the latter was
the sovereignty of organized power, and the independence of the separate
or dis-united States. The fabric of the Declaration and that of the
Confederation were each consistent with its own foundation, but they
could not form one consistent, symmetrical edifice. They were the
productions of different minds and of adverse passions; one, ascending
for the foundation of human government to the laws of nature and of
God, written upon the heart of man; the other, resting upon the basis
of human institutions, and prescriptive law, and colonial charter. The
cornerstone of the one was right, that of the other was power....
Where, then, did each State get the sovereignty, freedom, and
independence, which the Articles of Confederation declare it
retains?--not from the whole people of the whole Union--not from the
Declaration of Independence--not from the people of the State itself. It
was assumed by agreement between the Legislatures of the several States,
and their delegates in Congress, without authority from or consultation
of the people at all.
In the Declaration of Independence, the enacting and constituent party
dispensing and delegating sovereign power is the whole people of the
United Colonies. The recipient party, invested with power, is the United
Colonies, declared United States.
In the Articles of Confederation, this order of agency is inverted. Each
State is the constituent and enacting party, and the United States in
Congress assembled the recipient of delegated power--and that power
delegated with such a penurious and carking hand that it had more
the aspect of a revocation of the Declaration of Independence than an
instrument to carry it into effect.
None of these indispensably necessary powers were ever conferred by the
State Legislatures upon the Congress of the federation; and well was
it that they never were. The system itself was radically defective. Its
incurable disease was an apostasy from the principles of the Declaration
of Independence. A substitution of separate State sovereignties, in the
place of the constituent sovereignty of the people, was the basis of the
Confederate Union.
In the Congress of the Confederation, the master minds of James Madison
and Alexander Hamilton were constantly engaged through the closing years
of the Revolutionary War and those of peace which immediately succeeded.
That of John Jay was associated with them shortly after the peace,
in the capacity of Secretary to the Congress for Foreign Affairs. The
incompetency of the Articles of Confederation for the management of the
affairs of the Union at home and abroad was demonstrated to them by the
painful and mortifying experience of every day. Washington, though
in retirement, was brooding over the cruel injustice suffered by his
associates in arms, the warriors of the Revolution; over the prostration
of the public credit and the faith of the nation, in the neglect to
provide for the payments even of the interest upon the public debt; over
the disappointed hopes of the friends of freedom; in the language of
the address from Congress to the States of the eighteenth of April,
1788--"the pride and boast of America, that the rights for which she
contended were the rights of human nature."
At his residence at Mount Vernon, in March, 1785, the first idea
was started of a revisal of the Articles of Confederation, by the
organization, of means differing from that of a compact between the
State Legislatures and their own delegates in Congress. A convention
of delegates from the State Legislatures, independent of the Congress
itself, was the expedient which presented itself for effecting
the purpose, and an augmentation of the powers of Congress for the
regulation of commerce, as the object for which this assembly was to
be convened. In January, 1785, the proposal was made and adopted in
the Legislature of Virginia, and communicated to the other State
Legislatures.
The Convention was held at Annapolis, in September of that year. It
was attended by delegates from only five of the central States, who,
on comparing their restricted powers with the glaring and universally
acknowledged defects of the Confederation, reported only a
recommendation for the assemblage of another convention of delegates
to meet at Philadelphia, in May, 1787, from all the States, and with
enlarged powers.
The Constitution of the United States was the work of this Convention.
But in its construction the Convention immediately perceived that they
must retrace their steps, and fall back from a league of friendship
between sovereign States to the constituent sovereignty of the
people; from power to right--from the irresponsible despotism of
State sovereignty to the self-evident truths of the Declaration of
Independence. In that instrument, the right to institute and to alter
governments among men was ascribed exclusively to the people--the ends
of government were declared to be to secure the natural rights of man;
and that when the government degenerates from the promotion to the
destruction of that end, the right and the duty accrues to the people
to dissolve this degenerate government and to institute another. The
signers of the Declaration further averred, that the one people of the
United Colonies were then precisely in that situation--with a government
degenerated into tyranny, and called upon by the laws of nature and of
nature's God to dissolve that government and to institute another. Then,
in the name and by the authority of the good people of the colonies,
they pronounced the dissolution of their allegiance to the king, and
their eternal separation from the nation of Great Britain--and declared
the United Colonies independent States. And here as the representatives
of the one people they had stopped. They did not require the
confirmation of this act, for the power to make the declaration had
already been conferred upon them by the people, delegating the power,
indeed, separately in the separate colonies, not by colonial authority,
but by the spontaneous revolutionary movement of the people in them all.
From the day of that Declaration, the constituent power of the people
had never been called into action. A confederacy had been substituted
in the place of a government, and State sovereignty had usurped the
constituent sovereignty of the people.
The Convention assembled at Philadelphia had themselves no direct
authority from the people. Their authority was all derived from the
State Legislatures. But they had the Articles of Confederation before
them, and they saw and felt the wretched condition into which they had
brought the whole people, and that the Union itself was in the agonies
of death. They soon perceived that the indispensably needed powers
were such as no State government, no combination of them, was by the
principles of the Declaration of Independence competent to bestow. They
could emanate only from the people. A highly respectable portion of the
assembly, still clinging to the confederacy of States, proposed, as
a substitute for the Constitution, a mere revival of the Articles of
Confederation, with a grant of additional powers to the Congress.
Their plan was respectfully and thoroughly discussed, but the want of a
government and of the sanction of the people to the delegation of powers
happily prevailed. A constitution for the people, and the distribution
of legislative, executive, and judicial powers was prepared. It
announced itself as the work of the people themselves; and as this was
unquestionably a power assumed by the Convention, not delegated to
them by the people, they religiously confined it to a simple power
to propose, and carefully provided that it should be no more than a
proposal until sanctioned by the Confederation Congress, by the State
Legislatures, and by the people of the several States, in conventions
specially assembled, by authority of their Legislatures, for the single
purpose of examining and passing upon it.
And thus was consummated the work commenced by the Declaration of
Independence--a work in which the people of the North American Union,
acting under the deepest sense of responsibility to the Supreme Ruler
of the universe, had achieved the most transcendent act of power that
social man in his mortal condition can perform--even that of dissolving
the ties of allegiance by which he is bound to his country; of
renouncing that country itself; of demolishing its government; of
instituting another government; and of making for himself another
country in its stead.
And on that day, of which you now commemorate the fiftieth
anniversary--on that thirtieth day of April, 1789--was this mighty
revolution, not only in the affairs of our own country, but in the
principles of government over civilized man, accomplished.
The Revolution itself was a work of thirteen years--and had never
been completed until that day. The Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution of the United States are parts of one consistent whole,
founded upon one and the same theory of government, then new in
practice, though not as a theory, for it had been working itself into
the mind of man for many ages, and had been especially expounded in the
writings of Locke, though it had never before been adopted by a great
nation in practice.
There are yet, even at this day, many speculative objections to this
theory. Even in our own country there are still philosophers who deny
the principles asserted in the Declaration, as self-evident truths--who
deny the natural equality and inalienable rights of man--who deny that
the people are the only legitimate source of power--who deny that all
just powers of government are derived from the consent of the governed.
Neither your time, nor perhaps the cheerful nature of this occasion,
permit me here to enter upon the examination of this anti-revolutionary
theory, which arrays State sovereignty against the constituent
sovereignty of the people, and distorts the Constitution of the United
States into a league of friendship between confederate corporations. I
speak to matters of fact. There is the Declaration of Independence,
and there is the Constitution of the United States--let them speak for
themselves. The grossly immoral and dishonest doctrine of despotic State
sovereignty, the exclusive judge of its own obligations, and responsible
to no power on earth or in heaven, for the violation of them, is not
there. The Declaration says, it is not in me. The Constitution says, it
is not in me.
"Oration at Plymouth, December 22, 1802, in Commemoration of the Landing
of the Pilgrims."
Among the sentiments of most powerful operation upon the human
heart, and most highly honorable to the human character, are those of
veneration for our forefathers, and of love for our posterity. They form
the connecting links between the selfish and the social passions. By the
fundamental principle of Christianity, the happiness of the individual
is interwoven, by innumerable and imperceptible ties, with that of his
contemporaries. By the power of filial reverence and parental affection,
individual existence is extended beyond the limits of individual life,
and the happiness of every age is chained in mutual dependence upon that
of every other. Respect for his ancestors excites, in the breast of man,
interest in their history, attachment to their characters, concern for
their errors, involuntary pride in their virtues. Love for his posterity
spurs him to exertion for their support, stimulates him to virtue for
their example, and fills him with the tenderest solicitude for their
welfare. Man, therefore, was not made for himself alone. No, he was made
for his country, by the obligations of the social compact; he was made
for his species, by the Christian duties of universal charity; he
was made for all ages past, by the sentiment of reverence for his
forefathers; and he was made for all future times, by the impulse of
affection for his progeny. Under the influence of these principles,
"Existence sees him spurn her bounded reign."
They redeem his nature from the subjection of time and space; he is
no longer a "puny insect shivering at a breeze"; he is the glory of
creation, formed to occupy all time and all extent; bounded, during his
residence upon earth, only to the boundaries of the world, and destined
to life and immortality in brighter regions, when the fabric of nature
itself shall dissolve and perish.
The voice of history has not, in all its compass, a note but answers in
unison with these sentiments. The barbarian chieftain, who defended his
country against the Roman invasion, driven to the remotest extremity of
Britain, and stimulating his followers to battle by all that has power
of persuasion upon the human heart, concluded his persuasion by an
appeal to these irresistible feelings: "Think of your forefathers and of
your posterity." The Romans themselves, at the pinnacle of civilization,
were actuated by the same impressions, and celebrated, in anniversary
festivals, every great event which had signalized the annals of their
forefathers. To multiply instances where it were impossible to adduce
an exception would be to waste your time and abuse your patience; but
in the sacred volume, which contains the substances of our firmest faith
and of our most precious hopes, these passions not only maintain their
highest efficacy, but are sanctioned by the express injunctions of the
Divine Legislator to his chosen people.
The revolutions of time furnish no previous example of a nation shooting
up to maturity and expanding into greatness with the rapidity which has
characterized the growth of the American people. In the luxuriance of
youth, and in the vigor of manhood, it is pleasing and instructive to
look backward upon the helpless days of infancy; but in the continual
and essential changes of a growing subject, the transactions of that
early period would be soon obliterated from the memory but for some
periodical call of attention to aid the silent records of the historian.
Such celebrations arouse and gratify the kindliest emotions of the
bosom. They are faithful pledges of the respect we bear to the memory
of our ancestors and of the tenderness with which we cherish the rising
generation. They introduce the sages and heroes of ages past to the
notice and emulation of succeeding times; they are at once testimonials
of our gratitude, and schools of virtue to our children.
These sentiments are wise; they are honorable; they are virtuous; their
cultivation is not merely innocent pleasure, it is incumbent duty.
Obedient to their dictates, you, my fellow-citizens, have instituted
and paid frequent observance to this annual solemnity, and what event of
weightier intrinsic importance, or of more extensive consequences, was
ever selected for this honorary distinction?
In reverting to the period of our origin, other nations have generally
been compelled to plunge into the chaos of impenetrable antiquity, or to
trace a lawless ancestry into the caverns of ravishers and robbers.
It is your peculiar privilege to commemorate, in this birthday of your
nation, an event ascertained in its minutest details; an event of which
the principal actors are known to you familiarly, as if belonging to
your own age; an event of a magnitude before which imagination shrinks
at the imperfection of her powers. It is your further happiness to
behold, in those eminent characters, who were most conspicuous in
accomplishing the settlement of your country, men upon whose virtue
you can dwell with honest exultation. The founders of your race are
not handed down to you, like the fathers of the Roman people, as the
sucklings of a wolf. You are not descended from a nauseous compound of
fanaticism and sensuality, whose only argument was the sword, and whose
only paradise was a brothel. No Gothic scourge of God, no Vandal pest of
nations, no fabled fugitive from the flames of Troy, no bastard Norman
tyrant, appears among the list of worthies who first landed on the
rock, which your veneration has preserved as a lasting monument of
their achievement. The great actors of the day we now solemnize were
illustrious by their intrepid valor no less than by their Christian
graces, but the clarion of conquest has not blazoned forth their names
to all the winds of heaven. Their glory has not been wafted over oceans
of blood to the remotest regions of the earth. They have not erected to
themselves colossal statues upon pedestals of human bones, to provoke
and insult the tardy hand of heavenly retribution. But theirs was "the
better fortitude of patience and heroic martyrdom." Theirs was the
gentle temper of Christian kindness; the rigorous observance of
reciprocal justice; the unconquerable soul of conscious integrity.
Worldly fame has been parsimonious of her favor to the memory of those
generous companions. Their numbers were small; their stations in life
obscure; the object of their enterprise unostentatious; the theatre of
their exploits remote; how could they possibly be favorites of worldly
Fame--that common crier, whose existence is only known by the assemblage
of multitudes; that pander of wealth and greatness, so eager to haunt
the palaces of fortune, and so fastidious to the houseless dignity of
virtue; that parasite of pride, ever scornful to meekness, and ever
obsequious to insolent power; that heedless trumpeter, whose ears are
deaf to modest merit, and whose eyes are blind to bloodless, distant
excellence?
When the persecuted companions of Robinson, exiles from their native
land, anxiously sued for the privilege of removing a thousand leagues
more distant to an untried soil, a rigorous climate, and a savage
wilderness, for the sake of reconciling their sense of religious duty
with their affections for their country, few, perhaps none of them,
formed a conception of what would be, within two centuries, the result
of their undertaking. When the jealous and niggardly policy of their
British sovereign denied them even that humblest of requests, and
instead of liberty would barely consent to promise connivance, neither
he nor they might be aware that they were laying the foundations of a
power, and that he was sowing the seeds of a spirit, which, in less
than two hundred years, would stagger the throne of his descendants, and
shake his united kingdoms to the centre. So far is it from the ordinary
habits of mankind to calculate the importance of events in their
elementary principles, that had the first colonists of our country ever
intimated as a part of their designs the project of founding a great and
mighty nation, the finger of scorn would have pointed them to the cells
of Bedlam as an abode more suitable for hatching vain empires than the
solitude of a transatlantic desert.
These consequences, then so little foreseen, have unfolded themselves,
in all their grandeur, to the eyes of the present age. It is a common
amusement of speculative minds to contrast the magnitude of the most
important events with the minuteness of their primeval causes, and the
records of mankind are full of examples for such contemplations. It
is, however, a more profitable employment to trace the constituent
principles of future greatness in their kernel; to detect in the acorn
at our feet the germ of that majestic oak, whose roots shoot down to
the centre, and whose branches aspire to the skies. Let it be, then, our
present occupation to inquire and endeavor to ascertain the causes
first put in operation at the period of our commemoration, and already
productive of such magnificent effects; to examine with reiterated care
and minute attention the characters of those men who gave the first
impulse to a new series of events in the history of the world; to
applaud and emulate those qualities of their minds which we shall find
deserving of our admiration; to recognize with candor those features
which forbid approbation or even require censure, and, finally, to lay
alike their frailties and their perfections to our own hearts, either as
warning or as example.
Of the various European settlements upon this continent,
which have finally merged in one independent nation, the first
establishments were made at various times, by several nations, and under
the influence of different motives. In many instances, the conviction
of religious obligation formed one and a powerful inducement of the
adventures; but in none, excepting the settlement at Plymouth, did they
constitute the sole and exclusive actuating cause. Worldly interest and
commercial speculation entered largely into the views of other settlers,
but the commands of conscience were the only stimulus to the emigrants
from Leyden. Previous to their expedition hither, they had endured
a long banishment from their native country. Under every species of
discouragement, they undertook the voyage; they performed it in spite
of numerous and almost insuperable obstacles; they arrived upon a
wilderness bound with frost and hoary with snow, without the boundaries
of their charter, outcasts from all human society, and coasted five
weeks together, in the dead of winter, on this tempestuous shore,
exposed at once to the fury of the elements, to the arrows of the native
savage, and to the impending horrors of famine.
Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which
difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air. These qualities
have ever been displayed in their mightiest perfection, as attendants in
the retinue of strong passions. From the first discovery of the
Western Hemisphere by Columbus until the settlement of Virginia which
immediately preceded that of Plymouth, the various adventurers from the
ancient world had exhibited upon innumerable occasions that ardor of
enterprise and that stubbornness of pursuit which set all danger at
defiance, and chained the violence of nature at their feet. But they
were all instigated by personal interests. Avarice and ambition had
tuned their souls to that pitch of exaltation. Selfish passions were the
parents of their heroism. It was reserved for the first settlers of
new England to perform achievements equally arduous, to trample down
obstructions equally formidable, to dispel dangers equally terrific,
under the single inspiration of conscience. To them even liberty
herself was but a subordinate and secondary consideration. They claimed
exemption from the mandates of human authority, as militating with their
subjection to a superior power. Before the voice of Heaven they silenced
even the calls of their country.
Yet, while so deeply impressed with the sense of religious obligation,
they felt, in all its energy, the force of that tender tie which binds
the heart of every virtuous man to his native land. It was to renew that
connection with their country which had been severed by their compulsory
expatriation, that they resolved to face all the hazards of a perilous
navigation and all the labors of a toilsome distant settlement. Under
the mild protection of the Batavian Government, they enjoyed already
that freedom of religious worship, for which they had resigned so
many comforts and enjoyments at home; but their hearts panted for a
restoration to the bosom of their country. Invited and urged by the
open-hearted and truly benevolent people who had given them an asylum
from the persecution of their own kindred to form their settlement
within the territories then under their jurisdiction, the love of their
country predominated over every influence save that of conscience alone,
and they preferred the precarious chance of relaxation from the bigoted
rigor of the English Government to the certain liberality and alluring
offers of the Hollanders. Observe, my countrymen, the generous
patriotism, the cordial union of soul, the conscious yet unaffected
vigor which beam in their application to the British monarch:
"They were well weaned from the delicate milk of their mother country,
and inured to the difficulties of a strange land. They were knit
together in a strict and sacred bond, to take care of the good of each
other and of the whole. It was not with them as with other men, whom
small things could discourage, or small discontents cause to wish
themselves again at home."
Children of these exalted Pilgrims! Is there one among you who can hear
the simple and pathetic energy of these expressions without tenderness
and admiration? Venerated shades of our forefathers! No, ye were,
indeed, not ordinary men! That country which had ejected you so cruelly
from her bosom you still delighted to contemplate in the character of an
affectionate and beloved mother. The sacred bond which knit you together
was indissoluble while you lived; and oh, may it be to your descendants
the example and the pledge of harmony to the latest period of time!
The difficulties and dangers, which so often had defeated attempts of
similar establishments, were unable to subdue souls tempered like yours.
You heard the rigid interdictions; you saw the menacing forms of toil
and danger, forbidding your access to this land of promise; but you
heard without dismay; you saw and disdained retreat. Firm and undaunted
in the confidence of that sacred bond; conscious of the purity, and
convinced of the importance of your motives, you put your trust in the
protecting shield of Providence, and smiled defiance at the combining
terrors of human malice and of elemental strife. These, in the
accomplishment of your undertaking, you were summoned to encounter
in their most hideous forms; these you met with that fortitude, and
combated with that perseverance, which you had promised in their
anticipation; these you completely vanquished in establishing the
foundations of New England, and the day which we now commemorate is the
perpetual memorial of your triumph.
It were an occupation peculiarly pleasing to cull from our
early historians, and exhibit before you every detail of this
transaction; to carry you in imagination on board their bark at the
first moment of her arrival in the bay; to accompany Carver, Winslow,
Bradford, and Standish, in all their excursions upon the desolate coast;
to follow them into every rivulet and creek where they endeavored to
find a firm footing, and to fix, with a pause of delight and exultation,
the instant when the first of these heroic adventurers alighted on the
spot where you, their descendants, now enjoy the glorious and happy
reward of their labors. But in this grateful task, your former orators,
on this anniversary, have anticipated all that the most ardent industry
could collect, and gratified all that the most inquisitive curiosity
could desire. To you, my friends, every occurrence of that momentous
period is already familiar. A transient allusion to a few characteristic
instances, which mark the peculiar history of the Plymouth settlers, may
properly supply the place of a narrative, which, to this auditory, must
be superfluous.
One of these remarkable incidents is the execution of that instrument of
government by which they formed themselves into a body politic, the day
after their arrival upon the coast, and previous to their first landing.
That is, perhaps, the only instance in human history of that positive,
original social compact, which speculative philosophers have imagined
as the only legitimate source of government. Here was a unanimous
and personal assent, by all the individuals of the community, to
the association by which they became a nation. It was the result of
circumstances and discussions which had occurred during their passage
from Europe, and is a full demonstration that the nature of civil
government, abstracted from the political institutions of their native
country, had been an object of their serious meditation. The settlers
of all the former European colonies had contented themselves with the
powers conferred upon them by their respective charters, without looking
beyond the seal of the royal parchment for the measure of their rights
and the rule of their duties. The founders of Plymouth had been impelled
by the peculiarities of their situation to examine the subject with
deeper and more comprehensive research. After twelve years of banishment
from the land of their first allegiance, during which they had been
under an adoptive and temporary subjection to another sovereign, they
must naturally have been led to reflect upon the relative rights and
duties of allegiance and subjection. They had resided in a city, the
seat of a university, where the polemical and political controversies
of the time were pursued with uncommon fervor. In this period they had
witnessed the deadly struggle between the two parties, into which the
people of the United Provinces, after their separation from the crown of
Spain, had divided themselves. The contest embraced within its compass
not only theological doctrines, but political principles, and Maurice
and Barnevelt were the temporal leaders of the same rival factions, of
which Episcopius and Polyander were the ecclesiastical champions.
That the investigation of the fundamental principles of government was
deeply implicated in these dissensions is evident from the immortal
work of Grotius, upon the rights of war and peace, which undoubtedly
originated from them. Grotius himself had been a most distinguished
actor and sufferer in those important scenes of internal convulsion,
and his work was first published very shortly after the departure of
our forefathers from Leyden. It is well known that in the course of the
contest Mr. Robinson more than once appeared, with credit to himself, as
a public disputant against Episcopius; and from the manner in which
the fact is related by Governor Bradford, it is apparent that the whole
English Church at Leyden took a zealous interest in the religious part
of the controversy. As strangers in the land, it is presumable that
they wisely and honorably avoided entangling themselves in the political
contentions involved with it. Yet the theoretic principles, as they were
drawn into discussion, could not fail to arrest their attention, and
must have assisted them to form accurate ideas concerning the origin and
extent of authority among men, independent of positive institutions.
The importance of these circumstances will not be duly weighed without
taking into consideration the state of opinion then prevalent in
England. The general principles of government were there little
understood and less examined. The whole substance of human authority was
centred in the simple doctrine of royal prerogative, the origin of which
was always traced in theory to divine institution. Twenty years later,
the subject was more industriously sifted, and for half a century became
one of the principal topics of controversy between the ablest and most
enlightened men in the nation. The instrument of voluntary association
executed on board the "Mayflower" testifies that the parties to it had
anticipated the improvement of their nation.
Another incident, from which we may derive occasion for important
reflections, was the attempt of these original settlers to establish
among them that community of goods and of labor, which fanciful
politicians, from the days of Plato to those of Rousseau, have
recommended as the fundamental law of a perfect republic. This theory
results, it must be acknowledged, from principles of reasoning
most flattering to the human character. If industry, frugality, and
disinterested integrity were alike the virtues of all, there would,
apparently, be more of the social spirit, in making all property a
common stock, and giving to each individual a proportional title to the
wealth of the whole. Such is the basis upon which Plato forbids, in
his Republic, the division of property. Such is the system upon which
Rousseau pronounces the first man who inclosed a field with a fence, and
said, "This is mine," a traitor to the human species. A wiser and more
useful philosophy, however, directs us to consider man according to the
nature in which he was formed; subject to infirmities, which no wisdom
can remedy; to weaknesses, which no institution can strengthen; to
vices, which no legislation can correct. Hence, it becomes obvious that
separate property is the natural and indisputable right of separate
exertion; that community of goods without community of toil is
oppressive and unjust; that it counteracts the laws of nature, which
prescribe that he only who sows the seed shall reap the harvest; that
it discourages all energy, by destroying its rewards; and makes the most
virtuous and active members of society the slaves and drudges of the
worst. Such was the issue of this experiment among our forefathers,
and the same event demonstrated the error of the system in the elder
settlement of Virginia. Let us cherish that spirit of harmony which
prompted our forefathers to make the attempt, under circumstances more
favorable to its success than, perhaps, ever occurred upon earth. Let
us no less admire the candor with which they relinquished it, upon
discovering its irremediable inefficacy. To found principles of
government upon too advantageous an estimate of the human character is
an error of inexperience, the source of which is so amiable that it is
impossible to censure it with severity. We have seen the same mistake
committed in our own age, and upon a larger theatre. Happily for our
ancestors, their situation allowed them to repair it before its effects
had proved destructive. They had no pride of vain philosophy to support,
no perfidious rage of faction to glut, by persevering in their mistakes
until they should be extinguished in torrents of blood.
As the attempt to establish among themselves the community of goods was
a seal of that sacred bond which knit them so closely together, so the
conduct they observed toward the natives of the country displays
their steadfast adherence to the rules of justice and their faithful
attachment to those of benevolence and charity.
No European settlement ever formed upon this continent has been more
distinguished for undeviating kindness and equity toward the savages.
There are, indeed, moralists who have questioned the right of the
Europeans to intrude upon the possessions of the aboriginals in any
case, and under any limitations whatsoever. But have they maturely
considered the whole subject? The Indian right of possession itself
stands, with regard to the greater part of the country, upon a
questionable foundation. Their cultivated fields; their constructed
habitations; a space of ample sufficiency for their subsistence,
and whatever they had annexed to themselves by personal labor, was
undoubtedly, by the laws of nature, theirs. But what is the right of
a huntsman to the forest of a thousand miles over which he has
accidentally ranged in quest of prey? Shall the liberal bounties of
Providence to the race of man be monopolized by one of ten thousand for
whom they were created? Shall the exuberant bosom of the common mother,
amply adequate to the nourishment of millions, be claimed exclusively
by a few hundreds of her offspring? Shall the lordly savage not only
disdain the virtues and enjoyments of civilization himself, but shall he
control the civilization of a world? Shall he forbid the wilderness
to blossom like a rose? Shall he forbid the oaks of the forest to fall
before the axe of industry, and to rise again, transformed into the
habitations of ease and elegance? shall he doom an immense region of the
globe to perpetual desolation, and to hear the howlings of the tiger and
the wolf silence forever the voice of human gladness? Shall the fields
and the valleys, which a beneficent God has formed to teem with the life
of innumerable multitudes, be condemned to everlasting barrenness? Shall
the mighty rivers, poured out by the hand of nature, as channels of
communication between numerous nations, roll their waters in sullen
silence and eternal solitude of the deep? Have hundreds of commodious
harbors, a thousand leagues of coast, and a boundless ocean, been spread
in the front of this land, and shall every purpose of utility to which
they could apply be prohibited by the tenant of the woods? No, generous
philanthropists! Heaven has not been thus inconsistent in the works of
its hands. Heaven has not thus placed at irreconcilable strife its moral
laws with its physical creation. The Pilgrims of Plymouth obtained their
right of possession to the territory on which they settled, by titles
as fair and unequivocal as any human property can be held. By their
voluntary association they recognized their allegiance to the government
of Britain, and in process of time received whatever powers and
authorities could be conferred upon them by a charter from their
sovereign. The spot on which they fixed had belonged to an Indian tribe,
totally extirpated by that devouring pestilence which had swept the
country shortly before their arrival. The territory, thus free from
all exclusive possession, they might have taken by the natural right
of occupancy. Desirous, however, of giving amply satisfaction to every
pretence of prior right, by formal and solemn conventions with the
chiefs of the neighboring tribes, they acquired the further security of
a purchase. At their hands the children of the desert had no cause
of complaint. On the great day of retribution, what thousands, what
millions of the American race will appear at the bar of judgment to
arraign their European invading conquerors! Let us humbly hope that
the fathers of the Plymouth Colony will then appear in the whiteness of
innocence. Let us indulge in the belief that they will not only be free
from all accusation of injustice to these unfortunate sons of nature,
but that the testimonials of their acts of kindness and benevolence
toward them will plead the cause of their virtues, as they are now
authenticated by the record of history upon earth.
Religious discord has lost her sting; the cumbrous weapons of
theological warfare are antiquated; the field of politics supplies the
alchemists of our times with materials of more fatal explosion, and the
butchers of mankind no longer travel to another world for instruments
of cruelty and destruction. Our age is too enlightened to contend upon
topics which concern only the interests of eternity; the men who hold in
proper contempt all controversies about trifles, except such as inflame
their own passions, have made it a commonplace censure against your
ancestors, that their zeal was enkindled by subjects of trivial
importance; and that however aggrieved by the intolerance of others,
they were alike intolerant themselves. Against these objections, your
candid judgment will not require an unqualified justification; but your
respect and gratitude for the founders of the State may boldly claim an
ample apology. The original grounds of their separation from the Church
of England were not objects of a magnitude to dissolve the bonds of
communion, much less those of charity, between Christian brethren of
the same essential principles. Some of them, however, were not
inconsiderable, and numerous inducements concurred to give them an
extraordinary interest in their eyes. When that portentous system of
abuses, the Papal dominion, was overturned, a great variety of religious
sects arose in its stead in the several countries, which for many
centuries before had been screwed beneath its subjection. The fabric of
the Reformation, first undertaken in England upon a contracted basis, by
a capricious and sanguinary tyrant, had been successively overthrown
and restored, renewed and altered, according to the varying humors and
principles of four successive monarchs. To ascertain the precise point
of division between the genuine institutions of Christianity and the
corruptions accumulated upon them in the progress of fifteen centuries,
was found a task of extreme difficulty throughout the Christian world. |
10,240 |
Produced by David Widger
THE VISION
OF
HELL, PURGATORY, AND PARADISE
BY DANTE ALIGHIERI
TRANSLATED BY
THE REV. H. F. CARY
PURGATORY
Part 4
Cantos 19 - 25
CANTO XIX
It was the hour, when of diurnal heat
No reliques chafe the cold beams of the moon,
O'erpower'd by earth, or planetary sway
Of Saturn; and the geomancer sees
His Greater Fortune up the east ascend,
Where gray dawn checkers first the shadowy cone;
When 'fore me in my dream a woman's shape
There came, with lips that stammer'd, eyes aslant,
Distorted feet, hands maim'd, and colour pale.
I look'd upon her; and as sunshine cheers
Limbs numb'd by nightly cold, e'en thus my look
Unloos'd her tongue, next in brief space her form
Decrepit rais'd erect, and faded face
With love's own hue illum'd. Recov'ring speech
She forthwith warbling such a strain began,
That I, how loth soe'er, could scarce have held
Attention from the song. "I," thus she sang,
"I am the Siren, she, whom mariners
On the wide sea are wilder'd when they hear:
Such fulness of delight the list'ner feels.
I from his course Ulysses by my lay
Enchanted drew. Whoe'er frequents me once
Parts seldom; so I charm him, and his heart
Contented knows no void." Or ere her mouth
Was clos'd, to shame her at her side appear'd
A dame of semblance holy. With stern voice
She utter'd; "Say, O Virgil, who is this?"
Which hearing, he approach'd, with eyes still bent
Toward that goodly presence: th' other seiz'd her,
And, her robes tearing, open'd her before,
And show'd the belly to me, whence a smell,
Exhaling loathsome, wak'd me. Round I turn'd
Mine eyes, and thus the teacher: "At the least
Three times my voice hath call'd thee. Rise, begone.
Let us the opening find where thou mayst pass."
I straightway rose. Now day, pour'd down from high,
Fill'd all the circuits of the sacred mount;
And, as we journey'd, on our shoulder smote
The early ray. I follow'd, stooping low
My forehead, as a man, o'ercharg'd with thought,
Who bends him to the likeness of an arch,
That midway spans the flood; when thus I heard,
"Come, enter here," in tone so soft and mild,
As never met the ear on mortal strand.
With swan-like wings dispread and pointing up,
Who thus had spoken marshal'd us along,
Where each side of the solid masonry
The sloping, walls retir'd; then mov'd his plumes,
And fanning us, affirm'd that those, who mourn,
Are blessed, for that comfort shall be theirs.
"What aileth thee, that still thou look'st to earth?"
Began my leader; while th' angelic shape
A little over us his station took.
"New vision," I replied, "hath rais'd in me
Surmisings strange and anxious doubts, whereon
My soul intent allows no other thought
Or room or entrance."--"Hast thou seen," said he,
"That old enchantress, her, whose wiles alone
The spirits o'er us weep for? Hast thou seen
How man may free him of her bonds? Enough.
Let thy heels spurn the earth, and thy rais'd ken
Fix on the lure, which heav'n's eternal King
Whirls in the rolling spheres." As on his feet
The falcon first looks down, then to the sky
Turns, and forth stretches eager for the food,
That woos him thither; so the call I heard,
So onward, far as the dividing rock
Gave way, I journey'd, till the plain was reach'd.
On the fifth circle when I stood at large,
A race appear'd before me, on the ground
All downward lying prone and weeping sore.
"My soul hath cleaved to the dust," I heard
With sighs so deep, they well nigh choak'd the words.
"O ye elect of God, whose penal woes
Both hope and justice mitigate, direct
Tow'rds the steep rising our uncertain way."
"If ye approach secure from this our doom,
Prostration--and would urge your course with speed,
See that ye still to rightward keep the brink."
So them the bard besought; and such the words,
Beyond us some short space, in answer came.
I noted what remain'd yet hidden from them:
Thence to my liege's eyes mine eyes I bent,
And he, forthwith interpreting their suit,
Beckon'd his glad assent. Free then to act,
As pleas'd me, I drew near, and took my stand
O`er that shade, whose words I late had mark'd.
And, "Spirit!" I said, "in whom repentant tears
Mature that blessed hour, when thou with God
Shalt find acceptance, for a while suspend
For me that mightier care. Say who thou wast,
Why thus ye grovel on your bellies prone,
And if in aught ye wish my service there,
Whence living I am come." He answering spake
"The cause why Heav'n our back toward his cope
Reverses, shalt thou know: but me know first
The successor of Peter, and the name
And title of my lineage from that stream,
That' twixt Chiaveri and Siestri draws
His limpid waters through the lowly glen.
A month and little more by proof I learnt,
With what a weight that robe of sov'reignty
Upon his shoulder rests, who from the mire
Would guard it: that each other fardel seems
But feathers in the balance. Late, alas!
Was my conversion: but when I became
Rome's pastor, I discern'd at once the dream
And cozenage of life, saw that the heart
Rested not there, and yet no prouder height
Lur'd on the climber: wherefore, of that life
No more enamour'd, in my bosom love
Of purer being kindled. For till then
I was a soul in misery, alienate
From God, and covetous of all earthly things;
Now, as thou seest, here punish'd for my doting.
Such cleansing from the taint of avarice
Do spirits converted need. This mount inflicts
No direr penalty. E'en as our eyes
Fasten'd below, nor e'er to loftier clime
Were lifted, thus hath justice level'd us
Here on the earth. As avarice quench'd our love
Of good, without which is no working, thus
Here justice holds us prison'd, hand and foot
Chain'd down and bound, while heaven's just Lord shall please.
So long to tarry motionless outstretch'd."
My knees I stoop'd, and would have spoke; but he,
Ere my beginning, by his ear perceiv'd
I did him reverence; and "What cause," said he,
"Hath bow'd thee thus!"--"Compunction," I rejoin'd.
"And inward awe of your high dignity."
"Up," he exclaim'd, "brother! upon thy feet
Arise: err not: thy fellow servant I,
(Thine and all others') of one Sovran Power.
If thou hast ever mark'd those holy sounds
Of gospel truth, 'nor shall be given ill marriage,'
Thou mayst discern the reasons of my speech.
Go thy ways now; and linger here no more.
Thy tarrying is a let unto the tears,
With which I hasten that whereof thou spak'st.
I have on earth a kinswoman; her name
Alagia, worthy in herself, so ill
Example of our house corrupt her not:
And she is all remaineth of me there."
CANTO XX
Ill strives the will, 'gainst will more wise that strives
His pleasure therefore to mine own preferr'd,
I drew the sponge yet thirsty from the wave.
Onward I mov'd: he also onward mov'd,
Who led me, coasting still, wherever place
Along the rock was vacant, as a man
Walks near the battlements on narrow wall.
For those on th' other part, who drop by drop
Wring out their all-infecting malady,
Too closely press the verge. Accurst be thou!
Inveterate wolf! whose gorge ingluts more prey,
Than every beast beside, yet is not fill'd!
So bottomless thy maw!--Ye spheres of heaven!
To whom there are, as seems, who attribute
All change in mortal state, when is the day
Of his appearing, for whom fate reserves
To chase her hence?--With wary steps and slow
We pass'd; and I attentive to the shades,
Whom piteously I heard lament and wail;
And,'midst the wailing, one before us heard
Cry out "O blessed Virgin!" as a dame
In the sharp pangs of childbed; and "How poor
Thou wast," it added, "witness that low roof
Where thou didst lay thy sacred burden down.
O good Fabricius! thou didst virtue choose
With poverty, before great wealth with vice."
The words so pleas'd me, that desire to know
The spirit, from whose lip they seem'd to come,
Did draw me onward. Yet it spake the gift
Of Nicholas, which on the maidens he
Bounteous bestow'd, to save their youthful prime
Unblemish'd. "Spirit! who dost speak of deeds
So worthy, tell me who thou was," I said,
"And why thou dost with single voice renew
Memorial of such praise. That boon vouchsaf'd
Haply shall meet reward; if I return
To finish the Short pilgrimage of life,
Still speeding to its close on restless wing."
"I," answer'd he, "will tell thee, not for hell,
Which thence I look for; but that in thyself
Grace so exceeding shines, before thy time
Of mortal dissolution. I was root
Of that ill plant, whose shade such poison sheds
O'er all the Christian land, that seldom thence
Good fruit is gather'd. Vengeance soon should come,
Had Ghent and Douay, Lille and Bruges power;
And vengeance I of heav'n's great Judge implore.
Hugh Capet was I high: from me descend
The Philips and the Louis, of whom France
Newly is govern'd; born of one, who ply'd
The slaughterer's trade at Paris. When the race
Of ancient kings had vanish'd (all save one
Wrapt up in sable weeds) within my gripe
I found the reins of empire, and such powers
Of new acquirement, with full store of friends,
That soon the widow'd circlet of the crown
Was girt upon the temples of my son,
He, from whose bones th' anointed race begins.
Till the great dower of Provence had remov'd
The stains, that yet obscur'd our lowly blood,
Its sway indeed was narrow, but howe'er
It wrought no evil: there, with force and lies,
Began its rapine; after, for amends,
Poitou it seiz'd, Navarre and Gascony.
To Italy came Charles, and for amends
Young Conradine an innocent victim slew,
And sent th' angelic teacher back to heav'n,
Still for amends. I see the time at hand,
That forth from France invites another Charles
To make himself and kindred better known.
Unarm'd he issues, saving with that lance,
Which the arch-traitor tilted with; and that
He carries with so home a thrust, as rives
The bowels of poor Florence. No increase
Of territory hence, but sin and shame
Shall be his guerdon, and so much the more
As he more lightly deems of such foul wrong.
I see the other, who a prisoner late
Had steps on shore, exposing to the mart
His daughter, whom he bargains for, as do
The Corsairs for their slaves. O avarice!
What canst thou more, who hast subdued our blood
So wholly to thyself, they feel no care
Of their own flesh? To hide with direr guilt
Past ill and future, lo! the flower-de-luce
Enters Alagna! in his Vicar Christ
Himself a captive, and his mockery
Acted again! Lo! to his holy lip
The vinegar and gall once more applied!
And he 'twixt living robbers doom'd to bleed!
Lo! the new Pilate, of whose cruelty
Such violence cannot fill the measure up,
With no degree to sanction, pushes on
Into the temple his yet eager sails!
"O sovran Master! when shall I rejoice
To see the vengeance, which thy wrath well-pleas'd
In secret silence broods?--While daylight lasts,
So long what thou didst hear of her, sole spouse
Of the Great Spirit, and on which thou turn'dst
To me for comment, is the general theme
Of all our prayers: but when it darkens, then
A different strain we utter, then record
Pygmalion, whom his gluttonous thirst of gold
Made traitor, robber, parricide: the woes
Of Midas, which his greedy wish ensued,
Mark'd for derision to all future times:
And the fond Achan, how he stole the prey,
That yet he seems by Joshua's ire pursued.
Sapphira with her husband next, we blame;
And praise the forefeet, that with furious ramp
Spurn'd Heliodorus. All the mountain round
Rings with the infamy of Thracia's king,
Who slew his Phrygian charge: and last a shout
Ascends: "Declare, O Crassus! for thou know'st,
The flavour of thy gold." The voice of each
Now high now low, as each his impulse prompts,
Is led through many a pitch, acute or grave.
Therefore, not singly, I erewhile rehears'd
That blessedness we tell of in the day:
But near me none beside his accent rais'd."
From him we now had parted, and essay'd
With utmost efforts to surmount the way,
When I did feel, as nodding to its fall,
The mountain tremble; whence an icy chill
Seiz'd on me, as on one to death convey'd.
So shook not Delos, when Latona there
Couch'd to bring forth the twin-born eyes of heaven.
Forthwith from every side a shout arose
So vehement, that suddenly my guide
Drew near, and cried: "Doubt not, while I conduct thee."
"Glory!" all shouted (such the sounds mine ear
Gather'd from those, who near me swell'd the sounds)
"Glory in the highest be to God." We stood
Immovably suspended, like to those,
The shepherds, who first heard in Bethlehem's field
That song: till ceas'd the trembling, and the song
Was ended: then our hallow'd path resum'd,
Eying the prostrate shadows, who renew'd
Their custom'd mourning. Never in my breast
Did ignorance so struggle with desire
Of knowledge, if my memory do not err,
As in that moment; nor through haste dar'd I
To question, nor myself could aught discern,
So on I far'd in thoughtfulness and dread.
CANTO XXI
The natural thirst, ne'er quench'd but from the well,
Whereof the woman of Samaria crav'd,
Excited: haste along the cumber'd path,
After my guide, impell'd; and pity mov'd
My bosom for the'vengeful deed, though just.
When lo! even as Luke relates, that Christ
Appear'd unto the two upon their way,
New-risen from his vaulted grave; to us
A shade appear'd, and after us approach'd,
Contemplating the crowd beneath its feet.
We were not ware of it; so first it spake,
Saying, "God give you peace, my brethren!" then
Sudden we turn'd: and Virgil such salute,
As fitted that kind greeting, gave, and cried:
"Peace in the blessed council be thy lot
Awarded by that righteous court, which me
To everlasting banishment exiles!"
"How!" he exclaim'd, nor from his speed meanwhile
Desisting, "If that ye be spirits, whom God
Vouchsafes not room above, who up the height
Has been thus far your guide?" To whom the bard:
"If thou observe the tokens, which this man
Trac'd by the finger of the angel bears,
'Tis plain that in the kingdom of the just
He needs must share. But sithence she, whose wheel
Spins day and night, for him not yet had drawn
That yarn, which, on the fatal distaff pil'd,
Clotho apportions to each wight that breathes,
His soul, that sister is to mine and thine,
Not of herself could mount, for not like ours
Her ken: whence I, from forth the ample gulf
Of hell was ta'en, to lead him, and will lead
Far as my lore avails. But, if thou know,
Instruct us for what cause, the mount erewhile
Thus shook and trembled: wherefore all at once
Seem'd shouting, even from his wave-wash'd foot."
That questioning so tallied with my wish,
The thirst did feel abatement of its edge
E'en from expectance. He forthwith replied,
"In its devotion nought irregular
This mount can witness, or by punctual rule
Unsanction'd; here from every change exempt.
Other than that, which heaven in itself
Doth of itself receive, no influence
Can reach us. Tempest none, shower, hail or snow,
Hoar frost or dewy moistness, higher falls
Than that brief scale of threefold steps: thick clouds
Nor scudding rack are ever seen: swift glance
Ne'er lightens, nor Thaumantian Iris gleams,
That yonder often shift on each side heav'n.
Vapour adust doth never mount above
The highest of the trinal stairs, whereon
Peter's vicegerent stands. Lower perchance,
With various motion rock'd, trembles the soil:
But here, through wind in earth's deep hollow pent,
I know not how, yet never trembled: then
Trembles, when any spirit feels itself
So purified, that it may rise, or move
For rising, and such loud acclaim ensues.
Purification by the will alone
Is prov'd, that free to change society
Seizes the soul rejoicing in her will.
Desire of bliss is present from the first;
But strong propension hinders, to that wish
By the just ordinance of heav'n oppos'd;
Propension now as eager to fulfil
Th' allotted torment, as erewhile to sin.
And I who in this punishment had lain
Five hundred years and more, but now have felt
Free wish for happier clime. Therefore thou felt'st
The mountain tremble, and the spirits devout
Heard'st, over all his limits, utter praise
To that liege Lord, whom I entreat their joy
To hasten." Thus he spake: and since the draught
Is grateful ever as the thirst is keen,
No words may speak my fullness of content.
"Now," said the instructor sage, "I see the net
That takes ye here, and how the toils are loos'd,
Why rocks the mountain and why ye rejoice.
Vouchsafe, that from thy lips I next may learn,
Who on the earth thou wast, and wherefore here
So many an age wert prostrate."--"In that time,
When the good Titus, with Heav'n's King to help,
Aveng'd those piteous gashes, whence the blood
By Judas sold did issue, with the name
Most lasting and most honour'd there was I
Abundantly renown'd," the shade reply'd,
"Not yet with faith endued. So passing sweet
My vocal Spirit, from Tolosa, Rome
To herself drew me, where I merited
A myrtle garland to inwreathe my brow.
Statius they name me still. Of Thebes I sang,
And next of great Achilles: but i' th' way
Fell with the second burthen. Of my flame
Those sparkles were the seeds, which I deriv'd
From the bright fountain of celestial fire
That feeds unnumber'd lamps, the song I mean
Which sounds Aeneas' wand'rings: that the breast
I hung at, that the nurse, from whom my veins
Drank inspiration: whose authority
Was ever sacred with me. To have liv'd
Coeval with the Mantuan, I would bide
The revolution of another sun
Beyond my stated years in banishment."
The Mantuan, when he heard him, turn'd to me,
And holding silence: by his countenance
Enjoin'd me silence but the power which wills,
Bears not supreme control: laughter and tears
Follow so closely on the passion prompts them,
They wait not for the motions of the will
In natures most sincere. I did but smile,
As one who winks; and thereupon the shade
Broke off, and peer'd into mine eyes, where best
Our looks interpret. "So to good event
Mayst thou conduct such great emprize," he cried,
"Say, why across thy visage beam'd, but now,
The lightning of a smile!" On either part
Now am I straiten'd; one conjures me speak,
Th' other to silence binds me: whence a sigh
I utter, and the sigh is heard. "Speak on;"
The teacher cried; "and do not fear to speak,
But tell him what so earnestly he asks."
Whereon I thus: "Perchance, O ancient spirit!
Thou marvel'st at my smiling. There is room
For yet more wonder. He who guides my ken
On high, he is that Mantuan, led by whom
Thou didst presume of men and gods to sing.
If other cause thou deem'dst for which I smil'd,
Leave it as not the true one; and believe
Those words, thou spak'st of him, indeed the cause."
Now down he bent t' embrace my teacher's feet;
But he forbade him: "Brother! do it not:
Thou art a shadow, and behold'st a shade."
He rising answer'd thus: "Now hast thou prov'd
The force and ardour of the love I bear thee,
When I forget we are but things of air,
And as a substance treat an empty shade."
CANTO XXII
Now we had left the angel, who had turn'd
To the sixth circle our ascending step,
One gash from off my forehead raz'd: while they,
Whose wishes tend to justice, shouted forth:
"Blessed!" and ended with, "I thirst:" and I,
More nimble than along the other straits,
So journey'd, that, without the sense of toil,
I follow'd upward the swift-footed shades;
When Virgil thus began: "Let its pure flame
From virtue flow, and love can never fail
To warm another's bosom' so the light
Shine manifestly forth. Hence from that hour,
When'mongst us in the purlieus of the deep,
Came down the spirit of Aquinum's hard,
Who told of thine affection, my good will
Hath been for thee of quality as strong
As ever link'd itself to one not seen.
Therefore these stairs will now seem short to me.
But tell me: and if too secure I loose
The rein with a friend's license, as a friend
Forgive me, and speak now as with a friend:
How chanc'd it covetous desire could find
Place in that bosom,'midst such ample store
Of wisdom, as thy zeal had treasur'd there?"
First somewhat mov'd to laughter by his words,
Statius replied: "Each syllable of thine
Is a dear pledge of love. Things oft appear
That minister false matters to our doubts,
When their true causes are remov'd from sight.
Thy question doth assure me, thou believ'st
I was on earth a covetous man, perhaps
Because thou found'st me in that circle plac'd.
Know then I was too wide of avarice:
And e'en for that excess, thousands of moons
Have wax'd and wan'd upon my sufferings.
And were it not that I with heedful care
Noted where thou exclaim'st as if in ire
With human nature, 'Why, thou cursed thirst
Of gold! dost not with juster measure guide
The appetite of mortals?' I had met
The fierce encounter of the voluble rock.
Then was I ware that with too ample wing
The hands may haste to lavishment, and turn'd,
As from my other evil, so from this
In penitence. How many from their grave
Shall with shorn locks arise, who living, aye
And at life's last extreme, of this offence,
Through ignorance, did not repent. And know,
The fault which lies direct from any sin
In level opposition, here With that
Wastes its green rankness on one common heap.
Therefore if I have been with those, who wail
Their avarice, to cleanse me, through reverse
Of their transgression, such hath been my lot."
To whom the sovran of the pastoral song:
"While thou didst sing that cruel warfare wag'd
By the twin sorrow of Jocasta's womb,
From thy discourse with Clio there, it seems
As faith had not been shine: without the which
Good deeds suffice not. And if so, what sun
Rose on thee, or what candle pierc'd the dark
That thou didst after see to hoist the sail,
And follow, where the fisherman had led?"
He answering thus: "By thee conducted first,
I enter'd the Parnassian grots, and quaff'd
Of the clear spring; illumin'd first by thee
Open'd mine eyes to God. Thou didst, as one,
Who, journeying through the darkness, hears a light
Behind, that profits not himself, but makes
His followers wise, when thou exclaimedst, 'Lo!
A renovated world! Justice return'd!
Times of primeval innocence restor'd!
And a new race descended from above!'
Poet and Christian both to thee I owed.
That thou mayst mark more clearly what I trace,
My hand shall stretch forth to inform the lines
With livelier colouring. Soon o'er all the world,
By messengers from heav'n, the true belief
Teem'd now prolific, and that word of thine
Accordant, to the new instructors chim'd.
Induc'd by which agreement, I was wont
Resort to them; and soon their sanctity
So won upon me, that, Domitian's rage
Pursuing them, I mix'd my tears with theirs,
And, while on earth I stay'd, still succour'd them;
And their most righteous customs made me scorn
All sects besides. Before I led the Greeks
In tuneful fiction, to the streams of Thebes,
I was baptiz'd; but secretly, through fear,
Remain'd a Christian, and conform'd long time
To Pagan rites. Five centuries and more,
T for that lukewarmness was fain to pace
Round the fourth circle. Thou then, who hast rais'd
The covering, which did hide such blessing from me,
Whilst much of this ascent is yet to climb,
Say, if thou know, where our old Terence bides,
Caecilius, Plautus, Varro: if condemn'd
They dwell, and in what province of the deep."
"These," said my guide, "with Persius and myself,
And others many more, are with that Greek,
Of mortals, the most cherish'd by the Nine,
In the first ward of darkness. There ofttimes
We of that mount hold converse, on whose top
For aye our nurses live. We have the bard
Of Pella, and the Teian, Agatho,
Simonides, and many a Grecian else
Ingarlanded with laurel. Of thy train
Antigone is there, Deiphile,
Argia, and as sorrowful as erst
Ismene, and who show'd Langia's wave:
Deidamia with her sisters there,
And blind Tiresias' daughter, and the bride
Sea-born of Peleus." Either poet now
Was silent, and no longer by th' ascent
Or the steep walls obstructed, round them cast
Inquiring eyes. Four handmaids of the day
Had finish'd now their office, and the fifth
Was at the chariot-beam, directing still
Its balmy point aloof, when thus my guide:
"Methinks, it well behooves us to the brink
Bend the right shoulder' circuiting the mount,
As we have ever us'd." So custom there
Was usher to the road, the which we chose
Less doubtful, as that worthy shade complied.
They on before me went; I sole pursued,
List'ning their speech, that to my thoughts convey'd
Mysterious lessons of sweet poesy.
But soon they ceas'd; for midway of the road
A tree we found, with goodly fruitage hung,
And pleasant to the smell: and as a fir
Upward from bough to bough less ample spreads,
So downward this less ample spread, that none.
Methinks, aloft may climb. Upon the side,
That clos'd our path, a liquid crystal fell
From the steep rock, and through the sprays above
Stream'd showering. With associate step the bards
Drew near the plant; and from amidst the leaves
A voice was heard: "Ye shall be chary of me;"
And after added: "Mary took more thought
For joy and honour of the nuptial feast,
Than for herself who answers now for you.
The women of old Rome were satisfied
With water for their beverage. Daniel fed
On pulse, and wisdom gain'd. The primal age
Was beautiful as gold; and hunger then
Made acorns tasteful, thirst each rivulet
Run nectar. Honey and locusts were the food,
Whereon the Baptist in the wilderness
Fed, and that eminence of glory reach'd
And greatness, which the' Evangelist records."
CANTO XXIII
On the green leaf mine eyes were fix'd, like his
Who throws away his days in idle chase
Of the diminutive, when thus I heard
The more than father warn me: "Son! our time
Asks thriftier using. Linger not: away."
Thereat my face and steps at once I turn'd
Toward the sages, by whose converse cheer'd
I journey'd on, and felt no toil: and lo!
A sound of weeping and a song: "My lips,
O Lord!" and these so mingled, it gave birth
To pleasure and to pain. "O Sire, belov'd!
Say what is this I hear?" Thus I inquir'd.
"Spirits," said he, "who as they go, perchance,
Their debt of duty pay." As on their road
The thoughtful pilgrims, overtaking some
Not known unto them, turn to them, and look,
But stay not; thus, approaching from behind
With speedier motion, eyed us, as they pass'd,
A crowd of spirits, silent and devout.
The eyes of each were dark and hollow: pale
Their visage, and so lean withal, the bones
Stood staring thro' the skin. I do not think
Thus dry and meagre Erisicthon show'd,
When pinc'ed by sharp-set famine to the quick.
"Lo!" to myself I mus'd, "the race, who lost
Jerusalem, when Mary with dire beak
Prey'd on her child." The sockets seem'd as rings,
From which the gems were drops. Who reads the name
Of man upon his forehead, there the M
Had trac'd most plainly. Who would deem, that scent
Of water and an apple, could have prov'd
Powerful to generate such pining want,
Not knowing how it wrought? While now I stood
Wond'ring what thus could waste them (for the cause
Of their gaunt hollowness and scaly rind
Appear'd not) lo! a spirit turn'd his eyes
In their deep-sunken cell, and fasten'd then
On me, then cried with vehemence aloud:
"What grace is this vouchsaf'd me?" By his looks
I ne'er had recogniz'd him: but the voice
Brought to my knowledge what his cheer conceal'd.
Remembrance of his alter'd lineaments
Was kindled from that spark; and I agniz'd
The visage of Forese. "Ah! respect
This wan and leprous wither'd skin," thus he
Suppliant implor'd, "this macerated flesh.
Speak to me truly of thyself. And who
Are those twain spirits, that escort thee there?
Be it not said thou Scorn'st to talk with me."
"That face of thine," I answer'd him, "which dead
I once bewail'd, disposes me not less
For weeping, when I see It thus transform'd.
Say then, by Heav'n, what blasts ye thus? The whilst
I wonder, ask not Speech from me: unapt
Is he to speak, whom other will employs."
He thus: "The water and tee plant we pass'd,
Virtue possesses, by th' eternal will
Infus'd, the which so pines me. Every spirit,
Whose song bewails his gluttony indulg'd
Too grossly, here in hunger and in thirst
Is purified. The odour, which the fruit,
And spray, that showers upon the verdure, breathe,
Inflames us with desire to feed and drink.
Nor once alone encompassing our route
We come to add fresh fuel to the pain:
Pain, said Iolace rather: for that will
To the tree leads us, by which Christ was led
To call Elias, joyful when he paid
Our ransom from his vein." I answering thus:
"Forese! from that day, in which the world
For better life thou changedst, not five years
Have circled. If the power of sinning more
Were first concluded in thee, ere thou knew'st
That kindly grief, which re-espouses us
To God, how hither art thou come so soon?
I thought to find thee lower, there, where time
Is recompense for time." He straight replied:
"To drink up the sweet wormwood of affliction
I have been brought thus early by the tears
Stream'd down my Nella's cheeks. Her prayers devout,
Her sighs have drawn me from the coast, where oft
Expectance lingers, and have set me free
From th' other circles. In the sight of God
So much the dearer is my widow priz'd,
She whom I lov'd so fondly, as she ranks
More singly eminent for virtuous deeds.
The tract most barb'rous of Sardinia's isle,
Hath dames more chaste and modester by far
Than that wherein I left her. O sweet brother!
What wouldst thou have me say? A time to come
Stands full within my view, to which this hour
Shall not be counted of an ancient date,
When from the pulpit shall be loudly warn'd
Th' unblushing dames of Florence, lest they bare
Unkerchief'd bosoms to the common gaze.
What savage women hath the world e'er seen,
What Saracens, for whom there needed scourge
Of spiritual or other discipline,
To force them walk with cov'ring on their limbs!
But did they see, the shameless ones, that Heav'n
Wafts on swift wing toward them, while I speak,
Their mouths were op'd for howling: they shall taste
Of Borrow (unless foresight cheat me here)
Or ere the cheek of him be cloth'd with down
Who is now rock'd with lullaby asleep.
Ah! now, my brother, hide thyself no more,
Thou seest how not I alone but all
Gaze, where thou veil'st the intercepted sun."
Whence I replied: "If thou recall to mind
What we were once together, even yet
Remembrance of those days may grieve thee sore.
That I forsook that life, was due to him
Who there precedes me, some few evenings past,
When she was round, who shines with sister lamp
To his, that glisters yonder," and I show'd
The sun. "Tis he, who through profoundest night
Of he true dead has brought me, with this flesh
As true, that follows. From that gloom the aid
Of his sure comfort drew me on to climb,
And climbing wind along this mountain-steep,
Which rectifies in you whate'er the world
Made crooked and deprav'd I have his word,
That he will bear me company as far
As till I come where Beatrice dwells:
But there must leave me. Virgil is that spirit,
Who thus hath promis'd," and I pointed to him;
"The other is that shade, for whom so late
Your realm, as he arose, exulting shook
Through every pendent cliff and rocky bound."
CANTO XXIV
Our journey was not slacken'd by our talk,
Nor yet our talk by journeying. Still we spake,
And urg'd our travel stoutly, like a ship
When the wind sits astern. The shadowy forms,
That seem'd things dead and dead again, drew in
At their deep-delved orbs rare wonder of me,
Perceiving I had life; and I my words
Continued, and thus spake; "He journeys up
Perhaps more tardily then else he would,
For others' sake. But tell me, if thou know'st,
Where is Piccarda? Tell me, if I see
Any of mark, among this multitude,
Who eye me thus."--"My sister (she for whom,
'Twixt beautiful and good I cannot say
Which name was fitter ) wears e'en now her crown,
And triumphs in Olympus." Saying this,
He added: "Since spare diet hath so worn
Our semblance out, 't is lawful here to name
Each one. This," and his finger then he rais'd,
"Is Buonaggiuna,--Buonaggiuna, he
Of Lucca: and that face beyond him, pierc'd
Unto a leaner fineness than the rest,
Had keeping of the church: he was of Tours,
And purges by wan abstinence away
Bolsena's eels and cups of muscadel."
He show'd me many others, one by one,
And all, as they were nam'd, seem'd well content;
For no dark gesture I discern'd in any.
I saw through hunger Ubaldino grind
His teeth on emptiness; and Boniface,
That wav'd the crozier o'er a num'rous flock.
I saw the Marquis, who tad time erewhile
To swill at Forli with less drought, yet so
Was one ne'er sated. I howe'er, like him,
That gazing'midst a crowd, singles out one,
So singled him of Lucca; for methought
Was none amongst them took such note of me.
Somewhat I heard him whisper of Gentucca:
The sound was indistinct, and murmur'd there,
Where justice, that so strips them, fix'd her sting.
"Spirit!" said I, "it seems as thou wouldst fain
Speak with me. Let me hear thee. Mutual wish
To converse prompts, which let us both indulge."
He, answ'ring, straight began: "Woman is born,
Whose brow no wimple shades yet, that shall make
My city please thee, blame it as they may.
Go then with this forewarning. If aught false
My whisper too implied, th' event shall tell
But say, if of a truth I see the man
Of that new lay th' inventor, which begins
With 'Ladies, ye that con the lore of love'."
To whom I thus: "Count of me but as one
Who am the scribe of love; that, when he breathes,
Take up my pen, and, as he dictates, write."
"Brother!" said he, "the hind'rance which once held
The notary with Guittone and myself,
Short of that new and sweeter style I hear,
Is now disclos'd. I see how ye your plumes
Stretch, as th' inditer guides them; which, no question,
Ours did not. He that seeks a grace beyond,
Sees not the distance parts one style from other."
And, as contented, here he held his peace.
Like as the bird, that winter near the Nile,
In squared regiment direct their course,
Then stretch themselves in file for speedier flight;
Thus all the tribe of spirits, as they turn'd
Their visage, faster deaf, nimble alike
Through leanness and desire. And as a man,
Tir'd With the motion of a trotting steed,
Slacks pace, and stays behind his company,
Till his o'erbreathed lungs keep temperate time;
E'en so Forese let that holy crew
Proceed, behind them lingering at my side,
And saying: "When shall I again behold thee?"
"How long my life may last," said I, "I know not;
This know, how soon soever I return,
My wishes will before me have arriv'd.
Sithence the place, where I am set to live,
Is, day by day, more scoop'd of all its good,
And dismal ruin seems to threaten it."
"Go now," he cried: "lo! he, whose guilt is most,
Passes before my vision, dragg'd at heels
Of an infuriate beast. Toward the vale,
Where guilt hath no redemption, on it speeds,
Each step increasing swiftness on the last;
Until a blow it strikes, that leaveth him
A corse most vilely shatter'd. No long space
Those wheels have yet to roll" (therewith his eyes
Look'd up to heav'n) "ere thou shalt plainly see
That which my words may not more plainly tell.
I quit thee: time is precious here: I lose
Too much, thus measuring my pace with shine."
As from a troop of well-rank'd chivalry
One knight, more enterprising than the rest,
Pricks forth at gallop, eager to display
His prowess in the first encounter prov'd
So parted he from us with lengthen'd strides,
And left me on the way with those twain spirits,
Who were such mighty marshals of the world.
When he beyond us had so fled mine eyes
No nearer reach'd him, than my thought his words,
The branches of another fruit, thick hung,
And blooming fresh, appear'd. E'en as our steps
Turn'd thither, not far off it rose to view.
Beneath it were a multitude, that rais'd
Their hands, and shouted forth I know not What
Unto the boughs; like greedy and fond brats,
That beg, and answer none obtain from him,
Of whom they beg; but more to draw them on,
He at arm's length the object of their wish
Above them holds aloft, and hides it not.
At length, as undeceiv'd they went their way:
And we approach the tree, who vows and tears
Sue to in vain, the mighty tree. "Pass on,
And come not near. Stands higher up the wood,
Whereof Eve tasted, and from it was ta'en
'this plant." Such sounds from midst the thickets came.
Whence I, with either bard, close to the side
That rose, pass'd forth beyond. "Remember," next
We heard, "those noblest creatures of the clouds,
How they their twofold bosoms overgorg'd
Oppos'd in fight to Theseus: call to mind
The Hebrews, how effeminate they stoop'd
To ease their thirst; whence Gideon's ranks were thinn'd,
As he to Midian march'd adown the hills."
Thus near one border coasting, still we heard
The sins of gluttony, with woe erewhile
Reguerdon'd. Then along the lonely path,
Once more at large, full thousand paces on
We travel'd, each contemplative and mute.
"Why pensive journey thus ye three alone?"
Thus suddenly a voice exclaim'd: whereat
I shook, as doth a scar'd and paltry beast;
Then rais'd my head to look from whence it came.
Was ne'er, in furnace, glass, or metal seen
So bright and glowing red, as was the shape
I now beheld. "If ye desire to mount,"
He cried, "here must ye turn. This way he goes,
Who goes in quest of peace." His countenance
Had dazzled me; and to my guides I fac'd
Backward, like one who walks, as sound directs.
As when, to harbinger the dawn, springs up
On freshen'd wing the air of May, and breathes
Of fragrance, all impregn'd with herb and flowers,
E'en such a wind I felt upon my front
Blow gently, and the moving of a wing
Perceiv'd, that moving shed ambrosial smell;
And then a voice: "Blessed are they, whom grace
Doth so illume, that appetite in them
Exhaleth no inordinate desire,
Still hung'ring as the rule of temperance wills."
CANTO XXV
It was an hour, when he who climbs, had need
To walk uncrippled: for the sun had now
To Taurus the meridian circle left,
And to the Scorpion left the night. As one
That makes no pause, but presses on his road,
Whate'er betide him, if some urgent need
Impel: so enter'd we upon our way,
One before other; for, but singly, none
That steep and narrow scale admits to climb.
E'en as the young stork lifteth up his wing
Through wish to fly, yet ventures not to quit
The nest, and drops it; so in me desire
Of questioning my guide arose, and fell,
Arriving even to the act, that marks
A man prepar'd for speech. Him all our haste
Restrain'd not, but thus spake the sire belov'd:
Fear not to speed the shaft, that on thy lip
Stands trembling for its flight. |
10,240 |
Produced by David Widger
LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI
BY MARK TWAIN
Part 8.
Chapter 36 The Professor's Yarn
IT was in the early days. I was not a college professor then. I was a
humble-minded young land-surveyor, with the world before me--to survey,
in case anybody wanted it done. I had a contract to survey a route for
a great mining-ditch in California, and I was on my way thither, by sea
--a three or four weeks' voyage. There were a good many passengers, but
I had very little to say to them; reading and dreaming were my passions,
and I avoided conversation in order to indulge these appetites. There
were three professional gamblers on board--rough, repulsive fellows. I
never had any talk with them, yet I could not help seeing them with some
frequency, for they gambled in an upper-deck stateroom every day and
night, and in my promenades I often had glimpses of them through their
door, which stood a little ajar to let out the surplus tobacco smoke and
profanity. They were an evil and hateful presence, but I had to put up
with it, of course,
There was one other passenger who fell under my eye a good deal, for he
seemed determined to be friendly with me, and I could not have gotten
rid of him without running some chance of hurting his feelings, and I
was far from wishing to do that. Besides, there was something engaging
in his countrified simplicity and his beaming good-nature. The first
time I saw this Mr. John Backus, I guessed, from his clothes and his
looks, that he was a grazier or farmer from the backwoods of some
western State--doubtless Ohio--and afterward when he dropped into his
personal history and I discovered that he WAS a cattle-raiser from
interior Ohio, I was so pleased with my own penetration that I warmed
toward him for verifying my instinct.
He got to dropping alongside me every day, after breakfast, to help me
make my promenade; and so, in the course of time, his easy-working jaw
had told me everything about his business, his prospects, his family,
his relatives, his politics--in fact everything that concerned a Backus,
living or dead. And meantime I think he had managed to get out of me
everything I knew about my trade, my tribe, my purposes, my prospects,
and myself. He was a gentle and persuasive genius, and this thing
showed it; for I was not given to talking about my matters. I said
something about triangulation, once; the stately word pleased his ear;
he inquired what it meant; I explained; after that he quietly and
inoffensively ignored my name, and always called me Triangle.
What an enthusiast he was in cattle! At the bare name of a bull or a
cow, his eye would light and his eloquent tongue would turn itself
loose. As long as I would walk and listen, he would walk and talk; he
knew all breeds, he loved all breeds, he caressed them all with his
affectionate tongue. I tramped along in voiceless misery whilst the
cattle question was up; when I could endure it no longer, I used to
deftly insert a scientific topic into the conversation; then my eye
fired and his faded; my tongue fluttered, his stopped; life was a joy to
me, and a sadness to him.
One day he said, a little hesitatingly, and with somewhat of diffidence--
'Triangle, would you mind coming down to my stateroom a minute, and have
a little talk on a certain matter?'
I went with him at once. Arrived there, he put his head out, glanced up
and down the saloon warily, then closed the door and locked it. He sat
down on the sofa, and he said--
'I'm a-going to make a little proposition to you, and if it strikes you
favorable, it'll be a middling good thing for both of us. You ain't
a-going out to Californy for fun, nuther am I--it's business, ain't that
so? Well, you can do me a good turn, and so can I you, if we see fit.
I've raked and scraped and saved, a considerable many years, and I've
got it all here.' He unlocked an old hair trunk, tumbled a chaos of
shabby clothes aside, and drew a short stout bag into view for a moment,
then buried it again and relocked the trunk. Dropping his voice to a
cautious low tone, he continued, 'She's all there--a round ten thousand
dollars in yellow-boys; now this is my little idea: What I don't know
about raising cattle, ain't worth knowing. There's mints of money in it,
in Californy. Well, I know, and you know, that all along a line that's
being surveyed, there's little dabs of land that they call "gores,"
that fall to the surveyor free gratis for nothing. All you've got to
do, on your side, is to survey in such a way that the "gores" will fall
on good fat land, then you turn 'em over to me, I stock 'em with cattle,
in rolls the cash, I plank out your share of the dollars regular, right
along, and--'
I was sorry to wither his blooming enthusiasm, but it could not be
helped. I interrupted, and said severely--
'I am not that kind of a surveyor. Let us change the subject, Mr.
Backus.'
It was pitiful to see his confusion and hear his awkward and shamefaced
apologies. I was as much distressed as he was--especially as he seemed
so far from having suspected that there was anything improper in his
proposition. So I hastened to console him and lead him on to forget his
mishap in a conversational orgy about cattle and butchery. We were lying
at Acapulco; and, as we went on deck, it happened luckily that the crew
were just beginning to hoist some beeves aboard in slings. Backus's
melancholy vanished instantly, and with it the memory of his late
mistake.
'Now only look at that!' cried he; 'My goodness, Triangle, what WOULD
they say to it in OHIO. Wouldn't their eyes bug out, to see 'em handled
like that?--wouldn't they, though?'
All the passengers were on deck to look--even the gamblers--and Backus
knew them all, and had afflicted them all with his pet topic. As I moved
away, I saw one of the gamblers approach and accost him; then another of
them; then the third. I halted; waited; watched; the conversation
continued between the four men; it grew earnest; Backus drew gradually
away; the gamblers followed, and kept at his elbow. I was uncomfortable.
However, as they passed me presently, I heard Backus say, with a tone of
persecuted annoyance--
'But it ain't any use, gentlemen; I tell you again, as I've told you a
half a dozen times before, I warn't raised to it, and I ain't a-going to
resk it.'
I felt relieved. 'His level head will be his sufficient protection,' I
said to myself.
During the fortnight's run from Acapulco to San Francisco I several
times saw the gamblers talking earnestly with Backus, and once I threw
out a gentle warning to him. He chuckled comfortably and said--
'Oh, yes! they tag around after me considerable--want me to play a
little, just for amusement, they say--but laws-a-me, if my folks have
told me once to look out for that sort of live-stock, they've told me a
thousand times, I reckon.'
By-and-bye, in due course, we were approaching San Francisco. It was an
ugly black night, with a strong wind blowing, but there was not much
sea. I was on deck, alone. Toward ten I started below. A figure issued
from the gamblers' den, and disappeared in the darkness. I experienced a
shock, for I was sure it was Backus. I flew down the companion-way,
looked about for him, could not find him, then returned to the deck just
in time to catch a glimpse of him as he re-entered that confounded nest
of rascality. Had he yielded at last? I feared it. What had he gone
below for?--His bag of coin? Possibly. I drew near the door, full of
bodings. It was a-crack, and I glanced in and saw a sight that made me
bitterly wish I had given my attention to saving my poor cattle-friend,
instead of reading and dreaming my foolish time away. He was gambling.
Worse still, he was being plied with champagne, and was already showing
some effect from it. He praised the 'cider,' as he called it, and said
now that he had got a taste of it he almost believed he would drink it
if it was spirits, it was so good and so ahead of anything he had ever
run across before. Surreptitious smiles, at this, passed from one rascal
to another, and they filled all the glasses, and whilst Backus honestly
drained his to the bottom they pretended to do the same, but threw the
wine over their shoulders.
I could not bear the scene, so I wandered forward and tried to interest
myself in the sea and the voices of the wind. But no, my uneasy spirit
kept dragging me back at quarter-hour intervals; and always I saw Backus
drinking his wine--fairly and squarely, and the others throwing theirs
away. It was the painfullest night I ever spent.
The only hope I had was that we might reach our anchorage with speed--
that would break up the game. I helped the ship along all I could with
my prayers. At last we went booming through the Golden Gate, and my
pulses leaped for joy. I hurried back to that door and glanced in.
Alas, there was small room for hope--Backus's eyes were heavy and
bloodshot, his sweaty face was crimson, his speech maudlin and thick,
his body sawed drunkenly about with the weaving motion of the ship. He
drained another glass to the dregs, whilst the cards were being dealt.
He took his hand, glanced at it, and his dull eyes lit up for a moment.
The gamblers observed it, and showed their gratification by hardly
perceptible signs.
'How many cards?'
'None!' said Backus.
One villain--named Hank Wiley--discarded one card, the others three
each. The betting began. Heretofore the bets had been trifling--a
dollar or two; but Backus started off with an eagle now, Wiley hesitated
a moment, then'saw it' and 'went ten dollars better.' The other two
threw up their hands.
Backus went twenty better. Wiley said--
'I see that, and go you a hundred better!' then smiled and reached for
the money.
'Let it alone,' said Backus, with drunken gravity.
'What! you mean to say you're going to cover it?'
'Cover it? Well, I reckon I am--and lay another hundred on top of it,
too.'
He reached down inside his overcoat and produced the required sum.
'Oh, that's your little game, is it? I see your raise, and raise it
five hundred!' said Wiley.
'Five hundred better.' said the foolish bull-driver, and pulled out the
amount and showered it on the pile. The three conspirators hardly tried
to conceal their exultation.
All diplomacy and pretense were dropped now, and the sharp exclamations
came thick and fast, and the yellow pyramid grew higher and higher. At
last ten thousand dollars lay in view. Wiley cast a bag of coin on the
table, and said with mocking gentleness--
'Five thousand dollars better, my friend from the rural districts--what
do you say NOW?'
'I CALL you!' said Backus, heaving his golden shot-bag on the pile.
'What have you got?'
'Four kings, you d--d fool!' and Wiley threw down his cards and
surrounded the stakes with his arms.
'Four ACES, you ass!' thundered Backus, covering his man with a cocked
revolver. 'I'M A PROFESSIONAL GAMBLER MYSELF, AND I'VE BEEN LAYING FOR
YOU DUFFERS ALL THIS VOYAGE!'
Down went the anchor, rumbledy-dum-dum! and the long trip was ended.
Well--well, it is a sad world. One of the three gamblers was Backus's
'pal.' It was he that dealt the fateful hands. According to an
understanding with the two victims, he was to have given Backus four
queens, but alas, he didn't.
A week later, I stumbled upon Backus--arrayed in the height of fashion--
in Montgomery Street. He said, cheerily, as we were parting--
'Ah, by-the-way, you needn't mind about those gores. I don't really
know anything about cattle, except what I was able to pick up in a
week's apprenticeship over in Jersey just before we sailed. My cattle-
culture and cattle-enthusiasm have served their turn--I shan't need them
any more.'
Next day we reluctantly parted from the 'Gold Dust' and her officers,
hoping to see that boat and all those officers again, some day. A thing
which the fates were to render tragically impossible!
Chapter 37 The End of the 'Gold Dust'
FOR, three months later, August 8, while I was writing one of these
foregoing chapters, the New York papers brought this telegram--
A TERRIBLE DISASTER.
SEVENTEEN PERSONS KILLED BY AN EXPLOSION ON THE STEAMER 'GOLD DUST.'
'NASHVILLE, Aug. 7.--A despatch from Hickman, Ky., says--
'The steamer "Gold Dust" exploded her boilers at three o'clock to-day,
just after leaving Hickman. Forty-seven persons were scalded and
seventeen are missing. The boat was landed in the eddy just above the
town, and through the exertions of the citizens the cabin passengers,
officers, and part of the crew and deck passengers were taken ashore and
removed to the hotels and residences. Twenty-four of the injured were
lying in Holcomb's dry-goods store at one time, where they received
every attention before being removed to more comfortable places.'
A list of the names followed, whereby it appeared that of the seventeen
dead, one was the barkeeper; and among the forty-seven wounded, were the
captain, chief mate, second mate, and second and third clerks; also Mr.
Lem S. Gray, pilot, and several members of the crew.
In answer to a private telegram, we learned that none of these was
severely hurt, except Mr. Gray. Letters received afterward confirmed
this news, and said that Mr. Gray was improving and would get well.
Later letters spoke less hopefully of his case; and finally came one
announcing his death. A good man, a most companionable and manly man,
and worthy of a kindlier fate.
Chapter 38 The House Beautiful
WE took passage in a Cincinnati boat for New Orleans; or on a Cincinnati
boat--either is correct; the former is the eastern form of putting it,
the latter the western.
Mr. Dickens declined to agree that the Mississippi steamboats were
'magnificent,' or that they were 'floating palaces,'--terms which had
always been applied to them; terms which did not over-express the
admiration with which the people viewed them.
Mr. Dickens's position was unassailable, possibly; the people's position
was certainly unassailable. If Mr. Dickens was comparing these boats
with the crown jewels; or with the Taj, or with the Matterhorn; or with
some other priceless or wonderful thing which he had seen, they were not
magnificent--he was right. The people compared them with what they had
seen; and, thus measured, thus judged, the boats were magnificent--the
term was the correct one, it was not at all too strong. The people were
as right as was Mr. Dickens. The steamboats were finer than anything on
shore. Compared with superior dwelling-houses and first-class hotels in
the Valley, they were indubitably magnificent, they were 'palaces.' To a
few people living in New Orleans and St. Louis, they were not
magnificent, perhaps; not palaces; but to the great majority of those
populations, and to the entire populations spread over both banks
between Baton Rouge and St. Louis, they were palaces; they tallied with
the citizen's dream of what magnificence was, and satisfied it.
Every town and village along that vast stretch of double river-frontage
had a best dwelling, finest dwelling, mansion,--the home of its
wealthiest and most conspicuous citizen. It is easy to describe it:
large grassy yard, with paling fence painted white--in fair repair;
brick walk from gate to door; big, square, two-story 'frame' house,
painted white and porticoed like a Grecian temple--with this difference,
that the imposing fluted columns and Corinthian capitals were a pathetic
sham, being made of white pine, and painted; iron knocker; brass door
knob--discolored, for lack of polishing. Within, an uncarpeted hall, of
planed boards; opening out of it, a parlor, fifteen feet by fifteen--in
some instances five or ten feet larger; ingrain carpet; mahogany center-
table; lamp on it, with green-paper shade--standing on a gridiron, so to
speak, made of high- yarns, by the young ladies of the house, and
called a lamp-mat; several books, piled and disposed, with cast-iron
exactness, according to an inherited and unchangeable plan; among them,
Tupper, much penciled; also, 'Friendship's Offering,' and 'Affection's
Wreath,' with their sappy inanities illustrated in die-away mezzotints;
also, Ossian; 'Alonzo and Melissa:' maybe 'Ivanhoe:' also 'Album,' full
of original 'poetry' of the Thou-hast-wounded-the-spirit-that-loved-thee
breed; two or three goody-goody works--'Shepherd of Salisbury Plain,'
etc.; current number of the chaste and innocuous Godey's 'Lady's Book,'
with painted fashion-plate of wax-figure women with mouths all alike--
lips and eyelids the same size--each five-foot woman with a two-inch
wedge sticking from under her dress and letting-on to be half of her
foot. Polished air-tight stove (new and deadly invention), with pipe
passing through a board which closes up the discarded good old
fireplace. On each end of the wooden mantel, over the fireplace, a
large basket of peaches and other fruits, natural size, all done in
plaster, rudely, or in wax, and painted to resemble the originals--which
they don't. Over middle of mantel, engraving--Washington Crossing the
Delaware; on the wall by the door, copy of it done in thunder-and-
lightning crewels by one of the young ladies--work of art which would
have made Washington hesitate about crossing, if he could have foreseen
what advantage was going to be taken of it. Piano--kettle in disguise--
with music, bound and unbound, piled on it, and on a stand near by:
Battle of Prague; Bird Waltz; Arkansas Traveler; Rosin the Bow;
Marseilles Hymn; On a Lone Barren Isle (St. Helena); The Last Link is
Broken; She wore a Wreath of Roses the Night when last we met; Go,
forget me, Why should Sorrow o'er that Brow a Shadow fling; Hours there
were to Memory Dearer; Long, Long Ago; Days of Absence; A Life on the
Ocean Wave, a Home on the Rolling Deep; Bird at Sea; and spread open on
the rack, where the plaintive singer has left it, RO-holl on, silver
MOO-hoon, guide the TRAV-el-lerr his WAY, etc. Tilted pensively against
the piano, a guitar--guitar capable of playing the Spanish Fandango by
itself, if you give it a start. Frantic work of art on the wall--pious
motto, done on the premises, sometimes in yarns, sometimes in
faded grasses: progenitor of the 'God Bless Our Home' of modern
commerce. Framed in black moldings on the wall, other works of arts,
conceived and committed on the premises, by the young ladies; being grim
black-and-white crayons; landscapes, mostly: lake, solitary sail-boat,
petrified clouds, pre-geological trees on shore, anthracite precipice;
name of criminal conspicuous in the corner. Lithograph, Napoleon
Crossing the Alps. Lithograph, The Grave at St. Helena. Steel-plates,
Trumbull's Battle of Bunker Hill, and the Sally from Gibraltar. Copper-
plates, Moses Smiting the Rock, and Return of the Prodigal Son. In big
gilt frame, slander of the family in oil: papa holding a book
('Constitution of the United States'); guitar leaning against mamma,
blue ribbons fluttering from its neck; the young ladies, as children, in
slippers and scalloped pantelettes, one embracing toy horse, the other
beguiling kitten with ball of yarn, and both simpering up at mamma, who
simpers back. These persons all fresh, raw, and red--apparently skinned.
Opposite, in gilt frame, grandpa and grandma, at thirty and twenty-two,
stiff, old-fashioned, high-collared, puff-sleeved, glaring pallidly out
from a background of solid Egyptian night. Under a glass French clock
dome, large bouquet of stiff flowers done in corpsy-white wax.
Pyramidal what-not in the corner, the shelves occupied chiefly with
bric-a-brac of the period, disposed with an eye to best effect: shell,
with the Lord's Prayer carved on it; another shell--of the long-oval
sort, narrow, straight orifice, three inches long, running from end to
end--portrait of Washington carved on it; not well done; the shell had
Washington's mouth, originally--artist should have built to that. These
two are memorials of the long-ago bridal trip to New Orleans and the
French Market. Other bric-a-brac: Californian'specimens'--quartz, with
gold wart adhering; old Guinea-gold locket, with circlet of ancestral
hair in it; Indian arrow-heads, of flint; pair of bead moccasins, from
uncle who crossed the Plains; three 'alum' baskets of various colors--
being skeleton-frame of wire, clothed-on with cubes of crystallized alum
in the rock-candy style--works of art which were achieved by the young
ladies; their doubles and duplicates to be found upon all what-nots in
the land; convention of desiccated bugs and butterflies pinned to a
card; painted toy-dog, seated upon bellows-attachment--drops its under
jaw and squeaks when pressed upon; sugar-candy rabbit--limbs and
features merged together, not strongly defined; pewter presidential-
campaign medal; miniature card-board wood-sawyer, to be attached to the
stove-pipe and operated by the heat; small Napoleon, done in wax;
spread-open daguerreotypes of dim children, parents, cousins, aunts, and
friends, in all attitudes but customary ones; no templed portico at
back, and manufactured landscape stretching away in the distance--that
came in later, with the photograph; all these vague figures lavishly
chained and ringed--metal indicated and secured from doubt by stripes
and splashes of vivid gold bronze; all of them too much combed, too much
fixed up; and all of them uncomfortable in inflexible Sunday-clothes of
a pattern which the spectator cannot realize could ever have been in
fashion; husband and wife generally grouped together--husband sitting,
wife standing, with hand on his shoulder--and both preserving, all these
fading years, some traceable effect of the daguerreotypist's brisk 'Now
smile, if you please!' Bracketed over what-not--place of special
sacredness--an outrage in water-color, done by the young niece that came
on a visit long ago, and died. Pity, too; for she might have repented of
this in time. Horse-hair chairs, horse-hair sofa which keeps sliding
from under you. Window shades, of oil stuff, with milk-maids and ruined
castles stenciled on them in fierce colors. Lambrequins dependent from
gaudy boxings of beaten tin, gilded. Bedrooms with rag carpets;
bedsteads of the 'corded' sort, with a sag in the middle, the cords
needing tightening; snuffy feather-bed--not aired often enough; cane-
seat chairs, splint-bottomed rocker; looking-glass on wall, school-slate
size, veneered frame; inherited bureau; wash-bowl and pitcher, possibly
--but not certainly; brass candlestick, tallow candle, snuffers. Nothing
else in the room. Not a bathroom in the house; and no visitor likely to
come along who has ever seen one.
That was the residence of the principal citizen, all the way from the
suburbs of New Orleans to the edge of St. Louis. When he stepped aboard
a big fine steamboat, he entered a new and marvelous world: chimney-tops
cut to counterfeit a spraying crown of plumes--and maybe painted red;
pilot-house, hurricane deck, boiler-deck guards, all garnished with
white wooden filigree work of fanciful patterns; gilt acorns topping the
derricks; gilt deer-horns over the big bell; gaudy symbolical picture on
the paddle-box, possibly; big roomy boiler-deck, painted blue, and
furnished with Windsor armchairs; inside, a far-receding snow-white
'cabin;' porcelain knob and oil-picture on every stateroom door; curving
patterns of filigree-work touched up with gilding, stretching overhead
all down the converging vista; big chandeliers every little way, each an
April shower of glittering glass-drops; lovely rainbow-light falling
everywhere from the glazing of the skylights; the whole a long-
drawn, resplendent tunnel, a bewildering and soul-satisfying spectacle!
In the ladies' cabin a pink and white Wilton carpet, as soft as mush,
and glorified with a ravishing pattern of gigantic flowers. Then the
Bridal Chamber--the animal that invented that idea was still alive and
unhanged, at that day--Bridal Chamber whose pretentious flummery was
necessarily overawing to the now tottering intellect of that hosannahing
citizen. Every state-room had its couple of cozy clean bunks, and
perhaps a looking-glass and a snug closet; and sometimes there was even
a washbowl and pitcher, and part of a towel which could be told from
mosquito netting by an expert--though generally these things were
absent, and the shirt-sleeved passengers cleansed themselves at a long
row of stationary bowls in the barber shop, where were also public
towels, public combs, and public soap.
Take the steamboat which I have just described, and you have her in her
highest and finest, and most pleasing, and comfortable, and satisfactory
estate. Now cake her over with a layer of ancient and obdurate dirt,
and you have the Cincinnati steamer awhile ago referred to. Not all
over--only inside; for she was ably officered in all departments except
the steward's.
But wash that boat and repaint her, and she would be about the
counterpart of the most complimented boat of the old flush times: for
the steamboat architecture of the West has undergone no change; neither
has steamboat furniture and ornamentation undergone any.
Chapter 39 Manufactures and Miscreants
WHERE the river, in the Vicksburg region, used to be corkscrewed, it is
now comparatively straight--made so by cut-off; a former distance of
seventy miles is reduced to thirty-five. It is a change which threw
Vicksburg's neighbor, Delta, Louisiana, out into the country and ended
its career as a river town. Its whole river-frontage is now occupied by
a vast sand-bar, thickly covered with young trees--a growth which will
magnify itself into a dense forest by-and-bye, and completely hide the
exiled town.
In due time we passed Grand Gulf and Rodney, of war fame, and reached
Natchez, the last of the beautiful hill-cities--for Baton Rouge, yet to
come, is not on a hill, but only on high ground. Famous Natchez-under-
the-hill has not changed notably in twenty years; in outward aspect--
judging by the descriptions of the ancient procession of foreign
tourists--it has not changed in sixty; for it is still small,
straggling, and shabby. It had a desperate reputation, morally, in the
old keel-boating and early steamboating times--plenty of drinking,
carousing, fisticuffing, and killing there, among the riff-raff of the
river, in those days. But Natchez-on-top-of-the-hill is attractive; has
always been attractive. Even Mrs. Trollope (1827) had to confess its
charms:
'At one or two points the wearisome level line is relieved by bluffs, as
they call the short intervals of high ground. The town of Natchez is
beautifully situated on one of those high spots. The contrast that its
bright green hill forms with the dismal line of black forest that
stretches on every side, the abundant growth of the pawpaw, palmetto and
orange, the copious variety of sweet-scented flowers that flourish
there, all make it appear like an oasis in the desert. Natchez is the
furthest point to the north at which oranges ripen in the open air, or
endure the winter without shelter. With the exception of this sweet
spot, I thought all the little towns and villages we passed wretched-
looking in the extreme.'
Natchez, like her near and far river neighbors, has railways now, and is
adding to them--pushing them hither and thither into all rich outlying
regions that are naturally tributary to her. And like Vicksburg and New
Orleans, she has her ice-factory: she makes thirty tons of ice a day.
In Vicksburg and Natchez, in my time, ice was jewelry; none but the rich
could wear it. But anybody and everybody can have it now. I visited one
of the ice-factories in New Orleans, to see what the polar regions might
look like when lugged into the edge of the tropics. But there was
nothing striking in the aspect of the place. It was merely a spacious
house, with some innocent steam machinery in one end of it and some big
porcelain pipes running here and there. No, not porcelain--they merely
seemed to be; they were iron, but the ammonia which was being breathed
through them had coated them to the thickness of your hand with solid
milk-white ice. It ought to have melted; for one did not require winter
clothing in that atmosphere: but it did not melt; the inside of the
pipe was too cold.
Sunk into the floor were numberless tin boxes, a foot square and two
feet long, and open at the top end. These were full of clear water; and
around each box, salt and other proper stuff was packed; also, the
ammonia gases were applied to the water in some way which will always
remain a secret to me, because I was not able to understand the process.
While the water in the boxes gradually froze, men gave it a stir or two
with a stick occasionally--to liberate the air-bubbles, I think. Other
men were continually lifting out boxes whose contents had become hard
frozen. They gave the box a single dip into a vat of boiling water, to
melt the block of ice free from its tin coffin, then they shot the block
out upon a platform car, and it was ready for market. These big blocks
were hard, solid, and crystal-clear. In certain of them, big bouquets of
fresh and brilliant tropical flowers had been frozen-in; in others,
beautiful silken-clad French dolls, and other pretty objects. These
blocks were to be set on end in a platter, in the center of dinner-
tables, to cool the tropical air; and also to be ornamental, for the
flowers and things imprisoned in them could be seen as through plate
glass. I was told that this factory could retail its ice, by wagon,
throughout New Orleans, in the humblest dwelling-house quantities, at
six or seven dollars a ton, and make a sufficient profit. This being the
case, there is business for ice-factories in the North; for we get ice
on no such terms there, if one take less than three hundred and fifty
pounds at a delivery.
The Rosalie Yarn Mill, of Natchez, has a capacity of 6,000 spindles and
160 looms, and employs 100 hands. The Natchez Cotton Mills Company
began operations four years ago in a two-story building of 50 x 190
feet, with 4,000 spindles and 128 looms; capital $105,000, all
subscribed in the town. Two years later, the same stockholders increased
their capital to $225,000; added a third story to the mill, increased
its length to 317 feet; added machinery to increase the capacity to
10,300 spindles and 304 looms. The company now employ 250 operatives,
many of whom are citizens of Natchez. 'The mill works 5,000 bales of
cotton annually and manufactures the best standard quality of brown
shirtings and sheetings and drills, turning out 5,000,000 yards of these
goods per year.'{footnote [New Orleans Times-Democrat, 26 Aug, 1882.]} A
close corporation--stock held at $5,000 per share, but none in the
market.
The changes in the Mississippi River are great and strange, yet were to
be expected; but I was not expecting to live to see Natchez and these
other river towns become manufacturing strongholds and railway centers.
Speaking of manufactures reminds me of a talk upon that topic which I
heard--which I overheard--on board the Cincinnati boat. I awoke out of a
fretted sleep, with a dull confusion of voices in my ears. I listened--
two men were talking; subject, apparently, the great inundation. I
looked out through the open transom. The two men were eating a late
breakfast; sitting opposite each other; nobody else around. They closed
up the inundation with a few words--having used it, evidently, as a mere
ice-breaker and acquaintanceship-breeder--then they dropped into
business. It soon transpired that they were drummers--one belonging in
Cincinnati, the other in New Orleans. Brisk men, energetic of movement
and speech; the dollar their god, how to get it their religion.
'Now as to this article,' said Cincinnati, slashing into the ostensible
butter and holding forward a slab of it on his knife-blade, 'it's from
our house; look at it--smell of it--taste it. Put any test on it you
want to. Take your own time--no hurry--make it thorough. There now--
what do you say? butter, ain't it. Not by a thundering sight--it's
oleomargarine! Yes, sir, that's what it is--oleomargarine. You can't
tell it from butter; by George, an EXPERT can't. It's from our house.
We supply most of the boats in the West; there's hardly a pound of
butter on one of them. We are crawling right along--JUMPING right along
is the word. We are going to have that entire trade. Yes, and the hotel
trade, too. You are going to see the day, pretty soon, when you can't
find an ounce of butter to bless yourself with, in any hotel in the
Mississippi and Ohio Valleys, outside of the biggest cities. Why, we are
turning out oleomargarine NOW by the thousands of tons. And we can sell
it so dirt-cheap that the whole country has GOT to take it--can't get
around it you see. Butter don't stand any show--there ain't any chance
for competition. Butter's had its DAY--and from this out, butter goes to
the wall. There's more money in oleomargarine than--why, you can't
imagine the business we do. I've stopped in every town from Cincinnati
to Natchez; and I've sent home big orders from every one of them.'
And so-forth and so-on, for ten minutes longer, in the same fervid
strain. Then New Orleans piped up and said--
Yes, it's a first-rate imitation, that's a certainty; but it ain't the
only one around that's first-rate. For instance, they make olive-oil out
of cotton-seed oil, nowadays, so that you can't tell them apart.'
'Yes, that's so,' responded Cincinnati, 'and it was a tip-top business
for a while. They sent it over and brought it back from France and
Italy, with the United States custom-house mark on it to indorse it for
genuine, and there was no end of cash in it; but France and Italy broke
up the game--of course they naturally would. Cracked on such a rattling
impost that cotton-seed olive-oil couldn't stand the raise; had to hang
up and quit.'
'Oh, it DID, did it? You wait here a minute.'
Goes to his state-room, brings back a couple of long bottles, and takes
out the corks--says:
'There now, smell them, taste them, examine the bottles, inspect the
labels. One of'm's from Europe, the other's never been out of this
country. One's European olive-oil, the other's American cotton-seed
olive-oil. Tell'm apart? 'Course you can't. Nobody can. People that
want to, can go to the expense and trouble of shipping their oils to
Europe and back--it's their privilege; but our firm knows a trick worth
six of that. We turn out the whole thing--clean from the word go--in our
factory in New Orleans: labels, bottles, oil, everything. Well, no,
not labels: been buying them abroad--get them dirt-cheap there. You
see, there's just one little wee speck, essence, or whatever it is, in a
gallon of cotton-seed oil, that give it a smell, or a flavor, or
something--get that out, and you're all right--perfectly easy then to
turn the oil into any kind of oil you want to, and there ain't anybody
that can detect the true from the false. Well, we know how to get that
one little particle out--and we're the only firm that does. And we turn
out an olive-oil that is just simply perfect--undetectable! We are doing
a ripping trade, too--as I could easily show you by my order-book for
this trip. Maybe you'll butter everybody's bread pretty soon, but we'll
cotton-seed his salad for him from the Gulf to Canada, and that's a
dead-certain thing.'
Cincinnati glowed and flashed with admiration. The two scoundrels
exchanged business-cards, and rose. As they left the table, Cincinnati
said--
'But you have to have custom-house marks, don't you? How do you manage
that?'
I did not catch the answer.
We passed Port Hudson, scene of two of the most terrific episodes of the
war--the night-battle there between Farragut's fleet and the Confederate
land batteries, April 14th, 1863; and the memorable land battle, two
months later, which lasted eight hours--eight hours of exceptionally
fierce and stubborn fighting--and ended, finally, in the repulse of the
Union forces with great slaughter.
Chapter 40 Castles and Culture
BATON ROUGE was clothed in flowers, like a bride--no, much more so; like
a greenhouse. For we were in the absolute South now--no modifications,
no compromises, no half-way measures. The magnolia-trees in the Capitol
grounds were lovely and fragrant, with their dense rich foliage and huge
snow-ball blossoms. The scent of the flower is very sweet, but you want
distance on it, because it is so powerful. They are not good bedroom
blossoms--they might suffocate one in his sleep. We were certainly in
the South at last; for here the sugar region begins, and the
plantations--vast green levels, with sugar-mill and <DW64> quarters
clustered together in the middle distance--were in view. And there was
a tropical sun overhead and a tropical swelter in the air.
And at this point, also, begins the pilot's paradise: a wide river hence
to New Orleans, abundance of water from shore to shore, and no bars,
snags, sawyers, or wrecks in his road.
Sir Walter Scott is probably responsible for the Capitol building; for
it is not conceivable that this little sham castle would ever have been
built if he had not run the people mad, a couple of generations ago,
with his medieval romances. The South has not yet recovered from the
debilitating influence of his books. Admiration of his fantastic heroes
and their grotesque 'chivalry' doings and romantic juvenilities still
survives here, in an atmosphere in which is already perceptible the
wholesome and practical nineteenth-century smell of cotton-factories and
locomotives; and traces of its inflated language and other windy
humbuggeries survive along with it. It is pathetic enough, that a
whitewashed castle, with turrets and things--materials all ungenuine
within and without, pretending to be what they are not--should ever have
been built in this otherwise honorable place; but it is much more
pathetic to see this architectural falsehood undergoing restoration and
perpetuation in our day, when it would have been so easy to let dynamite
finish what a charitable fire began, and then devote this restoration-
money to the building of something genuine.
Baton Rouge has no patent on imitation castles, however, and no monopoly
of them. Here is a picture from the advertisement of the 'Female
Institute' of Columbia; Tennessee. The following remark is from the
same advertisement--
'The Institute building has long been famed as a model of striking and
beautiful architecture. Visitors are charmed with its resemblance to
the old castles of song and story, with its towers, turreted walls, and
ivy-mantled porches.'
Keeping school in a castle is a romantic thing; as romantic as keeping
hotel in a castle.
By itself the imitation castle is doubtless harmless, and well enough;
but as a symbol and breeder and sustainer of maudlin Middle-Age
romanticism here in the midst of the plainest and sturdiest and
infinitely greatest and worthiest of all the centuries the world has
seen, it is necessarily a hurtful thing and a mistake.
Here is an extract from the prospectus of a Kentucky 'Female College.'
Female college sounds well enough; but since the phrasing it in that
unjustifiable way was done purely in the interest of brevity, it seems
to me that she-college would have been still better--because shorter,
and means the same thing: that is, if either phrase means anything at
all--
'The president is southern by birth, by rearing, by education, and by
sentiment; the teachers are all southern in sentiment, and with the
exception of those born in Europe were born and raised in the south.
Believing the southern to be the highest type of civilization this
continent has seen, the young ladies are trained according to the
southern ideas of delicacy, refinement, womanhood, religion, and
propriety; hence we offer a first-class female college for the south and
solicit southern patronage.'
{footnote (long one) [Illustrations of it thoughtlessly omitted by the
advertiser:
KNOXVILLE, Tenn., October 19.--This morning a few minutes after ten
o'clock, General Joseph A. Mabry, Thomas O'Connor, and Joseph A. Mabry,
Jr., were killed in a shooting affray. The difficulty began yesterday
afternoon by General Mabry attacking Major O'Connor and threatening to
kill him. This was at the fair grounds, and O'Connor told Mabry that it
was not the place to settle their difficulties. Mabry then told O'Connor
he should not live. It seems that Mabry was armed and O'Connor was not.
The cause of the difficulty was an old feud about the transfer of some
property from Mabry to O'Connor. Later in the afternoon Mabry sent word
to O'Connor that he would kill him on sight. This morning Major O'Connor
was standing in the door of the Mechanics' National Bank, of which he
was president. General Mabry and another gentleman walked down Gay
Street on the opposite side from the bank. O'Connor stepped into the
bank, got a shot gun, took deliberate aim at General Mabry and fired.
Mabry fell dead, being shot in the left side. As he fell O'Connor fired
again, the shot taking effect in Mabry's thigh. O'Connor then reached
into the bank and got another shot gun. About this time Joseph A. Mabry,
Jr., son of General Mabry, came rushing down the street, unseen by
O'Connor until within forty feet, when the young man fired a pistol, the
shot taking effect in O'Connor's right breast, passing through the body
near the heart. The instant Mabry shot, O'Connor turned and fired, the
load taking effect in young Mabry's right breast and side. Mabry fell
pierced with twenty buckshot, and almost instantly O'Connor fell dead
without a struggle. Mabry tried to rise, but fell back dead. |
10,240 |
This eBook was produced by Pat Castevens
and David Widger
PART VI.
CHAPTER I.
"I don't know that," said my father.
What is it my father does not know? My father does not know that
"happiness is our being's end and aim."
And pertinent to what does my father reply, by words so sceptical,
to an assertion so seldom disputed?
Reader, Mr. Trevanion has been half an hour seated in our little
drawing-room. He has received two cups of tea from my mother's fair
hand; he has made himself at home. With Mr. Trevanion has come another
friend of my father's, whom he has not seen since he left college,--Sir
Sedley Beaudesert.
Now, you must understand that it is a warm night, a little after nine
o'clock,--a night between departing summer and approaching autumn. The
windows are open; we have a balcony, which my mother has taken care to
fill with flowers; the air, though we are in London, is sweet and fresh;
the street quiet, except that an occasional carriage or hackney
cabriolet rolls rapidly by; a few stealthy passengers pass to and fro
noiselessly on their way homeward. We are on classic ground,--near that
old and venerable Museum, the dark monastic pile which the taste of the
age had spared then,--and the quiet of the temple seems to hallow the
precincts. Captain Roland is seated by the fire-place, and though there
is no fire, he is shading his face with a hand-screen; my father and Mr.
Trevanion have drawn their chairs close to each other in the middle of
the room; Sir Sedley Beaudesert leans against the wall near the window,
and behind my mother, who looks prettier and more pleased than usual
since her Austin has his old friends about him; and I, leaning my elbow
on the table and my chin upon my hand, am gazing with great admiration
on Sir Sedley Beaudesert.
Oh, rare specimen of a race fast decaying,--specimen of the true fine
gentleman, ere the word "dandy" was known, and before "exquisite" became
a noun substantive,--let me here pause to describe thee! Sir Sedley
Beaudesert was the contemporary of Trevanion and my father; but without
affecting to be young, he still seemed so. Dress, tone, look, manner,--
all were young; yet all had a certain dignity which does not belong to
youth. At the age of five and twenty he had won what would have been
fame to a French marquis of the old regime; namely, the reputation of
being "the most charming man of his day,"--the most popular of our sex,
the most favored, my dear lady-reader, by yours. It is a mistake, I
believe, to suppose that it does not require talent to become the
fashion,--at all events, Sir Sedley was the fashion, and he had talent.
He had travelled much, he had read much,--especially in memoirs,
history, and belles-lettres,--he made verses with grace and
a certain originality of easy wit and courtly sentiment, he conversed
delightfully, he was polished and urbane in manner, he was brave and
honorable in conduct; in words he could flatter, in deeds he was
sincere.
Sir Sedley Beaudesert had never married. Whatever his years, he was
still young enough in looks to be married for love. He was high-born,
he was rich, he was, as I have said, popular; yet on his fair features
there was an expression of melancholy, and on that forehead--pure from
the lines of ambition, and free from the weight of study--there was the
shadow of unmistakable regret.
"I don't know that," said my father; "I have never yet found in life one
man who made happiness his end and aim. One wants to gain a fortune,
another to spend it; one to get a place, another to build a name: but
they all know very well that it is not happiness they search for. No
Utilitarian was ever actuated by self-interest, poor man, when he sat
down to scribble his unpopular crotchets to prove self-interest
universal. And as to that notable distinction between self-interest
vulgar and self-interest enlightened, the more the self-interest is
enlightened, the less we are influenced by it. If you tell the young
man who has just written a fine book or made a fine speech that he will
not be any happier if he attain to the fame of Milton or the power of
Pitt, and that, for the sake of his own happiness, he had much better
cultivate a farm, live in the country, and postpone to the last the days
of dyspepsia and gout, he will answer you fairly, 'I am quite as
sensible of that as you are. But I am not thinking whether or not I
shall be happy. I have made up my mind to be, if I can, a great author
or a prime minister.' So it is with all the active sons of the world.
To push on is the law of Nature. And you can no more say to men and to
nations than to children: 'Sit still, and don't wear out your shoes!'"
"Then," said Trevanion, "if I tell you I am not happy, your only answer
is that I obey an inevitable law."
"No, I don't say that it is an inevitable law that man should not be
happy; but it is an inevitable law that a man, in spite of himself,
should live for something higher than his own happiness. He cannot live
in himself or for himself, however egotistical he may try to be. Every
desire he has links him with others. Man is not a machine,--he is a
part of one."
"True, brother, he is a soldier, not an army," said Captain Roland.
"Life is a drama, not a monologue," pursued my father. "'Drama' is
derived from a Greek verb signifying 'to do.' Every actor in the drama
has something to do, which helps on the progress of the whole: that is
the object for which the author created him. Do your part, and let the
Great Play get on."
"Ah!" said Trevanion, briskly, "but to do the part is the difficulty.
Every actor helps to the catastrophe, and yet must do his part without
knowing how all is to end. Shall he help the curtain to fall on a
tragedy or a comedy? Come, I will tell you the one secret of my public
life, that which explains all its failure (for, in spite of my position,
I have failed) and its regrets,--I want Conviction!"
"Exactly," said my father; "because to every question there are two
sides, and you look at them both."
"You have said it," answered Trevanion, smiling also. "For public life
a man should be one-sided: he must act with a party; and a party insists
that the shield is silver, when, if it will take the trouble to turn the
corner, it will see that the reverse of the shield is gold. Woe to the
man who makes that discovery alone, while his party are still swearing
the shield is silver, and that not once in his life, but every night!
"You have said quite enough to convince me that you ought not to belong
to a party, but not enough to convince me why you should not be happy,"
said my father.
"Do you remember," said Sir Sedley Beaudesert, "an anecdote of the first
Duke of Portland? He had a gallery in the great stable of his villa in
Holland, where a concert was given once a week, to cheer and amuse his
horses! I have no doubt the horses thrived all the better for it. What
Trevanion wants is a concert once a week. With him it is always saddle
and spur. Yet, after all, who would not envy him? If life be a drama,
his name stands high in the play-bill, and is printed in capitals on the
walls."
"Envy me!" said Trevanion,--"Me! No, you are the enviable man,--you,
who have only one grief in the world, and that so absurd a one that I
will make you blush by disclosing it. Hear, O sage Austin! O sturdy
Roland! Olivares was haunted by a spectre, and Sedley Beaudesert by the
dread of old age!"
"Well," said my mother, seriously, "I do think it requires a great sense
of religion, or at all events children' of one's own, in whom one is
young again, to reconcile oneself to becoming old."
"My dear ma'am," said Sir Sedley, who had slightly colored at
Trevanion's charge, but had now recovered his easy self-possession, "you
have spoken so admirably that you give me courage to confess my
weakness. I do dread to be old. All the joys of my life have been the
joys of youth. I have had so exquisite a pleasure in the mere sense of
living that old age, as it comes near, terrifies me by its dull eyes and
gray hairs. I have lived the life of a butterfly. Summer is over, and
I see my flowers withering; and my wings are chilled by the first airs
of winter. Yes, I envy Trevanion; for in public life no man is ever
young, and while he can work he is never old."
"My dear Beaudesert," said my father, "when Saint Amable, patron saint
of Riom, in Auvergne, went to Rome, the sun waited upon him as a
servant, carried his cloak and gloves for him in the heat, and kept off
the rain, if the weather changed, like an umbrella. You want to put the
sun to the same use you are quite right; but then, you see, you must
first be a saint before you can be sure of the sun as a servant."
Sir Sedley smiled charmingly; but the smile changed to a sigh as he
added, "I don't think I should much mind being a saint, if the sun would
be my sentinel instead of my courier. I want nothing of him but to
stand still. You see he moved even for Saint Amable. My dear madam,
you and I understand each other; and it is a very hard thing to grow
old, do what one will to keep young."
"What say you, Roland, of these two malcontents?" asked my father. The
Captain turned uneasily in his chair, for the rheumatism was gnawing his
shoulder, and sharp pains were shooting through his mutilated limb.
"I say," answered Roland, "that these men are wearied with marching from
Brentford to Windsor,--that they have never known the bivouac and the
battle."
Both the grumblers turned their eyes to the veteran: the eyes rested
first on the furrowed, care-worn lines in his eagle face; then they fell
on the stiff outstretched cork limb; and then they turned away.
Meanwhile my mother had softly risen, and under pretence of looking for
her work on the table near him, bent over the old soldier and pressed
his hand.
"Gentlemen," said my father, "I don't think my brother ever heard of
Nichocorus, the Greek comic writer; yet he has illustrated him very
ably. Saith Nichocorus, 'The best cure for drunkenness is a sudden
calamity.' For chronic drunkenness, a continued course of real
misfortune must be very salutary!"
No answer came from the two complainants; and my father took up a great
book.
CHAPTER II.
"Mr friends," said my father, looking up from his book, and addressing
himself to his two visitors, know of one thing, milder than calamity,
that would do you both a great deal of good."
"What is that?" asked Sir Sedley.
"A saffron bag, worn at the pit of the stomach!"
"Austin, my dear," said my mother, reprovingly.
My father did not heed the interruption, but continued gravely: "Nothing
is better for the spirits! Roland is in no want of saffron, because he
is a warrior; and the desire of fighting and the hope of victory infuse
such a heat into the spirits as is profitable for long life, and keeps
up the system."
"Tut!" said Trevanion.
"But gentlemen in your predicament must have recourse to artificial
means. Nitre in broth, for instance,--about three grains to ten (cattle
fed upon nitre grow fat); or earthy odors,--such as exist in cucumbers
and cabbage. A certain great lord had a clod of fresh earth, laid in a
napkin, put under his nose every morning after sleep. Light anointing
of the head with oil, mixed with roses and salt, is not bade but, upon
the whole, I prescribe the saffron bag at the--"
"Sisty, my dear, will you look for my scissors?" said my mother.
"What nonsense are you talking! Question! question!" cried Mr.
Trevanion.
"Nonsense!" exclaimed my father, opening his eyes: "I am giving you the
advice of Lord Bacon. You want conviction: conviction comes from
passion; passion from the spirits; spirits from a saffron bag. You,
Beaudesert, on the other hand, want to keep youth. He keeps youth
longest, who lives longest. Nothing more conduces to longevity than a
saffron bag, provided always it is worn at the--"
"Sisty, my thimble!" said my mother.
"You laugh at us justly," said Beaudesert, smiling; "and the same
remedy, I dare say, would cure us both."
"Yes," said my father, "there is no doubt of that. In the pit of the
stomach is that great central web of nerves called the ganglions; thence
they affect the head and the heart. Mr. Squills proved that to us,
Sisty."
"Yes," said I; "but I never heard Mr. Squills talk of a saffron bag."
"Oh, foolish boy! it is not the saffron bag, it is the belief in the
saffron bag. Apply Belief to the centre of the nerves, and all will go
well," said my father.
CHAPTER III.
"But it is a devil of a thing to have too nice a conscience!" quoth the
member of parliament.
"And it is not an angel of a thing to lose one's front teeth!"
sighed the fine gentleman.
Therewith my father rose, and putting his hand into his waistcoat, more
suo, delivered his famous Sermon Upon The Connection Between Faith And
Purpose.
Famous it was in our domestic circle, but as yet it has not gone beyond;
and since the reader, I am sure, does not turn to the Caxton Memoirs
with the expectation of finding sermons, so to that circle let its fame
be circumscribed. All I shall say about it is that it was a very fine
sermon, and that it proved indisputably--to me at least--the salubrious
effects of a saffron bag applied to the great centre of the nervous
system. But the wise Ali saith that "a fool doth not know what maketh
him look little, neither will he hearken to him that adviseth him." I
cannot assert that my father's friends were fools, but they certainly
came under this definition of Folly.
CHAPTER IV.
For therewith arose, not conviction, but discussion; Trevanion was
logical, Beaudesert sentimental. My father held firm to the saffron
bag. When James the First dedicated to the Duke of Buckingham his
meditation on the Lord's Prayer, he gave a very sensible reason for
selecting his Grace for that honor; "For," saith the king, "it is made
upon a very short and plain prayer, and, therefore, the fitter for a
courtier, for courtiers are for the most part thought neither to have
lust nor leisure to say long prayers, liking best courte messe et long
disner." I suppose it was for a similar reason that my father persisted
in dedicating to the member of parliament and the fine gentleman "this
short and plaine" morality of his,--to wit, the saffron bag. He was
evidently persuaded, if he could once get them to apply that, it was all
that was needful; that they had neither lust nor leisure for longer
instructions. And this saffron bag,--it came down with such a whack, at
every round in the argument! You would have thought my father one of
the old plebeian combatants in the popular ordeal, who, forbidden to use
sword and lance, fought with a sand-bag tied to a flail: a very stunning
weapon it was when filled only with sand; but a bag filled with saffron,
it was irresistible! Though my father had two to one against him, they
could not stand such a deuce of a weapon. And after tats and pishes
innumerable from Mr. Trevanion, and sundry bland grimaces from Sir
Sedley Beaudesert, they fairly gave in, though they would not own they
were beaten.
"Enough," said the member, "I see that you don't comprehend me; I must
continue to move by my own impulse."
My father's pet book was the Colloquies of Erasmus; he was wont to say
that those Colloquies furnished life with illustrations in every page.
Out of the Colloquies of Erasmus he now answered the member.
"Rabirius, wanting his servant Syrus to get up," quoth my father, "cried
out to him to move. 'I do move,' said Syrus. 'I see you move,' replied
Rabirius, 'but you move nothing.' To return to the saffron bag--"
"Confound the saffron bag!" cried Trevanion, in a rage; and then
softening his look as he drew on his gloves, he turned to my mother and
said, with more politeness than was natural to, or at least customary
with, him,--
"By the way, my dear Mrs. Caxton, I should tell you that Lady Ellinor
comes to town to-morrow on purpose to call on you. We shall be here
some little time, Austin; and though London is so empty, there are still
some persons of note to whom I should like to introduce you and yours--"
"Nay," said my father; "your world and my world are not the same. Books
for me, and men for you. Neither Kitty nor I can change our habits,
even for friendship: she has a great piece of work to finish, and so
have I. Mountains cannot stir, especially when in labor; but Mahomet
can come to the mountain as often as he likes."
Mr. Trevanion insisted, and Sir Sedley Beaudesert mildly put in his own
claims; both boasted acquaintance with literary men whom my father
would, at all events, be pleased to meet. My father doubted whether he
could meet any literary men more eloquent than Cicero, or more amusing
than Aristophanes; and observed that if such did exist, he would rather
meet them in their books than in a drawing-room. In fine, he--was
immovable; and so also, with less argument, was Captain Roland.
Then Mr. Trevanion turned to me.
"Your son, at all events, should see something of the world."
My mother's soft eye sparkled.
"My dear friend, I thank you," said my father, touched; "and Pisistratus
and I will talk it over."
Our guests had departed. All four of us gathered to the open window,
and enjoyed in silence the cool air and the moonlight.
"Austin," said my mother at last, "I fear it is for my sake that you
refuse going amongst your old friends: you knew I should be frightened
by such fine people, and--"
"And we have been happy for more than eighteen years without them,
Kitty! My poor friends are not happy, and we are. To leave well alone
is a golden rule worth all in Pythagoras. The ladies of Bubastis, my
dear,--a place in Egypt where the cat was worshipped,--always kept
rigidly aloof from the gentlemen in Athribis, who adored the shrew-mice.
Cats are domestic animals, your shrew-mice are sad gadabouts: you can't
find a better model, any Kitty, than the ladies of Bubastis!"
"How Trevanion is altered!" said Roland, musingly,--"he who was so
lively and ardent!"
"He ran too fast up-hill at first, and has been out of breath ever
since," said my father.
"And Lady Ellinor," said Roland, hesitatingly, "shall you see her to-
morrow?"
"Yes!" said my father, calmly.
As Captain Roland spoke, something in the tone of his question seemed to
flash a conviction on my mother's heart, the woman there was quick; she
drew back, turning pale even in the moonlight, and fixed her eyes on my
father, while I felt her hand, which had clasped mine, tremble
convulsively.
I understood her. Yes, this Lady Ellinor was the early rival whose name
till then she had not known. She fixed her eyes on my father; and at
his tranquil tone and quiet look she breathed more freely, and, sliding
her hand from mine, rested it fondly on his shoulder. A few moments
afterwards, I and Captain Roland found ourselves standing alone by the
window.
"You are young, nephew," said the Captain, "and you have the name of a
fallen family to raise. Your father does well not to reject for you
that opening into the great world which Trevanion offers. As for me, my
business in London seems over: I cannot find what I came to seek. I
have sent for my daughter; when she arrives I shall return to my old
tower, and the man and the ruin will crumble away together."
"Tush, uncle! I must work hard and get money; and then we will repair
the old tower and buy back the old estate. My father shall sell the red
brick house; we will fit him up a library in the keep; and we will all
live united, in peace, and in state, as grand as our ancestors before
us."
While I thus spoke, my uncle's eyes were fixed upon a corner of the
street, where a figure, half in shade, half in moonlight, stood
motionless. "Ah!" said I, following his eye, "I have observed that man
two or three times pass up and down the street on the other side of the
way and turn his head towards our window. Our guests were with us then,
and my father in full discourse, or I should have--"
Before I could finish the sentence my uncle, stifling an exclamation,
broke away, hurried out of the room, stumped down the stairs, and was in
the street, while I was yet rooted to the spot with surprise. I
remained at the window, and my eye rested on the figure. I saw the
Captain, with his bare head and his gray hair, cross the street; the
figure started, turned the corner, and fled.
Then I followed my uncle, and arrived in time to save him from falling;
he leant his head on my breast, and I heard him murmur: "It is he--it is
he! He has watched us!---he repents!"
CHAPTER V.
The next day Lady Ellinor called; but, to my great disappointment,
without Fanny.
Whether or not some joy at the incident of the previous night had served
to rejuvenate my uncle, I know not, but he looked to me ten years
younger when Lady Ellinor entered. How carefully the buttoned-up coat
was brushed; how new and glossy was the black stock! The poor Captain
was restored to his pride, and mighty proud he looked! with a glow on
his cheek and a fire in his eye, his head thrown back, and his whole air
composed, severe, Mavortian, and majestic, as if awaiting the charge of
the French cuirassiers at the head of his detachment.
My father, on the contrary, was as usual (till dinner, when he always
dressed punctiliously, out of respect to his Kitty), in his easy
morning-gown and slippers; and nothing but a certain compression in his
lips, which had lasted all the morning, evinced his anticipation of the
visit, or the emotion it caused him.
Lady Ellinor behaved beautifully. She could not conceal a certain
nervous trepidation when she first took the hand my father extended; and
in touching rebuke of the Captain's stately bow, she held out to him the
hand left disengaged, with a look which brought Roland at once to her
side. It was a desertion of his colors to which nothing, short of Ney's
shameful conduct at Napoleon's return from Elba, affords a parallel in
history. Then, without waiting for introduction, and before a word
indeed was said, Lady Ellinor came to my mother so cordially, so
caressingly; she threw into her smile, voice, manner, such winning
sweetness,--that I, intimately learned in my poor mother's simple,
loving heart, wondered how she refrained from throwing her arms round
Lady Ellinor's neck and kissing her outright. It must have been a great
conquest over herself not to do it! My turn came next; and talking to
me and about me soon set all parties at their ease,--at least
apparently.
What was said, I cannot remember; I do not think one of us could. But
an hour slipped away, and there was no gap in the conversation.
With curious interest, and a survey I strove to make impartial, I
compared Lady Ellinor with my mother; and I comprehended the fascination
which the high-born lady must, in their earlier youth, have exercised
over both brothers, so dis-similar to each other. For charm was the
characteristic of Lady Ellinor,--a charm indefinable. It was not the
mere grace of refined breeding, though that went a great way, it was a
charm that seemed to spring from natural sympathy. Whomsoever she
addressed, that person appeared for the moment to engage all her
attention, to interest her whole mind. She had a gift of conversation
very peculiar. She made what she said like a continuation of what was
said to her. She seemed as if she had entered into your thoughts, and
talked them aloud. Her mind was evidently cultivated with great care,
but she was perfectly void of pedantry. A hint, an allusion, sufficed
to show how much she knew, to one well instructed, without mortifying or
perplexing the ignorant. Yes, there probably was the only woman my
father had ever met who could be the companion to his mind, walk through
the garden of knowledge by his side, and trim the flowers while he
cleared the vistas. On the other hand, there was an inborn nobility in
Lady Ellinor's sentiments that must have struck the most susceptible
chord in Roland's nature, and the sentiments took eloquence from the
look, the mien, the sweet dignity of the very turn of the head. Yes,
she must have been a fitting Oriana to a young Amadis. It was not hard
to see that Lady Ellinor was ambitious, that she had a love of fame for
fame itself, that she was proud, that she set value (and that morbidly)
on the world's opinion. This was perceptible when she spoke of her
husband, even of her daughter. It seemed to me as if she valued the
intellect of the one, the beauty of the other, by the gauge of the
social distinction it conferred. She took measure of the gift as I was
taught at Dr. Herman's to take measure of the height of a tower,--by the
length of the shadow it cast upon the ground.
My dear father, with such a wife you would never have lived eighteen
years shivering on the edge of a Great Book!
My dear uncle, with such a wife you would never have been contented with
a cork leg and a Waterloo medal!
And I understand why Mr. Trevanion, "eager and ardent," as ye say he was
in youth, with a heart bent on the practical success of life, won the
hand of the heiress. Well, you see Mr. Trevanion has contrived not to
be happy! By the side of my listening, admiring mother, with her blue
eyes moist and her coral lips apart, Lady Ellinor looks faded. Was she
ever as pretty as my mother is now? Never. But she was much handsomer.
What delicacy in the outline, and yet how decided, in spite of the
delicacy! The eyebrow so defined; the profile slightly aquiline, so
clearly cut, with the curved nostril, which, if physiognomists are
right, shows sensibility so keen; and the classic lip that, but for the
neighboring dimple, would be so haughty. But wear and tear are in that
face. The nervous, excitable temper has helped the fret and cark of
ambitious life. My dear uncle, I know not yet your private life; but
'as for my father, I am sure that though he might have done more on
earth, he would have been less fit for heaven, if he had married Lady
Ellinor.
At last this visit--dreaded, I am sure, by three of the party--was over,
but not before I had promised to dine at the Trevanions' that day.
When we were again alone, my father threw off a long breath, and looking
round him cheerfully, said, "Since Pisistratus deserts us, let us
console ourselves for his absence; send for brother Jack, and all four
go down to Richmond to drink tea."
"Thank you, Austin," said Roland; "but I don't want it, I assure you."
"Upon your honor?" said my father, in a half whisper.
"Upon my honor."
"Nor I either. So, my dear Kitty, Roland and I will take a walk, and be
back in time to see if that young Anachronism looks as handsome as his
new London-made clothes will allow him. Properly speaking, he ought to
go with an apple in his hand, and a dove in his bosom. But now I think
of it, that was luckily not the fashion with the Athenians till the time
of Alcibiades!"
CHAPTER VI.
You may judge of the effect that my dinner at Mr. Trevanion's, with a
long conversation after it with Lady Ellinor, made upon my mind when, on
my return home, after having satisfied all questions of parental
curiosity, I said nervously, and looking down: "My dear father, I should
like very much, if you have no objection--to--to--"
"What, my dear?" asked my father, kindly.
"Accept an offer Lady Ellinor has made me on the part of Mr. Trevanion.
He wants a secretary. He is kind enough to excuse my inexperience, and
declares I shall do very well, and can soon get into his ways. Lady
Ellinor says," I continued with dignity, "that it will be a great
opening in public life for me; and at all events, my dear father, I
shall see much of the world, and learn what I really think will be more
useful to me than anything they will teach him at college."
My mother looked anxiously at my father. "It will indeed be a great
thing for Sisty," said she, timidly; and then, taking courage, she
added--"and that is just the sort of life he is formed for."
"Hem!" said my uncle.
My father rubbed his spectacles thoughtfully, and replied, after a long
pause,--
"You may be right, Kitty: I don't think Pisistratus is meant for study;
action will suit him better. But what does this office lead to?"
"Public employment, sir," said I, boldly; "the service of my country."
"If that be the case," quoth Roland, "have not a word to say. But I
should have thought that for a lad of spirit, a descendant of the old De
Caxtons, the army would have--"
"The army!" exclaimed my mother, clasping her hands, and looking
involuntarily at my uncle's cork leg.
"The army!" repeated my father, peevishly. "Bless my soul, Roland, you
seem to think man is made for nothing else but to be shot at! You would
not like the army, Pisistratus?"
"Why, sir, not if it pained you and my dear mother; otherwise, indeed--"
"Papoe!" said my father, interrupting me. "This all comes of your
giving the boy that ambitious, uncomfortable name, Mrs. Caxton; what
could a Pisistratus be but the plague of one's life? That idea of
serving his country is Pisistratus ipsissimus all over. If ever I have
another son (Dii metiora!) he has only got to be called Eratostratus,
and then he will be burning down St. Paul's,--which I believe was, by
the way, first made out of the stones of a temple to Diana. Of the two,
certainly, you had better serve your country with a goose-quill than by
poking a bayonet into the ribs of some unfortunate Indian; I don't think
there are any other people whom the service of one's country makes it
necessary to kill just at present, eh, Roland?"
"It is a very fine field, India," said my uncle, sententiously; "it is
the nursery of captains."
"Is it? Those plants take up a good deal of ground, then, that might be
more profitably cultivated. And, indeed, considering that the tallest
captains in the world will be ultimately set into a box not above seven
feet at the longest, it is astonishing what a quantity of room that
species of arbor mortis takes in the growing! However, Pisistratus, to
return to your request, I will think it over, and talk to Trevanion."
"Or rather to Lady Ellinor," said I, imprudently: my mother slightly
shivered, and took her hand from mine. I felt cut to the heart by the
slip of my own tongue.
"That, I think, your mother could do best," said my father, dryly, "if
she wants to be quite convinced that somebody will see that your shirts
are aired. For I suppose they mean you to lodge at Trevanion's."
"Oh, no!" cried my mother; "he might as well go to college then. I
thought he was to stay with us,--only go in the morning, but, of course,
sleep here."
"If I know anything of Trevanion," said my father, "his secretary will
be expected to do without sleep. Poor boy! you don't know what it is
you desire. And yet, at your age, I--" my father stopped short. "No!"
he renewed abruptly, after a long silence, and as if soliloquizing,--
"no; man is never wrong while he lives for others. The philosopher who
contemplates from the rock is a less noble image than the sailor who
struggles with the storm. Why should there be two of us? And could he
be an alter ego, even if I wished it? Impossible!" My father turned on
his chair, and laying the left leg on the right knee, said smilingly, as
he bent down to look me full in the face: "But, Pisistratus, will you
promise me always to wear the saffron bag?"
CHAPTER VII.
I now make a long stride in my narrative. I am domesticated with the
Trevanions. A very short conversation with the statesman sufficed to
decide my father; and the pith of it lay in this single sentence uttered
by Trevanion: "I promise you one thing,--he shall never be idle!"
Looking back, I am convinced that my father was right, and that he
understood my character, and the temptations to which I was most prone,
when he consented to let me resign college and enter thus prematurely on
the world of men. I was naturally so joyous that I should have made
college life a holiday, and then, in repentance, worked myself into a
phthisis.
And my father, too, was right that though I could study, I was not meant
for a student.
After all, the thing was an experiment. I had time to spare; if the
experiment failed, a year's delay would not necessarily be a year's
loss.
I am ensconced, then, at Mr. Trevanion's; I have been there some months.
It is late in the winter; Parliament and the season have commenced. I
work hard,--Heaven knows, harder than I should have worked at college.
Take a day for sample.
Trevanion gets up at eight o'clock, and in all--weathers rides an hour
before breakfast; at nine he takes that meal in his wife's dressing-
room; at half-past nine he comes into his study. By that time he
expects to find done by his secretary the work I am about to describe.
On coming home,--or rather before going to bed, which is usually after
three o'clock,--it is Mr. Trevanion's habit to leave on the table of the
said study a list of directions for the secretary. The following, which
I take at random from many I have preserved, may show their multifarious
nature:--
1. Look out in the Reports (Committee, House of Lords) for the last
seven years all that is said about the growth of flax; mark the
passages for me.
2. Do, do. "Irish Emigration."
3. Hunt out second volume of Kames's "History of Man," passage
containing Reid's Logic,--don't know where the book is!
4. How does the line beginning Lumina conjurent, inter something,
end? Is it in Grey? See.
5. Fracastorius writes: Quantum hoe infecit vitium, quot adiverit
urbes. Query, ought it not, in strict grammar, to be injecerit,
instead of infecit? If you don't know, write to father.
6. Write the four letters in full from the notes I leave; i. e.,
about the Ecclesiastical Courts.
7. Look out Population Returns: strike average of last five years
(between mortality and births) in Devonshire and Lancashire.
8. Answer these six begging letters "No,"--civilly.
9. The other six, to constituents, "that I have no interest with
Government."
10. See, if you have time, whether any of the new books on the
round table are not trash.
11. I want to know All about Indian corn.
12. Longinus says something, somewhere, in regret for uncongenial
pursuits (public life, I suppose): what is it? N. B. Longinus is
not in my London catalogue, but is here, I know,--I think in a box
in the lumber-room.
13. Set right the calculation I leave on the poor-rates. I have
made a blunder somewhere, etc.
Certainly my father knew Mr. Trevanion; he never expected a secretary to
sleep! To get through the work required of me by half-past nine, I get
up by candle-light. At half-past nine I am still hunting for Longinus,
when Mr. Trevanion comes in with a bundle of letters.
Answers to half the said letters fall to my share. Directions verbal,--
in a species of short-hand talk. While I write, Mr. Trevanion reads the
newspapers, examines what I have done, makes notes therefrom,--some for
Parliament, some for conversation, some for correspondence,--skims over
the Parliamentary papers of the morning, and jots down directions for
extracting, abridging, and comparing them with others, perhaps twenty
years old. At eleven he walks down to a Committee of the House of
Commons,--leaving me plenty to do,--till half-past three, when he
returns. At four, Fanny puts her head into the room--and I lose mine.
Four days in the week Mr. Trevanion then disappears for the rest of the
day; dines at Bellamy's or a club; expects me at the House at eight
o'clock, in case he thinks of something, wants a fact or a quotation.
He then releases me,--generally with a fresh list of instructions. But
I have my holidays, nevertheless. On Wednesdays and Saturdays Mr.
Trevanion gives dinners, and I meet the most eminent men of the day, on
both sides; for Trevanion is on both sides himself,--or no side at all,
which comes to the same thing. On Tuesdays Lady Ellinor gives me a
ticket for the Opera, and I get there at least in time for the ballet.
I have already invitations enough to balls and soirees, for I am
regarded as an only son of great expectations. I am treated as becomes
a Caxton who has the right, if he pleases, to put a De before his name.
I have grown very smart. I have taken a passion for dress,--natural to
eighteen. I like everything I do, and every one about me. I am over
head and ears in love with Fanny Trevanion, who breaks my heart,
nevertheless; for she flirts with two peers, a life-guardsman, three old
members of Parliament, Sir Sedley Beaudesert, one ambassador and all his
attaches and positively (the audacious minx!) with a bishop, in full wig
and apron, who, people say, means to marry again.
Pisistratus has lost color and flesh. His mother says he is very much
improved,--that he takes to be the natural effect produced by Stultz and
Hoby. Uncle Jack says he is "fined down." His father looks at him and
writes to Trevanion,--
"Dear T.--I refused a salary for my son. Give him a horse, and two
hours a day to ride it. Yours, A. C."
The next day I am master of a pretty bay mare, and riding by the side of
Fanny Trevanion. Alas! alas!
CHAPTER VIII.
I have not mentioned my Uncle Roland. He is gone--abroad--to fetch his
daughter. He has stayed longer than was expected. Does he seek his son
still,--there as here? My father has finished the first portion of his
work, in two great volumes. Uncle Jack, who for some time has been
looking melancholy, and who now seldom stirs out, except on Sundays (on
which clays we all meet at my father's and dine together),--Uncle Jack,
I say, has undertaken to sell it.
"Don't be over-sanguine," says Uncle Jack, as he locks up the MS. in
two red boxes with a slit in the lids, which belonged to one of the
defunct companies. "Don't be over-sanguine as to the price. These
publishers never venture much on a first experiment. They must be
talked even into looking at the book."
"Oh!" said my father, "if they will publish it at all, and at their own
risk, I should not stand out for any other terms. 'Nothing great,' said
Dryden, 'ever came from a venal pen!'"
"An uncommonly foolish observation of Dryden's," returned Uncle Jack;
"he ought to have known better."
"So he did," said I, "for he used his pen to fill his pockets, poor
man!"
"But the pen was not venal, Master Anachronism," said my father. "A
baker is not to be called venal if he sells his loaves, he is venal if
he sells himself; Dryden only sold his loaves."
"And we must sell yours," said Uncle Jack, emphatically. "A thousand
pounds a volume will be about the mark, eh?"
"A thousand pounds a volume!" cried my father. "Gibbon, I fancy, did
not receive more."
"Very likely; Gibbon had not an Uncle Jack to look after his interests,"
said Mr. Tibbets, laughing, and rubbing those smooth hands of his. "No!
two thousand pounds the two volumes,--a sacrifice, but still I recommend
moderation."
"I should be happy indeed if the book brought in anything," said my
father, evidently fascinated; "for that young gentleman is rather
expensive. And you, my dear Jack,--perhaps half the sum may be of use
to you!"
"To me! my dear brother," cried Uncle Jack "to me! Why when my new
speculation has succeeded, I shall be a millionnaire!"
"Have you a new speculation, uncle?" said I, anxiously. "What is it?"
"Mum!" said my uncle, putting his finger to his lip, and looking all
round the room; "Mum! Mum!"
Pisistratus.--"A Grand National Company for blowing up both Houses of
Parliament!"
Mr. Caxton.---"Upon my life, I hope something newer than that; for they,
to judge by the newspapers, don't want brother Jack's assistance to blow
up each other!"
Uncle Jack (mysteriously).--"Newspapers! you don't often read a
newspaper, Austin Caxton!"
Mr. Caxton.--"Granted, John Tibbets!"
Uncle Jack.--"But if my speculation make you read a newspaper every
day?"
Mr. |
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EXPRESSIVE VOICE CULTURE
INCLUDING
THE EMERSON SYSTEM
By Jessie Eldridge Southwick
Teacher of Voice Culture in the Emerson College of Oratory.
PREFACE
The Emerson System treats the voice as a natural reporter of the
individual, constantly emphasizing the tendency of the voice to express
appropriately any mental concept or state of feeling.
This treatise is a setting forth of methods and principles based upon this
idea with a fuller elaboration of the relation of technique to expression.
No attempt is here made, however, to present more than an individual
contribution to this broad subject.
J. E. S.
EXPRESSIVE VOICE CULTURE
CHAPTER I
Principles of Voice Culture.
The first essential to one beginning the study of voice culture is an
appreciation of the real significance of voice development. We must
recognize at once the fact that the voice is a natural reporter of the
conditions, emotions, thoughts, and purposes (character and states or
conditions) of the individual. The ring of true culture in the voice is
that perfect modulation of tone and movement which, without
self-consciousness, communicates exactly the meaning and purpose which
impel the utterances of the speaker.
It is almost impossible for any person to cultivate vocal expression to
the best advantage without an intelligent and sympathetic teacher; he
lacks the perspective upon himself which is necessary in order to correct
his individual faults and draw out his most effective powers. Then, again,
he needs that personal supervision and direction of his efforts which will
allow his mind to be constantly occupied with thoughts and principles, and
relieve him of all temptation to watch his own performances as such. But
it is necessary that the student should have a simple and logical basis
for practice, however great may become the variety of its application.
That the voice is naturally expressive is shown in the fact that even
where there is no possible suggestion of cultivation we instinctively read
the broad outlines of meaning and feeling in the tones and inflections of
the voice. May it not therefore be possible that a finer culture will
reveal all the subtle shades of thought and feeling, and a more
discriminating judgment be able to detect these, just as the ethnologist
will reconstruct from some crude relic the history of an earlier
civilization?
We must remember, too, that first of all the voice is a vital instrument.
The physical condition affects most noticeably the quality, strength, and
movement of the voice. Hence we see that physical health is essential to a
good voice, and the proper use of the voice is itself one of the most
invigorating exercises that can be practised. All the vital organs are
called into healthful action through this extraordinary manipulation of
the breath, and the nervous system, both vitally and emotionally, receives
invigoration.
In the beginning, therefore, such vital conditions as are essential to the
production of tone should be considered.
First, a standing position, in which the vital organs are well sustained,
is essential. One cannot even breathe properly unless one stands well. The
weight should be mainly upon the balls of the feet, and the crown of the
head so positively elevated as to secure the erectness of the spinal
column. This will involve the proper elevation of the chest, the essential
freedom of respiration, and the right sustaining tension of the abdominal
muscles.
(_a_) Take standing position as follows: weight on balls of feet,
heels together, toes slightly apart; line of gravity from crown of head,
well lifted, to balls of feet; the ear, point of shoulder, and point of
hip should be in line; muscles of the thigh strong in front; ribs well
lifted so that front line from waist to throat is lengthened to full
extent; back kept erect, and curve at waist not emphasized. Breathe
strongly and deeply several times.
To secure the elevation of the ribs the hands may be placed under the
arms, as high as possible, fingers pointing down; then try to turn or
press the ribs up and forward with strong action of hands, breathing
freely and emphasizing strength in waist muscles. _Sustain_ the ribs
in this elevated position, and thus uplift the chest. Keep shoulders free.
Drop hands to sides again.
(_b_) Take half a step forward; sustain weight on advanced foot; do
not change position of retired foot, but keep the sense of purchase in it.
The chest should be carried forward of the abdomen and the abdominal
muscles given their best leverage by a slight bending forward from the
hips. (Bending forward must not be done by any dropping of the chest, or
shortening of the line at waist through relaxation.) This position must be
light, active, buoyant, and reposeful.
A constant sense of easy balance should be developed through poising
exercises.
The habit of healthful and powerful respiration should be established by
physical exercise for that purpose, and the right manipulation of breath
in tone production should be secured by the nature of the voice exercises.
Any vocal exercise which involves in the very nature of its production a
good control of breath becomes, by virtue of that fact, a good breathing
exercise as well.
[Footnote: See exercises described in a later chapter.]
If the voice be perfectly free, it is then capable of expressing truly all
that the person thinks and feels. The first desirable end sought, then, is
freedom. What is freedom, and how secured? When all cavities of resonance
are accessible to the vibrating column of air the voice may be said to be
free. By cavities of resonance is meant the chest (trachea and bronchial
tubes), the larynx, pharynx, the mouth, and the nares anterior and
posterior, or head chambers of resonance. The free tone is modified
through all its varieties of expression by those subtle changes in form,
intensity, movement, inflection, and also direction, which are too fine
for the judgment to determine, or even observe successfully. These
varieties are made possible by the very organism of the voice, which is
vital, not mechanical, and are determined by the influences working from
the mind through the nerves which control this wonderful living
instrument. This is governed by the law of reflex action, by which
stimulation of any nerve center produces responsive action in other parts
of the body. The voice will obey the mind. Right objects of thought will
influence it much more perfectly and rapidly than the mere arbitrary
dictates of calculation.
Right psychology would be the only thing necessary to the thorough
cultivation of the voice if the conditions were so perfect that there were
no habits of stricture and our instrument were thus in perfect tune. And
in spite of the fact that it is not usually found in perfect tune, the
influence of practice under right mental conditions is the most potent and
indispensable part of voice culture. Let this fact not be lost sight of
while we are discussing those more technical methods of training which are
designed to tune and regulate our instrument.
First, freedom of voice is attained (technically speaking) by right
direction of tone and vital support. A few words of explanation will make
this patent.
If the vibrating column of air when it leaves the vocal cords is so
directed that it passes freely through all the cavities of resonance, it
cannot fail to find the right one. The following exercise, if properly
taken, will induce right direction of tone: produce a light humming sound
such as would be the sound of _m, n,_ or _ng_, if so idealized
as to eliminate that element of sound commonly spoken of as nasality. That
which is called nasality is caused by the failure of the tone to reach
freely the anterior cavities of the nares. The cavity which lies just back
of the nose and frontal bone imparts a musical resonance resembling the
vibrating after-tone when a note has been struck upon a piano and allowed
to die away gradually. The "nasal" effect comes when the tone is confined
in the posterior or back part of the nares, or head cavity, or is split by
the dropping of the uvula so that part of the tone is directed through the
nares and part through the mouth. Many so-called "humming tones" are given
for practice, but in accepting them observe whether the foregoing
principle is obeyed.
The controlling center of consciousness is the extreme limit of the
_nares anteri_. The tone should be thought of as outside. Keep the
mind upon results, just as one would hold the thought of a certain figure
which one might desire to draw. If one wishes to inscribe a curve, he
thinks of the curve as an object of thought, not of the muscles which act
in executing it. So with the voice. A tone is not a reality until its form
of vibration reaches the outer air. One should always think of the tone
one wishes to make--never listen to one's own execution. If the ideal is
not reached by the effort it will be known by the sense of incompleteness.
Why is the _nares anteri_ the ruling center of tone direction? The
dominant or ruling center of any organism is that point which, if
controlled, will involve the regulation of all that is subordinate to it.
For example, the heart is the dominant center of the circulatory system;
the brain is the dominant center of the nervous system; the sun is the
dominant center of the planetary system. In all these systems, if the
center be affected, the system is proportionately influenced. If any other
part than the dominant center be affected, it is true that all other parts
may also be affected, but the desired unity in result will not be secured.
The voice will follow the thought as surely as the hand will reach the
object aimed at. The extreme anterior part of the nares, or head cavity,
is the chamber of resonance farthest from the vocal cords. Therefore, if
the voice be directed through that chamber of resonance all the others
must be passed in reaching it, and hence all must be accessible to the
vibrating column of air. It is a law of acoustics that any given cavity of
resonance will resound to that pitch to which its size corresponds, and to
no other. This law of sound secures the appropriate resonance for every
pitch much more accurately than it could be secured by an effort to
develop chest, middle, and head registers through calculating the
differences. Again, we need the higher chambers of resonance to reinforce
even the low pitch, because every note has its overtones that enrich it,
and if these cannot find their proper resonance the tone is impoverished.
It may be well to explain our use of the term "overtone."
This word "overtone" is used unscientifically by many. The significance of
its use is somewhat varied among teachers, but it generally means head
resonance, or a tone "sent over" through the head cavities. The term is
used here technically, not arbitrarily. Overtones are not confined to the
voice, but are those constituent parts of any tone which are produced by
the vibrating segments into which any vibrating cord will divide itself.
Any cord, or string, stretched between two given points, when struck will
vibrate throughout its entire length in waves of a certain length and with
a certain degree of rapidity, according to the tension of the string. This
vibration of the entire length of cord gives forth the tone heard as the
fundamental pitch or tone. Besides this fundamental or primary vibration,
the movement divides itself into segments, or sections, of the entire
length. These sections also have vibrations of their own which are of
shorter length and more rapid motion. The note given off by these
subdivisions is, of course, on a higher pitch than that produced by the
fundamental vibration of the cord; hence, they are higher tones, or
overtones. It will be remembered that pitch depends upon the rapidity of
the sound waves or vibrations. This subdivision of the vibrations is
incalculably multiplied, so that it may be said to be impossible to
determine the number of overtones accompanying the fundamental tone. What
the ear hears is the fundamental pitch only; the overtones harmonize with
the primary or fundamental tone, and enrich it. Since this is a law of
vibration, it is unscientific to speak of giving an overtone, for all
tones contain overtones. Where these overtones are interfered with by any
imperfection in the instrument the result is a harsh or imperfect sound.
In relation to the voice it should now be clearly understood that since it
is the overtones which enrich or give a harmonious sound to any tone, and
since all tones (low as well as high) have overtones as constituent parts
of their being, therefore the whole range of the resonant cavities of the
voice should, for the production of pure tone, be open to all degrees of
pitch, in order that the overtones may find their appropriate
reinforcement in the resonance chambers. Thus the quality of the voice
depends, not simply upon the condition of the vocal cords themselves, but
upon the form and quality of the resounding cavities.
CHAPTER II
Elementary Lessons.
After this brief discussion of the principles involved in this method of
practice, we will proceed to give some essential exercises for practice.
EXERCISE FOR SECURING FREEDOM OF TONE
This is the foundation of all voice culture.
1. Take position in accordance with directions given in Chapter I.
2. Take humming tone as indicated in the preceding chapter,--_m, n,
ng,_--idealized and pure. The mouth should be opened and closed without
changing the tone.
3. Endeavor to concentrate all consciousness upon the conception of a tone
emanating from the _nares anteri_ and floating in ideal forms of
vibration in the surrounding air. Those forms may vary in their definite
nature, but must always obey the principle of curves and radiation. One
should never reach up to a tone, but should seem to alight upon it from
above, as a bird alights on the branch of a tree. The mind must never lose
sight of the result--the ideal aimed at. The knowledge of processes leads
us to a right conception of aims, and enables us to judge of their
correctness. We should know what processes are normal (natural and
healthful) and what objects of thought will induce them.
While taking the above exercise no effort should be made in the throat.
The voice should seem to find its way without effort. The tone should not
be loud or sharp.
If the student finds it difficult to produce the tone alone, some word
ending in _ing_ should be practised, as _ring-ring-ring-ng_.
FORMING OF ELEMENTS
_First Exercise_. Start the humming tone as indicated in the first
lesson, and maintain the same focus while forming certain elements. Take
the syllable _n-oe-m_, allowing no break while going from _n_, the nares
sound, to the vowel sound of _o_, and returning to the nares sound of
_m_. This is perhaps the best element to begin upon, because of its
definiteness, but the same principle can be applied to other elements
of speech, as _Most-men-want-poise-and-more-royal-margin_. Form each
syllable with the utmost care. Concentrate the mind upon the ideal sound.
First be sure that the pronunciation is accurately conceived. Then
enunciate clearly and try each time to make the form more perfect. The
principle of thinking is the same as that involved in striving to make a
perfect circle, or to execute any figure with more and more beauty. The
effort of the mind will bring the result, if the conception of the element
to be formed be correct. The sentence given--"_Most men want poise, and
more royal margin"_--is composed of such alternation of elements as will
tend to bring forward those that might be formed too far back by their
association with those elements that are necessarily brought to the front.
For example, the word_poise._ The first and last elements are
distinctively front. That helps to bring out what is between.
The constant recurrence of the nares tone, as in _m, n,_ etc., may
serve as a regulator of tone. The object of this step in practice is to
form elements with beauty, and to form them with the same focus as that
secured by the humming tone. In this stage of practice each element should
be dwelt upon separately, but not in such a way as to mar its expression.
For example, unaccented syllables should be lightly pronounced and the
right shading carefully observed. Otherwise, when the elements are put
together their harmony and smoothness will be wanting and the effect
labored and mechanical, as is often the case where attention has been
given to the practice of articulation. To make the effort of articulation
a vital impulse in response to a mental concept,--this is the object
sought. The principle is that the will should be directed toward the ideal
to be reached, while the mind comprehends the means incidentally. The
means may be considered as a matter of knowledge, useful in guiding the
judgment but a hindrance when used as a trap to catch the conscious
attention of the practising student.
The whole difference between the artist who is spontaneous and the artisan
who is artificial is that the one recognizes the fact that the very
existence of human expression proves that the mind awakens the instinctive
response of the physical organism, while the other thinks that he can
calculate that infinite harmony which makes unity of action, without
reverting to the first cause of expression--the thought that created it.
To reproduce the impulse born of the thought--this is the aim of a
psychological method. This is secured only by right objects of thought; it
is impossible to reach it by voluntary mechanics.
SMOOTHNESS AND HARMONY OF UTTERANCE
Having obtained the results sought in our last division, we should learn
to manipulate the elements of speech fluently without breaking their
relation to (harmony with) the primary focus, or direction of tone.
Practise the same sentence, "_Most men_" etc., striving to make every
tone and the form of every element perfect, without dwelling upon them
separately; practise this (as also the preceding exercises) upon various
degrees of pitch in the musical scale, generally beginning on a "medium
high" pitch, then lower, and afterwards higher. Strive to speak or sing
fluently without breaking the quality of tone used. A break in quality
signifies loss of focus.
The object of this practise is to attain facility in manipulating the
elements while maintaining the smooth quality of the tone. After this
sentence other sentences may be used in reference to the same idea. The
primary exercise given should always be reverted to as a working center,
in order to secure, through repetition, a deepening of the tendency
involved. Variety is admissible only in addition to the original exercise,
but should not be substituted for it.
FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF MUSICAL EXPRESSIVENESS OF TONES
This opens the way to expression in tone,--dramatic expression,--but the
technical preparation for expressive responsiveness in the voice is the
development of its musical possibilities, for all artistic expression in
tones is musical whether the person be a singer or a speaker. Inflections
are variations in pitch, and are "the tune of the thought."
_Exercise_. Practise the syllables _mae, zae, skae, ae._ The sound
of the Italian _a,_ as in ah, gives the freest position of the organs
for the production of tone, and perhaps the most difficult form in which
to direct a tone with certainty. It is combined with these consonant
elements in order to invite it forward and bring it to a point
(figuratively speaking). The _m_ relates it to the nares or humming
tone (which is the basis of all resonance in the voice). The _z_
sharpens the consciousness at the front, and the _sk_ furnishes a
good start for a positive stroke in the voice, while the _a_ alone
leaves us to venture upon the free tone unassisted by these guides to
direction. The exercise should be practised with such musical variations
as the student can learn to execute--the scale, arpeggios, etc., both
sustained tone and light touches, broad tones and shaded tones. Other
vowels may also be practised thus.
The practice of rhythm, or the practice of rhythmical accent, should be
introduced, as the sense of rhythm is an important element in the
development of expressiveness.
The object now is to secure sensibility and responsiveness in the voice.
This opens the possibilities of vocal expression. When we speak of the
_nares anteri_ (or front head resonant cavity) as the dominant center
of physical consciousness nothing mechanical is meant. One is conscious
that the eye is fixed upon an object, but not therefore conscious of the
action of the muscles used in turning it upon the object. One thinks not
of the eye, but through the eye toward the object.
Finally, technique has as its object the training of the instrument to
freedom and responsiveness; but the true art of vocal expression begins
when the instrument is used in obedience to such objects of thought as
should cause its strings to vibrate loudly or softly, all together or in
partial harmony, in obedience to that vital impulse which the instrument
itself was created to obey.
CHAPTER III
The Higher Development of the Voice by the Application of First
Principles.
There are four general forms of emphasis which serve as indications of the
characteristics of expression. They are Force, Pitch, Volume, and Time.
Force corresponds to life, or vitality, in the voice. Pitch corresponds to
the range of the voice, and expresses affection or attraction. Volume
measures the activity of the will through the voice, and Time, the
expression of which depends principally upon movement, or rhythm,
corresponds to the intellectual activities.
It will be understood that these forms of expression, or emphasis, are
developed, according to the practice in the "Evolution of Expression," by
means of purely mental discipline. It is nevertheless possible to
reinforce these powers of the voice by technical practice with special
reference to this development. In taking up this branch of the work the
student is supposed to have fulfilled the requirements of the elementary
voice practice, which, it will be remembered, includes the establishment
of freedom by means of right direction of tone, the perfecting of the
elements in polished articulation, the facile handling of the voice in
combining various elements, and a certain degree of responsiveness in the
practice of various musical qualities.
FORCE
For the development of increased vital power in the voice the student
should practise the nares exercise and also the elements of speech in a
sustained and even manner, continuing tones as long as it is possible to
keep control of them. The effect of this is to establish _strength and
steadiness_ in the action of the muscles that control the voice, and
increase of breathing-power in response to the requirements involved in
the exercise. The tone must be kept pure and free, and practised with
varying degrees of force, with the idea of steady projection and
determined control. The ability to sustain the tone for a long time will
increase, and with it the power of the muscles exercised.
The idea of projecting tone is based upon the feeling of sympathy with
those at a distance, and not simply upon the desire to make them hear.
Short passages of a vital and animated nature should be practised with
varying degrees of radiation, so that the consciousness of the student may
adapt itself to the idea of including in his sympathies a larger or
smaller number of people. The thought of sympathy with, or nearness to,
those addressed is a most important principle in the development of this
power. It is never the best way to strive to speak loud in order that one
may be heard. Such selections as Lanier's "Life and Song," Wordsworth's
"The Daffodils," and Scott's "Lochinvar" will be found helpful studies for
radiation. It is useful in practising the humming tone, or the nares tone,
to imagine the whole atmosphere pervaded with pure resonance. Too much
emphasis cannot be placed upon the idea of perfect purity as the essential
foundation of power. The pure voice will grow to power. In taking this
exercise there should be no consciousness of effort in the throat, and no
shade of sharpness should be heard in the tone. One must try for the pure,
pervasive resonance which seems to float on the air like the soft note of
a violin. The right condition for the expression of this radiant vitality
in the voice is a complete alertness and responsive vivacity of the whole
person. This animation should be vital and not nervous.
PITCH
A voice, to express variety, must have sufficient compass to give
opportunity for a free play of inflection over various degrees of pitch.
It has been said, "Inflection is the tune of the thought." It is that
which makes it attractive. If one desires to emphasize a point of thought
and make it attractive to another person he instinctively increases his
emphasis by lengthening the slide or inflection. The high pitch indicates
mental activity; the medium pitch is the normal or heart range; the low
pitch is more peculiarly vital. If one would express varieties of thought
with brilliancy and effectiveness, the range of his voice must be wide,
and the evenness of quality so perfect that he can glide from one extreme
of pitch to another without any break in the tone. Facility in thus
handling the voice may be developed by means of special attention directed
to this characteristic. The practice for securing this adaptability in the
modulations of pitch is as follows.
Begin with the nares or humming tone, giving it on as many different notes
of the scale as can be easily reached. Practise the scale gliding from one
note to another while maintaining the pure tone. Practise gliding in the
form of inflection, or slide, from one extreme of pitch to another. This
may be given with variations, according to the ability of the student to
control his voice with evenness and to maintain that pure smoothness of
gradation in quality which permits no break or interruption in gliding
from one pitch to another. These varieties of practice in slides and
scales should be introduced with the practice of various elements of
speech, as well as with the humming tone. The different vowels should be
so used. Selections for practice should be chosen which contain much
variety of thought and feeling and are smooth in movement. For instance,
Tennyson's "Song of the Brook," "The Bugle Song," practised with the
introduction of the bugle notes and their echoes, and various other
selections of a musical and attractive nature, may be adapted to this
practice by simply exaggerating the slides which one would naturally make
in bringing out the meaning. No extravagant or unwarrantable inflections
which will mar the expression of the thought should be permitted, but it
is quite desirable to gradually extend the range of the inflections, if
one still maintains in the practice that common sense which will leave the
expression in perfect symmetry when the extra effort made for inflection
shall have been withdrawn. Though it is sometimes desirable to exaggerate
one element, even to the sacrifice of others, it is never necessary to
introduce false notes, the effect of which may remain as a limitation upon
the expression of the selection used.
VOLUME
Other things being equal, the volume of voice used measures the value that
the mind puts upon the thought. Of course the expression of this value is
modified and characterized by the nature of the thing spoken of. For
example, one would express the value of the ocean with a different quality
from that which would be used in expressing the value of something
exquisitely delicate. All elements of expression modify each other, so
that no mere rule can cover all cases. Volume is not always expressed in
the form of extension of power, but is frequently manifested in the form
of intensity or compressed volume. It is scarcely necessary to explain the
difference between the expression of mere vital power in the voice and
that manifestation of the will which gives the impression of directed
energy. The will determines, and the impetus of the thought is measured
by, the adjustment of volume. Vitality is expressed in radiation; will is
expressed in focus.
The term "volume" may be broadly used to cover the characteristics of the
thing estimated, and hence to include something of that subtle expression
which we call color in the voice. Volume expresses will; color expresses
imagination. For this use of the voice in the special service of
will-power, or propelling force, it is necessary first to test its
freedom. This may be done by taking the humming tone and bringing to bear
upon it a strong pressure of energy. If the tone sharpens under the strain
it is not perfectly focused. If it remains mellow one may venture upon the
next step, which is to practise various vowel sounds and elements of
speech with concentrated energy. The sense of bearing on to the voice, or
endeavoring to push the tone by any pressure whatever, should be
absolutely avoided. Tone support should be carefully regarded. In order to
secure this a correct standing position must be held and the muscles about
the waist and the abdominal muscles must be firm and elastic.
The chin is, in articulation, the pedal of power, and decision in the
conscious action of the chin (not the jaw) will induce by reflex action
that stroke which expresses well-aimed will-power. It may be noticed in
connection with this suggestion that when a person means what he says the
action of the chin is likely to be noticeably decided.
The perfectly alert and self-commanding attitude of the body cannot be too
strongly urged at this point, for the voice cannot be used safely with
great power when the body itself is in a negative attitude; for it must be
remembered that the voice is a reporter, and if we attempt to force it to
report something that is not there it will repay us by casting the lie in
our throat. Power is the result of growth, and can be developed only by
patience and the securing of such conditions as will establish freedom and
certainty. The certainty of any tone depends upon the perfection of its
focus. Quality is the synthetic effect of these attributes in the voice.
Under this head selections of a warlike nature may be practised, and those
which have in them the thoughts of magnitude and importance. Spartacus's
"Address to the Gladiators" is excellent; also, Byron's "Apostrophe to the
Ocean," "The Rising in '76," and selections of a similar nature.
TIME
_Including Poise and Rhythm_
The significance of time is determined by the movement of any selection,
or, in other words, the rhythm. It will be noticed that a selection may be
read with rhythmical effect and be made quite impressive without much
emphasis of other characteristics. However, the responsiveness of the
voice in variety of pitch, quality, and power is also a very large factor
in the illumination of the pause. The pause, as a mere interruption of
sound, has little significance, but the relations that the different
sounds bear to each other lend significance to the pause. A pause should
always suggest an orbit of thought. These characteristics of expression
can be made effective only by the practice of concentration in the mind
itself upon the thoughts to be suggested. Nevertheless, the quick
responsiveness of one's sensibilities in the expression of the various
qualities developed by the cultivation of the voice greatly facilitates
the manifestation of the thought itself.
All selections of a high order have relation to rhythm in their
composition, and that style of movement in the composition should find its
ready response in the organism of the speaker or reciter. It should be
remembered that the sense of rhythm may be misapplied, as may any other
element, by allowing the mind to go off into the sensation of "jingle"
without reference to its expression of the thought or its relation to the
thought. But if the sense of rhythm is duly developed, and then this
sensibility, as well as all others, is surrendered to the service of the
thought, it furnishes an element of beauty which cannot easily be
dispensed with. The reason we associate rhythm with the significance of
time is that rhythm is a measurer of time.
In connection with this step the practice of melodies is useful, if one
has musical taste. Simple, familiar melodies are best--such as "The Last
Rose of Summer," "Annie Laurie," "Flow Gently, Sweet Afton," etc., etc.
The importance of rhythm is well expressed by Emerson, who said that the
rhythm of Shakespeare's verse was always the outcome of the thought.
The term "ellipse" has been sometimes used to express the implied action
of the mind during the pause--describing an orbit of thought implied but
not stated in the words.
The illumination of the pause, or the responsiveness of the voice, in
exhibiting those modifications of quality which give significance, may be
greatly enhanced by the practice of such selections as express much beauty
of thought and variety of significance,--such as Shelley's "The
Cloud,"--things which are somewhat philosophical in their significance; by
selections which suggest much more than is definitely stated,--"Aux
Italiens," by Owen Meredith, "He and She," by Edwin Arnold, "Evelyn Hope,"
by Robert Browning; also chapters from philosophy that is poetically
expressed, such as Emerson's "Essays." In practising these for the special
development of significance every effort should be made to realize the
thought quality in the voice, so that each word may seem to picture forth
the full truth that lies behind it, and that all shall move in such
harmony as to suggest the deeper meanings. The quality of expressiveness,
or clear response to thought in the voice, it will be observed, is secured
through the ready service of all its powers under the influence of the
mental concept. It is to be attained by the attitude of receptivity and
the effort to think through the voice.
This form of expression in voice corresponds to the suggestive in art, and
when the student has attained the power of fulfilling its requirements his
work can be called artistic. One should never attempt to measure his
progress by listening to himself directly; but keeping the ideal in mind,
he may come to realize himself as harmonizing with that, and a sense of
freedom from limitation will at last crown his endeavors.
CHAPTER IV
The Relation of Technique to Rendering.
It is certainly true that the highest use of the voice is the revelation
of the soul. The most important and effective means of cultivation lie in
the exercise of the voice under such mental conditions as shall invite the
expression of the highest thoughts, but the voice is in one sense an
instrument which is capable of being attuned. Right technical study and
practice adjust the instrument in proper relations with the natural laws
of its use, and establish, or deepen, the tendency to obey those laws.
Hence the mind finds a more ready response in the instrument, and one is
able to express with greater facility all that the soul desires to reveal.
It would seem of little consequence that a person should be able to use
the voice well simply as an ornamental accomplishment; for these agents of
expression, these powers of the material being, have a higher significance
than the mere exhibition of any qualities, however admirable. Such a
motive in studying expression would be a very shallow one, for what would
it signify in comparison with the great purposes of living?
But so long as these instruments of ours do not serve us they are a
hindrance to the higher expression of our being and the accomplishment of
our highest mission to others. We do indeed desire to escape from the
material and transient into the world of eternal verities, but these
conditions are given us for a purpose. They have their use, and we cannot
escape from the imprisonment in which we find ourselves until we have
solved their meaning and conquered them for the service of the higher
mind. We therefore study, not for the attainment of particular feats, but
to secure the obedience of all our activities to the higher laws through
which they can fulfil the purpose for which they were created.
This harmonizing of the forces having been once accomplished, little time
is required to keep in tune this harp of the soul; while the broader
culture and the higher realization of all meanings that can be expressed
are constantly sought in such discipline of the mind itself as shall
secure the activity of its highest powers. The whole aim is to secure the
development of character by the expression of the highest elements of
character.
Although the voice, like all other agents of expression, is naturally the
reflector of the individual and his states, it is necessary to understand
what that statement implies in order to appreciate the great need for the
higher culture of the vocal organism. If the individual's condition were
attuned to perfect harmony, to perfect unity of action, and to singleness
of purpose, together with the habit of personal expression rather than
expression through some limited mode of action--if, indeed, this were so,
his voice would scarce need training,--certainly not corrective
training,--nor would he need "culture" of any kind, being already a
perfect human being.
Those who postulate the "perfectly natural" voice, _i.e._, one that
is unconscious of its own art, either presuppose this condition of innate
perfection or assume that the simple wish to speak--and its exercise--will
be sufficient to overcome wrong habits and conditions. Will it? Let us
see.
The culture of expression is a very different thing from the artful
imitation of the signs of feeling and purpose. If we are to have a real
education along lines of expression we must begin with the "content," or
cause, of expression. We may for the moment postpone discussion as to the
relative power of the sign to evoke the feeling, and the power of the
feeling or condition to evolve the most effective sign. There is something
to be said upon both sides; and, surely, the truth lies in the adoption of
all good means to produce the desired end.
First, then, to the basis. All oratorical values are measured primarily
from the standpoint of the "what;" the "how" is important, too, but only
in its relation to the "what" and "wherefore." The voice of the orator
must be an influence--a sincere vibration of the motive within.
Theoretically it is so naturally, but practically it is so only when the
voice is free from bias and is responsive through habit or spontaneous
inspiration to the thought of the speaker.
We will admit that genius sometimes is great enough to bring into
harmonious action all powers of the individual under its sway; but
education mainly strives to unfold the imperfect, to balance, the
ununified elements. Even genius, however, needs direction and adjustment
to secure the most perfect and reliable results. How, then, shall we
develop the motive, how enlarge the content?
There is such a subtle relation between motive and action that it has been
said, "The effect of any action is measured by the depth of the motive
from which it proceeds." [Footnote: Ralph Waldo Emerson.] And so this is
why the clever performer cannot reproduce the effect of a speech of
Demosthenes or Daniel Webster. This is a reason aside from that arising
from the difference in the occasion. Great men and great artists
_make_ the occasion in the hearts of their hearers. The voice of the
orator peculiarly should be free from studied effects, and responsive to
motive. It is not the voice of entertainment, but of influence above all.
The orator should be taught self-mastery. The orator who is not moved by
high moral sense is a trickster or a hypocrite; the former juggles with
human susceptibility for unworthy or inadequate ends, and the latter poses
for motives he has not. So complex is human nature that this can be done
by a good actor so as to deceive the judgment and feelings; but the
influence will ultimately reveal the truth, if the auditor will use
intuition and not be taken off guard by the psychic influence of a strong
will bent on a given effect.
The sincere endeavor to express a quality, with the aspiration to make it
real, has the tendency to focus the power of that quality and concentrate
the mind upon it. This, by repetition of effort, both increases the power
and facilitates its expression. One must come to think vividly in terms of
expression. In the instance before us it should be in terms of vocal
expression. Anything well expressed--unconsciously--is to real art what
innocence is to virtue, or what the spontaneous grace of a child is to
that grace as applied to forms definitely intended to communicate an ideal
to others. Self-consciousness must precede super-self-consciousness.
Unconsciousness is childishness in art, and leads to vagueness of meaning,
to the perpetuation of personal idiosyncrasies; and while a larger
consciousness may be induced from the mind side, positive and overwhelming
inspiration will be needed to overcome habitual limitations. A musician
must love music itself, as well as its meanings, and a voice cannot be
made the best of by one who does not love its music. Self-consciousness
represents the stage of work and endeavor where faults are being overcome,
power enlarged, and new forms of activity mastered. This may be at first a
hindrance to spontaneity, and seem to hamper the imagination; but as
facility is acquired joy comes back, and the joy of conquest with the
adustment of means to ends is a stage of self-consciousness dangerous for
the egotist, but is inspiration and incitement to larger effort. This is a
stage where many artists remain--most of the time. But the super-conscious
stage is that state in which with perfected facility and power of
self-mastery the doing becomes lost in supreme realization; and right
action, now become habitual, is forgotten in the full consciousness of
oneness with the ideal. Then the voice--or the artist--embodies the ideal,
becomes the part for the time being, and is, as we say, inspired.
We may forget what we are doing, but we must be able to know, or there
will be nothing worth while to forget! The danger of the mechanical
idea--the extreme technician's notion that the sign is enough--is that the
person may become an automaton and inhibit the power of real feeling in
himself; and though he may perform admirably and win the applause of some
critics who love form unduly, he fails in the great issue and wins only
superficial success or fails utterly, without seeing why. The real
experience has a magnetism of its own and will win above mere technicality
whenever it has the opportunity.
Some believe that psychic response to the sign is desirable. This develops
merely sensitiveness, reflex action, and does not enlarge the power of
feeling nor encourage the motive and the real heart. The desirability of
emotional response quickly reaches its limit; and while it may be feeling,
it does not spring from an adequate cause, so has not the dignity and
sweep of absolute sincerity. We must have _motif_ first, then
technique to adapt and adjust expression and to develop facility in the
active agents. We want the Real, idealized by Art, and the Ideal, made
real and tangible by Art, the Revealer!
The process we would follow, then, is, primarily, the training of the
imagination to conceive fuller and fuller ideals of music and meaning;
and, simultaneously, the exercise of such activities as shall increase the
capacity of vocal expression and the availability of the vocal powers.
Availability is of the utmost importance! Concentration is the prime
requisite in attaining rapid results. The student must concentrate
absolutely upon the various qualities sought, and must infuse intelligent
impulse into his every nerve and muscle! The vibrant voice of the spirit
cannot be evoked by half-hearted effort, lazy nerves and muscles, nor with
the drag of inattention. The student who does not intend to arouse himself
need hope for no keen sense of beauty.
The voice is, first of all, a messenger of spirit, and illustrates this in
that quality which has given rise to the expression "borne on the wings of
song." Ultimately the whole body will be conceived to be a sensitive
vibrator responding with dramatic sympathy and returning vital radiance to
the tones. The rightly cultivated expressive voice is the man--speaking.
CHAPTER V
Phases of Vocal Interpretation
ARTICULATION
The quality of artistic beauty in articulation is very important, beyond
the mere accuracy which is ordinarily thought of. There are five general
heads under which the characteristics to be sought may be grouped.
First, _Accuracy of Form_. This not with severity, but with
perfection coming from sensitive response of the articulating organs to
the form concept as held in the mind. One should avoid the practice of
exertion in the execution of articulated forms.
Second, _Tone Quality_, secured by the right relation of the tone
form to the line of resonance, is very important and may be attained by
careful attention to musical beauty and a sense of harmony. This is the
right _placing_ of tones.
Third, _Proportion_ must be carefully considered. Very often
unaccented syllables are made unduly prominent and unimportant words are
over-emphasized through lack of attention to this principle. The careful
appreciation of rhythm, or the _movement_ of syllables in
enunciation, gives a flowing, easy, well-proportioned clearness that is
indispensable to beauty. This should be practised in connection with the
interpretation of melodious, _flowing_ passages, which will furnish
opportunity for the appreciation of the relation between the accented and
unaccented syllables and the important and unimportant words. Such
material as Bryant's "Thanatopsis" is good.
Fourth, _Phrasing_. The careful observation of the three foregoing
aspects of articulation leads at once to the fourth; namely, the
expressive value of words in direct relation to the interpretation itself.
This is closely connected with phrasing, and the phrase, which is the
larger "thought word," should be studied as the communicating link between
the articulation of the part and interpretation as it relates to
literature itself. In connection with this comes the consideration of
slides and the finer modulations of tone-color, movement, and cadence. But
the study of word values, in the light of the whole phrase to be
interpreted, will make each word a living thing in its influence--a winged
messenger of the thought.
Fifth, _Slides_. The slide has already been referred to as the unit
of vocalization in speech as distinct from the province of song, the unit
of song being the scale of notes as sung in succession, but with distinct
individuality. Few who have not studied the matter carefully appreciate
the fact that the speaking voice suggestively covers as wide a range as
the singing voice ordinarily does. But it is essential that the even
development of range from high to low pitch should enable the student to
glide without break from one extreme of pitch to another. Inflection is
often inferred by the mind of the listener when the person speaking
abruptly drops from high to low pitch without rendering the intervening
sound. The absence of the fulfilment of inflection robs the speech of much
of its musical quality and much of its appeal to the feelings; for
inflection is the musical expression of the thought, and depends upon
feeling. The expression of this relationship of intelligence and emotion
is a subtle and powerful appeal,--the realization of true
culture,--combining thought and feeling. We know what a man means
literally by the abrupt or emphatic changes of the pitch or pressure; but
we know what the fact means to his feelings by the slides and cadences. It
is difficult to over-emphasize the importance of that characterization
which awakens a keen sense of the _musical_ meaning as corresponding
to the _thought_. |
10,240 |
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THE BAKCHESARIAN FOUNTAIN.
BY
ALEXANDER POOSHKEEN.
AND OTHER POEMS, BY VARIOUS AUTHORS,
TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL RUSSIAN,
BY
WILLIAM D. LEWIS.
TO
MY RUSSIAN FRIENDS,
THE FOLLOWING EFFORT TO RENDER INTO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE A FAVOURITE POEM
OF ONE OF THEIR MOST ADMIRED BARDS, AND SOME SHORTER PRODUCTIONS OF OTHER
RUSSIAN POETS,
IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED,
AS A SMALL TESTIMONIAL OF GRATITUDE FOR THE MANY KINDNESSES OF WHICH I WAS
THE OBJECT IN THEIR MOST HOSPITABLE COUNTRY, IN EARLY LIFE.
THE TRANSLATOR.
Philadelphia, July, 1849.
THE BAKCHESARIAN FOUNTAIN.
A TALE OF THE TAURIDE.
Mute sat Giray, with downcast eye,
As though some spell in sorrow bound him,
His slavish courtiers thronging nigh,
In sad expectance stood around him.
The lips of all had silence sealed,
Whilst, bent on him, each look observant,
Saw grief's deep trace and passion fervent
Upon his gloomy brow revealed.
But the proud Khan his dark eye raising,
And on the courtiers fiercely gazing,
Gave signal to them to begone!
The chief, unwitnessed and alone,
Now yields him to his bosom's smart,
Deeper upon his brow severe
Is traced the anguish of his heart;
As full fraught clouds on mirrors clear
Reflected terrible appear!
What fills that haughty soul with pain?
What thoughts such madd'ning tumults cause?
With Russia plots he war again?
Would he to Poland dictate laws?
Say, is the sword of vengeance glancing?
Does bold revolt claim nature's right?
Do realms oppressed alarm excite?
Or sabres of fierce foes advancing?
Ah no! no more his proud steed prancing
Beneath him guides the Khan to war,--
Such thoughts his mind has banished far.
Has treason scaled the harem's wall,
Whose height might treason's self appal,
And slavery's daughter fled his power,
To yield her to the daring Giaour?
No! pining in his harem sadly,
No wife of his would act so madly;
To wish or think they scarcely dare;
By wretches, cold and heartless, guarded,
Hope from each breast so long discarded;
Treason could never enter there.
Their beauties unto none revealed,
They bloom within the harem's towers,
As in a hot-house bloom the flowers
Which erst perfumed Arabia's field.
To them the days in sameness dreary,
And months and years pass slow away,
In solitude, of life grown weary,
Well pleased they see their charms decay.
Each day, alas! the past resembling,
Time loiters through their halls and bowers;
In idleness, and fear, and trembling,
The captives pass their joyless hours.
The youngest seek, indeed, reprieve
Their hearts in striving to deceive
Into oblivion of distress,
By vain amusements, gorgeous dress,
Or by the noise of living streams,
In soft translucency meand'ring,
To lose their thoughts in fancy's dreams,
Through shady groves together wand'ring.
But the vile eunuch too is there,
In his base duty ever zealous,
Escape is hopeless to the fair
From ear so keen and eye so jealous.
He ruled the harem, order reigned
Eternal there; the trusted treasure
He watched with loyalty unfeigned,
His only law his chieftain's pleasure,
Which as the Koran he maintained.
His soul love's gentle flame derides,
And like a statue he abides
Hatred, contempt, reproaches, jests,
Nor prayers relax his temper rigid,
Nor timid sighs from tender breasts,
To all alike the wretch is frigid.
He knows how woman's sighs can melt,
Freeman and bondman he had felt
Her art in days when he was younger;
Her silent tear, her suppliant look,
Which once his heart confiding shook,
Now move not,--he believes no longer!
When, to relieve the noontide heat,
The captives go their limbs to lave,
And in sequestered, cool retreat
Yield all their beauties to the wave,
No stranger eye their charms may greet,
But their strict guard is ever nigh,
Viewing with unimpassioned eye
These beauteous daughters of delight;
He constant, even in gloom of night,
Through the still harem cautious stealing,
Silent, o'er carpet-covered floors,
And gliding through half-opened doors,
From couch to couch his pathway feeling,
With envious and unwearied care
Watching the unsuspecting fair;
And whilst in sleep unguarded lying,
Their slightest movement, breathing, sighing,
He catches with devouring ear.
O! curst that moment inauspicious
Should some loved name in dreams be sighed,
Or youth her unpermitted wishes
To friendship venture to confide.
* * * * *
What pang is Giray's bosom tearing?
Extinguished is his loved _chubouk_,[1]
Whilst or to move or breathe scarce daring,
The eunuch watches every look;
Quick as the chief, approaching near him,
Beckons, the door is open thrown,
And Giray wanders through his harem
Where joy to him no more is known.
Near to a fountain's lucid waters
Captivity's unhappy daughters
The Khan await, in fair array,
Around on silken carpets crowded,
Viewing, beneath a heaven unclouded,
With childish joy the fishes play
And o'er the marble cleave their way,
Whose golden scales are brightly glancing,
And on the mimic billows dancing.
Now female slaves in rich attire
Serve sherbet to the beauteous fair,
Whilst plaintive strains from viewless choir
Float sudden on the ambient air.
TARTAR SONG.
I.
Heaven visits man with days of sadness,
Embitters oft his nights with tears;
Blest is the Fakir who with gladness
Views Mecca in declining years.
II.
Blest he who sees pale Death await him
On Danube's ever glorious shore;
The girls of Paradise shall greet him,
And sorrows ne'er afflict him more.
III.
But he more blest, O beauteous Zarem!
Who quits the world and all its woes,
To clasp thy charms within the harem,
Thou lovelier than the unplucked rose!
They sing, but-where, alas! is Zarem,
Love's star, the glory of the harem?
Pallid and sad no praise she hears,
Deaf to all sounds of joy her ears,
Downcast with grief, her youthful form
Yields like the palm tree to the storm,
Fair Zarem's dreams of bliss are o'er,
Her loved Giray loves her no more!
He leaves thee! yet whose charms divine
Can equal, fair Grusinian! thine?
Shading thy brow, thy raven hair
Its lily fairness makes more fair;
Thine eyes of love appear more bright
Than noonday's beam, more dark than night;
Whose voice like thine can breathe of blisses,
Filling the heart with soft desire?
Like thine, ah! whose inflaming kisses
Can kindle passion's wildest fire?
Who that has felt thy twining arms
Could quit them for another's charms?
Yet cold, and passionless, and cruel,
Giray can thy vast love despise,
Passing the lonesome night in sighs
Heaved for another; fiercer fuel
Burns in his heart since the fair Pole
Is placed within the chief's control.
The young Maria recent war
Had borne in conquest from afar;
Not long her love-enkindling eyes
Had gazed upon these foreign skies;
Her aged father's boast and pride,
She bloomed in beauty by his side;
Each wish was granted ere expressed.
She to his heart the object dearest,
His sole desire to see her blessed;
As when the skies from clouds are clearest,
Still from her youthful heart to chase
Her childish sorrows his endeavour,
Hoping in after life that never
Her woman's duties might efface
Remembrance of her earlier hours,
But oft that fancy would retrace
Life's blissful spring-time decked in flowers.
Her form a thousand charms unfolded,
Her face by beauty's self was moulded,
Her dark blue eyes were full of fire,--
All nature's stores on her were lavished;
The magic harp with soft desire,
When touched by her, the senses ravished.
Warriors and knights had sought in vain
Maria's virgin heart to move,
And many a youth in secret pain
Pined for her in despairing love.
But love she knew not, in her breast
Tranquil it had not yet intruded,
Her days in mirth, her nights in rest,
In her paternal halls secluded,
Passed heedless, peace her bosom's guest.
That time is past! The Tartar's force
Rushed like a torrent o'er her nation,--
Rages less fierce the conflagration
Devouring harvests in its course,--
Poland it swept with devastation,
Involving all in equal fate,
The villages, once mirthful, vanished,
From their red ruins joy was banished,
The gorgeous palace desolate!
Maria is the victor's prize;--
Within the palace chapel laid,
Slumb'ring among th'illustrious dead,
In recent tomb her father lies;
His ancestors repose around,
Long freed from life and its alarms;
With coronets and princely arms
Bedecked their monuments abound!
A base successor now holds sway,--
Maria's natal halls his hand
Tyrannic rules, and strikes dismay
And wo throughout the ravaged land.
Alas! the Princess sorrow's chalice
Is fated to the dregs to drain,
Immured in Bakchesaria's palace
She sighs for liberty in vain;
The Khan observes the maiden's pain,
His heart is at her grief afflicted,
His bosom strange emotions fill,
And least of all Maria's will
Is by the harem's laws restricted.
The hateful guard, of all the dread,
Learns silent to respect and fear her,
His eye ne'er violates her bed,
Nor day nor night he ventures near her;
To her he dares not speak rebuke,
Nor on her cast suspecting look.
Her bath she sought by none attended,
Except her chosen female slave,
The Khan to her such freedom gave;
But rarely he himself offended
By visits, the desponding fair,
Remotely lodged, none else intruded;
It seemed as though some jewel rare,
Something unearthly were secluded,
And careful kept untroubled there.
Within her chamber thus secure,
By virtue guarded, chaste and pure,
The lamp of faith, incessant burning,
The VIRGIN'S image blest illumed,
The comfort of the spirit mourning
And trust of those to sorrow doomed.
The holy symbol's face reflected
The rays of hope in splendour bright,
And the rapt soul by faith directed
To regions of eternal light.
Maria, near the VIRGIN kneeling,
In silence gave her anguish way,
Unnoticed by the crowd unfeeling,
And whilst the rest, or sad or gay,
Wasted in idleness the day,
The sacred image still concealing,
Before it pouring forth her prayer,
She watched with ever jealous care;
Even as our hearts to error given,
Yet lighted by a spark from heaven,
Howe'er from virtue's paths we swerve,
One holy feeling still preserve.
* * * * *
Now night invests with black apparel
Luxurious Tauride's verdant fields,
Whilst her sweet notes from groves of laurel
The plaintive Philomela yields.
But soon night's glorious queen, advancing
Through cloudless skies to the stars' song,
Scatters the hills and dales along,
The lustre of her rays entrancing.
In Bakchesaria's streets roamed free
The Tartars' wives in garb befitting,
They like unprisoned shades were flitting
From house to house their friends to see,
And while the evening hours away
In harmless sports or converse gay.
The inmates of the harem slept;--
Still was the palace, night impending
O'er all her silent empire kept;
The eunuch guard, no more offending
The fair ones by his presence, now
Slumbered, but fear his soul attending
Troubled his rest and knit his brow;
Suspicion kept his fancy waking,
And on his mind incessant preyed,
The air the slightest murmur breaking
Assailed his ear with sounds of dread.
Now, by some noise deceitful cheated,
Starts from his sleep the timid slave,
Listens to hear the noise repeated,
But all is silent as the grave,
Save where the fountains softly sounding
Break from their marble prisons free,
Or night's sweet birds the scene surrounding
Pour forth their notes of melody:
Long does he hearken to the strain,
Then sinks fatigued in sleep again.
Luxurious East! how soft thy nights,
What magic through the soul they pour!
How fruitful they of fond delights
To those who Mahomet adore!
What splendour in each house is found,
Each garden seems enchanted ground;
Within the harem's precincts quiet
Beneath fair Luna's placid ray,
When angry feelings cease to riot
There love inspires with softer sway!
* * * *
The women sleep;--but one is there
Who sleeps not; goaded by despair
Her couch she quits with dread intent,
On awful errand is she bent;
Breathless she through the door swift flying
Passes unseen; her timid feet
Scarce touch the floor, she glides so fleet.
In doubtful slumber restless lying
The eunuch thwarts the fair one's path,
Ah! who can speak his bosom's wrath?
False is the quiet sleep would throw
Around that gray and care-worn brow;
She like a spirit vanished by
Viewless, unheard as her own sigh!
* * * *
The door she reaches, trembling opes,
Enters, and looks around with awe,
What sorrows, anguish, terrors, hopes,
Rushed through her heart at what she saw!
The image of the sacred maid,
The Christian's matron, reigning there,
And cross attracted first the fair,
By the dim lamp-light scarce displayed!
Oh! Grusinka, of earlier days
The vision burst upon thy soul,
The tongue long silent uttered praise,
The heart throbs high, but sin's control
Cannot escape, 'tis passion, passion sways!
The Princess in a maid's repose
Slumbered, her cheek, tinged like the rose,
By feverish thought, in beauty blooms,
And the fresh tear that stains her face
A smile of tenderness illumes.
Thus cheers the moon fair Flora's race,
When by the rain opprest they lie
The charm and grief of every eye!
It seemed as though an angel slept
From heaven descended, who, distressed,
Vented the feelings of his breast,
And for the harem's inmates wept!
Alas! poor Zarem, wretched fair,
By anguish urged to mere despair,
On bended knee, in tone subdued
And melting strain, for pity sued.
"Oh! spurn not such a suppliant's prayer!"
Her tones so sad, her sighs so deep,
Startled the Princess in her sleep;
Wond'ring, she views with dread before her
The stranger beauty, frighted hears
For mercy her soft voice implore her,
Raises her up with trembling hand,
And makes of her the quick demand,
"Who speaks? in night's still hour alone,
Wherefore art here?" "A wretched one,
To thee I come," the fair replied,
"A suitor not to be denied;
Hope, hope alone my soul sustains;
Long have I happiness enjoyed,
And lived from sorrow free and care,
But now, alas! a prey to pains
And terrors, Princess hear my prayer,
Oh! listen, or I am destroyed!
Not here beheld I first the light,
Far hence my native land, but yet
Alas! I never can forget
Objects once precious to my sight;
Well I remember towering mountains,
Snow-ridged, replete with boiling fountains,
Woods pervious scarce to wolf or deer,
Nor faith, nor manners such as here;
But, by what cruel fate o'ercome,
How I was snatched, or when, from home
I know not,--well the heaving ocean
Do I remember, and its roar,
But, ah! my heart such wild commotion
As shakes it now ne'er felt before.
I in the harem's quiet bloomed,
Tranquil myself, waiting, alas!
With willing heart what love had doomed;
Its secret wishes came to pass:
Giray his peaceful harem sought,
For feats of war no longer burned,
Nor, pleased, upon its horrors thought,
To these fair scenes again returned.
"Before the Khan with bosoms beating
We stood, timid my eyes I raised,
When suddenly our glances meeting,
I drank in rapture as I gazed;
He called me to him,--from that hour
We lived in bliss beyond the power
Of evil thought or wicked word,
The tongue of calumny unheard,
Suspicion, doubt, or jealous fear,
Of weariness alike unknown,
Princess, thou comest a captive here,
And all my joys are overthrown,
Giray with sinful passion burns,
His soul possessed of thee alone,
My tears and sighs the traitor spurns;
No more his former thoughts, nor feeling
For me now cherishes Giray,
Scarce his disgust, alas! concealing,
He from my presence hastes away.
Princess, I know the fault not thine
That Giray loves thee, oh! then hear
A suppliant wretch, nor spurn her prayer!
Throughout the harem none but thou
Could rival beauties such as mine
Nor make him violate his vow;
Yet, Princess! in thy bosom cold
The heart to mine left thus forlorn,
The love I feel cannot be told,
For passion, Princess, was I born.
Yield me Giray then; with these tresses
Oft have his wandering fingers played,
My lips still glow with his caresses,
Snatched as he sighed, and swore, and prayed,
Oaths broken now so often plighted!
Hearts mingled once now disunited!
His treason I cannot survive;
Thou seest I weep, I bend my knee,
Ah! if to pity thou'rt alive,
My former love restore to me.
Reply not! thee I do not blame,
Thy beauties have bewitched Giray,
Blinded his heart to love and fame,
Then yield him up to me, I pray,
Or by contempt, repulse, or grief,
Turn from thy love th'ungenerous chief!
Swear by thy _faith_, for what though mine
Conform now to the Koran's laws,
Acknowledged here within the harem,
Princess, my mother's faith was thine,
By that faith swear to give to Zarem
Giray unaltered, as he was!
But listen! the sad prey to scorn
If I must live, Princess, have care,
A dagger still doth Zarem wear,--
I near the Caucasus was born!"
She spake, then sudden disappeared,
And left the Princess in dismay,
Who scarce knew what or why she feared;
Such words of passion till that day
She ne'er had heard. Alas! was she
To be the ruthless chieftain's prey?
Vain was all hope his grasp to flee.
Oh! God, that in some dungeon's gloom
Remote, forgotten, she had lain,
Or that it were her blessed doom
To'scape dishonour, life, and pain!
How would Maria with delight
This world of wretchedness resign;
Vanished of youth her visions bright,
Abandoned she to fates malign!
Sinless she to the world was given,
And so remains, thus pure and fair,
Her soul is called again to heaven,
And angel joys await it there!
* * * * *
Days passed away; Maria slept
Peaceful, no cares disturbed her, now,--
From earth the orphan maid was swept.
But who knew when, or where, or how?
If prey to grief or pain she fell,
If slain or heaven-struck, who can tell?
She sleeps; her loss the chieftain grieves,
And his neglected harem leaves,
Flies from its tranquil precincts far,
And with his Tartars takes the field,
Fierce rushes mid the din of war,
And brave the foe that does not yield,
For mad despair hath nerved his arm,
Though in his heart is grief concealed,
With passion's hopeless transports warm.
His blade he swings aloft in air
And wildly brandishes, then low
It falls, whilst he with pallid stare
Gazes, and tears in torrents flow.
His harem by the chief deserted,
In foreign lands he warring roved,
Long nor in wish nor thought reverted
To scene once cherished and beloved.
His women to the eunuch's rage
Abandoned, pined and sank in age;
The fair Grusinian now no more
Yielded her soul to passion's power,
Her fate was with Maria's blended,
On the same night their sorrows ended;
Seized by mute guards the hapless fair
Into a deep abyss they threw,--
If vast her crime, through love's despair,
Her punishment was dreadful too!
At length th'exhausted Khan returned,
Enough of waste his sword had dealt,
The Russian cot no longer burned,
Nor Caucasus his fury felt.
In token of Maria's loss
A marble fountain he upreared
In spot recluse;--the Christian's cross
Upon the monument appeared,
(Surmounting it a crescent bright,
Emblem of ignorance and night!)
Th'inscription mid the silent waste
Not yet has time's rude hand effaced,
Still do the gurgling waters pour
Their streams dispensing sadness round,
As mothers weep for sons no more,
In never-ending sorrows drowned.
In morn fair maids, (and twilight late,)
Roam where this monument appears,
And pitying poor Maria's fate
Entitle it the FOUNT OF TEARS!
* * * * *
My native land abandoned long,
I sought this realm of love and song.
Through Bakchesaria's palace wandered,
Upon its vanished greatness pondered;
All silent now those spacious halls,
And courts deserted, once so gay
With feasters thronged within their walls,
Carousing after battle fray.
Even now each desolated room
And ruined garden luxury breathes,
The fountains play, the roses bloom,
The vine unnoticed twines its wreaths,
Gold glistens, shrubs exhale perfume.
The shattered casements still are there
Within which once, in days gone by,
Their beads of amber chose the fair,
And heaved the unregarded sigh;
The cemetery there I found,
Of conquering khans the last abode,
Columns with marble turbans crowned
Their resting-place the traveller showed,
And seemed to speak fate's stern decree,
"As they are now such all shall be!"
Where now those chiefs? the harem where?
Alas! how sad scene once so fair!
Now breathless silence chains the air!
But not of this my mind was full,
The roses' breath, the fountains flowing,
The sun's last beam its radiance throwing
Around, all served my heart to lull
Into forgetfulness, when lo!
A maiden's shade, fairer than snow,
Across the court swift winged its flight;--
Whose shade, oh friends! then struck my sight?
Whose beauteous image hovering near
Filled me with wonder and with fear?
Maria's form beheld I then?
Or was it the unhappy Zarem,
Who jealous thither came again
To roam through the deserted harem?
That tender look I cannot flee,
Those charms still earthly still I see!
* * * * *
He who the muse and peace adores,
Forgetting glory, love, and gold,
Again thy ever flowery shores
Soon, Salgir! joyful shall behold;
The bard shall wind thy rocky ways
Filled with fond sympathies, shall view
Tauride's bright skies and waves of blue
With greedy and enraptured gaze.
Enchanting region! full of life
Thy hills, thy woods, thy leaping streams,
Ambered and rubied vines, all rife
With pleasure, spot of fairy dreams!
Valleys of verdure, fruits, and flowers,
Cool waterfalls and fragrant bowers!
All serve the traveller's heart to fill
With joy as he in hour of morn
By his accustomed steed is borne
In safety o'er dell, rock, and hill,
Whilst the rich herbage, bent with dews,
Sparkles and rustles on the ground,
As he his venturous path pursues
Where AYOUDAHGA'S crags surround!
[1] A Turkish pipe.
AMATORY AND OTHER POEMS,
BY
VARIOUS RUSSIAN AUTHORS.
[Several of the following translations were published anonymously, many
years since, in the "National Gazette," when edited by Robert Walsh, Esq.,
and in the "Atlantic Souvenir," and other periodicals.]
AMATORY AND OTHER POEMS.
SONG.
I through gay and brilliant places
Long my wayward course had bound,
Oft had gazed on beauteous faces,
But no loved one yet had found.
Careless, onward did I saunter,
Seeking no beloved to see,
Rather dreading such encounter,
Wishing ever to be free.
Thus from all temptation fleeing,
Hoped I long unchecked to rove,
'Till the fair Louisa seeing,--
Who can see her, and not love?
Sol, his splendid robes arrayed in,
Just behind the hills was gone,
When one eve I saw the maiden
Tripping o'er the verdant lawn.
Of a strange, tumultuous feeling,
As I gazed I felt the sway,
And, with brain on fire and reeling,
Homeward quick I bent my way.
Through my bosom rapid darting,
Love 'twas plain I could not brave,
And with boasted freedom parting,
I became Louisa's slave.
THE HUSBAND'S LAMENT.
BY P. PELSKY.
Parted now, alas! for ever
From the object of my heart,
Thus by cruel fate afflicted,
Grief shall be my only part,
I, bereft of her blest presence,
Shall my life in anguish spend,
Joy a stranger to my bosom,
Wo with every thought shall blend.
Double was my meed of pleasure
When in it a share she bore,
Of my pains, though keen and piercing,
Viewing her I thought no more.
All is past! and I, unhappy,
Here on earth am left alone,
All my transports now are vanished,
Blissful hours! how swiftly flown.
Vainly friends, with kind compassion,
Me to calm my grief conjure,
Vainly strive my heart to comfort,
It the grave alone can cure.
Fate one hope allows me only,
Which allays my bosom's pain--
Death our loving hearts divided,
Death our hearts can join again!
COUNSEL.
BY DMEETRIEFF.
Youth, those moments so entrancing,
Spend in sports and pleasures gay,
Mirth and singing, love and dancing,
Like a shade thou'lt pass away!
Nature points the way before us,
Friends to her sweet voice give ear,
Form the dances, raise the chorus,
We but for an hour are here.
Think the term of mirth and pleasure
Comes no more when once gone by,
Let us prize life's only treasure,
Blest with love and jollity.
And the bard all sorrows scorning,
Who, though old, still joins your ring,
With gay wreaths of flowers adorning
Crown him that he still may sing.
Youth, those moments so entrancing,
Spend in sports and pleasures gay,
Mirth and singing, love and dancing,
Like a shade thou'lt pass away!
STANZAS.
BY NELAIDINSKY.
He whose soul from sorrow dreary,
Weak and wretched, nought can save,
Who in sadness, sick and weary,
Hopes no refuge but the grave;
On his visage Pleasure beaming,
Ne'er shall shed her placid ray,
Till kind Fate, from wo redeeming,
Leads him to his latest day.
Thou this life preservest ever,
My distress and my delight!
And, though soul and body sever,
Still I'll live a spirit bright;
In my breast the heart that's kindled
Death's dread strength can ne'er destroy,
Sure the soul with thine that's mingled
Must immortal life enjoy!
That inspired by breath from heaven
Need not shrink at mortal doom,
To thee shall my vows be given
In this world and that to come.
My fond shade shall constant trace thee,
And attend in friendly guise,
Still surround thee, still embrace thee,
Catch thy thoughts, thy looks, thy sighs.
To divine its secret pondering,
Close to clasp thy soul 'twill brave,
And if chance shall find thee wandering
Heedless near my silent grave,
Even my ashes then shall tremble,
Thy approach relume their fire,
And that stone in dust shall crumble,
Covering what can ne'er expire!
ODE TO THE WARRIORS OF THE DON.
WRITTEN IN 1812, BY N.M. SHATROFF.
Sudden o'er Moscow rolls the dread thunder,
Fierce o'er his proud borders Don's torrents flow,
High swells each bosom, glowing with vengeance
'Gainst the base foe.
Scarce in loud accents spoke our good Monarch,
"Soldiers of Russia! Moscow burns bright,
Foemen destroy her,"--hundreds of thousands
Rush to the fight.
"Who dare oppose God? who oppose Russians?"
Cried the brave Hetman,--steeds round him tramp,--
"The Frenchman's ashes quickly we'll scatter,
Show us his camp!
"TSAR true-believing we are all ready,
Thy throne's defenders, each proud heart bent
By the assault th' invader's black projects
To circumvent.
"Russians well know the rough road to glory,
Rhine's banks by our troops soon shall be trod,
We fight for vengeance, for love of country,
And faith in God!
"BELIEVE and conquer, fear not for Russia,
Awful the blow the cross-bearer strikes,
Th'arkan[1] is dreadful, the sword unsparing,
Sharp are our pikes.
"Vain are Napoleon's skill, strength, and cunning,
Nor do his hosts fill us with despair,
For Michael[2] leads us, and Mary's[3] image
With us we bear.
"To horse, brothers, haste, the foe approaches,
Holy faith guides us, in God we trust,
Quick, true believers, rush to the onset,
God aids the just!
"Sternly rush on, friends, crush the vile Frenchman,
Firm be as mountains when tempests blow,
Oh! into Russia grant not the foul one
Further to go."
Don, broad and mighty, poured forth her children,
The world was amazed, pale with affright,
Napoleon abandoned his fame, and sought
Safety in flight.
On all sides alike pikes gleam around us,
Through air hiss arrows, cannons bright flash,
Bullets, like bees, in swarms fly terrific,
Mingling swords clash.
Not half a million of fierce invaders
Can meet the rage of Russia's attacks;
Not more than they the timid deer shrinks at
Sight of Cossacks.
O'er blood-drenched plains their red standards scattered,
Their arms abandoned, spoils left behind:
Death they now flee from, to loss of honour
Basely resigned.
Vainly they shun it, fruitless their cunning,
Jove's bird strikes down the blood-thirsty crow,
The fame and bones of Frenchmen in Russia
Alike lie low.
Thus th' ambitious usurper is vanquished,
Thus his legions destroyed as they flee,
Thus white-stoned Moscow, the first throned city,
Once more set free.
To God, all potent, let thanks be rendered,
Honoured our TSAR'S and each chieftain's name,
To th'Empire safety, to Don's brave offspring
Laurels and fame!
[1] Lasso.
[2] Kutuzoff.
[3] The Virgin.
SOLITUDE.
BY MERZLIAKOFF.
Upon a hill, which rears itself midst plains extending wide,
Fair flourishes a lofty OAK in beauty's blooming pride;
This lofty oak in solitude its branches wide expands,
All lonesome on the cheerless height like sentinel it stands.
Whom can it lend its friendly shade, should Sol with fervour glow?
And who can shelter _it_ from harm, should tempests rudely blow?
No bushes green, entwining close, here deck the neighbouring ground,
No tufted pines beside it grow, no osiers thrive around.
Sad even to trees their cheerless fate in solitude if grown,
And bitter, bitter is the lot for youth to live alone!
Though gold and silver much is his, how vain the selfish pride!
Though crowned with glory's laurelled wreath, with whom that crown divide?
When I with an acquaintance meet he scarce a bow affords,
And beauties, half saluting me, but grant some transient words.
On some I look myself with dread, whilst others from me fly,
But sadder still the uncherished soul when Fate's dark hour draws nigh;
Oh! where my aching heart relieve when griefs assail me sore?
My friend, who sleeps in the cold earth, comes to my aid no more!
No relatives, alas! of mine in this strange clime appear,
No wife imparts love's fond caress, sweet smile, or pitying tear;
No father feels joy's thrilling throb, as he our transport sees;
No gay and sportive little ones come clambering on my knees;--
Take back all honours, wealth, and fame, the heart they cannot move,
And give instead the smiles of friends, the tender look of love!
TO MY ROSE.
Bright queen of flowers, O! Rose, gay blooming,
How lovely are thy charms to me!
Narcissus proud, pink unassuming,
In beauty vainly vie with thee;
When thou midst Flora's circle shinest,
Each seems thy slave confessed to sigh,
And thou, O! loveliest flower, divinest,
Allur'st alone the passer's eye.
To change thy fate the thought has struck me,
Sweet Rose, in beauty, ah! how blest,
For fair Eliza I will pluck thee,
And thou shalt deck her virgin breast:--
Yet, there thy beauties vainly shining,
No more predominance will claim,
To lilies, all thy pride resigning,
Thou'lt yield without dispute thy fame.
TO CUPID.
Cupid, one arrow kindly spare,
'Twill yield me transport beyond measure,
I'll not be mean, by heaven I swear,
With Mary I'll divide the treasure.
Thou wilt not?--Tyrant, now I see
Thou lovest with grief my soul to harrow;
To her thou'st given thy quiver--for me
Thou hast not left a single arrow!
EVENING MEDITATIONS.
Nature in silence sank, and deep repose,
Behind the mountain, Sol had ceased to glare,
Timid the moon with modest lustre rose,
Willing as though my misery to share.
The past was quick presented to my mind,
A gentle languor calmed each throbbing vein,
My poor heart trembled as the leaves from wind,
My melting soul owned melancholy's reign.
Plain did each action of my life appear,
Each feeling bade some fellow feeling start,
On my parched bosom fell the flowing tear,
And cooled the burning anguish of my heart.
Moments of bliss, I cried, ah! whither flown?
When Friendship breathed to me her soothing sighs,
Twice have the fields with golden harvests shone,
And still her blest return stern Fate denies!
Cynthia, thou seest me lone my course pursue,
Hopeless here roving, grief my only guide,
Evenings long past thou call'st to Fancy's view,
Forcing the tear down my pale cheek to glide.
Friendless, of love bereft, what now my joy?
Void are my heart and soul, a prey to pain,
To love, to be beloved, can never cloy,
But all on earth besides, alas! is vain!
THE LITTLE DOVE.
BY DMETRIEFF.
The little dove, with heart of sadness,
In silent pain sighs night and day,
What now can wake that heart to gladness?
His mate beloved is far away.
He coos no more with soft caresses,
No more is millet sought by him,
The dove his lonesome state distresses,
And tears his swimming eyeballs dim.
From twig to twig now skips the lover,
Filling the grove with accents kind,
On all sides roams the harmless rover,
Hoping his little friend to find.
Ah! vain that hope his grief is tasting,
Fate seems to scorn his faithful love,
And imperceptibly is wasting,
Wasting away, the little dove!
At length upon the grass he threw him,
Hid in his wing his beak and wept,
There ceased his sorrows to pursue him,
The little dove for ever slept.
His mate, now sad abroad and grieving,
Flies from a distance home again,
Sits by her friend, with bosom heaving,
And bids him wake with sorrowing pain.
She sighs, she weeps, her spirits languish,
Around and round the spot she goes,
Ah! charming Chloe's lost in anguish,
Her friend wakes not from his repose!
LAURA'S PRAYER.
As the harp's soft sighings in the silent valley,
To high heaven reaching, lifts thy pious prayer,
Laura, be tranquil! again with health shall nourish
Thy loved companion.
O! ye gods, behold fair Laura sunk in anguish,
Kneeling, O! behold her on the grassy hill,
Mild evening's sportive zephyrs gently embracing
Her golden ringlets.
Glist'ning with tears, her sad eyes to you she raises,
Her fair bosom heaving like the swelling wave,
Whilst in the solemn grove echo, clothed in darkness,
Repeats her accents.
"O! gods, my friend beloved give again health's blessings,
Faded are her cheeks now, dull her once bright eye,
In her heart no pleasure,--killed by cruel sickness,
As by heat flowers.
"But if your hard laws should bid her quit existence,
Grant then my sad prayer, with her let me too die,"--
Laura, be tranquil! thy friend thou'lt see reviving
Like spring's sweet roses.
THE STORM.
BY DERJAVIN.
As my bark in restless ocean
Mounts its rough and foaming hills,
Whilst its waves in dark commotion
Pass me, hope my bosom fills.
Who, when warring clouds are gleaming,
Quenches the destructive spark?
Say what hand, where safety's beaming,
Guides through rocks my little bark?
Thou Creator! all o'erseeing,
In this scene preserv'st me dread,
Thou, without whose word decreeing
Not a hair falls from my head.
Thou in life hast doubly blest me,
All my soul to thee's revealed,
Thou amongst the great hast placed me,
Be midst them my guide and shield!
TO MY HEART.
Why, poor heart, so ceaseless languish?
Why with such distresses smart?
Nought alleviates thy anguish,
What afflicts thee so, poor heart?
Heart, I comprehend not wrongly,
Thou a captive art confest,
Near Eliza thou beat'st strongly
As thou'dst leap into her breast.
Since 'tis so then, little throbber,
You and I, alas! must part,
I'd not be thy comfort's robber;
To her I'll resign thee, heart.
Yet the maid in compensation
Must her own bestow on me,
And with such remuneration
Never shall I grieve for thee.
But should she, thy sorrows spurning,
This exchange, poor heart, deny,
Then I'll bear thee, heart, though mourning,
From her far and hasty fly.
But, alas! no pain assuaging,
That would but increase thy grief;
If kind Death still not its raging,
Granting thee a kind relief.
TIME.
O! Time, as thou on rapid wings
Encirclest earth's extensive ball,
Fatal thy flight to worldly things,
Thy darts cut down and ruin all.
A cloud from us thy form conceals;
Enwrapt its gloomy folds among,
Thou mov'st eternity's vast wheels,
And with them movest us along.
The swift-winged days thou urgest on,
With them life's sand beholdest pass,
And when our transient hours are gone,
Thou smilest at their exhausted glass.
Against Time's look, when he but frowns,
All strength, and skill, and power, are vain;
He withers laurels, wreaths, and crowns,
And breaks the matrimonial chain.
As Time moves onward, far and wide
His restless scythe mows all away,
All feels his breath, on every side
All sinks, resistless, to decay.
To youth's gay bloom and beauty's charms
Mercy alike stern Time denies,
Like vernal flowers o'erwhelmed by storms,
Whate'er he looks at droops and dies.
Huge piles from earth his mighty hand
Sweeps to oblivion's empire dread,
What villages, what cities grand,
What kingdoms sink beneath his tread!
Heroes in vain, his gauntlet cast,
Oppose his stern and ruthless sway,
Nor armies brave, nor mountains vast,
Can thwart the devastator's way.
Thought strives, but fruitless, to pursue
The traces of Time's rapid flight,
Scarce Fancy gains one transient view,
He disappears and sinks in night.
Think, thou whom folly's dazzling glare
Of worldly vanities may blind,
Time frowns and all will disappear,
Nor gold a vestige leave behind.
And thou whom fierce distresses sting,
Thou by calamities low bowed,
Weep not, for Time the day will bring
That ranks the humble with the proud.
But, Time, thy course of ruin stay,
The lyre's sweet tones one moment hear,
By thee o'er earth is spread dismay,
Grief's sigh called forth, and pity's tear.
Yet, Time, thy speed the dread decree
Of retribution on thee brings,
Eternity will swallow thee,
Thy motion stop, and clip thy wings!
SONG.
Sweetly came the morning light,
When fair Mary blest my sight,
In her presence pleasures throng,
Louder swelled the birds their song,
Pleasanter the day became.
Not so radiant are Sol's rays,
When on darkest clouds they blaze,
As her look, so free from guile,
As fair Mary's tender smile,
As the smile of my beloved.
Not of dew the gems divine
Shine as Mary's beauties shine,
Not with hers the rose's dye
On the fairest cheek can vie,
None have beauty like to hers.
Mary's kiss as honey sweet,
Pure as streamlet clear and fleet,
Love inhabits her soft eyes,
Floats in all her soothing sighs,
Nought on earth so sweet as she.
Let us, Mary, now enjoy
Nature's charms without alloy,
Verdant lawn, and smiling grove;--
Brooks that babble but of love
Will beside us softer flow.
Let us seek the pleasant shade,
Sit in bowers by us arrayed
With gay flow'rets, where are heard
Songs of many a pleasant bird,
Which with rapture we will join. |
10,240 |
Produced by Nicole Apostola
RACKETTY-PACKETTY HOUSE
As told by Queen Crosspatch
By
Frances Hodgson Burnett
Author of "Little Lord Fauntleroy"
With illustrations by Harrison Cady
[Transcribers note: see frontispiece.jpg, dance.jpg and fairy.jpg]
Now this is the story about the doll family I liked and the doll
family I didn't. When you read it you are to remember something I
am going to tell you. This is it: If you think dolls never do
anything you don't see them do, you are very much mistaken. When
people are not looking at them they can do anything they choose.
They can dance and sing and play on the piano and have all sorts of
fun. But they can only move about and talk when people turn their
backs and are not looking. If any one looks, they just stop.
Fairies know this and of course Fairies visit in all the dolls'
houses where the dolls are agreeable. They will not associate,
though, with dolls who are not nice. They never call or leave their
cards at a dolls' house where the dolls are proud or bad tempered.
They are very particular. If you are conceited or ill-tempered
yourself, you will never know a fairy as long as you live.
Queen Crosspatch.
RACKETTY-PACKETTY HOUSE
Racketty-Packetty House was in a corner of Cynthia's nursery. And
it was not in the best corner either. It was in the corner behind
the door, and that was not at all a fashionable neighborhood.
Racketty-Packetty House had been pushed there to be out of the way
when Tidy Castle was brought in, on Cynthia's birthday. As soon as
she saw Tidy Castle Cynthia did not care for Racketty-Packetty
House and indeed was quite ashamed of it. She thought the corner
behind the door quite good enough for such a shabby old dolls'
house, when there was the beautiful big new one built like a castle
and furnished with the most elegant chairs and tables and carpets
and curtains and ornaments and pictures and beds and baths and
lamps and book-cases, and with a knocker on the front door, and a
stable with a pony cart in it at the back. The minute she saw it
she called out:
"Oh! what a beautiful doll castle! What shall we do with that
untidy old Racketty-Packetty House now? It is too shabby and
old-fashioned to stand near it."
In fact, that was the way in which the old dolls' house got its
name. It had always been called, "The Dolls' House," before, but
after that it was pushed into the unfashionable neighborhood behind
the door and ever afterwards--when it was spoken of at all--it was
just called Racketty-Packetty House, and nothing else.
[Transcriber's Note: See picture tidyshire_castle.jpg]
Of course Tidy Castle was grand, and Tidy Castle was new and had
all the modern improvements in it, and Racketty-Packetty House was
as old-fashioned as it could be. It had belonged to Cynthia's
Grandmamma and had been made in the days when Queen Victoria was a
little girl, and when there were no electric lights even in
Princesses' dolls' houses. Cynthia's Grandmamma had kept it very
neat because she had been a good housekeeper even when she was
seven years old. But Cynthia was not a good housekeeper and she did
not re-cover the furniture when it got dingy, or re-paper the
walls, or mend the carpets and bedclothes, and she never thought of
such a thing as making new clothes for the doll family, so that of
course their early Victorian frocks and capes and bonnets grew in
time to be too shabby for words. You see, when Queen Victoria was a
little girl, dolls wore queer frocks and long pantalets and boy
dolls wore funny frilled trousers and coats which it would almost
make you laugh to look at.
But the Racketty-Packetty House family had known better days. I and
my Fairies had known them when they were quite new and had been a
birthday present just as Tidy Castle was when Cynthia turned eight
years old, and there was as much fuss about them when their house
arrived as Cynthia made when she saw Tidy Castle.
Cynthia's Grandmamma had danced about and clapped her hands with
delight, and she had scrambled down upon her knees and taken the
dolls out one by one and thought their clothes beautiful. And she
had given each one of them a grand name.
"This one shall be Amelia," she said. "And this one is Charlotte,
and this is Victoria Leopoldina, and this one Aurelia Matilda, and
this one Leontine, and this one Clotilda, and these boys shall be
Augustus and Rowland and Vincent and Charles Edward Stuart."
For a long time they led a very gay and fashionable life. They had
parties and balls and were presented at Court and went to Royal
Christenings and Weddings and were married themselves and had
families and scarlet fever and whooping cough and funerals and
every luxury. But that was long, long ago, and now all was changed.
Their house had grown shabbier and shabbier, and their clothes had
grown simply awful; and Aurelia Matilda and Victoria Leopoldina had
been broken to bits and thrown into the dust-bin, and Leontine--who
had really been the beauty of the family--had been dragged out on
the hearth rug one night and had had nearly all her paint licked
off and a leg chewed up by a Newfoundland puppy, so that she was a
sight to behold. As for the boys; Rowland and Vincent had quite
disappeared, and Charlotte and Amelia always believed they had run
away to seek their fortunes, because things were in such a state at
home. So the only ones who were left were Clotilda and Amelia and
Charlotte and poor Leontine and Augustus and Charles Edward Stuart.
Even they had their names changed.
[Transcriber's Note: See picture ridiklis.jpg]
After Leontine had had her paint licked off so that her head had
white bald spots on it and she had scarcely any features, a boy
cousin of Cynthia's had put a bright red spot on each cheek and
painted her a turned up nose and round saucer blue eyes and a
comical mouth. He and Cynthia had called her, "Ridiklis" instead of
Leontine, and she had been called that ever since. All the dolls
were jointed Dutch dolls, so it was easy to paint any kind of
features on them and stick out their arms and legs in any way you
liked, and Leontine did look funny after Cynthia's cousin had
finished. She certainly was not a beauty but her turned up nose and
her round eyes and funny mouth always seemed to be laughing so she
really was the most good-natured looking creature you ever saw.
Charlotte and Amelia, Cynthia had called Meg and Peg, and Clotilda
she called Kilmanskeg, and Augustus she called Gustibus, and
Charles Edward Stuart was nothing but Peter Piper. So that was the
end of their grand names.
The truth was, they went through all sorts of things, and if they
had not been such a jolly lot of dolls they might have had fits and
appendicitis and died of grief. But not a bit of it. If you will
believe it, they got fun out of everything. They used to just
scream with laughter over the new names, and they laughed so much
over them that they got quite fond of them. When Meg's pink silk
flounces were torn she pinned them up and didn't mind in the least,
and when Peg's lace mantilla was played with by a kitten and
brought back to her in rags and tags, she just put a few stitches
in it and put it on again; and when Peter Piper lost almost the
whole leg of one of his trousers he just laughed and said it made
it easier for him to kick about and turn somersaults and he wished
the other leg would tear off too.
You never saw a family have such fun. They could make up stories
and pretend things and invent games out of nothing. And my Fairies
were so fond of them that I couldn't keep them away from the dolls'
house. They would go and have fun with Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg
and Gustibus and Peter Piper, even when I had work for them to do
in Fairyland. But there, I was so fond of that shabby disrespectable
family myself that I never would scold much about them, and I often
went to see them. That is how I know so much about them. They were
so fond of each other and so good-natured and always in such
spirits that everybody who knew them was fond of them. And it was
really only Cynthia who didn't know them and thought them only a
lot of old disreputable looking Dutch dolls--and Dutch dolls were
quite out of fashion. The truth was that Cynthia was not a
particularly nice little girl, and did not care much for anything
unless it was quite new. But the kitten who had torn the lace
mantilla got to know the family and simply loved them all, and the
Newfoundland puppy was so sorry about Leontine's paint and her left
leg, that he could never do enough to make up. He wanted to marry
Leontine as soon as he grew old enough to wear a collar, but
Leontine said she would never desert her family; because now that
she wasn't the beauty any more she became the useful one, and did
all the kitchen work, and sat up and made poultices and beef tea
when any of the rest were ill. And the Newfoundland puppy saw she
was right, for the whole family simply adored Ridiklis and could
not possibly have done without her. Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg
could have married any minute if they had liked. There were two
cock sparrows and a gentleman mouse, who proposed to them over and
over again. They all three said they did not want fashionable wives
but cheerful dispositions and a happy, home. But Meg and Peg were
like Ridiklis and could not bear to leave their families--besides
not wanting to live in nests, and hatch eggs--and Kilmanskeg said
she would die of a broken heart if she could not be with Ridiklis,
and Ridiklis did not like cheese and crumbs and mousy things, so
they could never live together in a mouse hole. But neither the
gentleman mouse nor the sparrows were offended because the news was
broken to them so sweetly and they went on visiting just as before.
Everything was as shabby and disrespectable and as gay and happy as
it could be until Tidy Castle was brought into the nursery and then
the whole family had rather a fright.
[Transcriber's Note: See picture mouse.jpg]
It happened in this way:
When the dolls' house was lifted by the nurse and carried into the
corner behind the door, of course it was rather an exciting and
shaky thing for Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg and Gustibus and Peter
Piper (Ridiklis was out shopping). The furniture tumbled about and
everybody had to hold on to anything they could catch hold of. As
it was, Kilmanskeg slid under a table and Peter Piper sat down in
the coal-box; but notwithstanding all this, they did not lose their
tempers and when the nurse sat their house down on the floor with a
bump, they all got up and began to laugh. Then they ran and peeped
out of the windows and then they ran back and laughed again.
[Transcriber's Note: See picture fashionable_wives.jpg]
"Well," said Peter Piper, "we have been called Meg and Peg and
Kilmanskeg and Gustibus and Peter Piper instead of our grand names,
and now we live in a place called Racketty-Packetty House. Who
cares! Let's join hands and have a dance."
And they joined hands and danced round and round and kicked up
their heels, and their rags and tatters flew about and they laughed
until they fell down; one on top of the other.
It was just at this minute that Ridiklis came back. The nurse had
found her under a chair and stuck her in through a window. She sat
on the drawing-room sofa which had holes in its covering and the
stuffing coming out, and her one whole leg stuck out straight in
front of her, and her bonnet and shawl were on one side and her
basket was on her left arm full of things she had got cheap at
market. She was out of breath and rather pale through being lifted
up and swished through the air so suddenly, but her saucer eyes and
her funny mouth looked as cheerful as ever.
"Good gracious, if you knew what I have just heard!" she said. They
all scrambled up and called out together.
"Hello! What is it?"
"The nurse said the most awful thing," she answered them. "When
Cynthia asked what she should do with this old Racketty-Packetty
House, she said, 'Oh! I'll put it behind the door for the present
and then it shall be carried down-stairs and burned. It's too
disgraceful to be kept in any decent nursery.'"
"Oh!" cried out Peter Piper.
"Oh!" said Gustibus.
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" said Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg. "Will they burn our
dear old shabby house? Do you think they will?" And actually tears
began to run down their cheeks.
Peter Piper sat down on the floor all at once with his hands
stuffed in his pockets.
"I don't care how shabby it is," he said. "It's a jolly nice old
place and it's the only house we've ever had."
"I never want to have any other," said Meg.
Gustibus leaned against the wall with his hands stuffed in his
pockets.
"I wouldn't move if I was made King of England," he said.
"Buckingham Palace wouldn't be half as nice."
"We've had such fun here," said Peg. And Kilmanskeg shook her head
from side to side and wiped her eyes on her ragged pocket-handkerchief.
There is no knowing what would have happened to them if Peter Piper
hadn't cheered up as he always did.
"I say," he said, "do you hear that noise?" They all listened and
heard a rumbling. Peter Piper ran to the window and looked out and
then ran back grinning.
"It's the nurse rolling up the arm-chair before the house to hide
it, so that it won't disgrace the castle. Hooray! Hooray! If they
don't see us they will forget all about us and we shall not be
burned up at all. Our nice old Racketty-Packetty House will be left
alone and we can enjoy ourselves more than ever--because we sha'n't
be bothered with Cynthia--Hello! let's all join hands and have a
dance."
So they all joined hands and danced round in a ring again and they
were so relieved that they laughed and laughed until they all
tumbled down in a heap just as they had done before, and rolled
about giggling and squealing. It certainly seemed as if they were
quite safe for some time at least. The big easy chair hid them and
both the nurse and Cynthia seemed to forget that there was such a
thing as a Racketty-Packetty House in the neighborhood. Cynthia was
so delighted with Tidy Castle that she played with nothing else for
days and days. And instead of being jealous of their grand
neighbors the Racketty-Packetty House people began to get all sorts
of fun out of watching them from their own windows. Several of
their windows were broken and some had rags and paper stuffed into
the broken panes, but Meg and Peg and Peter Piper would go and peep
out of one, and Gustibus and Kilmanskeg would peep out of another,
and Ridiklis could scarcely get her dishes washed and her potatoes
pared because she could see the Castle kitchen from her scullery
window. It was _so_ exciting!
[Transcriber's Note: See picture ridiklis_cooking.jpg]
The Castle dolls were grand beyond words, and they were all lords
and ladies. These were their names. There was Lady Gwendolen Vere
de Vere. She was haughty and had dark eyes and hair and carried her
head thrown back and her nose in the air. There was Lady Muriel
Vere de Vere, and she was cold and lovely and indifferent and
looked down the bridge of her delicate nose. And there was Lady
Doris, who had fluffy golden hair and laughed mockingly at
everybody. And there was Lord Hubert and Lord Rupert and Lord
Francis, who were all handsome enough to make you feel as if you
could faint. And there was their mother, the Duchess of Tidyshire;
and of course there were all sorts of maids and footmen and cooks
and scullery maids and even gardeners.
"We never thought of living to see such grand society," said Peter
Piper to his brother and sisters. "It's quite a kind of blessing."
"It's almost like being grand ourselves, just to be able to watch
them," said Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg, squeezing together and
flattening their noses against the attic windows.
They could see bits of the sumptuous white and gold drawing-room
with the Duchess sitting reading near the fire, her golden glasses
upon her nose, and Lady Gwendolen playing haughtily upon the harp,
and Lady Muriel coldly listening to her. Lady Doris was having her
golden hair dressed by her maid in her bed-room and Lord Hubert was
reading the newspaper with a high-bred air, while Lord Francis was
writing letters to noblemen of his acquaintance, and Lord Rupert
was--in an aristocratic manner--glancing over his love letters from
ladies of title.
[Transcriber's Note: See picture duchess.jpg]
Kilmanskeg and Peter Piper just pinched each other with glee and
squealed with delight.
"Isn't it fun," said Peter Piper. "I say; aren't they awful swells!
But Lord Francis can't kick about in his trousers as I can in mine,
and neither can the others. I'll like to see them try to do this,"--
and he turned three summersaults in the middle of the room and
stood on his head on the biggest hole in the carpet--and wiggled
his legs and wiggled his toes at them until they shouted so with
laughing that Ridiklis ran in with a saucepan in her hand and
perspiration on her forehead, because she was cooking turnips,
which was all they had for dinner.
"You mustn't laugh so loud," she cried out. "If we make so much
noise the Tidy Castle people will begin to complain of this being a
low neighborhood and they might insist on moving away."
"Oh! scrump!" said Peter Piper, who sometimes invented doll slang--
though there wasn't really a bit of harm in him. "I wouldn't have
them move away for anything. They are meat and drink to me."
"They are going to have a dinner of ten courses," sighed Ridiklis,
"I can see them cooking it from my scullery window. And I have
nothing but turnips to give you."
"Who cares!" said Peter Piper, "Let's have ten courses of turnips
and pretend each course is exactly like the one they are having at
the Castle."
"I like turnips almost better than anything--almost--perhaps not
quite," said Gustibus. "I can eat ten courses of turnips like a
shot."
"Let's go and find out what their courses are," said Meg and Peg
and Kilmanskeg, "and then we will write a menu on a piece of pink
tissue paper."
[Transcriber's Note: See picture peter_piper.jpg]
And if you'll believe it, that was what they did. They divided
their turnips into ten courses and they called the first one--"Hors
d'oeuvres," and the last one "Ices," with a French name, and Peter
Piper kept jumping up from the table and pretending he was a
footman and flourishing about in his flapping rags of trousers and
announcing the names of the dishes in such a grand way that they
laughed till they nearly died, and said they never had had such a
splendid dinner in their lives, and that they would rather live
behind the door and watch the Tidy Castle people than be the Tidy
Castle people themselves.
And then of course they all joined hands and danced round and round
and kicked up their heels for joy, because they always did that
whenever there was the least excuse for it--and quite often when
there wasn't any at all, just because it was such good exercise and
worked off their high spirits so that they could settle down for a
while.
This was the way things went on day after day. They almost lived at
their windows. They watched the Tidy Castle family get up and be
dressed by their maids and valets in different clothes almost every
day. They saw them drive out in their carriages, and have parties,
and go to balls. They all nearly had brain fever with delight the
day they watched Lady Gwendolen and Lady Muriel and Lady Doris,
dressed in their Court trains and feathers, going to be presented
at the first Drawing-Room.
After the lovely creatures had gone the whole family sat down in a
circle round the Racketty-Packetty House library fire, and Ridiklis
read aloud to them about Drawing-Rooms, out of a scrap of the
Lady's Pictorial she had found, and after that they had a Court
Drawing-Room of their own, and they made tissue-paper trains and
glass bead crowns for diamond tiaras, and sometimes Gustibus
pretended to be the Royal family, and the others were presented to
him and kissed his hand, and then the others took turns and he was
presented. And suddenly the most delightful thing occurred to Peter
Piper. He thought it would be rather nice to make them all into
lords and ladies and he did it by touching them on the shoulder
with the drawing-room poker which he straightened because it was so
crooked that it was almost bent double. It is not exactly the way
such things are done at Court, but Peter Piper thought it would do--
and at any rate it was great fun. So he made them all kneel down in
a row and he touched each on the shoulder with the poker and said:
"Rise up, Lady Meg and Lady Peg and Lady Kilmanskeg and Lady
Ridiklis of Racketty-Packetty House-and also the Right Honorable
Lord Gustibus Rags!" And they all jumped up at once and made bows
and curtsied to each other. But they made Peter Piper into a Duke,
and he was called the Duke of Tags. He knelt down on the big hole
in the carpet and each one of them gave him a little thump on the
shoulder with the poker, because it took more thumps to make a Duke
than a common or garden Lord.
[Transcriber's Note: See picture duke.jpg]
The day after this another much more exciting thing took place. The
nurse was in a bad temper and when she was tidying the nursery she
pushed the easy chair aside and saw Racketty-Packetty House.
"Oh!" she said, "there is that Racketty-Packetty old thing still. I
had forgotten it. It must be carried down-stairs and burned. I will
go and tell one of the footmen to come for it."
Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg were in their attic and they all rushed
out in such a hurry to get down-stairs that they rolled all the way
down the staircase, and Peter Piper and Gustibus had to dart out of
the drawing-room and pick them up, Ridiklis came staggering up from
the kitchen quite out of breath.
"Oh! our house is going to be burned! Our house is going to be
burned!" cried Meg and Peg clutching their brothers.
"Let us go and throw ourselves out of the window!" cried
Kilmanskeg.
"I don't see how they can have the heart to burn a person's home!"
said Ridiklis, wiping her eyes with her kitchen duster.
Peter Piper was rather pale, but he was extremely brave and
remembered that he was the head of the family.
"Now, Lady Meg and Lady Peg and Lady Kilmanskeg," he said, "let us
all keep cool."
"We shan't keep cool when they set our house on fire," said
Gustibus. Peter Piper just snapped his fingers.
"Pooh!" he said. "We are only made of wood and it won't hurt a bit.
We shall just snap and crackle and go off almost like fireworks and
then we shall be ashes and fly away into the air and see all sorts
of things. Perhaps it may be more fun than anything we have done
yet."
"But our nice old house! Our nice old Racketty-Packetty House,"
said Ridiklis. "I do so love it. The kitchen is so convenient--even
though the oven won't bake any more."
And things looked most serious because the nurse really was
beginning to push the arm-chair away. But it would not move and I
will tell you why. One of my Fairies, who had come down the chimney
when they were talking, had called me and I had come in a second
with a whole army of my Workers, and though the nurse couldn't see
them, they were all holding the chair tight down on the carpet so
that it would not stir.
And I--Queen Crosspatch--myself--flew downstairs and made the
footman remember that minute that a box had come for Cynthia and
that he must take it upstairs to her nursery. If I had not been on
the spot he would have forgotten it until it was too late. But just
in the very nick of time up he came, and Cynthia sprang up as soon
as she saw him.
[Transcriber's Note: See picture footman.jpg]
"Oh!" she cried out, "It must be the doll who broke her little leg
and was sent to the hospital. It must be Lady Patsy."
And she opened the box and gave a little scream of joy for there
lay Lady Patsy (her whole name was Patricia) in a lace-frilled
nightgown, with her lovely leg in bandages and a pair of tiny
crutches and a trained nurse by her side.
That was how I saved them that time. There was such excitement over
Lady Patsy and her little crutches and her nurse that nothing else
was thought of and my Fairies pushed the arm-chair back and
Racketty-Packetty House was hidden and forgotten once more.
The whole Racketty-Packetty family gave a great gasp of joy and sat
down in a ring all at once, on the floor, mopping their foreheads
with anything they could get hold of. Peter Piper used an
antimacassar.
"Oh! we are obliged to you, Queen B-bell--Patch," he panted out,
"But these alarms of fire are upsetting."
"You leave them to me," I said, "and I'll attend to them. Tip!" I
commanded the Fairy nearest me. "You will have to stay about here
and be ready to give the alarm when anything threatens to happen."
And I flew away, feeling I had done a good morning's work.
Well, that was the beginning of a great many things, and many of
them were connected with Lady Patsy; and but for me there might
have been unpleasantness.
Of course the Racketty-Packetty dolls forgot about their fright
directly, and began to enjoy themselves again as usual. That was
their way. They never sat up all night with Trouble, Peter Piper
used to say. And I told him they were quite right. If you make a
fuss over trouble and put it to bed and nurse it and give it beef
tea and gruel, you can never get rid of it.
Their great delight now was Lady Patsy. They thought she was
prettier than any of the other Tidy Castle dolls. She neither
turned her nose up, nor looked down the bridge of it, nor laughed
mockingly. She had dimples in the corners of her mouth and long
curly lashes and her nose was saucy and her eyes were bright and
full of laughs.
[Transcriber's Note: See picture house.jpg]
"She's the clever one of the family," said Peter Piper. "I am sure
of that."
She was treated as an invalid at first, of course, and kept in her
room; but they could see her sitting up in her frilled nightgown.
After a few days she was carried to a soft chair lay the window and
there she used to sit and look out; and the Racketty-Packetty House
dolls crowded round their window and adored her.
After a few days, they noticed that Peter Piper was often missing
and one morning Ridiklis went up into the attic and found him
sitting at a window all by himself and staring and staring.
"Oh! Duke," she said (you see they always tried to remember each
other's titles). "Dear me, Duke, what are you doing here?"
"I am looking at her," he answered. "I'm in love. I fell in love
with her the minute Cynthia took her out of her box. I am going to
marry her."
"But she's a lady of high degree," said Ridiklis quite alarmed.
"That's why she'll have me," said Peter Piper in his most cheerful
manner. "Ladies of high degree always marry the good looking ones
in rags and tatters. If I had a whole suit of clothes on, she
wouldn't look at me. I'm very good-looking, you know," and he
turned round and winked at Ridiklis in such a delightful saucy way
that she suddenly felt as if he _was_ very good-looking, though she
had not thought of it before.
"Hello," he said all at once. "I've just thought of something to
attract her attention. Where's the ball of string?"
Cynthia's kitten had made them a present of a ball of string which
had been most useful. Ridiklis ran and got it, and all the others
came running upstairs to see what Peter Piper was going to do. They
all were delighted to hear he had fallen in love with the lovely,
funny Lady Patsy. They found him standing in the middle of the
attic unrolling the ball of string.
"What are you going to do, Duke?" they all shouted.
"Just you watch," he said, and he began to make the string into a
rope ladder--as fast as lightning. When he had finished it, he
fastened one end of it to a beam and swung the other end out of
the window.
"From her window," he said, "she can see Racketty-Packetty House
and I'll tell you something. She's always looking at it. She
watches us as much as we watch her, and I have seen her giggling
and giggling when we were having fun. Yesterday when I chased Lady
Meg and Lady Peg and Lady Kilmanskeg round and round the front of
the house and turned summersaults every five steps, she laughed
until she had to stuff her handkerchief into her mouth. When we
joined hands and danced and laughed until we fell in heaps I
thought she was going to have a kind of rosy-dimpled, lovely little
fit, she giggled so. If I run down the side of the house on this
rope ladder it will attract her attention and then I shall begin to
do things."
He ran down the ladder and that very minute they saw Lady Patsy at
her window give a start and lean forward to look. They all crowded
round their window and chuckled and chuckled as they watched him.
[Transcriber's Note: See picture chuckled.jpg]
He turned three stately summersaults and stood on his feet and made
a cheerful bow. The Racketty-Packettys saw Lady Patsy begin to
giggle that minute. Then he took an antimacassar out of his pocket
and fastened it round the edge of his torn trousers leg, as if it
were lace trimming and began to walk about like a Duke--with his
arms folded on his chest and his ragged old hat cocked on one side
over his ear. Then the Racketty-Packettys saw Lady Patsy begin to
laugh. Then Peter Piper stood on his head and kissed his hand and
Lady Patsy covered her face and rocked backwards and forwards in
her chair laughing and laughing.
Then he struck an attitude with his tattered leg put forward
gracefully and he pretended he had a guitar and he sang right up at
her window.
"From Racketty-Packetty House I come,
It stands, dear Lady, in a slum,
A low, low slum behind the door
The stout arm-chair is placed before,
(Just take a look at it, my Lady).
"The house itself is a perfect sight,
And everybody's dressed like a perfect fright,
But no one cares a single jot
And each one giggles over his lot,
(And as for me, I'm in love with you).
"I can't make up another verse,
And if I did it would be worse,
But I could stand and sing all day,
If I could think of things to say,
(But the fact is I just wanted to make you look at me)."
And then he danced such a lively jig that his rags and tags flew
about him, and then he made another bow and kissed his hand again
and ran up the ladder like a flash and jumped into the attic.
After that Lady Patsy sat at her window all the time and would not
let the trained nurse put her to bed at all; and Lady Gwendolen and
Lady Muriel and Lady Doris could not understand it. Once Lady
Gwendolen said haughtily and disdainfully and scornfully and
scathingly:
"If you sit there so much, those low Racketty-Packetty House people
will think you are looking at them."
"I am," said Lady Patsy, showing all her dimples at once. "They are
such fun."
And Lady Gwendolen swooned haughtily away, and the trained nurse
could scarcely restore her.
When the castle dolls drove out or walked in their garden, the
instant they caught sight of one of the Racketty-Packettys they
turned up their noses and sniffed aloud, and several times the
Duchess said she would remove because the neighborhood was
absolutely low. They all scorned the Racketty-Packettys--they just
_scorned_ them.
One moonlight night Lady Patsy was sitting at her window and she
heard a whistle in the garden. When she peeped out carefully, there
stood Peter Piper waving his ragged cap at her, and he had his rope
ladder under his arm.
"Hello," he whispered as loud as he could. "Could you catch a bit
of rope if I threw it up to you?"
"Yes," she whispered back.
"Then catch this," he whispered again and he threw up the end of
a string and she caught it the first throw. It was fastened to the
rope ladder.
"Now pull," he said.
She pulled and pulled until the rope ladder reached her window and
then she fastened that to a hook under the sill and the first thing
that happened--just like lightning--was that Peter Piper ran up the
ladder and leaned over her window ledge.
"Will you marry me," he said. "I haven't anything to give you to
eat and I am as ragged as a scarecrow, but will you?"
[Transcriber's Note: See picture marry.jpg]
She clapped her little hands.
"I eat very little," she said. "And I would do without anything at
all, if I could live in your funny old shabby house."
"It is a ridiculous, tumbled-down old barn, isn't it?" he said.
"But every one of us is as nice as we can be. We are perfect
Turkish Delights. It's laughing that does it. Would you like to
come down the ladder and see what a jolly, shabby old hole the
place is?"
"Oh! do take me," said Lady Patsy.
So he helped her down the ladder and took her under the armchair
and into Racketty-Packetty House and Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg
and Ridiklis and Gustibus all crowded round her and gave little
screams of joy at the sight of her.
They were afraid to kiss her at first, even though she was engaged
to Peter Piper. She was so pretty and her frock had so much lace on
it that they were afraid their old rags might spoil her. But she
did not care about her lace and flew at them and kissed and hugged
them every one.
"I have so wanted to come here," she said. "It's so dull at the
Castle I had to break my leg just to get a change. The Duchess sits
reading near the fire with her gold eye-glasses on her nose and
Lady Gwendolen plays haughtily on the harp and Lady Muriel coldly
listens to her, and Lady Doris is always laughing mockingly, and
Lord Hubert reads the newspaper with a high-bred air, and Lord
Francis writes letters to noblemen of his acquaintance, and Lord
Rupert glances over his love letters from ladies of title, in an
aristocratic manner--until I could _scream_. Just to see you dears
dancing about in your rags and tags and laughing and inventing
games as if you didn't mind anything, is such a relief."
[Transcriber's Note: See picture rupert.jpg]
She nearly laughed her little curly head off when they all went
round the house with her, and Peter Piper showed her the holes in
the carpet and the stuffing coming out of the sofas, and the
feathers out of the beds, and the legs tumbling off the chairs. She
had never seen anything like it before.
"At the Castle, nothing is funny at all," she said. "And nothing
ever sticks out or hangs down or tumbles off. It is so plain and
new."
"But I think we ought to tell her, Duke," Ridiklis said. "We may
have our house burned over our heads any day." She really stopped
laughing for a whole minute when she heard that, but she was rather
like Peter Piper in disposition and she said almost immediately.
"Oh! they'll never do it. They've forgotten you." And Peter Piper
said:
"Don't let's think of it. Let's all join hands and dance round and
round and kick up our heels and laugh as hard as ever we can."
And they did--and Lady Patsy laughed harder than any one else.
After that she was always stealing away from Tidy Castle and coming
in and having fun. Sometimes she stayed all night and slept with
Meg and Peg and everybody invented new games and stories and they
really never went to bed until daylight. But the Castle dolls grew
more and more scornful every day, and tossed their heads higher and
higher and sniffed louder and louder until it sounded as if they
all had influenza. They never lost an opportunity of saying
disdainful things and once the Duchess wrote a letter to Cynthia,
saying that she insisted on removing to a decent neighborhood. She
laid the letter in her desk but the gentleman mouse came in the
night and carried it away. So Cynthia never saw it and I don't
believe she could have read it if she had seen it because the
Duchess wrote very badly--even for a doll.
And then what do you suppose happened? One morning Cynthia began
to play that all the Tidy Castle dolls had scarlet fever. She said
it had broken out in the night and she undressed them all and put
them into bed and gave them medicine. She could not find Lady
Patsy, so _she_ escaped the contagion. The truth was that Lady
Patsy had stayed all night at Racketty-Packetty House, where they
were giving an imitation Court Ball with Peter Piper in a tin
crown, and shavings for supper--because they had nothing else, and
in fact the gentleman mouse had brought the shavings from his nest
as a present.
[Transcriber's Note: See picture gentleman_mouse.jpg]
Cynthia played nearly all day and the Duchess and Lady Gwendolen
and Lady Muriel and Lady Doris and Lord Hubert and Lord Francis and
Lord Rupert got worse and worse.
By evening they were all raging in delirium and Lord Francis and
Lady Gwendolen had strong mustard plasters on their chests. And
right in the middle of their agony Cynthia suddenly got up and went
away and left them to their fate--just as if it didn't matter in
the least. Well in the middle of the night Meg and Peg and Lady
Patsy wakened all at once.
"Do you hear a noise?" said Meg, lifting her head from her ragged
old pillow.
[Transcriber's Note: See picture noise.jpg]
"Yes, I do," said Peg, sitting up and holding her ragged old
blanket up to her chin.
Lady Patsy jumped up with feathers sticking up all over her hair,
because they had come out of the holes in the ragged old bed. She
ran to the window and listened.
"Oh! Meg and Peg!" she cried out. "It comes from the Castle.
Cynthia has left them all raving in delirium and they are all
shouting and groaning and screaming."
Meg and Peg jumped up too.
"Let's go and call Kilmanskeg and Ridiklis and Gustibus and Peter
Piper," they said, and they rushed to the staircase and met
Kilmanskeg and Ridiklis and Gustibus and Peter Piper coming
scrambling up panting because the noise had wakened them as well.
They were all over at Tidy Castle in a minute. They just tumbled
over each other to get there--the kind-hearted things. The servants
were every one fast asleep, though the noise was awful. The loudest
groans came from Lady Gwendolen and Lord Francis because their
mustard plasters were blistering them frightfully.
Ridiklis took charge, because she was the one who knew most about
illness. She sent Gustibus to waken the servants and then ordered
hot water and cold water, and ice, and brandy, and poultices, and
shook the trained nurse for not attending to her business--and took
off the mustard plasters and gave gruel and broth and cough syrup
and castor oil and ipecacuanha, and everyone of the Racketty-Packettys
massaged, and soothed, and patted, and put wet cloths on heads,
until the fever was gone and the Castle dolls all lay back on their
pillows pale and weak, but smiling faintly at every Racketty-Packetty
they saw, instead of turning up their noses and tossing their heads
and sniffing loudly, and just _scorning_ them.
Lady Gwendolen spoke first and instead of being haughty and
disdainful, she was as humble as a new-born kitten.
"Oh! you dear, shabby, disrespectable, darling things!" she said.
"Never, never, will I scorn you again. Never, never!"
[Transcriber's Note: See picture shabby.jpg]
"That's right!" said Peter Piper in his cheerful, rather slangy
way. "You take my tip-never you scorn any one again. It's a
mistake. Just you watch me stand on my head. It'll cheer you up."
And he turned six summersaults--just like lightning--and stood on
his head and wiggled his ragged legs at them until suddenly they
heard a snort from one of the beds and it was Lord Hubert beginning
to laugh and then Lord Francis laughed and then Lord Hubert
shouted, and then Lady Doris squealed, and Lady Muriel screamed,
and Lady Gwendolen and the Duchess rolled over and over in their
beds, laughing as if they would have fits.
"Oh! you delightful, funny, shabby old loves!" Lady Gwendolen kept
saying. "To think that we scorned you."
"They'll be all right after this," said Peter Piper. "There's
nothing cures scarlet fever like cheering up. Let's all join hands
and dance round and round once for them before we go back to bed.
It'll throw them into a nice light perspiration and they'll drop
off and sleep like tops." And they did it, and before they had
finished, the whole lot of them were perspiring gently and snoring
as softly as lambs.
When they went back to Racketty-Packetty House they talked a good
deal about Cynthia and wondered and wondered why she had left her
scarlet fever so suddenly. And at last Ridiklis made up her mind to
tell them something she had heard.
"The Duchess told me," she said, rather slowly because it was bad
news--"The Duchess said that Cynthia went away because her Mama
had sent for her--and her Mama had sent for her to tell her that a
little girl princess is coming to see her to-morrow. Cynthia's
Mama used to be a maid of honor to the Queen and that's why the
little girl Princess is coming. The Duchess said--" and here
Ridiklis spoke very slowly indeed, "that the nurse was so excited
she said she did not know whether she stood on her head or her
heels, and she must tidy up the nursery and have that Racketty-Packetty
old dolls' house carried down stairs and burned, early to-morrow
morning. That's what the Duchess _said_--"
Meg and Peg and Kilmanskeg clutched at their hearts and gasped and
Gustibus groaned and Lady Patsy caught Peter Piper by the arm to
keep from falling. Peter Piper gulped--and then he had a sudden
cheerful thought.
"Perhaps she was raving in delirium," he said.
"No, she wasn't," said Ridiklis shaking her head, "I had just given
her hot water and cold, and gruel, and broth, and castor oil, and
ipecacuanha and put ice almost all over her. She was as sensible as
any of us. To-morrow morning we shall not have a house over our
heads," and she put her ragged old apron over her face and cried.
[Transcriber's Note: See picture apron.jpg]
"If she wasn't raving in delirium," said Peter Piper, "we shall not
have any heads. You had better go back to the Castle tonight,
Patsy. Racketty-Packetty House is no place for you."
Then Lady Patsy drew herself up so straight that she nearly fell
over backwards.
"I--will--_never_--leave you!" she said, and Peter Piper couldn't
make her.
You can just imagine what a doleful night it was. |
10,240 |
Produced by E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, David Garcia,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading
Team
MONI THE GOAT-BOY
BY JOHANNA SPYRI
Author Of "Heidi"
TRANSLATED BY HELEN B. DOLE
ILLUSTRATED IN COLOR BY CHARLES COPELAND
[Illustration: "_In the midst of the flock came the goat-boy_."]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. ALL IS WELL WITH MONI
II. MONI'S LIFE IN THE MOUNTAINS
III. A VISIT
IV. MONI CAN NO LONGER SING
V. MONI SINGS AGAIN
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"In the midst of the flock came the goat-boy" _frontispiece_
"Moni climbed with his goats for an hour longer"
"Joergli had opened his hand. In it lay a cross set with a large
number of stones"
CHAPTER I
ALL IS WELL WITH MONI
It is a long, steep climb up to the Bath House at Fideris, after leaving
the road leading up through the long valley of Praettigau. The horses
pant so hard on their way up the mountain that you prefer to dismount
and clamber up on foot to the green summit.
After a long ascent, you come first to the village of Fideris, which
lies on the pleasant green height, and from there you go on farther
into the mountains, until the lonely buildings connected with the
Baths appear, surrounded on all sides by rocky mountains. The only
trees that grow up there are firs, covering the peaks and rocks, and
it would all look very gloomy if the delicate mountain flowers with
their brilliant coloring were not peeping forth everywhere through the
low pasture grass.
One clear summer evening two ladies stepped out of the Bath House and
went along the narrow footpath, which begins to mount not far from the
house and soon becomes very steep as it ascends to the high, towering
crags. At the first projection they stood still and looked around, for
this was the very first time they had come to the Baths.
"It is not very lively up here, Aunt," said the younger, as she let her
eyes wander around. "Nothing but rocks and fir woods, and then another
mountain and more fir trees on it. If we are to stay here six weeks, I
should like occasionally to see something more amusing."
"It would not be very amusing, at all events, if you should lose your
diamond cross up here, Paula," replied the aunt, as she tied together
the red velvet ribbon from which hung the sparkling cross. "This is the
third time I have fastened the ribbon since we arrived; I don't know
whether it is your fault or the ribbon's, but I do know that you would
be very sorry if it were lost."
"No, no," exclaimed Paula, decidedly, "the cross must not be lost, on
any account. It came from my grandmother and is my greatest treasure."
Paula herself seized the ribbon, and tied two or three knots one after
the other, to make it hold fast. Suddenly she pricked up her ears:
"Listen, listen, Aunt, now something really lively is coming."
A merry song sounded from far above them; then came a long, shrill
yodel; then there was singing again.
The ladies looked upwards, but could see no living thing. The footpath
was very crooked, often passing between tall bushes and then between
projecting <DW72>s, so that from below one could see up only a very short
distance. But now there suddenly appeared something alive on the <DW72>s
above, in every place where the narrow path could be seen, and louder
and nearer sounded the singing.
"See, see, Aunt, there! Here! See there! See there!" exclaimed Paula
with great delight, and before the aunt was aware of it, three, four
goats came bounding down, and more and more of them, each wearing around
the neck a little bell so that the sound came from every direction. In
the midst of the flock came the goat-boy leaping along, and singing his
song to the very end:
"And in winter I am happy,
For weeping is in vain,
And, besides, the glad springtime
Will soon come again."
Then he sounded a frightful yodel and immediately with his flock stood
right before the ladies, for with his bare feet he leaped as nimbly and
lightly as his little goats.
"I wish you good evening!" he said as he looked gayly at the two ladies,
and would have continued on his way. But the goat-boy with the merry
eyes pleased the ladies.
"Wait a minute," said Paula. "Are you the goat-boy of Fideris? Do the
goats belong to the village below?"
"Yes, to be sure!" was the reply.
"Do you go up there with them every day?"
"Yes, surely."
"Is that so? and what is your name?"
"Moni is my name--"
"Will you sing me the song once more, that you have just sung? We heard
only one verse."
"It is too long," explained Moni; "it would be too late for the goats,
they must go home." He straightened his weather-beaten cap, swung his
rod in the air, and called to the goats which had already begun to
nibble all around: "Home! Home!"
"You will sing to me some other time, Moni, won't you?" called Paula
after him.
"Surely I will, and good night!" he called back, then trotted along with
the goats, and in a short time the whole flock stood still below, a few
steps from the Bath House by the rear building, for here Moni had to
leave the goats belonging to the house, the beautiful white one and the
black one with the pretty little kid. Moni treated the last with great
care, for it was a delicate little creature and he loved it more than
all the others. It was so attached to him that it ran after him
continually all day long. He now led it very tenderly along and placed
it in its shed; then he said:
"There, Maeggerli, now sleep well; are you tired? It is really a long
way up there, and you are still so little. Now lie right down, so, in
the nice straw!"
After he had put Maeggerli to bed in this way, he hurried along with his
flock, first up to the hill in front of the Baths, and then down the
road to the village.
Here he took out his little horn and blew so vigorously into it, that it
resounded far down into the valley. From all the scattered houses the
children now came running out; each rushed upon his goat, which he knew
a long way off; and from the houses near by, one woman and then another
seized her little goat by the cord or the horn, and in a short time the
entire flock was separated and each creature came to its own place.
Finally Moni stood alone with the brown one, his own goat, and with her
he now went to the little house on the side of the mountain, where his
grandmother was waiting for him, in the doorway.
"Has all gone well, Moni?" she asked pleasantly, and then led the brown
goat to her shed, and immediately began to milk her. The grandmother was
still a robust woman and cared for everything herself in the house and
in the shed and everywhere kept order. Moni stood in the doorway of the
shed and watched his grandmother. When the milking was ended, she went
into the little house and said: "Come, Moni, you must be hungry."
She had everything already prepared. Moni had only to sit down at the
table; she seated herself next him, and although nothing stood on the
table but the bowl of corn-meal mush cooked with the brown goat's milk,
Moni hugely enjoyed his supper. Then he told his grandmother what he had
done through the day, and as soon as the meal was ended he went to bed,
for in the early dawn he would have to start forth again with the flock.
In this way Moni had already spent two summers. He had been goat-boy so
long and become so accustomed to this life and grown up together with
his little charges that he could think of nothing else. Moni had lived
with his grandmother ever since he could remember. His mother had died
when he was still very little; his father soon after went with others to
military service in Naples, in order to earn something, as he said, for
he thought he could get more pay there.
His wife's mother was also poor, but she took her daughter's deserted
baby boy, little Solomon, home at once and shared what she had with him.
He brought a blessing to her cottage and she had never suffered want.
Good old Elizabeth was very popular with every one in the whole village,
and when, two years before, another goat-boy had to be appointed, Moni
was chosen with one accord, since every one was glad for the
hard-working Elizabeth that now Moni would be able to earn something.
The pious grandmother had never let Moni start away a single morning,
without reminding him:
"Moni, never forget how near you are up there to the dear Lord, and that
He sees and hears everything, and you can hide nothing from His eyes.
But never forget, either, that He is near to help you. So you have
nothing to fear, and if you can call upon no human being up there, you
have only to call to the dear Lord in your need, and He will hear you
immediately and come to your aid."
So from the very first Moni went full of trust up to the lonely
mountains and the highest crags, and never had the slightest fear of
dread, for he always thought:
"The higher up, the nearer I am to the dear Lord, and so all the safer
whatever may happen."
So Moni had neither care nor trouble and could enjoy everything he did
from morning till night. It was no wonder that he whistled and sang and
yodeled continually, for he had to give vent to his great happiness.
CHAPTER II
MONI'S LIFE IN THE MOUNTAINS
The following morning Paula awoke earlier than ever before; a loud
singing had awakened her out of sleep.
"That is surely the goat-boy so soon," she said, springing out of bed
and running to the window.
Quite right. With fresh, red cheeks there stood Moni below, and he had
just brought the old goat and the little kid out of the goat shed. Now
he swung his rod in the air, the goats leaped and sprang around him,
and then he went along with the whole flock. Suddenly Moni raised his
voice again and sang until the mountains echoed:
"Up yonder in the fir trees
Sing the birds in a choir,
And after the rain comes,
Comes the sun like a fire."
"To-day he must sing his whole song for me once," said Paula, for Moni
had now disappeared and she could no longer understand the words of his
distant song.
[Illustration: "_Moni climbed with his goats for an hour longer_."]
In the sky the rosy morning clouds were disappearing and a cool mountain
breeze rustled around Moni's ears, as he climbed up. This he thought
just right. He yodeled with satisfaction from the first ledge so
lustily down into the valley that many of the sleepers in the Bath House
below opened their eyes in amazement, then closed them again at once,
for they recognized the sound and knew that they could have an hour
longer to sleep, since the goat-boy always came so early. Meanwhile Moni
climbed with his goats for an hour longer, farther and farther up to the
high cliffs above.
The higher up he mounted, the broader and more beautiful became the
view. From time to time he looked around him, then gazed up into the
bright sky, which was becoming bluer and bluer, then began to sing with
all his might, louder and louder and more merrily the higher he came:
"Up yonder in the fir trees,
Sing the birds in a choir,
And after the rain comes,
Comes the sun like a fire.
"And the sun and the stars
And the moon in the night,
The dear Lord has made them
To give us delight.
"In the spring there are flowers--
They are yellow and gold,
And so blue is the sky then
My joy can't be told.
"And in summer there are berries,
There are plenty if it's fine,
And the red ones and black ones,
I eat all from the vine.
"If there are nuts in the bushes
I know what to do.
Where the goats like to nibble,
There I can hunt too.
"And in winter I'm happy,
For weeping's in vain,
And, besides, the glad springtime
Will soon come again."
Now the height was reached where he usually stayed, and where he was
going to remain for a while to-day. It was a little green table-land,
with so broad a projection that one could see from the top all round
about and far, far down into the valley. This projection was called the
Pulpit-rock, and here Moni could often stay for hours at a time, gazing
about him and whistling away, while his little goats quite contentedly
sought their feed around him.
As soon as Moni arrived, he took his provision bag from his back, laid
it in a little hole in the ground, which he had dug out for this
purpose, then went to the Pulpit-rock and threw himself on the grass in
order to enjoy himself fully.
The sky had now become a deep blue; above were the high mountains with
peaks towering to the sky and great ice-fields appearing, and far away
down below the green valley shone in the morning light. Moni lay there,
looking about, singing and whistling. The mountain wind cooled his warm
face, and as soon as he stopped whistling, the birds piped all the more
lustily and flew up into the blue sky. Moni was indescribably happy.
From time to time Maeggerli came to Moni and rubbed her head around on
his shoulder, as she always did out of sheer affection. Then she bleated
quite fondly, went to Moni's other side and rubbed her head on the other
shoulder. The other goats also, first one and then another, came to look
at their keeper and each had her own way of paying the visit.
The brown one, his own goat, came very cautiously and looked at him to
see if he was all right, then she would stand and gaze at him until he
said: "Yes, yes, Braunli, it's all right, go and look for your fodder."
The young white one and Swallow, so called because she was so small and
nimble and darted everywhere, like swallows into their holes, always
rushed together upon Moni, so that they would have thrown him down, if
he had not already been stretched out on the ground, and then they
immediately, darted off again.
The shiny Blackie, the goat belonging to the landlord of the Bath
House, Maeggerli's mother, was a little proud; she came only to within a
few steps of Moni, looked at him with her head lifted, as if she
wouldn't appear too familiar, and then went her way again. The big
Sultan, the billy-goat, never showed himself but once, then he pushed
away all he found near Moni, and bleated several times as significantly
as if he had information to give about the condition of the flock, whose
leader he felt himself to be.
Little Maeggerli alone never allowed herself to be crowded away from her
protector; if the billy-goat came and tried to push her aside, she crept
so far under Moni's arm or head that the big Sultan no longer came near
her, and so under Moni's protection the little kid was not the least bit
afraid of him. Otherwise she would have trembled if he came near her.
Thus the sunny morning had passed; Moni had already taken his midday
meal and now stood thinking as he leaned on his stick, which he often
needed there, for it was very useful in climbing up and down. He was
thinking whether he would go up to a new side of the rocks, for he
wanted to go higher this afternoon with the goats, but the question was,
to which side? He decided to take the left, for in that direction were
the three Dragon-stones, around which grew such tender shrubs that it
was a real feast for the goats.
The way was steep, and there were dangerous places in the rugged wall of
rock; but he knew a good path, and the goats were so sensible and did
not easily go astray. He began to climb and all his goats gayly
clambered after him, some in front, some behind him, little Maeggerli
always quite close to him; occasionally he held her fast and pulled her
along with him, when he came to a very steep place.
All went quite well and now they were at the top, and with high bounds
the goats ran immediately to the green bushes, for they knew well the
fine feed which they had often nibbled up here before.
"Be quiet! Be quiet!" commanded Moni, "don't push each other to the
steep places, for in a moment one of you might go down and have your
legs broken. Swallow! Swallow! what are you thinking of?" he called
full of excitement, up to the goat, for the nimble Swallow had climbed
up to the high Dragon-stones and was now standing on the outermost edge
of one of them and looking quite impertinently down on him. He climbed
up quickly, for only a single step more and Swallow would be lying
below at the foot of the precipice. Moni was very agile; in a few
minutes he had climbed up on the crag, quickly seized Swallow by the
leg, and pulled her down.
"Now come with me, you foolish little beast, you," scolded Moni, as he
dragged Swallow along with him to the others, and held her fast for a
while, until she had taken a good bite of a shrub and thought no more of
running away.
"Where is Maeggerli?" screamed Moni suddenly, as he noticed Blackie
standing alone in a steep place, and not eating, but quietly looking
around her. The little young kid was always near Moni, or running after
its mother.
"What have you done with your little kid, Blackie?" he called in alarm
and sprang towards the goat. She seemed quite strange, was not eating,
but stood still in the same spot and pricked up her ears inquiringly.
Moni placed himself beside her and looked up and down. Now he heard a
faint, pitiful bleating; it was Maeggerli's voice, and it came from below
so plaintive and beseeching. Moni lay down on the ground and leaned
over. There below something was moving; now he saw quite plainly, far
down Maeggerli was hanging to the bough of a tree which grew out of the
rock, and was moaning pitifully; she must have fallen over.
Fortunately the bough had caught her, otherwise she would have fallen
into the ravine and met a sorry death. Even now if she could no
longer hold to the bough, she would fall into the depths and be
dashed to pieces.
In the greatest anguish he called down: "Hold fast, Maeggerli, hold fast
to the bough! See, I am coming to get you!" But how could he reach
there? The wall of rock was so steep here, Moni saw very well that it
would be impossible to go down that way. But the little goat must be
down there somewhere near the Rain-rock, the overhanging stone under
which good protection was to be found in rainy weather; the goat-boys
had always spent rainy days there, therefore the stone had been called
from old times the Rain-rock. From there, Moni thought he could climb
across over the rocks and so bring back the little kid.
He quickly whistled the flock together and went with them down to the
place from which he could reach the Rain-rock. There he left them to
graze and went to the rock. Here he immediately saw, just a little bit
above him, the bough of the tree, and the kid hanging to it. He saw very
well that it would not be an easy task to climb up there and then down
again with Maeggerli on his back, but there was no other way to rescue
her. He also thought the dear Lord would surely stand by him, and then
he could not possibly fail. He folded his hands, looked up to heaven and
prayed: "Oh, dear Lord, help me, so that I can save Maeggerli!"
Then he was full of trust that all would go well, and he bravely
clambered up the rock until he reached the bough above. Here he clung
fast with both feet, lifted the trembling, moaning little creature to
his shoulders, and then climbed with great caution back down again.
When he had the firm earth under his feet once more and had saved the
terror-stricken kid, he was so glad he had to offer thanks aloud and
cried up to heaven:
"Oh, dear Lord, I thank Thee a thousand times for having helped us so
well! Oh, we are both so glad for it!" Then he sat down on the ground a
little while, and stroked the kid, for she was still trembling in all
her delicate limbs, and comforted her for enduring so much suffering.
As it was soon time for departure, Moni placed the little goat on his
shoulders again, and said anxiously:
"Come, you poor Maeggerli, you are still trembling; you cannot walk home
to-day, I must carry you--" and so he carried the little creature,
clinging close to him, all the way down.
Paula was standing on the last rise in front of the Bath House,
waiting for the goat-boy. Her aunt had accompanied her. When Moni came
down with his burden on his back, Paula wanted to know if the kid was
sick, and showed great interest. When Moni saw this, he at once sat
down on the ground in front of Paula and told her his day's experience
with Maeggerli.
The young lady showed very keen interest in the affair and stroked the
little rescued creature, which now lay quietly in Moni's lap and looked
very pretty, with its white feet, and the beautiful black pelt on its
back. It was very willing to be stroked by her.
"Now sing your song again for me, while you are sitting here," said
Paula. Moni was in such a gay frame of mind that he willingly and
heartily began and sang his whole song to the end.
This pleased Paula exceptionally well and she said he must sing it to
her often again. Then the whole company went together down to the Bath
House. Here the kid was laid in its bed, Moni said farewell, and Paula
went back to her room to talk with her aunt longer about the goat-boy,
whose merry morning song she had enjoyed again.
CHAPTER III
A VISIT
Thus many days passed by, one as sunny and clear as the other, for it
was an unusually beautiful summer, and the sky remained blue and
cloudless from morning till evening.
Every morning, early, without exception the goat-boy, singing lustily,
went by the Bath House. Every evening he came back again singing
lustily. All the guests were so accustomed to the merry sound that not
one would have willingly missed it.
More than all the others, Paula delighted in Moni's joyfulness and went
out almost every evening to meet him, and talk with him.
One sunny morning Moni had once more reached the Pulpit-rock, and was
about to throw himself down, when he changed his mind. "No, go on! The
last time you had to leave all the nice little plants because we had to
go after Maeggerli; now we will go up there again, so that you can finish
nibbling them!"
The goats all leaped with delight after him, for they knew they were
going up to the lovely bushes on the Dragon-stones. To-day Moni held
his little Maeggerli the whole time fast in his arms, pulled the sweet
plants himself from the rocks and let her eat out of his hand. This
pleased the little goat best of all. She rubbed her head quite
contentedly from time to time against Moni's shoulder and bleated
happily. So the whole morning passed, before Moni noticed, from his own
hunger, that it had grown late before he was aware of it. But he had
left his luncheon below near the Pulpit-rock, in the little hole, for he
had intended to return again at noon.
"Well, you have had your fill of good things, and I have had nothing,"
he said to his goats. "Now I must have something too, and you will find
enough more down below. Come along!" Whereupon he gave a loud whistle,
and the whole flock started away, the liveliest always ahead, and first
of all light-footed Swallow, who was to meet something unexpected to-day.
She sprang down from stone to stone and across many a cleft in the
rocks, but all at once she could go no farther--directly in front of
her suddenly stood a chamois and gazed with curiosity into her face.
This had never happened to Swallow before! She stood still, looked
questioningly at the stranger and waited for the chamois to get out of
her way and let her leap to the boulder, as she intended. But the
chamois did not stir and gazed boldly into Swallow's eyes. So they stood
facing each other, more and more obstinate, and might have stood there
until now, if the big Sultan had not come along in the meantime. As soon
as he saw the state of things, he stepped quite considerately past
Swallow and suddenly pushed the chamois aside so far and with such
violence, that she had to make a daring leap, not to fall down over the
rocks. Swallow went triumphantly on her way, and the Sultan marched
proudly and contentedly behind her, for he felt himself to be the sure
protector of the goats in his flock.
Meanwhile Moni coming down from above, and another goat-boy coming up
from below, met at the same spot and looked at each other in
astonishment. But they were well acquainted, and after the first
surprise greeted each other cordially. It was Joergli from Kueblis. Half
the morning he had been looking in vain for Moni and now he met him up
here, where he had not expected to find him.
"I didn't suppose you came up so high with the goats," said Joergli.
"To be sure I do," replied Moni, "but not always; usually I stay by the
Pulpit-rock and around there. Why have you come up here?"
"To make you a visit," was the reply. "I have something to tell you.
Besides, I have two goats here, that I am bringing to the landlord at
the Baths. He is going to buy one, and so I thought I would come up
to see you."
"Are they your own goats?" asked Moni.
"Surely, they are ours. I don't tend strange ones any longer. I am not
a goat-boy now."
Moni was very much surprised at this, for Joergli had become the goat-boy
of Kueblis at the same time he had been made goat-boy of Fideris, and
Moni did not understand how Joergli could give it up without a single
murmur.
Meanwhile the goat-boys and their flocks had reached the Pulpit-rock.
Moni brought out bread and a small piece of dried meat and invited
Joergli to share his midday meal. They both sat down on the Pulpit-rock
and ate heartily, for it had grown very late and they had excellent
appetites. When everything was eaten and they had drunk a little goat's
milk, Joergli comfortably stretched himself at full length on the ground,
and rested his head on both arms, but Moni remained sitting, for he
always liked to look down into the deep valley below.
"But what are you now, Joergli, if you are no longer goat-boy?" began
Moni. "You must be something."
"Surely I am something, and something very good," replied Joergli, "I am
egg-boy. Every day I carry eggs to all the hotels, as far as I can go;
I come up here to the Bath House, too. Yesterday I was there."
Moni shook his head. "That's nothing. I wouldn't be an egg-boy; I would
a thousand times rather be goat-boy, it is much finer."
"But why?"
"Eggs are not alive, you can't speak a word to them, and they don't run
after you like the goats which are glad to see you when you come, and
are fond of you, and understand every word you say to them; you can't
have any pleasure with eggs as you can with the goats up here."
"Yes, and you," interrupted Joergli, "what great pleasure do you have up
here? Just now you have had to get up six times while we were eating,
just on account of that silly kid, to prevent it from falling down
below--is that a pleasure?"
"Yes, I like to do that! Isn't it so, Maeggerli? Come! Come here!" Moni
jumped up and ran after the kid, for it was making dangerous leaps for
sheer joy. When he sat down again, Joergli said:
"There is another way to keep the young goats from falling over the
rocks, without having to be always jumping after them, as you do."
"What is it?" asked Moni.
"Drive a stick firmly into the ground and fasten the goat by the leg to
it; she will kick furiously, but she can't get away."
"You needn't think I would do any such thing to the little kid!" said
Moni quite angrily and drew Maeggerli to him and held her fast, as if to
protect her from any such treatment.
"You really won't have to take care of that one much longer," began
Joergli again. "It won't come up here many times more."
"What? What? What did you say, Joergli?" demanded Moni.
"Bah, don't you know about it? The landlord will not raise her, she is
too weak; there never was a more feeble goat. He wanted to sell her to
my father, but he wouldn't have her either; now the landlord is going to
have her killed next week, and then he will buy our spotted one."
Moni had become quite pale from terror. At first he couldn't speak a
word; but now he broke out and complained aloud over the little kid:
"No, no, that shall not be done, Maeggerli, it shall not be done. They
shall not slay you, I can't bear that. Oh, I would rather die with you;
no, that cannot be!"
"Don't do so," said Joergli, angrily, and pulled Moni up, for in his
grief he had thrown himself face down on the ground. "Stand up, you know
the kid really belongs to the landlord and he can do what he likes with
her. Think no more about it! Come, I know something. See! See!"
Whereupon Joergli held out one hand to Moni, and with the other almost
covered the object, which Moni was to admire; it sparkled wonderfully in
his hand, for the sun shone straight into it.
"What is it?" asked Moni, when it sparkled again, lighted up by a sunbeam.
"Guess!"
"A ring?"
"No, but something like that."
"Who gave it to you?"
"Gave it to me? Nobody. I found it myself."
"Then it does not belong to you, Joergli."
"Why not? I didn't take it from anybody. I almost stepped on it with my
foot, then it would have been broken; so I can just as well keep it."
"Where did you find it?"
"Down by the Bath House, yesterday evening."
"Then some one from the house below lost it. You must tell the landlord,
and if you don't, I will do it this evening."
"No, no, Moni, don't do that," said Joergli, beseechingly. "See, I will
show you what it is, and I will sell it to a maid in one of the hotels,
but she will surely have to give me four francs; then I will give you
one or two, and nobody will know anything about it."
"I will not take it! I will not take it!" interrupted Moni, hotly, "and
the dear Lord has heard everything you have said."
[Illustration: "_Joergli had opened his band. In it lay a cross set with
a large number of stones_."]
Joergli looked up to the sky: "Oh, so far away," he said skeptically;
but he immediately began to speak more softly.
"He hears you still," said Moni, confidently.
It was no longer Joergli's secret. If he didn't know how to bring Moni to
his side, all would be lost. He thought and thought.
"Moni," he said suddenly, "I will promise you something that will
delight you, if you will not say anything to a human being about what I
have found; you really don't need to take anything for it, then you will
have nothing to do with it. If you will do as I say, I will make my
father buy Maeggerli, so she will not be killed. Will you?"
A hard struggle arose in Moni. It was wrong to help keep the discovery
secret. Joergli had opened his hand. In it lay a cross set with a large
number of stones, which sparkled in many colors. Moni realized that it
was not a worthless thing which no one would inquire about; he felt
exactly as if he himself should be keeping what did not belong to him if
he remained silent. But on the other hand was the little, affectionate
Maeggerli, that was going to be killed in a horrible way with a knife,
and he could prevent it if he kept silent. Even now the little kid was
lying so trustfully beside him, as if, she knew that he would always
keep it; no, he could not let this happen, he must try to save it.
"Yes, I will, Joergli," he said, but without any enthusiasm.
"Then it is a bargain!" and Joergli offered his hand to Moni, that
he might seal the argument, as that was the only way to make a
promise binding.
Joergli was very glad that now his secret was safe; but as Moni had
become so quiet, and he had much farther to go to reach home than
Moni, he considered it well to start along with his two goats. He said
good-night to Moni and whistled for his two companions, which meanwhile
had joined Moni's grazing goats, but not without much pushing and other
doubtful behavior between the two parties, for the goats from Fideris
had never heard that they ought to be polite to visitors and the goats
from Kueblis did not know that they ought not to seek out the best plants
or push the others away from them, when they were visiting. When Joergli
had gone some distance down the mountain, Moni also started along with
his flock, but he was very still and neither sang a note nor whistled,
all the way home.
CHAPTER IV
MONI CAN NO LONGER SING
On the following morning Moni came up the path to the Bath House, just
as silent and cast down as the evening before. He brought out the
landlord's goats quietly and went on upwards, but he sang not a note,
nor did he give a yodel up into the air; he let his head hang and looked
as if he were afraid of something; now and then he looked around
timidly, as if some one were coming after him to question him.
Moni could no longer be merry; he didn't know himself exactly why. He
wanted to be glad that he had saved Maeggerli, and sing, but he couldn't
express it. To-day the sky was covered with clouds, and Moni thought
when the sun came out it would be different and he could be happy again.
When he reached the top, it began to rain quite hard. He took refuge
under the Rain-rock, for it soon poured in streams from the sky.
The goats came, too, and placed themselves here and there under the
rock. The aristocratic Blackie immediately wanted to protect her
beautiful shiny coat and crept in under the rock before Moni did. She
was now standing behind Moni and looking out from her comfortable
corner into the pouring rain. Maeggerli was standing in front of its
protector under the projecting rock and gently rubbed its little head
against his knee; then it looked up at him in surprise, because Moni
did not say a word, and it was not accustomed to that. Moni sat
thoughtfully, leaning on his staff, for in such weather he always kept
it in his hand, to keep himself from slipping on the steep places,
for on such days he wore shoes. Now, as he sat for hours under the
Rain-rock, he had plenty of time for reflection.
Moni thought over what he had promised Joergli, and it seemed to him that
if Joergli had taken something, he was practically doing the same thing
himself, because Joergli had promised to give him something or do
something for him. He had surely done what was wrong, and the dear Lord
was now against him. This he felt in his heart, and it was right that it
was dark and rainy and that he was hidden under the rock, for he would
not even have dared look up into the blue sky, as usual.
But there were still other things that Moni had to think about. If
Maeggerli should fall down over a steep precipice again, and he wanted
to get it, the dear Lord would no longer protect him, and he no longer
dared to pray to Him about it and call upon Him, and so had no more
safety; and if then he should slip and fall down with Maeggerli deep over
the jagged, rocks, and both of them should lie all torn and maimed! Oh,
no, he said with anguish in his heart, that must not happen anyway; he
must manage to be able to pray again and come to the dear Lord with
everything that weighed on his heart; then he could be happy again, that
he felt sure of. Moni would throw off the weight that oppressed him, he
would go and tell the landlord everything--But then? Then Joergli would
not persuade his father, and the landlord would slaughter Maeggerli. Oh,
no! Oh, no! he couldn't bear that, and he said: "No, I will not do it!
I will say nothing!" But he did not feel satisfied, and the weight on
his heart grew heavier and heavier. Thus Moni's whole day passed.
He started home at evening as silent as he had come in the morning. When
he found Paula standing near the Bath House, and she sprang quickly
across to the goat-shed and asked sympathetically: "Moni, what is the
matter? Why don't you sing any more?" he turned shyly away and said:
"I can't," and as quickly as possible made off with his goats.
Paula said to her aunt above: "If I only knew what was the matter with
the goat-boy! He is quite changed. You wouldn't know him. If he would
only sing again!"
"It must be the frightful rain which has silenced the boy so!" remarked
the aunt.
"Everything all comes together; let us go home, Aunt," begged Paula,
"there is no more pleasure here. First I lost my beautiful cross, and it
can't be found; then comes this endless rain, and now we can't ever hear
the merry goat-boy any more. Let us go away!"
"The cure must be finished, or it will do no good," explained the aunt.
It was also dark and gray on the following day, and the rain poured down
without ceasing. Moni spent the day exactly like the one before. He sat
under the rock and his thoughts went restlessly round in a circle, for
when he decided: "Now, I will go and confess the wrong, so that I shall
dare to look up to the dear Lord again," then he saw the little kid
under the knife before him and it all began over again in his mind from
the beginning; so that with thinking and brooding, and the weight he
carried, he was very tired by night, and crept home in the streaming
rain as if he didn't notice it at all.
By the Bath House below the landlord was standing in the back doorway
and called to Moni: "Come in with them. They are wet enough! Why, you
are crawling down the mountain like a snail! I wonder what is the matter
with you!"
The landlord had never been so unfriendly before. On the contrary he
had always made the most friendly remarks to the merry goat-boy. But
Moni's changed appearance did not please him, and besides he was in a
worse humor than usual because Fraeulein Paula had just complained to him
about her loss and assured him that the valuable cross could only have
been lost in the house or directly in front of the house-door. She had
only stepped out on that day towards evening, to hear the goat-boy sing
on his way home. To have it said that it was possible for such a costly
thing to be lost in his house, beyond recovery, made him very cross. The
day before he had called together the whole staff of servants, examined
and threatened them, and finally offered a reward to the finder. The
whole house was in an uproar over the lost ornament.
When Moni with his goats passed by the front of the house, Paula was
standing there. She had been waiting for him, for she wondered very
much whether he would ever sing any more or be merry. As he now crept
by, she called:
"Moni! Moni! Are you really the same goat-boy who used to sing from
morning till night:
"'And so blue is the sky there
My joy can't be told'?"
Moni heard the words very well; he gave no answer, but they made a great
impression on him. Oh, how different it really was from the time when
he could sing all day long and he felt exactly as he sang. Oh, if it
could only be like that again!
Again Moni climbed up the mountain, silent and sad and without singing.
The rain had now ceased, but thick fog hung around on the mountains,
and the sky was still full of dark clouds. Moni again sat under the
rock and battled with his thoughts. About noon the sky began to clear;
it grew brighter and brighter. Moni came out of his cave and looked
around. The goats once more sprang gayly here and there, and the little
kid was quite frolicsome from delight at the returning sun and made the
merriest leaps.
Moni stood on the Pulpit-rock and saw how it was growing brighter and
more beautiful below in the valley and above over the mountains beyond.
Now the clouds scattered and the lovely light blue sky looked down so
cheerfully that it seemed to Moni as if the dear Lord were looking out
of the bright blue at him, and suddenly it became quite clear in his
heart what he ought to do. He could not carry the wrong around with him
any more; he must throw it off. Then Moni seized the little kid, that
was jumping about him, took it in his arms and said tenderly: "Oh,
Maeggerli, you poor Maeggerli! I have certainly done what I could, but it
is wrong, and that must not be done. Oh, if only you didn't have to die!
I can't bear it!"
And Moni began to cry so hard, that he could no longer speak, and the
kid bleated pitifully and crept far under his arm, as if it wanted to
cling to him and be protected. Then Moni lifted the little goat on his
shoulders, saying:
"Come, Maeggerli, I will carry you home once more to-day. Perhaps I can't
carry you much longer."
When the flock came down to the Bath House, Paula was again standing on
the watch. Moni put the young goat with the black one in the shed, and
instead of going on farther, he came toward the young lady and was going
past her into the house. She stopped him.
"Still no singing, Moni? Where are you going with such a troubled face?"
"I have to tell about something," replied Moni, without lifting his eyes.
"Tell about something? What is it? Can't I know?"
"I must tell the landlord. Something has been found."
"Found? What is it? I have lost something, a beautiful cross."
"Yes, that is just what it is."
"What do you say?" exclaimed Paula, in the greatest surprise. "Is it a
cross with sparkling stones?"
"Yes, exactly that."
"What have you done with it, Moni? Give it to me. Did you find it?"
"No, Joergli from Kueblis found it."
Then Paula wanted to know who he was and where he lived, and to send
some one to Kueblis at once to get the cross.
"I will go as fast as I can, and if he still has it I will bring it to
you," said Moni.
"If he still has it?" said Paula. "Why shouldn't he still have it? And
how do you know all about it, Moni? When did he find it, and how did you
hear about it?"
Moni looked on the ground. He didn't dare say how it had all come
about, and how he had helped to conceal the discovery until he could
no longer bear it.
But Paula was very kind to Moni. She took him aside, sat down on the
trunk of a tree, beside him, and said with the greatest friendliness:
"Come, tell me all about how it happened, Moni, for I want so much to
know everything from you."
Then Moni gained confidence and began to relate the whole story, and
told her every word of his struggle about Maeggerli and how he had lost
all happiness and dared no longer look up to the dear Lord, and how
to-day he couldn't bear it any longer.
Then Paula talked with him very kindly and said he should have come
immediately and told everything, and it was right that he had told her
all now so frankly, and that he would not regret it. |
10,240 |
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POEMS ON SERIOUS AND SACRED SUBJECTS,
PRINTED ONLY AS PRIVATE TOKENS OF REGARD,
FOR THE PARTICULAR FRIENDS OF THE AUTHOR.
....nec pia cessant
In tumulo officia.
MILTONI MANSUS.
A Christian's kindness ends not in the tomb.
Chichester:
PRINTED AT THE PRIVATE PRESS OF W. MASON.
1818.
ON THE FEAR OF DEATH:
AN EPISTLE TO A LADY.
1768.
THE FEAR OF DEATH.
Thou! whose superior, and aspiring mind
Can leave the weakness of thy sex behind;
Above its follies, and its fears can rise,
Quit the low earth, and gain the distant skies:
Whom strength of soul and innocence have taught
To think of death, nor shudder at the thought;
Say! whence the dread, that can alike engage
Vain thoughtless youth, and deep-reflecting age;
Can shake the feeble, and appal the strong;
Say! whence the terrors, that to death belong?
Guilt must be fearful: but the guiltless too
Start from the grave, and tremble at the view.
The blood-stained pirate, who in neighbouring climes,
Might fear, lest justice should o'ertake his crimes,
Wisely may bear the sea's tempestuous roar,
And rather wait the storm, than make the shore;
But can the mariner, who sailed in vain
In search of fancy'd treasure on the main,
By hope deceiv'd, by endless whirlwinds tost,
His strength exhausted, and his viands lost,
When land invites him to receive at last
A full reward for every danger past:
Can he then wish his labours to renew,
And fly the port just opening to his view?
Not less the folly of the timorous mind,
Which dreads that peace, it ever longs to find;
Which worn with age, and tost in endless strife
On this rough ocean, this tempestuous life,
Still covets pain, and shakes with abject fear,
When sickness points to death, and shews the haven near.
The love of life, it yet must be confest,
Was fixed by Nature in the human breast;
And Heaven thought fit that fondness to employ.
To teach us to preserve the brittle toy.
But why, when knowledge has improv'd our thought,
Years undeceived us, and affliction taught;
Why do we strive to grasp with eager hand,
And stop the course of life's quick-ebbing sand?
Why vainly covet, what we can't sustain?
Why, dead to pleasure, would we live to pain?
What is this sentence, from which all would fly?
Oh! what this horrible decree--to die?
Tis but to quit, what hourly we despise
A fretful dream, that tortures as it flies.--
But hold my pen!--nor let a picture stand
Thus darkly by this gloomy hand:
Minds deeply wounded, or with spleen opprest,
Grow sick of life, and sullen sink to rest:
But when the soul, possest of its desires,
Glows with more warmth, and burns with brighter fires;
When friendship soothes each care, and love imparts
Its mutual raptures to congenial hearts;
When joyful life thus strikes the ravish'd eye,
'Tis then a task, a painful task to die.
See! where Philario, poor Philario! lies,
Philario late the happy, as the wise!
Connubial love, and friendship's pleasing power
Fill'd his good heart, and crown'd his every hour:
But sickness bids him those lost joys deplore,
And death now tells him, they are his no more.
Blest in each name of Husband, Father, Friend,
Must those strong ties, those dear connexions end?
Must be thus leave to all the woes of life
His helpless child, his unprotected wife?
While thus to earth these lov'd ideas bind,
And tear his lab'ring--his distracted mind:
How shall that mind its wretched fate defy?
How calm his trouble, and how learn to die?
In vain would Faith before his eyes display
The opening realms of never-ending day;
Superior love his faithful soul detains
Bound, strongly bound, in Adamantine chains.
But lo! the gates of pitying Heaven unfold:
A form, that earth rejoices to behold.
Descends: her energy with sweetness join'd,
Speaks the bright mission for relief design'd:
See! to Philario moves the flood of light;
And Resignation bursts upon his sight:
See! to the Cross, bedew'd with sacred gore,
Humbly she points, and bids the world adore;
Then sweetly breathing in his soul inspires
A Christian spirit, and devout desires.--
Hark! his last wish, his dying pray'r's begun:
"Lord, as in Heaven, on earth thy will be done!"
Calm is his soul; his painful struggles cease;
He bows adoring, and expires in peace.
O! Resignation; thou unerring guide
To human weakness, and to earthly pride,
Friend to Distress, who canst alone controul
Each rising tumult in the mad'ning soul;
'Tis thine alone from dark despair to save,
To soothe the woes of life, and terrors of the grave:
Thro' this rough world assist me with thy power!
Calm every thought! adorn my latest hour,
Sustain my spirit, and confirm my mind,
Serene tho' feeling, chearful tho' resign'd!
And thou! my friend, while thus in artless verse
Thy mind I copy, and thy thoughts rehearse;
Let one memorial, tho' unpolish'd, stand
Rais'd to thy friendship by this grateful hand!
By partial favour let my verse be tried,
And 'gainst thy judgement let thy love decide!
Tho' I no longer must thy converse share,
Hear thy kind counsel, see thy pleasing care;
Yet mem'ry still upon the past shall dwell,
And still the wishes of my heart shall tell:
O! be the cup of joy to thee consign'd,
Of joy unmix'd, without a dreg behind!
For no rough monitor thy soul requires,
To check the frenzy of too rash desires;
No poignant grief, to prove its latent worth,
No pain to wean it from the toys of earth;
Thy soul untroubled can alike survey
This gloomy world, and Heaven's immortal day:
Then while the current of thy blood shall flow,
While Heaven yet lends thee to thy friends below;
Round thee may pleasure spread a chearful scene,
Mild as thy heart, and as thy soul serene!
And O! when Time shall bid thee yield thy breath,
And take thy passage thro' the gates of death,
May that last path without a pang be trod,
And one short sigh conduct thee to thy God!
FELPHAM:
AN EPISTLE TO HENRIETTA OF LAVANT.
1814.
FELPHAM.
Hail Felpham! Hail! in youth my favorite scene!
First in my heart of villages marine!
To me thy waves confirm'd my truest wealth,
My only parent's renovated health,
Whose love maternal, and whose sweet discourse
Gave to my feelings all their cordial force:
Hence mindful, how her tender spirit blest
Thy salutary air, and balmy rest;
Thee, as profuse of recollections sweet,
Fit for a pensive veteran's calm retreat,
I chose, as provident for sure decay,
A nest for age in life's declining day!
Reserving Eartham for a darling son,
Confiding in our threads of life unspun:
Blind to futurity!--O blindness, given
As mercy's boon to man from pitying Heaven!
Man could not live, if his prophetic eyes
View'd all afflictions, ere they will arise.
Think, gentle friend, who saw'st, in chearful hour
Thy poet planning a sequestered tower,
And gayly rearing, in affection's pride,
His little villa by the ocean's side;
Encircled then by friendly artists, three,
Full of sweet fancy, and of social glee,
Think what sensations must have pierc'd his breast
Had a prophetic voice this truth exprest:
O'er thy new fabric ere six year's have fled
Lonely thou'lt mourn all these dear inmates dead.
The unrelenting grave absorb'd them all,
And in the shade of this domestic wall,
Which, as it rose re-echoed to their voice,
And heard them in gay presages rejoice
Of future studies, works of special note!
That each, to deck these precincts, would devote.
Here robb'd of them, their leader, and their friend,
Of their kind visions feels the mournful end,
Afflicted, and alone!--Yet not alone!
Their hovering spirits make this scene their own.
O sweet prerogative of love sublime!
Which so can soften destiny, and time,
That grief-worn hearts, by Fancy's charm revive!
The lost are present! the deceas'd alive!
Yes! ye dear buried inmates of my mind!
Your converse still within these walls I find;
In hours of study, and in hours of rest,
You still to me my purest thoughts suggest:
My heart's propensities you cherish still
To Heaven thanksgiving! and to earth good-will!
In you I still behold affection's smile,
Which can all troubles of the heart beguile;
I hear your kind approvance of my zeal,
When, anxious all your merits to reveal,
Having consign'd your bones to sacred earth,
My mind aspir'd to memorize your worth.
Grateful employment of the feeling soul!
That, in despite of sorrow's dark controul
Keeps the pure form of deathless virtue bright
By just commemoration's soothing light!
For such employment thou wast aptly made,
Thou dear sequester'd cell! in whose calm shade
Thy lonely bard might suit his plaintive strain,
To solemn music from the murmuring main!
Belov'd marine retreat! I oft recall
The night, I first repos'd within thy wall:
A night devoted, at a friend's desire,
To touch the chords of a sepulchral lyre!
Touch'd not in vain!--The faithful tribute brought
To cureless grief the lenitive, she sought;
And Lushington, thro' tearful anguish, smil'd
On truth's memorial of her darling child.
Little I thought, when eager to bestow
The heart's pure offering on parental woe,
How soon my filial pride, and friend most dear,
Would claim the "meed of a melodious tear."
Dear sacred shades of Cowper! and my Son!
Who, in my fond affection, liv'd as one!
Congenial inmates! on whose loss I found
The sweetest light of life in darkness drown'd!
Oft have ye witness'd, while, in this calm cell,
Ye watch'd the lonely bard, ye lov'd so well,
Oft have ye witness'd, how his struggling mind
Labour'd affliction's fetters to unbind,
Ere his o'er-burthen'd faculties could cope
With that ambitious task of tender hope,
To render justice to you both; and frame }
Memorials worthy of each honour'd name: }
A debt the heart must feel! & truth, and nature claim! }
Your smile, dear visionary guests of night!
O'er my nocturnal hours breath'd new delight;
Made me exult in labour, plann'd for you!
Its progress from your inspiration grew:
The toil was sweet, that your approvance cheer'd;
For what your love inspir'd, that love endear'd.
Nor unregarded by the fair, and great,
Was your recluse in this sequester'd state;
When I began, by just records, to prove
How Cowper merited our country's love;
The loveliest regent of poetic taste;
First of the fair; with all attractions grac'd!
Friend of the muses! and herself a muse!
Her bright eyes dimm'd with sorrow's sacred dews,
The high-born beauty, in whose lot combin'd
All--that could charm and grieve a feeling mind,
Shar'd with me, in my cell, some pensive hours;
Herself most eloquent on Cowper's powers,
Urg'd to his willing Eulogist his claim
To public gratitude, and purest fame.
The memoir, as by gradual toil it grows,
Endears the tranquil scene, in which it rose;
And sheds, since public favor blest the page,
A soothing lustre on my letter'd age.
The dues of faithful memory fondly paid
To him, devotion's bard! dear sacred shade!
Then my paternal hand was prompt to raise
To that blest pupil, who had shar'd his praise
A similar record of tender truth;
The genuine portraiture of studious youth--
Task of such pleasing pain, as pierc'd the heart
Of Daedalus, the sire of antient art!
When, in fond zeal, his busy hand begun
To mould the story of his hapless son,
But falter'd, while, o'erwhelm'd in mournful thought,
He work'd, and wept upon the work, he wrought.
Ah peerless youth! whose highly-gifted hand
Could all varieties of skill command,
Ere illness undermin'd thy powers to use
The Sculptor's chizzel, and the Painter's hues!
Had thy ascending talents, unenchain'd,
Of studious life the promis'd zenith gain'd,
Confederate arts would then have joy'd to see
Their English Michael Angelo in thee.
But never be it by true love forgot,
Thou hast a higher, and a happier lot!
The prime of blessings, in a world like this,
Is early transit to the realms of bliss:
Thence thy pure spirit oft will charm to rest
Those pangs of fond regret, that pierce my breast,
When recollection mournfully surveys
Unfinish'd products of thy studious days.
Ah what a host of filial fair designs:
Where, springing from the heart, the fancy shines,
Thy enterprising mind had here bestow'd,
To honour Felpham as thy sire's abode!
All to thy mental eyes were present here;
The scene, we join'd to deck, all yet endear,
Tho' hardly embrios of plastic grace,
Many yet want their features, and their place.
These vacant circlets, that still court mine eye,
Can I survey, without a bursting sigh,
When fond remembrance tells me that from these
Thy filial hand, tho' robb'd of strength and ease,
Yet inly conscious of ingenious power,
Resolv'd, in labour's first reviving hour,
To fashion portraits claiming just regard,
The Tuscan sculptor! and the Grecian bard!
Whom 'twas thy hope in marble to create
As honour'd guardians of thy poet's gate;
There is no spot within this Villa's bound,
E'en to the Turret's topmost airy round,
Which thy kind fancy, that no ills could check.
With sweet ideal projects fail'd to deck:
Eager to fix around, below, above,
Proofs of thy skill, and monuments of love!
Thy gay activity how passing sweet,
Ere this arising structure was complete!
When 'twas our joy its scaffolds to ascend,
And mark how bright its varied views extend;
To search how far the glass-assisted eye
May scenes of splendor, and of peace, descry!
The first, where, blazing in the gorgeous west,
The sun delights on Vecta's hills to rest,
And gild those fleets, that, when they cease to roam;
Come fraught with glory to her favorite home;
The second, where, in softer northern light,
Eartham, lov'd little hill, allures the sight,
And towering woods, that crown the loftier Nore,
Salute our seamen, as they near the shore!
Ye scenes, that live in memory's regard.
Whose quiet beauty charm'd your pensive bard!
In hopes his eye might long delight to trace,
Tho' distant, visible, your rural grace;
In hopes of tender love, not idle pride!
He rear'd his turret by the ocean's side,
Lofty, tho' little! that his sight might still
Enjoy sweet intercourse with Eartham-hill;
Where, while his heart with pure ambition glow'd,
The filial artist plann'd his own abode;
And by a telegraph, his skill design'd,
Endearing mark of his inventive mind,
He meant to hold, as mutual wants require,
Constant communion with his absent sire:
Fair purpose! furnishing much kind employ,
And oft a subject of ideal joy
To hearts, forbid by mercy to foresee,
How soon the heaven-taught youth, by heaven's decree
Must leave the favorite hill, that charm'd his eyes,
In early transit to serener skies!
Angel! yet visible to mental sight!
Still let me, pensive in my Turret's height,
Whose view of heaven unbroken, unconfin'd
Fixes the lifted eye and fills the mind;
Let love, ascending from earth's dark abyss,
Still commune with thee in thy scene of bliss!
Sole meditation on thy heavenly worth.
Transcending all the social joys of earth;
To purest fancy giving boundless scope,
Turns worldly trouble to celestial hope.
My stedfast friend! unchang'd by chance and time!
Pure in the wane of life, as in its prime;
Dear Henrietta, to whom justice pays
Her cordial tribute in these local lays;
'Tis the prime privilege of souls like thine,
To feast on heavenly thoughts in life's decline.
Faith to thy veteran bard exults to bring
Her living water from the Christian spring;
Hence the sweet vision, soft as evening's ray,
Shedding enchantment o'er the close of day:
Hence the persuasion, which all time endears,
That our true friendship, firm thro' changeful years,
In scenes exempt from clouds of pain and strife,
Has sure expectancy of endless life.
Epistle
TO THE BISHOP OF LANDAFF.
Christmas Day, 1811.
Epistle.
Thy fav'rite Prelate haste, my verse! to greet
Adorning nature in his sylvan seat!
His southern hermit, his unchanging friend,
Sends him such tribute, as the heart may send,
Love, that, in honouring a peaceful sage,
Invokes all blessings on his hallowed age.
Though many a mountain rears its head between
His wood-crown'd mansion, and my cell marine,
In mental vision I his form survey
Thro' various periods of our vital day;
Now as his manly figure struck my sight,
When first I heard his voice, with new delight,
Imparting science, or celestial truth,
With Latin eloquence, to English youth;
And now, as when, o'erpowering sceptic strife
In his mild vigor of maturer life:
His liberal spirit gain'd the world's applause,
The mitred champion of the Christian cause!
Oh ever friendly to a guileless bard,
Whose pure ambition sought thy kind regard;
How fervently I wish, that verse of mine,
Nor vain, nor languid, tho' in life's decline,
Might thro' thy heart the cheering glow diffuse,
That friendship welcomes from no venal muse,
When worth time-honour'd, still as frank as youth,
Owns that her words of praise are words of truth!
Benign Landaff! to liberal arts a friend!
May all those arts thy well-earned fame attend!
Grateful for all thy kindness to his sire,
My filial sculptor, with Promethean fire,
While yet a boy, confess'd a proud design,
To make thy spirit in his marble shine;
And, with expression eloquently just,
Charm future Christians by thy breathing bust,
That, hope, with many a plan devoutly bold,
The great disposer of our days controll'd;
Saw tortured youth angelically calm,
And call'd the martyr to his heav'nly palm.
If love, inherent in a parent's heart,
Sighs for that lost Marcellus of his art,
Still can I joy, that with rare length of days,
Heaven yet allows my hallow'd friend to raise,
(And with his own more energetic hand
Whose works the ravages of time withstand,)
A portrait of himself:--thou much-lov'd sage!
Far yet extend that biographic page,
Where conscious of existence well employ'd,
And mental treasures gratefully enjoy'd,
Thy virtuous age will morally display
The various labours of thy useful day:
And in thy own rich eloquence enshrin'd,
Leave thy instructive life, a lesson for mankind!
Epistle
TO JOHN SARGENT, ESQ.
OCTOBER, 1814.
Epistle.
Friend of my vernal and autumnal day,
In life's gay bloom, and in its slow decay:
Sargent! who leav'st thy hermit's studious cell,
To act thy busier part, and act it well,
In courts of rural justice to preside,
In temperate dignity unstain'd with pride.
Oft let us meet, that friendship's honour'd chain,
In its extension may new lustre gain;
So let us, cheer'd by memory's social blaze,
Live o'er again our long-departed days.
I thank kind Heaven, that made the pleasure mine
Beneath my roof to see thy virtues shine;
When Providence thy fondest wishes crown'd,
Casting thy lot on fair, and southern ground:
When the gay songs of Eartham's friendly grove
Proclaim'd the triumph of thy prosperous love--
Tis sweet to plant a friend in genial land,
And see his branches round the world expand!
I share thy joy, the heart's parental feast
To learn thy filial pilgrim in the East,
Thy youthful Harry, is among the prime,
Whom learning honours in her Indian clime:
Nor less the joy to hear thy eldest-born,
Whom gifts of sacred eloquence adorn,
Has, with Cicestria's liberal applause,
Those gifts exerted in the noblest cause:
Pleas'd to promote the most sublime emprise
That Christian charity could e'er devise;
To blend her votaries of every name
In one harmonious universal aim;
To make the word of God, that truest wealth,
The heart's nutrition, and the spirit's health
As common as the food, by heavenly power
Pour'd from the skies, a life-preserving shower,
On deserts pour'd, in hopeless hunger's track,
When He, who gather'd little, felt no lack.
My friend of many years! we both have found
Darkness and sunshine on the chequer'd ground,
In different paths appointed to our feet:
You in the world--your host in his retreat!
Yet blest be Heaven, that grants us to behold
Wonders of Providence like those of old,
When mortals in the waste, they murmuring trod,
Saw, and rever'd the guidance of their God,
We have beheld, and with one heart and voice
Hail'd the bright scene, that bids the globe rejoice;
Nature releas'd from devastation's flood,
And peace emerging from a sea of blood.
Wonders yet happier to devotion's eyes
In blissful vision will now widely rise,
From pure diffusive zeal in Britain sprung,
Bidding the Gospel speak in every tongue;
Till its effect earth's utmost bounds attest,
Jesus enthron'd in every human breast,
And all his subjects, as his mercy will'd,
Feeling within themselves his joy fulfill'd.
Yes, my time-honoured friend, with one accord
We bless the promised advent of our Lord,
In heavenly prospect, tho' we still sustain
Our unexhausted share of earthly pain.
But whatsoever ills yet undisplay'd
May o'er our eve of life throw deeper shade,
We have the constant comfort to possess
An antidote against the mind's distress;
That settled trust in Providence divine.
Which lets the Christian at no lot repine:
But, when most tried, his faith's prime power employ,
And make affliction minister to joy.
We both have past thro' many a troubled day,
And felt adversity's heart-searching sway:
But when most wounded, both have kiss'd the rod,
And blest the pangs assign'd us by our God;
To wean us from a world, which, Nature sees,
None estimate aright, or quit with ease,
But souls Heaven-taught, that, free from doubt's alarm,
Hail death their herald to the Saviour's arms.
We both, my friend, in mind sedate and firm
Enter'd with thankfulness life's latest term.
And I might claim (could years such right assume)
First to attain the quiet of the tomb;
There show me still the friendship of our youth,
And still speak of me with indulgent truth.
May'st thou, less worn by griefs of many a year,
Still rich in filial gems, that earth endear!
Thy public duties long with grace discharge,
Esteem'd and honour'd by the world at large.
Thy elder, idler friend that world may spare,
And yet allow his name a station there;
For he long literary zeal has shown,
To honour merit, that surpassed his own:
And hop'd to live beyond his mortal days,
In England's memory, and friendship's praise.
High hopes! o'er which his holier thoughts aspire,
And make the peace of God his paramount desire.
Epistle.
TO MRS. HANNAH MORE
ON
_Her Recent Publication--Practical Piety._
JUNE 1811.
Epistle
Hail! hallow'd sister! of a saintly band!
Whose hearts in homage to their God expand!
Who, by the kind Urania taught to sing.
See palms celestial in their culture spring;
And, while devotion wafts them to the skies,
Teach weaker mortals on their wings to rise!
Hannah! whom truth, with a parental smile,
Ranks with her favorites of our letter'd isle;
Thou in wide fields, by tribes of learning fill'd,
By folly vainly view'd, by wisdom till'd;
Where grain and weed arise in mingled birth,
To nourish, or oppress, the race of earth;
Well hast thou ply'd thy task of virtuous toil,
And reap'd distinction's tributary spoil:
Long has thy country, with a fond acclaim,
Joy'd in thy genius, gloried in thy fame;
Progressive talents in thy works beheld,
Thine earlier volumes by thy last excell'd!
The noblest motive sway'd thy moral pen,
Intent to meliorate the sons of men
From that now distant year, when faith design'd
Thy sacred dramas for the youthful mind;
To this rich season of thy honour'd age,
When, with the fervour of a Christian sage,
Thine eve of life, with dews from Heaven impearl'd
Shows piety in practice to the world.
Well I remember, tho' long years have past,
Long years with dark calamity o'ercast,
Well I remember, and with grateful pride,
How to my heart thy friendly verse supplied
The glow of exultation; for thy praise
Shed gracious honour on my sportive lays.
When 'twas my aim to clear from thorns of strife
The budding roses of domestic life,
And teach young nymphs, in irritation's hour,
To triumph over spleen's insidious power.
O that, while glowing with celestial hope,
Gently we haste down life's autumnal <DW72>,
Each well convinc'd, and with a mind serene,
From long experience of our chequer'd scene,
Convinc'd no blessings of this earth transcend
The countless value of a Christian friend;
O that just sympathy, and warm esteem,
Kindling to vivid inspiration's beam.
Would to my lyre, tho' in an aged hand,
Supply, at gratitude's devout command,
Praise, such as purest minds delight to hear,
When truth and nature prove that praise sincere!
But vain such wishes, for in virtue's cause
Thou hast receiv'd angelical applause:
No thirst for weaker praise that mind can feel,
Which Porteus cheer'd with evangelic zeal:
Porteus, complete in every graceful part!
A bard in spirit! with a hermit's heart!
In heaven's pure service never cold, or faint,
Till new existence glorified the saint!
How sweet with those, whom still on earth we prize,
To bless a recent inmate of the skies!
On buried friends to let fond memory dwell,
And grateful truth their bright endowments tell!
Careless, if envy, with a spleenful sneer,
Reviles that eulogy she bates to bear,
Saying with freedom's ill-assum'd pretence,
'Tis noxious flattery, o'erwhelming sense.
Peace! scornful pride! nor with malignant aim
Belie the voice of consecrated fame,
Thy subtlest arts, the pious to debate.
End, with strict justice, in thy own disgrace.
How weak were friendship could she shake with dread
Of thy detraction 'gainst her worthies dead!
No! such detraction makes her zeal more just
To every claim of their yet speaking dust.
Save me, good heaven! and all whom I regard,
(Or hasty muse, or irritable bard,)
Save us, good heaven! in mild and temperate age,
From wounded vanity's vindictive rage!
To genuine friendship pure delight is given,
Next to the favor of approving heaven;
And that delight is most sublimely felt.
When nature in vain tears, has ceased to melt:
When sorrow, quell'd by purer love's controul,
To sweet reflection yields the chasten'd soul,
Contemplating, thro' clouds to sunshine turn'd,
The sure beatitude of those--she mourn'd:
This sunshine yet to us the heavens assign
In Porteus, still thy friend! in Cowper, mine!
When tender fancy, on affection's plume,
Emerging from the shadows of the tomb
Aspires to trace, in visionary flight,
The just made perfect, thro' the realms of light!
How glows the soul, with more than earthly joy,
In fondly imaging their blest employ!
How oft, dear Cowper! at the close of day,
When contemplation sheds her mental ray,
I seem, through optics of the mind to see
Thy sainted spirit, from incumbrance free!
Marking how quick, in various hearts, arise
Those seeds of virtue, that thy verse supplies!
What joy, not speakable by mortal tongue,
What praises, to the harp of seraph sung,
May glad thee, now repaid for all thy woes,
While boundless vision to thy spirit shows
How e'en thy earthly song, by heaven inspired.
Attain'd the glorious aim, thy heart desired:
Destin'd to spread, uncrampt by time or space,
Progressive goodness thro' the human race!
Thou monitor! by youth and age revered!
By wisdom prized! to tenderness endear'd!
While men and angels bid thy fame extend,
And nature owns thee her benignant friend;
Could there be mortals so perversely blind,
As coarsely to revile thy tender mind,
Basely applying, with malignant glee,
The hateful title Misanthrope, to thee!
Let just oblivion wrap in endless night
Such baleful fruits of worth-defaming spight:
Truth ne'er could Cowper's want of zeal reprove,
As fervent as a saint in friendly love.
Hannah! to whose effulgent mind belong
Continual plaudits from the sons of song,
Be witness how, in his sequester'd bowers,
Cowper acknowledging thy various powers,
Ever on thee, thy verse, thy prose, bestow'd
Applause, where cloudless admiration glow'd
With warmth, that jealousy could ne'er perplex;
He praised thee, as the glory of thy sex,
In verbal power, in intellectual grace,
Never inferior to man's lordly race!
Congenial spirits, warm'd with kindly zeal,
Each others merits ye were sure to feel
For one, true virtue's favorite employ,
Her happiest exercise! her highest joy.
One glorious motive sway'd each active mind
Whether the bard, to rhymes no more confin'd,
Rapidly sketch'd with glance intensely keen,
His bird's-eye prospect of our human scene,
Or the fair moralist, in polish'd prose,
Describ'd the living manners as they rose.
One glorious motive clear in each we prize.
Bright as the vestal flame, which never dies.
The philanthropic wish, from heaven inspir'd,
That keeps the toiling mind in toil untir'd;
The wish, unstain'd by every selfish aim.
Free from the thirst of lucre and of fame;
The wish most valued, when best understood,
To make the pen an instrument of good,
Recalling mortals lost in false delight,
To find true favour in their Saviour's sight.
The Bard, enfranchised from his earthly fate,
Now soars, from this probationary state
To join the seraphs of sublimer tone,
Whose harps are vocal round the Almighty throne:
On earth his laurels no destruction fear
From cold neglect, or envy's blighting leer.
Verse, in whose influence the good rejoice,
Is sure to echo from the human voice,
While praise, as faithful as the mystic dove,
Flows from the lips, of gratitude and love.
Cowper still lives, to truth's clear optics given,
Endear'd to earth, and recompens'd by heaven!
And O dear lady! who like him, canst feel
For erring mortals anxious friendly zeal,
And deck, like him, thy monitory page
With charms attractive both to youth and age,
Whose pure instruction, with a skill refin'd,
Suits both the lowly, and the lofty mind:
Like Cowper, thou canst bear, with calm disdain,
While pity saves thee from resentment's pain,
The dark insidious enmity of those
Who, self-entitled friends, and secret foes,
If they applaud thy talents, still deride
Thy warm devotion, as fanatic pride,
Tho' such devotion, undebased by art,
Proves its clear source in tenderness of heart;
Sincerely Christian, it forgives the lie
That dares its nature, and its truth deny.
When, rich in honours, as in length of days,
And satisfied with just affection's praise,
Thy spirit to a purer world ascends,
To share the fellowship of sainted friends,
May this sweet vision of the blest be thine,
To trace how widely, with a guide divine.
Thy active mind, while resident below,
In soften'd hearts taught piety to grow,
Aiding benighted souls to view the day,
And drive depravity's dark clouds away:
What bliss, to welcome in those realms of light
Young angels! owning thou hast helped their flight,
And from the Saviour of the world to hear
"Those, who befriended earth--to heaven are dear!"
Monitory Verses
_To a Young Lady, who indulged too gloomy
ideas of our sublunary state._
Dear nymph of a feeling, and delicate mind!
Whose eye the rash tears of timidity blind,
When fancy alarm'd takes a heart-chilling hue,
And the prospect of life is all dark in thy view,
Let me, as thy monitor, mild and sincere,
To thy spirit the gift of existence endear!
And shew thee, if darkened by fear or chagrin,
The sunshine of friendship can gild every scene!
Those, who true to the Ruler of every hour,
Rely on his mercy, and trust in his power;
Whatso'er is their lot, may, by viewing it right,
Convert all its darkness to visions of light
When mortals of hope the fair presage assume,
Even death's sable pall is no object of gloom:
They smile on the path which their best friends have trod,
And rejoice, when they feel, they are summon'd to God.
Be it long, my young friend, ere such joy can be thine,
First embrace all the gifts, faith exults to resign.
The best prelude to death is, without mental strife.
To be grateful for all the pure pleasures of life:
And many pure pleasures to mortals are given,
Sick or well, rich or poor, by the bounty of heaven,
If we all draw them forth (by well acting our part,)
From that mine of delight, an affectionate heart!
Epistle
TO A FRIEND, ON THE DIVINITY OF OUR SAVIOUR.
_Inconcussa tenens dubio vestigia mundo._.
1815.
Epistle.
Dear Disputant! whose mind would boldly soar,
And all theology's domain explore!
I love the candid fervency of soul,
That scorns a dogmatist's austere controul;
Let liberal scholars, as they surely ought,
Claim, and allow, a latitude of thought!
As friends I honour, with a love benign,
Many, whose creeds may vary far from mine:
Secure from error I no mortal deem;
But all, who truly seek for truth, esteem.
Yet with a mild regret, and kind concern
I see temerity's ambition burn,
When zeal, self-blinded in a mental mist,
Denies, that hallow'd mysteries exist;
And deems, that reason, which no fears appall,
Has self-sufficiency to clear them all:
Tis reas'ning pride, not reason, just, and sore.
Which in religion finds no point obscure;
Which, measuring Godhead with an earthly line,
Would rob the Saviour of his rights divine.
There are, who call Him, by their dreams beguil'd,
Mere man; of mortal geniture the child!
Tho' sanction'd, by his Sire's almighty breath,
His Son! a sovereign o'er life, and death!
'Tis not for mortals, in their transient hour,
To pierce the secrets of primordial power;
Or guess, how God, on his eternal throne,
To filial spirit could impart his own:
But how can earth deny, by truth unblam'd,
Divinity, that Heaven itself proclaim'd.
Reason opposes pride's degrading plan.
To sink the Saviour to a simple man:
Were He no more, could He, so born, presume
With Heaven to mediate for all nature's doom?
No! for, so born, Himself must then require
A mediator with th' eternal Sire:
Disclaim his Godhead, you at once imply
His deeds are doubtful, and his word a lie.
If not a God, most guilty of mankind,
His doctrine tends the human race to blind.
Surpassing e'en the fiend, who caus'd our fall,
By sharing worship with the Sire of all!
O ye! whose reas'ning pride can so mistake
The truths, He meekly spoke for mercy's sake!
More humbly grateful, learn ye to rejoice
In all the dictates of his cheering voice!
Who, to console his grief-dejected flock,
Show'd, how their faith is built upon a rock;
And, in the closing of his earthly strife,
Made manifest Himself as Lord of Life!
And tho' to death, the most disgraceful, driven,
Possessing all the powers of earth, and Heaven.
Pure source of light! and safety to the lost,
Without Thee on a sea of darkness tost!
Sovereign of grace, and kindness so sublime,
Thou view'st with pity their ungrateful crime,
Who, while they load Thee with degrading praise,
Would darken in thy crown its heavenly rays.
And O! how truly pitiable are those,
By nature mild, nor truth's intended foes,
Whose strange illusion yet miscalls Thee, man,
Tho' chosen to fulfil redemption's plan!
Who of Thy Godhead want that sacred sense,
That cordial glow of gratitude intense,
Which forms the bliss of their enlighten'd zeal,
Who all the merits of thy mercy feel!
Who hail Thee quitting thy bright throne above,
Sublime example of celestial love!
To clear, for them, a debt, they could not pay,
And change their darkness to eternal day!
How passing sweet to pure devotion's soul,
Are proofs of thy unlimited controul!
While the true Christian's mental eyes survey
Thy heavenly origin, and healing sway.
Only begotten Son of Sire supreme,
Whose quickening bounty was thy vital beam,
Ere nature lived, when, with thy filial aid,
The vast foundation of all worlds was laid!
When the paternal God was pleas'd to see
A blight reflection of Himself in Thee!
The splendour of his glory! form'd to share
His purest power, his providential care,
And, in consummating his gracious will,
At length annihilate all cureless ill!
To faith's pure eyes how ravishingly clear
Signs of her Lord's Divinity appear!
While earth and Heaven invite her to behold
How the fair series of those signs unfold!
A blest Redeemer, and without a trace
Of man's corruption in his ruin'd race,
Announc'd by mercy to our fallen sire,
Soon made that contrite criminal respire:
Age after age, of prophecy the breath.
Softening the horrors in the doom of death,
While nature strove with sin's dark woes to cope,
Shed thro' her lighten'd heart religious hope.
Thro' patriarchal times, in vision clear,
Types of the great Deliverer appear:
At length, when centuries have roll'd away.
And faith stands watching for her promis'd day,
She sees her Saviour from a virgin sprung,
His advent by attending angels song!
And wisdom usher'd by the guiding Star,
Hails Him, with gifts of homage, from afar.
The voice of Heaven proclaims his promis'd birth,
And conscious nature feels her friend on earth.
His uninstructed youth divinely sage,
Transcends the knowledge of experienc'd age:
The weak receive the strength, his will can give,
The dead obedient to his mandate live,
In power as mighty, as in mercy kind,
He dies, the ransom of redeem'd mankind!
Lord of Existence! He expires to prove
His matchless effort of celestial love;
And ratify, while He resigns his breath,
His glorious conquest o'er the gates of death!
A massive tomb receives his sacred corse;
And foes would guard it with a watchful force:
Vain boast of folly's disbelieving rout!
Who thus confirm the Deity, they doubt!
The grave beholds the heavenly victor rise,
And soar triumphant to his native skies.
His troubled servants still to calm and cheer
See Him, in human tenderness appear!
And while the slow of faith He mildly blames,
"My Lord! my God!" his doubt-freed saint exclaims.
Were He not God, and worthy of our trust,
Could He admit such worship from the just?
And bless the conscious of his heavenly right,
Whose faith demands no evidence of sight?
Yet grace divine full evidence has given;
Witness! Thou earth! by his dread sufferings riven!
Witness! Thou speaking firmament above!
When God proclaim'd Him offspring of his love!
Pleas'd to that blessed offspring to impart
Prerogative divine, dominion of the heart!
Exulting angels hail his sovereign sway;
Attest his glory, his commands obey;
And usher Him, whom e'en the demons own
As Earth's Redeemer, to his heavenly throne:
Thence, while mankind receive a second birth,
He ratifies the word, He spoke on earth;
And pleas'd to see his rescued servants live,
He gives them, what the world had not to give;
Internal peace! the duteous mind's repose!
With powers to foil the most malignant foes!
This vital sunshine of enlighten'd hearts,
This to his firm adherents He imparts;
When duly grateful for his kind controul,
They bless his empire o'er the willing soul,
For in his own, as in his Father's name,
He claims their boundless love; a righteous claim!
A claim, in which the proofs of Godhead shine!
Celestial attributes! and grace divine!
Hear how beyond the scope of mortal voice,
He bids his servants in his word rejoice,
Bids them for every good on Him depend!
As dearer far than every earthly friend,
Regard Him, parents, children far above;
And die with transport to secure his love.
Were He mere man, must not such orders seem
Distracted arrogance, an impious dream?
So of men's lives He only might dispose;
From whose divinity their safety flows,
Who left the bosom of His heavenly Sire,
To merit, what none other might acquire,
A sacred right with that dread Sire to plead,
To change the doom, his justice had decreed,
And save the guilty from perdition's storm;
Celestial victim in a human form!
Whose mediation, soft'ning wrath supreme,
Taught nature to revive, in mercy's beam.
Gracious Restorer of a race condemn'd,
Tho' by the thankless tribes revil'd, contemn'd.
Yet gratitude, and truth, who round Thee fly,
With all thy menial angels of the sky,
Viewing thy gifts with rapturous amaze,
Hail thy beneficence with heavenly praise:
All bear eternal witness, that Thou art
Justly a Sovereign in the human heart.
Man cannot yield too much, when, at thy call
To Thee his grateful zeal resigns his all;
Whate'er be may resign, yet more he gains,
While in his heart his blest Redeemer reigns;
By thy kind words he is inform'd aright,
And Thee exulting owns his path, his light!
Whether we ponder, with a mind serene,
The gracious marvels of thy earthly scene,
Or the firm promise to thy servants given,
Just ere they saw Thee re-ascend to Heaven;
Or the fulfilment of thy grand bequest,
The promis'd Comforter of man distrest!
That spirit, which, as man's unfailing friend,
'Twas thine, from thy celestial throne, to send
The Spirit of thy Sire! of truth! and peace!
By whose blest influence base passions cease;
And Christians, worthy of their Lord, combine
In the pure bond of charity divine!
Conscious from whom, their new sensations flow!
To whom their renovated hearts they owe!
And conscious, while their heavenly, guide they bless,
Their gratitude is safe from all excess!
In sentient beings, if their love and zeal
Should rise proportion'd to the aid, they feel,
Unbounded, as thy benefits, should be
The thankful homage of our hearts to Thee.
Divine Deliverer! whose grace bestows
Exemption from unutterable woes!
Such gifts on men, as they can ne'er requite,
Made, from the slaves of darkness, sons of light!
Thou filial Deity! whose merits rise
To such amazing height in human eyes,
A justly humble mind, that feels their sway
Too great for earthly language to display,
Conceives, e'en seraphs, tho' in glory's beam,
May find their voice unequal to the theme!
And seems to view them in their heavenly seat,
Mute, from pure adoration, at thy feet:
Thou blest Restorer of corrupted man
From all the snares of Satan's dark divan!
Thou, who with true compassion, hast survey'd
Lost wanderers perishing without thy aid!
To whose pure eyes all wonders are reveal'd,
That live in mortals, from themselves conceal'd!
Who view'st with favor, when they most aspire,
Their narrow faculties, and vast desire!
O prosper, and sustain my anxious thought,
Pondering thy attributes, as mortals ought!
That while I strive to make thy nature known,
My zeal may tend to purify my own.
Pardon the daring aim of grateful love,
If, in research, man's intellect above,
I vainly seek such heavenly things to know,
As Thou to mortals hast not deign'd to show,
Veiling the mode of thy celestial birth
From beings blind to mysteries of earth!
Thy geniture, and thy redeeming power
Transcend the known extent of nature's dower:
But pity weak mortality--that tries
To reach, what may elude all human eyes!
The knowledge man desires, is found by none:
The Eternal Sire, He only, knows the Son:
Taught by this truth, be it our wish alone
To know Him, only as he would be known,
By grace divine! his bounty's blest effect
On those, who hail Him with devout respect!
Thou filial Deity in manly shape! |
10,240 |
Produced by David Widger. HTML version by Al Haines
A WONDER-BOOK FOR GIRLS AND BOYS
By Nathaniel Hawthorne
THE THREE GOLDEN APPLES
CONTENTS:
TANGLEWOOD FIRESIDE--Introductory to "The Three Golden Apples"
THE THREE GOLDEN APPLES
TANGLEWOOD FIRESIDE--After the Story
INTRODUCTORY TO "THE THREE GOLDEN APPLES"
The snow-storm lasted another day; but what became of it afterwards, I
cannot possibly imagine. At any rate, it entirely cleared away, during
the night; and when the sun arose, the next morning, it shone brightly
down on as bleak a tract of hill-country, here in Berkshire, as could be
seen anywhere in the world. The frost-work had so covered the
windowpanes that it was hardly possible to get a glimpse at the scenery
outside. But, while waiting for breakfast, the small populace of
Tanglewood had scratched peepholes with their finger-nails, and saw with
vast delight that--unless it were one or two bare patches on a
precipitous hillside, or the gray effect of the snow, intermingled with
the black pine forest--all nature was as white as a sheet. How
exceedingly pleasant! And, to make it all the better, it was cold
enough to nip one's nose short off! If people have but life enough in
them to bear it, there is nothing that so raises the spirits, and makes
the blood ripple and dance so nimbly, like a brook down the <DW72> of a
hill, as a bright, hard frost.
No sooner was breakfast over, than the whole party, well muffled in furs
and woollens, floundered forth into the midst of the snow. Well, what a
day of frosty sport was this! They slid down hill into the valley, a
hundred times, nobody knows how far; and, to make it all the merrier,
upsetting their sledges, and tumbling head over heels, quite as often as
they came safely to the bottom. And, once, Eustace Bright took
Periwinkle, Sweet Fern, and Squash-blossom, on the sledge with him, by
way of insuring a safe passage; and down they went, full speed. But,
behold, half-way down, the sledge hit against a hidden stump, and flung
all four of its passengers into a heap; and, on gathering themselves up,
there was no little Squash-blossom to be found! Why, what could have
become of the child? And while they were wondering and staring about,
up started Squash-blossom out of a snow-bank, with the reddest face you
ever saw, and looking as if a large scarlet flower had suddenly sprouted
up in midwinter. Then there was a great laugh.
When they had grown tired of sliding down hill, Eustace set the children
to digging a cave in the biggest snow-drift that they could find.
Unluckily, just as it was completed, and the party had squeezed
themselves into the hollow, down came the roof upon their heads, and
buried every soul of them alive! The next moment, up popped all their
little heads out of the ruins, and the tall student's head in the midst
of them, looking hoary and venerable with the snow-dust that had got
amongst his brown curls. And then, to punish Cousin Eustace for
advising them to dig such a tumble-down cavern, the children attacked
him in a body, and so bepelted him with snowballs that he was fain to
take to his heels.
So he ran away, and went into the woods, and thence to the margin of
Shadow Brook, where he could hear the streamlet grumbling along, under
great overhanging banks of snow and ice, which would scarcely let it see
the light of day. There were adamantine icicles glittering around all
its little cascades. Thence be strolled to the shore of the lake, and
beheld a white, untrodden plain before him, stretching from his own feet
to the foot of Monument Mountain. And, it being now almost sunset,
Eustace thought that he had never beheld anything so fresh and beautiful
as the scene. He was glad that the children were not with him; for
their lively spirits and tumble-about activity would quite have chased
away his higher and graver mood, so that he would merely have been merry
(as he had already been, the whole day long), and would not have known
the loveliness of the winter sunset among the hills.
When the sun was fairly down, our friend Eustace went home to eat his
supper. After the meal was over, he betook himself to the study, with a
purpose, I rather imagine, to write an ode, or two or three sonnets, or
verses of some kind or other, in praise of the purple and golden clouds
which he had seen around the setting sun. But, before he had hammered
out the very first rhyme, the door opened, and Primrose and Periwinkle
made their appearance.
"Go away, children! I can't be troubled with you now!" cried the
student, looking over his shoulder, with the pen between his fingers.
"What in the world do you want here? I thought you were all in bed!"
"Hear him, Periwinkle, trying to talk like a grown man!" said Primrose.
"And he seems to forget that I am now thirteen years old, and may sit up
almost as late as I please. But, Cousin Eustace, you must put off your
airs, and come with us to the drawing-room. The children have talked so
much about your stories, that my father wishes to hear one of them, in
order to judge whether they are likely to do any mischief."
"Poh, poh, Primrose!" exclaimed the student, rather vexed. "I don't
believe I can tell one of my stories in the presence of grown people.
Besides, your father is a classical scholar; not that I am much afraid
of his scholarship, neither, for I doubt not it is as rusty as an old
case-knife, by this time. But then he will be sure to quarrel with the
admirable nonsense that I put into these stories, out of my own head,
and which makes the great charm of the matter for children, like
yourself. No man of fifty, who has read the classical myths in his
youth, can possibly understand my merit as a re-inventor and improver
of them."
"All this may be very true," said Primrose, "but come you must! My
father will not open his book, nor will mamma open the piano, till you
have given us some of your nonsense, as you very correctly call it.
So be a good boy, and come along."
Whatever he might pretend, the student was rather glad than otherwise,
on second thoughts, to catch at the opportunity of proving to Mr.
Pringle what an excellent faculty he had in modernizing the myths of
ancient times. Until twenty years of age, a young man may, indeed, be
rather bashful about showing his poetry and his prose; but, for all
that, he is pretty apt to think that these very productions would
place him at the tip-top of literature, if once they could be known.
Accordingly, without much more resistance, Eustace suffered Primrose
and Periwinkle to drag him into the drawing-room.
It was a large handsome apartment, with a semicircular window at one
end, in the recess of which stood a marble copy of Greenough's Angel and
Child. On one side of the fireplace there were many shelves of books,
gravely but richly bound. The white light of the astrallamp, and the
red glow of the bright coal-fire, made the room brilliant and cheerful;
and before the fire, in a deep arm-chair, sat Mr. Pringle, looking just
fit to be seated in such a chair, and in such a room. He was a tall and
quite a handsome gentleman, with a bald brow; and was always so nicely
dressed, that even Eustace Bright never liked to enter his presence,
without at least pausing at the threshold to settle his shirt-collar.
But now, as Primrose had hold of one of his hands, and Periwinkle of the
other, he was forced to make his appearance with a rough-and-tumble sort
of look, as if he had been rolling all day in a snow-bank. And so he
had.
Mr. Pringle turned towards the student, benignly enough, but in a way
that made him feel how uncombed and unbrushed he was, and how uncombed
and unbrushed, likewise, were his mind and thoughts.
"Eustace," said Mr. Pringle, with a smile, "I find that you are
producing a great sensation among the little public of Tanglewood, by
the exercise of your gifts of narrative. Primrose here, as the little
folks choose to call her, and the rest of the children, have been so
loud in praise of your stories, that Mrs. Pringle and myself are really
curious to hear a specimen. It would be so much the more gratifying to
myself, as the stories appear to be an attempt to render the fables of
classical antiquity into the idiom of modern fancy and feeling. At
least, so I judge from a few of the incidents, which have come to me
at second hand."
"You are not exactly the auditor that I should have chosen, sir,"
observed the student, "for fantasies of this nature."
"Possibly not," replied Mr. Pringle. "I suspect, however, that a young
author's most useful critic is precisely the one whom he would be least
apt to choose. Pray oblige me, therefore."
"Sympathy, methinks, should have some little share in the critic's
qualifications," murmured Eustace Bright. "However, sir, if you will
find patience, I will find stories. But be kind enough to remember that
I am addressing myself to the imagination and sympathies of the
children, not to your own."
Accordingly, the student snatched hold of the first theme which
presented itself. It was suggested by a plate of apples that he
happened to spy on the mantel-piece.
THE THREE GOLDEN APPLES.
Did you ever hear of the golden apples, that grew in the garden of the
Hesperides? Ah, those were such apples as would bring a great price,
by the bushel, if any of them could be found growing in the orchards of
nowadays! But there is not, I suppose, a graft of that wonderful fruit
on a single tree in the wide world. Not so much as a seed of those
apples exists any longer.
And, even in the old, old, half-forgotten times, before the garden of
the Hesperides was overrun with weeds, a great many people doubted
whether there could be real trees that bore apples of solid gold upon
their branches. All had heard of them, but nobody remembered to have
seen any. Children, nevertheless, used to listen, open-mouthed, to
stories of the golden apple-tree, and resolved to discover it, when they
should be big enough. Adventurous young men, who desired to do a braver
thing than any of their fellows, set out in quest of this fruit. Many
of them returned no more; none of them brought back the apples. No
wonder that they found it impossible to gather them! It is said that
there was a dragon beneath the tree, with a hundred terrible heads,
fifty of which were always on the watch, while the other fifty slept.
In my opinion it was hardly worth running so much risk for the sake of
a solid golden apple. Had the apples been sweet, mellow, and juicy,
indeed that would be another matter. There might then have been some
sense in trying to get at them, in spite of the hundred-headed dragon.
But, as I have already told you, it was quite a common thing with young
persons, when tired of too much peace and rest, to go in search of the
garden of the Hesperides. And once the adventure was undertaken by a
hero who had enjoyed very little peace or rest since he came into the
world. At the time of which I am going to speak, he was wandering
through the pleasant land of Italy, with a mighty club in his hand, and
a bow and quiver slung across his shoulders. He was wrapt in the skin
of the biggest and fiercest lion that ever had been seen, and which he
himself had killed; and though, on the whole, he was kind, and generous,
and noble, there was a good deal of the lion's fierceness in his heart.
As he went on his way, he continually inquired whether that were the
right road to the famous garden. But none of the country people knew
anything about the matter, and many looked as if they would have
laughed at the question, if the stranger had not carried so very big a
club.
So he journeyed on and on, still making the same inquiry, until, at
last, he came to the brink of a river where some beautiful young women
sat twining wreaths of flowers.
"Can you tell me, pretty maidens," asked the stranger, "whether this is
the right way to the garden of the Hesperides?"
The young women had been having a fine time together, weaving the
flowers into wreaths, and crowning one another's heads. And there
seemed to be a kind of magic in the touch of their fingers, that made
the flowers more fresh and dewy, and of brighter lines, and sweeter
fragrance, while they played with them, than even when they had been
growing on their native stems. But, on hearing the stranger's question,
they dropped all their flowers on the grass, and gazed at him with
astonishment.
"The garden of the Hesperides!" cried one. "We thought mortals had been
weary of seeking it, after so many disappointments. And pray,
adventurous traveller, what do you want there?"
"A certain king, who is my cousin," replied he, "has ordered me to get
him three of the golden apples."
"Most of the young men who go in quest of these apples," observed
another of the damsels, "desire to obtain them for themselves, or to
present them to some fair maiden whom they love. Do you, then, love
this king, your cousin, so very much?"
"Perhaps not," replied the stranger, sighing. "He has often been severe
and cruel to me. But it is my destiny to obey him."
"And do you know," asked the damsel who had first spoken, "that a
terrible dragon, with a hundred heads, keeps watch under the golden
apple-tree?"
"I know it well," answered the stranger, calmly. "But, from my cradle
upwards, it has been my business, and almost my pastime, to deal with
serpents and dragons."
The young women looked at his massive club, and at the shaggy lion's
skin which he wore, and likewise at his heroic limbs and figure; and
they whispered to each other that the stranger appeared to be one who
might reasonably expect to perform deeds far beyond the might of other
men. But, then, the dragon with a hundred heads! What mortal, even if
he possessed a hundred lives, could hope to escape the fangs of such a
monster? So kind-hearted were the maidens, that they could not bear to
see this brave and, handsome traveller attempt what was so very
dangerous, and devote himself, most probably, to become a meal for
the dragon's hundred ravenous mouths.
"Go back," cried they all,--"go back to your own home! Your mother,
beholding you safe and sound, will shed tears of joy; and what can she
do more, should you win ever so great a victory? No matter for the
golden apples! No matter for the king, your cruel cousin! We do not
wish the dragon with the hundred heads to eat you up!"
The stranger seemed to grow impatient at these remonstrances. He
carelessly lifted his mighty club, and let it fall upon a rock that lay
half buried in the earth, near by. With the force of that idle blow,
the great rock was shattered all to pieces. It cost the stranger no
more effort to achieve this feat of a giant's strength than for one of
the young maidens to touch her sister's rosy cheek with a flower.
"Do you not believe," said he, looking at the damsels with a smile,
"that such a blow would have crushed one of the dragon's hundred heads?"
Then he sat down on the grass, and told them the story of his life, or
as much of it as he could remember, from the day when he was first
cradled in a warrior's brazen shield. While he lay there, two immense
serpents came gliding over the floor, and opened their hideous jaws to
devour him; and he, a baby of a few months old, had griped one of the
fierce snakes in each of his little fists, and strangled them to death.
When he was but a stripling, he had killed a huge lion, almost as big as
the one whose vast and shaggy hide he now wore upon his shoulders. The
next thing that he had done was to fight a battle with an ugly sort of
monster, called a hydra, which had no less than nine heads, and
exceedingly sharp teeth in every one of them.
"But the dragon of the Hesperides, you know," observed one of the
damsels, "has a hundred heads!"
"Nevertheless," replied the stranger, "I would rather fight two such
dragons than a single hydra. For, as fast as I cut off a head, two
others grew in its place; and, besides, there was one of the heads that
could not possibly be killed, but kept biting as fiercely as ever, long
after it was cut off. So I was forced to bury it under a stone, where
it is doubtless alive, to this vary day. But the hydra's body, and its
eight other heads, will never do any further mischief."
The damsels, judging that the story was likely to last a good while, had
been preparing a repast of bread and grapes, that the stranger might
refresh himself in the intervals of his talk. They took pleasure in
helping him to this simple food; and, now and then, one of them would
put a sweet grape between her rosy lips, lest it should make him bashful
to eat alone.
The traveller proceeded to tell how he had chased a very swift stag, for
a twelve-month together, without ever stopping to take breath, and had
at last caught it by the antlers, and carried it home alive. And he had
fought with a very odd race of people, half horses and half men, and had
put them all to death, from a sense of duty, in order that their ugly
figures might never be seen any more. Besides all this, he took to
himself great credit for having cleaned out a stable.
"Do you call that a wonderful exploit?" asked one of the young maidens,
with a smile. "Any clown in the country has done as much!"
"Had it been an ordinary stable," replied the stranger, "I should not
have mentioned it. But this was so gigantic a task that it would have
taken me all my life to perform it, if I had not luckily thought of
turning the channel of a river through the stable-door. That did the
business in a very short time!"
Seeing how earnestly his fair auditors listened, he next told them how
he had shot some monstrous birds, and had caught a wild bull alive, and
let him go again, and had tamed a number of very wild horses, and had
conquered Hippolyta, the warlike queen of the Amazons. He mentioned,
likewise, that he had taken off Hippolyta's enchanted girdle, and had
given it to the daughter of his cousin, the king.
"Was it the girdle of Venus," inquired the prettiest of the damsels,
"which makes women beautiful?"
"No," answered the stranger. "It had formerly been the sword-belt of
Mars; and it can only make the wearer valiant and courageous."
"An old sword-belt!" cried the damsel, tossing her head. "Then I should
not care about having it!"
"You are right," said the stranger.
Going on with his wonderful narrative, he informed the maidens that as
strange an adventure as ever happened was when he fought with Geryon,
the six-legged man. This was a very odd and frightful sort of figure,
as you may well believe. Any person, looking at his tracks in the sand
or snow, would suppose that three sociable companions had been walking
along together. On hearing his footsteps at, a little distance, it was
no more than reasonable to judge that several people must be coming.
But it was only the strange man Geryon clattering onward, with his six
legs!
Six legs, and one gigantic body! Certainly, he must have been a very
queer monster to look at; and, my stars, what a waste of shoe-leather!
When the stranger had finished the story of his adventures, he looked
around at the attentive faces of the maidens.
"Perhaps you may have heard of me before," said he, modestly. "My name
is Hercules!"
"We had already guessed it," replied the maidens; "for your wonderful
deeds are known all over the world. We do not think it strange, any
longer, that you should set out in quest of the golden apples of the
Hesperides. Come, sisters, let us crown the hero with flowers!"
Then they flung beautiful wreaths over his stately head and mighty
shoulders, so that the lion's skin was almost entirely covered with
roses. They took possession of his ponderous club, and so entwined it
about with the brightest, softest, and most fragrant blossoms, that not
a finger's breadth of its oaken substance could be seen. It looked all
like a huge bunch of flowers. Lastly, they joined hands, and danced
around him, chanting words which became poetry of their own accord, and
grew into a choral song, in honor of the illustrious Hercules.
And Hercules was rejoiced, as any other hero would have been, to know
that these fair young girls had heard of the valiant deeds which it had
cost him so much toil and danger to achieve. But, still, he was not
satisfied. He could not think that what he had already done was worthy
of so much honor, while there remained any bold or difficult adventure
to be undertaken.
"Dear maidens," said he, when they paused to take breath, "now that you
know my name, will you not tell me how I am to reach the garden of the
Hesperides?"
"Ah! must you go so soon?" they exclaimed. "You--that have performed so
many wonders, and spent such a toilsome life--cannot you content
yourself to repose a little while on the margin of this peaceful river?"
Hercules shook his head.
"I must depart now," said he.
"We will then give you the best directions we can," replied the damsels.
"You must go to the sea-shore, and find out the Old One, and compel him
to inform you where the golden apples are to be found."
"The Old One!" repeated Hercules, laughing at this odd name. "And,
pray, who may the Old One be?"
"Why, the Old Man of the Sea, to be sure!" answered one of the damsels.
"He has fifty daughters, whom some people call very beautiful; but we do
not think it proper to be acquainted with them, because they have
sea-green hair, and taper away like fishes. You must talk with this Old
Man of the Sea. He is a sea-faring person, and knows all about the garden
of the Hesperides; for it is situated in an island which he is often in
the habit of visiting."
Hercules then asked whereabouts the Old One was most likely to be met
with. When the damsels had informed him, he thanked them for all their
kindness,--for the bread and grapes with which they had fed him, the
lovely flowers with which they had crowned him, and the songs and dances
wherewith they had done him honor,--and he thanked them, most of all,
for telling him the right way,--and immediately set forth upon his
Journey.
But, before he was out of hearing, one of the maidens called after him.
"Keep fast hold of the Old-One, when you catch him!" cried she, smiling,
and lifting her finger to make the caution more impressive. "Do not be
astonished at anything that may happen. Only hold him fast, and he will
tell you what you wish to know."
Hercules again thanked her, and pursued his way, while the maidens
resumed their pleasant labor of making flower-wreaths. They talked
about the hero, long after he was gone.
"We will crown him with the loveliest of our garlands," said they, "when
he returns hither with the three golden apples, after slaying the dragon
with a hundred heads."
Meanwhile, Hercules travelled constantly onward, over hill and dale, and
through the solitary woods. Sometimes he swung his club aloft, and
splintered a mighty oak with a downright blow. His mind was so full of
the giants and monsters with whom it was the business of his life to
fight, that perhaps he mistook the great tree for a giant or a monster.
And so eager was Hercules to achieve what he had undertaken, that he
almost regretted to have spent so much time with the damsels, wasting
idle breath upon the story of his adventures. But thus it always is
with persons who are destined to perform great things. What they have
already done seems less than nothing. What they have taken in hand to
do seems worth toil, danger, and life itself.
Persons who happened to be passing through the forest must have been
affrighted to see him smite the trees with his great club. With but a
single blow, the trunk was riven as by the stroke of lightning, and the
broad boughs came rustling and crashing down.
Hastening forward, without ever pausing or looking behind, he by and by
heard the sea roaring at a distance. At this sound, he increased his
speed, and soon came to a beach, where the great surf-waves tumbled
themselves upon the hard sand, in a long line of snowy foam. At one end
of the beach, however, there was a pleasant spot, where some green
shrubbery clambered up a cliff, making its rocky face look soft and
beautiful. A carpet of verdant grass, largely intermixed with
sweet-smelling clover, covered the narrow space between the bottom of the
cliff and the sea. And what should Hercules espy there, but an old man,
fast asleep!
But was it really and truly an old man? Certainly, at first sight, it
looked very like one; but, on closer inspection, it rather seemed to be
some kind of a creature that lived in the sea. For, on his legs and
arms there were scales, such as fishes have; he was web-footed and
web-fingered, after the fashion of a duck; and his long beard, being of a
greenish tinge, had more the appearance of a tuft of sea-weed than of an
ordinary beard. Have you never seen a stick of timber, that has been
long tossed about by the waves, and has got all overgrown with
barnacles, and, at last drifting ashore, seems to have been thrown up
from the very deepest bottom of the sea? Well, the old man would have
put you in mind of just such a wave-tost spar! But Hercules, the
instant he set eyes on this strange figure, was convinced that it could
be no other than the Old One, who was to direct him on his way.
Yes; it was the selfsame Old Man of the Sea, whom the hospitable maidens
had talked to him about. Thanking his stars for the lucky accident of
finding the old fellow asleep, Hercules stole on tiptoe towards him, and
caught him by the arm and leg.
"Tell me," cried he, before the Old One was well awake, "which is the
way to the garden of the Hesperides?"
As you may easily imagine, the Old Man of the Sea awoke in a fright.
But his astonishment could hardly have been greater than was that of
Hercules, the next moment. For, all of a sudden, the Old One seemed to
disappear out of his grasp, and he found himself holding a stag by the
fore and hind leg! But still he kept fast hold. Then the stag
disappeared, and in its stead there was a sea-bird, fluttering and
screaming, while Hercules clutched it by the wing and claw! But the
bird could not get away. Immediately afterwards, there was an ugly
three-headed dog, which growled and barked at Hercules, and snapped
fiercely at the hands by which he held him! But Hercules would not let
him go. In another minute, instead of the three-headed dog, what should
appear but Geryon, the six-legged man-monster, kicking at Hercules with
five of his legs, in order to get the remaining one at liberty! But
Hercules held on. By and by, no Geryou was there, but a huge snake,
like one of those which Hercules had strangled in his babyhood, only a
hundred times as big, and it twisted and twined about the hero's neck
and body, and threw its tail high into the air, and opened its deadly
jaws as if to devour him outright; so that it was really a very terrible
spectacle! But Hercules was no whit disheartened, and squeezed the
great snake so tightly that he soon began to hiss with pain.
You must understand that the Old Man of the Sea, though he generally
looked so much like the wave-beaten figure-head of a vessel, had the
power of assuming any shape he pleased. When he found himself so
roughly seized by Hercules, he had been in hopes of putting him into
such surprise and terror, by these magical transformations, that the
hero would be glad to let him go. If Hercules had relaxed his grasp,
the Old One would certainly have plunged down to the very bottom of the
sea, whence he would not soon have given himself the trouble of coming
up, in order to answer any impertinent questions. Ninety-nine people
out of a hundred, I suppose, would have been frightened out of their
wits by the very first of his ugly shapes, and would have taken to their
heels at once. For, one of the hardest things in this world is, to see
the difference between real dangers and imaginary ones.
But, as Hercules held on so stubbornly, and only squeezed the Old One so
much the tighter at every change of shape, and really put him to no
small torture, he finally thought it best to reappear in his own figure.
So there he was again, a fishy, scaly, webfooted sort of personage, with
something like a tuft of sea-weed at his chin.
"Pray, what do you want with me?" cried the Old One, as soon as he could
take breath; for it is quite a tiresome affair to go through so many
false shapes. "Why do you squeeze me so hard? Let me go, this moment,
or I shall begin to consider you an extremely uncivil person!"
"My name is Hercules!" roared the mighty stranger. "And you will never
get out of my clutch, until you tell me the nearest way to the garden of
the Hesperides!"
When the old fellow heard who it was that had caught him, he saw, with
half an eye, that it would be necessary to tell him everything that he
wanted to know. The Old One was an inhabitant of the sea, you must
recollect, and roamed about everywhere, like other sea-faring people.
Of course, he had often heard of the fame of Hercules, and of the
wonderful things that he was constantly performing, in various parts of
the earth, and how determined he always was to accomplish whatever he
undertook. He therefore made no more attempts to escape, but told the
hero how to find the garden of the Hesperides, and likewise warned him
of many difficulties which must be overcome, before he could arrive
thither.
"You must go on, thus and thus," said the Old Man of the Sea, after
taking the points of the compass, "till you come in sight of a very tall
giant, who holds the sky on his shoulders. And the giant, if he happens
to be in the humor, will tell you exactly where the garden of the
Hesperides lies."
"And if the giant happens not to be in the humor," remarked Hercules,
balancing his club on the tip of his finger, "perhaps I shall find means
to persuade him!"
Thanking the Old Man of the Sea, and begging his pardon for having
squeezed him so roughly, the hero resumed his journey. He met with a
great many strange adventures, which would be well worth your hearing,
if I had leisure to narrate them as minutely as they deserve.
It was in this journey, if I mistake not, that he encountered a
prodigious giant, who was so wonderfully contrived by nature, that,
every time he touched the earth, he became ten times as strong as ever
he had been before. His name was Antreus. You may see, plainly enough,
that it was a very difficult business to fight with such a fellow; for,
as often as he got a knock-down blow, up he started again, stronger,
fiercer, and abler to use his weapons, than if his enemy had let him
alone, Thus, the harder Hercules pounded the giant with his club, the
further be seemed from winning the victory. I have sometimes argued
with such people, but never fought with one. The only way in which
Hercules found it possible to finish the battle, was by lifting Antaeus
off his feet into the air, and squeezing, and squeezing, and squeezing
him, until, finally, the strength was quite squeezed out of his enormous
body.
When this affair was finished, Hercules continued his travels, and went
to the land of Egypt, where he was taken prisoner, and would have been
put to death, if he had not slain the king of the country, and made his
escape. Passing through the deserts of Africa, and going as fast as he
could, he arrived at last on the shore of the great ocean. And here,
unless he could walk on the crests of the billows, it seemed as if his
journey must needs be at an end.
Nothing was before him, save the foaming, dashing, measureless ocean.
But, suddenly, as he looked towards the horizon, he saw something, a
great way off, which he had not seen the moment before. It gleamed very
brightly, almost as you may have beheld the round, golden disk of the
sun, when it rises or sets over the edge of the world. It evidently
drew nearer; for, at every instant, this wonderful object became larger
and more lustrous. At length, it had come so nigh that Hercules
discovered it to be an immense cup or bowl, made either of gold or
burnished brass. How it had got afloat upon the sea, is more than I can
tell you. There it was, at all events, rolling on the tumultuous
billows, which tossed it up and down, and heaved their foamy tops
against its sides, but without ever throwing their spray over the brim.
"I have seen many giants, in my time," thought Hercules, "but never one
that would need to drink his wine out of a cup like this!"
And, true enough, what a cup it must have been! It was as large--as
large--but, in short, I am afraid to say how immeasurably large it was.
To speak within bounds, it was ten times larger than a great mill-wheel;
and, all of metal as it was, it floated over the heaving surges more
lightly than an acorn-cup adown the brook. The waves tumbled it onward,
until it grazed against the shore, within a short distance of the spot
where Hercules was standing.
As soon as this happened, he knew what was to be done; for he had not
gone through so many remarkable adventures without learning pretty well
how to conduct himself, whenever anything came to pass a little out of
the common rule. It was just as clear as daylight that this marvellous
cup had been set adrift by some unseen power, and guided hitherward, in
order to carry Hercules across the sea, on his way to the garden of the
Hesperides. Accordingly, without a moment's delay, he clambered over
the brim, and slid down on the inside, where, spreading out his lion's
skin, he proceeded to take a little repose. He had scarcely rested,
until now, since he bade farewell to the damsels on the margin of the
river. The waves dashed, with a pleasant and ringing sound, against the
circumference of the hollow cup; it rocked lightly to and fro, and the
motion was so soothing that, it speedily rocked Hercules into an
agreeable slumber.
His nap had probably lasted a good while, when the cup chanced to graze
against a rock, and, in consequence, immediately resounded and
reverberated through its golden or brazen substance, a hundred times as
loudly as ever you heard a church-bell. The noise awoke Hercules, who
instantly started up and gazed around him, wondering whereabouts he was.
He was not long in discovering that the cup had floated across a great
part of the sea, and was approaching the shore of what seemed to be an
island. And, on that island, what do you think he saw?
No; you will never guess it, not if you were to try fifty thousand
times! It positively appears to me that this was the most marvellous
spectacle that had ever been seen by Hercules, in the whole course of
his wonderful travels and adventures. It was a greater marvel than the
hydra with nine heads, which kept growing twice as fast as they were cut
off; greater than the six-legged man-monster; greater than Antreus;
greater than anything that was ever beheld by anybody, before or since
the days of Hercules, or than anything that remains to be beheld, by
travellers in all time to come. It was a giant!
But such an intolerably big giant! A giant as tall as a mountain; so
vast a giant, that the clouds rested about his midst, like a girdle,
and hung like a hoary beard from his chin, and flitted before his huge
eyes, so that he could neither see Hercules nor the golden cup in which
he was voyaging. And, most wonderful of all, the giant held up his
great hands and appeared to support the sky, which, so far as Hercules
could discern through the clouds, was resting upon his head! This does
really seem almost too much to believe.
Meanwhile, the bright cup continued to float onward, and finally touched
the strand. Just then a breeze wafted away the clouds from before the
giant's visage, and Hercules beheld it, with all its enormous features;
eyes each of them as big as yonder lake, a nose a mile Long, and a mouth
of the same width. It was a countenance terrible from its enormity of
size, but disconsolate and weary, even as you may see the faces of many
people, nowadays, who are compelled to sustain burdens above their
strength. What the sky was to the giant, such are the cares of earth to
those who let themselves be weighed down by them. And whenever men
undertake what is beyond the just measure of their abilities, they
encounter precisely such a doom as had befallen this poor giant.
Poor fellow! He had evidently stood there a long while. An ancient
forest had been growing and decaying around his feet; and oak-trees, of
six or seven centuries old, had sprung from the acorn, and forced
themselves between his toes.
The giant now looked down from the far height of his great eyes, and,
perceiving Hercules, roared out, in a voice that resembled thunder,
proceeding out of the cloud that had just flitted away from his face.
"Who are you, down at my feet there? And whence do you come, in that
little cup?"
"I am Hercules!" thundered back the hero, in a voice pretty nearly or
quite as loud as the giant's own. "And I am seeking for the garden of
the Hesperides!"
"Ho! ho! ho!" roared the giant, in a fit of immense laughter. "That is
a wise adventure, truly!"
"And why not?" cried Hercules, getting a little angry at the giant's
mirth. "Do you think I am afraid of the dragon with a hundred heads!"
Just at this time, while they were talking together, some black clouds
gathered about the giant's middle, and burst into a tremendous storm of
thunder and lightning, causing such a pother that Hercules found it
impossible to distinguish a word. Only the giant's immeasurable legs
were to be seen, standing up into the obscurity of the tempest; and, now
and then, a momentary glimpse of his whole figure, mantled in a volume
of mist. He seemed to be speaking, most of the time; but his big, deep,
rough voice chimed in with the reverberations of the thunder-claps, and
rolled away over the hills, like them. Thus, by talking out of season,
the foolish giant expended an incalculable quantity of breath, to no
purpose; for the thunder spoke quite as intelligibly as he.
At last, the storm swept over, as suddenly as it had come. And there
again was the clear sky, and the weary giant holding it up, and the
pleasant sunshine beaming over his vast height, and illuminating it
against the background of the sullen thunder-clouds. So far above the
shower had been his head, that not a hair of it was moistened by the
rain-drops!
When the giant could see Hercules still standing on the sea-shore, he
roared out to him anew.
"I am Atlas, the mightiest giant in the world! And I hold the sky upon
my head!"
"So I see," answered Hercules. "But, can you show me the way to the
garden of the Hesperides?"
"What do you want there?" asked the giant.
"I want three of the golden apples," shouted Hercules, "for my cousin,
the king."
"There is nobody but myself," quoth the giant, "that can go to the
garden of the Hesperides, and gather the golden apples. If it were not
for this little business of holding up the sky, I would make half a
dozen steps across the sea, and get them for you."
"You are very kind," replied Hercules. "And cannot you rest the sky
upon a mountain?"
"None of them are quite high enough," said Atlas, shaking his head.
"But, if you were to take your stand on the summit of that nearest one,
your head would be pretty nearly on a level with mine. You seem to be a
fellow of some strength. What if you should take my burden on your
shoulders, while I do your errand for you?"
Hercules, as you must be careful to remember, was a remarkably strong
man; and though it certainly requires a great deal of muscular power to
uphold the sky, yet, if any mortal could be supposed capable of such an
exploit, he was the one. Nevertheless, it seemed so difficult an
undertaking, that, for the first time in his life, he hesitated.
"Is the sky very heavy?" he inquired.
"Why, not particularly so, at first," answered the giant, shrugging his
shoulders. "But it gets to be a little burdensome, after a thousand
years!"
"And how long a time," asked the hero, "will it take you to get the
golden apples?"
"O, that will be done in a few moments," cried Atlas. "I shall take ten
or fifteen miles at a stride, and be at the garden and back again before
your shoulders begin to ache."
"Well, then," answered Hercules, "I will climb the mountain behind you
there, and relieve you of your burden."
The truth is, Hercules had a kind heart of his own, and considered that
he should be doing the giant a favor, by allowing him this opportunity
for a ramble. And, besides, he thought that it would be still more for
his own glory, if he could boast of upholding the sky, than merely to do
so ordinary a thing as to conquer a dragon with a hundred heads.
Accordingly, without more words, the sky was shifted from the shoulders
of Atlas, and placed upon those of Hercules.
When this was safely accomplished, the first thing that the giant did
was to stretch himself; and you may imagine what a prodigious spectacle
be was then. Next, he slowly lifted one of his feet out of the forest
that had grown up around it; then, the other. Then, all at once, he
began to caper, and leap, and dance, for joy at his freedom; flinging
himself nobody knows how high into the air, and floundering down again
with a shock that made the earth tremble. Then he laughed--Ho! ho!
ho!--with a thunderous roar that was echoed from the mountains, far and
near, as if they and the giant had been so many rejoicing brothers.
When his joy had a little subsided, he stepped into the sea; ten miles
at the first stride, which brought him mid-leg deep; and ten miles at
the second, when the water came just above his knees; and ten miles more
at the third, by which he was immersed nearly to his waist. This was
the greatest depth of the sea. |
10,240 |
Produced by David Widger
THE VISION
OF
HELL, PURGATORY, AND PARADISE
BY DANTE ALIGHIERI
TRANSLATED BY
THE REV. H. F. CARY
PURGATORY
Part 3
Cantos 11 - 18
CANTO XI
"O thou Almighty Father, who dost make
The heavens thy dwelling, not in bounds confin'd,
But that with love intenser there thou view'st
Thy primal effluence, hallow'd be thy name:
Join each created being to extol
Thy might, for worthy humblest thanks and praise
Is thy blest Spirit. May thy kingdom's peace
Come unto us; for we, unless it come,
With all our striving thither tend in vain.
As of their will the angels unto thee
Tender meet sacrifice, circling thy throne
With loud hosannas, so of theirs be done
By saintly men on earth. Grant us this day
Our daily manna, without which he roams
Through this rough desert retrograde, who most
Toils to advance his steps. As we to each
Pardon the evil done us, pardon thou
Benign, and of our merit take no count.
'Gainst the old adversary prove thou not
Our virtue easily subdu'd; but free
From his incitements and defeat his wiles.
This last petition, dearest Lord! is made
Not for ourselves, since that were needless now,
But for their sakes who after us remain."
Thus for themselves and us good speed imploring,
Those spirits went beneath a weight like that
We sometimes feel in dreams, all, sore beset,
But with unequal anguish, wearied all,
Round the first circuit, purging as they go,
The world's gross darkness off: In our behalf
If there vows still be offer'd, what can here
For them be vow'd and done by such, whose wills
Have root of goodness in them? Well beseems
That we should help them wash away the stains
They carried hence, that so made pure and light,
They may spring upward to the starry spheres.
"Ah! so may mercy-temper'd justice rid
Your burdens speedily, that ye have power
To stretch your wing, which e'en to your desire
Shall lift you, as ye show us on which hand
Toward the ladder leads the shortest way.
And if there be more passages than one,
Instruct us of that easiest to ascend;
For this man who comes with me, and bears yet
The charge of fleshly raiment Adam left him,
Despite his better will but slowly mounts."
From whom the answer came unto these words,
Which my guide spake, appear'd not; but 'twas said:
"Along the bank to rightward come with us,
And ye shall find a pass that mocks not toil
Of living man to climb: and were it not
That I am hinder'd by the rock, wherewith
This arrogant neck is tam'd, whence needs I stoop
My visage to the ground, him, who yet lives,
Whose name thou speak'st not him I fain would view.
To mark if e'er I knew himnd to crave
His pity for the fardel that I bear.
I was of Latiun, of a Tuscan horn
A mighty one: Aldobranlesco's name
My sire's, I know not if ye e'er have heard.
My old blood and forefathers' gallant deeds
Made me so haughty, that I clean forgot
The common mother, and to such excess,
Wax'd in my scorn of all men, that I fell,
Fell therefore; by what fate Sienna's sons,
Each child in Campagnatico, can tell.
I am Omberto; not me only pride
Hath injur'd, but my kindred all involv'd
In mischief with her. Here my lot ordains
Under this weight to groan, till I appease
God's angry justice, since I did it not
Amongst the living, here amongst the dead."
List'ning I bent my visage down: and one
(Not he who spake) twisted beneath the weight
That urg'd him, saw me, knew me straight, and call'd,
Holding his eyes With difficulty fix'd
Intent upon me, stooping as I went
Companion of their way. "O!" I exclaim'd,
"Art thou not Oderigi, art not thou
Agobbio's glory, glory of that art
Which they of Paris call the limmer's skill?"
"Brother!" said he, "with tints that gayer smile,
Bolognian Franco's pencil lines the leaves.
His all the honour now; mine borrow'd light.
In truth I had not been thus courteous to him,
The whilst I liv'd, through eagerness of zeal
For that pre-eminence my heart was bent on.
Here of such pride the forfeiture is paid.
Nor were I even here; if, able still
To sin, I had not turn'd me unto God.
O powers of man! how vain your glory, nipp'd
E'en in its height of verdure, if an age
Less bright succeed not! imbue thought
To lord it over painting's field; and now
The cry is Giotto's, and his name eclips'd.
Thus hath one Guido from the other snatch'd
The letter'd prize: and he perhaps is born,
Who shall drive either from their nest. The noise
Of worldly fame is but a blast of wind,
That blows from divers points, and shifts its name
Shifting the point it blows from. Shalt thou more
Live in the mouths of mankind, if thy flesh
Part shrivel'd from thee, than if thou hadst died,
Before the coral and the pap were left,
Or ere some thousand years have passed? and that
Is, to eternity compar'd, a space,
Briefer than is the twinkling of an eye
To the heaven's slowest orb. He there who treads
So leisurely before me, far and wide
Through Tuscany resounded once; and now
Is in Sienna scarce with whispers nam'd:
There was he sov'reign, when destruction caught
The madd'ning rage of Florence, in that day
Proud as she now is loathsome. Your renown
Is as the herb, whose hue doth come and go,
And his might withers it, by whom it sprang
Crude from the lap of earth." I thus to him:
"True are thy sayings: to my heart they breathe
The kindly spirit of meekness, and allay
What tumours rankle there. But who is he
Of whom thou spak'st but now?"--"This," he replied,
"Is Provenzano. He is here, because
He reach'd, with grasp presumptuous, at the sway
Of all Sienna. Thus he still hath gone,
Thus goeth never-resting, since he died.
Such is th' acquittance render'd back of him,
Who, beyond measure, dar'd on earth." I then:
"If soul that to the verge of life delays
Repentance, linger in that lower space,
Nor hither mount, unless good prayers befriend,
How chanc'd admittance was vouchsaf'd to him?"
"When at his glory's topmost height," said he,
"Respect of dignity all cast aside,
Freely He fix'd him on Sienna's plain,
A suitor to redeem his suff'ring friend,
Who languish'd in the prison-house of Charles,
Nor for his sake refus'd through every vein
To tremble. More I will not say; and dark,
I know, my words are, but thy neighbours soon
Shall help thee to a comment on the text.
This is the work, that from these limits freed him."
CANTO XII
With equal pace as oxen in the yoke,
I with that laden spirit journey'd on
Long as the mild instructor suffer'd me;
But when he bade me quit him, and proceed
(For "here," said he, "behooves with sail and oars
Each man, as best he may, push on his bark"),
Upright, as one dispos'd for speed, I rais'd
My body, still in thought submissive bow'd.
I now my leader's track not loth pursued;
And each had shown how light we far'd along
When thus he warn'd me: "Bend thine eyesight down:
For thou to ease the way shall find it good
To ruminate the bed beneath thy feet."
As in memorial of the buried, drawn
Upon earth-level tombs, the sculptur'd form
Of what was once, appears (at sight whereof
Tears often stream forth by remembrance wak'd,
Whose sacred stings the piteous only feel),
So saw I there, but with more curious skill
Of portraiture o'erwrought, whate'er of space
From forth the mountain stretches. On one part
Him I beheld, above all creatures erst
Created noblest, light'ning fall from heaven:
On th' other side with bolt celestial pierc'd
Briareus: cumb'ring earth he lay through dint
Of mortal ice-stroke. The Thymbraean god
With Mars, I saw, and Pallas, round their sire,
Arm'd still, and gazing on the giant's limbs
Strewn o'er th' ethereal field. Nimrod I saw:
At foot of the stupendous work he stood,
As if bewilder'd, looking on the crowd
Leagued in his proud attempt on Sennaar's plain.
O Niobe! in what a trance of woe
Thee I beheld, upon that highway drawn,
Sev'n sons on either side thee slain! Saul!
How ghastly didst thou look! on thine own sword
Expiring in Gilboa, from that hour
Ne'er visited with rain from heav'n or dew!
O fond Arachne! thee I also saw
Half spider now in anguish crawling up
Th' unfinish'd web thou weaved'st to thy bane!
O Rehoboam! here thy shape doth seem
Louring no more defiance! but fear-smote
With none to chase him in his chariot whirl'd.
Was shown beside upon the solid floor
How dear Alcmaeon forc'd his mother rate
That ornament in evil hour receiv'd:
How in the temple on Sennacherib fell
His sons, and how a corpse they left him there.
Was shown the scath and cruel mangling made
By Tomyris on Cyrus, when she cried:
"Blood thou didst thirst for, take thy fill of blood!"
Was shown how routed in the battle fled
Th' Assyrians, Holofernes slain, and e'en
The relics of the carnage. Troy I mark'd
In ashes and in caverns. Oh! how fall'n,
How abject, Ilion, was thy semblance there!
What master of the pencil or the style
Had trac'd the shades and lines, that might have made
The subtlest workman wonder? Dead the dead,
The living seem'd alive; with clearer view
His eye beheld not who beheld the truth,
Than mine what I did tread on, while I went
Low bending. Now swell out; and with stiff necks
Pass on, ye sons of Eve! veil not your looks,
Lest they descry the evil of your path!
I noted not (so busied was my thought)
How much we now had circled of the mount,
And of his course yet more the sun had spent,
When he, who with still wakeful caution went,
Admonish'd: "Raise thou up thy head: for know
Time is not now for slow suspense. Behold
That way an angel hasting towards us! Lo!
Where duly the sixth handmaid doth return
From service on the day. Wear thou in look
And gesture seemly grace of reverent awe,
That gladly he may forward us aloft.
Consider that this day ne'er dawns again."
Time's loss he had so often warn'd me 'gainst,
I could not miss the scope at which he aim'd.
The goodly shape approach'd us, snowy white
In vesture, and with visage casting streams
Of tremulous lustre like the matin star.
His arms he open'd, then his wings; and spake:
"Onward: the steps, behold! are near; and now
Th' ascent is without difficulty gain'd."
A scanty few are they, who when they hear
Such tidings, hasten. O ye race of men
Though born to soar, why suffer ye a wind
So slight to baffle ye? He led us on
Where the rock parted; here against my front
Did beat his wings, then promis'd I should fare
In safety on my way. As to ascend
That steep, upon whose brow the chapel stands
(O'er Rubaconte, looking lordly down
On the well-guided city,) up the right
Th' impetuous rise is broken by the steps
Carv'd in that old and simple age, when still
The registry and label rested safe;
Thus is th' acclivity reliev'd, which here
Precipitous from the other circuit falls:
But on each hand the tall cliff presses close.
As ent'ring there we turn'd, voices, in strain
Ineffable, sang: "Blessed are the poor
In spirit." Ah how far unlike to these
The straits of hell; here songs to usher us,
There shrieks of woe! We climb the holy stairs:
And lighter to myself by far I seem'd
Than on the plain before, whence thus I spake:
"Say, master, of what heavy thing have I
Been lighten'd, that scarce aught the sense of toil
Affects me journeying?" He in few replied:
"When sin's broad characters, that yet remain
Upon thy temples, though well nigh effac'd,
Shall be, as one is, all clean razed out,
Then shall thy feet by heartiness of will
Be so o'ercome, they not alone shall feel
No sense of labour, but delight much more
Shall wait them urg'd along their upward way."
Then like to one, upon whose head is plac'd
Somewhat he deems not of but from the becks
Of others as they pass him by; his hand
Lends therefore help to' assure him, searches, finds,
And well performs such office as the eye
Wants power to execute: so stretching forth
The fingers of my right hand, did I find
Six only of the letters, which his sword
Who bare the keys had trac'd upon my brow.
The leader, as he mark'd mine action, smil'd.
CANTO XIII
We reach'd the summit of the scale, and stood
Upon the second buttress of that mount
Which healeth him who climbs. A cornice there,
Like to the former, girdles round the hill;
Save that its arch with sweep less ample bends.
Shadow nor image there is seen; all smooth
The rampart and the path, reflecting nought
But the rock's sullen hue. "If here we wait
For some to question," said the bard, "I fear
Our choice may haply meet too long delay."
Then fixedly upon the sun his eyes
He fastn'd, made his right the central point
From whence to move, and turn'd the left aside.
"O pleasant light, my confidence and hope,
Conduct us thou," he cried, "on this new way,
Where now I venture, leading to the bourn
We seek. The universal world to thee
Owes warmth and lustre. If no other cause
Forbid, thy beams should ever be our guide."
Far, as is measur'd for a mile on earth,
In brief space had we journey'd; such prompt will
Impell'd; and towards us flying, now were heard
Spirits invisible, who courteously
Unto love's table bade the welcome guest.
The voice, that firstlew by, call'd forth aloud,
"They have no wine;" so on behind us past,
Those sounds reiterating, nor yet lost
In the faint distance, when another came
Crying, "I am Orestes," and alike
Wing'd its fleet way. "Oh father!" I exclaim'd,
"What tongues are these?" and as I question'd, lo!
A third exclaiming, "Love ye those have wrong'd you."
"This circuit," said my teacher, "knots the scourge
For envy, and the cords are therefore drawn
By charity's correcting hand. The curb
Is of a harsher sound, as thou shalt hear
(If I deem rightly), ere thou reach the pass,
Where pardon sets them free. But fix thine eyes
Intently through the air, and thou shalt see
A multitude before thee seated, each
Along the shelving grot." Then more than erst
I op'd my eyes, before me view'd, and saw
Shadows with garments dark as was the rock;
And when we pass'd a little forth, I heard
A crying, "Blessed Mary! pray for us,
Michael and Peter! all ye saintly host!"
I do not think there walks on earth this day
Man so remorseless, that he hath not yearn'd
With pity at the sight that next I saw.
Mine eyes a load of sorrow teemed, when now
I stood so near them, that their semblances
Came clearly to my view. Of sackcloth vile
Their cov'ring seem'd; and on his shoulder one
Did stay another, leaning, and all lean'd
Against the cliff. E'en thus the blind and poor,
Near the confessionals, to crave an alms,
Stand, each his head upon his fellow's sunk,
So most to stir compassion, not by sound
Of words alone, but that, which moves not less,
The sight of mis'ry. And as never beam
Of noonday visiteth the eyeless man,
E'en so was heav'n a niggard unto these
Of his fair light; for, through the orbs of all,
A thread of wire, impiercing, knits them up,
As for the taming of a haggard hawk.
It were a wrong, methought, to pass and look
On others, yet myself the while unseen.
To my sage counsel therefore did I turn.
He knew the meaning of the mute appeal,
Nor waited for my questioning, but said:
"Speak; and be brief, be subtle in thy words."
On that part of the cornice, whence no rim
Engarlands its steep fall, did Virgil come;
On the' other side me were the spirits, their cheeks
Bathing devout with penitential tears,
That through the dread impalement forc'd a way.
I turn'd me to them, and "O shades!" said I,
"Assur'd that to your eyes unveil'd shall shine
The lofty light, sole object of your wish,
So may heaven's grace clear whatsoe'er of foam
Floats turbid on the conscience, that thenceforth
The stream of mind roll limpid from its source,
As ye declare (for so shall ye impart
A boon I dearly prize) if any soul
Of Latium dwell among ye; and perchance
That soul may profit, if I learn so much."
"My brother, we are each one citizens
Of one true city. Any thou wouldst say,
Who lived a stranger in Italia's land."
So heard I answering, as appeal'd, a voice
That onward came some space from whence I stood.
A spirit I noted, in whose look was mark'd
Expectance. Ask ye how? The chin was rais'd
As in one reft of sight. "Spirit," said I,
"Who for thy rise are tutoring (if thou be
That which didst answer to me,) or by place
Or name, disclose thyself, that I may know thee."
"I was," it answer'd, "of Sienna: here
I cleanse away with these the evil life,
Soliciting with tears that He, who is,
Vouchsafe him to us. Though Sapia nam'd
In sapience I excell'd not, gladder far
Of others' hurt, than of the good befell me.
That thou mayst own I now deceive thee not,
Hear, if my folly were not as I speak it.
When now my years slop'd waning down the arch,
It so bechanc'd, my fellow citizens
Near Colle met their enemies in the field,
And I pray'd God to grant what He had will'd.
There were they vanquish'd, and betook themselves
Unto the bitter passages of flight.
I mark'd the hunt, and waxing out of bounds
In gladness, lifted up my shameless brow,
And like the merlin cheated by a gleam,
Cried, "It is over. Heav'n! fear thee not."
Upon my verge of life I wish'd for peace
With God; nor repentance had supplied
What I did lack of duty, were it not
The hermit Piero, touch'd with charity,
In his devout orisons thought on me.
"But who art thou that question'st of our state,
Who go'st to my belief, with lids unclos'd,
And breathest in thy talk?"--"Mine eyes," said I,
"May yet be here ta'en from me; but not long;
For they have not offended grievously
With envious glances. But the woe beneath
Urges my soul with more exceeding dread.
That nether load already weighs me down."
She thus: "Who then amongst us here aloft
Hath brought thee, if thou weenest to return?"
"He," answer'd I, "who standeth mute beside me.
I live: of me ask therefore, chosen spirit,
If thou desire I yonder yet should move
For thee my mortal feet."--"Oh!" she replied,
"This is so strange a thing, it is great sign
That God doth love thee. Therefore with thy prayer
Sometime assist me: and by that I crave,
Which most thou covetest, that if thy feet
E'er tread on Tuscan soil, thou save my fame
Amongst my kindred. Them shalt thou behold
With that vain multitude, who set their hope
On Telamone's haven, there to fail
Confounded, more shall when the fancied stream
They sought of Dian call'd: but they who lead
Their navies, more than ruin'd hopes shall mourn."
CANTO XIV
"Say who is he around our mountain winds,
Or ever death has prun'd his wing for flight,
That opes his eyes and covers them at will?"
"I know not who he is, but know thus much
He comes not singly. Do thou ask of him,
For thou art nearer to him, and take heed
Accost him gently, so that he may speak."
Thus on the right two Spirits bending each
Toward the other, talk'd of me, then both
Addressing me, their faces backward lean'd,
And thus the one began: "O soul, who yet
Pent in the body, tendest towards the sky!
For charity, we pray thee' comfort us,
Recounting whence thou com'st, and who thou art:
For thou dost make us at the favour shown thee
Marvel, as at a thing that ne'er hath been."
"There stretches through the midst of Tuscany,"
I straight began: "a brooklet, whose well-head
Springs up in Falterona, with his race
Not satisfied, when he some hundred miles
Hath measur'd. From his banks bring, I this frame.
To tell you who I am were words misspent:
For yet my name scarce sounds on rumour's lip."
"If well I do incorp'rate with my thought
The meaning of thy speech," said he, who first
Addrest me, "thou dost speak of Arno's wave."
To whom the other: "Why hath he conceal'd
The title of that river, as a man
Doth of some horrible thing?" The spirit, who
Thereof was question'd, did acquit him thus:
"I know not: but 'tis fitting well the name
Should perish of that vale; for from the source
Where teems so plenteously the Alpine steep
Maim'd of Pelorus, (that doth scarcely pass
Beyond that limit,) even to the point
Whereunto ocean is restor'd, what heaven
Drains from th' exhaustless store for all earth's streams,
Throughout the space is virtue worried down,
As 'twere a snake, by all, for mortal foe,
Or through disastrous influence on the place,
Or else distortion of misguided wills,
That custom goads to evil: whence in those,
The dwellers in that miserable vale,
Nature is so transform'd, it seems as they
Had shar'd of Circe's feeding. 'Midst brute swine,
Worthier of acorns than of other food
Created for man's use, he shapeth first
His obscure way; then, sloping onward, finds
Curs, snarlers more in spite than power, from whom
He turns with scorn aside: still journeying down,
By how much more the curst and luckless foss
Swells out to largeness, e'en so much it finds
Dogs turning into wolves. Descending still
Through yet more hollow eddies, next he meets
A race of foxes, so replete with craft,
They do not fear that skill can master it.
Nor will I cease because my words are heard
By other ears than thine. It shall be well
For this man, if he keep in memory
What from no erring Spirit I reveal.
Lo! behold thy grandson, that becomes
A hunter of those wolves, upon the shore
Of the fierce stream, and cows them all with dread:
Their flesh yet living sets he up to sale,
Then like an aged beast to slaughter dooms.
Many of life he reaves, himself of worth
And goodly estimation. Smear'd with gore
Mark how he issues from the rueful wood,
Leaving such havoc, that in thousand years
It spreads not to prime lustihood again."
As one, who tidings hears of woe to come,
Changes his looks perturb'd, from whate'er part
The peril grasp him, so beheld I change
That spirit, who had turn'd to listen, struck
With sadness, soon as he had caught the word.
His visage and the other's speech did raise
Desire in me to know the names of both,
whereof with meek entreaty I inquir'd.
The shade, who late addrest me, thus resum'd:
"Thy wish imports that I vouchsafe to do
For thy sake what thou wilt not do for mine.
But since God's will is that so largely shine
His grace in thee, I will be liberal too.
Guido of Duca know then that I am.
Envy so parch'd my blood, that had I seen
A fellow man made joyous, thou hadst mark'd
A livid paleness overspread my cheek.
Such harvest reap I of the seed I sow'd.
O man, why place thy heart where there doth need
Exclusion of participants in good?
This is Rinieri's spirit, this the boast
And honour of the house of Calboli,
Where of his worth no heritage remains.
Nor his the only blood, that hath been stript
('twixt Po, the mount, the Reno, and the shore,)
Of all that truth or fancy asks for bliss;
But in those limits such a growth has sprung
Of rank and venom'd roots, as long would mock
Slow culture's toil. Where is good Liziohere
Manardi, Traversalo, and Carpigna?
O bastard slips of old Romagna's line!
When in Bologna the low artisan,
And in Faenza yon Bernardin sprouts,
A gentle cyon from ignoble stem.
Wonder not, Tuscan, if thou see me weep,
When I recall to mind those once lov'd names,
Guido of Prata, and of Azzo him
That dwelt with you; Tignoso and his troop,
With Traversaro's house and Anastagio's,
(Each race disherited) and beside these,
The ladies and the knights, the toils and ease,
That witch'd us into love and courtesy;
Where now such malice reigns in recreant hearts.
O Brettinoro! wherefore tarriest still,
Since forth of thee thy family hath gone,
And many, hating evil, join'd their steps?
Well doeth he, that bids his lineage cease,
Bagnacavallo; Castracaro ill,
And Conio worse, who care to propagate
A race of Counties from such blood as theirs.
Well shall ye also do, Pagani, then
When from amongst you tries your demon child.
Not so, howe'er, that henceforth there remain
True proof of what ye were. O Hugolin!
Thou sprung of Fantolini's line! thy name
Is safe, since none is look'd for after thee
To cloud its lustre, warping from thy stock.
But, Tuscan, go thy ways; for now I take
Far more delight in weeping than in words.
Such pity for your sakes hath wrung my heart."
We knew those gentle spirits at parting heard
Our steps. Their silence therefore of our way
Assur'd us. Soon as we had quitted them,
Advancing onward, lo! a voice that seem'd
Like vollied light'ning, when it rives the air,
Met us, and shouted, "Whosoever finds
Will slay me," then fled from us, as the bolt
Lanc'd sudden from a downward-rushing cloud.
When it had giv'n short truce unto our hearing,
Behold the other with a crash as loud
As the quick-following thunder: "Mark in me
Aglauros turn'd to rock." I at the sound
Retreating drew more closely to my guide.
Now in mute stillness rested all the air:
And thus he spake: "There was the galling bit.
But your old enemy so baits his hook,
He drags you eager to him. Hence nor curb
Avails you, nor reclaiming call. Heav'n calls
And round about you wheeling courts your gaze
With everlasting beauties. Yet your eye
Turns with fond doting still upon the earth.
Therefore He smites you who discerneth all."
CANTO XV
As much as 'twixt the third hour's close and dawn,
Appeareth of heav'n's sphere, that ever whirls
As restless as an infant in his play,
So much appear'd remaining to the sun
Of his <DW72> journey towards the western goal.
Evening was there, and here the noon of night;
and full upon our forehead smote the beams.
For round the mountain, circling, so our path
Had led us, that toward the sun-set now
Direct we journey'd: when I felt a weight
Of more exceeding splendour, than before,
Press on my front. The cause unknown, amaze
Possess'd me, and both hands against my brow
Lifting, I interpos'd them, as a screen,
That of its gorgeous superflux of light
Clipp'd the diminish'd orb. As when the ray,
Striking On water or the surface clear
Of mirror, leaps unto the opposite part,
Ascending at a glance, e'en as it fell,
(And so much differs from the stone, that falls
Through equal space, as practice skill hath shown);
Thus with refracted light before me seemed
The ground there smitten; whence in sudden haste
My sight recoil'd. "What is this, sire belov'd!
'Gainst which I strive to shield the sight in vain?"
Cried I, "and which towards us moving seems?"
"Marvel not, if the family of heav'n,"
He answer'd, "yet with dazzling radiance dim
Thy sense it is a messenger who comes,
Inviting man's ascent. Such sights ere long,
Not grievous, shall impart to thee delight,
As thy perception is by nature wrought
Up to their pitch." The blessed angel, soon
As we had reach'd him, hail'd us with glad voice:
"Here enter on a ladder far less steep
Than ye have yet encounter'd." We forthwith
Ascending, heard behind us chanted sweet,
"Blessed the merciful," and "happy thou!
That conquer'st." Lonely each, my guide and I
Pursued our upward way; and as we went,
Some profit from his words I hop'd to win,
And thus of him inquiring, fram'd my speech:
"What meant Romagna's spirit, when he spake
Of bliss exclusive with no partner shar'd?"
He straight replied: "No wonder, since he knows,
What sorrow waits on his own worst defect,
If he chide others, that they less may mourn.
Because ye point your wishes at a mark,
Where, by communion of possessors, part
Is lessen'd, envy bloweth up the sighs of men.
No fear of that might touch ye, if the love
Of higher sphere exalted your desire.
For there, by how much more they call it ours,
So much propriety of each in good
Increases more, and heighten'd charity
Wraps that fair cloister in a brighter flame."
"Now lack I satisfaction more," said I,
"Than if thou hadst been silent at the first,
And doubt more gathers on my lab'ring thought.
How can it chance, that good distributed,
The many, that possess it, makes more rich,
Than if 't were shar'd by few?" He answering thus:
"Thy mind, reverting still to things of earth,
Strikes darkness from true light. The highest good
Unlimited, ineffable, doth so speed
To love, as beam to lucid body darts,
Giving as much of ardour as it finds.
The sempiternal effluence streams abroad
Spreading, wherever charity extends.
So that the more aspirants to that bliss
Are multiplied, more good is there to love,
And more is lov'd; as mirrors, that reflect,
Each unto other, propagated light.
If these my words avail not to allay
Thy thirsting, Beatrice thou shalt see,
Who of this want, and of all else thou hast,
Shall rid thee to the full. Provide but thou
That from thy temples may be soon eras'd,
E'en as the two already, those five scars,
That when they pain thee worst, then kindliest heal,"
"Thou," I had said, "content'st me," when I saw
The other round was gain'd, and wond'ring eyes
Did keep me mute. There suddenly I seem'd
By an ecstatic vision wrapt away;
And in a temple saw, methought, a crowd
Of many persons; and at th' entrance stood
A dame, whose sweet demeanour did express
A mother's love, who said, "Child! why hast thou
Dealt with us thus? Behold thy sire and I
Sorrowing have sought thee;" and so held her peace,
And straight the vision fled. A female next
Appear'd before me, down whose visage cours'd
Those waters, that grief forces out from one
By deep resentment stung, who seem'd to say:
"If thou, Pisistratus, be lord indeed
Over this city, nam'd with such debate
Of adverse gods, and whence each science sparkles,
Avenge thee of those arms, whose bold embrace
Hath clasp'd our daughter; "and to fuel, meseem'd,
Benign and meek, with visage undisturb'd,
Her sovran spake: "How shall we those requite,
Who wish us evil, if we thus condemn
The man that loves us?" After that I saw
A multitude, in fury burning, slay
With stones a stripling youth, and shout amain
"Destroy, destroy:" and him I saw, who bow'd
Heavy with death unto the ground, yet made
His eyes, unfolded upward, gates to heav'n,
Praying forgiveness of th' Almighty Sire,
Amidst that cruel conflict, on his foes,
With looks, that With compassion to their aim.
Soon as my spirit, from her airy flight
Returning, sought again the things, whose truth
Depends not on her shaping, I observ'd
How she had rov'd to no unreal scenes
Meanwhile the leader, who might see I mov'd,
As one, who struggles to shake off his sleep,
Exclaim'd: "What ails thee, that thou canst not hold
Thy footing firm, but more than half a league
Hast travel'd with clos'd eyes and tott'ring gait,
Like to a man by wine or sleep o'ercharg'd?"
"Beloved father! so thou deign," said I,
"To listen, I will tell thee what appear'd
Before me, when so fail'd my sinking steps."
He thus: "Not if thy Countenance were mask'd
With hundred vizards, could a thought of thine
How small soe'er, elude me. What thou saw'st
Was shown, that freely thou mightst ope thy heart
To the waters of peace, that flow diffus'd
From their eternal fountain. I not ask'd,
What ails theeor such cause as he doth, who
Looks only with that eye which sees no more,
When spiritless the body lies; but ask'd,
To give fresh vigour to thy foot. Such goads
The slow and loit'ring need; that they be found
Not wanting, when their hour of watch returns."
So on we journey'd through the evening sky
Gazing intent, far onward, as our eyes
With level view could stretch against the bright
Vespertine ray: and lo! by slow degrees
Gath'ring, a fog made tow'rds us, dark as night.
There was no room for'scaping; and that mist
Bereft us, both of sight and the pure air.
CANTO XVI
Hell's dunnest gloom, or night unlustrous, dark,
Of every planes'reft, and pall'd in clouds,
Did never spread before the sight a veil
In thickness like that fog, nor to the sense
So palpable and gross. Ent'ring its shade,
Mine eye endured not with unclosed lids;
Which marking, near me drew the faithful guide,
Offering me his shoulder for a stay.
As the blind man behind his leader walks,
Lest he should err, or stumble unawares
On what might harm him, or perhaps destroy,
I journey'd through that bitter air and foul,
Still list'ning to my escort's warning voice,
"Look that from me thou part not." Straight I heard
Voices, and each one seem'd to pray for peace,
And for compassion, to the Lamb of God
That taketh sins away. Their prelude still
Was "Agnus Dei," and through all the choir,
One voice, one measure ran, that perfect seem'd
The concord of their song. "Are these I hear
Spirits, O master?" I exclaim'd; and he:
"Thou aim'st aright: these loose the bonds of wrath."
"Now who art thou, that through our smoke dost cleave?
And speak'st of us, as thou thyself e'en yet
Dividest time by calends?" So one voice
Bespake me; whence my master said: "Reply;
And ask, if upward hence the passage lead."
"O being! who dost make thee pure, to stand
Beautiful once more in thy Maker's sight!
Along with me: and thou shalt hear and wonder."
Thus I, whereto the spirit answering spake:
"Long as 't is lawful for me, shall my steps
Follow on thine; and since the cloudy smoke
Forbids the seeing, hearing in its stead
Shall keep us join'd." I then forthwith began
"Yet in my mortal swathing, I ascend
To higher regions, and am hither come
Through the fearful agony of hell.
And, if so largely God hath doled his grace,
That, clean beside all modern precedent,
He wills me to behold his kingly state,
From me conceal not who thou wast, ere death
Had loos'd thee; but instruct me: and instruct
If rightly to the pass I tend; thy words
The way directing as a safe escort."
"I was of Lombardy, and Marco call'd:
Not inexperienc'd of the world, that worth
I still affected, from which all have turn'd
The nerveless bow aside. Thy course tends right
Unto the summit:" and, replying thus,
He added, "I beseech thee pray for me,
When thou shalt come aloft." And I to him:
"Accept my faith for pledge I will perform
What thou requirest. Yet one doubt remains,
That wrings me sorely, if I solve it not,
Singly before it urg'd me, doubled now
By thine opinion, when I couple that
With one elsewhere declar'd, each strength'ning other.
The world indeed is even so forlorn
Of all good as thou speak'st it and so swarms
With every evil. Yet, beseech thee, point
The cause out to me, that myself may see,
And unto others show it: for in heaven
One places it, and one on earth below."
Then heaving forth a deep and audible sigh,
"Brother!" he thus began, "the world is blind;
And thou in truth com'st from it. Ye, who live,
Do so each cause refer to heav'n above,
E'en as its motion of necessity
Drew with it all that moves. If this were so,
Free choice in you were none; nor justice would
There should be joy for virtue, woe for ill.
Your movements have their primal bent from heaven;
Not all; yet said I all; what then ensues?
Light have ye still to follow evil or good,
And of the will free power, which, if it stand
Firm and unwearied in Heav'n's first assay,
Conquers at last, so it be cherish'd well,
Triumphant over all. To mightier force,
To better nature subject, ye abide
Free, not constrain'd by that, which forms in you
The reasoning mind uninfluenc'd of the stars.
If then the present race of mankind err,
Seek in yourselves the cause, and find it there.
Herein thou shalt confess me no false spy.
"Forth from his plastic hand, who charm'd beholds
Her image ere she yet exist, the soul
Comes like a babe, that wantons sportively
Weeping and laughing in its wayward moods,
As artless and as ignorant of aught,
Save that her Maker being one who dwells
With gladness ever, willingly she turns
To whate'er yields her joy. Of some slight good
The flavour soon she tastes; and, snar'd by that,
With fondness she pursues it, if no guide
Recall, no rein direct her wand'ring course.
Hence it behov'd, the law should be a curb;
A sovereign hence behov'd, whose piercing view
Might mark at least the fortress and main tower
Of the true city. Laws indeed there are:
But who is he observes them? None; not he,
Who goes before, the shepherd of the flock,
Who chews the cud but doth not cleave the hoof.
Therefore the multitude, who see their guide
Strike at the very good they covet most,
Feed there and look no further. Thus the cause
Is not corrupted nature in yourselves,
But ill-conducting, that hath turn'd the world
To evil. Rome, that turn'd it unto good,
Was wont to boast two suns, whose several beams
Cast light on either way, the world's and God's.
One since hath quench'd the other; and the sword
Is grafted on the crook; and so conjoin'd
Each must perforce decline to worse, unaw'd
By fear of other. If thou doubt me, mark
The blade: each herb is judg'd of by its seed.
That land, through which Adice and the Po
Their waters roll, was once the residence
Of courtesy and velour, ere the day,
That frown'd on Frederick; now secure may pass
Those limits, whosoe'er hath left, for shame,
To talk with good men, or come near their haunts.
Three aged ones are still found there, in whom
The old time chides the new: these deem it long
Ere God restore them to a better world:
The good Gherardo, of Palazzo he
Conrad, and Guido of Castello, nam'd
In Gallic phrase more fitly the plain Lombard.
On this at last conclude. The church of Rome,
Mixing two governments that ill assort,
Hath miss'd her footing, fall'n into the mire,
And there herself and burden much defil'd."
"O Marco!" I replied, shine arguments
Convince me: and the cause I now discern
Why of the heritage no portion came
To Levi's offspring. But resolve me this
Who that Gherardo is, that as thou sayst
Is left a sample of the perish'd race,
And for rebuke to this untoward age?"
"Either thy words," said he, "deceive; or else
Are meant to try me; that thou, speaking Tuscan,
Appear'st not to have heard of good Gherado;
The sole addition that, by which I know him;
Unless I borrow'd from his daughter Gaia
Another name to grace him. God be with you.
I bear you company no more. Behold
The dawn with white ray glimm'ring through the mist.
I must away--the angel comes--ere he
Appear." He said, and would not hear me more.
CANTO XVII
Call to remembrance, reader, if thou e'er
Hast, on a mountain top, been ta'en by cloud,
Through which thou saw'st no better, than the mole
Doth through opacous membrane; then, whene'er
The wat'ry vapours dense began to melt
Into thin air, how faintly the sun's sphere
Seem'd wading through them; so thy nimble thought
May image, how at first I re-beheld
The sun, that bedward now his couch o'erhung.
Thus with my leader's feet still equaling pace
From forth that cloud I came, when now expir'd
The parting beams from off the nether shores.
O quick and forgetive power! that sometimes dost
So rob us of ourselves, we take no mark
Though round about us thousand trumpets clang!
What moves thee, if the senses stir not? Light
Kindled in heav'n, spontaneous, self-inform'd,
Or likelier gliding down with swift illapse
By will divine. Portray'd before me came
The traces of her dire impiety,
Whose form was chang'd into the bird, that most
Delights itself in song: and here my mind
Was inwardly so wrapt, it gave no place
To aught that ask'd admittance from without. |
10,240 |
Produced by David Widger
QUOTES AND IMAGES FROM JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY
HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS
By John Lothrop Motley
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Motley's History of the Netherlands
Title Page
The Siege of Antwerp
Prince William of Orange-Nassau (William the Silent)
The Earl of Leichester
Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma
John of Barneveld
Bookcover
The Hague
1566, the last year of peace
A pleasantry called voluntary
contributions or benevolences
A good lawyer is a bad Christian
A terrible animal, indeed, is an
unbridled woman
A common hatred united them, for a time
at least
A penal offence in the republic to talk
of peace or of truce
A most fatal success
A country disinherited by nature of its
rights
A free commonwealth--was thought an
absurdity
A hard bargain when both parties are
losers
A burnt cat fears the fire
A despot really keeps no accounts, nor
need to do so
A sovereign remedy for the disease of
liberty
A pusillanimous peace, always possible
at any period
A man incapable of fatigue, of
perplexity, or of fear
A truce he honestly considered a
pitfall of destruction
A great historian is almost a statesman
Able men should be by design and of
purpose suppressed
About equal to that of England at the
same period
Absolution for incest was afforded at
thirty-six livres
Abstinence from unproductive
consumption
Abstinence from inquisition into
consciences and private parlour
Absurd affectation of candor
Accepting a new tyrant in place of the
one so long ago deposed
Accustomed to the faded gallantries
Achieved the greatness to which they
had not been born
Act of Uniformity required <DW7>s to
assist
Acts of violence which under pretext of
religion
Admired or despised, as if he or she
were our contemporary
Adulation for inferiors whom they
despise
Advanced orthodox party-Puritans
Advancing age diminished his tendency
to other carnal pleasures
Advised his Majesty to bestow an annual
bribe upon Lord Burleigh
Affecting to discredit them
Affection of his friends and the wrath
of his enemies
Age when toleration was a vice
Agreements were valid only until he
should repent
Alas! the benighted victims of
superstition hugged their chains
Alas! we must always have something to
persecute
Alas! one never knows when one becomes
a bore
Alexander's exuberant discretion
All Italy was in his hands
All fellow-worms together
All business has been transacted with
open doors
All reading of the scriptures
(forbidden)
All the majesty which decoration could
impart
All denounced the image-breaking
All claimed the privilege of
persecuting
All his disciples and converts are to
be punished with death
All Protestants were beheaded, burned,
or buried alive
All classes are conservative by
necessity
All the ministers and great
functionaries received presents
All offices were sold to the highest
bidder
Allow her to seek a profit from his
misfortune
Allowed the demon of religious hatred
to enter into its body
Almost infinite power of the meanest of
passions
Already looking forward to the revolt
of the slave States
Altercation between Luther and Erasmus,
upon predestination
Always less apt to complain of
irrevocable events
American Unholy Inquisition
Amuse them with this peace negotiation
An inspiring and delightful recreation
(auto-da-fe)
An hereditary papacy, a perpetual
pope-emperor
An age when to think was a crime
An unjust God, himself the origin of
sin
An order of things in which mediocrity
is at a premium
Anarchy which was deemed inseparable
from a non-regal form
Anatomical study of what has ceased to
exist
And give advice. Of that, although
always a spendthrift
And now the knife of another priest-led
fanatic
And thus this gentle and heroic spirit
took its flight
Angle with their dissimulation as with
a hook
Announced his approaching marriage with
the Virgin Mary
Annual harvest of iniquity by which his
revenue was increased
Anxiety to do nothing wrong, the
senators did nothing at all
Are apt to discharge such obligations--
(by) ingratitude
Are wont to hang their piety on the
bell-rope
Argument in a circle
Argument is exhausted and either action
or compromise begins
Aristocracy of God's elect
Arminianism
Arrested on suspicion, tortured till
confession
Arrive at their end by fraud, when
violence will not avail them
Artillery
As logical as men in their cups are
prone to be
As the old woman had told the Emperor
Adrian
As if they were free will not make them
free
As lieve see the Spanish as the
Calvinistic inquisition
As ready as <DW7>s, with age, fagot,
and excommunication
As with his own people, keeping no
back-door open
As neat a deception by telling the
truth
At a blow decapitated France
At length the twig was becoming the
tree
Atheist, a tyrant, because he resisted
dictation from the clergy
Attachment to a half-drowned land and
to a despised religion
Attacked by the poetic mania
Attacking the authority of the pope
Attempting to swim in two waters
Auction sales of judicial ermine
Baiting his hook a little to his
appetite
Barbara Blomberg, washerwoman of
Ratisbon
Batavian legion was the imperial body
guard
Beacons in the upward path of mankind
Beating the Netherlanders into
Christianity
Beautiful damsel, who certainly did not
lack suitors
Because he had been successful (hated)
Becoming more learned, and therefore
more ignorant
Been already crimination and
recrimination more than enough
Before morning they had sacked thirty
churches
Began to scatter golden arguments with
a lavish hand
Beggars of the sea, as these
privateersmen designated themselves
Behead, torture, burn alive, and bury
alive all heretics
Being the true religion, proved by so
many testimonies
Believed in the blessed advent of
peace
Beneficent and charitable purposes
(War)
best defence in this case is little
better than an impeachment
Bestowing upon others what was not his
property
Better to be governed by magistrates
than mobs
Better is the restlessness of a noble
ambition
Beware of a truce even more than of a
peace
Bigotry which was the prevailing
characteristic of the age
Bishop is a consecrated pirate
Blessed freedom from speech-making
Blessing of God upon the Devil's work
Bold reformer had only a new dogma in
place of the old ones
Bomb-shells were not often used
although known for a century
Breath, time, and paper were profusely
wasted and nothing gained
Brethren, parents, and children, having
wives in common
Bribed the Deity
Bungling diplomatists and credulous
dotards
Burned, strangled, beheaded, or buried
alive (100,000)
Burned alive if they objected to
transubstantiation
Burning with bitter revenge for all the
favours he had received
Burning of Servetus at Geneva
Business of an officer to fight, of a
general to conquer
But the habit of dissimulation was
inveterate
But after all this isn't a war It is a
revolution
But not thoughtlessly indulgent to the
boy
Butchery in the name of Christ was
suspended
By turns, we all govern and are
governed
Calling a peace perpetual can never
make it so
Calumny is often a stronger and more
lasting power than disdain
Can never be repaired and never
sufficiently regretted
Canker of a long peace
Care neither for words nor menaces in
any matter
Cargo of imaginary gold dust was
exported from the James River
Casting up the matter "as pinchingly as
possibly might be"
Casual outbursts of eternal friendship
Certain number of powers, almost
exactly equal to each other
Certainly it was worth an eighty years'
war
Changed his positions and contradicted
himself day by day
Character of brave men to act, not to
expect
Charles the Fifth autocrat of half the
world
Chief seafaring nations of the world
were already protestant
Chieftains are dwarfed in the
estimation of followers
Children who had never set foot on the
shore
Christian sympathy and a small
assistance not being sufficient
Chronicle of events must not be
anticipated
Claimed the praise of moderation that
their demands were so few
Cold water of conventional and
commonplace encouragement
College of "peace-makers," who wrangled
more than all
Colonel Ysselstein, "dismissed for a
homicide or two"
Compassing a country's emancipation
through a series of defeats
Conceding it subsequently, after much
contestation
Conceit, and procrastination which
marked the royal character
Conciliation when war of extermination
was intended
Conclusive victory for the allies
seemed as predestined
Conde and Coligny
Condemned first and inquired upon after
Condemning all heretics to death
Conflicting claims of prerogative and
conscience
Conformity of Governments to the
principles of justice
Confused conferences, where neither
party was entirely sincere
Considerable reason, even if there were
but little justice
Considerations of state have never yet
failed the axe
Considerations of state as a reason
Considered it his special mission in
the world to mediate
Consign to the flames all prisoners
whatever (Papal letter)
Constant vigilance is the price of
liberty
Constitute themselves at once universal
legatees
Constitutional governments, move in the
daylight
Consumer would pay the tax, supposing
it were ever paid at all
Contained within itself the germs of a
larger liberty
Contempt for treaties however solemnly
ratified
Continuing to believe himself
invincible and infallible
Converting beneficent commerce into
baleful gambling
Could handle an argument as well as a
sword
Could paint a character with the ruddy
life-blood coloring
Could not be both judge and party in
the suit
Could do a little more than what was
possible
Country would bear his loss with
fortitude
Courage of despair inflamed the French
Courage and semblance of cheerfulness,
with despair in his heart
Court fatigue, to scorn pleasure
Covered now with the satirical dust of
centuries
Craft meaning, simply, strength
Created one child for damnation and
another for salvation
Crescents in their caps: Rather Turkish
than Popish
Crimes and cruelties such as Christians
only could imagine
Criminal whose guilt had been
established by the hot iron
Criminals buying Paradise for money
Cruelties exercised upon monks and
<DW7>s
Crusades made great improvement in the
condition of the serfs
Culpable audacity and exaggerated
prudence
Customary oaths, to be kept with the
customary conscientiousness
Daily widening schism between Lutherans
and Calvinists
Deadliest of sins, the liberty of
conscience
Deadly hatred of Puritans in England
and Holland
Deal with his enemy as if sure to
become his friend
Death rather than life with a false
acknowledgment of guilt
Decline a bribe or interfere with the
private sale of places
Decrees for burning, strangling, and
burying alive
Deeply criminal in the eyes of all
religious parties
Defeated garrison ever deserved more
respect from friend or foe
Defect of enjoying the flattery, of his
inferiors in station
Delay often fights better than an army
against a foreign invader
Demanding peace and bread at any price
Democratic instincts of the ancient
German savages
Denies the utility of prayers for the
dead
Denounced as an obstacle to peace
Depths theological party spirit could
descend
Depths of credulity men in all ages can
sink
Despised those who were grateful
Despot by birth and inclination
(Charles V.)
Determined to bring the very name of
liberty into contempt
Devote himself to his gout and to his
fair young wife
Difference between liberties and
liberty
Difficult for one friend to advise
another in three matters
Diplomacy of Spain and Rome--meant
simply dissimulation
Diplomatic adroitness consists mainly
in the power to deceive
Disciple of Simon Stevinus
Dismay of our friends and the
gratification of our enemies
Disordered, and unknit state needs no
shaking, but propping
Disposed to throat-cutting by the
ministers of the Gospel
Dispute between Luther and Zwingli
concerning the real presence
Disputing the eternal damnation of
young children
Dissenters were as bigoted as the
orthodox
Dissimulation and delay
Distinguished for his courage, his
cruelty, and his corpulence
Divine right of kings
Divine right
Do you want peace or war? I am ready
for either
Doctrine of predestination in its
sternest and strictest sense
Don John of Austria
Don John was at liberty to be King of
England and Scotland
Done nothing so long as aught remained
to do
Drank of the water in which, he had
washed
Draw a profit out of the necessities of
this state
During this, whole war, we have never
seen the like
Dying at so very inconvenient a moment
Each in its turn becoming orthodox, and
therefore persecuting
Eat their own children than to forego
one high mass
Eight thousand human beings were
murdered
Elizabeth, though convicted, could
always confute
Elizabeth (had not) the faintest idea
of religious freedom
Eloquence of the biggest guns
Emperor of Japan addressed him as his
brother monarch
Emulation is not capability
Endure every hardship but hunger
Enemy of all compulsion of the human
conscience
England hated the Netherlands
English Puritans
Englishmen and Hollanders preparing to
cut each other's throats
Enmity between Lutherans and Calvinists
Enormous wealth (of the Church) which
engendered the hatred
Enriched generation after generation by
wealthy penitence
Enthusiasm could not supply the place
of experience
Envying those whose sufferings had
already been terminated
Epernon, the true murderer of Henry
Erasmus of Rotterdam
Erasmus encourages the bold friar
Establish not freedom for Calvinism,
but freedom for conscience
Estimating his character and judging
his judges
Even the virtues of James were his
worst enemies
Even to grant it slowly is to deny it
utterly
Even for the rape of God's mother, if
that were possible
Ever met disaster with so cheerful a
smile
Ever-swarming nurseries of mercenary
warriors
Every one sees what you seem, few
perceive what you are
Everybody should mind his own business
Everything else may happen This alone
must happen
Everything was conceded, but nothing
was secured
Evil is coming, the sooner it arrives
the better
Evil has the advantage of rapidly
assuming many shapes
Excited with the appearance of a gem of
true philosophy
Excused by their admirers for their
shortcomings
Excuses to disarm the criticism he had
some reason to fear
Executions of Huss and Jerome of Prague
Exorcising the devil by murdering his
supposed victims
Extraordinary capacity for yielding to
gentle violence
Fable of divine right is invented to
sanction the system
Faction has rarely worn a more
mischievous aspect
Famous fowl in every pot
Fanatics of the new religion denounced
him as a godless man
Fate, free will, or absolute
foreknowledge
Father Cotton, who was only too ready
to betray the secrets
Fear of the laugh of the world at its
sincerity
Fed on bear's liver, were nearly
poisoned to death
Felix Mants, the anabaptist, is drowned
at Zurich
Fellow worms had been writhing for half
a century in the dust
Ferocity which even Christians could
not have surpassed
Few, even prelates were very dutiful to
the pope
Fiction of apostolic authority to bind
and loose
Fifty thousand persons in the provinces
(put to death)
Financial opposition to tyranny is apt
to be unanimous
Find our destruction in our immoderate
desire for peace
Fishermen and river raftsmen become
ocean adventurers
Fitted "To warn, to comfort, and
command"
Fitter to obey than to command
Five great rivers hold the Netherland
territory in their coils
Flattery is a sweet and intoxicating
potion
Fled from the land of oppression to the
land of liberty
Fool who useth not wit because he hath
it not
For myself I am unworthy of the honor
(of martyrdom)
For faithful service, evil recompense
For women to lament, for men to
remember
For us, looking back upon the Past,
which was then the Future
For his humanity towards the conquered
garrisons (censured)
Forbidding the wearing of mourning at
all
Forbids all private assemblies for
devotion
Force clerical--the power of clerks
Foremost to shake off the fetters of
superstition
Forget those who have done them good
service
Forgiving spirit on the part of the
malefactor
Fortune's buffets and rewards can take
with equal thanks
Four weeks' holiday--the first in
eleven years
France was mourning Henry and waiting
for Richelieu
French seem madmen, and are wise
Friendly advice still more intolerable
Full of precedents and declamatory
commonplaces
Furious fanaticism
Furious mob set upon the house of Rem
Bischop
Furnished, in addition, with a force of
two thousand prostitutes
Future world as laid down by rival
priesthoods
Gallant and ill-fated Lamoral Egmont
Gaul derided the Roman soldiers as a
band of pigmies
German-Lutheran sixteenth-century idea
of religious freedom
German finds himself sober--he believes
himself ill
German Highland and the German
Netherland
Gigantic vices are proudly pointed to
as the noblest
Give him advice if he asked it, and
money when he required
Glory could be put neither into pocket
nor stomach
God has given absolute power to no
mortal man
God, whose cause it was, would be
pleased to give good weather
God alone can protect us against those
whom we trust
God of wrath who had decreed the
extermination of all unbeliever
God of vengeance, of jealousy, and of
injustice
God Save the King! It was the last
time
Gold was the only passkey to justice
Gomarites accused the Arminians of
being more lax than <DW7>s
Govern under the appearance of obeying
Great transactions of a reign are
sometimes paltry things
Great science of political equilibrium
Great Privilege, the Magna Charta of
Holland
Great error of despising their enemy
Great war of religion and politics was
postponed
Great battles often leave the world
where they found it
Guarantees of forgiveness for every
imaginable sin
Guilty of no other crime than adhesion
to the Catholic faith
Habeas corpus
Had industry been honoured instead of
being despised
Haereticis non servanda fides
Hair and beard unshorn, according to
ancient Batavian custom
Halcyon days of ban, book and candle
Hanged for having eaten meat-soup upon
Friday
Hanging of Mary Dyer at Boston
Hangman is not the most appropriate
teacher of religion
Happy to glass themselves in so
brilliant a mirror
Hard at work, pouring sand through
their sieves
Hardly a distinguished family in Spain
not placed in mourning
Hardly a sound Protestant policy
anywhere but in Holland
Hardly an inch of French soil that had
not two possessors
Having conjugated his paradigm
conscientiously
He had omitted to execute heretics
He did his best to be friends with all
the world
He was a sincere bigot
He that stands let him see that he does
not fall
He was not always careful in the
construction of his sentences
He would have no persecution of the
opposite creed
He came as a conqueror not as a
mediator
He who spreads the snare always tumbles
into the ditch himself
He who would have all may easily lose
all
He knew men, especially he knew their
weaknesses
He had never enjoyed social converse,
except at long intervals
He would have no Calvinist inquisition
set up in its place
He who confessed well was absolved well
He did his work, but he had not his
reward
He sat a great while at a time. He had
a genius for sitting
He was not imperial of aspect on canvas
or coin
He often spoke of popular rights with
contempt
He spent more time at table than the
Bearnese in sleep
Heidelberg Catechism were declared to
be infallible
Henry the Huguenot as the champion of
the Council of Trent
Her teeth black, her bosom white and
liberally exposed (Eliz.)
Heresy was a plant of early growth in
the Netherlands
Heretics to the English Church were
persecuted
Hibernian mode of expressing himself
High officers were doing the work of
private, soldiers
Highborn demagogues in that as in every
age affect adulation
Highest were not necessarily the least
slimy
His inordinate arrogance
His own past triumphs seemed now his
greatest enemies
His imagination may have assisted his
memory in the task
His insolence intolerable
His learning was a reproach to the
ignorant
His invectives were, however, much
stronger than his arguments
His personal graces, for the moment,
took the rank of virtues
His dogged, continuous capacity for
work
Historical scepticism may shut its eyes
to evidence
History is a continuous whole of which
we see only fragments
History is but made up of a few
scattered fragments
History never forgets and never
forgives
History has not too many really
important and emblematic men
History shows how feeble are barriers
of paper
Holland was afraid to give a part,
although offering the whole
Holland, England, and America, are all
links of one chain
Holy Office condemned all the
inhabitants of the Netherlands
Holy institution called the Inquisition
Honor good patriots, and to support
them in venial errors
Hope delayed was but a cold and meagre
consolation
Hope deferred, suddenly changing to
despair
How many more injured by becoming bad
copies of a bad ideal
Hugo Grotius
Human nature in its meanness and shame
Human ingenuity to inflict human misery
Human fat esteemed the sovereignst
remedy (for wounds)
Humanizing effect of science upon the
barbarism of war
Humble ignorance as the safest creed
Humility which was but the cloak to his
pride
Hundred thousand men had laid down
their lives by her decree
I did never see any man behave himself
as he did
I know how to console myself
I am a king that will be ever known not
to fear any but God
I hope and I fear
I would carry the wood to burn my own
son withal
I regard my country's profit, not my
own
I will never live, to see the end of my
poverty
Idea of freedom in commerce has dawned
upon nations
Idiotic principle of sumptuary
legislation
Idle, listless, dice-playing, begging,
filching vagabonds
If he had little, he could live upon
little
If to do be as grand as to imagine what
it were good to do
If he has deserved it, let them strike
off his head
Ignoble facts which strew the highways
of political life
Ignorance is the real enslaver of
mankind
Imagined, and did the work of truth
Imagining that they held the world's
destiny in their hands
Impatience is often on the part of the
non-combatants
Implication there was much, of
assertion very little
Imposed upon the multitudes, with whom
words were things
Impossible it is to practise arithmetic
with disturbed brains
Impossible it was to invent terms of
adulation too gross
In revolutions the men who win are
those who are in earnest
In character and general talents he was
beneath mediocrity
In times of civil war, to be neutral is
to be nothing
In Holland, the clergy had neither
influence nor seats
In this he was much behind his age or
before it
Incur the risk of being charged with
forwardness than neglect
Indecision did the work of indolence
Indignant that heretics had been
suffered to hang
Individuals walking in advance of their
age
Indoor home life imprisons them in the
domestic circle
Indulging them frequently with oracular
advice
Inevitable fate of talking castles and
listening ladies
Infamy of diplomacy, when diplomacy is
unaccompanied by honesty
Infinite capacity for pecuniary
absorption
Informer, in case of conviction, should
be entitled to one half
Inhabited by the savage tribes called
Samoyedes
Innocent generation, to atone for the
sins of their forefathers
Inquisition of the Netherlands is much
more pitiless
Inquisition was not a fit subject for a
compromise
Inquisitors enough; but there were no
light vessels in The Armada
Insane cruelty, both in the cause of
the Wrong and the Right
Insensible to contumely, and incapable
of accepting a rebuff
Insinuate that his orders had been
hitherto misunderstood
Insinuating suspicions when unable to
furnish evidence
Intellectual dandyisms of Bulwer
Intelligence, science, and industry
were accounted degrading
Intense bigotry of conviction
Intentions of a government which did
not know its own intentions
International friendship, the
self-interest of each
Intolerable tendency to puns
Invaluable gift which no human being
can acquire, authority
Invented such Christian formulas as
these (a curse)
Inventing long speeches for historical
characters
Invincible Armada had not only been
vanquished but annihilated
Irresistible force in collision with an
insuperable resistance
It was the true religion, and there was
none other
It is not desirable to disturb much of
that learned dust
It had not yet occurred to him that he
was married
It isn't strategists that are wanted
so much as believers
It is certain that the English hate us
(Sully)
Its humility, seemed sufficiently
ironical
James of England, who admired, envied,
and hated Henry
Jealousy, that potent principle
Jesuit Mariana--justifying the killing
of excommunicated kings
John Castel, who had stabbed Henry IV.
John Wier, a physician of Grave
John Robinson
John Quincy Adams
Judas Maccabaeus
July 1st, two Augustine monks were
burned at Brussels
Justified themselves in a solemn
consumption of time
Kindly shadow of oblivion
King who thought it furious madness to
resist the enemy
King had issued a general repudiation
of his debts
King set a price upon his head as a
rebel
King of Zion to be pinched to death
with red-hot tongs
King was often to be something much
less or much worse
King's definite and final intentions,
varied from day to day
Labored under the disadvantage of never
having existed
Labour was esteemed dishonourable
Language which is ever living because
it is dead
Languor of fatigue, rather than any
sincere desire for peace
Leading motive with all was supposed to
be religion
Learn to tremble as little at
priestcraft as at swordcraft
Leave not a single man alive in the
city, and to burn every house
Let us fool these poor creatures to
their heart's content
Licences accorded by the crown to carry
slaves to America
Life of nations and which we call the
Past
Like a man holding a wolf by the ears
Little army of Maurice was becoming the
model for Europe
Little grievances would sometimes
inflame more than vast
Local self-government which is the
life-blood of liberty
Logic of the largest battalions
Logic is rarely the quality on which
kings pride themselves
Logical and historical argument of
unmerciful length
Long succession of so many illustrious
obscure
Longer they delay it, the less easy
will they find it
Look through the cloud of dissimulation
Look for a sharp war, or a miserable
peace
Looking down upon her struggle with
benevolent indifference
Lord was better pleased with adverbs
than nouns
Loud, nasal, dictatorial tone, not at
all agreeable
Louis XIII.
Loving only the persons who flattered
him
Ludicrous gravity
Luther's axiom, that thoughts are
toll-free
Lutheran princes of Germany, detested
the doctrines of Geneva
Luxury had blunted the fine instincts
of patriotism
Made peace--and had been at war ever
since
Made no breach in royal and Roman
infallibility
Made to swing to and fro over a slow
fire
Magistracy at that moment seemed to
mean the sword
Magnificent hopefulness
Maintaining the attitude of an injured
but forgiving Christian
Make sheep of yourselves, and the wolf
will eat you
Make the very name of man a term of
reproach
Man is never so convinced of his own
wisdom
Man who cannot dissemble is unfit to
reign
Man had only natural wrongs (No natural
rights)
Man had no rights at all He was
property
Mankind were naturally inclined to
calumny
Manner in which an insult shall be
dealt with
Many greedy priests, of lower rank, had
turned shop-keepers
Maritime heretics
Matter that men may rather pray for
than hope for
Matters little by what name a
government is called
Meantime the second civil war in France
had broken out
Mediocrity is at a premium
Meet around a green table except as
fencers in the field
Men were loud in reproof, who had been
silent
Men fought as if war was the normal
condition of humanity
Men who meant what they said and said
what they meant
Mendacity may always obtain over
innocence and credulity
Military virtue in the support of an
infamous cause
Misanthropical, sceptical philosopher
Misery had come not from their being
enemies
Mistake to stumble a second time over
the same stone
Mistakes might occur from occasional
deviations into sincerity
Mockery of negotiation in which nothing
could be negotiated
Modern statesmanship, even while it
practises, condemns
Monasteries, burned their invaluable
libraries
Mondragon was now ninety-two years old
Moral nature, undergoes less change
than might be hoped
More accustomed to do well than to
speak well
More easily, as he had no intention of
keeping the promise
More catholic than the pope
More fiercely opposed to each other
than to <DW7>s
More apprehension of fraud than of
force
Most detestable verses that even he had
ever composed
Most entirely truthful child he had
ever seen
Motley was twice sacrificed to personal
feelings
Much as the blind or the deaf towards
colour or music
Myself seeing of it methinketh that I
dream
Names history has often found it
convenient to mark its epochs
National character, not the work of a
few individuals
Nations tied to the pinafores of
children in the nursery
Natural to judge only by the result
Natural tendency to suspicion of a
timid man
Nearsighted liberalism
Necessary to make a virtue of necessity
Necessity of extirpating heresy, root
and branch
Necessity of deferring to powerful
sovereigns
Necessity of kingship
Negotiated as if they were all immortal
Neighbour's blazing roof was likely
soon to fire their own
Neither kings nor governments are apt
to value logic
Neither wished the convocation, while
both affected an eagerness
Neither ambitious nor greedy
Never peace well made, he observed,
without a mighty war
Never did statesmen know better how not
to do
Never lack of fishers in troubled
waters
New Years Day in England, 11th January
by the New Style
Night brings counsel
Nine syllables that which could be more
forcibly expressed in on
No one can testify but a householder
No man can be neutral in civil
contentions
No law but the law of the longest purse
No two books, as he said, ever injured
each other
No retrenchments in his pleasures of
women, dogs, and buildings
No great man can reach the highest
position in our government
No man is safe (from news reporters)
No man could reveal secrets which he
did not know
No authority over an army which they
did not pay
No man pretended to think of the State
No synod had a right to claim
Netherlanders as slaves
No qualities whatever but birth and
audacity to recommend him
No generation is long-lived enough to
reap the harvest
No man ever understood the art of
bribery more thoroughly
No calumny was too senseless to be
invented
None but God to compel me to say more
than I choose to say
Nor is the spirit of the age to be
pleaded in defence
Not a friend of giving details larger
than my ascertained facts
Not distinguished for their docility
Not to let the grass grow under their
feet
Not a single acquaintance in the place,
and we glory in the fact
Not safe for politicians to call each
other hard names
Not his custom nor that of his
councillors to go to bed
Not of the genus Reptilia, and could
neither creep nor crouch
Not strong enough to sustain many more
such victories
Not to fall asleep in the shade of a
peace negotiation
Not many more than two hundred
Catholics were executed
Not upon words but upon actions
Not for a new doctrine, but for liberty
of conscience
Not of the stuff of which martyrs are
made (Erasmus)
Not so successful as he was picturesque
Nothing could equal Alexander's
fidelity, but his perfidy
Nothing cheap, said a citizen bitterly,
but sermons
Nothing was so powerful as religious
difference
Notre Dame at Antwerp
Nowhere was the persecution of heretics
more relentless
Nowhere were so few unproductive
consumers
O God! what does man come to!
Obscure were thought capable of dying
natural deaths
Obstinate, of both sexes, to be burned
Octogenarian was past work and past
mischief
Of high rank but of lamentably low
capacity
Often much tyranny in democracy
Often necessary to be blind and deaf
Oldenbarneveld; afterwards so
illustrious
On the first day four thousand men and
women were slaughtered
One-half to Philip and one-half to the
Pope and Venice (slaves)
One-third of Philip's effective navy
was thus destroyed
One golden grain of wit into a sheet of
infinite platitude
One could neither cry nor laugh within
the Spanish dominions
One of the most contemptible and
mischievous of kings (James I)
Only healthy existence of the French
was in a state of war
Only true religion
Only citadel against a tyrant and a
conqueror was distrust
Only kept alive by milk, which he drank
from a woman's breast
Only foundation fit for history,--
original contemporary document
Opening an abyss between government and
people
Opposed the subjection of the
magistracy by the priesthood
Oration, fertile in rhetoric and barren
in facts
Orator was, however, delighted with his
own performance
Others that do nothing, do all, and
have all the thanks
Others go to battle, says the
historian, these go to war
Our pot had not gone to the fire as
often
Our mortal life is but a string of
guesses at the future
Outdoing himself in dogmatism and
inconsistency
Over excited, when his prejudices were
roughly handled
Panegyrists of royal houses in the
sixteenth century
Pardon for crimes already committed, or
about to be committed
Pardon for murder, if not by poison,
was cheaper
Partisans wanted not accommodation but
victory
Party hatred was not yet glutted with
the blood it had drunk
Passion is a bad schoolmistress for the
memory
Past was once the Present, and once the
Future
Pathetic dying words of Anne Boleyn
Patriotism seemed an unimaginable idea
Pauper client who dreamed of justice at
the hands of law
Paving the way towards atheism (by
toleration)
Paying their passage through, purgatory
Peace founded on the only secure basis,
equality of strength
Peace was desirable, it might be more
dangerous than war
Peace seemed only a process for
arriving at war
Peace and quietness is brought into a
most dangerous estate
Peace-at-any-price party
Peace, in reality, was war in its worst
shape
Peace was unattainable, war was
impossible, truce was inevitable
Peace would be destruction
Perfection of insolence
Perpetually dropping small innuendos
like pebbles
Persons who discussed religious matters
were to be put to death
Petty passion for contemptible details
Philip II. gave the world work enough
Philip of Macedon, who considered no
city impregnable
Philip IV.
Philip, who did not often say a great
deal in a few words
Picturesqueness of crime
Placid unconsciousness on his part of
defeat
Plain enough that he is telling his own
story
Planted the inquisition in the
Netherlands
Played so long with other men's
characters and good name
Plea of infallibility and of authority
soon becomes ridiculous
Plundering the country which they came
to protect
Poisoning, for example, was absolved
for eleven ducats
Pope excommunicated him as a heretic
Pope and emperor maintain both
positions with equal logic
Portion of these revenues savoured much
of black-mail
Possible to do, only because we see
that it has been done
Pot-valiant hero
Power the poison of which it is so
difficult to resist
Power to read and write helped the
clergy to much wealth
Power grudged rather than given to the
deputies
Practised successfully the talent of
silence
Pray here for satiety, (said Cecil)
than ever think of variety
Preferred an open enemy to a
treacherous protector
Premature zeal was prejudicial to the
cause
Presents of considerable sums of money
to the negotiators made
Presumption in entitling themselves
Christian
Preventing wrong, or violence, even
towards an enemy
Priests shall control the state or the
state govern the priests
Princes show what they have in them at
twenty-five or never
Prisoners were immediately hanged
Privileged to beg, because ashamed to
work
Proceeds of his permission to eat meat
on Fridays
Proclaiming the virginity of the
Virgin's mother
Procrastination was always his first
refuge
Progress should be by a spiral movement
Promises which he knew to be binding
only upon the weak
Proposition made by the wolves to the
sheep, in the fable
Protect the common tranquillity by
blood, purse, and life
Provided not one Huguenot be left alive
in France
Public which must have a slain
reputation to devour
Purchased absolution for crime and
smoothed a pathway to heaven
Puritanism in Holland was a very
different thing from England
Put all those to the torture out of
whom anything can be got
Putting the cart before the oxen
Queen is entirely in the hands of Spain
and the priests
Questioning nothing, doubting nothing,
fearing nothing
Quite mistaken: in supposing himself
the Emperor's child
Radical, one who would uproot, is a man
whose trade is dangerous
Rarely able to command, having never
learned to obey
Rashness alternating with hesitation
Rather a wilderness to reign over than
a single heretic
Readiness to strike and bleed at any
moment in her cause
Readiness at any moment to defend
dearly won liberties
Rearing gorgeous temples where paupers
are to kneel
Reasonable to pay our debts rather than
to repudiate them
Rebuked him for his obedience
Rebuked the bigotry which had already
grown
Recall of a foreign minister for
alleged misconduct in office
Reformer who becomes in his turn a
bigot is doubly odious
Reformers were capable of giving a
lesson even to inquisitors
Religion was made the strumpet of
Political Ambition
Religion was rapidly ceasing to be the
line of demarcation
Religion was not to be changed like a
shirt
Religious toleration, which is a phrase
of insult
Religious persecution of Protestants by
Protestants
Repentance, as usual, had come many
hours too late
Repentant males to be executed with the
sword
Repentant females to be buried alive
Repose under one despot guaranteed to
them by two others
Repose in the other world, "Repos
ailleurs"
Republic, which lasted two centuries
Republics are said to be ungrateful
Repudiation of national debts was never
heard of before
Requires less mention than Philip III
himself
Resolve to maintain the civil authority
over the military
Resolved thenceforth to adopt a system
of ignorance
Respect for differences in religious
opinions
Result was both to abandon the
provinces and to offend Philip
Revocable benefices or feuds
Rich enough to be worth robbing
Righteous to kill their own children
Road to Paris lay through the gates of
Rome
Rose superior to his doom and took
captivity captive
Round game of deception, in which
nobody was deceived
Royal plans should be enforced
adequately or abandoned entirely
Ruinous honors
Rules adopted in regard to pretenders
to crowns
Sacked and drowned ten infant princes
Sacrificed by the Queen for faithfully
obeying her orders
Safest citadel against an invader and a
tyrant is distrust
Sages of every generation, read the
future like a printed scroll
Saint Bartholomew's day
Sale of absolutions was the source of
large fortunes to the priests
Same conjury over ignorant baron and
cowardly hind
Scaffold was the sole refuge from the
rack
Scepticism, which delights in reversing
the judgment of centuries
Schism in the Church had become a
public fact
Schism which existed in the general
Reformed Church
Science of reigning was the science of
lying
Scoffing at the ceremonies and
sacraments of the Church
Secret drowning was substituted for
public burning
Secure the prizes of war without the
troubles and dangers
Security is dangerous
Seeking protection for and against the
people
Seem as if born to make the idea of
royalty ridiculous
Seemed bent on self-destruction
Seems but a change of masks, of
costume, of phraseology
Sees the past in the pitiless light of
the present
Self-assertion--the healthful but not
engaging attribute
Self-educated man, as he had been a
self-taught boy
Selling the privilege of eating eggs
upon fast-days
Senectus edam maorbus est
Sent them word by carrier pigeons
Sentiment of Christian self-complacency
Sentimentality that seems highly
apocryphal
Served at their banquets by hosts of
lackeys on their knees
Seven Spaniards were killed, and seven
thousand rebels
Sewers which have ever run beneath
decorous Christendom
Shall Slavery die, or the great
Republic?
Sharpened the punishment for reading
the scriptures in private
She relieth on a hope that will deceive
her
She declined to be his procuress
She knew too well how women were
treated in that country
Shift the mantle of religion from one
shoulder to the other
Shutting the stable-door when the steed
is stolen
Sick soldiers captured on the water
should be hanged
Sick and wounded wretches were burned
over slow fires
Simple truth was highest skill
Sixteen of their best ships had been
sacrificed
Slain four hundred and ten men with his
own hand
Slavery was both voluntary and
compulsory
Slender stock of platitudes
Small matter which human folly had
dilated into a great one
Smooth words, in the plentiful lack of
any substantial
So much responsibility and so little
power
So often degenerated into tyranny
(Calvinism)
So much in advance of his time as to
favor religious equality
So unconscious of her strength
Soldier of the cross was free upon his
return
Soldiers enough to animate the good and
terrify the bad
Solitary and morose, the necessary
consequence of reckless study
Some rude lessons from that vigorous
little commonwealth
Sometimes successful, even although
founded upon sincerity
Sonnets of Petrarch
Sovereignty was heaven-born, anointed
of God
Spain was governed by an established
terrorism
Spaniards seem wise, and are madmen
Sparing and war have no affinity
together
Spendthrift of time, he was an
economist of blood
Spirit of a man who wishes to be proud
of his country
St. Peter's dome rising a little nearer
to the clouds
St. |
10,240 |
Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Tonya Allen, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
OUT OF THE FOG
A Story of the Sea
C. K. OBER
Introduction By Dr. Wilfred T. Grenfell
FOREWORD
Since I am permitted to consider myself in some way responsible for this
narrative's being put on record, it is with the very heartiest good will
that I accept the publishers' kind invitation to write a brief foreword
to it.
I have, during twenty years, been working against a problem that I
recognized called for all--yes, and more, than--I had to give it. For I
have been endeavoring, through my own imperfect attainments, to
translate into undeniable language on the Labrador Coast, the message of
God's personal fatherhood over and love for the humblest of His
creatures. During these years, often of overwork, I have considered it
worth while to lay aside time and energy and strength to improve the
charting and pilot directions of our devious and sometimes dangerous
waterways.
How much more gladly shall I naturally avail myself of any chance by
which to contribute to the knowledge of that seemingly ever evasive
pathway leading to that which to me is the supreme motive power of human
life--faith in the divine Redeemer and Master. The best helps to reach
the haven we are in search of, over the unblazed trails of Labrador, are
ever the tracks of those who have found the way before us. Just such to
me is this simple and delightful story of Mr. Ober's. It has my most
hearty prayers for its unprecedented circulation.
WILFRED T. GRENFELL.
[Illustration]
OLD SALTS
The lure of the sea prevailed, and at nineteen I shipped for a
four-months' fishing trip on the Newfoundland Banks. These banks are not
the kind that <DW72> toward some gentle stream where the weary fisherman
can rest between bites, protected from the sun by the shade of an
overhanging tree; they are thirty to forty fathoms beneath the surface
of the Atlantic Ocean, a thousand miles out from the Massachusetts
coast.
The life that had long appealed to my imagination now came in with a
shock and a realism that was in part a disillusionment and in part an
intense satisfaction of some of my primal instincts and cravings. Old
salts are more picturesque and companionable spinning yarns about the
stove in a shoemaker's shop than they are when one is obliged to live,
eat and sleep with them for four months in the crowded forecastle of a
fishing schooner. An ocean storm is a sublime spectacle, witnessed from
a position of safety on the land; but a storm on the ocean, experienced
in its very vortex from the deck of a tiny fishing boat, is thrilling
beyond description. "Ships that pass in the night" make interesting
reading; but if they pass near you, in a foggy night, on the Banks, they
are better than the muezzin of the Moslem in reminding a man that it is
time to pray. I recall with vividness the scene on such a night, and
still feel the compelling power of the panic in the voice of the
mild-mannered old sea dog on anchor watch, as he yelled down the
companionway, "All hands on deck." In six seconds we were all there; and
there was the great hulk of a two-thousand-ton ship looming up out of
the night. She had evidently sighted our little craft just in time to
change her course, and was passing us with not more than a hundred and
fifty feet to spare. I can see them tonight, as they vanished into the
fog--three men and a big Newfoundland dog, looking over the rail and
down on us who, a moment before, were about to die.
Storm, fog, icebergs, cold, exposure, the alert and strenuous life, with
his own life the forfeit of failure, are a part of the normal experience
of a deep sea fisherman. Two members of our crew were father and son,
Uncle Ike Patch and his son, Frank. The old man had been a fisherman in
his youth, but had been on shore for thirty years. When we were making
up our crew, Frank caught the fishing fever and wanted to go, and his
father decided to go along with him. They were out in their dory, one
foggy day, and when the boats came back to the vessel from hauling their
trawls, Uncle Ike and Frank were missing. We rang the bell, fired our
small cannon, shouted and sent boats out after them. As night came on,
we were huddled together in the forecastle, wondering about their fate,
while the old fishermen told stories of the fog and its fearful toll of
human life. It seemed a terrible thing for the old man and his boy to be
out there, drifting no one knew where; and though we were accustomed to
danger, there was a gloomy crew and little sleep on our schooner that
night. In the morning the weather cleared and soon our missing boat came
alongside; we received them as men alive from the dead. They had found
shelter on another fishing vessel that happened to be lying at anchor
not more than two or three miles away.
There was reason for our solicitude, for we knew very well that a large
proportion of the men who get adrift in the fog are never found alive.
Shortly before this experience we had spoken a Gloucester vessel and
learned that her crew had picked up, a short time before, one of the
boats of a Provincetown schooner that had been adrift four days. One of
the two men was dead and the other insane. Each day brought its own
dangers, which the fishermen met as part of the day's work, thinking
little of them when they were past, and ready for whatever another day
might bring.
But four months is a long time to be out of sight of land, on a fresh
fish and "salt hoss" diet, with molasses instead of sugar in your tea,
and fresh water too much needed for drinking purposes to waste in
personal ablutions. We all swore that we would never go to sea again;
and when, after gliding into harbor in the night, we looked, one clear
September morning, on the seemingly unnatural green of the grass and
trees of the old North Shore, I said to myself, "This is God's country,
if there ever was one, and I, for one, will never get out of sight of it
again."
But I had tasted fog and brine, and the "landlubber's" lot was too
monotonously tame for me. The next spring saw me on the deck of the same
schooner headed for the Newfoundland Banks, the home of the codfish and
the fog.
A seafaring ancestry and a boyhood spent within sound of the surf
doubtless had much to do with my love of the salt water. My grandfather
was one of six brothers who were sea captains, and our family had clung
to the North Shore of Massachusetts Bay almost since the first white
settler had moored his bark in that vicinity, more than two hundred
years before.
My boyhood home was originally a fishing town, since changed to
manufacturing, and was fragrant with traditions of the sea. Many of the
neighborhood homes in which I visited as a boy had souvenirs of the
ocean displayed on the mantelpiece or on the everlasting solitude of the
parlor table. There were great conch shells that a boy could put to his
ear and hear the surf roaring on the beaches from which they had been
taken; articles made of sandalwood; curiously wrought things under
glass; miniature pagodas; silk scarfs; bow-legged idols; and a wonderful
model of the good ship Dolphin, or of some other equally staunch craft,
in which the breadwinner, father or son, had sailed on some eventful
voyage. These had all been "brought from over sea," I was told, and this
gave me the impression that "over sea" must be a very rich and
interesting place.
But the souvenirs of the sea were not as interesting to me as its
survivors. We had in our town, and especially in our end of it, which
was called "the Cove," a choice assortment of old sea dogs who had
sailed every sea, in every clime--had seen the world, in fact, and were
not averse, under the stimulus of good listeners, to telling all they
knew about it and sometimes a little more.
Scattered through the Cove were many little shoemakers' shops, into
which, especially in the long winter evenings, these old salts would
drift. There around the little cylinder stove, with its leather-chip
fire, leaking a fragrance the memory of which makes me homesick as I
write about it, they would swap their stories of the sea, many of which
had originally been based on fact.
These old derelicts--and some of the younger seafaring men--were better
than dime novels to us boys, for we could always question them and draw
out another story. Some of them were unconscious heroes who had often
risked their lives for their comrades and the vessel owners; and for the
support and comfort of their families no dangers or hardships had seemed
too great to be undertaken or endured. We boys held these old salts in
high esteem, and never forgot to give to each his appropriate title of
"Captain" or "Skipper," as the case might be. We also occasionally had
some fun with them.
We never thought of any of them as bad men, though some of them, by
their own testimony, had lived wild and reckless lives. One or two,
according to persistent rumor, had carried out cargoes of New England
rum and brought back shiploads of "black ivory" from the West coast of
Africa. Not a few of them were picturesquely profane. Old Skipper Tom
Bowman had a very original oath, "tender-eyed Satan!" which he must have
had copyrighted, as he was the only one that I ever heard use it. We
boys would sometimes bait him, provoking him to exasperation, that we
might hear it in all its original force and fervor.
[Illustration: Old Salts Are More Picturesque and Companionable Spinning
Yarns about the Stove in a Shoemaker's Shop than when One Is Obliged to
Live, Eat and Sleep with Them]
We knew his habits well. He eked out a scanty sustenance by fishing off
the shore and would frequently come in on the ebb tide and leave his
boat half way up the beach, going home to dinner and returning when the
flood tide had about reached his boat, to bring it up to its moorings.
So one day we dug a "honey pot" by the side of his boat, at the very
spot where we knew he would approach it, covered it over with dry
seaweed and about the time he was due we were lying out of sight, but
within earshot, behind the rocks. He drifted down, at peace with all the
world, went in over the tops of his rubber boots, and then, for one
blissful moment, we had our reward.
Some of these old salts were so thoroughly salted, being drenched with
the brine of many stormy voyages, that they kept in good condition well
beyond their allotted time of three score years and ten. Some were of
uncertain age, but were evidently well beyond the century mark, as
proved by the aggregate time consumed on their many voyages, the stories
of which they had reiterated with such convincing detail.
One of these, Captain Sam Morris, was patiently stalked by the boys
through a long season of yarn spinning, careful tally being kept. When
the tale was complete, the boys closed in on him.
"How old are you, Captain Sam?"
"Oh, I dunno, I ain't kep' count."
"Are you seventy?"
"I swan! I dunno."
"Well, you were on the Old Dove with Skipper Jimmie Stone, weren't you?"
"Sartin."
"You were on the Constitution, when she fought the Guerriere, weren't
you?"
How could he deny it?
"Well, weren't you with Captain Lovett on four of his three-year trading
voyages to Australia and China?"
"Course I was."
"How about those trips 'round the Horn, on the clipper ship 'Mary Jane'
from '49 to '55?"
"I was thar." They kept relentlessly on down the list, and then showed
him the tally. Allowing for infancy, an abbreviated boyhood on land, and
the time they had known him since he had quit the sea, he was one
hundred and thirty-five years old. The showing did not disconcert him,
however. He was interested, but he had told those stories so often and
had come to believe each of them so implicitly that he could not doubt
them in the aggregate. He simply exclaimed: "Well, I'll be darned! I
feel like a young chap o' sixty."
But while some of these old sailors liked to "spin yarns" and some had
their frailties, they were, as a rule, strong characters, rugged,
honest, courageous, unselfish--real men, in fact, whose sterling
qualities stood out in strong contrast against the unreality of many
timid and non-effective lives about them. It was not their romancing,
but their reality, and the achieving power of their lives that appealed
to me as a boy, and I was drawn to the kind of life that had helped to
produce such men.
Then, too, the ocean itself, with its immensity, its mystery, its moods,
the danger in it, and the man's work in mastering it, was almost
irresistibly attractive to me.
On graduating from high school I declined my father's offer to send me
to college, thinking that the life I had in view did not require a
college education. Then he made me a very attractive business
proposition, but it looked to me like slavery, and what I wanted most
was freedom. My father and mother were both Christians, but I had become
skeptical, profane and reckless of public opinion. I had left home for a
boarding house in the same town at eighteen, and at nineteen I had
slipped the moorings and was heading out to sea.
ADRIFT
My second trip to the Banks was made in response to the same kind of
impulse as that which drives the nomad out of his winter quarters in the
springtime or brings the wild geese back to their summer feeding
grounds. To one who really loves the ocean, the return to it after a
period of exile on the land, is an indescribable satisfaction. There was
at least one of our crew who experienced this emotion as our staunch
little craft turned her nose to the blue water, and with all sail set
and lee rail almost under water, leaped away from the petty restrictions
of the shore into the practically limitless expanse of the Atlantic. In
a week we were on the fishing ground and sentiment gave way to business.
Our schooner was a trawler, equipped with six dories and a crew of
fifteen, including the skipper, the cook, the boy and two men for each
boat. Each trawl had a thousand hooks, a strong ground line six thousand
feet long, with a smaller line two and a half feet in length, with hook
attached, at every fathom. These hooks were baited and the trawl was set
each night. The six trawls stretched away from the vessel like the
spokes from the hub of a wheel, the buoy marking the outer anchor of
each trawl being over a mile away. I was captain of a dory this year,
passing as a seasoned fisherman with my experience of the year before.
My helper or "bow-man" was John Hogan, a young Irishman about my own
age, red-headed, but green at the fishing business. John's mother kept a
little oasis for thirsty neighbors, in a city adjacent to my home town,
and his father was a man of unsteady habits. But John was a good fellow,
active and willing, and, though he had not inherited a rugged
constitution, he could pull a good steady stroke.
Soon after we reached the Banks, a storm swept our decks and nearly
carried away our boats. As a result, the dories, particularly my own,
were severely strained and leaked badly. For two weeks, however, we had
no fog, but on the morning of the second of June, just as we went over
the schooner's side and shaped our course for our outer buoy, a bank of
fog with an edge as perpendicular as the side of a house moved down on
us like a great glacier, though much more rapidly, shutting us in and
everything else out from sight. It was ugly and thick, as if all the fog
factories from Grand Manan to Labrador had been working overtime for the
two weeks before and had sent their whole output in one consignment. We
had just passed our inner buoy when the fog struck us, but we kept on
for the outer buoy, as was customary in foggy weather, since it was
safer to get that and pull in toward the vessel, rather than take the
inner buoy, pull out, and find ourselves with a boatload of fish and
ugly weather over a mile from the vessel. We had our bearings, I had
often found the buoy in the fog and believed that we could do it again.
We kept on rowing and knew when we had rowed far enough, though we had
not counted the strokes; but we found nothing.
"Guess we have drifted too far to leeward; pull up to windward a little.
That's strange, we must have passed it, this blamed fog is so thick.
What's that over there?" We zigzagged back and forth for some time and
then realized that we had missed it and must go back to the vessel and
get our inner buoy. This seemed easy, but we found that it is as
important to have a point of departure as it is to have a destination,
and not knowing just where we were we could not head our boat to where
the vessel was. We shouted, and listened, rowed this way and that way
but not a sound came to us through the fog, although we knew that the
boy must be at his post ringing the bell, so that the boats could hark
their way back to the vessel. I learned afterward that the tide that
morning was exceptionally strong. I had noted its direction and made
allowance for it, before leaving the schooner, but we were where the
Gulf Stream and the Arctic Current are not very far apart and the
resulting tides are strong and changeable. We were in the grip of two
great elemental and relentless forces, the impenetrable fog, cutting off
all our communications, and the strong ocean current sweeping us away
into the uninhabited waste of waters. From my experience of the year
before, I knew what it meant to be lost in the fog on the Banks,
practically in mid-ocean; I understood that if the fog lasted for a week
or ten days as it sometimes did, especially at that season of the year,
it was a fight for our lives. I soon realized that we were lost and that
the fight was on.
We were certainly stripped for it, without impedimenta, no anchor,
compass, provisions, water, no means of catching fish or fowl, and with
rather light clothing, as we were dressed for work and not for
protection against cold. But youth is optimistic and claims what is
coming to it, with a margin for luck, and we started on our new voyage
of discovery with good courage and a cheerful disregard of the
hardships, dangers and possible death in the fog, with which and into
which we were drifting.
It would not be strictly accurate to say that we saw nothing during all
the time we were adrift, but the things we saw were of the same stuff
that the fog was made of. Early in the first day I saw a sail dimly
outlined in the misty air. I called John's attention to it with a shout,
and he saw it too, but, as we rowed toward it, the sail retreated and
then disappeared. We thought that this was strange, for the wind was not
strong enough to take a vessel away from us faster than we could row,
and we were near enough to make ourselves heard. Soon, the sail appeared
again, and again we shouted and rowed toward it, and again it glided
away from us and disappeared, and again, and again, through the
seemingly endless procession of the slow-moving hours of that first day,
we chased the phantom ship.
When night came on, there came with it a deepening sense of loneliness
and isolation. The night was also very cold, the chill penetrated our
thin clothing, and we were compelled to row the boat to keep ourselves,
not warm, but a little less cold. The icebergs coming down on the Arctic
Current hold the season back, and early June on the Banks is much like
April on the Massachusetts coast. We tried to sleep lying down in the
bottom of the boat with our heads in a trawl tub, but we were stiff with
cold, the boat leaked badly, and it was necessary to get up frequently
and bail out the water. The thought also that we might drift within
sight or sound of a vessel, or within sight of a trawl buoy, made us
afraid to sleep.
The night finally wore away, the second day and night were like the
first, the third like the first and second and the fourth day like
another "cycle of Cathay." These four days and nights were like solitary
confinement to the prisoner, the grim monotony and lack of incident
contributing to the cumulative effect and accentuating the sense of
helplessness and isolation. There was nothing to relieve the situation.
We were like an army lying in trenches in the face of the enemy, waiting
for the enemy's move.
The fourth night we were startled by the sound of the fog horn of a
sailing vessel. The wind was blowing almost a gale. We listened to get
the direction, then sprang to the oars and rowed hard to intercept her,
shouting, listening, rowing with all our strength, and willing, if need
be, to be run down, in the chance of being seen and rescued. The horn
finally sounded so near that it seemed that we could almost see the
vessel, and we felt sure that they could hear our call. But our hearts
sank as the sounds grew fainter and soon we were alone again with the
wind and fog. The fifth day we heard the whistle of an ocean steamship.
"We can surely head this one off," we thought, but she quickly passed
us, too far away to see or hear. It was a bitter disappointment as this
floating hotel, full of warmth, food, water, shelter and companionship,
for the lack of each and all of which we were perishing, rushed by, so
near, yet unconscious and unheeding, in too great a hurry to stop and
listen to our cry for help. I have thought of this since, as I have
hurried along with the crowd in the street of a great city and wondered,
if we stopped to listen, what cry might come to us out of the deep.
The fifth night the sea was running high. We were drifting with a trawl
tub fastened to the "painter" as a drag to keep the boat headed to the
wind, when it began to rain. I spread my oil jacket to catch the water,
and we waited until we could collect enough for a drink, watching the
drops eagerly, as we had tasted neither food nor water since leaving the
vessel five days before. Just as we were about to drink, however, our
boat shipped a sea, filling the oil jacket with salt water, and there
was no more rain.
Every day we passed great flocks of sea fowl floating on the water,
coming frequently almost within an oar's length, but always just out of
reach. We were in worse condition than the Ancient Mariner, with food as
well as water everywhere about us, and not a morsel or a drop to eat or
drink. Thirst is harder to endure than hunger, and yet hunger finally
wakes up the wolf; and the time comes when even the thought of
cannibalism can be entertained without horror. About this time John
asked me, "Well, what do you think?"
"Oh," I said, "I think that one of us will come out of it all right."
He started, as if he thought that I had premature designs on him.
"You need not be afraid," I said, "I'll not take advantage of you."
He knew that I was the stronger and perhaps thought that if I felt as he
did, his chances were very small.
The sixth day, John seemed like a man overwhelmed with the horror of a
situation that had gotten beyond his control. He cowered at the opposite
end of the boat and had said nothing for a long time. Finally he opened
a conversation with a person of whose presence I had not been conscious.
"Jim," he said, "come, give me a piece."
"Jim who?" I asked. "Piece of what? Where is he?"
"Jim Woodbury," he answered, "don't you see him? There he is, hiding
under that oil jacket. He's been there over half an hour, eating pie,
and he won't give me any."
I tried to laugh him out of his delusion, but the thing was real to him.
Soon he jumped up and said: "I'm going on board; I'm tired of staying
out here."
"How will you get there?" I asked.
"Walk," he answered, "the water ain't deep," and he started to get
overboard.
I caught him and pulled him back into the boat, not any too soon, for if
he had gone overboard, the sharks would probably have gotten him, for
they were not very far away. Every now and then I had seen their fins
cutting the surface of the water, as they patrolled back and forth,
waiting their time, or ours, as if they knew that it was only a question
of time. Soon John started again to get overboard. This time I punished
him so severely that he did not try it again. After that, I had to keep
my eye on him constantly. His ravings about food were not particularly
soothing to my feelings, for I was as hungry as he, only not so
demonstrative about it.
The seventh day drifted slowly by and the fog still held us captive. For
a week we had had no food, no water, and scarcely any sleep; having our
boots on continuously stopped the circulation in our feet with the same
effect as if they had been frozen; we were chilled to the bone; my boat
mate was insane. Since the whistle of the steamship had died away in the
distance, two days before, no sound had come to us out of the fog but
the voices of the wind and the swash of the waves. I knew the chart of
the Banks and had a general idea as to where we were. There is a great
barren tract on the Banks where few fish are found and fishermen seldom
go, and we had drifted into this man-forsaken place. I had almost said
"God-forsaken" too, but something began to shape itself in my mind about
that time, that makes it difficult for me now to say this. Rather, as I
look back on our experience, I feel more like claiming fellowship with
the "wanderer" who called the place of his hardship "Bethel" because it
was there, at the end of self and of favoring conditions, that he found
God.
THE PILOT
I was near "the end of my rope"--I was not frightened, or discouraged;
my mind was perfectly clear; I was not stampeded. Of course, I had
thought of God and of prayer, but I was a skeptic, as I supposed, and
considered both not proven. But the steady contemplation of the
probability of death, for seven successive days, under conditions that
compelled candor, raised questions that skepticism could not answer, and
gave to my questions answers that skepticism could not refute. There
comes a time, under such conditions, when common sense asserts itself
and sophistry fails to satisfy. Since I made this discovery in my
personal experience, I have learned that my case was not peculiar, but
in keeping with a general law in human experience, long understood and
admirably stated in the 107th Psalm. Such words as these have come "out
of the depths" and it is sometimes necessary to go down into the depths
to prove them to be true.
"They wandered.... in a solitary way; they found no city to dwell in.
Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them. Then they cried unto the
Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses,
and he led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of
habitation.... Such as sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, being
bound in affliction and iron; because they rebelled against the words of
God, and contemned the counsel of the Most High: therefore he brought
down their heart with labor; they fell down and there was none to help.
Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he saved them out of
their distresses. He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of
death, and brake their bands in sunder..... They that go down to the sea
in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the
Lord, and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth, and raiseth the
stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to the
heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because
of trouble... they are at their wits' end. Then they cry unto the Lord
in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He
maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are
they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired
haven."
I had drifted into the "secret place," the door was shut, and it was the
right time and place for me to pray. I saw that my life had been a
failure, that I was absolutely worthless, and that, if death came then,
there was not one good thing that I had ever done that would survive. In
fact, I could think of nothing in my life that was worth remembering. I
was not so much concerned about my own salvation as for another chance
to live and to do an unselfish work in the world. And so I did what I
thought then (and think still) was the only sane thing to do, I signaled
for the Pilot.
That night the rain came. I spread my oil jacket and caught an abundance
of water of which we drank deeply. With this refreshment came new hope
and new courage for the final struggle, if safety could be gained that
way. I reviewed the situation and considered one by one the possible
courses we might take. We seemed to be shut in to three things. The
first possibility was to row to land; but the nearest land, the
Newfoundland coast, was nearly three hundred miles away, and I decided
that we did not have the time or the strength to reach it. The second
possibility was to be picked up by a passing vessel; but this did not
look encouraging, for two had already passed us. The third and last hope
was to find a fishing vessel at anchor, and within a reasonable
distance. This last possibility seemed almost probable. But _how_
probable? Possibly within ten miles, probably within twenty-five,
certainly within _fifty_, some fishermen were plying their trade,
but _where_? There are thirty-two points of the compass, and by
deviating one point at the center, a distance of fifty miles would bring
us ten miles out of the way at the circumference. We could row fifty
miles, but we cannot take chances. Yet there is a snug little fishing
craft out there on the rim of the circle, waiting for us to find her!
But _which way_ shall we go? I finally decided that this was a
problem for the Pilot, and I left it with Him, satisfied that He
understood His business and that if He had any orders for me, He knew
how to communicate them.
The eighth day came, and with it came an impulse to row the boat in a
certain direction. This impulse was not unlike the thousands that had
come to me before. There was nothing about it to indicate that its
source was any higher than my own imagination. If this was a voice from
above the fog, it was certainly a still, small one. It was unheeded at
first, not unrecognized. Reason said that to conserve our strength we
should sit still and wait for the lifting of the fog. Fear whispered
that if I obeyed the impulse, we might be rowing directly away from
safety. But the impulse persisted and prevailed.
"Get up, John," I said, "we have a day's work ahead of us. We are going
to row off in this direction."
John responded automatically, fear acting in place of reason, but he was
soon exhausted and lay down again. I kept on, however, resting now and
then, and returning to the oars with the thought that fifty miles was a
long distance and that we had a very small margin of time to our credit.
Our course was with the wind, and nature worked with us all that eighth
day and on into the night, as the pressure on me drove us toward our
goal.
About the middle of the eighth night I realized that I had reached the
limit of my fighting strength. John was in worse condition than I, for I
still had hope, but my hope was not in myself. Then I talked the
situation over with the Pilot. We had nowhere else to go; we had come as
far as we could; our time was nearly up--what of the night? and what of
the morning? John was asleep; the world was a long way off: the sea and
the mist seemed to have rolled over us and to have buried us ten
thousand fathoms deep. But "out of the depths I cried," and I found the
communication open.
Between midnight and dawn the fog lifted and from the overhanging clouds
the rain fell gently through the remainder of the night. John lay in his
end of the boat, but I sat watching. Finally, as if in response to some
secret signal, the darkness began its inevitable retreat and, as the
night horizon receded, out of the gray of the morning, growing more and
more distinct as the shadows fell away, appeared a dark object less than
two miles distant, nebulous at first, then unmistakable in its
character. It was a solitary fishing vessel lying at anchor, toward
which we had been rowing and drifting unerringly all through the night
and the day before.
There it was! only a clumsy old fisherman, but it was the best thing in
all the world to us, and it was anchored and could not get away!
I do not recall the experience of any tumultuous emotion as this
messenger of hope appeared on our horizon, but we knew that we were
safe. How easy it is to write this simple word of four letters! but, to
realize it, one must have a background of despair. Since that morning,
the words "safe," "safety," "salvation," have always come to me
freighted with reality.
It is doubtful if any of the vessel's crew had seen our boat, as it was
scarcely daylight and such a small object lying close to the water would
not be readily discernible. I had thought, a few hours before, that my
strength was entirely exhausted, but the sight of the vessel called out
a reserve sufficient for the final effort.
As I slowly brought our boat alongside, some of the crew were in
evidence, getting ready for their day's work, and they seemed perplexed
to account for our early morning call. But, when we came close to the
vessel, our emaciated appearance evidently told the main outlines of our
story. They called to the others in a foreign tongue and the whole crew
crowded to the rail. One strong fellow jumped into our boat and lifted
John up while others reached down to help. Then, with their assistance,
I tumbled on board, stiff with cold and with feet like stone. They gave
us brandy and took us to the warm cabin where breakfast was being
prepared and it is difficult to say which was more grateful, the smell
of food or the warmth of the fire. John was put into the captain's bunk.
It was a good exchange for he was not far from "Davy Jones' locker." We
had been on board only a few hours when the fog rolled back again and
continued for some time afterward.
The vessel was a French fishing brig from the island of St. Malo in the
English Channel. None of the crew understood English and neither of us
could speak French, but they understood the language of distress and
kindness needs no interpreter. The captain showed me a calendar and
pointed to the tenth of June, and when I pointed to the second he
evidently found it hard to believe me, but John's condition helped to
corroborate my statement. They let us eat as much as we wished, but
nature protected us, for the process of eating was so painful at first
that I felt like a sword swallower who had partaken too freely of his
favorite dish. Fortunately, also, our hosts were living the simple life.
Their menu consisted chiefly of sliced bread over which had been poured
the broth of fish cooked in water and light wine, the same fish cooked
in oil as a second course, bread and hardtack, and an occasional dish of
beans, which seemed to be regarded by them as a luxury. They had an
abundance of beer and light wine and in the morning before going to haul
their trawls, coffee was served with brandy. Cooking was done on a brick
platform, or fireplace, in the cabin, and the captain, the mate and all
hands sat around one large dish placed on the cabin floor and each
helped himself with his own spoon. A loaf of bread was passed around,
each cutting off a slice with his own sheath knife. But notwithstanding
simple food, frugal meals and primitive conditions, the hospitality was
genuine and against the background of our recent hunger, thirst and
general wretchedness, the place was heaven and our hosts were angels in
thin disguise.
In about ten days we were brought into St. Pierre, the French fishing
town on the small rocky island of Miquelon, off the Newfoundland coast,
the depot of the French fishing fleet and the only remaining foothold
for the French of the vast empire once held by them between the North
Atlantic and the Mississippi Valley. The American consul took us in
charge, sending us to a sailors' boarding house and giving each of us a
change of clothing. In another week we were sent on by steamer to
Halifax, consigned to the American consul at that port. There John's
feet proved to be in such bad condition that it was necessary to send
him to the hospital, and, as gangrene had set in, a portion of each foot
was amputated. He was "queer" for several weeks, but, with returning
physical health, gradually recovered his mental equilibrium. After a few
days in Halifax, I was sent on by steamer to Boston, bringing the first
news of either our loss or our rescue.
On reaching my home town I did not go to a boarding house; there was
plenty of room for me in the home and I was contented to stay there for
a while. The old salts received me as a long-lost brother, and while the
official notice was never handed me, I was made to feel that somewhere
in their inner consciousness I had been elected a regular member of the
Amalgamated Society of Sea Dogs, and was entitled to an inside seat, if
I could find one, about the stove of any shoemaker's shop in the Cove.
The Banks were revisited in memory, and all the old fog experiences were
brought out, amplified and elongated as far as possible, but it was
conceded that we had established a new record in the nautical traditions
of the Cove. It took several years for me to inch my way back to
physical solvency from the effects of my exposure, and this delayed the
carrying out of my plans, to which my fishing trips had been a prelude.
The strange thing that I now have to record is that I soon forgot, or
willfully ignored, my whole experience of God, prayer and deliverance,
and became apparently more skeptical and indifferent than before. The
only way I can explain this is that I had not become a Christian, and my
dominant mental attitude reasserted itself when danger was past. I
practically never attended church. My position and influence, however,
were not merely negative; I was positively antagonistic to Christianity,
and this attitude continued up to the April following.
[Illustration: Dave Lived in a Beautiful Old Place Near the Shore and I
Had Been in the Habit of Spending Many of My Sundays with Him]
But while I forgot, I was not forgotten. God had begun a work in me, the
continuation and completion of which waited on my willingness to
cooperate, and the most powerful force in the world, that of believing
and persistent prayer, was being released in my behalf. My mother was a
woman of remarkable Christian character, with rare qualities of mind and
heart, knowledge and love of the Scriptures, and a deep and genuine
prayer life. Notwithstanding my lack of sympathy with her in the things
most fundamental, she had confidence that the tide would turn with me.
Her confidence, however, was not based on me. She knew the Lord and
understood that it was not the sheep that went out after the Shepherd
who was lost until it found Him. So she kept a well-worn path to the
place of prayer.
She was wise and said little to me on the subject, but I knew her life
and what it was for which she was most deeply solicitous. She had taught
me from the Bible as a boy, and many a cold winter night, though weary
with a day filled with household cares, she had come to my room and
"tucked me in" with prayer.
My attitude toward Christianity in the winter following my second
fishing trip on the Newfoundland Banks was different from that of the
year before. Then I had been a skeptic, as I assumed, and declined
responsibility for what to me was unknown and seemed to be unknowable.
But, in the meantime, something had happened that had lifted this whole
question with me from the realm of speculation to that of experience.
The Pilot's response to my signal might, for the time, be ignored, but
it could not be forgotten.
But, by deliberately putting aside my convictions of God, prayer and
deliverance, treating them as if they had no existence in fact, I had
introduced an element of distrust of my own mental processes. The will
had taken the place of judgment, and the result was confusion; I was in
the fog. I never attended prayer meeting, but one Sunday night I was
passing the chapel where such a meeting was being held. I had been there
with my mother, as a boy, and while the meetings were "slow," they were
pervaded with a true devotional spirit and a something real, though to
me intangible and difficult to describe.
Whether I was influenced by the memory of these boyhood glimpses into
the spiritual world, or by the spirit of the scoffer and the cynic
possessing me at that time, or by the still small voice that had pointed
the way to safety only a few months before, I never fully knew, but I
went in.
The room was filled with people and a meeting was in progress, during
which two men, old neighbors, whose lives I knew well, told the story of
their recent conversion. One was Skipper Andrew Woodbury, a man of
blameless life, but who had lived sixty-five years without religion. The
other was my uncle by marriage, twenty years my senior, a close personal
friend and familiarly called "Dave." I had been in the habit of spending
many of my Sundays with him, as he was a non-church goer, companionable,
genuine and open-hearted as the day. It was evident that he had found
something that he wanted to share with his friends, and while I made
light of it at the time, his testimony made a profound impression on me.
Toward the close of the meeting the leader gave the invitation to those
"who want to become Christians" to rise. No one stood up. Then he came
within closer range and invited those "who would like to become
Christians," but still no one responded. I was becoming interested and
was almost disappointed when no one answered to this second invitation.
Then he put up the proposition to those "who _have no objections_
to becoming Christians." "He will get a lot of them on this call," I
said to myself, but to my surprise, no one stirred. "Well," I thought,
"this is too bad, but why couldn't I help him out? I have no objections
to becoming a Christian," and I stood up. I slipped out of the meeting
ahead of the crowd, but in my room that night before I went to bed, I
found myself on my knees, trying to pray. I did not succeed very well.
"Oh, what's the use?" I said, "there's nothing in it." But I lay awake
far into the night, thinking, feeling the beating of my heart, wondering
what kept it going and "what if it should stop suddenly?"
But in less than a day these impressions had passed. I laughed them off
and kept on in my own way. For six weeks I steered clear of Dave, but I
did not want to lose his friendship, and then, too, I was rather curious
to find out what, if anything, he had really discovered. So, one Sunday
morning in early April, I drifted down to his home, as I had done so
many times before. I stopped at my father's house on the way, and after
a short visit, went on to Dave's. It was a pleasant morning, and I left
my overcoat at home, as I had but a short distance to go.
Dave lived in a beautiful old farmhouse near the shore, overlooking the
harbor, and our Sunday program had been walking along the beach, or
sitting around the house smoking, eating apples, drinking cider and
killing time in the most unconventional way possible. "It's too bad," I
thought, "that Dave has got religion, it spoils all our good times"; but
I was hoping to find him less strenuous on the subject than when I had
heard him in the chapel six weeks before. But Dave's conversion was so
genuine and his enthusiasm so real that it was impossible for me
entirely to resist and beat back the impact of his testimony.
I concealed my impressions, however, and told him that no doubt he
needed it, it was probably a good thing for him, I wouldn't say a word
to discourage him, but as for me, I did not need that kind of medicine. |
10,240 |
Produced by David Widger. HTML version by Al Haines
THE SNOW-IMAGE
AND
OTHER TWICE-TOLD TALES
OLD NEWS
By
Nathaniel Hawthorne
There is a volume of what were once newspapers each on a small
half-sheet, yellow and time-stained, of a coarse fabric, and imprinted
with a rude old type. Their aspect conveys a singular impression of
antiquity, in a species of literature which we are accustomed to consider
as connected only with the present moment. Ephemeral as they were
intended and supposed to be, they have long outlived the printer and his
whole subscription-list, and have proved more durable, as to their
physical existence, than most of the timber, bricks, and stone of the
town where they were issued. These are but the least of their triumphs.
The government, the interests, the opinions, in short, all the moral
circumstances that were contemporary with their publication, have passed
away, and left no better record of what they were than may be found in
these frail leaves. Happy are the editors of newspapers! Their
productions excel all others in immediate popularity, and are certain to
acquire another sort of value with the lapse of time. They scatter their
leaves to the wind, as the sibyl did, and posterity collects them, to be
treasured up among the best materials of its wisdom. With hasty pens
they write for immortality.
It is pleasant to take one of these little dingy half-sheets between the
thumb and finger, and picture forth the personage who, above ninety years
ago, held it, wet from the press, and steaming, before the fire. Many of
the numbers bear the name of an old colonial dignitary. There he sits, a
major, a member of the council, and a weighty merchant, in his high-backed
arm-chair, wearing a solemn wig and grave attire, such as befits
his imposing gravity of mien, and displaying but little finery, except a
huge pair of silver shoe-buckles, curiously carved. Observe the awful
reverence of his visage, as he reads his Majesty's most gracious speech;
and the deliberate wisdom with which he ponders over some paragraph of
provincial politics, and the keener intelligence with which he glances at
the ship-news and commercial advertisements. Observe, and smile! He may
have been a wise man in his day; but, to us, the wisdom of the politician
appears like folly, because we can compare its prognostics with actual
results; and the old merchant seems to have busied himself about
vanities, because we know that the expected ships have been lost at sea,
or mouldered at the wharves; that his imported broadcloths were long ago
worn to tatters, and his cargoes of wine quaffed to the lees; and that
the most precious leaves of his ledger have become waste-paper. Yet, his
avocations were not so vain as our philosophic moralizing. In this world
we are the things of a moment, and are made to pursue momentary things,
with here and there a thought that stretches mistily towards eternity,
and perhaps may endure as long. All philosophy that would abstract
mankind from the present is no more than words.
The first pages of most of these old papers are as soporific as a bed of
poppies. Here we have an erudite clergyman, or perhaps a Cambridge
professor, occupying several successive weeks with a criticism on Tate
and Brady, as compared with the New England version of the Psalms. Of
course, the preference is given to the native article. Here are doctors
disagreeing about the treatment of a putrid fever then prevalent, and
blackguarding each other with a characteristic virulence that renders the
controversy not altogether unreadable. Here are President Wigglesworth
and the Rev. Dr. Colman, endeavoring to raise a fund for the support of
missionaries among the Indians of Massachusetts Bay. Easy would be the
duties of such a mission now! Here--for there is nothing new under the
sun--are frequent complaints of the disordered state of the currency, and
the project of a bank with a capital of five hundred thousand pounds,
secured on lands. Here are literary essays, from the Gentleman's
Magazine; and squibs against the Pretender, from the London newspapers.
And here, occasionally, are specimens of New England honor, laboriously
light and lamentably mirthful, as if some very sober person, in his zeal
to be merry, were dancing a jig to the tune of a funeral-psalm. All this
is wearisome, and we must turn the leaf.
There is a good deal of amusement, and some profit, in the perusal of
those little items which characterize the manners and circumstances of
the country. New England was then in a state incomparably more
picturesque than at present, or than it has been within the memory of
man; there being, as yet, only a narrow strip of civilization along the
edge of a vast forest, peopled with enough of its original race to
contrast the savage life with the old customs of another world. The
white population, also, was diversified by the influx of all sorts of
expatriated vagabonds, and by the continual importation of bond-servants
from Ireland and elsewhere, so that there was a wild and unsettled
multitude, forming a strong minority to the sober descendants of the
Puritans. Then, there were the slaves, contributing their dark shade to
the picture of society. The consequence of all this was a great variety
and singularity of action and incident, many instances of which might be
selected from these columns, where they are told with a simplicity and
quaintness of style that bring the striking points into very strong
relief. It is natural to suppose, too, that these circumstances affected
the body of the people, and made their course of life generally less
regular than that of their descendants. There is no evidence that the
moral standard was higher then than now; or, indeed, that morality was so
well defined as it has since become. There seem to have been quite as
many frauds and robberies, in proportion to the number of honest deeds;
there were murders, in hot-blood and in malice; and bloody quarrels over
liquor. Some of our fathers also appear to have been yoked to unfaithful
wives, if we may trust the frequent notices of elopements from bed and
board. The pillory, the whipping-post, the prison, and the gallows, each
had their use in those old times; and, in short, as often as our
imagination lives in the past, we find it a ruder and rougher age than
our own, with hardly any perceptible advantages, and much that gave life
a gloomier tinge. In vain we endeavor to throw a sunny and joyous air
over our picture of this period; nothing passes before our fancy but a
crowd of sad-visaged people, moving duskily through a dull gray
atmosphere. It is certain that winter rushed upon them with fiercer
storms than now, blocking up the narrow forest-paths, and overwhelming
the roads along the sea-coast with mountain snow drifts; so that weeks
elapsed before the newspaper could announce how many travellers had
perished, or what wrecks had strewn the shore. The cold was more
piercing then, and lingered further into the spring, making the
chimney-corner a comfortable seat till long past May-day. By the number
of such accidents on record, we might suppose that the thunder-stone, as
they termed it, fell oftener and deadlier on steeples, dwellings, and
unsheltered wretches. In fine, our fathers bore the brunt of more raging
and pitiless elements than we. There were forebodings, also, of a more
fearful tempest than those of the elements. At two or three dates, we
have stories of drums, trumpets, and all sorts of martial music, passing
athwart the midnight sky, accompanied with the--roar of cannon and rattle
of musketry, prophetic echoes of the sounds that were soon to shake the
land. Besides these airy prognostics, there were rumors of French fleets
on the coast, and of the march of French and Indians through the
wilderness, along the borders of the settlements. The country was
saddened, moreover, with grievous sicknesses. The small-pox raged in
many of the towns, and seems, though so familiar a scourge, to have been
regarded with as much affright as that which drove the throng from Wall
Street and Broadway at the approach of a new pestilence. There were
autumnal fevers too, and a contagious and destructive
throat-distemper,--diseases unwritten in medical hooks. The dark
superstition of former days had not yet been so far dispelled as not to
heighten the gloom of the present times. There is an advertisement,
indeed, by a committee of the Legislature, calling for information as to
the circumstances of sufferers in the "late calamity of 1692," with a
view to reparation for their losses and misfortunes. But the tenderness
with which, after above forty years, it was thought expedient to allude
to the witchcraft delusion, indicates a good deal of lingering error, as
well as the advance of more enlightened opinions. The rigid hand of
Puritanism might yet be felt upon the reins of government, while some
of the ordinances intimate a disorderly spirit on the part of the people.
The Suffolk justices, after a preamble that great disturbances have been
committed by persons entering town and leaving it in coaches, chaises,
calashes, and other wheel-carriages, on the evening before the Sabbath,
give notice that a watch will hereafter be set at the "fortification-gate,"
to prevent these outrages. It is amusing to see Boston assuming the aspect
of a walled city, guarded, probably, by a detachment of church-members,
with a deacon at their head. Governor Belcher makes proclamation against
certain "loose and dissolute people" who have been wont to stop
passengers in the streets, on the Fifth of November, "otherwise called
Pope's Day," and levy contributions for the building of bonfires. In
this instance, the populace are more puritanic than the magistrate.
The elaborate solemnities of funerals were in accordance with the sombre
character of the times. In cases of ordinary death, the printer seldom
fails to notice that the corpse was "very decently interred." But when
some mightier mortal has yielded to his fate, the decease of the
"worshipful" such-a-one is announced, with all his titles of deacon,
justice, councillor, and colonel; then follows an heraldic sketch of his
honorable ancestors, and lastly an account of the black pomp of his
funeral, and the liberal expenditure of scarfs, gloves, and mourning
rings. The burial train glides slowly before us, as we have seen it
represented in the woodcuts of that day, the coffin, and the bearers,
and the lamentable friends, trailing their long black garments, while
grim Death, a most misshapen skeleton, with all kinds of doleful
emblems, stalks hideously in front. There was a coach maker at this
period, one John Lucas, who scents to have gained the chief of his
living by letting out a sable coach to funerals. It would not be fair,
however, to leave quite so dismal an impression on the reader's mind;
nor should it be forgotten that happiness may walk soberly in dark
attire, as well as dance lightsomely in a gala-dress. And this reminds
us that there is an incidental notice of the "dancing-school near the
Orange-Tree," whence we may infer that the salutatory art was
occasionally practised, though perhaps chastened into a characteristic
gravity of movement. This pastime was probably confined to the
aristocratic circle, of which the royal governor was the centre. But we
are scandalized at the attempt of Jonathan Furness to introduce a more
reprehensible amusement: he challenges the whole country to match his
black gelding in a race for a hundred pounds, to be decided on Metonomy
Common or Chelsea Beach. Nothing as to the manners of the times can be
inferred from this freak of an individual. There were no daily and
continual opportunities of being merry; but sometimes the people
rejoiced, in their own peculiar fashion, oftener with a calm, religious
smile than with a broad laugh, as when they feasted, like one great
family, at Thanksgiving time, or indulged a livelier mirth throughout
the pleasant days of Election-week. This latter was the true holiday
season of New England. Military musters were too seriously important in
that warlike time to be classed among amusements; but they stirred up
and enlivened the public mind, and were occasions of solemn festival to
the governor and great men of the province, at the expense of the
field-offices. The Revolution blotted a feast-day out of our calendar; for
the anniversary of the king's birth appears to have been celebrated with
most imposing pomp, by salutes from Castle William, a military parade, a
grand dinner at the town-house, and a brilliant illumination in the
evening. There was nothing forced nor feigned in these testimonials of
loyalty to George the Second. So long as they dreaded the
re-establishment of a popish dynasty, the people were fervent for the
house of Hanover: and, besides, the immediate magistracy of the country
was a barrier between the monarch and the occasional discontents of the
colonies; the waves of faction sometimes reached the governor's chair,
but never swelled against the throne. Thus, until oppression was felt
to proceed from the king's own hand, New England rejoiced with her whole
heart on his Majesty's birthday.
But the slaves, we suspect, were the merriest part of the population,
since it was their gift to be merry in the worst of circumstances; and
they endured, comparatively, few hardships, under the domestic sway of
our fathers. There seems to have been a great trade in these human
commodities. No advertisements are more frequent than those of "a <DW64>
fellow, fit for almost any household work"; "a <DW64> woman, honest,
healthy, and capable"; "a <DW64> wench of many desirable qualities";
"a <DW64> man, very fit for a taylor." We know not in what this natural
fitness for a tailor consisted, unless it were some peculiarity of
conformation that enabled him to sit cross-legged. When the slaves of a
family were inconveniently prolific,--it being not quite orthodox to
drown the superfluous offspring, like a litter of kittens,--notice was
promulgated of "a <DW64> child to be given away." Sometimes the slaves
assumed the property of their own persons, and made their escape; among
many such instances, the governor raises a hue-and-cry after his <DW64>
Juba. But, without venturing a word in extenuation of the general
system, we confess our opinion that Caesar, Pompey, Scipio, and all such
great Roman namesakes, would have been better advised had they stayed at
home, foddering the cattle, cleaning dishes,--in fine, performing their
moderate share of the labors of life, without being harassed by its
cares. The sable inmates of the mansion were not excluded from the
domestic affections: in families of middling rank, they had their places
at the board; and when the circle closed round the evening hearth, its
blaze glowed on their dark shining faces, intermixed familiarly with
their master's children. It must have contributed to reconcile them to
their lot, that they saw white men and women imported from Europe as they
had been from Africa, and sold, though only for a term of years, yet as
actual slaves to the highest bidder. Slave labor being but a small part
of the industry of the country, it did not change the character of the
people; the latter, on the contrary, modified and softened the
institution, making it a patriarchal, and almost a beautiful, peculiarity
of the times.
Ah! We had forgotten the good old merchant, over whose shoulder we were
peeping, while he read the newspaper. Let us now suppose him putting on
his three-cornered gold-laced hat, grasping his cane, with a head inlaid
of ebony and mother-of-pearl, and setting forth, through the crooked
streets of Boston, on various errands, suggested by the advertisements of
the day. Thus he communes with himself: I must be mindful, says he, to
call at Captain Scut's, in Creek Lane, and examine his rich velvet,
whether it be fit for my apparel on Election-day,--that I may wear a
stately aspect in presence of the governor and my brethren of the
council. I will look in, also, at the shop of Michael Cario, the
jeweller: he has silver buckles of a new fashion; and mine have lasted me
some half-score years. My fair daughter Miriam shall have an apron of
gold brocade, and a velvet mask,--though it would be a pity the wench
should hide her comely visage; and also a French cap, from Robert
Jenkins's, on the north side of the town-house. He hath beads, too, and
ear-rings, and necklaces, of all sorts; these are but vanities,
nevertheless, they would please the silly maiden well. My dame desireth
another female in the kitchen; wherefore, I must inspect the lot of Irish
lasses, for sale by Samuel Waldo, aboard the schooner Endeavor; as also
the likely <DW64> wench, at Captain Bulfinch's. It were not amiss that I
took my daughter Miriam to see the royal waxwork, near the town-dock,
that she may learn to honor our most gracious King and Queen, and their
royal progeny, even in their waxen images; not that I would approve of
image-worship. The camel, too, that strange beast from Africa, with two
great humps, to be seen near the Common; methinks I would fain go
thither, and see how the old patriarchs were wont to ride. I will tarry
awhile in Queen Street, at the bookstore of my good friends Kneeland &
Green, and purchase Dr. Colman's new sermon, and the volume of discourses
by Mr. Henry Flynt; and look over the controversy on baptism, between the
Rev. Peter Clarke and an unknown adversary; and see whether this George
Whitefield be as great in print as he is famed to be in the pulpit. By
that time, the auction will have commenced at the Royal Exchange, in King
Street. Moreover, I must look to the disposal of my last cargo of West
India rum and muscovado sugar; and also the lot of choice Cheshire
cheese, lest it grow mouldy. It were well that I ordered a cask of good
English beer, at the lower end of Milk Street.
Then am I to speak with certain dealers about the lot of stout old
Vidonia, rich Canary, and Oporto-wines, which I have now lying in the
cellar of the Old South meeting-house. But, a pipe or two of the rich
Canary shall be reserved, that it may grow mellow in mine own
wine-cellar, and gladden my heart when it begins to droop with old age.
Provident old gentleman! But, was he mindful of his sepulchre? Did he
bethink him to call at the workshop of Timothy Sheaffe, in Cold Lane, and
select such a gravestone as would best please him? There wrought the man
whose handiwork, or that of his fellow-craftsmen, was ultimately in
demand by all the busy multitude who have left a record of their earthly
toil in these old time-stained papers. And now, as we turn over the
volume, we seem to be wandering among the mossy stones of a
burial-ground.
II. THE OLD FRENCH WAR.
At a period about twenty years subsequent to that of our former sketch,
we again attempt a delineation of some of the characteristics of life and
manners in New England. Our text-book, as before, is a file of antique
newspapers. The volume which serves us for a writing-desk is a folio of
larger dimensions than the one before described; and the papers are
generally printed on a whole sheet, sometimes with a supplemental leaf of
news and advertisements. They have a venerable appearance, being
overspread with a duskiness of more than seventy years, and discolored,
here and there, with the deeper stains of some liquid, as if the contents
of a wineglass had long since been splashed upon the page. Still, the
old book conveys an impression that, when the separate numbers were
flying about town, in the first day or two of their respective
existences, they might have been fit reading for very stylish people.
Such newspapers could have been issued nowhere but in a metropolis the
centre, not only of public and private affairs, but of fashion and
gayety. Without any discredit to the colonial press, these might have
been, and probably were, spread out on the tables of the British
coffee-house, in king Street, for the perusal of the throng of officers
who then drank their wine at that celebrated establishment. To interest
these military gentlemen, there were bulletins of the war between Prussia
and Austria; between England and France, on the old battle-plains of
Flanders; and between the same antagonists, in the newer fields of the
East Indies,--and in our own trackless woods, where white men never trod
until they came to fight there. Or, the travelled American, the
petit-maitre of the colonies,--the ape of London foppery, as the newspaper
was the semblance of the London journals,--he, with his gray powdered
periwig, his embroidered coat, lace ruffles, and glossy silk stockings,
golden-clocked,--his buckles of glittering paste, at knee-band and
shoe-strap,--his scented handkerchief, and chapeau beneath his arm, even
such a dainty figure need not have disdained to glance at these old yellow
pages, while they were the mirror of passing times. For his amusement,
there were essays of wit and humor, the light literature of the day,
which, for breadth and license, might have proceeded from the pen of
Fielding or Smollet; while, in other columns, he would delight his
imagination with the enumerated items of all sorts of finery, and with
the rival advertisements of half a dozen peruke-makers. In short, newer
manners and customs had almost entirely superseded those of the Puritans,
even in their own city of refuge.
It was natural that, with the lapse of time and increase of wealth and
population, the peculiarities of the early settlers should have waxed
fainter and fainter through the generations of their descendants, who
also had been alloyed by a continual accession of emigrants from many
countries and of all characters. It tended to assimilate the colonial
manners to those of the mother-country, that the commercial intercourse
was great, and that the merchants often went thither in their own ships.
Indeed, almost every man of adequate fortune felt a yearning desire, and
even judged it a filial duty, at least once in his life, to visit the
home of his ancestors. They still called it their own home, as if New
England were to them, what many of the old Puritans had considered it,
not a permanent abiding-place, but merely a lodge in the wilderness,
until the trouble of the times should be passed. The example of the
royal governors must have had much influence on the manners of the
colonists; for these rulers assumed a degree of state and splendor which
had never been practised by their predecessors, who differed in nothing
from republican chief-magistrates, under the old charter. The officers
of the crown, the public characters in the interest of the
administration, and the gentlemen of wealth and good descent, generally
noted for their loyalty, would constitute a dignified circle, with the
governor in the centre, bearing a very passable resemblance to a court.
Their ideas, their habits, their bode of courtesy, and their dress would
have all the fresh glitter of fashions immediately derived from the
fountain-head, in England. To prevent their modes of life from becoming
the standard with all who had the ability to imitate them, there was no
longer an undue severity of religion, nor as yet any disaffection to
British supremacy, nor democratic prejudices against pomp. Thus, while
the colonies were attaining that strength which was soon to render them
an independent republic, it might have been supposed that the wealthier
classes were growing into an aristocracy, and ripening for hereditary
rank, while the poor were to be stationary in their abasement, and the
country, perhaps, to be a sister monarchy with England. Such, doubtless,
were the plausible conjectures deduced from the superficial phenomena of
our connection with a monarchical government, until the prospective
nobility were levelled with the mob, by the mere gathering of winds that
preceded the storm of the Revolution. The portents of that storm were
not yet visible in the air. A true picture of society, therefore, would
have the rich effect produced by distinctions of rank that seemed
permanent, and by appropriate habits of splendor on the part of the
gentry.
The people at large had been somewhat changed in character, since the
period of our last sketch, by their great exploit, the conquest of
Louisburg. After that event, the New-Englanders never settled into
precisely the same quiet race which all the world had imagined them to
be. They had done a deed of history, and were anxious to add new ones to
the record. They had proved themselves powerful enough to influence the
result of a war, and were thenceforth called upon, and willingly
consented, to join their strength against the enemies of England; on
those fields, at least, where victory would redound to their peculiar
advantage. And now, in the heat of the Old French War, they might well
be termed a martial people. Every man was a soldier, or the father or
brother of a soldier; and the whole land literally echoed with the roll
of the drum, either beating up for recruits among the towns and villages,
or striking the march towards the frontiers. Besides the provincial
troops, there were twenty-three British regiments in the northern
colonies. The country has never known a period of such excitement and
warlike life; except during the Revolution,--perhaps scarcely then; for
that was a lingering war, and this a stirring and eventful one.
One would think that no very wonderful talent was requisite for an
historical novel, when the rough and hurried paragraphs of these
newspapers can recall the past so magically. We seem to be waiting in
the street for the arrival of the post-rider--who is seldom more than
twelve hours beyond his time--with letters, by way of Albany, from the
various departments of the army. Or, we may fancy ourselves in the
circle of listeners, all with necks stretched out towards an old
gentleman in the centre, who deliberately puts on his spectacles, unfolds
the wet newspaper, and gives us the details of the broken and
contradictory reports, which have been flying from mouth to mouth, ever
since the courier alighted at Secretary Oliver's office. Sometimes we
have an account of the Indian skirmishes near Lake George, and how a
ranging party of provincials were so closely pursued, that they threw
away their arms, and eke their shoes, stockings, and breeches, barely
reaching the camp in their shirts, which also were terribly tattered by
the bushes. Then, there is a journal of the siege of Fort Niagara, so
minute that it almost numbers the cannon-shot and bombs, and describes
the effect of the latter missiles on the French commandant's stone
mansion, within the fortress. In the letters of the provincial officers,
it is amusing to observe how some of them endeavor to catch the careless
and jovial turn of old campaigners. One gentleman tells us that he holds
a brimming glass in his hand, intending to drink the health of his
correspondent, unless a cannon ball should dash the liquor from his lips;
in the midst of his letter he hears the bells of the French churches
ringing, in Quebec, and recollects that it is Sunday; whereupon, like a
good Protestant, he resolves to disturb the Catholic worship by a few
thirty-two pound shot. While this wicked man of war was thus making a
jest of religion, his pious mother had probably put up a note, that very
Sabbath-day, desiring the "prayers of the congregation for a son gone a
soldiering." We trust, however, that there were some stout old worthies
who were not ashamed to do as their fathers did, but went to prayer, with
their soldiers, before leading them to battle; and doubtless fought none
the worse for that. If we had enlisted in the Old French War, it should
have been under such a captain; for we love to see a man keep the
characteristics of his country.
[The contemptuous jealousy of the British army, from the general
downwards, was very galling to the provincial troops. In one of the
newspapers, there is an admirable letter of a New England man,
copied from the London Chronicle, defending the provincials with an
ability worthy of Franklin, and somewhat in his style. The letter
is remarkable, also, because it takes up the cause of the whole
range of colonies, as if the writer looked upon them all as
constituting one country, and that his own. Colonial patriotism had
not hitherto been so broad a sentiment.]
These letters, and other intelligence from the army, are pleasant and
lively reading, and stir up the mind like the music of a drum and fife.
It is less agreeable to meet with accounts of women slain and scalped,
and infants dashed against trees, by the Indians on the frontiers. It is
a striking circumstance, that innumerable bears, driven from the woods,
by the uproar of contending armies in their accustomed haunts, broke into
the settlements, and committed great ravages among children, as well as
sheep and swine. Some of them prowled where bears had never been for a
century, penetrating within a mile or two of Boston; a fact that gives a
strong and gloomy impression of something very terrific going on in the
forest, since these savage beasts fled townward to avoid it. But it is
impossible to moralize about such trifles, when every newspaper contains
tales of military enterprise, and often a huzza for victory; as, for
instance, the taking of Ticonderoga, long a place of awe to the
provincials, and one of the bloodiest spots in the present war. Nor is
it unpleasant, among whole pages of exultation, to find a note of sorrow
for the fall of some brave officer; it comes wailing in, like a funeral
strain amidst a peal of triumph, itself triumphant too. Such was the
lamentation over Wolfe. Somewhere, in this volume of newspapers, though
we cannot now lay our finger upon the passage, we recollect a report that
General Wolfe was slain, not by the enemy, but by a shot from his own
soldiers.
In the advertising columns, also, we are continually reminded that the
country was in a state of war. Governor Pownall makes proclamation for
the enlisting of soldiers, and directs the militia colonels to attend to
the discipline of their regiments, and the selectmen of every town to
replenish their stocks of ammunition. The magazine, by the way, was
generally kept in the upper loft of the village meeting-house. The
provincial captains are drumming up for soldiers, in every newspaper.
Sir Jeffrey Amherst advertises for batteaux-men, to be employed on the
lakes; and gives notice to the officers of seven British regiments,
dispersed on the recruiting service, to rendezvous in Boston. Captain
Hallowell, of the province ship-of-war King George, invites able-bodied
seamen to serve his Majesty, for fifteen pounds, old tenor, per month.
By the rewards offered, there would appear to have been frequent
desertions from the New England forces: we applaud their wisdom, if not
their valor or integrity. Cannon of all calibres, gunpowder and balls,
firelocks, pistols, swords, and hangers, were common articles of
merchandise. Daniel Jones, at the sign of the hat and helmet, offers to
supply officers with scarlet broadcloth, gold-lace for hats and
waistcoats, cockades, and other military foppery, allowing credit until
the payrolls shall be made up. This advertisement gives us quite a
gorgeous idea of a provincial captain in full dress.
At the commencement of the campaign of 1759, the British general informs
the farmers of New England that a regular market will be established at
Lake George, whither they are invited to bring provisions and
refreshments of all sorts, for the use of the army. Hence, we may form a
singular picture of petty traffic, far away from any permanent
settlements, among the hills which border that romantic lake, with the
solemn woods overshadowing the scene. Carcasses of bullocks and fat
porkers are placed upright against the huge trunks of the trees; fowls
hang from the lower branches, bobbing against the heads of those beneath;
butter-firkins, great cheeses, and brown loaves of household bread, baked
in distant ovens, are collected under temporary shelters or pine-boughs,
with gingerbread, and pumpkin-pies, perhaps, and other toothsome
dainties. Barrels of cider and spruce-beer are running freely into the
wooden canteens of the soldiers. Imagine such a scene, beneath the dark
forest canopy, with here and there a few struggling sunbeams, to
dissipate the gloom. See the shrewd yeomen, haggling with their
scarlet-coated customers, abating somewhat in their prices, but still
dealing at monstrous profit; and then complete the picture with
circumstances that bespeak war and danger. A cannon shall be seen to
belch its smoke from among the trees, against some distant canoes on
the lake; the traffickers shall pause, and seem to hearken, at intervals,
as if they heard the rattle of musketry or the shout of Indians; a
scouting-party shall be driven in, with two or three faint and bloody men
among them. And, in spite of these disturbances, business goes on briskly
in the market of the wilderness.
It must not be supposed that the martial character of the times
interrupted all pursuits except those connected with war. On the
contrary, there appears to have been a general vigor and vivacity
diffused into the whole round of colonial life. During the winter of
1759, it was computed that about a thousand sled-loads of country produce
were daily brought into Boston market. It was a symptom of an irregular
and unquiet course of affairs, that innumerable lotteries were projected,
ostensibly for the purpose of public improvements, such as roads and
bridges. Many females seized the opportunity to engage in business: as,
among others, Alice Quick, who dealt in crockery and hosiery, next door
to Deacon Beautineau's; Mary Jackson, who sold butter, at the Brazen-Head,
in Cornhill; Abigail Hiller, who taught ornamental work, near the
Orange-Tree, where also were to be seen the King and Queen, in wax-work;
Sarah Morehead, an instructor in glass-painting, drawing, and japanning;
Mary Salmon, who shod horses, at the South End; Harriet Pain, at the Buck
and Glove, and Mrs. Henrietta Maria Caine, at the Golden Fan, both
fashionable milliners; Anna Adams, who advertises Quebec and Garrick
bonnets, Prussian cloaks, and scarlet cardinals, opposite the old brick
meeting-house; besides a lady at the head of a wine and spirit
establishment. Little did these good dames expect to reappear before the
public, so long after they had made their last courtesies behind the
counter. Our great-grandmothers were a stirring sisterhood, and seem not
to have been utterly despised by the gentlemen at the British coffee-house;
at least, some gracious bachelor, there resident, gives public
notice of his willingness to take a wife, provided she be not above
twenty-three, and possess brown hair, regular features, a brisk eye, and
a fortune. Now, this was great condescension towards the ladies of
Massachusetts Bay, in a threadbare lieutenant of foot.
Polite literature was beginning to make its appearance. Few native works
were advertised, it is true, except sermons and treatises of
controversial divinity; nor were the English authors of the day much
known on this side of the Atlantic. But catalogues were frequently
offered at auction or private sale, comprising the standard English
books, history, essays, and poetry, of Queen Anne's age, and the
preceding century. We see nothing in the nature of a novel, unless it be
"_The Two Mothers_, price four coppers." There was an American poet,
however, of whom Mr. Kettell has preserved no specimen,--the author of
"War, an Heroic Poem"; he publishes by subscription, and threatens to
prosecute his patrons for not taking their books. We have discovered a
periodical, also, and one that has a peculiar claim to be recorded here,
since it bore the title of "_THE NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE_," a forgotten
predecessor, for which we should have a filial respect, and take its
excellence on trust. The fine arts, too, were budding into existence.
At the "old glass and picture shop," in Cornhill, various maps, plates,
and views are advertised, and among them a "Prospect of Boston," a
copperplate engraving of Quebec, and the effigies of all the New England
ministers ever done in mezzotinto. All these must have been very salable
articles. Other ornamental wares were to be found at the same shop; such
as violins, flutes, hautboys, musical books, English and Dutch toys, and
London babies. About this period, Mr. Dipper gives notice of a concert
of vocal and instrumental music. There had already been an attempt at
theatrical exhibitions.
There are tokens, in every newspaper, of a style of luxury and
magnificence which we do not usually associate with our ideas of the
times. When the property of a deceased person was to be sold, we find,
among the household furniture, silk beds and hangings, damask table-cloths,
Turkey carpets, pictures, pier-glasses, massive plate, and all
things proper for a noble mansion. Wine was more generally drunk than
now, though by no means to the neglect of ardent spirits. For the
apparel of both sexes, the mercers and milliners imported good store of
fine broadcloths, especially scarlet, crimson, and sky-blue, silks,
satins, lawns, and velvets, gold brocade, and gold and silver lace, and
silver tassels, and silver spangles, until Cornhill shone and sparkled
with their merchandise. The gaudiest dress permissible by modern taste
fades into a Quaker-like sobriety, compared with the deep, rich, glowing
splendor of our ancestors. Such figures were almost too fine to go about
town on foot; accordingly, carriages were so numerous as to require a
tax; and it is recorded that, when Governor Bernard came to the province,
he was met between Dedham and Boston by a multitude of gentlemen in their
coaches and chariots.
Take my arm, gentle reader, and come with me into some street, perhaps
trodden by your daily footsteps, but which now has such an aspect of
half-familiar strangeness, that you suspect yourself to be walking abroad
in a dream. True, there are some brick edifices which you remember from
childhood, and which your father and grandfather remembered as well; but
you are perplexed by the absence of many that were here only an hour or
two since; and still more amazing is the presence of whole rows of wooden
and plastered houses, projecting over the sidewalks, and bearing iron
figures on their fronts, which prove them to have stood on the same sites
above a century. Where have your eyes been that you never saw them
before? Along the ghostly street,--for, at length, you conclude that all
is unsubstantial, though it be so good a mockery of an antique town,--along
the ghostly street, there are ghostly people too. Every gentleman
has his three-cornered hat, either on his head or under his arm; and all
wear wigs in infinite variety,--the Tie, the Brigadier, the Spencer, the
Albemarle, the Major, the Ramillies, the grave Full-bottom, or the giddy
Feather-top. Look at the elaborate lace-ruffles, and the square-skirted
coats of gorgeous hues, bedizened with silver and gold! Make way for the
phantom-ladies, whose hoops require such breadth of passage, as they pace
majestically along, in silken gowns, blue, green, or yellow, brilliantly
embroidered, and with small satin hats surmounting their powdered hair.
Make way; for the whole spectral show will vanish, if your earthly
garments brush against their robes. Now that the scene is brightest, and
the whole street glitters with imaginary sunshine,--now hark to the bells
of the Old South and the Old North, ringing out with a sudden and merry
peal, while the cannon of Castle William thunder below the town, and
those of the Diana frigate repeat the sound, and the Charlestown
batteries reply with a nearer roar! You see the crowd toss up their hats
in visionary joy. You hear of illuminations and fire-works, and of
bonfires, built oil scaffolds, raised several stories above the ground,
that are to blaze all night in King Street and on Beacon Hill. And here
come the trumpets and kettle-drums, and the tramping hoofs of the Boston
troop of horseguards, escorting the governor to King's Chapel, where he
is to return solemn thanks for the surrender of Quebec. March on, thou
shadowy troop! and vanish, ghostly crowd! and change again, old street!
for those stirring times are gone.
Opportunely for the conclusion of our sketch, a fire broke out, on the
twentieth of March, 1760, at the Brazen-Head, in Cornhill, and consumed
nearly four hundred buildings. Similar disasters have always been epochs
in the chronology of Boston. That of 1711 had hitherto been termed the
Great Fire, but now resigned its baleful dignity to one which has ever
since retained it. Did we desire to move the reader's sympathies on this
subject, we would not be grandiloquent about the sea of billowy flame,
the glowing and crumbling streets, the broad, black firmament of smoke,
and the blast or wind that sprang up with the conflagration and roared
behind it. It would be more effective to mark out a single family at the
moment when the flames caught upon an angle of their dwelling: then would
ensue the removal of the bedridden grandmother, the cradle with the
sleeping infant, and, most dismal of all, the dying man just at the
extremity of a lingering disease. Do but imagine the confused agony of
one thus awfully disturbed in his last hour; his fearful glance behind at
the consuming fire raging after him, from house to house, as its devoted
victim; and, finally, the almost eagerness with which he would seize some
calmer interval to die! The Great Fire must have realized many such a
scene.
Doubtless posterity has acquired a better city by the calamity of that
generation. None will be inclined to lament it at this late day, except
the lover of antiquity, who would have been glad to walk among those
streets of venerable houses, fancying the old inhabitants still there,
that he might commune with their shadows, and paint a more vivid picture
of their times.
III. THE OLD TORY.
Again we take a leap of about twenty years, and alight in the midst of
the Revolution. Indeed, having just closed a volume of colonial
newspapers, which represented the period when monarchical and
aristocratic sentiments were at the highest,--and now opening another
volume printed in the same metropolis, after such sentiments had long
been deemed a sin and shame,--we feel as if the leap were more than
figurative. Our late course of reading has tinctured us, for the moment,
with antique prejudices; and we shrink from the strangely contrasted
times into which we emerge, like one of those immutable old Tories, who
acknowledge no oppression in the Stamp Act. It may be the most effective
method of going through the present file of papers, to follow out this
idea, and transform ourself, perchance, from a modern Tory into such a
sturdy King-man as once wore that pliable nickname.
Well, then, here we sit, an old, gray, withered, sour-visaged, threadbare
sort of gentleman, erect enough, here in our solitude, but marked out by
a depressed and distrustful mien abroad, as one conscious of a stigma
upon his forehead, though for no crime. We were already in the decline
of life when the first tremors of the earthquake that has convulsed the
continent were felt. Our mind had grown too rigid to change any of its
opinions, when the voice of the people demanded that all should be
changed. |
10,240 |
Produced by Julia Miller and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
Transcriber's Note
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. A list of corrections
is found at the end of the text. Oe ligatures have been expanded.
[Illustration: MONKEY IN CHURCH. Page 88.]
[Illustration: MINNIE and her PETS.
BY MRS MADELINE LESLIE.
MINNIE'S PET MONKEY.]
MINNIE'S PET MONKEY.
BY
MRS. MADELINE LESLIE,
AUTHOR OF "THE LESLIE STORIES," "TIM, THE SCISSORS-GRINDER,"
ETC.
ILLUSTRATED.
BOSTON:
LEE AND SHEPARD,
SUCCESSORS TO PHILLIPS, SAMPSON & CO.
1864.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by
A. R. BAKER,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.
ELECTROTYPED AT THE BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY.
TO MY YOUNG FRIEND,
HENRY FOWLE DURANT, JR.
=These Little Volumes=
ARE AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED
BY THE AUTHOR,
IN THE EARNEST HOPE THAT THEY MAY INCREASE IN HIM THAT
LOVE OF NATURE AND OF RURAL LIFE WHICH HAS EVER
EXERTED SO SALUTARY AN INFLUENCE IN THE
FORMATION OF THE CHARACTERS OF
THE WISE AND GOOD.
MINNIE AND HER PETS.
Minnie's Pet Parrot.
Minnie's Pet Cat.
Minnie's Pet Dog.
Minnie's Pet Horse.
Minnie's Pet Lamb.
Minnie's Pet Monkey.
MINNIE'S PET MONKEY.
CHAPTER I.
JACKO AND HIS WOUNDED TAIL.
Did you ever see a monkey? If you have not, I suppose you will like to
hear a description of Jacko, Minnie's sixth pet.
He was about eighteen inches high, with long arms, covered with short
hair, which he used as handily as a boy, flexible fingers, with flat
nails, and a long tail, covered with hair, which seemed to answer the
purpose of a third hand.
Though monkeys are usually very ugly and unpleasant, from their
approaching so nearly to the human face, and still bearing so strongly
the marks of the mere brute, yet Jacko was a pretty little fellow.
He had bright eyes, which sparkled like diamonds from beneath his
deep-set eyebrows. His teeth were of the most pearly whiteness, and he
made a constant display of them, grinning and chattering continually.
But I ought to tell you about his passage in uncle Frank's ship.
On one of Captain Lee's voyages, he touched upon the coast of Africa,
where he saw the little fellow in a hen-coop, just about to be carried
on board a whaler. The gentleman had often thought he should like to
carry his favorite niece a little pet; but as she already had a parrot,
he did not know what she would wish.
But when he listened to the chattering of the monkey, and heard the
sailor who owned him say what a funny little animal it was, he thought
he would buy it and take it home to her.
On the voyage, Jacko met with a sad accident. The hen-coop in which he
was confined was too small to contain the whole of his tail, and he was
obliged, when he slept, to let the end of it hang out. This was a great
affliction to the poor animal, for he was very proud of his tail, which
was indeed quite an addition to his good looks.
It so happened that there were two large cats on board ship; and one
night, as they were prowling about, they saw the tail hanging out while
Jacko was sound asleep; and before he had time to move, one of them
seized it and bit it off.
The monkey was very indignant, and if he could have had a fair chance at
his enemies, would have soon punished them for their impudence. It was
really amusing to see him afterward. He would pull his bleeding tail in
through the bars of the hen-coop, and give it a malicious bite, as much
as to say,--
"I wish you were off. You are of no use to me now; and you look terribly
short."
When they reached New York, at the end of their voyage, Captain Lee took
Jacko out of the hen-coop, and put him in a bag, which was carried into
the depot while he was purchasing his ticket. The monkey, who must needs
see every thing that was going on, suddenly poked his head out of the
bag, and gave a malicious grin at the ticket-master.
The man was much frightened, but presently recovered himself, and
returned the insult by saying,--
"Sir, that's a dog! It's the rule that no dog can go in the cars without
being paid for."
It was all in vain that the captain tried to convince him that Jacko
was not a dog, but a monkey. He even took him out of the bag; but in the
face of this evidence, the man would persist in saying,--
"He is a dog, and must have a ticket before he enters the cars."
So a ticket was bought, and Jacko was allowed to proceed on his journey.
The little fellow was as pleased as the captain when he arrived at the
end of his journey, and took possession of his pleasant quarters in the
shed adjoining Mr. Lee's fine house. He soon grew fond of his little
mistress, and played all manner of tricks, jumping up and down, swinging
with his tail, which had begun to heal, and chattering with all his
might in his efforts to please her.
Mr. Lee, at the suggestion of his brother, the captain, had a nice
house or cage made for Minnie's new pet, into which he could be put if
he became troublesome, and where he always went to sleep. The rest of
the time he was allowed his liberty, as far as his chain would reach.
Jacko came from a very warm climate, and therefore often suffered from
the cold in the northern latitude to which he had been brought.
Mrs. Lee could not endure to see a monkey dressed like a man, as they
sometimes are in shows. She said they looked disgustingly; but she
consented that the little fellow should have a tight red jacket, and
some drawers, to keep him comfortable. Minnie, too, begged from her some
old pieces of carpeting, to make him a bed, when Jacko seemed greatly
delighted. He did not now, as before, often stand in the morning
shaking, and blue with the cold, but laughed, and chattered, and showed
his gratitude in every possible way.
Not many months after Jacko came, and when he had become well acquainted
with all the family, Fidelle had a family of kittens, which she often
carried in her mouth back and forth through the shed. The very sight of
these little animals seemed to excite Jacko exceedingly. He would
spring the entire length of his chain, trying to reach them.
One day, when the kittens had begun to run alone, and were getting to be
very playful, the cook heard a great noise in the shed, and Fidelle
crying with all her might. She ran to see what was the matter, and, to
her surprise, found Jacko sitting up in the cage, grinning with delight,
while he held one of the kittens in his arms, hugging it as if it had
been a baby.
Cook knew the sight would please Minnie, and she ran to call her. But
the child sympathized too deeply in Fidelle's distress to enjoy it. She
tried to get the kitten away from Jacko, but he had no idea of giving it
up, until at last, when Mrs. Lee, who had come to the rescue, gave him a
piece of cake, of which he was very fond, he relaxed his hold, and she
instantly released the poor, frightened little animal.
Fidelle took warning by this occurrence, and never ventured through the
shed again with her babies, though Jacko might seem to be sound asleep
in his cage.
Jacko had been at Mr. Lee's more than a year before they knew him to
break his chain and run about by himself. The first visit he made was to
Leo, in the barn, and he liked it so well that, somehow or other, he
contrived to repeat the visit quite as often as it was agreeable to the
dog, who never could endure him.
After this, he became very mischievous, so that every one of the
servants, though they often had a great laugh at his tricks, would have
been glad to have the little fellow carried back to his home in Africa.
I don't think even Minnie loved her pet monkey as well as she did her
other pets. She could not take him in her arms as she did Fidelle and
Tiney, nor play with him as she did with Nannie and her lamb, and he
could not carry her on his back, as Star did.
"Well," she said, one day, after discussing the merits of her animals
with her mamma, "Poll talks to me, and Jacko makes me laugh; but if I
should have to give up one of my pets, I had rather it would be the
monkey."
CHAPTER II.
JACKO BLACKING THE TABLE.
One morning, cook went to her mistress with loud complaints of Jacko's
tricks.
"What has he been doing now?" inquired the lady, with some anxiety.
"All kinds of mischief, ma'am. If I didn't like you, and the master, and
Miss Minnie so well, I wouldn't be living in the same house with a
monkey, no ways."
Here the woman, having relieved her mind, began to relate Jacko's new
offence, and soon was joining heartily in the laugh her story caused her
mistress.
"Since the trickish fellow found the way to undo his chain, ma'am, he
watches every thing that is done in the kitchen. Yesterday I polished
the range, and the door to the oven. I suppose he saw me at work, and
thought it would be good fun; for when I was out of the kitchen hanging
some towels to dry on the line, in he walks to the closet where I keep
the blacking and brushes, and what should he do but black the table and
chairs? Such a sight, ma'am, as would make your eyes cry to see. It'll
take me half the forenoon to clean them."
"I think you will have to take a little stick, Hepsy," said Mrs. Lee,
smiling, "and whip him when he does mischief."
"Indeed, ma'am, and it's little strength I'd have left me to do the
cooking if I gave him half the whippings he deserves; besides, I'd be
sure to get the cratur's ill will; and they say that's unlucky for any
one."
"What does she mean, mamma, by its being unlucky?" inquired Minnie, when
the cook had returned to her work in the kitchen.
"I can't say, my dear. You know Hepsy has some strange ideas which she
brought with her from Ireland. It may be she has heard of the
superstitious reverence some nations have for the monkey."
"O, mamma, will you please tell me about it?"
"I have read that in many parts of India, monkeys are made objects of
worship; and splendid temples are dedicated to their honor.
"At one time, when the Portuguese plundered the Island of Ceylon, they
found, in one of the temples dedicated to these animals, a small golden
casket containing the tooth of a monkey. This was held in such
estimation by the natives, that they offered nearly a million of dollars
to redeem it. But the viceroy, thinking it would be a salutary
punishment to them, ordered it to be burned.
"Some years after, a Portuguese, having obtained a similar tooth,
pretended that he had recovered the old one, which so rejoiced the
priests that they purchased it from him for more than fifty thousand
dollars."
Minnie laughed. "I should suppose," she said, "that if cook thinks so
much of monkeys, she would be pleased to live with them. Do you know
any more about monkeys, mamma?"
"I confess, my dear, that monkeys have never been among my favorites.
There are a great many kinds, but all are mischievous, troublesome, and
thievish. The dispositions of some of them are extremely bad, while
others are so mild and tractable as to be readily tamed and taught a
great variety of tricks. They live together in large groups, leaping
with surprising agility from tree to tree. Travellers say it is very
amusing to listen to the chattering of these animals, which they compare
to the shouting of a grand cavalcade, all speaking together, and yet
seeming perfectly to understand one another.
"In the countries of the Eastern Peninsula, where they abound, the
matrons are often observed, in the cool of the evening, sitting in a
circle round their little ones, which amuse themselves with their
various gambols. The merriment of the young, as they jump over each
other's heads, and wrestle in sport, is most ludicrously contrasted with
the gravity of their seniors, who are secretly delighted with the fun,
but far too dignified to let it appear.
"But when any foolish little one behaves ill, the mamma will be seen to
jump into the throng, seize the juvenile by the tail, take it over her
knee, and give it a good whipping."
"O, how very funny, mamma! I wonder whether Jacko was treated so. Will
you please tell me more? I do like to hear about monkeys."
"If you will bring me that book from the library next the one about
cats, perhaps I can find some anecdotes to read to you."
The little girl clapped her hands with delight, and running gayly to the
next room, soon returned with the book, when her mother read as
follows:--
"A family in England had a pet monkey. On one occasion, the footman
retired to his room to shave himself, without noticing that the animal
had followed him. The little fellow watched him closely during the
process, and noticed where the man put his razor and brush.
"No sooner had the footman left the room, than the monkey slyly took the
razor, and, mounting on a chair opposite the small mirror, began to
scrape away at his throat, as he had seen the man do; but alas! not
understanding the nature of the instrument he was using, the poor
creature cut so deep a gash, that he bled profusely. He was found in
the situation described, with the razor still in his fingers, but
unfortunately was too far gone to be recovered, and soon died, leaving a
caution to his fellows against playing with edged tools."
"I hope Jacko will never see any body shave," said Minnie, in a
faltering voice.
"Here is a funny story, my dear, about a monkey in the West Indies. The
little fellow was kept tied to a stake in the open air, and was
frequently deprived of his food by the Johnny Crows. He tried to drive
them off, but without success, and at last made the following plan for
punishing the thieves.
"Perceiving a flock of these birds coming toward him one day just after
his food had been brought, he lay down near his stake, and pretended to
be dead. For some time, he lay perfectly motionless, when the birds,
really deceived, approached by degrees, and got near enough to steal his
food, which he allowed them to do. This game he repeated several times,
till they became so bold as to come within reach of his claws, when he
suddenly sprang up and caught his victim in his firm grasp. Death was
not his plan of punishment. He wished to make a man of him, according
to the ancient definition, 'a biped without feathers,' and therefore,
plucking the crow neatly, he let him go to show himself to his
companions. This proved so effectual a punishment, that he was
afterwards left to eat his food in peace."
"I don't see," said Minnie, thoughtfully, "how a monkey could ever think
of such a way."
"It certainly does show a great deal of sagacity," responded the lady,
"and a great deal of cunning in carrying out his plan."
"I hope there are ever so many anecdotes, mamma."
Mrs. Lee turned over the leaves. "Yes, my dear," she said, cheerfully,
"there are quite a number; some of them seem to be very amusing, but I
have only time to read you one more to-day."
"Dr. Guthrie gives an amusing account of a monkey named Jack.
"Seeing his master and friends drinking whiskey with great apparent
relish, he took the opportunity, when he thought he was unseen, to empty
their half-filled glasses; and while they were roaring with laughter, he
began to hop, skip, and jump. Poor Jack was drunk.
"The next day, his master wanted to repeat the experiment, but found
Jack had not recovered from the effects of his dissipation. He commanded
him to come to the table; but the poor fellow put his hand to his head,
and not all their endeavors could induce him to taste another drop all
his life.
"Jack became a thorough teetotaller."
CHAPTER III.
JACKO RUNNING AWAY.
Minnie had a cousin Frank, the son of Mr. Harry Lee. He was three years
older than Minnie, and was full of life and frolic.
At one time he came to visit Minnie; and fine fun indeed they had with
the pets, the monkey being his especial favorite.
Every day some new experiment was to be tried with Jacko, who, as Frank
declared, could be taught any thing that they wished. One time, he took
the little fellow by the chain for a walk, Minnie gayly running by his
side, and wondering what her cousin was going to do.
On their way to the barn, they met Leo, who at once began to bark
furiously.
"That will never do, my brave fellow," exclaimed the boy; "for we want
you to turn horse, and take Jacko to ride."
"O, Frank! Leo will kill him. Don't do that!" urged Minnie, almost
crying.
"But I mean to make them good friends," responded the lad. "Here, you
take hold of the chain, and I will coax the dog to be quiet while I put
Jacko on his back."
This was not so easy as he had supposed; for no amount of coaxing or
flattery would induce Leo to be impressed into this service. He hated
the monkey, and was greatly disgusted at his appearance as he hopped,
first on Frank's shoulder, and then to the ground, his head sticking out
of his little red jacket, and his face wearing a malicious grin.
Finding they could not succeed in this, they went into the stable to
visit Star, when, with a quick motion, Jacko twitched the chain from
Minnie's hand, and running up the rack above the manger, began to laugh
and chatter in great glee.
His tail, which had now fully healed, was of great use to him on this
occasion, when, to Minnie's great surprise, he clung with it to the bar
of the rack, and began to swing himself about.
[Illustration: JACKO RUNNING AWAY. Page 52.]
"I heard of a monkey once," exclaimed Frank, laughing merrily, "who made
great use of his tail. If a nut or apple were thrown to him which fell
beyond his reach, he would run to the full length of his chain, turn his
back, then stretch out his tail, and draw toward him the coveted
delicacy."
"Let's see whether Jacko would do so," shouted Minnie, greatly excited
with the project.
"When we can catch him. But see how funny he looks. There he goes up the
hay mow, the chain dangling after him."
"If we don't try to catch him, he'll come quicker," said Minnie,
gravely.
"I know another story about a monkey--a real funny one," added the boy.
"I don't know what his name was; but he used to sleep in the barn with
the cattle and horses. I suppose monkeys are always cold here; at any
rate, this one was; and when he saw the hostler give the horse a nice
feed of hay, he said to himself, 'What a comfortable bed that would make
for me!'
"When the man went away, he jumped into the hay and hid, and every time
the horse came near enough to eat, he sprang forward and bit her ears
with his sharp teeth.
"Of course, as the poor horse couldn't get her food, she grew very thin,
and at last was so frightened that the hostler could scarcely get her
into the stall. Several times he had to whip her before she would enter
it, and then she stood as far back as possible, trembling like a leaf.
"It was a long time before they found out what the matter was; and then
the monkey had to take a whipping, I guess."
"If his mother had been there, she would have whipped him," said Minnie,
laughing.
"What do you mean?"
The little girl then repeated what her mother had told her of the
discipline among monkeys, at which he was greatly amused.
All this time, they were standing at the bottom of the hay mow, and
supposed that Jacko was safe at the top; but the little fellow was more
cunning than they thought. He found the window open near the roof, where
hay was sometimes pitched in, and ran down into the yard as quick as
lightning.
The first they knew of it was when John called out from the barnyard,
"Jacko, Jacko! Soh, Jacko! Be quiet, sir!"
It was a wearisome chase they had for the next hour, and at the end they
could not catch the runaway; but at last, when they sat down calmly in
the house, he stole back to his cage, and lay there quiet as a lamb.
Minnie's face was flushed with her unusual exercise, but in a few
minutes she grew very pale, until her mother became alarmed. After a few
drops of lavender, however, she said she felt better, and that if Frank
would tell her a story she should be quite well.
"That I will," exclaimed the boy, eagerly. "I know a real funny one;
you like funny stories--don't you?"
"Yes, when they're true," answered Minnie.
"Well, this is really true. A man was hunting, and he happened to kill a
monkey that had a little baby on her back. The little one clung so close
to her dead mother, that they could scarcely get it away. When they
reached the gentleman's house, the poor creature began to cry at
finding itself alone. All at once it ran across the room to a block,
where a wig belonging to the hunter's father was placed, and thinking
that was its mother, was so comforted that it lay down and went to
sleep.
"They fed it with goat's milk, and it grew quite contented, for three
weeks clinging to the wig with great affection.
"The gentleman had a large and valuable collection of insects, which
were dried upon pins, and placed in a room appropriated to such
purposes.
"One day, when the monkey had become so familiar as to be a favorite
with all in the family, he found his way to this apartment, and made a
hearty breakfast on the insects.
"The owner, entering when the meal was almost concluded, was greatly
enraged, and was about to chastise the animal, who had so quickly
destroyed the work of years, when he saw that the act had brought its
own punishment. In eating the insects, the animal had swallowed the
pins, which very soon caused him such agony that he died."
"I don't call the last part funny at all," said Minnie, gravely.
"But wasn't it queer for it to think the wig was its mother?" asked the
boy, with a merry laugh. "I don't think it could have had much sense to
do that."
"But it was only a baby monkey then, Harry."
"How did it happen," inquired Mrs. Lee, "that Jacko got away from you?"
"He watched his chance, aunty, and twitched the chain away from Minnie.
Now he's done it once, he'll try the game again, I suppose, he is so
fond of playing us tricks."
And true enough, the very next morning the lady was surprised at a visit
from the monkey in her chamber, where he made himself very much at home,
pulling open drawers, and turning over the contents, in the hope of
finding some confectionery, of which he was extremely fond.
"Really," she exclaimed to her husband, "if Jacko goes on so, I shall
be of cook's mind, and not wish to live in the house with him."
CHAPTER IV.
THE MONKEY IN CHURCH.
One day, Jacko observed nurse washing out some fine clothes for her
mistress, and seemed greatly interested in the suds which she made in
the progress of her work.
Watching his chance, he went to Mrs. Lee's room while the family were at
breakfast one morning, and finding some nice toilet soap on the marble
washstand, began to rub it on some fine lace lying on the bureau. After
a little exertion, he was delighted to find that he had a bowl full of
nice, perfumed suds, and was chattering to himself in great glee, when
Ann came in and spoiled his sport.
"You good for nothing, mischievous creature," she cried out, in sudden
wrath, "I'll cure you of prowling about the house in this style."
Giving him a cuff across his head with a shoe, "Go back to your cage,
where you belong."
"Jacko is really getting to be very troublesome," remarked the lady to
her husband. "I can't tell how much longer my patience with him will
last."
"Would Minnie mourn very much if she were to lose him?" asked Mr. Lee.
"I suppose she would for a time; but then she has so many pets to take
up her attention."
Just then the child ran in, her eyes filled with tears, exclaiming,--
"Father, does Jacko know any better? Is he to blame for trying to wash?"
Mr. Lee laughed.
"Because," she went on, "I found him crouched down in his cage, looking
very sorry; and nurse says he ought to be ashamed of himself, cutting
up such ridiculous capers."
"I dare say he feels rather guilty," remarked Mr. Lee. "He must be
taught better, or your mother will be tired of him."
When her father had gone to the city, Minnie looked so grave that her
mother, to comfort her, took the book and read her some stories. A few
of them I will repeat to you.
"A lady was returning from India, in a ship on board of which there was
a monkey. She was a very mild, gentle creature, and readily learned any
thing that was taught her. When she went to lie down at night, she made
up her bed in imitation of her mistress, then got in and wrapped herself
up neatly with the quilt. Sometimes she would wrap her head with a
handkerchief.
"When she did wrong, she would kneel and clasp her hands, seeming
earnestly to ask to be forgiven."
"That's a good story, mamma."
"Yes, dear; and here is another."
"A gentleman boarding with his wife at a hotel in Paris had a pet
monkey, who was very polite. One day his master met him going down
stairs; and when the gentleman said 'good morning,' the animal took off
his cap and made a very polite bow.
"'Are you going away?' asked the owner. 'Where is your passport?' Upon
this the monkey held out a square piece of paper.
"'See!' said the gentleman; 'your mistress' gown is dusty.'
"Jack instantly took a small brush from his master's pocket, raised the
hem of the lady's dress, cleaned it, and then did the same to his
master's shoes, which were also dusty.
"When they gave him any thing to eat, he did not cram his pouches with
it, but delicately and tidily devoured it; and when, as frequently
occurred, strangers gave him money, he always put it in his master's
hands."
"Do you think, mamma, I could teach Jacko to do so?" inquired Minnie,
eagerly.
"I can't say, my dear; and indeed I think it would be hardly worth the
pains to spend a great deal of time in teaching him. He seems to learn
quite fast enough by himself. Indeed, he is so full of tricks, and so
troublesome to cook in hiding her kitchen utensils, I am afraid we shall
have to put him in close confinement."
"I had rather uncle Frank would carry him back to Africa," sighed the
child. "He would be so unhappy."
"Well, dear, I wouldn't grieve about it now. We must manage somehow till
uncle Frank comes, and then perhaps he can tell us what to do. Now I'll
read you another story."
"A monkey living with a gentleman in the country became so troublesome
that the servants were constantly complaining."
"That seems similar to our case," said the lady, smiling, as she
interrupted the reading.
"One day, having his offers of assistance rudely repulsed, he went into
the next house by a window in the second story, which was unfortunately
open. Here he pulled out a small drawer, where the lady kept ribbons,
laces, and handkerchiefs, and putting them in a foot-tub, rubbed away
vigorously for an hour, with all the soap and water there were to be
found in the room.
"When the lady returned to the chamber, he was busily engaged in
spreading the torn and disfigured remnants to dry.
"He knew well enough he was doing wrong; for, without her speaking to
him, he made off quickly and ran home, where he hid himself in the case
of the large kitchen clock.
"The servants at once knew he had been in mischief, as this was his
place of refuge when he was in disgrace.
"One day he watched the cook while she was preparing some partridges for
dinner, and concluded that all birds ought to be so treated. He soon
managed to get into the yard, where his mistress kept a few pet bantam
fowls, and, after eating their eggs, he secured one of the hens, and
began plucking it. The noise of the poor bird called some of the
servants to the rescue, when they found the half-plucked creature in
such a pitiable condition that they killed it at once. After this, Mr.
Monkey was chained up, and soon died."
Minnie looked very grave after hearing this story, and presently said,
"I wonder how old that monkey was."
"The book does not mention his age, my dear. Why?"
"I was thinking that perhaps, as Jacko grows older, he may learn better;
and then I said to myself, 'That one must have been young.'"
"If a monkey is really inclined to be vicious, he is almost unbearable,"
remarked the lady. "His company does not begin to compensate for the
trouble he makes. Sometimes he is only cunning, but otherwise mild and
tractable."
"And which, mamma, do you think Jacko is?"
"I have always thought, until lately, that he was one of the better
kind; but I have now a good many doubts whether you enjoy her funny
tricks enough to compensate cook for all the mischief she does. If I
knew any one who wanted a pet monkey, and would treat him kindly, I
should be glad to have him go. I should hate to have him killed."
"Killed!" screamed Minnie, with a look of horror; "O, mamma, I wouldn't
have one of my pets killed for any thing."
Mrs. Lee thought that would probably be at some time Nannie's fate, but
she wisely said nothing.
"Please read more, mamma. I don't want to think about such awful
things."
The lady cast her eyes over the page, and laughed heartily. Presently
she said, "Here is a very curious anecdote, which I will read you; but
first I must explain to you what a sounding-board is.
"In old fashioned churches, there used to hang, directly over the
pulpit, a large, round board, like the top of a table, which, it was
thought, assisted the minister's voice to be heard by all the
congregation. I can remember, when I was a child, going to visit my
grandmother, and accompanying her to church, where there was a
sounding-board. I worried, through the whole service, for fear it would
fall on the minister's head and kill him. But I will read."
"There was once an eminent clergyman by the name of Casaubon, who kept
in his family a tame monkey, of which he was very fond. This animal,
which was allowed its liberty, liked to follow the minister, when he
went out, but on the Sabbath was usually shut up till his owner was out
of sight, on his way to church.
"But one Sabbath morning, when the clergyman, taking his sermon under
his arm, went out, the monkey followed him unobserved, and watching the
opportunity while his master was speaking to a gentleman on the steps,
ran up at the back of the pulpit, and jumped upon the sounding-board.
"Here he gravely seated himself, looking round in a knowing manner on
the congregation, who were greatly amused at so strange a spectacle.
"The services proceeded as usual, while the monkey, who evidently much
enjoyed the sight of so many people, occasionally peeped over the
sounding-board, to observe the movements of his master, who was
unconscious of his presence.
"When the sermon commenced, many little forms were convulsed with
laughter, which conduct so shocked the good pastor, that he thought it
his duty to administer a reproof, which he did with considerable action
of his hands and arms.
"The monkey, who had now become familiar with the scene, imitated every
motion, until at last a scarcely suppressed smile appeared upon the
countenance of most of the audience. This occurred, too, in one of the
most solemn passages in the discourse; and so horrible did the levity
appear to the good minister, that he launched forth into violent rebuke,
every word being enforced by great energy of action.
"All this time, the little fellow overhead mimicked every movement with
ardor and exactness.
"The audience, witnessing this apparent competition between the good man
and his monkey, could no longer retain the least appearance of
composure, and burst into roars of laughter, in the midst of which one
of the congregation kindly relieved the horror of the pastor at the
irreverence and impiety of his flock, by pointing out the cause of the
merriment.
"Casting his eyes upward, the minister could just discern the animal
standing on the end of the sounding-board, and gesturing with all his
might, when he found it difficult to control himself, though highly
exasperated at the occurrence. He gave directions to have the monkey
removed, and sat down to compose himself, and allow his congregation to
recover their equanimity while the order was being obeyed."
CHAPTER V.
JACKO IN THE PANTRY.
In his frequent visits to the stable, Jacko amused himself by catching
mice that crept out to pick up the corn.
The servants, having noticed his skill, thought they would turn it to
good account, and having been troubled with mice in the pantry,
determined to take advantage of the absence of Mrs. Lee on a journey,
and shut the monkey up in it. So, one evening, they took him out of his
comfortable bed, and chained him up in the larder, having removed every
thing except some jam pots, which they thought out of his reach, and
well secured with bladder stretched over the top.
Poor Jacko was evidently much astonished, and quite indignant, at this
treatment, but presently consoled himself by jumping into a soup
tureen, where he fell sound asleep, while the mice scampered all over
the place.
As soon as it was dawn, the mice retired to their holes. Jacko awoke
shivering with cold, stretched himself, and then, pushing the soup
tureen from the shelf, broke it to pieces. After this achievement, he
began to look about for something to eat, when he spied the jam pots on
the upper shelf.
"There is something good," he thought, smelling them. "I'll see."
His sharp teeth soon worked an entrance, when the treasured jams, plums,
raspberry, strawberry, candied apricots, the pride and care of the cook,
disappeared in an unaccountably short time.
At last, his appetite for sweets was satisfied, and coiling his tail in
a corner, he lay quietly awaiting the servant's coming to take him out.
Presently he heard the door cautiously open, when the chamber girl gave
a scream of horror as she saw the elegant China dish broken into a
thousand bits, and lying scattered on the floor.
She ran in haste to summon Hepsy and the nurse, her heart misgiving her
that this was not the end of the calamity. They easily removed Jacko,
who began already to experience the sad effects of overloading his
stomach, and then found, with alarm and grief, the damage he had done.
For several days the monkey did not recover from the effects of his
excess. He was never shut up again in the pantry.
When Mrs. Lee returned she blamed the servants for trying such an
experiment in her absence. Jacko was now well, and ready for some new
mischief; and Minnie, who heard a ludicrous account of the story,
laughed till she cried.
She repeated it, in great glee, to her father, who looked very grave as
he said, "We think a sea voyage would do the troublesome fellow good;
but you shall have a Canary or a pair of Java sparrows instead."
"Don't you know any stories of good monkeys, father?"
"I don't recollect any at this moment, my dear; but I will see whether I
can find any for you."
He opened the book, and then asked,--
"Did you know, Minnie, that almost all monkeys have bags or pouches in
their cheeks, the skin of which is loose, and when empty makes the
animal look wrinkled?"
"No, sir; I never heard about it."
"Yes, that is the case. He puts his food in them, and keeps it there
till he wishes to devour it.
"There are some kinds, too, that have what is called prehensile tails;
that is, tails by which they can hang themselves to the limb of a tree,
and which they use with nearly as much ease as they can their hands. The
facility which this affords them for moving about quickly among the
branches of trees is astonishing. The firmness of the grasp which it
makes is very surprising; for if it winds a single coil around a branch,
it is quite sufficient, not only to support its weight, but to enable it
to swing in such a manner as to gain a fresh hold with its feet."
"I'm sure, father," eagerly cried Minnie, "that Jacko has a prehensile
tail, for I have often seen him swing from the ladder which goes up the
hay mow."
"I dare say, child. He seems to be up to every thing. But here is an
account of an Indian monkey, of a light grayish yellow color, with black
hands and feet. The face is black, with a violet tinge. This is called
Hoonuman, and is much venerated by the Hindoos. They believe it to be
one of the animals into which the souls of their friends pass at death.
If one of these monkeys is killed, the murderer is instantly put to
death; and, thus protected, they become a great nuisance, and destroy
great quantities of fruit. But in South America, monkeys are killed by
the natives as game, for the sake of the flesh. Absolute necessity alone
would compel us to eat them. A great naturalist named Humboldt tells us
that their manner of cooking them is especially disgusting. They are
raised a foot from the ground, and bent into a sitting position, in
which they greatly resemble a child, and are roasted in that manner. A
hand and arm of a monkey, roasted in this way, are exhibited in a museum
in Paris."
"Monkeys have a curious way of introducing their tails into the fissures
or hollows of trees, for the purpose of hooking out eggs and other
substances. On approaching a spot where there is a supply of food, they
do not alight at once, but take a survey of the neighborhood, a general
cry being kept up by the party."
CHAPTER VI.
THE CRUEL MONKEY.
One afternoon, Minnie ran out of breath to the parlor. "Mamma," she
exclaimed, "cook says monkeys are real cruel in their families. Is it
true?"
The lady smiled. "I suppose, my dear," she responded, "that there is a
difference of disposition among them. I have heard that they are very
fond of their young, and that, when threatened with danger, they mount
them on their back, or clasp them to their breast with great affection.
"But I saw lately an anecdote of the cruelty of a monkey to his wife,
and if I can find the book, I will read it to you."
"There is an animal called the fair monkey, which, though the most
beautiful of its tribe, is gloomy and cruel. One of these, which, from
its extreme beauty and apparent gentleness, was allowed to ramble at
liberty over a ship, soon became a great favorite with the crew, and in
order to make him perfectly happy, as they imagined, they procured him a
wife.
"For some weeks, he was a devoted husband, and showed her every
attention and respect. He then grew cool, and began to use her with much
cruelty. His treatment made her wretched and dull.
"One day, the crew noticed that he treated her with more kindness than
usual, but did not suspect the wicked scheme he had in mind. At last,
after winning her favor anew, he persuaded her to go aloft with him, and
drew her attention to an object in the distance, when he suddenly gave
her a push, which threw her into the sea.
"This cruel act seemed to afford him much gratification, for he
descended in high spirits."
"I should think they would have punished him," said Minnie, with great
indignation.
"Perhaps they did, love. At any rate, it proves that beauty is by no
means always to be depended upon."
Mrs. Lee then took her sewing, but Minnie plead so earnestly for one
more story, a good long one, that her mother, who loved to gratify her,
complied, and read the account which I shall give you in closing this
chapter on Minnie's pet monkey.
"A gentleman, returning from India, brought a monkey, which he presented
to his wife. She called it Sprite, and soon became very fond of it.
"Sprite was very fond of beetles, and also of spiders, and his mistress
used sometimes to hold his chain, lengthened by a string, and make him
run up the curtains, and clear out the cobwebs for the housekeeper.
"On one occasion, he watched his opportunity, and snatching the chain,
ran off, and was soon seated on the top of a cottage, grinning and
chattering to the assembled crowd of schoolboys, as much as to say,
'Catch me if you can.' He got the whole town in an uproar, but finally
leaped over every thing, dragging his chain after him, and nestled
himself in his own bed, where he lay with his eyes closed, his mouth
open, his sides ready to burst with his running.
"Another time, the little fellow got loose, but remembering his former
experience, only stole into the shed, where he tried his hand at
cleaning knives. He did not succeed very well in this, however, for the
handle was the part he attempted to polish, and, cutting his fingers, he
relinquished the sport.
"Resolved not to be defeated, he next set to work to clean the shoes and
boots, a row of which were awaiting the boy. But Sprite, not remembering
all the steps of the performance, first covered the entire shoe, sole
and all, with the blacking, and then emptied the rest of the Day &
Martin into it, nearly filling it with the precious fluid. His coat was
a nice mess for some days after.
"One morning, when the servants returned to the kitchen, they found
Sprite had taken all the kitchen candlesticks out of the cupboard, and
arranged them on the fender, as he had once seen done. As soon as he
heard the servants returning, he ran to his basket, and tried to look as
though nothing had happened.
"Sprite was exceedingly fond of a bath. Occasionally a bowl of water was
given him, when he would cunningly try the temperature by putting in his
finger, after which he gradually stepped in, first one foot, then the
other, till he was comfortably seated. Then he took the soap and rubbed
himself all over. Having made a dreadful splashing all around, he jumped
out and ran to the fire, shivering. If any body laughed at him during
this performance, he made threatening gestures, chattering with all his
might to show his displeasure, and sometimes he splashed water all over
them.
"Poor Sprite one day nearly committed suicide. As he was brought from a
very warm climate, he often suffered exceedingly, in winter, from the
cold.
"The cooking was done by a large fire on the open hearth, and as his
basket, where he slept, was in one corner of the kitchen, before morning
he frequently awoke shivering and blue. The cook was in the habit of
making the fire, and then returning to her room to finish her toilet.
"One morning, having lighted the pile of kindlings as usual, she hung on
the tea-kettle and went out, shutting the door carefully behind her.
"Sprite thought this a fine opportunity to warm himself. He jumped from
his basket, ran to the hearth, and took the lid of the kettle off.
Cautiously touching the water with the tip of his finger, he found it
just the right heat for a bath, and sprang in, sitting down, leaving
only his head above the water.
"This he found exceedingly comfortable for a time; but soon the water
began to grow hot. He rose, but the air outside was so cold, he quickly
sat down again. |
10,240 |
Produced by Martin Ward
Weymouth New Testament in Modern Speech
Preface and Introductions
Third Edition 1913
Public Domain--Copy Freely
These files were produced by keying for use in the Online Bible.
Proofreading was performed by Earl Melton. The printed edition
used in creating this etext was the Kregal reprint of the Ernest
Hampden-Cook (1912) Third Edition, of the edition first published
in 1909 by J. Clarke, London. Kregal edition ISBN 0-8254-4025-4.
Due to the plans to add the Weymouth footnotes, the footnote
markers have been left in the text and page break indicators.
Other special markings are words surrounded with "*" to indicate
emphasis, and phrases surrounded with "<>" to indicate bold OT
quotes. See WEYMOUTH.INT in WNTINT.ZIP for the introduction
to the text, and information on Weymouth's techniques.
The most current corrected files can be found on:
Bible Foundation BBS
602-789-7040 (14.4 kbs)
If any errors are found, please notify me at the above bbs,
or at:
Mark Fuller
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----------- Corrections to the printed page ---------------------
Introduction says personal pronouns referring to Jesus, when spoken
by other than the author/narrator, are capitalized only when they
recognize His deity. The following oversights in the third edition
were corrected in subsequent editions. Therefore we feel justified
in correcting them in this computer version.
Mt 22:16 Capitalized 'him'. Same person speaking as in v.15.
Mt 27:54 Capitalized 'he'.
Joh 21:20 Capitalized 'his'
Heb 12:6 Capitalized last 'HE' (referring to God).
==== changes made to printed page.
Lu 11:49 Added closing quote at end of verse as later editions do.
Lu 13:6 come > came (changed in later editions)
Ro 11:16 it > if (an obvious typesetting error corrected in later editions)
1Co 11:6 out > cut (an obvious typesetting error corrected in later editions)
Php 4:3 the Word 'book' in 'book of Life' was not capitalized in
various printings of the third edition, but it was in later
editions. So we have capitalized it here.
2Ti 1:9 deserts > desserts (misspelling perpetuated in later editions)
==== no change made:
Eph 6:17 did not capitalize 'word' as in Word of God.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
The Translation of the New Testament here offered to
English-speaking Christians is a bona fide translation made
directly from the Greek, and is in no sense a revision. The plan
adopted has been the following.
1. An earnest endeavour has been made (based upon more
than sixty years' study of both the Greek and English languages,
besides much further familiarity gained by continual teaching) to
ascertain the exact meaning of every passage not only by the
light that Classical Greek throws on the langruage used, but also
by that which the Septuagint and the Hebrew Scriptures afford;
aid being sought too from Versions and Commentators ancient and
modern, and from the ample _et cetera_ of _apparatus grammaticus_
and theological and Classical reviews and magazines--or rather,
by means of occasional excursions into this vast prairie.
2. The sense thus seeming to have been ascertained, the
next step has been to consider how it could be most accurately
and naturally exhibited in the English of the present day; in
other words, how we can with some approach to probability suppose
that the inspired writer himself would have expressed his
thoughts, had he been writing in our age and country. /1
3. Lastly it has been evidently desirable to compare the
results thus attained with the renderings of other scholars,
especially of course witll the Authorized and Revised Versions.
But alas, the great majority of even "new translations," so
called, are, in reality, only Tyndale's immortal work a
little--often very litLle--modernized!
4. But in the endeavour to find in Twentieth Century
English a precise equivalent for a Greek word, phrase, or
sentence there are two dangers to be guarded against. There are a
Scylla and a Charybdis. On the one hand there is the English of
Society, on the other hand that of the utterly uneducated, each
of these _patois_ having also its own special, though expressive,
borderland which we name'slang.' But all these salient angles
(as a professor of fortification might say) of our language are
forbidden ground to the reverent translator of Holy Scripture.
5. But again, a _modern_ translation--does this imply
that no words or phrases in any degree antiquated are to be
admitted? Not so, for great numbers of such words and phrases are
still in constant use. To be antiquated is not the same thing as
to be obsolete or even obsolescent, and without at least a tinge
of antiquity it is scarcely possible that there should be that
dignity of style that befits the sacred themes with which the
Evangelists and Apostles deal.
6. It is plain that this attempt to bring out the sense
of the Sacred Writings naturally as well as accurately in
present-day English does not permit, except to a limited extent,
the method of literal rendering--the _verbo verbum reddere_ at
which Horace shrugs his shoulders. Dr. Welldon, recently Bishop
of Calcutta, in the Preface (p. vii) to his masterly translation
of the _Nicomachean Ethics_ of Aristotle, writes, "I have
deliberately rejected the principle of trying to translate the
same Greek word by the same word in English, and where
circumstances seemed to call for it I have sometimes used two
English words to represent one word of the Greek;"--and he is
perfectly right. With a slavish literality delicate shades of
meaning cannot be reproduced, nor allowance be made for the
influence of interwoven thought, or of the writer's ever
shifting--not to say changing--point of view. An utterly ignorant
or utterly lazy man, if possessed of a little ingenuity, can with
the help of a dictionary and grammar give a word-for-word
rendering, whether intelligible or not, and print 'Translation'
on his title-page. On the other hand it is a melancholy spectacle
to see men of high ability and undoubted scholarship toil and
struggle at translation under a needless restriction to
literality, as in intellectual handcuffs and fetters, when they
might with advantage snap the bonds and fling them away, as Dr.
Welldon has done: more melancholy still, if they are at the same
time racking their brains to exhibit the result of their
labours---a splendid but idle philological _tour de force_ --in
what was English nearly 300 years before.
7. Obviously any literal translation cannot but carry
idioms of the earlier language into the later, where they will
very probably not be understood; /2 and more serious still is the
evil when, as in the Jewish Greek of the N T, the earlier
language of the two is itself composite and abounds in forms of
speech that belong to one earlier still. For the N.T. Greek, even
in the writings of Luke, contains a large number of Hebrew
idioms; and a literal rendering into English cannot but partially
veil, and in some degree distort, the true sense, even if it does
not totally obscure it (and that too where _perfect_ clearness
should be attained, if possible), by this admixture of Hebrew as
well as Greek forms of expression.
8. It follows that the reader who is bent upon getting a
literal rendering, such as he can commonly find in the R.V. or
(often a better one) in Darby's _New Testament_, should always be
on his guard against its strong tendency to mislead.
9. One point however can hardly be too emphatically
stated. It is not the present Translator's ambition to supplant
the Versions already in general use, to which their intrinsic
merit or long familiarity or both have caused all Christian minds
so lovingly to cling. His desire has rather been to furnish a
succinct and compressed running commentary (not doctrinal) to be
used sidc by side with its elder compeers. And yet there has been
something of a remoter hope. It can scarcely be doubted that some
day the attempt will be renewed to produce a satisfactory English
Bible--one in some respects perhaps (but assuredly with great and
important deviations) on the lines of the Revision of 1881, or
even altogether to supersede both the A.V. and the R.V.; and it
may be that the Translation here offered will contribute some
materials that may be built into that far grander edifice.
10. THE GREEK TEXT here followed is that given in the
Translator's _Resultant Greek Testament_.
11. Of the VARIOUS READINGS only those are here given
which seem the most important, and which affect the rendering
into English. They are in the footnotes, with V.L. (_varia
lectio_) prefixed. As to the chief modern critical editions full
details will be found in the _Resultant Greek Testament_, while
for the original authorities--MSS., Versions, Patristic
quotations--the reader must of necessity consult the great works
of Lachmann, Tregelles, Tischendorf, and others, or the numerous
monographs on separate Books. /3 In the margin of the R.V. a
distinction is made between readings supported by "a few ancient
authorities," "some ancient authorities," "many ancient
authorities," and so on. Such valuation is not attempted in this
work.
12. Considerable pains have been bestowed on the exact
rendering of the tenses of the Greek verb; for by inexactness in
this detail the true sense cannot but be missed. That the Greek
tenses do not coincide, and cannot be expected to coincide with
those of the English verb; that--except in narrative--the aorist
as a rule is _more_ exactly represented in English by our perfect
with "have" than by our simple past tense; and that in this
particular the A.V. is in scores of instances more correct than
the R.V.; the present Translator has contended (with arguments
which some of the best scholars in Britain and in America hold to
be "unanswerable" and "indisputable") in a pamphlet _On the
Rendering into English of the Greek Aorist and Perfect_. Even an
outline of the argument cannot be given in a Preface such as
this.
13. But he who would make a truly _English_ translation
of a foreign book must not only select the right nouns,
adjectives, and verbs, insert the suitable prepositions and
auxiliaries, and triumph (if he can) over the seductions and
blandishments of idioms with which he has been familiar from his
infancy, but which, though forcible or beautiful with other
surroundings, are for all that part and parcel of that other
language rather than of English: he has also to beware of
_connecting his sentences_ in an un-English fashion.
Now a careful examination of a number of authors
(including Scottish, Irish, and American) yields some interesting
results. Taking at haphazard a passage from each of fifty-six
authors, and counting on after some full stop till fifty finite
verbs--i. e. verbs in the indicative, imperative, or subjunctive
mood--have been reached (each finite verb, as every schoolboy
knows, being the nucleus of one sentence or clause), it has been
found that the connecting links of the fifty-six times fifty
sentences are about one-third conjunctions, about one-third
adverbs or relative and interrogative pronouns, while in the case
of the remaining third there is what the grammarians call an
_asyndeton_--no formal grammatical connexion at all. But in the
writers of the N.T. nearly _two_-thirds of the connecting links
are conjunctions. It follows that in order to make the style of a
translation true idiomatic English many of these conjunctions
must be omitted, and for others adverbs, &c., must be
substituted.
The two conjunctions _for_ and _therefore_ are discussed
at some length in two Appendices to the above-mentioned pamphlet
on the _Aorist_, to which the reader is referred.
14. The NOTES, with but few exceptions, are not of the
nature of a general commentary. Some, as already intimated, refer
to the readings here followed, but the great majority are in
vindication or explanation of the renderings given. Since the
completion of this new version nearly two years ago, ill-health
has incapacitated the Translator from undertaking even the
lightest work. He has therefore been obliged to entrust to other
hands the labour of critically examining and revising the
manuscript and of seeing it through the press. This arduous task
has been undertaken by Rev. Ernest Hampden-Cook, M.A., St. John's
College, Cambridge, of Sandhach, Cheshire, with some co-operation
from one of the Translator's sons; and the Translator is under
deep obligations to these two gentlemen for their kindness in the
matter. He has also most cordially to thank Mr. Hampden-Cook for
making the existence of the work known to various members of the
OLD MILLHILIANS' CLUB and other former pupils of the Translator,
who in a truly substantial manner have manifested a generous
determination to enable the volume to see the light. Very
grateful does the Translator feel to them for this signal mark of
their friendship.
Mr. Hampden-Cook is responsible for the headings of the
paragraphs, and at my express desire has inserted some additional
notes.
I have further to express my gratitude to Rev. Frank
Baliard, M.A., B.Sc., Lond., at present of Sharrow, Sheffield,
for some very valuable assistance which he has most kindly given
in connexion with the Introductions to the several books.
I have also the pleasure of acknowledging the numerous
valuable and suggestive criticisms with which I have been
favoured on some parts of the work, by an old friend, Rev. Sydney
Thelwall, B.A., of Leamington, a clergyman of the Church of
England, whom I have known for many years as a painstaking and
accurate scholar, a well-read theologian. and a thoughtful and
devout student of Scripture.
I am very thankful to Mr. H. L. Gethin. Mr. S. Hales, Mr.
J. A. Latham, and Rev. T. A. Seed, for the care with which they
have read the proof sheets.
And now this Translation is humbly and prayerfully
commended to God's gracious blessing.
R.F.W.
/1. I am aware of what Proffessor Blackie has written on this
subject (_Aeschylus_, Pref. p. viii) but the problem endeavoured
to be solved in this Translation is as above stated.
/2. A flagrant instance is the "having in a readiness" of 2 Cor.
10.6, A.V. althoglgh in Tyndale we find "and are redy to take
vengeaunce," and even Wiclif writes "and we han redi to venge."
/3 Such as McClellan's Four Gospels; Westcott on John's Gospel,
John's Epistles, and _Hebrews_; Hackett on _Acts_, Lightfoot, and
also Ellicott, on various Epistles: Mayor on _James_; Edwards on
_I Corinthians_ and _Hebrews_; Sanday and Headlam on _Romans_.
Add to these Scrivener's very valuable _Introduction to the
Criticism of the N.T._
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION
For the purposes of this edition the whole volume has
been re-set in new type, and, in the hope of increasing the
interest and attractiveness of the Translation, all conversations
have been spaced out in accordance with modern custom. A freer
use than before has been made of capital letters, and by means of
small, raised figures, prefixed to words in the text, an
indication has been griven whenever there is a footnote.
"Capernaum" and "Philadelphia" have been substituted for the less
familiar but more literal "Capharnahum" and "Philadelpheia." Many
errata have been corrected, and a very considerable number of
what seemed to be infelicities or slight inaccuracies in the
English have been removed. A few additional footnotes have been
inserted, and, for the most part, those for which the Editor is
responsible have now the letters ED. added to them.
Sincere thanks are tendered to the many kind friends who
have expressed their appreciation of this Translation, or have
helped to make it better known, and to the many correspondents
who have sent criticisms of the previous editions, and made
useful suggestions for the improvement of the volume.
E.H.C.
ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE NOTES
Aorist. Dr. Weymouth's Pamphlet on the Rendering of the Greek
Aorist and Perfect Tenses into English.
A.V. Authorised English Version, 1611.
Cp. Compare.
ED. Notes for which the Editor is responsible, wholly or in part.
I.E. That is.
Lit. Literally.
LXX. The Septuagint (Greek) Version of the Old Testament.
n. Note.
nn. Notes.
N.T. New Testament.
O.T. Old Testament.
R.V. Revised English Version, 1881-85.
S.H. Sanday and Headlam's Commentary on 'Romans.'
V.L. Varia Lectio. An alternative reading found in some
Manuscripts of the New Testament.
V.V. Verses.
In accordance with modern English custom, _ITALICS_ are
used to indicate emphasis. [In the etext, surounded by **]
Old Testament quotations are printed in small capitals.
[In the etext, surrounded by <>]
During Christ's earthly ministry even His disciples did not always
recognize His super-human nature and dignity. Accordingly, in
the Gospels of this Translation, it is only when the Evangelists
themselves use of Him the words "He," "Him," "His," that these
are spelt with capital initial letters.
The spelling of "me" and "my" with small initial letters, when
used by Christ Himself in the Gospels, is explained by the fact
that, before His Resurrection, He did not always emphasize His
own super-human nature and dignity.
The Good News as Recorded by Matthew
There are ample reasons for accepting the uniform
tradition which from earliest times has ascribed this Gospel to
Levi the son of Alphaeus, who seems to have changed his name to
'Matthew' on becoming a disciple of Jesus. Our information as to
his subsequent life is very scanty. After the feast which he made
for his old friends (Lu 5:29) his name only appears in the New
Testament in the list of the twelve Apostles. Early Christian
writers add little to our knowledge of him, but his life seems to
have been quiet and somewhat ascetic. He is also generally
represented as having died a natural death. Where his Gospel was
written, or where he himself laboured, we cannot say.
Not a little controversy has arisen as to the form in
which this Gospel first appeared, that is, as to whether we have
in the Greek MSS. an original document or a translation from an
earlier Aramaic writing. Modern scholarship inclines to the view
that the book is not a translation, but was probably written in
Greek by Matthew himself, upon the basis of a previously issued
collection of "Logia" or discourses, to the existence of which
Papias, Irenaeus, Pantaenus, Origen, Eusebius and Jerome all
testify.
The date of the Gospel, as we know it, is somewhat
uncertain, but the best critical estimates are included between
70 and 90, A.D. Perhaps, with Harnack, we may adopt 75, A.D.
The book was evidently intended for Jewish converts, and
exhibits Jesus as the God-appointed Messiah and King, the
fulfiller of the Law and of the highest expectations of the
Jewish nation. This speciality of aim rather enhances than
diminishes its general value. Renan found reason for pronouncing
it "the most important book of Christendom-- the most important
book which has ever been written." Its aim is manifestly didactic
rather than chronological.
The Good News as Recorded by Mark
This Gospel is at once the briefest and earliest of the
four. Modern research confirms the ancient tradition that the
author was Barnabas's cousin, "John, whose other name was Mark,"
who during Paul's first missionary tour "departed from them" at
Pamphylia, "and returned to Jerusalem" (see Ac 12:12,25;
15:37,39; Co 4:1O; 2Ti 4:11; Phm 1:24; 1Pe 5:13). His defection
appeared to Paul sufficiently serious to warrant an emphatic
refusal to take him with him on a second tour, but in after years
the breach was healed and we find Mark with Paul again when he
writes to Colossae, and he is also mentioned approvingly in the
second Letter to Timothy.
Scholars are now almost unanimous in fixing the date of
this Gospel between 63 and 70, A. D. There is no valid reason for
questioning the usual view that it was written in Rome. Clement,
Eusebius, Jerome and Epiphanius, all assert that this was so.
That the book was mainly intended for Gentiles, and especially
Romans, seems probable from internal evidence. Latin forms not
occurring in other Gospels, together with explanations of Jewish
terms and customs, and the omission of all reference to the
Jewish Law, point in this direction. Its vividness of narration
and pictorial minuteness of observation bespeak the testimony of
an eye-witness, and the assertion of Papias, quoted by Eusebius,
that Mark was "the interpreter of Peter" is borne out by the
Gospel itself no less than by what we otherwise know of Mark and
Peter.
In a real though not mechanical sense, this is "the
Gospel of Peter," and its admitted priority to the Gospels of
Matthew and Luke affords substantial reason for the assumption
that it is to some extent the source whence they derive their
narratives, although Papias distinctly affirms that Mark made no
attempt at giving a carefully arranged history such as that at
which Luke confessedly aimed.
In spite of the witness of most uncial MSS. and the
valiant pleading of Dean Burgon and others, modern scholars are
well nigh unanimous in asserting that the last twelve verses of
this Gospel are an appendix. Yet less cannot honestly be said
than that they "must have been of very early date," and that they
embody "a true apostolic tradition which may have been written by
some companion or successor of the original author." In one
Armenian MS. they are attributed to Aristion.
The Good News as Recorded by Luke
Modern research has abundantly confirmed the ancient
tradition that the anonymous author of the third Gospel is none
other than "Luke the beloved physician" and the narrator of the
"Acts of the Apostles" (see. Col 4:14; 2Ti 4:11; Phm 1:24). Even
Renan acknowledges this, and the objections of a few extremists
appear to have been sufficiently answered.
The date is not easy to settle. The main problem is
whether the book was written before or after the destruction of
Jerusalem in 70, A.D. Not a few scholars whose views merit great
respect still think that it preceded that event, but the majority
of critics believe otherwise. Three principal dates have been
suggested, 63, A.D., 80, A.D., 100, A.D. If we accept 80, A. D.,
we shall be in substantial accord with Harnack, McGiffert, and
Plummer, who fairly represent the best consensus of scholarly
opinion.
There is no evidence as to where this Gospel was
composed, although its general style suggests the influence of
some Hellenic centre. Its special characteristics are plain. It
is written in purer Greek than the other Gospels, and is
manifestly the most historic and artistic. It has also the widest
outlook, having obviously been compiled for Gentiles, and,
especially, for Greeks. The Author was evidently an educated man
and probably a physician, and was also a close observer.
Eighteen of the parables and six of the miracles found
here are not recorded elsewhere. Those "portions of the Gospel
narrative which Luke alone has preserved for us, are among the
most beautiful treasures which we possess, and we owe them in a
great measure to his desire to make his collection as full as
possible." Luke's object was rather to write history than
construct an "apology" and for this reason his order is generally
chronological.
This Gospel is often termed, and not without reason, "the
Gospel of Paul." Luke's close association with the great
Apostle--an association to which the record in the Acts and also
the Pauline Letters bear testimony--at once warrants and explains
the ancient assumption that we have here a writing as truly
coloured by the influence of Paul as that of Mark was by Peter.
This is especially the Gospel of gratuitous and universal
salvation. Its integrity has recently been placed beyond dispute.
Marcion's edition of it in 140, A.D., was a mutilation of the
original!
The Good News as Recorded by John
In spite of its rejection by Marcion and the Alogi, the
fourth Gospel was accepted by most Christians at the end of the
second century as having been written by the Apostle John. In the
present day the preponderating tendency among scholars favours
the traditional authorship. On the other hand the most recent
scrutiny asserts: "Although many critics see no adequate reason
for accepting the tradition which assigns the book to the Apostle
John, and there are several cogent reasons to the contrary, they
would hardly deny that nevertheless the volume is Johannine--in
the sense that any historical element throughout its pages may be
traced back directly or indirectly to that Apostle and his
school."
As regards the date, no more definite period can be
indicated than that suggested by Harnack--between 80, A.D., and
110, A.D. But that it was written in Ephesus is practically
certain, and there is evidence that it was composed at the
request of Elders and believers belonging to the Churches of
Roman Asia.
The special characteristics which render the book unique
in literature are unmistakable, but scarcely admit of brief
expression. It is manifestly supplementary to the other Gospels
and assumes that they are known and are true. The differences
between the fourth Gospel and the other three may be easily
exaggerated, but it must be acknowledged that they exist. They
relate, (1) to the ministry of Christ, and (2) to His person. As
to the former it is impossible to correlate all the references to
distinct events, for whilst the Synoptics appear to contemplate
little more than the life and work of a single year, from John's
standpoint there can scarcely have been less than three years
concerned. As to the person of Christ, it must be owned that
although the fourth Gospel makes no assertion which contradicts
the character of Teacher and Reformer attributed to Him by the
Synoptics, it presents to us a personage so enwrapped in mystery
and dignity as altogether to transcend ordinary human nature.
This transcendent Personality is indeed the avowed centre of the
whole record, and His portrayal is its avowed purpose. Yet whilst
the writer never clearly reveals to us who he himself is, it is
equally manifest that his own convictions constitute the matrix
in which the discourses and events are imbedded, and that there
is nothing in this matrix to render that which it contains unreal
or untrustworthy.
The Acts of the Apostles
The authorship of this book has been much discussed, but
it may now be affirmed with certainty that the writer of our
third Gospel is also the author of "the Acts," and that he speaks
from the standpoint of an eye-witness in the four we sections
(16:10-17; 20:5-15; 21:1-18; 27:1--28:16), and is known in Paul's
Letters as "Luke the beloved physician" (Col 4:14; 2Ti 4:11; Phm
1:24). The date necessarily depends upon that of the third
Gospel. If the latter was written before the destruction of
Jerusalem, then Luke's second work may well have been issued
between 66 and 70, A.D. But the tendency, in the present day, is
to date the Gospel somewhere between 75 and 85, A.D., after the
destruction of the city. In that case "the Acts" may be assigned
to any period between 80 and 90, A.D. The latter conclusion,
though by no means certain, is perhaps the more probable.
The familiar title of the book is somewhat unfortunate,
for it is manifestly not the intention of the writer to describe
the doings of the Apostles generally, but rather just so much of
the labours of Peter and Paul--and especially the latter--as will
serve to illustrate the growth of the early Church, and at the
same time exhibit the emancipation of Christianity from its
primitive Judaic origin and environment.
It is plain that the writer was contemporary with the
events he describes, and although his perfect ingenuousness
ceaselessly connects his narrative with history, in no case has
he been proved to be in error. The intricacy of the connexions
between this record and the Pauline Letters will be best
estimated from a study of Paley's _Horae Paulinae_. We know
nothing definite as to the place where the Acts was written, nor
the sources whence the information for the earlier portion of the
narrative was obtained. But it may be truthfully affirmed that
from the modern critical ordeal the work emerges as a definite
whole, and rather confirmed than weakened in regard to its
general authenticity.
Paul's Letter to the Romans
The four books of the New Testament known as the Letters
to the Romans, Corinthians, and Galatians, are allowed by
practically all critics, including some of the most
"destructive," to be genuine productions of the Apostle Paul.
Opinions vary as to the order of their composition. The latest
research tends to put 'Galatians' first, and 'Romans' last, in
the period between 53 and 58 A. D. The date generally assigned to
the Roman Letter is 58 A.D., but recently Harnack, McGiffert,
Clemen and others have shown cause for putting it some four years
earlier. The chronology of the period is necessarily very
complicated. It must suffice, therefore, to regard this Letter as
having been written, at either of these dates, from Corinth,
where Paul was staying in the course of his third missionary
tour. He was hoping to go to Rome, by way of Jerusalem, and then
proceed to Spain (15:24; Ac 24:21).
The object of this Letter was to prepare the Christians
in Rome for his visit, and make a clear statement of the new
doctrines which he taught. It is probable that the crisis in
Galatia, to which the Letter sent thither bears witness, had
driven the Apostle's thoughts in the direction of the subject of
Justification, and he was apparently much troubled by the
persistence of Jewish unbelief. Hence the present Letter has been
well termed "the Gospel according to Paul."
We know really nothing about the Christians then in Rome
beyond what we find here. It is, however, fairly certain that
reports concerning the Saviour would be taken to that city by
proselytes, both before and after the events described in Acts 2,
and we know that there was a large Jewish population there
amongst whom the seed would be sown. Some critics have thought
"that a note addressed to Ephesus lies embedded in the 16th
chapter," because, they say, it is "inconceivable that Paul could
have intimately known so many individuals in a Church like that
in Rome to which he was personally a stranger." But this is by no
means demonstrated, nor is there evidence that the Church there
was founded by any other Apostle.
Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians
The genuineness of the two Letters to the Corinthians has
never been seriously disputed. The first was written by the
Apostle Paul, probably in the early spring of 56 A.D., just
before he left Ephesus for Troas in the course of his third
missionary tour (Ac 19). The Church in Corinth had been founded
by him during his previous tour (Ac 18). After some hesitation he
had been induced to preach in Corinth, and in spite of the
opposition of the Jews such great success attended his efforts
that he remained there for more than eighteen months. The furious
attack upon him which was frustrated by Gallio gave impetus to
the new cause, so that when the Apostle left, there was a
comparatively strong Church there, consisting mostly of Greeks,
but including not a few Jews also. The dangers, however, arising
out of the temperament and circumstances of the Corinthians soon
manifested themselves. The city was the capital of Roman Greece,
a wealthy commercial centre, and the home of a restless,
superficial intellectualism. Exuberant verbosity, selfish
display, excesses at the Lord's table, unseemly behaviour of
women at meetings for worship, and also abuse of spiritual gifts,
were complicated by heathen influences and the corrupting customs
of idolatry. Hence the Apostle's pleas, rebukes, and
exhortations. Most noteworthy of all is his forceful treatment of
the subject of the Resurrection of Christ; and this only a
quarter of a century after the event. Of the Letter mentioned in
5:9 we know nothing.
Paul's Second Letter to the Corinthians
The second Letter to the Corinthians was probably written
in the autumn of 56 A.D., the first Letter to them having been
sent in the spring of that year. But there are other letters of
which we have no clear account. One, lost to us, evidently
preceded the first Letter (1Co 5:9). In our "second" Letter we
find mention (2:2,4) of a severe communication which could not
but give pain. Can this have been our "first" to the Corinthians?
Some think not, in which case there must have been an
"intermediate" letter. This some students find in 2Co 10 1-8:1O.
If so, there must have been four letters. Some have thought that
in 2Co 6:14-7:1, and 8, 9, yet another is embedded, making
possibly five in all. The reader must form his own conclusions,
inasmuch as the evidence is almost entirely internal. On the
whole it would seem that our first Letter, conveyed by Titus, had
produced a good effect in the Corinthian Church, but that this
wore off, and that Titus returned to the Apostle in Ephesus with
such disquieting news that a visit of Paul just then to Corinth
would have been very embarrassing, alike for the Church and the
Apostle. Hence, instead of going, he writes a "painful" letter
and sends it by the same messenger, proceeding himself to Troas
and thence to Macedonia, where, in great tension of spirit, he
awaits the return of Titus. At last there comes a reassuring
account, the relief derived from which is so great that our
second Letter is written, with the double purpose of comforting
those who had been so sharply rebuked and of preventing the
recurrence of the evils which had called forth the remonstrance.
In this way both the tenderness and the severity of the present
Letter may be explained.
Paul's Letter to the Galatians
There is no question as to the genuineness of this
Pauline Letter, but unlike most other writings of the Apostle it
was addressed to "Churches" rather than to a single community.
Formerly it was not easy to decide the precise meaning of
the term "Galatia." Opinions differed on the subject. The "North
Galatian theory," contended for by some German scholars,
maintained that the Letter was addressed to the Churches of
Ancyra, Tavium, Pessinus and possibly to those in other cities.
The "South Galatian theory," which now holds the field in
English-speaking countries, is to the effect that the
congregations intended were those of Pisidian Antioch, Iconium,
Derbe and Lystra; and this is strongly supported by the unique
resemblance between this Letter and Paul's sermon in Pisidian
Antioch (Ac 13:14-41). In any case the population was very mixed,
consisting of Phrygians, Greeks, Romans, Gauls and Jews.
The date of the Letter cannot be exactly fixed. The
periods assigned by recent scholarship vary from 46 A.D. to 58
A.D., but the medium estimate of 53 A.D., adopted by Harnack and
Ramsay, satisfies all the requirements of the case.
The Apostle certainly visited Galatia during his second
missionary tour, perhaps about 51 A. D., and, although suffering
from illness, was received with enthusiasm. After a short stay he
departed cherishing a joyful confidence as to his converts there.
But when, less than three years afterwards, he came again, he
found that the leaven of Judaism had produced a definite
apostasy, insomuch that both the freedom of individual believers
and his own Apostolic authority were in danger.
Even his personal presence (Ac 18:23) did not end the
difficulty. Hence, possibly during his journey between Macedonia
and Achaia, he sent this Letter. Its rugged and incoherent style
shows that it was dictated under great stress of feeling, and the
doctrine of justification by faith is stated more emphatically
than in any other of his writings. But his earnest insistence
upon the "fruit borne by the Spirit" proves that his ideal of
practical holiness was rather strengthened than impaired by his
plea for Faith as the mainspring of Christian life.
Paul's Letter to the Ephesians
This appears to have been a kind of circular Letter to
the Churches in Roman Asia, and was not addressed exclusively to
the Church in Ephesus.
Ephesus was a well-known seaport and the principal city
in Roman Asia. It was famous alike for its wonderful temple,
containing the shrine of Artemis, and for its vast theatre, which
was capable of accommodating 50,000 persons.
Paul was forbidden at first to preach in Roman Asia (Ac
16:6), but he afterwards visited Ephesus in company with
Priscilla and Aquila (Ac 18:19). About three years later (Ac
19:1) he came again and remained for some time--probably from 54
to 57 A. D.--preaching and arguing in the school of Tyrannus,
until driven away through the tumult raised by Demetrius. He then
went to Jerusalem, by way of Miletus, but was arrested in the
uproar created by the Jews and was taken first to Caesarea (Ac
23:23), and thence to Rome (Ac 28:16). This was probably in the
spring of 61 A.D.
Late in 62 or early in 63 A.D., this Letter was written,
together with the companion Letters to the Colossians and
Philemon.
Paul's Letter to the Philippians
This Letter was written shortly before that to the
Ephesians, probably late in 61 or early in 62 A.D. Epaphroditus
had been sent to Rome to assure the Apostle, in his imprisonment,
of the tender and practical sympathy of the Philippian disciples
(Php 2:25; 4:15,16). The messenger, however, fell ill upon his
arrival, and only on his recovery could Paul, as in this Letter,
express his appreciation of the thoughtful love of the
Philippians.
The Apostle appears to have visited the city three times.
In 52 A.D. it was the place of his first preaching in Europe (Ac
16:12); but he came again in 57 and in 58 A.D. (Ac 20:2,6), on
the last occasion spending the Passover season there.
Two special traits in the Macedonian character are
recognized by the Apostle in this Letter; the position and
influence of women, and the financial liberality of the
Philippians. It is remarkable that a Church displaying such
characteristics, and existing in a Roman "colonia," should have
lived, as this one did, "without a history, and have perished
without a memorial."
Paul's Letter to the Colossians
This Letter belongs to the same group as those to the
Ephesians and Philemon, and was probably written from Rome about
63 A. D. Colossae was a town in Phrygia (Roman Asia), on the
river Lycus, and was destroyed by an earthquake in the seventh
year of Nero's reign. The Church there was not founded by Paul
himself (Col 2:1), but by Epaphras (Col 1:7; 4:12), and this
Letter arose out of a visit which Epaphras paid to the Apostle,
for the purpose of discussing with him the development, at
Colossae, of certain strange doctrines which may possibly have
been a kind of early Gnosticism. Paul here writes to support the
authority and confirm the teaching of Epaphras.
Paul's First Letter to the Thessalonians
During his second missionary tour (Ac 17), Paul came to
Thessalonica and preached the Good News there with no little
success. The city--which had had its name given it by Cassander,
after his wife, the sister of Alexander the Great--was the most
populous in Macedonia, besides being a "free city" and the seat
of the Roman pro-consular administration. Its modern name is
Saloniki.
Very soon the unbelieving Jews stirred up the mob against
Paul and Silas, and dragged Jason before the magistrates. Hence
the brethren sent the missionaries away by night to Beroea, being
alarmed for their safety. As the Apostle was naturally anxious
about the persecuted flock which he had been obliged to leave
behind, he made two attempts to return to them, but these being
frustrated (1Th 2:18), he then sent Timothy, from Athens, to
inquire after their welfare and encourage them.
The report brought back was on the whole satisfactory,
but left occasion for the self-defence, the warnings and the
exhortations of this Letter, which was then sent from Corinth,
probably in 53 A.D.
Paul's Second Letter to the Thessalonians
This Letter was written from Corinth not long after the
preceding one, and probably in the year 54 A.D. Its occasion was
the reception of tidings from Thessalonica which showed that
there had been a measure of misapprehension of the Apostle's
teaching in regard to the Return of the Lord Jesus, and also that
there was a definitely disorderly section in the Church there,
capable of doing great harm.
Hence Paul writes to correct the error into which his
converts had fallen, and at the same time he uses strong language
as to the treatment to be dealt out to those members of the
Church who were given to idleness and insubordination.
Paul's First Letter to Timothy
There has never been any real doubt among Christian
people as to the authorship of the three "pastoral" Letters. But
definite objections to their genuineness have been made in recent
times upon the ground of such internal evidence as their style,
the indications they present of advanced organization, their
historic standpoint and their references to developed heresy.
Says one scholar, "While there is probably nothing in
them to which the Apostle would have objected, they must be
regarded on account of their style as the product of one who had
been taught by Paul and now desired to convey certain teachings
under cover of his name. The date need not be later than 80 A.D."
Yet a thorough examination of the matter does not support
such objections. It is certain that the three Letters stand or
fall together, and there is no sufficient reason for dismissing
the ancient conclusion that they are all the genuine work of
Paul, and belong to the last years of his life, 66-67 A.D.
This first Letter was probably written from Macedonia.
Paul's Second Letter to Timothy
The marks of genuineness in this Letter are very
pronounced. For instance, the thanksgiving, the long list of
proper names--twenty-three in number--the personal details and
the manifest tone of sincerity and earnestness. Hence it is
accepted as Paul's even by some who reject the former Letter and
that addressed to Titus. But it is inseparable from the others,
and was probably written from Rome during the Apostle's second
imprisonment. It is his last Letter known to us, and its apparent
date is 67 A.D.
Paul's Letter to Titus
This Letter was probably written from Ephesus in 67 A.D.
Titus, who was a Greek by birth, is mentioned in eleven other
places in the Pauline Letters and always with marked approval
(2Co 2:13; 7:6,13,14; 8:6,16,23; 12:18; Ga 2:1,3; 2Ti 4:10). He
was often a trusted messenger to the Churches, his last errand
being to Dalmatia. Tradition confirms the inference commonly
drawn from this Letter that he was long the Bishop of the Church
in Crete, and regards Candia as having been his birthplace.
Paul's Letter to Philemon
This Letter (63 A. |
10,240 |
Produced by David Widger
THE VISION
OF
HELL, PURGATORY, AND PARADISE
BY DANTE ALIGHIERI
TRANSLATED BY
THE REV. H. F. CARY
PURGATORY
Part 5
Cantos 26 - 33
CANTO XXVI
While singly thus along the rim we walk'd,
Oft the good master warn'd me: "Look thou well.
Avail it that I caution thee." The sun
Now all the western clime irradiate chang'd
From azure tinct to white; and, as I pass'd,
My passing shadow made the umber'd flame
Burn ruddier. At so strange a sight I mark'd
That many a spirit marvel'd on his way.
This bred occasion first to speak of me,
"He seems," said they, "no insubstantial frame:"
Then to obtain what certainty they might,
Stretch'd towards me, careful not to overpass
The burning pale. "O thou, who followest
The others, haply not more slow than they,
But mov'd by rev'rence, answer me, who burn
In thirst and fire: nor I alone, but these
All for thine answer do more thirst, than doth
Indian or Aethiop for the cooling stream.
Tell us, how is it that thou mak'st thyself
A wall against the sun, as thou not yet
Into th' inextricable toils of death
Hadst enter'd?" Thus spake one, and I had straight
Declar'd me, if attention had not turn'd
To new appearance. Meeting these, there came,
Midway the burning path, a crowd, on whom
Earnestly gazing, from each part I view
The shadows all press forward, sev'rally
Each snatch a hasty kiss, and then away.
E'en so the emmets,'mid their dusky troops,
Peer closely one at other, to spy out
Their mutual road perchance, and how they thrive.
That friendly greeting parted, ere dispatch
Of the first onward step, from either tribe
Loud clamour rises: those, who newly come,
Shout "Sodom and Gomorrah!" these, "The cow
Pasiphae enter'd, that the beast she woo'd
Might rush unto her luxury." Then as cranes,
That part towards the Riphaean mountains fly,
Part towards the Lybic sands, these to avoid
The ice, and those the sun; so hasteth off
One crowd, advances th' other; and resume
Their first song weeping, and their several shout.
Again drew near my side the very same,
Who had erewhile besought me, and their looks
Mark'd eagerness to listen. I, who twice
Their will had noted, spake: "O spirits secure,
Whene'er the time may be, of peaceful end!
My limbs, nor crude, nor in mature old age,
Have I left yonder: here they bear me, fed
With blood, and sinew-strung. That I no more
May live in blindness, hence I tend aloft.
There is a dame on high, who wind for us
This grace, by which my mortal through your realm
I bear. But may your utmost wish soon meet
Such full fruition, that the orb of heaven,
Fullest of love, and of most ample space,
Receive you, as ye tell (upon my page
Henceforth to stand recorded) who ye are,
And what this multitude, that at your backs
Have past behind us." As one, mountain-bred,
Rugged and clownish, if some city's walls
He chance to enter, round him stares agape,
Confounded and struck dumb; e'en such appear'd
Each spirit. But when rid of that amaze,
(Not long the inmate of a noble heart)
He, who before had question'd, thus resum'd:
"O blessed, who, for death preparing, tak'st
Experience of our limits, in thy bark!
Their crime, who not with us proceed, was that,
For which, as he did triumph, Caesar heard
The snout of 'queen,' to taunt him. Hence their cry
Of 'Sodom,' as they parted, to rebuke
Themselves, and aid the burning by their shame.
Our sinning was Hermaphrodite: but we,
Because the law of human kind we broke,
Following like beasts our vile concupiscence,
Hence parting from them, to our own disgrace
Record the name of her, by whom the beast
In bestial tire was acted. Now our deeds
Thou know'st, and how we sinn'd. If thou by name
Wouldst haply know us, time permits not now
To tell so much, nor can I. Of myself
Learn what thou wishest. Guinicelli I,
Who having truly sorrow'd ere my last,
Already cleanse me." With such pious joy,
As the two sons upon their mother gaz'd
From sad Lycurgus rescu'd, such my joy
(Save that I more represt it) when I heard
From his own lips the name of him pronounc'd,
Who was a father to me, and to those
My betters, who have ever us'd the sweet
And pleasant rhymes of love. So nought I heard
Nor spake, but long time thoughtfully I went,
Gazing on him; and, only for the fire,
Approach'd not nearer. When my eyes were fed
By looking on him, with such solemn pledge,
As forces credence, I devoted me
Unto his service wholly. In reply
He thus bespake me: "What from thee I hear
Is grav'd so deeply on my mind, the waves
Of Lethe shall not wash it off, nor make
A whit less lively. But as now thy oath
Has seal'd the truth, declare what cause impels
That love, which both thy looks and speech bewray."
"Those dulcet lays," I answer'd, "which, as long
As of our tongue the beauty does not fade,
Shall make us love the very ink that trac'd them."
"Brother!" he cried, and pointed at a shade
Before him, "there is one, whose mother speech
Doth owe to him a fairer ornament.
He in love ditties and the tales of prose
Without a rival stands, and lets the fools
Talk on, who think the songster of Limoges
O'ertops him. Rumour and the popular voice
They look to more than truth, and so confirm
Opinion, ere by art or reason taught.
Thus many of the elder time cried up
Guittone, giving him the prize, till truth
By strength of numbers vanquish'd. If thou own
So ample privilege, as to have gain'd
Free entrance to the cloister, whereof Christ
Is Abbot of the college, say to him
One paternoster for me, far as needs
For dwellers in this world, where power to sin
No longer tempts us." Haply to make way
For one, that follow'd next, when that was said,
He vanish'd through the fire, as through the wave
A fish, that glances diving to the deep.
I, to the spirit he had shown me, drew
A little onward, and besought his name,
For which my heart, I said, kept gracious room.
He frankly thus began: "Thy courtesy
So wins on me, I have nor power nor will
To hide me. I am Arnault; and with songs,
Sorely lamenting for my folly past,
Thorough this ford of fire I wade, and see
The day, I hope for, smiling in my view.
I pray ye by the worth that guides ye up
Unto the summit of the scale, in time
Remember ye my suff'rings." With such words
He disappear'd in the refining flame.
CANTO XXVII
Now was the sun so station'd, as when first
His early radiance quivers on the heights,
Where stream'd his Maker's blood, while Libra hangs
Above Hesperian Ebro, and new fires
Meridian flash on Ganges' yellow tide.
So day was sinking, when the' angel of God
Appear'd before us. Joy was in his mien.
Forth of the flame he stood upon the brink,
And with a voice, whose lively clearness far
Surpass'd our human, "Blessed are the pure
In heart," he Sang: then near him as we came,
"Go ye not further, holy spirits!" he cried,
"Ere the fire pierce you: enter in; and list
Attentive to the song ye hear from thence."
I, when I heard his saying, was as one
Laid in the grave. My hands together clasp'd,
And upward stretching, on the fire I look'd,
And busy fancy conjur'd up the forms
Erewhile beheld alive consum'd in flames.
Th' escorting spirits turn'd with gentle looks
Toward me, and the Mantuan spake: "My son,
Here torment thou mayst feel, but canst not death.
Remember thee, remember thee, if I
Safe e'en on Geryon brought thee: now I come
More near to God, wilt thou not trust me now?
Of this be sure: though in its womb that flame
A thousand years contain'd thee, from thy head
No hair should perish. If thou doubt my truth,
Approach, and with thy hands thy vesture's hem
Stretch forth, and for thyself confirm belief.
Lay now all fear, O lay all fear aside.
Turn hither, and come onward undismay'd."
I still, though conscience urg'd' no step advanc'd.
When still he saw me fix'd and obstinate,
Somewhat disturb'd he cried: "Mark now, my son,
From Beatrice thou art by this wall
Divided." As at Thisbe's name the eye
Of Pyramus was open'd (when life ebb'd
Fast from his veins), and took one parting glance,
While vermeil dyed the mulberry; thus I turn'd
To my sage guide, relenting, when I heard
The name, that springs forever in my breast.
He shook his forehead; and, "How long," he said,
"Linger we now?" then smil'd, as one would smile
Upon a child, that eyes the fruit and yields.
Into the fire before me then he walk'd;
And Statius, who erewhile no little space
Had parted us, he pray'd to come behind.
I would have cast me into molten glass
To cool me, when I enter'd; so intense
Rag'd the conflagrant mass. The sire belov'd,
To comfort me, as he proceeded, still
Of Beatrice talk'd. "Her eyes," saith he,
"E'en now I seem to view." From the other side
A voice, that sang, did guide us, and the voice
Following, with heedful ear, we issued forth,
There where the path led upward. "Come," we heard,
"Come, blessed of my Father." Such the sounds,
That hail'd us from within a light, which shone
So radiant, I could not endure the view.
"The sun," it added, "hastes: and evening comes.
Delay not: ere the western sky is hung
With blackness, strive ye for the pass." Our way
Upright within the rock arose, and fac'd
Such part of heav'n, that from before my steps
The beams were shrouded of the sinking sun.
Nor many stairs were overpass, when now
By fading of the shadow we perceiv'd
The sun behind us couch'd: and ere one face
Of darkness o'er its measureless expanse
Involv'd th' horizon, and the night her lot
Held individual, each of us had made
A stair his pallet: not that will, but power,
Had fail'd us, by the nature of that mount
Forbidden further travel. As the goats,
That late have skipp'd and wanton'd rapidly
Upon the craggy cliffs, ere they had ta'en
Their supper on the herb, now silent lie
And ruminate beneath the umbrage brown,
While noonday rages; and the goatherd leans
Upon his staff, and leaning watches them:
And as the swain, that lodges out all night
In quiet by his flock, lest beast of prey
Disperse them; even so all three abode,
I as a goat and as the shepherds they,
Close pent on either side by shelving rock.
A little glimpse of sky was seen above;
Yet by that little I beheld the stars
In magnitude and rustle shining forth
With more than wonted glory. As I lay,
Gazing on them, and in that fit of musing,
Sleep overcame me, sleep, that bringeth oft
Tidings of future hap. About the hour,
As I believe, when Venus from the east
First lighten'd on the mountain, she whose orb
Seems always glowing with the fire of love,
A lady young and beautiful, I dream'd,
Was passing o'er a lea; and, as she came,
Methought I saw her ever and anon
Bending to cull the flowers; and thus she sang:
"Know ye, whoever of my name would ask,
That I am Leah: for my brow to weave
A garland, these fair hands unwearied ply.
To please me at the crystal mirror, here
I deck me. But my sister Rachel, she
Before her glass abides the livelong day,
Her radiant eyes beholding, charm'd no less,
Than I with this delightful task. Her joy
In contemplation, as in labour mine."
And now as glimm'ring dawn appear'd, that breaks
More welcome to the pilgrim still, as he
Sojourns less distant on his homeward way,
Darkness from all sides fled, and with it fled
My slumber; whence I rose and saw my guide
Already risen. "That delicious fruit,
Which through so many a branch the zealous care
Of mortals roams in quest of, shall this day
Appease thy hunger." Such the words I heard
From Virgil's lip; and never greeting heard
So pleasant as the sounds. Within me straight
Desire so grew upon desire to mount,
Thenceforward at each step I felt the wings
Increasing for my flight. When we had run
O'er all the ladder to its topmost round,
As there we stood, on me the Mantuan fix'd
His eyes, and thus he spake: "Both fires, my son,
The temporal and eternal, thou hast seen,
And art arriv'd, where of itself my ken
No further reaches. I with skill and art
Thus far have drawn thee. Now thy pleasure take
For guide. Thou hast o'ercome the steeper way,
O'ercome the straighter. Lo! the sun, that darts
His beam upon thy forehead! lo! the herb,
The arboreta and flowers, which of itself
This land pours forth profuse! Will those bright eyes
With gladness come, which, weeping, made me haste
To succour thee, thou mayst or seat thee down,
Or wander where thou wilt. Expect no more
Sanction of warning voice or sign from me,
Free of thy own arbitrement to choose,
Discreet, judicious. To distrust thy sense
Were henceforth error. I invest thee then
With crown and mitre, sovereign o'er thyself."
CANTO XXVIII
Through that celestial forest, whose thick shade
With lively greenness the new-springing day
Attemper'd, eager now to roam, and search
Its limits round, forthwith I left the bank,
Along the champain leisurely my way
Pursuing, o'er the ground, that on all sides
Delicious odour breath'd. A pleasant air,
That intermitted never, never veer'd,
Smote on my temples, gently, as a wind
Of softest influence: at which the sprays,
Obedient all, lean'd trembling to that part
Where first the holy mountain casts his shade,
Yet were not so disorder'd, but that still
Upon their top the feather'd quiristers
Applied their wonted art, and with full joy
Welcom'd those hours of prime, and warbled shrill
Amid the leaves, that to their jocund lays
inept tenor; even as from branch to branch,
Along the piney forests on the shore
Of Chiassi, rolls the gath'ring melody,
When Eolus hath from his cavern loos'd
The dripping south. Already had my steps,
Though slow, so far into that ancient wood
Transported me, I could not ken the place
Where I had enter'd, when behold! my path
Was bounded by a rill, which to the left
With little rippling waters bent the grass,
That issued from its brink. On earth no wave
How clean soe'er, that would not seem to have
Some mixture in itself, compar'd with this,
Transpicuous, clear; yet darkly on it roll'd,
Darkly beneath perpetual gloom, which ne'er
Admits or sun or moon light there to shine.
My feet advanc'd not; but my wond'ring eyes
Pass'd onward, o'er the streamlet, to survey
The tender May-bloom, flush'd through many a hue,
In prodigal variety: and there,
As object, rising suddenly to view,
That from our bosom every thought beside
With the rare marvel chases, I beheld
A lady all alone, who, singing, went,
And culling flower from flower, wherewith her way
Was all o'er painted. "Lady beautiful!
Thou, who (if looks, that use to speak the heart,
Are worthy of our trust), with love's own beam
Dost warm thee," thus to her my speech I fram'd:
"Ah! please thee hither towards the streamlet bend
Thy steps so near, that I may list thy song.
Beholding thee and this fair place, methinks,
I call to mind where wander'd and how look'd
Proserpine, in that season, when her child
The mother lost, and she the bloomy spring."
As when a lady, turning in the dance,
Doth foot it featly, and advances scarce
One step before the other to the ground;
Over the yellow and vermilion flowers
Thus turn'd she at my suit, most maiden-like,
Valing her sober eyes, and came so near,
That I distinctly caught the dulcet sound.
Arriving where the limped waters now
Lav'd the green sward, her eyes she deign'd to raise,
That shot such splendour on me, as I ween
Ne'er glanced from Cytherea's, when her son
Had sped his keenest weapon to her heart.
Upon the opposite bank she stood and smil'd
through her graceful fingers shifted still
The intermingling dyes, which without seed
That lofty land unbosoms. By the stream
Three paces only were we sunder'd: yet
The Hellespont, where Xerxes pass'd it o'er,
(A curb for ever to the pride of man)
Was by Leander not more hateful held
For floating, with inhospitable wave
'Twixt Sestus and Abydos, than by me
That flood, because it gave no passage thence.
"Strangers ye come, and haply in this place,
That cradled human nature in its birth,
Wond'ring, ye not without suspicion view
My smiles: but that sweet strain of psalmody,
'Thou, Lord! hast made me glad,' will give ye light,
Which may uncloud your minds. And thou, who stand'st
The foremost, and didst make thy suit to me,
Say if aught else thou wish to hear: for I
Came prompt to answer every doubt of thine."
She spake; and I replied: "I know not how
To reconcile this wave and rustling sound
Of forest leaves, with what I late have heard
Of opposite report." She answering thus:
"I will unfold the cause, whence that proceeds,
Which makes thee wonder; and so purge the cloud
That hath enwraps thee. The First Good, whose joy
Is only in himself, created man
For happiness, and gave this goodly place,
His pledge and earnest of eternal peace.
Favour'd thus highly, through his own defect
He fell, and here made short sojourn; he fell,
And, for the bitterness of sorrow, chang'd
Laughter unblam'd and ever-new delight.
That vapours none, exhal'd from earth beneath,
Or from the waters (which, wherever heat
Attracts them, follow), might ascend thus far
To vex man's peaceful state, this mountain rose
So high toward the heav'n, nor fears the rage
Of elements contending, from that part
Exempted, where the gate his limit bars.
Because the circumambient air throughout
With its first impulse circles still, unless
Aught interpose to cheek or thwart its course;
Upon the summit, which on every side
To visitation of th' impassive air
Is open, doth that motion strike, and makes
Beneath its sway th' umbrageous wood resound:
And in the shaken plant such power resides,
That it impregnates with its efficacy
The voyaging breeze, upon whose subtle plume
That wafted flies abroad; and th' other land
Receiving (as 't is worthy in itself,
Or in the clime, that warms it), doth conceive,
And from its womb produces many a tree
Of various virtue. This when thou hast heard,
The marvel ceases, if in yonder earth
Some plant without apparent seed be found
To fix its fibrous stem. And further learn,
That with prolific foison of all seeds,
This holy plain is fill'd, and in itself
Bears fruit that ne'er was pluck'd on other soil.
"The water, thou behold'st, springs not from vein,
As stream, that intermittently repairs
And spends his pulse of life, but issues forth
From fountain, solid, undecaying, sure;
And by the will omnific, full supply
Feeds whatsoe'er On either side it pours;
On this devolv'd with power to take away
Remembrance of offence, on that to bring
Remembrance back of every good deed done.
From whence its name of Lethe on this part;
On th' other Eunoe: both of which must first
Be tasted ere it work; the last exceeding
All flavours else. Albeit thy thirst may now
Be well contented, if I here break off,
No more revealing: yet a corollary
I freely give beside: nor deem my words
Less grateful to thee, if they somewhat pass
The stretch of promise. They, whose verse of yore
The golden age recorded and its bliss,
On the Parnassian mountain, of this place
Perhaps had dream'd. Here was man guiltless, here
Perpetual spring and every fruit, and this
The far-fam'd nectar." Turning to the bards,
When she had ceas'd, I noted in their looks
A smile at her conclusion; then my face
Again directed to the lovely dame.
CANTO XXIX
Singing, as if enamour'd, she resum'd
And clos'd the song, with "Blessed they whose sins
Are cover'd." Like the wood-nymphs then, that tripp'd
Singly across the sylvan shadows, one
Eager to view and one to'scape the sun,
So mov'd she on, against the current, up
The verdant rivage. I, her mincing step
Observing, with as tardy step pursued.
Between us not an hundred paces trod,
The bank, on each side bending equally,
Gave me to face the orient. Nor our way
Far onward brought us, when to me at once
She turn'd, and cried: "My brother! look and hearken."
And lo! a sudden lustre ran across
Through the great forest on all parts, so bright
I doubted whether lightning were abroad;
But that expiring ever in the spleen,
That doth unfold it, and this during still
And waxing still in splendor, made me question
What it might be: and a sweet melody
Ran through the luminous air. Then did I chide
With warrantable zeal the hardihood
Of our first parent, for that there were earth
Stood in obedience to the heav'ns, she only,
Woman, the creature of an hour, endur'd not
Restraint of any veil: which had she borne
Devoutly, joys, ineffable as these,
Had from the first, and long time since, been mine.
While through that wilderness of primy sweets
That never fade, suspense I walk'd, and yet
Expectant of beatitude more high,
Before us, like a blazing fire, the air
Under the green boughs glow'd; and, for a song,
Distinct the sound of melody was heard.
O ye thrice holy virgins! for your sakes
If e'er I suffer'd hunger, cold and watching,
Occasion calls on me to crave your bounty.
Now through my breast let Helicon his stream
Pour copious; and Urania with her choir
Arise to aid me: while the verse unfolds
Things that do almost mock the grasp of thought.
Onward a space, what seem'd seven trees of gold,
The intervening distance to mine eye
Falsely presented; but when I was come
So near them, that no lineament was lost
Of those, with which a doubtful object, seen
Remotely, plays on the misdeeming sense,
Then did the faculty, that ministers
Discourse to reason, these for tapers of gold
Distinguish, and it th' singing trace the sound
"Hosanna." Above, their beauteous garniture
Flam'd with more ample lustre, than the moon
Through cloudless sky at midnight in her full.
I turn'd me full of wonder to my guide;
And he did answer with a countenance
Charg'd with no less amazement: whence my view
Reverted to those lofty things, which came
So slowly moving towards us, that the bride
Would have outstript them on her bridal day.
The lady called aloud: "Why thus yet burns
Affection in thee for these living, lights,
And dost not look on that which follows them?"
I straightway mark'd a tribe behind them walk,
As if attendant on their leaders, cloth'd
With raiment of such whiteness, as on earth
Was never. On my left, the wat'ry gleam
Borrow'd, and gave me back, when there I look'd.
As in a mirror, my left side portray'd.
When I had chosen on the river's edge
Such station, that the distance of the stream
Alone did separate me; there I stay'd
My steps for clearer prospect, and beheld
The flames go onward, leaving, as they went,
The air behind them painted as with trail
Of liveliest pencils! so distinct were mark'd
All those sev'n listed colours, whence the sun
Maketh his bow, and Cynthia her zone.
These streaming gonfalons did flow beyond
My vision; and ten paces, as I guess,
Parted the outermost. Beneath a sky
So beautiful, came foul and-twenty elders,
By two and two, with flower-de-luces crown'd.
All sang one song: "Blessed be thou among
The daughters of Adam! and thy loveliness
Blessed for ever!" After that the flowers,
And the fresh herblets, on the opposite brink,
Were free from that elected race; as light
In heav'n doth second light, came after them
Four animals, each crown'd with verdurous leaf.
With six wings each was plum'd, the plumage full
Of eyes, and th' eyes of Argus would be such,
Were they endued with life. Reader, more rhymes
Will not waste in shadowing forth their form:
For other need no straitens, that in this
I may not give my bounty room. But read
Ezekiel; for he paints them, from the north
How he beheld them come by Chebar's flood,
In whirlwind, cloud and fire; and even such
As thou shalt find them character'd by him,
Here were they; save as to the pennons; there,
From him departing, John accords with me.
The space, surrounded by the four, enclos'd
A car triumphal: on two wheels it came
Drawn at a Gryphon's neck; and he above
Stretch'd either wing uplifted, 'tween the midst
And the three listed hues, on each side three;
So that the wings did cleave or injure none;
And out of sight they rose. The members, far
As he was bird, were golden; white the rest
With vermeil intervein'd. So beautiful
A car in Rome ne'er grac'd Augustus pomp,
Or Africanus': e'en the sun's itself
Were poor to this, that chariot of the sun
Erroneous, which in blazing ruin fell
At Tellus' pray'r devout, by the just doom
Mysterious of all-seeing Jove. Three nymphs
at the right wheel, came circling in smooth dance;
The one so ruddy, that her form had scarce
Been known within a furnace of clear flame:
The next did look, as if the flesh and bones
Were emerald: snow new-fallen seem'd the third.
Now seem'd the white to lead, the ruddy now;
And from her song who led, the others took
Their treasure, swift or slow. At th' other wheel,
A band quaternion, each in purple clad,
Advanc'd with festal step, as of them one
The rest conducted, one, upon whose front
Three eyes were seen. In rear of all this group,
Two old men I beheld, dissimilar
In raiment, but in port and gesture like,
Solid and mainly grave; of whom the one
Did show himself some favour'd counsellor
Of the great Coan, him, whom nature made
To serve the costliest creature of her tribe.
His fellow mark'd an opposite intent,
Bearing a sword, whose glitterance and keen edge,
E'en as I view'd it with the flood between,
Appall'd me. Next four others I beheld,
Of humble seeming: and, behind them all,
One single old man, sleeping, as he came,
With a shrewd visage. And these seven, each
Like the first troop were habited, but wore
No braid of lilies on their temples wreath'd.
Rather with roses and each vermeil flower,
A sight, but little distant, might have sworn,
That they were all on fire above their brow.
Whenas the car was o'er against me, straight.
Was heard a thund'ring, at whose voice it seem'd
The chosen multitude were stay'd; for there,
With the first ensigns, made they solemn halt.
CANTO XXX
Soon as the polar light, which never knows
Setting nor rising, nor the shadowy veil
Of other cloud than sin, fair ornament
Of the first heav'n, to duty each one there
Safely convoying, as that lower doth
The steersman to his port, stood firmly fix'd;
Forthwith the saintly tribe, who in the van
Between the Gryphon and its radiance came,
Did turn them to the car, as to their rest:
And one, as if commission'd from above,
In holy chant thrice shorted forth aloud:
"Come, spouse, from Libanus!" and all the rest
Took up the song--At the last audit so
The blest shall rise, from forth his cavern each
Uplifting lightly his new-vested flesh,
As, on the sacred litter, at the voice
Authoritative of that elder, sprang
A hundred ministers and messengers
Of life eternal. "Blessed thou! who com'st!"
And, "O," they cried, "from full hands scatter ye
Unwith'ring lilies;" and, so saying, cast
Flowers over head and round them on all sides.
I have beheld, ere now, at break of day,
The eastern clime all roseate, and the sky
Oppos'd, one deep and beautiful serene,
And the sun's face so shaded, and with mists
Attemper'd at lids rising, that the eye
Long while endur'd the sight: thus in a cloud
Of flowers, that from those hands angelic rose,
And down, within and outside of the car,
Fell showering, in white veil with olive wreath'd,
A virgin in my view appear'd, beneath
Green mantle, rob'd in hue of living flame:
And o'er my Spirit, that in former days
Within her presence had abode so long,
No shudd'ring terror crept. Mine eyes no more
Had knowledge of her; yet there mov'd from her
A hidden virtue, at whose touch awak'd,
The power of ancient love was strong within me.
No sooner on my vision streaming, smote
The heav'nly influence, which years past, and e'en
In childhood, thrill'd me, than towards Virgil I
Turn'd me to leftward, panting, like a babe,
That flees for refuge to his mother's breast,
If aught have terrified or work'd him woe:
And would have cried: "There is no dram of blood,
That doth not quiver in me. The old flame
Throws out clear tokens of reviving fire:"
But Virgil had bereav'd us of himself,
Virgil, my best-lov'd father; Virgil, he
To whom I gave me up for safety: nor,
All, our prime mother lost, avail'd to save
My undew'd cheeks from blur of soiling tears.
"Dante, weep not, that Virgil leaves thee: nay,
Weep thou not yet: behooves thee feel the edge
Of other sword, and thou shalt weep for that."
As to the prow or stern, some admiral
Paces the deck, inspiriting his crew,
When'mid the sail-yards all hands ply aloof;
Thus on the left side of the car I saw,
(Turning me at the sound of mine own name,
Which here I am compell'd to register)
The virgin station'd, who before appeared
Veil'd in that festive shower angelical.
Towards me, across the stream, she bent her eyes;
Though from her brow the veil descending, bound
With foliage of Minerva, suffer'd not
That I beheld her clearly; then with act
Full royal, still insulting o'er her thrall,
Added, as one, who speaking keepeth back
The bitterest saying, to conclude the speech:
"Observe me well. I am, in sooth, I am
Beatrice. What! and hast thou deign'd at last
Approach the mountainnewest not, O man!
Thy happiness is whole?" Down fell mine eyes
On the clear fount, but there, myself espying,
Recoil'd, and sought the greensward: such a weight
Of shame was on my forehead. With a mien
Of that stern majesty, which doth surround
mother's presence to her awe-struck child,
She look'd; a flavour of such bitterness
Was mingled in her pity. There her words
Brake off, and suddenly the angels sang:
"In thee, O gracious Lord, my hope hath been:"
But went no farther than, "Thou Lord, hast set
My feet in ample room." As snow, that lies
Amidst the living rafters on the back
Of Italy congeal'd when drifted high
And closely pil'd by rough Sclavonian blasts,
Breathe but the land whereon no shadow falls,
And straightway melting it distils away,
Like a fire-wasted taper: thus was I,
Without a sigh or tear, or ever these
Did sing, that with the chiming of heav'n's sphere,
Still in their warbling chime: but when the strain
Of dulcet symphony, express'd for me
Their soft compassion, more than could the words
"Virgin, why so consum'st him?" then the ice,
Congeal'd about my bosom, turn'd itself
To spirit and water, and with anguish forth
Gush'd through the lips and eyelids from the heart.
Upon the chariot's right edge still she stood,
Immovable, and thus address'd her words
To those bright semblances with pity touch'd:
"Ye in th' eternal day your vigils keep,
So that nor night nor slumber, with close stealth,
Conveys from you a single step in all
The goings on of life: thence with more heed
I shape mine answer, for his ear intended,
Who there stands weeping, that the sorrow now
May equal the transgression. Not alone
Through operation of the mighty orbs,
That mark each seed to some predestin'd aim,
As with aspect or fortunate or ill
The constellations meet, but through benign
Largess of heav'nly graces, which rain down
From such a height, as mocks our vision, this man
Was in the freshness of his being, such,
So gifted virtually, that in him
All better habits wond'rously had thriv'd.
The more of kindly strength is in the soil,
So much doth evil seed and lack of culture
Mar it the more, and make it run to wildness.
These looks sometime upheld him; for I show'd
My youthful eyes, and led him by their light
In upright walking. Soon as I had reach'd
The threshold of my second age, and chang'd
My mortal for immortal, then he left me,
And gave himself to others. When from flesh
To spirit I had risen, and increase
Of beauty and of virtue circled me,
I was less dear to him, and valued less.
His steps were turn'd into deceitful ways,
Following false images of good, that make
No promise perfect. Nor avail'd me aught
To sue for inspirations, with the which,
I, both in dreams of night, and otherwise,
Did call him back; of them so little reck'd him,
Such depth he fell, that all device was short
Of his preserving, save that he should view
The children of perdition. To this end
I visited the purlieus of the dead:
And one, who hath conducted him thus high,
Receiv'd my supplications urg'd with weeping.
It were a breaking of God's high decree,
If Lethe should be past, and such food tasted
Without the cost of some repentant tear."
CANTO XXXI
"O Thou!" her words she thus without delay
Resuming, turn'd their point on me, to whom
They but with lateral edge seem'd harsh before,
"Say thou, who stand'st beyond the holy stream,
If this be true. A charge so grievous needs
Thine own avowal." On my faculty
Such strange amazement hung, the voice expir'd
Imperfect, ere its organs gave it birth.
A little space refraining, then she spake:
"What dost thou muse on? Answer me. The wave
On thy remembrances of evil yet
Hath done no injury." A mingled sense
Of fear and of confusion, from my lips
Did such a "Yea" produce, as needed help
Of vision to interpret. As when breaks
In act to be discharg'd, a cross-bow bent
Beyond its pitch, both nerve and bow o'erstretch'd,
The flagging weapon feebly hits the mark;
Thus, tears and sighs forth gushing, did I burst
Beneath the heavy load, and thus my voice
Was slacken'd on its way. She straight began:
"When my desire invited thee to love
The good, which sets a bound to our aspirings,
What bar of thwarting foss or linked chain
Did meet thee, that thou so should'st quit the hope
Of further progress, or what bait of ease
Or promise of allurement led thee on
Elsewhere, that thou elsewhere should'st rather wait?"
A bitter sigh I drew, then scarce found voice
To answer, hardly to these sounds my lips
Gave utterance, wailing: "Thy fair looks withdrawn,
Things present, with deceitful pleasures, turn'd
My steps aside." She answering spake: "Hadst thou
Been silent, or denied what thou avow'st,
Thou hadst not hid thy sin the more: such eye
Observes it. But whene'er the sinner's cheek
Breaks forth into the precious-streaming tears
Of self-accusing, in our court the wheel
Of justice doth run counter to the edge.
Howe'er that thou may'st profit by thy shame
For errors past, and that henceforth more strength
May arm thee, when thou hear'st the Siren-voice,
Lay thou aside the motive to this grief,
And lend attentive ear, while I unfold
How opposite a way my buried flesh
Should have impell'd thee. Never didst thou spy
In art or nature aught so passing sweet,
As were the limbs, that in their beauteous frame
Enclos'd me, and are scatter'd now in dust.
If sweetest thing thus fail'd thee with my death,
What, afterward, of mortal should thy wish
Have tempted? When thou first hadst felt the dart
Of perishable things, in my departing
For better realms, thy wing thou should'st have prun'd
To follow me, and never stoop'd again
To 'bide a second blow for a slight girl,
Or other gaud as transient and as vain.
The new and inexperienc'd bird awaits,
Twice it may be, or thrice, the fowler's aim;
But in the sight of one, whose plumes are full,
In vain the net is spread, the arrow wing'd."
I stood, as children silent and asham'd
Stand, list'ning, with their eyes upon the earth,
Acknowledging their fault and self-condemn'd.
And she resum'd: "If, but to hear thus pains thee,
Raise thou thy beard, and lo! what sight shall do!"
With less reluctance yields a sturdy holm,
Rent from its fibers by a blast, that blows
From off the pole, or from Iarbas' land,
Than I at her behest my visage rais'd:
And thus the face denoting by the beard,
I mark'd the secret sting her words convey'd.
No sooner lifted I mine aspect up,
Than downward sunk that vision I beheld
Of goodly creatures vanish; and mine eyes
Yet unassur'd and wavering, bent their light
On Beatrice. Towards the animal,
Who joins two natures in one form, she turn'd,
And, even under shadow of her veil,
And parted by the verdant rill, that flow'd
Between, in loveliness appear'd as much
Her former self surpassing, as on earth
All others she surpass'd. Remorseful goads
Shot sudden through me. Each thing else, the more
Its love had late beguil'd me, now the more
I Was loathsome. On my heart so keenly smote
The bitter consciousness, that on the ground
O'erpower'd I fell: and what my state was then,
She knows who was the cause. When now my strength
Flow'd back, returning outward from the heart,
The lady, whom alone I first had seen,
I found above me. "Loose me not," she cried:
"Loose not thy hold;" and lo! had dragg'd me high
As to my neck into the stream, while she,
Still as she drew me after, swept along,
Swift as a shuttle, bounding o'er the wave.
The blessed shore approaching then was heard
So sweetly, "Tu asperges me," that I
May not remember, much less tell the sound.
The beauteous dame, her arms expanding, clasp'd
My temples, and immerg'd me, where 't was fit
The wave should drench me: and thence raising up,
Within the fourfold dance of lovely nymphs
Presented me so lav'd, and with their arm
They each did cover me. "Here are we nymphs,
And in the heav'n are stars. Or ever earth
Was visited of Beatrice, we
Appointed for her handmaids, tended on her.
We to her eyes will lead thee; but the light
Of gladness that is in them, well to scan,
Those yonder three, of deeper ken than ours,
Thy sight shall quicken." Thus began their song;
And then they led me to the Gryphon's breast,
While, turn'd toward us, Beatrice stood.
"Spare not thy vision. We have stationed thee
Before the emeralds, whence love erewhile
Hath drawn his weapons on thee." As they spake,
A thousand fervent wishes riveted
Mine eyes upon her beaming eyes, that stood
Still fix'd toward the Gryphon motionless.
As the sun strikes a mirror, even thus
Within those orbs the twofold being, shone,
For ever varying, in one figure now
Reflected, now in other. Reader! muse
How wond'rous in my sight it seem'd to mark
A thing, albeit steadfast in itself,
Yet in its imag'd semblance mutable.
Full of amaze, and joyous, while my soul
Fed on the viand, whereof still desire
Grows with satiety, the other three
With gesture, that declar'd a loftier line,
Advanc'd: to their own carol on they came
Dancing in festive ring angelical.
"Turn, Beatrice!" was their song: "O turn
Thy saintly sight on this thy faithful one,
Who to behold thee many a wearisome pace
Hath measur'd. Gracious at our pray'r vouchsafe
Unveil to him thy cheeks: that he may mark
Thy second beauty, now conceal'd." O splendour!
O sacred light eternal! who is he
So pale with musing in Pierian shades,
Or with that fount so lavishly imbued,
Whose spirit should not fail him in th' essay
To represent thee such as thou didst seem,
When under cope of the still-chiming heaven
Thou gav'st to open air thy charms reveal'd. |
10,240 |
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SAMANTHA
AMONG THE BRETHREN.
By
"Josiah Allen's Wife"
(Marietta Holley)
Part 5
CHAPTER XVIII.
Josiah's face wuz smooth and placid, he hadn't took a mite of sense of
what I had been a-sayin', and I knew it. Men don't. They know at the
most it is only _talk_, wimmen hain't got it in their power to _do_
anything. And I s'pose they reason on it in this way--a little wind
storm is soon over, it relieves old Natur and don't hurt anything.
Yes, my pardner's face wuz as calm as the figger on the outside of the
almanac a-holdin' the bottle, and his axent wuz mildly wonderin' and
gently sarcestickle.
"How a steeple would look a-pintin' down! That is a true woman's idee."
[Illustration: SISTER FILKINS.]
Sez I, "I would have it a-pintin' down towards the depths of darkness
that wuz in that man's heart that roze it up, and the infamy of the deed
that kep him in the meetin' house and turned his victim out of it."
"I d'no as she wuz his victim," sez Josiah.
Sez I, "Every one knows that in the first place Simeon Lathers wuz the
man that led her astray."
"It wuzn't proved," sez Josiah, a-turnin' the almanac over and lookin'
at the advertisement on the back side on't.
"And why wuzn't it proved?" sez I, "because he held a big piece of gold
against the mouths of the witnesses."
"I didn't see any in front of my mouth," sez Josiah, lookin''shamed but
some composed.
"And you know what the story wuz," sez he, "accordin' to that, he did it
all to try her faith."
I wouldn't encourage Josiah by even smilin' at his words, though I knew
well what the story wuz he referred to.
It wuz at a Conference meetin', when Simeon Lathers wuz jest a-beginnin'
to take notice of how pretty Irene Filkins wuz.
She had gone forward to the anxious seat, with some other young females,
their minds bein' wrought on, so it wuz spozed, by Deacon Lathers's
eloquent exhortations, and urgin's to 'em to come forward and be saved.
And they had gone up onto the anxious seat a-sheddin' tears, and they
all knelt down there, and Deacon Lathers he went right up and knelt down
right by Sister Irene Filkins, and them that wuz there say, that right
while he wuz a-prayin' loud and strong for 'em all, and her specially,
he put his arm round her and acted in such a way that she resented it
bitterly.
She wuz a good, virtuous girl then, any way.
And she resented his overtoors in such a indignant and decided way that
it drawed the attention of a hull lot of brothers and sisters towards
'em.
And Deacon Lathers got right up from his knees and sez, "Bretheren and
sisters, let us sing these lines:
"He did it all to try her faith."
I remembered this story, but I wuzn't goin' to encourage Josiah Allen
by lettin' my attention be drawed off by any anectotes--nor I didn't
smile--oh, no I But I went right on with a hull lot of burnin'
indignatin in my axents, and sez I, "Josiah Allen, can you look me in
the face and say that it wuzn't money and bad men's influence that keep
such men as Deacon Widrig and Simeon Lathers in the meetin' house?" Sez
I, "If they wuz poor men would they have been kep', or if it wuzn't for
the influence of men that like hard drink?"
"Wall, as it were," sez Josiah, "I--that is--wall, it is a-gettin'
bed-time, Samantha."
And he wound up the clock and went to bed.
And I set there, all rousted up in my mind, for more'n a hour--and I
dropped more'n seven stitches in Josiah's heel, and didn't care if I
did.
But I have episoded fearfully, and to resoom and go on.
Miss Henn wuz mad, and she wuz one of our most enterprizen' sisters, and
we felt that she wuz a great loss.
Things looked dretful dark. And Sister Bobbet, who is very tender
hearted, shed tears several times a-talkin' about the hard times that
had come onto our meetin' house, and how Zion wuz a-languishin', etc.,
etc.
And I told Sister Bobbet in confidence, and also in public, that it wuz
time to talk about Zion's languishin' when we had done all we could to
help her up. And I didn't believe Zion would languish so much if she had
a little help gin her when she needed it.
And Miss Bobbet said "she felt jest so about it, but she couldn't help
bein' cast down." And so most all of the sisters said. Submit Tewksbury
wept, and shed tears time and agin, a-talkin' about it, and so several
of 'em did. But I sez to 'em--
"Good land!" sez I. "We have seen jest as hard times in the Methodist
meetin' house before, time and agin, and we wimmen have always laid holt
and worked, and laid plans, and worked, and worked, and with the Lord's
help have sailed the old ship Zion through the dark waters into safety,
and we can do it agin."
Though what we wuz to do we knew not, and the few male men who didn't
jine in the hardness, said they couldn't see no way out of it, but what
the minister would have to go, and the meetin' house be shet up for a
spell.
But we female wimmen felt that we could not have it so any way. And we
jined together, and met in each other's housen (not publickly, oh no! we
knew our places too well as Methodist Sisters).
We didn't make no move in public, but we kinder met round to each
other's housen, sort o' private like, and talked, and talked, and
prayed--we all knew that wuzn't aginst the church rules, so we jest
rastled in prayer, for help to pay our honest debts, and keep the
Methodist meetin' house from disgrace, for the men wuz that worked up
and madded, that they didn't seem to care whether the meetin' house come
to nothin' or not.
Wall, after settin' day after day (not public settin', oh, no! we knew
our places too well, and wouldn't be ketched a-settin' public till we
had a right to).
After settin' and talkin' it over back and forth, we concluded the very
best thing we could do wuz to give a big fair and try to sell things
enough to raise some money.
It wuz a fearful tuff job we had took onto ourselves, for we had got to
make all the things to sell out of what we could get holt of, for, of
course, our husbands all kep the money purses in their own hands, as
the way of male pardners is. But we laid out to beset 'em when they wuz
cleverer than common (owin' to extra good vittles) and get enough money
out of 'em to buy the materials to work with, bedquilts (crazy, and
otherwise), embroidered towels, shawl straps, knit socks and suspenders,
rugs, chair covers, lap robes, etc., etc., etc.
It wuz a tremendus hard undertakin' we had took onto ourselves, with all
our spring's work on hand, and not one of us Sisters kep a hired girl
at the time, and we had to do our own house cleanin', paintin' floors,
makin' soap, spring sewin', etc., besides our common housework.
But the very worst on't wuz the meetin' house wuz in such a shape that
we couldn't do a thing till that wuz fixed.
The men had undertook to fix over the meetin' house jest before the
hardness commenced. The men and wimmen both had labored side by side to
fix up the old house a little.
The men had said that in such church work as that wimmen had a perfect
right to help, to stand side by side with the male brothers, and do
half, or more than half, or even _all_ the work. They said it wuzn't
aginst the Discipline, and all the Bishops wuz in favor of it, and
always had been. They said it wuz right accordin' to the Articles. But
when it come to the hard and arjuous duties of drawin' salleries with
'em, or settin' up on Conferences with 'em, why there a line had to
be drawed, wimmen must not be permitted to strain herself in no such
ways--nor resk the tender delicacy of her nature, by settin' in a
meetin' house as a delegate by the side of a man once a year. It wuz too
resky. But we could lay holt and work with 'em in public, or in private,
which we felt wuz indeed a privelege, for the interests of the Methodist
meetin' house wuz dear to our hearts, and so wuz our pardners'
approvals--and they wuz all on 'em unanimus on this pint--we could
_work_ all we wanted to.
So we had laid holt and worked right along with the men from day to day,
with their full and free consents, and a little help from 'em, till we
had got the work partly done. We had got the little Sabbath-school room
painted and papered, and the cushions of the main room new covered, and
we had engaged to have it frescoed, but the frescoer had turned out to
be a perfect fraud, and, of all the lookin' things, that meetin' house
wuz about the worst. The plaster, or whatever it wuz he had put on, had
to be all scraped off before it could be papered, the paper wuz bought,
and the scrapin' had begun.
[Illustration: "APPEARIN' IN PUBLIC."]
The young male and female church members had give a public concert
together, and raised enough money to get the paper--it wuz very nice,
and fifty cents a roll (double roll). These young females appearin' in
public for this purpose wuz very agreeable to the hull meetin' house,
and wuz right accordin' to the rules of the Methodist Meetin' House, for
I remember I asked about it when the question first come up about
sendin' female delegates to the Conference, and all the male members of
our meetin' house wuz so horrified at the idee.
I sez, "I'll bet there wouldn't one of the delegates yell half so loud
es she that wuz Mahala Gowdey at the concert. Her voice is a sulferino
of the very keenest edge and highest tone, and she puts in sights and
sights of quavers."
But they all said that wuz a _very_ different thing.
And sez I, "How different? She wuz a yellin' in public for the good
of the Methodist Meetin' House (it wuz her voice that drawed the big
congregatin, we all know). And them wimmen delegates would only have to
'yea' and 'nay' in a still small voice for the good of the same. I can't
see why it would be so much more indelicate and unbecomin' in them"--and
sez I, "they would have bonnets and shawls on, and she that wuz Mahala
had on a low neck and short sleeves." But they wouldn't yield, and I
wouldn't nuther.
But I am a eppisodin fearful, and to resoom. Wall, as I said, the
scrapin' had begun. One side of the room wuz partly cleaned so the paper
could go on, and then the fuss come up, and there it wuz, as you may
say, neither hay nor grass, neither frescoed nor papered nor nuthin'.
And of all the lookin' sights it wuz.
Wall, of course, if we had a fair in that meetin' house, we couldn't
have it in such a lookin' place to disgrace us in the eyes of Baptists
and 'Piscopals.
No, that meetin' house had got to be scraped, and we wimmen had got to
do the scrapin' with case knives.
It wuz a hard job. I couldn't help thinkin' quite a number of thoughts
as I stood on a barell with a board acrost it, afraid as death of
fallin' and a workin' for dear life, and the other female sisters a
standin' round on similar barells, all a-workin' fur beyond their
strengths, and all afraid of fallin', and we all a-knowin' what we had
got ahead on us a paperin' and a gettin' up the fair.
CHAPTER XIX.
Couldn't help a-methinkin' to myself several times. It duz seem to me
that there hain't a question a-comin' up before that Conference that
is harder to tackle than this plasterin' and the conundrum that is up
before us Jonesville wimmen how to raise 300 dollars out of nuthin', and
to make peace in a meetin' house where anarky is now rainin' down.
But I only thought these thoughts to myself, fur I knew every women
there wuz peacible and law abidin' and there wuzn't one of 'em but
what would ruther fall offen her barell then go agin the rules of the
Methodist Meetin' House.
Yes, I tried to curb down my rebellous thoughts, and did, pretty much
all the time. And good land! we worked so hard that we hadn't time
to tackle very curius and peculier thoughts, them that wuz dretful
strainin' and wearin' on the mind. Not of our own accord we didn't, fur
we had to jest nip in and work the hull durin' time.
[Illustration: "EVERY NIGHT JOSIAH WOULD TACKLE ME ON IT."]
And then we all knew how deathly opposed our pardners wuz to our takin'
any public part in meetin' house matters or mountin' rostrums, and that
thought quelled us down a sight.
Of course when these subjects wuz brung up before us, and turned round
and round in front of our eyes, why we had to look at 'em and be rousted
up by 'em more or less. It was Nater.
And Josiah not havin' anything to do evenin's only to set and look at
the ceilin'. Every single night when I would go home from the meetin'
house, Josiah would tackle me on it, on the danger of allowin' wimmen
to ventur out of her spear in Meetin' House matters, and specially the
Conference.
It begin to set in New York the very day we tackled the meetin' in
Jonesville with a extra grip.
So's I can truly say, the Meetin' House wuz on me day and night. For
workin' on it es I did, all day long, and Josiah a-talkin' abut it till
bed time, and I a-dreamin' abut it a sight, that, and the Conference.
Truly, if I couldn't set on the Conference, the Conference sot on me,
from mornin' till night, and from night till mornin'.
I spoze it wuz Josiah's skairful talk that brung it onto me, it wuz
brung on nite mairs mostly, in the nite time.
He would talk _very_ skairful, and what he called deep, and repeat pages
of Casper Keeler's arguments, and they would appear to me (drawed also
by nite mairs) every page on 'em lookin' fairly lurid.
I suffered.
Josiah would set with the _World_ and other papers in his hand,
a-perusin' of 'em, while I would be a-washin' up my dishes, and the very
minute I would get 'em done and my sleeves rolled down, he would tackle
me, and often he wouldn't wait for me to get my work done up, or even
supper got, but would begin on me as I filled up my tea kettle, and keep
up a stiddy drizzle of argument till bed time, and as I say, when he
left off, the nite mairs would begin.
I suffered beyond tellin' almost.
The secont night of my arjuous labors on the meetin' house, he began
wild and eloquent about wimmen bein' on Conferences, and mountin'
rostrums. And sez he, "That is suthin' that we Methodist men can't
stand."
[Illustration: "IS ROSTRUMS MUCH HIGHER THAN THEM BARELLS TO STAND ON?"]
And I, havin' stood up on a barell all day a-scrapin' the ceilin', and
not bein' recuperated yet from the skairtness and dizziness of my day's
work, I sez to him:
"Is rostrums much higher than them barells we have to stand on to the
meetin' house?"
And Josiah said, "it wuz suthin' altogether different." And he assured
me agin,
"That in any modest, unpretendin' way the Methodist Church wuz willin'
to accept wimmen's work. It wuzn't aginst the Discipline. And that is
why," sez he, "that wimmen have all through the ages been allowed to do
most all the hard work in the church--such as raisin' money for church
work--earnin' money in all sorts of ways to carry on the different kinds
of charity work connected with it--teachin' the children, nursin' the
sick, carryin' on hospital work, etc., etc. But," sez he, "this is
fur, fur different from gettin' up on a rostrum, or tryin' to set on a
Conference. Why," sez he, in a haughty tone, "I should think they'd know
without havin' to be told that laymen don't mean women."
Sez I, "Them very laymen that are tryin' to keep wimmen out of the
Conference wouldn't have got in themselves if it hadn't been for
wimmen's votes. If they can legally vote for men to get in why can't men
vote for them?"
"That is the pint," sez Josiah, "that is the very pint I have been
tryin' to explain to you. Wimmen can help men to office, but men can't
help wimmen; that is law, that is statesmanship. I have been a-tryin' to
explain it to you that the word laymen _always_ means woman when she can
help men in any way, but _not_ when he can help her, or in any other
sense."
Sez I, "It seemed to mean wimmen when Metilda Henn wuz turned out of the
meetin' house."
"Oh, yes," sez Josiah in a reasonin' tone, "the word laymen always means
wimmen when it is used in a punishin' and condemnatory sense, or in the
case of work and so fourth, but when it comes to settin' up in high
places, or drawin' sallerys, or anything else difficult, it alweys means
men."
Sez I, in a very dry axent, "Then the word man, when it is used in
church matters, always means wimmen, so fur as scrubbin' is concerned,
and drowdgin' round?"
"Yes," sez Josiah haughtily, "And it always means men in the higher and
more difficult matters of decidin' questions, drawin' sallerys, settin'
on Conferences, etc. It has long been settled to be so," sez he.
"Who settled it?" sez I.
"Why the men, of course," sez he. "The men have always made the rules
of the churches, and translated the Bibles, and everything else that is
difficult," sez he. Sez I, in fearful dry axents, almost husky ones, "It
seems to take quite a knack to know jest when the word laymen means men
and when it means wimmen."
"That is so," sez Josiah. "It takes a man's mind to grapple with it;
wimmen's minds are too weak to tackle it It is jest as it is with that
word'men' in the Declaration of Independence. Now that word'men', in
that Declaration, means men some of the time, and some of the time men
and wimmen both. It means both sexes when it relates to punishment,
taxin' property, obeyin' the laws strictly, etc., etc., and then it goes
right on the very next minute and means men only, as to wit, namely,
votin', takin' charge of public matters, makin' laws, etc.
"I tell you it takes deep minds to foller on and see jest to a hair
where the division is made. It takes statesmanship.
"Now take that claws, 'All men are born free and equal.'
"Now half of that means men, and the other half men and wimmen. Now to
understand them words perfect you have got to divide the tex. 'Men are
born.' That means men and wimmen both--men and wimmen are both born,
nobody can dispute that. Then comes the next claws, 'Free and equal.'
Now that means men only--anybody with one eye can see that.
"Then the claws, 'True government consists.' That means men and wimmen
both--consists--of course the government consists of men and wimmen,
'twould be a fool who would dispute that. 'In the consent of the
governed.' That means men alone. Do you see, Samantha?" sez he.
I kep' my eye fixed on the tea kettle, fer I stood with my tea-pot in
hand waitin' for it to bile--"I see a great deal, Josiah Allen."
[Illustration: CHURCH WORK.]
"Wall," sez he, "I am glad on't. Now to sum it up," sez he, with some
the mean of a preacher--or, ruther, a exhauster--"to sum the matter all
up, the words 'bretheren,' 'laymen,' etc., always means wimmen so fur
as this: punishment for all offenses, strict obedience to the rules of
the church, work of any kind and all kinds, raisin' money, givin' money
all that is possible, teachin' in the Sabbath school, gettin' up
missionary and charitable societies, carryin' on the same with no help
from the male sect leavin' that sect free to look after their half of
the meanin' of the word--sallerys, office, makin' the laws that bind
both of the sexes, rulin' things generally, translatin' Bibles to suit
their own idees, preachin' at 'em, etc., etc. Do you see, Samantha?" sez
he, proudly and loftily.
"Yes," sez I, as I filled up my tea-pot, for the water had at last
biled. "Yes, I see."
And I spoze he thought he had convinced me, for he acted high headeder
and haughtier for as much as an hour and a half. And I didn't say
anything to break it up, for I see he had stated it jest as he and all
his sect looked at it, and good land! I couldn't convince the hull male
sect if I tried--clergymen, statesmen and all--so I didn't try, and I
wuz truly beat out with my day's work, and I didn't drop more than one
idee more. I simply dropped this remark es I poured out his tea and put
some good cream into it--I merely sez:
"There is three times es many wimmen in the meetin' house es there is
men."
"Yes," sez he, "that is one of the pints I have been explainin' to you,"
and then he went on agin real high headed, and skairt, about the old
ground, of the willingness of the meetin' house to shelter wimmen in its
folds, and how much they needed gaurdin' and guidin', and about their
delicacy of frame, and how unfitted they wuz to tackle anything hard,
and what a grief it wuz to the male sect to see 'em a-tryin' to set on
Conferences or mount rostrums, etc., etc.
And I didn't try to break up his argument, but simply repeated the
question I had put to him--for es I said before, I wuz tired, and
skairt, and giddy yet from my hard labor and my great and hazardus
elevatin'; I had not, es you may say, recovered yet from my
recuperation, and so I sez agin them words--
"Is rostrums much higher than them barells to stand on?" And Josiah said
agin, "it wuz suthin' entirely different;" he said barells and rostrums
wuz so fur apart that you couldn't look at both on 'em in one day
hardly, let alone a minute. And he went on once more with a long
argument full of Bible quotations and everything.
And I wuz too tuckered out to say much more. But I did contend for it to
the last, that I didn't believe a rostrum would be any more tottlin' and
skairful a place than the barell I had been a-standin' on all day, nor
the work I'd do on it any harder than the scrapin' of the ceilin' of
that meetin house.
And I don't believe it would, I stand jest as firm on it to-day as I did
then.
CHAPTER XX.
Wall, we got the scrapin' done after three hard and arjous days' works,
and then we preceeded to clean the house. The day we set to clean the
meetin' house prior and before paperin', we all met in good season, for
we knew the hardships of the job in front of us, and we all felt that we
wanted to tackle it with our full strengths.
Sister Henzy, wife of Deacon Henzy, got there jest as I did. She wuz in
middlin' good spirits and a old yeller belzerine dress.
Sister Gowdy had the ganders and newraligy and wore a flannel for 'em
round her head, but she wuz in workin' spirits, her will wuz up in arms,
and nerved up her body.
Sister Meechim wuz a-makin' soap, and so wuz Sister Sypher, and Sister
Mead, and me. But we all felt that soap come after religion, not before.
"Cleanliness _next_ to godliness."
So we wuz all willin' to act accordin' and tackle the old meetin' house
with a willin' mind.
Wall, we wuz all engaged in the very heat of the warfare, as you may
say, a-scrubbin' the floors, and a-scourin' the benches by the door,
and a-blackin' the 2 stoves that stood jest inside of the door. We wuz
workin' jest as hard as wimmen ever worked--and all of the wimmen who
wuzn't engaged in scourin' and moppin' wuz a-settin' round in the pews
a-workin' hard on articles for the fair--when all of a suddin the
outside door opened and in come Josiah Allen with 3 of the other men
bretheren.
They had jest got the great news of wimmen bein' apinted for
Deaconesses, and had come down on the first minute to tell us. She that
wuz Celestine Bobbet wuz the only female present that had heard of it.
Josiah had heard it to the post-office, and he couldn't wait till noon
to tell me about it, and Deacon Gowdy wuz anxius Miss Gowdy should hear
it as soon es possible. Deacon Sypher wanted his wife to know at once
that if she wuzn't married she could have become a deaconess under his
derectin'.
And Josiah wanted me to know immegietly that I, too, could have had the
privilege if I had been a more single woman, of becomin' a deaconess,
and have had the chance of workin' all my hull life for the meetin'
house, with a man to direct my movements and take charge on me, and tell
me what to do, from day to day and from hour to hour.
And Deacon Henzy was anxious Miss Henzy should get the news as quick as
she could. So they all hastened down to the meetin' house to tell us.
And we left off our work for a minute to hear 'em. It wuzn't nowhere
near time for us to go home.
Josiah had lots of further business to do in Jonesville and so had the
other men. But the news had excited 'em, and exhilerated 'em so, that
they had dropped everything, and hastened right down to tell us, and
then they wuz a-goin' back agin immegietly.
I, myself, took the news coolly, or as cool as I could, with my
temperature up to five or five and a half, owin' to the hard work and
the heat.
[Illustration: THE LAST NEWS FROM THE CONFERENCE.]
Miss Gowdy also took it pretty calm. She leaned on her mop handle,
partly for rest (for she was tuckered out) and partly out of good
manners, and didn't say much.
But Miss Sypheris such a admirin'woman, she looked fairly radiant at the
news, and she spoke up to her husband in her enthusiastik warm-hearted
way--
"Why, Deacon Sypher, is it possible that I, too, could become a deacon,
jest like you?"
"No," sez Deacon Sypher solemnly, "no, Drusilly, not like me. But you
wimmen have got the privelege now, if you are single, of workin' all
your days at church work under the direction of us men."
"Then I could work at the Deacon trade under you," sez she admirin'ly,
"I could work jest like you--pass round the bread and wine and the
contribution box Sundays?"
"Oh, no, Drusilly," sez he condesendinly, "these hard and arjuous dutys
belong to the male deaconship. That is their own one pertickiler work,
that wimmen can't infringe upon. Their hull strength is spent in these
duties, wimmen deacons have other fields of labor, such as relievin'
the wants of the sick and sufferin', sittin' up nights with small-pox
patients, takin' care of the sufferin' poor, etc., etc."
"But," sez Miss Sypher (she is so good-hearted, and so awful fond of the
deacon), "wouldn't it be real sweet, Deacon, if you and I could work
together as deacons, and tend the sick, relieve the sufferers--work for
the good of the church together--go about doin' good?"
"No, Drusilly," sez he, "that is wimmen's work. I would not wish for a
moment to curtail the holy rights of wimmen. I wouldn't want to stand in
her way, and keep her from doin' all this modest, un-pretendin' work,
for which her weaker frame and less hefty brain has fitted her.
"We will let it go on in the same old way. Let wimmen have the privelege
of workin' hard, jest as she always has. Let her work all the time, day
and night, and let men go on in the same sure old way of superentendin'
her movements, guardin' her weaker footsteps, and bossin' her round
generally."
Deacon Sypher is never happy in his choice of language, and his method
of argiment is such that when he is up on the affirmative of a question,
the negative is delighted, for they know he will bring victery to their
side of the question. Now, he didn't mean to speak right out about men's
usual way of bossin' wimmen round. It was only his unfortunate and
transparent manner of speakin'.
And Deacon Bobbet hastened to cover up the remark by the statement that
"he wuz so highly tickled that wimmen wuzn't goin' to be admitted to the
Conference, because it would _weaken_ the Conference."
"Yes," sez my Josiah, a-leanin' up aginst the meetin' house door, and
talkin' pretty loud, for Sister Peedick and me had gone to liftin' round
the big bench by the door, and it wuz fearful heavy, and our minds wuz
excersised as to the best place to put it while we wuz a-cleanin' the
floor.
"You see," sez he, "we feel, we men do, we feel that it would be
weakenin' to the Conference to have wimmen admitted, both on account of
her own lack of strength and also from the fact that every woman you
would admit would keep out a man. And that," sez he (a-leanin' back in
a still easier attitude, almust a luxurious one), "that, you see, would
tend naterally to weakenin' the strength of a church."
[Illustration: "WALL," SEZ I, "MOVE ROUND A LITTLE, WON'T YOU, FOR WE
WANT TO SET THE BENCH."]
"Wall," sez I, a-pantin' hard for breath under my burden, "move round a
little, won't you, for we want to set the bench here while we scrub
under it. And," sez I, a-stoppin' a minute and rubbin' the perspiratin
and sweat offen my face, "Seein' you men are all here, can't you lay
holt and help us move out the benches, so we can clean the floor under
'em? Some of 'em are very hefty," sez I, "and all of us Sisters almost
are a-makin' soap, and we all want to get done here, so we can go home
and bile down; we would dearly love a little help," sez I.
"I would help," sez Josiah in a willin' tone, "I would help in a minute,
if I hadn't got so much work to do at home."
And all the other male bretheren said the same thing--they had got to
git to get home to get to work. (Some on 'em wanted to play checkers,
and I knew it.)
But some on 'em did have lots of work on their hands, I couldn't dispute
it.
CHAPTER XXI.
Why, Deacon Henzy, besides all his cares about the buzz saw mill, and
his farm work, had bought a steam threshin' machine that made him sights
of work. It was a good machine. But it wuz fairly skairful to see it
a-steamin' and a-blowin' right along the streets of Jonesville without
the sign of a horse or ox or anything nigh it to draw it. A-puffin' out
the steam, and a-tearin' right along, that awful lookin' that it skairt
she that wuz Celestine Bobbet most into fits.
She lived in a back place where such machines wuz unknown, and she had
come home to her father's on a visit, and wuz goin' over to visit some
of his folks that day, over to Loontown.
And she wuz a-travellin' along peacible, with her father's old mair, and
a-leanin' back in the buggy a readin' a article her father had sent over
by her to Deacon Widrig, a witherin' article about female Deaconesses,
and the stern necessity of settin' 'em apart and sanctifyen' 'em to this
one work--deacon work--and how they mustn't marry, or tackle any other
hard jobs whatsumever, or break off into any other enterprize, only jest
plain deacon work.
It wuz a very flowery article. And she wuz enjoyin' of it first rate,
and a-thinkin', for she is a little timid and easily skairt, and the
piece had convinced her--
She wuz jest a-thinkin' how dretful it would be if sum female deaconess
should ever venter into some other branch of business, and what would
be apt to become of her if she did. She hated to think of what her doom
would most likely be, bein' tender hearted.
[Illustration: "SHE SEE THIS WILD AND SKAIRFUL MACHINE APPROACHIN'."]
When lo, and behold! jest as she wuz a-thinkin' these thoughts, she see
this wild and skairful machine approachin', and Deacon Henzy a-standin'
up on top of it a-drivin'. He looked wild and excited, bein' very
tickled to think that he had threshed more with his machine, by twenty
bushels, than Deacon Petengill had with his. There was a bet upon these
two deacons, so it wuz spozed, and he wuz a-hastenin' to the next place
where he wuz to be setup, so's to lose no time, and he was kinder
hollerin'.
And the wind took his gray hair back, and his long side whiskers, and
kinder stood 'em out, and the skirts of his frock the same.
His mean wuz wild.
And it wuz more than Celestine's old mair and she herself could bear;
she cramped right round in the road (the mair did) and set sail back to
old Bobbet'ses, and that great concern a-puffin' and a-steamin' along
after 'em.
And by the time that she that wuz Celestine got there she wuz almost in
a fit, and the mair in a perfect lather.
Wall, Celestine didn't get over it for weeks and weeks, nor the mair
nuther.
And besides this enterprize of Deacon Henzy's, he had got up a great
invention, a new rat trap, that wuz peculier and uneek in the extreme.
It wuz the result of arjous study on his part, by night and day, for a
long, long time, and it wuz what he called "A Travellin' Rat Trap." It
wuz designed to sort o' chase the rats round and skair 'em.
[Illustration: DEACON HENZY'S RAT TRAP (LIKE A CIRCUS FOR THE RATS).]
It was spozed he got the idee in the first place from his threshin'
machine. It had to be wound up, and then it would take after 'em--rats
or mice, or anything--and they do say that it wuz quite a success.
Only it had to move on a smooth floor. It would travel round pretty much
all night; and they say that when it wuz set up in a suller, it would
chase the rats back into their holes, and they would set there and look
out on it, for the biggest heft of the night. It would take up their
minds, and kep 'em out of vittles and other mischief.
It wuz somethin' like providin' a circus for 'em.
But howsumever, the Deacon wuz a-workin' at this; he wuzn't quite
satisfied with its runnin' gear, and he wuz a-perfectin' this rat trap
every leisure minute he had outside of his buzz saw and threshin'
machine business, and so he wuz fearful busy.
Deacon Sypher had took the agency for "The Wild West, or The Leaping Cow
Boy of the Plain," and wuz doin' well by it.
And Deacon Bobbet had took in a lot of mustangs to keep through the
winter. And he wuz a ridin' 'em a good deal, accordin' to contract, and
tryin' to tame 'em some before spring. And this work, with the buzz saw,
took up every minute of his time. For the mustangs throwed him a good
deal, and he had to lay bound up in linements a good deal of the time,
and arneky.
[Illustration: "HE HAD TO LAY BOUND UP IN LINEMENTS A GOOD DEAL OF THE
TIME."]
So, as I say, it didn't surprise me a mite to have 'em say they couldn't
help us, for I knew jest how these jobs of theirn devoured their time.
And when my Josiah had made his excuse, it wuzn't any more than I had
looked out for, to hear Deacon Henzy say he had got to git home to ile
his threshin' machine. One of the cogs wuz out of gear in some way.
He wanted to help us, so it didn't seem as if he could tear himself
away, but that steam threshin' machine stood in the way. And then on
his way down to Jonesville that very mornin' a new idee had come to him
about that travellin' rat trap, and he wanted to get home jest as quick
as he could, to try it.
And Deacon Bobbet said that three of them mustangs he had took in to
break had got to be rid that day, they wuz a gettin' so wild he didn't
hardly dast to go nigh 'em.
And Deacon Sypher said that he must hasten back, for a man wuz a-comin'
to see him from way up on the State road, to try to get a agency under
him for "The Leaping Cow Boy of the Plain." And he wanted to show the
"Leaping Cow Boy" to some agents to the tavern in Jonesville on his way
home, and to some wimmen on the old Plank road. Two or three of the
wimmen had gin hopes that they would take the "Leaping Cow Boy."
And then they said--the hull three of the deacons did--that any minute
them other deacons who wuz goin' into partnership with 'em in the buzz
saw business wuz liable to drive down to see 'em about it.
And some of the other men brethren said their farms and their live stock
demanded the hull of their time--every minute of it.
So we see jest how it wuz, we see these male deacons couldn't devote any
of their time to the meetin' house, nor those other brethren nuther.
We see that their time wuz too valuable, and their own business devoured
the hull on it. And we married Sisters, who wuz acestemed to the strange
and mysterius ways of male men, we accepted the situation jest es we
would any other mysterius dispensation, and didn't say nothin'.
Good land! We wuz used to curius sayin's and doin's, every one on us.
Curius as a dog, and curiuser.
But Sister Meechim (onmarried), she is dretful questinin' and inquirin'
(men don't like her, they say she prys into subjects she's no business
to meddle with). She sez to Josiah:
"Why is it, Deacon Allen, that men deacons can carry on all sorts of
business and still be deacons, while wimmen deacons are obleeged to give
up all other business and devote themselves wholly to their work?"
"It is on account of their minds," sez Josiah. "Men have got stronger
minds than wimmen, that is the reason."
And Sister Meechim sez agin--
"Why is it that wimmen deacons have to remain onmarried, while men
deacons can marry one wife after another through a long life, that is,
if they are took from 'em by death or a divorce lawyer?"
"Wall," sez Josiah, "that, too, is on account of their brains. Their
brains hain't so hefty es men's."
But I jest waded into the argument then. I jest interfered, and sez in a
loud, clear tone,
"Oh, shaw!"
And then I sez further, in the same calm, clear tones, but dry as ever a
dry oven wuz in its dryest times. Sez I,
"If you men can't help us any about the meetin' house, you'd better get
out of our way, for we wimmen have got to go to scrubbin' right where
you are a-standin'."
"Certainly," sez Josiah, in a polite axent, "certainly."
And so the rest of the men said. |
10,240 |
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HTML version by Al Haines.
SYNGE AND THE IRELAND OF HIS TIME
BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
WITH A NOTE CONCERNING A WALK THROUGH CONNEMARA WITH HIM BY JACK BUTLER
YEATS
CHURCHTOWN DUNDRUM MCMXI
PREFACE
At times during Synge's last illness, Lady Gregory and I would speak of
his work and always find some pleasure in the thought that unlike
ourselves, who had made our experiments in public, he would leave to
the world nothing to be wished away--nothing that was not beautiful or
powerful in itself, or necessary as an expression of his life and
thought. When he died we were in much anxiety, for a letter written
before his last illness, and printed in the selection of his poems
published at the Cuala Press, had shown that he was anxious about the
fate of his manuscripts and scattered writings. On the evening of the
night he died he had asked that I might come to him the next day; and
my diary of the days following his death shows how great was our
anxiety. Presently however, all seemed to have come right, for the
Executors sent me the following letter that had been found among his
papers, and promised to carry out his wishes.
'May 4th, 1908
'Dear Yeats,
'This is only to go to you if anything should go wrong with me under
the operation or after it. I am a little bothered about my 'papers.' I
have a certain amount of verse that I think would be worth preserving,
possibly also the 1st and 3rd acts of 'Deirdre,' and then I have a lot
of Kerry and Wicklow articles that would go together into a book. The
other early stuff I wrote I have kept as a sort of curiosity, but I am
anxious that it should not get into print. I wonder could you get
someone--say... who is now in Dublin to go through them for you and do
whatever you and Lady Gregory think desirable. It is rather a hard
thing to ask you but I do not want my good things destroyed or my bad
things printed rashly--especially a morbid thing about a mad fiddler in
Paris which I hate. Do what you can--Good luck.
'J.M. Synge'
In the summer of 1909, the Executors sent me a large bundle of papers,
cuttings from newspapers and magazines, manuscript and typewritten
prose and verse, put together and annotated by Synge himself before his
last illness. I spent a portion of each day for weeks reading and
re-reading early dramatic writing, poems, essays, and so forth, and
with the exception of ninety pages which have been published without my
consent, made consulting Lady Gregory from time to time the Selection
of his work published by Messrs. Maunsel. It is because of these ninety
pages, that neither Lady Gregory's name nor mine appears in any of the
books, and that the Introduction which I now publish, was withdrawn by
me after it had been advertised by the publishers. Before the
publication of the books the Executors discovered a scrap of paper with
a sentence by J.M. Synge saying that Selections might be taken from his
Essays on the Congested Districts. I do not know if this was written
before his letter to me, which made no mention of them, or contained
his final directions. The matter is unimportant, for the publishers
decided to ignore my offer to select as well as my original decision to
reject, and for this act of theirs they have given me no reasons except
reasons of convenience, which neither Lady Gregory nor I could accept.
W.B. Yeats.
* * * * *
J.M. SYNGE AND THE IRELAND OF HIS TIME
On Saturday, January 26th, 1907, I was lecturing in Aberdeen, and when
my lecture was over I was given a telegram which said, 'Play great
success.' It had been sent from Dublin after the second Act of 'The
Playboy of the Western World,' then being performed for the first time.
After one in the morning, my host brought to my bedroom this second
telegram, 'Audience broke up in disorder at the word shift.' I knew no
more until I got the Dublin papers on my way from Belfast to Dublin on
Tuesday morning. On the Monday night no word of the play had been
heard. About forty young men had sat on the front seats of the pit, and
stamped and shouted and blown trumpets from the rise to the fall of the
curtain. On the Tuesday night also the forty young men were there. They
wished to silence what they considered a slander upon Ireland's
womanhood. Irish women would never sleep under the same roof with a
young man without a chaperon, nor admire a murderer, nor use a word
like'shift;' nor could anyone recognise the country men and women of
Davis and Kickham in these poetical, violent, grotesque persons, who
used the name of God so freely, and spoke of all things that hit their
fancy.
A patriotic journalism which had seen in Synge's capricious imagination
the enemy of all it would have young men believe, had for years
prepared for this hour, by that which is at once the greatest and most
ignoble power of journalism, the art of repeating a name again and
again with some ridiculous or evil association. The preparation had
begun after the first performance of 'The Shadow of the Glen,' Synge's
first play, with an assertion made in ignorance but repeated in
dishonesty, that he had taken his fable and his characters, not from
his own mind nor that profound knowledge of cot and curragh he was
admitted to possess, but 'from a writer of the Roman decadence.' Some
spontaneous dislike had been but natural, for genius like his can but
slowly, amid what it has of harsh and strange, set forth the nobility
of its beauty, and the depth of its compassion; but the frenzy that
would have silenced his master-work was, like most violent things
artificial, the defence of virtue by those that have but little, which
is the pomp and gallantry of journalism and its right to govern the
world.
As I stood there watching, knowing well that I saw the dissolution of a
school of patriotism that held sway over my youth, Synge came and stood
beside me, and said, 'A young doctor has just told me that he can
hardly keep himself from jumping on to a seat, and pointing out in that
howling mob those whom he is treating for venereal disease.'
II
Thomas Davis, whose life had the moral simplicity which can give to
actions the lasting influence that style alone can give to words, had
understood that a country which has no national institutions must show
its young men images for the affections, although they be but diagrams
of what it should be or may be. He and his school imagined the Soldier,
the Orator, the Patriot, the Poet, the Chieftain, and above all the
Peasant; and these, as celebrated in essay and songs and stories,
possessed so many virtues that no matter how England, who as Mitchell
said 'had the ear of the world,' might slander us, Ireland, even though
she could not come at the world's other ear, might go her way
unabashed. But ideas and images which have to be understood and loved
by large numbers of people, must appeal to no rich personal experience,
no patience of study, no delicacy of sense; and if at rare moments some
'Memory of the Dead' can take its strength from one; at all other
moments manner and matter will be rhetorical, conventional,
sentimental; and language, because it is carried beyond life
perpetually, will be as wasted as the thought, with unmeaning
pedantries and silences, and a dread of all that has salt and savour.
After a while, in a land that has given itself to agitation over-much,
abstract thoughts are raised up between men's minds and Nature, who
never does the same thing twice, or makes one man like another, till
minds, whose patriotism is perhaps great enough to carry them to the
scaffold, cry down natural impulse with the morbid persistence of minds
unsettled by some fixed idea. They are preoccupied with the nation's
future, with heroes, poets, soldiers, painters, armies, fleets, but
only as these things are understood by a child in a national school,
while a secret feeling that what is so unreal needs continual defence
makes them bitter and restless. They are like some state which has only
paper money, and seeks by punishments to make it buy whatever gold can
buy. They no longer love, for only life is loved, and at last, a
generation is like an hysterical woman who will make unmeasured
accusations and believe impossible things, because of some logical
deduction from a solitary thought which has turned a portion of her
mind to stone.
III
Even if what one defends be true, an attitude of defence, a continual
apology, whatever the cause, makes the mind barren because it kills
intellectual innocence; that delight in what is unforeseen, and in the
mere spectacle of the world, the mere drifting hither and thither that
must come before all true thought and emotion. A zealous Irishman,
especially if he lives much out of Ireland, spends his time in a
never-ending argument about Oliver Cromwell, the Danes, the penal laws,
the rebellion of 1798, the famine, the Irish peasant, and ends by
substituting a traditional casuistry for a country; and if he be a
Catholic, yet another casuistry that has professors, schoolmasters,
letter-writing priests, and the authors of manuals to make the meshes
fine, comes between him and English literature, substituting arguments
and hesitations for the excitement at the first reading of the great
poets which should be a sort of violent imaginative puberty. His
hesitations and arguments may have been right, the Catholic philosophy
may be more profound than Milton's morality, or Shelley's vehement
vision; but none the less do we lose life by losing that recklessness
Castiglione thought necessary even in good manners, and offend our Lady
Truth, who would never, had she desired an anxious courtship, have
digged a well to be her parlour.
I admired though we were always quarrelling on some matter, J.F.
Taylor, the orator, who died just before the first controversy over
these plays. It often seemed to me that when he spoke Ireland herself
had spoken, one got that sense of surprise that comes when a man has
said what is unforeseen because it is far from the common thought, and
yet obvious because when it has been spoken, the gate of the mind seems
suddenly to roll back and reveal forgotten sights and let loose lost
passions. I have never heard him speak except in some Irish literary or
political society, but there at any rate, as in conversation, I found a
man whose life was a ceaseless reverie over the religious and political
history of Ireland. He saw himself pleading for his country before an
invisible jury, perhaps of the great dead, against traitors at home and
enemies abroad, and a sort of frenzy in his voice and the moral
elevation of his thoughts gave him for the moment style and music. One
asked oneself again and again, 'Why is not this man an artist, a man of
genius, a creator of some kind?' The other day under the influence of
memory, I read through his one book, a life of Owen Roe O'Neill, and
found there no sentence detachable from its context because of wisdom
or beauty. Everything was argued from a premise; and wisdom, and style,
whether in life or letters come from the presence of what is
self-evident, from that which requires but statement, from what Blake
called 'naked beauty displayed.' The sense of what was unforeseen and
obvious, the rolling backward of the gates had gone with the living
voice, with the nobility of will that made one understand what he saw
and felt in what was now but argument and logic. I found myself in the
presence of a mind like some noisy and powerful machine, of thought
that was no part of wisdom but the apologetic of a moment, a woven
thing, no intricacy of leaf and twig, of words with no more of salt and
of savour than those of a Jesuit professor of literature, or of any
other who does not know that there is no lasting writing which does not
define the quality, or carry the substance of some pleasure. How can
one, if one's mind be full of abstractions and images created not for
their own sake but for the sake of party, even if there were still the
need, find words that delight the ear, make pictures to the mind's eye,
discover thoughts that tighten the muscles, or quiver and tingle in the
flesh, and stand like St. Michael with the trumpet that calls the body
to resurrection?
IV
Young Ireland had taught a study of our history with the glory of
Ireland for event, and this for lack, when less than Taylor studied, of
comparison with that of other countries wrecked the historical
instinct. An old man with an academic appointment, who was a leader in
the attack upon Synge, sees in the 11th century romance of Deirdre a
re-telling of the first five act tragedy outside the classic languages,
and this tragedy from his description of it was certainly written on
the Elizabethan model; while an allusion to a copper boat, a marvel of
magic like Cinderella's slipper, persuades him that the ancient Irish
had forestalled the modern dockyards in the making of metal ships. The
man who doubted, let us say, our fabulous ancient kings running up to
Adam, or found but mythology in some old tale, was as hated as if he
had doubted the authority of Scripture. Above all no man was so
ignorant, that he had not by rote familiar arguments and statistics to
drive away amid familiar applause, all those had they but found strange
truth in the world or in their mind, whose knowledge has passed out of
memory and become an instinct of hand or eye. There was no literature,
for literature is a child of experience always, of knowledge never; and
the nation itself, instead of being a dumb struggling thought seeking a
mouth to utter it or hand to show it, a teeming delight that would
re-create the world, had become, at best, a subject of knowledge.
V
Taylor always spoke with confidence though he was no determined man,
being easily flattered or jostled from his way; and this, putting as it
were his fiery heart into his mouth made him formidable. And I have
noticed that all those who speak the thoughts of many, speak
confidently, while those who speak their own thoughts are hesitating
and timid, as though they spoke out of a mind and body grown sensitive
to the edge of bewilderment among many impressions. They speak to us
that we may give them certainty, by seeing what they have seen; and so
it is, that enlargement of experience does not come from those
oratorical thinkers, or from those decisive rhythms that move large
numbers of men, but from writers that seem by contrast as feminine as
the soul when it explores in Blake's picture the recesses of the grave,
carrying its faint lamp trembling and astonished; or as the Muses who
are never pictured as one-breasted amazons, but as women needing
protection. Indeed, all art which appeals to individual man and awaits
the confirmation of his senses and his reveries, seems when arrayed
against the moral zeal, the confident logic, the ordered proof of
journalism, a trifling, impertinent, vexatious thing, a tumbler who has
unrolled his carpet in the way of a marching army.
VI
I attack things that are as dear to many as some holy image carried
hither and thither by some broken clan, and can but say that I have
felt in my body the affections I disturb, and believed that if I could
raise them into contemplation I would make possible a literature, that
finding its subject-matter all ready in men's minds would be, not as
ours is, an interest for scholars, but the possession of a people. I
have founded societies with this aim, and was indeed founding one in
Paris when I first met with J.M. Synge, and I have known what it is to
be changed by that I would have changed, till I became argumentative
and unmannerly, hating men even in daily life for their opinions. And
though I was never convinced that the anatomies of last year's leaves
are a living forest, or thought a continual apologetic could do other
than make the soul a vapour and the body a stone; or believed that
literature can be made by anything but by what is still blind and dumb
within ourselves, I have had to learn how hard in one who lives where
forms of expression and habits of thought have been born, not for the
pleasure of begetting but for the public good, is that purification
from insincerity, vanity, malignity, arrogance, which is the discovery
of style. But it became possible to live when I had learnt all I had
not learnt in shaping words, in defending Synge against his enemies,
and knew that rich energies, fine, turbulent or gracious thoughts,
whether in life or letters, are but love-children.
VII
Synge seemed by nature unfitted to think a political thought, and with
the exception of one sentence, spoken when I first met him in Paris,
that implied some sort of nationalist conviction, I cannot remember
that he spoke of politics or showed any interest in men in the mass, or
in any subject that is studied through abstractions and statistics.
Often for months together he and I and Lady Gregory would see no one
outside the Abbey Theatre, and that life, lived as it were in a ship at
sea, suited him, for unlike those whose habit of mind fits them to
judge of men in the mass, he was wise in judging individual men, and as
wise in dealing with them as the faint energies of ill-health would
permit; but of their political thoughts he long understood nothing. One
night when we were still producing plays in a little hall, certain
members of the Company told him that a play on the Rebellion of '98
would be a great success. After a fortnight he brought them a scenario
which read like a chapter out of Rabelais. Two women, a Protestant and
a Catholic, take refuge in a cave, and there quarrel about religion,
abusing the Pope or Queen Elizabeth and Henry VIII, but in low voices,
for the one fears to be ravished by the soldiers, the other by the
rebels. At last one woman goes out because she would sooner any fate
than such wicked company. Yet, I doubt if he would have written at all
if he did not write of Ireland, and for it, and I know that he thought
creative art could only come from such preoccupation. Once, when in
later years, anxious about the educational effect of our movement, I
proposed adding to the Abbey Company a second Company to play
international drama, Synge, who had not hitherto opposed me, thought
the matter so important that he did so in a formal letter.
I had spoken of a German municipal theatre as my model, and he said
that the municipal theatres all over Europe gave fine performances of
old classics but did not create (he disliked modern drama for its
sterility of speech, and perhaps ignored it) and that we would create
nothing if we did not give all our thoughts to Ireland. Yet in Ireland
he loved only what was wild in its people, and in 'the grey and wintry
sides of many glens.' All the rest, all that one reasoned over, fought
for, read of in leading articles, all that came from education, all
that came down from Young Ireland--though for this he had not lacked a
little sympathy--first wakened in him perhaps that irony which runs
through all he wrote, but once awakened, he made it turn its face upon
the whole of life. The women quarrelling in the cave would not have
amused him, if something in his nature had not looked out on most
disputes, even those wherein he himself took sides, with a mischievous
wisdom. He told me once that when he lived in some peasant's house, he
tried to make those about him forget that he was there, and it is
certain that he was silent in any crowded room. It is possible that low
vitality helped him to be observant and contemplative, and made him
dislike, even in solitude, those thoughts which unite us to others,
much as we all dislike, when fatigue or illness has sharpened the
nerves, hoardings covered with advertisements, the fronts of big
theatres, big London hotels, and all architecture which has been made
to impress the crowd. What blindness did for Homer, lameness for
Hephaestus, asceticism for any saint you will, bad health did for him
by making him ask no more of life than that it should keep him living,
and above all perhaps by concentrating his imagination upon one
thought, health itself. I think that all noble things are the result of
warfare; great nations and classes, of warfare in the visible world,
great poetry and philosophy, of invisible warfare, the division of a
mind within itself, a victory, the sacrifice of a man to himself. I am
certain that my friend's noble art, so full of passion and heroic
beauty, is the victory of a man who in poverty and sickness created
from the delight of expression, and in the contemplation that is born
of the minute and delicate arrangement of images, happiness, and health
of mind. Some early poems have a morbid melancholy, and he himself
spoke of early work he had destroyed as morbid, for as yet the
craftmanship was not fine enough to bring the artist's joy which is of
one substance with that of sanctity. In one poem he waits at some
street corner for a friend, a woman perhaps, and while he waits and
gradually understands that nobody is coming, sees two funerals and
shivers at the future; and in another written on his 25th birthday, he
wonders if the 25 years to come shall be as evil as those gone by.
Later on, he can see himself as but a part of the spectacle of the
world and mix into all he sees that flavour of extravagance, or of
humour, or of philosophy, that makes one understand that he
contemplates even his own death as if it were another's, and finds in
his own destiny but as it were a projection through a burning glass of
that general to men. There is in the creative joy an acceptance of what
life brings, because we have understood the beauty of what it brings,
or a hatred of death for what it takes away, which arouses within us,
through some sympathy perhaps with all other men, an energy so noble,
so powerful, that we laugh aloud and mock, in the terror or the
sweetness of our exaltation, at death and oblivion.
In no modern writer that has written of Irish life before him, except
it may be Miss Edgeworth in 'Castle Rackrent,' was there anything to
change a man's thought about the world or stir his moral nature, for
they but play with pictures, persons, and events, that whether well or
ill observed are but an amusement for the mind where it escapes from
meditation, a child's show that makes the fables of his art as
significant by contrast as some procession painted on an Egyptian wall;
for in these fables, an intelligence, on which the tragedy of the world
had been thrust in so few years, that Life had no time to brew her
sleepy drug, has spoken of the moods that are the expression of its
wisdom. All minds that have a wisdom come of tragic reality seem morbid
to those that are accustomed to writers who have not faced reality at
all; just as the saints, with that Obscure Night of the Soul, which
fell so certainly that they numbered it among spiritual states, one
among other ascending steps, seem morbid to the rationalist and the
old-fashioned Protestant controversialist. The thought of journalists,
like that of the Irish novelists, is neither healthy nor unhealthy, for
it has not risen to that state where either is possible, nor should we
call it happy; for who would have sought happiness, if happiness were
not the supreme attainment of man, in heroic toils, in the cell of the
ascetic, or imagined it above the cheerful newspapers, above the clouds?
VIII
Not that Synge brought out of the struggle with himself any definite
philosophy, for philosophy in the common meaning of the word is created
out of an anxiety for sympathy or obedience, and he was that rare, that
distinguished, that most noble thing, which of all things still of the
world is nearest to being sufficient to itself, the pure artist. Sir
Philip Sidney complains of those who could hear'sweet tunes' (by which
he understands could look upon his lady) and not be stirred to
'ravishing delight.'
'Or if they do delight therein, yet are so closed with wit,
As with sententious lips to set a title vain on it;
Oh let them hear these sacred tunes, and learn in Wonder's schools
To be, in things past bonds of wit, fools if they be not fools!'
Ireland for three generations has been like those churlish logicians.
Everything is argued over, everything has to take its trial before the
dull sense and the hasty judgment, and the character of the nation has
so changed that it hardly keeps but among country people, or where some
family tradition is still stubborn, those lineaments that made Borrow
cry out as he came from among the Irish monks, his friends and
entertainers for all his Spanish Bible scattering, 'Oh, Ireland, mother
of the bravest soldiers and of the most beautiful women!' It was as I
believe, to seek that old Ireland which took its mould from the
duellists and scholars of the 18th century and from generations older
still, that Synge returned again and again to Aran, to Kerry, and to
the wild Blaskets.
IX
'When I got up this morning' he writes, after he had been a long time
in Innismaan, 'I found that the people had gone to Mass and latched the
kitchen door from the outside, so that I could not open it to give
myself light.
'I sat for nearly an hour beside the fire with a curious feeling that I
should be quite alone in this little cottage. I am so used to sitting
here with the people that I have never felt the room before as a place
where any man might live and work by himself. After a while as I
waited, with just light enough from the chimney to let me see the
rafters and the greyness of the walls, I became indescribably mournful,
for I felt that this little corner on the face of the world, and the
people who live in it, have a peace and dignity from which we are shut
for ever.' This life, which he describes elsewhere as the most
primitive left in Europe, satisfied some necessity of his nature.
Before I met him in Paris he had wandered over much of Europe,
listening to stories in the Black Forest, making friends with servants
and with poor people, and this from an aesthetic interest, for he had
gathered no statistics, had no money to give, and cared nothing for the
wrongs of the poor, being content to pay for the pleasure of eye and
ear with a tune upon the fiddle. He did not love them the better
because they were poor and miserable, and it was only when he found
Innismaan and the Blaskets, where there is neither riches nor poverty,
neither what he calls 'the nullity of the rich' nor 'the squalor of the
poor' that his writing lost its old morbid brooding, that he found his
genius and his peace. Here were men and women who under the weight of
their necessity lived, as the artist lives, in the presence of death
and childhood, and the great affections and the orgiastic moment when
life outleaps its limits, and who, as it is always with those who have
refused or escaped the trivial and the temporary, had dignity and good
manners where manners mattered. Here above all was silence from all our
great orator took delight in, from formidable men, from moral
indignation, from the'sciolist' who 'is never sad,' from all in modern
life that would destroy the arts; and here, to take a thought from
another playwright of our school, he could love Time as only women and
great artists do and need never sell it.
X
As I read 'The Aran Islands' right through for the first time since he
showed it me in manuscript, I come to understand how much knowledge of
the real life of Ireland went to the creation of a world which is yet
as fantastic as the Spain of Cervantes. Here is the story of 'The
Playboy,' of 'The Shadow of the Glen;' here is the 'ghost on horseback'
and the finding of the young man's body of 'Riders to the Sea,'
numberless ways of speech and vehement pictures that had seemed to owe
nothing to observation, and all to some overflowing of himself, or to
some mere necessity of dramatic construction. I had thought the violent
quarrels of 'The Well of the Saints' came from his love of bitter
condiments, but here is a couple that quarrel all day long amid
neighbours who gather as for a play. I had defended the burning of
Christy Mahon's leg on the ground that an artist need but make his
characters self-consistent, and yet, that too was observation, for
'although these people are kindly towards each other and their
children, they have no sympathy for the suffering of animals, and
little sympathy for pain when the person who feels it is not in
danger.' I had thought it was in the wantonness of fancy Martin Dhoul
accused the smith of plucking his living ducks, but a few lines further
on, in this book where moral indignation is unknown, I read, 'Sometimes
when I go into a cottage, I find all the women of the place down on
their knees plucking the feathers from live ducks and geese.'
He loves all that has edge, all that is salt in the mouth, all that is
rough to the hand, all that heightens the emotions by contest, all that
stings into life the sense of tragedy; and in this book, unlike the
plays where nearness to his audience moves him to mischief, he shows it
without thought of other taste than his. It is so constant, it is all
set out so simply, so naturally, that it suggests a correspondence
between a lasting mood of the soul and this life that shares the
harshness of rocks and wind. The food of the spiritual-minded is sweet,
an Indian scripture says, but passionate minds love bitter food. Yet he
is no indifferent observer, but is certainly kind and sympathetic to
all about him. When an old and ailing man, dreading the coming winter,
cries at his leaving, not thinking to see him again; and he notices
that the old man's mitten has a hole in it where the palm is accustomed
to the stick, one knows that it is with eyes full of interested
affection as befits a simple man and not in the curiosity of study.
When he had left the Blaskets for the last time, he travelled with a
lame pensioner who had drifted there, why heaven knows, and one morning
having missed him from the inn where they were staying, he believed he
had gone back to the island and searched everywhere and questioned
everybody, till he understood of a sudden that he was jealous as though
the island were a woman.
The book seems dull if you read much at a time, as the later Kerry
essays do not, but nothing that he has written recalls so completely to
my senses the man as he was in daily life; and as I read, there are
moments when every line of his face, every inflection of his voice,
grows so clear in memory that I cannot realize that he is dead. He was
no nearer when we walked and talked than now while I read these
unarranged, unspeculating pages, wherein the only life he loved with
his whole heart reflects itself as in the still water of a pool.
Thought comes to him slowly, and only after long seemingly unmeditative
watching, and when it comes, (and he had the same character in matters
of business) it is spoken without hesitation and never changed. His
conversation was not an experimental thing, an instrument of research,
and this made him silent; while his essays recall events, on which one
feels that he pronounces no judgment even in the depth of his own mind,
because the labour of Life itself had not yet brought the philosophic
generalization, which was almost as much his object as the emotional
generalization of beauty. A mind that generalizes rapidly, continually
prevents the experience that would have made it feel and see deeply,
just as a man whose character is too complete in youth seldom grows
into any energy of moral beauty. Synge had indeed no obvious ideals, as
these are understood by young men, and even as I think disliked them,
for he once complained to me that our modern poetry was but the poetry
'of the lyrical boy,' and this lack makes his art have a strange
wildness and coldness, as of a man born in some far-off spacious land
and time.
XI
There are artists like Byron, like Goethe, like Shelley, who have
impressive personalities, active wills and all their faculties at the
service of the will; but he belonged to those who like Wordsworth, like
Coleridge, like Goldsmith, like Keats, have little personality, so far
as the casual eye can see, little personal will, but fiery and brooding
imagination. I cannot imagine him anxious to impress, or convince in
any company, or saying more than was sufficient to keep the talk
circling. Such men have the advantage that all they write is a part of
knowledge, but they are powerless before events and have often but one
visible strength, the strength to reject from life and thought all that
would mar their work, or deafen them in the doing of it; and only this
so long as it is a passive act. If Synge had married young or taken
some profession, I doubt if he would have written books or been greatly
interested in a movement like ours; but he refused various
opportunities of making money in what must have been an almost
unconscious preparation. He had no life outside his imagination, little
interest in anything that was not its chosen subject. He hardly seemed
aware of the existence of other writers. I never knew if he cared for
work of mine, and do not remember that I had from him even a
conventional compliment, and yet he had the most perfect modesty and
simplicity in daily intercourse, self-assertion was impossible to him.
On the other hand, he was useless amidst sudden events. He was much
shaken by the Playboy riot; on the first night confused and excited,
knowing not what to do, and ill before many days, but it made no
difference in his work. He neither exaggerated out of defiance nor
softened out of timidity. He wrote on as if nothing had happened,
altering 'The Tinker's Wedding' to a more unpopular form, but writing a
beautiful serene 'Deirdre,' with, for the first time since his 'Riders
to the Sea,' no touch of sarcasm or defiance. Misfortune shook his
physical nature while it left his intellect and his moral nature
untroubled. The external self, the mask, the persona was a shadow,
character was all.
XII
He was a drifting silent man full of hidden passion, and loved wild
islands, because there, set out in the light of day, he saw what lay
hidden in himself. There is passage after passage in which he dwells
upon some moment of excitement. He describes the shipping of pigs at
Kilronan on the North Island for the English market: 'when the steamer
was getting near, the whole drove was moved down upon the slip and the
curraghs were carried out close to the sea. Then each beast was caught
in its turn and thrown on its side, while its legs were hitched
together in a single knot, with a tag of rope remaining, by which it
could be carried.
Probably the pain inflicted was not great, yet the animals shut their
eyes and shrieked with almost human intonations, till the suggestion of
the noise became so intense that the men and women who were merely
looking on grew wild with excitement, and the pigs waiting their turn
foamed at the mouth and tore each other with their teeth.
After a while there was a pause. The whole slip was covered with amass
of sobbing animals, with here and there a terrified woman crouching
among the bodies and patting some special favourite, to keep it quiet
while the curraghs were being launched. Then the screaming began again
while the pigs were carried out and laid in their places, with a
waistcoat tied round their feet to keep them from damaging the canvas.
They seemed to know where they were going, and looked up at me over the
gunnel with an ignoble desperation that made me shudder to think that I
had eaten this whimpering flesh. When the last curragh went out, I was
left on the slip with a band of women and children, and one old boar
who sat looking out over the sea.
The women were over-excited, and when I tried to talk to them they
crowded round me and began jeering and shrieking at me because I am not
married. A dozen screamed at a time, and so rapidly that I could not
understand all they were saying, yet I was able to make out that they
were taking advantage of the absence of their husbands to give me the
full volume of their contempt. Some little boys who were listening
threw themselves down, writhing with laughter among the sea-weed, and
the young girls grew red and embarrassed and stared down in the surf.'
The book is full of such scenes. Now it is a crowd going by train to
the Parnell celebration, now it is a woman cursing her son who made
himself a spy for the police, now it is an old woman keening at a
funeral. Kindred to his delight in the harsh grey stones, in the
hardship of the life there, in the wind and in the mist, there is
always delight in every moment of excitement, whether it is but the
hysterical excitement of the women over the pigs, or some primary
passion. Once indeed, the hidden passion instead of finding expression
by its choice among the passions of others, shows itself in the most
direct way of all, that of dream. 'Last night,' he writes, at
Innismaan, 'after walking in a dream among buildings with strangely
intense light on them, I heard a faint rhythm of music beginning far
away on some stringed instrument.
It came closer to me, gradually increasing in quickness and volume with
an irresistibly definite progression. When it was quite near the sound
began to move in my nerves and blood, to urge me to dance with them.
I knew that if I yielded I would be carried away into some moment of
terrible agony, so I struggled to remain quiet, holding my knees
together with my hands.
The music increased continually, sounding like the strings of harps
tuned to a forgotten scale, and having a resonance as searching as the
strings of the 'cello.
Then the luring excitement became more powerful than my will, and my
limbs moved in spite of me.
In a moment I was swept away in a whirlwind of notes. My breath and my
thoughts and every impulse of my body became a form of the dance, till
I could not distinguish between the instrument or the rhythm and my own
person or consciousness. For a while it seemed an excitement that was
filled with joy; then it grew into an ecstasy where all existence was
lost in the vortex of movement. I could not think that there had been a
life beyond the whirling of the dance.
Then with a shock, the ecstasy turned to agony and rage. I struggled to
free myself but seemed only to increase the passion of the steps I
moved to. When I shrieked I could only echo the notes of the rhythm. At
last, with a movement of uncontrollable frenzy I broke back to
consciousness and awoke.
I dragged myself trembling to the window of the cottage and looked out.
The moon was glittering across the bay and there was no sound anywhere
on the island.'
XIII
In all drama which would give direct expression to reverie, to the
speech of the soul with itself, there is some device that checks the
rapidity of dialogue. When Oedipus speaks out of the most vehement
passions, he is conscious of the presence of the chorus, men before
whom he must keep up appearances 'children latest born of Cadmus' line'
who do not share his passion. Nobody is hurried or breathless. We
listen to reports and discuss them, taking part as it were in a council
of state. Nothing happens before our eyes. The dignity of Greek drama,
and in a lesser degree of that of Corneille and Racine depends, as
contrasted with the troubled life of Shakespearean drama, on an almost
even speed of dialogue, and on a so continuous exclusion of the
animation of common life, that thought remains lofty and language rich.
Shakespeare, upon whose stage everything may happen, even the blinding
of Gloster, and who has no formal check except what is implied in the
slow, elaborate structure of blank verse, obtains time for reverie by
an often encumbering Euphuism, and by such a loosening of his plot as
will give his characters the leisure to look at life from without.
Maeterlinck, to name the first modern of the old way who comes to
mind--reaches the same end, by choosing instead of human beings persons
who are as faint as a breath upon a looking-glass, symbols who can
speak a language slow and heavy with dreams because their own life is
but a dream. Modern drama, on the other hand, which accepts the
tightness of the classic plot, while expressing life directly, has been
driven to make indirect its expression of the mind, which it leaves to
be inferred from some common-place sentence or gesture as we infer it
in ordinary life; and this is, I believe, the cause of the perpetual
disappointment of the hope imagined this hundred years that France or
Spain or Germany or Scandinavia will at last produce the master we
await.
The divisions in the arts are almost all in the first instance
technical, and the great schools of drama have been divided from one
another by the form or the metal of their mirror, by the check chosen
for the rapidity of dialogue. Synge found the check that suited his
temperament in an elaboration of the dialects of Kerry and Aran. The
cadence is long and meditative, as befits the thought of men who are
much alone, and who when they meet in one another's houses--as their
way is at the day's end--listen patiently, each man speaking in turn
and for some little time, and taking pleasure in the vaguer meaning of
the words and in their sound. Their thought, when not merely practical,
is as full of traditional wisdom and extravagant pictures as that of
some Aeschylean chorus, and no matter what the topic is, it is as
though the present were held at arms length. It is the reverse of
rhetoric, for the speaker serves his own delight, though doubtless he
would tell you that like Raftery's whiskey-drinking it was but for the
company's sake. A medicinal manner of speech too, for it could not even
express, so little abstract it is and so rammed with life, those worn
generalizations of national propaganda. 'I'll be telling you the finest
story you'd hear any place from Dundalk to Ballinacree with great
queens in it, making themselves matches from the start to the end, and
they with shiny silks on them... I've a grand story of the great
queens of Ireland, with white necks on them the like of Sarah Casey,
and fine arms would hit you a slap.... What good am I this night, God
help me? What good are the grand stories I have when it's few would
listen to an old woman, few but a girl maybe would be in great fear the
time her hour was come, or a little child wouldn't be sleeping with the
hunger on a cold night.' That has the flavour of Homer, of the Bible,
of Villon, while Cervantes would have thought it sweet in the mouth
though not his food. This use of Irish dialect for noble purpose by
Synge, and by Lady Gregory, who had it already in her Cuchulain of
Muirthemne, and by Dr. Hyde in those first translations he has not
equalled since, has done much for National dignity. When I was a boy I
was often troubled and sorrowful because Scottish dialect was capable
of noble use, but the Irish of obvious roystering humour only; and this
error fixed on my imagination by so many novelists and rhymers made me
listen badly. Synge wrote down words and phrases wherever he went, and
with that knowledge of Irish which made all our country idioms easy to
his hand, found it so rich a thing, that he had begun translating into
it fragments of the great literatures of the world, and had planned a
complete version of the Imitation of Christ. It gave him imaginative
richness and yet left to him the sting and tang of reality. How vivid
in his translation from Villon are those 'eyes with a big gay look out
of them would bring folly from a great scholar.' More vivid surely than
anything in Swinburne's version, and how noble those words which are
yet simple country speech, in which his Petrarch mourns that death came
upon Laura just as time was making chastity easy, and the day come when
'lovers may sit together and say out all things arc in their hearts,'
and'my sweet enemy was making a start, little by little, to give over
her great wariness, the way she was wringing a sweet thing out of my
sharp sorrow.'
XIV
Once when I had been saying that though it seemed to me that a
conventional descriptive passage encumbered the action at the moment of
crisis. |
10,240 |
Produced by Ted Garvin, Beth Trapaga and the Distributed Proofreading
Team
NORMANDY:
THE SCENERY & ROMANCE OF ITS ANCIENT TOWNS:
DEPICTED BY GORDON HOME
Part 1.
PREFACE
This book is not a guide. It is an attempt to convey by pictures and
description a clear impression of the Normandy which awaits the visitor.
The route described could, however, be followed without covering the same
ground for more than five or six miles, and anyone choosing to do this
would find in his path some of the richest architecture and scenery that
the province possesses.
As a means of reviving memories of past visits to Normandy, I may perhaps
venture to hope that the illustrations of this book--as far as the
reproductions are successful--may not be ineffectual.
GORDON HOME
EPSOM, _October_ 1905
CONTENTS
PREFACE
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
LIST OF LINE ILLUSTRATIONS
CHAPTER I
Some Features of Normandy
CHAPTER II
By the Banks of the Seine
CHAPTER III
Concerning Rouen, the Ancient Capital of Normandy
CHAPTER IV
Concerning the Cathedral City of Evreux and the Road to Bernay
CHAPTER V
Concerning Lisieux and the Romantic Town of Falaise
CHAPTER VI
From Argentan to Avranches
CHAPTER VII
Concerning Mont St Michel
CHAPTER VIII
Concerning Coutances and Some Parts of the Cotentin
CHAPTER IX
Concerning St Lo and Bayeux
CHAPTER X
Concerning Caen and the Coast Towards Trouville
CHAPTER XI
Some Notes on the History of Normandy
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
MONT ST MICHEL FROM THE CAUSEWAY
ON THE ROAD BETWEEN CONCHES AND BEAUMONT-LE-ROGER
This is typical of the poplar-bordered roads of Normandy.
THE CHATEAU GAILLARD FROM THE ROAD BY THE SEINE
The village of Le Petit Andely appears below the castle rock, and is
partly hidden by the island. The chalk cliffs on the left often look
like ruined walls.
A TYPICAL REACH OF THE SEINE BETWEEN ROUEN AND LE PETIT ANDELY
On one side great chalk cliffs rise precipitously, and on the
other are broad flat pastures.
THE CHURCH AT GISORS, SEEN FROM THE WALLS OF THE NORMAN CASTLE
THE TOUR DE LA GROSSE HORLOGE, ROUEN
It is the Belfry of the City, and was commenced in 1389.
THE CATHEDRAL AT ROUEN
Showing a peep of the Portail de la Calende, and some of the quaint
houses of the oldest part of the City.
THE CATHEDRAL OF EVREUX SEEN FROM ABOVE
On the right, just where the light touches some of the roofs of the
houses, the fine old belfry can be seen.
A TYPICAL FARMYARD SCENE IN NORMANDY
The curious little thatched mushroom above the cart is to be found in
most of the Norman farms.
THE BRIDGE AT BEAUMONT-LE-ROGER
On the steep hill beyond stands the ruined abbey church.
IN THE RUE AUX FEVRES, LISIEUX
The second tiled gable from the left belongs to the fine sixteenth
century house called the Manoir de Francois I.
THE CHURCH OF ST JACQUES AT LISIEUX
One of the quaint umber fronted houses for which the town is famous
appears on the left.
FALAISE CASTLE
The favourite stronghold of William the Conqueror.
THE PORTE DES CORDELIERS AT FALAISE
A thirteenth century gateway that overlooks the steep valley of the Ante.
THE CHATEAU D'O
A seventeenth century manor house surrounded by a wide moat.
THE GREAT VIEW OVER THE FORESTS TO THE SOUTH FROM THE RAMPARTS OF
DOMFRONT CASTLE
Down below can be seen the river Varennes, and to the left of the railway
the little Norman Church of Notre-Dame-sur-l'Eau.
THE CLOCK GATE, VIRE
A VIEW OF MONT ST MICHEL AND THE BAY OF CANCALE FROM THE JARDIN DES
PLANTES AT AVRANCHES
On the left is the low coast-line of Normandy, and on the right appears
the islet of Tombelaine.
DISTANT VIEW OF MONT ST MICHEL
THE LONG MAIN STREET OF COUTANCES
In the foreground is the Church of St Pierre, and in the distance
is the Cathedral.
THE GREAT WESTERN TOWERS OF THE CHURCH OF NOTRE DAME AT ST LO
They are of different dates, and differ in the arcading and other
ornament.
THE NORMAN TOWERS OF BAYEUX CATHEDRAL
ST PIERRE, CAEN
OUISTREHAM
LIST OF LINE ILLUSTRATIONS
THE FORTIFIED FARM NEAR GISORS
A SEVENTEENTH CENTURY HOUSE AT ARGENTAN
THE OLD MARKET HOUSE AT ECOUCHE
ONE OF THE TOWERS IN THE WALLS OF DOMFRONT
THE CHETELET AND LA MERVFILLE AT MONT ST MICHEL
The dark opening through the archway on the left is the main entrance to
the Abbey. On the right can be seen the tall narrow windows that light the
three floors of Abbot Jourdain's great work.
AN ANCIENT HOUSE IN THE RUE ST MALO, BAYEUX
THE GATEWAY OF THE CHATEAU
THE DISUSED CHURCH OF ST NICHOLAS AT CAEN
A COURTYARD IN THE RUE DE BAYEUX AT CAEN
CHAPTER I
Some Features of Normandy
Very large ants, magpies in every meadow, and coffee-cups without handles,
but of great girth, are some of the objects that soon become familiar to
strangers who wander in that part of France which was at one time as much
part of England as any of the counties of this island. The ants and the
coffee-cups certainly give one a sense of being in a foreign land, but when
one wanders through the fertile country among the thatched villages and
farms that so forcibly remind one of Devonshire, one feels a friendliness
in the landscapes that scarcely requires the stimulus of the kindly
attitude of the peasants towards _les anglais_.
If one were to change the dark blue smock and the peculiar peaked hat of
the country folk of Normandy for the less distinctive clothes of the
English peasant, in a very large number of cases the Frenchmen would pass
as English. The Norman farmer so often has features strongly typical of the
southern counties of England, that it is surprising that with his wife and
his daughters there should be so little resemblance. Perhaps this is
because the French women dress their hair in such a different manner to
those on the northern side of the Channel, and they certainly, taken as a
whole, dress with better effect than their English neighbours; or it may be
that the similar ideas prevailing among the men as to how much of the face
should be shaved have given the stronger sex an artificial resemblance.
In the towns there is little to suggest in any degree that the mediaeval
kings of England ruled this large portion of France, and at Mont St Michel
the only English objects besides the ebb and flow of tourists are the two
great iron _michelettes_ captured by the French in 1433. Everyone who comes
to the wonderful rock is informed that these two guns are English; but as
they have been there for nearly five hundred years, no one feels much shame
at seeing them in captivity, and only a very highly specialised antiquary
would be able to recognise any British features in them. Everyone, however,
who visits Normandy from England with any enthusiasm, is familiar with the
essential features of Norman and early pointed architecture, and it is thus
with distinct pleasure that the churches are often found to be strikingly
similar to some of the finest examples of the earlier periods in England.
When we remember that the Norman masons and master-builders had been
improving the crude Saxon architecture in England even before the Conquest,
and that, during the reigns of the Norman kings, "Frenchmen," as the Saxons
called them, were working on churches and castles in every part of our
island, it is no matter for surprise to find that buildings belonging to
the eleventh, twelfth, and even the thirteenth century, besides being of
similar general design, are often covered with precisely the same patterns
of ornament. When the period of Decorated Gothic began to prevail towards
the end of the thirteenth century, the styles on each side of the Channel
gradually diverged, so that after that time the English periods do not
agree with those of Normandy. There is also, even in the churches that most
resemble English structures, a strangeness that assails one unless
familiarity has taken the edge off one's perceptions. Though not the case
with all the fine churches and cathedrals of Normandy, yet with an
unpleasantly large proportion--unfortunately including the magnificent
Church of St Ouen at Rouen--there is beyond the gaudy tinsel that crowds
the altars, an untidiness that detracts from the sense of reverence that
stately Norman or Gothic does not fail to inspire. In the north transept of
St Ouen, some of the walls and pillars have at various times been made to
bear large printed notices which have been pasted down, and when out of
date they have been only roughly torn off, leaving fragments that soon
become discoloured and seriously mar the dignified antiquity of the
stone-work. But beyond this, one finds that the great black stands for
candles that burn beside the altars are generally streaked with the wax
that has guttered from a dozen flames, and that even the floor is covered
with lumps of wax--the countless stains of only partially scraped-up
gutterings of past offerings. There is also that peculiarly unpleasant
smell so often given out by the burning wax that greets one on entering the
cool twilight of the building. The worn and tattered appearance of the
rush-seated chairs in the churches is easily explained when one sees the
almost constant use to which they are put. In the morning, or even as late
as six in the evening, one finds classes of boys or girls being catechised
and instructed by priests and nuns. The visitor on pushing open the swing
door of an entrance will frequently be met by a monotonous voice that
echoes through the apparently empty church. As he slowly takes his way
along an aisle, the voice will cease, and suddenly break out in a simple
but loudly sung Gregorian air, soon joined by a score or more of childish
voices; then, as the stranger comes abreast of a side chapel, he causes a
grave distraction among the rows of round, closely cropped heads. The
rather nasal voice from the sallow figure in the cassock rises higher, and
as the echoing footsteps of the person who does nothing but stare about him
become more and more distant, the sing-song tune grows in volume once more,
and the rows of little French boys are again in the way of becoming good
Catholics. In another side chapel the confessional box bears a large white
card on which is printed in bold letters, "M. le Cure." He is on duty at
the present time, for, from behind the curtained lattices, the stranger
hears a soft mumble of words, and he is constrained to move silently
towards the patch of blazing whiteness that betokens the free air and
sunshine without. The cheerful clatter of the traffic on the cobbles is
typical of all the towns of Normandy, as it is of the whole republic, but
Caen has reduced this form of noise by exchanging its omnibuses, that
always suggested trams that had left the rails, for swift electric trams
that only disturb the streets by their gongs. In Rouen, the electric cars,
which the Britisher rejoices to discover were made in England--the driver
being obliged to read the positions of his levers in English--are a huge
boon to everyone who goes sight-seeing in that city. Being swept along in a
smoothly running car is certainly preferable to jolting one's way over the
uneven paving on a bicycle, but it is only in the largest towns that one
has such a choice.
Although the only road that is depicted in this book is as straight as any
built by the Romans and is bordered by poplars, it is only one type of the
great _routes nationales_ that connect the larger towns. In the hilly parts
of Normandy the poplar bordered roads entirely disappear, and however
straight the engineers may have tried to make their ways, they have been
forced to give them a zig-zag on the steep <DW72>s that breaks up the
monotony of the great perspectives so often to be seen stretching away for
great distances in front and behind. It must not be imagined that Normandy
is without the usual winding country road where every bend has beyond it
some possibilities in the way of fresh views. An examination of a good road
map of the country will show that although the straight roads are numerous,
there are others that wind and twist almost as much as the average English
turnpike. As a rule, the _route nationale_ is about the same width as most
main roads, but it has on either side an equal space of grass. This is
frequently scraped off by the cantoniers, and the grass is placed in great
piles ready for removal. When these have been cleared away the thoroughfare
is of enormous width, and in case of need, regiments could march in the
centre with artillery on one side, and a supply train on the other, without
impeding one another.
Level crossings for railways are more frequent than bridges. The gates are
generally controlled by women in the family sort of fashion that one sees
at the lodge of an English park where a right-of-way exists, and yet
accidents do not seem to happen.
The railways of Normandy are those of the Chemin de Fer de l'Ouest, and one
soon becomes familiar with the very low platforms of the stations that are
raised scarcely above the rails. The porters wear blue smocks and trousers
of the same material, secured at the waist by a belt of perpendicular red
and black stripes. The railway carriages have always two foot-boards, and
the doors besides the usual handles have a second one half-way down the
panels presumably for additional security. It is really in the nature of a
bolt that turns on a pivot and falls into a bracket. On the doors, the
class of the carriages is always marked in heavy Roman numerals. The
third-class compartments have windows only in the doors, are innocent of
any form of cushions and are generally only divided half-way up. The second
and first-class compartments are always much better and will bear
comparison with those of the best English railways, whereas the usual
third-class compartment is of that primitive type abandoned twenty or more
years ago, north of the Channel. The locomotives are usually dirty and
black with outside cylinders, and great drum-shaped steam-domes. They seem
to do the work that is required of them efficiently, although if one is
travelling in a third-class compartment the top speed seems extraordinarily
slow. The railway officials handle bicycles with wonderful care, and this
is perhaps remarkable when we realize that French railways carry them any
distance simply charging a penny for registration.
The hotels of Normandy are not what they were twenty years ago.
Improvements in sanitation have brought about most welcome changes, so that
one can enter the courtyard of most hotels without being met by the
aggressive odours that formerly jostled one another for space. When you
realize the very large number of English folk who annually pass from town
to town in Normandy it may perhaps be wondered why the proprietors of
hotels do not take the trouble to prepare a room that will answer to the
drawing-room of an English hotel. After dinner in France, a lady has
absolutely no choice between a possible seat in the courtyard and her
bedroom, for the estaminet generally contains a group of noisy Frenchmen,
and even if it is vacant the room partakes too much of the character of a
bar-parlour to be suitable for ladies. Except in the large hotels in Rouen
I have only found one which boasts of any sort of room besides the
estaminet; it was the Hotel des Trois Marie at Argentan. When this defect
has been remedied, I can imagine that English people will tour in Normandy
more than they do even at the present time. The small washing basin and jug
that apologetically appears upon the bedroom washstand has still an almost
universal sway, and it is not sufficiently odd to excuse itself on the
score of picturesqueness. Under that heading come the tiled floors in the
bedrooms, the square and mountainous eiderdowns that recline upon the beds,
and the matches that take several seconds to ignite and leave a sulphurous
odour that does not dissipate itself for several minutes.
CHAPTER II
By the Banks of the Seine
If you come to Normandy from Southampton, France is entered at the mouth of
the Seine and you are at once introduced to some of the loveliest scenery
that Normandy possesses. The headland outside Havre is composed of ochreish
rock which appears in patches where the grass will not grow. The heights
are occupied by no less than three lighthouses only one of which is now in
use. As the ship gets closer, a great spire appears round the cliff in the
silvery shimmer of the morning haze and then a thousand roofs reflect the
sunlight.
There are boats from Havre that take passengers up the winding river to
Rouen and in this way much of the beautiful scenery may be enjoyed. By this
means, however, the country appears as only a series of changing pictures
and to see anything of the detail of such charming places as Caudebec, and
Lillebonne, or the architectural features of Tancarville Castle and the
Abbey of Jumieges, the road must be followed instead of the more leisurely
river.
Havre with its great docks, its busy streets, and fast electric tramcars
that frighten away foot passengers with noisy motor horns does not compel a
very long stay, although one may chance to find much interest among the
shipping, when such vessels as Mr Vanderbilt's magnificent steam yacht,
without a mark on its spotless paint, is lying in one of the inner basins.
If you wander up and down some of the old streets by the harbour you will
find more than one many-storied house with shutters brightly painted, and
dormers on its ancient roof. The church of Notre Dame in the Rue de Paris
has a tower that was in earlier times a beacon, and it was here that three
brothers named Raoulin who had been murdered by the governor Villars in
1599, are buried.
On the opposite side of the estuary of the Seine, lies Honfleur with its
extraordinary church tower that stands in the market-place quite detached
from the church of St Catherine to which it belongs. It is entirely
constructed of timber and has great struts supporting the angles of its
walls. The houses along the quay have a most paintable appearance, their
overhanging floors and innumerable windows forming a picturesque background
to the fishing-boats.
Harfleur, on the same side of the river as Havre, is on the road to
Tancarville. We pass through it on our way to Caudebec. The great spire of
the church, dating from the fifteenth century, rears itself above this
ancient port where the black-sailed ships of the Northmen often appeared in
the early days before Rollo had forced Charles the Simple (he should have
been called "The Straightforward") to grant him the great tract of French
territory that we are now about to explore.
The Seine, winding beneath bold cliffs on one side and along the edge of
flat, rich meadowlands on the other, comes near the magnificent ruin of
Tancarville Castle whose walls enclose an eighteenth century chateau. The
situation on an isolated chalk cliff one hundred feet high was more
formidable a century ago than it is to-day, for then the Seine ran close
beneath the forbidding walls, while now it has changed its course somewhat.
The entrance to the castle is approached under the shadow of the great
circular corner tower that stands out so boldly at one extremity of the
buildings, and the gate house has on either side semi-circular towers
fifty-two feet in height. Above the archway there are three floors
sparingly lighted by very small windows, one to each storey. They point out
the first floor as containing the torture chamber, and in the towers
adjoining are the hopelessly strong prisons. The iron bars are still in the
windows and in one instance the positions of the rings to which the
prisoners were chained are still visible.
There are still floors in the Eagle's tower that forms the boldest portion
of the castle, and it is a curious feature that the building is angular
inside although perfectly cylindrical on the exterior. Near the chateau you
may see the ruined chapel and the remains of the Salle des Chevaliers with
its big fireplace. Then higher than the entrance towers is the Tour
Coquesart built in the fifteenth century and having four storeys with a
fireplace in each. The keep is near this, but outside the present castle
and separated from it by a moat. The earliest parts of the castle all
belong to the eleventh century, but so much destruction was wrought by
Henry V. in 1417 that the greater part of the ruins belong to a few years
after that date. The name of Tancarville had found a place among the great
families of England before the last of the members of this distinguished
French name lost his life at the battle of Agincourt. The heiress of the
family married one of the Harcourts and eventually the possessions came
into the hands of Dunois the Bastard of Orleans.
From Tancarville there is a road that brings you down to that which runs
from Quilleboeuf, and by it one is soon brought to the picturesquely
situated little town of Lillebonne, famous for its Roman theatre. It was
the capital of the Caletes and was known as Juliabona, being mentioned in
the iters of Antoninus. The theatre is so well known that no one has
difficulty in finding it, and compared to most of the Roman remains in
England, it is well worth seeing. The place held no fewer than three
thousand people upon the semi-circular tiers of seats that are now covered
with turf. Years ago, there was much stone-work to be seen, but this has
largely disappeared, and it is only in the upper portions that many traces
of mason's work are visible. A passage runs round the upper part of the
theatre and the walls are composed of narrow stones that are not much
larger than bricks.
The great castle was built by William the Norman, and it was here that he
gathered together his barons to mature and work out his project which made
him afterwards William the Conqueror. It will be natural to associate the
fine round tower of the castle with this historic conference, but
unfortunately, it was only built in the fourteenth century. From more than
one point of view Lillebonne makes beautiful pictures, its roofs dominated
by the great tower of the parish church as well as by the ruins of the
castle.
We have lost sight of the Seine since we left Tancarville, but a ten-mile
run brings us to the summit of a hill overlooking Caudebec and a great
sweep of the beautiful river. The church raises its picturesque outline
against the rolling white clouds, and forms a picture that compels
admiration. On descending into the town, the antiquity and the quaintness
of sixteenth century houses greet you frequently, and you do not wonder
that Caudebec has attracted so many painters. There is a wide quay, shaded
by an avenue of beautiful trees, and there are views across the broad,
shining waters of the Seine, which here as in most of its length attracts
us by its breadth. The beautiful chalk hills drop steeply down to the
water's edge on the northern shores in striking contrast to the flatness of
the opposite banks. On the side of the river facing Caudebec, the peninsula
enclosed by the windings of the Seine includes the great forest of
Brotonne, and all around the town, the steep hills that tumble
picturesquely on every side, are richly clothed with woods, so that with
its architectural delights within, and its setting of forest, river and
hill, Caudebec well deserves the name it has won for itself in England as
well as in France.
Just off the road to Rouen from Caudebec and scarcely two miles away, is St
Wandrille, situated in a charming hollow watered by the Fontanelle, a
humble tributary of the great river. In those beautiful surroundings stand
the ruins of the abbey church, almost entirely dating from the thirteenth
century. Much destruction was done during the Revolution, but there is
enough of the south transept and nave still in existence to show what the
complete building must have been. In the wonderfully preserved cloister
which is the gem of St Wandrille, there are some beautiful details in the
doorway leading from the church, and there is much interest in the
refectory and chapter house.
Down in the piece of country included in a long and narrow loop of the
river stand the splendid ruins of the abbey of Jumieges with its three
towers that stand out so conspicuously over the richly wooded country. When
you get to the village and are close to the ruins of the great Benedictine
abbey, you are not surprised that it was at one time numbered amongst the
richest and most notable of the monastic foundations. The founder was St
Philibert, but whatever the buildings which made their appearance in the
seventh century may have been, is completely beyond our knowledge, for
Jumieges was situated too close to the Seine to be overlooked by the
harrying ship-loads of pirates from the north, who in the year 851
demolished everything. William Longue-Epee, son of Rollo the great leader
of these Northmen, curiously enough commenced the rebuilding of the abbey,
and it was completed in the year of the English conquest. Nearly the whole
of the nave and towers present a splendid example of early Norman
architecture, and it is much more inspiring to look upon the fine west
front of this ruin than that of St Etienne at Caen which has an aspect so
dull and uninspiring. The great round arches of the nave are supported by
pillars which have the early type of capital distinguishing eleventh
century work. The little chapel of St Pierre adjoining the abbey church is
particularly interesting on account of the western portion which includes
some of that early work built in the first half of the tenth century by
William Longue-Epee. The tombstone of Nicholas Lerour, the abbot who was
among the judges by whom the saintly Joan of Arc was condemned to death, is
to be seen with others in the house which now serves as a museum.
Associated with the same tragedy is another tombstone, that of Agnes Sorel,
the mistress of Charles VII., that heartless king who made no effort to
save the girl who had given him his throne.
Jumieges continued to be a perfectly preserved abbey occupied by its monks
and hundreds of persons associated with them until scarcely more than a
century ago. It was then allowed to go to complete ruin, and no
restrictions seem to have been placed upon the people of the neighbourhood
who as is usual under such circumstances, used the splendid buildings as a
storehouse of ready dressed stone.
Making our way back to the highway, we pass through beautiful scenery, and
once more reach the banks of the Seine at the town of Duclair which stands
below the escarpment of chalk hills. There are wharves by the river-side
which give the place a thriving aspect, for a considerable export trade is
carried on in dairy produce.
After following the river-side for a time, the road begins to cut across
the neck of land between two bends of the Seine. It climbs up towards the
forest of Roumare and passes fairly close to the village of St Martin de
Boscherville where the church of St George stands out conspicuously on its
hillside. This splendid Norman building is the church of the Abbey built in
the middle of the eleventh century by Raoul de Tancarville who was
William's Chamberlain at the time of the conquest of England. The abbey
buildings are now in ruins but the church has remained almost untouched
during the eight centuries and more which have passed during which Normandy
was often bathed in blood, and when towns and castles were sacked two or
three times over. When the forest of Roumare, has been left behind, you
come to Canteleu, a little village that stands at the top of a steep hill,
commanding a huge view over Rouen, the historic capital of Normandy. You
can see the shipping lying in the river, the factories, the spire of the
cathedral, and the many church towers as well as the light framework of the
modern moving bridge. This is the present day representative of the
fantastic mediaeval city that witnessed the tragedy of Joan of Arc's trial
and martyrdom. We will pass Rouen now, returning to it again in the next
chapter.
The river for some distance becomes frequently punctuated with islands.
Large extents of forest including those of Rouvray, Bonde and Elbeuf,
spread themselves over the high ground to the west. The view from above
Elbeuf in spite of its many tall chimney shafts includes such a fine
stretch of fertile country that the scene is not easily forgotten.
Following the windings of the river through Pont-de-L'Arche and the forest
of Louviers we come to that pleasant old town; but although close to the
Seine, it stands on the little river Eure. Louviers remains in the memory
as a town whose church is more crowded with elaborately carved stone-work
than any outside Rouen. There is something rather odd, in the close
juxtaposition of the Hotel Mouton d'Argent with its smooth plastered front
and the almost overpowering mass of detail that faces it on the other side
of the road. There is something curious, too, in the severe plainness of
the tower that almost suggests the unnecessarily shabby clothing worn by
some men whose wives are always to be seen in the most elaborate and costly
gowns. Internally the church shows its twelfth century origin, but all the
intricate stone-work outside belongs to the fifteenth century. The porch
which is, if possible, richer than the buttresses of the aisles, belongs to
the flamboyant period, and actually dates from the year 1496. In the
clerestory there is much sixteenth century glass and the aisles which are
low and double give a rather unusual appearance.
The town contains several quaint and ancient houses, one of them supported
by wooden posts projects over the pavement, another at the corner of the
Marche des Oeufs has a very rich though battered piece of carved oak at the
angle of the walls. It seems as if it had caught the infection of the
extraordinary detail of the church porch. Down by the river there are many
timber-framed houses with their foundations touching the water, with narrow
wooden bridges crossing to the warehouses that line the other side. The
Place de Rouen has a shady avenue of limes leading straight down to a great
house in a garden beyond which rise wooded hills. Towards the river runs
another avenue of limes trimmed squarely on top. These are pleasant
features of so many French towns that make up for some of the deficiencies
in other matters.
We could stay at Louviers for some time without exhausting all its
attractions, but ten miles away at the extremity of another deep loop of
the Seine there stands the great and historic Chateau-Gaillard that towers
above Le Petit-Andely, the pretty village standing invitingly by a cleft in
the hills. The road we traverse is that which appears so conspicuously in
Turner's great painting of the Chateau-Gaillard. It crosses the bridge
close under the towering chalk cliffs where the ruin stands so boldly.
There is a road that follows the right bank of the river close to the
railway, and it is from there that one of the strangest views of the castle
is to be obtained. You may see it thrown up by a blaze of sunlight against
the grassy heights behind that are all dark beneath the shadow of a cloud.
The stone of the towers and heavily buttressed walls appears almost as
white as the chalk which crops out in the form of cliffs along the
river-side. An island crowded with willows that overhang the water
partially hides the village of Le Petit-Andely, and close at hand above the
steep <DW72>s of grass that rise from the roadway tower great masses of
gleaming white chalk projecting from the vivid turf as though they were the
worn ruins of other castles. The whiteness is only broken by the horizontal
lines of flints and the blue-grey shadows that fill the crevices.
From the hill above the Chateau there is another and even more striking
view. It is the one that appears in Turner's picture just mentioned, and
gives one some idea of the magnificent position that Richard Coeur de Lion
chose, when in 1197 he decided to build an impregnable fortress on this
bend of the Seine. It was soon after his return from captivity which
followed the disastrous crusade that Richard commenced to show Philippe
Auguste that he was determined to hold his French possessions with his
whole strength. Philippe had warned John when the news of the release of
the lion-hearted king from captivity had become known, that "the devil was
unchained," and the building of this castle showed that Richard was making
the most of his opportunities. The French king was, with some
justification, furious with his neighbour, for Richard had recently given
his word not to fortify this place, and some fierce fighting would have
ensued on top of the threats which the monarchs exchanged, but for the
death of the English king in 1199. When John assumed the crown of England,
however, Philippe soon found cause to quarrel with him, and thus the great
siege of the castle was only postponed for three or four years. The French
king brought his army across the peninsula formed by the Seine, and having
succeeded in destroying the bridge beneath the castle, he constructed one
for himself with boats and soon afterwards managed to capture the island,
despite its strong fortifications. The leader of the English garrison was
the courageous Roger de Lacy, Constable of Chester. From his knowledge of
the character of his new king, de Lacy would have expected little
assistance from the outside and would have relied upon his own resources to
defend Richard's masterpiece. John made one attempt to succour the
garrison. He brought his army across the level country and essayed to
destroy the bridge of boats constructed by the French. This one effort
proving unsuccessful he took no other measures to distract the besieging
army, and left Roger de Lacy to the undivided attention of the Frenchmen.
Then followed a terrible struggle. The French king succeeded in drawing his
lines closer to the castle itself and eventually obtained possession of the
outer fortifications and the village of Le Petit-Andely, from which the
inhabitants fled to the protection of the castle. The governor had no wish
to have all his supplies consumed by non-combatants, and soon compelled
these defenceless folk to go out of the protection of his huge walls. At
first the besiegers seemed to have allowed the people to pass unmolested,
but probably realizing the embarrassment they would have been to the
garrison, they altered their minds, and drove most of them back to the
castle. Here they gained a reception almost as hostile as that of the
enemy, and after being shot down by the arrows of the French they remained
for days in a starving condition in a hollow between the hostile lines.
Here they would all have died of hunger, but Philippe at last took pity on
the terrible plight of these defenceless women and children and old folks,
and having allowed them a small supply of provisions they were at last
released from their ghastly position. Such a tragedy as this lends terrible
pathos to the grassy steeps and hollows surrounding the chateau and one may
almost be astonished that such callousness could have existed in these days
of chivalry.
The siege was continued with rigour and a most strenuous attack was made
upon the end of the castle that adjoined the high ground that overlooks
the ruins. With magnificent courage the Frenchmen succeeded in mining
the walls, and having rushed into the breach they soon made themselves
masters of the outer courtyard. Continuing the assault, a small party
of intrepid soldiers gained a foothold within the next series of
fortifications, causing the English to retreat to the inner courtyard
dominated by the enormous keep. Despite the magnificent resistance
offered by de Lacy's men the besiegers raised their engines in front of
the gate, and when at last they had forced an entry they contrived a
feat that almost seems incredible--they cut off the garrison from their
retreat to the keep. Thus this most famous of castles fell within half
a dozen years of its completion.
In the hundred years' war the Chateau-Gaillard was naturally one of the
centres of the fiercest fighting, and the pages of history are full of
references to the sieges and captures of the fortress, proving how even
with the most primitive weapons these ponderous and unscalable walls were
not as impregnable as they may have seemed to the builders. Like the abbey
of Jumieges, this proud structure became nothing more than a quarry, for in
the seventeenth century permission was given to two religious houses, one
at Le Petit-Andely and the other at Le Grand-Andely to take whatever
stone-work they required for their monastic establishments. Records show
how more damage would have been done to the castle but for the frequent
quarrels between these two religious houses as to their rights over the
various parts of the ruins. When you climb up to the ruined citadel and
look out of the windows that are now battered and shapeless, you can easily
feel how the heart of the bold Richard must have swelled within him when he
saw how his castle dominated an enormous belt of country. But you cannot
help wondering whether he ever had misgivings over the unwelcome proximity
of the chalky heights that rise so closely above the site of the ruin. We
ourselves, are inclined to forget these questions of military strength in
the serene beauty of the silvery river flowing on its serpentine course
past groups of poplars, rich pastures dotted with cattle, forest lands and
villages set amidst blossoming orchards. Down below are the warm
chocolate-red roofs of the little town that has shared with the chateau its
good and evil fortunes. The church with its slender spire occupies the
central position, and it dates from precisely the same years as those which
witnessed the advent of the fortress above. The little streets of the town
are full of quaint timber-framed houses, and it is not surprising that this
is one of the spots by the beautiful banks of the Seine that has attained a
name for its picturesqueness.
With scarcely any perceptible division Le Grand-Andely joins the smaller
village. It stands higher in the valley and is chiefly memorable for its
beautiful inn, the Hotel du Grand Cerf. It is opposite the richly
ornamented stone-work of the church of Notre Dame and dates chiefly from
the sixteenth century. The hall contains a great fireplace, richly
ornamented with a renaissance frieze and a fine iron stove-back. The
courtyard shows carved timbers and in front the elaborate moulding beneath
the eaves is supported by carved brackets. Unlike that old hostelry at
Dives which is mentioned in another chapter, this hotel is not over
restored, although in the days of a past proprietor the house contained a
great number of antiques and its fame attracted many distinguished
visitors, including Sir Walter Scott and Victor Hugo.
In writing of the hotel I am likely to forget the splendid painted glass in
the church, but details of the stories told in these beautiful works of the
sixteenth century are given in all good guides.
There is a pleasant valley behind Les Andelys running up towards the great
plateau that occupies such an enormous area of this portion of Normandy.
The scenery as you go along the first part of the valley, through the
little village of Harquency with its tiny Norman church, and cottages with
thatched roofs all velvety with moss, is very charming. The country is
entirely hedge-less, but as you look down upon the rather thirsty-looking
valley below the road, the scenery savours much of Kent; the chalky fields,
wooded uplands and big, picturesque farms suggesting some of the
agricultural districts of the English county. When we join the broad and
straight national road running towards Gisors we have reached the tableland
just mentioned. There are perhaps, here and there, a group of stately elms,
breaking the broad sweep of arable land that extends with no more
undulations for many leagues than those of a sheet of old-fashioned glass.
The horizon is formed by simply the same broad fields, vanishing in a thin,
blue line over the rim of the earth.
[Illustration: THE FORTIFIED FARM NEAR GISORS]
At Les Thilliers, a small hamlet that, owing to situation at cross-roads
figures conspicuously upon the milestones of the neighbourhood, the road to
Gisors goes towards the east, and after crossing the valley of the Epte,
you run down an easy gradient, passing a fine fortified farm-house with
circular towers at each corner of its four sides and in a few minutes have
turned into the historic old town of Gisors. It is as picturesque as any
place in Normandy with the exception of Mont St Michel. The river Epte
gliding slowly through its little canals at the sides of some of the
streets, forms innumerable pictures when reflecting the quaint houses and
gardens whose walls are generally grown over with creepers. Near the ascent
to the castle is one of the washing places where the women let their soap
suds float away on the translucent water as they scrub vigorously. They
kneel upon a long wooden platform sheltered by a charming old roof
supported upon a heavy timber framework that is a picture in itself.
If you stay at the Hotel de l'Ecu de France you are quite close to the
castle that towers upon its hill right in the middle of the town. Most
people who come to Gisors are surprised to find how historic is its castle,
and how many have been the conflicts that have taken place around it. The
position between Rouen and Paris and on the frontier of the Duchy gave it
an importance in the days of the Norman kings that led to the erection of a
most formidable stronghold. In the eleventh century, when William Rufus was
on the throne of England, he made the place much stronger. Both Henry I.
and Henry II. added to its fortifications so that Gisors became in time as
formidable a castle as the Chateau Gaillard. During the Hundred Years' War,
Gisors, which is often spoken of as the key to Normandy, after fierce
struggles had become French. Then again, a determined assault would leave
the flag of England fluttering upon its ramparts until again the Frenchmen
would contrive to make themselves masters of the place. And so these
constant changes of ownership went on until at last about the year 1450, a
date which we shall find associated with the fall of every English
stronghold in Normandy, Gisors surrendered to Charles VII. and has remained
French ever since.
The outer baileys are defended by some great towers of massive Norman
masonry from which you look all over the town and surrounding country. But
within the inner courtyard rises a great mound dominated by the keep which
you may still climb by a solid stone staircase. From here the view is very
much finer than from the other towers and its commanding position would
seem to give the defenders splendid opportunities for tiring out any
besieging force. The concierge of the castle, a genial old woman of
gipsy-like appearance takes you down to the fearful dungeon beneath one of
the great towers on the eastern side, known as the Tour des Prisonniers.
Here you may see the carvings in the stone-work executed by some of the
prisoners who had been cast into this black abyss. These carvings include
representations of crucifixes, St Christopher, and many excellently
conceived and patiently wrought figures of other saints.
We have already had a fine view of the splendid Renaissance exterior of the
church which is dedicated to the Saints Gervais and Protais. The choir is
the earliest part of the building. It belongs to the thirteenth century,
while the nave and most of the remaining portions date from the fifteenth
or sixteenth century. It is a building of intense architectural interest
and to some extent rivals the castle in the attention it deserves.
CHAPTER III
Concerning Rouen, the Ancient Capital of Normandy
When whole volumes have been written on Rouen it would be idle to attempt
even a fragment of its history in a book of this nature. But all who go to
Rouen should know something of its story in order to be able to make the
most of the antiquities that the great city still retains. How much we
would give to have an opportunity for seeing the Rouen which has vanished,
for to-day as we walk along the modern streets there is often nothing to
remind us of the centuries crowded with momentous events that have taken
place where now the electric cars sweep to and fro and do their best to
make one forget the Rouen of mediaeval times.
Of course, no one goes to the city expecting to find ancient walls and
towers, or a really strong flavour of the middle ages, any more than one
expects to obtain such impressions in the city of London. Rouen, however,
contains sufficient relics of its past to convey a powerful impression upon
the minds of all who have strong imaginations. There is the cathedral which
contains the work of many centuries; there is the beautiful and inspiring
church of St Ouen; there is the archway of the Grosse Horloge; there is the
crypt of the church of St Gervais, that dates from the dim fifth century;
and there are still in the narrow streets between the cathedral and the
quays along the river-side, many tall, overhanging houses, whose age
appears in the sloping wall surfaces and in the ancient timbers that show
themselves under the eaves and between the plaster-work.
Two of the most attractive views in Rouen are illustrated here. |
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This Etext prepared by Tony Adam
anthony-adam@tamu.edu
Abraham Lincoln
by James Russell Lowell
THERE have been many painful crises since the impatient vanity of
South Carolina hurried ten prosperous Commonwealths into a
crime whose assured retribution was to leave them either at the
mercy of the nation they had wronged, or of the anarchy they had
summoned but could not control, when no thoughtful American
opened his morning paper without dreading to find that he had no
longer a country to love and honor. Whatever the result of the
convulsion whose first shocks were beginning to be felt, there
would still be enough square miles of earth for elbow-room; but
that ineffable sentiment made up of memory and hope, of instinct
and tradition, which swells every man's heart and shapes his
thought, though perhaps never present to his consciousness, would
be gone from it, leaving it common earth and nothing more. Men
might gather rich crops from it, but that ideal harvest of priceless
associations would be reaped no longer; that fine virtue which sent
up messages of courage and security from every sod of it would
have evaporated beyond recall. We should be irrevocably cut off
from our past, and be forced to splice the ragged ends of our lives
upon whatever new conditions chance might leave dangling for us.
We confess that we had our doubts at first whether the patriotism
of our people were not too narrowly provincial to embrace the
proportions of national peril. We felt an only too natural distrust of
immense public meetings and enthusiastic cheers.
That a reaction should follow the holiday enthusiasm with which
the war was entered on, that it should follow soon, and that the
slackening of public spirit should be proportionate to the previous
over-tension, might well be foreseen by all who had studied human
nature or history. Men acting gregariously are always in extremes;
as they are one moment capable of higher courage, so they are
liable, the next, to baser depression, and it is often a matter of
chance whether numbers shall multiply confidence or
discouragement. Nor does deception lead more surely to distrust of
men, than self-deception to suspicion of principles. The only faith
that wears well and holds its color in all weathers is that which is
woven of conviction and set with the sharp mordant of experience.
Enthusiasm is good material for the orator, but the statesman needs
something more durable to work in,--must be able to rely on the
deliberate reason and consequent firmness of the people, without
which that presence of mind, no less essential in times of moral than
of material peril, will be wanting at the critical moment. Would this
fervor of the Free States hold out? Was it kindled by a just feeling
of the value of constitutional liberty? Had it body enough to
withstand the inevitable dampening of checks, reverses, delays?
Had our population intelligence enough to comprehend that the
choice was between order and anarchy, between the equilibrium of
a government by law and the tussle of misrule by
*pronunciamiento?* Could a war be maintained without the
ordinary stimulus of hatred and plunder, and with the impersonal
loyalty of principle? These were serious questions, and with no
precedent to aid in answering them.
At the beginning of the war there was, indeed, occasion for the
most anxious apprehension. A President known to be infected with
the political heresies, and suspected of sympathy with the treason,
of the Southern conspirators, had just surrendered the reins, we will
not say of power, but of chaos, to a successor known only as the
representative of a party whose leaders, with long training in
opposition, had none in the conduct of affairs; an empty treasury
was called on to supply resources beyond precedent in the history
of finance; the trees were yet growing and the iron unmined with
which a navy was to be built and armored; officers without
discipline were to make a mob into an army; and, above all, the
public opinion of Europe, echoed and reinforced with every vague
hint and every specious argument of despondency by a powerful
faction at home, was either contemptuously sceptical or actively
hostile. It would be hard to over-estimate the force of this latter
element of disintegration and discouragement among a people
where every citizen at home, and every soldier in the field, is a
reader of newspapers. The peddlers of rumor in the North were the
most effective allies of the rebellion. A nation can be liable to no
more insidious treachery than that of the telegraph, sending hourly
its electric thrill of panic along the remotest nerves of the
community, till the excited imagination makes every real danger
loom heightened with its unreal double.
And even if we look only at more palpable difficulties, the problem
to be solved by our civil war was so vast, both in its immediate
relations and its future consequences; the conditions of its solution
were so intricate and so greatly dependent on incalculable and
uncontrollable contingencies; so many of the data, whether for hope
or fear, were, from their novelty, incapable of arrangement under
any of the categories of historical precedent, that there were
moments of crisis when the firmest believer in the strength and
sufficiency of the democratic theory of government might well hold
his breath in vague apprehension of disaster. Our teachers of
political philosophy, solemnly arguing from the precedent of some
petty Grecian, Italian, or Flemish city, whose long periods of
aristocracy were broken now and then by awkward parentheses of
mob, had always taught us that democracies were incapable of the
sentiment of loyalty, of concentrated and prolonged effort, of far-
reaching conceptions; were absorbed in material interests; impatient
of regular, and much more of exceptional restraint; had no natural
nucleus of gravitation, nor any forces but centrifugal; were always
on the verge of civil war, and slunk at last into the natural
almshouse of bankrupt popular government, a military despotism.
Here was indeed a dreary outlook for persons who knew
democracy, not by rubbing shoulders with it lifelong, but merely
from books, and America only by the report of some fellow-Briton,
who, having eaten a bad dinner or lost a carpet-bag here, had
written to *The Times* demanding redress, and drawing a
mournful inference of democratic instability. Nor were men
wanting among ourselves who had so steeped their brains in
London literature as to mistake Cockneyism for European culture,
and contempt of their country for cosmopolitan breadth of view,
and who, owing all they had an all they were to democracy, thought
it had an air of high-breeding to join in the shallow epicedium that
our bubble had burst.
But beside any disheartening influences which might affect the timid
or the despondent, there were reasons enough of settled gravity
against any over-confidence of hope. A war--which, whether we
consider the expanse of the territory at stake, the hosts brought into
the field, or the reach of the principles involved, may fairly be
reckoned the most momentous of modern times--was to be waged
by a people divided at home, unnerved by fifty years of peace,
under a chief magistrate without experience and without reputation,
whose every measure was sure to be cunningly hampered by a
jealous and unscrupulous minority, and who, while dealing with
unheard-of complications at home, must soothe a hostile neutrality
abroad, waiting only a pretext to become war. All this was to be
done without warning and without preparation, while at the same
time a social revolution was to be accomplished in the political
condition of four millions of people, by softening the prejudices,
allaying the fears, and gradually obtaining the cooperation, of their
unwilling liberators. Surely, if ever there were an occasion when
the heightened imagination of the historian might see Destiny visibly
intervening in human affairs, here was a knot worthy of her shears.
Never, perhaps, was any system of government tried by so
continuous and searching a strain as ours during the last three
years; never has any shown itself stronger; and never could that
strength be so directly traced to the virtue and intelligence of the
people,--to that general enlightenment and prompt efficiency of
public opinion possible only under the influence of a political
framework like our own. We find it hard to understand how even a
foreigner should be blind to the grandeur of the combat of ideas
that has been going on here,--to the heroic energy, persistency, and
self-reliance of a nation proving that it knows how much dearer
greatness is than mere power; and we own that it is impossible for
us to conceive the mental and moral condition of the American who
does not feel his spirit braced and heightened by being even a
spectator of such qualities and achievements. That a steady
purpose and a definite aim have been given to the jarring forces
which, at the beginning of the war, spent themselves in the
discussion of schemes which could only become operative, if at all,
after the war was over; that a popular excitement has been slowly
intensified into an earnest national will; that a somewhat
impracticable moral sentiment has been made the unconscious
instrument of a practical moral end; that the treason of covert
enemies, the jealousy of rivals, the unwise zeal of friends, have been
made not only useless for mischief, but even useful for good; that
the conscientious sensitiveness of England to the horrors of civil
conflict has been prevented from complicating a domestic with a
foreign war;--all these results, any one of which might suffice to
prove greatness in a ruler, have been mainly due to the good sense,
the good-humor, the sagacity, the large-mindedness, and the
unselfish honesty of the unknown man whom a blind fortune, as it
seemed, had lifted from the crowd to the most dangerous and
difficult eminence of modern times. It is by presence of mind in
untried emergencies that the native metal of a man is tested; it is by
the sagacity to see, and the fearless honesty to admit, whatever of
truth there may be in an adverse opinion, in order more
convincingly to expose the fallacy that lurks behind it, that a
reasoner at length gains for his mere statement of a fact the force of
argument; it is by a wise forecast which allows hostile combinations
to go so far as by the inevitable reaction to become elements of his
own power, that a politician proves his genius for state-craft; and
especially it is by so gently guiding public sentiment that he seems
to follow it, by so yielding doubtful points that he can be firm
without seeming obstinate in essential ones, and thus gain the
advantages of compromise without the weakness of concession; by
so instinctively comprehending the temper and prejudices of a
people as to make them gradually conscious of the superior wisdom
of his freedom from temper and prejudice,--it is by qualities such as
these that a magistrate shows himself worthy to be chief in a
commonwealth of freemen. And it is for qualities such as these that
we firmly believe History will rank Mr. Lincoln among the most
prudent of statesmen and the most successful of rulers. If we wish
to appreciate him, we have only to conceive the inevitable chaos in
which we should now be weltering, had a weak man or an unwise
one been chosen in his stead.
"Bare is back," says the Norse proverb, "without brother behind it;"
and this is, by analogy, true of an elective magistracy. The
hereditary ruler in any critical emergency may reckon on the
inexhaustible resources of *prestige,* of sentiment, of superstition,
of dependent interest, while the new man must slowly and painfully
create all these out of the unwilling material around him, by
superiority of character, by patient singleness of purpose, by
sagacious presentiment of popular tendencies and instinctive
sympathy with the national character. Mr. Lincoln's task was one
of peculiar and exceptional difficulty. Long habit had accustomed
the American people to the notion of a party in power, and of a
President as its creature and organ, while the more vital fact, that
the executive for the time being represents the abstract idea of
government as a permanent principle superior to all party and all
private interest, had gradually become unfamiliar. They had so long
seen the public policy more or less directed by views of party, and
often even of personal advantage, as to be ready to suspect the
motives of a chief magistrate compelled, for the first time in our
history, to feel himself the head and hand of a great nation, and to
act upon the fundamental maxim, laid down by all publicists, that
the first duty of a government is to depend and maintain its own
existence. Accordingly, a powerful weapon seemed to be put into
the hands of the opposition by the necessity under which the
administration found itself of applying this old truth to new
relations. Nor were the opposition his only nor his most dangerous
opponents.
The Republicans had carried the country upon an issue in which
ethics were more directly and visibly mingled with politics than
usual. Their leaders were trained to a method of oratory which
relied for its effect rather on the moral sense than the
understanding. Their arguments were drawn, not so much from
experience as from general principles of right and wrong. When the
war came, their system continued to be applicable and effective, for
here again the reason of the people was to be reached and kindled
through their sentiments. It was one of those periods of
excitement, gathering, contagious, universal, which, while they last,
exalt and clarify the minds of men, giving to the mere words
*country, human rights, democracy,* a meaning and a force beyond
that of sober and logical argument. They were convictions,
maintained and defended by the supreme logic of passion. That
penetrating fire ran in and roused those primary instincts that make
their lair in the dens and caverns of the mind. What is called the
great popular heart was awakened, that indefinable something
which may be, according to circumstances, the highest reason or
the most brutish unreason. But enthusiasm, once cold, can never be
warmed over into anything better than cant,--and phrases, when
once the inspiration that filled them with beneficent power has
ebbed away, retain only that semblance of meaning which enables
them to supplant reason in hasty minds. Among the lessons taught
by the French Revolution there is none sadder or more striking than
this, that you may make everything else out of the passions of men
except a political system that will work, and that there is nothing so
pitilessly and unconsciously cruel as sincerity formulated into
dogma. It is always demoralizing to extend the domain of sentiment
over questions where it has no legitimate jurisdiction; and perhaps
the severest strain upon Mr. Lincoln was in resisting a tendency of
his own supporters which chimed with his own private desires,
while wholly opposed to his convictions of what would be wise
policy.
The change which three years have brought about is too remarkable
to be passed over without comment, too weighty in its lesson not to
be laid to heart. Never did a President enter upon office with less
means at his command, outside his own strength of heart and
steadiness of understanding, for inspiring confidence in the people,
and so winning it for himself, than Mr. Lincoln. All that was known
of him was that he was a good stump-speaker, nominated for his
*availability,*--that is, because he had no history,--and chosen by a
party with whose more extreme opinions he was not in sympathy.
It might well be feared that a man past fifty, against whom the
ingenuity of hostile partisans could rake up no accusation, must be
lacking in manliness of character, in decision of principle, in
strength of will; that a man who was at best only the representative
of a party, and who yet did not fairly represent even that, would fail
of political, much more of popular, support. And certainly no one
ever entered upon office with so few resources of power in the
past, and so many materials of weakness in the present, as Mr.
Lincoln. Even in that half of the Union which acknowledged him as
President, there was a large, and at that time dangerous, minority,
that hardly admitted his claim to the office, and even in the party
that elected him there was also a large minority that suspected him
of being secretly a communicant with the church of Laodicea.(1)
All he did was sure to be virulently attacked as ultra by one side; all
that he left undone, to be stigmatized as proof of lukewarmness and
backsliding by the other. Meanwhile he was to carry on a truly
colossal war by means of both; he was to disengage the country
from diplomatic entanglements of unprecedented peril undisturbed
by the help or the hindrance of either, and to win from the crowning
dangers of his administration, in the confidence of the people, the
means of his safety and their own. He has contrived to do it, and
perhaps none of our Presidents since Washington has stood so firm
in the confidence of the people as he does after three years of
stormy administration.
(1) See *Revelation,* chapter 3, verse 15.
Mr. Lincoln's policy was a tentative one, and rightly so. He laid
down no programme which must compel him to be either
inconsistent or unwise, no cast-iron theorem to which
circumstances must be fitted as they rose, or else be useless to his
ends. He seemed to have chosen Mazarin's motto, *Le temps et
moi.*(1) The *moi,* to be sure, was not very prominent at first;
but it has grown more and more so, till the world is beginning to be
persuaded that it stands for a character of marked individuality and
capacity for affairs. Time was his prime-minister, and, we began to
think, at one period, his general-in-chief also. At first he was so
slow that he tired out all those who see no evidence of progress but
in blowing up the engine; then he was so fast, that he took the
breath away from those who think there is no getting on safety
while there is a spark of fire under the boilers. God is the only
being who has time enough; but a prudent man, who knows how to
seize occasion, can commonly make a shift to find as much as he
needs. Mr. Lincoln, as it seems to us in reviewing his career,
though we have sometimes in our impatience thought otherwise,
has always waited, as a wise man should, till the right moment
brought up all his reserves. *Semper nocuit differre paratis,*(2) is
a sound axiom, but the really efficacious man will also be sure to
know when he is *not* ready, and be firm against all persuasion
and reproach till he is.
(1) Time and I. Cardinal Mazarin was prime-minister of Louis
XIV. of France. Time, Mazarin said, was his prime-minister.
(2) It is always bad for those who are ready to put off action.
One would be apt to think, from some of the criticisms made on
Mr. Lincoln's course by those who mainly agree with him in
principle, that the chief object of a statesman should be rather to
proclaim his adhesion to certain doctrines, than to achieve their
triumph by quietly accomplishing his ends. In our opinion, there is
no more unsafe politician than a conscientiously rigid *doctrinaire,*
nothing more sure to end in disaster than a theoretic scheme of
policy that admits of no pliability for contingencies. True, there is a
popular image of an impossible He, in whose plastic hands the
submissive destinies of mankind become as wax, and to whose
commanding necessity the toughest facts yield with the graceful
pliancy of fiction; but in real life we commonly find that the men
who control circumstances, as it is called, are those who have
learned to allow for the influence of their eddies, and have the nerve
to turn them to account at the happy instant. Mr. Lincoln's perilous
task has been to carry a rather shaky raft through the rapids,
making fast the unrulier logs as he could snatch opportunity, and
the country is to be congratulated that he did not think it his duty to
run straight at all hazards, but cautiously to assure himself with his
setting-pole where the main current was, and keep steadily to that.
He is still in wild water, but we have faith that his skill and sureness
of eye will bring him out right at last.
A curious, and, as we think, not inapt parallel, might be drawn
between Mr. Lincoln and one of the most striking figures in modern
history,--Henry IV. of France. The career of the latter may be more
picturesque, as that of a daring captain always is; but in all its
vicissitudes there is nothing more romantic than that sudden
change, as by a rub of Aladdin's lamp, from the attorney's office in a
country town of Illinois to the helm of a great nation in times like
these. The analogy between the characters and circumstances of
the two men is in many respects singularly close. Succeeding to a
rebellion rather than a crown, Henry's chief material dependence
was the Huguenot party, whose doctrines sat upon him with a
looseness distasteful certainly, if not suspicious, to the more
fanatical among them. King only in name over the greater part of
France, and with his capital barred against him, it yet gradually
became clear to the more far-seeing even of the Catholic party that
he was the only centre of order and legitimate authority round
which France could reorganize itself. While preachers who held the
divine right of kings made the churches of Paris ring with
declamations in favor of democracy rather than submit to the
heretic dog of Bearnois,(1)--much as our *soi-disant* Democrats
have lately been preaching the divine right of slavery, and
denouncing the heresies of the Declaration of Independence,--
Henry bore both parties in hand till he was convinced that only one
course of action could possibly combine his own interests and those
of France. Meanwhile the Protestants believed somewhat
doubtfully that he was theirs, the Catholics hoped somewhat
doubtfully that he would be theirs, and Henry himself turned aside
remonstrance, advice and curiosity alike with a jest or a proverb (if
a little *high,* he liked them none the worse), joking continually as
his manner was. We have seen Mr. Lincoln contemptuously
compared to Sancho Panza by persons incapable of appreciating
one of the deepest pieces of wisdom in the profoundest romance
ever written; namely, that, while Don Quixote was incomparable in
theoretic and ideal statesmanship, Sancho, with his stock of
proverbs, the ready money of human experience, made the best
possible practical governor. Henry IV. was as full of wise saws and
modern instances as Mr. Lincoln, but beneath all this was the
thoughtful, practical, humane, and thoroughly earnest man, around
whom the fragments of France were to gather themselves till she
took her place again as a planet of the first magnitude in the
European system. In one respect Mr. Lincoln was more fortunate
than Henry. However some may think him wanting in zeal, the
most fanatical can find no taint of apostasy in any measure of his,
nor can the most bitter charge him with being influenced by motives
of personal interest. The leading distinction between the policies of
the two is one of circumstances. Henry went over to the nation;
Mr. Lincoln has steadily drawn the nation over to him. One left a
united France; the other, we hope and believe, will leave a reunited
America. We leave our readers to trace the further points of
difference and resemblance for themselves, merely suggesting a
general similarity which has often occurred to us. One only point of
melancholy interest we will allow ourselves to touch upon. That
Mr. Lincoln is not handsome nor elegant, we learn from certain
English tourists who would consider similar revelations in regard to
Queen Victoria as thoroughly American in the want of
*bienseance.* It is no concern of ours, nor does it affect his fitness
for the high place he so worthily occupies; but he is certainly as
fortunate as Henry in the matter of good looks, if we may trust
contemporary evidence. Mr. Lincoln has also been reproached with
Americanism by some not unfriendly British critics; but, with all
deference, we cannot say that we like him any the worse for it, or
see in it any reason why he should govern Americans the less
wisely.
(1) One of Henry's titles was Prince of Bearn, that being the old
province of France from which he came.
People of more sensitive organizations may be shocked, but we are
glad that in this our true war of independence, which is to free us
forever from the Old World, we have had at the head of our affairs
a man whom America made, as God made Adam, out of the very
earth, unancestried, unprivileged, unknown, to show us how much
truth, how much magnanimity, and how much statecraft await the
call of opportunity in simple manhood when it believes in the justice
of God and the worth of man. Conventionalities are all very well in
their proper place, but they shrivel at the touch of nature like
stubble in the fire. The genius that sways a nation by its arbitrary
will seems less august to us than that which multiplies and
reinforces itself in the instincts and convictions of an entire people.
Autocracy may have something in it more melodramatic than this,
but falls far short of it in human value and interest.
Experience would have bred in us a rooted distrust of improved
statesmanship, even if we did not believe politics to be a science,
which, if it cannot always command men of special aptitude and
great powers, at least demands the long and steady application of
the best powers of such men as it can command to master even its
first principles. It is curious, that, in a country which boasts of its
intelligence the theory should be so generally held that the most
complicated of human contrivances, and one which every day
becomes more complicated, can be worked at sight by any man able
to talk for an hour or two without stopping to think.
Mr. Lincoln is sometimes claimed as an example of a ready-made
ruler. But no case could well be less in point; for, besides that he
was a man of such fair-mindedness as is always the raw material of
wisdom, he had in his profession a training precisely the opposite of
that to which a partisan is subjected. His experience as a lawyer
compelled him not only to see that there is a principle underlying
every phenomenon in human affairs, but that there are always two
sides to every question, both of which must be fully understood in
order to understand either, and that it is of greater advantage to an
advocate to appreciate the strength than the weakness of his
antagonist's position. Nothing is more remarkable than the unerring
tact with which, in his debate with Mr. Douglas, he went straight to
the reason of the question; nor have we ever had a more striking
lesson in political tactics than the fact, that opposed to a man
exceptionally adroit in using popular prejudice and bigotry to his
purpose, exceptionally unscrupulous in appealing to those baser
motives that turn a meeting of citizens into a mob of barbarians, he
should yet have won his case before a jury of the people. Mr.
Lincoln was as far as possible from an impromptu politician. His
wisdom was made up of a knowledge of things as well as of men;
his sagacity resulted from a clear perception and honest
acknowledgment of difficulties, which enabled him to see that the
only durable triumph of political opinion is based, not on any
abstract right, but upon so much of justice, the highest attainable at
any given moment in human affairs, as may be had in the balance of
mutual concession. Doubtless he had an ideal, but it was the ideal
of a practical statesman,--to aim at the best, and to take the next
best, if he is lucky enough to get even that. His slow, but singularly
masculine, intelligence taught him that precedent is only another
name for embodied experience, and that it counts for even more in
the guidance of communities of men than in that of the individual
life. He was not a man who held it good public economy to pull
down on the mere chance of rebuilding better. Mr. Lincoln's faith
in God was qualified by a very well-founded distrust of the wisdom
of man. perhaps it was his want of self-confidence that more than
anything else won him the unlimited confidence of the people, for
they felt that there would be no need of retreat from any position he
had deliberately taken. The cautious, but steady, advance of his
policy during the war was like that of a Roman army. He left
behind him a firm road on which public confidence could follow; he
took America with him where he went; what he gained he occupied,
and his advanced posts became colonies. The very homeliness of
his genius was its distinction. His kingship was conspicuous by its
workday homespun. Never was ruler so absolute as he, nor so little
conscious of it; for he was the incarnate common-sense of the
people. With all that tenderness of nature whose sweet sadness
touched whoever saw him with something of its own pathos, there
was no trace of sentimentalism in his speech or action. He seems to
have had one rule of conduct, always that of practical and
successful politics, to let himself be guided by events, when they
were sure to bring him out where he wished to go, though by what
seemed to unpractical minds, which let go the possible to grasp at
the desirable, a longer road.
Undoubtedly the highest function of statesmanship is by degrees to
accommodate the conduct of communities to ethical laws, and to
subordinate the conflicting self-interests of the day to higher and
more permanent concerns. But it is on the understanding, and not
on the sentiment, of a nation that all safe legislation must be based.
Voltaire's saying, that "a consideration of petty circumstances is the
tomb of great things," may be true of individual men, but it certainly
is not true of governments. It is by a multitude of such
considerations, each in itself trifling, but all together weighty, that
the framers of policy can alone divine what is practicable and
therefore wise. The imputation of inconsistency is one to which
every sound politician and every honest thinker must sooner or later
subject himself. The foolish and the dead alone never change their
opinion. The course of a great statesman resembles that of
navigable rivers, avoiding immovable obstacles with noble bends of
concession, seeking the broad levels of opinion on which men
soonest settle and longest dwell, following and marking the almost
imperceptible <DW72>s of national tendency, yet always aiming at
direct advances, always recruited from sources nearer heaven, and
sometimes bursting open paths of progress and fruitful human
commerce through what seem the eternal barriers of both. It is
loyalty to great ends, even though forced to combine the small and
opposing motives of selfish men to accomplish them; it is the
anchored cling to solid principles of duty and action, which knows
how to swing with the tide, but is never carried away by it,--that we
demand in public men, and not sameness of policy, or a
conscientious persistency in what is impracticable. For the
impracticable, however theoretically enticing, is always politically
unwise, sound statesmanship being the application of that prudence
to the public business which is the safest guide in that of private
men.
No doubt slavery was the most delicate and embarrassing question
with which Mr. Lincoln was called on to deal, and it was one which
no man in his position, whatever his opinions, could evade; for,
though he might withstand the clamor of partisans, he must sooner
or later yield to the persistent importunacy of circumstances, which
thrust the problem upon him at every turn and in every shape.
It has been brought against us as an accusation abroad, and
repeated here by people who measure their country rather by what
is thought of it than by what is, that our war has not been distinctly
and avowedly for the extinction of slavery, but a war rather for the
preservation of our national power and greatness, in which the
emancipation of the <DW64> has been forced upon us by
circumstances and accepted as a necessity. We are very far from
denying this; nay, we admit that it is so far true that we were slow
to renounce our constitutional obligations even toward those who
had absolved us by their own act from the letter of our duty. We
are speaking of the government which, legally installed for the
whole country, was bound, so long as it was possible, not to
overstep the limits of orderly prescription, and could not, without
abnegating its own very nature, take the lead off a Virginia reel.
They forgot, what should be forgotten least of all in a system like
ours, that the administration for the time being represents not only
the majority which elects it, but the minority as well,--a minority in
this case powerful, and so little ready for emancipation that it was
opposed even to war. Mr. Lincoln had not been chosen as general
agent of the an anti-slavery society, but President of the United
States, to perform certain functions exactly defined by law.
Whatever were his wishes, it was no less duty than policy to mark
out for himself a line of action that would not further distract the
country, by raising before their time questions which plainly would
soon enough compel attention, and for which every day was making
the answer more easy.
Meanwhile he must solve the riddle of this new Sphinx, or be
devoured. Though Mr. Lincoln's policy in this critical affair has not
been such as to satisfy those who demand an heroic treatment for
even the most trifling occasion, and who will not cut their coat
according to their cloth, unless they can borrow the scissors of
Atropos,(1) it has been at least not unworthy of the long-headed
king of Ithaca.(2) Mr. Lincoln had the choice of Bassanio(3)
offered him. Which of the three caskets held the prize that was to
redeem the fortunes of the country? There was the golden one
whose showy speciousness might have tempted a vain man; the
silver of compromise, which might have decided the choice of a
merely acute one; and the leaden,--dull and homely-looking, as
prudence always is,--yet with something about it sure to attract the
eye of practical wisdom. Mr. Lincoln dallied with his decision
perhaps longer than seemed needful to those on whom its awful
responsibility was not to rest, but when he made it, it was worthy of
his cautious but sure-footed understanding. The moral of the
Sphinx-riddle, and it is a deep one, lies in the childish simplicity of
the solution. |
10,240 |
Produced by David Widger
QUOTES AND IMAGES FROM MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE
THE ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE
QUOTATIONS FROM THE FIVE VOLUMES
With Five Etchings
A child should not be brought up in his mother's lap
A gallant man does not give over his pursuit for being refused
A generous heart ought not to belie its own thoughts
A hundred more escape us than ever come to our knowledge
A lady could not boast of her chastity who was never tempted
A little cheese when a mind to make a feast
A little thing will turn and divert us
A man may always study, but he must not always go to school
A man may govern himself well who cannot govern others so
A man may play the fool in everything else, but not in poetry
A man must either imitate the vicious or hate them
A man must have courage to fear
A man never speaks of himself without loss
A man should abhor lawsuits as much as he may
A man should diffuse joy, but, as much as he can, smother grief
A man's accusations of himself are always believed
A parrot would say as much as that
A person's look is but a feeble warranty
A well-bred man is a compound man
A well-governed stomach is a great part of liberty
A word ill taken obliterates ten years' merit
Abhorrence of the patient are necessary circumstances
Abominate that incidental repentance which old age brings
Accept all things we are not able to refute
Accommodated my subject to my strength
Accursed be thou, as he that arms himself for fear of death
Accusing all others of ignorance and imposition
Acquiesce and submit to truth
Acquire by his writings an immortal life
Addict thyself to the study of letters
Addresses his voyage to no certain, port
Admiration is the foundation of all philosophy
Advantageous, too, a little to recede from one's right
Advise to choose weapons of the shortest sort
Affect words that are not of current use
Affection towards their husbands, (not) until they have lost them
Affirmation and obstinacy are express signs of want of wit
Affright people with the very mention of death
Against my trifles you could say no more than I myself have said
Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it does on the face
Agesilaus, what he thought most proper for boys to learn?
Agitated betwixt hope and fear
Agitation has usurped the place of reason
Alexander said, that the end of his labour was to labour
All actions equally become and equally honour a wise man
All apprentices when we come to it (death)
All defence shows a face of war
All I aim at is, to pass my time at my ease
All I say is by way of discourse, and nothing by way of advice
All judgments in gross are weak and imperfect
All over-nice solicitude about riches smells of avarice
All things have their seasons, even good ones
All think he has yet twenty good years to come
All those who have authority to be angry in my family
Almanacs
Always be parading their pedantic science
Always complaining is the way never to be lamented
Always the perfect religion
Am as jealous of my repose as of my authority
An advantage in judgment we yield to none
"An emperor," said he, "must die standing"
An ignorance that knowledge creates and begets
Ancient Romans kept their youth always standing at school
And hate him so as you were one day to love him
And we suffer the ills of a long peace
Anger and hatred are beyond the duty of justice
Any argument if it be carried on with method
Any old government better than change and alteration
Any one may deprive us of life; no one can deprive us of death
Anything appears greatest to him that never knew a greater
Anything becomes foul when commended by the multitude
Anything of value in him, let him make it appear in his conduct
Appetite comes to me in eating
Appetite is more sharp than one already half-glutted by the eyes
Appetite runs after that it has not
Appetite to read more, than glutted with that we have
Applaud his judgment than commend his knowledge
Apprenticeship and a resemblance of death
Apprenticeships that are to be served beforehand
Apt to promise something less than what I am able to do
Archer that shoots over, misses as much as he that falls short
Armed parties (the true school of treason, inhumanity, robbery
Arrogant ignorance
Art that could come to the knowledge of but few persons
"Art thou not ashamed," said he to him, "to sing so well?"
Arts of persuasion, to insinuate it into our minds
As great a benefit to be without (children)
As if anything were so common as ignorance
As if impatience were of itself a better remedy than patience
As we were formerly by crimes, so we are now overburdened by law
Ashamed to lay out as much thought and study upon it
Assurance they give us of the certainty of their drugs
At least, if they do no good, they will do no harm
At the most, but patch you up, and prop you a little
Attribute facility of belief to simplicity and ignorance
Attribute to itself; all the happy successes that happen
Authority of the number and antiquity of the witnesses
Authority to be dissected by the vain fancies of men
Authority which a graceful presence and a majestic mien beget
Avoid all magnificences that will in a short time be forgotten
Away with that eloquence that enchants us with itself
Away with this violence! away with this compulsion!
Bashfulness is an ornament to youth, but a reproach to old age
Be not angry to no purpose
Be on which side you will, you have as fair a game to play
Bears well a changed fortune, acting both parts equally well
Beast of company, as the ancient said, but not of the herd
Beauty of stature is the only beauty of men
Because the people know so well how to obey
Become a fool by too much wisdom
Being as impatient of commanding as of being commanded
Being dead they were then by one day happier than he
Being over-studious, we impair our health and spoil our humour
Belief compared to the impression of a seal upon the soul
Believing Heaven concerned at our ordinary actions
Best part of a captain to know how to make use of occasions
Best test of truth is the multitude of believers in a crowd
Best virtue I have has in it some tincture of vice
Better at speaking than writing--Motion and action animate word
Better have none at all than to have them in so prodigious a number
Better to be alone than in foolish and troublesome company
Blemishes of the great naturally appear greater
Books go side by side with me in my whole course
Books have many charming qualities to such as know how to choose
Books have not so much served me for instruction as exercise
Books I read over again, still smile upon me with fresh novelty
Books of things that were never either studied or understood
Both himself and his posterity declared ignoble, taxable
Both kings and philosophers go to stool
Burnt and roasted for opinions taken upon trust from others
Business to-morrow
But ill proves the honour and beauty of an action by its utility
But it is not enough that our education does not spoil us
By resenting the lie we acquit ourselves of the fault
By suspecting them, have given them a title to do ill
"By the gods," said he, "if I was not angry, I would execute you"
By the misery of this life, aiming at bliss in another
Caesar: he would be thought an excellent engineer to boot
Caesar's choice of death: "the shortest"
Can neither keep nor enjoy anything with a good grace
Cannot stand the liberty of a friend's advice
Carnal appetites only supported by use and exercise
Cato said: So many servants, so many enemies
Ceremony forbids us to express by words things that are lawful
Certain other things that people hide only to show them
Change is to be feared
Change of fashions
Change only gives form to injustice and tyranny
Cherish themselves most where they are most wrong
Chess: this idle and childish game
Chiefly knew himself to be mortal by this act
Childish ignorance of many very ordinary things
Children are amused with toys and men with words
Cicero: on fame
Civil innocence is measured according to times and places
Cleave to the side that stood most in need of her
cloak on one shoulder, my cap on one side, a stocking disordered
College: a real house of correction of imprisoned youth
Coming out of the same hole
Commit themselves to the common fortune
Common consolation, discourages and softens me
Common friendships will admit of division
Conclude the depth of my sense by its obscurity
Concluding no beauty can be greater than what they see
Condemn all violence in the education of a tender soul
Condemn the opposite affirmation equally
Condemnations have I seen more criminal than the crimes
Condemning wine, because some people will be drunk
Confession enervates reproach and disarms slander
Confidence in another man's virtue
Conscience makes us betray, accuse, and fight against ourselves
Conscience, which we pretend to be derived from nature
Consent, and complacency in giving a man's self up to melancholy
Consoles himself upon the utility and eternity of his writings
Content: more easily found in want than in abundance
Counterfeit condolings of pretenders
Courageous in death, not because his soul is immortal--Socrates
Courtesy and good manners is a very necessary study
Crafty humility that springs from presumption
Crates did worse, who threw himself into the liberty of poverty
Cruelty is the very extreme of all vices
Culling out of several books the sentences that best please me
Curiosity and of that eager passion for news
Curiosity of knowing things has been given to man for a scourge
"Custom," replied Plato, "is no little thing"
Customs and laws make justice
Dangerous man you have deprived of all means to escape
Dangers do, in truth, little or nothing hasten our end
Dearness is a good sauce to meat
Death can, whenever we please, cut short inconveniences
Death conduces more to birth and augmentation than to loss
Death discharges us of all our obligations
Death has us every moment by the throat
Death is a part of you
Death is terrible to Cicero, coveted by Cato
Death of old age the most rare and very seldom seen
Deceit maintains and supplies most men's employment
Decree that says, "The court understands nothing of the matter"
Defence allures attempt, and defiance provokes an enemy
Defend most the defects with which we are most tainted
Defer my revenge to another and better time
Deformity of the first cruelty makes me abhor all imitation
Delivered into our own custody the keys of life
Denying all solicitation, both of hand and mind
Depend as much upon fortune as anything else we do
Desire of riches is more sharpened by their use than by the need
Desire of travel
Desires, that still increase as they are fulfilled
Detest in others the defects which are more manifest in us
Did my discourses came only from my mouth or from my heart
Did not approve all sorts of means to obtain a victory
Die well--that is, patiently and tranquilly
Difference betwixt memory and understanding
Difficulty gives all things their estimation
Dignify our fopperies when we commit them to the press
Diogenes, esteeming us no better than flies or bladders
Discover what there is of good and clean in the bottom of the po
Disdainful, contemplative, serious and grave as the ass
Disease had arrived at its period or an effect of chance?
Disgorge what we eat in the same condition it was swallowed
Disguise, by their abridgments and at their own choice
Dissentient and tumultuary drugs
Diversity of medical arguments and opinions embraces all
Diverting the opinions and conjectures of the people
Do not much blame them for making their advantage of our folly
Do not to pray that all things may go as we would have them
Do not, nevertheless, always believe myself
Do thine own work, and know thyself
Doctors: more felicity and duration in their own lives?
Doctrine much more intricate and fantastic than the thing itself
Dost thou, then, old man, collect food for others' ears?
Doubt whether those (old writings) we have be not the worst
Doubtful ills plague us worst
Downright and sincere obedience
Drugs being in its own nature an enemy to our health
Drunkeness a true and certain trial of every one's nature
Dying appears to him a natural and indifferent accident
Each amongst you has made somebody cuckold
Eat your bread with the sauce of a more pleasing imagination
Education
Education ought to be carried on with a severe sweetness
Effect and performance are not at all in our power
Either tranquil life, or happy death
Eloquence prejudices the subject it would advance
Emperor Julian, surnamed the Apostate
Endeavouring to be brief, I become obscure
Engaged in the avenues of old age, being already past forty
Enough to do to comfort myself, without having to console others
Enslave our own contentment to the power of another?
Enters lightly into a quarrel is apt to go as lightly out of it
Entertain us with fables: astrologers and physicians
Epicurus
Establish this proposition by authority and huffing
Evade this tormenting and unprofitable knowledge
Even the very promises of physic are incredible in themselves
Events are a very poor testimony of our worth and parts
Every abridgment of a good book is a foolish abridgment
Every day travels towards death; the last only arrives at it
Every government has a god at the head of it
Every man thinks himself sufficiently intelligent
Every place of retirement requires a walk
Everything has many faces and several aspects
Examine, who is better learned, than who is more learned
Excel above the common rate in frivolous things
Excuse myself from knowing anything which enslaves me to others
Executions rather whet than dull the edge of vices
Expresses more contempt and condemnation than the other
Extend their anger and hatred beyond the dispute in question
Extremity of philosophy is hurtful
Fabric goes forming and piling itself up from hand to hand
Fame: an echo, a dream, nay, the shadow of a dream
Fancy that others cannot believe otherwise than as he does
Fantastic gibberish of the prophetic canting
Far more easy and pleasant to follow than to lead
Fathers conceal their affection from their children
Fault not to discern how far a man's worth extends
Fault will be theirs for having consulted me
Fear and distrust invite and draw on offence
Fear is more importunate and insupportable than death itself
Fear of the fall more fevers me than the fall itself
Fear to lose a thing, which being lost, cannot be lamented?
Fear was not that I should do ill, but that I should do nothing
Fear: begets a terrible astonishment and confusion
Feared, lest disgrace should make such delinquents desperate
Feminine polity has a mysterious procedure
Few men have been admired by their own domestics
Few men have made a wife of a mistress, who have not repented it
First informed who were to be the other guests
First thing to be considered in love matters: a fitting time
Flatterer in your old age or in your sickness
Follies do not make me laugh, it is our wisdom which does
Folly and absurdity are not to be cured by bare admonition
Folly of gaping after future things
Folly satisfied with itself than any reason can reasonably be
Folly than to be moved and angry at the follies of the world
Folly to hazard that upon the uncertainty of augmenting it
Folly to put out their own light and shine by a borrowed lustre
For fear of the laws and report of men
For who ever thought he wanted sense?
Fortune heaped up five or six such-like incidents
Fortune rules in all things
Fortune sometimes seems to delight in taking us at our word
Fortune will still be mistress of events
Fox, who found fault with what he could not obtain
Friend, it is not now time to play with your nails
Friend, the hook will not stick in such soft cheese
Friendships that the law and natural obligation impose upon us
Fruits of public commotion are seldom enjoyed
Gain to change an ill condition for one that is uncertain
Gave them new and more plausible names for their excuse
Gentleman would play the fool to make a show of defence
Gently to bear the inconstancy of a lover
Gewgaw to hang in a cabinet or at the end of the tongue
Give but the rind of my attention
Give me time to recover my strength and health
Give the ladies a cruel contempt of our natural furniture
Give these young wenches the things they long for
Give us history, more as they receive it than as they believe it
Giving is an ambitious and authoritative quality
Glory and curiosity are the scourges of the soul
Go out of ourselves, because we know not how there to reside
Good does not necessarily succeed evil; another evil may succeed
Good to be certain and finite, and evil, infinite and uncertain
Got up but an inch upon the shoulders of the last, but one
Gradations above and below pleasure
Gratify the gods and nature by massacre and murder
Great presumption to be so fond of one's own opinions
Greatest apprehensions, from things unseen, concealed
Greatest talkers, for the most part, do nothing to purpose
Greedy humour of new and unknown things
Grief provokes itself
Gross impostures of religions
Guess at our meaning under general and doubtful terms
Happen to do anything commendable, I attribute it to fortune
Hard to resolve a man's judgment against the common opinions
Haste trips up its own heels, fetters, and stops itself
Hate all sorts of obligation and restraint
Hate remedies that are more troublesome than the disease itself
Have ever had a great respect for her I loved
Have more wherewith to defray my journey, than I have way to go
Have no other title left me to these things but by the ears
Have you ever found any who have been dissatisfied with dying?
Having too good an opinion of our own worth
He cannot be good, seeing he is not evil even to the wicked
He did not think mankind worthy of a wise man's concern
He felt a pleasure and delight in so noble an action
He judged other men by himself
He may employ his passion, who can make no use of his reason
He may well go a foot, they say, who leads his horse in his hand
He must fool it a little who would not be deemed wholly a fool
He should discern in himself, as well as in others
He took himself along with him
He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears
He who is only a good man that men may know it
He who lays the cloth is ever at the charge of the feast
He who lives everywhere, lives nowhere
He who provides for all, provides for nothing
He who stops not the start will never be able to stop the course
He will choose to be alone
Headache should come before drunkenness
Health depends upon the vanity and falsity of their promises
Health is altered and corrupted by their frequent prescriptions
Health to be worth purchasing by all the most painful cauteries
Hearing a philosopher talk of military affairs
Heat and stir up their imagination, and then we find fault
Help: no other effect than that of lengthening my suffering
High time to die when there is more ill than good in living
Hoary head and rivilled face of ancient usage
Hobbes said that if he Had been at college as long as others--
Hold a stiff rein upon suspicion
Home anxieties and a mind enslaved by wearing complaints
Homer: The only words that have motion and action
Honour of valour consists in fighting, not in subduing
How infirm and decaying material this fabric of ours is
How many and many times he has been mistaken in his own judgment
How many more have died before they arrived at thy age
How many several ways has death to surprise us?
"How many things," said he, "I do not desire!"
How many worthy men have we known to survive their reputation
How much easier is it not to enter in than it is to get out
How much it costs him to do no worse
How much more insupportable and painful an immortal life
How uncertain duration these accidental conveniences are
Humble out of pride
Husbands hate their wives only because they themselves do wrong
I always find superfluity superfluous
I am a little tenderly distrustful of things that I wish
I am apt to dream that I dream
I am disgusted with the world I frequent
I am hard to be got out, but being once upon the road
I am no longer in condition for any great change
I am not to be cuffed into belief
I am plain and heavy, and stick to the solid and the probable
I am very glad to find the way beaten before me by others
I am very willing to quit the government of my house
I bequeath to Areteus the maintenance of my mother
I can more hardly believe a man's constancy than any virtue
I cannot well refuse to play with my dog
I content myself with enjoying the world without bustle
I dare not promise but that I may one day be so much a fool
I do not consider what it is now, but what it was then
I do not judge opinions by years
I do not much lament the dead, and should envy them rather
I do not say that 'tis well said, but well thought
I do not willingly alight when I am once on horseback
I enter into confidence with dying
I ever justly feared to raise my head too high
I every day hear fools say things that are not foolish
I find myself here fettered by the laws of ceremony
I find no quality so easy to counterfeit as devotion
I for my part always went the plain way to work
I grudge nothing but care and trouble
I had much rather die than live upon charity
I had rather be old a brief time, than be old before old age
I hail and caress truth in what quarter soever I find it
I hate all sorts of tyranny, both in word and deed
I hate poverty equally with pain
I have a great aversion from a novelty
"I have done nothing to-day"--"What? have you not lived?"
I have lived longer by this one day than I should have done
I have no mind to die, but I have no objection to be dead
I have not a wit supple enough to evade a sudden question
I have nothing of my own that satisfies my judgment
I honour those most to whom I show the least honour
I lay no great stress upon my opinions; or of others
I look upon death carelessly when I look upon it universally
I love stout expressions amongst gentle men
I love temperate and moderate natures
I need not seek a fool from afar; I can laugh at myself
I owe it rather to my fortune than my reason
I receive but little advice, I also give but little
I scorn to mend myself by halves
I see no people so soon sick as those who take physic
I speak truth, not so much as I would, but as much as I dare
I take hold of, as little glorious and exemplary as you will
I understand my men even by their silence and smiles
I was always superstitiously afraid of giving offence
I was too frightened to be ill
"I wish you good health"--"No health to thee" replied the other
I would as willingly be lucky as wise
I would be rich of myself, and not by borrowing
I write my book for few men and for few years
Idleness is to me a very painful labour
Idleness, the mother of corruption
If a passion once prepossess and seize me, it carries me away
If I am talking my best, whoever interrupts me, stops me
If I stand in need of anger and inflammation, I borrow it
If it be a delicious medicine, take it
If it be the writer's wit or borrowed from some other
If nature do not help a little, it is very hard
If they can only be kind to us out of pity
If they chop upon one truth, that carries a mighty report
If they hear no noise, they think men sleep
If to philosophise be, as 'tis defined, to doubt
Ignorance does not offend me, but the foppery of it
Impotencies that so unseasonably surprise the lover
Ill luck is good for something
Imagine the mighty will not abase themselves so much as to live
Imitating other men's natures, thou layest aside thy own
Immoderate either seeking or evading glory or reputation
Impose them upon me as infallible
Impostures: very strangeness lends them credit
Improperly we call this voluntary dissolution, despair
Impunity pass with us for justice
In everything else a man may keep some decorum
In ordinary friendships I am somewhat cold and shy
In solitude, be company for thyself--Tibullus
In sorrow there is some mixture of pleasure
In the meantime, their halves were begging at their doors
In this last scene of death, there is no more counterfeiting
In those days, the tailor took measure of it
In war not to drive an enemy to despair
Inclination to love one another at the first sight
Inclination to variety and novelty common to us both
Incline the history to their own fancy
Inconsiderate excuses are a kind of self-accusation
Inconveniences that moderation brings (in civil war)
Indiscreet desire of a present cure, that so blind us
Indocile liberty of this member
Inquisitive after everything
Insensible of the stroke when our youth dies in us
Insert whole sections and pages out of ancient authors
Intelligence is required to be able to know that a man knows not
Intemperance is the pest of pleasure
Intended to get a new husband than to lament the old
Interdict all gifts betwixt man and wife
Interdiction incites, and who are more eager, being forbidden
It (my books) may know many things that are gone from me
It happens, as with cages, the birds without despair to get in
It is better to die than to live miserable
It is no hard matter to get children
It is not a book to read, 'tis a book to study and learn
It is not for outward show that the soul is to play its part
It's madness to nourish infirmity
Jealousy: no remedy but flight or patience
Judge by justice, and choose men by reason
Judge by the eye of reason, and not from common report
Judgment of duty principally lies in the will
Judgment of great things is many times formed from lesser thing
Justice als takes cognisance of those who glean after the reaper
Killing is good to frustrate an offence to come, not to revenge
Knock you down with the authority of their experience
Knot is not so sure that a man may not half suspect it will slip
Knowledge and truth may be in us without judgment
Knowledge is not so absolutely necessary as judgment
Knowledge of others, wherein the honour consists
Known evil was ever more supportable than one that was, new
Ladies are no sooner ours, than we are no more theirs
Language: obscure and unintelligible in wills and contracts
Lascivious poet: Homer
Last death will kill but a half or a quarter of a man
Law: breeder of altercation and division
Laws (of Plato on travel), which forbids it after threescore
Laws cannot subsist without mixture of injustice
Laws do what they can, when they cannot do what they would
Laws keep up their credit, not for being just--but as laws
Lay the fault on the voices of those who speak to me
Laying themselves low to avoid the danger of falling
Learn my own debility and the treachery of my understanding
Learn the theory from those who best know the practice
Learn what it is right to wish
Learning improves fortunes enough, but not minds
Least end of a hair will serve to draw them into my discourse
Least touch or prick of a pencil in comparison of the whole
Leave society when we can no longer add anything to it
Leaving nothing unsaid, how home and bitter soever
Led by the ears by this charming harmony of words
Lend himself to others, and only give himself to himself
Lessen the just value of things that I possess
"Let a man take which course he will," said he; "he will repent"
Let him be as wise as he will, after all he is but a man
Let him be satisfied with correcting himself
Let him examine every man's talent
Let it alone a little
Let it be permitted to the timid to hope
Let not us seek illusions from without and unknown
Let us not be ashamed to speak what we are not ashamed to think
Let us not seek our disease out of ourselves; 'tis in us
Liberality at the expense of others
Liberty and laziness, the qualities most predominant in me
Liberty of poverty
Liberty to lean, but not to lay our whole weight upon others
Library: Tis there that I am in my kingdom
License of judgments is a great disturbance to great affairs
Life of Caesar has no greater example for us than our own
Life should be cut off in the sound and living part
Light griefs can speak: deep sorrows are dumb
Light prognostics they give of themselves in their tender years
Little affairs most disturb us
Little knacks and frivolous subtleties
Little learning is needed to form a sound mind"--Seneca
Little less trouble in governing a private family than a kingdom
Live a quite contrary sort of life to what they prescribe others
Live at the expense of life itself
Live, not so long as they please, but as long as they ought
Living is slavery if the liberty of dying be wanting
Living well, which of all arts is the greatest
Laying the fault upon the patient, by such frivolous reasons
Lodge nothing in his fancy upon simple authority and upon trust
Long a voyage I should at last run myself into some disadvantage
Long sittings at table both trouble me and do me harm
Long toleration begets habit; habit, consent and imitation
Look on death not only without astonishment but without care
Look upon themselves as a third person only, a stranger
Look, you who think the gods have no care of human things
Lose what I have a particular care to lock safe up
Loses more by defending his vineyard than if he gave it up
Love is the appetite of generation by the mediation of beauty
Love shamefully and dishonestly cured by marriage
Love them the less for our own faults
Love we bear to our wives is very lawful
Love, full, lively, and sharp; a pleasure inflamed by difficulty
Loved them for our sport, like monkeys, and not as men
Lower himself to the meanness of defending his innocence
Made all medicinal conclusions largely give way to my pleasure
Making their advantage of our folly, for most men do the same
Malice must be employed to correct this arrogant ignorance
Malice sucks up the greatest part of its own venom
Malicious kind of justice
Man (must) know that he is his own
Man after who held out his pulse to a physician was a fool
Man can never be wise but by his own wisdom
Man may say too much even upon the best subjects
Man may with less trouble adapt himself to entire abstinence
Man must approach his wife with prudence and temperance
Man must have a care not to do his master so great service
Man must learn that he is nothing but a fool
Man runs a very great hazard in their hands (of physicians)
Mark of singular good nature to preserve old age
Marriage
Marriage rejects the company and conditions of love
Melancholy: Are there not some constitutions that feed upon it?
Memories are full enough, but the judgment totally void
Men approve of things for their being rare and new
Men are not always to rely upon the personal confessions
Men as often commend as undervalue me beyond reason
Men make them (the rules) without their (women's) help
Men must embark, and not deliberate, upon high enterprises
Men should furnish themselves with such things as would float
Mercenaries who would receive any (pay)
Merciful to the man, but not to his wickedness--Aristotle
Methinks I am no more than half of myself
Methinks I promise it, if I but say it
Miracle: everything our reason cannot comprehend
Miracles and strange events have concealed themselves from me
Miracles appear to be so, according to our ignorance of nature
Miserable kind of remedy, to owe one's health to one's disease!
Miserable, who has not at home where to be by himself
Misfortunes that only hurt us by being known
Mix railing, indiscretion, and fury in his disputations
Moderation is a virtue that gives more work than suffering
Modesty is a foolish virtue in an indigent person (Homer)
More ado to interpret interpretations
More books upon books than upon any other subject
More brave men been lost in occasions of little moment
More solicitous that men speak of us, than how they speak
More supportable to be always alone than never to be so
More valued a victory obtained by counsel than by force
Morosity and melancholic humour of a sour ill-natured pedant
Most cruel people, and upon frivolous occasions, apt to cry
Most men are rich in borrowed sufficiency
Most men do not so much believe as they acquiesce and permit
Most of my actions are guided by example, not by choice
Mothers are too tender
Motive to some vicious occasion or some prospect of profit
Much better to offend him once than myself every day
Much difference betwixt us and ourselves
Must for the most part entertain ourselves with ourselves
Must of necessity walk in the steps of another
My affection alters, my judgment does not
My books: from me hold that which I have not retained
My dog unseasonably importunes me to play
My fancy does not go by itself, as when my legs move it
My humour is no friend to tumult
My humour is unfit either to speak or write for beginners
My innocence is a simple one; little vigour and no art
My mind is easily composed at distance
My reason is not obliged to bow and bend; my knees are
My thoughts sleep if I sit still
My words does but injure the love I have conceived within
Natural death the most rare and very seldom seen
Nature of judgment to have it more deliberate and more slow
Nature of wit is to have its operation prompt and sudden
Nature, who left us in such a state of imperfection
Nearest to the opinions of those with whom they have to do
Negligent garb, which is yet observable amongst the young men
Neither be a burden to myself nor to any other
Neither continency nor virtue where there are no opposing desire
Neither men nor their lives are measured by the ell
Neither the courage to die nor the heart to live
Never any man knew so much, and spake so little
Never did two men make the same judgment of the same thing
Never observed any great stability in my soul to resist passions
Never oppose them either by word or sign, how false or absurd
Never represent things to you simply as they are
Never spoke of my money, but falsely, as others do
New World: sold it opinions and our arts at a very dear rate
None that less keep their promise (than physicians)
No alcohol the night on which a man intends to get children
No beast in the world so much to be feared by man as man
No danger with them, though they may do us no good
No doing more difficult than that not doing, nor more active
No effect of virtue, to have stronger arms and legs
No evil is honourable; but death is honourable
No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness
No great choice betwixt not knowing to speak anything but ill--
No man continues ill long but by his own fault
No man is free from speaking foolish things
No man more certain than another of to-morrow--Seneca
No necessity upon a man to live in necessity
No one can be called happy till he is dead and buried
No other foundation or support than public abuse
No passion so contagious as that of fear
No physic that has not something hurtful in it
No use to this age, I throw myself back upon that other
No way found to tranquillity that is good in common
Noble and rich, where examples of virtue are rarely lodged
Nobody prognosticated that I should be wicked, but only useless
Noise of arms deafened the voice of laws
None of the sex, let her be as ugly as the devil thinks lovable
Nor get children but before I sleep, nor get them standing
Nor have other tie upon one another, but by our word
Nosegay of foreign flowers, having furnished nothing of my own
Not a victory that puts not an end to the war
Not being able to govern events, I govern myself
Not believe from one, I should not believe from a hundred
Not certain to live till I came home
Not conceiving things otherwise than by this outward bark
Not conclude too much upon your mistress's inviolable chastity
Not for any profit, but for the honour of honesty itself
Not having been able to pronounce one syllable, which is No!
Not in a condition to lend must forbid himself to borrow
Not melancholic, but meditative
Not to instruct but to be instructed
Not want, but rather abundance, that creates avarice
Nothing can be a grievance that is but once
Nothing falls where all falls
Nothing is more confident than a bad poet
Nothing is so firmly believed, as what we least know
Nothing is so supple and erratic as our understanding
Nothing noble can be performed without danger
Nothing presses so hard upon a state as innovation
Nothing so grossly, nor so ordinarily faulty, as the laws
Nothing tempts my tears but tears
Nothing that so poisons as flattery
Number of fools so much exceeds the wise
O Athenians, what this man says, I will do
O my friends, there is no friend: Aristotle
O wretched men, whose pleasures are a crime
O, the furious advantage of opportunity! |
10,240 |
Produced by Ted Garvin, Josephine Paolucci, and Project
Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders
THE RIDE TO THE LADY
And Other Poems
BY
HELEN GRAY CONE
1891
CONTENTS
The Ride to the Lady
The First Guest
Silence
Arraignment
The Going Out of the Tide
King Raedwald
Ivo of Chartres
Madonna Pia
Two Moods of Failure
The Story of the "Orient"
A Resurrection
The Glorious Company
The Trumpeter
Comrades
The House of Hate
The Arrowmaker
A Nest in a Lyre
Thisbe
The Spring Beauties
Kinship
Compensation
When Willows Green
At the Parting of the Ways
The Fair Gray Lady
The Encounter.
Summer Hours
Love Unsung
The Wish for a Chaplet
Sonnets:
The Torch Race
To Sleep
Sister Snow
The Contrast
A Mystery
Triumph
In Winter, with the Book we had in Spring
Sere Wisdom
Isolation
The Lost Dryad
The Gifts of the Oak
The Strayed Singer
The Immortal Word
THE RIDE TO THE LADY
"Now since mine even is come at last,--
For I have been the sport of steel,
And hot life ebbeth from me fast,
And I in saddle roll and reel,--
Come bind me, bind me on my steed!
Of fingering leech I have no need!"
The chaplain clasped his mailed knee.
"Nor need I more thy whine and thee!
No time is left my sins to tell;
But look ye bind me, bind me well!"
They bound him strong with leathern thong,
For the ride to the lady should be long.
Day was dying; the poplars fled,
Thin as ghosts, on a sky blood-red;
Out of the sky the fierce hue fell,
And made the streams as the streams of hell.
All his thoughts as a river flowed,
Flowed aflame as fleet he rode,
Onward flowed to her abode,
Ceased at her feet, mirrored her face.
(Viewless Death apace, apace,
Rode behind him in that race.)
"Face, mine own, mine alone,
Trembling lips my lips have known,
Birdlike stir of the dove-soft eyne
Under the kisses that make them mine!
Only of thee, of thee, my need!
Only to thee, to thee, I speed!"
The Cross flashed by at the highway's turn;
In a beam of the moon the Face shone stern.
Far behind had the fight's din died;
The shuddering stars in the welkin wide
Crowded, crowded, to see him ride.
The beating hearts of the stars aloof
kept time to the beat of the horse's hoof,
"What is the throb that thrills so sweet?
Heart of my lady, I feel it beat!"
But his own strong pulse the fainter fell,
Like the failing tongue of a hushing bell.
The flank of the great-limbed steed was wet
Not alone with the started sweat.
Fast, and fast, and the thick black wood
Arched its cowl like a black friar's hood;
Fast, and fast, and they plunged therein,--
But the viewless rider rode to win,
Out of the wood to the highway's light
Galloped the great-limbed steed in fright;
The mail clashed cold, and the sad owl cried,
And the weight of the dead oppressed his side.
Fast, and fast, by the road he knew;
And slow, and slow, the stars withdrew;
And the waiting heaven turned weirdly blue,
As a garment worn of a wizard grim.
He neighed at the gate in the morning dim.
She heard no sound before her gate,
Though very quiet was her bower.
All was as her hand had left it late:
The needle slept on the broidered vine,
Where the hammer and spikes of the passion-flower
Her fashioning did wait.
On the couch lay something fair,
With steadfast lips and veiled eyne;
But the lady was not there,
On the wings of shrift and prayer,
Pure as winds that winnow snow,
Her soul had risen twelve hours ago.
The burdened steed at the barred gate stood,
No whit the nearer to his goal.
Now God's great grace assoil the soul
That went out in the wood!
THE FIRST GUEST
When the house is finished, Death enters.
_Eastern Proverb_
Life's House being ready all,
Each chamber fair and dumb,
Ere life, the Lord, is come
With pomp into his hall,--
Ere Toil has trod the floors,
Ere Love has lit the fires,
Or young great-eyed Desires
Have, timid, tried the doors;
Or from east-window leaned
One Hope, to greet the sun,
Or one gray Sorrow screened
Her sight against the west,--
Then enters the first guest,
The House of life being done.
He waits there in the shade.
I deem he is Life's twin,
For whom the house was made.
Whatever his true name,
Be sure, to enter in
He has both key and claim.
The daybeams, free of fear,
Creep drowsy toward his feet;
His heart were heard to beat,
Were any there to hear;
Ah, not for ends malign,
Like wild thing crouched in lair,
Or watcher of a snare,
But with a friend's design
He lurks in shadow there!
He goes not to the gates
To welcome any other,
Nay, not Lord Life, his brother;
But still his hour awaits
Each several guest to find
Alone, yea, quite alone;
Pacing with pensive mind
The cloister's echoing stone,
Or singing, unaware,
At the turning of the stair
Tis truth, though we forget,
In Life's House enters none
Who shall that seeker shun,
Who shall not so be met.
"Is this mine hour?" each saith.
"So be it, gentle Death!"
Each has his way to end,
Encountering this friend.
Griefs die to memories mild;
Hope turns a weaned child;
Love shines a spirit white,
With eyes of deepened light.
When many a guest has passed,
Some day 'tis Life's at last
To front the face of Death.
Then, casements closed, men say:
"Lord Life is gone away;
He went, we trust and pray,
To God, who gave him breath."
Beginning, End, He is:
Are not these sons both His?
Lo, these with Him are one!
To phrase it so were best:
God's self is that first Guest,
The House of Life being done!
SILENCE
Why should I sing of earth or heaven? not rather rest,
Powerless to speak of that which hath my soul possessed,--
For full possession dumb? Yea, Silence, that were best.
And though for what it failed to sound I brake the string,
And dashed the sweet lute down, a too much fingered thing,
And found a wild new voice,--oh, still, why should I sing?
An earth-song could I make, strange as the breath of earth,
Filled with the great calm joy of life and death and birth?
Yet, were it less than this, the song were little worth.
For this the fields caress; brown clods tell each to each;
Sad- leaves have sense whereto I cannot reach;
Spiced everlasting-flowers outstrip my range of speech.
A heaven-song could I make, all fire that yet was peace,
And tenderness not lost, though glory did increase?
But were it less than this, 't were well the song should cease.
For this the still west saith, with plumy flames bestrewn;
Heaven's body sapphire-clear, at stirless height of noon;
The cloud where lightnings pulse, beside the untroubled moon.
I will not sing of earth or heaven, but rather rest,
Rapt by the face of heaven, and hold on earth's warm breast.
Hushed lips, a beating heart, yea, Silence, that were best.
ARRAIGNMENT
"Not ye who have stoned, not ye who have smitten us," cry
The sad, great souls, as they go out hence into dark,
"Not ye we accuse, though for you was our passion borne;
And ye we reproach not, who silently passed us by.
We forgive blind eyes and the ears that would not hark,
The careless and causeless hate and the shallow scorn.
"But ye, who have seemed to know us, have seen and heard;
Who have set us at feasts and have crowned with the costly rose;
Who have spread us the purple of praises beneath our feet;
Yet guessed not the word that we spake was a living word,
Applauding the sound,--we account you as worse than foes!
We sobbed you our message; ye said, 'It is song, and sweet!'"
THE GOING OUT OF THE TIDE
The eastern heaven was all faint amethyst,
Whereon the moon hung dreaming in the mist;
To north yet drifted one long delicate plume
Of roseate cloud; like snow the ocean-spume.
Now when the first foreboding swiftly ran
Through the loud-glorying sea that it began
To lose its late gained lordship of the land,
Uprose the billow like an angered man,
And flung its prone strength far along the sand;
Almost, almost to the old bound, the dark
And taunting triumph-mark.
But no, no, no! and slow, and slow, and slow,
Like a heart losing hold, this wave must go,--
Must go, must go,--dragged heavily back, back,
Beneath the next wave plunging on its track,
Charging, with thunderous and defiant shout,
To fore-determined rout.
Again, again the unexhausted main
Renews fierce effort, drawing force unguessed
From awful deeps of its mysterious breast:
Like arms of passionate protest, tossed in vain,
The spray upflings above the billow's crest.
Again the appulse, again the backward strain--
Till ocean must have rest.
With one abandoned movement, swift and wild,--
As though bowed head and outstretched arms it laid
On the earth's lap, soft sobbing,--hushed and stayed,
The great sea quiets, like a soothed child.
Ha! what sharp memory clove the calm, and drave
This last fleet furious wave?
On, on, endures the struggle into night,
Ancient as Time, yet fresh as the fresh hour;
As oft repeated since the birth of light
As the strong agony and mortal fight
Of human souls, blind-reaching, with the Power
Aloof, unmoved, impossible to cross,
Whose law is seeming loss.
Low-sunken from the longed-for triumph-mark;
The spent sea sighs as one that grieves in sleep.
The unveiled moon along the rippling plain
Casts many a keen, cold, shifting silvery spark,
Wild as the pulses of strange joy, that leap
Even in the quick of pain.
And she compelling, she that stands for law,--
As law for Will eternal,--perfect, clear,
And uncompassionate shines: to her appear
Vast sequences close-linked without a flaw.
All past despairs of ocean unforgot,
All raptures past, serene her light she gives,
The moon too high for pity, since she lives
Aware that loss is not.
KING RAEDWALD
Will you hear now the speech of King Raedwald,--heathen Raedwald,
the simple yet wise?
He, the ruler of North-folk and South-folk, a man open-browed
as the skies,
Held the eyes of the eager Italians with his blue, bold,
Englishman's eyes.
In his hall, on his throne, so he sat, with the light of the fire
on him full:
bright as the ring of red gold on his hand, fit to buffet
a bull,
Was the mane that grew down on his neck, was the beard he would
pondering pull.
To the priests, to the eager Italians, thus fearless less he poured
his free speech;
"O my honey-tongued fathers, I turn not away from the faith that ye
teach!
Not the less hath a man many moods, and may ask a religion for each.
"Grant that all things are well with the realm on a delicate day
of the spring,
Easter month, time of hopes and of swallows!
The praises, the psalms that ye sing,
As in pleasant accord they float heavenward, are good in the ears
of the king.
"Then the heart bubbles forth with clear waters, to the time
of this wonder-word Peace,
From the chanting and preaching whereof ye who serve the
white Christ never cease;
And your curly, soft incense ascending enwraps my content
like a fleece.
"But a churl comes adrip from the rivers, pants me out, fallen
spent on the floor,
'O King Raedwald, Northumberland marches, and to-morrow knocks
hard at thy door,
Hot for melting thy crown on the hearth!'
Then commend me to Woden and Thor!
"Could I sit then and listen to preachments on turning the cheek
to the blow,
And saying a prayer for the smiter, and holding my seen treasure low
For the sake of a treasure unseen? By the sledge of the Thunderer, no!
"For my thought flashes out as a sword, cleaving counsel as
clottage of cream;
And your incense and chanting are but as the smoke of burnt
towns and the scream;
And I quaff me the thick mead of triumph from enemies' skulls
in my dream!
"And 'tis therefore this day I resolve me,--for King Raedwald
will cringe not, nor lie!--
I will bring back the altar of Woden; in the temple will have it,
hard by
The new altar of this your white Christ. As my mood may decide,
worship I!"
So he spake in his large self-reliance,--he, a man open-browed
as the skies;
Would not measure his soul by a standard that was womanish-weak
to his eyes,
Smite his breast and go on with his sinning,--savage Raedwald,
the simple yet wise!
And the centuries bloom o'er his barrow. But for us,--have we
mastered it quite,
The old riddle, that sweet is strong's outcome, the old marvel,
that meekness is might,
That the child is the leader of lions, that forgiveness is force
at its height?
When we summon the shade of rude Raedwald, in his candor how
king-like he towers!
Have the centuries, over his slumber, only borne sterile falsehoods
for flowers?
Pray you, what if Christ found him the nobler, having weighed his
frank manhood with ours?
IVO OF CHARTRES
Now may it please my lord, Louis the king,
Lily of Christ and France! riding his quest,
I, Bishop Ivo, saw a wondrous thing.
There was no light of sun left in the west,
And slowly did the moon's new light increase.
Heaven, without cloud, above the near hill's crest,
Lay passion purple in a breathless peace.
Stars started like still tears, in rapture shed,
Which without consciousness the lids release.
All steadily, one little sparkle red,
Afar, drew close. A woman's form grew up
Out of the dimness, tall, with queen-like head,
And in one hand was fire; in one, a cup.
Of aspect grave she was, with eyes upraised,
As one whose thoughts perpetually did sup
At the Lord's table.
While the cresset blazed,
Her I regarded. "Daughter, whither bent,
And wherefore?" As by speech of man amazed,
One moment her deep look to me she lent;
Then, in a voice of hymn-like, solemn fall,
Calm, as by role, she spake out her intent:
"I in my cruse bear water, wherewithal
To quench the flames of Hell; and with my fire
I Paradise would burn: that hence no small
Fear shall impel, and no mean hope shall hire,
Men to serve God as they have served of yore;
But to his will shall set their whole desire,
For love, love, love alone, forevermore!"
And "love, love, love," rang round her as she passed
From sight, with mystic murmurs o'er and o'er
Reverbed from hollow heaven, as from some vast,
Deep-, vaulted, ocean-answering shell.
I, Ivo, had no power to ban or bless,
But was as one withholden by a spell.
Forward she fared in lofty loneliness,
Urged on by an imperious inward stress,
To waste fair Eden, and to drown fierce Hell.
MADONNA PIA
Ricordati di me, che son la Pia.
Siena mi fe; disfecomi Maremma;
Salsi colui, che, inanellata pria,
Disposato m'avea colla sua gemma.
_Purgatorio_, Canto V.
To westward lies the unseen sea,
Blue sea the live winds wander o'er.
The many- sails can flee,
And leave the dead, low-lying shore.
Her longing does not seek the main,
Her face turns northward first at morn;
There, crowning all the wide champaign,
Siena stood, where she was born.
Siena stands, and still shall stand;
She ne'er shall see or town or tower.
Warm life and beauty, hand in hand,
Steal farther from her hour by hour.
Yet forth she leans, with trembling knees,
And northward will she stare and stare
Through that thick wall of cypress-trees,
And sigh adown the stirless air:
"Shall no remembrance in Siena linger
Of me, once fair, whom slow Maremma slays?
As well he knows, whose ring upon my finger
Hath sealed for his alone mine earthly days!"
From wilds where shudders through the weeds
The dull, mean-headed, silent snake,
Like voiceless doubt that creeps and breeds;
From swamps where sluggish waters take,
As lives unblest a passing love,
The flag-flower's image in the spring,
Or seem, when flits the bird above,
To stir within with shadowed wing,
A Presence mounts in pallid mist
To fold her close: she breathes its breath;
She waxes wan, by Fever kissed,
Who weds her for his master, Death,
Aside are set her dimmed hopes all,
She counts no more the uncurrent hoard;
On gray Death's neck she fain would fall,
To own him for her proper lord.
She minds the journey here by night:
When some red sudden torch would blaze,
She saw by fits, with childish fright,
The cork-trees twist beside the ways.
Like dancing demon shapes they showed,
With malice drunk; the bat beat by,
The owlet sobbed; on, on they rode,
She knew not where, she knows not why.
For Nello--when in piteous wise
She lifted up her look to ask,
Except the ever-burning eyes
His face was like a marble mask.
And so it always meets her now;
The tomb wherein at last he lies
Shall bear such carven lips and brow,
All save the ever-burning eyes.
Perchance it is his form alone
Doth stroke his hound, at meat doth sit,
And, for the soul that was his own,
A fiend awhile inhabits it;
While he sinks through the fiery throng,
Down, to fill an evil bond,
Since false conceit of others' wrong
Hath wrought him to a sin beyond.
But she--if when her years were glad
Vain fluttering thoughts were hers, that hid
Behind that gracious fame she had;
If e'er observance hard she did
That sinful men might call her saint,--
White-handed Pia, dovelike-eyed,--
The sick blank hours shall yet acquaint
Her heart with all her blameful pride.
And Death shall find her kneeling low,
And lift her to the porphyry stair,
And she from ledge to ledge shall go,
Stayed by the staff of that last prayer,
Until the high, sweet-singing wood
Whence folk are rapt to heaven, she win;
Therein the unpardoned never stood,
Nor may one Sorrow nest therein.
But through the Tuscan land shall beat
Her Sorrow, like a wounded bird;
And if her suit at Mary's feet
Avail, its moan shall yet be heard
By some just poet, who shall shed,
Whate'er the theme that leads his rhyme
Bright words like tears above her, dead,
Entreating of the after time:
"Among you let her mournful memory linger!
Siena bare her, whom Maremma slew;
And this dark lord, who gave her maiden finger
His ancient gem, the secret only knew."
TWO MOODS OF FAILURE
I
THE LAST CUP OF CANARY
Sir Harry Lovelock, 1645
So, the powder's low, and the larder's clean,
And surrender drapes, with its black impending,
All the stage for a sorry and sullen scene:
Yet indulge me my whim of a madcap ending!
Let us once more fill, ere the final chill,
Every vein with the glow of the rich canary!
Since the sweet hot liquor of life's to spill,
Of the last of the cellar what boots be chary?
Then hear the conclusion: I'll yield my breath,
But my leal old house and my good blade never!
Better one bitter kiss on the lips of Death
Than despoiled Defeat as a wife forever!
Let the faithful fire hold the walls in ward
Till the roof-tree crash! Be the smoke once riven
While we flash from the gate like a single sword,
True steel to the hilt, though in dull earth driven!
Do you frown, Sir Richard, above your ruff,
In the Holbein yonder? My deed ensures you!
For the flame like a fencer shall give rebuff
To your blades that blunder, you Roundhead boors, you!
And my ladies, a-row on the gallery wall,
Not a sing-song sergeant or corporal sainted
Shall pierce their breasts with his Puritan ball,
To annul the charms of the flesh, though painted!
I have worn like a jewel the life they gave;
As the ring in mine ear I can lightly lose it,
If my days be done, why, my days were brave!
If the end arrive, I as master choose it!
Then fill to the brim, and a health, I say,
To our liege King Charles, and I pray God bless him!
'T would amend worse vintage to drink dismay
To the clamorous mongrel pack that press him!
And a health to the fair women, past recall,
That like birds astray through the heart's hall flitted;
To the lean devil Failure last of all,
And the lees in his beard for a fiend outwitted!
II
THE YOUNG MAN CHARLES STUART REVIEWETH THE TROOPS ON BLACKHEATH
(Private Constant-in-Tribulation Joyce, _May_, 1660)
We were still as a wood without wind; as 't were set by a spell
Stayed the gleam on the steel cap, the glint on the slant petronel.
He to left of me drew down his grim grizzled lip with his teeth,--
I remember his look; so we grew like dumb trees on the heath.
But the people,--the people were mad as with store of new wine;
Oh, they cheered him, they capped him, they roared as he rode
down the line:
He that fled us at Worcester, the boy, the green brier-shoot, the son
Of the Stuart on whom for his sin the great judgment was done!
Swam before us the field of our shame, and our souls walked afar;
Saw the glory, the blaze of the sun bursting over Dunbar;
Saw the faces of friends, in the morn riding jocund to fight;
Saw the stern pallid faces again, as we saw them at night!
"O ye blessed, who died in the Lord! would to God that we too
Had so passed, only sad that we ceased his high justice to do,
With the words of the psalm on our lips that from Israel's once came,
How the Lord is a strong man of war; yea, the Lord is his name!
"Not for us, not for us! who have served for his kingdom seven years,
Yea, and yet other seven have we served, sweating blood, bleeding
tears,
For the kingdom of God and the saints! Rachel's beauty made bold,
Yet we bear but a Leah at last to a hearth that is cold!"
Burned the fire while I mused, while I gloomed; in the end came a call;
Settled o'er me a calm like a cloud, spake a voice still and small:
"Take thou Leah to bride, take thou Failure to bed and to board!
Thou shalt rear up new strengths at her knees; she is given
of the Lord!
"If with weight of his right hand, with power, he denieth to deal,
And the smoke clouds, and thunders of guns, and the lightnings
of steel,
Shall the cool silent dews of his grace, in a season of peace,
Not descend on the land, as of old, for a sign, on the fleece?
"Hath he cleft not the rock, to the yield of a stream that is sweet?
Hath he set in the ribs of the lion no honey for meat?
Can he bring not delight to the desert, and buds to the rod?
He will shine, he will visit his vine; he hath sworn, he is God!"
Then I thought of the gate I rode through on the roan that's
long dead,--
I remember the dawn was but pale, and the stars overhead;
Of the babe that is grown to a maid, and of Martha, my wife,
And the spring on the wolds far away, and gave thanks for my life!
THE STORY OF THE "ORIENT"
'T was a pleasant Sunday morning while the spring was in its glory,
English spring of gentle glory; smoking by his cottage door,
Florid-faced, the man-o'-war's-man told his white-head boy the story,
Noble story of Aboukir, told a hundred times before.
"Here, the _Theseus_--here, the _Vanguard_;" as he spoke
each name sonorous,--
_Minotaur, Defence, Majestic_, stanch old comrades of the brine,
That against the ships of Brucys made their broadsides roar
in chorus,--
Ranging daisies on his doorstone, deft he mapped the battle-line.
Mapped the curve of tall three-deckers, deft as might
a man left-handed,
Who had given an arm to England later on at Trafalgar.
While he poured the praise of Nelson to the child with eyes expanded,
Bright athwart his honest forehead blushed the scarlet cutlass-scar.
For he served aboard the _Vanguard_, saw the Admiral blind and bleeding
Borne below by silent sailors, borne to die as then they deemed.
Every stout heart sick but stubborn, fought the sea-dogs on unheeding,
Guns were cleared and manned and cleared, the battle thundered,
flashed, and screamed.
Till a cry swelled loud and louder,--towered on fire the
_Orient_ stately,
Brucys' flag-ship, she that carried guns a hundred and a score;
Then came groping up the hatchway he they counted dead but lately,
Came the little one-armed Admiral to guide the fight once more.
"'Lower the boats!' was Nelson's order."--
But the listening boy beside him,
Who had followed all his motions with an eager wide blue eye,
Nursed upon the name of Nelson till he half had deified him,
Here, with childhood's crude consistence, broke the tale
to question "Why?"
For by children facts go streaming in a throng that never pauses,
Noted not, till, of a sudden, thought, a sunbeam, gilds the motes,
All at once the known words quicken, and the child would deal
with causes.
Since to kill the French was righteous, why bade Nelson lower
the boats?
Quick the man put by the question. "But the _Orient_, none
could save her;
We could see the ships, the ensigns, clear as daylight by the flare;
And a many leaped and left her; but, God rest 'em! some were braver;
Some held by her, firing steady till she blew to God knows where."
At the shock, he said, the _Vanguard_ shook through all
her timbers oaken;
It was like the shock of Doomsday,--not a tar but shuddered hard.
All was hushed for one strange moment; then that awful calm was broken
By the heavy plash that answered the descent of mast and yard.
So, her cannon still defying, and her colors flaming, flying,
In her pit her wounded helpless, on her deck her Admiral dead,
Soared the _Orient_ into darkness with her living and her dying:
"Yet our lads made shift to rescue three-score souls," the seaman said.
Long the boy with knit brows wondered o'er that friending
of the foeman;
Long the man with shut lips pondered; powerless he to tell the cause
Why the brother in his bosom that desired the death of no man,
In the crash of battle wakened, snapped the bonds of hate like straws.
While he mused, his toddling maiden drew the daisies to a posy;
Mild the bells of Sunday morning rang across the church-yard sod;
And, helped on by tender hands, with sturdy feet all bare and rosy,
Climbed his babe to mother's breast, as climbs the slow world
up to God.
A RESURRECTION
_Neither would they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead_.
I was quick in the flesh, was warm, and the live heart shook my breast;
In the market I bought and sold, in the temple I bowed my head.
I had swathed me in shows and forms, and was honored above the rest
For the sake of the life I lived; nor did any esteem me dead.
But at last, when the hour was ripe--was it sudden-remembered word?
Was it sight of a bird that mounted, or sound of a strain that
stole?
I was 'ware of a spell that snapped, of an inward strength that
stirred,
Of a Presence that filled that place; and it shone, and I knew
my Soul.
And the dream I had called my life was a garment about my feet,
For the web of the years was rent with the throe of a
yearning strong.
With a sweep as of winds in heaven, with a rush as of flames that meet,
The Flesh and the Spirit clasped; and I cried, "Was I dead so long?"
I had glimpse of the Secret, flashed through the symbol obscure
and mean,
And I felt as a fire what erst I repeated with lips of clay;
And I knew for the things eternal the things eye hath not seen;
Yea, the heavens and the earth shall pass; but they never
shall pass away.
And the miracle on me wrought, in the streets I would straight
make known:
"When this marvel of mine is heard, without cavil shall men receive
Any legend of haloed saint, staring up through the sealed stone!"
So I spake in the trodden ways; but behold, there would none believe!
THE GLORIOUS COMPANY
"Faces, faces, faces of the streaming marching surge,
Streaming on the weary road, toward the awful steep,
Whence your glow and glory, as ye set to that sharp verge,
Faces lit as sunlit stars, shining as ye sweep?
"Whence this wondrous radiance that ye somehow catch and cast,
Faces rapt, that one discerns'mid the dusky press
Herding in dull wonder, gathering fearful to the Vast?
Surely all is dark before, night of nothingness!"
_Lo, the Light!_ (they answer) _O the pure,
the pulsing Light,
Beating like a heart of life, like a heart of love,
Soaring, searching, filling all the breadth and depth and height,
Welling, whelming with its peace worlds below, above!_
"O my soul, how art thou to that living Splendor blind,
Sick with thy desire to see even as these men see!--
Yet to look upon them is to know that God hath shined:
Faces lit as sunlit stars, be all my light to me!"
THE TRUMPETER
Two ships, alone in sky and sea,
Hang clinched, with crash and roar;
There is but one--whiche'er it be--
Will ever come to shore.
And will it be the grim black bulk,
That towers so evil now?
Or will it be The Grace of God,
With the angel at her prow?
The man that breathes the battle's breath
May live at last to know;
But the trumpeter lies sick to death
In the stifling dark below.
He hears the fight above him rave;
He fears his mates must yield;
He lies as in a narrow grave
Beneath a battle-field.
His fate will fall before the ship's,
Whate'er the ship betide;
He lifts the trumpet to his lips
As though he kissed a bride.
"Now blow thy best, blow thy last,
My trumpet, for the Right!"--
He has sent his soul in one strong blast,
To hearten them that fight.
COMRADES
"Oh, whither, whither, rider toward the west?"
"And whither, whither, rider toward the east?"
"I rode we ride upon the same high quest,
Whereon who enters may not be released;
"To seek the Cup whose form none ever saw,--
A nobler form than e'er was shapen yet,
Though million million cups without a flaw,
Afire with gems, on princes' boards are set;
"To seek the Wine whereof none ever had
One draught, though many a generous wine flows free,--
The spiritual blood that shall make glad
The hearts of mighty men that are to be."
"But shall one find it, brother? Where I ride,
Men mock and stare, who never had the dream,
Yet hope within my breast has never died."
"Nor ever died in mine that trembling gleam."
"Eastward, I deem: the sun and all good things
Are born to bless us of the Orient old."
"Westward, I deem: an untried ocean sings
Against that coast, 'New shores await the bold.'"
"God speed or thee or me, so coming men
But have the Cup!" "God speed!"--Not once before
Their eyes had met, nor ever met again,
Yet were they loving comrades evermore.
THE HOUSE OF HATE
Mine enemy builded well, with the soft blue hills in sight;
But betwixt his house and the hills I builded a house for spite:
And the name thereof I set in the stone-work over the gate,
With a carving of bats and apes; and I called it the House of Hate.
And the front was alive with masks of malice and of despair;
Horned demons that leered in stone, and women with serpent hair;
That whenever his glance would rest on the soft hills far and blue,
It must fall on mine evil work, and my hatred should pierce
him through.
And I said, "I will dwell herein, for beholding my heart's desire
On my foe;" and I knelt, and fain had brightened the hearth with fire;
But the brands they would hiss and die, as with curses a strangled man,
And the hearth was cold from the day that the House of Hate began.
And I called at the open door, "Make ye merry, all friends of mine,
In the hall of my House of Hate, where is plentiful store and wine.
We will drink unhealth together unto him I have foiled and fooled!"
And they stared and they passed me by; but I scorned to be thereby
schooled.
And I ordered my board for feast; and I drank, in the topmost seat,
Choice grape from a curious cup; and the first it was wonder-sweet;
But the second was bitter indeed, and the third was bitter and black,
And the gloom of the grave came on me, and I cast the cup to wrack.
Alone, I was stark alone, and the shadows were each a fear;
And thinly I laughed, but once, for the echoes were strange to hear;
And the wind in the hallways howled as a green-eyed wolf might cry,
And I heard my heart: I must look on the face of a man, or die!
So I crept to my mirrored face, and I looked, and I saw it grown
(By the light in my shaking hand) to the like of the masks of stone;
And with horror I shrieked aloud as I flung my torch and fled,
And a fire-snake writhed where it fell; and at midnight
the sky was red.
And at morn, when the House of Hate was a ruin, despoiled of flame,
I fell at mine enemy's feet, and besought him to slay my shame;
But he looked in mine eyes and smiled, and his eyes were
calm and great:
"You rave, or have dreamed," he said; "I saw not your House of Hate."
THE ARROWMAKER
Day in, day out, or sun or rain,
Or sallow leaf, or summer grain,
Beneath a wintry morning moon
Or through red smouldering afternoon,
With simple joy, with careful pride,
He plies the craft he long has plied:
To shape the stave, to set the sting,
To fit the shaft with irised wing;
And farers by may hear him sing,
For still his door is wide:
"Laugh and sigh, live and die,--
The world swings round; I know not, I,
If north or south mine arrows fly!"
And sometimes, while he works, he dreams,
And on his soul a vision gleams:
Some storied field fought long ago,
Where arrows fell as thick as snow.
His breath comes fast, his eyes grow bright,
To think upon that ancient fight.
Oh, leaping from the strained string
Against an armored Wrong to ring,
Brave the songs that arrows sing!
He weighs the finished flight:
"Live and die; by and by
The sun kills dark; I know not, I,
In what good fight mine arrows fly!"
Or at the gray hour, weary grown,
When curfew o'er the wold is blown,
He sees, as in a magic glass,
Some lost and lonely mountain-pass;
And lo! a sign of deathful rout
The mocking vine has wound about,--
An earth-fixed arrow by a spring,
All greenly mossed, a mouldered thing;
That stifled shaft no more shall sing!
He shakes his head in doubt.
"Laugh and sigh, live and die,--
The hand is blind: I know not, I,
In what lost pass mine arrows lie!
One to east, one to west,
Another for the eagle's breast,--
The archer and the wind know best!"
The stars are in the sky;
He lays his arrows by.
A NEST IN A LYRE
As sign before a playhouse serves
A giant Lyre, ornately gilded,
On whose convenient coignes and curves
The pert brown sparrows late have builded.
They flit, and flirt, and prune their wings,
Not awed at all by golden glitter,
And make among the silent strings
Their satisfied ephemeral twitter.
Ah, somewhat so we perch and flit,
And spy some crumb and dash to win it,
And with a witty chirping twit
Our sheltering Time--there's nothing in it!
In Life's large frame, a glorious Lyre's,
We nest, content, our season flighty,
Nor guess we brush the powerful wires
Might witch the stars with music mighty.
THISBE
The garden within was shaded,
And guarded about from sight;
The fragrance flowed to the south wind,
The fountain leaped to the light.
And the street without was narrow,
And dusty, and hot, and mean;
But the bush that bore white roses,
She leaned to the fence between:
And softly she sought a crevice
In that barrier blank and tall,
And shyly she thrust out through it
Her loveliest bud of all.
And tender to touch, and gracious,
And pure as the moon's pure shine,
The full rose paled and was perfect,--
For whose eyes, for whose lips, but mine!
THE SPRING BEAUTIES
The Puritan Spring Beauties stood freshly clad for church;
A Thrush, white-breasted, o'er them sat singing on his perch.
"Happy be! for fair are ye!" the gentle singer told them,
But presently a buff-coat Bee came booming up to scold them.
"Vanity, oh, vanity!
Young maids, beware of vanity!"
Grumbled out the buff-coat Bee,
Half parson-like, half soldierly.
The sweet-faced maidens trembled, with pretty, pinky blushes,
Convinced that it was wicked to listen to the Thrushes;
And when, that shady afternoon, I chanced that way to pass,
They hung their little bonnets down and looked into the grass,
All because the buff-coat Bee
Lectured them so solemnly:--
"Vanity, oh, vanity!
Young maids, beware of vanity!"
KINSHIP
A lily grew in the tangle,
In a flame red garment dressed,
And many a ruby spangle
Besprinkled her tawny breast.
And the silken moth sailed by her
With a swift and a snow-white sail;
Not a gilt-girt bee came nigh her,
Nor a fly in his gay green mail.
And the bronze-brown wings and the golden,
O'er the billowing meadows blown,
Were still as by magic holden
From the lily that flamed alone;
Till over the fragrant tangle
A wanderer winging went,
And with many a ruby spangle
Were his tawny vans besprent.
And he hovered one moment stilly
O'er the thicket, her mazy bower,
Then he sank to the heart of the lily,
And they seemed but a single flower.
COMPENSATION
The brook ran laughing from the shade,
And in the sunshine danced all day:
The starlight and the moonlight made
Its glimmering path a Milky Way.
The blue sky burned, with summer fired;
For parching fields, for pining flowers,
The spirits of the air desired
The brook's bright life to shed in showers.
It gave its all that thirst to slake;
Its dusty channel lifeless lay;
Now softest flowers, white-foaming, make
Its winding bed a Milky Way.
WHEN WILLOWS GREEN
When goldenly the willows green,
And, mirrored in the sunset pool,
Hang wavering, wild-rose clouds between:
When robins call in twilights cool:
What is it we await?
Who lingers and is late?
What strange unrest, what yearning stirs us all
When willows green, when robins call?
When fields of flowering grass respire
A sweet that seems the breath of Peace,
And liquid-voiced the thrushes choir,
Oh, whence the sense of glad release?
What is it life uplifts?
Who entered, bearing gifts?
What floods from heaven the being overpower
When thrushes choir, when grasses flower?
AT THE PARTING OF THE WAYS
(AD COMITEM JUNIOREM)
Comrade Youth! Sit down with me
Underneath the summer tree,
Cool green dome whose shade is sweet,
Where the sunny roadways meet,
See, the ancient finger-post,
Silver-bleached with rain and shine,
Warns us like a noon-day ghost:
That way's yours, and this way's mine!
I would hold you with delays
Here at parting of the ways.
Hold you! |
10,240 |
Produced by Bill Boerst, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks,
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
BIRCH BARK LEGENDS OF NIAGARA
FOUNDED ON TRADITIONS AMONG THE IROQUOIS, OR SIX NATIONS
A STORY OF THE LUNAR-BOW;
(Which Brilliantly Adorns Niagara Falls by Moonlight),
OR,
ORIGIN OF THE TOTEM OF THE WOLF
DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF JOINSTAGA, FROM WHOM MANY LEGENDS OF THE
ALMOST FORGOTTEN PAST WERE OBTAINED BY THE AUTHOR OWAHYAH
PREFACE
My preface will be a few citations from reliable authorities to
introduce to my readers the people of whom I write:
GOV. CLINTON, in a discourse delivered before the New York Historical
Society, says: "Previous to the occupation of this country by the
progenitors of the present race of Indians, it was inhabited by a race
of men much more populous and much farther advanced in civilization;
that the confederacy of the Iroquois is a remarkable and peculiar piece
of legislation; that the more we study the Indian history the more we
will be impressed with the injustice done them. While writers have
truthfully described their deeds of cruelties, why not also quote their
deeds of kindness, their integrity, hospitality, love of truth, and,
above all, unbroken fidelity?"
WASHINGTON IRVING says: "The current opinion of Indian character is too
apt to be formed from the degenerate beings, corrupted and enfeebled by
the vice of society, without being benefitted by its civilization. That
there are those, and a large class of them that have with moral firmness
resisted the temptations, with which they have been surrounded, and
command our highest esteem."
VOLNEY, the French Historian, pronounces the Iroquois "The Romans of the
West."
W. H. C. HOSMER, "The Warriors of Genesee."
ORSEMUS TURNER, in his History of the Holland Purchase, says. "The
existence of the IROQUOIS upon the soil now constituting Western and
Middle New York, is distinctly traced back to the Period of the
discovery of America.
"Their traditions go beyond that period. They fix upon no definite
period in reference to the origin of their confederacy. Their Councils
were held along the southern shores of Lake Ontario, and upon the
Niagara River, before the first adventurers, the Dutch, and French
Jesuits appeared in the valley of the Mohawk; and there are evidences of
a long precedent existence that corresponds with their traditions."
And their Council Fires are still kindled though they burn not as
brightly as of yore. Nor do the young braves listen to the wisdom, or
ever now in their Councils witness the allegorical or figurative
language so beautifully illustrating the discourses of Red Jacket, Corn
Planter, Farmers Brother and other Chiefs, thus eulogized by PRES.
DWIGHT: "In strength and sublimity of their eloquence they may be fairly
compared with the Greeks."
The INDIANS say: "We listen to your stories, why do you not listen to
ours? Although civilized, you use not the rules of common civility."
OWAHYAH
BIRCH BARK LEGENDS OF NIAGARA
FOUNDED ON TRADITIONS AMONG THE IROQUOIS OR SIX NATIONS
Within sound of the thundering cataract's roar once worshipped the
roaming sons of the forest in all their primitive freedom. They
recognized in its thunder the voice, in its mad waves the wrath, and in
its crashing whirlpool the Omnipotence of the Great Spirit--the Manitou
of their simple creed.
Also in the rising mist, the flight of the soul, and in the beautiful
bow--the brilliant path followed by the spirits of good Indians to their
Happy Hunting Ground.
With this belief came the custom of yearly offering a sacrifice to the
Great Spirit, or whenever any particular blessing was to be
acknowledged, or for some wrong perpetrated, to propitiate the righteous
anger of their Deity of the roaring waters.
The sacrifice, or offering, consisted of a boat filled with fruit,
flowers and any precious gift, which was to be paddled over the foaming
cataract by one either drawn by lot or selected by the chiefs; or, as
often happened, a voluntary offering of life, as it manifested heroism
beyond their usual test of torture. Martyrs thus sacrificed had this
consolation: that their spirits were sure to rise in the mist and follow
the bright path above, while bad Indians' spirits passed down in the
boiling, crashing current, to be torn and tossed in the whirlpool, there
to linger in misery forever.
With all thy present loveliness--smooth paths cut round thy rocky
banks, covered with trailing vines and bright, soft mosses, nature's
beautiful tapestry; flights of steps, half hidden with gay foliage,
displaying at almost every turn majestic scenery; bridges thrown over
the bounding, foaming rapids, from island to island, opening bower
after bower with surprises of beauty at every step. Scattered here and
there the nut-brown Indian maids and mothers; among the last of the
race--still lingering around their fathers' places and working at the
gay embroidery--soon to pass away forever.
Yes, with all thy loveliness, the circle of mirth and gaiety, reflecting
happy faces of thy present worshippers, tame is the scene compared with
the traditions of a by-gone race, which, notwithstanding the simplicity
in forms of customs that governed them, were among the brightest
pictures of American life--always associated with the beautiful forest,
which together are passing away, and oblivion's veil fast gathering
around them.
Thy rocks, now echoing the gay laugh of idlers, first rang with the wild
war-whoop, or sent back the Indian's low, mellow songs of peace, or
mingled with the heavy roar of thy failing waters the mournful dirge of
the doomed one, to the Great Manitou.
STORY OF THE LUNAR BOW,
(_Which brilliantly adorns Niagara Falls by moonlight_),
OR
Origin of the Totem [Footnote: The coat of arms of a clan.] of the Wolf.
FIRST LEGEND.
The tradition of the Lunar Bow, the Manitou's bright path, or the origin
of the totem of the wolf, was traced with a scene long remembered at
their councils, passing from generation to generation, and still sung by
the Indian mothers in their far-off home towards the setting sun--the
last foot-hold of the dark sons of the forest on this their native land.
On the east side of the Falls of Niagara, before the hallowed waters of
the mist fell, on the pale-faced warrior or the sound of the axe had
even broken the great stillness of their undisputed soil, the dark
shadows of the primeval forest fell only on rock and wigwam.
The red-topped sumach and sweet sassafras grew thick on either side,
while ledges of rocks here and there pierced the foliage of the
cedar-crowned banks 'round which tumbled and roared the mad waves,
leaping like frightened does in wild confusion to their final plunge.
The narrow Indian trails, winding around swamps, over hills, and through
ravines, were the only paths that led to this their Great Manitou.
The drowsy sultriness of an American summer pervaded this secluded spot,
harmonizing with the unceasing roar of the Great Falls. Ever and anon,
tall, dark forms might be seen suddenly appearing from the thick foliage
of the underbrush, through which their paths with difficulty wound, and
silently their painted faces and gayly plumed heads dropped round the
big wigwam. Important questions waited the decision of their wisest
Sachems, and runners had been sent with wampum to call together distant
Chiefs, who, with braves and warriors, as became the dignity of the
wampum, answered by their presence quickly and in silence.
Near the brink of the Falls, beneath an aged pine, reclined a
well-guarded, sorrowful, but haughty band. Their fine symmetry, noble
height, and free carriage, were especially attractive. They were all
young warriors, whose white paint presented emblems of peace: their
plumes were from the beautiful white crane of the sunny forest, which
designated the southern land from whence they came.
A gleam of pride flashed across their dark faces, while their attitudes
bespoke both defiance and despair. A tall, stately looking youth
appeared to command from these few the deference due a Chief. He was
leaning against the old tree, looking for the first time on the great
sheet of falling waters, where soon himself and followers would probably
end their tortures by a welcome leap. Their noble bearing had attracted
the eye of the Sachem's daughter, the Gentle Fawn; she, with a few young
Indian girls, half hid among the whortleberry bushes growing luxuriantly
around the smaller wigwams of the camp, were dividing their attention
between the stately captives and weaving the gaudy wampums to be
bestowed, with the shy little weavers themselves, upon such young braves
as should be deemed worthy by the great council. Their stolen glances of
admiration and pity, however, were intercepted by the young brave who
brought home and so suspiciously guarded the prisoners. He was a fierce,
wicked savage, with repulsive, glistening eyes, evincing a cunning,
revengeful disposition.
[Illustration: GREAT OAK]
At the side of this savage hung a string of fresh scalps, and a gleam of
exultation shot across his swarthy visage as he pointed to the gory
trophies at his belt, saying:
"The Black Snakes scalps are fresh from his enemies; the fingers of the
Gentle Fawn cannot number them."
"The Fawn does not like the smell of blood," quickly answered the
sensitive maid. "The Black Snake is a boy, and does not know his friends
from his enemies."
"The Fawn has been taking lessons from the mocking-birds," replied Black
Snake, "and has learned many tunes; she sings now for the ears of the
sunny Eagle, whose wings are too feeble to fly. His last flight will be
short (pointing to the cataract); he will not need his wings, and the
Gentle Fawn will soon learn to sing to Black Snake. The Fawn is an
infant, and Black Snake will feed her on birds' eggs." Approaching with
a noiseless step, he continued, in a lower tone: "The Black Snake will
be a great warrior; he must build a lodge of his own whereon to hang his
enemies' scalps (shaking them in her face), and the Gentle Fawn will
light his pipe."
With a suppressed cry the Fawn sprung to her feet. In an instant from
the long wild grass, at her side appeared a huge wolf, of unusual size
and strength, which the powerful creature owed in a measure to the
affectionate care of its mistress. She had found it when young, reared
and fed it with her own hands, and they had become inseparable friends
and protectors to each other.
With an angry growl and flashing eyes the wolf warned the Indian back.
Black Snake pointed his flint-headed spear with a look of disdain at the
heart of the watchful beast. His arm was suddenly arrested by the hand
of the Sachem, Great Oak.
"Does the Black Snake make war with the women? Wouldst kill my
daughter's four-footed friend? Has the young brave only arrow-heads for
his friends? He must go back to his mother's wigwam: let her teach him
how to use them."
The dark frown passed from the Great Oak's face as he addressed his
daughter. With a watchful tenderness seldom found in the breast of a
warrior, the stern old Sagamore's voice grew soft as a woman's.
"My daughter will follow her father; he knows not his wigwam when the
Fawn and her four-footed friend are not there."
Thus saying they immediately left the discomfited brave. In passing by
the stranger captives, a sigh escaped the old Indian as he saw the
sympathetic looks that passed between them and his daughter, and
compared that noble young Chief, so soon to pass away, with the
treacherous warrior who aspired to fill the War Chief's place, and
receive his daughter with the title. The War Chief was slain on that
same expedition that conquered and brought home the prisoners. Another
was to be chosen and the captives disposed of, which was the business
that had called together Chiefs from distant places. Occupied with sad
thoughts, that brought him no comfort, he was attracted by the low whine
of the wolf, and upon turning discovered him fondling around the captive
Chief, who seemed equally pleased with him; at the same time he caught
the ill-omened look of Black Snake, distorting his face with rage,
jealousy and revenge, as it glowed from beneath his tawdry plume of many
colors. Hastening his daughter along, who was quickly followed by the
wolf as she gave a peculiar call, they passed silently out of sight.
As the dark shadows of night; gathered closely around, made brilliant by
innumerable fire-flies, sportively decking all nature in spangles, women
and children disappeared to their wigwams, while their dusky protectors
seated themselves 'round the great fire, the red flashes of which fell
brightly on the strongly bound prisoners, proud and defiant, awaiting
their doom.
Only one more night and the mild rays of the moon would fall on good and
bad alike--would gaze on the beautiful, bright colored path over the
dark and fearful abyss they were so soon to follow to the Happy Hunting
Ground. The breaking of the waves against the rocks on the shore, the
melancholy cry of the night bird, like soft music, partially subdued
their tortured spirits, and each recalled with fond longing the memory
of a distant home now lying in ashes, and the sound of some voice now
silent, whose tones would go with them to the Manitou's home.
Calm night, our soothing mother, bringing rest to all, freed them at
last from the insulting taunts of their savage guards as their swarthy
forms were swallowed up in the surrounding darkness.
Oh! how many heartfelt and anxious prayers have been sent, Niagara, to
rise on thy light mist to realms above.
The Indian's simple supplication, so full of hope and faith, needed not
the assistance of other creeds to be heard by _his_ Great Manitou. And
if thou dost pray sincerely for strength, Grey Eagle, unflinchingly to
stand thy torture and joyfully to take thy final leap, it will be given
thee.
As the dampness of night fled from before the rays of the morning sun it
revealed a cooler, calmer crowd around the big wigwam.
In sight of the great waters, and almost deafened by its thundering,
warning voice, Sachems, Chiefs and Warriors were quietly and orderly
assembled. Directly in front were placed the securely bound prisoners,
surrounded by aspiring young braves, too willing to show their skill in
throwing arrows and tomahawks as near as possible to the captives'
heads, delighting the dusky children, who with the women formed the
outside circle.
For several minutes the pipe, with the sweet-scented kinny-kinick, was
passed from one to another in silence. Not a word escaped them, the
Chiefs viewing with each other in betraying no symptom of idle curiosity
or impatience. At length a Chief turned his eyes slowly towards the old
Sachem, and in a low voice, with great delicacy in excluding all
inquisitiveness, addressed him:
"Our father sent us the wampum; we are here, when our father speaks his
childrens' ears are open,"--again resuming the pipe with due and
becoming solemnity.
After a moment's silence, during which the children even became mute,
the Sachem arose with dignity and commenced his brief story in a solemn,
serious manner, becoming himself and the occasion.
"'Tis well; my childrens' ears shall drink no lies. Their brothers have
been on the war-path. The Great Manitou smiled on the young brave; sent
him back with fresh trophies and prisoners; not one escaped. The Great
Manitou has also frowned on his people, hushed their song of triumph,
sent them back to their tribe crying, 'where is the great War Chief, the
nation's pride?' Do my sons see or hear the War Eagle in the wigwam of
his people? No; he came not back; the Manitou needed him; he has gone to
the Happy Hunting Ground; our eyes are dim; we shall see him no more.
Who will lead the young braves on the war-path? Who will protect the
wigwams, the women, children, and old men? Let my children speak, their
father will listen."
With the last words all excitement seemed to pass from him, and the face
of Great Oak assumed that immovable expression which rendered it so
impossible to surmise what really were his thoughts or wishes. The
murmuring wails of the women in remembrance of War-Eagle and the
threatening tomahawks that were shaken at the prisoners, all ceased as
slowly the first Chief again rose to speak.
"Let our brother, the young brave who followed where War Eagle led, and
returned with prisoners and trophies to appease his mourning people--let
the Black Snake speak, that we may know how to counsel our father."
[Illustration: BLACK SNAKE.]
The eyes of the young warrior thus alluded to flashed with fierce
delight--his nostrils dilated with strong emotion. Passing with a
haughty stride in front of the Chiefs, displaying to all the bloody
trophies at his side, without dignity or feeling, but in an excited,
vindictive manner, he gave an exaggerated account of the foe and the
battle; spoke of the loss of the War Eagle; called on the young braves
to help revenge his death, swinging his tomahawk around the heads of the
prisoners, counting the scalps he had torn from the heads of their
people, forcing them in their faces with malignant pleasure, and calling
them women, who would cry when their tortures commenced. He said he only
waited to attend the joyful dance before going on the war-path to avenge
more fully the death of their Chief and earn the right to have a wigwam.
He howled his fierce demands for an opportunity to show his willingness
to execute the sentence the Chiefs should pass upon the prisoners. Then,
adroitly pleading his youth, he said he would not ask to lead the braves
on the war-path--he would follow where some braver one would lead.
Throwing the string of scalps among the crowd, he said the women might
have them to hang on their lodges--he was too young to carry them.
Feeling he had made sufficient impression of his bravery to leave the
decision in the hands of the Chiefs, without noticing his triumph in the
applauding multitude, his fiery eyes rolled proudly from Chief to Chief.
He passed with a haughty step before the Sachem, who had several times
rather depreciated his bravery, rejoicing in this public opportunity of
boasting a little before the Chiefs, evidently thinking it would greatly
contribute to his ambitious purposes and make a good impression on the
Sachem's dark-eyed daughter.
As he finished his speech the crowd commenced reciting the virtues of
their deceased Chief, calling for revenge, and insulting the prisoners
with every epithet their wild imagination could suggest. A dissatisfied
"hugh" from the old Sachem caused the first Chief again to rise, when in
an instant all again became quiet, such were the peculiar customs of
these people and the great influence of their Chiefs and Rulers. In a
calm voice he addressed again the old Sachem:
"Thy son has spoken with a brave and cunning tongue; yet he speaks not
to the heart of his Chief. He is ready to strike the enemy. Who carries
more arrows or sharper ones than Black Snake? Whose stone-headed war
club is deadlier? Whose tomahawk is freer on the battle-field? The Black
Snake coils himself under the bushes and springs upon his sleeping
enemy. When they would strike him he is gone, and their club falls where
he once stood. He will be a great warrior when he gathers a few more
years. He needs experience to lead the young braves. Let our father
speak from his heart, that he may hide nothing from his children, then
will they know how to counsel."
Thus called upon, the old Chief rose with a calm brow, and advancing
with great dignity, slowly scanned the faces of his dusky audience. His
eyes beamed with respectful, hopeful submission on his circle of Chiefs,
also upon the women judges, who make the final decision in choosing a
new Chief after hearing the arguments in favor of each candidate.
Glancing towards Black Snake with a stern, unwavering countenance,
regarding the prisoners with unaffected sympathy, and finally resting
with a fond look of painful solicitude upon his daughter, who was seated
on a mossy carpet beneath a large tree, within hearing distance of all
that was said--the wolf, the Fawn's devoted friend, coiled at her feet,
and her neglected wampum carelessly thrown over his glossy neck--in a
clear, low voice, as one who having once determined upon the necessity
no hesitating fears should prevent, Great Oak addressed the now watchful
and silent multitude.
"It is true the feet of the young brave have been far away on the
war-path; his tomahawk and arrows have not been idle; he crept like a
serpent upon his victims; his war club was stained with their blood;
their scalps were many by his side; he came not back empty-handed; he
brought prisoners to his people and gifts to his Manitou."
The low murmur of applause now increased to a shrill howl, which the
echoing rocks sent flying on, mingling with the roar of the falling
waters. This approval being taken for their approbation, which promised
support to his opinion, Great Oak, thus confirmed in his remarks,
continued:
"War Eagle came not back to his people; his wigwam is lonely; did he fly
away like a frightened bird at the sight of his enemy?" An angry "hugh"
was uttered sympathetically. "Did he die with his body filled with the
arrows of his enemy?" After a short pause he answered himself:
"No, my children, the tomahawk was buried in the back of his head. Was
his foe behind him? Yes, my children, but not Grey Eagle and his brave
little band now standing in front of you. They were also in front of War
Eagle, but he saw in them no enemies; Grey Eagle saw no enemies then.
Look at the paint, of Grey Eagle and his braves; do you see the red and
black worn by a Chief on the war-path? Has the Manitou thrown a cloud
over the eyes of your Sachem? I see only the white paint of peace and
friendship. When were our fathers ever known to bind a friend?
"Your Sachem has lived too long; he has lived to see the ceremonies of
his people laughed at by boys--the sons of his friends with friendly
colors bound at his feet by his own children, and the tomahawks of his
people ready to bury themselves in their flesh."
The deep silence which succeeded these words sufficiently showed the
great veneration with which his people received their ideas from their
oldest Chief. All listened with breathless expectation for what was to
come. Black Snake and his few followers scowled revengefully, though not
daring to reply. The Sachem continued:
"The Great Oak can no longer overshadow and protect his people--can no
longer preserve the ceremonies of his fathers. His strength has gone,
and his counsels fall to the ground like the branches of the dying tree;
he is needed here no more. When my children next fill a canoe for the
Manitou, place the old tree and all belonging to him in it. The tired
birds that have flown to him for rest he can no longer protect, and it
is time his people burned him down out of the way, that the saplings may
find more room to grow. Let the arrows and tomahawk of Great Oak be
prepared for the Manitou--he would pass from his people forever."
With the last words he moved slowly from the circle, and, placing
himself by the side of his daughter, closed his eyes, manifesting his
resignation of all interest in their present or future state. An
appealing wail from the multitude brought several Chiefs to their feet.
"Our father must not leave us; his voice is the voice of wisdom; when
his childrens' ears drink lies and their counsels are foolish the wind
brings truth to the ears of Great Oak; they will fade away when Great
Oak's shadows are withdrawn. Can his children feast and dance when their
father hides his face with shame? The Manitou has counseled the Great
Oak in his sleep; the women are in tears, and the young men are silent.
We have spoken, and we wait for the voice of our Sachem."
"Why do my children wait for the voice of a Chief, whose words fall like
leaves in the cold blast to be trod on by boys?"
"The words of the Great Oak, like the leaves, can bury the people. Let
our father speak to the hearts of his children that they may know what
to do. Has the wind whispered in the ear of our father and he tells not
his children their story? We listen for the voice of our Chief." The old
Sachem slowly opened his eyes and once more rose to his feet, standing
erect in front of the tree whose name he bore, where still, with the
wolf stretched at her feet, the Gentle Fawn remained seated. Without
deigning a glance upon the multitude, but looking in the distance, as if
invoking unseen aid from the air or sky, dropping their figurative
language, he spoke in a low, prophetic tone.
"Yes, there has been whispering in the ears of your Chief. He shut his
eyes on all around him, and opened them on a sunny spot, far off, where
the rivers know no ice and the moccasin never tracks in the snow. There
were more wigwams than he could count, filled with happy people. He saw
a band of braves as straight as the pines of their forest go on a long
path to get furs and meat for their people. After moons of success they
joyfully returned; but not to hear the voice of their fathers or ever to
see their faces again. The hand of the foe had spared none; their homes
were in ashes; their friends sent without food or presents on their long
journey to the Manitou's hunting-ground. I saw these tired, sad hunters
gather the scattered bones and relics of their tribe in a large circle,
placing plenty of furs and food, with pipes, beads and arrows in the
center, and cover them high with stones and earth that wild beasts could
not move. And they placed the Manitou's mark on this mound that no foe
would dare to desecrate. Then turning their faces from their once happy
home they sought a new one, and people to help them revenge this deed
and recover their land. Winding their way to the land of snow and ice
they saw approaching a band of warriors covered with emblems of peace,
and, leaving their stony weapons in care of the younger braves, they
walked open-handed to meet the strangers. War Eagle stood foremost among
them. While passing the calumet [Footnote: Pipe of peace.] of friendship
their ears were deafened with the war-whoop from many mouths. A tomahawk
flew swiftlier and deadlier than an arrow and hid itself in the head of
War Eagle."
Then, turning his eyes upon the multitude, he would question, and,
looking off in the distance, in the same prophetic voice answer:
"Did the tomahawk fly with the stranger's hand? They came
open-handed--left their weapons behind them. Did any of War Eagle's
braves protect him while his spirit was passing on its long journey? No;
the arms of yonder brave protected him until they were bound, to his side.
Can War Eagle's spirit leave his friend to receive the torture of the
condemned and be tossed in those dark whirling waters forever? No; I hear
his moans mingle threateningly with the roar of the Manitou's voice. His
spirit cannot rise to the beautiful path while his friends are prisoners
to his people. Would you leave War Eagle forever hovering over the
turbulent waters? Who will cut the thongs and set the spirit of War
Eagle free by freeing his friends?"
The wild cries of the multitude were stilled by the long protracted howl
of Black Snake as he sprung in front of the Chiefs. With a dexterous
flourish of his tomahawk he separated the thongs, liberated the
prisoners, and with a wave of his hand commanded silence, while,
shouting in a loud voice, he replied to the old Sachem:
"Our father asks who bound War Eagle's friends! It was the spirits of
darkness that blinded his childrens' eyes to the color of Grey Eagle,
and whispered in their ears, 'they are enemies.' It was the spirit of
darkness that killed War Eagle and whispered in the ears of his braves,
'revenge his death.' It is the voice of the good Manitou that whispered
to the Great Oak, and he has saved his children from the Manitou's wrath
and freed the spirit of War Eagle." This ingenious speech showed the
cunning of some candidates for office even in those early times, and had
the desired effect of winning the confidence of many of his dusky
auditors. Long talks followed within the circle by the Chiefs, while
preparations were being made for feast and dance around the council fire
that night.
Aye, Niagara! thou didst lull with thy awful and solemn voice as anxious
and also as happy hearts beneath the soft furs that wrapped those dusky
maidens--mingling their sweet voices with thy deep bass, dancing beneath
the old trees on thy wild banks--as any there have been since in the
princely halls where the old trees once stood, beneath silks and
diamonds, that rival thy beautiful drops, to music that drowns for a
time thine own tremendous voice.
The attention of the Chiefs being directed to Grey Eagle, the youthful
Chief stepped lightly but proudly in front of them. His manner plainly
indicated him a brave warrior and hunter. As he spoke of his people, now
nearly exterminated, he pointed out to the council the necessity, and
expressed his willingness, of merging their existence in that of another
tribe. Many looked upon him with sympathy and regard. Speaking of the
foes of his people, his dark eyes lighted up with contemplated
revenge--his mouth curled with contempt. He called them snakes with
forked tongues; he wished to drive them from the ever green and pleasant
valley of his fathers; he wished to share the land with his brothers of
the snowy hills. He proved his skill as an orator by swaying the minds of
his hearers, and amidst great rejoicing stepped back to the side of his
own braves.
The old Sachem looked at him encouragingly, while the shy Fawn,
gathering up her no longer neglected wampum, bounded away to mingle with
the Indian maidens, followed by the devoted wolf, and the affectionate
eyes of her father and of many admiring braves.
The feast and dance continued long into the night; but sunrise found the
warriors and braves straightening their arrows and sharpening their
stony points and newly cording with sinews their idle bows, withing the
heads of their tomahawks, war-clubs and spears. Great and earnest
preparations were made to follow the river in its noisy course past its
dark whirling basin, down the stony mountain to where it mingles its
wild dancing waves with the calm and beautiful lake, bringing only the
faintest murmurs of the great falling waters to their favorite hunting
grounds.
Within that valley, before the sun drops beneath the bright waves of
Ontario, will be decided by individual skill, unassisted by friendly
influence, the right between Black Snake and his adopted brother, Grey
Eagle, to fill the place made vacant by the death of War Eagle.
This was the decision of the women. Among the Indians genealogy is
reckoned on the mother's side alone; and, therefore, the important
business of selecting a candidate to fill the place of War Eagle, who
left no near relative, devolved upon the women, who decided the
successful combatant was to be the future War Chief of the tribe and
claim the wampum with the old Sachem's dark-eyed daughter.
Sympathy was pictured in most of the faces of those dark warriors, when
passing the Great Oak's wigwam they beheld the moist eyes and tender
leave-taking of that heroic old Chief and his motherless child, whose
future depended so much on the coming contest, as following one after
another they disappeared in the forest.
"The Gentle Fawn will stay in the shadow of her wigwam and work on her
wampum." And the old Chief, whose words were law, also disappeared,
following the narrow winding path, watched by the Fawn till the dense
foliage hid him from her view. Without hearing the slightest noise the
Fawn felt a hand upon her shoulder. Turning quickly, she beheld the
pleasant face of Grey Eagle. Turning his hand in formal recognition, he
addressed her:
"The Grey Eagle's eyes are very true, and his arms are very strong;
shall he shut his eyes when he draws his bow?"
"May Grey Eagle's aim never be truer or his arm stronger than to-day."
And love-light flashed from the soft eyes of the pretty Seneca maid.
"The Fawn has spoken well; Grey Eagle hears. When the wish-ton-wish
sings his evening song Grey Eagle will be here again. The Fawn will
welcome him."
The last of the warriors disappeared, followed by the old women and
children, the latter with shouts and songs, going far towards the brow
of the mountain, where evening would still find most of them gathering
sticks and pine cones to light the evening fires.
About seven miles from the great cataract, towards the north, when
following the river, is seen the famous Queenston Heights, where the
force of waters has cut through solid rocks to a depth of about three
hundred feet, and it is equaled in grandeur only by the cataract itself.
This deep chasm in winding from the falls forms the great whirlpool--the
terror of the poor aboriginals. From the brow of the mountain the most
gorgeous landscape bursts upon the view.
A splendid picture, with the broad waters of Lake Ontario, forms a
magnificent background. The mountain sides are broken by deep ravines
and huge precipices rising to a great height. The scenery is wild beyond
description. On the highest elevation of this rocky cliff, on the
western shore, stands the Pillar of Brock, like a giant, guarding the
borders of the Queen's Dominion.
Under the eye, at the foot of the mountain, nestles the pretty village
of Lewiston. The banks of the river are lower and less rugged, and here
commence the beautiful flats that reach to the shore of Ontario. The
lake from this elevation is seen like a miniature ocean, spreading far
and wide until clouds and water blend. On the left, the foaming, dashing
river, passing furiously through the rocky gorge, here becomes quiet,
winding its peaceful way through woods and meadows, its soft liquid blue
dividing the Dominion from the United States, and gradually widening
until its waters mingle with Ontario. There, standing opposite, and
frowning upon each other, are the forts Niagara and Massussauga, where
successively have contended French, English and Americans. Four villages
appear within this view, on either side of the river, with their tall
church spires, from which sweet, melancholy notes come floating on the
air, tranquilizing the senses with the beautiful scene, interspersed by
meadows and grain fields, thickly dotted with cottages, surrounded and
half hidden among orchards and lovely gardens, disclosing hundreds of
happy homes; while from this elevation deep repose gives softness to the
whole picture. The same beautiful river and lake and rock-bound mountain
surrounded the Indian's favorite hunting-ground; but a dense forest,
divided by marshy creeks, protected their game and sheltered themselves.
Thus secluded, hundreds of wild songsters filled the air with music,
while the melancholy notes of the wish-ton-wish's evening song
traditionally had power to sooth their savage natures. This sweet,
pensive scenery, decked with summer's lovely green or autumn's wampum
dyes, with morning's glittering dews or evening's fire-flies' transient
gleams, illuminating the darkest places; the distant murmur of the
waterfall, the sympathetic cooing of the wild ducks, the cedar-scented
air, all tended to thrill the Indian bosom with sensations not less
melancholy, not less pleasing, than the present unsurpassed and
magnificent view charms all beholders.
Seldom so many warriors met at one time on these quiet flats, and never
contested champions more earnestly than did Black Snake and Grey Eagle
on that day for the two prizes in one; never were spectators more
enthusiastic. Their triumphant whoops echoed along the river banks and
their joyous applause animated the fatigued warriors, while side
combatants of various ages fought their mimic battles, blending the
whole in a scene of wild excitement and confusion. Grey Eagle was an
expert archer, but he had found his equal; hence the conflict was so
long, and had, from its even tenor, become so engrossing. One instant's
hesitation would probably decide the contest with critics so quick to
perceive with both eye and ear the least deviation from their standard
customs. After passing successively through the exercise of war-clubs,
spears and tomahawks, to the bow and arrow was left the decision. Again
preparing for the contest after their own fashion, omitting no caution
or form, the combatants brought all their warrior skill into
requisition. Challenge after challenge was given and taken with equal
confidence. The impression on the warrior spectators was exciting;
admiration of such unexampled dexterity gradually increased, finally
swelling into sounds that denoted lively opposition in sentiment, when
suddenly, with an ominous flourish of his bow, as it fell at the feet of
Great Oak, Black Snake with a single bound stood in front of the Chiefs.
This unexpected movement produced attention and silence while he spoke:
"Black Snake sends a true arrow, but the Manitou guided Grey Eagle's.
The Manitou whispered truths in the ear of Great Oak and defeated the
evil spirit. The Manitou says to War Eagle: 'I send a warrior to your
people to fill your place, and Grey Eagle, the chosen of the Manitou,
will be a great warrior.'"
[Illustration: GREY EAGLE.]
All of Black Snake's former pride and exultation seemed supplanted by
humility. Not the least demonstration of jealousy or revenge, was to be
traced in his artful face, while he continued:
"Grey Eagle will lead the young braves on the warpath. Let our father
send an offering to the Manitou, that he may drive the evil spirit away
from Black Snake, and he will be Grey Eagle's brother and fight by his
side. Black Snake's arrows are true, and the cries of our enemies will
fill the forest, while every squaw can deck her lodge with scalps."
With an appealing glance at the circle of Chiefs, Black Snake modestly
retired and they held their talk.
According to their customs, captives were either adopted by the captors
and enjoyed all of the rights and privileges of the tribe and
confederacy, or sentenced to death, attended by all of the horrors of
savage torture. If adopted, the nation knew no difference between her
own or adopted children. In the former council by the falling waters the
Chiefs had concluded to adopt Grey Eagle and his braves; therefore the
women had an undisputed right to select him as one of the candidates for
War Eagle's successor, which nomination was ratified by the Chiefs. The
women being undecided between the rival candidates, left the final
decision as before mentioned, to skill or chance. It was more through
chance than skill that Grey Eagle won, for both were well-drilled,
powerful warriors. But he had fairly won the two prizes, and the
conclusion the Chiefs came to was this:
Their great Manitou had evidently sent him to them for some wise
purpose. A human sacrifice must be made, as had long been their custom,
for the Manitou's good gifts and to redeem Black Snake from the power of
the evil one, this sacrifice must be made while the moon was the
brightest, which was the present time. It was that the bright light
might more fully reveal the brilliant path of the just. As those sent as
an offering to the Manitou would go direct to the happy home above,
freed from all trouble forever, when the selection was once made they
would become reconciled, and make themselves believe it a great favor
bestowed and cause of rejoicing. The subject for the sacrifice was most
frequently selected by lot from a few the Chiefs would name; but this
time it was Black Snake's privilege to make the selection and
arrangements, as he was next to Grey Eagle as a warrior, and then
the sacrificed spirit was especially to atone to the offended Manitott
for Black Snake's rashness while under the influence of the evil
spirit. At a signal for silence from Great Oak he made known these
conclusions, and Black Snake again came forward, and, with a great
deal of self-depreciation, expressed his wishes as follows:
"After the calumet with the soothing kinny-kinnick shall refresh each
Chief, while its light curling clouds bear their good resolutions on
high, let Great Oak and Grey Eagle be first on the backward trail;
rising the big stony hill, still keeping the trail, without entering any
lodge, the first one their eyes rest upon--be it one of the men, one of
the women, or one of the children--will be the one the Manitou wants.
Let the Manitou make his own selection: Black Snake is not worthy."
During the delivery of this speech; his swarthy countenance kindled with
a satisfied expression well calculated to conceal the dark malicious
plans that struggled in his breast. His very nostrils appeared to dilate
with hidden exultation.
Hurriedly passing the calumet, soon a light, fragrant cloud from the
sweet-scented kinny-kinnick rose on the air like evening incense, making
valid and unchangeable each resolve that tribunal of Chiefs had passed.
While they were yet smoking, Black Snake, recovering his bow and arrow,
called for some young braves who could track the deer and help carry the
venison back to their lodges, as a feast and dance accompanied each
council. The chiefs would smoke in the shade until the fiery eye of the
Manitou, satisfied with the purposes and promises of His simple-hearted
children, would fall asleep beyond the waters of Ontario, where already
the last rays were beginning to color clouds and waves, till lake and
sky seemed a bright vision of the promised land the doomed one must soon
enter.
"The hunters will be back here before the wish-ton-wish sings, if the
chiefs are gone the hunters will follow," said Black Snake, as himself
and about twenty dusky boys, flourishing their bows and arrows, leaped
along the skirt of the forest and soon disappeared. They wound their way
towards the east, where the deer frequented a marshy tract of land,
Black Snake now assuming all the superiority of a chief and leader, his
boasting, haughty manner returning, as he related what great deeds he
could do, and his name would make his enemies tremble. Having excited
sufficient awe and veneration among those artless Indian boys, he
pointed to fresh tracks, and waving his hand to the north, said:
"The deer have gone to the clear water to drink; the young-brave who
kills the first deer shall follow in the steps of Black Snake on the
war-path. Black Snake will go prepare for the feast and dance, and the
evening fire for the great chiefs; the young braves follow with their
venison the back trail; they will not go before the old chiefs."
This sudden and unexpected announcement was received with a joyous shout
by the aspiring young braves, who, thus stimulated, quickly disappeared,
leaving Black Snake alone.
A hasty glance at the sky showed him the Manitou's eye had moved but
little since he left the chiefs, and had some ways yet to travel before
disappearing for the night, and his satisfied look said, "'Tis well,"
for Black Snake had much to do and much to bring about before the fiery
eye would again throw his searching rays upon this wild and wayward
child of the forest.
A fierce and fixed expression settled on his swarthy features,
contradicting all that assumed humility while in the presence of the
chiefs.
Following a direct path to the south-west, with his fast Indian lope,
crossing the creeks on the well-known beaver bridges, nothing impeded
his speed, and in an incredibly short time he found himself on the brow
of the great stony hill, where his path soon struck the river trail,
leaving the council of chiefs many miles behind him to the north. He
gave a peculiar whoop, composed, of a quick succession of notes
terminating in a prolonged sound, which made the forest ring till it
died away in the distance, silencing terrified bird and squirrel and
making the stillness that followed doubly still. Speeding on toward the
lodge, as he neared the great water-fall, he again repeated the shrill
call; this time faint answers reached him from different directions.
Then a sharp, solitary note, repeated at short intervals, and answered,
in the same, manner, and with the exclamation "Hugh!" in a satisfied
tone, the tired warrior seated himself for the first time since morning
at the root of a large tree, holding his head in his dark sinewy hands,
as if that was more weary even than his' over-exercised limbs. Soon
there appeared several Indian boys and old women from different sides of
the trail. He held a hasty confidential talk with them. That he did not
truthfully explain anything, in fact, misrepresented the whole, was only
too natural for Black Snake. But in his own way he revealed the final
decision, making a double sacrifice of the human offering--both body and
soul; he told them their spirits would be given to the evil one and sent
to the turbulent waters, there to be whirled forever in sight of the
bright path they never could follow.
This story, as calculated, struck terror to the hearts of his
awe-stricken hearers, and had the desired effect. |
10,240 |
Produced by Juliet Sutherland, David Widger and PG Distributed
Proofreaders
SAMANTHA
AMONG THE BRETHREN.
By
"Josiah Allen's Wife"
(Marietta Holley)
Part 1
_With Illustrations_.
1890
TO
All Women
WHO WORK, TRYING TO BRING INTO DARK LIVES
THE BRIGHTNESS AND HOPE OF A
BETTER COUNTRY,
_THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED_.
PREFACE.
Again it come to pass, in the fulness of time, that my companion, Josiah
Allen, see me walk up and take my ink stand off of the manteltry piece,
and carry it with a calm and majestick gait to the corner of the settin'
room table devoted by me to literary pursuits. And he sez to me:
"What are you goin' to tackle now, Samantha?"
And sez I, with quite a good deal of dignity, "The Cause of Eternal
Justice, Josiah Allen."
"Anythin' else?" sez he, lookin' sort o' oneasy at me. (That man
realizes his shortcomin's, I believe, a good deal of the time, he duz.)
"Yes," sez I, "I lay out in petickuler to tackle the Meetin' House. She
is in the wrong on't, and I want to set her right."
Josiah looked sort o' relieved like, but he sez out, in a kind of a pert
way, es he set there a-shellin corn for the hens:
"A Meetin' House hadn't ort to be called she--it is a he."
And sez I, "How do you know?"
And he sez, "Because it stands to reason it is. And I'd like to know
what you have got to say about him any way?"
Sez I, "That 'him' don't sound right, Josiah Allen. It sounds more right
and nateral to call it'she.' Why," sez I, "hain't we always hearn about
the Mother Church, and don't the Bible tell about the Church bein'
arrayed like a bride for her husband? I never in my life hearn it called
a 'he' before."
"Oh, wall, there has always got to be a first time. And I say it sounds
better. But what have you got to say about the Meetin' House, anyway?"
"I have got this to say, Josiah Allen. The Meetin' House hain't a-actin'
right about wimmen. The Founder of the Church wuz born of woman. It wuz
on a woman's heart that His head wuz pillowed first and last. While
others slept she watched over His baby slumbers and His last sleep. A
woman wuz His last thought and care. Before dawn she wuz at the door of
the tomb, lookin' for His comin'. So she has stood ever sense--waitin',
watchin', hopin', workin' for the comin' of Christ. Workin', waitin' for
His comin' into the hearts of tempted wimmen and tempted men--fallen men
and fallen wimmen--workin', waitin', toilin', nursin' the baby good
in the hearts of a sinful world--weepin' pale-faced over its
crucefixion--lookin' for its reserection. Oh how she has worked all
through the ages!"
"Oh shaw!" sez Josiah, "some wimmen don't care about anythin' but crazy
work and back combs."
I felt took down, for I had been riz up, quite considerble, but I sez,
reasonable:
"Yes, there are such wimmen, Josiah, but think of the sweet and saintly
souls that have given all their lives, and hopes, and thoughts to the
Meetin' House--think of the throngs to-day that crowd the aisles of
the Sanctuary--there are five wimmen to one man, I believe, in all the
meetin' houses to-day a-workin' in His name. True Daughters of the King,
no matter what their creed may be--Catholic or Protestant.
"And while wimmen have done all this work for the Meetin' House, the
Meetin' House ort to be honorable and do well by her."
"Wall, hain't _he_?" sez Josiah.
"No, _she_ hain't," sez I.
"Wall, what petickuler fault do you find? What has _he_ done lately to
rile you up?"
Sez I, "_She_ wuz in the wrong on't in not lettin' wimmen set on the
Conference."
"Wall, I say _he_ wuz right," sez Josiah. "_He_ knew, and I knew, that
wimmen wuzn't strong enough to set."
"Why," sez I, "it don't take so much strength to set as it duz to stand
up. And after workin' as hard as wimmen have for the Meetin' House, she
ort to have the priveledge of settin'. And I am goin' to write out jest
what I think about it."
"Wall," sez Josiah, as he started for the barn with the hen feed, "don't
be too severe with the Meetin' House."
And then, after he went out, he opened the door agin and stuck his head
in and sez:
"Don't be too hard on _him_"
And then he shet the door quick, before I could say a word. But good
land! I didn't care. I knew I could say what I wanted to with my
faithful pen--and I am bound to say it.
JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE,
Bonny View,
near Adams, New York,
Oct. 14th, 1890.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVIII
_Publishers' Appendix_
CHAPTER I.
When I first heard that wimmen wuz goin' to make a effort to set on a
Conference, it wuz on a Wednesday, as I remember well. For my companion,
Josiah Allen, had drove over to Loontown in a Democrat and in a great
hurry, to meet two men who wanted him to go into a speculation with 'em.
And it wuz kinder curious to meditate on it, that they wuz all deacons,
every one on 'em. Three on 'em wuz Baptis'es, and two on 'em had jined
our meetin' house, deacons, and the old name clung to 'em--we spoze
because they wuz such good, stiddy men, and looked up to.
Take 'em all together there wuz five deacons. The two foreign deacons
from 'way beyond Jonesville, Deacon Keeler and Deacon Huffer, and
our own three Jonesvillians--Deacon Henzy, Deacon Sypher, and my own
particular Deacon, Josiah Allen.
It wuz a wild and hazardous skeme that them two foreign deacons wuz
a-proposin', and I wuz strongly in favor of givin' 'em a negative
answer; but Josiah wuz fairly crazy with the idee, and so wuz Deacon
Henzy and Deacon Sypher (their wives told me how they felt).
The idee was to build a buzz saw mill on the creek that runs through
Jonesville, and have branches of it extend into Zoar, Loontown, and
other more adjacent townships (the same creek runs through 'em all).
As near as I could get it into my head, there wuz to be a buzz saw mill
apiece for the five deacons--each one of 'em to overlook their own
particular buzz saw--but the money comin' from all on 'em to be divided
up equal among the five deacons.
[Illustration: "A WILD AND HAZARDOUS SKEME."]
They thought there wuz lots of money in the idee. But I wuz very set
against it from the first. It seemed to me that to have buzz saws
a-permeatin' the atmosphere, as you may say, for so wide a space, would
make too much of a confusion and noise, to say nothin' of the jarin'
that would take place and ensue. I felt more and more, as I meditated on
the subject, that a buzz saw, although estimable in itself, yet it wuz
not a spear in which a religious deacon could withdraw from the world,
and ponder on the great questions pertainin' to his own and the world's
salvation.
I felt it wuz not a spear that he could revolve round in and keep that
apartness from this world and nearness to the other, that I felt that
deacons ought to cultivate.
But my idees wuz frowned at by every man in Jonesville, when I ventured
to promulgate 'em. They all said, "The better the man, the better the
deed."
They said, "The better the man wuz, the better the buzz saw he would be
likely to run." The fact wuz, they needed some buzz saw mills bad, and
wuz very glad to have these deacons lay holt of 'em.
[Illustration: TALKING OVER THE BUZZ-SAW.]
But I threw out this question at 'em, and stood by it--"If bein' set
apart as a deacon didn't mean anything? If there wuzn't any deacon-work
that they ought to be expected to do--and if it wuz right for 'em to
go into any world's work so wild and hazardous and engrossin', as this
enterprise?"
And again they sez to me in stern, decided axents, "The better the man,
the better the deed. We need buzz saws."
And then they would turn their backs to me and stalk away very
high-headed.
And I felt that I wuz a gettin' fearfully onpopular all through
Jonesville, by my questions. I see that the hull community wuz so sot on
havin' them five deacons embark onto these buzz saws that they would not
brook any interference, least of all from a female woman.
But I had a feelin' that Josiah Allen wuz, as you may say, my lawful
prey. I felt that I had a right to question my own pardner for the good
of his own soul, and my piece of mind.
And I sez to him in solemn axents:
"Josiah Allen, what time will you get when you are fairly started on
your buzz saw, for domestic life, or social, or for religious duties?"
And Josiah sez, "Dumb 'em! I guess a man is a goin' to make money when
he has got a chance." And I asked him plain if he had got so low, and if
I had lived with him twenty years for this, to hear him in the end dumb
religious duties.
And Josiah acted skairt and conscience smut for most half a minute, and
said, "he didn't dumb 'em."
"What wuz you dumbin'?" sez I, coldly.
"I wuz dumbin' the idee," sez he, "that a man can't make money when he
has a chance to."
But I sez, a haulin' up this strong argument agin--
"Every one of you men, who are a layin' holt of this enterprise and
a-embarkin' onto this buzz saw are married men, and are deacons in a
meetin' house. Now this work you are a-talkin' of takin' up will devour
all of your time, every minute of it, that you can spare from your
farms.
"And to say nothin' of your wives and children not havin' any chance
of havin' any comfort out of your society. What will become of the
interests of Zion at home and abroad, of foreign and domestic missions,
prayer meetin's, missionary societies, temperance meetin's and good
works generally?"
And then again I thought, and it don't seem as if I can be mistaken, I
most know that I heerd Josiah Allen mutter in a low voice,
"Dumb good works!"
[Illustration: "I HEERD JOSIAH MUTTER, 'DUMB GOOD WORKS!'"]
But I wouldn't want this told of, for I may be mistook. I didn't fairly
ketch the words, and I spoke out agin, in dretful meanin' and harrowin'
axents, and sez, "What will become of all this gospel work?"
And Josiah had by this time got over his skare and conscience smite (men
can't keep smut for more'n several minutes anyway, their consciences are
so elastic; good land! rubber cord can't compare with 'em), and he had
collected his mind all together, and he spoke out low and clear, and in
a tone as if he wuz fairly surprised I should make the remark:
"Why, the gospel work will get along jest as it always has, the wimmen
will 'tend to it."
And I own I was kinder lost and by the side of myself when I asked the
question--and very anxious to break up the enterprise or I shouldn't
have put the question to him.
For I well knew jest as he did that wimmen wuz most always the ones to
go ahead in church and charitable enterprises. And especially now, for
there wuz a hardness arozen amongst the male men of the meetin' house,
and they wouldn't do a thing they could help (but of this more anon and
bimeby).
There wuz two or three old males in the meetin' house, too old to get
mad and excited easy, that held firm, and two very pious old male
brothers, but poor, very poor, had to be supported by the meetin' house,
and lame. They stood firm, or as firm as they could on such legs as
theirs wuz, inflammatory rheumatiz and white swellin's and such.
But all the rest had got their feelin's hurt, and got mad, etc., and
wouldn't do a thing to help the meetin' house along.
Well, I tried every lawful, and mebby a little on-lawful way to break
this enterprise of theirs up--and, as I heern afterwards, so did Sister
Henzy.
Sister Sypher is so wrapped up in Deacon Sypher that she would embrace a
buzz saw mill or any other enterprise he could bring to bear onto her.
"She would be perfectly willin' to be trompled on," so she often sez,
"if Deacon Sypher wuz to do the tromplin'."
Some sez he duz.
Wall, in spite of all my efforts, and in spite of all Sister Henzy's
efforts, our deacons seemed to jest flourish on this skeme of theirn.
And when we see it wuz goin' to be a sure thing, even Sister Sypher
begin to feel bad.
She told Albina Widrig, and Albina told Miss Henn, and Miss Henn told
me, that "what to do she didn't know, it would deprive her of so much of
the deacon's society." It wuz goin' to devour so much of his time that
she wuz afraid she couldn't stand it. She told Albina in confidence (and
Albina wouldn't want it told of, nor Miss Henn, nor I wouldn't) that she
had often been obleeged to go out into the lot between breakfast and
dinner to see the deacon, not bein' able to stand it without lookin' on
his face till dinner time.
And when she was laid up with a lame foot it wuz known that the deacon
left his plowin' and went up to the house, or as fur as the door step,
four or five times in the course of a mornin's work, it wuz spozed
because she wuz fearful of forgettin' how he looked before noon.
She is a dretful admirin' woman.
She acts dretful reverential and admirin' towards men--always calls
her husband "the Deacon," as if he was the one lonely deacon who was
perambulatin' the globe at this present time. And it is spozed that
when she dreams about him she dreams of him as "the Deacon," and not as
Samuel (his given name is Samuel).
[Illustration: "THE INITIALS STOOD FOR 'MISS DEACON SYPHER.'"]
But we don't know that for certain. We only spoze it. For the land of
dreams is a place where you can't slip on your sun-bonnet and foller
neighbor wimmen to see what they are a-doin' or what they are a-sayin'
from hour to hour.
No, the best calculator on gettin' neighborhood news can't even look
into that land, much less foller a neighborin' female into it.
No, their barks have got to be moored outside of them mysterious shores.
But, as I said, this had been spozen.
But it is known from actual eyesight that she marks all her sheets, and
napkins, and piller-cases, and such, "M. D. S." And I asked her one day
what the M. stood for, for I'spozed, of course, the D. S. stood for
Drusillia Sypher.
And she told me with a real lot of dignity that the initials stood for
"Miss Deacon Sypher."
Wall, the Jonesville men have been in the habit of holdin' her up as a
pattern to their wives for some time, and the Jonesville wimmen
hain't hated her so bad as you would spoze they all would under
the circumstances, on account, we all think, of her bein' such a
good-hearted little creeter. We all like Drusilly and can't help it.
Wall, even she felt bad and deprested on account of her Deacon's goin'
into the buzz saw-mill business.
But she didn't say nothin', only wept out at one side, and wiped up
every time he came in sight.
They say that she hain't never failed once of a-smilin' on the Deacon
every time he came home. And once or twice he has got as mad as a hen at
her for smilin'. Once, when he came home with a sore thumb--he had jest
smashed it in the barn door--and she stood a-smilin' at him on the door
step, there are them that say the Deacon called her a "infernal fool."
But I never have believed it. I don't believe he would demean himself so
low.
But he yelled out awful at her, I do'spoze, for his pain wuz intense,
and she stood stun still, a-smilin' at him, jest accordin' to the story
books. And he sez:
"Stand there like a----fool, will you! Get me a _rag!_"
I guess he did say as much as that.
But they say she kept on a-smilin' for some time--couldn't seem to
stop, she had got so hardened into that way.
[Illustration: "ONCE, WHEN HER FACE WUZ ALL SWELLED UP, SHE SMILED AT
HIM."]
And once, when her face wuz all swelled up with the toothache, she
smiled at him accordin' to rule when he got home, and they say the
effect wuz fearful, both on her looks and the Deacon's acts. They say he
was mad again, and called her some names. But as a general thing they
get along first rate, I guess, or as well as married folks in general,
and he makes a good deal of her.
I guess they get along without any more than the usual amount of
difficulties between husbands and wives, and mebby with less. I know
this, anyway, that she just about worships the Deacon.
Wall, as I say, it was the very day that these three deacons went to
Loontown to meet Deacon Keeler and Deacon Huffer, to have a conference
together as to the interests of the buzz saw mill that I first heard
the news that wimmen wuz goin' to make a effort to set on the Methodist
Conference, and the way I heerd on't wuz as follows:
Josiah Allen brought home to me that night a paper that one of the
foreign deacons, Deacon Keeler, had lent him. It contained a article
that wuz wrote by Deacon Keeler's son, Casper Keeler--a witherin'
article about wimmen's settin' on the Conference. It made all sorts of
fun of the projeck.
We found out afterwards that Casper Keeler furnished nearly all the
capital for the buzz saw mill enterprise at his father's urgent request.
His father, Deacon Keeler, didn't have a cent of money of his own; it
fell onto Casper from his mother and aunt. They had kept a big millinery
store in the town of Lyme, and a branch store in Loontown, and wuz great
workers, and had laid up a big property. And when they died, the aunt,
bein' a maiden woman at the time, the money naturally fell onto Casper.
He wuz a only child, and they had brung him up tender, and fairly
worshipped him.
They left him all the money, but left a anuety to be paid yearly to his
father, Deacon Keeler, enough to support him.
The Deacon and his wife had always lived happy together--she loved to
work, and he loved to have her work, so they had similar tastes, and wuz
very congenial--and when she died he had the widest crape on his hat
that wuz ever seen in the town of Lyme. (The crape was some she had left
in the shop.)
He mourned deep, both in his crape and his feelin's, there hain't a
doubt of that.
Wall, Miss Keelerses will provided money special for Casper to be
educated high. So he went to school and to college, from the time he was
born, almost. So he knew plenty of big words, and used 'em fairly lavish
in this piece. There wuz words in it of from six to seven syllables.
Why, I hadn't no idee till I see 'em with my own eye, that there wuz
any such words in the English language, and words of from four to six
syllables wuz common in it.
His father, Deacon Keeler, wouldn't give the paper to my companion, he
thought so much of it, but he offered to lend it to him, because he said
he felt that the idees it promulgated wuz so sound and deep they ought
to be disseminated abroad.
The idees wuz, "that wimmen hadn't no business to set on the Conference.
She wuz too weak to set on it. It wuz too high a place for her too
ventur' on, or to set on with any ease. There wuzn't no more than room
up there for what men would love to set on it. Wimmen's place wuz in the
sacred precinks of home. She wuz a tender, fragile plant, that needed
guardin' and guidin' and kep by man's great strength and tender care
from havin' any cares and labors whatsoever and wheresoever and
howsumever."
Josiah said it wuz a masterly dockument. And it wuz writ well. It
painted in wild, glarin' colors the fear that men had that wimmen would
strain themselves to do anything at all in the line of work--or would
weaken her hull constitution, and lame her moral faculties, and ruin
herself by tryin' to set up on a Conference, or any other high and
tottlin' eminence.
The piece wuz divided into three different parts, with a headin' in big
letters over each one.
The _first_ wuz, wimmen to have no labors and cares WHATSOEVER;
_Secondly_, NONE WHERESOEVER;
_Thirdly_, NONE HOWSUMEVER.
The writer then proceeded to say that he would show first, _what_ cares
and labors men wuz willin' and anxious to ward offen women. And he
proved right out in the end that there wuzn't a thing that they wanted
wimmen to do--not a single thing.
Then he proceeded to tell _where_ men wuz willin' to keep their labors
and cares offen wimmen. And he proved it right out that it wuz every
_where_. In the home, the little sheltered, love-guarded home of the
farmer, the mechanic and the artizen (makin' special mention of the buzz
sawyers). And also in the palace walls and the throne. There and every
_where_ men would fain shelter wimmen from every care, and every labor,
even the lightest and slightest.
Then lastly came the _howsumever_. He proceeded to show _how_ this could
be done. And he proved it right out (or thought he did) that the first
great requisit' to accomplish all this, wuz to keep wimmen in her
place. Keep her from settin' on the Conference, and all other tottlin'
eminences, fitted only for man's stalwart strength.
And the end of the article wuz so sort of tragick and skairful that
Josiah wept when he read it. He pictured it out in such strong colors,
the danger there wuz of puttin' wimmen, or allowin' her to put herself
in such a high and percipitous place, such a skairful and dangerous
posture as settin' up on a Conference.
[Illustration: "JOSIAH WEPT WHEN HE READ IT."]
"To have her set up on it," sez the writer, in conclusion, "would
endanger her life, her spiritual, her mental and her moral growth. It
would shake the permanency of the sacred home relations to its downfall.
It would hasten anarchy, and he thought sizm." Why, Josiah Allen
handled that paper as if it wuz pure gold. I know he asked me anxiously
as he handed it to me to read, "if my hands wuz perfectly clean," and we
had some words about it.
And till he could pass it on to Deacon Sypher to read he kep it in the
Bible. He put it right over in Galatians, for I looked to see--Second
Galatians.
And he wrapped it up in a soft handkerchief when he carried it over to
Deacon Sypherses. And Deacon Sypher treasured it like a pearl of great
price (so I spoze) till he could pass it on to Deacon Henzy.
And Deacon Henzy was to carry it with care to a old male Deacon in Zoar,
bed rid.
Wall, as I say, that is the very first I had read about their bein' any
idee promulgated of wimmens settin' up on the Conference.
And I, in spite of Josiah Allen's excitement, wuz in favor on't from the
very first.
Yes, I wuz awfully in favor of it, and all I went through durin' the
next and ensuin' weeks didn't put the idee out of my head. No, far from
it. It seemed as if the severer my sufferin's wuz, the much more this
idee flourished in my soul. Just as a heavy plow will meller up the soil
so white lilies can take root, or any other kind of sweet posies.
And oh! my heart! wuz not my sufferin's with Lodema Trumble, a hard plow
and a harrowin' one, and one that turned up deep furrows?
But of this, more anon and bimeby.
CHAPTER II.
Wall, it wuz on the very next day--on a Thursday as I remember well, for
I wuz a-thinkin' why didn't Lodema's letter come the next day--Fridays
bein' considered onlucky--and it being a day for punishments, hangin's,
and so forth.
But it didn't, it came on a Thursday. And my companion had been to
Jonesville and brung me back two letters; he brung 'em in, leavin' the
old mair standin' at the gate, and handed me the letters, ten pounds of
granulated sugar, a pound of tea, and the request I should have supper
on the table by the time that he got back from Deacon Henzy's.
(On that old buzz-saw business agin, so I spozed, but wouldn't ask.)
Wall, I told him supper wuz begun any way, and he had better hurry back.
But he wuz belated by reason of Deacon Henzy's bein' away, so I set
there for some time alone.
Wall, I wuz goin' to have some scolloped oysters for supper, so the
first thing I did wuz to put 'em into the oven--they wuz all ready, I
had scolloped 'em before Josiah come, and got 'em all ready for the
oven--and then I set down and read my letters.
Wall, the first one I opened wuz from Lodema Trumble, Josiah's cousin on
his own side. And her letter brought the sad and harrowin' intelligence
that she was a-comin' to make us a good long visit. The letter had been
delayed. She was a-comin' that very night, or the next day. Wall, I
sithed deep. I love company dearly, but--oh my soul, is there not a
difference, a difference in visitors?
Wall, suffice it to say, I sithed deep, and opened the other letter,
thinkin' it would kind o' take my mind off.
And for all the world! I couldn't hardly believe my eyes. But it wuz! It
wuz from Serena Fogg. It wuz from the Authoress of "Wedlock's Peaceful
Repose."
I hadn't heard a word from her for upwards of four years. And the letter
brung me startlin' intelligence.
It opened with the unexpected information that she wuz married. She had
been married three years and a half to a butcher out to the Ohio.
And I declare my first thought wuz as I read it, "Wall, she has wrote
dretful flowery on wedlock, and its perfect, onbroken calm, and peaceful
repose, and now she has had a realizin' sense of what it really is."
But when I read a little further, I see what the letter wuz writ for. I
see why, at this late day, she had started up and writ me a letter. I
see it wuz writ on duty.
She said she had found out that I wuz in the right on't and she wuzn't.
She said that when in the past she had disputed me right up and down,
and insisted that wedlock wuz a state of perfect serenity, never broken
in upon by any cares or vexations whatsomever, she wuz in the wrong
on't.
She said she had insisted that when anybody had moored their barks into
that haven of wedded life, that they wuz forever safe from any rude
buffetin's from the world's waves; that they wuz exempt from any toil,
any danger, any sorrow, any trials whatsomever. And she had found she
was mistook.
She said I told her it wuz a first-rate state, and a satisfactory one
for wimmen; but still it had its trials, and she had found it so. She
said that I insisted its serenity wuz sometimes broken in upon, and she
had found it so. The last day at my house had tottled her faith, and her
own married experience had finished the work. Her husband wuz a worthy
man, and she almost worshipped him. But he had a temper, and he raved
round considerable when meals wuzn't ready on time, and she havin' had
two pairs of twins durin' her union (she comes from a family on her
mother's side, so I had hearn before, where twins wuz contagious), she
couldn't always be on the exact minute. She had to work awful hard; this
broke in on her serenity.
Her husband devotedly loved her, so she said; but still, she said, his
bootjack had been throwed voyalent where corns wuz hit onexpected.
[Illustration: "FOUR TWINS BROKE IN ALSO ON HER WAVELESS CALM."]
Their souls wuz mated firm as they could be in deathless ties of
affection and confidence, yet doors _had_ been slammed and oaths
emitted, when clothin' rent and buttons tarried not with him. Strange
actions and demeanors had been displayed in hours of high-headedness and
impatience, which had skaired her almost to death before gettin'
accustomed to 'em.
The four twins broke in also on her waveless calm. They wuz lovely
cherubs, and the four apples of her eyes. But they did yell at times,
they kicked, they tore round and acted; they made work--lots of work.
And one out of each pair snored. It broke up each span, as you may say.
The snorin' filled each room devoted to 'em.
_He_ snored, loud. A good man and a noble man he wuz, so she repeated
it, but she found out too late--too late, that he snored. The house wuz
small; she could _not_ escape from snores, turn she where she would. She
got tired out with her work days, and couldn't rest nights. Her husband,
as he wuz doin' such a flourishin' business, had opened a cattle-yard
near the house. She wuz proud of his growin' trade, but the bellerin'
of the cattle disturbed her fearfully. Also the calves bleating and the
lambs callin' on their dams.
It wuz a long letter, filled with words like these, and it ended up by
saying that for years now she had wanted to write and tell me that I had
been in the right on't and she in the wrong. I had been megum and she
hadn't. And she ended by sayin', "God bless me and adoo."
[Illustration: THE LECTURE.]
The fire crackled softly on the clean hearth. The teakettle sung a song
of welcome and cheer. The oysters sent out an agreeable atmosphere. The
snowy table, set out in pretty china and glassware, looked invitin', and
I set there comfortable and happy and so peaceful in my frame, that the
events of the past, in which Serena Fogg had flourished, seemed but as
yesterday.
I thought it all over, that pleasant evenin' in the past, when Josiah
Allen had come in unexpected, and brung the intelligence to me that
there wuz goin' to be a lectur' give that evenin' by a young female at
the Jonesville school-house, and beset me to go.
And I give my consent. Then my mind travelled down that pleasant road,
moongilded, to the school-house. It stopped on the door-step while
Josiah hitched the mair.
We found the school-house crowded full, fur a female lecturer wuz a
rarity, and she wuz a pretty girl, as pretty a girl as I ever see in my
life.
And it wuz a pretty lecture, too, dretful pretty. The name of the
lecture wuz, "Wedlock's Peaceful and Perfect Repose."
A pretty name, I think, and it wuz a beautiful lecture, very, and
extremely flowery. It affected some of the hearers awfully; they wuz
all carried away with it. Josiah Allen wept like a child durin' the
rehearsin' of it. I myself didn't weep, but I enjoyed it, some of it,
first rate.
I can't begin to tell it all as she did,'specially after this length of
time, in such a lovely, flowery way, but I can probably give a few of
the heads of it.
It hain't no ways likely that I can give the heads half the stylish,
eloquent look that she did as she held 'em up, but I can jest give the
bare heads.
She said that there had been a effort made in some directions to try to
speak against the holy state of matrimony. The papers had been full of
the subject, "Is Marriage a Failure, or is it not?"
She had even read these dreadful words--"Marriage is a Failure." She
hated these words, she despised 'em. And while some wicked people spoke
against this holy institution, she felt it to be her duty, as well as
privilege, to speak in its praise.
I liked it first rate, I can tell you, when she went on like that. For
no living soul can uphold marriage with a better grace that can she
whose name vuz once Smith.
I _love_ Josiah Allen, I am _glad_ that I married him. But at the same
time, my almost devoted love doesn't make me blind. I can see on every
side of a subject, and although, as I said heretofore, and prior, I love
Josiah Allen, I also love megumness, and I could not fully agree with
every word she said.
But she went on perfectly beautiful--I didn't wonder it brought the
school-house down--about the holy calm and perfect rest of marriage, and
how that calm wuz never invaded by any rude cares.
How man watched over the woman he loved; how he shielded her from every
rude care; kept labor and sorrow far, far from her; how woman's life wuz
like a oneasy, roarin', rushin' river, that swept along discontented and
onsatisfied, moanin' and lonesome, until it swept into the calm sea of
Repose--melted into union with the grand ocian of Rest, marriage.
And then, oh! how calm and holy and sheltered wuz that state! How
peaceful, how onruffled by any rude changes! Happiness, Peace, Calm! Oh,
how sweet, how deep wuz the ocian of True Love in which happy, united
souls bathed in blissful repose!
[Illustration: "HE HAD ON A NEW VEST."]
It was dretful pretty talk, and middlin' affectin'. There wasn't a dry
eye in Josiah Allen's head, and I didn't make no objection to his givin'
vent to his feelin's, only when I see him bust out a-weepin' I jest
slipped my pocket-handkerchief 'round his neck and pinned it behind.
(His handkerchief wuz in constant use, a cryin' and weepin' as he wuz.)
And I knew that salt water spots black satin awfully. He had on a new
vest.
Submit Tewksbury cried and wept, and wept and cried, caused by
remembrances, it wuz spozed. Of which, more anon, and bimeby.
And Drusilly Sypher, Deacon Sypherses wife, almost had a spazzum, caused
by admiration and bein' so highly tickled.
I myself didn't shed any tears, as I have said heretofore. And what kep'
me calmer wuz, I _knew_, I knew from the bottom of my heart, that she
went too fur, she wuzn't megum enough.
And then she went on to draw up metafors, and haul in illustrations,
comparin' married life and single--jest as likely metafors as I ever
see, and as good illustrations as wuz ever brung up, only they every one
of 'em had this fault--when she got to drawin' 'em, she drawed 'em too
fur. And though she brought the school-house down, she didn't convince
me.
[Illustration: "I MYSELF DIDN'T SHED ANY TEARS."]
Once she compared single life to a lonely goose travellin' alone acrost
the country, 'cross lots, lonesome and despairin', travellin' along
over a thorny way, and desolate, weighed down by melancholy and gloomy
forebodin's, and takin' a occasional rest by standin' up on one cold
foot and puttin' its weery head under its wing, with one round eye
lookin' out for dangers that menaced it, and lookin', also, perhaps, for
a possible mate, for the comin' gander--restless, wobblin', oneasy,
miserable.
Why, she brought the school-house down, and got the audience all wrought
up with pity, and sympathy. Oh, how Submit Tewksbury did weep; she wept
aloud (she had been disappointed, but of this more bimeby).
And then she went on and compared that lonesome voyager to two blissful
wedded ones. A pair of white swans floatin' down the waveless calm,
bathed in silvery light, floatin' down a shinin' stream that wuz never
broken by rough waves, bathed in a sunshine that wuz never darkened by a
cloud.
And then she went on to bring up lots of other things to compare the two
states to--flowery things and sweet, and eloquent.
She compared single life to quantities of things, strange, weird,
melancholy things, and curius. Why, they wuz so powerful that every one
of 'em brought the school-house down.
And then she compared married life to two apple blossoms hangin'
together on one leafy bough on the perfumed June air, floatin' back and
forth under the peaceful benediction of summer skies.
And she compared it to two white lambs gambolin' on the velvety
hill-side. To two strains of music meltin' into one dulcet harmony,
perfect, divine harmony, with no discordant notes.
Josiah hunched me, he wanted me to cry there, at that place, but I
wouldn't. He did, he cried like an infant babe, and I looked close and
searchin' to see if my handkerchief covered up all his vest.
He didn't seem to take no notice of his clothes at all, he wuz a-weepin'
so--why, the whole schoolhouse wept, wept like a babe.
But I didn't. I see it wuz a eloquent and powerful effort. I see it was
beautiful as anything could be, but it lacked that one thing I have
mentioned prior and before this time. It lacked megumness.
I knew they wuz all impressive and beautful illustrations, I couldn't
deny it, and I didn't want to deny it. But I knew in my heart that the
lonely goose that she had talked so eloquent about, I knew that though
its path might be tegus the most of the time, yet occasionally it
stepped upon velvet grass and blossomin' daisies. And though the happy
wedded swans floated considerable easy a good deal of the time, yet
occasionally they had their wings rumpled by storms, thunder storms,
sudden squalls, and et cetery, et cetery.
And I knew the divine harmony of wedded love, though it is the sweetest
that earth affords, I knew that, and my Josiah knew it--the very
sweetest and happiest strains that earthly lips can sing.
Yet I knew that it wuz both heavenly sweet, and divinely sad, blended
discord and harmony. I knew there wuz minor chords in it, as well as
major, I knew that we must await love's full harmony in heaven. There
shall we sing it with the pure melody of the immortals, my Josiah and
me. But I am a eppisodin', and to continue and resoom.
Wall, we wuz invited to meet the young female after the lecture wuz
over, to be introduced to her and talk it over.
She wuz the Methodist minister's wive's cousin, and the minister's wife
told me she wuz dretful anxious to get my opinion on the lecture. I
spoze she wanted to get the opinion of one of the first wimmen of the
day. For though I am fur from bein' the one that ort to mention it, I
have heard of such things bein' said about me all round Jonesville, and
as far as Loontown and Shackville. And so, I spoze, she wanted to get
hold of my opinion.
Wall, I wuz introduced to her, and I shook hands with her, and kissed
her on both cheeks, for she is a sweet girl and I liked her looks.
I could see that she was very, VERY sentimental, but she had a sweet,
confidin', innocent look to her, and I give her a good kissin' and I
meant it. When I like a person, I _do_ like 'em, and visy-versey.
But at the same time my likin' for a person mustn't be strong enough to
overthrow my principles. And when she asked me in her sweet axents, "How
I liked her lecture, and if I could see any faults in it?" I leaned up
against Duty, and told her, "I liked it first-rate, but I couldn't agree
with every word of it."
Here Josiah Allen give me a look sharp enough to take my head clear off,
if looks could behead anybody. But they can't. |
10,240 |
Produced by Punch, or the London Charivari, Wayne Hammond,
Malcolm Farmer and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team at http://www.pgdp.net
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
VOL. 107.
SEPTEMBER 1, 1894.
[Illustration: "CONTRIBUTIONS THANKFULLY RECEIVED."
_Lardy-Dardy Swell (who is uncertain as to the age of Ingenue he is
addressing)._ "YOU'RE GOING TO GIVE A BALL. WILL YOU PERMIT ME TO SEND
YOU A BOUQUET? AND IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU WOULD LIKE?"
_Ingenue._ "O, THANKS! THE BOUQUET WOULD BE _DELIGHTFUL_!
AND"--(_hesitating, then after some consideration_)--"I'M SURE MAMMA
WOULD LIKE THE ICES AND SPONGE CAKES!"]
* * * * *
THE TALE OF TWO TELEGRAMS.
ANOTHER DOLLY DIALOGUE.
(_By St. Anthony Hope Carter._)
The redeeming feature of the morning batch of letters was a short note
from Lady MICKLEHAM. Her ladyship (and ARCHIE) had come back to town,
and the note was to say that I might call, in fact that I _was_ to call,
that afternoon. It so happened that I had two engagements, which seemed
to make that impossible, but I spent a shilling in telegrams, and at
4.30 (the hour DOLLY had named) was duly ringing at the Mickleham town
mansion.
"I'm delighted you were able to come," was DOLLY'S greeting.
"I wasn't able," I said; "but I've no doubt that what I said in the two
telegrams which brought me here will be put down to your account."
"No one expects truth in a telegram. The Post-Office people themselves
wouldn't like it."
DOLLY was certainly looking at her very best. Her dimples (everybody has
heard of DOLLY'S Dimples--or is it DOLLY DIMPLE; but after all it
doesn't matter) were as delightful as ever. I was just hesitating as to
my next move in the Dialogue, which I badly wanted, for I had promised
my editor one by the middle of next week. The choice lay between the
dimples and a remark that life was, after all, only one prolonged
telegram. Just at that moment I noticed for the first time that we were
not alone.
Now that was distinctly exasperating, and an unwarrantable
breach of an implied contract.
"Two's company," I said, in a tone of voice that was meant to
indicate something of what I felt.
"So's three," said DOLLY, laughing, "if the third doesn't count."
"_Quod est demonstrandum._"
"Well, it's like this. I observed that you've already published
twenty or so 'Dolly Dialogues.'" (The dimples at this period were
absolutely bewitching, but I controlled myself.) "So it occurred to
me that it was my turn to earn an honest penny. Allow me to
introduce you. Mr. BROWN, Mr. CARTER--Mr. CARTER, Mr. BROWN."
I murmured that any friend of Lady MICKLEHAM'S was a friend of mine,
whereat Mr. BROWN smiled affably and handed me his card, from which I
gathered that he was a shorthand writer at some address in Chancery
Lane. Then I understood it all. I had exploited DOLLY. DOLLY was now
engaged in the process of exploiting me.
"I hope," I observed rather icily, "that you will choose a respectable
paper."
"You don't mean that."
"Perhaps not. But if we are to have a Dialogue, perhaps we might begin.
I have an engagement at six."
"Telegraph, and put the contents down to my account."
I noticed now that DOLLY had a pile of papers on her table, and that she
was playing with a blue pencil.
"Yes, Lady MICKLEHAM," I said, in the provisional way in which judges
indicate to counsel that they are ready to proceed.
"Well, I've been reading some of the Press Notices of the Dialogues, Mr.
CARTER."
I trembled. I remembered some of the things that had been said about
DOLLY and myself, which hardly lent themselves, it appeared to me, to
this third party procedure.
"I thought," pursued DOLLY, "we might spend the time in discussing the
critics."
"I shall be delighted, if in doing that we shall dismiss the reporter."
"Have you seen this? It's from a Scotch paper--Scottish? you
suggest--well, Scottish. 'The sketches are both lively and elegant, and
their lightness is just what people want in the warm weather.'"
"It's a satisfaction to think that even our little breezes are a source
of cool comfort to our fellow-creatures."
"Here's another criticism. 'It's a book which tempts the reader----'"
"It must have been something you said."
"'----a book which tempts the reader to peruse from end to end when once
he picks it up.'"
"'Read at a Sitting: A Study in Colour.'"
"Please, Mr. BROWN, don't take that down."
"Thank you, Lady MICKLEHAM," said I. "_Litera scripta manet._"
"You are not the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. CARTER, and you must
break yourself of the habit."
"The next cutting?"
"The next says, 'For Mr. CARTER, the hero or reporter----'"
"It's a calumny. I don't know a single shorthand symbol."
"Let me go on. 'Reporter of these polite conversations, we confess we
have no particular liking.'"
"If you assure me you did not write this yourself, Lady MICKLEHAM, I
care not who did."
"That, Mr. BROWN," said DOLLY, in a most becoming frown,
"must _on no account_ go down."
"When you have finished intimidating the Press, perhaps you
will finish the extract."
"'His cynicism,'" she read, "'is too strained to commend him to
ordinary mortals----'"
"No one would ever accuse you of being in that category."
"'----but his wit is undeniable, and his impudence delicious.'
Well, Mr. CARTER?"
"I should like the extract concluded." I knew the next sentence
commenced--"As for DOLLY, Lady MICKLEHAM, she outdoes all the
revolted daughters of feminine fiction."
Then an annoying thing happened. ARCHIE'S voice was heard,
saying, "DOLLY, haven't you finished that Dialogue yet? We
ought to dress for dinner. It'll take us an hour to drive there."
So it had been all arranged, and ARCHIE knew for what I had been
summoned.
Yet there are compensations. DOLLY sent the Dialogue to the only
paper which I happen to edit. I regretfully declined it. But the
fact that she sent it may possibly explain why I have found it so
easy to give this account of what happened on that afternoon when
I sent the two telegrams.
* * * * *
The Cry of Chaos.
"_Vive l'Anarchie?_"--Fools! Chaos shrieks in that cry!
_Did_ Anarchy live soon would Anarchists die.
One truth lights all history, well understood,--
Disorder--like Saturn--devours its own brood.
* * * * *
[Illustration: UNEARNED INCREMENT.
_Experienced Jock (during preliminary canter, to Stable-boy, who has
been put up to make the running for him)._ "NOW, YOUNG 'UN, AS SOON AS
WE'RE OFF, YOU GO TO WORK AND MAKE THE PACE A HOT 'UN!"
_Stable-boy (Irish)._ "BEGORRA THIN OI'M THINKIN' IT'S MESELF _ROIDES_
THE RACE, AND YOU POCKETS ALL THE CREDIT O' WINNIN'!"]
* * * * *
"ROOM FOR A BIG ONE!"
["Mr. HERBERT GLADSTONE, as First Commissioner of Works, informed
the house that 'no series of historical personages could be complete
without the inclusion of CROMWELL,' and though he had no sum at his
disposal for defraying the cost of a statue this year, Sir WILLIAM
HARCOURT, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, had promised to make the
necessary provision in the estimates for next year."--_Spectator._]
Room for the Regicide amongst our Kings?
Horrible thought, to set some bosoms fluttering!
The whirligig of time does bring some things
To set the very Muse of History muttering.
Well may the brewer's son, uncouth and rude,
Murmur--in scorn--"I hope I don't intrude!"
Room, between CHARLES the fair and unveracious,--
Martyr and liar, made comely by VANDYKE,--
And CHARLES the hireling, callous and salacious?
Strange for the sturdy Huntingdonian tyke
To stand between Court spaniel and sleek hound!
Surely that whirligig hath run full round!
Exhumed, cast out!--among our Kings set high!
(Which were the true dishonour NOLL might question.)
The sleek false STUARTS well might shrug and sigh Make room--for
_him_?
A monstrous, mad suggestion! O Right
Divine, most picturesque quaint craze, How art thou fallen upon evil
days!
What will White Rose fanatics say to this?
Stuartomaniacs will ye not come wailing;
Or fill these aisles with one gregarious hiss
Of angry scorn, one howl of bitter railing?
To think that CHARLES the trickster, CHARLES the droll,
Should thus be hob-a-nobbed by red-nosed NOLL!
Methinks I hear the black-a-vised one sneer "Ods bobs,
Sire, this is what I've long expected!
If they had _him_, and not his statue, here
Some other 'baubles' might be soon ejected.
Dark STRAFFORD--I mean SALISBURY--_might_ loose
More than his Veto, did he play the goose.
"He'd find perchance that Huntingdon was stronger
Than Leeds with all its Programmes.
NOLL might vow That Measure-murder should go on no longer;
And that Obstruction he would check and cow.
Which would disturb MACALLUM MORE'S composure;
The Axe is yet more summary than the Closure!
"As for the Commons--both with the Rad 'Rump'
And Tory 'Tail' alike he might deal tartly.
He'd have small mercy upon prig or pump;
I wonder what he'd think of B-WL-S and B-RTL-Y?
Depend upon it, NOLL would purge the place
Of much beside Sir HARRY and the Mace."
Your Majesties make room there--for a Man!
Yes, after several centuries of waiting,
It seems that Smug Officialism's plan
A change from the next Session may be dating.
You tell us, genial HERBERT GLADSTONE, that you
_May_ find the funds, next year, for CROMWELL'S Statue!
Room for a Big One! Well the STUART pair
May gaze on that stout shape as on a spectre.
Subject for England's sculptors it is rare
To find like that of England's Great Protector;
And he with bigot folly is imbued,
Who deems that CROMWELL'S Statute _can_ intrude!
[Illustration: "ROOM FOR A BIG ONE!"
_Cromwell._ "NOW THEN, YOUR MAJESTIES, I HOPE I DON'T INTRUDE!"]
* * * * *
"OH, YOU WICKED STORY!"
(_Cry of the Cockney Street Child._)
Speaking of our Neo-Neurotic and "Personal" Novelists, JAMES PAYN says:
"None of the authors of these works are storytellers." No, not in his
own honest, wholesome, stirring sense, certainly. But, like other
naughty--and nasty-minded--children, they "tell stories" in their own
way; "great big stories," too, and "tales out of school" into the
bargain. Having, like the Needy Knife-grinder, no story (in the true
sense) to tell, they tell--well, let us say, tara-diddles! Truth is
stranger than even _their_ fiction, but it is not always so "smart" or
so "risky" as a loose, long-winded, flippant, cynical and personal
literary "lie which is half a truth," in three sloppy, slangy, but
"smart"--oh, yes, decidedly "smart"--volumes!
* * * * *
LYRE AND LANCET.
(_A Story in Scenes._)
PART IX.--THE MAUVAIS QUART D'HEURE.
SCENE XVI.--_The Chinese Drawing Room at Wyvern._
TIME--7.50. Lady CULVERIN _is alone, glancing over a written list._
_Lady Cantire (entering)._ Down already, ALBINIA? I _thought_ if I made
haste I should get a quiet chat with you before anybody else came in.
What is that paper? Oh, the list of couples for RUPERT. May I see? (_As_
Lady CULVERIN _surrenders it_.) My dear, you're _not_ going to inflict
that mincing little PILLINER boy on poor MAISIE! That really _won't do_.
At least let her have somebody she's used to. Why not Captain
THICKNESSE? He's an old friend, and she's not seen him for months. I
must alter that, if you've no objection. (_She does._) And then you've
given my poor Poet to that SPELWANE girl! Now, _why_?
_Lady Culverin._ I thought she wouldn't mind putting up with him just
for one evening.
_Lady Cant._ Wouldn't _mind_! Putting up with him! And is that how you
speak of a celebrity when you are so fortunate as to have one to
entertain? _Really_, ALBINIA!
_Lady Culv._ But, my dear ROHESIA, you must allow that, whatever his
talents may be, he is not--well, not _quite_ one of Us. Now, _is_ he?
_Lady Cant._ (_blandly_). My dear, I never heard he had any connection
with the manufacture of chemical manures, in which your worthy Papa so
greatly distinguished himself--if _that_ is what you mean.
_Lady Culv._ (_with some increase of colour_). That is _not_ what I
meant, ROHESIA--as you know perfectly well. And I do say that this Mr.
SPURRELL'S manner is most objectionable; when he's not obsequious, he's
horribly familiar!
_Lady Cant._ (_sharply_). I have not observed it. He strikes me as well
enough--for that class of person. And it is intellect, soul, all that
kind of thing that _I_ value. I look _below_ the surface, and I find a
great deal that is very original and charming in this young man. And
surely, my dear, if I find myself able to associate with him, _you_ need
not be so fastidious! I consider him my _protege_, and I won't have him
slighted. He is far too good for VIVIEN SPELWANE!
_Lady Culv._ (_with just a suspicion of malice_). Perhaps, ROHESIA, you
would like him to take _you_ in?
_Lady Cant._ That, of course, is quite out of the question. I see you
have given me the Bishop--he's a poor, dry stick of a man--never forgets
he was the Headmaster of Swisham--but he's always glad to meet _me_. I
freshen him up so.
_Lady Culv._ I really don't know whom I _can_ give Mr. SPURRELL. There's
RHODA COKAYNE, but she's not poetical, and she'll get on much better
with ARCHIE BEARPARK. Oh, I forgot Mrs. BROOKE-CHATTERIS--she's sure to
_talk_, at all events.
_Lady Cant._ (_as she corrects the list_). A lively, agreeable
woman--she'll amuse him. _Now_ you can give RUPERT the list.
[Sir RUPERT _and various members of the house-party appear one by
one;_ Lord _and_ Lady LULLINGTON, _the_ Bishop of BIRCHESTER _and_
Mrs. RODNEY, _and_ Mr. and Mrs. EARWAKER, _and_ Mr. SHORTHORN _are
announced at intervals; salutations, recognitions, and commonplaces
are exchanged_.
_Lady Cant._ (_later--to the_ Bishop, _genially_). Ah, my dear Dr.
RODNEY, you and I haven't met since we had our great battle about--now,
was it the necessity of throwing open the Public Schools to the lower
classes--for whom of course they were originally _intended_--or was it
the failure of the Church to reach the Working Man? I really forget.
_The Bishop_ (_who has a holy horror of the_ Countess). I--ah--fear
I cannot charge my memory so precisely, my dear Lady CANTIRE.
We--ah--differ unfortunately on so many subjects. I trust, however, we
may--ah--agree to suspend hostilities on this occasion?
_Lady Cant._ (_with even more bonhomie_). Don't be too sure of _that_,
Bishop. I've several crows to pluck with you, and we are to go in to
dinner together, you know!
_The Bishop._ Indeed? I had no conception that such a pleasure was in
store for me! (_To himself._) This must be the penance for breaking my
rule of never dining out on Saturday! Severe--but merited!
_Lady Cant._ I wonder, Bishop, if you have seen this wonderful volume of
poetry that everyone is talking about--_Andromeda_?
_The Bishop_ (_conscientiously_). I chanced only this morning, by way of
momentary relaxation, to take up a journal containing a notice of that
work, with copious extracts. The impression left on my mind
was--ah--unfavourable; a certain talent, no doubt, some felicity of
expression, but a noticeable lack of the--ah--reticence, the discipline,
the--the scholarly touch which a training at one of our great Public
Schools (I forbear to particularise), and at a University, can alone
impart. I was also pained to observe a crude discontent with the
existing Social System--a system which, if not absolutely perfect,
cannot be upset or even modified without the gravest danger. But I was
still more distressed to note in several passages a decided taint of the
morbid sensuousness which renders so much of our modern literature
sickly and unwholesome.
_Lady Cant._ All prejudice, my dear Bishop; why, you haven't even _read_
the book! However, the author is staying here now, and I feel convinced
that if you only knew him, you'd alter your opinion. Such an unassuming,
inoffensive creature! There, he's just come in. I'll call him over
here.... Goodness, why does he shuffle along in that way!
_Spurrell_ (_meeting_ Sir RUPERT). Hope I've kept nobody waiting for
_me_, Sir RUPERT. (_Confidentially._) I'd rather a job to get these
things on; but they're really a wonderful fit, considering!
[_He passes on, leaving his host speechless._
_Lady Cant._ That's right, Mr. SPURRELL. Come here, and let me present
you to the Bishop of BIRCHESTER. The Bishop has just been telling me he
considers your _Andromeda_ sickly, or unhealthy, or something. I'm sure
you'll be able to convince him it's nothing of the sort.
[_She leaves him with the_ Bishop, _who is visibly annoyed._
_Spurr._ (_to himself, overawed_). Oh, Lor! Wish I knew the right way to
talk to a Bishop. Can't call _him_ nothing--so doosid familiar.
(_Aloud._) _Andromeda_ sickly, your--(_tentatively_)--your Right
Reverence? Not a bit of it--sound as a roach!
_The Bishop._ If I had thought my--ah--criticisms were to be repeated--I
might say misrepresented, as the Countess has thought proper to do, Mr.
SPURRELL, I should not have ventured to make them. At the same time, you
must be conscious yourself, I think, of certain blemishes which would
justify the terms I employed.
_Spurr._ I never saw any in _Andromeda_ myself, your--your Holiness.
You're the first to find a fault in her. I don't say there mayn't be
something dicky about the setting and the turn of the tail, but that's a
trifle.
_The Bishop._ I did not refer to the setting of the tale, and the
portions I object to are scarcely trifles. But pardon me if I prefer to
end a discussion that is somewhat unprofitable. (_To himself, as he
turns on his heel._) A most arrogant, self-satisfied, and conceited
young man--a truly lamentable product of this half-educated age!
_Spurr._ (_to himself_). Well, he may be a dab at dogmas--he don't know
much about dogs. _Drummy_'s got a constitution worth a dozen of _his_!
_Lady Culv._ (_approaching him_). Oh, Mr. SPURRELL, Lord LULLINGTON
wishes to know you. If you will come with me. (_To herself, as she leads
him up to_ Lord L.) I do _wish_ ROHESIA wouldn't force me to do this
sort of thing!
[_She presents him._
_Lord Lullington_ (_to himself_). I suppose I _ought_ to know all
about his novel, or whatever it is he's done. (_Aloud, with
courtliness._) Very pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. SPURRELL;
you've--ah--delighted the world by your _Andromeda_. When are we to look
for your next production? Soon, I hope.
_Spurr._ (_to himself_). He's after a pup now! Never met such a doggy
lot in my life! (_Aloud._) Er--well, my lord, I've promised so many as
it is, that I hardly see my way to----
_Lord Lull._ (_paternally_). Take my advice, my dear young man, leave
yourself as free as possible. Expect you to give us your best, you know.
[_He turns to continue a conversation._
_Spurr._ (_to himself_). _Give_ it! He won't get it under a five-pound
note, I can tell him. (_He makes his way to_ Miss SPELWANE.) I say, what
do you think the old Bishop's been up to? Pitching into _Andromeda_ like
the very dooce--says she's _sickly_!
_Miss Spelwane_ (_to herself_). He brings his literary disappointments
to _me_, not MAISIE! (_Aloud, with the sweetest sympathy._) How
dreadfully unjust! Oh, I've dropped my fan--no, pray don't trouble; I
can pick it up. My arms are so long, you know--like a kangaroo's--no,
what _is_ that animal which has such long arms? You're so clever, you
_ought_ to know!
_Spurr._ I suppose you mean a gorilla?
_Miss Spelw._ How crushing of you! But you must go away now, or else
you'll find nothing to say to me at dinner--you take me in, you know. I
hope you feel privileged. I feel----But if I told you, I might make you
too conceited!
_Spurr._ Oh, no, you wouldn't.
[Sir RUPERT _approaches with_ Mr. SHORTHORN.
_Sir Rupert._ VIVIEN, my dear, let me introduce Mr. SHORTHORN--Miss
SPELWANE. (_To_ SPURRELL.) Let me see--ha--yes, you take in Mrs.
CHATTERIS. Don't know her? Come this way, and I'll find her for you.
[_He marches_ SPURRELL _off._
_Mr. Shorthorn_ (_to_ Miss SPELWANE). Good thing getting this rain at
last; a little more of this dry weather and we should have had no grass
to speak of!
_Miss Spelw._ (_who has not quite recovered from her disappointment_).
And now you _will_ have some grass to speak of? _How_ fortunate!
_Spurr._ (_as dinner is announced, to_ Lady MAISIE). I say, Lady MAISIE,
I've just been told I've got to take in a married lady. I don't know
what to talk to her about. I should feel a lot more at home with you.
Couldn't we manage it somehow?
_Lady Maisie_ (_to herself_). What a fearful suggestion--but I simply
_daren't_ snub him! (_Aloud._) I'm afraid, Mr. SPURRELL, we must both
put up with the partners we have; most distressing, isn't it--_but_!
[_She gives a little shrug._
_Captain Thicknesse_ (_immediately behind her, to himself_). Gad,
_that_'s pleasant! I knew I'd better have gone to Aldershot! (_Aloud._)
I've been told off to take you in, Lady MAISIE, not _my_ fault, don't
you know.
_Lady Maisie._ There's no need to be so apologetic about it. (_To
herself._) Oh, I _hope_ he didn't hear what I said to that wretch.
_Capt. Thick._ Well, I rather thought there _might_ be, perhaps.
_Lady Maisie_ (_to herself_). He _did_ hear it. If he's going to be so
stupid as to misunderstand, I'm sure _I_ shan't explain.
[_They take their place in the procession to the Dining Hall._
[Illustration: "I'd rather a job to get these things on; but they're
really a wonderful fit, considering!"]
* * * * *
RATIONAL DRESS.
(_A Reformer's Note to a Current Controversy._)
[Illustration]
OH, ungallant must be the man indeed
Who calls "nine women out of ten" "knock-kneed"!
And he should not remain in peace for long,
Who says "the nether limbs of women" are "all wrong."
Such are the arguments designed to prove
That Woman's ill-advised to make a move
To mannish clothes. These arguments are such
As to be of the kind that prove too much.
If Woman's limbs in truth unshapely grow,
The present style of dress just makes them so!
* * * * *
QUEER QUERIES.--A QUESTION OF TERMS.--I am sometimes allowed, by the
kindness of a warder, to see a newspaper, and I have just read that some
scientific cove says that man's natural life is 105 years. Now is this
true? I want to know, because I am in here for what the Judge called
"the term of my natural life," and, if it is to last for 105 years, I
consider I have been badly swindled. I say it quite respectfully, and I
hope the Governor will allow the expression to pass. Please direct
answers to Her Majesty's Prison, Princetown, Devon.--No. 67.
* * * * *
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOLUME I.--_Awakening._
AND so the work was done. BELINDA, after a year's hard writing, had
completed her self-appointed task. _Douglas the Doomed One_ had grown by
degrees into its present proportions. First the initial volume was
completed; then the second was finished; and now the third was ready for
the printer's hands. But who should have it? Ah, there was the rub!
BELINDA knew no publishers and had no influence. How could she get
anyone to take the novel up? And yet, if she was to believe the
_Author_, there was plenty of room for untried talent. According to that
interesting periodical publishers were constantly on the lookout for
undiscovered genius. Why should she not try the firm of Messrs. BINDING
AND PRINT? She made up her mind. She set her face hard, and muttered,
"Yes, they _shall_ do it! _Douglas the Doomed One_ shall appear with the
assistance of Messrs. BINDING AND PRINT!" And when BELINDA made up her
mind to do anything, not wild omnibus-horses would turn her from her
purpose.
[Illustration]
VOLUME II.--_Wide Awake._
Messrs. BINDING AND PRINT had received their visitor with courtesy. They
did not require to read _Douglas the Doomed One_. They had discovered
that it was sufficiently long to make the regulation three volumes. That
was all that was necessary. They would accept it. They would be happy to
publish it.
"And about terms?" murmured BELINDA.
"Half profits," returned Mr. BINDING, with animation.
"When we have paid for the outlay we shall divide the residue," cried
Mr. PRINT.
"And do you think I shall soon get a cheque?" asked the anxious
authoress.
"Well, that is a question not easy to answer. You see, we usually spend
any money we make in advertising. It does the work good in the long run,
although at first it rather checks the profits."
BELINDA was satisfied, and took her departure.
"We must advertise _Douglas the Doomed One_ in the _Skatemaker's
Quarterly Magazine_," said Mr. BINDER.
"And in the _Crossing Sweeper's Annual_," replied Mr. PRINT. Then the
two partners smiled at one another knowingly. They laughed as they
remembered that of both the periodicals they had mentioned they were the
proprietors.
VOLUME III.--_Fast Asleep._
The poor patient at Slocum-on-Slush moaned. He had been practically
awake for a month, and nothing could send him to sleep. The Doctor held
his wrist, and as he felt the rapid beats of his pulse became graver and
graver.
"And you have no friends, no relatives?"
"No. My only visitor was the man who brought that box of books from a
metropolitan library."
"A box of books!" exclaimed the Doctor. "There may yet be time to save
his life!"
The man of science rose abruptly, and approaching the casket containing
the current literature of the day, roughly forced it open. He hurriedly
inspected its contents. He turned over the volumes impatiently until he
reached a set.
"The very thing!" he murmured. "If I can but get him to read this he
will be saved." Then turning to his patient he continued, "You should
peruse this novel. It is one that I recommend in cases such as yours."
"I am afraid I am past reading," returned the invalid. "However, I will
do my best."
An hour later the Doctor (who had had to make some calls) returned and
found that his patient was sleeping peacefully. The first volume of
_Douglas the Doomed One_ had the desired result.
"Excellent, excellent," murmured the medico. "It had the same effect
upon another of my patients. The crisis is over! He will now recover
like the other. Insomnia has been conquered for the second time by
_Douglas the Doomed One_, and who now shall say that the three-volume
novel of the amateur is not a means of spreading civilisation? It must
be a mine of wealth to somebody."
And Messrs. BINDING AND PRINT, had they heard the Doctor's remark,
would have agreed with him!
* * * * *
All the Difference.
"THE SPEAKER then called Mr. LITTLE to order."
Quite right in our wise and most vigilant warder.
He calls us to order! Oh that, without fuss,
The SPEAKER could only call Order to us!
* * * * *
[Illustration: RES ANGUSTA DOMI.
(_In a Children's Hospital._)
"MY PORE YABBIT'S DEAD!"
"HOW SAD!"
"DADDA KILLED MY PORE YABBIT IN BACK KITCHEN!"
"OH DEAR!"
"I HAD TATERS WIV MY PORE YABBIT!"]
* * * * *
"A LITTLE TOO PREVIOUS!"
["I desire to submit that this is a very great question, which will
have to be determined, but upon a very different ground from that of
the salaries of the officers of the House of Lords.... If there is
to be a contest between the House of Lords and the House of Commons,
let us take it upon higher ground than this."--_Sir William
Harcourt._]
There was a little urchin, and he had an old horse-pistol,
Which he rammed with powder damp and shots of lead, lead, lead;
And he cried "I know not fear! I'll go stalking of the deer!"
For this little cove was slightly off his head, head, head.
This ambitious little lad was a Paddy and a Rad,
And himself he rather fancied as a shot, shot, shot;
And he held the rules of sport, and close season, and, in short,
The "regulation rubbish" was all rot, rot, rot.
He held a "bird" a thing to be potted on the wing,
Or perched upon a hedge, or up a tree, tree, tree;
And, says he, "If a foine stag I can add to my small bag,
A pistol _or_ a Maxim will suit me, me, me!"
And so upon all fours he would crawl about the moors,
To the detriment of elbows, knees, and slack, slack, slack;
And he says, "What use a-talking? If I choose to call this'stalking,'
And _I bag my game_, who's going to hould me back, back, back?"
Says he, "I scoff at raisons, and stale talk of toimes and saisons;
I'm game to shoot a fox, or spear a stag, stag, stag;
Nay, I'd net, or club, a salmon; your old rules of sport are gammon,
For wid me it's just a question of the bag, bag, bag!
"There are omadhauns, I know, who would let a foine buck go
Just bekase 'twas out of toime, or they'd no gun, gun, gun;
But if oi can hit, and hurt, wid a pistol--or a squirt--
By jabers, it is all the betther fun, fun, fun!"
So he scurryfunged around with his stomach on the ground
(For stalking seems of crawling a mere branch, branch, branch).
And he spied "a stag of ten," and he cried, "Hurroo! Now then,
I fancy I can hit _him_--in the haunch, haunch haunch!
"Faix! I'll bag that foine Stag Royal, or at any rate oi'll troy all
The devoices of a sportshman from the Oisle, Oisle, Oisle.
One who's used to shoot asprawl from behoind a hedge or wall,
At the risks of rock and heather well may smoile, smoile, smoile!"
But our sportsman bold, though silly, by a stalwart Highland gillie,
Was right suddenly arrested ere he fired, fired, fired.--
"Hoots! If you'll excuse the hint, that old thing, with lock of flint,
As a weapon for _this_ sport can't be admired, mired, mired!
"It will not bring down _that_ quarry, your horse-pistol! Don't _you_
worry!
That Royal Stag _we_'ll stalk, boy, in good time, time, time;
But to pop at it just now, and kick up an awful row,
Scare, and _miss_ it were a folly, nay a crime, crime, crime!
"Be you sure 'Our Party' will this fine quarry track and kill;
Our guns need not your poor toy blunderbuss, buss, buss.
This is not the time or place for a-following up this chase;
So just clear out and leave this game to us, us, us!"
* * * * *
[Illustration: "A LITTLE TOO PREVIOUS!"
H-RC-RT. "NO, NO, MY LAD! THAT WON'T HURT HIM! YOU MUST LEAVE HIM TO
_US_!"]
* * * * *
IN MEMORIAM.
[Baron MUNDY, the founder of the valuable Vienna Voluntary Sanitary
Ambulance Society, mighty foe of disease and munificent dispenser of
charity, shot himself on Thursday, August 23, on the banks of the
Danube, at the advanced age of 72.]
Great sanitary leader and reformer,
Disease's scourge and potent pest-house stormer;
Successful foe of cholera aforetime,
Perfecter of field-ambulance in war-time;
Dispenser of a fortune in large charity;
_Vale!_ Such heroes are in sooth a rarity.
Alas, that you in death should shock Dame GRUNDY!
That we should sigh "_Sic transit gloria_ MUNDY!"
* * * * *
A CLOTHES DIVISION (OF OPINION).--It is said that Woman cannot afford to
alter her style of dress, since her limbs are "all wrong." Clear,
therefore, that however much Woman's Wrongs need redressing, All-Wrong
Women don't!
* * * * *
[Illustration: Q. E. D.
"WHAT'S UP WI' SAL?"
"AIN'T YER ERD? SHE'S MARRIED AGIN!"]
* * * * *
"AUXILIARY ASSISTANCE" IN THE PROVINCES.
(_A Tragedy-Farce in several painful Scenes, with many unpleasant
Situations._)
LOCALITY--_The Interior of Country Place taken for the Shooting Season.
Preparations for a feast in all directions. It is Six o' Clock, and the
household are eagerly waiting the appearance of_ MONTAGU MARMADUKE, the
Auxiliary Butler, _sent in by Contract. Enter_ MONTAGU MARMADUKE, _in
comic evening dress._
_Master_ (_looking at_ MONTAGU _with an expression of disappointment on
his face_). What, are _you_ the man they have sent me?
_Montagu._ Yessir. And I answers to MONTAGU MARMADUKE, or some gentlemen
prefers to call me by my real name BINKS.
_Master._ Oh, MONTAGU will do. I hope you know your duties?
_Mon._ Which I was in service, Sir, with Sir BARNABY JINKS, for
twenty-six years, and----
_Master._ Very well, I daresay you will do. I suppose you know about the
wine?
_Mon._ Yessir. In course. I've been a teetotaler ever since I left Sir
BARNABY'S.
_Master_ (_retiring_). And mind, do not murder the names of the guests.
[_Exit._
[_The time goes on, and Company arrive._ MONTAGU _ushers them
upstairs, and announces them under various aliases._ Sir HENRY
EISTERFODD _is introduced as_ Sir 'ENERY EASTEREGG, _&c., &c._
_After small talk, the guests find their way to the dining-room._
_Mon._ (_to_ Principal Guest). Do you take sherry, claret, or 'ock, my
Lady?
_Principal Guest_ (_interrupted in a conversation_). Claret, please.
[MONTAGU _promptly pours the required liquid on to the table-cloth._
_Master._ I must apologise, but our Butler, who is on trial, is very
short-sighted.
_P. Guest._ Evidently.
[_The wine is brought round;_ MONTAGU _interrupting the conversation
with his hospitable suggestions, and pouring claret into champagne
glasses, and champagne into sherries._
_Nervous Guest_ (_in an undertone to_ MONTAGU). Do you think you could
get me, by-and-by, a piece of bread?
_Mon._ Bread, Sir, yessir! (_In stentorian tones._) Here, NISBET, bring
this gent some bread!
[_The unfortunate guest, who is overcome with confusion at having
attracted so much attention, is waited upon by_ NISBET.
_Master_ (_savagely_). Can't you go about more quietly?
_Mon._ (_hurt_). Certainly, Sir. When I was with Sir BARNABY----
(_Disappears murmuring to himself, and returns with entree, which he
lets fall on dress of_ Principal Guest). Beg pardon, my Lady, but it was
my stud, which _would_ come undone. Very sorry, indeed, Mum, but if you
will allow me----
[_Produces a soiled dinner-napkin with a flourish._
_P. Guest_ (_in much alarm_). No thanks!
[_General commiseration, and, a little later, disappearance of
ladies. After this,_ MONTAGU _does not reappear except to call
obtrusively for carriages, and tout for tips._
_P. Guest_ (_on bidding her host good-night_). I can assure you my gown
was not injured in the least. I am quite sure it was only an accident.
_Master_ (_bowing_). You are most kind. (_With great severity._) As a
matter of fact, the man only came to us this afternoon, but, after what
has happened, he shall not remain in my service another hour! I shall
dismiss him to-night!
[_Exit_ Principal Guest. Master _pays_ MONTAGU _the agreed fee for
his services for the evening. Curtain._
* * * * *
TO A PHILANTHROPIST.
You ask me, Madam, if by chance we meet,
For money just to keep upon its feet
That hospital, that school, or that retreat,
That home.
I help that hospital? My doctor's fee
Absorbs too much. Alas! I cannot be
An inmate there myself; he comes to me
At home.
Do not suppose I have too close a fist.
Rent, rates, bills, taxes, make a fearful list;
I should be homeless if I did assist
That home.
I must--it is my impecunious lot--
Economise the little I have got;
So if I see you coming I am "not
At home."
My clothes are shabby. How I should be dunned
By tailor, hatter, hosier, whom I've shunned,
If I supported that school clothing fund,
That home!
I'd help if folks wore nothing but their skins;
This hat, this coat, at which the street-boy grins,
Remind me still that "Charity begins
At home."
* * * * *
Kiss versus Kiss.
On the cold cannon's mouth the Kiss of Peace
Should fall like flowers, and bid its bellowings cease!--
But ah! that Kiss of Peace seems very far
From being as strong as the _Hotch_kiss of War!
* * * * *
[Illustration: QUALIFIED ADMIRATION.
_Country Vicar._ "WELL, JOHN, WHAT DO YOU THINK OF LONDON?"
_Yokel._ "LOR' BLESS YER, SIR, IT'LL BE A FINE PLACE _WHEN IT'S
FINISHED_!"]
* * * * *
PAGE FROM "ROSEBERY'S HISTORY OF THE COMMONWEALTH."
(_With Mr. Punch's Compliments to the Gentleman who will have to design
"that statue."_)
"You really must join the Army," said the stern old Puritan to the Lord
Protector. "The fate of this fair realm of England depends upon the
promptness with which you assume command."
OLIVER CROMWELL paused. He had laid aside his buff doublet, and had
donned a coat of a thinner material. His sword also was gone, and
hanging by his side was a pair of double spy-glasses--new in those
days--new in very deed.
"I cannot go," cried the Lord Protector at last, "it would be too great
a sacrifice."
"You said not that," pursued IRETON--for it was he--"when you called
upon CHARLES to lose his head."
"But in this case, good sooth, I would wish a head to be won, or the
victory to be by a head;" and then the Uncrowned King laughed long and
heartily, as was his wont when some jest tickled him.
"This is no matter for merriment," exclaimed IRETON sternly. "OLIVER,
you are playing the fool. You are sacrificing for pleasure, business,
duty."
"Well, I cannot help it," was the response. "But mind you, IRETON, it
shall be the last time."
"What is it that attracts you so strongly? What is the pleasure that
lures you away from the path of duty?"
"I will tell you, and then you will pity, perchance forgive me. |
10,240 |
Produced by David Widger. HTML version by Al Haines.
MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE
By Nathaniel Hawthorne
THE OLD MANSE.
The Author makes the Reader acquainted with his Abode.
Between two tall gate-posts of rough-hewn stone (the gate itself
having fallen from its hinges at some unknown epoch) we beheld the
gray front of the old parsonage, terminating the vista of an avenue of
black-ash trees. It was now a twelvemonth since the funeral
procession of the venerable clergyman, its last inhabitant, had turned
from that gateway towards the village burying-ground. The wheel-track
leading to the door, as well as the whole breadth of the avenue, was
almost overgrown with grass, affording dainty mouthfuls to two or
three vagrant cows and an old white horse who had his own living to
pick up along the roadside. The glimmering shadows that lay half
asleep between the door of the house and the public highway were a
kind of spiritual medium, seen through which the edifice had not quite
the aspect of belonging to the material world. Certainly it had
little in common with those ordinary abodes which stand so imminent
upon the road that every passer-by can thrust his head, as it were,
into the domestic circle. From these quiet windows the figures of
passing travellers looked too remote and dim to disturb the sense of
privacy. In its near retirement and accessible seclusion, it was the
very spot for the residence of a clergyman,--a man not estranged from
human life, yet enveloped, in the midst of it, with a veil woven of
intermingled gloom and brightness. It was worthy to have been one of
the time-honored parsonages of England, in which, through many
generations, a succession of holy occupants pass from youth to age,
and bequeath each an inheritance of sanctity to pervade the house and
hover over it as with an atmosphere.
Nor, in truth, had the Old Manse ever been profaned by a lay occupant
until that memorable summer afternoon when I entered it as my home. A
priest had built it; a priest had succeeded to it; other priestly men
from time to time had dwelt in it; and children born in its chambers
had grown up to assume the priestly character. It was awful to
reflect how many sermons must have been written there. The latest
inhabitant alone--he by whose translation to paradise the dwelling was
left vacant--had penned nearly three thousand discourses, besides the
better, if not the greater, number that gushed living from his lips.
How often, no doubt, had he paced to and fro along the avenue,
attuning his meditations to the sighs and gentle murmurs and deep and
solemn peals of the wind among the lofty tops of the trees! In that
variety of natural utterances he could find something accordant with
every passage of his sermon, were it of tenderness or reverential
fear. The boughs over my head seemed shadowy with solemn thoughts, as
well as with rustling leaves. I took shame to myself for having been
so long a writer of idle stories, and ventured to hope that wisdom
would descend upon me with the falling leaves of the avenue, and that
I should light upon an intellectual treasure in the Old Manse well
worth those hoards of long-hidden gold which people seek for in
moss-grown houses. Profound treatises of morality; a layman's
unprofessional, and therefore unprejudiced, views of religion;
histories (such as Bancroft might have written had he taken up his
abode here, as he once purposed) bright with picture, gleaming over a
depth of philosophic thought,--these were the works that might fitly
have flowed from such a retirement. In the humblest event, I resolved
at least to achieve a novel that should evolve some deep lesson, and
should possess physical substance enough to stand alone.
In furtherance of my design, and as if to leave me no pretext for not
fulfilling it, there was in the rear of the house the most delightful
little nook of a study that ever afforded its snug seclusion to a
scholar. It was here that Emerson wrote Nature; for he was then an
inhabitant of the Manse, and used to watch the Assyrian dawn and
Paphian sunset and moonrise from the summit of our eastern hill. When
I first saw the room, its walls were blackened with the smoke of
unnumbered years, and made still blacker by the grim prints of Puritan
ministers that hung around. These worthies looked strangely like bad
angels, or at least like men who had wrestled so continually and so
sternly with the Devil that somewhat of his sooty fierceness had been
imparted to their own visages. They had all vanished now; a cheerful
coat of paint and golden-tinted paper-hangings lighted up the small
apartment; while the shadow of a willow-tree that swept against the
overhanging eaves atempered the cheery western sunshine. In place of
the grim prints there was the sweet and lovely head of one of
Raphael's Madonnas, and two pleasant little pictures of the Lake of
Como. The only other decorations were a purple vase of flowers,
always fresh, and a bronze one containing graceful ferns. My books
(few, and by no means choice; for they were chiefly such waifs as
chance had thrown in my way) stood in order about the room, seldom to
be disturbed.
The study had three windows, set with little, old-fashioned panes of
glass, each with a crack across it. The two on the western side
looked, or rather peeped, between the willow branches, down into the
orchard, with glimpses of the river through the trees. The third,
facing northward, commanded a broader view of the river, at a spot
where its hitherto obscure waters gleam forth into the light of
history. It was at this window that the clergyman who then dwelt in
the Manse stood watching the outbreak of a long and deadly struggle
between two nations; he saw the irregular array of his parishioners on
the farther side of the river, and the glittering line of the British
on the hither bank. He awaited, in an agony of suspense, the rattle of
the musketry. It came; and there needed but a gentle wind to sweep the
battle-smoke around this quiet house.
Perhaps the reader, whom I cannot help considering as my guest in the
Old Manse, and entitled to all courtesy in the way of
sight-showing,--perhaps he will choose to take a nearer view of the
memorable spot. We stand now on the river's brink. It may well be called
the Concord,--the river of peace and quietness; for it is certainly the
most unexcitable and sluggish stream that ever loitered imperceptibly
towards its eternity,--the sea. Positively I had lived three weeks
beside it before it grew quite clear to my perception which way the
current flowed. It never has a vivacious aspect, except when a
northwestern breeze is vexing its surface on a sunshiny day. From the
incurable indolence of its nature, the stream is happily incapable of
becoming the slave of human ingenuity, as is the fate of so many a
wild, free mountain torrent. While all things else are compelled to
subserve some useful purpose, it idles its sluggish life away in lazy
liberty, without turning a solitary spindle or affording even water-power
enough to grind the corn that grows upon its banks. The torpor
of its movement allows it nowhere a bright, pebbly shore, nor so much
as a narrow strip of glistening sand, in any part of its course. It
slumbers between broad prairies, kissing the long meadow grass, and
bathes the overhanging boughs of elder-bushes and willows, or the
roots of elms and ash-trees and clumps of maples. Flags and rushes
grow along its plashy shore; the yellow water-lily spreads its broad,
flat leaves on the margin; and the fragrant white pond-lily abounds,
generally selecting a position just so far from the river's brink that
it cannot be grasped save at the hazard of plunging in.
It is a marvel whence this perfect flower derives its loveliness and
perfume, springing as it does from the black mud over which the river
sleeps, and where lurk the slimy eel, and speckled frog, and the
mud-turtle, whom continual washing cannot cleanse. It is the very same
black mud out of which the yellow lily sucks its obscene life and
noisome odor. Thus we see, too, in the world that some persons
assimilate only what is ugly and evil from the same moral
circumstances which supply good and beautiful results--the fragrance
of celestial flowers--to the daily life of others.
The reader must not, from any testimony of mine, contract a dislike
towards our slumberous stream. In the light of a calm and golden
sunset it becomes lovely beyond expression; the more lovely for the
quietude that so well accords with the hour, when even the wind, after
blustering all day long, usually hushes itself to rest. Each tree and
rock and every blade of grass is distinctly imaged, and, however
unsightly in reality, assumes ideal beauty in the reflection. The
minutest things of earth and the broad aspect of the firmament are
pictured equally without effort and with the same felicity of success.
All the sky glows downward at our feet; the rich clouds float through
the unruffled bosom of the stream like heavenly thoughts through a
peaceful heart. We will not, then, malign our river as gross and
impure while it can glorify itself with so adequate a picture of the
heaven that broods above it; or, if we remember its tawny hue and the
muddiness of its bed, let it be a symbol that the earthiest human soul
has an infinite spiritual capacity and may contain the better world
within its depths. But, indeed, the same lesson might be drawn out of
any mud-puddle in the streets of a city; and, being taught us
everywhere, it must be true.
Come, we have pursued a somewhat devious track in our walk to the
battle-ground. Here we are, at the point where the river was crossed
by the old bridge, the possession of which was the immediate object of
the contest. On the hither side grow two or three elms, throwing a
wide circumference of shade, but which must have been planted at some
period within the threescore years and ten that have passed since the
battle-day. On the farther shore, overhung by a clump of elder-bushes,
we discern the stone abutment of the bridge. Looking down
into the river, I once discovered some heavy fragments of the timbers,
all green with half a century's growth of water-moss; for during that
length of time the tramp of horses and human footsteps have ceased
along this ancient highway. The stream has here about the breadth of
twenty strokes of a swimmer's arm,--a space not too wide when the
bullets were whistling across. Old people who dwell hereabouts will
point out, the very spots on the western bank where our countrymen
fell down and died; and on this side of the river an obelisk of
granite has grown up from the soil that was fertilized with British
blood. The monument, not more than twenty feet in height, is such as
it befitted the inhabitants of a village to erect in illustration of a
matter of local interest rather than what was suitable to commemorate
an epoch of national history. Still, by the fathers of the village
this famous deed was done; and their descendants might rightfully
claim the privilege of building a memorial.
A humbler token of the fight, yet a more interesting one than the
granite obelisk, may be seen close under the stone wall which
separates the battle-ground from the precincts of the parsonage. It is
the grave,--marked by a small, mossgrown fragment of stone at the head
and another at the foot,--the grave of two British soldiers who were
slain in the skirmish, and have ever since slept peacefully where
Zechariah Brown and Thomas Davis buried them. Soon was their warfare
ended; a weary night-march from Boston, a rattling volley of musketry
across the river, and then these many years of rest. In the long
procession of slain invaders who passed into eternity from the
battle-fields of the Revolution, these two nameless soldiers led the way.
Lowell, the poet, as we were once standing over this grave, told me a
tradition in reference to one of the inhabitants below. The story has
something deeply impressive, though its circumstances cannot
altogether be reconciled with probability. A youth in the service of
the clergyman happened to be chopping wood, that April morning, at the
back door of the Manse; and when the noise of battle rang from side to
side of the bridge, he hastened across the intervening field to see
what might be going forward. It is rather strange, by the way, that
this lad should have been so diligently at work when the whole
population of town and country were startled out of their customary
business by the advance of the British troops. Be that as it might,
the tradition, says that the lad now left his task and hurried to the
battle-field with the axe still in his hand. The British had by this
time retreated; the Americans were in pursuit; and the late scene of
strife was thus deserted by both parties. Two soldiers lay on the
ground,--one was a corpse; but, as the young New-Englander drew nigh,
the other Briton raised himself painfully upon his hands and knees and
gave a ghastly stare into his face. The boy,--it must have been a
nervous impulse, without purpose, without thought, and betokening a
sensitive and impressible nature rather than a hardened one,--the boy
uplifted his axe and dealt the wounded soldier a fierce and fatal blow
upon the head.
I could wish that the grave might be opened; for I would fain know
whether either of the skeleton soldiers has the mark of an axe in his
skull. The story comes home to me like truth. Oftentimes, as an
intellectual and moral exercise, I have sought to follow that poor
youth through his subsequent career and observe how his soul was
tortured by the blood-stain, contracted as it had been before the long
custom of war had robbed human life of its sanctity and while it still
seemed murderous to slay a brother man. This one circumstance has
borne more fruit for me than all that history tells us of the fight.
Many strangers come in the summer-time to view the battle-ground. For
my own part, I have never found my imagination much excited by this or
any other scene of historic celebrity; nor would the placid margin of
the river have lost any of its charm for me, had men never fought and
died there. There is a wilder interest in the tract of land-perhaps a
hundred yards in breadth--which extends between the battle-field and
the northern face of our Old Manse, with its contiguous avenue and
orchard. Here, in some unknown age, before the white man came, stood
an Indian village, convenient to the river, whence its inhabitants
must have drawn so large a part of their substance. The site is
identified by the spear and arrow-heads, the chisels, and other
implements of war, labor, and the chase, which the plough turns up
from the soil. You see a splinter of stone, half hidden beneath a
sod; it looks like nothing worthy of note; but, if you have faith
enough to pick it up, behold a relic! Thoreau, who has a strange
faculty of finding what the Indians have left behind them, first set
me on the search; and I afterwards enriched myself with some very
perfect specimens, so rudely wrought that it seemed almost as if
chance had fashioned them. Their great charm consists in this
rudeness and in the individuality of each article, so different from
the productions of civilized machinery, which shapes everything on one
pattern. There is exquisite delight, too, in picking up for one's
self an arrow-head that was dropped centuries ago and has never been
handled since, and which we thus receive directly from the hand of the
red hunter, who purposed to shoot it at his game or at an enemy. Such
an incident builds up again the Indian village and its encircling
forest, and recalls to life the painted chiefs and warriors, the
squaws at their household toil, and the children sporting among the
wigwams, while the little wind-rocked pappose swings from the branch
of a tree. It can hardly be told whether it is a joy or a pain, after
such a momentary vision, to gaze around in the broad daylight of
reality and see stone fences, white houses, potato-fields, and men
doggedly hoeing in their shirt-sleeves and homespun pantaloons. But
this is nonsense. The Old Manse is better than a thousand wigwams.
The Old Manse! We had almost forgotten it, but will return thither
through the orchard. This was set out by the last clergyman, in the
decline of his life, when the neighbors laughed at the hoary-headed
man for planting trees from which he could have no prospect of
gathering fruit. Even had that been the case, there was only so much
the better motive for planting them, in the pure and unselfish hope of
benefiting his successors,--an end so seldom achieved by more
ambitious efforts. But the old minister, before reaching his
patriarchal age of ninety, ate the apples from this orchard during
many years, and added silver and gold to his annual stipend by
disposing of the superfluity. It is pleasant to think of him walking
among the trees in the quiet afternoons of early autumn and picking up
here and there a windfall, while he observes how heavily the branches
are weighed down, and computes the number of empty flour-barrels that
will be filled by their burden. He loved each tree, doubtless, as if
it had been his own child. An orchard has a relation to mankind, and
readily connects itself with matters of the heart. The trees possess
a domestic character; they have lost the wild nature of their forest
kindred, and have grown humanized by receiving the care of man as well
as by contributing to his wants. There, is so much individuality of
character, too, among apple trees, that it gives them all additional
claim to be the objects of human interest. One is harsh and crabbed
in its manifestations; another gives us fruit as mild as charity. One
is churlish and illiberal, evidently grudging the few apples that it
bears; another exhausts itself in free-hearted benevolence. The
variety of grotesque shapes into which apple, trees contort themselves
has its effect on those who get acquainted with them: they stretch out
their crooked branches, and take such hold of the imagination, that we
remember them as humorists and odd fellows. And what is more
melancholy than the old apple-trees that linger about the spot where
once stood a homestead, but where there is now only a ruined chimney
rising out of a grassy and weed-grown cellar? They offer their fruit
to every wayfarer,--apples that are bitter sweet with the moral of
Time's vicissitude.
I have met with no other such pleasant trouble in the world as that of
finding myself, with only the two or three mouths which it was my
privilege to feed, the sole inheritor of the old clergyman's wealth of
fruits. Throughout the summer there were cherries and currants; and
then came Autumn, with his immense burden of apples, dropping them
continually from his over-laden shoulders as he trudged along. In the
stillest afternoon, if I listened, the thump of a great apple was
audible, falling without a breath of wind, from the mere necessity of
perfect ripeness. And, besides, there were pear-trees, that flung down
bushels upon bushels of heavy pears; and peach-trees, which, in a good
year, tormented me with peaches, neither to be eaten nor kept, nor,
without labor and perplexity, to be given away. The idea of an
infinite generosity and exhaustless bounty on the part of our Mother
Nature was well worth obtaining through such cares as these. That
feeling can be enjoyed in perfection only by the natives of summer
islands, where the bread-fruit, the cocoa, the palm, and the orange
grow spontaneously and hold forth the ever-ready meal; but likewise
almost as well by a man long habituated to city life, who plunges into
such a solitude as that of the Old Manse, where he plucks the fruit of
trees that he did not plant, and which therefore, to my heterodox
taste, bear the closest resemblance to those that grew in Eden. It
has been an apothegm these five thousand years, that toil sweetens the
bread it earns. For my part (speaking from hard experience, acquired
while belaboring the rugged furrows of Brook Farm), I relish best the
free gifts of Providence.
Not that it can be disputed that the light toil requisite to cultivate
a moderately sized garden imparts such zest to kitchen vegetables as
is never found in those of the market-gardener. Childless men, if they
would know something of the bliss of paternity, should plant a seed,--be
it squash, bean, Indian corn, or perhaps a mere flower or worthless
weed,--should plant it with their own hands, and nurse it from infancy
to maturity altogether by their own care. If there be not too many of
them, each individual plant becomes an object of separate interest.
My garden, that skirted the avenue of the Manse, was of precisely the
right extent. An hour or two of morning labor was all that it
required. But I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day, and
stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that
nobody could share or conceive of who had never taken part in the
process of creation. It was one of the most bewitching sights in the
world to observe a hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a row of
early peas just peeping forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate
green. Later in the season the humming-birds were attracted by the
blossoms of a peculiar variety of bean; and they were a joy to me,
those little spiritual visitants, for deigning to sip airy food out of
my nectar-cups. Multitudes of bees used to bury themselves in the
yellow blossoms of the summer-squashes. This, too, was a deep
satisfaction; although, when they had laden themselves with sweets,
they flew away to some unknown hive, which would give back nothing in
requital of what my garden had contributed. But I was glad thus to
fling a benefaction upon the passing breeze with the certainty that
somebody must profit by it and that there would be a little more honey
in the world to allay the sourness and bitterness which mankind is
always complaining of. Yes, indeed; my life was the sweeter for that
honey.
Speaking of summer-squashes, I must say a word of their beautiful and
varied forms. They presented an endless diversity of urns and vases,
shallow or deep, scalloped or plain, moulded in patterns which a
sculptor would do well to copy, since Art has never invented anything
more graceful. A hundred squashes in the garden were worth, in my
eyes at least, of being rendered indestructible in marble. If ever
Providence (but I know it never will) should assign me a superfluity
of gold, part of it shall be expended for a service of plate, or most
delicate porcelain, to be wrought into the shapes of summer-squashes
gathered from vines which I will plant with my own hands. As dishes
for containing vegetables, they would be peculiarly appropriate.
But not merely the squeamish love of the beautiful was gratified by my
toil in the kitchen-garden. There was a hearty enjoyment, likewise,
in observing the growth of the crook-necked winter-squashes from the
first little bulb, with the withered blossom adhering to it, until
they lay strewn upon the soil, big, round fellows, hiding their heads
beneath the leaves, but turning up their great yellow rotundities to
the noontide sun. Gazing at them, I felt that by my agency something
worth living for had been done. A new substance was born into the
world. They were real and tangible existences, which the mind could
seize hold of and rejoice in. A cabbage, too,--especially the early
Dutch cabbage, which swells to a monstrous circumference, until its
ambitious heart often bursts asunder,--is a matter to be proud of when
we can claim a share with the earth and sky in producing it. But,
after all, the hugest pleasure is reserved until these vegetable
children of ours are smoking on the table, and we, like Saturn, make a
meal of them.
What with the river, the battle-field, the orchard, and the garden,
the reader begins to despair of finding his way back into the Old
Manse. But, in agreeable weather, it is the truest hospitality to keep
him out of doors. I never grew quite acquainted with my habitation
till a long spell of sulky rain had confined me beneath its roof.
There could not be a more sombre aspect of external nature than as
then seen from the windows of my study. The great willow-tree had
caught and retained among its leaves a whole cataract of water, to be
shaken down at intervals by the frequent gusts of wind. All day long,
and for a week together, the rain was drip-drip-dripping and
splash-splash-splashing from the eaves and bubbling and foaming into
the tubs beneath the spouts. The old, unpainted shingles of the house
and outbuildings were black with moisture; and the mosses of ancient
growth upon the walls looked green and fresh, as if they were the
newest things and afterthought of Time. The usually mirrored surface
of the river was blurred by an infinity of raindrops; the whole
landscape had a completely water-soaked appearance, conveying the
impression that the earth was wet through like a sponge; while the
summit of a wooded hill, about a mile distant, was enveloped in a
dense mist, where the demon of the tempest seemed to have his
abiding-place and to be plotting still direr inclemencies.
Nature has no kindness, no hospitality, during a rain. In the
fiercest beat of sunny days she retains a secret mercy, and welcomes
the wayfarer to shady nooks of the woods whither the sun cannot
penetrate; but she provides no shelter against her storms. It makes us
shiver to think of those deep, umbrageous recesses, those
overshadowing banks, where we found such enjoyment during the sultry
afternoons. Not a twig of foliage there but would dash a little
shower into our faces. Looking reproachfully towards the impenetrable
sky,--if sky there be above that dismal uniformity of cloud,--we are
apt to murmur against the whole system of the universe, since it
involves the extinction of so many summer days in so short a life by
the hissing and spluttering rain. In such spells of weather,--and it
is to be supposed such weather came,--Eve's bower in paradise must
have been but a cheerless and aguish kind of shelter, nowise
comparable to the old parsonage, which had resources of its own to
beguile the week's imprisonment. The idea of sleeping on a couch of
wet roses!
Happy the man who in a rainy day can betake himself to a huge garret,
stored, like that of the Manse, with lumber that each generation has
left behind it from a period before the Revolution. Our garret was an
arched hall, dimly illuminated through small and dusty windows; it was
but a twilight at the best; and there were nooks, or rather caverns,
of deep obscurity, the secrets of which I never learned, being too
reverent of their dust and cobwebs. The beams and rafters, roughly
hewn and with strips of bark still on them, and the rude masonry of
the chimneys, made the garret look wild and uncivilized, an aspect
unlike what was seen elsewhere in the quiet and decorous old house.
But on one side there was a little whitewashed apartment, which bore
the traditionary title of the Saint's Chamber, because holy men in
their youth had slept, and studied, and prayed there. With its
elevated retirement, its one window, its small fireplace, and its
closet convenient for an oratory, it was the very spot where a young
man might inspire himself with solemn enthusiasm and cherish saintly
dreams. The occupants, at various epochs, had left brief records and
ejaculations inscribed upon the walls. There, too, hung a tattered
and shrivelled roll of canvas, which on inspection proved to be the
forcibly wrought picture of a clergyman, in wig, band, and gown,
holding a Bible in his hand. As I turned his face towards the light,
he eyed me with an air of authority such as men of his profession
seldom assume in our days. The original had been pastor of the parish
more than a century ago, a friend of Whitefield, and almost his equal
in fervid eloquence. I bowed before the effigy of the dignified
divine, and felt as if I had now met face to face with the ghost by
whom, as there was reason to apprehend, the Manse was haunted.
Houses of any antiquity in New England are so invariably possessed
with spirits that the matter seems hardly worth alluding to. Our
ghost used to heave deep sighs in a particular corner of the parlor,
and sometimes rustled paper, as if he were turning over a sermon in
the long upper entry,--where nevertheless he was invisible, in spite
of the bright moonshine that fell through the eastern window. Not
improbably he wished me to edit and publish a selection from a chest
full of manuscript discourses that stood in the garret. Once, while
Hillard and other friends sat talking with us in the twilight, there
came a rustling noise as of a minister's silk gown, sweeping through
the very midst of the company, so closely as almost to brush against
the chairs. Still there was nothing visible. A yet stranger business
was that of a ghostly servant-maid, who used to be heard in the
kitchen at deepest midnight, grinding coffee, cooking,
ironing,--performing, in short, all kinds of domestic labor,--although
no traces of anything accomplished could be detected the next morning.
Some neglected duty of her servitude, some ill-starched ministerial
band, disturbed the poor damsel in her grave and kept her at work
without any wages.
But to return from this digression. A part of my predecessor's
library was stored in the garret,--no unfit receptacle indeed for such
dreary trash as comprised the greater number of volumes. The old books
would have been worth nothing at an auction. In this venerable
garret, however, they possessed an interest, quite apart from their
literary value, as heirlooms, many of which had been transmitted down
through a series of consecrated hands from the days of the mighty
Puritan divines. Autographs of famous names were to be seen in faded
ink on some of their fly-leaves; and there were marginal observations
or interpolated pages closely covered with manuscript in illegible
shorthand, perhaps concealing matter of profound truth and wisdom.
The world will never be the better for it. A few of the books were
Latin folios, written by Catholic authors; others demolished Papistry,
as with a sledge-hammer, in plain English. A dissertation on the Book
of Job--which only Job himself could have had patience to read--filled
at least a score of small, thick-set quartos, at the rate of two or
three volumes to a chapter. Then there was a vast folio body of
divinity,--too corpulent a body, it might be feared, to comprehend the
spiritual element of religion. Volumes of this form dated back two
hundred years or more, and were generally bound in black leather,
exhibiting precisely such an appearance as we should attribute to
books of enchantment. Others equally antique were of a size proper to
be carried in the large waistcoat pockets of old times,--diminutive,
but as black as their bulkier brethren, and abundantly interfused with
Greek and Latin quotations. These little old volumes impressed me as
if they had been intended for very large ones, but had been
unfortunately blighted at an early stage of their growth.
The rain pattered upon the roof and the sky gloomed through the dusty
garret-windows while I burrowed among these venerable books in search
of any living thought which should burn like a coal of fire or glow
like an inextinguishable gem beneath the dead trumpery that had long
hidden it. But I found no such treasure; all was dead alike; and I
could not but muse deeply and wonderingly upon the humiliating fact
that the works of man's intellect decay like those of his hands.
Thought grows mouldy. What was good and nourishing food for the
spirits of one generation affords no sustenance for the next. Books
of religion, however, cannot be considered a fair test of the enduring
and vivacious properties of human thought, because such books so
seldom really touch upon their ostensible subject, and have,
therefore, so little business to be written at all. So long as an
unlettered soul can attain to saving grace there would seem to be no
deadly error in holding theological libraries to be accumulations of,
for the most part, stupendous impertinence.
Many of the books had accrued in the latter years of the last
clergyman's lifetime. These threatened to be of even less interest
than the elder works a century hence to any curious inquirer who
should then rummage then as I was doing now. Volumes of the Liberal
Preacher and Christian Examiner, occasional sermons, controversial
pamphlets, tracts, and other productions of a like fugitive nature,
took the place of the thick and heavy volumes of past time. In a
physical point of view, there was much the same difference as between
a feather and a lump of lead; but, intellectually regarded, the
specific gravity of old and new was about upon a par. Both also were
alike frigid. The elder books nevertheless seemed to have been
earnestly written, and might be conceived to have possessed warmth at
some former period; although, with the lapse of time, the heated
masses had cooled down even to the freezing-point. The frigidity of
the modern productions, on the other hand, was characteristic and
inherent, and evidently had little to do with the writer's qualities
of mind and heart. In fine, of this whole dusty heap of literature I
tossed aside all the sacred part, and felt myself none the less a
Christian for eschewing it. There appeared no hope of either mounting
to the better world on a Gothic staircase of ancient folios or of
flying thither on the wings of a modern tract.
Nothing, strange to say, retained any sap except what had been written
for the passing day and year, without the remotest pretension or idea
of permanence. There were a few old newspapers, and still older
almanacs, which reproduced to my mental eye the epochs when they had
issued from the press with a distinctness that was altogether
unaccountable. It was as if I had found bits of magic looking-glass
among the books with the images of a vanished century in them. I
turned my eyes towards the tattered picture above mentioned, and asked
of the austere divine wherefore it was that he and his brethren, after
the most painful rummaging and groping into their minds, had been able
to produce nothing half so real as these newspaper scribblers and
almanac-makers had thrown off in the effervescence of a moment. The
portrait responded not; so I sought an answer for myself. It is the
age itself that writes newspapers and almanacs, which therefore have a
distinct purpose and meaning at the time, and a kind of intelligible
truth for all times; whereas most other works--being written by men
who, in the very act, set themselves apart from their age--are likely
to possess little significance when new, and none at all when old.
Genius, indeed, melts many ages into one, and thus effects something
permanent, yet still with a similarity of office to that of the more
ephemeral writer. A work of genius is but the newspaper of a century,
or perchance of a hundred centuries.
Lightly as I have spoken of these old books, there yet lingers with me
a superstitious reverence for literature of all kinds. A bound volume
has a charm in my eyes similar to what scraps of manuscript possess
for the good Mussulman. He imagines that those wind-wafted records
are perhaps hallowed by some sacred verse; and I, that every new book
or antique one may contain the "open sesame,"--the spell to disclose
treasures hidden in some unsuspected cave of Truth. Thus it was not
without sadness that I turned away from the library of the Old Manse.
Blessed was the sunshine when it came again at the close of another
stormy day, beaming from the edge of the western horizon; while the
massive firmament of clouds threw down all the gloom it could, but
served only to kindle the golden light into a more brilliant glow by
the strongly contrasted shadows. Heaven smiled at the earth, so long
unseen, from beneath its heavy eyelid. To-morrow for the hill-tops
and the woodpaths.
Or it might be that Ellery Charming came up the avenue to join me in a
fishing excursion on the river. Strange and happy times were those
when we cast aside all irksome forms and strait-laced habitudes and
delivered ourselves up to the free air, to live like the Indians or
any less conventional race during one bright semicircle of the sun.
Rowing our boat against the current, between wide meadows, we turned
aside into the Assabeth. A more lovely stream than this, for a mile
above its junction with the Concord, has never flowed on earth,
nowhere, indeed, except to lave the interior regions of a poet's
imagination. It is sheltered from the breeze by woods and a hillside;
so that elsewhere there might be a hurricane, and here scarcely a
ripple across the shaded water. The current lingers along so gently
that the mere force of the boatman's will seems sufficient to propel
his craft against it. It comes flowing softly through the midmost
privacy and deepest heart of a wood which whispers it to be quiet;
while the stream whispers back again from its sedgy borders, as if
river and wood were hushing one another to sleep. Yes; the river
sleeps along its course and dreams of the sky and of the clustering
foliage, amid which fall showers of broken sunlight, imparting specks
of vivid cheerfulness, in contrast with the quiet depth of the
prevailing tint. Of all this scene, the slumbering river has a
dream-picture in its bosom. Which, after all, was the most real,--the
picture, or the original?--the objects palpable to our grosser senses,
or their apotheosis in the stream beneath? Surely the disembodied
images stand in closer relation to the soul. But both the original
and the reflection had here an ideal charm; and, had it been a thought
more wild, I could have fancied that this river had strayed forth out
of the rich scenery of my companion's inner world; only the vegetation
along its banks should then have had an Oriental character.
Gentle and unobtrusive as the river is, yet the tranquil woods seem
hardly satisfied to allow it passage. The trees are rooted on the
very verge of the water, and dip their pendent branches into it. At
one spot there is a lofty bank, on the <DW72> of which grow some
hemlocks, declining across the stream with outstretched arms, as if
resolute to take the plunge. In other places the banks are almost on
a level with the water; so that the quiet congregation of trees set
their feet in the flood, and are Fringed with foliage down to the
surface. Cardinal-flowers kindle their spiral flames and illuminate
the dark nooks among the shrubbery. The pond-lily grows abundantly
along the margin,--that delicious flower which, as Thoreau tells me,
opens its virgin bosom to the first sunlight and perfects its being
through the magic of that genial kiss. He has beheld beds of them
unfolding in due succession as the sunrise stole gradually from flower
to flower,--a sight not to be hoped for unless when a poet adjusts his
inward eye to a proper focus with the outward organ. Grapevines here
and there twine themselves around shrub and tree and hang their
clusters over the water within reach of the boatman's hand.
Oftentimes they unite two trees of alien race in an inextricable
twine, marrying the hemlock and the maple against their will and
enriching them with a purple offspring of which neither is the parent.
One of these ambitious parasites has climbed into the upper branches
of a tall white-pine, and is still ascending from bough to bough,
unsatisfied till it shall crown the tree's airy summit with a wreath
of its broad foliage and a cluster of its grapes.
The winding course of the stream continually shut out the scene behind
us and revealed as calm and lovely a one before. We glided from depth
to depth, and breathed new seclusion at every turn. The shy
kingfisher flew from the withered branch close at hand to another at a
distance, uttering a shrill cry of anger or alarm. Ducks that had
been floating there since the preceding eve were startled at our
approach and skimmed along the glassy river, breaking its dark surface
with a bright streak. The pickerel leaped from among the lilypads.
The turtle, sunning itself upon a rock or at the root of a tree, slid
suddenly into the water with a plunge. The painted Indian who paddled
his canoe along the Assabeth three hundred years ago could hardly have
seen a wilder gentleness displayed upon its banks and reflected in its
bosom than we did. Nor could the same Indian have prepared his
noontide meal with more simplicity. We drew up our skiff at some
point where the overarching shade formed a natural bower, and there
kindled a fire with the pine cones and decayed branches that lay
strewn plentifully around. Soon the smoke ascended among the trees,
impregnated with a savory incense, not heavy, dull, and surfeiting,
like the steam of cookery within doors, but sprightly and piquant.
The smell of our feast was akin to the woodland odors with which it
mingled: there was no sacrilege committed by our intrusion there: the
sacred solitude was hospitable, and granted us free leave to cook and
eat in the recess that was at once our kitchen and banqueting-hall.
It is strange what humble offices may be performed in a beautiful
scene without destroying its poetry. Our fire, red gleaming among the
trees, and we beside it, busied with culinary rites and spreading out
our meal on a mossgrown log, all seemed in unison with the river
gliding by and the foliage rustling over us. And, what was strangest,
neither did our mirth seem to disturb the propriety of the solemn
woods; although the hobgoblins of the old wilderness and the
will-of-the-wisps that glimmered in the marshy places might have come
trooping to share our table-talk and have added their shrill laughter
to our merriment. It was the very spot in which to utter the extremest
nonsense or the profoundest wisdom, or that ethereal product of the
mind which partakes of both, and may become one or the other, in
correspondence with the faith and insight of the auditor.
So, amid sunshine and shadow, rustling leaves and sighing waters, up
gushed our talk like the babble of a fountain. The evanescent spray
was Ellery's; and his, too, the lumps of golden thought that lay
glimmering in the fountain's bed and brightened both our faces by the
reflection. Could he have drawn out that virgin gold, and stamped it
with the mint-mark that alone gives currency, the world might have had
the profit, and he the fame. My mind was the richer merely by the
knowledge that it was there. But the chief profit of those wild days,
to him and me, lay not in any definite idea, not in any angular or
rounded truth, which we dug out of the shapeless mass of problematical
stuff, but in the freedom which we thereby won from all custom and
conventionalism and fettering influences of man on man. We were so
free to-day that it was impossible to be slaves again to-morrow. When
we crossed the threshold of the house or trod the thronged pavements
of a city, still the leaves of the trees that overhang the Assabeth
were whispering to us, "Be free! be free!" Therefore along that shady
river-bank there are spots, marked with a heap of ashes and
half-consumed brands, only less sacred in my remembrance than the
hearth of a household fire. |
10,240 |
Produced by David Widger. HTML version by Al Haines
A WONDER-BOOK FOR GIRLS AND BOYS
By Nathaniel Hawthorne
THE GORGON'S HEAD
CONTENTS:
TANGLEWOOD PORCH--Introductory to "The Gorgon's Head"
THE GORGON'S HEAD
TANGLEWOOD PORCH--After the Story
The author has long been of opinion that many of the classical myths
were capable of being rendered into very capital reading for children.
In the little volume here offered to the public, he has worked up half a
dozen of them, with this end in view. A great freedom of treatment was
necessary to his plan; but it will be observed by every one who attempts
to render these legends malleable in his intellectual furnace, that they
are marvellously independent of all temporary modes and circumstances.
They remain essentially the same, after changes that would affect the
identity of almost anything else.
He does not, therefore, plead guilty to a sacrilege, in having sometimes
shaped anew, as his fancy dictated, the forms that have been hallowed by
an antiquity of two or three thousand years. No epoch of time can claim
a copyright in these immortal fables. They seem never to have been
made; and certainly, so long as man exists, they can never perish; but,
by their indestructibility itself, they are legitimate subjects for
every age to clothe with its own garniture of manners and sentiment, and
to imbue with its own morality. In the present version they may have
lost much of their classical aspect (or, at all events, the author has
not been careful to preserve it), and have, perhaps, assumed a Gothic or
romantic guise.
In performing this pleasant task,--for it has been really a task fit for
hot weather, and one of the most agreeable, of a literary kind, which he
ever undertook,--the author has not always thought it necessary to write
downward, in order to meet the comprehension of children. He has
generally suffered the theme to soar, whenever such was its tendency,
and when he himself was buoyant enough to follow without an effort.
Children possess an unestimated sensibility to whatever is deep or high,
in imagination or feeling, so long as it is simple, likewise. It is
only the artificial and the complex that bewilder them.
Lenox, July 15, 1851.
THE GORGON'S HEAD
TANGLEWOOD PORCH
INTRODUCTORY TO "THE GORGON'S HEAD."
Beneath the porch of the country-seat called Tanglewood, one fine
autumnal morning, was assembled a merry party of little folks, with a
tall youth in the midst of them. They had planned a nutting expedition,
and were impatiently waiting for the mists to roll up the hill-<DW72>s,
and for the sun to pour the warmth of the Indian summer over the fields
and pastures, and into the nooks of the many- woods. There was a
prospect of as fine a day as ever gladdened the aspect of this beautiful
and comfortable world. As yet, however, the morning mist filled up the
whole length and breadth of the valley, above which, on a gently sloping
eminence, the mansion stood.
This body of white vapor extended to within less than a hundred yards of
the house. It completely hid everything beyond that distance, except a
few ruddy or yellow tree-tops, which here and there emerged, and were
glorified by the early sunshine, as was likewise the broad surface of
the mist. Four or five miles off to the southward rose the summit of
Monument Mountain, and seemed to be floating on a cloud. Some fifteen
miles farther away, in the same direction, appeared the loftier Dome of
Taconic, looking blue and indistinct, and hardly so substantial as the
vapory sea that almost rolled over it. The nearer hills, which bordered
the valley, were half submerged, and were specked with little
cloud-wreaths all the way to their tops. On the whole, there was so much
cloud, and so little solid earth, that it had the effect of a vision.
The children above-mentioned, being as full of life as they could hold,
kept overflowing from the porch of Tanglewood, and scampering along the
gravel-walk, or rushing across the dewy herbage of the lawn. I can
hardly tell how many of these small people there were; not less than
nine or ten, however, nor more than a dozen, of all sorts, sizes, and
ages, whether girls or boys. They were brothers, sisters, and cousins,
together with a few of their young acquaintances, who had been invited
by Mr. and Mrs. Pringle to spend some of this delightful weather with
their own children, at Tanglewood. I am afraid to tell you their names,
or even to give them any names which other children have ever been
called by; because, to my certain knowledge, authors sometimes get
themselves into great trouble by accidentally giving the names of real
persons to the characters in their books. For this reason, I mean to
call them Primrose, Periwinkle, Sweet Fern, Dandelion, Blue Eye, Clover,
Huckleberry, Cowslip, Squash-blossom, Milkweed, Plantain, and Buttercup;
although, to be sure, such titles might better suit a group of fairies
than a company of earthly children.
It is not to be supposed that these little folks were to be permitted by
their careful fathers and mothers, uncles, aunts, or grandparents, to
stray abroad into the woods and fields, without the guardianship of some
particularly grave and elderly person. O no, indeed! In the first
sentence of my book, you will recollect that I spoke of a tall youth,
standing in the midst of the children. His name--(and I shall let you
know his real name, because he considers it a great honor to have told
the stories that are here to be printed)--his name was Eustace Bright.
He was a student at Williams College, and had reached, I think, at this
period, the venerable age of eighteen--years; so that he felt quite like
a grandfather towards Periwinkle, Dandelion, Huckleberry, Squash-blossom,
Milkweed, and the rest, who were only half or a third as
venerable as he. A trouble in his eyesight (such as many students think
it necessary to have, nowadays, in order to prove their diligence at
their books) had kept him from college a week or two after the beginning
of the term. But, for my part, I have seldom met with a pair of eyes
that looked as if they could see farther or better than those of Eustace
Bright.
This learned student was slender, and rather pale, as all Yankee
students are; but yet of a healthy aspect, and as light and active as if
he had wings to his shoes. By the by, being much addicted to wading
through streamlets and across meadows, he had put on cowhide boots for
the expedition. He wore a linen blouse, a cloth cap, and a pair of
green spectacles, which he had assumed, probably, less for the
preservation of his eyes, than for the dignity that they imparted to his
countenance. In either case, however, he might as well have let then
alone; for Huckleberry, a mischievous little elf, crept behind Eustace
as he sat on the steps of the porch, snatched the spectacles from his
nose, and clapped them on her own; and as the student forgot to take
them back, they fell off into the grass, and lay there till the next
spring.
Now, Eustace Bright, you must know, had won great fame among the
children, as a narrator of wonderful stories; and though he sometimes
pretended to be annoyed, when they teased him for more, and more, and
always for more, yet I really doubt whether he liked anything quite so
well as to tell them. You might have seen his eyes twinkle, therefore,
when Clover, Sweet Fern, Cowslip, Buttercup, and most of their
playmates, besought him to relate one of his stories, while they were
waiting for the mist to clear up.
"Yes, Cousin Eustace," said Primrose, who was a bright girl of twelve,
with laughing eyes, and a nose that turned up a little, "the morning is
certainly the best time for the stories with which you so often tire out
our patience. We shall be in less danger of hurting your feelings, by
falling asleep at the most interesting points,--as little Cowslip and I
did last night!"
"Naughty Primrose," cried Cowslip, a child of six years old; "I did not
fall asleep, and I only shut my eyes, so as to see a picture of what
Cousin Eustace was telling about. His stories are good to hear at
night, because we can dream about them asleep; and good in the morning,
too, because then we can dream about them awake. So I hope he will tell
us one this very minute."
"Thank you, my little Cowslip," said Eustace; "certainly you shall have
the best story I can think of, if it were only for defending me so well
from that naughty Primrose. But, children, I have already told you so
many fairy tales, that I doubt whether there is a single one which you
have not heard at least twice over. I am afraid you will fall asleep in
reality, if I repeat any of them again."
"No, no, no!" cried Blue Eye, Periwinkle, Plantain, and half a dozen
others. "We like a story all the better for having heard it two or
three tunes before."
And it is a truth, as regards children, that a story seems often to
deepen its mark in their interest, not merely by two or three, but by
numberless repetitions. But Eustace Bright, in the exuberance of his
resources, scorned to avail himself of an advantage which an older
story-teller would have been glad to grasp at.
"It would be a great pity," said he, "if a man of my learning (to say
nothing of original fancy) could not find a new story every day, year in
and year out, for children such as you. I will tell you one of the
nursery tales that were made for the amusement of our great old
grandmother, the Earth, when she was a child in frock and pinafore.
There are a hundred such; and it is a wonder to me that they have not
long ago been put into picture-books for little girls and boys. But,
instead of that, old gray-bearded grandsires pore over them, in musty
volumes of Greek, and puzzle themselves with trying to find out when,
and how, and for what they were made."
"Well, well, well, well, Cousin Eustace!" cried all the children at
once; "talk no more about your stories, but begin."
"Sit down, then, every soul of you," said Eustace Bright, "and be all as
still as so many mice. At the slightest interruption, whether from
great, naughty Primrose, little Dandelion, or any other, I shall bite
the story short off between my teeth, and swallow the untold part. But,
in the first place, do any of you know what a Gorgon is?"
"I do," said Primrose.
"Then hold your tongue!" rejoined Eustace, who had rather she would have
known nothing about the matter. "Hold all your tongues, and I shall
tell you a sweet pretty story of a Gorgon's head."
And so he did, as you may begin to read on the next page. Working up
his sophomorical erudition with a good deal of tact, and incurring great
obligations to Professor Anthon, he, nevertheless, disregarded all
classical authorities, whenever the vagrant audacity of his imagination
impelled him to do so.
THE GORGON'S HEAD.
Perseus was the son of Danae, who was the daughter of a king. And when
Perseus was a very little boy, some wicked people put his mother and
himself into a chest, and set them afloat upon the sea. The wind blew
freshly, and drove the chest away from the shore, and the uneasy billows
tossed it up and down; while Danae clasped her child closely to her
bosom, and dreaded that some big wave would dash its foamy crest over
them both. The chest sailed on, however, and neither sank nor was
upset; until, when night was coming, it floated so near an island that
it got entangled in a fisherman's nets, and was drawn out high and dry
upon the sand. The island was called Seriphus, and it was reigned over
by King Polydectes, who happened to be the fisherman's brother.
This fisherman, I am glad to tell you, was an exceedingly humane and
upright man. He showed great kindness to Danae and her little boy; and
continued to befriend them, until Perseus had grown to be a handsome
youth, very strong and active, and skilful in the use of arms. Long
before this time, King Polydectes had seen the two strangers--the mother
and her child--who had come to his dominions in a floating chest. As he
was not good and kind, like his brother the fisherman, but extremely
wicked, he resolved to send Perseus on a dangerous enterprise, in which
he would probably be killed, and then to do some great mischief to Danae
herself. So this bad-hearted king spent a long while in considering
what was the most dangerous thing that a young man could possibly
undertake to perform. At last, having hit upon an enterprise that
promised to turn out as fatally as he desired, he sent for the youthful
Perseus.
The young man came to the palace, and found the king sitting upon his
throne.
"Perseus," said King Polydectes, smiling craftily upon him, "you are
grown up a fine young man. You and your good mother have received a
great deal of kindness from myself, as well as from my worthy brother
the fisherman, and I suppose you would not be sorry to repay some of
it."
"Please your Majesty," answered Perseus, "I would willingly risk my life
to do so."
"Well, then," continued the king, still with a curving smile on his
lips, "I have a little adventure to propose to you; and, as you are a
brave and enterprising youth, you will doubtless look upon it as a great
piece of good luck to have so rare an opportunity of distinguishing
yourself. You must know, my good Perseus, I think of getting married to
the beautiful Princess Hippodamia; and it is customary, on these
occasions, to make the bride a present of some far-fetched and elegant
curiosity. I have been a little perplexed, I must honestly confess,
where to obtain anything likely to please a princess of her exquisite
taste. But, this morning, I flatter myself, I have thought of precisely
the article."
"And can I assist your Majesty in obtaining it?" cried Perseus, eagerly.
"You can, if you are as brave a youth as I believe you to be," replied
King Polydectes, with the utmost graciousness of manner. "The bridal
gift which I have set my heart on presenting to the beautiful Hippodamia
is the head of the Gorgon Medusa, with the snaky locks; and I depend on
you, my dear Perseus, to bring it to me. So, as I am anxious to settle
affairs with the princess, the sooner you go in quest of the Gorgon, the
better I shall be pleased."
"I will set out to-morrow morning," answered Perseus.
"Pray do so, my gallant youth," rejoined the king. "And, Perseus, in
cutting off the Gorgon's head, be careful to make a clean stroke, so as
not to injure its appearance. You must bring it home in the very best
condition, in order to suit the exquisite taste of the beautiful
Princess Hippodamia."
Perseus left the palace, but was scarcely out of hearing before
Polydectes burst into a laugh; being greatly amused, wicked king that he
was, to find how readily the young man fell into the snare. The news
quickly spread abroad, that Perseus had undertaken to cut off the head
of Medusa with the snaky locks. Everybody was rejoiced; for most of the
inhabitants of the island were as wicked as the king himself, and would
have liked nothing better than to see some enormous mischief happen to
Danae and her son. The only good man in this unfortunate island of
Seriphus appears to have been the fisherman. As Perseus walked along,
therefore, the people pointed after him, and made mouths, and winked to
one another, and ridiculed him as loudly as they dared.
"Ho, ho!" cried they; "Medusa's snakes will sting him soundly!"
Now, there were three Gorgons alive, at that period; and they were the
most strange and terrible monsters that had ever been since the world
was made, or that have been seen in after days, or that are likely to be
seen in all time to come. I hardly know what sort of creature or
hobgoblin to call them. They were three sisters, and seem to have borne
some distant resemblance to women, but were really a very frightful and
mischievous species of dragon. It is, indeed, difficult to imagine what
hideous beings these three sisters were. Why, instead of locks of hair,
if you can believe me, they had each of them a hundred enormous snakes
growing on their heads, all alive, twisting, wriggling, curling, and
thrusting out their venomous' tongues, with forked stings at the end!
The teeth of the Gorgons were terribly long tusks; their hands were made
of brass; and their bodies were all over scales, which, if not iron,
were something as hard and impenetrable. They had wings, too, and
exceedingly splendid ones, I can assure you; for every feather in them
was pure, bright, glittering, burnished gold, and they looked very
dazzlingly, no doubt, when the Gorgons were flying about in the
sunshine.
But when people happened to catch a glimpse of their glittering
brightness, aloft in the air, they seldom stopped to gaze, but ran and
hid themselves as speedily as they could. You will think, perhaps, that
they were afraid of being stung by the serpents that served the Gorgons
instead of hair,--or of having their heads bitten off by their ugly
tusks,--or of being torn all to pieces by their brazen claws. Well, to
be sure, these were some of the dangers, but by no means the greatest,
nor the most difficult to avoid. For the worst thing about these
abominable Gorgons was, that, if once a poor mortal fixed his eyes full
upon one of their faces, he was certain, that very instant, to be
changed from warm flesh and blood into cold and lifeless stone!
Thus, as you will easily perceive, it was a very dangerous adventure
that the wicked King Polydectes had contrived for this innocent young
man. Perseus himself, when he had thought over the matter, could not
help seeing that he had very little chance of coming safely through it,
and that he was far more likely to become a stone image than to bring
back the head of Medusa with the snaky locks. For, not to speak of
other difficulties, there was one which it would have puzzled an older
man than Perseus to get over. Not only must he fight with and slay this
golden-winged, iron-scaled, long-tusked, brazen-clawed, snaky-haired
monster, but he must do it with his eyes shut, or, at least, without so
much as a glance at the enemy with whom he was contending. Else, while
his arm was lifted to strike, he would stiffen into stone, and stand
with that uplifted arm for centuries, until time, and the wind and
weather, should crumble him quite away. This would be a very sad thing
to befall a young mail who wanted to perform a great many brave deeds,
and to enjoy a great deal of happiness, in this bright and beautiful
world.
So disconsolate did these thoughts make him, that Perseus could not bear
to tell his another what he had undertaken to do. He therefore took his
shield, girded on his sword, and crossed over from the island to the
mainland, where he sat down in a solitary place, and hardly refrained
from shedding tears.
But, while he was in this sorrowful mood, he heard a voice close beside
him.
"Perseus," said the voice, "why are you sad?"
He lifted his head from his hands, in which he had hidden it, and,
behold! all alone as Perseus had supposed himself to be, there was a
stranger in the solitary place. It was a brisk, intelligent, and
remarkably shrewd-looking young man, with a cloak over his shoulders,
an odd sort of cap on his head, a strangely twisted staff in his hand,
and a short and very crooked sword hanging by his side. He was
exceedingly light and active in his figure, like a person much
accustomed to gymnastic exercises, and well able to leap or run. Above
all, the stranger had such a cheerful, knowing, and helpful aspect
(though it was certainly a little mischievous, into the bargain), that
Perseus could not help feeling his spirits grow livelier, as he gazed at
him. Besides, being really a courageous youth, he felt greatly ashamed
that anybody should have found him with tears in his eyes, like a timid
little school-boy, when, after all, there might be no occasion for
despair. So Perseus wiped his eyes, and answered the stranger pretty
briskly, putting on as brave a look as he could.
"I am not so very sad," said he; "only thoughtful about an adventure
that I have undertaken."
"Oho!" answered the stranger. "Well, tell me all about it, and possibly
I may be of service to you. I have helped a good many young men through
adventures that looked difficult enough beforehand. Perhaps you may
have heard of me. I have more names than one; but the name of
Quicksilver suits me as well as any other. Tell me what your trouble
is, and we will talk the matter over, and see what can be done."
The stranger's words and manner put Perseus into quite a different mood
from his former one. He resolved to tell Quicksilver all his
difficulties, since he could not easily be worse off than he already
was, and, very possibly, his new friend might give him some advice that
would turn out well in the end. So he let the stranger know, in few
words, precisely what the case was;--how that King Polydeetes wanted the
head of Medusa with the snaky locks as a bridal gift for the beautiful
Princess Hippodamia, and how that he had undertaken to get it for him,
but was afraid of being turned into stone.
"And that would be a great pity," said Quicksilver, with his mischievous
smile. "You would make a very handsome marble statue, it is true, and
it would be a considerable number of centuries before you crumbled away;
but, on the whole, one would rather be a young man for a few years, than
a stone image for a great many."
"O, far rather!" exclaimed Perseus, with the tears again standing in his
eyes. "And, besides, what would my dear mother do, if her beloved son
were turned into a stone?"
"Well, well; let us hope that the affair will not turn out so very
badly," replied Quicksilver, in an encouraging tone. "I am the very
person to help you, if anybody can. My sister and myself will do our
utmost to bring you safe through the adventure, ugly as it now looks."
"Your sister?" repeated Perseus.
"Yes, my sister," said the stranger. "She is very wise, I promise you;
and as for myself, I generally have all my wits about me, such as they
are. If you show yourself bold and cautious, and follow our advice, you
need not fear being a stone image yet awhile. But, first of all, you
must polish your shield, till you can see your face in it as distinctly
as in a mirror."
This seemed to Perseus rather an odd beginning of the adventure; for he
thought it of far more consequence that the shield should be strong
enough to defend him from the Gorgon's brazen claws, than that it should
be bright enough to show him the reflection of his face. However,
concluding that Quicksilver knew better than himself, he immediately set
to work, and scrubbed the shield with so much diligence and good-will,
that it very quickly shone like the moon at harvest-time. Quicksilver
looked at it with a smile, and nodded his approbation. Then, taking off
his own short and crooked sword, he girded it about Perseus, instead of
the one which he had before worn.
"No sword but mine will answer your purpose," observed he; "the blade
has a most excellent temper, and will cut through iron and brass as
easily as through the slenderest twig. And now we will set out. The
next thing is to find the Three Gray Women, who will tell us where to
find the Nymphs."
"The Three Gray Women!" cried Perseus, to whom this seemed only a new
difficulty in the path of his adventure; "pray, who may the Three Gray
Women be? I never heard of them before."
"They are three very strange old ladies," said Quicksilver, laughing.
"They have but one eye among them, and only one tooth. Moreover, you
must find them out by starlight, or in the dusk of the evening; for they
never show themselves by the light either of the sun or moon."
"But," said Perseus, "why should I waste my time with these Three Gray
Women? Would it not be better to set out at once in search of the
terrible Gorgons?"
"No, no," answered his friend. "There are other things to be done,
before you can find your way to the Gorgons. There is nothing for it
but to hunt up these old ladies; and when we meet with them, you may be
sure that the Gorgons are not a great way off. Come, let us be
stirring!"
Perseus, by this time, felt so much confidence in his companion's
sagacity, that he made no more objections, and professed himself ready
to begin the adventure immediately. They accordingly set out, and
walked at a pretty brisk pace; so brisk, indeed, that Perseus found it
rather difficult to keep up with his nimble friend Quicksilver. To say
the truth, he had a singular idea that Quicksilver was furnished with a
pair of winged shoes, which, of course, helped him along marvellously.
And then, too, when Perseus looked sideways at him, out of the corner of
his eye, he seemed to see wings on the side of his head; although, if he
turned a full gaze, there were no such things to be perceived, but only
an odd kind of cap. But, at all events, the twisted staff was evidently
a great convenience to Quicksilver, and enabled him to proceed so fast,
that Perseus, though a remarkably active young man, began to be out of
breath.
"Here!" cried Quicksilver, at last,--for he knew well enough, rogue that
he was, how hard Perseus found it to keep pace with him,--"take you the
staff, for you need it a great deal more than I. Are there no better
walkers than yourself, in the island of Seriphus?"
"I could walk pretty well," said Perseus, glancing slyly at his
companion's feet, "if I had only a pair of winged shoes."
"We must see about getting you a pair," answered Quicksilver.
But the staff helped Perseus along so bravely, that he no longer felt
the slightest weariness. In fact, the stick seemed to be alive in his
hand, and to lend some of its life to Perseus. He and Quicksilver now
walked onward at their ease, talking very sociably together; and
Quicksilver told so many pleasant stories about his former adventures,
and how well his wits had served him on various occasions, that Perseus
began to think him a very wonderful person. He evidently knew the
world; and nobody is so charming to a young man as a friend who has that
kind of knowledge. Perseus listened the more eagerly, in the hope of
brightening his own wits by what he heard.
At last, he happened to recollect that Quicksilver had spoken of a
sister, who was to lend her assistance in the adventure which they were
now bound upon.
"Where is she?" he inquired. "Shall we not meet her soon?"
"All at the proper time," said his companion. "But this sister of mine,
you must understand, is quite a different sort of character from myself.
She is very grave and prudent, seldom smiles, never laughs, and makes it
a rule not to utter a word unless she has something particularly
profound to say. Neither will she listen to any but the wisest
conversation."
"Dear me!" ejaculated Perseus; "I shall be afraid to say a syllable."
"She is a very accomplished person, I assure you," continued
Quicksilver, "and has all the arts and sciences at her fingers' ends.
In short, she is so immoderately wise, that many people call her wisdom
personified. But, to tell you the truth, she has hardly vivacity enough
for my taste; and I think you would scarcely find her so pleasant a
travelling companion as myself. She has her good points, nevertheless;
and you will find the benefit of them, in your encounter with the
Gorgons."
By this time it had grown quite dusk. They were now come to a very wild
and desert place, overgrown with shaggy bushes, and so silent and
solitary that nobody seemed ever to have dwelt or journeyed there. All
was waste and desolate, in the gray twilight, which grew every moment
more obscure. Perseus looked about him, rather disconsolately, and
asked Quicksilver whether they had a great deal farther to go.
"Hist! Hist!" whispered his companion. "Make no noise! This is just
the time and place to meet the Three Gray Women. Be careful that they
do not see you before you see them; for, though they have but a single
eye among the three, it is as sharp-sighted as half a dozen common
eyes."
"But what must I do," asked Perseus, "when we meet them?"
Quicksilver explained to Perseus how the Three Gray Women managed with
their one eye. They were in the habit, it seems, of changing it from
one to another, as if it had been a pair of spectacles, or--which would
have suited them better--quizzing-glass. When one of the three had kept
the eye a certain time, she took it out of the socket and passed it to
one of her sisters, whose turn it might happen to be, and who
immediately clapped it into her own head, and enjoyed a peep at the
visible world. Thus it will easily be understood that only one of the
Three Gray Women could see, while the other two were in utter darkness;
and, moreover, at the instant when the eye was passing from hand to
hand, neither of the poor old ladies was able to see a wink. I have
heard of a great many strange things, in my day, and have witnessed not
a few; but none, it seems to me, that can compare with the oddity of
these Three Gray Women, all peeping through a single eye.
So thought Perseus, likewise, and was so astonished that he almost
fancied his companion was joking with him, and that there were no such
old women in the world.
"You will soon find whether I tell the truth or no," observed
Quicksilver. "Hark! hush! Hist! hist! There they come, now!"
Perseus looked earnestly through the dusk of the evening, and there,
sure enough, at no great distance off, he descried the Three Gray Women.
The light being so faint, he could not well make out what sort of
figures they were; only he discovered that they had long gray hair; and,
as they came nearer, he saw that two of them had but the empty socket of
an eye, in the middle of their foreheads. But, in the middle of the
third sister's forehead, there was a very large, bright, and piercing
eye, which sparkled like a great diamond in a ring; and so penetrating
did it seem to be, that Perseus could not help thinking it must possess
the gift of seeing in the darkest midnight just as perfectly as at
noonday. The sight of three persons' eyes was melted and collected into
that single one.
Thus the three old dames got along about as comfortably, upon the whole,
as if they could all see at once. She who chanced to have the eye in
her forehead led the other two by the hands, peeping sharply about her,
all the while; insomuch that Perseus dreaded lest she should see right
through the thick clump of bushes behind which he and Quicksilver had
hidden themselves. My stars! it was positively terrible to be within
reach of so very sharp an eye!
But, before they reached the clump of bushes, one of the Three Gray
Women spoke.
"Sister! Sister Scarecrow!" cried she, "you have had the eye long
enough. It is my turn now!"
"Let me keep it a moment longer, Sister Nightmare," answered Scarecrow.
"I thought I had a glimpse of something behind that thick bush."
"Well, and what of that?" retorted Nightmare, peevishly. "Can't I see
into a thick bush as easily as yourself? The eye is mine, as well as
yours; and I know the use of it as well as you, or may be a little
better. I insist upon taking a peep immediately!"
But here the third sister, whose name was Shakejoint, began to complain,
and said that it was her turn to have the eye, and that Scarecrow and
Nightmare wanted to keep it all to themselves. To end the dispute, old
Dame Scarecrow took the eye out of her forehead, and held it forth in
her hand.
"Take it, one of you," cried she, "and quit this foolish quarrelling.
For my part, I shall be glad of a little thick darkness. Take it
quickly, however, or I must clap it into my own head again!"
Accordingly, both Nightmare and Shakejoint stretched out their hands,
groping eagerly to snatch the eye out of the hand of Scarecrow. But,
being both alike blind, they could not easily find where Scarecrow's
hand was; and Scarecrow, being now just as much in the dark as
Shakejoint and Nightmare, could not at once meet either of their hands,
in order to put the eye into it. Thus (as you will see, with half an
eye, my wise little auditors), these good old dames had fallen into a
strange perplexity. For, though the eye shone and glistened like a
star, as Scarecrow held it out, yet the Gray Women caught not the least
glimpse of its light, and were all three in utter darkness, from too
impatient a desire to see.
Quicksilver was so much tickled at beholding Shakejoint and Nightmare
both groping for the eye, and each finding fault with Scarecrow and one
another, that he could scarcely help laughing aloud.
"Now is your time!" he whispered to Perseus.
"Quick, quick! before they can clap the eye into either of their heads.
Rush out upon the old ladies, and snatch it from Scarecrow's hand!"
In an instant, while the Three Gray Women were still scolding each
other, Perseus leaped front behind the clump of bushes, and made himself
master of the prize. The marvellous eye, as he held it in his hand,
shone very brightly, and seemed to look up into his face with a knowing
air, and an expression as if it would have winked, had it been provided
with a pair of eyelids for that purpose. But the Gray Women knew
nothing of what had happened; and, each supposing that one of her
sisters was in possession of the eye, they began their quarrel anew. At
last, as Perseus did not wish to put these respectable dames to greater
inconvenience than was really necessary, he thought it right to explain
the matter. "My good ladies," said he, "pray do not be angry with one
another. If anybody is in fault, it is myself; for I have the honor to
hold your very brilliant and excellent eye in my own hand!"
"You! you have our eye! And who are you?" screamed the Three Gray
Women, all in a breath; for they were terribly frightened, of course, at
hearing a strange voice, and discovering that their eyesight had got
into the hands of they could not guess whom. "O, what shall we do,
sisters? what shall we do? We are all in the dark! Give us our eye!
Give us our one, precious, solitary eye! You have two of your own Give
us our eye!"
"Tell them," whispered Quicksilver to Perseus, "that they shall have
back the eye as soon as they direct you where to find the Nymphs who
have the flying slippers, the magic wallet, and the helmet of darkness."
"My dear, good, admirable old ladies," said Perseus, addressing the Gray
Women, "there is no occasion for putting yourselves into such a fright.
I am by no means a bad young man. You shall have back your eye, safe
and sound, and as bright as ever, the moment you tell me where to find
the Nymphs."
"The Nymphs! Goodness me! sisters, what Nymphs does he mean?" screamed
Scarecrow. "There are a great many Nymphs, people say; some that go a
hunting in the woods, and some that live inside of trees, and some that
have a comfortable home in fountains of water. We know nothing at all
about them. We are three unfortunate old souls, that go wandering about
in the dusk, and never had but one eye amongst us, and that one you have
stolen away. O, give it back, good stranger!--whoever you are, give it
back!"
All this while the Three Gray Women were groping with their outstretched
hands, and trying their utmost to get hold of Perseus. But he took good
care to keep out of their reach.
"My respectable dames," said he,--for his mother had taught him always
to use the greatest civility,--"I hold your eye fast in my hand, and
shall keep it safely for you, until you please to tell me where to find
these Nymphs. The Nymphs, I mean, who keep the enchanted wallet, the
flying slippers, and the what is it?--the helmet of invisibility."
"Mercy on us, sisters! what is the young man talking about?" exclaimed
Scarecrow, Nightmare, and Shakejoint, one to another, with great
appearance of astonishment. "A pair of flying slippers, quoth he! His
heels would quickly fly higher than his head, if he were silly enough to
put them on. And a helmet of invisibility! How could a helmet make him
invisible, unless it were big enough for him to hide under it? And an
enchanted wallet! What sort of a contrivance may that be, I wonder?
No, no, good stranger! we can tell you nothing of these marvellous
things. You have two eyes of your own, and we have but a single one
amongst us three. You can find out such wonders better than three blind
old creatures, like us."
Perseus, hearing them talk in this way, began really to think that the
Gray Women knew nothing of the matter; and, as it grieved him to have
put them to so much trouble, he was just on the point of restoring their
eye and asking pardon for his rudeness in snatching it away. But
Quicksilver caught his hand.
"Don't let them make a fool of you!" said he. "These Three Gray Women
are the only persons in the world that can tell you where to find the
Nymphs; and, unless you get that information, you will never succeed in
cutting off the head of Medusa with the snaky locks. Keep fast hold of
the eye, and all will go well."
As it turned out, Quicksilver was in the right. There are but few
things that people prize so much as they do their eyesight; and the Gray
Women valued their single eye as highly as if it had been half a dozen,
which was the number they ought to have had. Finding that there was no
other way of recovering it, they at last told Perseus what he wanted to
know. No sooner had they done so, than he immediately, and with the
utmost respect, clapped the eye into the vacant socket in one of their
foreheads, thanked them for their kindness, and bade them farewell.
Before the young man was out of hearing, however, they had got into a
new dispute, because he happened to have given the eye to Scarecrow, who
had already taken her turn of it when their trouble with Perseus
commenced.
It is greatly to be feared that the Three Gray Women were very much in
the habit of disturbing their mutual harmony by bickerings of this sort;
which was the more pity, as they could not conveniently do without one
another, and were evidently intended to be inseparable companions. As a
general rule, I would advise all people, whether sisters or brothers,
old or young, who chance to have but one eye amongst them, to cultivate
forbearance, and not all insist upon peeping through it at once.
Quicksilver and Perseus, in the mean time, were making the best of their
way in quest of the Nymphs. The old dames had given them such
particular directions, that they were not long in finding them out.
They proved to be very different persons from Nightmare Shakejoint, and
Scarecrow; for, instead of being old, they were young and beautiful; and
instead of one eye amongst the sisterhood, each Nymph had two
exceedingly bright eyes of her own, with which she looked very kindly at
Perseus. They seemed to be acquainted with Quicksilver; and when he
told them the adventure which Perseus had undertaken, they made no
difficulty about giving him the valuable articles that were in their
custody. In the first place, they brought out what appeared to be a
small purse, made of deer-skin, and curiously embroidered, and bade him
be sure and keep it safe. This was the magic wallet. The Nymphs next
produced a pair of shoes, or slippers, or sandals, with a nice little
pair of wings at the heel of each.
"Put them on, Perseus," said Quicksilver. "You will find yourself as
light-heeled as you can desire, for the remainder of our journey."
So Perseus proceeded to put one of the slippers on, while he laid the
other on the ground by his side. Unexpectedly, however, this other
slipper spread its wings, fluttered up off the ground, and would
probably have flown away, if Quicksilver had not made a leap, and
luckily caught it in the air.
"Be more careful," said he, as he gave it back to Perseus. "It would
frighten the birds, up aloft, if they should see a flying slipper
amongst them."
When Perseus had got on both of these wonderful slippers, he was
altogether too buoyant to tread on earth. Making a step or two, lo and
behold! upward he popt into the air, high above the heads of
Quicksilver and the Nymphs, and found it very difficult to clamber down
again. Winged slippers, and all such high-flying contrivances, are
seldom quite easy to manage, until one grows a little accustomed to
them. Quicksilver laughed at his companion's involuntary activity, and
told him that he must not be in so desperate a hurry, but must wait for
the invisible helmet.
The good-natured Nymphs had the helmet, with its dark tuft of waving
plumes, all in readiness to put upon his head. And now there happened
about as wonderful an incident as anything that I have yet told you.
The instant before the helmet was put on, there stood Perseus, a
beautiful young man, with golden ringlets and rosy cheeks, the crooked
sword by his side, and the brightly polished shield upon his arm,--a
figure that seemed all made up of courage, sprightliness, and glorious
light. But when the helmet had descended over his white brow, there was
no longer any Perseus to be seen! Nothing but empty air! Even the
helmet, that covered him with its invisibility, had vanished!
"Where are you, Perseus?" asked Quicksilver.
"Why, here, to be sure!" answered Perseus, very quietly, although his
voice seemed to come out of the transparent atmosphere. "Just where I
was a moment ago. |
10,240 |
Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Tonya Allen and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team.
[Illustration: Mrs. Mouser Cat walked up to Aunt Amy with a mouse in her
mouth]
MOUSER CATS' STORY
By AMY PRENTICE
With Thirty-Five Illustrations and a Frontispiece in Colors
BY J. WATSON DAVIS
[Illustration]
MOUSER CAT'S STORY.
On that day last week when it stormed so very hard, your Aunt Amy was
feeling very lonely, because all of her men and women friends in the
house were busy, and it was not reasonable to suppose any of her bird or
animal acquaintances would be out. As she sat by the window, watching
the little streams of water as they ran down the glass, she said to
herself that this was one of the days when she could not hope to be
entertained by story-telling.
[Illustration: Mrs. Mouser Cat.]
"You don't seem to care whether Mrs. Man makes the pickles properly, or
not," a voice from the doorway said, and, looking around in surprise,
your Aunt Amy saw Mrs. Mouser Cat, an animal with whom she was very well
acquainted, but who had never before ventured to speak with her.
Considerably astonished, because it had not come into her mind that Mrs.
Mouser might prove to be as entertaining as any of the other animals she
had talked with, your Aunt Amy asked:
"What about the pickles, Mrs. Mouser?"
"Why, Mrs. Man is putting them up; didn't you know it?" the cat replied,
and your Aunt Amy said with a sigh:
"Oh, yes indeed, Mrs. Mouser, I know that, and you also know it is not
possible for me to do any work around the house, owing to my illness.
That is why I am idle on this day when the storm makes it seem very,
very lonely.
"You can sit out of doors all the afternoon with a foolish old duck, or
talk by the hour with Mr. Turtle, who hasn't got sense enough to go in
when it rains, and yet you never invited me for an afternoon's
story-telling," and Mrs. Mouser arched her back as if she was angry.
"Do you know any stories?" your Aunt Amy asked, surprised again, and
Mrs. Mouser replied quickly:
"It would be funny if I didn't. I've lived on this farm more than six
years, and have known pretty much all that has happened around here in
that time."
WHY CATS CATCH MICE.
"I wish you could think of a story to tell me now," your Aunt Amy said.
"I am just in the mood for hearing one."
"It is the hardest thing in the world to stand up and begin telling a
story without anything to start one going," Mrs. Mouser said
thoughtfully, as she brushed her whiskers with her paw. "After you once
get into it, of course, they come easy enough. How would it do if I
should explain why it is that cats catch mice?"
"Was there ever a time when they didn't catch mice?" your Aunt Amy
asked, surprised for the third time.
[Illustration: Mrs. Pussy Cat Visits her Cousin]
"Oh, yes indeed," Mrs. Mouser said in a matter-of-fact tone. "All cats
used to be good friends with the mice, once upon a time, and it happened
that because an old Mrs. Pussy, who lived in the city, didn't have
anything in the house to eat, the cats took up catching mice. You see it
was in this way: A cat that had always lived in the country, made up her
mind one day to go and see her cousin in the city, so she put on her
bonnet and shawl, wrapped some fried fish in a paper, and started.
"When she got there her cousin saw the fish, and it made her ashamed
because she hadn't anything in the house to offer the visitor, so she
asked, turning up her nose considerably:
"Do you cats in the country eat fish?' and Mrs. Pussy replied:
"Why, yes, of course we do; don't you?"
"Certainly not; it is thought to be a sign of ill-breeding to eat such
vulgar food,' and then remembering that she could not offer her cousin
the least little thing, she said, never stopping to think very much
about it. We eat mice here. They are delicious; you would be surprised
to know what a delicate flavor they have."
That surprised the country cousin, and nothing would do but that she
must go right out hunting for mice. Of course some one had to go with
her, and then it was that the city cat found she hadn't made any such a
very great mistake after all, for mice or rats, take them any way you
please, cooked or raw, are very nice indeed.
THE KITTY WHICH THE SNOW BROUGHT.
"Do you think that is a true story?" your Aunt Amy asked, and Mrs.
Mouser replied:
"I can't really say; but I think it is as true as that the snow brought
a white cat to Dolly Man." Your Aunt Amy knew Miss Dolly's kitten very
well; but she had never heard any such thing as Mrs. Mouser intimated,
therefore, as a matter of course, she was curious regarding the affair,
and asked that it be explained to her.
"I was in the house when this happened, so there is no mistake about the
story part of it," Mrs. Mouser began. "It was snowing one day, and
Dolly, standing by the window, said to her mother that she wished the
snow-flakes would turn into a pretty, little, white kitten, so she could
have something to play with. She hadn't hardly more than spoken, when
they heard a cat calling from out of doors, and Dolly ran into the
hallway, believing the snow-flakes had really turned into a pet for her.
Now it is kind of odd, but true just the same, that when she opened the
door there stood a white kitten, the same one we call Kitty Snow.
"She was the forlornest little stray kitten you could ever imagine, and
as white then as she is now, from her nose to the tip of her tail, but
so nearly frozen when Dolly took her in, that they had to wrap her in a
blanket, and keep her near the fire two or three hours before she thawed
out."
"I believe that you and Kitty Snow are not very good friends," your Aunt
Amy said.
[Illustration: Dolly and Kitty Snow.]
"Well, I can't say that we are," Mrs. Mouser replied thoughtfully. "That
white cat has been petted so much that she really isn't of any very
great service about the house. I don't believe she has caught a mouse in
six months, and yet I heard her tell Mr. Towser Dog no longer ago than
yesterday, that she was of more value around this farm than I. Just
think of it! And it has been proven that I have a good deal more sense
than Mr. Fox, cunning as he thinks he is."
WHEN MR. FOX WAS FOOLISH.
As a matter of course, your Aunt Amy asked her what she meant, and Mrs.
Mouser sat down at one side of the fireplace, as if making ready for an
afternoon of story-telling.
[Illustration: Mrs. Mouser Flatters Mr. Fox.]
"It was like this;" she said. "I was down in the meadow looking for
field mice one day, and met Mr. Fox. You know some animals think that he
and I are relations; but whether we are or not, we have always been good
friends. So he sat down for a chat, and we talked of first this thing
and then that, until finally I said, just to make myself agreeable:
"'Do you know, Mr. Fox, I think you are very smart.'
"Well now, would you believe it, that puffed him way up with pride, and
he said, grinning in a way that was enough to make any cat laugh:
"'Indeed I am, Mrs. Mouser. There isn't an animal around here who can
hold a candle to me for smartness.'
"'What about the dogs?' I asked, thinking to joke him a little, and he
turned up his nose as he said:
"'I don't give a snap of my claws for all the dogs there are around this
place! Even if four or five of them should come right up here this
minute, it wouldn't bother me any. You may not think it; but Mr. Towser
is actually afraid of me.
"Well now, do you know that made me laugh again, because in the first
place I knew it wasn't true; but what was the use of saying anything of
the kind to him? He was swelled way out with pride, so I changed the
conversation, and began talking about mice, when suddenly there was a
terrible commotion down the lane, and up came Mr. Towser, Miss Spaniel
and four or five other dogs, barking and yelping.
"Oh me, oh my, how frightened I was! Up a tree I scurried as fast as my
legs would carry me, and not until I was safe on the highest limb did I
look around to see Mr. Fox, who didn't care the snap of his claws for
dogs; but, bless you, he was going toward the meadow with his tail
hanging straight out behind him, while the dogs were gaining on him at
every jump. Mr. Towser told me afterward that they made Mr. Fox just
about as sick as Mrs. Toad made the bugs."
"What was it Mrs. Toad did?" your Aunt Amy asked, and Mrs. Mouser
replied with a grin:
"Perhaps you never heard that Mr. Crow is a great hand at making
poetry?"
[Illustration: Mr. Crow.]
"I have indeed," your Aunt Amy replied, and it was only with difficulty
she prevented herself from laughing aloud. "I have heard of his poetry
from every bird and animal around this farm."
[Illustration: Mr. Fox forgets how bold he was as the dogs chase him
through the field.]
A WET-WEATHER PARTY.
"Then perhaps you don't care to hear any more?" Mrs. Mouser said
inquiringly.
"Indeed I do," your Aunt Amy replied, "if it is anything new, and I
surely have never heard of a wet-weather party."
[Illustration: Mr. and Miss Cricket.]
Mrs. Mouser stroked her whiskers a moment, and then began to repeat the
following:
A little Black Ant was journeying home
From a marketing visit to town,
When down came the ram, pitter-patter, so fast,
It threatened to spoil her best gown.
She wandered about till she quite lost her way,
Till at last a big Toadstool she found,
"Ah, here I can rest!" said the little Black Ant,
And she wearily sank to the ground.
And as she sat resting, a light she espied,
And a Glow-worm came twinkling by.
"Dear me!" exclaimed he, with a gasp and a sob,
"I don't think I'll ever be dry!"
"Come in, sir, come in," said the little Black Ant,
"Here is plenty of room, sir, for two.
Pray bring in your light, sir, and sit down by me,
Or else you'll be surely wet through."
[Illustration: Mr. Stag-Beetle and the Newspaper Reporter.]
The Glow-worm agreed, and soon brought in his light,
When a cricket appeared on the scene
With her fiddle and bow (she's a minstrel, you know)
--To a concert in town she had been.
"Come in, ma'am, come in!" said the little Black Ant,
"Here is shelter and light for us all!
And if you could play us a nice little tune,
We might fancy we were at a ball."
[Illustration: Mr. Beetle Arrives.]
"Hear, hear!" said the voice of the Stag-Beetle bold,
Who just then was passing that way;
"And if there is dancing, I hope, dear Miss Ant,
That you will allow _me_ to stay!"
"Come in, sir, come in!" said the little Black Ant,
"The more, sir, the merrier we!
And here, I declare, is my friend Mrs. Snail,
As busy as ever, I see!"
"Come in, Mrs. Snail," said the little Black Ant,
"Come join our small party to-night!
Here's the Beetle and Cricket all quite snug and dry,
And the Glow-worm to give us some light!"
So the Snail came and joined them, still knitting away,
And the Cricket her fiddle got out;
And then--well, you just should have seen how they
danced,
How they jumped and all capered about!
[Illustration: Mrs. Toad Breaks up the Party.]
The Little Black Ant did a skirt-dance quite well;
The Beetle a gay Highland fling;
And as for the Glow-worm, he just jigged about,
And _danced_ really nothing at all.
But all of a sudden a croaking was heard,
And who should appear but a Toad,
Who hoarsely demanded their business, and why
They were all gathered in her abode?
Then what a commotion! The little Black Ant
Went from one fainting fit to another;
The Snail simply shut herself up in her house,
And thought she'd escape all the bother!
The Beetle and Glow-worm soon took themselves off,
And the Cricket and Ant with them too,
And once more these poor creatures were out in the rain,
And didn't know what they should do.
But they presently came to the trunk of a tree,
And there they all stayed for the night;
But they never forgot that old, cross Mrs. Toad,
Who gave them so dreadful a fright!"
"Mrs. Toad certainly succeeded in raising quite a disturbance," your
Aunt Amy said, feeling it necessary to make some comment, and Mrs.
Mouser replied thoughtfully:
MR. THOMAS CAT'S NARROW ESCAPE.
"Yes, almost as much as Mr. Man did when he tried to drown Mr. Thomas
Cat the other day. It seems that Mr. Thomas had been out in the stable
stealing the food which was left for Mr. Towser, and one of the maids,
seeing it, told Mr. Man, so then and there it was decided that Mr.
Thomas must be drowned. Mr. Man called him up, as if he was the best
friend he ever had, and when Mr. Thomas got near enough, he caught him
by the tail, starting off at once for the stream.
[Illustration: Dragging Mr. Thomas to his Fate.]
"'What are you going to do with me?' Mr. Thomas cried, and Mr. Man said:
"'You wait and see. I'll teach you to steal Mr. Towser's food! You are
no good, that's what's the trouble with you--you are no good!'
"So he took a rope out of his pocket and tied it around Mr. Thomas'
neck, after they got near the water. Then bent down over the bank to get
a big rock, when his foot slipped, and in he went splashing and howling
until you might have heard him on the next farm, for he couldn't swim a
stroke, and the water was deep where he went in.
"Of course Mr. Thomas wasn't able to do anything to help him, so off he
started for the house the best he knew how, with the rope dragging on
behind, and when he got there, Mrs. Man couldn't help seeing him.
Knowing what her husband had counted on doing she mistrusted that
something was wrong, so down she ran to the stream, getting there just
in time to pull Mr. Man out of the water before he drew his last breath.
"'How did you know where I was?' Mr. Man asked after the water had run
out of his mouth.
"'Why the cat just the same as told me, when he came back with a rope
around his neck.'
"'Well, he was some good after all,' Mr. Man said.' I had begun to think
all cats were useless, but it seems Mr. Crow was right in that poetry of
his, after all.'
"Then Mr. Man went up to the house, and since then Mr. Thomas has been
allowed to stay round the farm, just as he pleases."
MR. CROW'S FANCY.
"What did he mean by saying Mr. Crow was right?"
"Oh, that was on account of a piece of poetry he wrote about me. There
isn't much of it, and perhaps you had just as soon I would repeat it."
Then, without waiting for permission, Mrs. Mouser recited the following:
Some people love the gay giraffe
Because his antics make them laugh
(I've never found him witty),
Others prefer the cockatoo--
He does things I should hate to do;
He's vulgar--more's the pity!
An ostrich draws admiring throngs
Whenever he sings his comic songs,
And, really, it's no wonder!
The dormouse has been highly rated
(and justly) for his celebrated
Mimicking of thunder.
I know some friends who'd journey miles
To see a bat's face wreathed in smiles,
They say it's grandly funny!
To see a buzzard drink port wine
Another eager friend of mine
Would pay no end of money.
But that which most appeals to me--
I know my taste may curious be--
Is--not a mouse in mittens.
It is to see a homely cat,
Dressed up in an old battered hat,
A-walking with her kittens!
[Illustration: Mrs. Tabby and Her Kittens.]
"One would think from the verses, that you and Mr. Crow were very good
friends," your Aunt Amy suggested, and Mrs. Mouser said with a purr of
content:
"We have always got along very well together, and I hope we always
shall, for really, say what you please about that old bird, it wouldn't
be pleasant to have him making sport of you in his verses. We are
neither of us as much in love with ourselves as were the peacock and the
crane, therefore I don't fancy we shall ever have any very serious
trouble."
A QUESTION OF BEAUTY.
"What about the peacock and the crane?" your Aunt Amy asked, not
disposed to let slip any opportunity of hearing a story.
"Oh, that's something very, very old--why, my grandmother used to tell
about it. You know the crane thinks he has got a pretty tail, and I'm
not saying anything against it, for it is handsome; but this crane my
grandmother used to tell about, had the idea that he was the finest
looking bird who ever came out of an egg. He went around making a good
deal of such talk as that, and one day he met with a peacock for the
first time. Strangely enough, he had never heard about such a bird, so
he strutted back and forth as usual, and after they had talked a while
of the weather, and all that sort of thing, Mr. Crane said:
[Illustration: As Mr. Peacock spread his tail, Mr. Crane flew off in
disgust]
"'People tell me I am one of the handsomest birds that ever lived.
There's nothing in this world that quite comes up to my tail feathers,
and that much I can say without risk of being thought vain.'
"'You have some very pretty feathers,' Mr. Peacock said, keeping his own
tail folded up so it couldn't be seen very well. 'But do you really
think they are more beautiful than can be found on any other bird?'
"'I don't _think_ so, I know it,' Mr. Crane said, spreading the
long plumes of his tail out so they would show to the best advantage,
and just then Mr. Peacock unfolded his tail to its full size.
"If you ever saw an astonished bird, it was Mr. Crane. He looked at the
beautiful feathers spread out like a great, big fan, and then started to
fly away.
"'Where are you going?' Mr. Peacock asked.
"And Mr. Crane answered, while he was in the air:
"'Off somewhere to hide until I have got sense enough to hold my tongue
when I don't know what I'm talking about.'
"Since that time I have never heard any of the cranes doing very much
bragging, and it is a pity that there are yet others around this place
who ought to get just such a lesson, for many of the animals here need
it sadly."
"You among the rest?" your Aunt Amy asked laughingly, and Mrs. Mouser
Cat replied:
"Thank goodness, I am not proud, and perhaps it is because I haven't
very much to take pride in. But I have lived long enough in this world
to know that one of us is of just about as much importance as another,
and the animal or the bird who thinks this world couldn't move very well
without him, is making a big mistake. There is nobody whose place cannot
be filled when it becomes necessary; there would even be somebody to run
this farm as well as Mr. Man does, if he should die to-morrow."
MENAGERIE POETRY.
"What I have in mind is told, in a foolish kind of a way, I suppose, by
Mr. Crow, who wrote the verses when Mr. Man's little girl Dolly wanted a
pet, and no matter how much she thought of one, if it died, or got lost,
the next that came along suited her almost as well.
"Of course I don't want you to suppose I think this is anything but
nonsense; but at the same time it carries out the idea of what I have
been trying to say," and then Mrs. Mouser repeated the following:
I once possessed an Elephant
Who fed on potted grouse;
One day I lost him, but I think
He's somewhere in the house.
[Illustration: The Delicate Pet.]
I had a Hippopotamus
Who really was quite slim;
He caught a chill, and so I thought
I'd best get rid of him.
I also had a gay Giraffe,
Whose antics made me wince;
He went a walk to Brooklyn town,
I've never seen him since.
[Illustration: The Pet Who Went to Brooklyn.]
The Puffing Fish that I possessed
Would fill my heart with pride;
But ah! one day I made a joke--
He laughed so that he died.
You should have seen my Polar Bear,
He was a lively beast;
But what became of him at last
I've no idea, the least.
[Illustration: The Very Sociable Pet.]
My Grizzly Bear was certainly
By all my friends admired.
He tried to climb the Monument,
And when he failed, expired.
Perhaps the dearest of them all
Was James, my Cockatoo--
He took to stopping out at nights;
I gave him to the Zoo
[Illustration: The Lively Pet]
So now I haven't anything;
It's lonely, I must own.
I'll get a little calf, I think--
I cannot live alone!
"I don't wonder you call that 'Menagerie Poetry,'" your Aunt Amy said
when Mrs. Mouser ceased speaking; "but I think I understood, even
without the aid of the verses, the moral you intended to draw."
"I should hope you did; but I remembered those lines, and it seemed to
me they came in just right. There is a story he tells about the Elephant
and the Bee, which teaches the same kind of a lesson."
WHEN MR. ELEPHANT AND MR. BEE HAD A QUARREL.
"I certainly would like to hear it," your Aunt Amy said when Mrs. Mouser
Cat ceased speaking, as if waiting for some such permission.
"Well, in the first place you must understand that there was once an
Elephant and a Bee that were the very best of friends," Mrs. Mouser Cat
said as she curled her tail around her fore paws to prevent them from
being chilled by the draft. "One day the Elephant had walked a long
distance, and thought he would sit down to rest for a little while. Now
it seems the Bee had been flying around there, and he had got tired too,
so he laid down on the grass and went to sleep.
"Now what do you think? When Mr. Elephant sat down he happened to hit
Mr. Bee's hind foot, and then there was a time! Mr. Bee talked
disgracefully, so it is said, to Mr. Elephant, and you would have
thought they never had been friends; but Mr. Elephant didn't answer him
back, because he was a peaceable kind of an animal, and knew that the
least said is the soonest mended.
"When Mr. Bee got through scolding, they went on their journey again. I
don't know where they were traveling, but that doesn't make any
difference in the story. Off they started, and after a while it seemed
as if Mr. Bee got to feeling better, and Mr. Elephant said:
"'I'm glad to see that you've got over being cross, for it was all an
accident, my hitting your foot.'
"'Oh yes,' Mr. Bee answered, as if he intended to be friendly again.
'We'll try to forget all about it. Have you seen anything of my collars
and cuffs since we started?'
"'Why, no,' replied Mr. Elephant. 'Have you lost them?'
"'I haven't seen them since we left home, and I believe they must be in
your trunk.'
"'I think not,' Mr. Elephant said; 'but you can go in and look for them,
if you choose.'
"Now Mr. Bee hadn't got over his cross fit a little bit, and he was only
waiting for a chance to pay Mr. Elephant back. Well, he crawled into the
trunk just as far as he could get, and then he gave poor Mr. Elephant
the very hardest sting you ever dreamed about.
[Illustration: When Mr. Elephant Sneezed.]
"'Oh me, oh my!' Mr. Elephant howled. 'What a wicked little thing you
are! I'll fix you for that!' and then he hunched himself together, and
gave the biggest kind of a big sneeze. Now if you never saw anything of
the kind, you can't have an idea what a commotion it made when Mr.
Elephant did that, and, bless your heart, that was the last of Mr. Bee.
I don't know what became of him, and neither does anybody else. He must
have been dashed to pieces in the terrible wind that was raised, and it
served him good and right, too, for he deserved it just as much as ever
Mr. Bear did when he got so worn out by Mr. Man's boy Tommy."
WHEN TOMMY GOT THE BEST OF MR. BEAR.
"Is that another story?" your Aunt Amy asked, and Mrs. Mouser replied
with a laugh:
"Yes, and it is a good one, too. Last year there was an old Mr. Bear
living near this farm, who was the most quarrelsome animal you ever saw,
and besides that, he was wicked. Do you know, he made up his mind that
he would bite a big piece out of Mr. Man's boy's leg, just because Tommy
drove him away when he was stealing honey. So one night he crept up to
the well, and got into the bucket, letting himself way down to the
bottom where he could float around until Tommy came out to get a pail of
water.
"'I'll have him sure,' Mr. Bear said to himself, 'for when he pulls up
the bucket in the morning, I'll jump out and grab him, so he can't get
away.'
"Well, Tommy went to the well at just about the same time as usual, and
when he started to raise the bucket with the windlass, he found it was
terribly heavy. He thought some one must have been putting rocks in it
to play a joke on him, so he kept on turning the crank around until the
bucket was nearly to the top, and then he saw what was the matter:
[Illustration: Mr. Bear Makes a Mistake.]
"'My goodness!' he cried. 'There's Mr. Bear, and it's water I'm after,
not bear!'
"Then Tommy Man let go of the windlass, and of course down went Mr. Bear
to the bottom of the well with a bump that nearly shook him to pieces.
"Now almost anybody might have thought that Tommy would run away after
that; but no, he made up his mind to serve Mr. Bear out good and hard,
so he went to work winding up the windlass again. Then, when he had
hauled Mr. Bear nearly to the top, he let him go back with a worse bump
than before, and so he kept on doing this same thing thirteen or fifteen
times, until Mr. Bear was so sore and bruised that he couldn't do much
of anything more than hold himself on to the edge of the bucket.
"By that time Tommy had got all the sport he wanted, and he let Mr. Bear
crawl out of the bucket. I have heard it said that it was more than two
weeks before the old fellow could get out of bed, and the lesson did him
as much good as the one Mr. Donkey gave the Wild Hog, for he wasn't
quarrelsome again, and behaved himself decently well forever after."
MR. DONKEY'S LESSON IN GOOD MANNERS.
"I think the story about the donkey must be one which I have never
heard," your Aunt Amy said. "Although the animals on the farm have told
me quite a lot about Mr. Donkey, I have never thought of him as a
teacher.
"It isn't what you might rightly call a story; but only something that
happened when Mr. Donkey showed his good sense. Now I don't understand
why Mr. Man tells about any one being as stupid as a donkey. Why, our
Neddy is as wise as anybody on this farm, and you will think so when I
have told this story about him.
"It was one night after supper, and he thought he would take a stroll up
the road, because he hadn't been working very hard that day, and the
exercise might do him good. He was going along, minding his own
business, when Mr. Wild Hog came out from the bushes, and into the road.
"Mr. Donkey stepped over one side so as to give him plenty of room,
saying 'good evening' politely, and was walking on when Mr. Wild Hog
bristled up to him, showing both his big tusks, and said:
"'Why don't you turn out when you meet anybody of consequence?'
"'Perhaps I do when I meet them,' Mr. Donkey replied, and that made Mr.
Hog terribly angry. "'Do you know I have a mind to give you a lesson in
good manners?' growled Mr. Hog, and Mr. Donkey said with a grin:
"'Why not go off somewhere alone, and give yourself a lesson or two?'
"Of course that made Mr. Hog more angry than ever, and he said:
"'Do you know what I do when stupid animals like you try to be too
smart?'
"'No; I don't care either,' Mr. Donkey replied; 'but I will show you
what I do when animals make bigger hogs of themselves than is natural.'
"Just as he said this he turned around, swung up both heels, struck Mr.
Hog under the chin, and knocked him over and over as many as six times.
Then Mr. Donkey trotted off slowly, with a smile on his face that was
for all the world like Mr. Crocodile's after he had been to the
dentist's."
[Illustration: Mr. Wild Hog tries to give Mr. Donkey a lesson in good
manners.]
WHEN MR. CROCODILE HAD HIS TEETH EXTRACTED.
"Why did he go to the dentist?" your Aunt Amy asked, thinking to hear
another story.
[Illustration: Mr. Crocodile in Pain.]
"I had better repeat the poetry Mr. Crow wrote about it, for that tells
the whole story, and without further delay Mrs. Mouser Cat recited the
following:
Come, listen, and I'll sing awhile
About a winsome crocodile,
Who had a most engaging smile
Whene'er he smole.
His basket with fresh fish to fill
Each day he'd tramp o'er vale and hill,
For he possessed quite wondrous skill
With rod and pole.
But as he fished, one summer's day,
A toothache chased his smiles away;
No longer could he fish and play
His favorite role.
[Illustration: Not a Tooth in His Head.]
He stamped and growled, the pain was vile,
No more he grinned, Sir Crocodile,
(And he'd a most engaging smile
Whene'er he smole.)
So straight he to the dentist went,
On stopping or extraction bent,
His soul was with such anguish rent;
He reached his goal.
"Come sit down in the chair awhile;
Open your mouth, Sir Crocodile!"
(He had a most engaging smile
Whene'er he smole.)
"Which is the tooth?" the dentist said;
"Dear, dear! You must have suffered--
You've not a sound tooth in your head,
Not one that's whole!"
He pulled them out; it took some while,
And then that toothsome crocodile
Had not quite such a pleasing smile
Whene'er he smole.
"How do you suppose Mr. Crocodile felt when he was hungry, and wanted to
eat something?" your Aunt Amy asked.
THE DISSATISFIED CAT.
"Most likely much the same as did old Mrs. Pussy Cat up on the next
farm."
"How was that?" your Aunt Amy asked.
"Well, you see, she was partly black and partly white, and not being a
very neat cat, the white hair got dirty so often that she believed it
would be a great thing if it was all black. So she got the idea into her
head that if she should shave off the white hair, it would be the color
she wanted when it grew out again.
"Well, now what do you suppose that poor foolish thing did? Why she went
to the barber's, and had him shave all the white hair off of her body.
She actually frightened the ducks and the geese when she came home, she
looked so queer; but you couldn't have made her believe it. She thought
she was a perfect beauty, and when she came over to this farm that
evening, Mr. Thomas Cat said to her:
"'Why you are a perfect sight, that's what you are, with those tufts of
black hair all over you!'
"'That's all the style,' Mrs. Pussy Cat said, and I think she really
believed that she was as handsome as any cat you could find.
"Well, things went along all right while the weather was warm, but in
the course of ten days we had a heavy frost, and dear me, dear me, how
cold it grew all of a sudden! Poor Mrs. Pussy Cat was almost frozen to
death the first night of the cold snap, when she tried to stay with the
rest of us to a concert, and went home moaning:
"'Oh, give me back my hair! Give me back my hair!'
[Illustration: Mrs. Pussy Cat in Style.]
"Of course that couldn't be done, because she had to wait for it to grow
again; but Mrs. Man on the next farm wrapped her up in an old shawl, and
she had to stay in a basket until her hair grew, else she'd have frozen
to death, for we had a terrible hard winter that season. When the hair
did come out it was uneven, of course, and she was the worst looking cat
you ever saw.
"Mr. Man was shaving the first morning Mrs. Pussy Cat came out of the
basket, and he hadn't seen her since she had been to the barber's.
[Illustration: Mr. Man is Disturbed.]
"She jumped up on a chair by the side of him, thinking he would stroke
her fur as he always used to do, when the poor man got one glimpse of
her, and it nearly scared him into hysterics. I suppose he thought it
was a ghost, or something like that, for she looked bad enough to be
almost anything.
"He gave a yell, and jumped in the air. That scared Mrs. Pussy Cat, and
she screamed as she leaped out of the chair. Then Mr. Man went after her
with that big razor in his hand.
"I don't know how far he chased her; but Mr. Towser said that Mrs. Pussy
Cat ran more than five miles before she stopped, and when she sneaked
back home that night, I'm thinking she felt a good deal as Mr. Crow did
when he tried to make folks believe peacock feathers were growing in his
tail."
MR. CROW'S DECEIT.
"I have heard a great many stories which Mr. Crow has told; but never
one about him," your Aunt Amy interrupted. "If he tried to deceive the
other birds, I surely would like to know about it."
"Well, he did," Mrs. Mouser Cat said emphatically, sitting bolt upright;
"but of course he doesn't like to have the story told, so I had rather
you wouldn't let him know I mentioned it.
"I don't know how he happened to get it into his head to do such a
thing, for, as a rule, he spends the most of his time over in the big
tree telling stories or making poetry; but he grew foolish once, and
whenever anybody came where he was, he said he had strange growing
feathers, and the doctor believed he was turning into a peacock.
"Of course that made a good deal of excitement around here, among all of
us, for it would be a strange thing for a crow to change in that way,
and he had twice as many visitors as he ever had before, all wanting to
know about the new feathers.
"Well, of course he couldn't keep saying that they were coming, and not
show any signs of them, so one day he said he felt terribly sick and
guessed he should go into the hospital. Then we didn't see anything of
him for most a week, until little Redder Squirrel came around and said
Mr. Crow was all right; that he had as many as six peacock feathers
growing right out of his tail.
"Well, now, you can believe we were astonished, and more excited over it
than we had been since young Mr. Thomas Cat painted the canary yellow.
Of course we asked Redder Squirrel where we could see him, and he said
Mr. Crow had agreed to come out on the hill, just under the tree, that
afternoon.
"If we animals around here were anxious to see him, you can guess that
the peacocks were just about wild, and when the time came for Mr. Crow
to show himself, all the peacocks for as many as five miles around were
gathered under the big tree. Mr. Crow didn't know anything about their
coming, until he marched right out in the midst of them.
[Illustration: Mr. Crow showing his new feathers to the peacocks.]
"Now Mr. Crow is really a wise bird, and how it happened that he was so
foolish as to do what he did, beats me. Anybody with half an eye could
see that he had simply stuck these feathers in his tail, and was trying
to make us believe they had grown there. If he had stayed on the tree
where we couldn't get very near him, there might have been some chance
of deceiving us; but there he was right down where we could put our paws
on him if we wanted to. And the peacocks! Angry? Oh me, oh my, don't say
a word!
"One big one reached over with his beak, and pulled a feather from Mr.
Crow's tail.
"'The next time you set yourself up for one of us, it would be a good
idea to tie the feathers in, else they may drop out, as this one has,'
the peacock said, and I expected to see Mr. Crow almost faint away with
shame. But bless you, he never thought of doing anything of that kind.
He took the feather as bold as a lion, looked at the end of it, and then
he said, careless-like:
"'Well, I declare! I guess I must be moulting,' and with that, off he
flew. We didn't see him again for as much as two weeks, and then he
agreed not to write any poetry about us if we wouldn't tell the story of
the feathers; but young Mr. Thomas Cat couldn't hold in, and reported it
far and near, till Mr. Crow paid him back in good shape."
WHEN YOUNG THOMAS CAT PAINTED A CANARY.
"But what about painting a canary?" your Aunt Amy asked. "You spoke of
such a thing a moment ago."
"Yes, and it is what I am telling you about. Mr. Crow wrote the poetry
which tells the story, and you shall hear it."
Then Mrs. Mouser Cat repeated the following:
For he was such a knowing puss--
Oh yes, he was!
A really clever, sharp young puss--
Oh yes, he was!
He wouldn't do as others do,
He said, "I know a thing or two,
_I_ do!
"To-morrow is the great bird show--
I think it is;
The far-renowned canary show--
Of course it is.
Some yellow ochre, so I've heard,
Will wondrously improve a bird,
I've heard
[Illustration: Thomas Cat Paints the Canary]
"I think I'll enter at that show--
I think I will,
Just make one entry for that show--
By Jove, I will.
And if my bird don't get the prize,
Why it will be, as I surmise,
A surprise!"
The show was held--a great success--
Of course it was!
By all 'twas called a huge success--
Indeed it was!
The judges were experienced cats;
They wore tail-coats, and large top-hats--
_Such_ hats!
Young Tom was there--he'd brought his bird--
Just think! he had!
He'd really dared to bring that bird--
Oh yes, he had!
He said, "No one will ever know
That my canary's all no go,
Oh no!"
[Illustration: The Spry Old Judge]
But one old judge was rather spry--
Oh yes, he was!
You'd not have thought him half so spry,
But oh, he was!
He said, "Why really, on my word!
Disqualify that shocking bird!--
Absurd!"
So Tom's bird was disqualified--
Of course it was!
Disgracefully disqualified,
Ah yes, it was!
And Tom, although he thought he knew
A thing or two, found others too
Who knew.
"Mr. Thomas must have believed that honesty was the best policy, before
he got through with the bird show," your Aunt Amy suggested, and Mrs.
Mouser Cat laughed as she replied:
"It would have shamed almost any cat; but it didn't seem to make a bit
of difference with young Thomas. He was just as pert as ever the next
day, and went around telling about the prize he would have taken if the
judge hadn't discovered the fraud. It would have served him right if he
had been punished as was Mr. Fox."
WHEN MR. FOX WAS TOO CUNNING.
"Is that another story?" your Aunt Amy asked.
"Yes, it is," Mrs. Mouser said reflectively, "and it shows that there
are times when even a fox can be too cunning. One day while Mr. Fox, who
used to live down in the swamp, was sneaking around behind the barn on
this farm, he saw a bag hanging on the limb of a tree just over the
water barrel.
"'Now I wonder what that is?' he said to himself, as he stopped and
looked first at the bag and then at the barrel. 'It smells good, and I
believe there's meat somewhere around here.'
[Illustration: Mr. Fox Hits Upon a Plan.]
"Then he climbed upon the barrel, and saw that it was half full of
water, so he began to wonder what the meaning of it was.
"'It must be a trap Mr. Man has set for me,' he said rubbing his ear as
if he thought himself very wise. 'He thinks I'll jump up for the bag,
and fall into the water. Now he's got to find a younger fox than I am,
if he wants to make that plan work, for I'm going to know what's hanging
up there, and I won't take any chances of getting drowned, either,
because I'll drink all the water first. Then that will settle it.'
"Well, he began to drink, and drink, and drink, until he swelled up
amazingly; but there was plenty of water still left in the barrel. Then
he drank some more; ran around a few moments, came back and drank again,
until he was all swelled out, and couldn't swallow another drop; but the
barrel appeared to be as full as when he commenced.
"By this time it wasn't possible for him to run the least little bit,
and he was feeling a good deal as his father did after he had found the
crab, when along came Mr. Man, who said:
"'Hello! here's a nice fat fox! I guess I'll take his skin,' and the
next day, lo and behold, there was Mr. Fox's hide nailed up on the barn,
showing that sometimes it is dangerous to be too cunning."
WHEN SONNY BUNNY RABBIT WAS RASH.
"I never saw an animal who didn't get into trouble when he thought he
knew everything," Mrs. Mouser went on thoughtfully, giving no heed to
the fact that your Aunt Amy was on the point of interrupting her. "Now
there is Sonny Bunny Rabbit, he got it into his head that he was the
greatest ever lived; that he could do just as he wanted to around this
neighborhood, because he led Mr. Fox into a trap one day.
"Why, that foolish little rabbit used to sit out in the field at night,
and tell me, who am old enough to be his grandmother at the very least,
that he could do anything he pleased; that there was no animal around
here who could get the best of him.
"Well, Sonny Bunny kept that idea in his mind, and one day Mr. Hawk came
sailing along just when Sonny Bunny was talking with Redder Squirrel,
and Redder he screamed:
"'Run, Sonny Bunny! |
10,240 |
Produced by Daniel P. B. Smith
PHILOSOPHY 4
A STORY OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY
By Owen Wister
I
Two frowning boys sat in their tennis flannels beneath the glare of
lamp and gas. Their leather belts were loosened, their soft pink shirts
unbuttoned at the collar. They were listening with gloomy voracity to
the instruction of a third. They sat at a table bared of its customary
sporting ornaments, and from time to time they questioned, sucked their
pencils, and scrawled vigorous, laconic notes. Their necks and faces
shone with the bloom of out-of-doors. Studious concentration was
evidently a painful novelty to their features. Drops of perspiration
came one by one from their matted hair, and their hands dampened the
paper upon which they wrote. The windows stood open wide to the May
darkness, but nothing came in save heat and insects; for spring, being
behind time, was making up with a sultry burst at the end, as a delayed
train makes the last few miles high above schedule speed. Thus it
has been since eight o'clock. Eleven was daintily striking now. Its
diminutive sonority might have belonged to some church-bell far distant
across the Cambridge silence; but it was on a shelf in the room,--a
timepiece of Gallic design, representing Mephistopheles, who
caressed the world in his lap. And as the little strokes boomed,
eight--nine--ten--eleven, the voice of the instructor steadily continued
thus:--
"By starting from the Absolute Intelligence, the chief cravings of
the reason, after unity and spirituality, receive due satisfaction.
Something transcending the Objective becomes possible. In the Cogito the
relation of subject and object is implied as the primary condition of
all knowledge. Now, Plato never--"
"Skip Plato," interrupted one of the boys. "You gave us his points
yesterday."
"Yep," assented the other, rattling through the back pages of his notes.
"Got Plato down cold somewhere,--oh, here. He never caught on to the
subjective, any more than the other Greek bucks. Go on to the next
chappie."
"If you gentlemen have mastered the--the Grreek bucks," observed the
instructor, with sleek intonation, "we--"
"Yep," said the second tennis boy, running a rapid judicial eye over his
back notes, "you've put us on to their curves enough. Go on."
The instructor turned a few pages forward in the thick book of his own
neat type-written notes and then resumed,--
"The self-knowledge of matter in motion."
"Skip it," put in the first tennis boy.
"We went to those lectures ourselves," explained the second, whirling
through another dishevelled notebook. "Oh, yes. Hobbes and his gang.
There is only one substance, matter, but it doesn't strictly exist.
Bodies exist. We've got Hobbes. Go on."
The instructor went forward a few pages more in his exhaustive volume.
He had attended all the lectures but three throughout the year, taking
them down in short-hand. Laryngitis had kept him from those three, to
which however, he had sent a stenographic friend so that the chain
was unbroken. He now took up the next philosopher on the list; but his
smooth discourse was, after a short while, rudely shaken. It was the
second tennis boy questioning severely the doctrines imparted.
"So he says color is all your eye, and shape isn't? and substance
isn't?"
"Do you mean he claims," said the first boy, equally resentful, "that if
we were all extinguished the world would still be here, only there'd be
no difference between blue and pink, for instance?"
"The reason is clear," responded the tutor, blandly. He adjusted his
eyeglasses, placed their elastic cord behind his ear, and referred to
his notes. "It is human sight that distinguishes between colors. If
human sight be eliminated from the universe, nothing remains to make the
distinction, and consequently there will be none. Thus also is it with
sounds. If the universe contains no ear to hear the sound, the sound has
no existence."
"Why?" said both the tennis boys at once.
The tutor smiled. "Is it not clear," said he, "that there can be no
sound if it is not heard!"
"No," they both returned, "not in the least clear."
"It's clear enough what he's driving at of course," pursued the first
boy. "Until the waves of sound or light or what not hit us through our
senses, our brains don't experience the sensations of sound or light or
what not, and so, of course, we can't know about them--not until they
reach us."
"Precisely," said the tutor. He had a suave and slightly alien accent.
"Well, just tell me how that proves a thunder-storm in a desert island
makes no noise."
"If a thing is inaudible--" began the tutor.
"That's mere juggling!" vociferated the boy, "That's merely the same
kind of toy-shop brain-trick you gave us out of Greek philosophy
yesterday. They said there was no such thing as motion because at every
instant of time the moving body had to be somewhere, so how could it get
anywhere else? Good Lord! I can make up foolishness like that myself.
For instance: A moving body can never stop. Why? Why, because at every
instant of time it must be going at a certain rate, so how can it ever
get slower? Pooh!" He stopped. He had been gesticulating with one hand,
which he now jammed wrathfully into his pocket.
The tutor must have derived great pleasure from his own smile, for he
prolonged and deepened and variously modified it while his shiny little
calculating eyes travelled from one to the other of his ruddy scholars.
He coughed, consulted his notes, and went through all the paces of
superiority. "I can find nothing about a body's being unable to stop,"
said he, gently. "If logic makes no appeal to you, gentlemen--"
"Oh, bunch!" exclaimed the second tennis boy, in the slang of his
period, which was the early eighties. "Look here. Color has no existence
outside of our brain--that's the idea?"
The tutor bowed.
"And sound hasn't? and smell hasn't? and taste hasn't?"
The tutor had repeated his little bow after each.
"And that's because they depend on our senses? Very well. But he claims
solidity and shape and distance do exist independently of us. If we all
died, they'd he here just the same, though the others wouldn't. A flower
would go on growing, but it would stop smelling. Very well. Now you tell
me how we ascertain solidity. By the touch, don't we? Then, if there was
nobody to touch an object, what then? Seems to me touch is just as much
of a sense as your nose is." (He meant no personality, but the first boy
choked a giggle as the speaker hotly followed up his thought.) "Seems
to me by his reasoning that in a desert island there'd be nothing it
all--smells or shapes--not even an island. Seems to me that's what you
call logic."
The tutor directed his smile at the open window. "Berkeley--" said he.
"By Jove!" said the other boy, not heeding him, "and here's another
point: if color is entirely in my brain, why don't that ink-bottle and
this shirt look alike to me? They ought to. And why don't a Martini
cocktail and a cup of coffee taste the same to my tongue?" "Berkeley,"
attempted the tutor, "demonstrates--"
"Do you mean to say," the boy rushed on, "that there is no eternal
quality in all these things which when it meets my perceptions compels
me to see differences?"
The tutor surveyed his notes. "I can discover no such suggestions here
as you are pleased to make" said he. "But your orriginal researches," he
continued most obsequiously, "recall our next subject,--Berkeley and the
Idealists." And he smoothed out his notes.
"Let's see," said the second boy, pondering; "I went to two or three
lectures about that time. Berkeley--Berkeley. Didn't he--oh, yes! he
did. He went the whole hog. Nothing's anywhere except in your ideas. You
think the table's there, but it isn't. There isn't any table."
The first boy slapped his leg and lighted a cigarette. "I remember,"
said he. "Amounts to this: If I were to stop thinking about you, you'd
evaporate."
"Which is balls," observed the second boy, judicially, again in the
slang of his period, "and can be proved so. For you're not always
thinking about me, and I've never evaporated once."
The first boy, after a slight wink at the second, addressed the tutor.
"Supposing you were to happen to forget yourself," said he to that sleek
gentleman, "would you evaporate?"
The tutor turned his little eyes doubtfully upon the tennis boys, but
answered, reciting the language of his notes: "The idealistic theory
does not apply to the thinking ego, but to the world of external
phenomena. The world exists in our conception of it.
"Then," said the second boy, "when a thing is inconceivable?"
"It has no existence," replied the tutor, complacently.
"But a billion dollars is inconceivable," retorted the boy. "No mind can
take in a sum of that size; but it exists."
"Put that down! put that down!" shrieked the other boy. "You've struck
something. If we get Berkeley on the paper, I'll run that in." He wrote
rapidly, and then took a turn around the room, frowning as he walked.
"The actuality of a thing," said he, summing his clever thoughts up,
"is not disproved by its being inconceivable. Ideas alone depend upon
thought for their existence. There! Anybody can get off stuff like that
by the yard." He picked up a cork and a foot-rule, tossed the cork, and
sent it flying out of the window with the foot-rule.
"Skip Berkeley," said the other boy.
"How much more is there?"
"Necessary and accidental truths," answered the tutor, reading the
subjects from his notes. "Hume and the causal law. The duality, or
multiplicity, of the ego."
"The hard-boiled ego," commented the boy the ruler; and he batted a
swooping June-bug into space.
"Sit down, idiot," said his sprightly mate.
Conversation ceased. Instruction went forward. Their pencils worked. The
causal law, etc., went into their condensed notes like Liebig's extract
of beef, and drops of perspiration continued to trickle from their
matted hair.
II
Bertie and Billy were sophomores. They had been alive for twenty years,
and were young. Their tutor was also a sophomore. He too had been alive
for twenty years, but never yet had become young. Bertie and Billy had
colonial names (Rogers, I think, and Schuyler), but the tutor's name was
Oscar Maironi, and he was charging his pupils five dollars an hour
each for his instruction. Do not think this excessive. Oscar could have
tutored a whole class of irresponsibles, and by that arrangement have
earned probably more; but Bertie and Billy had preempted him on account
of his fame or high standing and accuracy, and they could well afford
it. All three sophomores alike had happened to choose Philosophy 4 as
one of their elective courses, and all alike were now face to face with
the Day of Judgment. The final examinations had begun. Oscar could lay
his hand upon his studious heart and await the Day of Judgment like--I
had nearly said a Christian! His notes were full: Three hundred pages
about Zeno and Parmenides and the rest, almost every word as it had come
from the professor's lips. And his memory was full, too, flowing like
a player's lines. With the right cue he could recite instantly: "An
important application of this principle, with obvious reference to
Heracleitos, occurs in Aristotle, who says--" He could do this with the
notes anywhere. I am sure you appreciate Oscar and his great power of
acquiring facts. So he was ready, like the wise virgins of parable.
Bertie and Billy did not put one in mind of virgins: although they had
burned considerable midnight oil, it had not been to throw light upon
Philosophy 4. In them the mere word Heracleitos had raised a chill no
later than yesterday,--the chill of the unknown. They had not attended
the lectures on the "Greek bucks." Indeed, profiting by their privilege
of voluntary recitations, they had dropped in but seldom on Philosophy
4. These blithe grasshoppers had danced and sung away the precious
storing season, and now that the bleak hour of examinations was upon
them, their waked-up hearts had felt aghast at the sudden vision of
their ignorance. It was on a Monday noon that this feeling came fully
upon them, as they read over the names of the philosophers. Thursday was
the day of the examination. "Who's Anaxagoras?" Billy had inquired of
Bertie. "I'll tell you," said Bertie, "if you'll tell me who Epicharmos
of Kos was." And upon this they embraced with helpless laughter. Then
they reckoned up the hours left for them to learn Epicharmos of Kos
in,--between Monday noon and Thursday morning at nine,--and their
quailing chill increased. A tutor must be called in at once. So the
grasshoppers, having money, sought out and quickly purchased the ant.
Closeted with Oscar and his notes, they had, as Bertie put it, salted
down the early Greek bucks by seven on Monday evening. By the same
midnight they had, as Billy expressed it, called the turn on Plato.
Tuesday was a second day of concentrated swallowing. Oscar had taken
them through the thought of many centuries. There had been intermissions
for lunch and dinner only; and the weather was exceedingly hot. The
pale-skinned Oscar stood this strain better than the unaccustomed Bertie
and Billy. Their jovial eyes had grown hollow to-night, although
their minds were going gallantly, as you have probably noticed.
Their criticisms, slangy and abrupt, struck the scholastic Oscar as
flippancies which he must indulge, since the pay was handsome. That
these idlers should jump in with doubts and questions not contained
in his sacred notes raised in him feelings betrayed just once in that
remark about "orriginal rresearch."
"Nine--ten--eleven--twelve," went the little timepiece; and Oscar rose.
"Gentlemen," he said, closing the sacred notes, "we have finished the
causal law."
"That's the whole business except the ego racket, isn't it?" said Billy.
"The duality, or multiplicity of the ego remains," Oscar replied.
"Oh, I know its name. It ought to be a soft snap after what we've had."
"Unless it's full of dates and names you've got to know," said Bertie.
"Don't believe it is," Billy answered. "I heard him at it once." (This
meant that Billy had gone to a lecture lately.) "It's all about Who am
I? and How do I do it?" Billy added.
"Hm!" said Bertie. "Hm! Subjective and objective again, I suppose, only
applied to oneself. You see, that table is objective. I can stand off
and judge it. It's outside of me; has nothing to do with me. That's
easy. But my opinion of--well, my--well, anything in my nature--"
"Anger when it's time to get up," suggested Billy.
"An excellent illustration," said Bertie. "That is subjective in me.
Similar to your dislike of water as a beverage. That is subjective in
you. But here comes the twist. I can think of my own anger and judge it,
just as if it were an outside thing, like a table. I can compare it with
itself on different mornings or with other people's anger. And I trust
that you can do the same with your thirst."
"Yes," said Billy; "I recognize that it is greater at times and less at
others."
"Very well, There you are. Duality of the ego."
"Subject and object," said Billy. "Perfectly true, and very queer when
you try to think of it. Wonder how far it goes? Of course, one can
explain the body's being an object to the brain inside it. That's mind
and matter over again. But when my own mind and thought, can become
objects to themselves--I wonder how far that does go?" he broke off
musingly. "What useless stuff!" he ended.
"Gentlemen," said Oscar, who had been listening to them with patient,
Oriental diversion, "I--"
"Oh," said Bertie, remembering him. "Look here. We mustn't keep you up.
We're awfully obliged for the way you are putting us on to this. You're
saving our lives. Ten to-morrow for a grand review of the whole course."
"And the multiplicity of the ego?" inquired Oscar.
"Oh, I forgot. Well, it's too late tonight. Is it much? Are there many
dates and names and things?"
"It is more of a general inquiry and analysis," replied Oscar. "But it
is forty pages of my notes." And he smiled.
"Well, look here. It would be nice to have to-morrow clear for review.
We're not tired. You leave us your notes and go to bed."
Oscar's hand almost moved to cover and hold his precious property, for
this instinct was the deepest in him. But it did not so move, because
his intelligence controlled his instinct nearly, though not
quite, always. His shiny little eyes, however, became furtive and
antagonistic--something the boys did not at first make out.
Oscar gave himself a moment of silence. "I could not brreak my rule,"
said he then. "I do not ever leave my notes with anybody. Mr. Woodridge
asked for my History 3 notes, and Mr. Bailey wanted my notes for Fine
Arts 1, and I could not let them have them. If Mr. Woodridge was to
hear--"
"But what in the dickens are you afraid of?"
"Well, gentlemen, I would rather not. You would take good care, I know,
but there are sometimes things which happen that we cannot help. One
time a fire--"
At this racial suggestion both boys made the room joyous with mirth.
Oscar stood uneasily contemplating them. He would never be able to
understand them, not as long as he lived, nor they him. When their mirth
Was over he did somewhat better, but it was tardy. You see, he was not
a specimen of the first rank, or he would have said at once what he said
now: "I wish to study my notes a little myself, gentlemen."
"Go along, Oscar, with your inflammable notes, go along!" said Bertie,
in supreme good-humor. "And we'll meet to-morrow at ten--if there hasn't
been a fire--Better keep your notes in the bath, Oscar."
In as much haste as could be made with a good appearance, Oscar buckled
his volume in its leather cover, gathered his hat and pencil, and,
bidding his pupils a very good night, sped smoothly out of the room.
III
Oscar Maironi was very poor. His thin gray suit in summer resembled his
thick gray suit in winter. It does not seem that he had more than two;
but he had a black coat and waistcoat, and a narrow-brimmed, shiny hat
to go with these, and one pair of patent-leather shoes that laced,
and whose long soles curved upward at the toe like the rockers of a
summer-hotel chair. These holiday garments served him in all seasons;
and when you saw him dressed in them, and seated in a car bound for
Park Square, you knew he was going into Boston, where he would read
manuscript essays on Botticelli or Pico della Mirandola, or manuscript
translations of Armenian folksongs; read these to ecstatic, dim-eyed
ladies in Newbury Street, who would pour him cups of tea when it was
over, and speak of his earnestness after he was gone. It did not do the
ladies any harm; but I am not sure that it was the best thing for Oscar.
It helped him feel every day, as he stepped along to recitations with
his elbow clamping his books against his ribs and his heavy black curls
bulging down from his gray slouch hat to his collar, how meritorious he
was compared with Bertie and Billy--with all Berties and Billies. He may
have been. Who shall say? But I will say at once that chewing the cud of
one's own virtue gives a sour stomach.
Bertie's and Billy's parents owned town and country houses in New York.
The parents of Oscar had come over in the steerage. Money filled the
pockets of Bertie and Billy; therefore were their heads empty of money
and full of less cramping thoughts. Oscar had fallen upon the reverse of
this fate. Calculation was his second nature. He had given his education
to himself; he had for its sake toiled, traded, outwitted, and saved.
He had sent himself to college, where most of the hours not given to
education and more education, went to toiling and more toiling, that
he might pay his meagre way through the college world. He had a cheaper
room and ate cheaper meals than was necessary. He tutored, and he wrote
college specials for several newspapers. His chief relaxation was the
praise of the ladies in Newbury Street. These told him of the future
which awaited him, and when they gazed upon his features were put in
mind of the dying Keats. Not that Oscar was going to die in the least.
Life burned strong in him. There were sly times when he took what he had
saved by his cheap meals and room and went to Boston with it, and for
a few hours thoroughly ceased being ascetic. Yet Oscar felt meritorious
when he considered Bertie and Billy; for, like the socialists, merit
with him meant not being able to live as well as your neighbor. You will
think that I have given to Oscar what is familiarly termed a black eye.
But I was once inclined to applaud his struggle for knowledge, until I
studied him close and perceived that his love was not for the education
he was getting. Bertie and Billy loved play for play's own sake, and
in play forgot themselves, like the wholesome young creatures that they
were. Oscar had one love only: through all his days whatever he might
forget, he would remember himself; through all his days he would make
knowledge show that self off. Thank heaven, all the poor students in
Harvard College were not Oscars! I loved some of them as much as I loved
Bertie and Billy. So there is no black eye about it. Pity Oscar, if you
like; but don't be so mushy as to admire him as he stepped along in the
night, holding his notes, full of his knowledge, thinking of Bertie
and Billy, conscious of virtue, and smiling his smile. They were not
conscious of any virtue, were Bertie and Billy, nor were they smiling.
They were solemnly eating up together a box of handsome strawberries and
sucking the juice from their reddened thumbs.
"Rather mean not to make him wait and have some of these after his hard
work on us," said Bertie. "I'd forgotten about them--"
"He ran out before you could remember, anyway," said Billy.
"Wasn't he absurd about his old notes? "Bertie went on, a new strawberry
in his mouth. "We don't need them, though. With to-morrow we'll get this
course down cold."
"Yes, to-morrow," sighed Billy. "It's awful to think of another day of
this kind."
"Horrible," assented Bertie.
"He knows a lot. He's extraordinary," said Billy.
"Yes, he is. He can talk the actual words of the notes. Probably
he could teach the course himself. I don't suppose he buys any
strawberries, even when they get ripe and cheap here. What's the matter
with you?"
Billy had broken suddenly into merriment. "I don't believe Oscar owns a
bath," he explained.
"By Jove! so his notes will burn in spite of everything!" And both of
the tennis boys shrieked foolishly.
Then Billy began taking his clothes off, strewing them in the
window-seat, or anywhere that they happened to drop; and Bertie, after
hitting another cork or two out of the window with the tennis racket,
departed to his own room on another floor and left Billy to immediate
and deep slumber. This was broken for a few moments when Billy's
room-mate returned happy from an excursion which had begun in the
morning.
The room-mate sat on Billy's feet until that gentleman showed
consciousness.
"I've done it, said the room-mate, then.
"The hell you have!"
"You couldn't do it."
"The hell I couldn't!"
"Great dinner."
"The hell it was!"
"Soft-shell crabs, broiled live lobster, salmon, grass-plover,
dough-birds, rum omelette. Bet you five dollars you can't find it."
"Take you. Got to bed." And Billy fell again into deep, immediate
slumber.
The room-mate went out into the sitting room, and noting the signs there
of the hard work which had gone on during his absence, was glad that he
did not take Philosophy 4. He was soon asleep also.
IV
Billy got up early. As he plunged into his cold bath he envied his
room-mate, who could remain at rest indefinitely, while his own hard lot
was hurrying him to prayers and breakfast and Oscar's inexorable notes.
He sighed once more as he looked at the beauty of the new morning
and felt its air upon his cheeks. He and Bertie belonged to the same
club-table, and they met there mournfully over the oatmeal. This very
hour to-morrow would see them eating their last before the
examination in Philosophy 4. And nothing pleasant was going to happen
between,--nothing that they could dwell upon with the slightest
satisfaction. Nor had their sleep entirely refreshed them. Their eyes
were not quite right, and their hair, though it was brushed, showed
fatigue of the nerves in a certain inclination to limpness and disorder.
"Epicharmos of Kos
Was covered with moss,"
remarked Billy.
"Thales and Zeno
Were duffers at keno,"
added Bertie.
In the hours of trial they would often express their education thus.
"Philosophers I have met," murmured Billy, with scorn And they ate
silently for some time.
"There's one thing that's valuable," said Bertie next. "When they spring
those tricks on you about the flying arrow not moving, and all the rest,
and prove it all right by logic, you learn what pure logic amounts to
when it cuts loose from common sense. And Oscar thinks it's immense. We
shocked him."
"He's found the Bird-in-Hand!" cried Billy, quite suddenly.
"Oscar?" said Bertie, with an equal shout.
"No, John. John has. Came home last night and waked me up and told me."
"Good for John," remarked Bertie, pensively.
Now, to the undergraduate mind of that day the Bird-in-Hand tavern was
what the golden fleece used to be to the Greeks,--a sort of shining,
remote, miraculous thing, difficult though not impossible to find, for
which expeditions were fitted out. It was reported to be somewhere in
the direction of Quincy, and in one respect it resembled a ghost: you
never saw a man who had seen it himself; it was always his cousin, or
his elder brother in '79. But for the successful explorer a dinner and
wines were waiting at the Bird-in-Hand more delicious than anything
outside of Paradise. You will realize, therefore, what a thing it was
to have a room-mate who had attained. If Billy had not been so dog-tired
last night, he would have sat up and made John tell him everything from
beginning to end.
"Soft-shell crabs, broiled live lobster, salmon, grass-plover,
dough-birds, and rum omelette," he was now reciting to Bertie.
"They say the rum there is old Jamaica brought in slave-ships," said
Bertie, reverently.
"I've heard he has white port of 1820," said Billy; "and claret and
champagne."
Bertie looked out of the window. "This is the finest day there's been,"
said he. Then he looked at his watch. It was twenty-five minutes before
Oscar. Then he looked Billy hard in the eye. "Have you any sand?" he
inquired.
It was a challenge to Billy's manhood. "Sand!" he yelled, sitting up.
Both of them in an instant had left the table and bounded out of the
house. "I'll meet you at Pike's," said Billy to Bertie. "Make him give
us the black gelding."
"Might as well bring our notes along," Bertie called after his rushing
friend; "and get John to tell you the road."
To see their haste, as the two fled in opposite directions upon
their errands, you would have supposed them under some crying call of
obligation, or else to be escaping from justice.
Twenty minutes later they were seated behind the black gelding and
bound on their journey in search of the bird-in-Hand. Their notes in
Philosophy 4 were stowed under the buggy-seat.
"Did Oscar see you?" Bertie inquired.
"Not he," cried Billy, joyously.
"Oscar will wonder," said Bertie; and he gave the black gelding a
triumphant touch with the whip.
You see, it was Oscar that had made them run go; or, rather, it was
Duty and Fate walking in Oscar's displeasing likeness. Nothing easier,
nothing more reasonable, than to see the tutor and tell him they should
not need him to-day. But that would have spoiled everything. They did
not know it, but deep in their childlike hearts was a delicious sense
that in thus unaccountably disappearing they had won a great game, had
got away ahead of Duty and Fate. After all it did bear some resemblance
to an escape from justice..
Could he have known this, Oscar would have felt more superior than ever.
Punctually at the hour agreed, ten o'clock he rapped at Billy's door and
stood waiting, his leather wallet of notes nipped safe between elbow and
ribs. Then he knocked again. Then he tried the door, and as it was open,
he walked deferentially into the sitting room. Sonorous snores came from
one of the bedrooms. Oscar peered in and saw John; but he saw no Billy
in the other bed. Then, always deferential, he sat down in the sitting
room and watched a couple of prettily striped coats hanging in a
half-open closet.
At that moment the black gelding was flirtatiously crossing the
drawbridge over the Charles on the Allston Road. The gelding knew the
clank of those suspending chains and the slight unsteadiness of the
meeting halves of the bridge as well as it knew oats. But it could not
enjoy its own entirely premeditated surprise quite so much as Bertie and
Billy were enjoying their entirely unpremeditated flight from Oscar. The
wind rippled on the water; down at the boat-house Smith was helping
some one embark in a single scull; they saw the green meadows toward
Brighton; their foreheads felt cool and unvexed, and each new minute had
the savor of fresh forbidden fruit.
"How do we go?" said Bertie.
"I forgot I had a bet with John until I had waked him," said Billy. "He
bet me five last night I couldn't find it, and I took him. Of course,
after that I had no right to ask him anything, and he thought I was
funny. He said I couldn't find out if the landlady's hair was her own. I
went him another five on that."
"How do you say we ought to go?" said Bertie, presently.
"Quincy, I'm sure."
They were now crossing the Albany tracks at Allston. "We're going to get
there," said Bertie; and he turned the black gelding toward Brookline
and Jamaica Plain.
The enchanting day surrounded them. The suburban houses, even the
suburban street-cars, seemed part of one great universal plan of
enjoyment. Pleasantness so radiated from the boys' faces and from their
general appearance of clean white flannel trousers and soft clean shirts
of pink and blue that a driver on a passing car leaned to look after
them with a smile and a butcher hailed them with loud brotherhood from
his cart. They turned a corner, and from a long way off came the sight
of the tower of Memorial Hall. Plain above all intervening tenements
and foliage it rose. Over there beneath its shadow were examinations
and Oscar. It caught Billy's roving eye, and he nudged Bertie, pointing
silently to it. "Ha, ha!" sang Bertie. And beneath his light whip the
gelding sprang forward into its stride.
The clocks of Massachusetts struck eleven. Oscar rose doubtfully from
his chair in Billy's study. Again he looked into Billy's bedroom and at
the empty bed. Then he went for a moment and watched the still forcibly
sleeping John. He turned his eyes this way and that, and after standing
for a while moved quietly back to his chair and sat down with the
leather wallet of notes on his lap, his knees together, and his
unblocked shoes touching. In due time the clocks of Massachusetts struck
noon.
In a meadow where a brown amber stream ran, lay Bertie and Billy on the
grass. Their summer coats were off, their belts loosened. They watched
with eyes half closed the long water-weeds moving gently as the current
waved and twined them. The black gelding, brought along a farm road and
through a gate, waited at its ease in the field beside a stone wall.
Now and then it stretched and cropped a young leaf from a vine that grew
over the wall, and now and then the want wind brought down the fruit
blossoms all over the meadow. They fell from the tree where Bertie and
Billy lay, and the boys brushed them from their faces. Not very far away
was Blue Hill, softly shining; and crows high up in the air came from it
occasionally across here.
By one o'clock a change had come in Billy's room. Oscar during that hour
had opened his satchel of philosophy upon his lap and read his notes
attentively. Being almost word perfect in many parts of them, he now
spent his unexpected leisure in acquiring accurately the language of
still further paragraphs. "The sharp line of demarcation which Descartes
drew between consciousness and the material world," whispered Oscar with
satisfaction, and knew that if Descartes were on the examination paper
he could start with this and go on for nearly twenty lines before
he would have to use any words of his own. As he memorized, the
chambermaid, who had come to do the bedrooms three times already and had
gone away again, now returned and no longer restrained her indignation.
"Get up Mr. Blake!" she vociferated to the sleeping John; "you ought to
be ashamed!" And she shook the bedstead. Thus John had come to rise and
discover Oscar. The patient tutor explained himself as John listened in
his pyjamas.
"Why, I'm sorry," said he, "but I don't believe they'll get back very
soon."
"They have gone away?" asked Oscar, sharply.
"Ah--yes," returned the reticent John. "An unexpected matter of
importance."
"But, my dear sir, those gentlemen know nothing! Philosophy 4 is
tomorrow, and they know nothing."
"They'll have to stand it, then," said John, with a grin.
"And my time. I am waiting here. I am engaged to teach them. I have been
waiting here since ten. They engaged me all day and this evening.
"I don't believe there's the slightest use in your waiting now, you
know. They'll probably let you know when they come back."
"Probably! But they have engaged my time. The girl knows I was here
ready at ten. I call you to witness that you found me waiting, ready at
any time."
John in his pyjamas stared at Oscar. "Why, of course they'll pay you the
whole thing," said he, coldly; "stay here if you prefer." And he went
into the bathroom and closed the door.
The tutor stood awhile, holding his notes and turning his little eyes
this way and that. His young days had been dedicated to getting the
better of his neighbor, because otherwise his neighbor would get the
better of him. Oscar had never suspected the existence of boys like John
and Bertie and Billy. He stood holding his notes, and then, buckling
them up once more, he left the room with evidently reluctant steps. It
was at this time that the clocks struck one.
In their field among the soft new grass sat Bertie and Billy some ten
yards apart, each with his back against an apple tree. Each had his
notes and took his turn at questioning the other. Thus the names of the
Greek philosophers with their dates and doctrines were shouted gayly in
the meadow. The foreheads of the boys were damp to-day, as they had been
last night, and their shirts were opened to the air; but it was the
sun that made them hot now, and no lamp or gas; and already they looked
twice as alive as they had looked at breakfast. There they sat, while
their memories gripped the summarized list of facts essential, facts to
be known accurately; the simple, solid, raw facts, which, should they
happen to come on the examination paper, no skill could evade nor any
imagination supply. But this study was no longer dry and dreadful to
them: they had turned it to a sporting event. "What about Heracleitos?"
Billy as catechist would put at Bertie. "Eternal flux," Bertie would
correctly snap back at Billy. Or, if he got it mixed up, and replied,
"Everything is water," which was the doctrine of another Greek, then
Billy would credit himself with twenty-five cents on a piece of paper.
Each ran a memorandum of this kind; and you can readily see how spirited
a character metaphysics would assume under such conditions.
"I'm going in," said Bertie, suddenly, as Billy was crediting himself
with a fifty-cent gain. "What's your score?"
"Two seventy-five, counting your break on Parmenides. It'll be cold."
"No, it won't. Well, I'm only a quarter behind you." And Bertie puffed
off his shoes. Soon he splashed into the stream where the bend made a
hole of some depth.
"Cold?" inquired Billy on the bank. Bertie closed his eyes dreamily.
"Delicious," said he, and sank luxuriously beneath the surface with slow
strokes.
Billy had his clothes off in a moment, and, taking the plunge, screamed
loudly "You liar!" he yelled, as he came up. And he made for Bertie.
Delight rendered Bertie weak and helpless; he was caught and ducked; and
after some vigorous wrestling both came out of the icy water.
"Now we've got no towels, you fool," said Billy.
"Use your notes," said Bertie, and he rolled in the grass. Then they
chased each other round the apple trees, and the black gelding watched
them by the wall, its ears well forward.
While they were dressing they discovered it was half-past one, and
became instantly famished. "We should have brought lunch along," they
told each other. But they forgot that no such thing as lunch could have
induced them to delay their escape from Cambridge for a moment this
morning. "What do you suppose Oscar is doing now?" Billy inquired of
Bertie, as they led the black gelding back to the road; and Bertie
laughed like an infant. "Gentlemen," said he, in Oscar's manner, "we
now approach the multiplicity of the ego." The black gelding must have
thought it had humorists to deal with this day.
Oscar, as a matter of fact, was eating his cheap lunch away over in
Cambridge. There was cold mutton, and boiled potatoes with hard brown
spots in them, and large picked cucumbers; and the salt was damp and
would not shake out through the holes in the top of the bottle. But
Oscar ate two helps of everything with a good appetite, and between
whiles looked at his notes, which lay open beside him on the table.
At the stroke of two he was again knocking at his pupils' door. But no
answer came. John had gone away somewhere for indefinite hours and
the door was locked. So Oscar wrote: "Called, two p.m.," on a scrap
of envelope, signed his name, and put it through the letter-slit.
It crossed his mind to hunt other pupils for his vacant time, but
he decided against this at once, and returned to his own room. Three
o'clock found him back at the door, knocking scrupulously, The idea of
performing his side of the contract, of tendering his goods and standing
ready at all times to deliver them, was in his commercially mature mind.
This time he had brought a neat piece of paper with him, and wrote upon
it, "Called, three P.M.," and signed it as before, and departed to his
room with a sense of fulfilled obligations.
Bertie and Billy had lunched at Mattapan quite happily on cold ham, cold
pie, and doughnuts. Mattapan, not being accustomed to such lilies of the
field, stared at their clothes and general glory, but observed that they
could eat the native bill-of-fare as well as anybody. They found
some good, cool beer, moreover, and spoke to several people of
the Bird-in-Hand, and got several answers: for instance, that the
Bird-in-Hand was at Hingham; that it was at Nantasket; that they had
better inquire for it at South Braintree; that they had passed it a
mile back; and that there was no such place. If you would gauge
the intelligence of our population, inquire your way in a rural
neighborhood. With these directions they took up their journey after
an hour and a half,--a halt made chiefly for the benefit of the black
gelding, whom they looked after as much as they did themselves. For
a while they discussed club matters seriously, as both of them were
officers of certain organizations, chosen so on account of their
recognized executive gifts. These questions settled, they resumed the
lighter theme of philosophy, and made it (as Billy observed) a near
thing for the Causal law. But as they drove along, their minds left this
topic on the abrupt discovery that the sun was getting down out of the
sky, and they asked each other where they were and what they should
do. They pulled up at some cross-roads and debated this with growing
uneasiness. Behind them lay the way to Cambridge,--not very clear, to be
sure; but you could always go where you had come from, Billy seemed to
think. He asked, "How about Cambridge and a little Oscar to finish off
with?" Bertie frowned. This would be failure. Was Billy willing to go
back and face John the successful?
"It would only cost me five dollars," said Billy.
"Ten," Bertie corrected. He recalled to Billy the matter about the
landlady's hair.
"By Jove, that's so!" cried Billy, brightening. It seemed conclusive.
But he grew cloudy again the next moment. He was of opinion that one
could go too far in a thing.
"Where's your sand?" said Bertie.
Billy made an unseemly rejoinder, but even in the making was visited by
inspiration. He saw the whole thing as it really was. "By Jove!" said
he, "we couldn't get back in time for dinner."
"There's my bonny boy!" said Bertie, with pride; and he touched up
the black gelding. Uneasiness had left both of them. Cambridge was
manifestly impossible; an error in judgment; food compelled them to
seek the Bird-in-Hand. "We'll try Quincy, anyhow," Bertie said. Billy
suggested that they inquire of people on the road. This provided a new
sporting event: they could bet upon the answers. Now, the roads, not
populous at noon, had grown solitary in the sweetness of the long
twilight. Voices of birds there were; and little, black, quick brooks,
full to the margin grass, shot under the roadway through low bridges.
Through the web of young foliage the sky shone saffron, and frogs piped
in the meadow swamps. No cart or carriage appeared, however, and the
bets languished. Bertie, driving with one hand, was buttoning his coat
with the other, when the black gelding leaped from the middle of the
road to the turf and took to backing. The buggy reeled; but the driver
was skilful, and fifteen seconds of whip and presence of mind brought it
out smoothly. Then the cause of all this spoke to them from a gate.
"Come as near spillin' as you boys wanted, I guess," remarked the cause.
They looked, and saw him in huge white shirt-sleeves, shaking with
joviality. "If you kep' at it long enough you might a-most learn to
drive a horse," he continued, eying Bertie. This came as near direct
praise as the true son of our soil--Northern or Southern--often thinks
well of. |
10,240 |
Produced by Martin Ward
Weymouth New Testament in Modern Speech, 1 Corinthians
Third Edition 1913
R. F. Weymouth
Book 46 1 Corinthians
001:001 Paul, called to be an Apostle of Christ Jesus through the will
of God--and our brother Sosthenes:
001:002 To the Church of God in Corinth, men and women consecrated
in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all in every
place who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ--
their Lord as well as ours.
001:003 May grace and peace be granted to you from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ.
001:004 I thank my God continually on your behalf for the grace of God
bestowed on you in Christ Jesus--
001:005 that you have been so richly blessed in Him, with readiness
of speech and fulness of knowledge.
001:006 Thus my testimony as to the Christ has been confirmed
in your experience,
001:007 so that there is no gift of God in which you consciously come
short while patiently waiting for the reappearing of our
Lord Jesus Christ,
001:008 who will also keep you stedfast to the very End, so that you
will be free from reproach on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
001:009 God is ever true to His promises, and it was by Him that
you were, one and all, called into fellowship with his
Son Jesus Christ, our Lord.
001:010 Now I entreat you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
to cultivate a spirit of harmony--all of you--and that there
be no divisions among you, but rather a perfect union through
your having one mind and one judgement.
001:011 For I have been distinctly informed, my brethren, about you
by Chloe's people, that there are dissensions among you.
001:012 What I mean is that each of you is a partisan.
One man says "I belong to Paul;" another "I belong to Apollos;"
a third "I belong to Peter;" a fourth "I belong to Christ."
001:013 Is the Christ in fragments? Is it Paul who was crucified on
your behalf? Or were you baptized to be Paul's adherents?
001:014 I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except
Crispus and Gaius--
001:015 for fear people should say that you were baptized to
be my adherents.
001:016 I did, however, baptize Stephanas' household also:
but I do not think that I baptized any one else.
001:017 Christ did not send me to baptize, but to proclaim the Good News;
and not in merely wise words--lest the Cross of Christ should
be deprived of its power.
001:018 For the Message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are on
the way to perdition, but it is the power of God to those whom
He is saving.
001:019 For so it stands written, "I will exhibit the nothingness of
the wisdom of the wise, and the intelligence of the intelligent
I will bring to nought."
001:020 Where is your wise man? Where your expounder of the Law? Where your
investigator of the questions of this present age?
Has not God shown the world's wisdom to be utter foolishness?
001:021 For after the world by its wisdom--as God in His wisdom had ordained--
had failed to gain the knowledge of God, God was pleased,
by the apparent foolishness of the Message which we preach,
to save those who accepted it.
001:022 Seeing that Jews demand miracles, and Greeks go in search of wisdom,
001:023 while we proclaim a Christ who has been crucified--to the Jews
a stumbling-block, to Gentiles foolishness,
001:024 but to those who have received the Call, whether Jews
or Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
001:025 Because that which the world deems foolish in God is wiser
than men's wisdom, and that which it deems feeble in God
is mightier than men's might.
001:026 For consider, brethren, God's call to you. Not many who are wise
with merely human wisdom, not many of position and influence,
not many of noble birth have been called.
001:027 But God has chosen the things which the world regards as foolish,
in order to put its wise men to shame; and God has chosen
the things which the world regards as destitute of influence,
in order to put its powerful things to shame;
001:028 and the things which the world regards as base, and those which
it sets utterly at nought--things that have no existence--
God has chosen in order to reduce to nothing things that do exist;
001:029 to prevent any mortal man from boasting in the presence of God.
001:030 But you--and it is all God's doing--are in Christ Jesus: He has
become for us a wisdom which is from God, consisting of
righteousness and sanctification and deliverance;
001:031 in order that it may be as Scripture says, "He who boasts--
let his boast be in the Lord."
002:001 And as for myself, brethren, when I came to you, it was
not with surpassing power of eloquence or earthly wisdom
that I came, announcing to you that which God had commanded
me to bear witness to.
002:002 For I determined to be utterly ignorant, when among you,
of everything except of Jesus Christ, and of Him as
having been crucified.
002:003 And so far as I myself was concerned, I came to you in conscious
feebleness and in fear and in deep anxiety.
002:004 And my language and the Message that I proclaimed were not
adorned with persuasive words of earthly wisdom, but depended
upon truths which the Spirit taught and mightily carried home;
002:005 so that your trust might rest not on the wisdom of man but on
the power of God.
002:006 Yet when we are among mature believers we do speak words of wisdom;
a wisdom not belonging, however, to the present age nor
to the leaders of the present age who are soon to pass away.
002:007 But in dealing with truths hitherto kept secret we speak of
God's wisdom--that hidden wisdom which, before the world began,
God pre-destined, so that it should result in glory to us;
002:008 a wisdom which not one of the leaders of the present age possesses,
for if they had possessed it, they would never have crucified
the Lord of glory.
002:009 But--to use the words of Scripture--we speak of things which
eye has not seen nor ear heard, and which have never entered
the heart of man: all that God has in readiness for them
that love Him.
002:010 For us, however, God has drawn aside the veil through the
teaching of the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything,
including the depths of the divine nature.
002:011 For, among human beings, who knows a man's inner thoughts except
the man's own spirit within him? In the same way, also,
only God's Spirit is acquainted with God's inner thoughts.
002:012 But we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit
which comes forth from God, that we may know the blessings
that have been so freely given to us by God.
002:013 Of these we speak--not in language which man's wisdom teaches us,
but in that which the Spirit teaches--adapting, as we do,
spiritual words to spiritual truths.
002:014 The unspiritual man rejects the things of the Spirit of God,
and cannot attain to the knowledge of them, because they
are spiritually judged.
002:015 But the spiritual man judges of everything, although he is
himself judged by no one.
002:016 For who has penetrated the mind of the Lord, and will
instruct Him? But *we* have the mind of Christ.
003:001 And as for myself, brethren, I found it impossible to speak
to you as spiritual men. It had to be as to worldlings--
mere babes in Christ.
003:002 I fed you with milk and not with solid food, since for this
you were not yet strong enough. And even now you are
not strong enough:
003:003 you are still unspiritual. For so long as jealousy and strife
continue among you, can it be denied that you are unspiritual
and are living and acting like mere men of the world?
003:004 For when some one says, "I belong to Paul," and another says,
"I belong to Apollos," is not this the way men of the world speak?
003:005 What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? They are just
God's servants, through whose efforts, and as the Lord granted
power to each, you accepted the faith.
003:006 I planted and Apollos watered; but it was God who was,
all the time, giving the increase.
003:007 So that neither the planter nor the waterer is of any importance.
God who gives the increase is all in all.
003:008 Now in aim and purpose the planter and the waterer are one;
and yet each will receive his own special reward, answering to
his own special work.
003:009 Apollos and I are simply fellow workers for and with God,
and you are *God's* field--God's* building.
003:010 In discharge of the task which God graciously entrusted to me, I--
like a competent master-builder--have laid a foundation,
and others are building upon it. But let every one be careful
how and what he builds.
003:011 For no one can lay any other foundation in addition to that
which is already laid, namely Jesus Christ.
003:012 And whether the building which any one is erecting on that
foundation be of gold or silver or costly stones, of timber
or hay or straw--
003:013 the true character of each individual's work will become manifest.
For the day of Christ will disclose it, because that day is
soon to come upon us clothed in fire, and as for the quality
of every one's work--the fire is the thing which will test it.
003:014 If any one's work--the building which he has erected--
stands the test, he will be rewarded.
003:015 If any one's work is burnt up, he will suffer the loss of it;
yet he will himself be rescued, but only, as it were,
by passing through the fire.
003:016 Do you not know that you are God's Sanctuary, and that the Spirit
of God has His home within you?
003:017 If any one is marring the Sanctuary of God, him will God mar;
for the Sanctuary of God is holy, which you all are.
003:018 Let no one deceive himself. If any man imagines that he is wise,
compared with the rest of you, with the wisdom of the present age,
let him become "foolish" so that he may be wise.
003:019 This world's wisdom is "foolishness" in God's sight; for it
is written, "He snares the wise with their own cunning."
003:020 And again, "The Lord takes knowledge of the reasonings of the wise--
how useless they are."
003:021 Therefore let no one boast about his human teachers.
003:022 For everything belongs to you--be it Paul or Apollos or Peter,
the world or life or death, things present or future--
everything belongs to you;
003:023 and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.
004:001 As for us Apostles, let any one take this view of us--
we are Christ's officers, and stewards of God's secret truths.
004:002 This being so, it follows that fidelity is what is
required in stewards.
004:003 I however am very little concerned at undergoing your scrutiny,
or that of other men; in fact I do not even scrutinize myself.
004:004 Though I am not conscious of having been in any way unfaithful,
yet I do not for that reason stand acquitted; but He whose
scrutiny I must undergo is the Lord.
004:005 Therefore form no premature judgements, but wait until
the Lord returns. He will both bring to light the secrets
of darkness and will openly disclose the motives that have
been in people's hearts; and then the praise which each man
deserves will come to him from God.
004:006 In writing this much, brethren, with special reference to
Apollos and myself, I have done so for your sakes, in order
to teach you by our example what those words mean, which say,
"Nothing beyond what is written!"--so that you may cease to take
sides in boastful rivalry, for one teacher against another.
004:007 Why, who gives you your superiority, my brother?
Or what have you that you did not receive? And if you really
did receive it, why boast as if this were not so?
004:008 Every one of you already has all that heart can desire;
already you have grown rich; without waiting for us, you have
ascended your thrones! Yes indeed, would to God that you
had ascended your thrones, that we also might reign with you!
004:009 God, it seems to me, has exhibited us Apostles last of all,
as men condemned to death; for we have come to be a spectacle
to all creation--alike to angels and to men.
004:010 We, for Christ's sake, are labeled as "foolish"; you, as Christians,
are men of shrewd intelligence. We are mere weaklings:
you are strong. You are in high repute: we are outcasts.
004:011 To this very moment we endure both hunger and thirst,
with scanty clothing and many a blow.
004:012 Homes we have none. Wearily we toil, working with our own hands.
When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we bear it patiently;
004:013 when slandered, we try to conciliate. We have come
to be regarded as the mere dirt and filth of the world--
the refuse of the universe, even to this hour.
004:014 I am not writing all this to shame you, but I am offering you
advice as my dearly-loved children.
004:015 For even if you were to have ten thousand spiritual instructors--
for all that you could not have several fathers.
It is I who in Christ Jesus became your father through
the Good News.
004:016 I entreat you therefore to become like me.
004:017 For this reason I have sent Timothy to you.
Spiritually he is my dearly-loved and faithful child.
He will remind you of my habits as a Christian teacher--
the manner in which I teach everywhere in every Church.
004:018 But some of you have been puffed up through getting the idea
that I am not coming to Corinth.
004:019 But, if the Lord is willing, I shall come to you without delay;
and then I shall know not the fine speeches of these
conceited people, but their power.
004:020 For Apostolic authority is not a thing of words, but of power.
004:021 Which shall it be? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in a
loving and tender spirit?
005:001 It is actually reported that there is fornication among you,
and of a kind unheard of even among the Gentiles--a man has
his father's wife!
005:002 And you, instead of mourning and removing from among you the man
who has done this deed of shame, are filled with self-complacency!
005:003 I for my part, present with you in spirit although absent
in body, have already, as though I were present, judged him
who has so acted.
005:004 In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are all assembled and my
spirit is with you, together with the power of our Lord Jesus,
005:005 I have handed over such a man to Satan for the destruction
of his body, that his spirit may be saved on the day of
the Lord Jesus.
005:006 It is no good thing--this which you make the ground of your boasting.
Do you not know that a little yeast corrupts the whole
of the dough?
005:007 Get rid of the old yeast so that you may be dough of a new kind;
for in fact you *are* free from corruption. For our Passover Lamb
has already been offered in sacrifice--even Christ.
005:008 Therefore let us keep our festival not with old yeast nor with
the yeast of what is evil and mischievous, but with bread free
from yeast--the bread of transparent sincerity and of truth.
005:009 I wrote to you in that letter that you were not to
associate with fornicators;
005:010 not that in this world you are to keep wholly aloof from
such as they, any more than from people who are avaricious
and greedy of gain, or from worshippers of idols.
For that would mean that you would be compelled to go out
of the world altogether.
005:011 But what I meant was that you were not to associate with
any one bearing the name of "brother," if he was addicted
to fornication or avarice or idol-worship or abusive language
or hard-drinking or greed of gain. With such a man you ought
not even to eat.
005:012 For what business of mine is it to judge outsiders?
Is it not for you to judge those who are within the Church
005:013 while you leave to God's judgement those who are outside?
Remove the wicked man from among you.
006:001 If one of you has a grievance against an opponent, does he dare
to go to law before irreligious men and not before God's people?
006:002 Do you not know that God's people will sit in judgement upon
the world? And if you are the court before which the world is
to be judged, are you unfit to deal with these petty matters?
006:003 Do you not know that we are to sit in judgement upon angels--
to say nothing of things belonging to this life?
006:004 If therefore you have things belonging to this life which need
to be decided, is it men who are absolutely nothing in the Church--
is it *they* whom you make your judges?
006:005 I say this to put you to shame. Has it come to this,
that there does not exist among you a single wise man competent
to decide between a man and his brother,
006:006 but brother goes to law with brother, and that before unbelievers?
006:007 To say no more, then, it is altogether a defect in you that you
have law-suits with one another. Why not rather endure injustice?
Why not rather submit to being defrauded?
006:008 On the contrary you yourselves inflict injustice and fraud,
and upon brethren too.
006:009 Do you not know that unrighteous men will not inherit
God's Kingdom? Cherish no delusion here. Neither fornicators,
nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor any who are guilty
of unnatural crime,
006:010 nor theives, nor avaricious people, nor any who are addicted
to hard drinking, to abusive language or to greed of gain,
will inherit God's Kingdom.
006:011 And all this describes what some of you were. But now you have had
every stain washed off: now you have been set apart as holy:
now you have been pronounced free from guilt; in the name
of our Lord Jesus Christ and through the Spirit of our God.
006:012 Everything is allowable to me, but not everything is profitable.
Everything is allowable to me, but to nothing will I
become a slave.
006:013 Food of all kinds is meant for the stomach, and the stomach
is meant for food, and God will cause both of them to perish.
Yet the body does not exist for the purpose of fornication,
but for the Master's service, and the Master exists for the body;
006:014 and as God by His power raised the Master to life, so He
will also raise us up.
006:015 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I
then take away the members of Christ and make them the members
of a prostitute? No, indeed.
006:016 Or do you not know that a man who has to do with a prostitute is
one with her in body? For God says, "The two shall become one."
006:017 But he who is in union with the Master is one with Him in spirit.
006:018 Flee from fornication. Any other sin that a human being commits
lies outside the body; but he who commits fornication sins
against his own body.
006:019 Or do you not know that your bodies are a sanctuary
of the Holy Spirit who is within you--the Spirit whom you
have from God?
006:020 And you are not your own, for you have been redeemed at
infinite cost. Therefore glorify God in your bodies.
007:001 I now deal with the subjects mentioned in your letter.
It is well for a man to abstain altogether from marriage.
007:002 But because there is so much fornication every man should have
a wife of his own, and every woman should have a husband.
007:003 Let a man pay his wife her due, and let a woman also pay
her husband his.
007:004 A married woman is not mistress of her own person:
her husband has certain rights. In the same way a married man
is not master of his own person: his wife has certain rights.
007:005 Do not refuse one another, unless perhaps it is just for a time
and by mutual consent, so that you may devote yourselves
to prayer and may then associate again; lest the Adversary
begin to tempt you because of your deficiency in self-control.
007:006 Thus much in the way of concession, not of command.
007:007 Yet I would that everybody lived as I do; but each of us
has his own special gift from God--one in one direction
and one in another.
007:008 But I tell the unmarried, and women who are widows, that it
is well for them to remain as I am.
007:009 If, however, they cannot maintain self-control, by all means let
them marry; for marriage is better than the fever of passion.
007:010 But to those already married my instructions are--yet not mine,
but the Lord's--that a wife is not to leave her husband;
007:011 or if she has already left him, let her either remain as she
is or be reconciled to him; and that a husband is not to send
away his wife.
007:012 To the rest it is I who speak--not the Lord. If a brother has
a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him,
let him not send her away.
007:013 And a woman who has an unbelieving husband--if he consents
to live with her, let her not separate from him.
007:014 For, in such cases, the unbelieving husband has become--and is--
holy through union with a Christian woman, and the unbelieving
wife is holy through union with a Christian brother.
Otherwise your children would be unholy, but in reality they
have a place among God's people.
007:015 If, however, the unbeliever is determined to leave, let him
or her do so. Under such circumstances the Christian man
or woman is no slave; God has called us to live lives of peace.
007:016 For what assurance have you, O woman, as to whether you
will save your husband? Or what assurance have you, O man,
as to whether you will save your wife?
007:017 Only, whatever be the condition in life which the Lord has
assigned to each individual--and whatever the condition in which
he was living when God called him--in that let him continue.
007:018 This is what I command in all the Churches. Was any one
already circumcised when called? Let him not have recourse
to the surgeons. Was any one uncircumcised when called?
Let him remain uncircumcised.
007:019 Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing:
obedience to God's commandments is everything.
007:020 Whatever be the condition in life in which a man was,
when he was called, in that let him continue.
007:021 Were you a slave when God called you? Let not that weigh
on your mind. And yet if you can get your freedom,
take advantage of the opportunity.
007:022 For a Christian, if he was a slave when called, is the Lord's
freed man, and in the same way a free man, if called,
becomes the slave of Christ.
007:023 You have all been redeemed at infinite cost: do not become
slaves to men.
007:024 Where each one stood when he was called, there, brethren, let him
still stand--close to God.
007:025 Concerning unmarried women I have no command to give you from
the Lord; but I offer you my opinion, which is that of a man who,
through the Lord's mercy, is deserving of your confidence.
007:026 I think then that, taking into consideration the distress
which is now upon us, it is well for a man to remain as he is.
007:027 Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to get free.
Are you free from the marriage bond? Do not seek for a wife.
007:028 Yet if you marry, you have not sinned; and if a maiden marries,
she has not sinned. Such people, however, will have
outward trouble. But I am for sparing you.
007:029 Yet of this I warn you, brethren: the time has been shortened--
so that henceforth those who have wives should be as though
they had none,
007:030 those who weep as though they did not weep, those who rejoice
as though they did not rejoice, those who buy as though they
did not possess,
007:031 and those who use the world as not using it to the full.
For the world as it now exists is passing away.
007:032 And I would have you free from worldly anxiety.
An unmarried man concerns himself with the Lord's business--
how he shall please the Lord;
007:033 but a married man concerns himself with the business of the world--
how he shall please his wife.
007:034 There is a difference too between a married and an unmarried woman.
She who is unmarried concerns herself with the Lord's business--
that she may be holy both in body and spirit; but the married
woman concerns herself with the business of the world--
how she shall please her husband.
007:035 Thus much I say in your own interest; not to lay a trap for you,
but to help towards what is becoming, and enable you to wait
on the Lord without distraction.
007:036 If, however, a father thinks he is acting unbecomingly towards his
still unmarried daughter if she be past the bloom of her youth,
and so the matter is urgent, let him do what she desires;
he commits no sin; she and her suitor should be allowed to marry.
007:037 But if a father stands firm in his resolve, being free from
all external constraint and having a legal right to act
as he pleases, and in his own mind has come to the decision
to keep his daughter unmarried, he will do well.
007:038 So that he who gives his daughter in marriage does well,
and yet he who does not give her in marriage will do better.
007:039 A woman is bound to her husband during the whole period
that he lives; but if her husband dies, she is at liberty
to marry whom she will, provided that he is a Christian.
007:040 But in my judgement, her state is a more enviable one if she
remains as she is; and I also think that I have the Spirit of God.
008:001 Now as to things which have been sacrificed to idols.
This is a subject which we already understand--because we
all have knowledge of it. Knowledge, however, tends to make
people conceited; it is love that builds us up.
008:002 If any one imagines that he already possesses any true knowledge,
he has as yet attained to no knowledge of the kind to which
he ought to have attained;
008:003 but if any one loves God, that man is known by God.
008:004 As to eating things which have been sacrificed to idols,
we are fully aware that an idol is nothing in the world,
and that there is no God but One.
008:005 For if so-called gods do exist, either in Heaven or on earth--
and in fact there are many such gods and many such lords--
008:006 yet *we* have but one God, the Father, who is the source of all things
and for whose service we exist, and but one Lord, Jesus Christ,
through whom we and all things exist.
008:007 But all believers do not recognize these facts. Some, from force
of habit in relation to the idol, even now eat idol sacrifices
as such, and their consciences, being but weak, are polluted.
008:008 It is true that a particular kind of food will not bring us
into God's presence; we are neither inferior to others if we
abstain from it, nor superior to them if we eat it.
008:009 But take care lest this liberty of yours should prove a hindrance
to the progress of weak believers.
008:010 For if any one were to see you, who know the real truth
of this matter, reclining at table in an idol's temple,
would not his conscience (supposing him to be a weak believer)
be emboldened to eat the food which has been sacrificed
to the idol?
008:011 Why, your knowledge becomes the ruin of the weak believer--
your brother, for whom Christ died!
008:012 Moreover when you thus sin against the brethren and wound their
weak consciences, you are, in reality, sinning against Christ.
008:013 Therefore if what I eat causes my brother to fall, never again
to the end of my days will I touch any kind of animal food,
for fear I should cause my brother to fall.
009:001 Am I not free? Am I not an Apostle? Can it be denied that I
have seen Jesus, our Lord? Are not you yourselves my work
in the Lord?
009:002 If to other men I am not an Apostle, yet at any rate I am one to you;
for your very existence as a Christian Church is the seal
of my Apostleship.
009:003 That is how I vindicate myself to those who criticize me.
009:004 Have we not a right to claim food and drink?
009:005 Have we not a right to take with us on our journeys a Christian
sister as our wife, as the rest of the Apostles do--
and the Lord's brothers and Peter?
009:006 Or again, is it only Barnabas and myself who are not at liberty
to give up working with our hands?
009:007 What soldier ever serves at his own cost? Who plants
a vineyard and yet does not eat any of the grapes?
Or who tends a herd of cattle and yet does not taste their milk?
009:008 Am I making use of merely worldly illustrations?
Does not the Law speak in the same tone?
009:009 For in the Law of Moses it is written, "Thou shalt not muzzle
an ox while it is treading out the grain."
009:010 Is God simply thinking about the oxen? Or is it really in our
interest that He speaks? Of course, it was written in our interest,
because it is His will that when a plough-man ploughs,
and a thresher threshes, it should be in the hope of sharing
that which comes as the result.
009:011 If it is we who sowed the spiritual grain in you, is it a great
thing that we should reap a temporal harvest from you?
009:012 If other teachers possess that right over you, do not we possess
it much more? Yet we have not availed ourselves of the right,
but we patiently endure all things rather than hinder in
the least degree the progress of the Good News of the Christ.
009:013 Do you not know that those who perform the sacred rites have
their food from the sacred place, and that those who serve
at the altar all alike share with the altar?
009:014 In the same way the Lord also directed those who proclaim
the Good News to maintain themselves by the Good News.
009:015 But I, for my part, have not used, and do not use, my full
rights in any of these things. Nor do I now write with that
object so far as I myself am concerned, for I would rather
die than have anybody make this boast of mine an empty one.
009:016 If I go on preaching the Good News, that is nothing for me
to boast of; for the necessity is imposed upon me; and alas
for me, if I fail to preach it!
009:017 And if I preach willingly, I receive my wages; but if against
my will, a stewardship has nevertheless been entrusted to me.
009:018 What are my wages then? The very fact that the Good News
which I preach will cost my hearers nothing, so that I cannot
be charged with abuse of my privileges as a Christian preacher.
009:019 Though free from all human control, I have made myself the slave
of all in the hope of winning as many converts as possible.
009:020 To the Jews I have become like a Jew in order to win Jews;
to men under the Law as if I were under the Law--although I am not--
in order to win those who are under the Law;
009:021 to men without Law as if I were without Law--although I am not
without Law in relation to God but am abiding in Christ's Law--
in order to win those who are without Law.
009:022 To the weak I have become weak, so as to gain the weak.
To all men I have become all things, in the hope that in every
one of these ways I may save some.
009:023 And I do everything for the sake of the Good News, that I
may share with my hearers in its benefits.
009:024 Do you not know that in the foot-race the runners all run,
but that only one gets the prize? You must run like him,
in order to win with certainty.
009:025 But every competitor in an athletic contest practices
abstemiousness in all directions. They indeed do this for
the sake of securing a perishable wreath, but we for the sake
of securing one that will not perish.
009:026 That is how I run, not being in any doubt as to my goal.
I am a boxer who does not inflict blows on the air,
009:027 but I hit hard and straight at my own body and lead it off
into slavery, lest possibly, after I have been a herald to others,
I should myself be rejected.
010:001 For I would have you remember, brethren, how our forefathers
were all of them sheltered by the cloud, and all got safely
through the Red Sea.
010:002 All were baptized in the cloud and in the sea to be
followers of Moses.
010:003 All ate the same spiritual food,
010:004 and all drank the same spiritual drink; for they long drank
the water that flowed from the spiritual rock that went with them--
and that rock was the Christ.
010:005 But with most of them God was not well pleased; for they
were laid low in the Desert.
010:006 And in this they became a warning to us, to teach us not to
be eager, as they were eager, in pursuit of what is evil.
010:007 And you must not be worshippers of idols, as some of them were.
For it is written, "The People sat down to eat and drink,
and stood up to dance."
010:008 Nor may we be fornicators, like some of them who committed
fornication and on a single day 23,000 of them fell dead.
010:009 And do not let us test the Lord too far, as some of them tested
Him and were destroyed by the serpents.
010:010 And do not be discontented, as some of them were, and they
were destroyed by the Destroyer.
010:011 All this kept happening to them with a figurative meaning;
but it was put on record by way of admonition to us upon whom
the ends of the Ages have come.
010:012 So then let him who thinks he is standing securely beware of falling.
010:013 No temptation has you in its power but such as is common to
human nature; and God is faithful and will not allow you to be
tempted beyond your strength. But, when the temptation comes,
He will also provide the way of escape; so that you may be
able to bear it.
010:014 Therefore, my dear friends, avoid all connection with the
worship of idols.
010:015 I speak as to men of sense: judge for yourselves of what I say.
010:016 The cup of blessing, which we bless, does it not mean
a joint-participation in the blood of Christ? The loaf of
bread which we break, does it not mean a joint-participation
in the body of Christ?
010:017 Since there is one loaf, we who are many are one body; we, all of us,
share in that one loaf.
010:018 Look at the Israelites--the nation and their ritual.
Are not those who eat the sacrifices joint-partakers
in the altar?
010:019 Do I mean that a thing sacrificed to an idol is what it claims
to be, or that an idol is a real thing?
010:020 No, but that which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice
to demons, not to God; and I would not have you have fellowship
with one another through the demons.
010:021 You cannot drink the Lord's cup and the cup of demons:
you cannot be joint-partakers both in the table of the Lord
and in the table of demons.
010:022 Or are we actually arousing the Lord to jealousy.
Are we stronger than He is?
010:023 Everything is allowable, but not everything is profitable.
Everything is allowable, but everything does not build others up.
010:024 Let no one be for ever seeking his own good, but let each seek
that of his fellow man.
010:025 Anything that is for sale in the meat market, eat, and ask
no questions for conscience' sake;
010:026 for the earth is the Lord's, and all that it contains.
010:027 If an unbeliever gives you an invitation and you are disposed
to accept it, eat whatever is put before you, and ask no
questions for conscience' sake.
010:028 But if any one tells you, "This food has been offered in sacrifice;"
abstain from eating it--out of respect for him who warned you,
and, as before, for conscience' sake.
010:029 But now I mean his conscience, not your own. "Why, on what ground,"
you may object, "is the question of my liberty of action
to be decided by a conscience not my own?
010:030 If, so far as I am concerned, I partake with a grateful heart,
why am I to be found fault with in regard to a thing for
which I give thanks?"
010:031 Whether, then, you are eating or drinking, or whatever you
are doing, let everything be done to the glory of God.
010:032 Do not be causes of stumbling either to Jews or to Gentiles,
nor to the Church of God.
010:033 That is the way that I also seek in everything the approval
of all men, not aiming at my own profit, but at that of the many,
in the hope that they may be saved.
011:001 Be imitators of me, in so far as I in turn am an imitator of Christ.
011:002 Now I commend you for remembering me in everything,
and because you hold fast truths and practices precisely as I
have taught them to you.
011:003 I would have you know, however, that of every man,
Christ is the Head, that of a woman her husband is the Head,
and that God is Christ's Head.
011:004 A man who wears a veil when praying or prophesying dishonors his Head;
011:005 but a woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered
dishonors her Head, for it is exactly the same as if she
had her hair cut short.
011:006 If a woman will not wear a veil, let her also cut off her hair.
But since it is a dishonor to a woman to have her hair cut
off or her head shaved, let her wear a veil.
011:007 For a man ought not to have a veil on his head, since he is
the image and glory of God; while woman is the glory of man.
011:008 Man does not take his origin from woman, but woman takes
hers from man.
011:009 For man was not created for woman's sake, but woman for man's.
011:010 That is why a woman ought to have on her head a symbol
of subjection, because of the angels.
011:011 Yet, in the Lord, woman is not independent of man nor man
independent of woman.
011:012 For just as woman originates from man, so also man comes
into existence through woman, but everything springs
originally from God.
011:013 Judge of this for your own selves: is it seemly for a woman
to pray to God when she is unveiled?
011:014 Does not Nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair
it is a dishonor to him,
011:015 but that if a woman has long hair it is her glory, because her
hair was given her for a covering?
011:016 But if any one is inclined to be contentious on the point,
we have no such custom, nor have the Churches of God.
011:017 But while giving you these instructions, there is one thing
I cannot praise--your meeting together, with bad rather
than good results.
011:018 for, in the first place, when you meet as a Church,
there are divisions among you. This is what I am told,
and I believe that there is some truth in it.
011:019 For there must of necessity be differences of opinion among you,
in order that it may be plainly seen who are the men of sterling
worth among you.
011:020 When, however, you meet in one place, there is no eating
the Supper of the Lord;
011:021 for it is his own supper of which each of you is in a hurry
to partake, and one eats like a hungry man, while another has
already drunk to excess.
011:022 Why, have you no homes in which to eat and drink?
Or do you wish to show your contempt for the Church
of God and make those who have no homes feel ashamed?
What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? In this matter
I certainly do not praise you.
011:023 For it was from the Lord that I received the facts which,
in turn, I handed on to you; how that the Lord Jesus,
on the night He was to be betrayed, took some bread,
011:024 and after giving thanks He broke it and said, "This is my body
which is about to be broken for you. Do this in memory of me."
011:025 In the same way, when the meal was over, He also took the cup.
"This cup," He said, "is the new Covenant of which my blood
is the pledge. Do this, every time that you drink it,
in memory of me."
011:026 For every time that you eat this bread and drink from the cup,
you are proclaiming the Lord's death--until He returns.
011:027 Whoever, therefore, in an unworthy manner, eats the bread
or drinks from the cup of the Lord sins against the body
and blood of the Lord.
011:028 But let a man examine himself, and, having done that,
then let him eat the bread and drink from the cup.
011:029 For any one who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgement
to himself, if he fails to estimate the body aright.
011:030 That is why many among you are sickly and out of health,
and why not a few die.
011:031 If, however, we estimated ourselves aright, we should
not be judged.
011:032 But when we are judged by the Lord, chastisement follows,
to save us from being condemned along with the world.
011:033 Therefore, brethren, when you come together for this meal,
wait for one another.
011:034 If any one is hungry, let him eat at home; so that your coming
together may not lead to judgement. |
10,240 |
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SAMANTHA
AMONG THE BRETHREN.
By
"Josiah Allen's Wife"
(Marietta Holley)
Part 4
CHAPTER XIII.
Curius, hain't it? How folks will get to tellin' things, and finally
tell 'em so much, that finally they will get to believin' of 'em
themselves--boastin' of bein' rich, etc., or bad. Now I have seen folks
boast over that, act real haughty because they had been bad and got over
it. I've seen temperance lecturers and religious exhorters boast sights
and sights over how bad they had been. But they wuzn't tellin' the
truth, though they had told the same thing so much that probable they
had got to thinkin' so.
But in the case of one man in petickuler, I found out for myself, for I
didn't believe what he wuz a sayin' any of the time.
Why, he made out in evenin' meetin's, protracted and otherwise, that he
had been a awful villain. Why no pirate wuz ever wickeder than he made
himself out to be, in the old times before he turned round and become
pious.
[Illustration: "HIS FACE WUZ A GOOD MORAL FACE."]
But I didn't believe it, for he had a good look to his face, all but the
high headed look he had, and sort o' vain.
But except this one look, his face wuz a good moral face, and I knew
that no man could cut up and act as he claimed that he had, without
carryin' some marks on the face of the cuttin' up, and also of the
actin'.
And so, as it happened, I went a visitin' (to Josiah's relations) to the
very place where he had claimed to do his deeds of wild badness, and I
found that he had always been a pattern man--never had done a single
mean act, so fur as wuz known.
Where wuz his boastin' then? As the Bible sez, why, it wuz all vain
talk. He had done it to get up a reputation. He had done it because he
wuz big feelin' and vain. And he had got so haughty over it, and had
told of it so much, that I spoze he believed in it himself.
Curius! hain't it? But I am a eppisodin', and to resoom. Trueman's wife
would talk jest so, jest so haughty and high headed, about the world
comin' to a end.
She'd dispute with everybody right up and down if they disagreed with
her--and specially about that religion of hern. How sot she wuz, how
extremely sot.
But then, it hain't in me, nor never wuz, to fight anybody for any
petickuler religion of theirn. There is sights and sights of different
religions round amongst different friends of mine, and most all on 'em
quite good ones.
That is, they are agreeable to the ones who believe in 'em, and not over
and above disagreeable to me.
Now it seems to me that in most all of these different doctrines and
beliefs, there is a grain of truth, and if folks would only kinder hold
onto that grain, and hold themselves stiddy while they held onto it,
they would be better off.
But most folks when they go to follerin' off a doctrine, they foller too
fur, they hain't megum enough.
Now, for instance, when you go to work and whip anybody, or hang 'em, or
burn 'em up for not believin' as you do, that is goin' too fur.
It has been done though, time and agin, in the world's history, and
mebby will be agin.
But it hain't reasonable. Now what good will doctrines o' any kind do to
anybody after they are burnt up or choked to death?
You see such things hain't bein' megum. Because I can't believe jest as
somebody else duz, it hain't for me to pitch at 'em and burn 'em up, or
even whip 'em.
No, indeed! And most probable if I should study faithfully out their
beliefs, I would find one grain, or mebby a grain and a half of real
truth in it.
[Illustration: "EF I FELL ON A STUN."]
Now, for instance, take the doctrines of Christian Healin', or Mind
Cure. Now I can't exactly believe that if I fell down and hurt my head
on a stun--I cannot believe as I am a layin' there, that I hain't fell,
and there hain't no stun--and while I am a groanin' and a bathin' the
achin' bruise in anarky and wormwood, I can't believe that there hain't
no such thing as pain, nor never wuz.
No, I can't believe this with the present light I have got on the
subject.
But yet, I have seen them that this mind cure religion had fairly riz
right up, and made 'em nigher to heaven every way--so nigh to it that
seemin'ly a light out of some of its winders had lit up their faces with
its glowin' repose, its sweet rapture.
I've seen 'em, seen 'em as the Patent Medicine Maker observes so
frequently, "before and after takin'."
Folks that wuz despondent and hopeless, and wretched actin', why, this
belief made 'em jest blossom right out into a state of hopefulness, and
calmness, and joy--refreshin' indeed to contemplate.
Wall now, the idee of whippin' anybody for believin' anything that
brings such a good change to 'em, and fills them and them round 'em with
so much peace and happiness.
Why, I wouldn't do it for a dollar bill. And as for hangin' 'em, and
brilin' 'em on gridirons, etc., why, that is entirely out of the
question, or ort to be.
And now, it don't seem to me that I ever could make a tree walk off, by
lookin' at it, and commandin' it to--or call some posys to fall down
into my lap, right through, the plasterin'--
Or send myself, or one of myselfs, off to Injy, while the other one of
me stayed to Jonesville.
Now, honestly speakin', it don't seem to me that I ever could learn to
do this, not at my age, any way, and most dead with rheumatiz a good
deal of the time.
I most know I couldn't.
But then agin I have seen believers in Theosiphy that could do wonders,
and seemed indeed to have got marvelous control over the forces of
Natur.
And now the idee of my whippin' 'em for it. Why you wouldn't ketch me at
it.
And Spiritualism now! I spoze, and I about know that there are lots
of folks that won't ever see into any other world than this, till the
breath leaves their body.
Yet i've seen them, pure sweet souls too, as I ever see, whose eyes
beheld blessed visions withheld from more material gaze.
Yes, i've neighbored with about all sorts of religius believers, and
never disputed that they had a right to their own religion.
And I've seen them too that didn't make a practice of goin' to any
meetin' houses much, who lived so near to God and his angels that they
felt the touch of angel hands on their forwards every day of their
lives, and you could see the glow of the Fairer Land in their rapt eyes.
They had outgrown the outward forms of religion that had helped them
at first, jest as children outgrow the primers and ABC books of their
childhood and advance into the higher learnin'.
I've seen them folks i've neighbored with 'em. Human faults they had,
or God would have taken them to His own land before now. Their
imperfections, I spoze sort o' anchored 'em here for a spell to a
imperfect world.
But you could see, if you got nigh enough to their souls to see anything
about 'em--you could see that the anchor chains wuz slight after all,
and when they wuz broke, oh how lightly and easily they would sail away,
away to the land that their rapt souls inhabited even now.
Yes, I've seen all sorts of religius believers and I wuzn't goin' to be
too hard on Tamer for her belief, though I couldn't believe as she did.
CHAPTER XIV.
He come to our house a visitin' along the first week in June, and the
last day in June wuz the day they had sot for the world to come to an
end. I, myself, didn't believe she knew positive about it, and Josiah
didn't either. And I sez to her, "The Bible sez that it hain't agoin'
to be revealed to angels even, or to the Son himself, but only to the
Father when that great day shall be." And sez I to Trueman's wife, sez
I, "How should _you_ be expected to know it?"
Sez she, with that same collected together haughty look to her, "My name
wuzn't mentioned, I believe, amongst them that _wuzn't_ to know it!"
And of course I had to own up that it wuzn't. But good land! I didn't
believe she knew a thing more about it than I did, but I didn't dispute
with her much, because she wuz one of the relatives on his side--you
know you have to do different with 'em than you do with them on your own
side--you have to. And then agin, I felt that if it didn't come to an
end she would be convinced that she wuz in the wrong on't, and if she
did we should both of us be pretty apt to know it, so there wuzn't much
use in disputin' back and forth.
But she wuz firm as iron in her belief. And she had come up visitin' to
our home, so's to be nigh when Trueman riz. Trueman wuz buried in the
old Risley deestrict, not half a mile from us on a back road. And she
naterally wanted to be round at the time.
She said plain to me that Trueman never could seem to get along without
her. And though she didn't say it right out, she carried the idea (and
Josiah resented it because Trueman was a favorite cousin of his'n on
his own side.) She jest the same as said right out that Trueman, if she
wuzn't by him to tend to him, would be jest as apt to come up wrong end
up as any way.
Josiah didn't like it at all.
Wall, she had lived a widowed life for a number of years, and had said
right out, time and time agin, that she wouldn't marry agin. But Josiah
thought, and I kinder mistrusted myself, that she wuz kinder on the
lookout, and would marry agin if she got a chance--not fierce, you know,
or anything of that kind, but kinder quietly lookin' out and standin'
ready. That wuz when she first come; but before she went away she acted
fierce.
[Illustration: "BURIED IN THE OLD RISLEY DEESIRICT."]
Wall, there wuz sights of Adventists up in the Risley deestrict, and
amongst the rest wuz an old bachelder, Joe Charnick.
And Joe Charnick wuz, I s'poze, of all Advents, the most Adventy. He
jest _knew_ the world wuz a comin' to a end that very day, the last day
of June, at four o'clock in the afternoon. And he got his robe all made
to go up in. It wuz made of a white book muslin, and Jenette Finster
made it. Cut it out by one of his mother's nightgowns--so she told me in
confidence, and of course I tell it jest the same; I want it kep.
She was afraid Joe wouldn't like it, if he knew she took the nightgown
for a guide, wantin' it, as he did, for a religious purpose.
But, good land! as I told her, religion or not, anybody couldn't cut
anything to look anyhow without sumpthin' fora guide, and she bein' an
old maiden felt a little delicate about measurin' him.
His mother wuz as big round as he wuz, her weight bein' 230 by the
steelyards, and she allowed 2 fingers and a half extra length--Joe is
tall. She gathered it in full round the neck, and the sleeves (at his
request) hung down like wings, a breadth for each wing wuz what she
allowed. Jenette owned up to me (though she wouldn't want it told of
for the world, for it had been sposed for years, that he and she had a
likin' for each other, and mebby would make a match some time, though
what they had been a-waitin' for for the last 10 years nobody knew). But
she allowed to me that when he got his robe on, he wuz the worst lookin'
human bein' that she ever laid eyes on, and sez she, for she likes a
joke, Jenette duz: "I should think if Joe looked in the glass after he
got it on, his religion would be a comfort to him; I should think he
would be glad the world _wuz_ comin' to a end."
But he _didn't_ look at the glass, Jenette said he didn't; he wanted to
see if it wuz the right size round the neck. Joe hain't handsome, but
he is kinder good-lookin', and he is a good feller and got plenty to do
with, but bein' kinder big-featured, and tall, and hefty, he must
have looked like fury in the robe. But he is liked by everybody, and
everybody is glad to see him so prosperous and well off.
He has got 300 acres of good land, "be it more or less," as the deed
reads; 30 head of cows, and 7 head of horses (and the hull bodies of
'em). And a big sugar bush, over 1100 trees, and a nice little sugar
house way up on a pretty side hill amongst the maple trees. A good, big,
handsome dwellin' house, a sort of cream color, with green blinds; big
barn, and carriage house, etc., etc., and everything in the very best of
order. He is a pattern farmer and a pattern son--yes, Joe couldn't be a
more pattern son if he acted every day from a pattern.
He treats his mother dretful pretty, from day to day. She thinks that
there hain't nobody like Joe; and it wuz s'pozed that Jenette thought so
too.
But Jenette is, and always wuz, runnin' over with common sense, and she
always made fun and laughed at Joe when he got to talkin' about his
religion, and about settin' a time for the world to come to a end. And
some thought that that wuz one reason why the match didn't go off, for
Joe likes her, everybody could see that, for he wuz jest such a great,
honest, open-hearted feller, that he never made any secret of it.
And Jenette liked Joe _I_ knew, though she fooled a good many on the
subject. But she wuz always a great case to confide in me, and though
she didn't say so right out, which wouldn't have been her way, for, as
the poet sez, she wuzn't one "to wear her heart on the sleeves of her
bask waist," still, I knew as well es I wanted to, that she thought her
eyes of him. And old Miss Charnick jest about worshipped Jenette, would
have her with her, sewin' for her, and takin' care of her--she wuz sick
a good deal, Mother Charnick wuz. And she would have been tickled most
to death to have had Joe marry her and bring her right home there.
And Jenette wuz a smart little creeter, "smart as lightnin'," as Josiah
always said.
She had got along in years, Jenette had, without marryin', for she staid
to hum and took care of her old father and mother and Tom. The other
girls married off, and left her to hum, and she had chances, so it wuz
said, good ones, but she wouldn't leave her father and mother, who wuz
gettin' old, and kinder bed-rid, and needed her. Her father, specially,
said he couldn't live, and wouldn't try to, if Jenette left 'em, but he
said, the old gentleman did, that Jenette should be richly paid for her
goodness to 'em.
That wuzn't what made Jenette good, no, indeed; she did it out of the
pure tenderness and sweetness of her nature and lovin'heart. But I used
to love to hear the old gentleman talk that way, for he wuz well off,
and I felt that so far as money could pay for the hull devotion of a
life, why, Jenette would be looked out for, and have a good home, and
enough to do with. So she staid to hum, as I say, and took care of'em
night and day; sights of watching and wearisome care she had, poor
little creeter; but she took the best of care of 'em, and kep 'em kinder
comforted up, and clean, and brought up Tom, the youngest boy, by hand,
and thought her eyes on him.
And he wuz a smart chap--awful smart, as it proved in the end; for he
married when he wuz 21, and brought his wife (a disagreeable creeter)
home to the old homestead, and Jenette, before they had been there 2
weeks, wuz made to feel that her room wuz better than her company.
That wuz the year the old gentleman died; her mother had died 3 months
prior and beforehand.
Her brother, as I said, wur smart, and he and his wife got round the old
man in some way and sot him against Jenette, and got everything he had.
He wuz childish, the old man wuz; used to try to put his pantaloons on
over his head, and get his feet into his coat sleeves, etc., etc.
And he changed his will, that had gi'n Jenette half the property, a good
property, too, and gi'n it all to Tom, every mite of it, all but one
dollar, which Jenette never took by my advice.
For I wuz burnin' indignant at old Mr. Finster and at Tom. Curius, to
think such a girl as Jenette had been--such a patient, good creeter, and
such a good-tempered one, and everything--to think her pa should have
forgot all she had done, and suffered, and gi'n up for 'em, and give
the property all to that boy, who had never done anything only to spend
their money and make Jenette trouble.
But then, I s'poze it wuz old Mr. Finster's mind, or the lack on't, and
I had to stand it, likewise so did Jenette.
But I never sot a foot into Tom Finster's house, not a foot after that
day that Jenette left it. I wouldn't. But I took her right to my house,
and kep her for 9 weeks right along, and wuz glad to.
That wuz some 10 years prior and before this, and she had gone round
sewin' ever sense. And she wuz beloved by everybody, and had gone round
highly respected, and at seventy-five cents a day.
Her troubles, and everybody that knew her, knew how many she had of 'em,
but she kep 'em all to herself, and met the world and her neighbors with
a bright face.
If she took her skeletons out of the closet to air 'em, and I s'poze she
did, everybody duz; they have to at times, to see if their bones are in
good order, if for nothin' else. But if she ever did take 'em out and
dust 'em, she did it all by herself. The closet door wuz shet up and
locked when anybody wuz round. And you would think, by her bright,
laughin' face, that she never heard the word skeleton, or ever listened
to the rattle of a bone.
And she kep up such a happy, cheerful look on the outside, that I s'poze
it ended by her bein' cheerful and happy on the inside.
The stiddy, good-natured, happy spirit that she cultivated at first
by hard work, so I s'poze; but at last it got to be second nater,
the qualities kinder struck in and she _wuz_ happy, and she _wuz_
contented--that is, I s'poze so.
Though I, who knew Jenette better than anybody else, almost, knew how
tuff, how fearful tuff it must have come on her, to go round from home
to home--not bein' settled down at home anywhere. I knew jest what a
lovin' little home body she wuz. And how her sweet nater, like the sun,
would love to light up one bright lovin' home, and shine kinder stiddy
there, instead of glancin' and changin' about from one place to another,
like a meteor.
Some would have liked it; some like change and constant goin' about, and
movin' constantly through space--but I knew Jenette wuzn't made on the
meteor plan. I felt sorry for Jenette, down deep in my heart, I did; but
I didn't tell her so; no, she wouldn't have liked it; she kep a brave
face to the world. And as I said, her comin' wuz looked for weeks and
weeks ahead, in any home where she wuz engaged to sew by the day.
Everybody in the house used to feel the presence of a sunshiny, cheerful
spirit. One that wuz determined to turn her back onto troubles she
couldn't help and keep her face sot towards the Sun of Happiness. One
who felt good and pleasant towards everybody, wished everybody well.
One who could look upon other folks'es good fortune without a mite
of jealousy or spite. One who loved to hear her friends praised and
admired, loved to see 'em happy. And if they had a hundred times the
good things she had, why, she was glad for their sakes, that they had
'em, she loved to see 'em enjoy 'em, if she couldn't.
And she wuz dretful kinder cunnin' and cute, Jenette wuz. She would make
the oddest little speeches; keep everybody laughin' round her, when she
got to goin'.
[Illustration: "Dretful kinder cunnin' and cute, Jenette wuz."]
Yes, she wuz liked dretful well, Jenette wuz. Her face has a kind of a
pert look on to it, her black eyes snap, a good-natured snap, though,
and her nose turns up jest enough to look kinder cunnin', and her hair
curls all over her head.
Smart round the house she is, and Mother Charnick likes that, for she is
a master good housekeeper. Smart to answer back and joke. Joe is slow of
speech, and his big blue eyes won't fairly get sot onto anything, before
Jenette has looked it all through, and turned it over, and examined it
on the other side, and got through with it.
Wall, she wuz to work to Mother Charnick's makin' her a black alpacka
dress, and four new calico ones, and coverin' a parasol.
A good many said that Miss Charnick got dresses a purpose for Jenette to
make, so's to keep her there. Jenette wouldn't stay there a minute only
when she wuz to work, and as they always kep a good, strong, hired girl,
she knew when she wuz needed, and when she wuzn't. But, of course, she
couldn't refuse to sew for her, and at what she wuz sot at, though she
must have known and felt that Miss Charnick wuz lavish in dresses. She
had 42 calico dresses, and everybody knew it, new ones, besides woosted.
But, anyway, there she was a sewin' when the word came that the world
was a comin' to a end on the 30th day of June, at 4 o'clock in the
afternoon.
Miss Charnick wuz a believer, but not to the extent that Joe was. For
Jenette asked her if she should stop sewin', not sposin' that she would
need the dresses, specially the four calico ones, and the parasol in
case of the world's endin'.
And she told Jenette, and Jenette told me, so's I know it is true, "that
she might go right on, and get the parasol cover, and the trimmins to
the dresses, cambrick, and linin' and things, and hooks and eyes."
And Miss Charnick didn't prepare no robe. But Jenette mistrusted, though
Miss Charnick is close-mouthed, and didn't say nothin', but Jenette
mistrusted that she laid out, when she sees signs, to use a nightgown.
She had piles of the nicest ones, that Jenette had made for her from
time to time, over 28, all trimmed off nice enough for day dresses, so
Jenette said, trimmed with tape trimmin's, some of 'em, and belted down
in front.
Wall, they had lots of meetin's at the Risley school-house, as the time
drew near. And Miss Trueman Pool went to every one on 'em.
She had been too weak to go out to the well, or to the barn. She wanted
dretfully to see some new stanchils that Josiah had been a makin', jest
like some that Pool had had in his barn. She wanted to see 'em dretful,
but was too weak to walk. And I had had kind of a tussle in my own mind,
whether or not I should offer to let Josiah carry her out; but kinder
hesitated, thinkin' mebby she would get stronger.
But I hain't jealous, not a mite. It is known that I hain't all through
Jonesville and Loontown. No, I'd scorn it. I thought Pool's wife would
get better and she did.
One evenin' Joe Charnick came down to bring home Josiah's augur, and
the conversation turned onto Adventin'. And Miss Pool see that Joe wuz
congenial on that subject; he believed jest as she did, that the world
would come to an end the 30th. This was along the first part of the
month.
[Illustration: "Joe Charnick came down to bring home Josiah's augur."]
He spoke of the good meetin's they wuz a-havin' to the Risley
school-house, and how he always attended to every one on 'em. And the
next mornin' Miss Trueman Pool gin out that she wuz a-goin' that
evenin'. It wuz a good half a mile away, and I reminded her that Josiah
had to be away with the team, for he wuz a-goin' to Loontown, heavy
loaded, and wouldn't get back till along in the evenin'.
But she said "that she felt that the walk would do her good."
I then reminded her of the stanchils, but she said "stanchils and
religion wuz two separate things." Which I couldn't deny, and didn't try
to. And she sot off for the school-house that evenin' a-walkin' a foot.
And the rest of her adventins and the adventins of Joe I will relate in
another epistol; and I will also tell whether the world come to an end
or not. I know folks will want to know, and I don't love to keep folks
in onxiety--it hain't my way.
CHAPTER XV.
Wall, from that night, Miss Trueman Pool attended to the meetins at the
Risley school-house, stiddy and constant. And before the week wuz out
Joe Charnick had walked home with her twice. And the next week he
carried her to Jonesville to get the cloth for her robe, jest like
his'n, white book muslin. And twice he had come to consult her on a
Bible passage, and twice she had walked up to his mother's to consult
with her on a passage in the Apockraphy. And once she went up to see if
her wings wuz es deep and full es his'n. She wanted 'em jest the same
size.
Miss Charnick couldn't bear her. Miss Charnick wuz a woman who had
enjoyed considerble poor health in her life, and she had now, and had
been havin' for years, some dretful bad spells in her stomach--a sort of
a tightness acrost her chest. And Trueman's wife argued with her that
her spells had been worse, and her chest had been tighter. And the
old lady didn't like that at all, of course. And the old lady took
thoroughwert for 'em, and Trueman's wife insisted on't that thoroughwert
wuz tightenin'.
And then there wuz some chickens in a basket out on the stoop, that the
old hen had deserted, and Miss Charnick wuz a bringin' 'em up by hand.
And Mother Chainick went out to feed 'em, and Trueman's wife tosted her
head and said, "she didn't approve of it--she thought a chicken ought to
be brung up by a hen."
But Miss Charnick said, "Why, the hen deserted 'em; they would have
perished right there in the nest."
But Trueman's wife wouldn't gin in, she stuck right to it, "that it wuz
a hen's business, and nobody else's."
And of course she had some sense on her side, for of course it is a
hen's business, her duty and her prevelege to bring up her chickens. But
if she won't do it, why, then, somebody else has got to--they ought to
be brung. I say Mother Charnick wuz in the right on't. But Trueman's
wife had got so in the habit of findin' fault, and naggin' at me, and
the other relations on Trueman's side and hern, that she couldn't seem
to stop it when she knew it wuz for her interest to stop.
And then she ketched a sight of the alpacker dress Jenette wuz a-makin'
and she said "that basks had gone out."
And Miss Charnick was over partial to 'em (most too partial, some
thought), and thought they wuz in the height of the fashion. But
Trueman's wife ground her right down on it.
"Basks _wuz out_, fer she knew it, she had all her new ones made
polenay."
And hearin' 'em argue back and forth for more'n a quarter of an hour,
Jenette put in and sez (she thinks all the world of Mother Charnick),
"Wall, I s'pose you won't take much good of your polenays, if you have
got so little time to wear 'em."
And then Trueman's wife (she wuz meen-dispositioned, anyway) said
somethin' about "hired girls keepin' their place."
And then Mother Charnick flared right up and took Jenette's part. And
Joe's face got red; he couldn't bear to see Jenette put upon, if she wuz
makin' fun of his religeon. And Trueman's wife see that she had gone too
fur, and held herself in, and talked good to Jenette, and flattered up
Joe, and he went home with her and staid till ten o'clock.
They spent a good deal of their time a-huntin' up passages, to prove
their doctrine, in the Bible, and the Apockraphy, and Josephus, and
others.
It beat all how many Trueman's wife would find, and every one she found
Joe would seem to think the more on her. And so it run along, till folks
said they wuz engaged, and Josiah and me thought so, too.
And though Jenette wuzn't the one to say anything, she begun to look
kinder pale and mauger. And when I spoke of it to her, she laid it to
her liver. And I let her believe I thought so too. And I even went so
fur as to recommend tansey and camomile tea, with a little catnip mixed
in--I did it fur blinders. I knew it wuzn't her liver that ailed her. I
knew it wuz her heart. I knew it wuz her heart that wuz a-achin'.
Wall, we had our troubles, Josiah and me did. Trueman's wife wuz dretful
disagreeable, and would argue us down, every separate thing we tried to
do or say. And she seemed more high-headed and disagreeable than ever
sence Joe had begun to pay attention to her. Though what earthly good
his attention wuz a-goin' to do, wuz more than I could see, accordin' to
her belief.
But Josiah said, "he guessed Joe wouldn't have paid her any attention,
if he hadn't thought that the world wuz a-comin' to a end so soon. He
guessed he wouldn't want her round if it wuz a-goin' to stand."
Sez I, "Josiah, you are a-judgin' Joe by yourself." And he owned up that
he wuz.
Wall, the mornin' of the 30th, after Josiah and me had eat our
breakfast, I proceeded to mix up my bread. I had set the yeast
overnight, and I wuz a mouldin' it out into tins when Trueman's wife
come down-stairs with her robe over her arm. She wanted to iron it out
and press the seams.
I had baked one tin of my biscuit for breakfast, and I had kep 'em warm
for Trueman's wife, for she had been out late the night before to a
meetin' to Risley school-house, and didn't come down to breakfast. I
had also kep some good coffee warm for her, and some toast and steak.
She laid her robe down over a chair-back, and sot down to her breakfast,
but begun the first thing to find fault with me for bein' to work on
that day. She sez, "The idee, of the last day of the world, and you
a-bein' found makin' riz biscuit, yeast ones!" sez she.
"Wall," sez I, "I don't know but I had jest as soon be found a-makin'
riz biscuit, a-takin' care of my own household, as the Lord hes
commanded me to, as to be found a-sailin' round in a book muslin Mother
Hubbard."
"It hain't a Mother Hubbard!" sez she.
"Wall," sez I, "I said it for oritory. But it is puckered up some like
them, and you know it." Hers wuz made with a yoke.
And Josiah sot there a-fixin' his plantin' bag. He wuz a-goin' out that
mornin' to plant over some corn that the crows had pulled up. And she
bitterly reproved him. But he sez, "If the world don't come to a end,
the corn will be needed."
"But it will," she sez in a cold, haughty tone.
[Illustration: "WALL," SEZ HE, "IF IT DOES, I MAY AS WELL BE DOIN'
THAT AS TO BE SETTIN' ROUND."]
"Wall," sez he, "if it does, I may as well be a-doin' that as to be
settin' round." And he took his plantin' bag and went out. And then she
jawed me for upholdin' him.
And sez she, as she broke open a biscuit and spread it with butter
previous to eatin' it, sez she, "I should think _respect_, respect for
the great and fearful thought of meetin' the Lord, would scare you out
of the idea of goin' on with your work."
Sez I calmly, "Does it scare you, Trueman's wife?"
"Wall, not exactly scare," sez she, "but lift up, lift up far above
bread and other kitchen work."
And again she buttered a large slice, and I sez calmly, "I don't s'poze
I should be any nearer the Lord than I am now. He sez He dwells inside
of our hearts, and I don't see how He could get any nearer to us than
that. And anyway, what I said to you I keep a-sayin', that I think He
would approve of my goin' on calm and stiddy, a-doin' my best for the
ones He put in my charge here below, my husband, my children, and my
grandchildren." (I some expected Tirzah Ann and the babe home that day
to dinner.)
"Wall, you feel very diffrent from some wimmen that wuz to the
school-house last night, and act very diffrent. They are good Christian
females. It is a pity you wuzn't there. P'raps your hard heart would
have melted, and you would have had thoughts this mornin' that would
soar up above riz biscuit."
And as she sez this she begun on her third biscuit, and poured out
another cup of coffee. And I, wantin' to use her well, sez, "What did
they do there?"
"Do!" sez she, "why, it wuz the most glorious meetin' we ever had. Three
wimmen lay at one time perfectly speechless with the power. And some of
em' screemed so you could hear 'em fer half a mile."
I kep on a-mouldin' my bread out into biscuit (good shaped ones, too, if
I do say it), and sez calmly, "Wall, I never wuz much of a screemer. I
have always believed in layin' holt of the duty next to you, and doin'
_some_ things, things He has _commanded_. Everybody to their own way.
I don't condemn yourn, but I have always seemed to believe more in the
solid, practical parts of religion, than the ornimental. I have always
believed more in the power of honesty, truth, and justice, than in the
power they sometimes have at camp and other meetins. Howsumever," sez I,
"I don't say but what that power is powerful, to the ones that have it,
only I wuz merely observin' that it never wuz _my_ way to lay speechless
or holler much--not that I consider hollerin' wrong, if you holler from
principle, but I never seemed to have a call to."
"You would be far better if you did," sez Trueman's wife, "far better.
But you hain't good enough."
"Oh!" sez I, reasonably, "I could holler if I wanted to, but the Lord
hain't deef. He sez specilly, that He hain't, and so I never could see
the _use_ in hollerin' to Him. And I never could see the use of tellin'
Him in public so many things as some do. Why He _knows_ it. He _knows_
all these things. He don't need to have you try to enlighten Him as if
you wuz His gardeen--as I have heard folks do time and time agin. He
_knows_ what we are, what we need. I am glad, Trueman's wife," sez I,
"that He can look right down into our hearts, that He is right there in
'em a-knowin' all about us, all our wants, our joys, our despairs, our
temptations, our resolves, our weakness, our blindness, our defects, our
regrets, our remorse, our deepest hopes, our inspiration, our triumphs,
our glorys. But when He _is_ right there, in the midst of our soul, our
life, why, _why_ should we kneel down in public and holler at Him?"
"You would be glad to if you wuz good enough," sez she; "if you had
attained unto a state of perfection, you would feel like it."
That kinder riled me up, and I sez, "Wall, I have lived in this house
with them that wuz perfect, and that is bad enough for me, without bein'
one of 'em myself. For more disagreeable creeters," sez I, a prickin' my
biscuit with a fork, "more disagreeable creeters I never laid eyes on."
Trueman's wife thinks she is perfect, she has told me so time and
agin--thinks she hain't done anything wrong in upwards of a number of
years.
But she didn't say nothin' to this, only begun agin about the wickedness
and immorality of my makin' riz biscuit that mornin', and the deep
disgrace of Josiah Allen keepin' on with his work.
But before I could speak up and take his part, for I _will_ not hear my
companion found fault with by any female but myself, she had gathered up
her robe, and swept upstairs with it, leavin' orders for a flatiron to
be sent up.
Wall, the believers wuz all a-goin' to meet at the Risley school-house
that afternoon. They wuz about 40 of 'em, men and wimmen. And I told
Josiah at noon, I believed I would go down to the school-house to the
meetin'. And he a-feelin', I mistrust, that if they should happen to be
in the right on't, and the world should come to a end, he wanted to be
by the side of his beloved pardner, he offered to go too. But he never
had no robe, no, nor never thought of havin'.
The Risley school-house stood in a clearin', and had tall stumps round
it in the door-yard. And we had heard that some of the believers wuz
goin' to get up on them stumps, so's to start off from there. And sure
enough, we found it wuz the calculation of some on 'em.
The school-boys had made steps up the sides of some of the biggest
stumps, and lots of times in political meetin's men had riz up on 'em to
talk to the masses below. Why I s'poze a crowd of as many as 45 or 48,
had assembled there at one time durin' the heat of the campain.
But them politicians had on their usual run of clothes, they didn't have
on white book muslin robes. Good land!
CHAPTER XVI.
Wall, lots of folks had assembled to the school-house when we got there,
about 3 o'clock P.M.--afternoon. Believers, and world's people, all
a-settin' round on seats and stumps, for the school-house wuz small and
warm, and it wuz pleasanter out-doors.
We had only been there a few minutes when Mother Charnick and Jenette
walked in. Joe had been there for sometime, and he and the Widder Pool
wuz a-settin' together readin' a him out of one book. Jenette looked
kinder mauger, and Trueman's wife looked haughtily at her, from over the
top of the him book.
Mother Charnick had a woosted work-bag on her arm. There might have been
a night gown in it, and there might not. It wuz big enough to hold one,
and it looked sort o' bulgy. But it wuz never known--Miss Charnick is a
smart woman. It never wuz known what she had in the bag.
Wall, the believers struck up a him, and sung it through--as mournful,
skairful sort of a him as I ever hearn in my hull life; and it swelled
out and riz up over the pine trees in a wailin', melancholy sort of a
way, and wierd--dretful wierd.
And then a sort of a lurid, wild-looking chap, a minister, got up and
preached the wildest and luridest discourse I ever hearn in my hull
days. It wuz enough to scare a snipe. The very strongest and toughest
men there turned pale, and wimmen cried and wept on every side of me,
and wept and cried.
I, myself, didn't weep. But I drawed nearer to my companion, and kinder
leaned up against him, and looked off on the calm blue heavens, the
serene landscape, and the shinin' blue lake fur away, and thought--jest
as true as I live and breathe, I thought that I didn't care much, if God
willed it to be so, that my Josiah and I should go side by side, that
very day and minute, out of the certainties of this life into the
mysteries of the other, out of the mysteries of this life into
the certainties of the other.
[Illustration: "A SORT OF A LURID, WILD-LOOKING CHAP."]
For, thinks I to myself, we have got to go into that other world pretty
soon, Josiah and me have. And if we went in the usual way, we had got to
go alone, each on us. Terrible thought! We who had been together under
shine and shade, in joy and sorrow. |
10,240 |
Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Tonya Allen and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team.
[Illustration: "Good Morning, Mr. Rabbit. Can you tell me where I'll
find two or three fat fish?"]
Aunt Amy's Animal Stories
THE GRAY GOOSE'S STORY
By AMY PRENTICE
[Illustration]
With Thirty-Two Illustrations and a Frontispiece in Colors
By
J. WATSON DAVIS
[Illustration]
THE GRAY GOOSE'S STORY.
BY AMY PRENTICE.
On pleasant afternoons your Aunt Amy dearly loves to wander down by the
side of the pond, which lies just beyond the apple orchard, and there
meet her bird or animal friends, of whom she has many, and all of them
are ready to tell her stories.
[Illustration: The Gray Goose.]
There it is she sees Mr. Frisky Squirrel, old Mr. Plodding Turtle, Mr.
Bunny Rabbit, and many others; but never until yesterday did she make
the acquaintance of the gray goose, and then it was owing to Master
Teddy's mischief that she found a new friend among the dwellers on the
farm.
Your Aunt Amy was walking slowly along on the lookout for some bird or
animal who might be in the mood for story-telling, when she heard an
angry hissing, which caused her to start in alarm, thinking a snake was
in her path, and, to her surprise, she saw two geese who were scolding
violently in their own peculiar fashion.
One was the gray goose, who afterward became very friendly, and the
other, a white gander from the farm on the opposite side of the road.
[Illustration: An Angry Pair.]
"What is the matter?" your Aunt Amy asked, as the geese continued to
hiss angrily without giving any heed to her, and Mrs. Gray Goose ceased
her scolding sufficiently long to say sharply:
"It's that Mr. Man's boy Teddy; he never comes into the farm-yard
without raising a disturbance of some kind, and I for one am sick of so
much nonsense."
Your Aunt Amy looked quickly around; but without seeing any signs of the
boy who had tried Mrs. Goose's temper so sadly, and, quite naturally,
she asked:
"What has he been doing now, and where is he?"
"Down in the meadow, or, he was there when Mr. Gander and I were driven
out by his foolish actions," and Mrs. Goose continued to hiss at the
full strength of her lungs.
[Illustration: Mr. Crow.]
"If he is so far away your scolding will do no good, because he can't
hear it," your Aunt Amy said, finding it difficult to prevent herself
from actually laughing in the angry bird's face.
"Some of the other people on this farm can hear me, and thus know that I
do not approve of such actions," Mrs. Goose replied sharply. "Since Mr.
Crow began to write poetry about Young Teddy, the boy thinks he can
chase us around whenever he pleases. He'll kill Mrs. Cow's baby, if he
isn't careful."
"Do you know Mr. Crow?" your Aunt Amy asked in surprise, for every bird
or animal she had met seemed to be on friendly terms with the old fellow
who spent the greater portion of his time in the big oak tree near the
pond.
"Of course I know him," Mrs. Goose replied as she ceased scolding and
came nearer your Aunt Amy, while Mr. Gander sat down close at hand as if
listening to what was said. "Teddy has been trying for nearly a week to
use that poor calf as if the baby was a horse--that's what he's doing
now, and Mr. Crow wrote some poetry about it. Of course old Mamma
Speckle must run straight to Teddy Boy with it, and since then he has
been carrying on worse than ever."
TEDDY AND THE CALF.
"Oh yes, I'll repeat it if you like; but I'd rather you didn't tell
Teddy that you heard it, for he is already much too proud. This is the
way it goes:
Young Ted was a rider bold,
Who never did things by half,
And so he hitched to his cart one day
A strong and frolicsome calf.
Away he went, and on behind
Came a troop of merry boys,
Who tossed their caps, and screamed aloud,
Till the woods rang with the noise.
But the steed was like his driver,--
He wouldn't do things by half,--
And never had Ted a drive like that
He had with his frolicsome calf.
[Illustration: The Bold Bare-Back Rider.]
Then Ted tried another game,
And mounted his sturdy steed;
But the calf resolved he wouldn't bear that,
So he ran with all his speed.
Ted learned to his great dismay,
That it wouldn't do by half,
When he wanted fun, to tamper with
A strong and frolicsome calf.
"That is exactly what he was doing with Mrs. Cow's baby when Mr. Gander
and I were just the same as driven out of the meadow," Mrs. Goose said
as she finished the verses. "What I'm hoping is, that Mr. Towser Dog
will help young Calf out of his trouble."
Mrs. Goose had hardly more than ceased speaking when Mrs. Cow's baby and
Mr. Towser appeared in sight, walking slowly as if talking earnestly.
Mr. Gander jumped up at once and went toward them, coming back a moment
later as he said to Mrs. Goose:
"Young Calf has given Teddy Boy a good tumble, and hopes he struck the
little rascal with his left hind foot; but of that he can't be certain,
because of being in such a hurry when he came away. Mamma Speckle has
gone over to the pasture believing she may find Mr. Donkey there, and if
she does, Teddy Boy and his friends will be glad to get away quickly."
"I suppose Young Calf and Mr. Towser Dog are waiting to hear what Mr.
Donkey has to say about it," Mrs. Goose added, as she nodded to the dog
and the calf, who were standing with their noses very near together, as
if talking the matter over.
"Does Mr. Donkey often interfere when the animals of the farm get into
trouble?" your Aunt Amy asked, and Mrs. Goose replied:
[Illustration: Waiting to Hear from Mr. Donkey.]
"Yes indeed; he's a very good friend to us all, but doesn't often have
time to look after such matters, because Mr. Man seems to delight in
finding work for him to do. He once actually killed a Mr. Weasel who was
sneaking up to murder some of the chickens, and that proves him to be a
very able fellow, for even Mr. Man himself believes it's a big thing to
get the best of a weasel.
"Mr. Towser Dog is another good friend to all of us. He thinks very much
of Mr. Man and his boy Teddy; but at the same time he looks after all
the animals and birds on the farm. I've got a piece of poetry about him
that perhaps you'd like to hear?"
"Who wrote it, Mrs. Goose?" your Aunt Amy asked, and Mr. Gander spoke up
quickly:
"That's what none of us know; but Mr. Crow said he had nothing whatever
to do with it. He don't like Mr. Towser Dog, on account of some trouble
the two of them had about Mr. Crow's digging up the corn just after Mr.
Man had planted it. Hello! there comes Mr. Donkey, and now you may be
sure Teddy Boy won't worry Mrs. Cow's baby for quite a while."
As Mr. Gander spoke a small, friendly looking donkey trotted up to where
the dog and the calf were talking together, and old Mr. Gander seemed to
think it necessary he should waddle over to hear what might be said.
[Illustration: Mr. Donkey comes trotting up to give advice.]
"They'll spend a good half hour talking matters over," Mrs. Goose said
as if displeased because of what she evidently believed was a waste of
time. "If you want to hear the verses about Mr. Towser, I may as well
read them to you now," and she drew out from beneath her wing a much
soiled piece of paper, on which was printed the following lines:
He was just a common dog, you see,
With no particular line
Of ancestry to mark him out
As a well-bred creature fine.
[Illustration: Mr. Towser Dog.]
He bayed at the moon as dogs do,
And vented his gruff bow-wows,
As he tagged my heels in the good old times
When we went after the cows.
He'd roll in the grass with the babies,
Or carry them on his back;
He'd catch the ball the youngsters tossed,
And follow the rabbit's track.
A boy's own dog, and a friendly
Companion in peace or rows,
As he tagged my heels in the good old times
When we went after the cows.
He could talk with a doggish lingo
In his own peculiar way,
And I could understand it all--
Whatever he had to say.
He'd jump to my call at the moment,
And utter his gruff bow-wows,
As he tagged my heels in the good old times
When we went after the cows.
I told him all of my secrets,
And he kept them without fail,
With never a sign that he knew them
But a wag of his short, stump tail.
Long years have passed since I heard them.--
The sound of his gruff bow-wows,
As he tagged my heels in the good old days
When we went after the cows.
"Those are very good verses, Mrs. Goose," your Aunt Amy said when the
last line had been read, and she replied as she plumed her feathers:
"So I think, although Mr. Crow says they are foolish; but that's because
he doesn't like Mr. Towser Dog. What I admire about them is that they
show what a good friend to a boy an animal can be. Now if Sammy Boy had
made friends with the calf, he wouldn't be in the house this very minute
waiting for his broken arm to get mended."
WHEN SAMMY TEASED THE CALF.
"How was that, Mrs. Goose?" your Aunt Amy asked.
"It was something that began a long time ago on the next farm; but
wasn't finished till last week. You see a little boy calf was born over
there once upon a time, and no sooner did the poor little thing come
into this world than Sammy Boy thought it great fun to drive him from
his mother, beat him with a stick, pull his tail, and do all kinds of
mean things.
"'You're a mean, selfish, cruel boy,' the calf said to himself, when he
was forced to put up with whatever Sammy felt like doing to him. 'I'll
get even with you if it takes me years to do it--You think I can't
remember, because I don't talk the same way you do; but just wait and
see!'
"Of course Sammy didn't understand what the calf said, and he poked him
all the harder with a big stick, laughing as if he thought it great fun.
Well, the years went on, and Mr. Calf grew to be big and strong. Sammy
also grew, but not as fast as the calf did, and the time came when he
didn't dare pull his tail, or poke him with a stick.
"One day when Mr. Calf was three years old, and the folks called him Mr.
Bull, Sammy went out to look at his pigeons, which he wickedly keeps
shut up in a little box, and some one had left the pasture bars down.
"Mr. Bull was standing near-by, and when he saw Sammy he said to
himself, as he lowered his head and stuck his tail straight up in the
air:
"'Now's my chance! I'll show that boy how good it is to have those who
are stronger try to be cruel.'
"Sammy had forgotten all about tormenting the calf; but I'm thinking he
remembered it when he picked himself up on the other side of the
farmyard fence, where Mr. Bull had tossed him. His arm was broken, and
his clothes torn; but with all that he wasn't hurt any worse than the
poor little calf was when Sammy poked him with a stick, or pulled his
tail."
[Illustration: Mr. Bull Pays Off Old Scores.]
Just at this time Mr. Gander came back to say that Mr. Donkey had
promised to teach the boys, who had been riding Mrs. Cow's baby as if it
was a horse, such a lesson that they wouldn't forget it very quickly.
"He's going down into the meadow," Mr. Gander said, "and if those little
rascals are yet there, he'll chase them from one end to the other,
flinging up his heels, and making believe he is trying to kick them. By
the time he gets through, I'll promise you they won't be so eager to
pick upon a poor little youngster who isn't large enough to take care of
himself."
WHERE MR. CROW HID HIS APPLES.
"They'll soon find out what a mistake they made, same as Mr. Crow did
when he put his apples away for the winter," Mrs. Gray Goose said in a
tone of satisfaction, and it seemed only natural that your Aunt Amy
should ask for an explanation.
"Mr. Crow is a good deal like Mr. Fox," Mrs. Goose said in reply. "He
thinks he's the wisest bird in this neighborhood, and that he can do
whatever he pleases, just because he makes poetry. Now this is one of
Mamma Speckle's stories, and although she does dearly love to talk about
other people, I have no doubt but it is true.
[Illustration: Mr. Crow picked up the best looking apples and dropped
them in the pitcher.]
"It seems that last fall, when the apples on the tree that stands near
the well were ripening, Mr. Crow made up his mind that the best thing he
could do would be to lay in a supply for the winter, as Mr. Bunny Rabbit
and Mr. Frisky Squirrel were doing. He went over to the well early in
the morning, before Mr. Man was out of bed, and saw the squirrels and
rabbits carrying away one at a time.
"'That's no way to do your harvesting,' he said, as if he knew just how
everything should be done. 'Before you've taken two apples to your nest
Mr. Man will be out here, and pick up all that are on the ground.'
"'More will fall to-night, and to-morrow morning we can get another
lot,' Mr. Bunny Rabbit said, as he hopped off with a juicy apple in his
mouth, and Mr. Frisky Squirrel added with a laugh:
"'It's better to make sure of two, than run the chances of not getting
any.'
"'Watch me, and you'll see how to do the work in proper shape,' Mr. Crow
said as if there was no one in all the world as wise as he.
"One of the children had left a pitcher on the ground near the well, and
Mr. Crow hopped around wonderfully lively, picking up the best looking
apples and dropping them into the pitcher.
"'Why are you doing that?' Mr. Squirrel asked.
"I'm going to pick up all the best apples, and put them in this pitcher.
Then I can come back at any time, when Mr. Man's family are not around,
and carry them off. That will be much better than waiting a whole night
just for two.'
"Well, Mr. Crow kept on picking up apples and dropping them in the
pitcher as fast as ever he could, while Mr. Rabbit and Mr. Squirrel were
well satisfied at getting safely off with two or three, and when Mr. Man
came out to the well, the pitcher was almost full of the best looking
apples, while Mr. Crow was all tired out with working so fast.
"'Hello!" Mr. Man said as he spied the pitcher of apples, and of course
Mr. Crow had hidden himself when he saw the farmer coming. "Some of my
family have been busy this morning, and I thought I was the first one
out of doors. This will save me a lot of work,' and he carried the
pitcher into the house.
"'I'm almost afraid I was too greedy,' Mr. Crow said with a flirt of his
tail as Mr. Man walked away. 'Perhaps it would have been wiser if I had
been content to carry away a few at a time, as Mr. Rabbit and Mr.
Squirrel did,' and away he flew to the oak tree without so much as a
taste of apple after picking up so many."
THE SECOND TRAGEDY IN THE FROG FAMILY.
[Illustration: Old Mr. Frog's Grandson.]
"There goes that dandified young Frog again, and this time I believe it
is my duty to teach him that the wisest course any one can pursue, is to
stay at home and attend to his own business, rather than roaming around
to show his good clothes," Mr. Gander said, starting off as rapidly as
his short legs would carry him, and, looking up, your Aunt Amy saw young
Mr. Frog, dressed in his best, just coming out of his house.
"Well, did you ever?" Mrs. Goose exclaimed as Mr. Gander hurried away in
pursuit of the frog. "Wouldn't it be strange if Mr. Gander caught him?"
"Why would it be strange?" your Aunt Amy asked, knowing full well that
geese often ate frogs, and Mrs. Goose replied:
"It would be at least odd, because it was his own grandfather who was
swallowed up by the lily-white duck, just after the cat and her kittens
came tumbling into Mrs. Mouse's hall, although Mr. Crow says, in some
poetry I've got of his, that one animal is always like others of his
kind. If old Mr. Frog went down the throat of a duck, I don't know why
his grandson shouldn't feel proud of being taken in by one of the goose
family."
While Mrs. Gray Goose was talking, Mr. Gander had been running at full
speed in pursuit of Mr. Frog, who was so busy trying to keep his hat on
that he didn't pay any attention to what was happening behind him.
A moment later Mr. Gander had overtaken the foppish young Frog, and your
Aunt Amy did not have time to call Mrs. Goose's attention to what was
going on, before Mr. Frog disappeared down Mr. Gander's throat.
[Illustration: How Young Mr. Frog Disappeared.]
"Well, I never before believed that Mr. Gander would be so piggish!"
Mrs. Goose exclaimed as her friend's bill closed upon the end of Mr.
Frog. "To think that he hadn't the politeness to offer me a taste!"
"He really didn't have the time," your Aunt Amy said laughingly, and
then, to take Mrs. Goose's attention from what was really a greedy act,
she asked about Mr. Crow's poetry concerning the likeness of one animal
to another of its kind.
SEARCHING FOR THE IMPOSSIBLE.
"It's only a nonsense rhyme," Mrs. Goose replied with a sigh as she
turned her eyes from Mr. Gander, who was twisting and squirming as if he
had something inside of him which caused considerable pain. "I'll repeat
it if you wish, and it wouldn't make me feel badly if old Mr. Gander
came within an inch of dying. A whole frog is far too big a mouthful for
a goose of his age."
"It's certain he is being punished for his greediness," your Aunt Amy
replied; "but it isn't well to rejoice while others are in trouble, even
when they brought it upon themselves, as did Mr. Gander. Suppose you
repeat Mr. Crow's poetry?"
Mrs. Goose snapped her bill together sharply as she turned her back on
the suffering gander, and recited the following jingle:
I'd love a goose that wears a shawl,
Or a gander in coat and hat;
I'd just adore a tamed giraffe,
Or a literary cat.
I'd like a goat with graceful curves,
Or a bear with manners neat;
A chimpanzee in a cutaway,
I think would be just sweet.
[Illustration: What Would be Hard to Find.]
I'd appreciate a gentle snake,
Or a dove whose ways were wild.
A bluefish draped in petticoats,
Or a tiger nice and mild.
A mackintosh upon an owl
To me would be just fine.
I'd like to know a kangaroo
Who'd ask me out to dine.
An elk dressed up in uniform,
I'd love beyond compare.
I'd even like a flying lynx,
Or an educated hare.
There's many more I'd love to have,
But never can I find
An animal but what he's like
The others of his kind.
"There's a deal of truth in the last three lines of that poetry," Mrs.
Goose said with a sigh, casting one more reproachful glance at the
suffering Mr. Gander. "I was up near Mr. Man's barn the other day, and
there I saw two kittens making a most disgraceful spectacle of
themselves; but yet they were exactly like all other cats I have ever
seen.
"It seems that their mother had caught a nice fat rat, and instead of
eating it all herself, as Mr. Gander did the frog, she brought it to her
kittens. Now there was plenty of meat for both, and neither could have
devoured the whole of it, yet those two youngsters stood there and
snarled, and spit, and scratched at each other, instead of enjoying
themselves in a friendly manner.
"They made a most dreadful noise, therefore, of course, everybody oil
the farm knew what was being done, and then the foolish things began to
fight. Just then, Mr. Brown Owl, who spends a good deal of his time on
our shed watching for mice, flew down and picked up the rat.
[Illustration: The Selfish Kittens.]
"When the kittens made up their minds that it might be better to eat
dinner than tear each other to pieces, Mr. Owl was eating the rat, and
they were obliged to go hungry for that day at least. If a person is not
only a glutton, but has beside a bad temper, he is very likely to miss
many good things which he might enjoy without much labor. Yet I don't
like to see people too soft, and smiling too sweetly, for then I always
think of the time when Mr. Wolf called on Mrs. Hog, professing to be
such a great friend."
A SUSPICIOUS-LOOKING VISITOR.
"That is a story I have never heard," your Aunt Amy said, and Mrs. Goose
looked up in surprise, as she replied:
"Why, it's as old as the hills, almost; I'll tell it because it may do
you some good. Once upon a time Mrs. Hog had seven of the dearest little
babies you ever saw, and they were as fat as butter, for Mr. Man gave
them all they wanted to eat. The family lived over on the north side of
the farm, a long distance from the house, and the fence to Mrs. Hog's
yard wasn't what it should have been when she had so many little ones to
look after. Every one, even Mr. Man himself said it ought to be mended;
but it seems that what's everybody's business is nobody's business,
therefore nothing was done.
"One afternoon, when supper had been eaten and Mrs. Hog was clearing up
the sty, Mr. Wolf poked his nose between the boards of the fence, and
said sweet as honey:
"'I am surprised, Mrs. Hog, to see that Mr. Man doesn't look after you
better. The first thing you know some bad person will come along, and
then one of the babies will be missing.'
"'There's little fear of that, Mr. Wolf, while I'm around,' and Mrs. Hog
showed her teeth.
[Illustration: Mr. Wolf wants to live with Mrs. Hog.]
"'Oh yes, I understand what you mean,' Mr. Wolf said, smiling all over
his face as if he was the best friend Mrs. Hog ever had. 'What I'm
afraid of is that the little ones may get into trouble while you are out
calling, and that would come near to breaking my heart, for I am very
fond of them. Now suppose I come here to live with you until they are
large enough to take care of themselves?'
"Mrs. Hog knew that if Mr. Wolf should try real hard to make trouble for
her, he might be able to do it, so she didn't dare tell him just what
she thought; but, going a little nearer him, to where one of the boards
had been slipped aside at the top, she said:
"'I'm afraid we haven't got room enough for you, Mr. Wolf. You can't
even get your head between these boards.'
"'Indeed I can,' Mr. Wolf said, laughing to think how easily he was
fooling Mrs. Hog, and he stuck his head through where the board was
loose.
"That was just what Mrs. Hog wanted him to do, and before he knew what
had happened, she jammed the two boards together with her nose, holding
Mr. Wolf by the neck in such a way that he couldn't do anything but
howl, till one of the babies ran and told Mr. Towser Dog to come and
look after the visitor.
"The next time you want to fool anybody you'd better find a foolish
little pig, instead of an old hog like me, who knows that there's some
mischief in the air when the wolves get to acting like one's best
friends,' Mrs. Hog said, as Mr. Towser took Mr. Wolf by the throat to
teach him better manners.
"I think myself that it is better to be suspicious, as was the colored
minister's rooster, than believe everything you are told, and make
friends with the first one who holds out his hand."
"Tell me the story about the rooster," your Aunt Amy said as Mrs. Goose
ceased speaking and turned to look at Mr. Gander, who still appeared to
be in pain.
WHEN MR. BOOSTER WAS SUSPICIOUS.
"It is one of Mr. Crow's stories," Mrs. Gray Goose said after another
long look at the suffering gander; "but it agrees with what I said about
the wisdom of being suspicious now and then.
"It seems that once upon a time a colored man raised a nice flock of
fowls; but his neighbors, who dearly loved stewed chickens or roasted
turkey, came to dinner so often, that very soon one thin turkey and an
old rooster, were all he had left.
"Just then two friends of the man's wife came to dinner, and, because he
hadn't any meat in the house, there was nothing to do but catch and cook
one of the lonesome looking pair.
"Mr. Turkey Gobbler saw the man coming, and flew up on the top of the
barn, as he cried:
"'I've got other business, and can't go to dinner with you, no matter
how much you want me.'
"'Now he's after me!' Mr. Rooster cried, growing suspicious when the
man caught him by the end of the tail and pulled nearly half the
feathers out.
"'Get under the barn! Get under the barn!' Mr. Turkey screamed, and Mr.
Rooster shouted while he went across the yard as fast as his legs could
carry him:
"'Give me a little time, and I'll win the race; but he's dangerously
near.'
"Well, Mr. Rooster got under the barn nearly a minute before the man
did, and there he stayed, paying no attention to the coaxing or threats,
and, finally, discouraged and with his coat torn in two places, the man
went into the house to tell his visitors that he couldn't have company
to dinner that day.
[Illustration: A Race for Life.]
"When he had got inside the house Mr. Rooster crept out from under the
barn, and crowed up to Mr. Turkey: 'Do you-think-he's-gone-for
goo-o-o-d?'
"And the suspicious Mr. Turkey gobbled back:
"'Doubtful! Doubtful! Doubtful! Doubtful!'
"That Mr. Rooster had a good deal more sense than our Mr. Dorking, who
made such a fool of himself last summer. It isn't much of a story; but
it shows how silly some people are," and once more Mrs. Goose looked at
Mr. Gander.
WHEN THE ROOSTER FOUND THE MOON.
"I would like very much to hear the story," your Aunt Amy said, and she
spoke the truth, for thus far Mrs. Goose had been most entertaining.
"It's kind of you to say so," Mrs. Goose replied with a smirk. "If I
keep on at this rate you'll think I like to talk as well as Mamma
Speckle does; but I've heard of you so often from our people around
here, that it seemed as if I must have a whole lot of stories to tell,
else you'd say I wasn't much of anybody after all. But about Mr. Dorking
Rooster: it seems that one night he couldn't sleep, on account of having
eaten too much, and for the first time in his life he saw the moon and
the stars.
"The next day, when he was going across the front yard, he saw one of
those large rubber balls, painted in bright colors, such as Mr. Man's
children use to play with in the house, and after looking it over
carefully he decided that he knew what it was.
[Illustration: Mr. Dorking Finds the Moon.]
"'This must be the moon I saw last night,' he said to himself; 'but it
don't seem to shine as it did then. Perhaps it doesn't give out any
light till after sunset, so I'll wait till then to see it.'
"So Mr. Dorking sat down and waited. The sun set, and black clouds
covered the sky, but, yet the ball did not shine. All the other chickens
had gone to roost hours before; but Mr. Dorking kept on watching. It
began to rain; the lightning flashed and the thunder rolled. The rooster
was wet to the skin, and terribly frightened.
"'I'll save the moon,' he cried, and picking up the ball in his beak,
which wasn't an easy task, he ran as fast as he could to the hen-house;
but when he got there the storm had cleared away. Looking up, Mr.
Dorking saw the moon in the sky, and throwing the ball into the house,
he cried out to his wife:
"'What kind of a thing is this, anyway? I've been lugging it around for
an hour or more, and now there's another moon come to take its place.'
"'Come straight up here to your roost, you foolish old thing.' Mrs.
Dorking said angrily. 'If you had half as much sense as Mr. Monkey, you
could have taken the children and me on a picnic, instead of fooling
your time away with a rubber ball.'
"What did she mean by 'having as much sense as Mr. Monkey,'" your Aunt
Amy asked, and Mrs. Goose replied:
WHEN MRS. MONKEY WAS DISSATISFIED.
"Oh, it was an idea she got from some of Mr. Crow's poetry. All the
fowls on our farm have laughed at it time and time again. This is the
way it goes:
Said old Mrs. Monk one morning, "Look at me.
I am tired of living in this cocoa tree,
You have got to go to work and rent a flat,
For I'll not live in this manner, mind you that."
Then when Mister Monkey heard all that she said,
He thought of many trades, and scratched his head
What on earth could monkeys do to bring in gold
So a loving monkey wifey wouldn't scold?
Now what do you suppose the Monkey did?
Do you think he climbed the cocoa tree and hid?
No; upon a jungle trolley he is there
Hanging by his legs and tail collecting fare."
Mrs. Goose would have been blind if she had not seen that your Aunt Amy
thought the jingle was very foolish, and she hastened to say:
[Illustration: Mr. Monkey listening to his Wife.]
HOW BUNNY RABBIT FOOLED GRANDFATHER STORK.
"I guess you think the same as does Grandfather Stork about some of Mr.
Crow's verses. He says that nobody but foolish geese would listen to
them, and yet there isn't anybody around here who doesn't like them.
Grandfather Stork don't know everything there is to be learned in this
world, else Mr. Bunny Rabbit couldn't have fooled him the way he did."
"I have never heard that Mr. Bunny Rabbit fooled Grandfather Stork," your
Aunt Amy said, and Mrs. Goose almost laughed when she replied:
"Then you haven't seen the old fellow lately, for he spends all his time
running around the neighborhood telling of it. He thinks he was very
smart, and I'm not saying but that it was more than one would have
expected of him, for Mr. Bunny Rabbit isn't the wisest animal living
near the pond, by a good deal. Poor old Grandfather Stork was the most
harmless bird that ever lived. He had carried babies from one place to
another till he was all worn out, and hadn't more than six feathers left
on his head.
"He hadn't a tooth to his bill, and seemed to have forgotten how to hunt
for his dinner, so one day when he met Bunny Rabbit, he said to him as
polite as could be:
"'Good morning, Mr. Rabbit. Can you tell me where I'll find two or three
fat fish near about here?'
[Illustration: Grandfather Stork waiting for his dinner.]
"Bunny scratched his nose as if he was doing a terrible lot of thinking,
and then said, solemn as ever was Squire Owl:
"'Why, of course, Mr. Stork, and I always like to help a neighbor along.
But times have changed since you were a young fellow. Then you had to
catch your own fish, or go without; but now the law is that after a bird
has stood on one foot half an hour, two fish jump down his throat, and
three more go the same way at the end of an hour. Mr. Robin Red-Breast
forgot all about the new law the other day, and, because his left foot
was sore, he stood on the right one till two big pickerel made a leap
for his mouth. Either of them was seven times as big as he is, and it's
a wonder he wasn't killed.'
"'Dear me, is that so, Mr. Rabbit? Now I really can't catch fish as I
used to; but it comes quite natural for me to stand on one foot. I'll
try to do you a favor some day, Mr. Rabbit.'
"Then Grandfather Stork stood up in the sun waiting for the fish to jump
down his throat, and Bunny Rabbit ran off into the bushes, laughing till
there was danger of splitting his sides; but he didn't keep it up very
long, for just then down swooped Mr. Hawk, and Bunny Rabbit came very
near taking an excursion in the air.
"As it was, Mr. Hawk dug a great hole in his back, and nipped off a
piece of his tail, before Bunny could get under a wild-rose bush where
he was safe. It was Mr. Crow who told Grandfather Stork that he had been
fooled, and the poor old fellow looked so sorrowful when he hobbled away
without having had any dinner, that I made up my mind I never would try
to play such kind of jokes."
"And you are right, Mrs. Goose," your Aunt Amy said decidedly. "It is a
very foolish practice, and often causes much trouble. Now Bunny Rabbit
really told Mr. Stork a lie, even if it was in sport, and we all know
how wrong that is."
At this moment Mr. Grander came up, and when Mrs. Goose asked how he
felt, he said:
"I'm better, thank you. That frog was tough, and, to make matters worse,
I accidentally swallowed his hat."
"You were in too much of a hurry, Mr. Gander," Mrs. Goose said sharply.
"Perhaps you was afraid you might be asked to share him with some other
goose."
"Well, there! I never stopped to think that you might like a piece," Mr.
Gander said, as if he felt terribly sorry because of having been so
selfish. "I'll spend all day to-morrow hunting for Mr. Frog's brother,
and if I catch the fellow, you shall have the whole of him."
"I'll hunt for my own frogs, thank you," Mrs. Goose replied as she
straightened herself up angrily. "I never yet have asked others to find
food for me, and I hope I don't live simply for the sake of eating, as
does Mrs. Wild Goose, who visited us not long ago."
Mr. Gander gazed at Mrs. Gray Goose sadly; but she refused even to look
at him, and after a time he waddled slowly away, stopping now and then
to snap at a grasshopper that jumped over his head.
[Illustration: Mrs. Gray Goose is Angry.]
MRS. WILD GOOSE'S VISIT.
"What about Mrs. Wild Goose making you a visit?" Aunt Amy asked, when
she and the gray goose were alone once more.
"It isn't what you might really call a story," Mrs. Goose replied. "I
only spoke of it to remind Mr. Gander how he himself talked about those
who think only of what can be eaten. Not more than a month ago Mrs. Wild
Goose flew down into our yard, and one would have thought that she owned
the entire farm, to hear her talk.
"'This seems to be quite a comfortable place,' she said, walking around
and poking her bill into every corner before she had spoken to any of
us. 'I have seen better yards, of course; but a goose who has traveled
as much as I have, learns to make the best of everything. It looks as if
Mr. Man gave you all you wanted to eat.'
"'So he does,' Mr. Dorking Rooster said, and we have nothing to do but
enjoy ourselves.'
"'Indeed!' Mrs. Wild Goose cried. 'Then I'll stay right here. The doctor
says I mustn't move around very much, and the climate seems to agree
with me.'
"Well, she was the greediest goose I ever saw. She would gobble up fully
half of all the food that was brought into the yard, before one of us
had time to swallow a single mouthful, and it did seem as if she
couldn't get enough. Even Mr. Gander, who has just shown how greedy he
can be, said that it really made him feel faint to see her show of
gluttony.
"When Mrs. Wild Goose had been with us about two weeks, Betty, the
housemaid, came into the yard with a cloth over her head, and a big
apron on. All of us who lived there knew what it meant, and ran for dear
life, with Mrs. Wild Goose at our heels, as she shrieked:
"'What is she going to do?'
"'She's going to pull out our feathers with which to stuff pillows and
beds for Mr. Man to sleep on,' Mr. Gander said.
[Illustration: Mrs. Wild Goose Goes Away in a Hurry.]
"Dear me, dear me, I never will put up with such treatment as that! I
only came here for a change of air and food, and couldn't think of
parting with my feathers!'
"Then, without stopping to thank us for the pleasant visit, off she flew
to find another place where she could make a glutton of herself without
having to pay or work. Some birds seem to think, as did Mrs. Pea-Hen,
that they have nothing to do in this world but enjoy themselves; but
I've lived long enough to know that we must do our full share of the
work, if we want to take part in the play."
"What did Mrs. Pea-Hen believe," your Aunt Amy asked, and Mrs. Gray
Goose replied:
WHEN MRS. PEA-HEN ABANDONED THE ORPHANS.
"She always has looked, and always will look first after her own comfort
or pleasure, no matter how much others may suffer. Any other bird on
this farm would have been so ashamed, after doing what Mrs. Pea-Hen has,
that she'd never hold up her head again, and what I'm going to tell you
isn't the first selfish thing she has done.
"About four weeks ago Mrs. Pea-Hen made a great fuss over wanting to
bring up a family, and began to set on anything and everything she could
find that looked like an egg. Well, Mr. Man made a nice nest for her,
and put in it thirteen white eggs. No hen could have asked for a better
place in which to show what she was able to do, and whenever any of us
went to call on her, Mrs. Pea-Hen had a great deal to say about what she
would do when her family came out of the shells.
"I can't deny but that she sat there faithfully, and took proper care of
the eggs, and, of course, out came thirteen as pretty little chickens as
you could want to see. Mrs. Pea-Hen seemed to be real proud because she
had so many babies, and after the last one was hatched she called all of
them out for a walk.
"They came from the nest with considerable noise, such as all youngsters
make, and no sooner did she hear the first peep than Mrs. Pea-Hen turned
around like a flash, looking at first one and then another until she had
seen the whole brood.
"'Why, they are nothing but ordinary chickens!' she cried, and off she
walked, paying no heed to the poor little things when they called after
her for something to eat.
"'Are you going away and leave those dear little babies with no one to
care for them?' Mamma Speckle asked angrily, and Mrs. Pea-Hen replied,
as if to say she didn't allow any one to meddle with her family affairs:
"'Of course I am! Do you suppose a fowl of my standing in society would
spend her time looking after a lot of common chickens?'
[Illustration: The Hard-Hearted Mrs. Pea-Hen.]
"'But they'll starve to death!' Mamma Speckle cried, as if she was
almost heart-broken.
"'That's no concern of mine. Mr. Man made me believe they were my own
eggs, else I'd never sat on them a single hour,' Mrs. Pea-Hen said, as
she kept on walking away with never a look at the poor little babies,
and Mamma Speckle called after her:
"'You was so crazy to set that you would have tried to hatch out a nest
full of stones, if you couldn't have found anything better!'
"Mrs. Pea-Hen tried to act as if she didn't hear what Mamma Speckle
said; but she couldn't help it, for you know how loud the speckled hen
talks. She never paid any attention to the babies, though, and the other
fowls took care of them as best they could with babies of their own."
ALICE QUESTIONS MR. TURTLE.
"Say, of course you know a good deal more than any bird or animal on
this farm, and I do wish you would tell me how long Mr. Turtle has
lived?"
That was a question which your Aunt Amy could not answer, and when she
said as much, Mrs. Goose continued:
"He claims to be very, very old, and to hear the stories he tells you'd
think he had lived in every part of the world. He started a kind of a
show last week, and calls it a 'zoo,' whatever that may be. A lot of
birds and animals sit around to show themselves, and say it is a
'wonderful exhibition.' Mr. Man's little girl Alice was out walking with
her doll yesterday, and saw Mr. Turtle near the old maple tree selling
tickets for the 'zoo.' This is what Mr. Crow declares she said to the
old fellow:
"They tell me, Mr. Turtle, you
Were born long years ago--
Five hundred years, the doctor says,
And doctors ought to know.
"He says that every year you live
A scientist can tell
Because each birthday leaves a mark
Upon your rusty shell.
"I've lots and lots of questions, then,
To ask if you're so old,
And if you will not answer them,
Please do not think me bold.
"In fourteen ninety-two, when Chris
Columbus westward sailed,
When he discovered Yankeeland,
Was he, then, later jailed?
"Did Shakespeare write those dramas old,
Or did Lord Bacon's pen?
When Joan rambled in Lorraine,
Were you out crawling then?
"You must have known the virgin queen,
And known Sir Walter, too;
You've heard that story of the ring,
What really did she do?
[Illustration: Alice and Mr. Turtle.]
"Did Pocahontas save the life
Of Captain Smith that day?
Did Cromwell take the reins of State,
As all the school-books say?
"Did Washington cut down the tree
That time in early May,
And say 'I cannot tell a lie?'
Now answer me I pray."
The Turtle only looked around,
And winked a lazy wink;
He seemed to say, "Don't bother me;
It hurts my brain to think."
"Why is it that all of you who live near here, like Mr. Crow's poetry so
well?" your Aunt Amy asked, when Mrs. Goose had come to an end of the
lines, and she replied thoughtfully:
"Well, really now, I can't say. Perhaps it's because he tells us it is
the best ever written. Why, I've even heard old Mr. Turtle repeating the
verses, and if he has lived five hundred years, surely he ought to know
whether they are good or bad. There's one thing I do know, though, which
is, that there's no person within two miles of this pond that can tell
as many good stories as Mr. Crow. He's got one about a lazy Mr. Horse
that means a good deal, if you take the trouble to think it over. Don't
you want to hear it?"
Your Aunt Amy really enjoys hearing Mr. Crow's stories, and when she
made such a statement, Mrs. |
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NORMANDY:
THE SCENERY & ROMANCE OF ITS ANCIENT TOWNS:
DEPICTED BY GORDON HOME
Part 2.
CHAPTER IV
Concerning the Cathedral City of Evreux and the Road to Bernay
The tolling of the deep-toned bourdon in the cathedral tower reverberates
over the old town of Evreux as we pass along the cobbled streets. There is
a yellow evening light overhead, and the painted stucco walls of the houses
reflect the soft, glowing colour of the west. In the courtyard of the Hotel
du Grand Cerf, too, every thing is bathed in this beautiful light and the
double line of closely trimmed laurels has not yet been deserted by the
golden flood. But Evreux does not really require a fine evening to make it
attractive, although there is no town in existence that is not improved
under such conditions. With the magnificent cathedral, the belfry, the
Norman church of St Taurin and the museum, besides many quaint peeps by the
much sub-divided river Iton that flows through the town, there is
sufficient to interest one even on the dullest of dull days.
Of all the cathedral interiors in Normandy there are none that possess a
finer or more perfectly proportioned nave than Evreux, and if I were asked
to point out the two most impressive interiors of the churches in this
division of France I should couple the cathedral at Evreux with St Ouen at
Rouen.
It was our own Henry I. who having destroyed the previous building set to
work to build a new one and it is his nave that we see to-day. The whole
cathedral has since that time been made to reflect the changing ideals of
the seven centuries that have passed. The west front belongs entirely to
the Renaissance period and the north transept is in the flamboyant style of
the fifteenth century so much in evidence in Normandy and so infrequent in
England.
The central tower with its tall steeple now encased in scaffolding was
built in 1470 by Cardinal Balue, Bishop of Evreux and inventor of the
fearful wooden cages in one of which the prisoner Dubourg died at Mont St
Michel.
In most of the windows there is old and richly glass; those in the
chancel have stronger tones, but they all transform the shafts of light
into gorgeous rainbow effects which stand out in wonderful contrast to the
delicate, creamy white of the stone-work. Pale blue banners are suspended
in the chancel, and the groining above is on each side of the
bosses for a short distance, so that as one looks up the great sweep of the
nave, the banners and the brilliant fifteenth century glass appear as vivid
patches of colour beyond the uniform, creamy grey on either side. The
Norman towers at the west end of the cathedral are completely hidden in the
mask of classical work planted on top of the older stone-work in the
sixteenth century, and more recent restoration has altered some of the
other features of the exterior. At the present day the process of
restoration still goes on, but the faults of our grandfathers fortunately
are not repeated.
Leaving the Place Parvis by the Rue de l'Horloge you come to the great open
space in front of the Hotel de Ville and the theatre with the museum on the
right, in which there are several Roman remains discovered at Vieil-Evreux,
among them being a bronze statue of Jupiter Stator. On the opposite side of
the Place stands the beautiful town belfry built at the end of the
fifteenth century. There was an earlier one before that time, but I do not
know whether it had been destroyed during the wars with the English, or
whether the people of Evreux merely raised the present graceful tower in
place of the older one with a view to beautifying the town. The bell, which
was cast in 1406 may have hung in the former structure, and there is some
fascination in hearing its notes when one realises how these same sound
waves have fallen on the ears of the long procession of players who have
performed their parts within its hearing. A branch of the Iton runs past
the foot of the tower in canal fashion; it is backed by old houses and
crossed by many a bridge, and helps to build up a suitable foreground to
the beautiful old belfry, which seems to look across to the brand new Hotel
de Ville with an injured expression. From the Boulevard Chambaudouin there
is a good view of one side of the Bishop's palace which lies on the south
side of the cathedral, and is joined to it by a gallery and the remains of
the cloister. The walls are strongly fortified, and in front of them runs a
branch of one of the canals of the Iton, that must have originally served
as a moat.
Out towards the long straight avenue that runs out of the town in the
direction of Caen, there may be seen the Norman church of St Taurin. It is
all that is left of the Benedictine abbey that once stood here. Many people
who explore this interesting church fail to see the silver-gilt reliquary
of the twelfth century that is shown to visitors who make the necessary
inquiries. The richness of its enamels and the elaborate ornamentation
studded with imitation gems that have replaced the real ones, makes this
casket almost unique.
Many scenes from the life of the saint are shown in the windows of the
choir of the church. They are really most interesting, and the glass is
very beautiful. The south door must have been crowded with the most
elaborate ornament, but the delicately carved stone-work has been hacked
away and the thin pillars replaced by crude, uncarved chunks of stone.
There is Norman arcading outside the north transept as well as just above
the floor in the north aisle. St Taurin is a somewhat dilapidated and
cob-webby church, but it is certainly one of the interesting features of
Evreux.
Instead of keeping on the road to Caen after reaching the end of the great
avenue just mentioned, we turn towards the south and soon enter pretty
pastoral scenery. The cottages are almost in every instance thatched, with
ridges plastered over with a kind of cobb mud. In the cracks in this
curious ridging, grass seeds and all sorts of wild flowers are soon
deposited, so that upon the roof of nearly every cottage there is a
luxuriant growth of grass and flowers. In some cases yellow irises alone
ornament the roofs, and they frequently grow on the tops of the walls that
are treated in a similar fashion. A few miles out of Evreux you pass a
hamlet with a quaint little church built right upon the roadway with no
churchyard or wall of any description. A few broken gravestones of quite
recent date litter the narrow, dusty space between the north side of the
church and the roadway. Inside there is an untidy aspect to everything, but
there are some windows containing very fine thirteenth century glass which
the genial old cure shows with great delight, for it is said that they were
intended for the cathedral at Evreux, but by some chance remained in this
obscure hamlet. The cure also points out the damage done to the windows by
_socialistes_ at a recent date.
By the roadside towards Conches, there are magpies everywhere, punctuated
by yellow hammers and nightingales. The cottages have thatch of a very deep
brown colour over the hipped roofs, closely resembling those in the
out-of-the-way parts of Sussex. It a beautiful country, and the
delightfully situated town of Conches at the edge of its forest is well
matched with its surroundings.
In the middle of the day the inhabitants seem to entirely disappear from
the sunny street, and everything has a placid and reposeful appearance as
though the place revelled in its quaintness. Backed by the dense masses of
forest there is a sloping green where an avenue of great chestnuts tower
above the long, low roof of the timber-framed cattle shelter. On the
highest part of the hill stands the castle, whose round, central tower
shows above the trees that grow thickly on the <DW72>s of the hill. Close to
the castle is the graceful church, and beyond are the clustered roofs of
the houses. A viaduct runs full tilt against the hill nearly beneath the
church, and then the railway pierces the hill on its way towards Bernay.
The tall spire of the church of St Foy is comparatively new, for the whole
structure was rebuilt in the fifteenth century, but its stained glass is of
exceptional interest. Its richness of colour and the interest of the
subjects indicate some unusually gifted artist, and one is not surprised to
discover that they were designed by Aldegrevers, who was trained by that
great master Albrecht Dyrer. Altogether there are twenty-one of these
beautiful windows. Seven occupy the eastern end of the apse and give scenes
taken from the life of St Foy.
You can reach the castle by passing through the quaint archway of the Hotel
de Ville, and then passing through the shady public garden you plunge into
the dry moat that surrounds the fortified mound. There is not very much to
see but what appears in a distant view of the town, and in many ways the
outside groupings of the worn ruin and the church roofs and spire above the
houses are better than the scenes in the town itself. The Hotel Croix
Blanche is a pleasant little house for dejeuner. Everything is extremely
simple and typical of the family methods of the small French inn, where
excellent cooking goes along with many primitive usages. The cool
salle-a-manger is reached through the general living-room and kitchen,
which is largely filled with the table where you may see the proprietor
and his family partaking of their own meals. There seems no room to cook
anything at all, and yet when you are seated in the next room the
daughter of the family, an attractive and neatly dressed girl,
gracefully serves the most admirable courses, worthy and perhaps better
than what one may expect to obtain in the best hotel in Rouen.
There is a road that passes right through the forest of Conches towards
Rugles, but that must be left for another occasion if we are to see
anything of the charms of Beaumont-le-Roger, the perfectly situated little
town that lies half-way between Conches and Bernay.
The long street of the town containing some very charming peeps as you go
towards the church is really a terrace on the limestone hills that rises
behind the houses on the right, and falls steeply on the left. Spaces
between the houses and narrow turnings give glimpses of the rich green
country down below. From the lower level you see the rocky ridge above
clothed in a profusion of trees. The most perfect picture in the town is
from the river bank just by the bridge. In the foreground is the
mirror-like stream that gives its own rendering of the scene that is built
up above it. Leaning upon a parapet of the bridge is a man with a rod who
is causing tragedies in the life that teems beneath the glassy surface.
Beyond the bridge appear some quaint red roofs with one tower-like house
with an overhanging upper storey. Higher up comes the precipitous hill
divided into terraces by the huge walls that surround the abbey buildings,
and still higher, but much below the highest part of the hill, are the
picturesque ruins of the abbey. On the summit of the ridge dominating all
are the insignificant remains of the castle built by Roger a la Barbe,
whose name survives in that of the town. His family were the founders of
the abbey that flourished for several centuries, but finally, about a
hundred years ago, the buildings were converted to the uses of a factory!
Spinning and weaving might have still been going on but for a big fire that
destroyed the whole place. There was, however, a considerably more complete
series of buildings left than we can see to-day, but scarcely more than
fifty years ago the place was largely demolished for building materials.
The view from the river Rille is therefore the best the ruin can boast, for
seen from that point the arches rise up against the green background as a
stately ruin, and the tangled mass of weeds and debris are invisible. The
entrance is most inviting. It is down at the foot of the cliff, and the
archway with the steep ascent inside suggests all sorts of delights beyond,
as it stands there just by the main street of the town. I was sorry
afterwards, that I had accepted that hospitality, for with the exception of
a group of merry children playing in an orchard and some big caves hollowed
out of the foot of the cliff that rises still higher, I saw nothing but a
jungle of nettles. This warning should not, however, suggest that
Beaumont-le-Roger is a poor place to visit. Not only is it a charming, I
may say a fascinating spot to visit, but it is also a place in which to
stay, for the longer you remain there the less do you like the idea of
leaving. The church of St Nicholas standing in the main street where it
becomes much wider and forms a small Place, is a beautiful old building
whose mellow colours on stone-work and tiles glow vividly on a sunny
afternoon. There is a great stone wall forming the side of the rocky
platform that supports the building and the entrance is by steps that lead
up to the west end. The tower belongs to the flamboyant period and high up
on its parapet you may see a small statue of Regulus who does duty as a
"Jack-smite-the-clock." Just by the porch there leans against a wall a most
ponderous grave slab which was made for the tomb of Jehan du Moustier a
soldier of the fourteenth century who fought for that Charles of Navarre
who was surnamed "The Bad." The classic additions to the western part of
the church seem strangely out of sympathy with the gargoyles overhead and
the thirteenth century arcades of the nave, but this mixing up of styles is
really more incongruous in description than in reality.
When you have decided to leave Beaumont-le-Roger and have passed across the
old bridge and out into the well-watered plain, the position of the little
town suggests that of the village of Pulborough in Sussex, where a road
goes downhill to a bridge and then crosses the rich meadowland where the
river Arun winds among the pastures in just the same fashion as the Rille.
At a bend in the road to Bernay stands the village of Serquigny. It is just
at the edge of the forest of Beaumont which we have been skirting, and
besides having a church partially belonging to the twelfth century it has
traces of a Roman Camp. All the rest of the way to Bernay the road follows
the railway and the river Charentonne until the long--and when you are
looking out for the hotel--seemingly endless street of Bernay is reached.
After the wonderful combination of charms that are flaunted by
Beaumont-le-Roger it is possible to grumble at the plainer features of
Bernay, but there is really no reason to hurry out of the town for there is
much quaint architecture to be seen, and near the Hotel du Lion d'Or there
is a house built right over the street resting on solid wooden posts. But
more interesting than the domestic architecture are the remains of the
abbey founded by Judith of Brittany very early in the eleventh century for
it is probably one of the oldest Romanesque remains in Normandy. The church
is cut up into various rooms and shops at the choir end, and there has been
much indiscriminate ill-treatment of the ancient stone-work. Much of the
structure, including the plain round arches and square columns, is of the
very earliest Norman period, having been built in the first half of the
eleventh century, but in later times classic ornament was added to the work
of those shadowy times when the kingdom of Normandy had not long been
established. So much alteration in the styles of decoration has taken place
in the building that it is possible to be certain of the date of only some
portions of the structure. The Hotel de Ville now occupies part of the
abbey buildings.
At the eastern side of the town stands St Croix, a fifteenth century church
with a most spacious interior. There is much beautiful glass dating from
three hundred years ago in the windows of the nave and transepts, but
perhaps the feature which will be remembered most when other impressions
have vanished, will be the finely carved statues belonging to the
fourteenth century which were brought here from the Abbey of Bec. The south
transept contains a monument to Guillaume Arvilarensis, an abbot of Bec who
died in 1418. Upon the great altar which is believed to have been brought
from the Abbey of Bec, there are eight marble columns surrounding a small
white marble figure of the Child Jesus.
Another church at Bernay is that of Notre Dame de la Couture. It has much
fourteenth century work and behind the high altar there are five chapels,
the centre one containing a copy of the "sacred image" of Notre Dame which
stands by the column immediately to the right of the entrance. Much more
could be said of these three churches with their various styles of
architecture extending from the very earliest period down to the classic
work of the seventeenth century. But this is not the place for intricate
descriptions of architectural detail which are chiefly useful in books
which are intended for carrying from place to place.
CHAPTER V
Concerning Lisieux and the Romantic Town of Falaise
Lisieux is so rich in the curious timber-framed houses of the middle and
later ages that there are some examples actually visible immediately
outside the railway station whereas in most cases one usually finds an
aggregation of uninteresting modern buildings. As you go towards the centre
of the town the old houses, which have only been dotted about here and
there, join hands and form whole streets of the most romantic and almost
stage-like picturesqueness. The narrow street illustrated here is the Rue
aux Fevres. Its houses are astonishingly fine, and it forms--especially in
the evening--a background suitable for any of the stirring scenes that took
place in such grand old towns as Lisieux in medieval days. This street is
however, only one of several that reek of history. In the Rue des
Boucheries and in the Grande Rue there are lovely overhanging gables and
curious timber-framing that is now at any angle but what was originally
intended. There is really so much individual quaintness in these houses
that they deserve infinitely more than the scurry past them which so
frequently is all their attractions obtain. The narrowness and fustiness of
the Rue aux Fevres certainly hinder you from spending much time in
examining the houses but there are two which deserve a few minutes'
individual attention. One which has a very wide gable and the upper floors
boarded is believed to be of very great antiquity, dating from as early a
period as the thirteenth century. It is numbered thirty-three, and must not
be confused with the richly ornamented Manoir de Francois I. The timber
work of this house, especially of the two lower floors is covered with
elaborate carving including curious animals and quaint little figures, and
also the salamander of the royal house. For this reason the photographs
sold in the shops label the house "Manoir de la Salamandre." The place is
now fast going to ruin--a most pitiable sight and I for one, would prefer
to see the place restored rather than it should be allowed to become so
hopelessly dilapidated and rotten that the question of its preservation
should come to be considered lightly.
If the town authorities of Lisieux chose to do so, they could encourage the
townsfolk to enrich many of their streets by a judicious flaking off of the
plaster which in so many cases tries to hide all the pleasant features of
houses that have seen at least three centuries, but this sort of work when
in the hands of only partially educated folk is liable to produce a worse
state of affairs than if things had been left untouched. An example of what
over-restoration can do, may be seen when we reach the beautiful old inn at
Dives.
The two churches of Lisieux are well fitted to their surroundings, and
although St Jacques has no graceful tower or fleche, the quaintness of its
shingled belfry makes up for the lack of the more stately towers of St
Pierre. Where the stone-work has stopped short the buttresses are roofed
with the quaintest semi-circular caps, and over the clock there are two
more odd-looking pepper boxes perched upon the steep <DW72> that projects
from the square belfry. Over all there is a low pyramidal roof, stained
with orange lichen and making a great contrast in colour to the
weather-beaten stone-work down below. There are small patches of tiled
roofing to the buttresses at the western ends of the aisles and these also
add colour to this picturesque building. The great double flight of stone
steps which lead to the imposing western door have balustrades filled with
flamboyant tracery, but although the church is built up in this way, the
floor in the interior is not level, for it <DW72>s gently up towards the
east. The building was commenced during the reign of Louis XII. and not
finished until nearly the end of the reign of Francois I. It is therefore
coeval with that richly carved house in the Rue aux Fevres. Along the sides
of the church there project a double row of thirsty-looking gargoyles--the
upper ones having their shoulders supported by the mass of masonry
supporting the flying buttresses. The interior is richer than the exterior,
and you may see on some of the pillars remains of sixteenth century
paintings. A picture dating from 1681 occupies a position in the chapel of
St Ursin in the south aisle; it shows the relic of the saint being brought
to Lisieux in 1055.
The wide and sunny Place Thiers is dominated by the great church of St
Pierre, which was left practically in its present form in the year 1233.
The first church was begun some years before the conquest of England but
about a century later it suffered the fate of Bayeux being burnt down in
1136. It was reconstructed soon afterwards and shows to-day the first
period of Gothic architecture that became prevalent in Normandy. Only the
north tower dates from this period, the other one had to be rebuilt during
the reign of Henri III. and the spire only made its appearance in the
seventeenth century. The Lady Chapel is of particular interest owing to the
statement that it was built by that Bishop of Beauvais who took such a
prominent part in the trial of Joan of Arc. The main arches over the big
west door are now bare of carving or ornament and the Hotel de Ville is
built right up against the north-west corner, but despite this St Pierre
has the most imposing and stately appearance, and there are many features
such as the curious turrets of the south transept that impress themselves
on the memory more than some of the other churches we have seen.
Lisieux is one of those cheerful towns that appear always clean and bright
under the dullest skies, so that when the sun shines every view seems
freshly painted and blazing with colour. The freshness of the atmosphere,
too, is seldom tainted with those peculiar odours that some French towns
produce with such enormous prodigality, and Lisieux may therefore claim a
further point in its favour.
It is generally a wide, hedgeless stretch of country that lies between
Lisieux and Falaise, but for the first ten miles there are big farm-houses
with timber-framed barns and many orchards bearing a profusion of blossom
near the roadside. A small farm perched above the road and quite out of
sight, invites the thirsty passer-by to turn aside up a steep path to
partake of cider or coffee. It is a simple, almost bare room where the
refreshment is served, but its quaintness and shadowy coolness are most
refreshing. The fireplace has an open hearth with a wood fire which can
soon be blown into a blaze by the big bellows that hang against the chimney
corner. A table by one of the windows is generally occupied in her spare
moments by the farmer's pretty daughter who puts aside her knitting to
fetch the cider or to blow up the fire for coffee. They are a most genial
family and seem to find infinite delight in plying English folk with
questions for I imagine that not many find their way to this sequestered
corner among waving trees and lovely orchards.
A sudden descent before reaching St Pierre-sur-Dives gives a great view
over the level country below where everything is brilliantly green and
garden-like. The village first shows its imposing church through the trees
of a straight avenue leading towards the village which also possesses a
fine Market Hall that must be at least six hundred years old. The church is
now undergoing restoration externally, but by dodging the falling cement
dust you may go inside, perhaps to be disappointed that there is not more
of the Norman work that has been noticed in the southern tower that rises
above the entrance. The village, or it should really be called a small
town, for its population is over a thousand, has much in it that is
attractive and quaint, and it might gain more attention if everyone who
passes through its streets were not hurrying forward to Falaise.
The country now becomes a great plain, hedgeless, and at times almost
featureless. The sun in the afternoon throws the shadows of the roadside
trees at right angles, so that the road becomes divided into accurate
squares by the thin lines of shadow. The straight run from St Pierre is
broken where the road crosses the Dives. It is a pretty spot with a farm, a
manor-house and a washing place for women just below the bridge, and then
follows more open road and more interminable perspectives cutting through
the open plain until, with considerable satisfaction, the great
thoroughfare from Caen is joined and soon afterwards a glimpse of the
castle greets us as we enter Falaise.
There is something peculiarly fascinating about Falaise, for it combines
many of the features that are sparingly distributed in other towns. Its
position on a hill with deep valleys on all sides, its romantic castle, the
two beautiful churches and the splendid thirteenth century gateway, form
the best remembered attractions, but beyond these there are the hundred and
one pretty groupings of the cottages that crowd both banks of the little
river Ante down in the valley under the awe-inspiring castle.
Even then, no mention has been made of the ancient fronts that greet one in
many of the streets, and the charms of some of the sudden openings between
the houses that give views of the steep, wooded hollows that almost touch
the main street, have been slighted. A huge cube of solid masonry with a
great cylindrical tower alongside perched upon a mass of rock precipitous
on two sides is the distant view of the castle, and coming closer, although
you can see the buttresses that spring from the rocky foundations, the
description still holds good. You should see the fortress in the twilight
with a golden suffusion in the sky and strange, purplish shadows on the
castle walls. It then has much the appearance of one of those unassailable
strongholds where a beautiful princess is lying in captivity waiting for a
chivalrous knight who with a band of faithful men will attempt to scale the
inaccessible walls. Under some skies, the castle assumes the character of
one of Turner's impressions, half real and half imaginary, and under no
skies does this most formidable relic of feudal days ever lose its grand
and awesome aspect. The entrance is through a gateway, the Porte St.
Nicolas, which was built in the thirteenth century. There you are taken in
hand by a pleasant concierge who will lead you first of all to the Tour La
Reine, where he will point out a great breach in the wall made by Henri IV.
when he successfully assaulted the castle after a bombardment with his
artillery which he had kept up for a week. This was in 1589, and since then
no other fighting has taken place round these grand old walls. The ivy that
clings to the ruins and the avenue of limes that leads up to the great keep
are full of jackdaws which wheel round the rock in great flights. You have
a close view of the great Tour Talbot, and then pass through a small
doorway in the northern face of the citadel. Inside, the appearance of the
walls reveals the restoration which has taken place within recent years.
But this, fortunately, does not detract to any serious extent from the
interest of the whole place. Up on the ramparts there are fine views over
the surrounding country, and immediately beneath the precipice below nestle
the picturesque, browny-red roofs of the lower part of the town. Just at
the foot of the castle rock there is still to be seen a tannery which is of
rather unusual interest in connection with the story of how Robert le
Diable was first struck by the charms of Arlette, the beautiful daughter of
a tanner. The Norman duke was supposed to have been looking over the
battlements when he saw this girl washing clothes in the river, and we are
told that owing to the warmth of the day she had drawn up her dress, so
that her feet, which are spoken of as being particularly beautiful were
revealed to his admiring gaze. Arlette afterwards became the mother of
William the Conqueror, and the room is pointed out in the south-west corner
of the keep in which we are asked to believe that the Conqueror of England
was born. It is, however, unfortunate for the legend that archaeologists do
not allow such an early date for the present castle, and thus we are not
even allowed to associate these ramparts with the legend just mentioned. It
must have been a strong building that preceded this present structure, for
during the eleventh century William the Norman was often obliged to retreat
for safety to his impregnable birthplace. The Tour Talbot has below its
lowest floor what seems to be a dungeon, but it is said that prisoners were
not kept here, the place being used merely for storing food. The gloomy
chamber, however, is generally called an oubliette. Above, there are other
floors, the top one having been used by the governor of the castle. In the
thickness of the wall there is a deep well which now contains no water. One
of the rooms in the keep is pointed out as that in which Prince Arthur was
kept in confinement, but although it is known that the unfortunate youth
was imprisoned in this castle, the selection of the room seems to be
somewhat arbitrary.
In 1428 the news of Joan of Arc's continued successes was brought to the
Earl of Salisbury who was then governor of Falaise Castle, and it was from
here that he started with an army to endeavour to stop that triumphal
progress. In 1450 when the French completely overcame the numerous English
garrisons in the towns of Normandy, Falaise with its magnificent position
held out for some time. The defenders sallied out from the walls of the
town but were forced back again, and notwithstanding their courage, the
town capitulated to the Duke of Alencon's army at almost the same time as
Avranches and a dozen other strongly defended towns. We can picture to
ourselves the men in glinting head-pieces sallying from the splendid old
gateway known as the Port des Cordeliers. It has not lost its formidable
appearance even to-day, though as you look through the archway the scene is
quiet enough, and the steep flight of outside steps leads up to scenes of
quiet domestic life. The windows overlook the narrow valley beneath where
the humble roofs of the cottages jostle one another for space. There are
many people who visit Falaise who never have the curiosity to explore this
unusually pleasing part of the town. In the spring when the lilac bushes
add their brilliant colour to the russet brown tiles and soft creams of the
stone-work, there are pictures on every side. Looking in the cottages you
may see, generally within a few feet of the door, one of those ingenious
weaving machines that are worked with a treadle, and take up scarcely any
space at all. If you ask permission, the cottagers have not the slightest
objection to allowing you to watch them at their work, and when one sees
how rapidly great lengths of striped material grow under the revolving
metal framework, you wonder that Falaise is not able to supply the demands
of the whole republic for this class of material.
Just by the Hotel de Ville and the church of La Trinite stands the imposing
statue of William the Conqueror. He is mounted on the enormous war-horse of
the period and the whole effect is strong and spirited. The most notable
feature of the exterior of the church of La Trinite is the curious
passage-way that goes underneath the Lady Chapel behind the High Altar. The
whole of the exterior is covered with rich carving, crocketed finials,
innumerable gargoyles and the usual enriched mouldings of Gothic
architecture. The charm of the interior is heightened if one enters in the
twilight when vespers are proceeding. There is just sufficient light to
show up the tracery of the windows and the massive pointed arches in the
choir. A few candles burn by the altar beyond the dark mass of figures
forming the congregation. A Gregorian chant fills the building with its
solemn tones and the smoke of a swinging censer ascends in the shadowy
chancel. Then, as the service proceeds, one candle above the altar seems to
suddenly ignite the next, and a line of fire travels all over the great
erection surrounding the figure of the Virgin, leaving in its trail a blaze
of countless candles that throw out the details of the architecture in
strong relief. Soon the collection is made, and as the priest passes round
the metal dish, he is followed by the cocked-hatted official whose
appearance is so surprising to those who are not familiar with French
churches. As the priest passes the dish to each row the official brings his
metal-headed staff down upon the pavement with a noisy bang that is
calculated to startle the unwary into dropping their money anywhere else
than in the plate. In time the bell rings beside the altar, and the priest
robed in white and gold elevates the host before the kneeling congregation.
Once more the man in the cocked hat becomes prominent as he steps into the
open space between the transepts and tolls the big bell in the tower above.
Then a smaller and much more cheerful bell is rung, and fearing the arrival
of another collecting priest we slip out of the swinging doors into the
twilight that has now almost been swallowed up in the gathering darkness.
The consecration of the splendid Norman church of St Gervais took place in
the presence of Henry I. but there is nothing particularly English in any
part of the exterior. The central tower has four tall and deeply recessed
arches (the middle ones contain windows) on each side, giving a rich
arcaded appearance. Above, rises a tall pointed roof ornamented with four
odd-looking dormers near the apex. Every one remarks on their similarity to
dovecots and one almost imagines that they must have been built as a place
of shelter on stormy days for the great gilded cock that forms the weather
vane. The nave is still Norman on the south side, plain round-headed
windows lighting the clerestory, but the aisles were rebuilt in the
flamboyant period and present a rich mass of ornament in contrast to the
unadorned masonry of the nave. The western end until lately had to endure
the indignity of having its wall surfaces largely hidden by shops and
houses. These have now disappeared, but the stone-work has not been
restored, and you may still see a section of the interior of the house that
formerly used the west end of the south aisle as one of its walls. You can
see where the staircases went, and you may notice also how wantonly these
domestic builders cut away the buttresses and architectural enrichments to
suit the convenience of their own needs.
As you go from the market-place along the street that runs from St Gervais
to the suburb of Guibray, the shops on the left are exchanged for a low
wall over which you see deep, grassy hollows that come right up to the edge
of the street. Two fine houses, white-shuttered and having the usual vacant
appearance, stand on steep <DW72>s surrounded by great cedars of Lebanon and
a copper beech.
The church of Guibray is chiefly Norman--it is very white inside and there
is some round-headed arcading in the aisles. The clustered columns of the
nave have simple, pointed arches, and there is a carved marble altarpiece
showing angels supporting the Virgin who is gazing upwards. The aisles of
the chancel are restored Norman, and the stone-work is bright green just
above the floor through the dampness that seems to have defied the efforts
of the restorers.
CHAPTER VI
From Argentan to Avranches
Between tall poplars whose stems are splotched with grey lichen and whose
feet are grown over with browny-green moss, runs the road from Falaise to
Argentan, straight and white, with scarcely more than the slightest bend,
for the whole eight miles. It is typical of the roads in this part of the
country and beyond the large stone four or five kilometres outside Falaise,
marking the boundary between Calvados and Orne, and the railway which one
passes soon afterwards, there is nothing to break the undulating monotony
of the boundless plain.
We cannot all hope to have this somewhat dull stretch of country relieved
by any exciting event, but I can remember one spring afternoon being
overtaken by two mounted gendarmes in blue uniforms, galloping for their
very lives. I looked down the road into the cloud of dust raised by the
horses' hoofs, but the country on all sides lay calm and deserted, and I
was left in doubt as to the reason for this astonishing haste. Half an hour
afterwards a group of people appeared in the distance, and on approaching
closer, they proved to be the two gendarmes leading their blown horses as
they walked beside a picturesque group of apparently simple peasants, the
three men wearing the typical soft, baggy cap and blue smock of the country
folk. The little group had a gloomy aspect, which was explained when I
noticed that the peasants were joined together by a bright steel chain.
Evidently something was very much amiss with one of the peaceful villages
lying near the road.
After a time, at the end of the long white perspective, appear the towers
of the great church of St Germain that dominate the town where Henry II.
was staying when he made that rash exclamation concerning his "turbulent
priest." It was from Argentan that those four knights set out for England
and Canterbury to carry out the deed, for which Henry lay in ashes for five
weeks in this very place. But there is little at the present time at
Argentan to remind one that it is in any way associated with the murder of
Becket. The castle that now exists is occupied by the Courts of Justice and
was partially built in the Renaissance period. Standing close to it, is an
exceedingly tall building with a great gable that suggests an
ecclesiastical origin, and on looking a little closer one soon discovers
blocked up Gothic windows and others from which the tracery has been
hacked. This was the chapel of the castle which has been so completely
robbed of its sanctity that it is now cut up into small lodgings, and in
one of its diminutive shops, picture post-cards of the town are sold.
The ruins of the old castle are not very conspicuous, for in the
seventeenth century the great keep was demolished. There is still a fairly
noticeable round tower--the Tour Marguerite--which has a pointed roof above
its corbels, or perhaps they should be called machicolations. In the Place
Henri IV. stands a prominent building that projects over the pavement
supported by massive pointed arches, and with this building in the
foreground there is one of the best views of St Germain that one can find
in the town. Just before coming to the clock that is suspended over the
road by the porch of the church, there is a butcher's shop at the street
corner that has a piece of oak carving preserved on account of its interest
while the rest of the building has been made featureless with even plaster.
The carving shows Adam and Eve standing on either side of a formal Tree of
Life, and the butcher, who is pleased to find a stranger who notices this
little curiosity, tells him with great pride that his house dates from the
fifteenth century. The porch of St Germain is richly ornamented, but it
takes a second place to the south porch of the church of Notre Dame at
Louviers and may perhaps seem scarcely worthy of comment after St Maclou at
Rouen. The structure as a whole was commenced in 1424, and the last portion
of the work only dates from the middle of the seventeenth century. The
vaulting of the nave has a very new and well-kept appearance and the side
altars, in contrast to so many of even the large churches, are almost
dignified in their somewhat restrained and classic style. The high altar is
a stupendous erection of two storeys with Corinthian pillars. Nine long,
white, pendant banners are conspicuous on the walls of the chancel. The
great altars and the lesser ones that crowd the side chapels are subject to
the accumulation of dirt as everything else in buildings sacred or lay, and
at certain times of the day, a woman may be seen vigorously flapping the
brass candlesticks and countless altar ornaments with a big feather broom.
On the north side of the chancel some of the windows have sections of old
painted glass, and in one of them there is part of a ship with men in
crow's nests backed by clouds, a really vigorous colour scheme.
Keeping to the high ground, there is to the south of this church an open
Place, and beyond it there are some large barracks, where, on the other
side of a low wall may be seen the elaborately prepared steeple-chase for
training soldiers to be able to surmount every conceivable form of
obstacle. Awkward iron railings, wide ditches, walls of different
composition and varying height are frequently scaled, and it is practice of
this sort that has made the French soldier famous for the facility with
which he can storm fortifications. The river Orne finds its way through the
lower part of the town and here there are to be found some of the most
pleasing bits of antique domestic architecture. One of the quaintest of
these built in 1616 is the galleried building illustrated here, and from a
parallel street not many yards off there is a peep of a house that has been
built right over the stream which is scarcely less picturesque.
[Illustration: A SEVENTEENTH CENTURY HOUSE AT ARGENTAN]
The church of St Martin is passed on entering Argentan from Falaise. Its
east end crowds right up against the pavement and it is somewhat unusual to
find the entrances at this portion of the building. The stained glass in
the choir of St Martin is its most noticeable feature--the pictures showing
various scenes in the life of Christ.
As in all French towns Argentan knows how to decorate on fete days. Coming
out of the darkness of the church in the late twilight on one of these
occasions, I discovered that the town had suddenly become festooned with a
long perspective of arches stretching right away down the leafy avenue that
goes out of the town--to the north in one direction, and to St Germain in
the other. The arches were entirely composed without a single exception of
large crimson-red Chinese lanterns. The effect was astonishingly good, but
despite all the decoration, the townsfolk seemed determined to preserve the
quiet of the Sabbath, and although there were crowds everywhere, the only
noise that broke the stillness was that of the steam round-about that had
been erected on a triangular patch of grass. The dark crowds of people
illuminated by flaring lights stood in perfect quiet as they watched the
great noisy mass of moving animals and boats, occupied almost entirely by
children, keep up its perpetual dazzle and roar. The fair--for there were
many side-shows--was certainly quieter than any I have witnessed in
England.
A long, straight road, poplar-bordered and level, runs southwards from
Argentan to Mortree, a village of no importance except for the fact that
one must pass through it if one wishes to visit the beautiful Chateau d'O.
This sixteenth century mansion like so many to be seen in this part of
France, is in a somewhat pathetic state of disrepair, but as far as one may
see from the exterior, it would not require any very great sum to
completely restore the broken stone-work and other signs of decay. These,
while perhaps adding to the picturesqueness of the buildings, do not bring
out that aspect of carefully preserved antiquity which is the charm of most
of the houses of this period in England. The great expanse of water in the
moat is very green and covered by large tracts of weed, but the water is
supplied by a spring, and fish thrive in it. The approach to the chateau
across the moat leads to an arched entrance through which you enter the
large courtyard overlooked on three sides by the richly ornamented
buildings, the fourth side being only protected from the moat by a low
wall. It would be hard to find a more charming spot than this with its
views across the moat to the gardens beyond, backed by great masses of
foliage.
Going on past Mortree the main road will bring one after about eight miles
to the old town of Alencon, which has been famed ever since the time of
Louis XIV. for the lace which is even at the present day worked in the
villages of this neighbourhood, more especially at the hamlet of Damigny.
The cottagers use pure linen thread which is worth the almost incredible
sum of L100 per lb. They work on parchment from patterns which are supplied
by the merchants in Alencon. The women go on from early morning until the
light fails, and earn something about a shilling per day!
The castle of Alencon, built by Henry I. in the twelfth century, was
pulled down with the exception of the keep, by the order of Henry of
Navarre, the famous contemporary of Queen Elizabeth. This keep is still in
existence, and is now used as a prison. Near it is the Palais de Justice,
standing where the other buildings were situated. |
10,240 |
Produced by David Widger
LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI
BY MARK TWAIN
Part 7.
Chapter 31 A Thumb-print and What Came of It
WE were approaching Napoleon, Arkansas. So I began to think about my
errand there. Time, noonday; and bright and sunny. This was bad--not
best, anyway; for mine was not (preferably) a noonday kind of errand.
The more I thought, the more that fact pushed itself upon me--now in one
form, now in another. Finally, it took the form of a distinct question:
is it good common sense to do the errand in daytime, when, by a little
sacrifice of comfort and inclination, you can have night for it, and no
inquisitive eyes around. This settled it. Plain question and plain
answer make the shortest road out of most perplexities.
I got my friends into my stateroom, and said I was sorry to create
annoyance and disappointment, but that upon reflection it really seemed
best that we put our luggage ashore and stop over at Napoleon. Their
disapproval was prompt and loud; their language mutinous. Their main
argument was one which has always been the first to come to the surface,
in such cases, since the beginning of time: 'But you decided and AGREED
to stick to this boat, etc.; as if, having determined to do an unwise
thing, one is thereby bound to go ahead and make TWO unwise things of
it, by carrying out that determination.
I tried various mollifying tactics upon them, with reasonably good
success: under which encouragement, I increased my efforts; and, to show
them that I had not created this annoying errand, and was in no way to
blame for it, I presently drifted into its history--substantially as
follows:
Toward the end of last year, I spent a few months in Munich, Bavaria. In
November I was living in Fraulein Dahlweiner's PENSION, 1a, Karlstrasse;
but my working quarters were a mile from there, in the house of a widow
who supported herself by taking lodgers. She and her two young children
used to drop in every morning and talk German to me--by request. One
day, during a ramble about the city, I visited one of the two
establishments where the Government keeps and watches corpses until the
doctors decide that they are permanently dead, and not in a trance
state. It was a grisly place, that spacious room. There were thirty-six
corpses of adults in sight, stretched on their backs on slightly slanted
boards, in three long rows--all of them with wax-white, rigid faces, and
all of them wrapped in white shrouds. Along the sides of the room were
deep alcoves, like bay windows; and in each of these lay several marble-
visaged babes, utterly hidden and buried under banks of fresh flowers,
all but their faces and crossed hands. Around a finger of each of these
fifty still forms, both great and small, was a ring; and from the ring a
wire led to the ceiling, and thence to a bell in a watch-room yonder,
where, day and night, a watchman sits always alert and ready to spring
to the aid of any of that pallid company who, waking out of death, shall
make a movement--for any, even the slightest, movement will twitch the
wire and ring that fearful bell. I imagined myself a death-sentinel
drowsing there alone, far in the dragging watches of some wailing, gusty
night, and having in a twinkling all my body stricken to quivering jelly
by the sudden clamor of that awful summons! So I inquired about this
thing; asked what resulted usually? if the watchman died, and the
restored corpse came and did what it could to make his last moments
easy. But I was rebuked for trying to feed an idle and frivolous
curiosity in so solemn and so mournful a place; and went my way with a
humbled crest.
Next morning I was telling the widow my adventure, when she exclaimed--
'Come with me! I have a lodger who shall tell you all you want to know.
He has been a night-watchman there.'
He was a living man, but he did not look it. He was abed, and had his
head propped high on pillows; his face was wasted and colorless, his
deep-sunken eyes were shut; his hand, lying on his breast, was talon-
like, it was so bony and long-fingered. The widow began her introduction
of me. The man's eyes opened slowly, and glittered wickedly out from
the twilight of their caverns; he frowned a black frown; he lifted his
lean hand and waved us peremptorily away. But the widow kept straight
on, till she had got out the fact that I was a stranger and an American.
The man's face changed at once; brightened, became even eager--and the
next moment he and I were alone together.
I opened up in cast-iron German; he responded in quite flexible English;
thereafter we gave the German language a permanent rest.
This consumptive and I became good friends. I visited him every day,
and we talked about everything. At least, about everything but wives
and children. Let anybody's wife or anybody's child be mentioned, and
three things always followed: the most gracious and loving and tender
light glimmered in the man's eyes for a moment; faded out the next, and
in its place came that deadly look which had flamed there the first time
I ever saw his lids unclose; thirdly, he ceased from speech, there and
then for that day; lay silent, abstracted, and absorbed; apparently
heard nothing that I said; took no notice of my good-byes, and plainly
did not know, by either sight or hearing, when I left the room.
When I had been this Karl Ritter's daily and sole intimate during two
months, he one day said, abruptly--
'I will tell you my story.'
A DYING MAN S CONFESSION
Then he went on as follows:--
I have never given up, until now. But now I have given up. I am going
to die. I made up my mind last night that it must be, and very soon,
too. You say you are going to revisit your river, by-and-bye, when you
find opportunity. Very well; that, together with a certain strange
experience which fell to my lot last night, determines me to tell you my
history--for you will see Napoleon, Arkansas; and for my sake you will
stop there, and do a certain thing for me--a thing which you will
willingly undertake after you shall have heard my narrative.
Let us shorten the story wherever we can, for it will need it, being
long. You already know how I came to go to America, and how I came to
settle in that lonely region in the South. But you do not know that I
had a wife. My wife was young, beautiful, loving, and oh, so divinely
good and blameless and gentle! And our little girl was her mother in
miniature. It was the happiest of happy households.
One night--it was toward the close of the war--I woke up out of a sodden
lethargy, and found myself bound and gagged, and the air tainted with
chloroform! I saw two men in the room, and one was saying to the other,
in a hoarse whisper, 'I told her I would, if she made a noise, and as
for the child--'
The other man interrupted in a low, half-crying voice--
'You said we'd only gag them and rob them, not hurt them; or I wouldn't
have come.'
'Shut up your whining; had to change the plan when they waked up; you
done all you could to protect them, now let that satisfy you; come, help
rummage.'
Both men were masked, and wore coarse, ragged '<DW65>' clothes; they had
a bull's-eye lantern, and by its light I noticed that the gentler robber
had no thumb on his right hand. They rummaged around my poor cabin for a
moment; the head bandit then said, in his stage whisper--
'It's a waste of time--he shall tell where it's hid. Undo his gag, and
revive him up.'
The other said--
'All right--provided no clubbing.'
'No clubbing it is, then--provided he keeps still.'
They approached me; just then there was a sound outside; a sound of
voices and trampling hoofs; the robbers held their breath and listened;
the sounds came slowly nearer and nearer; then came a shout--
'HELLO, the house! Show a light, we want water.'
'The captain's voice, by G--!' said the stage-whispering ruffian, and
both robbers fled by the way of the back door, shutting off their
bull's-eye as they ran.
The strangers shouted several times more, then rode by--there seemed to
be a dozen of the horses--and I heard nothing more.
I struggled, but could not free myself from my bonds. I tried to speak,
but the gag was effective; I could not make a sound. I listened for my
wife's voice and my child's--listened long and intently, but no sound
came from the other end of the room where their bed was. This silence
became more and more awful, more and more ominous, every moment. Could
you have endured an hour of it, do you think? Pity me, then, who had to
endure three. Three hours--? it was three ages! Whenever the clock
struck, it seemed as if years had gone by since I had heard it last.
All this time I was struggling in my bonds; and at last, about dawn, I
got myself free, and rose up and stretched my stiff limbs. I was able
to distinguish details pretty well. The floor was littered with things
thrown there by the robbers during their search for my savings. The
first object that caught my particular attention was a document of mine
which I had seen the rougher of the two ruffians glance at and then cast
away. It had blood on it! I staggered to the other end of the room. Oh,
poor unoffending, helpless ones, there they lay, their troubles ended,
mine begun!
Did I appeal to the law--I? Does it quench the pauper's thirst if the
King drink for him? Oh, no, no, no--I wanted no impertinent
interference of the law. Laws and the gallows could not pay the debt
that was owing to me! Let the laws leave the matter in my hands, and
have no fears: I would find the debtor and collect the debt. How
accomplish this, do you say? How accomplish it, and feel so sure about
it, when I had neither seen the robbers' faces, nor heard their natural
voices, nor had any idea who they might be? Nevertheless, I WAS sure--
quite sure, quite confident. I had a clue--a clue which you would not
have valued--a clue which would not have greatly helped even a
detective, since he would lack the secret of how to apply it. I shall
come to that, presently--you shall see. Let us go on, now, taking things
in their due order. There was one circumstance which gave me a slant in
a definite direction to begin with: Those two robbers were manifestly
soldiers in tramp disguise; and not new to military service, but old in
it--regulars, perhaps; they did not acquire their soldierly attitude,
gestures, carriage, in a day, nor a month, nor yet in a year. So I
thought, but said nothing. And one of them had said, 'the captain's
voice, by G--!'--the one whose life I would have. Two miles away,
several regiments were in camp, and two companies of U.S. cavalry. When
I learned that Captain Blakely, of Company C had passed our way, that
night, with an escort, I said nothing, but in that company I resolved to
seek my man. In conversation I studiously and persistently described
the robbers as tramps, camp followers; and among this class the people
made useless search, none suspecting the soldiers but me.
Working patiently, by night, in my desolated home, I made a disguise for
myself out of various odds and ends of clothing; in the nearest village
I bought a pair of blue goggles. By-and-bye, when the military camp
broke up, and Company C was ordered a hundred miles north, to Napoleon,
I secreted my small hoard of money in my belt, and took my departure in
the night. When Company C arrived in Napoleon, I was already there. Yes,
I was there, with a new trade--fortune-teller. Not to seem partial, I
made friends and told fortunes among all the companies garrisoned there;
but I gave Company C the great bulk of my attentions. I made myself
limitlessly obliging to these particular men; they could ask me no
favor, put upon me no risk, which I would decline. I became the willing
butt of their jokes; this perfected my popularity; I became a favorite.
I early found a private who lacked a thumb--what joy it was to me! And
when I found that he alone, of all the company, had lost a thumb, my
last misgiving vanished; I was SURE I was on the right track. This
man's name was Kruger, a German. There were nine Germans in the company.
I watched, to see who might be his intimates; but he seemed to have no
especial intimates. But I was his intimate; and I took care to make the
intimacy grow. Sometimes I so hungered for my revenge that I could
hardly restrain myself from going on my knees and begging him to point
out the man who had murdered my wife and child; but I managed to bridle
my tongue. I bided my time, and went on telling fortunes, as
opportunity offered.
My apparatus was simple: a little red paint and a bit of white paper. I
painted the ball of the client's thumb, took a print of it on the paper,
studied it that night, and revealed his fortune to him next day. What
was my idea in this nonsense? It was this: When I was a youth, I knew
an old Frenchman who had been a prison-keeper for thirty years, and he
told me that there was one thing about a person which never changed,
from the cradle to the grave--the lines in the ball of the thumb; and he
said that these lines were never exactly alike in the thumbs of any two
human beings. In these days, we photograph the new criminal, and hang
his picture in the Rogues' Gallery for future reference; but that
Frenchman, in his day, used to take a print of the ball of a new
prisoner's thumb and put that away for future reference. He always said
that pictures were no good--future disguises could make them useless;
'The thumb's the only sure thing,' said he; 'you can't disguise that.'
And he used to prove his theory, too, on my friends and acquaintances;
it always succeeded.
I went on telling fortunes. Every night I shut myself in, all alone,
and studied the day's thumb-prints with a magnifying-glass. Imagine the
devouring eagerness with which I pored over those mazy red spirals, with
that document by my side which bore the right-hand thumb-and-finger-
marks of that unknown murderer, printed with the dearest blood--to me--
that was ever shed on this earth! And many and many a time I had to
repeat the same old disappointed remark, 'will they NEVER correspond!'
But my reward came at last. It was the print of the thumb of the forty-
third man of Company C whom I had experimented on--Private Franz Adler.
An hour before, I did not know the murderer's name, or voice, or figure,
or face, or nationality; but now I knew all these things! I believed I
might feel sure; the Frenchman's repeated demonstrations being so good a
warranty. Still, there was a way to MAKE sure. I had an impression of
Kruger's left thumb. In the morning I took him aside when he was off
duty; and when we were out of sight and hearing of witnesses, I said,
impressively--
'A part of your fortune is so grave, that I thought it would be better
for you if I did not tell it in public. You and another man, whose
fortune I was studying last night,--Private Adler,--have been murdering
a woman and a child! You are being dogged: within five days both of you
will be assassinated.'
He dropped on his knees, frightened out of his wits; and for five
minutes he kept pouring out the same set of words, like a demented
person, and in the same half-crying way which was one of my memories of
that murderous night in my cabin--
'I didn't do it; upon my soul I didn't do it; and I tried to keep HIM
from doing it; I did, as God is my witness. He did it alone.'
This was all I wanted. And I tried to get rid of the fool; but no, he
clung to me, imploring me to save him from the assassin. He said--
'I have money--ten thousand dollars--hid away, the fruit of loot and
thievery; save me--tell me what to do, and you shall have it, every
penny. Two-thirds of it is my cousin Adler's; but you can take it all.
We hid it when we first came here. But I hid it in a new place
yesterday, and have not told him--shall not tell him. I was going to
desert, and get away with it all. It is gold, and too heavy to carry
when one is running and dodging; but a woman who has been gone over the
river two days to prepare my way for me is going to follow me with it;
and if I got no chance to describe the hiding-place to her I was going
to slip my silver watch into her hand, or send it to her, and she would
understand. There's a piece of paper in the back of the case, which
tells it all. Here, take the watch--tell me what to do!'
He was trying to press his watch upon me, and was exposing the paper and
explaining it to me, when Adler appeared on the scene, about a dozen
yards away. I said to poor Kruger--
'Put up your watch, I don't want it. You shan't come to any harm. Go,
now; I must tell Adler his fortune. Presently I will tell you how to
escape the assassin; meantime I shall have to examine your thumbmark
again. Say nothing to Adler about this thing--say nothing to anybody.'
He went away filled with fright and gratitude, poor devil. I told Adler
a long fortune--purposely so long that I could not finish it; promised
to come to him on guard, that night, and tell him the really important
part of it--the tragical part of it, I said--so must be out of reach of
eavesdroppers. They always kept a picket-watch outside the town--mere
discipline and ceremony--no occasion for it, no enemy around.
Toward midnight I set out, equipped with the countersign, and picked my
way toward the lonely region where Adler was to keep his watch. It was
so dark that I stumbled right on a dim figure almost before I could get
out a protecting word. The sentinel hailed and I answered, both at the
same moment. I added, 'It's only me--the fortune-teller.' Then I slipped
to the poor devil's side, and without a word I drove my dirk into his
heart! YA WOHL, laughed I, it WAS the tragedy part of his fortune,
indeed! As he fell from his horse, he clutched at me, and my blue
goggles remained in his hand; and away plunged the beast dragging him,
with his foot in the stirrup.
I fled through the woods, and made good my escape, leaving the accusing
goggles behind me in that dead man's hand.
This was fifteen or sixteen years ago. Since then I have wandered
aimlessly about the earth, sometimes at work, sometimes idle; sometimes
with money, sometimes with none; but always tired of life, and wishing
it was done, for my mission here was finished, with the act of that
night; and the only pleasure, solace, satisfaction I had, in all those
tedious years, was in the daily reflection, 'I have killed him!'
Four years ago, my health began to fail. I had wandered into Munich, in
my purposeless way. Being out of money, I sought work, and got it; did
my duty faithfully about a year, and was then given the berth of night
watchman yonder in that dead-house which you visited lately. The place
suited my mood. I liked it. I liked being with the dead--liked being
alone with them. I used to wander among those rigid corpses, and peer
into their austere faces, by the hour. The later the time, the more
impressive it was; I preferred the late time. Sometimes I turned the
lights low: this gave perspective, you see; and the imagination could
play; always, the dim receding ranks of the dead inspired one with weird
and fascinating fancies. Two years ago--I had been there a year then--I
was sitting all alone in the watch-room, one gusty winter's night,
chilled, numb, comfortless; drowsing gradually into unconsciousness; the
sobbing of the wind and the slamming of distant shutters falling fainter
and fainter upon my dulling ear each moment, when sharp and suddenly
that dead-bell rang out a blood-curdling alarum over my head! The shock
of it nearly paralyzed me; for it was the first time I had ever heard
it.
I gathered myself together and flew to the corpse-room. About midway
down the outside rank, a shrouded figure was sitting upright, wagging
its head slowly from one side to the other--a grisly spectacle! Its side
was toward me. I hurried to it and peered into its face. Heavens, it
was Adler!
Can you divine what my first thought was? Put into words, it was this:
'It seems, then, you escaped me once: there will be a different result
this time!'
Evidently this creature was suffering unimaginable terrors. Think what
it must have been to wake up in the midst of that voiceless hush, and,
look out over that grim congregation of the dead! What gratitude shone
in his skinny white face when he saw a living form before him! And how
the fervency of this mute gratitude was augmented when his eyes fell
upon the life-giving cordials which I carried in my hands! Then imagine
the horror which came into this pinched face when I put the cordials
behind me, and said mockingly--
'Speak up, Franz Adler--call upon these dead. Doubtless they will
listen and have pity; but here there is none else that will.'
He tried to speak, but that part of the shroud which bound his jaws,
held firm and would not let him. He tried to lift imploring hands, but
they were crossed upon his breast and tied. I said--
'Shout, Franz Adler; make the sleepers in the distant streets hear you
and bring help. Shout--and lose no time, for there is little to lose.
What, you cannot? That is a pity; but it is no matter--it does not
always bring help. When you and your cousin murdered a helpless woman
and child in a cabin in Arkansas--my wife, it was, and my child!--they
shrieked for help, you remember; but it did no good; you remember that
it did no good, is it not so? Your teeth chatter--then why cannot you
shout? Loosen the bandages with your hands--then you can. Ah, I see--
your hands are tied, they cannot aid you. How strangely things repeat
themselves, after long years; for MY hands were tied, that night, you
remember? Yes, tied much as yours are now--how odd that is. I could
not pull free. It did not occur to you to untie me; it does not occur to
me to untie you. Sh--! there's a late footstep. It is coming this way.
Hark, how near it is! One can count the footfalls--one--two--three.
There--it is just outside. Now is the time! Shout, man, shout!--it is
the one sole chance between you and eternity! Ah, you see you have
delayed too long--it is gone by. There--it is dying out. It is gone!
Think of it--reflect upon it--you have heard a human footstep for the
last time. How curious it must be, to listen to so common a sound as
that, and know that one will never hear the fellow to it again.'
Oh, my friend, the agony in that shrouded face was ecstasy to see! I
thought of a new torture, and applied it--assisting myself with a trifle
of lying invention--
'That poor Kruger tried to save my wife and child, and I did him a
grateful good turn for it when the time came. I persuaded him to rob
you; and I and a woman helped him to desert, and got him away in
safety.' A look as of surprise and triumph shone out dimly through the
anguish in my victim's face. I was disturbed, disquieted. I said--
'What, then--didn't he escape?'
A negative shake of the head.
'No? What happened, then?'
The satisfaction in the shrouded face was still plainer. The man tried
to mumble out some words--could not succeed; tried to express something
with his obstructed hands--failed; paused a moment, then feebly tilted
his head, in a meaning way, toward the corpse that lay nearest him.
'Dead?' I asked. 'Failed to escape?--caught in the act and shot?'
Negative shake of the head.
'How, then?'
Again the man tried to do something with his hands. I watched closely,
but could not guess the intent. I bent over and watched still more
intently. He had twisted a thumb around and was weakly punching at his
breast with it. 'Ah--stabbed, do you mean?'
Affirmative nod, accompanied by a spectral smile of such peculiar
devilishness, that it struck an awakening light through my dull brain,
and I cried--
'Did I stab him, mistaking him for you?--for that stroke was meant for
none but you.'
The affirmative nod of the re-dying rascal was as joyous as his failing
strength was able to put into its expression.
'O, miserable, miserable me, to slaughter the pitying soul that, stood a
friend to my darlings when they were helpless, and would have saved them
if he could! miserable, oh, miserable, miserable me!'
I fancied I heard the muffled gurgle of a, mocking laugh. I took my face
out of my hands, and saw my enemy sinking back upon his inclined board.
He was a satisfactory long time dying. He had a wonderful vitality, an
astonishing constitution. Yes, he was a pleasant long time at it. I got
a chair and a newspaper, and sat down by him and read. Occasionally I
took a sip of brandy. This was necessary, on account of the cold. But
I did it partly because I saw, that along at first, whenever I reached
for the bottle, he thought I was going to give him some. I read aloud:
mainly imaginary accounts of people snatched from the grave's threshold
and restored to life and vigor by a few spoonsful of liquor and a warm
bath. Yes, he had a long, hard death of it--three hours and six
minutes, from the time he rang his bell.
It is believed that in all these eighteen years that have elapsed since
the institution of the corpse-watch, no shrouded occupant of the
Bavarian dead-houses has ever rung its bell. Well, it is a harmless
belief. Let it stand at that.
The chill of that death-room had penetrated my bones. It revived and
fastened upon me the disease which had been afflicting me, but which, up
to that night, had been steadily disappearing. That man murdered my
wife and my child; and in three days hence he will have added me to his
list. No matter--God! how delicious the memory of it!--I caught him
escaping from his grave, and thrust him back into it.
After that night, I was confined to my bed for a week; but as soon as I
could get about, I went to the dead-house books and got the number of
the house which Adler had died in. A wretched lodging-house, it was. It
was my idea that he would naturally have gotten hold of Kruger's
effects, being his cousin; and I wanted to get Kruger's watch, if I
could. But while I was sick, Adler's things had been sold and
scattered, all except a few old letters, and some odds and ends of no
value. However, through those letters, I traced out a son of Kruger's,
the only relative left. He is a man of thirty now, a shoemaker by trade,
and living at No. 14 Konigstrasse, Mannheim--widower, with several small
children. Without explaining to him why, I have furnished two-thirds of
his support, ever since.
Now, as to that watch--see how strangely things happen! I traced it
around and about Germany for more than a year, at considerable cost in
money and vexation; and at last I got it. Got it, and was unspeakably
glad; opened it, and found nothing in it! Why, I might have known that
that bit of paper was not going to stay there all this time. Of course
I gave up that ten thousand dollars then; gave it up, and dropped it out
of my mind: and most sorrowfully, for I had wanted it for Kruger's son.
Last night, when I consented at last that I must die, I began to make
ready. I proceeded to burn all useless papers; and sure enough, from a
batch of Adler's, not previously examined with thoroughness, out dropped
that long-desired scrap! I recognized it in a moment. Here it is--I
will translate it:
'Brick livery stable, stone foundation, middle of town, corner of
Orleans and Market. Corner toward Court-house. Third stone, fourth row.
Stick notice there, saying how many are to come.'
There--take it, and preserve it. Kruger explained that that stone was
removable; and that it was in the north wall of the foundation, fourth
row from the top, and third stone from the west. The money is secreted
behind it. He said the closing sentence was a blind, to mislead in case
the paper should fall into wrong hands. It probably performed that
office for Adler.
Now I want to beg that when you make your intended journey down the
river, you will hunt out that hidden money, and send it to Adam Kruger,
care of the Mannheim address which I have mentioned. It will make a
rich man of him, and I shall sleep the sounder in my grave for knowing
that I have done what I could for the son of the man who tried to save
my wife and child--albeit my hand ignorantly struck him down, whereas
the impulse of my heart would have been to shield and serve him.
Chapter 32 The Disposal of a Bonanza
'SUCH was Ritter's narrative,' said I to my two friends. There was a
profound and impressive silence, which lasted a considerable time; then
both men broke into a fusillade of exciting and admiring ejaculations
over the strange incidents of the tale; and this, along with a rattling
fire of questions, was kept up until all hands were about out of breath.
Then my friends began to cool down, and draw off, under shelter of
occasional volleys, into silence and abysmal reverie. For ten minutes
now, there was stillness. Then Rogers said dreamily--
'Ten thousand dollars.'
Adding, after a considerable pause--
'Ten thousand. It is a heap of money.'
Presently the poet inquired--
'Are you going to send it to him right away?'
'Yes,' I said. 'It is a queer question.'
No reply. After a little, Rogers asked, hesitatingly:
'ALL of it?--That is--I mean--'
'Certainly, all of it.'
I was going to say more, but stopped--was stopped by a train of thought
which started up in me. Thompson spoke, but my mind was absent, and I
did not catch what he said. But I heard Rogers answer--
'Yes, it seems so to me. It ought to be quite sufficient; for I don't
see that he has done anything.'
Presently the poet said--
'When you come to look at it, it is more than sufficient. Just look at
it--five thousand dollars! Why, he couldn't spend it in a lifetime! And
it would injure him, too; perhaps ruin him--you want to look at that. In
a little while he would throw his last away, shut up his shop, maybe
take to drinking, maltreat his motherless children, drift into other
evil courses, go steadily from bad to worse--'
'Yes, that's it,' interrupted Rogers, fervently, 'I've seen it a hundred
times--yes, more than a hundred. You put money into the hands of a man
like that, if you want to destroy him, that's all; just put money into
his hands, it's all you've got to do; and if it don't pull him down, and
take all the usefulness out of him, and all the self-respect and
everything, then I don't know human nature--ain't that so, Thompson?
And even if we were to give him a THIRD of it; why, in less than six
months--'
'Less than six WEEKS, you'd better say!' said I, warming up and breaking
in. 'Unless he had that three thousand dollars in safe hands where he
couldn't touch it, he would no more last you six weeks than--'
'Of COURSE he wouldn't,' said Thompson; 'I've edited books for that kind
of people; and the moment they get their hands on the royalty--maybe
it's three thousand, maybe it's two thousand--'
'What business has that shoemaker with two thousand dollars, I should
like to know?' broke in Rogers, earnestly. 'A man perhaps perfectly
contented now, there in Mannheim, surrounded by his own class, eating
his bread with the appetite which laborious industry alone can give,
enjoying his humble life, honest, upright, pure in heart; and BLEST!--
yes, I say blest! blest above all the myriads that go in silk attire and
walk the empty artificial round of social folly--but just you put that
temptation before him once! just you lay fifteen hundred dollars before
a man like that, and say--'
'Fifteen hundred devils!' cried I, 'FIVE hundred would rot his
principles, paralyze his industry, drag him to the rumshop, thence to
the gutter, thence to the almshouse, thence to ----'
'WHY put upon ourselves this crime, gentlemen?' interrupted the poet
earnestly and appealingly. 'He is happy where he is, and AS he is.
Every sentiment of honor, every sentiment of charity, every sentiment of
high and sacred benevolence warns us, beseeches us, commands us to leave
him undisturbed. That is real friendship, that is true friendship. We
could follow other courses that would be more showy; but none that would
be so truly kind and wise, depend upon it.'
After some further talk, it became evident that each of us, down in his
heart, felt some misgivings over this settlement of the matter. It was
manifest that we all felt that we ought to send the poor shoemaker
SOMETHING. There was long and thoughtful discussion of this point; and
we finally decided to send him a chromo.
Well, now that everything seemed to be arranged satisfactorily to
everybody concerned, a new trouble broke out: it transpired that these
two men were expecting to share equally in the money with me. That was
not my idea. I said that if they got half of it between them they might
consider themselves lucky. Rogers said--
'Who would have had ANY if it hadn't been for me? I flung out the first
hint--but for that it would all have gone to the shoemaker.'
Thompson said that he was thinking of the thing himself at the very
moment that Rogers had originally spoken.
I retorted that the idea would have occurred to me plenty soon enough,
and without anybody's help. I was slow about thinking, maybe, but I was
sure.
This matter warmed up into a quarrel; then into a fight; and each man
got pretty badly battered. As soon as I had got myself mended up after
a fashion, I ascended to the hurricane deck in a pretty sour humor. I
found Captain McCord there, and said, as pleasantly as my humor would
permit--
'I have come to say good-bye, captain. I wish to go ashore at
Napoleon.'
'Go ashore where?'
'Napoleon.'
The captain laughed; but seeing that I was not in a jovial mood, stopped
that and said--
'But are you serious?'
'Serious? I certainly am.'
The captain glanced up at the pilot-house and said--
'He wants to get off at Napoleon!'
'Napoleon?'
'That's what he says.'
'Great Caesar's ghost!'
Uncle Mumford approached along the deck. The captain said--
'Uncle, here's a friend of yours wants to get off at Napoleon!'
'Well, by ---?'
I said--
'Come, what is all this about? Can't a man go ashore at Napoleon if he
wants to?'
'Why, hang it, don't you know? There ISN'T any Napoleon any more.
Hasn't been for years and years. The Arkansas River burst through it,
tore it all to rags, and emptied it into the Mississippi!'
'Carried the WHOLE town away?-banks, churches, jails, newspaper-offices,
court-house, theater, fire department, livery stable EVERYTHING?'
'Everything. just a fifteen-minute job.' or such a matter. Didn't
leave hide nor hair, shred nor shingle of it, except the fag-end of a
shanty and one brick chimney. This boat is paddling along right now,
where the dead-center of that town used to be; yonder is the brick
chimney-all that's left of Napoleon. These dense woods on the right used
to be a mile back of the town. Take a look behind you--up-stream--now
you begin to recognize this country, don't you?'
'Yes, I do recognize it now. It is the most wonderful thing I ever
heard of; by a long shot the most wonderful--and unexpected.'
Mr. Thompson and Mr. Rogers had arrived, meantime, with satchels and
umbrellas, and had silently listened to the captain's news. Thompson put
a half-dollar in my hand and said softly--
'For my share of the chromo.'
Rogers followed suit.
Yes, it was an astonishing thing to see the Mississippi rolling between
unpeopled shores and straight over the spot where I used to see a good
big self-complacent town twenty years ago. Town that was county-seat of
a great and important county; town with a big United States marine
hospital; town of innumerable fights--an inquest every day; town where I
had used to know the prettiest girl, and the most accomplished in the
whole Mississippi Valley; town where we were handed the first printed
news of the 'Pennsylvania's' mournful disaster a quarter of a century
ago; a town no more--swallowed up, vanished, gone to feed the fishes;
nothing left but a fragment of a shanty and a crumbling brick chimney!
Chapter 33 Refreshments and Ethics
IN regard to Island 74, which is situated not far from the former
Napoleon, a freak of the river here has sorely perplexed the laws of men
and made them a vanity and a jest. When the State of Arkansas was
chartered, she controlled 'to the center of the river'--a most unstable
line. The State of Mississippi claimed 'to the channel'--another shifty
and unstable line. No. 74 belonged to Arkansas. By and by a cut-off
threw this big island out of Arkansas, and yet not within Mississippi.
'Middle of the river' on one side of it, 'channel' on the other. That
is as I understand the problem. Whether I have got the details right or
wrong, this FACT remains: that here is this big and exceedingly valuable
island of four thousand acres, thrust out in the cold, and belonging to
neither the one State nor the other; paying taxes to neither, owing
allegiance to neither. One man owns the whole island, and of right is
'the man without a country.'
Island 92 belongs to Arkansas. The river moved it over and joined it to
Mississippi. A chap established a whiskey shop there, without a
Mississippi license, and enriched himself upon Mississippi custom under
Arkansas protection (where no license was in those days required).
We glided steadily down the river in the usual privacy--steamboat or
other moving thing seldom seen. Scenery as always: stretch upon stretch
of almost unbroken forest, on both sides of the river; soundless
solitude. Here and there a cabin or two, standing in small openings on
the gray and grassless banks--cabins which had formerly stood a quarter
or half-mile farther to the front, and gradually been pulled farther and
farther back as the shores caved in. As at Pilcher's Point, for
instance, where the cabins had been moved back three hundred yards in
three months, so we were told; but the caving banks had already caught
up with them, and they were being conveyed rearward once more.
Napoleon had but small opinion of Greenville, Mississippi, in the old
times; but behold, Napoleon is gone to the cat-fishes, and here is
Greenville full of life and activity, and making a considerable flourish
in the Valley; having three thousand inhabitants, it is said, and doing
a gross trade of $2,500,000 annually. A growing town.
There was much talk on the boat about the Calhoun Land Company, an
enterprise which is expected to work wholesome results. Colonel Calhoun,
a grandson of the statesman, went to Boston and formed a syndicate which
purchased a large tract of land on the river, in Chicot County,
Arkansas--some ten thousand acres--for cotton-growing. The purpose is to
work on a cash basis: buy at first hands, and handle their own product;
supply their <DW64> laborers with provisions and necessaries at a
trifling profit, say 8 or 10 per cent.; furnish them comfortable
quarters, etc., and encourage them to save money and remain on the
place. If this proves a financial success, as seems quite certain, they
propose to establish a banking-house in Greenville, and lend money at an
unburdensome rate of interest--6 per cent. is spoken of.
The trouble heretofore has been--I am quoting remarks of planters and
steamboatmen--that the planters, although owning the land, were without
cash capital; had to hypothecate both land and crop to carry on the
business. Consequently, the commission dealer who furnishes the money
takes some risk and demands big interest--usually 10 per cent., and
2{half} per cent. for negotiating the loan. The planter has also to buy
his supplies through the same dealer, paying commissions and profits.
Then when he ships his crop, the dealer adds his commissions, insurance,
etc. So, taking it by and large, and first and last, the dealer's share
of that crop is about 25 per cent.'{footnote ['But what can the State do
where the people are under subjection to rates of interest ranging from
18 to 30 per cent., and are also under the necessity of purchasing their
crops in advance even of planting, at these rates, for the privilege of
purchasing all their supplies at 100 per cent. profit?'--EDWARD
ATKINSON.]}
A cotton-planter's estimate of the average margin of profit on planting,
in his section: One man and mule will raise ten acres of cotton, giving
ten bales cotton, worth, say, $500; cost of producing, say $350; net
profit, $150, or $15 per acre. There is also a profit now from the
cotton-seed, which formerly had little value--none where much
transportation was necessary. In sixteen hundred pounds crude cotton
four hundred are lint, worth, say, ten cents a pound; and twelve hundred
pounds of seed, worth $12 or $13 per ton. Maybe in future even the
stems will not be thrown away. Mr. Edward Atkinson says that for each
bale of cotton there are fifteen hundred pounds of stems, and that these
are very rich in phosphate of lime and potash; that when ground and
mixed with ensilage or cotton-seed meal (which is too rich for use as
fodder in large quantities), the stem mixture makes a superior food,
rich in all the elements needed for the production of milk, meat, and
bone. Heretofore the stems have been considered a nuisance. |
10,240 |
Produced by David Widger. HTML version by Al Haines
THE SNOW-IMAGE
AND
OTHER TWICE-TOLD TALES
MAIN STREET
By
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Respectable-looking individual makes his bow and addresses the public.
In my daily walks along the principal street of my native town, it has
often occurred to me, that, if its growth from infancy upward, and the
vicissitude of characteristic scenes that have passed along this
thoroughfare during the more than two centuries of its existence, could
be presented to the eye in a shifting panorama, it would bean exceedingly
effective method of illustrating the march of time. Acting on this idea,
I have contrived a certain pictorial exhibition, somewhat in the nature
of a puppet-show, by means of which I propose to call up the multiform
and many-colored Past before the spectator, and show him the ghosts of
his forefathers, amid a succession of historic incidents, with no greater
trouble than the turning of a crank. Be pleased, therefore, my indulgent
patrons, to walk into the show-room, and take your seats before yonder
mysterious curtain. The little wheels and springs of my machinery have
been well oiled; a multitude of puppets are dressed in character,
representing all varieties of fashion, from the Puritan cloak and jerkin
to the latest Oak Hall coat; the lamps are trimmed, and shall brighten
into noontide sunshine, or fade away in moonlight, or muffle their
brilliancy in a November cloud, as the nature of the scene may require;
and, in short, the exhibition is just ready to commence. Unless
something should go wrong,--as, for instance, the misplacing of a
picture, whereby the people and events of one century might be thrust
into the middle of another; or the breaking of a wire, which would bring
the course of time to a sudden period,--barring, I say, the casualties to
which such a complicated piece of mechanism is liable,--I flatter myself,
ladies and gentlemen,--that the performance will elicit your generous
approbation.
Ting-a-ting-ting! goes the bell; the curtain rises; and we behold-not,
indeed, the Main Street--but the track of leaf-strewn forest-land over
which its dusty pavement is hereafter to extend.
You perceive, at a glance, that this is the ancient and primitive
wood,--the ever-youthful and venerably old,--verdant with new twigs, yet
hoary, as it were, with the snowfall of innumerable years, that have
accumulated upon its intermingled branches. The white man's axe has never
smitten a single tree; his footstep has never crumpled a single one of the
withered leaves, which all the autumns since the flood have been harvesting
beneath. Yet, see! along through the vista of impending boughs, there is
already a faintly traced path, running nearly east and west, as if a
prophecy or foreboding of the future street had stolen into the heart of
the solemn old wood. Onward goes this hardly perceptible track, now
ascending over a natural swell of land, now subsiding gently into a
hollow; traversed here by a little streamlet, which glitters like a snake
through the gleam of sunshine, and quickly hides itself among the
underbrush, in its quest for the neighboring cove; and impeded there by
the massy corpse of a giant of the forest, which had lived out its
incalculable term of life, and been overthrown by mere old age, and lies
buried in the new vegetation that is born of its decay. What footsteps
can have worn this half-seen path? Hark! Do we not hear them now
rustling softly over the leaves? We discern an Indian woman,--a majestic
and queenly woman, or else her spectral image does not represent her
truly,--for this is the great Squaw Sachem, whose rule, with that of her
sons, extends from Mystic to Agawam. That red chief, who stalks by her
side, is Wappacowet, her second husband, the priest and magician, whose
incantations shall hereafter affright the pale-faced settlers with grisly
phantoms, dancing and shrieking in the woods, at midnight. But greater
would be the affright of the Indian necromancer, if, mirrored in the pool
of water at his feet, he could catch a prophetic glimpse of the noonday
marvels which the white man is destined to achieve; if he could see, as
in a dream, the stone front of the stately hall, which will cast its
shadow over this very spot; if he could be aware that the future edifice
will contain a noble Museum, where, among countless curiosities of earth
and sea, a few Indian arrow-heads shall be treasured up as memorials of a
vanished race!
No such forebodings disturb the Squaw Sachem and Wappacowet. They pass
on, beneath the tangled shade, holding high talk on matters of state and
religion, and imagine, doubtless, that their own system of affairs will
endure forever. Meanwhile, how full of its own proper life is the scene
that lies around them! The gray squirrel runs up the trees, and rustles
among the upper branches. Was not that the leap of a deer? And there is
the whirr of a partridge! Methinks, too, I catch the cruel and stealthy
eye of a wolf, as he draws back into yonder impervious density of
underbrush. So, there, amid the murmur of boughs, go the Indian queen
and the Indian priest; while the gloom of the broad wilderness impends
over them, and its sombre mystery invests them as with something
preternatural; and only momentary streaks of quivering sunlight, once in
a great while, find their way down, and glimmer among the feathers in
their dusky hair. Can it be that the thronged street of a city will ever
pass into this twilight solitude,--over those soft heaps of the decaying
tree-trunks, and through the swampy places, green with water-moss, and
penetrate that hopeless entanglement of great trees, which have been
uprooted and tossed together by a whirlwind? It has been a wilderness
from the creation. Must it not be a wilderness forever?
Here an acidulous-looking gentleman in blue glasses, with bows of Berlin
steel, who has taken a seat at the extremity of the front row, begins, at
this early stage of the exhibition, to criticise.
"The whole affair is a manifest catchpenny!" observes he, scarcely under
his breath. "The trees look more like weeds in a garden than a primitive
forest; the Squaw Sachem and Wappacowet are stiff in their pasteboard
joints; and the squirrels, the deer, and the wolf move with all the
grace of a child's wooden monkey, sliding up and down a stick."
"I am obliged to you, sir, for the candor of your remarks," replies the
showman, with a bow. "Perhaps they are just. Human art has its limits,
and we must now and then ask a little aid from the spectator's
imagination."
"You will get no such aid from mine," responds the critic. "I make it a
point to see things precisely as they are. But come! go ahead! the stage
is waiting!"
The showman proceeds.
Casting our eyes again over the scene, we perceive that strangers have
found their way into the solitary place. In more than one spot, among
the trees, an upheaved axe is glittering in the sunshine. Roger Conant,
the first settler in Naumkeag, has built his dwelling, months ago, on the
border of the forest-path; and at this moment he comes eastward through
the vista of woods, with his gun over his shoulder, bringing home the
choice portions of a deer. His stalwart figure, clad in a leathern
jerkin and breeches of the same, strides sturdily onward, with such an
air of physical force and energy that we might almost expect the very
trees to stand aside, and give him room to pass. And so, indeed, they
must; for, humble as is his name in history, Roger Conant still is of
that class of men who do not merely find, but make, their place in the
system of human affairs; a man of thoughtful strength, he has planted the
germ of a city. There stands his habitation, showing in its rough
architecture some features of the Indian wigwam, and some of the
log-cabin, and somewhat, too, of the straw-thatched cottage in Old England,
where this good yeoman had his birth and breeding. The dwelling is
surrounded by a cleared space of a few acres, where Indian corn grows
thrivingly among the stumps of the trees; while the dark forest hems it
in, and scenes to gaze silently and solemnly, as if wondering at the
breadth of sunshine which the white man spreads around him. An Indian,
half hidden in the dusky shade, is gazing and wondering too.
Within the door of the cottage you discern the wife, with her ruddy
English cheek. She is singing, doubtless, a psalm tune, at her household
work; or, perhaps she sighs at the remembrance of the cheerful gossip,
and all the merry social life, of her native village beyond the vast and
melancholy sea. Yet the next moment she laughs, with sympathetic glee,
at the sports of her little tribe of children; and soon turns round, with
the home-look in her face, as her husband's foot is heard approaching the
rough-hewn threshold. How sweet must it be for those who have an Eden in
their hearts, like Roger Conant and his wife, to find a new world to
project it into, as they have, instead of dwelling among old haunts of
men, where so many household fires have been kindled and burnt out, that
the very glow of happiness has something dreary in it! Not that this
pair are alone in their wild Eden, for here comes Goodwife Massey, the
young spouse of Jeffrey Massey, from her home hard by, with an infant at
her breast. Dame Conant has another of like age; and it shall hereafter
be one of the disputed points of history which of these two babies was
the first town-born child.
But see! Roger Conant has other neighbors within view. Peter Palfrey
likewise has built himself a house, and so has Balch, and Norman, and
Woodbury. Their dwellings, indeed,--such is the ingenious contrivance of
this piece of pictorial mechanism,--seem to have arisen, at various
points of the scene, even while we have been looking at it. The
forest-track, trodden more and more by the hobnailed shoes of these sturdy
and ponderous Englishmen, has now a distinctness which it never could have
acquired from the light tread of a hundred times as many Indian
moccasins. It will be a street, anon! As we observe it now, it goes
onward from one clearing to another, here plunging into a shadowy strip
of woods, there open to the sunshine, but everywhere showing a decided
line, along which human interests have begun to hold their career. Over
yonder swampy spot, two trees have been felled, and laid side by side to
make a causeway. In another place, the axe has cleared away a confused
intricacy of fallen trees and clustered boughs, which had been tossed
together by a hurricane. So now the little children, just beginning to
run alone, may trip along the path, and not often stumble over an
impediment, unless they stray from it to gather wood-berries beneath the
trees. And, besides the feet of grown people and children, there are the
cloven hoofs of a small herd of cows, who seek their subsistence from the
native grasses, and help to deepen the track of the future thoroughfare.
Goats also browse along it, and nibble at the twigs that thrust
themselves across the way. Not seldom, in its more secluded portions,
where the black shadow of the forest strives to hide the trace of
human-footsteps, stalks a gaunt wolf, on the watch for a kid or a young
calf; or fixes his hungry gaze on the group of children gathering berries,
and can hardly forbear to rush upon them. And the Indians, coming from
their distant wigwams to view the white man's settlement, marvel at the
deep track which he makes, and perhaps are saddened by a flitting
presentiment that this heavy tread will find its way over all the land;
and that the wild-woods, the wild wolf, and the wild Indian will alike be
trampled beneath it. Even so shall it be. The pavements of the Main
Street must be laid over the red man's grave.
Behold! here is a spectacle which should be ushered in by the peal of
trumpets, if Naumkeag had ever yet heard that cheery music, and by the
roar of cannon, echoing among the woods. A procession,--for, by its
dignity, as marking an epoch in the history of the street, it deserves
that name,--a procession advances along the pathway. The good ship
Abigail has arrived from England, bringing wares and merchandise, for the
comfort of the inhabitants, and traffic with the Indians; bringing
passengers too, and, more important than all, a governor for the new
settlement. Roger Conant and Peter Palfrey, with their companions, have
been to the shore to welcome him; and now, with such honor and triumph as
their rude way of life permits, are escorting the sea-flushed voyagers to
their habitations. At the point where Endicott enters upon the scene,
two venerable trees unite their branches high above his head; thus
forming a triumphal arch of living verdure, beneath which he pauses, with
his wife leaning on his arm, to catch the first impression of their
new-found home. The old settlers gaze not less earnestly at him, than he
at the hoary woods and the rough surface of the clearings. They like his
bearded face, under the shadow of the broad-brimmed and steeple-crowned
Puritan hat;--a visage resolute, grave, and thoughtful, yet apt to kindle
with that glow of a cheerful spirit by which men of strong character are
enabled to go joyfully on their proper tasks. His form, too, as you see
it, in a doublet and hose of sad-colored cloth, is of a manly make, fit
for toil and hardship, and fit to wield the heavy sword that hangs from
his leathern belt. His aspect is a better warrant for the ruler's office
than the parchment commission which he bears, however fortified it may be
with the broad seal of the London council. Peter Palfrey nods to Roger
Conant. "The worshipful Court of Assistants have done wisely," say they
between themselves. "They have chosen for our governor a man out of a
thousand." Then they toss up their hats,--they, and all the uncouth
figures of their company, most of whom are clad in skins, inasmuch as
their old kersey and linsey-woolsey garments have been torn and tattered
by many a long month's wear,--they all toss up their hats, and salute
their new governor and captain with a hearty English shout of welcome.
We seem to hear it with our own ears, so perfectly is the action
represented in this life-like, this almost magic picture! But have you
observed the lady who leans upon the arm of Endicott?---a rose of beauty
from an English garden, now to be transplanted to a fresher soil. It may
be that, long years--centuries indeed--after this fair flower shall have
decayed, other flowers of the same race will appear in the same soil, and
gladden other generations with hereditary beauty. Does not the vision
haunt us yet? Has not Nature kept the mould unbroken, deeming it a pity
that the idea should vanish from mortal sight forever, after only once
assuming earthly substance? Do we not recognize, in that fair woman's
face, a model of features which still beam, at happy meets, on what was
then the woodland pathway, but has out since grown into a busy street?
"This is too ridiculous!--positively insufferable!" mutters the same
critic who had before expressed his disapprobation. "Here is a
pasteboard figure, such as a child would cut out of a card, with a pair
of very dull scissors; and the fellow modestly requests us to see in it
the prototype of hereditary beauty!"
"But, sir, you have not the proper point of view," remarks the showman.
"You sit altogether too near to get the best effect of my pictorial
exhibition. Pray, oblige me by removing to this other bench, and I
venture assure you the proper light and shadow will transform the
spectacle into quite another thing."
"Pshaw!" replies the critic; "I want no other light and shade. I have
already told you that it is my business to see things just as they are."
"I would suggest to the author of this ingenious exhibition," observes a
gentlemanly person, who has shown signs of being much interested,--"I
would suggest that Anna Gower, the first wife of Governor Endicott, and
who came with him from England, left no posterity; and that,
consequently, we cannot be indebted to that honorable lady for any
specimens of feminine loveliness now extant among us."
Having nothing to allege against this genealogical objection, the showman
points again to the scene.
During this little interruption, you perceive that the Anglo-Saxon
energy--as the phrase now goes--has been at work in the spectacle before
us. So many chimneys now send up their smoke, that it begins to have the
aspect of a village street; although everything is so inartificial and
inceptive, that it seems as if one returning wave of the wild nature
might overwhelm it all. But the one edifice which gives the pledge of
permanence to this bold enterprise is seen at the central point of the
picture. There stands the meeting-house, a small structure, low-roofed,
without a spire, and built of rough timber, newly hewn, with the sap
still in the logs, and here and there a strip of bark adhering to them.
A meaner temple was never consecrated to the worship of the Deity. With
the alternative of kneeling beneath the awful vault of the firmament, it
is strange that men should creep into this pent-up nook, and expect God's
presence there. Such, at least, one would imagine, might be the feeling
of these forest-settlers, accustomed, as they had been, to stand under
the dim arches of vast cathedrals, and to offer up their hereditary
worship in the old ivy-covered churches of rural England, around which
lay the bones of many generations of their forefathers. How could they
dispense with the carved altar-work?--how, with the pictured windows,
where the light of common day was hallowed by being transmitted through
the glorified figures of saints?--how, with the lofty roof, imbued, as it
must have been, with the prayers that had gone upward for centuries?--how,
with the rich peal of the solemn organ, rolling along the aisles,
pervading the whole church, and sweeping the soul away on a flood of
audible religion? They needed nothing of all this. Their house of
worship, like their ceremonial, was naked, simple, and severe. But the
zeal of a recovered faith burned like a lamp within their hearts,
enriching everything around them with its radiance; making of these new
walls, and this narrow compass, its own cathedral; and being, in itself,
that spiritual mystery and experience, of which sacred architecture,
pictured windows, and the organ's grand solemnity are remote and
imperfect symbols. All was well, so long as their lamps were freshly
kindled at heavenly flame. After a while, however, whether in their time
or their children's, these lamps began to burn more dimly, or with a less
genuine lustre; and then it might be seen how hard, cold, and confined
was their system,--how like an iron cage was that which they called
Liberty.
Too much of this. Look again at the picture, and observe how the
aforesaid Anglo-Saxon energy is now trampling along the street, and
raising a positive cloud of dust beneath its sturdy footsteps. For there
the carpenters are building a new house, the frame of which was hewn and
fitted in England, of English oak, and sent hither on shipboard; and here
a blacksmith makes huge slang and clatter on his anvil, shaping out tools
and weapons; and yonder a wheelwright, who boasts himself a London
workman, regularly bred to his handicraft, is fashioning a set of
wagon-wheels, the track of which Wall soon be visible. The wild forest is
shrinking back; the street has lost the aromatic odor of the pine-trees,
and of the sweet-fern that grew beneath them. The tender and modest
wild-flowers, those gentle children of savage nature that grew pale
beneath the ever-brooding shade, have shrank away and disappeared, like
stars that vanish in the breadth of light. Gardens are fenced in, and
display pumpkin-beds and rows of cabbages and beans; and, though the
governor and the minister both view them with a disapproving eye, plants
of broad-leaved tobacco, which the cultivators are enjoined to use
privily, or not at all. No wolf, for a year past, has been heard to
bark, or known to range among the dwellings, except that single one,
whose grisly head, with a plash of blood beneath it, is now affixed to
the portal of the meeting-house. The partridge has ceased to run across
the too-frequented path. Of all the wild life that used to throng here,
only the Indians still come into the settlement, bringing the skins of
beaver and otter, bear and elk, which they sell to Endicott for the wares
of England. And there is little John Massey, the son of Jeffrey Massey
and first-born of Naumkeag, playing beside his father's threshold, a
child of six or seven years old. Which is the better-grown infant,--the
town or the boy?
The red men have become aware that the street is no longer free to them,
save by the sufferance and permission of the settlers. Often, to impress
them with an awe of English power, there is a muster and training of the
town-forces, and a stately march of the mail-clad band, like this which
we now see advancing up the street. There they come, fifty of them, or
more; all with their iron breastplates and steel caps well burnished, and
glimmering bravely against the sun; their ponderous muskets on their
shoulders, their bandaliers about their waists, their lighted matches in
their hands, and the drum and fife playing cheerily before them. See! do
they not step like martial men? Do they not manoeuvre like soldiers who
have seen stricken fields? And well they may; for this band is composed
of precisely such materials as those with which Cromwell is preparing to
beat down the strength of a kingdom; and his famous regiment of Ironsides
might be recruited from just such men. In everything, at this period,
New England was the essential spirit and flower of that which was about
to become uppermost in the mother-country. Many a bold and wise man lost
the fame which would have accrued to him in English history, by crossing
the Atlantic with our forefathers. Many a valiant captain, who might
have been foremost at Marston Moor or Naseby, exhausted his martial ardor
in the command of a log-built fortress, like that which you observe on
the gently rising ground at the right of the pathway,--its banner
fluttering in the breeze, and the culverins and sakers showing their
deadly muzzles over the rampart.
A multitude of people were now thronging to New England: some, because
the ancient and ponderous framework of Church and State threatened to
crumble down upon their heads; others, because they despaired of such a
downfall. Among those who came to Naumkeag were men of history and
legend, whose feet leave a track of brightness along any pathway which
they have trodden. You shall behold their life-like images--their
spectres, if you choose so to call them--passing, encountering with a
familiar nod, stopping to converse together, praying, bearing weapons,
laboring or resting from their labors, in the Main Street. Here, now,
comes Hugh Peters, an earnest, restless man, walking swiftly, as being
impelled by that fiery activity of nature which shall hereafter thrust
him into the conflict of dangerous affairs, make him the chaplain and
counsellor of Cromwell, and finally bring him to a bloody end. He
pauses, by the meetinghouse, to exchange a greeting with Roger Williams,
whose face indicates, methinks, a gentler spirit, kinder and more
expansive, than that of Peters; yet not less active for what he discerns
to be the will of God, or the welfare of mankind. And look! here is a
guest for Endicott, coming forth out of the forest, through which he has
been journeying from Boston, and which, with its rude branches, has
caught hold of his attire, and has wet his feet with its swamps and
streams. Still there is something in his mild and venerable, though not
aged presence--a propriety, an equilibrium, in Governor Winthrop's
nature--that causes the disarray of his costume to be unnoticed, and
gives us the same impression as if he were clad in such rave and rich
attire as we may suppose him to have worn in the Council Chamber of the
colony. Is not this characteristic wonderfully perceptible in our
spectral representative of his person? But what dignitary is this
crossing from the other side to greet the governor? A stately personage,
in a dark velvet cloak, with a hoary beard, and a gold chain across his
breast; he has the authoritative port of one who has filled the highest
civic station in the first of cities. Of all men in the world, we should
least expect to meet the Lord Mayor of London--as Sir Richard Saltonstall
has been, once and again--in a forest-bordered settlement of the western
wilderness.
Farther down the street, we see Emanuel Downing, a grave and worthy
citizen, with his son George, a stripling who has a career before him;
his shrewd and quick capacity and pliant conscience shall not only exalt
him high, but secure him from a downfall. Here is another figure, on
whose characteristic make and expressive action I will stake the credit
of my pictorial puppet-show.
Have you not already detected a quaint, sly humor in that face,--an
eccentricity in the manner,--a certain indescribable waywardness,--all
the marks, in short, of an original man, unmistakably impressed, yet kept
down by a sense of clerical restraint? That is Nathaniel Ward, the
minister of Ipswich, but better remembered as the simple cobbler of
Agawam. He hammered his sole so faithfully, and stitched his
upper-leather so well, that the shoe is hardly yet worn out, though thrown
aside for some two centuries past. And next, among these Puritans and
Roundheads, we observe the very model of a Cavalier, with the curling
lovelock, the fantastically trimmed beard, the embroidery, the ornamented
rapier, the gilded dagger, and all other foppishnesses that distinguished
the wild gallants who rode headlong to their overthrow in the cause of
King Charles. This is Morton of Merry Mount, who has come hither to hold
a council with Endicott, but will shortly be his prisoner. Yonder pale,
decaying figure of a white-robed woman, who glides slowly along the
street, is the Lady Arabella, looking for her own grave in the virgin
soil. That other female form, who seems to be talking--we might almost
say preaching or expounding--in the centre of a group of profoundly
attentive auditors, is Ann Hutchinson. And here comes Vane--
"But, my dear sir," interrupts the same gentleman who before questioned
the showman's genealogical accuracy, "allow me to observe that these
historical personages could not possibly have met together in the Main
Street. They might, and probably did, all visit our old town, at one
time or another, but not simultaneously; and you have fallen into
anachronisms that I positively shudder to think of!"
"The fellow," adds the scarcely civil critic, "has learned a bead-roll of
historic names, whom he lugs into his pictorial puppet-show, as he calls
it, helter-skelter, without caring whether they were contemporaries or
not,--and sets them all by the ears together. But was there ever such a
fund of impudence? To hear his running commentary, you would suppose
that these miserable slips of painted pasteboard, with hardly the
remotest outlines of the human figure, had all the character and
expression of Michael Angele's pictures. Well! go on, sir!"
"Sir, you break the illusion of the scene," mildly remonstrates the
showman.
"Illusion! What illusion?" rejoins the critic, with a contemptuous
snort. "On the word of a gentleman, I see nothing illusive in the
wretchedly bedaubed sheet of canvas that forms your background, or in
these pasteboard slips that hitch and jerk along the front. The only
illusion, permit me to say, is in the puppet-showman's tongue,--and that
but a wretched one, into the bargain!"
"We public men," replies the showman, meekly, "must lay our account,
sometimes, to meet an uncandid severity of criticism. But--merely for
your own pleasure, sir--let me entreat you to take another point of view.
Sit farther back, by that young lady, in whose face I have watched the
reflection of every changing scene; only oblige me by sitting there; and,
take my word for it, the slips of pasteboard shall assume spiritual life,
and the bedaubed canvas become an airy and changeable reflex of what it
purports to represent."
"I know better," retorts the critic, settling himself in his seat, with
sullen but self-complacent immovableness. "And, as for my own pleasure,
I shall best consult it by remaining precisely where I am."
The showman bows, and waves his hand; and, at the signal, as if time and
vicissitude had been awaiting his permission to move onward, the mimic
street becomes alive again.
Years have rolled over our scene, and converted the forest-track into a
dusty thoroughfare, which, being intersected with lanes and cross-paths,
may fairly be designated as the Main Street. On the ground-sites of many
of the log-built sheds, into which the first settlers crept for shelter,
houses of quaint architecture have now risen. These later edifices are
built, as you see, in one generally accordant style, though with such
subordinate variety as keeps the beholder's curiosity excited, and causes
each structure, like its owner's character, to produce its own peculiar
impression. Most of them have a huge chimney in the centre, with flues
so vast that it must have been easy for the witches to fly out of them as
they were wont to do, when bound on an aerial visit to the Black Man in
the forest. Around this great chimney the wooden house clusters itself,
in a whole community of gable-ends, each ascending into its own karate
peak; the second story, with its lattice-windows, projecting over the
first; and the door, which is perhaps arched, provided on the outside
with an iron hammer, wherewith the visitor's hand may give a thundering
rat-a-tat.
The timber framework of these houses, as compared with those of recent
date, is like the skeleton of an old giant, beside the frail bones of a
modern man of fashion. Many of them, by the vast strength and soundness
of their oaken substance, have been preserved through a length of time
which would have tried the stability of brick and stone; so that, in all
the progressive decay and continual reconstruction of the street, down
our own days, we shall still behold these old edifices occupying their
long-accustomed sites. For instance, on the upper corner of that green
lane which shall hereafter be North Street, we see the Curwen House,
newly built, with the carpenters still at work on the roof nailing down
the last sheaf of shingles. On the lower corner stands another
dwelling,--destined, at some period of its existence, to be the abode of
an unsuccessful alchemist,--which shall likewise survive to our own
generation, and perhaps long outlive it. Thus, through the medium of
these patriarchal edifices, we have now established a sort of kindred and
hereditary acquaintance with the Main Street.
Great as is the transformation produced by a short term of years, each
single day creeps through the Puritan settlement sluggishly enough. It
shall pass before your eyes, condensed into the space of a few moments.
The gray light of early morning is slowly diffusing itself over the
scene; and the bellman, whose office it is to cry the hour at the
street-corners, rings the last peal upon his hand bell, and goes wearily
homewards, with the owls, the bats, and other creatures of the night.
Lattices are thrust back on their hinges, as if the town were opening its
eyes, in the summer morning. Forth stumbles the still drowsy cowherd,
with his horn; putting which to his lips, it emits a bellowing bray,
impossible to be represented in the picture, but which reaches the
pricked-up ears of every cow in the settlement, and tells her that the
dewy pasture-hour is come. House after house awakes, and sends the smoke
up curling from its chimney, like frosty breath from living nostrils; and
as those white wreaths of smoke, though impregnated with earthy
admixtures, climb skyward, so, from each dwelling, does the morning
worship--its spiritual essence, bearing up its human imperfection--find
its way to the heavenly Father's throne.
The breakfast-hour being passed, the inhabitants do not, as usual, go to
their fields or workshops, but remain within doors; or perhaps walk the
street, with a grave sobriety, yet a disengaged and unburdened aspect,
that belongs neither to a holiday nor a Sabbath. And, indeed, this
passing day is neither, nor is it a common week-day, although partaking
of all the three. It is the Thursday Lecture; an institution which New
England has long ago relinquished, and almost forgotten, yet which it
would have been better to retain, as bearing relations to both the
spiritual and ordinary life, and bringing each acquainted with the other.
The tokens of its observance, however, which here meet our eyes, are of
rather a questionable cast. It is, in one sense, a day of public shame;
the day on which transgressors, who have made themselves liable to the
minor severities of the Puritan law receive their reward of ignominy. At
this very moment, this constable has bound an idle fellow to the
whipping-post, and is giving him his deserts with a cat-o'-nine tails.
Ever since sunrise, Daniel Fairfield has been standing on the steps of
the meeting-house, with a halter about his neck, which he is condemned to
wear visibly throughout his lifetime; Dorothy Talby is chained to a post
at the corner of Prison Lane, with the hot sun blazing on her matronly
face, and all for no other offence than lifting her hand against her
husband; while, through the bars of that great wooden cage, in the centre
of the scene, we discern either a human being or a wild beast, or both in
one, whom this public infamy causes to roar, and gnash his teeth, and
shake the strong oaken bars, as if he would breakforth, and tear in
pieces the little children who have been peeping at him. Such are the
profitable sights that serve the good people to while away the earlier
part of lecture-day. Betimes in the forenoon, a traveller--the first
traveller that has come hitherward this morning-rides slowly into the
street on his patient steed. He seems a clergyman; and, as he draws
near, we recognize the minister of Lynn, who was pre-engaged to lecture
here, and has been revolving his discourse, as he rode through the hoary
wilderness. Behold, now, the whole town thronging into the meeting-house,
mostly with such sombre visages that the sunshine becomes little
better than a shadow when it falls upon them. There go the Thirteen Men,
grim rulers of a grim community! There goes John Massey, the first
town-born child, now a youth of twenty, whose eye wanders with peculiar
interest towards that buxom damsel who comes up the steps at the same
instant. There hobbles Goody Foster, a sour and bitter old beldam,
looking as if she went to curse, and not to pray, and whom many of her
neighbors suspect of taking an occasional airing on a broomstick. There,
too, slinking shamefacedly in, you observe that same poor do-nothing and
good-for-nothing whom we saw castigated just now at the whipping-post.
Last of all, there goes the tithing-man, lugging in a couple of small
boys, whom he has caught at play beneath God's blessed sunshine, in a
back lane. What native of Naumkeag, whose recollections go back more
than thirty years, does not still shudder at that dark ogre of his
infancy, who perhaps had long ceased to have an actual existence, but
still lived in his childish belief, in a horrible idea, and in the
nurse's threat, as the Tidy Man!
It will be hardly worth our while to wait two, or it may be three,
turnings of the hour-glass, for the conclusion of the lecture.
Therefore, by my control over light and darkness, I cause the dusk, and
then the starless night, to brood over the street; and summon forth again
the bellman, with his lantern casting a gleam about his footsteps, to
pace wearily from corner to corner, and shout drowsily the hour to drowsy
or dreaming ears. Happy are we, if for nothing else, yet because we did
not live in those days. In truth, when the first novelty and stir of
spirit had subsided,--when the new settlement, between the forest-border
and the sea, had become actually a little town,--its daily life must have
trudged onward with hardly anything to diversify and enliven it, while
also its rigidity could not fail to cause miserable distortions of the
moral nature. Such a life was sinister to the intellect, and sinister to
the heart; especially when one generation had bequeathed its religious
gloom, and the counterfeit of its religious ardor, to the next; for these
characteristics, as was inevitable, assumed the form both of hypocrisy
and exaggeration, by being inherited from the example and precept of
other human beings, and not from an original and spiritual source. The
sons and grandchildren of the first settlers were a race of lower and
narrower souls than their progenitors had been. The latter were stern,
severe, intolerant, but not superstitious, not even fanatical; and
endowed, if any men of that age were, with a far-seeing worldly sagacity.
But it was impossible for the succeeding race to grow up, in heaven's
freedom, beneath the discipline which their gloomy energy of character
had established; nor, it may be, have we even yet thrown off all the
unfavorable influences which, among many good ones, were bequeathed to us
by our Puritan forefathers. Let us thank God for having given us such
ancestors; and let each successive generation thank him, not less
fervently, for being one step further from them in the march of ages.
"What is all this?" cries the critic. "A sermon? If so, it is not in
the bill."
"Very true," replies the showman; "and I ask pardon of the audience."
Look now at the street, and observe a strange people entering it. Their
garments are torn and disordered, their faces haggard, their figures
emaciated; for they have made their way hither through pathless deserts,
suffering hunger and hardship, with no other shelter thin a hollow tree,
the lair of a wild beast, or an Indian wigwam. Nor, in the most
inhospitable and dangerous of such lodging-places, was there half the
peril that awaits them in this thoroughfare of Christian men, with those
secure dwellings and warm hearths on either side of it, and yonder
meeting-house as the central object of the scene. These wanderers have
received from Heaven a gift that, in all epochs of the world, has brought
with it the penalties of mortal suffering and persecution, scorn, enmity,
and death itself;--a gift that, thus terrible to its possessors, has ever
been most hateful to all other men, since its very existence seems to
threaten the overthrow of whatever else the toilsome ages have built
up;--the gift of a new idea. You can discern it in them, illuminating
their faces--their whole persons, indeed, however earthly and
cloddish--with a light that inevitably shines through, and makes the
startled community aware that these men are not as they themselves
are,--not brethren nor neighbors of their thought. Forthwith, it is as
if an earthquake rumbled through the town, making its vibrations felt at
every hearthstone, and especially causing the spire of the meeting-house
to totter. The Quakers have come. We are in peril! See! they trample
upon our wise and well-established laws in the person of our chief
magistrate; for Governor Endicott is passing, now an aged man, and
dignified with long habits of authority,--and not one of the irreverent
vagabonds has moved his bat. Did you note the ominous frown of the
white-bearded Puritan governor, as he turned himself about, and, in his
anger, half uplifted the staff that has become a needful support to his
old age? Here comes old Mr. Norris, our venerable minister. Will they
doff their hats, and pay reverence to him? No: their hats stick fast
to their ungracious heads, as if they grew there; and--impious varlets
that they are, and worse than the heathen Indians!--they eye our reverend
pastor with a peculiar scorn, distrust, unbelief, and utter denial of his
sanctified pretensions, of which he himself immediately becomes conscious;
the more bitterly conscious, as he never knew nor dreamed of the like
before.
But look yonder! Can we believe our eyes? A Quaker woman, clad in
sackcloth, and with ashes on her head, has mounted the steps of the
meeting-house. She addresses the people in a wild, shrill voice,--wild
and shrill it must be to suit such a figure,--which makes them tremble
and turn pale, although they crowd open-mouthed to hear her. She is bold
against established authority; she denounces the priest and his
steeple-house. Many of her hearers are appalled; some weep; and others
listen with a rapt attention, as if a living truth had now, for the first
time, forced its way through the crust of habit, reached their hearts, and
awakened them to life. This matter must be looked to; else we have
brought our faith across the seas with us in vain; and it had been better
that the old forest were still standing here, waving its tangled boughs
and murmuring to the sky out of its desolate recesses, instead of this
goodly street, if such blasphemies be spoken in it.
So thought the old Puritans. What was their mode of action may be partly
judged from the spectacles which now pass before your eyes. Joshua
Buffum is standing in the pillory. Cassandra Southwick is led to prison.
And there a woman, it is Ann Coleman,--naked from the waist upward, and
bound to the tail of a cart, is dragged through the Main Street at the
pace of a brisk walk, while the constable follows with a whip of knotted
cords. A strong-armed fellow is that constable; and each time that he
flourishes his lash in the air, you see a frown wrinkling and twisting
his brow, and, at the same instant, a smile upon his lips. He loves his
business, faithful officer that he is, and puts his soul into every
stroke, zealous to fulfil the injunction of Major Hawthorne's warrant, in
the spirit and to the letter. There came down a stroke that has drawn
blood! Ten such stripes are to be given in Salem, ten in Boston, and ten
in Dedham; and, with those thirty stripes of blood upon her, she is to be
driven into the forest. |
10,240 |
Produced by David Widger
LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI
BY MARK TWAIN
Part 4.
Chapter 16 Racing Days
IT was always the custom for the boats to leave New Orleans between four
and five o'clock in the afternoon. From three o'clock onward they would
be burning rosin and pitch pine (the sign of preparation), and so one
had the picturesque spectacle of a rank, some two or three miles long,
of tall, ascending columns of coal-black smoke; a colonnade which
supported a sable roof of the same smoke blended together and spreading
abroad over the city. Every outward-bound boat had its flag flying at
the jack-staff, and sometimes a duplicate on the verge staff astern. Two
or three miles of mates were commanding and swearing with more than
usual emphasis; countless processions of freight barrels and boxes were
spinning athwart the levee and flying aboard the stage-planks, belated
passengers were dodging and skipping among these frantic things, hoping
to reach the forecastle companion way alive, but having their doubts
about it; women with reticules and bandboxes were trying to keep up with
husbands freighted with carpet-sacks and crying babies, and making a
failure of it by losing their heads in the whirl and roar and general
distraction; drays and baggage-vans were clattering hither and thither
in a wild hurry, every now and then getting blocked and jammed together,
and then during ten seconds one could not see them for the profanity,
except vaguely and dimly; every windlass connected with every forehatch,
from one end of that long array of steamboats to the other, was keeping
up a deafening whiz and whir, lowering freight into the hold, and the
half-naked crews of perspiring <DW64>s that worked them were roaring
such songs as 'De Las' Sack! De Las' Sack!'--inspired to unimaginable
exaltation by the chaos of turmoil and racket that was driving everybody
else mad. By this time the hurricane and boiler decks of the steamers
would be packed and black with passengers. The 'last bells' would begin
to clang, all down the line, and then the powwow seemed to double; in a
moment or two the final warning came,--a simultaneous din of Chinese
gongs, with the cry, 'All dat ain't goin', please to git asho'!'--and
behold, the powwow quadrupled! People came swarming ashore, overturning
excited stragglers that were trying to swarm aboard. One more moment
later a long array of stage-planks was being hauled in, each with its
customary latest passenger clinging to the end of it with teeth, nails,
and everything else, and the customary latest procrastinator making a
wild spring shoreward over his head.
Now a number of the boats slide backward into the stream, leaving wide
gaps in the serried rank of steamers. Citizens crowd the decks of boats
that are not to go, in order to see the sight. Steamer after steamer
straightens herself up, gathers all her strength, and presently comes
swinging by, under a tremendous head of steam, with flag flying, black
smoke rolling, and her entire crew of firemen and deck-hands (usually
swarthy <DW64>s) massed together on the forecastle, the best 'voice' in
the lot towering from the midst (being mounted on the capstan), waving
his hat or a flag, and all roaring a mighty chorus, while the parting
cannons boom and the multitudinous spectators swing their hats and
huzza! Steamer after steamer falls into line, and the stately procession
goes winging its flight up the river.
In the old times, whenever two fast boats started out on a race, with a
big crowd of people looking on, it was inspiring to hear the crews sing,
especially if the time were night-fall, and the forecastle lit up with
the red glare of the torch-baskets. Racing was royal fun. The public
always had an idea that racing was dangerous; whereas the opposite was
the case--that is, after the laws were passed which restricted each boat
to just so many pounds of steam to the square inch. No engineer was ever
sleepy or careless when his heart was in a race. He was constantly on
the alert, trying gauge-cocks and watching things. The dangerous place
was on slow, plodding boats, where the engineers drowsed around and
allowed chips to get into the 'doctor' and shut off the water supply
from the boilers.
In the 'flush times' of steamboating, a race between two notoriously
fleet steamers was an event of vast importance. The date was set for it
several weeks in advance, and from that time forward, the whole
Mississippi Valley was in a state of consuming excitement. Politics and
the weather were dropped, and people talked only of the coming race. As
the time approached, the two steamers'stripped' and got ready. Every
encumbrance that added weight, or exposed a resisting surface to wind or
water, was removed, if the boat could possibly do without it. The
'spars,' and sometimes even their supporting derricks, were sent ashore,
and no means left to set the boat afloat in case she got aground. When
the 'Eclipse' and the 'A. L. Shotwell' ran their great race many years
ago, it was said that pains were taken to scrape the gilding off the
fanciful device which hung between the 'Eclipse's' chimneys, and that
for that one trip the captain left off his kid gloves and had his head
shaved. But I always doubted these things.
If the boat was known to make her best speed when drawing five and a
half feet forward and five feet aft, she was carefully loaded to that
exact figure--she wouldn't enter a dose of homoeopathic pills on her
manifest after that. Hardly any passengers were taken, because they not
only add weight but they never will 'trim boat.' They always run to the
side when there is anything to see, whereas a conscientious and
experienced steamboatman would stick to the center of the boat and part
his hair in the middle with a spirit level.
No way-freights and no way-passengers were allowed, for the racers would
stop only at the largest towns, and then it would be only 'touch and
go.' Coal flats and wood flats were contracted for beforehand, and these
were kept ready to hitch on to the flying steamers at a moment's
warning. Double crews were carried, so that all work could be quickly
done.
The chosen date being come, and all things in readiness, the two great
steamers back into the stream, and lie there jockeying a moment, and
apparently watching each other's slightest movement, like sentient
creatures; flags drooping, the pent steam shrieking through safety-
valves, the black smoke rolling and tumbling from the chimneys and
darkening all the air. People, people everywhere; the shores, the house-
tops, the steamboats, the ships, are packed with them, and you know that
the borders of the broad Mississippi are going to be fringed with
humanity thence northward twelve hundred miles, to welcome these racers.
Presently tall columns of steam burst from the'scape-pipes of both
steamers, two guns boom a good-bye, two red-shirted heroes mounted on
capstans wave their small flags above the massed crews on the
forecastles, two plaintive solos linger on the air a few waiting
seconds, two mighty choruses burst forth--and here they come! Brass
bands bray Hail Columbia, huzza after huzza thunders from the shores,
and the stately creatures go whistling by like the wind.
Those boats will never halt a moment between New Orleans and St. Louis,
except for a second or two at large towns, or to hitch thirty-cord wood-
boats alongside. You should be on board when they take a couple of
those wood-boats in tow and turn a swarm of men into each; by the time
you have wiped your glasses and put them on, you will be wondering what
has become of that wood.
Two nicely matched steamers will stay in sight of each other day after
day. They might even stay side by side, but for the fact that pilots are
not all alike, and the smartest pilots will win the race. If one of the
boats has a 'lightning' pilot, whose 'partner' is a trifle his inferior,
you can tell which one is on watch by noting whether that boat has
gained ground or lost some during each four-hour stretch. The shrewdest
pilot can delay a boat if he has not a fine genius for steering.
Steering is a very high art. One must not keep a rudder dragging across
a boat's stem if he wants to get up the river fast.
There is a great difference in boats, of course. For a long time I was
on a boat that was so slow we used to forget what year it was we left
port in. But of course this was at rare intervals. Ferryboats used to
lose valuable trips because their passengers grew old and died, waiting
for us to get by. This was at still rarer intervals. I had the
documents for these occurrences, but through carelessness they have been
mislaid. This boat, the 'John J. Roe,' was so slow that when she finally
sunk in Madrid Bend, it was five years before the owners heard of it.
That was always a confusing fact to me, but it is according to the
record, any way. She was dismally slow; still, we often had pretty
exciting times racing with islands, and rafts, and such things. One
trip, however, we did rather well. We went to St. Louis in sixteen
days. But even at this rattling gait I think we changed watches three
times in Fort Adams reach, which is five miles long. A'reach' is a
piece of straight river, and of course the current drives through such a
place in a pretty lively way.
That trip we went to Grand Gulf, from New Orleans, in four days (three
hundred and forty miles); the 'Eclipse' and 'Shotwell' did it in one.
We were nine days out, in the chute of 63 (seven hundred miles); the
'Eclipse' and 'Shotwell' went there in two days. Something over a
generation ago, a boat called the 'J. M. White' went from New Orleans to
Cairo in three days, six hours, and forty-four minutes. In 1853 the
'Eclipse' made the same trip in three days, three hours, and twenty
minutes.{footnote [Time disputed. Some authorities add 1 hour and 16
minutes to this.]} In 1870 the 'R. E. Lee' did it in three days and ONE
hour. This last is called the fastest trip on record. I will try to show
that it was not. For this reason: the distance between New Orleans and
Cairo, when the 'J. M. White' ran it, was about eleven hundred and six
miles; consequently her average speed was a trifle over fourteen miles
per hour. In the 'Eclipse's' day the distance between the two ports had
become reduced to one thousand and eighty miles; consequently her
average speed was a shade under fourteen and three-eighths miles per
hour. In the 'R. E. Lee's' time the distance had diminished to about one
thousand and thirty miles; consequently her average was about fourteen
and one-eighth miles per hour. Therefore the 'Eclipse's' was
conspicuously the fastest time that has ever been made.
THE RECORD OF SOME FAMOUS
TRIPS
(From Commodore Rollingpin's Almanack.)
FAST TIME ON THE WESTERN WATERS
FROM NEW ORLEANS TO NATCHEZ--268 MILES
D. H. M.
1814 Orleans made the run in 6 6 40
1814 Comet " " 5 10
1815 Enterprise " " 4 11 20
1817 Washington " " 4
1817 Shelby " " 3 20
1818 Paragon " " 3 8
1828 Tecumseh " " 3 1 20
1834 Tuscarora " " 1 21
1838 Natchez " " 1 17
1840 Ed. Shippen " " 1 8
1842 Belle of the West " 1 18
1844 Sultana " " 19 45
1851 Magnolia " " 19 50
1853 A. L. Shotwell " " 19 49
1853 Southern Belle " " 20 3
1853 Princess (No. 4) " 20 26
1853 Eclipse " " 19 47
1855 Princess (New) " " 18 53
1855 Natchez (New) " " 17 30
1856 Princess (New) " " 17 30
1870 Natchez " " 17 17
1870 R. E. Lee " " 17 11
FROM NEW ORLEANS TO CAIRO--1,024 MILES
D. H. M.
1844 J. M. White made the run in 3 6 44
1852 Reindeer " " 3 12 45
1853 Eclipse " " 3 4 4
1853 A. L. Shotwell " " 3 3 40
1869 Dexter " " 3 6 20
1870 Natchez " " 3 4 34
1870 R. E. Lee " " 3 1
FROM NEW ORLEANS TO LOUISVILLE--1,440 MILES
D. H. M.
1815 Enterprise made the run in 25 2 40
1817 Washington " " 25
1817. Shelby " " 20 4 20
1818 Paragon " " 18 10
1828 Tecumseh " " 8 4
1834 Tuscarora " " 7 16
1837 Gen. Brown " " 6 22
1837 Randolph " " 6 22
1837 Empress " " 6 17
1837 Sultana " " 6 15
1840 Ed. Shippen " " 5 14
1842 Belle of the West " 6 14
1843 Duke of Orleans" " 5 23
1844 Sultana " " 5 12
1849 Bostona " " 5 8
1851 Belle Key " " 3 4 23
1852 Reindeer " " 4 20 45
1852 Eclipse " " 4 19
1853 A. L. Shotwell " " 4 10 20
1853 Eclipse " " 4 9 30
FROM NEW ORLEANS TO DONALDSONVILLE--78 MILES
H. M.
1852 A. L. Shotwell made the run in 5 42
1852 Eclipse " " 5 42
1854 Sultana " " 4 51
1860 Atlantic " " 5 11
1860 Gen. Quitman " " 5 6
1865 Ruth " " 4 43
1870 R. E. Lee " " 4 59
FROM NEW ORLEANS TO ST. LOUIS--1,218 MILES
D. H. M.
1844 J. M. White made the run in 3 23 9
1849 Missouri " " 4 19
1869 Dexter " " 4 9
1870 Natchez " " 3 21 58
1870 R. E. Lee " " 3 18 14
FROM LOUISVILLE TO CINCINNATI--141 MILES
D. H. M.
1819 Gen. Pike made the run in 1 16
1819 Paragon " " 1 14 20
1822 Wheeling Packet " " 1 10
1837 Moselle " " 12
1843 Duke of Orleans " " 12
1843 Congress " " 12 20
1846 Ben Franklin (No. 6) " 11 45
1852 Alleghaney " " 10 38
1852 Pittsburgh " " 10 23
1853 Telegraph No. 3 " " 9 52
FROM LOUISVILLE TO ST. LOUIS--750 MILES
D. H. M.
1843 Congress made the run in 2 1
1854 Pike " " 1 23
1854 Northerner " " 1 22 30
1855 Southemer " " 1 19
FROM CINCINNATI TO PITTSBURGH--490 MILES
D. H.
1850 Telegraph No. 2 made the run in 1 17
1851 Buckeye State " " 1 16
1852 Pittsburgh " " 1 15
FROM ST. LOUIS TO ALTON--30 MILES
D. M.
1853 Altona made the run in 1 35
1876 Golden Eagle " " 1 37
1876 War Eagle " " 1 37
MISCELLANEOUS RUNS
In June, 1859, the St. Louis and Keokuk Packet, City of Louisiana,
made the run from St. Louis to Keokuk (214 miles) in 16 hours
and 20 minutes, the best time on record.
In 1868 the steamer Hawkeye State, of the Northern Packet Company,
made the run from St. Louis to St. Paul (800 miles) in 2 days and 20 hours.
Never was beaten.
In 1853 the steamer Polar Star made the run from St. Louis to St. Joseph,
on the Missouri River, in 64 hours. In July, 1856, the steamer Jas.
H. Lucas, Andy Wineland, Master, made the same run in 60 hours
and 57 minutes. The distance between the ports is 600 miles,
and when the difficulties of navigating the turbulent Missouri
are taken into consideration, the performance of the Lucas
deserves especial mention.
THE RUN OF THE ROBERT E. LEE
The time made by the R. E. Lee from New Orleans to St. Louis
in 1870, in her famous race with the Natchez, is the best
on record, and, inasmuch as the race created a national interest,
we give below her time table from port to port.
Left New Orleans, Thursday, June 30th, 1870, at 4 o'clock
and 55 minutes, p.m.; reached
D. H. M.
Carrollton 27{half}
Harry Hills 1 00{half}
Red Church 1 39
Bonnet Carre 2 38
College Point 3 50{half}
Donaldsonville 4 59
Plaquemine 7 05{half}
Baton Rouge 8 25
Bayou Sara 10 26
Red River 12 56
Stamps 13 56
Bryaro 15 51{half}
Hinderson's 16 29
Natchez 17 11
Cole's Creek 19 21
Waterproof 18 53
Rodney 20 45
St. Joseph 21 02
Grand Gulf 22 06
Hard Times 22 18
Half Mile below Warrenton 1
Vicksburg 1 38
Milliken's Bend 1 2 37
Bailey's 1 3 48
Lake Providence 1 5 47
Greenville 1 10 55
Napoleon 1 16 22
White River 1 16 56
Australia 1 19
Helena 1 23 25
Half Mile Below St. Francis 2
Memphis 2 6 9
Foot of Island 37 2 9
Foot of Island 26 2 13 30
Tow-head, Island 14 2 17 23
New Madrid 2 19 50
Dry Bar No. 10 2 20 37
Foot of Island 8 2 21 25
Upper Tow-head--Lucas Bend 3
Cairo 3 1
St. Louis 3 18 14
The Lee landed at St. Louis at 11.25 A.M., on July 4th, 1870--6 hours
and 36 minutes ahead of the Natchez. The officers of the Natchez claimed
7 hours and 1 minute stoppage on account of fog and repairing machinery.
The R. E. Lee was commanded by Captain John W. Cannon, and the Natchez
was in charge of that veteran Southern boatman, Captain Thomas P.
Leathers.
Chapter 17 Cut-offs and Stephen
THESE dry details are of importance in one particular. They give me an
opportunity of introducing one of the Mississippi's oddest
peculiarities,--that of shortening its length from time to time. If you
will throw a long, pliant apple-paring over your shoulder, it will
pretty fairly shape itself into an average section of the Mississippi
River; that is, the nine or ten hundred miles stretching from Cairo,
Illinois, southward to New Orleans, the same being wonderfully crooked,
with a brief straight bit here and there at wide intervals. The two
hundred-mile stretch from Cairo northward to St. Louis is by no means so
crooked, that being a rocky country which the river cannot cut much.
The water cuts the alluvial banks of the 'lower' river into deep
horseshoe curves; so deep, indeed, that in some places if you were to
get ashore at one extremity of the horseshoe and walk across the neck,
half or three quarters of a mile, you could sit down and rest a couple
of hours while your steamer was coming around the long elbow, at a speed
of ten miles an hour, to take you aboard again. When the river is rising
fast, some scoundrel whose plantation is back in the country, and
therefore of inferior value, has only to watch his chance, cut a little
gutter across the narrow neck of land some dark night, and turn the
water into it, and in a wonderfully short time a miracle has happened:
to wit, the whole Mississippi has taken possession of that little ditch,
and placed the countryman's plantation on its bank (quadrupling its
value), and that other party's formerly valuable plantation finds itself
away out yonder on a big island; the old watercourse around it will soon
shoal up, boats cannot approach within ten miles of it, and down goes
its value to a fourth of its former worth. Watches are kept on those
narrow necks, at needful times, and if a man happens to be caught
cutting a ditch across them, the chances are all against his ever having
another opportunity to cut a ditch.
Pray observe some of the effects of this ditching business. Once there
was a neck opposite Port Hudson, Louisiana, which was only half a mile
across, in its narrowest place. You could walk across there in fifteen
minutes; but if you made the journey around the cape on a raft, you
traveled thirty-five miles to accomplish the same thing. In 1722 the
river darted through that neck, deserted its old bed, and thus shortened
itself thirty-five miles. In the same way it shortened itself twenty-
five miles at Black Hawk Point in 1699. Below Red River Landing,
Raccourci cut-off was made (forty or fifty years ago, I think). This
shortened the river twenty-eight miles. In our day, if you travel by
river from the southernmost of these three cut-offs to the northernmost,
you go only seventy miles. To do the same thing a hundred and seventy-
six years ago, one had to go a hundred and fifty-eight miles!--
shortening of eighty-eight miles in that trifling distance. At some
forgotten time in the past, cut-offs were made above Vidalia, Louisiana;
at island 92; at island 84; and at Hale's Point. These shortened the
river, in the aggregate, seventy-seven miles.
Since my own day on the Mississippi, cut-offs have been made at
Hurricane Island; at island 100; at Napoleon, Arkansas; at Walnut Bend;
and at Council Bend. These shortened the river, in the aggregate,
sixty-seven miles. In my own time a cut-off was made at American Bend,
which shortened the river ten miles or more.
Therefore, the Mississippi between Cairo and New Orleans was twelve
hundred and fifteen miles long one hundred and seventy-six years ago. It
was eleven hundred and eighty after the cut-off of 1722. It was one
thousand and forty after the American Bend cut-off. It has lost sixty-
seven miles since. Consequently its length is only nine hundred and
seventy-three miles at present.
Now, if I wanted to be one of those ponderous scientific people, and
'let on' to prove what had occurred in the remote past by what had
occurred in a given time in the recent past, or what will occur in the
far future by what has occurred in late years, what an opportunity is
here! Geology never had such a chance, nor such exact data to argue
from! Nor 'development of species,' either! Glacial epochs are great
things, but they are vague--vague. Please observe:--
In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi
has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average
of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm
person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oolitic
Silurian Period,' just a million years ago next November, the Lower
Mississippi River was upwards of one million three hundred thousand
miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-rod.
And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-
two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-
quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their streets
together, and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a
mutual board of aldermen. There is something fascinating about science.
One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling
investment of fact.
When the water begins to flow through one of those ditches I have been
speaking of, it is time for the people thereabouts to move. The water
cleaves the banks away like a knife. By the time the ditch has become
twelve or fifteen feet wide, the calamity is as good as accomplished,
for no power on earth can stop it now. When the width has reached a
hundred yards, the banks begin to peel off in slices half an acre wide.
The current flowing around the bend traveled formerly only five miles an
hour; now it is tremendously increased by the shortening of the
distance. I was on board the first boat that tried to go through the
cut-off at American Bend, but we did not get through. It was toward
midnight, and a wild night it was--thunder, lightning, and torrents of
rain. It was estimated that the current in the cut-off was making about
fifteen or twenty miles an hour; twelve or thirteen was the best our
boat could do, even in tolerably slack water, therefore perhaps we were
foolish to try the cut-off. However, Mr. Brown was ambitious, and he
kept on trying. The eddy running up the bank, under the 'point,' was
about as swift as the current out in the middle; so we would go flying
up the shore like a lightning express train, get on a big head of steam,
and'stand by for a surge' when we struck the current that was whirling
by the point. But all our preparations were useless. The instant the
current hit us it spun us around like a top, the water deluged the
forecastle, and the boat careened so far over that one could hardly keep
his feet. The next instant we were away down the river, clawing with
might and main to keep out of the woods. We tried the experiment four
times. I stood on the forecastle companion way to see. It was
astonishing to observe how suddenly the boat would spin around and turn
tail the moment she emerged from the eddy and the current struck her
nose. The sounding concussion and the quivering would have been about
the same if she had come full speed against a sand-bank. Under the
lightning flashes one could see the plantation cabins and the goodly
acres tumble into the river; and the crash they made was not a bad
effort at thunder. Once, when we spun around, we only missed a house
about twenty feet, that had a light burning in the window; and in the
same instant that house went overboard. Nobody could stay on our
forecastle; the water swept across it in a torrent every time we plunged
athwart the current. At the end of our fourth effort we brought up in
the woods two miles below the cut-off; all the country there was
overflowed, of course. A day or two later the cut-off was three-quarters
of a mile wide, and boats passed up through it without much difficulty,
and so saved ten miles.
The old Raccourci cut-off reduced the river's length twenty-eight miles.
There used to be a tradition connected with it. It was said that a boat
came along there in the night and went around the enormous elbow the
usual way, the pilots not knowing that the cut-off had been made. It was
a grisly, hideous night, and all shapes were vague and distorted. The
old bend had already begun to fill up, and the boat got to running away
from mysterious reefs, and occasionally hitting one. The perplexed
pilots fell to swearing, and finally uttered the entirely unnecessary
wish that they might never get out of that place. As always happens in
such cases, that particular prayer was answered, and the others
neglected. So to this day that phantom steamer is still butting around
in that deserted river, trying to find her way out. More than one grave
watchman has sworn to me that on drizzly, dismal nights, he has glanced
fearfully down that forgotten river as he passed the head of the island,
and seen the faint glow of the specter steamer's lights drifting through
the distant gloom, and heard the muffled cough of her'scape-pipes and
the plaintive cry of her leadsmen.
In the absence of further statistics, I beg to close this chapter with
one more reminiscence of 'Stephen.'
Most of the captains and pilots held Stephen's note for borrowed sums,
ranging from two hundred and fifty dollars upward. Stephen never paid
one of these notes, but he was very prompt and very zealous about
renewing them every twelve months.
Of course there came a time, at last, when Stephen could no longer
borrow of his ancient creditors; so he was obliged to lie in wait for
new men who did not know him. Such a victim was good-hearted, simple
natured young Yates (I use a fictitious name, but the real name began,
as this one does, with a Y). Young Yates graduated as a pilot, got a
berth, and when the month was ended and he stepped up to the clerk's
office and received his two hundred and fifty dollars in crisp new
bills, Stephen was there! His silvery tongue began to wag, and in a very
little while Yates's two hundred and fifty dollars had changed hands.
The fact was soon known at pilot headquarters, and the amusement and
satisfaction of the old creditors were large and generous. But innocent
Yates never suspected that Stephen's promise to pay promptly at the end
of the week was a worthless one. Yates called for his money at the
stipulated time; Stephen sweetened him up and put him off a week. He
called then, according to agreement, and came away sugar-coated again,
but suffering under another postponement. So the thing went on. Yates
haunted Stephen week after week, to no purpose, and at last gave it up.
And then straightway Stephen began to haunt Yates! Wherever Yates
appeared, there was the inevitable Stephen. And not only there, but
beaming with affection and gushing with apologies for not being able to
pay. By and by, whenever poor Yates saw him coming, he would turn and
fly, and drag his company with him, if he had company; but it was of no
use; his debtor would run him down and corner him. Panting and red-
faced, Stephen would come, with outstretched hands and eager eyes,
invade the conversation, shake both of Yates's arms loose in their
sockets, and begin--
'My, what a race I've had! I saw you didn't see me, and so I clapped on
all steam for fear I'd miss you entirely. And here you are! there, just
stand so, and let me look at you! just the same old noble countenance.'
[To Yates's friend:] 'Just look at him! LOOK at him! Ain't it just GOOD
to look at him! AIN'T it now? Ain't he just a picture! SOME call him
a picture; I call him a panorama! That's what he is--an entire panorama.
And now I'm reminded! How I do wish I could have seen you an hour
earlier! For twenty-four hours I've been saving up that two hundred and
fifty dollars for you; been looking for you everywhere. I waited at the
Planter's from six yesterday evening till two o'clock this morning,
without rest or food; my wife says, "Where have you been all night?" I
said, "This debt lies heavy on my mind." She says, "In all my days I
never saw a man take a debt to heart the way you do." I said, "It's my
nature; how can I change it?" She says, "Well, do go to bed and get some
rest." I said, "Not till that poor, noble young man has got his money."
So I set up all night, and this morning out I shot, and the first man I
struck told me you had shipped on the "Grand Turk" and gone to New
Orleans. Well, sir, I had to lean up against a building and cry. So
help me goodness, I couldn't help it. The man that owned the place come
out cleaning up with a rag, and said he didn't like to have people cry
against his building, and then it seemed to me that the whole world had
turned against me, and it wasn't any use to live any more; and coming
along an hour ago, suffering no man knows what agony, I met Jim Wilson
and paid him the two hundred and fifty dollars on account; and to think
that here you are, now, and I haven't got a cent! But as sure as I am
standing here on this ground on this particular brick,--there, I've
scratched a mark on the brick to remember it by,--I'll borrow that money
and pay it over to you at twelve o'clock sharp, tomorrow! Now, stand
so; let me look at you just once more.'
And so on. Yates's life became a burden to him. He could not escape
his debtor and his debtor's awful sufferings on account of not being
able to pay. He dreaded to show himself in the street, lest he should
find Stephen lying in wait for him at the corner.
Bogart's billiard saloon was a great resort for pilots in those days.
They met there about as much to exchange river news as to play. One
morning Yates was there; Stephen was there, too, but kept out of sight.
But by and by, when about all the pilots had arrived who were in town,
Stephen suddenly appeared in the midst, and rushed for Yates as for a
long-lost brother.
'OH, I am so glad to see you! Oh my soul, the sight of you is such a
comfort to my eyes! Gentlemen, I owe all of you money; among you I owe
probably forty thousand dollars. I want to pay it; I intend to pay it
every last cent of it. You all know, without my telling you, what
sorrow it has cost me to remain so long under such deep obligations to
such patient and generous friends; but the sharpest pang I suffer--by
far the sharpest--is from the debt I owe to this noble young man here;
and I have come to this place this morning especially to make the
announcement that I have at last found a method whereby I can pay off
all my debts! And most especially I wanted HIM to be here when I
announced it. Yes, my faithful friend,--my benefactor, I've found the
method! I've found the method to pay off all my debts, and you'll get
your money!' Hope dawned in Yates's eye; then Stephen, beaming
benignantly, and placing his hand upon Yates's head, added, 'I am going
to pay them off in alphabetical order!'
Then he turned and disappeared. The full significance of Stephen's
'method' did not dawn upon the perplexed and musing crowd for some two
minutes; and then Yates murmured with a sigh--
'Well, the Y's stand a gaudy chance. He won't get any further than the
C's in THIS world, and I reckon that after a good deal of eternity has
wasted away in the next one, I'll still be referred to up there as "that
poor, ragged pilot that came here from St. Louis in the early days!"
Chapter 18 I Take a Few Extra Lessons
DURING the two or two and a half years of my apprenticeship, I served
under many pilots, and had experience of many kinds of steamboatmen and
many varieties of steamboats; for it was not always convenient for Mr.
Bixby to have me with him, and in such cases he sent me with somebody
else. I am to this day profiting somewhat by that experience; for in
that brief, sharp schooling, I got personally and familiarly acquainted
with about all the different types of human nature that are to be found
in fiction, biography, or history. The fact is daily borne in upon me,
that the average shore-employment requires as much as forty years to
equip a man with this sort of an education. When I say I am still
profiting by this thing, I do not mean that it has constituted me a
judge of men--no, it has not done that; for judges of men are born, not
made. My profit is various in kind and degree; but the feature of it
which I value most is the zest which that early experience has given to
my later reading. When I find a well-drawn character in fiction or
biography, I generally take a warm personal interest in him, for the
reason that I have known him before--met him on the river.
The figure that comes before me oftenest, out of the shadows of that
vanished time, is that of Brown, of the steamer 'Pennsylvania'--the man
referred to in a former chapter, whose memory was so good and tiresome.
He was a middle-aged, long, slim, bony, smooth-shaven, horse-faced,
ignorant, stingy, malicious, snarling, fault hunting, mote-magnifying
tyrant. I early got the habit of coming on watch with dread at my heart.
No matter how good a time I might have been having with the off-watch
below, and no matter how high my spirits might be when I started aloft,
my soul became lead in my body the moment I approached the pilot-house.
I still remember the first time I ever entered the presence of that man.
The boat had backed out from St. Louis and was'straightening down;' I
ascended to the pilot-house in high feather, and very proud to be semi-
officially a member of the executive family of so fast and famous a
boat. Brown was at the wheel. I paused in the middle of the room, all
fixed to make my bow, but Brown did not look around. I thought he took a
furtive glance at me out of the corner of his eye, but as not even this
notice was repeated, I judged I had been mistaken. By this time he was
picking his way among some dangerous 'breaks' abreast the woodyards;
therefore it would not be proper to interrupt him; so I stepped softly
to the high bench and took a seat.
There was silence for ten minutes; then my new boss turned and inspected
me deliberately and painstakingly from head to heel for about--as it
seemed to me--a quarter of an hour. After which he removed his
countenance and I saw it no more for some seconds; then it came around
once more, and this question greeted me--
'Are you Horace Bigsby's cub?'
'Yes, sir.'
After this there was a pause and another inspection. Then--
'What's your name?'
I told him. He repeated it after me. It was probably the only thing he
ever forgot; for although I was with him many months he never addressed
himself to me in any other way than 'Here!' and then his command
followed.
'Where was you born?'
'In Florida, Missouri.'
A pause. Then--
'Dern sight better staid there!'
By means of a dozen or so of pretty direct questions, he pumped my
family history out of me.
The leads were going now, in the first crossing. This interrupted the
inquest. When the leads had been laid in, he resumed--
'How long you been on the river?'
I told him. After a pause--
'Where'd you get them shoes?'
I gave him the information.
'Hold up your foot!'
I did so. He stepped back, examined the shoe minutely and
contemptuously, scratching his head thoughtfully, tilting his high
sugar-loaf hat well forward to facilitate the operation, then
ejaculated, 'Well, I'll be dod derned!' and returned to his wheel.
What occasion there was to be dod derned about it is a thing which is
still as much of a mystery to me now as it was then. It must have been
all of fifteen minutes--fifteen minutes of dull, homesick silence--
before that long horse-face swung round upon me again--and then, what a
change! It was as red as fire, and every muscle in it was working. Now
came this shriek--
'Here!--You going to set there all day?'
I lit in the middle of the floor, shot there by the electric suddenness
of the surprise. As soon as I could get my voice I said,
apologetically:--'I have had no orders, sir.'
'You've had no ORDERS! My, what a fine bird we are! We must have
ORDERS! Our father was a GENTLEMAN--owned slaves--and we've been to
SCHOOL. Yes, WE are a gentleman, TOO, and got to have ORDERS! ORDERS,
is it? ORDERS is what you want! Dod dern my skin, I'LL learn you to
swell yourself up and blow around here about your dod-derned ORDERS!
G'way from the wheel!' (I had approached it without knowing it.)
I moved back a step or two, and stood as in a dream, all my senses
stupefied by this frantic assault.
'What you standing there for? Take that ice-pitcher down to the texas-
tender-come, move along, and don't you be all day about it!'
The moment I got back to the pilot-house, Brown said--
'Here! What was you doing down there all this time?'
'I couldn't find the texas-tender; I had to go all the way to the
pantry.'
'Derned likely story! Fill up the stove.'
I proceeded to do so. He watched me like a cat. Presently he shouted--
'Put down that shovel! Deadest numskull I ever saw--ain't even got
sense enough to load up a stove.'
All through the watch this sort of thing went on. Yes, and the
subsequent watches were much like it, during a stretch of months. As I
have said, I soon got the habit of coming on duty with dread. The moment
I was in the presence, even in the darkest night, I could feel those
yellow eyes upon me, and knew their owner was watching for a pretext to
spit out some venom on me. Preliminarily he would say--
'Here! Take the wheel.'
Two minutes later--
'WHERE in the nation you going to? |
10,240 |
Produced by David Widger
LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI
BY MARK TWAIN
Part 2.
Chapter 6 A Cub-pilot's Experience
WHAT with lying on the rocks four days at Louisville, and some other
delays, the poor old 'Paul Jones' fooled away about two weeks in making
the voyage from Cincinnati to New Orleans. This gave me a chance to get
acquainted with one of the pilots, and he taught me how to steer the
boat, and thus made the fascination of river life more potent than ever
for me.
It also gave me a chance to get acquainted with a youth who had taken
deck passage--more's the pity; for he easily borrowed six dollars of me
on a promise to return to the boat and pay it back to me the day after
we should arrive. But he probably died or forgot, for he never came. It
was doubtless the former, since he had said his parents were wealthy,
and he only traveled deck passage because it was cooler.{footnote [1.
'Deck' Passage, i.e. steerage passage.]}
I soon discovered two things. One was that a vessel would not be likely
to sail for the mouth of the Amazon under ten or twelve years; and the
other was that the nine or ten dollars still left in my pocket would not
suffice for so imposing an exploration as I had planned, even if I could
afford to wait for a ship. Therefore it followed that I must contrive a
new career. The 'Paul Jones' was now bound for St. Louis. I planned a
siege against my pilot, and at the end of three hard days he
surrendered. He agreed to teach me the Mississippi River from New
Orleans to St. Louis for five hundred dollars, payable out of the first
wages I should receive after graduating. I entered upon the small
enterprise of 'learning' twelve or thirteen hundred miles of the great
Mississippi River with the easy confidence of my time of life. If I had
really known what I was about to require of my faculties, I should not
have had the courage to begin. I supposed that all a pilot had to do
was to keep his boat in the river, and I did not consider that that
could be much of a trick, since it was so wide.
The boat backed out from New Orleans at four in the afternoon, and it
was 'our watch' until eight. Mr. Bixby, my chief,'straightened her
up,' plowed her along past the sterns of the other boats that lay at the
Levee, and then said, 'Here, take her; shave those steamships as close
as you'd peel an apple.' I took the wheel, and my heart-beat fluttered
up into the hundreds; for it seemed to me that we were about to scrape
the side off every ship in the line, we were so close. I held my breath
and began to claw the boat away from the danger; and I had my own
opinion of the pilot who had known no better than to get us into such
peril, but I was too wise to express it. In half a minute I had a wide
margin of safety intervening between the 'Paul Jones' and the ships; and
within ten seconds more I was set aside in disgrace, and Mr. Bixby was
going into danger again and flaying me alive with abuse of my cowardice.
I was stung, but I was obliged to admire the easy confidence with which
my chief loafed from side to side of his wheel, and trimmed the ships so
closely that disaster seemed ceaselessly imminent. When he had cooled a
little he told me that the easy water was close ashore and the current
outside, and therefore we must hug the bank, up-stream, to get the
benefit of the former, and stay well out, down-stream, to take advantage
of the latter. In my own mind I resolved to be a down-stream pilot and
leave the up-streaming to people dead to prudence.
Now and then Mr. Bixby called my attention to certain things. Said he,
'This is Six-Mile Point.' I assented. It was pleasant enough
information, but I could not see the bearing of it. I was not conscious
that it was a matter of any interest to me. Another time he said, 'This
is Nine-Mile Point.' Later he said, 'This is Twelve-Mile Point.' They
were all about level with the water's edge; they all looked about alike
to me; they were monotonously unpicturesque. I hoped Mr. Bixby would
change the subject. But no; he would crowd up around a point, hugging
the shore with affection, and then say: 'The slack water ends here,
abreast this bunch of China-trees; now we cross over.' So he crossed
over. He gave me the wheel once or twice, but I had no luck. I either
came near chipping off the edge of a sugar plantation, or I yawed too
far from shore, and so dropped back into disgrace again and got abused.
The watch was ended at last, and we took supper and went to bed. At
midnight the glare of a lantern shone in my eyes, and the night watchman
said--
'Come! turn out!'
And then he left. I could not understand this extraordinary procedure;
so I presently gave up trying to, and dozed off to sleep. Pretty soon
the watchman was back again, and this time he was gruff. I was annoyed.
I said:--
'What do you want to come bothering around here in the middle of the
night for. Now as like as not I'll not get to sleep again to-night.'
The watchman said--
'Well, if this an't good, I'm blest.'
The 'off-watch' was just turning in, and I heard some brutal laughter
from them, and such remarks as 'Hello, watchman! an't the new cub turned
out yet? He's delicate, likely. Give him some sugar in a rag and send
for the chambermaid to sing rock-a-by-baby to him.'
About this time Mr. Bixby appeared on the scene. Something like a minute
later I was climbing the pilot-house steps with some of my clothes on
and the rest in my arms. Mr. Bixby was close behind, commenting. Here
was something fresh--this thing of getting up in the middle of the night
to go to work. It was a detail in piloting that had never occurred to me
at all. I knew that boats ran all night, but somehow I had never
happened to reflect that somebody had to get up out of a warm bed to run
them. I began to fear that piloting was not quite so romantic as I had
imagined it was; there was something very real and work-like about this
new phase of it.
It was a rather dingy night, although a fair number of stars were out.
The big mate was at the wheel, and he had the old tub pointed at a star
and was holding her straight up the middle of the river. The shores on
either hand were not much more than half a mile apart, but they seemed
wonderfully far away and ever so vague and indistinct. The mate said:--
'We've got to land at Jones's plantation, sir.'
The vengeful spirit in me exulted. I said to myself, I wish you joy of
your job, Mr. Bixby; you'll have a good time finding Mr. Jones's
plantation such a night as this; and I hope you never WILL find it as
long as you live.
Mr. Bixby said to the mate:--
'Upper end of the plantation, or the lower?'
'Upper.'
'I can't do it. The stumps there are out of water at this stage: It's
no great distance to the lower, and you'll have to get along with that.'
'All right, sir. If Jones don't like it he'll have to lump it, I
reckon.'
And then the mate left. My exultation began to cool and my wonder to
come up. Here was a man who not only proposed to find this plantation
on such a night, but to find either end of it you preferred. I
dreadfully wanted to ask a question, but I was carrying about as many
short answers as my cargo-room would admit of, so I held my peace. All I
desired to ask Mr. Bixby was the simple question whether he was ass
enough to really imagine he was going to find that plantation on a night
when all plantations were exactly alike and all the same color. But I
held in. I used to have fine inspirations of prudence in those days.
Mr. Bixby made for the shore and soon was scraping it, just the same as
if it had been daylight. And not only that, but singing--
'Father in heaven, the day is declining,' etc.
It seemed to me that I had put my life in the keeping of a peculiarly
reckless outcast. Presently he turned on me and said:--
'What's the name of the first point above New Orleans?'
I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I
didn't know.
'Don't KNOW?'
This manner jolted me. I was down at the foot again, in a moment. But I
had to say just what I had said before.
'Well, you're a smart one,' said Mr. Bixby. 'What's the name of the
NEXT point?'
Once more I didn't know.
'Well, this beats anything. Tell me the name of ANY point or place I
told you.'
I studied a while and decided that I couldn't.
'Look here! What do you start out from, above Twelve-Mile Point, to
cross over?'
'I--I--don't know.'
'You--you--don't know?' mimicking my drawling manner of speech. 'What DO
you know?'
'I--I--nothing, for certain.'
'By the great Caesar's ghost, I believe you! You're the stupidest
dunderhead I ever saw or ever heard of, so help me Moses! The idea of
you being a pilot--you! Why, you don't know enough to pilot a cow down
a lane.'
Oh, but his wrath was up! He was a nervous man, and he shuffled from
one side of his wheel to the other as if the floor was hot. He would
boil a while to himself, and then overflow and scald me again.
'Look here! What do you suppose I told you the names of those points
for?'
I tremblingly considered a moment, and then the devil of temptation
provoked me to say:--
'Well--to--to--be entertaining, I thought.'
This was a red rag to the bull. He raged and stormed so (he was
crossing the river at the time) that I judge it made him blind, because
he ran over the steering-oar of a trading-scow. Of course the traders
sent up a volley of red-hot profanity. Never was a man so grateful as
Mr. Bixby was: because he was brim full, and here were subjects who
would TALK BACK. He threw open a window, thrust his head out, and such
an irruption followed as I never had heard before. The fainter and
farther away the scowmen's curses drifted, the higher Mr. Bixby lifted
his voice and the weightier his adjectives grew. When he closed the
window he was empty. You could have drawn a seine through his system and
not caught curses enough to disturb your mother with. Presently he said
to me in the gentlest way--
'My boy, you must get a little memorandum book, and every time I tell
you a thing, put it down right away. There's only one way to be a
pilot, and that is to get this entire river by heart. You have to know
it just like A B C.'
That was a dismal revelation to me; for my memory was never loaded with
anything but blank cartridges. However, I did not feel discouraged
long. I judged that it was best to make some allowances, for doubtless
Mr. Bixby was'stretching.' Presently he pulled a rope and struck a few
strokes on the big bell. The stars were all gone now, and the night was
as black as ink. I could hear the wheels churn along the bank, but I was
not entirely certain that I could see the shore. The voice of the
invisible watchman called up from the hurricane deck--
'What's this, sir?'
'Jones's plantation.'
I said to myself, I wish I might venture to offer a small bet that it
isn't. But I did not chirp. I only waited to see. Mr. Bixby handled the
engine bells, and in due time the boat's nose came to the land, a torch
glowed from the forecastle, a man skipped ashore, a <DW54>'s voice on the
bank said, 'Gimme de k'yarpet-bag, Mars' Jones,' and the next moment we
were standing up the river again, all serene. I reflected deeply
awhile, and then said--but not aloud--'Well, the finding of that
plantation was the luckiest accident that ever happened; but it couldn't
happen again in a hundred years.' And I fully believed it was an
accident, too.
By the time we had gone seven or eight hundred miles up the river, I had
learned to be a tolerably plucky up-stream steersman, in daylight, and
before we reached St. Louis I had made a trifle of progress in night-
work, but only a trifle. I had a note-book that fairly bristled with the
names of towns, 'points,' bars, islands, bends, reaches, etc.; but the
information was to be found only in the notebook--none of it was in my
head. It made my heart ache to think I had only got half of the river
set down; for as our watch was four hours off and four hours on, day and
night, there was a long four-hour gap in my book for every time I had
slept since the voyage began.
My chief was presently hired to go on a big New Orleans boat, and I
packed my satchel and went with him. She was a grand affair. When I
stood in her pilot-house I was so far above the water that I seemed
perched on a mountain; and her decks stretched so far away, fore and
aft, below me, that I wondered how I could ever have considered the
little 'Paul Jones' a large craft. There were other differences, too.
The 'Paul Jones's' pilot-house was a cheap, dingy, battered rattle-trap,
cramped for room: but here was a sumptuous glass temple; room enough to
have a dance in; showy red and gold window-curtains; an imposing sofa;
leather cushions and a back to the high bench where visiting pilots sit,
to spin yarns and 'look at the river;' bright, fanciful 'cuspadores'
instead of a broad wooden box filled with sawdust; nice new oil-cloth on
the floor; a hospitable big stove for winter; a wheel as high as my
head, costly with inlaid work; a wire tiller-rope; bright brass knobs
for the bells; and a tidy, white-aproned, black 'texas-tender,' to bring
up tarts and ices and coffee during mid-watch, day and night. Now this
was'something like,' and so I began to take heart once more to believe
that piloting was a romantic sort of occupation after all. The moment we
were under way I began to prowl about the great steamer and fill myself
with joy. She was as clean and as dainty as a drawing-room; when I
looked down her long, gilded saloon, it was like gazing through a
splendid tunnel; she had an oil-picture, by some gifted sign-painter, on
every stateroom door; she glittered with no end of prism-fringed
chandeliers; the clerk's office was elegant, the bar was marvelous, and
the bar-keeper had been barbered and upholstered at incredible cost. The
boiler deck (i.e. the second story of the boat, so to speak) was as
spacious as a church, it seemed to me; so with the forecastle; and there
was no pitiful handful of deckhands, firemen, and roustabouts down
there, but a whole battalion of men. The fires were fiercely glaring
from a long row of furnaces, and over them were eight huge boilers! This
was unutterable pomp. The mighty engines--but enough of this. I had
never felt so fine before. And when I found that the regiment of natty
servants respectfully'sir'd' me, my satisfaction was complete.
Chapter 7 A Daring Deed
WHEN I returned to the pilot-house St. Louis was gone and I was lost.
Here was a piece of river which was all down in my book, but I could
make neither head nor tail of it: you understand, it was turned around.
I had seen it when coming up-stream, but I had never faced about to see
how it looked when it was behind me. My heart broke again, for it was
plain that I had got to learn this troublesome river BOTH WAYS.
The pilot-house was full of pilots, going down to 'look at the river.'
What is called the 'upper river' (the two hundred miles between St.
Louis and Cairo, where the Ohio comes in) was low; and the Mississippi
changes its channel so constantly that the pilots used to always find it
necessary to run down to Cairo to take a fresh look, when their boats
were to lie in port a week; that is, when the water was at a low stage.
A deal of this 'looking at the river' was done by poor fellows who
seldom had a berth, and whose only hope of getting one lay in their
being always freshly posted and therefore ready to drop into the shoes
of some reputable pilot, for a single trip, on account of such pilot's
sudden illness, or some other necessity. And a good many of them
constantly ran up and down inspecting the river, not because they ever
really hoped to get a berth, but because (they being guests of the boat)
it was cheaper to 'look at the river' than stay ashore and pay board. In
time these fellows grew dainty in their tastes, and only infested boats
that had an established reputation for setting good tables. All visiting
pilots were useful, for they were always ready and willing, winter or
summer, night or day, to go out in the yawl and help buoy the channel or
assist the boat's pilots in any way they could. They were likewise
welcome because all pilots are tireless talkers, when gathered together,
and as they talk only about the river they are always understood and are
always interesting. Your true pilot cares nothing about anything on
earth but the river, and his pride in his occupation surpasses the pride
of kings.
We had a fine company of these river-inspectors along, this trip. There
were eight or ten; and there was abundance of room for them in our great
pilot-house. Two or three of them wore polished silk hats, elaborate
shirt-fronts, diamond breast-pins, kid gloves, and patent-leather boots.
They were choice in their English, and bore themselves with a dignity
proper to men of solid means and prodigious reputation as pilots. The
others were more or less loosely clad, and wore upon their heads tall
felt cones that were suggestive of the days of the Commonwealth.
I was a cipher in this august company, and felt subdued, not to say
torpid. I was not even of sufficient consequence to assist at the wheel
when it was necessary to put the tiller hard down in a hurry; the guest
that stood nearest did that when occasion required--and this was pretty
much all the time, because of the crookedness of the channel and the
scant water. I stood in a corner; and the talk I listened to took the
hope all out of me. One visitor said to another--
'Jim, how did you run Plum Point, coming up?'
'It was in the night, there, and I ran it the way one of the boys on the
"Diana" told me; started out about fifty yards above the wood pile on
the false point, and held on the cabin under Plum Point till I raised
the reef--quarter less twain--then straightened up for the middle bar
till I got well abreast the old one-limbed cotton-wood in the bend, then
got my stern on the cotton-wood and head on the low place above the
point, and came through a-booming--nine and a half.'
'Pretty square crossing, an't it?'
'Yes, but the upper bar's working down fast.'
Another pilot spoke up and said--
'I had better water than that, and ran it lower down; started out from
the false point--mark twain--raised the second reef abreast the big snag
in the bend, and had quarter less twain.'
One of the gorgeous ones remarked--
'I don't want to find fault with your leadsmen, but that's a good deal
of water for Plum Point, it seems to me.'
There was an approving nod all around as this quiet snub dropped on the
boaster and'settled' him. And so they went on talk-talk-talking.
Meantime, the thing that was running in my mind was, 'Now if my ears
hear aright, I have not only to get the names of all the towns and
islands and bends, and so on, by heart, but I must even get up a warm
personal acquaintanceship with every old snag and one-limbed cotton-wood
and obscure wood pile that ornaments the banks of this river for twelve
hundred miles; and more than that, I must actually know where these
things are in the dark, unless these guests are gifted with eyes that
can pierce through two miles of solid blackness; I wish the piloting
business was in Jericho and I had never thought of it.'
At dusk Mr. Bixby tapped the big bell three times (the signal to land),
and the captain emerged from his drawing-room in the forward end of the
texas, and looked up inquiringly. Mr. Bixby said--
'We will lay up here all night, captain.'
'Very well, sir.'
That was all. The boat came to shore and was tied up for the night. It
seemed to me a fine thing that the pilot could do as he pleased, without
asking so grand a captain's permission. I took my supper and went
immediately to bed, discouraged by my day's observations and
experiences. My late voyage's note-booking was but a confusion of
meaningless names. It had tangled me all up in a knot every time I had
looked at it in the daytime. I now hoped for respite in sleep; but no,
it reveled all through my head till sunrise again, a frantic and
tireless nightmare.
Next morning I felt pretty rusty and low-spirited. We went booming
along, taking a good many chances, for we were anxious to 'get out of
the river' (as getting out to Cairo was called) before night should
overtake us. But Mr. Bixby's partner, the other pilot, presently
grounded the boat, and we lost so much time in getting her off that it
was plain that darkness would overtake us a good long way above the
mouth. This was a great misfortune, especially to certain of our
visiting pilots, whose boats would have to wait for their return, no
matter how long that might be. It sobered the pilot-house talk a good
deal. Coming up-stream, pilots did not mind low water or any kind of
darkness; nothing stopped them but fog. But down-stream work was
different; a boat was too nearly helpless, with a stiff current pushing
behind her; so it was not customary to run down-stream at night in low
water.
There seemed to be one small hope, however: if we could get through the
intricate and dangerous Hat Island crossing before night, we could
venture the rest, for we would have plainer sailing and better water.
But it would be insanity to attempt Hat Island at night. So there was a
deal of looking at watches all the rest of the day, and a constant
ciphering upon the speed we were making; Hat Island was the eternal
subject; sometimes hope was high and sometimes we were delayed in a bad
crossing, and down it went again. For hours all hands lay under the
burden of this suppressed excitement; it was even communicated to me,
and I got to feeling so solicitous about Hat Island, and under such an
awful pressure of responsibility, that I wished I might have five
minutes on shore to draw a good, full, relieving breath, and start over
again. We were standing no regular watches. Each of our pilots ran such
portions of the river as he had run when coming up-stream, because of
his greater familiarity with it; but both remained in the pilot house
constantly.
An hour before sunset, Mr. Bixby took the wheel and Mr. W----stepped
aside. For the next thirty minutes every man held his watch in his hand
and was restless, silent, and uneasy. At last somebody said, with a
doomful sigh--
'Well, yonder's Hat Island--and we can't make it.' All the watches
closed with a snap, everybody sighed and muttered something about its
being 'too bad, too bad--ah, if we could only have got here half an hour
sooner!' and the place was thick with the atmosphere of disappointment.
Some started to go out, but loitered, hearing no bell-tap to land. The
sun dipped behind the horizon, the boat went on. Inquiring looks passed
from one guest to another; and one who had his hand on the door-knob and
had turned it, waited, then presently took away his hand and let the
knob turn back again. We bore steadily down the bend. More looks were
exchanged, and nods of surprised admiration--but no words. Insensibly
the men drew together behind Mr. Bixby, as the sky darkened and one or
two dim stars came out. The dead silence and sense of waiting became
oppressive. Mr. Bixby pulled the cord, and two deep, mellow notes from
the big bell floated off on the night. Then a pause, and one more note
was struck. The watchman's voice followed, from the hurricane deck--
'Labboard lead, there! Stabboard lead!'
The cries of the leadsmen began to rise out of the distance, and were
gruffly repeated by the word-passers on the hurricane deck.
'M-a-r-k three!.... M-a-r-k three!.... Quarter-less three!.... Half
twain!.... Quarter twain!.... M-a-r-k twain!.... Quarter-less--'
Mr. Bixby pulled two bell-ropes, and was answered by faint jinglings far
below in the engine room, and our speed slackened. The steam began to
whistle through the gauge-cocks. The cries of the leadsmen went on--and
it is a weird sound, always, in the night. Every pilot in the lot was
watching now, with fixed eyes, and talking under his breath. Nobody was
calm and easy but Mr. Bixby. He would put his wheel down and stand on a
spoke, and as the steamer swung into her (to me) utterly invisible
marks--for we seemed to be in the midst of a wide and gloomy sea--he
would meet and fasten her there. Out of the murmur of half-audible talk,
one caught a coherent sentence now and then--such as--
'There; she's over the first reef all right!'
After a pause, another subdued voice--
'Her stern's coming down just exactly right, by George!'
'Now she's in the marks; over she goes!'
Somebody else muttered--
'Oh, it was done beautiful--BEAUTIFUL!'
Now the engines were stopped altogether, and we drifted with the
current. Not that I could see the boat drift, for I could not, the
stars being all gone by this time. This drifting was the dismalest work;
it held one's heart still. Presently I discovered a blacker gloom than
that which surrounded us. It was the head of the island. We were
closing right down upon it. We entered its deeper shadow, and so
imminent seemed the peril that I was likely to suffocate; and I had the
strongest impulse to do SOMETHING, anything, to save the vessel. But
still Mr. Bixby stood by his wheel, silent, intent as a cat, and all the
pilots stood shoulder to shoulder at his back.
'She'll not make it!' somebody whispered.
The water grew shoaler and shoaler, by the leadsman's cries, till it was
down to--
'Eight-and-a-half!.... E-i-g-h-t feet!.... E-i-g-h-t feet!.... Seven-
and--'
Mr. Bixby said warningly through his speaking tube to the engineer--
'Stand by, now!'
'Aye-aye, sir!'
'Seven-and-a-half! Seven feet! Six-and--'
We touched bottom! Instantly Mr. Bixby set a lot of bells ringing,
shouted through the tube, 'NOW, let her have it--every ounce you've
got!' then to his partner, 'Put her hard down! snatch her! snatch her!'
The boat rasped and ground her way through the sand, hung upon the apex
of disaster a single tremendous instant, and then over she went! And
such a shout as went up at Mr. Bixby's back never loosened the roof of a
pilot-house before!
There was no more trouble after that. Mr. Bixby was a hero that night;
and it was some little time, too, before his exploit ceased to be talked
about by river men.
Fully to realize the marvelous precision required in laying the great
steamer in her marks in that murky waste of water, one should know that
not only must she pick her intricate way through snags and blind reefs,
and then shave the head of the island so closely as to brush the
overhanging foliage with her stern, but at one place she must pass
almost within arm's reach of a sunken and invisible wreck that would
snatch the hull timbers from under her if she should strike it, and
destroy a quarter of a million dollars' worth of steam-boat and cargo in
five minutes, and maybe a hundred and fifty human lives into the
bargain.
The last remark I heard that night was a compliment to Mr. Bixby,
uttered in soliloquy and with unction by one of our guests. He said--
'By the Shadow of Death, but he's a lightning pilot!'
Chapter 8 Perplexing Lessons
At the end of what seemed a tedious while, I had managed to pack my head
full of islands, towns, bars, 'points,' and bends; and a curiously
inanimate mass of lumber it was, too. However, inasmuch as I could shut
my eyes and reel off a good long string of these names without leaving
out more than ten miles of river in every fifty, I began to feel that I
could take a boat down to New Orleans if I could make her skip those
little gaps. But of course my complacency could hardly get start enough
to lift my nose a trifle into the air, before Mr. Bixby would think of
something to fetch it down again. One day he turned on me suddenly with
this settler--
'What is the shape of Walnut Bend?'
He might as well have asked me my grandmother's opinion of protoplasm. I
reflected respectfully, and then said I didn't know it had any
particular shape. My gunpowdery chief went off with a bang, of course,
and then went on loading and firing until he was out of adjectives.
I had learned long ago that he only carried just so many rounds of
ammunition, and was sure to subside into a very placable and even
remorseful old smooth-bore as soon as they were all gone. That word
'old' is merely affectionate; he was not more than thirty-four. I
waited. By and by he said--
'My boy, you've got to know the SHAPE of the river perfectly. It is all
there is left to steer by on a very dark night. Everything else is
blotted out and gone. But mind you, it hasn't the same shape in the
night that it has in the day-time.'
'How on earth am I ever going to learn it, then?'
'How do you follow a hall at home in the dark. Because you know the
shape of it. You can't see it.'
'Do you mean to say that I've got to know all the million trifling
variations of shape in the banks of this interminable river as well as I
know the shape of the front hall at home?'
'On my honor, you've got to know them BETTER than any man ever did know
the shapes of the halls in his own house.'
'I wish I was dead!'
'Now I don't want to discourage you, but--'
'Well, pile it on me; I might as well have it now as another time.'
'You see, this has got to be learned; there isn't any getting around it.
A clear starlight night throws such heavy shadows that if you didn't
know the shape of a shore perfectly you would claw away from every bunch
of timber, because you would take the black shadow of it for a solid
cape; and you see you would be getting scared to death every fifteen
minutes by the watch. You would be fifty yards from shore all the time
when you ought to be within fifty feet of it. You can't see a snag in
one of those shadows, but you know exactly where it is, and the shape of
the river tells you when you are coming to it. Then there's your pitch-
dark night; the river is a very different shape on a pitch-dark night
from what it is on a starlight night. All shores seem to be straight
lines, then, and mighty dim ones, too; and you'd RUN them for straight
lines only you know better. You boldly drive your boat right into what
seems to be a solid, straight wall (you knowing very well that in
reality there is a curve there), and that wall falls back and makes way
for you. Then there's your gray mist. You take a night when there's one
of these grisly, drizzly, gray mists, and then there isn't any
particular shape to a shore. A gray mist would tangle the head of the
oldest man that ever lived. Well, then, different kinds of MOONLIGHT
change the shape of the river in different ways. You see--'
'Oh, don't say any more, please! Have I got to learn the shape of the
river according to all these five hundred thousand different ways? If I
tried to carry all that cargo in my head it would make me stoop-
shouldered.'
'NO! you only learn THE shape of the river, and you learn it with such
absolute certainty that you can always steer by the shape that's IN YOUR
HEAD, and never mind the one that's before your eyes.'
'Very well, I'll try it; but after I have learned it can I depend on it.
Will it keep the same form and not go fooling around?'
Before Mr. Bixby could answer, Mr. W---- came in to take the watch, and
he said--
'Bixby, you'll have to look out for President's Island and all that
country clear away up above the Old Hen and Chickens. The banks are
caving and the shape of the shores changing like everything. Why, you
wouldn't know the point above 40. You can go up inside the old sycamore-
snag, now.{footnote [1. It may not be necessary, but still it can do no
harm to explain that 'inside' means between the snag and the shore.--
M.T.]}
So that question was answered. Here were leagues of shore changing
shape. My spirits were down in the mud again. Two things seemed pretty
apparent to me. One was, that in order to be a pilot a man had got to
learn more than any one man ought to be allowed to know; and the other
was, that he must learn it all over again in a different way every
twenty-four hours.
That night we had the watch until twelve. Now it was an ancient river
custom for the two pilots to chat a bit when the watch changed. While
the relieving pilot put on his gloves and lit his cigar, his partner,
the retiring pilot, would say something like this--
'I judge the upper bar is making down a little at Hale's Point; had
quarter twain with the lower lead and mark twain {footnote [Two fathoms.
'Quarter twain' is two-and-a-quarter fathoms, thirteen-and-a-half feet.
'Mark three' is three fathoms.]} with the other.'
'Yes, I thought it was making down a little, last trip. Meet any boats?'
'Met one abreast the head of 21, but she was away over hugging the bar,
and I couldn't make her out entirely. I took her for the "Sunny South"-
-hadn't any skylights forward of the chimneys.'
And so on. And as the relieving pilot took the wheel his
partner{footnote ['Partner' is a technical term for 'the other pilot'.]}
would mention that we were in such-and-such a bend, and say we were
abreast of such-and-such a man's wood-yard or plantation. This was
courtesy; I supposed it was necessity. But Mr. W---- came on watch full
twelve minutes late on this particular night,--a tremendous breach of
etiquette; in fact, it is the unpardonable sin among pilots. So Mr.
Bixby gave him no greeting whatever, but simply surrendered the wheel
and marched out of the pilot-house without a word. I was appalled; it
was a villainous night for blackness, we were in a particularly wide and
blind part of the river, where there was no shape or substance to
anything, and it seemed incredible that Mr. Bixby should have left that
poor fellow to kill the boat trying to find out where he was. But I
resolved that I would stand by him any way. He should find that he was
not wholly friendless. So I stood around, and waited to be asked where
we were. But Mr. W---- plunged on serenely through the solid firmament
of black cats that stood for an atmosphere, and never opened his mouth.
Here is a proud devil, thought I; here is a limb of Satan that would
rather send us all to destruction than put himself under obligations to
me, because I am not yet one of the salt of the earth and privileged to
snub captains and lord it over everything dead and alive in a steamboat.
I presently climbed up on the bench; I did not think it was safe to go
to sleep while this lunatic was on watch.
However, I must have gone to sleep in the course of time, because the
next thing I was aware of was the fact that day was breaking, Mr. W----
gone, and Mr. Bixby at the wheel again. So it was four o'clock and all
well--but me; I felt like a skinful of dry bones and all of them trying
to ache at once.
Mr. Bixby asked me what I had stayed up there for. I confessed that it
was to do Mr. W---- a benevolence,--tell him where he was. It took five
minutes for the entire preposterousness of the thing to filter into Mr.
Bixby's system, and then I judge it filled him nearly up to the chin;
because he paid me a compliment--and not much of a one either. He said,
'Well, taking you by-and-large, you do seem to be more different kinds
of an ass than any creature I ever saw before. What did you suppose he
wanted to know for?'
I said I thought it might be a convenience to him.
'Convenience D-nation! Didn't I tell you that a man's got to know the
river in the night the same as he'd know his own front hall?'
'Well, I can follow the front hall in the dark if I know it IS the front
hall; but suppose you set me down in the middle of it in the dark and
not tell me which hall it is; how am I to know?'
'Well you've GOT to, on the river!'
'All right. Then I'm glad I never said anything to Mr. W---- '
'I should say so. Why, he'd have slammed you through the window and
utterly ruined a hundred dollars' worth of window-sash and stuff.'
I was glad this damage had been saved, for it would have made me
unpopular with the owners. They always hated anybody who had the name
of being careless, and injuring things.
I went to work now to learn the shape of the river; and of all the
eluding and ungraspable objects that ever I tried to get mind or hands
on, that was the chief. I would fasten my eyes upon a sharp, wooded
point that projected far into the river some miles ahead of me, and go
to laboriously photographing its shape upon my brain; and just as I was
beginning to succeed to my satisfaction, we would draw up toward it and
the exasperating thing would begin to melt away and fold back into the
bank! If there had been a conspicuous dead tree standing upon the very
point of the cape, I would find that tree inconspicuously merged into
the general forest, and occupying the middle of a straight shore, when I
got abreast of it! No prominent hill would stick to its shape long
enough for me to make up my mind what its form really was, but it was as
dissolving and changeful as if it had been a mountain of butter in the
hottest corner of the tropics. Nothing ever had the same shape when I
was coming downstream that it had borne when I went up. I mentioned
these little difficulties to Mr. Bixby. He said--
'That's the very main virtue of the thing. If the shapes didn't change
every three seconds they wouldn't be of any use. Take this place where
we are now, for instance. As long as that hill over yonder is only one
hill, I can boom right along the way I'm going; but the moment it splits
at the top and forms a V, I know I've got to scratch to starboard in a
hurry, or I'll bang this boat's brains out against a rock; and then the
moment one of the prongs of the V swings behind the other, I've got to
waltz to larboard again, or I'll have a misunderstanding with a snag
that would snatch the keelson out of this steamboat as neatly as if it
were a sliver in your hand. If that hill didn't change its shape on bad
nights there would be an awful steamboat grave-yard around here inside
of a year.'
It was plain that I had got to learn the shape of the river in all the
different ways that could be thought of,--upside down, wrong end first,
inside out, fore-and-aft, and 'thortships,'--and then know what to do on
gray nights when it hadn't any shape at all. So I set about it. In the
course of time I began to get the best of this knotty lesson, and my
self-complacency moved to the front once more. Mr. Bixby was all fixed,
and ready to start it to the rear again. He opened on me after this
fashion--
'How much water did we have in the middle crossing at Hole-in-the-Wall,
trip before last?'
I considered this an outrage. I said--
'Every trip, down and up, the leadsmen are singing through that tangled
place for three-quarters of an hour on a stretch. How do you reckon I
can remember such a mess as that?'
'My boy, you've got to remember it. You've got to remember the exact
spot and the exact marks the boat lay in when we had the shoalest water,
in everyone of the five hundred shoal places between St. Louis and New
Orleans; and you mustn't get the shoal soundings and marks of one trip
mixed up with the shoal soundings and marks of another, either, for
they're not often twice alike. You must keep them separate.'
When I came to myself again, I said--
'When I get so that I can do that, I'll be able to raise the dead, and
then I won't have to pilot a steamboat to make a living. I want to
retire from this business. I want a slush-bucket and a brush; I'm only
fit for a roustabout. I haven't got brains enough to be a pilot; and if
I had I wouldn't have strength enough to carry them around, unless I
went on crutches.'
'Now drop that! When I say I'll learn {footnote ['Teach' is not in the
river vocabulary.]} a man the river, I mean it. And you can depend on
it, I'll learn him or kill him.'
Chapter 9 Continued Perplexities
THERE was no use in arguing with a person like this. I promptly put
such a strain on my memory that by and by even the shoal water and the
countless crossing-marks began to stay with me. But the result was just
the same. I never could more than get one knotty thing learned before
another presented itself. Now I had often seen pilots gazing at the
water and pretending to read it as if it were a book; but it was a book
that told me nothing. A time came at last, however, when Mr. Bixby
seemed to think me far enough advanced to bear a lesson on water-
reading. So he began--
'Do you see that long slanting line on the face of the water? Now,
that's a reef. Moreover, it's a bluff reef. There is a solid sand-bar
under it that is nearly as straight up and down as the side of a house.
There is plenty of water close up to it, but mighty little on top of it.
If you were to hit it you would knock the boat's brains out. Do you see
where the line fringes out at the upper end and begins to fade away?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Well, that is a low place; that is the head of the reef. You can climb
over there, and not hurt anything. |
10,240 |
Produced by Dianna Adair, Paul Clark and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
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by The Internet Archive)
No Plays Exchanged
BAKER'S EDITION OF PLAYS
None so Deaf as Those
That Won't Hear
Price, 25 Cents
WALTER H. BAKER COMPANY
BOSTON
Plays for Colleges and High Schools
_Males_ _Females_ _Time_ _Price_ _Royalty_
The Air Spy 12 4 11/2 hrs. 35c $10.00
Bachelor Hall 8 4 2 " 35c $5.00
The College Chap 11 7 21/2 " 35c Free
The Colonel's Maid 6 3 2 " 35c "
Daddy 4 4 11/2 " 35c "
The Deacon's Second Wife 6 6 21/2 " 35c "
The District Attorney 10 6 2 " 35c "
The Dutch Detective 5 5 2 " 35c "
At the Sign of the Shooting
Star 10 10 2 " 35c "
The Elopement of Ellen 4 3 2 " 35c "
Engaged by Wednesday 5 11 11/2 " 35c "
The Chuzzlewitts, or Tom
Pinch 15 6 21/4 " 35c "
For One Night Only 5 4 2 " 25c "
Hamilton 11 5 2 " 60c $25.00
Constantine Pueblo Jones 10 4 21/4 " 35c Free
Excuse Me 4 6 11/4 " 35c "
The Hoodoo 6 12 2 " 35c "
The Hurdy Gurdy Girl 9 9 2 " 35c "
Katy Did 4 8 11/2 " 35c "
Let's Get Married 3 5 2 " 60c $10.00
London Assurance 10 3 2 " 25c Free
Lost a Chaperon 6 9 2 " 35c "
A Foul Tip 7 3 2 " 35c "
The Man Who Went 7 3 21/2 " 35c $10.00
The Man Without a Country 46 5 11/2 " 25c Free
Master Pierre Patella 4 1 11/2 " 60c "
How Jim Made Good 7 3 2 " 25c "
Just Plain Mary 7 13 2 " 35c "
Line Busy 5 19 11/2 " 35c "
Mr. Bob 3 4 11/2 " 25c "
Mrs. Briggs of the Poultry
Yard 4 7 2 " 35c "
Nathan Hale 15 4 21/2 " 60c $10.00
Patty Makes Things Hum 4 6 2 " 35c Free
Professor Pepp 8 8 21/2 " 35c "
A Regiment of Two 6 4 2 " 35c "
The Private Tutor 5 3 2 " 35c "
The Rivals 9 5 21/2 " 25c "
Silas Marner 19 4 11/2 " 25c "
When a Feller Needs a Friend 5 5 21/4 " 35c $10.00
Sally Lunn 3 4 11/2 " 25c Free
The School for Scandal 12 4 21/2 " 25c "
She Stoops to Conquer 15 4 21/2 " 25c "
Step Lively 4 10 2 " 35c "
The Submarine Shell 7 4 2 " 35c $10.00
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The Time of His Life 6 3 21/2 " 35c "
Tommy's Wife 3 5 11/2 " 35c "
The Twig of Thorn 6 7 11/2 " 75c "
The Amazons 7 5 21/2 " 60c $10.00
The Conjurer 8 4 21/4 " 35c $10.00
BAKER, Hamilton Place, Boston, Mass.
NONE SO DEAF AS THOSE WHO
WON'T HEAR.
A Comedietta in One Act.
By
H. PELHAM CURTIS, U.S.A.,
AUTHOR OF "UNCLE ROBERT," "THE PERFECT FOX," "LYING
WILL OUT," ETC., ETC.
BOSTON
Walter H. Baker & Co
_DRAMATIS PERSONAE._
SINGLETON CODDLE.
WASHINGTON WHITWELL.
EGLANTINE CODDLE.
JANE SMITH, A SERVANT.
_Costumes modern and appropriate._
COPYRIGHT, 1880,
BY LEE AND SHEPARD.
_All rights reserved._
NONE SO DEAF AS THOSE WHO WON'T HEAR.
SCENE.--_A parlor handsomely furnished, looking out on a garden;
console in each corner; on one a lamp, a flower-vase on the other;
door in flat, and doors right and left; window at right; gun
standing in corner at left; table in front, left, with magazines,
paper, pens, and ink; at right, front, an easy-chair, and small
work-table, on which is a work-basket and hand-bell._
EGLANTINE (_sits at table, reading_). Oh, what dull trash! (_Throws
magazine down._) Ah, me! I can take no interest even in Trollope.
Life is a blank. (_Comes forward._) Did ever any girl suffer as I do?
Nothing to do, nobody to see,--only father to talk to, and he deaf as
a post! (_Sits and looks at vase of flowers._) Well, I'll not stand
_this_. These flowers have been here four days. Disgraceful! (_Rings._)
Jane! (_Rings again. Enter JANE with a letter, in flat._) Jane, how
_can_ you be so neglectful? Look at these old dead flowers. Throw them
away, and get me fresh at once.
JANE. Yes, miss. Your pa is not here, miss?
EGLANTINE (_jumps up_). No. Is it a caller?
JANE. No, miss: a letter.
EGLANTINE. Only a letter! oh, dear! Never any visitors; nothing but
letters now, and none of them for me. I shall die, or go mad. (_Sits._)
JANE. Yes, miss: your pa is a very sot man, and won't never see no
company, since he grew hard of hearing, three years ago. (_Takes the
flowers from vase._)
EGLANTINE. O Jane! how can I bear it? Life is so dull, so dull!
(_Sobs._)
JANE (_wiping lamp-glass_). Yes, miss. And think of me, miss: took into
service for my voice, and obligated to holler at your pa all day long.
Holler? Yes; yell and scream, I calls it.
EGLANTINE. Has nothing been heard from that aurist papa wrote to a
month ago!
JANE. No, miss; not a word. Dear, dear! I shall be a dummy in six
months, I'm sure. I hain't no more voice now than a frog.
EGLANTINE. Ha, ha! It's very sad, Jane. Ha, ha, ha!
JANE. Don't laugh at the misfortunate, Miss Eglantine: 'tain't lucky.
EGLANTINE. Forgive me, Jane: I didn't mean to. I believe I'm
hysterical; and no wonder,--shut up by myself like this, at nineteen.
JANE. No wonder you finds it a bit dull, miss. I don't wonder at
it,--not a mite.
EGLANTINE. And papa seems resolved to keep me unmarried. Half a dozen
proposals already! and he's refused them all.
JANE. Yes, miss; so he have. He says regular, "Not the son-in-law for
me." What kind does he expect, I wonder? A angel?
EGLANTINE. I'm afraid so, Jane. And it's got so bad that nobody now has
the courage to offer, a refusal is so certain. (_Sobs._) Or else I'm
sure that gentleman who danced the whole evening with me a month ago at
Lady Thornton's--
JANE. Yes, miss: I've heard you mention him often.
EGLANTINE. He was dying to offer himself, I'm sure, from the way he
looked at me. But somebody has warned him, of course. (_Weeps._) O
Jane, how tedious, how tedious life is!
JANE. Yes, miss; tedious as tedious! But here comes master. Where is
that letter? Oh! here it be.
(_Enter SINGLETON CODDLE, door R._)
CODDLE (_book in hand, from which he reads._) "Deafness is one of the
most distressing afflictions which can attack mankind." Ah! distressing
indeed! How true! how profoundly true!
JANE (_shouts in his ear_). A letter for you, sir. (_Holds it before
his eyes._)
CODDLE. Ah, Jane! you here? And Eglantine too. (_Takes letter._) You
needn't stick letters into my eye, Jane: you only need tell me you have
them. (_Sits._)
EGLANTINE. Possibly another offer for me. If I could only manage to
peep over his shoulder!
JANE. No need, miss. He's sure to read it out. He can't never hear his
own voice, and don't know but he's reading to himself. He thinks out
loud too; and I knows every thing he has on his mind. It's quite a
blessing, really.
CODDLE. (_Puts on glasses; catches sight of EGLANTINE._) Tut, tut,
Eglantine! Go away, child. This is for me, not you. Ten to one it's
confidential too! (_Crosses left, and reads aloud._) "My dear Coddle,
I flatter myself I have found a son-in-law to your taste at last,--a
nephew of mine, young, well educated, brilliant, and rich. Yours truly,
Pottle."
JANE. Didn't I tell you so, miss?
CODDLE. Ah! all very well, all very well, friend Pottle; but not the
man for _me_.
JANE. There, miss, just what I told ye.
EGLANTINE. I shall be in despair; I shall go crazy.
JANE. Easy, miss, easy. Don't go into no tantrums. For mercy's sake,
calm yourself.
EGLANTINE. Calm myself! When life is the same dull round day after day!
Calm myself! When I never see even a strange cat! Calm myself! Oh, I
cannot endure it! (_Exit R., furious._)
JANE (_carrying out the vase_). Poor young critter! Her pa ain't got no
sense.--Ugh! you old yaller dog! (_Exit L._)
CODDLE. Ah! deafness is indeed a distressing affliction. (_Shakes
his head. A pause._) Still every cloud has its silver side. Without
my deafness I never could have survived the conversation--God
forgive me!--of my poor dear wife. It killed her; for, finding me
providentially beyond her reach, her loquacity struck in, and--there
she was. But now an inscrutable Providence has taken her from me,
(_Sighs deeply_) it would console me to hear a little. The doctors
say they can do nothing. Ignorant rascals! I wrote to a fellow who
advertises to cure deafness instantaneously by electro-acoustico
magnetism, and the impudent impostor hasn't taken the trouble to
answer. The whole world seems determined to thwart me. (_Takes
book again, and reads._) "In treating deafness, it should first be
ascertained whether the tympanum be thickened or perforated, and
whether also the minute bones of the auricular organ are yet intact."
(_Sticks little finger in his ear._) I _think_ they're all right.
(_Reads._) "And, further, be certain that the Eustachian tube is free
from obstruction." I wonder whether my Eustachian tube is obstructed. I
must get Jane to look. I wonder where she is. Jane! (_Rings. Enter JANE
L.; drops flower-pot._) Jane!
JANE. He don't hear nothing. It's quite a pleasure to smash things when
he's round.
CODDLE. Jane!
JANE (_picks up pieces_). Bah! who cares for you? I'll answer when I'm
ready.
CODDLE. Jane!
JANE. Oh, call away! (_Throws pieces out of window._) Heads there!
CODDLE. Jane! (_Rises._) I must go for her. (_Sees her at window;
shouts in her ear._) Jane!
JANE (_puts hands to ears_). Mercy!
CODDLE. This is the fifteenth time I've called you. Are you deaf?
JANE (_courtesies_). Yes, old wretch,--deaf when I want to be. (_Both
come down._)
CODDLE. What do you say?
JANE. Pop, pop, pop, old bother! I'd like to wring your bothersome neck.
CODDLE. Yes, fine weather indeed. Look into my ear, Jane, and tell me
whether my Eustachian tube is obstructed.
JANE. Eustachian tube? What is the old fool after now?
CODDLE. Look in. Why don't you look in?
JANE (_shouts_). What for, sir?
CODDLE. Eustachian tube.
JANE (_shouts_). I can't see nothing, sir.
CODDLE. What do you say?
JANE. Drat him! (_Shouts._) I can't see _nothing_.
CODDLE. Jane, I hope you're not losing your voice. You don't speak half
so loudly as usual.
JANE (_sulkily_). Perhaps I'd better have it swabbed out, then.
CODDLE. Luncheon's ready, do you say? Rather early, isn't it? Jane, I
like you, do you know, because you're such an intelligent creature.
JANE (_shouts_). Yes, sir.
CODDLE. And so much attached to _me_.
JANE (_shouts_). Yes, sir.
CODDLE. Yes: a very faithful, good, affectionate servant, Jane. I
haven't forgotten you in my will, Jane. You'll find I've got you
down there. I won't say how much, but something handsome, depend on
it,--something handsome. (_Sits down, and takes up book again._)
JANE. Something handsome! Five hundred dollars! I've heard him say so
a score of times. He calls that handsome for busting my voice in his
service. The old rat! I hate such mean goings-on. (_Cries outside._)
VOICES. Stop him, stop him!
JANE (_runs to window_). Eh? what's that? (_Gun fired under window._)
CODDLE. Yes, Jane, you'll be satisfied, I promise you. (_Another gun
heard._) Heaven will reward you for your care of me, my faithful girl.
(_Looks up._) Why, where the devil has the woman gone to?
JANE (_at window_). Good gracious! I say, you feller down there! Lord
'a' mercy! Get away from here! This is private property.
CODDLE (_goes to window_). Why, Jane, you seem quite excited.
JANE (_shouts in his ear_). Man with a gun in your garden, smashing the
melon-frames, treading on the flower-beds!--Hey, you feller! Police!
(_Noise of breaking glass._)
CODDLE (_looks out_). The villain is smashing every thing I have in
the world! Another melon-frame! Jane, hand me my gun! I'll shoot the
rascal! (_Seizes gun, JANE takes up a broom._) Follow me, Jane; follow
me. The infernal scoundrel!
JANE. Drat the impident rogue! (_Both exeunt door in flat._)
(_Enter WASHINGTON WHITWELL, left, gun in hand. Slams door behind
him, advances on tiptoe, finger on trigger--glances around._)
WHITWELL. Wrong again. Not here. What can have become of the creature!
(_Sets gun down._) He certainly ran into this house! Egad! whose
house is it, by the way? Never saw a finer hare in my life. In all
my experience I never saw a finer hare! I couldn't have bought him
in the market under thirty cents. (_Rises._) He's cost me a pretty
penny, though. Up at six for a day's shooting. Dog starts a hare in ten
minutes. Aim! Hare goes off, gun don't. Bad cap. Off _I_ go, however,
hot foot after him. He runs into a thicket. Rustic appears. I hail him.
"Hallo, friend! A dollar if you'll start out that hare." A dollar for a
hare worth thirty cents! say thirty-five. Out he comes; dog after him.
Aim again. This time gun goes off, dog don't. Shot him. Worth forty
dollars. Total so far, forty-one dollars. Load again. Hare gives me a
run of five miles. Stop to rest; drop asleep. Wake up, and see hare not
ten yards away, munching a cabbage. Gun again, and after him. He jumps
over a fence; _I_ jump over a fence. He comes down on his fore-paws;
_I_ come down on my fore-paws. He recovers his equilibrium; I recover
mine (on the flat of my back). Suddenly I observe myself to be hunted
by an army of rustics, my dollar friend among them,--well-meaning
people, no doubt,--armed with flails, forks, harrows, and ploughs, and
greedy for my life. They shout; I run. And here I am, after smashing
fifty dollars' worth of glass and things! Total, including dog,
ninety-one dollars, not to mention fine for breaking melon-frames by
some miserable justice's court, say twenty dollars more! Grand total,
let me see: yes, a hundred and twenty dollars, more or less, for a
hare worth thirty-five cents! say forty. (_Noise outside._) Ha! no
rest for the wicked here. (_Picks up gun, rushes for door in flat--met
by CODDLE; runs to door at left--met by JANE._) Caught, by Jupiter!
(_Falls into a chair._)
CODDLE. We've got the villain. Seize him, Jane, seize him!
JANE. Surrender, young man, in the name of the Continental Congress.
(_Collars him, and takes away his gun._)
WHITWELL. This is a pretty fix.
CODDLE. How dare you, sir, violate my privacy? knock down my walls?
smash my melon-frames? fire your abominable gun under my window, sir?
JANE. Lord 'a' mercy! The young man might have killed me. Oh, you
assassinating wretch!
CODDLE. The police will have a few words to say to you before you're an
hour older, you burglar!
WHITWELL. The deuce!
CODDLE. What's your name, sir?
JANE. Ay, what's your name? Tell us that. This is a hanging matter, I'd
have you to know.
WHITWELL (_stammering_). My name? er--er--Whit--no--er--mat.
JANE (_shouts in CODDLE'S ear_). He says his name is Whittermat. Furrin
of course. Mercy! what an escape!
WHITWELL (_aside_). Good idea that. I'm a foreigner! I'll keep it up.
JANE. Didn't you hear me call to you, you man-slaughterer? Are you deaf?
WHITWELL (_aside_). Deaf! Another good idea. I'll keep _that_ up.
CODDLE. What does he say, Jane?
JANE. He don't say nothink, sir.
WHITWELL (_aside_). Now for it. May I ask for a bit of paper? (_Makes
signs of writing._)
CODDLE. What does the scamp say?
JANE (_shouts_). He wants some paper.
CODDLE. Paper! Impudent scoundrel! I'll paper him, and ink him too!
WHITWELL. (_Sees paper on table._) Ah! (_Sits._)
JANE. He's going to write some wizard thing. He'll vanish in a flame of
fire, I warrant ye!
WHITWELL (_gives paper to JANE_). Here, young woman.
JANE (_to CODDLE_). Take it, sir. I dar'n't hold it. Ugh!
CODDLE. What's this? "I am afflicted with total deafness." Ha,
delightful! He says he's deaf. Thank Heaven for all its mercies. He's
deaf. Stone deaf!
JANE. Deef!
CODDLE. So you're deaf, eh? (_Points to ears._) Deaf?
WHITWELL. Third term, by all means. You're right. Gen. Grant, as you
say, of course.
CODDLE. Deaf! He is indeed. A Heaven-sent son-in-law! My idea realized!
Heaven has heard my prayers at last.
JANE. Son-in-law! Mercy presarve us all!
CODDLE. Delightful young man! I must have a little confidential talk
with him, Jane. But don't you go.
JANE. A deef son-in-law! Lord 'a' mercy! must I have a pair on 'em on
my hands!
CODDLE. My afflicted friend, pray take a chair. (_WHITWELL takes no
notice._) Delicious! he don't hear a sound. (_Louder._) Take a seat.
(_Shouts._) Seat!
WHITWELL (_bows_). Nothing to eat: thanks.
CODDLE. Charming! Overflowing with intellect. Never again disbelieve in
special providences. (_Signs to WHITWELL to sit down._)
WHITWELL (_points to easy-chair_). After you, venerable sir.
CODDLE. The manners of a prince of the blood! Kind Heaven, I thank
thee! (_Both sit._)
JANE. Deary me, deary me! A pair of posts, like, and nary a trumpet
between 'em, except me.
CODDLE (_looks at WHITWELL_). Young man, you look surprised at the
interest I take in you.
WHITWELL. No, sir, I prefer shad.
CODDLE. What does he say? (_Jumps up._) Jane, who knows but he's
already married! (_Sits, shouts._) Have you a wife?
WHITWELL. Yes, sir; always with a knife.
JANE (_shouts_). Have you a wife? A wife?
WHITWELL. All my life? Yes.
JANE (_shouts_). I say, have you a wife?
WHITWELL. A wife? No.
JANE. Drat him! he's single, and marries Eglantine for sartain.
CODDLE. He said no, I thought. (_Shouts._) Are you a bachelor?
(_Shouts._) A bachelor? Bachelor? (_Projects his ear._)
WHITWELL. Yes.
CODDLE (_shouts_). What do you say?
WHITWELL (_roars_). Yes! By Jove, _he's_ deaf, and no mistake.
CODDLE. He said yes, didn't he? (_Rises._) A bachelor! Glorious!
(_Roars._) Will you dine with us?
WHITWELL. Lime-juice? with the shad? delicious!
CODDLE. Dine with us?
WHITWELL. With the greatest pleasure.
CODDLE. Haven't the leisure? Oh, yes, you have! We'll dine early. I'll
take no refusal.--Jane, dinner at five.
JANE. Yes, sir. (_Courtesies._) Yah, old crosspatch! with your
providential son-in-laws, and your bachelors, and your dine-at-fives.
CODDLE. No, thank you, Jane; not fish-balls. Curried lamb I prefer. Go,
give the order at once.
JANE. Bah! with your fish-balls and your curries. Oh, if it wasn't for
that trumpery legacy! Yah! (_Exit L., snarling._)
CODDLE. Faithful Jane; invaluable friend! What should I do without her?
WHITWELL (_loudly_). My dear sir, is it possible you suffer such
insolence?
CODDLE (_shouts_). You're quite right. Yes, a perfect treasure, my
young friend. A model, I assure you.
WHITWELL (_aside_). Well, after that, deaf isn't the word for it.
CODDLE (_rises, shuts doors and window, sets gun in corner, then sits
near WHITWELL. Shouts._) Now, my _dear_ friend, let us have a little
talk; a confidential talk, eh!
WHITWELL. Confidential, in a bellow like that!
CODDLE (_shouts_). I wish to be perfectly frank. I asked you to dinner,
not that you might eat.
WHITWELL (_aside_). What for, then, I'd like to know?
CODDLE (_shouts_). Had you been a married man, I would have sent you
to jail with pleasure; but you're a bachelor. Now, I'm a father, with
a dear daughter as happy as the day is long. Possibly in every respect
you may not suit her.
WHITWELL (_picks up hat_). Does the old dolt mean to insult me!
CODDLE (_shouting_). But you suit _me_, my friend, to a T; and I offer
you her hand, plump, no more words about it.
WHITWELL. Sir; (_Aside._) She's humpbacked, I'll stake my life, a
dromedary!
CODDLE (_shouts_). Between ourselves, sir,--in the strictest
confidence, mind,--she will bring you a nest-egg of fifty thousand
dollars.
WHITWELL (_aside_). A double hump, then, beyond all doubt. Not a
dromedary,--a camel! a backtrian! (_Bows._) (_Shouts._) Sir, I
appreciate the honor, but I--(_Going._)
CODDLE. Not so fast; you can't go to her yet. If you could have heard a
word she said, you shouldn't have my daughter. Do you catch my idea?
WHITWELL (_shouts_). With great difficulty, like my hare.
CODDLE (_shouts_). Perhaps you may not have noticed that I'm a trifle
deaf.
WHITWELL. Ha, ha! a trifle deaf! I should say so. (_Shouts._) I think I
did notice it.
CODDLE. A little hard of hearing, so to speak.
WHITWELL (_shouts_). You must be joking.
CODDLE. Effect of smoking? Tut! I never smoke,--or hardly ever. You
see, young man, I live here entirely alone with my daughter. She talks
with nobody but _me_, and is as happy as a bird the livelong day.
WHITWELL (_aside_). She must have a sweet old time of it.
CODDLE. Now, suppose I were to take for a son-in-law one of the dozen
who have already teased my life out for her,--a fellow with his ears
entirely normal: of course they'd talk together in their natural
voice, and force me to be incessantly calling out, "What's that you're
saying?" "I can't hear; say that again." You understand? Ah! the
young are so selfish. The thing's preposterous, of course. Now, with
a son-in-law like yourself,--deaf as a door-post,--this annoyance
couldn't happen. You'd shout at your wife, she'd shout back, of course,
and I'd hear the whole conversation. Catch the idea?
WHITWELL (_shouts_). Fear? Oh, no! I ain't afraid. (_Aside._) The old
scoundrel looks out for number one, don't he?
(_Enter JANE, door in F., with visiting-card._)
CODDLE (_shouts_). It's a bargain, then? Shake hands on it, my boy. I
get an audible son-in-law, you, a charming wife.
WHITWELL (_aside_). Charming, eh? Ah! she with a double hump on her
back, and he has the face to say she's charming.
JANE. Oh, dear! we're in for another deefy in the family. (_Shouts._) A
gentleman to see you, sir.
CODDLE. Partridges? Yes, Jane, they'll do nicely. (_Shouts._) Now, my
boy, before you see your future bride, you'll want to fix up a little,
eh? (_Points to door, R._) Step in there, my dear friend, and arrange
your dress.
WHITWELL (_shakes his head_). (_Shouts._) Distress? Not a bit. It
delights me, sir. (_Aside._) This scrape I'm in begins to look
alarming.
CODDLE. The dear boy! he _is_ deaf, indeed. (_Pushes him out._) Be
off, lad, be off. Find all you want in there. (_Motions to brush his
hair, &c._) Brushes, combs, collars, and a razor. (_Exit WHITWELL, R._)
I felt certain a merciful Providence would send me the right husband
for Eglantine at last. Jane, you here yet? Set the table for four,
remember. Every thing's settled. He accepts. What have you there? a
card?
JANE (_shouts_). Yes, sir. Oh, you old botheration!
CODDLE. Good heavens!
JANE. Lawks! what now?
CODDLE. The man himself.
JANE. What man? Land's sake! he'll be the death of me.
CODDLE. In the library at this moment! Dear, faithful, affectionate
Jane, wish me joy! The doctor has come at last! (_Exit R. 1 E._)
(_EGLANTINE enters R. as her father runs out._)
EGLANTINE. Jane, is any thing the matter with papa? Isn't he well?
JANE. Yes, miss, he's well enough. He's found that son-in-law of
his'n,--that angel!
EGLANTINE. Angel? son-in-law?
JANE. That's all the matter with _him_.
EGLANTINE. Son-in-law? Good heavens! Where is he?
JANE. In that there room, a-cleaning hisself.
EGLANTINE. Did you see him? Is he young? Is he handsome?
JANE (_impressively_). You've heared of the sacrifice of Abraham, Miss
Eglantine?
EGLANTINE. Certainly.
JANE (_slowly_). Well, 'tain't a circumstance to the sacrifice of
Coddle!
EGLANTINE. Jane, what do you mean?
JANE. Maybe you know, miss, that, in the matter of hearing, your pa is
deficient?
EGLANTINE. Yes, yes! Go on.
JANE (_slowly_). Alongside of the feller he's picked out for your beau,
your pa can hear the grass grow on the mounting-top, easy!
EGLANTINE. Deaf?
JANE. Not deef, miss; deef ain't a touch to it.
EGLANTINE. Deaf? it's out of the question! I won't have him! I refuse
him! A hundred thousand times I refuse such a husband.
JANE. Quite right, miss. He'd be the death of me. Your pa can't marry
you without your consent: don't give it.
EGLANTINE. Never! They don't know me. Cruel! cruel! (_Weeps._)
JANE. So it be, Miss Eglantine; so it be. I never see the beat on't.
Better give him the mitten out of hand, miss.
EGLANTINE. Instantly, if he were here. The wretch! How dare he?
JANE. I'll call him. (_To door. Knocks._) Mr. Whittermat! I say!--He's
furrin, miss.--Mr. Whittermat! (_Knocks furiously._)
(_WHITWELL comes out of chamber; sees EGLANTINE._)
WHITWELL (_aside_). Ha! my partner at Lady Thornton's!
EGLANTINE (_aside_). Why, this is the gentleman I danced with at Sir
Edward's! What nonsense is this about his being deaf? Jane, this
gentleman hears as well as I do myself. What do you mean?
JANE. Does he, miss? Reckon not. You shall see.
WHITWELL (_aside_). How annoying I can't give a hint to Miss Coddle! If
that troublesome minx were only out of the way, now!
JANE (_in ordinary voice_). Young man, you may suit Mr. Coddle, and I
des'say you does, but you don't suit _here_. So git up and git.
EGLANTINE. Jane!
JANE. Pshaw! Miss Eglantine, he can't hear nary a sound.
WHITWELL (_aside_). _You_ couldn't, if my finger and thumb were to meet
on your ear, you vixen! (_To EGLANTINE._) Miss Coddle is excessively
kind to receive me with such condescending politeness.
JANE. Ha, ha, ha! I told you so, Miss Eglantine. He thinks I paid him a
compliment, sartain as yeast.
EGLANTINE. Very strange! When I met this poor gentleman at Lady
Thornton's, he was not afflicted in this way.
JANE. Wasn't he, miss? Well, he's paying for all his sins now. It's
providential, I've no doubt.
WHITWELL (_aloud_). Pity me, Miss Coddle. A dreadful misfortune has
befallen me since I had the pleasure of meeting you at the Thorntons'.
My horse fell with me, and in falling I struck on my head. I have been
totally deaf ever since.
EGLANTINE. Poor, poor young man! My heart bleeds for him.
WHITWELL. Ordinary conversation I am incapable of hearing; but you,
Miss Coddle, whose loveliness has never been absent from my memory
since that happy day, you I am certain I could understand with ease. My
eyes will help me to interpret the movements of your lips. Speak to me,
and the poor sufferer whose sorrows awake your healing pity will surely
hear.
EGLANTINE. Can this be possible?
WHITWELL. You said, "Can this be possible?" I am sure.
EGLANTINE. Yes.
WHITWELL. I knew it.
JANE. The dickens! Can he hear with his eyes? (_Aside._) I hope old
Coddle won't never get that 'ere accomplishment.
EGLANTINE. Oh, how sad! What a misfortune! But a deaf husband! Oh,
impossible! (_Exit slowly, I. U., much distressed._)
WHITWELL (_follows to door_). Stay, oh, stay, Miss Coddle!
JANE (_laughing_). Ha, ha! Don't flatter yourself, puppy. She's not for
you, jolterhead!
WHITWELL (_shakes JANE violently_). I'm a jolterhead, am I? A puppy, am
I?
JANE. Lord forgive me, I do believe he can hear! (_Drops into chair._)
WHITWELL (_pulls her up_). Yes, vixen! For you I hear perfectly. For
your master, it suits me to be deaf. And, if you dare to betray me,
I'll let him know your treachery. I heard your impudent speeches, every
one of them.
JANE. Oh, for mercy's sake, Mr. Whittermat, don't do that! My hair
would turn snow in a single night! Think of my legacy!
WHITWELL. Silence for silence, then, you wretched woman.
JANE. Certainly, certainly, Mr. Whittermat. Besides, now you ain't deaf
no longer, I like you first-rate. I accept your addresses j'yful.
WHITWELL. Lucky for you, you witch.
CODDLE (_outside_). Jane!
JANE. Oh, sir, now pray be careful. He's as spiteful as spiteful. If he
finds you out, all the fat'll be in the fire.
WHITWELL. Be quite easy, Jane. To win Eglantine I'll be a horse-post, a
tomb-stone. Fire a thousand-pounder at my ear, and I'll not wink.
CODDLE (_outside_). Jane, Jane! I say.
JANE. Step into the garden, Mr. Whittermat; and when I ring the
dinner-bell, don't you take no notice.
WHITWELL. I'm fly. But ain't I hungry, though, by Jove! Don't forget me.
JANE (_pushing him out C._). I'll come out and call you. (_Exeunt L._)
(_Enter CODDLE, R._)
CODDLE. A miracle! A perfect miracle. Wonderful electro-acoustico-
galvanism! I can hear! I can hear! I can hear!
(_Enter EGLANTINE._)
EGLANTINE (_screams_). Papa, love!
CODDLE (_claps hands to his ears_). Come here, my pet. Give me a kiss,
my darling. Wish your father joy. I have a surprise for you, sweet one.
EGLANTINE (_shouts_). I know what it is, papa. (_Sadly._)
CODDLE. Don't scream so, Eglantine. It's impossible you should know it.
EGLANTINE. Know what, papa?
CODDLE. That I'm cured of my deafness. I can hear!
EGLANTINE. What! Is it possible?
CODDLE. Yes, cured miraculously by that wonderful aurist, with his
electro-magnetico--no, no; electro-galvanico--no, no; pshaw! no matter.
He's cured me in a flash!
EGLANTINE (_shouts_). O papa! How delightful!
CODDLE (_covering his ears_). Softly, my darling, softly. You kill me!
I hear almost too well. You deafen me. My hearing is now abnormal;
actually abnormal, it is so acute.
EGLANTINE (_aside_). Perhaps _he_ can be cured, then. (_Shouts._)
Dearest papa, you cannot conceive how delighted I am.
CODDLE. Whisper, Eglantine, for Heaven's sake! You, torture me!
EGLANTINE (_shouts_). Yes, papa.
CODDLE. Sh--sh--for mercy's sake!
EGLANTINE (_softly_). Forgive me, papa, it's habit. O papa, I've seen
him!
CODDLE (_aside_). I hear every word. Seen whom?
EGLANTINE. The gentleman you have chosen for my husband.
CODDLE. Husband? Oh, ah! I'd forgotten him. (_Aside._) I really am
cured!
EGLANTINE. Poor young man! I was miserable at first. I cried, oh, so
hard!
CODDLE. Darling, you mustn't cry any more.
EGLANTINE. No, papa, I won't, for I like him extremely now. He's so
handsome, and so amiable! I've met him before.
CODDLE. Tut, tut, child! I'll see him hanged first.
EGLANTINE. What? Why, papa, you _asked_ him to marry me, Jane says.
CODDLE. Yes, when I was deaf. Now, however--what! marry my darling to a
deaf man? Never!
EGLANTINE. O papa, you are cured: perhaps he can be cured in the same
way.
CODDLE. Impossible! He's too deaf. I never knew a worse case.
EGLANTINE. The doctor might try.
CODDLE. Impossible, I tell you. Besides, he's gone away.
EGLANTINE. Let's send after him.
CODDLE. Not another word, my love, about that horrible deaf fellow! I
asked him to dine here to-day, like an old ass; but I'll pack him off
immediately after.
EGLANTINE (_angrily_). Another offer thrown away! Papa, you will kill
me with your cruelty. (_Weeps._)
CODDLE. Pooh, darling, I've another, much better offer on hand.
I got a letter this morning from my friend Pottle. His favorite
nephew--charming fellow.
EGLANTINE (_sobbing_). I won't take him.
CODDLE. Eglantine, a capital offer, I tell you. Capital! Young,
brilliant, rich.
EGLANTINE. I won't take him! I won't take him! I won't take him!
(_Stamps._)
CODDLE. But, Eglantine--
EGLANTINE. No, no, no, no, no! I'll die an old maid first! I'll kill
myself if I can't marry the man I love. (_Exit, weeping._)
CODDLE. (_Solus._) The image of her mother! The villain has bewitched
her! And to think I've asked him to dinner! A scamp I don't know, and
never heard of, and who came into my house like a murderer, smashing
all my hot-houses! Confound him, I'll insult him till he can't see
out of his eyes! I'll dine him with a vengeance! And I'll hand him
over to the police afterwards for malicious mischief--the horrid deaf
ruffian! The audacity of daring to demand my daughter's hand! Deaf as
he is! (_Bell heard._) Ha! what's that infernal noise? A fire? (_Opens
window._) Bah! Jane ringing the dinner-bell. Stop, stop, stop that
devilish tocsin! (_Looks down into garden._) There sits the miscreant,
reading a paper, and hearing nothing of a bell loud enough to wake the
dead. Detestable blockhead! There goes Jane to call him. Faithful Jane!
I long to witness the joy which irradiates her face, dear soul, when I
tell her I can hear. She loves me _so_ sincerely! (_Calls._) Jane!--A
servant of an extinct species. None like her nowadays. Jane, Jane!
(_Enter JANE with soup-tureen._) I've news for you, my faithful Jane.
JANE. Oh, shut up!
CODDLE. Eh! (_Looks round in bewilderment._)
JANE (_sets table, puts soup, &c., on it_). There's your soup, old
Coddle. Mollycoddle, I calls you!
CODDLE (_aside_). Bless my soul! she's speaking to me, I think. Can it
be possible? Mollycoddle!
JANE. If it war'n't for that tuppenny legacy, old Cod, I'd do my best
to pop you into an asylum for idiots. Yar! (_Exit, C., meets WHITWELL._)
CODDLE. Old Cod! So this is her boasted fidelity, her undying
affection! Why, the faithless, abominable, ungrateful, treacherous
vixen! But her face is enough to show the vile blackness of her heart!
I've suspected her for months. After all my kindness to her, too! And
the money I've bequeathed her. She sha'n't stay another twenty-four
hours in my house. (_Sees WHITWELL._) Nor you either, you swindling
vagabond. |
10,240 |
Produced by Jon Ingram, Punch, or the London Charivari,
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
Vol. 153.
[Illustration]
* * * * *
Punch 1917.07.04
[Illustration: VOL. CLIII]
* * * * *
MENTIONED IN DESPATCHES.
The oldest inhabitant sat on a bench in the sun, the day's newspaper
spread across his knees, and the newest visitor sat beside him.
"He do be mentioned in despatches, do our Billy, by Sir DOUGLAS HAIG
himself. If it hadn't a-been for him, where'd the Army been? he says. I
knowed him ever since I come to these parts, and that weren't yesterday.
He'd come round that there bend a-whistling, not sort o' cockahoop, like
some does, but just a cheery sort o' 'Here I am again;' and he'd always
stop most anywhere, if so be as you held up your hand.
"I've seed ladies with their golf-clubs runnin' up from the club-house,
and he'd just sort of whistle to show as he seed them, and wait for them
as perlite as any gentleman. For it do be powerful hot to walk back home
with your golf-clubs after two rounds; I was a caddy, I was, 'fore I
went on the line, so I knows what I'm telling you.
"It didn't make no difference if they was champions or duffers what
couldn't carry the burn not if they tried all day. Or if it were an old
woman a-goin' back from market with all her cabbages and live ducks and
eggs and onions--it were all just the same to little Billy.
"Then I mind the day he was took. George he come up and tells me as they
have took Billy because the Army wants all it can get. I was fair
knocked over, and him so little and all.
"Then the Captain, what was the best golfer here, come back for leave.
"'Grandpa,' says he, same as he always call me--'Grandpa,' he says,
'I've been thinking about Billy all the time I've been out, and longing
to hear him whistle again, and now I'm home and he's gone. I shall have
to get back to France again to see him.'
"So he will, Sir, and if Billy was going up right under the German guns
it's my belief as Captain would get out of his trench to go and see him.
"What regiment is Billy in, did you say, Sir? Why, he got no regiment.
Ain't I been telling you, Sir, 'Puffing Billy' is what our golfers here
call the little train what used to run six times a day from the town to
the links. Just see what the paper says, Sir. I don't be much of a
reader, but hark ye to this: 'I wish also to place on record here the
fact that the successful solution of the problem of railway transport
would have been impossible had it not been for the patriotism of the
railway companies at home. They did not hesitate to give up their
locomotives and rolling stock.'
"That's 'Puffing Billy,' Sir, him what I've put the signal down for
hundreds an' hundreds of times. I miss him powerful bad, but the Army
wanted him, and we've been and got some thanks too. I'm proud to think
my Billy's in the paper."
* * * * *
THE MELTING-POT.
["The municipality of Rothausen has decided to present to the collection
of metal which is being made in Germany its monument of Kaiser WILLIAM
THE FIRST."--_Reuter_.]
Heavy is Armageddon's price
And loud the call to sacrifice;
All stuff composed of likely metals--
Door-knockers, hairpins, cans and kettles--
Into the War's insatiate melting-pot
Has to be shot.
That was a hard and bitter blow
When first your church-bells had to go--
Those saintly bells that rang carillons
While in the maw of happy millions
Pure joy and gratitude to Heaven thrilled
For babies killed.
It hurt your Christian hearts to melt
A source of faith so keenly felt;
And now (worse sacrilege than that) you
Propose to take yon regal statue,
That godlike effigy, and make a gun
Of WILLIAM ONE!
What will _He_ say when you reduce
His Relative to cannon-juice?
The prospect must be pretty rotten
If thus the Never-To-Be-Forgotten
Is treated, like the corpses of your friends,
For useful ends.
I hear the ALL-HIGHEST mutter, "Ha!
They're liquefying Grandpapa!
The nation's needs, that grow acuter,
Count sacred things as so much pewter;
Even my holy crown may go some day
Down the red way!"
O.S.
* * * * *
LE SENEGALAIS.
Samedou Kieta sat up in bed with a child's primer open before him.
"M--A," he spelled. Then, after an incredibly long time of patient
puzzling, "M--A--MA. Oui, MA. Y a bon!" and embraced the whole ward in
one wide white grin before turning to the next syllable, "M--A--N." Once
more the puzzled frown on the black face, once more the whispered hints
from neighbouring beds, once more the triumph of perseverance,
"M--A--N--MAN!" He was just enjoying his success and chanting his
pidgin-French paean of happiness, "Y a bon! Y a bon!" when Soeur
Antoinette paused by his bed. "Tres bien, Sidi," she said, "mais il faut
les mettre ensemble," and with her white finger she guided his black one
back to the first syllable.
Here was difficulty indeed! He knew all right that M--A--N was MAN, but
what was M--A? And when, after intense effort, he re-discovered that
M--A spelled MA, it was only to find that he had forgotten what M--A--N
spelled. At last the other wounded could contain themselves no longer,
and the ward was filled with laughing shouts of "Maman!" in which
Samedou joined most happily.
Presently the English nurse passed the <DW64>'s bed, and he at once
turned to another branch of learning. "Good morning," he said, and, when
she smiled back a greeting to him, he added, "T'ank you," and looked
proudly round him at his fellow-patients as who should say, "See how we
understand one another, she and I!"
During a sojourn of many months in the hospital Samedou invariably met
the sufferings he was called upon to endure with an uncomplaining
fortitude, which might have seemed due to insensibility had not the
staff had ample proof that his silence was the silence of a fine
courage. On one occasion a set of photographs of the hospital was in
preparation, and when the _salle de pansements_ had to be taken the
photographer decided that the best lay figure for his _mise-en-scene_
would be a black man, as a striking contrast to the white raiment of the
staff. So Samedou was carried in on a stretcher and laid upon the table.
Unfortunately the surgeons and nurses were so occupied with the business
of placing things in the best light that no one realised that the poor
Senegalese did not understand the purpose of the preparations, and when
the English nurse was called to take up her position she noticed the
hands of Samedou Kieta clutching the sides of the table and his black
eyes rolling in a sea of white.
She at once ran to the nearest ward. "Quelqu'un voudrait bien me preter
une photographie?" she asked, and a dozen eager hands offered her the
treasured groups of _la famille_. Taking one at random she returned to
Samedou and held it before his eyes. "Nous aussi," she said, "toi, moi,
le Major, l'infirmier."
Samedou looked, and a heavenly relief chased the tension from his face.
"Y a bon," he said happily. "Toi, bon camarade!"
When his wounds began to be less painful the problem was how to keep the
Sidi in bed. No one cared to be very severe with him, so the staff
resorted to the usual weak method of confiscating all his clothes save a
shirt, and hoping for the best. But one day the English nurse, going
unexpectedly into a distant ward, came upon Samedou Kieta, simply
dressed in a single shirt and a bandage, visiting the freshly-arrived
wounded and scattering wide grins around him. At her horrified
exclamation he began to shrivel away towards the door, ushering himself
out with the propitiatory words, "Good morning. Good night. T'ank you.
Water!" A most effectual method of disarming reproof.
Poor Samedou has since passed on to another hospital for electric
treatment, but the staff still treasures his first and only letter:--
"Moi, Samedou Kieta, arrive a l'autre hopital. Y a bon. Mais moi,
Samedou Kieta, toi pas oublie. Merci, Monsieur le Major deux
galons. Merci, Soeur Antoinette. Merci, Madame l'Anglaise. Y a bon.
Y a bon. Y a bon."
* * * * *
"The Germans have suffered 100,000 casualties in 10 days on the
western front, and their losses will increase rapidly. They must
shorten their lives wherever possible in order to save
men."--_Ceylon Morning Leader._
In this laudable endeavour they may count upon receiving the hearty
assistance of the Allies.
* * * * *
"Young gentleman (21), good family, strong, healthy, public school,
O.T.C., Varsity education, speaks English, French, Spanish
perfectly, engineering training, efficient car driver and mechanic,
horseman, is open to any sporting job connected with war; willing
undertake any risks; no salary, but expenses paid."
If the advertiser will apply to the nearest recruiting-station he will
hear of something that will just suit him.
* * * * *
"The inhabitants of the Peak district are in a state of great alarm
at the invasion of a great part of their beautiful country by what
some of them describe as a plague of locusts, and yesterday
considerable numbers of people visited the district where the hosts
are still advancing. Many from Sheffield and Manchester alighted at
Chinley, Edale, and Hope, among them some eminent etymologists,
anxious to be of assistance in ridding the country of a serious
menace to the field and garden crops."--_Yorkshire Paper_.
It is understood that the etymologists are chiefly concerned for
the roots.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE NATION DEMANDS.]
MR. PUNCH (_to the PRIME MINISTER_). "IF YOU _MUST_ HAVE DIRTY LINEN
WASHED IN PUBLIC DURING THE WAR, FOR GOD'S SAKE, SIR, WASH IT CLEAN."
* * * * *
[Illustration]
_Civilian model (posing for latest war picture)_. "MUS' SAY I'LL BE GLAD
WHEN PEACE IS DECLARED. THIS CLEARING HUNS OUT OF TRENCHES IS FAIR
TELLIN' ON ME."
* * * * *
THE ABSENTEE.
(_Embodying divers quotations from the poems of G.K.C._)
Methinks at last the time has come to speak...
Since good old Russia up and revoluted
I have been waiting, week by weary week,
To hear the news--the obvious item--bruited;
But now I give it up; it will not come;
Or anyway I can no more be dumb.
Where were you, GILBERT, when the great release--
"Freedom in arms, the riding and the routing,"
Demos superbly potting at police,
And actual swords getting an actual outing--
Came at the last, the things wherein you shone,
Or let us think you'd shine in, CHESTERTON?
You were not there! Damme, you were not _there_!
Alas for us whose faith refused to doubt you!
"All that lost riot that you did not share"
Managed, somehow, to get along without you;
When Russia "went to battle for the creed"
GILBERT sat tight and did not even bleed!
CHESTERTON! Dash it all, my dear old chap!
Why, weren't you always eloquent on "Valmy,"
"Death and the splendour of the scarlet cap"?
Here were the days you looked upon as palmy.
Just think of all your poems! Why, good Lord,
There is no word you work so hard as "sword."
We looked to see you there, the stout and staunch,
"Red flag" in one hand and "ten swords" in t'other;
Saw the strong sword-belt bursting from your paunch;
Pitied the foes you'd fall upon and smother;
Heard you make droves of pale policemen bleat,
Running amok to "slay them in the street."
Strong athwart Heav'n ran the high barricades,
And giant Bastilles reeled, impossibly smitten,
And men with broken hands swung thunderous blades
In "Russia's wrath"--just as you've often written;
Yea, the terrific tyrants really reeled,
While CHESTERTON sat safe at Beaconsfield.
And yet--I understand; I don't impute
That only in your poems do you bicker;
You would abstain, when people revolute,
No more, I'm sure, than you'd abstain from liquor;
And here we have it--here's the reason why:
_This was a revolution that was "dry."_
* * * * *
The Eagle's Plume.
"The bride, who is an American by birth, was given away by her
feather."--_Liverpool Daily Post_.
* * * * *
"Mr., Mrs. and Miss ----, who were in their bungalow at Sidbar, had
a lucky escape from the earthquake recently, for no sooner had they
ot out than gpractically the whole house cae mdown."--_Pioneer
(Allahabad)_.
On this occasion, contrary to the usual rule, Nature appears to have
been more careful of the individual than of the type.
* * * * *
"You, too, reader, if you have not already visited ----'s, have a
pleasant, bright happy experience before you. Why not visit this
modern Forum to-morrow?"--_"Callisthenes" in the evening papers,
June 23rd._
One of our reasons for not taking this well-meant advice was that June
24th was a Sunday.
* * * * *
"Great fires continue in Germany. The latest include gutting of the
Moabit Goods Station in Berlin wherein tanks of petrol, hydrogen,
_et cetera_, exploded, resulting in the destruction of a part of
Vilna and the township of Osjory near the Grodno conflagration
station and a basket factory at Happe."--_Ceylon Independent_.
The effect of this remarkably extensive explosion seems to have been
felt even in Colombo.
* * * * *
WOMAN AS USUAL.
(_In the manner of some of our own evening papers_.)
It was with a real pang that I tore myself away from the Frugality
Exhibition, where the culinary demonstrations were most enthralling.
Just before leaving, however, I watched a wonderfully tasty hash being
compounded with oddments of rabbit and banana flour. It exhaled an aroma
which I hated to leave--even for luncheon at the Fitz.
AT THE FITZ.
By a strange coincidence I made the acquaintance of an admirable rabbit
_goulash_, which was, I believe, identical with that which I saw being
prepared at the Frugality Exhibition. Thus extremes meet, and the fusion
of classes is happily illustrated in the common use of the same
comestibles.
There are always a number of people lunching in the great hotels in
these war-time days, and I was glad to see Lady Allchin, looking
remarkably well-nourished in a mauve Graeco-Roman dress and Gainsborough
hat; Lady Waterstock, Lord Hilary Sprockett and Sir Peter Frye-Smith.
YESTERDAY'S WEDDING.
Lady Carmilla Dunstable made a lovely bride at St. Mungo's, Belgravia,
yesterday, on her marriage to Prince Wurra-Wurra, of Tierra-del-Fuego.
The story of the engagement is wildly romantic. Lady Carmilla was
returning from Peru, where she had been hunting armadillos; the ship in
which she was travelling was wrecked in the Straits of Magellan, and she
was rescued by Prince Wurra-Wurra, who was casually cruising about in
his catamaran. Her family were for some time hostile to the match, but
all objections were soon removed, as the Prince has abjured cannibalism
and is now an uncompromising vegetarian. The bridegroom, who is a
fine-looking man of the prognathous type, was loudly cheered by the
crowd on leaving the church.
A CHARMING CONCERT.
All true melomaniacs will rejoice to hear that the Signora Balmi-Dotti
has decided to give another vocal recital at the Dorian Hall. Her
programme as usual reflects her catholic and cosmopolitan taste, for she
will sing not only Welsh and Cornish folk-songs, but works by
PALESTRINA, Gasolini, Larranaga, Sparafucile, and the young American
composer, Ploffskin Jee, so that both classical and modern masters will
be represented.
TWO RECIPES FOR TEA CAKES.
The FOOD CONTROLLER looks askance at teas in these days, but in hot
weather, when luncheon is reduced to the lowest common denominator and
dinner resolves itself into a cold collation in the cool of the evening,
some refreshment between our second and third meals is indispensable. I
accordingly give two recipes which need no wheaten flour and are very
quickly made.
Take half-a-pound of sugar, a quarter of caviare, a quarter of calipash,
a quarter of millet and six peaches. Beat the caviare to a cream and
pound the peaches to a pulp; then add the sugar and millet and stir
vigorously with a mirliton. Put into patty-pans and bake gently for
about thirty minutes in an electric silo-oven. About thirty cakes should
result; but more will materialize if you increase the ingredients
proportionately.
Take two kilowatts of ammoniated quinine and beat up with one very large
egg--a swan's for choice. Add gradually ten ounces of piperazine, a pint
of Harrogate water and inhale leisurely through a zoetrope.
MELISANDE.
* * * * *
[Illustration]
_Extract from Hun airman's report_. "WE DROPPED BOMBS ON A BRITISH
FORMATION, CAUSING THE TROOPS TO DISPERSE AND RUN ABOUT IN A
PANIC-STRICKEN MANNER."
* * * * *
The New Plutocracy.
"Munition Lady wants to buy Piano and Wardrobe; cash."--_North
Star._
* * * * *
"Goats' cheese is tasty and nourishing and more easily made than
butter; and in winter time the humblest of sheds will suffice for
its sleeping place."--_Daily Mail._
The cheese should however be carefully tethered.
* * * * *
CHARIVARIA.
According to an Italian report the conviction of the master-spy, VON
GERLACH, was effected by the aid of "the two most notorious burglars in
Europe." Another slight for LITTLE WILLIE.
***
Reporting on a Glasgow subway railway accident, Colonel PRINGLE advises
that "the use of ambiguous phraseology on telephones should not be
permitted." Abbreviations now dear to the London subscriber, such as
"Grrrrrrr-kuk-kuk-kuk-bbbzzzzz--are you--ping! phut! grrrrr!" etc.,
etc., will no longer be allowed.
***
The Sinn Feiners are proposing to send a mission to the United States to
explain their attitude. An upward tendency in plate-glass insurance is
already manifesting itself in New York and elsewhere.
***
Owing, we understand, to other distractions, no actress last week
obtained a divorce.
***
A trade union for funeral workers has just been formed, the members of
which are pledged to oppose Sunday burials. It is considered very
unlucky to be buried on a Sunday.
***
No, "Thespian," it is no longer considered correct to wear a straw hat
with a fur coat. Why not run the lawnmower over the astrachan collar?
***
A medical correspondent points out that wasps, gnats and midges can
be kept at a distance by using preparations of certain obnoxious
plants. There is also much to be said for the plan of making a noise
like a German.
***
The death of the "Old Lady of Charing Cross" is announced. The Old Lady
of Threadneedle Street, on the other hand, is still able to sit up and
take a note or two.
***
Internal matters are not being neglected by the House of Commons. Lord
RHONDDA on Bread and High Military Officers on Toast were the features
last week.
***
"What is a copper's'mark'?" asked a Metropolitan magistrate the other
day, just as if he were a High Court Judge.
***
An hotel fire occurred in Brook Street last week, and we are told that
the guests left the hotel and hurried into the street. Nothing is said
as to how this happy idea originated.
***
Mexico, it appears, has arranged that future revolutions shall be held
between Saturday and Monday, the week-end being selected as the most
suitable time for business men who are assisting America in war-work.
***
At a North of England police-court last week a seven-pound piece of
cheese was alleged to have made away with a conscientious objector.
***
We are informed that the fish landed in Great Britain in 1916 weighed
8,173,639 hundredweight. The angler who killed it still sticks to the
story that he thought it was much larger than this.
***
Two brass wedding-rings have been found inside a salmon caught on the
Wye. As the fish looked extremely worried it is thought that it must
have been leading a double, or even treble, life.
***
Some consternation has been caused among food-profiteers in this country
by a recent dictum of Mr. SCHWAB, the American millionaire, to the
effect that "Honesty is the best policy."
***
In connection with the food-economy campaign a notable example has been
set by the python at the Zoo, who has decided to give up his
mid-monthly lunch.
***
Among the prisoners recently captured on the Carso is a Major who bears
a remarkable likeness to Marshal VON HINDENBURG. The unfortunate Major,
it appears, explains that it is no fault of his, being due to a terrible
accident he had when a boy.
***
A correspondent in _Folk Lore_ declares that the hedgehog is, after all,
a very lovable animal. We do not profess to be expert, but in any
comparison with other animals we imagine that the hedgehog ought to win
on points.
***
Lord NORTHCLIFFE has informed the Washington Red Cross Committee that
the War has only just begun. The United States regard it as a happy
coincidence that their entry into the War synchronises with the initial
operations.
***
The POSTMASTER-GENERAL has issued a recommendation that all eggs sent in
parcels to troops should be hard-boiled. Some difficulty has been
experienced, it is pointed out, in securing prompt delivery of portions
of uncooked eggs that may have escaped from the parcels in which they
were confined.
***
"Two privates in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers," says a news item, "cannot
speak a word of English, and their platoon-commander knows no Welsh."
Probably the platoon-sergeant knows some words that sound sufficiently
like Welsh.
***
The question of transport is officially stated to be one of the main
difficulties in connection with the beer supply. This however is
questioned by many patriotic consumers, who affirm that they are very
rarely able to get as much as they can carry.
***
The appointment of a Riot Controller for Cork and District is said to be
under consideration. Following the Indian Government's precedent as
exposed in the Mesopotamia Report, he will conduct his official business
from the Isle of Wight.
* * * * *
RUINED RAPTURE.
Through many a busy year of peace
I hoped some day, by way of beano,
To give myself a jaunt in Greece,
Famed land of HOMER (also TINO).
Full oft I dreamed how, blest by Fate,
I'd loll within some leafy hollow
With Aphrodite _tete-a-tete_
Or barter back-chat with Apollo.
Around Olympus' foot I'd roam
(Not being really fond of climbing),
Absorb romance and carry home
Increased facility at rhyming;
Those hallowed haunts of many a god
That nowadays we only read of
Would give my Pegasus the <DW8>
He not unseldom stood in need of.
That was in Peace. And then the War
Sent me to learn within a hutment
What martial duties held in store
And what a sergeant-major's "Tut" meant;
Thence to the trenches, thence a rest,
A route-march to a wayside station,
With (every single soldier guessed)
Greece as our "unknown destination."
I saw Olympus wrapped in snow,
The clouds at rest upon its summit,
But did I thrill or long to throw
My hands athwart the lyre and strum it?
Gazing, I felt no soulful throb,
I only felt the body's inner
Cravings and said, "I 'll bet a bob
It's bully once again for dinner."
* * * * *
"Ex-King Constantino has bought a magnificent chateau called
Chartreuse, situated near Thun Castle. It belonged to Baron von
Zadlitz, a German officer, who is now in the field, and has been
empty since the beginning of the war."--_Evening Paper_.
Well, he will be able to fill himself up on the proceeds.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE LEAVE-WANGLER.]
* * * * *
[Illustration]
_Father._ "WHAT CLASS DID THEY PUT YOU IN COMING ACROSS?"
_Tommy._ "C 6."
* * * * *
HAY FEVER.
That is the twenty-seventh time to-day!
What is the use of Nobbs's Nasal Spray?
What use my aunt's "unfailing" recipes?
There _is_ no anodyne for this disease--
Thirty, I think! Another hanky, please--
A-tish-oo!
The world is gay; the bee bestrides the rose;
But I blaspheme and madly blow my nose.
For shame, O world! for shame, the heartless bee!
Your sweetest blooms are misery to me;
And as for that condemned acacia-tree--
A-tish-oo!
Oh, could I roam, contented like the sheep,
In sunlit fields where, as it is, I weep;
Oh, to be fashioned like the lower classes,
Who simply revel in the longest grasses,
While I sit lachrymose with glasses--
A-tish-oo!
Fain would I spend my summers high in air;
At least there are no privet-hedges there.
But even then I have no doubt the smell
From <DW72>s celestial of asphodel
Would fill the firmament and give me hell--
A-tish-oo!
They tell me 'tis the man of intellect
The baneful seeds especially affect;
And I that sneeze one million times a year--
I ought to have a notable career,
Though, at the price, an earldom would be dear--
A-tish-oo!
Gladly, indeed, to some less gifted swain
Would I concede my fine but fatal brain,
Could I like him but sniff the jasmine spray
Or couch unmoved within a mile of hay,
And not explode in this exhausting way--
A-tish-oo!
* * * * *
Wanted, a Faith-healer.
Dear Madam,--We have received your enquiry for Sergeant ----, and
wish to inform you that he was transferred to ---- Hospital,
suffering from a slightly sceptic toe. Trusting this information
may be of some value,
Yours faithfully, ----
* * * * *
"It scarcely seems as if the Premiership of Graf Moritz Esterhazy,
with all his Oxford education and the vigour of his thirty-six
years, will be able to bruise the serpent's heel."--_Observer_.
The serpent is so beastly cunning; he always sits on it.
* * * * *
"MARRIAGES.--All contemplating Marriage consult Proprietors ----
Matrimonial Bureau, Melbourne, opposite Old Cemetery. Specially
erected for the purpose."--_The Age_ (_Melbourne_).
This recalls the description of a famous football-ground in Dublin,
"conveniently situated between the Mater Misericordiae Hospital and
Glasnevin Cemetery."
* * * * *
"Margaret was clinging to Dick's arm as she walked, looking up
adoringly into his handsome, tanned face, with her blue eyes.
A week later Dick led Margaret into Suburban Garden, where he had
wooed and won her so long ago.
Dick's voice was very tender as he looked down into two grey
eyes."--_Manchester Evening Chronicle_.
If Margaret is not careful to be a little more consistent she will
finish with two black eyes.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE SAVING OF THE RACE.]
["National Baby Week" is being celebrated during the current week. The
object of the movement is to educate the Mothers of the Nation in the
care of their children's health and their own. Universal sympathy will
be felt for a cause to which our heavy losses in the War have given an
added urgency. Those who desire to give practical help towards the cost
of the scheme will kindly address their gifts to the Hon. Treasurer,
National Baby Week Council, 6, Holles Street, Oxford Street, W.I.]
* * * * *
ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
_Monday, June 25th_.--Mr. LYNCH is beginning to pine for the return of
Lord ROBERT CECIL. He does not quite know what to make of Mr. BALFOUR,
who politely represses his honest endeavours to elucidate the situation
in Greece, and actually declared to-day that the difficulties of the
Allies would only be increased by the hon. Member's attempts to deal
with them piecemeal. Mr. LYNCH was not entirely done with, however. "Is
that reply," he asked in a "got-him-this-time" manner, "given by reason
of freedom of choice or ineludible necessity?" "Sir," replied the
apologist of philosophic doubt with Johnsonian authority, "questions of
freewill and necessity have perplexed mankind for ages."
The House will be delighted to welcome back to its fold Sir ROBERT
HERMAN-HODGE, whose flowing moustaches, once described as "the best
definition of infinity," have been, at intervals, its pride and joy for
over thirty years. But it will have to wait a while, for--strange lapse
on the part of a hero of half-a-dozen contests!--Sir ROBERT had omitted
to bring with him the returning-officer's certificate. Lord HALSBURY,
delayed by a similar accident on his first appearance in the House forty
years ago, systematically turned out the contents of seemingly endless
pockets and eventually discovered the missing document in his hat.
At this crisis in Ireland's affairs you might suppose that all good
Nationalists would remain in their country, doing their best to make the
Convention a success. Mr. DILLON prefers to attack the Government at
Westminster, because it proposes to set up a Conference to consider the
future composition and powers of the Second Chamber. Was it not, he
asked, a breach of privilege to do this without the express consent of
the House of Commons? The SPEAKER thought not, and referred his
questioner to the preamble of the Parliament Act of 1911, in which such
action was distinctly contemplated. Mr. DILLON, thus suddenly
transported to the dear dead days before the War, when he was
hand-in-glove with the present PRIME MINISTER, considers that Mr.
LOWTHER is open to censure for possessing a memory of such indecent
length and accuracy.
_Tuesday, June 26th_.--A gentle creature at ordinary times, Lord
STRACHIE has been roused to unexpected ferocity by the German air-raids,
and advocates a policy of unmitigated reprisals upon the enemy's cities.
Had his appeal been successful he would have been recorded in history as
the mildest-mannered man that ever bombed a German baby. But Lord DERBY
would have none of it. British aeroplanes--of which, like every nation
engaged in the War, we have none too many--shall only be employed in
bombing when some distinctly military object is to be achieved.
[Illustration: THE RIVALS. MR. BRACE. SIR ROBERT HERMAN-HODGE.]
After much consultation with the military authorities the Government has
decided that to issue general warnings on the occasion of an air-raid
would tend to do more harm than good; and the LORD MAYOR (_teste_ Mr.
CATHCART WASON) has announced that he will not ring the great bell of
St. Paul's. The DEAN and Chapter, while regretting that Sir WILLIAM DUNN
should be deprived of a health-giving exercise, had, as a point of fact,
declined to countenance his contemplated invasion of their belfry.
[Illustration: A FIRM CHIN IN ANNIE'S DEFENCE. COMMANDER WEDGWOOD.]
Commander WEDGWOOD, I am sorry to observe, has almost exhausted the
store of commonsense that he brought back with him from the trenches at
Gallipoli. Otherwise he would hardly have championed the cause of Mrs.
ANNIE BESANT, upon whose activities the Government of Madras have
imposed certain salutary restrictions. What India wants, I understand,
is less Besant and more Rice.
Now that young soldiers are to have votes as a reward for fighting there
is logically a strong argument for taking away the franchise from those
who have refused to fight. It was well expressed by Mr. RONALD MCNEILL
and others, but, apart from the objections urged on high religious
grounds by Lord HUGH CECIL, the Government was probably right in
resisting the proposal. Parliament made a mistake in ever giving a
statutory exemption to the conscientious objector. The most that person
could claim was that he should not be called upon to take other people's
lives; he had no right to be excused from risking his own. But having
deliberately provided a loophole it is hardly fair for Parliament to
inflict a penalty upon those who creep through it. And so the House
thought, for it rejected the proposal by a two-to-one majority.
_Wednesday, June 27th_.--There is a general impression that
membership of the House of Commons is in itself a sufficient excuse
for the avoidance of military service. This, it appears, is
erroneous. Only those are exempt whom a Medical Board has declared
unfit for general service; and even these, according to Mr. FORSTER,
may now be re-examined. This ought to prove a great comfort to
certain potential heroes.
_Thursday, June 28th_.--Mr. JOSEPH KING'S chief concern at the moment is
to get Lord HARDINGE removed from the Foreign Office, where he suspects
him of concocting the devastating answers with which Mr. BALFOUR
represses impertinent curiosity. Accordingly he raked up the old story
of Lord HARDINGE'S letter to Sir G. BUCHANAN, and inquired what action
the FOREIGN SECRETARY proposed to take. Mr. BALFOUR proposed to take no
action. The letter was a private communication, which would never have
been heard of but for its capture by a German submarine. Even Mr. KING'S
own correspondence, he suggested, could hardly be so dull that
everything in it would bear publication.
Mr. KING justly resented this imputation. Dull? Why, only this week his
letter-bag brought him news of the great reception accorded in Petrograd
to one TROTSKY, on his release from internment; and would the HOME
SECRETARY be more careful, please, about interning alien friends without
trial? Sir George Cave was sorry, but he had never heard of TROTSKY.
There was a certain KAUTSKY, who had been interned--by the Germans.
Perhaps Mr. King would address himself to them.
The MINISTER OF MUNITIONS had a good audience for his review of the
wonderful work of his department. Who could refuse the chance of
listening to ADDISON on Steel? I cannot honestly say that the result of
this combination was quite so sparkling as it should have been, for the
orator stuck closely to his manuscript and allowed himself few flights
of fancy. But the facts spoke for themselves, and the House readily
endorsed the verdict already given by Vimy Ridge and Messines.
* * * * *
[Illustration]
"DOES GOD MAKE LIONS, MOTHER?"
"YES, DEAR."
"BUT ISN'T HE FRIGHTENED TO?"
* * * * *
"You remember that lachrymose elegiac of Tom Moore, The
Exile's Lament,
'I'm sitting on the stile, Mary,
Where we sat side by side.'"
--_Canadian Courier._
No, frankly, we don't. But we seem to have a dim recollection that Lady
DUFFERIN wrote something very like it.
* * * * *
A RESOLUTION.
I'll tell you what I mean to do
When these our wars shall cease to rage:
I'll go where Summer skies are blue
And Spring enjoys her heritage;
I shall not work for fame or wage,
But wear a large black silk cravat,
A velvet coat that's grey with age
Beneath a high-crowned broad-brimmed hat.
I'll journey to some Tuscan town
And rent a palace for a song,
And all the walls I'll whitewash down
Some day when I am feeling strong;
And there I'll pass my days among
My books, and, when my reading palls
And Summer days are overlong,
I'll daub up frescoes on the walls.
The world may go her divers ways
The while I draw or write or smoke,
Happy to live laborious days
There among simple painter folk;
To wed the olive and the oak,
Most patiently to woo the Muse,
And wear a great big Tuscan cloak
To guard against the heavy dews.
Between the olive and the vine
I'll make heroic mock of Mars,
And drink at even golden wine
Kept cool in terra-cotta jars;
And afterwards harangue the stars
In little gems of fervid speech,
And smoke impossible cigars
Which cost at least three _soldi_ each.
Let more ambitious spirits spin
The web of life for weal or woe,
Whilst I above my violin
Shall sit and watch the vale below
All crimson in the afterglow;
And when the patient stars grow bright
I'll draw across the strings my bow
Till Chopin ushers in the night.
Such things as these I mean to do
When Peace once more resumes her sway;
To walk barefooted through the dew
And while the sunlit hours away,
If haply I may find some gay
Conceit to light a sombre mind,
As gracious as a Summer day,
As wayward as an April wind.
* * * * *
A Legitimate Inference.
"FOUND, Brown Dog, very clever begging, great pet, believed property
clergyman."--_Belfast Evening Telegraph_.
* * * * *
"The Molahiz of the district ordered to arrest the criminals and
hand them to the Dilitary Authorities for trial has been able to
seize the materials stolen. Enquiry is still going
on."--_Egyptian Mail_.
The authorities seem to be living up to their title.
* * * * *
THE TWO MISSING NUMBERS.
A CONTRAST.
I.
My friend X. is normally the mildest of men. His temper is under perfect
control; and in his favourite part of the angels' advocate he finds
palliations and makes allowances for all those defections in the
servants of the public which goad men to fury and which, since the War
came in to supply incompetence with a cloak and a pretext, have been
exasperatingly on the increase. Thus, serene and considerate, has X.
gone his uncomplaining way for years.
But yesterday I found him on the kerb in the Strand inarticulate and
purple with rage. His face was hardly recognisable, so distorted
were those ordinarily placid features. His eyes were fixed on a
receding taxi.
Fearing that he might be ill I took his arm; but he flung himself free.
"Don't touch me," he said; "I can't bear it." Having reached a point in
life when tact is second nature, I waited silently near him until the
storm should have passed.
His eyes were still fixed.
After a short time he recovered sufficiently to turn to me and explain.
"I could have killed that fellow," he said.
"What fellow?"
"That taxi-driver. He went by slowly with his flag up and wouldn't look
at me. I hailed him, and I know he heard, but he wouldn't look at me.
Now I don't mind when they point, or make any kind of sign that they
don't want to be hired, or say that they have no petrol, even if I don't
believe it; but when they won't turn their heads or pay any attention
whatever I could kill them. And there's such a lot of them like that. I
swear," he went on, beginning to go purple again--"I swear that, if I
had had a revolver just now, I should have shot him. When one man hails
another, the man who is hailed must give some kind of an indication.
It's only human. Society would fall to pieces if we all behaved like
that chap. It's awful, awful! If I'd only thought of taking his number
I'd run him in, and I'd carry it to the House of Lords if necessary.
Such men--ugh!"
He broke down, smothered by righteous anger.
"Good heavens!" he exclaimed as I was leaving, "if I'd only taken
his number!"
II.
The same night a miracle happened. It was very late, and the _debris_ of
a little charity performance at an assembly-room had to be cleared away.
The last guests had gone--in this or that conveyance, or on our best
friends in war-time, the feet--and that hunt for a taxi, which has now
taken the place of all other sport, was being prosecuted with more or
less energy by a policeman, a loafer and two or three amateurs, all of
whom returned at intervals while the packing-up was in progress, to say
how hopeless the case was and how independent the men had become.
One passing cab I hailed myself, but he did no more than laugh a loud
laugh of mere incivility and ironically remark, "Ter-morrer!"
signifying, as I understood it, that nothing on earth should interfere
with his homeward journey that night, since he had done enough and was
tired, but that on the succeeding day, if I still required his services,
he was at my disposal.
The various bags and parcels being now all ready, we waited patiently in
the hall, and from time to time received reports as to the progress of
the chase.
At last, when things seemed really hopeless, a taxi arrived, driven by a
young man in spectacles, which were, I am convinced, part of a disguise
covering one of the noblest personalities in the land--some Haroun al
Raschid, filled with pity for lost Londoners, who is devoting his life
to redressing the wrongs inflicted upon poor humanity by taxi
tyrants--for he said nothing about having no petrol, nothing about the
lateness of the hour, nothing about the direction in which we wished to
go, but quietly and efficiently helped to get the things in and on the
cab; and then drove swiftly away, and when we got to the other end
insisted on carrying some of the bundles up three flights of stairs, and
had no objection to make when asked to wait a little longer and go on
elsewhere.
All this time I was, I need hardly say, in a dream. Could it be
true? Could it?
And when he was at last paid off he said both "Good night" and "Thank
you," although it was I in whom gratitude should have thus vocally
burned. Perhaps it did; I was too dazed to remember. |
10,240 |
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THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.
NUMBER 28. SATURDAY, JANUARY 9, 1841. VOLUME I.
[Illustration: CASTLE-CAULFIELD, COUNTY OF TYRONE.]
The subject of our prefixed illustration is one of no small interest,
whether considered as a fine example--for Ireland--of the domestic
architecture of the reign of James I, or as an historical memorial of the
fortunes of the illustrious family whose name it bears--the noble house
of Charlemont, of which it was the original residence. It is situated
near the village of the same name, in the parish of Donaghmore, barony of
Dungannon, and about three miles west of Dungannon, the county town.
Castle-Caulfield owes its erection to Sir Toby Caulfield, afterwards
Lord Charlemont--a distinguished English soldier who had fought in Spain
and the Low Countries in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and commanded a
company of one hundred and fifty men in Ireland in the war with O’Neill,
Earl of Tyrone, at the close of her reign. For these services he was
rewarded by the Queen with a grant of part of Tyrone’s estate, and other
lands in the province of Ulster; and on King James’s accession to the
British crown, was honoured with knighthood, and made governor of the
fort of Charlemont, and of the counties of Tyrone and Armagh. At the
plantation of Ulster he received further grants of lands, and among them
1000 acres called Ballydonnelly, or O’Donnelly’s town, in the barony of
Dungannon, on which, in 1614, he commenced the erection of the mansion
subsequently called Castle-Caulfield. This mansion is described by Pynnar
in his Survey of Ulster in 1618-19, in the following words:--
“Sir Toby Caulfield hath one thousand acres called Ballydonnell [_recte_
Ballydonnelly], whereunto is added beside what was certified by Sir
Josias Bodley, a fair house or castle, the front whereof is eighty feet
in length and twenty-eight feet in breadth from outside to outside, two
cross ends fifty feet in length and twenty-eight feet in breadth: the
walls are five feet thick at the bottom, and four at the top, very good
cellars under ground, and all the windows are of hewn stone. Between
the two cross ends there goeth a wall, which is eighteen feet high, and
maketh a small court within the building. This work at this time is but
thirteen feet high, and a number of men at work for the sudden finishing
of it. There is also a strong bridge over the river, which is of lime and
stone, with strong buttresses for the supporting of it. And to this is
joined a good water-mill for corn, all built of lime and stone. This is
at this time the fairest building I have seen. Near unto this Bawne there
is built a town, in which there is fifteen English families, who are able
to make twenty men with arms.”
The ruins of this celebrated mansion seem to justify the opinion
expressed by Pynnar, that it was the fairest building he had seen, that
is, in the counties of the plantation, for there are no existing remains
of any house erected by the English or Scottish undertakers equal to
it in architectural style. It received, however, from the second Lord
Charlemont, the addition of a large gate-house with towers, and also of a
strong keep or donjon.
From the ancient maps of Ulster of Queen Elizabeth’s time, preserved in
the State Paper Office, Castle-Caulfield appears to have been erected
on the site of a more ancient castle or fort, called Fort O’Donallie,
from the chief of the ancient Irish family of O’Donghaile or O’Donnelly,
whose residence it was, previously to the confiscation of the northern
counties; and the small lake in its vicinity was called Lough O’Donallie.
This family of O’Donnelly were a distinguished branch of the Kinel-Owen,
or northern Hy-Niall race, of which the O’Neills were the chiefs in the
sixteenth century; and it was by one of the former that the celebrated
Shane or John O’Neill, surnamed the proud, and who also bore the cognomen
of Donghailach, or the Donnellian, was fostered, as appears from the
following entry in the Annals of the Four Masters, at the year 1531:--
“Ballydonnelly was assaulted by Niall Oge, the son of Art, who was the
son of Con O’Neill. He demolished the castle, and having made a prisoner
of the son of O’Neill, who was the foster-son of O’Donnelly, he carried
him off, together with several horses and the other spoils of the place.”
We have felt it necessary to state the preceding facts relative to the
ancient history of Ballydonnelly, or Castle-Caulfield, as it is now
denominated, because an error of Pynnar’s, in writing the ancient name as
Ballydonnell--not Ballydonnelly, as it should have been--has been copied
by Lodge, Archdall, and all subsequent writers; some of whom have fallen
into a still more serious mistake, by translating the name as “the town
of O’Donnell,” thus attributing the ancient possession of the locality
to a family to whom it never belonged. That Ballydonnelly was truly,
as we have stated, the ancient name of the place, and that it was the
patrimonial residence of the chief of that ancient family, previously
to the plantation of Ulster, must be sufficiently indicated by the
authorities we have already adduced; but if any doubt on this fact could
exist, it would be removed by the following passage in an unpublished
Irish MS. Journal of the Rebellion of 1641, in our own possession,
from which it appears that, as usual with the representatives of the
dispossessed Irish families on the breaking out of that unhappy conflict,
the chief of the O’Donnellys seized upon the Castle-Caulfield mansion as
of right his own:--
“October 1641. Lord Caulfield’s castle in Ballydonnelly (_Baile I
Donghoile_) was taken by Patrick Moder (the gloomy) O’Donnelly.”
The Lord Charlemont, with his family, was at this time absent from
his home in command of the garrison of Charlemont, and it was not his
fate ever to see it afterwards; he was treacherously captured in his
fortress about the same period by the cruel Sir Phelim O’Neill, and was
barbarously murdered while under his protection, if not, as seems the
fact, by his direction, on the 1st of March following. Nor was this
costly and fairest house of its kind in “the north” ever after inhabited
by any of his family; it was burned in those unhappy “troubles,” and left
the melancholy, though picturesque memorial of sad events which we now
see it.
P.
THE LAKE OF THE LOVERS, A LEGEND OF LEITRIM.
How many lovely spots in this our beautiful country are never embraced
within those pilgrimages after the picturesque, which numbers
periodically undertake, rather to see what is known to many, and
therefore should be so to them, than to visit nature, for her own sweet
sake, in her more devious and undistinguished haunts! For my part, I
am well pleased that the case stands thus. I love to think that I am
treading upon ground unsullied by the footsteps of the now numerous
tribe of mere professional peripatetics--that my eyes are wandering over
scenery, the freshness of which has been impaired by no transfer to the
portfolio of the artist or the tablets of the poetaster: that, save
the scattered rustic residents, there is no human link to connect its
memorials with the days of old, and, save their traditionary legends, no
story to tell of its fortunes in ancient times. The sentiment is no doubt
selfish as well as anti-utilitarian; but then I must add that it is only
occasional, and will so far be pardoned by all who know how delightful
it is to take refuge in the indulgent twilight of tradition from the
rugged realities of recorded story. At all events, a rambler in any of
our old, and especially mountainous tracts, will rarely lack abundant
aliment for his thus modified sense of beauty, sublimity, or antiquarian
fascination; and scenes have unexpectedly opened upon me in the solitudes
of the hills and lakes of some almost untrodden and altogether unwritten
districts, that have had more power to stir my spirit than the lauded and
typographed, the versified and pictured magnificence of Killarney or of
Cumberland, of Glendalough or of Lomond. It may have been perverseness
of taste, or the fitness of mood, or the influence of circumstance, but
I have been filled with a feeling of the beautiful when wandering among
noteless and almost nameless localities to which I have been a stranger,
when standing amid the most boasted beauties with the appliances of
hand-book and of guide, with appetite prepared, and sensibilities on the
alert. It is I suppose partly because the power of beauty being relative,
a high pitch of expectancy requires a proportionate augmentation of
excellence, and partly because the tincture of contrariety in our
nature ever inclines us to enact the perverse critic, when called on to
be the implicit votary. This in common with most others I have often
felt, but rarely more so than during a casual residence some short
time since among the little celebrated, and therefore perhaps a little
more charming, mountain scenery of the county, which either has been,
or might be, called Leitrim of the Lakes; for a tract more pleasantly
diversified with well-set sheets of water, it would I think be difficult
to name. Almost every hill you top has its still and solitary tarn, and
almost every amphitheatre you enter, encompasses its wild and secluded
lake--not seldom bearing on its placid bosom some little islet, linked
with the generations past, by monastic or castellated ruins, as its
seclusion or its strength may have invited the world-wearied anchorite to
contemplation, or the predatory chieftain to defence.
On such a remote and lonely spot I lately chanced to alight, in the
course of a long summer day’s ramble among the heights and hollows of
that lofty range which for a considerable space abuts upon the borders
of Sligo and Roscommon. The ground was previously unknown to me, and
with all the zest which novelty and indefiniteness can impart, I started
staff in hand with the early sun, and ere the mists had melted from the
purple heather of their cloud-like summits, was drawing pure and balmy
breath within the lonely magnificence of the hills. About noon, as I was
casting about for some pre-eminently happy spot to fling my length for
an hour or two’s repose, I reached the crest of a long gradual ascent
that had been some time tempting me to look what lay beyond; and surely
enough I found beauty sufficient to dissolve my weariness, had it been
tenfold multiplied, and to allay my pulse, had it throbbed with the
vehemence of fever. An oblong valley girdled a lovely lake on every side;
here with precipitous impending cliffs, and there with grassy <DW72>s of
freshest emerald that seemed to woo the dimpling waters to lave their
loving margins, and, as if moved with a like impulse, the little wavelets
met the call with the gentle dalliance of their ebb and flow. A small
wooded island, with its fringe of willows trailing in the water, stood
about a furlong from the hither side, and in the centre of its tangled
brake, my elevation enabled me to descry what I may call the remnants of
a ruin--for so far had it gone in its decay--here green, there grey, as
the moss, the ivy, or the pallid stains of time, had happened to prevail.
A wild duck, with its half-fledged clutch, floated fearless from its
sedgy shore. More remote, a fishing heron stood motionless on a stone,
intent on its expected prey; and the only other animated feature in the
quiet scene was a fisherman who had just moored his little boat, and
having settled his tackle, was slinging his basket on his arm and turning
upward in the direction where I lay. I watched the old man toiling up
the steep, and as he drew nigh, hailed him, as I could not suffer him to
pass without learning at least the name, if it had one, of this miniature
Amhara. He readily complied, and placing his fish-basket on the ground,
seated himself beside it, not unwilling to recover his breath and recruit
his scanty stock of strength almost expended in the ascent. “We call it,”
said he in answer to my query, “the Lake of the Ruin, or sometimes, to
such as know the story, the Lake of the Lovers, after the two over whom
the tombstone is placed inside yon mouldering walls. It is an old story.
My grandfather told me, when a child, that he minded his grandfather
telling it to him, and for anything he could say, it might have come down
much farther. Had I time, I’d be proud to tell it to your honour, who
seems a stranger in these parts, for it’s not over long; but I have to go
to the Hall, and that’s five long miles off, with my fish for dinner, and
little time you’ll say I have to spare, though it be down hill nearly all
the way.” It would have been too bad to allow such a well-met chronicler
to pass unpumped, and, putting more faith in the attractions of my pocket
than of my person, I produced on the instant my luncheon-case and
flask, and handing him a handsome half of the contents of the former,
made pretty sure of his company for a time, by keeping the latter in my
own possession till I got him regularly launched in the story, when, to
quicken at once his recollection and his elocution, I treated him to an
inspiring draught. When he had told his tale, he left me with many thanks
for the refection; and I descending to his boat, entered it, and with the
aid of a broken oar contrived to scull myself over to the island, the
scene of the final fortunes of Connor O’Rourke and Norah M’Diarmod, the
faithful-hearted but evil-fated pair who were in some sort perpetuated in
its name. There, in sooth, within the crumbled walls, was the gravestone
which covered the dust of him the brave and her the beautiful; and
seating myself on the fragment of a sculptured capital, that showed
how elaborately reared the ruined edifice had been, I bethought me how
poorly man’s existence shows even beside the work of his own hands, and
endeavoured for a time to make my thoughts run parallel with the history
of this once-venerated but now forsaken, and, save by a few, forgotten
structure; but finding myself fail in the attempt, settled my retrospect
on that brief period wherein it was identified with the two departed
lovers whose story I had just heard, and which, as I sat by their lowly
sepulchre, I again repeated to myself.
This lake, as my informant told me, once formed a part of the boundary
between the possessions of O’Rourke the Left-handed and M’Diarmod the
Dark-faced, as they were respectively distinguished, two small rival
chiefs, petty in property but pre-eminent in passion, to whom a most
magnificent mutual hatred had been from generations back “bequeathed from
bleeding sire to son”--a legacy constantly swelled by accruing outrages,
for their paramount pursuits were plotting each other’s detriment or
destruction, planning or parrying plundering inroads, inflicting or
avenging injuries by open violence or secret subtlety, as seemed more
likely to promote their purposes. At the name of an O’Rourke, M’Diarmod
would clutch his battle-axe, and brandish it as if one of the detested
clan were within its sweep: and his rival, nothing behind in hatred,
would make the air echo to his deep-drawn imprecation on M’Diarmod
and all his abominated breed when any thing like an opportunity was
afforded him. Their retainers of course shared the same spirit of mutual
abhorrence, exaggerated indeed, if that were possible, by their more
frequent exposure to loss in cattle and in crops, for, as is wont to be
the case, the cottage was incontinently ravaged when the stronghold was
prudentially respected. O’Rourke had a son, an only one, who promised
to sustain or even raise the reputation of the clan, for the youth knew
not what it was to blench before flesh and blood--his feet were over
foremost, in the wolf-hunt or the foray, and in agility, in valour, or
in vigour, none within the compass of a long day’s travel could stand
in comparison with young Connor O’Rourke. Detestation of the M’Diarmods
had been studiously instilled from infancy, of course; but although the
youth’s cheek would flush and his heart beat high when any perilous
adventure was the theme, yet, so far at least, it sprang more from
the love of prowess and applause than from the deadly hostility that
thrilled in the pulses of his father and his followers. In the necessary
intervals of forbearance, as in seed-time, harvest, or other brief
breathing-spaces, he would follow the somewhat analogous and bracing
pleasures of the chase; and often would the wolf or the stag--for shaggy
forests then clothed these bare and desert hills--fall before his spear
or his dogs, as he fleetly urged the sport afoot. It chanced one evening
that in the ardour of pursuit he had followed a tough, long-winded stag
into the dangerous territory of M’Diarmod. The chase had taken to the
water of the lake, and he with his dogs had plunged in after in the
hope of heading it; but having failed in this, and in the hot flush of
a hunter’s blood scorning to turn back, he pressed it till brought down
within a few spear-casts of the M’Diarmod’s dwelling. Proud of having
killed his venison under the very nose of the latter, he turned homeward
with rapid steps; for, the fire of the chase abated, he felt how fatal
would be the discovery of his presence, and was thinking with complacency
upon the wrath of the old chief on hearing of the contemptuous feat, when
his eye was arrested by a white figure moving slowly in the shimmering
mists of nightfall by the margin of the lake. Though insensible to the
fear of what was carnal and of the earth, he was very far from being so
to what savoured of the supernatural, and, with a slight ejaculation half
of surprise and half of prayer, he was about changing his course to give
it a wider berth, when his dogs espied it, and, recking little of the
spiritual in its appearance, bounded after it in pursuit. With a slight
scream that proclaimed it feminine as well as human, the figure fled, and
the youth had much to do both with legs and lungs to reach her in time to
preserve her from the rough respects of his ungallant escort. Beautiful
indignation lightened from the dark eyes and sat on the pouting lip of
Norah M’Diarmod--for it was the chieftain’s daughter--as she turned
disdainfully towards him.
“Is it the bravery of an O’Rourke to hunt a woman with his dogs? Young
chief, you stand upon the ground of M’Diarmod, and your name from the
lips of her”--she stopped, for she had time to glance again upon his
features, and had no longer heart to upbraid one who owned a countenance
so handsome and so gallant, so eloquent of embarrassment as well as
admiration.
Her tone of asperity and wounded pride declined into a murmur of
acquiescence as she hearkened to the apologies and deprecations of the
youth, whose gallantry and feats had so often rung in her ears, though
his person she had but casually seen, and his voice she had never before
heard. The case stood similar with Connor. He had often listened to the
praises of Norah’s beauty; he had occasionally caught distant glimpses of
her graceful figure; and the present sight, or after recollection, often
mitigated his feelings to her hostile clan, and, to his advantage, the
rugged old chief was generally associated with the lovely dark-eyed girl
who was his only child.
Such being their respective feelings, what could be the result of
their romantic rencounter? They were both young, generous children
of nature, with hearts fraught with the unhacknied feelings of youth
and inexperience: they had drunk in sentiment with the sublimities
of their mountain homes, and were fitted for higher things than the
vulgar interchange of animosity and contempt. Of this they soon were
conscious, and they did not separate until the stars began to burn above
them, and not even then, before they had made arrangements for at least
another--one more secret interview. The islet possessed a beautiful
fitness for their trysting place, as being accessible from either side,
and little obnoxious to observation; and many a moonlight meeting--for
the _one_ was inevitably multiplied--had these children of hostile
fathers, perchance on the very spot on which my eyes now rested, and
the unbroken stillness around had echoed to their gladsome greetings or
their faltering farewells. Neither dared to divulge an intercourse that
would have stirred to frenzy the treasured rancour of their respective
parents, each of whom would doubtless have preferred a connexion with
a blackamoor--if such were then in circulation--to their doing such
grievous despite to that ancient feud which as an heirloom had been
transmitted from ancestors whose very names they scarcely knew. M’Diarmod
the Dark-faced was at best but a gentle tiger even to his only child; and
though his stern cast-iron countenance would now and then relax beneath
her artless blandishments, yet even with the lovely vision at his side,
he would often grimly deplore that she had not been a son, to uphold the
name and inherit the headship of the clan, which on his demise would
probably pass from its lineal course; and when he heard of the bold
bearing of the heir of O’Rourke, he thought he read therein the downfall
of the M’Diarmods when he their chief was gone. With such ill-smothered
feelings of discontent he could not but in some measure repulse the
filial regards of Norah, and thus the confiding submission that would
have sprung to meet the endearments of his love, was gradually refused
to the inconsistencies of his caprice; and the maiden in her intercourse
with her proscribed lover rarely thought of her father, except as one
from whom it should be diligently concealed.
But unfortunately this was not to be. One of the night marauders of his
clan chanced in an evil hour to see Connor O’Rourke guiding his coracle
to the island, and at the same time a cloaked female push cautiously
from the opposite shore for the same spot. Surprised, he crouched among
the fern till their landing and joyous greeting put all doubt of their
friendly understanding to flight; and then, thinking only of revenge or
ransom, the unsentimental scoundrel hurried round the lake to M’Diarmod,
and informed him that the son of his mortal foe was within his reach.
The old man leaped from his couch of rushes at the thrilling news, and,
standing on his threshold, uttered a low gathering-cry, which speedily
brought a dozen of his more immediate retainers to his presence. As he
passed his daughter’s apartment, he for the first time asked himself who
can the woman be? and at the same moment almost casually glanced at
Norah’s chamber, to see that all there was quiet for the night. A shudder
of vague terror ran through his sturdy frame as his eye fell on the low
open window. He thrust in his head, but no sleeper drew breath within; he
re-entered the house and called aloud upon his daughter, but the echo of
her name was the only answer. A kern coming up put an end to the search,
by telling that he had seen his young mistress walking down to the
water’s edge about an hour before, but that, as she had been in the habit
of doing so by night for some time past, he had thought but little of it.
The odious truth was now revealed, and, trembling with the sudden gust of
fury, the old chief with difficulty rushed to the lake, and, filling a
couple of boats with his men, told them to pull for the honour of their
name and for the head of the O’Rourke’s first-born.
During this stormy prelude to a bloody drama, the doomed but unconscious
Connor was sitting secure within the dilapidated chapel by the side
of her whom he had won. Her quickened ear first caught the dip of an
oar, and she told her lover; but he said it was the moaning of the
night-breeze through the willows, or the ripple of the water among the
stones, and went on with his gentle dalliance. A few minutes, however,
and the shock of the keels upon the ground, the tread of many feet, and
the no longer suppressed cries of the M’Diarmods, warned him to stand on
his defence; and as he sprang from his seat to meet the call, the soft
illumination of love was changed with fearful suddenness into the baleful
fire of fierce hostility.
“My Norah, leave me; you may by chance be rudely handled in the scuffle.”
The terrified but faithful girl fell upon his breast.
“Connor, your fate is mine; hasten to your boat, if it be not yet too
late.”
An iron-shod hunting pole was his only weapon; and using it with his
right arm, while Norah hung upon his left, he sprang without further
parley through an aperture in the wall, and made for the water. But his
assailants were upon him, the M’Diarmod himself with upraised battle-axe
at their head.
“Spare my father,” faltered Norah; and Connor, with a mercifully
directed stroke, only dashed the weapon from the old man’s hand, and
then, clearing a passage with a vigorous sweep, accompanied with the
well-known charging cry, before which they had so often quailed, bounded
through it to the water’s brink. An instant, and with her who was now
more than his second self, he was once more in his little boat; but,
alas! it was aground, and so quickly fell the blows against him, that he
dare not adventure to shove it off. Letting Norah slip from his hold,
she sank backwards to the bottom of the boat; and then, with both arms
free, he redoubled his efforts, and after a short but furious struggle
succeeded in getting the little skiff afloat. Maddened at the sight, the
old chief rushed breast-deep into the water; but his right arm had been
disabled by a casual blow, and his disheartened followers feared, under
the circumstances, to come within range of that well-wielded club. But
a crafty one among them had already seized on a safer and surer plan.
He had clambered up an adjacent tree, armed with a heavy stone, and now
stood on one of the branches above the devoted boat, and summoned him to
yield, if he would not perish. The young chief’s renewed exertions were
his only answer.
“Let him escape, and your head shall pay for it,” shouted the infuriated
father.
The fellow hesitated. “My young mistress?”
“There are enough here to save her, if I will it. Down with the stone, or
by the blood----”
He needed not to finish the sentence, for down at the word it came,
striking helpless the youth’s right arm, and shivering the frail timber
of the boat, which filled at once, and all went down. For an instant
an arm re-appeared, feebly beating the water in vain--it was the young
chief’s broken one: the other held his Norah in its embrace, as was seen
by her white dress flaunting for a few moments on and above the troubled
surface. The lake at this point was deep, and though there was a rush of
the M’Diarmods towards it, yet in their confusion they were but awkward
aids, and the fluttering ensign that marked the fatal spot had sunk
before they reached it. The strength of Connor, disabled as he was by
his broken limb, and trammelled by her from whom even the final struggle
could not dissever him, had failed; and with her he loved locked in his
last embrace, they were after a time recovered from the water, and laid
side by side upon the bank, in all their touching, though, alas, lifeless
beauty! Remorse reached the rugged hearts even of those who had so
ruthlessly dealt by them; and as they looked on their goodly forms, thus
cold and senseless by a common fate, the rudest felt that it would be
an impious and unpardonable deed to do violence to their memory, by the
separation of that union which death itself had sanctified. Thus were
they laid in one grave; and, strange as it may appear, their fathers,
crushed and subdued, exhausted even of resentment by the overwhelming
stroke--for nothing can quell the stubborn spirit like the extremity of
sorrow--crossed their arms in amity over their remains, and grief wrought
the reconciliation which even centuries of time, that great pacificator,
had failed to do.
The westering sun now warning me that the day was on the wane, I gave but
another look to the time-worn tombstone, another sigh to the early doom
of those whom it enclosed, and then, with a feeling of regret, again left
the little island to its still, unshared, and pensive loneliness.
ANCIENT IRISH LITERATURE--No. IV.
The composition which we have selected as our fourth specimen of the
ancient literature of Ireland, is a poem, more remarkable, perhaps,
for its antiquity and historical interest, than for its poetic merits,
though we do not think it altogether deficient in those. It is ascribed,
apparently with truth, to the celebrated poet Mac Liag, the secretary of
the renowned monarch Brian Boru, who, as our readers are aware, fell at
the battle of Clontarf in 1014; and the subject of it is a lamentation
for the fallen condition of Kincora, the palace of that monarch,
consequent on his death.
The decease of Mac Liag, whose proper name was Muircheartach, is thus
recorded in the Annals of the Four Masters, at the year 1015:--
“Mac Liag, i. e. Muirkeartach, son of Conkeartach, at this time laureate
of Ireland, died.”
A great number of his productions are still in existence; but none of
them have obtained a popularity so widely extended as the poem before us.
Of the palace of Kincora, which was situated on the banks of the Shannon,
near Killaloe, there are at present no vestiges.
LAMENTATION OF MAC LIAG FOR KINCORA.
A Chinn-copath carthi Brian?
Oh, where, Kincora! is Brian the Great?
And where is the beauty that once was thine?
Oh, where are the princes and nobles that sate
At the feast in thy halls, and drank the red wine?
Where, oh, Kincora?
Oh, where, Kincora! are thy valorous lords?
Oh, whither, thou Hospitable! are they gone?
Oh, where are the Dalcassians of the Golden Swords?[1]
And where are the warriors that Brian led on?
Where, oh, Kincora?
And where is Morogh, the descendant of kings--
The defeater of a hundred--the daringly brave--
Who set but slight store by jewels and rings--
Who swam down the torrent and laughed at its wave?
Where, oh, Kincora?
And where is Donogh, King Brian’s worthy son?
And where is Conaing, the Beautiful Chief?
And Kian, and Corc? Alas! they are gone--
They have left me this night alone with my grief!
Left me, Kincora!
And where are the chiefs with whom Brian went forth,
The never-vanquished son of Evin the Brave,
The great King of Onaght, renowned for his worth,
And the hosts of Baskinn, from the western wave?
Where, oh, Kincora?
Oh, where is Duvlann of the Swiftfooted Steeds?
And where is Kian, who was son of Molloy?
And where is King Lonergan, the fame of whose deeds
In the red battle-field no time can destroy?
Where, oh, Kincora?
And where is that youth of majestic height,
The faith-keeping Prince of the Scots?--Even he,
As wide as his fame was, as great as was his might,
Was tributary, oh, Kincora, to me!
Me, oh, Kincora!
They are gone, those heroes of royal birth,
Who plundered no churches, and broke no trust,
’Tis weary for me to be living on the earth
When they, oh, Kincora, lie low in the dust!
Low, oh, Kincora!
Oh, never again will Princes appear,
To rival the Dalcassians of the Cleaving Swords!
I can never dream of meeting afar or anear,
In the east or the west, such heroes and lords!
Never, Kincora!
Oh, dear are the images my memory calls up
Of Brian Boru!--how he never would miss
To give me at the banquet the first bright cup!
Ah! why did he heap on me honour like this?
Why, oh, Kincora?
I am Mac Liag, and my home is on the Lake:
Thither often, to that palace whose beauty is fled,
Came Brian to ask me, and I went for his sake.
Oh, my grief! that I should live, and Brian be dead!
Dead, oh, Kincora!
M.
[1] _Coolg n-or_, of the swords _of gold_, i. e. of the _gold-hilted_
swords.
COLUMN FOR THE YOUNG.
Biography of a mouse.
“Biography of a mouse!” cries the reader; “well, what shall we have
next?--what can the writer mean by offering such nonsense for our
perusal?” There is no creature, reader, however insignificant and
unimportant in the great scale of creation it may appear to us,
short-sighted mortals that we are, which is forgotten in the care of
our own common Creator; not a sparrow falls to the ground unknown and
unpermitted by Him; and whether or not you may derive interest from the
biography even of a mouse, you will be able to form a better judgment,
after, than before, having read my paper.
The mouse belongs to the class _Mammalia_, or the animals which rear
their young by suckling them; to the order _Rodentia_, or animals whose
teeth are adapted for _gnawing_; to the genus _Mus_, or Rat kind, and the
family of _Mus musculus_, or domestic mouse. The mouse is a singularly
beautiful little animal, as no one who examines it attentively, and
without prejudice, can fail to discover. Its little body is plump and
sleek; its neck short; its head tapering and graceful; and its eyes
large, prominent, and sparkling. Its manners are lively and interesting,
its agility surprising, and its habits extremely cleanly. There are
several varieties of this little creature, amongst which the best known
is the common brown mouse of our granaries and store-rooms; the Albino,
or white mouse, with red eyes; and the black and white mouse, which is
more rare and very delicate. I mention these as _varieties_, for I think
we may safely regard them as such, from the fact of their propagating
unchanged, preserving their difference of hue to the fiftieth generation,
and never accidentally occurring amongst the offspring of differently
parents.
It is of the white mouse that I am now about to treat, and it is an
account of a tame individual of that extremely pretty variety that is
designed to form the subject of my present paper.
When I was a boy of about sixteen, I got possession of a white mouse; the
little creature was very wild and unsocial at first, but by dint of care
and discipline I succeeded in rendering it familiar. The principal agent
I employed towards effecting its domestication was a singular one, and
which, though I can assure the reader its effects are speedy and certain,
still remains to me inexplicable: this was, ducking in cold water; and by
resorting to this simple expedient, I have since succeeded in rendering
even the rat as tame and as playful as a kitten. It is out of my power to
explain the manner in which _ducking_ operates on the animal subjected to
it, but I wish that some physiologist more experienced than I am would
give his attention to the subject, and favour the public with the result
of his reflections.
At the time that I obtained possession of this mouse, I was residing at
Olney, in Buckinghamshire, a village which I presume my readers will
recollect as connected with the names of Newton and Cowper; but shortly
after having succeeded in rendering it pretty tame, circumstances
required my removal to Gloucester, whither I carried my little favourite
with me. During the journey I kept the mouse confined in a small wire
cage; but while resting at the inn where I passed the night, I adopted
the precaution of enveloping the cage in a handkerchief, lest by some
untoward circumstance its active little inmate might make its escape.
Having thus, as I thought, made all safe, I retired to rest. The moment
I awoke in the morning, I sprang from my bed, and went to examine the
cage, when, to my infinite consternation, I found it empty! I searched
the bed, the room, raised the carpet, examined every nook and corner, but
all to no purpose. I dressed myself as hastily as I could, and summoning
one of the waiters, an intelligent, good-natured man, I informed
him of my loss, and got him to search every room in the house. His
investigations, however, proved equally unavailing, and I gave my poor
little pet completely up, inwardly hoping, despite of its ingratitude
in leaving me, that it might meet with some agreeable mate amongst its
brown congeners, and might lead a long and happy life, unchequered by
the terrors of the prowling cat, and unendangered by the more insidious
artifices of the fatal trap. With these reflections I was just getting
into the coach which was to convey me upon my road, when a waiter came
running to the door, out of breath, exclaiming, “Mr R., Mr R., I declare
your little mouse is in the kitchen.” Begging the coachman to wait an
instant, I followed the man to the kitchen, and there, on the hob,
seated contentedly in a pudding dish, and devouring its contents with
considerable _gout_, was my truant protegé. Once more secured within
its cage, and the latter carefully enveloped in a sheet of strong brown
paper, upon my knee, I reached Gloucester.
I was here soon subjected to a similar alarm, for one morning the cage
was again empty, and my efforts to discover the retreat of the wanderer
unavailing as before. This time I had lost him for a week, when one
night, in getting into bed, I heard a scrambling in the curtains, and on
relighting my candle found the noise to have been occasioned by my mouse,
who seemed equally pleased with myself at our reunion. After having thus
lost and found my little friend a number of times, I gave up the idea
of confining him; and, accordingly, leaving the door of his cage open,
I placed it in a corner of my bedroom, and allowed him to go in and out
as he pleased. Of this permission he gladly availed himself, but would
regularly return to me at intervals of a week or a fortnight, and at such
periods of return he was usually much thinner than ordinary; and it was
pretty clear that during his visits to his brown acquaintances he fared
by no means so well as he did at home.
Sometimes, when he happened to return, as he often did, in the
night-time, on which occasions his general custom was to come into bed to
me, I used, in order to induce him to remain with me until morning, to
immerse him in a basin of water, and then let him lie in my bosom, the
warmth of which, after his cold bath, commonly ensured his stay.
Frequently, while absent on one of his excursions, I would hear an
unusual noise in the wainscot, as I lay in bed, of dozens of mice
running backwards and forwards in all directions, and squeaking in much
apparent glee. For some time I was puzzled to know whether this unusual
disturbance was the result of merriment or quarrelling, and I often
trembled for the safety of my pet, alone and unaided, among so many
strangers. But a very interesting circumstance occurred one morning,
which perfectly reassured me. It was a bright summer morning, about four
o’clock, and I was lying awake, reflecting as to the propriety of turning
on my pillow to take another sleep, or at once rising, and going forth to
enjoy the beauties of awakening nature. While thus meditating, I heard a
slight scratching in the wainscot, and looking towards the spot whence
the noise proceeded, perceived the head of a mouse peering from a hole.
It was instantly withdrawn, but a second was thrust forth. This latter I
at once recognised as my own white friend, but so begrimed by soot and
dirt that it required an experienced eye to distinguish him from his
darker-coated entertainers. He emerged from the hole, and running over
to his cage, entered it, and remained for a couple of seconds within
it; he then returned to the wainscot, and, re-entering the hole, some
scrambling and squeaking took place. A second time he came forth, and on
this occasion was followed closely, to my no small astonishment, by a
brown mouse, who followed him, with much apparent timidity and caution,
to his box, and entered it along with him. More astonished at this
singular proceeding than I can well express, I lay fixed in mute and
breathless attention, to see what would follow next. In about a minute
the two mice came forth from the cage, each bearing in its mouth a large
piece of bread, which they dragged towards the hole they had previously
left. On arriving at it, they entered, but speedily re-appeared, having
deposited their burden; and repairing once more to the cage, again loaded
themselves with provision, and conveyed it away. This second time they
remained within the hole for a much longer period than the first time;
and when they again made their appearance, they were attended by three
other mice, who, following their leaders to the cage, loaded themselves
with bread as did they, and carried away their burdens to the hole. After
this I saw them no more that morning, and on rising I discovered that
they had carried away every particle of food that the cage contained. Nor
was this an isolated instance of their white guest leading them forth to
where he knew they should find provender. Day after day, whatever bread
or grain I left in the cage was regularly removed, and the duration of my
pet’s absence was proportionately long. Wishing to learn whether hunger
was the actual cause of his return, I no longer left food in his box; and
in about a week afterwards, on awaking one morning, I found him sleeping
upon the pillow, close to my face, having partly wormed his way under my
cheek.
There was a cat in the house, an excellent mouser, and I dreaded lest she
should one day meet with and destroy my poor mouse, and I accordingly
used all my exertions with those in whose power it was, to obtain her
dismissal. She was, however, regarded by those persons as infinitely
better entitled to protection and patronage than a mouse, so I was
compelled to put up with her presence. People are fond of imputing to
cats a supernatural degree of sagacity: they will sometimes go so far
as to pronounce them to be genuine _witches_; and really I am scarcely
surprised at it, nor perhaps will the reader be, when I tell him the
following anecdote.
I was one day entering my apartment, when I was filled with horror at
perceiving my mouse picking up some crumbs upon the carpet, beneath
the table, and the terrible cat seated upon a chair watching him with
what appeared to me to be an expression of sensual anticipation and
concentrated desire. Before I had time to interfere, Puss sprang from
her chair, and bounded towards the mouse, who, however, far from being
terrified at the approach of his natural enemy, scarcely so much as
favoured her with a single look. |
10,240 |
Produced by Martin Ward
Weymouth New Testament in Modern Speech, Romans
Third Edition 1913
R. F. Weymouth
Book 45 Romans
001:001 Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an Apostle,
set apart to proclaim God's Good News,
001:002 which God had already promised through His Prophets in Holy Writ,
concerning His Son,
001:003 who, as regards His human descent, belonged to the posterity of David,
001:004 but as regards the holiness of His Spirit was decisively proved
by His Resurrection to be the Son of God--I mean concerning
Jesus Christ our Lord,
001:005 through whom we have received grace and Apostleship in His
service in order to win men to obedience to the faith,
among all Gentile peoples,
001:006 among whom you also, called, as you have been, to belong
to Jesus Christ, are numbered:
001:007 To all God's loved ones who are in Rome, called to be saints.
May grace and peace be granted to you from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ.
001:008 First of all, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for what He
has done for all of you; for the report of your faith is
spreading through the whole world.
001:009 I call God to witness--to whom I render priestly and spiritual
service by telling the Good News about His Son--how unceasingly
I make mention of you in His presence,
001:010 always in my prayers entreating that now, at length, if such
be His will, the way may by some means be made clear for me
to come to you.
001:011 For I am longing to see you, in order to convey to you some
spiritual help, so that you may be strengthened;
001:012 in other words that while I am among you we may be mutually
encouraged by one another's faith, yours and mine.
001:013 And I desire you to know, brethren, that I have many a time intended
to come to you--though until now I have been disappointed--
in order that among you also I might gather some fruit
from my labours, as I have already done among the rest
of the Gentile nations.
001:014 I am already under obligations alike to Greek-speaking races
and to others, to cultured and to uncultured people:
001:015 so that for my part I am willing and eager to proclaim
the Good News to you also who are in Rome.
001:016 For I am not ashamed of the Good News. It is God's power
which is at work for the salvation of every one who believes--
the Jew first, and then the Gentile.
001:017 For in the Good News a righteousness which comes from God is
being revealed, depending on faith and tending to produce faith;
as the Scripture has it, "The righteous man shall live by faith."
001:018 For God's anger is being revealed from Heaven against all
impiety and against the iniquity of men who through iniquity
suppress the truth. God is angry:
001:019 because what may be known about Him is plain to their
inmost consciousness; for He Himself has made it plain to them.
001:020 For, from the very creation of the world, His invisible perfections--
namely His eternal power and divine nature--have been
rendered intelligible and clearly visible by His works,
so that these men are without excuse.
001:021 For when they had come to know God, they did not give Him
glory as God nor render Him thanks, but they became absorbed
in useless discussions, and their senseless minds were darkened.
001:022 While boasting of their wisdom they became utter fools,
001:023 and, instead of worshipping the imperishable God, they worshipped
images resembling perishable man or resembling birds or
beasts or reptiles.
001:024 For this reason, in accordance with their own depraved cravings,
God gave them up to uncleanness, allowing them to dishonour
their bodies among themselves with impurity.
001:025 For they had bartered the reality of God for what is unreal,
and had offered divine honours and religious service
to created things, rather than to the Creator--He who is
for ever blessed. Amen.
001:026 This then is the reason why God gave them up to vile passions.
For not only did the women among them exchange the natural
use of their bodies for one which is contrary to nature,
but the men also,
001:027 in just the same way--neglecting that for which nature intends women--
burned with passion towards one another, men practising
shameful vice with men, and receiving in their own selves
the reward which necessarily followed their misconduct.
001:028 And just as they had refused to continue to have a full knowledge
of God, so it was to utterly worthless minds that God gave
them up, for them to do things which should not be done.
001:029 Their hearts overflowed with all sorts of dishonesty,
mischief, greed, malice. They were full of envy and murder,
and were quarrelsome, crafty, and spiteful.
001:030 They were secret backbiters, open slanderers; hateful to God,
insolent, haughty, boastful; inventors of new forms of sin,
disobedient to parents, destitute of common sense,
001:031 faithless to their promises, without natural affection,
without human pity.
001:032 In short, though knowing full well the sentence which God pronounces
against actions such as theirs, as things which deserve death,
they not only practise them, but even encourage and applaud
others who do them.
002:001 You are therefore without excuse, O man, whoever you are who
sit in judgement upon others. For when you pass judgement
on your fellow man, you condemn yourself; for you who sit
in judgement upon others are guilty of the same misdeeds;
002:002 and we know that God's judgement against those who commit
such sins is in accordance with the truth.
002:003 And you who pronounce judgement upon those who do such
things although your own conduct is the same as theirs--
do you imagine that you yourself will escape unpunished
when God judges?
002:004 Or is it that you think slightingly of His infinite goodness,
forbearance and patience, unaware that the goodness of God
is gently drawing you to repentance?
002:005 The fact is that in the stubbornness of your impenitent heart
you are treasuring up against yourself anger on the day
of Anger--the day when the righteousness of God's judgements
will stand revealed.
002:006 To each man He will make an award corresponding to his actions;
002:007 to those on the one hand who, by lives of persistent right-doing,
are striving for glory, honour and immortality, the Life
of the Ages;
002:008 while on the other hand upon the self-willed who disobey
the truth and obey unrighteousness will fall anger and fury,
affliction and awful distress,
002:009 coming upon the soul of every man and woman who deliberately
does wrong--upon the Jew first, and then upon the Gentile;
002:010 whereas glory, honour and peace will be given to every one
who does what is good and right--to the Jew first and then
to the Gentile.
002:011 For God pays no attention to this world's distinctions.
002:012 For all who have sinned apart from the Law will also perish
apart from the Law, and all who have sinned whilst living
under the Law, will be judged by the Law.
002:013 It is not those that merely hear the Law read who are righteous
in the sight of God, but it is those that obey the Law
who will be pronounced righteous.
002:014 For when Gentiles who have no Law obey by natural instinct
the commands of the Law, they, without having a Law,
are a Law to themselves;
002:015 since they exhibit proof that a knowledge of the conduct
which the Law requires is engraven on their hearts,
while their consciences also bear witness to the Law,
and their thoughts, as if in mutual discussion, accuse them
or perhaps maintain their innocence--
002:016 on the day when God will judge the secrets of men's lives by
Jesus Christ, as declared in the Good News as I have taught it.
002:017 And since you claim the name of Jew, and find rest and satisfaction
in the Law, and make your boast in God,
002:018 and know the supreme will, and can test things that differ--
being a man who receives instruction from the Law--
002:019 and have persuaded yourself that, as for you, you are a guide
to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness,
002:020 a schoolmaster for the dull and ignorant, a teacher of the young,
because in the Law you possess an outline of real knowledge
and an outline of the truth:
002:021 you then who teach your fellow man, do you refuse to teach yourself?
You who cry out against stealing, are you yourself a thief?
002:022 You who forbid adultery, do you commit adultery?
You who loathe idols, do you plunder their temples?
002:023 You who make your boast in the Law, do you offend against its
commands and so dishonour God?
002:024 For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentile nations
because of you, as Holy Writ declares.
002:025 Circumcision does indeed profit, if you obey the Law;
but if you are a Law-breaker, the fact that you have been
circumcised counts for nothing.
002:026 In the same way if an uncircumcised man pays attention to the just
requirements of the Law, shall not his lack of circumcision
be overlooked, and,
002:027 although he is a Gentile by birth, if he scrupulously obeys the Law,
shall he not sit in judgement upon you who, possessing, as you do,
a written Law and circumcision, are yet a Law-breaker?
002:028 For the true Jew is not the man who is simply a Jew outwardly,
and true circumcision is not that which is outward and bodily.
002:029 But the true Jew is one inwardly, and true circumcision
is heart-circumcision--not literal, but spiritual;
and such people receive praise not from men, but from God.
003:001 What special privilege, then, has a Jew? Or what benefit
is to be derived from circumcision?
003:002 The privilege is great from every point of view. First of all,
because the Jews were entrusted with God's truth.
003:003 For what if some Jews have proved unfaithful? Shall their
faithlessness render God's faithfulness worthless?
003:004 No, indeed; let us hold God to be true, though every man
should prove to be false. As it stands written, "That Thou
mayest be shown to be just in the sentence Thou pronouncest,
and gain Thy cause when Thou contendest."
003:005 But if our unrighteousness sets God's righteousness in a
clearer light, what shall we say? (Is God unrighteous--
I speak in our everyday language--when He inflicts punishment?
003:006 No indeed; for in that case how shall He judge all mankind?)
003:007 If, for instance, a falsehood of mine has made God's truthfulness
more conspicuous, redounding to His glory, why am I judged
all the same as a sinner?
003:008 And why should we not say--for so they wickedly misrepresent us,
and so some charge us with arguing--"Let us do evil that good
may come"? The condemnation of those who would so argue is just.
003:009 What then? Are we Jews more highly estimated than they?
Not in the least; for we have already charged all Jews
and Gentiles alike with being in thraldom to sin.
003:010 Thus it stands written, "There is not one righteous man.
003:011 There is not one who is really wise, nor one who is a diligent
seeker after God.
003:012 All have turned aside from the right path; they have every
one of them become corrupt. There is no one who does what
is right--no, not so much as one."
003:013 "Their throats resemble an opened grave; with their tongues
they have been talking deceitfully." "The venom of vipers
lies hidden behind their lips."
003:014 "Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness."
003:015 "Their feet move swiftly to shed blood.
003:016 Ruin and misery mark their path;
003:017 and the way to peace they have not known."
003:018 "There is no fear of God before their eyes."
003:019 But it cannot be denied that all that the Law says is addressed
to those who are living under the Law, in order that every
mouth may be stopped, and that the whole world may await
sentence from God.
003:020 For on the ground of obedience to Law no man living will be
declared righteous before Him. Law simply brings a sure
knowledge of sin.
003:021 But now a righteousness coming from God has been brought
to light apart from any Law, both Law and Prophets bearing
witness to it--
003:022 a righteousness coming from God, which depends on faith
in Jesus Christ and extends to all who believe.
No distinction is made;
003:023 for all alike have sinned, and all consciously come short
of the glory of God,
003:024 gaining acquittal from guilt by His free unpurchased grace
through the deliverance which is found in Christ Jesus.
003:025 He it is whom God put forward as a Mercy-seat,
rendered efficacious through faith in His blood, in order
to demonstrate His righteousness--because of the passing over,
in God's forbearance, of the sins previously committed--
003:026 with a view to demonstrating, at the present time, His righteousness,
that He may be shown to be righteous Himself, and the giver
of righteousness to those who believe in Jesus.
003:027 Where then is there room for your boasting? It is for ever
shut out. On what principle? On the ground of merit?
No, but on the ground of faith.
003:028 For we maintain that it is as the result of faith that a man is held
to be righteous, apart from actions done in obedience to Law.
003:029 Is God simply the God of the Jews, and not of the Gentiles also?
He is certainly the God of the Gentiles also,
003:030 unless you can deny that it is one and the same God who will
pronounce the circumcised to be acquitted on the ground of faith,
and the uncircumcised to be acquitted through the same faith.
003:031 Do we then by means of this faith abolish the Law? No, indeed;
we give the Law a firmer footing.
004:001 What then shall we say that Abraham, our earthly forefather,
has gained?
004:002 For if he was held to be righteous on the ground of his actions,
he has something to boast of; but not in the presence of God.
004:003 For what says the Scripture? "And Abraham believed God,
and this was placed to his credit as righteousness."
004:004 But in the case of a man who works, pay is not reckoned a favour
but a debt;
004:005 whereas in the case of a man who pleads no actions of his own,
but simply believes in Him who declares the ungodly free
from guilt, his faith is placed to his credit as righteousness.
004:006 In this way David also tells of the blessedness of the man to
whose credit God places righteousness, apart from his actions.
004:007 "Blessed," he says, "are those whose iniquities have been forgiven,
and whose sins have been covered over.
004:008 Blessed is the man of whose sin the Lord will not take account."
004:009 This declaration of blessedness, then, does it come simply
to the circumcised, or to the uncircumcised as well?
For Abraham's faith--so we affirm--was placed to his
credit as righteousness.
004:010 What then were the circumstances under which this took place?
Was it after he had been circumcised, or before?
004:011 Before, not after. And he received circumcision as a sign,
a mark attesting the reality of the faith-righteousness which was
his while still uncircumcised, that he might be the forefather
of all those who believe even though they are uncircumcised--
in order that this righteousness might be placed to their credit;
004:012 and the forefather of the circumcised, namely of those who
not merely are circumcised, but also walk in the steps
of the faith which our forefather Abraham had while he was
as yet uncircumcised.
004:013 Again, the promise that he should inherit the world did
not come to Abraham or his posterity conditioned by Law,
but by faith-righteousness.
004:014 For if it is the righteous through Law who are heirs,
then faith is useless and the promise counts for nothing.
004:015 For the Law inflicts punishment; but where no Law exists,
there can be no violation of Law.
004:016 All depends on faith, and for this reason--that acceptance
with God might be an act of pure grace,
004:017 so that the promise should be made sure to all Abraham's true
descendants; not merely to those who are righteous through the Law,
but to those who are righteous through a faith like that of Abraham.
Thus in the sight of God in whom he believed, who gives life
to the dead and makes reference to things that do not exist,
as though they did, Abraham is the forefather of all of us.
As it is written, "I have appointed you to be the forefather
of many nations."
004:018 Under utterly hopeless circumstances he hopefully believed,
so that he might become the forefather of many nations,
in agreement with the words "Equally numerous shall
your posterity be."
004:019 And, without growing weak in faith, he could contemplate his
own vital powers which had now decayed--for he was nearly
100 years old--and Sarah's barrenness.
004:020 Nor did he in unbelief stagger at God's promise, but became
mighty in faith, giving glory to God,
004:021 and being absolutely certain that whatever promise He is bound
by He is able also to make good.
004:022 For this reason also his faith was placed to his
credit as righteousness.
004:023 Nor was the fact of its being placed to his credit put on record
for his sake only;
004:024 it was for our sakes too. Faith, before long, will be placed
to the credit of us also who are believers in Him who raised Jesus,
our Lord, from the dead,
004:025 who was surrendered to death because of the offences we
had committed, and was raised to life because of the acquittal
secured for us.
005:001 Standing then acquitted as the result of faith, let us enjoy
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
005:002 through whom also, as the result of faith, we have obtained an
introduction into that state of favour with God in which we stand,
and we exult in hope of some day sharing in God's glory.
005:003 And not only so: we also exult in our sufferings, knowing as we do,
that suffering produces fortitude;
005:004 fortitude, ripeness of character; and ripeness of character, hope;
005:005 and that this hope never disappoints, because God's love
for us floods our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been
given to us.
005:006 For already, while we were still helpless, Christ at the right
moment died for the ungodly.
005:007 Why, it is scarcely conceivable that any one would die for a
simply just man, although for a good and lovable man perhaps
some one, here and there, will have the courage even to lay
down his life.
005:008 But God gives proof of His love to us in Christ's dying for us
while we were still sinners.
005:009 If therefore we have now been pronounced free from guilt
through His blood, much more shall we be delivered from God's
anger through Him.
005:010 For if while we were hostile to God we were reconciled to Him
through the death of His Son, it is still more certain
that now that we are reconciled, we shall obtain salvation
through Christ's life.
005:011 And not only so, but we also exult in God through our
Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now obtained
that reconciliation.
005:012 What follows? This comparison. Through one man sin entered
into the world, and through sin death, and so death passed
to all mankind in turn, in that all sinned.
005:013 For prior to the Law sin was already in the world; only it
is not entered in the account against us when no Law exists.
005:014 Yet Death reigned as king from Adam to Moses even over
those who had not sinned, as Adam did, against Law.
And in Adam we have a type of Him whose coming was still future.
005:015 But God's free gift immeasurably outweighs the transgression.
For if through the transgression of the one individual the mass
of mankind have died, infinitely greater is the generosity
with which God's grace, and the gift given in His grace
which found expression in the one man Jesus Christ, have been
bestowed on the mass of mankind.
005:016 And it is not with the gift as it was with the results of one
individual's sin; for the judgement which one individual
provoked resulted in condemnation, whereas the free gift
after a multitude of transgressions results in acquittal.
005:017 For if, through the transgression of the one individual,
Death made use of the one individual to seize the sovereignty,
all the more shall those who receive God's overflowing grace
and gift of righteousness reign as kings in Life through
the one individual, Jesus Christ.
005:018 It follows then that just as the result of a single transgression
is a condemnation which extends to the whole race, so also
the result of a single decree of righteousness is a life-giving
acquittal which extends to the whole race.
005:019 For as through the disobedience of the one individual the mass
of mankind were constituted sinners, so also through the obedience
of the One the mass of mankind will be constituted righteous.
005:020 Now Law was brought in later on, so that transgression
might increase. But where sin increased, grace has overflowed;
005:021 in order that as sin has exercised kingly sway in inflicting death,
so grace, too, may exercise kingly sway in bestowing
a righteousness which results in the Life of the Ages through
Jesus Christ our Lord.
006:001 To what conclusion, then, shall we come? Are we to persist
in sinning in order that the grace extended to us may
be the greater?
006:002 No, indeed; how shall we who have died to sin, live in
it any longer?
006:003 And do you not know that all of us who have been baptized
into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?
006:004 Well, then, we by our baptism were buried with Him in death,
in order that, just as Christ was raised from among the dead
by the Father's glorious power, we also should live an
entirely new life.
006:005 For since we have become one with Him by sharing in His death,
we shall also be one with Him by sharing in His resurrection.
006:006 This we know--that our old self was nailed to the cross with Him,
in order that our sinful nature might be deprived of its power,
so that we should no longer be the slaves of sin;
006:007 for he who has paid the penalty of death stands absolved
from his sin.
006:008 But, seeing that we have died with Christ, we believe that we
shall also live with Him;
006:009 because we know that Christ, having come back to life,
is no longer liable to die.
006:010 Death has no longer any power over Him. For by the death
which He died He became, once for all, dead in relation to sin;
but by the life which He now lives He is alive in relation to God.
006:011 In the same way you also must regard yourselves as dead
in relation to sin, but as alive in relation to God,
because you are in Christ Jesus.
006:012 Let not Sin therefore reign as king in your mortal bodies,
causing you to be in subjection to their cravings;
006:013 and no longer lend your faculties as unrighteous weapons for Sin
to use. On the contrary surrender your very selves to God
as living men who have risen from the dead, and surrender
your several faculties to God, to be used as weapons to
maintain the right.
006:014 For Sin shall not be lord over you, since you are subjects
not of Law, but of grace.
006:015 Are we therefore to sin because we are no longer under
the authority of Law, but under grace? No, indeed!
006:016 Do you not know that if you surrender yourselves as bondservants
to obey any one, you become the bondservants of him whom you obey,
whether the bondservants of Sin (with death as the result)
or of Duty (resulting in righteousness)?
006:017 But thanks be to God that though you were once in thraldom to Sin,
you have now yielded a hearty obedience to that system of truth
in which you have been instructed.
006:018 You were set free from the tyranny of Sin, and became
the bondservants of Righteousness--
006:019 your human infirmity leads me to employ these familiar figures--
and just as you once surrendered your faculties into bondage
to Impurity and ever-increasing disregard of Law, so you
must now surrender them into bondage to Righteousness ever
advancing towards perfect holiness.
006:020 For when you were the bondservants of sin, you were under no
sort of subjection to Righteousness.
006:021 At that time, then, what benefit did you get from conduct
which you now regard with shame? Why, such things finally
result in death.
006:022 But now that you have been set free from the tyranny of Sin,
and have become the bondservants of God, you have your reward
in being made holy, and you have the Life of the Ages
as the final result.
006:023 For the wages paid by Sin are death; but God's free gift is
the Life of the Ages bestowed upon us in Christ Jesus our Lord.
007:001 Brethren, do you not know--for I am writing to people acquainted
with the Law--that it is during our lifetime that we are
subject to the Law?
007:002 A wife, for instance, whose husband is living is bound to him
by the Law; but if her husband dies the law that bound her
to him has now no hold over her.
007:003 This accounts for the fact that if during her husband's life she
lives with another man, she will be stigmatized as an adulteress;
but that if her husband is dead she is no longer under
the old prohibition, and even though she marries again,
she is not an adulteress.
007:004 So, my brethren, to you also the Law died through the incarnation
of Christ, that you might be wedded to Another, namely to
Him who rose from the dead in order that we might yield
fruit to God.
007:005 For whilst we were under the thraldom of our earthly natures,
sinful passions--made sinful by the Law--were always being
aroused to action in our bodily faculties that they might yield
fruit to death.
007:006 But seeing that we have died to that which once held us
in bondage, the Law has now no hold over us, so that we
render a service which, instead of being old and formal,
is new and spiritual.
007:007 What follows? Is the Law itself a sinful thing?
No, indeed; on the contrary, unless I had been taught
by the Law, I should have known nothing of sin as sin.
For instance, I should not have known what covetousness is,
if the Law had not repeatedly said, "Thou shalt not covet."
007:008 Sin took advantage of this, and by means of the Commandment
stirred up within me every kind of coveting; for apart from
Law sin would be dead.
007:009 Once, apart from Law, I was alive, but when the Commandment came,
sin sprang into life, and I died;
007:010 and, as it turned out, the very Commandment which was to bring
me life, brought me death.
007:011 For sin seized the advantage, and by means of the Commandment
it completely deceived me, and also put me to death.
007:012 So that the Law itself is holy, and the Commandment is holy,
just and good.
007:013 Did then a thing which is good become death to me? No, indeed,
but sin did; so that through its bringing about death by means
of what was good, it might be seen in its true light as sin,
in order that by means of the Commandment the unspeakable
sinfulness of sin might be plainly shown.
007:014 For we know that the Law is a spiritual thing; but I am unspiritual--
the slave, bought and sold, of sin.
007:015 For what I do, I do not recognize as my own action.
What I desire to do is not what I do, but what I am averse
to is what I do.
007:016 But if I do that which I do not desire to do, I admit
the excellence of the Law,
007:017 and now it is no longer I that do these things, but the sin
which has its home within me does them.
007:018 For I know that in me, that is, in my lower self, nothing good has
its home; for while the will to do right is present with me,
the power to carry it out is not.
007:019 For what I do is not the good thing that I desire to do;
but the evil thing that I desire not to do, is what
I constantly do.
007:020 But if I do that which I desire not to do, it can no longer
be said that it is I who do it, but the sin which has its home
within me does it.
007:021 I find therefore the law of my nature to be that when I desire
to do what is right, evil is lying in ambush for me.
007:022 For in my inmost self all my sympathy is with the Law of God;
007:023 but I discover within me a different Law at war with the Law
of my understanding, and leading me captive to the Law
which is everywhere at work in my body--the Law of sin.
007:024 (Unhappy man that I am! who will rescue me from
this death-burdened body?
007:025 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!) To sum up then,
with my understanding, I--my true self--am in servitude
to the Law of God, but with my lower nature I am in servitude
to the Law of sin.
008:001 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are
in Christ Jesus;
008:002 for the Spirit's Law--telling of Life in Christ Jesus--
has set me free from the Law that deals only with sin and death.
008:003 For what was impossible to the Law--powerless as it was
because it acted through frail humanity--God effected.
Sending His own Son in a body like that of sinful human nature
and as a sacrifice for sin, He pronounced sentence upon sin
in human nature;
008:004 in order that in our case the requirements of the Law might be
fully met. For our lives are regulated not by our earthly,
but by our spiritual natures.
008:005 For if men are controlled by their earthly natures, they give
their minds to earthly things. If they are controlled by their
spiritual natures, they give their minds to spiritual things.
008:006 Because for the mind to be given up to earthly things means death;
but for it to be given up to spiritual things means
Life and peace.
008:007 Abandonment to earthly things is a state of enmity to God.
Such a mind does not submit to God's Law, and indeed
cannot do so.
008:008 And those whose hearts are absorbed in earthly things
cannot please God.
008:009 You, however, are not devoted to earthly, but to spiritual things,
if the Spirit of God is really dwelling in you; whereas if
any man has not the Spirit of Christ, such a one does not
belong to Him.
008:010 But if Christ is in you, though your body must die because of sin,
yet your spirit has Life because of righteousness.
008:011 And if the Spirit of Him who raised up Jesus from the dead
is dwelling in you, He who raised up Christ from the dead
will give Life also to your mortal bodies because of His Spirit
who dwells in you.
008:012 Therefore, brethren, it is not to our lower natures that we
are under obligation that we should live by their rule.
008:013 For if you so live, death is near; but if, through being
under the sway of the spirit, you are putting your old bodily
habits to death, you will live.
008:014 For those who are led by God's Spirit are, all of them, God's sons.
008:015 You have not for the second time acquired the consciousness
of being--a consciousness which fills you with terror.
But you have acquired a deep inward conviction of having been
adopted as sons--a conviction which prompts us to cry aloud,
"Abba! our Father!"
008:016 The Spirit Himself bears witness, along with our own spirits,
to the fact that we are children of God;
008:017 and if children, then heirs too--heirs of God and co-heirs
with Christ; if indeed we are sharers in Christ's sufferings,
in order that we may also be sharers in His glory.
008:018 Why, what we now suffer I count as nothing in comparison
with the glory which is soon to be manifested in us.
008:019 For all creation, gazing eagerly as if with outstretched neck,
is waiting and longing to see the manifestation of the sons of God.
008:020 For the Creation fell into subjection to failure and unreality
(not of its own choice, but by the will of Him who so subjected it).
008:021 Yet there was always the hope that at last the Creation itself
would also be set free from the thraldom of decay so as to enjoy
the liberty that will attend the glory of the children of God.
008:022 For we know that the whole of Creation is groaning together
in the pains of childbirth until this hour.
008:023 And more than that, we ourselves, though we possess
the Spirit as a foretaste and pledge of the glorious future,
yet we ourselves inwardly sigh, as we wait and long for open
recognition as sons through the deliverance of our bodies.
008:024 It is *in hope* that we have been saved. But an object
of hope is such no longer when it is present to view;
for when a man has a thing before his eyes, how can he be said
to hope for it?
008:025 But if we hope for something which we do not see, then we
eagerly and patiently wait for it.
008:026 In the same way the Spirit also helps us in our weakness; for we
do not know what prayers to offer nor in what way to offer them.
But the Spirit Himself pleads for us in yearnings that can
find no words,
008:027 and the Searcher of hearts knows what the Spirit's meaning is,
because His intercessions for God's people are in harmony
with God's will.
008:028 Now we know that for those who love God all things are working
together for good--for those, I mean, whom with deliberate
purpose He has called.
008:029 For those whom He has known beforehand He has also pre-destined
to bear the likeness of His Son, that He might be the Eldest
in a vast family of brothers;
008:030 and those whom He has pre-destined He also has called;
and those whom He has called He has also declared free from guilt;
and those whom He has declared free from guilt He has also
crowned with glory.
008:031 What then shall we say to this? If God is on our side,
who is there to appear against us?
008:032 He who did not withhold even His own Son, but gave Him up for all
of us, will He not also with Him freely give us all things?
008:033 Who shall impeach those whom God has chosen? God declares
them free from guilt.
008:034 Who is there to condemn them? Christ Jesus died, or rather has
risen to life again. He is also at the right hand of God,
and is interceding for us.
008:035 Who shall separate us from Christ's love? Shall affliction
or distress, persecution or hunger, nakedness or danger
or the sword?
008:036 As it stands written in the Scripture, "For Thy sake they are,
all day long, trying to kill us. We have been looked upon
as sheep destined for slaughter."
008:037 Yet amid all these things we are more than conquerors through
Him who has loved us.
008:038 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither the lower
ranks of evil angels nor the higher, neither things present
nor things future, nor the forces of nature,
008:039 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be
able to separate us from the love of God which rests upon us
in Christ Jesus our Lord.
009:001 I am telling you the truth as a Christian man--it is no falsehood,
for my conscience enlightened, as it is, by the Holy Spirit
adds its testimony to mine--
009:002 when I declare that I have deep grief and unceasing
anguish of heart.
009:003 For I could pray to be accursed from Christ on behalf of my brethren,
my human kinsfolk--for such the Israelites are.
009:004 To them belongs recognition as God's sons, and they have His
glorious Presence and the Covenants, and the giving of the Law,
and the Temple service, and the ancient Promises.
009:005 To them the Patriarchs belong, and from them in respect of His
human lineage came the Christ, who is exalted above all,
God blessed throughout the Ages. Amen.
009:006 Not however that God's word has failed; for all who have sprung
from Israel do not count as Israel,
009:007 nor because they are Abraham's true children. But the promise
was "Through Isaac shall your posterity be reckoned."
009:008 In other words, it is not the children by natural descent
who count as God's children, but the children made such
by the promise are regarded as Abraham's posterity.
009:009 For the words are the language of promise and run thus,
"About this time next year I will come, and Sarah shall
have a son."
009:010 Nor is that all: later on there was Rebecca too.
She was soon to bear two children to her husband,
our forefather Isaac--
009:011 and even then, though they were not then born and had not
done anything either good or evil, yet in order that God's
electing purpose might not be frustrated, based, as it was,
not on their actions but on the will of Him who called them,
she was told,
009:012 "The elder of them will be bondservant to the younger."
009:013 This agrees with the other Scripture which says, "Jacob I
have loved, but Esau I have hated."
009:014 What then are we to infer? That there is injustice in God?
009:015 No, indeed; the solution is found in His words to Moses, "Wherever I
show mercy it shall be nothing but mercy, and wherever I show
compassion it shall be simply compassion."
009:016 And from this we learn that everything is dependent not
on man's will or endeavour, but upon God who has mercy.
For the Scripture said to Pharaoh,
009:017 "It is for this very purpose that I have lifted you so high--
that I may make manifest in you My power, and that My name
may be proclaimed far and wide in all the earth."
009:018 This is a proof that wherever He chooses He shows mercy,
and wherever he chooses He hardens the heart.
009:019 "Why then does God still find fault?" you will ask;
"for who is resisting His will?"
009:020 Nay, but who are you, a mere man, that you should cavil
against GOD? Shall the thing moulded say to him who moulded it,
"Why have you made me thus?"
009:021 Or has not the potter rightful power over the clay to make out
of the same lump one vessel for more honourable and another
for less honourable uses?
009:022 And what if God, while choosing to make manifest the terrors
of His anger and to show what is possible with Him, has yet
borne with long-forbearing patience with the subjects of His
anger who stand ready for destruction,
009:023 in order to make known His infinite goodness towards the subjects
of His mercy whom He has prepared beforehand for glory,
009:024 even towards us whom He has called not only from among the Jews
but also from among the Gentiles?
009:025 So also in Hosea He says, "I will call that nation My People
which was not My People, and I will call her beloved who
was not beloved.
009:026 And in the place where it was said to them, `No people of Mine
are you,' there shall they be called sons of the everliving God."
009:027 And Isaiah cries aloud concerning Israel, "Though the number
of the sons of Israel be like the sands of the sea,
only a remnant of them shall be saved;
009:028 for the Lord will hold a reckoning upon the earth, making it
efficacious and brief."
009:029 Even as Isaiah says in an earlier place, "Were it not that the Lord,
the God of Hosts, had left us some few descendants, we should
have become like Sodom, and have come to resemble Gomorrah."
009:030 To what conclusion does this bring us? Why, that the Gentiles,
who were not in pursuit of righteousness, have overtaken it--
a righteousness, however, which arises from faith;
009:031 while the descendants of Israel, who were in pursuit of a Law
that could give righteousness, have not arrived at one.
009:032 And why? Because they were pursuing a righteousness which should
arise not from faith, but from what they regarded as merit.
They stuck their foot against the stone which lay in their way;
009:033 in agreement with the statement of Scripture, "See, I am
placing on Mount Zion a stone for people to stumble at,
and a rock for them to trip over, and yet he whose faith
rests upon it shall never have reason to feel ashamed."
010:001 Brethren, the longing of my heart, and my prayer to God,
on behalf of my countrymen is for their salvation.
010:002 For I bear witness that they possess an enthusiasm for God,
but it is an unenlightened enthusiasm.
010:003 Ignorant of the righteousness which God provides and building
their hopes upon a righteousness of their own, they have
refused submission to God's righteousness.
010:004 For as a means of righteousness Christ is the termination
of Law to every believer.
010:005 Moses says that he whose actions conform to the righteousness
required by the Law shall live by that righteousness.
010:006 But the righteousness which is based on faith speaks in a
different tone. "Say not in your heart," it declares,
"`Who shall ascend to Heaven?'"--that is, to bring Christ down;
010:007 "nor `Who shall go down into the abyss?'"--that is, to bring
Christ up again from the grave.
010:008 But what does it say? "The Message is close to you, in your
mouth and in your heart;" that is, the Message which we are
publishing about the faith--
010:009 that if with your mouth you confess Jesus as Lord and in
your heart believe that God brought Him back to life,
you shall be saved.
010:010 For with the heart men believe and obtain righteousness,
and with the mouth they make confession and obtain salvation.
010:011 The Scripture says, "No one who believes in Him shall have
reason to feel ashamed."
010:012 Jew and Gentile are on precisely the same footing;
for the same Lord is Lord over all, and is infinitely kind
to all who call upon Him for deliverance.
010:013 For "every one, without exception, who calls on the name
of the Lord shall be saved."
010:014 But how are they to call on One in whom they have not believed?
And how are they to believe in One whose voice they have
never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher?
010:015 And how are men to preach unless they have been sent to do so?
As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring
glad tidings of good!"
010:016 But, some will say, they have not all hearkened to the Good News.
No, for Isaiah asks, "Lord, who has believed the Message they
have heard from us?"
010:017 And this proves that faith comes from a Message heard, and that
the Message comes through its having been spoken by Christ.
010:018 But, I ask, have they not heard? |
10,240 |
Produced by Judith Boss.
Enoch Soames
A Memory of the Eighteen-nineties
By
MAX BEERBOHM
When a book about the literature of the eighteen-nineties was given by
Mr. Holbrook Jackson to the world, I looked eagerly in the index for
Soames, Enoch. It was as I feared: he was not there. But everybody
else was. Many writers whom I had quite forgotten, or remembered but
faintly, lived again for me, they and their work, in Mr. Holbrook
Jackson's pages. The book was as thorough as it was brilliantly
written. And thus the omission found by me was an all the deadlier
record of poor Soames's failure to impress himself on his decade.
I dare say I am the only person who noticed the omission. Soames had
failed so piteously as all that! Nor is there a counterpoise in the
thought that if he had had some measure of success he might have
passed, like those others, out of my mind, to return only at the
historian's beck. It is true that had his gifts, such as they were,
been acknowledged in his lifetime, he would never have made the bargain
I saw him make--that strange bargain whose results have kept him always
in the foreground of my memory. But it is from those very results that
the full piteousness of him glares out.
Not my compassion, however, impels me to write of him. For his sake,
poor fellow, I should be inclined to keep my pen out of the ink. It is
ill to deride the dead. And how can I write about Enoch Soames without
making him ridiculous? Or, rather, how am I to hush up the horrid fact
that he WAS ridiculous? I shall not be able to do that. Yet, sooner
or later, write about him I must. You will see in due course that I
have no option. And I may as well get the thing done now.
In the summer term of '93 a bolt from the blue flashed down on Oxford.
It drove deep; it hurtlingly embedded itself in the soil. Dons and
undergraduates stood around, rather pale, discussing nothing but it.
Whence came it, this meteorite? From Paris. Its name? Will
Rothenstein. Its aim? To do a series of twenty-four portraits in
lithograph. These were to be published from the Bodley Head, London.
The matter was urgent. Already the warden of A, and the master of B,
and the Regius Professor of C had meekly "sat." Dignified and
doddering old men who had never consented to sit to any one could not
withstand this dynamic little stranger. He did not sue; he invited: he
did not invite; he commanded. He was twenty-one years old. He wore
spectacles that flashed more than any other pair ever seen. He was a
wit. He was brimful of ideas. He knew Whistler. He knew Daudet and
the Goncourts. He knew every one in Paris. He knew them all by heart.
He was Paris in Oxford. It was whispered that, so soon as he had
polished off his selection of dons, he was going to include a few
undergraduates. It was a proud day for me when I--I was included. I
liked Rothenstein not less than I feared him; and there arose between
us a friendship that has grown ever warmer, and been more and more
valued by me, with every passing year.
At the end of term he settled in, or, rather, meteoritically into,
London. It was to him I owed my first knowledge of that
forever-enchanting little world-in-itself, Chelsea, and my first
acquaintance with Walter Sickert and other August elders who dwelt
there. It was Rothenstein that took me to see, in Cambridge Street,
Pimlico, a young man whose drawings were already famous among the
few--Aubrey Beardsley by name. With Rothenstein I paid my first visit
to the Bodley Head. By him I was inducted into another haunt of
intellect and daring, the domino-room of the Cafe Royal.
There, on that October evening--there, in that exuberant vista of
gilding and crimson velvet set amidst all those opposing mirrors and
upholding caryatids, with fumes of tobacco ever rising to the painted
and pagan ceiling, and with the hum of presumably cynical conversation
broken into so sharply now and again by the clatter of dominoes
shuffled on marble tables, I drew a deep breath and, "This indeed,"
said I to myself, "is life!" (Forgive me that theory. Remember the
waging of even the South African War was not yet.)
It was the hour before dinner. We drank vermuth. Those who knew
Rothenstein were pointing him out to those who knew him only by name.
Men were constantly coming in through the swing-doors and wandering
slowly up and down in search of vacant tables or of tables occupied by
friends. One of these rovers interested me because I was sure he
wanted to catch Rothenstein's eye. He had twice passed our table, with
a hesitating look; but Rothenstein, in the thick of a disquisition on
Puvis de Chavannes, had not seen him. He was a stooping, shambling
person, rather tall, very pale, with longish and brownish hair. He had
a thin, vague beard, or, rather, he had a chin on which a large number
of hairs weakly curled and clustered to cover its retreat. He was an
odd-looking person; but in the nineties odd apparitions were more
frequent, I think, than they are now. The young writers of that
era--and I was sure this man was a writer--strove earnestly to be
distinct in aspect. This man had striven unsuccessfully. He wore a
soft black hat of clerical kind, but of Bohemian intention, and a gray
waterproof cape which, perhaps because it was waterproof, failed to be
romantic. I decided that "dim" was the mot juste for him. I had
already essayed to write, and was immensely keen on the mot juste, that
Holy Grail of the period.
The dim man was now again approaching our table, and this time he made
up his mind to pause in front of it.
"You don't remember me," he said in a toneless voice.
Rothenstein brightly focused him.
"Yes, I do," he replied after a moment, with pride rather than
effusion--pride in a retentive memory. "Edwin Soames."
"Enoch Soames," said Enoch.
"Enoch Soames," repeated Rothenstein in a tone implying that it was
enough to have hit on the surname. "We met in Paris a few times when
you were living there. We met at the Cafe Groche."
"And I came to your studio once."
"Oh, yes; I was sorry I was out."
"But you were in. You showed me some of your paintings, you know. I
hear you're in Chelsea now."
"Yes."
I almost wondered that Mr. Soames did not, after this monosyllable,
pass along. He stood patiently there, rather like a dumb animal,
rather like a donkey looking over a gate. A sad figure, his. It
occurred to me that "hungry" was perhaps the mot juste for him;
but--hungry for what? He looked as if he had little appetite for
anything. I was sorry for him; and Rothenstein, though he had not
invited him to Chelsea, did ask him to sit down and have something to
drink.
Seated, he was more self-assertive. He flung back the wings of his
cape with a gesture which, had not those wings been waterproof, might
have seemed to hurl defiance at things in general. And he ordered an
absinthe. "Je me tiens toujours fidele," he told Rothenstein, "a la
sorciere glauque."
"It is bad for you," said Rothenstein, dryly.
"Nothing is bad for one," answered Soames. "Dans ce monde il n'y a ni
bien ni mal."
"Nothing good and nothing bad? How do you mean?"
"I explained it all in the preface to 'Negations.'"
"'Negations'?"
"Yes, I gave you a copy of it."
"Oh, yes, of course. But, did you explain, for instance, that there
was no such thing as bad or good grammar?"
"N-no," said Soames. "Of course in art there is the good and the evil.
But in life--no." He was rolling a cigarette. He had weak, white
hands, not well washed, and with finger-tips much stained with
nicotine. "In life there are illusions of good and evil, but"--his
voice trailed away to a murmur in which the words "vieux jeu" and
"rococo" were faintly audible. I think he felt he was not doing
himself justice, and feared that Rothenstein was going to point out
fallacies. Anyhow, he cleared his throat and said, "Parlons d'autre
chose."
It occurs to you that he was a fool? It didn't to me. I was young,
and had not the clarity of judgment that Rothenstein already had.
Soames was quite five or six years older than either of us. Also--he
had written a book. It was wonderful to have written a book.
If Rothenstein had not been there, I should have revered Soames. Even
as it was, I respected him. And I was very near indeed to reverence
when he said he had another book coming out soon. I asked if I might
ask what kind of book it was to be.
"My poems," he answered. Rothenstein asked if this was to be the title
of the book. The poet meditated on this suggestion, but said he rather
thought of giving the book no title at all. "If a book is good in
itself--" he murmured, and waved his cigarette.
Rothenstein objected that absence of title might be bad for the sale of
a book.
"If," he urged, "I went into a bookseller's and said simply, 'Have you
got?' or, 'Have you a copy of?' how would they know what I wanted?"
"Oh, of course I should have my name on the cover," Soames answered
earnestly. "And I rather want," he added, looking hard at Rothenstein,
"to have a drawing of myself as frontispiece." Rothenstein admitted
that this was a capital idea, and mentioned that he was going into the
country and would be there for some time. He then looked at his watch,
exclaimed at the hour, paid the waiter, and went away with me to
dinner. Soames remained at his post of fidelity to the glaucous witch.
"Why were you so determined not to draw him?" I asked.
"Draw him? Him? How can one draw a man who doesn't exist?"
"He is dim," I admitted. But my mot juste fell flat. Rothenstein
repeated that Soames was non-existent.
Still, Soames had written a book. I asked if Rothenstein had read
"Negations." He said he had looked into it, "but," he added crisply,
"I don't profess to know anything about writing." A reservation very
characteristic of the period! Painters would not then allow that any
one outside their own order had a right to any opinion about painting.
This law (graven on the tablets brought down by Whistler from the
summit of Fuji-yama) imposed certain limitations. If other arts than
painting were not utterly unintelligible to all but the men who
practiced them, the law tottered--the Monroe Doctrine, as it were, did
not hold good. Therefore no painter would offer an opinion of a book
without warning you at any rate that his opinion was worthless. No one
is a better judge of literature than Rothenstein; but it wouldn't have
done to tell him so in those days, and I knew that I must form an
unaided judgment of "Negations."
Not to buy a book of which I had met the author face to face would have
been for me in those days an impossible act of self-denial. When I
returned to Oxford for the Christmas term I had duly secured
"Negations." I used to keep it lying carelessly on the table in my
room, and whenever a friend took it up and asked what it was about, I
would say: "Oh, it's rather a remarkable book. It's by a man whom I
know." Just "what it was about" I never was able to say. Head or tail
was just what I hadn't made of that slim, green volume. I found in the
preface no clue to the labyrinth of contents, and in that labyrinth
nothing to explain the preface.
Lean near to life. Lean very near--
nearer.
Life is web and therein nor warp nor
woof is, but web only.
It is for this I am Catholick in church
and in thought, yet do let swift Mood weave
there what the shuttle of Mood wills.
These were the opening phrases of the preface, but those which followed
were less easy to understand. Then came "Stark: A Conte," about a
midinette who, so far as I could gather, murdered, or was about to
murder, a mannequin. It was rather like a story by Catulle Mendes in
which the translator had either skipped or cut out every alternate
sentence. Next, a dialogue between Pan and St. Ursula, lacking, I
rather thought, in "snap." Next, some aphorisms (entitled "Aphorismata"
[spelled in Greek]). Throughout, in fact, there was a great variety of
form, and the forms had evidently been wrought with much care. It was
rather the substance that eluded me. Was there, I wondered, any
substance at all? It did now occur to me: suppose Enoch Soames was a
fool! Up cropped a rival hypothesis: suppose _I_ was! I inclined to
give Soames the benefit of the doubt. I had read "L'Apres-midi d'un
faune" without extracting a glimmer of meaning; yet Mallarme, of
course, was a master. How was I to know that Soames wasn't another?
There was a sort of music in his prose, not indeed, arresting, but
perhaps, I thought, haunting, and laden, perhaps, with meanings as deep
as Mallarme's own. I awaited his poems with an open mind.
And I looked forward to them with positive impatience after I had had a
second meeting with him. This was on an evening in January. Going
into the aforesaid domino-room, I had passed a table at which sat a
pale man with an open book before him. He had looked from his book to
me, and I looked back over my shoulder with a vague sense that I ought
to have recognized him. I returned to pay my respects. After
exchanging a few words, I said with a glance to the open book, "I see I
am interrupting you," and was about to pass on, but, "I prefer," Soames
replied in his toneless voice, "to be interrupted," and I obeyed his
gesture that I should sit down.
I asked him if he often read here.
"Yes; things of this kind I read here," he answered, indicating the
title of his book--"The Poems of Shelley."
"Anything that you really"--and I was going to say "admire?" But I
cautiously left my sentence unfinished, and was glad that I had done
so, for he said with unwonted emphasis, "Anything second-rate."
I had read little of Shelley, but, "Of course," I murmured, "he's very
uneven."
"I should have thought evenness was just what was wrong with him. A
deadly evenness. That's why I read him here. The noise of this place
breaks the rhythm. He's tolerable here." Soames took up the book and
glanced through the pages. He laughed. Soames's laugh was a short,
single, and mirthless sound from the throat, unaccompanied by any
movement of the face or brightening of the eyes. "What a period!" he
uttered, laying the book down. And, "What a country!" he added.
I asked rather nervously if he didn't think Keats had more or less held
his own against the drawbacks of time and place. He admitted that
there were "passages in Keats," but did not specify them. Of "the
older men," as he called them, he seemed to like only Milton.
"Milton," he said, "wasn't sentimental." Also, "Milton had a dark
insight." And again, "I can always read Milton in the reading-room."
"The reading-room?"
"Of the British Museum. I go there every day."
"You do? I've only been there once. I'm afraid I found it rather a
depressing place. It--it seemed to sap one's vitality."
"It does. That's why I go there. The lower one's vitality, the more
sensitive one is to great art. I live near the museum. I have rooms
in Dyott Street."
"And you go round to the reading-room to read Milton?"
"Usually Milton." He looked at me. "It was Milton," he
certificatively added, "who converted me to diabolism."
"Diabolism? Oh, yes? Really?" said I, with that vague discomfort and
that intense desire to be polite which one feels when a man speaks of
his own religion. "You--worship the devil?"
Soames shook his head.
"It's not exactly worship," he qualified, sipping his absinthe. "It's
more a matter of trusting and encouraging."
"I see, yes. I had rather gathered from the preface to 'Negations'
that you were a--a Catholic."
"Je l'etais a cette epoque. In fact, I still am. I am a Catholic
diabolist."
But this profession he made in an almost cursory tone. I could see
that what was upmost in his mind was the fact that I had read
"Negations." His pale eyes had for the first time gleamed. I felt as
one who is about to be examined viva voce on the very subject in which
he is shakiest. I hastily asked him how soon his poems were to be
published.
"Next week," he told me.
"And are they to be published without a title?"
"No. I found a title at last. But I sha'n't tell you what it is," as
though I had been so impertinent as to inquire. "I am not sure that it
wholly satisfies me. But it is the best I can find. It suggests
something of the quality of the poems--strange growths, natural and
wild, yet exquisite," he added, "and many-hued, and full of poisons."
I asked him what he thought of Baudelaire. He uttered the snort that
was his laugh, and, "Baudelaire," he said, "was a bourgeois malgre
lui." France had had only one poet--Villon; "and two thirds of Villon
were sheer journalism." Verlaine was "an epicier malgre lui."
Altogether, rather to my surprise, he rated French literature lower
than English. There were "passages" in Villiers de l'Isle-Adam. But,
"I," he summed up, "owe nothing to France." He nodded at me. "You'll
see," he predicted.
I did not, when the time came, quite see that. I thought the author of
"Fungoids" did, unconsciously of course, owe something to the young
Parisian decadents or to the young English ones who owed something to
THEM. I still think so. The little book, bought by me in Oxford, lies
before me as I write. Its pale-gray buckram cover and silver lettering
have not worn well. Nor have its contents. Through these, with a
melancholy interest, I have again been looking. They are not much.
But at the time of their publication I had a vague suspicion that they
MIGHT be. I suppose it is my capacity for faith, not poor Soames's
work, that is weaker than it once was.
TO A YOUNG WOMAN
THOU ART, WHO HAST NOT BEEN!
Pale tunes irresolute
And traceries of old sounds
Blown from a rotted flute
Mingle with noise of cymbals rouged with rust,
Nor not strange forms and epicene
Lie bleeding in the dust,
Being wounded with wounds.
For this it is
That in thy counterpart
Of age-long mockeries
THOU HAST NOT BEEN NOR ART!
There seemed to me a certain inconsistency as between the first and
last lines of this. I tried, with bent brows, to resolve the discord.
But I did not take my failure as wholly incompatible with a meaning in
Soames's mind. Might it not rather indicate the depth of his meaning?
As for the craftsmanship, "rouged with rust" seemed to me a fine
stroke, and "nor not" instead of "and" had a curious felicity. I
wondered who the "young woman" was and what she had made of it all. I
sadly suspect that Soames could not have made more of it than she.
Yet even now, if one doesn't try to make any sense at all of the poem,
and reads it just for the sound, there is a certain grace of cadence.
Soames was an artist, in so far as he was anything, poor fellow!
It seemed to me, when first I read "Fungoids," that, oddly enough, the
diabolistic side of him was the best. Diabolism seemed to be a
cheerful, even a wholesome influence in his life.
NOCTURNE
Round and round the shutter'd Square
I strolled with the Devil's arm in mine.
No sound but the scrape of his hoofs was there
And the ring of his laughter and mine.
We had drunk black wine.
I scream'd, "I will race you, Master!"
"What matter," he shriek'd, "to-night
Which of us runs the faster?
There is nothing to fear to-night
In the foul moon's light!"
Then I look'd him in the eyes
And I laugh'd full shrill at the lie he told
And the gnawing fear he would fain disguise.
It was true, what I'd time and again been told:
He was old--old.
There was, I felt, quite a swing about that first stanza--a joyous and
rollicking note of comradeship. The second was slightly hysterical,
perhaps. But I liked the third, it was so bracingly unorthodox, even
according to the tenets of Soames's peculiar sect in the faith. Not
much "trusting and encouraging" here! Soames triumphantly exposing the
devil as a liar, and laughing "full shrill," cut a quite heartening
figure, I thought, then! Now, in the light of what befell, none of his
other poems depresses me so much as "Nocturne."
I looked out for what the metropolitan reviewers would have to say.
They seemed to fall into two classes: those who had little to say and
those who had nothing. The second class was the larger, and the words
of the first were cold; insomuch that
Strikes a note of modernity.... These tripping numbers.--"The
Preston Telegraph."
was the only lure offered in advertisements by Soames's publisher. I
had hoped that when next I met the poet I could congratulate him on
having made a stir, for I fancied he was not so sure of his intrinsic
greatness as he seemed. I was but able to say, rather coarsely, when
next I did see him, that I hoped "Fungoids" was "selling splendidly."
He looked at me across his glass of absinthe and asked if I had bought
a copy. His publisher had told him that three had been sold. I
laughed, as at a jest.
"You don't suppose I CARE, do you?" he said, with something like a
snarl. I disclaimed the notion. He added that he was not a tradesman.
I said mildly that I wasn't, either, and murmured that an artist who
gave truly new and great things to the world had always to wait long
for recognition. He said he cared not a sou for recognition. I agreed
that the act of creation was its own reward.
His moroseness might have alienated me if I had regarded myself as a
nobody. But ah! hadn't both John Lane and Aubrey Beardsley suggested
that I should write an essay for the great new venture that was
afoot--"The Yellow Book"? And hadn't Henry Harland, as editor,
accepted my essay? And wasn't it to be in the very first number? At
Oxford I was still in statu pupillari. In London I regarded myself as
very much indeed a graduate now--one whom no Soames could ruffle.
Partly to show off, partly in sheer good-will, I told Soames he ought
to contribute to "The Yellow Book." He uttered from the throat a sound
of scorn for that publication.
Nevertheless, I did, a day or two later, tentatively ask Harland if he
knew anything of the work of a man called Enoch Soames. Harland paused
in the midst of his characteristic stride around the room, threw up his
hands toward the ceiling, and groaned aloud: he had often met "that
absurd creature" in Paris, and this very morning had received some
poems in manuscript from him.
"Has he NO talent?" I asked.
"He has an income. He's all right." Harland was the most joyous of
men and most generous of critics, and he hated to talk of anything
about which he couldn't be enthusiastic. So I dropped the subject of
Soames. The news that Soames had an income did take the edge off
solicitude. I learned afterward that he was the son of an unsuccessful
and deceased bookseller in Preston, but had inherited an annuity of
three hundred pounds from a married aunt, and had no surviving
relatives of any kind. Materially, then, he was "all right." But there
was still a spiritual pathos about him, sharpened for me now by the
possibility that even the praises of "The Preston Telegraph" might not
have been forthcoming had he not been the son of a Preston man He had a
sort of weak doggedness which I could not but admire. Neither he nor
his work received the slightest encouragement; but he persisted in
behaving as a personage: always he kept his dingy little flag flying.
Wherever congregated the jeunes feroces of the arts, in whatever Soho
restaurant they had just discovered, in whatever music-hall they were
most frequently, there was Soames in the midst of them, or, rather, on
the fringe of them, a dim, but inevitable, figure. He never sought to
propitiate his fellow-writers, never bated a jot of his arrogance about
his own work or of his contempt for theirs. To the painters he was
respectful, even humble; but for the poets and prosaists of "The Yellow
Book" and later of "The Savoy" he had never a word but of scorn. He
wasn't resented. It didn't occur to anybody that he or his Catholic
diabolism mattered. When, in the autumn of '96, he brought out (at his
own expense, this time) a third book, his last book, nobody said a word
for or against it. I meant, but forgot, to buy it. I never saw it,
and am ashamed to say I don't even remember what it was called. But I
did, at the time of its publication, say to Rothenstein that I thought
poor old Soames was really a rather tragic figure, and that I believed
he would literally die for want of recognition. Rothenstein scoffed.
He said I was trying to get credit for a kind heart which I didn't
possess; and perhaps this was so. But at the private view of the New
English Art Club, a few weeks later, I beheld a pastel portrait of
"Enoch Soames, Esq." It was very like him, and very like Rothenstein
to have done it. Soames was standing near it, in his soft hat and his
waterproof cape, all through the afternoon. Anybody who knew him would
have recognized the portrait at a glance, but nobody who didn't know
him would have recognized the portrait from its bystander: it "existed"
so much more than he; it was bound to. Also, it had not that
expression of faint happiness which on that day was discernible, yes,
in Soames's countenance. Fame had breathed on him. Twice again in the
course of the month I went to the New English, and on both occasions
Soames himself was on view there. Looking back, I regard the close of
that exhibition as having been virtually the close of his career. He
had felt the breath of Fame against his cheek--so late, for such a
little while; and at its withdrawal he gave in, gave up, gave out. He,
who had never looked strong or well, looked ghastly now--a shadow of
the shade he had once been. He still frequented the domino-room, but
having lost all wish to excite curiosity, he no longer read books
there. "You read only at the museum now?" I asked, with attempted
cheerfulness. He said he never went there now. "No absinthe there,"
he muttered. It was the sort of thing that in old days he would have
said for effect; but it carried conviction now. Absinthe, erst but a
point in the "personality" he had striven so hard to build up, was
solace and necessity now. He no longer called it "la sorciere
glauque." He had shed away all his French phrases. He had become a
plain, unvarnished Preston man.
Failure, if it be a plain, unvarnished, complete failure, and even
though it be a squalid failure, has always a certain dignity. I
avoided Soames because he made me feel rather vulgar. John Lane had
published, by this time, two little books of mine, and they had had a
pleasant little success of esteem. I was a--slight, but
definite--"personality." Frank Harris had engaged me to kick up my
heels in "The Saturday Review," Alfred Harmsworth was letting me do
likewise in "The Daily Mail." I was just what Soames wasn't. And he
shamed my gloss. Had I known that he really and firmly believed in the
greatness of what he as an artist had achieved, I might not have
shunned him. No man who hasn't lost his vanity can be held to have
altogether failed. Soames's dignity was an illusion of mine. One day,
in the first week of June, 1897, that illusion went. But on the
evening of that day Soames went, too.
I had been out most of the morning and, as it was too late to reach
home in time for luncheon, I sought the Vingtieme. This little
place--Restaurant du Vingtieme Siecle, to give it its full title--had
been discovered in '96 by the poets and prosaists, but had now been
more or less abandoned in favor of some later find. I don't think it
lived long enough to justify its name; but at that time there it still
was, in Greek Street, a few doors from Soho Square, and almost opposite
to that house where, in the first years of the century, a little girl,
and with her a boy named De Quincey, made nightly encampment in
darkness and hunger among dust and rats and old legal parchments. The
Vingtieme was but a small whitewashed room, leading out into the street
at one end and into a kitchen at the other. The proprietor and cook
was a Frenchman, known to us as Monsieur Vingtieme; the waiters were
his two daughters, Rose and Berthe; and the food, according to faith,
was good. The tables were so narrow and were set so close together
that there was space for twelve of them, six jutting from each wall.
Only the two nearest to the door, as I went in, were occupied. On one
side sat a tall, flashy, rather Mephistophelian man whom I had seen
from time to time in the domino-room and elsewhere. On the other side
sat Soames. They made a queer contrast in that sunlit room, Soames
sitting haggard in that hat and cape, which nowhere at any season had I
seen him doff, and this other, this keenly vital man, at sight of whom
I more than ever wondered whether he were a diamond merchant, a
conjurer, or the head of a private detective agency. I was sure Soames
didn't want my company; but I asked, as it would have seemed brutal not
to, whether I might join him, and took the chair opposite to his. He
was smoking a cigarette, with an untasted salmi of something on his
plate and a half-empty bottle of Sauterne before him, and he was quite
silent. I said that the preparations for the Jubilee made London
impossible. (I rather liked them, really.) I professed a wish to go
right away till the whole thing was over. In vain did I attune myself
to his gloom. He seemed not to hear me or even to see me. I felt that
his behavior made me ridiculous in the eyes of the other man. The
gangway between the two rows of tables at the Vingtieme was hardly more
than two feet wide (Rose and Berthe, in their ministrations, had always
to edge past each other, quarreling in whispers as they did so), and
any one at the table abreast of yours was virtually at yours. I
thought our neighbor was amused at my failure to interest Soames, and
so, as I could not explain to him that my insistence was merely
charitable, I became silent. Without turning my head, I had him well
within my range of vision. I hoped I looked less vulgar than he in
contrast with Soames. I was sure he was not an Englishman, but what
WAS his nationality? Though his jet-black hair was en brosse, I did
not think he was French. To Berthe, who waited on him, he spoke French
fluently, but with a hardly native idiom and accent. I gathered that
this was his first visit to the Vingtieme; but Berthe was offhand in
her manner to him: he had not made a good impression. His eyes were
handsome, but, like the Vingtieme's tables, too narrow and set too
close together. His nose was predatory, and the points of his
mustache, waxed up behind his nostrils, gave a fixity to his smile.
Decidedly, he was sinister. And my sense of discomfort in his presence
was intensified by the scarlet waistcoat which tightly, and so
unseasonably in June, sheathed his ample chest. This waistcoat wasn't
wrong merely because of the heat, either. It was somehow all wrong in
itself. It wouldn't have done on Christmas morning. It would have
struck a jarring note at the first night of "Hernani." I was trying to
account for its wrongness when Soames suddenly and strangely broke
silence. "A hundred years hence!" he murmured, as in a trance.
"We shall not be here," I briskly, but fatuously, added.
"We shall not be here. No," he droned, "but the museum will still be
just where it is. And the reading-room just where it is. And people
will be able to go and read there." He inhaled sharply, and a spasm as
of actual pain contorted his features.
I wondered what train of thought poor Soames had been following. He
did not enlighten me when he said, after a long pause, "You think I
haven't minded."
"Minded what, Soames?"
"Neglect. Failure."
"FAILURE?" I said heartily. "Failure?" I repeated vaguely.
"Neglect--yes, perhaps; but that's quite another matter. Of course you
haven't been--appreciated. But what, then? Any artist who--who
gives--" What I wanted to say was, "Any artist who gives truly new and
great things to the world has always to wait long for recognition"; but
the flattery would not out: in the face of his misery--a misery so
genuine and so unmasked--my lips would not say the words.
And then he said them for me. I flushed. "That's what you were going
to say, isn't it?" he asked.
"How did you know?"
"It's what you said to me three years ago, when 'Fungoids' was
published." I flushed the more. I need not have flushed at all.
"It's the only important thing I ever heard you say," he continued.
"And I've never forgotten it. It's a true thing. It's a horrible
truth. But--d'you remember what I answered? I said, 'I don't care a
sou for recognition.' And you believed me. You've gone on believing
I'm above that sort of thing. You're shallow. What should YOU know of
the feelings of a man like me? You imagine that a great artist's faith
in himself and in the verdict of posterity is enough to keep him happy.
You've never guessed at the bitterness and loneliness, the"--his voice
broke; but presently he resumed, speaking with a force that I had never
known in him. "Posterity! What use is it to ME? A dead man doesn't
know that people are visiting his grave, visiting his birthplace,
putting up tablets to him, unveiling statues of him. A dead man can't
read the books that are written about him. A hundred years hence!
Think of it! If I could come back to life THEN--just for a few
hours--and go to the reading-room and READ! Or, better still, if I
could be projected now, at this moment, into that future, into that
reading-room, just for this one afternoon! I'd sell myself body and
soul to the devil for that! Think of the pages and pages in the
catalogue: 'Soames, Enoch' endlessly--endless editions, commentaries,
prolegomena, biographies"-- But here he was interrupted by a sudden
loud crack of the chair at the next table. Our neighbor had half risen
from his place. He was leaning toward us, apologetically intrusive.
"Excuse--permit me," he said softly. "I have been unable not to hear.
Might I take a liberty? In this little restaurant-sans-facon--might I,
as the phrase is, cut in?"
I could but signify our acquiescence. Berthe had appeared at the
kitchen door, thinking the stranger wanted his bill. He waved her away
with his cigar, and in another moment had seated himself beside me,
commanding a full view of Soames.
"Though not an Englishman," he explained, "I know my London well, Mr.
Soames. Your name and fame--Mr. Beerbohm's, too--very known to me.
Your point is, who am _I_?" He glanced quickly over his shoulder, and
in a lowered voice said, "I am the devil."
I couldn't help it; I laughed. I tried not to, I knew there was
nothing to laugh at, my rudeness shamed me; but--I laughed with
increasing volume. The devil's quiet dignity, the surprise and disgust
of his raised eyebrows, did but the more dissolve me. I rocked to and
fro; I lay back aching; I behaved deplorably.
"I am a gentleman, and," he said with intense emphasis, "I thought I
was in the company of GENTLEMEN."
"Don't!" I gasped faintly. "Oh, don't!"
"Curious, nicht wahr?" I heard him say to Soames. "There is a type of
person to whom the very mention of my name is--oh, so awfully--funny!
In your theaters the dullest comedien needs only to say 'The devil!'
and right away they give him 'the loud laugh what speaks the vacant
mind.' Is it not so?"
I had now just breath enough to offer my apologies. He accepted them,
but coldly, and re-addressed himself to Soames.
"I am a man of business," he said, "and always I would put things
through 'right now,' as they say in the States. You are a poet. Les
affaires--you detest them. So be it. But with me you will deal, eh?
What you have said just now gives me furiously to hope."
Soames had not moved except to light a fresh cigarette. He sat
crouched forward, with his elbows squared on the table, and his head
just above the level of his hands, staring up at the devil.
"Go on," he nodded. I had no remnant of laughter in me now.
"It will be the more pleasant, our little deal," the devil went on,
"because you are--I mistake not?--a diabolist."
"A Catholic diabolist," said Soames.
The devil accepted the reservation genially.
"You wish," he resumed, "to visit now--this afternoon as-ever-is--the
reading-room of the British Museum, yes? But of a hundred years hence,
yes? Parfaitement. Time--an illusion. Past and future--they are as
ever present as the present, or at any rate only what you call 'just
round the corner.' I switch you on to any date. I project you--pouf!
You wish to be in the reading-room just as it will be on the afternoon
of June 3, 1997? You wish to find yourself standing in that room, just
past the swing-doors, this very minute, yes? And to stay there till
closing-time? Am I right?"
Soames nodded.
The devil looked at his watch. "Ten past two," he said. "Closing-time
in summer same then as now--seven o'clock. That will give you almost
five hours. At seven o'clock--pouf!--you find yourself again here,
sitting at this table. I am dining to-night dans le monde--dans le
higlif. That concludes my present visit to your great city. I come
and fetch you here, Mr. Soames, on my way home."
"Home?" I echoed.
"Be it never so humble!" said the devil, lightly.
"All right," said Soames.
"Soames!" I entreated. But my friend moved not a muscle.
The devil had made as though to stretch forth his hand across the
table, but he paused in his gesture.
"A hundred years hence, as now," he smiled, "no smoking allowed in the
reading-room. You would better therefore--"
Soames removed the cigarette from his mouth and dropped it into his
glass of Sauterne.
"Soames!" again I cried. "Can't you"--but the devil had now stretched
forth his hand across the table. He brought it slowly down on the
table-cloth. Soames's chair was empty. His cigarette floated sodden
in his wine-glass. There was no other trace of him.
For a few moments the devil let his hand rest where it lay, gazing at
me out of the corners of his eyes, vulgarly triumphant.
A shudder shook me. With an effort I controlled myself and rose from
my chair. "Very clever," I said condescendingly. "But--'The Time
Machine' is a delightful book, don't you think? So entirely original!"
"You are pleased to sneer," said the devil, who had also risen, "but it
is one thing to write about an impossible machine; it is a quite other
thing to be a supernatural power." All the same, I had scored.
Berthe had come forth at the sound of our rising. I explained to her
that Mr. Soames had been called away, and that both he and I would be
dining here. It was not until I was out in the open air that I began
to feel giddy. I have but the haziest recollection of what I did,
where I wandered, in the glaring sunshine of that endless afternoon. I
remember the sound of carpenters' hammers all along Piccadilly and the
bare chaotic look of the half-erected "stands." Was it in the Green
Park or in Kensington Gardens or WHERE was it that I sat on a chair
beneath a tree, trying to read an evening paper? |
10,240 |
Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Marvin A. Hodges, and Project
Gutenbert Distributed Proofreaders. HTML version by Al
Haines.
THE CALL OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
An Address to Young Men
By DAVID STARR JORDAN
Chancellor of Leland Stanford Junior University
1903
To Vernon Lyman Kellogg
_So
live that
your afterself--
the man you ought
to be--may in his time
be possible and actual. Far
away in the twenties, the thirties
of the Twentieth Century, he is awaiting
his turn. His body, his brain, his soul are in
your boyish hands. He cannot help himself. What will
you leave for him? Will it be a brain unspoiled by lust or
dissipation, a mind trained to think and act, a nervous system
true as a dial in its response to the truth about you? Will you,
boy of the Twentieth Century, let him come as a man among men
in his time, or will you throw away his inheritance before
he has had the chance to touch it? Will you let him come,
taking your place, gaining through your experiences,
hallowed through your joys, building on them his
own, or will you fling his hope away,
decreeing, wanton-like, that the man
you might have been shall never
be?_
The new century has come upon us with a rush of energy that no century has
shown before. Let us stand aside for a moment that we may see what kind of
a century it is to be, what is the work it has to do, and what manner of
men it will demand to do it.
In most regards one century is like another. Just as men are men, so times
are times. In the Twentieth Century there will be the same joys, the same
sorrows, the same marrying and giving in marriage, the same round of work
and play, of wisdom and duty, of folly and distress which other centuries
have seen. Just as each individual man has the same organs, the same
passions, the same functions as all others, so it is with all the
centuries. But we know men not by their likenesses, which are many, but by
differences in emphasis, by individual traits which are slight and subtle,
but all-important in determining our likes and dislikes, our friendships,
loves, and hates. So with the centuries; we remember those which are past
not by the mass of common traits in history and development, but by the few
events or thoughts unnoticed at the time, but which stand out like mountain
peaks raised "above oblivion's sea," when the times are all gathered in and
the century begins to blend with the "infinite azure of the past." Not wars
and conquests mark a century. The hosts grow small in the vanishing
perspective, "the captains and the kings depart," but the thoughts of men,
their attitude toward their environment, their struggles toward
duty,--these are the things which endure.
Compared with the centuries that are past, the Twentieth Century in its
broad outlines will be like the rest. It will be selfish, generous,
careless, devoted, fatuous, efficient. But three of its traits must stand
out above all others, each raised to a higher degree than any other century
has known. The Twentieth Century above all others will be _strenuous,
complex_, and _democratic_. Strenuous the century must be, of
course. This we can all see, and we have to thank the young man of the
Twentieth Century who gave us the watchword of "the strenuous life," and
who has raised the apt phrase to the dignity of a national purpose. Our
century has a host of things to do, bold things, noble things, tedious
things, difficult things, enduring things. It has only a hundred years to
do them in, and two of these years are gone already. We must be up and
bestir ourselves. If we are called to help in this work, there is no time
for an idle minute. Idle men and idle women no doubt will cumber our way,
for there are many who have never heard of the work to do, many who will
never know that there has been a new century. These the century will pass
by with the gentle tolerance she shows to clams and squirrels, but on those
of us she calls to her service she will lay heavy burdens of duty. "The
color of life is red." Already the fad of the drooping spirit, the
end-of-the-century pose, has given way to the rush of the strenuous life,
to the feeling that struggle brings its own reward. The men who are doing
ask no favor at the end. Life is repaid by the joy of living it.
As the century is strenuous so will it be complex. The applications of
science have made the great world small, while every part of it has grown
insistent. As the earth has shrunk to come within our grasp, so has our own
world expanded to receive it. "My mind to me a kingdom is," and to this
kingdom all the other kingdoms of the earth now send their embassadors. The
complexity of life is shown by the extension of the necessity of choice.
Each of us has to render a decision, to say yes or no a hundred times when
our grandfathers were called upon a single time. We must say yes or no to
our neighbors' theories or plans or desires, and whoever has lived or lives
or may yet live in any land or on any island of the sea has become our
neighbor. Through modern civilization we are coming into our inheritance,
and this heirloom includes the best that any man has done or thought since
history and literature and art began. It includes, too, all the arts and
inventions by which any men of any time have separated truth from error. Of
one blood are all the people of the earth, and whatsoever is done to the
least of these little ones in some degree comes to me. We suffer from the
miasma of the Indian jungles; we starve with the savages of the harvestless
islands; we grow weak with the abused peasants of the Russian steppes, who
leave us the legacy of their grippe. The great volcano which buries far off
cities at its foot casts its pitying dust over us. It is said that through
the bonds of commerce, common trade, and common need, there is growing up
the fund of a great "bank of human kindness," no genuine draft on which is
ever left dishonored. Whoever is in need of help the world over, by that
token has a claim on us.
In our material life we draw our resources from every land. Clothing,
spices, fruits, toys, household furniture,--we lay contributions on the
whole world for the most frugal meal, for the humblest dwelling. We need
the best work of every nation and every nation asks our best of us. The day
of home-brewed ale, of home-made bread, and home-spun clothing is already
past with us. Better than we can do, our neighbors send us, and we must
send our own best in return. With home-made garments also pass away
inherited politics and hereditary religion, with all the support of caste
and with all its barriers. We must work all this out for ourselves; we must
make our own place in society; we must frame our own creeds; we must live
our own religion; for no longer can one man's religion be taken
unquestionably by any other. As the world has been unified, so is the
individual unit exalted. With all this, the simplicity of life is passing
away. Our front doors are wide open as the trains go by. The caravan
traverses our front yard. We speak to millions, millions speak to us; and
we must cultivate the social tact, the gentleness, the adroitness, the
firmness necessary to carry out our own designs without thwarting those of
others. Time no longer flows on evenly. We must count our moments, so much
for ourselves, so much for the world we serve and which serves us in
return. We must be swift and accurate in the part we play in a drama so
mighty, so strenuous, and so complex.
More than any of the others, the Twentieth Century will be democratic. The
greatest discovery of the Nineteenth Century was that of the reality of
external things. That of the Twentieth Century will be this axiom in social
geometry: "A straight line is the shortest distance between two points." If
something needs doing, do it; the more plainly, directly, honestly, the
better.
The earlier centuries cared little for the life of a man. Hence they failed
to discriminate. In masses and mobs they needed kings and rulers but could
not choose them. Hence the device of selecting as ruler the elder son of
the last ruler, whatever his nature might be. A child, a lunatic, a
monster, a sage,--it was all the same to these unheeding centuries. The
people could not follow those they understood or who understood them. They
must trust all to the blind chance of heredity. Tyrant or figurehead, the
mob, which from its own indifference creates the pomp of royalty, threw up
its caps for the king, and blindly died for him in his courage or in his
folly with the same unquestioning loyalty. In like manner did the mob
fashion lords and princes, each in its own image. Not the man who would do
or think or help, but the eldest son of a former lord was chosen for its
homage. The result of it all was that no use was made of the forces of
nature, for those who might have learned to control them were hunted to
their death. The men who could think and act for themselves were in no
position to give their actions leverage.
When a people really means to do something, it must resort to democracy. It
must value men as men, not as functions of a chain of conventionalities.
"America," says Emerson, "means opportunity;" opportunity for work,
opportunity for training, opportunity for influence. Democracy exalts the
individual. It realizes that of all the treasures of the nation, the talent
of its individual men is the most important. It realizes that its first
duty is to waste none of this. It cannot afford to leave its Miltons mute
and inglorious nor to let its village Hampdens waste their strength on
petty obstacles while it has great tasks for them to accomplish. In a
democracy, when work is to be done men rise to do it. No matter what the
origin of our Washingtons and Lincolns, our Grants and our Shermans, our
Clevelands or our Roosevelts, our Eliots, our Hadleys, or our Remsens, we
know that they are being made ready for every crisis which may need their
hand, for every work we would have them carry through. To give each man the
training he deserves is to bring the right man face to face with his own
opportunity. The straight line is the shortest distance between two points
in life as in geometry. For the work of a nation we may not call on Lord
This or Earl That, whose ancestors have lain on velvet for a thousand
years; we want the man who can do the work, who can face the dragon, or
carry the message to Garcia. A man whose nerves are not relaxed by
centuries of luxury will serve us best. Give him a fair chance to try; give
us a fair chance to try him. This is the meaning of democracy; not fuss and
feathers, pomp and gold lace, but accomplishment.
Democracy does not mean equality--just the reverse of this, it means
individual responsibility, equality before the law, of course--equality of
opportunity, but no other equality save that won by faithful service. That
social system which bids men rise must also let them fall if they cannot
maintain themselves. To choose the right man means the dismissal of the
wrong. The weak, the incompetent, the untrained, the dissipated find no
growing welcome in the century which is coming. It will have no place for
unskilled laborers. A bucket of water and a basket of coal will do all that
the unskilled laborer can do if we have skilled men to direct them. The
unskilled laborer is no product of democracy. He exists in spite of
democracy. The children of the republic are entitled to something better. A
generous education, a well-directed education, should be the birthright of
each one of them. Democracy may even intensify natural inequalities. The
man who cannot say no to cheap and vulgar temptations falls all the lower
in the degree to which he is a free agent. In competition with men alert,
loyal, trained and creative, the dullard is condemned to a lifetime of hard
labor, through no direct fault of his own. Keep the capable man down and
you may level the incapable one up. But this the Twentieth Century will not
do. This democracy will not do; this it is not now doing, and this it never
will attempt. The social condition which would give all men equal reward,
equal enjoyment, equal responsibility, may be a condition to dream of. It
may be Utopia; it is not democracy. Sir Henry Maine describes the process
of civilization as the "movement from status to contract." This is the
movement from mass to man, from subservience to individualism, from
tradition to democracy, from pomp and circumstance of non-essentials to the
method of achievement.
Owen Wister in "The Virginian" says: "All America is divided into two
classes,--the quality and the equality. The latter will always recognize
the former when mistaken for it. Both will be with us until our women bear
nothing but kings. It was through the Declaration of Independence that we
Americans acknowledged the _eternal inequality_ of man. For by it we
abolished a cut-and-dried aristocracy. We had seen little men artificially
held up in high places, and great men artificially held down in low places,
and our own justice-loving hearts abhorred this violence to human nature.
Therefore we decreed that every man should, thenceforth have equal liberty
to find his own level. By this very decree we acknowledged and gave freedom
to true aristocracy, saying, 'Let the best man win, whoever he is.' Let the
best man win! That is America's word. That is true democracy. And true
democracy and true aristocracy are one and the same thing. If anybody
cannot see this, so much the worse for his eyesight."
_Paucis vivat humanum genus_: "for the few the race should live,"--this
is the discarded motto of another age. The few live for the many.
The clean and strong enrich the life of all with their wisdom, with their
conquests. It is to bring about the larger equalities of opportunity, or
purpose, that we exalt the talents of the few.
This has not always been clear, even the history of the Republic. My own
great grandfather, John Elderkin Waldo, said at Tolland, Connecticut, more
than a century ago: "Times are hard with us in New England. They will never
be any better until each farm laborer in Connecticut is willing to work all
day for a sheep's head and pluck," just as they used to do before the red
schoolhouses on the hills began to preach their doctrines of sedition and
equality. There could never be good times again, so he thought, till the
many again lived for the few.
It is in the saving of the few who serve the many that the progress of
civilization lies. In the march of the common man, and in the influence of
the man uncommon who rises freely from the ranks, we have all of history
that counts.
In a picture gallery at Brussels there is a painting by Wiertz, most
cynical of artists, representing the man of the Future and the things of
the Past. A naturalist holds in his right hand a magnifying glass, and in
the other a handful of Napoleon and his marshals, guns, and
battle-flags,--tiny objects swelling with meaningless glory. He examines
these intensely, while a child at his side looks on in open-eyed wonder.
She cannot understand what a grown man can find in these curious trifles
that he should take the trouble to study them.
This painting is a parable designed to show Napoleon's real place in
history. It was painted within a dozen miles of the field of Waterloo, and
not many years after the noise of its cannon had died away. It shows the
point of view of the man of the future. Save in the degradation of France,
through the impoverishment of its life-blood, there is little in human
civilization to recall the disastrous incident of Napoleon's existence.
_Paucis vivat humanum genus_: "the many live for the few." This shall
be true no longer. The earth belongs to him who can use it and the only
force which lasts is that which is used to make men free.
"Triumphant America," says George Horace Lorimer, "certainly does not mean
each and every one of our seventy-eight millions. For instance, it does not
include the admitted idiots and lunatics, the registered paupers and
parasites, the caged criminals, the six million illiterates. In a sense, it
includes the twenty-five to thirty million children, for they exert a
tremendous influence upon the grown people. But in no sense does it include
the whittlers on dry-goods boxes, the bar-room loafers, the fellows that
listen all day long for the whistle to blow, those who are the first to be
mentioned whenever there is talk of cutting down the force. It does not
include those of our statesmen who spend their time in promoting corrupt
jobs, or in hunting places for lazy heelers. It does not include the
doctors who reach their high-water mark for professional knowledge on the
day they graduate, or the lawyers who lie and cheat and procure injustice
for the sake of fees.
"Most of these--even the idiots and criminals--do a little something
towards progress. This world is so happily ordered that it is impossible
for one man to do much harm or to avoid doing some good; and one of the
greatest forces for good is the power of a bad example. Still it is not our
bad examples that make us get on and earn us these smothers of flowery
compliment.
"Some of us are tall and others short, some straight and others crooked,
some strong, others feeble; some of us run, others walk, others snail it.
But all, all have their feet upon the same level of the common earth. And
America's worst enemy is he--or she--who by word or look encourages another
to think otherwise. Head as high as you please; but feet always upon the
common ground, never upon anybody's shoulders or neck, even though he be
weak or willing."
So in this strenuous and complex age, this age of "fierce democracy," what
have we to do, and with what manner of men shall we work? Young men of the
Twentieth Century, will your times find place for you? There is plenty to
do in every direction. That is plain enough. All the pages in this little
book, or in a very large one, would be filled by a mere enumeration. In
agriculture a whole great empire is yet to be won in the arid west, and the
west that is not arid and the east that was never so must be turned into
one vast market-garden. The Twentieth Century will treat a farm as a
friend, and it will yield rich returns for such friendship. In the
Twentieth Century vast regions will be fitted to civilization, not by
imperialism, which blasts, but by permeation, which reclaims.
The table-lands of Mexico, the plains of Manchuria, the Pampas of
Argentine, the moors of Northern Japan, all these regions in our own
temperate zone offer a welcome to the Anglo-Saxon farmer. The great tropics
are less hopeful, but they have never had a fair trial. The northern
nations have tried to exploit them in haste, and then to get away, never to
stay with them and work patiently to find out their best. Some day the
possibilities of the Torrid Zone may come to us as a great discovery.
There is need of men in forestry; for we must win back the trees we have
slain with such ruthless hand. The lumberman of the future will pick ripe
trees and save the rest as carefully as the herdsman selects his stock. In
engineering, in mining, in invention, there are endless possibilities.
Every man who masters what is already known in any one branch of applied
science, makes his own fortune. He who can add a little, save a little, do
something better or something cheaper, makes the fortune of a hundred
others. "There is always room for a man of force, and he makes room for
many."
Andrew Carnegie once said that the foundation of his fortune lay in the
employment of trained chemists, while other men made steel by rule of
thumb. Trained chemists made better steel, just a little. They devised ways
to make it cheaper, just a little, and they found means to utilize the
slag. All this means hundreds of millions of dollars, if done on a large
enough scale.
There is no limit to the demands of engineering. A million waterfalls dash
down the <DW72>s of the Sierras. The patient sun has hauled the water up
from the sea and spread it in snow over the mountains. The same sun will
melt the snow, and as the water falls back to the sea it will yield again
the force it cost to bring it to its heights. Thus sunshine and falling
water can be transmuted into power. This power already lights the cities of
California, and some day it may be changed into the heat which moves a
thousand factories. All these are the problems of the Electrical Engineer.
Equally rich are the opportunities in other forms of engineering. There is
no need to be in haste, perhaps, but the Twentieth Century is eager in its
quest for gold. The mother lode runs along the foothills from Bering
Straits to Cape Horn. From end to end of the continent the Twentieth
Century will bring this gold to light, and carry it all away. The Mining
Engineer who knows the mountains best finds his fortune ready to his hand.
Civil Engineers, Steam Engineers, Naval Engineers, whoever knows how to
manage things or men, even Social Engineers, Labor Engineers, all find an
eager welcome. There are never too many of those who know how; but the day
of the rule of thumb has long since past. The Engineer of to-day must
create, not imitate. And to him who can create, this last century we call
the Twentieth is yet part of the first day of Creation.
In commerce the field is always open for young men. The world's trade is
barely yet begun. We hear people whining over the spread of the commercial
spirit, but what they mean is not the spirit of commerce. It is persistence
of provincial selfishness, a spirit which has been with us since the fall
of Adam, and which the centuries of whitening sails has as yet not
eradicated. The spirit of fair commerce is a noble spirit. Through commerce
the world is unified. Through commerce grows tolerance, and through
tolerance, peace and solidarity. Commerce is world-wide barter, each nation
giving what it can best produce for what is best among others. Freedom
breeds commerce as commerce demands freedom. Only free men can buy and
sell; for without selling no man nor nation has means to buy. When China is
a nation, her people will be no longer a "yellow peril." It is poverty,
slavery, misery, which makes men dangerous. In the words of "Joss
Chinchingoss," the Kipling of Singapore, we have only to give the Chinaman
"The chance at home that he makes for himself elsewhere,
And the star of the Jelly-fish nation mid others shall shine as fair."
Since the day, twenty-three years ago, on which I first passed through the
Golden Gate of California, I have seen the steady increase of the shipping
which enters that channel. There are ten vessels to-day passing in and out
to one in 1880. Another twenty-five years will see a hundred times as many.
We have discovered the Orient, and even more, the Orient has discovered us.
We may not rule it by force of arms; for that counts nothing in trade or
civilization. Commerce follows the flag only when the flag flies on
merchant ships. It has no interest in following the flag to see a fight.
Commerce follows fair play and mutual service. Through the centuries of war
men have only played at commerce. The Twentieth Century will take it
seriously, and it will call for men to do its work. It will call more
loudly than war has ever done, but it will ask its men not to die bravely,
but to live wisely, and above all truthfully to watch their accounts.
The Twentieth Century will find room for pure science as well as for
applied science and ingenious invention. Each Helmholtz of the future will
give rise to a thousand Edisons. Exact knowledge must precede any form of
applications. The reward of pure science will be, in the future as in the
past, of its own kind, not fame nor money, but the joy of finding truth. To
this joy no favor of fortune can add. The student of nature in all the ages
has taken the vow of poverty. To him money, his own or others, means only
the power to do more or better work.
The Twentieth Century will have its share in literature and art. Most of
the books it will print will not be literature, for idle books are written
for idle people, and many idle people are left over from less insistent
times. The books sold by the hundred thousands to men and women not trained
to make time count, will be forgotten before the century is half over. The
books it saves will be books of its own kind, plain, straightforward,
clear-cut, marked by that "fanaticism for veracity" which means everything
else that is good in the intellectual and moral development of man. The
literature of form is giving way already to the literature of power. We
care less and less for the surprises and scintillations of clever fellows;
we care more and more for the real thoughts of real men. We find that the
deepest thoughts can be expressed in the simplest language. "A straight
line is the shortest distance between two points" in literature as well as
in mechanics. "In simplicity is strength," as Watt said of machinery, and
it is true in art as well as in mechanics.
In medicine, the field of action is growing infinitely broader, now that
its training is securely based on science, and the divining rod no longer
stands first among its implements of precision. Not long ago, it is said, a
young medical student in New York committed suicide, leaving behind this
touching sentence: "I die because there is room for no more doctors." And
this just now, when for the first time it is worth while to be a doctor.
Room for no more doctors, no doubt, of the kind to which he belonged--men
who know nothing and care nothing for science and its methods, who choose
the medical school which will turn them loose most quickly and cheaply, who
have no feeling for their patients, and whose prescriptions are given with
no more conscience than goes into the fabrication of an electric belt or
the compounding of a patent medicine. Room for no more doctors whose
highest conception is to look wise, take his chances, and pocket the fee.
Room for no more doctors just now, when the knowledge of human anatomy and
physiology has shown the way to a thousand uses of preventive surgery. Room
for no more doctors, when the knowledge of the microbes and their germs has
given the hope of successful warfare against all contagious diseases; room
for no more doctors, when antiseptics and anaesthetics have proved their
value in a thousand pain-saving ways. Room for no more doctors now, when
the doctor must be an honest man, with a sound knowledge of the human body
and a mastery of the methods of the sciences on which this knowledge
depends. Room for no more doctors of the incompetent class, because the
wiser times demand a better service.
What is true in medicine applies also to the profession of law. The
pettifogger must give place to the jurist. The law is not a device for
getting around the statutes. It is the science and art of equity. The
lawyers of the future will not be mere pleaders before juries. They will
save their clients from need of judge or jury. In every civilized nation
the lawyers must be the law-givers. The sword has given place to the green
bag. The demands of the Twentieth Century will be that the statutes
coincide with equity. This condition educated lawyers can bring about. To
know equity is to be its defender.
In politics the demand for serious service must grow. As we have to do with
wise and clean men, statesmen, instead of vote-manipulators, we shall feel
more and more the need for them. We shall demand not only men who can lead
in action, but men who can prevent unwise action. Often the policy which
seems most attractive to the majority is full of danger for the future. We
need men who can face popular opinion, and, if need be, to face it down.
The best citizen is one not afraid to cast his vote away by voting with the
minority.
As we look at it in the rough, the political outlook of democracy often
seems discouraging. A great, rich, busy nation cannot stop to see who grabs
its pennies. We are plundered by the rich, we are robbed by the poor, and
trusts and unions play the tyrant over both. But all these evils are
temporary. The men that have solved greater problems in the past will not
be balked by these. Whatever is won for the cause of equity and decency is
never lost again. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty," and in this
Twentieth Century there are always plenty who are awake. One by one
political reforms take their place on our statute books, and each one comes
to stay.
In all this, the journalist of the future may find an honorable place. He
will learn to temper enterprise with justice, audacity with fidelity,
omniscience with truthfulness. When he does this he will become a natural
leader of men because he will be their real servant. To mould public
opinion, to furnish a truthful picture of the times from day to day, either
of these ideals in journalism gives ample room for the play of the highest
manly energy.
The need of the teacher will not grow less as the century goes on. The
history of the future is written in the schools of to-day, and the reform
which gives us better schools is the greatest of reforms. It is said that
the teacher's noblest work is to lead the child to his inheritance. This is
the inheritance he would win; the truth that men have tested in the past,
and the means by which they were led to know that it was truth. "Free
should the scholar be--free and brave," and to such as these the Twentieth
Century will bring the reward of the scholar.
The Twentieth Century will need its preachers and leaders in religion. Some
say, idly, that religion is losing her hold in these strenuous days. But
she is not. She is simply changing her grip. The religion of this century
will be more practical, more real. It will deal with the days of the week
as well as with the Sabbath. It will be as patent in the marts of trade as
in the walls of a cathedral, for a man's religion is his working hypothesis
of life, not of life in some future world, but of life right here to-day,
the only day we have in which to build a life. It will not look backward
exclusively to "a dead fact stranded on the shore of the oblivious years,"
nor will its rewards be found alone in the life to come. The world of
to-day will not be a "vale of tears" through which sinful men are to walk
unhappily toward final reward. It will be a world of light and color and
joy, a world in which each of us may have a noble though a humble
part,--the work of the "holy life of action." It will find religion in love
and wisdom and virtue, not in bloodless asceticism, philosophical
disputation, the maintenance of withered creeds, the cultivation of
fruitless emotion, or the recrudescence of forms from which the life has
gone out. It is possible, Thoreau tells us, for us to "walk in hallowed
cathedrals," and this in our every-day lives of profession or trade. It is
the loyalty to duty, the love of God through the love of men, which may
transform the workshop to a cathedral, and the life of to-day may be divine
none the less because it is strenuous and complex. It may be all the more
so because it is democratic, even the Sabbath and its duties being no
longer exalted above the other holy days.
What sort of men does the century need for all this work it has to do? We
may be sure that it will choose its own, and those who cannot serve it will
be cast aside unpityingly. Those it can use it will pay generously, each
after its kind, some with money, some with fame, some with the sense of
power, some with the joy of service. Some will work hard in spite of vast
wealth, some only after taking the vow of poverty.
Those not needed you can find any day. They lean against lamp-posts in
platoons, they crowd the saloons, they stand about railway stations all day
long to see trains go by. They dally on the lounges of fashionable clubs.
They may be had tied in bundles by the employers of menial labor. Their
women work at the wash-tubs, and crowd the sweat shops of great cities; or,
idle rich, they may dawdle in the various ways in which men and women
dispose of time, yielding nothing in return for it. You, whom the century
wants, belong to none of these classes. Yours must be the spirit of the
times, strenuous, complex, democratic.
A young man is a mighty reservoir of unused power. "Give me health and a
day and I will put the pomp of emperors to shame." If I save my strength
and make the most of it, there is scarcely a limit to what I may do. The
right kind of men using their strength rightly, far outrun their own
ambitions, not as to wealth and fame and position, but as to actual
accomplishment. "I never dreamed that I should do so much," is the frequent
saying of a successful man; for all men are ready to help him who throws
his whole soul into the service.
Men of training the century must demand. It is impossible to drop into
greatness. "There is always room at the top." so the Chicago merchant said
to his son, "but the elevator is not running." You must walk up the stairs
on your own feet. It is as easy to do great things as small, if you only
know how. The only way to learn to do great things is to do small things
well, patiently, loyally. If your ambitions run high, it will take a long
time in preparation. There is no hurry. No wise man begrudges any of the
time spent in the preparation for life, so long as it is actually making
ready.
"Profligacy," says Emerson, "consists not in spending, but in spending off
the line of your career. The crime which bankrupts men and nations is that
of turning aside from one's main purpose to serve a job here and there."
The value of the college training of to-day cannot be too strongly
emphasized. You cannot save time nor money by omitting it, whatever the
profession on which you enter. The college is becoming a part of life. For
a long time the American college was swayed by the traditions of the
English aristocracy. Its purpose was to certify to a man's personal
culture. The young man was sent to college that he might be a member of a
gentler caste. His degree was his badge that in his youth he had done the
proper thing for a gentleman to do. It attested not that he was wise or
good or competent to serve, but that he was bred a gentleman among
gentlemen.
So long as the title of academic bachelor had this significance, the man of
action passed it by. It had no meaning to him, and the fine edge of
accuracy in thought and perception, which only the college can give, was
wanting in his work. The college education did not seem to disclose the
secret of power, and the man of affairs would have none of it.
A higher ideal came from Germany,--that of erudition. The German scholar
knows some one thing thoroughly. He may be rude or uncultured, he may not
know how to use his knowledge, but whatever this knowledge is, it is sound
and genuine. Thoroughness of knowledge gives the scholar self-respect; it
makes possible a broad horizon and clear perspective. From these sources,
English and German, the American University is developing its own essential
idea,--that of personal effectiveness. The American University of to-day
seeks neither culture nor erudition as its final end. It values both as
means to greater ends. It looks forward to work in life. Its triumphs in
these regards the century will see clearly. It will value culture and
treasure erudition, but it will use both as helps toward doing things. It
will find its inspiration in the needs of the world as it is, and it is
through such effort that the world that is to be shall be made a reality. A
great work demands full preparation. It takes larger provision for a cruise
to the Cape of Good Hope than for a trip to the Isle of Dogs. For this
reason the century will ask its men to take a college education.
It will ask much more than that,--a college education where the work is
done in earnest, students and teachers realizing its serious value, and
besides all this, it will demand the best special training which its best
universities can give. For the Twentieth Century will not be satisfied with
the universities of the fifteenth or seventeenth centuries. It will create
its own, and the young man who does the century's work will be a product of
its university system. Of this we may be sure, the training for strenuous
life is not in academic idleness. The development of living ideals is not
in an atmosphere of cynicism. The blase, lukewarm, fin-de-siecle young man
of the clubs will not represent university culture, nor, on the other hand,
will culture be dominated by a cheap utilitarianism.
"You will hear every day around you," said Emerson to the divinity students
of Harvard, "the maxims of a low prudence. You will hear that your first
duty is to get land and money, place and fame. 'What is this truth you
seek? What is this beauty?' men will ask in derision. If, nevertheless, God
have called any of you to explain truth and beauty, be bold, be firm, be
true. When you shall say, 'As others do, so will I; I renounce, I am sorry
for it--my early visions; I must eat the good of the land, and let learning
and romantic speculations go until some more favorable season,' then dies
the man in you; then once more perish the buds of art and poetry and
science, as they have died already in a hundred thousand men. The hour of
that choice is the crisis in your history."
The age will demand steady headed men, men whose feet stand on the ground,
men who can see things as they really are, and act accordingly. "The
resolute facing of the world as it is, with all the garments of
make-believe thrown off,"--this, according to Huxley, is the sole cure for
the evils which beset men and nations. The only philosophy of life is that
derived from its science. We know right from wrong because the destruction
is plain in human experience. Right action brings abundance of life. Wrong
action brings narrowness, decay, and degeneration. A man must have
principles of life above all questions of the mere opportunities of to-day,
but these principles are themselves derived from experience. They belong to
the higher opportunism, the consideration of what is best in the long run.
The man who is controlled by an arbitrary system without reference to
conditions, is ineffective. He becomes a crank, a fanatic, a man whose aims
are out of all proportion to results. This is because he is dealing with an
imaginary world, not with the world as it is. We may admire the valiant
knight who displays a noble chivalry in fighting wind-mills, but we do not
call on a wind-mill warrior when we have some plain, real work to
accomplish. All progress, large or small, is the resultant of many forces.
We cannot single out any one of these as of dominant value, and ignore or
despise the others. In moving through the solar system, the earth is
falling toward the sun as well as flying away from it. In human society,
egoism is coexistent with altruism, competition with co-operation, mutual
struggle with mutual aid. Each is as old as the other and each as
important; for the one could not exist without the other. Not in air-built
Utopias, but in flesh and blood, wood and stone and iron, will the movement
of humanity find its realization.
Don't count on gambling as a means of success. Gambling rests on the desire
to get something for nothing. So does burglary and larceny. "The love of
money is the root of all evil." This was said long ago, and it is not
exactly what the wise man meant. He was speaking of unearned money. Money
is power, and to save up power is thrift. On thrift civilization is
builded. The root of all evil is the desire to get money without earning
it. To get something for nothing demoralizes all effort. The man who gets a
windfall spends his days watching the wind. The man who wins in a lottery
buys more lottery tickets. Whoever receives bad money, soon throws good
money after bad. He will throw that of others when his own is gone. No firm
or corporation is rich enough to afford to keep gamblers as clerks.
The age will demand men of good taste who care for the best they know.
Vulgarity is satisfaction with mean things. That is vulgar which is poor of
its kind. There is a kind of music called rag-time,--vulgar music, with
catchy tunes--catchy to those who do not know nor care for things better.
There are men satisfied with rag-time music, with rag-time theatres, with
rag-time politics, rag-time knowledge, rag-time religion. "It was my duty
to have loved the highest." The highest of one man may be low for another,
but no one can afford to look downward for his enjoyments. The corrosion of
vulgarity spreads everywhere. Its poison enters every home. The billboards
of our cities bear evidence to it; our newspapers reek with it, our story
books are filled with it; we cannot keep it out of our churches or our
colleges. The man who succeeds must shun, vulgarity. To be satisfied with
poor things in one line will tarnish his ideals in the direction of his
best efforts. One great source of failure in life is satisfaction with mean
things. It is easier to be almost right than to be right. It is less trying
to wish than to do. There are many things that glitter as well as gold and
which can be had more cheaply. Illusion is always in the market and can be
had on easy terms. Realities do not lie on the bargain counters. Happiness
is based on reality. It must be earned before we can come into its
possession. Happiness is not a state. It is the accompaniment of action. It
comes from the exercise of natural functions, from doing, thinking,
planning, fighting, overcoming, loving. It is positive and strengthening.
It is the signal "all is well," passed from one nerve cell to another. It
does not burn out as it glows. It makes room for more happiness. Loving,
too, is a positive word. It is related to happiness as an impulse to
action. The love that does not work itself out in helping acts as mere
torture of the mind. The primal impulse of vice and sin is a short cut to
happiness. It promises pleasure without earning it. And this pleasure is
always an illusion. Its final legacy is weakness and pain. Pain is not a
punishment, but a warning of harm done to the body. The unearned pleasures
provoke this warning. They leave a "dark brown taste in the mouth." Their
recollection is "different in the morning." Such pleasures, Robert Burns
who had tried many of them says, are "like poppies spread," or "like the
snow-falls on the river." But it is not true that they pass and leave no
trace. Their touch is blasting. But true happiness leaves no reaction. To
do strengthens a man for more doing; to love makes room for more loving.
The second power of vulgarity is obscenity, and this vice is like the
pestilence. All inane vulgarity tends to become obscene. From obscenity
rather than drink comes the helplessness of the ordinary tramp.
Another form of vulgarity is profanity. The habit of swearing is not a mark
of manliness. It is the sign of a dull, coarse, unrefined nature, a lack of
verbal initiative. Sometimes, perhaps, profanity seems picturesque and
effective. I have known it so in Arizona once or twice, in old Mexico and
perhaps in Wyoming, but never in the home, or the street, or the ordinary
affairs of life. It is not that blasphemy is offensive to God. He is used
to it, perhaps, for he has met it under many conditions. But it is
offensive to man, insulting to the atmosphere, and destructive of him who
uses it. Profanity and bluster are not signs of courage. The bravest men
are quiet of speech and modest in demeanor.
The man who is successful will not be a dreamer. He will have but one dream
and that will work itself out as a purpose. Dreaming wanes into
sentimentalism, and sentimentalism is fatal to action. The man of purpose
says no to all lesser calls, all minor opportunities. He does not abandon
his college education because a hundred dollar position is offered him
outside. He does not turn from one profession because there is money in
another. |
10,240 |
Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Charles Bidwell and Distributed
Proofreaders
MAYDAY WITH THE MUSES.
BY
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD
Author of the Farmer's Boy, Rural Tales, &c.
LONDON:
Printed for the Author: and for Baldwin Chadock, and Joy
1822
LONDON:
Printed by Thomas Davison, Whitefriars.
PREFACE.
I am of opinion that Prefaces are very useless things in cases like the
present, where the Author must talk of himself, with little amusement to
his readers. I have hesitated whether I should say any thing or nothing;
but as it is the fashion to say something, I suppose I must comply. I am
well aware that many readers will exclaim--"It is not the common practice
of English baronets to remit half a year's rent to their tenants for
poetry, or for any thing else." This may be very true; but I have found a
character in the Rambler, No. 82, who made a very different bargain, and
who says, "And as Alfred received the tribute of the Welsh in wolves'
heads, I allowed my tenants to pay their rents in butterflies, till I had
exhausted the papilionaceous tribe. I then directed them to the pursuit of
other animals, and obtained, by this easy method, most of the grubs and
insects which land, air, or water can supply.........I have, from my own
ground, the longest blade of grass upon record, and once accepted, as a
half year's rent for a field of wheat, an ear, containing more grains than
had been seen before upon a single stem."
I hope my old Sir Ambrose stands in no need of defence from me or from any
one; a man has a right to do what he likes with his own estate. The
characters I have introduced as candidates may not come off so easily; a
cluster of poets is not likely to be found in one village, and the
following lines, written by my good friend T. Park. Esq. of Hampstead, are
not only true, but beautifully true, and I cannot omit them.
WRITTEN IN THE ISLE OF THANET,
August, 1790.
The bard, who paints from rural plains,
Must oft himself the void supply
Of damsels pure and artless swains,
Of innocence and industry:
For sad experience shows the heart
Of human beings much the same;
Or polish'd by insidious art,
Or rude as from the clod it came.
And he who roams the village round,
Or strays amid the harvest sere,
Will hear, as now, too many a sound
Quiet would never wish to hear.
The wrangling rustics' loud abuse,
The coarse, unfeeling, witless jest,
The threat obscene, the oath profuse,
And all that cultured minds detest.
Hence let those Sylvan poets glean,
Who picture life without a flaw;
Nature may form a perfect scene,
But Fancy must the figures draw.
The word "fancy" connects itself with my very childhood, fifty years back.
The fancy of those who wrote the songs which I was obliged to hear in
infancy was a very inanimate and sleepy fancy. I could enumerate a dozen
songs at least which all described sleeping shepherds and shepherdesses,
and, in one instance, where they both went to sleep: this is not fair
certainly; it is not even "watch and watch."
"As Damon and Phillis were keeping of sheep,
Being free from all care they retired to sleep," &c.
I must say, that if I understand any thing at all about keeping sheep,
this is not the way to go to work with them. But such characters and such
writings were fashionable, and fashion will beat common sense at any time.
With all the beauty and spirit of Cunningham's "Kate of Aberdeen," and
some others, I never found any thing to strike my mind so forcibly as the
last stanza of Dibdin's "Sailor's Journal"--
"At length, 'twas in the month of May,
Our crew, it being lovely weather,
At three A.M. discovered day
And England's chalky cliffs together!
At seven, up channel how we bore,
Whilst hopes and fears rush'd o'er each fancy!
At twelve, I gaily jump'd on shore,
And to my throbbing heart press'd Nancy."
This, to my feelings, is a balm at all times; it is spirit, animation, and
imagery, all at once.
I will plead no excuses for any thing which the reader may find in this
little volume, but merely state, that I once met with a lady in London,
who, though otherwise of strong mind and good information, would maintain
that "it is impossible for a blind man to fall in love." I always thought
her wrong, and the present tale of "Alfred and Jennet" is written to
elucidate my side of the question.
I have been reported to be dead; but I can assure the reader that this,
like many other reports, is not true. I have written these tales in
anxiety, and in a wretched state of health; and if these formidable foes
have not incapacitated me, but left me free to meet the public eye with
any degree of credit, that degree of credit I am sure I shall gain.
I am, with remembrance of what is past,
Most respectfully,
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD.
_Shefford, Bedfordshire,_
_April 10th_, 1822.
MAY-DAY WITH THE MUSES.
THE INVITATION
O for the strength to paint my joy once more!
That joy I feel when Winter's reign is o'er;
When the dark despot lifts his hoary brow,
And seeks his polar-realm's eternal snow.
Though black November's fogs oppress my brain,
Shake every nerve, and struggling fancy chain;
Though time creeps o'er me with his palsied hand,
And frost-like bids the stream of passion stand,
And through his dry teeth sends a shivering blast,
And points to more than fifty winters past,
Why should I droop with heartless, aimless eye?
Friends start around, and all my phantoms fly,
And Hope, upsoaring with expanded wing,
Unfolds a scroll, inscribed "Remember Spring."
Stay, sweet enchantress, charmer of my days,
And glance thy rainbow colours o'er my lays;
Be to poor Giles what thou hast ever been,
His heart's warm solace and his sovereign queen;
Dance with his rustics when the laugh runs high,
Live in the lover's heart, the maiden's eye;
Still be propitious when his feet shall stray
Beneath the bursting hawthorn-buds of May;
Warm every thought, and brighten every hour,
And let him feel thy presence and thy power.
SIR AMBROSE HIGHAM, in his eightieth year,
With memory unimpair'd, and conscience clear,
His English heart untrammell'd, and full blown
His senatorial honours and renown,
Now, basking in his plenitude of fame,
Resolved, in concert with his noble dame,
To drive to town no more--no more by night
To meet in crowded courts a blaze of light,
In streets a roaring mob with flags unfurl'd,
And all the senseless discord of the world,--
But calmly wait the hour of his decay,
The broad bright sunset of his glorious day;
And where he first drew breath at last to fall,
Beneath the towering shades of Oakly Hall[A].
[Footnote A: The seat of Sir Ambrose is situated in the author's
imagination only; the reader must build Oakly Hall where he pleases.]
Quick spread the news through hamlet, field, and farm,
The labourer wiped his brow and staid his arm;
'Twas news to him of more importance far
Than change of empires or the yells of war;
It breathed a hope which nothing could destroy,
Poor widows rose, and clapp'd their hands for joy,
Glad voices rang at every cottage door,
"Good old Sir Ambrose goes to town no more."
Well might the village bells the triumph sound,
Well might the voice of gladness ring around;
Where sickness raged, or want allied to shame,
Sure as the sun his well-timed succour came;
Food for the starving child, and warmth and wine
For age that totter'd in its last decline.
From him they shared the embers' social glow;
_He_ fed the flame that glanced along the snow,
When winter drove his storms across the sky,
And pierced the bones of shrinking poverty.
Sir Ambrose loved the Muses, and would pay
Due honours even to the ploughman's lay;
Would cheer the feebler bard, and with the strong
Soar to the noblest energies of song;
Catch the rib-shaking laugh, or from his eye
Dash silently the tear of sympathy.
Happy old man!--with feelings such as these
The seasons all can charm, and trifles please;
And hence a sudden thought, a new-born whim,
Would shake his cup of pleasure to the brim,
Turn scoffs and doubts and obstacles aside,
And instant action follow like a tide.
Time past, he had on his paternal ground
With pride the latent sparks of genius found
In many a local ballad, many a tale,
As wild and brief as cowslips in the dale,
Though unrecorded as the gleams of light
That vanish in the quietness of night
"Why not," he cried, as from his couch he rose,
"To cheer my age, and sweeten my repose,
"Why not be just and generous in time,
"And bid my tenants pay their rents in rhyme?
"For one half year they shall.--A feast shall bring
"A crowd of merry faces in the spring;--
"Here, pens, boy, pens; I'll weigh the case no more,
"But write the summons:--go, go, shut the door.
"'All ye on Oakly manor dwelling,
'Farming, labouring, buying, selling,
'Neighbours! banish gloomy looks,
'My grey old steward shuts his books.
'Let not a thought of winter's rent
'Destroy one evening's merriment;
'I ask not gold, but tribute found
'Abundant on Parnassian ground.
'Choose, ye who boast the gift, your themes
'Of joy or pathos, tales or dreams,
'Choose each a theme;--but, harkye, bring
'No stupid ghost, no vulgar thing;
'Fairies, indeed, may wind their way,
'And sparkle through the brightest lay:
'I love their pranks, their favourite green,
'And, could the little sprites be seen,
'Were I a king, I'd sport with them,
'And dance beneath my diadem.
'But surely fancy need not brood
'O'er midnight darkness, crimes, and blood,
'In magic cave or monk's retreat,
'Whilst the bright world is at her feet;
'Whilst to her boundless range is given,
'By night, by day, the lights of heaven,
'And all they shine upon; whilst Love
'Still reigns the monarch of the grove,
'And real life before her lies
'In all its thousand, thousand dies.
'Then bring me nature, bring me sense,
'And joy shall be your recompense:
'On Old May-day I hope to see
'All happy:--leave the rest to me.
'A general feast shall cheer us all
'Upon the lawn that fronts the hall,
'With tents for shelter, laurel boughs
'And wreaths of every flower that blows.
'The months are wending fast away;
'Farewell,--remember Old May-day.'"
Surprise, and mirth, and gratitude, and jeers,
The clown's broad wonder, th' enthusiast's tears,
Fresh gleams of comfort on the brow of care,
The sectary's cold shrug, the miser's stare,
Were all excited, for the tidings flew
As quick as scandal the whole country through.
"Rent paid by rhymes at Oakly may be great,
"But rhymes for taxes would appal the state,"
Exclaim'd th' exciseman,--"and then tithes, alas!
"Why there, again, 'twill never come to pass."--
Thus all still ventured, as the whim inclined,
Remarks as various as the varying mind:
For here Sir Ambrose sent a challenge forth,
That claim'd a tribute due to sterling worth;
And all, whatever might their host regale,
Agreed to share the feast and drink his ale.
Now shot through many a heart a secret fire,
A new born spirit, an intense desire
For once to catch a spark of local fame,
And bear a poet's honourable name!
Already some aloft began to soar,
And some to think who never thought before;
But O, what numbers all their strength applied,
Then threw despairingly the task aside
With feign'd contempt, and vow'd they'd never tried.
Did dairy-wife neglect to turn her cheese,
Or idling miller lose the favouring breeze;
Did the young ploughman o'er the furrows stand,
Or stalking sower swing an empty hand,
One common sentence on their heads would fall,
'Twas Oakly banquet had bewitch'd them all.
Loud roar'd the winds of March, with whirling snow,
One brightening hour an April breeze would blow;
Now hail, now hoar-frost bent the flow'ret's head,
Now struggling beams their languid influence shed,
That scarce a cowering bird yet dared to sing
'Midst the wild changes of our island spring.
Yet, shall the Italian goatherd boasting cry,
"Poor Albion! when hadst thou so clear a sky!"
And deem that nature smiles for him alone;
Her renovated beauties all his own?
No:--let our April showers by night descend,
Noon's genial warmth with twilight stillness blend;
The broad Atlantic pour her pregnant breath,
And rouse the vegetable world from death;
Our island spring is rapture's self to me,
All I have seen, and all I wish to see.
Thus came the jovial day, no streaks of red
O'er the broad portal of the morn were spread,
But one high-sailing mist of dazzling white,
A screen of gossamer, a magic light,
Doom'd instantly, by simplest shepherd's ken,
To reign awhile, and be exhaled at ten.
O'er leaves, o'er blossoms, by his power restored,
Forth came the conquering sun and look'd abroad;
Millions of dew-drops fell, yet millions hung,
Like words of transport trembling on the tongue
Too strong for utt'rance:--Thus the infant boy,
With rosebud cheeks, and features tuned to joy,
Weeps while he struggles with restraint or pain,
But change the scene, and make him laugh again,
His heart rekindles, and his cheek appears
A thousand times more lovely through his tears.
From the first glimpse of day a busy scene
Was that high swelling lawn, that destined green,
Which shadowless expanded far and wide,
The mansion's ornament, the hamlet's pride;
To cheer, to order, to direct, contrive,
Even old Sir Ambrose had been up at five;
There his whole household labour'd in his view,--
But light is labour where the task is new.
Some wheel'd the turf to build a grassy throne
Round a huge thorn that spread his boughs alone,
Rough-rined and bold, as master of the place;
Five generations of the Higham race
Had pluck'd his flowers, and still he held his sway,
Waved his white head, and felt the breath of May.
Some from the green-house ranged exotics round,
To back in open day on English ground:
And'midst them in a line of splendour drew
Long wreaths and garlands, gather'd in the dew.
Some spread the snowy canvas, propp'd on high
O'er shelter'd tables with their whole supply;
Some swung the biting scythe with merry face,
And cropp'd the daisies for a dancing space.
Some roll'd the mouldy barrel in his might,
From prison'd darkness into cheerful light,
And fenced him round with cans; and others bore
The creaking hamper with its costly store,
Well cork'd, well flavour'd, and well tax'd, that came
From Lusitanian mountains, dear to fame,
Whence GAMA steer'd, and led the conquering way
To eastern triumphs and the realms of day.
A thousand minor tasks fill'd every hour,
'Till the sun gain'd the zenith of his power,
When every path was throng'd with old and young,
And many a sky-lark in his strength upsprung
To bid them welcome.--Not a face was there
But for May-day at least had banish'd care;
No cringing looks, no pauper tales to tell,
No timid glance, they knew their host too well,--
Freedom was there, and joy in every eye:
Such scenes were England's boast in days gone by.
Beneath the thorn was good Sir Ambrose found,
His guests an ample crescent form'd around;
Nature's own carpet spread the space between,
Where blithe domestics plied in gold and green.
The venerable chaplain waved his wand,
And silence follow'd as he stretch'd his hand,
And with a trembling voice, and heart sincere,
Implored a blessing on th' abundant cheer.
Down sat the mingling throng, and shared a feast
With hearty welcomes given, by love increased;
A patriarch family, a close-link'd band,
True to their rural chieftain, heart and hand:
The deep carouse can never boast the bliss,
The animation of a scene like this.
At length the damask cloths were whisk'd away,
Like fluttering sails upon a summer's day;
The hey-day of enjoyment found repose;
The worthy baronet majestic rose;
They view'd him, while his ale was filling round,
The monarch of his own paternal ground.
His cup was full, and where the blossoms bow'd
Over his head, Sir Ambrose spoke aloud,
Nor stopp'd a dainty form or phrase to cull--
His heart elated, like his cup, was full:--
"Full be your hopes, and rich the crops that fall;
"Health to my neighbours, happiness to all."
Dull must that clown be, dull as winter's sleet,
Who would not instantly be on his feet:
An echoing health to mingling shouts gave place,
"Sir Ambrose Higham, and his noble race."
Avaunt, Formality! thou bloodless dame,
With dripping besom quenching nature's flame;
Thou cankerworm, who liv'st but to destroy,
And eat the very heart of social joy;--
Thou freezing mist round intellectual mirth,
Thou spell-bound vagabond of spurious birth,
Away! away! and let the sun shine clear,
And all the kindnesses of life appear.
With mild complacency, and smiling brow,
The host look'd round, and bade the goblets flow;
Yet curiously anxious to behold
Who first would pay in rhymes instead of gold;
Each eye inquiring through the ring was glanced
To see who dared the task, who first advanced;
That instant started Philip from the throng,
Philip, a farmer's son, well known for song,--
And, as the mingling whispers round him ran,
He humbly bow'd, and timidly began:--
THE DRUNKEN FATHER
Poor Ellen married Andrew Hall,
Who dwells beside the moor,
Where yonder rose-tree shades the wall,
And woodbines grace the door.
Who does not know how blest, how loved
Were her mild laughing eyes
By every youth!--but Andrew proved
Unworthy of his prize.
In tippling was his whole delight,
Each sign-post barr'd his way;
He spent in muddy ale at night
The wages of the day.
Though Ellen still had charms, was young,
And he in manhood's prime,
She sad beside her cradle sung,
And sigh'd away her time.
One cold bleak night, the stars were hid,
In vain she wish'd him home;
Her children cried, half cheer'd, half chid,
"O when will father come!"
'Till Caleb, nine years old, upsprung,
And kick'd his stool aside,
And younger Mary round him clung,
"I'll go, and you shall guide."
The children knew each inch of ground,
Yet Ellen had her fears;
Light from the lantern glimmer'd round,
And show'd her falling tears.
"Go by the mill and down the lane;
"Return the same way home:
"Perhaps you'll meet him, give him light;
"O how I _wish_ he'd come."
Away they went, as close and true
As lovers in the shade,
And Caleb swung his father's staff
At every step he made.
The noisy mill-clack rattled on,
They saw the water flow,
And leap in silvery foam along,
Deep murmuring below.
"We'll soon be there," the hero said,
"Come on, 'tis but a mile,--
"Here's where the cricket-match was play'd,
"And here's the shady stile.
"How the light shines up every bough!
"How strange the leaves appear!
"Hark!--What was that?--'tis silent now,
"Come, Mary, never fear."
The staring oxen breathed aloud,
But never dream'd of harm;
A meteor glanced along the cloud
That hung o'er Wood-Hill Farm.
Old Caesar bark'd and howl'd hard by,
All else was still as death,
But Caleb was ashamed to cry,
And Mary held her breath.
At length they spied a distant light,
And heard a chorus brawl;
Wherever drunkards stopp'd at night,
Why there was Andrew Hall.
The house was full, the landlord gay,
The bar-maid shook her head,
And wish'd the boobies far away
That kept her out of bed.
There Caleb enter'd, firm, but mild,
And spoke in plaintive tone:--
"My mother could not leave the child,
"So we are come alone."
E'en drunken Andrew felt the blow
That innocence can give,
When its resistless accents flow
To bid affection live.
"I'm coming, loves, I'm coming now,"--
Then, shuffling o'er the floor,
Contrived to make his balance true,
And led them from the door.
The plain broad path that brought him there
By day, though faultless then,
Was up and down and narrow grown,
Though wide enough for ten.
The stiles were wretchedly contrived,
The stars were all at play,
And many a ditch had moved itself
Exactly in his way.
But still conceit was uppermost,
That stupid kind of pride:--
"Dost think I cannot see a post?
"Dost think I want a guide?
"Why, Mary, how you twist and twirl!
"Why dost not keep the track?
"I'll carry thee home safe, my girl,"--
Then swung her on his back.
Poor Caleb muster'd all his wits
To bear the light ahead,
As Andrew reel'd and stopp'd by fits,
Or ran with thund'ring tread.
Exult, ye brutes, traduced and scorn'd,
Though true to nature's plan;
Exult, ye bristled, and ye horn'd,
When infants govern man.
Down to the mill-pool's dangerous brink
The headlong party drove;
The boy alone had power to think,
While Mary scream'd above.
"Stop!" Caleb cried, "you've lost the path;
"The water's close before;
"I see it shine, 'tis very deep,--
"Why, don't you hear it roar?"
And then in agony exclaim'd,
"O where's my mother _now_?"
The Solomon of hops and malt
Stopp'd short and made a bow:
His head was loose, his neck disjointed,
It cost him little trouble;
But, to be stopp'd and disappointed,
Poh! danger was a bubble.
Onward be stepp'd, the boy alert,
Calling his courage forth,
Hung like a log on Andrew's skirt,
And down he brought them both.
The tumbling lantern reach'd the stream,
Its hissing light soon gone;
'Twas night, without a single gleam,
And terror reign'd alone.
A general scream the miller heard,
Then rubb'd his eyes and ran,
And soon his welcome light appear'd,
As grumbling he began:--
"What have we here, and whereabouts?
"Why what a hideous squall!
"Some drunken fool! I thought as much--
"'Tis only Andrew Hall!
"Poor children!" tenderly he said,
"But now the danger's past."
They thank'd him for his light and aid,
And drew near home at last.
But who upon the misty path
To meet them forward press'd?
'Twas Ellen, shivering, with a babe
Close folded to her breast.
Said Andrew, "Now you're glad, I know,
"To se-se-see us come;--
"But I have taken care of both,
"And brought them bo-bo-both safe home."
With Andrew vex'd, of Mary proud,
But prouder of her boy,
She kiss'd them both, and sobb'd aloud,--
The children cried for joy.
But what a home at last they found!
Of comforts all bereft;
The fire out, the last candle gone,
And not one penny left!
But Caleb quick as light'ning flew,
And raised a light instead;
And as the kindling brands he blew,
His father snored in bed.
No brawling, boxing termagant
Was Ellen, though offended;
Who ever knew a fault like this
By violence amended?
No:--she was mild as April morn,
And Andrew loved her too;
She rose at daybreak, though forlorn,
To try what love could do.
And as her waking husband groan'd,
And roll'd his burning head,
She spoke with all the power of truth,
Down kneeling by his bed.
"Dear Andrew, hear me,--though distress'd
"Almost too much to speak,--
"This infant starves upon my breast--
"To scold I am too weak.
"I work, I spin, I toil all day,
"Then leave my work to cry,
"And start with horror when I think
"You wish to see me die.
"But _do_ you wish it? can that bring
"More comfort, or more joy?
"Look round the house, how destitute!
"Look at your ragged boy!
"That boy should make a father proud,
"If any feeling can;
"Then save your children, save your wife,
"Your honour as a man.
"Hear me, for God's sake hear me now,
"And act a father's part!"
The culprit bless'd her angel tongue,
And clasp'd her to his heart;
And would have vow'd, and would have sworn,
But Ellen kiss'd him dumb,--
"Exert your mind, vow to _yourself_,
"And better days will come.
"I shall be well when you are kind,
"And you'll be better too."--
"I'll drink no more,"--he quick rejoin'd,--
"Be't poison if I do."
From that bright day his plants, his flowers,
His crops began to thrive,
And for three years has Andrew been
The soberest man alive.
Soon as he ended, acclamations 'rose,
Endang'ring modesty and self-repose,
Till the good host his prudent counsel gave,
Then listen'd all, the flippant and the grave.
"Let not applauses vanity inspire,
"Deter humility, or damp desire;
"Neighbours we are, then let the stream run fair,
"And every couplet be as free as air;
"Be silent when each speaker claims his right,
"Enjoy the day as I enjoy the sight:
"They shall not class us with the knavish elves,
"Who banish shame, and criticise themselves."
Thenceforward converse flow'd with perfect ease,
Midst country wit, and rustic repartees.
One drank to Ellen, if such might be found,
And archly glanced at female faces round.
If one with tilted can began to bawl,
Another cried, "Remember Andrew Hall."
Then, multifarious topics, corn and hay,
Vestry intrigues, the rates they had to pay,
The thriving stock, the lands too wet, too dry,
And all that bears on fruitful husbandry,
Ran mingling through the crowd--a crowd that might,
Transferr'd to canvas, give the world delight;
A scene that WILKIE might have touch'd with pride--
The May-day banquet then had never died.
But who is he, uprisen, with eye so keen,
In garb of shining plush of grassy green--
Dogs climbing round him, eager for the start,
With ceaseless tail, and doubly beating heart?
A stranger, who from distant forests came,
The sturdy keeper of the Oakly game.
Short prelude made, he pointed o'er the hill,
And raised a voice that every ear might fill;
His heart was in his theme, and in the forest still.
THE FORESTER.
[Illustration.]
THE FORESTER.
Born in a dark wood's lonely dell,
Where echoes roar'd, and tendrils curl'd
Round a low cot, like hermit's cell,
Old Salcey Forest was my world.
I felt no bonds, no shackles then,
For life in freedom was begun;
I gloried in th' exploits of men,
And learn'd to lift my father's gun.
O what a joy it gave my heart!
Wild as a woodbine up I grew;
Soon in his feats I bore a part,
And counted all the game he slew.
I learn'd the wiles, the shifts, the calls,
The language of each living thing;
I mark'd the hawk that darting falls,
Or station'd spreads the trembling wing.
I mark'd the owl that silent flits,
The hare that feeds at eventide,
The upright rabbit, when he sits
And mocks you, ere he deigns to hide.
I heard the fox bark through the night,
I saw the rooks depart at morn,
I saw the wild deer dancing light,
And heard the hunter's cheering horn.
Mad with delight, I roam'd around
From morn to eve throughout the year,
But still, midst all I sought or found,
My favourites were the spotted deer.
The elegant, the branching brow,
The doe's clean limbs and eyes of love;
The fawn as white as mountain snow,
That glanced through fern and brier and grove.
One dark, autumnal, stormy day,
The gale was up in all its might,
The roaring forest felt its sway,
And clouds were scudding quick as light:
A ruthless crash, a hollow groan,
Aroused each self-preserving start,
The kine in herds, the hare alone,
And shagged colts that grazed apart.
Midst fears instinctive, wonder drew
The boldest forward, gathering strength
As darkness lour'd, and whirlwinds blew,
To where the ruin stretch'd his length.
The shadowing oak, the noblest stem
That graced the forest's ample bound,
Had cast to earth his diadem;
His fractured limbs had delved the ground.
He lay, and still to fancy groan'd;
He lay like Alfred when he died--
Alfred, a king by Heaven enthroned,
His age's wonder, England's pride!
Monarch of forests, great as good,
Wise as the sage,--thou heart of steel!
Thy name shall rouse the patriot's blood
As long as England's sons can feel.
From every lawn, and copse, and glade,
The timid deer in squadrons came,
And circled round their fallen shade
With all of language but its name.
Astonishment and dread withheld
The fawn and doe of tender years,
But soon a triple circle swell'd,
With rattling horns and twinkling ears.
Some in his root's deep cavern housed,
And seem'd to learn, and muse, and teach,
Or on his topmost foliage browsed,
That had for centuries mock'd their reach.
Winds in their wrath these limbs could crash,
This strength, this symmetry could mar;
A people's wrath can monarchs dash
From bigot throne or purple car.
When Fate's dread bolt in Clermont's bowers
Provoked its million tears and sighs,
A nation wept its fallen flowers,
Its blighted hopes, its darling prize.--
So mourn'd my antler'd friends awhile,
So dark, so dread, the fateful day;
So mourn'd the herd that knew no guile,
Then turn'd disconsolate away!
Who then of language will be proud?
Who arrogate that gift of heaven?
To wild herds when they bellow loud,
To all the forest-tribes 'tis given.
I've heard a note from dale or hill
That lifted every head and eye;
I've heard a scream aloft, so shrill
That terror seized on all that fly.
Empires may fall, and nations groan,
Pride be thrown down, and power decay;
Dark bigotry may rear her throne,
But science is the light of day.
Yet, while so low my lot is cast,
Through wilds and forests let me range;
My joys shall pomp and power outlast--
The voice of nature cannot change.
* * * * *
A soberer feeling through the crowd he flung,
Clermont was uppermost on every tongue;
But who can live on unavailing sighs?
The inconsolable are not the wise.
Spirit, and youth, and worth, demand a tear--
That day was past, and sorrow was not here;
Sorrow the contest dared not but refuse
'Gainst Oakly's open cellar and the muse.
Sir Ambrose cast his eye along the line,
Where many a cheerful face began to shine,
And, fixing on his man, cried, loud and clear,
"What have you brought, John Armstrong? let us hear."
Forth stepp'd his shepherd;--scanty locks of grey
Edged round a hat that seem'd to mock decay;
Its loops, its bands, were from the purest fleece,
Spun on the hills in silence and in peace.
A staff he bore carved round with birds and flowers,
The hieroglyphics of his leisure hours;
And rough form'd animals of various name,
Not just like BEWICK'S, but they meant the same.
Nor these alone his whole attention drew,
He was a poet,--this Sir Ambrose knew,--
A strange one too;--and now had penn'd a lay,
Harmless and wild, and fitting for the day.
No tragic tale on stilts;--his mind had more
Of boundless frolic than of serious lore;--
Down went his hat, his shaggy friend close by
Dozed on the grass, yet watch'd his master's eye.
THE SHEPHERD'S DREAM:
OR, FAIRIES' MASQUERADE.
[Illustration]
THE SHEPHERD'S DREAM: OR, FAIRIES' MASQUERADE.
I had folded my flock, and my heart was o'erflowing,
I loiter'd beside the small lake on the heath;
The red sun, though down, left his drapery glowing,
And no sound was stirring, I heard not a breath:
I sat on the turf, but I meant not to sleep,
And gazed o'er that lake which for ever is new,
Where clouds over clouds appear'd anxious to peep
From this bright double sky with its pearl and its blue.
Forgetfulness, rather than slumber, it seem'd,
When in infinite thousands the fairies arose
All over the heath, and their tiny crests gleam'd
In mock'ry of soldiers, our friends and our foes.
There a stripling went forth, half a finger's length high,
And led a huge host to the north with a dash;
Silver birds upon poles went before their wild cry,
While the monarch look'd forward, adjusting his sash.
Soon after a terrible bonfire was seen,
The dwellings of fairies went down in their ire,
But from all I remember, I never could glean
Why the woodstack was burnt, or who set it on fire.
The flames seem'd to rise o'er a deluge of snow,
That buried its thousands,--the rest ran away;
For the hero had here overstrain'd his long bow,
Yet he honestly own'd the mishap of the day.
Then the fays of the north like a hailstorm came on,
And follow'd him down to the lake in a riot,
Where they found a large stone which they fix'd him upon,
And threaten'd, and coax'd him, and bade him be quiet.
He that couquer'd them all, was to conquer no more,
But the million beheld he could conquer alone;
After resting awhile, he leap'd boldly on shore,
When away ran a fay that had mounted his throne.
'Twas pleasant to see how they stared, how they scamper'd,
By furze-bush, by fern, by no obstacle stay'd,
And the few that held council, were terribly hamper'd,
For some were vindictive, and some were afraid.
I saw they were dress'd for a masquerade train,
Colour'd rags upon sticks they all brandish'd in view,
And of such idle things they seem'd mightily vain,
Though they nothing display'd but a bird split in two.
Then out rush'd the stripling in battle array,
And both sides determined to fight and to maul:
Death rattled his jawbones to see such a fray,
And glory personified laugh'd at them all.
Here he fail'd,--hence he fled, with a few for his sake,
And leap'd into a cockle-shell floating hard by;
It sail'd to an isle in the midst of the lake,
Where they mock'd fallen greatness, and left him to die.
Meanwhile the north fairies stood round in a ring,
Supporting his rival on guns and on spears,
Who, though not a soldier, was robed like a king;
Yet some were exulting, and some were in tears.
A lily triumphantly floated above,
The crowd press'd, and wrangling was heard through the whole;
Some soldiers look'd surly, some citizens strove
To hoist the old nightcap on liberty's pole.
But methought in my dream some bewail'd him that fell,
And liked not his victors so gallant, so clever,
Till a fairy stepp'd forward, and blew through a shell,
"Bear misfortune with firmness, you'll triumph for ever."
I woke at the sound, all in silence, alone,
The moor-hens were floating like specks on a glass,
The dun clouds were spreading, the vision was gone,
And my dog scamper'd round'midst the dew on the grass.
I took up my staff, as a knight would his lance,
And said, "Here's my sceptre, my baton, my spear,
And there's my prime minister far in advance,
Who serves me with truth for his food by the year."
So I slept without care till the dawning of day,
Then trimm'd up my woodbines and whistled amain;
My minister heard as he bounded away,
And we led forth our sheep to their pastures again.
Scorch'd by the shadeless sun on Indian plains,
Mellow'd by age, by wants, and toils, and pains,
Those toils still lengthen'd when he reach'd that shore
Where Spain's bright mountains heard the cannons roar,
A pension'd veteran, doom'd no more to roam,
With glowing heart thus sung the joys of home.
THE SOLDIER'S HOME.
[Illustration.]
THE SOLDIER'S HOME.
My untried muse shall no high tone assume,
Nor strut in arms;--farewell my cap and plume:
Brief be my verse, a task within my power,
I tell my feelings in one happy hour;
But what an hour was that! when from the main
I reach'd this lovely valley once again!
A glorious harvest fill'd my eager sight,
Half shock'd, half waving in a flood of light;
On that poor cottage roof where I was born
The sun look'd down as in life's early morn.
I gazed around, but not a soul appear'd,
I listen'd on the threshold, nothing heard;
I call'd my father thrice, but no one came;
It was not fear or grief that shook my frame,
But an o'erpowering sense of peace and home,
Of toils gone by, perhaps of joys to come.
The door invitingly stood open wide,
I shook my dust, and set my staff aside.
How sweet it was to breathe that cooler air,
And take possession of my father's chair!
Beneath my elbow, on the solid frame,
Appear'd the rough initials of my name,
Cut forty years before!--the same old clock
Struck the same bell, and gave my heart a shock
I never can forget. A short breeze sprung,
And while a sigh was trembling on my tongue,
Caught the old dangling almanacks behind,
And up they flew, like banners in the wind;
Then gently, singly, down, down, down, they went,
And told of twenty years that I had spent
Far from my native land:--that instant came
A robin on the threshold; though so tame,
At first he look'd distrustful, almost shy,
And cast on me his coal-black stedfast eye,
And seem'd to say (past friendship to renew)
"Ah ha! old worn-out soldier, is it you?"
Through the room ranged the imprison'd humble bee,
And bomb'd, and bounced, and straggled to be free,
Dashing against the panes with sullen roar,
That threw their diamond sunlight on the floor;
That floor, clean sanded, where my fancy stray'd
O'er undulating waves the broom had made,
Reminding me of those of hideous forms
That met us as we pass'd the _Cape of Storms_,
Where high and loud they break, and peace comes never;
They roll and foam, and roll and foam for ever.
But _here_ was peace, that peace which home can yield;
The grasshopper, the partridge in the field,
And ticking clock, were all at once become
The substitutes for clarion, fife, and drum.
While thus I mused, still gazing, gazing still
On beds of moss that spread the window sill,
I deem'd no moss my eyes had ever seen
Had been so lovely, brilliant, fresh, and green,
And guess'd some infant hand had placed it there,
And prized its hue, so exquisite, so rare.
Feelings on feelings mingling, doubling rose,
My heart felt every thing but calm repose;
I could not reckon minutes, hours, nor years,
But rose at once, and bursted into tears;
Then, like a fool, confused, sat down again,
And thought upon the past with shame and pain;
I raved at war and all its horrid cost,
And glory's quagmire, where the brave are lost.
On carnage, fire, and plunder, long I mused,
And cursed the murdering weapons I had used.
Two shadows then I saw, two voices heard,
One bespoke age, and one a child's appear'd.--
In stepp'd my father with convulsive start,
And in an instant clasp'd me to his heart.
Close by him stood a little blue-eyed maid,
And, stooping to the child, the old man said,
"Come hither, Nancy, kiss me once again,
This is your uncle Charles, come home from Spain."
The child approach'd, and with her fingers light,
Stroked my old eyes, almost deprived of sight.--
But why thus spin my tale, thus tedious be?
Happy old Soldier! what's the world to me?
* * * * *
Change is essential to the youthful heart,
It cannot bound, it cannot act its part
To one monotonous delight a slave;
E'en the proud poet's lines become its grave:
By innate buoyancy, by passion led,
It acts instinctively, it will be fed.
A troop of country lasses paced the green,
Tired of their seats, and anxious to be seen;
They pass'd Sir Ambrose, turn'd, and pass'd again,
Some lightly tripp'd, to make their meaning plain:
The old man knew it well, the thoughts of youth
Came o'er his mind like consciousness of truth,
Or like a sunbeam through a lowering sky,
It gave him youth again, and ecstacy;
He joy'd to see them in this favourite spot,
Who of fourscore, or fifty score, would not?
He wink'd, he nodded, and then raised his hand,--
'Twas seen and answer'd by the Oakly band.
Forth leap'd the light of heart and light of heel,
E'en stiff limb'd age the kindling joy could feel.
They form'd, while yet the music started light;
The grass beneath their feet was short and bright,
Where thirty couple danced with all their might.
The Forester caught lasses one by one,
And twirl'd his glossy green against the sun;
The Shepherd threw his doublet on the ground,
And clapp'd his hands, and many a partner found:
His hat-loops bursted in the jocund fray,
And floated o'er his head like blooming May.
Behind his heels his dog was barking loud,
And threading all the mazes of the crowd;
And had he boasted one had wagg'd his tail,
And plainly said, "What can my master ail?"
To which the Shepherd, had he been more cool,
Had only said, "'Tis Oakly feast, you fool."
But where was Philip, he who danced so well?
Had he retired, had pleasure broke her spell?
No, he had yielded to a tend'rer bond,
He sat beside his own sick Rosamond,
Whose illness long deferr'd their wedding hour;
She wept, and seem'd a lily in a shower;
She wept to see him'midst a crowd so gay,
For her sake lose the honours of the day.
But could a gentle youth be so unkind?
Would Philip dance, and leave his girl behind?
She in her bosom hid a written prize,
Inestimably rich in Philip's eyes;
The warm effusion of a heart that glow'd
With joy, with love, and hope by Heaven bestow'd.
He woo'd, he soothed, and every art assay'd,
To hush the scruples of the bashful maid,
Drawing, at length, against her weak command,
Reluctantly the treasure from her hand:
And would have read, but passion chain'd his tongue,
He turn'd aside, and down the ballad flung;
And paused so long from feeling and from shame,
That old Sir Ambrose halloo'd him by name:
"Bring it to me, my lad, and never fear,
"I never blamed true love, or scorn'd a tear;
"They well become us, e'en where branded most."
He came, and made a proxy of his host,
Who, as the dancers cooling join'd the throng,
Eyed the fair writer as he read her song.
ROSAMOND'S SONG OF HOPE.
Sweet Hope, so oft my childhood's friend,
I will believe thee still,
For thou canst joy with sorrow blend,
Where grief alone would kill.
When disappointments wrung my heart,
Ill brook'd in tender years,
Thou, like a sun, perform'dst thy part,
And dried my infant tears.
When late I wore the bloom of health,
And love had bound me fast,
My buoyant heart would sigh by stealth
For fear it might not last. |
10,240 |
Produced by Mark Sherwood, Marc D'Hooghe and Delphine Lettau
SONGS OF TWO NATIONS
By Algernon Charles Swinburne
CONTENTS
A SONG OF ITALY
ODE ON THE PROCLAMATION OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC
DIRAE
I saw the double-featured statue stand
Of Memnon or of Janus, half with night
Veiled, and fast bound with iron; half with light
Crowned, holding all men's future in his hand.
And all the old westward face of time grown grey
Was writ with cursing and inscribed for death;
But on the face that met the mornings breath
Fear died of hope as darkness dies of day.
A SONG OF ITALY
Inscribed
With All Devotion and Reverence
To:
JOSEPH MAZZINI
1867
Upon a windy night of stars that fell
At the wind's spoken spell,
Swept with sharp strokes of agonizing light
From the clear gulf of night,
Between the fixed and fallen glories one
Against my vision shone,
More fair and fearful and divine than they
That measure night and day,
And worthier worship; and within mine eyes
The formless folded skies
Took shape and were unfolded like as flowers.
And I beheld the hours
As maidens, and the days as labouring men,
And the soft nights again
As wearied women to their own souls wed,
And ages as the dead.
And over these living, and them that died,
From one to the other side
A lordlier light than comes of earth or air
Made the world's future fair.
A woman like to love in face, but not
A thing of transient lot--
And like to hope, but having hold on truth--
And like to joy or youth,
Save that upon the rock her feet were set--
And like what men forget,
Faith, innocence, high thought, laborious peace--
And yet like none of these,
Being not as these are mortal, but with eyes
That sounded the deep skies
And clove like wings or arrows their clear way
Through night and dawn and day--
So fair a presence over star and sun
Stood, making these as one.
For in the shadow of her shape were all
Darkened and held in thrall,
So mightier rose she past them; and I felt
Whose form, whose likeness knelt
With covered hair and face and clasped her knees;
And knew the first of these
Was Freedom, and the second Italy.
And what sad words said she
For mine own grief I knew not, nor had heart
Therewith to bear my part
And set my songs to sorrow; nor to hear
How tear by sacred tear
Fell from her eyes as flowers or notes that fall
In some slain feaster's hall
Where in mid music and melodious breath
Men singing have seen death.
So fair, so lost, so sweet she knelt; or so
In our lost eyes below
Seemed to us sorrowing; and her speech being said,
Fell, as one who falls dead.
And for a little she too wept, who stood
Above the dust and blood
And thrones and troubles of the world; then spake,
As who bids dead men wake.
"Because the years were heavy on thy head;
Because dead things are dead;
Because thy chosen on hill-side, city and plain
Are shed as drops of rain;
Because all earth was black, all heaven was blind,
And we cast out of mind;
Because men wept, saying _Freedom_, knowing of thee,
Child, that thou wast not free;
Because wherever blood was not shame was
Where thy pure foot did pass;
Because on Promethean rocks distent
Thee fouler eagles rent;
Because a serpent stains with slime and foam
This that is not thy Rome;
Child of my womb, whose limbs were made in me,
Have I forgotten thee?
In all thy dreams through all these years on wing,
Hast thou dreamed such a thing?
The mortal mother-bird outsoars her nest,
The child outgrows the breast;
But suns as stars shall fall from heaven and cease,
Ere we twain be as these;
Yea, utmost skies forget their utmost sun,
Ere we twain be not one.
My lesser jewels sewn on skirt and hem,
I have no heed of them
Obscured and flawed by sloth or craft or power;
But thou, that wast my flower,
The blossom bound between my brows and worn
In sight of even and morn
From the last ember of the flameless west
To the dawn's baring breast--
I were not Freedom if thou wert not free,
Nor thou wert Italy.
O mystic rose ingrained with blood, impearled
With tears of all the world!
The torpor of their blind brute-ridden trance
Kills England and chills France;
And Spain sobs hard through strangling blood; and snows
Hide the huge eastern woes.
But thou, twin-born with morning, nursed of noon,
And blessed of star and moon!
What shall avail to assail thee any more,
From sacred shore to shore?
Have Time and Love not knelt down at thy feet,
Thy sore, thy soiled, thy sweet,
Fresh from the flints and mire of murderous ways
And dust of travelling days?
Hath Time not kissed them, Love not washed them fair,
And wiped with tears and hair?
Though God forget thee, I will not forget;
Though heaven and earth be set
Against thee, O unconquerable child,
Abused, abased, reviled,
Lift thou not less from no funereal bed
Thine undishonoured head;
Love thou not less, by lips of thine once prest,
This my now barren breast;
Seek thou not less, being well assured thereof,
O child, my latest love.
For now the barren bosom shall bear fruit,
Songs leap from lips long mute,
And with my milk the mouths of nations fed
Again be glad and red
That were worn white with hunger and sorrow and thirst;
And thou, most fair and first,
Thou whose warm hands and sweet live lips I feel
Upon me for a seal,
Thou whose least looks, whose smiles and little sighs,
Whose passionate pure eyes,
Whose dear fair limbs that neither bonds could bruise
Nor hate of men misuse,
Whose flower-like breath and bosom, O my child,
O mine and undefiled,
Fill with such tears as burn like bitter wine
These mother's eyes of mine,
Thrill with huge passions and primeval pains
The fullness of my veins,
O sweetest head seen higher than any stands,
I touch thee with mine hands,
I lay my lips upon thee, O thou most sweet,
To lift thee on thy feet
And with the fire of mine to fill thine eyes;
I say unto thee, Arise."
Sec.
She ceased, and heaven was full of flame and sound,
And earth's old limbs unbound
Shone and waxed warm with fiery dew and seed
Shed through her at this her need:
And highest in heaven, a mother and full of grace,
With no more covered face,
With no more lifted hands and bended knees,
Rose, as from sacred seas
Love, when old time was full of plenteous springs,
That fairest-born of things,
The land that holds the rest in tender thrall
For love's sake in them all,
That binds with words and holds with eyes and hands
All hearts in all men's lands.
So died the dream whence rose the live desire
That here takes form and fire,
A spirit from the splendid grave of sleep
Risen, that ye should not weep,
Should not weep more nor ever, O ye that hear
And ever have held her dear,
Seeing now indeed she weeps not who wept sore,
And sleeps not any more.
Hearken ye towards her, O people, exalt your eyes;
Is this a thing that dies?
Sec.
Italia! by the passion of the pain
That bent and rent thy chain;
Italia! by the breaking of the bands,
The shaking of the lands;
Beloved, O men's mother, O men's queen,
Arise, appear, be seen!
Arise, array thyself in manifold
Queen's raiment of wrought gold;
With girdles of green freedom, and with red
Roses, and white snow shed
Above the flush and frondage of the hills
That all thy deep dawn fills
And all thy clear night veils and warms with wings
Spread till the morning sings;
The rose of resurrection, and the bright
Breast lavish of the light,
The lady lily like the snowy sky
Ere the stars wholly die;
As red as blood, and whiter than a wave,
Flowers grown as from thy grave,
From the green fruitful grass in Maytime hot,
Thy grave, where thou art not.
Gather the grass and weave, in sacred sign
Of the ancient earth divine,
The holy heart of things, the seed of birth,
The mystical warm earth.
O thou her flower of flowers, with treble braid
Be thy sweet head arrayed,
In witness of her mighty motherhood
Who bore thee and found thee good,
Her fairest-born of children, on whose head
Her green and white and red
Are hope and light and life, inviolate
Of any latter fate.
Fly, O our flag, through deep Italian air,
Above the flags that were,
The dusty shreds of shameful battle-flags
Trampled and rent in rags,
As withering woods in autumn's bitterest breath
Yellow, and black as death;
Black as crushed worms that sicken in the sense,
And yellow as pestilence.
Fly, green as summer and red as dawn and white
As the live heart of light,
The blind bright womb of colour unborn, that brings
Forth all fair forms of things,
As freedom all fair forms of nations dyed
In divers-coloured pride.
Fly fleet as wind on every wind that blows
Between her seas and snows,
From Alpine white, from Tuscan green, and where
Vesuvius reddens air.
Fly! and let all men see it, and all kings wail,
And priests wax faint and pale,
And the cold hordes that moan in misty places
And the funereal races
And the sick serfs of lands that wait and wane
See thee and hate thee in vain.
In the clear laughter of all winds and waves,
In the blown grass of graves,
In the long sound of fluctuant boughs of trees,
In the broad breath of seas,
Bid the sound of thy flying folds be heard;
And as a spoken word
Full of that fair god and that merciless
Who rends the Pythoness,
So be the sound and so the fire that saith
She feels her ancient breath
And the old blood move in her immortal veins.
Sec.
Strange travail and strong pains,
Our mother, hast thou borne these many years
While thy pure blood and tears
Mixed with the Tyrrhene and the Adrian sea;
Light things were said of thee,
As of one buried deep among the dead;
Yea, she hath been, they said,
She was when time was younger, and is not;
The very cerecloths rot
That flutter in the dusty wind of death,
Not moving with her breath;
Far seasons and forgotten years enfold
Her dead corpse old and cold
With many windy winters and pale springs:
She is none of this world's things.
Though her dead head like a live garland wear
The golden-growing hair
That flows over her breast down to her feet,
Dead queens, whose life was sweet
In sight of all men living, have been found
So cold, so clad, so crowned,
With all things faded and with one thing fair,
Their old immortal hair,
When flesh and bone turned dust at touch of day:
And she is dead as they.
So men said sadly, mocking; so the slave,
Whose life was his soul's grave;
So, pale or red with change of fast and feast,
The sanguine-sandalled priest;
So the Austrian, when his fortune came to flood,
And the warm wave was blood;
With wings that widened and with beak that smote,
So shrieked through either throat
From the hot horror of its northern nest
That double-headed pest;
So, triple-crowned with fear and fraud and shame,
He of whom treason came,
The herdsman of the Gadarean swine;
So all his ravening kine,
Made fat with poisonous pasture; so not we,
Mother, beholding thee.
Make answer, O the crown of all our slain,
Ye that were one, being twain,
Twain brethren, twin-born to the second birth,
Chosen out of all our earth
To be the prophesying stars that say
How hard is night on day,
Stars in serene and sudden heaven rerisen
Before the sun break prison
And ere the moon be wasted; fair first flowers
In that red wreath of ours
Woven with the lives of all whose lives were shed
To crown their mother's head
With leaves of civic cypress and thick yew,
Till the olive bind it too,
Olive and laurel and all loftier leaves
That victory wears or weaves
At her fair feet for her beloved brow;
Hear, for she too hears now,
O Pisacane, from Calabrian sands;
O all heroic hands
Close on the sword-hilt, hands of all her dead;
O many a holy head,
Bowed for her sake even to her reddening dust;
O chosen, O pure and just,
Who counted for a small thing life's estate,
And died, and made it great;
Ye whose names mix with all her memories; ye
Who rather chose to see
Death, than our more intolerable things;
Thou whose name withers kings,
Agesilao; thou too, O chiefliest thou,
The slayer of splendid brow,
Laid where the lying lips of fear deride
The foiled tyrannicide,
Foiled, fallen, slain, scorned, and happy; being in fame,
Felice, like thy name,
Not like thy fortune; father of the fight,
Having in hand our light.
Ah, happy! for that sudden-swerving hand
Flung light on all thy land,
Yea, lit blind France with compulsory ray,
Driven down a righteous way;
Ah, happiest! for from thee the wars began,
From thee the fresh springs ran;
From thee the lady land that queens the earth
Gat as she gave new birth.
O sweet mute mouths, O all fair dead of ours,
Fair in her eyes as flowers,
Fair without feature, vocal without voice,
Strong without strength, rejoice!
Hear it with ears that hear not, and on eyes
That see not let it rise,
Rise as a sundawn; be it as dew that drips
On dumb and dusty lips;
Eyes have ye not, and see it; neither ears,
And there is none but hears.
This is the same for whom ye bled and wept;
She was not dead, but slept.
This is that very Italy which was
And is and shall not pass.
Sec.
But thou, though all were not well done, O chief,
Must thou take shame or grief?
Because one man is not as thou or ten,
Must thou take shame for men?
Because the supreme sunrise is not yet,
Is the young dew not wet?
Wilt thou not yet abide a little while,
Soul without fear or guile,
Mazzini,--O our prophet, O our priest,
A little while at least?
A little hour of doubt and of control,
Sustain thy sacred soul;
Withhold thine heart, our father, but an hour;
Is it not here, the flower,
Is it not blown and fragrant from the root,
And shall not be the fruit?
Thy children, even thy people thou hast made,
Thine, with thy words arrayed,
Clothed with thy thoughts and girt with thy desires,
Yearn up toward thee as fires.
Art thou not father, O father, of all these?
From thine own Genoese
To where of nights the lower extreme lagune
Feels its Venetian moon,
Nor suckling's mouth nor mother's breast set free
But hath that grace through thee.
The milk of life on death's unnatural brink
Thou gavest them to drink,
The natural milk of freedom; and again
They drank, and they were men.
The wine and honey of freedom and of faith
They drank, and cast off death.
Bear with them now; thou art holier: yet endure,
Till they as thou be pure.
Their swords at least that stemmed half Austria's tide
Bade all its bulk divide;
Else, though fate bade them for a breath's space fall,
She had not fallen at all.
Not by their hands they made time's promise true;
Not by their hands, but through.
Nor on Custoza ran their blood to waste,
Nor fell their fame defaced
Whom stormiest Adria with tumultuous tides
Whirls undersea and hides.
Not his, who from the sudden-settling deck
Looked over death and wreck
To where the mother's bosom shone, who smiled
As he, so dying, her child;
For he smiled surely, dying, to mix his death
With her memorial breath;
Smiled, being most sure of her, that in no wise,
Die whoso will, she dies:
And she smiled surely, fair and far above,
Wept not, but smiled for love.
Thou too, O splendour of the sudden sword
That drove the crews abhorred
From Naples and the siren-footed strand,
Flash from thy master's hand,
Shine from the middle summer of the seas
To the old Aeolides,
Outshine their fiery fumes of burning night,
Sword, with thy midday light;
Flame as a beacon from the Tyrrhene foam
To the rent heart of Rome,
From the island of her lover and thy lord,
Her saviour and her sword.
In the fierce year of failure and of fame,
Art thou not yet the same
That wast as lightning swifter than all wings
In the blind face of kings?
When priests took counsel to devise despair,
And princes to forswear,
She clasped thee, O her sword and flag-bearer
And staff and shield to her,
O Garibaldi; need was hers and grief,
Of thee and of the chief,
And of another girt in arms to stand
As good of hope and hand,
As high of soul and happy, albeit indeed
The heart should burn and bleed,
So but the spirit shake not nor the breast
Swerve, but abide its rest.
As theirs did and as thine, though ruin clomb
The highest wall of Rome,
Though treason stained and spilt her lustral water,
And slaves led slaves to slaughter,
And priests, praying and slaying, watched them pass
From a strange France, alas,
That was not freedom; yet when these were past
Thy sword and thou stood fast,
Till new men seeing thee where Sicilian waves
Hear now no sound of slaves,
And where thy sacred blood is fragrant still
Upon the Bitter Hill,
Seeing by that blood one country saved and stained,
Less loved thee crowned than chained,
And less now only than the chief: for he,
Father of Italy,
Upbore in holy hands the babe new-born
Through loss and sorrow and scorn,
Of no man led, of many men reviled;
Till lo, the new-born child
Gone from between his hands, and in its place,
Lo, the fair mother's face.
Blessed is he of all men, being in one
As father to her and son,
Blessed of all men living, that he found
Her weak limbs bared and bound,
And in his arms and in his bosom bore,
And as a garment wore
Her weight of want, and as a royal dress
Put on her weariness.
As in faith's hoariest histories men read,
The strong man bore at need
Through roaring rapids when all heaven was wild
The likeness of a child
That still waxed greater and heavier as he trod,
And altered, and was God.
Praise him, O winds that move the molten air,
O light of days that were,
And light of days that shall be; land and sea,
And heaven and Italy:
Praise him, O storm and summer, shore and wave,
O skies and every grave;
O weeping hopes, O memories beyond tears,
O many and murmuring years,
O sounds far off in time and visions far,
O sorrow with thy star,
And joy with all thy beacons; ye that mourn,
And ye whose light is born;
O fallen faces, and O souls arisen,
Praise him from tomb and prison,
Praise him from heaven and sunlight; and ye floods,
And windy waves of woods;
Ye valleys and wild vineyards, ye lit lakes
And happier hillside brakes,
Untrampled by the accursed feet that trod
Fields golden from their god,
Fields of their god forsaken, whereof none
Sees his face in the sun,
Hears his voice from the floweriest wildernesses;
And, barren of his tresses,
Ye bays unplucked and laurels unentwined,
That no men break or bind,
And myrtles long forgetful of the sword,
And olives unadored,
Wisdom and love, white hands that save and slay,
Praise him; and ye as they,
Praise him, O gracious might of dews and rains
That feed the purple plains,
O sacred sunbeams bright as bare steel drawn,
O cloud and fire and dawn;
Red hills of flame, white Alps, green Apennines,
Banners of blowing pines,
Standards of stormy snows, flags of light leaves,
Three wherewith Freedom weaves
One ensign that once woven and once unfurled
Makes day of all a world,
Makes blind their eyes who knew not, and outbraves
The waste of iron waves;
Ye fields of yellow fullness, ye fresh fountains,
And mists of many mountains;
Ye moons and seasons, and ye days and nights;
Ye starry-headed heights,
And gorges melting sunward from the snow,
And all strong streams that flow,
Tender as tears, and fair as faith, and pure
As hearts made sad and sure
At once by many sufferings and one love;
O mystic deathless dove
Held to the heart of earth and in her hands
Cherished, O lily of lands,
White rose of time, dear dream of praises past--
For such as these thou wast,
That art as eagles setting to the sun,
As fawns that leap and run,
As a sword carven with keen floral gold,
Sword for an armed god's hold,
Flower for a crowned god's forehead--O our land,
Reach forth thine holiest hand,
O mother of many sons and memories,
Stretch out thine hand to his
That raised and gave thee life to run and leap
When thou wast full of sleep,
That touched and stung thee with young blood and breath
When thou wast hard on death.
Praise him, O all her cities and her crowns,
Her towers and thrones of towns;
O noblest Brescia, scarred from foot to head
And breast-deep in thy dead,
Praise him from all the glories of thy graves
That yellow Mela laves
With gentle and golden water, whose fair flood
Ran wider with thy blood:
Praise him, O born of that heroic breast,
O nursed thereat and blest,
Verona, fairer than thy mother fair,
But not more brave to bear:
Praise him, O Milan, whose imperial tread
Bruised once the German head;
Whose might, by northern swords left desolate,
Set foot on fear and fate:
Praise him, O long mute mouth of melodies,
Mantua, with louder keys,
With mightier chords of music even than rolled
From the large harps of old,
When thy sweet singer of golden throat and tongue,
Praising his tyrant, sung;
Though now thou sing not as of other days,
Learn late a better praise.
Not with the sick sweet lips of slaves that sing,
Praise thou no priest or king,
No brow-bound laurel of discoloured leaf,
But him, the crownless chief.
Praise him, O star of sun-forgotten times,
Among their creeds and crimes
That wast a fire of witness in the night,
Padua, the wise men's light:
Praise him, O sacred Venice, and the sea
That now exults through thee,
Full of the mighty morning and the sun,
Free of things dead and done;
Praise him from all the years of thy great grief,
That shook thee like a leaf
With winds and snows of torment, rain that fell
Red as the rains of hell,
Storms of black thunder and of yellow flame,
And all ill things but shame;
Praise him with all thy holy heart and strength;
Through thy walls' breadth and length
Praise him with all thy people, that their voice
Bid the strong soul rejoice,
The fair clear supreme spirit beyond stain,
Pure as the depth of pain,
High as the head of suffering, and secure
As all things that endure.
More than thy blind lord of an hundred years
Whose name our memory hears,
Home-bound from harbours of the Byzantine
Made tributary of thine,
Praise him who gave no gifts from oversea,
But gave thyself to thee.
O mother Genoa, through all years that run,
More than that other son,
Who first beyond the seals of sunset prest
Even to the unfooted west,
Whose back-blown flag scared from, their sheltering seas
The unknown Atlantides,
And as flame climbs through cloud and vapour clomb
Through streams of storm and foam,
Till half in sight they saw land heave and swim--
More than this man praise him.
One found a world new-born from virgin sea;
And one found Italy.
O heavenliest Florence, from the mouths of flowers
Fed by melodious hours,
From each sweet mouth that kisses light and air,
Thou whom thy fate made fair,
As a bound vine or any flowering tree,
Praise him who made thee free.
For no grape-gatherers trampling out the wine
Tread thee, the fairest vine;
For no man binds thee, no man bruises, none
Does with thee as these have done.
From where spring hears loud through her long lit vales
Triumphant nightingales,
In many a fold of fiery foliage hidden,
Withheld as things forbidden,
But clamorous with innumerable delight
In May's red, green, and white,
In the far-floated standard of the spring,
That bids men also sing,
Our flower of flags, our witness that we are free,
Our lamp for land and sea;
From where Majano feels through corn and vine
Spring move and melt as wine,
And Fiesole's embracing arms enclose
The immeasurable rose;
From hill-sides plumed with pine, and heights wind-worn
That feel the refluent morn,
Or where the moon's face warm and passionate
Burns, and men's hearts grow great,
And the swoln eyelids labour with sweet tears,
And in their burning ears
Sound throbs like flame, and in their eyes new light
Kindles the trembling night;
From faint illumined fields and starry valleys
Wherefrom the hill-wind sallies,
From Vallombrosa, from Valdarno raise
One Tuscan tune of praise.
O lordly city of the field of death,
Praise him with equal breath,
From sleeping streets and gardens, and the stream
That threads them as a dream
Threads without light the untravelled ways of sleep
With eyes that smile or weep;
From the sweet sombre beauty of wave and wall
That fades and does not fall;
From coloured domes and cloisters fair with fame,
Praise thou and thine his name.
Thou too, O little laurelled town of towers,
Clothed with the flame of flowers,
From windy ramparts girdled with young gold,
From thy sweet hillside fold
Of wallflowers and the acacia's belted bloom
And every blowing plume,
Halls that saw Dante speaking, chapels fair
As the outer hills and air,
Praise him who feeds the fire that Dante fed,
Our highest heroic head,
Whose eyes behold through floated cloud and flame
The maiden face of fame
Like April's in Valdelsa; fair as flowers,
And patient as the hours;
Sad with slow sense of time, and bright with faith
That levels life and death;
The final fame, that with a foot sublime
Treads down reluctant time;
The fame that waits and watches and is wise,
A virgin with chaste eyes,
A goddess who takes hands with great men's grief;
Praise her, and him, our chief.
Praise him, O Siena, and thou her deep green spring,
O Fonte Branda, sing:
Shout from the red clefts of thy fiery crags,
Shake out thy flying flags
In the long wind that streams from hill to hill;
Bid thy full music fill
The desolate red waste of sunset air
And fields the old time saw fair,
But now the hours ring void through ruined lands,
Wild work of mortal hands;
Yet through thy dead Maremma let his name
Take flight and pass in flame,
And the red ruin of disastrous hours
Shall quicken into flowers.
Praise him, O fiery child of sun and sea,
Naples, who bade thee be;
For till he sent the swords that scourge and save,
Thou wast not, but thy grave.
But more than all these praise him and give thanks,
Thou, from thy Tiber's banks,
From all thine hills and from thy supreme dome,
Praise him, O risen Rome.
Let all thy children cities at thy knee
Lift up their voice with thee,
Saying 'for thy love's sake and our perished grief
We laud thee, O our chief;'
Saying 'for thine hand and help when hope was dead
We thank thee, O our head;'
Saying 'for thy voice and face within our sight
We bless thee, O our light;
For waters cleansing us from days defiled
We praise thee, O our child.'
Sec.
So with an hundred cities' mouths in one
Praising thy supreme son,
Son of thy sorrow, O mother, O maid and mother,
Our queen, who serve none other,
Our lady of pity and mercy, and full of grace,
Turn otherwhere thy face,
Turn for a little and look what things are these
Now fallen before thy knees;
Turn upon them thine eyes who hated thee,
Behold what things they be,
Italia: these are stubble that were steel,
Dust, or a turning wheel;
As leaves, as snow, as sand, that were so strong;
And howl, for all their song,
And wail, for all their wisdom; they that were
So great, they are all stript bare,
They are all made empty of beauty, and all abhorred;
They are shivered and their sword;
They are slain who slew, they are heartless who were wise;
Yea, turn on these thine eyes,
O thou, soliciting with soul sublime
The obscure soul of time,
Thou, with the wounds thy holy body bears
From broken swords of theirs,
Thou, with the sweet swoln eyelids that have bled
Tears for thy thousands dead,
And upon these, whose swords drank up like dew
The sons of thine they slew,
These, whose each gun blasted with murdering mouth
Live flowers of thy fair south,
These, whose least evil told in alien ears
Turned men's whole blood to tears,
These, whose least sin remembered for pure shame
Turned all those tears to flame,
Even upon these, when breaks the extreme blow
And all the world cries woe,
When heaven reluctant rains long-suffering fire
On these and their desire,
When his wind shakes them and his waters whelm
Who rent thy robe and realm,
When they that poured thy dear blood forth as wine
Pour forth their own for thine,
On these, on these have mercy: not in hate,
But full of sacred fate,
Strong from the shrine and splendid from the god,
Smite, with no second rod.
Because they spared not, do thou rather spare:
Be not one thing they were.
Let not one tongue of theirs who hate thee say
That thou wast even as they.
Because their hands were bloody, be thine white;
Show light where they shed night:
Because they are foul, be thou the rather pure;
Because they are feeble, endure;
Because they had no pity, have thou pity.
And thou, O supreme city,
O priestless Rome that shall be, take in trust
Their names, their deeds, their dust,
Who held life less than thou wert; be the least
To thee indeed a priest,
Priest and burnt-offering and blood-sacrifice
Given without prayer or price,
A holier immolation than men wist,
A costlier eucharist,
A sacrament more saving; bend thine head
Above these many dead
Once, and salute with thine eternal eyes
Their lowest head that lies.
Speak from thy lips of immemorial speech
If but one word for each.
Kiss but one kiss on each thy dead son's mouth
Fallen dumb or north or south.
And laying but once thine hand on brow and breast,
Bless them, through whom thou art blest.
And saying in ears of these thy dead, "Well done,"
Shall they not hear "O son"?
And bowing thy face to theirs made pale for thee,
Shall the shut eyes not see?
Yea, through the hollow-hearted world of death,
As light, as blood, as breath,
Shall there not flash and flow the fiery sense,
The pulse of prescience?
Shall not these know as in times overpast
Thee loftiest to the last?
For times and wars shall change, kingdoms and creeds,
And dreams of men, and deeds;
Earth shall grow grey with all her golden things,
Pale peoples and hoar kings;
But though her thrones and towers of nations fall,
Death has no part in all;
In the air, nor in the imperishable sea,
Nor heaven, nor truth, nor thee.
Yea, let all sceptre-stricken nations lie,
But live thou though they die;
Let their flags fade as flowers that storm can mar,
But thine be like a star;
Let England's, if it float not for men free,
Fall, and forget the sea;
Let France's, if it shadow a hateful head,
Drop as a leaf drops dead;
Thine let what storm soever smite the rest
Smite as it seems him best;
Thine let the wind that can, by sea or land,
Wrest from thy banner-hand.
Die they in whom dies freedom, die and cease,
Though the world weep for these;
Live thou and love and lift when these lie dead
The green and white and red.
Sec.
O our Republic that shalt bind in bands
The kingdomless far lands
And link the chainless ages; thou that wast
With England ere she past
Among the faded nations, and shalt be
Again, when sea to sea
Calls through the wind and light of morning time,
And throneless clime to clime
Makes antiphonal answer; thou that art
Where one man's perfect heart
Burns, one man's brow is brightened for thy sake,
Thine, strong to make or break;
O fair Republic hallowing with stretched hands
The limitless free lands,
When all men's heads for love, not fear, bow down
To thy sole royal crown,
As thou to freedom; when man's life smells sweet,
And at thy bright swift feet
A bloodless and a bondless world is laid;
Then, when thy men are made,
Let these indeed as we in dreams behold
One chosen of all thy fold,
One of all fair things fairest, one exalt
Above all fear or fault,
One unforgetful of unhappier men
And us who loved her then;
With eyes that outlook suns and dream on graves;
With voice like quiring waves;
With heart the holier for their memories' sake
Who slept that she might wake;
With breast the sweeter for that sweet blood lost,
And all the milkless cost;
Lady of earth, whose large equality
Bends but to her and thee;
Equal with heaven, and infinite of years,
And splendid from quenched tears;
Strong with old strength of great things fallen and fled,
Diviner for her dead;
Chaste of all stains and perfect from all scars,
Above all storms and stars,
All winds that blow through time, all waves that foam,
Our Capitolian Rome.
1867.
ODE ON THE PROCLAMATION OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC
To: VICTOR HUGO
(Greek: ailenon ailenon eipe, to d' eu nikato)
STROPHE 1
With songs and crying and sounds of acclamations,
Lo, the flame risen, the fire that falls in showers!
Hark; for the word is out among the nations:
Look; for the light is up upon the hours:
O fears, O shames, O many tribulations,
Yours were all yesterdays, but this day ours.
Strong were your bonds linked fast with lamentations,
With groans and tears built into walls and towers;
Strong were your works and wonders of high stations,
Your forts blood-based, and rampires of your powers:
Lo now the last of divers desolations,
The hand of time, that gathers hosts like flowers;
Time, that fills up and pours out generations;
Time, at whose breath confounded empire cowers.
STROPHE 2
What are these moving in the dawn's red gloom?
What is she waited on by dread and doom,
Ill ministers of morning, bondmen born of night?
If that head veiled and bowed be morning's head,
If she come walking between doom and dread,
Who shall rise up with song and dance before her sight?
Are not the night's dead heaped about her feet?
Is not death swollen, and slaughter full of meat?
What, is their feast a bride-feast, where men sing and dance?
A bitter, a bitter bride-song and a shrill
Should the house raise that such bride-followers fill,
Wherein defeat weds ruin, and takes for bride-bed France.
For nineteen years deep shame and sore desire
Fed from men's hearts with hungering fangs of fire,
And hope fell sick with famine for the food of change.
Now is change come, but bringing funeral urns;
Now is day nigh, but the dawn blinds and burns;
Now time long dumb hath language, but the tongue is strange.
We that have seen her not our whole lives long,
We to whose ears her dirge was cradle-song,
The dirge men sang who laid in earth her living head,
Is it by such light that we live to see
Rise, with rent hair and raiment, Liberty?
Does her grave open only to restore her dead?
Ah, was it this we looked for, looked and prayed,
This hour that treads upon the prayers we made,
This ravening hour that breaks down good and ill alike?
Ah, was it thus we thought to see her and hear,
The one love indivisible and dear?
Is it her head that hands which strike down wrong must strike?
STROPHE 3
Where is hope, and promise where, in all these things,
Shocks of strength with strength, and jar of hurtling kings?
Who of all men, who will show us any good?
Shall these lightnings of blind battles give men light?
Where is freedom? who will bring us in her sight,
That have hardly seen her footprint where she stood?
STROPHE 4
Who is this that rises red with wounds and splendid,
All her breast and brow made beautiful with scars,
Burning bare as naked daylight, undefended,
In her hands for spoils her splintered prison-bars,
In her eyes the light and fire of long pain ended,
In her lips a song as of the morning stars?
STROPHE 5
O torn out of thy trance,
O deathless, O my France,
O many-wounded mother, O redeemed to reign!
O rarely sweet and bitter
The bright brief tears that glitter
On thine unclosing eyelids, proud of their own pain;
The beautiful brief tears
That wash the stains of years
White as the names immortal of thy chosen and slain.
O loved so much so long,
O smitten with such wrong,
O purged at last and perfect without spot or stain,
Light of the light of man,
Reborn republican,
At last, O first Republic, hailed in heaven again!
Out of the obscene eclipse
Rerisen, with burning lips
To witness for us if we looked for thee in vain.
STROPHE 6
Thou wast the light whereby men saw
Light, thou the trumpet of the law
Proclaiming manhood to mankind;
And what if all these years were blind
And shameful? Hath the sun a flaw
Because one hour hath power to draw
Mist round him wreathed as links to bind?
And what if now keen anguish drains
The very wellspring of thy veins
And very spirit of thy breath?
The life outlives them and disdains;
The sense which makes the soul remains,
And blood of thought which travaileth
To bring forth hope with procreant pains.
O thou that satest bound in chains
Between thine hills and pleasant plains
As whom his own soul vanquisheth,
Held in the bonds of his own thought,
Whence very death can take off nought,
Nor sleep, with bitterer dreams than death,
What though thy thousands at thy knees
Lie thick as grave-worms feed on these,
Though thy green fields and joyous places
Are populous with blood-blackening faces
And wan limbs eaten by the sun?
Better an end of all men's races,
Better the world's whole work were done,
And life wiped out of all our traces,
And there were left to time not one,
Than such as these that fill thy graves
Should sow in slaves the seed of slaves.
ANTISTROPHE 1
Not of thy sons, O mother many-wounded,
Not of thy sons are slaves ingrafted and grown.
Was it not thine, the fire whence light rebounded
From kingdom on rekindling kingdom thrown,
From hearts confirmed on tyrannies confounded,
From earth on heaven, fire mightier than his own?
Not thine the breath wherewith time's clarion sounded,
And all the terror in the trumpet blown?
The voice whereat the thunders stood astounded
As at a new sound of a God unknown?
And all the seas and shores within them bounded
Shook at the strange speech of thy lips alone,
And all the hills of heaven, the storm-surrounded,
Trembled, and all the night sent forth a groan.
ANTISTROPHE 2
What hast thou done that such an hour should be
More than another clothed with blood to thee?
Thou hast seen many a bloodred hour before this one.
What art thou that thy lovers should misdoubt?
What is this hour that it should cast hope out?
If hope turn back and fall from thee, what hast thou done?
Thou hast done ill against thine own soul; yea,
Thine own soul hast thou slain and burnt away,
Dissolving it with poison into foul thin fume.
Thine own life and creation of thy fate
Thou hast set thine hand to unmake and discreate;
And now thy slain soul rises between dread and doom.
Yea, this is she that comes between them led;
That veiled head is thine own soul's buried head,
The head that was as morning's in the whole world's sight.
These wounds are deadly on thee, but deadlier
Those wounds the ravenous poison left on her;
How shall her weak hands hold thy weak hands up to fight?
Ah, but her fiery eyes, her eyes are these
That, gazing, make thee shiver to the knees
And the blood leap within thee, and the strong joy rise.
What, doth her sight yet make thine heart to dance? |
10,240 |
Produced by Chris Curnow, Christian Boissonnas, Joseph
Cooper and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
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BIRDS AND ALL NATURE.
ILLUSTRATED BY COLOR PHOTOGRAPHY.
VOL. IV. SEPTEMBER, 1898. NO. 3.
Page
SOME ANIMAL PROPENSITIES. 81
THE PETRIFIED FERN. 83
WATER AND ANIMALS. 84
THE HERRING GULL. 87
USEFUL BIRDS OF PREY. 88
THE RACCOON. 91
WILD BIRDS IN LONDON. 92
THE PIGMY ANTELOPE. 95
BIRDS OF ALASKA. 95
THE RED-SHOULDERED HAWK 96
THE DOVES OF VENICE. 100
BUTTERFLIES. 102
THE FOX. 105
THE GRAY FOX. 106
MISCELLANY. 109
THE GRAY SQUIRREL. 110
AH ME! 113
THE PECTORAL SANDPIPER. 114
EYES. 117
THE HUNTED SQUIRREL. 119
SUMMARY. 120
SOME ANIMAL PROPENSITIES.
It is not quite agreeable to contemplate many of the shortcomings, from
a moral point of view, of certain of the animal creation, and even less
to be compelled to recognize the necessity of them. Thievery in nature
is widely extended, and food is the excuse for it. Civilization has
made the practice of the humanities possible among men, but the lower
animals will doubtless remain, as they have ever been, wholly subject
to the instincts with which nature originally endowed them.
Huber relates an anecdote of some Hive-bees paying a visit to a nest of
Bumble-bees, placed in a box not far from their hive, in order to steal
or beg the honey. The Hive-bees, after pillaging, had taken almost
entire possession of the nest. Some Bumble-bees, which remained, went
out to collect provisions, and bringing home the surplus after they had
supplied their own immediate wants, the Hive-bees followed them and
did not quit them until they had obtained the fruit of their labors.
They licked them, presented to them their probosces, surrounded them,
and thus at last persuaded them to part with the contents of their
"honey-bags." The Bumble-bees did not seem to harm or sting them, hence
it would seem to have been persuasion rather than force that produced
this instance of self-denial. But it was systematic robbery, and was
persisted in until the Wasps were attracted by the same cause, when
the Bumble-bees entirely forsook the nest.
Birds, notwithstanding their attractiveness in plumage and sweetness
in song, are many of them great thieves. They are neither fair nor
generous towards each other. When nest-building they will steal the
feathers out of the nests of other birds, and frequently drive off
other birds from a feeding ground even when there is abundance. This
is especially true of the Robin, who will peck and run after and drive
away birds much larger than himself. In this respect the Robin and
Sparrow resemble each other. Both will drive away a Blackbird and carry
away the worm it has made great efforts to extract from the soil.
Readers of Frank Buckland's delightful books will remember his pet Rat,
which not infrequently terrified his visitors at breakfast. He had made
a house for the pet just by the side of the mantel-piece, and this was
approached by a kind of ladder, up which the Rat had to climb when he
had ventured down to the floor. Some kinds of fish the Rat particularly
liked, and was sure to come out if the savor was strong. One day Mr.
Buckland turned his back to give the Rat a chance of seizing the
coveted morsel, which he was not long in doing and in running up the
ladder with it; but he had fixed it by the middle of the back, and
the door of the entrance was too narrow to admit of its being drawn in
thus. But the Rat was equal to the emergency. In a moment he bethought
himself, laid the fish on the small platform before the door, and then
entering his house he put out his mouth, took the fish by the nose and
thus pulled it in and made a meal of it.
One of the most remarkable instances of carrying on a career of theft
came under our own observation, says a writer in _Cassell's Magazine_.
A friend in northeast Essex had a very fine Aberdeenshire Terrier, a
female, and a very affectionate relationship sprang up between this
Dog and a Tom cat. The Cat followed the Dog with the utmost fondness,
purring and running against it, and would come and call at the door
for the Dog to come out. Attention was first drawn to the pair by this
circumstance. One evening we were visiting our friend and heard the Cat
about the door calling, and some one said to our friend that the cat
was noisy. "He wants little Dell," said he--that being the Dog's name;
we looked incredulous. "Well, you shall see," said he, and opening
the door he let the Terrier out. At once the Cat bounded toward her,
fawned round her, and then, followed by the Dog, ran about the lawn.
But a change came. Some kittens were brought to the house, and the
Terrier got much attached to them and they to her. The Tom cat became
neglected, and soon appeared to feel it. By and by, to the surprise
of every one, the Tom somehow managed to get, and to establish in the
hedge of the garden, two kittens, fiery, spitting little things, and
carried on no end of depredation on their account. Chickens went; the
fur and remains of little Rabbits were often found round the nest, and
pieces of meat disappeared from kitchen and larder. This went on for
some time, when suddenly the Cat disappeared--had been shot in a wood
near by, by a game-keeper, when hunting to provide for these wild
kittens, which were allowed to live in the hedge, as they kept down the
Mice in the garden. This may be said to be a case of animal thieving
for a loftier purpose than generally obtains, mere demand for food and
other necessity.
That nature goes her own way is illustrated by these anecdotes of birds
and animals, and by many others even more strange and convincing.
The struggle for existence, like the brook, goes on forever, and the
survival, if not of the fittest, at least of the strongest, must
continue to be the rule of life, so long as the economical problems of
existence remain unsolved. Man and beast must be fed. "Manna," to some
extent, will always be provided by generous humanitarianism. There will
always be John Howards. Occasionally a disinterested, self-abnegating
soul like that of John Woolman will appear among us--doing good from
love; and, it may be, men like Jonathan Chapman--Johnny Appleseed, he
was called from his habit of planting apple seeds whereever he went,
as he distributed tracts among the frontier settlers in the early days
of western history. He would not harm even a Snake. His heart was
right, though his judgment was little better than that of many modern
sentimentalists who cannot apparently distinguish the innocuous from
the venemous.
It does seem that birds and animals are warranted in committing every
act of vandalism that they are accused of. They are unquestionably
entitled by every natural right to everything of which they take
possession. The farmer has no moral right to deny them a share in the
product of his fields and orchards; the gardener is their debtor (at
least of the birds), and the government, which benefits also from their
industry, should give them its protection.--C. C. M.
THE PETRIFIED FERN.
In a valley, centuries ago,
Grew a little fernleaf, green and slender,
Veining delicate and fibres tender,
Waving when the wind crept down so low;
Rushes tall, and moss, and grass grew round it;
Playful sunbeams darted in and found it,
Drops of dew stole in by night and crowned it;
But no foot of man e'er came that way,
Earth was young and keeping holiday.
Monster fishes swam the silent main--
Mountains hurled their snowy avalanches,
Giant forests shook their stately branches,
Mammoth creatures stalked across the plain;
Nature reveled in wild mysteries,
But the little fern was not of these,
Did not number with the hills and trees,
Only grew and waved its sweet wild way--
No one came to note it day by day.
Earth one day put on a frolic mood,
Moved the hills and changed the mighty motion
Of the deep, strong currents of the ocean,
Heaved the rocks, and shook the haughty wood,
Crushed the little fern in soft moist clay,
Covered it and hid it safe away.
Oh, the long, long centuries since that day!
Oh, the agony, Oh, life's bitter cost
Since that useless little fern was lost!
Useless? Dost? There came a thoughtful man
Searching Nature's secrets far and deep;
From a fissure in a rocky steep
He withdrew a stone, o'er which there ran
Fairy pencilings, a quaint design,
Veining, leafage, fibres, clear and fine,
And the fern's life lay in every line.
So, methinks, God hides some souls away,
Sweetly to surprise us some sweet day.
--ANON.
WATER AND ANIMALS.
To show the importance of water to animal life, we give the opinions
of several travelers and scientific men who have studied the question
thoroughly.
The Camel, with his pouch for storing water, can go longer without
drink than other animals. He doesn't do it from choice, any more than
you in a desert would prefer to drink the water that you have carried
with you, if you might choose between that and fresh spring water.
Major A. G. Leonard, an English transport officer, claims that Camels
"should be watered every day, that they can not be trained to do
without water, and that, though they can retain one and a half gallons
of water in the cells of the stomach, four or five days' abstinence is
as much as they can stand, in heat and with dry food, without permanent
injury."
Another distinguished English traveler, a Mr. Bryden, has observed
that the beasts and birds of the deserts must have private stores of
water of which we know nothing. Mr. Bryden, however, has seen the
Sand-Grouse of South America on their flight to drink at a desert pool.
"The watering process is gone through with perfect order and without
overcrowding"--a hint to young people who are hungry and thirsty at
their meals. "From eight o'clock to close on ten this wonderful flight
continued; as birds drank and departed, others were constantly arriving
to take their places. I should judge that the average time spent by
each bird at and around the water was half an hour."
To show the wonderful instinct which animals possess for discovering
water an anecdote is told by a writer in the _Spectator_, and the
article is republished in the _Living Age_ of February 5. The question
of a supply of good water for the Hague was under discussion in Holland
at the time of building the North Sea Canal. Some one insisted that
the Hares, Rabbits, and Partridges knew of a supply in the sand hills,
because they never came to the wet "polders" to drink. At first the
idea excited laughter. Then one of the local engineers suggested that
the sand hills should be carefully explored, and now a long reservoir
in the very center of those hills fills with water naturally and
supplies the entire town.
All this goes to prove to our mind that if Seals do not apparently
drink, if Cormorants and Penguins, Giraffes, Snakes, and Reptiles seem
to care nothing for water, some of them do eat wet or moist food, while
the Giraffe, for one, enjoys the juices of the leaves of trees that
have their roots in the moisture. None of these animals are our common,
everyday pets. If they were, it would cost us nothing to put water
at their disposal, but that they never drink in their native haunts
"can not be proved until the deserts have been explored and the total
absence of water confirmed."--_Ex._
[Illustration: From col. Chi. Acad. Sciences.
CHICAGO COLORTYPE CO.,
CHIC. & NEW YORK. AMERICAN HERRING GULL.
1/6 Life-size.
Copyright by
Nature Study Pub. Co., 1898, Chicago.]
THE HERRING GULL.
Just how many species of Gulls there are has not yet been determined,
but the habits and locations of about twenty-six species have been
described. The American Herring Gull is found throughout North America,
nesting from Maine northward, and westward throughout the interior on
the large inland waters, and occasionally on the Pacific; south in
the winter to Cuba and lower California. This Gull is a common bird
throughout its range, particularly coast-wise.
Col. Goss in his "Birds of Kansas," writes as follows of the Herring
Gull:
"In the month of June, 1880, I found the birds nesting in large
communities on the little island adjacent to Grand Manan; many were
nesting in spruce tree tops from twenty to forty feet from the ground.
It was an odd sight to see them on their nests or perched upon a limb,
chattering and scolding as approached.
"In the trees I had no difficulty in finding full sets of their eggs,
as the egg collectors rarely take the trouble to climb, but on the
rocks I was unable to find an egg within reach, the 'eggers' going
daily over the rocks. I was told by several that they yearly robbed the
birds, taking, however, but nine eggs from a nest, as they found that
whenever they took a greater number, the birds so robbed would forsake
their nests, or, as they expressed it, cease to lay, and that in order
to prevent an over-collection they invariably drop near the nest a
little stone or pebble for every egg taken."
The young Gulls grow rapidly. They do not leave their nesting grounds
until able to fly, though, half-grown birds are sometimes seen on the
water that by fright or accident have fallen. The nests are composed
of grass and moss. Some of them are large and elaborately made, while
others are merely shallow depressions with a slight lining. Three eggs
are usually laid, which vary from bluish-white to a deep yellowish
brown, spotted and blotched with brown of different shades. In many
cases where the Herring Gull has suffered persecution, it has been
known to depart from its usual habit of nesting on the open seashore.
It is a pleasure to watch a flock of Gulls riding buoyantly upon the
water. They do not dive, as many suppose, but only immerse the head
and neck. They are omnivorous and greedy eaters; "scavengers of the
beach, and in the harbors to be seen boldly alighting upon the masts
and flying about the vessels, picking up the refuse matter as soon as
it is cast overboard, and often following the steamers from thirty
to forty miles from the land, and sometimes much farther." They are
ever upon the alert, with a quick eye that notices every floating
object or disturbance of the water, and as they herald with screams
the appearance of the Herring or other small fishes that often swim in
schools at the surface of the water, they prove an unerring pilot to
the fishermen who hastily follow with their lines and nets, for they
know that beneath and following the valuable catch in sight are the
larger fishes that are so intent upon taking the little ones in out of
the wet as largely to forget their cunning, and thus make their capture
an easy one.
Very large flocks of Gulls, at times appearing many hundreds, are
seen on Lake Michigan. We recently saw in the vicinity of Milwaukee
a flock of what we considered to be many thousands of these birds,
flying swiftly, mounting up, and falling, as if to catch themselves,
in wide circles, the sun causing their wings and sides to glisten like
burnished silver.
USEFUL BIRDS OF PREY.
It is claimed that two hundred millions of dollars that should go to
the farmer, the gardner, and the fruit grower in the United States are
lost every year by the ravages of insects--that is to say, one-tenth of
our agricultural product is actually destroyed by them. The Department
of Agriculture has made a thorough investigation of this subject, and
its conclusions are about as stated. The ravages of the Gypsy Moth in
three counties in Massachusetts for several years annually cost the
state $100,000. "Now, as rain is the natural check to drought, so birds
are the natural check to insects, for what are pests to the farmer
are necessities of life to the bird. It is calculated that an average
insectivorous bird destroys 2,400 insects in a year; and when it is
remembered that there are over 100,000 kinds of insects in the United
States, the majority of which are injurious, and that in some cases
a single individual in a year may become the progenitor of several
billion descendants, it is seen how much good birds do ordinarily
by simple prevention." All of which has reference chiefly to the
indispensableness of preventing by every possible means the destruction
of the birds whose food largely consists of insects.
But many of our so-called birds of prey, which have been thought to
be the enemies of the agriculturist and have hence been ruthlessly
destroyed, are equally beneficial. Dr. Fisher, an authority on the
subject, in referring to the injustice which has been done to many of
the best friends of the farm and garden, says:
"The birds of prey, the majority of which labor night and day to
destroy the enemies of the husbandman, are persecuted unceasingly. This
has especially been the case with the Hawk family, only three of the
common inland species being harmful. These are the Goshawk, Cooper's
Hawk, and the Sharp-shinned Hawk, the first of which is rare in the
United States, except in winter. Cooper's Hawk, or the Chicken Hawk,
is the most destructive, especially to Doves. The other Hawks are of
great value, one of which, the Marsh Hawk, being regarded as perhaps
more useful than any other. It can be easily distinguished by its
white rump and its habit of beating low over the meadows. Meadow Mice,
Rabbits, and Squirrels are its favorite food. The Red-tailed Hawk, or
Hen Hawk, is another." It does not deserve the name, for according to
Dr. Fisher, while fully sixty-six per cent of its food consists of
injurious mammals, not more than seven per cent consists of poultry,
and that it is probable that a large proportion of the poultry and game
captured by it and the other Buzzard Hawks is made up of old, diseased,
or otherwise disabled fowls, so preventing their interbreeding with the
sound stock and hindering the spread of fatal epidemics. It eats Ground
Squirrels, Rabbits, Mice, and Rats.
The Red-shouldered Hawk, whose picture we present to our readers, is
as useful as it is beautiful, in fact ninety per cent of its food is
composed of injurious mammals and insects.
The Sparrow Hawk (See BIRDS, vol. 3, p. 107) is another useful member
of this family. In the warm months Grasshoppers, Crickets, and other
insects compose its food, and Mice during the rest of the year.
Swainson's Hawk is said to be the great Grasshopper destroyer of the
west, and it is estimated that in a month three hundred of these birds
save sixty tons of produce that the Grasshopper would destroy.
[Illustration: From col. Chi. Acad. Sciences.
RACCOON.
1/5 Life-size.
Copyright by
Nature Study Pub. Co., 1898. Chicago.]
THE RACCOON.
On account of the value of its skin, this interesting animal is much
sought after by those who take pride in their skill in securing it.
It is commonly known by its abbreviated name of <DW53>, and as it is of
frequent occurrence throughout the United States, every country boy is
more or less acquainted with its habits. As an article of food there is
much diversity of opinion respecting its merits. It is hunted by some
for the sport alone, which is doubtless to be lamented, and by others
who enjoy also the pleasure of a palatable stew. As a pet it is also
much prized.
The food of the Raccoon consists in the main of small animals and
insects. The succulent Oyster also is a favorite article of its diet.
It bites off the hinge of the Oyster and scrapes out the animal in
fragments with its paws. Like the Squirrel when eating a nut, the
Raccoon usually holds its food between its fore paws pressed together
and sits upon its hind quarters when it eats. Poultry is also enjoyed
by it, and it is said to be as destructive in the farm yard as the Fox,
as it only devours the heads of the fowl.
When taken young the <DW53> is easily tamed, but often becomes blind soon
after its capture. This is believed to be produced by the sensitiveness
of its eyes, which are intended only to be used by night. As it is
frequently awakened by day it suffers so much from the glare of light
that its eyes gradually lose their vision. If it must be confined
at all it should be in a darkened place. In zoological gardens we
have frequently seen several of these animals exposed to the glaring
sunlight, the result of ignorance or cruelty, or both.
Unlike the Fox, the Raccoon is at home in a tree, which is the usual
refuge when danger is near, and not being very swift of foot, it is
well that it possesses this climbing ability. According to Hallock,
the <DW53>s' abode is generally in a hollow tree, oak or chestnut, and
when the "juvenile farmer's son comes across a _Coon tree_, he is
not long in making known his discovery to friends and neighbors, who
forthwith assemble at the spot to secure it." The "sport" is in no
sense agreeable from a humane point of view, and we trust it will cease
to be regarded as such by those who indulge in it. "The Raccoon makes a
heroic struggle and often puts many of his assailants _hors de combat_
for many a day, his jaws being strong and his claws sharp."
The young ones are generally from four to eight, pretty little
creatures at first and about as large as half-grown Rats. They are very
playful, soon become docile and tame, but at the first chance will
wander off to the woods and not return. The <DW53> is a night animal and
never travels by day; sometimes it is said, being caught at morning far
from its tree and being unable to return thither, it will spend the
hours of daylight snugly coiled up among the thickest foliage of some
lofty tree-top. It is adroit in its attempts to baffle Dogs, and will
often enter a brook and travel for some distance in the water, thus
puzzling and delaying its pursuers.
A good sized Raccoon will weigh from fifteen to twenty pounds.
The curiosity of the Raccoon is one of its most interesting
characteristics. It will search every place of possible concealment for
food, examine critically any object of interest, will rifle a pocket,
stand upright and watch every motion of man or animal, and indeed show
a marked desire for all sorts of knowledge. Raccoons are apparently
happy in captivity when properly cared for by their keepers.
WILD BIRDS IN LONDON.
Their Number and Variety is Increasing Instead of Diminishing.
Whether in consequence of the effective working of the Wild Birds'
Charter or of other unknown causes, there can be no doubt in the
minds of observant lovers of our feathered friends that of late years
there has been a great and gratifying increase in their numbers in
and around London, especially so, of course, in the vicinity of the
beautiful open spaces which do such beneficent work silently in this
province of houses. But even in long, unlovely streets, far removed
from the rich greenery of the parks, the shabby parallelograms, by
courtesy styled gardens, are becoming more and more frequently visited
by such pretty shy songsters as Linnets, Blackbirds, Thrushes, and
Finches, who, though all too often falling victims to the predatory
Cat, find abundant food in these cramped enclosures. Naturally some
suburbs are more favored than others in this respect, notably Dulwich,
which, though fast losing its beautiful character under the ruthless
grip of the builder, still retains some delightful nooks where one may
occasionally hear the Nightingale's lovely song in its season.
But the most noticable additions to the bird population of London have
been among the Starlings. Their quaint gabble and peculiar minor
whistle may now be heard in the most unexpected localities. Even
the towering mansions which have replaced so many of the slums of
Westminster find favor in their eyes, for among the thick clustering
chimneys which crown these great buildings their slovenly nests may be
found in large numbers. In some districts they are so numerous that the
irrepressible Sparrow, true London gamin that he is, finds himself in
considerable danger of being crowded out. This is perhaps most evident
on the sequestered lawns of some of the inns of the court, Gray's Inn
Square, for instance, where hundreds of Starlings at a time may now
be observed busily trotting about the greensward searching for food.
Several long streets come to mind where not a house is without its pair
or more of Starlings, who continue faithful to their chosen roofs, and
whose descendants settle near as they grow up, well content with their
surroundings. House Martins, too, in spite of repeated efforts on the
part of irritated landlords to drive them away by destroying their
nests on account of the disfigurement to the front of the dwelling,
persist in returning year after year and rebuilding their ingenious
little mud cells under the eaves of the most modern suburban villas or
terrace houses.
--_Pall Mall Gazette._
[Illustration: From col. Chi. Acad. Sciences.
PYGMY ANTELOPE.
1/3 Life-size.
Copyright by
Nature Study Pub. Co., 1898. Chicago.]
THE PIGMY ANTELOPE.
The Pigmy Antelopes present examples of singular members of the family,
in that they are of exceedingly diminutive size, the smallest being
no larger than a large Rat, dainty creatures indeed. The Pigmy is an
inhabitant of South Africa, and its habits are said to be quite similar
to those of its brother of the western portion of North America.
The Antelope is a very wary animal, but the sentiment of curiosity
is implanted so strongly in its nature that it often leads it to
reconnoitre too closely some object which it cannot clearly make out,
and its investigations are pursued until "the dire answer to all
inquiries is given by the sharp'spang' of the rifle and the answering
'spat' as the ball strikes the beautiful creatures flank." The Pigmy
Antelope is not hunted, however, as is its larger congener, and may
be considered rather as a diminutive curiosity of Natures' delicate
workmanship than as the legitimate prey of man.
BIRDS OF ALASKA.
No sooner had the twilight settled over the island than new bird voices
called from the hills about us. The birds of the day were at rest, and
their place was filled with the night denizens of the island. They
came from the dark recesses of the forests, first single stragglers,
increased by midnight to a stream of eager birds, passing to and fro
from the sea. Many, attracted by the glow of the burning logs, altered
their course and circled about the fire a few times and then sped on.
From their notes we identified the principal night prowlers as the
Cassin's Auklet, Rhinoceros Auk, Murrelet, and varieties of Petrel.
All through the night our slumbers were frequently disturbed by birds
alighting on the sides of the tent, slipping down with great scratching
into the grass below, where our excited Dog took a hand in the matter,
daylight often finding our tent strewn with birds he had captured
during the night. When he found time to sleep I do not know. He was
after birds the entire twenty-four hours.
In climbing over the hills of the island we discovered the retreats of
these night birds, the soil everywhere through the deep wood being
fairly honeycombed with their nesting burrows. The larger tunnels
of the Rhinoceros Auks were, as a rule, on the <DW72>s of the hill,
while the little burrows of the Cassin's Auklet were on top in the
flat places. We opened many of their queer abodes that ran back with
many turns to a distance of ten feet or more. One or both birds were
invariably found at the end, covering their single egg, for this
species, like many other sea birds, divide the duties of incubation,
both sexes doing an equal share, relieving each other at night.
The Puffins nested in burrows also, but lower down--often just above
the surf. One must be very careful, indeed, how he thrusts his hand
into their dark dens, for should the old bird chance to be at home, its
vise-like bill can inflict a very painful wound. The rookeries of the
Murres and Cormorants were on the sides of steep cliffs overhanging the
sea. Looking down from above, hundreds of eggs could be seen, gathered
along the narrow shelves and chinks in the rocks, but accessible only
by means of a rope from the top.--_Outing._
THE RED-SHOULDERED HAWK.
You have heard of me before. I am the Hawk whose cry Mr. Blue Jay
imitated, as you will remember, in the story "The New Tenants,"
published in Birds.
_Kee-oe_, _kee-oe_, _kee-oe_, that is my cry, very loud and plaintive;
they say I am a very noisy bird; perhaps that is the reason why Mr.
Blue Jay imitates me more than he does other Hawks.
I am called Chicken Hawk, and Hen Hawk, also, though I don't deserve
either of those names. There are members of our family, and oh, what
a lot of us there are--as numerous as the Woodpeckers--who do drop
down into the barnyards and right before the farmer's eyes carry off
a Chicken. Red Squirrels, to my notion, are more appetizing than
Chickens; so are Mice, Frogs, Centipedes, Snakes, and Worms. A bird
once in a while I like for variety, and between you and me, if I am
hungry, I pick up a chicken now and then, that has strayed outside the
barnyard. But only _occasionally_, remember, so that I don't deserve
the name of Chicken Hawk at all, do I?
Wooded swamps, groves inhabited by Squirrels, and patches of low timber
are the places in which we make our homes. Sometimes we use an old
crow's nest instead of building one; we retouch it a little and put in
a soft lining of feathers which my mate plucks from her breast. When
we build a new nest, it is made of husks, moss, and strips of bark,
lined as the building progresses with my mate's feathers. Young lady
Red-shouldered Hawks lay three and sometimes four eggs, but the old
lady birds lay only two.
Somehow Mr. Blue Jay never sees a Hawk without giving the alarm, and on
he rushes to attack us, backed up by other Jays who never fail to go
to his assistance. They often assemble in great numbers and actually
succeed in driving us out of the neighborhood. Not that we are afraid
of them, oh no! We know them to be great cowards, as well as the crows,
who harass us also, and only have to turn on our foes to put them to
rout. Sometimes we do turn, and seizing a Blue Jay, sail off with him
to the nearest covert; or in mid air strike a Crow who persistently
follows us. But as a general thing we simply ignore our little
assailants, and just fly off to avoid them.
[Illustration: From col. Chi. Acad. Sciences.
RED-SHOULDERED HAWK.
1/3 Life-size.
Copyright by
Nature Study Pub. Co., 1898, Chicago.]
The Hawk family is an interesting one and many of them are beautiful.
The Red-shouldered Hawk is one of the finest specimens of these birds,
as well as one of the most useful. Of late years the farmer has come to
know it as his friend rather than his enemy, as formerly. It inhabits
the woodlands where it feeds chiefly upon Squirrels, Rabbits, Mice,
Moles, and Lizards. It occasionally drops down on an unlucky Duck or
Bob White, though it is not quick enough to catch the smaller birds.
It is said to be destructive to domestic fowls raised in or near the
timber, but does not appear to search for food far away from its
natural haunts. As it is a very noisy bird, the birds which it might
destroy are warned of its approach, and thus protect themselves.
During the early nesting season its loud, harsh _kee-oe_ is heard from
the perch and while in the air, often keeping up the cry for a long
time without intermission. Col. Goss says that he collected at Neosho
Falls, Kansas, for several successive years a set of the eggs of this
species from a nest in the forks of a medium sized oak. In about nine
days after each robbery the birds would commence laying again, and
he allowed them to hatch and rear their young. One winter during his
absence the tree was cut down, but this did not discourage the birds,
or cause them to forsake the place, for on approach of spring he found
them building a nest not over ten rods from the old one, but this time
in a large sycamore beyond reach. This seemed to him to indicate that
they become greatly attached to the grounds selected for a home, which
they vigilantly guard, not permitting a bird of prey to come within
their limits.
This species is one of the commonest in the United States, being
especially abundant in the winter, from which it receives the name of
Winter Falcon. The name of Chicken Hawk is often applied to it, though
it does not deserve the name, its diet being of a more humble kind.
The eggs are usually deposited in April or May in numbers of three or
four--sometimes only two. The ground color is bluish, yellowish-white
or brownish, spotted, blotched and dotted irregularly with many shades
of reddish brown. Some of them are strikingly beautiful. According to
Davie, to describe all the shades of reds and browns which comprise the
variation would be an almost endless task, and a large series like this
must be seen in order to appreciate how much the eggs of this species
vary.
The flight of the Red-shouldered Hawk is slow, but steady and strong
with a regular beat of the wings. They take delight in sailing in the
air, where they float lightly and with scarcely a notable motion of
the wings, often circling to a great height. During the insect season,
while thus sailing, they often fill their craws with grass-hoppers,
that, during the after part of the day, also enjoy an air sail.
THE DOVES OF VENICE.
Venice, the pride of Italy of old, aside from its other numerous
curiosities and antiquities, has one which is a novelty indeed. Its
Doves on the San Marco Place are a source of wonder and amusement to
every lover of animal life. Their most striking peculiarity is that
they fear no mortal man, be he stranger or not. They come in countless
numbers, and, when not perched on the far-famed bell tower, are found
on the flags of San Marco Square. They are often misnamed Pigeons, but
as a matter of fact they are Doves of the highest order. They differ,
however, from our wild Doves in that they are fully three times as
large, and twice as large as our best domestic Pigeon. Their plumage
is of a soft mouse color relieved by pure white, and occasionally
one of pure white is found, but these are rare. Hold out to them a
handful of crumbs and without fear they will come, perch on your hand
or shoulder and eat with thankful coos. To strangers this is indeed
a pleasing sight, and demonstrates the lack of fear of animals when
they are treated humanely, for none would dare to injure the doves of
San Marco. He would probably forfeit his life were he to injure one
intentionally. And what beggars these Doves of San Marco are! They will
crowd around, and push and coo with their soft soothing voices, until
you can withstand them no longer, and invest a few centimes in bread
for their benefit. Their bread, by the way, is sold by an Italian, who
must certainly be in collusion with the Doves, for whenever a stranger
makes his appearance, both Doves and bread vender are at hand to beg.
The most remarkable fact in connection with these Doves is that they
will collect in no other place in large numbers than San Marco Square,
and in particular at the vestibule of San Marco Church. True, they are
found perched on buildings throughout the entire city, and occasionally
we will find a few in various streets picking refuse, but they never
appear in great numbers outside of San Marco Square. The ancient bell
tower, which is situated on the west side of the place, is a favorite
roosting place for them, and on this perch they patiently wait for a
foreigner, and proceed to bleed him after approved Italian fashion.
There are several legends connected with the Doves of Venice, each of
which attempts to explain the peculiar veneration of the Venetian and
the extreme liberty allowed these harbingers of peace. The one which
struck me as being the most appropriate is as follows:
Centuries ago Venice was a free city, having her own government, navy,
and army, and in a manner was considered quite a power on land and sea.
The city was ruled by a Senate consisting of ten men, who were called
Doges, who had absolute power, which they used very often in a despotic
and cruel manner, especially where political prisoners were concerned.
On account of the riches the city contained, and also its values as
a port, Venice was coveted by Italy and neighboring nations, and, as
a consequence, was often called upon to defend itself with rather
indifferent success. In fact, Venice was conquered so often, first by
one and then another, that Venetians were seldom certain of how they
stood. They knew not whether they were slave or victor. It was during
one of these sieges that the incident of the Doves occurred. The city
had been besieged for a long time by Italians, and matters were coming
to such a pass that a surrender was absolutely necessary on account of
lack of food. In fact, the Doges had issued a decree that on the morrow
the city should surrender unconditionally.
All was gloom and sorrow, and the populace stood around in groups
on the San Marco discussing the situation and bewailing their fate,
when lo! in the eastern sky there appeared a dense cloud rushing upon
the city with the speed of the wind. At first consternation reigned
supreme, and men asked each other: "What new calamity is this?" As the
cloud swiftly approached it was seen to be a vast number of Doves,
which, after hovering over the San Marco Place for a moment, gracefully
settled down upon the flagstones and approached the men without fear.
Then there arose a queer cry, "The Doves! The Doves of San Marco!" It
appears that some years before this a sage had predicted stormy times
for Venice, with much suffering and strife, but, when all seemed lost,
there would appear a multitude of Doves, who would bring Venice peace
and happiness. And so it came to pass that the next day, instead of
attacking, the besiegers left, and Venice was free again. The prophet
also stated that, so long as the Doves remained at Venice prosperity
would reign supreme, but that there would come a day when the Doves
would leave just as they had come, and Venice would pass into
oblivion. That is why Venetians take such good care of their Doves.
You will not find this legend in any history, but I give it just as it
was told me by a guide, who seemed well versed in hair-raising legends.
Possibly they were manufactured to order by this energetic gentleman,
but they sounded well nevertheless. Even to this day the old men of
Venice fear that some morning they will awake and find their Doves gone.
There in the shadow of the famous bell-tower, with the stately San
Marco church on one side and the palace of the cruel and murderous
Doges on the other, we daily find our pretty Doves coaxing for bread.
Often you will find them peering down into the dark passage-way in the
palace, which leads to the dungeons underneath the Grand Canal. What
a boon a sight of these messengers of peace would have been to the
doomed inmates of these murder-reeking caves. But happily they are now
deserted, and are used only as a source of revenue, which is paid by
the inquisitive tourist.
Venice still remains as of old. She never changes, and the Doves of San
Marco will still remain. May we hope, with the sages of Venice, that
they may remain forever.--_Lebert, in Cincinnati Commercial Gazette._
BUTTERFLIES.
It may appear strange, if not altogether inappropriate to the season,
that "the fair fragile things which are the resurrection of the ugly,
creeping caterpillars" should be almost as numerous in October as in
the balmy month of July. Yet it is true, and early October, in some
parts of the country, is said to be perhaps the best time of the year
for the investigating student and observer of Butterflies. While not
quite so numerous, perhaps, many of the species are in more perfect
condition, and the variety is still intact. Many of them come and
remain until frost, and the largest Butterfly we have, the Archippus,
does not appear until the middle of July, but after that is constantly
with us, floating and circling on the wing, until October. How these
delicate creatures can endure even the chill of autumn days is one of
the mysteries.
Very curious and interesting are the Skippers, says _Current
Literature_. They are very small insects, but their bodies are robust,
and they fly with great rapidity, not moving in graceful, wavy lines
as the true Butterflies do, but skipping about with sudden, jerky
motions. Their flight is very short, and almost always near the
ground. They can never be mistaken, as their peculiar motion renders
their identification easy. They are seen at their best in August and
September. All June and July Butterflies are August and September
Butterflies, not so numerous in some instances, perhaps, but still
plentiful, and vying with the rich hues of the changing autumnal
foliage.
The "little wood brownies," or Quakers, are exceedingly interesting.
Their colors are not brilliant, but plain, and they seek the quiet and
retirement of the woods, where they flit about in graceful circles over
the shady beds of ferns and woodland grasses.
Many varieties of the Vanessa are often seen flying about in May, but
they are far more numerous and perfect in July, August, and September.
A beautiful Azure-blue Butterfly, when it is fluttering over flowers
in the sunshine, looks like a tiny speck of bright blue satin. Several
other small Butterflies which appear at the same time are readily
distinguished by the peculiar manner in which their hind wings are
tailed. Their color is a dull brown of various shades, marked in some
of the varieties with specks of white or blue.
"Their presence in the gardens and meadows," says a recent writer,
"and in the fields and along the river-banks, adds another element
of gladness which we are quick to recognize, and even the plodding
wayfarer who has not the honor of a single intimate acquaintance among
them might, perhaps, be the first to miss their circlings about his
path. As roses belong to June, and chrysanthemums to November, so
Butterflies seem to be a joyous part of July. It is their gala-day,
and they are everywhere, darting and circling and sailing, dropping to
investigate flowers and overripe fruit, and rising on buoyant wings
high into the upper air, bright, joyous, airy, ephemeral. But July can
only claim the larger part of their allegiance, for they are wanderers
into all the other months, and even occasionally brave the winter with
torn and faded wings."
[Illustration: BUTTERFLIES.--Life-size.
Melitæa chalcedon.
Thecla crysalus.
Anthocharis sara.
Papilio thoas.
Papilio philenor.
Argynis idalia.
Limenitis arthemis var. lamina.
Cystineura dorcas.
Thecla halesus.]
THE FOX.
"A sly dog."
Somehow people always say that when they see a Fox. I'd rather they
would call me that than stupid, however. Do I look stupid in my picture?
"Look pleasant," said the man when taking my photograph for Birds,
and I flatter myself I did--and intelligent, too. Look at my brainy
head, my delicate ears--broad below to catch every sound, and tapering
so sharply to a point that they can shape themselves to every wave
of sound. |
10,240 |
Produced by Juliet Sutherland, David Widger and PG Distributed
Proofreaders
SAMANTHA
AMONG THE BRETHREN.
By
"Josiah Allen's Wife"
(Marietta Holley)
Part 3
CHAPTER VII.
But along about the middle of the fifth week I see a change. Lodema
had been uncommon exasperatin', and I expected she would set Josiah to
goin', and I groaned in spirit, to think what a job wuz ahead of me, to
part their two tongues--when all of a sudden I see a curius change come
over my pardner's face.
I remember jest the date that the change in his mean wuz visible, and
made known to me--for it wuz the very mornin' that we got the invitation
to old Mr. and Miss Pressley's silver weddin'. And that wuz the
fifteenth day of the month along about the middle of the forenoon.
And it wuz not half an hour after Elnathen Pressley came to the door and
give us the invitations, that I see the change in his mean.
And when I asked him about it afterwards, what that strange and curius
look meant, he never hung back a mite from tellin' me, but sez right out
plain:
"Mebby, Samantha, I hain't done exactly as I ort to by cousin Lodema,
and I have made up my mind to make her a happy surprise before she goes
away."
"Wall," sez I, "so do."
I thought he wuz goin' to get her a new dress. She had been a-hintin'
to him dretful strong to that effect. She wanted a parmetty, or a
balzereen, or a circassien, which wuz in voge in her young days. But I
wuz in hopes he would get her a cashmere, and told him so, plain.
But I couldn't get him to tell what the surprise wuz. He only sez, sez
he:
"I am goin' to make her a happy surprise."
And the thought that he wuz a-goin' to branch out and make a change, wuz
considerable of a comfort to me. And I needed comfort--yes, indeed I
did--I needed it bad. For not one single thing did I do for her that I
done right, though I tried my best to do well by her.
But she found fault with my vittles from mornin' till night, though I am
called a excellent cook all over Jonesville, and all round the adjoining
country, out as far as Loontown, and Zoar. It has come straight back to
me by them that wouldn't lie. But it hain't made me vain.
But I never cooked a thing that suited Lodema, not a single thing. Most
of my vittles wuz too fresh, and then if I braced up and salted 'em
extra so as to be sure to please her, why then they wuz briny, and hurt
her mouth.
Why, if you'll believe it, I give her a shawl, made her a present of it;
it had even checks black and white, jest as many threads in the black
stripes as there wuz in the white, for I counted 'em.
And she told me, after she had looked it all over and said it wuz kinder
thin and slazy, and checkered shawls had gone out of fashion, and the
black looked some as if it would fade with washin', and the white wuzn't
over clear, and the colors wuzn't no ways becomin' to her complexion,
and etcetery, etcetery.
"But," sez she, after she had got all through with the rest of her
complaints--"if the white stripes wuz where the black wuz, and the black
where the white wuz, she should like it quite well." And there it wuz,
even check, two and two. Wall, that wuz a sample of her doin's. If
anybody had a Roman nose she wanted a Greecy one.
[Illustration: "IF THE WHITE STRIPES WUZ WHERE THE BLACK WUZ."]
And if the nose wuz Greece, why then she wanted Rome.
Why, Josiah sez to me along about the third week, he said (to ourselves,
in private), "that if Lodema went to Heaven she would be dissatisfied
with it, and think it wuz livelier, and more goin' on down to the other
place." And he said she would get the angels all stirred up a findin'
fault with their feathers.
I told him "I would not hear such talk."
"Wall," sez he, "don't you believe it?"
And I kinder turned him off, and wouldn't tell, and told him it wuz
wicked to talk so.
"Wall," sez Josiah, "you dassent say she wouldn't."
And I dassent, though I wouldn't own it up to him, I dassent.
And if she kinder got out of other occupations for a minute durin' them
first weeks she would be a quarrelin' with Josiah Allen about age.
I s'pose she and Josiah wuzn't far from the same age, for they wuz
children together. But she wanted to make out she wuz young.
And she would tell Josiah that "he seemed jest like a father to her, and
always had." And sometimes when she felt the most curius, she would call
him "Father," and "Pa," and "Papa." And it would mad Josiah Allen so
that I would have all I could do to quell him down.
Now I didn't feel so, I didn't mind it so much. Why, there would be
days, when she felt the curiusest, that she would call me "Mother," and
"Ma," and foller me round with foot-stools and things, when I went to
set down, and would kinder worry over my fallin' off the back step, and
would offer to help me up the suller stairs, and so forth, and watchin'
over what I et, and tellin' me folks of my age ort to be careful, and
not over-eat.
And Josiah asked me to ask her "How she felt about that time?" For she
wuz from three to four years older than I wuz.
But I wouldn't contend with her, and the footstools come kinder handy, I
had jest as lieve have 'em under my feet as not, and ruther. And as for
rich vittles not agreein' with me, and my not over-eatin', I broke that
tip by fallin' right in with her, and not cookin' such good things--that
quelled her down, and gaulded Josiah too.
But, as I said, it riled Josiah the worst of anything to have Lodema
call him father, for he wants to make out that he is kinder young
himself.
And sez he to her one day, about the third week, when she was a-goin'
on about how good and fatherly he looked, and how much he seemed like
a parent to her, and always had, sez he: "I wonder if I seemed like a
father to you when we wuz a-kickin' at each other in the same cradle?"
Sez he: "We both used to nuss out of the same bottle, any way, for
I have heard my mother say so lots of times. There wuzn't ten days'
difference in our ages. You wuz ten days the oldest as I have always
made out."
She screamed right out, "Why, Josiah Allen, where is your conscience to
talk in that way--and your heart?"
"In here, where everybody's is," sez Josiah, strikin' himself with his
right hand--he meant to strike against his left breast, but struck too
low, kinder on his stomach.
And sez I, "That is what I have always thought, Josiah Allen. I have
always had better luck reachin' your conscience through your stomach
than in any other way. And now," sez I coldly, "do you go out and bring
in a pail of water."
I used to get beat out and sick of their scufflin's and disagreein's,
and broke 'em up whenever I could.
But oh! oh! how she did quarrel with Josiah Allen and that buzz saw
scheme of his'n. How light she made of that enterprise, how she demeaned
the buzz, and run the saws--till I felt that bad as I hated the
enterprise myself, I felt that a variety of loud buzz saws would be a
welcome relief from her tongue--from their two tongues; for as fur down
as she would run them buzz saws, jest so fur would Josiah Allen praise
'em up.
[Illustration: LODEMA AND JOSIAH IN YOUTH.]
She never agreed with Josiah Allen but in jest one thing while she was
under his ruff. I happened to mention one day how extremely anxious I
wuz to have females set on the Conference; and then, wantin' to dispute
me, and also bein' set on that side, she run down the project, and
called it all to nort--and when too late she see that she had got over
on Josiah Allen's side of the fence.
But it had one good effect. When that man see she wuz there, he waded
off, way out of sight of the project, and wouldn't mention it--it madded
him so to be on the same side of the fence she wuz--so that it seemed
to happen all for the best.
Why, I took her as a dispensation from the first, and drawed all sorts
of morels from her, and sights of 'em--sights.
But oh, it wuz tuff on me, fearful tuff.
And when she calculated and laid out to make out her visit and go, wuz
more than we could tell.
CHAPTER VIII.
For two weeks had passed away like a nite mair of the nite--and three
weeks, and four weeks--and she didn't seem to be no nigher goin' than
she did when she came.
And I would not make a move towards gettin' rid of her, not if I had
dropped down in my tracts, because she wuz one of the relatives on his
side.
But I wuz completely fagged out; it did seem, as I told Tirzah Ann one
day in confidence, "that I never knew the meanin' of the word 'fag'
before."
And Tirzah Ann told me (she couldn't bear her) that if she wuz in my
place, she would start her off. Sez she:
"She has plenty of brothers and sisters, and a home of her own, and why
should she come here to torment you and father;" and sez she, "I'll talk
to her, mother, I'd jest as leve as not." Sez I, "Tirzah Ann, if you
say a word to her, I'll--I'll never put confidence in you agin;" sez I,
"Life is full of tribulations, and we must expect to bear our crosses;"
sez I, "The old martyrs went through more than Lodema."
Sez Tirzah Ann, "I believe Lodema would have wore out John Rogers."
And I don't know but she would, but I didn't encourage her by ownin' it
up that she would; but I declare for't, I believe she would have been
more tegus than the nine children, and the one at the breast, any way.
Wall, as I said, it wuz durin' the fifth week that Josiah Allen turned
right round, and used her first rate.
And when she would talk before folks about how much filial affection she
had for him, and about his always havin' been jest like a parent to her,
and everything of the kind--he never talked back a mite, but looked
clever, and told me in confidence, "That he had turned over a new leaf,
and he wuz goin' to surprise her--give her a happy surprise."
And he seemed, instead of lovin' to rile her up, as he had, to jest put
his hull mind on the idee of the joyful surprise.
Wall, I am always afraid (with reason) of Josiah Allen's enterprizes.
But do all I could, he wouldn't tell me one word about what he wuz goin'
to do, only he kep it up, kep a-sayin' that,
"It wuz somethin' I couldn't help approvin' of, and it wuz somethin'
that would happify me, and be a solid comfort to her, and a great gain
and honor."
So (though I trembled some for the result) I had to let it go on, for
she wuz one of the relations on his own side, and I knew it wouldn't do
for me to interfere too much, and meddle.
Why, he did come right out one day and give hints to me to that effect.
Sez I, "Why do you go on and be so secret about it? Why don't you tell
your companion all about it, what you are a-goin' to do, and advise with
her?"
And he sez, "I guess I know what I am about. She is one of the relations
on my side, and I guess I have got a few rights left, and a little
spunk."
"Yes," sez I, sadly, "you have got the spunk."
"Wall," sez he, "I guess I can spunk up, and do somethin' for one of my
own relations, without any interference or any advice from any of the
Smith family, or anybody else."
Sez I, "I don't want to stop your doin' all you can for Lodema, but why
not tell what you are a-goin' to do?"
"It will be time enough when the time comes," sez he. "You will find it
out in the course of next week."
Wall, it run along to the middle of the next week. And one day I had
jest sot down to tie off a comforter.
It wuz unbleached cheese cloth that I had bought and with tea
leaves. It wuz a sort of a light mice color, a pretty soft gray, and I
wuz goin' to tie it in with little balls of red zephyr woosted, and work
it in buttonhole stitch round the edge with the same.
It wuz fur our bed, Josiah's and mine, and it wuz goin' to be soft and
warm and very pretty, though I say it, that shouldn't.
[Illustration: "I HAD JEST SOT DOWN TO TIE OFF A COMFORTER."]
It wuzn't quite so pretty as them that hain't. I had 'em for my
spare beds, cream color tied with pale blue and pink, that wuz perfectly
beautiful and very dressy; but I thought for everyday use a <DW52> one
would be better.
Wall, I had brought it out and wuz jest a-goin' to put it onto the
frames (some new-fashioned ones I had borrowed from Tirzah Ann for the
occasion).
And Cousin Lodema had jest observed, "that the new-fashioned frames with
legs wuzn't good for nothin', and she didn't like the color of gray,
it looked too melancholy, and would be apt to depress our feelin's too
much, and would be tryin' to our complexions."
And I told her "that I didn't spoze there would be a very great
congregation in our bedroom, as a general thing in the dead of night, to
see whether it wuz becomin' to Josiah and me or not. And, it bein' as
dark as Egypt, our complexions wouldn't make a very bad show any way."
"Wall," she said, "to tie it with red wuzn't at all appropriate, it wuz
too dressy a color for folks of our age, Josiah's and mine." "Why," sez
she, "even _I_, at _my_ age, would skurcely care to sleep under one so
gay. And she wouldn't have a cheese cloth comforter any way." She sort
o' stopped to ketch breath, and Josiah sez:
"Oh, wall, Lodema, a cheese cloth comforter is better than none, and I
should think you would be jest the one to like any sort of a frame on
legs."
But I wunk at him, a real severe and warnin' wink, and he stopped short
off, for all the world as if he had forgot bein' on his good behavior;
he stopped short off, and went right to behavin', and sez he to me:
"Don't put on your comforter to-day, Samantha, for Tirzah Ann and
Whitfield and the babe are a-comin' over here bimeby, and Maggie is
a-comin', and Thomas Jefferson."
"Wall," sez I, "that is a good reason why I should keep on with it; the
girls can help me if I don't get it off before they get here."
And then he sez, "Miss Minkley is a-comin', too, and the Elder."
"Why'ee," sez I, "Josiah Allen, why didn't you tell me before, so I
could have baked up somethin' nice? What a man you are to keep things;
how long have you known it?"
"Oh, a week or so!"
"A week!" sez I; "Josiah Allen, where is your conscience? if you have
got a conscience."
"In the same old place," sez he, kinder hittin' himself in the pit of
his stomach.
"Wall, I should think as much," sez I.
And Lodema sez, sez she: "A man that won't tell things is of all
creeters that walks the earth the most disagreeable. And I should think
the girls, Maggie and Tirzah Ann, would want to stay to home and clean
house such a day as this is. And I should think a Elder would want to
stay to home so's to be on hand in case of anybody happenin' to be
exercised in their minds, and wantin to talk to him on religious
subjects. And if I wuz a Elder's wife, I should stay to home with him;
I should think it wuz my duty and my privilege. And if I wuz a married
woman, I would have enough baked up in the house all the time, so's not
to be afraid of company."
But I didn't answer back. I jest sot away my frames, and went out and
stirred up a cake; I had one kind by me, besides cookies and jell tarts.
But I felt real worked up to think I hadn't heard. Wall, I hadn't more'n
got that cake fairly into the oven when the children come, and Elder
Minkley and his wife. And I thought they looked queer, and I thought the
Elder begun to tell me somethin', and I thought I see Josiah wink at
him. But I wouldn't want to take my oath whether he wunk or not, but I
_thought_ he wunk.
I wuz jest a turnin' this over in my mind, and a carryin' away their
things, when I glanced out of the settin' room winder, and lo, and
behold! there wuz Abi Adsit a comin' up to the front door, and right
behind her wuz her Pa and Ma Adsit, and Deacon Henzy and his wife,
and Miss Henn and Metilda, and Lute Pitkins and his wife, and Miss
Petengill, and Deacon Sypher and Drusilly, and Submit Tewksbury--a hull
string of 'em as long as a procession.
Sez I, and I spoke it right out before I thought--sez I--
"Why'ee!" sez I. "For the land's sake!" sez I, "has there been a
funeral, or anything? And are these the mourners?" sez I. "Are they
stoppin' here to warm?"
For it wuz a cold day--and I repeated the words to myself mechanically
as it wuz, as I see 'em file up the path.
"They be mourners, hain't they?"
"No," sez Josiah, who had come in and wuz a standin' by the side of me,
as I spoke out to myself unbeknown to me--sez he in a proud axent--
"No, they hain't mourners, they are Happyfiers; they are Highlariers;
they have come to our party. We are givin' a party, Samantha. We are
havin' a diamond weddin' here for Lodema."
"A diamond weddin'!" I repeated mechanically.
"Yes, this is my happy surprise for Lodema."
I looked at Lodema Trumble. She looked strange. She had sunk back in her
chair. I thought she wuz a-goin' to faint, and she told somebody the
next day, "that she did almost lose her conscientiousness."
"Why," sez I, "she hain't married."
[Illustration: "WE ARE GIVIN' A PARTY, SAMANTHA."]
"Wall, she ort to be, if she hain't," sez he. "I say it is high time for
her to have some sort of a weddin'. Everybody is a havin' 'em--tin, and
silver and wooden, and basswood, and glass, and etc.--and I thought it
wuz a perfect shame that Lodema shouldn't have none of no kind--and I
thought I'd lay to, and surprise her with one. Every other man seemed
to be a-holdin' off, not willin' seemin'ly that she should have one, and
I jest thought I would happify her with one."
"Wall, why didn't you make her a silver one, or a tin?" sez I.
"Or a paper one!" screamed Lodema, who had riz up out of her almost
faintin' condition. "That would have been much more appropriate," sez
she.
"Wall, I thought a diamond one would be more profitable to her. For I
asked 'em all to bring diamonds, if they brought anything. And then I
thought it would be more suitable to her age."
"Why!" she screamed out. "They have to be married seventy-five years
before they can have one."
"Yes," sez he dreemily, "I thought that would be about the right
figure."
Lodema wuz too mad to find fault or complain or anything. She jest
marched up-stairs and didn't come down agin that night. And the young
folks had a splendid good time, and the old ones, too.
Tirzah Ann and Maggie had brought some refreshments with 'em, and so had
some of the other wimmen, and, with what I had, there wuz enough, and
more than enough, to refresh ourselves with.
Wall, the very next mornin' Lodema marched down like a grenideer, and
ordered Josiah to take her to the train. And she eat breakfast with her
things on, and went away immegiately after, and hain't been back here
sense.
And I wuz truly glad to see her go, but wuz sorry she went in such a
way, and I tell Josiah he wuz to blame,
But he acts as innocent as you pleese. And he goes all over the
arguments agin every time I take him to do about it. He sez "she wuz old
enough to have a weddin' of some kind."
And of course I can't dispute that, when he faces me right down, and
sez:
"Hain't she old enough?"
And I'll say, kinder short--
"Why, I spoze so!"
"Wall," sez he, "wouldn't it have been profitable to her if they had
brought diamonds? Wouldn't it have been both surprisin' and profitable?"
And sez he, "I told 'em expressly to bring diamonds if they had more
than they wanted. I charged old Bobbet and Lute Pitkins specially on the
subject. I didn't want 'em to scrimp themselves; but," sez I, "if you
have got more diamonds than you want, Lute, bring over a few to Lodema."
[Illustration: "IF YOU HAVE GOT MORE DIAMONDS THAN YOU WANT."]
"Yes," sez I, coldly, "he wuz dretful likely to have diamonds more then
he wanted, workin' out by day's work to support his family. You know
there wuzn't a soul you invited that owned a diamond."
"How did I know what they owned? I never have prowled round into their
bureau draws and things, tryin' to find out what they had; they might
have had quarts of 'em, and I not know it."
Sez I, "You did it to make fun of Lodema and get rid of her. And it only
makes it worse to try to smooth it over." Sez I, "I'd be honorable about
it if I wuz in your place, and own up."
"Own up? What have I got to own up? I shall always say if my orders wuz
carried out, it would have been a profitable affair for Lodema, and it
would--profitable and surprisin'."
And that is all I can get him to say about it, from that day to this.
CHAPTER IX.
But truly the labors that descended onto my shoulders immegiately after
Lodema's departure wuz hard enough to fill up my hull mind, and tax
every one of my energies.
Yes, my labors and the labors of the other female Jonesvillians wuz deep
and arjuous in the extreme (of which more and anon bimeby).
I had been the female appinted in a private and becomin' female way, to
go to Loontown to see the meetin' house there that we heard they had
fixed over in a cheap but commojous way. And for reasons (of which more
and anon) we wanted to inquire into the expense, the looks on't, etc.,
etc.
So I persuaded Josiah Allen to take me over to Loontown on this pressin'
business, and he gin his consent to go on the condition that we should
stop for a visit to Cephas Bodley'ses. Josiah sets store by 'em. You
see they are relations of ourn and have been for some time, entirely
unbeknown to us, and they'd come more'n a year ago a huntin' of us up.
They said they "thought relations ought to be hunted up and hanged
together." They said "the idea of huntin' us up had come to 'em after
readin' my books." They told me so, and I said, "Wall!" I didn't add nor
diminish to that one "wall," for I didn't want to act too backward, nor
too forward. I jest kep' kinder neutral, and said, "Wall!"
You see Cephas'ses father's sister-in-law wuz stepmother to my aunt's
second cousin on my father's side. And Cephas said that "he had felt
more and more, as years went by, that it wuz a burnin' shame for
relations to not know and love each other." He said "he felt that he
loved Josiah and me dearly."
I didn't say right out whether it wuz reciprokated or not I kinder said,
"Wall!" agin.
And I told Josiah, in perfect confidence and the wood-house chamber,
"that I had seen nearer relations than Mr. Bodley'ses folks wuz to us,"
[Illustration: "CEPHAS SAID IT WUZ A BURNIN' SHAME FOR RELATIONS TO
NOT KNOW AND LOVE EACH OTHER."]
Howsumever, I done well by 'em. Josiah killed a fat turkey, and I baked
it, and done other things for their comfort, and we had quite a good
time. Cephas wuz ruther flowery and enthusiastick, and his mouth and
voice wuz ruther large, but he meant well, I should judge, and we had
quite a good time.
She wuz very freckled, and a second-day Baptist by perswasion, and wuz
piecin' up a crazy bedquilt. She went a-visitin' a good deal, and got
pieces of the women's dresses where she visited for blocks. So it wuz
quite a savin' bedquilt, and very good-lookin', considerin'.
But to resoom and continue on. Cephas'ses folks made us promise on our
two sacred honors, Josiah's honor and mine, that we would pay back the
visit, for, as Cephas said, "for relatives to live so clost to each
other, and not to visit back and forth, wuz a burnin' shame and a
disgrace." And Josiah promised that we would go right away after
sugerin'.
We wouldn't promise on the New Testament, as Cephas wanted us to (he is
dretful enthusiastick); but we gin good plain promises that we would go,
and laid out to keep our two words.
Wall, we got there onexpected, as they had come onto us. And we found
'em plunged into trouble. Their only child, a girl, who had married a
young lawyer of Loontown, had jest lost her husband with the typus, and
they wuz a-makin' preparations for the funeral when we got there. She
and her husband had come on a visit, and he wuz took down bed-sick there
and died.
I told 'em I felt like death to think I had descended down onto 'em at
such a time.
But Cephas said he wuz jest dispatchin' a messenger for us when we
arrove, for, he said, "in a time of trouble, then wuz the time, if ever,
that a man wanted his near relations clost to him."
And he said "we had took a load offen him by appearin' jest as we
did, for there would have been some delay in gettin' us there, if the
messenger had been dispatched."
He said "that mornin' he had felt so bad that he wanted to die--it
seemed as if there wuzn't nothin' left for him to live for; but now he
felt that he had sunthin' to live for, now his relatives wuz gathered
round him."
Josiah shed tears to hear Cephas go on. I myself didn't weep none, but I
wuz glad if we could be any comfort to 'em, and told 'em so.
And I told Sally Ann, that wuz Cephas'ses wife, that I would do anything
I could to help 'em. And she said everything wuz a-bein' done that
wuz necessary. She didn't know of but one thing that wuz likely to be
overlooked and neglected, and that wuz the crazy bedquilt. She said
"she would love to have that finished to throw over a lounge in the
settin'-room, that wuz frayed out on the edges, and if I felt like it,
it _would_ be a great relief to her to have me take it right offen her
hands and finish it."
So I took out my thimble and needle (I always carry such necessaries
with me, in a huzzy made expressly for that purpose), and I sot down and
went to piecin' up. There wuz seventeen blocks to piece up, each one
crazy as a loon to look at, and it wuz all to set together.
She had the pieces, for she had been off on a visitin' tower the week
before, and collected of 'em.
So I sot in quiet and the big chair in the settin'-room, and pieced up,
and see the preparations goin' on round us.
I found that Cephas'ses folks lived in a house big and showy-lookin',
but not so solid and firm as I had seen.
It wuz one of the houses, outside and inside, where more pains had been
took with the porticos and ornaments than with the underpinnin'.
It had a showy and kind of a shaky look. And I found that that extended
to Cephas'ses business arrangements. Amongst the other ornaments of his
buildin's wuz mortgages, quite a lot of'em, and of almost every variety.
He had gin his only child, S. Annie (she wuz named after her mother,
Sally Ann, but spelt it this way), he had gin S. Annie a showy
education, a showy weddin', and a showy settin'-out. But she had
had the good luck to marry a sensible man, though poor.
[Illustration: "So I SOT IN QUIET AND THE BIG CHAIR."]
He took S. Annie and the brackets, the piano and hangin' lamps and
baskets and crystal bead lambrequins, her father had gin her, moved
'em all into a good, sensible, small house, and went to work to get a
practice and a livin'. He was a lawyer by perswasion.
Wall, he worked hard, day and night, for three little children come to
'em pretty fast, and S. Annie consumed a good deal in trimmin's and
cheap lace to ornament 'em; she wuz her father's own girl for ornament.
But he worked so hard, and had so many irons in the fire, and kep' 'em
all so hot, that he got a good livin' for 'em, and begun to lay up money
towards buyin' 'em a house--a home.
He talked a sight, so folks said that knew him well, about his consumin'
desire and aim to get his wife and children into a little home of their
own, into a safe little haven, where they could live if he wuz called
away. They say that that wuz on his mind day and night, and wuz what
nerved his hand so in the fray, and made him so successful. Wall, he had
laid up about nine hundred dollars towards a home, every dollar on
it earned by hard work and consecrated by this deathless hope and
affection. The house he had got his mind on only cost about a thousand
dollars. Loontown property is cheap.
Wall, he had laid up nine hundred, and wuz a-beginnin' to save on the
last hundred, for he wouldn't run in debt a cent any way, when he wuz
took voyalent sick there to Cephas'ses; he and S. Annie had come home
for a visit of a day or two, and he bein' so run down, and weak with his
hard day work and his night work, that he suckumbed to his sickness, and
passed away the day before I got there.
Wall, S. Annie wuz jest overcome with grief the day I got there, but the
day follerin' she begun to take some interest and help her father in
makin' preparations for the funeral.
The body wuz embalmed, accordin' to Cephas'ses and S. Annie's wish, and
the funeral wuz to be on the Sunday follerin', and on that Cephas and S.
Annie now bent their energies.
To begin with, S. Annie had a hull suit of clear crape made for herself,
with a veil that touched the ground; she also had three other suits
commenced, for more common wear, trimmed heavy with crape, one of which
she ordered for sure the next week, for she said, "she couldn't stir out
of the house in any other color but black."
I knew jest how dear crape wuz, and I tackled her on the subject, and
sez I--
"Do you know, S. Annie, these dresses of your'n will cost a sight?"
"Cost?" sez she, a-bustin' out a-cryin'. "What do I care about cost? I
will do everything I can to respect his memory. I do it in remembrance
of him."
Sez I, gently, "S. Annie, you wouldn't forget him if you wuz dressed in
white. And as for respect, such a life as his, from all I hear of it,
don't need crape to throw respect on it; it commands respect, and gets
it from everybody."
"But," sez Cephas, "it would look dretful odd to the neighbors if she
didn't dress in black." Sez he in a skairful tone, and in his intense
way--
[Illustration: "WHAT IS LIFE WORTH WHEN FOLKS TALK?"]
"I would ruther resk my life than to have her fail in duty in this way;
it would make talk. And." sez he, "what is life worth when folks talk?"
I turned around the crazed block and tackled it in a new place (more
luny than ever it seemed to me), and sez I, mekanickly--
"It is pretty hard work to keep folks from talkin'; to keep 'em from
sayin' somethin'."
But I see from their looks it wouldn't do to say anything more, so I had
to set still and see it go on.
At that time of year flowers wuz dretful high, but S. Annie and Cephas
had made up their minds that they must have several flower-pieces from
the city nighest to Loontown.
One wuz a-goin' to be a gate ajar, and one wuz to be a gate wide open,
and one wuz to be a big book. Cephas asked what book I thought would be
preferable to represent. And I mentioned the Bible.
But Cephas sez, "No, he didn't think he would have a Bible; he didn't
think it would be appropriate, seein' the deceased wuz a lawyer." He
said "he hadn't quite made up his mind what book to have. But anyway it
wuz to be in flowers--beautiful flowers." Another piece wuz to be his
name in white flowers on a purple background of <DW29>s. His name wuz
Wellington Napoleon Bonaparte Hardiman. And I sez to Cephas--"To save
expense, you will probable have the moneygram W.N.B.H.?"
"Oh, no," sez he.
Sez I, "hen the initials of his given names, and the last name in
full."
"Oh, no," he said; "it wuz S. Annie's wish, and hisen, that the hull
name should be put on. They thought it would show more respect."
I sez, "Where Wellington is now, that hain't a goin' to make any
difference, and," sez I, "Cephas, flowers are dretful high this time of
year, and it is a long name."
But Cephas said agin that he didn't care for expense, so long as respect
wuz done to the memory of the deceased. He said that he and S. Annie
both felt that it wuz their wish to have the funeral go ahead of any
other that had ever took place in Loontown or Jonesville. He said that
S. Annie felt that it wuz all that wuz left her now in life, the memory
of such a funeral as he deserved.
Sez I, "There is his children left for her to live for," sez I--"three
little bits of his own life, for her to nourish, and cherish, and look
out for."
"Yes," sez Cephas, "and she will do that nobly, and I will help her.
They are all goin' to the funeral, too, in deep-black dresses." He said
"they wuz too little to realize it now, but in later and maturer years
it would be a comfort to 'em to know they had took part in such a
funeral as that wuz goin' to be, and wuz dressed in black."
"Wall," sez I (in a quiet, onassumin' way I would gin little hints of my
mind on the subject), "I am afraid that will be about all the comforts
of life the poor little children will ever have," sez I. "It will be if
you buy many more flower-pieces and crape dresses."
Cephas said "it wouldn't take much crape for the children's dresses,
they wuz so little, only the baby's; that would have to be long."
Sez I, "The baby would look better in white, and it will take sights of
crape for a long baby dress."
"Yes, but S. Annie can use it afterwards for veils. She is very
economical; she takes it from me. And she feels jest as I do, that the
baby must wear it in respect to her father's memory."
Sez I, "The baby don't know crape from a clothes-pin."
"No," sez Cephas, "but in after years the thought of the respect she
showed will sustain her."
"Wall," sez I, "I guess she won't have much besides thoughts to live on,
if things go on in this way."
I would give little hints in this way, but they wuzn't took. Things went
right on as if I hadn't spoke. And I couldn't contend, for truly, as a
bad little boy said once on a similar occasion, "it wuzn't my funeral,"
so I had to set and work on that insane bedquilt and see it go on. But
I sithed constant and frequent, and when I wuz all alone in the room I
indulged in a few low groans.
CHAPTER X.
We dressmakers wuz in the house, to stay all the time till the dresses
wuz done; and clerks would come around, anon, if not oftener, with
packages of mournin' goods, and mournin' jewelry, and mournin'
handkerchiefs, and mournin' stockings, and mournin' stockin'-supporters,
and mournin' safety-pins, and etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.
Every one of 'em, I knew, a-wrenchin' boards offen the sides of that
house that Wellington had worked so hard to get for his wife and little
ones.
Wall, the day of the funeral come. It wuz a wet, drizzly day, but Cephas
wuz up early, to see that everything wuz as he wanted it to be.
As fur as I wuz concerned, I had done my duty, for the crazy bedquilt
wuz done; and though brains might totter as they looked at it, I felt
that it wuzn't my fault. Sally Ann spread it out with complacency over
the lounge, and thanked me, with tears in her eyes, for my noble deed.
Along quite early in the mornin', before the show commenced, I went in
to see Wellington.
He lay there calm and peaceful, with a look on his face as if he had got
away at last from a atmosphere of show and sham, and had got into the
great Reality of life.
It wuz a good face, and the worryment and care that folks told me had
been on it for years had all faded away. But the look of determination,
and resolve, and bravery,--that wuz ploughed too deep in his face to be
smoothed out, even by the mighty hand that had lain on it. The resolved
look, the brave look with which he had met the warfare of life, toiled
for victory over want, toiled to place his dear and helpless ones in a
position of safety,--that look wuz on his face yet, as if the deathless
hope and endeavor had gone on into eternity with him.
And by the side of him, on a table, wuz the big high flower-pieces,
beginnin' already to wilt and decay.
Wall, it's bein' such an uncommon bad day, there wuzn't many to the
funeral. But we rode to the meetin'-house in Loontown in a state and
splendor that I never expect to again. Cephas had hired eleven mournin'
coaches, and the day bein' so bad, and so few a-turnin' out to the
funeral, that in order to occupy all the coaches--and Cephas thought it
would look better and more popular to have 'em all occupied--we divided
up, and Josiah went in one, alone, and lonesome as a dog, as he said
afterwards to me. And I sot up straight and oncomfortable in another one
on 'em, stark alone.
Cephas had one to himself, and his wife another one, and two old maids,
sisters of Cephas'ses who always made a point of attendin' funerals,
they each one of 'em had one. S. Annie and her children, of course, had
the first one, and then the minister had one, and one of the trustees in
the neighborhood had another; so we lengthened out into quite a crowd,
all a-follerin' the shiny hearse, and the casket all covered with showy
plated nails. I thought of it in jest that way, for Wellington, I knew,
the real Wellington, wuzn't there. No, he wuz fur away--as fur as the
Real is from the Unreal. Wall, we filed into the Loontown meetin'-house
in pretty good shape. The same meetin'-house I had been sent to
reconoiter. But Cephas hadn't no black handkerchief, and he looked
worried about it. He had shed tears a-tellin' me about it, what a
oversight it wuz, while I wuz a fixin' on his mournin' weed. He took it
into his head to have a deeper weed at the last minute, so I fixed it
on. He had the weed come up to the top of his hat and lap over. I never
see so tall a weed. But it suited Cephas; he said "he thought it showed
deep respect."
"Wall," sez I, "it is a deep weed, anyway--the deepest I ever see." And
he said as I wuz a sewin' it on, he a-holdin' his hat for me, "that
Wellington deserved it; he deserved it all."
But, as I say, he shed tears to think that his handkerchief wuzn't
black-bordered. He said "it wuz a fearful oversight; it would probably
make talk."
"But," I sez, "mebby it won't be noticed."
[Illustration: "AS A PROCESSION WE WUZ MIDDLIN' LONG, BUT RUTHER
THIN."]
"Yes, it will," sez he. "It will be noticed." And sez he, "I don't care
about myself, but I am afraid it will reflect onto Wellington. I am
afraid they will think it shows a lack of respect for him. |
10,240 |
Produced by Jonathan Ingram and Project Gutenberg
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THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.
VOL. 10, No. 264.] SATURDAY, JULY 14, 1827. [PRICE 2d.
* * * * *
ARCHITECTURAL ILLUSTRATIONS.
NEW CHURCH, REGENT'S PARK.
[Illustration]
The architectural splendour which has lately developed itself in and
about the precincts of the parish of St. Mary-le-Bonne, exhibits a most
surprising and curious contrast with the former state of this part of
London; and more particularly when compared with accounts extracted from
newspapers of an early date.
Mary-le-Bonne parish is estimated to contain more than ten thousand
houses, and one hundred thousand inhabitants. In the plans of London, in
1707, it was a small village one mile distant from the Metropolis,
separated by fields--the scenes of robbery and murder. The following
from a newspaper of 1716:--"On Wednesday last, four gentlemen were
robbed and stripped in the fields between Mary-le-Bonne and London." The
"Weekly Medley," of 1718, says, "Round about the New Square which is
building near Tyburn road, there are so many other edifices, that a
whole magnificent city seems to be risen out of the ground in a way
which makes one wonder how it should find a new set of inhabitants. It
is said it is to be called by the name of _Hanover Square!_ On the other
side is to be built another square, called Oxford Square." From the same
article I have also extracted the dates of many of the different
erections, which may prove of benefit to your architectural readers, as
tending to show the progressive improvement made in the private
buildings of London, and showing also the style of building adopted at
later periods. Indeed, I would wish that some of your correspondents--
_F.R.Y._, or _P.T.W._, for instance, would favour us with a _list of
dates_ answering this purpose. Rathbone-place and John-street (from
Captain Rathbone) began 1729. Oxford market opened 1732. Newman-street
and Berners-street, named from the builders, between 1723 and 1775.
Portland-place and street, 1770. Portman-square, 1764. Portman-place,
1770. Stratford-place, five years later, on the site of Conduit Mead,
built by Robert Stratford, Esq. This had been the place whereon stood
the banquetting house for the lord mayor and aldermen, when they visited
the neighbouring nine conduits which then supplied the city with water.
Cumberland-place, 1769. Manchester-square the year after.
Previous to entering upon an architectural description of the superb
buildings recently erected in the vicinity of Regency Park, I shall
confine myself at present to that object that first arrests the
attention at the entrance, which is the church; it has been erected
under the commissioners for building new churches. The architect is J.
Soane, Esq. There is a pleasing originality in this gentleman's
productions; the result of extensive research among the architectural
beauties of the ancients, together with a peculiar happy mode of
distributing his lights and shadows; producing in the greatest degree
picturesque effect: these are peculiarities essentially his own, and
forming in no part a copy of the works of any other architect in the
present day. The church in question by no means detracts from his merit
in these particulars. The principal front consists of a portico of four
columns of the Ionic order, approached by a small flight of steps; on
each side is a long window, divided into two heights by a stone transum
(panelled). Under the lower window is a raised panel also; and in the
flank of the building the plinth is furnished with openings; each of the
windows is filled with ornamental iron-work, for the purpose of
ventilating the vaults or catacombs. The flank of the church has a
central projection, occupied by antae, and six insulated Ionic columns;
the windows in the inter-columns are in the same style as those in
front; the whole is surmounted by a balustrade. The tower is in two
heights; the lower part has eight columns of the Corinthian order.
Example taken from the temple of Vesta, at Tivoli; these columns, with
their stylobatae and entablature, project, and give a very extraordinary
relief in the perspective view of the building. The upper part consists
of a circular peristyle of six columns; the example apparently taken
from the portico of the octagon tower of Andronicus Cyrrhestes, or tower
of the winds, from the summit of which rises a conical dome, surmounted
by the Vane. The more minute detail may be seen by the annexed drawing.
The prevailing ornament is the Grecian fret.
Mr. Soane, during his long practice in the profession, has erected very
few churches, and it appears that he is endeavouring to rectify failings
that seem insurmountable in the present style of architecture,--that of
preventing the tower from having the appearance of rising out of the
roof, by designing his porticos without pediments; if this is the case,
he certainly is indebted to a great share of praise, as a pediment will
always conceal (particularly at a near view) the major part of a tower.
But again, we find ourselves in another difficulty, and it makes the
remedy as bad as the disease,--that of taking away the principal
characteristic of a portico, (namely, the pediment), and destroying at
once the august appearance which it gives to the building; we find in
all the churches of Sir Christopher Wren the campanile to form a
distinct projection from the ground upwards; thus assimilating nearer to
the ancient form of building them entirely apart from the main body of
the church. I should conceive, that if this idea was followed by
introducing the beautiful detail of Grecian architecture, according to
Wren's _models_ it would raise our church architecture to a very
superior pitch of excellence.
In my next I shall notice the interior, and also the elevation towards
the altar.
C. DAVY.
_Furnivals' Inn_,
_July 1, 1827._
* * * * *
THE MONTHS
* * * * *
THE SEASON.
The heat is greatest in this month on account of its previous duration.
The reason why it is less so in August is, that the days are then much
shorter, and the influence of the sun has been gradually diminishing.
The farmer is still occupied in getting the productions of the earth
into his garners; but those who can avoid labour enjoy as much rest and
shade as possible. There is a sense of heat and quiet all over nature.
The birds are silent. The little brooks are dried up. The earth is
chapped with parching. The shadows of the trees are particularly
grateful, heavy, and still. The oaks, which are freshest because latest
in leaf, form noble clumpy canopies; looking, as you lie under them, of
a strong and emulous green against the blue sky. The traveller delights
to cut across the country through the fields and the leafy lanes, where,
nevertheless, the flints sparkle with heat. The cattle get into the
shade or stand in the water. The active and air-cutting-swallows, now
beginning to assemble for migration, seek their prey about the shady
places; where the insects, though of differently compounded natures,
"fleshless and bloodless," seem to get for coolness, as they do at other
times for warmth. The sound of insects is also the only audible thing
now, increasing rather than lessening the sense of quiet by its gentle
contrast. The bee now and then sweeps across the ear with his gravest
tone. The gnats
"Their murmuring small trumpets sounden wide:"--SPENSER.
and here and there the little musician of the grass touches forth his
tricksy note.
The poetry of earth is never dead;
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead:
That is the grasshopper's.[1]
[1] _Poems_, by John Keats, p. 93.
The strong rains, which sometimes come down in summer-time, are a noble
interruption to the drought and indolence of hot weather. They seem as
if they had been collecting a supply of moisture equal to the want of
it, and come drenching the earth with a mighty draught of freshness. The
rushing and tree-bowing winds that precede them, the dignity with which
they rise in the west, the gathering darkness of their approach, the
silence before their descent, the washing amplitude of their
out-pouring, the suddenness with which they appear to leave off, taking
up, as it were, their watery feet to sail onward, and then the sunny
smile again of nature, accompanied by the "sparkling noise" of the
birds, and those dripping diamonds the rain-drops;--there is a grandeur
and a beauty in all this, which lend a glorious effect to each other;
for though the sunshine appears more beautiful than grand, there is a
power, not even to be looked upon, in the orb from which it flows; and
though the storm is more grand than beautiful, there is always beauty
where there is so much beneficence.--_The Months_.
BATHING
It is now the weather for bathing, a refreshment too little taken in
this country, either summer or winter. We say in winter, because with
very little care in placing it near a cistern, and having a leathern
pipe for it, a bath may be easily filled once or twice a week with warm
water; and it is a vulgar error that the warm bath relaxes. An excess,
either warm or cold, will relax, and so will any other excess; but the
sole effect of the warm bath moderately taken is, that it throws off the
bad humours of the body by opening and clearing the pores. As to summer
bathing, a father may soon teach his children to swim, and thus perhaps
may be the means of saving their lives some day or other, as well as
health. Ladies also, though they cannot bathe in the open air, as they
do in some of the West Indian islands and other countries, by means of
natural basins among the rocks, might oftener make a substitute for it
at home in tepid baths. The most beautiful aspects under which Venus has
been painted or sculptured have been connected with bathing; and indeed
there is perhaps no one thing that so equally contributes to the three
graces of health, beauty, and good temper; to health, in putting the
body into its best state; to beauty, in clearing and tinting the skin;
and to good temper, in rescuing the spirits from the irritability
occasioned by those formidable personages, "the nerves," which nothing
else allays in so quick and entire a manner. See a lovely passage on the
subject of bathing in Sir Philip Sydney's "Arcadia," where "Philoclea,
blushing, and withal smiling, makeing shamefastnesse pleasant, and
pleasure shamefast, tenderly moved her feet, unwonted to feel the naked
ground, until the touch of the cold water made a pretty kind of
shrugging come over her body; like the twinkling of the fairest among
the fixed stars."--_Ibid_.
INSECTS
Insects now take the place of the feathered tribe, and, being for the
most part hatched in the spring, they are now in full vigour. It is a
very amusing sight in some of our rural rambles, in a bright evening
after a drizzling summer shower, to see the air filled throughout all
its space with sportive organized creatures, the leaf, the branch, the
bark of the tree, every mossy bank, the bare earth, the pool, the ditch,
all teeming with animal life; and the mind that is ever framed for
contemplation, must awaken now in viewing such a profusion and variety
of existence. One of those poor little beings, the fragile _gnat_,
becomes our object of attention, whether we regard its form or peculiar
designation in the insect world; we must admire the first, and
innocently, perhaps, conjecture the latter. We know that Infinite
Wisdom, which formed, declared it "to be very good;" that it has its
destination and settled course of action, admitting of no deviation or
substitution: beyond this, perhaps, we can rarely proceed, or, if we
sometimes advance a few steps more, we are then lost in the mystery with
which the incomprehensible Architect has thought proper to surround it.
So little is human nature permitted to see, (nor perhaps is it capable
of comprehending much more than permitted,) that it is blind beyond
thought as to secondary causes; and admiration, that pure fountain of
intellectual pleasure, is almost the only power permitted to us. We see
a wonderfully fabricated creature, decorated with a vest of glorious art
and splendour, occupying almost its whole life in seeking for the most
fitting station for its own necessities, exerting wiles and stratagems,
and constructing a peculiar material to preserve its offspring against
natural or occasional injury, with a forethought equivalent to
reason--in a moment, perhaps, with all its splendour and instinct, it
becomes the prey of some wandering bird! and human wisdom and conjecture
are humbled to the dust. We can "see but in part," and the wisest of us
is only, perhaps, something less ignorant than another. This sense of a
perfection so infinitely above us, is the _natural_ intimation of a
Supreme Being; and as science improves, and inquiry is augmented, our
imperfections and ignorance will become more manifest, and all our
aspirations after knowledge only increase in us the conviction of
knowing nothing. Every deep investigator of nature can hardly be
possessed of any other than a humble mind.
* * * * *
THE PEACOCK.
(_For the Mirror._)
Of this bird, there are several species, distinguished by their
different colours. The male of the common kind is, perhaps, the most
gaudy of all the bird-kind; the length and beauty of whose tail, and the
various forms in which the creature carries it, are sufficiently known
and admired among us. India is, however, his native country; and there
he enjoys himself with a sprightliness and gaiety unknown to him in
Europe. The translators of Hindoo poetry concur in their description of
his manners; and is frequently alluded to by the Hindoo poets.
"Dark with her varying clouds, and peacocks gay."
It is affirmed, among the delightful phenomena which are observable at
the commencement of the rainy season, (immediately following that of the
withering hot winds,) the joy displayed by the peacocks is one of the
most pleasing. These birds assemble in groups upon some retired spot of
verdant grass; jump about in the most animated manner, and make the air
re-echo with their cheerful notes.
"Or can the peacock's animated hail."
The wild peacock is also exceedingly abundant in many parts of
Hindoostan, and is especially found in marshy places. The habits of this
bird are in a great measure aquatic; and the setting in of the rains is
the season in which they pair; the peacock is, therefore, always
introduced in the description of cloudy or rainy weather. Thus, in a
little poem, descriptive of the rainy season, &c., the author says,
addressing his mistress,--
"Oh, thou, whose teeth enamelled vie
With smiling _Cunda's_ pearly ray,
Hear how the peacock's amorous cry
Salutes the dark and cloudy day."
And again, where he is describing the same season:--
"When smiling forests, whence the tuneful cries
Of clustering pea-fowls shrill and frequent rise,
Teach tender feelings to each human breast,
And please alike the happy or distressed."
The peacock flies to the highest station he can reach, to enjoy himself;
and rises to the topmost boughs of trees, though the female makes her
nest on the ground.
F.R.Y.
* * * * *
A WARNING TO FRUIT EATERS.
(_For the Mirror_.)
The mischiefs arising from the bad custom of many people swallowing the
stones of plums and other fruit are very great. In the _Philosophical
Transactions_, No. 282, there is an account of a woman who suffered
violent pains in her bowels for thirty years, returning once in a month,
or less, owing to a plum-stone which had lodged; which, after various
operations, was extracted. There is likewise an account of a man, who
dying of an incurable colic, which had tormented him many years, and
baffled the effects of medicine, was opened after his death, and in his
bowels was found the cause of his distemper, which was a ball, composed
of tough and hard matter, resembling a stone, being six inches in
circumference, when measured, and weighing an ounce and a half; in the
centre of this there was found the stone of a common plum. These
instances sufficiently prove the folly of that common opinion, that the
stones of fruits are wholesome. Cherry-stones, swallowed in great
quantities, have occasioned the death of many people; and there have
been instances even of the seeds of strawberries, and kernels of nuts,
collected into a lump in the bowels, and causing violent disorders,
which could never be cured till they were carried off.
P.T.W.
* * * * *
THE NIGHTINGALE,
BY THE AUTHOR OF "AHAB."
(_For the Mirror_.)
In the low dingle sings the nightingale.
And echo answers; all beside is still.
The breeze is gone to fill some distant sail,
And on the sand to sleep has sunk the rill.
The blackbird and the thrush have sought the vale.
And the lark soars no more above the hill,
For the broad sun is up all hotly pale,
And in my reins I feel his parching thrill.
Hark! how each note, so beautifully clear,
So soft, so sweetly mellow, rings around.
Then faintly dies away upon the ear,
That fondly vibrates to the fading sound.
Poor bird, thou sing'st, the thorn within thy heart,
And I from sorrows, that will not depart.
S.P.J.
* * * * *
SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS
* * * * *
A NIGHT ATTACK.
Charlton and I were in the act of smoking our cigars, the men having
laid themselves down about the blaze, when word was passed from sentry
to sentry, and intelligence communicated to us, that all was not right
towards the river. We started instantly to our feet. The fire was
hastily smothered up, and the men snatching their arms, stood in line,
ready to act as circumstances might require. So dense, however, was the
darkness, and so dazzling the effect of the glare from the bivouac, that
it was not possible, standing where we stood, to form any reasonable
guess, as to the cause of this alarm. That an alarm had been excited,
was indeed perceptible enough. Instead of the deep silence which five
minutes ago had prevailed in the bivouac, a strange hubbub of shouts,
and questions, and as many cries, rose up the night air; nor did many
minutes elapse, ere first one musket, then three or four, then a whole
platoon, were discharged. The reader will _easily_ believe that the
latter circumstance startled us prodigiously, ignorant as we were of the
cause which produced it; but it required no very painful exertion of
patience to set us right on this head; flash, flash, flash, came from
the river; the roar of cannon followed, and the light of her own
broadside displayed to us an enemy's vessel at anchor near the opposite
bank, and pouring a perfect shower of grape and round shot into
the camp.
For one instant, and only for an instant, a scene of alarm and
consternation overcame us; and we almost instinctively addressed to each
other the question, "What can all this mean?" But the meaning was too
palpable not to be understood at once. "The thing cannot end here," said
we--"a night attack is commencing;" and we made no delay in preparing to
meet it. Whilst Charlton remained with the picquet, in readiness to act
as the events might demand, I came forward to the sentries, for the
purpose of cautioning them against paying attention to what might pass
in their rear, and keeping them steadily engaged in watching their
front. The men were fully alive to the peril of their situation. They
strained with their hearing and eyesight to the utmost limits; but
neither sound nor sight of an advancing column could be perceived. At
last, however, an alarm was given. One of the rifles challenged--it was
the sentinel on the high road; the sentinel who communicated with him
challenged also; and the cry was taken up from man to man, till our own
most remote sentry caught it. I flew to his station; and sure enough the
tramp of many feet was most distinctly audible. Having taken the
precaution to carry an orderly forward with me, I caused him to hurry
back to Charlton with intelligence of what was coming, and my earnest
recommendation that he would lose no time in occupying the ditch. I had
hardly done so, when the noise of a column deploying was distinctly
heard. The tramp of horses, too, came mingled with the tread of men; in
a word, it was quite evident that a large force, both of infantry and
cavalry, was before us.
There was a pause at this period of several moments, as if the enemy's
line, having effected its formation, had halted till some other
arrangement should be completed; but it was quickly broke. On they came,
as far as we could judge from the sound, in steady array, till at length
their line could be indistinctly seen rising through the gloom. The
sentinels with one consent gave their fire. They gave it regularly and
effectively, beginning with the rifles on their left, and going off
towards the 85th on their right, and then, in obedience to their orders,
fell back. But they retired not unmolested. This straggling discharge on
our part seemed to be the signal to the Americans to begin the battle,
and they poured in such a volley, as must have proved, had any
determinate object been opposed to it, absolutely murderous. But our
scattered videttes almost wholly escaped it; whilst over the main body
of the picquet, sheltered as it was by the ditch, and considerably
removed from its line, it passed entirely harmless.
Having fired this volley, the enemy loaded again, and advanced. We saw
them coming, and having waited till we judged that they were within
excellent range, we opened our fire. It was returned in tenfold force,
and now went on, for a full half hour, as heavy and close a discharge of
musketry as troops have perhaps ever faced. Confident in their numbers,
and led on, as it would appear, by brave officers, the Americans dashed
forward till scarcely ten yards divided us; but our position was an
admirable one, our men were steady and cool, and they penetrated no
farther. On the contrary, we drove them back, more than once, with a
loss which their own inordinate multitude tended only to render the
more severe.
The action might have continued in this state about two hours, when, to
our horror and dismay, the approaching fire upon our right flank and
rear gave testimony that the picquet of the 85th, which had been in
communication with us, was forced. Unwilling to abandon our ground,
which we had hitherto held with such success, we clung for awhile to the
idea that the reverse in that quarter might be only temporary, and that
the arrival of fresh troops might yet enable us to continue the battle
in a position so eminently favourable to us. But we were speedily taught
that our hopes were without foundation. The American war-cry was behind
us. We rose from our lairs, and endeavoured, as we best could, to retire
upon the right, but the effort was fruitless. There too the enemy had
established themselves, and we were surrounded. "Let us cut our way
through," cried we to the men. The brave fellows answered only with a
shout; and collecting into a small compact line, prepared to use their
bayonets. In a moment we had penetrated the centre of an American
division; but the numbers opposed to us were overwhelming; our close
order was lost; and the contest became that of man to man. I have no
language adequate to describe what followed. For myself, I did what I
could, cutting and thrusting at the multitudes about me, till at last I
found myself fairly hemmed in by a crowd, and my sword-arm mastered. One
American had grasped me round the waist, another, seizing me by the
wrist, attempted to disarm me, whilst a third was prevented from
plunging his bayonet into my body, only from the fear of stabbing one or
other of his countrymen. I struggled hard, but they fairly bore me to
the ground. The reader will well believe, that at this juncture I
expected nothing else than instant death; but at the moment when I fell,
a blow upon the head with the butt-end of a musket dashed out the brains
of the man who kept his hold upon my sword-arm, and it was freed. I saw
a bayonet pointed to my breast, and I intuitively made a thrust at the
man who wielded it. The thrust took effect, and he dropped dead beside
me. Delivered now from two of my enemies, I recovered my feet, and found
that the hand which dealt the blow to which my preservation was owing,
was that of Charlton. There were about ten men about him. The enemy in
our front were broken, and we dashed through. But we were again hemmed
in, and again it was fought hand to hand, with that degree of
determination, which the assurance that life and death were on the
issue, could alone produce. There cannot be a doubt that we should have
fallen to a man, had not the arrival of fresh troops at this critical
juncture turned the tide of affairs. As it was, little more than a third
part of our picquet survived, the remainder being either killed or
taken; and both Charlton and myself, though not dangerously, were
wounded. Charlton had received a heavy blow upon the shoulder, which
almost disabled him; whilst my neck bled freely from a thrust, which the
intervention of a stout leathern stock alone hindered from being fatal.
But the reinforcement gave us all, in spite of wounds and weariness,
fresh courage, and we renewed the battle with alacrity.
In the course of the struggle in which we had been engaged, we had been
borne considerably out of the line of our first position, and now found
that the main-road and the picquet of the rifles, were close in our
rear. We were still giving way--for the troops opposed to us could not
amount to less than fifteen hundred men, whilst the whole force on our
part came not up to one hundred--when Captain Harris, major of brigade
to Colonel Thornton, came up with an additional company to our support.
Making way for them to fall in between us and the rifles, we took ground
once more to the right, and driving back a body of the enemy, which
occupied it, soon recovered the position from which we had been
expelled. But we did so with the loss of many brave men, and, among
others, of Captain Harris. He was shot in the lower part of the belly at
the same instant that a musket-ball struck the hilt of his sword, and
forced it into his side. Once more established in our ditch, we paused,
and from that moment till the battle ceased to rage we never changed
our attitude.
It might be about one o'clock in the morning,--the American force in our
front having fallen back, and we having been left, for a full half hour
to breathe, when suddenly the head of a small column showed itself in
full advance towards us. We were at this time amply supported by other
troops, as well in communication as in reserve; and willing to
annihilate the corps now approaching, we forbade the men to fire till it
should be mingled with us. We did even more than this. Opening a passage
for them through our centre, we permitted some hundred and twenty men to
march across our ditch, and then wheeling up, with a loud shout, we
completely enclosed them. Never have I witnessed a panic more perfect or
more sudden than that which seized them. They no sooner beheld the snare
into which they had fallen, than with one voice they cried aloud for
quarter; and they were to a man made prisoners on the spot. The reader
will smile when he is informed that the little corps thus captured
consisted entirely of members of the legal profession. The barristers,
attorneys, and notaries of New Orleans having formed themselves into a
volunteer corps, accompanied General Jackson in his operations this
night; and they were all, without a solitary exception, made prisoners.
It is probably needless to add, that the circumstance was productive of
no trifling degree of mirth amongst us; and to do them justice, the poor
lawyers, as soon as they recovered from their first alarm, joined
heartily in our laughter.
This was the last operation in which we were engaged to-night. The
enemy, repulsed on all sides, retreated with the utmost disorder, and
the whole of the advance, collecting at the sound of the bugle, drew up,
for the first time since the commencement of the affair, in a continuous
line. We took our ground in front of the bivouac, having our right
supported by the river, and our left covered by the chateau and village
of huts. Among these latter the cannon were planted; whilst the other
divisions, as they came rapidly up, took post beyond them. In this
position we remained, eagerly desiring a renewal of the attack, till
dawn began to appear, when, to avoid the fire of the vessel, the advance
once more took shelter behind the bank. The first brigade, on the
contrary, and such portion of the second as had arrived, encamped upon
the plain, so as to rest their right upon the wood; and a chain of
picquets being planted along the entire pathway, the day was passed in a
state of inaction.
I hardly recollect to have spent fourteen or fifteen hours with less
comfort to myself than these. In the hurry and bustle of last night's
engagement, my servant, to whose care I had intrusted my cloak and
haversack, disappeared; he returned not during the whole morning; and as
no provisions were issued out to us, nor any opportunity given to light
fires, I was compelled to endure, all that time, the extremes of hunger,
weariness, and cold. As ill luck would have it, too, the day chanced to
be remarkably severe. There was no rain, it is true, but the sky was
covered with gray clouds; the sun never once pierced them, and a frost,
or rather a vile blight, hung upon the atmosphere from morning till
night. Nor were the objects which occupied our senses of sight and
hearing quite such as we should have desired to occupy them. In other
parts of the field, the troops, not shut up as we were by the enemy's
guns, employed themselves in burying the dead, and otherwise effacing
the traces of warfare. The site of our encampment continued to be
strewed with carcases to the last; and so watchful were the crew of the
schooner, that every effort to convey them out of sight brought a heavy
fire upon the party engaged in it. I must say, that the enemy's
behaviour on the present occasion was not such as did them honour. The
house which General Kean had originally occupied as head-quarters, being
converted into an hospital, was filled at this time with wounded, both
from the British and American armies. To mark its uses, a yellow flag,
the usual signal in such cases, was hoisted on the roof--yet did the
Americans continue to fire at it, as often as a group of six or eight
persons happened to show themselves at the door. Nay, so utterly
regardless were they of the dictates of humanity, that even the parties
who were in the act of conveying the wounded from place to place,
escaped not without molestation. More than one such party was dispersed
by grape-shot, and more than one poor maimed soldier was in consequence
hurled out of the blanket in which he was borne.
The reader will not doubt me when I say, that seldom has the departure
of day-light been more anxiously looked for by me, than we looked for it
now. It is true, that the arrival of a little rum towards evening served
in some slight degree to elevate our spirits; but we could not help
feeling, not vexation only, but positive indignation, at the state of
miserable inaction to which we were condemned.
There was not a man amongst us who would have hesitated one moment, had
the choice been submitted to him, whether he would advance or lie still.
True, we might have suffered a little, because the guns of the schooner
entirely commanded us; and in rushing out from our place of concealment
some casualties would have occurred; but so irksome was our situation,
that we would have readily run all risks to change it. It suited not the
plans of our general, however, to indulge these wishes. To the bank we
were enjoined to cling; and we did cling to it, from the coming in of
the first gray twilight of the morning, till the last twilight of
evening had departed.
As soon as it was well dark, the corps to which Charlton and myself were
attached received orders to file off to the right. We obeyed, and
passing along the front of the hospital, we skirted to the rear of the
village, and established ourselves in the field beyond. It was a
positive blessing this restoration to something like personal freedom.
The men set busily to work, lighting fires and cooking provisions;--the
officers strolled about, with no other apparent design than to give
employment to their limbs, which had become stiff with so protracted a
state of inaction. For ourselves we visited the wounded, said a few kind
words to such as we recognised, and pitied, as they deserved to be
pitied, the rest. Then retiring to our fire, we addressed ourselves with
hearty good will to a frugal supper, and gladly composed ourselves to
sleep.--_A Subaltern in America.--Blackwood's Magazine._
* * * * *
SONNET--NOCHE SERENA.
How tranquil is the night! The torrent's roar
Dies off far distant; through the lattice streams
The pure, white, silvery moonshine, mantling o'er
The couch and curtains with its fairy gleams.
Sweet is the prospect; sweeter are the dreams
From which my loathful eyelid now unclosed:--
Methought beside a forest we reposed,
Marking the summer sun's far western beams,
A dear-loved friend and I. The nightingale
To silence and to us her pensive tale
Sang forth; the very tone of vanish'd years
Came o'er me, feelings warm, and visions bright;
Alas! how quick such vision disappears,
To leave the spectral moon and silent night!
_Delta of Blackwood's Magazine._
* * * * *
ARTS AND SCIENCES.
* * * * *
THE BEECH TREE.--A NONCONDUCTOR OF LIGHTNING.
Dr. Beeton, in a letter to Dr. Mitchill of New York, dated 19th of July,
1824, states, that the beech tree (that is, the broad leaved or American
variety of _Fagus sylvatiea_,) is never known to be assailed by
atmospheric electricity. So notorious, he says, is this fact, that in
Tenessee, it is considered almost an impossibility to be struck by
lightning, if protection be sought under the branches of a beech tree.
Whenever the sky puts on a threatening aspect, and the thunder begins to
roll, the Indians leave their pursuit, and betake themselves to the
shelter of the nearest beech tree, till the storm pass over; observation
having taught these sagacious children of nature, that, while other
trees are often shivered to splinters, the electric fluid is not
attracted by the beech. Should farther observation establish the fact of
the non-conducting quality of the American beech, great advantage may
evidently be derived from planting hedge rows of such trees around the
extensive barn yards in which cattle are kept, and also in disposing
groups and single trees in ornamental plantations in the neighbourhood
of the dwelling houses of the owners.--_New Monthly Magazine._
ANTIQUITIES.
A valuable discovery was made the other day in Westminster Abbey. It had
become necessary to make repairs near the tomb of Edward the Confessor,
when, by removing a portion of the pavement, an exquisitely beautiful
piece of carved work, which had originally formed part of the shrine of
Edward's tomb, was discovered. This fine relic, the work of the eleventh
or twelfth century, appears to have been studded with precious stones;
and the presumption is, that during the late civil wars it was taken
down for the purpose of plunder, and after the gems were taken out,
buried under the ground (very near the surface of the earth) to avoid
detection.--_Ibid._
* * * * *
ARCHERY
[Illustration]
Previous to introducing the communication of a much respected
correspondent, who has well described, by drawing and observation, a
Royal Archer of Scotland, we shall offer a few general remarks on the
subject of the above engraving, which relates to an amusement which we
are happy to find is patronized in many counties in England by
respectable classes of society at this day. No instrument of warfare is
more ancient than that of the bow and arrow, and the skill of the
English bowmen is celebrated. It seems, that in ancient times the
English had the advantage over enemies chiefly by their archers and
light-armed troops.
The _archers_ were armed with a long-bow, a sheaf of arrows, a sword,
and a small shield.
The _cross-bowmen_, as their name implies, were armed with the
cross-bow, and arrows called _quarrels_.
Even after the invention of guns, the English archers are spoken of as
excelling those of all other nations; and an ancient writer affirms that
an English arrow, with a little wax upon its point, would pass through
any ordinary corselet or cuirass. It is uncertain how far the archers
with the long-bow could send an arrow; but the cross-bowmen could shoot
their quarrels to the distance of forty rods, or the eighth part of a
mile. For a more general and extended notice of the history of archery,
however, we refer our readers to a recent volume,[2] and here we have
the correspondence alluded to a few lines above.
[2] MIRROR, Vol. viii., p. 324.
A ROYAL ARCHER OF SCOTLAND.
(_For the Mirror._)
"Good-morrowe, good fellow,--
Methinks, by this bowe thou beares in thy hand
A good archere thou shouldst bee."
_Old Ballad_.
[Illustration]
I feel happy that it is in my power to present a drawing, made expressly
for the purpose, of the picturesque costume worn by the Royal Company of
Archers, or King's Body Guard of Scotland. This is described in Stark's
"Picture of Edinburgh" thus:--"Their uniform is 42nd tartan, with green
velvet collar and cuffs, and a Highland bonnet, with feathers; on the
front of the bonnet is the cross of St. Andrew, and a gold arrow on the
collar of the jacket." There is a something in the very idea of an
archer, and in the name of _Robin Hood_, particularly charming to most
bosoms, coming as they do to us fraught with all delicious associations;
the wild, free forest life, the sweet pastime, the adventures of bold
outlaws amid the heaven of sylvan scenery, and the national renown of
British bowmen which mingles with the records of our chivalry in history
and romance; while the revival of _archery_ in England of late years, as
an elegant amusement, sufficiently proves that the high feeling which
seems mysteriously to blend a present age with one long since gone by,
is not totally extinct. Shall I venture to assert, that for this we are
indebted to the charmed light cast around a noble and ancient pastime by
the antiquary, poet, and romance-writer of modern times? But to return,
the Scottish archers were first formed into a company and obtained a
charter, granting them great privileges, under the reign of queen Anne,
for which they were to pay to the crown, annually, a pair of barbed
arrows. One of these allowances was, that they might _meet and go forth
under their officer's conduct, in military form, in manner of
weapon-showing, as often as they should think convenient_. "But they
have made no public parade since 1743,"[3] owing, probably, to the state
of parties in Edinburgh, for their attachment to the Stuart family was
well understood, and falling under the suspicion of the British
government after the rebellion of 1745, they were watched, "and spies
appointed to frequent their company." The company possess a house built
by themselves, termed Archers' Hall. All their business is transacted by
a president and six counsellors, who are nominated by the members at
large, and have authority to admit or reject candidates _ad libitum_.
The number of this association is now very great, having been of late
years much increased; they have standards, with appropriate emblems and
mottoes, and shoot for several prizes annually; amongst these are a
silver bowl and arrows, which, by a singular regulation, "are retained
by the successful candidate only one year, when he appends a medal to
them; and as these prizes are of more than a hundred years standing, the
number of medals now attached to them are very curious."
[3] Their part in the procession formed to welcome our monarch
to his Scottish metropolis, should be excepted.
To this notice may I be permitted to subjoin a few stanzas? Old Izaak
Walton hath put songs and sylvan poesy in plenty into the mouths of his
anglers and rural _dramatis personae_, and shall _I_ be blamed for
following, in all humility, his illustrious example? Perchance--but
hold! it is one of the fairest of summer mornings; the sun sheds a pure,
a silvery light on the young, fresh, new-waked foliage and herbage; a
faint mist veils the blue distance of the landscape; but the pearly
shroud conceals not yonder troop of young blithe men, who, arranged in
green, after the olden fashion, each bearing the implements of archery,
and tripping lightly over the heath, are carolling in the joy of their
free spirits, while the fresh breeze brings to my ear most distinctly
the words of
THE ARCHER'S SONG.
Away!--away!--yon golden sun
Hath chas'd nights' shadows damp and dun;
Forth from his turfy couch, the lark
Hath sprung to meet glad day: and hark!
A mingling and delicious song
Breathes from the blithe-voiced plumy throng;
While, to the green-wood hasten _we_
Whose craft is, gentle archery!
Now swift we bound o'er dewy grass!
Rousing the red fox as we pass,
And startling linnet, merle, and thrush,
As recklessly the boughs we brush.
The _hunter's_ horn sings thro' the brakes.
And its soft lay apt echo takes;
But soon her sweet enamoured tone
Shall tell what song is all _our_ own!
On!--on!--glad brothers of the bow!
The dun deer's couching place ye know,
And gallant bucks this day shall rue
Our feather'd shafts,--so swift,--so true;
Yet, sorer than the sylvan train,
Our foes, upon the battle-plain,
Will mourn at the unerring hands
Of Albion's _matchless_ archer bands!
Now hie we on, to silent shades,
To glist'ning streams, and sunlit glades,
Where all that woodland life can give,
Renders it bliss indeed, to _live_.
Come, ye who love the shadowy wood,
Whate'er your days, whate'er your mood.
And join _us_, freakish knights that be
Of grey-goose wing, and good yew-tree!
Say--are ye _mirthful_?--then we'll sing
Of wayward feasts and frolicking;--
Tell jests and gibes,--nor lack we store
Of knightly tales, and monkish lore;
High freaks of dames and cavaliers,
Of warlocks, spectres, elfs, and seers,
Till with glad heart, and blithesome brow,
Ye bless your brothers of the bow!
Is _sadness_ courted?--ye shall lie
When summer's sultry noons are high,
By darkling forest's shadow'd stream
To muse;--or, sweeter still, to dream
Day-dreams of love; while round ye rise
Distant, delicious harmonies;
Until ye languishing declare
An archer's life, indeed is fair!
M. L. B.
* * * * *
THE NOVELIST
NO. |
10,240 |
Produced by David Starner, Marlo Dianne, Charles Franks,
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
CERTAIN NOBLE PLAYS OF JAPAN:
From The Manuscripts Of Ernest Fenollosa,
Chosen And Finished
By Ezra Pound
With An Introduction By William Butler Yeats
INTRODUCTION
I
In the series of books I edit for my sister I confine myself to those
that have I believe some special value to Ireland, now or in the future.
I have asked Mr. Pound for these beautiful plays because I think they
will help me to explain a certain possibility of the Irish dramatic
movement. I am writing these words with my imagination stirred by a visit
to the studio of Mr. Dulac, the distinguished illustrator of the Arabian
Nights. I saw there the mask and head-dress to be worn in a play of mine
by the player who will speak the part of Cuchulain, and who wearing
this noble half-Greek half-Asiatic face will appear perhaps like an image
seen in revery by some Orphic worshipper. I hope to have attained the
distance from life which can make credible strange events, elaborate
words. I have written a little play that can be played in a room for so
little money that forty or fifty readers of poetry can pay the price.
There will be no scenery, for three musicians, whose seeming sun-burned
faces will I hope suggest that they have wandered from village to village
in some country of our dreams, can describe place and weather, and at
moments action, and accompany it all by drum and gong or flute and
dulcimer. Instead of the players working themselves into a violence of
passion indecorous in our sitting-room, the music, the beauty of form and
voice all come to climax in pantomimic dance.
In fact with the help of these plays 'translated by Ernest Fenollosa and
finished by Ezra Pound' I have invented a form of drama, distinguished,
indirect and symbolic, and having no need of mob or press to pay its
way--an aristocratic form. When this play and its performance run as
smoothly as my skill can make them, I shall hope to write another of the
same sort and so complete a dramatic celebration of the life of Cuchulain
planned long ago. Then having given enough performances for I hope the
pleasure of personal friends and a few score people of good taste, I
shall record all discoveries of method and turn to something else. It is
an advantage of this noble form that it need absorb no one's life, that
its few properties can be packed up in a box, or hung upon the walls
where they will be fine ornaments.
II
And yet this simplification is not mere economy. For nearly three
centuries invention has been making the human voice and the movements of
the body seem always less expressive. I have long been puzzled why
passages, that are moving when read out or spoken during rehearsal, seem
muffled or dulled during performance. I have simplified scenery, having
'The Hour Glass' for instance played now before green curtains, now among
those admirable ivory- screens invented by Gordon Craig. With
every simplification the voice has recovered something of its importance
and yet when verse has approached in temper to let us say 'Kubla Khan,'
or 'The Ode to the West Wind,' the most typical modern verse, I have
still felt as if the sound came to me from behind a veil. The
stage-opening, the powerful light and shade, the number of feet between
myself and the players have destroyed intimacy. I have found myself
thinking of players who needed perhaps but to unroll a mat in some
Eastern garden. Nor have I felt this only when I listened to
speech, but even more when I have watched the movement of a player or
heard singing in a play. I love all the arts that can still remind me of
their origin among the common people, and my ears are only comfortable
when the singer sings as if mere speech had taken fire, when he appears
to have passed into song almost imperceptibly. I am bored and wretched,
a limitation I greatly regret, when he seems no longer a human being but
an invention of science. To explain him to myself I say that he has
become a wind instrument and sings no longer like active men, sailor or
camel driver, because he has had to compete with an orchestra, where the
loudest instrument has always survived. The human voice can only become
louder by becoming less articulate, by discovering some new musical sort
of roar or scream. As poetry can do neither, the voice must be freed
from this competition and find itself among little instruments, only
heard at their best perhaps when we are close about them. It should be
again possible for a few poets to write as all did once, not for the
printed page but to be sung. But movement also has grown less expressive,
more declamatory, less intimate. When I called the other day upon a
friend I found myself among some dozen people who were watching a group
of Spanish boys and girls, professional dancers, dancing some national
dance in the midst of a drawing-room. Doubtless their training had been
long, laborious and wearisome; but now one could not be deceived, their
movement was full of joy. They were among friends, and it all seemed
but the play of children; how powerful it seemed, how passionate, while
an even more miraculous art, separated from us by the footlights,
appeared in the comparison laborious and professional. It is well to
be close enough to an artist to feel for him a personal liking, close
enough perhaps to feel that our liking is returned.
My play is made possible by a Japanese dancer whom I have seen dance in a
studio and in a drawing-room and on a very small stage lit by an
excellent stage-light. In the studio and in the drawing-room alone where
the lighting was the light we are most accustomed to, did I see him as
the tragic image that has stirred my imagination. There where no
studied lighting, no stage-picture made an artificial world, he was able,
as he rose from the floor, where he had been sitting crossed-legged or as
he threw out an arm, to recede from us into some more powerful life.
Because that separation was achieved by human means alone, he receded,
but to inhabit as it were the deeps of the mind. One realised anew,
at every separating strangeness, that the measure of all arts' greatness
can be but in their intimacy.
III
All imaginative art keeps at a distance and this distance once chosen
must be firmly held against a pushing world. Verse, ritual, music and
dance in association with action require that gesture, costume, facial
expression, stage arrangement must help in keeping the door. Our
unimaginative arts are content to set a piece of the world as we know it
in a place by itself, to put their photographs as it were in a plush or a
plain frame, but the arts which interest me, while seeming to separate
from the world and us a group of figures, images, symbols, enable us to
pass for a few moments into a deep of the mind that had hitherto been too
subtle for our habitation. As a deep of the mind can only be approached
through what is most human, most delicate, we should distrust bodily
distance, mechanism and loud noise.
It may be well if we go to school in Asia, for the distance from life in
European art has come from little but difficulty with material. In
half-Asiatic Greece, Kallimachos could still return to a stylistic management
of the falling folds of drapery, after the naturalistic drapery of
Phidias, and in Egypt the same age that saw the village Head-man carved
in wood for burial in some tomb with so complete a naturalism saw, set up
in public places, statues full of an august formality that implies
traditional measurements, a philosophic defence. The spiritual painting
of the 14th century passed on into Tintoretto and that of Velasquez into
modern painting with no sense of loss to weigh against the gain, while
the painting of Japan, not having our European Moon to churn the wits,
has understood that no styles that ever delighted noble imaginations have
lost their importance, and chooses the style according to the subject.
In literature also we have had the illusion of change and progress, the
art of Shakespeare passing into that of Dryden, and so into the prose
drama, by what has seemed when studied in its details unbroken progress.
Had we been Greeks, and so but half-European, an honourable mob would
have martyred though in vain the first man who set up a painted scene, or
who complained that soliloquies were unnatural, instead of repeating with
a sigh, 'we cannot return to the arts of childhood however beautiful.'
Only our lyric poetry has kept its Asiatic habit and renewed itself at
its own youth, putting off perpetually what has been called its progress
in a series of violent revolutions.
Therefore it is natural that I go to Asia for a stage-convention, for
more formal faces, for a chorus that has no part in the action and
perhaps for those movements of the body copied from the marionette shows
of the 14th century. A mask will enable me to substitute for the face of
some common-place player, or for that face repainted to suit his own
vulgar fancy, the fine invention of a sculptor, and to bring the audience
close enough to the play to hear every inflection of the voice. A mask
never seems but a dirty face, and no matter how close you go is still a
work of art; nor shall we lose by staying the movement of the features,
for deep feeling is expressed by a movement of the whole body. In
poetical painting & in sculpture the face seems the nobler for lacking
curiosity, alert attention, all that we sum up under the famous word of
the realists 'vitality.' It is even possible that being is only possessed
completely by the dead, and that it is some knowledge of this that
makes us gaze with so much emotion upon the face of the Sphinx or Buddha.
Who can forget the face of Chaliapine as the Mogul King in Prince Igor,
when a mask covering its upper portion made him seem like a Phoenix at
the end of its thousand wise years, awaiting in condescension the burning
nest and what did it not gain from that immobility in dignity and in
power?
IV
Realism is created for the common people and was always their peculiar
delight, and it is the delight to-day of all those whose minds educated
alone by school-masters and newspapers are without the memory of beauty
and emotional subtlety. The occasional humorous realism that so much
heightened the emotional effect of Elizabethan Tragedy, Cleopatra's old
man with an asp let us say, carrying the tragic crisis by its contrast
above the tide-mark of Corneille's courtly theatre, was made at the
outset to please the common citizen standing on the rushes of the floor;
but the great speeches were written by poets who remembered their patrons
in the covered galleries. The fanatic Savonarola was but dead a century,
and his lamentation in the frenzy of his rhetoric, that every prince of
the Church or State throughout Europe was wholly occupied with the fine
arts, had still its moiety of truth. A poetical passage cannot be
understood without a rich memory, and like the older school of painting
appeals to a tradition, and that not merely when it speaks of 'Lethe's
Wharf' or 'Dido on the wild sea-banks' but in rhythm, in vocabulary; for
the ear must notice slight variations upon old cadences and customary
words, all that high breeding of poetical style where there is nothing
ostentatious, nothing crude, no breath of parvenu or journalist.
Let us press the popular arts on to a more complete realism, for that
would be their honesty; and the commercial arts demoralise by their
compromise, their incompleteness, their idealism without sincerity
or elegance, their pretence that ignorance can understand beauty. In the
studio and in the drawing-room we can found a true theatre of beauty.
Poets from the time of Keats and Blake have derived their descent only
through what is least declamatory, least popular in the art of
Shakespeare, and in such a theatre they will find their habitual
audience and keep their freedom. Europe is very old and has seen many
arts run through the circle and has learned the fruit of every flower and
known what this fruit sends up, and it is now time to copy the East and
live deliberately.
V
'Ye shall not, while ye tarry with me, taste
From unrinsed barrel the diluted wine
Of a low vineyard or a plant illpruned,
But such as anciently the Aegean Isles
Poured in libation at their solemn feasts:
And the same goblets shall ye grasp embost
With no vile figures of loose languid boors,
But such as Gods have lived with and have led.'
The Noh theatre of Japan became popular at the close of the 14th century,
gathering into itself dances performed at Shinto shrines in honour of
spirits and gods or by young nobles at the court, and much old lyric
poetry, and receiving its philosophy and its final shape perhaps from
priests of a contemplative school of Buddhism. A small daimio or feudal
lord of the ancient capital Nara, a contemporary of Chaucer's, was the
author, or perhaps only the stage-manager, of many plays. He brought them
to the court of the Shogun at Kioto. From that on the Shogun and his
court were as busy with dramatic poetry as the Mikado and his with lyric.
When for the first time Hamlet was being played in London Noh was made a
necessary part of official ceremonies at Kioto, and young nobles and
princes, forbidden to attend the popular theatre in Japan as elsewhere
a place of mimicry and naturalism were encouraged to witness and to
perform in spectacles where speech, music, song and dance created an
image of nobility and strange beauty. When the modern revolution came,
Noh after a brief unpopularity was played for the first time in certain
ceremonious public theatres, and 1897 a battleship was named Takasago,
after one of its most famous plays. Some of the old noble families are
to-day very poor, their men it may be but servants and labourers, but
they still frequent these theatres. 'Accomplishment' the word Noh means,
and it is their accomplishment and that of a few cultured people who
understand the literary and mythological allusions and the ancient lyrics
quoted in speech or chorus, their discipline, a part of their breeding.
The players themselves, unlike the despised players of the popular
theatre, have passed on proudly from father to son an elaborate art, and
even now a player will publish his family tree to prove his skill. One
player wrote in 1906 in a business circular--I am quoting from Mr.
Pound's redaction of the Notes of Fenollosa--that after thirty
generations of nobles a woman of his house dreamed that a mask was
carried to her from heaven, and soon after she bore a son who became a
player and the father of players. His family he declared still possessed
a letter from a 15th century Mikado conferring upon them a
theatre-curtain, white below and purple above.
There were five families of these players and, forbidden before the
Revolution to perform in public, they had received grants of land or
salaries from the state. The white and purple curtain was no doubt to
hang upon a wall behind the players or over their entrance door for the
Noh stage is a platform surrounded upon three sides by the audience. No
'naturalistic' effect is sought. The players wear masks and found their
movements upon those of puppets: the most famous of all Japanese
dramatists composed entirely for puppets. A swift or a slow movement and
a long or a short stillness, and then another movement. They sing as much
as they speak, and there is a chorus which describes the scene and
interprets their thought and never becomes as in the Greek theatre a
part of the action. At the climax instead of the disordered passion of
nature there is a dance, a series of positions & movements which may
represent a battle, or a marriage, or the pain of a ghost in the Buddhist
purgatory. I have lately studied certain of these dances, with Japanese
players, and I notice that their ideal of beauty, unlike that of Greece
and like that of pictures from Japan and China, makes them pause at
moments of muscular tension. The interest is not in the human form but in
the rhythm to which it moves, and the triumph of their art is to express
the rhythm in its intensity. There are few swaying movements of arms or
body such as make the beauty of our dancing. They move from the hip,
keeping constantly the upper part of their body still, and seem to
associate with every gesture or pose some definite thought. They cross
the stage with a sliding movement, and one gets the impression not of
undulation but of continuous straight lines.
The Print Room of the British Museum is now closed as a war-economy, so I
can only write from memory of theatrical colour-prints, where a ship is
represented by a mere skeleton of willows or osiers painted green, or a
fruit tree by a bush in a pot, and where actors have tied on their masks
with ribbons that are gathered into a bunch behind the head. It is a
child's game become the most noble poetry, and there is no observation of
life, because the poet would set before us all those things which we feel
and imagine in silence.
Mr. Ezra Pound has found among the Fenollosa manuscripts a story
traditional among Japanese players. A young man was following a stately
old woman through the streets of a Japanese town, and presently she
turned to him and spoke: 'Why do you follow me?' 'Because you are so
interesting.' 'That is not so, I am too old to be interesting.' But he
wished he told her to become a player of old women on the Noh stage. 'If
he would become famous as a Noh player she said, he must not observe
life, nor put on an old voice and stint the music of his voice. He
must know how to suggest an old woman and yet find it all in the heart.'
VI
In the plays themselves I discover a beauty or a subtlety that I can
trace perhaps to their threefold origin. The love-sorrows, the love of
father and daughter, of mother and son, of boy and girl, may owe their
nobility to a courtly life, but he to whom the adventures happen, a
traveller commonly from some distant place, is most often a Buddhist
priest; and the occasional intellectual subtlety is perhaps Buddhist. The
adventure itself is often the meeting with ghost, god or goddess at some
holy place or much-legended tomb; and god, goddess or ghost reminds
me at times of our own Irish legends and beliefs, which once it may be
differed little from those of the Shinto worshipper.
The feather-mantle, for whose lack the moon goddess, (or should we call
her fairy?) cannot return to the sky, is the red cap whose theft can keep
our fairies of the sea upon dry land; and the ghost-lovers in 'Nishikigi'
remind me of the Aran boy and girl who in Lady Gregory's story come to
the priest after death to be married. These Japanese poets too feel for
tomb and wood the emotion, the sense of awe that our Gaelic speaking
country people will some times show when you speak to them of Castle
Hackett or of some Holy Well; and that is why perhaps it pleases them to
begin so many plays by a Traveller asking his way with many questions, a
convention agreeable to me; for when I first began to write poetical
plays for an Irish theatre I had to put away an ambition of helping to
bring again to certain places, their old sanctity or their romance. I
could lay the scene of a play on Baile's Strand, but I found no pause in
the hurried action for descriptions of strand or sea or the great yew
tree that once stood there; and I could not in 'The King's Threshold'
find room, before I began the ancient story, to call up the shallow river
and the few trees and rocky fields of modern Gort. But in the 'Nishikigi'
the tale of the lovers would lose its pathos if we did not see that
forgotten tomb where 'the hiding fox' lives among 'the orchids and the
chrysanthemum flowers.' The men who created this convention were more
like ourselves than were the Greeks and Romans, more like us even than
are Shakespeare and Corneille. Their emotion was self-conscious and
reminiscent, always associating itself with pictures and poems. They
measured all that time had taken or would take away and found their
delight in remembering celebrated lovers in the scenery pale passion
loves. They travelled seeking for the strange and for the picturesque: 'I
go about with my heart set upon no particular place, no more than a
cloud. I wonder now would the sea be that way, or the little place Kefu
that they say is stuck down against it.' When a traveller asks his way of
girls upon the roadside he is directed to find it by certain pine trees,
which he will recognise because many people have drawn them.
I wonder am I fanciful in discovering in the plays themselves (few
examples have as yet been translated and I may be misled by accident or
the idiosyncrasy of some poet) a playing upon a single metaphor, as
deliberate as the echoing rhythm of line in Chinese and Japanese
painting. In the 'Nishikigi' the ghost of the girl-lover carries the
cloth she went on weaving out of grass when she should have opened the
chamber door to her lover, and woven grass returns again and again in
metaphor and incident. The lovers, now that in an aery body they must
sorrow for unconsummated love, are 'tangled up as the grass patterns are
tangled.' Again they are like an unfinished cloth: 'these bodies, having
no weft, even now are not come together, truly a shameful story, a tale
to bring shame on the gods.' Before they can bring the priest to the tomb
they spend the day 'pushing aside the grass from the overgrown ways in
Kefu,' and the countryman who directs them is 'cutting grass on the
hill;' & when at last the prayer of the priest unites them in marriage
the bride says that he has made 'a dream-bridge over wild grass, over the
grass I dwell in;' and in the end bride and bridegroom show themselves
for a moment 'from under the shadow of the love-grass.'
In 'Hagoromo' the feather-mantle of the fairy woman creates also its
rhythm of metaphor. In the beautiful day of opening spring 'the plumage
of Heaven drops neither feather nor flame,' 'nor is the rock of earth
over-much worn by the brushing of the feathery skirt of the stars.' One
half remembers a thousand Japanese paintings, or whichever comes first
into the memory. That screen painted by Korin, let us say, shown lately
at the British Museum, where the same form is echoing in wave and in
cloud and in rock. In European poetry I remember Shelley's continually
repeated fountain and cave, his broad stream and solitary star. In
neglecting character which seems to us essential in drama, as do their
artists in neglecting relief and depth, when they arrange flowers in a
vase in a thin row, they have made possible a hundred lovely intricacies.
VII
These plays arose in an age of continual war and became a part of the
education of soldiers. These soldiers, whose natures had as much of
Walter Pater as of Achilles combined with Buddhist priests and women
to elaborate life in a ceremony, the playing of football, the drinking of
tea, and all great events of state, becoming a ritual. In the painting
that decorated their walls and in the poetry they recited one discovers
the only sign of a great age that cannot deceive us, the most vivid and
subtle discrimination of sense and the invention of images more powerful
than sense; the continual presence of reality. It is still true that the
Deity gives us, according to His promise, not His thoughts or His
convictions but His flesh and blood, and I believe that the elaborate
technique of the arts, seeming to create out of itself a superhuman life
has taught more men to die than oratory or the Prayer Book. We only
believe in those thoughts which have been conceived not in the brain but
in the whole body. The Minoan soldier who bore upon his arm the shield
ornamented with the dove in the Museum at Crete, or had upon his head the
helmet with the winged horse, knew his role in life. When Nobuzane
painted the child Saint Kobo, Daishi kneeling full of sweet austerity
upon the flower of the lotus, he set up before our eyes exquisite life
and the acceptance of death.
I cannot imagine those young soldiers and the women they loved pleased
with the ill-breeding and theatricality of Carlyle, nor I think with the
magniloquence of Hugo. These things belong to an industrial age, a
mechanical sequence of ideas; but when I remember that curious game which
the Japanese called, with a confusion of the senses that had seemed
typical of our own age, 'listening to incense,' I know that some among
them would have understood the prose of Walter Pater, the painting or
Puvis de Chavannes, the poetry of Mallarme and Verlaine. When heroism
returned to our age it bore with it as its first gift technical
sincerity.
VIII
For some weeks now I have been elaborating my play in London where alone
I can find the help I need, Mr. Dulac's mastery of design and Mr. Ito's
genius of movement; yet it pleases me to think that I am working for my
own country. Perhaps some day a play in the form I am adapting for
European purposes shall awake once more, whether in Gaelic or in English,
under the <DW72> of Slieve-na-mon or Croagh Patrick ancient memories; for
this form has no need of scenery that runs away with money nor of a
theatre-building. Yet I know that I only amuse myself with a fancy; for
though my writings if they be sea-worthy must put to sea, I cannot tell
where they may be carried by the wind. Are not the fairy-stories of Oscar
Wilde, which were written for Mr. Ricketts and Mr. Shannon and for a few
ladies, very popular in Arabia?
W. B. Yeats, April 1916.
NISHIKIGI
A PLAY IN TWO ACTS BY MOTOKIYO.
PERSONS OF THE PLAY
THE WAKI A priest
THE SHITE, OR HERO Ghost of the lover
TSURE Ghost of the woman; they have both been long
dead, and have not yet been united.
CHORUS
The 'Nishikigi' are wands used as a love charm.
'Hosonuno' is the name of a local cloth which the
woman weaves.
NISHIKIGI
First Part
WAKI
There never was anybody heard of Mount Shinobu but had a kindly feeling
for it; so I, like any other priest that might want to know a little bit
about each one of the provinces, may as well be walking up here along the
much travelled road.
I have not yet been about the east country, but now I have set my mind to
go as far as the earth goes; and why shouldn't I, after all? seeing that
I go about with my heart set upon no particular place whatsoever, and
with no other man's flag in my hand, no more than a cloud has. It is a
flag of the night I see coming down upon me. I wonder now, would the sea
be that way, or the little place Kefu that they say is stuck down against
it?
SHITE (to Tsure)
Times out of mind am I here setting up this bright branch, this silky
wood with the charms painted in it as fine as the web you'd get in the
grass-cloth of Shinobu, that they'd be still selling you in this
mountain.
SHITE AND TSURE
Tangled, we are entangled. Whose fault was it, dear? tangled up as the
grass patterns are tangled up in this coarse cloth, or as the little
Mushi that lives on and chirrups in dried sea-weed. We do not know where
are to-day our tears in the undergrowth of this eternal wilderness. We
neither wake nor sleep, and passing our nights in a sorrow which is in
the end a vision, what are these scenes of spring to us? This thinking in
sleep of someone who has no thought of you, is it more than a dream? and
yet surely it is the natural way of love. In our hearts there is much and
in our bodies nothing, and we do nothing at all, and only the waters of
the river of tears flow quickly.
CHORUS
Narrow is the cloth of Kefu, but wild is that river, that torrent of the
hills, between the beloved and the bride.
The cloth she had woven is faded, the thousand one hundred nights were
night-trysts watched out in vain.
WAKI (not recognizing the nature of the speakers)
Strange indeed, seeing these town-people here.
They seem like man and wife,
And the lady seems to be holding something
Like a cloth woven of feathers,
While he has a staff or a wooden sceptre
Beautifully ornate.
Both of these things are strange;
In any case, I wonder what they call them.
TSURE
This is a narrow cloth called 'Hosonuno,'
It is just the breadth of the loom.
SHITE
And this is merely wood painted,
And yet the place is famous because of these things.
Would you care to buy them from us?
WAKI
Yes, I know that the cloth of this place and the lacquers are famous
things. I have already heard of their glory, and yet I still wonder why
they have such great reputation.
TSURE
Ah well now, that's a disappointment. Here they call the wood Nishikigi,'
and the woven stuff 'Hosonuno,' and yet you come saying that you have
never heard why, and never heard the story. Is it reasonable?
SHITE
No, no, that is reasonable enough. What can people be expected to know of
these affairs when it is more than they can do to keep abreast of their
own?
BOTH (to the Priest)
Ah well, you look like a person who has abandoned the world; it is
reasonable enough that you should not know the worth of wands and cloths
with love's signs painted upon them, with love's marks painted and dyed.
WAKI
That is a fine answer. And you would tell me then that Nishikigi and
Hosonuno are names bound over with love?
SHITE
They are names in love's list surely. Every day for a year, for three
years come to their full, the wands Nishikigi were set up, until there
were a thousand in all. And they are in song in your time, and will be.
'Chidzuka' they call them.
TSURE
These names are surely a by-word.
As the cloth Hosonuno is narrow of weft,
More narrow than the breast,
We call by this name any woman
Whose breasts are hard to come nigh to.
It is a name in books of love.
SHITE
'Tis a sad name to look back on.
TSURE
A thousand wands were in vain.
A sad name, set in a story.
SHITE
A seed-pod void of the seed,
We had no meeting together.
TSURE
Let him read out the story.
CHORUS
I
At last they forget, they forget.
The wands are no longer offered,
The custom is faded away.
The narrow cloth of Kefu
Will not meet over the breast.
'Tis the story of Hosonuno,
This is the tale:
These bodies, having no weft,
Even now are not come together.
Truly a shameful story,
A tale to bring shame on the gods.
II
Names of love,
Now for a little spell,
For a faint charm only,
For a charm as slight as the binding together
Of pine-flakes in Iwashiro,
And for saying a wish over them about sunset,
We return, and return to our lodging.
The evening sun leaves a shadow.
WAKI
Go on, tell out all the story.
SHITE
There is an old custom of this country. We make wands of meditation, and
deck them with symbols, and set them before a gate, when we are suitors.
TSURE
And we women take up a wand of the man we would meet with, and let the
others lie, although a man might come for a hundred nights, it may be, or
for a thousand nights in three years, till there were a thousand wands
here in the shade of this mountain. We know the funeral cave of such a
man, one who had watched out the thousand nights; a bright cave, for they
buried him with all his wands. They have named it the 'Cave of the many
charms.'
WAKI
I will go to that love-cave,
It will be a tale to take back to my village.
Will you show me my way there?
SHITE
So be it, I will teach you the path.
TSURE
Tell him to come over this way.
BOTH
Here are the pair of them
Going along before the traveller.
CHORUS
We have spent the whole day until dusk
Pushing aside the grass
From the over-grown way at Kefu,
And we are not yet come to the cave.
O you there, cutting grass on the hill,
Please set your mind on this matter.
'You'd be asking where the dew is
'While the frost's lying here on the road.
'Who'd tell you that now?'
Very well then don't tell us,
But be sure we will come to the cave.
SHITE
There's a cold feel in the autumn.
Night comes....
CHORUS
And storms; trees giving up their leaf,
Spotted with sudden showers.
Autumn! our feet are clogged
In the dew-drenched, entangled leaves.
The perpetual shadow is lonely,
The mountain shadow is lying alone.
The owl cries out from the ivies
That drag their weight on the pine.
Among the orchids and chrysanthemum flowers
The hiding fox is now lord of that love-cave,
Nishidzuka,
That is dyed like the maple's leaf.
They have left us this thing for a saying.
That pair have gone into the cave.
(sign for the exit of Shite and Tsure)
Second Part
(The Waki has taken the posture of sleep. His respectful visit to the
cave is beginning to have its effect.)
WAKI (restless)
It seems that I cannot sleep
For the length of a pricket's horn.
Under October wind, under pines, under night!
I will do service to Butsu.
(he performs the gestures of a ritual)
TSURE
Aie! honoured priest!
You do not dip twice in the river
Beneath the same tree's shadow
Without bonds in some other life.
Hear sooth-say,
Now is there meeting between us,
Between us who were until now
In life and in after-life kept apart.
A dream-bridge over wild grass,
Over the grass I dwell in.
O honoured! do not awake me by force.
I see that the law is perfect.
SHITE (supposedly invisible)
It is a good service you have done, sir,
A service that spreads in two worlds,
And binds up an ancient love
That was stretched out between them.
I had watched for a thousand days.
Take my thanks,
For this meeting is under a difficult law.
And now I will show myself in the form of Nishikigi.
I will come out now for the first time in colour.
(The characters announce or explain their acts, as these are mostly
symbolical. Thus here the Shite, or Sh'te, announces his change of
costume, and later the dance.)
CHORUS
The three years are over and past:
All that is but an old story.
SHITE
To dream under dream we return.
Three years.... And the meeting comes now!
This night has happened over and over,
And only now comes the tryst.
CHORUS
Look there to the cave
Beneath the stems of the Suzuki.
From under the shadows of the love-grass,
See, see how they come forth and appear
For an instant.... Illusion!
SHITE
There is at the root of hell
No distinction between princes and commons;
Wretched for me! 'tis the saying.
WAKI
Strange, what seemed so very old a cave
Is all glittering-bright within,
Like the flicker of fire.
It is like the inside of a house.
They are setting up a loom,
And heaping up charm-sticks. No,
The hangings are out of old time.
Is it illusion, illusion?
TSURE
Our hearts have been in the dark of the falling snow,
We have been astray in the flurry.
You should tell better than we
How much is illusion;
You who are in the world.
We have been in the whirl of those who are fading.
SHITE
Indeed in old times Narihira said,
--and he has vanished with the years--
'Let a man who is in the world tell the fact.'
It is for you, traveller,
To say how much is illusion.
WAKI
Let it be a dream, or a vision,
Or what you will, I care not.
Only show me the old times over-past and snowed under--
Now, soon, while the night lasts.
SHITE
Look then, the old times are shown,
Faint as the shadow-flower shows in the grass that bears it;
And you've but a moon for lanthorn.
TSURE
The woman has gone into the cave.
She sets up her loom there
For the weaving of Hosonuno,
Thin as the heart of Autumn.
SHITE
The suitor for his part, holding his charm-sticks,
Knocks on a gate which was barred.
TSURE
In old time he got back no answer,
No secret sound at all
Save....
SHITE
The sound of the loom.
TSURE
It was a sweet sound like katydids and crickets,
A thin sound like the Autumn.
SHITE
It was what you would hear any night.
TSURE
Kiri.
SHITE
Hatari.
TSURE
Cho.
SHITE
Cho.
CHORUS (mimicking the sound of crickets)
Kiri, hatari, cho, cho,
Kiri, hatari, cho, cho.
The cricket sews on at his old rags,
With all the new grass in the field; sho,
Churr, isho, like the whir of a loom: churr.
CHORUS (antistrophe)
Let be, they make grass-cloth in Kefu,
Kefu, the land's end, matchless in the world.
SHITE
That is an old custom, truly,
But this priest would look on the past.
CHORUS
The good priest himself would say:
Even if we weave the cloth, Hosonuno,
And set up the charm-sticks
For a thousand, a hundred nights,
Even then our beautiful desire will not pass,
Nor fade nor die out.
SHITE
Even to-day the difficulty of our meeting is remembered,
And is remembered in song.
CHORUS
That we may acquire power,
Even in our faint substance,
We will show forth even now,
And though it be but in a dream,
Our form of repentance.
(explaining the movement of the Shite and Tsure)
There he is carrying wands,
And she has no need to be asked.
See her within the cave,
With a cricket-like noise of weaving.
The grass-gates and the hedge are between them;
That is a symbol.
Night has already come on.
(now explaining the thoughts of the man's spirit)
Love's thoughts are heaped high within him,
As high as the charm-sticks,
As high as the charm-sticks, once,
Now fading, lie heaped in this cave.
And he knows of their fading. He says:
I lie a body, unknown to any other man,
Like old wood buried in moss.
It were a fit thing
That I should stop thinking the love-thoughts.
The charm-sticks fade and decay,
And yet,
The rumour of our love
Takes foot and moves through the world.
We had no meeting
But tears have, it seems, brought out a bright blossom
Upon the dyed tree of love.
SHITE
Tell me, could I have foreseen
Or known what a heap of my writings
Should lie at the end of her shaft-bench?
CHORUS
A hundred nights and more
Of twisting, encumbered sleep,
And now they make it a ballad,
Not for one year or for two only
But until the days lie deep
As the sand's depth at Kefu,
Until the year's end is red with Autumn,
Red like these love-wands,
A thousand nights are in vain.
And I stand at this gate-side.
You grant no admission, you do not show yourself
Until I and my sleeves are faded.
By the dew-like gemming of tears upon my sleeve,
Why will you grant no admission?
And we all are doomed to pass,
You, and my sleeves and my tears.
And you did not even know when three years had come to an end.
Cruel, ah cruel!
The charm-sticks....
SHITE
Were set up a thousand times;
Then, now, and for always.
CHORUS
Shall I ever at last see into that room of hers, which no other sight has
traversed?
SHITE
Happy at last and well-starred,
Now comes the eve of betrothal:
We meet for the wine-cup.
CHORUS
How glorious the sleeves of the dance,
That are like snow-whirls!
SHITE
Tread out the dance.
CHORUS
Tread out the dance and bring music.
This dance is for Nishikigi.
SHITE
This dance is for the evening plays,
And for the weaving.
CHORUS
For the tokens between lover and lover:
It is a reflecting in the wine-cup.
CHORUS
Ari-aki,
The dawn!
Come, we are out of place;
Let us go ere the light comes.
(to the Waki)
We ask you, do not awake,
We all will wither away,
The wands and this cloth of a dream.
Now you will come out of sleep,
You tread the border and nothing
Awaits you: no, all this will wither away.
There is nothing here but this cave in the field's midst.
To-day's wind moves in the pines;
A wild place, unlit, and unfilled.
HAGOROMO
HAGOROMO, A PLAY IN ONE ACT.
PERSONS OF THE PLAY
THE PRIEST Hakuryo
A FISHERMAN
A TENNIN
CHORUS
HAGOROMO
The plot of the play 'Hagoromo, the Feather-mantle' is as follows. The
priest finds the Hagoromo, the magical feather-mantle of a Tennin, an
aerial spirit or celestial dancer, hanging upon a bough. She demands
its return. He argues with her, and finally promises to return it, if she
will teach him her dance or part of it. She accepts the offer. The Chorus
explains the dance as symbolical of the daily changes of the moon. The
words about 'three, five and fifteen' refer to the number of nights in
the moon's changes. In the finale, the Tennin is supposed to disappear
like a mountain slowly hidden in mist. The play shows the relation of the
early Noh to the God-dance.
PRIEST
Windy road of the waves by Miwo,
Swift with ships, loud over steersmen's voices.
Hakuryo, taker of fish, head of his house,
Dwells upon the barren pine-waste of Miwo.
A FISHERMAN
Upon a thousand heights had gathered the inexplicable cloud, swept by the
rain. The moon is just come to light the low house. A clean and pleasant
time surely. There comes the breath-colour of spring; the waves rise in a
line below the early mist; the moon is still delaying above, though we've
no skill to grasp it. Here is a beauty to set the mind above itself.
CHORUS
I shall not be out of memory
Of the mountain road by Kiyomi,
Nor of the parted grass by that bay,
Nor of the far-seen pine-waste
Of Miwo of wheat stalks.
Let us go according to custom. Take hands against the wind here, for it
presses the clouds and the sea. Those men who were going to fish are
about to return without launching. Wait a little, is it not spring? will
not the wind be quiet? this wind is only the voice of the lasting
pine-trees, ready for stillness. See how the air is soundless, or would be,
were it not for the waves. There now, the fishermen are putting out with
even the smallest boats.
PRIEST
Now I am come to shore at Miwo-no; I disembark in Subara; I see all that
they speak of on the shore. An empty sky with music, a rain of flowers,
strange fragrance on every side; all these are no common things, nor is
this cloak that hangs upon the pine-tree. As I approach to inhale its
colour I am aware of mystery. Its colour-smell is mysterious. I see that
it is surely no common dress. I will take it now and return and make it a
treasure in my house, to show to the aged.
TENNIN
That cloak belongs to someone on this side. What are you proposing to do
with it?
PRIEST
This? this is a cloak picked up. |
10,240 |
Produced by David Widger
LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI
BY MARK TWAIN
Part 11.
Chapter 51 Reminiscences
WE left for St. Louis in the 'City of Baton Rouge,' on a delightfully
hot day, but with the main purpose of my visit but lamely accomplished.
I had hoped to hunt up and talk with a hundred steamboatmen, but got so
pleasantly involved in the social life of the town that I got nothing
more than mere five-minute talks with a couple of dozen of the craft.
I was on the bench of the pilot-house when we backed out and
'straightened up' for the start--the boat pausing for a 'good ready,' in
the old-fashioned way, and the black smoke piling out of the chimneys
equally in the old-fashioned way. Then we began to gather momentum, and
presently were fairly under way and booming along. It was all as natural
and familiar--and so were the shoreward sights--as if there had been no
break in my river life. There was a 'cub,' and I judged that he would
take the wheel now; and he did. Captain Bixby stepped into the pilot-
house. Presently the cub closed up on the rank of steamships. He made
me nervous, for he allowed too much water to show between our boat and
the ships. I knew quite well what was going to happen, because I could
date back in my own life and inspect the record. The captain looked on,
during a silent half-minute, then took the wheel himself, and crowded
the boat in, till she went scraping along within a hand-breadth of the
ships. It was exactly the favor which he had done me, about a quarter
of a century before, in that same spot, the first time I ever steamed
out of the port of New Orleans. It was a very great and sincere pleasure
to me to see the thing repeated--with somebody else as victim.
We made Natchez (three hundred miles) in twenty-two hours and a half--
much the swiftest passage I have ever made over that piece of water.
The next morning I came on with the four o'clock watch, and saw Ritchie
successfully run half a dozen crossings in a fog, using for his guidance
the marked chart devised and patented by Bixby and himself. This
sufficiently evidenced the great value of the chart.
By and by, when the fog began to clear off, I noticed that the
reflection of a tree in the smooth water of an overflowed bank, six
hundred yards away, was stronger and blacker than the ghostly tree
itself. The faint spectral trees, dimly glimpsed through the shredding
fog, were very pretty things to see.
We had a heavy thunder-storm at Natchez, another at Vicksburg, and still
another about fifty miles below Memphis. They had an old-fashioned
energy which had long been unfamiliar to me. This third storm was
accompanied by a raging wind. We tied up to the bank when we saw the
tempest coming, and everybody left the pilot-house but me. The wind bent
the young trees down, exposing the pale underside of the leaves; and
gust after gust followed, in quick succession, thrashing the branches
violently up and down, and to this side and that, and creating swift
waves of alternating green and white according to the side of the leaf
that was exposed, and these waves raced after each other as do their
kind over a wind-tossed field of oats. No color that was visible
anywhere was quite natural--all tints were charged with a leaden tinge
from the solid cloud-bank overhead. The river was leaden; all distances
the same; and even the far-reaching ranks of combing white-caps were
dully shaded by the dark, rich atmosphere through which their swarming
legions marched. The thunder-peals were constant and deafening;
explosion followed explosion with but inconsequential intervals between,
and the reports grew steadily sharper and higher-keyed, and more trying
to the ear; the lightning was as diligent as the thunder, and produced
effects which enchanted the eye and sent electric ecstasies of mixed
delight and apprehension shivering along every nerve in the body in
unintermittent procession. The rain poured down in amazing volume; the
ear-splitting thunder-peals broke nearer and nearer; the wind increased
in fury and began to wrench off boughs and tree-tops and send them
sailing away through space; the pilot-house fell to rocking and
straining and cracking and surging, and I went down in the hold to see
what time it was.
People boast a good deal about Alpine thunderstorms; but the storms
which I have had the luck to see in the Alps were not the equals of some
which I have seen in the Mississippi Valley. I may not have seen the
Alps do their best, of course, and if they can beat the Mississippi, I
don't wish to.
On this up trip I saw a little towhead (infant island) half a mile long,
which had been formed during the past nineteen years. Since there was so
much time to spare that nineteen years of it could be devoted to the
construction of a mere towhead, where was the use, originally, in
rushing this whole globe through in six days? It is likely that if more
time had been taken, in the first place, the world would have been made
right, and this ceaseless improving and repairing would not be necessary
now. But if you hurry a world or a house, you are nearly sure to find
out by and by that you have left out a towhead, or a broom-closet, or
some other little convenience, here and there, which has got to be
supplied, no matter how much expense and vexation it may cost.
We had a succession of black nights, going up the river, and it was
observable that whenever we landed, and suddenly inundated the trees
with the intense sunburst of the electric light, a certain curious
effect was always produced: hundreds of birds flocked instantly out from
the masses of shining green foliage, and went careering hither and
thither through the white rays, and often a song-bird tuned up and fell
to singing. We judged that they mistook this superb artificial day for
the genuine article. We had a delightful trip in that thoroughly well-
ordered steamer, and regretted that it was accomplished so speedily. By
means of diligence and activity, we managed to hunt out nearly all the
old friends. One was missing, however; he went to his reward, whatever
it was, two years ago. But I found out all about him. His case helped
me to realize how lasting can be the effect of a very trifling
occurrence. When he was an apprentice-blacksmith in our village, and I a
schoolboy, a couple of young Englishmen came to the town and sojourned a
while; and one day they got themselves up in cheap royal finery and did
the Richard III swordfight with maniac energy and prodigious powwow, in
the presence of the village boys. This blacksmith cub was there, and
the histrionic poison entered his bones. This vast, lumbering,
ignorant, dull-witted lout was stage-struck, and irrecoverably. He
disappeared, and presently turned up in St. Louis. I ran across him
there, by and by. He was standing musing on a street corner, with his
left hand on his hip, the thumb of his right supporting his chin, face
bowed and frowning, slouch hat pulled down over his forehead--imagining
himself to be Othello or some such character, and imagining that the
passing crowd marked his tragic bearing and were awestruck.
I joined him, and tried to get him down out of the clouds, but did not
succeed. However, he casually informed me, presently, that he was a
member of the Walnut Street theater company--and he tried to say it with
indifference, but the indifference was thin, and a mighty exultation
showed through it. He said he was cast for a part in Julius Caesar, for
that night, and if I should come I would see him. IF I should come! I
said I wouldn't miss it if I were dead.
I went away stupefied with astonishment, and saying to myself, 'How
strange it is! WE always thought this fellow a fool; yet the moment he
comes to a great city, where intelligence and appreciation abound, the
talent concealed in this shabby napkin is at once discovered, and
promptly welcomed and honored.'
But I came away from the theater that night disappointed and offended;
for I had had no glimpse of my hero, and his name was not in the bills.
I met him on the street the next morning, and before I could speak, he
asked--
'Did you see me?'
'No, you weren't there.'
He looked surprised and disappointed. He said--
'Yes, I was. Indeed I was. I was a Roman soldier.'
'Which one?'
'Why didn't you see them Roman soldiers that stood back there in a rank,
and sometimes marched in procession around the stage?'
'Do you mean the Roman army?--those six sandaled roustabouts in
nightshirts, with tin shields and helmets, that marched around treading
on each other's heels, in charge of a spider-legged consumptive dressed
like themselves?'
'That's it! that's it! I was one of them Roman soldiers. I was the next
to the last one. A half a year ago I used to always be the last one;
but I've been promoted.'
Well, they told me that that poor fellow remained a Roman soldier to the
last--a matter of thirty-four years. Sometimes they cast him for a
'speaking part,' but not an elaborate one. He could be trusted to go
and say, 'My lord, the carriage waits,' but if they ventured to add a
sentence or two to this, his memory felt the strain and he was likely to
miss fire. Yet, poor devil, he had been patiently studying the part of
Hamlet for more than thirty years, and he lived and died in the belief
that some day he would be invited to play it!
And this is what came of that fleeting visit of those young Englishmen
to our village such ages and ages ago! What noble horseshoes this man
might have made, but for those Englishmen; and what an inadequate Roman
soldier he DID make!
A day or two after we reached St. Louis, I was walking along Fourth
Street when a grizzly-headed man gave a sort of start as he passed me,
then stopped, came back, inspected me narrowly, with a clouding brow,
and finally said with deep asperity--
'Look here, HAVE YOU GOT THAT DRINK YET?'
A maniac, I judged, at first. But all in a flash I recognized him. I
made an effort to blush that strained every muscle in me, and answered
as sweetly and winningly as ever I knew how--
'Been a little slow, but am just this minute closing in on the place
where they keep it. Come in and help.'
He softened, and said make it a bottle of champagne and he was
agreeable. He said he had seen my name in the papers, and had put all
his affairs aside and turned out, resolved to find me or die; and make
me answer that question satisfactorily, or kill me; though the most of
his late asperity had been rather counterfeit than otherwise.
This meeting brought back to me the St. Louis riots of about thirty
years ago. I spent a week there, at that time, in a boarding-house, and
had this young fellow for a neighbor across the hall. We saw some of
the fightings and killings; and by and by we went one night to an armory
where two hundred young men had met, upon call, to be armed and go forth
against the rioters, under command of a military man. We drilled till
about ten o'clock at night; then news came that the mob were in great
force in the lower end of the town, and were sweeping everything before
them. Our column moved at once. It was a very hot night, and my musket
was very heavy. We marched and marched; and the nearer we approached the
seat of war, the hotter I grew and the thirstier I got. I was behind my
friend; so, finally, I asked him to hold my musket while I dropped out
and got a drink. Then I branched off and went home. I was not feeling
any solicitude about him of course, because I knew he was so well armed,
now, that he could take care of himself without any trouble. If I had
had any doubts about that, I would have borrowed another musket for him.
I left the city pretty early the next morning, and if this grizzled man
had not happened to encounter my name in the papers the other day in St.
Louis, and felt moved to seek me out, I should have carried to my grave
a heart-torturing uncertainty as to whether he ever got out of the riots
all right or not. I ought to have inquired, thirty years ago; I know
that. And I would have inquired, if I had had the muskets; but, in the
circumstances, he seemed better fixed to conduct the investigations than
I was.
One Monday, near the time of our visit to St. Louis, the 'Globe-
Democrat' came out with a couple of pages of Sunday statistics, whereby
it appeared that 119,448 St. Louis people attended the morning and
evening church services the day before, and 23,102 children attended
Sunday-school. Thus 142,550 persons, out of the city's total of 400,000
population, respected the day religious-wise. I found these statistics,
in a condensed form, in a telegram of the Associated Press, and
preserved them. They made it apparent that St. Louis was in a higher
state of grace than she could have claimed to be in my time. But now
that I canvass the figures narrowly, I suspect that the telegraph
mutilated them. It cannot be that there are more than 150,000 Catholics
in the town; the other 250,000 must be classified as Protestants. Out
of these 250,000, according to this questionable telegram, only 26,362
attended church and Sunday-school, while out of the 150,000 Catholics,
116,188 went to church and Sunday-school.
Chapter 52 A Burning Brand
ALL at once the thought came into my mind, 'I have not sought out Mr.
Brown.'
Upon that text I desire to depart from the direct line of my subject,
and make a little excursion. I wish to reveal a secret which I have
carried with me nine years, and which has become burdensome.
Upon a certain occasion, nine years ago, I had said, with strong
feeling, 'If ever I see St. Louis again, I will seek out Mr. Brown, the
great grain merchant, and ask of him the privilege of shaking him by the
hand.'
The occasion and the circumstances were as follows. A friend of mine, a
clergyman, came one evening and said--
'I have a most remarkable letter here, which I want to read to you,
if I can do it without breaking down. I must preface it with some
explanations, however. The letter is written by an ex-thief and
ex-vagabond of the lowest origin and basest rearing, a man all stained with
crime and steeped in ignorance; but, thank God, with a mine of pure gold
hidden away in him, as you shall see. His letter is written to a burglar
named Williams, who is serving a nine-year term in a certain State
prison, for burglary. Williams was a particularly daring burglar, and
plied that trade during a number of years; but he was caught at last and
jailed, to await trial in a town where he had broken into a house at
night, pistol in hand, and forced the owner to hand over to him $8,000
in government bonds. Williams was not a common sort of person, by any
means; he was a graduate of Harvard College, and came of good New
England stock. His father was a clergyman. While lying in jail, his
health began to fail, and he was threatened with consumption. This fact,
together with the opportunity for reflection afforded by solitary
confinement, had its effect--its natural effect. He fell into serious
thought; his early training asserted itself with power, and wrought with
strong influence upon his mind and heart. He put his old life behind
him, and became an earnest Christian. Some ladies in the town heard of
this, visited him, and by their encouraging words supported him in his
good resolutions and strengthened him to continue in his new life. The
trial ended in his conviction and sentence to the State prison for the
term of nine years, as I have before said. In the prison he became
acquainted with the poor wretch referred to in the beginning of my talk,
Jack Hunt, the writer of the letter which I am going to read. You will
see that the acquaintanceship bore fruit for Hunt. When Hunt's time was
out, he wandered to St. Louis; and from that place he wrote his letter
to Williams. The letter got no further than the office of the prison
warden, of course; prisoners are not often allowed to receive letters
from outside. The prison authorities read this letter, but did not
destroy it. They had not the heart to do it. They read it to several
persons, and eventually it fell into the hands of those ladies of whom I
spoke a while ago. The other day I came across an old friend of mine--a
clergyman--who had seen this letter, and was full of it. The mere
remembrance of it so moved him that he could not talk of it without his
voice breaking. He promised to get a copy of it for me; and here it is
--an exact copy, with all the imperfections of the original preserved. It
has many slang expressions in it--thieves' argot--but their meaning has
been interlined, in parentheses, by the prison authorities'--
St. Louis, June 9th 1872.
Mr. W---- friend Charlie if i may call you so: i no you are surprised
to get a letter from me, but i hope you won't be mad at my writing to
you. i want to tell you my thanks for the way you talked to me when i
was in prison--it has led me to try and be a better man; i guess you
thought i did not cair for what you said, & at the first go off I
didn't, but i noed you was a man who had don big work with good men &
want no sucker, nor want gasing & all the boys knod it.
I used to think at nite what you said, & for it i nocked off swearing
months before my time was up, for i saw it want no good, nohow--the day
my time was up you told me if i would shake the cross (QUIT STEALING) &
live on the square for months, it would be the best job i ever done in
my life. The state agent give me a ticket to here, & on the car i
thought more of what you said to me, but didn't make up my mind. When
we got to Chicago on the cars from there to here, I pulled off an old
woman's leather; (ROBBED HER OF HER POCKETBOOK) i hadn't no more than
got it off when i wished i hadn't done it, for awhile before that i made
up my mind to be a square bloke, for months on your word, but forgot it
when i saw the leather was a grip (EASY TO GET)--but i kept clos to her
& when she got out of the cars at a way place i said, marm have you lost
anything. & she tumbled (DISCOVERED) her leather was off (GONE)--is this
it says i, giving it to her--well if you aint honest, says she, but i
hadn't got cheak enough to stand that sort of talk, so i left her in a
hurry. When i got here i had $1 and 25 cents left & i didn't get no work
for 3 days as i aint strong enough for roust about on a steam bote (FOR
A DECK HAND)--The afternoon of the 3rd day I spent my last 10 cts for
moons (LARGE, ROUND SEA-BISCUIT) & cheese & i felt pretty rough & was
thinking i would have to go on the dipe (PICKING POCKETS) again, when i
thought of what you once said about a fellows calling on the Lord when
he was in hard luck, & i thought i would try it once anyhow, but when i
tryed it i got stuck on the start, & all i could get off wos, Lord give
a poor fellow a chance to square it for 3 months for Christ's sake,
amen; & i kept a thinking, of it over and over as i went along--about an
hour after that i was in 4th St. & this is what happened & is the cause
of my being where i am now & about which i will tell you before i get
done writing. As i was walking along herd a big noise & saw a horse
running away with a carriage with 2 children in it, & I grabed up a
peace of box cover from the side walk & run in the middle of the street,
& when the horse came up i smashed him over the head as hard as i could
drive--the bord split to peces & the horse checked up a little & I
grabbed the reigns & pulled his head down until he stopped--the
gentleman what owned him came running up & soon as he saw the children
were all rite, he shook hands with me and gave me a $50 green back, & my
asking the Lord to help me come into my head, & i was so thunderstruck i
couldn't drop the reigns nor say nothing--he saw something was up, &
coming back to me said, my boy are you hurt? & the thought come into my
head just then to ask him for work; & i asked him to take back the bill
and give me a job--says he, jump in here & lets talk about it, but keep
the money--he asked me if i could take care of horses & i said yes, for
i used to hang round livery stables & often would help clean & drive
horses, he told me he wanted a man for that work, & would give me $16 a
month & bord me. You bet i took that chance at once. that nite in my
little room over the stable i sat a long time thinking over my past life
& of what had just happened & i just got down on my nees & thanked the
Lord for the job & to help me to square it, & to bless you for putting
me up to it, & the next morning i done it again & got me some new togs
(CLOTHES) & a bible for i made up my mind after what the Lord had done
for me i would read the bible every nite and morning, & ask him to keep
an eye on me. When I had been there about a week Mr. Brown (that's his
name) came in my room one nite and saw me reading the bible--he asked me
if i was a Christian & i told him no--he asked me how it was i read the
bible instead of papers & books--Well Charlie i thought i had better
give him a square deal in the start, so i told him all about my being in
prison & about you, & how i had almost done give up looking for work &
how the Lord got me the job when I asked him; & the only way i had to
pay him back was to read the bible & square it, & i asked him to give me
a chance for 3 months--he talked to me like a father for a long time, &
told me i could stay & then i felt better than ever i had done in my
life, for i had given Mr. Brown a fair start with me & now i didn't fear
no one giving me a back cap (EXPOSING HIS PAST LIFE) & running me off
the job--the next morning he called me into the library & gave me
another square talk, & advised me to study some every day, & he would
help me one or 2 hours every nite, & he gave me a Arithmetic, a spelling
book, a Geography & a writing book, & he hers me every nite--he lets me
come into the house to prayers every morning, & got me put in a bible
class in the Sunday School which i likes very much for it helps me to
understand my bible better.
Now, Charlie the 3 months on the square are up 2 months ago, & as you
said, it is the best job i ever did in my life, & i commenced another of
the same sort right away, only it is to God helping me to last a
lifetime Charlie--i wrote this letter to tell you I do think God has
forgiven my sins & herd your prayers, for you told me you should pray
for me--i no i love to read his word & tell him all my troubles & he
helps me i know for i have plenty of chances to steal but i don't feel
to as i once did & now i take more pleasure in going to church than to
the theater & that wasnt so once--our minister and others often talk
with me & a month ago they wanted me to join the church, but I said no,
not now, i may be mistaken in my feelings, i will wait awhile, but now i
feel that God has called me & on the first Sunday in July i will join
the church--dear friend i wish i could write to you as i feel, but i
cant do it yet--you no i learned to read and write while prisons & i
aint got well enough along to write as i would talk; i no i aint spelled
all the words rite in this & lots of other mistakes but you will excuse
it i no, for you no i was brought up in a poor house until i run away, &
that i never new who my father and mother was & i dont no my right name,
& i hope you wont be mad at me, but i have as much rite to one name as
another & i have taken your name, for you wont use it when you get out i
no, & you are the man i think most of in the world; so i hope you wont
be mad--I am doing well, i put $10 a month in bank with $25 of the $50--
if you ever want any or all of it let me know, & it is yours. i wish you
would let me send you some now. I send you with this a receipt for a
year of Littles Living Age, i didn't know what you would like & i told
Mr. Brown & he said he thought you would like it--i wish i was nere you
so i could send you chuck (REFRESHMENTS) on holidays; it would spoil
this weather from here, but i will send you a box next thanksgiving any
way--next week Mr. Brown takes me into his store as lite porter & will
advance me as soon as i know a little more--he keeps a big granary
store, wholesale--i forgot to tell you of my mission school, sunday
school class--the school is in the sunday afternoon, i went out two
sunday afternoons, and picked up seven kids (LITTLE BOYS) & got them to
come in. two of them new as much as i did & i had them put in a class
where they could learn something. i dont no much myself, but as these
kids cant read i get on nicely with them. i make sure of them by going
after them every Sunday hour before school time, I also got 4 girls to
come. tell Mack and Harry about me, if they will come out here when
their time is up i will get them jobs at once. i hope you will excuse
this long letter & all mistakes, i wish i could see you for i cant write
as i would talk--i hope the warm weather is doing your lungs good--i was
afraid when you was bleeding you would die--give my respects to all the
boys and tell them how i am doing--i am doing well and every one here
treats me as kind as they can--Mr. Brown is going to write to you
sometime--i hope some day you will write to me, this letter is from your
very true friend
C---- W----
who you know as Jack Hunt.
I send you Mr. Brown's card. Send my letter to him.
Here was true eloquence; irresistible eloquence; and without a single
grace or ornament to help it out. I have seldom been so deeply stirred
by any piece of writing. The reader of it halted, all the way through,
on a lame and broken voice; yet he had tried to fortify his feelings by
several private readings of the letter before venturing into company
with it. He was practising upon me to see if there was any hope of his
being able to read the document to his prayer-meeting with anything like
a decent command over his feelings. The result was not promising.
However, he determined to risk it; and did. He got through tolerably
well; but his audience broke down early, and stayed in that condition to
the end.
The fame of the letter spread through the town. A brother minister came
and borrowed the manuscript, put it bodily into a sermon, preached the
sermon to twelve hundred people on a Sunday morning, and the letter
drowned them in their own tears. Then my friend put it into a sermon and
went before his Sunday morning congregation with it. It scored another
triumph. The house wept as one individual.
My friend went on summer vacation up into the fishing regions of our
northern British neighbors, and carried this sermon with him, since he
might possibly chance to need a sermon. He was asked to preach, one day.
The little church was full. Among the people present were the late Dr.
J. G. Holland, the late Mr. Seymour of the 'New York Times,' Mr. Page,
the philanthropist and temperance advocate, and, I think, Senator Frye,
of Maine. The marvelous letter did its wonted work; all the people were
moved, all the people wept; the tears flowed in a steady stream down Dr.
Holland's cheeks, and nearly the same can be said with regard to all who
were there. Mr. Page was so full of enthusiasm over the letter that he
said he would not rest until he made pilgrimage to that prison, and had
speech with the man who had been able to inspire a fellow-unfortunate to
write so priceless a tract.
Ah, that unlucky Page!--and another man. If they had only been in
Jericho, that letter would have rung through the world and stirred all
the hearts of all the nations for a thousand years to come, and nobody
might ever have found out that it was the confoundedest, brazenest,
ingeniousest piece of fraud and humbuggery that was ever concocted to
fool poor confiding mortals with!
The letter was a pure swindle, and that is the truth. And take it by and
large, it was without a compeer among swindles. It was perfect, it was
rounded, symmetrical, complete, colossal!
The reader learns it at this point; but we didn't learn it till some
miles and weeks beyond this stage of the affair. My friend came back
from the woods, and he and other clergymen and lay missionaries began
once more to inundate audiences with their tears and the tears of said
audiences; I begged hard for permission to print the letter in a
magazine and tell the watery story of its triumphs; numbers of people
got copies of the letter, with permission to circulate them in writing,
but not in print; copies were sent to the Sandwich Islands and other far
regions.
Charles Dudley Warner was at church, one day, when the worn letter was
read and wept over. At the church door, afterward, he dropped a
peculiarly cold iceberg down the clergyman's back with the question--
'Do you know that letter to be genuine?'
It was the first suspicion that had ever been voiced; but it had that
sickening effect which first-uttered suspicions against one's idol
always have. Some talk followed--
'Why--what should make you suspect that it isn't genuine?'
'Nothing that I know of, except that it is too neat, and compact, and
fluent, and nicely put together for an ignorant person, an unpractised
hand. I think it was done by an educated man.'
The literary artist had detected the literary machinery. If you will
look at the letter now, you will detect it yourself--it is observable in
every line.
Straightway the clergyman went off, with this seed of suspicion
sprouting in him, and wrote to a minister residing in that town where
Williams had been jailed and converted; asked for light; and also asked
if a person in the literary line (meaning me) might be allowed to print
the letter and tell its history. He presently received this answer--
Rev. ---- ----
MY DEAR FRIEND,--In regard to that 'convict's letter' there can be no
doubt as to its genuineness. 'Williams,' to whom it was written, lay in
our jail and professed to have been converted, and Rev. Mr. ----, the
chaplain, had great faith in the genuineness of the change--as much as
one can have in any such case.
The letter was sent to one of our ladies, who is a Sunday-school
teacher,--sent either by Williams himself, or the chaplain of the
State's prison, probably. She has been greatly annoyed in having so
much publicity, lest it might seem a breach of confidence, or be an
injury to Williams. In regard to its publication, I can give no
permission; though if the names and places were omitted, and especially
if sent out of the country, I think you might take the responsibility
and do it.
It is a wonderful letter, which no Christian genius, much less one
unsanctified, could ever have written. As showing the work of grace in
a human heart, and in a very degraded and wicked one, it proves its own
origin and reproves our weak faith in its power to cope with any form of
wickedness.
'Mr. Brown' of St. Louis, some one said, was a Hartford man. Do all whom
you send from Hartford serve their Master as well?
P.S.--Williams is still in the State's prison, serving out a long
sentence--of nine years, I think. He has been sick and threatened with
consumption, but I have not inquired after him lately. This lady that I
speak of corresponds with him, I presume, and will be quite sure to look
after him.
This letter arrived a few days after it was written--and up went Mr.
Williams's stock again. Mr. Warner's low-down suspicion was laid in the
cold, cold grave, where it apparently belonged. It was a suspicion based
upon mere internal evidence, anyway; and when you come to internal
evidence, it's a big field and a game that two can play at: as witness
this other internal evidence, discovered by the writer of the note above
quoted, that 'it is a wonderful letter--which no Christian genius, much
less one unsanctified, could ever have written.'
I had permission now to print--provided I suppressed names and places
and sent my narrative out of the country. So I chose an Australian
magazine for vehicle, as being far enough out of the country, and set
myself to work on my article. And the ministers set the pumps going
again, with the letter to work the handles.
But meantime Brother Page had been agitating. He had not visited the
penitentiary, but he had sent a copy of the illustrious letter to the
chaplain of that institution, and accompanied it with--apparently
inquiries. He got an answer, dated four days later than that other
Brother's reassuring epistle; and before my article was complete, it
wandered into my hands. The original is before me, now, and I here
append it. It is pretty well loaded with internal evidence of the most
solid description--
STATE'S PRISON, CHAPLAIN'S OFFICE, July 11, 1873.
DEAR BRO. PAGE,--Herewith please find the letter kindly loaned me. I am
afraid its genuineness cannot be established. It purports to be
addressed to some prisoner here. No such letter ever came to a prisoner
here. All letters received are carefully read by officers of the prison
before they go into the hands of the convicts, and any such letter could
not be forgotten. Again, Charles Williams is not a Christian man, but a
dissolute, cunning prodigal, whose father is a minister of the gospel.
His name is an assumed one. I am glad to have made your acquaintance. I
am preparing a lecture upon life seen through prison bars, and should
like to deliver the same in your vicinity.
And so ended that little drama. My poor article went into the fire; for
whereas the materials for it were now more abundant and infinitely
richer than they had previously been, there were parties all around me,
who, although longing for the publication before, were a unit for
suppression at this stage and complexion of the game. They said: 'Wait
--the wound is too fresh, yet.' All the copies of the famous letter
except mine disappeared suddenly; and from that time onward, the
aforetime same old drought set in in the churches. As a rule, the town
was on a spacious grin for a while, but there were places in it where
the grin did not appear, and where it was dangerous to refer to the
ex-convict's letter.
A word of explanation. 'Jack Hunt,' the professed writer of the letter,
was an imaginary person. The burglar Williams--Harvard graduate, son of
a minister--wrote the letter himself, to himself: got it smuggled out
of the prison; got it conveyed to persons who had supported and
encouraged him in his conversion--where he knew two things would happen:
the genuineness of the letter would not be doubted or inquired into; and
the nub of it would be noticed, and would have valuable effect--the
effect, indeed, of starting a movement to get Mr. Williams pardoned out
of prison.
That 'nub' is so ingeniously, so casually, flung in, and immediately
left there in the tail of the letter, undwelt upon, that an indifferent
reader would never suspect that it was the heart and core of the
epistle, if he even took note of it at all, This is the 'nub'--
'i hope the warm weather is doing your lungs good--I WAS AFRAID WHEN YOU
WAS BLEEDING YOU WOULD DIE--give my respects,' etc.
That is all there is of it--simply touch and go--no dwelling upon it.
Nevertheless it was intended for an eye that would be swift to see it;
and it was meant to move a kind heart to try to effect the liberation of
a poor reformed and purified fellow lying in the fell grip of
consumption.
When I for the first time heard that letter read, nine years ago, I felt
that it was the most remarkable one I had ever encountered. And it so
warmed me toward Mr. Brown of St. Louis that I said that if ever I
visited that city again, I would seek out that excellent man and kiss
the hem of his garment if it was a new one. Well, I visited St. Louis,
but I did not hunt for Mr. Brown; for, alas! the investigations of long
ago had proved that the benevolent Brown, like 'Jack Hunt,' was not a
real person, but a sheer invention of that gifted rascal, Williams--
burglar, Harvard graduate, son of a clergyman.
Chapter 53 My Boyhood's Home
WE took passage in one of the fast boats of the St. Louis and St. Paul
Packet Company, and started up the river.
When I, as a boy, first saw the mouth of the Missouri River, it was
twenty-two or twenty-three miles above St. Louis, according to the
estimate of pilots; the wear and tear of the banks have moved it down
eight miles since then; and the pilots say that within five years the
river will cut through and move the mouth down five miles more, which
will bring it within ten miles of St. Louis.
About nightfall we passed the large and flourishing town of Alton,
Illinois; and before daylight next morning the town of Louisiana,
Missouri, a sleepy village in my day, but a brisk railway center now;
however, all the towns out there are railway centers now. I could not
clearly recognize the place. This seemed odd to me, for when I retired
from the rebel army in '61 I retired upon Louisiana in good order; at
least in good enough order for a person who had not yet learned how to
retreat according to the rules of war, and had to trust to native
genius. It seemed to me that for a first attempt at a retreat it was not
badly done. I had done no advancing in all that campaign that was at
all equal to it.
There was a railway bridge across the river here well sprinkled with
glowing lights, and a very beautiful sight it was.
At seven in the morning we reached Hannibal, Missouri, where my boyhood
was spent. I had had a glimpse of it fifteen years ago, and another
glimpse six years earlier, but both were so brief that they hardly
counted. The only notion of the town that remained in my mind was the
memory of it as I had known it when I first quitted it twenty-nine years
ago. That picture of it was still as clear and vivid to me as a
photograph. I stepped ashore with the feeling of one who returns out of
a dead-and-gone generation. I had a sort of realizing sense of what the
Bastille prisoners must have felt when they used to come out and look
upon Paris after years of captivity, and note how curiously the familiar
and the strange were mixed together before them. I saw the new houses--
saw them plainly enough--but they did not affect the older picture in my
mind, for through their solid bricks and mortar I saw the vanished
houses, which had formerly stood there, with perfect distinctness.
It was Sunday morning, and everybody was abed yet. So I passed through
the vacant streets, still seeing the town as it was, and not as it is,
and recognizing and metaphorically shaking hands with a hundred familiar
objects which no longer exist; and finally climbed Holiday's Hill to get
a comprehensive view. The whole town lay spread out below me then, and I
could mark and fix every locality, every detail. Naturally, I was a
good deal moved. I said, 'Many of the people I once knew in this
tranquil refuge of my childhood are now in heaven; some, I trust, are in
the other place.' The things about me and before me made me feel like a
boy again--convinced me that I was a boy again, and that I had simply
been dreaming an unusually long dream; but my reflections spoiled all
that; for they forced me to say, 'I see fifty old houses down yonder,
into each of which I could enter and find either a man or a woman who
was a baby or unborn when I noticed those houses last, or a grandmother
who was a plump young bride at that time.'
From this vantage ground the extensive view up and down the river, and
wide over the wooded expanses of Illinois, is very beautiful--one of the
most beautiful on the Mississippi, I think; which is a hazardous remark
to make, for the eight hundred miles of river between St. Louis and St.
Paul afford an unbroken succession of lovely pictures. It may be that
my affection for the one in question biases my judgment in its favor; I
cannot say as to that. No matter, it was satisfyingly beautiful to me,
and it had this advantage over all the other friends whom I was about to
greet again: it had suffered no change; it was as young and fresh and
comely and gracious as ever it had been; whereas, the faces of the
others would be old, and scarred with the campaigns of life, and marked
with their griefs and defeats, and would give me no upliftings of
spirit.
An old gentleman, out on an early morning walk, came along, and we
discussed the weather, and then drifted into other matters. I could not
remember his face. He said he had been living here twenty-eight years.
So he had come after my time, and I had never seen him before. I asked
him various questions; first about a mate of mine in Sunday school--what
became of him?
'He graduated with honor in an Eastern college, wandered off into the
world somewhere, succeeded at nothing, passed out of knowledge and
memory years ago, and is supposed to have gone to the dogs.'
'He was bright, and promised well when he was a boy.'
'Yes, but the thing that happened is what became of it all.'
I asked after another lad, altogether the brightest in our village
school when I was a boy.
'He, too, was graduated with honors, from an Eastern college; but life
whipped him in every battle, straight along, and he died in one of the
Territories, years ago, a defeated man.'
I asked after another of the bright boys.
'He is a success, always has been, always will be, I think.'
I inquired after a young fellow who came to the town to study for one of
the professions when I was a boy.
'He went at something else before he got through--went from medicine to
law, or from law to medicine--then to some other new thing; went away
for a year, came back with a young wife; fell to drinking, then to
gambling behind the door; finally took his wife and two young children
to her father's, and went off to Mexico; went from bad to worse, and
finally died there, without a cent to buy a shroud, and without a friend
to attend the funeral.'
'Pity, for he was the best-natured, and most cheery and hopeful young
fellow that ever was.'
I named another boy.
'Oh, he is all right. Lives here yet; has a wife and children, and is
prospering.'
Same verdict concerning other boys. |
10,240 |
Produced by Wayne N. Keyser in honor of his Parents, Clifton
B. and Esther N. Keyser
THE ART OF MONEY GETTING
or
GOLDEN RULES FOR MAKING MONEY
By P.T. Barnum
In the United States, where we have more land than people, it is not
at all difficult for persons in good health to make money. In this
comparatively new field there are so many avenues of success open, so
many vocations which are not crowded, that any person of either sex who
is willing, at least for the time being, to engage in any respectable
occupation that offers, may find lucrative employment.
Those who really desire to attain an independence, have only to set
their minds upon it, and adopt the proper means, as they do in regard to
any other object which they wish to accomplish, and the thing is easily
done. But however easy it may be found to make money, I have no doubt
many of my hearers will agree it is the most difficult thing in the
world to keep it. The road to wealth is, as Dr. Franklin truly says,
"as plain as the road to the mill." It consists simply in expending less
than we earn; that seems to be a very simple problem. Mr. Micawber,
one of those happy creations of the genial Dickens, puts the case in a
strong light when he says that to have annual income of twenty pounds
per annum, and spend twenty pounds and sixpence, is to be the most
miserable of men; whereas, to have an income of only twenty pounds, and
spend but nineteen pounds and sixpence is to be the happiest of mortals.
Many of my readers may say, "we understand this: this is economy, and we
know economy is wealth; we know we can't eat our cake and keep it also."
Yet I beg to say that perhaps more cases of failure arise from mistakes
on this point than almost any other. The fact is, many people think they
understand economy when they really do not.
True economy is misapprehended, and people go through life without
properly comprehending what that principle is. One says, "I have an
income of so much, and here is my neighbor who has the same; yet every
year he gets something ahead and I fall short; why is it? I know all
about economy." He thinks he does, but he does not. There are men who
think that economy consists in saving cheese-parings and candle-ends,
in cutting off two pence from the laundress' bill and doing all sorts of
little, mean, dirty things. Economy is not meanness. The misfortune is,
also, that this class of persons let their economy apply in only one
direction. They fancy they are so wonderfully economical in saving a
half-penny where they ought to spend twopence, that they think they can
afford to squander in other directions. A few years ago, before kerosene
oil was discovered or thought of, one might stop overnight at almost any
farmer's house in the agricultural districts and get a very good supper,
but after supper he might attempt to read in the sitting-room, and
would find it impossible with the inefficient light of one candle. The
hostess, seeing his dilemma, would say: "It is rather difficult to read
here evenings; the proverb says 'you must have a ship at sea in order
to be able to burn two candles at once;' we never have an extra candle
except on extra occasions." These extra occasions occur, perhaps, twice
a year. In this way the good woman saves five, six, or ten dollars in
that time: but the information which might be derived from having the
extra light would, of course, far outweigh a ton of candles.
But the trouble does not end here. Feeling that she is so economical
in tallow candies, she thinks she can afford to go frequently to the
village and spend twenty or thirty dollars for ribbons and furbelows,
many of which are not necessary. This false connote may frequently
be seen in men of business, and in those instances it often runs to
writing-paper. You find good businessmen who save all the old envelopes
and scraps, and would not tear a new sheet of paper, if they could avoid
it, for the world. This is all very well; they may in this way save five
or ten dollars a year, but being so economical (only in note paper),
they think they can afford to waste time; to have expensive parties,
and to drive their carriages. This is an illustration of Dr. Franklin's
"saving at the spigot and wasting at the bung-hole;" "penny wise and
pound foolish." Punch in speaking of this "one idea" class of people
says "they are like the man who bought a penny herring for his family's
dinner and then hired a coach and four to take it home." I never knew a
man to succeed by practising this kind of economy.
True economy consists in always making the income exceed the out-go.
Wear the old clothes a little longer if necessary; dispense with the new
pair of gloves; mend the old dress: live on plainer food if need be; so
that, under all circumstances, unless some unforeseen accident occurs,
there will be a margin in favor of the income. A penny here, and a
dollar there, placed at interest, goes on accumulating, and in this way
the desired result is attained. It requires some training, perhaps, to
accomplish this economy, but when once used to it, you will find there
is more satisfaction in rational saving than in irrational spending.
Here is a recipe which I recommend: I have found it to work an excellent
cure for extravagance, and especially for mistaken economy: When you
find that you have no surplus at the end of the year, and yet have a
good income, I advise you to take a few sheets of paper and form them
into a book and mark down every item of expenditure. Post it every day
or week in two columns, one headed "necessaries" or even "comforts", and
the other headed "luxuries," and you will find that the latter column
will be double, treble, and frequently ten times greater than the
former. The real comforts of life cost but a small portion of what most
of us can earn. Dr. Franklin says "it is the eyes of others and not
our own eyes which ruin us. If all the world were blind except myself I
should not care for fine clothes or furniture." It is the fear of what
Mrs. Grundy may say that keeps the noses of many worthy families to the
grindstone. In America many persons like to repeat "we are all free and
equal," but it is a great mistake in more senses than one.
That we are born "free and equal" is a glorious truth in one sense, yet
we are not all born equally rich, and we never shall be. One may say;
"there is a man who has an income of fifty thousand dollars per annum,
while I have but one thousand dollars; I knew that fellow when he was
poor like myself; now he is rich and thinks he is better than I am; I
will show him that I am as good as he is; I will go and buy a horse and
buggy; no, I cannot do that, but I will go and hire one and ride this
afternoon on the same road that he does, and thus prove to him that I am
as good as he is."
My friend, you need not take that trouble; you can easily prove that you
are "as good as he is;" you have only to behave as well as he does; but
you cannot make anybody believe that you are rich as he is. Besides, if
you put on these "airs," add waste your time and spend your money, your
poor wife will be obliged to scrub her fingers off at home, and buy her
tea two ounces at a time, and everything else in proportion, in order
that you may keep up "appearances," and, after all, deceive nobody. On
the other hand, Mrs. Smith may say that her next-door neighbor
married Johnson for his money, and "everybody says so." She has a nice
one-thousand dollar camel's hair shawl, and she will make Smith get her
an imitation one, and she will sit in a pew right next to her neighbor
in church, in order to prove that she is her equal.
My good woman, you will not get ahead in the world, if your vanity and
envy thus take the lead. In this country, where we believe the majority
ought to rule, we ignore that principle in regard to fashion, and let
a handful of people, calling themselves the aristocracy, run up a false
standard of perfection, and in endeavoring to rise to that standard, we
constantly keep ourselves poor; all the time digging away for the sake
of outside appearances. How much wiser to be a "law unto ourselves" and
say, "we will regulate our out-go by our income, and lay up something
for a rainy day." People ought to be as sensible on the subject of
money-getting as on any other subject. Like causes produces like
effects. You cannot accumulate a fortune by taking the road that leads
to poverty. It needs no prophet to tell us that those who live fully up
to their means, without any thought of a reverse in this life, can never
attain a pecuniary independence.
Men and women accustomed to gratify every whim and caprice, will find it
hard, at first, to cut down their various unnecessary expenses, and will
feel it a great self-denial to live in a smaller house than they have
been accustomed to, with less expensive furniture, less company, less
costly clothing, fewer servants, a less number of balls, parties,
theater-goings, carriage-ridings, pleasure excursions, cigar-smokings,
liquor-drinkings, and other extravagances; but, after all, if they will
try the plan of laying by a "nest-egg," or, in other words, a small
sum of money, at interest or judiciously invested in land, they will be
surprised at the pleasure to be derived from constantly adding to their
little "pile," as well as from all the economical habits which are
engendered by this course.
The old suit of clothes, and the old bonnet and dress, will answer for
another season; the Croton or spring water taste better than champagne;
a cold bath and a brisk walk will prove more exhilarating than a ride
in the finest coach; a social chat, an evening's reading in the family
circle, or an hour's play of "hunt the slipper" and "blind man's buff"
will be far more pleasant than a fifty or five hundred dollar party,
when the reflection on the difference in cost is indulged in by those
who begin to know the pleasures of saving. Thousands of men are kept
poor, and tens of thousands are made so after they have acquired quite
sufficient to support them well through life, in consequence of laying
their plans of living on too broad a platform. Some families expend
twenty thousand dollars per annum, and some much more, and would
scarcely know how to live on less, while others secure more solid
enjoyment frequently on a twentieth part of that amount. Prosperity is
a more severe ordeal than adversity, especially sudden prosperity.
"Easy come, easy go," is an old and true proverb. A spirit of pride and
vanity, when permitted to have full sway, is the undying canker-worm
which gnaws the very vitals of a man's worldly possessions, let them be
small or great, hundreds, or millions. Many persons, as they begin
to prosper, immediately expand their ideas and commence expending for
luxuries, until in a short time their expenses swallow up their
income, and they become ruined in their ridiculous attempts to keep up
appearances, and make a "sensation."
I know a gentleman of fortune who says, that when he first began to
prosper, his wife would have a new and elegant sofa. "That sofa," he
says, "cost me thirty thousand dollars!" When the sofa reached the
house, it was found necessary to get chairs to match; then side-boards,
carpets and tables "to correspond" with them, and so on through the
entire stock of furniture; when at last it was found that the house
itself was quite too small and old-fashioned for the furniture, and a
new one was built to correspond with the new purchases; "thus," added my
friend, "summing up an outlay of thirty thousand dollars, caused by that
single sofa, and saddling on me, in the shape of servants, equipage, and
the necessary expenses attendant upon keeping up a fine 'establishment,'
a yearly outlay of eleven thousand dollars, and a tight pinch at that:
whereas, ten years ago, we lived with much more real comfort, because
with much less care, on as many hundreds. The truth is," he continued,
"that sofa would have brought me to inevitable bankruptcy, had not a
most unexampled title to prosperity kept me above it, and had I not
checked the natural desire to 'cut a dash'."
The foundation of success in life is good health: that is the substratum
fortune; it is also the basis of happiness. A person cannot accumulate a
fortune very well when he is sick. He has no ambition; no incentive; no
force. Of course, there are those who have bad health and cannot help
it: you cannot expect that such persons can accumulate wealth, but there
are a great many in poor health who need not be so.
If, then, sound health is the foundation of success and happiness in
life, how important it is that we should study the laws of health, which
is but another expression for the laws of nature! The nearer we keep to
the laws of nature, the nearer we are to good health, and yet how many
persons there are who pay no attention to natural laws, but absolutely
transgress them, even against their own natural inclination. We ought
to know that the "sin of ignorance" is never winked at in regard to the
violation of nature's laws; their infraction always brings the penalty.
A child may thrust its finger into the flames without knowing it will
burn, and so suffers, repentance, even, will not stop the smart. Many of
our ancestors knew very little about the principle of ventilation. They
did not know much about oxygen, whatever other "gin" they might have
been acquainted with; and consequently they built their houses with
little seven-by-nine feet bedrooms, and these good old pious Puritans
would lock themselves up in one of these cells, say their prayers and
go to bed. In the morning they would devoutly return thanks for the
"preservation of their lives," during the night, and nobody had better
reason to be thankful. Probably some big crack in the window, or in the
door, let in a little fresh air, and thus saved them.
Many persons knowingly violate the laws of nature against their better
impulses, for the sake of fashion. For instance, there is one thing
that nothing living except a vile worm ever naturally loved, and that
is tobacco; yet how many persons there are who deliberately train an
unnatural appetite, and overcome this implanted aversion for tobacco,
to such a degree that they get to love it. They have got hold of a
poisonous, filthy weed, or rather that takes a firm hold of them. Here
are married men who run about spitting tobacco juice on the carpet and
floors, and sometimes even upon their wives besides. They do not kick
their wives out of doors like drunken men, but their wives, I have
no doubt, often wish they were outside of the house. Another perilous
feature is that this artificial appetite, like jealousy, "grows by what
it feeds on;" when you love that which is unnatural, a stronger appetite
is created for the hurtful thing than the natural desire for what is
harmless. There is an old proverb which says that "habit is second
nature," but an artificial habit is stronger than nature. Take for
instance, an old tobacco-chewer; his love for the "quid" is stronger
than his love for any particular kind of food. He can give up roast beef
easier than give up the weed.
Young lads regret that they are not men; they would like to go to bed
boys and wake up men; and to accomplish this they copy the bad habits of
their seniors. Little Tommy and Johnny see their fathers or uncles smoke
a pipe, and they say, "If I could only do that, I would be a man too;
uncle John has gone out and left his pipe of tobacco, let us try it."
They take a match and light it, and then puff away. "We will learn to
smoke; do you like it Johnny?" That lad dolefully replies: "Not very
much; it tastes bitter;" by and by he grows pale, but he persists and he
soon offers up a sacrifice on the altar of fashion; but the boys stick
to it and persevere until at last they conquer their natural appetites
and become the victims of acquired tastes.
I speak "by the book," for I have noticed its effects on myself, having
gone so far as to smoke ten or fifteen cigars a day; although I have not
used the weed during the last fourteen years, and never shall again.
The more a man smokes, the more he craves smoking; the last cigar smoked
simply excites the desire for another, and so on incessantly.
Take the tobacco-chewer. In the morning, when he gets up, he puts a quid
in his mouth and keeps it there all day, never taking it out except to
exchange it for a fresh one, or when he is going to eat; oh! yes, at
intervals during the day and evening, many a chewer takes out the quid
and holds it in his hand long enough to take a drink, and then pop it
goes back again. This simply proves that the appetite for rum is even
stronger than that for tobacco. When the tobacco-chewer goes to your
country seat and you show him your grapery and fruit house, and the
beauties of your garden, when you offer him some fresh, ripe fruit, and
say, "My friend, I have got here the most delicious apples, and pears,
and peaches, and apricots; I have imported them from Spain, France and
Italy--just see those luscious grapes; there is nothing more delicious
nor more healthy than ripe fruit, so help yourself; I want to see you
delight yourself with these things;" he will roll the dear quid under
his tongue and answer, "No, I thank you, I have got tobacco in my
mouth." His palate has become narcotized by the noxious weed, and he has
lost, in a great measure, the delicate and enviable taste for fruits.
This shows what expensive, useless and injurious habits men will get
into. I speak from experience. I have smoked until I trembled like an
aspen leaf, the blood rushed to my head, and I had a palpitation of the
heart which I thought was heart disease, till I was almost killed
with fright. When I consulted my physician, he said "break off tobacco
using." I was not only injuring my health and spending a great deal of
money, but I was setting a bad example. I obeyed his counsel. No young
man in the world ever looked so beautiful, as he thought he did, behind
a fifteen cent cigar or a meerschaum!
These remarks apply with tenfold force to the use of intoxicating
drinks. To make money, requires a clear brain. A man has got to see that
two and two make four; he must lay all his plans with reflection and
forethought, and closely examine all the details and the ins and outs
of business. As no man can succeed in business unless he has a brain to
enable him to lay his plans, and reason to guide him in their execution,
so, no matter how bountifully a man may be blessed with intelligence, if
the brain is muddled, and his judgment warped by intoxicating drinks, it
is impossible for him to carry on business successfully. How many good
opportunities have passed, never to return, while a man was sipping a
"social glass," with his friend! How many foolish bargains have been
made under the influence of the "nervine," which temporarily makes its
victim think he is rich. How many important chances have been put off
until to-morrow, and then forever, because the wine cup has thrown the
system into a state of lassitude, neutralizing the energies so
essential to success in business. Verily, "wine is a mocker." The use of
intoxicating drinks as a beverage, is as much an infatuation, as is the
smoking of opium by the Chinese, and the former is quite as destructive
to the success of the business man as the latter. It is an unmitigated
evil, utterly indefensible in the light of philosophy; religion or good
sense. It is the parent of nearly every other evil in our country.
DON'T MISTAKE YOUR VOCATION
The safest plan, and the one most sure of success for the young man
starting in life, is to select the vocation which is most congenial
to his tastes. Parents and guardians are often quite too negligent in
regard to this. It very common for a father to say, for example: "I have
five boys. I will make Billy a clergyman; John a lawyer; Tom a doctor,
and Dick a farmer." He then goes into town and looks about to see
what he will do with Sammy. He returns home and says "Sammy, I see
watch-making is a nice genteel business; I think I will make you a
goldsmith." He does this, regardless of Sam's natural inclinations, or
genius.
We are all, no doubt, born for a wise purpose. There is as much
diversity in our brains as in our countenances. Some are born natural
mechanics, while some have great aversion to machinery. Let a dozen boys
of ten years get together, and you will soon observe two or three are
"whittling" out some ingenious device; working with locks or complicated
machinery. When they were but five years old, their father could find
no toy to please them like a puzzle. They are natural mechanics; but
the other eight or nine boys have different aptitudes. I belong to
the latter class; I never had the slightest love for mechanism; on the
contrary, I have a sort of abhorrence for complicated machinery. I never
had ingenuity enough to whittle a cider tap so it would not leak.
I never could make a pen that I could write with, or understand the
principle of a steam engine. If a man was to take such a boy as I
was, and attempt to make a watchmaker of him, the boy might, after an
apprenticeship of five or seven years, be able to take apart and put
together a watch; but all through life he would be working up hill and
seizing every excuse for leaving his work and idling away his time.
Watchmaking is repulsive to him.
Unless a man enters upon the vocation intended for him by nature, and
best suited to his peculiar genius, he cannot succeed. I am glad to
believe that the majority of persons do find their right vocation. Yet
we see many who have mistaken their calling, from the blacksmith up (or
down) to the clergyman. You will see, for instance, that extraordinary
linguist the "learned blacksmith," who ought to have been a teacher of
languages; and you may have seen lawyers, doctors and clergymen who were
better fitted by nature for the anvil or the lapstone.
SELECT THE RIGHT LOCATION
After securing the right vocation, you must be careful to select the
proper location. You may have been cut out for a hotel keeper, and
they say it requires a genius to "know how to keep a hotel." You might
conduct a hotel like clock-work, and provide satisfactorily for five
hundred guests every day; yet, if you should locate your house in a
small village where there is no railroad communication or public travel,
the location would be your ruin. It is equally important that you do not
commence business where there are already enough to meet all demands in
the same occupation. I remember a case which illustrates this subject.
When I was in London in 1858, I was passing down Holborn with an English
friend and came to the "penny shows." They had immense cartoons outside,
portraying the wonderful curiosities to be seen "all for a penny." Being
a little in the "show line" myself, I said "let us go in here." We
soon found ourselves in the presence of the illustrious showman, and he
proved to be the sharpest man in that line I had ever met. He told
us some extraordinary stories in reference to his bearded ladies, his
Albinos, and his Armadillos, which we could hardly believe, but thought
it "better to believe it than look after the proof'." He finally begged
to call our attention to some wax statuary, and showed us a lot of the
dirtiest and filthiest wax figures imaginable. They looked as if they
had not seen water since the Deluge.
"What is there so wonderful about your statuary?" I asked.
"I beg you not to speak so satirically," he replied, "Sir, these are
not Madam Tussaud's wax figures, all covered with gilt and tinsel and
imitation diamonds, and copied from engravings and photographs. Mine,
sir, were taken from life. Whenever you look upon one of those figures,
you may consider that you are looking upon the living individual."
Glancing casually at them, I saw one labeled "Henry VIII," and feeling a
little curious upon seeing that it looked like Calvin Edson, the living
skeleton, I said: "Do you call that 'Henry the Eighth?'" He replied,
"Certainly; sir; it was taken from life at Hampton Court, by special
order of his majesty; on such a day."
He would have given the hour of the day if I had resisted; I said,
"Everybody knows that 'Henry VIII.' was a great stout old king, and that
figure is lean and lank; what do you say to that?"
"Why," he replied, "you would be lean and lank yourself if you sat there
as long as he has."
There was no resisting such arguments. I said to my English friend, "Let
us go out; do not tell him who I am; I show the white feather; he beats
me."
He followed us to the door, and seeing the rabble in the street, he
called out, "ladies and gentlemen, I beg to draw your attention to the
respectable character of my visitors," pointing to us as we walked away.
I called upon him a couple of days afterwards; told him who I was, and
said:
"My friend, you are an excellent showman, but you have selected a bad
location."
He replied, "This is true, sir; I feel that all my talents are thrown
away; but what can I do?"
"You can go to America," I replied. "You can give full play to your
faculties over there; you will find plenty of elbowroom in America; I
will engage you for two years; after that you will be able to go on your
own account."
He accepted my offer and remained two years in my New York Museum. He
then went to New Orleans and carried on a traveling show business during
the summer. To-day he is worth sixty thousand dollars, simply because
he selected the right vocation and also secured the proper location. The
old proverb says, "Three removes are as bad as a fire," but when a man
is in the fire, it matters but little how soon or how often he removes.
AVOID DEBT
Young men starting in life should avoid running into debt. There is
scarcely anything that drags a person down like debt. It is a slavish
position to get in, yet we find many a young man, hardly out of his
"teens," running in debt. He meets a chum and says, "Look at this: I
have got trusted for a new suit of clothes." He seems to look upon the
clothes as so much given to him; well, it frequently is so, but, if he
succeeds in paying and then gets trusted again, he is adopting a habit
which will keep him in poverty through life. Debt robs a man of his
self-respect, and makes him almost despise himself. Grunting and
groaning and working for what he has eaten up or worn out, and now when
he is called upon to pay up, he has nothing to show for his money;
this is properly termed "working for a dead horse." I do not speak of
merchants buying and selling on credit, or of those who buy on credit
in order to turn the purchase to a profit. The old Quaker said to his
farmer son, "John, never get trusted; but if thee gets trusted for
anything, let it be for'manure,' because that will help thee pay it
back again."
Mr. Beecher advised young men to get in debt if they could to a small
amount in the purchase of land, in the country districts. "If a young
man," he says, "will only get in debt for some land and then get
married, these two things will keep him straight, or nothing will." This
may be safe to a limited extent, but getting in debt for what you eat
and drink and wear is to be avoided. Some families have a foolish habit
of getting credit at "the stores," and thus frequently purchase many
things which might have been dispensed with.
It is all very well to say; "I have got trusted for sixty days, and if I
don't have the money the creditor will think nothing about it." There
is no class of people in the world, who have such good memories as
creditors. When the sixty days run out, you will have to pay. If you
do not pay, you will break your promise, and probably resort to a
falsehood. You may make some excuse or get in debt elsewhere to pay it,
but that only involves you the deeper.
A good-looking, lazy young fellow, was the apprentice boy, Horatio. His
employer said, "Horatio, did you ever see a snail?" "I--think--I--have,"
he drawled out. "You must have met him then, for I am sure you never
overtook one," said the "boss." Your creditor will meet you or overtake
you and say, "Now, my young friend, you agreed to pay me; you have not
done it, you must give me your note." You give the note on interest and
it commences working against you; "it is a dead horse." The creditor
goes to bed at night and wakes up in the morning better off than when he
retired to bed, because his interest has increased during the night, but
you grow poorer while you are sleeping, for the interest is accumulating
against you.
Money is in some respects like fire; it is a very excellent servant
but a terrible master. When you have it mastering you; when interest
is constantly piling up against you, it will keep you down in the worst
kind of slavery. But let money work for you, and you have the most
devoted servant in the world. It is no "eye-servant." There is nothing
animate or inanimate that will work so faithfully as money when placed
at interest, well secured. It works night and day, and in wet or dry
weather.
I was born in the blue-law State of Connecticut, where the old Puritans
had laws so rigid that it was said, "they fined a man for kissing his
wife on Sunday." Yet these rich old Puritans would have thousands of
dollars at interest, and on Saturday night would be worth a certain
amount; on Sunday they would go to church and perform all the duties of
a Christian. On waking up on Monday morning, they would find themselves
considerably richer than the Saturday night previous, simply because
their money placed at interest had worked faithfully for them all day
Sunday, according to law!
Do not let it work against you; if you do there is no chance for success
in life so far as money is concerned. John Randolph, the eccentric
Virginian, once exclaimed in Congress, "Mr. Speaker, I have discovered
the philosopher's stone: pay as you go." This is, indeed, nearer to the
philosopher's stone than any alchemist has ever yet arrived.
PERSEVERE
When a man is in the right path, he must persevere. I speak of this
because there are some persons who are "born tired;" naturally lazy and
possessing no self-reliance and no perseverance. But they can cultivate
these qualities, as Davy Crockett said:
"This thing remember, when I am dead: Be sure you are right, then go
ahead."
It is this go-aheaditiveness, this determination not to let the
"horrors" or the "blues" take possession of you, so as to make you
relax your energies in the struggle for independence, which you must
cultivate.
How many have almost reached the goal of their ambition, but, losing
faith in themselves, have relaxed their energies, and the golden prize
has been lost forever.
It is, no doubt, often true, as Shakespeare says:
"There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads
on to fortune."
If you hesitate, some bolder hand will stretch out before you and get
the prize. Remember the proverb of Solomon: "He becometh poor that
dealeth with a slack hand; but the hand of the diligent maketh rich."
Perseverance is sometimes but another word for self-reliance. Many
persons naturally look on the dark side of life, and borrow trouble.
They are born so. Then they ask for advice, and they will be governed
by one wind and blown by another, and cannot rely upon themselves. Until
you can get so that you can rely upon yourself, you need not expect to
succeed.
I have known men, personally, who have met with pecuniary reverses,
and absolutely committed suicide, because they thought they could never
overcome their misfortune. But I have known others who have met more
serious financial difficulties, and have bridged them over by simple
perseverance, aided by a firm belief that they were doing justly, and
that Providence would "overcome evil with good." You will see this
illustrated in any sphere of life.
Take two generals; both understand military tactics, both educated at
West Point, if you please, both equally gifted; yet one, having this
principle of perseverance, and the other lacking it, the former will
succeed in his profession, while the latter will fail. One may hear the
cry, "the enemy are coming, and they have got cannon."
"Got cannon?" says the hesitating general.
"Yes."
"Then halt every man."
He wants time to reflect; his hesitation is his ruin; the enemy passes
unmolested, or overwhelms him; while on the other hand, the general of
pluck, perseverance and self-reliance, goes into battle with a will,
and, amid the clash of arms, the booming of cannon, the shrieks of the
wounded, and the moans of the dying, you will see this man persevering,
going on, cutting and slashing his way through with unwavering
determination, inspiring his soldiers to deeds of fortitude, valor, and
triumph.
WHATEVER YOU DO, DO IT WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT
Work at it, if necessary, early and late, in season and out of season,
not leaving a stone unturned, and never deferring for a single hour that
which can be done just as well now. The old proverb is full of truth and
meaning, "Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well." Many
a man acquires a fortune by doing his business thoroughly, while his
neighbor remains poor for life, because he only half does it. Ambition,
energy, industry, perseverance, are indispensable requisites for success
in business.
Fortune always favors the brave, and never helps a man who does not help
himself. It won't do to spend your time like Mr. Micawber, in waiting
for something to "turn up." To such men one of two things usually "turns
up:" the poorhouse or the jail; for idleness breeds bad habits, and
clothes a man in rags. The poor spendthrift vagabond says to a rich man:
"I have discovered there is enough money in the world for all of us,
if it was equally divided; this must be done, and we shall all be happy
together."
"But," was the response, "if everybody was like you, it would be spent
in two months, and what would you do then?"
"Oh! divide again; keep dividing, of course!"
I was recently reading in a London paper an account of a like
philosophic pauper who was kicked out of a cheap boarding-house because
he could not pay his bill, but he had a roll of papers sticking out
of his coat pocket, which, upon examination, proved to be his plan for
paying off the national debt of England without the aid of a penny.
People have got to do as Cromwell said: "not only trust in Providence,
but keep the powder dry." Do your part of the work, or you cannot
succeed. Mahomet, one night, while encamping in the desert, overheard
one of his fatigued followers remark: "I will loose my camel, and trust
it to God!" "No, no, not so," said the prophet, "tie thy camel, and
trust it to God!" Do all you can for yourselves, and then trust to
Providence, or luck, or whatever you please to call it, for the rest.
DEPEND UPON YOUR OWN PERSONAL EXERTIONS.
The eye of the employer is often worth more than the hands of a dozen
employees. In the nature of things, an agent cannot be so faithful to
his employer as to himself. Many who are employers will call to mind
instances where the best employees have overlooked important points
which could not have escaped their own observation as a proprietor. No
man has a right to expect to succeed in life unless he understands his
business, and nobody can understand his business thoroughly unless
he learns it by personal application and experience. A man may be a
manufacturer: he has got to learn the many details of his business
personally; he will learn something every day, and he will find he will
make mistakes nearly every day. And these very mistakes are helps to
him in the way of experiences if he but heeds them. He will be like
the Yankee tin-peddler, who, having been cheated as to quality in
the purchase of his merchandise, said: "All right, there's a little
information to be gained every day; I will never be cheated in that way
again." Thus a man buys his experience, and it is the best kind if not
purchased at too dear a rate.
I hold that every man should, like Cuvier, the French naturalist,
thoroughly know his business. So proficient was he in the study of
natural history, that you might bring to him the bone, or even a section
of a bone of an animal which he had never seen described, and, reasoning
from analogy, he would be able to draw a picture of the object from
which the bone had been taken. On one occasion his students attempted to
deceive him. They rolled one of their number in a cow skin and put him
under the professor's table as a new specimen. When the philosopher
came into the room, some of the students asked him what animal it was.
Suddenly the animal said "I am the devil and I am going to eat you." It
was but natural that Cuvier should desire to classify this creature, and
examining it intently, he said:
"Divided hoof; graminivorous! It cannot be done."
He knew that an animal with a split hoof must live upon grass and grain,
or other kind of vegetation, and would not be inclined to eat flesh,
dead or alive, so he considered himself perfectly safe. The possession
of a perfect knowledge of your business is an absolute necessity in
order to insure success.
Among the maxims of the elder Rothschild was one, all apparent paradox:
"Be cautious and bold." This seems to be a contradiction in terms, but
it is not, and there is great wisdom in the maxim. It is, in fact, a
condensed statement of what I have already said. It is to say; "you must
exercise your caution in laying your plans, but be bold in carrying
them out." A man who is all caution, will never dare to take hold and be
successful; and a man who is all boldness, is merely reckless, and
must eventually fail. A man may go on "'change" and make fifty, or
one hundred thousand dollars in speculating in stocks, at a single
operation. But if he has simple boldness without caution, it is mere
chance, and what he gains to-day he will lose to-morrow. You must have
both the caution and the boldness, to insure success.
The Rothschilds have another maxim: "Never have anything to do with an
unlucky man or place." That is to say, never have anything to do with a
man or place which never succeeds, because, although a man may appear to
be honest and intelligent, yet if he tries this or that thing and always
fails, it is on account of some fault or infirmity that you may not be
able to discover but nevertheless which must exist.
There is no such thing in the world as luck. There never was a man who
could go out in the morning and find a purse full of gold in the street
to-day, and another to-morrow, and so on, day after day: He may do so
once in his life; but so far as mere luck is concerned, he is as liable
to lose it as to find it. "Like causes produce like effects." If a man
adopts the proper methods to be successful, "luck" will not prevent him.
If he does not succeed, there are reasons for it, although, perhaps, he
may not be able to see them.
USE THE BEST TOOLS
Men in engaging employees should be careful to get the best. Understand,
you cannot have too good tools to work with, and there is no tool you
should be so particular about as living tools. If you get a good one,
it is better to keep him, than keep changing. He learns something every
day; and you are benefited by the experience he acquires. He is worth
more to you this year than last, and he is the last man to part with,
provided his habits are good, and he continues faithful. If, as he
gets more valuable, he demands an exorbitant increase of salary; on the
supposition that you can't do without him, let him go. Whenever I have
such an employee, I always discharge him; first, to convince him that
his place may be supplied, and second, because he is good for nothing if
he thinks he is invaluable and cannot be spared.
But I would keep him, if possible, in order to profit from the result
of his experience. An important element in an employee is the brain. You
can see bills up, "Hands Wanted," but "hands" are not worth a great deal
without "heads." Mr. Beecher illustrates this, in this wise:
An employee offers his services by saving, "I have a pair of hands
and one of my fingers thinks." "That is very good," says the employer.
Another man comes along, and says "he has two fingers that think." "Ah!
that is better." But a third calls in and says that "all his fingers and
thumbs think." That is better still. Finally another steps in and says,
"I have a brain that thinks; I think all over; I am a thinking as
well as a working man!" "You are the man I want," says the delighted
employer.
Those men who have brains and experience are therefore the most valuable
and not to be readily parted with; it is better for them, as well as
yourself, to keep them, at reasonable advances in their salaries from
time to time.
DON'T GET ABOVE YOUR BUSINESS
Young men after they get through their business training, or
apprenticeship, instead of pursuing their avocation and rising in their
business, will often lie about doing nothing. They say; "I have learned
my business, but I am not going to be a hireling; what is the object of
learning my trade or profession, unless I establish myself?'"
"Have you capital to start with?"
"No, but I am going to have it."
"How are you going to get it?"
"I will tell you confidentially; I have a wealthy old aunt, and she will
die pretty soon; but if she does not, I expect to find some rich old man
who will lend me a few thousands to give me a start. If I only get the
money to start with I will do well."
There is no greater mistake than when a young man believes he will
succeed with borrowed money. Why? Because every man's experience
coincides with that of Mr. Astor, who said, "it was more difficult for
him to accumulate his first thousand dollars, than all the succeeding
millions that made up his colossal fortune." Money is good for nothing
unless you know the value of it by experience. Give a boy twenty
thousand dollars and put him in business, and the chances are that he
will lose every dollar of it before he is a year older. Like buying a
ticket in the lottery; and drawing a prize, it is "easy come, easy go."
He does not know the value of it; nothing is worth anything, unless
it costs effort. Without self-denial and economy; patience and
perseverance, and commencing with capital which you have not earned, you
are not sure to succeed in accumulating. Young men, instead of "waiting
for dead men's shoes," should be up and doing, for there is no class of
persons who are so unaccommodating in regard to dying as these rich old
people, and it is fortunate for the expectant heirs that it is so. Nine
out of ten of the rich men of our country to-day, started out in life
as poor boys, with determined wills, industry, perseverance, economy and
good habits. They went on gradually, made their own money and saved it;
and this is the best way to acquire a fortune. Stephen Girard started
life as a poor cabin boy, and died worth nine million dollars. A.T.
Stewart was a poor Irish boy; and he paid taxes on a million and a half
dollars of income, per year. John Jacob Astor was a poor farmer boy,
and died worth twenty millions. Cornelius Vanderbilt began life rowing a
boat from Staten Island to New York; he presented our government with
a steamship worth a million of dollars, and died worth fifty million.
"There is no royal road to learning," says the proverb, and I may say it
is equally true, "there is no royal road to wealth." But I think there
is a royal road to both. |
10,240 |
Produced by Jonathan Ingram and PG Distributed Proofreaders
POEMS
BY
MATILDA BETHAM.
1808.
TO LADY ROUSE BOUGHTON, AS A TESTIMONY OF RESPECT AND GRATITUDE FOR
LONG CONTINUED FRIENDSHIP, THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS INSCRIBED BY HER
OBLIGED HUMBLE SERVANT, MATILDA BETHAM.
_New Cavendish-street,_
Feb. 3, 1809.
ADVERTISEMENT.
Before this book was printed, I thoughtlessly concluded there must be a
preface; but, on consideration, see no particular purpose it would
answer, and gladly decline a task I should have undertaken with much
timidity and reluctance. All I feel necessary to premise, is, that the
tale in the Old Shepherd's Recollections is founded on an event which
happened in Ireland; and that last spring I suppressed the song ending
in page 65 [The Old Man's Farewell], some time after it had been in the
hands of the composer, from meeting accidentally with a quotation in a
magazine that resembled it.
CONTENTS.
POEMS.--
The Old Fisherman
Lines to Mrs. Radcliffe, on first reading The Mysteries of
Udolpho
The Heir
To a Llangollen Rose, the day after it had been given me by
Miss Ponsonby
L'Homme de l'Ennui
The Grandfather's Departure
Reflections occasioned by the Death of Friends
To Mrs. T. Fancourt
To a Young Gentleman
Fragment
SONGS.--
"Thrice lovely Babe"
"What do I love?"
A Sailor's Song
Another
Once more, then farewell!
Henry, on the Departure of his Wife from Calcutta
Sonnet
On the Regret of Youth
Elegy on Sophia Graham
To Miss Rouse Boughton
To the Same
To the River which separates itself from the Dee at Bedkellert
The Old Man's Farewell
Song--Distance from the Place of our Nativity.
The Old Shepherd's Recollections
Reflection
Retrospect of Youth
The Daughter
Youth unsuspicious of evil
The Mother
Edgar and Ellen
POEMS.
THE OLD FISHERMAN.
'My bosom is chill'd with the cold,
My limbs their lost vigour deplore!
Alas! to the lonely and old,
Hope warbles her promise no more!
'Worn out with the length of my way,
I must rest me awhile on the beach,
To feel the salt dash of the spray,
If haply so far it may reach.
'As the white-foaming billows arise,
I reflect on the days that are past,
When the pride of my strength could despise
The keen-driving force of the blast.
'Though the heavens might menace on high,
I would still push my vessel from shore;
At my calling undauntedly ply,
And sing as I handled the oar.
'When fortune rewarded my toil,
And my nets, deeply-laden, I drew,
I hurried me home with the spoil,
And its inmates rejoic'd at the view.
'Though the winds and the waves were perverse,
I was sure to be welcom'd with glee;
My presence the cares would disperse,
That were only awaken'd for me.
'Whether weary, with toiling in vain,
Or gay, from abundant success,
I heard the same blessing again,--
I met the same tender caress:
'I fancied the perils repay'd,
That could such affection ensure;
By fondness and gratitude sway'd,
I was eager to dare and endure.
'My cot did each comfort contain,
And that gave my bosom delight;
When drench'd by the winterly rain,
I watch'd in my vessel at night.
'But, alas! from the tyrant, Disease,
What love or what caution can save!
A fever, more harsh than the seas,
Consign'd my poor wife to the grave.
'My children, so tenderly rear'd,
And pining for want of her care,
Though more by my sorrows endear'd,
Could not rescue my heart from despair.
'I tempted the dangers of night,
And still labour'd hard at the oar,
My sufferings appear'd to be light,
But I suffer'd with pleasure no more.
'And yet, when some seasons had roll'd,
I seem'd to awaken anew;
My children I lov'd to behold,
How tall and how comely they grew.
'My boy became hardy and bold,
His spirit was buoyant and free;
And, as I grew thoughtful and old,
Was loud and oppressive to me.
'But the girl, like a bird in the bower,
Awaken'd my hope and my pride;
She won on my heart ev'ry hour,
And I could not the preference hide.
'I mark'd the address and the care,
The manner endearing and mild,
Not dreaming those qualities rare
Were to murther the peace of my child:
'That grandeur would ever descend
To seek for so lowly a bride,
Or his fair one, a lover pretend,
From all she held dear to divide:
'That beauty was priz'd like a gem,
Expected to dazzle and shine,
Whose value the world would contemn,
Unless trac'd to some Indian mine:
'Alas! hapless girl! had I known
Thou hadst learnt to repine at thy lot;
That splendour and rank were thy own,
Thy home and thy father forgot:
'That lore and ambition assail'd,
Thou hadst left us, whatever befel!
My pardon and prayers had prevail'd,
I had blest thee, and bade thee farewel!
'With thy husband, from this happy clime,
I had seen thee for ever depart!
Still hoping affection and time
Might soften the pride of his heart:
'That a moment perhaps would arise,
When, fondling a child on the knee,
He might read, in its innocent eyes
A lesson of pity for me.
'But lips, which till then never said
A word to cause any one pain,
Inform'd me, when reason had fled,
Of a conflict it could not sustain.
'And he, who had wish'd to conceal
That the woman he lov'd had been poor,
Began all his folly to feel,
When the victim could hearken no more.
'Yet still for himself did he mourn,
And, indignant, I fled from the view:
For my wrongs were not easily borne,
And my anger was hard to subdue.
'One prop, one sole comfort, remain'd,
Who saw me o'erladen with grief,
Who saw (though I never complain'd)
My heart was too sick for relief.
'One, who always attentive and dear,
Every effort exerted to please,
My desolate prospect to cheer,
To study my health and my ease.
'For his was each toil and each care,
The due observations to keep;
To sit watching amid the night air,
And fancy his father asleep.
'Yet, dejected, and sadly forlorn,
I dar'd in my heart to repine,--
To lament that I ever was born,
Though such worth and affection were mine.
'Alas! I was destin'd to know,
However intense my despair,
I still was reserv'd for a blow,
More painful and cruel to bear.
'Yes! this only one fell in the main!
--I eagerly struggled to save;
But I strove with the current in vain,
And saw him sink under the wave!
'My head was astounded and wild,--
Incessant I roam'd on the shore,
To seek the dead corse of my child,
And to weep on his bosom once more.
'Seven days undisturb'd was the sky,
The eighth was a tempest most drear,
I saw the huge billow rise high!
I saw my lost treasure appear!
'Like a dream it seem'd passing away:--
I hurried me onward to meet,
And clasp the inanimate clay,
When senseless I sunk at his feet.
'These hands, now enfeebled by time,
The last pious offices paid!
Age sorrow'd o'er youth in its prime,
And my boy near his mother was laid.
'Now scar'd by the griefs I have known,
Wounds, apathy only can heal,
My joys and my sorrows are flown,
For I have forgotten to feel.
'But I know my Creator is just,
That his hand will deliver me soon;
I have learnt to submit and to trust,
Though I finish my journey alone.'
Aldborough, September 7, 1800.
* * * * *
LINES TO MRS. RADCLIFFE,
ON FIRST READING THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO.
Enchantress! whose transcendant pow'rs,
With ease, the massy fabric raise;--
Beneath whose sway the tempest low'rs,
Or lucid stream meaend'ring plays;--
Accept the tribute of a heart,
Which thou hast often made to glow
With transport, oft with terror start,
Or sink at strains of solemn woe!
Invention, like a falcon, tam'd
By some expert and daring hand,
For pride, for strength and fierceness fam'd,
Implicit yields to thy command.
Now mounts aloft in soaring flight,
Shoots, like a star, beyond the sight;
Or, in capricious windings borne,
Mocks our faint hopes of safe return;
Delights in trackless paths to roam,
But hears thy call, and hurries home;
Checks his bold wing when tow'ring free,
And sails, without a pause, to thee!
Enchantress, thy behests declare!
And what thy strong delusions are!
When spirits in thy circle rise,
Gaunt Wonder, panic-struck, and pale,
Impatient Hope, and dread Surmise,
Attendants on the mystic tale!
How is it, with such vivid hues,
A harmonizing softness flows!
What are the charms that can diffuse,
Such grandeur as thy pencil throws!
Say! do the nymphs of classic lore,
So simply graceful, light, and fair,
Forsake their consecrated shore,
Their hallow'd groves, and purer air?
Tir'd of the ancient Grecian loom,
And smit with Fancy's wayward glance,
Weave they amid the Gothic gloom,
The high-wrought fiction of Romance?
While the dark Genius of our northern clime,
Whose giant limbs the mist of years enshrouds,
Bursts through the veil which hides his head sublime,
And moves majestic through recoiling clouds!
O yes! they own the wond'rous spell,
And to each form their hands divine
Give, with nice art, the temper'd swell,
The chasten'd touch and faultless line!
Each fiction under their command,
Assumes an air severely true,
And, every vision, wildly grand,
Life's measur'd pace and modest hue.
Reason and fancy, rival powers!
Unite, their RADCLIFFE to befriend;
To decorate her way with flowers,
The minor graces all attend!
This piece, with the exception of a few lines, has
appeared in the Athenaeum.
* * * * *
THE HEIR.
See yon tall stripling! how he droops forlorn!
How slow his pace! how spiritless his eye!
Like a dark cloud in summer's rosy dawn,
He saddens pleasure as he passes by.
Long kept in exile by paternal pride,
He feels no joy beneath this splendid dome;
For, till the elder child of promise died,
He knew a dearer, though a humbler home.
Then the proud sail was spread! The youth obey'd,
Left ev'ry friend, and every scene he knew;
For ever left the soul-affianc'd maid,
Though his heart sicken'd as he said--Adieu;
And nurses still, with superstitious care,
The sigh of fond remembrance and despair.
* * * * *
TO A LLANGOLLEN ROSE,
THE DAY AFTER IT HAD BEEN GIVEN BY MISS PONSONBY.
Soft blushing flow'r! my bosom grieves,
To view thy sadly drooping leaves:
For, while their tender tints decay,
The rose of Fancy fades away!
As pilgrims, who, with zealous care,
Some little treasur'd relic bear,
To re-assure the doubtful mind,
When pausing memory looks behind;
I, from a more enlighten'd shrine,
Had made this sweet memento mine:
But, lo! its fainting head reclines;
It folds the pallid leaf, and pines,
As mourning the unhappy doom,
Which tears it from so sweet a home!
_July 22, 1799._
* * * * *
L'HOMME DE L'ENNUI.
Forlornly I wander, forlornly I sigh,
And droop my head sadly, I cannot tell why:
When the first breeze of morning blows fresh in my face,
As the wild-waving walks of our woodlands I trace,
Reviv'd for the moment I look all around,
But my eyes soon grow languid, and fix on the ground.
I have yet no misfortune to rob me of rest,
No love discomposes the peace of my breast;
Ambition ne'er enter'd the verge of my thought,
Nor by honours, by wealth, nor by power am I caught;
Those phantoms of folly disturb not my ease,
Yet Time is a tortoise, and Life a disease.
With the blessings of youth and of health on my side,
A temper untainted by envy or pride;
No guilt to corrode, and no foes to molest;
There are many who tell me my station is blest.
This I cannot dispute; yet without knowing why--
I feel that my bosom is big with a sigh.
Oh! why do I see that all knowledge is vain;
That Science finds Error still keep in her train;
That Imposture or Darkness, with Doubt and Surmise,
Will mislead, will perplex, and then baffle the wise,
Who often, when labours have shorten'd their span,
Declare--not to know--is the province of man?
In life, as in learning, our views are confin'd,
Our discernment too weak to discover the mind,
Which, subdued and irresolute, keeps out of sight;
Or if, for a moment, her presence delight,
Our air is too gross for the stranger to stay;
And, back to her prison she hurries away!
If my own narrow precincts I seek to explore,
My wishes how vain, my attainments how poor!
Tenacious of virtue, with caution I move;
I correct, and I wrestle, but cannot approve;
Till, bewilder'd and faint, I would yield up the rein,
But I dare not in peace with my errors remain!
With zeal all awake in the cause of a friend,
With warmth unrepress'd by my fear to offend,
With sympathy active in hope or distress,
How keen and how anxious I cannot express,
I shrink, lest an eye should my feelings behold,
And my heart seems insensible, selfish and cold.
I strive to be gay, but my efforts are weak,
And, sick of existence, for pleasure I seek;
I mix with the empty, the loud, and the vain,
Partake of their folly, and double my pain.
In others I meet with depression and strife;
Oh! where shall I seek for the music of life?
* * * * *
THE GRANDFATHER'S DEPARTURE.
The Old Man press'd Palemon's hand;
To Lucy nodded with a smile;
Kiss'd all the little ones around;
Then clos'd the gate, and paus'd awhile.
"When shall I come again!" he thought,
Ere yet the journey had begun;
It was a tedious length of way,
But he beheld an only son.
And dearly did he love to take
A rosy grandchild on his knee;
To part his shining locks, and say,
"Just such another boy was he!"
And never felt he greater pride,
And never did he look so gay,
As when the little urchins strove
To make him partner in their play.
But when, in some more gentle mood,
They silent hung upon his arm,
Or nestled close at ev'ning pray'r,
The old man felt a softer charm;
And upward rais'd his closing eye,
Whence slow effus'd a grateful tear,
As if his senses own'd a joy,
Too holy for endurance here.
No heart e'er pray'd so fervently,
Unprompted by an earthly zeal,
None ever knew such tenderness,
That did not true devotion feel.
As with the pure, uncolour'd flame,
The violet's richest blues unite,
Do our affections soar to heav'n,
And rarify and beam with light.
* * * * *
REFLECTIONS
OCCASIONED BY THE DEATH OF FRIENDS.
My happiness was once a goodly tree,
Which promis'd every day to grow more fair,
And rear'd its lofty branches in the air,
In sooth, it was a pleasant sight, to see!
Amidst, fair honey-suckles crept along,
Twin'd round the bark, and hung from every bough,
While birds, which Fancy held by slender strings,
Plum'd the dark azure of their shining wings,
Or dipp'd them in the silver stream below,
With many a joyful note, and many a song!
When lo! a tempest hurtles in the sky!
Dark low'r the clouds! the thunders burst around!
Fiercely the arrowy flakes of lightning fly!
While the scar'd songsters leave the quiv'ring bough,
The blasted honey-suckles droop below,
And many noble branches strew the ground!
Though soon the air is calm, the sky serene,
Though wide the broad and leafy arms are spread,
Yet still the scars of recent wounds are seen;
Their shelter henceforth seems but insecure;
The winged tribes disdain the frequent lure,
Where many a songster lies benumb'd or dead;
And when I would the flow'ry tendrils train,
I find my late delightful labour vain.
Affection thus, once light of heart, and gay,
Chasten'd by memory, and, unnerv'd by fear,
Shall sadden each endearment with a tear,
Sorrowing the offices of love shall pay,
And scarcely dare to think that good her own,
Which fate's imperious hand may snatch away,
In the warm sunshine of meridian day,
And when her hopes are full and fairest blown.
* * * * *
TO MRS. T. FANCOURT,
July 15, 1803.
I love not yon gay, painted flower,
Of bold and coarsely blended dye,
But one, whose nicely varied power
May long detain the curious eye.
I love the tones that softly rise,
And in a fine accordance close;
That waken no abrupt surprise,
Nor leave us to inert repose.
I love the moon's pure, holy light,
Pour'd on the calm, sequester'd stream;
The gale, fresh from the wings of night,
Which drinks the early solar beam;
The smile of heaven, when storms subside,
When the moist clouds first break away;
The sober tints of even-tide,
Ere yet forgotten by the day.
Such sights, such sounds, my fancy please,
And set my wearied spirit free:
And one who takes delight in these,
Can never fail of loving thee!
* * * * *
TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN.
July 29th, 1803.
Dear boy, when you meet with a rose,
Admire you the thorns very much?
Or like you to play with a ball,
When the handling it blisters your touch!
Yet should it be firm and compact,
It is easy to polish it nice;
If the rose is both pretty and sweet,
The thorns will come off in a trice.
The thistle has still many more,
As visible too in our eyes,
But who will take pains with a weed,
That nobody ever can prize?
'Tis what we deem precious and rare,
We most earnestly seek to amend;
And anxious attention and care,
Is the costliest gift of a friend.
We all have our follies: what then?
Let us note them, and never look bluff!
Without any caressing at all,
They will cling to us closely enough.
Weeds are of such obstinate growth,
They elude the most diligent hand;
And, if they were not to be check'd,
Would quickly run over the land.
If some could be taken away,
That hide part of your worth from the view;
The conquest perhaps would be ours,
But the profit is wholly to you.
* * * * *
FRAGMENT.
A Pilgrim weary, toil-subdued,
I reach'd a country, strange and rude,
And trembled, lest approaching eve
My hope of shelter might deceive;
When I espied a hunter train,
Prowling at leisure o'er the plain,
And hasten'd on to ask relief,
Of the ill-omen'd, haughty chief.
His eye was artful, keen, and bold,
His smile malevolently cold,
And had not all my fire been fled,
And every earthly passion dead,
His pity to contempt allied,
Had rous'd my anger and my pride;
But, as it was, I bent my way,
Where his secluded mansion lay,
Which rose before my eyes at length,
A fortress of determin'd strength,
And layers of every colour'd moss
The lofty turrets did emboss,
As tho' the hand of father Time,
Prepar'd a sacrifice sublime,--
Giving his daily rites away,
To aggrandize some future day.
Here as I roam'd the walk along,
I heard a plaintive broken song;
And ere I to the portal drew,
An open window caught my view,
Where a fair dame appear'd in sight,
Array'd in robes of purest white.
Large snowy folds confin'd her hair,
And left a polish'd forehead bare.
O'er her meek eyes, of deepest blue,
The sable lash long shadows threw;
Her cheek was delicately pale,
And seem'd to tell a piteous tale,
But o'er her looks such patience stole,
Such saint-like tenderness of soul,
That never did my eyes behold,
A beauty of a lovelier mold.
The Lady sigh'd, and closely prest
A sleeping infant to her breast;
Shook off sweet tears of love, and smil'd,
Kissing the fingers of the child,
Which round her own unconscious clung,
Then fondly gaz'd, and softly sung:
Once like that sea, which ebbs and flows,
My bosom never knew repose,
And heavily each morn arose.
I bore with anger and disdain,
I had no power to break my chain,
No one to whom I dar'd complain.
And when some bird has caught my eye,
Or distant sail been flitting by,
I wish'd I could at freely fly.
But I can now contented be,
Can tell, dear babe, my griefs to thee.
And feel more brave, and breathe more free.
And when thy father frowns severe,
Although my spirit faints with fear,
I feel I have a comfort near.
And when he harshly speaks to me,
If thou art smiling on my knee,
He softens as he looks on thee.
To soothe him in an evil hour
The bud has balm, oh! may the flower
Possess the same prevailing power!
Nor forc'd to leave thy native land,
To pledge a cold, unwilling hand,
May'st thou receive the hard command.
My mother had not half the zeal,
The aching fondness which I feel,
She had no broken heart to heal!
And I was friendless when she died,
Who could my little failings chide,
And for an hour her fondness hide.
But I can see no prospect ope,
Can give no fairy vision scope,
If thou art not the spring of hope.
I cannot thy affection draw,
By childhood's first admiring awe;
Be tender pity then thy law!
This heart would bleed at every vein,
I could not even life sustain,
If ever thou should'st give me pain.
O! soul of sweetness! can it be,
That thou could'st prove unkind to me!
That I should fear this blow from thee!
Alas! e'en then I would not blame,
My love to thee should be the same,
And judge from whence unkindness came!
Her words grew indistinct and slow,
Her voice more tremulous and low,
When suddenly the song was o'er,
A whisper even heard no more--
She had discern'd my nearer tread;
Appear'd to feel alarm, and fled.
* * * * *
SONGS.
* * * * *
SONG.
Thrice lovely babe! thus hush'd to rest,
Upon thy warrior father's breast!
Avails it, that his eyes behold,
Thy rosy cheeks, thy locks of gold!
Avails it that he bends his ear,
So fondly thy soft breath to hear!
Or, that his rising smiles confess,
A gracious gleam of tenderness!
The sweetest spell will scarce have pow'r
To hold him for one absent hour!
Some plant that ceases thus to share,
A daily friend's auspicious care,
Relaxes in its feeble grasp,
The flow'ry tendrils soon unclasp,
Loose in the heedless aether play,
And every idle breeze obey!
Thus vainly had I sought to bind;
Thus watch'd that light, forgetful mind,
Till smiles and sunshine could restore,
My often-blighted hopes no more!
* * * * *
SONG.
SET TO MUSIC BY MR. VOIGHT.
What do I love? A polish'd mind,
A temper cheerful, meek, and kind;
A graceful air, unsway'd by art,
A voice that sinks into the heart,
A playful and benignant smile--
Alas! my heart responds the while,
All this, my Emily, is true,
But I love more in loving you!
I love those roses when they rise,
From joy, from anger, or surprise;
I love the kind, attentive zeal,
So prompt to know what others feel,
The mildness which can ne'er reprove,
But in the sweetest tones of love--
All this, my Emily, is true,
But I love more in loving you!
The self-command which can sustain,
In silence, weariness and pain;
The transport at a friend's success,
Which has not words or power to bless,
But, by a sudden, starting tear,
Appears more precious, more sincere--
All this, my Emily, is true,
And this I love in loving you!
* * * * *
A SAILOR'S SONG.
SET TO MUSIC BY MR. WALSH.
I ponder many a silent hour,
On friends belov'd when far at sea,
And, tell me, have I not the power
To draw one kindred thought to me!
The while we linger on the coast,
My truant fancy homeward flies,
And when the view is almost lost,
Unmanly tears bedew my eyes--
And oft forgetful do I stand,
Nor crew, nor ship, nor ocean see;
And often does my heart demand,
If friends belov'd thus think on me!
And when to England bound once more,
I shall with fond impatience burn,
Will not some others on the shore
As fondly look for my return!
O! let me of your kindness hear!
Repeat the strain as I depart!
It swells like music on my ear,
It falls like balm upon my heart.
Aug. 21, 1805.
* * * * *
ANOTHER,
WRITTEN EARLIER.
Adieu to old England! adieu to my friends!
Though fortune and fame I pursue,
On thus looking around me, I cannot conceal,
How reluctant I bid them adieu!
My heart sinks within me, I sigh to the gale,
Thus slowly receding from shore,
While fancy still whispers some terrible tale,
A perhaps I may see it no more!
There all that I love, that I value, remain,
That only awakens my fears,
For will the same spot its dear inmates contain,
On the lapse of two lingering years?
They may smile in good fortune, or weep in distress,
I shall know not a word of their fate!
No pain can I soften, no sorrow redress!
I may come, when, alas! 'tis too late!
I can fly without fear to encounter the foe,
To my earliest wish I am true;
But I cannot unmov'd quit the friends that I love,
Or bid my dear country adieu!
* * * * *
SONG.
SET TO MUSIC BY MR. A. PETTIT, OF NORWICH.
Once more then farewell! and whilst I'm away,
Oh! let not another entangle thy fancy!
I shall think upon thee every hour of the day,
And let not my love be forgotten by Nancy!
Oh! were I forsaken, the flow'r in my heart,
Would fold all its leaves, and re-open them never!
The sunshine of joy and of hope would depart,
And belief in affection would perish for ever!
To talk thus is folly! I doubt not thy truth,
A few years of absence will quickly pass over,
I scorn other perils that menace my youth,
From that wound, I must own, I could never recover!
* * * * *
HENRY,
ON THE DEPARTURE OF HIS WIFE FROM CALCUTTA.
Long is thy passage o'er the main,
And native air alone can save!
No friend thy weakness will sustain,
But India is, for thee, a grave!
Though winds arise, though surges swell,
Maria, we must say farewell!
Oh! I bethink me of the time,
When with each airy hope in view,
In triumph to this fervid clime
I bore a flowret nurs'd in dew!
No fears did then my joy reprove,
And it was boundless as my love!
Yet now to strangers I consign
Thy wounded mind, thy feeble health;
A charge more dear than life resign,
To watch a little worldly wealth.
Duty compels me to remain
But oh! how heavy feels the chain!
My dear Maria! smile no more?
This seeming patience makes me wild!
So would'st thou once my peace restore,
When, mourning for our only child,
Each faint appeal was lost in air,
Or turn'd my sadness to despair.
Alas! I only make thee grieve.
And hark! the boat awaits below!
They call aloud! and I must leave,
The tears my folly forc'd to flow.
Oh! had I but the time to prove,
That mine are only fears of love!
* * * * *
SONNET.
Urge me no more! nor think, because I seem
Tame and unsorrowing in the world's rude strife,
That anguish and resentment have not life
Within the heart that ye so quiet deem:
In this forc'd stillness only, I sustain
My thought and feeling, wearied out with pain!
Floating as 'twere upon some wild abyss,
Whence, silent Patience, bending o'er the brink,
Would rescue them with strong and steady hand,
And join again, by that connecting link,
Which now is broken:--O, respect her care!
Respect her in this fearful self-command!
No moment teems with greater woe than this,
Should she but pause, or falter in despair!
* * * * *
ON THE REGRET OF YOUTH.
Before a rose is fully blown,
The outward leaves announce decay;
So, ere the spring of Youth is flown,
Its tiny pleasures die away;
The gay security we feel,
The careless soul's delighted rest,
That lively hope, that ardent zeal,
And smiling sunshine of the breast.
Those simple tints, so bright and clear,
No healing dew-drops can restore;
For joys, which early life endear,
Once blighted, can revive no more.
Yet lovely is the full-blown rose,
Although its infant graces fly;
The various opening leaves disclose,
A fairer banquet to the eye;
A ruby's beams on drifted snow,
Such pure, harmonious blushes shed;
If distant, cast a tender glow,
But near, its own imperial red;
The form assumes a prouder air,
And bends more graceful in the gale;
While, from its cup, of essence rare,
A richer hoard of sweets exhale.
Could we again, by fancy led,
That bower of swelling leaves confine,
And round that fine, luxuriant head,
The mossy tendrils now entwine,
Over what multitudes of bloom
Would a few timid leaflets close!
What mental joys resign their room,
To causeless mirth, and tame repose!
The change to Reason's steady eye,
Would neither good nor wise appear;
And we may lay one precept by,
Our discontent is insincere.
* * * * *
ELEGY ON SOPHIA GRAHAM,
WHO DIED JAN. 21, 1800.
Sweet is the voice of Friendship to the ear,
Sweet is Affection's mildly-beaming eye,
Sweet the applause which flows from lips sincere,
And sweet is Pity's soft responsive sigh!
But now those flowers of life have lost their bloom,
Faint all their beauty, cold their healing breath,
No object fills my eye but yonder tomb,
No sound awakes me but the name of death.
When in the world, I bear a look serene,
And veil the gloomy temper of my grief;
Sick with restraint at evening quit the scene,
To find in tears and solitude relief.
Parent of Hope and Fancy! thoughtful Night!
Why are these nurselings absent from thy bower,
While Memory, with sullen, strange delight,
Stalks lonely centinel the live-long hour?
O dear Sophia! could we e'er forget,
Such fair endowments and unsullied worth,
Thy partial friendship calls for our regret,
And selfish feeling gives remembrance birth.
How often when this trembling hand essays
Thy lov'd resemblance once again to trace,
The portrait thought in mimic life arrays
With all the sweet expression of thy face;
Art may its symmetry and beauty show,
A look, a character, the pencil seize,
Give to the form where youthful graces glow,
An air of pensive dignity and ease,
But warmth of feeling and sensation fine,
By mild reserve from common eyes conceal'd,
The ray of genius and the heart benign,
In artless gaiety so oft reveal'd--
All these are lost; no looks can now arise,
Like those which every little act endear'd,
Which even in the stranger's careless eyes
Like innocence from other worlds appear'd!
Oft have I fear'd the breath of foolish praise,
Might taint the lily which so humbly grew;
That flattery's sun might shoot delusive rays,
Impede her progress, and distract her view.
But vain the fear--for she remain'd the same,
To outward charms indifferent or blind,
Heedless alike of either praise or blame,
If it respected not her heart and mind.
Rich in historic lore, the poet's lyre
Had not, though screen'd by time, forsaken hung,
She felt and studied with a kindred fire,
The lofty strain immortal Maro sung.
She knew--but why essay to trace her thought
Through its wide range, describe her blooming youth,
The heart whose feelings were so finely wrought,
Its meek ambition, and its love of truth?
All that parental-vanity desires,
All that the friend can muse upon and mourn,
All that the lover's ardent vow inspires,
In thee, Sophia! from the world was torn!
But still we yield thee to no stranger's care;
No unknown foe our tender love bereaves;
Thou goest the angels' hallow'd bliss to share,
A Father thy exalted soul receives!
* * * * *
TO MISS ROUSE BOUGHTON,
NOW THE RIGHT HON. LADY ST. JOHN.
Aberystwith, July 5th, 17--
Louisa, while thy pliant fingers trace
The solemn beauties of the prospect round,
Or, on thy instrument, with touching grace,
Awaken all the witcheries of sound:
Mild, as thy manners, do the colours rise,
As soft and unobtrusive meet the view;
And, when the varied notes the ear surprize,
We own the harmony as strictly true.
Be thine the praise, alas! a gift how rare!
Artless, and unpretending, to excel!
Forget the envied charm of being fair,
To learn the noblest science,--acting well!
And let no world the seal of truth displace,
Or spoil the heart's accordance with the face!
* * * * *
TO THE SAME,
ON RECEIVING FROM HER A FEW FLOWERS OUT OF A BOUQUET, FROM MELCHBOURNE,
1807.
Hail! sweet Louisa! o'er these votive flow'rs
Friendship and Fancy weave the joyful song,
Wing with fresh rose-leaves all the train of hours,
That in the distant aether float along!
Like those fair flowrets given by thy hand,
Like thy own beauty, blooming and serene,
The vision of thy future life is plann'd,
And forms a clear, a bright, and varied scene!
That countenance so gentle, and so kind,
That heart, which never gave a harsh decree,
Suit all the turns of thy harmonious mind,
And must, perforce, with destiny agree.
This from the Sibyl's leaves affection drew,
O, be the omen just! the promise true!
* * * * *
TO THE RIVER
WHICH SEPARATES ITSELF FROM THE DEE, AT BEDKELLERT.
July 19, 1799.
Let others hail the tranquil stream,
Whose glassy waters smoothly flow,
And, in the undulating gleam,
Reflect another world below!
The yellow Conway as it raves,
Demands my tributary song!
When, rushing forth, resistless waves
O'er rocky fragments foam along!
Like him, whose vigorous mind reviews
The troubles which around him roll;
The ceaseless warfare still pursues,
And keeps a firm, undaunted soul.
Though sternly bent by toil and care,
The brow hang darkly o'er his eye--
His features the fix'd meaning wear
Of one who knows not how to sigh.
It is not apathy that reigns,
O'erweening arrogance, or pride,
For, in his warmly-flowing veins,
The genial feelings all reside.
It is the breast-plate fortitude
Should still to injury oppose;
It is the shield with power imbu'd,
To blunt the malice of his foes.
And should the savage country round,
A more engaging aspect show,
O Conway! it will then be found,
How sweet and clear thy waters flow!
The birds will dip the taper wing--
The pilgrim there his thirst assuage,
The wandering minstrel sit and sing,
Or muse upon a distant age!
Bold River! soon within the deep,
Each weary strife and conflict o'er,
Thy venerable waves shall sleep,
And feel opposing rocks no more!
* * * * *
THE OLD MAN'S FAREWELL.
Farewell, my pilgrim guest, farewell,
A few days since thou wert unknown,
None shall thy future fortunes tell,
But sweetly have the moments flown!
And kindness, like the sun on flowers,
Soon chas'd away thy tender gloom;
New-fledg'd the sable-pinion'd hours,
And wove bright tints in Fancy's loom.
We sought no secrets to divine,
Neither thy name nor lineage knew,
Our hearts alone have question'd thine,
And found that all was just and true.
Pass not with hasty step, I pray,
Across the threshold of my door!
But pause awhile, with kind delay,
We shall behold thy face no more!
Once only in a hundred years,
The aloe's precious blossoms swell,
So, in thy presence it appears,
That Time has blossom'd, fare thee well![A]
[A] See Preface.
* * * * *
SONG.
DISTANCE FROM THE PLACE OF OUR NATIVITY.
Since I married Palemon, though happy my lot,
Though my garden is pleasant, and lightsome my cot,
Though love's smile, like a sunshine, I constantly see,
Those blessings are all insufficient for me,
I repine not at labour, I ask not for gold,
But I want the sweet eyes of my friends to behold.
With Palemon I think o'er the world I could roam,
Though he liv'd in a desert, would make it my home.
From him no allurements his Lucy could bribe,
And, though timid, no dangers, no menaces drive.
But the heart that can love with devotion so true,
Is not cold or forgetful, my parents, to you!
Oh idle declaimers! how is it ye say,
That affection and tenderness fade and decay?
Though so easily pain'd, they endure like a gem,
And the heart and the mind imbibe colour from them!
In affliction they brighten, in absence refine,
And are causes of sorrow too sweet to resign.
* * * * *
THE OLD SHEPHERD'S RECOLLECTIONS.
Low, heavy clouds are hanging on the hills,
And half-impatient of the sun's approach,
Shake sullenly their cold and languid wings!
Oh! it is fine to see his morning beams
Burst on the gloom, while, in disorder'd flight,
The shuddering, mournful vapours steal away;
Like the tenacious spirit of a man,
Shrinking from the loud voice of cheerfulness,
When it breaks in, so sadly out of tune,
Upon his quiet musing, and dispels
The waking dream of a dejected heart:
The dream I cherish in this solitude,
In all the wanderings of my little flock,
That which beguiles my loneliness, and takes
Its charm and change from the surrounding scene.
Oh! how unwelcome often are to me
The gayest, most exhilarating sounds!
When slow and sickly Memory, tempted forth
By dint of soft persuasion, brings to light
His treasures--and, with childish eagerness,
Arranges and collects--then suddenly
To have him startled by discordance, drag,
Without discrimination, all away--
And with them leap to his deep hollow cave--
Not easily to be withdrawn again,
Grieves one who loves to think of other times,
To talk with those long silent in the grave,
And pass from childhood to old age again.
Behold this stony rock! whose rifted crest,
Lets the rough, roaring torrent force a way,
And, foaming, pour its waters on the vale!
Behold them tumbling from their dizzy height,
Like clouds, of more than snowy whiteness, thrown
Precipitate from heav'n, which, as they fall,
Diffuse a mist, in form of glory, round!
This was my darling haunt a long time past!
Here, when a boy, in pleasing awe, I sate,
Wistfully silent, with uplifted eye,
And heart attun'd to the sad, lulling sound
They made descending. Far below my feet,
Near where yon little, ruin'd cottage lies,
Oft, at the pensive hour of even-tide
I saw young Osborne bearing on his harp,
And, trusting to an aged mother's care,
His darkling steps: Beneath that falling beech,
Whose wide-spread branches touch the water's edge,
He lov'd to sit, and feel the freshen'd gale
Breathe cool upon him. |
10,240 |
Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team
_SLEEPY-TIME_
THE TALE OF SANDY CHIPMUNK
BY
ARTHUR SCOTT BAILEY
ILLUSTRATED BY HARRY L. SMITH
1916
[Illustration: Sandy Was So Startled That He Dropped the Eggs]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I SANDY'S NAME
II SOMETHING IN THE SKY
III THE BROKEN EGG
IV BUILDING A HOUSE
V MRS. CHIPMUNK IS GLAD
VI SAMPLES OF WHEAT
VII UNCLE SAMMY'S STORE
VIII THE BASKET OF CORN
IX WORKING FOR MR. CROW
X MR. CROW SCOLDS SANDY
XI THE MAIL-BOX
XII SANDY GETS A LETTER
XIII A RIDE TO THE MILLER'S
XIV A LUCKY ACCIDENT
XV THE ROWDY OF THE WOODS
XVI ROWDY RUNS AWAY
XVII CORN-PLANTING TIME
XVIII SANDY LIKES MILK
XIX WHAT THE OLD COW DID
ILLUSTRATIONS
SANDY WAS SO STARTLED THAT HE DROPPED THE EGGS
MRS. CHIPMUNK WENT TO THE DOOR WITH SANDY
HE DROPPED THE GRAIN IN FRONT OF UNCLE SAMMY
UNCLE SAMMY SEARCHED HIS SHELVES CAREFULLY
"HERE'S A LETTER FOR ME!" SAID SANDY CHIPMUNK
FARMER GREEN'S CAT LEAPED OUT OF THE DOORWAY
THE TALE OF SANDY CHIPMUNK
I
SANDY'S NAME
In the first place, no doubt you will want to learn why he was known as
_Sandy_. Many others, before you, have wondered how Sandy Chipmunk came
by his name.
Whenever any one asked Sandy himself why he was so called, he always said
that he was in too great a hurry to stop to explain. And it is a fact
that of all the four-footed folk in Pleasant Valley--and on Blue Mountain
as well--he was one of the busiest. He was a great worker. And when he
played--as he sometimes did--he played just as hard as he worked.
In spite of his being so busy, there may have been another reason why he
never would tell any one why he was named Sandy. Jimmy Rabbit was the
first to suggest that perhaps Sandy Chipmunk didn't know.
Jimmy and some of his neighbors were sunning themselves in Farmer Green's
pasture one day. And while they were idling away the afternoon Sandy
Chipmunk scurried past on top of the stone wall, with his cheek-pouches
full of nuts.
"There goes Sandy Chipmunk!" Jimmy Rabbit exclaimed. He called to Sandy.
But Sandy did not stop. He made no answer, either, beyond a flick of his
tail. You see, his mouth was so full that he couldn't say a word.
"I was going to ask him about his name," Jimmy Rabbit remarked. "I've
almost made up my mind that he doesn't know any more about it than
anybody else."
"Probably he doesn't," Fatty <DW53> agreed. "But it's easy to see why he's
called Sandy. He likes to dig in the _sandy_ soil in this pasture."
"I don't agree with you," Billy Woodchuck said. "_I_ think he was named
Sandy on account of his yellowish, reddish, brownish color."
Some of the others thought that Billy might have guessed the right
answer. But Frisky Squirrel told them that that wasn't the reason at all.
"It's because he's _plucky_," he declared. "You know, _gritty_ is the
same as _plucky_. And _sandy_ is the same as _gritty_. That's the
reason," Frisky said. "It's plain as the nose on your face." He was
looking straight at Tommy Fox as he said that.
Now, Tommy Fox had a very long nose. And he became angry at once. His
face would have grown red, probably, if it hadn't been that color always.
"You don't know what you're talking about!" he snapped.
Old Mr. Crow, who sat in a tree nearby, nodded his head.
"You're all wrong," he told them. "The reason for calling that young
Chipmunk boy Sandy is because his real name is Alexander. And everybody
who knows anything at all knows that Sandy is just a short way of saying
Alexander."
When they heard that, Fatty <DW53> and Billy Woodchuck and Frisky Squirrel
looked foolish. People thought Mr. Crow was a wise old gentleman. And
when he said a thing was so, that usually settled it.
"Here he comes again!" Mr. Crow said.
They all looked around. And sure enough! there was Sandy Chipmunk,
hurrying along the top of the wall, to get more nuts to store away for
the winter.
"Wait a moment!" Mr. Crow called to him. "I want to tell you something."
Sandy Chipmunk came to a halt and sat up on top of a stone, with his tail
curled over his back.
"Talk fast, please!" he said. "I'm in a great hurry. Winter will be here
before you know it. And I want to store away a great many nuts before
somebody else gathers them all."
"I won't keep you long," Mr. Crow told him. "It's about your name--"
"I've no time to stop to explain," Sandy Chipmunk interrupted. "As I
said, I'm very busy to-day." And he started to scamper along the wall
again.
Once more Mr. Crow stopped him.
"You don't understand," he said. "I don't want to _ask_ you anything. I
want to _tell_ you something."
"Oh!" said Sandy. "That's different. What is it?"
"It's quite a joke," Mr. Crow said. And he laughed loudly. "These young
fellows here have been trying to tell one another why you're called
Sandy. One of 'em says it's because you like to dig in the sandy soil;
and another says it's because of your color; and still another claims
it's because you're plucky. But I tell 'em it's because your real name is
Alexander. And of course I'm right," said old Mr. Crow.
Sandy Chipmunk smiled. And then he started off again. And again Mr. Crow
stopped him.
"Quite a joke on these youngsters--isn't it?" he inquired.
"You told me you didn't want to _ask_ me anything," Sandy Chipmunk
reminded him. "But I will say this--though I am in a great hurry: So far
as I know, you are all of you right. And that's a joke on you, Mr. Crow."
Then Sandy Chipmunk scampered off. And everybody laughed--except Mr.
Crow.
"Alexander Chipmunk is a very pert young man," he grumbled.
II
SOMETHING IN THE SKY
When Sandy Chipmunk was just a little chap his mother began to teach him
to take care of himself. She told him that among other enemies he must
always watch out for foxes and minks and weasels--especially weasels.
"They are very dangerous," Mrs. Chipmunk said.
"Well, I'll always be safe if I climb a tree--won't I?" Sandy asked her.
"Goodness, no!" his mother replied. "There are many big birds--such as
hawks and owls and eagles--that would catch you if they could.... But
I'll tell you about _them_ some other time, Sandy."
Well, Sandy Chipmunk went out to play. But he didn't have what you would
call a good time, because he couldn't help thinking of his mother's
warning. He kept looking all around to see whether a weasel or a mink or
a fox might be trying to steal up behind him. And he kept looking up to
make sure that no big bird was ready to swoop down upon him.
But nothing of the sort happened--at least, not until the middle of the
afternoon. Sandy had begun to believe that his mother was too timid. He
did not think there was anything in Farmer Green's pasture to be afraid
of. There were the cows--nothing seemed to worry _them_. They ate grass,
or chewed their cuds, and never once looked behind them.
Sandy Chipmunk wandered further and further from home. For a long time he
had not taken the trouble to look at the sky. But at last he glanced up.
And to his great alarm he saw, hovering in the air far above him, an
enormous creature. He had never seen its like before. It seemed all head
and tail. Two great eyes stared at Sandy Chipmunk and sent a chill of
fear over him. The monster's wide mouth grinned at him cruelly. And its
long tail lashed back and forth as if its owner were very angry. Even as
Sandy looked at the creature it gave a horrid scream.
Sandy Chipmunk did not wait for anything else. He turned and ran home.
And a few of his friends who happened to see him remarked that he seemed
to be in a greater hurry than ever.
Sandy felt better when he found himself safe in his mother's house. And
he told Mrs. Chipmunk what he had seen.
"It may be an owl," he said, "because it has big, round eyes. But its
tail was not like any owl's tail that I ever saw. It was like six
catamounts' tails, all tied in knots."
"That's queer!" his mother remarked. "I never knew of a bird with a tail
like that."
"Maybe it's a beast that has learned to fly," Sandy suggested.
"Beasts can't fly," Mrs. Chipmunk said.
But Sandy knew better than that.
"There's the Flying-Squirrel family," he reminded her.
"They can only fly from one tree to another," his mother told him. "I
think I'll peep out and see for myself what this strange creature looks
like."
He begged her not to. But Mrs. Chipmunk said she would be careful. And
she went out and looked up at the sky.
Sandy was surprised when she came back laughing.
"What is it, Mother?" he asked. "Is it a bird or a beast?"
"Neither!" Mrs. Chipmunk answered with a smile.
"Then it must be a fish!" Sandy exclaimed.
"No! It's not a fish, either," his mother said. "It's nothing but a kite
that Johnnie Green has made. He has painted eyes and a mouth on it. And I
must say that if I didn't know a kite when I saw one it might have
frightened me."
"But what makes it lash its tail that way?" Sandy asked her.
"The wind is blowing it," Mrs. Chipmunk explained.
"What made it scream?" Sandy inquired.
"It didn't," his mother replied.
[Illustration: Mrs. Chipmunk Went to the Door with Sandy]
Now, Sandy Chipmunk knew better than to contradict his mother. So all he
said was this:
"Let's go outside and listen!"
Still smiling, Mrs. Chipmunk went to the door again with Sandy. And
pretty soon they heard a long, far-off wail.
"There!" he cried. "That's it! Don't you hear it, Mother?"
"That--" Mrs. Chipmunk said--"that is nothing but the whistle of an
engine, way down at the other end of Pleasant Valley."
III
THE BROKEN EGG
Nuts and grains were what Sandy Chipmunk ate more than anything else. But
sometimes when he could not find enough of those, or when he wanted a
change of food, he would eat almost any sort of berry, and apples and
pears as well. Tomatoes, too, he liked once in a while. And he was very
fond of sunflower seeds. He would not refuse a fat insect, either, if it
flew his way. But these were not the only dainties that Sandy thought
good. There was something else--something to be found in trees--for which
Sandy sometimes hunted. And before he came home, after finding what he
was looking for, he always wiped his mouth with great care.
If you had ever seen him wiping his mouth like that, you might have
guessed that Sandy Chipmunk had been eating birds' eggs. And the reason
he was so careful to remove all signs of his feast was because he did not
want his mother to know what he had been doing.
Now you have heard the worst there is to know about Sandy Chipmunk.
To you it may seem odd that Mrs. Chipmunk did not think it wrong to rob
birds' nests. And now you know the worst about _her_.
Sandy's mother liked eggs just as much as he did. But her son was such
a little fellow that she was afraid he might get hurt climbing trees
and looking for eggs. She told him that some day some bird might
surprise him when he was enjoying a meal of her eggs, and peck out one
or two of his eyes.
"Keep away from the nests!" Mrs. Chipmunk said.
But Sandy had had too many tastes of birds' eggs. He simply couldn't
resist eating a few eggs now and then. Of course, when he did that he
disobeyed his mother. And of course, if she had known it she would have
punished him.
As the spring days sped past, the birds that lived in Farmer Green's
pasture grew very angry with Sandy Chipmunk. You see, it was not
long before they discovered who it was that was robbing their nests
now and then.
"You'd better leave birds' eggs alone!" Mr. Crow warned him one day. "A
number of my friends have told me what they're going to do to you, if
they catch you near their nests."
But Sandy told Mr. Crow to keep his advice to himself.
"What about Farmer Green's corn?" Sandy asked the old gentleman. "I've
heard that Farmer Green is looking for you with a gun."
Mr. Crow didn't even answer him. He just flew away. There were some
things he didn't like to talk about.
That very afternoon Sandy Chipmunk spied a robin's nest in a tree not far
from where he lived. And in less time than it takes to tell it, he had
climbed the tree and run out on the limb where the nest rested.
Sandy Chipmunk smiled as he peered into the robin's nest. The four
greenish-blue eggs that he saw there looked very good to him. And he
smacked his lips--though his mother had often told him not to. He was
just picking the eggs out of the nest when he heard a rustle in the
leaves over his head. And Sandy Chipmunk looked up quickly.
It seemed to him, at first, that the air was full of monstrous birds.
Actually, there were only three of them--Mr. and Mrs. Robin and a
neighbor of theirs. But to Sandy they looked six times as big as they
really were. _That_ was because they had caught him robbing the nest.
He was so startled that he dropped the eggs. They fell back into the
nest--all except one, which broke upon the ground beneath the tree.
"Robber!" Mrs. Robin screamed.
"Thief!" Mr. Robin roared.
"Villain!" their neighbor cried.
It is a wonder they didn't fly straight at Sandy and knock him off the
limb.
At first he was too frightened to say a word. But when he saw that he
wasn't hurt, Sandy looked down at the broken egg and said:
"What a pity!" He meant it, too. For he thought it was a shame to waste a
perfectly good egg like that, when he might have eaten it.
"You don't mean you're sorry, do you?" Mrs. Robin asked him.
"Certainly I am!" Sandy told her. "I was just counting your eggs. And
when you startled me, I dropped that one. I thought it must be a hawk,
you all made such a noise."
"You're sure you weren't going to eat our eggs?" Mr. Robin inquired.
"Eat them!" Sandy exclaimed. "Why, my mother has often told me not to eat
birds' eggs."
When he heard that, Mr. Robin whispered something to his wife. And then
he said to Sandy Chipmunk:
"You go home! And don't let me catch you around this tree again!"
Sandy was glad to escape so easily as that. And though he was sorry to
have missed a good meal, there was one thing that made him almost
happy: He didn't have to bother to wipe his mouth before he let his
mother see him.
IV
BUILDING A HOUSE
There came a day when Sandy Chipmunk decided that he was old enough and
big enough to make a house of his own. He was not the sort of person to
think and think about a thing and put off the doing of it from one day to
another. So the moment the idea of a house popped into his head Sandy
Chipmunk began hunting for a good place to dig.
It was not long before he found a bit of ground that seemed to him the
very best spot for a home that any one could want.
The place where he intended to make his front door was in the middle of a
smooth plot among some beech trees. Farmer Green's cows had clipped the
grass short all around. And Sandy knew that he could have a neat dooryard
without being obliged to go to the trouble of cutting the grass himself.
But what he liked most of all about the place was that as he stood there
he could look all around in every direction. That was just what he
wanted, because whenever he wished to leave his new house he would be
able to peep out and see whether anybody was waiting to catch him.
So Sandy Chipmunk took off his little, short coat, folded it carefully,
and laid it down upon the grass. Then he pulled off his necktie and
unbuttoned his collar. Just because he was going to dig in the ground
there was no reason why he should get his clothes dirty.
After that Sandy Chipmunk set to work. And you should have seen how he
made the earth fly. When night came and he had to stop working there was
a big heap of dirt beneath the beech trees, to show how busy Sandy had
been. There was a big hole in the pasture, too. But it was nothing at
all, compared with the hole Sandy had dug by the time he had finished
his house.
Every morning Sandy Chipmunk came back to the grove of beech trees to
work upon his new house. And it was not many days before his burrow was
so deep that when winter came the ground about his chamber would not
freeze. It was what Farmer Green would have called "below frost-line."
You must not think it was an easy matter for Sandy Chipmunk to dig a
home. You must remember that somehow he had to bring the dirt out of his
tunnel to the top of the ground. And he did that by _pushing it ahead of
him with his nose_.
You may laugh when you hear that. But for Sandy Chipmunk it was no
laughing matter. If _he_ had laughed, just as likely as not he would have
found his mouth full of dirt. And you can understand that that wouldn't
have been very pleasant.
As it was, his face was very dirty. But he never went back to his
mother's house until he had washed it carefully, just as a cat washes her
face.
Sometimes Sandy found stones in his way, down there beneath the pasture.
And those he had to push up, too. Sometimes a stone was too big to crowd
through the opening into the world outside. And then Sandy had to make
the opening bigger. After he had done that, and pushed the stone out upon
his dirt-pile, he would make his doorway smaller again by packing earth
firmly into it.
You must not suppose that when Sandy brought the loose dirt and stones up
through his doorway he left them there. Not at all! He pushed all the
litter some distance away. And whenever he turned, to scamper down into
his burrow again, he would kick behind him, as hard as he could, to
scatter the dirt still further from his new house.
After Sandy had made himself a chamber where he could sleep, and where he
could store enough food to last him throughout the winter, any one would
naturally imagine that his house was finished. But Sandy Chipmunk was not
yet satisfied with his new home. There was still something else that he
wanted to do to it.
V
MRS. CHIPMUNK IS GLAD
After Sandy Chipmunk had dug his chamber underneath Farmer Green's
pasture, he liked the _inside_ of his house quite well. But the looks of
the _outside_ did not please him at all. He wanted a neat dooryard. And
how could he have that, with that yawning hole through which he had
pushed earth and stones, which still littered the grass a little
distance away?
Luckily, Sandy knew exactly what to do. So he set to work to close the
big work-hole. It was no easy task--as you can believe. But at last he
managed to pack the hole full of dirt.
Then he had no door at all. And there he was in the dark, inside the
hall that led to his chamber and storeroom. But that did not worry Sandy.
You see, he knew just what he was about. And before long he had dug a new
doorway--a small, neat, round hole, which you would probably have walked
right past, without noticing it, it was so hard to see in the grass that
grew thickly about it.
You might think that at last Sandy's house was finished. But he was not
satisfied with it until he had made still another doorway, in the same
fashion. He knew that it was safer to have an extra door through which he
could slip out when some enemy was entering by the other one. Then Sandy
Chipmunk's house was finished. And he was greatly pleased with it.
But his work was not yet done. He had to furnish his chamber. So he began
to hunt about for dry leaves, to make him a bed. These he stuffed into
his cheek-pouches and carried into his house. But he didn't march proudly
up to one of his two doors. Oh, no! He reached it by careful leaps and
bounds. And when he left home again he was particular to go in the same
manner in which he had come.
It made no difference which of his doors Sandy used. He always came and
went like that, because he didn't want to wear a path to either of his
two doors or tramp down the grass around them. If he had been so careless
as to let people notice where he lived he would have been almost sure to
have enemies prowling about his house. And if a weasel had happened to
see one of Sandy's neat doorways he would have pushed right in, in the
hope of finding Sandy inside his house.
In that case the weasel would probably have pushed out again, with Sandy
inside _him_. So you can understand that Sandy Chipmunk had the best of
reasons for being careful.
After he had made a soft, warm bed for himself, Sandy set to work to
gather nuts and grain, to store in his house and eat during the winter.
He was particular to choose only well cured (or dried) food, for he knew
that that was the only sort that would keep through the long winter, down
in his underground storeroom.
He gathered other food, too, besides nuts and grain. Near Farmer Green's
house he found some plump sunflower seeds, which he added to his store.
Then there were wild-cherry pits, too, which the birds had dropped upon
the ground. All these, and many other kinds of food, found their way into
Sandy Chipmunk's home.
Much as he liked such things to eat--and especially sunflower seeds--he
never ate a single nut or grain or seed while he gathered them for his
winter's food. And when you stop to remember that he had to carry
everything home in his _mouth_, you can see that Sandy Chipmunk had what
is called self-control.
His mother had always told him that he couldn't get through a winter
without that. And so, when Sandy brought her to see his new home, after
it was all finished, and his bed was neatly made, and his storeroom full
of food, Mrs. Chipmunk was delighted.
"I'm glad to see--" she said--"I'm glad to see that all my talking has
done some good."
VI
SAMPLES OF WHEAT
There was so much said about Sandy Chipmunk's store of nuts and grain
that a few of the forest-people began to wish they had some of Sandy's
winter food for themselves. Uncle Sammy <DW53>, an old scamp who lived over
near the swamp, was one of those who began to plan to get Sandy's hoard
away from him.
It was the grain that Uncle Sammy wanted. If he had spent in honest work
one-half the time he used in planning some trickery he would have been
much better off. But he hated work more than anything else in the world.
Uncle Sammy <DW53> scarcely slept at all for several days, he was so busy
thinking about Sandy's grain. And since he always passed his nights in
wandering through the woods, he became almost ill.
The trouble was, Uncle Sammy was far too big to crawl inside Sandy's
house. And he knew that the only way he could get at the grain was to
persuade somebody to bring it outside for him.
At last he thought of a fine scheme. And as soon as it came into his head
he hobbled over to Sandy Chipmunk's home. I say _hobbled_, because Uncle
Sammy had a lame knee. He always claimed that he was injured in battle.
But almost every one knew that he hurt his knee one time when Farmer
Green caught him stealing a hen.
When he reached the pasture Uncle Sammy found Sandy Chipmunk just
starting away to hunt for nuts.
[Illustration: He Dropped the Grain in Front of Uncle Sammy]
"Good morning!" the old fellow said. He spoke very pleasantly, though he
was so sleepy that he felt disagreeable enough. "I've come over to buy
something from your store."
"My store!" Sandy Chipmunk exclaimed.
"Yes!" said Uncle Sammy <DW53>. "I've heard you have a store here with a
heap of nuts and grain to sell."
Now, it had never occurred to Sandy Chipmunk to _sell_ any of the food he
had gathered for the winter. But when Uncle Sammy put the idea in his
head Sandy rather liked it.
"I have a fine stock, to be sure," he said. "The nuts are specially good.
How many would you like to buy?"
But Uncle Sammy <DW53> told him he didn't want any nuts.
"I never eat them," he said. "It's grain that I want. And I'll buy as
much as you care to sell.... Bring a sample of it up here," he urged.
"I'd like to see if it's as good as people say."
So Sandy Chipmunk darted into his house. And soon he appeared again with
his cheek-pouches crammed full of wheat kernels.
"There!" he cried, when he had dropped the grain in front of Uncle Sammy.
"Just try a little of it! You'll agree with me that it's very fine."
Uncle Sammy not only tried a little. He gobbled up every single kernel.
"It seems to me to have a queer taste," he said. "Bring up some more!"
And Sandy scurried down into his house again, to bob up in a few moments
with another sample of his grain.
Once more Uncle Sammy ate it all.
"It's a bit damp," he remarked, as he smacked his lips. "I hope it's not
moldy.... You'd better let me see another sample."
Uncle Sammy declared the next heap of kernels to be altogether too dry.
And he kept ordering Sandy to fetch more for him to "taste," as he called
it. Some of the wheat he considered too ripe, and some too green. Some of
the kernels--so he said--were too little, and others too big. And finally
he even told Sandy Chipmunk that he was afraid Sandy was trying to sell
him _last year's_ wheat.
Now, Sandy knew that his wheat was fresh--all of it. So he went down and
brought up still another load.
Uncle Sammy ate that more slowly, for by this time he had had a good
meal.
"How do you like it?" Sandy asked him.
"It's fair," Uncle Sammy replied. "But I believe it's _next year's_
wheat. And of course I wouldn't think of buying that kind.... I guess I
can't trade with you, after all." And he started to hobble away.
When Sandy heard that, and saw the old fellow leaving, he began to scold.
"Aren't you going to pay me for what you've eaten?" he asked.
"What! Pay you for the samples?" Uncle Sammy asked. "I guess, young man,
you don't know much about keeping a store. Nobody ever pays for samples."
And he went away muttering to himself.
Sandy Chipmunk felt very sad. Uncle Sammy had eaten half his winter's
supply of wheat.
Sandy was angry, too. And for several days he was busier than ever,
trying to think of some way in which he could make Uncle Sammy <DW53> pay
him.
VII
UNCLE SAMMY'S STORE
Not long after Uncle Sammy <DW53> ate half of Sandy Chipmunk's wheat
without paying for it he seemed to grow lamer than ever. And he walked
less than ever, too. A good many of the forest-folk said that he really
wasn't any lamer--but he was lazier.
However that may have been, he began to stay at home a good deal of the
time. And finally Sandy Chipmunk heard that Uncle Sammy had opened a
store, in which he kept all sorts of good things to eat.
When Sandy learned that he lost no time in going over to Uncle Sammy's
house near the swamp.
Sure enough! There he found Uncle Sammy sitting behind a long table. And
behind him were shelves loaded with apples, pears, corn, nuts and many
other kinds of food.
"I'd like to buy some nuts," Sandy Chipmunk told the old gentleman.
"Nuts?" said Uncle Sammy. "I have some fine nuts."
"Let me see a sample," Sandy said.
But Uncle Sammy never stirred.
"There they are, right on the shelf!" he said. "Look at them all
you want to."
"I'll eat one and see how I like it," said Sandy Chipmunk.
But Uncle Sammy shook his head.
"No!" he replied. "That's the old-fashioned way of keeping a store. I
don't give away any samples."
When Sandy heard that he was angrier than ever. And he wished he had
never given Uncle Sammy any samples of his wheat. But he knew there was
no use of _appearing angry_. So he smiled and asked:
"What is the price of your beechnuts?"
"For one handful, you will have to pay me an ear of corn," Uncle
Sammy said.
"I'll take a handful," said Sandy.
Still the old fellow never stirred.
"Where's your ear of corn?" he inquired.
"Oh! I'll give you that the next time I pass this way," said Sandy. And
he made up his mind that he would take good care to keep away from Uncle
Sammy's house.
But Uncle Sammy <DW53> was too sharp.
"That won't do at all," he said. "I must have the corn before I give you
the nuts."
So Sandy Chipmunk stepped to the door.
"I'll come back soon," he said. And he ran all the way to Farmer Green's
cornfield, to get an ear of green corn. And then he ran all the way back
to Uncle Sammy's house.
"There!" Sandy said. "There's your ear of corn!" He laid it upon the
table. "Now give me a handful of beechnuts."
"Step right in and help yourself," Uncle Sammy answered.
"No!" said Sandy. "You give me the nuts." He knew that Uncle Sammy's
hands were much bigger than his own and would hold more nuts.
"I should think you might get them," the old scamp grumbled. "I've a lame
knee, you know."
"But I said a 'handful'--not a 'kneeful,'" Sandy answered. "Of course, if
you don't want this juicy ear of corn, there are others that would like
it." He started to pick the ear of corn off the table when Uncle Sammy
rose quickly.
"All right!" he cried. "But it's the old-fashioned way; and I don't like
it." Then he gave Sandy a small handful of beechnuts.
Sandy Chipmunk ate them right on the spot. And he began to feel very
happy. He had noticed that Uncle Sammy tossed the ear of corn into a
basket which stood beneath the table. And the basket was full of corn.
Sandy could reach it just as easily from the front of the table as Uncle
Sammy could from behind it.
And Sandy Chipmunk had thought all at once of a way to get a good many
nuts away from Uncle Sammy, to pay for all the wheat Uncle Sammy had
eaten.
VIII
THE BASKET OF CORN
"What are those nuts on the top shelf?" Sandy Chipmunk asked Uncle
Sammy <DW53>.
Now, Uncle Sammy had been keeping store so short a time that he didn't
exactly know what was on every one of his shelves. So he wheeled around
and looked up. And as soon as his back was turned, Sandy Chipmunk reached
down under the table and pulled an ear of corn out of the big basket.
"They're butternuts," Uncle Sammy said. "And they're the same price as
the beechnuts."
"Give me one handful," Sandy said.
"_Give_ you a handful--" Uncle Sammy snapped.
But Sandy Chipmunk smiled at him.
"I mean, _sell_ me a handful," he explained. "And here's your ear of
corn." It really was Uncle Sammy's ear of corn, you know--just as
Sandy said.
But Uncle Sammy didn't know that. He didn't know it had come out of his
own basket. So he threw it into the basket and set a handful of
butternuts before Sandy Chipmunk.
Sandy was longer eating those, for the shells were harder and thicker
than the beechnut shells. But in a little while he was ready for more.
"How about your chestnuts?" he asked.
And Uncle Sammy turned his back again.
"I have a few," he said.
"I'll buy a handful," Sandy told him, as he pulled another ear of corn
out of the basket.
And after that Sandy bought hickory nuts and hazelnuts and walnuts.
"How about peanuts?" he asked then. "I've never eaten any; but I've heard
they are very good."
Uncle Sammy stood up and searched his shelves very carefully. And while
he was searching, Sandy Chipmunk took six ears of green corn out of the
big basket under the table.
"I don't seem to have any peanuts," Uncle Sammy <DW53> said at last.
"Well--have you any nutmegs?" Sandy inquired.
And while Uncle Sammy was looking for nutmegs, Sandy Chipmunk slyly took
six more ears from the basket. He had more corn now than he could carry.
So he quickly tossed it out through the doorway.
[Illustration: Uncle Sammy Searched His Shelves Carefully]
Uncle Sammy <DW53> had to admit at last that he had no nutmegs. But Sandy
kept him busy hunting for almonds and Brazil nuts and pecans, though he
knew well enough that nothing of the sort grew in those woods.
By the time Uncle Sammy stopped looking there was no more corn left in
his basket. But there was a great pile of corn on the ground just outside
his door, where Sandy Chipmunk had thrown it.
Then Sandy said he must be going. And long before Uncle Sammy stirred out
of his house Sandy had carried the corn away and hid it in a good, safe
place. He thought that if he left it to dry it would make just as good
food for winter as the wheat Uncle Sammy had eaten. And that was just
what happened.
That night, long after Sandy Chipmunk had left the store, Uncle Sammy
<DW53> had a great surprise. When he went to the basket, to get some green
corn for his supper, there was not a single ear there.
"That's queer!" Uncle Sammy <DW53> exclaimed. "It was full this afternoon.
And now there's not an ear left. I don't remember eating it." He thought
deeply for a long time. And after a while he said to himself: "I wonder
if it could have been that Chipmunk boy?" But he decided that Sandy was
too small to have carried away all those big ears under his very nose. "I
must have eaten it," he told himself. "I'm getting terribly forgetful."
And since he thought he had already had his supper, Uncle Sammy <DW53> went
to bed without any supper at all.
IX
WORKING FOR MR. CROW
Old Mr. Crow had decided that he would not fly south to spend the
winter. He said he was getting almost too old for such a long journey.
And he remembered, too, that he had heard the weather was going to be
mild that winter.
"There's just one thing that worries me," he told Aunt Polly Woodchuck
one day, when he was talking the matter over with her. "I don't know what
I shall have to eat."
"Why, you can sleep until spring, just as I do," Aunt Polly said. "Then
you won't want anything to eat."
But Mr. Crow said he was a light sleeper and that he could no more sleep
the whole winter long than Aunt Polly could fly.
"Then why don't you store up some corn, the way the squirrels do?" she
asked him. There was one thing about Aunt Polly--she always had a remedy
for everything.
"That's a good idea!" Mr. Crow told her. "Maybe I can get somebody to
help me, too."
And that very day he went to Sandy Chipmunk and asked him if he didn't
want to gather some food for him.
"How much will you pay me?" Sandy asked him.
"I'll give you half what you gather for me," said Mr. Crow. "And that's
certainly fair, I'm sure. It's often done. And it's called 'working at
the halves.'"
It seemed fair to Sandy Chipmunk, too.
"That's a bargain," he said. "I'll begin right away. Where do you want me
to hide the food for you, Mr. Crow?"
Old Mr. Crow told Sandy to put it in his house in the top of the tall elm
tree.
"I don't like to climb so high," Sandy objected. "You know I'm not so
good a climber as Frisky Squirrel. He wouldn't mind climbing up to your
house. But it might make me dizzy."
"Well," said Mr. Crow, "why don't you bring the food to the foot of my
tree and get Frisky Squirrel to carry it to the top?"
"I'll do it," said Sandy Chipmunk--"if Frisky is willing." So he went off
to find Frisky Squirrel, who proved to be much interested in the plan.
"How much will you pay me?" he asked Sandy Chipmunk.
"I suppose you ought to have half the food," Sandy said. "That's what
Mr. Crow is paying me."
Frisky Squirrel said that that seemed fair. So they set to work at once.
And every time Sandy brought a load of food to the foot of the tall elm,
where Mr. Crow lived, he found Frisky Squirrel waiting for him.
"Let's see--" Frisky said, when Sandy brought the first load--"since I'm
to get half, I'll take everything you bring in your left cheek-pouch. And
you can take what you bring in the right one."
Sandy Chipmunk said that that seemed fair. So each time he came to the
elm he left with Frisky only what he carried in his left cheek-pouch. And
before gathering more food he scampered home to store away his own share.
So the day passed. And when evening came, and the sun was dropping out
of sight in the west, Sandy and Frisky decided they had worked long
enough for Mr. Crow.
"Don't you suppose he has enough food by this time?" Sandy asked. He
looked up at Mr. Crow's house. "We mustn't fill his house too full," he
said. "He has to have room for himself, you know."
"I don't think he'll have any trouble getting inside it," Frisky
Squirrel answered.
"Well--I'm glad you helped me," Sandy told him. "If it didn't make me
dizzy to climb so high I'd like to take a look at Mr. Crow's food. I hope
he'll be pleased."
"I hope he will," Frisky Squirrel agreed.
Sandy Chipmunk noticed that Frisky Squirrel was smiling. But he thought
that it was only because he was thinking about Mr. Crow, and how happy
he would be.
"Let's wait here till he comes home," Sandy suggested.
But Frisky Squirrel said that he was going to bed early that night,
because he expected to have a race with the sun the next morning.
"I'm going to try to beat him," he explained. "I'm going to see if I
can't get up before he does."
So Frisky said good-night and left Sandy to wait for Mr. Crow alone.
X
MR. CROW SCOLDS SANDY
When he finally reached home, after Sandy Chipmunk had been working for
him all day, Mr. Crow was feeling very pleasant. You know, he thought
that his winter's food must be in his house. And that alone is enough to
make any one happy. But what Mr. Crow liked most about his bargain was
the fact that he wouldn't have to pay Sandy for his work. He had said to
Sandy: "I'll agree to give you half what you gather for me." And Sandy
Chipmunk had never stopped to think that that was not any pay at all. For
he might have gathered the food for himself, and had all, instead of
only half of it. As it was, Sandy Chipmunk was paying himself for working
for Mr. Crow. And Mr. Crow seemed to be the only one that was wise enough
to know it.
Mr. Crow dropped down upon the ground beside Sandy Chipmunk.
"Well," he said, "have you finished?"
"Yes!" Sandy answered. "And I hope you'll like what I've done. I'll wait
here until you fly up to your house and look at the food."
"All right!" Mr. Crow told him. He flapped his big, black wings. And soon
he had risen to the top of the tall elm.
Sandy watched him as he looked inside his house. At first Mr. Crow only
stared--and said nothing. And then--to Sandy's astonishment--he began to
scold.
"What's the trouble?" Sandy Chipmunk called.
"Trouble?" Mr. Crow cried, as he flew down again. "There's trouble
enough. Why, you haven't kept your bargain!"
Sandy Chipmunk declared that he had done exactly as he had agreed.
"I brought load after load of food to the foot of this tree,"
he explained. "Half of it I took for myself--just as you suggested. Of
course, I had to pay Frisky Squirrel for helping me. I paid him half the
food for carrying it up to your house."
"That's it!" Mr. Crow cried. "That's the trouble! You took half and
Frisky Squirrel took half. So of course there was no food left for me.
There are two halves in a whole, you know."
"You must be mistaken," Sandy told him politely. "There's only _one_ half
in my hole. I put my half there myself, and I ought to know."
Mr. Crow looked as if he thought Sandy Chipmunk must be playing a trick
on him. But pretty soon he saw that it was not so.
"You don't seem to understand," Mr. Crow said. "I don't believe you've
ever studied fractions."
Sandy Chipmunk admitted that he never had.
"Ah!" Mr. Crow exclaimed. "This is what comes of hiring stupid people
to work for one. Here I've wasted all my corn. And I get nothing for it
but trouble."
"Corn!" Sandy Chipmunk exclaimed. "I don't know anything about any corn!"
"Well, you certainly are stupid!" Mr. Crow told him crossly. "Didn't you
spend the whole day gathering corn for me?"
"No, indeed!" Sandy replied. "I gathered beechnuts, Mr. Crow."
"Beechnuts!" Mr. Crow repeated. "I never told you I wanted _nuts_. I'd
starve, trying to live on nuts; for they don't agree with me at all. And
I make it a rule never to eat them. _Corn_ is what I want."
"You didn't say so," Sandy Chipmunk said. "You asked me to gather _food_
for you. And every one knows there's no better food than beechnuts to
last through the winter."
"That--" said Mr. Crow--"that is where we do not agree. I supposed you
knew I wanted corn. But there's no great harm done, anyhow," he added.
"Tomorrow you can gather _corn_ for me--now that you know what I want. No
doubt you can get Frisky Squirrel to help you again. But you must pay him
with _your_ share of the corn--not with mine."
"But then there wouldn't be any left for me," Sandy objected.
"But just think of all the beechnuts you have," Mr. Crow reminded him.
Sandy Chipmunk shook his head. "I'm afraid I'm too stupid to work for
you any more," he told Mr. Crow.
"Oh! I didn't mean what I said," Mr. Crow hastened to explain.
"Then--" Sandy said--"then how do I know that you mean what you say when
you tell me you want corn to eat?"
And Mr. Crow could find no answer to that. He was disappointed, too. For
he was afraid he would have to go south to spend the winter, after all.
XI
THE MAIL-BOX
Climbing an oak at the cross-roads one day, not far from Farmer Green's
house, Sandy Chipmunk discovered a queer box nailed to the trunk of the
tree. Much as he wanted to, he couldn't look inside the box, because its
lid was closed. And since Sandy was afraid the box might be some sort of
trap, he didn't dare go near it and poke at the lid.
Later that day Sandy told Frisky Squirrel about the strange box. And
Frisky told Fatty <DW53>. |
10,240 |
Produced by David Widger
LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI
BY MARK TWAIN
Part 6.
Chapter 26 Under Fire
TALK began to run upon the war now, for we were getting down into the
upper edge of the former battle-stretch by this time. Columbus was just
behind us, so there was a good deal said about the famous battle of
Belmont. Several of the boat's officers had seen active service in the
Mississippi war-fleet. I gathered that they found themselves sadly out
of their element in that kind of business at first, but afterward got
accustomed to it, reconciled to it, and more or less at home in it. One
of our pilots had his first war experience in the Belmont fight, as a
pilot on a boat in the Confederate service. I had often had a curiosity
to know how a green hand might feel, in his maiden battle, perched all
solitary and alone on high in a pilot house, a target for Tom, Dick and
Harry, and nobody at his elbow to shame him from showing the white
feather when matters grew hot and perilous around him; so, to me his
story was valuable--it filled a gap for me which all histories had left
till that time empty.
THE PILOT'S FIRST BATTLE
He said--
It was the 7th of November. The fight began at seven in the morning. I
was on the 'R. H. W. Hill.' Took over a load of troops from Columbus.
Came back, and took over a battery of artillery. My partner said he was
going to see the fight; wanted me to go along. I said, no, I wasn't
anxious, I would look at it from the pilot-house. He said I was a
coward, and left.
That fight was an awful sight. General Cheatham made his men strip
their coats off and throw them in a pile, and said, 'Now follow me to
hell or victory!' I heard him say that from the pilot-house; and then
he galloped in, at the head of his troops. Old General Pillow, with his
white hair, mounted on a white horse, sailed in, too, leading his troops
as lively as a boy. By and by the Federals chased the rebels back, and
here they came! tearing along, everybody for himself and Devil take the
hindmost! and down under the bank they scrambled, and took shelter. I
was sitting with my legs hanging out of the pilot-house window. All at
once I noticed a whizzing sound passing my ear. Judged it was a bullet.
I didn't stop to think about anything, I just tilted over backwards and
landed on the floor, and staid there. The balls came booming around.
Three cannon-balls went through the chimney; one ball took off the
corner of the pilot-house; shells were screaming and bursting all
around. Mighty warm times--I wished I hadn't come. I lay there on the
pilot-house floor, while the shots came faster and faster. I crept in
behind the big stove, in the middle of the pilot-house. Presently a
minie-ball came through the stove, and just grazed my head, and cut my
hat. I judged it was time to go away from there. The captain was on
the roof with a red-headed major from Memphis--a fine-looking man. I
heard him say he wanted to leave here, but 'that pilot is killed.' I
crept over to the starboard side to pull the bell to set her back;
raised up and took a look, and I saw about fifteen shot holes through
the window panes; had come so lively I hadn't noticed them. I glanced
out on the water, and the spattering shot were like a hailstorm. I
thought best to get out of that place. I went down the pilot-house guy,
head first--not feet first but head first--slid down--before I struck
the deck, the captain said we must leave there. So I climbed up the guy
and got on the floor again. About that time, they collared my partner
and were bringing him up to the pilot-house between two soldiers.
Somebody had said I was killed. He put his head in and saw me on the
floor reaching for the backing bells. He said, 'Oh, hell, he ain't
shot,' and jerked away from the men who had him by the collar, and ran
below. We were there until three o'clock in the afternoon, and then got
away all right.
The next time I saw my partner, I said, 'Now, come out, be honest, and
tell me the truth. Where did you go when you went to see that battle?'
He says, 'I went down in the hold.'
All through that fight I was scared nearly to death. I hardly knew
anything, I was so frightened; but you see, nobody knew that but me.
Next day General Polk sent for me, and praised me for my bravery and
gallant conduct. I never said anything, I let it go at that. I judged
it wasn't so, but it was not for me to contradict a general officer.
Pretty soon after that I was sick, and used up, and had to go off to the
Hot Springs. When there, I got a good many letters from commanders
saying they wanted me to come back. I declined, because I wasn't well
enough or strong enough; but I kept still, and kept the reputation I had
made.
A plain story, straightforwardly told; but Mumford told me that that
pilot had 'gilded that scare of his, in spots;' that his subsequent
career in the war was proof of it.
We struck down through the chute of Island No. 8, and I went below and
fell into conversation with a passenger, a handsome man, with easy
carriage and an intelligent face. We were approaching Island No. 10, a
place so celebrated during the war. This gentleman's home was on the
main shore in its neighborhood. I had some talk with him about the war
times; but presently the discourse fell upon 'feuds,' for in no part of
the South has the vendetta flourished more briskly, or held out longer
between warring families, than in this particular region. This gentleman
said--
'There's been more than one feud around here, in old times, but I reckon
the worst one was between the Darnells and the Watsons. Nobody don't
know now what the first quarrel was about, it's so long ago; the
Darnells and the Watsons don't know, if there's any of them living,
which I don't think there is. Some says it was about a horse or a cow--
anyway, it was a little matter; the money in it wasn't of no
consequence--none in the world--both families was rich. The thing could
have been fixed up, easy enough; but no, that wouldn't do. Rough words
had been passed; and so, nothing but blood could fix it up after that.
That horse or cow, whichever it was, cost sixty years of killing and
crippling! Every year or so somebody was shot, on one side or the other;
and as fast as one generation was laid out, their sons took up the feud
and kept it a-going. And it's just as I say; they went on shooting each
other, year in and year out--making a kind of a religion of it, you see
--till they'd done forgot, long ago, what it was all about. Wherever a
Darnell caught a Watson, or a Watson caught a Darnell, one of 'em was
going to get hurt--only question was, which of them got the drop on the
other. They'd shoot one another down, right in the presence of the
family. They didn't hunt for each other, but when they happened to meet,
they puffed and begun. Men would shoot boys, boys would shoot men. A
man shot a boy twelve years old--happened on him in the woods, and
didn't give him no chance. If he HAD 'a' given him a chance, the boy'd
'a' shot him. Both families belonged to the same church (everybody
around here is religious); through all this fifty or sixty years' fuss,
both tribes was there every Sunday, to worship. They lived each side of
the line, and the church was at a landing called Compromise. Half the
church and half the aisle was in Kentucky, the other half in Tennessee.
Sundays you'd see the families drive up, all in their Sunday clothes,
men, women, and children, and file up the aisle, and set down, quiet and
orderly, one lot on the Tennessee side of the church and the other on
the Kentucky side; and the men and boys would lean their guns up against
the wall, handy, and then all hands would join in with the prayer and
praise; though they say the man next the aisle didn't kneel down, along
with the rest of the family; kind of stood guard. I don't know; never
was at that church in my life; but I remember that that's what used to
be said.
'Twenty or twenty-five years ago, one of the feud families caught a
young man of nineteen out and killed him. Don't remember whether it was
the Darnells and Watsons, or one of the other feuds; but anyway, this
young man rode up--steamboat laying there at the time--and the first
thing he saw was a whole gang of the enemy. He jumped down behind a
wood-pile, but they rode around and begun on him, he firing back, and
they galloping and cavorting and yelling and banging away with all their
might. Think he wounded a couple of them; but they closed in on him and
chased him into the river; and as he swum along down stream, they
followed along the bank and kept on shooting at him; and when he struck
shore he was dead. Windy Marshall told me about it. He saw it. He was
captain of the boat.
'Years ago, the Darnells was so thinned out that the old man and his two
sons concluded they'd leave the country. They started to take steamboat
just above No. 10; but the Watsons got wind of it; and they arrived just
as the two young Darnells was walking up the companion-way with their
wives on their arms. The fight begun then, and they never got no
further--both of them killed. After that, old Darnell got into trouble
with the man that run the ferry, and the ferry-man got the worst of it--
and died. But his friends shot old Darnell through and through--filled
him full of bullets, and ended him.'
The country gentleman who told me these things had been reared in ease
and comfort, was a man of good parts, and was college bred. His loose
grammar was the fruit of careless habit, not ignorance. This habit among
educated men in the West is not universal, but it is prevalent--
prevalent in the towns, certainly, if not in the cities; and to a degree
which one cannot help noticing, and marveling at. I heard a Westerner
who would be accounted a highly educated man in any country, say 'never
mind, it DON'T MAKE NO DIFFERENCE, anyway.' A life-long resident who was
present heard it, but it made no impression upon her. She was able to
recall the fact afterward, when reminded of it; but she confessed that
the words had not grated upon her ear at the time--a confession which
suggests that if educated people can hear such blasphemous grammar, from
such a source, and be unconscious of the deed, the crime must be
tolerably common--so common that the general ear has become dulled by
familiarity with it, and is no longer alert, no longer sensitive to such
affronts.
No one in the world speaks blemishless grammar; no one has ever written
it--NO one, either in the world or out of it (taking the Scriptures for
evidence on the latter point); therefore it would not be fair to exact
grammatical perfection from the peoples of the Valley; but they and all
other peoples may justly be required to refrain from KNOWINGLY and
PURPOSELY debauching their grammar.
I found the river greatly changed at Island No. 10. The island which I
remembered was some three miles long and a quarter of a mile wide,
heavily timbered, and lay near the Kentucky shore--within two hundred
yards of it, I should say. Now, however, one had to hunt for it with a
spy-glass. Nothing was left of it but an insignificant little tuft, and
this was no longer near the Kentucky shore; it was clear over against
the opposite shore, a mile away. In war times the island had been an
important place, for it commanded the situation; and, being heavily
fortified, there was no getting by it. It lay between the upper and
lower divisions of the Union forces, and kept them separate, until a
junction was finally effected across the Missouri neck of land; but the
island being itself joined to that neck now, the wide river is without
obstruction.
In this region the river passes from Kentucky into Tennessee, back into
Missouri, then back into Kentucky, and thence into Tennessee again. So a
mile or two of Missouri sticks over into Tennessee.
The town of New Madrid was looking very unwell; but otherwise unchanged
from its former condition and aspect. Its blocks of frame-houses were
still grouped in the same old flat plain, and environed by the same old
forests. It was as tranquil as formerly, and apparently had neither
grown nor diminished in size. It was said that the recent high water
had invaded it and damaged its looks. This was surprising news; for in
low water the river bank is very high there (fifty feet), and in my day
an overflow had always been considered an impossibility. This present
flood of 1882 Will doubtless be celebrated in the river's history for
several generations before a deluge of like magnitude shall be seen. It
put all the unprotected low lands under water, from Cairo to the mouth;
it broke down the levees in a great many places, on both sides of the
river; and in some regions south, when the flood was at its highest, the
Mississippi was SEVENTY MILES wide! a number of lives were lost, and the
destruction of property was fearful. The crops were destroyed, houses
washed away, and shelterless men and cattle forced to take refuge on
scattering elevations here and there in field and forest, and wait in
peril and suffering until the boats put in commission by the national
and local governments and by newspaper enterprise could come and rescue
them. The properties of multitudes of people were under water for
months, and the poorer ones must have starved by the hundred if succor
had not been promptly afforded.{footnote [For a detailed and interesting
description of the great flood, written on board of the New Orleans
TIMES-DEMOCRAT'S relief-boat, see Appendix A]} The water had been
falling during a considerable time now, yet as a rule we found the banks
still under water.
Chapter 27 Some Imported Articles
WE met two steamboats at New Madrid. Two steamboats in sight at once!
an infrequent spectacle now in the lonesome Mississippi. The loneliness
of this solemn, stupendous flood is impressive--and depressing. League
after league, and still league after league, it pours its chocolate tide
along, between its solid forest walls, its almost untenanted shores,
with seldom a sail or a moving object of any kind to disturb the surface
and break the monotony of the blank, watery solitude; and so the day
goes, the night comes, and again the day--and still the same, night
after night and day after day--majestic, unchanging sameness of
serenity, repose, tranquillity, lethargy, vacancy--symbol of eternity,
realization of the heaven pictured by priest and prophet, and longed for
by the good and thoughtless!
Immediately after the war of 1812, tourists began to come to America,
from England; scattering ones at first, then a sort of procession of
them--a procession which kept up its plodding, patient march through the
land during many, many years. Each tourist took notes, and went home and
published a book--a book which was usually calm, truthful, reasonable,
kind; but which seemed just the reverse to our tender-footed
progenitors. A glance at these tourist-books shows us that in certain of
its aspects the Mississippi has undergone no change since those
strangers visited it, but remains to-day about as it was then. The
emotions produced in those foreign breasts by these aspects were not all
formed on one pattern, of course; they HAD to be various, along at
first, because the earlier tourists were obliged to originate their
emotions, whereas in older countries one can always borrow emotions from
one's predecessors. And, mind you, emotions are among the toughest
things in the world to manufacture out of whole cloth; it is easier to
manufacture seven facts than one emotion. Captain Basil Hall. R.N.,
writing fifty-five years ago, says--
'Here I caught the first glimpse of the object I had so long wished to
behold, and felt myself amply repaid at that moment for all the trouble
I had experienced in coming so far; and stood looking at the river
flowing past till it was too dark to distinguish anything. But it was
not till I had visited the same spot a dozen times, that I came to a
right comprehension of the grandeur of the scene.'
Following are Mrs. Trollope's emotions. She is writing a few months
later in the same year, 1827, and is coming in at the mouth of the
Mississippi--
'The first indication of our approach to land was the appearance of this
mighty river pouring forth its muddy mass of waters, and mingling with
the deep blue of the Mexican Gulf. I never beheld a scene so utterly
desolate as this entrance of the Mississippi. Had Dante seen it, he
might have drawn images of another Borgia from its horrors. One only
object rears itself above the eddying waters; this is the mast of a
vessel long since wrecked in attempting to cross the bar, and it still
stands, a dismal witness of the destruction that has been, and a boding
prophet of that which is to come.'
Emotions of Hon. Charles Augustus Murray (near St. Louis), seven years
later--
'It is only when you ascend the mighty current for fifty or a hundred
miles, and use the eye of imagination as well as that of nature, that
you begin to understand all his might and majesty. You see him
fertilizing a boundless valley, bearing along in his course the trophies
of his thousand victories over the shattered forest--here carrying away
large masses of soil with all their growth, and there forming islands,
destined at some future period to be the residence of man; and while
indulging in this prospect, it is then time for reflection to suggest
that the current before you has flowed through two or three thousand
miles, and has yet to travel one thousand three hundred more before
reaching its ocean destination.'
Receive, now, the emotions of Captain Marryat, R.N. author of the sea
tales, writing in 1837, three years after Mr. Murray--
'Never, perhaps, in the records of nations, was there an instance of a
century of such unvarying and unmitigated crime as is to be collected
from the history of the turbulent and blood-stained Mississippi. The
stream itself appears as if appropriate for the deeds which have been
committed. It is not like most rivers, beautiful to the sight,
bestowing fertility in its course; not one that the eye loves to dwell
upon as it sweeps along, nor can you wander upon its banks, or trust
yourself without danger to its stream. It is a furious, rapid,
desolating torrent, loaded with alluvial soil; and few of those who are
received into its waters ever rise again, {footnote [There was a foolish
superstition of some little prevalence in that day, that the Mississippi
would neither buoy up a swimmer, nor permit a drowned person's body to
rise to the surface.]} or can support themselves long upon its surface
without assistance from some friendly log. It contains the coarsest and
most uneatable of fish, such as the cat-fish and such genus, and as you
descend, its banks are occupied with the fetid alligator, while the
panther basks at its edge in the cane-brakes, almost impervious to man.
Pouring its impetuous waters through wild tracks covered with trees of
little value except for firewood, it sweeps down whole forests in its
course, which disappear in tumultuous confusion, whirled away by the
stream now loaded with the masses of soil which nourished their roots,
often blocking up and changing for a time the channel of the river,
which, as if in anger at its being opposed, inundates and devastates the
whole country round; and as soon as it forces its way through its former
channel, plants in every direction the uprooted monarchs of the forest
(upon whose branches the bird will never again perch, or the raccoon,
the opossum, or the squirrel climb) as traps to the adventurous
navigators of its waters by steam, who, borne down upon these concealed
dangers which pierce through the planks, very often have not time to
steer for and gain the shore before they sink to the bottom. There are
no pleasing associations connected with the great common sewer of the
Western America, which pours out its mud into the Mexican Gulf,
polluting the clear blue sea for many miles beyond its mouth. It is a
river of desolation; and instead of reminding you, like other beautiful
rivers, of an angel which has descended for the benefit of man, you
imagine it a devil, whose energies have been only overcome by the
wonderful power of steam.'
It is pretty crude literature for a man accustomed to handling a pen;
still, as a panorama of the emotions sent weltering through this noted
visitor's breast by the aspect and traditions of the 'great common
sewer,' it has a value. A value, though marred in the matter of
statistics by inaccuracies; for the catfish is a plenty good enough fish
for anybody, and there are no panthers that are 'impervious to man.'
Later still comes Alexander Mackay, of the Middle Temple, Barrister at
Law, with a better digestion, and no catfish dinner aboard, and feels as
follows--
'The Mississippi! It was with indescribable emotions that I first felt
myself afloat upon its waters. How often in my schoolboy dreams, and in
my waking visions afterwards, had my imagination pictured to itself the
lordly stream, rolling with tumultuous current through the boundless
region to which it has given its name, and gathering into itself, in its
course to the ocean, the tributary waters of almost every latitude in
the temperate zone! Here it was then in its reality, and I, at length,
steaming against its tide. I looked upon it with that reverence with
which everyone must regard a great feature of external nature.'
So much for the emotions. The tourists, one and all, remark upon the
deep, brooding loneliness and desolation of the vast river. Captain
Basil Hall, who saw it at flood-stage, says--
'Sometimes we passed along distances of twenty or thirty miles without
seeing a single habitation. An artist, in search of hints for a
painting of the deluge, would here have found them in abundance.'
The first shall be last, etc. just two hundred years ago, the old
original first and gallantest of all the foreign tourists, pioneer, head
of the procession, ended his weary and tedious discovery-voyage down the
solemn stretches of the great river--La Salle, whose name will last as
long as the river itself shall last. We quote from Mr. Parkman--
'And now they neared their journey's end. On the sixth of April, the
river divided itself into three broad channels. La Salle followed that
of the west, and D'Autray that of the east; while Tonty took the middle
passage. As he drifted down the turbid current, between the low and
marshy shores, the brackish water changed to brine, and the breeze grew
fresh with the salt breath of the sea. Then the broad bosom of the great
Gulf opened on his sight, tossing its restless billows, limitless,
voiceless, lonely as when born of chaos, without a sail, without a sign
of life.'
Then, on a spot of solid ground, La Salle reared a column 'bearing the
arms of France; the Frenchmen were mustered under arms; and while the
New England Indians and their squaws looked on in wondering silence,
they chanted the TE DEUM, THE EXAUDIAT, and the DOMINE SALVUM FAC
REGEM.'
Then, whilst the musketry volleyed and rejoicing shouts burst forth, the
victorious discoverer planted the column, and made proclamation in a
loud voice, taking formal possession of the river and the vast countries
watered by it, in the name of the King. The column bore this
inscription--
LOUIS LE GRAND, ROY DE FRANCE ET DE NAVARRE, REGNE; LE NEUVIEME AVRIL,
1682.
New Orleans intended to fittingly celebrate, this present year, the
bicentennial anniversary of this illustrious event; but when the time
came, all her energies and surplus money were required in other
directions, for the flood was upon the land then, making havoc and
devastation everywhere.
Chapter 28 Uncle Mumford Unloads
ALL day we swung along down the river, and had the stream almost wholly
to ourselves. Formerly, at such a stage of the water, we should have
passed acres of lumber rafts, and dozens of big coal barges; also
occasional little trading-scows, peddling along from farm to farm, with
the peddler's family on board; possibly, a random scow, bearing a humble
Hamlet and Co. on an itinerant dramatic trip. But these were all
absent. Far along in the day, we saw one steamboat; just one, and no
more. She was lying at rest in the shade, within the wooded mouth of the
Obion River. The spy-glass revealed the fact that she was named for me
--or HE was named for me, whichever you prefer. As this was the first
time I had ever encountered this species of honor, it seems excusable to
mention it, and at the same time call the attention of the authorities
to the tardiness of my recognition of it.
Noted a big change in the river, at Island 21. It was a very large
island, and used to be out toward mid-stream; but it is joined fast to
the main shore now, and has retired from business as an island.
As we approached famous and formidable Plum Point, darkness fell, but
that was nothing to shudder about--in these modern times. For now the
national government has turned the Mississippi into a sort of two-
thousand-mile torchlight procession. In the head of every crossing, and
in the foot of every crossing, the government has set up a clear-burning
lamp. You are never entirely in the dark, now; there is always a beacon
in sight, either before you, or behind you, or abreast. One might almost
say that lamps have been squandered there. Dozens of crossings are
lighted which were not shoal when they were created, and have never been
shoal since; crossings so plain, too, and also so straight, that a
steamboat can take herself through them without any help, after she has
been through once. Lamps in such places are of course not wasted; it is
much more convenient and comfortable for a pilot to hold on them than on
a spread of formless blackness that won't stay still; and money is saved
to the boat, at the same time, for she can of course make more miles
with her rudder amidships than she can with it squared across her stern
and holding her back.
But this thing has knocked the romance out of piloting, to a large
extent. It, and some other things together, have knocked all the romance
out of it. For instance, the peril from snags is not now what it once
was. The government's snag-boats go patrolling up and down, in these
matter-of-fact days, pulling the river's teeth; they have rooted out all
the old clusters which made many localities so formidable; and they
allow no new ones to collect. Formerly, if your boat got away from you,
on a black night, and broke for the woods, it was an anxious time with
you; so was it also, when you were groping your way through solidified
darkness in a narrow chute; but all that is changed now--you flash out
your electric light, transform night into day in the twinkling of an
eye, and your perils and anxieties are at an end. Horace Bixby and
George Ritchie have charted the crossings and laid out the courses by
compass; they have invented a lamp to go with the chart, and have
patented the whole. With these helps, one may run in the fog now, with
considerable security, and with a confidence unknown in the old days.
With these abundant beacons, the banishment of snags, plenty of daylight
in a box and ready to be turned on whenever needed, and a chart and
compass to fight the fog with, piloting, at a good stage of water, is
now nearly as safe and simple as driving stage, and is hardly more than
three times as romantic.
And now in these new days, these days of infinite change, the Anchor
Line have raised the captain above the pilot by giving him the bigger
wages of the two. This was going far, but they have not stopped there.
They have decreed that the pilot shall remain at his post, and stand his
watch clear through, whether the boat be under way or tied up to the
shore. We, that were once the aristocrats of the river, can't go to bed
now, as we used to do, and sleep while a hundred tons of freight are
lugged aboard; no, we must sit in the pilot-house; and keep awake, too.
Verily we are being treated like a parcel of mates and engineers. The
Government has taken away the romance of our calling; the Company has
taken away its state and dignity.
Plum Point looked as it had always looked by night, with the exception
that now there were beacons to mark the crossings, and also a lot of
other lights on the Point and along its shore; these latter glinting
from the fleet of the United States River Commission, and from a village
which the officials have built on the land for offices and for the
employees of the service. The military engineers of the Commission have
taken upon their shoulders the job of making the Mississippi over again
--a job transcended in size by only the original job of creating it. They
are building wing-dams here and there, to deflect the current; and dikes
to confine it in narrower bounds; and other dikes to make it stay there;
and for unnumbered miles along the Mississippi, they are felling the
timber-front for fifty yards back, with the purpose of shaving the bank
down to low-water mark with the slant of a house roof, and ballasting it
with stones; and in many places they have protected the wasting shores
with rows of piles. One who knows the Mississippi will promptly aver--
not aloud, but to himself--that ten thousand River Commissions, with the
mines of the world at their back, cannot tame that lawless stream,
cannot curb it or confine it, cannot say to it, Go here, or Go there,
and make it obey; cannot save a shore which it has sentenced; cannot bar
its path with an obstruction which it will not tear down, dance over,
and laugh at. But a discreet man will not put these things into spoken
words; for the West Point engineers have not their superiors anywhere;
they know all that can be known of their abstruse science; and so, since
they conceive that they can fetter and handcuff that river and boss him,
it is but wisdom for the unscientific man to keep still, lie low, and
wait till they do it. Captain Eads, with his jetties, has done a work
at the mouth of the Mississippi which seemed clearly impossible; so we
do not feel full confidence now to prophesy against like
impossibilities. Otherwise one would pipe out and say the Commission
might as well bully the comets in their courses and undertake to make
them behave, as try to bully the Mississippi into right and reasonable
conduct.
I consulted Uncle Mumford concerning this and cognate matters; and I
give here the result, stenographically reported, and therefore to be
relied on as being full and correct; except that I have here and there
left out remarks which were addressed to the men, such as 'where in
blazes are you going with that barrel now?' and which seemed to me to
break the flow of the written statement, without compensating by adding
to its information or its clearness. Not that I have ventured to strike
out all such interjections; I have removed only those which were
obviously irrelevant; wherever one occurred which I felt any question
about, I have judged it safest to let it remain.
UNCLE MUMFORD'S IMPRESSIONS
Uncle Mumford said--
'As long as I have been mate of a steamboat--thirty years--I have
watched this river and studied it. Maybe I could have learnt more about
it at West Point, but if I believe it I wish I may be WHAT ARE YOU
SUCKING YOUR FINGERS THERE FOR?--COLLAR THAT KAG OF NAILS! Four years
at West Point, and plenty of books and schooling, will learn a man a
good deal, I reckon, but it won't learn him the river. You turn one of
those little European rivers over to this Commission, with its hard
bottom and clear water, and it would just be a holiday job for them to
wall it, and pile it, and dike it, and tame it down, and boss it around,
and make it go wherever they wanted it to, and stay where they put it,
and do just as they said, every time. But this ain't that kind of a
river. They have started in here with big confidence, and the best
intentions in the world; but they are going to get left. What does
Ecclesiastes vii. 13 say? Says enough to knock THEIR little game
galley-west, don't it? Now you look at their methods once. There at
Devil's Island, in the Upper River, they wanted the water to go one way,
the water wanted to go another. So they put up a stone wall. But what
does the river care for a stone wall? When it got ready, it just bulged
through it. Maybe they can build another that will stay; that is, up
there--but not down here they can't. Down here in the Lower River, they
drive some pegs to turn the water away from the shore and stop it from
slicing off the bank; very well, don't it go straight over and cut
somebody else's bank? Certainly. Are they going to peg all the banks?
Why, they could buy ground and build a new Mississippi cheaper. They are
pegging Bulletin Tow-head now. It won't do any good. If the river has
got a mortgage on that island, it will foreclose, sure, pegs or no pegs.
Away down yonder, they have driven two rows of piles straight through
the middle of a dry bar half a mile long, which is forty foot out of the
water when the river is low. What do you reckon that is for? If I know,
I wish I may land in-HUMP YOURSELF, YOU SON OF AN UNDERTAKER!--OUT WITH
THAT COAL-OIL, NOW, LIVELY, LIVELY! And just look at what they are
trying to do down there at Milliken's Bend. There's been a cut-off in
that section, and Vicksburg is left out in the cold. It's a country
town now. The river strikes in below it; and a boat can't go up to the
town except in high water. Well, they are going to build wing-dams in
the bend opposite the foot of 103, and throw the water over and cut off
the foot of the island and plow down into an old ditch where the river
used to be in ancient times; and they think they can persuade the water
around that way, and get it to strike in above Vicksburg, as it used to
do, and fetch the town back into the world again. That is, they are
going to take this whole Mississippi, and twist it around and make it
run several miles UP STREAM. Well you've got to admire men that deal in
ideas of that size and can tote them around without crutches; but you
haven't got to believe they can DO such miracles, have you! And yet you
ain't absolutely obliged to believe they can't. I reckon the safe way,
where a man can afford it, is to copper the operation, and at the same
time buy enough property in Vicksburg to square you up in case they win.
Government is doing a deal for the Mississippi, now--spending loads of
money on her. When there used to be four thousand steamboats and ten
thousand acres of coal-barges, and rafts and trading scows, there wasn't
a lantern from St. Paul to New Orleans, and the snags were thicker than
bristles on a hog's back; and now when there's three dozen steamboats
and nary barge or raft, Government has snatched out all the snags, and
lit up the shores like Broadway, and a boat's as safe on the river as
she'd be in heaven. And I reckon that by the time there ain't any boats
left at all, the Commission will have the old thing all reorganized, and
dredged out, and fenced in, and tidied up, to a degree that will make
navigation just simply perfect, and absolutely safe and profitable; and
all the days will be Sundays, and all the mates will be Sunday-school
su-WHAT-IN-THE-NATION-YOU-FOOLING-AROUND-THERE-FOR, YOU SONS OF
UNRIGHTEOUSNESS, HEIRS OF PERDITION! GOING TO BE A YEAR GETTING THAT
HOGSHEAD ASHORE?'
During our trip to New Orleans and back, we had many conversations with
river men, planters, journalists, and officers of the River Commission--
with conflicting and confusing results. To wit:--
1. Some believed in the Commission's scheme to arbitrarily and
permanently confine (and thus deepen) the channel, preserve threatened
shores, etc.
2. Some believed that the Commission's money ought to be spent only on
building and repairing the great system of levees.
3. Some believed that the higher you build your levee, the higher the
river's bottom will rise; and that consequently the levee system is a
mistake.
4. Some believed in the scheme to relieve the river, in flood-time, by
turning its surplus waters off into Lake Borgne, etc.
5. Some believed in the scheme of northern lake-reservoirs to replenish
the Mississippi in low-water seasons.
Wherever you find a man down there who believes in one of these theories
you may turn to the next man and frame your talk upon the hypothesis
that he does not believe in that theory; and after you have had
experience, you do not take this course doubtfully, or hesitatingly, but
with the confidence of a dying murderer--converted one, I mean. For you
will have come to know, with a deep and restful certainty, that you are
not going to meet two people sick of the same theory, one right after
the other. No, there will always be one or two with the other diseases
along between. And as you proceed, you will find out one or two other
things. You will find out that there is no distemper of the lot but is
contagious; and you cannot go where it is without catching it. You may
vaccinate yourself with deterrent facts as much as you please--it will
do no good; it will seem to 'take,' but it doesn't; the moment you rub
against any one of those theorists, make up your mind that it is time to
hang out your yellow flag.
Yes, you are his sure victim: yet his work is not all to your hurt--
only part of it; for he is like your family physician, who comes and
cures the mumps, and leaves the scarlet-fever behind. If your man is a
Lake-Borgne-relief theorist, for instance, he will exhale a cloud of
deadly facts and statistics which will lay you out with that disease,
sure; but at the same time he will cure you of any other of the five
theories that may have previously got into your system.
I have had all the five; and had them 'bad;' but ask me not, in mournful
numbers, which one racked me hardest, or which one numbered the biggest
sick list, for I do not know. In truth, no one can answer the latter
question. Mississippi Improvement is a mighty topic, down yonder. Every
man on the river banks, south of Cairo, talks about it every day, during
such moments as he is able to spare from talking about the war; and each
of the several chief theories has its host of zealous partisans; but, as
I have said, it is not possible to determine which cause numbers the
most recruits.
All were agreed upon one point, however: if Congress would make a
sufficient appropriation, a colossal benefit would result. Very well;
since then the appropriation has been made--possibly a sufficient one,
certainly not too large a one. Let us hope that the prophecy will be
amply fulfilled.
One thing will be easily granted by the reader; that an opinion from Mr.
Edward Atkinson, upon any vast national commercial matter, comes as near
ranking as authority, as can the opinion of any individual in the Union.
What he has to say about Mississippi River Improvement will be found in
the Appendix.{footnote [See Appendix B.]}
Sometimes, half a dozen figures will reveal, as with a lightning-flash,
the importance of a subject which ten thousand labored words, with the
same purpose in view, had left at last but dim and uncertain. Here is a
case of the sort--paragraph from the 'Cincinnati Commercial'--
'The towboat "Jos. B. Williams" is on her way to New Orleans with a tow
of thirty-two barges, containing six hundred thousand bushels (seventy-
six pounds to the bushel) of coal exclusive of her own fuel, being the
largest tow ever taken to New Orleans or anywhere else in the world.
Her freight bill, at 3 cents a bushel, amounts to $18,000. It would take
eighteen hundred cars, of three hundred and thirty-three bushels to the
car, to transport this amount of coal. At $10 per ton, or $100 per car,
which would be a fair price for the distance by rail, the freight bill
would amount to $180,000, or $162,000 more by rail than by river. The
tow will be taken from Pittsburg to New Orleans in fourteen or fifteen
days. It would take one hundred trains of eighteen cars to the train to
transport this one tow of six hundred thousand bushels of coal, and even
if it made the usual speed of fast freight lines, it would take one
whole summer to put it through by rail.'
When a river in good condition can enable one to save $162,000 and a
whole summer's time, on a single cargo, the wisdom of taking measures to
keep the river in good condition is made plain to even the uncommercial
mind.
Chapter 29 A Few Specimen Bricks
WE passed through the Plum Point region, turned Craighead's Point, and
glided unchallenged by what was once the formidable Fort Pillow,
memorable because of the massacre perpetrated there during the war.
Massacres are sprinkled with some frequency through the histories of
several Christian nations, but this is almost the only one that can be
found in American history; perhaps it is the only one which rises to a
size correspondent to that huge and somber title. We have the 'Boston
Massacre,' where two or three people were killed; but we must bunch
Anglo-Saxon history together to find the fellow to the Fort Pillow
tragedy; and doubtless even then we must travel back to the days and the
performances of Coeur de Lion, that fine 'hero,' before we accomplish
it.
More of the river's freaks. In times past, the channel used to strike
above Island 37, by Brandywine Bar, and down towards Island 39.
Afterward, changed its course and went from Brandywine down through
Vogelman's chute in the Devil's Elbow, to Island 39--part of this course
reversing the old order; the river running UP four or five miles,
instead of down, and cutting off, throughout, some fifteen miles of
distance. This in 1876. All that region is now called Centennial
Island.
There is a tradition that Island 37 was one of the principal abiding
places of the once celebrated 'Murel's Gang.' This was a colossal
combination of robbers, horse-thieves, <DW64>-stealers, and
counterfeiters, engaged in business along the river some fifty or sixty
years ago. While our journey across the country towards St. Louis was in
progress we had had no end of Jesse James and his stirring history; for
he had just been assassinated by an agent of the Governor of Missouri,
and was in consequence occupying a good deal of space in the newspapers.
Cheap histories of him were for sale by train boys. According to these,
he was the most marvelous creature of his kind that had ever existed. It
was a mistake. Murel was his equal in boldness; in pluck; in rapacity;
in cruelty, brutality, heartlessness, treachery, and in general and
comprehensive vileness and shamelessness; and very much his superior in
some larger aspects. James was a retail rascal; Murel, wholesale. |
10,240 |
Produced by Martin Ward
Weymouth New Testament in Modern Speech, Revelation
Third Edition 1913
R. F. Weymouth
Book 66 Revelation
001:001 The revelation given by Jesus Christ, which God granted Him,
that He might make known to His servants certain events
which must shortly come to pass: and He sent His angel
and communicated it to His servant John.
001:002 This is the John who taught the truth concerning the Word
of God and the truth told us by Jesus Christ--a faithful
account of what he had seen.
001:003 Blessed is he who reads and blessed are those who listen to the
words of this prophecy and lay to heart what is written in it;
for the time for its fulfillment is now close at hand.
001:004 John sends greetings to the seven Churches in the province of Asia.
May grace be granted to you, and peace, from Him who is
and was and evermore will be; and from the seven Spirits
which are before His throne;
001:005 and from Jesus Christ, the truthful witness, the first of the dead
to be born to Life, and the Ruler of the kings of the earth.
To Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins with
His own blood,
001:006 and has formed us into a Kingdom, to be priests to God, His Father--
to Him be ascribed the glory and the power until the Ages
of the Ages. Amen.
001:007 He is coming in the clouds, and every eye will see Him,
and so will those who pierced Him; and all the nations
of the earth will gaze on Him and mourn. Even so. Amen.
001:008 "I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "He who is
and was and evermore will be--the Ruler of all."
001:009 I John, your brother, and a sharer with you in the sorrows
and Kingship and patient endurance of Jesus, found myself
in the island of Patmos, on account of the Word of God
and the truth told us by Jesus.
001:010 In the Spirit I found myself present on the day of the Lord,
and I heard behind me a loud voice which resembled the blast
of a trumpet.
001:011 It said, "Write forthwith in a roll an account of what you see,
and send it to the seven Churches--to Ephesus, Smyrna,
Pergamum, Thyateira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea."
001:012 I turned to see who it was that was speaking to me; and then
I saw seven golden lampstands,
001:013 and in the center of the lampstands some One resembling
the Son of Man, clothed in a robe which reached to His feet,
and with a girdle of gold across His breast.
001:014 His head and His hair were white, like white wool--as white as snow;
and His eyes resembled a flame of fire.
001:015 His feet were like silver-bronze, when it is white-hot in a furnace;
and His voice resembled the sound of many waters.
001:016 In His right hand He held seven stars, and a sharp,
two-edged sword was seen coming from His mouth; and His glance
resembled the sun when it is shining with its full strength.
001:017 When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as if I were dead.
But He laid His right hand upon me and said, "Do not be afraid:
I am the First and the Last, and the ever-living One.
001:018 I died; but I am now alive until the Ages of the Ages,
and I have the keys of the gates of Death and of Hades!
001:019 Write down therefore the things you have just seen,
and those which are now taking place, and those which are
soon to follow:
001:020 the secret meaning of the seven stars which you have seen
in My right hand, and of the seven lampstands of gold.
The seven stars are the ministers of the seven Churches,
and the seven lampstands are the seven Churches.
002:001 "To the minister of the Church in Ephesus write as follows:
"'This is what He who holds the seven stars in the grasp of His
right hand says--He who walks to and fro among the seven
lampstands of gold.
002:002 I know your doings and your toil and patient suffering.
And I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, but have put
to the test those who say that they themselves are Apostles
but are not, and you have found them to be liars.
002:003 And you endure patiently and have borne burdens for My sake
and have never grown weary.
002:004 Yet I have this against you--that you no longer love Me as you
did at first.
002:005 Be mindful, therefore, of the height from which you have fallen.
Repent at once, and act as you did at first, or else I
will surely come and remove your lampstand out of its place--
unless you repent.
002:006 Yet this you have in your favor: you hate the doings of
the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
002:007 "'Let all who have ears give heed to what the Spirit is
saying to the Churches. To him who overcomes I will give
the privilege of eating the fruit of the Tree of Life,
which is in the Paradise of God.'
002:008 "To the minister of the Church at Smyrna write as follows:
"'This is what the First and the Last says--He who died
and has returned to life.
002:009 Your sufferings I know, and your poverty--but you are rich--
and the evil name given you by those who say that they
themselves are Jews, and are not, but are Satan's synagogue.
002:010 Dismiss your fears concerning all that you are about to suffer.
I tell you that the Devil is about to throw some of you into
prison that you may be put to the test, and for ten days you
will have to endure persecution. Be faithful to the End,
even if you have to die, and then I will give you the victor's
Wreath of Life.
002:011 "'Let all who have ears give heed to what the Spirit is saying
to the Churches. He who overcomes shall be in no way hurt
by the Second Death.'
002:012 "To the minister of the Church at Pergamum write as follows:
"'This is what He who has the sharp, two-edged sword says.
I know where you dwell.
002:013 Satan's throne is there; and yet you are true to Me, and did
not deny your faith in Me, even in the days of Antipas My
witness and faithful friend, who was put to death among you,
in the place where Satan dwells.
002:014 Yet I have a few things against you, because you have with you
some that cling to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak
to put a stumbling-block in the way of the descendants of Israel--
to eat what had been sacrificed to idols, and commit fornication.
002:015 So even you have some that cling in the same way to the teaching
of the Nicolaitans.
002:016 Repent, at once; or else I will come to you quickly, and will
make war upon them with the sword which is in My mouth.
002:017 "'Let all who have ears give heed to what the Spirit is saying
to the Churches. He who overcomes--to him I will give some
of the hidden Manna, and a white stone; and--written upon
the stone and known only to him who receives it--a new name.'
002:018 "To the minister of the Church at Thyateira write as follows:
"'This is what the Son of God says--He who has eyes like a flame
of fire, and feet resembling silver-bronze.
002:019 I know your doings, your love, your faith, your service,
and your patient endurance; and that of late you have toiled
harder than you did at first.
002:020 Yet I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel,
who calls herself a prophetess and by her teaching leads
astray My servants, so that they commit fornication and eat
what has been sacrificed to idols.
002:021 I have given her time to repent, but she is determined not
to repent of her fornication.
002:022 I tell you that I am about to cast her upon a bed of sickness,
and I will severely afflict those who commit adultery with her,
unless they repent of conduct such as hers.
002:023 Her children too shall surely die; and all the Churches shall come
to know that I am He who searches into men's inmost thoughts;
and to each of you I will give a requital which shall be
in accordance with what your conduct has been.
002:024 But to you, the rest of you in Thyateira, all who do not
hold this teaching and are not the people who have learnt
the "deep things," as they call them (the deep things of Satan!)--
to you I say that I lay no other burden on you.
002:025 Only that which you already possess, cling to until I come.
002:026 "'And to him who overcomes and obeys My commands to the very end,
I will give authority over the nations of the earth.
002:027 And he shall be their shepherd, ruling them with a rod of iron,
just as earthenware jars are broken to pieces; and his power
over them shall be like that which I Myself have received
from My Father;
002:028 and I will give him the Morning Star.
002:029 Let all who have ears give heed to what the Spirit is saying
to the Churches.'
003:001 "To the minister of the Church at Sardis write as follows:
"'This is what He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven
stars says. I know your doings--you are supposed to be alive,
but in reality you are dead.
003:002 Rouse yourself and keep awake, and strengthen those things
which remain but have well-nigh perished; for I have found
no doings of yours free from imperfection in the sight
of My God.
003:003 Be mindful, therefore, of the lessons you have received and heard.
Continually lay them to heart, and repent. If, however,
you fail to rouse yourself and keep awake, I shall come upon
you suddenly like a thief, and you will certainly not know
the hour at which I shall come to judge you.
003:004 Yet you have in Sardis a few who have not soiled their garments;
and they shall walk with Me in white; for they are worthy.
003:005 "'In this way he who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments;
and I will certainly not blot out his name from the Book
of Life, but will acknowledge him in the presence of My Father
and His angels.
003:006 Let all who have ears give heed to what the Spirit is saying
to the Churches.'
003:007 "To the minister of the Church at Philadelphia write as follows:
"'This is what the holy One and the true says--He who has
the key of David--He who opens and no one shall shut,
and shuts and no one shall open.
003:008 I know your doings. I have put an opened door in front of you,
which no one can shut; because you have but a little power,
and yet you have guarded My word and have not disowned Me.
003:009 I will cause some belonging to Satan's synagogue who say
that they themselves are Jews, and are not, but are liars--
I will make them come and fall at your feet and know for certain
that I have loved you.
003:010 Because in spite of suffering you have guarded My word,
I in turn will guard you from that hour of trial which is soon
coming upon the whole world, to put to the test the inhabitants
of the earth.
003:011 I am coming quickly: cling to that which you already possess,
so that your wreath of victory be not taken away from you.
003:012 "'He who overcomes--I will make him a pillar in the sanctuary
of My God, and he shall never go out from it again.
And I will write on him the name of My God, and the name
of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem, which is to come
down out of Heaven from My God, and My own new name.
003:013 Let all who have ears give heed to what the Spirit is saying
to the Churches.'
003:014 "And to the minister of the Church at Laodicea write as follows:
"'This is what the Amen says--the true and faithful witness,
the Beginning and Lord of God's Creation.
003:015 I know your doings--you are neither cold nor hot; I would
that you were cold or hot!
003:016 Accordingly, because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold,
before long I will vomit you out of My mouth.
003:017 You say, I am rich, and have wealth stored up, and I stand in need
of nothing; and you do not know that if there is a wretched
creature it is *you*--pitiable, poor, blind, naked.
003:018 Therefore I counsel you to buy of Me gold refined in the fire
that you may become rich, and white robes to put on,
so as to hide your shameful nakedness, and eye-salve to anoint
your eyes with, so that you may be able to see.
003:019 All whom I hold dear, I reprove and chastise; therefore be
in earnest and repent.
003:020 I am now standing at the door and am knocking. If any one listens
to My voice and opens the door, I will go in to be with him
and will feast with him, and he shall feast with Me.
003:021 "'To him who overcomes I will give the privilege of sitting
down with Me on My throne, as I also have overcome and have
sat down with My Father on His throne.
003:022 Let all who have ears give heed to what the Spirit is saying
to the Churches.'"
004:001 After all this I looked and saw a door in Heaven standing open,
and the voice that I had previously heard, which resembled
the blast of a trumpet, again spoke to me and said, "Come up here,
and I will show you things which are to happen in the future."
004:002 Immediately I found myself in the Spirit, and saw a throne
in Heaven, and some One sitting on the throne.
004:003 The appearance of Him who sat there was like jasper or sard;
and encircling the throne was a rainbow, in appearance
like an emerald.
004:004 Surrounding the throne there were also twenty-four other thrones,
on which sat twenty-four Elders clothed in white robes,
with victors' wreaths of gold upon their heads.
004:005 Out from the throne there came flashes of lightning, and voices,
and peals of thunder, while in front of the throne seven blazing
lamps were burning, which are the seven Spirits of God.
004:006 And in front of the throne there seemed to be a sea of glass,
resembling crystal. And midway between the throne and the Elders,
and surrounding the throne, were four living creatures,
full of eyes in front and behind.
004:007 The first living creature resembled a lion, the second an ox,
the third had a face like that of a man, and the fourth
resembled an eagle flying.
004:008 And each of the four living creatures had six wings,
and in every direction, and within, are full of eyes;
and day after day, and night after night, they never
cease saying, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God, the Ruler of all,
who wast and art and evermore shalt be."
004:009 And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks
to Him who is seated on the throne, and lives until the Ages
of the Ages,
004:010 the twenty-four Elders fall down before Him who sits on the
throne and worship Him who lives until the Ages of the Ages,
and they cast their wreaths down in front of the throne,
004:011 saying, "It is fitting, O our Lord and God, That we should
ascribe unto Thee the glory and the honor and the power;
For Thou didst create all things, And because it was Thy
will they came into existence, and were created."
005:001 And I saw lying in the right hand of Him who sat on the throne
a book written on both sides and closely sealed with seven seals.
005:002 And I saw a mighty angel who was exclaiming in a loud voice,
"Who is worthy to open the book and break its seals?"
005:003 But no one in Heaven, or on earth, or under the earth,
was able to open the book or look into it.
005:004 And while I was weeping bitterly, because no one was found
worthy to open the book or look into it,
005:005 one of the Elders said to me, "Do not weep. The Lion which
belongs to the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed,
and will open the book and break its seven seals."
005:006 Then, midway between the throne and the four living creatures,
I saw a Lamb standing among the Elders. He looked as if He had
been offered in sacrifice, and He had seven horns and seven eyes.
The last-named are the seven Spirits of God, and have been
sent far and wide into all the earth.
005:007 So He comes, and now He has taken the book out of the right
hand of Him who is seated on the throne.
005:008 And when He had taken the book, the four living creatures
and the twenty-four Elders fell down before the Lamb,
having each of them a harp and bringing golden bowls full
of incense, which represent the prayers of God's people.
005:009 And now they sing a new song. "It is fitting," they say,
"that Thou shouldst be the One to take the book And break
its seals; Because Thou hast been offered in sacrifice,
And hast purchased for God with Thine own blood Some out
of every tribe and language and people and nation,
005:010 And hast formed them into a Kingdom to be priests to
our God, And they reign over the earth."
005:011 And I looked, and heard what seemed to be the voices of countless
angels on every side of the throne, and of the living
creatures and the Elders. Their number was myriads of myriads
and thousands of thousands,
005:012 and in loud voices they were singing, "It is fitting that
the Lamb which has been offered in sacrifice should receive
all power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and
glory and blessing."
005:013 And as for every created thing in Heaven and on earth and under
the earth and on the sea, and everything that was in any of these,
I heard them say, "To Him who is seated on the throne,
And to the Lamb, Be ascribed all blessing and honor And glory
and might, Until the Ages of the Ages!"
005:014 Then the four living creatures said "Amen," and the Elders
fell down and worshipped.
006:001 And when the Lamb broke one of the seven seals I saw it,
and I heard one of the four living creatures say, as if in
a voice of thunder, "Come."
006:002 And I looked and a white horse appeared, and its rider
carried a bow; and a victor's wreath was given to him;
and he went out conquering and in order to conquer.
006:003 And when the Lamb broke the second seal, I heard the second
living creature say, "Come."
006:004 And another horse came out--a fiery-red one; and power was given
to its rider to take peace from the earth, and to cause men
to kill one another; and a great sword was given to him.
006:005 When the Lamb broke the third seal, I heard the third living
creature say, "Come." I looked, and a black horse appeared,
its rider carrying a balance in his hand.
006:006 And I heard what seemed to be a voice speaking in the midst
of the four living creatures, and saying, "A quart of wheat
for a shilling, and three quarts of barley for a shilling;
but do not injure either the oil or the wine."
006:007 When the Lamb broke the fourth seal I heard the voice of
the fourth living creature say, "Come."
006:008 I looked and a pale-colored horse appeared. Its rider's name
was Death, and Hades came close behind him; and authority
was given to them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill
with the sword or with famine or pestilence or by means
of the wild beasts of the earth.
006:009 When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw at the foot of the altar
the souls of those whose lives had been sacrificed because of
the word of God and of the testimony which they had given.
006:010 And now in loud voices they cried out, saying, "How long,
O Sovereign Lord, the holy One and the true, dost Thou delay
judgment and the taking of vengeance upon the inhabitants
of the earth for our blood?"
006:011 And there was given to each of them a long white robe,
and they were bidden to wait patiently for a short time longer,
until the full number of their fellow bondservants should
also complete--namely of their brethren who were soon to be
killed just as they had been.
006:012 When the Lamb broke the sixth seal I looked, and there was
a great earthquake, and the sun became as dark as sackcloth,
and the whole disc of the moon became like blood.
006:013 The stars in the sky also fell to the earth, as when a fig-tree,
upon being shaken by a gale of wind, casts its unripe figs
to the ground.
006:014 The sky too passed away, as if a scroll were being rolled up,
and every mountain and island was removed from its place.
006:015 The kings of the earth and the great men, the military chiefs,
the wealthy and the powerful--all, whether slaves or free men--
hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains,
006:016 while they called to the mountains and the rocks, saying,
"Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits
on the throne and from the anger of the Lamb;
006:017 for the day of His anger--that great day--has come, and who is
able to stand?"
007:001 After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners
of the earth, and holding back the four winds of the earth
so that no wind should blow over the earth or the sea
or upon any tree.
007:002 And I saw another angel coming from the east and carrying
a seal belonging to the ever-living God. He called in a loud
voice to the four angels whose work it was to injure the earth
and the sea.
007:003 "Injure neither land nor sea nor trees," he said, "until we
have sealed the bondservants of our God upon their foreheads."
007:004 When the sealing was finished, I heard how many were
sealed out of the tribes of the descendants of Israel.
They were 144,000.
007:005 Of the tribe of Judah, 12,000 were sealed; Of the tribe
of Reuben, 12,000; Of the tribe of Gad, 12,000;
007:006 Of the tribe of Asher, 12,000; Of the tribe of Naphtali, 12,000;
Of the tribe of Manasseh, 12,000;
007:007 Of the tribe of Symeon, 12,000; Of the tribe of Levi, 12,000;
Of the tribe of Issachar, 12,000;
007:008 Of the tribe of Zebulun, 12,000; Of the tribe of Joseph, 12,000;
Of the tribe of Benjamin, 12,000.
007:009 After this I looked, and a vast host appeared which it was
impossible for anyone to count, gathered out of every nation
and from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before
the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in long white robes,
and carrying palm-branches in their hands.
007:010 In loud voices they were exclaiming, "It is to our God who is seated
on the throne, and to the Lamb, that we owe our salvation!"
007:011 All the angels were standing in a circle round the throne
and round the Elders and the four living creatures, and they
fell on their faces in front of the throne and worshipped God.
007:012 "Even so!" they cried: "The blessing and the glory
and the wisdom and the thanks and the honor and the power
and the might are to be ascribed to our God, until the Ages
of the Ages! Even so!"
007:013 Then, addressing me, one of the Elders said, "Who are these
people clothed in the long white robes? And where have
they come from?"
007:014 "My lord, you know," I replied. "They are those,"
he said, "who have just passed through the great distress,
and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood
of the Lamb.
007:015 For this reason they stand before the very throne of God,
and render Him service, day after day and night after night,
in His sanctuary, and He who is sitting upon the throne
will shelter them in His tent.
007:016 They will never again be hungry or thirsty, and never again
will the sun or any scorching heat trouble them.
007:017 For the Lamb who is in front of the throne will be their Shepherd,
and will guide them to watersprings of Life, and God will wipe
every tear from their eyes."
008:001 When the Lamb broke the seventh seal, there was silence
in Heaven for about half an hour.
008:002 Then I saw the seven angels who are in the presence of God,
and seven trumpets were given to them.
008:003 And another angel came and stood close to the altar,
carrying a censer of gold; and abundance of incense was given
to him that he might place it with the prayers of all God's
people upon the golden altar which was in front of the throne.
008:004 And the smoke of the incense rose into the presence of God from
the angel's hand, and mingled with the prayers of His people.
008:005 So the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from
the altar and flung it to the earth; and there followed
peals of thunder, and voices, and flashes of lightning,
and an earthquake.
008:006 Then the seven angels who had the seven trumpets made preparations
for blowing them.
008:007 The first blew his trumpet; and there came hail and fire,
mixed with blood, falling upon the earth; and a third part
of the earth was burnt up, and a third part of the trees
and all the green grass.
008:008 The second angel blew his trumpet; and what seemed to be a
great mountain, all ablaze with fire, was hurled into the sea;
and a third part of the sea was turned into blood.
008:009 And a third part of the creatures that were in the sea--those that
had life--died; and a third part of the ships were destroyed.
008:010 The third angel blew his trumpet; and there fell from Heaven
a great star, which was on fire like a torch. It fell upon
a third part of the rivers and upon the springs of water.
008:011 The name of the star is 'Wormwood;' and a third part of the waters
were turned into wormwood, and vast numbers of the people
died from drinking the water, because it had become bitter.
008:012 Then the fourth angel blew his trumpet; and a curse fell
upon a third part of the sun, a third part of the moon,
and a third part of the stars, so that a third part of them
were darkened and for a third of the day, and also of the night,
there was no light.
008:013 Then I looked, and I heard a solitary eagle crying in a loud voice,
as it flew across the sky, "Alas, alas, alas, for the inhabitants
of the earth, because of the significance of the remaining
trumpets which the three angels are about to blow!"
009:001 The fifth angel blew his trumpet; and I saw a Star which had
fallen from Heaven to the earth; and to him was given the key
of the depths of the bottomless pit,
009:002 and he opened the depths of the bottomless pit. And smoke came
up out of the pit resembling the smoke of a vast furnace,
so that the sun was darkened, and the air also, by reason
of the smoke of the pit.
009:003 And from the midst of the smoke there came locusts on to
the earth, and power was given to them resembling the power
which earthly scorpions possess.
009:004 And they were forbidden to injure the herbage of the earth, or any
green thing, or any tree. They were only to injure human beings--
those who have not the seal of God on their foreheads.
009:005 Their mission was not to kill, but to cause awful agony for
five months; and this agony was like that which a scorpion
inflicts when it stings a man.
009:006 And at that time people will seek death, but will by no possibility
find it, and will long to die, but death evades them.
009:007 The appearance of the locusts was like that of horses equipped
for war. On their heads they had wreaths which looked like gold.
009:008 Their faces seemed human and they had hair like women's hair,
but their teeth resembled those of lions.
009:009 They had breast-plates which seemed to be made of steel;
and the noise caused by their wings was like that of a vast
number of horses and chariots hurrying into battle.
009:010 They had tails like those of scorpions, and also stings;
and in their tails lay their power of injuring mankind
for five months.
009:011 The locusts had a king over them--the angel of the bottomless pit,
whose name in Hebrew is 'Abaddon,' while in the Greek
he is called 'Apollyon.'
009:012 The first woe is past; two other woes have still to come.
009:013 The sixth angel blew his trumpet; and I heard a single voice
speaking from among the horns of the golden incense altar
which is in the presence of God.
009:014 It said to the sixth angel--the angel who had the trumpet,
"Set at liberty the four angels who are prisoners near
the great river Euphrates."
009:015 And the four angels who had been kept in readiness for
that hour, day, month, and year, were set at liberty,
so that they might kill a third part of mankind.
009:016 The number of the cavalry was two hundred millions;
I heard their number.
009:017 And this was the appearance of the horses which I saw in my vision--
and of their riders. The body-armour of the riders was red,
blue and yellow; and the horses' heads were shaped like
the heads of lions, while from their mouths there came fire
and smoke and sulphur.
009:018 By these three plagues a third part of mankind were destroyed--
by the fire and the smoke, and by the sulphur which came
from their mouths.
009:019 For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails;
their tails being like serpents, and having heads, and it
is with them that they inflict injury.
009:020 But the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues,
did not even then repent and leave the things they had made,
so as to cease worshipping the demons, and the idols of gold
and silver, bronze, stone, and wood, which can neither see
nor hear, nor move.
009:021 Nor did they repent of their murders, their practice of magic,
their fornication, or their thefts.
010:001 Then I saw another strong angel coming down from Heaven.
He was robed in a cloud, and over his head was the rainbow.
His face was like the sun, and his feet resembled pillars of fire.
010:002 In his hand he held a small scroll unrolled; and, planting his
right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land,
010:003 he cried out in a loud voice which resembled the roar of a lion.
And when he had cried out, each of the seven peals of thunder
uttered its own message.
010:004 And when the seven peals of thunder had spoken, I was about
to write down what they had said; but I heard a voice from
Heaven which told me to keep secret all that the seven peals
of thunder had said, and not write it down.
010:005 Then the angel that I saw standing on the sea and on the land,
lifted his right hand toward Heaven.
010:006 And in the name of Him who lives until the Ages of the Ages,
the Creator of Heaven and all that is in it, of the earth
and all that is in it, and of the sea and all that is in it,
he solemnly declared,
010:007 "There shall be no further delay; but in the days when the
seventh angel blows his trumpet--when he begins to do so--
then the secret purposes of God are realized, in accordance
with the good news which He gave to His servants the Prophets."
010:008 Then the voice which I had heard speaking from Heaven once
more addressed me. It said, "Go and take the little book
which lies open in the hand of the angel who is standing
on the sea and on the land."
010:009 So I went to the angel and asked him to give me the little book.
"Take it," he said, "and eat the whole of it. You will find
it bitter when you have eaten it, although in your mouth it
will taste as sweet as honey."
010:010 So I took the roll out of the angel's hand and ate the whole of it;
and in my mouth it was as sweet as honey, but when I had eaten
it I found it very bitter.
010:011 And a voice said to me, "You must prophesy yet further
concerning peoples, nations, languages, and many kings."
011:001 Then a reed was given me to serve as a measuring rod;
and a voice said, "Rise, and measure God's sanctuary--
and the altar--and count the worshipers who are in it.
011:002 But as for the court which is outside the sanctuary, pass it over.
Do not measure it; for it has been given to the Gentiles,
and for forty-two months they will trample the holy
city under foot.
011:003 And I will authorize My two witnesses to prophesy for 1,260 days,
clothed in sackcloth.
011:004 "These witnesses are the two olive-trees, and they are the two
lamps which stand in the presence of the Lord of the earth.
011:005 And if any one seeks to injure them--fire comes from their mouths
and devours their enemies; and if any one seeks to injure them,
he will in this way certainly be killed.
011:006 They have power given to them to seal up the sky, so that
no rain may fall so long as they continue to prophesy;
and power over the waters to turn them into blood, and to smite
the earth with various plagues whenever they choose to do so.
011:007 "And when they have fully delivered their testimony,
the Wild Beast which is to rise out of the bottomless pit
will make war upon them and overcome them and kill them.
011:008 And their dead bodies are to lie in the broad street of the great
city which spiritually is designated 'Sodom' and 'Egypt,'
where indeed their Lord was crucified.
011:009 And men belonging to all peoples, tribes, languages and
nations gaze at their dead bodies for three days and a half,
but they refuse to let them be laid in a tomb.
011:010 The inhabitants of the earth rejoice over them and are glad
and will send gifts to one another; for these two Prophets
had greatly troubled the inhabitants of the earth."
011:011 But at the end of the three days and a half the breath of life
from God entered into them, and they rose to their feet;
and all who saw them were terrified.
011:012 Then they heard a loud voice calling to them out of Heaven,
and bidding them come up; and they went up to Heaven in the cloud,
and their enemies saw them go.
011:013 And just as that time there was a great earthquake, and a tenth
part of the city was overthrown. 7,000 people were killed
in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory
to the God of Heaven.
011:014 The second Woe is past; the third Woe will soon be here.
011:015 The seventh angel blew his trumpet; and there followed loud
voices in Heaven which said, "The sovereignty of the world
now belongs to our Lord and His Christ; and He will be King
until the Ages of the Ages."
011:016 Then the twenty-four Elders, who sit on thrones in the presence
of God, fell on their faces and worshipped God,
011:017 saying, "We give thee thanks, O Lord God, the Ruler of all,
Who art and wast, because Thou hast exerted Thy power,
Thy great power, and hast become King.
011:018 The nations grew angry, and Thine anger has come, and the time
for the dead to be judged, and the time for Thee to give
their reward to Thy servants the Prophets and to Thy people,
and to those who fear Thee, the small and the great,
and to destroy those who destroy the earth."
011:019 Then the doors of God's sanctuary in Heaven were opened,
and the Ark, in which His Covenant was, was seen in His sanctuary;
and there came flashes of lightning, and voices, and peals
of thunder, and an earthquake, and heavy hail.
012:001 And a great marvel was seen in Heaven--a woman who was robed
with the sun and had the moon under her feet, and had also
a wreath of stars round her head, was with child,
012:002 and she was crying out in the pains and agony of childbirth.
012:003 And another marvel was seen in Heaven--a great fiery-red Dragon,
with seven heads and ten horns; and on his heads were
seven kingly crowns.
012:004 His tail was drawing after it a third part of the stars of Heaven,
and it dashed them to the ground. And in front of the woman
who was about to become a mother, the Dragon was standing
in order to devour the child as soon as it was born.
012:005 She gave birth to a son--a male child, destined before long
to rule all nations with an iron scepter. But her child
was caught up to God and His throne,
012:006 and the woman fled into the Desert, there to be cared for,
for 1,260 days, in a place which God had prepared for her.
012:007 And war broke out in Heaven, Michael and his angels engaging
in battle with the Dragon.
012:008 The Dragon fought and so did his angels; but they were defeated,
and there was no longer any room found for them in Heaven.
012:009 The great Dragon, the ancient serpent, he who is called 'the Devil'
and 'the Adversary' and leads the whole earth astray,
was hurled down: he was hurled down to the earth, and his
angels were hurled down with him.
012:010 Then I heard a loud voice speaking in Heaven.
It said, "The salvation and the power and the Kingdom
of our God have now come, and the sovereignty of His Christ;
for the accuser of our brethren has been hurled down--he who,
day after day and night after night, was wont to accuse them
in the presence of God.
012:011 But they have gained the victory over him because of the blood
of the Lamb and of the testimony which they have borne,
and because they held their lives cheap and did not shrink
even from death.
012:012 For this reason be glad, O Heaven, and you who live
in Heaven! Alas for the earth and the sea! For the Devil
has come down to you; full of fierce anger, because he knows
that his appointed time is short."
012:013 And when the Dragon saw that he was hurled down to the earth,
he went in pursuit of the woman who had given birth to
the male child.
012:014 Then, the two wings of a great eagle were given to the woman
to enable her to fly away into the Desert to the place
assigned her, there to be cared for, for a period of time,
two periods of time, and half a period of time, beyond the reach
of the serpent.
012:015 And the serpent poured water from his mouth--a very river it seemed--
after the woman, in the hope that she would be carried away
by its flood.
012:016 But the earth came to the woman's help: it opened its
mouth and drank up the river which the Dragon had poured
from his mouth.
012:017 This made the Dragon furiously angry with the woman, and he went
elsewhere to make war upon her other children--those who keep
God's commandments and hold fast to the testimony of Jesus.
013:001 And he took up a position upon the sands of the sea-shore. Then I
saw a Wild Beast coming up out of the sea, and he had ten
horns and seven heads. On his horns were ten kingly crowns,
and inscribed on his heads were names full of blasphemy.
013:002 The Wild Beast which I saw resembled a leopard, and had feet
like the feet of a bear, and his mouth was like the mouth
of a lion; and it was to the Dragon that he owed his power
and his throne and his wide dominion.
013:003 I saw that one of his heads seemed to have been mortally wounded;
but his mortal wound was healed, and the whole world was amazed
and followed him.
013:004 And they offered worship to the Dragon, because it was to him
that the Wild Beast owed his dominion; and they also offered
worship to the Wild Beast, and said, "Who is there like him?
And who is able to engage in battle with him?"
013:005 And there was given him a mouth full of boastful and
blasphemous words; and liberty of action was granted him
for forty-two months.
013:006 And he opened his mouth to utter blasphemies against God,
to speak evil of His name and of His dwelling-place--
that is to say, of those who dwell in Heaven.
013:007 And permission was given him to make war upon God's people
and conquer them; and power was given him over every tribe,
people, language and nation.
013:008 And all the inhabitants of the earth will be found to be
worshipping him: every one whose name is not recorded in
the Book of Life--the Book of the Lamb who has been offered
in sacrifice ever since the creation of the world.
013:009 Let all who have ears give heed.
013:010 If any one is eager to lead others into captivity, he must
himself go into captivity. If any one is bent on killing
with the sword, he must himself be killed by the sword.
Here is an opportunity for endurance, and for the exercise
of faith, on the part of God's people.
013:011 Then I saw another Wild Beast, coming up out of the earth.
He had two horns like those of a lamb, but he spoke like a dragon.
013:012 And the authority of the first Wild Beast--the whole of
that authority--he exercises in his presence, and he causes
the earth and its inhabitants to worship the first Wild Beast,
whose mortal wound had been healed.
013:013 He also works great miracles, so as even to make fire come
down from Heaven to earth in the presence of human beings.
013:014 And his power of leading astray the inhabitants of the earth
is due to the marvels which he has been permitted to work
in the presence of the Wild Beast. And he told the inhabitants
of the earth to erect a statue to the Wild Beast who had
received the sword-stroke and yet had recovered.
013:015 And power was granted him to give breath to the statue
of the Wild Beast, so that the statue of the Wild Beast
could even speak and cause all who refuse to worship it
to be put to death.
013:016 And he causes all, small and great, rich and poor, free men
and slaves, to have stamped upon them a mark on their right
hands or on their foreheads,
013:017 in order that no one should be allowed to buy or sell unless
he had the mark--either the name of the Wild Beast or the number
which his name represents.
013:018 Here is scope for ingenuity. |
10,240 |
Produced by Distributed Proofreaders
A Fleece of Gold
Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece
by
Charles Stewart Given
1905
Second Edition Revised
To my sons
Kingsley and Gordon
"Jason and his men seized the favorable moment of the rebound, plied
their oars with vigor, and passed through in safety."
Contents
Introduction
I. The Ruling Element, "Jason and his men."
II. The Golden Quality, "They passed through."
III. The Messenger of Fate, "They seized the favourable moment."
IV. The Active Hand, "They plied their oars with vigor."
V. Ethics of Activity
Foreword
Among the smaller forces which operate upon the mind and tend toward
strengthening and exalting the best ideals, are little books like this.
They are especially valuable when so much of the author's own experience
forms a thread upon which are suspended jewels of thought and illustration
serviceable to those who would see and know the best things.
I have found these characteristics in this small volume, and gladly
recommend it to all those who would become more familiar with what our
author calls "the key to that cabinet of character in which nature
conceals not only the motive power of every-day life, but those latent
talents and energies that, through a knowledge of self, we can bring to
bear upon our lives." This book will help many who have small
opportunities in the form of time and money to expend in the use of
larger volumes.
Charles Stewart Given
Introduction
The fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece is known to old and young the
world around. To the latter, perhaps, no other simple narrative in
Greek mythology is more fascinating, nor holds a more valuable lesson
if they will but seek to learn it. But especially to the boy or young
man of thoughtful mind does the glorious adventure appeal and make its
lessons obvious. By way of refreshing the memory of those who were once
familiar with the myth, but who, in the practical school of experience,
have lost the chord of their adventure-loving days; and also for those,
perchance, who are not acquainted with the tale, a brief sketch will
here serve our purpose.
In Thessaly dwell a king and a queen with their two children, a boy and a
girl. The holy alliance between the two royal members of the household
becomes disrupted, and Nephele, the good mother, appeals to Mercury, the
messenger of the gods, to assist her in secretly placing the children out
of reach of their father, the king. Mercury provides a ram with a golden
fleece, on which the boy and girl are placed. The shining creature springs
into the air, bearing its precious burden across the sea. Unfortunately,
the girl falls from the ram's back and is drowned, but the boy is landed
safely on the other shore in the kingdom of Colchis. Here he sacrifices
the ram to Jupiter and presents the golden fleece to the king, who places
it in a consecrated grove under the care of a sleepless dragon.
Now Jason is heir to the throne of AEson, ruler of another kingdom in
Thessaly, from whence the royal children started on their adventurous
journey. Years have passed, however, since this remarkable incident, and
Jason, being now a young man and having been told the dramatic tale of
the Golden Fleece, begins to think what a glorious adventure it would be
to go in quest of the royal prize. Forthwith he makes preparations for
the expedition, and with a band of other lusty young heroes starts on a
sea voyage toward the land of the Colchian king. It is not without
difficulty, however, that they accomplish the voyage, for at the entrance
of the Euxine Sea they encounter two floating islands, veritable
mountains of rock, huge and shaggy, which, in their tossings and
heavings, at intervals come together "crushing and grinding to atoms any
object that might be caught between them." But "_Jason and his men seized
the favorable moment of the rebound, plied their oars with vigor and
passed through in safety_."
Approaching the royal palace Jason makes known his mission, whereupon
the king promises to relinquish the valuable possession if Jason will
yoke to the plow two fire-breathing bulls and sow the teeth of the
dragon. Apprehending that by this means the king seeks to destroy him,
Jason pleads his cause to Medea, the king's daughter, who furnishes him
a charm by which he can safely encounter the fiery breath of the beasts
and the armed men that will spring up in the furrow where the dragon's
teeth are sown.
In his "Age of Fable," Bullfinch gives us a graphic picture of the scene:
"At the time appointed the people assembled at the grove of Mars, and the
king assumed his royal seat, while the multitude covered the hill-sides.
The brazen-footed bulls rushed in, breathing fire from their nostrils that
burned up the herbage as they passed. The sound was like the roar of a
furnace, and the smoke like that of water upon quick-lime. Jason advanced
boldly to meet them. His friends, the chosen heroes of Greece, trembled to
behold him. Regardless of the burning breath, he soothed their rage with
his voice, patted their necks with fearless hand, and adroitly slipped
over them the yoke, and compelled them to drag the plow. The Colchians
were amazed; the Greeks shouted for joy. Jason next proceeded to sow the
dragon's teeth and plow them in. And soon the crop of armed men sprang up,
and, wonderful to relate! no sooner had they reached the surface than they
began to brandish their weapons and rush upon Jason. The Greeks trembled
for their hero, and even she who had provided him a way of safety and
taught him how to use it, Medea herself, grew pale with fear. Jason for a
time kept his assailants at bay with his sword and shield, till finding
their numbers overwhelming, he resorted to the charm which Medea had
taught him, seized a stone and threw it in the midst of his foes. They
immediately turned their arms against one another, and soon there was not
one of the dragon's brood left alive."
Having complied with all the conditions set forth by the king, the victor
now turns with eager step toward the grove of Mars, and seizing the golden
prize makes his way back to Thessaly, rejoicing in his glorious success.
I
The Ruling Element
"Jason and His Men."
What constitutes a state?
Not high-raised battlements or labored mound,
Thick wall or moated gate;
Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned;
Not bays and broad armed ports,
Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride;
Not starred and spangled courts,
Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride.
No! men--high-minded men--
With powers as far above dull brutes endued,
In forest, brake, or den,
As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude.
--Sir William Jones.
The Young Man
Jason has just stepped over the threshold into the glory of a rich young
manhood. And he is careful to select for his expedition some of the
choicest heroes of Greece--young, brave, and strong. It has ever been
thus. Youth has always been synonymous with adventure. It is a condition
which seems inherent; nature instilling into the blood of her sons the
very spirit of discontent--of longing to push out from the commonplace
scenes of childhood into broader domains of experience.
The very books which most fascinate the boy are those which deal in
thrilling tales of adventure. The wily and unscrupulous traffickers in
cheap literature have ever been awake to this fact, and their
highly-colored productions have been flung from the vicious presses like
lava from Pelee to pollute the minds of the young. Why is it that
"Robinson Crusoe" and stories of this character hold such a charm for
young people, lingering in their minds long after books of a profounder
type have been forgotten? It is the love of adventure. To what boy at
school does not the doleful history lesson assume a more brilliant aspect
when the adventures of Columbus are taken up? His interest is awakened,
his imagination inspired, and he is delighted, all because again that
chord in his nature has been struck--the love of adventure.
Perhaps no other single painting in the art galleries at the World's Fair
of 1893 attracted the attention of a greater number of people, nor
awakened in so many human breasts a feeling of such intense pathos as
Thomas Hovenden's painting on "Breaking Home Ties." Here we have it once
more, adventure--Jason setting off on his journey in search for the golden
fleece of fame and fortune. The narrow path that so long has led him out
into the silent acres--the fields that so many years have responded to
his toil--he has forsaken. The dull routine has ceased to inspire, the
home circle has become too narrow for his expanding soul. He has caught a
glimpse of the glories of a new kingdom, and now he is going out to
realize them.
The young man has always been the _ruling element_ in every new departure.
He has been the rock upon which the ages have been founded. In the words
of another: "When the roll-call which men have written is read, it will be
found that the young men have ruled the world. The oldest literatures have
this record. The patriarchs unfolded the careers of boys into the conquest
of old age. Kingdom and empire rode upon the shoulders of young men, and
their voices of enthusiasm and hope have sounded through many a
black-breasted midnight and trumpeted the dawn through skies of thickest
darkness. To causes that drooped they have come and added the raptures of
hope; to enterprises that were sickening and faint they have brought the
bounding power of new enthusiasm. To the dead they have brought life.
Everything from the foundation of the world has been crying for 'young
blood,' and the armies of the advance have gained the day at the arrival
of'recruits,' whose hope and earnestness have never been defeated. Age
and experience put themselves upon dying pillows made by young hands; into
young palms and upon young ears falls the meaning of all the past; and
thus God has written the natural dignity of the young man's life in the
eternal statute book of the universe." [Footnote: From "Young Men of
History," by Dr. F.W. Gunsaulus.]
We have but to turn our gaze back over the centuries to find that it has
always been the young man who has embarked in the world's great
enterprises. If we turn the pages of religious history we shall find that
he has been potent there. For when the stream of Hebrew destiny was to be
turned, a young man, Joseph, who had been sold as a slave into Egypt, was
selected to accomplish it. And later young Saul of Kish while roaming
through his father's fields was summoned to a throne. It was the young
shepherd boy--David--that was chosen "to keep the banner of Israel in the
sky while the shadows hung black above the hills of Judah." When the
gospel was to be borne to the Gentiles the divine finger fell upon a young
tent-maker of Tarsus. Fourteen centuries later a miner's son, Martin
Luther, won Germany for the Reformation, and John Wesley "while yet a
student in college" started his mighty world-famous movement. At fifteen
John de Medici was a cardinal, and Bossuet was known by his eloquence; at
sixteen Pascal wrote a great work. Ignatius Loyola before he was thirty
began his pilgrimage, and soon afterward wrote his most famous books. At
twenty-two Savonarola was rousing the consciences of the Florentines, and
at twenty-five John Huss was an enthusiastic champion of truth.
But we see the young man standing before the footlights on the stage of
secular history, too. At twelve Remenyi was making his violin tremulous
with melody, and Caesar delivered an oration at Rome; at thirteen Henry M.
Stanley was a teacher; at fourteen Demosthenes was known as an orator; at
fifteen Robert Burns was a great poet, Rossini composed an opera, and
Liszt was a wizard in music. At the age of sixteen Victor Hugo was known
throughout France; at seventeen Mozart had made a name in Germany, and
Michael Angelo was a rising star in Italy. At eighteen Marcus Aurelius was
made a consul; at nineteen Byron was the "amazing genius" of his time; at
twenty Raphael had finished some of his most famous paintings, Faraday was
attracting the attention of his country, and two years later was admitted
to the Royal Institution of Great Britain. At twenty-one Alexander the
Great conquered the Persians, Beethoven was entrancing the world with his
music, and William Wilberforce was in Parliament. At twenty-two William
Pitt had entered Parliament, while William of Orange had received from
Charles V command of an army. At twenty-three William E. Gladstone had
denounced the Reform Bill at Oxford, and two years afterward became First
Junior Lord of the Treasury, and Livingstone was exploring the continent.
At twenty-four Sir Humphrey Davy was Professor of Chemistry in the Royal
Institution, Dante, Ruskin, and Browning had become famous writers. At
twenty-five Hume had written his treatise on Human Nature, Galileo was
lecturer of science at the University of Pisa, and Mark Antony was the
"hero of Rome." At twenty-six Sir Isaac Newton had made his greatest
discoveries; at twenty-seven Don John of Austria had won Lepanto, and
Napoleon was commander-in-chief of the army of Italy. At twenty-eight
AEschylus was the peer of Greek tragedy, at twenty-nine Maurice of Saxony
the greatest statesman of the age, and at thirty Frederick the Great was
the most conspicuous character of his day. At the same age Richelieu was
Secretary of State, and Cortez little older when he gazed on the "golden
Cupolas" of Mexico. These are a few of the splendid names that illumine
the pages of history across the sea.
But the young man has been no less potent in the affairs of our own
Nation, which has always been conspicuous for its production of truly
great men. The story is told that when one of England's great men was
visiting Henry Clay, and the two were riding over the country, the
distinguished guest inquired of his host, "What do you raise on these
hills and in these beautiful valleys?" "Men," was Clay's reply; and the
English patriot declared that this was the greatest crop to enrich a
country. We boast that we have given the world a full quota of really
great young men, some of them like Jason embarking on the sea of adventure
while the dew of extreme youth is still on their brow. If we wend our way
back through the grand procession of events of but a single century we
will find extreme youth marking out the lines of progress and directing
the course of the nation in politics, in literature and religion.
We would see William Prescott, a boy of twelve, diligently at work in the
Boston Athenaeum, or Jonathan Edwards at thirteen entering Yale College,
and while yet of a tender age shining in the horizon of American
literature; while the same age finds H. W. Longfellow writing for the
Portland _Gazette_. At fourteen John Quincy Adams was private secretary to
Francis H. Dana, American Minister to Russia; at fifteen Benjamin Franklin
was writing for the _New England Courant_, and at an early age became a
noted journalist. Benjamin West at sixteen had painted "The Death of
Socrates," at seventeen George Bancroft had won a degree in history,
Washington Irving had gained distinction as a writer. At eighteen
Alexander Hamilton was famous as an orator, and one year later became a
lieutenant-colonel under Washington. At nineteen Washington himself was a
major, Nathan Hale had distinguished himself in the Revolution, Bryant had
written "Thanatopsis," and Bayard Taylor was engaged in writing his first
book, "Views Afoot." At twenty Richard Henry Stoddard had found a place in
the leading periodicals of his day, John Jacob Astor was in business in
New York, and Jay Gould was president and general manager of a railroad.
At twenty-one Edward Everett was professor of Greek Literature at Harvard,
and James Russell Lowell had published a whole volume of his poems; at
twenty-two Charles Sumner had attracted the attention of some of the
famous men of his day, William H. Seward had entered upon a brilliant
political career, while Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry D. Thoreau occupied
a conspicuous place in literature. At twenty-three James Monroe was a
member of the Executive Council, and one year later was elected to
Congress; at twenty-four Thomas A. Edison and Richard Jordan Gatling were
inventors. At twenty-five John C. Calhoun made the famous speech that gave
him a seat in the Legislature, George William Curtis had traversed Italy,
Germany, and the Orient and soon after became known by his books of
travel. At twenty-six Thomas Jefferson occupied a seat in the House of
Burgesses, John Quincy Adams was minister to The Hague; at twenty-seven
Patrick Henry was known as the "Orator of Nature," and Robert Y. Hayne was
speaker in the Legislature of South Carolina. At twenty-eight Edward
Everett Hale had found a place in the hearts and minds of the people, and
at twenty-nine John Jay, youngest member of the Continental Congress, was
chosen to draw up the address to the British Nation.
These illustrious ones, who before their thirtieth year had written their
names on the immortal banner of their country, are only a few which adorn
the pages of our early history. Others of like purport might be added
indefinitely both from the early and the later life of our country. And
there has been no time when the young man played so important a role in
human affairs as he does to-day in the dawn of the twentieth century,
when the heart and the mind, philanthropy and literature, virtue and
truth, science and art, capital and labor are the principal factors in the
world's progress. To refer to but a single instance in this period of our
national life, there is no greater statesman and patriot than our beloved
President, Theodore Roosevelt,--a young man to whom we are proud to point
as a true type of American greatness and American manhood. Assuming
control of the Nation at such a critical moment in her history, when so
many dangerous rocks lay in her course, tremendous, indeed, was the
responsibility thrust upon him. But by his inherent principle of rule, his
unquenchable patriotism, his indomitable purpose, and the imperiousness of
his will, founded on a rich scholarship and a broad policy, he has spelled
triumph out of difficulty, and his name will go down in twentieth-century
history an example of illustrious young manhood.
The young man is emphatically the _ruling element_ in politics to-day. It
is estimated that a sufficient number of young men come of age every four
years to control the issue of the Presidential election. Constituting
about one-half of the present voting population, they hold far more than
the balance of political power. It was Goethe who said that the destiny of
any nation at any given time depends on the opinions of the young men who
are under twenty-five years of age. And William E. Gladstone affirmed that
the sum of the characters of this element constitute the character and
strength of any country.
And when we consider the young man in his relation to all the aspects of
life--civic, commercial, industrial, and social--we must recognize him as
the _ruling element_. Like Jason, the young man of to-day is the hero to
invade the empire of thought and action in quest of the Fleece of Gold.
"Lives of great men all remind us,
We can make our lives sublime;
And departing leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time."
II
The Golden Quality
"They Passed Through."
To live content with small means:
To seek elegance rather than luxury, and
Refinement rather than fashion;
To be worthy, not respectable,
Wealthy, not rich;
To study hard, think quietly,
Talk gently, act frankly;
To listen to stars and birds, to
Babes and sages, with open heart;
To bear all cheerfully, do all bravely,
Await occasions, hurry never,--
In a word, to let the spiritual,
Unbidden and unconscious,
Grow up through the common--
This is to be my symphony.
--Channing.
Success
In every land and in every age since the curtain first rose on the world's
great drama men have been in quest of the Fleece of Gold. The onward
progress of the race since our rude forefathers from the leaves of the
tree formed their clothes, and in the somber depths of the primeval forest
constructed their habitation, is due to an insatiable desire to possess
the coveted prize. Hanging before man's gaze in the consecrated borders of
his existence, it has inspired him to greater usefulness. He has built
ships and traversed the seas, invented machines, reared cities, and
established laws. In science and art and literature he has vied with his
fellow-man and given a mighty impulse to civilization, all for the Fleece
of Gold--success.
The world worships at the shrine of success. It regards it as man's
greatest attribute. And whether we find it in secular affairs,
substantiated by material grandeur, or in the mysterious realms of the
inner life characterized by the serene consciousness of truth, it must
ever be the goal of human aspiration.
It is the thought of some day having their efforts crowned that causes men
hotly to pursue the phantom or the reality of their lives. This aspiration
keeps the torch of hope ablaze in the midnight darkness, and the spirits
buoyed under the noon-day glare, while men forge on to the goal. The
surging throngs of a great city, the active hands and brains in the
bee-hives of industry and the many places of business, the vast army of
seekers after knowledge in the schools and colleges throughout the land,
the men of fame in the halls of Congress molding the affairs of the
Nation, the countless army tilling the fields under the open sky, the
legions in the dark caves of earth searching for treasure--all are seeking
to enter the golden gate of success.
Said Mr. A. B. Farquhar in a baccalaureate address to the students of
McDonough College: "Success colors everything. It is the essence of all
excellencies, the latent power which compels the favor of fortune and
subjugates fate. The world worships success regardless of how acquired;
makes it a standard for judging men, an indispensable credential for all
approval. If a man succeeds he is held to be wise, even though mediocre;
if he fails, whatever his learning and intrinsic merit, little regard is
paid to him. Success gilds and glorifies a multitude of blunders and
littlenesses, and people are thought merely to exist who do not keep
themselves on the road leading to it. In view of all this, it is no wonder
that we see all humanity looking earnestly toward success and moving with
eager step in search of it.
"Success is essentially the accomplishment of one's desires and purposes,
the realization of one's ideals. But this definition does not necessarily
imply a high state of being. As I sit by my window writing, the hoarse
cry of a rag-man and the mournful strains of a hand-organ come to my ears.
That able-bodied Greek, who is so lavish with his'music,' and the
rag-man, who is buying what the other is distributing freely, both are in
quest of the same thing--'success.'"
Alas! the world too often measures success by false standards--worships
the Golden Fleece, forgetting the high purpose it might be made to serve;
so dazzled by means that ends become oblivious. The spirit of the age is
to pay homage to great riches. The finely attired custodian of a money bag
too often is regarded as an exponent of success. On this point we should
guard ourselves, first ascertaining if the gorgeous equipage is the
"genuine fleece," or only a sham intended to deceive. A mansion on a
valuable corner lot does not constitute the "golden quality," nor does a
million dollars in bank epitomize its character. Its language is not
spoken in the dialect of Wall Street or of wheat pits. Gold, grain,
stocks, and bonds and estates too often mean the perversion of those
qualities most valuable to human life. Realty is not the prime issue of
life, but _reality_. If that which a man gets in his pay envelope, however
lucrative that may be, constituted his only reward, his effort would be
miserably compensated.
The man who has spent his life like a scaraboid beetle rolling up money,
without due regard for the common virtues of life, has not left
"footprints on the sands of time," but only a zigzag trail along the
highway over which he has journeyed. He has not achieved success in that
he has accumulated riches without a corresponding accumulation of
"wealth." To seek a purely selfish and material success is to defeat the
very purpose of one's existence--"life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness." In the very conquest for this baser type a man blights his
sensibilities, minifies his present enjoyment, and destroys his prospect
for a full measure of happiness by and by. With but one interest his
happiness is insecure; for when that fails or ceases to satisfy he has
nothing on which to rely. Midas craves for gold, and when he gets it his
senses become as metallic as the object of his affection. Therefore, if we
are of this type, simply seeking the Golden Fleece for what it will net us
in dollars and cents, we are not on the road leading to success. For
success does not consist in the acquisition of the material, so much as in
a mental discipline that seeks objectively to subordinate intrinsic value.
We must confess, however, that the age in which we live is one of brick
and mortar; that materialism and not aestheticism reigns over us. The
book-keeper's pen has usurped the office of the artist's brush and the
carpenter's chisel that of the sculptor. Intrinsic worth and
dividend-paying value holds sway, and even the gift-horse is looked in the
mouth while the priceless motive that prompted its giving is forgotten.
The commercial spirit which pervades the atmosphere of modern times is
disintegrating the sublimer side of human life. The gilded god of
materialism is lavishing its blessings in the realm of science and
invention and commercial enterprise, at the expense of aestheticism, till
to-day there are thousands of artisans to every artist. We have an
abundance of stone masons, but few Phidiases or Angelos; hundreds of organ
grinders, but few Beethovens or Webers or Bachs; a full quota of men
engrossed in the cold calculus of business, but a scarcity of Homers or
Dantes or Virgils.
Speaking of this material aspect of our epoch and how it is likely to be
regarded in the future, when the paradise of ideal living is regained, a
modern writer says: "Will not the intense preoccupation of material
production, the hurry and strain of our cities, the draining of life into
one channel, at the expense of breadth, richness, and beauty, appear as
mad as the Crusades, and perhaps of a lower type of madness? Could
anything be more indicative of a slight but general insanity than the
aspect of the crowd on the streets of Chicago?" Why is it that the poems
that have lived for centuries, and the masterpieces of the world's great
painters and sculptors are not being equaled in the dawn of the twentieth
century? The answer lies in the widespread devotion to realism instead of
idealism. The immortals have joined the mortals in search for the Fleece
of Gold. And Wordsworth's oft-quoted lines were never more applicable to
us than now:
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending we lay waste our powers.
All the capital in the universe does not stand for success unless there is
set over against it the wealth of soul which Marcus Aurelius, that great
apostle of plain living and high thinking, ever set forth as an antidote
to the treadmill grind of commercial life. Shakespeare struck the keynote
of this lofty conception of life, and pronounced a never-dying eulogy upon
the supreme dignity of character when he said:
"Who steals my purse steals trash;...
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed."
Wealth of soul is incomparably better than all that can be obtained from
pomp and luxury. Charlemagne is said to have worn in his crown a nail
taken from the cross on which the Savior was crucified. He wore it among
the jewels of his diadem as a reminder that there existed a tenderer
relation in life than kingdoms and material splendor. Thus in the crown of
our success, if we would make it truly great, we must place the sublimer
elements of our being. As the ivy softens the roughness of the mountain
side and the unsightly ruin, so will the aesthetic mellow and subdue the
intense commercialism with which we are surrounded. Without this quality
our success becomes like the fabled apples on the brink of the Dead
Sea--fair without, but ashes within.
If the avenue to success lay in one direction only--that of accumulating a
fortune, little incentive would be felt by those in the lower walks of
life. Moreover, if it were possible for all men to become millionaires,
the very organization of human society would become disrupted; for who
then would till the soil, run the factories, clean the streets? Nature has
been wise in the distribution of her talents. Anticipating the havoc of
endowing all mankind with equal powers, she established a wide diversity
in the range of human ability. To one she has given the gift of sagacity
to achieve success in the world of trade; to another mechanical skill to
create the ideals of inventive genius into reality; to another the highly
artistic sense, and withholding these higher attributes from still others,
she has chosen to endow them with a wealth of muscular force that the
physical requirements of organized human effort might be made effective.
So that any way we choose to look at this question we must concede that
temporal wealth does not constitute the broadest idea of success, nor is
capable in itself of producing it.
Even failure may be an element of a glorious success. The volcano that
pours its vengeance upon the fair plantation below, leaving wreck and ruin
in its path, bestows a wealth of sulphur which plays an important part in
the world of commerce. The same frost that kills the harvest of a season
also destroys the locust, preserving the harvests of a century. The death
of the cocoon is the production of the silk, and the failure of the
caterpillar the birth of the butterfly. If the boy Newton had not failed
utterly on the farm, he would never have been started in college to become
the mighty man of science. The fall of Rome meant the rise of the German
Empire. "All men," says Frederick Arnold, "need through errors attain to
truth, through struggles to victory, through regrets to that sorrow which
is a very source of life. Men must rise in an ever-ascending scale, like
the ladder of St. Augustine, by which men, through stepping-stones of
their dead selves rise to higher things; or those steps of Alciphron,
which crumbled away into nothingness as fast as each foot-fall left
them." Thus our very failures we may overrule and convert into
stepping-stones to success. Lifted to a loftier sphere, to a nobler
experience, we are apt to receive greater benefit than though we escaped
disappointment and rejoiced in easy fruition.
Success does not consist in not encountering difficulties, but in
overcoming them. If Jason is to have the golden fleece he must pass
between the dangerous rocks, he must encounter the dragon, yoke to the
plow the fire-breathing bulls, and subdue a regiment of armed men. If
Joseph had not been Egypt's prisoner, he would never have been Egypt's
governor. If Millet had not passed through the valley of sorrow, he could
never have painted the "Angelus." The Restoration in England that gave
Charles II a throne, drove Milton into absolute seclusion, and the last
twelve years of his life were passed in enforced isolation. But this
blind, deserted, broken-hearted, but illustrious scholar and poet,
conquered despair, triumphed over every misfortune, and gave to the world
those three great poems which have made his name immortal. Even poverty,
which has been a hardship to the individual, has proved a boon to himself
and to the cause of humanity. Science teaches us that ordinary mud has in
it elements which, arranged according to the higher laws of nature,
produce the opal, the sapphire, and the diamond. Likewise does history
teach us that from the morass of poverty the commonest types of men have
passed from stage to stage through the refining processes of experience
till they have dazzled the world with their magnificence. Whether it be a
slave like AEsop, a beggar like Homer, a peasant like Raphael, or a
marble-cutter like Socrates, we see them at last wearing the diadem of a
brilliant success.
In fact, the foremost in all nations and in all branches have, as a rule,
risen from the ranks of the poor and lowly. Shakespeare held horses for a
few pennies a night in front of a London theater, and later did menial
service back of the scenes. Disraeli was an office boy, Carlyle a
stone-mason's attendant, and Ben Jonson was a bricklayer. Morrison and
Carey were shoemakers, Franklin was a printer's apprentice, Burns a
country plowman, Stephenson a collier, Faraday a bookbinder, Arkwright a
barber, and Sir Humphrey Davy a drug clerk. Demosthenes was the son of a
cutler, Verdi the son of a baker, Blackstone the son of a draper, and
Luther was the son of a miner. Butler was a farmer, Hugh Miller a
stone-cutter, Abraham Lincoln a rail-splitter, and James Garfield was a
canal boy. One-half of the Presidents of the United States were left
orphans at an early age, left to make their way through the world alone.
History reveals clearly that it has been not the sons of the rich, but
the sons of poverty that have "compelled the favor of fortune and
subjugated fate."
Neither rank nor genius nor any other natural endowment forms the only
true basis of success. A right disposition, a desire and determination,
founded on the sub-structure of right purpose, to cope with the problems
that confront you, constitute the real basis of achievement. In short, the
only demands which success makes of you is that you act with the most of
yourself, bringing all your faculties to bear upon what you have to do;
instilling your best effort into the infinite detail that goes to make up
the great finality of your life. To this end, the systematic development
of the whole man, body, mind, and soul, in such a manner as to bring you
into right relation with things as they are and ought to be, is the
paramount question.
In fact, education is the only passport to success. I do not mean that
education that is restricted to institutions of learning. These, while
possessing a decided advantage, by no means have a monopoly of learning.
Genius finds opportunity in the great laboratories of nature. Every man
has within himself an educational organization presided over by a full
faculty; and nature's wonderful book is ever open to him, if only he will
lay hold upon the lessons it would teach him. This type of education which
is the drawing out toward all things the latent forces from within, and
the broadening out for greater usefulness, means the acquisition of
ability to meet every emergency and the establishment of high ideals.
Moreover, in the race for success, the proper nourishment of the brain is
an essential part of self-development. The brain is substantially the
great artist that creates our ideals in life. And yet we forget sometimes
that it is the master of our destiny; and allow it to sink into that dull
apathy so fatal to our hopes and aims. It would almost seem, indeed, as if
a kind of fatality clung to some men in the way in which they neglect this
supreme faculty of their being. You possess the power to use your brain as
you choose; but not the right, morally, for society demands of you a high
standard of thinking, since it is the only rational basis for a free
government. Thus it is as much your duty properly to nourish your brain as
to give proper care to the body.
In the rigid economy of modern life we should use extreme care in the
selection of our reading. Our best interests demand more of us than a
gormandizing of newspapers or ephemeral reading of any kind. Far be it
from me to disparage that great organ of the times--the newspaper, which
is a source of keen delight and benefit to us all, and almost the only
source of instruction to thousands of the race. But we should be judicious
in this, and not allow transitional matter to monopolize our time. "Read
not the times, read the eternities," cried Thoreau. The shelves of our
home and public libraries are filled with priceless volumes yet unread by
us. And he who is not cultivating a taste for good wholesome reading is
missing one of the highest enjoyments of life as well as minimizing his
chances for success. We should ever be exploring new regions of thought.
And in the extreme activity of this electric age we shall be obliged to
take snap shots at our reading--on the street car, in the lunch room,
anywhere we find it possible to peruse a single page.
If we look into the lives of some of the illustrious ones we shall find
that they obtained knowledge under the greatest disadvantages. We see
Lincoln reading his favorite volumes by the dim light of a pineknot blaze;
or Burritt poring over his books at the forge; or Garfield gazing intently
at the pages while riding a mule on the banks of a canal. Wesley likewise
diligently searched the Scriptures while riding horseback over the
country; William Cobbett learned grammar while a common soldier on the
march; and we are told that Alexander the Great, each night on retiring,
would place his favorite book, the "Iliad," under his pillow and during
his waking moments would peruse its pages.
But the high intellectual plane of present-day civilization demands more
of us than the world demanded then, when the avenues to honor and to power
lay over fields of conquest, and the passport to favor was the sword. The
complex problems of today call for a more thorough cultivation of our
mental powers, which, to bring into play upon the multifarious concerns of
our life, is the object of broad education. A well cultivated mind makes a
man monarch of all that he surveys; and no one can be said to be truly
successful who has not invaded the empire of thought in search for the
imperishable Fleece of Gold.
Success, then, in the highest sense, is a full realization of the highest
wealth of body, mind, and soul. And while it does not disparage material
aggrandizement, it makes it subservient, ever looking to an equalization
of the greater revenues of life. Like truth it consists in a right
proportion of things; and like character, is inherent in the nature of the
individual. Success must embrace all the cardinal virtues. It must arise
from the harmonious and fullest use of all the faculties. In its essence,
it is the aggregate of those things which we have acquired, and which we
are putting to a wise and useful purpose. The way of life is strewn with
those who have done fairly well. Excellence is the golden quality to seek.
Success, like a commodity, has its price, and he who would have it must be
willing to pay. You can not buy it on a bargain counter; it is a staple
product and demands full value--the sublimest qualities of your being.
"In the lexicon of youth, which fate reserves for a bright manhood,
there is no such words as--fail."
III
The Messenger of Fate
"They Seized the Favorable Moment."
Take all reasonable advantage of that which the present may offer
you.... It is the only time which is ours. Yesterday is buried
forever, and to-morrow we may never see.
--Victor Hugo.
Master of human destinies am I;
Fame, love, and fortune on my footsteps wait,
Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate
Deserts and seas remote, and passing by
Hovel and mart and palace, soon or late
I knock unbidden once at every gate;
If sleeping wake; if feasting, rise before
I turn away. It is the hour of fate,
And they who follow me reach every state
Mortals desire and conquer every foe
Save death; but those who doubt or hesitate,
Condemned to failure, penury, and woe,
Seek me in vain and uselessly implore;
I answer not and I return no more.
--John J. Ingalls.
Opportunity
The famous statue, "Take Time by the Forelock," was a masterpiece of
Greek sculpture. A noted Athenian orator, Callistratus, has given us a
picture of the work of art: "Opportunity was a boy in the flower of his
youth, handsome in mien, his hair fluttering at the caprice of the wind,
leaving his locks disheveled. Like Dionysius, his forehead shone with
grace, and his cheeks glowed with splendor. With winged feet to indicate
swiftness, he stood upon a sphere, resting upon the tips of his toes as
if ready for flight. His hair fell in thick curls from his brow, easy to
take hold upon. But upon the back of his head there were only the
beginnings of hairy growths, and, when he had once passed, it was not
possible to seize him."
An ancient legend gives us a more vivid idea of the significance of
the statue:
"Who art thou?"
"Time, the all-subduer."
"Why standest thou on tiptoe?"
"I speed ever."
"Why hast thou double wings on each foot?"
"I fly with the wind."
"But why is thy hair over thine eye?"
"To be grasped by him who meets me."
"The back of thy head, why is it bald?"
"When once I have rushed by, with winged feet, one can never grasp me
from behind."
In its literal significance, however, opportunity means something either
"in front of the door" or "outside of the harbor." For when the word first
crept into common speech it created two pictures,--that of a ship with
sails unfurled, riding at anchor, ready to start upon her unknown voyage,
with just a moment to spare to catch her before the sails are bent; or the
picture of a veiled figure standing for an instant at the door of one's
life, knocking with sharp, swift strokes and then, if no answer comes,
passing away into the darkness, refusing to be recalled.
In all the vocabulary of human speech no other word rings with truer
eloquence, or speaks with greater triumph, than that one
word,--opportunity. Born in the primeval forest of man's first
dwelling-place, it has marked the central path of civilization and hewn
its way to the front with unerring stroke. The finger of destiny ever
points back to this factor in human life as the primal element in all
achievement, the forerunner of all success. Without it human genius
would die, man's talent and skill waste away, and the hope of the race
would vanish.
Opportunity is the good angel that reveals the true issues of life,
unfolding the bud of possibility into the full-blown flower of progress.
It is the remorseless foe of sleepy monotony, awakening the passions in
the soul, rousing our powers to action. At the door of your life and mine
comes this silent, veiled figure, its hands laden with wealth, knocking
for admission. But, alas! it has been too often with us as George Eliot
with such tragic pathos has put it: "The golden moments in the stream of
life rush past us and we see nothing but sand. The angels come to visit us
and we know them only when they are gone."
There has been no period of time since God whirled out of chaos this
universe of wonders whose every moment did not hold for some one,
somewhere, some kind of opportunity. Man is the only creature under heaven
that has been privileged to walk with his face skyward to gaze upon the
stars, to behold the opportunities of life as they surge along his
pathway. In her wisdom, nature has given our eyes the power of both the
telescope and the microscope, that we may see our opportunities afar and
rightly discern them when they come within our reach.
Do not regard your opportunities as mere visages floating in the horizon
of your life, or autumn leaves driven by the winds of chance across your
path. Every opportunity far from being a thing of chance, is a product of
definite causes. Opportunity is unrealized possibility supplemented by
conditions favorable for the execution of a purpose. And the power lies
within you to create circumstances. That skillful artist, the human brain,
draws a mental picture--an idea, the judgment approves, the will renders
a decision to create that idea into actual being; in other words, gives it
a soul, and then we have opportunity made real by the process of a
creative force.
We are apt to regard this quality in our existence as a somewhat
superhuman term, an abstraction beyond the realm of common life, or at
most an asset within the reach of a favored few; whereas it is a common
attribute playing a potential part in our every-day activities. In its
very nature opportunity is democratic and goes, like a wayfarer, knocking
at the gates of every man's life.
This messenger of fate, however, will not knock at the door of that man
who is unable to meet the demands it would make upon him. It ever
recognizes the eternal fitness of things, since it looks to its own
promotion as well as the promotion of him who seeks to embrace it.
Opportunity, then, is not opportunity at all if a man is not equal to it. |
10,240 |
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THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.
* * * * *
[NO. 321.] SATURDAY, JULY 5, 1828. [PRICE 2d.]
* * * * *
EATON HALL, CHESHIRE,
_The Seat of the Rt. Hon. Earl Grosvenor_.
[Illustration]
This mansion is a princely specimen of Gothic architecture; and is in
every respect calculated for the residence of its noble possessor, whose
taste and munificence in patronizing the Fine Arts are well known to our
readers. Nevertheless, it is worthy of special remark, that not only is
the name of GROSVENOR conspicuous in this patronage, but his lordship
has further evinced his love of art in the construction of one of the
most splendid buildings in the whole empire,--the present mansion having
been completed within a few years.[1] Here the noble founder seems to
have realized all that the ingenious Sir Henry Wotton considered
requisite for a man's "house and home--the theatre of his hospitality,
the seat of self-fruition, a kind of PRIVATE PRINCEDOM; nay, to the
possessors thereof, an epitome of the whole world."
[1] At this moment, Earl Grosvenor has in progress a splendid
gallery for the reception of his superb collection of pictures,
adjoining his town mansion, in Grosvenor-street. This is one of
the few "Private Collections" to which, through the good taste
and courtesy of the proprietor, the public are admitted, on
specified days, and under certain restrictions. The nucleus of
Earl Grosvenor's collection, was the purchase of Mr. Agar's
pictures for L30,000; since which it has been enlarged, till it
has at length become one of the finest in England. In the
drawing-room at Eaton are, _Our Saviour on the Mount of Olives_,
by Claude Lorraine, which is the largest painting known to have
been executed by him; and _A Port in the Mediterranean_, by
Vernet. In the dining-room, _Rubens with his Second Wife_; by
himself; and _The Judgment of Paris_, a copy, by Peters, after
Rubens. In the dressing-room of the state bed-room, _David and
Abigail_, also by Rubens. Over the ornamented chimney-pieces of
the hall are, West's _Dissolution of the Long Parliament_, and
_The Landing of Charles the Second_.
_Eaton_ is situated about three miles to the south of Chester, on the
verge of an extensive park, thickly studded with fine old timber. The
present "Hall" occupies the site of the old mansion, which is described
as a square and spacious brick building erected by Sir Thomas Grosvenor,
in the reign of William III. The architect was Sir John Vanbrugh, who
likewise laid out the gardens with straight walks and leaden statues, in
the formal style of his age. In the reconstruction, the fine vaulted
basement story of the old Hall was preserved, as were also the external
foundations, and some subdivisions; but the superstructure was altered
and entirely refitted, and additional apartments erected on the north
and south sides, so as to make the area of the new house twice the
dimensions of the old one.
The style of architecture adopted in the new Hall is that of the age of
Edward III, as exhibited in that Parthenon of Gothic architecture, York
Minster; although the architect, Mr. Porden, has occasionally availed
himself of the low Tudor arch, and the forms of any other age that
suited his purpose, so as to adapt the rich variety of our ancient
ecclesiastical architecture to modern domestic convenience. Round the
turrets, and in various parts of the parapets are shields, charged in
relievo with the armorial bearings of the Grosvenor family, and of
other ancient families that, by intermarriages, the Grosvenors are
entitled to quarter with their own. The windows, which are "richly
dight" with tracery, are of cast-iron, moulded on both sides, and
grooved to receive the glass. The walls, battlements, and pinnacles,
are of stone, of a light and beautiful colour, from the Manly quarry
about ten miles distant.
The annexed engraving represents the west-front of the house, in the
centre of which is the entrance, by a vaulted porch, which admits a
carriage to the steps that lead to the Hall, a spacious and lofty room,
occupying the height of two stories, with a groined ceiling, embellished
with the Grosvenor arms, and other devices, in the bosses that cover the
junction of the ribs. The pavement is of variegated marble in
compartments. At the end of the Hall, a screen of five arches support a
gallery which connects the bed-chambers on the north side of the house
with those on the south, which are separated by the elevation of the
Hall. Under this gallery, two open arches to the right and left conduct
to the grand staircase, the state bed-room, and the second staircase;
and opposite to the door of the hall is the entrance to the saloon. The
grand staircase is elaborately ornamented with niches and canopies, and
with tracery under the landings; and in the principal ceiling, which is
surmounted with a double skylight of various coloured glass. The state
bed-room is lighted by two painted windows, with tracery and armorial
bearings. In the saloon are three lofty and splendidly painted windows,
which contain, in six divisions,--the portraits of the conqueror's
nephew, Gilbert le Grosvenor, the founder of the Grosvenor family, and
his lady; of William the Conqueror, with whom Gilbert came into England;
the Bishop of Bayeux, uncle to the conqueror; the heiress of the house
of Eaton; and Sir Robert le Grosvenor, who signalized himself in the
wars of Edward III.
The saloon is a square of thirty feet, formed into an octagon by arches
across the angles, which give to the vaultings a beautiful form.
Opposite to the chimney piece is an organ richly decorated. On the left
of the saloon is an ante-room leading to the dining-room; and on the
right, another leading to the drawing-room: the windows of these rooms
are glazed with a light Mosaic tracery, and exhibit the portraits of the
six Earls of Chester, who, after Hugh Lupus, governed Cheshire as a
County Palatine, till Henry III bestowed the title on his son Edward;
since which time the eldest sons of the kings of England have always
been Earls of Chester.
The dining-room, situated at the northern extremity of the east front,
is about 50 feet long and 30 feet wide, exclusive of a bay-window of
five arches, the opening of which is 30 feet. In the centre window is
the portrait of Hugh Lupus; which, with the portraits of the six Earls
of Chester, in the ante-room windows, were executed from cartoons, at
Longport, Staffordshire. The ceiling is of bold and rich tracery, with a
profuse emblazoning of heraldic honours, and a large ornamented pendant
for a chandelier.
The drawing room, which is at the southern extremity of the east front,
is of the same form and dimensions as the dining-room, with the addition
of a large window to the south, commanding the luxuriant groves of
meadows of Eaton, and the village and spire of Oldford above them. All
the windows of this room are adorned with heads and figures of the
ancestors of the family; also the portraits of the present Earl and
Countess, in a beautiful brown _chiaro-scuro_. The ceiling is tracery of
the nicest materials and workmanship emblazoned with the arms of the
Grosvenor family, and those of Egerton, Earl of Wilton, the father of
the present Countess Grosvenor.
Eaton became the property of the Grosvenor family through the marriage
of Ralph Grosvenor, in the reign of Henry VI with Joan, daughter of John
Eaton, then owner of this estate. The Grosvenor family, as we have
already intimated, came into England with William the Conqueror; they
derived their name from the office of chief huntsmen, which they held in
the Norman court; and, when "chivalry was the fashion of the times,"
says Pennant, "few families shone in so distinguished a manner: none
shewed equal spirit in vindicating their rights to their looms." He then
mentions the celebrated legal contest with Sir Richard le Scroope, for
the family arms--_Azure, a bend or_. This cause was tried before the
High Constable and the Earl Marshal of England, in the reign of Richard
II. It lasted three years; kings, princes of the blood, and most of the
nobility, and among the gentry, Chaucer, the poet, gave evidence on the
trial. "The sentence," says Pennant, "was conciliating; that both
parties should bear the same arms; but the _Grosvenours avec une bordure
d'argent_. Sir Robert resents it, and appeals to the king. The judgment
is confirmed; but the choice is left to the defendant, either to use the
_bordure_, or bear the arms of their relations, the ancient Earls of
Chester, _azure, a gerb d'or_. He rejected the mortifying distinction,
and chose a _gerb_: which is the family coat to this day."
Hitherto we have only spoken of the artificial splendour of Eaton. The
natural beauties with which it is environed will, however, present
equal, if not superior, attraction for the tourist. The stiff, formal
walks of Vanbrugh no longer disfigure the grounds, which are now made to
harmonize with the contiguous landscape, and are enlivened by an inlet
of the Dee, which intervenes between the eastern front of the mansion,
and the opposite plantations. These alterations have, however, been made
with great judgment, and a few of the venerable beauties of the park
remain. Thus, a fine aged avenue extends westward to a Gothic lodge in
the hamlet of Belgrave, about two miles distant from the Hall. Another
lodge, in a similar style of design, is approached by a road, which
diverges from this avenue towards Chester, and crosses the park, through
luxuriating plantations, which open occasionally in glade views of the
Broxton and Welsh Hills. The most pleasing approach to this noble
mansion is one which has been cut through the plantations, towards the
north-east angle of the house, so as to throw the whole building into
perspective.
Viewed from either of the beautiful sites with which the park abounds,
Eaton is a magnificent display of towers, and turrets, pinnacles and
battlements, partly embosomed in foliage, and belted with one of the
richest domains in England. Indeed, its splendour seldom fails to strike
the overweening admirer of art with devotional fondness, which is not
lessened by his approach to the fabric.[1] The most favourable distant
views are from the Aldford road, and from the romantic banks of the Dee,
whence there is a proud display of architectural grandeur. In every
point, however, the grounds and mansion of Eaton will abundantly gratify
the expectations of the visiter. Altogether, they present a rich scene
of nature, diversified and embellished by the attributes of art; and the
admiration of the latter will be not a little enhanced by the reflection
that the building of this sumptuous pile provided employment for a large
portion of the poor of Chester during one of the most calamitous periods
of the late war.
[1] One view from the interior deserves special mention: viz. from
the saloon, upon a terrace 350 feet in length, commanding one
of the richest landscapes on the banks of Dee. The boasted
terrace at Versailles is but 400 feet in length; yet, how many
Englishmen, who have seen the latter, are even ignorant of
that at Eaton.
The noble founder of Eaton has indeed learned to "build stately," and
"garden finely;" and has thus made the personal fruition of his wealth
subservient to its real use--the distribution.
* * * * *
ORIGIN OF CHESS.
(_To the Editor of the Mirror_.)
SIR,--In vol. 3, page 211, of the MIRROR, is an account of the origin of
the scientific game of chess, the invention of which, your correspondent
_F. H. Y._ has attributed to a brahmin, named Sissa. But I believe it is
entirely a matter of doubt, both as to where, and by whom it was
invented; it is evidently of very high antiquity, and if we recur to the
original names of the pieces with which it is played, we shall readily
be convinced it is of Asiatic original. The honour of inventing it, is
contended for by several nations, but principally by the Hindoos, the
Chinese, and the Persians. In support of the first, we are told, by Sir
William Jones, in the 2nd vol. of his _Asiatic Researches_, that the
game of chess has been immemorably known in Hindostan, by the name of
Chaturanga, or the four members of an army, viz. elephants, horses,
chariots, and foot soldiers. And yet, the same learned author observes,
that no account of the game has hitherto been discovered in the
classical writings of the brahmins. Mr. Daines Barrington supposed the
Chinese to be the inventers, and in this he is supported by a paper
published in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, for 1794, vol.
5, by Mr. Eyles Irwin. It states, that when Mr. Irwin was at Canton, a
young mandarin, on seeing the English chess-board, recognised its
similarity with that used for a game of their own; and brought his board
and equipage for Mr. Irwin's inspection, and soon after gave him a
manuscript extract from a book, relating the invention of the Chinese
game, called by them chong-he, or the royal game, which it attributed to
a Chinese general (about 1,965 years ago) who by its means reconciled
his soldiers to passing the winter in quarters in the country of Shensi,
the cold and inconvenience of which were likely to have occasioned a
mutiny among them. Other writers contend that chess is a game of Persian
invention, since _scah muth_ is the Persic term for check-mate; and
since the Persians were sedulous in recommending it to their young
princes, as a game calculated to instruct kings in the art of war. It
has been attributed to Palamedes, who lived during the Trojan war; but
it was a game played with pebbles, or cubes, of which he was the
inventer. Palamedes was so renowned for his sagacity, that almost every
early discovery was ascribed to him. Whether the Greeks or Romans were
acquainted with this game is doubtful. Of the three contending nations,
the claim of the Persians appears to me to be least eligible, and that
of the Chinese the most.
_Near Sheffield._
J. M. C-D.
* * * * *
THREE SONNETS TO JOHN KEATS.
(_For the Mirror_.)
I can think of thee! now that the light spring
Showers live in the rich breezes, and the dyes
Of the glad flowers are won from her blue eyes
Exulting; whilst loud songs, on the fleet wing
Of the Earth's seraphs, bear her welcoming
From it to heaven, and, up to the far skies,
From turf-born censers floods of incense rise.
I can think of thee in my wandering;
And when the heart leaps up within to bless
The sights of love and beauty, on each hand,--
The pouring-out of sky-sprung happiness
Over the dancing sea and the green land,
Thought wakes one saddening thrill of bitterness--
Thou canst not o'er this Eden smiling stand!
Yes! even as the quick glow of Spring's first smile
Is unto the renewed spirit,--even
As that abundant gush of wine from Heaven
Loosens the dreary grasp of Cares which coil
Round the lone heart like serpents,--the sweet toil
Of draining the dear dream-cup thou hast given
Is unto me,--and thoughts which long have striven
With joyousness, flit far away the while
My lips are prest to it. By the fire-light,
Or in full gaze of sun-set, when the choirs
Of winged minstrels, waking out of light,
Ring requiem meet to those departing fires--
Let me be with thee then--forgetting quite
The world, its scornfulness, and its desires.
O! I could weep for thee! and yet not tears
Of hopelessness, but triumph, and sit down
And weave for thee wet wild-flowers for a crown--
Then up, and sound rich music in thine ears;
And teach thee, that sweet lips, in coming years,
Shall lisp the songs which cold dull hearts disown,--
That all which hope could pant for is thine own,--
Dimmed, for a moment's space, with human fears.
Then watch the new-born glories in thine eye,
Glancing like lightning from its chariot cloud,
And list these words, which know not how to die,--
Joy's inspiration gushing forth aloud:
Then back again unto the world and sigh,
And wrap my heart up in a dusky shroud.
THOMAS M---- S.
* * * * *
CHOOSING OF BAILIFFS AT BRIDGNORTH.
(_For the Mirror_.)
The bailiffs of Bridgnorth are chosen out of the twenty-four aldermen
upon St. Matthew's Day in the following manner:--The court having met,
the names of twelve aldermen being separately written on small pieces of
paper, are closely rolled up by the town clerk, and thrown into a purse,
which is shaken by the two chamberlains standing upon the chequer, (a
large table in the middle of the court,) and held open to the bailiffs,
when each, according to seniority, takes out a roll. By this means the
callers are decided, who, mounting the chequer, alternately call the
jury of fourteen out of the burgesses present. They are then sworn
neither to eat nor drink till they, or twelve of them, have chosen two
fit persons, who have not been bailiffs for three years before, to serve
that office for the ensuing year; they are locked up till they have
agreed, which sometimes occasions long fastings. In 1739, the jury
fasted seventy hours. The persons chosen are sworn into office on
Michaelmas Day.--W. H.
* * * * *
ON COALS, AND THE PERIOD WHEN THE COAL MINES IN ENGLAND WILL BE
EXHAUSTED.
(_From Bakewell's Introduction to Geology, 3rd Edition, 1828_.)
Coal was known, and partially used, at a very early period of our
history. I was informed by the late Marquis of Hastings, that stone
hammers and stone tools were found in some of the old workings in his
mines at Ashby Wolds; and his lordship informed me also, that similar
stone tools had been discovered in the old workings in the coal-mines in
the north of Ireland. Hence we may infer, that these coal-mines were
worked at a very remote period, when the use of metallic tools was not
general. The burning of coal was prohibited in London in the year 1308,
by the royal proclamation of Edward I. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth,
the burning of coal was again prohibited in London during the sitting of
parliament, lest the health of the knights of the shire should suffer
injury during their abode in the metropolis. In the year 1643, the use
of coal had become so general, and the price being then very high, many
of the poor are said to have perished for want of fuel. At the present
day, when the consumption of coal, in our iron-furnaces and
manufactories and for domestic use, is immense, we cannot but regard the
exhaustion of our coal-beds as involving the destruction of a great
portion of our private comfort and national prosperity. Nor is the
period very remote when the coal districts, which at present supply the
metropolis with fuel, will cease to yield any more. The annual quantity
of coal shipped in the rivers Tyne and Wear, according to Mr. Bailey,
exceeded three million tons. A cubic yard of coals weighs nearly one
ton; and the number of tons contained in a bed of coal one square mile
in extent, and one yard in thickness, is about four millions. The number
and extent of all the principal coal-beds in Northumberland and Durham
is known; and from these data it has been calculated that the coal in
these counties will last 360 years. Mr. Bailey, in his Survey of Durham,
states, that one-third of the coal being already got, the coal districts
will be exhausted in 200 years. It is probable that many beds of
inferior coal, which are now neglected, may in future be worked; but the
consumption of coal being greatly increased since Mr. Bailey published
his Survey of Durham, we may admit his calculation to be an
approximation to the truth, and that the coal of Northumberland and
Durham will be exhausted in a period not greatly exceeding 200 years.
Dr. Thomson, in the Annals of Philosophy, has calculated that the coal
of these districts, at the present rate of consumption, will last 1,000
years! but his calculations are founded on data manifestly erroneous,
and at variance with his own statements; for he assumes the annual
consumption of coal to be only two million eight hundred thousand tons,
and the waste to be one-third more,--making three million seven hundred
thousand tons, equal to as many square yards; whereas he has just before
informed us, that two million chaldrons of coal, of two tons and a
quarter each chaldron, are exported, making four million five hundred
thousand tons, beside inland consumption, and waste in the working[1].
According to Mr. Winch, three million five hundred thousand tons of coal
are consumed annually from these districts; to which if we add the waste
of small coal at the pit's mouth, and the waste in the mines, it will
make the total yearly destruction of coal nearly double the quantity
assigned by Dr. Thomson. Dr. Thomson has also greatly overrated the
quantity of the coal in these districts, as he has calculated the extent
of the principal beds from that of the lowest, which is erroneous; for
many of the principal beds crop out, before they reach the western
termination of the coal-fields. With due allowance for these errors, and
for the quantity of coal already worked out, (which, according to Mr.
Bailey, is about one-third,) the 1,000 years of Dr. Thomson will not
greatly exceed the period assigned by Mr. Bailey for the complete
exhaustion of coal in these counties, and may be stated at three hundred
and fifty years.
[1] The waste of coal at the pit's mouth may be stated at one-sixth
of the quantity sold, and that left in the mines at one-third.
Mr. Holmes, in his Treatise on Coal Mines, states the waste of
small coal at the pit's mouth to be one-fourth of the whole.
It cannot be deemed uninteresting to inquire what are the repositories
of coal that can supply the metropolis and the southern counties, when
no more can be obtained from the Tyne and the Wear. The only coal-fields
of any extent on the eastern side of England, between London and Durham,
are those of Derbyshire and those in the west riding of Yorkshire. The
Derbyshire coal-field is not of sufficient magnitude to supply, for any
long period, more than is required for home consumption, and that of the
adjacent counties. There are many valuable beds of coal in the western
part of the west riding of Yorkshire which are yet unwrought; but the
time is not very distant when they must be put in requisition, to supply
the vast demand of that populous manufacturing county, which at present
consumes nearly all the produce of its own coal mines. In the midland
counties, Staffordshire possesses the nearest coal districts to the
metropolis, of any great extent; but such is the immense daily
consumption of coal in the iron-furnaces and founderies, that it is
generally believed this will be the first of our own coal-fields that
will be exhausted. The thirty-feet bed of coal in the Dudley coal-field
is of limited extent; and in the present mode of working it, more than
two-thirds of the coal is wasted and left in the mine.
If we look to Whitehaven or Lancashire, or to any of the minor
coal-fields in the west of England, we can derive little hope of their
being able to supply London and the southern counties with coal, after
the import of coal fails from Northumberland and Durham. We may thus
anticipate a period not very remote, when all the English mines of coal
and ironstone will be exhausted; and were we disposed to indulge in
gloomy forebodings, like the ingenious authoress of the "Last Man," we
might draw a melancholy picture of our starving and declining
population, and describe some manufacturing patriarch, like the late
venerable Richard Reynolds, travelling to see the last expiring English
furnace, before he emigrated to distant regions.[1]
[1] The late Richard Reynolds, Esq., of Bristol, so distinguished
for his unbounded benevolence, was the original proprietor of
the great iron-works in Colebrook Dale, Shropshire. Owing, I
believe, partly to the exhaustion of the best workable beds of
coal and ironstone, and partly to the superior advantages
possessed by the iron-founders in South Wales, the works at
Colebrook Dale were finally relinquished, a short time before
the death of Mr. Reynolds. With a natural attachment to the
scenes where he had passed his early years, and to the pursuits
by which he had honourably acquired his great wealth, he
travelled from Bristol into Shropshire, to be present when the
last of his furnaces was extinguished, in a valley where they
had been continually burning for more than half a century.
Fortunately, however, we have in South Wales, adjoining the Bristol
Channel, an almost exhaustless supply of coal and ironstone, which are
yet nearly unwrought. It has been stated, that this coal-field extends
over about twelve hundred square miles, and that there are twenty-three
beds of workable coal, the total average thickness of which is
ninety-five feet, and the quantity contained in each acre is 100,000
tons, or 65,000,000 tons per square mile. If from this we deduct one
half for waste and for the minor extent of the upper beds, we shall have
a clear supply of coal, equal to 32,000,000 tons per square mile. Now if
we admit that the five million tons of coal from the Northumberland and
Durham mines is equal to nearly one-third of the total consumption of
coals in England, each square mile of the Welsh coal-field would yield
coal for two years' consumption; and as there are from one thousand to
twelve hundred square miles in this coal-field, it would supply England
with fuel for two thousand years, after all our English coal-mines are
worked out.
It is true, that a considerable part of the coal in South Wales is of an
inferior quality, and is not at present burned for domestic use; but in
proportion as coal becomes scarce, improved methods of burning it will
assuredly be discovered, to prevent any sulphureous fumes from entering
apartments, and also to economize the consumption of fuel in all our
manufacturing processes.
* * * * *
SONG.
(_For the Mirror._)
Thou hast not seen the tear-drops fill
The eyes which worship thee;
The deepest curse, the darkest ill,
Hovers above--around me--still
There are no tears for me!
Thou canst not know, why I should kneel
For tears to heaven--in vain;
The thousand changeless pangs we feel,--
The precious drops, perchance, might heal,--
They will not start again!
Thou canst not know what hopes will spring
When I can gaze on thee,
Even in the cold heart withering;
Oh! thou to whom that heart must cling,
Art more than tears to me!
THOMAS M---- S.
* * * * *
HINTS FOR HEALTH.
["A very old and active correspondent," _Tim Tobykin_, has furnished
us with the following interesting extracts from Dr. Rennie's
_Treatise on Gout and Nervous Diseases_, just published. These,
however, are but a portion of our correspondent's selections; and as
they are written in a popular style and appear to be equally
applicable to the welfare of all classes, they will doubtless be
acceptable to our readers. We are not friendly to the introduction
of purely professional matters into the pages of the MIRROR, but the
following extracts are so far divested of technicality as to render
their utility and importance obvious to every reader.]
CLIMATE, LOCALITY, AND SEASONS.
I shall first inquire, says Dr. Rennie, what are the effects of climate
on healthy constitutions, as respects heat, cold, moisture, and
vicissitudes; including also the diurnal and annual revolutions.
Cold applied to the body acts as a direct sedative. It diminishes the
nervous sensibility, represses the activity of the circulation, detracts
from the sum of the animal heat, and thereby diminishes stimulation. In
the cessation of excitement and sensibility that ensues, the whole vital
actions are moderated, existing irritation is soothed; and in the same
manner as sleep recruits the wasted powers, so does cold restore and
invigorate the nerves when overstimulated, and in fact promotes the tone
and vigour of the whole body; when again a warmer atmosphere succeeds a
colder, the animal heat increases in its sum, the surface of the body is
re-excited, nervous sensibility returns, and a reaction of the
circulation takes place; so that the blood diffuses itself in greater
abundance towards the remote and superficial parts of the body, and the
secretions are also promoted.
Alternations of cold and heat therefore in healthy constitutions within
certain limits, are salutary; promoting, on the one hand, the vigour and
tone of the body; on the other, the due activity and excitement of the
various functions.
The temperature occasioned by day and night, and also those more
progressive and slow alternations of heat and cold, on the large scale,
attending the annual revolution of the seasons, are a natural provision
admirably adapted to effect these objects as described; constituted as
our bodies are, such a constant and regular succession of heat and cold
is just such as the necessities of the human frame require. The
alternations of day and night, of winter and summer, are far from being
merely incidental and unimportant circumstances in the general
adaptation of the earth to man's constitutional wants; neither do they
bear reference solely to the productions of the earth for his use. They
exert a continual and direct influence on his constitution, calculated
to aid the vigorous and healthy performance of the various functions of
the body each in its due degree and order, and they conduce mainly to
the perfection and longevity of the species.
Let us therefore trace the effects of these changes on the human body.
During the winter, the prevailing cold acts as a universal sedative and
tonic, soothing the nervous excitement and sensibility, allaying the
activity of the circulation, moderating the functions of the skin, and
diminishing the various secretions.
As the Spring opens, the sun gains daily in influence, generating a
gradually increasing atmospheric warmth. The body therefore becomes
subject from this heat to a reactive effect, during which the nervous
sensibility and circulation are gradually re-excited, the blood is more
equally diffused towards the surface and extremities of the body, and
the secretion by the skin is increased.
If the cold of winter were to continue unmitigated from year to year,
without the genial influence of summer, the human race, as is apparent
in polar regions and upland mountainous districts, would degenerate into
dwarfishness.
If the heat of summer were continually maintained the whole year round,
a tendency to degeneracy of the race would be also observed, as we see
in tropical latitudes. It is in the medium betwixt these extremes, where
a moderate and regular winter cold is succeeded by a mild, genial summer
temperature, that the species approaches most to perfection in stature,
health, strength, and longevity.
In observing also the influence of day and night on the constitution,
there is a sedative effect produced in the morning before the sun is up,
a reactive tendency promoted towards noon under the solar influence, and
again towards evening this reaction is repressed by the sedative effect
of the evening cold; and this sedative effect is at its maximum at
midnight. Hence those who sit up late feel unusually chilly and
depressed towards midnight, partly owing to exhaustion from want of
sleep, but chiefly from the total absence of solar influence in the
atmospherical temperature. In regular habits this sedative effect is
never thoroughly experienced; for before midnight, the constitution,
enveloped in warm blankets, has experienced the reaction arising from
the accumulation of heat in bed. Whence the common remark, that one
hour's sleep before midnight is worth three after that hour, is actually
true to a certain extent. By early retirement to rest, the sedative
effect on the constitution, to an extent such as to disturb the
functions, is escaped.
If we connect these two influences, the annual and diurnal successions
of cold and heat, in their joint effect, we find, that about, or a
little after the summer solstice, the influence of the sun being at its
maximum, the nervous sensibility, heat, circulating excitement, and
cutaneous secretions of the body, are also at their maximum. The
temperature of the day and night differ so little, that the sedative
effects of evening and morning are not sufficient to restore the frame
by soothing the sensibilities, overexcited and irritable from the
previous warmth. Whence the languor and irritability felt in summer,
when the heat is long continued, and the nights are spent in
restlessness and anxious oppression. Exhaustion and relaxation of the
frame are the consequence.
As the autumnal equinox verges on, the mornings and evenings get cooler
in relation to the mid-day heat; and about the equinox, the difference
in the temperature of mid-day and midnight is at its maximum. We have
therefore a powerful sedative effect in the morning, which braces and
invigorates the body; a powerful reactive effect at mid-day, which
rouses and stimulates the actions and sensibilities of the frame; and
again towards evening a sedative effect, from the increasing cold
reaching its maximum at midnight.
As the season passes on from the Equinox towards the winter solstice,
the heat of the sun daily diminishes, and the cold gains a daily
preponderance. The sedative effect on the body goes on progressively
increasing, being less and less counteracted by any genial influence
from the solar heat at mid-day; whence the gloom and depression so
universally experienced by the nervous in November and December, which
is more and more felt till the shortest day. So soon as the minimum of
solar influence and maximum of sedative effect on the body has passed
over, the sun gradually acquires more of meridian influence, and a daily
increasing ascendancy over the prevalent cold. The human constitution at
the same time is subject to a proportionate reactive disposition; which
reaction is felt most at noon, and it daily becomes more and more
apparent till the vernal equinox, when we have the difference betwixt
the meridian and midnight temperature again at a maximum. We have daily
a powerful sedative effect in the morning, a powerful meridian reaction,
which again subsides into a sedative condition on the access of the
evening. This daily effect on the constitution is exactly similar to
that at the autumnal equinox, only it occurs under different
circumstances. In autumn it is connected with departing heat and
progressively increasing cold; in Spring it is connected with
progressively diminishing cold and advancing heat. After the vernal
equinox, the difference in the meridian and midnight temperature
gradually diminishes; the daily sedative effect at morning and evening
becomes less and less apparent as general atmospheric warmth prevails,
till towards the summer solstice, the general effect on the constitution
is stimulation and excitement by atmospheric heat.
* * * * *
NOTES OF A READER.
BYRON'S "FARE THEE WELL."
On one occasion of a mediator waiting upon Lord Byron upon the subject
of a reconciliation with his wife, he produced from his desk a paper on
which was written "fare thee well," and said, "Now these are exactly my
feelings on the subject--they were not intended to be published, but you
may take them."--_Lit. G._
EARLY HOURS.
Dr. Franklin published an ingenious Essay on the advantages of early
rising.--He called it "an economical project," and calculated the saving
that might be made in the city of Paris, by using the sunshine instead
of the candles--at no less than 4,000,000l. sterling.
SENSITIVE PLANTS.
Light exercises a very remarkable influence upon the irritability of the
sensitive plant. Thus, if a sensitive plant be placed in complete
darkness, by carrying it within an opaque vessel, it will entirely lose
its irritability, and that in a variable time, according to a certain
state of depression or elevation of the surrounding temperature.
At Brussels, the demand for labour is so great, in consequence of the
number of new buildings, that tradesmen consider they confer a favour on
a customer by the execution of his orders. The lower classes have
become, within the last seven years, extremely dissipated, owing it is
supposed to the increase in the wages of the mechanics and labourers
employed in the numerous buildings erected within that period. During
the Kaermess annual feast of three days, it is calculated 80,000
_litres_ (pots) are drunk each day!
Cooper, the American novelist, has just published two volumes of
"Notions" of his countrymen, in the course of which he bestows on them
the following surperlative epithets: "most active, quick-witted,
enterprising, orderly, moral, simple, vigorous, healthful, manly,
generous, just, wise, innocent, civilized, liberal, polite, enlightened,
ingenious, moderate, glorious, firm, free, virtuous, intelligent,
sagacious, kind, honest, independent, brave, gallant, intellectual,
well-governed, elevated, dignified, pure, immaculate, extraordinary,
wonderful," &c. He then calls them the "most improving," which is
painting, nay coating, the lily, to "wasteful and ridiculous excess."
OSTRICHES
Impart a lively interest to a ride in the Pampas. They are sometimes
seen in coveys of twenty or thirty, gliding elegantly along the
undulations of the plain, at half pistol-shot from each other, like
skirmishers. The young are easily domesticated, and soon become attached
to those who caress them; but they are troublesome inmates; for,
stalking about the house, they will, when full grown, swallow coin,
shirt-pins, and every small article of metal within reach. Their usual
food, in a wild state, is seeds, herbage, and insects; the flesh is a
reddish brown, and if young, not of bad flavour. A great many eggs are
laid in the same nest. Some accounts exonerate the ostrich from being
the most stupid bird in the creation. This has been proved by the
experiment of taking an egg away, or by putting one in addition. In
either case she destroys the whole by smashing them with her feet.
Although she does not attend to secrecy, in selecting a situation for
her nest, she will forsake it if the eggs have been handled. It is also
said that she rolls a few eggs thirty yards distant from the nest, and
cracks the shells, which, by the time her young come forth, being filled
with maggots, and covered with insects, form the first repast of her
infant brood. The male bird is said to take upon himself the rearing of
the young. If two cock-birds meet, each with a family, they fight for
the supremacy over both; for which reason an ostrich has sometimes under
his tutelage broods of different ages.--_Mem. Gen. Miller._
Dr. Kitchiner recommends a gentleman who has a mind to carry the
arrangement of his clothes to a nicety, to have the shelves of his
wardrobe numbered 30, 40, 50, and 60, and according to the degree of
cold pointed to by his thermometer, to wear a corresponding defence
against it.
Dr. Harwood fed two pointers; one he suffered to sleep after dinner,
another he forced to take exercise. In the stomach of the one who had
been quiet and asleep, all the food was digested; in the stomach of the
other, that process was hardly begun.
SIR WALTER'S LAST.
At page 354 of our last vol., the reader will find an eloquent
description of Perth, from the Wicks of Beglie, quoted from St.
Valentine's Eve. This turns out to be a topographical blunder, for the
"fair city" cannot be seen at all from the said Wicks, whereas the
author has described it as the best point of view. As our readers have
long since enjoyed the description, we shall doubtless be pardoned for
thus noticing the mistake.
TELEGRAPHS.
The system of telegraphs has arrived at such perfection in the
presidency of Bombay, that a communication may be made through a line of
500 miles in eight minutes.--_Weekly Rev._
One of the drawing-room critics who uphold the literature of lords and
ladies, sums up the merits of fashionable novel-writing as
follows:--"After all, it is something to scrutinize lords and ladies,
recline on satin sofas, eat off silver dishes--whose nomenclature is the
glory of _l'artiste_--though only in a book."
MAHOGANY.
The largest and finest log of mahogany ever imported into this country
has been recently sold by auction at the docks in Liverpool. It was
purchased for 378l., and afterwards sold for 525l., and if it open well,
it is supposed to be worth 1,000l. If sawed into veneers, it is computed
that the cost of labour in the process will be 750l. The weight on the
king's beam is six tons thirteen hundred weight.
Dugald Stewart, the celebrated metaphysician, of whom Scotland has just
reason to be proud, died a short time since at Edinburgh, at the age of
seventy-five. He recently published two volumes, of which a
distinguished gentleman in Edinburgh thus speaks:--"June 16. Dugald
Stewart is to be buried to-morrow. A great light is gone out, or rather
gone down,--for its glory will long be in the sky, though its orb be no
more visible above the horizon. He corrected his last two volumes with
his own hand within these three months. What philosopher, especially
palsy-stricken ten years ago,--could ring in better. Glorious fellow! I
hear his splendid sentences and exquisite voice sounding in mine ear at
the distance of nearly thirty winters. His peculiar merit was the purity
and loftiness of his moral taste. For about forty years he raised the
standard of thought and feeling among successive generations of young
men, to a range it would never otherwise have attained."
OLD AND NEW VAUXHALL.
Of old, a half-crown at the door, and the price of such comestibles as
were devoured, were grumbled at as tax enough; but now the account
stands in a fairer form, because you are charged distinctly for every
item, so that you know what you are paying for, and may choose or
reject, as you think fit. Thus Mr. Bull, from Aldgate, with Mrs. Bull,
and only four of the younger Bulls and Cows, numbering six in all, make
good their entry at the cost of 1l. 4s.--Books to tell them what they
are to see and hear, the when and the how are 3s. Seats for the
vaudeville (average of modest places) 9s. Ditto for the ballet 6s. Ditto
for the battle 6s. Ditto for the fire-works 6s.--Total 2l. 14s.--But
then they are not charged for seeing the lamps; there is no charge for
walking round the walks; there is no charge for looking at the
cosmoramic pictures; there is no charge for casting a glance at the
orchestra; there is no charge for staring at the other people; there is
no charge for bowing or talking to an acquaintance, if you meet one--all
these are gratis; and if you neither eat nor drink, there is no charge
for witnessing those who do mangle the long-murdered honours of the
coop, and gulp down the most renovating of liquors, be they hale or
stout, vite vine, red port, or rack punch.--_Lit. Gaz_.
Bruges, (celebrated as the birthplace of John Van Eyck, said to have
invented the art of oil-painting), is now in a very dilapidated
condition. |
10,240 |
Produced by Jonathan Ingram and Project Gutenberg
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THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.
VOL. 10, No. 267.] SATURDAY, AUGUST 4, 1827. [PRICE 2d.
* * * * *
HADLEY CHURCH.
[Illustration]
Hadley, Mankin, or Monkton, Hadley, was formerly a hamlet to Edmonton.
It lies north-west of Enfield, and comprises 580 acres, including 240
allotted in lieu of the common enclosure of Enfield Chase. Its name is
compounded of two Saxon words--Head-leagh, or a high place; Mankin is
probably derived from the connexion of the place with the abbey of
Walden, to which it was given by Geoffrey de Mandeville, earl of Essex,
under the name of the Hermitage of Hadley. The village is situated on
the east side of the great north road, eleven miles from London.
The manor belonged to the Mandevilles, the founder of the Hermitage, and
was given by Geoffrey to the monks of Walden; in the ensuing two
centuries the manorial property underwent various transmissions, and was
purchased by the Pinney family, in the year 1791, by the present
proprietor, Peter Moore, Esq.
The house of the late David Garrow, father to the present judge of that
name in the court of exchequer, is supposed to have been connected with
a monastic establishment. Chimney-pieces remain in _alto-relievo_: on
one is sculptured the story of Sampson; the other represents many
passages in the life of our Saviour, from his birth in the stall to his
death on the cross.
The parish church, of which our engraving gives a correct view, is a
handsome structure, built at different periods. The chancel bears marks
of great antiquity, but the body has been built with bricks. At the west
end is a square tower, composed of flint, with quoins of freestone; on
one side is the date Anno Domini 1393, cut in stone--one side of the
stone bearing date in the sculptured device of a wing; the other that of
a rose. The figures denote the year 1494; the last, like the second
numerical, being the _half eight_, often used in ancient inscriptions.
The unique vestige of the middle ages, namely, a firepan, or pitchpot,
on the south-west tower of the church, was blown down in January, 1779
and carefully repaired, though now not required for the purpose of
giving an alarm at the approach of a foe, by lighting pitch within it.
The church has been supposed to have been erected by Edward IV. as a
chapel for religious service, to the memory of those who fell in the
battle of Barnet in 1471.
On the window of the north transcept are some remains of painted glass,
among which may be noticed the rebus of the Gooders, a family of
considerable consequence at Hadley in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries. This consists of a partridge with an ear of wheat in its
bill; on an annexed scroll is the word Gooder; on the capital of one of
the pillars are two partridges with ears of corn in the mouth, an
evident repetition of the same punning device, and it is probable the
Gooder's were considerable benefactors towards building the church.
The almshouses for six decayed housekeepers were founded by Sir Roger
Willbraham in 1616, but so slenderly endowed that they do not produce
more than 9l.6s. annually. Major Delafonte, in 1762, increased the
annuity, which expired in 1805; but Mr. Cottrell gained by subscription
2375l. in trust. The father of the late Mr. Whitbread, the statesman,
subscribed the sum of 1000l. for the support of the almshouses. The
charity-school for girls was established in 1773, and was enlarged and
converted into a school of industry in 1800. Twenty girls in the
establishment receive annually the sum of 1l. towards clothing; thirty
girls besides the above are admitted to the benefit of education, on
paying the weekly sum of 2d. and succeed to the vacancies which occur in
the class more largely assisted. This charity is in like manner
supported by contributions on the inhabitants. The boys' school,
supported in the same way, which in 1804 amounted to the sum of 103l.
10s., has about seventy day-scholars; twenty are allowed 1l. towards
clothing, and instructed without any charge; the remainder pay
2d. weekly.
* * * * *
THE SKETCH BOOK.
NO. XLIII.
* * * * *
THE BUTCHER.
Wolsey, they tell us, was a butcher. An alliterative couplet too was
made upon him to that import:--
"By butchers born, by bishops bred,
How high his honour holds his haughty head."
Notwithstanding which, however, and other similar allusions, there have
arisen many disputes touching the veracity of the assertion; yet,
doubtless, those who first promulgated the idea, were keen observers of
men and manners; and, probably, in the critical examination of the
Cardinal's character, discovered a particular trait which indubitably
satisfied them of his origin.
Be this as it may, I am inclined to think there is certainly something
peculiarly characteristic in the butcher.
The pursuit of his calling appears to have an influence upon his
manners, speech, and dress. Of all the days in the week, Saturday is the
choicest for seeing him to the best advantage. His hatless head, shining
with grease, his cheeks as ruddy as his mutton-chops, his sky-blue frock
and dark-blue apron, his dangling steel and sharp-set knife, which ever
and anon play an accompaniment to his quick, short--"Buy! buy!" are all
in good keeping with the surrounding objects. And although this be not
_killing_ day with him, he is particularly winning and gracious with the
serving-maids; who (whirling the large street-door key about their right
thumb, and swinging their marketing basket in their left hand) view the
well-displayed joints, undecided which to select, until Mr. Butcher
recommends a leg or a loin; and then he so very politely cuts off the
fat, in which his skilful hand is guided by the high or low price of
mutton fat in the market. He is the very antipode of a <DW2>, yet no man
knows how to show a handsome _leg_ off to better advantage, or is
prouder of his _calves_.
In his noviciate, when he shoulders the shallow tray, and whistles
cavalierly on his way in his sausage-meat-complexioned-jacket, there is
something marked as well in his character as his _habits_, he is never
_moved_ to stay, except by a brother butcher, or a fight of dogs or
boys, for such scenes fit his singular fancy. Then, in the discussion of
his bull-dog's beauties, he becomes extraordinarily eloquent. Hatiz, the
Persian, could not more warmly, or with choicer figure, describe his
mistress' charms, than he does Lion's, or Fowler's, or whatever the
brute's Christian name may be; and yet the surly, cynical, _dogged_
expression of the bepraised beast, would almost make one imagine he
understood the meaning of his master's words, and that his honest nature
despised the flattering encomiums he passes upon his pink belly and
legs, his broad chest, his ring-tail, and his tulip ears!--_Absurdities,
in Prose and Verse._
* * * * *
CONFIDENCE AND CREDIT.
(_For the Mirror._)
The day was dark, the markets dull,
The Change was thin, Gazettes were full,
And half the town was breaking;
The _counter-sign_ of Cash was "_Stop_!"
Bankers and bankrupts shut up shop,
And honest hearts were aching.
When near the Bench my fancy spied
A faded form, with hasty stride,
Beneath Grief's burden stooping:
Her name was CREDIT, and she said
Her father, TRADE, was lately dead,
Her mother, COMMERCE, drooping.
The smile that she was wont to wear
Was wither'd by the hand of care,
Her eyes had lost their lustre:
Her character was gone, she said,
For she had basely been betray'd,
And nobody would trust her.
For honest INDUSTRY had tried
To gain fair CREDIT for his bride,
And found the damsel willing,
But, ah! a _fortune-hunter_ came,
And SPECULATION was his name,
A rake not worth a shilling.
The villain came, on mischief bent,
And soon gain'd dad and mam's consent--
Ah! then poor CREDIT smarted;--
He filch'd her fortune and her fame,
He fix'd a blot upon her name,
And left her broken-hearted.
While thus poor CREDIT seem'd to sigh,
Her cousin, CONFIDENCE, came by--
(Methinks he must be clever)--
For, when he whisper'd in her ear,
She check'd the sigh, she dried the tear.
And smiled as sweet as ever!
JESSE HAMMOND.
* * * * *
CURIOUS SCRAPS RELATING TO CELEBRATED PERSONS.
(_For the Mirror._)
When the famous Cornelia, daughter of the great Scipio, was importuned
by a lady of her acquaintance to show her toilette, she deferred
satisfying her curiosity till her children, who were the famous Gracchi,
came from school, and then said, "_En! haec ornamenta mea
sunt._"--"These are my ornaments."
Cyneas, the minister of Pyrrhus, asked the king (before their expedition
into Italy) what he proposed to do when he had subdued the Romans? He
answered, "Pass into Sicily." "What then?" said the minister. "Conquer
the Carthaginians," replied the king. "And what follows that?" says the
minister. "Be sovereign of Greece, and then enjoy ourselves," said the
king. "And why," replied the sensible minister, "can we not do this
_last_ now?"
The emperors Nerva, Trajan, Antoninous, and Aurelius sold their palaces,
their gold and silver plate, their valuable furniture, and other
superfluities, heaped up by their predecessors, and banished from their
tables all expensive delicacies. These princes, together with Vespasian,
Pertinax, Alexander, Severus, Claudius the Second, and Tacitus, who were
raised to the empire by their merit, and whom all ages have admired as
the greatest and the best of princes, were always fond of the greatest
plainness in their apparel, furniture, and outward appearance.
Cortez, the conqueror of Mexico, who lived unknown and disgraced in
Spain, was scarcely able to obtain an audience of his master Charles V.;
and when the king asked who was the fellow that was so clamorous to
speak to him, he cried out, "I am one who have got your majesty more
provinces than your father left towns."
Camoens, the famous Portuguese poet, was unfortunately shipwrecked at
the mouth of the river Meco, on the coast of Camboja, and lost his whole
property; however, he saved his life and his poems, which he bore
through the waves in one hand, whilst he swam ashore with the other. It
is said, that his black servant, a native of Java, who had been his
companion for many years, begged in the Streets of Lisbon for the
support of his master, who died in 1579. His death, it is supposed, was
accelerated by the anguish with which he foresaw the ruin impending over
his country. In one of his letters he uses these remarkable expressions:
"I am ending the course of my life; the world will witness how I have
loved my country. I have returned not only to die in her bosom, but to
die with her."
Henrietta, daughter of Henry IV. of France, and wife of Charles I. of
England, was reduced to the utmost poverty; and her daughter, afterwards
married to a brother of Louis XIV., is said to have lain in bed for want
of coals to keep her warm. Pennant relates a melancholy fact of fallen
majesty in the person of Mary d'Este, the unhappy queen of James II.,
who, flying with her infant prince from the ruin impending over their
house, after crossing the Thames from abdicated Whitehall, took shelter
beneath the ancient walls of Lambeth church a whole hour, from the rain
of the inclement night of December 6th, 1688. Here she waited with
aggravated misery till a common coach, procured from the next inn,
arrived, and conveyed her to Gravesend, from whence she sailed, and bid
adieu to this kingdom.
Pascal, one of the greatest geniuses and best men that ever lived,
entertained a notion that God made men miserable here in order to their
being happy hereafter; and in consequence of this notion, he imposed
upon himself the most painful mortification. He even ordered a wall to
be built before a window in his study, which afforded him too agreeable
a prospect. He had also a girdle full of sharp points next his skin; and
while he was eating or drinking any thing that was grateful to his
palate, he was constantly pricking himself, that he might not be
sensible of any pleasure. The virtuous Fenelon submitted without reserve
to the arbitrary sentence of the pope, when he condemned a book which he
had published, and even preached in condemnation of his own book,
forbidding his friends to defend it. "What gross and humiliating
superstitions (says their biographer) have been manifested by men, in
other respects of sound and clear understandings, and of upright,
honest hearts."
In the churchyard of St. Ann's, Soho, says Pennant, is a marble, erected
near the grave of that remarkable personage, Theodore Antony Newhoff,
king of Corsica, who died in this parish in 1756, immediately after
leaving the king's-bench prison, by the benefit of the act of
insolvency. The marble was erected, and the epitaph written, by the
honourable Horace Walpole:--
"The grave, great teacher, to a level brings
Heroes and beggars, galley-slaves and kings;
But Theodore this moral learn'd ere dead--
Fate pour'd its lesson on his living head,
Bestow'd a kingdom, and denied him bread."
He registered his kingdom of Corsica for the use of his creditors. His
biographer says, "He was a man whose claim to royalty was as
indisputable as the most ancient titles to any monarchy can pretend to
be; that is, the choice of his subjects, the voluntary election of an
injured people, who had the common right of mankind to freedom, and the
uncommon resolution of determining to be free."
P.T.W.
* * * * *
"THE LILY BELLS ARE WET WITH DEW."
(_To the Editor of the Mirror._)
Sir,--I have taken the liberty of transmitting to you a piece of a Latin
ode, which appears to me to be the original of the song--"The lily bells
are wet with dew," in Miss Mitford's "Dramatic Scenes," which appeared
in your miscellany of June 23, 1827.
It is copied from an old book published in the year 1697, by Charles
Elford, entitled "Gemmae Poetarum."
If you think it worthy insertion, I should feel obliged by its
appearance. Yours respectfully,
J.T.S.
Lilia rorescuut, jubara osculo blande rosarum
Florem tangunt--o, dives odore,
O, splendens tinctu floretum--est...
Surge Feronia, et sertum texe
Caesariem nunc implectare tuum coracinum
Ne aestu medio sol flores abripiat.
In coelo tenuis nubes est, lenta susurra
Cum aura veniunt--aut imbrem vaticinans
Aut nivem: orire, Feronia, crinem stringere caute
Sertum age, ne veniat tempestas minitans.
I have translated it thus, which you may perceive is strictly literal:--
The lilies are wet with the dew--the sunbeams with a kiss
gently touch the flower of the roses.--O the garden is rich of
scent--is bright of hue.--Arise Feronia and weave the garland
even now to braid thy ravenlike hair, lest at mid-day the sun
should spoil the flowers.--In the sky there is a little cloud,
gentle whisperings come with the gale--they tell of rain or
snow.--Arise Feronia and carefully weave the garland to bind up
thy hair, lest the threatening storm should come.
* * * * *
ASTRONOMICAL OCCURRENCES FOR AUGUST, 1827.
(_For the Mirror._)
It has been computed, that all the celestial orbs perceived by the
unassisted eye (which on a clear night never exceed 1,000,) do not form
the 80,000 part of those which may be descried by the help of a
telescope, through which they appear prodigiously increased in number;
seventy stars have been counted in the constellation of the _pleiades_,
and no fewer than 2,000 in that of _Orion_.
The _galaxy_, or _via lactea_, (milky way,) is a remarkable appearance
in the heavens, being a broad ray of whitish colour surrounding the
whole celestial concave, whose light proceeds from vast clusters of
stars, discoverable only by the telescope. Mr. Brydone, in his journey
to the top of Mount Etna, found the phenomenon make a most glorious
appearance, "like a pure flame that shot across the heavens."
Dr. Herschel made many observations on this portion of the heavens,
using a Newtonian reflector of twenty feet focal length, and an aperture
of eighteen inches. With this powerful telescope he completely resolved
the whitish appearance into stars, which the telescopes he had formerly
used had not light enough to do. In the most vacant place to be met with
in that neighbourhood, he found sixty-three stars; other six fields, or
apparent spaces in the heavens, which he could see at once through his
telescope, averaged seventy-nine stars in each field: thus he found that
by allowing 15 min. of a deg. for the diameter of his field of view, a
belt of 15 deg. long, and 2 deg. broad, which he had often seen pass
before his telescope in an hour's time could not contain less than
50,000 stars, large enough to be distinctly numbered, besides which he
suspected twice as many more, which could be seen only now and then by
faint glimpses, for want of sufficient light. In the most crowded part
of that region he informs us, he has had fields of view which contained
no less than 588 stars, and these were continued for many minutes, so
that in one quarter of an hour's time there passed no less than 116,000
stars. He also intimates the probability of the sun being placed in this
great stratum, though perhaps not in the very centre of its thickness.
From the appearance of the galaxy it seems to encompass the whole
heavens, as it certainly must if the sun be within the same. From
succeeding observations made by Dr. Herschel, he gathers that the milky
way is a most extensive stratum of stars of various sizes, and our sun
evidently one of the heavenly bodies belonging to it. In viewing and
gauging this shining zone in almost every direction, he found the number
of stars composing it, by the account of those gauges constantly
increase and decrease in proportion to its apparent brightness to the
naked eye.
The _nebulae_, or small whitish specks, discoverable by telescopes in
various parts of the heavens are owing to the same cause. Former
astronomers could only reckon 103, but Herschel counts upwards of 1,250.
He has also discovered a species of them, which he calls planetary
nebulae, on account of their brightness, and shining with a well
defined disk.
The sun enters _Virgo_ on the 23rd at 11h. 42m. evening.
Mercury comes to his inferior conjunction on the 13th at 1-1/4h.
morning, becomes stationary on the 22nd, and is at his greatest
elongation on the 31st, when he passes his ascending node; he may be
seen early on that morning rising at 3-1/2h.
Venus is in conjunction with Mars on the 21st at 3h. afternoon; she
rises on the 1st at 2h. 38m., and on the 31st at 4h. 10m. morning.
Jupiter still continues a conspicuous object in the western part of the
heavens, setting on the 1st at 9h. 43m., and on the 31st at 8h. None of
the eclipses of his satellites are visible during the month in
consequence of his being so near the sun.
Herschel comes to the south on the 1st at 11h. 6m., and on the 31st at
9h. 43m. evening.
_Spica virginis_ (the virgin's spike), in the constellation Virgo
culminates on the 1st at 4h. 32m. afternoon, being situated 10 deg. 13m.
south of the equator, at a meridional elevation of 28 deg. 26m.
_Arcturus_ in Bootes south at 5h. 23m. with 20 deg. north delineation,
and at an altitude of 58 deg. 46m. _Antares_ in the heart of Scorpio at
7h. 34m., declination 26 deg. south, elevation 12 deg. 38m. _Altair_ in
the Eagle at 10h. 57m., declination 8 deg. 24m. north, altitude 47 deg.
3m. _Fomalhaut_ in the most southern fish of the constellation Pisces at
2h. 6m. morning, having a southern declination of 30 deg. 34m., being
elevated only 8 deg. 5m. above the horizon. The above stars come to the
meridian 4 min. earlier every evening; they are all of the first
magnitude (with the exception of _Altair_, which is of the second,) and
may be easily distinguished any hour of the day with a magnifying power
of thirty times; stars of the second magnitude require a power of 100,
but when the sun is not more than two hours above the horizon, they may
be seen with a power of sixty.
PASCHE.
* * * * *
THE NOVELIST.
NO. CVI.
* * * * *
ROSALIE BERTON.
(_Concluded from page 74._ [Note: Mirror 266])
Things were in this state when I visited S----, and the union of Henri
and Rosalie, though not positively fixed, was regarded as an event by no
means distant. Every one was interested for the young and handsome
couple, and wished for their espousal. Rosalie's friends longed for the
day when she was to wed the young and handsome Henri; and Henri's
comrades were perpetually urging him to cement his union with the
lovely Rosalie.
We left the place with every kind wish for the young and betrothed pair.
I have not since revisited S----, but by letters from my friend, I have
been informed, that this commencement of their loves had a sad and
melancholy sequel.
After our departure, it seems, the lovers continued equally attached;
arrangements were making for their union, and it was intended that Henri
should leave the army previous to their marriage. But just at this
juncture, and as he was about to leave his corps, rumours of war were
circulated, the enterprise against Spain was projected, and the royal
guard was one of the first corps ordered for service. Henri, with the
natural enthusiasm of a soldier, felt all his former ardour revive; and
longed to mingle in the ranks of glory, ere he left them for ever. He,
doubtless, felt severely the separation from Rosalie; yet his feelings
were described to me as being of a joyous character, and as if evincing
that he felt happy that the opportunity of joining his brethren in arms,
and of signalizing himself perhaps for the last time, had presented
itself, previous to his marriage and his quitting the service.
The enterprise against Spain, he considered as the French army commonly
did, to be a mere excursion of pleasure, which, while it led them into a
country which many of them had never visited before, would also afford
them the occasion of gathering laurels which might serve to redeem
somewhat of their lost glory. He therefore looked forward to the
expedition, on the whole, with feelings of ardour and delight, and even
longed for its approach. Not so Rosalie! She looked on war and bloodshed
with the natural apprehensions of her sex; and saw in the projected
expedition, and its prospects of glory, only danger and death to her
lover! Her spirits received a severe shock when the intelligence was
first communicated--she gradually lost her cheerfulness and spirits; the
song, the dance, had no longer charm or interest for her, and she could
only contemplate the approaching separation with sorrow and dismay!
Henri perceived her depression, and endeavoured to combat and remove her
fears by arguments fond, but unavailing. It was only, he would urge, a
jaunt of pleasure; it would admit his speedy return, when he would come
to lay his services at her feet, and claim the hand which was already
promised to his hopes; and surely, then, Rosalie could not regret his
obeying the call of duty and of honour; or like her lover the worse,
when crowned with victory in the cause of his country. To these and
similar assurances, Rosalie could only reply with the mute eloquence of
tears; and nothing could divest her of the apprehension with which she
ever regarded an enterprise which she seemed to consider from the
first as fatal.
The time however drew on, the dreaded period arrived, the Royal Guard
left its quarters, and departed from S----. Henri took a fond and
passionate adieu of his betrothed; and Rosalie, having summoned all her
fortitude to her aid, went through the parting scene with more firmness
than could have been expected from her, though her feelings, afterwards,
were described as of the most agonizing kind.
Such is the difference between the ardent feelings of man, and the
tender and gentle sympathies of woman, that, while his sorrow is
alleviated by a thousand mitigating circumstances of ardour and
excitement, which relieve his attention, and soothe, though they do not
annihilate his grief; she can only brood over her feelings, and suffer
in silence and in sorrow. Henri marched out with his regiment in all the
vigour of manhood, and with all the "pomp, pride, and circumstance of
war," while Rosalie could only retire to her chamber and weep.
Time passed on; letters were received from Henri, which spoke in ardent
terms of his journey, and of the new and singular scenes unfolded to his
view. He adverted also to his return, mentioned the war as a mere
pastime, and as an agreeable jaunt, the termination of which he only
desired, because it would once more restore him to his Rosalie. It was
remarked, however, that she never recovered her cheerfulness; to all her
lover's assurances she could only reply with expressions of distrust,
and with feelings of sorrow; and when she wrote, it was to express her
fears of the campaign, and her wish that it were over, and that they
were again united in safety.
And constantly did the good and pious girl offer up her prayers for her
lover, as she repaired to the church of the Holy Virgin at S----, to
perform her daily devotions.
The season advanced: the French marched through Spain, and reached
Cadiz. At this last hope of the Constitutionalists, a strong resistance
was expected, and Henri had written from Seville, that his next letter
would announce the termination of the campaign. Alas! he never wrote
again! Time flew on; the journals announced the fall of the Trocadero;
the surrender of Cadiz, and the restoration of Ferdinand; yet there came
no news from Henri! Then did the gentle girl sink into all the
despondency of disappointment; and as day after day passed and brought
no tidings of her lover, her beauty and her health suffered alike, she
languished and pined till she scarce retained the semblance of her
former self.
At last came a letter; it was from Spain, but it was written in a
stranger's hand, and its sable appendages bespoke the fatal nature of
its contents. It was from a brother officer of Henri, stating that his
regiment had been foremost in the attack, and that the Trocadero, the
last resource of the Constitutionalists, had been carried with the loss
of but few killed; but, alas! among that few, was Henri! He was shot
through the body while leading his men to the assault. He fell instantly
dead, and the writer expressed his desire that the sad intelligence
should be conveyed as gently as possible to Rosalie.
Unhappily, by one of those chances which often occur, as if to aggravate
misfortune, it was Rosalie who received the fatal letter from the
postman's hands! She tore it open; read its dreadful contents; and with
a wild and frenzied shriek, fell senseless to the ground! She was borne
to her bed, where every care and attention was bestowed; but her illness
rapidly assumed a threatening and a dangerous character. A fever seized
her frame; she became at once delirious; nor did reason again resume her
throne; and it was not till after months of suffering and agony, that
she recovered, if that could be called recovery, which gave back a
deformed and hapless lunatic, bereft of intellect and of beauty, in
place of the once gay and fascinating Rosalie. The dread aberration of
intellect was attributed by her medical attendants to the fatal and
sudden shock which she had sustained, and to its effect on a mind
weakened by previous anxiety and sorrow; while they feared her malady
was of a nature, which admitted no hope of the return of reason.
Her mind, it was stated, remained an entire blank. Imbecile, vacant,
drivelling--she appeared almost unconscious of former existence; and of
those subjects which formerly engrossed her attention, and excited her
feelings, there were scarcely any on which she now evinced any emotion.
Even the name of her lover was almost powerless on her soul, and if
repeated in her hearing, seemed scarcely to call forth her notice.
One only gift remained, in all its native pathos, tenderness, and
beauty--her voice, so sweet before her illness, seemed, amid the wreck
of youth, and joy, and love, and all that was charming and endeared, to
have only become sweeter still! She was incapable or unwilling to learn
any new airs, but she would occasionally recollect snatches of former
songs or duets, which she and Henri had sung together, and she would
pour the simple melodies in strains of more than mortal sweetness!
This, alas! was the only relic of former talent or taste that she
retained; in all other respects, her mind and body, instead of evincing
symptoms of recovery, seemed to sink in utter hopelessness and despair;
and an early tomb seems to be the best and kindest boon which heaven, in
its mercy, can bestow, on the once fair and fascinating Rosalie!
_Tales of all Nations._
* * * * *
ANECDOTES AND RECOLLECTIONS.
Notings, selections,
Anecdote and joke:
Our recollections;
With gravities for graver folk.
* * * * *
TAVERNS AND CLUB-HOUSES.
Almost every tavern of note about town hath or had its club. The Mermaid
Tavern is immortalized as the house resorted to by Shakspeare, Jonson,
Fletcher, and Beaumont; the Devil--which, Pennant informs us, stood on
the site of Child's-place, Temple Bar--was the scene of many a merry
meeting of the choice spirits in old days; at Will's Coffee-house, in
the Augustan age of English literature, societies were held to which
Steele, and Pope, and Addison belonged; Doctor Johnson, Hawkesworth, the
elder Salter, and Sir John Hawkins, were members of a club formerly held
at the King's-head, in Ivy-lane; the notorious Dick England, Dennis
O'Kelly, and Hull, with their associates, had, many years ago, a
sporting-club at Munday's Coffee-house; the Three Jolly Pigeons, in
Butcher-hall-lane, was formerly the gathering place of a set of old
school bibliopoles, who styled themselves the Free and Easy Counsellors
under the Cauliflower; stay-maker Hugh Kelly, Goldsmith, Ossian
Macpherson, Garrick, Cumberland, and the Woodfalls, with several noted
men of that day, were concerned in a club at the St. James's
Coffee-house; the Kit-Cat, which took its name from one Christopher Cat,
a pastry-cook, was held at a tavern in King-street, Westminster;
Button's--but truly the task of enumerating the several clubs, of which
we find notices "in the books," as the lawyers have it, would be
endless.--_Every Night Book_.
CONVERSATION OF WOMEN.
The usual conversation of ordinary women very much cherishes the natural
weakness of being taken with outside appearance. Talk of a new-married
couple, and you immediately hear whether they keep their coach-and-six,
or eat in plate. Mention the name of an absent lady, and it is ten to
one but you learn something of her gown and petticoat. A ball is a great
help to discourse, and a birthday furnishes conversation for a
twelvemonth after. A furbelow of precious stones, a hat buttoned with a
diamond, a brocade waistcoat or petticoat, are standing topics.
--_Addison_.
BILDERDYK.
William Bilderdyk, admired as the first poet that modern Holland has
produced, and not less distinguished by the brilliant qualities of his
mind, did not, in his youth, seem to show any happy disposition for
study. His father, who formed an unfavourable opinion of his talents,
was much distressed, and frequently reproached him in severe terms for
his inattention and idleness, to which young Bilderdyk did not appear to
pay much attention. In 1776, the father, with a newspaper in his hand,
came to stimulate him, by showing the advertisement of a prize offered
by the Society of Leyden, and decreed to the author of a piece of
poetry, signed with these words, "An Author 18 years old," who was
invited to make himself known. "You ought to blush, idler," said old
Bilderdyk to his son. "Here is a boy only of your age, and though so
young, is the pride and happiness of his parents; and you----." "It is
myself," answered young William, throwing himself into his
father's arms.
SIR ANTHONY CARLISLE,
Who has often filled the anatomical chair at the Royal Academy, is no
less abstruse and instructive than pleasant and amusing. His
illustrative anecdotes are always excellent, and his way of telling them
quite dramatic. We have found him even more agreeable as a private
talker than as a lecturer; he is rich in the old lore of England--he
will hunt a phrase through several reigns--propose derivations for words
which are equally ingenious and learned--follow a proverb for
generations back, and discuss on the origin of language as though he had
never studied aught beside: he knows more than any other person we ever
met with of the biography of talented individuals--in the philosophy of
common life he is quite an adept--a capital chronologist--a man of fine
mind and most excellent memory: his experience has, of course, been very
great, and he has taken good advantage of it. We remember he once amused
us for half a day by adducing instances of men who, although possessed
of mean talents, had enabled themselves to effect wonders, by simply
hoarding in their minds, and subsequently acting upon, an immense number
of facts: from this subject we naturally enough fell into a discourse on
the importance, in many cases and situations, of attending to trifles.
As a proof of this, he mentioned a circumstance which occurred to an
eminent surgeon within his own memory; it was as follows: A gentleman,
residing about a post-stage from town, met with an accident which
eventually rendered amputation of a limb indispensable. The surgeon
alluded to was requested to perform the operation, and went from town
with two pupils to the gentleman's house, on the day appointed, for that
purpose. The usual preliminaries being arranged, he proceeded to
operate; the tourniquet was applied, the flesh divided, and the bone
laid bare, when, to his astonishment and horror, he discovered that his
instrument-case was without the saw! Here was a situation! Luckily his
presence of mind did not forsake him. Without apprising his patient of
the terrible fact, he put one of his pupils into his carriage, and told
the coachman to gallop to town. It was an hour and a half before the saw
was obtained, and during all that time the patient lay suffering. The
agony of the operator, though great, was scarcely a sufficient
punishment for his neglect in not seeing that all his instruments were
in the case before he started.
Basil Montagu, the water drinking barrister, who was present during the
narration of this anecdote, and the previous discussion, mentioned
another instance of the propriety of noticing those minor circumstances
in life, which are usually suffered to pass unheeded by people in
general. A man of talent was introduced into a company of strangers; he
scarcely spoke after his first salutation until he wished the party good
night. Almost every one dubbed him a fool; the lady hostess, who, be it
remarked, had not been previously informed of the abilities of her new
guest, was of a different opinion, "I am sure," said she, "that you are
all wrong; for, though he said nothing, I remarked that _he always
laughed in the right place_."--_Every Night Book_.
* * * * *
A FACT.
Pat went to his mistress: "My lady, your mare
_In harness_, goes well as a dray-horse, I swear:
I tried, as you're thinking to sell her, or let her,
For _coming on_ thus, she'll _go off_ all the better."
"Twas very well thought of" the lady replied,
"You've acted a sensible part.
But Patrick, pray tell me the day that you tried,
Of whom did you borrow the cart?"
"The _cart_? why, she _walk'd_ well _in harness_, I saw,
But I thought not, by no _manes_, to try if she'd _draw_;
For says I, by Saint Patrick, who, her comes to view,
To tell him, she has been 'in harness' will do!"
M.L.B.
* * * * *
THE MONTHS.
AUGUST.
[Illustration]
All around
The yellow sheaves, catching the burning beam,
Glow, golden lustre.
MRS. ROBINSON.
This is the month of harvest. The crops usually begin with rye and oats,
proceed with wheat, and finish with pease and beans. Harvest-home is
still the greatest rural holiday in England, because it concludes at
once the most laborious and most lucrative of the farmer's employments,
and unites repose and profit. Thank heaven, there are, and must be,
seasons of some repose in agricultural employments, or the countryman
would work with as unceasing a madness, and contrive to be almost as
diseased and unhealthy as the citizen. But here again, and for the
reasons already mentioned, our holiday-making is not what it was. Our
ancestors used to burst into an enthusiasm of joy at the end of harvest,
and even mingled their previous labour with considerable merry-making,
in which they imitated the equality of the earlier ages. They crowned
the wheat-sheaves with flowers, they sung, they shouted, they danced,
they invited each other, or met to feast as at Christmas, in the halls
of rich houses; and, what was a very amiable custom, and wise beyond the
commoner wisdom that may seem to lie on the top of it, every one that
had been concerned, man, woman, and child, received a little present,
ribbons, laces, or sweetmeats.
The number of flowers is now sensibly diminished. Those that flower
newly are nigella, zinnias, polyanthuses, love-apples, mignonette,
capsicums, Michaelmas daisies, auriculus, asters or stars, and
China-asters. The additional trees and shrubs in flower are the
tamarisk, altheas, Venetian sumach, pomegranates, the beautiful
passion-flower, the trumpet flower, and the virgin's bower or clematis,
which is such a quick and handsome climber. But the quantity of fruit is
considerably multiplied, especially that of pears, peaches, apricots,
and grapes. And if the little delicate white flowers have at last
withdrawn from the hot sun, the wastes, marshes, and woods are dressed
in the luxuriant attire of ferns and heaths, with all their varieties of
green, purple, and gold. A piece of waste land, especially where the
ground is broken up into little inequalities, as Hampstead-heath, for
instance, is now a most bright as well as picturesque object; all the
ground, which is in light, giving the sun, as it were, gold for gold.
Mignonette, intended to flower in winter, should now be planted in pots,
and have the benefit of a warm situation. Seedlings in pots should have
the morning sunshine, and annuals in pots be frequently watered.
In the middle of this month, the young goldfinch broods appear, lapwings
congregate, thistle-down floats, and birds resume their spring songs:--a
little afterwards flies abound in windows, linnets congregate, and bulls
make their shrill autumnal bellowing; and towards the end the beech tree
turns yellow,--the first symptom of approaching autumn.[1]
[1] _The Months_.
* * * * *
SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.
* * * * *
LEOPARD-HUNTING.
The leopard of Southern Africa is known among the Cape colonists by the
name of tiger; but is, in fact, the real leopard, the _Felis jubata_ of
naturalists, well known for the beauty of its shape and spotted skin,
and the treachery and fierceness of its disposition. The animal called
leopard (_luipaard_) by the Cape Dutch boors, is a species of the
panther, and is inferior to the real leopard in size and beauty. Both of
them are dreaded in the mountainous districts on account of the ravages
which they occasionally commit among the flocks, and on the young cattle
and horses in the breeding season.
The South African panther is a cowardly animal, and, like the hyena,
flies from the face of man. The leopard also, though his low,
half-smothered growl is frequently heard by night, as he prowls like an
evil spirit around the cottage or the kraal, will seldom or never attack
mankind, (children excepted,) unless previously assailed or exasperated.
When hunted, as he usually is with dogs, he instinctively betakes
himself to a tree, when he falls an easy prey to the shot of the
huntsman. The leopard, however, though far inferior in strength and
intrepidity to the lion, is yet an exceedingly active and furious
animal; and when driven to extremity, proves himself occasionally an
antagonist not to be trifled with. The colonists relate many instances
of arduous and even fatal encounters with the hunted leopard. The
following is one of these adventures, which occurred in a frontier
district in 1822, as described by one of the two individuals so
perilously engaged in it.
Two boors returning from hunting the Hartebeest, (_antelope bubalis_,)
fell in with a leopard in a mountain ravine, and immediately gave chase
to him. The animal at first endeavoured to escape by clambering up a
precipice; but being hotly pressed, and slightly wounded by a
musket-ball, he turned upon his pursuers with that frantic ferocity
which on such emergencies he frequently displays, and springing upon the
man who had fired at him, tore him from his horse to the ground, biting
him at the same time very severely in the shoulder, and tearing his face
and arms with his talons. |
10,240 |
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THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.
VOL. 10, No. 262.] SATURDAY, JULY 7, 1827. [PRICE 2d.
* * * * *
HIS MAJESTY'S PONEY PHAETON.
[Illustration]
We commence our tenth volume of the MIRROR with an embellishment quite
novel in design from the generality of our graphic illustrations, but
one which, we flatter ourselves, will excite interest among our friends,
especially after so recently, presenting them with a Portrait and Memoir
of his Majesty in the Supplement, which last week completed our ninth
volume. His Majesty, when residing at his cottage in Windsor Forest, the
weather being favourable, seldom allows a day to pass without taking his
favourite drive by the Long Walk, and Virginia Water, in his poney
phaeton, as represented in the above engraving. Windsor Park being
situated on the south side of the town, and 14 miles in circumference,
is admirably calculated for the enjoyment of a rural ride. The entrance
to the park is by a road called the _Long Walk_, near three miles in
length, through a double plantation of trees on each side, leading to the
Ranger's Lodge: on the north east side of the Castle is the _Little Park_,
about four miles in circumference: _Queen Elizabeth's Walk_ herein is
much frequented. At the entrance of this park is the _Queen's Lodge_,
a modern erection. This building stands on an easy ascent opposite the
upper court, on the south side, and commands a beautiful view of the
surrounding country. The gardens are elegant, and have been much
enlarged by the addition of the gardens and house of the duke of St.
Albans, purchased by his late majesty. The beautiful _Cottage Ornee_, an
engraving of which graces one of our early volumes, is also in the park,
and to which place of retirement his present Majesty resorts, and passes
much of his time in preference to the bustle and splendour of a royal
town life.
Having now given as much description of the engraving as the subject
requires, we shall proceed to lay before our readers some further
anecdotes connected with the life of his Majesty; for our present
purpose, the following interesting article being adapted to our limits,
we shall introduce an
_Original Letter of his present Majesty, when Prince of Wales, to
Alexander Davison, Esq., on the death of Lord Nelson._
I am extremely obliged to you, my dear sir, for your confidential
letter, which I received this morning. You may be well assured,
that, did it depend upon me, there would not be a wish, a desire of
our-ever-to-be-lamented and much-loved friend, as well as adored
hero, that I should not consider as a solemn obligation upon his
friends and his country to fulfil; it is a duty they owe his memory,
and his matchless and unrivalled excellence: such are my sentiments,
and I should hope that there is still in this country sufficient
honour, virtue, and gratitude to prompt us to ratify and to carry
into effect the last dying request of our Nelson, and by that means
proving not only to the whole world, but to future ages, that we
were worthy of having such a man belonging to us. It must be
needless, my dear sir, to discuss over with you in particular the
irreparable loss dear Nelson ever must be, not merely to his friends
but to his country, especially at the present crisis--and during the
present most awful contest, his very name was a host of itself;
Nelson and Victory were one and the same to us, and it carried
dismay and terror to the hearts of our enemies. But the subject is
too painful a one to dwell longer upon; as to myself, all that I can
do, either publicly or privately, to testify the reverence, the
respect I entertain for his memory as a Hero, and as the greatest
public character that ever embellished the page of history,
independent of what I can with the greatest truth term, the
enthusiastic attachment I felt for him as a friend, I consider it as
my duty to fulfil, and therefore, though I may be prevented from
taking that ostensible and prominent situation at his funeral which
I think my birth and high rank entitled me to claim, still nothing
shall prevent me in a private character following his remains to
their last resting place; for though the station and the character
may be less ostensible, less prominent, yet the feelings of the
heart will not therefore be the less poignant, or the less acute.
I am, my dear sir, with the greatest truth,
Ever very sincerely your's,
G. P.[1]
_Brighton, Dec, 18th, 1805_.
[1] _New London Literary Gazette_.
* * * * *
BYRON AND OTHER POETS COMPARED.
(_For the Mirror._)
There is a natural stimulus in man to offer adoration at the shrine of
departed genius.--
"There is a tear for all that die."
But, when a transcendant genius is checked in its early age--when its
spring-shoots had only began to open--when it had just engaged in a new
feature devoted to man, and man to it, we cannot rest
"In silent admiration, mixed with grief."
Too often has splendid genius been suffered to live almost unobserved;
and have only been valued as their lives have been lost. Could the
divine Milton, or the great Shakspeare, while living, have shared that
profound veneration which their after generations have bestowed on their
high talents, happier would they have lived, and died more
extensively beloved.
True, a Byron has but lately paid a universal debt. His concentrated
powers--his breathings for the happiness and liberty of mankind--his
splendid intellectual flowers, culled from a mind stored with the
choicest exotics, and cultivated with the most refined taste are all
still fresh in recollection. As the value of precious stones and metals
have become estimated by their scarcity, so will the fame of Byron live.
A mind like Lord Byron's,
"----born, not only to surprise, but cheer
With warmth and lustre all within its sphere,"
was one of Nature's brightest gems, whose splendour (even when
uncompared) dazzled and attracted all who passed within its sight.
"So let him stand, through ages yet unborn."
As comparison is a medium through which we are enabled to obtain most
accurate judgment, let us use it in the present instance, and compare
Lord Byron with the greatest poets that have preceded him, by which
means the world of letters will see what they have _really_ lost in Lord
Byron. To commence with the great Shakspeare himself, to whom universal
admiration continues to be paid. Had Shakspeare been cut off at the same
early period as Byron, _The Tempest, King Lear, Othello, Macbeth, Julius
Caesar, Coriolanus_, and several others of an equal character, would
never have been written. The high reputation of Dryden would also have
been limited--his fame, perhaps, unknown. The _Absalom_ and _Achitophel_
is the earliest of his best productions, which was written about his
fiftieth year; his principal production, at the age of Byron, was his
_Annus Mirabilis_; for nearly the whole of his dramatic works were
written at the latter part of his life. Pope is the like situated; that
which displayed most the power of his mind--which claims for him the
greatest praise--his _Essay on Man_, &c. appeared after his fortieth
year. _Windsor Forest_ was published in his twenty-second or
twenty-third year, both were the labour of some _years_; and the
immortal Milton, who published some few things before his thirtieth
year, sent not his great work, _Paradise Lost_, to the world until he
verged on sixty.
With the poets, and the knowledge of what Byron _was_, we may ask what
he would have been had it pleased the Great Author of all things to
suffer the summer of his consummate mental powers to shine upon us? Take
the works of any of the abovenamed distinguished individuals previous to
their thirty-eighth year, and shall we perceive that flexibility of the
English language to the extent that Byron has left behind him? His
versatility was, indeed, astonishing and triumphant. His _Childe
Harold_, the _Bride of Abydos_, the _Corsair_, and _Don Juan_, (though
somewhat too freely written,) are established proofs of his unequalled
energy of mind. His power was unlimited; not only eloquent, but the
sublime, grave and gay, were all equally familiar to his muse.
Few words are wanted to show that Byron was not depraved at heart; no
man possessed a more ready sympathy, a more generous mind to the
distressed, or was a more enthusiastic admirer of noble actions. These
feelings all strongly delineated in his character, would never admit, as
Sir Walter Scott has observed, "an imperfect moral sense, nor feeling,
dead to virtue." Severe as the
"Combined usurpers on the throne of taste"
have been, his character is marked by some of the best principles in
many parts of his writings.
"The records there of friendships, held like rocks,
And enmities like sun-touch'd snow resign'd,"
are frequently visible. His glorious attachment to the Grecian cause is
a sufficient recompense for _previous_ follies exaggerated and
propagated by calumny's poisonous tongue. In a word, "there is scarce a
passion or a situation which has escaped his pen; and he might be drawn,
like Garrick, between the weeping and the laughing muses."
A. B. C.
* * * * *
THE SONG OF THE WIDOWED MOTHER TO HER CHILD.
BY THE AUTHOR Of "AHAB."
(_For the Mirror._)
O Sink to sleep, my darling boy,
Thy father's dead, thy mother lonely,
Of late thou wert his pride, his joy,
But now thou hast not one to own thee.
The cold wide world before us lies,
But oh! such heartless things live in it,
It makes me weep--then close thine eyes
Tho' it be but for one short minute.
O sink to sleep, my baby dear,
A little while forget thy sorrow,
The wind is cold, the night is drear,
But drearier it will be to-morrow.
For none will help, tho' many see
Our wretchedness--then close thine eyes, love,
Oh, most unbless'd on earth is she
Who on another's aid relies, love.
Thou hear'st me not! thy heart's asleep
Already, and thy lids are closing,
Then lie thee still, and I will weep
Whilst thou, my dearest, art reposing,
And wish that I could slumber free,
And with thee in yon heaven awaken,
O would that it our home might be,
For here we are by all forsaken.
* * * * *
PAY OF THE JUDGES IN FORMER TIMES.
(_For the Mirror._)
In the twenty-third year of the reign of king Henry III., the salary of
the justices of the bench (now called the Common Pleas) was 20l. per
annum; in the forty-third year, 40l. In the twenty-seventh year, the
chief baron had 40 marks; the other barons, 20 marks; and in the forty,
ninth year, 4l. per annum. The justices _coram rege_ (now called the
King's Bench) had in the forty-third year of Henry III. 40l. per annum.;
the chief of the bench, 100 marks per annum; and next year, another
chief of the same court, had 100l.; but the chief of the court _coram
rege_ had only 100 marks per annum.
In the reign of Edward I., the salaries of the justices were very
uncertain, and, upon the whole, they sunk from what they had been in the
reign of Henry III. The chief justice of the bench, in the seventh year
of Edward I., had but 40l. per annum, and the other justices there, 40
marks. This continued the proportion in both benches till the
twenty-fifth year of Edward III., then the salary of the chief of the
King's Bench fell to 50 marks, or 33l. 6s. 8d., while that of the chief
of the bench was augmented to 100 marks, which may be considered as an
evidence of the increase of business and attendance there. The chief
baron had 40l.; the salaries of the other justices and barons were
reduced to 20l.
In the reign of Edward II., the number of suitors so increased in the
common bench, that whereas there had usually been only three justices
there, that prince, at the beginning of his reign, was constrained to
increase them to six, who used to sit in two places,--a circumstance not
easy to be accounted for. Within three years after they were increased
to seven; next year they were reduced to six, at which number they
continued.
The salaries of the judges, though they had continued the same from the
time of Edward I. to the twenty-fifth year of Edward III., were become
very uncertain. In the twenty-eighth year of this king, it appears, that
one of the justices of the King's Bench had 80 marks per annum. In the
thirty-ninth year of Edward III. the judges had in that court 40l.; the
same as the justices of the Common Pleas; but the chief of the King's
Bench, 100 marks.
The salaries of the judges in the time of Henry IV. were as
follows:--The chief baron, and other barons, had 40 marks per annum; the
chief of the King's Bench, and of the Common Pleas, 40l. per annum; the
other justices, in either court, 40 marks. But the gains of the
practisers were become so great, that they could hardly be tempted to
accept a place on the bench with such low salaries; therefore in the
eighteenth year of Henry VI. the judges of all the courts at
Westminster, together with the king's attorney and sergeants, exhibited
a petition to parliament concerning the regular payment of their
salaries and perquisites of robes. The king assented to their request,
and order was taken for increasing their income, which afterwards became
larger, and more fixed; this consisted of a salary and an allowance for
robes. In the first year of Edward IV., the chief justice of the King's
Bench had 170 marks per annum, 5l. 6s. 6d. for his winter robes, and the
same for his Whitsuntide robes. Most of the judges had the honour of
knighthood; some of them were knights bannerets; and some had the order
of the Bath.
In the first year of Henry VII. the chief justice of the court of King's
Bench had the yearly fee of 140 marks granted to him for his better
support; he had besides 5l. 6s. 11-1/4 d., and the sixth part of a
halfpenny (such is the accuracy of Sir William Dugdale, and the
strangeness of the sum,) for his winter robes, and 3l. 6s. 6d. for his
robes at Whitsuntide.
In the thirty-seventh year of Henry VIII. a further increase was made to
the fees of the judges;--to the chief justice of the King's Bench 30l.
per annum; to every other justice of that court 20l. per annum; to every
justice of the Common Pleas, 20l. per annum.
There were usually in the court of Common Pleas five judges, sometimes
six; and in the reign of Henry VI. there were, it is said, eight judges
at one time in that court; but six appear to have been the regular
number. In the King's Bench there were sometimes four, sometimes five.
They did not sit above three hours a day in court,--from eight in the
morning to eleven. The courts were not open in the afternoon; but that
time was left unoccupied for suitors to confer with their counsel
at home.
F. R. Y.
* * * * *
THE SELECTOR
AND LITERARY NOTICES OF NEW WORKS.
* * * * *
SIR WALTER SCOTT'S LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.
Sir Walter Scott, the author of _Waverley_, has become the biographer of
Napoleon Bonaparte; and the deepest interest is excited in the literary
world to know how the great master of romance and fiction acquits
himself in the execution of his task. In the preface to this elaborate
history, Sir Walter, with considerable ingenuousness, informs us that
"he will be found no enemy to the person of Napoleon. The term of
hostility is ended when the battle has been won, and the foe exists no
longer." But to our task: we shall attempt an analysis of the volumes
before us, and endeavour to gratify our readers with a narrative of
incidents that cannot fail interesting every British subject, whose
history, in fact, is strongly connected with the important events that
belong to the splendid career of Napoleon Bonaparte.
The first and second volumes of Sir Walter's history are taken up with a
view of the French Revolution, from whence we shall extract a sketch of
the characters of three men of terror, whose names will long remain, we
trust, unmatched in history by those of any similar miscreants. These
men were the leaders of the revolution, and were called
THE TRIUMVIRATE.
Danton deserves to be named first, as unrivalled by his colleagues in
talent and audacity. He was a man of gigantic size, and possessed a
voice of thunder. His countenance was that of an Ogre on the shoulders
of a Hercules. He was as fond of the pleasures of vice as of the
practice of cruelty; and it was said there were times when he became
humanized amidst his debauchery, laughed at the terror which his furious
declamations excited, and might be approached with safety, like the
Maelstrom at the turn of tide. His profusion was indulged to an extent
hazardous to his popularity, for the populace are jealous of a lavish
expenditure, as raising their favourites too much above their own
degree; and the charge of peculation finds always ready credit with
them, when brought against public men.
Robespierre possessed this advantage over Danton, that he did not seem
to seek for wealth, either for hoarding or expending, but lived in
strict and economical retirement, to justify the name of the
Incorruptible, with which he was honoured by his partizans. He appears
to have possessed little talent, saving a deep fund of hypocrisy,
considerable powers of sophistry, and a cold exaggerated strain of
oratory, as foreign to good taste, as the measures he recommended were
to ordinary humanity. It seemed wonderful, that even the seething and
boiling of the revolutionary cauldron should have sent up from the
bottom, and long supported on the surface, a thing so miserably void of
claims to public distinction; but Robespierre had to impose on the minds
of the vulgar, and he knew how to beguile them, by accommodating his
flattery to their passions and scale of understanding, and by acts of
cunning and hypocrisy, which weigh more with the multitude than the
words of eloquence, or the arguments of wisdom. The people listened as
to their Cicero, when he twanged out his apostrophes of _Pauvre Peuple,
Peuple vertueux!_ and hastened to execute whatever came recommended by
such honied phrases, though devised by the worst of men for the worst
and most inhuman of purposes.
Vanity was Robespierre's ruling passion, and though his countenance was
the image of his mind, he was vain even of his personal appearance, and
never adopted the external habits of a sans culotte. Amongst his fellow
Jacobins, he was distinguished by the nicety with which his hair was
arranged and powdered; and the neatness of his dress was carefully
attended to, so as to counterbalance, if possible, the vulgarity of his
person. His apartments, though small, were elegant and vanity had filled
them with representations of the occupant. Robespierre's picture at
length hung in one place, his miniature in another, his bust occupied a
niche, and on the table were disposed a few medallions exhibiting his
head in profile. The vanity which all this indicated was of the coldest
and most selfish character, being such as considers neglect as insult,
and receives homage merely as a tribute; so that, while praise is
received without gratitude, it is withheld at the risk of mortal hate.
Self-love of this dangerous character is closely allied with envy, and
Robespierre was one of the most envious and vindictive men that ever
lived. He never was known to pardon any opposition, affront, or even
rivalry; and to be marked in his tablets on such an account was a sure,
though perhaps not an immediate, sentence of death. Danton was a hero,
compared with this cold, calculating, creeping miscreant; for his
passions, though exaggerated, had at least some touch of humanity, and
his brutal ferocity was supported by brutal courage.--(_Continued at
page 17. [Note: See Mirror 263.])
* * * * *
THE EPICUREAN.
_By T. Moore, Esq._
The following is described by Alciphron, the hero of the tale, at the
termination of a festival, in a tone which strongly reminds us of
Rasselas:--
"The sounds of the song and dance had ceased, and I was now left in
those luxurious gardens alone. Though so ardent and active a votary of
pleasure, I had, by nature, a disposition full of melancholy;--an
imagination that presented sad thoughts even in the midst of mirth and
happiness, and threw the shadow of the future over the gayest illusions
of the present. Melancholy was, indeed, twin-born in my soul with
passion; and, not even in the fullest fervour of the latter were they
separated. From the first moment that I was conscious of thought and
feeling, the same dark thread had run across the web; and images of
death and annihilation mingled themselves with the most smiling scenes
through which my career of enjoyment led me. My very passion for
pleasure but deepened these gloomy fancies. For, shut out, as I was by
my creed, from a future life, and having no hope beyond the narrow
horizon of this, every minute of delight assumed a mournful preciousness
in my eyes, and pleasure, like the flower of the cemetery, grew but more
luxuriant from the neighbourhood of death. This very night my triumph,
my happiness, had seemed complete. I had been the presiding genius of
that voluptuous scene. Both my ambition and my love of pleasure had
drunk deep of the cup for which they thirsted. Looked up to by the
learned, and loved by the beautiful and the young, I had seen, in every
eye that met mine, either the acknowledgment of triumphs already won, or
the promise of others, still brighter, that awaited me. Yet, even in the
midst of all this, the same dark thoughts had presented themselves; the
perishableness of myself and all around me every instant recurred to my
mind. Those hands I had prest--those eyes, in which I had seen sparkling
a spirit of light and life that should never die--those voices that had
talked of eternal love--all, all, I felt, were but a mockery of the
moment, and would leave nothing eternal but the silence of their dust!
"Oh, were it not for this sad voice,
Stealing amid our mirth to say,
That all in which we most rejoice,
Ere night may be the earth-worm's prey:
_But_ for this bitter--only this--
Full as the world is brimm'd with bliss,
And capable as feels my soul
Of draining to its depth the whole,
I should turn earth to heaven, and be,
If bliss made gods, a deity!"
* * * * *
THE FALLS OF NIAGARA.
I had already seen some of the most celebrated works of nature in
different parts of the globe; I had seen Etna and Vesuvius; I had seen
the Andes almost at their greatest elevation; Cape Horn, rugged and
bleak, buffeted by the southern tempest; and, though last not least, I
had seen the long swell of the Pacific; but nothing I had ever beheld or
imagined could compare in grandeur with the Falls of Niagara. My first
sensation was that of exquisite delight at having before me the greatest
wonder of the world. Strange as it may appear, this feeling was
immediately succeeded by an irresistible melancholy. Had this not
continued, it might perhaps have been attributed to the satiety incident
to the complete gratification of "hope long deferred;" but so far from
diminishing, the more I gazed, the stronger and deeper the sentiment
became. Yet this scene of sadness was strangely mingled with a kind of
intoxicating fascination. Whether the phenomenon is peculiar to Niagara
I know not, but certain it is, that the spirits are affected and
depressed in a singular manner by the magic influence of this stupendous
and eternal fall. About five miles above the cataract the river expands
to the dimensions of a lake, after which it gradually narrows. The
Rapids commence at the upper extremity of Goat Island, which is half a
mile in length, and divides the river at the point of precipitation into
two unequal parts; the largest is distinguished by the several names of
the Horseshoe, Crescent, and British Fall, from its semi-circular form
and contiguity to the Canadian shore. The smaller is named the American
Fall. A portion of this fall is divided by a rock from Goat Island, and
though here insignificant in appearance, would rank high among
European cascades....
The current runs about six miles an hour; but supposing it to be only
five miles, the quantity which passes the falls in an hour is more than
eighty-five millions of tuns avoirdupois; if we suppose it to be six, it
will be more than one hundred and two millions; and in a day would
exceed two thousand four hundred millions of tuns....
The next morning, with renewed delight, I beheld from my window--I may
say, indeed, from my bed--the stupendous vision. The beams of the rising
sun shed over it a variety of tints; a cloud of spray was ascending from
the crescent; and as I viewed it from above, it appeared like the steam
rising from the boiler of some monstrous engine....
This evening I went down with one of our party to view the cataract by
moonlight. I took my favourite seat on the projecting rock, at a little
distance from the brink of the fall, and gazed till every sense seemed
absorbed in contemplation. Although the shades of night increased the
sublimity of the prospect and "deepened the murmur of the falling
floods," the moon in placid beauty shed her soft influence upon the
mind, and mitigated the horrors of the scene. The thunders which
bellowed from the abyss, and the loveliness of the falling element,
which glittered like molten silver in the moonlight, seemed to complete
in absolute perfection the rare union of the beautiful with the
sublime....
While reflecting upon the inadequacy of language to express the feelings
I experienced, or to describe the wonders which I surveyed, an American
gentleman, to my great amusement, tapped me on the shoulder, and
"guessed" that it was "_pretty droll!_" It was difficult to avoid
laughing in his face; yet I could not help envying him his vocabulary,
which had so eloquently released me from my dilemma....
Though earnestly dissuaded from the undertaking, I had determined to
employ the first fine morning in visiting the cavern beneath the fall.
The guide recommended my companion and myself to set out as early as six
o'clock, that we might have the advantage of the morning sun upon the
waters. We came to the guide's house at the appointed hour, and
disencumbered ourselves of such garments as we did not wish to have
wetted; descending the circular ladder, we followed the course of the
path running along the top of the _debris_ of the precipice, which I
have already described. Having pursued this track for about eighty
yards, in the course of which we were completely drenched, we found
ourselves close to the cataract. Although enveloped in a cloud of spray,
we could distinguish without difficulty the direction of our path, and
the nature of the cavern we were about to enter. Our guide warned us of
the difficulty in respiration which we should encounter from the spray,
and recommended us to look with exclusive attention to the security of
our footing. Thus warned, we pushed forward, blown about and buffeted by
the wind, stunned by the noise, and blinded by the spray. Each
successive gust penetrated us to the very bones with cold. Determined to
proceed, we toiled and struggled on, and having followed the footsteps
of the guide as far as was possible consistently with safety, we sat
down, and having collected our senses by degrees, the wonders of the
cavern slowly developed themselves. It is impossible to describe the
strange unnatural light reflected through its crystal wall, the roar of
the waters, and the blasts of the hurried hurricane which perpetually
rages in its recesses. We endured its fury a sufficient time to form a
notion of the shape and dimensions of this dreadful place. The cavern
was tolerably light, though the sun was unfortunately enveloped in
clouds. His disc was invisible, but we could clearly distinguish his
situation through the watery barrier. The fall of the cataract is nearly
perpendicular. The bank over which it is precipitated is of concave
form, owing to its upper stratum being composed of lime-stone, and its
base of soft slate-stone, which has been eaten away by the constant
attrition of the recoiling waters. The cavern is about one hundred and
twenty feet in height, fifty in breadth, and three hundred in length.
The entrance was completely invisible. By screaming in our ears, the
guide contrived to explain to us that there was one more point which we
might have reached had the wind been in any other direction. Unluckily
it blew full upon the sheet of the cataract, and drove it in so as to
dash upon the rock over which we must have passed. A few yards beyond
this, the precipice becomes perpendicular, and, blending with the water,
forms the extremity of the cave. After a stay of nearly ten minutes in
this most horrible purgatory, we gladly left it to its loathsome
inhabitants the eel and the water-snake, who crawl about its recesses in
considerable numbers,--and returned to the inn--_De Roos's Travels in
the United States, &c._
* * * * *
THE GUILLOTINE.
The first sight, however, which it fell to my lot to witness at Brussels
in this second and short visit, was neither gay nor handsome, nor dear
in any sense, but the very reverse; it being that of the punishment of
the guillotine inflicted on a wretched murderer, named John Baptist
Michel.[2] Hearing, at the moment of my arrival, that this tragical
scene was on the point of being acted in the great square of the
market-place, I determined for once to make a sacrifice of my feelings
to the desire of being present at a spectacle, with the nature of which
the recollections of revolutionary horrors are so intimately associated.
Accordingly, following to the spot a guard of soldiers appointed to
assist at the execution, I disengaged myself as soon as possible from
the pressure of the immense crowd already assembled, and obtained a seat
at the window of a house immediately opposite the Hotel-de-Ville, in
front of the principal entrance to which the guillotine had been
erected. At the hour of twelve at noon precisely, the malefactor, tall,
athletic, and young, having his hands tied behind his back, and being
stripped to the waist, was brought to the square in a cart, under an
escort of gen-d'armes, attended by an elderly and respectable
ecclesiastic; who, having been previously occupied in administering the
consolations of religion to the condemned person in prison, now appeared
incessantly employed in tranquillizing him on his way to the scaffold.
Arrived near the fatal machine, the unhappy man stepped out of the
vehicle, knelt at the feet of his confessor, received the priestly
benediction, kissed some individuals who accompanied him, and was
hurried by the officers of justice up the steps of the cube-form
structure of wood, painted of a blood-red, on which stood the dreadful
apparatus of death. To reach the top of the platform, to be fast bound
to a board, to be placed horizontally under the axe, and deprived of
life by its unerring blow, was, in the case of this miserable offender,
the work literally of a moment. It was indeed an awfully sudden transit
from time to eternity. He could only cry out, "_Adieu, mes amis_," and
he was gone. The severed head, passing through a red- bag fixed
under, fell to the ground--the blood spouted forth from the neck like
water from a fountain--the body, lifted up without delay, was flung down
through a trap-door in the platform. Never did capital punishment more
quickly take effect on a human being; and whilst the executioner was
coolly taking out the axe from the groove of the machine, and placing
it, covered as it was with gore, in a box, the remains of the culprit,
deposited in a shell, were hoisted into a wagon, and conveyed to the
prison. In twenty minutes all was over, and the _Grande Place_ nearly
cleared of its thousands, on whom the dreadful scene seemed to have
made, as usual, the slightest possible impression--_Stevenson's Tour in
France, Switzerland, &c._
[2] The circumstances of the case were as follows:--Jean
Baptiste Michel, aged 36, a blacksmith, accompanied by a female
named Marie Anne Debeyst, aged 22, was proceeding from Brussels
to Vilvorde, one day in the month of March, 1824. In the
Alleverte, they overtook a servant girl, who was imprudent
enough to mention to them that her master had entrusted her
with a sum of money. Near Vilvorde, Michel and his paramour,
having formed their plan of assassination and robbery, rejoined
the poor girl, whom they had momentarily left, and violently
demanded the bag containing the gold and silver. The
unfortunate young creature resisted their attacks as long as
she could, but was soon felled to the ground by Michel, who
with a thick stick fractured her skull, whilst Debeyst trod
upon the prostrate victim of their horrid crime. These wretches
were shortly afterwards arrested and committed to prison. On
the 5th of April, 1825, they were condemned to death by the
Court of Assize at Brussels, but implored of the royal clemency
a commutation of punishment. This was granted to the woman,
whose sentence was changed to perpetual imprisonment. Michel's
petition was rejected.
* * * * *
THE HEIR PRESUMPTIVE.
Of all the miseries of human life, and God knows they are manifold
enough, there are few more utterly heart-sickening and overwhelming than
those endured by the unlucky Heir Presumptive; when, after having
submitted to the whims and caprices of some rich relation, and endured a
state of worse than Egyptian bondage, for a long series of years, he
finds himself cut off with a shilling, or a mourning ring; and the El
Dorado of his tedious term of probation and expectancy devoted to the
endowment of methodist chapels and Sunday schools; or bequeathed to some
six months' friend (usually a female housekeeper, or spiritual adviser)
who, entering the vineyard at the eleventh hour, (the precise moment at
which his patience and humility become exhausted,) carries off the
golden prize, and adds another melancholy confirmation, to those already
upon record, of the fallacy of all human anticipations. It matters
little what may have been the motives of his conduct; whether duty,
affection, or that more powerful incentive self-interest; how long or
how devotedly he may have humoured the foibles or eccentricities of his
relative; or what sacrifices he may have made to enable him to comply
with his unreasonable caprices: the result is almost invariably the
same. The last year of the Heir Presumptive's purgatory, nay, perhaps
even the last month, or the last week, is often the drop to the full cup
of his endurance. His patience, however it may have been propped by
self-interest, or feelings of a more refined description, usually breaks
down before the allotted term has expired; and the whole fabric it has
cost him such infinite labour to erect, falls to the ground along with
it. It is well if his personal exertions, and the annoyances to which he
has subjected himself during the best period of his existence, form the
whole of his sacrifices. But, alas! it too often happens that,
encouraged by the probability of succeeding in a few years to an
independent property, and ambitious, moreover, of making such an
appearance in society as will afford the old gentleman or lady no excuse
for being ashamed of their connexion with him, he launches into expenses
he would never otherwise have dreamed of incurring, and contracts debts
without regard to his positive means of liquidating them, on the
strength of a contingency which, if he could but be taught to believe
it, is of all earthly anticipations the most remote and uncertain. A
passion for unnecessary expense is, under different circumstances,
frequently repressed by an inability to procure credit; but it is the
curse and bane of Mr. Omnium's nephew, and Miss Saveall's niece, that so
far from any obstacle being opposed to their prodigality, almost
unlimited indulgence is offered, nay, actually pressed upon them, by the
trades-people of their wealthy relations; who take especial care that
their charges shall be of a nature to repay them for any complaisance or
long suffering, as it regards the term of credit, they may be called
upon to display. But independently of the additional expense into which
the Heir Presumptive is often seduced by the operation of these
temptations, and his anxiety to live in a style in some degree accordant
with his expectations, what is he not called upon to endure from the
caprices, old-fashioned notions, eccentricities, avarice, and obstinacy,
of the old tyrant to whom he thus consents to sell himself, and it may
be his family, body and soul, for an indefinite number of
years.--_National Tales_.
* * * * *
THE MONTHS.
JULY.
[Illustration]
The sultry noontide of July
Now bids us seek the forest's shade;
Or for the crystal streamlet sigh.
That flows in some sequestered glade.
B. BARTON.
* * * * *
Summer! glowing summer! This is the month of heat and sunshine, of
clear, fervid skies, dusty roads, and shrinking streams; when doors and
windows are thrown open, a cool gale is the most welcome of all
visiters, and every drop of rain "is worth its weight in gold." Such is
July commonly--such it was in 1825, and such, in a scarcely less degree,
in 1826; yet it is sometimes, on the contrary, a very showery month,
putting the hay-maker to the extremity of his patience, and the farmer
upon anxious thoughts for his ripening corn; generally speaking,
however, it is the heart of our summer. The landscape presents an air of
warmth, dryness, and maturity; the eye roams over brown pastures, corn
fields "already white to harvest," dark lines of intersecting
hedge-rows, and darker trees, lifting their heavy heads above them. The
foliage at this period is rich, full, and vigorous; there is a fine haze
cast over distant woods and bosky <DW72>s, and every lofty and majestic
tree is filled with a soft shadowy twilight, which adds infinitely to
its beauty--a circumstance that has never been sufficiently noticed by
either poet or painter. Willows are now beautiful objects in the
landscape; they are like rich masses of arborescent silver, especially
if stirred by the breeze, their light and fluent forms contrasting
finely with the still and sombre aspect of the other trees.
Now is the general season of _haymaking_. Bands of mowers, in their
light trousers and broad straw hats, are astir long before the fiery eye
of the sun glances above the horizon, that they may toil in the
freshness of the morning, and stretch themselves at noon in luxurious
ease by trickling waters, and beneath the shade of trees. Till then,
with regular strokes and a sweeping sound, the sweet and flowery grass
falls before them, revealing at almost every step, nests of young birds,
mice in their cozy domes, and the mossy cells of the humble bee
streaming with liquid honey; anon, troops of haymakers are abroad,
tossing the green swaths wide to the sun. It is one of Nature's
festivities, endeared by a thousand pleasant memories and habits of the
olden days, and not a soul can resist it.
There is a sound of tinkling teams and of wagons rolling along lanes and
fields the whole country over, aye, even at midnight, till at length the
fragrant ricks rise in the farmyard, and the pale smooth-shaven fields
are left in solitary beauty.
They who know little about it may deem the strong _penchant_ of our
poets, and of ourselves, for rural pleasures, mere romance and poetic
illusion; but if poetic beauty alone were concerned, we must still
admire _harvest-time_ in the country. The whole land is then an Arcadia,
full of simple, healthful, and rejoicing spirits. Overgrown towns and
manufactories may have changed for the worse, the spirit and feelings of
our population; in them, "evil communications may have corrupted good
manners;" but in the country at large, there never was a more
simple-minded, healthful-hearted, and happy race of people than our
present British peasantry. They have cast off, it is true, many of their
ancestors' games and merrymakings, but they have in no degree lost their
soul of mirth and happiness. This is never more conspicuous than in
_harvest-time_.
With the exception of a casual song of the lark in a fresh morning, of
the blackbird and thrush at sunset, or the monotonous wail of the
yellow-hammer, the silence of birds is now complete; even the lesser
reed-sparrow, which may very properly be called the _English mock-bird_,
and which kept up a perpetual clatter with the notes of the sparrow, the
swallow, the white-throat, &c. in every hedge-bottom, day and night,
has ceased.
Boys will now be seen in the evening twilight with match, gunpowder,
&c., and green boughs for self-defence, busy in storming the paper-built
castles of _wasps_, the larvae of which furnish anglers with store of
excellent baits. Spring-flowers have given place to a very different
class. Climbing plants mantle and festoon every hedge. The wild hop, the
brione, the clematis or traveller's joy, the large white convolvulus,
whose bold yet delicate flowers will display themselves to a very late
period of the year--vetches, and white and yellow ladies-bed-straw--
invest almost every bush with their varied beauty, and breathe on the
passer-by their faint summer sweetness. The _campanula rotundifolia_,
the hare-bell of poets, and the blue-bell of botanists, arrests the eye
on every dry bank, rock, and wayside, with its beautiful cerulean bells.
There too we behold wild scabiouses, mallows, the woody nightshade,
wood-betony, and centaury; the red and white-striped convolvulus also
throws its flowers under your feet; corn fields glow with whole armies
of scarlet poppies, cockle, and the rich azure plumes of
viper's-bugloss; even _thistles_, the curse of Cain, diffuse a glow of
beauty over wastes and barren places. Some species, particularly the
musk thistles, are really noble plants, wearing their formidable arms,
their silken vest, and their gorgeous crimson tufts of fragrant flowers
issuing from a coronal of interwoven down and spines, with a grace which
casts far into the shade many a favourite of the garden.
But whoever would taste all the sweetness of July, let him go, in
pleasant company, if possible, into heaths and woods; it is there, in
her uncultured haunts, that summer now holds her court. The stern
castle, the lowly convent, the deer and the forester have vanished
thence many ages; yet nature still casts round the forest-lodge, the
gnarled oak and lovely mere, the same charms as ever. The most hot and
sandy tracts, which we might naturally imagine would now be parched up,
are in full glory. |
10,240 |
Produced by Jonathan Ingram and Project Gutenberg
Distributed Proofreaders
Transcriber's note: In "A Churchyard Scene" the word "iugrate" occurs in
the original text. This was probably a typographical
error, and the correct word was likely "ingrate."
THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.
VOL. 10, No. 266.] SATURDAY, JULY 28, 1827. [PRICE 2d.
* * * * *
CROYDON PALACE.
[Illustration]
The palace of Croydon is a building of great antiquity, and was for
several centuries the magnificent abode of the haughty dignitaries of
Canterbury. At the period of the Conquest, Lanfranc resided here, and
most of the decrees and audits of his successors were issued from, and
held at, this palace. It was here that Archbishop Parker entertained his
queen, Elizabeth and her august court, with great splendour and
festivity; as also did the celebrated Whitgift, who refused to accept of
the high office of lord chancellor. Courtney received his pall here with
great solemnity and pomp in the presence of the chief nobility of the
realm; and Chichley, Stafford, Laud, Juxon, Wake, and Herring, made it
their frequent residence, and were liberal contributors to its
architectural beauties. The remains of this interesting fabric are, with
the exception of the hall, composed entirely of brick, occupying a
considerable space on the south-west side of Croydon church, and are in
some points peculiarly striking in local appearance; but on account of
their unconnected state, with the intervening screens of garden walls,
&c. the view is confined and partial.
The grand hall is a lofty imposing structure, and at a casual
computation appears to contain an area of eight hundred square yards;
between which and the cornice, at the height of about fifteen feet, a
moulding or frieze is carried over the surface of each wall, from
whence, resting their bases on angels bearing, shields variously
blazoned, issue in the alternate spaces of twelve feet, five ligneous
pillars, supporting immense beams traversing the intervening distances
of the confronting sides. The roof is formed of large solid pieces of
timber, running diagonally to a point; the upper compartment of which
(springing from perpendicular posts), is ribbed so as to make it have
the appearance of a polygonal ellipsis.
On the right of the southern entrance an escutcheon, surmounted by a
canopy, is fixed at a considerable height from the pavement, and must
have had formerly a splendid appearance, as faint traces even now of its
original pomp are discernible in the faint glittering of the gilding,
and the exquisite symmetry of its execution. The bearings appeared to me
as--party per pall,--dexter division.--Sapphire a cross gules ensigned
with fleur de lis between six martlets topaz.--Sinister--quarterly
sapphire and ruby, first and third, three fleur de lis; topaz, second
and fourth, three lions passant gardant of the same, supported by two
angels, and surmounted by a coronet; the whole resting on an angel
bearing a scroll with a motto in old English text, but illegible.[1]
[1] I should feel highly obliged if any of your valuable
correspondents would favour me, through the medium of the
MIRROR, with the name of the noble to whom the above arms
appertained.
This hall is now occupied by a carpenter, and is almost filled with old
furniture and timber; other parts of the building are appropriated for
charity-schools, and the trade of bleaching is practised in its
precincts.
SAGITTARIUS.
* * * * *
FINE ARTS
* * * * *
ENGLISH ACADEMIES FOR PAINTING ANTERIOR TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE
ROYAL ACADEMY IN LONDON.
The first attempt to form an academy for the encouragement of the fine
arts in this country was made in Great Queen-street, in the year 1697.
The laudable design was undertaken by Sir Godfrey Kneller, and by the
most respectable artists of the day, who endeavoured to imitate the
French Academy founded by Lewis XIV. Their undertaking, however, was
wholly without success; jealousies arose among the members, and they
were ultimately compelled to relinquish the project as fruitless. Sir
James Thornhill, a few years afterwards, commenced an academy in a room
he had built for the purpose at the back of his own residence, near
Covent-garden theatre; but his attempt, likewise, proved abortive.
Notwithstanding these failures, Mr. Vanderbank, a Dutchman, headed a
body of artists, and converted an old Presbyterian meeting-house into an
academy. Besides plaster figures, Mr. Vanderbank and his associates
procured a living female figure for study, which circumstance tended to
gain a few subscribers; but, in a very short space of time, for want of
money sufficient to defray the necessary expenses, all the effects
belonging to the establishment were seized for rent, and the members, in
disgust, accordingly separated.
On the demise of Sir James Thornhill, in 1734, the celebrated William
Hogarth became possessed of part of his property.[2] Although much
averse to the principles on which academies were generally founded, Mr.
Hogarth considered that one conducted wisely would probably be of great
advantage to the public, as well as to the artists in general. He,
therefore, proposed, that a body of artists should enter into a
subscription for the purchase of a house sufficiently large and
capacious to admit thirty or forty persons to draw from a naked figure.
This proposition being unanimously agreed to, a place was forthwith
taken in St. Martin's-lane; and Hogarth, to forward the undertaking as
far as he could, lent them the furniture, &c. formerly belonging to Sir
James Thornhill's academy.
[2] The remaining part was left to Lady Thornhill, who lived
several years with her son-in-law after the death of Sir James.
The failure of all preceding attempts to form an academy was attributed
by Mr. Hogarth to the principal members assuming too much authority over
their brother artists; he, therefore, proposed, that every member should
contribute an equal sum of money to the establishment, and should have
an equal right to vote on every question relative to the society. He
considered electing presidents, directors, and professors, to be a
ridiculous imitation of the forms of the French Academy, and liable to
create jealousies.[3] Under Hogarth's guidance, the Academy continued
for thirty years, with little alteration, to the high satisfaction of
its several members, and the public in general.
[3] Our Royal Academy is _now_ governed precisely on the same
principles as is the French Academy. What would Hogarth have
said, had he lived at the present day?
On ascending the British throne, George III. evinced so much interest
for the arts, that most of the members of the academy (though contrary
to the wishes of their leader, who possessed a most independent spirit,)
solicited the royal patronage to a plan they had in view of establishing
an academy for _painting, sculpture_, and _architecture_. The success of
this appeal is too well known to English readers to need much comment.
His majesty was pleased to appropriate those very splendid apartments in
Somerset-house for the use of artists, who shortly formed a _new_
society, over which, by his majesty's special command, the great Sir
Joshua Reynolds presided.
G.W.N.
* * * * *
VOLCANOES.
(_For the Mirror_.)
To describe the awful grandeur and terrific phenomena of volcanic
eruptions in an adequate manner, is perhaps beyond the power of
language. The number of volcanoes now known is about four hundred;
nearly all of them are situated a small distance from the sea, and many
appear to have been burning from time immemorial.
A certain mixture of sulphur, steel-filings and water, buried a short
depth from the ground, will exhibit a kind of miniature volcano; and
hence some philosophers have concluded, that in the bowels of burning
mountains there are various sorts of bodies which probably ferment by
moisture, and being thus expanded, at last produce eruptions and
explosions. The mouth or chimney of a burning mountain is, in many
instances, upwards of a mile across! from which, in an eruption, are
emitted torrents of smoke and flame, rivers of lava, (consisting chiefly
of bitumen and melted metal,) and clouds of cinders, stones, &c. to an
immense distance. The wonderful quantity of these materials thrown out
from the orifice almost exceeds belief; the lava rushes like a fiery
torrent at a very rapid pace,--ravages the labours of agriculture,
overthrows houses, and in a few seconds utterly destroys the hopes of
hundreds of families--the toils of hundreds of years. Nothing impedes
its awful course; when interrupted by stone walls, or even rocks, it
collects in a few moments to the height of eight or ten feet; its
immense heat and violent pressure quickly batter down the obstacle,
which is literally made rotten by the fire, and the whole mass seems to
melt together into the lava, which again continues its progress until
exhausted by the distance of its destructive march.
An English traveller, who was at Naples during the eruption of Mount
Vesuvius, on the 10th of September, 1810, thus describes the scene:--
"Curious to witness the volcano as near as possible, I set out for
Portici, where I arrived at eight in the evening; from thence to the
summit of the mountain the road is long and difficult; having procured a
guide about the middle of the distance, we had to climb a mountain of
cinders, every step nearly knee-deep; this made it near midnight when we
reached the crater, which we approached as near as the heat would
permit. The fire of the mountain served us for a beacon, and we set
light to our sticks in the lava, which slowly ran through the hollows of
the crater. The surface of the inflamed matter nearly resembles metal in
a state of fusion, but as it flows it carries a kind of scum, which
gradually hardens into scoria and rolls like fire-balls to the bottom of
the mountain. We thought ourselves pretty secure in this spot, and had
no wish to retire; but shortly a most terrific explosion which launched
to an inconceivable height in the air, immense fragments of burning
rocks, &c. reminded us of our dangerous situation. We lost not a moment
in retreating, and driven on by fear almost with miraculous speed,
cleared in about five minutes, a space we had taken two hours to climb;
we had hardly gained this spot when a second explosion more terrible, if
possible, than the former was heard. The volcano in all its fury vomited
forth some thousands of cart-loads of stones and burning lava. As the
projection was nearly vertical, the greater part fell back again into
the mouth of the mountain and this was again vomited forth as before. On
the 11th and 12th, the fury somewhat abated, but on the 13th a fresh
eruption commenced, and burning matter flowed down all the sides of the
volcano;--all Vesuvius itself seemed on fire,--not a vestige of property
for miles could be discovered, and thousands of families were ruined."
JACOBUS.
* * * * *
A CHURCHYARD SCENE.
How sweet and solemn, all alone,
With reverend steps, from stone to stone,
In a small village churchyard lying,
O'er intervening flowers to move!
And as we read the names unknown
Of young and old to judgment gone,
And hear in the calm air above
Time onwards softly flying,
To meditate, in Christian love,
Upon the dead and dying!
Across the silence seem to go
With dream-like motion, wavery, slow,
And shrouded in their folds of snow,
The friends we loved long, long ago!
Gliding across the sad retreat,
How beautiful their phantom feet!
What tenderness is in their eyes,
Turned where the poor survivor lies
'Mid monitory sanctities!
What years of vanished joy are fanned
From one uplifting of that hand
In its white stillness! when the shade
Doth glimmeringly in sunshine fade
From our embrace, how dim appears
This world's life through a mist of tears!
Vain hopes! blind sorrows! needless fears!
Such is the scene around me now:
A little churchyard on the brow
Of a green pastoral hill;
Its sylvan village sleeps below,
And faintly here is heard the flow
Of Woodburn's summer rill;
A place where all things mournful meet,
And yet the sweetest of the sweet,
The stillest of the still!
With what a pensive beauty fall
Across the mossy, mouldering wall
That rose-tree's clustered arches! See
The robin-redbreast warily,
Bright through the blossoms, leaves his nest:
Sweet iugrate! through the winter blest
At the firesides of men--but shy
Through all the sunny summer-hours,
He hides himself among the flowers
In his own wild festivity.
What lulling sound, and shadow cool
Hangs half the darkened churchyard o'er,
From thy green depths so beautiful
Thou gorgeous sycamore!
Oft hath the holy wine and bread
Been blest beneath thy murmuring tent,
Where many a bright and hoary head
Bowed at that awful sacrament.
Now all beneath the turf are laid
On which they sat, and sang, and prayed.
Above that consecrated tree
Ascends the tapering spire, that seems
To lift the soul up silently
To heaven with all its dreams,
While in the belfry, deep and low,
From his heaved bosom's purple gleams
The dove's continuous murmurs flow,
A dirge-like song, half bliss, half woe,
The voice so lonely seems!
* * * * *
ANECDOTES AND RECOLLECTIONS
Notings, selections,
Anecdote and joke:
Our recollections;
With gravities for graver folk.
* * * * *
SHERIDAN.
It was at the strongly contested election for Westminster, when Sheridan
was opposed by Sir Francis Burdett and Lord Cochrane, that the latter,
in allusion to the orator's desire of ameliorating his situation on the
poll by endeavouring to blend his cause with that of the baronet,
characteristically observed, "that the right honourable gentleman sought
to have his _little skiff_ taken _in tow_ by the _line of battle ship_
of Sir Francis." Sheridan, in whom the metaphor had awakened the
remembrance of the remarkable and successful influence of his speech in
the House of Commons on the occasion of the mutiny at the Nore, in
calming the irritation of the rebels and reducing them to obedience, in
reply to his lordship, bade him "to recollect that it was that _little
skiff_ which once brought the whole navy of England safely into port."
The election drew towards its termination, but all the efforts of his
friends had proved unavailing to secure Sheridan's return, although his
minority was any thing but formidable. The interest that attended the
contest had, at its close, become intense; and every spot, whence the
candidates might be seen or heard, was crowded in the extreme. A sailor,
anxious to acquire a view of the scene of action, after all his exertion
to push his way through the crowd had proved fruitless, resorted to the
nautical expedient of climbing one of the poles which supported a booth
directly in front of the hustings, from the very top of which Jack was
enabled to contemplate all that occurred below. As the orator commenced
his speech, his eye fell on the elevated mariner, whom he had no sooner
observed than he rendered his situation applicable to his own, by
stating that "had he but other five hundred voters as _upright_ as the
_perpendicular_ gentleman before him, they would yet place him where
_he_ was--_at the head of the pole_."
Often were his addresses to his constituents interrupted by the tumult
that arose from the anxiety of the public to get within hearing of him.
A person, mounted on horseback, had penetrated to the very centre of the
crowd, with more regard for himself than consideration towards others,
as the animal he rode, affrighted by the noise, became equally annoying
and dangerous to those by whom he was surrounded. The outcry was
excessive, and, while some strove to appease the clamour, others urged
Sheridan to proceed. "Gentlemen," replied he to the latter, "when the
_chorus of the horse and his rider_ is finished, I shall commence."
His good humour was at no time disturbed during the election, although
the observations of his noble Caledonian opponent manifested no amicable
disposition towards the orator. As it terminated, a mutual friend of the
rival candidates expressed a hope that, with the contest, all animosity
should cease; and that the gallant officer should drown the memory of
differences in a friendly bottle. "With all my heart," said Sheridan,
"and will thank his lordship to make it _a Scotch pint_."
His treatment of Coleridge, the poet, who had submitted a tragedy to his
managerial decision, was wholly unmerited by the author, the success of
whose piece subsequently so well justified the better claims it had on
Sheridan's attention. In the cavern scene, where the silence of the
place is presumed to be only broken by the slow dropping of the water
from its vault, Sheridan, in reading it to his friends, repeated the
words of one of the characters, in a solemn tone, "Drip! drip! drip!"
adding, "Why, here's nothing but _dripping_:" but the story is told by
Coleridge himself, in the preface to his tragedy, with that good humour
and frankness becoming one sensible of his powers, and conscious that
the witty use of an unfortunate expression (were it such) could but
little affect the real and numerous beauties of the production.
An author, whose comedies, when returned upon his hands, were generally
reduced, by the critical amputation of managers, from the fair
proportion of five acts to two, or even one, with the ordinary
suggestion of "_necessary alteration_," &c. complained in wrath and
bitterness to Sheridan, who, it is said, attempted to console him, by
saying, "Why, my good fellow, what I would advise you is, to present a
comedy of a _score_ of acts, and the devil will be in it if _five_ be
not saved."
I have heard it said, that, at the first performance of _The Critic_,
Sheridan had adopted, as the representative of Lord Burleigh, an actor
whose "looks profound" accorded with his "ignorance;" but who, until
then, had only aspired to the livery of the theatre--the placing of
chairs, or the presentation of a letter; yet who, in this humble display
of histrionic art, generally contrived to commit some egregious blunder.
He was remonstrated with, on his choice, by one of the performers, who
demonstrated the excessive dulness of apprehension of _the would-be
Minister of State_; and, like other and recent instances in that
capacity, his singular aptitude to error, however simple the part he had
to enact, or clear and concise the instructions with which it might be
accompanied. As Sheridan had planned the character, the face was every
thing, and the lengthened, dull, and inexpressive visage of the subject
was too _strictly ministerial_ to be lost; and the author would, as he
said, "defy him to go wrong," Still his friend was sceptical; nor were
his doubts removed by Sheridan's assuring him that the representative of
Lord Burleigh "would have only to look wise, shake his head, and hold
his tongue;" and he so far persisted as to lay a bet with the author
that some capital blunder would nevertheless occur. The wager was
accepted, and, in the fulness of his confidence, Sheridan insisted that
the actor should not even rehearse the part, and yet that he should get
through with it satisfactorily to the public and himself on the night of
the first performance. It came. The arbiter of hopes and fears appeared
in all the "bearded majesty" of the age of Elizabeth; and, flattered by
the preference of the great author, had carefully conned over the
following instructions:--"Mr. ----, as Lord Burleigh, will advance from
the prompter's side;--proceed to the front of the stage;--fall back to
where Mr. G---- stands as Sir Christopher Hatton,--shake his head and
exit." The important moment came. With "stately step and slow," Lord
Burleigh advanced in face of the audience. "Capital!" exclaimed the
gratified author;--with equal correctness he retreated to the side of
Sir Christopher, without _literally falling back_, which Sheridan had
for a moment doubted might be the case. "Good! a lucky escape though."
half faltered the anxious poet. "Now! now!" he continued, with eager
delight at having got so far so well; but, what was his horror, when his
unlucky pupil, instead of shaking his _own_ blundering head, in strict
but unfortunate interpretation of his orders, took _that_ of Sir
Christopher within his hands, shook it long and manfully, and then
walked off with a look of exultation at having so exactly complied with
his lesson.--_New Monthly Magazine_.
WONDERFUL PECULIARITY IN THE ENGLISH CHARACTER!
The French, however wretched may be their condition, are attached to
life, while the English frequently detest life in the midst of affluence
and splendour. English criminals are not dragged, but run to the place
of execution, where they laugh, sing, cut jokes, insult the spectators;
_and if no hangman happens to be present, frequently hang
themselves_.--_Memoirs of Lewis Holberg_.
* * * * *
STANZAS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "FIELD FLOWERS," &C.
(_For the Mirror_.)
I smiled, for not a cloud was seen o'er the blue heaven's expanse,
As summer's myriad insect tribe led on the winged dance;
The gaudy butterfly was there ranging from flower to flower,
And by its side the wild bee humm'd amid the woodbine bower.
I sighed, for when I looked again the sky was overcast,
The summer insect's winged dance was o'er, yet on I past,
The gaudy butterfly was gone, the bee away had fled,
While on each fairest, brightest flower the wasteful locust fed.
Yet e'en this simple scene to youth a moral shall convey,
Since thus full oft misfortune's clouds obscure life's summer ray;
To-day we smile, for beauty smiles in all her spring-tide bloom--
To-morrow sigh, for beauty's bower has now become her tomb!
H. B.
* * * * *
SELECT BIOGRAPHY.
No. LVI.
* * * * *
GILBERT BURNS.
Gilbert Burns was born about the year 1760. He was eighteen months
younger than his brother Robert, Scotland's most gifted bard. With him
he was early inured to toil, and rendered familiar with the hardships of
the peasant's lot; like him, too, he was much subject to occasional
depression of spirits, and from whatever cause, he had contracted a
similar bend or stoop in the shoulders; his frame, like that of Robert,
was cast in a manly and symmetrical mould. The profile of his
countenance resembled that of his brother, and their phrenological
developments are said to have been not dissimilar; the principal
disparity lay in the form and expression of the eye, which in Gilbert
was fixed, sagacious, and steady--in Robert, almost "in a fine
frenzy rolling."
Gibert Burns was the archetype of his father, a very remarkable man; his
piety was equally warm and sincere; and, in all the private relations of
life, as an elder of the church, a husband, a father, a master, and a
friend, he was preeminent. His writings want that variety, originality,
and ease, which shine so conspicuously even in the prose works of the
poet; but they have many redeeming points about them. His taste was as
pure as his judgment was masculine. He has been heard to say, that the
two most pleasurable moments of his life were--first, when he read
Mackenzie's story of La Roche, and secondly, when Robert took him apart,
at the breakfast or dinner hour, during harvest, and read to him, while
seated on a barley sheaf, his MS. copy of the far-famed Cotter's
"Saturday Night."
When Robert Burns was invited by Dr. Blacklock to visit Edinburgh,
Gilbert was struggling in the unthrifty farm of Mosgiel, and toiling
late and early to keep a house over the heads of his aged mother and
unprotected sisters. The poet's success was the first thing that stemmed
the ebbing tide of his fortunes. On settling with Mr. Creech, in
February, 1788, he received, as the profits of his second publication,
about 500l.; and, with that generosity which formed a part of his
nature, he immediately presented Gilbert with nearly half of his whole
wealth. Thus succoured, Gilbert married a Miss Breconridge, and removed
to a better farm at Dinning, in Dumfriesshire. While there, he was
recommended to Lady Blantyre, whose estates in East Lothian he
subsequently managed for nearly a quarter of a century. He died at
Grant's Braes, in the neighbourhood of Haddington, on one of the
Blantyre farms, on the 8th of April. He had no fixed complaint; but, for
several months preceding his dissolution, a gradual decay of nature had
been apparent. It is probable that his death was accelerated by severe
domestic afflictions; as, on the 4th of January, he lost a daughter, who
had long been the pride of his family hearth; and, on the 26th of
February following, his youngest son, a youth of great promise, died at
Edinburgh, of typhus fever, on the eve of his being licensed for the
ministry. Mrs. Burns, who brought him a family of six sons and five
daughters, of whom five sons and one daughter are living, survivors.
It ought to be mentioned that the two hundred pounds which Robert Burns
lent to his brother, in the year 1788, was not repaid till 1820. Gilbert
was far from affluent; in early life he had to struggle even for
existence; and, therefore, to know that his aged mother and one or two
sisters, were properly supported, was, in the poet's eyes, a full
acquittance of all claims. The children of Robert viewed the subject in
the same light. In 1819, Gilbert Burns was invited by Messrs. Cadell and
Davies, to revise a new edition of his brother's works; to supply
whatever he found wanting, and correct whatever he thought amiss. He
accepted the invitation; and, by appending much valuable matter to the
late Dr. Currie's biography, he at once vindicated his brother's memory
from many aspersions which had been cast upon it, and established his
own credit as an author. On receiving payment for his labour, the first
thing he did was, to balance accounts, to the uttermost farthing, with
the widow and family of his deceased brother. The letter which
accompanied the remittance of the money was, in the highest degree,
creditable to his feelings.
_Monthly Magazine_.
* * * * *
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF ALL NATIONS.
No. XI.
* * * * *
SPORTS OF THE BURMESE.
Shortly after our arrival at Prome we had an opportunity of witnessing
some boxing and wrestling matches, exercises which the Burmahs are very
fond of, and which they pride themselves much on excelling in. The
challenge is given by stepping to the front, and with the right hand
slapping the left shoulder, at the same time taunting the opponent in
order to excite him; the struggle does not last long, and when ended, no
animosity remains between the parties.
Another amusement of the Burman youth deserves mentioning on account of
its singularity. This is a game at ball, played by six or eight young
men, formed in a circle; the ball is hollow, and made of wicker work;
and the art of the game consists in striking this upwards with the foot,
or the leg below the knee. As may be conceived, no little skill is
required to keep the ball constantly in motion; and I have often been
much entertained in watching the efforts made by the players to send the
ball high in the air, so that it should fall within the limits of the
ring, when it is again tossed by the foot of another. The natives of
Hindostan are not acquainted with this game, but it is said to be common
amongst the Chinese, Japanese, and other nations east of the Ganges. But
by far the most favourite amusements of the Burmahs are acting and
dancing, accompanied by music, which to my ear appeared very discordant,
although occasionally a few rather pleasing notes might be
distinguished. The principal instrument used in the Burman bands of
music is the kiezoop, which is formed of a number of small gongs,
graduated in size and tone on the principle of the harmonica, and
suspended in a circular frame about four feet high and five feet wide;
within which the performer stands, and extracts a succession of soft
tones, by striking on the gongs with two small sticks. Another circular
instrument (the boundah) serves as a bass; it contains an equal number
of different-sized drums, on which the musician strikes with violence,
with a view perhaps to weaken the shrill, discordant notes of a very
rude species of flageolet, and of an equally imperfect kind of trumpet,
which are usually played with a total disregard of time, tune, or
harmony. Two or three other instruments, similar in principle to the
violin, complete the orchestra. To Europeans, there was not much to
admire in the sounds produced by these instruments; neither did our
music appear to have many charms for the Burmahs, whom I have seen
present at the performance of some of Rossini's most beautiful airs, and
of different martial pieces, by one of our best regimental bands,
without expressing, either by their words or gestures, the least
satisfaction at what they heard.
In condemning, however, the Bunnaa instrumental music generally, I would
observe, that some of the vocal airs have a very pleasing effect when
accompanied by the Patola. This is an instrument made in the fantastic
shape of an alligator; the body of it is hollow, with openings at the
back, and three strings only are used, which are supported by a bridge,
as in a violin.
I chanced one day to meet with a young Burman who had been stone blind
from his birth, but who, gifted with great talent for music, used to
console himself for his misfortune by playing on this species of guitar,
and accompanying his voice. When I expressed a wish to hear him perform,
he immediately struck out a most brilliant prelude, and then commenced a
song, in a bold tone, the subject of which was a prophecy that had been
current at Rangoon before we arrived. It predicted the appearance of
numerous strangers at that place, and that two-masted ships would sail
up the Irrawaddy, when all trouble and sorrow would cease! Animated by
his subject, his voice gradually became bolder and more spirited, as
well as his performance, and without any hesitation he sung with much
facility two or three stanzas composed extempore.
Changing suddenly from the enthusiastic tone, he commenced a soft
plaintive love-song, and then, after striking the chords for some time
in a wild but masterly manner, retired. I confess I felt much interested
in this poor fellow's performance, he seemed so deeply to feel every
note he uttered, particularly at one time, when he touched upon his own
misfortune, that it appeared Providence, in ordaining he should never
see, had endowed him with this "soul-speaking" talent in some measure to
indemnify him.
The Burmahs, generally speaking, are fond of singing, and, in some
instances, I have heard many very good songs. The war-boat song, for
example, is remarkably striking. The recitative of the leading songster,
and then the swell of voices when the boatmen join in chorus, keeping
time with their oars, seemed very beautiful when wafted down the
Irrawaddy by the breeze; and the approach of a war-boat might always be
known by the sound of the well-known air.
I have sometimes heard a trio sung in parts by three young girls, with a
correctness of ear and voice which would do credit to others than the
self-taught Burmahs. Many little songs, amongst others that commencing
"Tekien, Tekien," were composed and sung by the Burman fair in
compliment to their new and welcome visiters, the white strangers; but
these, of course, are long since consigned to oblivion, unless they
recollect with pleasure
--"The grateful breath of song,
That once was heard in happier hours;"
for it is very certain that the Bunnahs considered themselves quite
happy, when enjoying the transient glimpse of liberty, and the
advantages of a just government which were offered them during the short
stay of the British army at Prome.
The Burman plays do not appear to be remarkable for the number of their
_dramatis personae_. In most there is a prince, a confidant, a buffoon or
two, and a due proportion of female characters, represented by boys
dressed in female attire. The dresses are handsome; and in one which I
attended, the dialogue appeared to be lively and well supported, as far
as I can judge from the roars of laughter which resounded from the
Burman part of the audience. One sentimental scene, in which the loving
prince takes leave of his mistress, and another where, after much
weeping and flirtation, she throws herself into his arms, were
sufficiently intelligible to us; but some, in which the jokes of the
clown formed the leading feature, were quite lost upon those who did not
understand the language. The place chosen for the representation was a
spot of ground outside of our houses, the heat being very great; and
here a circle was formed of carpets and chairs, lighted by torches
dipped in petroleum, which threw a brilliant flare around, though
accompanied by a most unpleasant odour.
Dancing succeeded, and one or two young women were the performers; like
the Hindostanee Nautch, it merely consisted in throwing the body and
arms into numerous graceful and rather voluptuous postures; at the same
time advancing slowly, with a short steady step, and occasionally
changing it for a more lively figure.
All this time the drums, cymbals, and clarionets were unceasing in their
discordant sounds, and, before long, fairly drove me from the field.
_Two Years in Ava._
* * * * *
THE NOVELIST.
No. CVI.
* * * * *
ROSALIE BERTON.
While passing some time in the south of France, I spent a few days at
S----, a town on the banks of the Loire, situated in that province,
which, from its fertility and beauty, is usually designated the garden
of France.
S----, I had been informed, was a place famed alike for its vineyards
and its pretty girls, a coincidence certainly natural, since it fairly
may be supposed, that the sun which ripens the richest fruit in nature,
should alike mature its sweetest flowers, and perfect the beauties and
the charms of that sex, which is literally "like the fair flower in its
lustre." As the friend, by whom I was accompanied, was well known in the
place, we were soon introduced to a circle of respectable families; and
among others, to that of Berton, consisting of the father, mother,
and daughter.
Rosalie Berton was the _belle_ of S----, or to borrow the far prettier
French phrase, she was "_la perle de ville_." And a sweet and lovely
girl she was, as ever the eye of affection hailed with delight. Her
charms had something of a peculiar style and character; for, with the
bright black eyes, and fine dark hair of the south, were united the fair
complexion and delicately tinted cheek of a northern beauty. Her face
was of a somewhat more pensive turn than usual, and her meek, mild
features, and soft dark eyes, bore traces of tender feeling and of
gentle thought; while so expressive was her countenance, that it
responded, at will, to her feelings, and the eye and the cheek which
were one moment impressed with melancholy, beamed forth the next with
all the warmth of intelligence, affection, or delight. Her
accomplishments were really of a superior kind; she walked with more
than the usual elegance of her country-women, and danced with equal
animation and grace. But her most attractive charm consisted in her
voice, which, though not particularly powerful, had a sweetness and a
melody which were perfectly delightful; so that never methinks have I
heard a softer strain, than when that fair girl was wont to sing to her
guitar the simple ballads and sweet romances of her native land. And her
musical talents were enhanced by her gentle, complying disposition, and
by the readiness with which she obeyed every call on her exertions. From
her music-master, who was a native of Italy, she also learnt Italian,
which she spoke with more fluency and correctness than is usual among
the French; she drew, moreover, with considerable taste. So affectionate
and so amiable was she, that she deserved all the encomiums of her
friends and even their hyperbolical compliments were scarcely
extravagant when applied to her. She was literally "_douce comme un
ange, jolie comme les amours;_" and, as the _ne plus ultra_ of merit in
France, she was "_tout a fait gentille_." She possessed also,
considerable dramatic skill and tact, and would, I think, have proved a
delightful acquisition to the stage, from the skill she displayed in
those little playful scenes, with which the French delight to
embellish life.
We were favoured with a specimen of her talents in this way, on the
evening of our arrival. It was the fete day of madame, the mother of
Louise, and we were invited to be present. After some time passed in
taking refreshments, varied by dancing, conversation, &c., the little
ceremony of the evening commenced; the door opened, and a small but gay
procession entered the room. It consisted of several young persons, all
friends of the family, headed by Louise, who was charmingly dressed, and
looked altogether most lovely. She bore her guitar across her bosom, and
the instrument was encircled with a wreath of flowers. Each individual
carried some little offering, such as bottles of wine and liqueurs,
conserves and sweetmeats, flowers and fruit, &c. &c.; and these were
placed on the table, the whole group forming a circle round Rosalie, who
advanced to her mother, and sang to the guitar the well-known verses
consecrated to such occasions.
Madame c'est aujourdhui votre fete,
C'est aussi celle de nos coeurs;
A vous chanter chacun s'apprete!
Et veut vous courouner de fleurs!
The lovely girl then loosed the garland from her lyre, placed it with
light hand on the brow of her mother, and sank in a graceful bending
attitude to receive her parent's blessing. She was instantly raised,
fondly embraced by both her admiring parents, and with a repetition of
the song, the whole party left the room. The scene is long past, but I
have often recalled it since; and in many an hour of fancy and of
thought, have again beheld that fair girl kneeling to her mother, again
beheld her clasped to that mother's heart. Nor was the above the only
instance of her skill, every day presented some fresh instance of her
feeling and of taste.
A _plaisanterie_, which proved very successful, was arranged as
follows:--We were sitting one evening up stairs, when we were attracted
by the performance of three musicians, who were singing in the _cour_.
The party consisted of two young men, and a female, who wore a veil;
they accompanied their songs by playing on the guitar; their performance
was evidently of a superior character; the music and the words were
Italian, and the voice of the female performer was eminently sweet and
touching. After listening some time with great delight--
"Go," said I to one of the party, "find Rosalie, and tell her to come
and listen to a better singer than herself, who will give her a _lecon
de chant_."
This was said in the hearing of the foreign songstress, for whom it was
intended as a compliment, while, at the same time, some silver was
thrown upon the ground. But what was our surprise, when the lovely girl
threw aside her veil, exclaiming--
"He! bien messieurs et dames! vous ne connaissez donc plus votre pauvre
Rosalie!"
Such was one of many pleasantries by which we were diverted and amused.
Idle fancies these indeed, and such as sterner judgments may deem
trifling or absurd, yet not uninteresting, since many of them evidently
afford vestiges of classic times and manners, transmitted through the
course of ages; nor unuseful, since they tend to smooth and adorn the
rugged way of life, and to strew its flinty path with flowers.
With the charms and accomplishments which I have described, (and the
sketch can convey but a faint idea of those which she actually
possessed,) it cannot be supposed that Rosalie was destitute of
admirers. She had, indeed, had several, but their suits were all
unsuccessful. She had been addressed in turn by the _medecin_ of the
place--by the son of the President of the Tribunal du Commerce--and by a
nephew to a Monsieur de V----, the seigneur who resided at a
neighbouring chateau. But they were all, more or less, improper
characters; the _medecin_ was a gamester; the president's son a
drunkard, a character utterly despised in these parts; while the nephew
to the seigneur, was actually a _mauvais sujet_! What the French
precisely understand by a _mauvais sujet_, I never could exactly make
out; for, when impelled by curiosity to inquire, my queries were always
met by such a volley of vituperation, as left one altogether in the dark
with regard to the real nature of the charge. On the whole, I presume,
we are to consider a _mauvais sujet_ as a culprit, compared with whose
transgressions, the several enormities of gaming, drinking, and the
like, sink into mere peccadilloes.
The parents of Rosalie (the parents settle all these matters in France),
on learning the character of their intended sons-in-law, dismissed them
one after the other; and Rosalie acquiesced in their determination with
a readiness and a decision, which did equal honour to her affection and
her judgment.
So interesting a girl, however, was not likely to remain long without a
suitable admirer, and she speedily had another _affaire du coeur_. A
young and handsome _militaire_, a sous-lieutenant in the royal guard,
aspired to gain her hand, and to replace the vacancy in her affections.
Henri Vaucouleurs was a fine, tall, dark, martial-looking young man (the
French make fine-looking soldiers), and, with his luxuriant mustachios
and the eager glance of his keen black eye, seemed the very _beau ideal_
of a modern hero. Born at Mezieres, in the department of Ardennes, he
was cradled in the very lap of war, and was yet a mere boy; when, in the
summer of 1813, he joined the corps called the _garde d'honneur_. He
made the campaign of Germany, and was present in the battles of Leipzig
and of Hanau, in the last of which he received a ball in the right arm.
He shortly, however, resumed his post with the army assembled for the
defence of France, and at the battle of Laon received a severe _coup de
sabre_ on his forehead, the scar of which added much to the martial
aspect of his countenance. At the peace he joined the royal guard, in
which corps he still continued. He was really a very estimable and
engaging young man; and possessed more candour, intelligence, and good
sense, than I think I ever witnessed in a military man among the French.
His account of his campaigns was exceedingly modest, unaffected, and
intelligent, and his whole conversation and manner were of a superior
character. I remember, he spoke with great forbearance of the three
principal nations among the allies, the Russians, Prussians, and
Austrians; but inveighed, bitterly, against several of the auxiliaries,
who, he said, having received only benefits of the French emperor,
embraced the first opportunity offered by a reverse of fortune, to
desert and betray him. |
10,240 |
Produced by Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders
OPERA STORIES FROM WAGNER
BY
FLORENCE AKIN
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
1915
[Illustration: SIEGFRIED]
NOTE: The verses printed in this book are quoted from Dr. Oliver
Huckel's translations of _The Rhine-Gold_, _The Walkuere_,
_Siegfried_, and _Goetterdaemmerung_, by the kind permission
of the publishers, Messrs. Thomas Y. Crowell & Company. An
occasional sentence in several of the stories is borrowed
from the same source.
CONTENTS
THE RHINE-GOLD
THE HAPPY RHINE-DAUGHTERS
ALBERICH
THE CARELESS RHINE-DAUGHTERS
THE THEFT
THE SAD RHINE-DAUGHTERS
A CASTLE ON THE RHINE
THE MORNING
THE PAYMENT
LOKI
YOUTH OR AGE?
NIBELHEIM
THE BEST SMITH IN NIBELHEIM
THE MASTER
THE BOASTER
THE WISHING-CAP
THE TRICK
THE CURSE
THE GREEDY FAFNER
A SLAVE TO GOLD
THE BEAUTIFUL VALHALLA
THE WALKUERE
A MATCHLESS SWORD
THE VALIANT SIEGMUND
HUNDING'S WIFE
HUNDING
THE WAR-MAIDENS
WOTAN'S WIFE
WOTAN AND BRUNHILDE
OFF TO THE BATTLEFIELD
THE FLIGHT
THE PUNISHMENT
THE SLEEP
THE MAGIC FIRE
SIEGFRIED
THE MISSING MIMI
THE DRAGON
A BABY IN THE FOREST
MIMI AND THE BABY
SIEGFRIED AND HIS FRIENDS
THE BROKEN SWORD
A BIG BROWN BEAR
SIEGFRIED AND MIMI
SIEGFRIED MENDS HIS FATHER'S SWORD
SIEGFRIED GOES TO FIGHT THE DRAGON
A WOOD-BIRD'S SONG
SIEGFRIED AND THE DRAGON
A CHANGE COMES OVER SIEGFRIED
MIMI HAS A SURPRISE
MIMI AND ALBERICH STOP TO QUARREL TOO LONG
SIEGFRIED REACHES THE MOUNTAIN
SIEGFRIED LEARNS WHAT FEAR IS
THE AWAKENING
GOETTERDAEMMERUNG
A SONG OF THE PAST
A SONG OF THE PRESENT
A SONG OF THE FUTURE
A PLEDGE OF LOVE
THE DOOM OF VALHALLA
LOVE
MORE ABOUT THE STORIES
ILLUSTRATIONS
SIEGFRIED
THE RHINE-MAIDENS AND ALBERICH
WOTAN
HE TUGGED IN VAIN
WALKUERE CARRYING HEROES TO VALHALLA
"EAT HIM, BRUIN," LAUGHED SIEGFRIED
"I AM GOING TO EAT YOU," HISSED THE DRAGON
THREE NORNS CAME TO THE MOUNTAIN CREST TO SPIN
_From drawings by E. Pollak-Ottendorff_
TO THE GIRLS AND BOYS
In these stories you will find some wonderful giants.
You will find beautiful maidens who lived in a river.
You will find a large family of little black dwarfs who lived under the
river, and you will find a splendid hero.
The little children of Germany used to curl up in their mothers' arms,
when bedtime came, and listen to the stories of these strange people.
When these little children grew up, they told the same stories to their
children.
So it went for many, many years.
The stories have been put together by a man named Richard Wagner. He put
them together in such a way that they make one long and wonderful story.
After he had told these stories in words, he told them again in a more
beautiful way. He told them in music.
Sometime you will hear this music, and you will think of beautiful
water-maidens, singing and dancing in the sunshine.
You will think of great giants walking over mountains.
You will think of the little black dwarfs under the river, and you will
hear them hammering, hammering upon their anvils.
OPERA STORIES FROM WAGNER
THE RHINE-GOLD
THE HAPPY RHINE-DAUGHTERS
In the Rhine River there lived three beautiful maidens. They were called
the Rhine-daughters.
They had long, golden hair, which floated upon the waves as they swam
from rock to rock.
When their father went away, he left in their care a great lump of pure
gold.
This gold was on the very top of the highest rock in the river.
Every morning the beautiful Rhine-daughters would dance and sing about
their gold.
They sang a happy song:--
"Heigh-ho! hither, ye waters!
Waver and waft me to sleep on your breast!
Heigh-ho! hither, ye waters!
Weave me sweet dreams on your billowy crest!"
ALBERICH
One morning, when the sun was shining very brightly, the Rhine-daughters
were startled by a strange sound in the depths of the water.
"Look!" whispered one. "What is that scowling at us from the rocks
below?"
There, stealing along the river-bed, they saw a hideous little black
dwarf.
"Who are you, and what do you want?" asked the Rhine-daughters.
"I am Alberich," answered the dwarf as he tried to climb up on the
slippery rocks. "I came from the kingdom of the Nibelungs, down under
the earth."
"What!" said the Rhine-daughters. "Surely you do not live down in the
dark earth where there is no sunshine?"
"Yes," answered Alberich. "But I have come up to frolic in the sunshine
with you"; and he held out his ugly, misshapen little hands to take the
hands of the Rhine-daughters.
They only laughed at him and darted away to a higher rock.
Alberich hurried after them.
He blinked and scowled in the sunshine, because his eyes were not used
to the light.
The maidens laughed and shouted in their play.
They called to Alberich and teased him.
They went very close to him, pretending that they would take his hand,
that he, too, might play in the sunshine. Then they would quickly dart
away, mocking him, and laughing at him more loudly than ever.
Alberich grew fierce and angry.
He clenched his fists and cried:--
"Woe be to you if I should catch you now."
THE CARELESS RHINE-DAUGHTERS
Alberich was the most hideous of all the black, ugly little Nibelungs.
The Nibelungs had cross, scowling faces, because they were always
scolding each other.
They quarreled from morning till night, so, of course, their faces grew
to look quarrelsome and ugly.
As Alberich hurried after the Rhine-daughters, he suddenly caught sight
of the gold glittering in the morning sun.
He stood still. Then he straightened up as tall as his crooked,
misshapen little back would let him. He opened his eyes wide.
"Oh! Sisters! See how Alberich is staring at our gold!" whispered one of
the Rhine-daughters. "Perhaps this is the foe of which our father warned
us. How careless we have been!"
"Nonsense," answered one. "Who would fear this little black fellow? He
will do us no harm. Let him gaze upon the gold. Come, let us sing!"
[Illustration: THE RHINE-MAIDENS AND ALBERICH]
The maidens joined hands and circled about the gold, singing:--
"Hail to thee! Hail to thee!
Treasure most bright!
Rhine-gold! Rhine-gold!
Beautiful sight!
"Hail to thee! Hail to thee!
Out of the night!
Rhine-gold! Rhine-gold!
Wakened so bright!"
THE THEFT
Still Alberich stood and stared at the gold.
"What is it?" he gasped. "What is it?"
The Rhine-daughters shouted back to him:--
"Heigh-ho! and heigh-ho!
Dear little imp of woe,
Laugh with us, laugh with us!
Heigh-ho and heigh-ho!"
But Alberich did not laugh with them.
He would not take his eyes off the gold.
"That," said the maidens, "is our Rhine-gold."
"A very pretty plaything it is," said Alberich.
"Yes," replied the careless sisters, "it is magic gold. Who moulds this
gold into a ring shall have all power upon the earth, save love."
Alberich muttered to himself: "What do I care for love if I have all the
gold I want?"
Then he sprang upon the slippery rock and snatched the gold. With one
wild leap he plunged into the depths below.
Down, down he went to his deep, dark kingdom, clutching fast the
precious gold and muttering:--
"Now all the earth is mine. It is mine, all mine. Now I shall rule the
world."
Poor foolish Alberich! He did not know that the best things in this
world are the things which gold cannot buy.
The power of love is greater than the power of gold.
The maidens shrieked and screamed: "Our gold! Our gold! Our precious
gold!"
Too late! Far, far below, they heard a laugh, the rough, rude laugh of
Alberich, the dwarf.
THE SAD RHINE-DAUGHTERS
After that, when the Rhine-daughters came to the rock where the gold had
been, they could not sing their happy song.
Their faces were very sad now, and they said: "Oh, why did Alberich
steal our beautiful gold? It cannot make him happy, for no one can ever
be truly happy who does not know love."
They often sat upon the rocks in the dusk of the evening and cried as if
their hearts would break because they had lost their gold.
"The black waves surge in sorrow through the depths, And all the Rhine
is wailing in its woe."
A CASTLE ON THE RHINE
On a mountain-side, above the banks of the Rhine, lived a family of
splendid giants.
The greatest of the giants was Wotan. He was the king.
They had always lived out of doors, because the king had never been
able to find a giant who was large enough to build such a grand castle
as he wanted for his family.
But one day there came to the mountainside the largest giant Wotan had
ever seen.
His name was Fafner.
He was many times larger than Wotan.
Wotan told Fafner how much he wanted a wonderful castle.
Fafner said: "I will build such a castle for you if you will give me
your sister, Freya."
Fafner wanted to take the beautiful Freya to his own country.
Wotan did not stop to think what an awful thing it would be to lose
Freya.
His thoughts were of nothing but the wonderful castle.
"Build it, Fafner," said Wotan.
That night Wotan and his family lay down upon their mountain to sleep.
Wotan dreamed of a wonderful stone castle with glittering towers.
He dreamed he saw the castle gleaming in the morning sun.
[Illustration: WOTAN]
THE MORNING
It was morning in the beautiful country where the Rhine River flows.
The giants upon the hillside were just awakening from their night's
sleep.
During the night Fafner had built the wonderful castle.
Wotan's wife was the first to see it.
"Awake, Wotan! Awake!" she cried.
As Wotan opened his eyes he saw the castle upon the summit of the
mountain.
What a great shining castle it was!
In delight Wotan cried: "'T is finished! And my glorious dream is true!"
All night long Fafner had toiled hard.
He finished just as the morning dawned.
He was waiting now for Wotan to awaken and to give to him the beautiful
Freya.
He would take her and hurry to his own country.
THE PAYMENT
"While you slept I built the castle," said Fafner. "Now I am ready for
the payment."
"What payment do you want?" asked Wotan.
"What payment do I want?" shouted Fafner. "Surely you have not forgotten
your promise? The price was Freya, and I shall take her home with me."
"Oh, that was only in jest," said Wotan. "I could not think of letting
Freya go. But I shall pay you well for the castle. I shall give you
something else that will be just as good for you."
Fafner grew very angry and screamed:--
"Cease your foolish talk. I built your beautiful stone palace. I drudged
and toiled and heaped the massive rocks. Each stone lies firm and solid
in its place, and I will have my pay!"
"But, surely," said Wotan, "you did not think I meant to give you Freya?
'T is she who feeds us golden apples. No one but Freya knows how to
make them grow. If it were not for her fresh fruits my family would grow
old. They would wither like the autumn flowers."
"Yes," raged Fafner; "I know it is fair Freya's golden apples that keep
you young. But now Freya belongs to me. Nothing else will I have."
Just then Wotan saw his brother, Loki, coming over the mountain.
"Wait, Fafner! Wait until I can talk with my brother about this!"
LOKI
"Loki, why are you so late?" complained Wotan, when Loki came.
Loki was much excited.
"The Rhine-daughters are in great trouble, Wotan. As I was coming by the
river I heard them weeping and wailing. Black Alberich has stolen their
gold, and I promised them that I would tell you about it. Perhaps you
could help them."
"I have no time for the Rhine-daughters now," said Wotan. "I have
trouble of my own. Tell me how I can save poor Freya!"
For many years Fafner had heard of this lump of gold. So he listened to
all that Loki told. Then he asked: "Why does Alberich want the gold?"
"Because," replied Loki, "the gold can be made into a magic ring; if the
one who would make the ring will forever give up all love, the magic
ring will make its owner master of the whole wide world. Alberich
declared that love was nothing to him if he could have all the gold
he wanted."
To himself Fafner thought: "Perhaps it would be better for me to have
the gold than to have Freya and her golden apples." Then aloud he said:
"Let me tell you what I am willing to do, Wotan. If you will get that
gold for me, I will accept it in place of Freya."
"You rascal!" roared Wotan. "How can I give you gold that is not mine?"
"Very well," said Fafner. "I did not come here to quarrel. Already I
have waited too long. I shall take my pay. Come, Freya, you must go
with me."
Poor, frightened Freya wept and cried aloud as Fafner picked her up and
carried her off over the mountain.
He called back to Wotan and Loki: "I will keep Freya until evening. Then
I shall come again, and if you have that glittering Rhine-gold for me,
then you may have your sister. If you do not give me the gold, then
Freya is mine and I will keep her always."
YOUTH OR AGE?
As soon as Freya was gone, the flowers began to droop their heads.
Wotan and his family began to grow old and gray.
It seemed to Wotan like some awful dream.
Suddenly Loki cried out: "We have not eaten Freya's fruit to-day! Now
she is gone, we shall all wither and die!"
Wotan had stood gazing at the ground, trying hard to think what he
could do to save himself and his family.
"Come, Loki," he said. "We must go to the deep dark kingdom of the
Nibelungs. I must have the gold! Let us go by way of the brimstone
gorge. I cannot go by way of the river. I do not want to hear the
wailing of the Rhine-daughters."
Wotan called back to his anxious family: "Only wait till evening and I
promise I shall bring your lost youth back to you."
NIBELHEIM
"Far, far below the ground are gloomy depths,--
A mighty cavern, rocky, dark and vast."
It was as dark as night down in the kingdom of the Nibelungs, except for
the light which flared from the smoking torches, or glowed in the coals
upon the anvils.
The family of dwarfs were skilled blacksmiths and metal-workers.
From every little niche and corner came the sound of clinking anvils.
Before Alberich stole the gold, the Nibelungs often sang as they worked.
They sometimes made pretty ornaments for their wives to wear or toys for
their little children.
But now Alberich had made the ring of gold which bound them to do his
will.
He had no love in his heart, so he drove and scolded all the time.
He made them work, work, work, both day and night, and all that they
made belonged to him.
So Alberich was daily becoming mightier than ever.
THE BEST SMITH IN NIBELHEIM
Mimi, who was Alberich's brother, was the best smith in all this swarm
of black slaves.
Alberich forced Mimi to make for him a strange wishing-cap.
It was made of woven steel.
Mimi had to make it just as Alberich said, but Mimi did not know how it
was to be used. When it was finished, Mimi feared it had some
wonderful power, and he did not want Alberich to have it.
He wished he might keep it for himself.
He had worked hard to make it.
"Give me that helmet," said Alberich. "I want you to know, Mimi, that
everything in this cave belongs to me!"
Mimi had to give it up.
Alberich put it on his head. "Now I shall see what magic there is in
this wishing-cap. Come, Night and Darkness!" he called. "Make me so no
one can see me!"
In an instant he was gone, and there was only a cloud of smoke where he
had stood.
"Now, Mimi!" he called, "look sharp! Can you see me?"
"No," gasped Mimi. "I cannot see you at all."
The cloud of smoke moved down the gloomy cave and Alberich's cruel voice
laughed: "Ha! ha! Now I shall make you black slaves work! Now you dare
not be idle, for when you do not see me I shall be watching you!"
His voice sank deeper. "Now I will make you dig, dig, dig, to the very
depths of the earth to bring me gold!"
Mimi was so frightened.
When the cloud of smoke had gone out of sight, he lay down upon the
rocks and cried.
THE MASTER
Wotan and Loki swung themselves over the ledge and slid down into the
murky cave where Alberich lived.
Wotan looked around and said:--
"So this is the Kingdom of the Nibelungs! What an awful place it is!"
From far down the passages came the sound of hundreds of slaves melting
and welding precious metals for their master.
"Loki," said Wotan, "I believe it is always dark and gloomy where there
is no love. What is that strange cry I hear?"
"Ho, Mimi, is that you?" said Loki.
"Leave me alone!" cried Mimi.
"Then tell me what you are crying about?"
"Oh," replied Mimi, "that wretched Alberich, with his ring of gold, has
made us all his slaves! With it he drives us down into the earth to dig
more gold. What we get is all his. We slave for him both day and night.
"This curse of gold has filled our cavern with despair. Lately he made
me forge a wishing-cap for him. With it he makes himself so none can see
him. Now we slaves can never rest. _Sh! sh!_ He is coming now!"
Wotan and Loki, peering through the darkness, could see him now and then
as he passed under the light of a flaring torch.
He was driving a swarm of bent black slaves who were carrying great
packs of gold and silver and precious ore upon their backs.
The helmet was hanging at his waist.
In his hand he was swinging a whip and the giants could hear him
yelling:--
"Pile up the gold! Hurry! Hurry, you lazy rogues!"
THE BOASTER
Suddenly Alberich saw the giants.
"Who is this that dares come into my cave?" he cried. "Mimi, get back to
your work!"
Then to all the other slaves he called:--
"Get below, every one of you! Crawl into your dingy shafts and dig the
gold! Begone, I say! You must obey the master of the ring!"
As soon as the black swarm had crept away, Alberich spoke angrily to
Wotan and Loki. "What do you want in here?"
"We just came to see you," said Wotan. "We hoped you might be glad to
have us. We think you must be a very clever man. We have heard a great
deal about the wonderful things you can do."
This pleased Alberich. He grew very proud and began to boast.
"See all this gold of mine!" he said.
"Yes," answered Loki; "it is the most gold I have ever seen, but what
use is it? It does no one any good in here where nothing useful can be
bought with it."
"I am heaping it up," said Alberich. "Some day, with this same treasure,
heaped and hid, I hope to work some wonders. You shall see! I shall be
master of the whole wide world! Ha! the smoke of Alberich's kingdom
shall smudge even your flowery mountain-sides and your sparkling rivers.
Everybody shall be my slave! Beware of this black Nibelung, I say, for
he shall rule the world!"
THE WISHING-CAP
Loki was very sly and cunning. While Alberich boasted, he was planning
how he might trick the dwarf and take his gold.
To Alberich he said: "Surely, you will be the mightiest of men. But
suppose that while you sleep, one of your slaves should creep upon you
and steal your ring?"
Alberich smiled. "There is no danger of that," he said. "I will show you
a trick or two. Do you see this helmet? It is a magic helmet. With it I
can make myself so no one can see me, or I can change myself, quick as a
flash, into anything I wish to be. So, you see, I am perfectly safe."
"I never heard of such wonders," answered Loki. "I really cannot believe
it."
"I shall prove it to you," said the dwarf, never dreaming that the sly
Loki was only laying a trap for him. "What form will you have me take?"
"Turn into anything you wish. Only let me see it done and then I shall
believe."
Alberich put on the helmet. "Ho! Monster Dragon, come!" And quick as a
flash he turned into a huge dragon.
Loki pretended to be frightened. As the fierce monster squirmed toward
him, he made believe that he was going to rush from the cave.
THE TRICK
The dragon vanished and there stood Alberich again.
"Now do you believe?" he asked.
"Indeed, I do," replied Loki. "It is wonderful. But if you could shrink
to some tiny thing, it would be even much more clever, because you could
creep into a crevice and spy upon your enemies. But, of course, getting
small would be too hard a thing to do."
"Only tell me what you would have me be," said Alberich.
"Now I shall catch him," thought Loki. "Could you make yourself as
little as a toad that quickly slinks under the rock when there is
danger near?"
"Ha! Nothing easier," laughed Alberich.
And again putting the helmet on his head he coaxed:--
"Come, little toad! Creep from your cranny!" Alberich was gone, and
there at Wotan's feet hopped the tiny toad.
"Quick, Wotan!" cried Loki.
And in an instant Wotan put his heavy foot upon the toad.
Loki reached down and took the magic wishing-cap.
As soon as the cap was off, the toad disappeared, and there lay
Alberich, held fast by Wotan's giant foot.
"Let me go!" shrieked the dwarf. "Take your foot off of me, this
minute!"
Wotan calmly answered: "You may go when you have promised all I ask."
"Then what do you want?" groaned Alberich.
"I want all your glittering gold," said Wotan.
THE CURSE
Alberich held the ring close under his breast and muttered to himself:
"They may have the gold! What do I care! With this ring I can soon make
my slaves dig more."
Then aloud he said: "You may take the gold. My slaves shall heap it at
your feet."
He slyly slipped his hand to his lips and, kissing the ring, called his
slaves with its magic.
In a moment the little black Nibelungs came in swarms from every shaft,
bearing the precious gold.
Alberich did not like to have them see him under Wotan's foot.
"Heap up the treasure!" he yelled. "Don't stop to stare at me. I am
still your master. Now, crawl back into your shafts and drudge. I am
coming in a minute, and it will not be well for you if I do not find
you digging!"
Trembling with fear, they scurried to the darkest depths.
"Now, there is your gold!" said Alberich. "Give back my helmet and let
me go!"
But Loki quickly tossed the helmet upon the shining heap.
"Take it, then," snarled the dwarf, thinking he could easily, with the
power of the ring, force Mimi to make another, "but let me go, I say!"
"Just wait a minute, Alberich," said Wotan. "That ring I saw glittering
on your finger,--I must have that too."
"The ring!" Alberich screamed in horror. "No, you shall never have the
ring!"
Wotan's face grew stern.
"That ring does not belong to you. You stole its gold from the
Rhine-children," he said.
"Think twice, Wotan, before you take this ring from me! I warn you now a
curse goes with it."
But Wotan drew the ring from the dwarf's finger, then set him free.
"Farewell, Alberich! Farewell!"
"Ha!" laughed Alberich in scorn. "It will never bring you happiness. Its
owner shall always feel its curse of care, sorrow, and unrest."
Then, turning, he groped his way down the cavern, far poorer than the
day he went stealing along the slippery bed of the river. Then, he had
no gold. Now, he had no gold and no friends.
THE GREEDY FAFNER
Wotan and Loki hurried back to the mountain-side with their treasure.
At the same time Fafner returned, bringing Freya.
Already Fafner had made up his mind that if he gave Freya back, he must
have a very great deal of gold.
When Freya again reached her own country, the sun grew brighter, the air
grew sweeter, and the glow of youth came back to the cheeks of Wotan and
his family.
"Here, Fafner, is your gold!" great Wotan cried.
"I am sorry to give Freya up," said Fafner. "Pile up the gold between
her and me. You may keep her if there is gold enough to hide her
completely from my sight. So long as I can see her, I cannot part
with her."
Then Wotan and his family heaped the glittering gold. They piled it as
loosely as they could, but when they had put on all the gold they had,
the greedy Fafner cried:--
"More, more! It is not high enough! Still I can see fair Freya's
shimmering hair. Throw on that shining helmet!"
"Put it on, Loki," commanded Wotan. "There, Fafner, is your pay. Freya
again belongs to me."
"Not yet!" cried Fafner, as he peeped through a space in the heap. "I
can see her eyes through here." Then, pointing to the ring on Wotan's
finger: "Bring that ring and put it in this space."
"Never!" cried Wotan.
Then Loki spoke. "The ring belongs to the Rhine-maidens, and Wotan is
going to return it to them. Already we have given you more than you
should expect, all that shining heap and the helmet besides."
"I will not give you any more!" roared Wotan. "Not all the mighty world
shall take this ring from my finger!"
"Then I shall be gone," said Fafner. "I was afraid you would not give me
enough gold. Freya is mine forevermore."
Wotan's family began to plead for Freya. "She is worth more to us than
all the gold in this world! Without her we must all wither and die!"
It was no use to resist. Wotan knew that he dared not lose Freya.
Taking the ring from his finger, he flung it upon the shining heap.
A SLAVE TO GOLD
Fafner gathered up the hoard--the hoard for which he had worked--the
hoard for which he had made so much trouble.
He carried it off to his own country. Now that he had it, he had no
thought of using it.
He wanted it merely for gold's sake; not for the sake of the great, good
things that might be done with it. The only thing he wished to do was to
keep others from getting it.
He heaped it up in a cave in the forest. Then he put on the helmet and
changed himself into a fierce, ugly dragon.
For the love of mere gold he was willing to give up being a splendid
giant, who roamed freely over the beautiful mountains, and to become a
hideous, twisting, squirming monster.
The rest of his life he would lie at the door of the cave and guard the
treasure. The treasure should lie there useless to all the world.
Fafner,--a slave to gold!
THE BEAUTIFUL VALHALLA
As Fafner carried away his treasure, a great storm gathered over the
mountain crest.
The sky grew black. The thunder rolled. Its echoes bounded on from cloud
to cloud, from peak to peak, then rumbled down the valleys to the sea.
Then the clouds drifted away. The setting sun shot its long rays into
the deep valley.
There, arching over the river and reaching from the flowery
mountain-side to the very door of the gleaming castle, stood a shining
rainbow bridge.
"Lo! our castle! Our beautiful Valhalla!" cried the king. "Let us cross
over. It shall be our dwelling-place forevermore."
One by one they stepped upon the bridge.
As Wotan walked slowly and sadly over, he heard the wailing of the
Rhine-maidens in the river below:--
"Rhine-gold! Rhine-gold!
We long for your light!"
"I shall never be happy again," thought Wotan. "I have given my honor
for Valhalla. What an awful price I have paid!"
THE WALKUERE
A MATCHLESS SWORD
Many years passed. The giants lived on in their beautiful Valhalla.
But their king was sad.
He could not forget Alberich's curse. What if Alberich should in some
way gain possession of the ring again! He would destroy Valhalla.
"Oh, why was I not brave enough to give the ring back to the
Rhine-children!" sighed Wotan.
"If only it might again be a mere thing of beauty to gladden their
hearts, but so long as it is in the world, how many more will it not rob
of their happiness.
"Surely, some great hero must come who will be brave enough to slay the
dragon and give the ring back to its rightful owners."
Said Wotan to himself, "I shall make a mighty sword, and when the hero
comes, his sword will be ready for him."
Then the great Wotan wrought a matchless sword.
When it was finished, he took it and went into the forest. Straight he
went to the home of the bold robber Hunding.
It was a beautiful moonlight night when he reached Hunding's hut.
From the loud laughter and shouting that Wotan heard as he neared the
hut, he knew that Hunding and his friends were having a merry feast.
Wotan lifted the latch and entered.
The great, rude room was built around the trunk of a mighty ash tree.
The walls were made of roughly hewn logs.
The floors were covered with the skins of wild animals of the forest.
Mats of reeds and grasses hung upon the walls.
The huge fireplace was built of rough stones.
The mighty Wotan scowled upon the crowd.
Then, lifting the gleaming sword above his head, with one great lunging
blow, he buried the bright blade, even to its hilt, in the great ash
tree's quivering side.
Then, turning to the guests, he said:--
"The sword shall belong to him who can draw it from the ash tree's
heart."
[Illustration: HE TUGGED IN VAIN]
Though each guest tugged with all his might, he tugged in vain.
In the years that followed, many came and went, and all tried hard to
gain the sword, and still that magic blade slept on within the ash
tree's sheath.
THE VALIANT SIEGMUND
One very dark and stormy night, Siegmund, a brave warrior, wandered
alone in the forest.
That day a desperate battle had been fought.
As the darkness came on, Siegmund escaped from the enemy.
He had lost his weapons, and now he trudged through the pathless woods,
seeking some place where he might find balm for his wounds and shelter
from the raging storm.
He was almost exhausted when he caught sight of a flickering candlelight
in the window of a forest hut.
With the little strength that he had left, he dragged himself to its
door.
No one answered his call, and no longer caring if it were the home of
friend or foe, he opened the door, and staggering in he sank upon
the hearth.
As he looked about him he thought, "This is the home of some forest
chief."
A great fire burned in the rude fireplace, and, as he grew warm, being
worn and weary, he sank into a heavy sleep.
HUNDING'S WIFE
As Siegmund slept, the door of the inner room was gently opened and a
beautiful woman stole softly in.
She was clad in snowy white.
Her head was crowned with a wealth of golden hair.
She had heard Siegmund as he entered the room, and, thinking her
chieftain had returned from the hunt, she came to greet him.
Instead she saw a stranger on the hearth, and, drawing near, she saw
that his face looked sad and troubled.
"Who are you?" she asked, but Siegmund did not stir.
Then she knelt beside him and looked into his face.
It was the strong, noble face of a hero.
"He sleeps," she said. "How weak and weary he seems. Perhaps he has been
wounded or is faint from hunger."
Siegmund roused and asked for water.
The woman ran quickly, and, bringing a cup of cold water, held it to his
parched lips.
Siegmund drank. Then, gazing into the woman's kind face, he gasped:
"Where am I?"
But, with a startled look, she stood in silence, listening to the heavy
tread outside the door.
HUNDING
The next moment the chieftain entered and glared fiercely at Siegmund.
The woman hastened to say: "I found this stranger lying on our hearth.
He was faint and needed help."
"And did you give it?" growled the chieftain.
"I gave him water. I could not drive him out into the stormy night."
The chieftain grew dark with anger as he said: "Because it is the sacred
law of my country that none shall be turned from the door who seek
shelter from the night, this intruder may stay until the morning. Then
he shall fight for his life."
Siegmund knew now that he was in the house of the fierce Hunding.
Taking the woman by the arm, Hunding led her from the room, and Siegmund
was left alone to think how he might save himself.
Long he leaned upon the hearth in troubled silence. Then, knowing he
must flee, he turned toward the door.
That moment the last flickering light of the dying fire flashed upon the
hilt of the magic sword in the ash tree.
Siegmund saw it, and, springing forward, he grasped its hilt. Then,
bracing himself against the tree, with one mighty pull, behold! he drew
the bright blade from its sheath.
THE WAR-MAIDENS
Wotan gathered to Valhalla a company of nine war-maidens. They were
called the Walkuere.
They were strong, beautiful young women, who rode through the clouds
upon swift horses.
The horses could not only run on the ground; they could fly through the
air.
The maidens wore wings upon their helmets, and each wore a splendid
silver armor which glittered and flashed in the sunshine.
Wherever there was a battle on the earth, Wotan would send a
battle-maiden for the most valiant hero on the field.
The maiden would fly over the battlefield and watch while the warriors
fought.
When the bravest man was wounded, she would quickly swoop down, and,
snatching him up, would fly with him to Valhalla, where he was revived
by fair Freya.
[Illustration]
Sometimes, when evening came, every one of the war-maidens rode into
Valhalla carrying a noble hero.
This was Wotan's plan for protecting the palace.
After a while he would have at the castle a company of the bravest
heroes of the earth.
He hoped he would then be happier.
The heroes would protect the beautiful Valhalla in time of danger.
WOTAN'S WIFE
Morning dawned.
The king of the giants went forth from his castle and called Brunhilde,
his favorite battle-maiden.
He loved Brunhilde more than any other of the Walkuere.
She was the bravest of them all.
He loved her as a father loves a daughter.
"Brunhilde," said Wotan, "to-day there is to be a fearful battle. The
fierce Hunding is to fight with my dearest friend--the valiant Siegmund.
"Long have I wished to have my noble friend at Valhalla. Fly, Brunhilde,
to the battlefield. Give to Siegmund the victory. Carry him here to
dwell upon the heights."
At that moment Wotan's wife rushed to them in great anger.
"Wotan," she cried, "Siegmund must not be brought to Valhalla. I ask
that my friend, the forest chief, shall be given aid. Send Brunhilde to
bear Hunding to our castle."
"No," replied Wotan, "I must protect Siegmund. He it is who won my
sword."
"Take the sword from him," replied Wotan's wife in rage. "I plead for
Hunding's rights. Promise me that you will forbid your war-maiden to
give aid to Siegmund."
Wotan's heart ached at the thought of failing this friend he loved so
well.
On Siegmund were centered all his hopes. Yet he feared to refuse his
wife's request.
Quarrels and strife must not come into Valhalla.
He threw himself upon a rocky seat and hung his head and thought in
silence.
At length he said:--
"I promise. From Siegmund I withdraw my aid."
WOTAN AND BRUNHILDE
Now that Wotan's wife had gained his promise, she turned back to
Valhalla.
Wotan buried his face in his hand and cried out in despair:--
"Oh, woe and shame upon the giants! What I love best I must give up. I
lose the friend I hold most dear. All my hopes are vanishing. A short
time and the giants will be no more."
Loudly he moaned: "This is the curse that clutched me when I snatched
the glittering gold."
Brunhilde knelt at Wotan's feet, and, looking into his sad eyes
begged:--
"Tell me, Father, what thy child can do. Trust me, Father!" she pleaded.
"Tell me all your woe."
Wotan took her hands in his and told her the story of the ring.
How he had taken it from the finger of the dwarf.
How he had stooped to trickery and had stolen the gold with which to pay
for Valhalla.
He told of the sad hearts of the Rhine-daughters, and of the greedy
Fafner, lying at the door of his forest cave, guarding his hoard.
But last of all, he told of the dread of Alberich's curse.
He told of his fear that the black Nibelung might regain the ring and by
its power destroy Valhalla.
OFF TO THE BATTLEFIELD
When Brunhilde had heard the story of the curse, she said:--
"But, Father, Alberich could not destroy Valhalla. Think of all the
heroes gathered there. Surely, they can protect it from all danger."
"Brunhilde, my child," sighed Wotan, "you do not know the power of that
ring when it is in the hands of Alberich. Once he gains it, he can do
with it what he will, because he has given up all love. With it, he
could turn my friends into enemies. Our heroes would then fight
for Alberich.
"I have long hoped that a hero might come who would be brave enough to
slay the dragon. I hoped it might be Siegmund. But now I must desert him
in his time of need. Though it breaks my heart, I must give him up.
"Darkness and gloom are fast gathering upon Valhalla. Go, Brunhilde. Go
quickly to the battlefield and shield my wife's friend."
"No, no, Father, I cannot!" cried the battle-maiden. "You love Siegmund,
and I shall guard him well."
At these words the mighty Wotan grew wrathful and cried:--
"How dare you disobey me, child? Go, I say! Give to Hunding the victory,
and thus fulfill my promise."
Sadly Brunhilde took up her spear and shield and rode away to the
battlefield.
THE FLIGHT
Closely Brunhilde watched the struggle.
When she saw how fairly and valiantly the noble Siegmund fought, and how
unfair and cowardly was the wicked Hunding, she thought:--
"I shall obey my king's wishes, not his words. He loves Siegmund."
She hovered nearer as the battle grew more terrible.
Suddenly she dashed to Siegmund's side and cried:--
"Slay him, Siegmund, with your matchless sword!"
Siegmund raised his sword to deal the deadly blow, when lo! Wotan dashed
through a rift in the clouds and struck Siegmund's sword with his
mighty spear.
The sword fell in pieces at the feet of Brunhilde. The victory belonged
to Hunding.
Brunhilde, terrified by the angry Wotan, snatched up the broken pieces
of the sword, and, springing to her saddle, dashed away.
Faster and faster she fled to the forest, bearing the broken blade to
Siegmund's wife.
"Siegmund is slain!" she cried. "These are the pieces of his mighty
sword. Keep them for your son, Siegfried. He will be brave like
his father.
"Yes, Siegfried will be the bravest hero the world has ever known."
Then, springing again to her saddle, she fled toward the mountains.
"On! on! my fiery steed!" she urged.
No battle-maiden ever rode so fast.
If she could but reach the other battle-maidens before the wrathful
Wotan overtook her, surely, they would protect her from his anger.
THE PUNISHMENT
It was the custom for the battle-maidens to meet at Walkuere Rock every
evening at sunset. This was the highest peak in the mountains. From
here they would ride into Valhalla, each carrying the hero whom she had
snatched from the battlefield.
"Heiho! hoyotoho! heiho!" called each as she neared the peak, and
"Heiho! hoyotoho! heiho!" came the answer.
At length all but one had reached the rock.
"Why does Brunhilde not come?" they asked of each other anxiously.
"What has happened that she should be so late?"
Loudly they called: "Heiho! hoyotoho! heiho!"
Looking toward the valley, they saw Brunhilde riding fast.
Her horse was flecked with foam.
"Heiho! hoyotoho! heiho!" they shouted; and "Heiho! hoyotoho! heiho!"
came Brunhilde's answer.
She reached the peak and sprang from her saddle, crying:--
"Help me, Sisters! help me! I disobeyed our king!"
Even as she cried Wotan drew near.
"Where is Brunhilde?" he screamed in anger.
The skies grew black with the storm of his wrath.
"Every one of you who dares to shield her shall share her punishment."
Brunhilde, weeping, walked out from her hiding-place among her sisters.
Sinking at Wotan's feet she cried:--
"Here I am, Father. What punishment is mine?"
Wotan spoke in solemn tones:--
"Never again shall you see the beautiful Valhalla. |
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NOTES AND QUERIES:
A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION FOR LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES,
GENEALOGISTS, ETC.
* * * * *
"When found, make a note of."--CAPTAIN CUTTLE
* * * * *
No. 1
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1849.
Price Threepence. Stamped Edition, 6d.
* * * * *
NOTES AND QUERIES.
The nature and design of the present work have been so fully stated in
the Prospectus, and are indeed so far explained by its very Title, that
it is unnecessary to occupy any great portion of its first number with
details on the subject. We are under no temptation to fill its columns
with an account of what we hope future numbers will be. Indeed, we would
rather give a specimen than a description; and only regret that, from
the wide range of subjects which it is intended to embrace, and the
correspondence and contributions of various kinds which we are led to
expect, even this can only be done gradually. A few words of
introduction and explanation may, however, be allowed; and indeed, ought
to be prefixed, that we may be understood by those readers who have not
seen our Prospectus.
"WHEN FOUND, MAKE A NOTE OF," is a most admirable rule; and if the
excellent Captain had never uttered another word, he might have passed
for a profound philosopher. It is a rule which should shine in gilt
letters on the gingerbread of youth, and the spectacle-case of age.
Every man who reads with any view beyond mere pastime, knows the value
of it. Every one, more or less, acts upon it. Every one regrets and
suffers who neglects it. There is some trouble in it, to be sure; but in
what good thing is there not? and what trouble does it save! Nay, what
mischief! Half the lies that are current in the world owe their origin
to a misplaced confidence in memory, rather than to intentional
falsehood. We have never known more than one man who could deliberately
and conscientiously say that his memory had _never_ deceived him; and he
(when he saw that he had excited the surprise of his hearers, especially
those who knew how many years he had spent in the management of
important commercial affairs) used to add,--because he had never trusted
it; but had uniformly written down what he was anxious to remember.
But, on the other hand, it cannot be denied that reading and writing
men, of moderate industry, who act on this rule for any considerable
length of time, will accumulate a good deal of matter in various forms,
shapes, and sizes--some more, some less legible and intelligible--some
unposted in old pocket books--some on whole or half sheets, or mere
scraps of paper, and backs of letters--some lost sight of and forgotten,
stuffing out old portfolios, or getting smoky edges in bundles tied up
with faded tape. There are, we are quite sure, countless boxes and
drawers, and pigeon-holes of such things, which want looking over, and
would well repay the trouble.
Nay, we are sure that the proprietors would find themselves much
benefited even if we were to do nothing more than to induce them to look
over their own collections. How much good might we have done (as well as
got, for we do not pretend to speak quite disinterestedly), if we had
had the looking over and methodizing of the chaos in which Mr. Oldbuck
found himself just at the moment, so agonizing to an author, when he
knows that the patience of his victim is oozing away, and fears it will
be quite gone before he can lay his hand on the charm which is to fix
him a hopeless listener:--"So saying, the Antiquary opened a drawer, and
began rummaging among a quantity of miscellaneous papers ancient and
modern. But it was the misfortune of this learned gentleman, as it may
be that of many learned and unlearned, that he frequently experienced on
such occasions, what Harlequin calls "_l'embarras des richesses_"--in
other words, the abundance of his collection often prevented him from
finding the article he sought for." We need not add that this
unsuccessful search for Professor Mac Cribb's epistle, and the scroll of
the Antiquary's answer, was the unfortunate turning-point on which the
very existence of the documents depended, and that from that day to this
nobody has seen them, or known where to look for them.
But we hope for more extensive and important benefits than these, from
furnishing a medium by which much valuable information may become a sort
of common property among those who can appreciate and use it. We do not
anticipate any holding back by those whose "NOTES" are most worth
having, or any want of "QUERIES" from those best able to answer them.
Whatever may be the case in other things, it is certain that those who
are best informed are generally the most ready to communicate knowledge
and to confess ignorance, to feel the value of such a work as we are
attempting, and to understand that if it is to be well done they must
help to do it. Some cheap and frequent means for the interchange of
thought is certainly wanted by those who are engaged in literature, art,
and science, and we only hope to persuade the best men in all, that we
offer them the best medium of communication with each other.
By this time, we hope, our readers are prepared to admit that our title
(always one of the most difficult points of a book to settle), has not
been imprudently or unwisely adopted. We wish to bring together the
ideas and the wants, not merely of men engaged in the same lines of
action or inquiry, but also (and very particularly) of those who are
going different ways, and only meet at the crossings, where a helping
hand is oftenest needed, and they would be happy to give one if they
knew it was wanted. In this way we desire that our little book should
take "NOTES," and be a medley of all that men are doing--that the Notes
of the writer and the reader, whatever be the subject-matter of his
studies, of the antiquary, and the artist, the man of science, the
historian, the herald, and the genealogist, in short, Notes relating to
all subjects but such as are, in popular discourse, termed either
political or polemical, should meet in our columns in such
juxta-position, as to give fair play to any natural attraction or
repulsion between them, and so that if there are any hooks and eyes
among them, they may catch each other.
Now, with all modesty, we submit, that for the title of such a work as
we have in view, and have endeavoured to describe, no word could be so
proper as "NOTES." Can any man, in his wildest dream of imagination,
conceive of any thing that may not be--nay, that has not been--treated
of in a _note?_ Thousands of things there are, no doubt, which cannot be
sublimed into poetry, or elevated into history, or treated of with
dignity, in a stilted text of any kind, and which are, as it is called,
"thrown" into notes; but, after all, they are much like children sent
out of the stiff drawing-room into the nursery, snubbed to be sure by
the act, but joyful in the freedom of banishment. We were going to say
(but it might sound vainglorious), where do things read so well as in
notes? but we will put the question in another form:--Where do you so
well test an author's learning and knowledge of his subject?--where do
you find the pith of his most elaborate researches?--where do his most
original suggestions escape?--where do you meet with the details that
fix your attention at the time and cling to your memory for ever?--where
do both writer and reader luxuriate so much at their case, and feel that
they are wisely discursive?--But if we pursue this idea, it will be
scarcely possible to avoid something which might look like self-praise;
and we content ourselves for the present with expressing our humble
conviction that we are doing a service to writers and readers, by
calling forth materials which they have themselves thought worth notice,
but which, for want of elaboration, and the "little leisure" that has
not yet come, are lying, and may lie for ever, unnoticed by others, and
presenting them in an unadorned _multum-in-parvo_ form. To our readers
therefore who are seeking for Truth, we repeat "When found make a NOTE
of!" and we must add, "till then make a QUERY."
* * * * *
PLACE OF CAPTURE OF THE DUKE OF MONMOUTH.
20th October, 1849.
Mr. Editor,--Mr. Macaulay's account of the Battle of Sedgemoor is
rendered singularly picturesque and understandable by the personal
observation and local tradition which he has brought to bear upon it.
Might not his account of the capture of Monmouth derive some few
additional life-giving touches, from the same invaluable sources of
information. It is extremely interesting, as every thing adorned by Mr.
Macaulay's luminous style must necessarily be, but it lacks a little of
that bright and living reality, which, in the account of Sedgemoor, and
in many other parts of the book, are imparted by minute particularity
and precise local knowledge. It runs as follows:--
"On Cranbourne Chase the strength of the horses failed. They were
therefore turned loose. The bridles and saddles were concealed.
Monmouth and his friends disguised themselves as country-men, and
proceeded on foot towards the New Forest. They passed the night in
the open air: but before morning they were surrounded on every
side.... At five in the morning of the seventh, Grey was seized by
two of Lumley's scouts.... It could hardly be doubted that the chief
rebel was not far off. The pursuers redoubled their vigilance and
activity. The cottages scattered over the healthy country on the
boundaries of Dorsetshire and Hampshire were strictly examined by
Lumley; and the clown with whom Monmouth had changed clothes was
discovered. Portman came with a strong body of horse and foot to
assist in the search. Attention was soon drawn to a place well
suited to shelter fugitives. It was an extensive tract of land
separated by an inclosure from the open country, and divided by
numerous hedges into small fields. In some of these fields the rye,
the pease, and the oats were high enough to conceal a man. Others
were overgrown by fern and brambles. A poor woman reported that she
had seen two strangers lurking in this covert. The near prospect of
reward animated the zeal of the troops.... The outer fence was
strictly guarded: the space within was examined with indefatigable
diligence; and several dogs of quick scent were turned out among the
bushes. The day closed before the search could be completed: but
careful watch was kept all night. Thirty times the fugitives
ventured to look through the outer hedge: but everywhere they found
a sentinel on the alert: once they were seen and fired at: they then
separated and concealed themselves in different hiding places.
"At sunrise the next morning the search recommenced, and Buyse was
found. He owned that he had parted from the Duke only a few hours
before. The corn and copsewood were now beaten with more care than
ever. At length a gaunt figure was discovered hidden in a ditch. The
pursuers sprang on their prey. Some of them were about to fire; but
Portman forbade all violence. The prisoner's dress was that of a
shepherd; his beard, prematurely grey, was of several days' growth.
He trembled greatly, and was unable to speak. Even those who had
often seen him were at first in doubt whether this were the
brilliant and graceful Monmouth. His pockets were searched by
Portman, and in them were found, among some raw pease gathered in
the rage of hunger, a watch, a purse of gold, a small treatise on
fortification, an album filled with songs, receipts, prayers, and
charms, and the George with which, many years before, King Charles
the Second had decorated his favourite son."--_Hist. Eng._, i. pp.
616-618. 2nd edition.
Now, this is all extremely admirable. It is a brilliant description of
an important historical incident. But on what precise spot did it take
place? One would like to endeavour to realise such an event at the very
place where it occurred, and the historian should enable us to do so. I
believe the spot is very well known, and that the traditions of the
neighbourhood upon the subject are still vivid. It was near Woodyate's
Inn, a well-known roadside inn, a few miles from Salisbury, on the road
to Blandford, that the Duke and his companions turned adrift their
horses. From thence they crossed the country in almost a due southerly
direction. The tract of land in which the Duke took refuge is rightly
described by Mr. Macaulay, as "separated by an inclosure from the open
country." Its nature is no less clearly indicated by its local name of
"The Island." The open down which surrounds it is called Shag's Heath.
The Island is described as being about a mile and a half from Woodlands,
and in the parish of Horton, in Dorsetshire. The field in which the Duke
concealed himself is still called "Monmouth Close." It is at the
north-eastern extremity of the Island. An ash-tree at the foot of which
the would-be-king was found crouching in a ditch and half hid under the
fern, was standing a few years ago, and was deeply indented with the
carved initials of crowds of persons who has been to visit it. Mr.
Macaulay has mentioned that the fields were covered--it was the eighth
of July--with standing crops of rye, pease, and oats. In one of them, a
field of pease, tradition tells us that the Duke dropped a gold
snuff-box. It was picked up some time afterwards by a labourer, who
carried it to Mrs. Uvedale of Horton, probably the proprietress of the
field, and received in reward fifteen pounds, which was said to be half
its value. On his capture, the Duke was first taken to the house of
Anthony Etterick, Esq., a magistrate who resided at Holt, which adjoins
Horton. Tradition, which records the popular feeling rather than the
fact, reports, that the poor woman who informed the pursuers that she
had seen two strangers lurking in the Island--her name was Amy
Farrant--never prospered afterwards; and that Henry Parkin, the soldier,
who, spying the skirt of the smock-frock which the Duke had assumed as a
disguise, recalled the searching party just as they were leaving the
Island, burst into tears and reproached himself bitterly for his fatal
discovery.
It is a defect in the Ordnance Survey, that neither the Island nor
Monmouth Close is indicated upon it by name.
I know not, Mr. Editor, whether these particulars are of the kind which
you design to print as "NOTES." If they are so, and you give them place
in your miscellany, be good enough to add a "QUERY" addressed to your
Dorsetshire correspondents, as to whether the ash-tree is now standing,
and what is the actual condition of the spot at the present time. The
facts I have stated are partly derived from the book known as _Addison's
Anecdotes_, vol. iv., p. 12. 1794, 8vo. They have been used, more or
less, by the late Rev. P. Hall, in his _Account of Ringwood_, and by Mr.
Roberts, in his _Life of Monmouth_.
With the best of good wishes for the success of your most useful
periodical,
Believe me, Mr. Editor,
Yours very truly,
JOHN BRUCE.
* * * * *
SHAKESPEARE AND DEER-STEALING.
In "The Life of Shakespeare," prefixed to the edition of his Works I saw
through the press three of four years ago, I necessarily entered into
the deer-stealing question, admitting that I could not, as some had
done, "entirely discredit the story," and following it up by proof (in
opposition to the assertion of Malone), that Sir Thomas Lucy had deer,
which Shakespeare might have been concerned in stealing. I also, in the
same place (vol. i. p. xcv.), showed, from several authorities, how
common and how venial offence it was considered in the middle of the
reign of Elizabeth. Looking over some MSS. of that time, a few weeks
since, I met with a very singular and confirmatory piece of evidence,
establishing that in the year 1585, the precise period when our great
dramatist is supposed to have made free with the deer of the knight of
Charlcote, nearly all the cooks'-shops and ordinaries of London were
supplied with stolen venison. The following letter from the lord mayor
(which I copy from the original) of that day, Thomas Pullyson, to
secretary Walsingham, speaks for itself, and shows that the matter has
been deemed of so much important as to call for the interposition of the
Privy Council: the city authorities were required to take instant and
arbitrary measures for putting an end to the consumption of venison and
to the practice of deer-stealing, by means of which houses &c. of public
resort in London were furnished with that favourite viand. The letter of
the lord mayor was a speedy reply to a communication from the queen's
ministers on the subject:--
"Right honorable, where yesterday I receaved letters from her Ma'tes
most honorable privie councill, advertisinge me that her highnes was
enformed that Venison ys as ordinarilie sould by the Cookes of
London as other flesh, to the greate distruction of the game.
Commaundinge me thereby to take severall bondes of xl'li the peece
of all the Cookes in London not to buye or sell any venison
hereafter, uppon payne of forfayture of the same bondes; neyther to
receave any venison to bake without keepinge a note of theire names
that shall deliver the same unto them. Whereupon presentlie I called
the Wardens of the Cookes before me, advertisinge them hereof,
requiringe them to cause their whole company to appeare before me,
to thende I might take bondes accordinge to a condition hereinclosed
sent to your Ho.; whoe answered that touchinge the first clause
thereof they were well pleased therewith, but for the latter clause
they thought yt a greate inconvenience to their companie, and
therefore required they might be permitted to make theire answeres,
and alledge theire reasons therof before theire honors. Affirmed
alsoe, that the Tablinge howses and Tavernes are greater receyvors
and destroyers of stollen venison than all the rest of the Cittie:
whereupon they craved that eyther they maye be likewise bounden, or
else authoritie may be geven to the Cookes to searche for the same
hereafter. I have therefore taken bondes of the wardens for their
speedy appearance before theire honors to answere the same; and I am
bolde to pray your Ho. to impart the same unto their Ho., and that I
maye with speede receyve theire future direction herein. And soe I
humbly take my leave. London, the xj'th of June, 1585.
"Your honors to commaunde,
"THOMAS PULLYSON, maior."
I dare say that the registers of the Privy Council contain some record
of what was done on the occasion, and would enable us to decide whether
the very reasonable request of the Cooks of London had been complied
with. Whether this be or be not so, the above document establishes
beyond question that in the summer of 1585 cooks'-shops, tabling-houses
(i.e. ordinaries), and taverns, were abundantly supplied with stolen
venison, and that the offence of stealing must have been very common.
J. PAYNE COLLIER
Kensington, Oct. 26, 1849
* * * * *
"PRAY REMEMBER THE GROTTO!" ON ST. JAMES' DAY.
When the great popularity which the legends of the Saints formerly
enjoyed is considered it becomes matter of surprise that they should not
have been more frequently consulted for illustrations of our folk-lore
and popular observances. The Edinburgh Reviewer of Mrs. Jameson's
_Sacred and Legendary Art_ has, with great judgement, extracted from
that work a legend, in which, as he shows very clearly[A], we have the
real, although hitherto unnoticed, origin of the Three Balls which still
form the recognised sign of a Pawnbroker. The passage is so curious,
that it should be transferred entire to the "NOTES AND QUERIES."
[A] Edinburgh Review, vol. lxxxix. p.400.
"None of the many diligent investigators of our popular antiquities
have yet traced home the three golden balls of our pawnbrokers to
the emblem of St. Nicholas. They have been properly enough referred
to the Lombard merchants, who were the first to open loan-shops in
England for the relief of temporary distress. But the Lombards had
merely assumed an emblem which had been appropriated to St.
Nicholas, as their charitable predecessor in that very line of
business. The following is the legend: and it is too prettily told
to be omitted:--
"'Now in that city (Panthera) there dwelt a certain nobleman, who
had three daughters, and, from being rich, he became poor; so poor
that there remained no means of obtaining food for his daughters but
by sacrificing them to an infamous life; and oftentimes it came into
his mind to tell them so, but shame and sorrow held him dumb.
Meanwhile the maidens wept continually, not knowing what to do, and
not having bread to eat; and their father became more and more
desperate. When Nicholas heard of this, he thought it shame that
such a thing should happen in a Christian land; therefore one night,
when the maidens were asleep, and their father alone sat watching
and weeping, he took a handful of gold, and, tying it up in a
handkerchief, he repaired to the dwelling of the poor man. He
considered how he might bestow it without making himself known; and,
while he stood irresolute, the moon coming from behind a cloud
showed him a window open; so he threw it in, and it fell at the feet
of the father, who, when he found it, returned thanks, and with it
he portioned his eldest daughter. A second time Nicholas provided a
similar sum, and again he threw it in by night; and with it the
nobleman married his second daughter. But he greatly desired to know
who it was that came to his aid; therefore he determined to watch:
and when the good Saint came for the third time, and prepared to
throw in the third portion, he was discovered, for the nobleman
seized him by the skirt of his robe, and flung himself at his feet,
saying, "O Nicholas! servant of God! why seek to hid thyself?" and
he kissed his feet and his hands. But Nicholas made him promise that
he would tell no man. And many other charitable works did Nicholas
perform in his native city.'
"These three purses of gold, or, as they are more customarily
figured, these three golden balls, disposed in exact pawnbroker
fashion, are to this day the recognised special emblem of the
charitable St. Nicholas."
And now for the more immediate object of the present Note, which is to
show--what, when once pointed out, will, I think, readily be admitted,
namely, that in the grotto formed of oyster shells, and lighted with a
votive candle, to which on old St. James's day (5th August) the passer
by is earnestly entreated to contribute by cries of, "Pray remember the
Grotto!" we have a memorial of the world-renowned shrine of St. James at
Compostella.
The popularity which St. James formerly enjoyed in England, and the zeal
with which his shrine was visited by natives of this country, have
recently been so clearly shown by Mr. J.G. Nichols, in his interesting
little volume, _Pilgrimages to St. Mary of Walsingham and St. Thomas of
Canterbury_, that I need not here insist upon these points.
What the original object of making these grottoes may have been I can
only suggest: but I shall not be surprised if it should turn out that
they were formerly erected on the anniversary of St. James by poor
persons, as an invitation to the pious who could not visit
Compostella, to show their reverence for the Saint by almsgiving to
their needy brethren.
Oysters are only allowed to be sold in London (which city, by the by,
levied a tax of two pence on every person going and returning by the
river Thames on pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James), after St.
James's day. Why is this? I wish Mr. Wansey, who is an able antiquary,
and one authorised to look into the records of Fishmongers' Company,
would give us the information upon this point which these documents may
be expected to furnish.
WILLIAM J. THOMS.
P.S.--I should be glad if any of the readers of "NOTES AND QUERIES"
could explain to that Erasmus alludes, when he says, "Culmeis ornatus
torquibus, brachium habet ova serpentum," which L'Estrange translated,
"Straw-works,--snakes, eggs for bracelets;" and Mr. Nichols, who
honestly states that he is unable to explain the allusion, as he does
not find such emblems elsewhere mentioned,--"adorned with straw
necklaces and bracelets of serpents' eggs."
* * * * *
NOTE OF A MS. VOLUME OF CHRONICLES AT REIGATE.
Amongst the objects of the useful medium of literary communication
afforded by the publication of "NOTES AND QUERIES," one appears to be a
record of the casual notice of "some book or some edition, hitherto
unknown or imperfectly described." I am induced therefore to inquire,
whether the existence of an ancient MS. volume of Chronicles, which I
have recently noticed in the little library adjoining Reigate Church, is
already known to those who investigate out monastic annals? This volume
may probably not have escaped their research, especially since the
republication and extension of Wharton's Collection, have been recently
proposed. A chronological series of chronicles relativing to the see of
Canterbury was announced amongst the projected publications of the
"Anglia Christiana Society."
The Reigate library, of which brief mention is made in Manning's and
Bray's _History of Surrey_ (vol. i. p. 314.) without any notice of its
contents, is preserved in the upper chamber of a building on the north
side of the chancel, erected in 1513, and designated as a "vestibulum"
in a contemporary inscription. The collection is small, and amoungst the
most interesting volumes is a small folio, in the original oaken boards
covered with white leather, presented to the library, 7. June, 1701, by
William Jordan, of Gatwick, in the adjacent parish of Charlwood,
probably the same person who was member for the borough of Reigate in
1717. Of previous possessors of the book nothing is recorded. It
comprises several concise chronicles, which may be thus described:--
1. "Cathologus Romanorum Pontificum:"--imperfect, commencing with fol.
11; some leaves also lost at the end. It closes with the year 1359, in
the times of Innocent VI.
2. "De Imperatoribus Romanis:"--from Julius Caesar to the election and
coronation of Charles IV. after the death of the emperor Lewis of
Bavaria, and the battle of Cressy, in 1347.
3. "Compilacio Cronicorum de diversis Archiepiscopis ecclesie
Cantuariensis:"--the chronicle of Stephen Birchington, a monk of
Canterbury, printed by Wharton, from a MS. in the Lambeth collection.
The text varies in many particulars, which may be of minor moment, but
deserve collation. The writing varies towards the close, as if the
annals had been continued at intervals; and they close with the
succession of Archibishop William de Witleseye, in 1368, as in the text
printed by Wharton (_Anglia Sacra_, vol. i. pp. 1-48.).
4. "De principio mundi, et etatibus ejusdem.--De insulis et civitatibus
Anglie:"--forming a sort of brief preface to the following--"Hic incipit
Bruto de gestis Anglorum." The narrative begins with a tale of a certain
giant king of Greece, in the year 3009, who had thirty daughters: the
eldest, Albina, gave her name to Albion. The history is continued to the
accession of William Rufus.
5. "Incipit Cronica de adquisicione Regni Anglie per Willelmum Ducem
Normannorum," &c. closing in 1364, with the birth of Edward of
Engolesme, eldest son of the Black Prince. Wharton speaks of "Historiae
de regibus Anglorum, de Pontificibus Romanis, et de Imperatoribus
Romanis," as found together with the chronicle of the archibishops of
Canterbury; both in the Lambeth MS. and in another formerly in the
possession of William Reede, Bishop of Chichester: and he was inclined
to attribute the whole to the pen of Birchington.
6. "Gesta Scotorum contra Anglicos:"--commencing in 1066, with the times
of Malcolm, king of Scotland, and ending in 1346, with the capture of
David II., and the calamitous defeat of the Scots near Durham.
At the commencement of the volume are found some miscellaneous writings
of less interesting character. I noticed, however, an entry relating to
the foundation of a chapel at "Ocolte," now written Knockholt, in Kent,
by Ralph Scot, who had erected a mansion remote from the parish church,
and obtained license for the consecration of the chapel in the year
1281, in the time of Archbishop Kilwareby.
The writing of the MS. appears to be of the latter half of the
fourteenth century. Possibly there may be reader of these "NOTES AND
QUERIES," more familiar with such inquiries than myself, who may have
examined other contemporary MSS. of the compilations of Stephen
Birchington. I shall be thankful for any information regarding them, and
especially as regards the existence of any transcript of the Canterbury
Annals, extended beyond the year 1368, with which this copy as well as
that used by Wharton closes; whilst he supposes that in the chronicle as
cited by Jocelin, chaplain to Matthew Parker, they had been carried as
far as the year 1382.
ALBERT WAY.
* * * * *
THE MORNING CHRONICLE, ETC.--WHEN FIRST ESTABLISHED.
It is read in the _Newspaper Directory_ that _The Morning Chronicle_ was
established in 1770, _The Morning Herald_ in 1781, _The Times_, 1st
January, 1788. I believe that not one of these dates is correct, and
that of _The Morning Herald_ to be wrong by fifteen years or more. Can
you, or any of the readers of "NOTES AND QUERIES," give me the exact
dates, or tell me where I can find the earlier volumes; say, the first
ten, or either or all?
D.
* * * * *
VALUE OF A REPOSITORY FOR "NOTES."--NEW EDITION OF HERBERT'S "AMES."
[The suggestions in the following Paper are so extremely valuable,
that we are not only pleased to give it insertion, but hope that our
readers will take advantage of our columns to carry out Dr.
Maitland's recommendations.]
Sir,--My attention has been particularly engaged by one suggestion in
your Prospectus, because it seems to hold out a hope that your intended
work will furnish what has long been a _desideratum_ in literature. We
really do want something that may form a "supplement to works already in
existence--a treasury for enriching future editions of them;" while it
may also receive (as I have no doubt you meant to include,) such
contributions of moderate extent, as may tend to render fuller and more
correct some works which have little or no chance of future editions. In
this way you may be of great use in every department of literature; and
especially in works of reference. With them, indeed, correctness is
everything; perfect accuracy is not to be attained, and the nearest
possible approximation to it can be made only by many little careful
steps, backwards as well as forwards.
By works of reference, however, I do not mean Dictionaries, though I
would include them, as a class of works for which I have a singular
respect, and to which my remark particularly applies. There are many
other books, and some which very properly aspire to the tile of History,
which are, in fact and practically, books of reference, and of little
value if they have not the completeness and accuracy which should
characterise that class of works. Now it frequently happens to people
whose reading is at all discursive, that they incidentally fall upon
small matters of correction or criticism, which are of little value to
themselves, but would be very useful to those who are otherwise engaged,
if they knew of their existence.
I might perhaps illustrate this matter by referring to various works;
but it happens to be more in my way to mention Herbert's edition of
Ames's _Typographical Antiquities_. It may be hoped that some day or
other, the valuable matter of which it consists will be reduced to a
better form and method; for it seems hardly too much to say, that he
appears to have adopted the very worst that could have been selected. I
need not tell you that I have no idea of undertaking such a thing, and I
really have no suspicion (I wish I had) that anybody else is thinking of
doing it:--or, in other words, I am not attempting to make use of your
columns by insinuating a preparatory puff for a work in progress, or
even in contemplation. I only mention the book as one of a class which
may be essentially benefited by your offering a receptacle for
illustrations, additions, and corrections, such as individually, or in
small collections, are of little or no value, and are frequently almost
in the very opposite condition to those things which are of no value to
any body but the owner. For instance, when I was in the habit of seeing
many of the books noted by Herbert, and had his volumes lying beside me,
I made hundreds, perhaps thousands, of petty corrections, and many from
books which he had not had an opportunity of seeing, and of which he
could only reprint incorrect descriptions. All of these, though trifling
in themselves, are things which should be noticed in case of a reprint;
but how much time and trouble would it cost an editor to find and
collate the necessary books? That, to be sure, is his business; but the
question for the public is, _Would_ it be done at all? and could it in
such cases be done so well in any other way, as by appointing some place
of rendezvous for the casual and incidental materials for improvement
which may fall in the way of readers pursuing different lines of
inquiry, and rewarded, as men in pursuit of truth always are, whatever
may be their success as to their _immediate_ object, by finding more
than they are looking for--things, too, which when they get into their
right places, show that they were worth finding--and, perhaps, unknown
to those more conversant with the subject to which they belong, just
because they were in the out-of-the-way place where they were found by
somebody who was looking for something else.
S.R. MAITLAND.
* * * * *
A FLEMISH ACCOUNT.
T.B.M. will be obliged by references to any early instances of the use
of the expression "_A Flemish account_," and of any explanation as to
its origin and primary signification.
* * * * *
BIBLIOGRAPHIC PROJECT.
Of the various sections into which the history of English literature is
divisible, there is no one in which the absence of collective materials
is more seriously felt--no one in which we are more in need of authentic
_notes_, or which is more apt to raise perplexing _queries_--than that
which relates to the authorship of anonymous and pseudonymous works.
The importance of the inquiry is not inferior to the ardour with which
it has sometimes been pursued, or the curiosity which it has excited. On
all questions of testimony, whether historical or scientific, it is a
consideration of the position and character of the writer which chiefly
enables us to decide on the credibility of his statements, to account
for the bias of his opinions, and to estimate his entire evidence at its
just value. The remark also applies, in a qualified sense, to
productions of an imaginative nature.
On the number of the works of this class, I can only hazard a
conjecture. In French literature, it amounts to about one-third part of
the whole mass. In English literature, it cannot be less than one-sixth
part--perhaps more. Be it as it may, the SYSTEMATIC ARRANGEMENT of all
that has been revealed in that way, and of all that is dicoverable, is
essential to the perfection of literary history, of literary biography,
and of bibliography.
At the present moment, I can only announce the project as a stimulus to
unemployed aspirants, and as a hint to fortunate collectors, to prepare
for an exhibition of their cryptic treasures.--On a future occasion I
shall describe the plan of construction which seems more eligible--shall
briefly notice the scattered materials which it may be expedient to
consult, whether in public depositories, or in private hands--and shall
make an appeal to those whose assistance may be required, to enable a
competent editor to carry out the plan with credit and success.
On the prevalence of anonymous writing, on its occasional convenience,
and on its pernicious consequences, I shall make no remarks. Facts,
rather than arguments, should be the staple commodity of an instructive
miscellany.
BOLTON CORNEY.
Barnes Terrace, Surrey,
29th Oct., 1849.
* * * * *
NOTES FROM FLY-LEAVES.--NO. 1.
Many scholars and reading-men are in the habit of noting down on the
fly-leaves of their books memoranda, sometimes critical, sometimes
bibliographical, the result of their own knowledge or research. The
following are specimens of the kind of Notes to which we allude; and the
possessors of volumes enriched by the Notes and memoranda of men of
learning to whom they formerly belonged, will render us and our readers
a most acceptable service by forwarding to us copies of them for
insertion.
_Douce on John of Salisbury_. MS. Note in a copy of Policraticus, Lug.
Bat. 1639.
"This extraordinary man flourished in the reign of Henry II., and
was, therefore, of Old Salisbury, not of New Salisbury, which was
not founded till the reign of Henry III. Having had the best
education of the time, and being not only a genius, but intimate
with the most eminent men, in particular with Pope Hadrian (who was
himself an Englishman), he became at length a bishop, and died in
1182. He had perused and studies most of the Latin classics, and
appears to have decorated every part of his work with splendid
fragments extracted out of them."--_Harris's Philosophical
Arrangements_, p. 457.
See more relating to John of Salisbury in Fabricii, _Bib. Med. AEtatis_,
iv. 380.; in Tanner, _Biblioth. Britannico Hibernica_; in Baillet's
_Jugemens des Savans_, ii. 204. See Senebier, _Catalogue des Manuscrits
de Geneve_, p. 226.
"Johannes Sarisb. multa ex Apuleio desumpsit," Almclooven, Plagiaror.
Syllab. 36.; and it might have been justly added, that he borrowed from
Petronius. See the references I have made on the last leaf.
Janus Dousa, in his _Notes on Petronius_, had called John of Salisbury
"Cornicula;" but Thomasius, in p. 240 of his work, _De Plagio
Literario_, vindicates him satisfactorily. See _Lipp. ad. Tacit. Annal
XII_. (pezzi di _porpora_), not noticed by any editor of Petronius. Has
various readings. See my old edition.
Lacrimas commodabat.
---- commendabat. Saris. better.
Itaque cruciarii unius parentes
---- cruciati ---- ----. Saris.
The above is from Zanetti's _Collection of Ialian Novels_, 4 vol. 8vo.
Venet. 1754.
Mezeray, the French historian, translated this work 1640, 4to; and there
is an old French translation of it in 1360 by Denis Soulechat.
The article pasted on the inside of the cover (viz. the following
extract)
"_Surisberiensis (J.) Policraticus, &c., 8vo. L. Bat. 1595; very
scarce, vellum 6s. This book is of great curiosity; it is stated in
the preface that the author, J. of Salibury, was present at the
murther of Thomas a Becket, whose intimate friend he was; and that
'dum pius Thomas ab impio milite cedetur in capite, Johannis hujus
brachium fere simul percisum est_,'"
is from Lilly's Catalogue, and the passage relating to Becket was copied
from that of Payne, to whom I communicated it, and which is found in the
first edition only, being perhaps purposely omitted in all the others.
F.D.
[We believe the majority of the books in Mr. Douce's valuable
library, now deposited in the Bodleian, contain memoranda, like
those in his _John of Salisbury_; and any of our Oxford friends
could not do us a greater service than by communicating other
specimens of the _Book-noting_ of this able and zealous antiquary.]
* * * * *
LIBER SENTENTIARUM.--INQUISITION OF THOULOUSE.
Mr. Editor,--In or about 1756, an ancient manuscript in folio, on
vellum, was deposited in the British Museum by Dr. Secker, then Bishop
of Oxford, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, and still, I take for
granted, remains in that institution. It was intitled upon the cover,
_Liber Sententiarum_; but contained the Acts and Decisions of the
Inquisition of Thoulouse, from the year 1307 to 1323. It had been
purchased by the contributions of the Archbishops of Canterbury and
York, of the Bishop of Oxford himself, and of various other prelates,
the lord Chancellor, the Speaker of the House of Commons of that time,
the Viscount Royston, &c.
Can any of your readers inform me whether any or what portions of this
manuscript have been hitherto communicated to the world, either in the
way of publication or translation, or of abridgment, in whole or in
part? An analysis of this manuscript would be interesting to many
readers of ecclesiastical history.
INQUISITORIUS.
* * * * *
NEW FACTS ABOUT LADY ARABELLA STUART.
The following extracts, from "The Declaration of the Accompte of
Nicholas Pay, gentleman, appoynted by warraunte of the righte honorable
the lordes of the kinges ma'ts Privie Councell, to receave and yssue
sondrye somes of money for the provycon of dyett and other chardges of
the ladye Arbella Seymour, whoe by his hignes comaundemente and pleasure
shoulde haue bene remoued into the countye Palatyne of Duresme, under
the chardge of the Reverende Father in God Will'm lorde Bishpp of
Duresme; but after was stayed and appointed to remayne at Eastbarnett
duringe his hignes good pleasure," are new to the history of this
unfortunate lady. |
10,240 |
Produced by Clare Boothby and PG Distributed Proofreaders
THE
STORY AND SONG OF
BLACK RODERICK
By
Dora Sigerson
1906
This is the story of Black Earl Roderick, the story and the song of his
pride and of his humbling; of the bitterness of his heart, and of the love
that came to it at last; of his threatened destruction, and the strange
and wonderful way of his salvation.
So shall I begin and tell.
He left his gray castle at the dawn of the morning, and with many a knight
to bear him company rode, not eager and swift, like a prince who went to
find a treasure, but steady and slow, as we should go to meet sorrow. Not
one of the hundred men who followed dared to lilt a lay or fling a
laughing jest from his mouth. All rode silent among their gay trappings,
for so saith a song:
_It was the Black Earl Roderick
Who rode towards the south;
The frown was heavy on his brow,
The sneer upon his mouth._
_Behind him rode a hundred men
All gay with plume and spear;
But not a one did lilt a song
His weary way to cheer._
_So stern was Black Earl Roderick
Upon his wedding-day,
To none he spake a single word
Who met him on his way._
And of those that passed him as he went there were none who dared to bid
him God-speed, and only one whispered at all; she was Mora of the
Knowledge, who was picking herbs in a lonely place and saw him ride.
"There goeth the hunter," said she; "'tis a white doe that thou wouldst
kill. High hanging to thee, my lord, upon a windy day!"
And of all the flying things he met in his going, one only dared to put
pain upon him, and she was a honeybee who stabbed his cheek with her
sword.
"Would I could slay thee," she cried, "ere thou rob the hive of its
honey!"
And of all the creeping things that passed him on his way, only one tried
to stay him; she was the bramble who cast her thorn across his path so his
steed wellnigh stumbled.
"Would I could make thee fall, Black Earl, who now art so high, ere thou
rob fruit from the branch!"
Only one living thing upon the mountains saw him go without mourning, and
he was the red weasel who took the world as he found it.
"Tears will not heal a wound," saith he, "but they will quench a fire. Thy
hive is in danger, bee," quoth he. "Bramble, thy flowers are scattered and
thy fruit lost."
But the Black Earl did not heed or hear anything outside his own thoughts.
They were sharper than the bee's sword and less easy to cast aside than
the entrapping bramble.
When he reached the castle wherein his bride did dwell, he blew three
blasts upon the horn that hung beside the gate, and in answer to his call
a voice cried out to him. But what it said I shall sing thee, lest thou
grow weary of my prose:
_"Come in, come in, Earl Roderick,
Come in or you be late;
The priest is ready in his stole.
The wedding guests await."_
_And then the stern Earl Roderick
From his fierce steed came down;
The sneer still curled upon his lip,
His eyes still held the frown._
_He strode right haughtily and quick
Into the banquet-hall,
And stood among the wedding guests,
The greatest of them all._
_He gave scant greeting to the throng,
He waved the guests aside:
"Now haste! for I, Earl Roderick,
Will wait long for no bride!_
_"And I must in the saddle be
Before the night is gray;
So quickly with the marriage lines,
And let us ride away."_
And now shall I tell thee how, as he spoke thus proud and heartlessly, his
little bride came into the hall? So white was she, and so trembled she,
that many wondered she did not sink upon the marble floor and die.
Her mother held her snow-white hand, weeping bitterly the while.
"If I had my will," thought she, "this thing should never be. Oh, sharp
sorrow," sobbed she, "this for a woman: my trouble thou art, and my
thousand treasures."
Her father, seeing the frowning Earl, muttered in his beard:
"Would there were some other way. Stern is he and hard, to wear a young
maid's heart." And then aloud he spoke, laying his hands upon the yellow
curls of his child: "This is the golden link that binds the clans. God's
sweet love be upon her head, for she hath healed a cruel and evil quarrel
between the two houses. Lift up your voices, my comrades, and make ye
merry; it is a good deed you have helped in to-day."
Now, when the guests turned with their laughter and gentle jesting to the
newly married pair, the Black Earl relented not his frown. With scant
courtesy and brief good-bye he mounted upon his fretting steed, vowing he
could no longer stay. Up before him they lifted the young bride.
"'Tis a rough place to carry the child," wept the sad mother.
But her father smiled upon the Black Earl.
"Where but upon his heart should she rest? Is that not so, my son?"
"If it be not cold," muttered the sullen bridegroom, drawing his rein.
"Wrap thy cloak about her," cried the father, waving farewell.
"Wrap thy love about her," wept the mother, hiding her face.
So rode the Black Earl and his bride, followed by his sullen men-at-arms,
gay with their wedding favors.
To his weary little bride he spoke no gentle word, though she fluttered
weeping upon his breast like to some wounded thing.
For in his heart the gloomy Earl spake bitterly, and said he:
"Not upon thy hand did I hope to place my golden ring; I have put my own
true love aside, to keep the clans together, and wedding thee thus have I
been false to the desires of my heart, so do I turn from thee who art my
bride."
Thus did he take her to his castle in silence, and, lifting her from his
steed, bid her enter the strong gates before him.
So shut they with a clang upon her youth and her merry heart, and she
became the neglected mistress of the gray towers she had looked on from
afar, and bride of the great Earl she had dreamed of so long.
But to the Black Roderick she was as nothing; he sought her not, neither
did he speak of her; she was but the cruel small hand that closed upon his
heart and drew it from its love, claiming him in honor her own. And to her
claim was he faithful, turning even his thoughts away, lest he should be
false to his vow. But no more than this did he give her.
So was she left alone, the young bride who did not understand a man's
ways, and, fearing where she loved, hid from his presence lest he should
look upon her in hate. Oft had she dreamed of the wonder of being the wife
of this proud Earl, in trembling desire and hope, hearing her parents
speak of him and of the troth. Oft had she listened to their murmured
words, as they spoke of the clans and the peace these two could bring.
"Stern he is, and black for the young child," said her mother, "and I am
afraid"; but the child stole away to the hill behind her father's castle,
and there looked into the valley of Baile-ata-Cliat to watch the white
towers of the Black Earl glistening in the sun, to dream and to tremble.
And as she gazed a honey-bee hummed in her ear, "Go not to the great
city."
And as she smiled she raised her hand between her eyes and the far-off
towers so she could not see.
"Nay," quoth she, "it is a small place; my hand can cover it."
"Ring a chime," saith she to the heather shaking its bells in the wind,
"ring for me a wedding chime, for I am to be the bride of the Earl
Roderick."
She kissed the wild bramble lifting its petals in the sun.
"I shall return to thee soon."
And so, springing to her feet, she ran laughing down the hill, and as she
ran the spirit of the hills was with her, blowing in her eyes and lifting
her soft hair.
"I shall return to thee soon," she said again, and so entered her father's
house and prepared herself for her betrothed.
What of her dream was there now? She was indeed the Earl's bride, but,
alack! she was divorced from his heart and was naught to his days.
Never did she sit by his knee when he drew his chair by the fire, weary
from the chase, nor lean beside him while he slept, to wonder at her
happiness. Down the great halls she went, looking through the narrow
windows on the outside world, as a brown moth flutters at the pane, weary
of an imprisonment that had in its hold the breath of death.
Weary and pale grew she, and more morose and stern the Black Earl, and of
their tragedy there seemed no end. But when a year had nigh passed, one
rosy morning a servant-lass met Black Roderick as he came from his
chamber, her eyes heavy with tears.
And of what she said I shall sing, lest thou grow weary of my prose:
_"Alas!" she said, "Earl Roderick,
'Tis well that you should know
That each gray eve, lone wandering,
My mistress dear doth go._
_"She comes with sorrow in her eyes
Home in the dawning light;
My lord, she is so weak and young
To travel in the night."_
_Now stern grew Black Earl Roderick,
But answered not at all;
He took his hunting harness down
That hung upon the wall._
_Then quickly went he to the chase,
And slowly came he back,
And there he met his old sweetheart,
Who stood across his track._
So shall I tell how she, sighing and white of face, laid her soft hand
upon his bridle-rein so he could not go from her. Her breath came out of
her like the hissing of a trodden snake, poisoning the ear of the
horseman.
"Bend to me thy proud head, Black Earl," quoth she, "for it shall be low
enough soon. This is a tale I bring to thee of sorrow and shame. Bend me
thy proud neck, Black Roderick, for the burden I must lay upon it shall
bow thee as the snow does the mountain pine. Bend to me thine ear."
To him then she said:
"Where goeth your mistress?"
"What care I?" said the Black Earl, "since she be not thou."
"If she were I," said his lost love, "she would seek no other save thee
alone."
"What sayest thou?" said the Black Earl, pale as death.
"Each night she goeth through the woods of Glenasmole to the hill of brown
Kippure, and there lingereth until the dawn be chill."
"Who hath her love?" saith the Black Earl.
"A shepherd, or mayhap a swineherd--who knoweth?" quoth the serpent voice.
"By no brave prince art thou supplanted."
At this the Black Earl struck his hand upon his breast.
"Lord pity me," quoth he, "that in my time should come the stain upon our
honored house! My name, that was so white, shall now blush red. My proud
ancestors will curse me from their tomb. Let thou go my rein, that I may
seek this wanton and give her ready punishment."
So quick he drew the rein from her hand that she wellnigh stumbled. And
like one bereft of mind he rode through the woods and up the hill seeking
his false bride. High and low he searched, but no sign of his lost
mistress did he discover. Out in the distance he saw the shining city of
Baile-ata-Cliat, on the near wood side of which his gray towers stood. He
could see the flag on its topmost turret waving in the breeze like a
beckoning finger calling him back from his futile search. He turned him
about, and on every side of him were the shadowy mountains watching him
and appalling him with their mystery. Impatient he turned his eyes upon
the ground; a bramble moving in the wind cast itself about his feet. He
crushed it under his heel. A bee darting from one of the trodden flowers
made a battle-cry, and bared her sting for his neck. He struck it down
among the leaves; following its fall, his eyes, drawn by some other eyes,
rested on a hollow by a stone. There he saw gazing at him the whiskered
face of a red weasel, looking without pity, without fear.
"Evil beast!" said the Black Earl, glad to speak, for the silence of all
the listening things who watched him made his heart beat with unwonted
quickness, and he knew they were so many silent judges reading the evil of
his soul. "Get thee gone," quoth the Black Earl. "Darest thou gaze upon me
without fear?"
But the red weasel, resting at the doorway of his hole, did not blink a
lid of his sharp eyes.
"Who art thou that evil should droop ashamed before thee?" said a voice,
and the Black Earl turned as though a stone had struck him.
Now, when he looked east and west, no one could he see, but when he turned
him south, there among the trees he saw an old, bent woman gathering
herbs. He turned his horse and, full of rage, drove it towards her.
"Was it not thy voice that hurt my ears as I stood upon the hill?" quoth
the Black Earl, his tongue silken in his rage.
"Nay," said the ancient crone; "I heard but the linnet's song upon the
tree, and the sound of running water that is murmuring in the grove.
Listen, and thou, too, shalt hear."
"Nay," quoth she again, for the Black Earl scowled so at her that she
feared to be silent. "If I said this thing, why should it vex the ear of
so proud a knight? Yonder black rook did look into my face with an
inquisitive eye as I plucked my herbs and harmed no man, so I, angry at
the wicked one, cursed him begone. As he flew affrighted at my hand, I
turned my eyes into my own heart. The birds and I, do we not both root in
the cold earth, seeking to draw from it our desires? Black and ill-looking,
we dig all day. 'Who art thou,' quoth I to myself, 'that evil should fly
before thee?' Wicked that I am," cried the witch, "and sorrow upon me that
my words have vexed thine ears!"
Now the Black Earl did look upon her in anger, and but half believed her
tale. His trouble being heavy upon him, he bade her leave her lamenting
and answer his question.
"There is one," quoth he, "who doth wander upon the hill-side, far from
her home, a lady of high degree; sawest thou any such," saith he, "for I
have sought her long?"
Now will I sing thee what was said and what happened, lest thou grow weary
of my prose:
_"I have not seen your lady here,"
The withered dame replied;
"But I have met a little lass
Who wrung her hands and cried._
_"She was not clad in silken robe,
Nor rode a palfrey white,
She had no maidens in her train,
Behind her rode no knight._
_"But she crept weary up yon hill
And crouched upon the sward;
I dare not think that she could be
Spouse to so great a lord."_
_Now darkly frowned Earl Roderick,
He turned his face away;
And shame and anger in his heart
Disturbed him with their sway._
_For he had never cared to know
What his young bride would wear;
He gave her neither horse nor hound,
Nor jewels for her hair._
Now shall I tell how the Black Earl clapped his hand upon his dagger, and
said in a great rage: "Where went this little lass, and whom hath she by
her side? for whoever he be, I shall show to him no pity. Neither shall
her tears save her. Nor shall thy age serve thee, witch, if thou hast
spoken not the truth. Whither went they, so I may follow, as the hound
goes on the trail of the deer?"
"Oh, sharp sorrow thy anger is!" cried the old crone; "what can I say,
save what my eye hath seen and my ear hath heard? The little lass passed
me as I gathered my herbs under the dew. She hath by her side no lord nor
lover. She went sad and alone. Here climbed she the height of the hill,
and there sat she making her lament."
"And what lament made she?" said the Black Earl, putting his dagger into
its sheath.
"Once called she on her father, as one who drowns in deep waters would
call upon a passing ship. Twice called she upon her mother, as one would
call upon a house of rest or of hospitality. Thrice called she upon Earl
Roderick, as one would call at the gates of paradise, there to find rescue
and love."
"And said she naught else?" said the Black Earl, his head upon his breast.
"Yea," quoth the crone, "when she called upon her father, she smiled
through her tears. 'Didst thou know I perish,' quoth she, 'thy arms would
reach to save me!'
"And when she called twice upon her mother, her mouth smiled even the
same, 'for didst thou learn my hunger, thy heart would warm me to life
again'; but when she called three times upon Earl Roderick, she paused as
though for an answer, and smiled no more. 'Thee,' quoth she, 'I perish
for, I hunger for. Thou lovest me not at all.'
"So did she sit and make her moan upon the hill, and here watched she the
lights in the far windows of her lost home quench themselves one by one.
'Now,' quoth she,'my mother sleepeth, and now my father. And now by all
am I forgotten.' Then did she steal, in the dim light, down from the hill,
and I saw her no more."
"What didst thou tell to her, old witch?" quoth the Black Earl, "as she
passed weeping? Didst thou speak to her no word?"
"I stopped her as she passed me, proud Earl," quoth the crone, "for she
was gentle, and held her head not too high to look upon one old and near
unto death.
"'Weep not,' said I, 'but spread to me thy fingers, so I may read what
fate thou holdest in thy palm.' And like a child she smiled between her
tears.
"'Look only on luck,' quoth she, 'oh, ancient one, lest my heart break
even now.' I spread her pink fingertips out as one would unruffle a rose,
and read therein her fate."
"And what read you there?" said the Black Earl, impatient with her delay.
"I read," quoth the crone, "and if I say, thou must keep thy anger from
me, for what I read I had not written:
_"I traced upon her slender palm
That luck was changing soon;
I swore that peace would come to her
Before another moon._
_"I said that he who loved her well
Would robe her all in silk,
And bear her in a coach of gold,
With palfreys white as milk._
_"I told, before three suns had set
He'd kneel down by her side;
That he she loved would love her well,
And she would be his bride._
"'This before three suns have set,' so read I," quoth the crone.
Now, when the Black Earl heard so much, he would hear no more. Pallid grew
his angry cheek, and his eyes were full of fire; he flung himself upon his
horse, and, sparing not the beast, galloped home.
"In the highest tower shall I lock the jade," quoth he, "lest she bring me
shame; for what her palm had writ upon it one must believe, and who dare
love her, save I who will not? And should I die, wherefore should she not
be another's? And should I not die--but this no man dare, for I shall tear
his tongue from his mouth, his ear from his cheek, his heart from his
body, ere he speak or listen to a word to my dishonor."
Now, when he reached his castle, no man ventured to speak to him, or look
upon him with too inquisitive an eye, for his anger was such that one
trembled to approach him.
And at the gate of his castle sat his old love upon her palfrey, with a
stern face and grim; behind her, resting upon their way, came her
followers, knight and lady, gay with banner and spear, whispering in their
telling of the story.
"A curse upon the wandering feet that have brought disgrace upon thy
house," quoth his old love, her hand so tight upon the rein that the two
pages could hardly keep the horse from rearing.
But the proud Earl to her made no answer, neither to bid her welcome, nor
to bid her go, nor to speak of his fears. Into his breast he locked his
grief so that none might know the strain wellnigh broke the stony casket
of his heart.
When he leaped from his horse there came to him his little brother.
"My grief!" said the boy, "what has happened in the night, for I heard the
banshee sobbing so bitterly through the dark?"
No answer made the Black Earl to the boy, neither did he lift him in his
arms nor chide him for his weeping, but passed silent into his own
chamber, and crouched within his chair. When after a time he raised his
eyes, he seemed to see his young bride gazing upon him from the open door.
And in his anger he sprang to seize her, but only the empty air came to
his hands.
He mounted the marble stairs to her chamber to seek her there, but only
found a sewing-maid, pale and deadly faint.
"Oh, sharp sorrow," quoth she, "from what I have seen this night, Mary
protect me! A white ghost have I seen--evil it may bring to me--a white
ghost with dim eyes of the dead!"
"Whither went she?" said the Black Earl, angry in his need.
"Into thy chamber, great Earl!" cried the maid; "I saw her at thy bed-head
weeping piteously."
"It was thy lady," quoth the Earl; "lead me her way, and stop thy
lamentation."
"My grief!" the girl said, "her way I know not; when I, deeming her my
mistress, reached her side, she was no more. It is an evil day that cometh
upon us."
Now, when the proud Roderick saw the girl so full of fear, he chid her
cruelly and bade her go. Yet when she had left him he felt a strange and
unwonted coldness settle upon his heart.
The anger against his young bride was quenched, and a dewlike fear grew
upon him. But of what befell him I shall now sing to thee, lest thou grow
weary of my prose:
_All silent Black Earl Roderick
Went to his room away,
Full angry, with his throbbing heart
And fitful fancy's play._
_He sat him by the bright hearth-side,
And turned towards the door;
And there upon the threshold stood
His lady, weeping sore._
_He chased her down the winding stair,
And out into the night,
But only found a withered crone,
With long hair, loose and white._
_"Come hither now, you sly-faced witch;
Come hither now to me.
Say if a lady all so pale
Your evil eyes did see?"_
_"Oh, true, I saw a little lass,
She went all white as snow;
She crossed my hands with silver crown
Just two short hours ago."_
_"What did you tell the foolish wench,
Who must my lady be?
The false tale you did tell to her
You now must tell to me."_
_"I hate you, Black Earl Roderick,
You're cruel, hard, and cold;
Yet you shall grieve like a young child
Before the moon is cold._
_"This did I tell her, like a queen
She'd ride into the town;
And every man who met her there
Would on his knees go down._
_"I said that he who followed none
Would walk behind her now,
And in his trembling hand the helm
From his uncovered brow._
_"Then he should walk, while she would ride,
Through all the town away;
And greater than Earl Roderick
She would become that day."_
And now shall I tell how laughed the Black Earl aloud and scornful at the
witch's tale.
"No lady in the land," quoth he, "could so enslave me, and no woman yet
was born who hath my honor and glory."
So spoke Earl Roderick, and by these words shalt thou hold him, heart-whole
and vain withal, for the hour of his sorrow had not yet struck.
Now turned he to the dame, and, chiding her, bade her begone.
"Thy tale," saith he, "is full of weariness. It hath neither wisdom nor
truth."
Turning from her in anger, home went he, and flung himself before the
dying fire in his chamber, a frown between his brows. And again a cold
fear turned closely about his heart. Raising his eyes, he saw no more
terrible a thing than his young bride, with a face of grievous pain,
looking upon him from the door. Then he spoke her gently.
"Come," quoth he, "sad-faced one, why dost thou torment me? One question
only shall I ask thee, and this must thou answer. Whom hast thou met upon
the hill? For the witch woman hath told me a wearisome tale, which I shall
not lend my ear to."
Now, when he spoke, his young bride neither answered nor came, but gazed
from the threshold upon him in silence. So he got up in anger and went her
way. Through the chamber strode he, and she was yet before him, and
without sound went she down the hall and stair. So out through the open
door, and the men-at-arms let her pass, though the Black Earl bid them
stay her feet, and gazed bewildered, seeing only their stern master
running alone, with fierce eyes, such as a hound doth cast upon a young
hare. Quick as the Black Earl ran, the little bride was before.
Through sleepy woods and honey-perfumed plains, all through the night did
he chase her, but never once did he reach her, nor ever once did she pause
to rest.
When the morning sun was high, she led him up to the lights of Brown
Kippure, and there vanished from his sight.
Now, when the Black Earl perceived this wondrous thing, he felt his heart
sink with utter weariness, and without more seeking fell upon the moss.
Had his eyes been not so hot with anger, slow tears of sorrow would have
forced their way upon his cheeks, for now that he had her not his desire
was strong upon him to behold his bride.
As he lay upon the heather, he heard the shrill voice of his little
brother clamoring by his side.
"Be still," quoth he, "for thou hast frightened away a fair dream that I
fain would follow."
"But I would tell thee," said the little brother, "of a strange thing, and
one to set thee full of laughter."
"Nay," quoth the Black Earl, "of that I have no desire, lest thou place
upon my head a cap and bells, and call me fool Roderick."
"And wherefore," said the little brother, "shouldst thou laugh at fool
Roderick?"
"Because," quoth the Black Earl, "he hath found a strange jewel when he
hath lost it."
"Thy words I do not understand," saith the little brother. "What was the
strange jewel that he hath and yet hath not?"
"Love," quoth the Black Earl.
"That neither do I understand," saith the little brother, "but now thou
must listen to my story."
And of what he saith shall I sing, for his voice was sweeter than prose:
_"Oh, brother, brother, come up to the lake waters gray,
Come up to the shore where I play;
For, oh! I saw on the bank asleep
A fair white nymph, and the slow waves creep,
To bear her away, away._
_"Oh, brother, brother, I watched her through the day,
Saw her hair grow jewelled with spray.
Once her cheek was brushed by a robin's wing,
And a finch flew down on her hand to sing,
And was not afraid to stay._
_"Oh, brother, brother, will she soon awaken be?
I would that she laugh with me.
She sleeps, and the world so full of sound;
She's deaf, like the deaths that are under the ground,
That I laugh and laugh to see."_
Now shall I tell how the Black Earl heeded not the story of the little
brother, nor the tragedy that lay therein, for his ear was busy with
another sound.
"Hush," said the Black Earl, "for hearest thou not a voice in trouble?"
"Nay," cried the little brother; "I hear naught save the laughing stream
that comes from the lake where my water-nymph lieth."
"Hush!" said the Black Earl again, "for hearest thou not the voice of my
mistress making a lamentation?"
"Nay," saith the little brother; "I hear naught save the moving of the
reeds in the pushing waters, and thou wilt not listen to my story."
Now went the little brother away in his anger, and found himself a play
among the heather.
But the Black Earl bent above the stream and gazed long into its shallow
turbulence with wonder and fear, for the words the stream said to him in
its whisperings were as though spoken in the voice of his young bride.
He laid his hand in the flowing waters.
"Why art thou troubled, little stream?" quoth he.
But the little stream stayed not its whispering.
"Sainted Mother, oh, pray for me!" it murmured, in piteous prayer, "and
leave sweet mercy upon my soul."
Now, when the Black Earl heard the voice of his lady coming from the
waters in such sorrow, he rose with a cry, and, his heart being full of
fear, he knew at last the greatness of his love.
"Where art thou, then?" he cried, in his woe. "Whither shall I seek thee?"
But the little stream passing his feet murmured its prayer in going; no
other sound did he hear save the far-away laughter of his little brother.
"Oh, Mary, Mother, pray my soul to rest! Take mercy, Lord, on a soul
afraid."
"Where are the lips from which thou hast stolen that cry?" said the Black
Earl; and, like an old man bent with trouble, he sought the banks, seeking
for the white form of his bride. "Now," quoth he, "well do I know this
stream hath carried her last cry to my feet, and her drowning lips have
been forced to sinful death to-night by my long cruelty."
He went up the hill as a man goeth to despair, slow and afraid; and when
he reached the little wood in whose bosom the lake was enshrined, he
paused and looked around.
Of this shall I sing, for so sad and piteous it is that my harp would fain
soothe me from tears:
_He looked into the deep wood green,
But nothing there did see;
He looked into the still water
Beneath, all white, lay she._
_He drew her from her cold, cold bed,
And kissed her cheek and chin;
Loosed from his neck his silken cloak,
To wrap her body in._
_He took her up in his two arms--
His grief was deep and wild;
He knelt beside her on the sod,
And sorrowed like a child._
_He blew three blasts upon his horn;
His men did make reply,
And came all quickly to his call,
Through brake and brier so high._
_And every man who saw her there
Went down upon his knee;
Behind her came Earl Roderick,
All pitiful to see._
_And in his trembling hand the helm
From his uncovered brow;
And "Oh," he said, "to love her well,
And know it only now!"_
_So he did walk while she did ride
Through all the town away,
For greater than Earl Roderick
She did become that day._
Now have I said how the heart of the Black Earl woke to love, and then was
humbled, as the ancient crone had foretold; but of his sorrowful years,
his desperate danger of eternal loss and his after-salvation, must I
likewise tell, if the story would be pitiful in the ending.
Therefore shall I lay my harp aside, and so go back in my telling.
And I bid thee remember how the little pale bride was wont to sit upon the
mountain and watch the far lights in her father's home quench themselves
one by one.
So now of how she died shall I tell thee, and of what came to her in her
passing, lest thou thinkest so innocent a child had laid violent hands
upon her life, who only had met death through the breaking of her heart.
Here sat she on the mountain, and the wild things spoke of her in her
silence. The red weasel, the bee, and the bramble, and many others, moved
to watch her. Well have they known her in her young joyfulness; here had
she made the place she loved best--the high brow of the hill where she sat
as a child and watched--on the one side the far-off city and the white
towers that held the wonder-knight of her dreams. Here had she sat and
seen the gleam of his spear as he went with his hunters through the
valley; and here, too, had her mother come to tell her of her betrothal,
so she had nigh fainted in her happiness, in looking upon the white tower
that was to be her home.
Here had she learned the sweet language of the birds and flowers, and
they, too, had partaken of her joys; but of her sorrows they would not
understand, for our joys and our laughter, are they not as the singing of
the bird and the dancing of the fly, who weep only when they meet death?
In our griefs do we not stand alone, who have in our hearts the fierce
desires of love and all the tragedies of despair?
Now, as the young bride turned her slow feet up the mountain, down where
her glad feet had turned as a maid, she sat her there by the lake.
The little creatures she was wont to love and understand gathered about
her and wondered at her state.
"She hath returned," said the red weasel; "see where she sitteth, her head
upon her hand. I slew a young bird at her feet, and she spake no word, nor
did she care."
"It is not she," said a linnet, swaying on a safe spray, "for had it been
she her anger would have slain thee."
"It is she," said the red weasel, laughing in his throat; "but her eyes
are hidden by her fingers, and she cannot see."
"It is not she," said a brown wren. "Her cheek was full and rosy and her
song loud. This one sitteth all mute and pale."
"It is she," said the red weasel, "who sitteth upon the mountain, her face
hidden between her hands. She sitteth in silence, and who can tell her
thoughts? She hath been to the great city."
"It is a small place," hummed a honey-bee. "Once, long ago, she raised her
white palm between her eyes and its smoke. 'See,' she laughed,'my little
hand can cover it.'"
"It is so great," said the red weasel, "that those who leave the mountains
for love of it return to us no more."
"Yet she hath returned," said a lone lark hanging in the sky, "and I
myself have sung beside her ear."
"She came, yet she came not," said the red weasel. "What did she answer
when thou saidst that I had slain thy mate?"
"She sighed, 'Thou singest a gay song, O bird!'" hummed a golden beetle.
"My grief! that she cannot understand."
"She is lost to us indeed!" said a honeysuckle swaying in the wind, "for
she trod me beneath her feet when I held my sweet blossoms for her lips."
"And she tore me aside," cried the wild bramble, "when I did but reach
towards her for embrace."
"She will know thee no more," said the red weasel; "she hath been to the
great city."
"She laid her lips upon me ere she went," spake the wild bramble, "and
said she would return to us soon."
"She bid me ring a merry chime," whispered the heather, "and I move my
many bells now for her welcome, but she will not hear."
"She will speak with thee no more," said the red weasel; "she hath walked
in the city, like one goeth upon the fairy sleeping grass, and her soul
hath forgotten us."
"She is still and cold," said a shining fly glancing through the air. "I
have danced a measure under her eyes, and she did not see."
"She is dead," said the honey-bee, "for when she would not look upon me as
before, I drew my sword and stung her sharply, but she did not stir. She
sat and gazed into the distance where the smoke like a great gray web
lieth heavy. She is surely dead."
"She is not dead," said the red weasel; "she hath been to the great city."
"Maybe there she hath found Death," said the shining fly, "for his web
reacheth far, and he loveth the dark places and hidden ways. He hideth,
too, in the cool arbors of the wood, stretching a gray chain for our
undoing. Maybe she found Death. He spreadeth ropes of pearls across our
path, and looketh upon us from the shade; when the dance is gayest he
creepeth to spring. Maybe she hath reached for the pearls or hath danced
into his net."
And so the fly sang of the watcher in the wood, and his song I shall sing
thee, lest thou grow weary of my prose:
_Deep in the wood's recesses cool
I see the fairy dancers glide,
In cloth of gold, in gown of green,
My lord and lady side by side._
_But who has hung from leaf to leaf,
From flower to flower, a silken twine,
A cloud of gray that holds the dew
In globes of clear enchanted wine,_
_Or stretches far from branch to branch,
From thorn to thorn, in diamond rain?
Who caught the cup of crystal wine
And hung so fair the shining chain?_
_'Tis death the spider, in his net,
Who lures the dancers as they glide,
In cloth of gold, in gown of green,
My lord and lady side by side._
But a dragon-fly rattling his armor said, without heed of the singer, "She
is dead," for when she came among the heather the joyous spirit of the
mountain met her and blew upon her hair and eyes. He kissed her worn cheek
that he had known so fair, and the soft rain of his sorrow fell to see the
pity of her brow. She passed all stiff and cold; she did not hear nor
understand.
"Wind," quoth she, "blow not so fierce."
"She is not dead," saith the red weasel; "she hath been to the great
city."
Now, when the young bride raised her white face from her hands and looked
about her, she could neither hear the speaking of the birds nor see the
beauty of the wild flowers, yet in her heart she had a memory of both.
Turning to the little flying things that came about her with soft, beating
wings, she said:
"Once ye spake to me, and could give comfort with your counsel and love.
Now ye are lost in the voices of the city that ring forever in my ears."
Gazing upon the flowers, she said:
"Ye, too, your beauty hath faded. The gaudy flowers of the city have
flashed their color in my eyes, so ye I cannot see or understand."
Then she rose to her feet, though she scarce could stand, and, stretching
her arms towards the great purple hills that surrounded her father's far
home, she said towards it:
"Why didst thou call me back since thou hast let me go from the sight of
the heights that would have been always a prayer to uplift my soul? Ahone!
that thy voice was loud enough to follow and give me unrest, that
whispered always of my father's house and the valley of my home. So must I
come each eve upon this hill to look upon it from my loneliness.
"Unloved am I, and unwished for, by him whom I have wedded. So my heart
dieth within my breast, and my soul trembleth on the brink of my grave.
"Here upon the mountains, unprayed for and uncoffined, shall my body lie,
for thy voice hath called me forth.
"Here my black sins shall see and pursue me even to destruction; but in
the city I could have escaped with the crowding souls that confuse Death
to count."
Then, as a remembrance of her sins came heavy upon her, she gave a loud
cry and covered her face with her hands.
So she stood without help upon the mountains, and because she was blind
with the city dust and deafened with its cries, she stood alone. The
pitying wild flowers blew their fragrance to her eyes, but they would not
open; the gentle birds spoke comforting whispers to her ears, but she
could not hear; the great hills held their arms about her and breathed
their peace upon her brow. But this she did not know, and so stood alone
to face Death.
First turned she her face to where her father's castle stood on a far
hill, and again turned she to see the white towers where she had lived and
loved so vainly. And when her eyes met the glisten of the walls, her heart
broke with a little sigh, and she fell upon the ground. And she laid her
weary body down beside the waters of the mountain lake. Her head with its
loosened hair lay in the waters, so her lips, covered by the murmuring
ripples, breathed a prayer as she died for her passing soul. And the
little stream that ran from the lake down the hill-side carried the prayer
upon its breast as thou hast been told.
Now, when the ghost of the little bride stood upright beside her fallen
body, she was sore afraid, and trembled much to leave the habitation she
had known in life.
She laid her spirit-hands upon the cold dead, and clung to it as though
she would not be driven forth. Many and terrifying were the sights that
met her when she opened her eyes, after passing through the change of
death. Many and terrifying were the sounds that came to her ears, and she
feared she would be whirled away with the great clouds that passed her and
went like smoke into the skies. Cold she was and drenched with the rain
that fell everywhere around her; gray and misshapen were the moving masses
under her gaze; and only where her hands lay holding to her dead body did
she see aught of the world she had left behind. There the sweet green
grass lifted itself and a brier rose cast its blossom apart. There a bee
sang, calling to her a little comfort among all the strange sounds that
filled her ears.
As she listened, she found the noises that troubled her were the cries of
many voices, and as she began to see more clearly in the great change that
had come to her, she knew the shadowy clouds rushing upward were the
spirits of the dead on their dangerous swift way to heaven. And as she
raised her face to follow their flight the rain fell salt into her mouth,
so she knew it was the repentant tears of the passing ghosts.
So crouched she in that misty world, seeing not the green earth and the
purple hills, but only the whirling shapes about her on every side, flying
from earth to heaven, pursued by their black sins.
And one in the valley of Baile-ata-Cliat, looking towards the mountains,
said:
"See how the clouds fly black and fearful!" But it was the hosts of
spirits flying upward. "See," quoth he, "how the lightning flashes!" But
it was the opening of God's High Paradise to receive some spirit wellnigh
spent. "Hark," said he, "how the wind moans and the rain beats upon the
window!" But it was the cry of the passing ghosts and their falling tears
as their black sins fought and kept them from heaven.
But one who was a singer took his harp and sang, for he understood. |
10,240 |
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THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.
VOL. 10, No. 263.] SUPPLEMENTARY NUMBER. [PRICE 2d.
* * * * *
SIR WALTER SCOTT'S LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.
(_Continued from page 5._ [Note: see Mirror 262])
Robespierre was a coward, who signed death-warrants with a hand that
shook, though his heart was relentless. He possessed no passions on
which to charge his crimes; they were perpetrated in cold blood, and
upon mature deliberation.
Marat, the third of this infernal triumvirate, had attracted the
attention of the lower orders, by the violence of his sentiments in the
journal which he conducted from the commencement of the revolution, upon
such principles that it took the lead in forwarding its successive
changes. His political exhortations began and ended like the howl of a
blood-hound for murder; or, if a wolf could have written a journal, the
gaunt and famished wretch could not have ravened more eagerly for
slaughter. It was blood which was Marat's constant demand, not in drops
from the breast of an individual, not in puny streams from the slaughter
of families, but blood in the profusion of an ocean. His usual
calculation of the heads which he demanded amounted to two hundred and
sixty thousand; and though he sometimes raised it as high as three
hundred thousand, it never fell beneath the smaller number. It may be
hoped, and for the honour of human nature we are inclined to believe,
there was a touch of insanity in this unnatural strain of ferocity; and
the wild and squalid features of the wretch appear to have intimated a
degree of alienation of mind. Marat was, like Robespierre, a coward.
Repeatedly denounced in the assembly, he skulked instead of defending
himself, and lay concealed in some obscure garret or cellar among his
cut-throats, until a storm appeared, when, like a bird of ill omen, his
death-screech was again heard. Such was the strange and fatal
triumvirate, in which the same degree of cannibal cruelty existed under
different aspects. Danton murdered to glut his rage; Robespierre to
avenge his injured vanity, or to remove a rival whom he envied; Marat,
from the same instinctive love of blood, which induces a wolf to
continue his ravage of the flocks long after his hunger is appeased.
Passing by the horrors of the reign of terror, we shall close the second
volume with a vivid and powerful picture, which we cannot refrain
quoting--
THE DEATH OF ROBESPIERRE.
Meantime the convention continued to maintain the bold and commanding
front which they had so suddenly and critically assumed. Upon learning
the escape of the arrested deputies, and hearing of the insurrection at
the Hotel de Ville, they instantly passed a decree outlawing Robespierre
and his associates, inflicting a similar doom upon the mayor of Paris,
the procureur and other members of the commune, and charging twelve of
their members, the boldest who could be selected, to proceed with the
armed force to the execution of the sentence. The drums of the National
Guards now beat to arms in all the sections under authority of the
convention, while the tocsin continued to summon assistance with its
iron voice to Robespierre and the civic magistrates. Every thing
appeared to threaten a violent catastrophe, until it was seen clearly
that the public voice, and especially amongst the National Guards, was
declaring itself generally against the Terrorists.
The Hotel de Ville was surrounded by about fifteen hundred men, and
cannon turned upon the doors. The force of the assailants was weakest in
point of number, but their leaders were men of spirit, and night
concealed their inferiority of force.
The deputies commissioned for the purpose read the decree of the
assembly to those whom they found assembled in front of the city-hall,
and they shrunk from the attempt of defending it, some joining the
assailants, others laying down their arms and dispersing. Meantime the
deserted group of Terrorists within conducted themselves like scorpions,
which, when surrounded by a circle of fire, are said to turn their
stings on each other, and on themselves. Mutual and ferocious upbraiding
took place among these miserable men. "Wretch, were these the means you
promised to furnish?" said Payan to Henriot, whom he found intoxicated
and incapable of resolution or exertion; and seizing on him as he spoke,
he precipitated the revolutionary general from a window. Henriot
survived the fall only to drag himself into a drain, in which he was
afterwards discovered and brought out to execution. The younger
Robespierre threw himself from the window, but had not the good fortune
to perish on the spot. It seemed as if even the melancholy fate of
suicide, the last refuge of guilt and despair, was denied to men who had
so long refused every species of mercy to their fellow-creatures. Le Bas
alone had calmness enough to despatch himself with a pistol-shot. Saint
Just, after imploring his comrades to kill him, attempted his own life
with an irresolute hand, and failed, Couthon lay beneath the table
brandishing a knife, with which he repeatedly wounded his bosom, without
daring to add force enough to reach his heart. Their chief, Robespierre,
in an unsuccessful attempt to shoot himself, had only inflicted a
horrible fracture on his under-jaw.
In this situation they were found like wolves in their lair, foul with
blood, mutilated, despairing, and yet not able to die. Robespierre lay
on a table in an anti-room, his head supported by a deal-box, and his
hideous countenance half-hidden by a bloody and dirty cloth bound round
the shattered chin.[1]
[1] It did not escape the minute observers of this scene, that
he still held in his hand the bag which had contained the fatal
pistol, and which was inscribed with the words, _Au grand
monarque_, alluding to the sign, doubtless, of the gunsmith who
sold the weapon, but singularly applicable to the high
pretensions of the purchaser.
The captives were carried in triumph to the convention, who, without
admitting them to the bar, ordered them, as outlaws, for instant
execution. As the fatal cars passed to the guillotine, those who filled
them, but especially Robespierre, were overwhelmed with execrations from
the friends and relatives of victims whom he had sent on the same
melancholy road. The nature of his previous wound, from which the cloth
had never been removed till the executioner tore it off, added to the
torture of the sufferer. The shattered jaw dropped, and the wretch
yelled aloud, to the horror of the spectators.[2] A mask taken from that
dreadful head was long exhibited in different nations of Europe, and
appalled the spectator by its ugliness, and the mixture of fiendish
expression with that of bodily agony.
[2] The fate of no tyrant in history was so hideous at the
conclusion, excepting perhaps that of Jugurtha.
Thus fell Maximilian Robespierre, after having been the first person in
the French republic for nearly two years, during which time he governed
it upon the principles of Nero or Caligula. His elevation to the
situation which he held involved more contradictions than perhaps
attach to any similar event in history. A low-born and low-minded
tyrant was permitted to rule with the rod of the most frightful
despotism a people, whose anxiety for liberty had shortly before
rendered them unable to endure the rule of a humane and lawful
sovereign. A dastardly coward arose to the command of one of the bravest
nations in the world; and it was under the auspices of a man who dared
scarce fire a pistol, that the greatest generals in France began their
careers of conquest. He had neither eloquence nor imagination; but
substituted in their stead a miserable, affected, bombastic style,
which, until other circumstances gave him consequence, drew on him
general ridicule. Yet against so poor an orator, all the eloquence of
the philosophical Girondists, all the terrible powers of his associate
Danton, employed in a popular assembly, could not enable them to make an
effectual resistance. It may seem trifling to mention, that in a nation
where a good deal of prepossession is excited by amiable manners and
beauty of external appearance, the person who ascended to the highest
power was not only ill-looking, but singularly mean in person, awkward
and constrained in his address, ignorant how to set about pleasing even
when he most desired to give pleasure, and as tiresome nearly as he was
odious and heartless.
To compensate all these deficiencies, Robespierre had but an insatiable
ambition, founded on a vanity which made him think himself capable of
filling the highest situation; and therefore gave him daring, when to
dare is frequently to achieve. He mixed a false and over-strained, but
rather fluent species of bombastic composition, with the grossest
flattery to the lowest classes of the people; in consideration of which,
they could not but receive as genuine the praises which he always
bestowed on himself. His prudent resolution to be satisfied with
possessing the essence of power, without seeming to desire its rank and
trappings, formed another art of cajoling the multitude. His watchful
envy, his long-protracted but sure revenge, his craft, which to vulgar
minds supplies the place of wisdom, were his only means of competing
with his distinguished antagonists. And it seems to have been a merited
punishment of the extravagances and abuses of the French revolution,
that it engaged the country in a state of anarchy which permitted a
wretch such as we have described, to be for a long period master of her
destiny. Blood was his element, like that of the other Terrorists, and
he never fastened with so much pleasure on a new victim, as when he was
at the same time an ancient associate. In an epitaph, of which the
following couplet may serve as a translation, his life was represented
as incompatible with the existence of the human race:--
"Here lies Robespierre--let no tear be shed;
Reader, if he had lived, thou hadst been dead."
The commencement of the third volume introduces us to the family of
Bonaparte, who resided in the island of Corsica, which was, in ancient
times, remarkable as the scene of Seneca's exile, and in the last
century was distinguished by the memorable stand which the natives made
in defence of their liberties against the Genoese and French, during a
war which tended to show the high and indomitable spirit of the
islanders, united as it is with the fiery and vindictive feelings proper
to their country and climate.
BIRTH OF BONAPARTE.
Charles Bonaparte, the father of Napoleon, died at the age of about
forty years, of an ulcer in the stomach, on the 24th of February, 1785.
His celebrated son fell a victim to the same disease. During Napoleon's
grandeur, the community of Montpellier expressed a desire to erect a
monument to the memory of Charles Bonaparte. His answer was both
sensible and in good taste. "Had I lost my father yesterday," he said,
"it would be natural to pay his memory some mark of respect consistent
with my present situation. But it is twenty years since the event, and
it is one in which the public can take no concern. Let us leave the dead
in peace."
The subject of our narrative was born, according to the best accounts,
and his own belief, upon the 15th day of August, 1769, at his father's
house in Ajaccio, forming one side of a court which leads out of the Rue
Charles.[3] We read with interest, that his mother's good constitution,
and bold character of mind, having induced her to attend mass upon the
day of his birth, (being the Festival of the Assumption,) she was
obliged to return home immediately, and as there was no time to prepare
a bed or bedroom, she was delivered of the future victor upon a
temporary couch prepared for her accommodation, and covered with an
ancient piece of tapestry, representing the heroes of the Iliad. The
infant was christened by the name of Napoleon, an obscure saint, who had
dropped to leeward, and fallen altogether out of the calendar, so that
his namesake never knew which day he was to celebrate as the festival of
his patron. When questioned, on this subject by the bishop who
confirmed him, he answered smartly, that there were a great many saints,
and only three hundred and sixty-five days to divide amongst them. The
politeness of the pope promoted the patron in order to compliment the
god-child, and Saint Napoleon des Ursins was accommodated with a
festival. To render this compliment, which no one but a pope could have
paid, still more flattering, the feast of Saint Napoleon was fixed for
the fifteenth August, the birthday of the emperor, and the day on which
he signed the Concordat. So that Napoleon had the rare honour of
promoting his patron saint.
[3] Benson's "Sketches of Corsica," p. 4.
NAPOLEON'S EARLY LIFE.
The young Napoleon had, of course, the simple and hardy education proper
to the natives of the mountainous island of his birth, and in his
infancy was not remarkable for more than that animation of temper, and
wilfulness and impatience of inactivity, by which children of quick
parts and lively sensibility are usually distinguished. The winter of
the year was generally passed by the family of his father at Ajaccio,
where they still preserve and exhibit, as the ominous play-thing of
Napoleon's boyhood, the model of a brass cannon, weighing about thirty
pounds.[4] We leave it to philosophers to inquire, whether the future
love of war was suggested by the accidental possession of such a toy; or
whether the tendency of the mind dictated the selection of it; or,
lastly, whether the nature of the pastime, corresponding with the taste
which chose it, may not have had each their action and reaction, and
contributed between them to the formation of a character so warlike.
[4] "Sketches of Corsica," p. 4.
The same traveller who furnishes the above anecdote, gives an
interesting account of the country retreat of the family of Bonaparte
during the summer.
Going along the sea-shore from Ajaccio towards the Isle Sanguiniere,
about a mile from the town, occur two stone pillars, the remains of a
doorway, leading up to a dilapidated villa, once the residence of Madame
Bonaparte's half-brother on the mother's side, whom Napoleon created
Cardinal Fesch.[5] The house is approached by an avenue, surrounded and
overhung by the cactus and other shrubs, which luxuriate in a warm
climate. It has a garden and a lawn, showing amidst neglect vestiges of
their former beauty, and the house is surrounded by shrubberies,
permitted to run to wilderness. This was the summer residence of Madame
Bonaparte and her family. Almost enclosed by the wild olive, the cactus,
the clematis, and the almond-tree, is a very singular and isolated
granite rock, called Napoleon's grotto, which seems to have resisted the
decomposition which has taken place around. The remains of a small
summer-house are visible beneath the rock, the entrance to which is
nearly closed by a luxuriant fig-tree. This was Bonaparte's frequent
retreat, when the vacations of the school at which he studied permitted
him to visit home. How the imagination labours to form an idea of the
visions, which, in this sequestered and romantic spot, must have arisen
before the eyes of the future hero of a hundred battles!
[5] The mother of Letitia Ramolini, wife of Carlo Bonaparte,
married a Swiss officer in the French service, named Fesch,
after the death of Letitia's father.
Bonaparte's ardour for the abstract sciences amounted to a passion, and
was combined with a singular aptitude for applying them to the purposes
of war, while his attention to pursuits so interesting and exhaustless
in themselves, was stimulated by his natural ambition and desire of
distinction. Almost all the scientific teachers at Brienne, being
accustomed to study the character of their pupils, and obliged by their
duty to make memoranda and occasional reports on the subject, spoke of
the talents of Bonaparte, and the progress of his studies, with
admiration. Circumstances of various kinds, exaggerated or invented,
have been circulated concerning the youth of a person so remarkable. The
following are given upon good authority.[6]
[6] They were many years since communicated to the author by
Messrs. Joseph and Louis Law, brothers of General Baron
Lauriston, Bonaparte's favourite aid-de-camp. These gentlemen,
or at least Joseph, were educated at Brienne, but at a later
period than Napoleon. Their distinguished brother was his
contemporary.
The conduct of Napoleon among his companions was that of a studious and
reserved youth, addicting himself deeply to the means of improvement,
and rather avoiding than seeking the usual temptations to dissipation of
time. He had few friends, and no intimates; yet at different times, when
he chose to exert it, he exhibited considerable influence over his
fellow-students, and when there was any joint plan to be carried into
effect, he was frequently chosen dictator of the little republic.
In the time of winter, Bonaparte, upon one occasion, engaged his
companions in constructing a fortress out of the snow, regularly
defended by ditches and bastions, according to the rules of
fortification. It was considered as displaying the great powers of the
juvenile engineer in the way of his profession, and was attacked and
defended by the students, who divided into parties for the purpose,
until the battle became so keen that their superiors thought it proper
to proclaim a truce.
The young Bonaparte gave another instance of address and enterprise upon
the following occasion. There was a fair held annually in the
neighbourhood of Brienne, where the pupils of the Military School used
to find a day's amusement; but on account of a quarrel betwixt them and
the country people upon a former occasion, or for some such cause, the
masters of the institution had directed that the students should not on
the fair-day be permitted to go beyond their own precincts, which were
surrounded with a wall. Under the direction of the young Corsican,
however, the scholars had already laid a plot for securing their usual
day's diversion. They had undermined the wall which encompassed their
exercising ground, with so much skill and secrecy, that their operations
remained entirely unknown till the morning of the fair, when a part of
the boundary unexpectedly fell, and gave a free passage to the
imprisoned students, of which they immediately took the advantage, by
hurrying to the prohibited scene of amusement.
But although on these, and perhaps other occasions, Bonaparte displayed
some of the frolic temper of youth, mixed with the inventive genius and
the talent for commanding others by which he was distinguished in after
time, his life at school was in general that of a recluse and severe
student, acquiring by his judgment, and treasuring in his memory, that
wonderful process of almost unlimited combination, by means of which he
was afterwards able to simplify the most difficult and complicated
undertakings. His mathematical teacher was proud of the young islander,
as the boast of his school, and his other scientific instructors had the
same reason to be satisfied.
In languages Bonaparte was less a proficient, and never acquired the art
of writing or spelling French, far less foreign languages, with accuracy
or correctness; nor had the monks of Brienne any reason to pride
themselves on the classical proficiency of their scholar. The full
energies of his mind being devoted to the scientific pursuits of his
profession, left little time or inclination for other studies.
Though of Italian origin, Bonaparte had not a decided taste for the fine
arts, and his taste in composition seems to have leaned towards the
grotesque and the bombastic. He used always the most exaggerated
phrases; and it is seldom, if ever, that his bulletins present those
touches of sublimity which are founded on dignity and simplicity of
expression.
Notwithstanding the external calmness and reserve of his deportment, he
who was destined for such great things had, while yet a student at
Brienne, a full share of that ambition for distinction and dread of
disgrace, that restless and irritating love of fame, which is the spur
to extraordinary attempts. Sparkles of this keen temper sometimes showed
themselves. On one occasion, a harsh superintendant imposed on the
future emperor, for some trifling fault, the disgrace of wearing a
penitential dress, and being excluded from the table of the students,
and obliged to eat his meal apart. His pride felt the indignity so
severely, that it brought on a severe nervous attack; to which, though
otherwise of good constitution, he was subject upon occasions of
extraordinary irritation. Father Petrault, the professor of mathematics,
hastened to deliver his favourite pupil from the punishment by which he
was so much affected.
It is also said that an early disposition to the popular side
distinguished Bonaparte even when at Brienne. Pichegru, afterwards so
celebrated, who acted as his monitor in the military school, (a singular
circumstance,) bore witness to his early principles, and to the peculiar
energy and tenacity of his temper. He was long afterwards consulted
whether means might not be found to engage the commander of the Italian
armies in the royal interest. "It will be but lost time to attempt it,"
said Pichegru. "I knew him in his youth--his character is inflexible--he
has taken his side, and he will not change it."
In 1783, Napoleon Bonaparte, then only fourteen years old, was, though
under the usual age, selected by Monsieur de Keralio, the inspector of
the twelve military schools, to be sent to have his education completed
in the general school of Paris. It was a compliment paid to the
precocity of his extraordinary mathematical talent, and the steadiness
of his application. While at Paris he attracted the same notice as at
Brienne; and among other society, frequented that of the celebrated Abbe
Raynal, and was admitted to his literary parties. His taste did not
become correct, but his appetite for study in all departments was
greatly enlarged; and notwithstanding the quantity which he daily read,
his memory was strong enough to retain, and his judgment sufficiently
ripe to arrange and digest, the knowledge which he then acquired; so
that he had it at his command during all the rest of his busy life.
Plutarch was his favourite author; upon the study of whom he had so
modelled his opinions and habits of thought, that Paoli afterwards
pronounced him a young man of an antique caste, and resembling one of
the classical heroes.
Some of his biographers have about this time ascribed to him the
anecdote of a certain youthful pupil of the military school, who desired
to ascend in the car of a balloon with the aeronaut Blanchard, and was
so mortified at being refused, that he made an attempt to cut the
balloon with his sword. The story has but a flimsy support, and indeed
does not accord well with the character of the hero, which was deep and
reflective, as well as bold and determined, and not likely to suffer its
energies to escape in idle and useless adventure.
A better authenticated anecdote states, that at this time he expressed
himself disrespectfully towards the king in one of his letters to his
family. According to the practice of the school, he was obliged to
submit the letter to the censorship of Monsieur Domairon, the professor
of belles lettres, who, taking notice of the offensive passage, insisted
upon the letter being burnt, and added a severe rebuke. Long afterwards,
in 1802, Monsieur Domairon was commanded to attend Napoleon's levee, in
order that he might receive a pupil in the person of Jerome Bonaparte,
when the first consul reminded his old tutor good-humouredly, that times
had changed considerably since the burning of the letter.
Napoleon Bonaparte, in his seventieth year, received his first
commission as second lieutenant in a regiment of artillery, and was
almost immediately afterwards promoted to the rank of first lieutenant
in the corps quartered at Valence. He mingled with society when he
joined his regiment, more than he had hitherto been accustomed to do;
mixed in public amusements, and exhibited the powers of pleasing, which
he possessed in an uncommon degree when he chose to exert them. His
handsome and intelligent features, with his active and neat, though
slight figure, gave him additional advantages. His manners could
scarcely be called elegant, but made up in vivacity and variety of
expression, and often in great spirit and energy, for what they wanted
in grace and polish.
He became an adventurer for the honours of literature also, and was
anonymously a competitor for the prize offered by the Academy of Lyons
on Raynal's question, "What are the principles and institutions, by
application of which mankind can be raised to the highest pitch of
happiness?" The prize was adjudged to the young soldier. It is
impossible to avoid feeling curiosity to know the character of the
juvenile theories respecting government, advocated by one who at length
attained the power of practically making what experiments he pleased.
Probably his early ideas did not exactly coincide with his more mature
practice; for when Talleyrand, many years afterwards, got the essay out
of the records of the academy, and returned it to the author, Bonaparte
destroyed it after he had read a few pages. He also laboured under the
temptation of writing a journey to Mount Cenis, after the manner of
Sterne, which he was fortunate enough finally to resist. The affectation
which pervades Sterne's peculiar style of composition was not likely to
be simplified under the pen of Bonaparte.
Sterner times were fast approaching, and the nation was now fully
divided by those factions which produced the revolution. The officers of
Bonaparte's regiment were also divided into royalists and patriots; and
it is easily to be imagined, that the young and friendless stranger and
adventurer should adopt that side to which he had already shown some
inclination, and which promised to open the most free career to those
who had only their merit to rely on. "Were I a general officer," he is
alleged to have said, "I would have adhered to the king; being a
subaltern, I join the patriots."
There was a story current, that in a debate with some brother officers
on the politics of the time, Bonaparte expressed himself so
outrageously, that they were provoked to throw him into the Rhone, where
he had nearly perished. But this is an inaccurate account of the
accident which actually befell him. He was seized with the cramp when
bathing in the river. His comrades saved him with difficulty, but his
danger was matter of pure chance.
Napoleon has himself recorded that he was a warm patriot during the
whole sitting of the National Assembly; but that on the appointment of
the Legislative Assembly, he became shaken in his opinions. If so, his
original sentiments regained force, for we shortly afterwards find him
entertaining such as went to the extreme heights of the revolution.
Early in the year 1792, Bonaparte became a captain in the artillery by
seniority; and in the same year, being at Paris, he witnessed the two
insurrections of the 20th of June and 10th of August. He was accustomed
to speak of the insurgents as the most despicable banditti, and to
express with what ease a determined officer could have checked these
apparently formidable, but dastardly and unwieldy masses. But with what
a different feeling of interest would Napoleon have looked on that
infuriated populace, those still resisting though overpowered Swiss, and
that burning palace, had any seer whispered to him, "Emperor that shall
be, all this blood and massacre is but to prepare your future empire!"
Little anticipating the potent effect which the passing events were to
bear on his own fortune, Bonaparte, anxious for the safety of his mother
and family, was now desirous to change France for Corsica, where the
same things were acting on a less distinguished stage.
BONAPARTE'S FIRST MILITARY EXPLOIT.
Napoleon's first military exploit was in the civil war of his native
island. In the year 1793, he was despatched from Bastia, in possession
of the French party, to surprise his native town Ajaccio, then occupied
by Paoli or his adherents. Bonaparte was acting provisionally, as
commanding a battalion of National Guards. He landed in the Gulf of
Ajaccio with about fifty men, to take possession of a tower called the
Torre di Capitello, on the opposite side of the gulf, and almost facing
the city. He succeeded in taking the place; but as there arose a gale of
wind which prevented his communicating with the frigate which had put
him ashore, he was besieged in his new conquest by the opposite faction,
and reduced to such distress, that he and his little garrison were
obliged to feed on horse-flesh. After five days he was relieved by the
frigate, and evacuated the tower, having first in vain attempted to blow
it up. The Torre di Capitello still shows marks of the damage it then
sustained, and its remains may be looked on as a curiosity, as the first
scene of _his_ combats, before whom
--"Temple and tower
Went to the ground.--"
A relation of Napoleon, Masserio by name, effectually defended Ajaccio
against the force employed in the expedition.
The strength of Paoli increasing, and the English preparing to assist
him, Corsica became no longer a safe or convenient residence for the
Bonaparte family. Indeed, both Napoleon and his brother Lucien, who had
distinguished themselves as partisans of the French, were subjected to a
decree of banishment from their native island; and Madame Bonaparte,
with her three daughters, and Jerome, who was as yet but a child, set
sail under their protection, and settled for a time, first at Nice, and
afterwards at Marseilles, where the family is supposed to have undergone
considerable distress, until the dawning prospects of Napoleon afforded
him the means of assisting them.
Napoleon never again revisited Corsica, nor does he appear to have
regarded it with any feelings of affection. One small fountain at
Ajaccio is pointed out as the only ornament which his bounty bestowed on
his birthplace. He might perhaps think it impolitic to do any thing
which might remind the country he ruled that he was not a child of her
soil, nay, was in fact very near having been born an alien, for Corsica
was not united to, or made an integral part of France, until June, 1769,
a few weeks only before Napoleon's birth. This stigma was repeatedly
cast upon him by his opponents, some of whom reproached the French with
having adopted a master, from a country from which the ancient Romans
were unwilling even to choose a slave; and Napoleon may have been so far
sensible to it, as to avoid showing any predilection to the place of his
birth, which might bring the circumstance strongly under the observation
of the great nation, with which he and his family seemed to be
indissolubly united. But, as a traveller already quoted, and who had the
best opportunities to become acquainted with the feelings of the proud
islanders, has expressed it,--"The Corsicans are still highly patriotic,
and possess strong local attachment--in their opinion, contempt for the
country of one's birth is never to be redeemed by any other qualities.
Napoleon, therefore, certainly was not popular in Corsica, nor is his
memory cherished there."[7]
[7] Benson's "Sketches of Corsica," p. 121.
The feelings of the parties were not unnatural on either side. Napoleon,
little interested in the land of his birth, and having such an immense
stake in that of his adoption, in which he had every thing to keep and
lose,[8] observed a policy towards Corsica which his position rendered
advisable; and who can blame the high-spirited islanders, who, seeing
one of their countrymen raised to such exalted eminence, and disposed to
forget his connexion with them, returned with slight and indifference
the disregard with which he treated them?
[8] Not literally, however: for it is worth mentioning, that
when he was in full-blown possession of his power, an
inheritance fell to the family, situated near Ajaccio, and was
divided amongst them. The first consul, or emperor, received an
olive-garden as his share.--_Sketches of Corsica_.
The siege of Toulon was the first incident of importance which enabled
Bonaparte to distinguish himself in the eyes of the French government
and of the world at large. Shortly afterwards he was appointed chief of
battalion in the army of Italy, and on the fall of Robespierre,
Bonaparte superseded in command. At the conflict between the troops of
the Convention under Napoleon, and those of the Sections of Paris under
Damican, the latter was defeated with much slaughter, and Bonaparte was
appointed general-in-chief in command of the army of the interior.
BONAPARTE'S FIRST MARRIAGE.
Meantime circumstances, which we will relate according to his own
statement, introduced Bonaparte to an acquaintance, which was destined
to have much influence on his future fate. A fine boy, of ten or twelve
years old, presented himself at the levee of the general of the
interior, with a request of a nature unusually interesting. He stated
his name to be Eugene Beauharnois, son of the ci-devant Vicomte de
Beauharnois, who, adhering to the revolutionary party, had been a
general in the republican service upon the Rhine, and falling under the
causeless suspicion of the committee of public safety, was delivered to
the revolutionary tribunal, and fell by its sentence just four days
before the overthrow of Robespierre. Eugene was come to request of
Bonaparte, as general of the interior, that his father's sword might be
restored to him. The prayer of the young supplicant was as interesting
as his manners were engaging, and Napoleon felt so much interest in him,
that he was induced to cultivate the acquaintance of Eugene's mother,
afterwards the empress Josephine.
The lady was a Creolian, the daughter of a planter in St. Domingo. Her
name at full length was Marie Joseph Rose Tascher de la Pagerie. She had
suffered her share of revolutionary miseries. After her husband, General
Beauharnois, had been deprived of his command, she was arrested as a
suspected person, and detained in prison till the general liberation,
which succeeded the revolution of the 9th Thermidor. While in
confinement, Madame Beauharnois had formed an intimacy with a companion
in distress, Madame Fontenai, now Madame Tallien, from which she derived
great advantages after her friend's marriage. With a remarkably graceful
person, amiable manners, and an inexhaustible fund of good-humour,
Madame Beauharnois was formed to be an ornament to society. Barras, the
Thermidorien hero, himself an ex-noble, was fond of society, desirous of
enjoying it on an agreeable scale, and of washing away the dregs which
Jacobinism had mingled with all the dearest interests of life. He loved
show, too, and pleasure, and might now indulge both without the risk of
falling under the suspicion of incivism, which, in the Reign of Terror,
would have been incurred by any attempt to intermingle elegance with the
enjoyments of social intercourse. At the apartments which he occupied,
as one of the Directory, in the Luxemburg Palace, he gave its free
course to his natural taste, and assembled an agreeable society of both
sexes. Madame Tallien and her friend formed the soul of these
assemblies, and it was supposed that Barras was not insensible to the
charms of Madame Beauharnois,--a rumour which was likely to arise,
whether with or without foundation.
When Madame Beauharnois and General Bonaparte became intimate, the
latter assures us, and we see no reason to doubt him, that although the
lady was two or three years older than himself,[9] yet being still in
the full bloom of beauty, and extremely agreeable in her manners, he was
induced, solely by her personal charms, to make her an offer of his
hand, heart, and fortunes,--little supposing, of course, to what a pitch
the latter were to arise.
[9] Bonaparte was then in his twenty-sixth year. Josephine gave
herself in the marriage contract for twenty-eight.
Although he himself is said to have been a fatalist, believing in
destiny and in the influence of his star, he knew nothing, probably, of
the prediction of a <DW64> sorceress, who, while Marie Joseph was but a
child, prophesied she should rise to a dignity greater than that of a
queen, yet fall from it before her death.[10] This was one of those
vague auguries, delivered at random by fools or impostors, which the
caprice of fortune sometimes matches with a corresponding and conforming
event. But without trusting to the African sibyl's prediction, Bonaparte
may have formed his match under the auspices of ambition as well as
love. The marrying Madame Beauharnois was a mean of uniting his fortune
with those of Barras and Tallien, the first of whom governed France as
one of the Directors; and the last, from talents and political
connexions, had scarcely inferior influence. He had already deserved
well of them for his conduct on the Day of the Sections, but he required
their countenance to rise still higher; and without derogating from the
bride's merits, we may suppose her influence in their society
corresponded with the views of her lover. It is, however, certain, that
he always regarded her with peculiar affection; that he relied on her
fate, which he considered as linked with and strengthening his own; and
reposed, besides, considerable confidence in Josephine's tact and
address in political business. She had at all times the art of
mitigating his temper, and turning aside the hasty determinations of his
angry moments, not by directly opposing, but by gradually parrying and
disarming them. It must be added to her great praise, that she was
always a willing and often a successful advocate in the cause
of humanity.
[10] A lady of high rank, who happened to live for some time in
the same convent at Paris, where Josephine was also a pensioner
or boarder, heard her mention the prophecy, and told it herself
to the author, just about the time of the Italian expedition,
when Bonaparte was beginning to attract notice. Another clause
is usually added to the prediction--that the party whom it
concerned should die in an hospital, which was afterwards
explained as referring to Malmaison. This the author did not
hear from the same authority. The lady mentioned used to speak
in the highest terms of the simple manners and great kindness
of Madame Beauharnois.
They were married 9th of March, 1796; and the dowry of the bride was the
chief command of the Italian armies, a scene which opened a full career
to the ambition of the youthful general. Bonaparte remained with his
wife only three days after his marriage, hastened to see his family, who
were still at Marseilles, and, having enjoyed the pleasure of exhibiting
himself as a favourite of fortune in the city which he had lately left
in the capacity of an indigent adventurer, proceeded rapidly to commence
the career to which fate called him, by placing himself at the head of
the Italian army.
The renowned Italian campaigns occupy the remainder of the third, and
some part of the fourth volume, to which we now proceed. It will be
remembered that the war in Egypt being triumphantly concluded on the
part of Great Britain, the news of the contest reached France some time
before the English received it. Napoleon, on learning the tidings, is
reported to have said, "Well, there remains now no alternative but to
make the descent on Britain."
PROPOSED INVASION OF GREAT BRITAIN.
As the words of the first consul appeard to intimate, preparations were
resumed on the French coast for the invasion of Great Britain. Boulogne
and every harbour along the coast was crowded with flat-bottomed boats,
and the shores covered with camps of the men designed apparently to fill
them. We need not at present dwell on the preparations for attack, or
those which the English adopted in defence, as we shall have occasion to
notice both, when Bonaparte, for the last time, threatened England with
the same measure. It is enough to say, that, on the present occasion,
the menaces of France had their usual effect in awakening the spirit
of Britain.
The most extensive arrangements were made for the reception of the
invaders should they chance to land, and in the meanwhile, our natural
barrier was not neglected. The naval preparations were very great, and
what gave yet more confidence than the number of vessels and guns,
Nelson was put into command of the sea, from Orfordness to Beachy-head.
Under his management, it soon became the question, not whether the
French flotilla was to invade the British shores, but whether it was to
remain in safety in the French harbours. Boulogne was bombarded, and
some of the small craft and gun-boats destroyed--the English admiral
generously sparing the town; and not satisfied with this partial
success, Nelson prepared to attack them with the boats of the squadron.
The French resorted to the most unusual and formidable preparations for
defence. Their flotilla was moored close to the shore in the mouth of
Boulogne harbour, the vessels secured to each other by chains, and
filled with soldiers. The British attack in some degree failed, owing to
the several divisions of boats missing each other in the dark; some
French vessels were taken, but they could not be brought off; and the
French chose to consider this result as a victory, on their part, of
consequence enough to balance the loss at Aboukir;--though it amounted
at best to ascertaining, that although their vessels could not keep the
sea, they might, in some comparative degree of safety, lie under close
cover of their own batteries.
The preliminaries of peace, however, were signed, and the treaty was
confirmed at Amiens, on the 27th of March, 1802. Napoleon still
prosecuted his ambitious projects, extended his power in Italy, and
caused himself to be appointed consul for life, with the power of naming
his successor.
SCHEME OF INVASION RENEWED.
It must be in the memory of most who recollect the period, that the
kingdom of Great Britain was seldom less provided against invasion than
at the commencement of this second war; and that an embarkation from the
ports of Holland, if undertaken instantly after the war had broken out,
might have escaped our blockading squadrons, and have at least shown
what a French army could have done on British ground, at a moment when
the alarm was general, and the country in an unprepared state. But it
is probable that Bonaparte himself was as much unprovided as England
for the sudden breach of the treaty of Amiens--an event brought about
more by the influence of passion than of policy; so that its
consequences were as unexpected in his calculations as in those of Great
Britain. Besides, he had not diminished to himself the dangers of the
undertaking, by which he must have staked his military renown, his
power, which he held chiefly as the consequence of his reputation,
perhaps his life, upon a desperate game, which, though he had already
twice contemplated it, he had not yet found hardihood enough seriously
to enter upon.
He now, however, at length bent himself, with the whole strength of his
mind, and the whole force of his empire, to prepare for this final and
decisive undertaking. The gun-boats in the Bay of Gibraltar, where calms
are frequent, had sometimes in the course of the former war been able to
do considerable damage to the English vessels of war, when they could
not use their sails. Such small craft, therefore, were supposed the
proper force for covering the intended descent. They were built in
different harbours, and brought together by crawling along the French
shore, and keeping under the protection of the batteries, which were now
established on every cape, almost as if the sea-coast of the channel on
the French side had been the lines of a besieged city, no one point of
which could with prudence be left undefended by cannon. Boulogne was
pitched upon as the centre port, from which the expedition was to sail.
By incredible exertions, Bonaparte had rendered its harbour and roads
capable of containing two thousand vessels of various descriptions. The
smaller sea-ports of Vimereux, Ambleteuse, and Etaples, Dieppe, Havre,
St. Valeri, Caen, Gravelines, and Dunkirk, were likewise filled with
shipping. Flushing and Ostend were occupied by a separate flotilla.
Brest, Toulon, and Rochefort, were each the station of as strong a naval
squadron as France, had still the means to send to sea.
A land army was assembled of the most formidable description, whether we
regard the high military character of the troops, the extent and
perfection of their appointments, or their numerical strength. |
10,240 |
Produced by David Widger
LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI
BY MARK TWAIN
Part 1.
THE 'BODY OF THE NATION'
BUT the basin of the Mississippi is the BODY OF THE NATION. All the
other parts are but members, important in themselves, yet more important
in their relations to this. Exclusive of the Lake basin and of 300,000
square miles in Texas and New Mexico, which in many aspects form a part
of it, this basin contains about 1,250,000 square miles. In extent it
is the second great valley of the world, being exceeded only by that of
the Amazon. The valley of the frozen Obi approaches it in extent; that
of La Plata comes next in space, and probably in habitable capacity,
having about eight-ninths of its area; then comes that of the Yenisei,
with about seven-ninths; the Lena, Amoor, Hoang-ho, Yang-tse-kiang, and
Nile, five-ninths; the Ganges, less than one-half; the Indus, less than
one-third; the Euphrates, one-fifth; the Rhine, one-fifteenth. It
exceeds in extent the whole of Europe, exclusive of Russia, Norway, and
Sweden. IT WOULD CONTAIN AUSTRIA FOUR TIMES, GERMANY OR SPAIN FIVE
TIMES, FRANCE SIX TIMES, THE BRITISH ISLANDS OR ITALY TEN TIMES.
Conceptions formed from the river-basins of Western Europe are rudely
shocked when we consider the extent of the valley of the Mississippi;
nor are those formed from the sterile basins of the great rivers of
Siberia, the lofty plateaus of Central Asia, or the mighty sweep of the
swampy Amazon more adequate. Latitude, elevation, and rainfall all
combine to render every part of the Mississippi Valley capable of
supporting a dense population. AS A DWELLING-PLACE FOR CIVILIZED MAN IT
IS BY FAR THE FIRST UPON OUR GLOBE.
EDITOR'S TABLE, HARPER'S MAGAZINE, FEBRUARY 1863
Chapter 1 The River and Its History
THE Mississippi is well worth reading about. It is not a commonplace
river, but on the contrary is in all ways remarkable. Considering the
Missouri its main branch, it is the longest river in the world--four
thousand three hundred miles. It seems safe to say that it is also the
crookedest river in the world, since in one part of its journey it uses
up one thousand three hundred miles to cover the same ground that the
crow would fly over in six hundred and seventy-five. It discharges three
times as much water as the St. Lawrence, twenty-five times as much as
the Rhine, and three hundred and thirty-eight times as much as the
Thames. No other river has so vast a drainage-basin: it draws its water
supply from twenty-eight States and Territories; from Delaware, on the
Atlantic seaboard, and from all the country between that and Idaho on
the Pacific <DW72>--a spread of forty-five degrees of longitude. The
Mississippi receives and carries to the Gulf water from fifty-four
subordinate rivers that are navigable by steamboats, and from some
hundreds that are navigable by flats and keels. The area of its
drainage-basin is as great as the combined areas of England, Wales,
Scotland, Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria, Italy, and
Turkey; and almost all this wide region is fertile; the Mississippi
valley, proper, is exceptionally so.
It is a remarkable river in this: that instead of widening toward its
mouth, it grows narrower; grows narrower and deeper. From the junction
of the Ohio to a point half way down to the sea, the width averages a
mile in high water: thence to the sea the width steadily diminishes,
until, at the 'Passes,' above the mouth, it is but little over half a
mile. At the junction of the Ohio the Mississippi's depth is eighty-
seven feet; the depth increases gradually, reaching one hundred and
twenty-nine just above the mouth.
The difference in rise and fall is also remarkable--not in the upper,
but in the lower river. The rise is tolerably uniform down to Natchez
(three hundred and sixty miles above the mouth)--about fifty feet. But
at Bayou La Fourche the river rises only twenty-four feet; at New
Orleans only fifteen, and just above the mouth only two and one half.
An article in the New Orleans 'Times-Democrat,' based upon reports of
able engineers, states that the river annually empties four hundred and
six million tons of mud into the Gulf of Mexico--which brings to mind
Captain Marryat's rude name for the Mississippi--'the Great Sewer.' This
mud, solidified, would make a mass a mile square and two hundred and
forty-one feet high.
The mud deposit gradually extends the land--but only gradually; it has
extended it not quite a third of a mile in the two hundred years which
have elapsed since the river took its place in history. The belief of
the scientific people is, that the mouth used to be at Baton Rouge,
where the hills cease, and that the two hundred miles of land between
there and the Gulf was built by the river. This gives us the age of that
piece of country, without any trouble at all--one hundred and twenty
thousand years. Yet it is much the youthfullest batch of country that
lies around there anywhere.
The Mississippi is remarkable in still another way--its disposition to
make prodigious jumps by cutting through narrow necks of land, and thus
straightening and shortening itself. More than once it has shortened
itself thirty miles at a single jump! These cut-offs have had curious
effects: they have thrown several river towns out into the rural
districts, and built up sand bars and forests in front of them. The town
of Delta used to be three miles below Vicksburg: a recent cutoff has
radically changed the position, and Delta is now TWO MILES ABOVE
Vicksburg.
Both of these river towns have been retired to the country by that cut-
off. A cut-off plays havoc with boundary lines and jurisdictions: for
instance, a man is living in the State of Mississippi to-day, a cut-off
occurs to-night, and to-morrow the man finds himself and his land over
on the other side of the river, within the boundaries and subject to the
laws of the State of Louisiana! Such a thing, happening in the upper
river in the old times, could have transferred a slave from Missouri to
Illinois and made a free man of him.
The Mississippi does not alter its locality by cut-offs alone: it is
always changing its habitat BODILY--is always moving bodily SIDEWISE. At
Hard Times, La., the river is two miles west of the region it used to
occupy. As a result, the original SITE of that settlement is not now in
Louisiana at all, but on the other side of the river, in the State of
Mississippi. NEARLY THE WHOLE OF THAT ONE THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED MILES
OF OLD MISSISSIPPI RIVER WHICH LA SALLE FLOATED DOWN IN HIS CANOES, TWO
HUNDRED YEARS AGO, IS GOOD SOLID DRY GROUND NOW. The river lies to the
right of it, in places, and to the left of it in other places.
Although the Mississippi's mud builds land but slowly, down at the
mouth, where the Gulfs billows interfere with its work, it builds fast
enough in better protected regions higher up: for instance, Prophet's
Island contained one thousand five hundred acres of land thirty years
ago; since then the river has added seven hundred acres to it.
But enough of these examples of the mighty stream's eccentricities for
the present--I will give a few more of them further along in the book.
Let us drop the Mississippi's physical history, and say a word about its
historical history--so to speak. We can glance briefly at its slumbrous
first epoch in a couple of short chapters; at its second and wider-awake
epoch in a couple more; at its flushest and widest-awake epoch in a good
many succeeding chapters; and then talk about its comparatively tranquil
present epoch in what shall be left of the book.
The world and the books are so accustomed to use, and over-use, the word
'new' in connection with our country, that we early get and permanently
retain the impression that there is nothing old about it. We do of
course know that there are several comparatively old dates in American
history, but the mere figures convey to our minds no just idea, no
distinct realization, of the stretch of time which they represent. To
say that De Soto, the first white man who ever saw the Mississippi
River, saw it in 1542, is a remark which states a fact without
interpreting it: it is something like giving the dimensions of a sunset
by astronomical measurements, and cataloguing the colors by their
scientific names;--as a result, you get the bald fact of the sunset, but
you don't see the sunset. It would have been better to paint a picture
of it.
The date 1542, standing by itself, means little or nothing to us; but
when one groups a few neighboring historical dates and facts around it,
he adds perspective and color, and then realizes that this is one of the
American dates which is quite respectable for age.
For instance, when the Mississippi was first seen by a white man, less
than a quarter of a century had elapsed since Francis I.'s defeat at
Pavia; the death of Raphael; the death of Bayard, SANS PEUR ET SANS
REPROCHE; the driving out of the Knights-Hospitallers from Rhodes by the
Turks; and the placarding of the Ninety-Five Propositions,--the act
which began the Reformation. When De Soto took his glimpse of the
river, Ignatius Loyola was an obscure name; the order of the Jesuits was
not yet a year old; Michael Angelo's paint was not yet dry on the Last
Judgment in the Sistine Chapel; Mary Queen of Scots was not yet born,
but would be before the year closed. Catherine de Medici was a child;
Elizabeth of England was not yet in her teens; Calvin, Benvenuto
Cellini, and the Emperor Charles V. were at the top of their fame, and
each was manufacturing history after his own peculiar fashion; Margaret
of Navarre was writing the 'Heptameron' and some religious books,--the
first survives, the others are forgotten, wit and indelicacy being
sometimes better literature preservers than holiness; lax court morals
and the absurd chivalry business were in full feather, and the joust and
the tournament were the frequent pastime of titled fine gentlemen who
could fight better than they could spell, while religion was the passion
of their ladies, and classifying their offspring into children of full
rank and children by brevet their pastime. In fact, all around, religion
was in a peculiarly blooming condition: the Council of Trent was being
called; the Spanish Inquisition was roasting, and racking, and burning,
with a free hand; elsewhere on the continent the nations were being
persuaded to holy living by the sword and fire; in England, Henry VIII.
had suppressed the monasteries, burnt Fisher and another bishop or two,
and was getting his English reformation and his harem effectively
started. When De Soto stood on the banks of the Mississippi, it was
still two years before Luther's death; eleven years before the burning
of Servetus; thirty years before the St. Bartholomew slaughter; Rabelais
was not yet published; 'Don Quixote' was not yet written; Shakespeare
was not yet born; a hundred long years must still elapse before
Englishmen would hear the name of Oliver Cromwell.
Unquestionably the discovery of the Mississippi is a datable fact which
considerably mellows and modifies the shiny newness of our country, and
gives her a most respectable outside-aspect of rustiness and antiquity.
De Soto merely glimpsed the river, then died and was buried in it by his
priests and soldiers. One would expect the priests and the soldiers to
multiply the river's dimensions by ten--the Spanish custom of the day--
and thus move other adventurers to go at once and explore it. On the
contrary, their narratives when they reached home, did not excite that
amount of curiosity. The Mississippi was left unvisited by whites during
a term of years which seems incredible in our energetic days. One may
'sense' the interval to his mind, after a fashion, by dividing it up in
this way: After De Soto glimpsed the river, a fraction short of a
quarter of a century elapsed, and then Shakespeare was born; lived a
trifle more than half a century, then died; and when he had been in his
grave considerably more than half a century, the SECOND white man saw
the Mississippi. In our day we don't allow a hundred and thirty years to
elapse between glimpses of a marvel. If somebody should discover a
creek in the county next to the one that the North Pole is in, Europe
and America would start fifteen costly expeditions thither: one to
explore the creek, and the other fourteen to hunt for each other.
For more than a hundred and fifty years there had been white settlements
on our Atlantic coasts. These people were in intimate communication
with the Indians: in the south the Spaniards were robbing,
slaughtering, enslaving and converting them; higher up, the English were
trading beads and blankets to them for a consideration, and throwing in
civilization and whiskey, 'for lagniappe;' and in Canada the French were
schooling them in a rudimentary way, missionarying among them, and
drawing whole populations of them at a time to Quebec, and later to
Montreal, to buy furs of them. Necessarily, then, these various
clusters of whites must have heard of the great river of the far west;
and indeed, they did hear of it vaguely,--so vaguely and indefinitely,
that its course, proportions, and locality were hardly even guessable.
The mere mysteriousness of the matter ought to have fired curiosity and
compelled exploration; but this did not occur. Apparently nobody
happened to want such a river, nobody needed it, nobody was curious
about it; so, for a century and a half the Mississippi remained out of
the market and undisturbed. When De Soto found it, he was not hunting
for a river, and had no present occasion for one; consequently he did
not value it or even take any particular notice of it.
But at last La Salle the Frenchman conceived the idea of seeking out
that river and exploring it. It always happens that when a man seizes
upon a neglected and important idea, people inflamed with the same
notion crop up all around. It happened so in this instance.
Naturally the question suggests itself, Why did these people want the
river now when nobody had wanted it in the five preceding generations?
Apparently it was because at this late day they thought they had
discovered a way to make it useful; for it had come to be believed that
the Mississippi emptied into the Gulf of California, and therefore
afforded a short cut from Canada to China. Previously the supposition
had been that it emptied into the Atlantic, or Sea of Virginia.
Chapter 2 The River and Its Explorers
LA SALLE himself sued for certain high privileges, and they were
graciously accorded him by Louis XIV of inflated memory. Chief among
them was the privilege to explore, far and wide, and build forts, and
stake out continents, and hand the same over to the king, and pay the
expenses himself; receiving, in return, some little advantages of one
sort or another; among them the monopoly of buffalo hides. He spent
several years and about all of his money, in making perilous and painful
trips between Montreal and a fort which he had built on the Illinois,
before he at last succeeded in getting his expedition in such a shape
that he could strike for the Mississippi.
And meantime other parties had had better fortune. In 1673 Joliet the
merchant, and Marquette the priest, crossed the country and reached the
banks of the Mississippi. They went by way of the Great Lakes; and from
Green Bay, in canoes, by way of Fox River and the Wisconsin. Marquette
had solemnly contracted, on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, that
if the Virgin would permit him to discover the great river, he would
name it Conception, in her honor. He kept his word. In that day, all
explorers traveled with an outfit of priests. De Soto had twenty-four
with him. La Salle had several, also. The expeditions were often out of
meat, and scant of clothes, but they always had the furniture and other
requisites for the mass; they were always prepared, as one of the quaint
chroniclers of the time phrased it, to 'explain hell to the savages.'
On the 17th of June, 1673, the canoes of Joliet and Marquette and their
five subordinates reached the junction of the Wisconsin with the
Mississippi. Mr. Parkman says: 'Before them a wide and rapid current
coursed athwart their way, by the foot of lofty heights wrapped thick in
forests.' He continues: 'Turning southward, they paddled down the
stream, through a solitude unrelieved by the faintest trace of man.'
A big cat-fish collided with Marquette's canoe, and startled him; and
reasonably enough, for he had been warned by the Indians that he was on
a foolhardy journey, and even a fatal one, for the river contained a
demon 'whose roar could be heard at a great distance, and who would
engulf them in the abyss where he dwelt.' I have seen a Mississippi cat-
fish that was more than six feet long, and weighed two hundred and fifty
pounds; and if Marquette's fish was the fellow to that one, he had a
fair right to think the river's roaring demon was come.
'At length the buffalo began to appear, grazing in herds on the great
prairies which then bordered the river; and Marquette describes the
fierce and stupid look of the old bulls as they stared at the intruders
through the tangled mane which nearly blinded them.'
The voyagers moved cautiously: 'Landed at night and made a fire to cook
their evening meal; then extinguished it, embarked again, paddled some
way farther, and anchored in the stream, keeping a man on the watch till
morning.'
They did this day after day and night after night; and at the end of two
weeks they had not seen a human being. The river was an awful solitude,
then. And it is now, over most of its stretch.
But at the close of the fortnight they one day came upon the footprints
of men in the mud of the western bank--a Robinson Crusoe experience
which carries an electric shiver with it yet, when one stumbles on it in
print. They had been warned that the river Indians were as ferocious
and pitiless as the river demon, and destroyed all comers without
waiting for provocation; but no matter, Joliet and Marquette struck into
the country to hunt up the proprietors of the tracks. They found them,
by and by, and were hospitably received and well treated--if to be
received by an Indian chief who has taken off his last rag in order to
appear at his level best is to be received hospitably; and if to be
treated abundantly to fish, porridge, and other game, including dog, and
have these things forked into one's mouth by the ungloved fingers of
Indians is to be well treated. In the morning the chief and six hundred
of his tribesmen escorted the Frenchmen to the river and bade them a
friendly farewell.
On the rocks above the present city of Alton they found some rude and
fantastic Indian paintings, which they describe. A short distance below
'a torrent of yellow mud rushed furiously athwart the calm blue current
of the Mississippi, boiling and surging and sweeping in its course logs,
branches, and uprooted trees.' This was the mouth of the Missouri, 'that
savage river,' which 'descending from its mad career through a vast
unknown of barbarism, poured its turbid floods into the bosom of its
gentle sister.'
By and by they passed the mouth of the Ohio; they passed cane-brakes;
they fought mosquitoes; they floated along, day after day, through the
deep silence and loneliness of the river, drowsing in the scant shade of
makeshift awnings, and broiling with the heat; they encountered and
exchanged civilities with another party of Indians; and at last they
reached the mouth of the Arkansas (about a month out from their
starting-point), where a tribe of war-whooping savages swarmed out to
meet and murder them; but they appealed to the Virgin for help; so in
place of a fight there was a feast, and plenty of pleasant palaver and
fol-de-rol.
They had proved to their satisfaction, that the Mississippi did not
empty into the Gulf of California, or into the Atlantic. They believed
it emptied into the Gulf of Mexico. They turned back, now, and carried
their great news to Canada.
But belief is not proof. It was reserved for La Salle to furnish the
proof. He was provokingly delayed, by one misfortune after another, but
at last got his expedition under way at the end of the year 1681. In
the dead of winter he and Henri de Tonty, son of Lorenzo Tonty, who
invented the tontine, his lieutenant, started down the Illinois, with a
following of eighteen Indians brought from New England, and twenty-three
Frenchmen. They moved in procession down the surface of the frozen
river, on foot, and dragging their canoes after them on sledges.
At Peoria Lake they struck open water, and paddled thence to the
Mississippi and turned their prows southward. They plowed through the
fields of floating ice, past the mouth of the Missouri; past the mouth
of the Ohio, by-and-by; 'and, gliding by the wastes of bordering swamp,
landed on the 24th of February near the Third Chickasaw Bluffs,' where
they halted and built Fort Prudhomme.
'Again,' says Mr. Parkman, 'they embarked; and with every stage of their
adventurous progress, the mystery of this vast new world was more and
more unveiled. More and more they entered the realms of spring. The
hazy sunlight, the warm and drowsy air, the tender foliage, the opening
flowers, betokened the reviving life of nature.'
Day by day they floated down the great bends, in the shadow of the dense
forests, and in time arrived at the mouth of the Arkansas. First, they
were greeted by the natives of this locality as Marquette had before
been greeted by them--with the booming of the war drum and the flourish
of arms. The Virgin composed the difficulty in Marquette's case; the
pipe of peace did the same office for La Salle. The white man and the
red man struck hands and entertained each other during three days.
Then, to the admiration of the savages, La Salle set up a cross with the
arms of France on it, and took possession of the whole country for the
king--the cool fashion of the time--while the priest piously consecrated
the robbery with a hymn. The priest explained the mysteries of the faith
'by signs,' for the saving of the savages; thus compensating them with
possible possessions in Heaven for the certain ones on earth which they
had just been robbed of. And also, by signs, La Salle drew from these
simple children of the forest acknowledgments of fealty to Louis the
Putrid, over the water. Nobody smiled at these colossal ironies.
These performances took place on the site of the future town of
Napoleon, Arkansas, and there the first confiscation-cross was raised on
the banks of the great river. Marquette's and Joliet's voyage of
discovery ended at the same spot--the site of the future town of
Napoleon. When De Soto took his fleeting glimpse of the river, away back
in the dim early days, he took it from that same spot--the site of the
future town of Napoleon, Arkansas. Therefore, three out of the four
memorable events connected with the discovery and exploration of the
mighty river, occurred, by accident, in one and the same place. It is a
most curious distinction, when one comes to look at it and think about
it. France stole that vast country on that spot, the future Napoleon;
and by and by Napoleon himself was to give the country back again!--make
restitution, not to the owners, but to their white American heirs.
The voyagers journeyed on, touching here and there; 'passed the sites,
since become historic, of Vicksburg and Grand Gulf,' and visited an
imposing Indian monarch in the Teche country, whose capital city was a
substantial one of sun-baked bricks mixed with straw--better houses than
many that exist there now. The chiefs house contained an audience room
forty feet square; and there he received Tonty in State, surrounded by
sixty old men clothed in white cloaks. There was a temple in the town,
with a mud wall about it ornamented with skulls of enemies sacrificed to
the sun.
The voyagers visited the Natchez Indians, near the site of the present
city of that name, where they found a'religious and political
despotism, a privileged class descended from the sun, a temple and a
sacred fire.' It must have been like getting home again; it was home
with an advantage, in fact, for it lacked Louis XIV.
A few more days swept swiftly by, and La Salle stood in the shadow of
his confiscating cross, at the meeting of the waters from Delaware, and
from Itaska, and from the mountain ranges close upon the Pacific, with
the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, his task finished, his prodigy
achieved. Mr. Parkman, in closing his fascinating narrative, thus sums
up:
'On that day, the realm of France received on parchment a stupendous
accession. The fertile plains of Texas; the vast basin of the
Mississippi, from its frozen northern springs to the sultry borders of
the Gulf; from the woody ridges of the Alleghanies to the bare peaks of
the Rocky Mountains--a region of savannas and forests, sun-cracked
deserts and grassy prairies, watered by a thousand rivers, ranged by a
thousand warlike tribes, passed beneath the scepter of the Sultan of
Versailles; and all by virtue of a feeble human voice, inaudible at half
a mile.'
Chapter 3 Frescoes from the Past
APPARENTLY the river was ready for business, now. But no, the
distribution of a population along its banks was as calm and deliberate
and time-devouring a process as the discovery and exploration had been.
Seventy years elapsed, after the exploration, before the river's borders
had a white population worth considering; and nearly fifty more before
the river had a commerce. Between La Salle's opening of the river and
the time when it may be said to have become the vehicle of anything like
a regular and active commerce, seven sovereigns had occupied the throne
of England, America had become an independent nation, Louis XIV. and
Louis XV. had rotted and died, the French monarchy had gone down in the
red tempest of the revolution, and Napoleon was a name that was
beginning to be talked about. Truly, there were snails in those days.
The river's earliest commerce was in great barges--keelboats,
broadhorns. They floated and sailed from the upper rivers to New
Orleans, changed cargoes there, and were tediously warped and poled back
by hand. A voyage down and back sometimes occupied nine months. In time
this commerce increased until it gave employment to hordes of rough and
hardy men; rude, uneducated, brave, suffering terrific hardships with
sailor-like stoicism; heavy drinkers, coarse frolickers in moral sties
like the Natchez-under-the-hill of that day, heavy fighters, reckless
fellows, every one, elephantinely jolly, foul-witted, profane; prodigal
of their money, bankrupt at the end of the trip, fond of barbaric
finery, prodigious braggarts; yet, in the main, honest, trustworthy,
faithful to promises and duty, and often picturesquely magnanimous.
By and by the steamboat intruded. Then for fifteen or twenty years,
these men continued to run their keelboats down-stream, and the steamers
did all of the upstream business, the keelboatmen selling their boats in
New Orleans, and returning home as deck passengers in the steamers.
But after a while the steamboats so increased in number and in speed
that they were able to absorb the entire commerce; and then keelboating
died a permanent death. The keelboatman became a deck hand, or a mate,
or a pilot on the steamer; and when steamer-berths were not open to him,
he took a berth on a Pittsburgh coal-flat, or on a pine-raft constructed
in the forests up toward the sources of the Mississippi.
In the heyday of the steamboating prosperity, the river from end to end
was flaked with coal-fleets and timber rafts, all managed by hand, and
employing hosts of the rough characters whom I have been trying to
describe. I remember the annual processions of mighty rafts that used
to glide by Hannibal when I was a boy,--an acre or so of white, sweet-
smelling boards in each raft, a crew of two dozen men or more, three or
four wigwams scattered about the raft's vast level space for storm-
quarters,--and I remember the rude ways and the tremendous talk of their
big crews, the ex-keelboatmen and their admiringly patterning
successors; for we used to swim out a quarter or third of a mile and get
on these rafts and have a ride.
By way of illustrating keelboat talk and manners, and that now-departed
and hardly-remembered raft-life, I will throw in, in this place, a
chapter from a book which I have been working at, by fits and starts,
during the past five or six years, and may possibly finish in the course
of five or six more. The book is a story which details some passages in
the life of an ignorant village boy, Huck Finn, son of the town drunkard
of my time out west, there. He has run away from his persecuting
father, and from a persecuting good widow who wishes to make a nice,
truth-telling, respectable boy of him; and with him a slave of the
widow's has also escaped. They have found a fragment of a lumber raft
(it is high water and dead summer time), and are floating down the river
by night, and hiding in the willows by day,--bound for Cairo,--whence
the <DW64> will seek freedom in the heart of the free States. But in a
fog, they pass Cairo without knowing it. By and by they begin to suspect
the truth, and Huck Finn is persuaded to end the dismal suspense by
swimming down to a huge raft which they have seen in the distance ahead
of them, creeping aboard under cover of the darkness, and gathering the
needed information by eavesdropping:--
But you know a young person can't wait very well when he is impatient to
find a thing out. We talked it over, and by and by Jim said it was such
a black night, now, that it wouldn't be no risk to swim down to the big
raft and crawl aboard and listen--they would talk about Cairo, because
they would be calculating to go ashore there for a spree, maybe, or
anyway they would send boats ashore to buy whiskey or fresh meat or
something. Jim had a wonderful level head, for a <DW65>: he could most
always start a good plan when you wanted one.
I stood up and shook my rags off and jumped into the river, and struck
out for the raft's light. By and by, when I got down nearly to her, I
eased up and went slow and cautious. But everything was all right--
nobody at the sweeps. So I swum down along the raft till I was most
abreast the camp fire in the middle, then I crawled aboard and inched
along and got in amongst some bundles of shingles on the weather side of
the fire. There was thirteen men there--they was the watch on deck of
course. And a mighty rough-looking lot, too. They had a jug, and tin
cups, and they kept the jug moving. One man was singing--roaring, you
may say; and it wasn't a nice song--for a parlor anyway. He roared
through his nose, and strung out the last word of every line very long.
When he was done they all fetched a kind of Injun war-whoop, and then
another was sung. It begun:--
'There was a woman in our towdn, In our towdn did dwed'l (dwell,) She
loved her husband dear-i-lee, But another man twyste as wed'l.
Singing too, riloo, riloo, riloo, Ri-too, riloo, rilay - - - e, She
loved her husband dear-i-lee, But another man twyste as wed'l.
And so on--fourteen verses. It was kind of poor, and when he was going
to start on the next verse one of them said it was the tune the old cow
died on; and another one said, 'Oh, give us a rest.' And another one
told him to take a walk. They made fun of him till he got mad and
jumped up and begun to cuss the crowd, and said he could lame any thief
in the lot.
They was all about to make a break for him, but the biggest man there
jumped up and says--
'Set whar you are, gentlemen. Leave him to me; he's my meat.'
Then he jumped up in the air three times and cracked his heels together
every time. He flung off a buckskin coat that was all hung with
fringes, and says, 'You lay thar tell the chawin-up's done;' and flung
his hat down, which was all over ribbons, and says, 'You lay thar tell
his sufferin's is over.'
Then he jumped up in the air and cracked his heels together again and
shouted out--
'Whoo-oop! I'm the old original iron-jawed, brass-mounted, copper-
bellied corpse-maker from the wilds of Arkansaw!--Look at me! I'm the
man they call Sudden Death and General Desolation! Sired by a hurricane,
dam'd by an earthquake, half-brother to the cholera, nearly related to
the small-pox on the mother's side! Look at me! I take nineteen
alligators and a bar'l of whiskey for breakfast when I'm in robust
health, and a bushel of rattlesnakes and a dead body when I'm ailing! I
split the everlasting rocks with my glance, and I squench the thunder
when I speak! Whoo-oop! Stand back and give me room according to my
strength! Blood's my natural drink, and the wails of the dying is music
to my ear! Cast your eye on me, gentlemen!--and lay low and hold your
breath, for I'm bout to turn myself loose!'
All the time he was getting this off, he was shaking his head and
looking fierce, and kind of swelling around in a little circle, tucking
up his wrist-bands, and now and then straightening up and beating his
breast with his fist, saying, 'Look at me, gentlemen!' When he got
through, he jumped up and cracked his heels together three times, and
let off a roaring 'Whoo-oop! I'm the bloodiest son of a wildcat that
lives!'
Then the man that had started the row tilted his old slouch hat down
over his right eye; then he bent stooping forward, with his back sagged
and his south end sticking out far, and his fists a-shoving out and
drawing in in front of him, and so went around in a little circle about
three times, swelling himself up and breathing hard. Then he
straightened, and jumped up and cracked his heels together three times,
before he lit again (that made them cheer), and he begun to shout like
this--
'Whoo-oop! bow your neck and spread, for the kingdom of sorrow's a-
coming! Hold me down to the earth, for I feel my powers a-working! whoo-
oop! I'm a child of sin, don't let me get a start! Smoked glass, here,
for all! Don't attempt to look at me with the naked eye, gentlemen!
When I'm playful I use the meridians of longitude and parallels of
latitude for a seine, and drag the Atlantic Ocean for whales! I scratch
my head with the lightning, and purr myself to sleep with the thunder!
When I'm cold, I bile the Gulf of Mexico and bathe in it; when I'm hot I
fan myself with an equinoctial storm; when I'm thirsty I reach up and
suck a cloud dry like a sponge; when I range the earth hungry, famine
follows in my tracks! Whoo-oop! Bow your neck and spread! I put my hand
on the sun's face and make it night in the earth; I bite a piece out of
the moon and hurry the seasons; I shake myself and crumble the
mountains! Contemplate me through leather--don't use the naked eye! I'm
the man with a petrified heart and biler-iron bowels! The massacre of
isolated communities is the pastime of my idle moments, the destruction
of nationalities the serious business of my life! The boundless vastness
of the great American desert is my enclosed property, and I bury my dead
on my own premises!' He jumped up and cracked his heels together three
times before he lit (they cheered him again), and as he come down he
shouted out: 'Whoo-oop! bow your neck and spread, for the pet child of
calamity's a-coming! '
Then the other one went to swelling around and blowing again--the first
one--the one they called Bob; next, the Child of Calamity chipped in
again, bigger than ever; then they both got at it at the same time,
swelling round and round each other and punching their fists most into
each other's faces, and whooping and jawing like Injuns; then Bob called
the Child names, and the Child called him names back again: next, Bob
called him a heap rougher names and the Child come back at him with the
very worst kind of language; next, Bob knocked the Child's hat off, and
the Child picked it up and kicked Bob's ribbony hat about six foot; Bob
went and got it and said never mind, this warn't going to be the last of
this thing, because he was a man that never forgot and never forgive,
and so the Child better look out, for there was a time a-coming, just as
sure as he was a living man, that he would have to answer to him with
the best blood in his body. The Child said no man was willinger than he
was for that time to come, and he would give Bob fair warning, now,
never to cross his path again, for he could never rest till he had waded
in his blood, for such was his nature, though he was sparing him now on
account of his family, if he had one.
Both of them was edging away in different directions, growling and
shaking their heads and going on about what they was going to do; but a
little black-whiskered chap skipped up and says--
'Come back here, you couple of chicken-livered cowards, and I'll thrash
the two of ye!'
And he done it, too. He snatched them, he jerked them this way and
that, he booted them around, he knocked them sprawling faster than they
could get up. Why, it warn't two minutes till they begged like dogs--
and how the other lot did yell and laugh and clap their hands all the
way through, and shout 'Sail in, Corpse-Maker!' 'Hi! at him again, Child
of Calamity!' 'Bully for you, little Davy!' Well, it was a perfect pow-
wow for a while. Bob and the Child had red noses and black eyes when
they got through. Little Davy made them own up that they were sneaks and
cowards and not fit to eat with a dog or drink with a <DW65>; then Bob
and the Child shook hands with each other, very solemn, and said they
had always respected each other and was willing to let bygones be
bygones. So then they washed their faces in the river; and just then
there was a loud order to stand by for a crossing, and some of them went
forward to man the sweeps there, and the rest went aft to handle the
after-sweeps.
I laid still and waited for fifteen minutes, and had a smoke out of a
pipe that one of them left in reach; then the crossing was finished, and
they stumped back and had a drink around and went to talking and singing
again. Next they got out an old fiddle, and one played and another
patted juba, and the rest turned themselves loose on a regular old-
fashioned keel-boat break-down. They couldn't keep that up very long
without getting winded, so by and by they settled around the jug again.
They sung 'jolly, jolly raftman's the life for me,' with a musing
chorus, and then they got to talking about differences betwixt hogs, and
their different kind of habits; and next about women and their different
ways: and next about the best ways to put out houses that was afire;
and next about what ought to be done with the Injuns; and next about
what a king had to do, and how much he got; and next about how to make
cats fight; and next about what to do when a man has fits; and next
about differences betwixt clear-water rivers and muddy-water ones. The
man they called Ed said the muddy Mississippi water was wholesomer to
drink than the clear water of the Ohio; he said if you let a pint of
this yaller Mississippi water settle, you would have about a half to
three-quarters of an inch of mud in the bottom, according to the stage
of the river, and then it warn't no better than Ohio water--what you
wanted to do was to keep it stirred up--and when the river was low, keep
mud on hand to put in and thicken the water up the way it ought to be.
The Child of Calamity said that was so; he said there was nutritiousness
in the mud, and a man that drunk Mississippi water could grow corn in
his stomach if he wanted to. He says--
'You look at the graveyards; that tells the tale. Trees won't grow
worth chucks in a Cincinnati graveyard, but in a Sent Louis graveyard
they grow upwards of eight hundred foot high. It's all on account of the
water the people drunk before they laid up. A Cincinnati corpse don't
richen a soil any.'
And they talked about how Ohio water didn't like to mix with Mississippi
water. Ed said if you take the Mississippi on a rise when the Ohio is
low, you'll find a wide band of clear water all the way down the east
side of the Mississippi for a hundred mile or more, and the minute you
get out a quarter of a mile from shore and pass the line, it is all
thick and yaller the rest of the way across. Then they talked about how
to keep tobacco from getting moldy, and from that they went into ghosts
and told about a lot that other folks had seen; but Ed says--
'Why don't you tell something that you've seen yourselves? Now let me
have a say. Five years ago I was on a raft as big as this, and right
along here it was a bright moonshiny night, and I was on watch and boss
of the stabboard oar forrard, and one of my pards was a man named Dick
Allbright, and he come along to where I was sitting, forrard--gaping and
stretching, he was--and stooped down on the edge of the raft and washed
his face in the river, and come and set down by me and got out his pipe,
and had just got it filled, when he looks up and says--
'"Why looky-here," he says, "ain't that Buck Miller's place, over yander
in the bend."
'"Yes," says I, "it is--why." He laid his pipe down and leant his head
on his hand, and says--
'"I thought we'd be furder down." I says--
'"I thought it too, when I went off watch"--we was standing six hours on
and six off--"but the boys told me," I says, "that the raft didn't seem
to hardly move, for the last hour," says I, "though she's a slipping
along all right, now," says I. He give a kind of a groan, and says--
'"I've seed a raft act so before, along here," he says, "'pears to me
the current has most quit above the head of this bend durin' the last
two years," he says.
'Well, he raised up two or three times, and looked away off and around
on the water. That started me at it, too. A body is always doing what
he sees somebody else doing, though there mayn't be no sense in it.
Pretty soon I see a black something floating on the water away off to
stabboard and quartering behind us. I see he was looking at it, too. I
says--
'"What's that?" He says, sort of pettish,--
'"Tain't nothing but an old empty bar'l."
'"An empty bar'l!" says I, "why," says I, "a spy-glass is a fool to your
eyes. |
10,240 |
Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Clare Boothby and PG
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Waltoniana
INEDITED REMAINS IN VERSE AND
PROSE OF IZAAK WALTON
AUTHOR OF THE COMPLETE ANGLER
_WITH NOTES AND PREFACE_
BY
RICHARD HERNE SHEPHERD
LONDON
1878
CONTENTS.
1633. I. An Elegie upon Dr. Donne.
1635. II. Lines on a Portrait of Donne.
1638. III. Commendatory Verses prefixed to The Merchants Mappe of
Commerce.
1645. IV. Preface to Quarles' Shepherds Oracles.
1650. V. Couplet on Dr. Richard Sibbes.
1651. VI. Dedication of Reliquiae Wottonianae.
VII. On the Death of William Cartwright.
1652. VIII. Preface to Sir John Skeffington's Heroe of Lorenzo.
IX. Commendatory Verses to the Author of Scintillula Altaris.
1658. X. Dedication of the Life of Donne and Advertisement to the
Reader.
1660. XI. Daman and Dorus: An humble Eglog.
1661. XII. To my Reverend Friend the Author of The Synagogue.
1662. XIII. Epitaph on his Second Wife, Anne Ken.
1670. XIV. Letter to Edward Ward.
1672. XV. Dedication of the Third Edition of Reliquiae Wottonianae.
1673. XVI. Letter to Marriott.
1678. XVII. Preface &c. to Thealma & Clearchus.
1680. XVIII. Letter to John Aubrey.
1683. XIX. Izaak Walton's Last Will and Testament.
PREFACE.
Few men who have written books have been able to win so large a share of
the personal affection of their readers as honest Izaak Walton has done,
and few books are laid down with so genuine a feeling of regret as the
"Complete Angler" certainly is, that they are no longer. "One of the
gentlest and tenderest spirits of the seventeenth century," we all know
his dear old face, with its cheerful, happy, serene look, and we should
all have liked to accompany him on one of those angling excursions from
Tottenham High Cross, and to have listened to the quaint, garrulous,
sportive talk, the outcome of a religion which was like his homely garb,
not too good for every-day wear. We see him, now diligent in his business,
now commemorating the virtues of that cluster of scholars and churchmen
with whose friendship he was favoured in youth, and teaching his young
brother-in-law, Thomas Ken, to walk in their saintly footsteps,--now
busy with his rod and line, or walking and talking with a friend, staying
now and then to quaff an honest glass at a wayside ale-house--leading a
simple, cheerful, blameless life
"Thro' near a century of pleasant years."[1]
We have said that the reader regrets that Walton should have left so
little behind him: his "Angler" and his Lives are all that is known to
most. But we are now enabled to present those who love his memory with
a collection of fugitive pieces, in verse and prose, extending in date
of composition over a period of fifty years,--beginning with the Elegy
on Donne, in 1633, and terminating only with his death in 1683. All these,
however unambitious, are more or less characteristic of the man, and
impregnated with the same spirit of genial piety that distinguishes the
two well-known books to which they form a supplement.
Walton's devotion to literature must have begun at an early age; for in
a little poem, entitled _The Love of Amos and Laura_, published in 1619,
when he was only twenty-six, and attributed variously to Samuel Purchas,
author of "The Pilgrims," and to Samuel Page, we find the following
dedication to him:--
"TO MY APPROVED AND MUCH RESPECTED FRIEND, IZ. WA.
"To thee, thou more then thrice beloved friend,
I too unworthy of so great a blisse:
These harsh-tun'd lines I here to thee commend,
Thou being cause it is now as it is:
For hadst thou held thy tongue, by silence might
These have beene buried in obliuious night.
"If they were pleasing, I would call them thine,
And disauow my title to the verse:
But being bad, I needes must call them mine.
No ill thing can be cloathed in thy verse.
Accept them then, and where I have offended,
Rase thou it out, and let it be amended.
"S.P." [2]
What poems Walton wrote in his youth, we have now no means of knowing; it
has not been discovered that any have been printed, unless we adopt the
theory advocated by Mr. Singer,[3] and by a writer in the "Retrospective
Review,"[4] that the poem of _Thealma and Clearchus_, which he published
in the last year of his life, as a posthumous fragment of his relation
John Chalkhill, was really a juvenile work of his own. Some plausibility
is lent to this notion by the fact that Walton speaks of the author with
so much reticence and reserve in his preface to the volume, and also that
in introducing two of Chalkhill's songs into the "Complete Angler," he
does not bestow on them the customary words of commendation. This theory
has been rebutted by others, who assert that Walton was of too truthful
and guileless a nature to resort to such an artifice. We confess that we
are unable to see anything dishonest in the adoption, as a pseudonym, of
the name of a deceased friend, or anything more than Walton appears to
have done on another occasion when he published his two letters on "Love
and Truth." It is certain, however, that a family of Chalkhills existed,
with whom Walton was closely connected by his marriage with the sister of
Bishop Ken. But that an "acquaintant and friend of Edmund Spenser,"
capable of writing such a poem as _Thealma and Clearchus_, should have
kept his talents so concealed, that in an age of commendatory verses no
slightest contemporary record of him exists--is, to say the least,
extraordinary. There are cogent arguments then on both sides of the
question, and there is very little positive proof on either: so we must
be content to leave the matter in some doubt and obscurity.
The first production to which our author attached the well-known
signature of "Iz. Wa." was an Elegy on the Death of Dr. Donne, the Dean
of St. Paul's, prefixed to a collection of Donne's Poems. Walton was then
forty years of age. From this time forward we find him more or less
engaged, at not very long intervals, on literary labours, till the very
year of his death.
The care which Walton spent on his productions seems to have been very
great. He wrote and re-wrote, corrected, amended, rescinded, and added.
This very poem--the Elegy on Donne--he completely remodelled in his old
age, when he inserted it in the collection of his Lives. But we have
thought it well to give the original version here as a literary curiosity,
and the first work of his that has come down to us. The original Lives
themselves--especially those of Wotton and Donne--were mere sketches of
what they are in their present enlarged form.
Walton had the good fortune to be thrown very early in life into the
society and intimacy of men who were his superiors in rank and education.
But he had enough of culture, joined to his inherent reverence of mind,
to appreciate and understand all that they had and he wanted.
The preface to Sir John Skeffington's _Heroe of Lorenzo_ had for two
centuries lain forgotten, and escaped the notice of Walton's biographers,
till in 1852 it was discovered by Dr. Bliss of Oxford, and communicated by
him to the late William Pickering.
The original Spanish work was first published in 1630. The author's real
name was not Lorenzo, but Balthazar Gracian, a Jesuit of Aragon, who
flourished during the first half of the seventeenth century, when the
cultivated style took possession of Spanish prose, and rose to its
greatest consideration.[5] It is a collection of short, wise apothegms
and maxims for the conduct of life, sometimes illustrated by stories of
valour, or prowess, or magnanimity, of the old Castilian heroes who figure
in "Count Lucanor." The book, though now no longer read, must have been
very popular at one time, for there exist two or three later English
versions of it, without, however, the nervous concentration of style and
idiomatic diction that characterize the translation sent forth to the
world under Walton's auspices.
The two Letters published in 1680 under the title of Love and Truth,[6]
were written respectively in the years 1668 and 1679. The evidence of
their authorship is twofold, and we think quite conclusive. In one of the
very few copies known to exist, and now in the library of Emanuel College,
Cambridge, its original possessor, Archbishop Sancroft, has written:--"Is.
Walton's 2 letters conc. ye Distemp's of ye Times, 1680," and Dr. Zouch
appended to his reprint of the tract[7] a number of parallel passages
from other acknowledged writings of Walton, of themselves almost
sufficient to fix the question on internal evidence alone.
In the British Museum copy of this tract is the following note on one of
the fly-leaves in the autograph of the late William Pickering:--
"The present is the only copy I have met with after twenty years'
search, excepting the one in Emanuel College, Cambridge. W. Pickering."
The copy described above [_i.e._, the Emanuel College copy] appears to
be the same edition as the present [that now in the British Museum], but
has the following variation. After the title-page is printed
The Author to the Stationer
"Mr. Brome," &c., and the Epistle ends with "Your friend," without the
N.N. which is found in this copy. But what is more remarkable, the printed
word Author is run through, and corrected with a pen, and over it written
_Publisher_, which is evidently in the handwriting of Walton. So Mr.
Pickering further certifies.
The following allusion towards the bottom of p. 37 confirms the idea of
Walton's authorship. Speaking of Hugh Peters and John Lilbourn, the writer
says:--"Their turbulent lives and uncomfortable deaths are not I hope yet
worn out of the memory of many. He that compares them with the holy life
and happy death of Mr. George Herbert, as it is plainly and _I hope truly_
writ by Mr. Isaac Walton, may in it find a perfect pattern for an humble
and devout Christian to imitate," &c.
The following are the chief parallel passages in this pamphlet and in
Walton's other writings, as indicated by Zouch:--
_Second Letter_, _p. 19._ _Life of George Herbert._
I wish as heartily as you Mr. George Herbert having
do that all such Clergy-mens changed his sword and
Wives as have silk Cloaths silk clothes into a canonical
be-daubed with Lace, and coat, thus warned Mrs. Herbert
their heads hanged about against this egregious folly
with painted Ribands, were of _striving for precedency_:--
enjoyned Penance for their "You are now a minister's
pride: And their Husbands wife, and must now so far forget
punisht for being so tame, or your father's house, as not
so lovingly-simple, as to suffer to claim a precedence of any
them; for, by such Cloaths, of your parishioners," &c.
they proclaim their own Ambition,
and their Husbands folly.
And I say the like, concerning
their _striving for Precedency_.
_P. 20._ _Life of George Herbert._
And, I confess also, what One cure for the wickedness
you say of a Clergy-mans of the times would be,
bidding _to fast_ on the Eves of for the clergy themselves
Holy-days, in Lent, and the to keep the Ember-weeks
_Ember Weeks_: And I wish strictly, &c.
those biddings were forborn,
or better practised by themselves.
_P. 20._ _Life of George Herbert._
And, I wish as heartily as Those ministers that huddled
you can, that they would not up the church prayers
only read, but pray, the without a visible reverence
Common Prayer; and not and affection: namely, such
huddle it up so fast (as too as semed to say the Lord's
many do) by getting into a Prayer or collect in a breath.
middle of a second Collect,
before a devout Hearer can
say Amen to the first.
_Preface to Sanderson's XXI
_P. 20._ Sermons, 1655._
And now, having unbowelled But since I had thus adventured
my very soul thus to unbowel myself,
freely to you, &c. and to lay open the very inmost
thoughts of my heart.
_P.21._ _Life of Sanderton._
A Corrosive, or (as _Solomon_ Riches so gotten, and added
says of ill-gotten riches) to his great estate, would
_like gravel in his teeth_. prove _like gravel in his teeth_.
_P. 21._ _Life of Sir H. Wotton._
Those _Bishops and Martyrs_ It was the advice of Sir
that assisted in this Reformation, Henry Wotton, "Take heed
did not (as Sir _Henry Wotton_ of thinking the farther you go
said wisely) think _the farther_ from the Church of Rome,
they went from the Church of Rome, the nearer you are to God."
the nearer they got to heaven.
_P. 23._ _Life of Richard Hooker._
To make the Women, the Here the very women and
Shop-keepers, and the middle- shopkeepers were able to judge
witted People... less of predestination, and determine
busie, and more humble and what laws were fit to
lowly in their own eyes, and be obeyed or abolished.
to think that they are neither
called, nor are fit to meddle
with, and judge of the most
hidden and mysterious points
in _Divinity_, and Government
of the _Church_ and _State_.
_P. 36._ _Life of Sanderson._
I desire you to look back Some years before the unhappy
with me to the beginning of Long Parliament, this
the late Long Parliament nation being then happy and
1640, at which time we in peace.
were the quietest and happiest
people in the Christian World.
To the present Editor the collection and annotation of these Remains has
been a most welcome labour of love. Some of his oldest and most cherished
memories connect themselves with the author of the "Complete Angler." That
book was one of the first that he ever read with real and genuine delight;
and even before reading days commenced, in the earliest dawn of memory,
the place where Walton had cut his familiar signature of "Iz. Wa." on
Chaucer's tomb in Westminster Abbey, was pointed out to him often by a
kindred spirit now here no more. The name of Walton will also be found
enshrined in the earliest prose production[8] to which the Editor
prefixed his own name.
R.H.S.
FOOTNOTES
[1] "Happy old man, whose worth all mankind knows
Except himself, who charitably shows
The ready road to Virtue, and to Praise,
The road to many long, and happy days;
The noble arts of generous piety,
And how to compass true felicity.
----he knows no anxious cares,
Thro' near a Century of pleasant years;
Easy he lives and cheerful shall he die,
Well spoken of by late posterity."
June 5, 1683.
_(Flatman's Commendatory Verses prefixed to "Thealma and Clearchus;"
Poems and Songs by Thomas Flatman, Third Edition.)_
[2] _The Love of Amos and Laura. Written by S.P. London. Printed for
Richard Hawkins, dwelling in Chancery-Lane, neere Serieants Inne,
1619._ Printed at the end of a volume entitled, _Alcilia, Philoparthens
louing Folly, &c._, which, from its being signed at the end with the
initials "J.C.," has been attributed to Walton's friend, John
Chalkhill, whose posthumous poem, _Thealma and Clearchus_, he published
in the last year of his life. The lines to Walton do not appear in the
earlier quarto edition of the book issued by the same publisher in 1613,
or in the later quarto of 1628.
[3] _Thealma and Clearchus; a Pastoral Romance, by John Chalkhill.
First Published by Isaac Walton, 1683. A New Edition. Revised and
Corrected (by S.W. Singer). Chiswick: 1820._
[4] Vol. iv. (1821), pp. 230-249.
[5] Ticknor's _History of Spanish Literature_ (Lond. 1849), vol. iii.
p. 177.
[6] _Love and Truth: / in / Two modest and peaceable / Letters /
concerning / The distempers of the present Times. / Written /
From a quiet and Conformable Citizen of / LONDON, to two busie
and Factious/ Shop-keepers in Coventry./_
1 Pet. 4. 15.
But let none of you suffer as a busiebody in other mens /
matters. /
LONDON, / Printed by _M.C._ for _Henry Brome_ at the Gun /
in St. _Pauls_ Church-yard. 1680.
COLLATION: 4to. pp. iv. (with Title) 40 (Sig. A 1 and 2;
B to E 4).
[7] York, 1795, pp. x. 70.
[8] _The School of Pantagruel_, Sunbury, 1862, p. 9.
* * * * *
AN ELEGIE UPON DR. DONNE.
1633.
[_Juvenilia: or Certaine Paradoxes and Problemes, written by I. Donne.
London, Printed by E.P. for Henry Seyle, and are to be sold at the signe
of the Tygers head, in Saint Pauls Church-yard, Anno Dom_. 1633
(pp. 382-384)._
_Poems, by J.D. with Elegies on the Author's Death. London. Printed by
M.F. for JOHN MARRIOT, and are to be sold at his Shop in St. Dunstans
Church-yard in Fleet-street, 1635._
The text is printed from the revised version of 1635, and the original
readings of 1633 are given at the foot of the page.]
_An Elegie upon_ DR. DONNE.
Our _Donne_ is dead; England should mourne, may say
We had a man where language chose to stay
And shew her gracefull power.[1] I would not praise
That and his vast wit (which in these vaine dayes
Make many proud) but, as they serv'd to unlock
That Cabinet, his minde: where such a stock
Of knowledge was repos'd, as all lament
(Or should) this generall cause of discontent.
And I rejoyce I am not so severe,
But (as I write a line) to weepe a teare
For his decease; Such sad extremities
May make such men as I write Elegies.
And wonder not; for, when a generall losse
Falls on a nation, and they slight the crosse,
God hath rais'd Prophets to awaken them
From stupifaction; witnesse my milde pen,
Not us'd to upbraid the world, though now it must
Freely and boldly, for, the cause is just.
Dull age, Oh I would spare thee, but th'art worse,
Thou art not onely dull, but hast a curse
Of black ingratitude; if not, couldst thou
Part with _miraculous Donne_, and make no vow
For thee, and thine, successively to pay
A sad remembrance to his dying day?
Did his youth scatter _Poetry_, wherein
Was all Philosophy? was every sinne,
Character'd in his _Satyrs_? Made so foule
That some have fear'd their shapes, and kept their soule
Safer by reading verse? Did he give _dayes_
Past marble monuments, to those, whose praise
He would perpetuate? Did he (I feare
The dull will doubt:) these at his twentieth year?
But, more matur'd; Did his full soule conceive,
And in harmonious-holy-numbers weave
A [2]_Crown of sacred sonnets_, fit to adorne
A dying Martyrs brow: or, to be worne
On that blest head of _Mary Magdalen_,
After she wip'd Christs feet, but not till then?
Did hee (fit for such penitents as shee
And he to use) leave us a _Litany_,
Which all devout men love, and sure, it shall,
As times grow better, grow more classicall?
Did he write _Hymnes_, for piety, for wit,[3]
Equall to those, great grave _Prudentius_ writ?
Spake he all _Languages_? knew he all Lawes?
The grounds and use of _Physick_; but because
'Twas mercenary, wav'd it? Went to see
That blessed place of _Christs nativity_?
Did he returne and preach him? preach him so
As since S. _Paul_ none did, none could? Those know,
(Such as were blest to heare him) this is truth.[4]
Did he confirm thy aged?[5] convert thy youth?
Did he these wonders? And is this deare losse
Mourn'd by so few? (few for so great a crosse.)
But sure the silent are ambitious all
To be Close Mourners at his Funerall;
If not; In common pitty they forbare
By repetitions to renew our care;
Or, knowing, griefe conceiv'd, conceal'd, consumes
Man irreparably, (as poyson'd fumes
Doe waste the braine) make silence a safe way,
To'inlarge the Soule from these walls, mud and clay,
(Materials of this body) to remaine
With _Donne_ in heaven, where no promiscuous pain
Lessens the joy we have, for, with _him_, all
Are satisfy'd with _joyes essentiall_.
Dwell on this joy my thoughts; oh, doe not call[6]
Griefe back, by thinking of his Funerall;
Forget hee lov'd mee; Waste not my sad yeares;
(Which hast to _Davids_ seventy,) fill'd with feares
And sorrow for his death; Forget his parts,
Which finde a living grave in good mens hearts;
And, (for, my first is dayly payd for sinne)
Forget to pay my second sigh for him:
Forget his powerfull preaching; and forget
I am his _Convert_. Oh my frailty! let
My flesh be no more heard, it will obtrude
This lethargy: so should my gratitude,
My flowes[7] of gratitude should so be broke;
Which can no more be, than _Donnes_ vertues spoke
By any but himselfe; for which cause, I
Write no _Encomium_, but this _Elegie_,[8]
Which, as a free-will-offring, I here give
Fame, and the world, and parting with it grieve
I want abilities, fit to set forth
A monument, great, as Donnes matchlesse worth.
IZ. WA.
FOOTNOTES
[1] In the edition of 1633, the poem opens thus:--
Is _Donne_, great _Donne_ deceas'd? then England say
Thou'hast lost a man where language chose to stay
And shew it's gracefull power, &c.
[2] _La Corona_.
[3] for piety and wit,--1633.
[4] As none but hee did, or could do? They know
(Such as were blest to heare him know) 'tis truth.--1633.
[5] _age_ in the edition of 1633.
[6] My thoughts, Dwell on this _Joy_, and do not call--1633.
[7] _vowes_ in the edition of 1633.
[8] Write no _Encomium_, but an _Elegie_.
Here the poem closed in the edition of 1633.
* * * * *
LINES ON A PORTRAIT OF DONNE IN
HIS EIGHTEENTH YEAR.
1635.
[Engraved under William Marshall's Portrait of Donne, "Anno Domini. 1591.
Aetatis suae 18," prefixed to the second edition of Donne's Poems, 1635.]
_On a Portrait of_ DONNE _taken in his eighteenth year._
This was for youth, Strength, Mirth, and wit that Time
Most count their golden Age; but t'was not thine.
Thine was thy later yeares, so much refind
From youths Drosse, Mirth & wit; as thy pure mind
Thought (like the Angels) nothing but the Praise
Of thy Creator, in those last, best Dayes.
Witnes this Booke, (thy Embleme) which begins
With Love; but endes, with Sighes, & Teares for sin's.
IZ: WA:
* * * * *
COMMENDATORY VERSES PREFIXED TO
THE MERCHANTS MAPPE OF
COMMERCE.
1638.
[The Merchants Mappe of Commerce: wherein the Universall Manner and Matter
of Trade, is compendiously handled. By Lewes Roberts, Merchant. At London,
Printed by R.O. for Ralph Mabb MDCXXXVIII. _fol._
--The Second Edition, Corrected and much Enlarged. London, MDCLXXI. _fol._]
_In praise of my friend the Author, and his Booke._
TO THE READER.
If thou would'st be a _States-man_, and survay
Kingdomes for information; heres a way
Made plaine, and easie: fitter far for thee
Then great _Ortelius_ his _Geographie_.
If thou would'st be a _Gentleman_, in more
Then title onely; this MAP yeelds thee store
Of Observations, fit for Ornament,
Or use, or to give curious eares content.
If thou would'st be a _Merchant_, buy this Booke:
For 'tis a prize worth gold; and doe not looke
Daily for such disbursements; no, 'tis rare,
And should be cast up with thy richest ware.
READER, if thou be any, or all three;
(For these may meet and make a harmonie)
Then prayse this Author for his usefull paines,
Whose aime is publike good, not private gaines.
IZ. WA.
* * * * *
PREFACE TO QUARLES'S SHEPHERD
ORACLES.
1645.
[The Shepheards Oracles: Delivered in Certain Eglogues. By Fra: Quarles.
London, Printed by M.F. for John Marriot and Richard Marriot, and are to
be sold at their shop in S. Dunstans Church-yard Fleetstreet, under the
Dyall. 1646.]
_To the Reader._
READER,
Though the Authour had some years before his lamented death, compos'd,
review'd, and corrected these Eglogues; yet, he left no Epistle to the
Reader, but onely a Title, and a blanke leafe for that purpose.
Whether he meant some Allegoricall exposition of the Shepheards names, or
their Eglogues, is doubtfull: but 'tis certain, that as they are, they
appear a perfect pattern of the Authour; whose person, and minde, were
both lovely, and his conversation such as distill'd pleasure, knowledge,
and vertue, into his friends and acquaintance.
'Tis confest, these Eglogues are not so wholly divine as many of his
publisht Meditations, which speak _his affections to be set upon things
that are above_, and yet even such men have their intermitted howres, and
(as their company gives occasion) commixtures of heavenly and earthly
thoughts.
You are therefore requested to fancy him cast by fortune into the company
of some yet unknown Shepheards: and you have a liberty to beleeve 'twas
by this following accident.
"He in a Sommers morning (about that howre when the great eye of Heaven
first opens it selfe to give light to us mortals) walking a gentle pace
towards a Brook (whose Spring-head was not far distant from his peacefull
habitation) fitted with Angle, Lines, and Flyes: Flyes proper for that
season (being the fruitfull Month of _May_;) intending all diligence to
beguile the timorous Trout, (with which that watry element abounded)
observ'd a more then common concourse of Shepheards, all bending their
unwearied steps towards a pleasant Meadow within his present prospect,
and had his eyes made more happy to behold the two fair Shepheardesses
_Amaryllis_ and _Aminta_ strewing the foot-paths with Lillies, and
Ladysmocks, so newly gathered by their fair hands, that they yet smelt
more sweet then the morning, and immediately met (attended with _Clora
Clorinda_, and many other Wood-nymphs) the fair and vertuous _Parthenia_:
who after a courteous salutation and inquiry of his intended Journey,
told him the neighbour-Shepheards of that part of Arcadia had dedicated
that day to be kept holy to the honour of their great God _Pan_; and,
that they had designed her Mistresse of a Love-feast, which was to be
kept that present day, in an Arbour built that morning, for that purpose;
she told him also, that _Orpheus_ would bee there, and bring his Harp,
_Pan_ his Pipe, and _Titerus_ his Oaten-reed, to make musick at this
feast; shee therefore perswaded him, not to lose, but change that dayes
pleasure; before he could return an answer they were unawares entred into
a living mooving Lane, made of Shepheard and Pilgrimes; who had that
morning measured many miles to be eye-witnesses of that days pleasure;
this Lane led them into a large Arbour, whose wals were made of the
yeelding Willow, and smooth Beech boughs: and covered over with Sycamore
leaves, and Honysuccles."
I might now tell in what manner (after her first entrance into this Arbour)
_Philoclea_ (_Philoclea_ the fair _Arcadian_ Shepheardesse) crown'd her
Temples with a Garland, with what flowers, and by whom 'twas made; I might
tell what guests (besides _Astrea_ and _Adonis_) were at this feast; and
who (beside _Mercury_) waited at the Table, this I might tell: but may not,
cannot expresse what musick the Gods and Wood-nymphs made within; and the
Linits, Larks, and Nightingales about this Arbour, during this holy day:
which began in harmlesse mirth, and (for _Bacchus_ and his gang were
absent) ended in love and peace, which _Pan_ (for he onely can doe it)
continue in _Arcadia, and restore to the disturbed Island of_ Britannia,
_and grant that each honest Shepheard may again sit under his own Vine and
Fig-tree, and feed his own flock, and with love enjoy the fruits of peace,
and be more thankfull._
Reader, at this time and place, the Authour contracted a friendship with
certain single-hearted Shepheards: with whom (as he return'd from his
River-recreations) he often rested himselfe, and whilest in the calm
evening their flocks fed about them, heard that discourse, which (with the
Shepheards names) is presented in these Eglogues.
23 Novem. 1645.
* * * * *
COUPLET ON DR. RICHARD SIBBES.
1650.
[Written by Izaak Walton in his copy of Dr. Richard Sibbes's work, _The
Returning Backslider_, 4'10., 1650, preserved in the Cathedral Library,
Salisbury. See Sir Harris Nicolas' Memoir of Walton, clv.]
Of this blest man let this just praise be given,
Heaven was in him, before he was in heaven.
IZAAK WALTON.
* * * * *
DEDICATION OF RELIQUIAE
WOTTONIANAE.
1651.
[Reliquiae Wottonianae, or, a Collection of Lives, Letters, Poems; with
Characters of Sundry Personages: and other Incomparable Pieces of Language
and Art. By The curious Pensil of the Ever Memorable Sr. Henry Wotton,
Kt., Late, Provost of Eton Colledg. London, Printed by Thomas Maxey, for
R. Marriot, G. Bedel, and T. Garthwait. 1651.]
_To the Right Honourable The Lady Mary Wotton Baronness, and to her Three
Noble Daughters._
{ KATHERIN STANHOP.
THE LADY { MARGARET TUFTON.
{ ANN HALES.
Since Bookes seeme by custome to Challenge a dedication, Justice would
not allow, that what either was, or concern'd Sir Henry Wotton, should be
appropriated to any other Persons; Not only for that nearnesse of Aliance
and Blood (by which you may chalenge a civil right to what was his;) but,
by a title of that intirenesse of Affection, which was in you to each
other, when Sir Henry Wotton had a being upon Earth.
And since yours was a Friendship made up of generous Principles, as I
cannot doubt but these indeavours to preserve his Memory wil be acceptable
to all that lov'd him; so especially to you: from whom I have had such
incouragements as hath imboldned me to this Dedication. Which you are
most humbly intreated may be accepted from
Your very reall servant,
I. W.
* * * * *
ON THE DEATH OF WILLIAM
CARTWRIGHT.
1651.
[Comedies, Tragi-Comedies, with other Poems, by Mr. William Cartwright,
late Student of Christ-Church in Oxford, and Proctor of the University.
London, Printed for Humphrey Moseley, and are to be sold at his Shop, at
the sign of the Prince's Arms in St. Pauls Church-yard, 1651.]
_On the Death of my dear Friend Mr. William Cartwright, relating to the
foregoing Elegies._
I cannot keep my purpose, but must give
Sorrow and Verse their way; nor will I grieve
Longer in silence; no, that poor, poor part
Of natures legacy, Verse void of Art,
And undissembled teares, CARTWRIGHT shall have
Fixt on his Hearse; and wept into his grave.
Muses I need you not; for, Grief and I
Can in your absence weave an Elegy:
Which we will do; and often inter-weave
Sad Looks, and Sighs; the ground-work must receive
Such Characters, or be adjudg'd unfit
For my Friends shroud; others have shew'd their Wit,
Learning, and Language fitly; for these be
Debts due to his great Merits: but for me,
My aymes are like my self, humble and low,
Too mean to speak his praise, too mean to show
The World what it hath lost in losing thee,
Whose Words and Deeds were perfect Harmony.
But now 'tis lost; lost in the silent Grave,
Lost to us Mortals, lost, 'till we shall have
Admission to that Kingdom, where He sings
Harmonious Anthems to the King of Kings.
Sing on blest Soul! be as thou wast below,
A more than common instrument to show
Thy Makers praise; sing on, whilst I lament
Thy loss, and court a holy discontent,
With such pure thoughts as thine, to dwell with me,
Then I may hope to live, and dye like thee,
To live belov'd, dye mourn'd, thus in my grave;
Blessings that Kings have wish'd, but cannot have.
IZ. WA.
* * * * *
PREFACE TO SIR JOHN SKEFFINGTON'S
HEROE OF LORENZO.
1652.
[The Heroe, of Lorenzo, or, The way to Eminencie and Perfection. A piece
of serious Spanish wit Originally in that language written, and in English.
By Sir John Skeffington, Kt. and Barronet. London, printed for John Martin
and James Allestrye at the Bell in St Pauls Church-yard. 1652.]
_Let this be told the Reader_,
That Sir _John Skeffington_ (one of his late Majesties servants, and a
stranger to no language of _Christendom_) did about 40 years now past,
bring this Hero out of Spain into England.
There they two kept company together 'till about 12 months now past: and
then, in a retyrement of that learned knights (by reason of a sequestration
for his masters cause) a friend coming to visit him, they fell accidentally
into a discourse of the _wit_ and _galantry_ of the _Spanish Nation_.
That discourse occasioned an example or two, to be brought out of this
_Hero_: and, those examples (with Sir _John's_ choice language and
illustration) were so relisht by his friend (a stranger to the _Spanish
tongue_) that he became restles 'till he got a promise from Sir _John_
to translate the whole, which he did in a few weeks; and so long as that
imployment lasted it proved an excellent diversion from his many sad
thoughts; But he hath now chang'd that Condition, to be possest of that
place into which sadnesse is not capable of entrance.
And his absence from this world hath occasion'd mee (who was one of those
few that he gave leave to know him, for he was a retyr'd man) to tell the
Reader that I heard him say, he had not made the _English_ so short, or
few words, as the originall; because in that, the Author had exprest
himself so enigmatically, that though he indevour'd to translate it
plainly; yet, he thought it was not made comprehensible enough for common
Readers, therefore he declar'd to me, that he intended to make it so by
a coment on the margent; which he had begun, but (be it spoke with sorrow)
he and those thoughts are now buried in the silent Grave,[1] and my self,
with those very many that lov'd him, left to lament that losse.
I.W.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Compare the poem on the death of Cartwright, _supra_:--
"But now 'tis lost; lost in the silent grave," &c.
* * * * *
COMMENDATORY VERSE TO THE
AUTHOR OF SCINTILLULA
ALTARIS.
1652.
[Scintillula Altaris or, a Pious Reflection on Primitive Devotion: as to
the Feasts and Fasts of the Christian Church, Orthodoxally Revived. By
Edward Sparke, B.D. London; Printed by T. Maxey for Richard Marriot, and
are to be sold at his Shop in St. Dunstan's Church-yard in Fleetstreet,
1652.
This book reached a Seventh Edition during Walton's lifetime; but his
Commendatory Verses are only to be found in the first.]
_To the Author upon the sight of the first sheet of his Book._
My worthy friend, I am much pleas'd to know,
You have begun to pay the debt you owe
By promise, to so many pious friends,
In printing your choice Poems; it commends
Both them, and you, that they have been desir'd
By persons of such Judgment; and admir'd
They must be most, by those that best shal know
What praise to holy Poetry we owe.
So shall your Disquisitions too; for, there
Choice learning, and blest piety, appear.
All usefull to poor Christians: where they may
Learne Primitive Devotion. Each Saints day
Stands as a Land-mark in an erring age
to guide fraile mortals in their pilgrimage
To the Coelestiall _Can'an_; and each Fast,
Is both the souls direction, and repast:
All so exprest, that I am glad to know
You have begun to pay the debt you owe.
IZ. WA.
* * * * *
DEDICATION OF THE LIFE OF DONNE
AND ADVERTISEMENT TO
THE READER.
1658.
[The Life of John Donne, Dr. in Divinity, and Late Dean of Saint Pauls
Church London. The second impression corrected and enlarged. Ecclus.48.14.
_He did wonders in his life, and at his death his works were marvelous_.
London, Printed by J.G. for R. Marriot, and are to be sold at his shop
under S. Dunstans Church in Fleet-street. 1658.]
_To My Noble & honoured Friend Sir Robert Holt of Afton, in the County of
Warwick, Baronet._
Sir,
When this relation of the life of Doctor Donne was first made publick, it
had besides the approbation of our late learned & eloquent King, a
conjunction with the Authors most excellent Sermons to support it; and
thus it lay some time fortified against prejudice; and those passions that
are by busie and malicious men too freely vented against the dead.
And yet, now, after almost twenty yeares, when though the memory of Dr.
Donne himself, must not, cannot die, so long as men speak English; yet
when I thought Time had made this relation of him so like my self, as to
become useless to the world, and content to be forgotten; I find that a
retreat into a defired privacy, will not be afforded; for the Printers
will again expose it and me to publick exceptions; and without those
supports, which we first had and needed, and in an Age too, in which
Truth & Innocence have not beene able to defend themselves from worse then
severe censures.
This I foresaw, and Nature teaching me selfe-preservation, and my long
experience of your abilities assuring me that in you it may in found:[1]
to you, Sir, do I make mine addreffes for an umbrage and protection: and
I make it with so much humble boldnesse, as to say 'twere degenerous in
you not to afford it.
For, Sir,
Dr. Donne was so much a part of yourself, as to be incorporated into your
Family, by so noble a friendship, that I may say there was a marriage of
fouls betwixt him and your[2] reverend Grandfather, who in his life was an
Angel of our once glorious Church, and now no common Star in heaven.
And Dr. Donne's love died not with him, but was doubled upon his Heire,
your beloved Uncle the Bishop of [3] Chichester, that lives in this
froward generation, to be an ornament to his Calling. And this affection
to him was by Dr. D. so testified in his life, that he then trusted him
with the very secrets of his soul; & at his death, with what was dearest
to him, even his fame, estate, & children.
And you have yet a further title to what was Dr. |
10,240 |
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THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.
VOL. 10, No. 265.] SATURDAY, JULY 21, 1827. [PRICE 2d.
* * * * *
ASHBY-DE-LA-ZOUCH CASTLE.
[Illustration]
Ashby-de-la-Zouch is a small market town in Leicestershire, pleasantly
situated in a fertile vale, on the skirts of the adjoining county of
Derbyshire, on the banks of a small liver called the Gilwiskaw, over
which is a handsome stone bridge. The original name of this town was
simply Ashby, but it acquired the addition of De-la-Zouch, to
distinguish it from other Ashbys, from the Zouches, who were formerly
lords of this manor, which after the extinction of the male line of that
family, in the first year of the reign of Henry IV. came to Sir Hugh
Burnel, knight of the garter, by his marriage with Joice, the heiress of
the Zouches. From him it devolved to James Butler, earl of Ormond and
Wiltshire; who being attainted on account of his adherence to the party
of Henry VI. it escheated to the crown, and was, in the first year of
Edward IV. granted by that king to Sir William Hastings, in
consideration of his great services; he was also created a baron,
chamberlain of the household; captain of Calais, and knight of the
garter, and had license to make a park and cranellate, or fortify
several of his houses, amongst which was one at this place, which was of
great extent, strength, and importance, and where he and his descendants
resided for about two hundred years. It was situated on the south side
of the town, on a rising ground, and was chiefly composed of brick and
stone; the rooms were spacious and magnificent, attached to which was a
costly private chapel. The building had two lofty towers of immense
size, one of them containing a large hall, great chambers, bedchambers,
kitchen, cellars, and all other offices. The other was called the
kitchen tower. Parts of the wall of the hall, chapel, and kitchen, are
still remaining, which display a grand and interesting mass of ruins;
the mutilated walls being richly decorated with doorways,
chimney-pieces, windows, coats of arms, and other devices. In this,
castle, the unfortunate and persecuted Mary queen of Scots, who has
given celebrity to so many castles and old mansions, by her melancholy
imprisonment beneath their lofty turrets, was for some time confined,
while in the custody of the earl of Huntingdon. In the year 1603, Anne,
consort of James I. and her son, prince Henry, were entertained by the
earl of Huntingdon at this castle, which was at that time the seat of
much hospitality. It was afterwards honoured by a visit from that
monarch, who remained here for several days, during which time dinner
was always served up by thirty poor knights, with gold chains and velvet
gowns. In the civil wars between king Charles and his parliament, this
castle was deeply involved, being garrisoned for the king; it was
besieged by the parliamentary forces, and although it was never actually
conquered, (from whence the garrison obtained the name of Maiden,) it
was evacuated and dismantled by capitulation in the year 1648.
For the spirited engraving of the ruins of this famous castle, we
acknowledge ourselves indebted to our obliging friend _S.I.B._ who
supplied us with an original drawing.
* * * * *
THE AUTHOR OF "LACON."
_(To the Editor of the Mirror.)_
SIR,--The following additional particulars respecting the celebrated
author of "Lacon," may not be unacceptable to your readers, as a sequel
to the interesting account of that eccentric individual inserted at p.
431, in your recently completed volume.
It will be in the recollection of many, that about the period of the
murder of Weare, by Thurtel, Mr. Colton suddenly disappeared from among
his friends, and no trace of him, notwithstanding the most vigilant
inquiry, could be discovered. As Weare's murder produced an
unprecedented sensation in the public mind, it gave rise to a variety of
reports against the perpetrators of that horrible crime, imputing to
them other atrocities of a similar kind. It is needless now to say that
most of these suspicions were wholly without foundation.
It was at length ascertained, that Mr. C., finding himself embarrassed
with his creditors, had taken his departure for America, where he
remained about two years, travelling over the greater part of the United
States; and it is much to be desired that he would favour the public
with the result of his observations during his residence in that
country; as probably no person living is qualified to execute such a
task with more shrewdness, judgment, or ability.
He is now residing at Paris, where he has been about two years and a
half, and where I had frequently the pleasure of meeting him during the
last winter, and of enjoying the raciness of his conversation, which
abounds in wit, anecdote, and an universality of knowledge. It is too
well known that he is not unaddicted to the allurements of the gaming
table, and it is understood among his immediate friends, that he has
been--what few are--successful adventurer, having repaired in the
saloons of Paris, in a great degree, the loss he sustained by the
forfeiture of his church livings. His singular coolness, calculation,
and self-mastery, give him an advantage in this respect over, perhaps,
every other votary of the gaming table.
Mr. Colton has an excellent taste for the fine arts, and has expended
considerable sums in forming a picture gallery. Every nook of his
apartment is literally covered with the treasures of art, including many
of the _chefs d'oeuvres_ of the great masters, and many valuable
paintings are placed on the floor for want of room to suspend them
against the wainscot. I may here observe, that his present domicile does
not exactly correspond with that described as his former "castle" in
London, inasmuch as it is part of a royal residence, it being on the
second floor, on one side of the quadrangle of the Palais Royal,
overlooking the large area of that building, and opposite to the _jet
d'eau_ in the centre. But his habits and mode of dress appear to be
unchanged. He has only one room; he keeps no servant, (unless a boy to
take care of his horse and cabriolet); he lights his own fire, and, I
believe, performs all his other domestic offices himself. But,
notwithstanding these whimsicalities, he is generous, hospitable and
friendly. He still, when a friend "drops in," produces a bottle or two
of the finest wines and a case of the best cigars, of which he is a
determined smoker.
I will only add, that he continues to employ himself in literary
composition. Among other pieces not published in England, he has written
an ode on the death of Lord Byron, a copy of which he presented me, but
which I unfortunately lent--and lost. A small edition was printed at
Paris for private circulation. He has also written an unpublished poem
in the form of a letter from Lord Castlereagh in the shades, to Mr.
Canning on earth, the caustic severity of which, in the opinion of those
who have heard it read, is equal to that of any satire in the English
language. I remember only the two first lines--
"Dear George, from these _Shades_, where no wine's to be had.
But where rivers of flame run like rivers run mad."
And the following, in allusion to the instrument with which Lord C.
severed the carotid artery, and which was the means of producing such a
change in the destiny of the present prime minister, who was then on the
eve of going out to India as governor-general,--
"Have you pensioned the Jew boy that sold me the knife?"
It is to be lamented that such a man should be an exile from his native
country.--But I draw a veil over the rest, and sincerely hope that his
absence from England will not be perpetual.
* * *
* * * * *
THE DEAD TRUMPETER.
TO ILLUSTRATE A CELEBRATED FRENCH PICTURE.
_(For the Mirror.)_
'Tis evening! the red rayless sun
Glares fiercely on the battle plain;--
_Morn_ saw the deadly fray begun,
Morn heard _thy_ bugle wake a strain,
Poor soldier! and its warning breath
Call'd _thee_, and myriads to death!
_Thou_ wert thy mother's darling, thou,
Light to thy father's failing eyes;
Thou wert thy sisters' _dearest!_ now
What _art_ thou? something to despise
Yet tremble at; to hide, and be
_Forgot,_ but by _their_ misery!
Thou _wert_ the beautiful! the brave!
Thou wert all joy, and love, and light;
But oh! thy grace was for the _grave,_
Thy dawning day, for mornless night!
And thou, so loving, so carest
Hast sunk--unpitied--unblest!
Yes, warrior! and the life-stream flows
_Yet_ from thee, in thy foe-man's land,
Welling before the gate of those
Who _should_ stretch forth a kindly hand
To save th' unhonour'd, _friendless_ dead
From rushing legion's scouring tread.
_Friendless_ poor soldier?--nay thy steed
Stands gazing on thee, with an eye
_Too_ piteous: he _felt_ thee bleed,--
He _saw_ thee, dropping from him,--_die!_
And in thine helpless, lorn estate,
_He_ cannot leave thee, desolate.
Nor thy poor _dog_, whose anxious gaze,
On helm and bugle's lowly place,
Speaks his deep sorrow and amaze!
_He_, watching yet, thine icy face
Licks thy pale forehead with a moan
To tell thee--_Thou art not alone!_
M. L. B.
* * * * *
ORIGINS AND INVENTIONS.
No. XXVIII.
* * * * *
THE SPHYNX.
The Sphynx is supposed to have been engendered by Typhon, and sent by
Juno to be revenged on the Thebans. It is represented with the head and
breasts of a woman, the wings of a bird, the claws of a lion, and the
rest of the body like a dog or lion. Its office they say, was to propose
dark enigmatical questions to all passers by; and, if they did not give
the explication of them,--to devour them. It made horrible ravages, as
the story goes, on a mountain near Thebes. Apollo told Creon that she
could not be vanquished, till some one had expounded her riddle. The
riddle was--_"What creature is that, which has four legs in the morning,
two at noon, and three at night?"_ Oedipus expounded it, telling her it
was a man,--who when a child, creepeth on all fours; in his middle age,
walketh on two legs, and in his old age, two and a staff. This put the
Sphynx into a great rage, who, finding her riddle solved, threw herself
down and broke her neck. Among the Egyptians, the Sphynx was the symbol
of religion, by reason of the obscurity of its mysteries. And, on the
same account, the Romans placed a Sphynx in the pronaos, or porch, of
their temples. Sphynxes were used by the Egyptians, to show the
beginning of the water's rising in the Nile; with this view, as it had
the head of a woman and body of a lion, it signified that the Nile began
to swell in the months of July and August, when the sun passes through
the signs of Leo and Virgo; accordingly it was a hieroglyphic, which
taught the people the period of the most important event in the year, as
the swelling and overflowing of the Nile gave fertility to Egypt.
Accordingly they were multiplied without end, so that they were to be
seen before all their remarkable monuments.
P. T. W.
* * * * *
THE SKETCH-BOOK.
NO. XLII.
* * * * *
WHITSUN-EVE.
_By Miss Mitford._
The pride of my heart and the delight of my eyes is my garden. Our
house, which is in dimensions very much like a bird-cage, and might,
with almost equal convenience, be laid on a shelf, or hung up in a tree,
would be utterly unbearable in warm weather, were it not that we have a
retreat out of doors,--and a very pleasant retreat it is. To make my
readers fully comprehend it, I must describe our whole territories.
Fancy a small plot of ground, with a pretty low irregular cottage at one
end; a large granary, divided from the dwelling by a little court
running along one side; and a long thatched shed open towards the
garden, and supported by wooden pillars on the other. The bottom is
bounded, half by an old wall, and half by an old paling, over which we
see a pretty distance of woody hills. The house, granary, wall, and
paling, are covered with vines, cherry-trees, roses, honey-suckles, and
jessamines, with great clusters of tall hollyhocks running up between
them; a large elder overhanging the little gate, and a magnificent
bay-tree, such a tree as shall scarcely be matched in these parts,
breaking with its beautiful conical form the horizontal lines of the
buildings. This is my garden; and the long pillared shed, the sort of
rustic arcade which runs along one side, parted from the flower-beds by
a row of rich geraniums, is our out-of-door drawing-room.
I know nothing so pleasant as to sit there on a summer afternoon, with
the western sun flickering through the great elder-tree, and lighting up
our gay parterres, where flowers and flowering shrubs are set as thick
as grass in a field, a wilderness of blossom, interwoven, intertwined,
wreathy, garlandy, profuse beyond all profusion, where we may guess that
there is such a thing as mould, but never see it. I know nothing so
pleasant as to sit in the shade of that dark bower, with the eye resting
on that bright piece of colour, lighted so gloriously by the evening
sun, now catching a glimpse of the little birds as they fly rapidly in
and out of their nests--for there are always two or three birds' nests
in the thick tapestry of cherry-trees, honey-suckles, and China roses,
which cover our walls--now tracing the gay gambols of the common
butterflies as they sport around the dahlias; now watching that rarer
moth, which the country people, fertile in pretty names, call the
bee-bird;[1] that bird-like insect, which flutters in the hottest days
over the sweetest flowers, inserting its long proboscis into the small
tube of the jessamine, and hovering over the scarlet blossoms of the
geranium, whose bright colour seems reflected on its own feathery
breast; that insect which seems so thoroughly a creature of the air,
never at rest; always, even when feeding, self-poised, and
self-supported, and whose wings in their ceaseless motion, have a sound
so deep, so full, so lulling, so musical. Nothing so pleasant as to sit
amid that mixture of the flower and the leaf, watching the bee-bird!
Nothing so pretty to look at as my garden! It is quite a picture; only
unluckily it resembles a picture in more qualities than one,--it is fit
for nothing but to look at. One might as well think of walking in a bit
of framed canvass. There are walks to be sure--tiny paths of smooth
gravel, by courtesy called such--but--they are so overhung by roses and
lilies, and such gay encroachers--so over-run by convolvolus, and
heart's-ease, and mignonette, and other sweet stragglers, that, except
to edge through them occasionally, for the purpose of planting, or
weeding, or watering, there might as well be no paths at all. Nobody
thinks of walking in my garden. Even May glides along with a delicate
and trackless step, like a swan through the wafer; and we, its
two-footed denizens, are fain to treat it as if it were really a saloon,
and go out for a walk towards sun-set, just as if we had not been
sitting in the open air all day.
[1] Sphinx ligustri, privet hank-moth.
What a contrast from the quiet garden to the lively street! Saturday
night is always a time of stir and bustle in our village, and this is
Whitsun Eve, the pleasantest Saturday of all the year, when London
journeymen and servant lads and lasses snatch a short holiday to visit
their families. A short and precious holiday, the happiest and liveliest
of any; for even the gambols and merrymakings of Christmas offer but a
poor enjoyment, compared with the rural diversions, the Mayings, revels,
and cricket-matches of Whitsuntide.
We ourselves are to have a cricket-match on Monday, not played by the
men, who, since their misadventure with the Beech-hillers, are, I am
sorry to say, rather chap-fallen, but by the boys, who, zealous for the
honours of their parish, and headed by their bold leader, Ben Kirby,
marched in a body to our antagonist's ground the Sunday after our
melancholy defeat, challenged the boys of that proud hamlet, and beat
them out and out on the spot. Never was a more signal victory. Our boys
enjoyed this triumph with so little moderation, that it had like to have
produced a very tragical catastrophe. The captain of the Beech-hill
youngsters, a capital bowler, by name Amos Stokes, enraged past all
bearing by the crowing of his adversaries, flung the ball at Ben Kirby
with so true an aim, that if that sagacious leader had not warily ducked
his head when he saw it coming, there would probably have been a
coroner's inquest on the case, and Amos Stokes would have been tried for
manslaughter. He let fly with such vengeance, that the cricket-ball was
found embedded in a bank of clay five hundred yards off, as if it had
been a cannon shot. Tom Coper and Farmer Thackum, the umpires, both say
that they never saw so tremendous a ball. If Amos Stokes live to be a
man (I mean to say if he be not hanged first), he'll be a pretty player.
He is coming here on Monday with his party to play the return match, the
umpires having respectively engaged Farmer Thackum that Amos shall keep
the peace, Tom Coper that Ben shall give no unnecessary or wanton
provocation--a nicely-worded and lawyer-like clause, and one that proves
that Tom Coper hath his doubts of the young gentleman's discretion; and,
of a truth, so have I. I would not be Ben Kirby's surety, cautiously as
the security is worded,--no! not for a white double dahlia, the present
object of my ambition.
This village of our's is swarming to-night like a hive of bees, and all
the church bells round are pouring out their merriest peals, as if to
call them together. I must try to give some notion of the
various figures.
First, there is a groupe suited to Teniers, a cluster of out-of-door
customers of the Rose, old benchers of the inn, who sit round a table
smoking and drinking in high solemnity to the sound of Timothy's fiddle.
Next, a mass of eager boys, the combatants of Monday, who are
surrounding the shoemaker's shop, where an invisible hole in their ball
is mending by Master Keep himself, under the joint superintendence of
Ben Kirby and Tom Coper, Ben showing much verbal respect and outward
deference for his umpire's judgment and experience, but managing to get
the ball done his own way after all; whilst outside the shop, the rest
of the eleven, the less-trusted commons, are shouting and bawling round
Joel Brent, who is twisting the waxed twine round the handles of
bats--the poor bats, which please nobody, which the taller youths are
despising as too little and too light, and the smaller are abusing as
too heavy and two large. Happy critics! winning their match can hardly
be a greater delight--even if to win it they be doomed! Farther down the
street is the pretty black-eyed girl, Sally Wheeler, come home for a
day's holiday from B., escorted by a tall footman in a dashing livery,
whom she is trying to curtesy off before her deaf grandmother sees him.
I wonder whether she will succeed!
Ascending the hill are two couples of different description, Daniel Tubb
and Sally North, walking boldly along like licensed lovers; they have
been asked twice in church, and are to be married on Tuesday; and
closely following that happy pair, near each other, but not together,
come Jem Tanner and Susan Green, the poor culprits of the wheat-hoeing.
Ah! the little clerk hath not relented! The course of true love doth not
yet run smooth in that quarter. Jem dodges along, whistling "Cherry
Ripe," pretending to walk by himself, and to be thinking of nobody; but
every now and then he pauses in his negligent saunter, and turns round
outright to steal a glance at Susan, who, on her part, is making believe
to walk with poor Olive Hathaway, the lame mantua-maker, and even
affecting to talk and to listen to that gentle humble creature as she
points to the wild flowers on the common, and the lambs and children
disporting amongst the gorse, but whose thoughts and eyes are evidently
fixed on Jem Tanner, as she meets his backward glance with a blushing
smile, and half springs forward to meet him; whilst Olive has broken off
the conversation as soon as she perceived the preoccupation of her
companion, and began humming, perhaps unconsciously, two or three lines
of Burns, whose "Whistle and I'll come to thee, my love," and "Gi'e me a
glance of thy bonny black ee," were never better exemplified than in the
couple before her. Really it is curious to watch them, and to see how
gradually the attraction of this tantalizing vicinity becomes
irresistible, and the rustic lover rushes to his pretty mistress like
the needle to the magnet. On they go, trusting to the deepening
twilight, to the little clerk's absence, to the good humour of the happy
lads and lasses, who are passing and re-passing on all sides--or rather,
perhaps, in a happy oblivion of the cross uncle, the kind villagers, the
squinting lover, and the whole world. On they trip, linked arm-in-arm,
he trying to catch a glimpse of her glowing face under her bonnet, and
she hanging down her head and avoiding his gaze with a mixture of
modesty and coquetry, which well becomes the rural beauty. On they go,
with a reality and intensity of affection, which must overcome all
obstacles; and poor Olive follows with art evident sympathy in their
happiness, which makes her almost as enviable as they; and we pursue our
walk amidst the moonshine and the nightingales, with Jacob Frost's cart
looming in the distance, and the merry sounds of Whitsuntide, the shout,
the laugh, and the song echoing all around us, like "noises of the
air."--_Monthly Magazine._
* * * * *
SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.
* * * * *
THE LETTER-WRITER.
Fortune surely shifted me from my birth, or first looked on me in a mood
as splenetic as that of nature, when she produced that most sombre and
unpleasing of trees, the olive; to pursue the simile; I may have
conduced to the comfort of others, nay, even to their convenience and
luxury, but it never availed aught to my own appearance or
circumstances; I went on, like that unhappy-looking tree, decaying in
the trunk and blighting in the branches, and yielding up the produce of
a liberal education and an active nature to the public, but reaping for
my own portion only misfortune and disappointment; I had sprung up in
the wilderness of the world, and I was left to grow or wither as I
might; every one was ready to profit by me when a fruitful season
rendered me available to them, but none cared to toil to give me space
for growth, or to enrich the perishing earth at my unlucky root!
I was educated for the church, but my father died while I was at
college, and I lost the curacy, which was in the gift of my uncle,
through the pretty face of a city merchant's daughter, who wrote a
sonnet to my worthy relative on his recovery from a fit of the gout, and
obtained the curacy for her brother in exchange for her effusion. What
was to be done? I offered myself as tutor to a young gentleman who was
to study the classics until he was of age, and then to turn fox-hunter
to supply the place of his deceased father; but I was considered by his
relations to be too good-looking to be domesticated in the house of a
rich widow under fifty, and I had the satisfaction of seeing the vacant
seat in the family coach filled by an old, sandy-haired M.A., with bow
legs and a squint--handsome or ugly, it availed not; a face had twice
ruined my prospects; I was at my wit's end! I could not turn fine
gentleman, for I had not brass enough to make my veracity a pander to my
voracity; I could not turn tradesman, for I had not gold enough even to
purchase a yard measure, or to lay in a stock of tapes. My heart bounded
at the idea of the army; but I thought of it like a novice--of wounds
and gallant deeds; of fame and laurels; I was obliged to look closer--my
relations were neither noblemen nor bankers, and I found that even the
Colonial corps were becoming aristocratical and profuse; the navy--I
walked from London to Chatham on speculation; saw the second son of an
earl covered with tar, out at elbows and at heels, and I returned to
town, fully satisfied that here I certainly had no chance. I offered
myself as clerk to a wealthy brewer, and, at length, I was accepted--
this was an opening! I registered malt, hops, ale, and small-beer, till
I began to feel as though the world was one vast brewhouse; and
calculated, added, and subtracted pounds, shillings, and pence, until
all other lore appeared "stale, flat, and unprofitable." I was in this
counting-house four years, and was, finally, discharged by my prudent
principal as an unthrifty servant, for having, during a day of unusual
business, cut up two entire quills, and overturned the inkstand on a new
ledger! Again "the world was all before me where to choose"--but enough
of this; suffice it that my choice availed me nothing, and after years
of struggling and striving, I found myself, as free as air, in a small
market town in England, with five shillings in my pocket, and sundry
grey hairs on my head. From mere dearth of occupation, I took my station
at the window of a small stationer's shop, and commenced a survey of the
volumes and pamphlets which were attractively opened at the title-pages
to display their highly coloured frontispieces. The first which I
noticed was, "The Young Gentleman's Multiplication Table, or Two and Two
make Four"--I sighed as I remembered how little this promising study had
availed _me_! Then came "Little Tom Tucker, he sang for his Supper"--I
would have danced for one. "Young's Night Thoughts," with a well dressed
gentleman in mourning, looking at the moon. "How to Grow Rich, or a
Penny Saved is a Penny Got;" I would have bought the book, and learned
the secret, though I had but five shillings left in the world, had not
the second part of the title intimated to me that I ought to keep my
money. "The Castle of St. Altobrand," where a gentleman in pea-green
might be seen communing with a lady in sky-blue. "Raising the Wind"--I
turned away with a shudder; I had played a part in this drama for years,
and I well knew it was no farce. "The Polite Letter-Writer, or"--I did
not stop to read more; an idea flashed through my mind, and in two
minutes more I was beside the counter of the stationer; we soon became
acquainted; I left two and sixpence in his shop, and quitted it with
renewed hope; the promise of a recommendation, two quires of letter
paper, twelve good quills, and some ink in a small phial. I rejoiced at
having made a friend, even of the stationer, for my pride and my
property had long been travelling companions, and were seldom at home.
On the following day, a placard was pasted to a window on the ground
floor of a neat house, in the best street, announcing that "within,
letters were written on all subjects, for all persons, with precision
and secrecy;" I shall never forget the tremor with which I awaited the
arrival of a customer! I had sunk half of my slender capital, and
encumbered myself with a lodging; I did not dare to think, so I sat down
and began, resolutely, to sharpen my penknife on the sole of my
fearfully dilapidated shoe; then, I spread my paper before me; divided
the quires; looked carefully through a sheet of it at the light; laid it
down again; began to grow melancholy; shook off reflection as I would
have done a serpent, and again betook myself most zealously to the
sharpening of my penknife. A single, well articulated stroke on the door
of my apartment, roused me at once to action, and I shouted, "come in,"
with nervous eagerness; it opened, and gave egress to a staid matron, of
high stature, and sharp countenance; I would have pledged my existence
on her shrewishness from the first moment I beheld her. When I had
placed a chair for her, and reseated myself, this prelude to my
prosperity commenced business at once.
"You're a letter-writer, Mr. What-d'ye-call-'em."
I bowed assent.
"Silent--"
"As the grave, madam."
This sufficed; the lady took a pinch of snuff--told me that she had been
recommended to employ me by Mr. Quireandquill; and I prepared for action.
She had a daughter young, beautiful, and innocent--but gay,
affectionate, and thoughtless; she had given her heart in keeping to one
who, though rich in love, lacked all other possessions; and, finally,
she had bestowed her hand where affection prompted. But the chilled
heart feels not like that which is warm with youth--its pulses beat not
to the same measure--its impulses impel not to the same arts; the mother
felt as a guardian and a parent--the daughter as a woman and a fond one;
the one had been imprudent--the other was inexorable; my first task was
to be the unwrenching of the holy bonds which united a child and her
parent,--the announcement of an abandonment utter and irrevocable; I
wrote the letter, and if I softened down a few harsh expressions, and
omitted some sentences of heart-breaking severity, surely it was no
breach of faith, or if, indeed, it were, it was one for which, even at
this time, I do not blush.
The old lady saw her letter sealed and addressed, and departed; and I
hastily partook of a scanty breakfast, the produce of my first
episolatory speculation. I need not have been so precipitate in
dispatching my repast, for some dreary hours intervened ere the arrival
of another visiter. One, however, came at length; a tremulous, almost
inaudible, stroke upon the door, and a nervous clasp of the latch, again
spoke hope to my sinking spirits; and, with a swift step, I rose and
gave admittance to a young and timid girl, blushing, and trembling, and
wondering, as it seemed, at the extent of her own daring. This business
was not so readily despatched as that of the angry matron. There were a
thousand promises of secrecy to be given; a thousand tremors to
be overcome.
"I am a poor girl, Sir," she said at length, "but I am an honest one;
therefore, before I take up your time, I must know whether I can afford
to pay for it."
"That," said I, and even amid my poverty I could not suppress a feeling
of amusement, "that depends wholly on the subject of your epistle;
business requires few words, and less ingenuity, and is fairly paid for
by a couple of shillings; but a love letter is cheap at three and
sixpence, for it requires an infinity of each."
"Then I may as well wish you good day at once, Sir, for I have but
half-a-crown in the world that I can call my own, and I cannot run into
debt, even to write to Charles." There was a tear in her eye as she rose
to go, and it was a beautiful blue eye, better fitted to smiles than
tears; this was enough, and, even poor as I was, I would not have missed
the opportunity of writing this letter, though I had been a loser by the
task. Happy Charles! I wrote from her dictation, and it is wonderful how
well the heart prompts to eloquence, even among the uneducated and
obscure. In all honesty, though I had but jested with my pretty
employer, this genuine love-letter was well worth the three and
sixpence--it was written, and crossed, and rewritten at right angles,
and covered on the folds and under the wafer, and, finally, unsealed to
insert a few "more last words." It was a very history of the heart!--of
a heart untainted by error--unsophisticated by fashion--unfettered by
the world's ways: a little catalogue of woman's best, and tenderest, and
holiest feelings, warm from the spirit's core, and welling out like the
pure waters of a ground spring. How the eye fell, and the voice sunk, as
she recorded some little doubt, some fond self-created fear; how the
tones gladdened, and the blue eyes laughed out in joy, as she spoke of
hopes and prospects, to which she clung trustingly, as woman ever does
to her first affection. What would I not have given to have been the
receiver of such a letter?--What to have been the idol of such a heart?
And, as she eagerly bent over me to watch the progress of her epistle,
her hand resting on my arm, and her warm breath playing over my brow,
while at intervals a fond sigh escaped her, she from time to time
reminded me of the promises I had made never to betray her secret--
beautiful innocent! I would have died first. She was with me nearly two
hours, and left me with a flushed cheek, her letter in one hand and her
half-crown in the other--had I robbed her of it, I should have merited
the pillory.
My third customer was a stiff, tall, bony man, of about fifty-five, and
for this worthy I wrote an advertisement for a wife. He was thin, and
shy, and emaciated--a breathing skeleton, in the receipt of some hundred
and twenty pounds a-year; a martyr to the rheumatism, and a radical. He
required but little; a moderate fortune; tolerable person; good
education; perfect housewifery; implicit obedience; and, finally, wound
up the list of requisites from mere lack of breath, and modestly
intimated that youth would not be considered an objection, provided that
great prudence and rigid economy accompanied it. He was the veriest
antidote to matrimony I ever beheld!
My calling prospered. I wrote letters of condolence and of
congratulation; made out bills, and composed valentines; became the
friend of every pretty girl and fine youth in the parish; and never
breathed one of their mighty secrets in the wrong quarter. In the midst
of this success, a new ambition fired me--I had been an author for
months; but though I had found my finances more flourishing, the bays
bloomed not upon my brow; and I was just about to turn author in good
earnest, when a distant relation died, and bequeathed to me an annuity
of four hundred pounds a-year; and I have been so much engaged ever
since in receiving the visits of some hitherto unknown relatives and
connexions, that I have only been able to compose the title-page, and to
send this hint to destitute young gentlemen who may have an epistolatory
turn; and to such I offer the assurance, that there is pleasure in being
the depositary of a pretty girl's secrets. "There are worse occupations
in the world, _Yorick_, than feeling a woman's pulse."--_The Inspector_.
* * * * *
SUNRISE AT MOUNT ETNA.
Of a sunrise at Mount Etna, an acute traveller remarks, no imagination
can form an idea of this glorious and magnificent scene. Neither is
there on the surface of this globe any one point that unites so many
awful and sublime objects:--the immense elevation from the surface of
the earth, drawn as it were to a single apex, without any neighbouring
mountain for the senses and imagination to rest upon, and recover from
their astonishment in their way down to the world--and this point, or
pinnacle raised on the brink of a bottomless gulf, often discharging
rivers of fire, and throwing out burning rocks, with a noise that shakes
the whole island. Add to this, the unbounded extent of the prospect,
comprehending the greatest diversity, and the most beautiful scenery in
nature; with the rising sun advancing in the east to illuminate the
wondrous scene. The whole atmosphere by degrees kindled up, and showed
dimly and faintly the boundless prospect around. Both sea and land
looked dark and confused, as if only emerging from their original chaos;
and light and darkness seemed still undivided, till the morning by
degrees advancing, completed the separation. The stars are extinguished,
and the shades disappear. The forests, which but now seemed black and
bottomless gulfs, from whence no ray was reflected to show their form or
colours, appear a new creation rising to the sight, catching life and
beauty from every increasing beam. The scene still enlarges, and the
horizon seems to widen and expand itself on all sides; till the sun
appears in the east, and with his plastic ray completes the mighty
scene. All appears enchantment; and it is with difficulty we can believe
we are still on earth. The senses, unaccustomed to such objects, are
bewildered and confounded; and it is not till after some time that they
are capable of separating and judging of them. The body of the sun is
seen rising from the ocean, immense tracks both of sea and land
intervening; various islands appear under your feet; and you look down
on the whole of Sicily as on a map, and can trace every river through
all its windings, from its source to its mouth. The view is absolutely
boundless on every side; nor is there any one object within the circle
of vision to interrupt it; so that the sight is every where lost in the
immensity; and there is little doubt, that were it not for the
imperfection of our organs, the coasts of Africa, and even of Greece,
would be discovered, as they are certainly above the horizon.--_Time's
Telescope_.
* * * * *
GARRICK'S MULBERRY CUP.
[Illustration]
In the garden attached to New Place, flourished a mulberry-tree, which
Shakspeare had planted with his own hands; and in 1742, when Garrick and
Macklin visited Stratford, they were regaled beneath its venerable
branches by Sir Hugh Clopton, who, instead of pulling down New Place
according to Malone's assertion, repaired it, and did every thing in his
power for its preservation. The Rev. Francis Gastrell purchased the
building from Sir Hugh Clopton's heir, and being disgusted with the
trouble of showing the mulberry-tree to so many visitors, he caused this
interesting and beautiful memorial of Shakspeare to be cut down, to the
great mortification of his neighbours, who were so enraged at his
conduct, that they soon rendered the place, out of revenge, too
disagreeable for him to remain in it. He therefore was obliged to quit
it; and the tree, being purchased by a carpenter, was retailed and cut
out in various relics.
The catalogue of the property of the late David Garrick, Esq. sold on
the 5th of May, 1825, describes the cup as follows:--"Lot 170. The
original cup carved from Shakspeare's mulberry-tree, which was presented
to David Garrick by the Mayor and Corporation at the time of the Jubilee
at Stratford-on-Avon, lined with silver gilt, with a cover, surmounted
by a bunch of mulberry leaves and fruit, also of silver gilt."
This relic acquires additional value from the circumstance of its never
having changed possessors from the time it was presented to Garrick in
September, 1769, to 1825, a period of nearly three score years, and
during the greater part of which time it has been virtually locked up
from public view. The tree was cut down about the year 1756, and could
not have been less than 140 years old. It is said the mulberry was first
planted in England about 1609. It is not a little singular, that at the
time Garrick received this relic of the immortal bard, he resided in
Southampton-street, as appears by his letter to the Mayor and
Corporation of Stratford, returning thanks for having elected him a
burgess of Stratford-on-Avon; and the residence of its second possessor,
Mr. J. Johnson, (who bought it for 127l. 1s.,) after a lapse of nearly
sixty years, is in the same street.
The cup itself is of a very chaste and handsome form; plain, but in good
taste, and the wood prettily marked. The mulberry cup has also been
recorded in the celebrated ballad, beginning, "Behold this fair goblet,"
&c. sung by Garrick at the Jubilee, holding the cup in his hand.
G.W.
* * * * *
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF ALL NATIONS.
NO. X.
* * * * *
THE GREEKS.
(_For the Mirror_.)
The delightful country of Greece, once the finest in the world, is
inhabited by a bold and intelligent race of men, whose noble struggles
to rescue themselves from an odious servitude has rendered them objects
of our esteem and admiration. For more than five years has this
unfortunate land been the scene of continual warfare and desolation; and
though the attempts of the Turks have been many and great, they have
notwithstanding entirely failed in their design,--that of exterminating
the Greeks.
The Greeks are of the same religion as the Russians, and, like that
nation, have monks and nuns. Great decorum is visible in their churches,
the females being excluded from the sight of the males by means of
lattices. Their bishops lead a life of great simplicity, as will be seen
from the following account of a dinner given by the bishop of Salona to
Mr. Dodwell:--"There was nothing to eat except rice and bad cheese; the
wine was execrable, and so impregnated with resin, that it almost took
the skin from our lips. Before sitting down to dinner, as well as
afterwards, we had to perform the ceremony of the _cheironiptron_, or
washing of the hands. We dined at a round table of copper tinned,
supported upon one leg, and sat on cushions placed on the floor. The
bishop insisted upon my Greek servant sitting at table with us; and on
my observing that it was contrary to our custom, he answered, that he
could not bear such ridiculous distinctions in his house. It was with
difficulty I obtained the privilege of drinking out of my own glass,
instead of out of the large goblet, which served for the whole party.
The Greeks seldom drink till they have dined. After dinner, strong thick
coffee, without sugar, was handed round."--The strictest frugality is
observable in all the meals of these people. The higher orders live
principally on fish and rice, and the common people on olives, honey,
and onions. The food of the Levantine sailors, according to the Hon. Mr.
Douglas, consists entirely of salted olives, called by the Greeks
_columbades_. |
10,240 |
Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Sandra Brown, and Project
Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders from material generously
made available by Cornell University
PUNCHINELLO, Vol. I, Issue 10
SATURDAY, JUNE 4, 1870.
PUBLISHED BY THE
PUNCHINELLO PUBLISHING COMPANY,
83 NASSAU STREET, NEW-YORK.
[Illustration: Vol. I. No. 10.]
CONANT'S
_PATENT BINDERS_
FOR
"PUNCHINELLO,"
to preserve the paper for binding, will be sent, post-paid, on receipt
of One Dollar, by
PUNCHINELLO PUBLISHING CO.,
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* * * * *
TO NEWS-DEALERS.
PUNCHINELLO'S MONTHLY.
THE FIVE NUMBERS FOR APRIL,
Bound in a Handsome Cover,
IS NOW READY. Price, Fifty Cents.
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SUPPLIED BY THE
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Who are now prepared to receive Orders.
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HARRISON BRADFORD & CO.'S
STEEL PENS.
These pens are of a finer quality, more durable, and cheaper
than any other Pen in the market. Special attention is called
to the following grades, as being better suited for business purposes
than any Pen manufactured. The
"505," "22," and the "Anti-Corrosive,"
We recommend for bank and office use.
D. APPLETON & CO.,
_Sole Agents for United States_.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: See 15th page for Extra Premiums.]
* * * * *
_Will Shortly appear: Our New Serial, written expressly for
Punchinello,
by ORPHEUS C. KERR, Entitled, "The Mystery of Mr. E. Drood." To be
continued weekly during this year._
APPLICATIONS FOR ADVERTISING IN
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Should be addressed to
J. NICKINSON,
Room No. 4,
83 NASSAU STREET.
* * * * *
Notice to Ladies.
DIBBLEE,
Of 854 Broadway,
Has just received a large assortment of all the latest styles of
Chignons, Chatelaines, etc.
FROM PARIS.
Comprising the following beautiful varieties:
La Coquette, La Plenitude, Le Bouquet,
La Sirene, L'Imperatrice etc.,
At prices varying from $2 upward.
* * * * *
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MANUFACTURERS OF
Standard American Billiard Tables.
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Premiums may be paid annually, semi-annually, or quarterly in cash.
All Policies are non-forfeitable, and participate in the profits of the
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Dividends are made annually, on the Contribution plan.
Pamphlets containing Rates of Premium, and information on the subject of
Life Insurance, may be obtained at the office of the Company, or any of
its Agents.
Parties desiring to represent this Company in the capacity of Agents
will please address the New-York Office.
WILLIAM T. PHIPPS
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_Each Agent in direct communication with the New-York Office._
* * * * *
Mercantile Library
Clinton Hall, Astor Place,
NEW-YORK.
This is now the largest circulating Library in America, the number of
volumes on its shelves being 114,000. About 1000 volumes are added each
month; and very large purchases are made of all new and popular works.
Books are delivered at members' residences for five cents each delivery.
TERMS OF MEMBERSHIP:
TO CLERKS,
$1 Initiation, $3 Annual Dues.
TO OTHERS, $5 a year.
SUBSCRIPTIONS TAKEN FOR
SIX MONTHS.
BRANCH OFFICES
AT
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AND AT
Yonkers, Norwalk, Stamford, and Elizabeth.
* * * * *
AMERICAN
BUTTONHOLE, OVERSEAMING,
AND
SEWING-MACHINE CO.,
572 and 574 Broadway, New-York.
This great combination machine is the last and greatest improvement on
all the former machines, making, in addition to all work done on best
Lock-Stitch machines, beautiful
BUTTON AND EYELET HOLES,
in all fabrics.
Machine, with finely finished
OILED WALNUT TABLE AND COVER
complete, $75. Same machine, without the buttonhole parts, $50. This last
is beyond all question the simplest, easiest to manage and to keep in
order, of any machine in the market. Machines warranted, and full
instruction given to purchasers.
* * * * *
[Illustration: HENRY SPEAR. PRINTER-LITHOGRAPHER STATIONER
BLANK BOOK MANUFACTURER. 82 WALL ST. NEW YORK.]
* * * * *
J. NICKINSON
begs to announce to the friends of
"PUNCHINELLO"
residing in the country, that, for their convenience, he has
Made arrangements by which, on receipt of the price of
ANY STANDARD BOOK PUBLISHED.
the same will be forwarded, postage paid.
Parties desiring Catalogues of any of our Publishing Houses
can have the same forwarded by inclosing two stamps.
OFFICE OF
PUNCHINELLO PUBLISHING CO.
83 Nassau Street,
[P.O. Box 2783.]
* * * * *
[ILLUSTRATION: WHAT WE MAY CONFIDENTLY LOOK FOR.
_Jurywoman_. "I BEG TO INTERRUPT THE COURT WITH THE REQUEST THAT, BEFORE
THE CASE PROCEEDS ANY FURTHER, THE SHERIFF BE DIRECTED TO PROVIDE THE
JURYMAN ON MY RIGHT WITH A BOTTLE OF LURIN'S EXTRACT, OTHERWISE THE
FEMALE MEMBERS OF THE JURY WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE
CONSEQUENCES," etc., etc.]
* * * * *
A CONSISTENT LEAGUE.
Immediately upon McFarland's acquittal, the Union League of Philadelphia
determined to give a grand ball. And they did it. And, what is more,
they intend to do it every time the majesty of any kind of Union is
vindicated. Except, of course, the union of the "Iron interest" and the
public good.
One of the most valuable and instructive features of this ball was, the
grand opportunity it offered to the members of the League to show their
respect and affection for the spirit of the Fifteenth Amendment,
Accordingly, they invited a large number of <DW52> ladies and
gentlemen, and the accursed spirit of caste was completely exorcised by
the exercises of the evening. The halls were grandly decorated with
blackberry and gooseberry bushes, and other rare plants; sumptuous
fountains squirted high great streams of XX ale and gin-and-milk;
enormous piles of panned oysters, lobster salad, Charlotte Russe, and
rice-pudding blocked up half the doorways, while within the dancing hall
the merriment was kept up grandly. The ball was opened by a grand
Cross-match waltz in which Hon. MORTON MCMICHAEL and Mrs. DINAH J--N;
GEORGE H. BOKER and Miss CHLOE P--T--N; WILLIAM D. KELLEY and Aunty Di.
LU-V-I-A-N; A. BORIE and Miss E. G--N; Gen. TYNDALE and Miss MAY OR--TY,
and several other distinguished couples twirled their fantastic toes in
the most reckless _abandon_. Virginia reels, Ole Kentucky break-downs,
and other characteristic dances diversified the ordinary Terpsichorean
programme, and the dancing was kept up to a late hour. It was truly
gratifying to every consistent supporter of the enfranchisement of the
African race, to see such gentlemen as _Senator_ REVELS, FREDERICK
DOUGLASS, Mr. PURVIS, and other prominent citizens, in the halls
of this patriotic and thoroughly American Society. The members of the
League were evidently of the opinion that it would be a most flagrant
shame, on an occasion of this kind, for them to deny to their
fellow citizens the rights and privileges that they are so anxious shall
be accorded them by every one else; and, while they do not believe that
they are bound to invite any one--black or white--to their private
reunions on account of political considerations, they do not attempt to
deny that, on an occasion of this kind--a celebration in fact of the
success of a political party--it would be most shameful to ostracize the
very citizens for whom that party labored and conquered. Therefore it
was that they so warmly welcomed, within their gorgeous halls, their
fellow-citizens, and by so doing won for themselves the
approbation of every consistent American. It was one of the most
affecting sights of the evening to see these gentlemen of the League,
nobly trampling under their feet all base considerations of color and
caste, and walking arm and arm with their sisters; smelling the
exotics; admiring the groups of statuary; sipping the coffee and the
punch; pricing the crimson curtains; inhaling the perfumes from the
cologne-water fountains; ascending and descending the grand walnut
staircase (arranged for this occasion only); listening to the birds in
the conservatories; and fixing their hair in the magnificent
dressing-rooms. When, in the midst of the festivities the band struck up
the beautiful air, "Ask me no more!" the honored guests of color looked
at each other with pleasant smiles which seemed to denote a perfect
satisfaction. And so, whatever may be said of the friends of the <DW52>
race in other parts of the country, it must be universally admitted that
the Union League of Philadelphia has done its duty!
* * * * *
Good Reading for Topers.
MR. GREELEY's "Recollections of a Boozy Life."
* * * * *
Sporting Intelligence.
A NEWSPAPER item says that "a Mexican offers to shoot JUAREZ for $200."
That's nothing. TAYLOR, of Jersey City, offers to shoot any man in the
world for $2000.
* * * * *
The Favorite Drink of the Canadian Government.
CABINET Whiskey.
* * * * *
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by the
PUNCHINELLO PUBLISHING COMPANY, in the Clerk's Office of the District
Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New-York.
* * * * *
[Illustration: PUNCHINELLO CORRESPONDENCE.]
The public still labor under misapprehensions of our character and
calling. We are in daily receipt of letters of the most heterogeneous
description, the task of answering which we are compelled to utterly
forego.
We subjoin a few specimens:
"MR. PUNCHINELLO. _Dear Sir_: My wife died yesterday, and would you be
so kind as to come and make her will? I would not give you the trouble
of coming, but the young woman I intend to marry next is going away
to-morrow, and I don't want to leave home. My wife had five hundred
dollars which I want left to me, and a feather bed, which you may divide
amongst the children.
"Yours in affliction,
"SOLOMON SNIPP."
"SIR: I calculate to give a funeral down at my place shortly, that is,
if things go right; but we have no preacher to do the work. Would you
please to send us one? Not particular what kind, so long as the work is
_sure_. Party is not dead yet, but I make arrangements beforehand as I
expect to be insane. Good pay for good work.
"Sincerely,
"P. MCFINIGAN.
"P. S. Do preachers warrant their burials?"
"DEAR MR. PUNCHINELLO:--You were so good as to prescribe a hot pitch
plaster for the baby's mouth. Next day I took the prescription to your
office, but failed to get it made up, as the devil, they told me, was
busy. Will you please inform me when you will be at leisure? Meanwhile
baby yells.
"Yours truly,
"C. PUGSBY.
"P.S. _Later_. Mrs. PUGSBY says if I apply that plaster she will go
insane. True, she does not understand fire-arms, but then I should be
afraid to drink any coffee for a month. In the meantime, if the baby
keeps on, I shall go crazy myself; so there is likely to be a casualty
somewhere. What's to be done? Shall I bring the child to you?
"C. P."
_Answer_. At your peril. Go crazy and shoot it; then we will go crazy
and turn counsel for the defence. The result will probably be that you
are handed over to the ladies to be kissed into reason; but if you would
rather be hung, you must do the shooting over in New-Jersey.
* * * * *
"BEAUTIFUL SNOW."
Circumstances having rendered it probable that the dispute respecting
the authorship of the poem "Beautiful Snow" may shortly be revived,
PUNCHINELLO takes this opportunity of setting the public right on the
subject, and silencing further controversy regarding it for ever.
It is the production of Mr. PUNCHINELLO, himself; was composed by him so
long ago as July, 1780, and copyrighted in August of the same year. It
may be asked how the idea of snow-flakes happened to occur to him in
July. That question is easily settled. The day was sultry; thermometer
98 deg. in the arbor. Drowsed by the sultry air--not to mention the iced
claret--Mr. PUNCHINELLO posed himself gracefully upon a rustic bench,
and slept. Presently the lovely lady who was fanning him, fascinated by
the trumpet tones that preceded from his nose, exclaimed: "Beautiful
Snore!" This was repeated to him when he awoke, and hence the origin of
the poem.
* * * * *
Fish Culture.
The Grand Duke ALEXIS, of Russia, proposes to come to these shores and
inspect the American system of fish culture. With this end in view, he
will, of course, be the particular guest of Gen. GRANT, and will, no
doubt, be surprised to find that our principal FISH is a cultivated man.
But he will better understand our FISH system by witnessing its
operations in Spanish and Canadian waters, as also in those of Sault St.
Marie.
* * * * *
Linsey-Woolsey.
The regular troops for the Canadian Red River Expedition have been
supplied by Gen. LINDSEY, and are commanded by Col. WOLSLEY--a fact
oddly co-incidental with the reported flimsy character of the
expedition, so far as it has gone.
* * * * *
[Illustration: TOO TRUE! Scene-Academy. Time-Spring of 70. Miss Smith.
"WHAT DOES 'N.A.' MEAN AFTER SOME OF THESE ARTISTS' NAMES?" Miss Brown.
"N.A. WHY IT MUST MEAN 'NEEDY ARTISTS.' POOR FELLOWS!"]
* * * * *
Bivalvulor Intelligence.
It is stated that the clams along the Stratford shore are dying by
thousands of a malignant disease, which a correspondent of the
Bridgeport _Standard_ calls "clam cholera." This is a sad c'lamity for
the people of the Stratford shore.
* * * * *
The Fifteenth Amendment.
The appointment of postmasters in Maryland may be all very well;
but PUNCHINELLO would like to know whether the Post-office authorities
intend to revive the custom of Blackmailing.
* * * * *
THE PLAYS AND SHOWS.
[Illustration: C]
Comedy personified, in Mr. CLARKE, has now reigned at BOOTH'S for nearly
six weeks. During that time there has been a perceptible change in the
metaphorical atmosphere of the house. The audience no longer wears the
look of subdued melancholy which was once involuntarily assumed by each
mourner for the memory of SHAKSPEARE, who passed the solemn threshold.
The ushers no longer find it necessary to sustain their depressed
spirits by the surreptitious chewing of the quid of consolation, and are
now the most pleasant, as they were always the most courteous, of their
kind. Persons have even been heard, within the past week, to allude to
BOOTH'S as a "theatre," instead of a "temple of art;" and though the
convulsions of nature which attend the shifting of the scenery, and
cause castles to be violently thrown up by volcanic eruptions and
forests to be suddenly swallowed by gaping earthquakes, impart a certain
solemnity to the brightest of comedies, still there is a general
impression among the audience that BOOTH'S has become a place of
amusement. And in noting this change PUNCHINELLO does not mean to jeer
at the former and normal character of BOOTH'S. BEETHOVEN'S Seventh
Symphony, DANTE'S Inferno, JEFFERSON'S Rip Van Winkle, and EDWIN BOOTH'S
Hamlet are not amusing, but it does not follow that they are therefore
unworthy of the attention of the public, which is pleased with the
rattle of De Boots, and tickled with the straw of Toodles.
FOX vs. GOOSE is a three act comedy in which Mr. CLARKE last week made
his audience laugh as freely as though the tomb-stones of all the
Capulets were not gleaming white and awful in the lamplight of the
property-room; or, at all events, would be gleaming if any body were to
hunt them up with a practicable lantern. The opening scene is the
tap-room of an inn, where Mr. FOX FOWLER, an adventurer, is taking his
ease and his unpaid-for gin-and-milk.
_Enter Landlord, presenting his bill_. "Here, sir, you've been drinking
my beer for several years, and now I want you to pay for it."
_Fox_. "My friend! why ask me to pay bills? Do you not perceive that I
wear a velvet coat? And, besides, even if I wanted to pay I could not
until my baggage, which I gave to an expressman ten years ago, shall
reach me. It will probably arrive in a month or two more."
_Landlord_. "Here comes Sir GANDER GOSLING. I'll complain to him of your
conduct."
(_Enter Sir Gander_.)
_Fox_. "My dear Sir GANDER. Allow me to embrace you."
_Sir Gander_. "I don't know you. I'm not my son JACK."
_Fox_. "But I am Jack's dearest friend. I have saved him from drowning,
from matrimony, from reading the _Nation,_ from mothers-in-law, and all
other calamities mentioned in the litany."
_Sir Gander_. "Describe him to me, if you know him so well."
_Fox_. "He is tall, dark, slender, and quiet in manner."
_Sir Gander_. "My dear fellow he is short, fat, light, and noisy. I am
convinced that you know him. Permit me to pay your bill, lend you money,
and tell you all about our dear JACK'S intended marriage." (_He pays,
lends, and narrates accordingly. A terrific rattling of dishpans
simulates the arrival of a train. Sir_ GANDER _departs and_ JACK GOSLING
_enters._)
_Fox_. "My dear JACK, allow me to embrace you."
_Jack_. "I don't know you. I'm not my father."
_Fox_. "But I am your father's dearest friend. Sit down and have a
bottle of wine, and tell me all about ROSE MANDRAKE, your intends bride.
'Rose! Rose! the coal black Rose!' as MILTON finely remarks." (_They sit
down and_ JACK _immediately gets very drunk, thereby affording another
proof of the horribly adulterated condition of the liquor used on the
stage, which infallibly intoxicates an actor within two minutes after it
is imbibed. [Let the Excise authorities see to this matter.] Finally_
JACK _falls, and the curtain immediately follows his example.)
Critical Young Man, who reads all the theatrical "notices" in the Herald
in the leisure moments when he is not selling yards of tape and ribbon_.
"I don't think much of CLARKE. He ain't half the man that NED FORREST
is. There ain't a bit of spontanatious humor in him. Them San Francisco
Minstrels can beat him out of sight."
_Accompanying Young Female Person_. "Yes, I think so, too. I hate to see
a man act drunk. It's so low and vulgar. I like pretty plays, like they
have at WALLACK'S."
_Respectable Old Gentleman_. "PLACIDE--BLAKE--BURTON--"
_Every Body Else_. "Well, this is real humor; I haven't laughed so much
since I heard BEECHER preach a funeral sermon."
The second act takes place in the house of Major MANDRAKE. Fox has
successfully assumed the character of JACK GOSLING, and is having a
pleasant chat with the family, when the gardener enters to inform the
Major that a flock of crows is in sight.
_Major Mandrake_. "I love the pleasures of the chase. Bring my gun, and
I will shoot the crows." (_He goes out, and shoots_ JACK, _who is
climbing over the gate. Re-enter Major and men carrying_ JACK.)
_Major_. "Alas! I have missed the crow over the cornfield, and lost the
crow over my shooting which I would otherwise have had. Also I have shot
a man out of season, and the sportsmen's club will prosecute me."
_Jack_. "I am not dead, though my appearance and conversation might
induce you to think so. My name is JACK GOSLING. The chap in the velvet
coat is an impostor."
_Major, Fox, and other dramatis persons_. "Away with the wretch! He
himself is the impostor. Call a policeman who will club him if he makes
no resistance."
JACK is dragged away, but perpetually returns and denounces his rival.
He is bitten by suppositious dogs cunningly simulated by stage
carpenters, who remark "bow wow" from behind the scenes. He is cut by
ROSE MANDRAKE, and also by rows of broken bottles, which line the top of
the wall on which he makes a perilous perch, not having a pole or rod
with which to defend himself against the dogs. He is challenged by Fox
and seconded by Miss BLANCHE BE BAR in naval uniform. Finally he takes
refuge in the china closet, and hurls cheap plates and saucers at his
foes. With the exhaustion of the supply of crockery, the act naturally
comes to an end, and, as frequently occurs in similar cases, the curtain
falls.
_Comic Man_. "Why does CLARKE, when he slings china at the company,
remind you of the Paraguayan war? Of course you give it up. Because he
carries on a war on the Plate. Do you see it? Crockery plates and the
river Plate, you know. Ha! ha!"
And two ushers, reinforced by a special policeman, drag the miserable
man away, and lead him to MAGONIGLE'S private room, there to be dealt
with for the hideous crime of making infamous jokes in BOOTH'S theatre.
He is never seen again, and so the Philadelphia _Day_ loses its
brightest ornament.
The third act consists of a duel between JACK and FOX, each of whom is
too cowardly to fight. They therefore follow the safer example of rival
editors, and swear and scold at each other. At last a small millennium
of universal reconciliation takes place, and the usual old comedy "tag"
ends the play.
(Parenthetically, why "tag?" Does it receive this name because its
invariable stupidity suggests those other worthless commodities "rag"
and "bob-tail," which, outside of theatres, are generally associated
with the name.)
And every body goes away murmuring of the genial humor of CLARKE, the
magical violin of MOLLENHAUER, the elegance, convenience and comfort of
the theatre, the matchless memory of BOOTH'S Hamlet and Iago, and the
golden certainty of the coming of Rip Van Winkle. And every body is
supremely satisfied, and says to every body else, "This theatre needs
only a company, to be the foremost theatre of either continent."
MATADOR.
* * * * *
Remarks by Our Stammering Contributor.
The up-town theatrical sensation is, we hear, produced "regardless of
expense." We had reason to think that its managers would show more
Frou-frou-frugality.
* * * * *
[Illustration: PISCATORY DISCUSSION.
_Uncle Walton_. "THAR! DIDN'T I TOLE YER? KNOW'D HE COULDN'T KETCH NO
FISH WID DAT 'AR BUGGY-WHIP OF A THING!"
_Isaac_. "YAH! DON'T TALK!--WAIT TILL HE TURNS DAT 'AR CRANK, AND SEE IF
DE PEERCH DON'T COME A-WINDIN' IN!"]
* * * * *
COMIC ZOOLOGY.
THE MONKEY TRIBE.
Of this genus there are countless varieties, differing widely in the cut
of their monkey jackets, as the untravelled American naturalist will
doubtless have observed on traversing his native sidewalk. The educated
specimens met with in our cities are upon the whole well Organized, and
appear to have music in their soles. For its feats _a pied_, the tame
monkey is indebted to a Piedmontese who accompanies him.
To behold the monkey race in their glory, however, they must be seen in
their native woods, where they dwell in genteel independence, enjoying
their entailed estates and living on their own cocoa nuts. There will be
found the Gibbon, whose Decline and Fall when yielding the Palm to some
aspiring rival is swifter than that of the Roman Empire; the Barberry
Ape, so called from feeding exclusively on Barberries; the
Chimpanzee--an African corruption of Jump-and-see, the name given to the
animal by his first European discoverers in compliment to his alertness;
the Baboon, a melancholy brute that, as you may observe from his visage,
always has the blues; to say nothing of a legion of Red Monkeys, which
are particularly Rum Customers.
Some men of science have advanced the theory that man is the climactic
consequence of innumerable improvements of the monkey; the <DW64> as he
now exists being the result of the Fifteenth Amendment. These
philosophers erect a sort of pyramid of progress, placing an Ape at the
base and a Caucasian at the Apex. This wild hypothesis of a monkey
apotheosis can of coarse only be regarded Jockolarly, in other words,
with a grin. Nevertheless the Marmozet is sufficiently like a little
Frenchwoman to be called a Ma'amoiselle, and there are (in New-Zealand
for instance) human heathen with a craving for the Divine, to whom the
Gorilla, though not a man, is certainly a brother. Possibly the Orang
Outang, if able to express his thoughts in an harangue, might say with
Mr. DICKENS, "I am very human." He certainly looks it.
There is a strong facial resemblance among the simious races--_Simia
Similibus_. This likeness does not, however, extend in all cases to the
opposite extremity. Some monkeys have no tails. Of the tailless Apes it
is said that they originally erased their rear appendages by too much
sitting--perhaps as members of the "Rump" in some Anthropoid Congress.
Be that as it may, the varieties that have retained their tails seem
disposed to hang on to them, and will doubtless continue to do so by
hook or by crook.
The natives of Africa believe that the monkeys would converse with them
if they were not afraid of being set to work; but it is quite apparent
that they are not averse either to labor or conversation, inasmuch as
among themselves they frequently Mow and Chatter.
* * * * *
THE GREAT AFRICAN TEA COMPANY.
MR. PUNCHINELLO: If I can induce you to take a few shares in the
above-named Co. (at a merely nominal price, I assure you,) I think I
shall do you a very great favor, and at the same time secure to the Co.
the benefit of your enormous influence.
The Grand Points, in this unequalled Scheme, may be explained as
follows:
The Tea is from the new African Tea Fields, (that is the holds of ships
in which it has spoiled, or become musty, or lost its bouquet, and the
old chests of the usual dealers,) and is delivered in our ware-rooms for
a mere song, so to speak: say the Song of Sixpence (a pound.)
At a small additional outlay, we dye and scour this Tea, or otherwise
Renovate it to such an extent that Nature herself would be deceived, at
least till she began to sip the decoction from it, when, perhaps, she
would conclude not to try any further issues with this Co.
These African Tea Fields (cultivated by Ourselves) are "situated near
the Cape of Good Hope." From the recent appreciation of African
Interests (and, of course, technology,) you will perceive that in our
Name and Scheme is Good Hope indeed, for the Stockholders, if not the
tea-drinkers.
Our system of business embraces, in part, the following ingenious and
strictly novel features: By means of circulars and extensive advertising
we convince the public (an easy task) that, in consequence of Raising
the Tea Ourselves, from "Our Own Tea Fields," (and thus saving a great
many profits to different absorbents of the people's money,) we can
afford it at ruinously low prices, yet the Tea is always A. 1. (which,
in familiar language, might be construed as A Wonder especially to the
Chinese.) We make a great variety out of the same stock! One may always
know the Great A. Co.'s Tea from the circumstance of it's never having
either odor or flavor. We find, after ample experience, that the
presence of either of these qualities directly injures the sale. Give it
plenty of Astringency (an easy knack) and it will be sure to go down in
this country. It is our experience (and that of many other Operators of
our kind--or _upon_ our kind, if you prefer the phrase,) that people
_like to be imposed upon,_ and can always be taken with the Economical
hook. If an article (of Tea, for instance) is only "cheap" enough, it
may be ever so nasty and unwholesome, and yet it will Sell! Sell? Bless
you! you can't produce it fast enough--even from your Own Tea Fields!
We make an article of Coffee (which we have almost decided to call
Cuffee) that has as much Color in one pound as the real (an inferior)
article has in six! Boarding-house keepers praise it! It goes far, and
is actually preferred to Mocha! We sell it for less than the latter
could be bought for at wholesale, in Arabia, and yet you will readily
believe we make money by it.
A few shares will be sold to you for a mere fraction of their nominal
value. Call and see us, at the sign of the GREAT AFRICAN (TEA CO.)
T. T. T. (for the Co.)
* * * * *
OUR CUBAN TELEGRAMS.
We are happy to inform our readers that we have made a special
arrangement with the telegraph companies, by which we shall receive the
only reliable news from Cuba. The following telegrams from Havana, which
were received at this office at a late hour last night, will show how
full and accurate our Cuban news will henceforth be:
FIRST DISPATCH.
HAVANA, May 26th, 9 P.M.--(_From a Cuban Patriot_.)--A great battle was
fought yesterday between the National army and the Spanish Cut-throats.
General CESPEDES, with five hundred men, attacked VALMESEDA, who had
eleven thousand men in a strong position, and completely routed him. The
Invaders lost ten thousand in killed and wounded, and nine hundred
prisoners. Twenty pieces of artillery were captured. This blow will
crush the Spanish brigands, and make certain the independence of the
island. Our loss was trifling--only a drummer-boy or two.
SECOND DISPATCH.
9:30 P.M.--(_From the Spanish Authorities_.)--A great battle was fought
yesterday between the loyal army and the rebel hordes. General
VALMESADA, with five hundred men, attacked CESPEDES, who had eleven
thousand men in a strong position, and completely routed him. The
brigands lost ten thousand in killed and wounded, and nine hundred
prisoners. Twenty pieces of artillery were captured. This blow will
crush the rebels, and make certain the establishment of order in the
island. Our loss was trifling--only a sutler or two.
THIRD DISPATCH.
10 P.M.--(_From a Cuban Patriot_.)--Our victory was more complete than
at first believed. Only two Spaniards escaped. Our only loss was one
drummer-boy slightly wounded.
FOURTH DISPATCH.
10:30 P.M.--(_From the Spanish Authorities_.)--Our victory was more
complete than was at first believed. Only two rebels escaped. Our only
loss was one sutler somewhat demoralized.
FIFTH DISPATCH.
11 P.M.--(_From a Cuban Patriot_.)--CESPEDES had only two hundred men,
and VALMESADA eight thousand. The latter is reported killed. The victory
was complete.
SIXTH DISPATCH.
11:30 P.M.--(_From the Spanish Authorities_.)--VALMESEDA had only two
hundred men, and CESPEDES eight thousand. The latter is reported killed.
The victory was complete.
SEVENTH DISPATCH.
12 M.--(_From a Cuban Patriot_.)--The battle was not so bloody as was at
first reported. The Patriots had fifty men, and were greatly
outnumbered. Several dead Spaniards were left on the field. No artillery
was captured, but a great quantity of supplies was taken.
EIGHTH DISPATCH.
12:30 A.M.--(_From the Spanish Authorities_.)--The battle was not so
bloody as was at first reported. The loyal force consisted of only fifty
men, and many dead rebels were left on the field. No artillery was
captured, but a great quantity of bananas was taken.
NINTH DISPATCH.
1 A.M.--(_From a Cuban Patriot_.)--It is now known that the battle was
only a skirmish. The Spaniards attacked our men in order to seize upon
their extra linen. They were repulsed however.
TENTH DISPATCH.
1:30 A.M.--(_From the Spanish Authorities_.)--It is now known that the
battle was only skirmish. The rebels attacked a hen-roost in search of
eggs, but were repulsed.
ELEVENTH DISPATCH.
3 A.M.--(_From a Cuban Patriot_.)--The rumor of a battle seems to have
originated in a fight between a Patriot and a mob of blood-thirsty
Spaniards in an alley in this city. The latter managed to escape.
TWELFTH DISPATCH.
2:30 A.M.--(_From the Spanish Authorities_.)--The rumor of a battle
evidently grew out of a fight in an alley of this city, between a
Volunteer and a mob of rebel sympathizers. The latter were all arrested.
THIRTEENTH DISPATCH.
3 A.M.--(_From the American, Consul_.)--Yesterday a Cuban boy threw a
stone at a dog belonging to one of the volunteers. The dog ran away. All
is quiet in the city, and elsewhere on the island.
At this point we were compelled to go to press. The above dispatches,
however, furnish the latest and only reliable intelligence from Cuba.
* * * * *
[Illustration: ONE VIEW OF THE QUESTION.
_Nervous Man_. "UP FOUR FLIGHTS OF STAIRS, AND THROUGH NO END OF CROOKED
PASSAGES. HOW AM I TO GET OUT IN CASE OF FIRE?"
_Polite Waiter_. "NO OCCASION WHATEVER FOR ANXIETY, SIR; THE HOUSE IS
FULLY INSURED."]
* * * * *
A Good Turn Meant.
THERE is some talk of reviving the Tournament in this region, and the
young men are expected to show their skill in "riding at the ring." If
our young men were to put any number of good sharp lances through a few
of our City Rings, they would be noble and chivalrous fellows, surely.
* * * * *
The Dumb Beasts' Friend.
Mr. BERGH, the philodoggist, is an honest oracle in his way, and when he
opes his mouth we hope no cur will be ungrateful enough to bark. He says
in his last lecture that dumb animals are creatures like unto himself.
That accounts for Mr. BERGH being Deer to the quadrupeds, and such a
Terrier to their enemies.
* * * * *
Land and Water.
An Ocean Cable Company has just asked Congress for a grant of lands. The
request is natural, as the Company, of course, wants to see its cable
well Landed.
* * * * *
The Kellogg Testimonial.
Gifts should be seasonable. We therefore signify our highest approval of
the judgment of those "keyind" friends who lately gave to Miss CLARA
LOUISE KELLOGG, our own beloved nightingale, an elegant "Fruit
Receiver." Birds, as a rule, are prohibited by law from partaking of
fruit, but that is only while it is the on branches; and, perhaps, if
EVE had only possessed an elegant "Fruit Receiver," she might have put
the apple into it, instead of eating that most unfortunate pippin, so
greatly to human distress and detriment. And, now that Miss CLARA has
such a beautiful article to hold them, we suggest that, at her next
benefit, instead of the fading and comparatively worthless bouquets, she
be presented with a bushel of the very best pippins--and we intend to do
it.
* * * * *
Latest About Garibaldi.
It is stated, now, that GARIBALDI, foiled in his attempts to join the
Italian insurgents, is about to throw himself, sword in hand, among the
Red River malcontents. This rumor has its origin, probably, in the fact
that GARIBALDI usually wears a red shirt.
[Illustration: (Man about to stomp on mole marked "Arcade RR.") BROADWAY
SAVED! GOVERNOR HOFFMAN PUTS HIS FOOT DOWN UPON THE MOLE THAT WAS GOING
TO UNDERMINE OUR GREAT THOROUGHFARE.]
* * * * *
Stridor Dentium.
The Massachusetts Dentists (excellent men, not to be spoken of without a
shudder) have been holding an annual meeting in Boston. They talked,
discussed, suggested and explained; and then, to show that they were
physicians who could heal themselves, they partook together of a most
beautiful dinner. We are not told so, but we suppose that the viands on
this occasion were of the very toughest description--geese of venerable
age, fried heel tops, and beef like unto the beef of a boarding-house.
Whether, considering their facilities for mastication, a landlord should
not charge the members of a Dental Association double, is a question for
casuists.
* * * * *
English News.
It is noted, as a very remarkable fact, that "the Member of Parliament
for Sheffield first entered that town as an Italian image boy." He was
the image of his mother.
* * * * *
In the Air.
_Voice at Rome_. "I am the infallible PIO Nono."
_Echo, everywhere_. "'No! no!'"
* * * * *
Ancient Inscription on the Throne of Spain.
M. T.
* * * * *
THE ROBINS.
[_Compare a much more "poetic" effusion, under this head, in all the
American newspapers_.]
There's a screech upon the housetop, a creak upon the plain,
It's a libel on the sunshine, its a slander on the rain;
And through my brain, in consequence, there darts a horrid thought
Of exasperating wheelbarrows, and signs, with torture fraught!
So, all these breezy mornings through my teeth is poured the strain:
_Confound the odious "Robins," that have now come back again!_
They bring a thought of strawberries, which I shall never taste;
Plums, cherries, ditto, ditto, which these maurauders waste--
Who never _will_ catch worms and flies, as smaller "warblers" do,
But want precisely those nice things which grow for me and you!
I muse on all their robberies, and mutter this fierce strain:
_Confound these odious "Robins," that have now come back again!_
Oh, bah! What bosh these "poets" write, about this humbug pet!
Firstly, they're _not_ true "Robins," but a base, inferior set;
Second, there is no music in their creaking, croaking shriek;
Third, they are slow and stupid--common birds from tail to beak!
Tis said, "they come so early." Well, I'd rather they'd come late.
They're simply made for pot-pies, and deserve no better fate.
Who ever thought to welcome the ingenious, sprightly Wren?
With his pretty, joyous carol, which should thrill the heart of men?
Now _that_ is _music_, mind you! And how small the throat that
sings!
Besides, he lets your fruit alone, and lives on other things!
Inspired by this trim fairy, many souls will swell the strain:
_Confound the odious "Robins," that have now come back again!_
* * * * *
CAUTION!
There is shortly to arrive in Paris a dwarf aged about fifty-five years,
having a beard reaching to his feet, but with only one arm and a
completely bald head. He possesses 2,000,000 francs, which he is willing
to share with any young girl about twenty years old, who is pretty and
good tempered.
The person above alluded is, unquestionably, our eldest son, Mr.
PUNCHINELLO, Jr. He is--we say it with many tears--as great a rascal as
any in the world, although no child was ever flogged more regularly and
affectionately. His conduct broke his mother's head; and he was put
under bonds to keep the peace at the age of two years. After a long
period of flagrant insubordination, he ran away with a part of our
money, and of his plunder he may possibly have 2,000,000 francs
left--but we don't believe it. This is to warn all tradesmen in Paris
from trusting him on our account, as we shall pay no debts of his
contracting.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE NEW PLEA FOR MURDER
MAN WITH REVOLVER. "OF COURSE I'VE KILLED HIM, BUT IT'S NO MURDER, FOR
I'M INSANE. IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE IT, THERE'S MY MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE!"]
* * * * *
CONDENSED CONGRESS.
SENATE.
[Illustration: D]
DRAKE quacked according to his custom--this time about the propriety of
hanging people in the Southern States. There were several people in
Missouri whom he particularly desired to see extinguished. He referred
to the fiends in human shape, whose hands were dripping with loyal gore,
and whom the unrepentant rebels of his State actually desired to send to
the Senate, in the place of himself. He lacked words to express his
sense of so gross an outrage. He thought that he could be comparatively
happy if forty thousand men were hanged or otherwise "disabled" from
voting against him. |
10,240 |
Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Charles Bidwell and Distributed
Proofreaders
RURAL TALES, BALLADS, AND SONGS:
By ROBERT BLOOMFIELD,
Author of _The Farmers Boy_
LONDON:
Printed for Vernor and Hood, Poultry;
and Longman and Rees, Paternoster-Row
By T. Bensley, Bolt-court, Fleet-street.
1802
PREFACE.
The Poems here offered to the Public were chiefly written during the
interval between the concluding and the publishing of THE FARMER'S BOY, an
interval of nearly two years. The pieces of a later date are, _the Widow
to her Hour-Glass, the Fakenham Ghost, Walter and Jane_, &c. At the tune
of publishing the Farmer's Boy, circumstances occurred which rendered it
necessary to submit these Poems to the perusal of my Friends: under whose
approbation I now give them, with some confidence as to their moral merit,
to the judgment of the Public. And as they treat of village manners, and
rural scenes, it appears to me not ill-tim'd to avow, that I have hopes of
meeting in some degree the approbation of my Country. I was not prepar'd
for the decided, and I may surely say extraordinary attention which the
Public has shewn towards the Farmer's Boy: the consequence has been such
as my true friends will rejoice to hear; it has produc'd me many essential
blessings. And I feel peculiarly gratified in finding that a poor man in
England may assert the dignity of Virtue, and speak of the imperishable
beauties of Nature, and be heard, and heard, perhaps, with greater
attention for his being poor.
Whoever thinks of me or my concerns, must necessarily indulge the pleasing
idea of gratitude, and join a thought of my first great friend Mr. LOFFT.
And on this head, I believe every reader, who has himself any feeling,
will judge rightly of mine: if otherwise, I would much rather he would lay
down this volume, and grasp hold of such fleeting pleasures as the world's
business may afford him. I speak not of that gentleman as a public
character, or as a scholar. Of the former I know but little, and of the
latter nothing. But I know from experience, and I glory in this fair
opportunity of saying it, that his private life is a lesson of morality;
his manners gentle, his heart sincere: and I regard it as one of the most
fortunate circumstances of my life, that my introduction to public notice
fell to so zealous and unwearied a friend.[Footnote: I dare not take to
myself a praise like this; and yet I was, perhaps, hardly at liberty to
disclaim what should be mine and the endeavour of every one to deserve.
This I can say, that I have reason to rejoice that Mr. _George Bloomfield_
introduced the Farmer's Boy to me. C. L.]
I have received many honourable testimonies of esteem from strangers;
letters without a name, but fill'd with the most cordial advice, and
almost a parental anxiety, for my safety under so great a share of public
applause. I beg to refer such friends to the great teacher Time: and hope
that he will hereafter give me my deserts, and no more.
One piece in this collection will inform the reader of my most pleasing
visit to _Wakefield Lodge_: books, solitude, and objects entirely new,
brought pleasures which memory will always cherish. That noble and worthy
Family, and all my immediate and unknown Friends, will, I hope, believe
the sincerity of my thanks for all their numerous favours, and candidly
judge the Poems before them.
R. BLOOMFIELD.
Sept. 29, 1801.
P.S. Since affixing the above date, an event of much greater importance
than any to which I have been witness, has taken place, to the universal
joy (it is to be hoped) of every inhabitant of Europe. My portion of joy
shall be expressed while it is warm: and the reader will do sufficient
justice, if he only believes it to be sincere.
October 10.
PEACE.
Halt! ye Legions, sheathe your Steel:
Blood grows precious; shed no more:
Cease your toils; your wounds to heal
Lo! beams of Mercy reach the shore!
From Realms of everlasting light
The favour'd guest of Heaven is come:
Prostrate your Banners at the sight,
And bear the glorious tidings home.
The plunging corpse with half-clos'd eyes,
No more shall stain th' unconscious brine;
Yon pendant gay, that streaming flies,
Around its idle Staff shall twine.
Behold! along th' etherial sky
Her beams o'er conquering Navies spread;
Peace! Peace! the leaping Sailors cry,
With shouts that might arouse the dead.
Then forth Britannia's thunder pours;
A vast reiterated sound!
From Line to Line the Cannon roars,
And spreads the blazing joy around.
Return, ye brave! your Country calls;
Return; return, your task is done:
While here the tear of transport falls,
To grace your Laurels nobly won.
Albion Cliffs--from age to age,
That bear the roaring storms of Heav'n,
Did ever fiercer Warfare rage?
Was ever Peace more timely given?
Wake! sounds of Joy: rouse, generous Isle;
Let every patriot bosom glow.
Beauty, resume thy wonted smile,
And, Poverty, thy cheerful brow.
Boast, Britain, of thy glorious Guests;
Peace, Wealth, and Commerce, all thine own:
Still on contented Labour rests
The basis of a lasting Throne.
Shout, Poverty! 'tis Heaven that saves;
Protected Wealth, the chorus raise:
Ruler of War, of Winds, and Waves,
Accept a prostrate Nation's praise.
ERRATA.
Page 28, line 1, for _Mon_ read _Man_.
56, 13, for _thy_ read _my_.
CONTENTS.
Richard and Kate: Ballad
Walter and Jane: a Tale
The Miller's Maid: a Tale
The Widow to her Hour-Glass
Market-Night: Ballad
The Fakenham Ghost: Ballad
The French Mariner: Ballad
Dolly: Ballad
A Visit to Whittlebury Forest
A Highland Drover: Song
A Word to Two Young Ladies
On hearing of the Translation of the Farmer's Boy
Nancy: Song
Rosy Hannah: Song
The Shepherd and his Dog Rover: Song
Hunting Song
Lucy: Song
Winter Song
[Illustration]
RICHARD AND KATE: OR, FAIR-DAY.
A Suffolk Ballad.
'Come, Goody, stop your humdrum wheel,
Sweep up your orts, and get your Hat;
Old joys reviv'd once more I feel,
'Tis Fair-day;--ay, _and more than that._
_The Deliberation_.
'Have you forgot, Kate, prithee say,
'How many Seasons here we've tarry'd?
'Tis _Forty_ years, this very day,
'Since you and I, old Girl, were _married_
'Look out;--the Sun shines warm and bright,
'The Stiles are low, the paths all dry;
'I know you cut your corns last night:
'Come; be as free from care as I.
'For I'm resolv'd once more to see
'That place where we so often met;
'Though few have had more cares than we,
'We've none just now to make us fret.'
Kate scorn'd to damp the generous flame
That warm'd her aged Partner's breast;
Yet, ere determination came,
She thus some trifling doubts express'd.
_Difficulties--Consent_.
'Night will come on; when seated snug,
'And you've perhaps begun some tale,
'Can you then leave your dear stone mug;
'Leave all the folks, and all the Ale?'
'Ay, Kate, I wool;--because I know,
'Though time has been we both could run,
'Such days are gone and over now;--
'I only mean to see the fun.'
She straight slipp'd off the Wall and Band, [Terms used in spinning]
And laid aside her Lucks and Twitches:
And to the Hutch [a chest] she reach'd her hand,
And gave him out his Sunday Breeches.
His Mattock he behind the door
And Hedging-gloves again replac'd;
And look'd across the yellow Moor,
And urg'd his tott'ring Spouse to haste.
_The Walk to the Fair._
The day was up, the air serene,
The Firmament without a cloud;
The Bee humm'd o'er the level green
Where knots of trembling Cowslips bow'd.
And RICHARD thus, with heart elate,
As past things rush'd across his mind,
Over his shoulder, talk'd to KATE,
Who snug tuckt up, walk'd slow behind.
'When once a gigling Mawther you,
'And I a redfac'd chubby Boy,
'Sly tricks, you play'd me not a few;
'For mischief was your greatest joy.
'Once, passing by this very Tree,
'A Gotch [pitcher] of Milk I'd been to fill,
'You shoulder'd me; then laugh'd to see
'Me and my Gotch spin down the Hill'
_Discourse on past Days._
'Tis true,' she said; 'but here behold,
'And marvel at the course of Time;
'Though you and I are both grown old,
'This Tree is only in its prime!'
'Well, Goody, don't stand preaching now;
'Folks don't preach Sermons at a FAIR:
'We've rear'd Ten _Boys_ and _Girls_ you know;
'And I'll be bound they'll all be there.'
Now friendly nods and smiles had they,
From many a kind _Fair-going_ face:
And many a pinch KATE gave away;
While RICHARD kept his usual pace.
At length arriv'd amidst the throng,
_Grand-children_ bawling hem'd them round;
And dragg'd them by the skirts along
Where gingerbread bestrew'd the ground.
_The Arrival.--Country Sports._
And soon the aged couple spy'd
Their lusty _Sons_ and _Daughters_ dear:
When RICHARD thus exulting cried,
'Did'nt I tell you they'd be here?'
The cordial greetings of the soul
Were visible in every face;
Affection, void of all controul,
Govern'd with a resistless grace.
'Twas good to see the honest strife,
_Which_ should contribute most to please;
And hear the long-recounted life,
Of infant tricks, and happy days.
But now, as at some nobler places,
Amongst the Leaders 'twas decreed
Time to begin the DICKY RACES;
More fam'd for laughter than for speed.
_Recollections._
RICHARD look'd on with wond'rous glee,
And prais'd the Lad who ehanc'd to win;
'KATE, wan't I such a one as he?
'As like him, ay, as pin to pin?
'Full _Fifty_ years are pass'd away
'Since I rode this same ground about:
'Lord! I was lively as the day!
'I won the High-lows out and out!
'I'm surely growing young again:
'I feel myself so kedge and plump.
'From head to foot I've not one pain;
'Nay, hang me if I cou'd 'nt jump.'
Thus spoke the ALE in RICHARD'S pate,
A very little made him mellow;
But still he lov'd his faithful KATE,
Who whisper'd thus, 'My good old fellow,
_The Departure._
'Remember what you promis'd me:
'And see, the Sun is getting low;
'The Children want an hour ye see
'To talk a bit before we go.'
Like youthful Lover most complying
He turn'd, and chuckt her by the chin:
Then all across the green grass hieing,
Right merry faces, all akin,
Their farewell quart, beneath a
That droop'd its branches from above,
Awak'd the pure felicity
That waits upon PARENTAL LOVE.
KATE view'd her blooming Daughters round,
And Sons, who shook her wither'd hand;
Her features spoke what joy she found;
But utterance had made a stand.
_An old Man's Joy._
The Children toppled on the green,
And bowl'd their _fairings_ down the hill;
Richard with pride beheld the scene,
Nor could he for his life sit still.
A Father's uncheck'd feelings gave
A tenderness to all he said;
'My Boys, how proud am I to have
'My name thus round the Country spread!
'Through all my days I've labour'd hard,
'And could of pains and Crosses tell;
'But this is Labour's great reward,
'To meet ye thus, and see ye well.
'My good old Partner, when at home,
'Sometimes with wishes mingles tears;
'Goody, says I, let what wool come,
'We've nothing for them but our pray'rs.
_Old Man's Joy continued._
'May you be all as old as I,
'And see you? Sons to manhood grow;
'And, many a time before you die,
'Be just as pleas'd as I am now.'
Then, (raising still his Mug and Voice,)
'An Old Man's weakness don't despise!
'I love you well, my Girls and Boys;
'GOD bless you all;'--so said his eyes----
For, as he spoke, a big round drop
Fell bounding on his ample sleeve;
A witness which he could not stop,
A witness which all hearts believe.
Thou, FILIAL PIETY, wert there;
And round the ring, benignly bright,
Dwelt in the luscious half-shed tear,
And in the parting word--_Good Night_.
_The Return home._
With thankful Hearts and strengthen'd Love,
The poor old PAIR, supremely blest,
Saw the Sun sink behind the grove,
And gain'd once more their lowly rest.
[Illustration]
WALTER AND JANE: or, THE POOR BLACKSMITH.
_A Country Tale._
Bright was the summer sky, the Mornings gay,
And Jane was young and chearful as the Day.
Not yet to Love but Mirth she paid her vows;
And Echo mock'd her as she call'd her Cows.
Tufts of green Broom, that full in blossom vied,
And grac'd with spotted gold the upland side,
The level fogs o'erlook'd; too high to share;
So lovely JANE o'erlook'd the clouds of Care;
_Jane._
No meadow-flow'r rose fresher to the view,
That met her morning footsteps in the dew;
Where, if a nodding stranger ey'd her charms,
The blush of innocence was up in arms,
Love's random glances struck the unguarded mind,
And Beauty's magic made him look behind.
Duly as morning blush'd or twilight came,
Secure of greeting smiles and Village fame,
She pass'd the Straw-roof'd Shed, in ranges where
Hung many a well-turn'd Shoe and glitt'ring _Share_;
Where WALTER, as the charmer tripp'd along,
Would stop his roaring Bellows and his Song.--
Dawn of affection; Love's delicious sigh!
Caught from the lightnings of a speaking eye,
That leads the heart to rapture or to woe,
'Twas WALTER'S fate thy mad'ning power to know;
And scarce to know, ere in its infant twine,
As the Blast shakes the tendrils of the Vine,
_The Separation._
The budding bliss that full of promise grew
The chilling blight of separation knew.
Scarce had he told his heart's unquiet case,
And JANE to shun him ceas'd to mend her pace,
And learnt to listen trembling as he spoke,
And fondly judge his words beyond a joke;
When, at the Goal that bounds our prospects here,
Jane's widow'd Mistress ended her career:
Blessings attended her divided store,
The Mansion sold, (Jane's peaceful home no more,)
A distant Village own'd her for its Queen,
Another service, and another scene;
But could another scene so pleasing prove,
Twelve weary miles from Walter and from Love?
The Maid grew thoughtful: yet to Fate resign'd,
Knew not the worth of what she left behind.
He, when at Eve releas'd from toil and heat,
Soon miss'd the smiles that taught his heart to beat,
_The Lover's-Journey._
Each sabbath-day of late was wont to prove
Hope's liberal feast, the holiday of Love:
But now, upon his spirit's ebbing strength
Came each dull hour's intolerable length.
The next had scarcely dawn'd when Walter hied
O'er hill and dale, Affection for his guide:
O'er the brown Heath his pathless journey lay,
Where screaming Lapwings hail'd the op'ning day.
High rose the Sun, the anxious Lover sigh'd;
His slipp'ry soles bespoke the dew was dried:
Her last farewell hung fondly on his tongue
As o'er the tufted Furze elate he sprung;
Trifling impediments; his heart was light,
For Love and Beauty glow'd in fancy's sight;
And soon he gaz'd on Jane's enchanting face,
Renew'd his passion,--but, destroy'd his peace.
Truth, at whose shrine he bow'd, inflicted pain;
And Conscience whisper'd, '_Never come again_.'
_Self-Denial._
For now, his tide of gladness to oppose,
A clay-cold damp of doubts and fears arose;
Clouds, which involve, midst Love and Reason's strife,
The poor man's prospect when he takes a wife.
Though gay his journeys in the Summer's prime,
Each seem'd the repetition of a crime;
He never left her but with many a sigh,
When tears stole down his face, she knew not why.
Severe his task those visits to forego,
And feed his heart with voluntary woe.
Yet this he did; the wan Moon circling found
His evenings cheerless, and his rest unsound;
And saw th' unquenched flame his bosom swell:
What were his doubts, thus let the Story tell
A month's sharp conflict only serv'd to prove
The pow'r, as well as truth, of Walter's love.
Absence more strongly on his mind portray'd
His own sweet, injur'd, unoffending Maid.
_The renew'd Journey._
Once more he'd go; full resolute awhile,
But heard his native Bells on every stile;
The sound recall'd him with a pow'rful charm,
The Heath wide open'd, and the day was warm;
There, where a bed of tempting green he found,
Increasing anguish weigh'd him to the ground;
His well-grown limbs the scatter'd Daisies press'd,
While his clinch'd hand fell heavy on his breast.
'Why do I go in cruel sport to say,
"I love thee, Jane; appoint the happy day?"
'Why seek her sweet ingenuous reply,
'Then grasp her hand and proffer--poverty?
'Why, if I love her and adore her name,
'Why act like time and sickness on her frame?
'Why should my scanty pittance nip her prime,
'And chace away the Rose before its time?
'I'm young, 'tis true; the world beholds me free;
'Labour ne'er show'd a frightful face to me;
_Love of Prudence._
'Nature's first wants hard labour _should_ supply;
'But should it fail, 'twill be too late to fly.
'Some Summers hence, if nought our loves annoy,
'The image of my Jane may lisp her joy;
'Or, blooming boys with imitative swing
'May mock my arm, and make the Anvil ring;
'Then if in rags.--But, O my heart, forbear,--
'I love the Girl, and why should I despair?
'And that I love her all the village knows;
'Oft from my pain the mirth of others flows;
'As when a neighbour's Steed with glancing eye
'Saw his par'd hoof supported on my thigh:
'Jane pass'd that instant; mischief came of course;
'I drove the nail awry and lam'd the Horse;
'The poor beast limp'd: I bore a Master's frown,
'A thousand times I wish'd the wound my own.
'When to these tangling thoughts I've been resign'd,
'Fury or languor has possess'd my mind,
_Recollections_.
'All eyes have stared, I've blown a blast so strong;
'Forgot to smite at all, or smote too long.
'If at the Ale-house door, with careless glee
'One drinks to Jane, and darts a look on me;
'I feel that blush which her dear name will bring,
'I feel:--but, guilty Love, 'tis not thy sting!
'Yet what are jeers? the bubbles of an hour;
'Jane knows what Love can do, and feels its pow'r;
'In her mild eye fair Truth her meaning tells;
'Tis not in looks like her's that falsehood dwells.
'As water shed upon a dusty way
'I've seen midst downward pebbles devious stray;
'If kindred drops an adverse channel keep,
'The crystal friends toward each other creep;
'Near, and still nearer, rolls each little tide,
'Th' expanding mirror swells on either side:
'They touch--'tis done--receding bound'ries fly,
'An instantaneous union strikes the eye:
_The Interview._
'So 'tis with us: for Jane would be my bride;
'Shall coward fears then turn the bliss aside?'
While thus he spoke he heard a gentle sound,
That seem'd a jarring footstep on the ground:
Asham'd of grief, he bade his eyes unclose,
And shook with agitation as he rose;
All unprepared the sweet surprise to bear;
His heart beat high, for Jane herself was there.--
Flusht was her cheek; she seem'd the full-blown flower,
For warmth gave loveliness a double power;
Round her fair brow the deep confusion ran,
A waving handkerchief became her fan,
Her lips, where dwelt sweet love and smiling ease,
Puff'd gently back the warm assailing breeze.
'I've travell'd all these weary miles with pain,
'To see my native village once again;
'And show my true regard for neighbour _Hind_;
'Not like you, Walter, _she_ was always kind.'
_Resentment and Tenderness_.
'Twas thus, each soft actuation laid aside,
She buoy'd her spirits up with maiden pride;
Disclaimed her love, e'en while she felt the sting;
'What, come for Walter's sake!' 'Twas no such thing.
But when astonishment his tongue releas'd,
Pride's usurpation in an instant ceas'd:
By force he caught her hand as passing by,
And gaz'd upon her half averted eye;
His heart's distraction, and his boding fears
She heard, and answer'd with a flood of tears;
Precious relief; sure friends that forward press
To tell the mind's unspeakable distress.
Ye Youths, whom crimson'd health and genuine fire
Bear joyous on the wings of young desire,
Ye, who still bow to Love's almighty sway,
What could true passion, what could Walter say?
Age, tell me true, nor shake your locks in vain,
Tread back your paths, and be in love again;
_Visit to a Friend_.
In your young days did such a favouring hour
Show you the littleness of wealth and pow'r?
Advent'rous climbers of the Mountain's brow;
While Love, their master, spreads his couch below--
'My dearest Jane,' the untaught Walter cried,
As half repell'd he pleaded by her side;
'My dearest Jane, think of me as you may--'
Thus--still unutter'd what he strove to say,
They breath'd in sighs the anguish of their minds,
And took the path that led to neighbour _Hind's_.
A secret joy the well-known roof inspir'd,
Small was its store, and little they desir'd;
Jane dried her tears; while Walter forward flew
To aid the Dame; who to the brink updrew
The pond'rous Bucket as they reach'd the well,
And scarcely with exhausted breath could tell
How welcome to her Cot the blooming Pair,
O'er whom she watch'd with a maternal care.
_The Expostulation_.
'What ails thee, Jane?' the wary Matron cried;
With heaving breast the modest Maid reply'd,
Now gently moving back her wooden Chair
To shun the current of the cooling air;
'Not much, good Dame; I'm weary by the way;
'Perhaps, anon, I've something else to say.'
Now, while the Seed-cake crumbled on her knee,
And Snowy Jasmine peeped in to see;
And the transparent Lilac at the door,
Full to the Sun its purple honors bore,
The clam'rous Hen her fearless brood display'd,
And march'd around; while thus the Matron said:
'Jane has been weeping, Walter;--prithee why?
'I've seen her laugh, and dance, but never cry.
'But I can guess; with _her_ you should have been,
'When late I saw you loit'ring on the green;
'I'm an old Woman, and the truth may tell:
I say then, Boy, you have not us'd her well.'
_Pleadings of Experience for Love with extreme Prudence._
JANE felt for WALTER; felt his cruel pain,
While Pity's voice brought forth her tears again.
'Don't scold him, Neighbour, he has much to say,
'Indeed he came and met me by the way.'
The Dame resum'd--'Why then, my Children, why
'Do such young bosoms heave the piteous sigh?
'The ills of Life to you are yet unknown;
'Death's sev'ring shaft, and Poverty's cold frown:
'I've felt them both, by turns:--but as they pass'd,
'Strong was my trust, and here I am at last.
'When I dwelt young and cheerful down the _Lane_.
'(And, though I say it, I was much like JANE,)
'O'er flow'ry fields with _Hind_, I lov'd to stray,
'And talk, and laugh, and fool the time away:
'And Care defied; who not one pain could give,
'Till the thought came of how we were to live;
'And then Love plied his arrows thicker still:
'And prov'd victorious;--as he always will.
_The Victory_.
'We brav'd Life's storm together; while that Drone,
'Your poor old Uncle, WALTER, liv'd alone.
'He died the other day: when round his bed
'No tender soothing tear Affection shed--
'Affection! 'twas a plant he never knew;--
'Why should he feast on fruits he never grew?'
WALTER caught fire: nor was _he_ charm'd alone
With conscious Truth's firm elevated tone;
JANE from her seat sprang forward, half afraid,
Attesting with a blush what Goody said.
Her Lover took a more decided part:--
(O! 'twas the very Chord that touch'd his heart,)--
Alive to the best feelings man can prize,
A Bridegroom's transport sparkled in his eyes;
Love, conquering power, with unrestricted range
Silenc'd the arguments of Time and Change;
And led his vot'ry on, and bade him view,
And prize the light-wing'd moments as they flew:
_The Confession._
All doubts gave way, all retrospective lore,
Whence cooler Reason tortur'd him before;
Comparison of times, the Lab'rer's hire,
And many a truth Reflection might inspire,
Sunk powerless. 'Dame, I am a fool,' he cried;
'Alone I might have reason'd till I died.
'I caus'd those tears of Jane's:--but as they fell
'How much I felt none but ourselves can tell.
'While dastard fears withheld me from her sight;
'Sighs reign'd by day and hideous dreams by night;
''Twas then the Soldier's plume and rolling Drum
'Seem'd for a while to strike my sorrows dumb;
'To fly from Care then half resolv'd I stood,
'And without horror mus'd on fields of blood,
'But Hope prevail'd.--Be then the sword resign'd;
'And I'll make _Shares_ for those that stay behind,
'And you, sweet Girl,'------
He would have added more,
Had not a glancing shadow at the door
_Unexpected Visit._
Announc'd a guest, who bore with winning grace
His well-tim'd errand pictur'd in his face.
Around with silent reverence they stood;
A blameless reverence--the man was good.
Wealth he had some, a match for his desires,
First on the list of active Country 'Squires.
Seeing the youthful pair with downcast eyes,
Unmov'd by Summer-flowers and cloudless skies,
Pass slowly by his Gate; his book resign'd,
He watch'd their steps and follow'd far behind,
Bearing with inward joy, and honest pride,
A trust of WALTER'S kinsman ere he died,
A hard-earn'd mite, deposited with care,
And with a miser's spirit worshipt there.
He found what oft the generous bosom seeks,
In the Dame's court'seys and JANE'S blushing cheeks,
That consciousness of Worth, that freeborn Grace,
Which waits on Virtue in the meanest place.
_The Difficulty remov'd_
'Young Mon, I'll not apologize to you,
'Nor name intrusion, for my news is true;
'Tis duty brings me here: your wants I've heard,
'And can relieve: yet be the dead rever'd.
'Here, in this Purse, (what should have cheer'd a Wife,)
'Lies, half the savings of your Uncle's life!
'I know your history, and your wishes know;
'And love to see the seeds of Virtue grow.
'I've a spare Shed that fronts the public road:
'Make that your Shop; I'll make it your abode.
'Thus much from me,--the rest is but your due.'
That instant twenty pieces sprung to view.
Goody, her dim eyes wiping, rais'd her brow,
And saw the young pair look they knew not how;
Perils and Power while humble minds forego,
Who gives them half a Kingdom gives them woe;
Comforts may be procur'd and want defied,
Heav'ns! with how small a Sum, when right applied!
_How little of outward Good suffices for Happiness._
Give Love and honest Industry their way,
Clear but the Sun-rise of Life's little day,
Those we term poor shall oft that wealth obtain,
For which th' ambitious sigh, but sigh in vain:
Wealth that still brightens, as its stores increase;
The calm of Conscience, and the reign of Peace.
Walter's enamour'd Soul, from news like this,
Now felt the dawnings of his future bliss;
E'en as the Red-breast shelt'ring in a bower,
Mourns the short darkness of a passing Shower,
Then, while the azure sky extends around,
Darts on a worm that breaks the moisten'd ground,
And mounts the dripping fence, with joy elate,
And shares the prize triumphant with his mate;
So did the Youth;--the treasure straight became
An humble servant to Love's sacred flame;
Glorious subjection!--Thus his silence broke:
Joy gave him words; still quick'ning as he spoke.
_Joy above Wealth_.
'Want was my dread, my wishes were but few;
Others might doubt, but JANE those wishes knew:
This Gold may rid my heart of pains and sighs;
But her true love is still my greatest prize,
Long as I live, when this bright day comes round,
Beneath my Roof your noble deeds shall sound;
But, first, to make my gratitude appear,
I'll shoe your Honour's Horses for a Year;
If clouds should threaten when your Corn is down,
I'll lend a hand, and summon half the town;
If good betide, I'll sound it in my songs,
And be the first avenger of your wrongs:
Though rude in manners, free I hope to live:
This Ale's not mine, no Ale have I to give;
Yet, Sir, though Fortune frown'd when I was born,
Let's drink eternal friendship from this Horn.
How much our present joy to you we owe,
Soon our three Bells shall let the Neighbours know;
_Grateful frankness_.
'The sound shall raise e'en stooping Age awhile,
'And every Maid shall meet you with a smile;
'Long may you _live_'--the wish like lightning flew;
By each repeated as the 'Squire withdrew.
'Long may _you_ live,' his feeling heart rejoin'd;
Leaving well-pleas'd such happy Souls behind.
Hope promis'd fair to cheer them to the end;
With Love their guide, and Goody for their friend.
[Illustration]
THE MILLER'S MAID.
A Tale.
Near the high road upon a winding stream
An honest Miller rose to Wealth and Fame:
The noblest Virtues cheer'd his lengthen'd days,
And all the Country echo'd with his praise:
His Wife, the Doctress of the neighb'ring Poor,
[Footnote: This village and the poor of this neighbourhood know what it is
to have possest such a blessing, and feel at this moment what it is to
lose it by death. C.L.
_Troston_, 13th of September, 1801.]
Drew constant pray'rs and blessings round his door.
_The Tempest_.
One Summer's night, (the hour of rest was come)
Darkness unusual overspread their home;
A chilling blast was felt; the foremost cloud
Sprinkl'd the bubbling Pool; and thunder loud,
Though distant yet, menac'd the country round,
And fill'd the Heavens with its solemn sound.
Who can retire to rest when tempests lour?
Nor wait the issue of the coming hour?
Meekly resign'd she sat, in anxious pain;
He fill'd his pipe, and listen'd to the rain
That batter'd furiously their strong abode,
Roar'd in the Damm, and lash'd the pebbled road:
When, mingling with the storm, confus'd and wild,
They heard, or thought they heard, a screaming _Child_:
The voice approach'd; and midst the thunder's roar,
Now loudly begg'd for Mercy at the door.
MERCY was _there_: the Miller heard the call;
His door he open'd; when a sudden squall
_The Young Stranger_.
Drove in a wretched Girl; who weeping stood,
Whilst the cold rain dripp'd from her in a flood.
With kind officiousness the tender Dame
Rous'd up the dying embers to a flame;
Dry cloaths procur'd, and cheer'd her shiv'ring guest,
And sooth'd the sorrows of her infant breast.
But as she stript her shoulders, lily-white,
What marks of cruel usage shock'd their sight!
Weals, and blue wounds, most piteous to behold
Upon a Child yet scarcely Ten years old.
The _Miller_ felt his indignation rise,
Yet, as the weary stranger clos'd her eyes,
And seem'd fatigu'd beyond her strength and years,
'Sleep, Child,' he said, 'and wipe away your tears.'
They watch'd her slumbers till the storm was done;
When thus the generous Man again begun:
'See, fluttering sighs that rise against her will,
And agitating dreams disturb her still!
_The Simple Story_.
'Dame, we should know before we go to rest,
'Whence comes this Girl, and how she came distrest.
'Wake her, and ask; for she is sorely bruis'd:
'I long to know by whom she's thus misus'd.
'Child, what's your name? how came you in the storm?
'Have you no home to keep you dry and warm?
'Who gave you all those wounds your shoulders show?
'Where are your Parents? Whither would you go?
The Stranger bursting into tears, look'd pale,
And this the purport of her artless tale.
'I have no Parents; and no friends beside:
'I well remember when my Mother died:
'My Brother cried; and so did I that day:
'We had no Father;--he was gone away;
'That night we left our home new cloaths to wear:
'The _Work-house_ found them; we were carried there.
'We lov'd each other dearly; when we met
'We always shar'd what trifles we could get.
_Rustic Hospitality and Protection of the friendless_.
But _George_ was older by a year than me:--
He parted from me and was sent to Sea.
"Good-bye, dear Phoebe," the poor fellow said!
Perhaps he'll come again; perhaps he's dead.
When I grew strong enough I went to place,
My Mistress had a sour ill-natured face;
And though I've been so often beat and chid,
I strove to please her, Sir: indeed, I did.
Weary and spiritless to bed I crept,
And always cried at night before I slept.
This Morning I offended; and I bore
A cruel beating, worse than all before.
Unknown to all the House I ran away;
And thus far travell'd through the sultry day;
And, O don't send me back! I dare not go.'--
'I send you back!' the Miller cried, 'no, no.'
Th' appeals of Wretchedness had weight with him,
And Sympathy would warm him every limb;
_The Child becomes one of the Family_.
He mutter'd, glorying in the work begun,
'Well done, my little Wench; 'twas nobly done!'
Then said, with looks more cheering than the fire,
And feelings such as Pity can inspire,
'My house has childless been this many a year;
While you deserve it you shall tarry here.'
The Orphan mark'd the ardor of his eye,
Blest his kind words, and thank'd him with a sigh.
Thus was the sacred compact doubly seal'd;
Thus were her spirits rais'd, her bruises heal'd:
Thankful, and cheerful too, no more afraid,
Thus little PHOEBE was the Miller's Maid.
Grateful they found her; patient of controul:
A most bewitching gentleness of soul
Made pleasure of what work she had to do:
She grew in stature, and in beauty too.
Five years she pass'd in this delightful home;
Five happy years: but, when the sixth was come,
_The New Comer_.
The _Miller_ from a Market Town hard by,
Brought home a sturdy Youth his strength to try,
To raise the sluice-gates early every morn,
To heave his powder'd sacks and grind his corn:
And meeting _Phoebe_, whom he lov'd so dear,
'I've brought you home a Husband, Girl?--D'ye hear?
He begg'd for work; his money seem'd but scant:
Those that will work 'tis pity they should want.
So use him well, and we shall shortly see
Whether he merits what I've done, like thee.'
Now throbb'd her heart,--a new sensation
Whene'er the comely Stranger was in right:
For he at once assiduously strove.
To please so sweet a Maid, and win her love.
At every corner stopp'd her in her way;
And saw fresh beauties opening ev'ry day;
He took delight in tracing in her face
The mantling blush, and every nameless grace,
[Footnote: A Maxim which all ought to remember. C.L.]
_First Impressions_.
That Sensibility would bring to view,
When Love he mention'd;---Love, and Honour true,
But _Phoebe_ still was shy; and wish'd to know
More of the honest Youth, whose manly brow
She verily believ'd was Truth's own throne,
And all his words as artless as her own;
Most true she judg'd; yet, long the Youth forbore
Divulging where, and how, he liv'd before;
And seem'd to strive his History to hide,
Till fair Esteem enlisted on his side.
The _Miller_ saw, and mention'd, in his prajse,
The prompt fidelity of all his ways;
Till in a vacant hour, the Dinner done,
One day he jokjng cried, 'Come here, my Son!
'Tis pity that so good a Lad as you
Beneath my roof should bring disorders new!
But here's my _Phoebe_,--once so light and airy,
She'd trip along the passage like a Fairy,--
_Enquiry. Ingenuous Explanation_.
Has lost her swiftness quite, since here you came:--
And yet;... I can't perceive the Girl is lame!
The obstacles she meets with still fall thicker:
Old as I am I'd turn a corner quicker.'--
The _Youth_ blush'd deep; and _Phoebe_ hung her head:
The _good Man_ smil'd, and thus again he said:
'Not that I deem it matter of surprise,
That you should love to gaze at _Phoebe's_ eyes;
But be explicit, Boy; and deal with honour:
I feel my happiness depend upon her.
When here you came you'd sorrow on your brow;
And I've forborne to question you till now.
First, then, say what thou art.' He instant bow'd,
And thus, in _Phoebe's_ hearing, spoke aloud:
'Thus far experienc'd, Sir, in you I find
All that is generous, fatherly, and kind;
And while you look for proofs of real worth,
You'll not regard the meanness of my birth.
_The little History_.
When, pennyless and sad, you met with me,
I'd just escap'd the dangers of the Sea;
Resolv'd to try my fortune on the shore:
To get my bread; and trust the waves no more.
Having no Home, nor Parents, left behind,
I'd all my fortune, all my Friends, to find.
Keen disappointment wounded me that morn:
For, trav'ling near the spot where I was born,
I at the well-known door where I was bred,
Inquir'd who still was living, who was dead:
But first, and most, I sought with anxious fear
Tidings to gain of her who once was dear;
A Girl, with all the meekness of the dove,
The constant sharer of my childhood's love;
She call'd me _Brother_:--which I heard with pride,
Though now suspect we are not so allied.
Thus much I learnt; (no more the churls would say;)
She went to service, and she ran away.
_The Recognition_.
'And scandal added'----'Hold!' the _Miller_ cried,
And, in an instant, stood at _Phoebe's_ side;
For he observed, while list'ning to the tale,
Her spirits faulter'd, and her cheeks turn'd pale;
Whilst her clasp'd hands descended to her knee
She sinking whisper'd forth, 'O _God_, 'tis _he_!
The good Man, though he guess'd the pleasing truth,
Was far too busy to inform the Youth;
But stirr'd himself amain to aid his Wife,
Who soon restor'd the trembler back to life.
Awhile insensible she still appear'd;
But, '_O my Brother!_' was distinctly heard:
The astonisht Youth now held her to his breast;
And tears and kisses soon explain'd the rest.
Past deeds now from each tongue alternate fell;
For news of dearest import both could tell.
Fondly, from childhood's tears to youth's full prime,
They match'd the incidents of jogging time;
_ Mutual Recollections_.
And prov'd, that when with Tyranny opprest,
Poor _Phoebe_ groan'd with wounds and broken rest,
_George_ felt no less: was harassed and forlorn;
A rope's-end follow'd him both night and morn.
Andin that very storm when _Phoebe_ fled,
When the rain drench'd her yet unshelter'd head;
That very Storm he on the Ocean brav'd,
The Vessel founder'd, and the Boy was say'd!
Mysterious Heaven!--and O with what delight--
She told the happy issue of her flight:
To his charm'd heart a living picture drew;
And gave to hospitality its due!
The list'ning Host observ'd the gentle Pair;
And ponder'd on the means that brought them there:
Convinc'd, while unimpeach'd their Virtue stood,
Twas _Heav'n's_ high Will that he should do them good.
But now the anxious Dame, impatient grown,
Demanded what the Youth had heard, or known,
_The Investigation_.
Whereon to ground those doubts but just exprest;--
Doubts, which must interest the feeling breast:
'Her Brother wert thou, George?--how; prithee say:
Canst thou forego, or cast that name away?'
'No living proofs have I,' the Youth reply'd,
That we by closest ties are not allied;
But in my memory live, and ever will,
A mother's dying words......I hear them still:
She said, to one who watch'd her parting breath,
"Don't separate the Children at my death;
They're not both mine: but--" Here the scene was clos'd;
She died, and left us helpless and expos'd;
Nor Time hath thrown, nor Reason's opening power,
One friendly ray on that benighted hour.'
Ne'er did the Chieftains of a Warring State
Hear from the _Oracle_ their half-told fate
With more religious fear, or more suspense,
Than _Phoebe_ now endur'd:--for every sense
_The Perplexity_.
Became absorb'd in this unwelcome theme;
Nay every meditation, every dream,
Th'inexplicable sentence held to view,
'They're not both mine,' was every morning new:
For, till this hour, the Maid had never prov'd
How far she was enthrall'd, how much she lov'd:
In that fond character he first appear'd;
His kindness charm'd her, and his smiles endear'd:
This dubious mystery the passion crost;
Her peace was wounded, and her Lover lost.
For _George_, with all his resolution strove
To check the progress of his growing love;
Or, if he e'er indulg'd a tender kiss,
Th'unravell'd secret robb'd him of his bliss.
Health's foe, Suspense, so irksome to be borne,
An ever-piercing and retreating thorn,
Hung on their Hearts, when Nature bade them rise,
And stole Content's bright ensign from their eyes.
_Anxiety. The Enquiry suggested_.
The good folks saw the change, and griev'd to find
These troubles labouring in _Phoebe's_ mind;
They lov'd them both; and with one voice propos'd
The only means whence _Truth_ might be disclos'd;
That, when the Summer Months should shrink the rill,
And scarce its languid stream would turn the Mill,
When the Spring broods, and Pigs, and Lambs were rear'd,
(A time when _George_ and _Phoebe_ might be spar'd,)
Their birth-place they should visit once again,
To try with joint endeavours to obtain
From Record, or Tradition, what might be
To chain, or set their chain'd affections free:
Affinity beyond all doubts to prove;
Or clear the road for Nature and for Love. |
10,240 |
Produced by David Widger
THE VISION
OF
HELL, PURGATORY, AND PARADISE
BY DANTE ALIGHIERI
TRANSLATED BY
THE REV. H. F. CARY, M.A.
PARADISE
Part 3
CANTO XXII
Astounded, to the guardian of my steps
I turn'd me, like the chill, who always runs
Thither for succour, where he trusteth most,
And she was like the mother, who her son
Beholding pale and breathless, with her voice
Soothes him, and he is cheer'd; for thus she spake,
Soothing me: "Know'st not thou, thou art in heav'n?
And know'st not thou, whatever is in heav'n,
Is holy, and that nothing there is done
But is done zealously and well? Deem now,
What change in thee the song, and what my smile
had wrought, since thus the shout had pow'r to move thee.
In which couldst thou have understood their prayers,
The vengeance were already known to thee,
Which thou must witness ere thy mortal hour,
The sword of heav'n is not in haste to smite,
Nor yet doth linger, save unto his seeming,
Who in desire or fear doth look for it.
But elsewhere now l bid thee turn thy view;
So shalt thou many a famous spirit behold."
Mine eyes directing, as she will'd, I saw
A hundred little spheres, that fairer grew
By interchange of splendour. I remain'd,
As one, who fearful of o'er-much presuming,
Abates in him the keenness of desire,
Nor dares to question, when amid those pearls,
One largest and most lustrous onward drew,
That it might yield contentment to my wish;
And from within it these the sounds I heard.
"If thou, like me, beheldst the charity
That burns amongst us, what thy mind conceives,
Were utter'd. But that, ere the lofty bound
Thou reach, expectance may not weary thee,
I will make answer even to the thought,
Which thou hast such respect of. In old days,
That mountain, at whose side Cassino rests,
Was on its height frequented by a race
Deceived and ill dispos'd: and I it was,
Who thither carried first the name of Him,
Who brought the soul-subliming truth to man.
And such a speeding grace shone over me,
That from their impious worship I reclaim'd
The dwellers round about, who with the world
Were in delusion lost. These other flames,
The spirits of men contemplative, were all
Enliven'd by that warmth, whose kindly force
Gives birth to flowers and fruits of holiness.
Here is Macarius; Romoaldo here:
And here my brethren, who their steps refrain'd
Within the cloisters, and held firm their heart."
I answ'ring, thus; "Thy gentle words and kind,
And this the cheerful semblance, I behold
Not unobservant, beaming in ye all,
Have rais'd assurance in me, wakening it
Full-blossom'd in my bosom, as a rose
Before the sun, when the consummate flower
Has spread to utmost amplitude. Of thee
Therefore entreat I, father! to declare
If I may gain such favour, as to gaze
Upon thine image, by no covering veil'd."
"Brother!" he thus rejoin'd, "in the last sphere
Expect completion of thy lofty aim,
For there on each desire completion waits,
And there on mine: where every aim is found
Perfect, entire, and for fulfillment ripe.
There all things are as they have ever been:
For space is none to bound, nor pole divides,
Our ladder reaches even to that clime,
And so at giddy distance mocks thy view.
Thither the Patriarch Jacob saw it stretch
Its topmost round, when it appear'd to him
With angels laden. But to mount it now
None lifts his foot from earth: and hence my rule
Is left a profitless stain upon the leaves;
The walls, for abbey rear'd, turned into dens,
The cowls to sacks choak'd up with musty meal.
Foul usury doth not more lift itself
Against God's pleasure, than that fruit which makes
The hearts of monks so wanton: for whate'er
Is in the church's keeping, all pertains.
To such, as sue for heav'n's sweet sake, and not
To those who in respect of kindred claim,
Or on more vile allowance. Mortal flesh
Is grown so dainty, good beginnings last not
From the oak's birth, unto the acorn's setting.
His convent Peter founded without gold
Or silver; I with pray'rs and fasting mine;
And Francis his in meek humility.
And if thou note the point, whence each proceeds,
Then look what it hath err'd to, thou shalt find
The white grown murky. Jordan was turn'd back;
And a less wonder, then the refluent sea,
May at God's pleasure work amendment here."
So saying, to his assembly back he drew:
And they together cluster'd into one,
Then all roll'd upward like an eddying wind.
The sweet dame beckon'd me to follow them:
And, by that influence only, so prevail'd
Over my nature, that no natural motion,
Ascending or descending here below,
Had, as I mounted, with my pennon vied.
So, reader, as my hope is to return
Unto the holy triumph, for the which
I ofttimes wail my sins, and smite my breast,
Thou hadst been longer drawing out and thrusting
Thy finger in the fire, than I was, ere
The sign, that followeth Taurus, I beheld,
And enter'd its precinct. O glorious stars!
O light impregnate with exceeding virtue!
To whom whate'er of genius lifteth me
Above the vulgar, grateful I refer;
With ye the parent of all mortal life
Arose and set, when I did first inhale
The Tuscan air; and afterward, when grace
Vouchsaf'd me entrance to the lofty wheel
That in its orb impels ye, fate decreed
My passage at your clime. To you my soul
Devoutly sighs, for virtue even now
To meet the hard emprize that draws me on.
"Thou art so near the sum of blessedness,"
Said Beatrice, "that behooves thy ken
Be vigilant and clear. And, to this end,
Or even thou advance thee further, hence
Look downward, and contemplate, what a world
Already stretched under our feet there lies:
So as thy heart may, in its blithest mood,
Present itself to the triumphal throng,
Which through the' etherial concave comes rejoicing."
I straight obey'd; and with mine eye return'd
Through all the seven spheres, and saw this globe
So pitiful of semblance, that perforce
It moved my smiles: and him in truth I hold
For wisest, who esteems it least: whose thoughts
Elsewhere are fix'd, him worthiest call and best.
I saw the daughter of Latona shine
Without the shadow, whereof late I deem'd
That dense and rare were cause. Here I sustain'd
The visage, Hyperion! of thy sun;
And mark'd, how near him with their circle, round
Move Maia and Dione; here discern'd
Jove's tempering 'twixt his sire and son; and hence
Their changes and their various aspects
Distinctly scann'd. Nor might I not descry
Of all the seven, how bulky each, how swift;
Nor of their several distances not learn.
This petty area (o'er the which we stride
So fiercely), as along the eternal twins
I wound my way, appear'd before me all,
Forth from the havens stretch'd unto the hills.
Then to the beauteous eyes mine eyes return'd.
CANTO XXIII
E'en as the bird, who midst the leafy bower
Has, in her nest, sat darkling through the night,
With her sweet brood, impatient to descry
Their wished looks, and to bring home their food,
In the fond quest unconscious of her toil:
She, of the time prevenient, on the spray,
That overhangs their couch, with wakeful gaze
Expects the sun; nor ever, till the dawn,
Removeth from the east her eager ken;
So stood the dame erect, and bent her glance
Wistfully on that region, where the sun
Abateth most his speed; that, seeing her
Suspense and wand'ring, I became as one,
In whom desire is waken'd, and the hope
Of somewhat new to come fills with delight.
Short space ensued; I was not held, I say,
Long in expectance, when I saw the heav'n
Wax more and more resplendent; and, "Behold,"
Cried Beatrice, "the triumphal hosts
Of Christ, and all the harvest reap'd at length
Of thy ascending up these spheres." Meseem'd,
That, while she spake her image all did burn,
And in her eyes such fullness was of joy,
And I am fain to pass unconstrued by.
As in the calm full moon, when Trivia smiles,
In peerless beauty,'mid th' eternal nympus,
That paint through all its gulfs the blue profound
In bright pre-eminence so saw I there,
O'er million lamps a sun, from whom all drew
Their radiance as from ours the starry train:
And through the living light so lustrous glow'd
The substance, that my ken endur'd it not.
O Beatrice! sweet and precious guide!
Who cheer'd me with her comfortable words!
"Against the virtue, that o'erpow'reth thee,
Avails not to resist. Here is the might,
And here the wisdom, which did open lay
The path, that had been yearned for so long,
Betwixt the heav'n and earth." Like to the fire,
That, in a cloud imprison'd doth break out
Expansive, so that from its womb enlarg'd,
It falleth against nature to the ground;
Thus in that heav'nly banqueting my soul
Outgrew herself; and, in the transport lost.
Holds now remembrance none of what she was.
"Ope thou thine eyes, and mark me: thou hast seen
Things, that empower thee to sustain my smile."
I was as one, when a forgotten dream
Doth come across him, and he strives in vain
To shape it in his fantasy again,
Whenas that gracious boon was proffer'd me,
Which never may be cancel'd from the book,
Wherein the past is written. Now were all
Those tongues to sound, that have on sweetest milk
Of Polyhymnia and her sisters fed
And fatten'd, not with all their help to boot,
Unto the thousandth parcel of the truth,
My song might shadow forth that saintly smile,
flow merely in her saintly looks it wrought.
And with such figuring of Paradise
The sacred strain must leap, like one, that meets
A sudden interruption to his road.
But he, who thinks how ponderous the theme,
And that 't is lain upon a mortal shoulder,
May pardon, if it tremble with the burden.
The track, our ventrous keel must furrow, brooks
No unribb'd pinnace, no self-sparing pilot.
"Why doth my face," said Beatrice, "thus
Enamour thee, as that thou dost not turn
Unto the beautiful garden, blossoming
Beneath the rays of Christ? Here is the rose,
Wherein the word divine was made incarnate;
And here the lilies, by whose odour known
The way of life was follow'd." Prompt I heard
Her bidding, and encounter once again
The strife of aching vision. As erewhile,
Through glance of sunlight, stream'd through broken cloud,
Mine eyes a flower-besprinkled mead have seen,
Though veil'd themselves in shade; so saw I there
Legions of splendours, on whom burning rays
Shed lightnings from above, yet saw I not
The fountain whence they flow'd. O gracious virtue!
Thou, whose broad stamp is on them, higher up
Thou didst exalt thy glory to give room
To my o'erlabour'd sight: when at the name
Of that fair flower, whom duly I invoke
Both morn and eve, my soul, with all her might
Collected, on the goodliest ardour fix'd.
And, as the bright dimensions of the star
In heav'n excelling, as once here on earth
Were, in my eyeballs lively portray'd,
Lo! from within the sky a cresset fell,
Circling in fashion of a diadem,
And girt the star, and hov'ring round it wheel'd.
Whatever melody sounds sweetest here,
And draws the spirit most unto itself,
Might seem a rent cloud when it grates the thunder,
Compar'd unto the sounding of that lyre,
Wherewith the goodliest sapphire, that inlays
The floor of heav'n, was crown'd. "Angelic Love
I am, who thus with hov'ring flight enwheel
The lofty rapture from that womb inspir'd,
Where our desire did dwell: and round thee so,
Lady of Heav'n! will hover; long as thou
Thy Son shalt follow, and diviner joy
Shall from thy presence gild the highest sphere."
Such close was to the circling melody:
And, as it ended, all the other lights
Took up the strain, and echoed Mary's name.
The robe, that with its regal folds enwraps
The world, and with the nearer breath of God
Doth burn and quiver, held so far retir'd
Its inner hem and skirting over us,
That yet no glimmer of its majesty
Had stream'd unto me: therefore were mine eyes
Unequal to pursue the crowned flame,
That rose and sought its natal seed of fire;
And like to babe, that stretches forth its arms
For very eagerness towards the breast,
After the milk is taken; so outstretch'd
Their wavy summits all the fervent band,
Through zealous love to Mary: then in view
There halted, and "Regina Coeli" sang
So sweetly, the delight hath left me never.
O what o'erflowing plenty is up-pil'd
In those rich-laden coffers, which below
Sow'd the good seed, whose harvest now they keep.
Here are the treasures tasted, that with tears
Were in the Babylonian exile won,
When gold had fail'd them. Here in synod high
Of ancient council with the new conven'd,
Under the Son of Mary and of God,
Victorious he his mighty triumph holds,
To whom the keys of glory were assign'd.
CANTO XXIV
"O ye! in chosen fellowship advanc'd
To the great supper of the blessed Lamb,
Whereon who feeds hath every wish fulfill'd!
If to this man through God's grace be vouchsaf'd
Foretaste of that, which from your table falls,
Or ever death his fated term prescribe;
Be ye not heedless of his urgent will;
But may some influence of your sacred dews
Sprinkle him. Of the fount ye alway drink,
Whence flows what most he craves." Beatrice spake,
And the rejoicing spirits, like to spheres
On firm-set poles revolving, trail'd a blaze
Of comet splendour; and as wheels, that wind
Their circles in the horologe, so work
The stated rounds, that to th' observant eye
The first seems still, and, as it flew, the last;
E'en thus their carols weaving variously,
They by the measure pac'd, or swift, or slow,
Made me to rate the riches of their joy.
From that, which I did note in beauty most
Excelling, saw I issue forth a flame
So bright, as none was left more goodly there.
Round Beatrice thrice it wheel'd about,
With so divine a song, that fancy's ear
Records it not; and the pen passeth on
And leaves a blank: for that our mortal speech,
Nor e'en the inward shaping of the brain,
Hath colours fine enough to trace such folds.
"O saintly sister mine! thy prayer devout
Is with so vehement affection urg'd,
Thou dost unbind me from that beauteous sphere."
Such were the accents towards my lady breath'd
From that blest ardour, soon as it was stay'd:
To whom she thus: "O everlasting light
Of him, within whose mighty grasp our Lord
Did leave the keys, which of this wondrous bliss
He bare below! tent this man, as thou wilt,
With lighter probe or deep, touching the faith,
By the which thou didst on the billows walk.
If he in love, in hope, and in belief,
Be steadfast, is not hid from thee: for thou
Hast there thy ken, where all things are beheld
In liveliest portraiture. But since true faith
Has peopled this fair realm with citizens,
Meet is, that to exalt its glory more,
Thou in his audience shouldst thereof discourse."
Like to the bachelor, who arms himself,
And speaks not, till the master have propos'd
The question, to approve, and not to end it;
So I, in silence, arm'd me, while she spake,
Summoning up each argument to aid;
As was behooveful for such questioner,
And such profession: "As good Christian ought,
Declare thee, What is faith?" Whereat I rais'd
My forehead to the light, whence this had breath'd,
Then turn'd to Beatrice, and in her looks
Approval met, that from their inmost fount
I should unlock the waters. "May the grace,
That giveth me the captain of the church
For confessor," said I, "vouchsafe to me
Apt utterance for my thoughts!" then added: "Sire!
E'en as set down by the unerring style
Of thy dear brother, who with thee conspir'd
To bring Rome in unto the way of life,
Faith of things hop'd is substance, and the proof
Of things not seen; and herein doth consist
Methinks its essence,"--"Rightly hast thou deem'd,"
Was answer'd: "if thou well discern, why first
He hath defin'd it, substance, and then proof."
"The deep things," I replied, "which here I scan
Distinctly, are below from mortal eye
So hidden, they have in belief alone
Their being, on which credence hope sublime
Is built; and therefore substance it intends.
And inasmuch as we must needs infer
From such belief our reasoning, all respect
To other view excluded, hence of proof
Th' intention is deriv'd." Forthwith I heard:
"If thus, whate'er by learning men attain,
Were understood, the sophist would want room
To exercise his wit." So breath'd the flame
Of love: then added: "Current is the coin
Thou utter'st, both in weight and in alloy.
But tell me, if thou hast it in thy purse."
"Even so glittering and so round," said I,
"I not a whit misdoubt of its assay."
Next issued from the deep imbosom'd splendour:
"Say, whence the costly jewel, on the which
Is founded every virtue, came to thee."
"The flood," I answer'd, "from the Spirit of God
Rain'd down upon the ancient bond and new,--
Here is the reas'ning, that convinceth me
So feelingly, each argument beside
Seems blunt and forceless in comparison."
Then heard I: "Wherefore holdest thou that each,
The elder proposition and the new,
Which so persuade thee, are the voice of heav'n?"
"The works, that follow'd, evidence their truth;"
I answer'd: "Nature did not make for these
The iron hot, or on her anvil mould them."
"Who voucheth to thee of the works themselves,"
Was the reply, "that they in very deed
Are that they purport? None hath sworn so to thee."
"That all the world," said I, "should have been turn'd
To Christian, and no miracle been wrought,
Would in itself be such a miracle,
The rest were not an hundredth part so great.
E'en thou wentst forth in poverty and hunger
To set the goodly plant, that from the vine,
It once was, now is grown unsightly bramble."
That ended, through the high celestial court
Resounded all the spheres. "Praise we one God!"
In song of most unearthly melody.
And when that Worthy thus, from branch to branch,
Examining, had led me, that we now
Approach'd the topmost bough, he straight resum'd;
"The grace, that holds sweet dalliance with thy soul,
So far discreetly hath thy lips unclos'd
That, whatsoe'er has past them, I commend.
Behooves thee to express, what thou believ'st,
The next, and whereon thy belief hath grown."
"O saintly sire and spirit!" I began,
"Who seest that, which thou didst so believe,
As to outstrip feet younger than thine own,
Toward the sepulchre? thy will is here,
That I the tenour of my creed unfold;
And thou the cause of it hast likewise ask'd.
And I reply: I in one God believe,
One sole eternal Godhead, of whose love
All heav'n is mov'd, himself unmov'd the while.
Nor demonstration physical alone,
Or more intelligential and abstruse,
Persuades me to this faith; but from that truth
It cometh to me rather, which is shed
Through Moses, the rapt Prophets, and the Psalms.
The Gospel, and that ye yourselves did write,
When ye were gifted of the Holy Ghost.
In three eternal Persons I believe,
Essence threefold and one, mysterious league
Of union absolute, which, many a time,
The word of gospel lore upon my mind
Imprints: and from this germ, this firstling spark,
The lively flame dilates, and like heav'n's star
Doth glitter in me." As the master hears,
Well pleas'd, and then enfoldeth in his arms
The servant, who hath joyful tidings brought,
And having told the errand keeps his peace;
Thus benediction uttering with song
Soon as my peace I held, compass'd me thrice
The apostolic radiance, whose behest
Had op'd lips; so well their answer pleas'd.
CANTO XXV
If e'er the sacred poem that hath made
Both heav'n and earth copartners in its toil,
And with lean abstinence, through many a year,
Faded my brow, be destin'd to prevail
Over the cruelty, which bars me forth
Of the fair sheep-fold, where a sleeping lamb
The wolves set on and fain had worried me,
With other voice and fleece of other grain
I shall forthwith return, and, standing up
At my baptismal font, shall claim the wreath
Due to the poet's temples: for I there
First enter'd on the faith which maketh souls
Acceptable to God: and, for its sake,
Peter had then circled my forehead thus.
Next from the squadron, whence had issued forth
The first fruit of Christ's vicars on the earth,
Toward us mov'd a light, at view whereof
My Lady, full of gladness, spake to me:
"Lo! lo! behold the peer of mickle might,
That makes Falicia throng'd with visitants!"
As when the ring-dove by his mate alights,
In circles each about the other wheels,
And murmuring cooes his fondness; thus saw I
One, of the other great and glorious prince,
With kindly greeting hail'd, extolling both
Their heavenly banqueting; but when an end
Was to their gratulation, silent, each,
Before me sat they down, so burning bright,
I could not look upon them. Smiling then,
Beatrice spake: "O life in glory shrin'd!"
Who didst the largess of our kingly court
Set down with faithful pen! let now thy voice
Of hope the praises in this height resound.
For thou, who figur'st them in shapes, as clear,
As Jesus stood before thee, well can'st speak them."
"Lift up thy head, and be thou strong in trust:
For that, which hither from the mortal world
Arriveth, must be ripen'd in our beam."
Such cheering accents from the second flame
Assur'd me; and mine eyes I lifted up
Unto the mountains that had bow'd them late
With over-heavy burden. "Sith our Liege
Wills of his grace that thou, or ere thy death,
In the most secret council, with his lords
Shouldst be confronted, so that having view'd
The glories of our court, thou mayst therewith
Thyself, and all who hear, invigorate
With hope, that leads to blissful end; declare,
What is that hope, how it doth flourish in thee,
And whence thou hadst it?" Thus proceeding still,
The second light: and she, whose gentle love
My soaring pennons in that lofty flight
Escorted, thus preventing me, rejoin'd:
Among her sons, not one more full of hope,
Hath the church militant: so 't is of him
Recorded in the sun, whose liberal orb
Enlighteneth all our tribe: and ere his term
Of warfare, hence permitted he is come,
From Egypt to Jerusalem, to see.
The other points, both which thou hast inquir'd,
Not for more knowledge, but that he may tell
How dear thou holdst the virtue, these to him
Leave I; for he may answer thee with ease,
And without boasting, so God give him grace."
Like to the scholar, practis'd in his task,
Who, willing to give proof of diligence,
Seconds his teacher gladly, "Hope," said I,
"Is of the joy to come a sure expectance,
Th' effect of grace divine and merit preceding.
This light from many a star visits my heart,
But flow'd to me the first from him, who sang
The songs of the Supreme, himself supreme
Among his tuneful brethren. 'Let all hope
In thee,' so speak his anthem, 'who have known
Thy name;' and with my faith who know not that?
From thee, the next, distilling from his spring,
In thine epistle, fell on me the drops
So plenteously, that I on others shower
The influence of their dew." Whileas I spake,
A lamping, as of quick and vollied lightning,
Within the bosom of that mighty sheen,
Play'd tremulous; then forth these accents breath'd:
"Love for the virtue which attended me
E'en to the palm, and issuing from the field,
Glows vigorous yet within me, and inspires
To ask of thee, whom also it delights;
What promise thou from hope in chief dost win."
"Both scriptures, new and ancient," I reply'd;
"Propose the mark (which even now I view)
For souls belov'd of God. Isaias saith,
That, in their own land, each one must be clad
In twofold vesture; and their proper lands this delicious life.
In terms more full,
And clearer far, thy brother hath set forth
This revelation to us, where he tells
Of the white raiment destin'd to the saints."
And, as the words were ending, from above,
"They hope in thee," first heard we cried: whereto
Answer'd the carols all. Amidst them next,
A light of so clear amplitude emerg'd,
That winter's month were but a single day,
Were such a crystal in the Cancer's sign.
Like as a virgin riseth up, and goes,
And enters on the mazes of the dance,
Though gay, yet innocent of worse intent,
Than to do fitting honour to the bride;
So I beheld the new effulgence come
Unto the other two, who in a ring
Wheel'd, as became their rapture. In the dance
And in the song it mingled. And the dame
Held on them fix'd her looks: e'en as the spouse
Silent and moveless. "This is he, who lay
Upon the bosom of our pelican:
This he, into whose keeping from the cross
The mighty charge was given." Thus she spake,
Yet therefore naught the more remov'd her Sight
From marking them, or ere her words began,
Or when they clos'd. As he, who looks intent,
And strives with searching ken, how he may see
The sun in his eclipse, and, through desire
Of seeing, loseth power of sight: so I
Peer'd on that last resplendence, while I heard:
"Why dazzlest thou thine eyes in seeking that,
Which here abides not? Earth my body is,
In earth: and shall be, with the rest, so long,
As till our number equal the decree
Of the Most High. The two that have ascended,
In this our blessed cloister, shine alone
With the two garments. So report below."
As when, for ease of labour, or to shun
Suspected peril at a whistle's breath,
The oars, erewhile dash'd frequent in the wave,
All rest; the flamy circle at that voice
So rested, and the mingling sound was still,
Which from the trinal band soft-breathing rose.
I turn'd, but ah! how trembled in my thought,
When, looking at my side again to see
Beatrice, I descried her not, although
Not distant, on the happy coast she stood.
CANTO XXVI
With dazzled eyes, whilst wond'ring I remain'd,
Forth of the beamy flame which dazzled me,
Issued a breath, that in attention mute
Detain'd me; and these words it spake: "'T were well,
That, long as till thy vision, on my form
O'erspent, regain its virtue, with discourse
Thou compensate the brief delay. Say then,
Beginning, to what point thy soul aspires:
"And meanwhile rest assur'd, that sight in thee
Is but o'erpowered a space, not wholly quench'd:
Since thy fair guide and lovely, in her look
Hath potency, the like to that which dwelt
In Ananias' hand." I answering thus:
"Be to mine eyes the remedy or late
Or early, at her pleasure; for they were
The gates, at which she enter'd, and did light
Her never dying fire. My wishes here
Are centered; in this palace is the weal,
That Alpha and Omega, is to all
The lessons love can read me." Yet again
The voice which had dispers'd my fear, when daz'd
With that excess, to converse urg'd, and spake:
"Behooves thee sift more narrowly thy terms,
And say, who level'd at this scope thy bow."
"Philosophy," said I, ''hath arguments,
And this place hath authority enough
'T' imprint in me such love: for, of constraint,
Good, inasmuch as we perceive the good,
Kindles our love, and in degree the more,
As it comprises more of goodness in 't.
The essence then, where such advantage is,
That each good, found without it, is naught else
But of his light the beam, must needs attract
The soul of each one, loving, who the truth
Discerns, on which this proof is built. Such truth
Learn I from him, who shows me the first love
Of all intelligential substances
Eternal: from his voice I learn, whose word
Is truth, that of himself to Moses saith,
'I will make all my good before thee pass.'
Lastly from thee I learn, who chief proclaim'st,
E'en at the outset of thy heralding,
In mortal ears the mystery of heav'n."
"Through human wisdom, and th' authority
Therewith agreeing," heard I answer'd, "keep
The choicest of thy love for God. But say,
If thou yet other cords within thee feel'st
That draw thee towards him; so that thou report
How many are the fangs, with which this love
Is grappled to thy soul." I did not miss,
To what intent the eagle of our Lord
Had pointed his demand; yea noted well
Th' avowal, which he led to; and resum'd:
"All grappling bonds, that knit the heart to God,
Confederate to make fast our clarity.
The being of the world, and mine own being,
The death which he endur'd that I should live,
And that, which all the faithful hope, as I do,
To the foremention'd lively knowledge join'd,
Have from the sea of ill love sav'd my bark,
And on the coast secur'd it of the right.
As for the leaves, that in the garden bloom,
My love for them is great, as is the good
Dealt by th' eternal hand, that tends them all."
I ended, and therewith a song most sweet
Rang through the spheres; and "Holy, holy, holy,"
Accordant with the rest my lady sang.
And as a sleep is broken and dispers'd
Through sharp encounter of the nimble light,
With the eye's spirit running forth to meet
The ray, from membrane on to the membrane urg'd;
And the upstartled wight loathes that he sees;
So, at his sudden waking, he misdeems
Of all around him, till assurance waits
On better judgment: thus the saintly came
Drove from before mine eyes the motes away,
With the resplendence of her own, that cast
Their brightness downward, thousand miles below.
Whence I my vision, clearer shall before,
Recover'd; and, well nigh astounded, ask'd
Of a fourth light, that now with us I saw.
And Beatrice: "The first diving soul,
That ever the first virtue fram'd, admires
Within these rays his Maker." Like the leaf,
That bows its lithe top till the blast is blown;
By its own virtue rear'd then stands aloof;
So I, the whilst she said, awe-stricken bow'd.
Then eagerness to speak embolden'd me;
And I began: "O fruit! that wast alone
Mature, when first engender'd! Ancient father!
That doubly seest in every wedded bride
Thy daughter by affinity and blood!
Devoutly as I may, I pray thee hold
Converse with me: my will thou seest; and I,
More speedily to hear thee, tell it not."
It chanceth oft some animal bewrays,
Through the sleek cov'ring of his furry coat.
The fondness, that stirs in him and conforms
His outside seeming to the cheer within:
And in like guise was Adam's spirit mov'd
To joyous mood, that through the covering shone,
Transparent, when to pleasure me it spake:
"No need thy will be told, which I untold
Better discern, than thou whatever thing
Thou holdst most certain: for that will I see
In Him, who is truth's mirror, and Himself
Parhelion unto all things, and naught else
To him. This wouldst thou hear; how long since God
Plac'd me high garden, from whose hounds
She led me up in this ladder, steep and long;
What space endur'd my season of delight;
Whence truly sprang the wrath that banish'd me;
And what the language, which I spake and fram'd
Not that I tasted of the tree, my son,
Was in itself the cause of that exile,
But only my transgressing of the mark
Assign'd me. There, whence at thy lady's hest
The Mantuan mov'd him, still was I debarr'd
This council, till the sun had made complete,
Four thousand and three hundred rounds and twice,
His annual journey; and, through every light
In his broad pathway, saw I him return,
Thousand save sev'nty times, the whilst I dwelt
Upon the earth. The language I did use
Was worn away, or ever Nimrod's race
Their unaccomplishable work began.
For naught, that man inclines to, ere was lasting,
Left by his reason free, and variable,
As is the sky that sways him. That he speaks,
Is nature's prompting: whether thus or thus,
She leaves to you, as ye do most affect it.
Ere I descended into hell's abyss,
El was the name on earth of the Chief Good,
Whose joy enfolds me: Eli then 't was call'd
And so beseemeth: for, in mortals, use
Is as the leaf upon the bough; that goes,
And other comes instead. Upon the mount
Most high above the waters, all my life,
Both innocent and guilty, did but reach
From the first hour, to that which cometh next
(As the sun changes quarter), to the sixth."
CANTO XXVII
Then "Glory to the Father, to the Son,
And to the Holy Spirit," rang aloud
Throughout all Paradise, that with the song
My spirit reel'd, so passing sweet the strain:
And what I saw was equal ecstasy;
One universal smile it seem'd of all things,
Joy past compare, gladness unutterable,
Imperishable life of peace and love,
Exhaustless riches and unmeasur'd bliss.
Before mine eyes stood the four torches lit;
And that, which first had come, began to wax
In brightness, and in semblance such became,
As Jove might be, if he and Mars were birds,
And interchang'd their plumes. Silence ensued,
Through the blest quire, by Him, who here appoints
Vicissitude of ministry, enjoin'd;
When thus I heard: "Wonder not, if my hue
Be chang'd; for, while I speak, these shalt thou see
All in like manner change with me. My place
He who usurps on earth (my place, ay, mine,
Which in the presence of the Son of God
Is void), the same hath made my cemetery
A common sewer of puddle and of blood:
The more below his triumph, who from hence
Malignant fell." Such colour, as the sun,
At eve or morning, paints an adverse cloud,
Then saw I sprinkled over all the sky.
And as th' unblemish'd dame, who in herself
Secure of censure, yet at bare report
Of other's failing, shrinks with maiden fear;
So Beatrice in her semblance chang'd:
And such eclipse in heav'n methinks was seen,
When the Most Holy suffer'd. Then the words
Proceeded, with voice, alter'd from itself
So clean, the semblance did not alter more.
"Not to this end was Christ's spouse with my blood,
With that of Linus, and of Cletus fed:
That she might serve for purchase of base gold:
But for the purchase of this happy life
Did Sextus, Pius, and Callixtus bleed,
And Urban, they, whose doom was not without
Much weeping seal'd. No purpose was of our
That on the right hand of our successors
Part of the Christian people should be set,
And part upon their left; nor that the keys,
Which were vouchsaf'd me, should for ensign serve
Unto the banners, that do levy war
On the baptiz'd: nor I, for sigil-mark
Set upon sold and lying privileges;
Which makes me oft to bicker and turn red.
In shepherd's clothing greedy wolves below
Range wide o'er all the pastures. Arm of God!
Why longer sleepst thou? Caorsines and Gascona
Prepare to quaff our blood. O good beginning
To what a vile conclusion must thou stoop!
But the high providence, which did defend
Through Scipio the world's glory unto Rome,
Will not delay its succour: and thou, son,
Who through thy mortal weight shall yet again
Return below, open thy lips, nor hide
What is by me not hidden." As a Hood
Of frozen vapours streams adown the air,
What time the she-goat with her skiey horn
Touches the sun; so saw I there stream wide
The vapours, who with us had linger'd late
And with glad triumph deck th' ethereal cope.
Onward my sight their semblances pursued;
So far pursued, as till the space between
From its reach sever'd them: whereat the guide
Celestial, marking me no more intent
On upward gazing, said, "Look down and see
What circuit thou hast compass'd." From the hour
When I before had cast my view beneath,
All the first region overpast I saw,
Which from the midmost to the bound'ry winds;
That onward thence from Gades I beheld
The unwise passage of Laertes' son,
And hitherward the shore, where thou, Europa!
Mad'st thee a joyful burden: and yet more
Of this dim spot had seen, but that the sun,
A constellation off and more, had ta'en
His progress in the zodiac underneath.
Then by the spirit, that doth never leave
Its amorous dalliance with my lady's looks,
Back with redoubled ardour were mine eyes
Led unto her: and from her radiant smiles,
Whenas I turn'd me, pleasure so divine
Did lighten on me, that whatever bait
Or art or nature in the human flesh,
Or in its limn'd resemblance, can combine
Through greedy eyes to take the soul withal,
Were to her beauty nothing. Its boon influence
From the fair nest of Leda rapt me forth,
And wafted on into the swiftest heav'n.
What place for entrance Beatrice chose,
I may not say, so uniform was all,
Liveliest and loftiest. She my secret wish
Divin'd; and with such gladness, that God's love
Seem'd from her visage shining, thus began:
"Here is the goal, whence motion on his race
Starts; motionless the centre, and the rest
All mov'd around. Except the soul divine,
Place in this heav'n is none, the soul divine,
Wherein the love, which ruleth o'er its orb,
Is kindled, and the virtue that it sheds;
One circle, light and love, enclasping it,
As this doth clasp the others; and to Him,
Who draws the bound, its limit only known.
Measur'd itself by none, it doth divide
Motion to all, counted unto them forth,
As by the fifth or half ye count forth ten.
The vase, wherein time's roots are plung'd, thou seest,
Look elsewhere for the leaves. O mortal lust!
That canst not lift thy head above the waves
Which whelm and sink thee down! The will in man
Bears goodly blossoms; but its ruddy promise
Is, by the dripping of perpetual rain,
Made mere abortion: faith and innocence
Are met with but in babes, each taking leave
Ere cheeks with down are sprinkled; he, that fasts,
While yet a stammerer, with his tongue let loose
Gluts every food alike in every moon.
One yet a babbler, loves and listens to
His mother; but no sooner hath free use
Of speech, than he doth wish her in her grave.
So suddenly doth the fair child of him,
Whose welcome is the morn and eve his parting,
To <DW64> blackness change her virgin white.
"Thou, to abate thy wonder, note that none
Bears rule in earth, and its frail family
Are therefore wand'rers. Yet before the date,
When through the hundredth in his reck'ning drops
Pale January must be shor'd aside
From winter's calendar, these heav'nly spheres
Shall roar so loud, that fortune shall be fain
To turn the poop, where she hath now the prow;
So that the fleet run onward; and true fruit,
Expected long, shall crown at last the bloom!"
CANTO XXVII
So she who doth imparadise my soul,
Had drawn the veil from off our pleasant life,
And bar'd the truth of poor mortality;
When lo! as one who, in a mirror, spies
The shining of a flambeau at his back,
Lit sudden ore he deem of its approach,
And turneth to resolve him, if the glass
Have told him true, and sees the record faithful
As note is to its metre; even thus,
I well remember, did befall to me,
Looking upon the beauteous eyes, whence love
Had made the leash to take me. As I turn'd;
And that, which, in their circles, none who spies,
Can miss of, in itself apparent, struck
On mine; a point I saw, that darted light
So sharp, no lid, unclosing, may bear up
Against its keenness. The least star we view
From hence, had seem'd a moon, set by its side,
As star by side of star. And so far off,
Perchance, as is the halo from the light
Which paints it, when most dense the vapour spreads,
There wheel'd about the point a circle of fire,
More rapid than the motion, which first girds
The world. Then, circle after circle, round
Enring'd each other; till the seventh reach'd
Circumference so ample, that its bow,
Within the span of Juno's messenger,
lied scarce been held entire. Beyond the sev'nth,
Follow'd yet other two. And every one,
As more in number distant from the first,
Was tardier in motion; and that glow'd
With flame most pure, that to the sparkle' of truth
Was nearest, as partaking most, methinks,
Of its reality. The guide belov'd
Saw me in anxious thought suspense, and spake:
"Heav'n, and all nature, hangs upon that point.
The circle thereto most conjoin'd observe;
And know, that by intenser love its course
Is to this swiftness wing'd." To whom I thus:
"It were enough; nor should I further seek,
Had I but witness'd order, in the world
Appointed, such as in these wheels is seen.
But in the sensible world such diff'rence is,
That is each round shows more divinity,
As each is wider from the centre. Hence,
If in this wondrous and angelic temple,
That hath for confine only light and love,
My wish may have completion I must know,
Wherefore such disagreement is between
Th' exemplar and its copy: for myself,
Contemplating, I fail to pierce the cause."
"It is no marvel, if thy fingers foil'd
Do leave the knot untied: so hard 't is grown
For want of tenting." Thus she said: "But take,"
She added, "if thou wish thy cure, my words,
And entertain them subtly. Every orb
Corporeal, doth proportion its extent
Unto the virtue through its parts diffus'd.
The greater blessedness preserves the more.
The greater is the body (if all parts
Share equally) the more is to preserve. |
10,240 |
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EAST AND WEST
Poems.
by
Bret Harte.
Contents.
I.
A Greyport Legend
A Newport Romance
The Hawk's Nest
In the Mission Garden
The Old Major Explains
"Seventy-Nine"
Truthful James's Answer to "Her Letter"
Further Language from Truthful James
The Wonderful Spring of San Joaquin
On a Cone of the Big Trees
A Sanitary Message
The Copperhead
On a Pen of Thomas Starr King
Lone Mountain
California's Greeting to Seward
The Two Ships
The Goddess
Address
The Lost Galleon
The Second Review of the Grand Army
II.
Before the Curtain
The Stage-Driver's Story
Aspiring Miss de Laine
California Madrigal
St. Thomas
Ballad of Mr. Cooke
Legends of the Rhine
Mrs. Judge Jenkins: Sequel to Maud Muller
Avitor
A White Pine Ballad
Little Red Riding-Hood
The Ritualist
A Moral Vindicator
Songs without Sense
Part I.
East and West Poems.
A Greyport Legend.
(1797.)
They ran through the streets of the seaport town;
They peered from the decks of the ships that lay:
The cold sea-fog that came whitening down
Was never as cold or white as they.
"Ho, Starbuck and Pinckney and Tenterden!
Run for your shallops, gather your men,
Scatter your boats on the lower bay."
Good cause for fear! In the thick midday
The hulk that lay by the rotting pier,
Filled with the children in happy play,
Parted its moorings, and drifted clear,--
Drifted clear beyond the reach or call,--
Thirteen children they were in all,--
All adrift in the lower bay!
Said a hard-faced skipper, "God help us all!
She will not float till the turning tide!"
Said his wife, "My darling will hear _my_ call,
Whether in sea or heaven she bide:"
And she lifted a quavering voice and high,
Wild and strange as a sea-bird's cry,
Till they shuddered and wondered at her side.
The fog drove down on each laboring crew,
Veiled each from each and the sky and shore:
There was not a sound but the breath they drew,
And the lap of water and creak of oar;
And they felt the breath of the downs, fresh blown
O'er leagues of clover and cold gray stone,
But not from the lips that had gone before.
They come no more. But they tell the tale,
That, when fogs are thick on the harbor reef,
The mackerel fishers shorten sail;
For the signal they know will bring relief:
For the voices of children, still at play
In a phantom hulk that drifts alway
Through channels whose waters never fail.
It is but a foolish shipman's tale,
A theme for a poet's idle page;
But still, when the mists of doubt prevail,
And we lie becalmed by the shores of Age,
We hear from the misty troubled shore
The voice of the children gone before,
Drawing the soul to its anchorage.
A Newport Romance.
They say that she died of a broken heart
(I tell the tale as 'twas told to me);
But her spirit lives, and her soul is part
Of this sad old house by the sea.
Her lover was fickle and fine and French:
It was nearly a hundred years ago
When he sailed away from her arms--poor wench--
With the Admiral Rochambeau.
I marvel much what periwigged phrase
Won the heart of this sentimental Quaker,
At what golden-laced speech of those modish days
She listened--the mischief take her!
But she kept the posies of mignonette
That he gave; and ever as their bloom failed
And faded (though with her tears still wet)
Her youth with their own exhaled.
Till one night, when the sea-fog wrapped a shroud
Round spar and spire and tarn and tree,
Her soul went up on that lifted cloud
From this sad old house by the sea.
And ever since then, when the clock strikes two,
She walks unbidden from room to room,
And the air is filled that she passes through
With a subtle, sad perfume.
The delicate odor of mignonette,
The ghost of a dead and gone bouquet,
Is all that tells of her story; yet
Could she think of a sweeter way?
* * * * *
I sit in the sad old house to-night,--
Myself a ghost from a farther sea;
And I trust that this Quaker woman might,
In courtesy, visit me.
For the laugh is fled from porch and lawn,
And the bugle died from the fort on the hill,
And the twitter of girls on the stairs is gone,
And the grand piano is still.
Somewhere in the darkness a clock strikes two;
And there is no sound in the sad old house,
But the long veranda dripping with dew,
And in the wainscot a mouse.
The light of my study-lamp streams out
From the library door, but has gone astray
In the depths of the darkened hall. Small doubt
But the Quakeress knows the way.
Was it the trick of a sense o'erwrought
With outward watching and inward fret?
But I swear that the air just now was fraught
With the odor of mignonette!
I open the window, and seem almost--
So still lies the ocean--to hear the beat
Of its Great Gulf artery off the coast,
And to bask in its tropic heat.
In my neighbor's windows the gas-lights flare,
As the dancers swing in a waltz of Strauss;
And I wonder now could I fit that air
To the song of this sad old house.
And no odor of mignonette there is
But the breath of morn on the dewy lawn;
And mayhap from causes as slight as this
The quaint old legend is born.
But the soul of that subtle, sad perfume,
As the spiced embalmings, they say, outlast
The mummy laid in his rocky tomb,
Awakens my buried past.
And I think of the passion that shook my youth,
Of its aimless loves and its idle pains,
And am thankful now for the certain truth
That only the sweet remains.
And I hear no rustle of stiff brocade,
And I see no face at my library door;
For now that the ghosts of my heart are laid,
She is viewless forevermore.
But whether she came as a faint perfume,
Or whether a spirit in stole of white,
I feel, as I pass from the darkened room,
She has been with my soul to-night!
The Hawk's Nest.
(Sierras.)
We checked our pace,--the red road sharply rounding;
We heard the troubled flow
Of the dark olive depths of pines, resounding
A thousand feet below.
Above the tumult of the canon lifted,
The gray hawk breathless hung;
Or on the hill a winged shadow drifted
Where furze and thorn-bush clung;
Or where half-way the mountain side was furrowed
With many a seam and scar;
Or some abandoned tunnel dimly burrowed,--
A mole-hill seen so far.
We looked in silence down across the distant
Unfathomable reach:
A silence broken by the guide's consistent
And realistic speech.
"Walker of Murphy's blew a hole through Peters
For telling him he lied;
Then up and dusted out of South Hornitos
Across the long Divide.
"We ran him out of Strong's, and up through Eden,
And 'cross the ford below;
And up this canon (Peters' brother leadin'),
And me and Clark and Joe.
"He fou't us game: somehow, I disremember
Jest how the thing kem round;
Some say 'twas wadding, some a scattered ember
From fires on the ground.
"But in one minute all the hill below him
Was just one sheet of flame;
Guardin' the crest, Sam Clark and I called to him.
And,--well, the dog was game!
"He made no sign: the fires of hell were round him,
The pit of hell below.
We sat and waited, but never found him;
And then we turned to go.
"And then--you see that rock that's grown so bristly
With chaparral and tan--
Suthin' crep' out: it might hev been a grizzly,
It might hev been a man;
"Suthin' that howled, and gnashed its teeth, and shouted
In smoke and dust and flame;
Suthin' that sprang into the depths about it,
Grizzly or man,--but game!
"That's all. Well, yes, it does look rather risky,
And kinder makes one queer
And dizzy looking down. A drop of whiskey
Ain't a bad thing right here!"
In the Mission Garden.
(1865.)
Father Felipe.
I speak not the English well, but Pachita
She speak for me; is it not so, my Pancha?
Eh, little rogue? Come, salute me the stranger
Americano.
Sir, in my country we say, "Where the heart is,
There live the speech." Ah! you not understand? So!
Pardon an old man,--what you call "ol fogy,"--
Padre Felipe!
Old, Senor, old! just so old as the Mission.
You see that pear-tree? How old you think, Senor?
Fifteen year? Twenty? Ah, Senor, just _Fifty_
Gone since I plant him!
You like the wine? It is some at the Mission,
Made from the grape of the year Eighteen Hundred;
All the same time when the earthquake he come to
San Juan Bautista.
But Pancha is twelve, and she is the rose-tree;
And I am the olive, and this is the garden:
And Pancha we say; but her name is Francisca,
Same like her mother.
Eh, you knew _her_? No? Ah! it is a story;
But I speak not, like Pachita, the English:
So? If I try, you will sit here beside me,
And shall not laugh, eh?
When the American come to the Mission,
Many arrive at the house of Francisca:
One,--he was fine man,--he buy the cattle
Of Jose Castro.
So! he came much, and Francisca she saw him:
And it was Love,--and a very dry season;
And the pears bake on the tree,--and the rain come,
But not Francisca;
Not for one year; and one night I have walk much
Under the olive-tree, when comes Francisca:
Comes to me here, with her child, this Francisca,--
Under the olive-tree.
Sir, it was sad;... but I speak not the English;
So!... she stay here, and she wait for her husband
He come no more, and she sleep on the hillside;
There stands Pachita.
Ah! there's the Angelus. Will you not enter?
Or shall you walk in the garden with Pancha?
Go, little rogue--stt--attend to the stranger.
Adios, Senor.
Pachita (_briskly_).
So, he's been telling that yarn about mother!
Bless you, he tells it to every stranger:
Folks about yer say the old man's my father;
What's your opinion?
The Old Major Explains.
(Re-Union Army of the Potomac, 12th May, 1871.)
"Well, you see, the fact is, Colonel, I don't know as I can come:
For the farm is not half planted, and there's work to do at home;
And my leg is getting troublesome,--it laid me up last fall,
And the doctors, they have cut and hacked, and never found the ball.
"And then, for an old man like me, it's not exactly right,
This kind o' playing soldier with no enemy in sight.
'The Union,'--that was well enough way up to '66;
But this 'Re-Union,'--maybe now it's mixed with politics?
"No? Well, you understand it best; but then, you see, my lad,
I'm deacon now, and some might think that the example's bad.
And week from next is Conference.... You said the 12th of May?
Why, that's the day we broke their line at Spottsylvan-i-a!
"Hot work; eh, Colonel, wasn't it? Ye mind that narrow front:
They called it the 'Death-Angle!' Well, well, my lad, we won't
Fight that old battle over now: I only meant to say
I really can't engage to come upon the 12th of May.
"How's Thompson? What! will he be there? Well, now, I want to know!
The first man in the rebel works! they called him 'Swearing Joe:'
A wild young fellow, sir, I fear the rascal was; but then--
Well, short of heaven, there wa'n't a place he dursn't lead his men.
"And Dick, you say, is coming too. And Billy? ah! it's true
We buried him at Gettysburg: I mind the spot; do you?
A little field below the hill,--it must be green this May;
Perhaps that's why the fields about bring him to me to-day.
"Well, well, excuse me, Colonel! but there are some things that drop
The tail-board out one's feelings; and the only way's to stop.
So they want to see the old man; ah, the rascals! do they, eh?
Well, I've business down in Boston about the 12th of May."
"Seventy-Nine"
Mr. Interviewer Interviewed.
Know me next time when you see me, won't you, old smarty?
Oh, I mean you, old figger-head,--just the same party!
Take out your pensivil, d--n you; sharpen it, do!
Any complaints to make? Lots of 'em--one of 'em's _you_.
You! who are you, anyhow, goin' round in that sneakin' way?
Never in jail before, was you, old blatherskite, say?
Look at it; don't it look pooty? Oh, grin, and be d--d to you, do!
But, if I had you this side o' that gratin', I'd just make it lively
for you.
How did I get in here? Well, what 'ud you give to know?
'Twasn't by sneakin' round where I hadn't no call to go.
'Twasn't by hangin' round a spyin' unfortnet men.
Grin! but I'll stop your jaw if ever you do that agen.
Why don't you say suthin', blast you? Speak your mind if you dare.
Ain't I a bad lot, sonny? Say it, and call it square.
Hain't got no tongue, hey, hev ye. O guard! here's a little swell,
A cussin' and swearin' and yellin', and bribin' me not to tell.
There, I thought that 'ud fetch ye. And you want to know my name?
"Seventy-Nine" they call me; but that is their little game.
For I'm werry highly connected, as a gent, sir, can understand;
And my family hold their heads up with the very furst in the land.
For 'twas all, sir, a put-up job on a pore young man like me;
And the jury was bribed a puppos, and aftdrst they couldn't agree.
And I sed to the judge, sez I,--Oh, grin! it's all right my son!
But you're a werry lively young pup, and you ain't to be played upon!
Wot's that you got--tobacco? I'm cussed but I thought 'twas a tract.
Thank ye. A chap t'other day--now, look'ee, this is a fact,
Slings me a tract on the evils o' keepin' bad company,
As if all the saints was howlin' to stay here along's we.
No: I hain't no complaints. Stop, yes; do you see that chap,--
Him standin' over there,--a hidin' his eves in his cap?
Well, that man's stumick is weak, and he can't stand the pris'n fare;
For the coffee is just half beans, and the sugar ain't no where.
Perhaps it's his bringin' up; but he sickens day by day,
And he doesn't take no food, and I'm seein' him waste away.
And it isn't the thing to see; for, whatever he's been and done,
Starvation isn't the plan as he's to be saved upon.
For he cannot rough it like me; and he hasn't the stamps, I guess,
To buy him his extry grub outside o' the pris'n mess.
And perhaps if a gent like you, with whom I've been sorter free,
Would--thank you! But, say, look here! Oh, blast it, don't give it to ME!
Don't you give it to me; now, don't ye, don't ye, don't!
You think it's a put-up job; so I'll thank ye, sir, if you won't.
But hand him the stamps yourself: why, he isn't even my pal;
And if it's a comfort to you, why, I don't intend that he shall.
His Answer to "Her Letter."
Reported by Truthful James.
Being asked by an intimate party,--
Which the same I would term as a friend,--
Which his health it were vain to call hearty,
Since the mind to deceit it might lend;
For his arm it was broken quite recent,
And has something gone wrong with his lung,--
Which is why it is proper and decent
I should write what he runs off his tongue:
First, he says, Miss, he's read through your letter
To the end,--and the end came too soon;
That a slight illness kept him your debtor
(Which for weeks he was wild as a loon);
That his spirits are buoyant as yours is;
That with you, Miss, he challenges Fate
(Which the language that invalid uses
At times it were vain to relate).
And he says that the mountains are fairer
For once being held in your thought;
That each rock holds a wealth that is rarer
Than ever by gold-seeker sought
(Which are words he would put in these pages,
By a party not given to guile;
Which the same not, at date, paying wages,
Might produce in the sinful a smile).
He remembers the ball at the Ferry,
And the ride, and the gate, and the vow,
And the rose that you gave him,--that very
Same rose he is treasuring now
(Which his blanket he's kicked on his trunk, Miss,
And insists on his legs being free;
And his language to me from his bunk, Miss,
Is frequent and painful and free);
He hopes you are wearing no willows,
But are happy and gay all the while;
That he knows (which this dodging of pillows
Imparts but small ease to the style,
And the same you will pardon),--he knows, Miss,
That, though parted by many a mile,
Yet were he lying under the snows, Miss,
They'd melt into tears at your smile.
And you'll still think of him in your pleasures,
In your brief twilight dreams of the past;
In this green laurel-spray that he treasures,
It was plucked where your parting was last;
In this specimen,--but a small trifle,--
It will do for a pin for your shawl
(Which the truth not to wickedly stifle
Was his last week's "clean up,"--and _his all_).
He's asleep, which the same might seem strange, Miss,
Were it not that I scorn to deny
That I raised his last dose, for a change, Miss,
In view that his fever was high;
But he lies there quite peaceful and pensive.
And now, my respects, Miss, to you;
Which my language, although comprehensive,
Might seem to be freedom,--it's true.
Which I have a small favor to ask you,
As concerns a bull-pup, which the same,--
If the duty would not overtask you,--
You would please to procure for me, _game_;
And send per express to the Flat, Miss,
Which they say York is famed for the breed,
Which though words of deceit may be that, Miss,
I'll trust to your taste, Miss, indeed.
_P.S._--Which this same interfering
Into other folks' way I despise;
Yet if it so be I was hearing
That it's just empty pockets as lies
Betwixt you and Joseph, it follers,
That, having no family claims,
Here's my pile; which it's six hundred dollars,
As is yours, with respects,
Truthful James.
Further Language from Truthful James.
(Nye's Ford, Stanislaus.)
(1870.)
Do I sleep? do I dream?
Do I wonder and doubt?
Are things what they seem?
Or is visions about?
Is our civilization a failure?
Or is the Caucasian played out?
Which expressions are strong;
Yet would feebly imply
Some account of a wrong--
Not to call it a lie--
As was worked off on William, my pardner,
And the same being W. Nye.
He came down to the Ford
On the very same day
Of that lottery drawed
By those sharps at the Bay;
And he says to me, "Truthful, how goes it?"
I replied, "It is far, far from gay;
"For the camp has gone wild
On this lottery game,
And has even beguiled
'Injin Dick' by the same."
Which said Nye to me, "Injins is pizen:
Do you know what his number is, James?"
I replied "7,2,
9,8,4, is his hand;"
When he started, and drew
Out a list, which he scanned;
Then he softly went for his revolver
With language I cannot command.
Then I said, "William Nye!"
But he turned upon me,
And the look in his eye
Was quite painful to see;
And he says, "You mistake: this poor Injin
I protects from such sharps as you be!"
I was shocked and withdrew;
But I grieve to relate,
When he next met my view
Injin Dick was his mate,
And the two around town was a-lying
In a frightfully dissolute state.
Which the war-dance they had
Round a tree at the Bend
Was a sight that was sad;
And it seemed that the end
Would not justify the proceedings,
As I quiet remarked to a friend.
For that Injin he fled
The next day to his band;
And we found William spread
Very loose on the strand,
With a peaceful-like smile on his features,
And a dollar greenback in his hand;
Which, the same when rolled out,
We observed with surprise,
That that Injin, no doubt,
Had believed was the prize,--
Them figures in red in the corner,
Which the number of notes specifies.
Was it guile, or a dream?
Is it Nye that I doubt?
Are things what they seem?
Or is visions about?
Is our civilization a failure?
Or is the Caucasian played out?
The Wonderful Spring of San Joaquin.
Of all the fountains that poets sing,--
Crystal, thermal, or mineral spring;
Ponce de Leon's Fount of Youth;
Wells with bottoms of doubtful truth;
In short, of all the springs of Time
That ever were flowing in fact or rhyme,
That ever were tasted, felt, or seen,--
There were none like the Spring of San Joaquin.
_Anno Domini_ Eighteen-Seven,
Father Dominguez (now in heaven,--
_Obiit_, Eighteen twenty-seven)
Found the spring, and found it, too,
By his mule's miraculous cast of a shoe;
For his beast--a descendant of Balaam's ass--
Stopped on the instant, and would not pass.
The Padre thought the omen good,
And bent his lips to the trickling flood;
Then--as the chronicles declare,
On the honest faith of a true believer--
His cheeks, though wasted, lank, and bare,
Filled like a withered russet-pear
In the vacuum of a glass receiver,
And the snows that seventy winters bring
Melted away in that magic spring.
Such, at least, was the wondrous news
The Padre brought into Santa Cruz.
The Church, of course, had its own views
Of who were worthiest to use
The magic spring; but the prior claim
Fell to the aged, sick, and lame.
Far and wide the people came:
Some from the healthful Aptos creek
Hastened to bring their helpless sick;
Even the fishers of rude Soquel
Suddenly found they were far from well;
The brawny dwellers of San Lorenzo
Said, in fact, they had never been so:
And all were-ailing,--strange to say,--
From Pescadero to Monterey.
Over the mountain they poured in
With leathern bottles, and bags of skin;
Through the canons a motley throng
Trotted, hobbled, and limped along.
The fathers gazed at the moving scene
With pious joy and with souls serene;
And then--a result perhaps foreseen--
They laid out the Mission of San Joaquin.
Not in the eyes of Faith alone
The good effects of the waters shone;
But skins grew rosy, eyes waxed clear,
Of rough vacquero and muleteer;
Angular forms were rounded out,
Limbs grew supple, and waists grew stout;
And as for the girls,--for miles about
They had no equal! To this day,
From Pescadero to Monterey,
You'll still find eyes in which are seen
The liquid graces of San Joaquin.
There is a limit to human bliss,
And the Mission of San Joaquin had this;
None went abroad to roam or stay,
But they fell sick in the queerest way,--
A singular _maladie du pays_,
With gastric symptoms: so they spent
Their days in a sensuous content;
Caring little for things unseen
Beyond their bowers of living green,--
Beyond the mountains that lay between
The world and the Mission of San Joaquin.
Winter passed, and the summer came:
The trunks of _madrono_ all aflame,
Here and there through the underwood
Like pillars of fire starkly stood.
All of the breezy solitude
Was filled with the spicing of pine and bay
And resinous odors mixed and blended,
And dim and ghost-like far away
The smoke of the burning woods ascended.
Then of a sudden the mountains swam,
The rivers piled their floods in a dam.
The ridge above Los Gatos creek
Arched its spine in a feline fashion;
The forests waltzed till they grew sick,
And Nature shook in a speechless passion;
And, swallowed up in the earthquake's spleen,
The wonderful Spring of San Joaquin
Vanished, and never more was seen!
Two days passed: the Mission folk
Out of their rosy dream awoke.
Some of them looked a trifle white;
But that, no doubt, was from earthquake fright.
Three days: there was sore distress,
Headache, nausea, giddiness.
Four days: faintings, tenderness
Of the mouth and fauces; and in less
Than one week,--here the story closes;
We won't continue the prognosis,--
Enough that now no trace is seen
Of Spring or Mission of San Joaquin.
Moral.
You see the point? Don't be too quick
To break bad habits: better stick,
Like the Mission folk, to your _arsenic_.
On a Cone of the Big Trees.
_Sequoia Gigantea_.
Brown foundling of the Western wood,
Babe of primeval wildernesses!
Long on my table thou hast stood
Encounters strange and rude caresses;
Perchance contented with thy lot,
Surroundings new and curious faces,
As though ten centuries were not
Imprisoned in thy shining cases!
Thou bring'st me back the halcyon days
Of grateful rest; the week of leisure,
The journey lapped in autumn haze,
The sweet fatigue that seemed a pleasure,
The morning ride, the noonday halt,
The blazing <DW72>s, the red dust rising,
And then--the dim, brown, columned vault,
With its cool, damp, sepulchral spicing.
Once more I see the rocking masts
That scrape the sky, their only tenant
The jay-bird that in frolic casts
From some high yard his broad blue pennant.
I see the Indian files that keep
Their places in the dusty heather,
Their red trunks standing ankle deep
In moccasins of rusty leather.
I see all this, and marvel much
That thou, sweet woodland waif, art able
To keep the company of such
As throng thy friend's--the poet's--table:
The latest spawn the press hath cast,--
The "modern Pope's," "the later Byron's,"--
Why e'en the best may not outlast
Thy poor relation,--_Sempervirens_.
Thy sire saw the light that shone
On Mohammed's uplifted crescent,
On many a royal gilded throne
And deed forgotten in the present;
He saw the age of sacred trees
And Druid groves and mystic larches;
And saw from forest domes like these
The builder bring his Gothic arches.
And must thou, foundling, still forego
Thy heritage and high ambition,
To lie full lowly and full low,
Adjusted to thy new condition?
Not hidden in the drifted snows,
But under ink-drops idly spattered,
And leaves ephemeral as those
That on thy woodland tomb were scattered.
Yet lie thou there, O friend! and speak
The moral of thy simple story:
Though life is all that thou dost seek,
And age alone thy crown of glory,--
Not thine the only germs that fail
The purpose of their high creation,
If their poor tenements avail
For worldly show and ostentation.
A Sanitary Message.
Last night, above the whistling wind,
I heard the welcome rain,--
A fusillade upon the roof,
A tattoo on the pane:
The key-hole piped; the chimney-top
A warlike trumpet blew;
Yet, mingling with these sounds of strife,
A softer voice stole through.
"Give thanks, O brothers!" said the voice,
"That He who sent the rains
Hath spared your fields the scarlet dew
That drips from patriot veins:
I've seen the grass on Eastern graves
In brighter verdure rise;
But, oh! the rain that gave it life
Sprang first from human eyes.
"I come to wash away no stain
Upon your wasted lea;
I raise no banners, save the ones
The forest wave to me:
Upon the mountain side, where Spring
Her farthest picket sets,
My reveille awakes a host
Of grassy bayonets.
"I visit every humble roof;
I mingle with the low:
Only upon the highest peaks
My blessings fall in snow;
Until, in tricklings of the stream
And drainings of the lea,
My unspent bounty comes at last
To mingle with the sea."
And thus all night, above the wind,
I heard the welcome rain,--
A fusillade upon the roof,
A tattoo on the pane:
The key-hole piped; the chimney-top
A warlike trumpet blew;
But, mingling with these sounds of strife,
This hymn of peace stole through.
The Copperhead.
(1864.)
There is peace in the swamp where the Copper head sleeps,
Where the waters are stagnant, the white vapor creeps,
Where the musk of Magnolia hangs thick in the air,
And the lilies' phylacteries broaden in prayer;
There is peace in the swamp, though the quiet is Death,
Though the mist is miasm, the Upas tree's breath,
Though no echo awakes to the cooing of doves,--
There is peace: yes, the peace that the Copperhead loves!
Go seek him: he coils in the ooze and the drip
Like a thong idly flung from the slave-driver's whip;
But beware the false footstep,--the stumble that brings
A deadlier lash than the overseer swings.
Never arrow so true, never bullet so dread,
As the straight steady stroke of that hammershaped head;
Whether slave, or proud planter, who braves that dull crest,
Woe to him who shall trouble the Copperhead's rest!
Then why waste your labors, brave hearts and strong men,
In tracking a trail to the Copperhead's den?
Lay your axe to the cypress, hew open the shade
To the free sky and sunshine Jehovah has made;
Let the breeze of the North sweep the vapors away,
Till the stagnant lake ripples, the freed waters play;
And then to your heel can you righteously doom
The Copperhead born of its shadow and gloom!
On a Pen of Thomas Starr King.
This is the reed the dead musician dropped,
With tuneful magic in its sheath still hidden;
The prompt allegro of its music stopped,
Its melodies unbidden.
But who shall finish the unfinished strain,
Or wake the instrument to awe and wonder,
And bid the slender barrel breathe again,--
An organ-pipe of thunder?
His pen! what humbler memories cling about
Its golden curves! what shapes and laughing graces
Slipped from its point, when his full heart went out
In smiles and courtly phrases!
The truth, half jesting, half in earnest flung;
The word of cheer, with recognition in it;
The note of alms, whose golden speech outrung
The golden gift within it.
But all in vain the enchanter's wand we wave:
No stroke of ours recalls his magic vision;
The incantation that its power gave
Sleeps with the dead magician.
Lone Mountain.
(Cemetery, San Francisco.)
This is that hill of awe
That Persian Sindbad saw,--
The mount magnetic;
And on its seaward face,
Scattered along its base,
The wrecks prophetic.
Here come the argosies
Blown by each idle breeze,
To and fro shifting;
Yet to the hill of Fate
All drawing, soon or late,--
Day by day drifting;--
Drifting forever here
Barks that for many a year
Braved wind and weather;
Shallops but yesterday
Launched on yon shining bay,--
Drawn all together.
This is the end of all:
Sun thyself by the wall,
O poorer Hindbad!
Envy not Sindbad's fame:
Here come alike the same,
Hindbad and Sindbad.
California's Greeting to Seward.
(1869.)
We know him well: no need of praise
Or bonfire from the windy hill
To light to softer paths and ways
The world-worn man we honor still;
No need to quote those truths he spoke
That burned through years of war and shame.
While History carves with surer stroke
Across our map his noon-day fame;
No need to bid him show the scars
Of blows dealt by the Scaean gate,
Who lived to pass its shattered bars,
And see the foe capitulate;
Who lived to turn his slower feet
Toward the western setting sun,
To see his harvest all complete,
His dream fulfilled, his duty done,--
The one flag streaming from the pole,
The one faith borne from sea to sea,--
For such a triumph, and such goal,
Poor must our human greeting be.
Ah! rather that the conscious land
In simpler ways salute the Man,--
The tall pines bowing where they stand,
The bared head of El Capitan,
The tumult of the waterfalls,
Pohono's kerchief in the breeze,
The waving from the rocky walls,
The stir and rustle of the trees;
Till lapped in sunset skies of hope,
In sunset lands by sunset seas,
The Young World's Premier treads the <DW72>
Of sunset years in calm and peace.
The Two Ships.
As I stand by the cross on the lone mountain's crest,
Looking over the ultimate sea,
In the gloom of the mountain a ship lies at rest,
And one sails away from the lea:
One spreads its white wings on a far-reaching track,
With pennant and sheet flowing free;
One hides in the shadow with sails laid aback,--
The ship that is waiting for me!
But lo, in the distance the clouds break away!
The Gate's glowing portals I see;
And I hear from the outgoing ship in the bay
The song of the sailors in glee:
So I think of the luminous footprints that bore
The comfort o'er dark Galilee,
And wait for the signal to go to the shore,
To the ship that is waiting for me.
The Goddess.
For the Sanitary Fair.
"Who comes?" The sentry's warning cry
Rings sharply on the evening air:
Who comes? The challenge: no reply,
Yet something motions there.
A woman, by those graceful folds;
A soldier, by that martial tread:
"Advance three paces. Halt! until
Thy name and rank be said."
"My name? Her name, in ancient song,
Who fearless from Olympus came:
Look on me! Mortals know me best
In battle and in flame."
"Enough! I know that clarion voice;
I know that gleaming eye and helm;
Those crimson lips,--and in their dew
The best blood of the realm.
"The young, the brave, the good and wise,
Have fallen in thy curst embrace:
The juices of the grapes of wrath
Still stain thy guilty face.
"My brother lies in yonder field,
Face downward to the quiet grass:
Go back! he cannot see thee now;
But here thou shalt not pass."
A crack upon the evening air,
A wakened echo from the hill:
The watch-dog on the distant shore
Gives mouth, and all is still.
The sentry with his brother lies
Face downward on the quiet grass;
And by him, in the pale moonshine,
A shadow seems to pass.
No lance or warlike shield it bears:
A helmet in its pitying hands
Brings water from the nearest brook,
To meet his last demands.
Can this be she of haughty mien,
The goddess of the sword and shield?
Ah, yes! The Grecian poet's myth
Sways still each battle-field.
For not alone that rugged war
Some grace or charm from beauty gains;
But, when the goddess' work is done,
The woman's still remains.
Address.
Opening of the California Theatre, San Francisco, Jan. 19, 1870
Brief words, when actions wait, are well
The prompter's hand is on his bell;
The coming heroes, lovers, kings,
Are idly lounging at the wings;
Behind the curtain's mystic fold
The glowing future lies unrolled,--
And yet, one moment for the Past;
One retrospect,--the first and last.
"The world's a stage," the master said.
To-night a mightier truth is read:
Not in the shifting canvas screen,
The flash of gas, or tinsel sheen;
Not in the skill whose signal calls
From empty boards baronial halls;
But, fronting sea and curving bay,
Behold the players and the play.
Ah, friends! beneath your real skies
The actor's short-lived triumph dies:
On that broad stage, of empire won
Whose footlights were the setting sun,
Whose flats a distant background rose
In trackless peaks of endless snows;
Here genius bows, and talent waits
To copy that but One creates.
Your shifting scenes: the league of sand,
An avenue by ocean spanned;
The narrow beach of straggling tents,
A mile of stately monuments;
Your standard, lo! a flag unfurled,
Whose clinging folds clasp half the world,--
This is your drama, built on facts,
With "twenty years between the acts."
One moment more: if here we raise
The oft-sung hymn of local praise,
Before the curtain facts must sway;
_Here_ waits the moral of your play.
Glassed in the poet's thought, you view
What _money_ can, yet cannot do;
The faith that soars, the deeds that shine,
Above the gold that builds the shrine.
And oh! when others take our place,
And Earth's green curtain hides our face,
Ere on the stage, so silent now,
The last new hero makes his bow:
So may our deeds, recalled once more
In Memory's sweet but brief encore,
Down all the circling ages run,
With the world's plaudit of "Well done!"
The Lost Galleon.
In sixteen hundred and forty-one,
The regular yearly galleon,
Laden with odorous gums and spice,
India cottons and India rice,
And the richest silks of far Cathay,
Was due at Acapulco Bay.
Due she was, and over-due,--
Galleon, merchandise, and crew,
Creeping along through rain and shine,
Through the tropics, under the line.
The trains were waiting outside the walls,
The wives of sailors thronged the town,
The traders sat by their empty stalls,
And the viceroy himself came down;
The bells in the tower were all a-trip,
_Te Deums_ were on each father's lip,
The limes were ripening in the sun
For the sick of the coming galleon.
All in vain. Weeks passed away,
And yet no galleon saw the bay:
India goods advanced in price;
The governor missed his favorite spice;
The senoritas mourned for sandal,
And the famous cottons of Coromandel;
And some for an absent lover lost,
And one for a husband,--Donna Julia,
Wife of the captain, tempest-tossed,
In circumstances so peculiar:
Even the fathers, unawares,
Grumbled a little at their prayers;
And all along the coast that year
Votive candles were scarce and dear.
Never a tear bedims the eye
That time and patience will not dry;
Never a lip is curved with pain
That can't be kissed into smiles again:
And these same truths, as far as I know,
Obtained on the coast of Mexico
More than two hundred years ago,
In sixteen hundred and fifty-one,--
Ten years after the deed was done,--
And folks had forgotten the galleon:
The divers plunged in the Gulf for pearls,
White as the teeth of the Indian girls;
The traders sat by their full bazaars;
The mules with many a weary load,
And oxen, dragging their creaking cars,
Came and went on the mountain road.
Where was the galleon all this while:
Wrecked on some lonely coral isle?
Burnt by the roving sea-marauders,
Or sailing north under secret orders?
Had she found the Anian passage famed,
By lying Moldonado claimed,
And sailed through the sixty-fifth degree
Direct to the North Atlantic sea?
Or had she found the "River of Kings,"
Of which De Fonte told such strange things
In sixteen forty? Never a sign,
East or West or under the line,
They saw of the missing galleon;
Never a sail or plank or chip,
They found of the long-lost treasure-ship,
Or enough to build a tale upon.
But when she was lost, and where and how,
Are the facts we're coming to just now.
Take, if you please, the chart of that day
Published at Madrid,--_por el Rey_;
Look for a spot in the old South Sea,
The hundred and eightieth degree
Longitude, west of Madrid: there,
Under the equatorial glare,
Just where the East and West are one,
You'll find the missing galleon,--
You'll find the "San Gregorio," yet
Riding the seas, with sails all set,
Fresh as upon the very day
She sailed from Acapulco Bay.
How did she get there? What strange spell
Kept her two hundred years so well,
Free from decay and mortal taint?
What? but the prayers of a patron saint!
A hundred leagues from Manilla town,
The "San Gregorio's" helm came down;
Round she went on her heel, and not
A cable's length from a galliot
That rocked on the waters, just abreast
Of the galleon's course, which was west-sou-west.
Then said the galleon's commandante,
General Pedro Sobriente
(That was his rank on land and main,
A regular custom of Old Spain),
"My pilot is dead of scurvy: may
I ask the longitude, time, and day?"
The first two given and compared;
The third,--the commandante stared!
"The _first_ of June? I make it second."
Said the stranger, "Then you've wrongly-reckoned;
I make it _first_: as you came this way,
You should have lost--d'ye see--a day;
Lost a day, as plainly see,
On the hundred and eightieth degree."
"Lost a day?" "Yes: if not rude,
When did you make east longitude?"
"On the ninth of May,--our patron's day."
"On the ninth?--_you had no ninth of May!_
Eighth and tenth was there; but stay"--
Too late; for the galleon bore away.
Lost was the day they should have kept,
Lost unheeded and lost unwept;
Lost in a way that made search vain,
Lost in the trackless and boundless main;
Lost like the day of Job's awful curse,
In his third chapter, third and fourth verse;
Wrecked was their patron's only day,--
What would the holy fathers say?
Said the Fray Antonio Estavan,
The galleon's chaplain,--a learned man,--
"Nothing is lost that you can regain:
And the way to look for a thing is plain
To go where you lost it, back again.
Back with your galleon till you see
The hundred and eightieth degree.
Wait till the rolling year goes round,
And there will the missing day be found;
For you'll find--if computation's true--
That sailing _east_ will give to you
Not only one ninth of May, but two,--
One for the good saint's present cheer,
And one for the day we lost last year."
Back to the spot sailed the galleon;
Where, for a twelve-month, off and on
The hundred and eightieth degree,
She rose and fell on a tropic sea:
But lo! when it came to the ninth of May,
All of a sudden becalmed she lay
One degree from that fatal spot,
Without the power to move a knot;
And of course the moment she lost her way,
Gone was her chance to save that day.
To cut a lengthening story short,
She never saved it. |
10,240 |
Produced by David Widger
LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI
BY MARK TWAIN
Part 3.
Chapter 11 The River Rises
DURING this big rise these small-fry craft were an intolerable nuisance.
We were running chute after chute,--a new world to me,--and if there was
a particularly cramped place in a chute, we would be pretty sure to meet
a broad-horn there; and if he failed to be there, we would find him in a
still worse locality, namely, the head of the chute, on the shoal water.
And then there would be no end of profane cordialities exchanged.
Sometimes, in the big river, when we would be feeling our way cautiously
along through a fog, the deep hush would suddenly be broken by yells and
a clamor of tin pans, and all in instant a log raft would appear vaguely
through the webby veil, close upon us; and then we did not wait to swap
knives, but snatched our engine bells out by the roots and piled on all
the steam we had, to scramble out of the way! One doesn't hit a rock or
a solid log craft with a steamboat when he can get excused.
You will hardly believe it, but many steamboat clerks always carried a
large assortment of religious tracts with them in those old departed
steamboating days. Indeed they did. Twenty times a day we would be
cramping up around a bar, while a string of these small-fry rascals were
drifting down into the head of the bend away above and beyond us a
couple of miles. Now a skiff would dart away from one of them, and come
fighting its laborious way across the desert of water. It would 'ease
all,' in the shadow of our forecastle, and the panting oarsmen would
shout, 'Gimme a pa-a-per!' as the skiff drifted swiftly astern. The
clerk would throw over a file of New Orleans journals. If these were
picked up without comment, you might notice that now a dozen other
skiffs had been drifting down upon us without saying anything. You
understand, they had been waiting to see how No. 1 was going to fare.
No. 1 making no comment, all the rest would bend to their oars and come
on, now; and as fast as they came the clerk would heave over neat
bundles of religious tracts, tied to shingles. The amount of hard
swearing which twelve packages of religious literature will command when
impartially divided up among twelve raftsmen's crews, who have pulled a
heavy skiff two miles on a hot day to get them, is simply incredible.
As I have said, the big rise brought a new world under my vision. By the
time the river was over its banks we had forsaken our old paths and were
hourly climbing over bars that had stood ten feet out of water before;
we were shaving stumpy shores, like that at the foot of Madrid Bend,
which I had always seen avoided before; we were clattering through
chutes like that of 82, where the opening at the foot was an unbroken
wall of timber till our nose was almost at the very spot. Some of these
chutes were utter solitudes. The dense, untouched forest overhung both
banks of the crooked little crack, and one could believe that human
creatures had never intruded there before. The swinging grape-vines, the
grassy nooks and vistas glimpsed as we swept by, the flowering creepers
waving their red blossoms from the tops of dead trunks, and all the
spendthrift richness of the forest foliage, were wasted and thrown away
there. The chutes were lovely places to steer in; they were deep,
except at the head; the current was gentle; under the 'points' the water
was absolutely dead, and the invisible banks so bluff that where the
tender willow thickets projected you could bury your boat's broadside in
them as you tore along, and then you seemed fairly to fly.
Behind other islands we found wretched little farms, and wretcheder
little log-cabins; there were crazy rail fences sticking a foot or two
above the water, with one or two jeans-clad, chills-racked, yellow-faced
male miserables roosting on the top-rail, elbows on knees, jaws in
hands, grinding tobacco and discharging the result at floating chips
through crevices left by lost teeth; while the rest of the family and
the few farm-animals were huddled together in an empty wood-flat riding
at her moorings close at hand. In this flat-boat the family would have
to cook and eat and sleep for a lesser or greater number of days (or
possibly weeks), until the river should fall two or three feet and let
them get back to their log-cabin and their chills again--chills being a
merciful provision of an all-wise Providence to enable them to take
exercise without exertion. And this sort of watery camping out was a
thing which these people were rather liable to be treated to a couple of
times a year: by the December rise out of the Ohio, and the June rise
out of the Mississippi. And yet these were kindly dispensations, for
they at least enabled the poor things to rise from the dead now and
then, and look upon life when a steamboat went by. They appreciated the
blessing, too, for they spread their mouths and eyes wide open and made
the most of these occasions. Now what COULD these banished creatures
find to do to keep from dying of the blues during the low-water season!
Once, in one of these lovely island chutes, we found our course
completely bridged by a great fallen tree. This will serve to show how
narrow some of the chutes were. The passengers had an hour's recreation
in a virgin wilderness, while the boat-hands chopped the bridge away;
for there was no such thing as turning back, you comprehend.
From Cairo to Baton Rouge, when the river is over its banks, you have no
particular trouble in the night, for the thousand-mile wall of dense
forest that guards the two banks all the way is only gapped with a farm
or wood-yard opening at intervals, and so you can't 'get out of the
river' much easier than you could get out of a fenced lane; but from
Baton Rouge to New Orleans it is a different matter. The river is more
than a mile wide, and very deep--as much as two hundred feet, in places.
Both banks, for a good deal over a hundred miles, are shorn of their
timber and bordered by continuous sugar plantations, with only here and
there a scattering sapling or row of ornamental China-trees. The timber
is shorn off clear to the rear of the plantations, from two to four
miles. When the first frost threatens to come, the planters snatch off
their crops in a hurry. When they have finished grinding the cane, they
form the refuse of the stalks (which they call BAGASSE) into great piles
and set fire to them, though in other sugar countries the bagasse is
used for fuel in the furnaces of the sugar mills. Now the piles of damp
bagasse burn slowly, and smoke like Satan's own kitchen.
An embankment ten or fifteen feet high guards both banks of the
Mississippi all the way down that lower end of the river, and this
embankment is set back from the edge of the shore from ten to perhaps a
hundred feet, according to circumstances; say thirty or forty feet, as a
general thing. Fill that whole region with an impenetrable gloom of
smoke from a hundred miles of burning bagasse piles, when the river is
over the banks, and turn a steamboat loose along there at midnight and
see how she will feel. And see how you will feel, too! You find
yourself away out in the midst of a vague dim sea that is shoreless,
that fades out and loses itself in the murky distances; for you cannot
discern the thin rib of embankment, and you are always imagining you see
a straggling tree when you don't. The plantations themselves are
transformed by the smoke, and look like a part of the sea. All through
your watch you are tortured with the exquisite misery of uncertainty.
You hope you are keeping in the river, but you do not know. All that you
are sure about is that you are likely to be within six feet of the bank
and destruction, when you think you are a good half-mile from shore. And
you are sure, also, that if you chance suddenly to fetch up against the
embankment and topple your chimneys overboard, you will have the small
comfort of knowing that it is about what you were expecting to do. One
of the great Vicksburg packets darted out into a sugar plantation one
night, at such a time, and had to stay there a week. But there was no
novelty about it; it had often been done before.
I thought I had finished this chapter, but I wish to add a curious
thing, while it is in my mind. It is only relevant in that it is
connected with piloting. There used to be an excellent pilot on the
river, a Mr. X., who was a somnambulist. It was said that if his mind
was troubled about a bad piece of river, he was pretty sure to get up
and walk in his sleep and do strange things. He was once fellow-pilot
for a trip or two with George Ealer, on a great New Orleans passenger
packet. During a considerable part of the first trip George was uneasy,
but got over it by and by, as X. seemed content to stay in his bed when
asleep. Late one night the boat was approaching Helena, Arkansas; the
water was low, and the crossing above the town in a very blind and
tangled condition. X. had seen the crossing since Ealer had, and as the
night was particularly drizzly, sullen, and dark, Ealer was considering
whether he had not better have X. called to assist in running the place,
when the door opened and X. walked in. Now on very dark nights, light is
a deadly enemy to piloting; you are aware that if you stand in a lighted
room, on such a night, you cannot see things in the street to any
purpose; but if you put out the lights and stand in the gloom you can
make out objects in the street pretty well. So, on very dark nights,
pilots do not smoke; they allow no fire in the pilot-house stove if
there is a crack which can allow the least ray to escape; they order the
furnaces to be curtained with huge tarpaulins and the sky-lights to be
closely blinded. Then no light whatever issues from the boat. The
undefinable shape that now entered the pilot-house had Mr. X.'s voice.
This said--
'Let me take her, George; I've seen this place since you have, and it is
so crooked that I reckon I can run it myself easier than I could tell
you how to do it.'
'It is kind of you, and I swear _I_ am willing. I haven't got another
drop of perspiration left in me. I have been spinning around and around
the wheel like a squirrel. It is so dark I can't tell which way she is
swinging till she is coming around like a whirligig.'
So Ealer took a seat on the bench, panting and breathless. The black
phantom assumed the wheel without saying anything, steadied the waltzing
steamer with a turn or two, and then stood at ease, coaxing her a little
to this side and then to that, as gently and as sweetly as if the time
had been noonday. When Ealer observed this marvel of steering, he wished
he had not confessed! He stared, and wondered, and finally said--
'Well, I thought I knew how to steer a steamboat, but that was another
mistake of mine.'
X. said nothing, but went serenely on with his work. He rang for the
leads; he rang to slow down the steam; he worked the boat carefully and
neatly into invisible marks, then stood at the center of the wheel and
peered blandly out into the blackness, fore and aft, to verify his
position; as the leads shoaled more and more, he stopped the engines
entirely, and the dead silence and suspense of 'drifting' followed when
the shoalest water was struck, he cracked on the steam, carried her
handsomely over, and then began to work her warily into the next system
of shoal marks; the same patient, heedful use of leads and engines
followed, the boat slipped through without touching bottom, and entered
upon the third and last intricacy of the crossing; imperceptibly she
moved through the gloom, crept by inches into her marks, drifted
tediously till the shoalest water was cried, and then, under a
tremendous head of steam, went swinging over the reef and away into deep
water and safety!
Ealer let his long-pent breath pour out in a great, relieving sigh, and
said--
'That's the sweetest piece of piloting that was ever done on the
Mississippi River! I wouldn't believed it could be done, if I hadn't
seen it.'
There was no reply, and he added--
'Just hold her five minutes longer, partner, and let me run down and get
a cup of coffee.'
A minute later Ealer was biting into a pie, down in the 'texas,' and
comforting himself with coffee. Just then the night watchman happened
in, and was about to happen out again, when he noticed Ealer and
exclaimed--
'Who is at the wheel, sir?'
'X.'
'Dart for the pilot-house, quicker than lightning!'
The next moment both men were flying up the pilot-house companion way,
three steps at a jump! Nobody there! The great steamer was whistling
down the middle of the river at her own sweet will! The watchman shot
out of the place again; Ealer seized the wheel, set an engine back with
power, and held his breath while the boat reluctantly swung away from a
'towhead' which she was about to knock into the middle of the Gulf of
Mexico!
By and by the watchman came back and said--
'Didn't that lunatic tell you he was asleep, when he first came up
here?'
'NO.'
'Well, he was. I found him walking along on top of the railings just as
unconcerned as another man would walk a pavement; and I put him to bed;
now just this minute there he was again, away astern, going through that
sort of tight-rope deviltry the same as before.'
'Well, I think I'll stay by, next time he has one of those fits. But I
hope he'll have them often. You just ought to have seen him take this
boat through Helena crossing. I never saw anything so gaudy before. And
if he can do such gold-leaf, kid-glove, diamond-breastpin piloting when
he is sound asleep, what COULDN'T he do if he was dead!'
Chapter 12 Sounding
WHEN the river is very low, and one's steamboat is 'drawing all the
water' there is in the channel,--or a few inches more, as was often the
case in the old times,--one must be painfully circumspect in his
piloting. We used to have to'sound' a number of particularly bad places
almost every trip when the river was at a very low stage.
Sounding is done in this way. The boat ties up at the shore, just above
the shoal crossing; the pilot not on watch takes his 'cub' or steersman
and a picked crew of men (sometimes an officer also), and goes out in
the yawl--provided the boat has not that rare and sumptuous luxury, a
regularly-devised'sounding-boat'--and proceeds to hunt for the best
water, the pilot on duty watching his movements through a spy-glass,
meantime, and in some instances assisting by signals of the boat's
whistle, signifying 'try higher up' or 'try lower down;' for the surface
of the water, like an oil-painting, is more expressive and intelligible
when inspected from a little distance than very close at hand. The
whistle signals are seldom necessary, however; never, perhaps, except
when the wind confuses the significant ripples upon the water's surface.
When the yawl has reached the shoal place, the speed is slackened, the
pilot begins to sound the depth with a pole ten or twelve feet long, and
the steersman at the tiller obeys the order to 'hold her up to
starboard;' or, 'let her fall off to larboard;'{footnote [The term
'larboard' is never used at sea now, to signify the left hand; but was
always used on the river in my time]} or'steady--steady as you go.'
When the measurements indicate that the yawl is approaching the shoalest
part of the reef, the command is given to 'ease all!' Then the men stop
rowing and the yawl drifts with the current. The next order is, 'Stand
by with the buoy!' The moment the shallowest point is reached, the
pilot delivers the order, 'Let go the buoy!' and over she goes. If the
pilot is not satisfied, he sounds the place again; if he finds better
water higher up or lower down, he removes the buoy to that place. Being
finally satisfied, he gives the order, and all the men stand their oars
straight up in the air, in line; a blast from the boat's whistle
indicates that the signal has been seen; then the men 'give way' on
their oars and lay the yawl alongside the buoy; the steamer comes
creeping carefully down, is pointed straight at the buoy, husbands her
power for the coming struggle, and presently, at the critical moment,
turns on all her steam and goes grinding and wallowing over the buoy and
the sand, and gains the deep water beyond. Or maybe she doesn't; maybe
she'strikes and swings.' Then she has to while away several hours (or
days) sparring herself off.
Sometimes a buoy is not laid at all, but the yawl goes ahead, hunting
the best water, and the steamer follows along in its wake. Often there
is a deal of fun and excitement about sounding, especially if it is a
glorious summer day, or a blustering night. But in winter the cold and
the peril take most of the fun out of it.
A buoy is nothing but a board four or five feet long, with one end
turned up; it is a reversed school-house bench, with one of the supports
left and the other removed. It is anchored on the shoalest part of the
reef by a rope with a heavy stone made fast to the end of it. But for
the resistance of the turned-up end of the reversed bench, the current
would pull the buoy under water. At night, a paper lantern with a
candle in it is fastened on top of the buoy, and this can be seen a mile
or more, a little glimmering spark in the waste of blackness.
Nothing delights a cub so much as an opportunity to go out sounding.
There is such an air of adventure about it; often there is danger; it is
so gaudy and man-of-war-like to sit up in the stern-sheets and steer a
swift yawl; there is something fine about the exultant spring of the
boat when an experienced old sailor crew throw their souls into the
oars; it is lovely to see the white foam stream away from the bows;
there is music in the rush of the water; it is deliciously exhilarating,
in summer, to go speeding over the breezy expanses of the river when the
world of wavelets is dancing in the sun. It is such grandeur, too, to
the cub, to get a chance to give an order; for often the pilot will
simply say, 'Let her go about!' and leave the rest to the cub, who
instantly cries, in his sternest tone of command, 'Ease starboard!
Strong on the larboard! Starboard give way! With a will, men!' The cub
enjoys sounding for the further reason that the eyes of the passengers
are watching all the yawl's movements with absorbing interest if the
time be daylight; and if it be night he knows that those same wondering
eyes are fastened upon the yawl's lantern as it glides out into the
gloom and dims away in the remote distance.
One trip a pretty girl of sixteen spent her time in our pilot-house with
her uncle and aunt, every day and all day long. I fell in love with
her. So did Mr. Thornburg's cub, Tom G----. Tom and I had been bosom
friends until this time; but now a coolness began to arise. I told the
girl a good many of my river adventures, and made myself out a good deal
of a hero; Tom tried to make himself appear to be a hero, too, and
succeeded to some extent, but then he always had a way of embroidering.
However, virtue is its own reward, so I was a barely perceptible trifle
ahead in the contest. About this time something happened which promised
handsomely for me: the pilots decided to sound the crossing at the head
of 21. This would occur about nine or ten o'clock at night, when the
passengers would be still up; it would be Mr. Thornburg's watch,
therefore my chief would have to do the sounding. We had a perfect love
of a sounding-boat--long, trim, graceful, and as fleet as a greyhound;
her thwarts were cushioned; she carried twelve oarsmen; one of the mates
was always sent in her to transmit orders to her crew, for ours was a
steamer where no end of'style' was put on.
We tied up at the shore above 21, and got ready. It was a foul night,
and the river was so wide, there, that a landsman's uneducated eyes
could discern no opposite shore through such a gloom. The passengers
were alert and interested; everything was satisfactory. As I hurried
through the engine-room, picturesquely gotten up in storm toggery, I met
Tom, and could not forbear delivering myself of a mean speech--
'Ain't you glad YOU don't have to go out sounding?'
Tom was passing on, but he quickly turned, and said--
'Now just for that, you can go and get the sounding-pole yourself. I was
going after it, but I'd see you in Halifax, now, before I'd do it.'
'Who wants you to get it? I don't. It's in the sounding-boat.'
'It ain't, either. It's been new-painted; and it's been up on the
ladies' cabin guards two days, drying.'
I flew back, and shortly arrived among the crowd of watching and
wondering ladies just in time to hear the command:
'Give way, men!'
I looked over, and there was the gallant sounding-boat booming away, the
unprincipled Tom presiding at the tiller, and my chief sitting by him
with the sounding-pole which I had been sent on a fool's errand to
fetch. Then that young girl said to me--
'Oh, how awful to have to go out in that little boat on such a night! Do
you think there is any danger?'
I would rather have been stabbed. I went off, full of venom, to help in
the pilot-house. By and by the boat's lantern disappeared, and after an
interval a wee spark glimmered upon the face of the water a mile away.
Mr. Thornburg blew the whistle, in acknowledgment, backed the steamer
out, and made for it. We flew along for a while, then slackened steam
and went cautiously gliding toward the spark. Presently Mr. Thornburg
exclaimed--
'Hello, the buoy-lantern's out!'
He stopped the engines. A moment or two later he said--
'Why, there it is again!'
So he came ahead on the engines once more, and rang for the leads.
Gradually the water shoaled up, and then began to deepen again! Mr.
Thornburg muttered--
'Well, I don't understand this. I believe that buoy has drifted off the
reef. Seems to be a little too far to the left. No matter, it is safest
to run over it anyhow.'
So, in that solid world of darkness we went creeping down on the light.
Just as our bows were in the act of plowing over it, Mr. Thornburg
seized the bell-ropes, rang a startling peal, and exclaimed--
'My soul, it's the sounding-boat!'
A sudden chorus of wild alarms burst out far below--a pause--and then
the sound of grinding and crashing followed. Mr. Thornburg exclaimed--
'There! the paddle-wheel has ground the sounding-boat to lucifer
matches! Run! See who is killed!'
I was on the main deck in the twinkling of an eye. My chief and the
third mate and nearly all the men were safe. They had discovered their
danger when it was too late to pull out of the way; then, when the great
guards overshadowed them a moment later, they were prepared and knew
what to do; at my chiefs order they sprang at the right instant, seized
the guard, and were hauled aboard. The next moment the sounding-yawl
swept aft to the wheel and was struck and splintered to atoms. Two of
the men and the cub Tom, were missing--a fact which spread like wildfire
over the boat. The passengers came flocking to the forward gangway,
ladies and all, anxious-eyed, white-faced, and talked in awed voices of
the dreadful thing. And often and again I heard them say, 'Poor fellows!
poor boy, poor boy!'
By this time the boat's yawl was manned and away, to search for the
missing. Now a faint call was heard, off to the left. The yawl had
disappeared in the other direction. Half the people rushed to one side
to encourage the swimmer with their shouts; the other half rushed the
other way to shriek to the yawl to turn about. By the callings, the
swimmer was approaching, but some said the sound showed failing
strength. The crowd massed themselves against the boiler-deck railings,
leaning over and staring into the gloom; and every faint and fainter cry
wrung from them such words as, 'Ah, poor fellow, poor fellow! is there
no way to save him?'
But still the cries held out, and drew nearer, and presently the voice
said pluckily--
'I can make it! Stand by with a rope!'
What a rousing cheer they gave him! The chief mate took his stand in
the glare of a torch-basket, a coil of rope in his hand, and his men
grouped about him. The next moment the swimmer's face appeared in the
circle of light, and in another one the owner of it was hauled aboard,
limp and drenched, while cheer on cheer went up. It was that devil Tom.
The yawl crew searched everywhere, but found no sign of the two men.
They probably failed to catch the guard, tumbled back, and were struck
by the wheel and killed. Tom had never jumped for the guard at all, but
had plunged head-first into the river and dived under the wheel. It was
nothing; I could have done it easy enough, and I said so; but everybody
went on just the same, making a wonderful to do over that ass, as if he
had done something great. That girl couldn't seem to have enough of
that pitiful 'hero' the rest of the trip; but little I cared; I loathed
her, any way.
The way we came to mistake the sounding-boat's lantern for the buoy-
light was this. My chief said that after laying the buoy he fell away
and watched it till it seemed to be secure; then he took up a position a
hundred yards below it and a little to one side of the steamer's course,
headed the sounding-boat up-stream, and waited. Having to wait some
time, he and the officer got to talking; he looked up when he judged
that the steamer was about on the reef; saw that the buoy was gone, but
supposed that the steamer had already run over it; he went on with his
talk; he noticed that the steamer was getting very close on him, but
that was the correct thing; it was her business to shave him closely,
for convenience in taking him aboard; he was expecting her to sheer off,
until the last moment; then it flashed upon him that she was trying to
run him down, mistaking his lantern for the buoy-light; so he sang out,
'Stand by to spring for the guard, men!' and the next instant the jump
was made.
Chapter 13 A Pilot's Needs
BUT I am wandering from what I was intending to do, that is, make
plainer than perhaps appears in the previous chapters, some of the
peculiar requirements of the science of piloting. First of all, there is
one faculty which a pilot must incessantly cultivate until he has
brought it to absolute perfection. Nothing short of perfection will do.
That faculty is memory. He cannot stop with merely thinking a thing is
so and so; he must know it; for this is eminently one of the 'exact'
sciences. With what scorn a pilot was looked upon, in the old times, if
he ever ventured to deal in that feeble phrase 'I think,' instead of the
vigorous one 'I know!' One cannot easily realize what a tremendous
thing it is to know every trivial detail of twelve hundred miles of
river and know it with absolute exactness. If you will take the longest
street in New York, and travel up and down it, conning its features
patiently until you know every house and window and door and lamp-post
and big and little sign by heart, and know them so accurately that you
can instantly name the one you are abreast of when you are set down at
random in that street in the middle of an inky black night, you will
then have a tolerable notion of the amount and the exactness of a
pilot's knowledge who carries the Mississippi River in his head. And
then if you will go on until you know every street crossing, the
character, size, and position of the crossing-stones, and the varying
depth of mud in each of those numberless places, you will have some idea
of what the pilot must know in order to keep a Mississippi steamer out
of trouble. Next, if you will take half of the signs in that long
street, and CHANGE THEIR PLACES once a month, and still manage to know
their new positions accurately on dark nights, and keep up with these
repeated changes without making any mistakes, you will understand what
is required of a pilot's peerless memory by the fickle Mississippi.
I think a pilot's memory is about the most wonderful thing in the world.
To know the Old and New Testaments by heart, and be able to recite them
glibly, forward or backward, or begin at random anywhere in the book and
recite both ways and never trip or make a mistake, is no extravagant
mass of knowledge, and no marvelous facility, compared to a pilot's
massed knowledge of the Mississippi and his marvelous facility in the
handling of it. I make this comparison deliberately, and believe I am
not expanding the truth when I do it. Many will think my figure too
strong, but pilots will not.
And how easily and comfortably the pilot's memory does its work; how
placidly effortless is its way; how UNCONSCIOUSLY it lays up its vast
stores, hour by hour, day by day, and never loses or mislays a single
valuable package of them all! Take an instance. Let a leadsman cry,
'Half twain! half twain! half twain! half twain! half twain!' until it
become as monotonous as the ticking of a clock; let conversation be
going on all the time, and the pilot be doing his share of the talking,
and no longer consciously listening to the leadsman; and in the midst of
this endless string of half twains let a single 'quarter twain!' be
interjected, without emphasis, and then the half twain cry go on again,
just as before: two or three weeks later that pilot can describe with
precision the boat's position in the river when that quarter twain was
uttered, and give you such a lot of head-marks, stern-marks, and side-
marks to guide you, that you ought to be able to take the boat there and
put her in that same spot again yourself! The cry of 'quarter twain' did
not really take his mind from his talk, but his trained faculties
instantly photographed the bearings, noted the change of depth, and laid
up the important details for future reference without requiring any
assistance from him in the matter. If you were walking and talking with
a friend, and another friend at your side kept up a monotonous
repetition of the vowel sound A, for a couple of blocks, and then in the
midst interjected an R, thus, A, A, A, A, A, R, A, A, A, etc., and gave
the R no emphasis, you would not be able to state, two or three weeks
afterward, that the R had been put in, nor be able to tell what objects
you were passing at the moment it was done. But you could if your
memory had been patiently and laboriously trained to do that sort of
thing mechanically.
Give a man a tolerably fair memory to start with, and piloting will
develop it into a very colossus of capability. But ONLY IN THE MATTERS
IT IS DAILY DRILLED IN. A time would come when the man's faculties could
not help noticing landmarks and soundings, and his memory could not help
holding on to them with the grip of a vise; but if you asked that same
man at noon what he had had for breakfast, it would be ten chances to
one that he could not tell you. Astonishing things can be done with the
human memory if you will devote it faithfully to one particular line of
business.
At the time that wages soared so high on the Missouri River, my chief,
Mr. Bixby, went up there and learned more than a thousand miles of that
stream with an ease and rapidity that were astonishing. When he had seen
each division once in the daytime and once at night, his education was
so nearly complete that he took out a 'daylight' license; a few trips
later he took out a full license, and went to piloting day and night--
and he ranked A 1, too.
Mr. Bixby placed me as steersman for a while under a pilot whose feats
of memory were a constant marvel to me. However, his memory was born in
him, I think, not built. For instance, somebody would mention a name.
Instantly Mr. Brown would break in--
'Oh, I knew HIM. Sallow-faced, red-headed fellow, with a little scar on
the side of his throat, like a splinter under the flesh. He was only in
the Southern trade six months. That was thirteen years ago. I made a
trip with him. There was five feet in the upper river then; the "Henry
Blake" grounded at the foot of Tower Island drawing four and a half; the
"George Elliott" unshipped her rudder on the wreck of the "Sunflower"--'
'Why, the "Sunflower" didn't sink until--'
'I know when she sunk; it was three years before that, on the 2nd of
December; Asa Hardy was captain of her, and his brother John was first
clerk; and it was his first trip in her, too; Tom Jones told me these
things a week afterward in New Orleans; he was first mate of the
"Sunflower." Captain Hardy stuck a nail in his foot the 6th of July of
the next year, and died of the lockjaw on the 15th. His brother died
two years after 3rd of March,--erysipelas. I never saw either of the
Hardys,--they were Alleghany River men,--but people who knew them told
me all these things. And they said Captain Hardy wore yarn socks winter
and summer just the same, and his first wife's name was Jane Shook--she
was from New England--and his second one died in a lunatic asylum. It
was in the blood. She was from Lexington, Kentucky. Name was Horton
before she was married.'
And so on, by the hour, the man's tongue would go. He could NOT forget
any thing. It was simply impossible. The most trivial details remained
as distinct and luminous in his head, after they had lain there for
years, as the most memorable events. His was not simply a pilot's
memory; its grasp was universal. If he were talking about a trifling
letter he had received seven years before, he was pretty sure to deliver
you the entire screed from memory. And then without observing that he
was departing from the true line of his talk, he was more than likely to
hurl in a long-drawn parenthetical biography of the writer of that
letter; and you were lucky indeed if he did not take up that writer's
relatives, one by one, and give you their biographies, too.
Such a memory as that is a great misfortune. To it, all occurrences are
of the same size. Its possessor cannot distinguish an interesting
circumstance from an uninteresting one. As a talker, he is bound to
clog his narrative with tiresome details and make himself an
insufferable bore. Moreover, he cannot stick to his subject. He picks
up every little grain of memory he discerns in his way, and so is led
aside. Mr. Brown would start out with the honest intention of telling
you a vastly funny anecdote about a dog. He would be'so full of laugh'
that he could hardly begin; then his memory would start with the dog's
breed and personal appearance; drift into a history of his owner; of his
owner's family, with descriptions of weddings and burials that had
occurred in it, together with recitals of congratulatory verses and
obituary poetry provoked by the same: then this memory would recollect
that one of these events occurred during the celebrated 'hard winter' of
such and such a year, and a minute description of that winter would
follow, along with the names of people who were frozen to death, and
statistics showing the high figures which pork and hay went up to. Pork
and hay would suggest corn and fodder; corn and fodder would suggest
cows and horses; cows and horses would suggest the circus and certain
celebrated bare-back riders; the transition from the circus to the
menagerie was easy and natural; from the elephant to equatorial Africa
was but a step; then of course the heathen savages would suggest
religion; and at the end of three or four hours' tedious jaw, the watch
would change, and Brown would go out of the pilot-house muttering
extracts from sermons he had heard years before about the efficacy of
prayer as a means of grace. And the original first mention would be all
you had learned about that dog, after all this waiting and hungering.
A pilot must have a memory; but there are two higher qualities which he
must also have. He must have good and quick judgment and decision, and
a cool, calm courage that no peril can shake. Give a man the merest
trifle of pluck to start with, and by the time he has become a pilot he
cannot be unmanned by any danger a steamboat can get into; but one
cannot quite say the same for judgment. Judgment is a matter of brains,
and a man must START with a good stock of that article or he will never
succeed as a pilot.
The growth of courage in the pilot-house is steady all the time, but it
does not reach a high and satisfactory condition until some time after
the young pilot has been'standing his own watch,' alone and under the
staggering weight of all the responsibilities connected with the
position. When an apprentice has become pretty thoroughly acquainted
with the river, he goes clattering along so fearlessly with his
steamboat, night or day, that he presently begins to imagine that it is
HIS courage that animates him; but the first time the pilot steps out
and leaves him to his own devices he finds out it was the other man's.
He discovers that the article has been left out of his own cargo
altogether. The whole river is bristling with exigencies in a moment; he
is not prepared for them; he does not know how to meet them; all his
knowledge forsakes him; and within fifteen minutes he is as white as a
sheet and scared almost to death. Therefore pilots wisely train these
cubs by various strategic tricks to look danger in the face a little
more calmly. A favorite way of theirs is to play a friendly swindle upon
the candidate.
Mr. Bixby served me in this fashion once, and for years afterward I used
to blush even in my sleep when I thought of it. I had become a good
steersman; so good, indeed, that I had all the work to do on our watch,
night and day; Mr. Bixby seldom made a suggestion to me; all he ever did
was to take the wheel on particularly bad nights or in particularly bad
crossings, land the boat when she needed to be landed, play gentleman of
leisure nine-tenths of the watch, and collect the wages. The lower river
was about bank-full, and if anybody had questioned my ability to run any
crossing between Cairo and New Orleans without help or instruction, I
should have felt irreparably hurt. The idea of being afraid of any
crossing in the lot, in the DAY-TIME, was a thing too preposterous for
contemplation. Well, one matchless summer's day I was bowling down the
bend above island 66, brimful of self-conceit and carrying my nose as
high as a giraffe's, when Mr. Bixby said--
'I am going below a while. I suppose you know the next crossing?'
This was almost an affront. It was about the plainest and simplest
crossing in the whole river. One couldn't come to any harm, whether he
ran it right or not; and as for depth, there never had been any bottom
there. I knew all this, perfectly well.
'Know how to RUN it? Why, I can run it with my eyes shut.'
'How much water is there in it?'
'Well, that is an odd question. I couldn't get bottom there with a
church steeple.'
'You think so, do you?'
The very tone of the question shook my confidence. That was what Mr.
Bixby was expecting. He left, without saying anything more. I began to
imagine all sorts of things. Mr. Bixby, unknown to me, of course, sent
somebody down to the forecastle with some mysterious instructions to the
leadsmen, another messenger was sent to whisper among the officers, and
then Mr. Bixby went into hiding behind a smoke-stack where he could
observe results. Presently the captain stepped out on the hurricane
deck; next the chief mate appeared; then a clerk. Every moment or two a
straggler was added to my audience; and before I got to the head of the
island I had fifteen or twenty people assembled down there under my
nose. I began to wonder what the trouble was. As I started across, the
captain glanced aloft at me and said, with a sham uneasiness in his
voice--
'Where is Mr. Bixby?'
'Gone below, sir.'
But that did the business for me. My imagination began to construct
dangers out of nothing, and they multiplied faster than I could keep the
run of them. All at once I imagined I saw shoal water ahead! The wave
of coward agony that surged through me then came near dislocating every
joint in me. All my confidence in that crossing vanished. I seized the
bell-rope; dropped it, ashamed; seized it again; dropped it once more;
clutched it tremblingly one again, and pulled it so feebly that I could
hardly hear the stroke myself. Captain and mate sang out instantly, and
both together--
'Starboard lead there! and quick about it!'
This was another shock. I began to climb the wheel like a squirrel; but
I would hardly get the boat started to port before I would see new
dangers on that side, and away I would spin to the other; only to find
perils accumulating to starboard, and be crazy to get to port again.
Then came the leadsman's sepulchral cry--
'D-e-e-p four!'
Deep four in a bottomless crossing! The terror of it took my breath
away.
'M-a-r-k three!... M-a-r-k three... Quarter less three!... Half twain!'
This was frightful! I seized the bell-ropes and stopped the engines.
'Quarter twain! Quarter twain! MARK twain!'
I was helpless. I did not know what in the world to do. I was quaking
from head to foot, and I could have hung my hat on my eyes, they stuck
out so far.
'Quarter LESS twain! Nine and a HALF!'
We were DRAWING nine! My hands were in a nerveless flutter. I could not
ring a bell intelligibly with them. I flew to the speaking-tube and
shouted to the engineer--
'Oh, Ben, if you love me, BACK her! Quick, Ben! Oh, back the immortal
SOUL out of her!'
I heard the door close gently. I looked around, and there stood Mr.
Bixby, smiling a bland, sweet smile. Then the audience on the hurricane
deck sent up a thundergust of humiliating laughter. I saw it all, now,
and I felt meaner than the meanest man in human history. I laid in the
lead, set the boat in her marks, came ahead on the engines, and said--
'It was a fine trick to play on an orphan, WASN'T it? I suppose I'll
never hear the last of how I was ass enough to heave the lead at the
head of 66.'
'Well, no, you won't, maybe. In fact I hope you won't; for I want you
to learn something by that experience. |
10,240 |
Produced by Juliet Sutherland, David Widger and PG
Distributed Proofreaders from images generously made
available by the Canadian Institute for Historical
Microreproductions
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A GRIZZLY
by Ernest Seton-Thompson
With 75 Drawings (not available in this file)
Author of: The Trail of the Sandhill Stag Wild Animals I Have
Known Art Anatomy of Animals Mammals of Manitoba Birds of Manitoba
1899
This Book is dedicated to the memory of the days spent at the
Palette Ranch on the Graybull, where from hunter, miner, personal
experience, and the host himself, I gathered many chapters of the
History of Wahb.
[Illustration: ] In this Book the designs for title-page, cover, and
general makeup, were done by Mrs. Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson.
[Illustration: ] List of Full-Page Drawings
They all Rushed Under it like a Lot of Little Pigs
Like Children Playing 'Hands'
He Stayed in the Tree till near Morning
A Savage Bobcat... Warned Him to go Back
Wahb Yelled and Jerked Back
He Struck one Fearful, Crushing Blow
Ain't He an Awful Size, Though?
Wahb Smashed His Skull
Causing the Pool to Overflow
He Deliberately Stood up on the Pine Root
The Roachback Fled into the Woods
He Paused a Moment at the Gate
PART I
THE CUBHOOD OF WAHB
[Illustration:]
I.
He was born over a score of years ago, away up in the wildest part of
the wild West, on the head of the Little Piney, above where the Palette
Ranch is now.
His Mother was just an ordinary Silvertip, living the quiet life that
all Bears prefer, minding her own business and doing her duty by her
family, asking no favors of any one excepting to let her alone. It was
July before she took her remarkable family down the Little Piney to the
Graybull, and showed them what strawberries were, and where to find
them.
Notwithstanding their Mother's deep conviction, the cubs were not
remarkably big or bright; yet they were a remarkable family, for there
were four of them, and it is not often a Grizzly Mother can boast of
more than two.
[Illustration]
The woolly-coated little creatures were having a fine time, and reveled
in the lovely mountain summer and the abundance of good things. Their
Mother turned over each log and flat stone they came to, and the moment
it was lifted they all rushed under it like a lot of little pigs to lick
up the ants and grubs there hidden.
It never once occurred to them that Mammy's strength might fail
sometime, and let the great rock drop just as they got under it; nor
would any one have thought so that might have chanced to see that huge
arm and that shoulder sliding about under the great yellow robe she
wore. No, no; that arm could never fail. The little ones were quite
right. So they hustled and tumbled one another at each fresh log in
their haste to be first, and squealed little squeals, and growled little
growls, as if each was a pig, a pup, and a kitten all rolled into one.
They were well acquainted with the common little brown ants that harbor
under logs in the uplands, but now they came for the first time on one
of the hills of the great, fat, luscious Wood-ant, and they all crowded
around to lick up those that ran out. But they soon found that they were
licking up more cactus-prickles and sand than ants, till their Mother
said in Grizzly, "Let me show you how."
She knocked off the top of the hill, then laid her great paw flat on it
for a few moments, and as the angry ants swarmed on to it she licked
them up with one lick, and got a good rich mouthful to crunch, without a
grain of sand or a cactus-stinger in it. The cubs soon learned. Each
put up both his little brown paws, so that there was a ring of paws all
around the ant-hill, and there they sat, like children playing 'hands,'
and each licked first the right and then the left paw, or one cuffed his
brother's ears for licking a paw that was not his own, till the ant-hill
was cleared out and they were ready for a change.
Ants are sour food and made the Bears thirsty, so the old one led down
to the river. After they had drunk as much as they wanted, and dabbled
their feet, they walked down the bank to a pool, where the old one's
keen eye caught sight of a number of Buffalo-fish basking on the bottom.
The water was very low, mere pebbly rapids between these deep holes, so
Mammy said to the little ones:
"Now you all sit there on the bank and learn something new."
[Illustration: ]
First she went to the lower end of the pool and stirred up a cloud of
mud which hung in the still water, and sent a long tail floating like a
curtain over the rapids just below. Then she went quietly round by land,
and sprang into the upper end of the pool with all the noise she could.
The fish had crowded to that end, but this sudden attack sent them off
in a panic, and they dashed blindly into the mud-cloud. Out of fifty
fish there is always a good chance of some being fools, and half a dozen
of these dashed through the darkened water into the current, and before
they knew it they were struggling over the shingly shallow. The old
Grizzly jerked them out to the bank, and the little ones rushed noisily
on these funny, short snakes that could not get away, and gobbled and
gorged till their little bellies looked like balloons.
They had eaten so much now, and the sun was so hot, that all were quite
sleepy. So the Mother-bear led them to a quiet little nook, and as soon
as she lay down, though they were puffing with heat, they all snuggled
around her and went to sleep, with their little brown paws curled in,
and their little black noses tucked into their wool as though it were a
very cold day.
[Illustration: ]
After an hour or two they began to yawn and stretch themselves, except
little Fuzz, the smallest; she poked out her sharp nose for a moment,
then snuggled back between her Mother's great arms, for she was a
gentle, petted little thing. The largest, the one afterward known as
Wahb, sprawled over on his back and began to worry a root that stuck up,
grumbling to himself as he chewed it, or slapped it with his paw for not
staying where he wanted it. Presently Mooney, the mischief, began
tugging at Frizzle's ears, and got his own well boxed. They clenched for
a tussle; then, locked in a tight, little grizzly yellow ball, they
sprawled over and over on the grass, and, before they knew it, down a
bank, and away out of sight toward the river.
[Illustration: ]
Almost immediately there was an outcry of yells for help from the little
wrestlers. There could be no mistaking the real terror in their voices.
Some dreadful danger was threatening.
[Illustration: ]
Up jumped the gentle Mother, changed into a perfect demon, and over the
bank in time to see a huge Range-bull make a deadly charge at what he
doubtless took for a yellow dog. In a moment all would have been over
with Frizzle, for he had missed his footing on the bank; but there was a
thumping of heavy feet, a roar that startled even the great Bull, and,
like a huge bounding ball of yellow fur, Mother Grizzly was upon him.
Him! the monarch of the herd, the master of all these plains, what had
he to fear? He bellowed his deep war-cry, and charged to pin the old one
to the bank; but as he bent to tear her with his shining horns, she
dealt him a stunning blow, and before he could recover she was on his
shoulders, raking the flesh from his ribs with sweep after sweep of her
terrific claws.
The Bull roared with rage, and plunged and reared, dragging Mother
Grizzly with him; then, as he hurled heavily off the <DW72>, she let go
to save herself, and the Bull rolled down into the river.
[Illustration]
This was a lucky thing for him, for the Grizzly did not want to follow
him there; so he waded out on the other side, and bellowing with
fury and pain, slunk off to join the herd to which he belonged.
[Illustration: desc. Mountain peaks]
II.
Old Colonel Pickett, the cattle king, was out riding the range. The
night before, he had seen the new moon descending over the white cone of
Pickett's Peak.
"I saw the last moon over Frank's Peak," said he, "and the luck was
against me for a month; now I reckon it's my turn."
Next morning his luck began. A letter came from Washington granting his
request that a post-office be established at his ranch, and contained
the polite inquiry, "What name do you suggest for the new post-office?"
[Illustration]
The Colonel took down his new rifle, a 45-90 repeater. "May as well,"
he said; "this is my month"; and he rode up the Graybull to see how the
cattle were doing.
As he passed under the Rimrock Mountain he heard a far-away roaring as
of Bulls fighting, but thought nothing of it till he rounded the point
and saw on the flat below a lot of his cattle pawing the dust and
bellowing as they always do when they smell the blood of one of their
number. He soon saw that the great Bull, 'the boss of the bunch,' was
covered with blood. His back and sides were torn as by a Mountain-lion,
and his head was battered as by another Bull.
"Grizzly," growled the Colonel, for he knew the mountains. He quickly
noted the general direction of the Bull's back trail, then rode toward a
high bank that offered a view. This was across the gravelly ford of the
Graybull, near the mouth of the Piney. His horse splashed through the
cold water and began jerkily to climb the other bank.
As soon as the rider's head rose above the bank his hand grabbed the
rifle, for there in full sight were five Grizzly Bears, an old one and
four cubs. "Run for the woods," growled the Mother Grizzly, for she knew
that men carried guns. Not that she feared for herself; but the idea of
such things among her darlings was too horrible to think of. She set off
to guide them to the timber-tangle on the Lower Piney. But an awful,
murderous fusillade began.
_Bang_! and Mother Grizzly felt a deadly pang.
_Bang_! and poor little Fuzz rolled over with a scream of pain and lay
still.
With a roar of hate and fury Mother Grizzly turned to attack the enemy.
[Illustration]
_Bang_! and she fell paralyzed and dying with a high shoulder shot. And
the three little cubs, not knowing what to do, ran back to their Mother.
_Bang! bang_! and Mooney and Frizzle sank in dying agonies beside her,
and Wahb, terrified and stupefied, ran in a circle about them. Then,
hardly knowing why, he turned and dashed into the timber-tangle, and
disappeared as a last _bang_ left him with a stinging pain and a
useless, broken hind paw.
* * * * *
That is why the post-office was called Four-Bears. The Colonel seemed
pleased with what he had done; indeed, he told of it himself.
[Illustration]
But away up in the woods of Anderson's Peak that night a little lame
Grizzly might have been seen wandering, limping along, leaving a
bloody spot each time he tried to set down his hind paw; whining and
whimpering, "Mother! Mother! Oh, Mother, where are you?" for he was cold
and hungry, and had such a pain in his foot. But there was no Mother
to come to him, and he dared not go back where he had left her, so he
wandered aimlessly about among the pines.
[Illustration: description: bear paw prints]
Then he smelled some strange animal smell and heard heavy footsteps;
and not knowing what else to do, he climbed a tree. Presently a band of
great, long-necked, slim-legged animals, taller than his Mother, came by
under the tree. He had seen such once before and had not been afraid of
them then, because he had been with his Mother. But now he kept very
quiet in the tree, and the big creatures stopped picking the grass when
they were near him, and blowing their noses, ran out of sight.
[Illustration]
He stayed in the tree till near morning, and then he was so stiff with
cold that he could scarcely get down. But the warm sun came up, and he
felt better as he sought about for berries and ants, for he was very
hungry. Then he went back to the Piney and put his wounded foot in the
ice-cold water.
He wanted to get back to the mountains again, but still he felt he must
go to where he had left his Mother and brothers. When the afternoon grew
warm, he went limping down the stream through the timber, and down on
the banks of the Graybull till he came to the place where yesterday they
had had the fish-feast; and he eagerly crunched the heads and remains
that he found. But there was an odd and horrid smell on the wind. It
frightened him, and as he went down to where he last had seen his Mother
the smell grew worse. He peeped out cautiously at the place, and saw
there a lot of Coyotes, tearing at something. What it was he did not
know; but he saw no Mother, and the smell that sickened and terrified
him was worse than ever, so he quietly turned back toward the
timber-tangle of the Lower Piney, and nevermore came back to look for
his lost family. He wanted his Mother as much as ever, but something
told him it was no use.
As cold night came down, he missed her more and more again, and he
whimpered as he limped along, a miserable, lonely, little, motherless
Bear--not lost in the mountains, for he had no home to seek, but so
sick and lonely, and with such a pain in his foot, and in his stomach a
craving for the drink that would nevermore be his. That night he found a
hollow log, and crawling in, he tried to dream that his Mother's great,
furry arms were around him, and he snuffled himself to sleep.
[Illustration]
III.
Wahb had always been a gloomy little Bear; and the string of misfortunes
that came on him just as his mind was forming made him more than ever
sullen and morose. It seemed as though every one were against him. He
tried to keep out of sight in the upper woods of the Piney, seeking his
food by day and resting at night in the hollow log. But one evening
he found it occupied by a Porcupine as big as himself and as bad as a
cactus-bush. Wahb could do nothing with him. He had to give up the log
and seek another nest.
[Illustration]
One day he went down on the Graybull flat to dig some roots that his
Mother had taught him were good. But before he had well begun, a
grayish-looking animal came out of a hole in the ground and rushed at
him, hissing and growling. Wahb did not know it was a Badger, but he saw
it was a fierce animal as big as himself. He was sick, and lame too,
so he limped away and never stopped till he was on a ridge in the next
canyon. Here a Coyote saw him, and came bounding after him, calling at
the same time to another to come and join the fun. Wahb was near a
tree, so he scrambled up to the branches. The Coyotes came bounding and
yelping below, but their noses told them that this was a young Grizzly
they had chased, and they soon decided that a young Grizzly in a tree
means a Mother Grizzly not far away, and they had better let him alone.
[Illustration]
After they had sneaked off Wahb came down and returned to the Piney.
There was better feeding on the Graybull, but every one seemed against
him there now that his loving guardian was gone, while on the Piney he
had peace at least sometimes, and there were plenty of trees that he
could climb when an enemy came.
His broken foot was a long time in healing; indeed, it never got
quite well. The wound healed and the soreness wore off, but it left a
stiffness that gave him a slight limp, and the sole-balls grew together
quite unlike those of the other foot. It particularly annoyed him when
he had to climb a tree or run fast from his enemies; and of them he
found no end, though never once did a friend cross his path. When he
lost his Mother he lost his best and only friend. She would have taught
him much that he had to learn by bitter experience, and would have saved
him from most of the ills that befell him in his cubhood--ills so many
and so dire that but for his native sturdiness he never could have
passed through alive.
The pinons bore plentifully that year, and the winds began to shower
down the ripe, rich nuts. Life was becoming a little easier for Wahb. He
was gaining in health and strength, and the creatures he daily met now
let him alone. But as he feasted on the pinons one morning after a gale,
a great Black-bear came marching down the hill. 'No one meets a friend
in the woods,' was a byword that Wahb had learned already. He swung up
the nearest tree. At first the Black-bear was scared, for he smelled the
smell of Grizzly; but when he saw it was only a cub, he took courage and
came growling at Wahb. He could climb as well as the little Grizzly, or
better, and high as Wahb went, the Blackbear followed, and when
Wahb got out on the smallest and highest twig that would carry him, the
Blackbear cruelly shook him off, so that he was thrown to the ground,
bruised and shaken and half-stunned. He limped away moaning, and the
only thing that kept the Blackbear from following him up and perhaps
killing him was the fear that the old Grizzly might be about. So Wahb
was driven away down the creek from all the good pinon woods.
There was not much food on the Graybull now. The berries were nearly all
gone; there were no fish or ants to get, and Wahb, hurt, lonely,
and miserable, wandered on and on, till he was away down toward the
Meteetsee. A Coyote came bounding and barking through the sage-brush
after him. Wahb tried to run, but it was no use; the Coyote was soon up
with him. Then with a sudden rush of desperate courage Wahb turned and
charged his foe. The astonished Coyote gave a scared yowl or two, and
fled with his tail between his legs. Thus Wahb learned that war is the
price of peace.
But the forage was poor here; there were too many cattle; and Wahb was
making for a far-away pinon woods in the Meteetsee Canon when he saw a
man, just like the one he had seen on that day of sorrow. At the same
moment he heard a _bang_, and some sage-brush rattled and fell just over
his back. All the dreadful smells and dangers of that day came back to
his memory, and Wahb ran as he never had run before.
He soon got into a gully and followed it into the canyon. An opening
between two cliffs seemed to offer shelter, but as he ran toward it a
Range-cow came trotting between, shaking her head at him and snorting
threats against his life.
He leaped aside upon a long log that led up a bank, but at once a savage
Bobcat appeared on the other end and warned him to go back. It was no
time to quarrel. Bitterly Wahb felt that the world was full of enemies.
But he turned and scrambled up a rocky bank into the pinon woods that
border the benches of the Meteetsee.
The Pine Squirrels seemed to resent his coming, and barked furiously.
They were thinking about their pinon-nuts. They knew that this Bear was
coming to steal their provisions, and they followed him overhead to
scold and abuse him, with such an outcry that an enemy might have
followed him by their noise, which was exactly what they intended.
There was no one following, but it made Wahb uneasy and nervous. So he
kept on till he reached the timber line, where both food and foes were
scarce, and here on the edge of the Mountain-sheep land at last he got a
chance to rest.
[Illustration]
IV.
Wahb never was sweet-tempered like his baby sister, and the persecutions
by his numerous foes were making him more and more sour. Why could not
they let him alone in his misery? Why was every one against him? If only
he had his Mother back! If he could only have killed that Black-bear
that had driven him from his woods! It did not occur to him that some
day he himself would be big. And that spiteful Bobcat, that took
advantage of him; and the man that had tried to kill him. He did not
forget any of them, and he hated them all.
Wahb found his new range fairly good, because it was a good nut year. He
learned just what the Squirrels feared he would, for his nose directed
him to the little granaries where they had stored up great quantities
of nuts for winter's use. It was hard on the Squirrels, but it was good
luck for Wahb, for the nuts were delicious food. And when the days
shortened and the nights began to be frosty, he had grown fat and
well-favored.
He traveled over all parts of the canyon now, living mostly in the higher
woods, but coming down at times to forage almost as far as the river.
One night as he wandered by the deep-water a peculiar smell reached his
nose. It was quite pleasant, so he followed it up to the water's edge.
It seemed to come from a sunken log. As he reached over toward this,
there was a sudden _clank_, and one of his paws was caught in a strong,
steel Beaver-trap.
Wahb yelled and jerked back with all his strength, and tore up the stake
that held the trap. He tried to shake it off, then ran away through the
bushes trailing it. He tore at it with his teeth; but there it hung,
quiet, cold, strong, and immovable. Every little while he tore at it
with his teeth and claws, or beat it against the ground. He buried it in
the earth, then climbed a low tree, hoping to leave it behind; but still
it clung, biting into his flesh. He made for his own woods, and sat down
to try to puzzle it out. He did not know what it was, but his little
green-brown eyes glared with a mixture of pain, fright, and fury as he
tried to understand his new enemy.
[Illustration]
He lay down under the bushes, and, intent on deliberately crushing the
thing, he held it down with one paw while he tightened his teeth on the
other end, and bearing down as it slid away, the trap jaws opened and
the foot was free. It was mere chance, of course, that led him to
squeeze both springs at once. He did not understand it, but he did not
forget it, and he got these not very clear ideas: 'There is a dreadful
little enemy that hides by the water and waits for one. It has an odd
smell. It bites one's paws and is too hard for one to bite. But it can
be got off by hard squeezing.'
For a week or more the little Grizzly had another sore paw, but it was
not very bad if he did not do any climbing.
[Illustration: ]
It was now the season when the Elk were bugling on the mountains. Wahb
heard them all night, and once or twice had to climb to get away from
one of the big-antlered Bulls. It was also the season when the trappers
were coming into the mountains, and the Wild Geese were honking
overhead. There were several quite new smells in the woods, too. Wahb
followed one of these up, and it led to a place where were some small
logs piled together; then, mixed with the smell that had drawn him, was
one that he hated--he remembered it from the time when he had lost his
Mother. He sniffed about carefully, for it was not very strong, and
learned that this hateful smell was on a log in front, and the sweet
smell that made his mouth water was under some brush behind. So he went
around, pulled away the brush till he got the prize, a piece of meat,
and as he grabbed it, the log in front went down with a heavy _chock_.
It made Wahb jump; but he got away all right with the meat and some new
ideas, and with one old idea made stronger, and that was, 'When that
hateful smell is around it always means trouble.'
As the weather grew colder, Wahb became very sleepy; he slept all day
when it was frosty. He had not any fixed place to sleep in; he knew a
number of dry ledges for sunny weather, and one or two sheltered nooks
for stormy days. He had a very comfortable nest under a root, and one
day, as it began to blow and snow, he crawled into this and curled up
to sleep. The storm howled without. The snow fell deeper and deeper. It
draped the pine-trees till they bowed, then shook themselves clear to
be draped anew. It drifted over the mountains and poured down the
funnel-like ravines, blowing off the peaks and ridges, and filling up
the hollows level with their rims. It piled up over Wahb's den, shutting
out the cold of the winter, shutting out itself: and Wahb slept and
slept.
V.
He slept all winter without waking, for such is the way of Bears, and
yet when spring came and aroused him, he knew that he had been asleep a
long time. He was not much changed--he had grown in height, and yet was
but little thinner. He was now very hungry, and forcing his way through
the deep drift that still lay over his den, he set out to look for food.
There were no pinon-nuts to get, and no berries or ants; but Wahb's nose
led him away up the canyon to the body of a winter-killed Elk, where he
had a fine feast, and then buried the rest for future use.
Day after day he came back till he had finished it. Food was very scarce
for a couple of months, and after the Elk was eaten, Wahb lost all the
fat he had when he awoke. One day he climbed over the Divide into the
Warhouse Valley. It was warm and sunny there, vegetation was well
advanced, and he found good forage. He wandered down toward the thick
timber, and soon smelled the smell of another Grizzly. This grew
stronger and led him to a single tree by a Bear-trail. Wahb reared up
on his hind feet to smell this tree. It was strong of Bear, and was
plastered with mud and Grizzly hair far higher, than he could reach;
and Wahb knew that it must have been a very large Bear that had rubbed
himself there. He felt uneasy. He used to long to meet one of his own
kind, yet now that there was a chance of it he was filled with dread.
No one had shown him anything but hatred in his lonely, unprotected
life, and he could not tell what this older Bear might do. As he stood
in doubt, he caught sight of the old Grizzly himself slouching along a
hillside, stopping from time to time to dig up the quamash-roots and
wild turnips.
He was a monster. Wahb instinctively distrusted him, and sneaked
away through the woods and up a rocky bluff where he could watch.
Then the big fellow came on Wahb's track and rumbled a deep growl of
anger; he followed the trail to the tree, and rearing up, he tore the
bark with his claws, far above where Wahb had reached. Then he strode
rapidly along Wahb's trail. But the cub had seen enough. He fled back
over the Divide into the Meteetsee Canon, and realized in his dim,
bearish way that he was at peace there because the Bear-forage was so
poor.
As the summer came on, his coat was shed. His skin got very itchy, and
he found pleasure in rolling in the mud and scraping his back against
some convenient tree. He never climbed now: his claws were too long, and
his arms, though growing big and strong, were losing that suppleness of
wrist that makes cub Grizzlies and all Blackbears great climbers. He now
dropped naturally into the Bear habit of seeing how high he could reach
with his nose on the rubbing-post, whenever he was near one.
He may not have noticed it, yet each time he came to a post, after a
week or two away, he could reach higher, for Wahb was growing fast and
coming into his strength.
Sometimes he was at one end of the country that he felt was his, and
sometimes at another, but he had frequent use for the rubbing-tree,
and thus it was that his range was mapped out by posts with his own mark
on them.
One day late in summer he sighted a stranger on his land, a glossy
Blackbear, and he felt furious against the interloper. As the Blackbear
came nearer Wahb noticed the tan-red face, the white spot on his breast,
and then the bit out of his ear, and last of all the wind brought a
whiff. There could be no further doubt; it was the very smell: this was
the black coward that had chased him down the Piney long ago. But how he
had shrunken! Before, he had looked like a giant; now Wahb felt he could
crush him with one paw. Revenge is sweet, Wahb felt, though he did not
exactly say it, and he went for that red-nosed Bear. But the Black one
went up a small tree like a Squirrel. Wahb tried to follow as the other
once followed him, but somehow he could not. He did not seem to know
how to take hold now, and after a while he gave it up and went away,
although the Blackbear brought him back more than once by coughing
in derision. Later on that day, when the Grizzly passed again, the
red-nosed one had gone.
[Illustration]
As the summer waned, the upper forage-grounds began to give out, and
Wahb ventured down to the Lower Meteetsee one night to explore. There
was a pleasant odor on the breeze, and following it up, Wahb came to the
carcass of a Steer. A good distance away from it were some tiny Coyotes,
mere dwarfs compared with those he remembered. Right by the carcass was
another that jumped about in the moonlight in a foolish way. For some
strange reason it seemed unable to get away. Wahb's old hatred broke
out. He rushed up. In a flash the Coyote bit him several times before,
with one blow of that great paw, Wahb smashed him into a limp, furry
rag; then broke in all his ribs with a crunch or two of his jaws. Oh,
but it was good to feel the hot, bloody juices oozing between his teeth!
The Coyote was caught in a trap. Wahb hated the smell of the iron, so he
went to the other side of the carcass, where it was not so strong,
and had eaten but little before _clank_, and his foot was caught in a
Wolf-trap that he had not seen.
But he remembered that he had once before been caught and had escaped by
squeezing the trap. He set a hind foot on each spring and pressed till
the trap opened and released his paw. About the carcass was the smell
that he knew stood for man, so he left it and wandered down-stream; but
more and more often he got whiffs of that horrible odor, so he turned
and went back to his quiet pinon benches. Wahb's third summer had
brought him the stature of a large-sized Bear, though not nearly the
bulk and power that in time were his. He was very light- now, and
this was why Spahwat, a Shoshone Indian who more than once hunted him,
called him the Whitebear, or Wahb.
Spahwat was a good hunter, and as soon as he saw the rubbing-tree on the
Upper Meteetsee he knew that he was on the range of a big Grizzly. He
bushwhacked the whole valley, and spent many days before he found a
chance to shoot; then Wahb got a stinging flesh-wound in the shoulder.
He growled horribly, but it had seemed to take the fight out of him; he
scrambled up the valley and over the lower hills till he reached a quiet
haunt, where he lay down.
[Illustration]
His knowledge of healing was wholly instinctive. He licked the wound and
all around it, and sought to be quiet. The licking removed the dirt, and
by massage reduced the inflammation, and it plastered the hair down as a
sort of dressing over the wound to keep out the air, dirt, and microbes.
There could be no better treatment.
But the Indian was on his trail. Before long the smell warned Wahb that
a foe was coming, so he quietly climbed farther up the mountain to
another resting-place. But again he sensed the Indian's approach, and
made off. Several times this happened, and at length there was a second
shot and another galling wound. Wahb was furious now. There was nothing
that really frightened him but that horrible odor of man, iron, and
guns, that he remembered from the day when he lost his Mother; but now
all fear of these left him. He heaved painfully up the mountain again,
and along under a six-foot ledge, then up and back to the top of the
bank, where he lay flat. On came the Indian, armed with knife and gun;
deftly, swiftly keeping on the trail; floating joyfully over each bloody
print that meant such anguish to the hunted Bear. Straight up the slide
of broken rock he came, where Wahb, ferocious with pain, was waiting
on the ledge. On sneaked the dogged hunter; his eye still scanned the
bloody slots or swept the woods ahead, but never was raised to glance
above the ledge. And Wahb, as he saw this shape of Death relentless on
his track, and smelled the hated smell, poised his bulk at heavy cost
upon his quivering, mangled arm, there held until the proper instant
came, then to his sound arm's matchless native force he added all the
weight of desperate hate as down he struck one fearful, crushing blow.
The Indian sank without a cry, and then dropped out of sight. Wahb rose,
and sought again a quiet nook where he might nurse his wounds. Thus he
learned that one must fight for peace; for he never saw that Indian
again, and he had time to rest and recover.
[Illustration]
PART II
I.
The years went on as before, except that each winter Wahb slept less
soundly, and each spring he came out earlier and was a bigger Grizzly,
with fewer enemies that dared to face him. When his sixth year came he
was a very big, strong, sullen Bear, with neither friendship nor love in
his life since that evil day on the Lower Piney.
No one ever heard of Wahb's mate. No one believes that he ever had one.
The love-season of Bears came and went year after year, but left him
alone in his prime as he had been in his youth. It is not good for
a Bear to be alone; it is bad for him in every way. His habitual
moroseness grew with his strength, and any one chancing to meet him now
would have called him a dangerous Grizzly.
He had lived in the Meteetsee Valley since first he betook himself
there, and his character had been shaped by many little adventures with
traps and his wild rivals of the mountains. But there was none of the
latter that he now feared, and he knew enough to avoid the first, for
that penetrating odor of man and iron was a never-failing warning,
especially after an experience which befell him in his sixth year.
His ever-reliable nose told him that there was a dead Elk down among the
timber.
[Illustration]
He went up the wind, and there, sure enough, was the great delicious
carcass, already torn open at the very best place. True, there was that
terrible man-and-iron taint, but it was so slight and the feast so
tempting that after circling around and inspecting the carcass from his
eight feet of stature, as he stood erect, he went cautiously forward,
and at once was caught by his left paw in an enormous Bear-trap.
He roared with pain and slashed about in a fury. But this was no
Beaver-trap; it was a big forty-pound Bear-catcher, and he was surely
caught.
Wahb fairly foamed with rage, and madly grit his teeth upon the trap.
Then he remembered his former experiences. He placed the trap between
his hind legs, with a hind paw on each spring, and pressed down with all
his weight. But it was not enough. He dragged off the trap and its clog,
and went clanking up the mountain. Again and again he tried to free his
foot, but in vain, till he came where a great trunk crossed the trail a
few feet from the ground. By chance, or happy thought, he reared again
under this and made a new attempt. With a hind foot on each spring and
his mighty shoulders underneath the tree, he bore down with his titanic
strength: the great steel springs gave way, the jaws relaxed, and he
tore out his foot. So Wahb was free again, though he left behind a great
toe which had been nearly severed by the first snap of the steel.
Again Wahb had a painful wound to nurse, and as he was a left-handed
Bear,--that is, when he wished to turn a rock over he stood on the right
paw and turned with the left,--one result of this disablement was to rob
him for a time of all those dainty foods that are found under rocks or
logs. The wound healed at last, but he never forgot that experience,
and thenceforth the pungent smell of man and iron, even without the gun
smell, never failed to enrage him.
Many experiences had taught him that it is better to run if he only
smelled the hunter or heard him far away, but to fight desperately if
the man was close at hand. And the cow-boys soon came to know that the
Upper Meteetsee was the range of a Bear that was better let alone.
II.
One day after a long absence Wahb came into the lower part of his
range, and saw to his surprise one of the wooden dens that men make for
themselves. As he came around to get the wind, he sensed the taint that
never failed to infuriate him now, and a moment later he heard a loud
_bang_ and felt a stinging shock in his left hind leg, the old stiff
leg. He wheeled about, in time to see a man running toward the new-made
shanty. Had the shot been in his shoulder Wahb would have been helpless,
but it was not.
Mighty arms that could toss pine logs like broomsticks, paws that with
one tap could crush the biggest Bull upon the range, claws that could
tear huge slabs of rock from the mountain-side--what was even the deadly
rifle to them!
When the man's partner came home that night he found him on the reddened
shanty floor. The bloody trail from outside and a shaky, scribbled note
on the back of a paper novel told the tale.
It was Wahb done it. I seen him by the spring and wounded him. I tried
to git on the shanty, but he ketched me. My God, how I suffer! JACK. It
was all fair. The man had invaded the Bear's country, had tried to take
the Bear's life, and had lost his own. But Jack's partner swore he would
kill that Bear.
He took up the trail and followed it up the canyon, and there bushwhacked
and hunted day after day. He put out baits and traps, and at length one
day he heard a _crash, clatter, thump_, and a huge rock bounded down a
bank into a wood, scaring out a couple of deer that floated away like
thistle-down. Miller thought at first that it was a land-slide; but he
soon knew that it was Wahb that had rolled the boulder over merely for
the sake of two or three ants beneath it.
The wind had not betrayed him, so on peering through the bush Miller
saw the great Bear as he fed, favoring his left hind leg and growling
sullenly to himself at a fresh twinge of pain. Miller steadied himself,
and thought, "Here goes a finisher or a dead miss." He gave a sharp
whistle, the Bear stopped every move, and, as he stood with ears acock,
the man fired at his head.
But at that moment the great shaggy head moved, only an infuriating
scratch was given, the smoke betrayed the man's place, and the Grizzly
made savage, three-legged haste to catch his foe.
Miller dropped his gun and swung lightly into a tree, the only large one
near. Wahb raged in vain against the trunk. He tore off the bark with
his teeth and claws; but Miller was safe beyond his reach. For fully
four hours the Grizzly watched, then gave it up, and slowly went off
into the bushes till lost to view. Miller watched him from the tree, and
afterward waited nearly an hour to be sure that the Bear was gone. He
then slipped to the ground, got his gun, and set out for camp. But Wahb
was cunning; he had only _seemed_ to go away, and then had sneaked back
quietly to watch. As soon as the man was away from the tree, too far to
return, Wahb dashed after him. In spite of his wounds the Bear could
move the faster. Within a quarter of a mile--well, Wahb did just what
the man had sworn to do to him.
Long afterward his friends found the gun and enough to tell the tale.
The claim-shanty on the Meteetsee fell to pieces. It never again was
used, for no man cared to enter a country that had but few allurements
to offset its evident curse of ill luck, and where such a terrible
Grizzly was always on the war-path.
III.
Then they found good gold on the Upper Meteetsee. Miners came in pairs
and wandered through the peaks, rooting up the ground and spoiling the
little streams--grizzly old men mostly, that had lived their lives in
the mountain and were themselves slowly turning into Grizzly Bears;
digging and grubbing everywhere, not for good, wholesome roots, but for
that shiny yellow sand that they could not eat; living the lives of
Grizzlies, asking nothing but to be let alone to dig.
[Illustration]
They seemed to understand Grizzly Wahb. The first time they met, Wahb
reared up on his hind legs, and the wicked green lightnings began to
twinkle in his small eyes. The elder man said to his mate:
"Let him alone, and he won't bother you."
"Ain't he an awful size, though?" replied the other, nervously.
Wahb was about to charge, but something held him back--a something that
had no reference to his senses, that was felt only when they were still;
a something that in Bear and Man is wiser than his wisdom, and that
points the way at every doubtful fork in the dim and winding trail.
Of course Wahb did not understand what the men said, but he did feel
that there was something different here. The smell of man and iron was
there, but not of that maddening kind, and he missed the pungent odor
that even yet brought back the dark days of his cubhood.
The men did not move, so Wahb rumbled a subterranean growl, dropped down
on his four feet, and went on.
Late the same year Wahb ran across the red-nosed Blackbear. How that
Bear did keep on shrinking! Wahb could have hurled him across the
Graybull with one tap now.
But the Blackbear did not mean to let him try. He hustled his fat, podgy
body up a tree at a rate that made him puff. Wahb reached up nine feet
from the ground, and with one rake of his huge claws tore off the bark
clear to the shining white wood and down nearly to the ground; and the
Blackbear shivered and whimpered with terror as the scraping of those
awful claws ran up the trunk and up his spine in a way that was horribly
suggestive.
What was it that the sight of that Blackbear stirred in Wahb? Was it
memories of the Upper Piney, long forgotten; thoughts of a woodland rich
in food?
Wahb left him trembling up there as high as he could get, and without
any very clear purpose swung along the upper benches of the Meteetsee
down to the Graybull, around the foot of the Rimrock Mountain; on, till
hours later he found himself in the timber-tangle of the Lower Piney,
and among the berries and ants of the old times.
He had forgotten what a fine land the Piney was: plenty of food, no
miners to spoil the streams, no hunters to keep an eye on, and no
mosquitos or flies, but plenty of open, sunny glades and sheltering
woods, backed up by high, straight cliffs to turn the colder winds. |
10,240 |
Produced by Juliet Sutherland, S. R. Ellison, Ted Garvin,
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
A DOG OF FLANDERS
By Louisa De La Rame
(Ouida)
_Illustrated In Color By_ Maria L. Kirk
ILLUSTRATIONS
NELLO, AWAKENED FROM HIS SLEEP, RAN TO HELP WITH THE REST
THEN LITTLE NELLO TOOK HIS PLACE BESIDE THE CART
NELLO DREW THEIR LIKENESS WITH A STICK OF CHARCOAL
THE PORTALS OF THE CATHEDRAL WERE UNCLOSED AFTER THE MIDNIGHT MASS
A DOG OF FLANDERS
A STORY OF NOeEL
[Illustration]
Nello and Patrasche were left all alone in the world.
They were friends in a friendship closer than brotherhood. Nello was
a little Ardennois--Patrasche was a big Fleming. They were both of the
same age by length of years, yet one was still young, and the other was
already old. They had dwelt together almost all their days: both were
orphaned and destitute, and owed their lives to the same hand. It
had been the beginning of the tie between them, their first bond of
sympathy; and it had strengthened day by day, and had grown with
their growth, firm and indissoluble, until they loved one another very
greatly. Their home was a little hut on the edge of a little village--a
Flemish village a league from Antwerp, set amidst flat breadths of
pasture and corn-lands, with long lines of poplars and of alders bending
in the breeze on the edge of the great canal which ran through it. It
had about a score of houses and homesteads, with shutters of bright
green or sky-blue, and roofs rose-red or black and white, and walls
white-washed until they shone in the sun like snow. In the centre of the
village stood a windmill, placed on a little moss-grown <DW72>: it was
a landmark to all the level country round. It had once been painted
scarlet, sails and all, but that had been in its infancy, half a century
or more earlier, when it had ground wheat for the soldiers of Napoleon;
and it was now a ruddy brown, tanned by wind and weather. It went
queerly by fits and starts, as though rheumatic and stiff in the joints
from age, but it served the whole neighborhood, which would have thought
it almost as impious to carry grain elsewhere as to attend any other
religious service than the mass that was performed at the altar of the
little old gray church, with its conical steeple, which stood opposite
to it, and whose single bell rang morning, noon, and night with that
strange, subdued, hollow sadness which every bell that hangs in the Low
Countries seems to gain as an integral part of its melody.
Within sound of the little melancholy clock almost from their birth
upward, they had dwelt together, Nello and Patrasche, in the little hut
on the edge of the village, with the cathedral spire of Antwerp rising
in the north-east, beyond the great green plain of seeding grass and
spreading corn that stretched away from them like a tideless, changeless
sea. It was the hut of a very old man, of a very poor man--of old Jehan
Daas, who in his time had been a soldier, and who remembered the wars
that had trampled the country as oxen tread down the furrows, and who
had brought from his service nothing except a wound, which had made him
a <DW36>.
When old Jehan Daas had reached his full eighty, his daughter had
died in the Ardennes, hard by Stavelot, and had left him in legacy her
two-year-old son. The old man could ill contrive to support himself,
but he took up the additional burden uncomplainingly, and it soon
became welcome and precious to him. Little Nello---which was but a pet
diminutive for Nicolas--throve with him, and the old man and the little
child lived in the poor little hut contentedly.
It was a very humble little mud-hut indeed, but it was clean and white
as a sea-shell, and stood in a small plot of garden-ground that yielded
beans and herbs and pumpkins. They were very poor, terribly poor--many a
day they had nothing at all to eat. They never by any chance had enough:
to have had enough to eat would have been to have reached paradise at
once. But the old man was very gentle and good to the boy, and the boy
was a beautiful, innocent, truthful, tender-hearted creature; and they
were happy on a crust and a few leaves of cabbage, and asked no more of
earth or heaven; save indeed that Patrasche should be always with them,
since without Patrasche where would they have been?
For Patrasche was their alpha and omega; their treasury and granary;
their store of gold and wand of wealth; their bread-winner and minister;
their only friend and comforter. Patrasche dead or gone from them, they
must have laid themselves down and died likewise. Patrasche was body,
brains, hands, head, and feet to both of them: Patrasche was their very
life, their very soul. For Jehan Daas was old and a <DW36>, and Nello
was but a child; and Patrasche was their dog.
[Illustration]
A dog of Flanders--yellow of hide, large of head and limb, with
wolf-like ears that stood erect, and legs bowed and feet widened in the
muscular development wrought in his breed by many generations of hard
service. Patrasche came of a race which had toiled hard and cruelly from
sire to son in Flanders many a century--slaves of slaves, dogs of the
people, beasts of the shafts and the harness, creatures that lived
straining their sinews in the gall of the cart, and died breaking their
hearts on the flints of the streets.
Patrasche had been born of parents who had labored hard all their
days over the sharp-set stones of the various cities and the long,
shadowless, weary roads of the two Flanders and of Brabant. He had been
born to no other heritage than those of pain and of toil. He had been
fed on curses and baptized with blows. Why not? It was a Christian
country, and Patrasche was but a dog. Before he was fully grown he had
known the bitter gall of the cart and the collar. Before he had entered
his thirteenth month he had become the property of a hardware-dealer,
who was accustomed to wander over the land north and south, from the
blue sea to the green mountains. They sold him for a small price,
because he was so young.
This man was a drunkard and a brute. The life of Patrasche was a life of
hell. To deal the tortures of hell on the animal creation is a way which
the Christians have of showing their belief in it. His purchaser was
a sullen, ill-living, brutal Brabantois, who heaped his cart full with
pots and pans and flagons and buckets, and other wares of crockery and
brass and tin, and left Patrasche to draw the load as best he might,
whilst he himself lounged idly by the side in fat and sluggish ease,
smoking his black pipe and stopping at every wineshop or cafe on the
road.
Happily for Patrasche--or unhappily--he was very strong: he came of an
iron race, long born and bred to such cruel travail; so that he did
not die, but managed to drag on a wretched existence under the brutal
burdens, the scarifying lashes, the hunger, the thirst, the blows,
the curses, and the exhaustion which are the only wages with which the
Flemings repay the most patient and laborious of all their four-footed
victims. One day, after two years of this long and deadly agony,
Patrasche was going on as usual along one of the straight, dusty,
unlovely roads that lead to the city of Rubens. It was full midsummer,
and very warm. His cart was very heavy, piled high with goods in
metal and in earthenware. His owner sauntered on without noticing him
otherwise than by the crack of the whip as it curled round his quivering
loins. The Brabantois had paused to drink beer himself at every wayside
house, but he had forbidden Patrasche to stop a moment for a draught
from the canal. Going along thus, in the full sun, on a scorching
highway, having eaten nothing for twenty-four hours, and, which was far
worse to him, not having tasted water for near twelve, being blind with
dust, sore with blows, and stupefied with the merciless weight which
dragged upon his loins, Patrasche staggered and foamed a little at the
mouth, and fell.
He fell in the middle of the white, dusty road, in the full glare of
the sun; he was sick unto death, and motionless. His master gave him the
only medicine in his pharmacy--kicks and oaths and blows with a cudgel
of oak, which had been often the only food and drink, the only wage and
reward, ever offered to him. But Patrasche was beyond the reach of any
torture or of any curses. Patrasche lay, dead to all appearances,
down in the white powder of the summer dust. After a while, finding
it useless to assail his ribs with punishment and his ears with
maledictions, the Brabantois--deeming life gone in him, or going so
nearly that his carcass was forever useless, unless indeed some one
should strip it of the skin for gloves--cursed him fiercely in farewell,
struck off the leathern bands of the harness, kicked his body aside into
the grass, and, groaning and muttering in savage wrath, pushed the cart
lazily along the road up-hill, and left the dying dog for the ants to
sting and for the crows to pick.
It was the last day before Kermesse away at Louvain, and the Brabantois
was in haste to reach the fair and get a good place for his truck of
brass wares. He was in fierce wrath, because Patrasche had been a strong
and much-enduring animal, and because he himself had now the hard task
of pushing his charette all the way to Louvain. But to stay to look
after Patrasche never entered his thoughts: the beast was dying and
useless, and he would steal, to replace him, the first large dog that he
found wandering alone out of sight of its master. Patrasche had cost him
nothing, or next to nothing, and for two long, cruel years had made him
toil ceaselessly in his service from sunrise to sunset, through summer
and winter, in fair weather and foul.
He had got a fair use and a good profit out of Patrasche: being human,
he was wise, and left the dog to draw his last breath alone in the
ditch, and have his bloodshot eyes plucked out as they might be by the
birds, whilst he himself went on his way to beg and to steal, to eat and
to drink, to dance and to sing, in the mirth at Louvain. A dying dog, a
dog of the cart--why should he waste hours over its agonies at peril of
losing a handful of copper coins, at peril of a shout of laughter?
Patrasche lay there, flung in the grass-green ditch. It was a busy road
that day, and hundreds of people, on foot and on mules, in wagons or in
carts, went by, tramping quickly and joyously on to Louvain. Some saw
him, most did not even look: all passed on. A dead dog more or less--it
was nothing in Brabant: it would be nothing anywhere in the world.
[Illustration]
After a time, among the holiday-makers, there came a little old man who
was bent and lame, and very feeble. He was in no guise for feasting: he
was very poorly and miserably clad, and he dragged his silent way slowly
through the dust among the pleasure-seekers. He looked at Patrasche,
paused, wondered, turned aside, then kneeled down in the rank grass and
weeds of the ditch, and surveyed the dog with kindly eyes of pity. There
was with him a little rosy, fair-haired, dark-eyed child of a few years
old, who pattered in amidst the bushes, for him breast-high, and stood
gazing with a pretty seriousness upon the poor, great, quiet beast.
Thus it was that these two first met--the little Nello and the big
Patrasche.
The upshot of that day was, that old Jehan Daas, with much laborious
effort, drew the sufferer homeward to his own little hut, which was a
stone's throw off amidst the fields, and there tended him with so much
care that the sickness, which had been a brain seizure, brought on by
heat and thirst and exhaustion, with time and shade and rest passed
away, and health and strength returned, and Patrasche staggered up again
upon his four stout, tawny legs.
Now for many weeks he had been useless, powerless, sore, near to death;
but all this time he had heard no rough word, had felt no harsh touch,
but only the pitying murmurs of the child's voice and the soothing
caress of the old man's hand.
In his sickness they too had grown to care for him, this lonely man and
the little happy child. He had a corner of the hut, with a heap of
dry grass for his bed; and they had learned to listen eagerly for his
breathing in the dark night, to tell them that he lived; and when he
first was well enough to essay a loud, hollow, broken bay, they laughed
aloud, and almost wept together for joy at such a sign of his sure
restoration; and little Nello, in delighted glee, hung round his rugged
neck with chains of marguerites, and kissed him with fresh and ruddy
lips.
So then, when Patrasche arose, himself again, strong, big, gaunt,
powerful, his great wistful eyes had a gentle astonishment in them that
there were no curses to rouse him and no blows to drive him; and
his heart awakened to a mighty love, which never wavered once in its
fidelity whilst life abode with him.
But Patrasche, being a dog, was grateful. Patrasche lay pondering long
with grave, tender, musing brown eyes, watching the movements of his
friends.
Now, the old soldier, Jehan Daas, could do nothing for his living but
limp about a little with a small cart, with which he carried daily the
milk-cans of those happier neighbors who owned cattle away into the
town of Antwerp. The villagers gave him the employment a little out of
charity--more because it suited them well to send their milk into the
town by so honest a carrier, and bide at home themselves to look after
their gardens, their cows, their poultry, or their little fields. But it
was becoming hard work for the old man. He was eighty-three, and Antwerp
was a good league off, or more.
Patrasche watched the milk-cans come and go that one day when he had got
well and was lying in the sun with the wreath of marguerites round his
tawny neck.
The next morning, Patrasche, before the old man had touched the cart,
arose and walked to it and placed himself betwixt its handles, and
testified as plainly as dumb show could do his desire and his ability
to work in return for the bread of charity that he had eaten. Jehan Daas
resisted long, for the old man was one of those who thought it a foul
shame to bind dogs to labor for which Nature never formed them. But
Patrasche would not be gainsaid: finding they did not harness him, he
tried to draw the cart onward with his teeth.
At length Jehan Daas gave way, vanquished by the persistence and the
gratitude of this creature whom he had succored. He fashioned his cart
so that Patrasche could run in it, and this he did every morning of his
life thenceforward.
When the winter came, Jehan Daas thanked the blessed fortune that had
brought him to the dying dog in the ditch that fair-day of Louvain; for
he was very old, and he grew feebler with each year, and he would ill
have known how to pull his load of milk-cans over the snows and through
the deep ruts in the mud if it had not been for the strength and the
industry of the animal he had befriended. As for Patrasche, it seemed
heaven to him. After the frightful burdens that his old master had
compelled him to strain under, at the call of the whip at every step, it
seemed nothing to him but amusement to step out with this little light
green cart, with its bright brass cans, by the side of the gentle old
man who always paid him with a tender caress and with a kindly word.
Besides, his work was over by three or four in the day, and after that
time he was free to do as he would--to stretch himself, to sleep in the
sun, to wander in the fields, to romp with the young child, or to play
with his fellow-dogs. Patrasche was very happy.
Fortunately for his peace, his former owner was killed in a drunken
brawl at the Kermesse of Mechlin, and so sought not after him nor
disturbed him in his new and well-loved home.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
A few years later, old Jehan Daas, who had always been a <DW36>, became
so paralyzed with rheumatism that it was impossible for him to go out
with the cart any more. Then little Nello, being now grown to his sixth
year of age, and knowing the town well from having accompanied his
grandfather so many times, took his place beside the cart, and sold the
milk and received the coins in exchange, and brought them back to their
respective owners with a pretty grace and seriousness which charmed all
who beheld him.
The little Ardennois was a beautiful child, with dark, grave, tender
eyes, and a lovely bloom upon his face, and fair locks that clustered to
his throat; and many an artist sketched the group as it went by him--the
green cart with the brass flagons of Teniers and Mieris and Van Tal,
and the great tawny-, massive dog, with his belled harness that
chimed cheerily as he went, and the small figure that ran beside him
which had little white feet in great wooden shoes, and a soft, grave,
innocent, happy face like the little fair children of Rubens.
Nello and Patrasche did the work so well and so joyfully together that
Jehan Daas himself, when the summer came and he was better again, had no
need to stir out, but could sit in the doorway in the sun and see them
go forth through the garden wicket, and then doze and dream and pray
a little, and then awake again as the clock tolled three and watch for
their return. And on their return Patrasche would shake himself free of
his harness with a bay of glee, and Nello would recount with pride the
doings of the day; and they would all go in together to their meal of
rye bread and milk or soup, and would see the shadows lengthen over the
great plain, and see the twilight veil the fair cathedral spire; and
then lie down together to sleep peacefully while the old man said a
prayer. So the days and the years went on, and the lives of Nello and
Patrasche were happy, innocent, and healthful. In the spring and summer
especially were they glad. Flanders is not a lovely land, and around
the burgh of Rubens it is perhaps least lovely of all. Corn and colza,
pasture and plough, succeed each other on the characterless plain in
wearying repetition, and save by some gaunt gray tower, with its peal
of pathetic bells, or some figure coming athwart the fields, made
picturesque by a gleaner's bundle or a woodman's fagot, there is no
change, no variety, no beauty anywhere; and he who has dwelt upon the
mountains or amidst the forests feels oppressed as by imprisonment with
the tedium and the endlessness of that vast and dreary level. But it
is green and very fertile, and it has wide horizons that have a certain
charm of their own even in their dulness and monotony; and among the
rushes by the water-side the flowers grow, and the trees rise tall and
fresh where the barges glide with their great hulks black against the
sun, and their little green barrels and vari- flags gay against
the leaves. Anyway, there is greenery and breadth of space enough to be
as good as beauty to a child and a dog; and these two asked no better,
when their work was done, than to lie buried in the lush grasses on the
side of the canal, and watch the cumbrous vessels drifting by and bring
the crisp salt smell of the sea among the blossoming scents of the
country summer.
True, in the winter it was harder, and they had to rise in the darkness
and the bitter cold, and they had seldom as much as they could have
eaten any day, and the hut was scarce better than a shed when the nights
were cold, although it looked so pretty in warm weather, buried in a
great kindly clambering vine, that never bore fruit, indeed, but which
covered it with luxuriant green tracery all through the months of
blossom and harvest. In winter the winds found many holes in the walls
of the poor little hut, and the vine was black and leafless, and the
bare lands looked very bleak and drear without, and sometimes within the
floor was flooded and then frozen. In winter it was hard, and the snow
numbed the little white limbs of Nello, and the icicles cut the brave,
untiring feet of Patrasche.
But even then they were never heard to lament, either of them. The
child's wooden shoes and the dog's four legs would trot manfully
together over the frozen fields to the chime of the bells on the
harness; and then sometimes, in the streets of Antwerp, some housewife
would bring them a bowl of soup and a handful of bread, or some kindly
trader would throw some billets of fuel into the little cart as it went
homeward, or some woman in their own village would bid them keep a share
of the milk they carried for their own food; and they would run over
the white lands, through the early darkness, bright and happy, and burst
with a shout of joy into their home.
So, on the whole, it was well with them, very well; and Patrasche,
meeting on the highway or in the public streets the many dogs who toiled
from daybreak into nightfall, paid only with blows and curses, and
loosened from the shafts with a kick to starve and freeze as best they
might--Patrasche in his heart was very grateful to his fate, and thought
it the fairest and the kindliest the world could hold. Though he was
often very hungry indeed when he lay down at night; though he had to
work in the heats of summer noons and the rasping chills of winter
dawns; though his feet were often tender with wounds from the sharp
edges of the jagged pavement; though he had to perform tasks beyond his
strength and against his nature--yet he was grateful and content: he did
his duty with each day, and the eyes that he loved smiled down on him.
It was sufficient for Patrasche.
[Illustration]
There was only one thing which caused Patrasche any uneasiness in his
life, and it was this. Antwerp, as all the world knows, is full at every
turn of old piles of stones, dark and ancient and majestic, standing
in crooked courts, jammed against gateways and taverns, rising by the
water's edge, with bells ringing above them in the air, and ever and
again out of their arched doors a swell of music pealing. There they
remain, the grand old sanctuaries of the past, shut in amidst the
squalor, the hurry, the crowds, the unloveliness, and the commerce of
the modern world, and all day long the clouds drift and the birds circle
and the winds sigh around them, and beneath the earth at their feet
there sleeps--RUBENS.
And the greatness of the mighty Master still rests upon Antwerp, and
wherever we turn in its narrow streets his glory lies therein, so that
all mean things are thereby transfigured; and as we pace slowly through
the winding ways, and by the edge of the stagnant water, and through the
noisome courts, his spirit abides with us, and the heroic beauty of his
visions is about us, and the stones that once felt his footsteps and
bore his shadow seem to arise and speak of him with living voices. For
the city which is the tomb of Rubens still lives to us through him, and
him alone.
It is so quiet there by that great white sepulchre--so quiet, save only
when the organ peals and the choir cries aloud the Salve Regina or the
Kyrie Eleison. Sure no artist ever had a greater gravestone than that
pure marble sanctuary gives to him in the heart of his birthplace in the
chancel of St. Jacques.
Without Rubens, what were Antwerp? A dirty, dusky, bustling mart, which
no man would ever care to look upon save the traders who do business on
its wharves. With Rubens, to the whole world of men it is a sacred name,
a sacred soil, a Bethlehem where a god of Art saw light, a Golgotha
where a god of Art lies dead.
O nations! closely should you treasure your great men, for by them alone
will the future know of you. Flanders in her generations has been wise.
In his life she glorified this greatest of her sons, and in his death
she magnifies his name. But her wisdom is very rare.
Now, the trouble of Patrasche was this. Into these great, sad piles of
stones, that reared their melancholy majesty above the crowded roofs,
the child Nello would many and many a time enter, and disappear through
their dark arched portals, whilst Patrasche, left without upon the
pavement, would wearily and vainly ponder on what could be the charm
which thus allured from him his inseparable and beloved companion. Once
or twice he did essay to see for himself, clattering up the steps with
his milk-cart behind him; but thereon he had been always sent back again
summarily by a tall custodian in black clothes and silver chains of
office; and fearful of bringing his little master into trouble, he
desisted, and remained couched patiently before the churches until such
time as the boy reappeared. It was not the fact of his going into them
which disturbed Patrasche: he knew that people went to church: all
the village went to the small, tumbledown, gray pile opposite the red
windmill.
What troubled him was that little Nello always looked strangely when
he came out, always very flushed or very pale; and whenever he returned
home after such visitations would sit silent and dreaming, not caring to
play, but gazing out at the evening skies beyond the line of the canal,
very subdued and almost sad.
What was it? wondered Patrasche. He thought it could not be good or
natural for the little lad to be so grave, and in his dumb fashion he
tried all he could to keep Nello by him in the sunny fields or in the
busy market-place. But to the churches Nello would go: most often of all
would he go to the great cathedral; and Patrasche, left without on the
stones by the iron fragments of Quentin Matsys's gate, would stretch
himself and yawn and sigh, and even howl now and then, all in vain,
until the doors closed and the child perforce came forth again, and
winding his arms about the dog's neck would kiss him on his broad,
tawney- forehead, and murmur always the same words: "If I could
only see them, Patrasche!--if I could only see them!"
What were they? pondered Patrasche, looking up with large, wistful,
sympathetic eyes.
One day, when the custodian was out of the way and the doors left ajar,
he got in for a moment after his little friend and saw. "They" were two
great covered pictures on either side of the choir.
Nello was kneeling, rapt as in an ecstasy, before the altar-picture of
the Assumption, and when he noticed Patrasche, and rose and drew the dog
gently out into the air, his face was wet with tears, and he looked up
at the veiled places as he passed them, and murmured to his companion,
"It is so terrible not to see them, Patrasche, just because one is poor
and cannot pay! He never meant that the poor should not see them when
he painted them, I am sure. He would have had us see them any day, every
day: that I am sure. And they keep them shrouded there--shrouded in the
dark, the beautiful things!--and they never feel the light, and no eyes
look on them, unless rich people come and pay. If I could only see them,
I would be content to die."
But he could not see them, and Patrasche could not help him, for to gain
the silver piece that the church exacts as the price for looking on the
glories of the Elevation of the Cross and the Descent of the Cross was
a thing as utterly beyond the powers of either of them as it would have
been to scale the heights of the cathedral spire. They had never so much
as a sou to spare: if they cleared enough to get a little wood for the
stove, a little broth for the pot, it was the utmost they could do.
And yet the heart of the child was set in sore and endless longing upon
beholding the greatness of the two veiled Rubens.
[Illustration: tree] [Illustration: scenery]
The whole soul of the little Ardennois thrilled and stirred with an
absorbing passion for Art. Going on his ways through the old city in
the early days before the sun or the people had risen, Nello, who looked
only a little peasant-boy, with a great dog drawing milk to sell from
door to door, was in a heaven of dreams whereof Rubens was the god.
Nello, cold and hungry, with stockingless feet in wooden shoes, and the
winter winds blowing among his curls and lifting his poor thin garments,
was in a rapture of meditation, wherein all that he saw was the
beautiful fair face of the Mary of the Assumption, with the waves of her
golden hair lying upon her shoulders, and the light of an eternal sun
shining down upon her brow. Nello, reared in poverty, and buffeted
by fortune, and untaught in letters, and unheeded by men, had the
compensation or the curse which is called Genius.
No one knew it. He as little as any. No one knew it. Only indeed
Patrasche, who, being with him always, saw him draw with chalk upon
the stones any and every thing that grew or breathed, heard him on his
little bed of hay murmur all manner of timid, pathetic prayers to the
spirit of the great Master; watched his gaze darken and his face radiate
at the evening glow of sunset or the rosy rising of the dawn; and felt
many and many a time the tears of a strange, nameless pain and joy,
mingled together, fall hotly from the bright young eyes upon his own
wrinkled yellow forehead.
"I should go to my grave quite content if I thought, Nello, that when
thou growest a man thou couldst own this hut and the little plot of
ground, and labor for thyself, and be called Baas by thy neighbors,"
said the old man Jehan many an hour from his bed. For to own a bit of
soil, and to be called Baas--master--by the hamlet round, is to have
achieved the highest ideal of a Flemish peasant; and the old soldier,
who had wandered over all the earth in his youth, and had brought
nothing back, deemed in his old age that to live and die on one spot in
contented humility was the fairest fate he could desire for his darling.
But Nello said nothing.
The same leaven was working in him that in other times begat Rubens and
Jordaens and the Van Eycks, and all their wondrous tribe, and in times
more recent begat in the green country of the Ardennes, where the Meuse
washes the old walls of Dijon, the great artist of the Patroclus, whose
genius is too near us for us aright to measure its divinity.
Nello dreamed of other things in the future than of tilling the little
rood of earth, and living under the wattle roof, and being called Baas
by neighbors a little poorer or a little less poor than himself. The
cathedral spire, where it rose beyond the fields in the ruddy evening
skies or in the dim, gray, misty mornings, said other things to him than
this. But these he told only to Patrasche, whispering, childlike, his
fancies in the dog's ear when they went together at their work through
the fogs of the daybreak, or lay together at their rest among the
rustling rushes by the water's side.
For such dreams are not easily shaped into speech to awake the slow
sympathies of human auditors; and they would only have sorely perplexed
and troubled the poor old man bedridden in his corner, who, for his
part, whenever he had trodden the streets of Antwerp, had thought the
daub of blue and red that they called a Madonna, on the walls of the
wine-shop where he drank his sou's worth of black beer, quite as good as
any of the famous altar-pieces for which the stranger folk travelled far
and wide into Flanders from every land on which the good sun shone.
There was only one other beside Patrasche to whom Nello could talk at
all of his daring fantasies. This other was little Alois, who lived at
the old red mill on the grassy mound, and whose father, the miller, was
the best-to-do husbandman in all the village. Little Alois was only a
pretty baby with soft round, rosy features, made lovely by those sweet
dark eyes that the Spanish rule has left in so many a Flemish face,
in testimony of the Alvan dominion, as Spanish art has left broadsown
throughout the country majestic palaces and stately courts, gilded
house-fronts and sculptured lintels--histories in blazonry and poems in
stone.
Little Alois was often with Nello and Patrasche. They played in the
fields, they ran in the snow, they gathered the daisies and bilberries,
they went up to the old gray church together, and they often sat
together by the broad wood-fire in the mill-house. Little Alois, indeed,
was the richest child in the hamlet. She had neither brother nor sister;
her blue serge dress had never a hole in it; at Kermesse she had as many
gilded nuts and Agni Dei in sugar as her hands could hold; and when she
went up for her first communion her flaxen curls were covered with a
cap of richest Mechlin lace, which had been her mother's and her
grandmother's before it came to her. Men spoke already, though she had
but twelve years, of the good wife she would be for their sons to woo
and win; but she herself was a little gay, simple child, in nowise
conscious of her heritage, and she loved no playfellows so well as Jehan
Daas's grandson and his dog.
[Illustration: child] [Illustration: NELLO DREW THEIR LIKENESS WITH A
STICK OF CHARCOAL] [Illustration: couple walking]
One day her father, Baas Cogez, a good man, but somewhat stern, came on
a pretty group in the long meadow behind the mill, where the aftermath
had that day been cut. It was his little daughter sitting amidst the
hay, with the great tawny head of Patrasche on her lap, and many wreaths
of poppies and blue corn-flowers round them both: on a clean smooth slab
of pine wood the boy Nello drew their likeness with a stick of charcoal.
The miller stood and looked at the portrait with tears in his eyes, it
was so strangely like, and he loved his only child closely and well.
Then he roughly chid the little girl for idling there whilst her
mother needed her within, and sent her indoors crying and afraid: then,
turning, he snatched the wood from Nello's hands. "Dost do much of such
folly?" he asked, but there was a tremble in his voice.
Nello and hung his head. "I draw everything I see," he murmured.
The miller was silent: then he stretched his hand out with a franc in
it. "It is folly, as I say, and evil waste of time: nevertheless, it is
like Alois, and will please the house-mother. Take this silver bit for
it and leave it for me."
The color died out of the face of the young Ardennois; he lifted
his head and put his hands behind his back. "Keep your money and the
portrait both, Baas Cogez," he said, simply. "You have been often good
to me." Then he called Patrasche to him, and walked away across the
field.
"I could have seen them with that franc," he murmured to Patrasche, "but
I could not sell her picture--not even for them."
Baas Cogez went into his mill-house sore troubled in his mind. "That
lad must not be so much with Alois," he said to his wife that night.
"Trouble may come of it hereafter: he is fifteen now, and she is twelve;
and the boy is comely of face and form."
"And he is a good lad and a loyal," said the housewife, feasting her
eyes on the piece of pine wood where it was throned above the chimney
with a cuckoo clock in oak and a Calvary in wax.
"Yea, I do not gainsay that," said the miller, draining his pewter
flagon.
"Then, if what you think of were ever to come to pass," said the wife,
hesitatingly, "would it matter so much? She will have enough for both,
and one cannot be better than happy."
"You are a woman, and therefore a fool," said the miller, harshly,
striking his pipe on the table. "The lad is naught but a beggar, and,
with these painter's fancies, worse than a beggar. Have a care that they
are not together in the future, or I will send the child to the surer
keeping of the nuns of the Sacred Heart."
The poor mother was terrified, and promised humbly to do his will. Not
that she could bring herself altogether to separate the child from
her favorite playmate, nor did the miller even desire that extreme of
cruelty to a young lad who was guilty of nothing except poverty. But
there were many ways in which little Alois was kept away from her chosen
companion; and Nello, being a boy proud and quiet and sensitive,
was quickly wounded, and ceased to turn his own steps and those of
Patrasche, as he had been used to do with every moment of leisure, to
the old red mill upon the <DW72>. What his offence was he did not know:
he supposed he had in some manner angered Baas Cogez by taking the
portrait of Alois in the meadow; and when the child who loved him would
run to him and nestle her hand in his, he would smile at her very sadly
and say with a tender concern for her before himself, "Nay, Alois, do
not anger your father. He thinks that I make you idle, dear, and he is
not pleased that you should be with me. He is a good man and loves you
well: we will not anger him, Alois."
But it was with a sad heart that he said it, and the earth did not look
so bright to him as it had used to do when he went out at sunrise under
the poplars down the straight roads with Patrasche. The old red mill had
been a landmark to him, and he had been used to pause by it, going and
coming, for a cheery greeting with its people as her little flaxen head
rose above the low mill-wicket, and her little rosy hands had held out
a bone or a crust to Patrasche. Now the dog looked wistfully at a closed
door, and the boy went on without pausing, with a pang at his heart, and
the child sat within with tears dropping slowly on the knitting to which
she was set on her little stool by the stove; and Baas Cogez, working
among his sacks and his mill-gear, would harden his will and say to
himself, "It is best so. The lad is all but a beggar, and full of idle,
dreaming fooleries. Who knows what mischief might not come of it in the
future?" So he was wise in his generation, and would not have the door
unbarred, except upon rare and formal occasion, which seemed to have
neither warmth nor mirth in them to the two children, who had been
accustomed so long to a daily gleeful, careless, happy interchange of
greeting, speech, and pastime, with no other watcher of their sports or
auditor of their fancies than Patrasche, sagely shaking the brazen bells
of his collar and responding with all a dog's swift sympathies to their
every change of mood.
All this while the little panel of pine wood remained over the chimney
in the mill-kitchen with the cuckoo clock and the waxen Calvary, and
sometimes it seemed to Nello a little hard that whilst his gift was
accepted he himself should be denied.
[Illustration: ]
But he did not complain: it was his habit to be quiet: old Jehan Daas
had said ever to him, "We are poor: we must take what God sends--the ill
with the good: the poor cannot choose."
To which the boy had always listened in silence, being reverent of his
old grandfather; but nevertheless a certain vague, sweet hope, such as
beguiles the children of genius, had whispered in his heart, "Yet the
poor do choose sometimes--choose to be great, so that men cannot say
them nay." And he thought so still in his innocence; and one day, when
the little Alois, finding him by chance alone among the cornfields by
the canal, ran to him and held him close, and sobbed piteously because
the morrow would be her saint's day, and for the first time in all her
life her parents had failed to bid him to the little supper and romp in
the great barns with which her feast-day was always celebrated, Nello
had kissed her and murmured to her in firm faith, "It shall be different
one day, Alois. One day that little bit of pine wood that your father
has of mine shall be worth its weight in silver; and he will not shut
the door against me then. Only love me always, dear little Alois, only
love me always, and I will be great."
"And if I do not love you?" the pretty child asked, pouting a little
through her tears, and moved by the instinctive coquetries of her sex.
Nello's eyes left her face and wandered to the distance, where in the
red and gold of the Flemish night the cathedral spire rose. There was a
smile on his face so sweet and yet so sad that little Alois was awed by
it. "I will be great still," he said under his breath--"great still, or
die, Alois."
"You do not love me," said the little spoilt child, pushing him away;
but the boy shook his head and smiled, and went on his way through the
tall yellow corn, seeing as in a vision some day in a fair future when
he should come into that old familiar land and ask Alois of her people,
and be not refused or denied, but received in honor, whilst the village
folk should throng to look upon him and say in one another's ears, "Dost
see him? He is a king among men, for he is a great artist and the world
speaks his name; and yet he was only our poor little Nello, who was a
beggar as one may say, and only got his bread by the help of his dog."
And he thought how he would fold his grandsire in furs and purples, and
portray him as the old man is portrayed in the Family in the chapel of
St. Jacques; and of how he would hang the throat of Patrasche with a
collar of gold, and place him on his right hand, and say to the people,
"This was once my only friend;" and of how he would build himself a
great white marble palace, and make to himself luxuriant gardens of
pleasure, on the <DW72> looking outward to where the cathedral spire
rose, and not dwell in it himself, but summon to it, as to a home, all
men young and poor and friendless, but of the will to do mighty things;
and of how he would say to them always, if they sought to bless his
name, "Nay, do not thank me--thank Rubens. |
10,240 |
Produced by an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer.
Benedict de Spinoza, THE ETHICS
(Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata)
Translated by R. H. M. Elwes
PART I: CONCERNING GOD.
DEFINITIONS.
I. By that which is'self-caused' I mean that of which the
essence involves existence, or that of which the nature is only
conceivable as existent.
II. A thing is called 'finite after its kind' when it can be
limited by another thing of the same nature; for instance, a body
is called finite because we always conceive another greater body.
So, also, a thought is limited by another thought, but a body is
not limited by thought, nor a thought by body.
III. By'substance' I mean that which is in itself, and is
conceived through itself: in other words, that of which a
conception can be formed independently of any other conception.
IV. By 'attribute' I mean that which the intellect perceives as
constituting the essence of substance.
V. By'mode' I mean the modifications ("affectiones") of
substance, or that which exists in, and is conceived through,
something other than itself.
VI. By 'God' I mean a being absolutely infinite--that is, a
substance consisting in infinite attributes, of which each
expresses eternal and infinite essentiality.
>>>>>Explanation--I say absolutely infinite, not infinite after
its kind: for, of a thing infinite only after its kind, infinite
attributes may be denied; but that which is absolutely infinite,
contains in its essence whatever expresses reality, and involves
no negation.
VII. That thing is called 'free,' which exists solely by the
necessity of its own nature, and of which the action is
determined by itself alone. On the other hand, that thing is
necessary, or rather constrained, which is determined by
something external to itself to a fixed and definite method of
existence or action.
VIII. By 'eternity' I mean existence itself, in so far as it is
conceived necessarily to follow solely from the definition of
that which is eternal.
>>>>>Explanation--Existence of this kind is conceived as an
eternal truth, like the essence of a thing and, therefore,
cannot be explained by means of continuance or time, though
continuance may be conceived without a beginning or end.
AXIOMS. I. Everything which exists, exists either in itself or
in something else.
II. That which cannot be conceived through anything else must be
conceived through itself.
III. From a given definite cause an effect necessarily follows;
and, on the other hand, if no definite cause be granted, it is
impossible that an effect can follow.
IV. The knowledge of an effect depends on and involves the
knowledge of a cause.
V. Things which have nothing in common cannot be understood, the
one by means of the other; the conception of one does not involve
the conception of the other.
VI. A true idea must correspond with its ideate or object.
VII. If a thing can be conceived as non-existing, its essence
does not involve existence.
PROPOSITIONS. I. Substance is by nature prior to its
modifications.
>>>>>Proof--This is clear from Deff. iii. and v.
II. Two substances, whose attributes are different, have
nothing in common.
>>>>>Proof--Also evident from Def. iii. For each must exist in
itself, and be conceived through itself; in other words, the
conception of one does not imply the conception of the other.
III. Things which have nothing in common cannot be one the cause
of the other.
>>>>>Proof--If they have nothing in common, it follows that one
cannot be apprehended by means of the other (Ax. v.), and,
therefore, one cannot be the cause of the other (Ax. iv.).
Q.E.D.
IV. Two or more distinct things are distinguished one from the
other, either by the difference of the attributes of the
substances, or by the difference of their modifications.
>>>>>Proof--Everything which exists, exists either in itself or
in something else (Ax. i.),-- that is (by Deff. iii. and v.),
nothing is granted in addition to the understanding, except
substance and its modifications. Nothing is, therefore, given
besides the understanding, by which several things may be
distinguished one from the other, except the substances, or, in
other words (see Ax. iv.), their attributes and modifications.
Q.E.D.
V. There cannot exist in the universe two or more substances
having the same nature or attribute.
>>>>>Proof--If several distinct substances be granted, they must
be distinguished one from the other, either by the difference of
their attributes, or by the difference of their modifications
(Prop. iv.). If only by the difference of their attributes, it
will be granted that there cannot be more than one with an
identical attribute. If by the difference of their
modifications--as substance is naturally prior to its
modifications (Prop. i.)--it follows that setting the
modifications aside, and considering substance in itself, that is
truly, (Deff. iii and vi.), there cannot be conceived one
substance different from another--that is (by Prop. iv.), there
cannot be granted several substances, but one substance only.
Q.E.D.
VI. One substance cannot be produced by another substance.
>>>>>Proof--It is impossible that there should be in the universe
two substances with an identical attribute, i.e. which have
anything common to them both (Prop ii.), and, therefore (Prop.
iii.), one cannot be the cause of the other, neither can one be
produced by the other. Q.E.D.
<<<<<VI. Corollary--Hence it follows that a substance cannot be
produced by anything external to itself. For in the universe
nothing is granted, save substances and their modifications (as
appears from Ax. i. and Deff. iii. and v.). Now (by the last
Prop.) substance cannot be produced by another substance,
therefore it cannot be produced by anything external to itself.
Q.E.D. This is shown still more readily by the absurdity of the
contradictory. For, if substance be produced by an external
cause, the knowledge of it would depend on the knowledge of its
cause (Ax. iv.), and (by Deff. iii.) it would itself not be
substance.
VII. Existence belongs to the nature of substances.
>>>>>Proof--Substance cannot be produced by anything external
(Cor., Prop vi.), it must, therefore, be its own cause--that is,
its essence necessarily involves existence, or existence belongs
to its nature.
VIII. Every substance is necessarily infinite.
>>>>>Proof--There can only be one substance with an identical
attribute, and existence follows from its nature (Prop. vii.);
its nature, therefore, involves existence, either as finite or
infinite. It does not exist as finite, for (by Deff. ii.) it
would then be limited by something else of the same kind, which
would also necessarily exist (Prop. vii.); and there would be two
substances with an identical attribute, which is absurd (Prop.
v.). It therefore exists as infinite. Q.E.D.
*****Note I.--As finite existence involves a partial negation,
and infinite existence is the absolute affirmation of the given
nature, it follows (solely from Prop. vii.) that every substance
is necessarily infinite.
*****Note II.--No doubt it will be difficult for those who think
about things loosely, and have not been accustomed to know them
by their primary causes, to comprehend the demonstration of
Prop. vii.: for such persons make no distinction between the
modifications of substances and the substances themselves, and
are ignorant of the manner in which things are produced; hence
they may attribute to substances the beginning which they observe
in natural objects. Those who are ignorant of true causes make
complete confusion--think that trees might talk just as well as
men--that men might be formed from stones as well as from seed;
and imagine that any form might be changed into any other. So,
also, those who confuse the two natures, divine and human,
readily attribute human passions to the deity, especially so
long as they do not know how passions originate in the mind.
But, if people would consider the nature of substance, they would
have no doubt about the truth of Prop. vii. In fact, this
proposition would be a universal axiom, and accounted a truism.
For, by substance, would be understood that which is in itself,
and is conceived through itself--that is, something of which the
conception requires not the conception of anything else; whereas
modifications exist in something external to themselves, and a
conception of them is formed by means of a conception of the
things in which they exist. Therefore, we may have true ideas
of non-existent modifications; for, although they may have no
actual existence apart from the conceiving intellect, yet their
essence is so involved in something external to themselves that
they may through it be conceived. Whereas the only truth
substances can have, external to the intellect, must consist in
their existence, because they are conceived through themselves.
Therefore, for a person to say that he has a clear and
distinct--that is, a true--idea of a substance, but that he is
not sure whether such substance exists, would be the same as if
he said that he had a true idea, but was not sure whether or no
it was false (a little consideration will make this plain); or if
anyone affirmed that substance is created, it would be the same
as saying that a false idea was true--in short, the height of
absurdity. It must, then, necessarily be admitted that the
existence of substance as its essence is an eternal truth. And
we can hence conclude by another process of reasoning--that there
is but one such substance. I think that this may profitably be
done at once; and, in order to proceed regularly with the
demonstration, we must premise:--
+++++1. The true definition of a thing neither involves nor
expresses anything beyond the nature of the thing defined. From
this it follows that--
+++++2. No definition implies or expresses a certain number of
individuals, inasmuch as it expresses nothing beyond the nature
of the thing defined. For instance, the definition of a triangle
expresses nothing beyond the actual nature of a triangle: it
does not imply any fixed number of triangles.
+++++3. There is necessarily for each individual existent thing
a cause why it should exist.
+++++4. This cause of existence must either be contained in the
nature and definition of the thing defined, or must be postulated
apart from such definition.
It therefore follows that, if a given number of individual things
exist in nature, there must be some cause for the existence of
exactly that number, neither more nor less. For example, if
twenty men exist in the universe (for simplicity's sake, I will
suppose them existing simultaneously, and to have had no
predecessors), and we want to account for the existence of these
twenty men, it will not be enough to show the cause of human
existence in general; we must also show why there are exactly
twenty men, neither more nor less: for a cause must be assigned
for the existence of each individual. Now this cause cannot be
contained in the actual nature of man, for the true definition of
man does not involve any consideration of the number twenty.
Consequently, the cause for the existence of these twenty men,
and, consequently, of each of them, must necessarily be sought
externally to each individual. Hence we may lay down the absolute
rule, that everything which may consist of several individuals
must have an external cause. And, as it has been shown already
that existence appertains to the nature of substance, existence
must necessarily be included in its definition; and from its
definition alone existence must be deducible. But from its
definition (as we have shown, Notes ii., iii.), we cannot infer
the existence of several substances; therefore it follows that
there is only one substance of the same nature. Q.E.D.
IX. The more reality or being a thing has, the greater the
number of its attributes (Def. iv.).
X. Each particular attribute of the one substance must be
conceived through itself.
>>>>>Proof--An attribute is that which the intellect perceives of
substance, as constituting its essence (Def. iv.), and,
therefore, must be conceived through itself (Def. iii.). Q.E.D.
*****Note--It is thus evident that, though two attributes are, in
fact, conceived as distinct--that is, one without the help of the
other--yet we cannot, therefore, conclude that they constitute
two entities, or two different substances. For it is the nature
of substance that each of its attributes is conceived through
itself, inasmuch as all the attributes it has have always existed
simultaneously in it, and none could be produced by any other;
but each expresses the reality or being of substance. It is,
then, far from an absurdity to ascribe several attributes to one
substance: for nothing in nature is more clear than that each
and every entity must be conceived under some attribute, and that
its reality or being is in proportion to the number of its
attributes expressing necessity or eternity and infinity.
Consequently it is abundantly clear, that an absolutely infinite
being must necessarily be defined as consisting in infinite
attributes, each of which expresses a certain eternal and
infinite essence.
If anyone now ask, by what sign shall he be able to distinguish
different substances, let him read the following propositions,
which show that there is but one substance in the universe, and
that it is absolutely infinite, wherefore such a sign would be
sought in vain.
XI. God, or substance, consisting of infinite attributes, of
which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality,
necessarily exists.
>>>>>Proof--If this be denied, conceive, if possible, that God
does not exist: then his essence does not involve existence.
But this (Prop. vii.) is absurd. Therefore God necessarily
exists.
>>>>>Another proof--Of everything whatsoever a cause or reason
must be assigned, either for its existence, or for its
non-existence--e.g. if a triangle exist, a reason or cause must
be granted for its existence; if, on the contrary, it does not
exist, a cause must also be granted, which prevents it from
existing, or annuls its existence. This reason or cause must
either be contained in the nature of the thing in question, or be
external to it. For instance, the reason for the non-existence
of a square circle is indicated in its nature, namely, because it
would involve a contradiction. On the other hand, the existence
of substance follows also solely from its nature, inasmuch as its
nature involves existence. (See Prop. vii.)
But the reason for the existence of a triangle or a circle does
not follow from the nature of those figures, but from the order
of universal nature in extension. From the latter it must
follow, either that a triangle necessarily exists, or that it is
impossible that it should exist. So much is self-evident. It
follows therefrom that a thing necessarily exists, if no cause or
reason be granted which prevents its existence.
If, then, no cause or reason can be given, which prevents the
existence of God, or which destroys his existence, we must
certainly conclude that he necessarily does exist. If such a
reason or cause should be given, it must either be drawn from the
very nature of God, or be external to him--that is, drawn from
another substance of another nature. For if it were of the same
nature, God, by that very fact, would be admitted to exist. But
substance of another nature could have nothing in common with God
(by Prop. ii.), and therefore would be unable either to cause or
to destroy his existence.
As, then, a reason or cause which would annul the divine
existence cannot be drawn from anything external to the divine
nature, such cause must perforce, if God does not exist, be drawn
from God's own nature, which would involve a contradiction. To
make such an affirmation about a being absolutely infinite and
supremely perfect is absurd; therefore, neither in the nature of
God, nor externally to his nature, can a cause or reason be
assigned which would annul his existence. Therefore, God
necessarily exists. Q.E.D.
>>>>>Another proof--The potentiality of non-existence is a
negation of power, and contrariwise the potentiality of existence
is a power, as is obvious. If, then, that which necessarily
exists is nothing but finite beings, such finite beings are more
powerful than a being absolutely infinite, which is obviously
absurd; therefore, either nothing exists, or else a being
absolutely infinite necessarily exists also. Now we exist either
in ourselves, or in something else which necessarily exists (see
Ax. i. and Prop. vii.). Therefore a being absolutely
infinite--in other words, God (Def. vi.)--necessarily exists.
Q.E.D.
*****Note--In this last proof, I have purposely shown God's
existence 'a posteriori,' so that the proof might be more easily
followed, not because, from the same premises, God's existence
does not follow 'a priori.' For, as the potentiality of
existence is a power, it follows that, in proportion as reality
increases in the nature of a thing, so also will it increase its
strength for existence. Therefore a being absolutely infinite,
such as God, has from himself an absolutely infinite power of
existence, and hence he does absolutely exist. Perhaps there will
be many who will be unable to see the force of this proof,
inasmuch as they are accustomed only to consider those things
which flow from external causes. Of such things, they see that
those which quickly come to pass--that is, quickly come into
existence--quickly also disappear; whereas they regard as more
difficult of accomplishment --that is, not so easily brought into
existence--those things which they conceive as more complicated.
However, to do away with this misconception, I need not here show
the measure of truth in the proverb, "What comes quickly, goes
quickly," nor discuss whether, from the point of view of
universal nature, all things are equally easy, or otherwise: I
need only remark that I am not here speaking of things, which
come to pass through causes external to themselves, but only of
substances which (by Prop. vi.) cannot be produced by any
external cause. Things which are produced by external causes,
whether they consist of many parts or few, owe whatsoever
perfection or reality they possess solely to the efficacy of
their external cause; wherefore the existence of substance must
arise solely from its own nature, which is nothing else but its
essence. Thus, the perfection of a thing does not annul its
existence, but, on the contrary, asserts it. Imperfection, on
the other hand, does annul it; therefore we cannot be more
certain of the existence of anything, than of the existence of a
being absolutely infinite or perfect--that is, of God. For
inasmuch as his essence excludes all imperfection, and involves
absolute perfection, all cause for doubt concerning his existence
is done away, and the utmost certainty on the question is given.
This, I think, will be evident to every moderately attentive
reader.
XII. No attribute of substance can be conceived from which it
would follow that substance can be divided.
>>>>>Proof--The parts into which substance as thus conceived
would be divided either will retain the nature of substance, or
they will not. If the former, then (by Prop. viii.) each part
will necessarily be infinite, and (by Prop vi.) self-caused, and
(by Prop. v.) will perforce consist of a different attribute, so
that, in that case, several substances could be formed out of one
substance, which (by Prop. vi.) is absurd. Moreover, the parts
(by Prop. ii.) would have nothing in common with their whole, and
the whole (by Def. iv. and Prop. X) could both exist and be
conceived without its parts, which everyone will admit to be
absurd. If we adopt the second alternative--namely, that the
parts will not retain the nature of substance--then, if the
whole substance were divided into equal parts, it would lose the
nature of substance, and would cease to exist, which (by Prop.
vii.) is absurd.
XIII. Substance absolutely infinite is indivisible.
>>>>>Proof--If it could be divided, the parts into which it was
divided would either retain the nature of absolutely infinite
substance, or they would not. If the former, we should have
several substances of the same nature, which (by Prop. v.) is
absurd. If the latter, then (by Prop. vii.) substance
absolutely infinite could cease to exist, which (by Prop. xi.) is
also absurd.
<<<<<Corollary--It follows that no substance, and consequently no
extended substance, in so far as it is substance, is divisible.
*****Note--The indivisibility of substance may be more easily
understood as follows. The nature of substance can only be
conceived as infinite, and by a part of substance, nothing else
can be understood than finite substance, which (by Prop. viii.)
involves a manifest contradiction.
XIV. Besides God no substance can be granted or conceived.
>>>>>Proof--As God is a being absolutely infinite, of whom no
attribute that expresses the essence of substance can be denied
(by Def. vi.), and he necessarily exists (by Prop. xi.); if any
substance besides God were granted, it would have to be explained
by some attribute of God, and thus two substances with the same
attribute would exist, which (by Prop. v.) is absurd; therefore,
besides God no substance can be granted, or consequently be
conceived. If it could be conceived, it would necessarily have to
be conceived as existent; but this (by the first part of this
proof) is absurd. Therefore, besides God no substance can be
granted or conceived. Q.E.D.
<<<<<Corollary I.--Clearly, therefore: 1. God is one, that is
(by Def. vi.) only one substance can be granted in the universe,
and that substance is absolutely infinite, as we have already
indicated (in the note to Prop. x.).
<<<<<Corollary II.--It follows: 2. That extension and thought
are either attributes of God or (by Ax. i.) accidents
("affectiones") of the attributes of God.
XV. Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or
be conceived.
>>>>>Proof--Besides God, no substance is granted or can be
conceived (by Prop. xiv.), that is (by Def. iii.) nothing which
is in itself and is conceived through itself. But modes (by Def.
v.) can neither be, nor be conceived without substance;
wherefore they can only be in the divine nature, and can only
through it be conceived. But substances and modes form the sum
total of existence (by Ax. i.), therefore, without God nothing
can be, or be conceived. Q.E.D.
*****Note--Some assert that God, like a man, consists of body and
mind, and is susceptible of passions. How far such persons have
strayed from the truth is sufficiently evident from what has been
said. But these I pass over. For all who have in anywise
reflected on the divine nature deny that God has a body. Of this
they find excellent proof in the fact that we understand by body
a definite quantity, so long, so broad, so deep, bounded by a
certain shape, and it is the height of absurdity to predicate
such a thing of God, a being absolutely infinite. But meanwhile
by other reasons with which they try to prove their point, they
show that they think corporeal or extended substance wholly apart
from the divine nature, and say it was created by God. Wherefrom
the divine nature can have been created, they are wholly
ignorant; thus they clearly show that they do not know the
meaning of their own words. I myself have proved sufficiently
clearly, at any rate in my own judgment (Cor. Prop. vi., and Note
2, Prop. viii.), that no substance can be produced or created by
anything other than itself. Further, I showed (in Prop. xiv.)
that besides God no substance can be granted or conceived.
Hence we drew the conclusion that extended substance is one of
the infinite attributes of God. However, in order to explain
more fully, I will refute the arguments of my adversaries, which
all start from the following points:--
Extended substance, in so far as it is substance, consists, as
they think, in parts, wherefore they deny that it can be
infinite, or consequently, that it can appertain to God. This
they illustrate with many examples, of which I will take one or
two. If extended substance, they say, is infinite, let it be
conceived to be divided into two parts; each part will then be
either finite or infinite. If the former, then infinite
substance is composed of two finite parts, which is absurd. If
the latter, then one infinite will be twice as large as another
infinite, which is also absurd.
Further, if an infinite line be measured out in foot lengths, it
will consist of an infinite number of such parts; it would
equally consist of an infinite number of parts, if each part
measured only an inch: therefore, one infinity would be twelve
times as great as the other.
Lastly, if from a single point there be conceived to be drawn two
diverging lines which at first are at a definite distance apart,
but are produced to infinity, it is certain that the distance
between the two lines will be continually increased, until at
length it changes from definite to indefinable. As these
absurdities follow, it is said, from considering quantity as
infinite, the conclusion is drawn that extended substance must
necessarily be finite, and, consequently, cannot appertain to the
nature of God.
The second argument is also drawn from God's supreme perfection.
God, it is said, inasmuch as he is a supremely perfect being,
cannot be passive; but extended substance, insofar as it is
divisible, is passive. It follows, therefore, that extended
substance does not appertain to the essence of God.
Such are the arguments I find on the subject in writers, who by
them try to prove that extended substance is unworthy of the
divine nature, and cannot possibly appertain thereto. However, I
think an attentive reader will see that I have already answered
their propositions; for all their arguments are founded on the
hypothesis that extended substance is composed of parts, and such
a hypothesis I have shown (Prop. xii., and Cor. Prop. xiii.) to
be absurd. Moreover, anyone who reflects will see that all these
absurdities (if absurdities they be, which I am not now
discussing), from which it is sought to extract the conclusion
that extended substance is finite, do not at all follow from the
notion of an infinite quantity, but merely from the notion that
an infinite quantity is measurable, and composed of finite parts:
therefore, the only fair conclusion to be drawn is that infinite
quantity is not measurable, and cannot be composed of finite
parts. This is exactly what we have already proved (in Prop.
xii.). Wherefore the weapon which they aimed at us has in
reality recoiled upon themselves. If, from this absurdity of
theirs, they persist in drawing the conclusion that extended
substance must be finite, they will in good sooth be acting like
a man who asserts that circles have the properties of squares,
and, finding himself thereby landed in absurdities, proceeds to
deny that circles have any center, from which all lines drawn to
the circumference are equal. For, taking extended substance,
which can only be conceived as infinite, one, and indivisible
(Props. viii., v., xii.) they assert, in order to prove that it
is finite, that it is composed of finite parts, and that it can
be multiplied and divided.
So, also, others, after asserting that a line is composed of
points, can produce many arguments to prove that a line cannot be
infinitely divided. Assuredly it is not less absurd to assert
that extended substance is made up of bodies or parts, than it
would be to assert that a solid is made up of surfaces, a surface
of lines, and a line of points. This must be admitted by all who
know clear reason to be infallible, and most of all by those who
deny the possibility of a vacuum. For if extended substance
could be so divided that its parts were really separate, why
should not one part admit of being destroyed, the others
remaining joined together as before? And why should all be so
fitted into one another as to leave no vacuum? Surely in the
case of things, which are really distinct one from the other, one
can exist without the other, and can remain in its original
condition. As, then, there does not exist a vacuum in nature (of
which anon), but all parts are bound to come together to prevent
it, it follows from this that the parts cannot really be
distinguished, and that extended substance in so far as it is
substance cannot be divided.
If anyone asks me the further question, Why are we naturally so
prone to divide quantity? I answer, that quantity is conceived by
us in two ways; in the abstract and superficially, as we imagine
it; or as substance, as we conceive it solely by the intellect.
If, then, we regard quantity as it is represented in our
imagination, which we often and more easily do, we shall find
that it is finite, divisible, and compounded of parts; but if we
regard it as it is represented in our intellect, and conceive it
as substance, which it is very difficult to do, we shall then, as
I have sufficiently proved, find that it is infinite, one, and
indivisible. This will be plain enough to all who make a
distinction between the intellect and the imagination,
especially if it be remembered that matter is everywhere the
same, that its parts are not distinguishable, except in so far as
we conceive matter as diversely modified, whence its parts are
distinguished, not really, but modally. For instance, water, in
so far as it is water, we conceive to be divided, and its parts
to be separated one from the other; but not in so far as it is
extended substance; from this point of view it is neither
separated nor divisible. Further, water, in so far as it is
water, is produced and corrupted; but, in so far as it is
substance, it is neither produced nor corrupted.
I think I have now answered the second argument; it is, in fact,
founded on the same assumption as the first--namely, that matter,
in so far as it is substance, is divisible, and composed of
parts. Even if it were so, I do not know why it should be
considered unworthy of the divine nature, inasmuch as besides God
(by Prop. xiv.) no substance can be granted, wherefrom it could
receive its modifications. All things, I repeat, are in God, and
all things which come to pass, come to pass solely through the
laws of the infinite nature of God, and follow (as I will shortly
show) from the necessity of his essence. Wherefore it can in
nowise be said that God is passive in respect to anything other
than himself, or that extended substance is unworthy of the
divine nature, even if it be supposed divisible, so long as it is
granted to be infinite and eternal. But enough of this for the
present.
XVI. From the necessity of the divine nature must follow an
infinite number of things in infinite ways--that is, all things
which can fall within the sphere of infinite intellect.
>>>>>Proof--This proposition will be clear to everyone, who
remembers that from the given definition of any thing the
intellect infers several properties, which really necessarily
follow therefrom (that is, from the actual essence of the thing
defined); and it infers more properties in proportion as the
definition of the thing expresses more reality, that is, in
proportion as the essence of the thing defined involves more
reality. Now, as the divine nature has absolutely infinite
attributes (by Def. vi.), of which each expresses infinite
essence after its kind, it follows that from the necessity of its
nature an infinite number of things (that is, everything which
can fall within the sphere of an infinite intellect) must
necessarily follow. Q.E.D.
<<<<<Corollary I.--Hence it follows, that God is the efficient
cause of all that can fall within the sphere of an infinite
intellect.
<<<<<Corollary II.--It also follows that God is a cause in
himself, and not through an accident of his nature.
<<<<<Corollary III.--It follows, thirdly, that God is the
absolutely first cause.
XVII. God acts solely by the laws of his own nature, and is not
constrained by anyone.
>>>>>Proof--We have just shown (in Prop. xvi.), that solely from
the necessity of the divine nature, or, what is the same thing,
solely from the laws of his nature, an infinite number of things
absolutely follow in an infinite number of ways; and we proved
(in Prop. xv.), that without God nothing can be nor be conceived;
but that all things are in God. Wherefore nothing can exist
outside himself, whereby he can be conditioned or constrained to
act. Wherefore God acts solely by the laws of his own nature,
and is not constrained by anyone. Q.E.D.
<<<<<Corollary I--It follows: 1. That there can be no cause
which, either extrinsically or intrinsically, besides the
perfection of his own nature, moves God to act.
<<<<<Corollary II--It follows: 2. That God is the sole free
cause. For God alone exists by the sole necessity of his nature
(by Prop. xi. and Prop. xiv., Cor. i.), and acts by the sole
necessity of his own nature, wherefore God is (by Def. vii.) the
sole free cause. Q.E.D.
*****Note--Others think that God is a free cause, because he can,
as they think, bring it about, that those things which we have
said follow from his nature--that is, which are in his power,
should not come to pass, or should not be produced by him. But
this is the same as if they said, that God could bring it about,
that it should follow from the nature of a triangle that its
three interior angles should not be equal to two right angles; or
that from a given cause no effect should follow, which is absurd.
Moreover, I will show below, without the aid of this
proposition, that neither intellect nor will appertain to God's
nature. I know that there are many who think that they can show,
that supreme intellect and free will do appertain to God's
nature; for they say they know of nothing more perfect, which
they can attribute to God, than that which is the highest
perfection in ourselves. Further, although they conceive God as
actually supremely intelligent, they yet do not believe that he
can bring into existence everything which he actually
understands, for they think that they would thus destroy God's
power. If, they contend, God had created everything which is in
his intellect, he would not be able to create anything more, and
this, they think, would clash with God's omnipotence; therefore,
they prefer to asset that God is indifferent to all things, and
that he creates nothing except that which he has decided, by some
absolute exercise of will, to create. However, I think I have
shown sufficiently clearly (by Prop. xvi.) that from God's
supreme power, or infinite nature, an infinite number of
things--that is, all things have necessarily flowed forth in an
infinite number of ways, or always flow from the same necessity;
in the same way as from the nature of a triangle it follows from
eternity and for eternity, that its three interior angles are
equal to two right angles. Wherefore the omnipotence of God has
been displayed from all eternity, and will for all eternity
remain in the same state of activity. This manner of treating the
question attributes to God an omnipotence, in my opinion, far
more perfect. For, otherwise, we are compelled to confess that
God understands an infinite number of creatable things, which he
will never be able to create, for, if he created all that he
understands, he would, according to this showing, exhaust his
omnipotence, and render himself imperfect. Wherefore, in order
to establish that God is perfect, we should be reduced to
establishing at the same time, that he cannot bring to pass
everything over which his power extends; this seems to be a
hypothesis most absurd, and most repugnant to God's omnipotence.
Further (to say a word concerning the intellect and the will
which we attribute to God), if intellect and will appertain to
the eternal essence of God, we must take these words in some
significance quite different from those they usually bear. For
intellect and will, which should constitute the essence of God,
would perforce be as far apart as the poles from the human
intellect and will, in fact, would have nothing in common with
them but the name; there would be about as much correspondence
between the two as there is between the Dog, the heavenly
constellation, and a dog, an animal that barks. This I will
prove as follows. If intellect belongs to the divine nature, it
cannot be in nature, as ours is generally thought to be,
posterior to, or simultaneous with the things understood,
inasmuch as God is prior to all things by reason of his causality
(Prop. xvi., Cor. i.). On the contrary, the truth and formal
essence of things is as it is, because it exists by
representation as such in the intellect of God. Wherefore the
intellect of God, in so far as it is conceived to constitute
God's essence, is, in reality, the cause of things, both of their
essence and of their existence. This seems to have been
recognized by those who have asserted, that God's intellect,
God's will, and God's power, are one and the same. As,
therefore, God's intellect is the sole cause of things, namely,
both of their essence and existence, it must necessarily differ
from them in respect to its essence, and in respect to its
existence. For a cause differs from a thing it causes,
precisely in the quality which the latter gains from the former.
For example, a man is the cause of another man's existence, but
not of his essence (for the latter is an eternal truth), and,
therefore, the two men may be entirely similar in essence, but
must be different in existence; and hence if the existence of one
of them cease, the existence of the other will not necessarily
cease also; but if the essence of one could be destroyed, and be
made false, the essence of the other would be destroyed also.
Wherefore, a thing which is the cause both of the essence and of
the existence of a given effect, must differ from such effect
both in respect to its essence, and also in respect to its
existence. Now the intellect of God is the cause both of the
essence and the existence of our intellect; therefore, the
intellect of God in so far as it is conceived to constitute the
divine essence, differs from our intellect both in respect to
essence and in respect to existence, nor can it in anywise agree
therewith save in name, as we said before. The reasoning would
be identical in the case of the will, as anyone can easily see.
XVIII. God is the indwelling and not the transient cause of all
things. >>>>>Proof--All things which are, are in God, and must be
conceived through God (by Prop. xv.), therefore (by Prop. xvi.,
Cor. i.) God is the cause of those things which are in him.
This is our first point. Further, besides God there can be no
substance (by Prop. xiv.), that is nothing in itself external to
God. This is our second point. God, therefore, is the
indwelling and not the transient cause of all things. Q.E.D.
XIX. God, and all the attributes of God, are eternal.
>>>>>Proof--God (by Def. vi.) is substance, which (by Prop. xi.)
necessarily exists, that is (by Prop. vii.) existence appertains
to its nature, or (what is the same thing) follows from its
definition; therefore, God is eternal (by Def. vii.). Further,
by the attributes of God we must understand that which (by Def.
iv.) expresses the essence of the divine substance--in other
words, that which appertains to substance: that, I say, should
be involved in the attributes of substance. Now eternity
appertains to the nature of substance (as I have already shown in
Prop. vii.); therefore, eternity must appertain to each of the
attributes, and thus all are eternal. Q.E.D.
*****Note--This proposition is also evident from the manner in
which (in Prop. xi.) I demonstrated the existence of God; it is
evident, I repeat, from that proof, that the existence of God,
like his essence, is an eternal truth. Further (in Prop. xix. of
my "Principles of the Cartesian Philosophy"), I have proved the
eternity of God, in another manner, which I need not here
repeat.
XX. The existence of God and his essence are one and the same.
>>>>>Proof--God (by the last Prop.) and all his attributes are
eternal, that is (by Def. viii.) each of his attributes expresses
existence. Therefore the same attributes of God which explain
his eternal essence, explain at the same time his eternal
existence--in other words, that which constitutes God's essence
constitutes at the same time his existence. Wherefore God's
existence and God's essence are one and the same. Q.E.D.
<<<<<Corollary I.--Hence it follows that God's existence, like
his essence, is an eternal truth.
<<<<<Corollary II.--Secondly, it follows that God, and all the
attributes of God, are unchangeable. For if they could be
changed in respect to existence, they must also be able to be
changed in respect to essence--that is, obviously, be changed
from true to false, which is absurd.
XXI. All things which follow from the absolute nature of any
attribute of God must always exist and be infinite, or, in other
words, are eternal and infinite through the said attribute.
>>>>>Proof--Conceive, if it be possible (supposing the
proposition to be denied), that something in some attribute of
God can follow from the absolute nature of the said attribute,
and that at the same time it is finite, and has a conditioned
existence or duration; for instance, the idea of God expressed in
the attribute thought. Now thought, in so far as it is supposed
to be an attribute of God, is necessarily (by Prop. xi.) in its
nature infinite. But, in so far as it possesses the idea of God,
it is supposed finite. It cannot, however, be conceived as
finite, unless it be limited by thought (by Def. ii.); but it is
not limited by thought itself, in so far as it has constituted
the idea of God (for so far it is supposed to be finite);
therefore, it is limited by thought, in so far as it has not
constituted the idea of God, which nevertheless (by Prop. xi.)
must necessarily exist.
We have now granted, therefore, thought not constituting the idea
of God, and, accordingly, the idea of God does not naturally
follow from its nature in so far as it is absolute thought (for
it is conceived as constituting, and also as not constituting,
the idea of God), which is against our hypothesis. Wherefore, if
the idea of God expressed in the attribute thought, or, indeed,
anything else in any attribute of God (for we may take any
example, as the proof is of universal application) follows from
the necessity of the absolute nature of the said attribute, the
said thing must necessarily be infinite, which was our first
point.
Furthermore, a thing which thus follows from the necessity of the
nature of any attribute cannot have a limited duration. For if
it can, suppose a thing, which follows from the necessity of the
nature of some attribute, to exist in some attribute of God, for
instance, the idea of God expressed in the attribute thought, and
let it be supposed at some time not to have existed, or to be
about not to exist.
Now thought being an attribute of God must necessarily exist
unchanged (by Prop. xi., and Prop. xx., Cor. ii.); and beyond the
limits of the duration of the idea of God (supposing the latter
at some time not to have existed, or not to be going to exist)
thought would perforce have existed without the idea of God,
which is contrary to our hypothesis, for we supposed that,
thought being given, the idea of God necessarily flowed
therefrom. Therefore the idea of God expressed in thought, or
anything which necessarily follows from the absolute nature of
some attribute of God, cannot have a limited duration, but
through the said attribute is eternal, which is our second point.
Bear in mind that the same proposition may be affirmed of
anything, which in any attribute necessarily follows from God's
absolute nature.
XXII. |
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A VISIT TO THREE FRONTS
June 1916
BY
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
AUTHOR OF
'THE GREAT BOER WAR'
PREFACE
In the course of May 1916, the Italian authorities expressed a desire
that some independent observer from Great Britain should visit their
lines and report his impressions. It was at the time when our brave and
capable allies had sustained a set-back in the Trentino owing to a
sudden concentration of the Austrians, supported by very heavy
artillery. I was asked to undertake this mission. In order to carry it
out properly, I stipulated that I should be allowed to visit the
British lines first, so that I might have some standard of comparison.
The War Office kindly assented to my request. Later I obtained
permission to pay a visit to the French front as well. Thus it was my
great good fortune, at the very crisis of the war, to visit the battle
line of each of the three great Western allies. I only wish that it had
been within my power to complete my experiences in this seat of war by
seeing the gallant little Belgian army which has done so remarkably
well upon the extreme left wing of the hosts of freedom.
My experiences and impressions are here set down, and may have some
small effect in counteracting those mischievous misunderstandings and
mutual belittlements which are eagerly fomented by our cunning enemy.
Arthur Conan Doyle.
Crowborough,
July 1916.
CONTENTS
A GLIMPSE OF THE BRITISH ARMY.
A GLIMPSE OF THE ITALIAN ARMY.
A GLIMPSE OF THE FRENCH LINE.
A GLIMPSE OF THE BRITISH ARMY
I
It is not an easy matter to write from the front. You know that there
are several courteous but inexorable gentlemen who may have a word in
the matter, and their presence 'imparts but small ease to the style.'
But above all you have the twin censors of your own conscience and
common sense, which assure you that, if all other readers fail you, you
will certainly find a most attentive one in the neighbourhood of the
Haupt-Quartier. An instructive story is still told of how a certain
well-meaning traveller recorded his satisfaction with the appearance of
the big guns at the retiring and peaceful village of Jamais, and how
three days later, by an interesting coincidence, the village of Jamais
passed suddenly off the map and dematerialised into brickdust and
splinters.
I have been with soldiers on the warpath before, but never have I had a
day so crammed with experiences and impressions as yesterday. Some of
them at least I can faintly convey to the reader, and if they ever
reach the eye of that gentleman at the Haupt-Quartier they will give
him little joy. For the crowning impression of all is the enormous
imperturbable confidence of the Army and its extraordinary efficiency
in organisation, administration, material, and personnel. I met in one
day a sample of many types, an Army commander, a corps commander, two
divisional commanders, staff officers of many grades, and, above all, I
met repeatedly the two very great men whom Britain has produced, the
private soldier and the regimental officer. Everywhere and on every
face one read the same spirit of cheerful bravery. Even the half-mad
cranks whose absurd consciences prevent them from barring the way to
the devil seemed to me to be turning into men under the prevailing
influence. I saw a batch of them, neurotic and largely be-spectacled,
but working with a will by the roadside. They will volunteer for the
trenches yet.
* * * * *
If there are pessimists among us they are not to be found among the men
who are doing the work. There is no foolish bravado, no under-rating of
a dour opponent, but there is a quick, alert, confident attention to
the job in hand which is an inspiration to the observer. These brave
lads are guarding Britain in the present. See to it that Britain guards
them in the future! We have a bad record in this matter. It must be
changed. They are the wards of the nation, both officers and men.
Socialism has never had an attraction for me, but I should be a
Socialist to-morrow if I thought that to ease a tax on wealth these men
should ever suffer for the time or health that they gave to the public
cause.
'Get out of the car. Don't let it stay here. It may be hit.' These
words from a staff officer give you the first idea that things are
going to happen. Up to then you might have been driving through the
black country in the Walsall district with the population of Aldershot
let loose upon its dingy roads. 'Put on this shrapnel helmet. That hat
of yours would infuriate the Boche'--this was an unkind allusion to the
only uniform which I have a right to wear. 'Take this gas helmet. You
won't need it, but it is a standing order. Now come on!'
We cross a meadow and enter a trench. Here and there it comes to the
surface again where there is dead ground. At one such point an old
church stands, with an unexploded shell sticking out of the wall. A
century hence folk will journey to see that shell. Then on again
through an endless cutting. It is slippery clay below. I have no nails
in my boots, an iron pot on my head, and the sun above me. I will
remember that walk. Ten telephone wires run down the side. Here and
there large thistles and other plants grow from the clay walls, so
immobile have been our lines. Occasionally there are patches of
untidiness. 'Shells,' says the officer laconically. There is a racket
of guns before us and behind, especially behind, but danger seems
remote with all these Bairnfather groups of cheerful Tommies at work
around us. I pass one group of grimy, tattered boys. A glance at their
shoulders shows me that they are of a public school battalion. 'I
thought you fellows were all officers now,' I remarked. 'No, sir, we
like it better so.' 'Well, it will be a great memory for you. We are
all in your debt.'
They salute, and we squeeze past them. They had the fresh, brown faces
of boy cricketers. But their comrades were men of a different type,
with hard, strong, rugged features, and the eyes of men who have seen
strange sights. These are veterans, men of Mons, and their young pals
of the public schools have something to live up to.
* * * * *
Up to this we have only had two clay walls to look at. But now our
interminable and tropical walk is lightened by the sight of a British
aeroplane sailing overhead. Numerous shrapnel bursts are all round it,
but she floats on serenely, a thing of delicate beauty against the blue
background. Now another passes--and yet another. All morning we saw
them circling and swooping, and never a sign of a Boche. They tell me
it is nearly always so--that we hold the air, and that the Boche
intruder, save at early morning, is a rare bird. A visit to the line
would reassure Mr. Pemberton-Billing. 'We have never met a British
aeroplane which was not ready to fight,' said a captured German aviator
the other day. There is a fine stern courtesy between the airmen on
either side, each dropping notes into the other's aerodromes to tell
the fate of missing officers. Had the whole war been fought by the
Germans as their airmen have conducted it (I do not speak of course of
the Zeppelin murderers), a peace would eventually have been more easily
arranged. As it is, if every frontier could be settled, it would be a
hard thing to stop until all that is associated with the words Cavell,
Zeppelin, Wittenberg, Lusitania, and Louvain has been brought to the
bar of the world's Justice.
And now we are there--in what is surely the most wonderful spot in the
world, the front firing trench, the outer breakwater which holds back
the German tide. How strange that this monstrous oscillation of giant
forces, setting in from east to west, should find their equilibrium
here across this particular meadow of Flanders. 'How far?' I ask. '180
yards,' says my guide. 'Pop!' remarks a third person just in front. 'A
sniper,' says my guide; 'take a look through the periscope.' I do so.
There is some rusty wire before me, then a field sloping slightly
upwards with knee-deep grass, then rusty wire again, and a red line of
broken earth. There is not a sign of movement, but sharp eyes are
always watching us, even as these crouching soldiers around me are
watching them. There are dead Germans in the grass before us. You need
not see them to know that they are there. A wounded soldier sits in a
corner nursing his leg. Here and there men pop out like rabbits from
dug-outs and mine-shafts. Others sit on the fire-step or lean smoking
against the clay wall. Who would dream to look at their bold, careless
faces that this is a front line, and that at any moment it is possible
that a grey wave may submerge them? With all their careless bearing I
notice that every man has his gas helmet and his rifle within easy
reach.
A mile of front trenches and then we are on our way back down that
weary walk. Then I am whisked off upon a ten mile drive. There is a
pause for lunch at Corps Headquarters, and after it we are taken to a
medal presentation in a market square. Generals Munro, Haking and
Landon, famous fighting soldiers all three, are the British
representatives. Munro with a ruddy face, and brain above all bulldog
below; Haking, pale, distinguished, intellectual; Landon a pleasant,
genial country squire. An elderly French General stands beside them.
British infantry keep the ground. In front are about fifty Frenchmen in
civil dress of every grade of life, workmen and gentlemen, in a double
rank. They are all so wounded that they are back in civil life, but
to-day they are to have some solace for their wounds. They lean heavily
on sticks, their bodies are twisted and maimed, but their faces are
shining with pride and joy. The French General draws his sword and
addresses them. One catches words like 'honneur' and 'patrie.' They
lean forward on their crutches, hanging on every syllable which comes
hissing and rasping from under that heavy white moustache. Then the
medals are pinned on. One poor lad is terribly wounded and needs two
sticks. A little girl runs out with some flowers. He leans forward and
tries to kiss her, but the crutches slip and he nearly falls upon her.
It was a pitiful but beautiful little scene.
Now the British candidates march up one by one for their medals, hale,
hearty men, brown and fit. There is a smart young officer of Scottish
Rifles; and then a selection of Worcesters, Welsh Fusiliers and Scots
Fusiliers, with one funny little Highlander, a tiny figure with a
soup-bowl helmet, a grinning boy's face beneath it, and a bedraggled
uniform. 'Many acts of great bravery'--such was the record for which he
was decorated. Even the French wounded smiled at his quaint appearance,
as they did at another Briton who had acquired the chewing-gum habit,
and came up for his medal as if he had been called suddenly in the
middle of his dinner, which he was still endeavouring to bolt. Then
came the end, with the National Anthem. The British regiment formed
fours and went past. To me that was the most impressive sight of any.
They were the Queen's West Surreys, a veteran regiment of the great
Ypres battle. What grand fellows! As the order came 'Eyes right,' and
all those fierce, dark faces flashed round about us, I felt the might
of the British infantry, the intense individuality which is not
incompatible with the highest discipline. Much they had endured, but a
great spirit shone from their faces. I confess that as I looked at
those brave English lads, and thought of what we owe to them and to
their like who have passed on, I felt more emotional than befits a
Briton in foreign parts.
* * * * *
Now the ceremony was ended, and once again we set out for the front. It
was to an artillery observation post that we were bound, and once again
my description must be bounded by discretion. Suffice it, that in an
hour I found myself, together with a razor-keen young artillery
observer and an excellent old sportsman of a Russian prince, jammed
into a very small space, and staring through a slit at the German
lines. In front of us lay a vast plain, scarred and slashed, with bare
places at intervals, such as you see where gravel pits break a green
common. Not a sign of life or movement, save some wheeling crows. And
yet down there, within a mile or so, is the population of a city. Far
away a single train is puffing at the back of the German lines. We are
here on a definite errand. Away to the right, nearly three miles off,
is a small red house, dim to the eye but clear in the glasses, which is
suspected as a German post. It is to go up this afternoon. The gun is
some distance away, but I hear the telephone directions. '"Mother" will
soon do her in,' remarks the gunner boy cheerfully. 'Mother' is the
name of the gun. 'Give her five six three four,' he cries through the
'phone. 'Mother' utters a horrible bellow from somewhere on our right.
An enormous spout of smoke rises ten seconds later from near the house.
'A little short,' says our gunner. 'Two and a half minutes left,' adds
a little small voice, which represents another observer at a different
angle. 'Raise her seven five,' says our boy encouragingly. 'Mother'
roars more angrily than ever. 'How will that do?' she seems to say.
'One and a half right,' says our invisible gossip. I wonder how the
folk in the house are feeling as the shells creep ever nearer. 'Gun
laid, sir,' says the telephone. 'Fire!' I am looking through my glass.
A flash of fire on the house, a huge pillar of dust and smoke--then it
settles, and an unbroken field is there. The German post has gone up.
'It's a dear little gun,' says the officer boy. 'And her shells are
reliable,' remarked a senior behind us. 'They vary with different
calibres, but "Mother" never goes wrong.' The German line was very
quiet. 'Pourquoi ils ne repondent pas?' asked the Russian prince. 'Yes,
they are quiet to-day,' answered the senior. 'But we get it in the neck
sometimes.' We are all led off to be introduced to 'Mother,' who sits,
squat and black, amid twenty of her grimy children who wait upon and
feed her. She is an important person is 'Mother,' and her importance
grows. It gets clearer with every month that it is she, and only she,
who can lead us to the Rhine. She can and she will if the factories of
Britain can beat those of the Hun. See to it, you working men and women
of Britain. Work now if you rest for ever after, for the fate of Europe
and of all that is dear to us is in your hands. For 'Mother' is a
dainty eater, and needs good food and plenty. She is fond of strange
lodgings, too, in which she prefers safety to dignity. But that is a
dangerous subject.
* * * * *
One more experience of this wonderful day--the most crowded with
impressions of my whole life. At night we take a car and drive north,
and ever north, until at a late hour we halt and climb a hill in the
darkness. Below is a wonderful sight. Down on the flats, in a huge
semi-circle, lights are rising and falling. They are very brilliant,
going up for a few seconds and then dying down. Sometimes a dozen are
in the air at one time. There are the dull thuds of explosions and an
occasional rat-tat-tat. I have seen nothing like it, but the nearest
comparison would be an enormous ten-mile railway station in full swing
at night, with signals winking, lamps waving, engines hissing and
carriages bumping. It is a terrible place down yonder, a place which
will live as long as military history is written, for it is the Ypres
Salient. What a salient it is, too! A huge curve, as outlined by the
lights, needing only a little more to be an encirclement. Something
caught the rope as it closed, and that something was the British
soldier. But it is a perilous place still by day and by night. Never
shall I forget the impression of ceaseless, malignant activity which
was borne in upon me by the white, winking lights, the red sudden
glares, and the horrible thudding noises in that place of death beneath
me.
II
In old days we had a great name as organisers. Then came a long period
when we deliberately adopted a policy of individuality and 'go as you
please.' Now once again in our sore need we have called on all our
power of administration and direction. But it has not deserted us. We
still have it in a supreme degree. Even in peace time we have shown it
in that vast, well-oiled, swift-running, noiseless machine called the
British Navy. But now our powers have risen with the need of them. The
expansion of the Navy has been a miracle, the management of the
transport a greater one, the formation of the new Army the greatest of
all time. To get the men was the least of the difficulties. To put them
here, with everything down to the lid of the last field saucepan in its
place, that is the marvel. The tools of the gunners, and of the
sappers, to say nothing of the knowledge of how to use them, are in
themselves a huge problem. But it has all been met and mastered, and
will be to the end. But don't let us talk any more about the muddling
of the War Office. It has become just a little ridiculous.
* * * * *
I have told of my first day, when I visited the front trenches, saw the
work of 'Mother,' and finally that marvellous spectacle, the Ypres
Salient at night. I have passed the night at the headquarters of a
divisional-general, Capper, who might truly be called one of the two
fathers of the British flying force, for it was he, with Templer, who
laid the first foundations from which so great an organisation has
arisen. My morning was spent in visiting two fighting brigadiers,
cheery weather-beaten soldiers, respectful, as all our soldiers are, of
the prowess of the Hun, but serenely confident that we can beat him. In
company with one of them I ascended a hill, the reverse <DW72> of which
was swarming with cheerful infantry in every stage of dishabille, for
they were cleaning up after the trenches. Once over the <DW72> we
advanced with some care, and finally reached a certain spot from which
we looked down upon the German line. It was the advanced observation
post, about a thousand yards from the German trenches, with our own
trenches between us. We could see the two lines, sometimes only a few
yards, as it seemed, apart, extending for miles on either side. The
sinister silence and solitude were strangely dramatic. Such vast crowds
of men, such intensity of feeling, and yet only that open rolling
countryside, with never a movement in its whole expanse.
The afternoon saw us in the Square at Ypres. It is the city of a dream,
this modern Pompeii, destroyed, deserted and desecrated, but with a
sad, proud dignity which made you involuntarily lower your voice as you
passed through the ruined streets. It is a more considerable place than
I had imagined, with many traces of ancient grandeur. No words can
describe the absolute splintered wreck that the Huns have made of it.
The effect of some of the shells has been grotesque. One boiler-plated
water-tower, a thing forty or fifty feet high, was actually standing on
its head like a great metal top. There is not a living soul in the
place save a few pickets of soldiers, and a number of cats which become
fierce and dangerous. Now and then a shell still falls, but the Huns
probably know that the devastation is already complete.
We stood in the lonely grass-grown Square, once the busy centre of the
town, and we marvelled at the beauty of the smashed cathedral and the
tottering Cloth Hall beside it. Surely at their best they could not
have looked more wonderful than now. If they were preserved even so,
and if a heaven-inspired artist were to model a statue of Belgium in
front, Belgium with one hand pointing to the treaty by which Prussia
guaranteed her safety and the other to the sacrilege behind her, it
would make the most impressive group in the world. It was an evil day
for Belgium when her frontier was violated, but it was a worse one for
Germany. I venture to prophesy that it will be regarded by history as
the greatest military as well as political error that has ever been
made. Had the great guns that destroyed Liege made their first breach
at Verdun, what chance was there for Paris? Those few weeks of warning
and preparation saved France, and left Germany as she now is, like a
weary and furious bull, tethered fast in the place of trespass and
waiting for the inevitable pole-axe.
We were glad to get out of the place, for the gloom of it lay as heavy
upon our hearts as the shrapnel helmets did upon our heads. Both were
lightened as we sped back past empty and shattered villas to where,
just behind the danger line, the normal life of rural Flanders was
carrying on as usual. A merry sight helped to cheer us, for scudding
down wind above our heads came a Boche aeroplane, with two British at
her tail barking away with their machine guns, like two swift terriers
after a cat. They shot rat-tat-tatting across the sky until we lost
sight of them in the heat haze over the German line.
* * * * *
The afternoon saw us on the Sharpenburg, from which many a million will
gaze in days to come, for from no other point can so much be seen. It
is a spot forbid, but a special permit took us up, and the sentry on
duty, having satisfied himself of our bona fides, proceeded to tell us
tales of the war in a pure Hull dialect which might have been Chinese
for all that I could understand. That he was a 'terrier' and had nine
children were the only facts I could lay hold of. But I wished to be
silent and to think--even, perhaps, to pray. Here, just below my feet,
were the spots which our dear lads, three of them my own kith, have
sanctified with their blood. Here, fighting for the freedom of the
world, they cheerily gave their all. On that sloping meadow to the left
of the row of houses on the opposite ridge the London Scottish fought
to the death on that grim November morning when the Bavarians reeled
back from their shot-torn line. That plain away on the other side of
Ypres was the place where the three grand Canadian brigades, first of
all men, stood up to the damnable cowardly gases of the Hun. Down
yonder is Hill 60, that blood-soaked kopje. The ridge over the fields
was held by the cavalry against two army corps, and there where the sun
strikes the red roof among the trees I can just see Gheluveld, a name
for ever to be associated with Haig and the most vital battle of the
war. As I turn away I am faced by my Hull Territorial, who still says
incomprehensible things. I look at him with other eyes. He has fought
on yonder plain. He has slain Huns, and he has nine children. Could any
one better epitomise the duties of a good citizen? I could have found
it in my heart to salute him had I not known that it would have shocked
him and made him unhappy.
It has been a full day, and the next is even fuller, for it is my
privilege to lunch at Headquarters, and to make the acquaintance of the
Commander-in-chief and of his staff. It would be an invasion of private
hospitality if I were to give the public the impressions which I
carried from that charming chateau. I am the more sorry, since they
were very vivid and strong. This much I will say--and any man who is a
face reader will not need to have it said--that if the Army stands
still it is not by the will of its commander. There will, I swear, be
no happier man in Europe when the day has come and the hour. It is
human to err, but never possibly can some types err by being backward.
We have a superb army in France. It needs the right leader to handle
it. I came away happier and more confident than ever as to the future.
Extraordinary are the contrasts of war. Within three hours of leaving
the quiet atmosphere of the Headquarters Chateau I was present at what
in any other war would have been looked upon as a brisk engagement. As
it was it would certainly figure in one of our desiccated reports as an
activity of the artillery. The noise as we struck the line at this new
point showed that the matter was serious, and, indeed, we had chosen
the spot because it had been the storm centre of the last week. The
method of approach chosen by our experienced guide was in itself a
tribute to the gravity of the affair. As one comes from the settled
order of Flanders into the actual scene of war, the first sign of it is
one of the stationary, sausage-shaped balloons, a chain of which marks
the ring in which the great wrestlers are locked. We pass under this,
ascend a hill, and find ourselves in a garden where for a year no feet
save those of wanderers like ourselves have stood. There is a wild,
confused luxuriance of growth more beautiful to my eye than anything
which the care of man can produce. One old shell-hole of vast diameter
has filled itself with forget-me-nots, and appears as a graceful basin
of light blue flowers, held up as an atonement to heaven for the
brutalities of man. Through the tangled bushes we creep, then across a
yard--'Please stoop and run as you pass this point'--and finally to a
small opening in a wall, whence the battle lies not so much before as
beside us. For a moment we have a front seat at the great world-drama,
God's own problem play, working surely to its magnificent end. One
feels a sort of shame to crouch here in comfort, a useless spectator,
while brave men down yonder are facing that pelting shower of iron.
* * * * *
There is a large field on our left rear, and the German gunners have
the idea that there is a concealed battery therein. They are
systematically searching for it. A great shell explodes in the top
corner, but gets nothing more solid than a few tons of clay. You can
read the mind of Gunner Fritz. 'Try the lower corner!' says he, and up
goes the earth-cloud once again. 'Perhaps it's hid about the middle.
I'll try.' Earth again, and nothing more. 'I believe I was right the
first time after all,' says hopeful Fritz. So another shell comes into
the top corner. The field is as full of pits as a Gruyere cheese, but
Fritz gets nothing by his perseverance. Perhaps there never was a
battery there at all. One effect he obviously did attain. He made
several other British batteries exceedingly angry. 'Stop that tickling,
Fritz!' was the burden of their cry. Where they were we could no more
see than Fritz could, but their constant work was very clear along the
German line. We appeared to be using more shrapnel and the Germans more
high explosives, but that may have been just the chance of the day. The
Vimy Ridge was on our right, and before us was the old French position,
with the labyrinth of terrible memories and the long hill of Lorette.
When, last year, the French, in a three weeks' battle, fought their way
up that hill, it was an exhibition of sustained courage which even
their military annals can seldom have beaten.
And so I turn from the British line. Another and more distant task lies
before me. I come away with the deep sense of the difficult task which
lies before the Army, but with a deeper one of the ability of these men
to do all that soldiers can ever be asked to perform. Let the guns
clear the way for the infantry, and the rest will follow. It all lies
with the guns. But the guns, in turn, depend upon our splendid workers
at home, who, men and women, are doing so grandly. Let them not be
judged by a tiny minority, who are given, perhaps, too much attention
in our journals. We have all made sacrifices in the war, but when the
full story comes to be told, perhaps the greatest sacrifice of all is
that which Labour made when, with a sigh, she laid aside that which it
had taken so many weary years to build.
A GLIMPSE OF THE ITALIAN ARMY
One meets with such extreme kindness and consideration among the
Italians that there is a real danger lest one's personal feeling of
obligation should warp one's judgment or hamper one's expression.
Making every possible allowance for this, I come away from them, after
a very wide if superficial view of all that they are doing, with a deep
feeling of admiration and a conviction that no army in the world could
have made a braver attempt to advance under conditions of extraordinary
difficulty.
First a word as to the Italian soldier. He is a type by himself which
differs from the earnest solidarity of the new French army, and from
the businesslike alertness of the Briton, and yet has a very special
dash and fire of its own, covered over by a very pleasing and
unassuming manner. London has not yet forgotten Durando of Marathon
fame. He was just such another easy smiling youth as I now see
everywhere around me. Yet there came a day when a hundred thousand
Londoners hung upon his every movement--when strong men gasped and
women wept at his invincible but unavailing spirit. When he had fallen
senseless in that historic race on the very threshold of his goal, so
high was the determination within him, that while he floundered on the
track like a broken-backed horse, with the senses gone out of him, his
legs still continued to drum upon the cinder path. Then when by pure
will power he staggered to his feet and drove his dazed body across the
line, it was an exhibition of pluck which put the little sunburned
baker straightway among London's heroes. Durando's spirit is alive
to-day, I see thousands of him all around me. A thousand such, led by a
few young gentlemen of the type who occasionally give us object lessons
in how to ride at Olympia, make no mean battalion. It has been a war
of most desperate ventures, but never once has there been a lack of
volunteers. The Tyrolese are good men--too good to be fighting in so
rotten a cause. But from first to last the Alpini have had the
ascendency in the hill fighting, as the line regiments have against the
Kaiserlics upon the plain. Caesar told how the big Germans used to
laugh at his little men until they had been at handgrips with them. The
Austrians could tell the same tale. The spirit in the ranks is
something marvellous. There have been occasions when every officer has
fallen and yet the men have pushed on, have taken a position and then
waited for official directions.
But if that is so, you will ask, why is it that they have not made more
impression upon the enemy's position? The answer lies in the
strategical position of Italy, and it can be discussed without any
technicalities. A child could understand it. The Alps form such a bar
across the north that there are only two points where serious
operations are possible. One is the Trentino Salient where Austria can
always threaten and invade Italy. She lies in the mountains with the
plains beneath her. She can always invade the plain, but the Italians
cannot seriously invade the mountains, since the passes would only lead
to other mountains beyond. Therefore their only possible policy is to
hold the Austrians back. This they have most successfully done, and
though the Austrians with the aid of a shattering heavy artillery have
recently made some advance, it is perfectly certain that they can never
really carry out any serious invasion. The Italians then have done all
that could be done in this quarter. There remains the other front, the
opening by the sea. Here the Italians had a chance to advance over a
front of plain bounded by a river with hills beyond. They cleared the
plain, they crossed the river, they fought a battle very like our own
battle of the Aisne upon the <DW72>s of the hills, taking 20,000
Austrian prisoners, and now they are faced by barbed wire, machine
guns, cemented trenches, and every other device which has held them as
it has held every one else. But remember what they have done for the
common cause and be grateful for it. They have in a year occupied some
forty Austrian divisions, and relieved our Russian allies to that very
appreciable extent. They have killed or wounded a quarter of a million,
taken 40,000, and drawn to themselves a large portion of the artillery.
That is their record up to date. As to the future it is very easy to
prophesy. They will continue to absorb large enemy armies. Neither side
can advance far as matters stand. But if the Russians advance and
Austria has to draw her men to the East, there will be a tiger spring
for Trieste. If manhood can break the line, then I believe the Durandos
will do it.
'Trieste o morte!' I saw chalked upon the walls all over North Italy.
That is the Italian objective.
And they are excellently led. Cadorna is an old Roman, a man cast in
the big simple mould of antiquity, frugal in his tastes, clear in his
aims, with no thought outside his duty. Every one loves and trusts him.
Porro, the Chief of the Staff, who was good enough to explain the
strategical position to me, struck me as a man of great clearness of
vision, middle-sized, straight as a dart, with an eagle face grained
and like an old walnut. The whole of the staff work is, as
experts assure me, moot excellently done.
So much for the general situation. Let me descend for a moment to my
own trivial adventures since leaving the British front. Of France I
hope to say more in the future, and so I will pass at a bound to Padua,
where it appeared that the Austrian front had politely advanced to meet
me, for I was wakened betimes in the morning by the dropping of bombs,
the rattle of anti-aircraft guns, and the distant rat-tat-tat of a
maxim high up in the air. I heard when I came down later that the
intruder had been driven away and that little damage had been done. The
work of the Austrian aeroplanes is, however, very aggressive behind the
Italian lines, for they have the great advantage that a row of fine
cities lies at their mercy, while the Italians can do nothing without
injuring their own kith and kin across the border. This dropping of
explosives on the chance of hitting one soldier among fifty victims
seems to me the most monstrous development of the whole war, and the
one which should be most sternly repressed in future international
legislation--if such a thing as international law still exists. The
Italian headquarter town, which I will call Nemini, was a particular
victim of these murderous attacks. I speak with some feeling, as not
only was the ceiling of my bedroom shattered some days before my
arrival, but a greasy patch with some black shreds upon it was still
visible above my window which represented part of the remains of an
unfortunate workman, who had been blown to pieces immediately in front
of the house. The air defence is very skilfully managed however, and
the Italians have the matter well in hand.
My first experience of the Italian line was at the portion which I have
called the gap by the sea, otherwise the Isonzo front. From a mound
behind the trenches an extraordinary fine view can be got of the
Austrian position, the general curve of both lines being marked, as in
Flanders, by the sausage balloons which float behind them. The Isonzo,
which has been so bravely carried by the Italians, lay in front of me,
a clear blue river, as broad as the Thames at Hampton Court. In a
hollow to my left were the roofs of Gorizia, the town which the
Italians are endeavouring to take. A long desolate ridge, the Carso,
extends to the south of the town, and stretches down nearly to the sea.
The crest is held by the Austrians and the Italian trenches have been
pushed within fifty yards of them. A lively bombardment was going on
from either side, but so far as the infantry goes there is none of that
constant malignant petty warfare with which we are familiar in
Flanders. I was anxious to see the Italian trenches, in order to
compare them with our British methods, but save for the support and
communication trenches I was courteously but firmly warned off.
The story of trench attack and defence is no doubt very similar in all
quarters, but I am convinced that close touch should be kept between
the Allies on the matter of new inventions. The quick Latin brain may
conceive and test an idea long before we do. At present there seems to
be very imperfect sympathy. As an example, when I was on the British
lines they were dealing with a method of clearing barbed wire. The
experiments were new and were causing great interest. But on the
Italian front I found that the same system had been tested for many
months. In the use of bullet proof jackets for engineers and other men
who have to do exposed work the Italians are also ahead of us. One of
their engineers at our headquarters might give some valuable advice. At
present the Italians have, as I understand, no military representative
with our armies, while they receive a British General with a small
staff. This seems very wrong not only from the point of view of
courtesy and justice, but also because Italy has no direct means of
knowing the truth about our great development. When Germans state that
our new armies are made of paper, our Allies should have some official
assurance of their own that this is false. I can understand our keeping
neutrals from our headquarters, but surely our Allies should be on
another footing.
Having got this general view of the position I was anxious in the
afternoon to visit Monfalcone, which is the small dockyard captured
from the Austrians on the Adriatic. My kind Italian officer guides did
not recommend the trip, as it was part of their great hospitality to
shield their guest from any part of that danger which they were always
ready to incur themselves. The only road to Monfalcone ran close to the
Austrian position at the village of Ronchi, and afterwards kept
parallel to it for some miles. I was told that it was only on odd days
that the Austrian guns were active in this particular section, so
determined to trust to luck that this might not be one of them. It
proved, however, to be one of the worst on record, and we were not
destined to see the dockyard to which we started.
The civilian cuts a ridiculous figure when he enlarges upon small
adventures which may come his way--adventures which the soldier endures
in silence as part of his everyday life. On this occasion, however, the
episode was all our own, and had a sporting flavour in it which made it
dramatic. I know now the feeling of tense expectation with which the
driven grouse whirrs onwards towards the butt. I have been behind the
butt before now, and it is only poetic justice that I should see the
matter from the other point of view. As we approached Ronchi we could
see shrapnel breaking over the road in front of us, but we had not yet
realised that it was precisely for vehicles that the Austrians were
waiting, and that they had the range marked out to a yard. We went down
the road all out at a steady fifty miles an hour. The village was near,
and it seemed that we had got past the place of danger. We had in fact
just reached it. At this moment there was a noise as if the whole four
tyres had gone simultaneously, a most terrific bang in our very ears,
merging into a second sound like a reverberating blow upon an enormous
gong. As I glanced up I saw three clouds immediately above my head, two
of them white and the other of a rusty red. The air was full of flying
metal, and the road, as we were told afterwards by an observer, was all
churned up by it. The metal base of one of the shells was found plumb
in the middle of the road just where our motor had been. There is no
use telling me Austrian gunners can't shoot. I know better.
It was our pace that saved us. The motor was an open one, and the three
shells burst, according to one of my Italian companions who was himself
an artillery officer, about ten metres above our heads. They threw
forward, however, and we travelling at so great a pace shot from under.
Before they could get in another we had swung round the curve and under
the lee of a house. The good Colonel B. wrung my hand in silence. They
were both distressed, these good soldiers, under the impression that
they had led me into danger. As a matter of fact it was I who owed them
an apology, since they had enough risks in the way of business without
taking others in order to gratify the whim of a joy-rider. Barbariche
and Clericetti, this record will convey to you my remorse.
Our difficulties were by no means over. We found an ambulance lorry and
a little group of infantry huddled under the same shelter with the
expression of people who had been caught in the rain. The road beyond
was under heavy fire as well as that by which we had come. Had the
Ostro-Boches dropped a high-explosive upon us they would have had a
good mixed bag. But apparently they were only out for fancy shooting
and disdained a sitter. Presently there came a lull and the lorry moved
on, but we soon heard a burst of firing which showed that they were
after it. My companions had decided that it was out of the question for
us to finish our excursion. We waited for some time therefore and were
able finally to make our retreat on foot, being joined later by the
car. So ended my visit to Monfalcone, the place I did not reach. I hear
that two 10,000-ton steamers were left on the stocks there by the
Austrians, but were disabled before they retired. Their cabin basins
and other fittings are now adorning the Italian dug-outs.
My second day was devoted to a view of the Italian mountain warfare in
the Carnic Alps. Besides the two great fronts, one of defence
(Trentino) and one of offence (Isonzo), there are very many smaller
valleys which have to be guarded. The total frontier line is over four
hundred miles, and it has all to be held against raids if not
invasions. It is a most picturesque business. Far up in the Roccolana
Valley I found the Alpini outposts, backed by artillery which had been
brought into the most wonderful positions. They have taken 8-inch guns
where a tourist could hardly take his knapsack. Neither side can ever
make serious progress, but there are continual duels, gun against gun,
or Alpini against Jaeger. In a little wayside house was the brigade
headquarters, and here I was entertained to lunch. It was a scene that
I shall remember. They drank to England. I raised my glass to Italia
irredenta--might it soon be redenta. They all sprang to their feet and
the circle of dark faces flashed into flame. They keep their souls and
emotions, these people. I trust that ours may not become atrophied by
self-suppression.
The Italians are a quick high-spirited race, and it is very necessary
that we should consider their feelings, and that we should show our
sympathy with what they have done, instead of making querulous and
unreasonable demands of them. In some ways they are in a difficult
position. The war is made by their splendid king--a man of whom every
one speaks with extraordinary reverence and love--and by the people.
The people, with the deep instinct of a very old civilisation,
understand that the liberty of the world and their own national
existence are really at stake. But there are several forces which
divide the strength of the nation. There is the clerical, which
represents the old Guelph or German spirit, looking upon Austria as the
eldest daughter of the Church--a daughter who is little credit to her
mother. Then there is the old nobility. Finally, there are the
commercial people who through the great banks or other similar agencies
have got into the influence and employ of the Germans. When you
consider all this you will appreciate how necessary it is that Britain
should in every possible way, moral and material, sustain the national
party. Should by any evil chance the others gain the upper hand there
might be a very sudden and sinister change in the international
situation. |
10,240 |
Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Charles Bidwell and Online
Distributed Proofreaders
[Illustration: View of the Wye through a Gateway at Crickhowel.]
THE BANKS OF WYE;
A POEM.
In Four Books.
By ROBERT BLOOMFIELD,
Author of _The Farmer's Boy_.
London:
Printed for the Author; Vernor, Hood, and Sharpe, Poultry;
and Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, Paternoster Row;
1811.
Printed by T. Hood and Co., St. John's Square, London.
To THOMAS LLOYD BAKER, ESQ.
Of Stout's Hill, Uley, And His Excellent Lady;
And
ROBERT BRANSBY COOPER, ESQ.
Of Ferwey Hill, Dursley, In The County Of Gloucester,
And All The Members Of His Family,
THIS JOURNAL IS DEDICATED,
With Sentiments Of High Esteem,
And A Lively Recollection Of Past Pleasures,
By Their Humble Servant,
THE AUTHOR.
PREFACE.
In the summer of 1807, a party of my good friends in Gloucestershire
proposed to themselves a short excursion down the Wye, and through part of
South Wales.
While this plan was in agitation, the lines which I had composed on
"Shooter's Hill," during ill health, and inserted in my last volume,
obtained their particular attention. A spirit of prediction, as well as
sorrow, is there indulged; and it was now in the power of this happy party
to falsify such predictions, and to render a pleasure to the writer of no
common kind. An invitation to accompany them was the consequence; and the
following Journal is the result of that invitation.
Should the reader, from being a resident, or frequent visitor, be well
acquainted with the route, and able to discover inaccuracies in distances,
succession of objects, or local particulars, he is requested to recollect,
that the party was out but ten days; a period much too short for correct
and laborious description, but quite sufficient for all the powers of
poetry which I feel capable of exerting. The whole exhibits the language
and feelings of a man who had never before seen a mountainous country; and
of this it is highly necessary that the reader should be apprized.
A Swiss, or perhaps a Scottish Highlander, may smile at supposed or real
exaggerations; but they will be excellent critics, when they call to mind
that they themselves judge, in these cases, as I do, by comparison.
Perhaps it may be said, that because much of public approbation has fallen
to my lot, it was unwise to venture again. I confess that the journey left
such powerful, such unconquerable impressions on my mind, that embodying
my thoughts in rhyme became a matter almost of necessity. To the parties
concerned I know it will be an acceptable little volume: to whom, and to
the public, it Is submitted with due respect.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD.
City Road, London,
June 30,1811
THE BANKS OF WYE.
BOOK I.
CONTENTS OF BOOK I.
The Vale of Uley.--Forest of Dean.--Ross.--Wilton Castle.--Goodrich
Castle.--Courtfield, Welch Bicknor, Coldwell.--Gleaner's Song.--Coldwell
Rocks.--Symmon's Yat.--Great Doward.--New Wier.--Arthur's Hall.--Martin's
Well.--The Coricle.--Arrival at Monmouth.
THE BANKS OF THE WYE.
BOOK I.
"Rouse from thy slumber, pleasure calls, arise,
Quit thy half-rural bower, awhile despise
The thraldom that consumes thee. We who dwell
Far from thy land of smoke, advise thee well.
Here Nature's bounteous hand around shall fling,
Scenes that thy Muse hath never dar'd to sing.
When sickness weigh'd thee down, and strength declin'd;
When dread eternity absorb'd thy mind,
Flow'd the predicting verse, by gloom o'erspread,
That 'Cambrian mountains' thou should'st never tread,
That 'time-worn cliff, and classic stream to see,'
Was wealth's prerogative, despair for thee.
Come to the proof; with us the breeze inhale,
Renounce despair, and come to Severn's vale;
And where the COTSWOLD HILLS are stretch'd along,
Seek our green dell, as yet unknown to song:
Start hence with us, and trace, with raptur'd eye,
The wild meanderings of the beauteous WYE;
Thy ten days leisure ten days joy shall prove,
And rock and stream breathe amity and love."
Such was the call; with instant ardour hail'd.
The syren Pleasure caroll'd and prevail'd;
Soon the deep dell appear'd, and the clear brow
Of ULEY BURY [A] smil'd o'er all below,
[Footnote A: Bury, or Burg, the Saxon name for a hill, particularly for
one wholly or partially formed by art.]
Mansion, and flock, and circling woods that hung
Round the sweet pastures where the sky-lark sung.
O for the fancy, vigorous and sublime,
Chaste as the theme, to triumph over time!
Bright as the rising day, and firm as truth,
To speak new transports to the lowland youth,
That bosoms still might throb, and still adore,
When his who strives to charm them beats no more!
One August morn, with spirits high,
Sound health, bright hopes, and cloudless sky,
A cheerful group their farewell bade
To DURSLEY tower, to ULEY'S shade;
And where bold STINCHCOMB'S greenwood side.
Heaves in the van of highland pride,
Scour'd the broad vale of Severn; there
The foes of verse shall never dare
Genius to scorn, or bound its power,
There blood-stain'd BERKLEY'S turrets low'r,
A name that cannot pass away,
Till time forgets "the Bard" of GRAY.
Quitting fair Glo'ster's northern road,
To gain the pass of FRAMELODE,
Before us DEAN'S black forest spread,
And MAY HILL, with his tufted head,
Beyond the ebbing tide appear'd;
And Cambria's distant mountains rear'd
Their dark blue summits far away;
And SEVERN,'midst the burning day,
Curv'd his bright line, and bore along
The mingled _Avon_, pride of song.
The trembling steeds soon ferry'd o'er,
Neigh'd loud upon the forest shore;
Domains that once, at early morn,
Rang to the hunter's bugle horn,
When barons proud would bound away;
When even kings would hail the day,
And swell with pomp more glorious shows,
Than ant-hill population knows.
Here crested chiefs their bright-arm'd train
Of javelin'd horsemen rous'd amain,
And chasing wide the wolf or boar,
Bade the deep woodland vallies roar.
Harmless we past, and unassail'd,
Nor once at roads or tumpikes rail'd:
Through depths of shade oft sun-beams broke,
Midst noble FLAXLEY'S bowers of oak;
And many a cottage trim and gay,
Whisper'd delight through all the way;
On hills expos'd, in dells unseen,
To patriarchal MITCHEL DEAN.
Rose-cheek'd _Pomona_ there was seen,
And _Ceres_ edg'd her fields between,
And on each hill-top mounted high,
Her sickle wav'd in extasy;
Till Ross, thy charms all hearts confess'd,
Thy peaceful walks, thy hours of rest
And contemplation. Here the mind,
With all its luggage left behind,
Dame Affectation's leaden wares,
Spleen, envy, pride, life's thousand cares,
Feels all its dormant fires revive,
And sees "the _Man of Ross_" alive;
And hears the Twick'nham Bard again,
To KYRL'S high virtues lift his strain;
Whose own hand cloth'd this far-fam'd hill
With rev'rend elms, that shade us still;
Whose mem'ry shall survive the day,
When elms and empires feel decay.
KYRL die, by bard ennobled? Never;
"_The Man of Ross_" shall live for ever;
Ross, that exalts its spire on high,
Above the flow'ry-margin'd WYE,
Scene of the morrow's joy, that prest
Its unseen beauties on our rest
In dreams; but who of dreams would tell,
Where truth sustains the song so well?
The morrow came, and Beauty's eye
Ne'er beam'd upon a lovelier sky;
Imagination instant brought,
And dash'd amidst the train of thought,
Tints of the bow. The boatman stript;
Glee at the helm exulting tript,
And way'd her flower-encircled wand,
"Away, away, to Fairy Land."
Light dipt the oars; but who can name
The various objects dear to fame,
That changing, doubting, wild, and strong,
Demand the noblest powers of song?
Then, O forgive the vagrant Muse,
Ye who the sweets of Nature choose;
And thou whom destiny hast tied
To this romantic river's side,
Down gazing from each close retreat,
On boats that glide beneath thy feet,
Forgive the stranger's meagre line,
That seems to slight that spot of thine;
For he, alas! could only glean
The changeful outlines of the scene;
A momentary bliss; and here
Links memory's power with rapture's tear.
Who curb'd the barons' kingly power[A]?
[Footnote A: Henry the Seventh gave an irrevocable blow to the dangerous
privileges assumed by the barons, in abolishing liveries and retainers, by
which every malefactor could shelter himself from the law, on assuming a
nobleman's livery, and attending his person. And as a finishing stroke to
the feudal tenures, an act was passed, by which the barons and gentlemen
of landed interest were at liberty to sell and mortgage their lands,
without fines or licences for the alienation.]
Let hist'ry tell that fateful hour
At home, when surly winds shall roar,
And prudence shut the study door.
DE WILTON'S here of mighty name,
The whelming flood, the summer stream,
Mark'd from their towers.--The fabric falls,
The rubbish of their splendid halls,
Time in his march hath scatter'd wide,
And blank oblivion strives to hide.
Awhile the grazing herd was seen,
And trembling willow's silver green,
Till the fantastic current stood,
In line direct for PENCRAIG WOOD;
Whose bold green summit welcome bade,
Then rear'd behind his nodding shade.
Here, as the light boat skimm'd along,
The clarionet, and chosen song,
That mellow, wild, Eolian lay,
"Sweet in the Woodlands," roll'd away,
In echoes down the stream, that bore
Each dying close to every shore,
And forward Cape, and woody range,
That form the never-ceasing change,
To him who floating, void of care,
Twirls with the stream, he knows not where;
Till bold, impressive, and sublime,
Gleam'd all that's left by storms and time
Of GOODRICH TOWERS. The mould'ring pile
Tells noble truths,--but dies the while;
O'er the steep path, through brake and briar,
His batter'd turrets still aspire,
In rude magnificence. 'Twas here
LANCASTRIAN HENRY spread his cheer,
When came the news that HAL was born,
And MONMOUTH hail'd th' auspicious morn;
A boy in sports, a prince in war,
Wisdom and valour crown'd his car;
Of France the terror, England's glory,
As Stratford's bard has told the story.
No butler's proxies snore supine,
Where the old monarch kept his wine;
No Welch ox roasting, horns and all,
Adorns his throng'd and laughing hall;
But where he pray'd, and told his beads,
A thriving ash luxuriant spreads.
No wheels by piecemeal brought the pile;
No barks embowel'd Portland Isle;
Dig, cried experience, dig away,
Bring the firm quarry into day,
The excavation still shall save
Those ramparts which its entrails gave.
"Here kings shall dwell," the builders cried;
"Here England's foes shall low'r their pride;
Hither shall suppliant nobles come,
And this be England's royal home."
Vain hope! for on the Gwentian shore,
The regal banner streams no more!
Nettles, and vilest weeds that grow,
To mock poor grandeur's head laid low,
Creep round the turrets valour rais'd,
And flaunt where youth and beauty gaz'd.
Here fain would strangers loiter long,
And muse as Fancy's woof grows strong;
Yet cold the heart that could complain,
Where POLLETT [Footnote: The boatman.] struck his oars again;
For lovely as the sleeping child,
The stream glides on sublimely wild,
In perfect beauty, perfect ease;
The awning trembled in the breeze,
And scarcely trembled, as we stood
For RUERDEAN Spire, and BISHOP'S WOOD.
The fair domains of COURTFIELD [A] made
A paradise of mingled shade
[Footnote A: A seat belonging to the family of Vaughan, which is not
unnoticed in the pages of history. According to tradition, it is the place
where Henry the Fifth was nursed, under the care of the Countess of
Salisbury, from which circumstance the original name of Grayfield is said
to have been changed to Courtfield. (This is probably an erroneous
tradition; for Court was a common name for a manor-house, where the lord
of the manor held his court.--_Core's Monmouth_.)]
Round BICKNOR'S tiny church, that cowers
Beneath his host of woodland bowers.
But who the charm of words shall fling,
O'er RAVEN CLIFF and COLDWELL Spring,
To brighten the unconscious eye,
And wake the soul to extasy?
Noon scorch'd the fields; the boat lay to;
The dripping oars had nought to do,
Where round us rose a scene that might
Enchant an ideot--glorious sight!
Here, in one gay according mind,
Upon the sparkling stream we din'd;
As shepherds free on mountain heath,
Free as the fish that watch'd beneath
For falling crumbs, where cooling lay
The wine that cheer'd us on our way.
Th' unruffled bosom of the stream,
Gave every tint and every gleam;
Gave shadowy rocks, and clear blue sky,
And double clouds of various dye;
Gave dark green woods, or russet brown,
And pendant corn-fields, upside down.
A troop of gleaners chang'd their shade,
And 'twas a change by music made;
For slowly to the brink they drew,
To mark our joy, and share it too.
How oft, in childhood's flow'ry days,
I've heard the wild impassion'd lays
Of such a group, lays strange and new,
And thought, was ever song so true?
When from the hazel's cool retreat,
They watch'd the summer's trembling heat;
And through the boughs rude urchins play'd,
Where matrons, round the laughing maid,
Prest the long grass beneath! And here
They doubtless shar'd an equal cheer;
Enjoy'd the feast with equal glee,
And rais'd the song of revelry:
Yet half abash'd reserv'd, and shy,
Watch'd till the strangers glided by.
GLEANER'S SONG
Dear Ellen, your tales are all plenteously stor'd,
With the joys of some bride, and the wealth of her lord.
Of her chariots and dresses,
And worldly caresses,
And servants that fly when she's waited upon:
But what can she boast if she weds unbelov'd?
Can she e'er feel the joy that one morning I prov'd,
When I put on my new gown and waited for John?
These fields, my dear Ellen, I knew them of yore,
Yet to me they ne'er look'd so enchanting before;
The distant bells ringing,
The birds round us singing,
For pleasure is pure when affection is won;
They told me the troubles and cares of a wife;
But I lov'd him; and that was the pride of my life,
When I put on my new gown and waited for John.
He shouted and ran, as he leapt from the stile;
And what in my bosom was passing the while?
For love knows the blessing
Of ardent caressing,
When virtue inspires us, and doubts are all gone.
The sunshine of Fortune you say is divine;
True love and the sunshine of Nature were mine,
When I put on my new gown and waited for John.
Never could spot be suited less
To bear memorials of distress;
None, cries the sage, more fit is found,
They strike at once a double wound;
Humiliation bids you sigh,
And think of immortality.
Close on the bank, and half o'ergrown,
Beneath a dark wood's soinbrous frown,
A monumental stone appears,
Of one who in his blooming years,
While bathing spurn'd the grassy shore,
And sunk, midst friends, to rise no more;
By parents witness'd--Hark! their shrieks!
The dreadful language horror speaks!
But why in verse attempt to tell
That tale the stone records so well[A]?
[Footnote A: _Inscription on the side towards the water._
"Sacred to the memory of JOHN WHITEHEAD WARRE, who perished near this
spot, whilst bathing in the river Wye, in sight of his afflicted parents,
brother, and sister, on the 11th of September, 1804, in the sixteenth year
of his age.
GOD'S WILL BE DONE,
"Who, in his mercy, hath granted consolation to the parents of the dear
departed, in the reflection, that he possessed truth, innocence, filial
piety, and fraternal affection, in the highest degree. That, but a few
moments before he was called to a better life, he had (with a never to be
forgotten piety) joined his family in joyful thanks to his Maker, for the
restoration of his mother's health. His parents, in justice to his amiable
virtue, and excellent disposition, declare, that he was void of offence
towards them. With humbled hearts they bow to the Almighty's dispensation;
trusting, through the mediation of his blessed Son, he will mercifully
receive their child he so suddenly took to himself.
"This monument is here erected to warn parents and others how they trust
the deceitful stream; and particularly to exhort them to learn and observe
the directions of the Humane Society, for the recovery of persons
apparently drowned. Alas! it is with the extremest sorrow here
commemorated, what anguish is felt from a want of this knowledge. The
lamented swam very well; was endowed with great bodily strength and
activity; and possibly, had proper application been used, might have been
saved from his untimely fate. He was born at Oporto, in the kingdom of
Portugal, on the 14th of February, 1789; third son of James Warre, of
London, and of the county of Somerset, merchant, and Elinor, daughter of
Thomas Gregg, of Belfast, Esq.
"Passenger, whoever thou art, spare this tomb! It is erected for the
benefit of the surviving, being but a poor record of the grief of those
who witnessed the sad occasion of it. God preserve you and yours from such
calamity! May you not require their assistance; but if you should, the
apparatus, with directions for the application by the Humane Society, for
the saving of persons apparently drowned, are lodged at the church of
Coldwell."
_On the opposite side is inscribed_
"It is with gratitude acknowledged by the parents of the deceased, that
permission was gratuitously, and most obligingly, granted for the erection
of this monument, by William Vaughan, Esq. of Courtfield."]
Nothing could damp th'awaken'd joy,
Not e'en thy fate, ingenuous boy;
The great, the grand of Nature strove,
To lift our hearts to life and love.
HAIL! COLDWELL ROCKS; frown, frown away;
Thrust from your woods your shafts of gray:
Fall not, to crush our mortal pride,
Or stop the stream on which we glide.
Our lives are short, our joys are few;
But, giants, what is time to you?
Ye who erect, in many a mass,
Rise from the scarcely dimpled glass,
That with distinct and mellow glow,
Reflect your monstrous forms below;
Or in clear shoals, in breeze or sun,
Shake all your shadows into one;
Boast ye o'er man in proud disdain,
An everlasting silent reign?
Bear ye your heads so high in scorn
Of names that puny man hath borne?
Would that the Cambrian bards had here
Their names carv'd deep, so deep, so clear,
That such as gaily wind along,
Might shout and cheer them with a song;
Might rush on wings of bliss away,
Through Fancy's boundless blaze of day!
Not nameless quite ye lift your brows,
For each the navigator knows;
Not by King Arthur, or his knights,
Bard faim'd in lays, or chief in fights:
But former tourists, just us free,
(Tho' surely not so blest as we,)
Mark'd towering BEARCROFT'S ivy crown,
And grey VANSITTART'S waving gown:
And who's that giant by his side?
"SERGEANT ADAIR," the boatman cried.
Strange may it seem, however true,
That here, where law has nought to do,
Where rules and bonds are set aside,
By wood, by rock, by stream defy'd;
That here, where nature seems at strife
With all that tells of busy life,
Man should by _names_ be carried still,
To Babylon against his will.
But how shall memory rehearse,
Or dictate the untoward verse
That truth demands? Could he refuse
Thy unsought honours, darling Muse,
He who in idle, happy trim,
Rode just where friends would carry him?
Truth, I obey.--The generous band,
That spread his board and grasp'd his hand,
In native mirth, as here they came,
Gave a bluff rock _his_ humble name:
A yew-tree clasps its rugged base;
The boatman knows its reverend face;
And with his _memory_ and his _fee_,
Rests the result that time shall see.
Yet e'en if time shall sweep away
The fragile whimsies of a day;
Or travellers rest the dashing oar,
To hear the mingled echoes roar;
A stranger's triumph--he will feel
A joy that death alone can steal.
And should he cold indifference feign,
And treat such honours with disdain,
Pretending pride shall not deceive him,
Good people all, pray don't believe him;
In such a spot to leave a name,
At least is no opprobrious fame;
This rock perhaps uprear'd his brow,
Ere human blood began to flow.
And let not wandering strangers fear
That WYE is ended there or here;
Though foliage close, though hills may seem
To bar all access to a stream,
Some airy height he climbs amain,
And finds the silver eel again.
No fears we form'd, no labours counted,
Yet SYMMON'S YAT must be surmounted;
A tower of rock that seems to cry,
'Go round about me, neighbour WYE[A].'
[Footnote A: This rocky isthmus, perforated at the base, would measure not
more than six hundred yards, and its highest point is two thousand feet
above the water. If this statement, taken from Coxe's History of
Monmouthshire, and an Excursion down the Wye, by C. Heath, of Monmouth, is
correct, its elevation is greater than that of the "Pen-y-Vale," or the
"Sugar-Loaf Hill," near Abergavenny. Yet it has less the appearance of a
mountain, than the river has that of an excavation.]
On went the boat, and up the steep
Her straggling crew began to creep,
To gain the ridge, enjoy the view,
Where the the pure gales of summer blew.
The gleaming WYE, that circles round
Her four-mile course, again is found;
And crouching to the conqueror's pride,
Bathes his huge cliffs on either side;
Seen at one glance, when from his brow,
The eye surveys twin gulphs below.
Whence comes thy name? What _Symon_ he,
Who gain'd a monument in thee?
Perhaps a rude woodhunter, born
Peril, and toil, and death, to scorn;
Or warrior, with his powerful lance,
Who scal'd the cliff to gain a glance;
Or shepherd lad, or humble swain,
Who sought for pasture here in vain;
Or venerable bard, who strove
To tune his harp to themes of love;
Or with a poet's ardent flame,
Sung to the winds his country's fame?
Westward GREAT DOWARD, stretching wide,
Upheaves his iron-bowel'd side;
And by his everlasting mound,
Prescribes th' imprison'd river's bound,
And strikes the eye with mountain force:
But stranger mark thy rugged course
From crag to crag, unwilling, slow,
To NEW WIER forge that smokes below.
Here rush'd the keel like lightning by;
The helmsman watch'd with anxious eye;
And oars alternate touch'd the brim,
To keep the flying boat in trim.
[Illustration: NEW WEAR on the WYE]
Hush! not a whisper! Oars, be still!
Comes that soft sound from yonder hill?
Or is it close at hand, so near
It scarcely strikes the list'ning ear?
E'en so; for down the green bank fell,
An ice-cold stream from Martin's Well,
Bright as young beauty's azure eye,
And pure as infant chastity,
Each limpid draught, suffus'd with dew,
The dipping glass's crystal hue;
And as it trembling reach'd the lip,
Delight sprung up at every sip.
Pure, temperate joys, and calm, were these;
We tost upon no Indian seas;
No savage chiefs, of various hue,
Came jabbering in the bark canoe
Our strength to dare, our course to turn;
Yet boats a South Sea chief would burn[A],
[Footnote A: In Caesar's Commentaries, mention is made of boats of this
description, formed of a raw hide, (from whence, perhaps, their name
Coricle,) which were in use among the natives. How little they dreamed of
the vastnss of modern perfection, and of the naval conflicts of latter
days!]
Sculk'd in the alder shade. Each bore,
Devoid of keel, or sail, or oar,
An upright fisherman, whose eye,
With Bramin-like solemnity,
Survey'd the surface either way,
And cleav'd it like a fly at play;
And crossways bore a balanc'd pole,
To drive the salmon from his hole;
Then heedful leapt, without parade,
On shore, as luck or fancy bade;
And o'er his back, in gallant trim,
Swung the light shell that carried him;
Then down again his burden threw,
And launch'd his whirling bowl anew;
Displaying, in his bow'ry station,
The infancy of navigation.
Soon round us spread the hills and dales,
Where GEOFFREY spun his magic tales,
And call'd them history. The land
Whence ARTHUR sprung, and all his band
Of gallant knights. Sire of romance,
Who led the fancy's mazy dance,
Thy tales shall please, thy name still be,
When Time forgets my verse and me.
Low sunk the sun, his ev'ning beam
Scarce reach'd us on the tranquil stream;
Shut from the world, and all its din,
Nature's own bonds had clos'd us in;
Wood, and deep dell, and rock, and ridge,
From smiling Ross to Monmouth Bridge;
From morn, till twilight stole away,
A long, unclouded, glorious day.
END OF THE FIRST BOOK.
THE BANKS OF WYE
BOOK II
CONTENTS OF BOOK II.
Henry the Fifth.--Morning on the Water.--Landoga.--Ballad, "The Maid of
Landoga."--Tintern Abbey.--Wind-Cliff.--Arrival at Chepstow.--Persfield.--
Ballad, "Morris of Persfield."--View from Wind-Cliff.--Chepstow Castle by
Moonlight.
BOOK II.
HARRY of MONMOUTH, o'er thy page,
Great chieftain of a daring age,
The stripling soldier burns to see
The spot of thy nativity;
His ardent fancy can restore
Thy castle's turrets, now no more;
See the tall plumes of victory wave,
And call old valour from the grave;
Twang the strong bow, and point the lance,
That pierc'd the shatter'd hosts of France,
When Europe, in the days of yore,
Shook at the rampant lion's roar.
Ten hours were all we could command;
The Boat was moor'd upon the strand,
The midnight current, by her side,
Was stealing down to meet the tide;
The wakeful steersman ready lay,
To rouse us at the break of day;
It came--how soon! and what a sky,
To cheer the bounding traveller's eye!
To make him spurn his couch of rest,
To shout upon the river's breast;
Watching by turns the rosy hue
Of early cloud, or sparkling dew;
These living joys the verse shall tell,
Harry, and Monmouth, fare-ye-well.
On upland farm, and airy height,
Swept by the breeze, and cloth'd in light,
The reapers, early from their beds,
Perhaps were singing o'er our heads.
For, stranger, deem not that the eye
Could hence survey the eastern sky;
Or mark the streak'd horizon's bound,
Where first the rosy sun wheels round;
Deep in the gulf beneath were we,
Whence climb'd blue mists o'er rock and tree;
A mingling, undulating crowd,
That form'd the dense or fleecy cloud;
Slow from the darken'd stream upborne,
They caught the quick'ning gales of morn;
There bade their parent WYE good day,
And ting'd with purple sail'd away.
The MUNNO join'd us all unseen,
TROY HOUSE, and BEAUFORT'S bowers of green,
And nameless prospects, half defin'd,
Involv'd in mist, were left behind.
Yet as the boat still onward bore,
These ramparts of the eastern shore
Cower'd the high crest to many a sweep,
And bade us o'er each minor steep
Mark the bold KYMIN'S sunny brow,
That, gleaming o'er our fogs below,
Lifted amain with giant power,
E'en to the clouds his NAVAL TOWER[1];
[Footnote 1: The Kymin Pavilion, erected in honour of the British
Admirals, and their unparalleled victories.]
Proclaiming to the morning sky,
Valour, and fame, and victory.
The air resign'd its hazy blue,
Just as LANDOGA came in view;
Delightful village! one by one,
Its climbing dwellings caught the sun.
So bright the scene, the air so clear,
Young Love and Joy seem'd station'd here;
And each with floating banners cried,
"Stop friends, you'll meet the slimy tide."
Rude fragments, torn, disjointed, wild,
High on the Glo'ster shore are pil'd;
No ruin'd fane, the boast of years,
Unstain'd by time the group appears;
With foaming wrath, and hideous swell,
Brought headlong down a woodland dell,
When a dark thunder-storm had spread
Its terrors round the guilty head;
When rocks, earth-bound, themselves gave way,
When crash'd the prostrate timbers lay.
O, it had been a noble sight,
Crouching beyond the torrent's might,
To mark th' uprooted victims bow,
The grinding masses dash below,
And hear the long deep peal the while
Burst over TINTERN'S roofless pile!
Then, as the sun regain'd his power,
When the last breeze from hawthorn bower,
Or Druid oak, had shook away
The rain-drops'midst the gleaming day,
Perhaps the sigh of hope return'd
And love in some chaste bosom burn'd,
And softly trill'd the stream along,
Some rustic maiden's village song.
The Maid of Landoga.
Return, my Llewellyn, the glory
That heroes may gain o'er the sea,
Though nations may feel
Their invincible steel,
By falsehood is tarnish'd in story;
Why tarry, Llewellyn, from me?
Thy sails, on the fathomless ocean,
Are swell'd by the boisterous gale;
How rests thy tir'd head
On the rude rocking bed?
While here not a leaf is in motion,
And melody reigns in the dale.
The mountains of Monmouth invite thee;
The WYE, O how beautiful here!
This woodbine, thine own,
Hath the cottage o'ergrown,
O what foreign shore can delight thee,
And where is the current so clear?
Can lands where false pleasure assails thee,
And beauty invites thee to roam;
Can the deep orange grove
Charm with shadows of love?
Thy love at LANDOGA bewails thee;
Remember her truth and thy home.
Adieu, LANDOGA, scene most dear,
Farewell we bade to ETHEL'S WIER;
Round many a point then bore away,
Till morn was chang'd to beauteous day:
And forward on the lowland shore,
Silent majestic ruins wore
The stamp of holiness; this strand
The steersman hail'd, and touch'd the land.
SUDDEN the change; at once to tread
The grass-grown mansions of the dead!
Awful to feeling, where, immense,
Rose ruin'd, gray magnificence;
The fair-wrought shaft all ivy-bound,
The tow'ring arch with foliage crown'd,
That trembles on its brow sublime,
Triumphant o'er the spoils of time.
Here, grasping all the eye beheld,
Thought into mingling anguish swell'd.
And check'd the wild excursive wing,
O'er dust or bones of priest or king;
Or rais'd some STRONGBOW[A] warrior's ghost
To shout before his banner'd host.
[Footnote A: They shew here a mutilated figure, which they call the famous
Earl Strongbow; but it appears from Coxe that he was buried at
Gloucester.]
But all was still.--The chequer'd floor
Shall echo to the step no more;
Nor airy roof the strain prolong,
Of vesper chant or choral song.
TINTERN, thy name shall hence sustain
A thousand raptures in my brain;
Joys, full of soul, all strength, all eye,
That cannot fade, that cannot die.
No loitering here, lone walks to steal,
Welcome the early hunter's meal;
For time and tide, stern couple, ran
Their endless race, and laugh'd at man;
Deaf, had we shouted, "turn about?"
Or, "wait a while, till we come out;"
To humour them we check'd our pride,
And ten cheer'd hearts stow'd side by side;
Push'd from the shore with current strong,
And, "Hey for Chepstow," steer'd along.
Amidst the bright expanding day,
Solemnly deep, dark shadows lay,
Of that rich foliage, tow'ring o'er
Where princely abbots dwelt of yore.
The mind, with instantaneous glance,
Beholds his barge of state advance,
Borne proudly down the ebbing tide,
She turns the waving boughs aside;
She winds with flowing pendants drest,
And as the current turns south-west,
She strikes her oars, where full in view,
Stupendous WIND-CLIFF greets his crew.
But, Fancy, let thy day-dreams cease,
With fallen greatness be at peace;
Enough; for WIND-CLIFF still was found
To hail us as we doubled round.
Bold in primeval strength he stood;
His rocky brow, all shagg'd with wood,
O'er-look'd his base, where, doubling strong,
The inward torrent pours along;
Then ebbing turns, and turns again,
To meet the Severn and the Main,
Beneath the dark shade sweeping round,
Of beetling PERSFIELD'S fairy ground,
By buttresses of rock upborne,
The rude APOSTLES all unshorn.
Long be the slaught'ring axe defy'd;
Long may they bear their waving pride;
Tree over tree, bower over bower,
In uncurb'd nature's wildest power;
Till WYE forgets to wind below,
And genial spring to bid them grow.
And shall we e'er forget the day,
When our last chorus died away?
When first we hail'd, then moor'd beside
Rock-founded CHEPSTOW'S mouldering pride?
Where that strange bridge[1], light, trembling, high,
Strides like a spider o'er the WYE;
[Footnote 1: "On my arrival at Chepstow," says Mr. Coxe, "I walked to the
bridge; it was low water, and I looked down on the river ebbing between
forty and fifty feet beneath; six hours after it rose near forty feet,
almost reached the floor of the bridge, and flowed upward with great
rapidity. The channel in this place being narrow in proportion to the
Severn, and confined between perpendicular cliffs, the great rise and fall
of the river are peculiarly manifest."]
When, for the joys the morn had giv'n,
Our thankful hearts were rais'd to heav'n?
Never;--that moment shall be dear,
While hills can charm, or sun-beams cheer.
Pollett, farewell! Thy dashing oar
Shall lull us into peace no more;
But where Kyrl trimm'd his infant green,
Long mayst thou with thy bark be seen;
And happy be the hearts that glide
Through such a scene, with such a guide.
The verse of gravel walks that tells,
With pebble rocks and mole-hill swells,
May strain description's bursting cheeks,
And far out-run the goal it seeks.
Not so when ev'ning's purpling hours,
Hied us away to Persfield bowers:
Here no such danger waits the lay,
Sing on, and truth shall lead the way;
Here sight may range, and hearts may glow,
Yet shrink from the abyss below;
Here echoing precipices roar,
As youthful ardour shouts before;
Here a sweet paradise shall rise
At once to greet poetic eyes.
Then why does he dispel, unkind,
The sweet illusion from the mind,
That giant, with the goggling eye,
Who strides in mock sublimity?
Giants, identified, may frown,
Nature and taste would knock them down:
Blocks that usurp some noble station,
As if to curb imagination,
That, smiling at the chissel's pow'r,
Makes better monsters erery hour.
Beneath impenetrable green,
Down'midst the hazel stems was seen
The turbid stream, with all that past;
The lime-white deck, the gliding mast;
Or skiff with gazers darting by,
Who rais'd their hands in extasy.
Impending cliffs hung overhead;
The rock-path sounded to the tread,
Where twisted roots, in many a fold,
Through moss, disputed room for hold.
The stranger thus who steals one hour
To trace thy walks from bower to bower,
Thy noble cliffs, thy wildwood joys,
Nature's own work that never cloys,
Who, while reflection bids him roam,
Exclaims not, "PERSFIELD is my _home_"
Can ne'er, with dull unconscious eye,
Leave them behind without a sigh.
Thy tale of truth then, Sorrow, tell,
Of one who bade _this home_ farewell;
MORRIS of PERSFIELD.--Hark, the strains!
Hark! 'tis some Monmouth bard complains!
The deeds, the worth, he knew so well,
The force of nature bids him tell.
MORRIS OF PERSFIELD
Who was lord of yon beautiful seat;
Yon woods which are tow'ring so high?
Who spread the rich board for the great,
Yet listen'd to pity's soft sigh?
Who gave alms with a spirit so free?
Who succour'd distress at his door?
Our Morris of Persfield was he,
Who dwelt in the hearts of the poor.
But who e'en of wealth shall make sure,
Since wealth to misfortune has bow'd?
Long cherish'd untainted and pure,
The stream of his charity flow'd.
But all his resources gave way,
O what could his feelings controul?
What shall curb, in the prosperous day,
Th' excess of a generous soul?
He bade an adieu to the town,
O, can I forget the sad day?
When I saw the poor widows kneel down,
To bless him, to weep, and to pray.
Though sorrow was mark'd in his eye,
This trial he manfully bore;
Then pass'd o'er the bridge of the WYE,
To return to his PERSFIELD no more.
Yet surely another may feel,
And poverty still may be fed;
I was one who rung out the dumb peal,
For to us noble MORRIS was dead.
He had not lost sight of his home,
Yon domain that so lovely appears,
When he heard it, and sunk overcome;
He could feel, and he burst into tears.
The lessons of prudence have charms,
And slighted, may lead to distress;
But the man whom benevolence warms,
Is an angel who lives but to bless.
If ever man merited fame,
If ever man's failings went free,
Forgot at the sound of his name,
Our Morris of Persfield was he[1].
[Footnote 1: The author is equally indebted to Mr. Coxe's County History
for this anecdote, as for the greater part of the notes subjoined
throughout the Journal.]
CLEFT from the summit, who shall say
_When_ WIND-CLIFF'S other half gave way?
Or when the sea-waves roaring strong,
First drove the rock-bound tide along?
To studious leisure be resign'd,
The task that leads the wilder'd mind
From time's first birth throughout the range
Of Nature's everlasting change.
Soon from his all-commanding brow,
Lay PERSFIELD'S rocks and woods below.
Back over MONMOUTH who could trace
The WYE'S fantastic mountain race?
Before us, sweeping far and wide.
Lay out-stretch'd SEVERN'S ocean tide,
Through whose blue mists, all upward blown,
Broke the faint lines of heights unknown;
And still, though clouds would interpose,
The COTSWOLD promontories rose
In dark succession: STINCHCOMB'S brow,
With BERKLEY CASTLE crouch'd below;
And stranger spires on either hand,
From THORNBURY, on the Glo'ster strand;
With black-brow'd woods, and yellow fields,
The boundless wealth that summer yields,
Detain'd the eye, that glanc'd again
O'er KINGROAD anchorage to the main.
Or was the bounded view preferr'd,
Far, far beneath the spreading herd
Low'd as the cow-boy stroll'd along,
And cheerly sung his last new song.
But cow-boy, herd, and tide, and spire,
Sunk Into gloom, the tinge of fire,
As westward roll'd the setting day,
Fled like a golden dream away.
Then CHEPSTOW'S ruin'd fortress caught
The mind's collected store of thought,
And seem'd, with mild but jealous frown,
To promise peace, and warn us down.
Twas well; for he has much to boast,
Much still that tells of glories lost,
Though rolling years have form'd the sod,
Where once the bright-helm'd warrior trod
From tower to tower, and gaz'd around,
While all beneath him slept profound.
E'en on the walls where pac'd the brave,
High o'er his crumbling turrets wave
The rampant seedlings--Not a breath
Past through their leaves; when, still as death,
We stopp'd to watch the clouds--for night
Grew splendid with encreasing light,
Till, as time loudly told the hour,
Gleam'd the broad front of MARTEN'S TOWER[1],
[Footnote 1: Henry Marten, whose signature appears upon the death-warrant
of Charles the First, finished his days here in prison. Marten lived to
the advanced age of seventy-eight, and died by a stroke of apoplexy, which
seized him while he was at dinner, in the twentieth year of his
confinement. He was buried in the chancel of the parish church at
Chepstow. Over his ashes was placed a stone with an inscription, which
remained there until one of the succeeding vicars declaring his abhorrence
that the monument of a rebel should stand so near the altar, removed the
stone into the body of the church!]
[Illustration: Marten's Tower, Chepstow Castle.]
Bright silver'd by the moon.--Then rose
The wild notes sacred to repose;
Then the lone owl awoke from rest,
Stretch'd his keen talons, plum'd his crest,
And from his high embattl'd station,
Hooted a trembling salutation.
Rocks caught the "halloo" from his tongue,
And PERSFIELD back the echoes flung
Triumphant o'er th' illustrious dead,
Their history lost, their glories fled.
END OF THE SECOND BOOK.
BOOK III.
CONTENTS OF BOOK III.
Departure for Ragland.--Ragland Castle.--Abergavenny.--Expedition up the
"Pen-y-Vale," or Sugar-Loaf Hill.--Invocation to the Spirit of Burns.--
View from the Mountain.--Castle of Abergaveuny.--Departure for Brecon.--
Pembrokes of Crickbowel--Tre-Tower Castle.--Jane Edwards.
THE BANKS OF WYE.
BOOK III.
PEACE to your white-wall'd cots, ye vales,
Untainted fly your summer gales;
Health, thou from cities lov'st to roam,
O make the Monmouth hills your home!
Great spirits of her bards of yore,
While harvests triumph, torrents roar,
Train her young shepherds, train them high
To sing of mountain liberty:
Give them the harp and modest maid;
Give them the sacred village shade.
Long be Llandenny, and Llansoy,
Names that import a rural joy;
Known to our fathers, when May-day
Brush'd a whole twelvemonth's cares away.
Oft on the lisping infant's tongue
Reluctant information hung,
Till, from a belt of woods full grown,
Arose immense thy turrets brown,
Majestic RAGLAND! |
10,240 |
Produced by Jeffrey Kraus-yao
The Man Who Would be King
By
Rudyard Kipling
Published by Brentano's at 31 Union Square New York
THE MAN WHO WOULD
BE KING
"Brother to a Prince and fellow to a beggar if he be found worthy."
The Law, as quoted, lays down a fair conduct of life, and one not easy
to follow. I have been fellow to a beggar again and again under
circumstances which prevented either of us finding out whether the
other was worthy. I have still to be brother to a Prince, though I once
came near to kinship with what might have been a veritable King and was
promised the reversion of a Kingdom--army, law-courts, revenue and
policy all complete. But, to-day, I greatly fear that my King is dead,
and if I want a crown I must go and hunt it for myself.
The beginning of everything was in a railway train upon the road to
Mhow from Ajmir. There had been a deficit in the Budget, which
necessitated travelling, not Second-class, which is only half as dear
as First-class, but by Intermediate, which is very awful indeed. There
are no cushions in the Intermediate class, and the population are
either Intermediate, which is Eurasian, or native, which for a long
night journey is nasty; or Loafer, which is amusing though intoxicated.
Intermediates do not patronize refreshment-rooms. They carry their food
in bundles and pots, and buy sweets from the native sweetmeat-sellers,
and drink the roadside water. That is why in the hot weather
Intermediates are taken out of the carriages dead, and in all weathers
are most properly looked down upon.
My particular Intermediate happened to be empty till I reached
Nasirabad, when a huge gentleman in shirt-sleeves entered, and,
following the custom of Intermediates, passed the time of day. He was a
wanderer and a vagabond like myself, but with an educated taste for
whiskey. He told tales of things he had seen and done, of
out-of-the-way corners of the Empire into which he had penetrated, and
of adventures in which he risked his life for a few days' food. "If
India was filled with men like you and me, not knowing more than the
crows where they'd get their next day's rations, it isn't seventy
millions of revenue the land would be paying--it's seven hundred
million," said he; and as I looked at his mouth and chin I was disposed
to agree with him. We talked politics--the politics of Loaferdom that
sees things from the underside where the lath and plaster is not
smoothed off--and we talked postal arrangements because my friend
wanted to send a telegram back from the next station to Ajmir, which is
the turning-off place from the Bombay to the Mhow line as you travel
westward. My friend had no money beyond eight annas which he wanted for
dinner, and I had no money at all, owing to the hitch in the Budget
before mentioned. Further, I was going into a wilderness where, though
I should resume touch with the Treasury, there were no telegraph
offices. I was, therefore, unable to help him in any way.
"We might threaten a Station-master, and make him send a wire on tick,"
said my friend, "but that'd mean inquiries for you and for me, and I've
got my hands full these days. Did you say you are travelling back along
this line within any days?"
"Within ten," I said.
"Can't you make it eight?" said he. "Mine is rather urgent business."
"I can send your telegram within ten days if that will serve you," I
said.
"I couldn't trust the wire to fetch him now I think of it. It's this
way. He leaves Delhi on the 23d for Bombay. That means he'll be running
through Ajmir about the night of the 23d."
"But I'm going into the Indian Desert," I explained.
"Well and good," said he. "You'll be changing at Marwar Junction to get
into Jodhpore territory--you must do that--and he'll be coming through
Marwar Junction in the early morning of the 24th by the Bombay Mail.
Can you be at Marwar Junction on that time? 'Twon't be inconveniencing
you because I know that there's precious few pickings to be got out of
these Central India States--even though you pretend to be correspondent
of the Backwoodsman."
"Have you ever tried that trick?" I asked.
"Again and again, but the Residents find you out, and then you get
escorted to the Border before you've time to get your knife into them.
But about my friend here. I must give him a word o' mouth to tell him
what's come to me or else he won't know where to go. I would take it
more than kind of you if you was to come out of Central India in time
to catch him at Marwar Junction, and say to him:--'He has gone South
for the week.' He'll know what that means. He's a big man with a red
beard, and a great swell he is. You'll find him sleeping like a
gentleman with all his luggage round him in a second-class compartment.
But don't you be afraid. Slip down the window, and say:--'He has gone
South for the week,' and he'll tumble. It's only cutting your time of
stay in those parts by two days. I ask you as a stranger--going to the
West," he said with emphasis.
"Where have you come from?" said I.
"From the East," said he, "and I am hoping that you will give him the
message on the Square--for the sake of my Mother as well as your own."
Englishmen are not usually softened by appeals to the memory of their
mothers, but for certain reasons, which will be fully apparent, I saw
fit to agree.
"It's more than a little matter," said he, "and that's why I ask you to
do it--and now I know that I can depend on you doing it. A second-class
carriage at Marwar Junction, and a red-haired man asleep in it. You'll
be sure to remember. I get out at the next station, and I must hold on
there till he comes or sends me what I want."
"I'll give the message if I catch him," I said, "and for the sake of
your Mother as well as mine I'll give you a word of advice. Don't try
to run the Central India States just now as the correspondent of the
Backwoodsman. There's a real one knocking about here, and it might lead
to trouble."
"Thank you," said he simply, "and when will the swine be gone? I can't
starve because he's ruining my work. I wanted to get hold of the
Degumber Rajah down here about his father's widow, and give him a jump."
"What did he do to his father's widow, then?"
"Filled her up with red pepper and slippered her to death as she hung
from a beam. I found that out myself and I'm the only man that would
dare going into the State to get hush-money for it. They'll try to
poison me, same as they did in Chortumna when I went on the loot there.
But you'll give the man at Marwar Junction my message?"
He got out at a little roadside station, and I reflected. I had heard,
more than once, of men personating correspondents of newspapers and
bleeding small Native States with threats of exposure, but I had never
met any of the caste before. They lead a hard life, and generally die
with great suddenness. The Native States have a wholesome horror of
English newspapers, which may throw light on their peculiar methods of
government, and do their best to choke correspondents with champagne,
or drive them out of their mind with four-in-hand barouches. They do
not understand that nobody cares a straw for the internal
administration of Native States so long as oppression and crime are
kept within decent limits, and the ruler is not drugged, drunk, or
diseased from one end of the year to the other. Native States were
created by Providence in order to supply picturesque scenery, tigers
and tall-writing. They are the dark places of the earth, full of
unimaginable cruelty, touching the Railway and the Telegraph on one
side, and, on the other, the days of Harun-al-Raschid. When I left the
train I did business with divers Kings, and in eight days passed
through many changes of life. Sometimes I wore dress-clothes and
consorted with Princes and Politicals, drinking from crystal and eating
from silver. Sometimes I lay out upon the ground and devoured what I
could get, from a plate made of a flapjack, and drank the running
water, and slept under the same rug as my servant. It was all in a
day's work.
Then I headed for the Great Indian Desert upon the proper date, as I
had promised, and the night Mail set me down at Marwar Junction, where
a funny little, happy-go-lucky, native managed railway runs to
Jodhpore. The Bombay Mail from Delhi makes a short halt at Marwar. She
arrived as I got in, and I had just time to hurry to her platform and
go down the carriages. There was only one second-class on the train. I
slipped the window and looked down upon a flaming red beard, half
covered by a railway rug. That was my man, fast asleep, and I dug him
gently in the ribs. He woke with a grunt and I saw his face in the
light of the lamps. It was a great and shining face.
"Tickets again?" said he.
"No," said I. "I am to tell you that he is gone South for the week. He
is gone South for the week!"
The train had begun to move out. The red man rubbed his eyes. "He has
gone South for the week," he repeated. "Now that's just like his
impudence. Did he say that I was to give you anything?--'Cause I won't."
"He didn't," I said and dropped away, and watched the red lights die
out in the dark. It was horribly cold because the wind was blowing off
the sands. I climbed into my own train--not an Intermediate Carriage
this time--and went to sleep.
If the man with the beard had given me a rupee I should have kept it as
a memento of a rather curious affair. But the consciousness of having
done my duty was my only reward.
Later on I reflected that two gentlemen like my friends could not do
any good if they foregathered and personated correspondents of
newspapers, and might, if they "stuck up" one of the little rat-trap
states of Central India or Southern Rajputana, get themselves into
serious difficulties. I therefore took some trouble to describe them as
accurately as I could remember to people who would be interested in
deporting them; and succeeded, so I was later informed, in having them
headed back from the Degumber borders.
Then I became respectable, and returned to an Office where there were
no Kings and no incidents except the daily manufacture of a newspaper.
A newspaper office seems to attract every conceivable sort of person,
to the prejudice of discipline. Zenana-mission ladies arrive, and beg
that the Editor will instantly abandon all his duties to describe a
Christian prize-giving in a back-slum of a perfectly inaccessible
village; Colonels who have been overpassed for commands sit down and
sketch the outline of a series of ten, twelve, or twenty-four leading
articles on Seniority versus Selection; missionaries wish to know why
they have not been permitted to escape from their regular vehicles of
abuse and swear at a brother-missionary under special patronage of the
editorial We; stranded theatrical companies troop up to explain that
they cannot pay for their advertisements, but on their return from New
Zealand or Tahiti will do so with interest; inventors of patent
punkah-pulling machines, carriage couplings and unbreakable swords and
axle-trees call with specifications in their pockets and hours at their
disposal; tea-companies enter and elaborate their prospectuses with the
office pens; secretaries of ball-committees clamor to have the glories
of their last dance more fully expounded; strange ladies rustle in and
say:--"I want a hundred lady's cards printed at once, please," which is
manifestly part of an Editor's duty; and every dissolute ruffian that
ever tramped the Grand Trunk Road makes it his business to ask for
employment as a proof-reader. And, all the time, the telephone-bell is
ringing madly, and Kings are being killed on the Continent, and Empires
are saying, "You're another," and Mister Gladstone is calling down
brimstone upon the British Dominions, and the little black copy-boys
are whining, "kaa-pi chayha-yeh" (copy wanted) like tired bees, and
most of the paper is as blank as Modred's shield.
But that is the amusing part of the year. There are other six months
wherein none ever come to call, and the thermometer walks inch by inch
up to the top of the glass, and the office is darkened to just above
reading light, and the press machines are red-hot of touch, and nobody
writes anything but accounts of amusements in the Hill-stations or
obituary notices. Then the telephone becomes a tinkling terror, because
it tells you of the sudden deaths of men and women that you knew
intimately, and the prickly-heat covers you as with a garment, and you
sit down and write:--"A slight increase of sickness is reported from
the Khuda Janta Khan District. The outbreak is purely sporadic in its
nature, and, thanks to the energetic efforts of the District
authorities, is now almost at an end. It is, however, with deep regret
we record the death, etc."
Then the sickness really breaks out, and the less recording and
reporting the better for the peace of the subscribers. But the Empires
and the Kings continue to divert themselves as selfishly as before, and
the foreman thinks that a daily paper really ought to come out once in
twenty-four hours, and all the people at the Hill-stations in the
middle of their amusements say:--"Good gracious! Why can't the paper be
sparkling? I'm sure there's plenty going on up here."
That is the dark half of the moon, and, as the advertisements say,
"must be experienced to be appreciated."
It was in that season, and a remarkably evil season, that the paper
began running the last issue of the week on Saturday night, which is to
say Sunday morning, after the custom of a London paper. This was a
great convenience, for immediately after the paper was put to bed, the
dawn would lower the thermometer from 96 deg. to almost 84 deg. for almost half
an hour, and in that chill--you have no idea how cold is 84 deg. on the
grass until you begin to pray for it--a very tired man could set off to
sleep ere the heat roused him.
One Saturday night it was my pleasant duty to put the paper to bed
alone. A King or courtier or a courtesan or a community was going to
die or get a new Constitution, or do something that was important on
the other side of the world, and the paper was to be held open till the
latest possible minute in order to catch the telegram. It was a pitchy
black night, as stifling as a June night can be, and the loo, the
red-hot wind from the westward, was booming among the tinder-dry trees
and pretending that the rain was on its heels. Now and again a spot of
almost boiling water would fall on the dust with the flop of a frog,
but all our weary world knew that was only pretence. It was a shade
cooler in the press-room than the office, so I sat there, while the
type ticked and clicked, and the night-jars hooted at the windows, and
the all but naked compositors wiped the sweat from their foreheads and
called for water. The thing that was keeping us back, whatever it was,
would not come off, though the loo dropped and the last type was set,
and the whole round earth stood still in the choking heat, with its
finger on its lip, to wait the event. I drowsed, and wondered whether
the telegraph was a blessing, and whether this dying man, or struggling
people, was aware of the inconvenience the delay was causing. There was
no special reason beyond the heat and worry to make tension, but, as
the clock-hands crept up to three o'clock and the machines spun their
fly-wheels two and three times to see that all was in order, before I
said the word that would set them off, I could have shrieked aloud.
Then the roar and rattle of the wheels shivered the quiet into little
bits. I rose to go away, but two men in white clothes stood in front of
me. The first one said:--"It's him!" The second said--"So it is!" And
they both laughed almost as loudly as the machinery roared, and mopped
their foreheads. "We see there was a light burning across the road and
we were sleeping in that ditch there for coolness, and I said to my
friend here, the office is open. Let's come along and speak to him as
turned us back from the Degumber State," said the smaller of the two.
He was the man I had met in the Mhow train, and his fellow was the
red-bearded man of Marwar Junction. There was no mistaking the eyebrows
of the one or the beard of the other.
I was not pleased, because I wished to go to sleep, not to squabble
with loafers. "What do you want?" I asked.
"Half an hour's talk with you cool and comfortable, in the office,"
said the red-bearded man. "We'd like some drink--the Contrack doesn't
begin yet, Peachey, so you needn't look--but what we really want is
advice. We don't want money. We ask you as a favor, because you did us
a bad turn about Degumber."
I led from the press-room to the stifling office with the maps on the
walls, and the red-haired man rubbed his hands. "That's something
like," said he. "This was the proper shop to come to. Now, Sir, let me
introduce to you Brother Peachey Carnehan, that's him, and Brother
Daniel Dravot, that is me, and the less said about our professions the
better, for we have been most things in our time. Soldier, sailor,
compositor, photographer, proof-reader, street-preacher, and
correspondents of the Backwoodsman when we thought the paper wanted
one. Carnehan is sober, and so am I. Look at us first and see that's
sure. It will save you cutting into my talk. We'll take one of your
cigars apiece, and you shall see us light." I watched the test. The men
were absolutely sober, so I gave them each a tepid peg.
"Well and good," said Carnehan of the eyebrows, wiping the froth from
his mustache. "Let me talk now, Dan. We have been all over India,
mostly on foot. We have been boiler-fitters, engine-drivers, petty
contractors, and all that, and we have decided that India isn't big
enough for such as us."
They certainly were too big for the office. Dravot's beard seemed to
fill half the room and Carnehan's shoulders the other half, as they sat
on the big table. Carnehan continued:--"The country isn't half worked
out because they that governs it won't let you touch it. They spend all
their blessed time in governing it, and you can't lift a spade, nor
chip a rock, nor look for oil, nor anything like that without all the
Government saying--'Leave it alone and let us govern.' Therefore, such
as it is, we will let it alone, and go away to some other place where a
man isn't crowded and can come to his own. We are not little men, and
there is nothing that we are afraid of except Drink, and we have signed
a Contrack on that. Therefore, we are going away to be Kings."
"Kings in our own right," muttered Dravot.
"Yes, of course," I said. "You've been tramping in the sun, and it's a
very warm night, and hadn't you better sleep over the notion? Come
to-morrow."
"Neither drunk nor sunstruck," said Dravot. "We have slept over the
notion half a year, and require to see Books and Atlases, and we have
decided that there is only one place now in the world that two strong
men can Sar-a-whack. They call it Kafiristan. By my reckoning its the
top right-hand corner of Afghanistan, not more than three hundred miles
from Peshawar. They have two and thirty heathen idols there, and we'll
be the thirty-third. It's a mountainous country, and the women of those
parts are very beautiful."
"But that is provided against in the Contrack," said Carnehan. "Neither
Women nor Liquor, Daniel."
"And that's all we know, except that no one has gone there, and they
fight, and in any place where they fight a man who knows how to drill
men can always be a King. We shall go to those parts and say to any
King we find--'D' you want to vanquish your foes?' and we will show him
how to drill men; for that we know better than anything else. Then we
will subvert that King and seize his Throne and establish a Dy-nasty."
"You'll be cut to pieces before you're fifty miles across the Border,"
I said. "You have to travel through Afghanistan to get to that country.
It's one mass of mountains and peaks and glaciers, and no Englishman
has been through it. The people are utter brutes, and even if you
reached them you couldn't do anything."
"That's more like," said Carnehan. "If you could think us a little more
mad we would be more pleased. We have come to you to know about this
country, to read a book about it, and to be shown maps. We want you to
tell us that we are fools and to show us your books." He turned to the
book-cases.
"Are you at all in earnest?" I said.
"A little," said Dravot, sweetly. "As big a map as you have got, even
if it's all blank where Kafiristan is, and any books you've got. We can
read, though we aren't very educated."
I uncased the big thirty-two-miles-to-the-inch map of India, and two
smaller Frontier maps, hauled down volume INF-KAN of the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, and the men consulted them.
"See here!" said Dravot, his thumb on the map. "Up to Jagdallak,
Peachey and me know the road. We was there with Roberts's Army. We'll
have to turn off to the right at Jagdallak through Laghmann territory.
Then we get among the hills--fourteen thousand feet--fifteen
thousand--it will be cold work there, but it don't look very far on the
map."
I handed him Wood on the Sources of the Oxus. Carnehan was deep in the
Encyclopaedia.
"They're a mixed lot," said Dravot, reflectively; "and it won't help us
to know the names of their tribes. The more tribes the more they'll
fight, and the better for us. From Jagdallak to Ashang. H'mm!"
"But all the information about the country is as sketchy and inaccurate
as can be," I protested. "No one knows anything about it really. Here's
the file of the United Services' Institute. Read what Bellew says."
"Blow Bellew!" said Carnehan. "Dan, they're an all-fired lot of
heathens, but this book here says they think they're related to us
English."
I smoked while the men pored over Raverty, Wood, the maps and the
Encyclopaedia.
"There is no use your waiting," said Dravot, politely. "It's about four
o'clock now. We'll go before six o'clock if you want to sleep, and we
won't steal any of the papers. Don't you sit up. We're two harmless
lunatics, and if you come, to-morrow evening, down to the Serai we'll
say good-by to you."
"You are two fools," I answered. "You'll be turned back at the Frontier
or cut up the minute you set foot in Afghanistan. Do you want any money
or a recommendation down-country? I can help you to the chance of work
next week."
"Next week we shall be hard at work ourselves, thank you," said Dravot.
"It isn't so easy being a King as it looks. When we've got our Kingdom
in going order we'll let you know, and you can come up and help us to
govern it."
"Would two lunatics make a Contrack like that!" said Carnehan, with
subdued pride, showing me a greasy half-sheet of note-paper on which
was written the following. I copied it, then and there, as a
curiosity:--
This Contract between me and you persuing witnesseth in the name of
God--Amen and so forth.
(One) That me and you will settle this matter together:
i.e., to be Kings of Kafiristan.
(Two) That you and me will not while this matter is
being settled, look at any Liquor, nor any
Woman black, white or brown, so as to get
mixed up with one or the other harmful.
(Three) That we conduct ourselves with Dignity and
Discretion, and if one of us gets into trouble
the other will stay by him.
Signed by you and me this day.
Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan.
Daniel Dravot.
Both Gentlemen at Large.
"There was no need for the last article," said Carnehan, blushing
modestly; "but it looks regular. Now you know the sort of men that
loafers are--we are loafers, Dan, until we get out of India--and do you
think that we could sign a Contrack like that unless we was in earnest?
We have kept away from the two things that make life worth having."
"You won't enjoy your lives much longer if you are going to try this
idiotic adventure. Don't set the office on fire," I said, "and go away
before nine o'clock."
I left them still poring over the maps and making notes on the back of
the "Contrack." "Be sure to come down to the Serai to-morrow," were
their parting words.
The Kumharsen Serai is the great four-square sink of humanity where the
strings of camels and horses from the North load and unload. All the
nationalities of Central Asia may be found there, and most of the folk
of India proper. Balkh and Bokhara there meet Bengal and Bombay, and
try to draw eye-teeth. You can buy ponies, turquoises, Persian
pussy-cats, saddle-bags, fat-tailed sheep and musk in the Kumharsen
Serai, and get many strange things for nothing. In the afternoon I went
down there to see whether my friends intended to keep their word or
were lying about drunk.
A priest attired in fragments of ribbons and rags stalked up to me,
gravely twisting a child's paper whirligig. Behind him was his servant,
bending under the load of a crate of mud toys. The two were loading up
two camels, and the inhabitants of the Serai watched them with shrieks
of laughter.
"The priest is mad," said a horse-dealer to me. "He is going up to
Kabul to sell toys to the Amir. He will either be raised to honor or
have his head cut off. He came in here this morning and has been
behaving madly ever since."
"The witless are under the protection of God," stammered a flat-cheeked
Usbeg in broken Hindi. "They foretell future events."
"Would they could have foretold that my caravan would have been cut up
by the Shinwaris almost within shadow of the Pass!" grunted the
Eusufzai agent of a Rajputana trading-house whose goods had been
feloniously diverted into the hands of other robbers just across the
Border, and whose misfortunes were the laughing-stock of the bazar.
"Ohe, priest, whence come you and whither do you go?"
"From Roum have I come," shouted the priest, waving his whirligig;
"from Roum, blown by the breath of a hundred devils across the sea! O
thieves, robbers, liars, the blessing of Pir Khan on pigs, dogs, and
perjurers! Who will take the Protected of God to the North to sell
charms that are never still to the Amir? The camels shall not gall, the
sons shall not fall sick, and the wives shall remain faithful while
they are away, of the men who give me place in their caravan. Who will
assist me to slipper the King of the Roos with a golden slipper with a
silver heel? The protection of Pir Kahn be upon his labors!" He spread
out the skirts of his gaberdine and pirouetted between the lines of
tethered horses.
"There starts a caravan from Peshawar to Kabul in twenty days, Huzrut,"
said the Eusufzai trader. "My camels go therewith. Do thou also go and
bring us good luck."
"I will go even now!" shouted the priest. "I will depart upon my winged
camels, and be at Peshawar in a day! Ho! Hazar Mir Khan," he yelled to
his servant "drive out the camels, but let me first mount my own."
He leaped on the back of his beast as it knelt, and turning round to
me, cried:--
"Come thou also, Sahib, a little along the road, and I will sell thee a
charm--an amulet that shall make thee King of Kafiristan."
Then the light broke upon me, and I followed the two camels out of the
Serai till we reached open road and the priest halted.
"What d' you think o' that?" said he in English. "Carnehan can't talk
their patter, so I've made him my servant. He makes a handsome servant.
'Tisn't for nothing that I've been knocking about the country for
fourteen years. Didn't I do that talk neat? We'll hitch on to a caravan
at Peshawar till we get to Jagdallak, and then we'll see if we can get
donkeys for our camels, and strike into Kafiristan. Whirligigs for the
Amir, O Lor! Put your hand under the camel-bags and tell me what you
feel."
I felt the butt of a Martini, and another and another.
"Twenty of 'em," said Dravot, placidly.
"Twenty of 'em, and ammunition to correspond, under the whirligigs and
the mud dolls."
"Heaven help you if you are caught with those things!" I said. "A
Martini is worth her weight in silver among the Pathans."
"Fifteen hundred rupees of capital--every rupee we could beg, borrow,
or steal--are invested on these two camels," said Dravot. "We won't get
caught. We're going through the Khaiber with a regular caravan. Who'd
touch a poor mad priest?"
"Have you got everything you want?" I asked, overcome with astonishment.
"Not yet, but we shall soon. Give us a momento of your kindness,
Brother. You did me a service yesterday, and that time in Marwar. Half
my Kingdom shall you have, as the saying is." I slipped a small charm
compass from my watch-chain and handed it up to the priest.
"Good-by," said Dravot, giving me his hand cautiously. "It's the last
time we'll shake hands with an Englishman these many days. Shake hands
with him, Carnehan," he cried, as the second camel passed me.
Carnehan leaned down and shook hands. Then the camels passed away along
the dusty road, and I was left alone to wonder. My eye could detect no
failure in the disguises. The scene in the Serai attested that they
were complete to the native mind. There was just the chance, therefore,
that Carnehan and Dravot would be able to wander through Afghanistan
without detection. But, beyond, they would find death, certain and
awful death.
Ten days later a native friend of mine, giving me the news of the day
from Peshawar, wound up his letter with:--"There has been much laughter
here on account of a certain mad priest who is going in his estimation
to sell petty gauds and insignificant trinkets which he ascribes as
great charms to H. H. the Amir of Bokhara. He passed through Peshawar
and associated himself to the Second Summer caravan that goes to Kabul.
The merchants are pleased because through superstition they imagine
that such mad fellows bring good-fortune."
The two then, were beyond the Border. I would have prayed for them,
but, that night, a real King died in Europe, and demanded an obituary
notice.
* * * * * * * *
The wheel of the world swings through the same phases again and again.
Summer passed and winter thereafter, and came and passed again. The
daily paper continued and I with it, and upon the third summer there
fell a hot night, a night-issue, and a strained waiting for something
to be telegraphed from the other side of the world, exactly as had
happened before. A few great men had died in the past two years, the
machines worked with more clatter, and some of the trees in the Office
garden were a few feet taller. But that was all the difference.
I passed over to the press-room, and went through just such a scene as
I have already described. The nervous tension was stronger than it had
been two years before, and I felt the heat more acutely. At three
o'clock I cried, "Print off," and turned to go, when there crept to my
chair what was left of a man. He was bent into a circle, his head was
sunk between his shoulders, and he moved his feet one over the other
like a bear. I could hardly see whether he walked or crawled--this
rag-wrapped, whining <DW36> who addressed me by name, crying that he
was come back. "Can you give me a drink?" he whimpered. "For the Lord's
sake, give me a drink!"
I went back to the office, the man following with groans of pain, and I
turned up the lamp.
"Don't you know me?" he gasped, dropping into a chair, and he turned
his drawn face, surmounted by a shock of gray hair, to the light.
I looked at him intently. Once before had I seen eyebrows that met over
the nose in an inch-broad black band, but for the life of me I could
not tell where.
"I don't know you," I said, handing him the whiskey. "What can I do for
you?"
He took a gulp of the spirit raw, and shivered in spite of the
suffocating heat.
"I've come back," he repeated; "and I was the King of Kafiristan--me
and Dravot--crowned Kings we was! In this office we settled it--you
setting there and giving us the books. I am Peachey--Peachey Taliaferro
Carnehan, and you've been setting here ever since--O Lord!"
I was more than a little astonished, and expressed my feelings
accordingly.
"It's true," said Carnehan, with a dry cackle, nursing his feet which
were wrapped in rags. "True as gospel. Kings we were, with crowns upon
our heads--me and Dravot--poor Dan--oh, poor, poor Dan, that would
never take advice, not though I begged of him!"
"Take the whiskey," I said, "and take your own time. Tell me all you
can recollect of everything from beginning to end. You got across the
border on your camels, Dravot dressed as a mad priest and you his
servant. Do you remember that?"
"I ain't mad--yet, but I will be that way soon. Of course I remember.
Keep looking at me, or maybe my words will go all to pieces. Keep
looking at me in my eyes and don't say anything."
I leaned forward and looked into his face as steadily as I could. He
dropped one hand upon the table and I grasped it by the wrist. It was
twisted like a bird's claw, and upon the back was a ragged, red,
diamond-shaped scar.
"No, don't look there. Look at me," said Carnehan.
"That comes afterwards, but for the Lord's sake don't distrack me. We
left with that caravan, me and Dravot, playing all sorts of antics to
amuse the people we were with. Dravot used to make us laugh in the
evenings when all the people was cooking their dinners--cooking their
dinners, and... what did they do then? They lit little fires with
sparks that went into Dravot's beard, and we all laughed--fit to die.
Little red fires they was, going into Dravot's big red beard--so
funny." His eyes left mine and he smiled foolishly.
"You went as far as Jagdallak with that caravan," I said at a venture,
"after you had lit those fires. To Jagdallak, where you turned off to
try to get into Kafiristan."
"No, we didn't neither. What are you talking about? We turned off
before Jagdallak, because we heard the roads was good. But they wasn't
good enough for our two camels--mine and Dravot's. When we left the
caravan, Dravot took off all his clothes and mine too, and said we
would be heathen, because the <DW5>s didn't allow Mohammedans to talk
to them. So we dressed betwixt and between, and such a sight as Daniel
Dravot I never saw yet nor expect to see again. He burned half his
beard, and slung a sheep-skin over his shoulder, and shaved his head
into patterns. He shaved mine, too, and made me wear outrageous things
to look like a heathen. That was in a most mountaineous country, and
our camels couldn't go along any more because of the mountains. They
were tall and black, and coming home I saw them fight like wild
goats--there are lots of goats in Kafiristan. And these mountains, they
never keep still, no more than the goats. Always fighting they are, and
don't let you sleep at night."
"Take some more whiskey," I said, very slowly. "What did you and Daniel
Dravot do when the camels could go no further because of the rough
roads that led into Kafiristan?"
"What did which do? There was a party called Peachey Taliaferro
Carnehan that was with Dravot. Shall I tell you about him? He died out
there in the cold. Slap from the bridge fell old Peachey, turning and
twisting in the air like a penny whirligig that you can sell to the
Amir--No; they was two for three ha'pence, those whirligigs, or I am
much mistaken and woful sore. And then these camels were no use, and
Peachey said to Dravot--'For the Lord's sake, let's get out of this
before our heads are chopped off,' and with that they killed the camels
all among the mountains, not having anything in particular to eat, but
first they took off the boxes with the guns and the ammunition, till
two men came along driving four mules. Dravot up and dances in front of
them, singing,--'Sell me four mules.' Says the first man,--'If you are
rich enough to buy, you are rich enough to rob;' but before ever he
could put his hand to his knife, Dravot breaks his neck over his knee,
and the other party runs away. So Carnehan loaded the mules with the
rifles that was taken off the camels, and together we starts forward
into those bitter cold mountainous parts, and never a road broader than
the back of your hand."
He paused for a moment, while I asked him if he could remember the
nature of the country through which he had journeyed.
"I am telling you as straight as I can, but my head isn't as good as it
might be. They drove nails through it to make me hear better how Dravot
died. The country was mountainous and the mules were most contrary, and
the inhabitants was dispersed and solitary. They went up and up, and
down and down, and that other party Carnehan, was imploring of Dravot
not to sing and whistle so loud, for fear of bringing down the
tremenjus avalanches. But Dravot says that if a King couldn't sing it
wasn't worth being King, and whacked the mules over the rump, and never
took no heed for ten cold days. We came to a big level valley all among
the mountains, and the mules were near dead, so we killed them, not
having anything in special for them or us to eat. We sat upon the
boxes, and played odd and even with the cartridges that was jolted out.
"Then ten men with bows and arrows ran down that valley, chasing twenty
men with bows and arrows, and the row was tremenjus. They was fair
men--fairer than you or me--with yellow hair and remarkable well built.
Says Dravot, unpacking the guns--'This is the beginning of the
business. We'll fight for the ten men,' and with that he fires two
rifles at the twenty men and drops one of them at two hundred yards
from the rock where we was sitting. The other men began to run, but
Carnehan and Dravot sits on the boxes picking them off at all ranges,
up and down the valley. Then we goes up to the ten men that had run
across the snow too, and they fires a footy little arrow at us. Dravot
he shoots above their heads and they all falls down flat. Then he walks
over them and kicks them, and then he lifts them up and shakes hands
all around to make them friendly like. He calls them and gives them the
boxes to carry, and waves his hand for all the world as though he was
King already. They takes the boxes and him across the valley and up the
hill into a pine wood on the top, where there was half a dozen big
stone idols. Dravot he goes to the biggest--a fellow they call
Imbra--and lays a rifle and a cartridge at his feet, rubbing his nose
respectful with his own nose, patting him on the head, and saluting in
front of it. He turns round to the men and nods his head, and
says,--'That's all right. I'm in the know too, and these old jim-jams
are my friends.' Then he opens his mouth and points down it, and when
the first man brings him food, he says--'No;' and when the second man
brings him food, he says--'No;' but when one of the old priests and the
boss of the village brings him food, he says--'Yes;' very haughty, and
eats it slow. That was how we came to our first village, without any
trouble, just as though we had tumbled from the skies. But we tumbled
from one of those damned rope-bridges, you see, and you couldn't expect
a man to laugh much after that."
"Take some more whiskey and go on," I said. "That was the first village
you came into. How did you get to be King?"
"I wasn't King," said Carnehan. "Dravot he was the King, and a handsome
man he looked with the gold crown on his head and all. Him and the
other party stayed in that village, and every morning Dravot sat by the
side of old Imbra, and the people came and worshipped. That was
Dravot's order. Then a lot of men came into the valley, and Carnehan
and Dravot picks them off with the rifles before they knew where they
was, and runs down into the valley and up again the other side, and
finds another village, same as the first one, and the people all falls
down flat on their faces, and Dravot says,--'Now what is the trouble
between you two villages?' and the people points to a woman, as fair as
you or me, that was carried off, and Dravot takes her back to the first
village and counts up the dead--eight there was. For each dead man
Dravot pours a little milk on the ground and waves his arms like a
whirligig and, 'That's all right,' says he. Then he and Carnehan takes
the big boss of each village by the arm and walks them down into the
valley, and shows them how to scratch a line with a spear right down
the valley, and gives each a sod of turf from both sides o' the line.
Then all the people comes down and shouts like the devil and all, and
Dravot says,--'Go and dig the land, and be fruitful and multiply,'
which they did, though they didn't understand. |
10,240 |
Produced by David Widger
THE STORY OF POCAHONTAS
By Charles Dudley Warner
The simple story of the life of Pocahontas is sufficiently romantic
without the embellishments which have been wrought on it either by the
vanity of Captain Smith or the natural pride of the descendants of this
dusky princess who have been ennobled by the smallest rivulet of her red
blood.
That she was a child of remarkable intelligence, and that she early
showed a tender regard for the whites and rendered them willing and
unwilling service, is the concurrent evidence of all contemporary
testimony. That as a child she was well-favored, sprightly, and
prepossessing above all her copper-colored companions, we can believe,
and that as a woman her manners were attractive. If the portrait taken
of her in London--the best engraving of which is by Simon de Passe--in
1616, when she is said to have been twenty-one years old, does her
justice, she had marked Indian features.
The first mention of her is in "The True Relation," written by Captain
Smith in Virginia in 1608. In this narrative, as our readers have seen,
she is not referred to until after Smith's return from the captivity
in which Powhatan used him "with all the kindness he could devise." Her
name first appears, toward the close of the relation, in the following
sentence:
"Powhatan understanding we detained certain salvages, sent his daughter,
a child of tenne yeares old, which not only for feature, countenance,
and proportion, much exceedeth any of the rest of his people, but for
wit and spirit the only nonpareil of his country: this hee sent by his
most trusty messenger, called Rawhunt, as much exceeding in deformitie
of person, but of a subtill wit and crafty understanding, he with a long
circumstance told mee how well Powhatan loved and respected mee, and in
that I should not doubt any way of his kindness, he had sent his child,
which he most esteemed, to see mee, a Deere, and bread, besides for
a present: desiring mee that the Boy [Thomas Savage, the boy given by
Newport to Powhatan] might come again, which he loved exceedingly, his
little Daughter he had taught this lesson also: not taking notice at all
of the Indians that had been prisoners three daies, till that morning
that she saw their fathers and friends come quietly, and in good termes
to entreate their libertie.
"In the afternoon they [the friends of the prisoners] being gone, we
guarded them [the prisoners] as before to the church, and after prayer,
gave them to Pocahuntas the King's Daughter, in regard of her father's
kindness in sending her: after having well fed them, as all the time of
their imprisonment, we gave them their bows, arrowes, or what else
they had, and with much content, sent them packing: Pocahuntas, also we
requited with such trifles as contented her, to tel that we had used the
Paspaheyans very kindly in so releasing them."
The next allusion to her is in the fourth chapter of the narratives
which are appended to the "Map of Virginia," etc. This was sent home by
Smith, with a description of Virginia, in the late autumn of 1608. It
was published at Oxford in 1612, from two to three years after Smith's
return to England. The appendix contains the narratives of several of
Smith's companions in Virginia, edited by Dr. Symonds and overlooked
by Smith. In one of these is a brief reference to the above-quoted
incident.
This Oxford tract, it is scarcely necessary to repeat, contains no
reference to the saving of Smith's life by Pocahontas from the clubs of
Powhatan.
The next published mention of Pocahontas, in point of time, is in
Chapter X. and the last of the appendix to the "Map of Virginia," and is
Smith's denial, already quoted, of his intention to marry Pocahontas.
In this passage he speaks of her as "at most not past 13 or 14 years of
age." If she was thirteen or fourteen in 1609, when Smith left Virginia,
she must have been more than ten when he wrote his "True Relation,"
composed in the winter of 1608, which in all probability was carried to
England by Captain Nelson, who left Jamestown June 2d.
The next contemporary authority to be consulted in regard to Pocahontas
is William Strachey, who, as we have seen, went with the expedition of
Gates and Somers, was shipwrecked on the Bermudas, and reached Jamestown
May 23 or 24, 1610, and was made Secretary and Recorder of the colony
under Lord Delaware. Of the origin and life of Strachey, who was a
person of importance in Virginia, little is known. The better impression
is that he was the William Strachey of Saffron Walden, who was married
in 1588 and was living in 1620, and that it was his grandson of the same
name who was subsequently connected with the Virginia colony. He was,
judged by his writings, a man of considerable education, a good deal of
a pedant, and shared the credulity and fondness for embellishment of the
writers of his time. His connection with Lord Delaware, and his part
in framing the code of laws in Virginia, which may be inferred from
the fact that he first published them, show that he was a trusted and
capable man.
William Strachey left behind him a manuscript entitled "The Historie of
Travaile into Virginia Britanica, &c., gathered and observed as well by
those who went first thither, as collected by William Strachey, gent.,
three years thither, employed as Secretaire of State." How long he
remained in Virginia is uncertain, but it could not have been "three
years," though he may have been continued Secretary for that period, for
he was in London in 1612, in which year he published there the laws of
Virginia which had been established by Sir Thomas Gates May 24, 1610,
approved by Lord Delaware June 10, 1610, and enlarged by Sir Thomas Dale
June 22, 1611.
The "Travaile" was first published by the Hakluyt Society in 1849. When
and where it was written, and whether it was all composed at one time,
are matters much in dispute. The first book, descriptive of Virginia and
its people, is complete; the second book, a narration of discoveries in
America, is unfinished. Only the first book concerns us. That Strachey
made notes in Virginia may be assumed, but the book was no doubt written
after his return to England.
[This code of laws, with its penalty of whipping and death for what are
held now to be venial offenses, gives it a high place among the Black
Codes. One clause will suffice:
"Every man and woman duly twice a day upon the first towling of the Bell
shall upon the working daies repaire unto the church, to hear divine
service upon pain of losing his or her allowance for the first omission,
for the second to be whipt, and for the third to be condemned to the
Gallies for six months. Likewise no man or woman shall dare to violate
the Sabbath by any gaming, publique or private, abroad or at home, but
duly sanctifie and observe the same, both himselfe and his familie, by
preparing themselves at home with private prayer, that they may be the
better fitted for the publique, according to the commandments of God,
and the orders of our church, as also every man and woman shall repaire
in the morning to the divine service, and sermons preached upon the
Sabbath day, and in the afternoon to divine service, and Catechism upon
paine for the first fault to lose their provision, and allowance for the
whole week following, for the second to lose the said allowance and also
to be whipt, and for the third to suffer death."]
Was it written before or after the publication of Smith's "Map and
Description" at Oxford in 1612? The question is important, because
Smith's "Description" and Strachey's "Travaile" are page after page
literally the same. One was taken from the other. Commonly at that time
manuscripts seem to have been passed around and much read before they
were published. Purchas acknowledges that he had unpublished manuscripts
of Smith when he compiled his narrative. Did Smith see Strachey's
manuscript before he published his Oxford tract, or did Strachey enlarge
his own notes from Smith's description? It has been usually assumed
that Strachey cribbed from Smith without acknowledgment. If it were a
question to be settled by the internal evidence of the two accounts,
I should incline to think that Smith condensed his description from
Strachey, but the dates incline the balance in Smith's favor.
Strachey in his "Travaile" refers sometimes to Smith, and always with
respect. It will be noted that Smith's "Map" was engraved and published
before the "Description" in the Oxford tract. Purchas had it, for he
says, in writing of Virginia for his "Pilgrimage" (which was published
in 1613):
"Concerning-the latter [Virginia], Capt. John Smith, partly by word
of mouth, partly by his mappe thereof in print, and more fully by a
Manuscript which he courteously communicated to mee, hath acquainted
me with that whereof himselfe with great perill and paine, had been
the discoverer." Strachey in his "Travaile" alludes to it, and pays a
tribute to Smith in the following: "Their severall habitations are more
plainly described by the annexed mappe, set forth by Capt. Smith, of
whose paines taken herein I leave to the censure of the reader to judge.
Sure I am there will not return from thence in hast, any one who hath
been more industrious, or who hath had (Capt. Geo. Percie excepted)
greater experience amongst them, however misconstruction may traduce
here at home, where is not easily seen the mixed sufferances, both of
body and mynd, which is there daylie, and with no few hazards and hearty
griefes undergon."
There are two copies of the Strachey manuscript. The one used by the
Hakluyt Society is dedicated to Sir Francis Bacon, with the title of
"Lord High Chancellor," and Bacon had not that title conferred on him
till after 1618. But the copy among the Ashmolean manuscripts at Oxford
is dedicated to Sir Allen Apsley, with the title of "Purveyor to His
Majestie's Navie Royall"; and as Sir Allen was made "Lieutenant of
the Tower" in 1616, it is believed that the manuscript must have been
written before that date, since the author would not have omitted the
more important of the two titles in his dedication.
Strachey's prefatory letter to the Council, prefixed to his "Laws"
(1612), is dated "From my lodging in the Black Friars. At your best
pleasures, either to return unto the colony, or pray for the success of
it heere." In his letter he speaks of his experience in the Bermudas and
Virginia: "The full storie of both in due time [I] shall consecrate unto
your view.... Howbit since many impediments, as yet must detaine such
my observations in the shadow of darknesse, untill I shall be able to
deliver them perfect unto your judgments," etc.
This is not, as has been assumed, a statement that the observations were
not written then, only that they were not "perfect"; in fact, they
were detained in the "shadow of darknesse" till the year 1849. Our
own inference is, from all the circumstances, that Strachey began his
manuscript in Virginia or shortly after his return, and added to it and
corrected it from time to time up to 1616.
We are now in a position to consider Strachey's allusions to Pocahontas.
The first occurs in his description of the apparel of Indian women:
"The better sort of women cover themselves (for the most part) all over
with skin mantells, finely drest, shagged and fringed at the skyrt,
carved and coloured with some pretty work, or the proportion of beasts,
fowle, tortayses, or other such like imagry, as shall best please or
expresse the fancy of the wearer; their younger women goe not shadowed
amongst their owne companie, until they be nigh eleaven or twelve
returnes of the leafe old (for soe they accompt and bring about the
yeare, calling the fall of the leaf tagnitock); nor are thev much
ashamed thereof, and therefore would the before remembered Pocahontas,
a well featured, but wanton yong girle, Powhatan's daughter, sometymes
resorting to our fort, of the age then of eleven or twelve yeares, get
the boyes forth with her into the markett place, and make them wheele,
falling on their hands, turning up their heeles upwards, whome she would
followe and wheele so herself, naked as she was, all the fort over;
but being once twelve yeares, they put on a kind of semecinctum lethern
apron (as do our artificers or handycrafts men) before their bellies,
and are very shamefac't to be seene bare. We have seene some use
mantells made both of Turkey feathers, and other fowle, so prettily
wrought and woven with threeds, that nothing could be discerned but the
feathers, which were exceedingly warme and very handsome."
Strachey did not see Pocahontas. She did not resort to the camp after
the departure of Smith in September, 1609, until she was kidnapped by
Governor Dale in April, 1613. He repeats what he heard of her. The
time mentioned by him of her resorting to the fort, "of the age then of
eleven or twelve yeares," must have been the time referred to by Smith
when he might have married her, namely, in 1608-9, when he calls her
"not past 13 or 14 years of age." The description of her as a "yong
girle" tumbling about the fort, "naked as she was," would seem to
preclude the idea that she was married at that time.
The use of the word "wanton" is not necessarily disparaging, for
"wanton" in that age was frequently synonymous with "playful" and
"sportive"; but it is singular that she should be spoken of as "well
featured, but wanton." Strachey, however, gives in another place what is
no doubt the real significance of the Indian name "Pocahontas." He says:
"Both men, women, and children have their severall names; at first
according to the severall humor of their parents; and for the men
children, at first, when they are young, their mothers give them a name,
calling them by some affectionate title, or perhaps observing their
promising inclination give it accordingly; and so the great King
Powhatan called a young daughter of his, whom he loved well, Pocahontas,
which may signify a little wanton; howbeyt she was rightly called
Amonata at more ripe years."
The Indian girls married very young. The polygamous Powhatan had a large
number of wives, but of all his women, his favorites were a dozen "for
the most part very young women," the names of whom Strachey obtained
from one Kemps, an Indian a good deal about camp, whom Smith certifies
was a great villain. Strachey gives a list of the names of twelve of
them, at the head of which is Winganuske. This list was no doubt written
down by the author in Virginia, and it is followed by a sentence,
quoted below, giving also the number of Powhatan's children. The
"great darling" in this list was Winganuske, a sister of Machumps,
who, according to Smith, murdered his comrade in the Bermudas. Strachey
writes:
"He [Powhatan] was reported by the said Kemps, as also by the Indian
Machumps, who was sometyme in England, and comes to and fro amongst us
as he dares, and as Powhatan gives him leave, for it is not otherwise
safe for him, no more than it was for one Amarice, who had his braynes
knockt out for selling but a baskett of corne, and lying in the English
fort two or three days without Powhatan's leave; I say they often
reported unto us that Powhatan had then lyving twenty sonnes and ten
daughters, besyde a young one by Winganuske, Machumps his sister, and a
great darling of the King's; and besides, younge Pocohunta, a daughter
of his, using sometyme to our fort in tymes past, nowe married to a
private Captaine, called Kocoum, some two years since."
This passage is a great puzzle. Does Strachey intend to say that
Pocahontas was married to an Iniaan named Kocoum? She might have been
during the time after Smith's departure in 1609, and her kidnapping
in 1613, when she was of marriageable age. We shall see hereafter that
Powhatan, in 1614, said he had sold another favorite daughter of his,
whom Sir Thomas Dale desired, and who was not twelve years of age, to
be wife to a great chief. The term "private Captain" might perhaps be
applied to an Indian chief. Smith, in his "General Historie," says
the Indians have "but few occasions to use any officers more than one
commander, which commonly they call Werowance, or Caucorouse, which is
Captaine." It is probably not possible, with the best intentions, to
twist Kocoum into Caucorouse, or to suppose that Strachey intended to
say that a private captain was called in Indian a Kocoum. Werowance
and Caucorouse are not synonymous terms. Werowance means "chief," and
Caucorouse means "talker" or "orator," and is the original of our word
"caucus."
Either Strachey was uninformed, or Pocahontas was married to an
Indian--a not violent presumption considering her age and the fact
that war between Powhatan and the whites for some time had cut off
intercourse between them--or Strachey referred to her marriage with
Rolfe, whom he calls by mistake Kocoum. If this is to be accepted,
then this paragraph must have been written in England in 1616, and have
referred to the marriage to Rolfe it "some two years since," in 1614.
That Pocahontas was a gentle-hearted and pleasing girl, and, through her
acquaintance with Smith, friendly to the whites, there is no doubt; that
she was not different in her habits and mode of life from other Indian
girls, before the time of her kidnapping, there is every reason to
suppose. It was the English who magnified the imperialism of her father,
and exaggerated her own station as Princess. She certainly put on no
airs of royalty when she was "cart-wheeling" about the fort. Nor
does this detract anything from the native dignity of the mature, and
converted, and partially civilized woman.
We should expect there would be the discrepancies which have been
noticed in the estimates of her age. Powhatan is not said to have kept
a private secretary to register births in his family. If Pocahontas gave
her age correctly, as it appears upon her London portrait in 1616,
aged twenty-one, she must have been eighteen years of age when she was
captured in 1613 This would make her about twelve at the time of Smith's
captivity in 1607-8. There is certainly room for difference of opinion
as to whether so precocious a woman, as her intelligent apprehension of
affairs shows her to have been, should have remained unmarried till the
age of eighteen. In marrying at least as early as that she would have
followed the custom of her tribe. It is possible that her intercourse
with the whites had raised her above such an alliance as would be
offered her at the court of Werowocomoco.
We are without any record of the life of Pocahontas for some years.
The occasional mentions of her name in the "General Historie" are so
evidently interpolated at a late date, that they do not aid us. When
and where she took the name of Matoaka, which appears upon her London
portrait, we are not told, nor when she was called Amonata, as Strachey
says she was "at more ripe yeares." How she was occupied from the
departure of Smith to her abduction, we can only guess. To follow her
authentic history we must take up the account of Captain Argall and of
Ralph Hamor, Jr., secretary of the colony under Governor Dale.
Captain Argall, who seems to have been as bold as he was unscrupulous
in the execution of any plan intrusted to him, arrived in Virginia
in September, 1612, and early in the spring of 1613 he was sent on an
expedition up the Patowomek to trade for corn and to effect a capture
that would bring Powhatan to terms. The Emperor, from being a friend,
had become the most implacable enemy of the English. Captain Argall
says: "I was told by certain Indians, my friends, that the great
Powhatan's daughter Pokahuntis was with the great King Potowomek,
whither I presently repaired, resolved to possess myself of her by any
stratagem that I could use, for the ransoming of so many Englishmen as
were prisoners with Powhatan, as also to get such armes and tooles as
he and other Indians had got by murther and stealing some others of our
nation, with some quantity of corn for the colonies relief."
By the aid of Japazeus, King of Pasptancy, an old acquaintance and
friend of Argall's, and the connivance of the King of Potowomek,
Pocahontas was enticed on board Argall's ship and secured. Word was sent
to Powhatan of the capture and the terms on which his daughter would be
released; namely, the return of the white men he held in slavery, the
tools and arms he had gotten and stolen, and a great quantity of corn.
Powhatan, "much grieved," replied that if Argall would use his daughter
well, and bring the ship into his river and release her, he would accede
to all his demands. Therefore, on the 13th of April, Argall repaired to
Governor Gates at Jamestown, and delivered his prisoner, and a few days
after the King sent home some of the white captives, three pieces, one
broad-axe, a long whip-saw, and a canoe of corn. Pocahontas, however,
was kept at Jamestown.
Why Pocahontas had left Werowocomoco and gone to stay with Patowomek
we can only conjecture. It is possible that Powhatan suspected her
friendliness to the whites, and was weary of her importunity, and it may
be that she wanted to escape the sight of continual fighting, ambushes,
and murders. More likely she was only making a common friendly visit,
though Hamor says she went to trade at an Indian fair.
The story of her capture is enlarged and more minutely related by Ralph
Hamor, Jr., who was one of the colony shipwrecked on the Bermudas in
1609, and returned to England in 1614, where he published (London, 1615)
"A True Discourse of Virginia, and the Success of the Affairs there
till the 18th of June, 1614." Hamor was the son of a merchant tailor in
London who was a member of the Virginia company. Hamor writes:
"It chanced Powhatan's delight and darling, his daughter Pocahuntas
(whose fame has even been spread in England by the title of Nonparella
of Firginia) in her princely progresse if I may so terme it, tooke some
pleasure (in the absence of Captaine Argall) to be among her friends at
Pataomecke (as it seemeth by the relation I had), implored thither as
shopkeeper to a Fare, to exchange some of her father's commodities for
theirs, where residing some three months or longer, it fortuned upon
occasion either of promise or profit, Captaine Argall to arrive there,
whom Pocahuntas, desirous to renew her familiaritie with the English,
and delighting to see them as unknown, fearefull perhaps to be
surprised, would gladly visit as she did, of whom no sooner had Captaine
Argall intelligence, but he delt with an old friend Iapazeus, how and
by what meanes he might procure her caption, assuring him that now or
never, was the time to pleasure him, if he intended indeede that love
which he had made profession of, that in ransome of hir he might redeeme
some of our English men and armes, now in the possession of her father,
promising to use her withall faire and gentle entreaty; Iapazeus well
assured that his brother, as he promised, would use her courteously,
promised his best endeavors and service to accomplish his desire, and
thus wrought it, making his wife an instrument (which sex have ever been
most powerful in beguiling inticements) to effect his plot which hee
had thus laid, he agreed that himself, his wife and Pocahuntas, would
accompanie his brother to the water side, whither come, his wife should
faine a great and longing desire to goe aboorde, and see the shippe,
which being there three or four times before she had never seene, and
should be earnest with her husband to permit her--he seemed angry with
her, making as he pretended so unnecessary request, especially being
without the company of women, which denial she taking unkindly,
must faine to weepe (as who knows not that women can command teares)
whereupon her husband seeming to pitty those counterfeit teares, gave
her leave to goe aboord, so that it would pleese Pocahuntas to accompany
her; now was the greatest labour to win her, guilty perhaps of her
father's wrongs, though not knowne as she supposed, to goe with her, yet
by her earnest persuasions, she assented: so forthwith aboord they went,
the best cheere that could be made was seasonably provided, to supper
they went, merry on all hands, especially Iapazeus and his wife, who to
expres their joy would ere be treading upon Captaine Argall's foot, as
who should say tis don, she is your own. Supper ended Pocahuntas was
lodged in the gunner's roome, but Iapazeus and his wife desired to have
some conference with their brother, which was onely to acquaint him by
what stratagem they had betraied his prisoner as I have already
related: after which discourse to sleepe they went, Pocahuntas nothing
mistrusting this policy, who nevertheless being most possessed with
feere, and desire of returne, was first up, and hastened Iapazeus to be
gon. Capt. Argall having secretly well rewarded him, with a small Copper
kittle, and some other les valuable toies so highly by him esteemed,
that doubtlesse he would have betraied his own father for them,
permitted both him and his wife to returne, but told him that for divers
considerations, as for that his father had then eigh [8] of our Englishe
men, many swords, peeces, and other tooles, which he hid at severall
times by trecherous murdering our men, taken from them which though
of no use to him, he would not redeliver, he would reserve Pocahuntas,
whereat she began to be exceeding pensive, and discontented, yet
ignorant of the dealing of Japazeus who in outward appearance was no les
discontented that he should be the meanes of her captivity, much adoe
there was to pursuade her to be patient, which with extraordinary
curteous usage, by little and little was wrought in her, and so to
Jamestowne she was brought."
Smith, who condenses this account in his "General Historie," expresses
his contempt of this Indian treachery by saying: "The old Jew and his
wife began to howle and crie as fast as Pocahuntas." It will be noted
that the account of the visit (apparently alone) of Pocahontas and her
capture is strong evidence that she was not at this time married to
"Kocoum" or anybody else.
Word was despatched to Powhatan of his daughter's duress, with a
demand made for the restitution of goods; but although this savage is
represented as dearly loving Pocahontas, his "delight and darling," it
was, according to Hamor, three months before they heard anything from
him. His anxiety about his daughter could not have been intense. He
retained a part of his plunder, and a message was sent to him that
Pocahontas would be kept till he restored all the arms.
This answer pleased Powhatan so little that they heard nothing from him
till the following March. Then Sir Thomas Dale and Captain Argall, with
several vessels and one hundred and fifty men, went up to Powhatan's
chief seat, taking his daughter with them, offering the Indians a chance
to fight for her or to take her in peace on surrender of the stolen
goods. The Indians received this with bravado and flights of arrows,
reminding them of the fate of Captain Ratcliffe. The whites landed,
killed some Indians, burnt forty houses, pillaged the village, and went
on up the river and came to anchor in front of Matchcot, the Emperor's
chief town. Here were assembled four hundred armed men, with bows and
arrows, who dared them to come ashore. Ashore they went, and a palaver
was held. The Indians wanted a day to consult their King, after which
they would fight, if nothing but blood would satisfy the whites.
Two of Powhatan's sons who were present expressed a desire to see their
sister, who had been taken on shore. When they had sight of her, and
saw how well she was cared for, they greatly rejoiced and promised to
persuade their father to redeem her and conclude a lasting peace. The
two brothers were taken on board ship, and Master John Rolfe and Master
Sparkes were sent to negotiate with the King. Powhatan did not show
himself, but his brother Apachamo, his successor, promised to use his
best efforts to bring about a peace, and the expedition returned to
Jamestown.
"Long before this time," Hamor relates, "a gentleman of approved
behaviour and honest carriage, Master John Rolfe, had been in love with
Pocahuntas and she with him, which thing at the instant that we were
in parlee with them, myselfe made known to Sir Thomas Dale, by a letter
from him [Rolfe] whereby he entreated his advice and furtherance to his
love, if so it seemed fit to him for the good of the Plantation, and
Pocahuntas herself acquainted her brethren therewith." Governor Dale
approved this, and consequently was willing to retire without other
conditions. "The bruite of this pretended marriage [Hamor continues]
came soon to Powhatan's knowledge, a thing acceptable to him, as
appeared by his sudden consent thereunto, who some ten daies after sent
an old uncle of hirs, named Opachisco, to give her as his deputy in the
church, and two of his sonnes to see the mariage solemnized which was
accordingly done about the fifth of April [1614], and ever since we have
had friendly commerce and trade, not only with Powhatan himself, but
also with his subjects round about us; so as now I see no reason why the
collonie should not thrive a pace."
This marriage was justly celebrated as the means and beginning of a firm
peace which long continued, so that Pocahontas was again entitled to the
grateful remembrance of the Virginia settlers. Already, in 1612, a plan
had been mooted in Virginia of marrying the English with the natives,
and of obtaining the recognition of Powhatan and those allied to him as
members of a fifth kingdom, with certain privileges. Cunega, the Spanish
ambassador at London, on September 22, 1612, writes: "Although some
suppose the plantation to decrease, he is credibly informed that there
is a determination to marry some of the people that go over to Virginia;
forty or fifty are already so married, and English women intermingle and
are received kindly by the natives. A zealous minister hath been wounded
for reprehending it."
Mr. John Rolfe was a man of industry, and apparently devoted to the
welfare of the colony. He probably brought with him in 1610 his wife,
who gave birth to his daughter Bermuda, born on the Somers Islands at
the time of the shipwreck. We find no notice of her death. Hamor gives
him the distinction of being the first in the colony to try, in 1612,
the planting and raising of tobacco. "No man [he adds] hath labored to
his power, by good example there and worthy encouragement into England
by his letters, than he hath done, witness his marriage with Powhatan's
daughter, one of rude education, manners barbarous and cursed
generation, meerely for the good and honor of the plantation: and
least any man should conceive that some sinister respects allured him
hereunto, I have made bold, contrary to his knowledge, in the end of my
treatise to insert the true coppie of his letter written to Sir Thomas
Dale."
The letter is a long, labored, and curious document, and comes nearer to
a theological treatise than any love-letter we have on record. It reeks
with unction. Why Rolfe did not speak to Dale, whom he saw every day,
instead of inflicting upon him this painful document, in which the
flutterings of a too susceptible widower's heart are hidden under a
great resolve of self-sacrifice, is not plain.
The letter protests in a tedious preamble that the writer is moved
entirely by the Spirit of God, and continues:
"Let therefore this my well advised protestation, which here I make
between God and my own conscience, be a sufficient witness, at the
dreadful day of judgment (when the secrets of all men's hearts shall be
opened) to condemne me herein, if my chiefest interest and purpose be
not to strive with all my power of body and mind, in the undertaking
of so weighty a matter, no way led (so far forth as man's weakness may
permit) with the unbridled desire of carnall affection; but for the good
of this plantation, for the honour of our countrie, for the glory of
God, for my owne salvation, and for the converting to the true knowledge
of God and Jesus Christ, an unbelieving creature, namely Pokahuntas.
To whom my heartie and best thoughts are, and have a long time bin so
entangled, and inthralled in so intricate a laborinth, that I was even
awearied to unwinde myself thereout."
Master Rolfe goes on to describe the mighty war in his meditations on
this subject, in which he had set before his eyes the frailty of mankind
and his proneness to evil and wicked thoughts. He is aware of God's
displeasure against the sons of Levi and Israel for marrying strange
wives, and this has caused him to look about warily and with good
circumspection "into the grounds and principall agitations which should
thus provoke me to be in love with one, whose education hath bin rude,
her manners barbarous, her generation accursed, and so discrepant in
all nurtriture from myselfe, that oftentimes with feare and trembling,
I have ended my private controversie with this: surely these are
wicked instigations, fetched by him who seeketh and delighteth in man's
distruction; and so with fervent prayers to be ever preserved from such
diabolical assaults (as I looke those to be) I have taken some rest."
The good man was desperately in love and wanted to marry the Indian, and
consequently he got no peace; and still being tormented with her image,
whether she was absent or present, he set out to produce an ingenious
reason (to show the world) for marrying her. He continues:
"Thus when I thought I had obtained my peace and quietnesse, beholde
another, but more gracious tentation hath made breaches into my holiest
and strongest meditations; with which I have been put to a new triall,
in a straighter manner than the former; for besides the weary passions
and sufferings which I have dailey, hourely, yea and in my sleepe
indured, even awaking me to astonishment, taxing me with remissnesse,
and carelessnesse, refusing and neglecting to perform the duteie of a
good Christian, pulling me by the eare, and crying: Why dost thou not
indeavor to make her a Christian? And these have happened to my greater
wonder, even when she hath been furthest seperated from me, which
in common reason (were it not an undoubted work of God) might breede
forgetfulnesse of a far more worthie creature."
He accurately describes the symptoms and appears to understand the
remedy, but he is after a large-sized motive:
"Besides, I say the holy Spirit of God hath often demanded of me, why I
was created? If not for transitory pleasures and worldly vanities, but
to labour in the Lord's vineyard, there to sow and plant, to nourish and
increase the fruites thereof, daily adding with the good husband in the
gospell, somewhat to the tallent, that in the ends the fruites may be
reaped, to the comfort of the labourer in this life, and his salvation
in the world to come.... Likewise, adding hereunto her great appearance
of love to me, her desire to be taught and instructed in the knowledge
of God, her capablenesse of understanding, her aptness and willingness
to receive anie good impression, and also the spirituall, besides her
owne incitements stirring me up hereunto."
The "incitements" gave him courage, so that he exclaims: "Shall I be of
so untoward a disposition, as to refuse to lead the blind into the right
way? Shall I be so unnatural, as not to give bread to the hungrie, or
uncharitable, as not to cover the naked?"
It wasn't to be thought of, such wickedness; and so Master Rolfe screwed
up his courage to marry the glorious Princess, from whom thousands
of people were afterwards so anxious to be descended. But he made the
sacrifice for the glory of the country, the benefit of the plantation,
and the conversion of the unregenerate, and other and lower motive
he vigorously repels: "Now, if the vulgar sort, who square all men's
actions by the base rule of their own filthinesse, shall tax or taunt
mee in this my godly labour: let them know it is not hungry appetite, to
gorge myselfe with incontinency; sure (if I would and were so sensually
inclined) I might satisfy such desire, though not without a seared
conscience, yet with Christians more pleasing to the eie, and less
fearefull in the offense unlawfully committed. Nor am I in so desperate
an estate, that I regard not what becometh of me; nor am I out of hope
but one day to see my country, nor so void of friends, nor mean in
birth, but there to obtain a mach to my great con'tent.... But shall it
please God thus to dispose of me (which I earnestly desire to fulfill
my ends before set down) I will heartily accept of it as a godly taxe
appointed me, and I will never cease (God assisting me) untill I have
accomplished, and brought to perfection so holy a worke, in which I will
daily pray God to bless me, to mine and her eternal happiness."
It is to be hoped that if sanctimonious John wrote any love-letters to
Amonata they had less cant in them than this. But it was pleasing to Sir
Thomas Dale, who was a man to appreciate the high motives of Mr. Rolfe.
In a letter which he despatched from Jamestown, June 18, 1614, to a
reverend friend in London, he describes the expedition when Pocahontas
was carried up the river, and adds the information that when she went on
shore, "she would not talk to any of them, scarcely to them of the best
sort, and to them only, that if her father had loved her, he would not
value her less than old swords, pieces, or axes; wherefore she would
still dwell with the Englishmen who loved her."
"Powhatan's daughter [the letter continues] I caused to be carefully
instructed in Christian Religion, who after she had made some good
progress therein, renounced publically her countrey idolatry, openly
confessed her Christian faith, was, as she desired, baptized, and is
since married to an English Gentleman of good understanding (as by his
letter unto me, containing the reasons for his marriage of her you may
perceive), an other knot to bind this peace the stronger. Her father
and friends gave approbation to it, and her uncle gave her to him in
the church; she lives civilly and lovingly with him, and I trust will
increase in goodness, as the knowledge of God increaseth in her. She
will goe into England with me, and were it but the gayning of this one
soule, I will think my time, toile, and present stay well spent."
Hamor also appends to his narration a short letter, of the same date
with the above, from the minister Alexander Whittaker, the genuineness
of which is questioned. In speaking of the good deeds of Sir Thomas Dale
it says: "But that which is best, one Pocahuntas or Matoa, the
daughter of Powhatan, is married to an honest and discreet English
Gentleman--Master Rolfe, and that after she had openly renounced her
countrey Idolatry, and confessed the faith of Jesus Christ, and was
baptized, which thing Sir Thomas Dale had laboured a long time to ground
her in." If, as this proclaims, she was married after her conversion,
then Rolfe's tender conscience must have given him another twist for
wedding her, when the reason for marrying her (her conversion) had
ceased with her baptism. His marriage, according to this, was a pure
work of supererogation. It took place about the 5th of April, 1614. It
is not known who performed the ceremony.
How Pocahontas passed her time in Jamestown during the period of her
detention, we are not told. Conjectures are made that she was an inmate
of the house of Sir Thomas Dale, or of that of the Rev. Mr. Whittaker,
both of whom labored zealously to enlighten her mind on religious
subjects. She must also have been learning English and civilized ways,
for it is sure that she spoke our language very well when she went to
London. Mr. John Rolfe was also laboring for her conversion, and we may
suppose that with all these ministrations, mingled with her love of Mr.
Rolfe, which that ingenious widower had discovered, and her desire to
convert him into a husband, she was not an unwilling captive. Whatever
may have been her barbarous instincts, we have the testimony of Governor
Dale that she lived "civilly and lovingly" with her husband.
STORY OF POCAHONTAS, CONTINUED
Sir Thomas Dale was on the whole the most efficient and discreet
Governor the colony had had. One element of his success was no doubt the
change in the charter of 1609. By the first charter everything had
been held in common by the company, and there had been no division of
property or allotment of land among the colonists. Under the new regime
land was held in severalty, and the spur of individual interest began
at once to improve the condition of the settlement. The character of the
colonists was also gradually improving. They had not been of a sort
to fulfill the earnest desire of the London promoter's to spread vital
piety in the New World. A zealous defense of Virginia and Maryland,
against "scandalous imputation," entitled "Leah and Rachel; or, The
Two Fruitful Sisters," by Mr. John Hammond, London, 1656, considers
the charges that Virginia "is an unhealthy place, a nest of rogues,
abandoned women, dissolut and rookery persons; a place of intolerable
labour, bad usage and hard diet"; and admits that "at the first
settling, and for many years after, it deserved most of these
aspersions, nor were they then aspersions but truths.... There were
jails supplied, youth seduced, infamous women drilled in, the provision
all brought out of England, and that embezzled by the Trustees."
Governor Dale was a soldier; entering the army in the Netherlands as a
private he had risen to high position, and received knighthood in 1606.
Shortly after he was with Sir Thomas Gates in South Holland. The States
General in 1611 granted him three years' term of absence in Virginia.
Upon his arrival he began to put in force that system of industry and
frugality he had observed in Holland. He had all the imperiousness of a
soldier, and in an altercation with Captain Newport, occasioned by some
injurious remarks the latter made about Sir Thomas Smith, the treasurer,
he pulled his beard and threatened to hang him. |
10,240 |
Produced by Eve Sobol
LOUISA PALLANT
By Henry James
I
Never say you know the last words about any human heart! I was once
treated to a revelation which startled and touched me in the nature of a
person with whom I had been acquainted--well, as I supposed--for years,
whose character I had had good reasons, heaven knows, to appreciate and
in regard to whom I flattered myself I had nothing more to learn.
It was on the terrace of the Kursaal at Homburg, nearly ten years ago,
one beautiful night toward the end of July. I had come to the place that
day from Frankfort, with vague intentions, and was mainly occupied in
waiting for my young nephew, the only son of my sister, who had been
entrusted to my care by a very fond mother for the summer--I was
expected to show him Europe, only the very best of it--and was on his
way from Paris to join me. The excellent band discoursed music not too
abstruse, while the air was filled besides with the murmur of different
languages, the smoke of many cigars, the creak on the gravel of the
gardens of strolling shoes and the thick tinkle of beer-glasses. There
were a hundred people walking about, there were some in clusters at
little tables and many on benches and rows of chairs, watching
the others as if they had paid for the privilege and were rather
disappointed. I was among these last; I sat by myself, smoking my cigar
and thinking of nothing very particular while families and couples
passed and repassed me.
I scarce know how long I had sat when I became aware of a recognition
which made my meditations definite. It was on my own part, and the
object of it was a lady who moved to and fro, unconscious of my
observation, with a young girl at her side. I hadn't seen her for ten
years, and what first struck me was the fact not that she was Mrs. Henry
Pallant, but that the girl who was with her was remarkably pretty--or
rather first of all that every one who passed appeared extremely to
admire. This led me also to notice the young lady myself, and her
charming face diverted my attention for some time from that of her
companion. The latter, moreover, though it was night, wore a thin light
veil which made her features vague. The couple slowly walked and
walked, but though they were very quiet and decorous, and also very well
dressed, they seemed to have no friends. Every one observed but no
one addressed them; they appeared even themselves to exchange very few
words. Moreover they bore with marked composure and as if they were
thoroughly used to it the attention they excited. I am afraid it
occurred to me to take for granted that they were of an artful intention
and that if they hadn't been the elder lady would have handed the
younger over a little less to public valuation and not have sought so to
conceal her own face. Perhaps this question came into my mind too easily
just then--in view of my prospective mentorship to my nephew. If I was
to show him only the best of Europe I should have to be very careful
about the people he should meet--especially the ladies--and the
relations he should form. I suspected him of great innocence and was
uneasy about my office. Was I completely relieved and reassured when
I became aware that I simply had Louisa Pallant before me and that the
girl was her daughter Linda, whom I had known as a child--Linda grown up
to charming beauty?
The question was delicate and the proof that I was not very sure is
perhaps that I forbore to speak to my pair at once. I watched them a
while--I wondered what they would do. No great harm assuredly; but I was
anxious to see if they were really isolated. Homburg was then a great
resort of the English--the London season took up its tale there toward
the first of August--and I had an idea that in such a company as that
Louisa would naturally know people. It was my impression that she
"cultivated" the English, that she had been much in London and would
be likely to have views in regard to a permanent settlement there. This
supposition was quickened by the sight of Linda's beauty, for I knew
there is no country in which such attractions are more appreciated. You
will see what time I took, and I confess that as I finished my cigar I
thought it all over. There was no good reason in fact why I should have
rushed into Mrs. Pallant's arms. She had not treated me well and we had
never really made it up. Somehow even the circumstance that--after the
first soreness--I was glad to have lost her had never put us quite right
with each other; nor, for herself, had it made her less ashamed of her
heartless behaviour that poor Pallant proved finally no great catch. I
had forgiven her; I hadn't felt it anything but an escape not to have
married a girl who had in her to take back her given word and break
a fellow's heart for mere flesh-pots--or the shallow promise, as it
pitifully turned out, of flesh-pots. Moreover we had met since then--on
the occasion of my former visit to Europe; had looked each other in the
eyes, had pretended to be easy friends and had talked of the wickedness
of the world as composedly as if we were the only just, the only pure.
I knew by that time what she had given out--that I had driven her off by
my insane jealousy before she ever thought of Henry Pallant, before
she had ever seen him. This hadn't been before and couldn't be to-day
a ground of real reunion, especially if you add to it that she knew
perfectly what I thought of her. It seldom ministers to friendship, I
believe, that your friend shall know your real opinion, for he knows it
mainly when it's unfavourable, and this is especially the case if--let
the solecism pass!--he be a woman. I hadn't followed Mrs. Pallant's
fortunes; the years went by for me in my own country, whereas she led
her life, which I vaguely believed to be difficult after her husband's
death--virtually that of a bankrupt--in foreign lands. I heard of
her from time to time; always as "established" somewhere, but on each
occasion in a different place. She drifted from country to country, and
if she had been of a hard composition at the beginning it could never
occur to me that her struggle with society, as it might be called, would
have softened the paste. Whenever I heard a woman spoken of as "horribly
worldly" I thought immediately of the object of my early passion. I
imagined she had debts, and when I now at last made up my mind to recall
myself to her it was present to me that she might ask me to lend her
money. More than anything else, however, at this time of day, I was
sorry for her, so that such an idea didn't operate as a deterrent.
She pretended afterwards that she hadn't noticed me--expressing as
we stood face to face great surprise and wishing to know where I had
dropped from; but I think the corner of her eye had taken me in and she
had been waiting to see what I would do. She had ended by sitting down
with her girl on the same row of chairs with myself, and after a little,
the seat next to her becoming vacant, I had gone and stood before
her. She had then looked up at me a moment, staring as if she couldn't
imagine who I was or what I wanted; after which, smiling and extending
her hands, she had broken out: "Ah my dear old friend--what a delight!"
If she had waited to see what I would do in order to choose her own line
she thus at least carried out this line with the utmost grace. She was
cordial, friendly, artless, interested, and indeed I'm sure she was very
glad to see me. I may as well say immediately, none the less, that she
gave me neither then nor later any sign of a desire to contract a loan.
She had scant means--that I learned--yet seemed for the moment able to
pay her way. I took the empty chair and we remained in talk for an hour.
After a while she made me sit at her other side, next her daughter, whom
she wished to know me--to love me--as one of their oldest friends. "It
goes back, back, back, doesn't it?" said Mrs. Pallant; "and of course
she remembers you as a child." Linda smiled all sweetly and blankly, and
I saw she remembered me not a whit. When her mother threw out that they
had often talked about me she failed to take it up, though she looked
extremely nice. Looking nice was her strong point; she was prettier even
than her mother had been. She was such a little lady that she made me
ashamed of having doubted, however vaguely and for a moment, of her
position in the scale of propriety. Her appearance seemed to say that
if she had no acquaintances it was because she didn't want them--because
nobody there struck her as attractive: there wasn't the slightest
difficulty about her choosing her friends. Linda Pallant, young as
she was, and fresh and fair and charming, gentle and sufficiently shy,
looked somehow exclusive--as if the dust of the common world had never
been meant to besprinkle her. She was of thinner consistency than her
mother and clearly not a young woman of professions--except in so far as
she was committed to an interest in you by her bright pure candid smile.
No girl who had such a lovely way of parting her lips could pass for
designing.
As I sat between the pair I felt I had been taken possession of and that
for better or worse my stay at Homburg would be intimately associated
with theirs. We gave each other a great deal of news and expressed
unlimited interest in each other's history since our last meeting. I
mightn't judge of what Mrs. Pallant kept back, but for myself I quite
overflowed. She let me see at any rate that her life had been a good
deal what I supposed, though the terms she employed to describe it were
less crude than those of my thought. She confessed they had drifted,
she and her daughter, and were drifting still. Her narrative rambled
and took a wrong turn, a false flight, or two, as I thought Linda
noted, while she sat watching the passers, in a manner that betrayed no
consciousness of their attention, without coming to her mother's aid.
Once or twice Mrs. Pallant made me rather feel a cross-questioner, which
I had had no intention of being. I took it that if the girl never put in
a word it was because she had perfect confidence in her parent's ability
to come out straight. It was suggested to me, I scarcely knew how, that
this confidence between the two ladies went to a great length; that
their union of thought, their system of reciprocal divination, was
remarkable, and that they probably seldom needed to resort to the clumsy
and in some cases dangerous expedient of communicating by sound. I
suppose I made this reflexion not all at once--it was not wholly the
result of that first meeting. I was with them constantly for the next
several days and my impressions had time to clarify.
I do remember, however, that it was on this first evening that Archie's
name came up. She attributed her own stay at Homburg to no refined nor
exalted motive--didn't put it that she was there from force of habit or
because a high medical authority had ordered her to drink the waters;
she frankly admitted the reason of her visit to have been simply that
she didn't know where else to turn. But she appeared to assume that
my behaviour rested on higher grounds and even that it required
explanation, the place being frivolous and modern--devoid of that
interest of antiquity which I had ever made so much of. "Don't you
remember--ever so long ago--that you wouldn't look at anything in Europe
that wasn't a thousand years old? Well, as we advance in life I suppose
we don't think that quite such a charm." And when I mentioned that I had
arrived because the place was as good as another for awaiting my nephew
she exclaimed: "Your nephew--what nephew? He must have come up of
late." I answered that his name was Archie Parker and that he was modern
indeed; he was to attain legal manhood in a few months and was in Europe
for the first time. My last news of him had been from Paris and I was
expecting to hear further from one day to the other. His father was
dead, and though a selfish bachelor, little versed in the care of
children, I was considerably counted on by his mother to see that he
didn't smoke nor flirt too much, nor yet tumble off an Alp.
Mrs. Pallant immediately guessed that his mother was my sister
Charlotte, whom she spoke of familiarly, though I knew she had scarce
seen her. Then in a moment it came to her which of the Parkers Charlotte
had married; she remembered the family perfectly from the old New York
days--"that disgustingly rich set." She said it was very nice having the
boy come out that way to my care; to which I replied that it was very
nice for the boy. She pronounced the advantage rather mine--I ought to
have had children; there was something so parental about me and I would
have brought them up so well. She could make an allusion like that--to
all that might have been and had not been--without a gleam of guilt
in her eye; and I foresaw that before I left the place I should have
confided to her that though I detested her and was very glad we had
fallen out, yet our old relations had left me no heart for marrying
another woman. If I had remained so single and so sterile the fault was
nobody's but hers. She asked what I meant to do with my nephew--to which
I replied that it was much more a question of what he would do with
me. She wished to know if he were a nice young man and had brothers and
sisters and any particular profession. I assured her I had really seen
little of him; I believed him to be six feet high and of tolerable
parts. He was an only son, but there was a little sister at home, a
delicate, rather blighted child, demanding all the mother's care.
"So that makes your responsibility greater, as it were, about the boy,
doesn't it?" said Mrs. Pallant.
"Greater? I'm sure I don't know."
"Why if the girl's life's uncertain he may become, some moment, all the
mother has. So that being in your hands--"
"Oh I shall keep him alive, I suppose, if you mean that," I returned.
"Well, WE won't kill him, shall we, Linda?" my friend went on with a
laugh.
"I don't know--perhaps we shall!" smiled the girl.
II
I called on them the next at their lodgings, the modesty of which was
enhanced by a hundred pretty feminine devices--flowers and photographs
and portable knick-knacks and a hired piano and morsels of old brocade
flung over angular sofas. I took them to drive; I met them again at
the Kursaal; I arranged that we should dine together, after the Homburg
fashion, at the same table d'hote; and during several days this
revived familiar intercourse continued, imitating intimacy if not quite
achieving it. I was pleased, as my companions passed the time for me
and the conditions of our life were soothing--the feeling of summer and
shade and music and leisure in the German gardens and woods, where we
strolled and sat and gossiped; to which may be added a vague sociable
sense that among people whose challenge to the curiosity was mainly not
irresistible we kept quite to ourselves. We were on the footing of old
friends who still had in regard to each other discoveries to make. We
knew each other's nature but didn't know each other's experience; so
that when Mrs. Pallant related to me what she had been "up to," as I
called it, for so many years, the former knowledge attached a hundred
interpretative footnotes--as if I had been editing an author who
presented difficulties--to the interesting page. There was nothing new
to me in the fact that I didn't esteem her, but there was relief in my
finding that this wasn't necessary at Homburg and that I could like her
in spite of it. She struck me, in the oddest way, as both improved
and degenerate; the two processes, in her nature, might have gone on
together. She was battered and world-worn and, spiritually speaking,
vulgarised; something fresh had rubbed off her--it even included the
vivacity of her early desire to do the best thing for herself--and
something rather stale had rubbed on. At the same time she betrayed
a scepticism, and that was rather becoming, for it had quenched the
eagerness of her prime, the mercenary principle I had so suffered from.
She had grown weary and detached, and since she affected me as more
impressed with the evil of the world than with the good, this was a
gain; in other words her accretion of indifference, if not of cynicism,
showed a softer surface than that of her old ambitions. Furthermore
I had to recognise that her devotion to her daughter was a kind of
religion; she had done the very best possible for Linda.
Linda was curious, Linda was interesting; I've seen girls I liked
better--charming as this one might be--but have never seen one who for
the hour you were with her (the impression passed somehow when she
was out of sight) occupied you so completely. I can best describe the
attention she provoked by saying that she struck you above all things
as a felicitous FINAL product--after the fashion of some plant or some
fruit, some waxen orchid or some perfect peach. She was clearly the
result of a process of calculation, a process patiently educative, a
pressure exerted, and all artfully, so that she should reach a high
point.
This high point had been the star of her mother's heaven--it hung
before her so unquenchably--and had shed the only light (in default of a
better) that was to shine on the poor lady's path. It stood her instead
of every other ideal. The very most and the very best--that was what the
girl had been led on to achieve; I mean of course, since no real miracle
had been wrought, the most and the best she was capable of. She was as
pretty, as graceful, as intelligent, as well-bred, as well-informed,
as well-dressed, as could have been conceived for her; her music, her
singing, her German, her French, her English, her step, her tone, her
glance, her manner, everything in her person and movement, from the
shade and twist of her hair to the way you saw her finger-nails were
pink when she raised her hand, had been carried so far that one found
one's self accepting them as the very measure of young grace. I regarded
her thus as a model, yet it was a part of her perfection that she had
none of the stiffness of a pattern. If she held the observation it was
because you wondered where and when she would break down; but she never
broke down, either in her French accent or in her role of educated
angel.
After Archie had come the ladies were manifestly his greatest resource,
and all the world knows why a party of four is more convenient than a
party of three. My nephew had kept me waiting a week, with a serenity
all his own; but this very coolness was a help to harmony--so long, that
is, as I didn't lose my temper with it. I didn't, for the most part,
because my young man's unperturbed acceptance of the most various forms
of good fortune had more than anything else the effect of amusing me. I
had seen little of him for the last three or four years; I wondered what
his impending majority would have made of him--he didn't at all carry
himself as if the wind of his fortune were rising--and I watched
him with a solicitude that usually ended in a joke. He was a tall
fresh-coloured youth, with a candid circular countenance and a love
of cigarettes, horses and boats which had not been sacrificed to more
strenuous studies. He was reassuringly natural, in a supercivilised age,
and I soon made up my mind that the formula of his character was in the
clearing of the inward scene by his so preordained lack of imagination.
If he was serene this was still further simplifying. After that I had
time to meditate on the line that divides the serene from the inane, the
simple from the silly. He wasn't clever; the fonder theory quite defied
our cultivation, though Mrs. Pallant tried it once or twice; but on
the other hand it struck me his want of wit might be a good defensive
weapon. It wasn't the sort of density that would let him in, but
the sort that would keep him out. By which I don't mean that he had
shortsighted suspicions, but that on the contrary imagination would
never be needed to save him, since she would never put him in danger.
He was in short a well-grown well-washed muscular young American, whose
extreme salubrity might have made him pass for conceited. If he looked
pleased with himself it was only because he was pleased with life--as
well he might be, with the fortune that awaited the stroke of his
twenty-first year--and his big healthy independent person was
an inevitable part of that. I am bound to add that he was
accommodating--for which I was grateful. His habits were active, but
he didn't insist on my adopting them and he made numerous and generous
sacrifices for my society. When I say he made them for mine I must duly
remember that mine and that of Mrs. Pallant and Linda were now very
much the same thing. He was willing to sit and smoke for hours under the
trees or, adapting his long legs to the pace of his three companions,
stroll through the nearer woods of the charming little hill-range of the
Taunus to those rustic Wirthschaften where coffee might be drunk under
a trellis. Mrs. Pallant took a great interest in him; she made him, with
his easy uncle, a subject of discourse; she pronounced him a delightful
specimen, as a young gentleman of his period and country. She even
asked me the sort of "figure" his fortune might really amount to, and
professed a rage of envy when I told her what I supposed it to be. While
we were so occupied Archie, on his side, couldn't do less than converse
with Linda, nor to tell the truth did he betray the least inclination
for any different exercise. They strolled away together while their
elders rested; two or three times, in the evening, when the ballroom of
the Kursaal was lighted and dance-music played, they whirled over the
smooth floor in a waltz that stirred my memory. Whether it had the
same effect on Mrs. Pallant's I know not: she held her peace. We had on
certain occasions our moments, almost our half-hours, of unembarrassed
silence while our young companions disported themselves. But if at other
times her enquiries and comments were numerous on this article of my
ingenuous charge, that might very well have passed for a courteous
recognition of the frequent admiration I expressed for Linda--an
admiration that drew from her, I noticed, but scant direct response.
I was struck thus with her reserve when I spoke of her daughter--my
remarks produced so little of a maternal flutter. Her detachment, her
air of having no fatuous illusions and not being blinded by prejudice,
seemed to me at times to savour of affectation. Either she answered me
with a vague and impatient sigh and changed the subject, or else she
said before doing so: "Oh yes, yes, she's a very brilliant creature.
She ought to be: God knows what I've done for her!" The reader will have
noted my fondness, in all cases, for the explanations of things; as an
example of which I had my theory here that she was disappointed in the
girl. Where then had her special calculation failed? As she couldn't
possibly have wished her prettier or more pleasing, the pang must have
been for her not having made a successful use of her gifts. Had she
expected her to "land" a prince the day after leaving the schoolroom?
There was after all plenty of time for this, with Linda but
two-and-twenty. It didn't occur to me to wonder if the source of her
mother's tepidity was that the young lady had not turned out so nice a
nature as she had hoped, because in the first place Linda struck me
as perfectly innocent, and because in the second I wasn't paid, in
the French phrase, for supposing Louisa Pallant much concerned on that
score. The last hypothesis I should have invoked was that of private
despair at bad moral symptoms. And in relation to Linda's nature I had
before me the daily spectacle of her manner with my nephew. It was as
charming as it could be without betrayal of a desire to lead him on. She
was as familiar as a cousin, but as a distant one--a cousin who had been
brought up to observe degrees. She was so much cleverer than Archie
that she couldn't help laughing at him, but she didn't laugh enough to
exclude variety, being well aware, no doubt, that a woman's cleverness
most shines in contrast with a man's stupidity when she pretends to take
that stupidity for her law. Linda Pallant moreover was not a chatterbox;
as she knew the value of many things she knew the value of intervals.
There were a good many in the conversation of these young persons;
my nephew's own speech, to say nothing of his thought, abounding in
comfortable lapses; so that I sometimes wondered how their association
was kept at that pitch of continuity of which it gave the impression.
It was friendly enough, evidently, when Archie sat near her--near
enough for low murmurs, had such risen to his lips--and watched her with
interested eyes and with freedom not to try too hard to make himself
agreeable. She had always something in hand--a flower in her tapestry
to finish, the leaves of a magazine to cut, a button to sew on her glove
(she carried a little work-bag in her pocket and was a person of the
daintiest habits), a pencil to ply ever so neatly in a sketchbook
which she rested on her knee. When we were indoors--mainly then at her
mother's modest rooms--she had always the resource of her piano, of
which she was of course a perfect mistress.
These pursuits supported her, they helped her to an assurance under
such narrow inspection--I ended by rebuking Archie for it; I told him he
stared the poor girl out of countenance--and she sought further relief
in smiling all over the place. When my young man's eyes shone at her
those of Miss Pallant addressed themselves brightly to the trees and
clouds and other surrounding objects, including her mother and me.
Sometimes she broke into a sudden embarrassed happy pointless laugh.
When she wandered off with him she looked back at us in a manner that
promised it wasn't for long and that she was with us still in spirit.
If I liked her I had therefore my good reason: it was many a day since a
pretty girl had had the air of taking me so much into account. Sometimes
when they were so far away as not to disturb us she read aloud a little
to Mr. Archie. I don't know where she got her books--I never provided
them, and certainly he didn't. He was no reader and I fear he often
dozed.
III
I remember the first time--it was at the end of about ten days of
this--that Mrs. Pallant remarked to me: "My dear friend, you're quite
AMAZING! You behave for all the world as if you were perfectly ready to
accept certain consequences." She nodded in the direction of our young
companions, but I nevertheless put her at the pains of saying
what consequences she meant. "What consequences? Why the very same
consequences that ensued when you and I first became acquainted."
I hesitated, but then, looking her in the eyes, said: "Do you mean she'd
throw him over?"
"You're not kind, you're not generous," she replied with a quick colour.
"I'm giving you a warning."
"You mean that my boy may fall in love with your girl?"
"Certainly. It looks even as if the harm might be already done."
"Then your warning comes too late," I significantly smiled. "But why do
you call it a harm?"
"Haven't you any sense of the rigour of your office?" she asked. "Is
that what his mother has sent him out to you for: that you shall find
him the first wife you can pick up, that you shall let him put his head
into the noose the day after his arrival?"
"Heaven forbid I should do anything of the kind! I know moreover that
his mother doesn't want him to marry young. She holds it the worst of
mistakes, she feels that at that age a man never really chooses. He
doesn't choose till he has lived a while, till he has looked about and
compared."
"And what do you think then yourself?"
"I should like to say I regard the fact of falling in love, at whatever
age, as in itself an act of selection. But my being as I am at this time
of day would contradict me too much."
"Well then, you're too primitive. You ought to leave this place
tomorrow."
"So as not to see Archie fall--?"
"You ought to fish him out now--from where he HAS fallen--and take him
straight away."
I wondered a little. "Do you think he's in very far?"
"If I were his mother I know what I should think. I can put myself in
her place--I'm not narrow-minded. I know perfectly well how she must
regard such a question."
"And don't you know," I returned, "that in America that's not thought
important--the way the mother regards it?"
Mrs. Pallant had a pause--as if I mystified or vexed her. "Well, we're
not in America. We happen to be here."
"No; my poor sister's up to her neck in New York."
"I'm almost capable of writing to her to come out," said Mrs. Pallant.
"You ARE warning me," I cried, "but I hardly know of what! It seems
to me my responsibility would begin only at the moment your daughter
herself should seem in danger."
"Oh you needn't mind that--I'll take care of Linda."
But I went on. "If you think she's in danger already I'll carry him off
to-morrow."
"It would be the best thing you could do."
"I don't know--I should be very sorry to act on a false alarm. I'm very
well here; I like the place and the life and your society. Besides, it
doesn't strike me that--on her side--there's any real symptom."
She looked at me with an air I had never seen in her face, and if I
had puzzled her she repaid me in kind. "You're very annoying. You don't
deserve what I'd fain do for you."
What she'd fain do for me she didn't tell me that day, but we took up
the subject again. I remarked that I failed to see why we should
assume that a girl like Linda--brilliant enough to make one of the
greatest--would fall so very easily into my nephew's arms. Might
I enquire if her mother had won a confession from her, if she had
stammered out her secret? Mrs. Pallant made me, on this, the point
that they had no need to tell each other such things--they hadn't lived
together twenty years in such intimacy for nothing. To which I returned
that I had guessed as much, but that there might be an exception for
a great occasion like the present. If Linda had shown nothing it was a
sign that for HER the occasion wasn't great; and I mentioned that Archie
had spoken to me of the young lady only to remark casually and rather
patronisingly, after his first encounter with her, that she was a
regular little flower. (The little flower was nearly three years older
than himself.) Apart from this he hadn't alluded to her and had taken
up no allusion of mine. Mrs. Pallant informed me again--for which I
was prepared--that I was quite too primitive; after which she said: "We
needn't discuss the case if you don't wish to, but I happen to know--how
I obtained my knowledge isn't important--that the moment Mr. Parker
should propose to my daughter she'd gobble him down. Surely it's a
detail worth mentioning to you."
I sought to defer then to her judgement. "Very good. I'll sound him.
I'll look into the matter tonight."
"Don't, don't; you'll spoil everything!" She spoke as with some finer
view. "Remove him quickly--that's the only thing."
I didn't at all like the idea of removing him quickly; it seemed too
summary, too extravagant, even if presented to him on specious grounds;
and moreover, as I had told Mrs. Pallant, I really had no wish to
change my scene. It was no part of my promise to my sister that, with
my middle-aged habits, I should duck and dodge about Europe. So
I temporised. "Should you really object to the boy so much as a
son-in-law? After all he's a good fellow and a gentleman."
"My poor friend, you're incredibly superficial!" she made answer with an
assurance that struck me.
The contempt in it so nettled me in fact that I exclaimed: "Possibly!
But it seems odd that a lesson in consistency should come from YOU."
I had no retort from her on this, rather to my surprise, and when she
spoke again it was all quietly. "I think Linda and I had best withdraw.
We've been here a month--it will have served our purpose."
"Mercy on us, that will be a bore!" I protested; and for the rest of
the evening, till we separated--our conversation had taken place after
dinner at the Kursaal--she said little, preserving a subdued and almost
injured air. This somehow didn't appeal to me, since it was absurd that
Louisa Pallant, of all women, should propose to put me in the wrong. If
ever a woman had been in the wrong herself--! I had even no need to go
into that. Archie and I, at all events, usually attended the ladies back
to their own door--they lived in a street of minor accommodation at a
certain distance from the Rooms--where we parted for the night late,
on the big cobblestones, in the little sleeping German town, under
the closed windows of which, suggesting stuffy interiors, our cheerful
English partings resounded. On this occasion indeed they rather
languished; the question that had come up for me with Mrs. Pallant
appeared--and by no intention of mine--to have brushed the young couple
with its chill. Archie and Linda too struck me as conscious and dumb.
As I walked back to our hotel with my nephew I passed my hand into his
arm and put to him, by no roundabout approach, the question of whether
he were in serious peril of love.
"I don't know, I don't know--really, uncle, I don't know!" was, however,
all the satisfaction I could extract from the youth, who hadn't the
smallest vein of introspection. He mightn't know, but before we reached
the inn--we had a few more words on the subject--it seemed to me that
_I_ did. His mind wasn't formed to accommodate at one time many subjects
of thought, but Linda Pallant certainly constituted for the moment its
principal furniture. She pervaded his consciousness, she solicited
his curiosity, she associated herself, in a manner as yet informal and
undefined, with his future. I could see that she held, that she beguiled
him as no one had ever done. I didn't betray to him, however, that
perception, and I spent my night a prey to the consciousness that, after
all, it had been none of my business to provide him with the sense of
being captivated. To put him in relation with a young enchantress was
the last thing his mother had expected of me or that I had expected of
myself. Moreover it was quite my opinion that he himself was too young
to be a judge of enchantresses. Mrs. Pallant was right and I had given
high proof of levity in regarding her, with her beautiful daughter, as
a "resource." There were other resources--one of which WOULD be most
decidedly to clear out. What did I know after all about the girl except
that I rejoiced to have escaped from marrying her mother? That mother,
it was true, was a singular person, and it was strange her conscience
should have begun to fidget in advance of my own. It was strange she
should so soon have felt Archie's peril, and even stranger that she
should have then wished to "save" him. The ways of women were infinitely
subtle, and it was no novelty to me that one never knew where they would
turn up. As I haven't hesitated in this report to expose the irritable
side of my own nature I shall confess that I even wondered if my old
friend's solicitude hadn't been a deeper artifice. Wasn't it possibly a
plan of her own for making sure of my young man--though I didn't quite
see the logic of it? If she regarded him, which she might in view of his
large fortune, as a great catch, mightn't she have arranged this little
comedy, in their personal interest, with the girl?
That possibility at any rate only made it a happier thought that I
should win my companion to some curiosity about other places. There were
many of course much more worth his attention than Homburg. In the course
of the morning--it was after our early luncheon--I walked round to Mrs.
Pallant's to let her know I was ready to take action; but even while I
went I again felt the unlikelihood of the part attributed by my fears
and by the mother's own, so far as they had been roused, to Linda.
Certainly if she was such a girl as these fears represented her she
would fly at higher game. It was with an eye to high game, Mrs. Pallant
had frankly admitted to me, that she had been trained, and such an
education, to say nothing of such a performer, justified a hope of
greater returns. A young American, the fruit of scant "modelling," who
could give her nothing but pocket-money, was a very moderate prize,
and if she had been prepared to marry for ambition--there was no such
hardness in her face or tone, but then there never is--her mark would
be inevitably a "personage" quelconque. I was received at my friend's
lodging with the announcement that she had left Homburg with her
daughter half an hour before. The good woman who had entertained the
pair professed to know nothing of their movements beyond the fact that
they had gone to Frankfort, where, however, it was her belief that they
didn't intend to remain. They were evidently travelling beyond. Sudden,
their decision to move? Oh yes, the matter of a moment. They must have
spent the night in packing, they had so many things and such pretty
ones; and their poor maid, all the morning, had scarce had time to
swallow her coffee. But they clearly were ladies accustomed to come and
go. It didn't matter--with such rooms as hers she never wanted: there
was a new family coming in at three.
IV
This piece of strategy left me staring and made me, I must confess,
quite furious. My only consolation was that Archie, when I told him,
looked as blank as myself, and that the trick touched him more nearly,
for I was not now in love with Louisa. We agreed that we required an
explanation and we pretended to expect one the next day in the shape of
a letter satisfactory even to the point of being apologetic. When I say
"we" pretended I mean that I did, for my suspicion that he knew what had
been on foot--through an arrangement with Linda--lasted only a moment.
If his resentment was less than my own his surprise was equally great.
I had been willing to bolt, but I felt slighted by the ease with which
Mrs. Pallant had shown she could part with us. Archie professed no
sense of a grievance, because in the first place he was shy about it and
because in the second it was evidently not definite to him that he had
been encouraged--equipped as he was, I think, with no very particular
idea of what constituted encouragement. He was fresh from the wonderful
country in which there may between the ingenuous young be so little
question of "intentions." He was but dimly conscious of his own and
could by no means have told me whether he had been challenged or been
jilted. I didn't want to exasperate him, but when at the end of three
days more we were still without news of our late companions I observed
that it was very simple:--they must have been just hiding from us; they
thought us dangerous; they wished to avoid entanglements. They had found
us too attentive and wished not to raise false hopes. He appeared to
accept this explanation and even had the air--so at least I inferred
from his asking me no questions--of judging the matter might be delicate
for myself. The poor youth was altogether much mystified, and I smiled
at the image in his mind of Mrs. Pallant fleeing from his uncle's
importunities. We decided to leave Homburg, but if we didn't pursue our
fugitives it wasn't simply that we were ignorant of where they were. I
could have found that out with a little trouble, but I was deterred by
the reflexion that this would be Louisa's reasoning. She was a dreadful
humbug and her departure had been a provocation--I fear it was in that
stupid conviction that I made out a little independent itinerary with
Archie. I even believed we should learn where they were quite soon
enough, and that our patience--even my young man's--would be longer than
theirs. Therefore I uttered a small private cry of triumph when three
weeks later--we happened to be at Interlaken--he reported to me that he
had received a note from Miss Pallant. The form of this confidence was
his enquiring if there were particular reasons why we should longer
delay our projected visit to the Italian lakes. Mightn't the fear of the
hot weather, which was moreover at that season our native temperature,
cease to operate, the middle of September having arrived? I answered
that we would start on the morrow if he liked, and then, pleased
apparently that I was so easy to deal with, he revealed his little
secret. He showed me his letter, which was a graceful natural
document--it covered with a few flowing strokes but a single page of
note-paper--not at all compromising to the young lady. If, however, it
was almost the apology I had looked for--save that this should have come
from the mother--it was not ostensibly in the least an invitation. It
mentioned casually--the mention was mainly in the words at the head
of her paper--that they were on the Lago Maggiore, at Baveno; but it
consisted mainly of the expression of a regret that they had had so
abruptly to leave Homburg. Linda failed to say under what necessity they
had found themselves; she only hoped we hadn't judged them too harshly
and would accept "this hasty line" as a substitute for the omitted
good-bye. She also hoped our days were passing pleasantly and with the
same lovely weather that prevailed south of the Alps; and she remained
very sincerely and with the kindest remembrances--!
The note contained no message from her mother, and it was open to me to
suppose, as I should prefer, either that Mrs. Pallant hadn't known she
was writing or that they wished to make us think she hadn't known. The
letter might pass as a common civility of the girl's to a person with
whom she had been on easy terms. It was, however, for something more
than this that my nephew took it; so at least I gathered from the
touching candour of his determination to go to Baveno. I judged it idle
to drag him another way; he had money in his own pocket and was quite
capable of giving me the slip. Yet--such are the sweet incongruities of
youth--when I asked him to what tune he had been thinking of Linda since
they left us in the lurch he replied: "Oh I haven't been thinking at
all! Why should I?" This fib was accompanied by an exorbitant blush.
Since he was to obey his young woman's signal I must equally make out
where it would take him, and one splendid morning we started over the
Simplon in a post-chaise.
I represented to him successfully that it would be in much better taste
for us to alight at Stresa, which as every one knows is a resort
of tourists, also on the shore of the major lake, at about a mile's
distance from Baveno. If we stayed at the latter place we should have to
inhabit the same hotel as our friends, and this might be awkward in view
of a strained relation with them. Nothing would be easier than to go and
come between the two points, especially by the water, which would give
Archie a chance for unlimited paddling. His face lighted up at the
vision of a pair of oars; he pretended to take my plea for discretion
very seriously, and I could see that he had at once begun to calculate
opportunities for navigation with Linda. Our post-chaise--I had insisted
on easy stages and we were three days on the way--deposited us at Stresa
toward the middle of the afternoon, and it was within an amazingly short
time that I found myself in a small boat with my nephew, who pulled us
over to Baveno with vigorous strokes. I remember the sweetness of the
whole impression. I had had it before, but to my companion it was new,
and he thought it as pretty as the opera: the enchanting beauty of the
place and, hour, the stillness of the air and water, with the romantic
fantastic Borromean Islands set as great jewels in a crystal globe. |
10,240 |
Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Thierry A, David King, Charles
Franks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
POEMS 1817
by
JOHN KEATS
"What more felicity can fall to creature,
Than to enjoy delight with liberty."
_Fate of the Butterfly_.--SPENSER.
DEDICATION.
TO LEIGH HUNT, ESQ.
Glory and loveliness have passed away;
For if we wander out in early morn,
No wreathed incense do we see upborne
Into the east, to meet the smiling day:
No crowd of nymphs soft voic'd and young, and gay,
In woven baskets bringing ears of corn,
Roses, and pinks, and violets, to adorn
The shrine of Flora in her early May.
But there are left delights as high as these,
And I shall ever bless my destiny,
That in a time, when under pleasant trees
Pan is no longer sought, I feel a free
A leafy luxury, seeing I could please
With these poor offerings, a man like thee.
[The Short Pieces in the middle of the Book, as well
as some of the Sonnets, were written at an earlier
period than the rest of the Poems.]
POEMS.
"Places of nestling green for Poets made."
STORY OF RIMINI.
I stood tip-toe upon a little hill,
The air was cooling, and so very still.
That the sweet buds which with a modest pride
Pull droopingly, in slanting curve aside,
Their scantly leaved, and finely tapering stems,
Had not yet lost those starry diadems
Caught from the early sobbing of the morn.
The clouds were pure and white as flocks new shorn,
And fresh from the clear brook; sweetly they slept
On the blue fields of heaven, and then there crept
A little noiseless noise among the leaves,
Born of the very sigh that silence heaves:
For not the faintest motion could be seen
Of all the shades that slanted o'er the green.
There was wide wand'ring for the greediest eye,
To peer about upon variety;
Far round the horizon's crystal air to skim,
And trace the dwindled edgings of its brim;
To picture out the quaint, and curious bending
Of a fresh woodland alley, never ending;
Or by the bowery clefts, and leafy shelves,
Guess were the jaunty streams refresh themselves.
I gazed awhile, and felt as light, and free
As though the fanning wings of Mercury
Had played upon my heels: I was light-hearted,
And many pleasures to my vision started;
So I straightway began to pluck a posey
Of luxuries bright, milky, soft and rosy.
A bush of May flowers with the bees about them;
Ah, sure no tasteful nook would be without them;
And let a lush laburnum oversweep them,
And let long grass grow round the roots to keep them
Moist, cool and green; and shade the violets,
That they may bind the moss in leafy nets.
A filbert hedge with wild briar overtwined,
And clumps of woodbine taking the soft wind
Upon their summer thrones; there too should be
The frequent chequer of a youngling tree,
That with a score of light green brethen shoots
From the quaint mossiness of aged roots:
Round which is heard a spring-head of clear waters
Babbling so wildly of its lovely daughters
The spreading blue bells: it may haply mourn
That such fair clusters should be rudely torn
From their fresh beds, and scattered thoughtlessly
By infant hands, left on the path to die.
Open afresh your round of starry folds,
Ye ardent marigolds!
Dry up the moisture from your golden lids,
For great Apollo bids
That in these days your praises should be sung
On many harps, which he has lately strung;
And when again your dewiness he kisses,
Tell him, I have you in my world of blisses:
So haply when I rove in some far vale,
His mighty voice may come upon the gale.
Here are sweet peas, on tip-toe for a flight:
With wings of gentle flush o'er delicate white,
And taper fulgent catching at all things,
To bind them all about with tiny rings.
Linger awhile upon some bending planks
That lean against a streamlet's rushy banks,
And watch intently Nature's gentle doings:
They will be found softer than ring-dove's cooings.
How silent comes the water round that bend;
Not the minutest whisper does it send
To the o'erhanging sallows: blades of grass
Slowly across the chequer'd shadows pass.
Why, you might read two sonnets, ere they reach
To where the hurrying freshnesses aye preach
A natural sermon o'er their pebbly beds;
Where swarms of minnows show their little heads,
Staying their wavy bodies 'gainst the streams,
To taste the luxury of sunny beams
Temper'd with coolness. How they ever wrestle
With their own sweet delight, and ever nestle
Their silver bellies on the pebbly sand.
If you but scantily hold out the hand,
That very instant not one will remain;
But turn your eye, and they are there again.
The ripples seem right glad to reach those cresses,
And cool themselves among the em'rald tresses;
The while they cool themselves, they freshness give,
And moisture, that the bowery green may live:
So keeping up an interchange of favours,
Like good men in the truth of their behaviours
Sometimes goldfinches one by one will drop
From low hung branches; little space they stop;
But sip, and twitter, and their feathers sleek;
Then off at once, as in a wanton freak:
Or perhaps, to show their black, and golden wings,
Pausing upon their yellow flutterings.
Were I in such a place, I sure should pray
That nought less sweet, might call my thoughts away,
Than the soft rustle of a maiden's gown
Fanning away the dandelion's down;
Than the light music of her nimble toes
Patting against the sorrel as she goes.
How she would start, and blush, thus to be caught
Playing in all her innocence of thought.
O let me lead her gently o'er the brook,
Watch her half-smiling lips, and downward look;
O let me for one moment touch her wrist;
Let me one moment to her breathing list;
And as she leaves me may she often turn
Her fair eyes looking through her locks auburne.
What next? A tuft of evening primroses,
O'er which the mind may hover till it dozes;
O'er which it well might take a pleasant sleep,
But that 'tis ever startled by the leap
Of buds into ripe flowers; or by the flitting
Of diverse moths, that aye their rest are quitting;
Or by the moon lifting her silver rim
Above a cloud, and with a gradual swim
Coming into the blue with all her light.
O Maker of sweet poets, dear delight
Of this fair world, and all its gentle livers;
Spangler of clouds, halo of crystal rivers,
Mingler with leaves, and dew and tumbling streams,
Closer of lovely eyes to lovely dreams,
Lover of loneliness, and wandering,
Of upcast eye, and tender pondering!
Thee must I praise above all other glories
That smile us on to tell delightful stories.
For what has made the sage or poet write
But the fair paradise of Nature's light?
In the calm grandeur of a sober line,
We see the waving of the mountain pine;
And when a tale is beautifully staid,
We feel the safety of a hawthorn glade:
When it is moving on luxurious wings,
The soul is lost in pleasant smotherings:
Fair dewy roses brush against our faces,
And flowering laurels spring from diamond vases;
O'er head we see the jasmine and sweet briar,
And bloomy grapes laughing from green attire;
While at our feet, the voice of crystal bubbles
Charms us at once away from all our troubles:
So that we feel uplifted from the world,
Walking upon the white clouds wreath'd and curl'd.
So felt he, who first told, how Psyche went
On the smooth wind to realms of wonderment;
What Psyche felt, and Love, when their full lips
First touch'd; what amorous, and fondling nips
They gave each other's cheeks; with all their sighs,
And how they kist each other's tremulous eyes:
The silver lamp,--the ravishment,--the wonder--
The darkness,--loneliness,--the fearful thunder;
Their woes gone by, and both to heaven upflown,
To bow for gratitude before Jove's throne.
So did he feel, who pull'd the boughs aside,
That we might look into a forest wide,
To catch a glimpse of Fawns, and Dryades
Coming with softest rustle through the trees;
And garlands woven of flowers wild, and sweet,
Upheld on ivory wrists, or sporting feet:
Telling us how fair, trembling Syrinx fled
Arcadian Pan, with such a fearful dread.
Poor nymph,--poor Pan,--how he did weep to find,
Nought but a lovely sighing of the wind
Along the reedy stream; a half heard strain,
Full of sweet desolation--balmy pain.
What first inspired a bard of old to sing
Narcissus pining o'er the untainted spring?
In some delicious ramble, he had found
A little space, with boughs all woven round;
And in the midst of all, a clearer pool
Than e'er reflected in its pleasant cool,
The blue sky here, and there, serenely peeping
Through tendril wreaths fantastically creeping.
And on the bank a lonely flower he spied,
A meek and forlorn flower, with naught of pride,
Drooping its beauty o'er the watery clearness,
To woo its own sad image into nearness:
Deaf to light Zephyrus it would not move;
But still would seem to droop, to pine, to love.
So while the Poet stood in this sweet spot,
Some fainter gleamings o'er his fancy shot;
Nor was it long ere he had told the tale
Of young Narcissus, and sad Echo's bale.
Where had he been, from whose warm head out-flew
That sweetest of all songs, that ever new,
That aye refreshing, pure deliciousness,
Coming ever to bless
The wanderer by moonlight? to him bringing
Shapes from the invisible world, unearthly singing
From out the middle air, from flowery nests,
And from the pillowy silkiness that rests
Full in the speculation of the stars.
Ah! surely he had burst our mortal bars;
Into some wond'rous region he had gone,
To search for thee, divine Endymion!
He was a Poet, sure a lover too,
Who stood on Latmus' top, what time there blew
Soft breezes from the myrtle vale below;
And brought in faintness solemn, sweet, and slow
A hymn from Dian's temple; while upswelling,
The incense went to her own starry dwelling.
But though her face was clear as infant's eyes,
Though she stood smiling o'er the sacrifice,
The Poet wept at her so piteous fate,
Wept that such beauty should be desolate:
So in fine wrath some golden sounds he won,
And gave meek Cynthia her Endymion.
Queen of the wide air; thou most lovely queen
Of all the brightness that mine eyes have seen!
As thou exceedest all things in thy shine,
So every tale, does this sweet tale of thine.
O for three words of honey, that I might
Tell but one wonder of thy bridal night!
Where distant ships do seem to show their keels,
Phoebus awhile delayed his mighty wheels,
And turned to smile upon thy bashful eyes,
Ere he his unseen pomp would solemnize.
The evening weather was so bright, and clear,
That men of health were of unusual cheer;
Stepping like Homer at the trumpet's call,
Or young Apollo on the pedestal:
And lovely women were as fair and warm,
As Venus looking sideways in alarm.
The breezes were ethereal, and pure,
And crept through half closed lattices to cure
The languid sick; it cool'd their fever'd sleep,
And soothed them into slumbers full and deep.
Soon they awoke clear eyed: nor burnt with thirsting,
Nor with hot fingers, nor with temples bursting:
And springing up, they met the wond'ring sight
Of their dear friends, nigh foolish with delight;
Who feel their arms, and breasts, and kiss and stare,
And on their placid foreheads part the hair.
Young men, and maidens at each other gaz'd
With hands held back, and motionless, amaz'd
To see the brightness in each others' eyes;
And so they stood, fill'd with a sweet surprise,
Until their tongues were loos'd in poesy.
Therefore no lover did of anguish die:
But the soft numbers, in that moment spoken,
Made silken ties, that never may be broken.
Cynthia! I cannot tell the greater blisses,
That follow'd thine, and thy dear shepherd's kisses:
Was there a Poet born?--but now no more,
My wand'ring spirit must no further soar.--
SPECIMEN OF AN INDUCTION TO A POEM.
Lo! I must tell a tale of chivalry;
For large white plumes are dancing in mine eye.
Not like the formal crest of latter days:
But bending in a thousand graceful ways;
So graceful, that it seems no mortal hand,
Or e'en the touch of Archimago's wand,
Could charm them into such an attitude.
We must think rather, that in playful mood,
Some mountain breeze had turned its chief delight,
To show this wonder of its gentle might.
Lo! I must tell a tale of chivalry;
For while I muse, the lance points slantingly
Athwart the morning air: some lady sweet,
Who cannot feel for cold her tender feet,
From the worn top of some old battlement
Hails it with tears, her stout defender sent:
And from her own pure self no joy dissembling,
Wraps round her ample robe with happy trembling.
Sometimes, when the good Knight his rest would take,
It is reflected, clearly, in a lake,
With the young ashen boughs, 'gainst which it rests,
And th' half seen mossiness of linnets' nests.
Ah! shall I ever tell its cruelty,
When the fire flashes from a warrior's eye,
And his tremendous hand is grasping it,
And his dark brow for very wrath is knit?
Or when his spirit, with more calm intent,
Leaps to the honors of a tournament,
And makes the gazers round about the ring
Stare at the grandeur of the balancing?
No, no! this is far off:--then how shall I
Revive the dying tones of minstrelsy,
Which linger yet about lone gothic arches,
In dark green ivy, and among wild larches?
How sing the splendour of the revelries,
When buts of wine are drunk off to the lees?
And that bright lance, against the fretted wall,
Beneath the shade of stately banneral,
Is slung with shining cuirass, sword, and shield?
Where ye may see a spur in bloody field.
Light-footed damsels move with gentle paces
Round the wide hall, and show their happy faces;
Or stand in courtly talk by fives and sevens:
Like those fair stars that twinkle in the heavens.
Yet must I tell a tale of chivalry:
Or wherefore comes that knight so proudly by?
Wherefore more proudly does the gentle knight,
Rein in the swelling of his ample might?
Spenser! thy brows are arched, open, kind,
And come like a clear sun-rise to my mind;
And always does my heart with pleasure dance,
When I think on thy noble countenance:
Where never yet was ought more earthly seen
Than the pure freshness of thy laurels green.
Therefore, great bard, I not so fearfully
Call on thy gentle spirit to hover nigh
My daring steps: or if thy tender care,
Thus startled unaware,
Be jealous that the foot of other wight
Should madly follow that bright path of light
Trac'd by thy lov'd Libertas; he will speak,
And tell thee that my prayer is very meek;
That I will follow with due reverence,
And start with awe at mine own strange pretence.
Him thou wilt hear; so I will rest in hope
To see wide plains, fair trees and lawny <DW72>:
The morn, the eve, the light, the shade, the flowers:
Clear streams, smooth lakes, and overlooking towers.
CALIDORE.
A fragment.
Young Calidore is paddling o'er the lake;
His healthful spirit eager and awake
To feel the beauty of a silent eve,
Which seem'd full loath this happy world to leave;
The light dwelt o'er the scene so lingeringly.
He bares his forehead to the cool blue sky,
And smiles at the far clearness all around,
Until his heart is well nigh over wound,
And turns for calmness to the pleasant green
Of easy <DW72>s, and shadowy trees that lean
So elegantly o'er the waters' brim
And show their blossoms trim.
Scarce can his clear and nimble eye-sight follow
The freaks, and dartings of the black-wing'd swallow,
Delighting much, to see it half at rest,
Dip so refreshingly its wings, and breast
'Gainst the smooth surface, and to mark anon,
The widening circles into nothing gone.
And now the sharp keel of his little boat
Comes up with ripple, and with easy float,
And glides into a bed of water lillies:
Broad leav'd are they and their white canopies
Are upward turn'd to catch the heavens' dew.
Near to a little island's point they grew;
Whence Calidore might have the goodliest view
Of this sweet spot of earth. The bowery shore
Went off in gentle windings to the hoar
And light blue mountains: but no breathing man
With a warm heart, and eye prepared to scan
Nature's clear beauty, could pass lightly by
Objects that look'd out so invitingly
On either side. These, gentle Calidore
Greeted, as he had known them long before.
The sidelong view of swelling leafiness,
Which the glad setting sun, in gold doth dress;
Whence ever, and anon the jay outsprings,
And scales upon the beauty of its wings.
The lonely turret, shatter'd, and outworn,
Stands venerably proud; too proud to mourn
Its long lost grandeur: fir trees grow around,
Aye dropping their hard fruit upon the ground.
The little chapel with the cross above
Upholding wreaths of ivy; the white dove,
That on the windows spreads his feathers light,
And seems from purple clouds to wing its flight.
Green tufted islands casting their soft shades
Across the lake; sequester'd leafy glades,
That through the dimness of their twilight show
Large dock leaves, spiral foxgloves, or the glow
Of the wild cat's eyes, or the silvery stems
Of delicate birch trees, or long grass which hems
A little brook. The youth had long been viewing
These pleasant things, and heaven was bedewing
The mountain flowers, when his glad senses caught
A trumpet's silver voice. Ah! it was fraught
With many joys for him: the warder's ken
Had found white coursers prancing in the glen:
Friends very dear to him he soon will see;
So pushes off his boat most eagerly,
And soon upon the lake he skims along,
Deaf to the nightingale's first under-song;
Nor minds he the white swans that dream so sweetly:
His spirit flies before him so completely.
And now he turns a jutting point of land,
Whence may be seen the castle gloomy, and grand:
Nor will a bee buzz round two swelling peaches,
Before the point of his light shallop reaches
Those marble steps that through the water dip:
Now over them he goes with hasty trip,
And scarcely stays to ope the folding doors:
Anon he leaps along the oaken floors
Of halls and corridors.
Delicious sounds! those little bright-eyed things
That float about the air on azure wings,
Had been less heartfelt by him than the clang
Of clattering hoofs; into the court he sprang,
Just as two noble steeds, and palfreys twain,
Were slanting out their necks with loosened rein;
While from beneath the threat'ning portcullis
They brought their happy burthens. What a kiss,
What gentle squeeze he gave each lady's hand!
How tremblingly their delicate ancles spann'd!
Into how sweet a trance his soul was gone,
While whisperings of affection
Made him delay to let their tender feet
Come to the earth; with an incline so sweet
From their low palfreys o'er his neck they bent:
And whether there were tears of languishment,
Or that the evening dew had pearl'd their tresses,
He feels a moisture on his cheek, and blesses
With lips that tremble, and with glistening eye
All the soft luxury
That nestled in his arms. A dimpled hand,
Fair as some wonder out of fairy land,
Hung from his shoulder like the drooping flowers
Of whitest Cassia, fresh from summer showers:
And this he fondled with his happy cheek
As if for joy he would no further seek;
When the kind voice of good Sir Clerimond
Came to his ear, like something from beyond
His present being: so he gently drew
His warm arms, thrilling now with pulses new,
From their sweet thrall, and forward gently bending,
Thank'd heaven that his joy was never ending;
While 'gainst his forehead he devoutly press'd
A hand heaven made to succour the distress'd;
A hand that from the world's bleak promontory
Had lifted Calidore for deeds of glory.
Amid the pages, and the torches' glare,
There stood a knight, patting the flowing hair
Of his proud horse's mane: he was withal
A man of elegance, and stature tall:
So that the waving of his plumes would be
High as the berries of a wild ash tree,
Or as the winged cap of Mercury.
His armour was so dexterously wrought
In shape, that sure no living man had thought
It hard, and heavy steel: but that indeed
It was some glorious form, some splendid weed,
In which a spirit new come from the skies
Might live, and show itself to human eyes.
'Tis the far-fam'd, the brave Sir Gondibert,
Said the good man to Calidore alert;
While the young warrior with a step of grace
Came up,--a courtly smile upon his face,
And mailed hand held out, ready to greet
The large-eyed wonder, and ambitious heat
Of the aspiring boy; who as he led
Those smiling ladies, often turned his head
To admire the visor arched so gracefully
Over a knightly brow; while they went by
The lamps that from the high-roof'd hall were pendent,
And gave the steel a shining quite transcendent.
Soon in a pleasant chamber they are seated;
The sweet-lipp'd ladies have already greeted
All the green leaves that round the window clamber,
To show their purple stars, and bells of amber.
Sir Gondibert has doff'd his shining steel,
Gladdening in the free, and airy feel
Of a light mantle; and while Clerimond
Is looking round about him with a fond,
And placid eye, young Calidore is burning
To hear of knightly deeds, and gallant spurning
Of all unworthiness; and how the strong of arm
Kept off dismay, and terror, and alarm
From lovely woman: while brimful of this,
He gave each damsel's hand so warm a kiss,
And had such manly ardour in his eye,
That each at other look'd half staringly;
And then their features started into smiles
Sweet as blue heavens o'er enchanted isles.
Softly the breezes from the forest came,
Softly they blew aside the taper's flame;
Clear was the song from Philomel's far bower;
Grateful the incense from the lime-tree flower;
Mysterious, wild, the far heard trumpet's tone;
Lovely the moon in ether, all alone:
Sweet too the converse of these happy mortals,
As that of busy spirits when the portals
Are closing in the west; or that soft humming
We hear around when Hesperus is coming.
Sweet be their sleep. * * * * * * * * *
TO SOME LADIES.
What though while the wonders of nature exploring,
I cannot your light, mazy footsteps attend;
Nor listen to accents, that almost adoring,
Bless Cynthia's face, the enthusiast's friend:
Yet over the steep, whence the mountain stream rushes,
With you, kindest friends, in idea I rove;
Mark the clear tumbling crystal, its passionate gushes,
Its spray that the wild flower kindly bedews.
Why linger you so, the wild labyrinth strolling?
Why breathless, unable your bliss to declare?
Ah! you list to the nightingale's tender condoling,
Responsive to sylphs, in the moon beamy air.
'Tis morn, and the flowers with dew are yet drooping,
I see you are treading the verge of the sea:
And now! ah, I see it--you just now are stooping
To pick up the keep-sake intended for me.
If a cherub, on pinions of silver descending,
Had brought me a gem from the fret-work of heaven;
And smiles, with his star-cheering voice sweetly blending,
The blessings of Tighe had melodiously given;
It had not created a warmer emotion
Than the present, fair nymphs, I was blest with from you,
Than the shell, from the bright golden sands of the ocean
Which the emerald waves at your feet gladly threw.
For, indeed, 'tis a sweet and peculiar pleasure,
(And blissful is he who such happiness finds,)
To possess but a span of the hour of leisure,
In elegant, pure, and aerial minds.
ON RECEIVING A CURIOUS SHELL, AND A COPY OF VERSES,
FROM THE SAME LADIES.
Hast thou from the caves of Golconda, a gem
Pure as the ice-drop that froze on the mountain?
Bright as the humming-bird's green diadem,
When it flutters in sun-beams that shine through a fountain?
Hast thou a goblet for dark sparkling wine?
That goblet right heavy, and massy, and gold?
And splendidly mark'd with the story divine
Of Armida the fair, and Rinaldo the bold?
Hast thou a steed with a mane richly flowing?
Hast thou a sword that thine enemy's smart is?
Hast thou a trumpet rich melodies blowing?
And wear'st thou the shield of the fam'd Britomartis?
What is it that hangs from thy shoulder, so brave,
Embroidered with many a spring peering flower?
Is it a scarf that thy fair lady gave?
And hastest thou now to that fair lady's bower?
Ah! courteous Sir Knight, with large joy thou art crown'd;
Full many the glories that brighten thy youth!
I will tell thee my blisses, which richly abound
In magical powers to bless, and to sooth.
On this scroll thou seest written in characters fair
A sun-beamy tale of a wreath, and a chain;
And, warrior, it nurtures the property rare
Of charming my mind from the trammels of pain.
This canopy mark: 'tis the work of a fay;
Beneath its rich shade did King Oberon languish,
When lovely Titania was far, far away,
And cruelly left him to sorrow, and anguish.
There, oft would he bring from his soft sighing lute
Wild strains to which, spell-bound, the nightingales listened;
The wondering spirits of heaven were mute,
And tears '<DW41> the dewdrops of morning oft glistened.
In this little dome, all those melodies strange,
Soft, plaintive, and melting, for ever will sigh;
Nor e'er will the notes from their tenderness change;
Nor e'er will the music of Oberon die.
So, when I am in a voluptuous vein,
I pillow my head on the sweets of the rose,
And list to the tale of the wreath, and the chain,
Till its echoes depart; then I sink to repose.
Adieu, valiant Eric! with joy thou art crown'd;
Full many the glories that brighten thy youth,
I too have my blisses, which richly abound
In magical powers, to bless and to sooth.
TO * * * *
Hadst thou liv'd in days of old,
O what wonders had been told
Of thy lively countenance,
And thy humid eyes that dance
In the midst of their own brightness;
In the very fane of lightness.
Over which thine eyebrows, leaning,
Picture out each lovely meaning:
In a dainty bend they lie,
Like two streaks across the sky,
Or the feathers from a crow,
Fallen on a bed of snow.
Of thy dark hair that extends
Into many graceful bends:
As the leaves of Hellebore
Turn to whence they sprung before.
And behind each ample curl
Peeps the richness of a pearl.
Downward too flows many a tress
With a glossy waviness;
Full, and round like globes that rise
From the censer to the skies
Through sunny air. Add too, the sweetness
Of thy honied voice; the neatness
Of thine ankle lightly turn'd:
With those beauties, scarce discrn'd,
Kept with such sweet privacy,
That they seldom meet the eye
Of the little loves that fly
Round about with eager pry.
Saving when, with freshening lave,
Thou dipp'st them in the taintless wave;
Like twin water lillies, born
In the coolness of the morn.
O, if thou hadst breathed then,
Now the Muses had been ten.
Couldst thou wish for lineage higher
Than twin sister of Thalia?
At least for ever, evermore,
Will I call the Graces four.
Hadst thou liv'd when chivalry
Lifted up her lance on high,
Tell me what thou wouldst have been?
Ah! I see the silver sheen
Of thy broidered, floating vest
Cov'ring half thine ivory breast;
Which, O heavens! I should see,
But that cruel destiny
Has placed a golden cuirass there;
Keeping secret what is fair.
Like sunbeams in a cloudlet nested
Thy locks in knightly casque are rested:
O'er which bend four milky plumes
Like the gentle lilly's blooms
Springing from a costly vase.
See with what a stately pace
Comes thine alabaster steed;
Servant of heroic deed!
O'er his loins, his trappings glow
Like the northern lights on snow.
Mount his back! thy sword unsheath!
Sign of the enchanter's death;
Bane of every wicked spell;
Silencer of dragon's yell.
Alas! thou this wilt never do:
Thou art an enchantress too,
And wilt surely never spill
Blood of those whose eyes can kill.
TO HOPE.
When by my solitary hearth I sit,
And hateful thoughts enwrap my soul in gloom;
When no fair dreams before my "mind's eye" flit,
And the bare heath of life presents no bloom;
Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head.
Whene'er I wander, at the fall of night,
Where woven boughs shut out the moon's bright ray,
Should sad Despondency my musings fright,
And frown, to drive fair Cheerfulness away,
Peep with the moon-beams through the leafy roof,
And keep that fiend Despondence far aloof.
Should Disappointment, parent of Despair,
Strive for her son to seize my careless heart;
When, like a cloud, he sits upon the air,
Preparing on his spell-bound prey to dart:
Chace him away, sweet Hope, with visage bright,
And fright him as the morning frightens night!
Whene'er the fate of those I hold most dear
Tells to my fearful breast a tale of sorrow,
O bright-eyed Hope, my morbid fancy cheer;
Let me awhile thy sweetest comforts borrow:
Thy heaven-born radiance around me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head!
Should e'er unhappy love my bosom pain,
From cruel parents, or relentless fair;
O let me think it is not quite in vain
To sigh out sonnets to the midnight air!
Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed.
And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head!
In the long vista of the years to roll,
Let me not see our country's honour fade:
O let me see our land retain her soul,
Her pride, her freedom; and not freedom's shade.
From thy bright eyes unusual brightness shed--
Beneath thy pinions canopy my head!
Let me not see the patriot's high bequest,
Great Liberty! how great in plain attire!
With the base purple of a court oppress'd,
Bowing her head, and ready to expire:
But let me see thee stoop from heaven on wings
That fill the skies with silver glitterings!
And as, in sparkling majesty, a star
Gilds the bright summit of some gloomy cloud;
Brightening the half veil'd face of heaven afar:
So, when dark thoughts my boding spirit shroud,
Sweet Hope, celestial influence round me shed,
Waving thy silver pinions o'er my head.
_February, 1815_.
IMITATION OF SPENSER.
Now Morning from her orient chamber came,
And her first footsteps touch'd a verdant hill;
Crowning its lawny crest with amber flame,
Silv'ring the untainted gushes of its rill;
Which, pure from mossy beds, did down distill,
And after parting beds of simple flowers,
By many streams a little lake did fill,
Which round its marge reflected woven bowers,
And, in its middle space, a sky that never lowers.
There the king-fisher saw his plumage bright
Vieing with fish of brilliant dye below;
Whose silken fins, and golden scales' light
Cast upward, through the waves, a ruby glow:
There saw the swan his neck of arched snow,
And oar'd himself along with majesty;
Sparkled his jetty eyes; his feet did show
Beneath the waves like Afric's ebony,
And on his back a fay reclined voluptuously.
Ah! could I tell the wonders of an isle
That in that fairest lake had placed been,
I could e'en Dido of her grief beguile;
Or rob from aged Lear his bitter teen:
For sure so fair a place was never seen,
Of all that ever charm'd romantic eye:
It seem'd an emerald in the silver sheen
Of the bright waters; or as when on high,
Through clouds of fleecy white, laughs the coerulean sky.
And all around it dipp'd luxuriously
Slopings of verdure through the glossy tide,
Which, as it were in gentle amity,
Rippled delighted up the flowery side;
As if to glean the ruddy tears, it tried,
Which fell profusely from the rose-tree stem!
Haply it was the workings of its pride,
In strife to throw upon the shore a gem
Outvieing all the buds in Flora's diadem.
Woman! when I behold thee flippant, vain,
Inconstant, childish, proud, and full of fancies;
Without that modest softening that enhances
The downcast eye, repentant of the pain
That its mild light creates to heal again:
E'en then, elate, my spirit leaps, and prances,
E'en then my soul with exultation dances
For that to love, so long, I've dormant lain:
But when I see thee meek, and kind, and tender,
Heavens! how desperately do I adore
Thy winning graces;--to be thy defender
I hotly burn--to be a Calidore--
A very Red Cross Knight--a stout Leander--
Might I be loved by thee like these of yore.
Light feet, dark violet eyes, and parted hair;
Soft dimpled hands, white neck, and creamy breast,
Are things on which the dazzled senses rest
Till the fond, fixed eyes, forget they stare.
From such fine pictures, heavens! I cannot dare
To turn my admiration, though unpossess'd
They be of what is worthy,--though not drest
In lovely modesty, and virtues rare.
Yet these I leave as thoughtless as a lark;
These lures I straight forget,--e'en ere I dine,
Or thrice my palate moisten: but when I mark
Such charms with mild intelligences shine,
My ear is open like a greedy shark,
To catch the tunings of a voice divine.
Ah! who can e'er forget so fair a being?
Who can forget her half retiring sweets?
God! she is like a milk-white lamb that bleats
For man's protection. Surely the All-seeing,
Who joys to see us with his gifts agreeing,
Will never give him pinions, who intreats
Such innocence to ruin,--who vilely cheats
A dove-like bosom. In truth there is no freeing
One's thoughts from such a beauty; when I hear
A lay that once I saw her hand awake,
Her form seems floating palpable, and near;
Had I e'er seen her from an arbour take
A dewy flower, oft would that hand appear,
And o'er my eyes the trembling moisture shake.
EPISTLES
"Among the rest a shepheard (though but young
Yet hartned to his pipe) with all the skill
His few yeeres could, began to fit his quill."
Britannia's Pastorals.--BROWNE.
TO GEORGE FELTON MATHEW.
Sweet are the pleasures that to verse belong,
And doubly sweet a brotherhood in song;
Nor can remembrance, Mathew! bring to view
A fate more pleasing, a delight more true
Than that in which the brother Poets joy'd,
Who with combined powers, their wit employ'd
To raise a trophy to the drama's muses.
The thought of this great partnership diffuses
Over the genius loving heart, a feeling
Of all that's high, and great, and good, and healing.
Too partial friend! fain would I follow thee
Past each horizon of fine poesy;
Fain would I echo back each pleasant note
As o'er Sicilian seas, clear anthems float
'<DW41> the light skimming gondolas far parted,
Just when the sun his farewell beam has darted:
But 'tis impossible; far different cares
Beckon me sternly from soft "Lydian airs,"
And hold my faculties so long in thrall,
That I am oft in doubt whether at all
I shall again see Phoebus in the morning:
Or flush'd Aurora in the roseate dawning!
Or a white Naiad in a rippling stream;
Or a rapt seraph in a moonlight beam;
Or again witness what with thee I've seen,
The dew by fairy feet swept from the green,
After a night of some quaint jubilee
Which every elf and fay had come to see:
When bright processions took their airy march
Beneath the curved moon's triumphal arch.
But might I now each passing moment give
To the coy muse, with me she would not live
In this dark city, nor would condescend
'Mid contradictions her delights to lend.
Should e'er the fine-eyed maid to me be kind,
Ah! surely it must be whene'er I find
Some flowery spot, sequester'd, wild, romantic,
That often must have seen a poet frantic;
Where oaks, that erst the Druid knew, are growing,
And flowers, the glory of one day, are blowing;
Where the dark-leav'd laburnum's drooping clusters
Reflect athwart the stream their yellow lustres,
And intertwined the cassia's arms unite,
With its own drooping buds, but very white.
Where on one side are covert branches hung,
'<DW41> which the nightingales have always sung
In leafy quiet; where to pry, aloof,
Atween the pillars of the sylvan roof,
Would be to find where violet beds were nestling,
And where the bee with cowslip bells was wrestling.
There must be too a ruin dark, and gloomy,
To say "joy not too much in all that's bloomy."
Yet this is vain--O Mathew lend thy aid
To find a place where I may greet the maid--
Where we may soft humanity put on,
And sit, and rhyme and think on Chatterton;
And that warm-hearted Shakspeare sent to meet him
Four laurell'd spirits, heaven-ward to intreat him.
With reverence would we speak of all the sages
Who have left streaks of light athwart their ages:
And thou shouldst moralize on Milton's blindness,
And mourn the fearful dearth of human kindness
To those who strove with the bright golden wing
Of genius, to flap away each sting
Thrown by the pitiless world. We next could tell
Of those who in the cause of freedom fell:
Of our own Alfred, of Helvetian Tell;
Of him whose name to ev'ry heart's a solace,
High-minded and unbending William Wallace.
While to the rugged north our musing turns
We well might drop a tear for him, and Burns.
Felton! without incitements such as these,
How vain for me the niggard Muse to tease:
For thee, she will thy every dwelling grace,
And make "a sun-shine in a shady place:"
For thou wast once a flowret blooming wild,
Close to the source, bright, pure, and undefil'd,
Whence gush the streams of song: in happy hour
Came chaste Diana from her shady bower,
Just as the sun was from the east uprising;
And, as for him some gift she was devising,
Beheld thee, pluck'd thee, cast thee in the stream
To meet her glorious brother's greeting beam.
I marvel much that thou hast never told
How, from a flower, into a fish of gold
Apollo chang'd thee; how thou next didst seem
A black-eyed swan upon the widening stream;
And when thou first didst in that mirror trace
The placid features of a human face:
That thou hast never told thy travels strange.
And all the wonders of the mazy range
O'er pebbly crystal, and o'er golden sands;
Kissing thy daily food from Naiad's pearly hands.
_November, 1815_.
TO MY BROTHER GEORGE.
Full many a dreary hour have I past,
My brain bewilder'd, and my mind o'ercast
With heaviness; in seasons when I've thought
No spherey strains by me could e'er be caught
From the blue dome, though I to dimness gaze
On the far depth where sheeted lightning plays;
Or, on the wavy grass outstretch'd supinely,
Pry '<DW41> the stars, to strive to think divinely:
That I should never hear Apollo's song,
Though feathery clouds were floating all along
The purple west, and, two bright streaks between,
The golden lyre itself were dimly seen:
That the still murmur of the honey bee
Would never teach a rural song to me:
That the bright glance from beauty's eyelids slanting
Would never make a lay of mine enchanting,
Or warm my breast with ardour to unfold
Some tale of love and arms in time of old.
But there are times, when those that love the bay,
Fly from all sorrowing far, far away;
A sudden glow comes on them, nought they see
In water, earth, or air, but poesy.
It has been said, dear George, and true I hold it,
(For knightly Spenser to Libertas told it,)
That when a Poet is in such a trance,
In air he sees white coursers paw, and prance,
Bestridden of gay knights, in gay apparel,
Who at each other tilt in playful quarrel,
And what we, ignorantly, sheet-lightning call,
Is the swift opening of their wide portal,
When the bright warder blows his trumpet clear,
Whose tones reach nought on earth but Poet's ear.
When these enchanted portals open wide,
And through the light the horsemen swiftly glide,
The Poet's eye can reach those golden halls,
And view the glory of their festivals:
Their ladies fair, that in the distance seem
Fit for the silv'ring of a seraph's dream;
Their rich brimm'd goblets, that incessant run
Like the bright spots that move about the sun;
And, when upheld, the wine from each bright jar
Pours with the lustre of a falling star.
Yet further off, are dimly seen their bowers,
Of which, no mortal eye can reach the flowers;
And 'tis right just, for well Apollo knows
'Twould make the Poet quarrel with the rose.
All that's reveal'd from that far seat of blisses,
Is, the clear fountains' interchanging kisses.
As gracefully descending, light and thin,
Like silver streaks across a dolphin's fin,
When he upswimmeth from the coral caves.
And sports with half his tail above the waves.
These wonders strange be sees, and many more,
Whose head is pregnant with poetic lore.
Should he upon an evening ramble fare
With forehead to the soothing breezes bare,
Would he naught see but the dark, silent blue
With all its diamonds trembling through and through:
Or the coy moon, when in the waviness
Of whitest clouds she does her beauty dress,
And staidly paces higher up, and higher,
Like a sweet nun in holy-day attire?
Ah, yes! much more would start into his sight--
The revelries, and mysteries of night:
And should I ever see them, I will tell you
Such tales as needs must with amazement spell you.
These are the living pleasures of the bard:
But richer far posterity's award.
What does he murmur with his latest breath,
While his proud eye looks through the film of death?
"What though I leave this dull, and earthly mould,
Yet shall my spirit lofty converse hold
With after times.--The patriot shall feel
My stern alarum, and unsheath his steel;
Or, in the senate thunder out my numbers
To startle princes from their easy slumbers.
The sage will mingle with each moral theme
My happy thoughts sententious; he will teem
With lofty periods when my verses fire him,
And then I'll stoop from heaven to inspire him.
Lays have I left of such a dear delight
That maids will sing them on their bridal night. |
10,240 |
Produced by Andre Boutin-Maloney
BETWEEN FRIENDS
By Robert W. Chambers
1914
I
Like a man who reenters a closed and darkened house and lies down; lying
there, remains conscious of sunlight outside, of bird-calls, and the
breeze in the trees, so had Drene entered into the obscurity of himself.
Through the chambers of his brain the twilit corridors where cringed his
bruised and disfigured soul, there nothing stirring except the automatic
pulses which never cease.
Sometimes, when the sky itself crashes earthward and the world lies in
ruins from horizon to horizon, life goes on.
The things that men live through--and live!
But no doubt Death was too busy elsewhere to attend to Drene.
He had become very lean by the time it was all over. Gray glinted on his
temples; gray softened his sandy mustache: youth was finished as far as
he was concerned.
An odd idea persisted in his mind that it had been winter for many
years. And the world thawed out very slowly for him.
But broken trees leaf out, and hewed roots sprout; and what he had so
long mistaken for wintry ashes now gleamed warmly like the orange
and gold of early autumn. After a while he began to go about more or
less--little excursions from the dim privacy of mind and soul--and he
found the sun not very gray; and a south wind blowing in the world once
more.
Quair and Guilder were in the studio that day on business; Drene
continued to modify his composition in accordance with Guilder's
suggestions; Quair, always curious concerning Drene, was becoming slyly
impudent.
"And listen to me, Guilder. What the devil's a woman between friends?"
argued Quair, with a malicious side glance at Drene. "You take my best
girl away from me--"
"But I don't," remarked his partner dryly.
"For the sake of argument, you do. What happens? Do I raise hell? No. I
merely thank you. Why? Because I don't want her if you can get her away.
That," he added, with satisfaction, "is philosophy. Isn't it, Drene?"
Guilder intervened pleasantly:
"I don't think Drene is particularly interested in philosophy. I'm sure
I'm not. Shut up, please."
Drene, gravely annoyed, continued to pinch bits of modeling wax out of a
round tin box, and to stick them all over the sketch he was modifying.
Now and then he gave a twirl to the top of his working table, which
revolved with a rusty squeak.
"If you two unusually intelligent gentlemen ask me what good a woman the
world--" began Quair.
"But we don't," interrupted Guilder, in the temperate voice peculiar to
his negative character.
"Anyway," insisted Quair, "here's what I think of 'em--"
"My model, yonder," said Drene, a slight shrug of contempt, "happens
to be feminine, and may also be human. Be decent enough to defer the
development of your rather tiresome theory."
The girl on the model-stand laughed outright at the rebuke, stretched
her limbs and body, and relaxed, launching a questioning glance at
Drene.
"All right; rest a bit," said the sculptor, smearing the bit of wax he
was pinching over the sketch before him.
He gave another twirl or two to the table, wiped his bony fingers on
a handful of cotton waste, picked up his empty pipe, and blew into the
stem, reflectively.
Quair, one of the associated architects of the new opera, who had been
born a gentleman and looked the perfect bounder, sauntered over to
examine the sketch. He was still red from the rebuke he had invited.
Guilder, his senior colleague, got up from the lounge and walked over
also. Drene fitted the sketch into the roughly designed group, where it
belonged, and stood aside, sucking meditatively on his empty pipe.
After a silence:
"It's all right," said Guilder.
Quair remarked that the group seemed to lack flamboyancy. It is true,
however, that, except for Guilder's habitual restraint, the celebrated
firm of architects was inclined to express themselves flamboyantly, and
to interpret Renaissance in terms of Baroque.
"She's some girl," added Quair, looking at the lithe, modeled figure,
and then half turning to include the model, who had seated herself on
the lounge, and was now gazing with interest at the composition sketched
in by Drene for the facade of the new opera.
"Carpeaux and his eternal group--it's the murderous but inevitable
standard of comparison," mused Drene, with a whimsical glance at the
photograph on the wall.
"Carpeaux has nothing on this young lady," insisted Quair flippantly;
and he pivoted on his heel and sat down beside the model. Once or twice
the two others, consulting before the wax group, heard the girl's light,
untroubled laughter behind their backs gaily responsive to Quair's
wit. Perhaps Quair's inheritance had been humor, but to some it seemed
perilously akin to mother-wit.
The pockets of Guilder's loose, ill-fitting clothes bulged with linen
tracings and rolls of blue-prints. He and Drene consulted over these for
a while, semi-conscious of Quair's bantering voice and the girl's easily
provoked laughter behind them. And, finally:
"All right, Guilder," said Drene briefly. And the firm of celebrated
architects prepared to evacuate the studio--Quair exhibiting symptoms of
incipient skylarking, in which he was said to be at his best.
"Drop in on me at the office some time," he suggested to the youthful
model, in a gracious tone born of absolute self-satisfaction.
"For luncheon or dinner?" retorted the girl, with smiling audacity.
"You may stay to breakfast also--"
"Oh, come on," drawled Guilder, taking his colleague's elbow.
The sculptor yawned as Quair went out: then he closed the door then
celebrated firm of architects, and wandered back rather aimlessly.
For a while he stood by the great window, watching the pigeons on
neighboring roof. Presently he returned to his table, withdrew the
dancing figure with its graceful, wide flung arms, set it upon the
squeaky revolving table once more, and studied it, yawning at intervals.
The girl got up from the sofa behind him, went to the model-stand, and
mounted it. For a few moments she was busy adjusting her feet to the
chalk marks and blocks. Finally she took the pose. She always seemed
inclined to be more or less vocal while Drene worked; her voice, if
untrained, was untroubled. Her singing had never bothered Drene, nor,
until the last few days, had he even particularly noticed her blithe
trilling--as a man a field, preoccupied, is scarcely aware of the wild
birds' gay irrelevancy along the way.
He happened to notice it now, and a thought passed through his mind that
the country must be very lovely in the mild spring sunshine.
As he worked, the brief visualization of young grass and the faint blue
of skies, evoked, perhaps, by the girl's careless singing, made for his
dull concentration subtly pleasant environment.
"May I rest?" she asked at length.
"Certainly, if it's necessary."
"I've brought my lunch. It's twelve," she explained.
He glanced at her absently, rolling a morsel of wax; then, with slight
irritation which ended in a shrug, he motioned her to descend.
After all, girls, like birds, were eternally eating. Except for that,
and incessant preening, existence meant nothing more important to either
species.
He had been busy for a few moments with the group when she said
something to him, and he looked around from his abstraction. She was
holding out toward him a chicken sandwich.
When his mind came back from wool gathering, he curtly declined the
offer, and, as an afterthought, bestowed upon her a wholly mechanical
smile, in recognition of a generosity not welcome.
"Why don't you ever eat luncheon?" she asked.
"Why should I?" he replied, preoccupied.
"It's bad for you not to. Besides, you are growing thin."
"Is that your final conclusion concerning me, Cecile?" he asked,
absently.
"Won't you please take this sandwich?"
Her outstretched arm more than what she said arrested his drifting
attention again.
"Why the devil do you want me to eat?" he inquired, fishing out his
empty pipe and filling it.
"You smoke too much. It's bad for you. It will do very queer things to
the lining of your stomach if you smoke your luncheon instead of eating
it."
He yawned.
"Is that so?" he said.
"Certainly it's so. Please take this sandwich."
He stood looking at the outstretched arm, thinking of other things and
the girl sprang to her feet, caught his hand, opened the fingers, placed
the sandwich on the palm, then, with a short laugh as though slightly
disconcerted by her own audacity, she snatched the pipe from his left
hand and tossed it upon the table. When she had reseated herself on
the lounge beside her pasteboard box of luncheon, she became even more
uncertain concerning the result of what she had done, and began to view
with rising alarm the steady gray eyes that were so silently inspecting
her.
But after a moment Drene walked over to the sofa, seated himself,
curiously scrutinized the sandwich which lay across the palm of his
hand, then gravely tasted it.
"This will doubtless give me indigestion," he remarked. "Why, Cecile, do
you squander your wages on nourishment for me?"
"It cost only five cents."
"But why present five cents to me?" "I gave ten to a beggar this
morning."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"Was he grateful?"
"He seemed to be."
"This sandwich is excellent; but if I feel the worse for it, I'll not be
very grateful to you." But he continued eating.
"'The woman tempted me,'" she quoted, glancing at him sideways.
After a moment's survey of her:
"You're one of those bright, saucy, pretty, inexplicable things that
throng this town and occasionally flit through this profession--aren't
you?"
"Am I?"
"Yes. Nobody looks for anything except mediocrity; you're one of the
surprises. Nobody expects you; nobody can account for you, but you
appear now and then, here and there, anywhere, even everywhere--a pretty
sparkle against the gray monotony of life, a momentary flash like a
golden moat afloat in sunshine--and what then?"
She laughed.
"What then? What becomes of you? Where do you go? What do you turn
into?"
"I don't know."
"You go somewhere, don't you? You change into something, don't you? What
happens to you, petite Cigale?"
"When?"
"When the sunshine is turned off and the snow comes."
"I don't know, Mr. Drene." She broke her chocolate cake into halves and
laid one on his knee.
"Thanks for further temptation," he said grimly.
"You are welcome. It's good, isn't it?"
"Excellent. Adam liked the apple, too. But it raised hell with him."
She laughed, shot a direct glance at him, and began to nibble her cake,
with her eyes still fixed on him.
Once or twice he encountered her gaze but his own always wandered
absently elsewhere.
"You think a great deal, don't you?" she remarked.
"Don't you?"
"I try not to--too much."
"What?" he asked, swallowing the last morsel of cake.
She shrugged her shoulders:
"What's the advantage of thinking?"
He considered her reply for a moment, her blue and rather childish
eyes, and the very pure oval of her face. Then his attention flagged as
usual--was wandering--when she sighed, very lightly, so that he scarcely
heard it--merely noticed it sufficiently to conclude that, as usual,
there was the inevitable hard luck story afloat in her vicinity, and
that he lacked the interest to listen to it.
"Thinking," she said, "is a luxury to a tranquil mind and a punishment
to a troubled one. So I try not to."
It was a moment or two before it occurred to him that the girl had
uttered an unconscious epigram.
"It sounded like somebody--probably Montaigne. Was it?" he inquired.
"I don't know what you mean."
"Oh. Then it wasn't. You're a funny little girl, aren't you?"
"Yes, rather."
"On purpose?"
"Yes, sometimes."
He looked into her very clear eyes, now brightly blue with intelligent
perception of his not too civil badinage.
"And sometimes," he went on, "you're funny when you don't intend to be."
"You are, too, Mr. Drene."
"What?"
"Didn't you know it?"
A dull color tinted his cheek bones.
"No," he said, "I didn't know it."
"But you are. For instance, you don't walk; you stalk. You do what
novelists make their gloomy heroes do--you stride. It's rather funny."
"Really. And do you find my movements comic?"
She was a trifle scared, now, but she laughed her breathless, youthful
laugh:
"You are really very dramatic--a perfect story-book man. But, you know,
sometimes they are funny when the author doesn't intend them to be....
Please don't be angry."
Why the impudence of a model should have irritated him he was at a
loss to understand--unless there lurked under that impudence a trace of
unflattering truth.
As he sat looking at her, all at once, and in an unexpected flash of
self-illumination, he realized that habit had made of him an actor; that
for a while--a long while--a space of time he could not at the moment
conveniently compute--he had been playing a role merely because he had
become accustomed to it.
Disaster had cast him for a part. For a long while he had been that
part. Now he was still playing it from sheer force of habit. His tragedy
had really become only the shadow of a memory. Already he had emerged
from that shadow into the everyday outer world. But he had forgotten
that he still wore a somber makeup and costume which in the sunshine
might appear grotesque. No wonder the world thought him funny.
Glancing up from a perplexed and chagrined meditation he caught her
eye--and found it penitent, troubled, and anxious.
"You're quite right," he said, smiling easily and naturally; "I am
unintentionally funny. And I really didn't know it--didn't suspect
it--until this moment."
"Oh," she said quickly. "I didn't mean--I know you are often unhappy--"
"Nonsense!"
"You are! Anybody can see--and you really do not seem to be very old,
either--when you smile--"
"I'm not very old," he said, amused. "I'm not unhappy, either. If I ever
was, the truth is that I've almost forgotten by this time what it was
all about--"
"A woman," she quoted, "between friends"--and checked herself,
frightened that she had dared interpret Quair's malice.
He changed countenance at that; the dull red of anger clouded his
visage.
"Oh," she faltered, "I was not saucy, only sorry.... I have been sorry
for you so long--"
"Who intimated to you that a woman ever played any part in my career?"
"It's generally supposed. I don't know anything more than that. But I've
been--sorry. Love is a very dreadful thing," she said under her breath.
"Is it?" he asked, controlling a sudden desire to laugh.
"Don't you think so?"
"I have not thought of it that way, recently.... I haven't thought
about it at all--for some years.... Have you?" he added, trying to speak
gravely.
"Oh, yes. I have thought of it," she admitted.
"And you conclude it to be a rather dreadful business?"
"Yes, it is."
"How?"
"Oh, I don't know. A girl usually loves the wrong man. To be poor is
always bad enough, but to be in love, too, is really very dreadful. It
usually finishes us--you know."
"Are you in love?" he inquired, managing to repress his amusement.
"I could be. I know that much." She went to the sink, turned on the
water, washed her hands, and stood with dripping fingers looking about
for a towel.
"I'll get you one," he said. When he brought it, she laughed and held
out her hands to be dried.
"Do you think you are a Sultana?" he inquired, draping the towel across
her outstretched arms and leaving it there.
"I thought perhaps you'd dry them," she said sweetly.
"Not in the business," he remarked; and lighted his pipe.
Her hands were her particular beauty, soft and snowy. She was much in
demand among painters, and had posed many times for pictures of the
Virgin, her hands usually resting against her breast.
Now she bestowed great care upon them, thoroughly drying each separate,
slender finger. Then she pushed back the heavy masses of her hair--"a
miracle of silk and sunshine," as Quair had whispered to her. That same
hair, also, was very popular among painters.
It was her figure that fascinated sculptors.
"Are you ready?" grunted Drene. Work presently recommenced.
She was entirely accustomed to praise from men, for her general
attractiveness, for various separate features in what really was an
unusually lovely ensemble.
She was also accustomed to flattery, to importunity, to the ordinary
variety of masculine solicitation; to the revelation of genuine feeling,
too, in its various modes of expression--sentimental, explosive,
insinuating--the entire gamut.
She had remained, however, untouched; curious and amused, perhaps, yet
quite satisfied, so far, to be amused; and entirely content with her own
curiosity.
She coquetted when she thought it safe; learned many things she had
not suspected; was more cautious afterwards, but still, at intervals,
ventured to use her attractiveness as a natural lure, as an excuse, as
a reason, as a weapon, when the probable consequences threatened no
embarrassment or unpleasantness for her.
She was much liked, much admired, much attempted, and entirely
untempted.
When the Make-up Club gave its annual play depicting the foibles of
artists and writers in the public eye, Cecile White was always cast for
a role which included singing and dancing.
On and off for the last year or two she had posed for Drene, had
dropped into his studio to lounge about when he had no need of her
professionally, and when she had half an hour of idleness confronting
her.
As she stood there now on the model stand, gazing dreamily from his busy
hands to his lean, intent features, it occurred to her that this day
had not been a sample of their usual humdrum relations. From the
very beginning of their business relations he had remained merely her
employer, self-centered, darkly absorbed in his work, or, when not
working, bored and often yawning. She had never come to know him any
better than when she first laid eyes on him.
Always she had been a little interested in him, a little afraid,
sometimes venturing an innocent audacity, out of sheer curiosity
concerning the effect on him. But never had she succeeded in stirring
him to any expression of personal feeling in regard to herself, one way
or the other.
Probably he had no personal feeling concerning her. It seemed odd to
her; model and master thrown alone together, day after day, usually
became friends in some degree. But there had been nothing at all of
camaraderie in their relationship, only a colorless, professional
sans-gene, the informality of intimacy without the kindly essence of
personal interest on his part.
He paid her wages promptly; said good morning when she came, and
good night when she went; answered her questions when she asked them
seriously; relapsed into indifference or into a lazy and not too civil
badinage when she provoked him to it; and that was all.
He never complimented her, never praised her; yet he must have thought
her a good model, or he would not have continued to send for her.
"Do you think me pretty?" she had asked one day, saucily invading one of
his yawning silences.
"I think you're pretty good," he replied, "as a model. You'd be quite
perfect if you were also deaf and dumb."
That had been nearly a year ago. She thought of it now, a slight heat
in her cheeks as she remembered the snub, and her almost childish
amazement, and the hurt and offended silence which lasted all that
morning, but which, if he noticed at all, was doubtless entirely
gratifying to him.
"May I rest?"
"If it's necessary."
She sprang lightly to the floor walked around behind him, and stood
looking at his work.
"Do you want to know my opinion?" she asked.
"Yes," he said, with unexpected urbanity; "if you are clever enough to
have an opinion. What is it?"
She said, looking at the wax figure of herself and speaking with
deliberation:
"In the last hour you have made out of a rather commonplace study an
entirely spontaneous and charming creation."
"What!" he exclaimed, his face reddening with pleasure at her opinion,
and with surprise at her mode of expressing it.
"It's quite true. That dancing figure is wholly charming. It is no
study; it is pure creation."
He knew it; was a little thrilled that she, representing to him an
average and mediocre public, should recognize it so intelligently.
"As though," she continued, "you had laid aside childish things."
"What?" he asked, surprised again at the authority of the expression.
"Academic precision and the respectable excellencies of-the-usual;--you
have put away childish things and become a man."
"Where did you hear that?" he said bluntly.
"I heard it when I said it. You know, Mr. Drene, I am not wholly
uneducated, although your amiable question insinuates as much."
"I'm not unamiable. Only I didn't suppose--"
"Oh, you never have supposed anything concerning me. So why are you
surprised when I express myself with fragmentary intelligence?"
"I'm sorry--"
"Listen to me. I'm not afraid of you any more. I've been afraid for two
years. Now, I'm not. Your study is masterly. I know it. You know it. You
didn't know I knew it; you didn't know I knew anything. And you didn't
care."
She sat down on the sofa, facing him with a breathless smile.
"You don't care what I think, what I am, what interests I may have, what
intellect, what of human desire, hope, fear, ambition animates me; do
you? You don't care whether I am ignorant or educated, bad or good, ill
or well--as long as it does not affect my posing for you; whether I am
happy or unhappy, whether I--"
"For Heaven's sake--"
"But you don't care!... Do you?"
He was silent; he stood looking at her in a stupid sort of way.
After a moment or two she rose, picked up her hat, went to the glass and
pinned it on, then strolled slowly back, drawing on her gloves.
"It's five o'clock, you know, Drene."
"Yes, certainly."
"Do you want me to-morrow?"
"Yes. Yes, of course."
"You are not offended?"
He did not answer. She came up to him and repeated the question in a
childishly anxious voice that was a trifle too humble. And looking down
into her eyes he saw a gleam of pure mischief in them.
"You little villain!" he said; and caught her wrists. "A lot you care
whether I am offended!"
She looked away from him, turning her profile. Her expression was
inscrutable. After a silence he dropped her wrists with a vague laugh.
"You should have let me alone," he said.
"'The woman tempted me,'" she repeated, still looking away from him. He
said nothing.
"Good night," she nodded, and turned toward the door.
He went with her, falling into step beside her. One arm slipped around
her waist as they entered the hallway. They walked slowly to the door.
He unlatched it, hesitated; she moved one foot forward, and he took a
step at the same time which brought her across his path so closely that
contact was unavoidable. And he kissed her.
"Oh," she said. "So you are human after all! I often wondered."
She looked up, trying to laugh, but could not seem to take it as coolly
as she might have wished to.
"Not that a kiss is very important in these days," she continued, "yet
it might interest you to hear that a friend of yours rather fancies
me. He wouldn't like you to do it. But--" She lifted her blue eyes with
faint malice--"What is a woman between friends?"
"Who is he?"
"Jack Graylock."
Drene remained motionless.
"I haven't encouraged him," she said. "Perhaps that is why."
"Why he fancies you?"
"Why he asked me to marry him. It was the only thing he had not asked."
"He asked that?"
"After he realized it was the only way, I suppose," she said coolly.
Drene took her into his arms and kissed her deliberately on the mouth.
Looking up at him she said: "After all, he is your friend, isn't he?"
"A friend of many years. But, as you say, what is a woman between
friends?"
"I don't know," said the girl. And, still clasped in his arms, she bent
her head, thoughtfully, considering the question.
And as though she had come to some final conclusion, she raised her
head, lifted her eyes slowly, and her lips, to the man whose arms
enfolded her. It was her answer to his question, and her own.
When she had gone, he went back and stood again by the great window,
watching the cote on a neighboring roof, where the pigeons were
strutting and coquetting in the last rays of the western sun.
II
When she came again to the studio, she was different, subdued, evading,
avoiding, smiling a little in her flushed diffidence at his gay ease of
manner--or assumption of both ease and gaiety.
He was inclined to rally her, tease her, but her reticence was not all
embarrassment. The lightest contact, the slightest caress from him,
added a seriousness to her face, making it very lovely under its
heightened color, and strangely childlike.
Model and master they would have remained no longer had it been for him
to say, he desiring now to make it a favor and concession on her part to
aid him professionally, she gravely insisting on professionalism as the
basis of whatever entente might develop between them, as well as the
only avowed excuse for her presence there alone with him.
"Please. It's respectable," she insisted her agreeable, modulated voice.
"I had rather the reason for my coming here be business--whatever else
happens."
"What has happened," he said, balancing a handful of wet clay in
one hand and looking laughingly up at her, where she stood on the
model-stand, "is that a pretty girl strolled in here one day and held
up a mirror to a solemn ass who was stalking theatrically through life.
That solemn ass is very grateful for the glimpse he had of himself. He
behaved gratefully, didn't he?"
"Very," she said with a forced smile.
"Do you object to the manner in which he expressed his gratitude?"
She hung her head.
"No," she said.
After a while she raised her eyes, her head still lowered. He was
working, darkly absorbed as usual in the plastic mass under his fingers.
She watched him curiously, not his hands, now, but his lean, intent
face, striving to penetrate that masculine mask, trying to understand.
Varying and odd reflections and emotions possessed her in turn, and
passed--wonder, bewilderment at herself, at him; a slight sense of fear,
then a brief and sudden access of shyness, succeeded by the by glow
of an emotion new and strange and deep. And this, in turn, by vague
bewilderment again, in which there was both a hint of fear, and a tinge
of something exquisite.
Within herself she was dimly conscious that a certain gaiety, an
irresponsibility and lightness had died out in her, perhaps permanently,
yet leaving no void. What it was that replaced these she could not
name--she only was conscious that if these had been subdued by a newer
knowledge, with a newer seriousness, this unaccustomed gravity had left
her heart no less tender, and had deepened her capacity for emotion
to depths as profound and unexplored as the sudden mystery of their
discovery by herself.
Always, now, while she posed, she was looking at him with a still
intentness, as though he really wore a mask and she, breathlessly
vigilant, watched for the moment when he might forget and lift it.
But during the weeks that followed, if the mask were indeed only the
steady preoccupation that his visage wore, she seemed to learn nothing
more about him when his features lost their dark absorption and he
caught her eye and smiled. No, the smile revealed nothing except another
mask under the more serious cast of concentration--only another
disguise that covered whatever this man might truly be deeper down--this
masculine and unknown invader of frontiers surrendered ere she had
understood they were even besieged.
And during these weeks in early spring their characteristics, even
characters, seemed to have shifted curiously and become reversed; his
was now the light, irresponsible, half-mocking badinage--almost boyishly
boisterous at times, as, for instance, when he stepped forward after the
pose and swung her laughingly from the model-platform to her corner on
the sofa.
"You pretty and clever little thing," he said, "why are you becoming so
serious and absent-minded?"
"Am I becoming so?"
"You are. You oughtn't to: you've made a new and completely different
man of me."
As though that were an admirable achievement, or even of any particular
importance. And yet she seemed to think it was both of these when,
resting against him, within the circle of his arm, still shy and silent
under the breathless poignancy of an emotion which ever seemed to sound
within her depths unsuspected.
But when he said that she had made a new and completely different man of
him, she remembered his low-voiced when that change impended as he held
her by her wrists a moment, then dropped them. He had said, half to
himself: "You should have let me alone!"
Sometimes at noon she remembered this when they went out for luncheon
realizing they would never have been seated together in a restaurant had
she not satisfied her curiosity. She should have let him alone; she
knew that. She tried to wish that she had--tried to regret everything,
anything; and could not, even when within her the faint sense of alarm
awoke amid the softly unchangeable unreality of these last six weeks of
spring.
Was this then really love?--this drifting through alternating dreams
of shyness, tenderness, suspense, pierced at moments by tiny flashes
of fear, as lightning flickers, far buried in softly shrouded depths of
cloud?
She had long periods of silent and absorbed dreaming, conscious only
that she dreamed, but not of the dream itself.
She was aware, too, of a curious loneliness within her, and dimly
understood that it was the companion of a lifetime she was missing--her
conscience. Where was it? Had it gone? Had it died? Were the little,
inexplicable flashes of fear proof of its disintegration? Or its
immortal vitality?
Dead, dormant, departed, she knew not which, she was dully aware of its
loss--dimly and childishly troubled that she could remember nothing to
be sorry for. And there was so much.
Men in his profession who knew him began to look askance at him and her,
amused or otherwise, according to their individual characters.
That Cecile White went about more or less with the sculptor Drene was
a nine days' gossip among circles familiar to them both, and was
forgotten--as are all wonders--in nine days.
Some of his acquaintances recalled what had been supposed to be the
tragedy of his life, mentioning a woman's name, and a man's--Drene's
closest friend. But gossip does not last long among the busy--not that
the busy are incapable of gossip, but they finish with it quickly,
having other matters to think about.
Even Quair, after recovering from his wonder that his own condescending
advances had been ignored, bestowed his fatuously inflammable attentions
elsewhere.
He had been inclined to complain one day in the studio, when he and
Guilder visited Drene professionally; and Guilder looked at his dapper
confrere in surprise and slight disgust; and Drene, at first bored, grew
irritable.
"What are you talking about?" he said sharply.
"I'm talking about Cecile White," continued Quair, looking rather oddly
at the sculptor out of his slightly prominent eyes. "I didn't suppose
you could be interested in any woman--not that I mind your interfering
with any little affair between Cecile and me--"
"There wasn't any."
"I beg your pardon, Drene--"
"There wasn't any!" repeated Drene, with curt contempt. "Don't talk
about her, anyway."
"You mean I'm not to talk about a common artist's model--"
"Not that way."
"Oh. Is she yours?"
"She isn't anybody's, I fancy. Therefore, let her alone, or I'll throw
you out of doors."
Quair said to Guilder after they had departed:
"Fancy old Drene playing about with that girl on a strictly pious basis!
He's doubtless dub enough to waste his time. But what's in it for her?"
"Perhaps a little unaccustomed masculine decency."
"Everybody is decent enough to her as far as I know."
"Including yourself?"
"Certainly, including myself," retorted Quair, adding naively: "Besides,
I knew any attempt at philandering would be time wasted."
"Yet you tried it," mused Guilder, entering his big touring car and
depositing a bundle of blue-prints and linen tracing paper at his own
ponderous feet. Quair followed him and spoke briefly to the chauffeur,
then:
"Tried nothing," he said. "A little chaff, that's all. When it comes to
a man like Jack Graylock going so far as to ask her to marry him, good
night, nurse! Nothing doing, even for me."
"Even for you," repeated Guilder in his moderate and always modulated
voice. "Well, if she's escaped you and Graylock, she's beyond any danger
from Drene, I fancy."
Quair smiled appreciatively, as though a delicate compliment had been
offered him. Several times on the way to call on Graylock he insisted on
stopping the car at as many celebrated cafes. Guilder patiently awaited
him in the car and each time Quair emerged from the cafe bar a little
more flushed and a trifle jauntier than when he had entered.
He was a man so perfectly attired and so scrupulously fastidious about
his person that Guilder often speculated as to just why Quair always
seemed to him a trifle soiled.
Now, looking him over as he climbed into the car, unusually red in the
face, breathing out the aroma of spirits through his little, pinched
nostrils, a faint sensation of disgust came over the senior member of
the firm as though the junior member were physically unclean.
"That's about ten drinks since luncheon," he remarked, as the car rolled
on down Fifth Avenue.
Quair, who usually grew disagreeably familiar when mellow, poked his
gloved thumb:
"You're a merry old cock, aren't you?" he inquired genially, "--like a
pig's wrist! If I hadn't the drinking of the entire firm to do, who'd
ever talk about Guilder and Quair, architects?"
It was common rumor that Quair did his brilliant work only when
"soused." And he never appeared to be perfectly sober, even when he was.
Graylock received them in his office--a big, reckless-eyed, handsome
man, with Broad Street written all over him and "danger" etched in every
deepened line of his face.
"Well, how about that business of mine?" he inquired. "It's all right to
keep me waiting, of course, while you and Quair here match for highballs
at the Ritz."
"I had to see Drene--that's why we are late," explained Guilder. "We're
ready to go ahead and let your contracts for you--"
"Drene?" interrupted Graylock, looking straight at Guilder with a
curious and staring intensity. "Why drag Drene into an excuse?"
"Because we went to his studio," said Guilder. "Now about letting the
contracts--"
"Were you at Drene's studio?"
"Yes. He's doing the groups for the new opera for us."
Quair, watching Graylock, was seized with a malicious impulse:
"Neat little skirt he has up there--that White girl," he remarked,
seating himself on Graylock's polished table.
A dull flush stained Graylock's cheekbones, and his keen eyes turned on
Quair. The latter lighted a cigarette, expelled the smoke in two thin
streams from his abnormally narrow nostrils.
"Some skirt," he repeated. "And it looks as though old Drene had her
number--"
Guilder's level voice interrupted:
"The contracts are ready to be--"
But Graylock, not heeding, and perhaps not hearing, and looking all the
time at Quair, said slowly:
"Drene isn't that kind.... Is he?"
"Our kind, you mean?" inquired Quair, with a malice so buried under
flippancy that the deliberate effrontery passed for it with Graylock.
Which amused Quair for a moment, but the satisfaction was not
sufficient. He desired that Graylock should feel the gaff.
"Drene," he said, "is one of those fussers who jellify when hurled on
their necks--the kind that ask that kind of girl to marry them after
she's turned down everything else they suggest."
Graylock's square jaw tightened and his steady eyes seemed to grow even
paler; but Quair, as though perfectly unconscious of this man's record
with the wife of his closest friend, and of the rumors which connected
him so seriously with Cecile White, swung his leg unconcernedly, where
it dangled over the table's edge, and smiled frankly and knowingly upon
Graylock:
"There's always somebody to marry that sort of girl; all mush isn't
on the breakfast table. When you and I are ready to quit, Graylock,
Providence has created a species of man who settles our bills."
He threw back his head, inhaled the smoke of his cigarette, sent two
thin streams through his nose.
"Maybe Drene may marry her himself. But--I don't believe he'll have
to.... Now, about those contracts--" he affected a yawn, "--go on and
tell him, Guilder," he added, his words distorted by another yawn.
He stepped down to the floor from his perch on the table, stretched his
arms, looking affably all the while at Graylock, who had never moved a
muscle.
"I believe you had a run-in with that Cecile girl once, didn't you,
Graylock? Like the rest of us, eh? Oh, well--my hat off to old Drene
if he wins out. I hold no malice. After all, Graylock, what's a woman
between friends?"
And he nodded gaily at Graylock and sauntered leisurely to the window.
And kept his back turned, fearful of exploding with laughter in the very
face of the man who had been staring at him out of pale, unchanging eyes
so steadily and so long.
Guilder's patient, bored, but moderate voice was raised once more:
"In regard to the letting of these contracts--"
But Graylock, staring at Quair's back, neither heeded nor heard him, for
his brain was still ringing with the mockery of Quair's words--"What is
a woman between friends?" And now, for the first time, he was beginning
to understand what the answer might be.
III
She had not posed for Drene during the last two weeks, and he had begun
to miss her, after his own fashion--that is, he thought of her when not
preoccupied and sometimes desired her companionship when unoccupied.
And one evening he went to his desk, rummaged among note-books, and
scribbled sheets of paper, until he found her address, which he could
never remember, wrote it down on another slip of paper, pocketed it, and
went out to his dinner.
But as he dined, other matters reoccupied his mind, matters
professional, schemes little and great, broad and in detail, which
gradually, though not excluding her entirely, quenched his desire to see
her at that particular time.
Sometimes it was sheer disinclination to make an effort to communicate
with her, sometimes, and usually, the self-centering concentration
which included himself and his career, as well as his work, seemed to
obliterate even any memory of her existence.
Now and then, when alone in his shabby bedroom, reading a dull book, or
duly preparing to retire, far in the dim recesses of heart and brain a
faint pain became apparent--if it could still be called pain, this vague
ghost of anger stirring in the ashes of dead years--and at such moments
he thought of Graylock, and of another; and the partly paralyzed
emotion, which memory of these two evoked, stirred him finally to think
of Cecile.
It was at such times that he always determined to seek her the next day
and continue with her what had been begun--an intimacy which depended
upon his own will; a destiny for her which instinct whispered was within
his own control. But the next day found him at work; models of various
types, ages, and degrees of stupidity came, posed, were paid, and
departed; his studies for the groups in collaboration with Guilder and
Quair were approaching the intensely interesting period--that stage of
completion where composition has been determined upon and the excitement
of developing the construction and the technical charm of modeling
begins.
And evening always found him physically tired and mentally satisfied--or
perturbed--to the exclusion of such minor interests as life is
made of--dress, amusement, food, women. Between a man and a beloved
profession in full shock of embrace there is no real room for these or
thought of these.
He ate irregularly and worked with the lack of wisdom characteristic
of creative ability, and he grew thinner and grayer at the temples, and
grayer of flesh, too, so that within a month, between the torrid New
York summer and his own unwisdom, he became again the gaunt, silent,
darkly absorbed recluse, never even stirring abroad for air until some
half-deadened pang of hunger, or the heavy warning of a headache, set
him in reluctant motion.
He heard of Cecile now and then; Cosby had used her for a figure on
a fountain destined to embellish the estate of a wealthy young man
somewhere or other; Greer employed her for the central figure of
Innocence in his lovely and springlike decoration for some Western
public edifice. Quair had met her several times at Manhattan Beach with
various and assorted wealthy young men.
And one evening Guilder came alone to his studio and found him lying on
the lounge, his lank, muscular hands, still clay-stained, hanging inert
to the floor above an evening paper fallen there.
"Hello, Guilder," he said, without rising, as the big architect shambled
loosely through the open doorway.
"How are you, Drene?"
"All right. It's hot."
"There's not a breath of air. It looks like a thunder-storm in the
west."
He pulled up a chair and sprawled on it, wiping his grave features with
a damp handkerchief.
"Drene," he said, "a philanthropic guy of sorts wants to add a chapel to
the church at Shallow Brook, Long Island. We've pinched the job. Can you
do an altar piece?"
"What sort?"
"They want a Virgin. It's to be called the Chapel of the Annunciation.
It's for women to repair to--under certain and natural circumstances."
"I've so much on hand--"
"It's only a single figure-barring the dove. Why don't you do it?"
"There are plenty of other men--"
"They want you. There'll be no difficulty about terms."
Drene said with a shrug:
"Terms are coming to mean less and less to me, Guilder. It costs very
little for me to live." He turned his gray, tired face. "Look at this
barn of a place; and go in there and look at my bedroom. I have no use
for what are known as necessities."
"Still, terms are terms--"
"Oh, yes. A truck may run over me. Even at that, I've enough to live
life out as I am living it here--between these empty walls--and that
expanse of glass overhead. That's about all life holds for me--a sheet
of glass and four empty walls--and a fistfull of wet clay."
"Are you a trifle morbid, Drene?"
"I'm not by any means; I merely prefer to live this way. I have
sufficient means to live otherwise if I wish. But this is enough of the
world to suit me, Guilder--and I can go to a noisy restaurant to eat in
when I'm so inclined--" He laughed a rather mirthless laugh and glanced
up, catching a peculiar expression in Guilder's eyes.
"You're thinking," said Drene coolly, "what a god I once set up on the
altar of domesticity. I used to talk a lot once, didn't I?--a hell of
a clamor I made in eulogy of the domestic virtues. Well, only idiots
retain the same opinions longer than twenty-four hours. Fixity is
imbecility; the inconstant alone progress; dissatisfaction is only a
synonym for intelligence; contentment translated means stagnation..... |
10,240 |
Produced by David Widger
QUOTES AND IMAGES FROM GEORGE MEREDITH
THE WORKS OF GEORGE MEREDITH
PROSE
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
George Meredith in 1893
The Sitting Room, Flint Cottage--May 18th 1909
Age 35
Age 68
Age 69
Age 72
Age 80
A lover must have his delusions, just
as a man must have a skin
A madman gets madder when you talk
reason to him
A night that had shivered repose
A dash of conventionalism makes the
whole civilized world kin
A string of pearls: a woman who goes
beyond that's in danger
A wound of the same kind that we are
inflicting
A tear would have overcome him--She had
not wept
A tragic comedian: that is, a grand
pretender, a self-deceiver
A fleet of South-westerly rain-clouds
had been met in mid-sky
A bone in a boy's mind for him to gnaw
and worry
A kind of anchorage in case of
indiscretion
A cloud of millinery shoots me off a
mile from a woman
A woman's at the core of every plot man
plotteth
A witty woman is a treasure; a witty
Beauty is a power
A high wind will make a dead leaf fly
like a bird
A kindly sense of superiority
A young philosopher's an old fool!
A bird that won't roast or boil or stew
A woman, and would therefore listen to
nonsense
A male devotee is within an inch of a
miracle
A great oration may be a sedative
A very doubtful benefit
A generous enemy is a friend on the
wrong side
A woman is hurt if you do not confide
to her your plans
A woman who has mastered sauces sits on
the apex of civilization
A style of affable omnipotence about
the wise youth
A maker of Proverbs--what is he but a
narrow mind wit
A fortress face; strong and massive,
and honourable in ruin
A dumb tongue can be a heavy liar
A common age once, when he married her;
now she had grown old
A share of pity for the objects she
despised
A woman rises to her husband. But a
man is what he is
A stew's a stew, and not a boiling to
shreds
A marriage without love is dishonour
A plunge into the deep is of little
moment
A sixpence kindly meant is worth any
crown-piece that's grudged
A man to be trusted with the keys of
anything
A free-thinker startles him as a kind
of demon
A female free-thinker is one of Satan's
concubines
A wise man will not squander his
laughter if he can help it
A man who rejected medicine in
extremity
A lady's company-smile
A country of compromise goes to pieces
at the first cannon-shot
A youth who is engaged in the
occupation of eating his heart
A whisper of cajolery in season is
often the secret
A superior position was offered her by
her being silent
A contented Irishman scarcely seems my
countryman
Abject sense of the lack of a
circumference
Above all things I detest the writing
for money
Above Nature, I tell him, or, we shall
be very much below
Absolute freedom could be the worst of
perils
Accidents are the specific for averting
the maladies of age
Accounting his tight blue tail coat and
brass buttons a victory
Accounting for it, is not the same as
excusing
Accustomed to be paid for by his
country
Acting is not of the high class which
conceals the art
Active despair is a passion that must
be superseded
Add on a tired pipe after dark, and a
sound sleep to follow
Adept in the lie implied
Admirable scruples of an inveterate
borrower
Admiration of an enemy or oppressor
doing great deeds
Admires a girl when there's no married
woman or widow in sight
Adversary at once offensive and
helpless provokes brutality
Advised not to push at a shut gate
Affected misapprehensions
Affectedly gentle and unusually
roundabout opening
After forty, men have married their
habits
After five years of marriage, and
twelve of friendship
After a big blow, a very little one
scarcely counts
Agostino was enjoying the smoke of
paper cigarettes
Ah! how sweet to waltz through life
with the right partner
Ah! we're in the enemy's country now
Ah! we fall into their fictions
Aimlessness of a woman's curiosity
Alike believe that Providence is for
them
All of us an ermined owl within us to
sit in judgement
All concessions to the people have been
won from fear
All passed too swift for happiness
All women are the same--Know one, know
all
All that Matey and Browny were
forbidden to write they looked
All are friends who sit at table
All flattery is at somebody's expense
Allowed silly sensitiveness to prevent
the repair
Although it blew hard when Caesar
crossed the Rubicon
Always the shout for more produced it
("News")
Am I ill? I must be hungry!
Am I thy master, or thou mine?
Americans forgivingly remember, without
mentioning
Amiable mirror as being wilfully
ruffled to confuse
Among boys there are laws of honour and
chivalrous codes
Amused after their tiresome work of
slaughter
An edge to his smile that cuts much
like a sneer
An obedient creature enough where he
must be
An angry woman will think the worst
An incomprehensible world indeed at the
bottom and at the top
An instinct labouring to supply the
deficiencies of stupidity
An old spoiler of women is worse than
one spoiled by them!
And now came war, the purifier and the
pestilence
And so Farewell my young Ambition! and
with it farewell all true
And he passed along the road, adds the
Philosopher
And, ladies, if you will consent to be
likened to a fruit
And her voice, against herself, was for
England
And one gets the worst of it (in any
bargain)
And it's one family where the dog is
pulled by the collar
And not any of your grand ladies can
match my wife at home
And to these instructions he gave an
aim: "First be virtuous"
And not be beaten by an acknowledged
defeat
And never did a stroke of work in my
life
And life said, Do it, and death said,
To what end?
Anecdotist to slaughter families for
the amusement
Anguish to think of having bent the
knee for nothing
Anticipate opposition by initiating
measures
Any man is in love with any woman
Any excess pushes to craziness
Appealed to reason in them; he would
not hear of convictions
Appetite to flourish at the cost of the
weaker
Arch-devourer Time
Are we practical?' penetrates the bosom
of an English audience
Aristocratic assumption of licence
Arm'd with Fear the Foe finds passage
to the vital part
Arrest the enemy by vociferations of
persistent prayer
Art of despising what he coveted
Art of speaking on politics tersely
As when nations are secretly preparing
for war
As to wit, the sneer is the cloak of
clumsiness
As secretive as they are sensitive
As the Lord decided, so it would end!
"Oh, delicious creed!"
As well ask (women) how a battle-field
concerns them!
As faith comes--no saying how; one
swears by them
As if she had never heard him
previously enunciate the formula
As little trouble as the heath when the
woods are swept
As if the age were the injury!
As for titles, the way to defend them
is to be worthy of them
As fair play as a woman's lord could
give her
As for comparisons, they are flowers
thrown into the fire
As in all great oratory! The key of it
is the pathos
As becomes them, they do not look ahead
Ashamed of letting his ears be filled
with secret talk
Ask not why, where reason never was
Ask pardon of you, without excusing
myself
Assist in our small sphere; not come
mouthing to the footlights
At the age of forty, men that love love
rootedly
At war with ourselves, means the best
happiness we can have
Attacked my conscience on the cowardly
side
Automatic creature is subject to the
laws of its construction
Avoid the position that enforces
publishing
Back from the altar to discover that
she has chained herself
Bad laws are best broken
Bad luck's not repeated every day Keep
heart for the good
Bade his audience to beware of princes
Bandied the weariful shuttlecock of
gallantry
Barriers are for those who cannot fly
Be philosophical, but accept your
personal dues
Be politic and give her elbow-room for
her natural angles
Be what you seem, my little one
Be on your guard the next two minutes
he gets you alone
Be good and dull, and please everybody
Be the woman and have the last word!
Bear in mind that we are
sentimentalists--The eye is our servant
Beauchamp's career
Beautiful servicelessness
Beautiful women in her position provoke
an intemperateness
Beautiful women may believe themselves
beloved
Beauty is rare; luckily is it rare
Because you loved something better than
me
Because he stood so high with her now
he feared the fall
Because men can't abide praise of
another man
Becoming air of appropriation that made
it family history
Bed was a rock of refuge and fortified
defence
Began the game of Pull
Beginning to have a movement to kiss
the whip
Behold the hero embarked in the
redemption of an erring beauty
Being heard at night, in the nineteenth
century
Being in heart and mind the brother to
the sister with women
Belief in the narrative by promoting
nausea in the audience
Believed in her love, and judged it by
the strength of his own
Bent double to gather things we have
tossed away
Better for men of extremely opposite
opinions not to meet
Between love grown old and indifference
ageing to love
Beware the silent one of an assembly!
Beyond a plot of flowers, a gold-green
meadow dipped to a ridge
Bitten hard at experience, and know the
value of a tooth
Borrower to be dancing on Fortune's
tight-rope above the old abyss
Botched mendings will only make them
worse
Bound to assure everybody at table he
was perfectly happy
Bounds of his intelligence closed their
four walls
Boys, of course--but men, too!
Boys are unjust
Boys who can appreciate brave deeds are
capable of doing them
Braggadocioing in deeds is only next
bad to mouthing it
Brains will beat Grim Death if we have
enough of them
Brief negatives are not re-assuring to
a lover's uneasy mind
British hunger for news; second only to
that for beef
Brittle is foredoomed
Brotherhood among the select who wear
masks instead of faces
But I leave it to you
But a woman must now and then
ingratiate herself
But great, powerful London--the new
universe to her spirit
But to strangle craving is indeed to go
through a death
But the flower is a thing of the
season; the flower drops off
But you must be beautiful to please
some men
But they were a hopeless couple, they
were so friendly
But the key to young men is the
ambition, or, in the place of it.....
But love for a parent is not merely
duty
But a great success is full of
temptations
But what is it we do (excepting
cricket, of course)
But is there such a thing as happiness
But had sunk to climb on a firmer
footing
By our manner of loving we are known
By forbearance, put it in the wrong
By resisting, I made him a tyrant
By nature incapable of asking pardon
Cajoled like a twenty-year-old yahoo at
college
Call of the great world's appetite for
more (Invented news)
Calm fanaticism of the passion of love
Can you not be told you are perfect
without seeking to improve
Can believe a woman to be any age when
her cheeks are tinted
Can a man go farther than his nature?
Cannot be any goodness unless it is a
practiced goodness
Canvassing means intimidation or
corruption
Capacity for thinking should precede
the act of writing
Capricious potentate whom they worship
Careful not to smell of his office
Carry explosives and must particularly
guard against sparks
Carry a scene through in virtue's name
and vice's mask
Causes him to be popularly weighed
Centres of polished barbarism known as
aristocratic societies
Challenged him to lead up to her
desired stormy scene
Charges of cynicism are common against
all satirists
Charitable mercifulness; better than
sentimental ointment
Charity that supplied the place of
justice was not thanked
Chaste are wattled in formalism and
throned in sourness
Cheerful martyr
Childish faith in the beneficence of
the unseen Powers who feed us
Chose to conceive that he thought
abstractedly
Circumstances may combine to make a
whisper as deadly as a blow
Civil tongue and rosy smiles sweeten
even sour wine
Claim for equality puts an end to the
priceless privileges
Clotilde fenced, which is half a
confession
Cock-sure has crowed low by sunset
Cold curiosity
Cold charity to all
Come prepared to be not very well
satisfied with anything
Comfortable have to pay in occasional
panics for the serenity
Command of countenance the Countess
possessed
Commencement of a speech proves that
you have made the plunge
Common voice of praise in the mouths of
his creditors
Common sense is the secret of every
successful civil agitation
Compared the governing of the Irish to
the management of a horse
Comparisons will thrust themselves on
minds disordered
Compassionate sentiments veered round
to irate amazement
Complacent languor of the wise youth
Compliment of being outwitted by their
own offspring
Compromise is virtual death
Conduct is never a straight index where
the heart's involved
Confess no more than is necessary, but
do everything you can
Confident serenity inspired by evil
prognostications
Consciousness of some guilt when vowing
itself innocent
Consent to take life as it is
Consent of circumstances
Conservative, whose astounded state
paralyzes his wrath
Consign discussion to silence with the
cynical closure
Constitutionally discontented
Consult the family means--waste your
time
Contempt of military weapons and
ridicule of the art of war
Contemptuous exclusiveness could not go
farther
Continued trust in the man--is the
alternative of despair
Convict it by instinct without the
ceremony of a jury
Convictions we store--wherewith to
shape our destinies
Convictions are generally first
impressions
Convincing themselves that they
impersonate sagacity
Cordiality of an extreme relief in
leaving
Could we--we might be friends
Could peruse platitudes upon that theme
with enthusiasm
Could not understand enthusiasm for the
schoolmaster's career
Could the best of men be simply--a
woman's friend?
Could have designed this gabbler for
the mate
Could affect me then, without being
flung at me
Country can go on very well without so
much speech-making
Country enclosed us to make us feel
snug in our own importance
Country prizing ornaments higher than
qualities
Courage to grapple with his pride and
open his heart was wanting
Cover of action as an escape from
perplexity
Cowardice is even worse for nations
than for individual men
Crazy zigzag of policy in almost every
stroke (of history)
Creatures that wait for circumstances
to bring the change
Critical fashion of intimates who know
as well as hear
Critical in their first glance at a
prima donna
Cupid clipped of wing is a destructive
parasite
Curious thing would be if curious
things should fail to happen
Dahlia, the perplexity to her sister's
heart, lay stretched....
Damsel who has lost the third volume of
an exciting novel
Dangerous things are uttered after the
third glass
Dark-eyed Renee was not beauty but
attraction
Days when you lay on your back and the
sky rained apples
Dead Britons are all Britons, but live
Britons are not quite brothers
Death is always next door
Death within which welcomed a death
without
Death is only the other side of the
ditch
Death is our common cloak; but Calamity
individualizes
Debit was eloquent, he was unanswerable
Decency's a dirty petticoat in the
Garden of Innocence
Decent insincerity
Decline to practise hypocrisy
Dedicated to the putrid of the upper
circle
Deeds only are the title
Deep as a mother's, pure as a virgin's,
fiery as a saint's
Defiance of foes and (what was harder
to brave) of friends
Delay in thine undertaking Is disaster
of thy own making
Depending for dialogue upon perpetual
fresh supplies of scandal
Depreciating it after the fashion of
chartered hypocrites.
Desire of it destroyed it
Despises hostile elements and goes
unpunished
Despises the pomades and curling-irons
of modern romance
Determine that the future is in our
debt, and draw on it
Detestable feminine storms enveloping
men weak enough
Detested titles, invented by the
English
Developing stiff, solid, unobtrusive
men, and very personable women
Dialectical stiffness
Dialogue between Nature and
Circumstance
Did not know the nature of an oath, and
was dismissed
Didn't say a word No use in talking
about feelings
Dignitary, and he passed under the
bondage of that position
Dignity of sulking so seductive to the
wounded spirit of man
Discover the writers in a day when all
are writing!
Discreet play with her eyelids in our
encounters
Disqualification of constantly
offending prejudices
Dissent rings out finely, and approval
is a feeble murmur
Distaste for all exercise once
pleasurable
Distinguished by his not allowing
himself to be provoked
Distrust us, and it is a declaration of
war
Dithyrambic inebriety of narration
Divided lovers in presence
Do I serve my hand? or, Do I serve my
heart?
Do you judge of heroes as of lesser
men?
Dogmatic arrogance of a just but
ignorant man
Dogs die more decently than we men
Dogs' eyes have such a sick look of
love
Dose he had taken was not of the
sweetest
Drank to show his disdain of its powers
Dreaded as a scourge, hailed as a
refreshment (Scandal-sheet)
Dreads our climate and coffee too much
to attempt the voyage
Drink is their death's river, rolling
them on helpless
Dudley was not gifted to read behind
words and looks
Earl of Cressett fell from his coach-box
in a fit
Eating, like scratching, only wants a
beginning
Eccentric behaviour in trifles
Effort to be reticent concerning Nevil,
and communicative
Efforts to weary him out of his project
were unsuccessful
Elderly martyr for the advancement of
his juniors
Embarrassments of an uncongenial
employment
Emilia alone of the party was as a blot
to her
Eminently servile is the tolerated
lawbreaker
Empanelled to deliver verdicts upon the
ways of women
Empty stomachs are foul counsellors
Empty magnanimity which his uncle
presented to him
Enamoured young men have these notions
Enemy's laugh is a bugle blown in the
night
Energy to something, that was not to be
had in a market
England's the foremost country of the
globe
English antipathy to babblers
English maids are domesticated savage
animals
Enjoys his luxuries and is ashamed of
his laziness
Enthusiasm struck and tightened the
loose chord of scepticism
Enthusiasm has the privilege of not
knowing monotony
Enthusiast, when not lyrical, is
perilously near to boring
Envy of the man of positive knowledge
Equally acceptable salted when it
cannot be had fresh
Everlastingly in this life the better
pays for the worse
Every failure is a step advanced
Every woman that's married isn't in
love with her husband
Every church of the city lent its iron
tongue to the peal
Everywhere the badge of subjection is a
poor stomach
Exceeding variety and quantity of
things money can buy
Excellent is pride; but oh! be sure of
its foundations
Excess of a merit is a capital offence
in morality
Excited, glad of catastrophe if it but
killed monotony
Expectations dupe us, not trust
Explaining of things to a dull head
Externally soft and polished,
internally hard and relentless
Exuberant anticipatory trustfulness
Exult in imagination of an escape up to
the moment of capture
Eyes of a lover are not his own; but
his hands and lips are
Face betokening the perpetual smack of
lemon
Failures oft are but advising friends
Faith works miracles. At least it
allows time for them
Fantastical
Far higher quality is the will that can
subdue itself to wait
Fast growing to be an eccentric by
profession
Fatal habit of superiority stopped his
tongue
Father and she were aware of one
another without conversing
Father used to say, four hours for a
man, six for a woman
Favour can't help coming by rotation
Fear nought so much as Fear itself
Feel no shame that I do not feel!
Feel they are not up to the people they
are mixing with
Feeling, nothing beyond a lively
interest in her well-being
Feigned utter condemnation to make
partial comfort acceptable
Fell to chatting upon the nothings
agreeably and seriously
Feminine pity, which is nearer to
contempt than to tenderness
Feminine; coming when she willed and
flying when wanted
Festive board provided for them by the
valour of their fathers
Few feelings are single on this globe
Few men can forbear to tell a spicy
story of their friends
Fiddle harmonics on the sensual strings
Fine eye for celestially directed
consequences is ever haunted
Fine Shades were still too dominant at
Brookfield
Finishing touches to the negligence
Fire smoothes the creases
Fires in the grates went through the
ceremony of warming nobody
Fit of Republicanism in the nursery
Flashes bits of speech that catch men
in their unguarded corner
Flung him, pitied him, and passed on
Foamy top is offered and gulped as
equivalent to an idea
Foe can spoil my face; he beats me if
he spoils my temper
Foist on you their idea of your idea at
the moment
Fond, as they say, of his glass and his
girl
Foolish trick of thinking for herself
For 'tis Ireland gives England her
soldiers, her generals too
Forewarn readers of this history that
there is no plot in it
Forgetfulness is like a closing sea
Fortitude leaned so much upon the irony
Forty seconds too fast, as if it were a
capital offence
Found by the side of the bed,
inanimate, and pale as a sister of
death
Found it difficult to forgive her his
own folly
Found that he 'cursed better upon
water'
Fourth of the Georges
Frankness as an armour over wariness
Fretted by his relatives he cannot be
much of a giant
Friend he would not shake off, but
could not well link with
Friendship, I fancy, means one heart
between two
From head to foot nothing better than a
moan made visible
Frozen vanity called pride, which does
not seek to be revenged
Full-o'-Beer's a hasty chap
Fun, at any cost, is the one object
worth a shot
Further she read, "Which is the coward
among us?"
Generally he noticed nothing
Gentlefolks like straight-forwardness
in their inferiors
Gentleman who does so much 'cause he
says so little
Gentleman in a good state of
preservation
Get back what we give
Giant Vanity urged Giant Energy to make
use of Giant Duplicity
Give our courage as hostage for the
fulfilment of what we hope
Give our consciences to the keeping of
the parsons
Given up his brains for a lodging to a
single idea
Glimpse of her whole life in the horrid
tomb of his embrace
Gone to pieces with an injured lover's
babble
Good and evil work together in this
world
Good nature, and means no more harm
than he can help
Good nerve to face the scene which he
is certain will be enacted
Good-bye to sorrow for a while--Keep
your tears for the living
Good maxim for the wrathful--speak not
at all
Good jokes are not always good policy
Goodish sort of fellow; good horseman,
good shot, good character
Gossip always has some solid
foundation, however small
Government of brain; not sufficient
Insurrection of heart
Gradations appear to be unknown to you
Graduated naturally enough the finer
stages of self-deception
Grand air of pitying sadness
Gratitude never was a woman's gift
Gratuitous insult
Gravely reproaching the tobacconist for
the growing costliness of cigars
Greater our successes, the greater the
slaves we become
Greatest of men; who have to learn from
the loss of the woman
Grief of an ill-fortuned passion of his
youth
Grimaces at a government long-nosed to
no purpose
Grossly unlike in likeness (portraits)
Habit had legalized his union with her
Habit of antedating his sagacity
Habit, what a sacred and admirable
thing it is
Had got the trick of lying, through
fear of telling the truth
Had come to be her lover through being
her husband
Had Shakespeare's grandmother three
Christian names?
Had taken refuge in their opera-glasses
Half-truth that we may put on the mask
of the whole
Half a dozen dozen left
Half designingly permitted her trouble
to be seen
Happiness in love is a match between
ecstasy and compliance
Happy the woman who has not more to
speak
Happy in privation and suffering if
simply we can accept beauty
Hard to bear, at times unbearable
Hard enough for a man to be married to
a fool
Hard men have sometimes a warm
affection for dogs
Haremed opinion of the unfitness of
women
Hated one thing alone--which was
'bother'
Hated tears, considering them a clog to
all useful machinery
Hates a compromise
Haunted many pillows
Have her profile very frequently while
I am conversing with her
Having contracted the fatal habit of
irony
He was not alive for his own pleasure
He, by insisting, made me a rebel
He bowed to facts
He grunted that a lying clock was
hateful to him
He has been tolerably honest, Tom, for
a man and a lover
He kept saying to himself, 'to-morrow I
will tell'
He postponed it to the next minute and
the next
He prattled, in the happy ignorance of
compulsion
He was in love, and subtle love will
not be shamed and smothered
He thinks that the country must be
saved by its women as well
He is in the season of faults
He had his character to maintain
He squandered the guineas, she
patiently picked up the pence
He neared her, wooing her; and she
assented
He judged of others by himself
He is inexorable, being the guilty one
of the two
He had to shake up wrath over his
grievances
He had gone, and the day lived again
for both of them
He gave a slight sign of restiveness,
and was allowed to go
He loathed a skulker
He clearly could not learn from
misfortune
He thinks or he chews
He would neither retort nor defend
himself
He whipped himself up to one of his
oratorical frenzies
He put no question to anybody
He took small account of the operations
of the feelings
He began ambitiously--It's the way at
the beginning
He never explained
He never acknowledged a trouble, he
dispersed it
He was the prisoner of his word
He wants the whip; ought to have had it
regularly
He had wealth for a likeness of
strength
He was a figure on a horse, and naught
when off it
He did not vastly respect beautiful
women
He sinks terribly when he sinks at all
He was not a weaver of phrases in
distress
He lies as naturally as an infant sucks
He tried to gather his ideas, but the
effort was like that of a light dreamer
He runs too much from first principles
to extremes
He gained much by claiming little
He had by nature a tarnishing eye that
cast discolouration
He was too much on fire to know the
taste of absurdity
He smoked, Lord Avonley said of the
second departure
He had no recollection of having ever
dined without drinking wine
He stormed her and consented to be
beaten
He will be a part of every history (the
fool)
He was the maddest of tyrants--a weak
one
He had to go, he must, he has to be
always going
He never calculated on the happening of
mortal accidents
He had expected romance, and had met
merchandize
He condensed a paragraph into a line
He lost the art of observing himself
He had neat phrases, opinions in
packets
He's good from end to end, and beats a
Christian hollow (a hog)
Hear victorious lawlessness appealing
solemnly to God the law
Heart to keep guard and bury the bones
you tossed him
Heartily she thanked the girl for the
excuse to cry
Hearts that make one soul do not
separately count their gifts
Heathen vindictiveness declaring itself
holy
Heights of humour beyond laughter
Her intimacy with a man old enough to
be her grandfather
Her vehement fighting against facts
Her peculiar tenacity of the sense of
injury
Her feelings--trustier guides than her
judgement in this crisis
Her final impression likened him to a
house locked up and empty
Her aspect suggested the repose of a
winter landscape
Her singing struck a note of grateful
remembered delight
Her duel with Time
Here, where he both wished and wished
not to be
Here and there a plain good soul to
whom he was affectionate
Hermits enamoured of wind and rain
Hero embarked in the redemption of an
erring beautiful woman
Heroine, in common with the hero, has
her ambition to be of use
Herself, content to be dull if he might
shine
Hesitating strangeness that sometimes
gathers during absences
Himself in the worn old surplice of the
converted rake
His aim to win the woman acknowledged
no obstacle in the means
His idea of marriage is, the taking of
the woman into custody
His gaze and one of his ears, if not
the pair, were given
His ridiculous equanimity
His alien ideas were not unimpressed by
the picture
His restored sense of possession
His wife alone, had, as they termed it,
kept him together
His equanimity was fictitious
His fancy performed miraculous feats
His violent earnestness, his imperial
self-confidence
His apparent cynicism is sheer
irritability
Holding to the refusal, for the sake of
consistency
Holding to his work after the strain's
over--That tells the man
Holy images, and other miraculous
objects are sold
Honest creatures who will not accept a
lift from fiction
Hope which lies in giving men a dose of
hysterics
Hopeless task of defending a woman from
a woman
Hopes of a coming disillusion that
would restore him
Hosts of men are of the simple order of
the comic
How angry I should be with you if you
were not so beautiful!
How Success derides Ambition!
How many degrees from love gratitude
may be
How immensely nature seems to prefer
men to women!
How little a thing serves Fortune's
turn
How to compromise the matter for the
sake of peace?
How many instruments cannot clever
women play upon
How little we mean to do harm when we
do an injury
Hug the hatred they packed up among
their bundles
Human nature to feel an interest in the
dog that has bitten you
Humour preserved her from excesses of
sentiment
Huntress with few scruples and the game
unguarded
Hushing together, they agreed that it
had been a false move
I do not defend myself ever
I have learnt as much from light
literature as from heavy
I have and hold--you shall hunger and
covet
I cannot get on with Gibbon
I could be in love with her cruelty, if
only I had her near me
I married a cook She expects a big
appetite
I want no more, except to be taught to
work
I detest anything that has to do with
gratitude
I know nothing of imagination
I haven't got the pluck of a flea
I hate old age It changes you so
I would cut my tongue out, if it did
you a service
I can't think brisk out of my breeches
I look on the back of life
I never pay compliments to transparent
merit
I always respected her; I never liked
her
I give my self, I do not sell
I cannot live a life of deceit. A life
of misery--not deceit
I was discontented, and could not speak
my discontent
I laughed louder than was necessary
I had to cross the park to give a
lesson
I cannot delay; but I request you, that
are here privileged
I ain't a speeder of matrimony
I beg of my husband, and all kind
people who may have the care
I rather like to hear a woman swear.
It embellishes her!
I can confess my sight to be imperfect:
but will you ever do so?
I do not think Frenchmen comparable to
the women of France
I take off my hat, Nan, when I see a
cobbler's stall
I would wait till he flung you off, and
kneel to you
I had to make my father and mother live
on potatoes
I am not ashamed
I hope I am not too hungry to
discriminate
I cannot say less, and will say no more
I wanted a hero
I do not see it, because I will not see
it
I can pay clever gentlemen for doing
Greek for me
I never saw out of a doll-shop, and
never saw there
I'm the warming pan, as legitimately I
should be
I detest enthusiasm
I baint done yet
I know that your father has been
hearing tales told of me
I never knew till this morning the
force of No in earnest
I hate sleep: I hate anything that robs
me of my will
I have all the luxuries--enough to
loathe them
I who respect the state of marriage by
refusing
I make a point of never recommending my
own house
I like him, I like him, of course, but
I want to breathe
I am a discordant instrument I do not
readily vibrate
I don't count them against women
(moods)
I'm a bachelor, and a person--you're
married, and an object
I did, replied Evan. 'I told a lie.'
I never see anything, my dear
I always wait for a thing to happen
first
I'll come as straight as I can
I'm for a rational Deity
I'm in love with everything she wishes!
I've got the habit
Idea is the only vital breath
Ideas in gestation are the dullest
matter you can have
If we are really for Nature, we are not
lawless
If there's no doubt about it, how is it
I have a doubt about it?
If you kneel down, who will decline to
put a foot on you?
If I love you, need you care what
anybody else thinks
If we are to please you rightly, always
allow us to play First
If he had valued you half a grain less,
he might have won you
If the world is hostile we are not to
blame it
If we are robbed, we ask, How came we
by the goods?
If thou wouldst fix remembrance--
thwack!
If I'm struck, I strike back
If only been intellectually a little
flexible in his morality
If you have this creative soul, be the
slave of your creature
If I do not speak of payment
Ignorance roaring behind a mask of
sarcasm
Imagination she has, for a source of
strength in the future days
Immense wealth and native obtuseness
combine to disfigure us
Imparting the usual chorus of yesses to
his own mind
Impossible for him to think that women
thought
Impossible for us women to comprehend
love without folly in man
Impudent boy's fling at superiority
over the superior
In the pay of our doctors
In every difficulty, patience is a
life-belt
In India they sacrifice the widows, in
France the virgins
In bottle if not on draught (oratory)
In our House, my son, there is peculiar
blood. We go to wreck!
In Sir Austin's Note-book was written:
"Between Simple Boyhood..."
In Italy, a husband away, ze friend
takes title
In truth she sighed to feel as he did,
above everybody
Incapable of putting the screw upon
weak excited nature
Incessantly speaking of the necessity
we granted it unknowingly
Inclined to act hesitation in accepting
the aid she sought
Increase of dissatisfaction with the
more she got
Indirect communication with heaven
Inducement to act the hypocrite before
the hypocrite world
Indulged in their privilege of thinking
what they liked
Infallibility of our august mother
Infants are said to have their ideas,
and why not young ladies?
Infatuated men argue likewise, and
scandal does not move them
Inferences are like shadows on the wall
Inflicted no foretaste of her coming
subjection to him
Informed him that he never played jokes
with money, or on men
Injury forbids us to be friends again
Innocence and uncleanness may go
together
Insistency upon there being two sides
to a case--to every case
Intellectual contempt of easy dupes
Intensely communicative, but
inarticulate
Intentions are really rich possessions
Intimations of cowardice menacing a
paralysis of the will
Intrusion of the spontaneous on the
stereotyped would clash
Intrusion of hard material statements,
facts
Invite indecision to exhaust their
scruples
Ireland's the sore place of England
Irishman there is a barrow trolling a
load of grievances
Irishmen will never be quite sincere
Ironical fortitude
Irony in him is only eulogy standing on
its head
Irony that seemed to spring from
aversion
Irony instead of eloquence
Irony provoked his laughter more than
fun
Irritability at the intrusion of past
disputes
Is he jealous? 'Only when I make him,
he is.'
Is not one month of brightness as much
as we can ask for?
Is it any waste of time to write of
love?
It's us hard ones that get on best in
the world
It was harder to be near and not close
It is not high flying, which usually
ends in heavy falling
It is no insignificant contest when
love has to crush self-love
It would be hard! ay, then we do it
forthwith
It was as if she had been eyeing a
golden door shut fast
It is the best of signs when women take
to her
It was his ill luck to have strong
appetites and a weak stomach
It rarely astonishes our ears It
illumines our souls
It goes at the lifting of the
bridegroom's little finger
It was an honest buss, but dear at ten
thousand
It is well to learn manners without
having them imposed on us
It was in a time before our joyful era
of universal equality
It is the devil's masterstroke to get
us to accuse him
It was her prayer to heaven that she
might save a doctor's bill
It is better for us both, of course
It was now, as Sir Austin had written
it down, The Magnetic Age
It is no use trying to conceal anything
from him
It's a fool that hopes for peace
anywhere
It's no use trying to be a gentleman if
you can't pay for it
Italians were like women, and wanted--a
real beating
Its glee at a catastrophe; its poor
stock of mercy
January was watering and freezing old
earth by turns
Judging of the destiny of man by the
fate of individuals
Just bad inquirin' too close among men
Keep passion sober, a trotter in
harness
Kelts, as they are called, can't and
won't forgive injuries
Kindness is kindness, all over the
world
Knew my friend to be one of the most
absent-minded of men
Lack of precise words admonished him of
the virtue of silence
Land and beasts! They sound like
blessed things
Lawyers hold the keys of the great
world
Lay no petty traps for opportunity
Laying of ghosts is a public duty
Leader accustomed to count ahead upon
vapourish abstractions
Learn all about them afterwards, ay,
and make the best of them
Learn--principally not to be afraid of
ideas
Led him to impress his unchangeableness
upon her
Lend him your own generosity
Lengthened term of peace bred maggots
in the heads of the people
Lest thou commence to lie--be dumb!
Let but the throb be kept for others--
That is the one secret
Let never Necessity draw the bow of our
weakness
Let none of us be so exalted above the
wit of daily life
Levelling a finger at the taxpayer
Lies are usurers' coin we pay for ten
thousand per cent
Life is the burlesque of young dreams
Like a woman, who would and would not,
and wanted a master
Like an ill-reared fruit, first at the
core it rotteth
Limit was two bottles of port wine at a
sitting
Listened to one another, and blinded
the world
Literature is a good stick and a bad
horse
Little boy named Tommy Wedger said he
saw a dead body go by
Littlenesses of which women are accused
Loathing of artifice to raise emotion
Loathing for speculation
Longing for love and dependence
Look within, and avoid lying
Look well behind
Look backward only to correct an error
of conduct in future
Looked as proud as if he had just
clapped down the full amount
Looking on him was listening
Loudness of the interrogation precluded
thought of an answer
Love, with his accustomed cunning
Love the poor devil
Love dies like natural decay
Love the children of Erin, when not
fretted by them
Love of men and women as a toy that I
have played with
Love of pleasure keeps us blind
children
Love and war have been compared--Both
require strategy
Love that shrieks at a mortal wound,
and bleeds humanly
Love discerns unerringly what is and
what is not duty
Love must needs be an egoism
Love is a contagious disease
Love the difficulty better than the
woman
Love, that has risen above emotion,
quite independent of craving
Love's a selfish business one has work
in hand
Loves his poets, can almost understand
what poetry means
Loving in this land: they all go mad,
straight off
Lucky accidents are anticipated only by
fools
Made of his creed a strait-jacket for
humanity
Madness that sane men enamoured can be
struck by
Magnificent in generosity; he had
little humaneness
Magnify an offence in the ratio of our
vanity
Make no effort to amuse him. He is
always occupied
Make a girl drink her tears, if they
ain't to be let fall
Making too much of it--a trick of the
vulgar
Man with a material object in aim, is
the man of his object
Man who beats his wife my first
question is, 'Do he take his tea?'
Man owes a duty to his class
Man who helps me to read the world and
men as they are
Man without a penny in his pocket, and
a gizzard full of pride
Mankind is offended by heterodoxy in
mean attire
Mare would do, and better than a dozen
horses
Mark of a fool to take everybody for a
bigger fool than himself
Marriage is an awful thing, where
there's no love
Married at forty, and I had to take her
shaped as she was
Married a wealthy manufacturer--
bartered her blood for his money
Martyrs of love or religion are madmen
Material good reverses its benefits the
more nearly we clasp it
Matter that is not nourishing to brains
Maxims of her own on the subject of
rising and getting the worm
May lull themselves with their
wakefulness
May not one love, not craving to be
beloved? |
10,240 |
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THE UMBRELLA. A VIEW OF THE SHADY SIDE OF LIFE.
A ripe pippin falling upon the head of Sir ISAAC NEWTON (a clear case of
hard cider on the brain) suggested the laws of gravitation. An elderly
countryman passing my window this clear bright day, attended by his
faithful umbrella, suggested the following reflections.
The term Umbrella comes from the Latin _umbra_, a shade--the whole
signifying "keep shady."
This definition well describes the nature of the article; for, as it
undoubtedly "keeps shady" in fine weather when the sun is fervent, so it is
apt to "keep shady" in rainy weather, when most wanted.
It is as difficult to say when the umbrella came, or where it came from, as
it is to tell where it goes to. Rumor hath it, however, that it came in
(that is, out of the rain) with NOAH. The story (as given us by an
antiquarian relative) says that when the Ark was built the camelopard was
forgotten, and it was found necessary to cut a hole in the roof to
accommodate the animal's neck. This done, SHEM sat upon the roof and held
an umbrella. SHEM thus _raised_ the umbrella. Then our further
question follows, Where did he raise it? Evidently he raised the umbrella
on the Ark.
These theories seem to us to be entitled to serious consideration; and
certainly it is a reasonable belief that, as the present suffering from the
high price of clothing is due to the sin of our first parents, so the
umbrella is the curse entailed by royalty, coming in with the First Reign
spoken of in history.
The umbrella appears again in ancient time in connection with DANIEL, who,
it is said, carried one into the lions' den. The authority for this is a
historical painting that has fallen into the hands of an itinerant showman.
A curious fact is stated with reference to this picture, namely, that
DANIEL so closely resembled the lions in personal appearance that it was
necessary for the showman to state that "DANIEL might easily be
distinguished from the lions on account of the blue cotton umbrella under
his right arm."
For what purpose this umbrella may have been carried we can only surmise.
The most probable theory is, that it was to be used there to intimidate the
lions, as it has since been used toward mad bulls and other ferocious
beasts.
We have now taken hold pretty firmly of what may be called the handle of
the umbrella. We have learned that, as ADAM raised CAIN, NOAH raised the
umbrella, and DANIEL carried one.
We have learned further that the umbrella carried by DANIEL was a blue
cotton umbrella--undoubtedly the most primitive type of the umbrella.
It is one of this class that your country friend brings down with him, that
darkeneth the heavens as with a canopy and maketh you ashamed of your
company. It is such an umbrella as this that is to be found or might have
been found, in ancient days, in every old farm-house--one that covered the
whole household when it went to church, occupying as much room when closed
as would the tent of an Arab.
We have heard it said that it was the impossibility of two umbrellas of
this nature passing each other on a narrow road which led to the invention
of covered wagons.
There is nothing lovely about a blue cotton umbrella, though there may have
been _under_ it at times and seasons. Skeletons of the species, much
faded as to color, much weakened as to whalebone, may still be found here
and there in backwoods settlements, where they are known as "umbrells;"
there are but few perfect specimens in existence.
The present style of the umbrella is varied, and sometimes elegant. The
cover is of silk; the ribs are of steel oftener than of bone, and the
handle is wrought into divers quaint and beautiful shapes. The most common
kind is the _hooked umbrella_. Most people have hooked umbrellas--or,
if this statement be offensive to any one, we will say that most people
have had umbrellas hooked. The chance resemblance of this expression to one
signifying to obstruct illegally that which properly belongs to another,
reminds us to speak of the singular fact that the umbrella is not property.
This is important. It rests on judicial decision, and becomes more
important when we remember that by similar decision the <DW64> is property,
and that, therefore, until emancipation, the umbrella was superior to the
<DW64>. The judicial decision cited will be found reported in _Vanity
Fair_, liber 3, page 265, and was on this wise: A man being arraigned
for stealing an umbrella, pleaded that it rained at the time, and he had no
umbrella. On these grounds he was discharged, and the judge took the
umbrella. (We may notice here how closely this decision has been followed,
even down to modern times, and touching other matters than umbrellas.)
This established the fact that the umbrella was not property that could be
bought, sold, and stolen, but a free gift of the manufacturer to universal
creation. The right of ownership in umbrellas ranked henceforward with our
right to own the American continent, being merely a right by discovery.
(TO BE CONTINUED.)
* * * * *
Depressing for Chicago.
The Chicago press has given up all hopes of the PRINCE OF WALES since he
has proved his innocence in regard to Lady MORDAUNT. Chicago had begun to
look upon him with mildly patronizing favor, when he was accused of a share
in a really first-class divorce case; but now that his innocence is
established, there is no longer any extenuating circumstance which can
induce Chicago to overlook the infamous crime of his royal birth.
* * * * *
Latest from the Isthmus of Suez.
Of all men, the followers of MOHAMMED are the most candid; since no matter
of what you accuse them, they always acknowledge the Koran.
* * * * *
Right and Left.
Because the P.& O. Directors have suspended their EYRE, we are not called
upon to suspend our anger. We decline to believe that he can justify
himself in leaving the Oneida, however blameless he may have been in the
matter of the collision. Because the Oneida was Left it does not follow
that the Bombay was Right.
[ILLUSTRATION:_Mr. Pugsby_. "I THINK, MY DEAR, WE'VE GIVEN HIM
LAUDANUM ENOUGH. SUPPOSE WE TRY A LITTLE STRYCHNINE?"
_Mrs. Pugsby_. "BUT MIGHTN'T THAT HURT HIM?"]
* * * * *
THE PLAYS AND SHOWS.
[Illustration]
Mr. BOUCICAULT might properly be called the author of the elementary Drama.
Not because his plays, like elementary lessons in French, are peculiarly
aggravating to the well-regulated mind, but because of his fondness for
employing one of the elements of nature--fire, water, or golden hair--in
the production of the sensation which invariably takes place in the fourth
or fifth act of each of his popular dramas. In the _Streets of
New-York_, he made a hit by firing a building at the spectacularly
disposed audience. In _Formosa_, he gave us a boat-race; and in
_Lost at Sea_, now running at WALLACK'S, he has renewed his former
fondness for playing with fire. The following condensed version of this
play is offered to the readers of PUNCHINELLO, with the assurance that,
though it may be a little more coherent than the unabridged edition, it is
a faithful picture of the sort of thing that Mr. BOUCICAULT, aided and
abetted by Mr. WALLACK, thinks proper to offer to the public.
* * * * *
LOST AT SEA.
ACT I. _Scene_ 1. _Enter Virtuous Banker_. "I have embezzled
WALTER CORAM'S money, and he is coming from India to claim it. I am a
ruined man."
_Enter Unprincipled Clerk_. "Not so. WALTER CORAM is lost at sea, and
we will keep the money."
_Virtuous Banker_. "Thank heaven! I am not found out, and can remain
an honest man as usual."
_Scene_ 2. _Enter Comic Villain_. "I am just released from prison
and must soon meet my wife." (_Swears and smashes in his hat_.)
_Enter Unprincipled Clerk_. "Not so. WALTER, CORAM is lost at sea.
Personate him, draw his money, and share it with me."
_Comic Villain_. "I will." (_Swears and smashes in his hat_.)
_Scene_ 3. _Enter Miss Effie Germon_. (Aside.) "I am supposed to
be a virtuous and vagabond boy. I hate to show my ankles in ragged
trowsers, but I must." (_Shows them. Applause_)
_Enter Daughter of Comic Villain_. "I love the unprincipled clerk; but
there is a sick stranger up-stairs who pokes the fire in a way that I can
hardly resist. Be firm, my heart. Shall I be untrue to my own unprincipled
-----"
_Enter Unprincipled Clerk_. "Not so. WALTER CORAM is lost at sea, and
I must leave these valuable boxes in your hands for safe-keeping."
(_Leaves the boxes, and then leaves himself_.)
_Enter Sick Stranger_. "I am WALTER CORAM. Those are my boxes.
Somebody is personating me. Big thing on somebody. Let him go ahead."
(_Curtain_.)
* * * * *
_Young Lady in the Audience_. "Isn't EFFIE GERMON perfectly lovely?"
_Accompanying Bostonian Youth_. "Yes; but you should see RISTORI in
_Marie Antoinette_. There is a sweetness and light about the great
tragedienne which -----"
_Heavy old Party, to contiguous Young Man_. "Don't think much of this;
do you? Now, in TOM PLACIDS's day----" _Contiguous and aggrieved Young
Man pleads an engagement and hastily goes out_.
ACT II. _Scene_ 1. _Virtuous Banker's Villa, Comic Villain,
Unprincipled Clerk, and Wealthy Heroine dining with the Banker_.
_Enter Original Coram_. "I am WALTER CORAM; but I can't prove it, the
villains having stolen my bootjack."
_Enter Comic Villain, who smashes in his hat, and swears_.
_Original Coram. (Approaching him_.) "This is WALTER CORAM, I believe?
I knew you in India. We boarded together. Don't you remember old FUTTYGHUR
ALLAHABAD, and the rest of our set?"
_Comic Villain, in great mental torture_. "Certainly; of course: I
said so at the time." (_Swears and smashes in his hat_.) (_Exeunt
omnes, in search of Virtuous Banker_.)
_Scene_ 2. _Enter Miss Effie Germon, by climbing over the wall_.
"I hate to climb over the wall and show my ankles in these nasty trowsers,
but I must." (_Shows them. Applause_.)
_Enter Daughter of Comic Villain_. "Great Heavings! What do I see? My
beloved clerk offering himself to the wealthy heroine? I must faint!"
(_Faints_.)
_Enter aristocratic lover of wealthy heroine, and catches the faintress
in his arms. Wealthy heroine catches him in the act. Tableau of virtuous
indignation_. (_Curtain_)
* * * * *
_Young Lady before-named_. "Isn't EFFIE GERMON perfectly sweet?"
_Bostonian Youth_. "Yes; but RISTORI----"
_Mighty Young Men_. "Let's go out for drinks."
ACT III. _Scene_ 1. _Enter Daughter of Comic Villain_. "My clerk
is false, and I don't care a straw for him. Consequently, I will drown
myself."
_Enter Original Coram_. "I am WALTER CORAM; but I can't prove it, the
villains having stolen my Calcutta latch-key. Better not drown yourself, my
dear. You'll find it beastly wet. Don't do it." (_She doesn't do it_.)
(_Curtain_.)
* * * * *
_Young Lady before-named_. "Isn't EFFIE GERMON perfectly beautiful?"
_Bostonian Youth_. "Yes. But at her age RISTORI----"
_Heavy old Party murmurs in his sleep of ELLEN TREE. More young men go
out to get drinks_.
ACT IV. _Scene_ 1. _Enter Virtuous Banker_. "All is lost. There
is a run on the bank -----"
_Enter Unprincipled Clerk_. "WALTER CORAM presents check for L7 4 S.
We have no funds. Shall we pay it?"
_Enter Original Coram_. (_Aside_.) "I am WALTER CORAM; but I
can't prove it, the villains having taken my other handkerchief. (_To the
Banker_.) Sir, you once gave me a penny, and you have since embezzled my
fortune. How can I repay such noble conduct? Here is a bag of gold. Take it
and pay your creditors."
_Scene_ 2. _Enter Unprincipled Clerk and Comic Villain_.
_Unprincipled Clerk_. "The original CORAM has turned up. We must turn
him down again. I will burn him in his bed to-night."
_Comic Villain_. "Burn him; but don't attempt any violence." (_Swears
and smashes in his hat_.)
_Scene_ 4. _Enter Original Coram_. "I am WALTER COHAM; but I
can't prove it--I forget precisely why. What is this in my coffee? Opium!
It is, by SIVA, VISHNU, and others! They would fain drug my drink. Ha! Ha!
I have drank, eaten, smoked, chewed, and snuffed opium for ninety years. I
like it. So did my parents. I am, so to speak, the child of poppy. Ha! What
do I see? Flames twenty feet high all around me! Can this be fire? The
wretches mean to burn me alive! (_Aside_--And they'll do it too, some
night, if Moss don't keep a sharp look-out after those lazy carpenters.)"
_Enter Miss Effie German_. (_Aside_.) "I must get on the roof and
drag CORAM out. I hate to do it; for I shall have to show my ankles in
these horrid trowsers. But I suppose I must." (_Gets on the roof with
Comic Villain's Daughter, shows ankles, lifts up roof and saves Coram, amid
whirlwinds of applause and smoke.--Curtain_)
* * * * *
_Young Lady before-named_. "Isn't EFFIE GERMON _too_ lovely?"
_Bostonian Youth_. "Yes. RISTORI is, however -----"
_Heavy old Party_. "This fire business is dangerous, sir. Never saw it
done at the old Park. EDMUND KEAN would -----"
ACT V. _Enter Original Coram_. "I am WALTER CORAM. I can now prove it
by simply mentioning the fact. I love the daughter of the Comic Villain,
and will marry her."
_Unprincipled Clerk_. "All is lost except WALTER CORAM, who ought to
be. I will go to Australia, at once." (_He goes_.)
_Comic Villain_, (_smashes his hat over his eyes and swears_).
_Virtuous Banker_. "Bless you, my children. I forgive you all the
injuries I have done you." (_Curtain_.)
* * * * *
_Every body in the audience_. "How do you like--Real fire; STODDAHT'S
faces are--Real fire; EFFIE GERMON is--Real fire; Come and take--Real fire;
JIM WALLACK is always at home in--Real fire; There is nothing in the play
but--Real fire."
_Misanthropic Critic, to gentlemanly Treasurer_. "Can I have two seats
for to-morrow night?"
_Treasurer_. "All sold, sir. Play draws better than _Ours_!"
_Misanthropic Critic_. Well! no matter. I only wanted to send my
mother-in-law, knowing that the house must take fire some night. However,
I'll read the play to her instead; if she survives that, she isn't mortal.
* * * * *
_Suggestion kindly made to Manager Moss_.--Have the fire scene take
place in the first act, and let all the _dramatis personae_ perish in
the flames. Thus shall the audience be spared the vulgar profanity of
STODDART'S "Comic Villain," the absurdity of WALLACK'S "Coram," the twaddle
of HIELD'S "Virtuous Banker," and the impossible imbecility of FISHER'S
"Unprincipled Clerk." Miss GERMON in trowsers, and Miss HENRIQUES in tears,
are very nice; but they do not quite redeem the wretchedness of the play.
The sooner Mr. Moss gives up his present flame and returns to his early
love--legitimate comedy--the better.
MATADOR.
* * * * *
HOW TO BEHAVE AT A THEATRE.
MR. PUNCHINELLO: I take it you are willing to receive useful information.
Of course you are--Why? Because, while you may be humorous, you intend also
to be sensible. I have in my day been to the theatre not a little. I have
seen many plays and many audiences. I know--or, at least, think I do--what
is good acting, and--what good manners. Suffer me, then, briefly to give
you a few hints as to how an audience should behave. I shall charge nothing
for the information, though I am frank to insinuate that it is worth a
deal--of the value, perhaps, of a great deal table.
First. Always take a lady with you to the play. It will please her,
whatever the bother to you. Besides, you will then be talked to. If you
make a mess of it in trying to unravel the plot, she will essentially aid
you in that direction. Nothing like a woman for a plot--especially if you
desire to plunge head foremost into one.
Second. If you have any loud conversation to indulge in, do it while the
play is going on. Possibly it may disturb your neighbors; but you do not
ask them to hear it. Hail Columbia! isn't this a free country? If you have
any private and confidential affairs to talk over, the theatre is the place
in which to do it. Possibly strangers may not comprehend all the bearings;
but that is not your fault. You do your best--who can do better?
Third. If you have an overcoat or any other garment, throw it across the
adjoining or front seat. Never mind any protests of frown or word. Should
not people be willing to accommodate? Of course they should. Prove it by
putting your dripping umbrella against the lady with the nice moire antique
silk. It may ruffle her temper; but that's her business, not yours; she
shouldn't be ridiculous because well dressed.
Fourth. Try and drop your opera-glass half a dozen times of an evening. If
it makes a great racket--as of course it will--and rolls a score of seats
off, hasten at once to obtain possession of the frisky instrument. Let
these little episodes be done at a crisis in the play where the finest
points are being evolved.
Fifth. Of course you carry a cane--a very ponderous cane. What for? To use
it, obviously. Contrive to do so when every body is silent. What's the use
in being demonstrative in a crowd? It don't pay. Besides, you dog, you know
your _forte_ is in being odd. Odd fellow-you. See it in your
brain--only half of one. Make a point to bring down your cane when there is
none, (point, not cane,) and shout out "Good!" or "Bravo!" when you have
reason to believe other people are going to be quiet.
Sixth. Never go in till after a play begins, and invariably leave in the
middle of an act, and in the most engaging scene.
These are but a few hints. However, I trust they are good as far as they
go. I may send you a half-dozen more. In the mean time I remain
Yours, truly,
O. FOGY.
* * * * *
[Illustration]
PROSPECTUS,
It shall be our highest ambition to realize our own wishes and to fulfil
our own predictions.
Our principles are moral to--the last degree.
Our politics defy competition; and it shall be our constant endeavor to
make them more so.
Our literary and scientific articles are our own, and consequently above
criticism.
OUR ILLUSTRATIONS
Will include drawings on wood by our most
PROMISING YOUNG ARTISTS.
Besides the usual agricultural, shipping, and market reports, we shall
publish
THE BEST BON MOTS OF THE PULPIT.
[Illustration]
* * * * *
Soon to appear in our columns,
A SERIAL, ENTITLED, "IMPRESSIONS OF MODERN TRAVEL."
Also,
ILLUSTRATIONS OF ART-ANATOMY;
Exclusively for beginners.
Together with
"RESEARCHES IN THE POCKETS OF OUR SUBSCRIBERS;"
With appropriate-(ing) views.
[Illustration: (_Faithful Preceptress_) "Now you know where the
gluteal muscle is?"]
In order to insure the widest possible influence, and consequently
usefulness, we are prepared to offer the most
LIBERAL TERMS.
Any one sending us full subscription price, and ten dollars additional,
will be entitled to
ONE OF OUR AUTOGRAPH ESSAYS.
Any one sending us the names of thirty new subscribers will receive by
mail, post-paid,
OUR PHOTOGRAPH;
Or, if preferred, Luther's wedding-ring and mug; or, our own wedding-ring,
with the mugs of our wife and children.
For _Club Rates_, refer to a Justice of the Peace.
_Answer to Correspondents_: Sketch not available.
* * * * *
V. H. to Punchinello.
The following letter, received by the French cable, explains itself. After
the perusal of it, America warms toward France:
HAUTEVILLE PARK, March 25,1870.
To THE EDITOR OF THE PUNCHINELLO:
MONSIEUR: The advance copy of your journal has stormed my heart. I owe it
one happy day.
Europe trembles. They light their torches sinister, those trans-alpine
vacillationists. The church, already less tranquil, dis-segregates itself.
We laugh.
To your journal there is a future, and there will be a past.
The age has its pulsations, and it never forgets.
I, too, remember.
There is also blood. Upon it already glitters the dust of glory.
Monsieur! I salute you and your _confreres_!
Accept my homage and my emotion.
VICTOR HUGO.
THE HABITS OF GREAT MEN.
"Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time."
Almost since the world began, people have been interested in and
entertained by gossip respecting the personal habits and individual
idiosyncrasies of popular writers and orators. It is a universal and
undying characteristic of human nature. No age has been exempt from it from
PLINY'S time down to BEECHER'S. It may suitably be called the scarlet-fever
of curiosity, and rash indeed must be the writer who refuses or neglects to
furnish any food for the scandal-monger's maw. While we deprecate in the
strongest terms the custom which persists in lifting the veil of
personality from the forehead of the great, respect for traditional usages
and obligation to the present, as well as veneration for the future, impels
us to reveal some things that are not generally known concerning the men
who are playing "leading business" on the world's great stage of to-day.
For instance, mankind is generally ignorant of the fact that Mr. SUMNER
bathes twice a day in a compound, two thirds of which is water and one
third milk, and that he dictates most of his speeches to a stenographer
while reclining in the bath-tub. WENDELL PHILLIPS is said to have written
the greater portion of his famous lecture on "The Lost Arts" on the backs
of old envelopes while waiting for a train in the Boston depot. Mr. GEORGE
W. CURTIS prepares his mind for writing by sleeping with his head encased
in a nightcap lined with leaves of lavender and rose. GRANT, it is said,
accomplishes most of his writing while under the influence of either opium
or chloroform, which will account for the soothing character of his state
papers. WALT WHITMAN writes most of his poetry in the dissecting-room of
the Medical College, where he has a desk fitted up in close proximity to
the operating table. Mr. DANA is said to write most of his editorials in
one of the parlors of the Manhattan Club, arrayed in black broadcloth from
the sole of his head to the crown of his foot, his hands encased in corn-
kids, a piece of chewing-gum in his mouth, and a bottle of Cherry
Pectoral by his side. The report that he eats fish every morning for his
breakfast is untrue: he rejects FISH. COLFAX writes all his speeches and
lectures with his feet in hot water, and his head wrapped in a moist towel.
His greatest vice, next to being Vice-President, is to insist upon having
his writing desk in front of a mirror. BUTLER accomplishes most of his
literary labor over a dish of soup, which he absorbs through the medium of
two of his favorite weapons, thus keeping both his hands employed, and
dictating to an amanuensis every time his mouth enjoys a vacation. BEECHER
has several methods by which he prepares his mind to write a sermon: By
riding up and down Broadway on the top of a stage; visiting the Academy of
Anatomy, or spending a few hours at the Bloomingdale Retreat. Neither
HOLMES nor WHITTIER are able to write a line of poetry until they are
brought in contact with the blood of freshly-slain animals; while, on the
other hand, LONGFELLOW'S only dissipation previous to poetic effort, is a
dish of baked beans. FORNEY vexes his gigantic intellect with iced water
and tobacco, (of the latter, "two papers, both daily.") Mr. TILTON composes
as he reposes in his night-dress, with his hair powdered and "a strawberry
mark upon his left arm." Mr. PARTON writes with his toes, his hands being
employed meanwhile knitting hoods for the destitute children of Alaska. Mr.
P. is a philanthropist. BAYARD TAYLOR writes only in his sleep or while in
a trance state--notwithstanding the fact that he lives in the State of
Pennsylvania. He will then dictate enough to require the services of three
or four stenographers, and in the morning is ready to attend to the
laborious and exacting duties attached to the position of stockholder in
the New-York _Tribune_. Mr. GREELEY conceives some of his most
brilliant editorial articles while churning the mercurial milk of the
Chappaqua farm into butter; or vexing the gracious grain with the flying
flail; or listening to the pensive murmurings of the plaintive pigs, and
the whispered cadences of the kindly cattle. RICHARD GRANT WHITE can't
write, it is said, until a towel moistened with Cologne water is applied to
his nostrils. Sometimes, however, he varies the monotony of this method by
riding several miles in a Third Avenue car, which produces a similar
effect. OAKEY HALL writes his best things while riding on horseback in
Central Park; his saddle being arranged with a writing-desk accompaniment;
and while OAKEY dashes off the sentences, his horse furnishes the Stops.
And just here we propose to stop furnishing further revelations concerning
the men whose deeds have made their names famous in current national and
local history.
* * * * *
[Illustration: GOSSIP IN A SCHOOL-HOUSE.
_Teacher_. "WELL, MINNIE, HAVE YOU ANY THING NEW AT HOME?"
_Interesting Scholar_. "OH! YES; WE'VE SMALL-POX, AND 'LAPSING FEVER,
AN MEASLES, AND WHOOPING-COUGH."
(_Tableau expressive of consternation_.)]
* * * * *
Taking the Cue.
There is a strong disposition among those of our diplomats who may be able
to talk a little "pigeon English," to obtain the Chinese position left
vacant by Mr. BURLINGAME. Most of these gentlemen can point the Moral of
the matter--the sixty thousand dollars a year--but whether any of them
would adorn the Tail, is quite another affair.
* * * * *
Questions for H.G.
Is not the _Tribune_ influenced by its negrophilism in denouncing
PIERRE BONAPARTE as an assassin? Had the victim been a BLANC instead of a
NOIR, would Mr. GREELEY have felt quite as much sympathy for him?
* * * * *
APROPOS OF THE "ONEIDA."--The windiest excuses of the day are those of
EYRE.
* * * * *
ARRAH WHAT DOES HE MANE AT ALL?
_Scene. The White House_.
ULYSSES ASLEEP. CUBA, ROONEY, AND FISH OUTSIDE ON THE LOBBY.
ROONEY _Loquitur_.
ULYSSES asthore! Good lord, don't he snore!
ULYSSES! ULYSSES, my boy!
There's company here, must see you, me dear,
In spite of this Spanish kill-joy.
This Minister FISH, who, had he his wish,
Wud put your ould ROONEY down-stairs.
Ay, faith if he dar, but betther by far
The sinner was sayin' his pray'rs.
Arrah what does he mane at all?
Now, ULICK S. GRANT, it's your own self I want,
To patiently listen, mavrone,
To what I've to say, in a fatherly way,
As if you wor child ov my own.
For shure is it time, in prose or in rhyme,
That somebody spoke up, who dar'.
ULYSSES awake! for Liberty's sake,
It's braykin our hearts you are.
Arrah what do you mane at all?
Och, wirrasthrue vo! it's bitther to know
The work that goes an in your name;
The murdher an' ruin, that others are doin'
Whilst you have to showlder the shame!
The grief that is ours, whin you, by the Pow'rs,
Seem traytin it all like a joke,
Like NAYRO, the thief, whin Room was in grief,
That fiddled away in the smoke!
Arrah what do you mane at all?
Och, wake up, ochone! Your innimies groan
The words that cut deep as a sword:
"He's greedy for goold, an by its slaves rooled
ULYSSES is false to his word.
See poor Cuba there, all tatthered and bare;
For months at his doore she has stud;
Not a word he replies to her sobs or her sighs,
Nor cares for her tears or her blood!
Arrah what does he mane at all?"
Musha, what's that you say? "Sind the ould fool away."
I'm disturbin' your rest wid my prate;
There's Minister FISH, to consult if I wish,
Who attinds to all matthers of state.
An' Cuba, she too, wid her hulabaloo,
May just as well bundle an' go;
You won't hear us now, wid our murtherin row,
You'll sleep it out whether or no!
Arrah what do we mane at all?
Ah! then, by my sowl, this thratemint is foul--
To put your best frinds to the blush;
An' wor you sinsare, in what you sed there
We'd tie up your whistle, my thrush!
But ULICK, machree, you can't desave me,
By sayin' the word you don't mane;
Or make her beleeve who stands at me sleeve,
In FISH an' his Castles in Spane.
Arrah what do you mane at all?
'Tis late in the day to talk in that way;
We've had ministhers dishes galore,
An' laste to my taste, at the blundherin faste,
The sauce ov that fish one, asthore.
No, ULICK, alan! the work that's in han'
Must be done by yourself, if at all.
Your cooks, by my troth, are burnin' the broth,
We smell it out here in the hall!
Arrah what do you mane at all?
No, ULICK, my boy, rise up to our joy,
An' make a clane sweep ov the crowd
Of tinkerin tools, an' blundherin fools,
That put your wits undher a cloud.
Rise up in your might, an' sthrike for the right!
Let England an' Spain hear us talk;
Give FISH his conjay, an' ROONEY will stay;
You'll then see who's cock ov the walk!
Arrah what do you mane at all?
Lave Britain alone; if she won't pay, mavrone,
She's puttin' her head into debt.
If I know the books, the way the thing looks,
She'll pay us, wid intherest, yet!
Ay, faith he did say, so wise in his day--
That noble ould Graycian, PHILANDER--
That sauce for the goose, if well kept for use,
Was just as good sauce for the gandher!
Arrah what did he mane at all?
But Spain, the ould wulf, for her tricks in the Gulf,
Her robbery, murdher, and worse,
_Her_ debt, she must see, is put down C.O.D.,
Wid Cuba relaysed from her curse.
Ay, FISH, you may sweat, an' SUMNER may threat,
An' burst his crack'd head in the row;
The People have spoke, that's fire an' not smoke!
An' this must be finished, an' now.
Arrah what do you mane at all?
Och! ULICK, awake, for Liberty's sake!
If not for your ROONEY, asthore;
The Godiss is here, but thrimbles wid fear
Ov the cowld-blooded Thing at the doore.
She sez that your name a by-word of shame
Will be to the nations onborn,
If you lie there anmov'd whilst the flag that you lov'd
Is flouted by Spaniards wid scorn.
Arrah what do you mane at all?
She sez, an' wid grief, her love for the chief,
That fought neath her bannir so long,
Will turn into hate, that will cling to the fate
Ov him who now sides wid the wrong.
She sez ov all woes that misery knows,
The grief ov the wronger's the worst
Who houlds back his ban' from a sufferin' lan'
An' laves her to tyrants accurs'd!
Arrah what do you mane at all?
Ah! _that_ stirs your blood; I thought that it wud.
Your rizin', me bouchal; it's done!
Go on wid your pray'rs! I'm kickin' down-stairs
This ould Spanish mack'rel, for fun.
Sweet Liberty here, and Cuba, my dear!
You'll stay for the bite an' the sup?
An' pardon my joy; since I've woke up the boy
I don't know what ind ov me's up!
Arrah what did he mane at all?
* * * * *
Travellers' Tales.
No one now believes that DR. LIVINGSTONE was burnt for sorcery. The
originator of the report could have made a more plausible story by
asserting that LIVINGSTONE refused to marry the daughter of an African
chief, and was consequently put to death. This would have been strictly in
accordance with the customs of the African aristocracy, and would also have
called forth general admiration for the man who preferred to burn rather
than to marry.
* * * * *
City Hamlets vs. Rural Ditto.
The leading cities of late have grown almost wild with excitement over
their HAMLETS; but in country localities, the hamlets are marked for
quietude, and a refreshing freedom from all that is stagey, except,
perhaps, stage-coaches.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE NEW-YORK ANTI-ORANGE-PEEL AND BANANA-SKIN ASSOCIATION,
AS THEY APPEAR IN THEIR GREAT HUMANITARIAN FEAT OF CLEARING THE
SIDE-WALKS.]
ORANGE-PEEL, ET. CETERA. |
10,240 |
Produced by David Widger
THE PARISIANS
By Edward Bulwer-Lytton
BOOK VII.
CHAPTER I.
It is the first week in the month of May, 1870. Celebrities are of rapid
growth in the salons of Paris. Gustave Rameau has gained the position
for which he sighed. The journal he edits has increased its hold on the
public, and his share of the profits has been liberally augmented by the
secret proprietor. Rameau is acknowledged as a power in literary
circles. And as critics belonging to the same clique praise each other
in Paris, whatever they may do in communities more rigidly virtuous, his
poetry has been declared by authorities in the press to be superior to
that of Alfred de Musset in vigour--to that of Victor Hugo in refinement;
neither of which assertions would much, perhaps, shock a cultivated
understanding.
It is true that it (Gustave's poetry) has not gained a wide audience
among the public. But with regard to poetry nowadays, there are plenty
of persons who say as Dr. Johnson said of the verse of Spratt, "I would
rather praise it than read."
At all events, Rameau was courted in gay and brilliant circles, and,
following the general example of French _litterateurs_ in fashion, lived
well up to the income he received, had a delightful bachelor's apartment,
furnished with artistic effect, spent largely on the adornment of his
person, kept a coupe, and entertained profusely at the cafe Anglais and
the Maison Doree. A reputation that inspired a graver and more unquiet
interest had been created by the Vicomte de Mauleon. Recent articles in
the Sens Commun, written under the name of Pierre Firmin on the
discussions on the vexed question of the plebiscite, had given umbrage to
the Government, and Rameau had received an intimation that he, as editor,
was responsible for the compositions of the contributors to the journal
he edited; and that though, so long as Pierre Firmin had kept his caustic
spirit within proper bounds, the Government had winked at the evasion of
the law which required every political article in a journal to be signed
by the real name of its author, it could do so no longer. Pierre Firmin
was apparently a _nom de plume_; if not, his identity must be proved, or
Rameau would pay the penalty which his contributor seemed bent on
incurring.
Rameau, much alarmed for the journal that might be suspended, and for
himself who might be imprisoned, conveyed this information through the
publisher to his correspondent Pierre Firmin, and received the next day
an article signed Victor de Mauleon, in which the writer proclaimed
himself to be one and the same with Pierre Firmin, and, taking a yet
bolder tone than he had before assumed, dared the Government to attempt
legal measures against him. The Government was prudent enough to
disregard that haughty bravado, but Victor de Mauleon rose at once into
political importance. He had already in his real name and his quiet way
established a popular and respectable place in Parisian society. But if
this revelation created him enemies whom he had not before provoked, he
was now sufficiently acquitted, by tacit consent, of the sins formerly
laid to his charge, to disdain the assaults of party wrath. His old
reputation for personal courage and skill in sword and pistol served,
indeed, to protect him from such charges as a Parisian journalist does
not reply to with his pen. If he created some enemies, he created many
more friends, or, at least, partisans and admirers. He only needed fine
and imprisonment to become a popular hero.
A few days after be had thus proclaimed himself, Victor de Mauleon--who
had before kept aloof from Rameau, and from salons at which he was likely
to meet that distinguished minstrel--solicited his personal acquaintance,
and asked him to breakfast.
Rameau joyfully went. He had a very natural curiosity to see the
contributor whose articles had so mainly insured the sale of the Sens
Commun.
In the dark-haired, keen-eyed, well-dressed, middle-aged man, with
commanding port and courtly address, he failed to recognise any
resemblance to the flaxen-wigged, long-coated, be-spectacled, shambling
sexagenarian whom he had known as Lebeau. Only now and then a tone of
voice struck him as familiar, but he could not recollect where he had
heard the voice it resembled. The thought of Lebeau did not occur to
him; if it had occurred it would only have struck him as a chance
coincidence. Rameau, like most egotists, was rather a dull observer of
men. His genius was not objective.
"I trust, Monsieur Rameau," said the Vicomte, as he and his guest were
seated at the breakfast-table, "that you are not dissatisfied with the
remuneration your eminent services in the journal have received."
"The proprietor, whoever he be, has behaved most liberally," answered
Rameau.
"I take that compliment to myself, _cher confrere_; for though the
expenses of starting the Sens Commun, and the caution money lodged, were
found by a friend of mine, that was as a loan, which I have long since
repaid, and the property in the journal is now exclusively mine. I have
to thank you not only for your own brilliant contributions, but for those
of the colleagues you secured. Monsieur Savarin's piquant criticisms
were most valuable to us at starting. I regret to have lost his aid.
But as he has set up a new journal of his own, even he has not wit enough
to spare for another. _A propos_ of our contributors, I shall ask you to
present me to the fair author of The Artist's Daughter. I am of too
prosaic a nature to appreciate justly the merits of a _roman_; but I have
heard warm praise of this story from the young--they are the best judges
of that kind of literature; and I can at least understand the worth of a
contributor who trebled the sale of our journal. It is a misfortune to
us, indeed, that her work is completed, but I trust that the sum sent to
her through our publisher suffices to tempt her to favour us with another
roman in series."
"Mademoiselle Cicogna," said Rameau, with a somewhat sharper intonation
of his sharp voice, "has accepted for the republication of her _roman_ in
a separate form terms which attest the worth of her genius, and has had
offers from other journals for a serial tale of even higher amount than
the sum so generously sent to her through your publisher."
"Has she accepted them, Monsieur Rameau? If so, _tant pis pour vous_.
Pardon me, I mean that your salary suffers in proportion as the Sens
Commun declines in sale."
"She has not accepted them. I advised her not to do so until she could
compare them with those offered by the proprietor of the Sens Commun."
"And your advice guides her? Ah, _cher confrere_, you are a happy man!--
you have influence over this young aspirant to the fame of a De Stael or
a Georges Sand."
"I flatter myself that I have some," answered Rameau, smiling loftily as
he helped himself to another tumbler of. Volnay wine--excellent, but
rather heady.
"So much the better. I leave you free to arrange terms with Mademoiselle
Cicogna, higher than she can obtain elsewhere, and kindly contrive my own
personal introduction to her--you have breakfasted already?--permit me to
offer you a cigar--excuse me if I do not bear you company; I seldom
smoke--never of a morning. Now to business, and the state of France.
Take that easy-chair, seat yourself comfortably. So! Listen! If ever
Mephistopheles revisit the earth, how he will laugh at Universal Suffrage
and Vote by Ballot in an old country like France, as things to be admired
by educated men, and adopted by friends of genuine freedom!"
"I don't understand you," said Rameau.
"In this respect at least, let me hope that I can furnish you with
understanding.
"The Emperor has resorted to a plebiscite--viz., a vote by ballot and
universal suffrage--as to certain popular changes which circumstances
compel him to substitute for his former personal rule. Is there a single
intelligent Liberal who is not against that plebiscite?--is there any
such who does not know that the appeal of the Emperor to universal
suffrage and vote by ballot must result in a triumph over all the
variations of free thought, by the unity which belongs to Order,
represented through an able man at the head of the State? The multitude
never comprehend principles; principles are complex ideas; they
comprehend a single idea, and the simplest idea is, a Name that rids
their action of all responsibility to thought.
"Well, in France there are principles superabundant which you can pit
against the principle of Imperial rule. But there is not one name you
can pit against Napoleon the Third; therefore, I steer our little bark in
the teeth of the popular gale when I denounce the plebiscite, and Le Sens
Commun will necessarily fall in sale--it is beginning to fall already.
We shall have the educated men with us, the rest against. In every
country--even in China, where all are highly educated--a few must be yet
more highly educated than the many. Monsieur Rameau, I desire to
overthrow the Empire: in order to do that, it is not enough to have on my
side the educated men, I must have the _canaille_--the _canaille_ of
Paris and of the manufacturing towns. But I use the canaille for my
purpose--I don't mean to enthrone it. You comprehend?--the _canaille
quiescent_ is simply mud at the bottom of a stream; the _canaille_
agitated is mud at the surface. But no man capable of three ideas builds
the palaces and senates of civilised society out of mud, be it at the top
or the bottom of an ocean. Can either you or I desire that the destinies
of France shall be swayed by coxcombical artisans who think themselves
superior to every man who writes grammar, and whose idea of a common-
wealth is the confiscation of private property?" Rameau, thoroughly
puzzled by this discourse, bowed his head, and replied whisperingly,
"Proceed. You are against the Empire, yet against the populace!--What
are you for? not, surely, the Legitimists?--are you Republican?
Orleanist? or what?"
"Your questions are very pertinent," answered the Vicomte, courteously,
"and my answer shall be very frank. I am against absolute rule, whether
under a Buonaparte or a Bourbon. I am for a free State, whether under a
constitutional hereditary sovereign like the English or Belgian, or
whether, republican in name, it be less democratic than constitutional
monarchy in practice, like the American. But as a man interested in the
fate of _le Sens Commun_, I hold in profound disdain all crotchets for
revolutionising the elements of Human Nature. Enough of this abstract
talk. To the point. You are of course aware of the violent meetings
held by the Socialists, nominally against the plebiscite, really against
the Emperor himself?"
"Yes, I know at least that the working class are extremely discontented;
the numerous strikes last month were not on a mere question of wages--
they were against the existing forms of society. And the articles by
Pierre Firmin which brought me into collision with the Government, seemed
to differ from what you now say. They approve those strikes; they
appeared to sympathise with the revolutionary meetings at Belleville and
Montmartre."
"Of course--we use coarse tools for destroying; we cast them aside for
finer ones when we want to reconstruct.
"I attended one of those meetings last night. See, I have a pass for all
such assemblies, signed by some dolt who cannot even spell the name he
assumes--'Pom-de-Tair.' A commissary of police sat yawning at the end of
the orchestra, his secretary by his side, while the orators stammer out
fragments of would-be thunderbolts. Commissary of police yawns more
wearily than before, secretary disdains to use his pen, seizes his
penknife and pares his nails. Up rises a wild-haired, weak-limbed
silhouette of a man, and affecting a solemnity of mien which might have
become the virtuous Guizot, moves this resolution: 'The French people
condemns Charles Louis Napoleon the Third to the penalty of perpetual
hard labour.' Then up rises the commissary of police and says quietly,
'I declare this meeting at an end.'
"Sensation among the audience--they gesticulate--they screech--they
bellow--the commissary puts on his greatcoat--the secretary gives a last
touch to his nails and pockets his penknife--the audience disperses--the
silhouette of a man effaces itself--all is over."
"You describe the scene most wittily," said Rameau, laughing, but the
laugh was constrained. A would-be cynic himself, there was a something
grave and earnest in the real cynic that awed him.
"What conclusion do you draw from such a scene, _cher poete_" asked De
Mauleon, fixing his keen quiet eyes on Rameau.
"What conclusion? Well, that--that--"
"Yes, continue."
"That the audience were sadly degenerated from the time when Mirabeau
said to a Master of the Ceremonies, 'We are here by the power of the
French people, and nothing but the point of the bayonet shall expel us.'"
"Spoken like a poet, a French poet. I suppose you admire M. Victor Hugo.
Conceding that he would have employed a more sounding phraseology,
comprising more absolute ignorance of men, times, and manners in
unintelligible metaphor and melodramatic braggadocio, your answer might
have been his; but pardon me if I add, it would not be that of Common
Sense."
"Monsieur le Vicomte might rebuke me more politely," said Rameau,
colouring high.
"Accept my apologies; I did not mean to rebuke, but to instruct. The
times are not those of 1789. And Nature, ever repeating herself in the
production of coxcombs and blockheads, never repeats herself in the
production of Mirabeaus. The Empire is doomed--doomed, because it is
hostile to the free play of intellect. Any Government that gives
absolute preponderance to the many is hostile to intellect, for intellect
is necessarily confined to the few.
"Intellect is the most revengeful of all the elements of society. It
cares not what the materials through which it insinuates or forces its
way to its seat.
"I accept the aid of Pom-de-Tair. I do not demean myself to the extent
of writing articles that may favor the principles of Pom-de-Tair, signed
in the name of Victor de Mauleon or of Pierre Firinin.
"I will beg you, my dear editor, to obtain clever, smart writers, who
know nothing about Socialists and Internationalists, who therefore will
not commit _Le Sens Commun_ by advocating the doctrines of those idiots,
but who will flatter the vanity of the _canaille_--vaguely; write any
stuff they please about the renown of Paris, 'the eye of the world,'
'the sun of the European system,' &c., of the artisans of Paris as
supplying soul to that eye and fuel to that sun--any _blague_ of that
sort--_genre Victor Hugo_; but nothing definite against life and
property, nothing that may not be considered hereafter as the harmless
extravagance of a poetic enthusiasm. You might write such articles
yourself. In fine, I want to excite the multitude, and yet not to commit
our journal to the contempt of the few. Nothing is to be admitted that
may bring the law upon us except it be signed by my name. There may be a
moment in which it would be desirable for somebody to be sent to prison:
in that case, I allow no substitute--I go myself.
"Now you have my most secret thoughts. I intrust them to your judgment
with entire confidence. Monsieur Lebeau gave you a high character, which
you have hitherto deserved. By the way, have you seen anything lately of
that bourgeois conspirator?"
"No, his professed business of letter-writer or agent is transferred to a
clerk, who says M. Lebeau is abroad."
"Ah! I don't think that is true. I fancy I saw him the other evening
gilding along the lanes of Belleville. He is too confirmed a conspirator
to be long out of Paris; no place like Paris for seething brains."
"Have you known M. Lebeau long?" asked Rameau. "Ay, many years. We are
both Norman by birth, as you may perceive by something broad in our
accent."
"Ha! I knew your voice was familiar to me; certainly it does remind me of
Lebeau's."
"Normans are like each other in many things besides voice and accent--
obstinacy, for instance, in clinging to ideas once formed; this makes
them good friends and steadfast enemies. I would advise no man to make
an enemy of Lebeau.
"_Au revoir, cher confrere_. Do not forget to present me to Mademoiselle
Cicogna."
CHAPTER II.
On leaving De Mauleon and regaining his coupe, Rameau felt at once
bewildered and humbled, for he was not prepared for the tone of careless
superiority which the Vicomte assumed over him. He had expected to be
much complimented, and he comprehended vaguely that he had been somewhat
snubbed. He was not only irritated--he was bewildered; for De Mauleon's
political disquisitions did not leave any clear or definite idea on his
mind as to the principles which as editor of the Sens Commun he was to
see adequately represented and carried out. In truth, Rameau was one of
those numerous Parisian politicians who have read little and reflected
less on the government of men and States. Envy is said by a great French
writer to be the vice of Democracies. Envy certainly had made Rameau a
democrat. He could talk and write glibly enough upon the themes of
equality and fraternity, and was so far an ultra-democrat that he thought
moderation the sign of a mediocre understanding.
De Mauleon's talk, therefore, terribly perplexed him. It was unlike
anything he had heard before. Its revolutionary professions, accompanied
with so much scorn for the multitude, and the things the multitude
desired, were Greek to him. He was not shocked by the cynicism which
placed wisdom in using the passions of mankind as tools for the interests
of an individual; but he did not understand the frankness of its avowal.
Nevertheless the man had dominated over and subdued him. He recognized
the power of his contributor without clearly analysing its nature--
a power made up of large experience of life, of cold examination of
doctrines that heated others--of patrician calm--of intellectual sneer--
of collected confidence in self.
Besides, Rameau felt, with a nervous misgiving, that in this man, who so
boldly proclaimed his contempt for the instruments he used, he had found
a master. De Mauleon, then, was sole proprietor of the journal from
which Rameau drew his resources; might at any time dismiss him; might at
any time involve the journal in penalties which, even if Rameau could
escape in his official capacity as editor, still might stop the Sens
Commun, and with it Rameau's luxurious subsistence.
Altogether the visit to De Mauleon had been anything but a pleasant one.
He sought, as the carriage rolled on, to turn his thoughts to more
agreeable subjects, and the image of Isaura rose before him. To do him
justice he had learned to love this girl as well as his nature would
permit: he loved her with the whole strength of his imagination, and
though his heart was somewhat cold, his imagination was very ardent.
He loved her also with the whole strength of his vanity, and vanity was
even a more preponderant organ of his system than imagination. To carry
off as his prize one who had already achieved celebrity, whose beauty and
fascination of manner were yet more acknowledged than her genius, would
certainly be a glorious triumph.
Every Parisian of Rameau's stamp looks forward in marriage to a brilliant
salon. What salon more brilliant than that which he and Isaura united
could command? He had long conquered his early impulse of envy at
Isaura's success,--in fact that success had become associated with his
own, and had contributed greatly to his enrichment. So that to other
motives of love he might add the prudential one of interest. Rameau well
knew that his own vein of composition, however lauded by the cliques, and
however unrivalled in his own eyes, was not one that brings much profit
in the market. He compared himself to those poets who are too far in
advance of their time to be quite as sure of bread and cheese as they are
of immortal fame.
But he regarded Isaura's genius as of a lower order, and a thing in
itself very marketable. Marry her, and the bread and cheese were so
certain that he might elaborate as slowly as he pleased the verses
destined to immortal fame. Then he should be independent of inferior
creatures like Victor de Mauleon. But while Rameau convinced himself
that he was passionately in love with Isaura, he could not satisfy
himself that she was in love with him.
Though during the past year they had seen each other constantly, and
their literary occupations had produced many sympathies between them--
though he had intimated that many of his most eloquent love-poems were
inspired by her--though he had asserted in prose, very pretty prose too,
that she was all that youthful poets dream of,--yet she had hitherto
treated such declarations with a playful laugh, accepting them as elegant
compliments inspired by Parisian gallantry; and he felt an angry and sore
foreboding that if he were to insist too seriously on the earnestness of
their import and ask her plainly to be his wife, her refusal would be
certain, and his visits to her house might be interdicted.
Still Isaura was unmarried, still she had refused offers of marriage from
men higher placed than himself,--still he divined no one whom she could
prefer. And as he now leaned back in his coupe he muttered to himself,
"Oh, if I could but get rid of that little demon Julie, I would devote
myself so completely to winning Isaura's heart that I must succeed!--but
how to get rid of Julie? She so adores me, and is so headstrong! She is
capable of going to Isaura--showing my letters--making such a scene!"
Here he checked the carriage at a cafe on the Boulevard--descended,
imbibed two glasses of absinthe,--and then feeling much emboldened,
remounted his coupe and directed the driver to Isaura's apartment.
CHAPTER III.
Yes, celebrities are of rapid growth in the salons of Paris. Far more
solid than that of Rameau, far more brilliant than that of De Mauleon,
was the celebrity which Isaura had now acquired. She had been unable to
retain the pretty suburban villa at A------. The owner wanted to alter
and enlarge it for his own residence, and she had been persuaded by
Signora Venosta, who was always sighing for fresh salons to conquer,
to remove (towards the close of the previous year) to apartments in the
centre of the Parisian _beau monde_. Without formally professing to
receive, on one evening in the week her salon was open to those who had
eagerly sought her acquaintance--comprising many stars in the world of
fashion, as well as those in the world of art and letters. And as she
had now wholly abandoned the idea of the profession for which her voice
had been cultivated, she no longer shrank from the exercise of her
surpassing gift of song for the delight of private friends. Her
physician had withdrawn the interdict on such exercise. His skill,
aided by the rich vitality of her constitution, had triumphed over all
tendencies to the malady for which he had been consulted. To hear Isaura
Cicogna sing in her own house was a privilege sought and prized by many
who never read a word of her literary compositions. A good critic of a
book is rare; but good judges of a voice are numberless. Adding this
attraction of song to her youth, her beauty, her frank powers of
converse--an innocent sweetness of manner free from all conventional
affectation--and to the fresh novelty of a genius which inspired the
young with enthusiast and beguiled the old to indulgence, it was no
wonder that Isaura became a celebrity at Paris.
Perhaps it was a wonder that her head was not turned by the adulation
that surrounded her. But I believe, be it said with diffidence, that a
woman of mind so superior that the mind never pretends to efface the
heart, is less intoxicated with flattery than a man equally exposed to
it.
It is the strength of her heart that keeps her head sober. Isaura had
never yet overcome her first romance of love; as yet, amid all her
triumphs, there was not a day in which her thoughts did not wistfully,
mournfully, fly back to those blessed moments in which she felt her cheek
colour before a look, her heart beat at the sound of a footfall. Perhaps
if there had been the customary _finis_ to this young romance--the
lover's deliberate renunciation, his formal farewell--the girl's pride
would ere this have conquered her affection,--possibly--who knows?--
replaced it.
But, reader, be you male or female, have you ever known this sore trial
of affection and pride, that from some cause or other, to you mysterious,
the dear intercourse to which you had accustomed the secret life of your
life, abruptly ceases; you know that a something has come between you and
the beloved which you cannot distinguish, cannot measure, cannot guess,
and therefore cannot surmount; and you say to yourself at the dead of
solitary night, "Oh for an explanation! Oh for one meeting more! All
might be so easily set right; or if not, I should know the worst, and
knowing it, could conquer!"
This trial was Isaura's. There had been no explanation, no last farewell
between her and Graham. She divined--no woman lightly makes a mistake
there--that he loved her! She knew that this dread something had
intervened between her and him when he took leave of her before others so
many months ago; that this dread something still continued--what was it?
She was certain that it would vanish, could they but once meet again and
not before others. Oh for such a meeting!
She could not herself destroy hope. She could not marry another. She
would have no heart to give to another while he was free, while in doubt
if his heart was still her own. And thus her pride did not help her to
conquer her affection.
Of Graham Vane she heard occasionally. He had ceased to correspond with
Savarin; but among those who most frequented her salon were the Morleys.
Americans so well educated and so well placed as the Morleys knew
something about every Englishman of the social station of Graham Vane.
Isaura learned from them that Graham, after a tour on the Continent, had
returned to England at the commencement of the year, had been invited to
stand for Parliament, had refused, that his name was in the list
published by the Morning Post of the elite whose arrivals in London, or
whose presence at dinner-tables, is recorded as an event. That the
Athenaeum had mentioned a rumour that Graham Vane was the author of a
political pamphlet which, published anonymously, had made no
inconsiderable sensation. Isaura sent to England for that pamphlet: the
subject was somewhat dry, and the style, though clear and vigorous, was
scarcely of the eloquence which wins the admiration of women; and yet she
learned every word of it by heart.
We know how little she dreamed that the celebrity which she hailed as an
approach to him was daily making her more remote. The sweet labours she
undertook for that celebrity continued to be sweetened yet more by secret
associations with the absent one. How many of the passages most admired
could never have been written had he been never known!
And she blessed those labours the more that they upheld her from the
absolute feebleness of sickened reverie, beguiled her from the gnawing
torture of unsatisfied conjecture. She did comply with Madame de
Grantmesnil's command--did pass from the dusty beaten road of life into
green fields and along flowery river-banks, and did enjoy that ideal by-
world.
But still the one image which reigned over her human heart moved beside
her in the gardens of fairyland.
CHAPTER IV.
Isaura was seated in her pretty salon, with the Venosta, M. Savarin, the
Morleys, and the financier Louvier, when Rameau was announced.
"Ha!" cried Savarin, "we were just discussing a matter which nearly
concerns you, _cher poete_. I have not seen you since the announcement
that Pierre Firmin is no other than Victor de Mauleon. _Ma foi_, that
worthy seems likely to be as dangerous with his pen as he was once with
his sword. The article in which he revealed himself makes a sharp lunge
on the Government. 'Take care of yourself. When hawks and nightingales
fly together the hawk may escape, and the nightingale complain of the
barbarity of kings, in a cage: 'flebiliter gemens infelix avis.''"
"He is not fit to conduct a journal," replied Rameau, magniloquently,
"who will not brave a danger for his body in defence of the right to
infinity for his thought."
"Bravo!" said Mrs. Morley, clapping her pretty hands. "That speech
reminds me of home. The French are very much like the Americans in their
style of oratory."
"So," said Louvier, "my old friend the Vicomte has come out as a writer,
a politician, a philosopher; I feel hurt that he kept this secret from me
despite our intimacy. I suppose you knew it from the first, M. Rameau?"
"No, I was as much taken by surprise as the rest of the world. You have
long known M. de Mauleon?"
"Yes, I may say we began life together--that is, much at the same time."
"What is he like in appearance?" asked Mrs. Morley. "The ladies thought
him very handsome when he was young," replied Louvier. "He is still a
fine-looking man, about my height."
"I should like to know him!" cried Mrs. Morley, "if only to tease that
husband of mine. He refuses me the dearest of woman's rights.--I can't
make him jealous."
"You may have the opportunity of knowing this _ci-devant_ Lovelace very
soon," said Rameau, "for he has begged me to present him to Mademoiselle
Cicogna, and I will ask her permission to do so, on Thursday evening when
she receives."
Isaura, who had hitherto attended very listlessly to the conversation,
bowed assent. "Any friend of yours will be welcome. But I own the
articles signed in the name of Pierre Firmin do not prepossess me in
favour of their author."
"Why so?" asked Louvier; "surely you are not an Imperialist?"
"Nay, I do not pretend to be a politician at all, but there is something
in the writing of Pierre Firmin that pains and chills me."
"Yet the secret of its popularity," said Savarin, "is that it says what
every one says--only better."
"I see now that it is exactly that which displeases me; it is the Paris
talk condensed into epigram: the graver it is the less it elevates--the
lighter it is, the more it saddens."
"That is meant to hit me," said Savarin, with his sunny laugh--"me whom
you call cynical."
"No, dear M. Savarin; for above all your cynicism is genuine gaiety, and
below it solid kindness. You have that which I do not find in M. de
Mauleon's writing, nor often in the talk of the salon--you have
youthfulness."
"Youthfulness at sixty--flatterer!"
"Genius does not count its years by the almanac," said Mrs. Morley.
"I know what Isaura means--she is quite right; there is a breath of
winter in M. de Mauleon's style, and an odour of fallen leaves. Not that
his diction wants vigour; on the contrary, it is crisp with hoar-frost.
But the sentiments conveyed by the diction are those of a nature sear and
withered. And it is in this combination of brisk words and decayed
feelings that his writing represents the talk and mind of Paris. He and
Paris are always fault-finding: fault-finding is the attribute of old
age."
Colonel Morley looked round with pride, as much as to say, "Clever talker
my wife."
Savarin understood that look, and replied to it courteously. "Madame has
a gift of expression which Emile de Girardin can scarcely surpass. But
when she blames us for fault-finding, can she expect the friends of
liberty to praise the present style of things?"
"I should be obliged to the friends of liberty," said the Colonel, drily,
"to tell me how that state of things is to be mended. I find no
enthusiasm for the Orleanists, none for a Republic; people sneer at
religion; no belief in a cause, no adherence to an opinion. But the
worst of it is that, like all people who are _blases_, the Parisians are
eager for strange excitement, and ready to listen to any oracle who
promises a relief from indifferentism. This it is which makes the Press
more dangerous in France than it is in any other country. Elsewhere the
Press sometimes leads, sometimes follows, public opinion. Here there is
no public opinion to consult, and instead of opinion the Press represents
passion."
"My dear Colonel Morley," said Savarin, "I hear you very often say that
a Frenchman cannot understand America. Permit me to observe that an
American cannot understand France--or at least Paris. _Apropos_ of Paris
that is a large speculation of yours, Louvier, in the new suburb."
"And a very sound one; I advise you to invest in it. I can secure you at
present 5 per cent. on the rental; that is nothing--the houses will be
worth double when the Rue de Louvier is completed."
"Alas! I have no money; my new journal absorbs all my capital."
"Shall I transfer the money I hold for you, Signorina, and add to them
whatever you may have made by your delightful _roman_, as yet lying idle,
to this investment? I cannot say more in its favour than this: I have
embarked a very large portion of my capital in the Rue de Louvier, and I
flatter myself that I am not one of those men who persuade their friends
to do a foolish thing by setting them the example."
"Whatever you advise on such a subject," said Isaura, graciously, "is
sure to be as wise as it is kind!"
"You consent, then?"
"Certainly."
Here the Venosta, who had been listening with great attention to
Louvier's commendation of this investment, drew him aside, and whispered
in his ear: "I suppose, M. Louvier, that one can't put a little money-a
very little money--poco-poco pocolino, into your street."
"Into my street! Ah, I understand--into the speculation of the Rue de
Louvier! Certainly you can. Arrangements are made on purpose to suit
the convenience of the smallest capitalists--from 500 francs upwards."
"And you feel quite sure that we shall double our money when the street
is completed--I should not like to have my brains in my heels."
["'Avere il cervello nella calcagna,"--viz., to act without prudent
reflection.]
"More than double it, I hope, long before the street is completed."
"I have saved a little money--very little. I have no relations, and I
mean to leave it all to the Signorina; and if it could be doubled, why,
there would be twice as much to leave her."
"So there would," said Louvier. "You can't do better than put it all
into the Rue de Louvier. I will send you the necessary papers to-morrow,
when I send hers to the Signorina."
Louvier here turned to address himself to Colonel Morley, but finding
that degenerate son of America indisposed to get cent. per cent. for his
money when offered by a Parisian, he very soon took his leave. The other
visitors followed his example, except Rameau, who was left alone with the
Venosta and Isaura. The former had no liking for Rameau, who showed her
none of the attentions her innocent vanity demanded, and she soon took
herself off to her own room to calculate the amount of her savings, and
dream of the Rue de Louvier and "golden joys."
Rameau approaching his chair to Isaura's then commenced conversation,
drily enough, upon pecuniary matters; acquitting himself of the mission
with which De Mauleon had charged him, the request for a new work from
her pen for the Sens Commun, and the terms that ought to be asked for
compliance. The young lady-author shrank from this talk. Her private
income, though modest, sufficed for her wants, and she felt a sensitive
shame in the sale of her thoughts and fancies.
Putting hurriedly aside the mercantile aspect of the question, she said
that she had no other work in her mind at present--that, whatever her
vein of invention might be, it flowed at its own will, and could not be
commanded.
"Nay," said Rameau, "this is not true. We fancy, in our hours of
indolence, that we must wait for inspiration; but once force ourselves to
work, and ideas spring forth at the wave of the pen. You may believe me
here, I speak from experience: I, compelled to work, and in modes not to
my taste--I do my task I know not how. I rub the lamp, 'the genius
comes.'"
"I have read in some English author that motive power is necessary to
continued labour: you have motive power, I have none."
"I do not quite understand you."
"I mean that a strong ruling motive is required to persist in any regular
course of action that needs effort: the motive with the majority of men
is the need of subsistence; with a large number (as in trades or
professions), not actually want, but a desire of gain, and perhaps of
distinction, in their calling: the desire of professional distinction
expands into the longings for more comprehensive fame, more exalted
honours, with the few who become great writers, soldiers, statesmen,
orators."
"And do you mean to say you have no such motive?"
"None in the sting of want, none in the desire of gain."
"But fame?"
"Alas! I thought so once. I know not now--I begin to doubt if fame
should be sought by women." This was said very dejectedly.
"Tut, dearest Signorina! what gadfly has stung you? Your doubt is a
weakness unworthy of your intellect; and even were it not, genius is
destiny and will be obeyed: you must write, despite yourself--and your
writing must bring fame, whether you wish it or not."
Isaura was silent, her head drooped on her breast--there were tears in
her downcast eyes.
Rameau took her hand, which she yielded to him passively, and clasping it
in both his own, he rushed on impulsively--
"Oh, I know what these misgivings are when we feel ourselves solitary,
unloved: how often have they been mine! But how different would labour
be if shared and sympathised with by a congenial mind, by a heart that
beats in unison with one's own!"
Isaura's breast heaved beneath her robe, she sighed softly.
"And then how sweet the fame of which the one we love is proud! how
trifling becomes the pang of some malignant depreciation, which a word
from the beloved one can soothe! O Signorina! O Isaura! are we not made
for each other? Kindred pursuits, hopes, and fears in common; the same
race to run, the same goal to win! I need a motive stronger than I have
yet known for the persevering energy that insures success: supply to me
that motive. Let me think that whatever I win in the strife of the world
is a tribute to Isaura. No, do not seek to withdraw this hand, let me
claim it as mine for life. I love you as man never loved before--do not
reject my love."
They say the woman who hesitates is lost. Isaura hesitated, but was not
yet lost. The words she listened to moved her deeply. Offers of
marriage she had already received: one from a rich middle-aged noble,
a devoted musical virtuoso; one from a young avocat fresh from the
provinces, and somewhat calculating on her dot; one from a timid but
enthusiastic admirer of her genius and her beauty, himself rich,
handsome, of good birth, but with shy manners and faltering tongue.
But these had made their proposals with the formal respect habitual to
French decorum in matrimonial proposals. Words so eloquently impassioned
as Gustave Rameau's had never before thrilled her ears; Yes, she was
deeply moved; and yet, by that very emotion she knew that it was not to
the love of this wooer that her heart responded.
There is a circumstance in the history of courtship familiar to the
experience of many women, that while the suitor is pleading his cause,
his language may touch every fibre in the heart of his listener, yet
substitute, as it were, another presence for his own. She may be saying
to herself, "Oh that another had said those words!" and be dreaming of
the other, while she hears the one. Thus it was with Isaura, and not
till Rameau's voice had ceased did that dream pass away, and with a
slight shiver she turned her face towards the wooer sadly and pityingly.
"It cannot be," she said, in a low whisper; "I were not worthy of your
love could I accept it. Forget that you have so spoken; let me still be
a friend admiring your genius, interested in your career. I cannot be
more. Forgive me if I unconsciously led you to think I could, I am so
grieved to pain you."
"Am I to understand," said Rameau, coldly, for his _amour propre_ was
resentful, "that the proposals of another have been more fortunate than
mine?" And he named the youngest and comeliest of those whom she had
rejected. "Certainly not," said Isaura.
Rameau rose and went to the window, turning his face from her. In
reality he was striving to collect his thoughts and decide on the course
it were most prudent for him now to pursue. The fumes of the absinthe
which had, despite his previous forebodings, emboldened him to hazard his
avowal, had now subsided into the languid reaction which is generally
consequent on that treacherous stimulus, a reaction not unfavourable to
passionless reflection. He knew that if he said he could not conquer his
love, he would still cling to hope, and trust to perseverance and time,
he should compel Isaura to forbid his visits and break off their familiar
intercourse. This would be fatal to the chance of yet winning her, and
would also be of serious disadvantage to his more worldly interests. Her
literary aid might become essential to the journal on which his fortunes
depended; and at all events, in her conversation, in her encouragement,
in her sympathy with the pains and joys of his career, he felt a support,
a comfort, nay, an inspiration. For the spontaneous gush of her fresh
thoughts and fancies served to recruit his own jaded ideas, and enlarge
his own stinted range of invention. No, he could not commit himself to
the risk of banishment from Isaura.
And mingled with meaner motives for discretion, there was one of which he
was but vaguely conscious, purer and nobler. In the society of this
girl, in whom whatever was strong and high in mental organisation became
so sweetened into feminine grace by gentleness of temper and kindliness
of disposition, Rameau felt himself a better man. The virgin-like
dignity with which she moved, so untainted by a breath of scandal, amid
salons in which the envy of virtues doubted sought to bring innocence
itself into doubt, warmed into a genuine reverence the cynicism of his
professed creed.
While with her, while under her chastening influence, he was sensible of
a poetry infused within him far more true to the Camoenae than all he had
elaborated into verse. In these moments he was ashamed of the vices he
had courted as distractions. |
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